Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump cast doubt Tuesday on whether the U.S. could ever know the extent of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But now, Congress is demanding his administration provides an answer.



The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., sent a letter to the White House Tuesday evening to officially trigger an investigation into whether the young crown prince ordered the plot.



The move sets up a showdown between Capitol Hill and the White House as members of both parties in Congress call on Trump to be tougher on Saudi Arabia.



"It is a delicate situation when we have a longtime ally that we've had for decades, but we have a crown prince that I believe ordered the killing of a journalist," Corker told ABC Chattanooga, Tennessee, affiliate WTVC.



Earlier Tuesday, Trump released a winding statement that called Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month a "terrible" crime, but it focused its ire on the Saudis' regional rival Iran and defended U.S. relations with the kingdom, a "steadfast partner" and "great ally."



"The language that was used it was as if they were writing a press release for the Saudi Arabians, not for the United States," Corker told WTVC.



The focus on the role of Prince Mohammed, also known by his initials "MBS," has emerged as the central question after the Saudis initially denied Khashoggi was killed, then denied responsibility, then blamed an accidental fistfight, before calling it a rogue operation and punishing the team that carried it out.



Members of Congress have consistently said that the crown prince, who has consolidated power behind the scenes with his aging father King Salman on the throne, must have been involved, especially because of the structure of the Saudi government. The CIA has reportedly reached the same assessment, although Trump denied that at the White House Tuesday.



"The CIA has looked at it, they've studied it a lot. They have nothing definitive. And the fact is maybe he did, maybe he didn't," Trump told reporters, adding, "We're staying with Saudi Arabia."



Some Democrats have called for a fundamental shift in U.S. relations with the Saudis, but the country is still mostly seen as an important U.S. partner on counter terrorism, combating Iranian influence, and stabilizing energy markets.



Still, Corker and Menendez's letter requests the administration conduct an investigation of MBS's role under the Global Magnitsky Act, a 2016 law the authorizes U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses or corruption. The law grants Congress the authority to order the administration to investigate an individual and make a determination within 120 days, although it doesn't obligate the administration to then sanction the person.



"In light of recent developments, including the Saudi government's acknowledgement that Saudi officials killed Mr. Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, we request that your determination specifically address whether Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's murder," the senators wrote.



Corker and Menendez sent a similar letter on Oct. 10, a little over a week after Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate, demanding a Global Magnitsky investigation into what happened. The result of that investigation was the administration's sanctions on 17 Saudi officials last Thursday.



But critics pointed out all 17 of those individuals had already been arrested by the Saudis, with 11 of them indicted the same day and five of whom the Saudis are seeking to execute. The U.S. sanctions did little to contrast the Saudi narrative that this team acted alone, although the administration continues to say it will conduct its own investigation to hold everyone responsible accountable.



Congress seems to have little faith in that, again pressuring the administration by triggering an investigation that could result in sanctions -- something that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday there is "strong bipartisan support ... including [against] appropriate members of the royal family."



One possible disruption in those plans, however, is that Corker, at times a vocal critic of Trump, is retiring and will leave his Senate seat in January. The expected incoming chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, is much more closely aligned with the president and could be far less critical of his policies.



Risch signed the first Global Magnitsky letter in October, but has not released a statement on Khashoggi's killing since then.







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Acting Lord Mayor of Port Vila Eric Festa hands over 50 bags of rice to Coordinators Edison David (right) and Michael Lulu outside Sarabulu Church (Photo: Michael Lulu)
But disappearance is a broad concept, and although it can be made to apply to other works, it isnt always worth the effort. Nauman has been profligate with ideas, and any individual work is more interesting on its own terms than it is when subsumed under a general curatorial theme. There is definitely a sense of absence in some of the corridor works he has made, including the 1970 installation of narrowly spaced wallboards that invites you to walk through a tall, tight passageway, invading an empty, claustrophobic space, and sensing the pressure of containment on your solitary body. But disappearance or absence seem inadequate to the haunting effect of these physically challenging works, which somehow mimic the mental process of making sense of Naumans work, the way in which it always seems to lead to a mental dead end, in a good way, making one aware of how thinking is also frustrating, full of mischance and rarely any sense of conclusion.
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A relish tray helps. A happy memory of my childhood in the Midwest, the platter has us painting crudites in a dip reminiscent of ranch dressing, only brighter with lemon and dill oil. Slender cheese straws keep us entertained, too, and when a bowl of saucer-size potato chips is ferried past us, everyone votes to order some. This gets better and better, a companion says. The menus in our hands, decorated with watercolors of pink flamingos, see competition from the waiters, who show up with welcome distractions, including a silver tray of meat whose cuts are named and promoted. There are only four of us tonight, but we wish we were more. A number of dishes  beef Wellington, Dover sole meuniere, Caesar salad (dressed with the help of a silver lemon squeezer in the shape of a bird)  are designed for two.
The bacteria identified is different from the one linked to romaine earlier this year. Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said supermarkets and restaurants should remove romaine until the source of the contamination can be identified. Consumers are also advised to throw out any romaine they have at home.
Dear Amy: At what age can I let my 7-year-old son ride his bike to his best friends' house (two blocks away) on his own? The other family is fine with it. I'm not afraid of traffic or crime (quiet, safe area), but of being reported. I've heard about parents being arrested for allowing unsupervised play. Is there a law or a rule-of-thumb regarding when it is safe to let kids be on their own?
Goway Travel is offering savings of $250 per person on a trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The 11-night package starts at $2,699 per person double and includes airfare from Los Angeles to Sydney, with return from Nadi, Fiji; flights from Sydney to Auckland and from Auckland to Nadi; four nights stay in Sydney, four nights stay in Auckland and three nights in Fiji; several tours; airport transfers in Fiji; and taxes. Travel April 1-Sept. 17. Fare from Washington to Los Angeles, priced separately, starts at about $265. Book by Dec. 31. Info: 888-414-0246, goway.com .
The affidavit says Ramsuer claimed to not know potential suspects even though she grew up in the same Wellington Park neighborhood and followed many on social media. Police have said they believe a motive for the shooting was a dispute between Wellington Park and Clay Terrace crews. Police have said Makiyah was not the intended target, though she was the only victim who died. She was clutching a $5 bill for an ice cream truck when she was shot.
The women, led by Linda Ballard, said they didnt want a big fuss, they just wanted the plaque taken down. They noticed that there wasnt a plaque for Union soldiers and there wasnt anything marking the selling and trading of their enslaved ancestors in front of the courthouse. Why, they asked, should a plaque honor the side that fought to preserve slavery? And why was it placed there so recently?
They might wind up being more expensive, and if there are any problems, the ratepayer might be on the hook for any liabilities that might ensue, said Cheh in an interview.
In her recommendation, Jones found that ACICS has been asked to make changes and had done so. For instance, it was asked to better monitor job placement by the colleges it accredited, and it implemented a sophisticated system, she said. She also said the prior administration had imposed a double standard  tolerating other accreditors failure to catch problems but not this ones.
The original provision appeared aimed at one activist, Marcie Lipsitt of Michigan. At the time it was put into place, she had 2,400 complaints pending regarding the accessibility of education websites for people who are blind or have other disabilities. Education Department officials referred to her and others as frequent filers.
Ive got 17 buildings in this city that all have mold, asbestos and lead in them, Anthony said. And Im going to do everything we can to make sure people arent breathing it in and that the children are safe.
N. Emory and E. Cornell drives, 3 to 4 p.m. Nov. 3. Two Sterling males, 18 and 19, were arrested and charged in connection with an attempted robbery and kidnapping of a juvenile that occurred at this location.
Each year, nearly 2,000 women are served by N Street Villages various programs. That includes five residential centers, including Patricia Handy Place, an emergency shelter in Chinatown; Miriams House, for women living with HIV; and the organizations headquarters near Thomas Circle, where there are 51 units of affordable housing for families, 44 units of permanent supportive housing, a dozen units for women in recovery and nine for those with mental health needs.
Ms. Sloss was born in San Francisco. She was an aide to Gov. Pat Brown (D-Calif.), then came to Washington in 1968 as a staffer in the office of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.). From the 1970s to the 1990s, she was a freelance film producer and a producer for Guggenheim Productions. Her work included documentaries on subjects such as the Ku Klux Klan, former president Lyndon B. Johnson and life in the Soviet Union.
After that, no book seemed too long, Dr. Billington told The Washington Post years later. Also it persuaded me that you can learn more from yesterdays book than todays newspaper. Through reading War and Peace, you got the sense that this was a country you could relate to  strong families interacting with big events, families going off to war and so forth. It was happening all around us in America, people going off to war. That gave it sort of a relevance.
But their plan, which relied on forcing the manager to give them keys to the business and codes to its safe, had gone terribly awry. The innocent residents, with knives pulled on them, were held and tied up overnight. One was slashed in his neck in front of his 7-year-old son.
The happiest thing for me is to see these people again and to help put a smile on their face after everything theyve been through, Gregory said. I just look at them and think, These people could be my grandparents. What if they were?
The Mississippi law and the responding lawsuit set up a confrontation sought by abortion opponents, who are hoping federal courts will ultimately prohibit abortions before a fetus is viable outside the womb, the dividing line that the U.S. Supreme Court set in its 1973 ruling saying that women have the right to terminate pregnancies.
But that glimpse of heavenly blue was a temporary respite from the torments that nature continues to bring to this region, beset by the most destructive wildfire in California history. A forecast of three days of rain beginning Wednesday has prompted a flash-flood watch in the central part of Northern California, which might slow the blaze and help clear the smoke-filled air but also could complicate the daunting processes of recovery underway here.
Jane Perkins, legal director for the National Health Law Program, one of three organizations that lodged the lawsuit on behalf of 15 Kentuckians on Medicaid, said, After the court decision, more than 11,000 additional comments were filed with HHS, the vast majority of them revealing why the waiver project would reduce Medicaid coverage, restrict access to health care services, and harm the health of Kentuckians. Nevertheless, HHS has once again given Kentucky permission to impose a burdensome work requirement, premiums, and lockout penalties on Medicaid enrollees.
But let me be clear: It is not good enough for Democrats to just be the anti-Trump party. If they want to keep and expand their majority in the House, take back the Senate and win the White House, Democrats must show the American people that they will aggressively stand up and fight for the working families of this country  black, white, Latino, Asian American or Native American, men and women, gay or straight. This means addressing the crisis of a broken criminal-justice system and reforming inhumane immigration policies. But it also means fighting to expand a middle class that has been disappearing for more than 40 years, reducing inequality in both income and wealth  which has disproportionately hurt African Americans and Hispanics  and aggressively combating climate change, the most urgent threat facing our planet.
Xenophobia is an easy sell at the moment because we are in the midst of the largest refugee crisis in history. According to the United Nations, the number of displaced people in the world has grown from 33.9 million in 1997 to 65.6 million in 2016. This mass migration has been sparked by conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine and other countries  and by crime and poverty in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Europe saw an influx of almost 1.2 million migrants in 2015-2016. This migration created the conditions for the passage of Brexit and led to a wave of illiberalism across the continent, even in countries such as Hungary and Poland that arent seeing any influx of newcomers.
I have been thinking about the Dayenu tradition in the weeks since an anti-Semitic terrorist murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. A furious debate erupted within the Jewish community about the degree of blame, if any, that the president bears for that heinous crime. Among the motives expressed by the alleged shooter, Robert Bowers, for targeting the synagogue was its congregations help resettling refugees in the United States. Refugees are the sort of immigrants for whom Jews feel a special affinity, and about whom Trump has stoked no small amount of fear and revulsion.
One day, my father came home with what looked like an oversize chicken, red wattles hanging down its neck. Even though none of our neighbors raised turkeys, my father wanted to experiment. If we were going to raise chickens, he said, why not raise a bigger chicken? A turkey, he thought, would lay bigger eggs and might even sit on a clutch of chicken eggs, freeing the hens to lay more. But the turkey never developed the desire to brood, the urge to settle atop a pile of eggs day and night with little thought for eating or drinking. Quite the opposite  eating seemed to be the only thing on its mind.
It is by no means the only possible political faith. For most of human history, no one believed in these propositions. Indeed, no one had even conceived of them. We forget how revolutionary these principles were at the time of the American founding, and even for centuries afterward. Until the late 20th century, liberal democracy was an exceedingly rare (and usually short-lived) phenomenon. For millennia, it appeared self-evident to most of humanity that the legitimacy of governments flowed from the divine right of kings, or the inherent superiority of a feudal aristocracy, or the enlightened wisdom of a theocratic priesthood. In the last century, totalitarian ideologies of left and right built regimes whose claims to legitimacy rested on the complete sublimation of individual worth to the deified class or race collective. And still today, authoritarians around the world bolster their support by championing the power of national and ethnic groups above the rights of the citizen.
Its presumed that this is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately, he said. And so this is a case where if they had an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop them, maybe nobody would have been killed except for him. So its a very, very difficult situation.
Why should that not be the same model at the White House? The White House Press Office and its staff should not be in charge of deciding who gets the coveted hard pass for daily access to the president, staff and policymakers. Yes, the Secret Service should do a security screening. But decisions about professional bona fides should be in the hands of the White House Correspondents Association, which represents reporters on the beat, although its better known for running a once-a-year glitzy dinner.
In fact, Presley participated the only way he ever participated, through his music. Two of his biggest hits  both recorded against the wishes of his management  spoke out against social injustice. If I Can Dream, which Presley used to close his famous 1968 comeback TV special on the heels of the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, had Presley dreaming of a better land where all my brothers walk hand in hand. He followed it up the following year with In the Ghetto, which told the story of a poor little baby child born in the ghetto who, by songs end, is gunned down in the street, while his mama cries.
And in those corrupted storehouses of Western culture, Germany and Austria, the murder of a Nazi diplomat in France was the pretext for an orgy of state-sponsored violence against Jews. More than 1,000 synagogues were burned in two November days and nights; at least 7,500 businesses were looted; some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and condemned to slavery at Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. This Kristallnacht  the glass of smashed windows covered the Reich like crystals  was followed by a month-long barrage of harsher anti-Jewish decrees. One-fifth of all Jewish wealth was confiscated, along with insurance payments for the destroyed property. Jews were forbidden to own businesses; their children were banned from public schools.
In the two disharmonious decades of the 21st century, American society has grown less homogeneous and more interactive. Americans have expanded their engagement with other cultures. Smartphones and social media accompanied the war against terrorism, and the distance between Over Here and Over There shrank. Chad Post, the founder of Open Letter and the creator of the translation blog Three Percent (the name comes from an old statistic for the percentage of all literary books published in the United States in a given year that are translations), suggests that 9/11 sparked sudden interest in foreign countries, and new awareness of the general connectedness of the world. But even if that interest and awareness began with the Middle East, it quickly spread to Central America, South America, China, Europe and Japan. The houses that sought out foreign titles were the advance guard of a quiet revolution in publishing, which has been attended by new academic programs, certificates and degrees that are equipping the next generation of translators to bring foreign literature to readers who find it enticing, as Post puts it.
He found a wide disparity and inserted the results of his study into his ruling in a case that had come before him. He found that Whitakers office used its power to make such filings more than any other U.S. attorney except one in a Florida district. (A U.S. attorney in Guam, a U.S. territory, had a higher rate but a statistically insignificant number of cases.) The judge based his finding on cases during fiscal 2006, 2008 and 2009. Whitakers term began in mid-2004 and ended in January 2009. While the report covered only part of Whitakers service, it was a broad enough sample for Bennett to consider it representative.
He added that while political opponents might warrant investigation if they do something criminal, even then, you do so very, very carefully, because of possible allegations that youre doing something, youre going after your political rivals for no reason whatsoever.
Back in Californias Central Valley, Grant had less praise for the efforts against him, which were concentrated in a single message attacking him as supporting cuts in health coverage to give tax cuts to campaign donors. He was in favor of the Republican tax bill criticized in the spot, legislation aimed at repealing the individual mandate meant to pay for coverage for uninsured Americans. But he said he did not support repealing the ACA without a replacement, as the ad that criticized him implied. He also said the ad suggested he had voted for the tax bill, even though he does not hold elective office.
Hyde-Smiths remark, which she said was an exaggerated gesture of friendship, has generated a fierce backlash even among some Republican backers. To them and her opponents, she conjured an image that Mississippi wants to leave behind  of lynchings of African Americans. That historic reference is even more pointed because her opponent, former congressman Mike Espy, is seeking to become the first black senator since just after the Civil War.
Another potential contender, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), also came under fire after an interview this month with the Daily Beast in which he said that there are a lot of white folks out there in Florida and Georgia who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African American.
Trump erupted about the decision. This was an Obama judge. And Ill tell you what, its not going to happen like this anymore, the president said. Everybody that wants to sue the United States, they file their case in  almost  they file their case in the 9th Circuit. And it means an automatic loss no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is.
ALS, a rapidly progressive neurological disease that most often leads to death within three to five years from the onset of symptoms, afflicts at least 2,000 veterans a year. Studies show that military service puts veterans at up to twice the risk of contracting the disease, although scientists have not determined why that link exists.
An appeals court in Washington heard oral arguments earlier this month in the constitutional challenge, which was made by a former aide to Trump adviser Roger Stone who is fighting a subpoena to appear before the grand jury. It is not clear when the three-judge panel is likely to rule in the case, which may ultimately go to the Supreme Court.
The event has typically featured a routine by a stand-up comedian who roasts the White House and the press, with the president delivering a few punchlines of his own. But Trump has boycotted the dinner for the past two years, and the event has drawn scrutiny from some critics who say it gives the appearance of a too-cozy relationship between journalists and the politicians they cover.
Until Wednesday, Higgins had been an outspoken critic of Pelosi, telling reporters that she represented a serious obstacle for Democrats running in Republican-leaning districts. But he said in an interview Wednesday that he had come to terms after discussions with Pelosi as well as with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), the incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Lawmakers have long criticized Saudi Arabias human rights record as abysmal, but for years, Congress has turned a blind eye, in deference to the U.S.-Saudi security relationship, which U.S. presidents have seen as central to their anti-terrorism strategy in the Middle East. But Trumps all-encompassing embrace of Saudi Arabia has disquieted some of the GOPs most influential foreign policy figures, who chafed Tuesday as Trump doubled down on his argument that it was necessary to defer to Saudi leaders in a very dangerous world.
Youre going to go through so many emotions, from the beginning all the way to the end, even when you get back in your home, Jones said she would tell her relative. You just kind of have to dig inside yourself and be strong, and be patient, and just know that youre going to get through it.
The guys who approached the house were three Somalis. Two were having guns, one was not. The one who grabbed the lady, slapped her and disappeared with her. We were told to lie down, and they began shooting while they went away, he said in an interview.
It is a symbol of what Seoul hopes will be a new era of relations with Pyongyang. But it is also one of the few steps South Korea can take to build confidence with the North without violating U.N. sanctions or going against its U.S. allies and protectors.
Among those thrown to the floor by the blast was Shafiullah Jarah, a 19-year-old student at an Islamic religious school. He was attending the ceremony with dozens of friends from the Mufti Numan Madrassa in northern Kabul. When he looked around after the explosion, he was surrounded by body parts, some of them belonging to fellow students, he recalled Wednesday.
The international police bodys reputation had already suffered after it elected a former senior official from Chinas feared Public Security Ministry in 2016. Meng Hongwei was subsequently reported missing in early October while on a trip to China, before Chinese authorities announced he had been detained on corruption charges.
Hedgess wife, Daniela Tejada, said Wednesday that she watched her husband shake as he received the sentence. I am in complete shock and I dont know what to do. Matthew is innocent, she said in a statement. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them. This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthews case seriously.
Media reports about the CIA determination, Jubeir said, are leaks that are not based on damning evidence. At any rate, we in the kingdom know that such claims are completely baseless. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied that Mohammed had knowledge of or involvement in the killing. It said it has charged 11 Saudis  agents it said were authorized by a lower-level official only to nab Khashoggi and bring him back to the kingdom  with killing him.
It is not clear if the intelligence the agencies had at the time triggered the duty to warn. Some former officials said it would depend on whether the intelligence clearly indicated Khashoggi was in danger. A threat of detention alone would not have sufficed, one former official said. But others say that if agencies had knowledge of a potential plan to kidnap him  by luring and detaining him, then they had an obligation to warn him.
Aedes Aegypti larvae and adult mosquitos being monitored and well taken care of at the World Mosquito Program (WMP) laboratory at George Pompidou in Port Vila. WMP will introduce walbachia into Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes to prevent the transition of dengue, chikungunya and zika
Darshan-starrer Yajamana is in the last leg of shooting with the crew heading to Sweden today to shoot the final portions. The actor, who had to take a short break after his accident, is back on sets after having recovered completely.

A song featuring Darshan and Rashmika Mandanna, choreographed by dance master Ganesh, will be shot in the European country. The team will be camping at the foreign location for the next seven days.

Produced by Shylaja Nag and B Suresh, the film has music by V Harikrishna, who has also contributed to the story and screenplay, along with director P Kumar.

With the post production work set to begin soon, the makers are left with one more song to complete, which is still in the planning stages. The big-budget film has been shot on massive sets and will feature VFX and 3D work. Apart from Darshan and Rashmika, the film has a host of actors, including Tanya Hope, Thakur Anoop Singh and Dhananjay.
Building products group Boral has a new home at Charter Hall's $100 million, 10.3-hectare logistics park in Chullora, Sydney's west, at a time when industrial property is in high demand.

Located on the site of a former printing press, previously owned by Fairfax Media, Boral will take out a new purpose-built 10,749-square-metre facility with a lease in excess of eight years.

Under the deal, Boral will consolidate two business units in the new facility as part of its efficiency drive for distribution of their products to key markets and customers across Sydney.

Boral has leased space at the Charter Hall-owned Chullora Logistics Park in Sydney.

The site, which is owned by the Charter Hall-managed $3 billion Prime Industrial Fund (CPIF), is also home to tenants including Lion (Dairy), Australia Post and Rittal.
Major office leases are on the cusp of being signed across the Sydney city as companies look to move into new properties as the developments start coming out of the ground.

With many lease contracts up for renewal, company directors are taking the opportunity to relocate, albeit at a time when rents are nearing their peaks and vacancy rates are heading to record lows.

The need to offer high-quality office space to attract staff and allow the expansion of businesses is also triggering a spate of changes across the tightly held Sydney office market.

An artist's impression of AMP's new Quay Quarter Tower at Circular Quay in Sydney.

There are also many developments underway with landlords keen to tenants pre-leased during the construction phase.
A vacant double-storey shop at 376 Clarendon Street formerly used as a medical premises sold through Gross Waddells Tamara Gross and Andrew Thorburn for $1.31 million. A local investor purchased the property at a land rate of $10,916 per sq m with plans to lease it up. Melbourne Strata office is being hotly contested with a 137 sq m brick offering at Level 1, 43 Little Bourke Street fetching $1.25 million through Colliers Internationals Anthony Kirwan, Chris Ling and Martin Leong. With 12 groups inspecting, the property sold at a per sq m rate of $9124. The trio also sold another strata suite at 620 Bourke Street for $2 million to a first-time entrant into the Australian property market. The 252 sq m office on Level 3 sold on a $7936 per sq m rate. Lynbrook Poplar Constructions has snapped up an industrial site at 22-30 Northey Road for a speculated price about $5 million. The 15,410 sq m block was one of the last remaining development sites in Lynbrooks industrial precinct, Colliers Internationals Gordon Code and James Stott said.

Braeside A drive-through ANZ bank at 246 Boundary Road has sold for just over $2.1 million. Leased to ANZ until June 2019 at $106,000 a year net, the deal represents a yield of 5 per cent for the buyer, John Nockles and Ian Angelico from CVA said. The drive-through bank includes a ground and first-floor retail/office/showroom space, 28 on-site car spaces, amenities, staff room, and ATM. Glen Huntly Gorman Commercial and Woodards Carnegie have sold 1136 Glen Huntly Road before auction for $950,000 on a yield of 4.1 per cent. The two-level shop/residence was on a 199 sq m site in Glen Huntly village, David Minton said. LEASES

Melbourne Olga de Polga will set up shop in Little Collins Street. Credit:CBRE Fashionistas Olga de Polga will set up shop at 181 Little Collins Street. The retailer, which already has two stores in trendy Prahran and Fitzroy, will pay rent of $2432 per sq m gross. CBREs Tan Thach and Zelman Ainsworth negotiated the four-year lease on behalf of landlord GPT. Notting Hill MBCM Strata Specialists have leased a 220sq m office at Building 29, Level 1, 270 Ferntree Gully Road. MBCM signed a six-year lease with the net annual rental undisclosed. Knight Franks Nick Sharkey and James Treloar brokered the deal on behalf of Omnico Group.

Prahran Significant renovations at 251 High Street, including converting the first floor to a residential apartment, has resulted in Jethro Canteen taking the 85sq m downstairs shop on a six-year lease at rent of $32,000 per annum net, Mark Smedley from Dixon Kestles & Co said. Jethro will expand from their current location in Richmond. In another deal, Mr Smedley leased 298 Bay Street Port Melbourne to Symmetry Physiotherapy before 171sq m double-fronted shop became vacant. Symmetry will pay net rental of $75,250 on a five-year term. Moorabbin Taubmans Paints has leased a 418sq m showroom at 249 Wickham Road on a 5+5 year lease. Rodney King from Crabtrees Real Estate Taubmans will pay $65,000 a year net. The property is surrounded by similar retailers and was snapped up within days of coming onto the market, he said. South Melbourne

Riding hard and fast on City Road, Melbourne Scooters have signed a 3+3 year lease over a brand-new 195 sq m warehouse at No.478. Andrew Thorburn and Michail Shalit from Gross Waddell said motorbike retailer will pay $75,000 a year, equating to $385 per sq m. Melbourne Education and migration provider IEMC has relocated to a larger office at 343 Little Collins Street. Colliers Internationals Brigitte Doupe and Milly Stockdale negotiated a three-year lease for a partially fitted, 98 sq m suite on Level 5 at gross face rent of $515 sq m. Also in the city, Executive Health Solutions secured a new 297 sq m office on Level 10 at 520 Collins Street on a 6-year term, Adam Davy said. Rents in the building are about $550 per sq m. Mulgrave Colliers Internationals Jonathan Mercuri and Richard Wilkinson leased a Mulgrave warehouse off-market with no let-up time. Amare Safety will move to a larger facility in Rowville, while PorterVac moves into 5-6 Rosemary Court on a 3+3 year lease at gross face rent of 119 per sq m.

South Yarra Chapel Street is seeing a new wave of boutique operators. Asian fashion house Momo Dress will lease 589 Chapel at $58,000 per annum net in a deal negotiated by Fitzroys James Spencer. Sculpt Australia recently took space at 495 Chapel Street and menswear brand Ciano & Roza has set up in The Colonnade at 542 Chapel Street. MOVERS Tim Homes has joined the CBRE team. With more than 20 years experience in commercial and residential sales and leasing, Mr Homes previously worked with Colliers and Knight Frank and has spent the past five years in the property industry in the UK. Gorman Commercial has appointed Lulu Zhang to a newly created role of associate director of property management as it grow its management portfolio.
Oil prices tumbled more than 7 per cent on Tuesday, with US crude plunging to its lowest in over a year, caught in Wall Street's broader selloff fed by growing concerns about slowing global growth.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down $US4.24, or 7.4 per cent, at $US52.96 per barrel by 1:27 p.m. EST (1827 GMT). The contract fell as much as 7.7 per cent earlier in the session to $US52.77 a barrel, the lowest since October 2017.

The price have oil continues to slide. Credit:Bloomberg

So far in the session, more than 836,000 front-month WTI contracts had changed hands, exceeding the daily average over the last 10 months.

Brent crude futures were $US4.77, or 7.1 per cent, lower at $US62.02 a barrel. The international benchmark fell as much as 7.6 per cent to $US61.71, the lowest since December 2017.
Loading In June, the AHA gave the LNP senator five cartons of Furphy beer, five cartons of Great Northern Beer, four cases of Pepperjack wine, four cases of Fifth leg wine, and two cases of "sparkling". In July, the Queensland Hotels Association stumped up 12 bottles of red wine, 12 bottles of white wine and a case of beer. In August, Diageo gave him a "heritage 4 litre barrel" worth $399" and a bottle of Bundaberg Rum. And in November, the Queensland Hotels Association donated 10 cases of beer and four cases of mixed wine worth $736.

Senator McGrath also declared receiving "disgusting vegan sausages" from PETA in 2017 and a further 100 sausages and 100 meat patties from Stanbroke Beef. A spokesman said the alcoholic beverages were donated as "in-kind support for functions hosted by the senator". "The senator stands by his description of the vegan sausages as 'disgusting'  because they are," his spokesman said. Senator James McGrath declared several gifts from hotel and alcohol groups as well as some "disgusting" vegan sausages from PETA. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Minister for Regional Services and Sport, Senator Bridget McKenzie, declared more than 50 gifts and travel upgrades but gave zero sources for them until contacted by the Herald.

"The requirement to list the sources for gifts and hospitality items is an administrative oversight and will be rectified for all items at the next required update," a spokesman for the Victorian National senator said. The chair of the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests, Liberal MP Ross Vasta, said all members were reminded "a few times each year" of their obligations to update the register within 28 days of receiving the gift. But the Herald found more than 30 federal parliamentarians had failed to update their register this year. Liberal MP Craig Kelly did not declare overseas trips to Japan (pictured) and Azerbaijan, funded by a foreign government and a coal lobby group. Credit:Alamy The Liberal MP for Hughes, Craig Kelly, had not recorded any gifts or hospitality since September 2016 despite taking at least two overseas trips funded by a foreign government and a coal lobby group. In April, the south-west Sydney MP travelled to Azerbaijan on a state-sponsored visit, for the second time, to observe their presidential election.

Loading In July, Mr Kelly was flown to Japan, all expenses paid by the Mineral Council of Australias COAL21 fund. The trip, led by former deputy prime minister and current Whitehaven Coal chairman Mark Vaile, included "business class return airfares, accommodation, transfer and hospitality". Mr Kelly said that there was "some miscommunication" by his office when "filing the forms officially" to the clerks office but since being contacted by the Herald, he has rectified the record. "The only updates to my register of interests that are required are the trips to Baku and Japan," Mr Kelly said. University of Melbourne lecturer in politics and lobbying George Rennie said transparency in gift giving was critical because of its underlying influence over decision making.

"Time after time, politicians are caught breaking the rules. They are caught because of a vigilant press, not by those responsible for 'overseeing' the register," Mr Rennie said. "When they are caught, they seem to react with a shrug, a 'whoops', and they amend their statement with little further consequence." The rules behind the register are made by resolutions of parliament and breaches are seen as "a serious contempt" to be dealt with "accordingly" by either a senate or house of representatives committee. Qantas Chairman's lounge membership QANTAS Chairman's lounge Brisbane. Credit:Credit: Lucas Muro

Roughly half of all federal politicians declared a free Qantas Chairmans Lounge membership, which includes free drinks, a Neil Perry a la carte menu, and top-shelf drinks. The lounge is an exclusive invitation-only club and estimated to be worth thousands of dollars per year as outlined in this article. "Any estimated value of the Chairman's Lounge membership would easily be in the many, many thousands, as the basic Qantas Club membership costs $540 per year," Australian Business Traveller editor David Flynn said. Fewer than half of all politicians recorded a single upgraded flight, and fewer than 20 acknowledged any hotel room upgrades since 2016. Bar fridge gift Senator Fraser Anning has had more than $2600 worth of beverages flow into his office since February. He also received a bar fridge worth $650.

Senator Fraser Anning declared $2600 in alcohol since February as well as a bar fridge. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen A spokesman for the Senator said he hosted constituents and parliamentarians for drinks "when appropriate". "The [alcohol] donation is small beer and pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations received by both major parties," the spokesman said. Israel and Palestine The declarations also show Israeli and Palestinian groups regularly pay for politicians to visit but not all MPs declared this hospitality.

In April, 2017, the Greens Senator Janet Rice was hosted by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) but it failed to be noted on her register. The Senator said she paid all expenses associated with the trip personally and has donated to APAN in the past, which is noted on the register. The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council sponsored Labor MPs with $10,000 each in 2017 for study tours and many Liberal MPs have also taken up offers to tour Israel. Registered silliness On September 12, 2017, Liberal MP Steven Ciobo added a tie to his register: "The Hon Chris Bowen MP presented me with a gift of sartorial excellence, a - to quote him - 'really classy knitted skinny navy blue tie'. I cannot be sure of its market value, however, would note I count it as priceless". Labor MP for Blaxland Jason Clare is one of the most diligent record keepers with more than 80 items on his list, including, "1 x Pineapple from Yeppoon - received from Michelle Landry MP - approx. value $5".
Two Canberra Hospital cleaners have been sacked for falling asleep during an unpaid break at 4am.

The workers, Tshering and Sonam, who only wanted to be referred to by their first names, are both from Bhutan and supporting their husbands and children.

They are desperate to be reinstated to their jobs which are their only means of survival in Australia.

Cleaners at the Canberra hospital, Tshering and Sonam, have lost their jobs for falling to sleep at 4am during a designated unpaid break. Credit:Karleen Minney.

They fell asleep in the day surgery waiting area - while all theatres were closed - about 4am during their designated unpaid break, behaviour contractor ISS labelled a "serious breach" of the company's code of conduct.
Love is love. A year ago it was the heartfelt, compelling and successful slogan for change in the same-sex marriage debate.

On November 14, 2017 the results of the survey were announced: 62 per cent of us endorsed the idea that marriage should be between any two adults who loved each other.

Many people in the LGBTI community were, and remain, aghast that a weak and compromised then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put them through the nationwide postal survey, exposing them to bigotry from many quarters.

Celebrations one year on after almost two-thirds of voters supported same-sex marriage. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

So it was distressing this week to hear that perhaps some bigotry might be flowing in the other direction when it was revealed that the wedding magazine White, run by devout Christians Luke and Carla Burrell, was folding after a vociferous campaign against it for not featuring same-sex marriages.
A little before 7am next Tuesday, a small metal shell flying six times faster than a bullet will reach the outer edges of Mars thin atmosphere.

Inside this metal capsule sits NASAs InSight lander.

The probe, with its payload of sensors designed to see deep inside the red planet, has spent the last six months silently whizzing through space.

NASA hopes it will be the agencys next lander to hit Mars' surface since the Curiosity rover touched down in 2012. Australia will play a key role in communication with the tiny craft after its landing.
Concurs de granturi adresat COMUNITATILOR (APL) pentru sporirea rezilientei lor la schimbarile climatice si FEMEILOR ANTREPRENOARE in vederea dezvoltarii unor afaceri prietenoase mediului
A 26-year-old woman allegedly sexually assaulted by Jarryd Hayne was forced to seek medical attention the following day, after she suffered bite wounds so severe she was left bleeding profusely, police have confirmed.

The explosive new details were revealed by Seven News on Tuesday evening, and included graphic descriptions of the alleged assault on the young woman at a home north of Newcastle on night of the NRL grand final earlier this year.

Hayne has since been charged with aggravated sexual assault.

A police source has confirmed to the Herald that the young woman was at a home where she lived with her mother, when Hayne arrived in a taxi, allegedly intoxicated after a session of drinking.
The nine-month-old girl found dead on a Surfers Paradise beach died in New South Wales, with police now making arrangements to extradite the girl's father from Queensland.

Queensland Police said they will continue to assist their southern counterparts after establishing the death occurred south of Coolangatta.

Surf Rescue crew drive past the scene where the body of an infant was found at Surfers Paradise on Monday. Credit:AAP Image/Regi Varghese

The baby's body was found lying in the sand at the edge of the water on Surfers Paradise Beach. The tragic discovery was made by a passer-by in the middle of the night on Monday.

It's understood post-mortem results show the little girl drowned and may have been placed in the water at Tweed Heads, with her body eventually washing up 30 kilometres north at Surfers Paradise.
Staff at some of Perth's busiest hospitals have taken time off work in recent weeks and months due to a spike in violent assaults at the hands of aggressive patients.

Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital staff have borne the brunt of some of the worst assaults with at least seven staff confirmed to have been seriously assaulted in September and October.

Perth hospital staff have been on the receiving end of some serious assaults in recent weeks. Credit:Peter Braig

Dr Robyn Lawrence, recently appointed chief executive of the North Metropolitan Health Service which runs SCGH, said she was "horrified" by the latest spate of assaults.

She said the "severity of workplace violence and aggression incidents at SCGH" had recently increased.
Tarryn* was just 12 years old when she was raped by a man offering girls in his community cannabis and cigarettes in exchange for sex.

In the weeks and years that followed the assault, she was overcome by feelings of shame and emptiness and forced to leave the town she grew up in, where her abuser still lived.

The now 22-year-old woman has won a compensation claim for sexual abuse she suffered as a 12-year-old.

As she moved into adulthood she dropped out of high school, turned to cannabis use to numb her feelings and has never been employed.

She is one of the estimated one in every three to four girls, and one in every six boys who suffer sexual abuse as a child in Australia, according to the Blue Knot Foundation.
Rachel Hayden is a mother of five. Credit:Fighting for Rachel

While Rachel Hayden lay ill in bed this morning, suffering from the effects of her rare brain tumour and other painful conditions, her real estate agent took to the airwaves on her behalf.

Sara Muir, voice breaking with emotion, called on the WA community to help the mother who needs brain surgery.

Ms Muir, who is trying to sell Rachel and husband Andrew's Byford home, organised more than 25 volunteers and organisations who donated time, expertise and materials to complete a makeover to get the house ready to go on the market.

The Haydens are desperate to get rid of debt, as not only do they need to support the daily needs of the family, but they also are looking to raise about $100,000 for brain surgery.
Wow. And you thought the punters had no political power. Scott Morrisons change of tune on population growth  following on the heels of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian  will please a lot of ordinary voters and enrage big business.

Illustration: Simon Letch Credit:

Be clear on this: almost to a man or woman, the nations business people, economists, Coalition politicians and Labor politicians have long believed in high rates of immigration, going back to the days of populate or perish. They still do. Theyll have one dismissive, contemptuous word for the Liberal Partys seeming backflip  populism.

By contrast, the public has long had reservations about immigration, going back to Chinese joining the gold rush and, as the movie Ladies in Black reminds us, to post-war resentment of reffos (not to mention dagoes and wogs).

Its quite possible Gladys had a word in the ear of Scott, but I have no doubt both are reacting to results from their partys private polling and focus groups. (If so, Labor politicians would be getting a similar message.)
He said the timing of the diversion was unlikely to have been coincidental and may have coincided with a major project the firm was undertaking for a client in Australia. A senior Australian official said intelligence agencies were aware of the issue but could not say with certainty if it was malicious or the result of genuine routing errors. The official said the activity was being conducted on the edge of the cyber frontier, potentially involving new hacking techniques that experts were still seeking to understand. Clandestine data capture and assessment, often on a staggering scale, has been practised by Western intelligence agencies, as revealed by the Edward Snowden leaks. But while this data harvesting raised serious legal and privacy concerns, western nations have insisted it was never used to steal commercial secrets. Alex Henthorn-Iwane, a vice president at internet monitoring firm ThousandEyes in San Francisco, said the ease of re-routing internet traffic meant it could be used to gather intelligence, especially when the country involved was known for pursuing economic espionage on a large scale.

"Internet routing is run on the honour system, which makes it vulnerable to dishonest actors," he said. Loading China Telecom said its routing strategy fully complied with global standards and denied it had "hijacked" traffic going through its network. "China Telecom insists on [a] compliance operation in strict accordance with local laws, not only in mainland China, but also everywhere in the world," it said in a statement. Responding to an earlier story that the Chinese Ministery of State Security was behind a surge in hacking of commercial secrets, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday that "related reports and accusations are sheer fabrication" and came out of "thin air".

"Cyber security is a global issue and cyber hacking is a common challenge faced by every country in the world," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. On November 12, some Google services were affected by unusual traffic flows which routed data through Russia's TransTelecom and China Telecom. While analysts at Thousand Eyes would not say that the re-routing was malicious, they viewed it as suspicious and said it had placed traffic "in the hands of Internet Service Providers in countries with a long history of internet surveillance". While the potential to hijack so-called "Border Gateway Protocols (BGP)" has been known for much of the past decade, the issue has gained some prominence across the cyber security community in recent months with the publication of Professor Shavitt's research in conjunction with Chris Demchak from the US Naval War College. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is concerned by the hacking revelations. Credit:Justin McManus "The prevalence of  and demonstrated ease with which  one can simply redirect and copy data by controlling key transit nodes buried in a nation's infrastructure requires an urgent policy response," they wrote in a paper published in the Journal of the Military Cyber Professionals Association.

The data diversions were possible as China Telecom has 10 Points of Presence (PoPs) in North America. Foreign carries have no comparable infrastructure across mainland China. China Telecom has long been regarded as a passive service provider, despite being state-owned, and therefore has attracted none of the suspicion of Chinese telecommunications providers like Huawei or ZTE. After being contacted by Fairfax Media, Professor Shavitt provided data on traffic flows into Australia, which has not previously been made public. The data shows traffic came out of Strasbourg travelling to the east coast of the US, but rather than continuing on to Sydney, it was diverted to mainland China before being re-routed via South Korea and Hong Kong before eventually arriving in Australia. This happened repeatedly over a six-day period with the packets of data taking up to six times longer to arrive than is usual, a warning sign for researchers looking into suspicious activity.

In another example, data from Montreal went to the US east coast and was then diverted to mainland China before either going through South Korea or Hong Kong and then arriving in Sydney. This data took around three times longer to reach its destination than would have ordinarily been the case. "There is always a chance this was some ingenious error  but to my mind it happened too often to be a mistake," Professor Shavitt said. He contacted the affected company and warned the data diversion posed a "severe security risk" and that its "sensitive data" was exposed to a so called "man in the middle attack". This is where malicious software is inserted into emails and other traffic which can then be used to steal data and other confidential information. "The diversion is only the beginning of an attack  it can then be used to break into a network," Professor Shavitt said.

Michael Sentonas, a vice-president at cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, said BGP was an insecure protocol which left open the potential for traffic to be pushed through a listening post, where even encrypted data could potentially be accessed. "I don't think it's insignificant when traffic destined for Australia or the US goes via China. You have to ask why?" he said. "This needs to be raised as an issue and questions asked." In the research paper published by Professor Shavitt and Ms Demchak, three other examples over the past two years are highlighted, including traffic from Scandinavia to the Japanese office of a major US media outlet being diverted via China. The pair assert the diversions from China Telecom were part of Beijing's efforts to "technically" adhere to a cyber agreement signed between the US and China in 2015, while still continuing to steal commercial secrets.
Denpasar: Renae Lawrence is free from her Balinese prison, surrounded by a media scrum as she set foot on Australian soil for the first time in more than 13 years.

The convicted member of the Bali Nine landed with family at Brisbane Airport about 4.45am local time, 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled arrival, before hopping on a terminal transfer bus for the second leg of her return to her home state of NSW.

Ms Lawrence made one brief mumbled comment as she tried to weave her way through the media scrum, believed to be along the lines of thanking the Australian government.

Hours before, Lawrence made no comment to a huge press pack as she was bundled into a waiting car by several dozen Indonesian police in chaotic scenes outside the Bangli Prison.
Dubai: South Korea's Kim Jong-yang was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the US, Britain and other European nations.

The White House and its European partners had lobbied against Alexander Prokopchuk's attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation, saying his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpol's red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Alexander Prokopchuk, a former major-general at the Russian Interior Ministry, has missed out on a role as Interpol president. Credit:Sputnik/AP

Kim's win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Meng's departure from the post and was senior vice-president at Interpol.
London: Two of the Kremlin's most prominent critics have joined forces to try to stop a Russian becoming the next president of international police organisation Interpol, saying they feared Moscow would abuse the post to hunt down its detractors.

Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, right, and financier William Browder attend a joint press conference in London. Credit:AP

Interpol's general assembly is due to elect a new president on Wednesday after incumbent Meng Hongwei of China went missing in September.

Beijing later said it had detained him in connection with a bribery probe.

The battle to succeed him turned political after Alexander Prokopchuk, a former major general in Russia's Ministry of the Interior, emerged as one of the favourites to get the job, a prospect that alarmed critics of President Vladimir Putin.
Joseph Wu

Unlimited Chinese expansionism

Foreign Minister of Taiwan, Jaushieh Joseph Wu, speaks about: The status of Taiwan, relations with China, the rising tension in the South China Sea, US-sanctions against China, Pekings actions to sideline Taiwan from the International Community and the upcoming referendum in Taiwan on November 24th.

21.11.2018 By Joseph Wu

The interview took place on November 13th 2018 in Taipei. Present at the meeting was an International Press Group who was invited by the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The representative for DIE WELTWOCHE was Urs Gehriger, Foreign Editor.

Reporter: When Donald Trump became US-President, one of the first calls he took was from your President Tsai Ing-wei. How was the reaction from China officially and unofficially to this call?

Minister: I was in the process of the planning of that call. When it took place, I remember that the people here in Taiwan seems to be quite excited about it, because that's the first time the President of Taiwan was able to speak with President-Elect of the United States. I can also sense that the policy community in Washington D.C. is also excited, excited in the sense that they reacted in different ways. Some of those in the policy community in Washington DC know that that is a groundbreaking, that was wonderful, and therefore, Taiwan-US relationship be better after Donald Trump took office. At the same time, some other thinktankers in the Washington DC also thought that that might set-off the Trump administration on the wrong foot, but no matter what, it caught the media, all media, international media, for some time. For at least three weeks, people were discussing about Taiwan. People were discussing what kind of relationship was there in between Taiwan and the United States.

On the other hand, Taiwan is a democracy. The President of Taiwan was democratically elected, and therefore Taiwan is a country that should be respected as such. Taiwan should be treated as like-minded countries. At the same time, some people thought that the relations with China should also be very important and therefore China might react in a wrong way. There was a debate in Washington DC. From what we see from the Chinese side, the reaction was rather calm at that moment. We did not see the officials from Beijing react in a way that we should be overly concerned about Taiwan-US relations or China relations.

Quietly we also sense that there are some people in Beijing, especially in the passive community in Beijing, they feel nervous about what is going to take place in between Taiwan and the United States. Whether president-elect, Trump is going to review the underlying principles in between Washington DC and Beijing, whether president-elect, Trump is going to follow the white-handed policy as his predecessors have been following. After some uncertainties in between Washington DC and Beijing, we thought that things tend to be stabilized after president Trump gave that interview and said that the United States will follow, in his words, "Our one-China policy."

 Some of the policies that are being pursued by president Trump sometimes surprise quite a lot of people in Beijing. For instance, in the beginning of the Trump administration, president Trump and his teams talked about China's unfair trade practices and criticized China for other things, but in April, late April, last year when president Trump and Xi Jinping met in Mar-a-Lago, president Trump started to say very nice things about president Xi Jinping. Saying that he's good friends, he's doing wonderful things for Chinese people, he's a great leader and all that. It seems to be taking a different turn.

Nevertheless, when the United States issued international security strategy, initial defense strategy, and free opening of specific strategy, we started to see that the United States is taking a harsher attitude toward Beijing. We see several ways of changes of the US policy toward China. Taiwan on its part has been quite steady, its handling of the basic policy either toward the United States or toward China. Our policy is to maintain status quo. Our policy is to maintain peace and stability in between Taiwan and China. Our policy has been to maintain sufficient defense capabilities, and other than that we also try to improve our relations with the United States. These things have been there for quite some time and it's not going to change because of the Trump administration. What we see is some waves of changes of the US policy toward China. I guess this is a little history, review of what happened after president Trump came into office.

Reporter: Recently the Vatican and the Chinese government had an agreement about the appointment of bishops, but we know that it is probably just a first step in a long process. What is the attitude of Taiwan towards this approach made on behalf of the Vatican towards China?

Minister: When Vatican was about to sign the agreement with China, we have stayed in very close contact with the officials in the Holy City. The officials in the Holy City continued to assure us that the agreement is about the appointment of bishops is religious, is pastoral, and it's not political or diplomatic. China's relations, official relations, with the Vatican is not going to be affected by that agreement. [unintelligible] said the Vatican is being a quiet friend and very honest in letting us know what was happening and that was appreciated. Of course, what we see in the agreement is the possibility of improving the welfare and the rights of the capitalists in China. That is what a lot of countries want as well in that agreement.

Nevertheless, we care so much about the rights of the Catholics in China. In the past couple of years, we see the rights of the Catholics in China having deteriorating and in the recent months, the situation is still getting worse and worse. We see more crosses being burnt, more churches being torn down, and bishops, especially those underground bishops or the bishops that are recognized by the Vatican, have suffered from political persecution. That is something that we hope we can continue to work with the Holy City and the rest of the free world to see how we can turn things around and to make sure that the Catholics in China can have their rights protected.

In addition to the rights of the Catholics, we also see the persecution of the Muslims in the Xinjiang area and also the Buddhists in the Tibet area. That is something that we don't want to see. If the Catholics in Taiwan can have their rights protected, I think the kinds of rights, the same rights that Taiwan people enjoy should also be enjoyed by the Chinese Catholics. That's what we want.

We also try to work with the Vatican to advance human rights or the welfare of the regular people or disadvantaged people. We try to work with the Vatican in the sense that we try to provide some humanitarian assistance, work together with the Vatican to provide those assistance to the disadvantaged people and we'll continue to do that. The Vatican also openly recognize Taiwan's role in that regard. That is what we have been doing and we'll continue to do it.

So far, as I can see, our relations with the Vatican is not changing. Our relations with the Vatican is still relatively stable and we will continue to maintain our relations with the Vatican. Also, that agreement is temporary or provisional, it's good for two years. With the way the Chinese not honoring the rights of the Catholics in China, I don't know whether the Vatican will continue to see the advancement of the discussions is in the interest of the Catholics in China.

Reporter: It was customary that the World Health Organization invite Taiwan to the annual meeting. This year, they chose not to invite Taiwan to the annual meeting.

Minister: For the second year.

Reporter: Do you believe that the UN has taken a position of partiality or no longer impartial when it comes to identifying a country's sovereignty, independence? Do you see the UN as a reliable source or partner in this process?

Minister: Well, thank you very much for the question. That is a very important question for Taiwanese people. We continue to ask that question ourselves when we see the Charter of the WHO, the highest attainable health for all, and how about the people of Taiwan? If you look at the UN Charter, that means peace and stability for all, how about the people of Taiwan? Taiwan is being excluded from the UN systems for quite some time, but when the Taiwanese people raised their voice and said that, "We have the same rights, as other people." The UN turned its back on us. There are two things we can say about this issue. One, is of course the wrangling between Taiwan and China, but another is the very successful maneuver of the Chinese in penetrating into international organizations.

Look at the WHO, they used to be able to have a Hong Kong director general, but after the Hong Kong Director General Margaret Chan retired, they weren't able to support the current director general, and the current director general seems to be taking advice from the Chinese government. Look at ICAO, the Chinese government was also able to send a senior official to serve as a president of ICAO, International Civil Aviation Organization. Look at Interpol, the one who just fled back to or went back to China and disappeared, he was also a senior official, sitting senior official of China. If you look at the UN Secretariat, there's also a Chinese senior official inside the secretariat, and that is very successful maneuver of the Chinese government. They were able to send senior officials into virtually every important major international organizations, and one of their functions is to prevent Taiwan from being able to take part.

I think this is morally unjust to exclude Taiwan. That is a violation of the Charters of the UN or the affiliated organizations. I think we can run a whole bunch of numbers for you, but I think the logic is the same. If we want a safer world, no country should be excluded, but look at the situation of Taiwan. There's so many millions of lives going through Taiwan's airspace every year, but Taiwan is excluded from taking part in International Civil Aviation Organization. There are criminals coming in and going out, but Taiwan is excluded from taking part in the Interpol. Taiwan is also not immune from communicable diseases, but Taiwan has been excluded from WHO. None of these make sense, and none of these stands moral.

Therefore it is the right thing for Taiwan people continue to say that we deserve the right to participate in these international organizations just as any other people in the world. At the same time we also have to see the way the Chinese were able to turn these international organizations against Taiwan. When we were trying to make applications, the Chinese were able to make sure that the motions would not be accepted by the secretariat, because the Chinese always had senior officials in these secretariats. The Chinese officials in these international organizations were also able to deny the regular Taiwanese people only trying to have a pass to enter into these buildings and that's just not fair. I certainly hope that the international community can look at this issue as a fundamental issue, that no country should be excluded.

Coming back to the issue between Taiwan and China, China says that Taiwan is part of China and therefore our participation should go through China, but you are here in Taiwan, we have a president. The president is publicly elected, what are you going to call us? We also have a parliament. I don't like our parliament, they're powerful but it's also publicly elected. We have a MOFA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We issue visa and passport which is different from the Chinese. We also have a military that is capable of defending ourselves. We also have a currency, when you come to Taiwan you say NT dollars not [unintelligible] Therefore Taiwan is not part of the PRC.

The Chinese argument that Taiwan is part of the PRC and we need to go through the PRC to make applications into these international organizations just don't match with reality. We hope that the international community, the like-minded countries, whether they're from Europe, or from the United States, or from East Asia, I think should come to the reality that Taiwan should be represented at the international community.

Reporter: Can you rely on your partner countries to defend and hold UN accountable?

Minister: If Taiwan only relies on our diplomatic allies, that means those countries in Latin America and also in the Pacific. I think it's going to be very difficult because the number of our diplomatic allies is only 17 of them and it's not strong enough to stand bold in these international organizations. What we can count on is improving relations between Taiwan and the like-minded countries.

Look at the past few years, the United States, some European countries, Australia, Japan, Canada, have been coming out stronger and stronger in support of Taiwan's international participation. Look at WHO, as you mentioned a little earlier, we have the United States, some Asia and European countries, Canada, Australia, and Japan, came out and said that WHO should accept Taiwan. We need more of those countries, we hope all like-minded countries, that fellow democracies can come out and say that Taiwan deserves its rights in these major international organizations.

Reporter: In the beginning of October, there was a near collision between United States guided missile cruise ship and Chinese guided missile cruise ship. Then we had after that American warships passing the strait of Taiwan which was, if I'm right, the first time again that this kind of warships passed the strait in 22 years. What to do when a real conflict would erupt? Is that also applying to Taiwan? Is it now the time to apply a red line? To take a stronger stand with the United States? How can Taiwan deal with these kinds of situations?

Minister: You mean protest to the United States for sending ships through Taiwan space?

Reporter: Well, it might be that-- I'm sure that Taiwan could say like, "Please don't. This freedom of navigation operations, as they call it, are endangering the position of Taiwan." That might be a position, but also be they could say, "When there would be conflict, we need to side immediately with the United States." If you're talking about red lines, do they also apply for Taiwan? In what kind of settings, is it endangering Taiwan?

Minister: We are in a different situation. If you look at the threat posed by China against Taiwan, the US action very often seems to be a posture of supporting Taiwan, so it's going to be very hard for the people here to imagine that the government of Taiwan can raise it to the United States that your ships passing through this area is a red line. We stay in very close contact with United States on security issues or other matters. When the US was having its naval ships passing through Taiwan Strait it was been seeing as a routine passage through international water, and the United States has been doing that regularly, and for your information is not the first time in the 17-18 years they've been doing it regularly

Reporter: With these kinds of ships?

Minister: With destroyers or cruise ships. So, it's not surprising to us since its international waters and therefore the United States has the right to free passage through the international water.

Let me also take the question or take the issue about South China Sea. I think it's something that warrants more discussion. The way I see it is that the tension in the South China Sea has being going up to the degree where a lot of people should worry. If you look at The South China Sea that is contested by quite a few countries surrounding the South China Sea, by China, by Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and also Malaysia. For China to claim the whole body of water might not be the best way.

If you look at the ruling by the court of international arbitration on July 12th 2016, that kind of position has been ruled not in line with international law. The Chinese militarization or land reclamation of a small island into major territory in the South China Sea, and also to build those reclaimed land into military bases seem to be against international law, and especially against international arbitration results in July 2016. I think the Chinese action of land reclamation is getting other claimants very nervous. Other than land reclamation and militarization of the Island controlled by China, China is also sending its military aircraft and naval ships to patrol around the region. From the data that I see, is in average more than 10 military airplanes every day, and more than 20 military ships every day. Other than the military ships they also have coast guards, and also the armed civilian ships to patrol around region. The way they patrol around it is as if China owns the South China Sea. Of course, you can see that the tension will continue to rise.

The United States is sending its naval ships to patrol around region in the name of freedom of navigation operations, and it is not just the United States who is doing, it it's also France and the UK, Australia and Japan. These actions are welcomed by other claimants in the region for the reason to make sure that that place is known to be contested rather than owned by China. We'll continue to see the tension rising with or without the US freedom of navigation operations. I think when the ships are coming close to each other at the high sea normally there's a code it's called CUES, code for unexpected encounters at seas, and I think the countries should follow CUES when they encounter with each other. A near collision is just dangerous and a little accident might sparkle into a major war, which should be avoided.

Reporter: These were not two little ships, they had 280 people on board each. That's quite a conflict we have.

Minister: That's right. If I take the issue a little bit further. If you look at the Chinese actions in this part of the world. They're not only trying to militarize the South China sea, they tried not only to claim the area or patrol the area as if it's owned by China, they also sent their military ships, reconnaissance airplanes into the airspace claimed by South Korea and Japan. As far as I can see, the East China Sea is also highly contested and the tension is also visible. In all this East Asia to South China Sea we can see the tension over there seems to be caused by the unlimited Chinese expansionism. That is something that the like-minded countries should look at it in a very serious way, because of that, as I said a little earlier the freedom of mitigation operations by the United States or by some European countries or by Japan or Australia, should be seen as a sign of the like-minded countries, should try to maintain that international waters should be safeguarded as international waters.

Reporter: We just heard there is billions of investments by your business community in China, which is obviously beneficial for both sides, otherwise this wouldn't happen. China is a huge market for Taiwanese products as well. I'm wondering how do you deal with that?

Minister: It's not easy. It's very hard. Talking about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not accepted by the Chinese side, it's not just the Chinese side who don't accept that. The Chinese were able to get other countries, even other like-minded countries not to recognize Taiwan's minister of foreign affairs. The sad thing about Taiwan, especially coming from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is that Taiwan is being recognized as a democracy. Taiwan is being praised as a beacon, as a light of hope in this part of the world. Nevertheless, the minister of Foreign Affairs has difficulties in travel. I cannot go to Washington DC. I cannot go to London. I cannot go to Tokyo. I think Taiwanese people have been quite pragmatic in dealing with that. If the minister is not able to go, how about the deputy minister, or other officials. We try to deal with the situation in a more practical way.

Taiwan is also an enviable economy, many countries in the world also need to deal with Taiwan in the pragmatic way. No matter where you're from virtually every major country has an office here in Taiwan. For the United States they have an AIT over here. AIT is functioning as an embassy. AIT officials, they call on me quite often, and they recognize me as a minister of Foreign Affairs except that I'm not able to travel to Washington DC freely. This is a practical way we try to deal with the limitations.

When it comes to the relations between Taiwan and China the things get even more complicated. The Chinese are trying to destroy the symbol of sovereignty of Taiwan, and the ministry of Foreign Affairs represent one trait of the sovereignties of Taiwan. Therefore, China always tries to destroy that symbol of sovereignty by luring or disconnecting our diplomatic allies, try to get our diplomatic allies to server diplomatic ties with Taiwan. They try to prevent Taiwan from taking part in international organizations. They try to mutilate the name of Taiwan in participating in international activities. They try to change the designation of Taiwan in multinational corporations.

When it comes to allies, I think you are quite familiar with many of international allies. Originally, they described Taiwan as Taiwan, but then under the pressure of China, they started changing their way of describing Taiwan into Taiwan, China or Taipei, China, Taiwan, province of China. That is the fact that we have to deal with. Whenever China does that, we try very hard to change it back to something that the people here in Taiwan can accept, but its not a success every time we try to change back to Taiwan.

The situation is rather difficult for us with the Chinese power rising, it is easier for China to do that sort of thing to Taiwan and it gets more difficult for us to reverse the way the Chinese are doing it to Taiwan. Nevertheless, what we should say is that the Chinese government continues to have that objective of winning the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people. But when they do that to Taiwan, excluding Taiwan from international organizations or changing Taiwan's designation in international businesses or kicking Taiwan out of the International participation, they are creating enemies in Taiwan. I can tell you it's not in line with the Chinese objectives.

Reporter: I'm particularly interested in the nuts and bolts of when you want to communicate with Taipei. What do you do? Whom do you call? Which channels are you using? Business people, second track. There must be communication. I'm wondering how does it work?

Minister: We have more than one million people living in China and mostly in the greater Shanghai area. We also have scholars and students and tourists coming back and forth. The Chinese also continue the same, their scholars, tourists to Taiwan and many of their scholars are very well connected, or even sponsored by their government. If Beijing wants to talk to us, they can always find a way to talk to us and if we want to talk to them, we can always find a way to talk to them.

Reporter: Regarding this aggressive policy against Taiwan, China is developing here in Taiwan an independence feeling within the population. On September the 20th there was a demonstration for independence in Taiwan. It seems to me that dialogue (between China and Taiwan) is not possible right now.

Minister: Again, that is a very important question and as you can see, Taiwan government is under the pressure from both hands. On one hand the Chinese government wants to pressure Taiwan into unification talks but on the other hand, there were also a large number of Taiwanese people who want to dissociate Taiwan from China.

Under these kinds of circumstances, the Taiwanese government needs to think about the most responsible way in dealing with the cross rate relationship. After a very careful deliberation, the president of Taiwan is set out the cross rate policy based on the inaugural address. I think the basic policy is to maintain the status quo and to maintain cross rate peace and stability. That has been our policy and we think that is the most responsible policy in dealing with the cross rate situation.

Unification is not an option of the Taiwanese people as we see from various public opinion surveys. There's only a very small number of people here in Taiwan who wants unification with China but pursuing Taiwan's independence. If you look at the reality of Taiwan, as I said a little bit earlier, we have a President, and Parliament, and money, and the military, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issuing visa and passport. Taiwan is already being a de facto independent. Therefore, if we are able to maintain the status quo, I think Taiwan is in the best position.

Internationally, the palsy of maintaining the cease core or maintaining peace and stability has been praised by the like-minded countries such as the United States, or Japan, or other like-minded countries. They think that Taiwan government is pursuing a very responsible policy toward China. Therefore, there's no need for us to change our policy at this moment even though our policy will continue to be challenged by both ends.

Reporter: A new referendum coming up soon on November 24th. One of the issues is that Taiwan will go to the Olympics in 2020 officially under the name Taiwan. Doesn't this interfere with the position of maintaining status quo?

Minister: Yes. Well, there are two things involved in this referendum or involved in the particular referendum issue. The first is Taiwan is a democracy and doing the referendum under the law is the rights of the people. Therefore, the government is bound by the results of the referendum. If the referendum passed, Taiwan government, as required by law, will need to speak with the CTOC, which is Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, to notify them and consult with them to see what they can do.

The second part of that issue is the status of the CTOC, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee. According to the International Olympic Charter, all the national Olympic committees are supposed to be independent and autonomous. Therefore, CTOC, according to a charter of the IOC, will have to maintain its independence and autonomy. I think that's the situation. Even when there's a referendum passed by the public, the CTOC would not be required by the government over here or by the results of the referendum to apply for the change of Taiwan's title participating in the Tokyo Olympics.

Even those people who raised the issue understand that though. It's not going to have the results under CTOC to make a change of Taiwan's name. In the CTOC Charter, and also in 1981 Agreement reached in between CTOC and the International Olympic Committee, Taiwan participate independently under the name Chinese Taipei. I think that agreement is going to stick. It's a very complicated issue. Hopefully, we can try to grab the essence of the situation. Yes? I'm sorry to keep you waiting.

Reporter: What is the Taiwanese opinion or position on a trade war between the PRC and the United States. Taiwan has companies and business in the Mainland. Is it going to affect the Taiwanese economy? Or have you benefit from this?

Minister: The United States has already had several waves of sanctions against China. From the US sanctions, there were several things we have been watching very carefully. One is the conditions raised by the United States. China has to change its trade practices, stop the IPR theft, stop the forceful technology transfer and stop the cyber theft of other countries, things like that.

When we look at those conditions demanded by the United States, we think that those are the traditions all the normal trading countries should follow. Those are the rules of the WTO and those are the rules of modern civilized trading partner. Therefore to us, we have no disagreement with the United States when the United States raise that voice of asking China to change its predatory trade practices. I think those principles have also been agreed upon by other major trading power of the world.

Nevertheless, China is such a big economy these days, and therefore any kind of impact on China is going to impact the rest of the world as well and Taiwan is no exception. When the United States raise those several waves of sanctions, we're observing very carefully the way the Taiwan's economy is affected but so far it doesn't impact upon Taiwan. Some minor cases would implicate Taiwan. For example, when the United States was having sanctions against the steel and aluminum made in China.

Taiwan was also put on the list of being on sanctions and we are not able to get out of that sanction to be put on the waiver. We were affected in that part but other than that Taiwan's economy doesn't seem to be affected so far. Nevertheless, if the United States continue to sanction against China and with the last batch announced by President Trump that if China doesn't change its trade projects and practices is going to apply more taxes the last $267 billion.

That will definitely affect Taiwan because in that last batch is going to be on ICT and Taiwan's primary investment or the main part of Taiwan's investment in China is ICT. If that sanction is applied, then Taiwan will definitely be affected in a very serious manner. We have been watching very carefully. This is the negative effects of the trade war. However, we are also observing how the Taiwanese investors in China or the American investors in China are reacting to President Trump's trade policies.

Some of them want to move back to the United States and set up their manufacturing in the United States and some are moving out to other countries in Southeast Asia or in India for their operations. For some Taiwanese businessmen, they might migrate together with the American funds, some to the United States, some to Southeast Asia or India and some would even want to come back to Taiwan. We are observing very carefully what is going to develop from now.

We try to prepare ourselves if some of the corporations are willing to come back to Taiwan. For example, whether they are able to get sufficient amount of land, whether they will be able to have skilled labors, whether we will be able to deal with some of the tax issues that they care about. These are being under the discussion in our cabinet. Some Taiwanese businessmen, care about a sufficient supply of water, sufficient supply of electricity or things like that, and they will all be taking into consideration and planning for businessmen who want to come back to Taiwan but at the same time we also have a new south bound policy.

We are encouraging business exchanges in between Taiwan and Southeast Asia and India and our relations with Southeast Asia and India have also been increasing. If the Taiwanese operations are willing to go to Southeast Asia and India for operation I think it will also be in line with our new south bound policy. If you look at the International supply chain, many of Taiwan's ICT investment in China, they go to China because of their mother companies wanting to have that operation in China. Therefore, when those mother companies want to move out somewhere and they want to set up their supply chain in a different place for example, in the United States or in India SouthEast Asia or Taiwan, I think Taiwan investors will migrate out together with their mother countries. I think our investors in China will need to adapt to that situation. In the long run, if the supply chain is more direct in between Taiwan the United States rather than going through China, I think it works in the benefit of Taiwan and the United States.

Reporter: If in my report, later on, I write that Taiwan is a renegade province, you will be angry at me. If I write it's a classy independent or de facto independent island, China will be angry at me. What should I do?

Minister: The CNN also came to Taiwan and asked me this question before they did the interview, "What is the things you don't want me to say when I report about your story?" I say, "I don't want to be called the province of China. I don't want to be called as the renegade province of China." Please don't call us that.

Reporter: Be called the Republic of China.

Minister: Republic of China or call us Taiwan or Taiwan is de facto independent. Not under Chinese jurisdiction.

Reporter: The President has embraced the notion of wishing to see her country become independent much more forcefully than her predecessor. This in ways seems to clash with you saying that Taiwan wants to maintain the status quo because apparently your president does not. She wants to see a change.

Minister: Let me clarify, the president's policy is to maintain status quo. She stated very clearly.  I think that the policy has been to maintain the status quo ever since the first day she was on the job as the president. It was the Chinese who continue to say that she wants to pursue independence.

Reporter: The Japanese Prime Minister Abe has been to China and has said he will have better relations, cooperation, trade, whatever.

Minister: That's right.

Reporter: Japan is very important for Taiwan. Does this so-called new cooperation between Japan and China also affect Taiwan?

Minister: So far, we don't see the warming relations between Tokyo and Beijing have any real effect on Taiwan. What we feel is that the other government is still very friendly to Taiwan and we don't have any doubt on that.

If you look at the special bond in between the Taiwanese people and the Japanese people, you don't find it anywhere else. You don't find it in between the United States and Canada, certainly not between the United States and Mexico or any other countries in Europe.

The bond in between the Taiwanese people and the Japanese people are very strong. Whenever these natural disasters taking place in Taiwan, the Japanese is always very fast, almost always the number one country that reaching out to Taiwan. Whenever there's a natural disaster in Japan, Taiwan is also always the first to reach out to Japan. In the Fukushima incident, tsunami and the nuclear disaster, the Taiwanese offer to help exceeds the culmination of the world all together, and the Japanese people treasure that kind of special friendship.

That kind of mutual feeling is very strong, and that forms a very good basis for the two countries to continue to develop their good relations with each other, and especially after Prime Minister Abe took office a few years ago. The relations continue to move ahead with talk about cooperation in the new south bound countries. We talk about how the young people can work with each other, how students can exchange with each other, we talk about the cultural exchange programs, things like that. As far as I can see, as long as Prime Minister Abe is in office, the friendly relations between Taiwan and Japan will continue.

Reporter: It strikes me, you are talking really warm about Japan. This is more than just political connection, this is cultural, this is feeling a bond.

Minister: Yes, exactly.

Reporter: Is it stronger than the bond with United States?

Minister: It's different, we like the United States as well, and our relationship with United States is also very strong as well. It's just different, it's very different. It's more people to people connections, and between Taiwan and United States, it's also a security bond which is not there in any other relationship.

Reporter: I think the United States also politically for a long time have been supporting Taiwan.

Minister: Yes.

Reporter: I think fundamentally they're guarding it.

Minister: That is highly appreciated. The United States even though not recognizing Taiwan, but try to support Taiwan in virtually every regard. Try to change time and culturally. We also seen a large number of students to the United States for higher education-- [crosstalk]

Reporter: You have the highest large population of students studying.

Minister: In the United States. I was one of the products of the United States, I was an Ohio State graduate. Other than that, United States is also the most vocal supporter for Taiwanese international Participation. The United States is leading other many countries in supporting Taiwan. The United States it's also providing Taiwan with arms for Taiwan to be able to protect itself. The United States also enacted the Taiwan Relations act to highlight the special relationship between Taiwan and the United States in absence of the official relations.

Reporter: In the in the last 10 or 20 years the number of international allies, diplomatic allies of Taiwan has been shrinking. Now there are 16 plus in Vatican, which is an observer of the United Nations. Is there a policy in Taiwan to win back the loyalty of some of these country who left the relationship with Taiwan or there is an effort to win some new allies in other countries of the world?

Minister: We do not exclude the possibility, but we don't want to compete with China by offering large amount of assistance, because it makes no sense. We would accept those countries that recognize Taiwan because Taiwan can help or because Taiwan can contribute.

(This is a slightly edited and shortened transcript of the interview.)
WESTPORT  The Board of Education has convened a Community Advisory Committee to advise on where Coleytown Middle School students should attend school next year.

The purpose of the committee is to advise and recommend to the Board of Education what the community believes about where the kids should go to school next year, Board of Education Chairman Mark Mathias said.

The 15-member advisory committee is comprised of representatives nominated by various stakeholder groups, such as teachers, Parent Teacher Association leaders, and school administrators, who are all impacted by the current closure of Coleytown Middle School due to mold issues. A 16th member representing the architectural, engineering or building professional community is expected to be added to the committee, Mathias said.

Saugatuck Elementary School math specialist Jeanne Bowles is serving as committee chair. The group is working in haste to recommend a solution for where to house Coleytown students next year, before school administrators need to submit a budget for the upcoming year at the start of January.

So far, the committee has eliminated several of the nine proposals for where to place Coleytowns students next year, including a scenario in which all Westport students in grades six to eight would attend Bedford Middle School, but in two shifts  one that would go from 7 a.m. to noon, and the other that would run from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Of the five plans still under consideration is a proposal to have one of Westports elementary schools house Coleytown middle schoolers. Students from the affected elementary school would then be relocated to one of the four other elementary schools.

The CAC will provide a recommendation on Nov. 29 to the board, which will likely vote on a solution on Dec. 10, Mathias said. Following the decision, the CAC will address whether Coleytown Middle School should be remediated, and complete a larger analysis of how many buildings are necessary to educate the towns public school students.

svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1
WESTPORT  A judge ordered two chefs fired from Matsu Sushi for refusing to complete a 36-hour shift be reinstated immediately, but the restaurants owners have yet to renew the workers employment.

Were letting the community know this is happening and urging them to boycott and support the workers, Sarah Ahn, an organizer with the Flushing Workers Center, said while protesting with the fired workers  Liguo Ding and Jianming Jiang  outside Matsu around noon on Monday.

National Labor Relations Board Judge Kenneth W. Chu wrote in his Oct. 26 decision that said Matsus owners  Ziqiao Cao and Kim Ming Cheng  discriminatorily fired Ding and Jiang. Chu ordered the owners to immediately reinstate Ding and Jiang to their previous or equivalent positions and also provide the fired workers with backpay and other expenses related to their loss of employment.

As of the day of the protest, nearly a month after the decision, Ding and Jiang had not been reinstated and Matsus owners could not be reached for comment.

They think they can continue to pay attorneys fees instead of fixing the conditions and following the law, Ahn said.

Ding and Jiang, both residents of Flushing, Queens, N.Y., contacted the Workers Center last December after Matsus owners allegedly fired Ding and Jiang for refusing to work a 36-hour shift in order to finish a large lunch order from Bridgewater Associates.

Bridgewater, a Westport-based investment management firm, periodically put in larger lunch orders to Mastu. This prompted the restaurants owners to force Matsu employees to work from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. the following night, Ding and Jiang said.

In testimony before the National Labor Relations Board in July, Matsus owners said Ding and Jiang were not forced to work continuously for 36 hours. Rather, on the morning of large orders, they were permitted to sleep on the restaurants second floor at the end of the shift at 10 p.m. before resuming work from 1 to 6 a.m., with another break before the start of the 11 a.m. shift, according to the owners.

Ding and Jiang, who both worked at Matsu for over a decade before their termination, said the 36-hour shifts harmed their health. Last December, they told the restaurants manager they would work normal hours, but not the additional 1 to 6 a.m. shift in the event of a large order, testimony revealed.

A week later, Matsus manager asked Ding and Jiang to work the 36-hour shift for the next days large order, and when they refused, she allegedly called to tell them not to return to work. After repeated calls in following days from Ding and Jiang, she did not give them an answer as to when they could return to work, according to the testimony.

Customers trickling out of Matsu during the protest, however, seemed unmoved by Ding and Jiangs unlawful firing in the eyes of the National Labor Relations Board.

One unidentified woman said she was aware of the controversy but said, I dont want to get involved. Its our favorite restaurant and when my kids get home from college. They want to come here.

Another man leaving the restaurant with a friend turned to the protestors and said, Just dont do anything to harm our favorite lunch spot.

Both Ding and Jiang said they would like to return to work at Matsu.

We have been serving the community for a long time and know a lot of customers. I miss the Westport customer, Jiang said.

svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan
WESTPORT  A Florida woman was arrested for allegedly harassing a Westport woman with repeated phone calls and letters, police said.

In August 2017, the victim reported ongoing harassment by a friend of her husband that consisted of calls to the victims home phone, cellphone and place of employment, in addition to calls to the victims husbands business phone, located inside their home, police said.

The victim also received several letters, some mailed and others left in her mailbox, police said, noting the harassment continued into the spring of 2018.

Investigators identified the suspect as Port St. Lucie resident Marylou Paulter, 61, who was warned by police to have no further contact with the victim. On Oct. 2, however, the victim allegedly received four calls from Paulter, including two calls to the victims place of employment.

A warrant was submitted for Paulters arrest and on Nov. 14, she turned herself in at police headquarters. She was charged with second-degree harassment and released after posting $10,000 bond. Paulter is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Norwalk on Nov. 21.

svaughan@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2638; @SophieCVaughan1
The record-breaking sales achieved in the Quebec housing market in 2017 is set to be surpassed by this years strong activity.

The Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards says that there will be more than 86,000 transactions through the provinces Centris system, smashing the previous years high.

Trois-Rivieres will be the exception to the gains posted by all CMAs across the province.

"With a 5% increase in sales, Quebec is performing well in the residential real estate market compared to other provinces," explained Paul Cardinal, QFREB market analysis manager. "Western Canada is experiencing a significant decline in activity, particularly in British Columbia, with a 23% drop to date in 2018. Ontario sales are down too, with an 18% decrease. As for property prices, Quebec is turning in the best performance with a 5% increase, all categories combined."

QFREB says its a seller's market in the Montreal and Gatineau CMAs, while buyers have more bargaining power in the Quebec City, Sherbrooke, and Saguenay CMAs. Trois-Rivieres is still the most affordable area for the purchase of a property and its market is in balance.

Montreal heat continues

Leading the provinces home sales, Montreals record sales in 2018 is coupled with homes selling faster and prices rising. Plexes are showing the best price growth but condos are the hottest category.

"Abundant condominium construction in recent years has not lowered prices as some observers feared," said Mr. Cardinal. "Demand has held strong in the resale market, as reflected by the 15% increase in sales in this segment to date in 2018."

There is also strong growth in the suburbs, with year-to-date sales particularly strong in the South Shore (up 12% year-over-year) and the Laval region (7%).

Looking ahead to 2019

Next year is set to benefit from the strong labour market and consumer confidence.

Despite further increases in mortgage rates, QFREB forecasts a 1% rise in transactions in 2019 to 87,650. Its also predicting a 3% gain in the median price of a single-family home to $257,000.

Greater Montreal will lead the provinces housing market in 2019 with the Montreal CMA forecast to post 47,600 transactions, a new high.

Prices for the CMA are also expected to outperform the rest of the province with a 4% gain for the single-family median to $332,000; and a 3% increase for condos to a median $263,000.
Description It's Only a Game From the cover Jim Eyre was born in 1925, so was just old enough to volunteer for service in the Second World War. A Lancashire lad, he had already experienced a series of escapades by the time he joined the Royal Navy and headed for Malta and the Med  which proved to be the ideal environment for more adventures. Those war years and his subsequent career as a freelance painter and decorator  to say nothing of his caving exploits and involvement in the heart of the Cave Rescue Organisation  established a pattern for Jim's life. A renowned author and cartoonist with a style all his own, Jim has written his life story  warts and embarrassments and all. He is one of those rare men who not only has accomplished much, but has the talent to tell the tales to others in a rich, humorous style. Here you will find the serious atmosphere of life on a minesweeper as well as the wild approach to shore leave of a naval rating, as seen through Jim's eyes. After the war, with Jim drawn to explore the world's caves, the balance of humour continues with his near escapes from the depths, told with relish, and the serious side of rescue and death underground. Join Jim in It's Only a Game; it might be, but not one you will put down in a hurry  and even then your sides will be aching from laughing.



For a PREVIEW (opens new window) For the companion title: The Game Goes On To purchase both books with a considerable saving: The Jim Eyre Set While stocks last, receive a free caving-related, laminated bookmark with your book order. VAT is not charged on UK publications. Orders to the EU are posted without tax paid: you are responsible for VAT and any other charges on delivery

Product Details Reference IOAG Data sheet Binding: Softback Size: 17cm x 24.5cm New or used: Book: new Pages: 256 Illustrations: 85 b&w cartoons and photographs Publication date: 2004 ISBN: 978-0-9526701-6-2 Other: Jim's story continues in The Game Goes On Author: Jim Eyre

It's Only a Game Dedication and acknowledgements

Foreword



1 Its Only a Game

2 The Royal Navy

3 HMS Kimberley

4 HMS Cadmus

5 Into Italy

6 In Limbo

7 Post War: A Brave New World

8 The Discovery of Lancaster Hole

9 A New Hudson and New Caves

10 Bang and Bedsteads

11 Jumpina Gulf

12 Holes that Bite

13 Cave Rescues and Crazy Customers

14 Digs and Disasters

15 Travel Broadens the Mind

16 Variety is the Spice of Life

17 Yugoslavia



By the same author

References and further reading

Publishers notes

Index

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Please see our FAQs relating to deliveries, and the Delivery page linked from the bottom of each page, before placing your order if time is an important element for your order. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ALL DESCENT SUBSCRIBERS OUTSIDE THE UK We regret that due to the volatility of Royal Mail postage charges, we have been forced to remove the option for two-year subscriptions. We have also been forced to remove the option for economy mail to the EU, given indications that Royal Mail intends to remove this service. All international mail is now being despatched in paper wrapping using Royal Mail customs and address labels mandated by them. We also regret this means we can no longer indicate the last issue of your subscription on the mailing sheet or supply a reminder to renew with the final edition. Please track your own subscription ending or check with us at any time. Subscriptions begun since September 2021 have a comment added in your account (under the tab for the order) which records the final issue to be supplied. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EU CUSTOMERS On 1 July 2021 the EU removed all exemptions for tax and customs duty on low value items posted from the UK to the EU, meaning that although VAT is 0% on books and magazines in the UK, it is charged within the EU and the VAT (potentially plus a handling fee) now apply to all orders to the EU. Ideally, the VAT should be paid at the point of posting, but doing so requires registration with an agent to handle the payments, and this is incredibly expensive and not financially viable. To be clear, all small publishers in the UK are in the same position and we are unable to post any items to the EU with VAT or other duties paid. Ordering any item from Wild Places, including a Descent subscription, requires that you accept responsibility of paying the VAT and any other local charges on delivery. To be clear: Wild Places will NOT cover any charges levied by your country; it is your responsibility to accept these when placing an order. We apologise for the situation, but it is outside our control. We will maintain a link from the left-hand column on the home page with the latest updates. If you are an existing subscriber to Descent and have not replied yet to our enquiries concerning your deliveries, please make contact. NOTE: Subscribers in Norway or Switzerland (which are outside the EU) should place your order on the Subscription International page or contact us first.

Military history content For those seeking information on the military history content of It's Only a Game, roughly a quarter of the book concerns Jim's experiences in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Initially trained on the HMS Drake, then joined the destroyer the HMS Kimberley at Malta and attained QR3 Gunnery rating before being transferred as a QR2 to HMS Cadmus, a minesweeper. Jim tells the story of the war from the side of a serving seaman, being active through the Mediterranean and around the coast of Italy, even to the extent of being in prison on VE day before travelling through North Africa prior to his demob. Lest anyone believe that Jim's storytelling about his military career, life as a painter and decorator, or his longlasting links with caving and cave rescue, might not interest them, this is akin to saying that James Herriot's books would only appeal to a vet. Jim's books will appeal to all ...
Thank you for reading!

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She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire are not[Read More]
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Lillie Freeman, 93, of Fairview, Texas, went to be with the Lord on Friday, Nov. 19, 2021. Lillie was born...

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A call for granting the right to vote in Manitoba school board elections to 16 year olds and permanent residents is growing louder.

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (1098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A call for granting the right to vote in Manitoba school board elections to 16 year olds and permanent residents is growing louder.

The Winnipeg School Division, which voted unanimously Monday on a motion titled the "newcomer and students' right to vote," is gathering allies in its bid to get the province to change the Municipal Councils and School Boards Elections Act.

"We're sending a formal letter to the minister of education to request a meeting to sit down and ask him," said WSD trustee Mark Wasyliw, who tabled the motion at the board's inaugural Nov. 5 meeting.

There is a strong human rights argument for changing the rules so permanent residents who aren't Canadian citizens and those who are 16 and older can vote in school board elections, Wasyliw said Wednesday.

Permanent residents who pay taxes should have a say in their area schools, and so should high-school students, he said, adding allowing high-school students to vote could get them in the life-long habit of participating in democracy.

There is growing support for the motion in Brandon at the school board level, and lobbying efforts are under way to get the backing of the Manitoba School Boards Association, said Wasyliw.

He said the proposal has allies on Winnipeg city council, pointing to support from Couns. Sherri Rollins and Cindy Gilroy.

Mayor Brian Bowman may also get on board.

"I think it's worth exploring... We're trying to build a city that's recognized as an international human rights leader," said the mayor of a city where nearly half the residents are first- or second-generation immigrants, according to a University of Winnipeg Institute for Urban Studies report.

Provincial Municipal Relations Minister Jeff Wharton would be the point man for any changes to the Municipal Councils and School Boards Elections Act. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press files) Jeff Wharton Minister of Municipal Relations talks to reporters after Premier Brian Pallister and Jim Carr, Federal Minister of Natural Resources Canada, announced a $540 million infrastructure project for flood management of the Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin outlet channels at an event at Parc Gros Arbre, off Allard Road close to St. Laurent, Manitoba, Monday morning. 180618 - Monday, June 18, 2018.

"I can appreciate the public policy arguments on both sides," said Bowman. "Permanent residents who've lived here many years, pay municipal taxes and care deeply about about our city" but aren't allowed to vote because they're not Canadian citizens.

"One of the counter arguments, I suspect, is that one of the benefits of citizenship is you get to vote in elections," he said. "We do want to build a city that's more inclusive and empowers its citizens."

Bowman is also open to the idea of 16 year olds being able to vote at the municipal level.

"If you don't vote in the first election in which you're eligible, you're less likely to vote in subsequent elections," the mayor said, recalling a political science class from his university days.

"We need our citizens as engaged as possible."

The province currently isn't considering a change in legislation, a spokeswoman for Municipal Relations Minister Jeff Wharton said Wednesday.

Wharton's department would be responsible for any changes to the Municipal Councils and School Boards Elections Act, she said.

Other cities, including Toronto and Vancouver, have called on their respective provincial governments to change legislation to allow permanent residents to vote, however neither province has acted.

"There's a lack of political will," said Wasyliw.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont is calling for an overhaul of the Police Services Act to sharpen the Independent Investigation Unit's teeth, granting it the power to compel whatever evidence and testimony it needs to fulfil its mandate to hold provincial law enforcement to account.

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This article was published 20/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont is calling for an overhaul of the Police Services Act to sharpen the Independent Investigation Unit's teeth, granting it the power to compel whatever evidence and testimony it needs to fulfil its mandate to hold provincial law enforcement to account.

"Its actually surprising that they dont have that power already," Lamont said Tuesday. "The provincial ombudsman, the childrens advocate and the auditor general all have that power."

Those comments came Tuesday in response to a four-part Free Press series on the effectiveness of the provinces civilian-led police watchdog and its relationship with the Winnipeg Police Service.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Liberal leader Dougald Lamont

The Free Press launched its investigation to find out why only a handful of cases in the IIUs 3 1/2-year history have led to criminal charges.

A series of freedom of information requests produced hundreds of pages of IIU documents and correspondence that served as the backbone for the project. The documents revealed numerous roadblocks thrown up by police, both individually and institutionally, that have undermined the agencys effectiveness.

This is the final instalment in the series.

Lamont, who serves as the MLA for St. Boniface, is also calling for the implementation of sanctions and penalties for refusing to co-operate with IIU investigators. Under the current legislation, police officers identified as subjects of IIU probes dont have to meet with, or even respond to, investigators.

Last weekend, the Free Press revealed that 74 per cent of police officers identified in IIU probes refuse to fully co-operate with investigators.

While Lamont believes officers should have the right against self-incrimination, he doesnt believe they should be able to disregard IIU investigators entirely as they are currently allowed to do.

The Liberal leader also wrote a letter to the Office of the Ombudsman calling for an investigation into the current governments handling of IIU annual reports. During the reporting for this series, the Free Press discovered Manitoba Justice  for unknown reasons  has sat on the agency's last two annual reports.

"Thats not acceptable. Im not sure what the problem has been, but it looks like theyve been asleep at the wheel on this," he said.

A review of the Police Services Act  the legislation governing Manitoba law enforcement and the IIU  is coming but what changes, if any, will be made to give the agency more power remains unclear. During Tuesdays speech from the throne, the provincial government announced its intention to review the legislation.

However, Premier Brian Pallister declined comment when asked about the revelations in the Free Press series and whether the upcoming review would look into the IIU specifically. Justice Minister Cliff Cullen was also mum about whether the review will include the agency, saying only that its scope would be decided based on upcoming public consultations.

NDP Justice Critic Nahanni Fontaine, who was an early proponent of a civilian-led police oversight agency in Manitoba, said she feels strongly now is a time for, "at the very minimum," a review of the legislation.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine

She became active and vocal on the issue prior to her time in provincial politics while working for the Southern Chiefs Organization following the the 2005 shooting death of 18-year-old Matthew Dumas by members of the WPS.

She said if changes need to be made they should be made soon, so a decade from now Manitobans dont have the same questions and concerns about the state of police accountability.

"The bottom line is, right now we have an opportunity here to do a review. If we need to strengthen the legislation then lets strengthen it. If we need to look at the structure of the IIU then lets look at it," Fontaine said.

Robert Taman, who was an original member of the Manitoba Police Commission, which helped guide the creation of the IIU, said he has no doubt the police watchdog needs to be given more power. He just hopes theres the political willpower to make sure that happens.

His wife, Crystal Taman, was killed by an off-duty WPS officer driving drunk in 2005, the event that sparked the creation of the IIU. The subsequent investigation into her death was botched by the now-disbanded East St. Paul Police Department. The officer responsible, Derek Harvey-Zenk, was given a sentence of two years house arrest, which many critics said was a slap on the wrist.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Robert Taman

Early on in the process of forging the IIU, Taman said it became clear the WPS wasnt happy with the new agency and would do what it could limit the its oversight.

"(The WPS) was very vocal. They didnt want this at all," he said. "They liked everything status quo. They werent happy with the changes.

"I think I had a different agenda. Everybody had their own agenda. I had high hopes from the beginning, but as it played out, as it evolved, I kind of understood the direction they were going to go with it."

Eventually, Taman became convinced the IIU was little more than "an extra police force," so he resigned his seat from the police commission.

"The end result, after all was said and done, I didnt feel like I could be proud of that," he said.

A number of other provincial and municipal politicians expressed support Tuesday for a review of the legislation.

Mayor Brian Bowman, alongside new Winnipeg Police Board chairman Kevin Klein, said effective police oversight is of paramount importance.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman

"If there are any provincial legislative changes that could be forthcoming that could improve clarity regarding the authority and powers of the IIU, I think that should be welcomed," Bowman said.

Klein added that despite the revelations laid out in the recent Free Press series, the Winnipeg Police Board  the civilian body that directs the WPS  has "full confidence" in Chief Danny Smyth and the members of the force.

In addition to a legislative review, Taman said there needs to be an independent audit of the IIU so any issues with the agency can be identified and addressed. He also called for a return to the recommendations of the provincially struck Taman Inquiry, which he feels have been increasingly disregarded by those with control over the shape and operations of the agency.

"Im not saying I resigned (from the police commission) because I didnt get my way. I resigned because of the blatant disregard for the reason that the commission and the IIU were created," he said, adding he believes there should be more civilians involved in investigations of police conduct.

"It went against everything they recommended. It went against what I believe. Theres a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot invested here that somebody should revisit.

"Lets look at this from an independent source and say, Is this working?"



ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe
A ruling by a judge who acknowledged mitigating a sentence so a convicted refugee wouldnt be subject to deportation has been overturned.

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A ruling by a judge who acknowledged mitigating a sentence so a convicted refugee wouldnt be subject to deportation has been overturned.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal rejected the Oct. 31 sentencing of Mustaf Ahmed Yare, 23, who pleaded guilty to charges of ramming a police cruiser, fleeing from officers and crashing into a signpost in 2017.

Yare was at the wheel of a vehicle that rammed a cruiser when police tried to pull his vehicle over to conduct a traffic stop. He then drove off at high speed.

Yare also threatened to kill police while he was being taken into custody. "Im going to get my gang and Im going to find you and kill you," he told officers.

After a few nights in custody, he was released on bail, with conditions including a curfew he breached two weeks later.

On the date of sentencing, Yare had spent 179 days in custody.

Yare, 23, was born in Ethiopia and raised in a refugee camp in Somalia. He came to Canada in 2009 with his family. He has a Grade 11 education, and lives with his parents.

The Crown appealed the extent to which a judge can craft a sentence in order to avoid collateral immigration consequences. The sentencing judge said the accused "ought to be jailed for about a year for these charges."

However, the judge took into consideration that Yare is subject to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and could face deportation if sentenced at least six months in connection with a crime. The judge imposed a sentence of five months, 25 days remaining to be served.

However, the Appeal Court said a sentence must be proportionate "to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender."

"In our view, the sentencing judge imposed an artificial sentence in order to circumvent Parliaments will and, in doing so, he erred in principle by overemphasizing the collateral consequences."

The Appeal Court also listed "aggravating factors" such as the accuseds lengthy and related criminal record, and the fact he was on probation at the time of the offences.

The Appeal Court imposed a sentence of incarceration totalling 13 months plus 10 days, including 10 months for fleeing police by motor vehicle.
At this point in the evolution of the Progressive Conservative government of Manitoba, the master strategy should be coming into focus.

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This article was published 20/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At this point in the evolution of the Progressive Conservative government of Manitoba, the master strategy should be coming into focus.

On Tuesday, Premier Brian Pallister's government delivered its fourth speech from the throne. With that many outlines of the legislative and fiscal priorities, and about 20 months of governing under the Tories' collective belts, we should more or less know what this government is all about.

THE CANADIAN PRESS Manitoba premier Brian Pallister waits in a hallway before speaking to media after the reading of the throne speech at the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg, Tuesday, November 20, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

Instead, it remains enigmatic, raising more questions than answers.

Tuesday's speech put a strong emphasis on themes that have dominated previous efforts: improved health care, and measures to ease the gridlock in family court from divorce and custody proceedings. There were also new pledges to stop future expansion of gambling activities, lower wait times for some elective surgical procedures, and increased support for the victims of domestic violence and families in crisis.

However, tucked in among the more mundane pledges, lurked a couple of intriguing issues.

According to the speech, Pallister will introduce legislation in this session to force the provincial government -- and any future governments -- to hold a referendum on any "major" tax increase, a promise first made in the 2016 election.

For the record, there is little chance this premier will hike a major tax while in power -- Pallister would rather die a horrible and painful death. However, by trotting out this pledge, the premier confirmed he has no intentions of reviving his carbon tax plan.

Pallister stunned onlookers earlier this year, when he announced he was abandoning a made-in-Manitoba carbon-reduction plan, which would have capped taxes at half of what the federal government is seeking. It was designed specifically to give the province a legal basis on which to fight Ottawa on any future increases to the carbon levy.

The second revelation -- if you can call it that after 20 months of austerity -- is the Tories will continue their ambitious course to shrink the footprint of government, both to balance the budget and to create the fiscal resources to cut the provincial sales tax.

Balanced-budget laws, and those that tie future tax hikes to referenda, are catnip for hardcore fiscal conservatives.

However, even fiscally conservative governments give themselves wiggle room so they can, in times of crisis, use tax increases to protect the treasury and services -- or as part of a plan to cut carbon emissions and improve a province's energy efficiency.

Will Pallister include such wiggle room in his new law? It will be interesting to see how strict a premier with an aversion to tax hikes can be.

Notwithstanding the premier's resolve, introducing such a law at this stage in the gestation of the Tory government raises some interesting questions.

It's consistent with a past election promise, but premiers who are past the midway point in their terms try to, above all else, avoid painting themselves into any sort of corner.

Don't look now, but an increasingly tight corner is exactly where Pallister finds himself with his decision to abandon the Manitoba carbon tax and then introduce a law that would make it nearly impossible to revive.

The revenue from the $25-per-tonne levy was supposed to fund income tax cuts and the reduction in the PST, among other things. Now, Pallister must find hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to cut those taxes from somewhere else -- that somewhere else has to be expenditures on government services.

When he pulled his own plan off the table, Pallister may have been wagering Ottawa would collect the federal tax and remit it to the provincial treasury, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had previously hinted.

If that's the case, then it was a bad bet. Trudeau decided instead to remit all revenue from a federal carbon tax directly to Manitobans. No windfall for the provincial treasury, and no resources to help Pallister meet his tax pledges.

Related Items Click to Expand Articles Nov 22, 2018: Throne speech offers glimpse of PCs' priorities Shannon Sampert

This is where other parts of the throne speech start to come into focus.

Pallister renewed another 2016 election pledge to build 1,200 new personal care home beds. This time, however, the deadline for opening the new beds has been pushed back a year, to 2025, and communities are being asked to cover much more of the total cost than before.

Delaying such construction is the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish. A lack of personal care home options for the elderly and infirm has led to overcrowding at hospitals, which in turn has increased wait times for emergency medicine and surgical procedures. Moving elderly patients out of hospitals and into such centres is not only more humane, it boosts the cost efficiency of the entire health-care system.

The failure to live up to that promise is but one example of the enigma that is the Pallister fiscal strategy.

As the premier scrambles to find the more than $300 million needed to cut the PST, don't be surprised if there isn't a single new personal care home bed online by the time Manitobans go to the polls in 2020.

For voters keeping score at home, the choice being offered by the current government is interesting.

On the one hand, we have a government that has made cutting the PST and reducing the deficit its prime directive. Both are worthy goals, but the consequence of prioritizing those accomplishments above all else is slower, or lower, spending in government services.

It's impossible to assess the electoral impact of such an awkward fiscal policy. But it will be interesting to see if Manitobans find a one-point cut to the PST is a fair trade for a lack of personal care home beds.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Manitoba's highest court has rejected an appeal from the man convicted of first-degree murder in a 2012 Winnipeg diner shooting.

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Manitoba's highest court has rejected an appeal from the man convicted of first-degree murder in a 2012 Winnipeg diner shooting.

In its decision this week, the Court of Appeal ruled against Devin Kingsley Hall, who had challenged the guilty verdict.

He had argued there were problems with the judge's instructions to the jury about DNA evidence against him, and a police statement from a now-dead eyewitness to the Salisbury House shooting was unreliable and shouldn't have been accepted during his June 2016 trial.

Hall's lawyer, Martin Glazer, raised those concerns as part of a 12-ground appeal, but Court of Appeal Justice Christopher Mainella decided many of the appeal grounds were "repetitive or of no merit."

Mainella, along with Justices Diana Cameron and Barbara Hamilton, ultimately decided the trial judge acted properly in instructing the jury and allowing as evidence a witness statement from a man who was later killed a year after the shooting at Salisbury House on Pembina Highway and Stafford Street. That homicide remains unsolved.

They also decided the jury's verdict was reasonable.

"Taking into account the factual matrix of the case viewed through the lens of judicial experience, the jury was entitled to conclude that the only reasonable conclusion was that the accused was the shooter," Mainella wrote in the 66-page decision, released Nov. 19.

Investigators found a white shirt and gloves near the Winnipeg restaurant where 23-year-old Jeffrey Lau was fatally shot in September 2012.

DNA from several people was found on the items, and a DNA expert testified it was "likely" Hall's DNA was among them. The appeal court's decision emphasized the DNA was only one piece of an entirely circumstantial case that had to be considered as a whole.

"The accused went so far as to argue that it is impossible for a properly instructed jury to ever convict when there is a mixed DNA profile because one cannot tell which of the contributors may have perpetrated the crime. This logic is faulty," Mainella wrote.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Winnipeg writer and philanthropist Anne Mahon has been named the University of Manitoba's 14th chancellor.

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Winnipeg writer and philanthropist Anne Mahon has been named the University of Manitoba's 14th chancellor.

Mahon's election was announced Tuesday by Jeff Lieberman, chairman of the board of governors, and takes effect June 1.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The University of Manitoba's newest chancellor is Winnipeg writer and philanthropist Anne Mahon.

Mahon succeeds the current chancellor, Harvey Secter, who has served in the position since 2010.

In her volunteer work, Mahon has lent considerable time and effort to international development through Humankind International, and to supporting immigrants and refugees through the Immigrant Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba.

She has also been involved in numerous philanthropic causes, including UNICEF Canada and United Way Winnipeg. She is the founder and co-facilitator of the Book Mates book club at the Womens Correction Centre.

Her most recent book is Redemption: Stories of Hope, Resilience and Life After Gangs (Great Plains Publications 2017). It's a collection of nine personal life stories from ex-gang members.

She is also the author of The Lucky Ones: African Refugees' Stories of Extraordinary Courage, winner of the Winnipeg Public Library's On The Same Page Book Award. It's a collection of personal accounts of loss and the resilience needed to begin in a new country.

The chancellor is the ceremonial head of the university, and responsible for conferring all degrees and diplomas.

Key criteria for the chancellor search committee was someone to serve as an ambassador for the Winnipeg-based school and to contribute to university governance, the U of M said in a news release.

"Anne Mahons work in the community as a bridge-builder of integrity and follow-through embodies this universitys commitment to lead, listen and act in partnership with the populations it serves," said president and vice-chancellor David Barnard. "I am confident she will inspire a bright future that enhances the institutions community relevance and engagement."

Anne Mahon holds a bachelor's degree in human ecology from U of M and has remained connected to the institution and higher education, including as a donor to the University of Winnipeg, the Asper School of Business, St. Pauls College and the U of M's Front and Centre Campaign.

Mahon lives in Winnipeg with her husband, Paul Mahon, a U of M alumnus. They have three children.

"I know the University of Manitoba as a graduate, a parent, a donor, and a Manitoban," Mahon said in the U of M news release.

"This institution offers the power of education and opportunity, while being an indispensable intellectual contributor and employer to our city and province. The universitys diversity and inclusion, its possibilities of hope, and its efforts as a catalyst for broad-minded thinking are of great importance to me."
Two boys allegedly sexually assaulted four years apart by the same suspect were part of mentorship programs in separate organizations.

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This article was published 20/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two boys allegedly sexually assaulted four years apart by the same suspect were part of mentorship programs in separate organizations.

Guillaume Meisterhans, 35, of Winnipeg, was charged Nov. 10 with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference in separate cases involving seven-year-old boys, city police said Tuesday.

FACEBOOK PHOTO Guillaume Meisterhans

The most recent involved five alleged incidents between April 27, 2017, and April 2, 2018. The accused was volunteering with Child and Family Services as a mentor, and took the victim to his home, where "acts deemed to be sexual assault and sexual interference were performed," the Winnipeg Police Service said.

The victim disclosed the incidents in April 2018, police said.

The other case involves three alleged incidents between April and November of 2014, when the suspect was a mentor working for a non-profit organization (which the police did not name). The boy reported the incidents to a caregiver in November 2014, and the organization terminated the accused's employment, but police were not called.

"We don't have any concerns with the way the original incident was dealt with, but as details came forward to our investigators and they looked at it in detail, it was enough that they felt, at this point in time, that charges should be laid, and they did," WPS Const. Rob Carver said at a news conference Tuesday.

"More detailed information was coming out as the victim was spoken to and as parents were able to talk to investigators. A more detailed picture was being presented. What was originally not enough for a police investigation, let alone charges, passed that hurdle and it became enough for both an investigation and that concluded with charges being laid."

Carver said the cases "highlight the kind of vetting that needs to be done" as far as criminal record checks and other background checks are required by organizations which hire people who will have access to children.

"We need to outline that, in fact, that is what's required. That someone's background where they have this kind or responsibility, this kind of access to kids, is always critical that it be looked at with as much detail as possible," Carver said. "I'm not faulting any organizations here. It's just another cautionary example, and it happens regularly, that someone's background can have some elements of it that can raise concern.

"In this case, the individual did commit offences over a fairly lengthy period with separate organizations."

A spokeswoman from Manitoba Families said action has been taken by CFS with regard to volunteerism.

"In light of these serious allegations, Winnipeg CFS put a hold on new volunteer hires in September. The hold will be in place as the agency reviews its volunteer application process, so there isnt a specific timeline," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

"Agencies are required to screen volunteer applicants with a child abuse registry and criminal record check. An agency must be satisfied with the results of those checks before allowing the volunteer to work with a child."

The accused turned himself in on July 21. It was at that time the 2014 case was re-examined, and the youth involved reinterviewed.

Carver said police are declining to name the youth mentoring organization to avoid any misunderstanding.

"Naming the organization leaves them open to allegations that they somehow failed, and we don't think that is what happened," Carver said.

He said investigators are "quite confident" there are no other victims from either of the accused's former positions with the youth mentorship organization nor CFS.

The accused also ran a French-language tutoring business, but police said they are not aware of any other potential victims related to it.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca
For members of French-speaking minority communities across Canada, the picture could not have been more ominous. Standing behind a podium emblazoned with the words For the People, Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli promoted his governments mini-budget that would, among other measures, abolish the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner and cancel the establishment of the Universite de lOntario francais, Ontarios first stand-alone French-language university and a project 40 years in the making, scheduled to open its doors in 2020.

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

For members of French-speaking minority communities across Canada, the picture could not have been more ominous. Standing behind a podium emblazoned with the words "For the People," Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli promoted his governments mini-budget that would, among other measures, abolish the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner and cancel the establishment of the Universite de lOntario francais, Ontarios first stand-alone French-language university and a project 40 years in the making, scheduled to open its doors in 2020.

These decisions sent shock waves through Ontarios 600,000-strong francophone community  the largest outside of Quebec  and francophone communities in other Canadian provinces and territories.

Premier Doug Fords government claimed that the elimination of the commissioners office was a cost-saving measure. When pressed, however, it was unable to quantify these savings, prompting many to charge that its decision was ideologically motivated. The Ford government has argued that the rights of francophones will still be protected; the truth of the matter is that franco-Ontarians have lost the independent officer of Ontarios legislative assembly solely dedicated to proactively advancing and ensuring respect for their legal right to quality French-language government services.

The Ford governments claim that it is treating all Ontarians equally because it has also cancelled expansion projects at English-speaking universities is similarly unconvincing. The elimination of the Universite de lOntario francais will detrimentally affect the francophone communitys ability to withstand the forces of assimilation. The impact of this measure on franco-Ontarians is decidedly unequal.

All of this has occurred on the heels of a divisive election in New Brunswick, Canadas only officially bilingual province, which elected to office three MLAs of the Peoples Alliance Party who campaigned for the elimination of New Brunswicks Office of the Official Language Commissioner and of the provinces French-language health network.

These MLAs could hold the balance of power in a minority government to be headed by Progressive Conservative Blaine Higgs, the first unilingual anglophone premier in New Brunswick in 30 years.

Closer to home, Manitobas francophone community was dismayed by the Pallister governments 2017 decision to reassign and not replace the assistant deputy minister responsible for the Bureau de leducation francaise, charged with representing French-language stakeholders concerns to the government. Anxieties remain over the strength of the provincial governments commitment to ensuring that French-language education in the province continues to grow and thrive.

In Ontario, legal action is already being contemplated to challenge the Ford governments elimination of the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner and the Universite de lOntario francais. Attempts in the 1990s by Mike Harriss Progressive Conservative government to close Ottawas Montfort Hospital, Ontarios only fully francophone teaching hospital, were successfully blocked by the Ontario courts based, in part, on the constitutional principle of the protection of minorities.

The courts also accepted the crucial role of truly francophone institutions in promoting and enhancing the franco-Ontarian identity as a cultural and linguistic minority and protecting that culture from assimilation  a role that could not be fulfilled to the same extent by bilingual institutions.

The defence of the rights of francophone minorities should not be shouldered entirely by these communities. Politicians from all parties at the federal and provincial levels should forcefully express their opposition to the Ford governments measures, as have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his official languages minister, Melanie Joly. A failure to do so could have at least two serious consequences: it may give other populist politicians licence to seek, "for the people," to erode the rights of francophone communities, and it will also feed into the narrative pedalled by sovereigntist hardliners in Quebec that it is impossible for francophone communities to thrive in the rest of Canada and that the future of the French language in North America lies in an independent Quebec.

On Monday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault raised the issue of support for Ontarios francophone community in meetings with Ford. Premier Brian Pallister, Fords neighbour to the west, should do the same. While hes at it, he should reaffirm his governments commitment to supporting and enhancing the francophone community in Manitoba.

Gerald Heckman is an associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Manitoba who teaches constitutional and administrative law as well as language rights.
The Rohingya are around a million Bengali-speaking people who used to live in Rakhine state in Myanmar  until late last year. Then, the Myanmarese army attacked them, claiming they were illegal immigrants. Thousands were killed, tens of thousands were raped, their villages were burned and at least 700,000 of them are now in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh.

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (1099 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

The Rohingya are around a million Bengali-speaking people who used to live in Rakhine state in Myanmar  until late last year. Then, the Myanmarese army attacked them, claiming they were illegal immigrants. Thousands were killed, tens of thousands were raped, their villages were burned and at least 700,000 of them are now in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh.

The United Nations has described these Myanmarese actions as "ethnic cleansing," "crimes against humanity" and "genocide," but the Myanmarese army denies any wrongdoing. So does its civilian political partner, "Special Counsellor" Aung San Suu Kyi. (Remember her? She used to be a secular saint.)

Bangladesh doesnt want all these refugees, most of whom have no ties with the country although they speak Bengali. So, last month, it made a deal with Myanmar to send them back. But Myanmar doesnt really want them back either. If it did, why would it have bothered to drive them out in the first place?

The United Nations has no part in this great "repatriation," nor any of the NGOs, either. It was a private deal between Bangladesh and Myanmar, and the Myanmarese army knew perfectly well that the refugees would be too terrified to go back. Agreeing to take them back just made the generals who planned the atrocity look a little less vile.

The Bangladeshi authorities fell for it, and chose 2,200 Rohingya refugees to go back in the first contingent. The Rohingya werent fooled, and most of them immediately went into hiding, changing camps or fleeing into the woods.

A loudspeaker truck went around the Unchiprang camp near Coxs Bazar last week, imploring the "approved" refugees to come out. "We have six buses here. We have trucks. We have food. We want to offer everything to you." But nobody stepped forward, and the crowd chanted "We wont go."

The Rohingya wont go back because they are quite understandably afraid for their lives. It wasnt just the army but their own non-Muslim neighbours who turned on them and took part in the slaughter. If you are recalling images of the massacres and expulsions of Bosnian Muslims by the Bosnian Serbs in the 1990s, you are absolutely right. Its happening again, and again, nobody is doing anything effective to stop it.

How did it come to this? All the Southeast Asian countries contain minority groups, but Myanmar takes it to extremes. Bamars (ethnic "Myanmarese") account for two-thirds of the population, but there are eight other recognized ethnic groups, most with their own language or languages. And there are the Rohingya, who were stripped of their citizenship by Burmas military dictatorship in 1982.

Why them? They were only two per cent of Myanmars population, they were a minority even in Rakhine state (formerly Arakan) where they almost all lived, and they never did any harm to the majority. They are, however, Muslims, and the Buddhist majority in Myanmar is paranoid about Muslims.

It goes back a long way. Buddhism once dominated Asia from the Indian subcontinent to Indonesia, but it has been in retreat for a long time. First, Hinduism made a comeback in India, and then Arab conquerors brought Islam to northwestern India.

Islamized central Asian conquerors spread Islam as far east as Bengal, and finally, Malay traders carried it throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The only Buddhist-majority countries left in Asia today are Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Its not surprising, therefore, that Myanmarese Buddhists should feel their faith is jeopardized by the presence of even a single million Muslims  especially if rabble-rousing Buddhist monks advance their careers by preaching fear and hatred.

Its also utterly irrational and reprehensible. The Rohingya are just as Myanmarese, in the broader sense, as any of the recognized minorities. The first Bengali-speaking Muslims arrived in Rakhine state in the 15th century as soldiers helping an exiled king regain his throne. The last significant wave of immigration was in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Its now the 21st century, and there is no excuse for what the Myanmarese army has done: to understand all is not to forgive all. Neither is there any excuse for Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi.

Yes, she was trying to preserve a hard-won democratic opening that might close if she openly criticized the army. Moreover, the average Myanmarese heartily approves of what the army has done. (Shades of Serbia again.) But she is condoning and covering up a genocide. Shame on her.

So, will they take her Nobel Prize away? Well, no, because it doesnt matter what she does after she gets it, and she got it in 1991. As Olav Njoelstad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said last year, the prize "is awarded for some prize-worthy effort or achievement of the past." Once you get it, you can commit any crime you want.

Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).
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The following companies are subsidiares of EnerSys: ABSL Power Solutions Inc., ABSL Power Solutions Ltd., Acumuladores Industriales EnerSys SA, Alpha Alternative Energy Inc., Alpha Broadband Services Inc., Alpha Innovations Industria e Comercio de Produtos Eletronicos Ltda., Alpha Innovations Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alpha Mexico Network Power S.A. de C.V., Alpha Tech Energy Solutions India Private Limited, Alpha Technical Services Ltd., Alpha Technologies Ltd., Alpha Technologies Pty. Ltd., Alpha Technologies Services Inc., Alphatec Technologies (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Argus Research Ltd., Batterias Hawker de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Battery Power International Pte Ltd., Coppervale Enterprises Inc., DCPM Engineering Sdn Bhd, EH Batterien AG, EH Europe GmbH, EH Global Holdings GmbH, EH Swiss Holdings GmbH, ENAS Industrial Batteries Morocco Sarl, EnerSys (Chaozhou) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (China) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Chongqing) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Jiangsu) Huada Batteries Company Limited (94.7%) *, EnerSys (Luxembourg) Finance Sarl, EnerSys (Yangzhou) Huada Batteries Co. Ltd., EnerSys A/S, EnerSys AB, EnerSys AD, EnerSys AE, EnerSys AS, EnerSys Advanced Systems Inc., EnerSys Argentina S.A., EnerSys Asia Limited, EnerSys Australia Pty Ltd., EnerSys BV, EnerSys BVBA, EnerSys Battery Private Limited, EnerSys Brasil Ltda., EnerSys Bulgaria EOOD, EnerSys Canada Inc., EnerSys Capital Inc., EnerSys Cayman Euro L.P., EnerSys Cayman Holdings L.P., EnerSys Cayman Inc., EnerSys Delaware Inc., EnerSys Delaware LLC I, EnerSys Delaware LLC II, EnerSys Delaware LLC III, EnerSys Delaware LLC IV, EnerSys Delaware LLC V, EnerSys Energy Products Inc., EnerSys Europe Oy, EnerSys European Holding Co., EnerSys GmbH, EnerSys Holdings (Luxembourg) Sarl, EnerSys Holdings UK Ltd., EnerSys Hungaria Kft., EnerSys India Batteries Private Ltd., EnerSys JSC, EnerSys LLC, EnerSys Ltd., EnerSys Malaysia Sdn Bhd, EnerSys Mexico Holdings LLC, EnerSys Mexico Management LLC, EnerSys Participacoes Ltda., EnerSys Reserve Power Pte. Ltd., EnerSys S.r.l., EnerSys SARL, EnerSys SNC, EnerSys South East Asia Pte. Ltd., EnerSys de Mexico II S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys de Mexico S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys s.r.o., EnerSys sp. z o.o., EnerSystem Chile Ltda., Enersys Aku Sanaya Dis Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Esfinco LLC, Hawker GmbH, Hawker Power Systems Inc., Hawker Powersource Inc., Hawker Systems GmbH & Co. KG., ICS Industries Pty Ltd, ICS Industries Pty Ltd., ICS Sheet Metal Pty Ltd., Industrial Battery Holding Ltda., International Communication Shelters Australasia Pty Ltd., Lancord Pty Ltd., Lenmic Pty Ltd., MIB Energy Sdn Bhd, N Holding AB, National Infrastructure Pty Ltd., National Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd., NaviSemi Energy Pte Ltd., NaviSemi Inc., New Pacifico Realty Inc., NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery DMCC, Outback Power Technologies Inc., Powercom (NSW) Pty Ltd., Powersonic S de R.L. de CV, Purcell Systems, Purcell Systems Inc., Purcell Systems International AB, Quallion LLC, Riverfront Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., Shenzhen Huada Power Supply Mechanical & Electrical Co. Ltd. , SiteTel Shanghai Co Ltd., SiteTel Sweden AB, Telecomponents & Supply (Hong Kong) Ltd., The Enser Corporation, UTS Holdings Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (JB) Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (PG) Sdn Bhd, YCI Inc., and Yecoltd S. de R.L. de CV.
The following companies are subsidiares of General Dynamics: 42SIX LLC, ARMA Global Corporation, Advanced Technical Products, Aeromil (Australia) Pty Ltd, Aeromil Aircraft Engineering Pty Ltd, Aeromil Aviation Services Pty Ltd, Aeromil IT Services Pty Ltd, Aeromil Marine Pty Ltd, Aeromil Pacific Pty Ltd, American Overseas Marine Company LLC, Anteon International Corporation, Applied Physical Sciences, Applied Physical Sciences Corp., Ascend Intelligence, Australian Avionics Pty Ltd, Autonomic Resources LLC, Avion Logistics Limited, Avjet Corporation, AxleTech International, Axsys, BATH IRON WORKS CORPORATION, BP-HP Pte Limited, Bath Iron Works, Bath Iron Works Australia Corporation, Bath Iron Works Canada LLC, Bluefin Robotics Corporation, Blueprint Technologies Inc., Braintree I Maritime Corp., Braintree II Maritime Corp., Braintree III Maritime Corp., Braintree IV Maritime Corp., Braintree V Maritime Corp., Buccaneer Computer Systems & Service Inc., CSC Computer Sciences Venezuela S.A., CSRA, CSRA (Costa Rica) S.A., CSRA (Guyana) Inc., CSRA (Middle East) LLC, CSRA Argentina S.R.L., CSRA BH d.o.o., CSRA Bahamas Limited, CSRA Bahrain S.P.C., CSRA Belgium SPRL, CSRA Bolivia S.R.L., CSRA Brazil Servicos de Tecnologia Ltda., CSRA Canada Inc., CSRA Caribbean Inc., CSRA Chile SpA, CSRA Colombia SAS, CSRA Commerce 2010 LLC, CSRA Consular Services Holding Company LLC, CSRA Consular Services Inc., CSRA France SARL, CSRA Guatemala Solutions Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Honduras Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Inc., CSRA Information Systems LLC, CSRA Information Technology Spain SL, CSRA Ireland Limited, CSRA Italy S.R.L, CSRA Kosovo L.L.C., CSRA LATAM LLC, CSRA LLC, CSRA Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., CSRA Netherlands B.V., CSRA Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CSRA Panama Inc., CSRA Peru S.R.L., CSRA Senegal SARL, CSRA South Africa (Pty) Ltd, CSRA State and Local Solutions LLC, CSRA Systems & Solutions LLC, CSRA Trinidad & Tobago Limited, CSRA Turkey Bilisim Teknolojileri Limited Sirketi, CSRA Uruguay S.R.L, CSRA Visa Services Israel Ltd., CSRAIT - Information Services Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Centauri Solutions LLC, Command System, Computing Devices International, Concord I Maritime Corporation, Concord II Maritime Corporation, Concord III Maritime Corporation, Concord IV Maritime Corporation, Concord V Maritime Corporation, Convair Aircraft Corporation, Convair Corporation, Creative Technology, Customer Services Ecuador CSRA S.A., Devcor, Diamond Fortress Technologies, DynPort Vaccine Company LLC, EB Groton Engineering Inc., EBV Explosives Environmental, ELCS-CZ s.r.o., Eagle Enterprise Inc., Earl Industries - Ship Repair and Coatings Division, Ebv Explosives Environmental Company, Electric Boat - Australia LLC, Electric Boat - UK LLC, Electric Boat Canada LLC, Electric Boat Corporation, Electric Boat France LLC, Electrocom Inc., Engineering Technology, Expro Finance Inc., FBD Fahrzeug und Bremsendienst GmbH, FC Business Systems, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Force Protection, Force Protection Europe Limited, Force Protection Inc., ForeSight Technology Services LLC, Freeman United Coal Mining Company LLC, GD Brazil Holdings LLC, GD European Land Systems - Steyr GmbH, GD European Land Systems Holding GmbH, GDOTS Services Corporation, GM GDLS Defense Group L.L.C., GPS Source Inc., GTE Government Systems, GWA-Datatrac FAST LLC, Galaxy Aerospace Company, Gayston Corporation - Defense Operations, General Dynamics - OTS (Global) Inc., General Dynamics AIS Australia Pty Ltd, General Dynamics Canadian Finance Inc., General Dynamics Canadian Holdings Inc., General Dynamics Commercial Cyber Services LLC, General Dynamics European Finance Limited, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Austria GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Bridge Systems GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Czech s.r.o., General Dynamics European Land Systems - Denmark ApS, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Deutschland GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - FWW GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems - Mowag GmbH, General Dynamics European Land Systems Romania S.R.L., General Dynamics European Land Systems S.L., General Dynamics Global Force LLC, General Dynamics Global Holdings Limited, General Dynamics Global Imaging Technologies Inc., General Dynamics Government Satellite Services LLC, General Dynamics Government Systems Corporation, General Dynamics Government Systems Overseas Corporation, General Dynamics Information Technology Canada Limited, General Dynamics Information Technology Inc., General Dynamics Information Technology Limited, General Dynamics Installation Services LLC, General Dynamics International Corporation, General Dynamics Itronix LLC, General Dynamics Land Systems - Australia Pty. Ltd., General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada Corporation, General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada Services Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems - Canadian Services Limited, General Dynamics Land Systems - Force Protection Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems Customer Service & Support Company, General Dynamics Land Systems Inc., General Dynamics Limited, General Dynamics Marine Systems Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems International Limited, General Dynamics Mission Systems Overseas Company LLC, General Dynamics Motion Control LLC, General Dynamics OTS (Aerospace) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (California) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (DRI) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (Niceville) Inc., General Dynamics OTS (Pennsylvania) Inc., General Dynamics One Source LLC, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada Valleyfield Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Simunition Operations Inc., General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., General Dynamics Overseas Systems and Services Corporation, General Dynamics Properties Inc., General Dynamics Robotic Systems Inc., General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies Inc., General Dynamics Satcom Technologies Asia Private Limited, General Dynamics Satellite Communication Services LLC, General Dynamics Saudi Holdings S.L., General Dynamics Shared Resources LLC, General Dynamics Support Services Company, General Dynamics Swiss Financial Management Limited, General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited, General Dynamics Worldwide Holdings Inc., General Dynamics-OTS Inc., General Motors Defense, Gulfstream 100 Holdings LLC, Gulfstream Aerospace, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (CA), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (DE), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (GA), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (OK), Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation of Texas, Gulfstream Aerospace Hong Kong Limited, Gulfstream Aerospace LLC, Gulfstream Aerospace LP, Gulfstream Aerospace Ltd., Gulfstream Aerospace Services Corporation, Gulfstream Aerospace Sociedad de Responssabilidad Limitada de CapitalVariable (S. de R.L. de C.V.), Gulfstream Do Brasil Servicos De Suporte E Manutencao A Aeronaves Ltda., Gulfstream International Corporation, Gulfstream Leasing LLC, Gulfstream Product Support Corporation, Gulfstream Services Corporation, Gulfstream Tennessee Corporation, Gulfstream-California Inc., Hawker Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Hawker Pacific Aircraft Management Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Airservices Limited, Hawker Pacific Airservices Pvt Ltd, Hawker Pacific Asia Holdings Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Asia Pte Ltd, Hawker Pacific Australia Pty Ltd, Hawker Pacific Aviation Services Pty Ltd, Hawker Pacific NZ Limited, Hawker Pacific Pty Ltd, IPWireless, IPWireless PTE. Limited, Information Services Consulting Limited, Interiores Aereos S.A. de C.V., International Manufacturing Technologies Inc., Itronix, Janteq Australia PTY Limited, Janteq Corp., Jet Aviation, Jet Aviation (Asia Pacific) Pte. Ltd., Jet Aviation (Bermuda) Ltd., Jet Aviation (Hong Kong) Ltd., Jet Aviation (Malaysia) SDN BHD, Jet Aviation 125 Services LLC, Jet Aviation AG, Jet Aviation Brazil Holdings Inc., Jet Aviation Business Jets (Hong Kong) Limited, Jet Aviation Business Jets AG, Jet Aviation Business Jets FZCO, Jet Aviation California LLC, Jet Aviation Dulles LLC, Jet Aviation Flight Services Inc., Jet Aviation France SAS, Jet Aviation Holding GmbH, Jet Aviation Holdings USA Inc., Jet Aviation Houston Inc., Jet Aviation International Inc., Jet Aviation Malaga SA, Jet Aviation Management AG, Jet Aviation Netherlands B.V., Jet Aviation Savannah Holding LLC, Jet Aviation Services GmbH, Jet Aviation St. Louis Inc., Jet Aviation Teterboro LP, Jet Aviation Texas Inc., Jet Aviation of America Inc., Jet Aviation/Palm Beach Inc., Jet Professionals LLC, Kylmar, Longreach Energy LLC, MAYA Viz, Maricom Systems Incorporated, Material Service Resources Company LLC, Matthews Land Company, Mediaware International, Mediaware International Pty Ltd, Metro Machine, Metro Machine co, Midwest Properties Sales LLC, NASSCO, NASSCO Holdings Incorporated, NES Associates LLC, National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, Network Connectivity Solutions Corp., Newberry Holdings LLC, OOO Jet Aviation Vnukovo, Open Kernel Labs, Page Europa Srl, Patriot I Shipping Corp., Patriot II Shipping Corp., Patriot IV Shipping Corp., Plane 79 LLC, Praxis Engineering Technologies LLC, PrimeX Technologies, Prodelin India Private Limited, Proyectos Prohumane Mexico S.A. de C.V., Quincy Maritime Corporation III, Raven Acquisitions LLC, SENTECH INC., SRA International Inc., Saco Defense, Santa Barbara Sistemas S.A., Savannah Air Center LLC, Signal Solutions LLC, Southern Illinois Recovery Inc., Spectrum Astro, St. Marks Powder Inc., Stabilo Pty Ltd, Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG & Co KG, Sydney Jet Charter Pty Ltd, Tadpole Computer, Tecnologias Internacionales de Manufactura S.A. de C.V., Tenacity Solutions Incorporated, The Depth of Ideas for General Trading LLC, TriPoint Global Communications, Vangent, Vangent Servicios de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Veridian, Vertex Antennentechnik GmbH, ViPS, Vulnerability Research Labs LLC, and Weco LLC.
Continental Building Products Inc (NYSE:CBPX) posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November, 12th. The construction company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.01. The construction company earned $127.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $127.16 million. Continental Building Products had a net margin of 12.12% and a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 18.84%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.51 earnings per share.

View Continental Building Products' earnings history.
Andeavor Logistics LP operates as a diversified midstream company in the United States. The company's Terminalling and Transportation segment comprises the Northwest pipeline system, including a regulated common carrier products pipeline running from Salt Lake City, Utah to Spokane, Washington and a jet fuel pipeline to the Salt Lake City International Airport; a regulated common carrier refined products pipeline system connecting its refinery to its terminals in Anchorage, Alaska; tankage and related equipment at the refinery; and crude oil and refined products terminals and storage facilities in the western, and southwest and midwestern U.S. This segment also consists of marine terminals in California and Washington; a rail-car unloading and petroleum coke handling facilities; marine terminals; a manifest rail facility; an asphalt trucking operation; a petroleum coke handling and storage facility; asphalt terminalling and processing services; and other pipelines, which transport products and crude oil from its refineries to nearby facilities in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Its Gathering and Processing segment includes crude oil and natural gas, NGLs, and produced water gathering systems in the Bakken Shale/Williston Basin area of the Bakken Region, the Green River Basin, the Rockies Region, the Permian Basin System, and the Four Corners System, as well as crude trucking operations, and gas processing and fractionation complexes. The company's Wholesale segment consists of bulk petroleum distribution facilities and a fleet of refined product delivery trucks. Tesoro Logistics GP, LLC operates as the general partner of the company. The company was formerly known as Tesoro Logistics LP and changed its name to Andeavor Logistics LP in August 2017. Andeavor Logistics LP was founded in 2010 and is based in Findlay, Ohio.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Archer-Daniels-Midland: ADM (Shanghai) Management Co. LTD, ADM (Thailand) Ltd, ADM Ag Holdings Ltd, ADM Agri-Industries Company, ADM Agriculture Limited, ADM Agro Iberica S. L. U., ADM Agro Indust Latur and Vizag Pvt Ltd, ADM Agro Industries India Private Limited, ADM Agro Industries KOTA and AKOLA Pvt. Ltd., ADM Agro SRL, ADM Agroinvestimentos LTDA, ADM Alliance Nutrition of Puerto Rico LLC, ADM Americas S de RL, ADM Andina Peru SRL, ADM Antwerp NV, ADM Arkady Ireland Limited, ADM Asia-Pacific Trading Pte. Ltd., ADM Australia Holdings I PTY Limited, ADM Bio Science And Technology (Tianjin) Co Ltd, ADM Bioproductos SA DE CV, ADM CZERNIN SA, ADM Caribbean Inc, ADM Chile Comercial LTDA, ADM Clinton Bioprocessing Inc, ADM DO Brasil LTDA, ADM Direct Polska SP. ZO.O, ADM Dominican Holdings Inc., ADM Dominicana SA, ADM Edible Bean Specialties Inc, ADM Europe HoldCo SL, ADM European Holdings LLC, ADM European Management Holding GMBH, ADM Export Co, ADM Food Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ADM France, ADM Germany GmbH, ADM Grain River System Inc., ADM Hamburg Aktiengesesllschaft, ADM Holding (Thailand) LTD, ADM Holdings LLC, ADM Hungary Agro Trading LLC, ADM Industries Centers Ltd, ADM International Holdings Inc, ADM International SARL, ADM Interoceanic LTD, ADM Investments LTD, ADM Investor Services Inc, ADM Investor Services International LTD, ADM Ireland Receivables Company Limited, ADM Israel, ADM Japan Ltd, ADM MALBORK SA, ADM Mainz GMBH, ADM Medsofts Sarl, ADM Mexico Inc, ADM Mexico SA DE CV, ADM Milling Co, ADM Milling LTD, ADM New Zealand Limited, ADM Olomouc S.R.O., ADM Paraguay SRL, ADM Protexin Limited, ADM Pura Limited, ADM Receivables LLC, ADM Rice Inc, ADM Ringaskiddy Unlimited Company, ADM Romania Logistics SRL, ADM Romania Trading SRL, ADM Specialty Ingredients - Europe BV, ADM Spyck GMBH, ADM Szamotuly SP Z O.O, ADM Trading Australia Pty. Ltd., ADM Trading Co, ADM Transportation Company, ADM Trucking Inc, ADM Vietnam CO. LTD, ADM WILD Europe GmbH and Co. KG, ADM WILD Ingredients GmbH, ADM WILD Nauen GmbH, ADM WILD Valencia S.A., ADM Wild Netherlands BV, ADM Worldwide Holdings LP, ADMIS Holding Co Inc., ADMIS Hong Kong LTD, ADMIS Singapore Pte Limited, AOR, AT Holdings II Company, Agri Port Services Investments Ltd., Agri Port Services LLC, Agricolas Madagascar SARLU, Agrinational Insurance Co, Agriserve, Agrograin LTD, Alfrebro LLC, Alfred C Toepfer International Netherlands BV, Alimenta USA, American River Transportation Company LLC, Ameriseed, Amylum Bulgaria EAD, Amylum Nisasta Sanayi Ve Ticarek Anonim Sirketi, Archer Daniels Midland (UK) Limited, Archer Daniels Midland Asia Pacific Ltd., Archer Daniels Midland Erith LTD, Archer Daniels Midland Europe BV, Archer Daniels Midland Europoort BV, Archer Daniels Midland Nederland BV, Archer Daniels Midland Singapore PTE LTD, Arinos Unlimited, Aston Foods & Food Ingredients, Balanceados Nova SA Balnova, Barbados Mills Limited, Bela Vista Bio Etanol Participacoes LTDA, Bern Aqua, BioPolis SL, Biopolis, Campa Sued GmbH & Co KG, Cattleman's Choice Loomix LLC, Chamtor, Ci ADM Colombia Ltda., Controladora ADM Sa De Cv, Crosswind Petfoods Inc., Daavision BV, Eaststarch, Eatem Corporation, Eatem Foods, Elstar Oils, English River Pellets Inc., Epicore Bionetworks INC, Epicore Networks (USA) INC, Erich Ziegler GmbH, Evialis France, Fasco Mills Co., Filozoo SRL, Florida Chemical, Florida Chemical Company LLC, GP Blanching Inc., Global Cocoa Holdings LTD, Golden Peanut Company LLC, Golden Peanut and Tree Nut Seed SA (PTY) LTD, Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts SA, Group Lysac, Guyomarc'h - VCN Company Limited, Guyomarc'h Vietnam CO LTD, HFR Shipping Company Ltd, HRA Shipping Company Ltd, HTI Shipping Company Ltd, Harvest Innovations, Hilltop Grain and Feed, Holding P and A Asia Company Limited, Hubei Meiweiyuan Biotechnology, Ilitchevskiy Maslo Extractionniy Zavod (IMEZ), Invivo NSA Asia PTE LTD, Invivo NSA Philippines Inc, Jamaica Flour Mills Limited, Julius Meijer-Alpharma BV, LLC ADM Ukraine, Liquid Feed Commodities, Malta Industries SA de CV, Malta-Texo De Mexico SA de CV, Master Mix of Trinidad LTD, Medsofts Investment Co, Medsofts L.L.C., Medsofts Trading Co, Mepla Comercio e Navegacao Ltda, NRG Inc, Naviera Chaco SRL, Neovia, Neovia Latina SL, Neovia Nutricao E Saude Animal LTDA, North Star Shipping S.R.L., P and A Marketing SA, PJSC ADM Illichivsk, PT Wirifa Sakti, Pancosma (Shanghai) Feed Additives CO LTD, Pancosma France SAS, Pancosma SA, Premiere Agri Technologies of Mexico Inc, Pura Foods LTD, Rodelle Inc., Schokinag-Schokolade-Industrie Herrmann, Sermix, Setna Nutricion SA, Societe Industrielle Des Oleagineux, Southern Cellulose Products Inc, Soy Investors LLC, Specialty Commodities, Specialty Commodities LLC, Sul Mineira Alimentos LTDA, SzSzV Kft, Toepfer International, Toepfer International Trading (Shanghai) Co. LTD., Vantage Corn Processors LLC, WILD Amazon Flavors Ltda, WILD Flavors, Wild Flavors Inc., Wild Flavors International GmbH, Wild Flavors Singapore Pte. Ltd., Wild Intermare GmbH, Wild Russia LLC, and Wisium SA (PTY) LTD.
Bank of America Corp. is a bank and financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking and nonbank financial services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth and Investment Management, Global Banking, Global Markets, and All Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. The Global Wealth and Investment Management provides client experience through a network of financial advisors focused on to meet their needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products. The Global Banking segment deals with lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions to clients, and underwriting and advisory services. The Global Markets segment includes sales and trading services, as well as research, to institutional clients across fixed-income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity businesses. The All Other segment consists of asset and liability management activities, equity investments, non-core mortgage loans and servicing activities, the net impact of periodic revisions

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There is not enough analysis data for BlackRock Floating Rate Income Strategies Fund.

4.4 Community Rank

Outperform Votes BlackRock Floating Rate Income Strategies Fund has received 68 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.)

Underperform Votes BlackRock Floating Rate Income Strategies Fund has received 35 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.)

Community Sentiment BlackRock Floating Rate Income Strategies Fund has received 66.02% outperform votes from our community.

MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about BlackRock Floating Rate Income Strategies Fund and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe FRA will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe FRA will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.

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BASF SE operates as a chemical company worldwide. It operates through six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care, and Agricultural Solutions. The Chemicals segment provides petrochemicals and intermediates. The Materials segment offers advanced materials and their precursors for applications and systems, such as isocyanates and polyamides, as well as inorganic basic products and specialties for plastic and plastic processing industries. The Industrial Solutions segment develops and markets ingredients and additives for industrial applications, such as polymer dispersions, pigments, resins, electronic materials, antioxidants, light stabilizers, oilfield chemicals, mineral processing, and hydrometallurgical chemicals. The Surface Technologies segment offers chemical solutions and automotive OEM which include refinish coatings, surface treatment, catalysts, battery materials, and base metal services for the automotive and chemical industries. The Nutrition & Care segment provides nutrition and care ingredients for food and feed producers, as well as pharmaceutical, cosmetics, detergent, and cleaner industries. The Agricultural Solutions segment offers crop protection products and seeds, such as fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and biological crop production products, as well as seed treatment products. The company has a strategic partnership with IntelliSense.io. BASF SE was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany.

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BCE Inc., a telecommunications and media company, provides wireless, wireline, Internet, and television (TV) services to residential, business, and wholesale customers in Canada. It operates through three segments: Bell Wireless, Bell Wireline, and Bell Media. The Bell Wireless segment offers wireless voice and data communications products and services. The Bell Wireline segment provides data, including Internet access and Internet protocol television; and local telephone, long distance, satellite TV service, and connectivity, as well as other communications services and products. This segment also buys and sells local telephone, long distance, data, and other services from or to resellers, and other carriers. The Bell Media segment provides conventional TV, specialty TV, pay TV, and streaming services; and digital media, radio broadcasting, out-of-home advertising services. It owns and operates approximately 35 conventional TV stations; 27 specialty and four Pay TV channels; 3 direct-to-consumer streaming services; 109 licensed radio stations; and websites. The company was formerly known as Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. BCE Inc. was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Verdun, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Becton, Dickinson and: (Bard Istanbul Healthcare Limited Company), Accuri Cytometers, Accuri Cytometers Inc., Adaptec Manufacturing Singapore, Alverix, Alverix Inc., Atto Bioscience, BD Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., BD Infection Prevention BV, BD Kiestra BV, BD Kiestra Total Lab Automation, BD Rapid Diagnostic (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., BD San Luis Potosi S.A. de C.V., BD Switzerland Sarl, BD Ventures LLC, BD West Africa Limited, BDX INO LLC, Bard (Thailand) Limited, Bard ASDI Inc., Bard Access Systems Inc., Bard Acquisition Sub Inc., Bard Australia Pty. Limited, Bard Benelux N.V., Bard Brachytherapy Inc., Bard Brasil Industria e Comercio de Produtos Para a Saude Ltda., Bard Canada Inc., Bard Chile S.p.A., Bard Colombia S.A.S., Bard Czech Republic s.r.o., Bard Devices Inc., Bard Dublin ITC Limited, Bard EMEA Finance Center Sp.z o.o., Bard European Distribution Center N.V., Bard Finance B.V. & Co. KG., Bard Financial Services Ltd., Bard Finland OY, Bard France S.A.S., Bard Global Holdings I LLC, Bard Global Holdings II LLC, Bard Global Holdings III LLC, Bard Healthcare Inc., Bard Healthcare Science (Shanghai) Limited, Bard Hellas S.A., Bard Holding SAS, Bard Holdings Limited, Bard Holdings Netherlands B.V., Bard Hong Kong Limited, Bard IP Holdings Inc., Bard India Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., Bard International Holdings B.V., Bard International Inc., Bard Korea Ltd., Bard Limited, Bard MRL Acquisition Corp., Bard Malaysia Healthcare Sdn. Bhd., Bard Medica SA, Bard Medical Devices (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Bard Medical SA (Proprietary) Limited, Bard Mexico Realty S. de R.L. de C.V., Bard Norden AB, Bard Norway AS, Bard Pacific Health Care Company Ltd., Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc., Bard Poland Sp. z.o.o., Bard Productos Plasticos e Medicos Ltda., Bard Reynosa S.A. de C.V., Bard S.r.l., Bard Sdn. Bhd., Bard Shannon Limited, Bard Singapore Private Limited, Bard Sourcing Office Singapore Pte. Ltd., Bard Sweden AB, Bard UK Newco Limited, Bard de Espana S.A., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Gibraltar) Management Limited, Becton Dickinson (Mauritius) Limited, Becton Dickinson (Pty) Ltd., Becton Dickinson (Thailand) Limited, Becton Dickinson A.G., Becton Dickinson A/S, Becton Dickinson Argentina S.R.L., Becton Dickinson Asia Holdings Ltd., Becton Dickinson Asia Limited, Becton Dickinson Austria GmbH, Becton Dickinson Austria Holdings GmbH, Becton Dickinson B.V., Becton Dickinson B.V. Saudi Limited Company, Becton Dickinson Benelux N.V., Becton Dickinson Biosciences Systems and Reagents Inc., Becton Dickinson Canada Inc., Becton Dickinson Caribe Ltd., Becton Dickinson Croatia d.o.o., Becton Dickinson Czechia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Dispensing Belgium BVBA, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Denmark A/S, Becton Dickinson Dispensing France SAS, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Norway, Becton Dickinson Dispensing Spain S.L.U., Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Ltd., Becton Dickinson Distribution Center N.V., Becton Dickinson East Africa Ltd., Becton Dickinson Euro Finance Sarl, Becton Dickinson Europe Holdings S.A.S., Becton Dickinson France S.A.S., Becton Dickinson GSA Beteilgungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings I Inc., Becton Dickinson Global Holdings II LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings IV LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings V LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VI LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Holdings VII LLC, Becton Dickinson Global Services Centre Sdn. Bdn., Becton Dickinson GmbH, Becton Dickinson Guatemala S.A., Becton Dickinson Hellas S.A., Becton Dickinson Holdings Limited, Becton Dickinson Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Hungary Kft., Becton Dickinson India Private Limited, Becton Dickinson Industrias Cirurgicas Ltda., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy AB, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Holdings UK Limited, Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems Inc. S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy UK, Becton Dickinson Insulin Syringe Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings II Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings III Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Israel Ltd., Becton Dickinson Italia S.p.A., Becton Dickinson Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi, Becton Dickinson Korea Holding Inc., Becton Dickinson Korea Ltd., Becton Dickinson Ltd., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Global Holdings Sarl, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings II S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings III S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Malaysia Inc., Becton Dickinson Management GmbH & Co. KG, Becton Dickinson Matrex Holdings Inc., Becton Dickinson Medical (S) Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Products Pte. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Technology (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Global Holdings II C.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings II B.V., Becton Dickinson Norway AS, Becton Dickinson O.Y., Becton Dickinson Overseas Services Ltd., Becton Dickinson Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd., Becton Dickinson Penel Limited, Becton Dickinson Philippines Inc., Becton Dickinson Polska Sp.z.o.o., Becton Dickinson Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Becton Dickinson Pty. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Research Centre Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Rowa Germany GmbH, Becton Dickinson Rowa Italy Srl, Becton Dickinson S.A., Becton Dickinson Sample Collection GmbH, Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.L.P., Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.P., Becton Dickinson Sdn. Bhd., Becton Dickinson Slovakia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Sweden AB, Becton Dickinson Sweden Holdings AB, Becton Dickinson Switzerland Global Holdings SarL, Becton Dickinson Technology Campus India, Becton Dickinson U.K. Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing I Ltd., Becton Dickinson UK Financing II Ltd., Becton Dickinson Venezuela C.A., Becton Dickinson Venture LLC, Becton Dickinson Verwaltungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Vostok LLC, Becton Dickinson Worldwide Investments Sa.r.L., Becton Dickinson Zambia Limited, Becton Dickinson and Company Ltd., Becton Dickinson de Colombia Ltda., Becton Dickinson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson del Uruguay S.A., Benex Ltd., Biometric Imaging, Bridger Biomed Inc., C. R. Bard, C. R. Bard (Portugal)-Produtos e Artigos Medicos e Farmaceuticos, C. R. Bard Do Brazil Productos Medicos Ltds., C. R. Bard GmbH, C. R. Bard Inc., C. R. Bard Netherlands Sales B.V., CME America LLC, CME Ltd., CME Medical (UK) Limited, CME UK (Holdings) Limited, CRISI Medical Systems, CRISI Medical Systems Inc., Caesarea Medical Electronics, Cardal II LLC, Care Fusion Development Private Limited, CareFusion, CareFusion (Barbados) SrL, CareFusion (Shanghai) Commercial and Trading Co. Limited, CareFusion 213 LLC, CareFusion 2200 Inc., CareFusion 2201 Inc., CareFusion 302 LLC, CareFusion 303 Inc., CareFusion Asia (HK) Limited, CareFusion BH 335 d.o.o. Cazin, CareFusion Corporation, CareFusion D.R. 203 Ltd., CareFusion France 309 S.A.S., CareFusion Germany 318 GmbH, CareFusion Iberia 308 S.L., CareFusion Israel 330 Ltd., CareFusion Italy 312 S.p.A., CareFusion Manufacturing LLC, CareFusion Mexico 215 S.A. de C.V., CareFusion Netherlands 328 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 503 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 504 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands Financing 283 C.V., CareFusion Resources LLC, CareFusion S.A. 319 (Proprietary) Limited, CareFusion Solutions LLC, CareFusion U.K. 244 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 305 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 306 Limited, Carmel Pharma AB, Carmel Pharma Inc, Cato Software Solutions, Cell Analysis Systems Inc, Cellular Research, Cellular Research Inc., Clearstream Technologies Group Limited, Clearstream Technologies Limited, Clontech Laboratories Inc, Corporativo BD de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Cubex, Cytopeia, DLD (Bermuda) Ltd., DVL Acquisition Sub Inc., Davol Inc., Davol International Limited, Davol Surgical Innovations S.A. de C.V., Difco Laboratories Incorporated, Distribuidora BD Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dutch American Manufacturers (D.A.M.) B.V., Dymax Corporation, Embo Medical Limited, Enturia de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Enturican Inc., FJ International Inc., FlowCardia Inc., FlowCardia LLC, FlowJo LLC, Franklin Lakes Enterprises L.L.C., GSL Solutions, Gamer Lasertechnik GmbH, GenCell Biosystems, GenCell Biosystems Ltd., GeneOhm Sciences, GeneOhm Sciences Canada Inc., Gentest Corporation, Gesco International Inc., Gesco International LLC, HandyLab Inc, HandyLab Inc., IBD Holdings LLC, Ionotophoretics Corporation, JoHome LLC, Kabushiki Kaisha Medicon (Medicon Inc.), Liberator Health and Education Services Inc., Liberator Health and Wellness Inc., Liberator Medical Holdings Inc., Liberator Medical Supply Inc., LifeBond, Limited Liability Company Bard Rus, Loma Vista Medical Inc., Loma Vista Medical LLC, Lutonix Inc., Med-Design Corporation, Med-Design Investment Holdings Inc., Med-Safe Systems Inc., MedChem Products Inc., Medafor Inc., Medegen LLC, Medinservice.com Inc., Medivance Inc., NAT Diagnostics, NAT Diagnostics Inc., NOW Medical Distribution Inc., NOW Medical Distribution LLC, Navarre Biomedical LLC, Navarre Biomedical Ltd., Neomend Inc., Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd., Omega Biosystems Incorporated, P.R.C.(Isialys)Societe a responsabilitie limitee(Societe a associe unique), PT Becton Dickinson Indonesia, PharMingen, PreAnalytiX GmbH, Pristine Access Technologies Inc., ProSeed Inc., Procesos para Esterilizacion S.A. de C.V., Productos Bard de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Productos Para el Cuidado de la Salud S.A. de C.V., Puls Medical Devices AS LC, PureWick Corporation, Roberts Laboratories Inc., Rochester Medical Corporation, Rochester Medical Ltd., Saf-T-Med, Safety Syringes, Safety Syringes Inc., Sendal S.L.U., SenoRx Inc., SenoRx LLC, Shield Healthcare Centers Inc., Sirigen, Sirigen II Limited, Sirigen Inc., Sistemas Medicos ALARIS S.A. de C.V., Specialized Cooperative Corporation, Specialized Health Products Inc., Specialized Health Products International Inc., Specialized Health Products International LLC, Staged Diabetes Management LLC, Straub Medical, Straub Medical, Straub Medical (US) LLC, Straub Medical (United Kingdom) Ltd., Straub Medical France, Surgical Site Solutions Inc., TVA Medical, TVA Medical GmbH, TVA Medical Inc., Tepha, Touchstone Medical Limited, Tri-County Medical & Ostomy Supplies Inc., TriPath Imaging, TriPath Imaging Inc., Vas-Cath Incorporated, Vascular Pathways Inc., Velano Vascular, Venetec International Inc., Venetec International LLC, Y-Med Inc., and Y-Med LLC.
The following companies are subsidiares of Daimler: AEG Olympia Office GmbH, Achtzehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, Anota Fahrzeug Service- und Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH, Athlon Beheer International B.V., Athlon Beheer Nederland B.V, Athlon Car Lease Belgium N.V, Athlon Car Lease International B.V., Athlon Car Lease Italy S.R.L., Athlon Car Lease Nederland B.V., Athlon Car Lease Polska Sp. z o.o., Athlon Car Lease Portugal lda, Athlon Car Lease Rental Services B.V, Athlon Car Lease Rental Services Belgium N.V., Athlon Car Lease S.A.S., Athlon Car Lease Spain S.A., Athlon Dealerlease B.V., Athlon France S.A.S., Athlon Germany GmbH, Athlon Mobility Consultancy B.V., Athlon Mobility Consultancy N.V., Athlon Rental Germany GmbH, Athlon Sweden AB, Athlon Switzerland AG, AutoGravity Corporation, Banco Mercedes-Benz do Brasil S.A, Beat Chile SpA, Beat Ride App Colombia Ltda., Beat Ride App S.A., Belerofonte Empreendimentos Imobiliarios Ltda., Brooklands Estates Management Limited, CARS Technik & Logistik GmbH, CINTEO, CLIDET NO 1048 (Proprietary) Limited, Campo Largo Comercio de Veiculos e Pecas Ltda., Circulo Cerrado S.A. de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Clever Taxi, Clever Tech S.R.L., Clever Tech Sud S.R.L., Conemaugh Hydroelectric Projects Inc., Cuspide GmbH, DA Investments Co. LLC, DAF Investments Ltd., DAIMLER FINANCIAL SERVICES AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, DAIMLER SERVICIOS CORPORATIVOS MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., DAIMLER TRUCK AND BUS HOLDING AUSTRALIA PACIFIC PTY LTD, DTB Tech & Data Hub Unipessoal Lda, Daimler AG & Co. Anlagenverwaltung OHG, Daimler Australia/Pacific Pty. Ltd., Daimler Automotive de Venezuela C.A., Daimler Brand & IP Management GmbH & Co. KG, Daimler Brand & IP Management Verwaltung GmbH, Daimler Buses North America Inc., Daimler Canada Finance Inc., Daimler Canada Investments Company, Daimler Capital Services LLC, Daimler Ceska republika Holding s.r.o., Daimler Colombia S. A., Daimler Commercial Vehicles (Thailand) Ltd., Daimler Commercial Vehicles Africa Ltd., Daimler Commercial Vehicles MENA FZE, Daimler Commercial Vehicles South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Daimler Compra y Manufactura Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Export and Trade Finance GmbH, Daimler Finance North America LLC, Daimler Financial Services AG, Daimler Financial Services Africa & Asia Pacific Ltd., Daimler Financial Services India Private Limited, Daimler Financial Services Investment Company LLC, Daimler Financial Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Financial Services S.A. de C.V. S.O.F.O.M. E.N.R., Daimler Financial Services UK Trustees Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management GmbH, Daimler Fleet Management Singapore Pte. Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Daimler Fleet Management UK Limited, Daimler Fleet Services A.S., Daimler FleetBoard GmbH, Daimler Gastronomie GmbH, Daimler Greater China Ltd., Daimler Group Services Berlin GmbH, Daimler Group Services Madrid S.A.U., Daimler Grund Services GmbH, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Private Limited, Daimler Innovation Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Daimler Insurance Agency LLC, Daimler Insurance Services GmbH, Daimler Insurance Services Japan Co. Ltd., Daimler Insurance Services UK Limited, Daimler International Assignment Services USA LLC, Daimler International Finance B.V., Daimler International Nederland B.V., Daimler Investments US Corporation, Daimler Ladungstrager GmbH, Daimler Manufactura S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Mexico S.A. de C.V., Daimler Mitarbeiter Wohnfinanz GmbH, Daimler Mobility Services GmbH, Daimler Motors Investments LLC, Daimler Nederland B.V., Daimler Nederland Holding B.V., Daimler North America Corporation, Daimler North America Finance Corporation, Daimler Northeast Asia Parts Trading and Services Co. Ltd., Daimler Parts Brand GmbH, Daimler Parts Logistics Australia Pty. Ltd., Daimler Pensionsfonds AG, Daimler Protics GmbH, Daimler Purchasing Coordination Corp., Daimler Re Brokers GmbH, Daimler Re Insurance S.A. Luxembourg, Daimler Real Estate GmbH, Daimler Retail Receivables LLC, Daimler South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Daimler TSS GmbH, Daimler Truck AG, Daimler Truck and Bus Australia Pacific Pty. Ltd., Daimler Trucks & Buses US Holding Inc., Daimler Trucks Asia Taiwan Ltd., Daimler Trucks Canada Ltd., Daimler Trucks Korea Ltd., Daimler Trucks North America LLC, Daimler Trucks Remarketing Corporation, Daimler Trucks Retail Trust 2018-1, Daimler Trucks and Buses (China) Ltd., Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, Daimler Trust Holdings LLC, Daimler Trust Leasing Conduit LLC, Daimler Trust Leasing LLC, Daimler UK Limited, Daimler UK Share Trustee Ltd., Daimler UK Trustees Limited, Daimler Unterstutzungskasse GmbH, Daimler Vans Hong Kong Limited, Daimler Vans USA LLC, Daimler Vehiculos Comerciales Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Daimler Verwaltungsgesellschaft fur Grundbesitz mbH, Daimler Vorsorge und Versicherungsdienst GmbH, Daiprodco Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Detroit Diesel Corporation, Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing LLC, Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Detroit Diesel-Allison de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Deutsche ACCUmotive, Deutsche Accumotive GmbH & Co. KG, Deutsche Accumotive Verwaltungs-GmbH, Dreizehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, EHG Elektroholding GmbH, EvoBus (Schweiz) AG, EvoBus (U.K.) Ltd., EvoBus Austria GmbH, EvoBus Belgium N.V., EvoBus Ceska republika s.r.o., EvoBus Danmark A/S, EvoBus France S.A.S.U., EvoBus GmbH, EvoBus Iberica S.A.U., EvoBus Italia S.p.A., EvoBus Nederland B.V., EvoBus Polska Sp. z o.o., EvoBus Portugal S.A., EvoBus Reunion S. A., EvoBus Russland OOO, EvoBus Sverige AB, FLINC GmbH, Familonet GmbH, Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, Friesland Lease B.V., Funfte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 2 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 3 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 4 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 5 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 6 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 7 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Alpha 1 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Beta OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Delta OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Epsilon OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 2 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 3 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 4 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Daimler AG & Co. Gamma 1 OHG, Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft EvoBus GmbH & Co. OHG, Hailo Network IP Limited, Hailo Network Iberia S.L., Intelligent Apps GmbH, Interleasing Luxembourg S.A., Invema Assessoria Empresarial Eireli, Koppieview Property (Pty) Ltd, LAB1886 GmbH, LBBW AM  Daimler Re Insurance, LBBW AM  MBVEXW, LEONIE CORP DVB GmbH, LEONIE DMS DVB GmbH, LEONIE FS DVB GmbH, LEONIE FSM DVB GmbH, LEONIE PV DVB GmbH, LEONIE TB DVB GmbH, Lab1886 USA LLC, Lapland Car Test Aktiebolag, Legend Investments Ltd., Li-Tec Battery, Li-Tec Battery GmbH, MB GTC GmbH Mercedes-Benz Gebrauchtteile Center, MBarc Credit Canada Inc., MBition GmbH, MDC Power GmbH, MDC Technology GmbH, MERCEDES-BENZ TRUCKS POLSKA SPOKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA, MFTA Canada Inc., MITSUBISHI FUSO TRUCK EUROPE  Sociedade Europeia de Automoveis S.A., MYTAXI ITALIA S.R.L., MYTAXI POLSKA SPOLKA Z OGRANICZONA ODPOWIEDZIALNOSCIA, Mascot Truck Parts Canada Ltd (2017), Mascot Truck Parts USA LLC, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains Ltd, Mercedes pay AG, Mercedes pay S.A., Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Benz (China) Ltd., Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) Limited, Mercedes-Benz (Yangzhou) Parts Distribution Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz AG, Mercedes-Benz Accessories GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Adm. Consorcios Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Antwerpen N.V., Mercedes-Benz Argentina S.A., Mercedes-Benz Asia GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Assuradeuren B.V., Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific Pty Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2016-2, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2016-B, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2017-A, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2018-A, Mercedes-Benz Auto Lease Trust 2018-B, Mercedes-Benz Auto Receivables Trust 2015-1, Mercedes-Benz Auto Receivables Trust 2016-1, Mercedes-Benz Auto Retail Trust 2018-1, Mercedes-Benz Bank AG, Mercedes-Benz Bank GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Bank Polska S.A., Mercedes-Benz Bank Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz Bank Service Center GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Banking Service GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Belgium Luxembourg S.A., Mercedes-Benz Bordeaux S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz Broker Biztositasi Alkusz Hungary Kft., Mercedes-Benz Brooklands Limited, Mercedes-Benz CPH A/S, Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc., Mercedes-Benz Capital Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz CarMesh GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans Brasil  Industria e Comercio De Veiculos Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Cars Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Cars Middle East FZE, Mercedes-Benz Cars Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Cars UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz CharterWay S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz CharterWay S.r.l., Mercedes-Benz Compania Financiera Argentina S.A., Mercedes-Benz Connectivity Services GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Consulting GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercedes-Benz Credit Penzugyi Szolgaltato Hungary Zrt., Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Center Maastricht N.V., Mercedes-Benz Danmark A/S, Mercedes-Benz Dealer Bedrijven B.V., Mercedes-Benz Drogenbos N.V., Mercedes-Benz Egypt S.A.E., Mercedes-Benz Energy Americas LLC, Mercedes-Benz Energy GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Espana S.A.U., Mercedes-Benz Europa NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz ExTra LLC, Mercedes-Benz Finance Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia Pty. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Austria GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services BeLux NV, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Canada Corporation, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Espana E.F.C. S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services France S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Hong Kong Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Italia SpA, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Korea Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services New Zealand Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Portugal  Sociedade Financeira de Credito S.A., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Rus OOO, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Slovakia s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Financial Services UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Finans Danmark A/S, Mercedes-Benz Finans Sverige AB, Mercedes-Benz Finansal Kiralama Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz Finansman Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz Formula E Limited, Mercedes-Benz France S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Forsaljnings AB, Mercedes-Benz G GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Group Services Phils. Inc., Mercedes-Benz Hellas S.A., Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Limited, Mercedes-Benz Hungaria Kft., Mercedes-Benz IDC Europe S.A.S., Mercedes-Benz India Private Limited, Mercedes-Benz Insurance Broker S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Insurance Services Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Insurance Services Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Investment Company LLC, Mercedes-Benz Italia S.p.A., Mercedes-Benz Japan Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Korea Limited, Mercedes-Benz Leasing (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Co. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Leasing Hrvatska d.o.o., Mercedes-Benz Leasing IFN S.A., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Kft., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Polska Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Leasing Treuhand GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Leasing do Brasil Arrendamento Mercantil S.A., Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Mercedes-Benz Manhattan Inc., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Hungary Kft., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Poland Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Manufacturing Rus Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Master Owner Trust, Mercedes-Benz Mechelen N.V., Mercedes-Benz Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Mercedes-Benz Minibus GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Mitarbeiter-Fahrzeuge Leasing GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Museum GmbH, Mercedes-Benz New Zealand Ltd, Mercedes-Benz PRAHA s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Paris SAS, Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics Eastern Europe s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics Iberica S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Parts Logistics UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Parts Manufacturing & Services Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Polska Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Portugal S.A., Mercedes-Benz Project Consult GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Renting S.A., Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America Inc., Mercedes-Benz Research & Development Tel Aviv Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India Private Limited, Mercedes-Benz Retail Belgium NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Retail Group UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Retail S.A., Mercedes-Benz Retail Unipessoal Lda., Mercedes-Benz Risk Solutions South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Roma S.p.A., Mercedes-Benz Romania S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Russia AO, Mercedes-Benz Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Service Leasing S.R.L., Mercedes-Benz Services Correduria de Seguros S.A., Mercedes-Benz Services Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Mercedes-Benz Sigorta Aracilik Hizmetleri A.S., Mercedes-Benz Slovakia s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Solihull Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Sosnowiec Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz South Africa Ltd, Mercedes-Benz Srbija i Crna Gora d.o.o.u likvidaciji, Mercedes-Benz Subscription Services USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Sverige AB, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Belgium Luxembourg NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Center Sint-Pieters-Leeuw NV/SA, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Ceska republika s.r.o., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Espana S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Trucks France S.A.S.U, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Italia S.r.l., Mercedes-Benz Trucks MENA Holding GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Molsheim, Mercedes-Benz Trucks Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Trucks Schweiz AG, Mercedes-Benz Trucks UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Turk A.S., Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Inc., Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, Mercedes-Benz Ubezpieczenia Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz V.I. Lyon SAS, Mercedes-Benz V.I. Paris Ile de France SAS, Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia Pacific Pty. Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Vans Ceska republika s.r.o, Mercedes-Benz Vans Espana S.L.U., Mercedes-Benz Vans LLC, Mercedes-Benz Vans Mobility GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vans Mobility S.L., Mercedes-Benz Vans Nederland B.V., Mercedes-Benz Vans UK Limited, Mercedes-Benz Vehiculos Comerciales Argentina SAU, Mercedes-Benz Venezuela S.A., Mercedes-Benz Versicherung AG, Mercedes-Benz Vertrieb NFZ GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vertrieb PKW GmbH, Mercedes-Benz Vietnam Ltd., Mercedes-Benz Warszawa Sp. z o.o., Mercedes-Benz Waterloo S.A., Mercedes-Benz Wavre S.A., Mercedes-Benz Wemmel N.V., Mercedes-Benz Wholesale Receivables LLC, Mercedes-Benz do Brasil Assessoria Comercial Ltda., Mercedes-Benz do Brasil Ltda., Mercedes-Benz Osterreich GmbH, Mercedes-Benz  Aluguer de Veiculos Unipessoal Lda., Mercedes-Benz.io GmbH, Mercedes-Benz.io Portugal Unipessoal Lda., MercedesService Card Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Mitsubishi Fuso Bus Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America Inc., Monarch Cars (Tamworth) Ltd., Montajes y Estampaciones Metalicas S.L., Multifleet G.I.E, NAG Nationale Automobil-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft, P.T. Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, PABCO Co. Ltd., PT Daimler Commercial Vehicles Indonesia, PT Mercedes-Benz Distribution Indonesia, Porcher & Meffert Grundstucksgesellschaft mbH & Co. Stuttgart OHG, R.T.C. Management Company Limited, Renting del Pacifico S.A.C., RepairSmith Inc., Reva SAS, Ring Garage AG Chur, SILVER ARROW CHINA 2017-2 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o CITIC TRUST CO. LTD., SILVER ARROW CHINA 2018-1 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o FOTIC: China Foreign Economy and Trade Trust Co. LTD., SILVER ARROW CHINA 2018-2 RETAIL AUTO LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES TRUST c/o FOTIC: China Foreign Economy and Trade Trust Co. LTD., STARKOM d.o.o., Sandown Motor Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Sechste Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, SelecTrucks Comercio de Veiculos Ltda, SelecTrucks of America LLC, SelecTrucks of Toronto Inc., Setra of North America Inc., Silver Arrow Australia Trust 2017-1, Silver Arrow Canada GP Inc., Silver Arrow Canada LP, Silver Arrow Lease Facility Trust, Silver Arrow S.A., Special Lease Systems (SLS) B.V, SportChassis LLC, Star Assembly SRL, Star Egypt For Import LLC, Star Transmission srl, Starexport Trading S.A., Sterling Truck Corporation, Sumperska sprava majetku k.s., T.O.C (Schweiz) AG, Taxibeat, Taxibeat Ltd. UK, Taxibeat Peru S.A., Taxibeat Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Thomas Built Buses Inc., Thomas Built Buses of Canada Limited, Transcovo SAS, Transopco France SAS, Transopco GmbH, Transopco Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Transopco UK Ltd., Trona Cogeneration Corporation, Ucafleet S.A.S, Vierzehnte Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft DVB mbH, Western Star Trucks Sales Inc, Zuidlease B.V., Zweite Vermogensverwaltungsgesellschaft Zeus mbH, car2go, car2go Belgium SPRL, car2go Canada Ltd., car2go China Co. Ltd., car2go Danmark A/S, car2go Deutschland GmbH, car2go Europe GmbH, car2go Group GmbH, car2go Iberia S.L.U., car2go Italia S.R.L., car2go N.A. Holding Inc, car2go N.A. LLC, car2go Nederland B.V, car2go Sverige AB, car2go Osterreich GmbH, moovel Group GmbH, moovel North America Inc., moovel North America LLC, myTaxi Iberia SL, myTaxi UG, myTaxi UK Ltd., myTaxi USA Inc., mytaxi Austria GmbH, mytaxi Network Ireland Ltd., mytaxi Network Ltd., mytaxi Portugal Unipessoal LDA, mytaxi Sweden AB, ogotrac S.A.S., smart France S.A.S., smart Vertriebs gmbh, and trapoFit GmbH.
The following companies are subsidiares of Global Payments: ACTIVE Network - Communities and Sports, Active Network (HK) Limited, Active Network IPICO (CA) Inc., Active Network IPICO (US) Inc., Active Network IPICO Holdings (US) LLC, Active Network IPICO Holdings (US) LLC, Active Network IPICO Innovation Inc., Active Networks LLC, AdvancedMD, Athlaction Intermediate LLC, Athlaction Topco LLC, AuctionPay, Comercia Global Payments Entidad de Pago S.L., DEBITEK INC, Digital Dining LLC, Dinerware LLC, DolEx Europe S.L., Educational Computer Systems Inc., Ematters Australia Pty Ltd., Equifax Credit Services LLC, Ezi Holdings Pty. Ltd., Ezi Management Pty Ltd., Ezidebit, Ezidebit (NZ) Limited, Ezidebit HK Ltd., Ezidebit Pty Ltd., GP Finance LLC, GPC Financial Corporation, GPS Holding Limited Partnership, GPUK LLP, Global Payment Holding Company, Global Payment Systems Asia-Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd., Global Payment Systems LLC, Global Payment Systems of Canada Ltd., Global Payments - Caixa Acquisition Corporation S.a.r.l., Global Payments - Realex Payments Holding Limited, Global Payments - Servicos de Pagamentos S.A., Global Payments Acquisition Corp. 1 B.V., Global Payments Acquisition Corp. 2 B.V., Global Payments Acquisition Corp. 3 B.V., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 2 LLC, Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 2 S.a.r.l., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 3 LLC, Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 3 S.a.r.l., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 4 S.a.r.l., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 6 S.a.r.l., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 7 LLC, Global Payments Acquisition Corporation 7 S.a.r.l., Global Payments Acquisition Corporation HK Holding Limited, Global Payments Acquisition PS 1 C.V., Global Payments Acquisition PS 2 C.V., Global Payments Acquisition PS 3 C. V., Global Payments Acquisition PS1-Global Payments Direct S.e.n.c., Global Payments Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong Holding) Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong) Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific (India) Private Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific (Shanghai) Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific (Singapore Holding) Ltd., Global Payments Asia-Pacific Lanka (Private) Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific Macau Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific Maldives Private Limited, Global Payments Asia-Pacific Philippines Incorporated, Global Payments Asia-Pacific Processing Company Limited, Global Payments Australia Pty 1 Ltd., Global Payments Australia Pty 2 Ltd., Global Payments Canada GP, Global Payments Canada Inc., Global Payments Card Processing Malaysia Sdn. Bhd, Global Payments Check Recovery Services Inc., Global Payments Check Services Inc., Global Payments Direct Inc., Global Payments Europe d.o.o. Sarajevo, Global Payments Europe s.r.o., Global Payments Gaming Canada Inc., Global Payments Gaming International Inc., Global Payments Gaming Services Inc., Global Payments Integrated, Global Payments Limited, Global Payments Process Centre Inc., Global Payments South America Brasil-Servicos de Pagamentos S.A., Global Payments UK 2 Ltd., Global Payments UK Ltd., Global Payments s.r.o., Greater Giving Inc., Heartland Acquisition LLC, Heartland Payment Solutions Inc., Heartland Payment Systems, Heartland Payment Systems LLC, Heartland Payroll Solutions Inc., IPICO South Africa (Pty) Ltd., JumpForward LLC, Maximum Solutions LLC, Merchant Services U.S.A. Inc., Modular Data Inc., NDC Holdings (UK) Ltd., NDPS Holdings Inc., PCAmerica LLC, Pay and Shop Limited, PayPros LLC, Payment Processing, Payroll 1 Inc., Realex Payments, SICOM Systems, Sabrir Invest S.L., Sentral Education, Spolecnost pro informacni database a.s., Storman Holdings Pty Ltd., Storman Software Inc., Storman Software Limited, Storman Software Ltd., Storman Software Pty Ltd., TeamPages Inc., The Active Network (Asia) Pte. Ltd, The Active Network (Aus-NZ) Pty. Ltd., The Active Network (EU) Ltd., The Active Network Ltd., The Active Network Ltd. (Chengdu), The Active Network Ltd. (Xian), Total System Services, TouchNet Information Systems Inc., UCS Terminal Joint Stock Company, United Card Service Joint Stock Company, VEPF III AIV VI-C Corp., VEPF IV AIV VII-C Corp., VFF I AIV IV-C Corp., Web Active Corporation Pty Ltd., Xenial, Xpient LLC, eWAY, eWay Europe Limited, eWay Payments Asia Pte Ltd., eWay Payments Inc., eWay Payments New Zealand Limited, eWay Payments North America Inc., and eWay Payments Pty Ltd..
Canadian Western Bank provides personal and business banking products and services primarily in Western Canada. The company offers current, savings, cash management, US dollar, and chequing accounts, as well as organization, strata solution/condo, general trust, and trust fund investment accounts. It also offers commercial lending and real estate, and equipment financing and leasing products; loans and mortgages; secured and unsecured lines of credit; registered retirement savings plan; consolidation, vehicle, and recreation vehicle loans; and credit cards. In addition, the company offers cash management services; life and disability insurance products; and ATM, mobile, and online banking services, as well cheque order services. Further, it provides investment products comprising guaranteed investment certificates, registered retirement income funds, tax-free savings accounts, registered education savings plans, and mutual funds, as well as personal and business planning services. Canadian Western Bank has a strategic partnership with Temenos AG to support small and medium sized enterprises with financial decision-making and enhancing their businesses. The company was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada.

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China New Borun Corporation produces and distributes corn-based edible alcohol in the People's Republic of China. It operates in two segments, Corn-Base Edible Alcohol and its By-Products, and Chemical Products. The company offers edible alcohol products for use as an ingredient to producers of baijiu, a grain-based alcoholic beverage; and by-products of edible alcohol, such as distillers dried grains with solubles feed, liquid carbon dioxide, and crude corn oil. It also produces chemical products, including chlorinated polyethylene and 2-Acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid for use in various industries. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Shouguang, the People's Republic of China. China New Borun Corporation is a subsidiary of King River Holding Limited.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC.
The following companies are subsidiares of Carnival Co. &: 1972 Productions Inc., 6348 Equipment LLC, A.C.N. 098 290 834 Pty. Ltd., A.J. Juneau Dock LLC, AIDA Kundencenter GmbH, Adventure Island Ltd., Air-Sea Holiday GmbH, Alaska Hotel Properties LLC, Barcelona Cruise Terminal SLU, Bay Island Cruise Port S.A., Belize Cruise Terminal Limited, CC U.S. Ventures Inc., CCL Gifts LLC, CSSC Carnival Italy Cruise Investment S.r.L, Carnival (UK) Limited, Carnival Bahamas FC Limited, Carnival Bahamas Holdings Limited, Carnival Corporation & plc Asia Pte. Ltd., Carnival Corporation Hong Kong Limited, Carnival Corporation Korea Ltd., Carnival Corporation Ports Group Japan KK, Carnival Finance LLC, Carnival Grand Bahama Investment Limited, Carnival Investments Limited, Carnival Japan Inc., Carnival License Holdings Limited, Carnival Maritime GmbH, Carnival North America LLC, Carnival Port Holdings Limited, Carnival Ports Inc., Carnival Support Services India Private Limited, Carnival Technical Services (UK) Limited, Carnival Technical Services Finland Limited, Carnival Technical Services GmbH, Carnival Technical Services Inc., Carnival Vanuatu Limited, Costa Crociere PTE Ltd., Costa Crociere S.p.A., Costa Cruceros S.A., Costa Cruise Lines Inc., Costa Cruise Lines UK Limited, Costa Cruises Shipping Services (Shanghai) Company Limited, Costa Cruises Travel Agency (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Costa Cruzeiros Agencia Maritima e Turismo Ltda., Costa Group Digital & Strategic Services GmbH, Costa International B.V., Costa Kreuzfahrten GmbH, Cozumel Cruise Terminal S.A. de C.V., Creative Travel Lab Ltd., Cruise Ships Catering & Services International N.V., Cruise Terminal Services S.A. de C.V., Cruiseport Curacao C.V., D.R. Cruise Port Ltd., Ecospray Technologies S.r.L., F.P.M. SAS, F.P.P. SAS, Fleet Maritime Services (Bermuda) Limited, Fleet Maritime Services Holdings (Bermuda) Limited, Fleet Maritime Services International Limited, GXI LLC, Gibs Inc., Global Experience Innovators Inc., Global Fine Arts Inc., Global Shipping Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Grand Cruise Shipping Unipessoal LdA, Grand Turk Cruise Center Ltd., HAL Antillen N.V., HAL Beheer B.V., HAL Cruises Limited, HAL Maritime Ltd., HAL Nederland N.V., HAL Properties Limited, HAL Services B.V., HSE Hamburg School of Entertainment GmbH, Holding Division Iberocruceros SLU, Holland America Line Inc., Holland America Line N.V., Holland America Line Paymaster of Washington LLC, Holland America Line U.S.A. Inc., Ibero Cruzeiros Ltda., Iberocruceros SLU, Information Assistance Corporation, International Cruise Services S.A. de C.V., International Leisure Travel Inc., International Maritime Recruitment Agency S.A. de C.V., Milestone N.V., Navitrans S.R.L., Ocean Bahamas Innovation Ltd., Ocean Medallion Fulfillment Ltd., Operadora Catalina S.r.L., P&O Princess American Holdings, P&O Princess Cruises International Limited, P&O Princess Cruises Pension Trustee Limited, P&O Properties (California) Inc., P&O Travel Limited, Prestige Cruises Management S.A.M., Prestige Cruises N.V., Princess Bermuda Holdings Ltd., Princess Cays Ltd., Princess Cruise Corporation Inc., Princess Cruise Lines Ltd., Princess Cruises and Tours Inc., Princess U.S. Holdings Inc., RCT Maintenance & Related Services S.A., RCT Pilots & Related Services S.A., RCT Security & Related Services S.A., Roatan Cruise Terminal S.A. de C.V., Royal Hyway Tours Inc., Santa Cruz Terminal S.L., SeaVacations Limited, SeaVacations UK Limited, Seabourn Cruise Line Limited, Shanghai Coast Cruise Consulting Co. Lda, Ship Care (Bahamas) Limited, Sitmar Cruises Inc., Spanish Cruise Services N.V., Sunshine Shipping Corporation Ltd., T&T International Inc., Tour Alaska LLC, Transnational Services Corporation, Trident Insurance Company Ltd., Westmark Hotels Inc., Westmark Hotels of Canada Ltd., Westours Motor Coaches LLC, Wind Surf Limited, and World Leading Cruise Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd..
The following companies are subsidiares of Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft: 87 Leonard Development LLC, ABFS I Incorporated, ABS MB Ltd., Acacia (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Accounting Solutions Holding Company Inc, Alex. Brown Financial Services Incorporated, Alex. Brown Investments Incorporated, Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft mbH, Amber Investments S.a r.l., Ambidexter GmbH, Ambidexter GmbH i.L., Argent Incorporated, BHW - Gesellschaft fur Wohnungswirtschaft mbH, BHW Bausparkasse Aktiengesellschaft, BHW Holding GmbH, BHW Kreditservice GmbH, BNA Nominees Pty Limited, BT Globenet Nominees Limited, BTAS Cayman GP, BTD Nominees Pty Limited, Baincor Nominees Pty Limited, Bainpro Nominees Pty Ltd, Baldur Mortgages Limited, Bankers Trust Investments Limited, Barkly Investments Ltd., Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc, Bayan Delinquent Loan Recovery 1 (SPV-AMC) Inc., Berkshire Mortgage Finance, Betriebs-Center fur Banken AG, Biomass Holdings S.a r.l., Birch (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Blue Cork Inc, Blue Cork Inc., Borfield Sociedad Anonima, Breaking Wave DB Limited, Cape Acquisition Corp., CapeSuccess Inc., CapeSuccess LLC, Cardales UK Limited, Cardea Real Estate S.r.l., Career Blazers LLC, Career Blazers Management Company Inc, Career Blazers Management Company Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc, Career Blazers Personnel Services Inc., Career Blazers Personnel Services of Washington D.C. Inc. Washington D.C., Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc, Caribbean Resort Holdings Inc., Carpathian Investments Designated Activity Company, Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Advisory (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Cathay Asset Management Company Limited, Cathay Capital Company (No 2) Limited, Cedar (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Centennial River 2 Inc., Centennial River Corporation, Chapel Funding, Charlton (Delaware) Inc, China Recovery Fund LLC, China Recovery Fund LLC, Cinda - DB NPL Securitization Trust 2003-1, City Leasing (Thameside) Limited, City Leasing Limited, Consumo S.p.A., Consumo Srl in Liquidazione, Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., Cyrus J. Lawrence Capital Holdings Inc., D B Investments (GB) Limited, D&M Turnaround Partners Godo Kaisha, D.B. International Delaware Inc., D.B. International Delaware Inc., DAHOC (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DAHOC Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DB (Barbados) SRL, DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Asing) Sdn. Bhd., DB (Malaysia) Nominee (Tempatan) Sendirian Berhad, DB (Pacific) Limited, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB (Pacific) Limited New York, DB Abalone LLC, DB Alex. Brown Holdings Incorporated, DB Alps Corporation, DB Aotearoa Investments Limited, DB Asia Pacific Holdings Limited (in voluntary liquidation), DB Asset Finance I S.a r.l., DB Asset Finance II S.a r.l., DB Aster II LLC, DB Aster III LLC, DB Aster Inc., DB Aster LLC, DB Beteiligungs-Holding GmbH, DB Boracay LLC, DB Capital Investments Sarl, DB Capital Markets (Deutschland) GmbH, DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Capital Partners Inc., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Cartera de Inmuebles 1 S.A.U., DB Chestnut Holdings Limited, DB Commodity Services LLC, DB Consorzio S. Cons. a r. l., DB Corporate Advisory (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., DB Covered Bond S.r.l., DB Credit Investments S.a r.l., DB Delaware Holdings (Europe) Limited, DB Direkt GmbH, DB Elara LLC, DB Energy Commodities Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Energy Trading LLC, DB Enfield Infrastructure Holdings Limited, DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equipment Leasing Inc., DB Equity Limited, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance (Delaware) LLC, DB Finance International GmbH, DB Ganymede 2006 L.P., DB Global Markets Multi-Strategy Fund I Ltd., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology Inc., DB Global Technology SRL, DB Group Services (UK) Limited, DB HR Solutions GmbH, DB Holding Fundo de Investimento Multimercado Investimento no Exterior Credito Privado, DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (New York) Inc., DB Holdings (South America) Limited, DB IROC Leasing Corp., DB Immobilienfonds 1 Wieland KG, DB Immobilienfonds 2 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 4 KG i.L., DB Immobilienfonds 5 Wieland KG, DB Impact Investment (GP) Limited, DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Impact Investment Fund I L.P., DB Industrial Holdings Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, DB Industrial Holdings GmbH, DB Intermezzo LLC, DB International (Asia) Limited, DB International Investments Limited, DB International Trust (Singapore) Limited, DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Managers Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Partners Inc., DB Investment Resources (US) Corporation, DB Investment Resources Holdings Corp., DB Investment Services GmbH, DB Io LP, DB Litigation Fee LLC, DB London (Investor Services) Nominees Limited, DB Management Support GmbH, DB Managers LLC, DB Municipal Holdings LLC, DB Nexus American Investments (UK) Limited (in members'voluntary liquidation), DB Nexus Investments (UK) Limited (in members' voluntary liquidation), DB Nominees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB Nominees (Singapore) Pte Ltd, DB Omega BTV S.C.S., DB Omega Holdings LLC, DB Omega Ltd., DB Omega S.C.S., DB Operaciones y Servicios Interactivos Agrupacion de Interes Economico, DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Finance Delaware Inc., DB Overseas Holdings Limited, DB PWM, DB Portfolio Southwest Inc., DB Print GmbH, DB Privat- und Firmenkundenbank AG, DB Private Clients Corp., DB Private Wealth Mortgage Ltd., DB RC Holdings LLC, DB Re S.A., DB Service Centre Limited, DB Service Uruguay S.A., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Services Americas Inc., DB Servizi Amministrativi S.r.l., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Strategic Advisors Inc., DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Derivative Products LLC, DB Structured Finance 1 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Finance 2 Designated Activity Company, DB Structured Holdings Luxembourg S.a r.l., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Structured Products Inc., DB Trustee Services Limited, DB Trustees (Hong Kong) Limited, DB U.S. Financial Markets Holding Corporation, DB UK Bank Limited, DB UK Holdings Limited, DB UK PCAM Holdings Limited, DB USA Core Corporation, DB USA Corporation, DB Valoren S.a r.l., DB Value S.a r.l., DB VersicherungsManager GmbH, DB Vita S.A., DBAB Wall Street LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBAH Capital LLC, DBCIBZ1, DBCIBZ2, DBFIC Inc., DBFIC Inc., DBNZ Overseas Investments (No.1) Limited, DBOI Global Services (UK) Limited, DBOI Global Services Private Limited, DBR Investments Co. Limited, DBRE Global Real Estate Management IA Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management IB Ltd., DBRE Global Real Estate Management US IB L.L.C., DBRMS4, DBRMSGP1, DBUK PCAM Limited, DBUKH No. 2 Limited, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ1 LLC, DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBUSBZ2 S.a r.l., DBX Advisors LLC, DBX ETF Trust, DBX Strategic Advisors LLC, DBO Vermogensverwertung GmbH, DEBEKO Immobilien GmbH & Co Grundbesitz OHG, DEE Deutsche Erneuerbare Energien GmbH, DEUFRAN Beteiligungs GmbH, DEUKONA Versicherungs-Vermittlungs-GmbH, DEUTSCHE BANK A.S., DG China Clean Tech Partners, DI Deutsche Immobilien Treuhandgesellschaft mbH, DIB-Consult Deutsche Immobilien- und BeteiligungsBeratungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., DISCA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, DNU Nominees Pty Limited, DSL Portfolio GmbH & Co. KG, DSL Portfolio Verwaltungs GmbH, DTS Nominees Pty Limited, DWS Alternatives France, DWS Alternatives Global Limited, DWS Alternatives GmbH, DWS Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, DWS Beteiligungs GmbH, DWS CH AG, DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Distributors Inc., DWS Far Eastern Investments Limited, DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA, DWS Group Services UK Limited, DWS Grundbesitz GmbH, DWS International GmbH, DWS Investment GmbH, DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment Management Americas Inc., DWS Investment S.A., DWS Investments Australia Limited, DWS Investments Hong Kong Limited, DWS Investments Japan Limited, DWS Investments Shanghai Limited, DWS Investments Singapore Limited, DWS Investments UK Limited, DWS Management GmbH, DWS Real Estate GmbH, DWS Service Company, DWS Trust Company, DWS USA Corporation, De Heng Asset Management Company Limited, De Meng Innovative (Beijing) Consulting Company Limited, DeAM Infrastructure Limited, Deloraine Spain S.L., Delowrezham de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Deposit Solutions, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Capital Holdings New Zealand, Deutsche (Aotearoa) Foreign Investments New Zealand, Deutsche (Mauritius) Limited Port, Deutsche (New Munster) Holdings New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Access Investments Limited, Deutsche Aeolia Power Production Societe Anonyme, Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alt-A Securities Inc., Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (France) SAS, Deutsche Alternative Asset Management (UK) Limited, Deutsche Asia Pacific Holdings Pte Ltd, Deutsche Asset Management (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Japan) Limited, Deutsche Asset Management (Korea) Company Limited, Deutsche Asset Management S.A., Deutsche Asset Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsche Australia Limited, Deutsche Bank (Cayman) Limited, Deutsche Bank (Chile), Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (China) Co. Ltd., Deutsche Bank (Malaysia) Berhad, Deutsche Bank (Suisse) SA, Deutsche Bank (Uruguay) Sociedad Anonima Institucion Financiera Externa, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Americas Holding Corp., Deutsche Bank Bauspar-Aktiengesellschaft, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance LLC I, Deutsche Bank Capital Finance Trust I, Deutsche Bank Europe GmbH, Deutsche Bank Financial Company, Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Holdings Inc., Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency Incorporated, Deutsche Bank Insurance Agency of Delaware, Deutsche Bank International Limited, Deutsche Bank Investments (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A., Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Deposits, Deutsche Bank Luxembourg S.A. - Fiduciary Note Programme, Deutsche Bank Mutui S.p.A., Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank Mexico S.A. Institucion de Banca Multiple, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company Los, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Polska Spolka Akcyjna, Deutsche Bank Representative Office Nigeria Limited, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao, Deutsche Bank S.A. - Banco Alemao Sao, Deutsche Bank SPEARs/LIFERs Series DBE-8011 Trust, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Limited, Deutsche Bank Services (Jersey) Limited, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Sociedad Anonima Espanola, Deutsche Bank Societa per Azioni, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Delaware, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Company National Association, Deutsche Bank Trust Corporation, Deutsche CIB Centre Private Limited, Deutsche Capital Finance (2000) Limited, Deutsche Capital Hong Kong Limited, Deutsche Capital Management Limited, Deutsche Capital Markets Australia Limited, Deutsche Capital Partners China Limited, Deutsche Cayman Ltd., Deutsche Colombia S.A.S., Deutsche Custody N.V., Deutsche Domus New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Equities India Private Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 1 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 2 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 3 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance Co 4 Pty Limited, Deutsche Finance No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Foras New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilien-Leasing mit beschrankterHaftung, Deutsche Global Markets Limited, Deutsche Group Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Deutsche Group Services Pty Limited, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Deutsche Grundbesitz Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Deutsche Grundbesitz-Anlagegesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Deutsche Holdings (BTI) Limited, Deutsche Holdings (Grand Duchy), Deutsche Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., Deutsche Holdings (Malta) Ltd., Deutsche Holdings Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 2 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 3 Limited, Deutsche Holdings No. 4 Limited, Deutsche Immobilien Leasing GmbH, Deutsche India Holdings Private Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services (Ireland) Limited, Deutsche International Corporate Services Limited, Deutsche International Custodial Services Limited, Deutsche Inversiones Dos S.A., Deutsche Inversiones Limitada, Deutsche Investments (Netherlands) N.V., Deutsche Investments India Private Limited, Deutsche Investor Services Private Limited, Deutsche Knowledge Services Pte. Ltd., Deutsche Leasing New York Corp., Deutsche Mandatos S.A., Deutsche Master Funding Corporation, Deutsche Mexico Holdings S.a r.l., Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Limited, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Group Public Limited Company, Deutsche Mortgage & Asset Receiving Corporation, Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Mortgage Securities Inc., Deutsche Nederland N.V., Deutsche New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Nominees Limited, Deutsche Oppenheim Family Office AG, Deutsche Overseas Issuance New Zealand Limited, Deutsche Postbank, Deutsche Postbank Finance Center Objekt GmbH, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC I, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC II, Deutsche Postbank Funding LLC III, Deutsche Private Asset Management Limited, Deutsche Securities (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Securities (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities (SA) (Proprietary) Limited, Deutsche Securities Asia Limited, Deutsche Securities Australia Limited, Deutsche Securities Inc., Deutsche Securities Israel Ltd., Deutsche Securities Korea Co., Deutsche Securities Mauritius Limited, Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Deutsche Securities S.A., Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities S.A. de C.V. Casa de Bolsa, Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Securities SpA, Deutsche Securities Venezuela S.A., Deutsche Securitisation Australia Pty Limited, Deutsche Services Polska Sp. z o.o., Deutsche StiftungsTrust GmbH, Deutsche Strategic Investment Holdings Yugen Kaisha, Deutsche Trust Company Limited Japan, Deutsche Trustee Company Limited, Deutsche Trustee Services (India) Private Limited, Deutsche Trustees Malaysia Berhad, Deutsche Wealth Management S.G.I.I.C. S.A., Deutsches Institut fur Altersvorsorge GmbH, Durian (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., EC EUROPA IMMOBILIEN FONDS NR. 3 GmbH & CO. KG i.I., Elba Finance GmbH, Elizabethan Holdings Limited, Elizabethan Management Limited, Emerald Asset Repackaging Designated Activity Company, Erste Frankfurter Hoist GmbH, European Value Added I (Alternate G.P.) LLP, Exinor SA, FARAMIR Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs GmbH, FRANKFURT CONSULT GmbH, Fiduciaria Sant' Andrea S.r.L., Finanzberatungsgesellschaft mbH der Deutschen Bank, Franz Urbig- und Oscar Schlitter-Stiftung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-037, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-039, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-040, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-041, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-043, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-044, Freddie Mac Class A Taxable Multifamily M Certificates Series M-047, Funfte SAB Treuhand und Verwaltung GmbH & Co. Suhl "Rimbachzentrum" KG, G Finance Holding Corp., G.O. IB-US Management L.L.C., G918 Corp., GAC-HEL Inc., GWC-GAC Corp., Galene S.a r.l., Gemini Technology Services Inc., German American Capital, German American Capital Corporation, Gladyr Spain S.L., Global Markets Fundo de Investimento Multimercado, Global Markets III Fundo de Investimento Multimercado - Credito, Greenwood Properties Corp., Grundstucksgesellschaft Frankfurt Bockenheimer Landstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Kerpen-Sindorf Vogelrutherfeld GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Leipzig Petersstrae GbR, Grundstucksgesellschaft Wiesbaden Luisenstrae/Kirchgasse GbR, HTB Spezial GmbH & Co. KG, Hollandsche Bank-Unie, IOS Finance EFC S.A., ISTRON Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungs-GmbH, IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., IVAF I Manager S.a r.l., Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben I GbR, Immobilienfonds Buro-Center Erfurt am Flughafen Bindersleben II GbR, Immobilienfonds Mietwohnhauser Quadrath-Ichendorf GbR, Immobilienfonds Wohn- und Geschaftshaus Koln-Blumenberg V GbR, J R Nominees (Pty) Ltd, Joint Stock Company Deutsche Bank DBU, Jyogashima Godo Kaisha, KEBA Gesellschaft fur interne Services mbH, Kidson Pte Ltd, Konsul Inkasso GmbH, Kradavimd UK Lease Holdings Limited, LA Water Holdings Limited, LAWL Pte. Ltd., Latitude Australia Secured Personal Loans Trust, Leasing Verwaltungsgesellschaft Waltersdorf mbH, Leonardo III Initial GP Limited, Lindsell Finance Limited, London Industrial Leasing Limited, MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MEF I Manager S. a r.l., MHL Reinsurance Ltd., MIT Holdings Inc., MIT Holdings Inc., MPP Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Maher Terminals Holdings (Toronto) Limited, Morgan Grenfell & Company, MortgageIT, MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Inc., MortgageIT Securities Corp., Motion Picture Productions One GmbH & Co. KG, NCW Holding Inc., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., Navegator - SGFTC S.A., New 87 Leonard LLC, Nordwestdeutscher Wohnungsbautrager Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, OOO "Deutsche Bank TechCentre", OOO "Deutsche Bank", OPB Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungs-GmbH, OPB Verwaltungs- und Treuhand GmbH, OPB-Holding GmbH, OPB-Nona GmbH, OPB-Oktava GmbH, OPB-Quarta GmbH, OPB-Quinta GmbH, OPB-Septima GmbH, OPPENHEIM Capital Advisory GmbH, OPPENHEIM Flottenfonds V GmbH & Co. KG, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Manager GmbH, OPPENHEIM PRIVATE EQUITY Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, OPS Nominees Pty Limited, OVT Trust 1 GmbH, OVV Beteiligungs GmbH, Opal Funds (Ireland) Public Limited Company, PADUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, PARTS Funding LLC., PB Factoring GmbH, PB Firmenkunden AG, PB International S.A., PB Spezial-Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, PBC Banking Services GmbH, PCC Services GmbH der Deutschen Bank, PT Deutsche Sekuritas Indonesia, PT. Deutsche Verdhana Sekuritas Indonesia, Pan Australian Nominees Pty Ltd, Peruda Leasing Limited, Plantation Bay Inc., Plantation Bay Inc., Postbank Akademie und Service GmbH, Postbank Beteiligungen GmbH, Postbank Direkt GmbH, Postbank Filialvertrieb AG, Postbank Finanzberatung AG, Postbank Immobilien GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH, Postbank Immobilien und Baumanagement GmbH & Co. Objekt Leipzig KG, Postbank Leasing GmbH, Postbank Service GmbH, Postbank Systems AG, QR Tower 2 LLC, Quantiguous, R.B.M. Nominees Pty Ltd, REO Properties Corporation, RREEF, RREEF America L.L.C., RREEF China REIT Management Limited, RREEF European Value Added I (G.P.) Limited, RREEF Fund Holding Co., RREEF India Advisors Private Limited, RREEF Management L.L.C., RTS Nominees Pty Limited, Reference Capital Investments Limited, RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., RoPro U.S. Holding Inc., Route 28 Receivables LLC, Route 28 Receivables LLC, SAB Real Estate Verwaltungs GmbH, SAGITA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SAPIO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SCUDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SEDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SENA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Kamenz KG, SIFA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SOLIDO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, SP Mortgage Trust, SPINO Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., SPV I Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, SPV II Sociedad Anonima Cerrada, STATOR Heizkraftwerk Frankfurt (Oder) Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Sal. Oppenheim, Sal. Oppenheim Alternative Investments GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. AG & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Beteiligungs GmbH, Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. Komplementar AG, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Sechste Salomon Beteiligungs- und Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., Service Company Four Limited, Sharps SP I LLC, Singer Island Tower Suite LLC, Somkid Immobiliare S.r.l., Stelvio Immobiliare S.r.l., Structured Finance Americas LLC, Structured Finance Americas LLC, Swabia 1. Vermogensbesitz-GmbH, Suddeutsche Vermogensverwaltung Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, TAKIR Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TELO Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, TEMATIS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TERRUS Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Halle I KG i.L., TESATUR Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. Objekt Nordhausen I KG i.L., TOSSA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRIPLA Grundstucks-Vermietungsgesellschaft mbH, TRS Aria LLC, TRS Leda LLC, TRS Maple II LTD, TRS Oak II LTD, TRS SVCO LLC, TRS Scorpio LLC, TRS Tupelo II LTD, TRS Venor LLC, TRS Walnut II LTD, Tagus - Sociedade de Titularizacao de Creditos S.A., Tasfiye Halinde Deutsche Securities Menkul Degerler A.S., Tempurrite Leasing Limited, Thai Asset Enforcement and Recovery Asset Management Company Limited, Tianjin Deutsche AM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Treuinvest Service GmbH, Triplereason Limited, UKE Beteiligungs-GmbH, UKE Grundstucksgesellschaft mbH, UKE s.r.o., Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksgesellschaft Kirchnerstrae GbR, Ullmann - Esch Grundstucksverwaltungsgesellschaft Disternich GbR, Ullmann Ullmann Krockow Krockow Esch GbR, VCJ Lease S.a r.l., Vesta Real Estate S.r.l., VOB-ZVD Processing GmbH, WEPLA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, WEPLABeteiligungsgesellschaftmbH, Wealthspur Investment Ltd., Whale Holdings S.a r.l., World Trading (Delaware) Inc., World Trading(Delaware)Inc., Zumirez Drive LLC, db PBC, and norisbank GmbH.
Deutsche BArse AG operates as an exchange organization in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates through seven segments: Eurex (Financial Derivatives), EEX (Commodities), 360T (Foreign Exchange), Xetra (Cash Equities), Clearstream (Post-Trading), IFS (Investment Fund Services), and Qontigo (index and analytics business). The company engages in the electronic trading of derivatives, electricity and gas products, emission rights, and foreign exchange; operating of Eurex Repo over the counter (OTC) trading platform and electronic clearing architecture; and operating as a central counterparty for on-and-off exchange derivatives, repo transactions, and OTC and exchange-traded derivatives. It also operates in the cash market through Xetra, BArse Frankfurt, and Tradegate trading venues; operates as a central counterparty for equities and bonds; and provides listing services. In addition, the company offers custody and settlement services for securities; investment fund services; global securities financing services; and global securities finance and collateral management, as well as secured money, market transaction, and repos and securities lending transaction services. Further, it develops and markets indices, as well as portfolio management and risk analysis software; markets licenses for trading and market signals; provides technology and reporting solutions for external customers; and offers link-up of trading participants. Deutsche BArse AG was founded in 1585 and is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany.

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15 Wall Street equities research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Deutsche Wohnen in the last year. There are currently 8 hold ratings and 7 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street equities research analysts is that investors should "hold" Deutsche Wohnen stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in DWNI, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares.

View analyst ratings for Deutsche Wohnen or view top-rated stocks.
iShares S&P SmallCap 600 ETF's stock was trading at $62.31 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IJR stock has increased by 89.1% and is now trading at $117.83.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
The following companies are subsidiares of Zimmer Biomet: Abbott Spine, Beijing Montagne Medical Device Co. Ltd., Beijing Montagne Medical Device Co. Ltd., BioMet, Biomet 3i Australia Pty. Ltd., Biomet 3i Belgium N.V., Biomet 3i Benelux Holdings N.V., Biomet 3i Dental Iberica SL, Biomet 3i LLC, Biomet 3i Mexico S.A. de C.V., Biomet 3i Netherlands B.V., Biomet 3i Nordic AB, Biomet 3i Portugal Lda, Biomet 3i Switzerland GmbH, Biomet 3i Turkey, Biomet 3i UK Ltd., Biomet 3i do Brasil Comercio de Aparelhos Medicos Ltda., Biomet Acquisitions (Unlimited), Biomet Argentina SA, Biomet Australia Pty. Ltd., Biomet Biologics LLC, Biomet Brazil Medical Device Ltda., Biomet C.V., Biomet CV Holdings LLC, Biomet Cementing Technologies AB, Biomet Chile SA, Biomet China Co. Ltd., Biomet Deutschland GmbH, Biomet Deutschland Holding GmbH, Biomet Fair Lawn LLC, Biomet Finance US LLC, Biomet France Sarl, Biomet Global Supply Chain Center B.V., Biomet Healthcare Management GmbH, Biomet Holdings B.V., Biomet Hong Kong CBT Ltd., Biomet Hong Kong Holding Ltd., Biomet Hong Kong No. 1 Ltd., Biomet Inc., Biomet Insurance Ltd., Biomet International Inc., Biomet International Orthopedics LLC, Biomet Leasing Inc., Biomet Manufacturing LLC, Biomet Mexico S.A. de C.V., Biomet Microfixation B.V., Biomet Orthopedics LLC, Biomet Orthopedics Puerto Rico Inc., Biomet Spain Orthopaedics S.L., Biomet Sports Medicine LLC, Biomet Trauma LLC, Biomet U.S. Reconstruction LLC, Biomet UK Healthcare Ltd., Biomet UK Ltd., CD Diagnostics, CD Diagnostics Inc., CD Laboratories Inc., Cayenne Medical, Cayenne Medical Inc., CelgenTek Innovations Corporation, Centerpulse Ltd, Changzhou Biomet Medical Devices Co. Ltd., Citra Labs LLC, Clinical Graphics, Compression Therapy Concepts Inc., Compression Therapy Products, D.S. Comp Ltd., Dornoch Medical Systems, Dornoch Medical Systems Inc., EBI Holdings LLC, EBI LLC, EBI Medical Systems LLC, EBI Patient Care Inc., ETEX Corporation, ETEX Holdings Inc., Electro-Biology LLC, Endius, Espanormed S.L., Etex, ExtraOrtho, Hakuho Company Ltd., IC Guided Surgery SRL, Implant Concierge LLC, Implant Innovations Holdings LLC, Implex, InnoVision Inc., Interpore Cross International LLC, JERDS Luxembourg Holding Sarl, Kirschner Medical Corporation, Knee Creations, LDR Brasil Comercio Importacao e Exportacao Ltda., LDR Holding, LDR Medical Hong Kong (branch), LDR Medical S.A.S., LVB Acquisition Inc., Lanx Puerto Rico LLC , Lanx Srl, Medical Compression Systems Inc., Medtech SA, Medtech SAS, Medtech Surgical GmbH, Medtech Surgical Inc., NORMED Medizin-Technik GmbH, ORTHOsoft ULC, Ortho Transmission, Orthopaedic Advantage LLC, Ospol Participacoes Ltda., Representaciones Zimmer Inc. S. de R.L. de C.V., Respondwell, SM Re Ltd., Scandimed Holding AB, Shanghai Biomet Business Consulting Co. Ltd., Synvasive Technology, Synvasive Technology Inc., ZB COOP C.V., ZB COOP LLC, ZB Cayman (Asia) Holding Ltd., ZB Cayman Island CBT 2 Ltd., ZB Dental India Private Limited, ZB EMEA 1 LP, ZB EMEA Finance UK 1 Ltd., ZB EMEA Finance UK 2 Ltd., ZB EMEA Finance UK 3 Ltd., ZB EMEA US UK LLC, ZB Hong Kong CBT 2 Ltd., ZB Hong Kong Holding Ltd., ZB Hong Kong Ltd., ZB Manufacturing LLC, ZB UK Group Holdings Limited, ZH2LX Barbados Branch (branch), Zfx, Zfx GmbH, Zfx Innovation GmbH, Zhejiang Biomet Medical Products Co. Ltd., Zimmer (Shanghai) Medical International Trading Co. Ltd., Zimmer Asia (HK) Ltd., Zimmer Australia Holding Pty. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Asel Alarabiya Limited Company, Zimmer Biomet Asia Holding B.V., Zimmer Biomet Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Austria GmbH, Zimmer Biomet BVBA, Zimmer Biomet CBT, Zimmer Biomet CBT 2, Zimmer Biomet CMF and Thoracic LLC, Zimmer Biomet Canada Inc., Zimmer Biomet Centroamerica SA, Zimmer Biomet Comp Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Denmark ApS, Zimmer Biomet Dental Canada Inc., Zimmer Biomet Dental K.K., Zimmer Biomet Deutschland GmbH, Zimmer Biomet Distribution LLC, Zimmer Biomet Finance Srl, Zimmer Biomet Finance US Holding Inc., Zimmer Biomet Finland Oy, Zimmer Biomet France Holdings SAS, Zimmer Biomet France SAS, Zimmer Biomet GK, Zimmer Biomet Global Holdings Switzerland GmbH, Zimmer Biomet Hellas SA, Zimmer Biomet Ireland Limited, Zimmer Biomet Italia Srl, Zimmer Biomet Korea Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Nederland B.V., Zimmer Biomet New Zealand Company, Zimmer Biomet Norway AS, Zimmer Biomet OUS Holdings AG, Zimmer Biomet Polska Sp. z.o.o, Zimmer Biomet Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Zimmer Biomet Pty. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Romania S.R.L., Zimmer Biomet South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Zimmer Biomet Spain S.L., Zimmer Biomet Spine Inc., Zimmer Biomet Sweden AB, Zimmer Biomet Taiwan Co. Ltd., Zimmer Biomet UK Ltd., Zimmer Biomet US 2 Holding Inc., Zimmer CBT I Holding Inc., Zimmer CBT II Holding Inc., Zimmer CEP USA Holding Co., Zimmer CEP USA Inc., Zimmer CIS Ltd., Zimmer CV Inc., Zimmer Caribe LLC, Zimmer Cayman Islands Holding Co. Ltd., Zimmer Co-op Holdings LLC, Zimmer Colombia SAS, Zimmer Czech sro, Zimmer Dental (Shanghai) Medical Device Co. Ltd., Zimmer Dental Chile Spa, Zimmer Dental GmbH, Zimmer Dental Inc., Zimmer Dental Italy Srl, Zimmer Dental Ltd., Zimmer Dental SAS, Zimmer Finance Ireland, Zimmer France Manufacturing Sarl, Zimmer Germany Holdings GmbH, Zimmer GmbH, Zimmer GmbH Euro IP Branch (branch), Zimmer GmbH Winterthur Branch (branch), Zimmer Gulf FZ LLC, Zimmer Inc., Zimmer India Private Ltd., Zimmer International Logistics GmbH, Zimmer Investments LLC, Zimmer Knee Creations Inc., Zimmer Luxembourg II Sarl, Zimmer Luxembourg Sarl, Zimmer Manufacturing B.V., Zimmer Manufacturing B.V. (branch), Zimmer Medical Malaysia SDN BHD, Zimmer Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., Zimmer Orthobiologics Inc., Zimmer Orthopedics Manufacturing Limited, Zimmer Production Inc., Zimmer Pte. Ltd., Zimmer Slovakia sro, Zimmer Southeast Florida LLC, Zimmer Spine Next Inc., Zimmer Spine SAS, Zimmer Surgical, Zimmer Surgical Inc., Zimmer Surgical SA, Zimmer Switzerland Holdings LLC, Zimmer Switzerland Manufacturing GmbH, Zimmer Tibbi Cihazlar Sanayi ve Ticaret AS, Zimmer Trabecular Metal Technology Inc., Zimmer Trustee Ltd., Zimmer UK Limited, Zimmer US Inc., and Zimmer do Brasil Comercio Ltda..
The following companies are subsidiares of Emerson Electric: A.P.M. Automation Solutions Ltd., AE Valves, AGI Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ALCO CONTROLS spol. s.r.o., APM Automation Solutions, ASC Investments Inc., ASCO (Japan) Company Limited, ASCO L.P., ASCO Numatics (India) Private Limited, ASCO Numatics Holding Inc., ASCO SAS, ASCO Valve (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ASCO/JOUCOMATIC s.r.o., ATX SAS, Advanced Protection Technologies, Aegir Norge Holding AS, Alliance Compressors LLC, American Governor, Aperture, Apple JV Holding Corp., Appleton Electric LLC, Appleton Electric S.A. de C.V., Appleton Group, Appleton Group Canada Ltd., Appleton Grp LLC, Appleton Holding Corp., Appleton Holding Sarl, Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Artesyn Hungary Elektronikai Kft., Artesyn Technologies, Asco AB, Asco Controls AG, Asco Controls B.V., Asco Joucomatic Ltd., Asco Joucomatic ZA B.V., Asco Magnesszelep Kft., Asco Numatics GmbH, Asco Numatics S.A., Asco Numatics Sirai S.R.L., Asco Numatics Sp. z o.o., Ascomatica S.A. de C.V., Ascomation (NZ) Ltd., Ascomation Pty. Ltd., Ascotech S.A. de C.V., Ascoval Industria e Commercio Ltda, Automatic Switch Company, Aventics, Aventics, Aventics AB, Aventics AG, Aventics AS, Aventics ApS, Aventics B.V., Aventics Corporation, Aventics Holding S.A.S., Aventics Holding S.a.r.l., Aventics Hungary Kft, Aventics Inc., Aventics India Private Limited, Aventics Limited, Aventics Ltd., Aventics Oy, Aventics Pneumatics Equipment (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., Aventics Pneumatics Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aventics S.A.S., Aventics S.R.L., Aventics Services Germany GmbH, Aventics Singapore Pte. Ltd., Aventics Sp. z.o.o., Aventics Spain S.L., Aventics spol. s.r.o., Avtron LoadBank, Bannerscientific Limited, Beckman Industrial B.V., Beijing Rosemount Far East Instrument Co. Ltd., Bettis Canada Ltd., Bettis Holdings Limited, Bettis UK Limited, Biffi Italia S.r.l., Bioproduction Group, Branson Korea Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonic S.A., Branson Ultrasonics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonics B.V., Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Branson Ultrasonics a.s., Branson Ultrasonidos S.A.E., Branson Ultrasons SAS, Branson Ultrasuoni S.R.L., Branson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Bray Lectroheat Limited, Bristol Babcock Limited, Bristol Inc., Buehler Europe Limited, Buehler UK Limited, CR Compressors LLC, CSA Consulting Engineers Ltd., California Emerson LLC, Cascade Technologies, Cascade Technologies Holdings Limited, Cascade Technologies Limited, Chemat GmbH Armaturen fur Industrie - und Nuklearanlage, Chloride Koexa S.A., Componentes Avanzados de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Computational Systems, Computational Systems Incorporated, Conception et Representation de Technologies de Controle C.R.T. Controle SAS, Control Products Inc., Controles de Temperatura S.A. de C.V., Cooligy Inc., Cooper-Atkins, Cooper-Atkins Corporation, Cooper-Atkins Pte. Ltd., Copeland Access + Inc., Copeland Compresores Hermeticos S.A. de C.V., Copeland Corporation, Copeland Corporation LLC, Copeland Limited, Copeland Redevelopment Corporation, Copeland Scroll Compresores de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copeland de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copesub Inc., Crosby Valve LLC, Damcos A/S, Damcos Holding A/S, Daniel Automation Company, Daniel Europe Limited, Daniel Industrial Inc., Daniel Industries, Daniel Industries Canada Inc., Daniel Industries Inc., Daniel Industries Limited, Daniel International Limited, Daniel Measurement Solutions Private Limited, Daniel Measurement and Control Inc., Daniel Measurement and Control S. de R.L. de C.V., Danmasa S.A. de C.V., Dar Ibtikar Al Iraq for General Services and General Trade LLC, Decision Management International, Dieterich Standard Inc., Digital Appliance Controls (UK) Limited, Dixell North America Inc., Dixell S.R.L., Do+Able Products, E. Business Development E.B.D.Com Ltd., E.G.P. Corporation, EECO Inc., EGS Comercializadora Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Private Ltd., EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES s.r.o., EMR (Asia) Limited, EMR (Mauritius) Ltd., EMR Emerson Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, EMR Europe Holdings Inc., EMR Foundation Inc., EMR Holdings (France) SAS, EMR Holdings Inc., EMR Worldwide B.V., EMR Worldwide Inc., EMRSN HLDG B.V., EMRSN Process Management Morocco Sarl, ENPDOR2012A Limited, ENPESNA Inc., EPM Tulsa Holdings Corp., EPMCO Holdings Inc., ETC International Holdings Ltd., Easy Heat Europe SAS, Easy Heat Inc., El-O-Matic B.V., El-O-Matic Valve Actuators (F.E.) Pte. Ltd., Electrische Apparatenfabriek Capax B.V., Emerald Advanced Technology Limited, Emerson (Philippines) Corporation, Emerson (Taiwan) Limited, Emerson (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Arabia Inc., Emerson Argentina S.A., Emerson Asia Pacific Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Holdings Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Sichuan) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Taiwan) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Thailand) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Czech Republic s.r.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Denmark A/S, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control France SARL, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Germany GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hong Kong Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hungary Kft, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Italia S.r.l., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Middle East FZE, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Netherlands B.V., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Polska Sp. Z.o.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Holding LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK II Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control US LP, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Automation Solutions GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Automation Solutions Ireland Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Isolation Valves Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions SSC UK Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Beijing Instrument Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Services LLC, Emerson Climate Technologies (India) Private Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies (Shenyang) Refrigeration Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Trading Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Solutions (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Transportation Solutions ApS, Emerson Climate Technologies Arabia Limited Co., Emerson Climate Technologies Australia Pty. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies FZE, Emerson Climate Technologies GmbH, Emerson Climate Technologies Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Climate Technologies Refrigeration S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Europe S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Sarl, Emerson Commercial & Residential Tools LLC, Emerson Commerical & Residential Asia Limited, Emerson Comres de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson DHC B.V., Emerson Dietzenbach GmbH, Emerson Dominicana Srl, Emerson Egypt LLC, Emerson Electric (Asia) Limited, Emerson Electric (China) Holdings Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Electric (Mauritius) Ltd., Emerson Electric (South Asia) Pte. Ltd., Emerson Electric (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Electric (Tongling) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation, Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation (Chile) Limitada, Emerson Electric (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric CR Limitada, Emerson Electric Canada Limited, Emerson Electric Company (India) Private Limited, Emerson Electric Company Lanka (Private) Limited, Emerson Electric Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, Emerson Electric II C.A., Emerson Electric International Inc., Emerson Electric Ireland Limited, Emerson Electric Korea Ltd., Emerson Electric Nederland B.V., Emerson Electric Overseas Finance Corp., Emerson Electric Poland Sp. z o.o., Emerson Electric U.K. Limited, Emerson Electric de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Electric do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Energy Systems (UK) Limited, Emerson FZE, Emerson Final Control US Holding LLC, Emerson Finance LLC, Emerson Fusite Electric (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Gabon SARL, Emerson Hazardous Electrical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Holding Company Limited, Emerson Holding Sweden AB, Emerson InSinkErator Appliance (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Industrial Automation USA Inc., Emerson International Holding Company Limited, Emerson Japan Ltd., Emerson Junkang Enterprise (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Korea Limited, Emerson LLC, Emerson LLP, Emerson Machinery Equipment (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Mexico Finance S.A. de C.V. SOFOM ENR, Emerson Middle East Inc., Emerson Network Power DHC B.V., Emerson Paradigm Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management (India) Private Limited, Emerson Process Management (South Africa) (Proprietary) Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Tianjin) Valves Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Vietnam) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management A/S (Denmark), Emerson Process Management AB, Emerson Process Management AG, Emerson Process Management AS, Emerson Process Management Angola Lda, Emerson Process Management Arabia Limited, Emerson Process Management Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Process Management B.V., Emerson Process Management Chennai Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Distribution Limited, Emerson Process Management Europe GmbH, Emerson Process Management Flow B.V., Emerson Process Management Flow Technologies Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Process Management Holding AG, Emerson Process Management Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management Kft., Emerson Process Management LLLP, Emerson Process Management Lda, Emerson Process Management Limited, Emerson Process Management Ltda, Emerson Process Management Magyarorszag Kft., Emerson Process Management Manufacturing (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Korea Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management NV, Emerson Process Management New Zealand Limited, Emerson Process Management Nigeria Limited, Emerson Process Management Oy, Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions Inc., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions India Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Qatar W.L.L., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Inc., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Tulsa LLC, Emerson Process Management Romania S.R.L., Emerson Process Management S.A., Emerson Process Management S.A. de C.V., Emerson Process Management S.L., Emerson Process Management S.R.L., Emerson Process Management SAS, Emerson Process Management Shared Services Limited, Emerson Process Management Sp. z o.o., Emerson Process Management Ticaret Limited Sirket, Emerson Process Management UAB, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Valve Automation Inc., Emerson Process Management Verwaltung GmbH, Emerson Process Management d.o.o., Emerson Process Management de Colombia SAS, Emerson Process Management del Peru S.A.C., Emerson Process Management s.r.o., Emerson Professional Tools (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Puerto Rico Inc., Emerson Retail Services Europe GmbH, Emerson S.R.L., Emerson Sales UK Limited, Emerson Saudi Arabia LLC, Emerson Scroll Machining (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Sice S.R.L., Emerson Sweden AB, Emerson TOV, Emerson Technologies GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Technologies Verwaltungs GmbH, Emerson Tool Company de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Tool and Appliance Company S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson UK Trustees Limited, Emerson USD Finance Company Limited, Emerson Valves & Controls Japan Co. Ltd., Emerson Ventures Inc., Emerson Vulcan Holding LLC, Emerson Xi'an Engineering Center, Emersub 1 LLC, Emersub 10 LLC, Emersub 11 LLC, Emersub 12 LLC, Emersub 14 LLC, Emersub 15 LLC, Emersub 16 LLC, Emersub 3 LLC, Emersub 4 LLC, Emersub 5 LLC, Emersub 7 LLC, Emersub 8 LLC, Emersub 9 LLC, Emersub CII Inc., Emersub CV Inc., Emersub Italia S.R.L., Emersub LXXXIV Inc., Emersub LXXXVI Inc., Emersub Mexico Inc., Emersub Treasury Ireland Unlimited Company, Emersub XLVI Inc., Emersub XXXVI Inc., Emirates Techno Casting FZE, Emirates Techno Casting Holding Limited, Emirates Techno Casting LLC, Enardo, Endura-Greenlee Tools, Energy Solutions International (India) Private Limited, Energy Solutions International GP LLC, Energy Solutions International Ltd., Energy Solutions International SAS, Energy Solutions International Sub LLC, F-R Tecnologias de Flujo S.A. de C.V., FC QSF LLC, FMC Technologies, Fiberconn Assemblies Morocco Sarl, Fincor Holding LLC, Fire & Safety Group.Com Ltd., Fisher Controles de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fisher Controls International LLC, Fisher Jeon Gas Equipment (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Fisher Regulators (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Sanmar Limited, Fisher-Rosemount Systems Inc., Flow Control Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Flow Control Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Flow Control US Holding Corporation, Francel SAS, Fromex S.A. de C.V., Fusite B.V., Fusite Corporation, Fusite Land Company, GSEG LLC, General Equipment and Manufacturing Company Inc., Generale de Robinetterie Industrielle et de Sytemes de Surete, GeoFields, GeoFields Inc., Greenex Ltd., Greenfield (UK) Limited, Greenlee, Greenlee Communications, Greenlee Tools Inc., Gulf Valve FZE, Gustav Klauke GmbH, H.T.E. Engineering Limited, HD Electric Company, HTE Engineering Services Limited, Hindle Cockburns Limited, Hiross India Private Limited, Hiter Industria e Comercia de Controles Termo-Hidraulicos Ltda., Humboldt Hermetic Motor Corp., Hytork International Ltd., I Solutions Inc., ICC Intelligent Platforms GmbH, ISE-MagTech, Industrial Controls Canada ULC, Industrial Group Metran JSC, Instrument & Valve Services Company, Intelligent Platforms LLC, Intellution, International Gas Distribution SA, Intrinsic Safety Equipment of Texas Inc., JCF Fluid Flow India Private Limited, JSC Metran-Export, Joucomatic S.A., K Controls Limited, Keystone Germany Holdings Corp., Keystone Valve (Korea) LLC, Keystone Valve (U.K.) Limited, Klauke, Klauke (Jiangsu) Electrical Connection Technology Co Ltd., Klauke France SARL, Klauke Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Klauke Iberia S.L., Klauke Polska Sp. z.o.o., Klauke Slovakia s.r.o., Klauke UK Ltd., Knurr, Liebert, Liebert Swindon Limited, Locus Solutions LLC, Locus Traxx Worldwide, Locus Traxx Worldwide Europe BVBA, MDC Technology Limited, MDC Technology Trustees Limited, METCO Services Limited, MYNAH Technologies, Management Resources Group Inc., Mecafrance (Deutschland) GmbH, Metallurgical Services Laboratories Limited, Metaserv Limited, Metco Services Venezuela C.A., Micro Motion Inc., Mobrey Group Limited, Motores Hermeticos del Sur S.A. de C.V., NetworkPower Ecuador S.A., Nippon Fisher Co. Ltd., Novel Environmental Technologies Ltd., Novel Extinguishing Agent Technology Ltd., Numatics Incorporated, Nutsteel DHC B.V., Nutsteel Industria Metalurgica Ltda, O.M.T. Officina Meccanica Tartarini S.r.l., Open Systems International, P I Components Corp., PT Emerson Solutions Indonesia, PT. Emerson Indonesia, PT. Paradigm Geophysical Indonesia, Pactrol Controls Limited, PakSense, PakSense Inc., Paradigm, Paradigm (UK) Holding Limited, Paradigm B.V., Paradigm France S.A., Paradigm Geophysical (India) Private Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (KL) Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical (Nigeria) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (U.K.) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical B.V., Paradigm Geophysical Corp., Paradigm Geophysical Italy SRL, Paradigm Geophysical LLC, Paradigm Geophysical Limited, Paradigm Geophysical Pty Ltd, Paradigm Geophysical S.A., Paradigm Geophysical Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical Spain S.L., Paradigm Geophysical de Venezuela C.A., Paradigm Geophysical do Brasil Ltda., Paradigm Geoservices Canada Ltd., Paradigm Geotechnology (Egypt) S.A.E., Paradigm Kazakhstan LLP, Paradigm Middle East FZ-LLC, Paradigm Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Parex Industries Limited, Pentair Valves & Controls, Pentair Valves and Controls India Private Limited, Permasense, Permasense Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Permasense Limited, ProSys, ProTeam Inc., Progea, RAC Technologies (Israel) Ltd., RIDGID Inc., RPP Europe GmbH, RPP LLC, Rey-Lam S. de R.L. de C.V., Ridge Tool (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Ridge Tool Company, Ridge Tool Europe NV, Ridge Tool GmbH, Ridge Tool GmbH & Co. OHG, Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Ridge Tool Pattern Company, Ridgid France SAS, Ridgid Italia S.R.L., Ridgid Online Inc., Ridgid Scandinavia A/S, Ridgid Werkzeuge AG, Rosemount China Inc., Rosemount Inc., Rosemount Measurement Limited, Rosemount Nuclear Instruments Inc., Rosemount Specialty Products LLC, Rosemount Tank Gauging India Pvt. Ltd., Rosemount Tank Gauging Middle East SPC, Rosemount Tank Gauging North America Inc., Rosemount Tank Radar AB, Rosemount Tank Radar Properties AB, Roxar, Roxar AS, Roxar Flow Measurement AS, Roxar Flow Measurement Sdn Bhd, Roxar Limited, Roxar Maximum Reservoir Performance W.L.L., Roxar Saudi Co., Roxar Services AS, Roxar Services OOO, Roxar Software Solutions AS, Roxar Technologies AS, Roxar Vietnam Company Ltd., Roxar de Venezuela C.A., Rutherfurd Acquisitions Limited, S.F.T. Group Ltd., SABO-Armaturen Service GmbH, Safety Systems UK Pte. Ltd., Sakhi-Raimondi Valve (India) Limited, Scroll Compressors LLC, Scroll Mexico LLC, Sempell GmbH, Shanghai Virgo Valves Technology Consulting Co. Ltd., Sherman + Reilly, Soluciones 0925 C.A., Spectra-Tek Holdings Limited, Spectra-Tek International Limited, Spectra-Tek UK Limited, Spectrex, Spectrex Inc., Spectronix Ltd., Spensall Engineering Limited, Steel Support Systems Limited, Stratos Lightwave, System Plast International B.V., System Plast Ltda, System Plast USA de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., TDM-avtomatizatsiya, TV&C GP Holding LLC, Taiwan Valve Co. Ltd., TechnipFMC, Termocontroles de Juarez S.A. de C.V., Tescom Corporation, Tescom Europe GmbH & Co. KG, Tescom Europe Management GmbH, The Automation Group Inc., The J.R. Clarkson Company LLC, Therm-O-Disc Europe B.V., Therm-O-Disc Incorporated, Thunderline Z Inc., TopWorx UK Limited, Tranmet Holdings B.V., Tranmet Holdings Limited, Verdant Environmental Technologies, Vilter Manufacturing LLC, Virgo Valves & Controls (ME) FZE, Virgo Valves and Controls Sdn Bhd, Von Arx AG, Vulsub 1 Limited, Vulsub Brasil Holding, Vulsub Brasil Ltda., Vulsub Chile SpA, Vulsub Gulf Holding Limited, Vulsub Holding III (Denmark) ApS, Vulsub Holding Ltd, Vulsub Holdings A LLC, Vulsub Holdings B LLC, Vulsub Holdings C LLC, Vulsub Holdings D LLC, Vulsub Italia S.r.l., Vulsub Middle East Holdings LLC, Vulsub Peru S.A.C., Vulsub Property Holding LLC, Vulsub Property Limited, Vulsub S.A., Vulsub South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Vulsub VZ C.A., Westinghouse Electric Pvt. Limited, Westlock Controls Limited, Westlock Equipamentos de Controle Ltda., Woodstock Land Company LLC, epro GmbH, iSolera Inc., iSolutions Private Limited, and intelliSAW.
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Everest Re Group Ltd. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of reinsurance and insurance services. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Reinsurance, International, Bermuda, and Insurance. The U.S. Reinsurance segment writes property and casualty reinsurance and specialty lines of business, including marine, aviation, surety, and accident and health business, on both a treaty and facultative basis, through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies primarily within the U.S. The International segment offers foreign property and casualty reinsurance through Everest Re's branches in Canada and Singapore and through offices in Brazil, Miami, and New Jersey. The Bermuda segment comprises reinsurance and insurance to worldwide property and casualty markets through brokers and directly with ceding companies from its Bermuda office and reinsurance to the United Kingdom and European markets through its UK branch and Ireland Re. The Insurance segment writes property and casualty insurance directly and through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents within the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartere

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Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. engages in the mining of copper, gold and molybdenum. It operates through the following segments: North America Copper Mines, South America Mining; Indonesia Mining, Molybdenum Mines, Rod and Refining, Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining and Corporate, Other and Eliminations. The North America Copper Mines segment operates open-pit copper mines in Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita and Miami in Arizona and Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico. The South America Mining segment includes Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile. The Indonesia Mining segment handles the operations of Grasberg minerals district that produces copper concentrate that contains significant quantities of gold and silver. The Molybdenum Mines segment includes the Henderson underground mine and Climax open-pit mine, both in Colorado. The Rod and Refining segment consists of copper conversion facilities located in North America and includes a refinery, rod mills, and a specialty copper products facility. The Atlantic Copper Smelting and Refining segment smelts and refines copper concentrate and markets refined copper and precious metals in slimes. The Corporate, Other and Eliminations segment

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Hertz Global's quiet period expires on Monday, December 20th. Hertz Global had issued 44,520,000 shares in its initial public offering on November 9th. The total size of the offering was $1,291,080,000 based on an initial share price of $29.00. During Hertz Global's quiet period, insiders and underwriters that worked on the IPO are restricted from issuing any earnings forecasts or research reports for the company because of SEC regulations. Following the end of the company's quiet period, it's expected that the brokerages that served as underwriters on the stock will initiate research coverage on the company.
The following companies are subsidiares of D.R. Horton: 10700 Pecan Park Austin Inc., 11241 Slater Avenue NE LLC, 2 C Development Company LLC, 8800 Roswell Road Bldg. B LLC, 91st Avenue & Happy Valley L.L.C., ANN & 215 LLC, Austin Data Inc., BP456 Inc., C. Richard Dobson Builders Inc., CH Funding LLC, CH Investments of Texas Inc., CHI Construction Company, CHM Partners L.P., CHTEX of Texas Inc., CV Mountain View 25 Inv LLC, Cane Island LLC, Continental Homes Inc., Continental Homes of Texas L.P., Continental Residential Inc., Continental Traditions LLC, Crown Operating Company Inc., Cypress Road L.P., D.R. Horton - CHAustin LLC, D.R. Horton - Colorado LLC, D.R. Horton - Crown LLC, D.R. Horton - Emerald Ltd., D.R. Horton - Georgia LLC, D.R. Horton - Hawaii LLC, D.R. Horton - Highland LLC, D.R. Horton - Indiana LLC, D.R. Horton - Iowa LLC, D.R. Horton - MV LLC, D.R. Horton - Nebraska LLC, D.R. Horton - Permian LLC, D.R. Horton - Regent LLC, D.R. Horton - Terramor LLC, D.R. Horton - Texas Ltd., D.R. Horton - WPH LLC, D.R. Horton - Wyoming LLC, D.R. Horton BAY Inc., D.R. Horton CA2 Inc., D.R. Horton CA3 Inc., D.R. Horton CA4 LLC, D.R. Horton Commercial Inc., D.R. Horton Cruces Construction Inc., D.R. Horton Inc. - Birmingham, D.R. Horton Inc. - Chicago, D.R. Horton Inc. - Denver, D.R. Horton Inc. - Dietz-Crane, D.R. Horton Inc. - Greensboro, D.R. Horton Inc. - Gulf Coast, D.R. Horton Inc. - Huntsville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Jacksonville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Louisville, D.R. Horton Inc. - Midwest, D.R. Horton Inc. - Minnesota, D.R. Horton Inc. - NNV, D.R. Horton Inc. - New Jersey, D.R. Horton Inc. - Portland, D.R. Horton Inc. - Torrey, D.R. Horton Inc. Foundation, D.R. Horton Insurance Agency Inc., D.R. Horton LA North Inc., D.R. Horton Life Insurance Agency Inc., D.R. Horton Los Angeles Holding Company Inc., D.R. Horton Management Company Ltd., D.R. Horton Materials Inc., D.R. Horton Realty LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Atlantic County LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Central Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Delaware LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Georgia Inc., D.R. Horton Realty of Melbourne LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Tampa LLC, D.R. Horton Realty of Virginia LLC, D.R. Horton Seabridge Marina Inc., D.R. Horton Serenity Construction LLC, D.R. Horton Urban Renewal LLC, D.R. Horton VEN Inc., D.R. Horton  Corpus Christi LLC, DBC54 LLC, DHI Commercial - Lakeview LLC, DHI Commercial - Signal Butte LLC, DHI Commercial - Tamarron LLC, DHI Commercial Inc., DHI Communities Construction LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Arizona LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Colorado LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Florida LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Iowa LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Nevada LLC, DHI Communities Construction of North Carolina LLC, DHI Communities Construction of South Carolina LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Texas LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Utah LLC, DHI Communities Construction of Virginia LLC, DHI Communities II LLC, DHI Communities Inc., DHI Engineering LLC, DHI Insurance Inc., DHI Mortgage Company, DHI Mortgage Company GP Inc., DHI Mortgage Company LP Inc., DHI Mortgage Company Ltd., DHI Ranch Ltd., DHI Realty of Alabama LLC, DHI Realty of Mississippi LLC, DHI Title GP Inc., DHI Title LP Inc., DHI Title of Alabama Inc., DHI Title of Arizona Inc., DHI Title of Florida Inc., DHI Title of Minnesota Inc., DHI Title of Nevada Inc., DHI Title of Texas Ltd., DHI Title of Washington Inc., DHI Verandah South Shores Communities LLC, DHIC - Bridges LLC, DHIC - Brittmore LLC, DHIC - Carolina Forest LLC, DHIC - Desert Peak LLC, DHIC - Durbin Creek LLC, DHIC - Freestone LLC, DHIC - Hammock Landing LLC, DHIC - Heritage LLC, DHIC - Horizon Uptown LLC, DHIC - Jacobs Reserve LLC, DHIC - Lakeview LLC, DHIC - Lipoma LLC, DHIC - Minton Cove LLC, DHIC - Mountain Vista LLC, DHIC - Naco LLC, DHIC - Northshore LLC, DHIC - Prairie Village LLC, DHIC - South Creek LLC, DHIC - Tamarron LLC, DHIC - Valley Vista LLC, DHIC - Varina Gateway LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh II LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh III LLC, DHIC - Waterleigh LLC, DHIC - Westridge LLC, DHIC LLC, DHIC  Glendale LLC, DHIC  Grove West LLC, DHIC  South Park LLC, DHIC  Westinghouse LLC, DHIR - Aspen Vista LLC, DHIR - Avian Pointe LLC, DHIR - Emerald Lakes LLC, DHIR - Fosters Ridge LLC, DHIR - Gulf Stream LLC, DHIR - Parkview at Lynn Haven LLC, DHIR - Poplar Terrace LLC, DHIR - Properties I LLC, DHIR - Rock Ridge LLC, DHIR - Sunset Village LLC, DHIR - Village at Hickory Street LLC, DRH - ARK LLC, DRH - ASG LLC, DRH - HWY 114 LLC, DRH Cambridge Homes LLC, DRH Capital Trust I, DRH Capital Trust II, DRH Capital Trust III, DRH Colorado Realty Inc., DRH Construction Inc., DRH Energy Inc., DRH FS Mortgage Reinsurance Ltd., DRH Land Opportunities I Inc., DRH Land Opportunities II Inc., DRH Mountain View LLC, DRH Oil & Gas Inc., DRH Opportunities I Inc., DRH Properties Inc., DRH Realty Company Inc., DRH Realty of Iowa LLC, DRH Regrem L LLC, DRH Regrem LI LLC, DRH Regrem LII LLC, DRH Regrem LIII LLC, DRH Regrem LIV LLC, DRH Regrem LV LLC, DRH Regrem VII LP, DRH Regrem XII LP, DRH Regrem XIV Inc., DRH Regrem XIX Inc., DRH Regrem XLIX LLC, DRH Regrem XLV LLC, DRH Regrem XLVI LLC, DRH Regrem XLVII LLC, DRH Regrem XLVIII LLC, DRH Regrem XV Inc., DRH Regrem XVI Inc., DRH Regrem XVII Inc., DRH Regrem XVIII Inc., DRH Regrem XX Inc., DRH Regrem XXI Inc., DRH Regrem XXII Inc., DRH Regrem XXIII Inc., DRH Regrem XXIV Inc., DRH Regrem XXV Inc., DRH Southwest Construction Inc., DRH Tucson Construction Inc., DRHI Inc., Deer Valley Office Park LLC, Desert Ridge Phase I Partners, Emerald Creek No. 4 L.P., Emerald Realty of Alabama LLC, Emerald Realty of Central Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of North Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, Emerald Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, Encore II Inc., Encore Venture Partners II (California) L.P., Encore Venture Partners II (Texas) L.P., Encore Venture Partners L.P., Express Realty of Central Florida LLC, Express Realty of North Florida LLC, Express Realty of Northwest Florida LLC, Express Realty of Southeast Florida LLC, Express Realty of Southwest Florida LLC, Forestar Group, Forestar Group Inc., Founders Oil & Gas II LLC, Founders Oil & Gas III LLC, Founders Oil & Gas IV LLC, Founders Oil & Gas LLC, Founders Oil & Gas Operating LLC, GP-Encore Inc., Georgetown Data Inc., Germann & McQueen L.L.C., Grand Title Agency LLC, Grande Realty Incorporated, Grande Realty of Pennsylvania LLC, Greywes LLC, HPH Homebuilders 2000 L.P., Hadian LLC, KDB Homes Inc., Kaomalo LLC, Lexington Homes - DRH LLC, MRLF LLC, Martin Road Lake Forest LLC, McQueen & Willis LLC, Meadows I Ltd., Meadows II Ltd., Meadows IX Inc., Meadows VIII Ltd., Meadows X Inc., Melody Homes Inc., Pacific Ridge - DRH LLC, Rielly Carlsbad LLC, Rielly Homes Madison LLC, SFTEN LLC, SGS Communities at Grand Quay L.L.C, SHA Construction LLC, SHLR of California Inc., SHLR of Nevada Inc., SHLR of Washington Inc., SRHI LLC, SSHI LLC, Schuler Homes of Arizona LLC, Schuler Homes of California Inc., Schuler Homes of Oregon Inc., Schuler Homes of Washington Inc., Summerlin Pkwy & Cimarron LLC, Surprise Village North LLC, The Club at Cobblestone LLC, The Club at Hidden River LLC, Tierra Financial Advisors LLC, Travis County Title Company, Treasure Assets LLC, Venture Management of South Carolina LLC, Vertical Construction Corporation, WPH-Camino Ruiz LLC, WPH-Copper Canyon II LLC, WPH-Copper Canyon LLC, Walker Drive LLC, Western Pacific Brea Development LLC, Western Pacific Housing - Mountaingate L.P., Western Pacific Housing - SDG LLC, Western Pacific Housing - Westlake II L.P., Western Pacific Housing Inc., Western Pacific Housing Management Inc., Western Pacific Housing-Antigua LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Broadway LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Canyon Park LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Carrillo LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Communications Hill LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Copper Canyon LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Creekside LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Lomas Verdes LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Lyons Canyon Partners LLC, Western Pacific Housing-McGonigle Canyon LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Norco Estates LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Pacific Park II LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Park Avenue East LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Park Avenue West LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Playa Vista LLC, Western Pacific Housing-River Ridge LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Terra Bay Duets LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Torrey Meadows LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Torrey Village Center LLC, Western Pacific Housing-Windemere LLC, and Wilson Parker Homes.
The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Advisors S.r.l., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe (Services) Limited, AIG Europe Holdings S.a.rl., AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Insurance Company (Switzerland) Ltd, AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG Shared Services Corporation, AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE EOLA LLC, AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American Home Assurance Company Escritorio de Representacao no Brasil Ltda., American International Group Inc., American International Group UK Limited, American International Overseas Association, American International Overseas Limited, American International Realty Corp., American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A., American Security Life Insurance Company Limited, Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Avondhu Limited, Blackboard Customer Care Insurance Services LLC, Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Services LLC, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., Chartis Takaful Enaya B.S.C. (c), Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Fortitude Group Holdings LLC, Fortitude Life & Annuity Solutions Inc., Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd., Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Group Risk Services Limited, Group Risk Technologies Limited, Illinois National Insurance Co., Jefferson Eola Venture LLC, Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, MG Reinsurance Limited, Mt. Mansfield Company Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Private Joint-Stock Company AIG Ukraine Insurance Company, Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SA Affordable Housing LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Affordable Housing Partners Inc., SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., Thai CIT Holding Company Limited, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., Western World Insurance Company, and Western World Insurance Group Inc..
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As a consequence, a lot of the foundational knowledge about what makes the materials work is missing. Artists move into the cheap (and technically illegal) places, use the blessings of low rent and free time to create art, boost the property value and get booted when they cant afford living there anymore.

Anything that you find out of the ordinary, wed like to know about escape room prop. Anyone escaping that way would have had to navigate a chaotic maze of tiny residences separated by wooden slats, a rabbit warren where 15 to 25 people lived at any given time. And yet, despite the warehouse being a known illegal quantity, building code enforcement inspectors had not been inside for 30 years.

And when it leads to your child not receiving enough of that vital emotional validation, emotional connection, and emotion education from you to set him up for a rich and successful emotional life in adulthood. And though of course adults play their games, kids do, too. And they did it by appealing to a more renewable energy source than instant crude oil: seven-year-old kids. And that is where they died when, in 1984, the industry crashed due to the cold adult realities of over-supply and low-quality control.



And once they got rid of those tenants, thanks to provisions in the states CostaHawkins Act of 1995  which could be undone this year with a yes vote on California Proposition 10  they could reset the rent to whatever they saw fit. And every title released will earn a rating E for Everyone or E10+. And even then, even if theyd gotten through that gantlet, they would have found the near exit fully obstructed with debris.

And all of them are dwarfed by the winner-for-life Christmas season and other winter holidays. An avid climber, hed taken time off Peace Corps work in Nepal to scale the Himalayan massif of Annapurna. Almenas wife later said it was posted before hed found out about the deaths. All in the name of trying to solve a murder mystery, prevent a nuclear meltdown, or restore the balance of the universe.

After years of enjoying all that Valparaiso has to offer  movies in the park, festival, parades, concerts, etc. After two uncomfortable minutes, Schaaf mentioned something vague about Oakland showing up and walked back into the darkness, leaving her town to reckon with the question of who was to blame. More escape room props at JXKJ website, click here http://m.jxkj1987.com/en/


Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF's stock was trading at $56.09 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, PPA stock has increased by 29.9% and is now trading at $72.88.

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Invesco High Income Trust II is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Invesco Ltd. The fund is co-managed by Invesco Advisers, Inc, INVESCO Asset Management (Japan) Limited, INVESCO Asset Management Deutschland GmbH, INVESCO Asset Management Limited, Invesco Hong Kong Limited, INVESCO Senior Secured Management, Inc., and Invesco Canada Ltd. It invests in the fixed income markets. The fund seeks to invest in securities rated between BB and C by Standard and Poor's. It seeks to maintain an average duration of around three to four years for its portfolio. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield 2% Issuer Cap Inde. It was formerly known as Invesco Van Kampen High Income Trust II. Invesco High Income Trust II was formed on April 28, 1989 and is domiciled in the United States.

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iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF's stock was trading at $123.88 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, LQD shares have increased by 5.7% and is now trading at $130.98.

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iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF's stock was trading at $35.66 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWL stock has increased by 39.3% and is now trading at $49.67.

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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.
Lloyds Banking Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of banking and financial services in the United Kingdom and internationally. It operates through three segments: Retail; Commercial Banking; and Insurance and Wealth. The Retail segment offers a range of financial service products, including current accounts, savings accounts, mortgages, motor finance, unsecured loans, leasing solutions, credit cards, and other financial services to personal and small business customers. The Commercial Banking segment provides lending, transactional banking, working capital management, risk management, and debt capital market services to small and medium-sized entities, corporates, and financial institutions. The Insurance and Wealth segment offers life, home, and car insurance products; and pension, investment, and wealth management products and services. It also provides digital and mobile banking, and telephone services, as well as advisory services for savings, investments, and planning for retirement. The company offers its products and services under the Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows, MBNA, Schroders Personal Wealth, Black Horse, Lex Autolease, Birmingham Midshires, LDC, IWeb, and Agricultural Mortgage Corporation brands. Lloyds Banking Group plc was founded in 1695 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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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.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan.
National Bank of Canada provides various financial products and services to retail, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services, such as credit, and deposit and investment solutions, as well as international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services. The Wealth Management segment provides investment solutions, trust and estate services, banking services, lending services, guaranteed investment certificates, mutual funds, notes, structured products, and other wealth management solutions through internal and third-party distribution networks. The Financial Markets segment offers risk management products and services; and debt and equity underwriting; advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, and financing. The U.S. Specialty Finance and International segment provides specialty finance expertise; financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Cambodia; and the activities of targeted investments in certain emerging markets. The company also offers credit cards. It provides its services through a network of 483 branches and 1,573 banking machines. The company was founded in 1859 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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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.

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Raymond James Financial, Inc., a financial holding company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the underwriting, distribution, trading, and brokerage of equity and debt securities, and the sale of mutual funds and other investment products in the United States, Canada, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through Private Client Group, Capital Markets, Asset Management, RJ Bank, and Other segments. The Private Client Group segment provides securities brokerage services, including the sale of equities, mutual funds, fixed income products, and insurance products to their individual clients; and borrowing and lending of securities to and from other broker-dealers, financial institutions, and other counterparties. The Capital Markets segment offers securities brokerage, trading, and research services to institutions with a focus on sale of the United States and Canadian equities and fixed income products; and manages and participates in underwritings, merger and acquisition services, and public finance activities. The Asset Management segment engages in the operations of Eagle, the Eagle Family of Funds, Cougar, the asset management operations of Raymond James & Associates, trust services of Raymond James Trust, and other fee-based asset management programs. The RJ Bank segment provides corporate loans, SBL, tax-exempt loans, and residential loans. The Other segment engages in private equity activities, including various direct and third party private equity investments; and private equity funds. Raymond James Financial, Inc. was founded in 1962 and is based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Delta Galil Industries Ltd. engages in development, design, production, marketing and sale of underwear, socks, children's wear, leisure wear and Activewear as well as in development, design, marketing, distribution and sale of branded products in the category of men's and women's jeans and outerwear and related products. It operates through the following segments: Delta USA, Global Upper Market, Schiesser, Delta Israel, and Delta Premium Brands. The Delta USA Segment engages in the development, design and marketing of lingerie, socks and Activewear to Private Labels. The Global Upper Market segment develops, designs, manufactures and markets men's and women's underwear, socks and Activewear manufactured at the Company's plants and sold to retail chains and to brands in Europe and the United States. The Schiesser segment covers the development, design, manufacture and marketing of labeled women's, men's and children's underwear and Activewear under the Schiesser brand. The Delta Israel segment is involved in the development, design and marketing of labeled women's and men's underwear, socks and Activewear products, as well as children's wear under the Delta brand. The Delta Premium Brands segment engages in development, design, marketing, distribution and sale of premium products under the brands 7 For All Mankind, Splendid, Ella moss. The company was founded by Dov Lautman and Eliezer Peleg in 1975 and is headquartered in Caesarea, Israel.

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SemGroup Corporation provides gathering, transportation, storage, distribution, marketing, and other midstream services for producers, refiners of petroleum products, and other market participants. The company operates in three segments: U.S. Liquids, U.S. Gas, and Canada. The U.S. Liquids segment operates crude oil pipelines, truck transportation, storage, terminals, and marketing businesses; stores, blends, and transports refinery products and refinery feedstock through pipeline, barge, rail, truck, and ship; and operates a residual fuel oil storage terminal in the U.S. Gulf Coast. This segment has 18.2 million barrels of storage capacity on the Houston Ship Channel; and 7.6 million barrels of storage capacity at the Cushing Interchange. It also operates a 460-mile crude oil gathering and transportation pipeline system in Kansas and northern Oklahoma; 75-mile crude oil gathering pipeline system that transports crude oil from production facilities in the DJ Basin to the pipeline owned by White Cliffs Pipeline, L.L.C.; 2 parallel 527-mile pipelines that transports crude oil from Platteville, Colorado to Cushing, Oklahoma; 3 pipelines with an aggregate of 106 miles of pipe; 30-lane crude oil truck unloading facility in Platteville, Colorado; and crude oil trucking fleet of approximately 245 transport trucks and 235 trailers. The U.S. Gas segment provides natural gas gathering, processing, and marketing services. It operates 842 miles of gathering lines in Oklahoma; and a 53-mile high pressure gathering pipeline located in the STACK play. The Canada segment owns and operates natural gas processing and gathering facilities with approximately 530 miles of natural gas gathering and transportation pipelines in Alberta, Canada. SemGroup Corporation was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE:MNK) announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August, 4th. The company reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.55. The company had revenue of $700.90 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $630.19 million. Mallinckrodt had a positive trailing twelve-month return on equity of 34.26% and a negative net margin of 89.94%. The business's revenue was down 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.53 EPS.

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SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Tableau Software, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides business analytics software products. It offers Tableau Desktop, a self-service, powerful analytics product with data; Tableau Server, a business intelligence platform for organizations; Tableau Online, a hosted software-as-a-service version of Tableau Server; Tableau Prep, a data preparation product for combining, shaping, and cleaning data; and Tableau Public, a cloud-based platform for analyzing and sharing public data. In addition, it offers Visual Query Language (VizQL) for databases, which is a computer language for describing pictures of data, including graphs, charts, maps, time series, and tables of visualizations; Live Query Engine that interprets abstract queries generated by VizQL into syntax understandable by database systems; and Hyper, an in-memory data engine technology that helps customers to analyze a range of data sets by evaluating analytical queries directly in the transactional database. Further, the company provides support, maintenance, training, and professional services. It serves organizations in various industries, including business services, energy and telecommunications, financial services, life sciences and healthcare, manufacturing and technology, media and entertainment, public sector, and education, as well as retail, consumer, and distribution industries. The company sells its products directly, as well as through indirect sales channels, such as technology vendors, resellers, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendor, and distributors in the United States, Canada, and internationally. Tableau Software, Inc. was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.
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. 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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..
United Internet AG, through its subsidiaries, operates as an Internet service provider (ISP). It operates through Consumer Access, Business Access, Consumer Applications, and Business Applications segments. The company offers landline-based broadband and mobile internet products, including home networks, online storage, telephony, and IPTV; and telecommunication products ranging from fiber-optic direct connections to tailored ICT solutions, which include voice, data, and network solutions, as well as infrastructure services to national and international carriers and ISPs. It also provides ad-financed and fee-based application products for consumer and business customers, including domains, Websites, Web hosting, servers, cloud solutions, and e-shops; personal information management applications, such as email, to-do lists, appointments, and addresses; and group works, online storage, and office software. The company offers its access products through the yourfone, smartmobile.de, 1&1, winSIM, maxim, simplytel, DeutschlandSIM, PremiumSIM, and 1&1 versatel brands; and applications through GMX, mail.com, WEB.DE, home.pl, Arsys, Strato, 1&1 IONOS, Fasthosts, InterNetX, united-domains, and World4You brand names. In addition, it offers customers professional services in the fields of active domain management under the Sedo brand; and online advertising services under the United Internet Media brand name. The company has operations in Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Poland, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, and Mexico. United Internet AG was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Montabaur, Germany.

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Utica-based Advanced Institute for Manufacturing (AIM) at Mohawk Valley Community College will lead a statewide cybersecurity program for manufacturers.

The initiative is aimed to help local companies fight cyber risks and secure Department of Defense contracts, which in the end will mean job preservation.

The funding from a NYSTAR grant is more than $303,000.

AIM will conduct assessments to identify any gaps between existing protocols and any new cybersecurity requirements. After, they will provide and implement actions to fix any issues.

The process will help manufactures retain existing contracts and jobs, while allowing them to also seek new contracts that could subsequently secure more jobs.

NYSTAR Director Matt Watson said in a statement, By ensuring that members of New York State's manufacturing ecosystem are secure against the threat of cyberattacks, we are helping these companies meet Federal standards while strengthening their own online defenses.
The United Methodist Church in Milford was deliberately set on fire and destroyed, but over a year later a new church is emerging. Construction is under way to make a new United Methodist Church. Reverend Sylvia Barrett talked about how the fire affected church members.

"Unfortunately as it turned out it was arson, so further on down the line we had to deal with that. That somebody would deliberately set fire to the church, and that re-opened the sadness, but we also believe as Christians in forgiveness."

The church not only found it in their hearts to forgive, but Lola Rathbone tells us they have also taken on the responsibility of reaching out to heal those in need.

"When we learned that the unfortunate young man with significant mental health problems burned our building, that we made a commitment to participate in mental solutions for our community."

Since the fire, Rev. Sylvia Barrett says the community has also shown their affection to members of the church.

"It almost brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it because it was their church, and so people would stop me in the street, Im being hugged, and it was a moment where we came together as a community. I really feel that in my heart that we came together as a community."

An old country store is where the church members come together to pray.

"Nobody talks about it as being the store. Now its where we worship, but I was saying to the congregation last Sunday, were building a new sanctuary, which is a holy place, a sacred place set aside. This will become our fellowship hall, but it really is where it all began."

Construction of the new United Methodist Church will continue throughout the winter, and is set to open sometime in mid-2019.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI)  The Lafayette Fire Department has put out a house fire after they said someone reported an explosion in the attic. Responders at the scene said Vectren was also there to shut off gas lines in the area.

It happened on South Furlong Drive. That is in a residential neighborhood near State Road 26 and Veterans Memorial Parkway on the east side.

Charles Merrill said he has lived across the street from the home for the past eight years, and he has never seen anything like this happen before.

"Day before Thanksgiving, I'm sure they had something planned. If there is anything we do, we would love to help," he said.

The LFD Captain Karl Stokes said the call came in around 9:15 Wednesday morning. He said homeowners should check their homes to make sure something like this doesn't happen elswhere.

"Always right now, especially with the change of the season, smoke detectors are a big one, make sure everything's working right. Getting your furnaces and everything checked out and serviced for the year," he said.

Merrill said he didn't here the reported explosion happen, but that his girlfriend woke him up to the site of a street filled with firetrucks and police cars.

Crews put the fire out by 9:45 a.m. No one was injured and the family declined to comment.

The Red Cross Disaster Relief team showed up on scene around 10:30 a.m. to assist the family.

Sheffield Fire assisted and will be taking over the investigation.
TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) -- Its National Adoption Month and to celebrate, Indiana courtrooms have opened their doors to the media to capture the moment families lives change forever.

Twenty families in Tippecanoe County met before Judge Sean Persin Tuesday to finalize their adoption process.

Jon and Kirsten Nagy welcomed their sons, 8-year-old Zachary Eric Nagy and 10-year-old Michael Nagy to the family. Zachary said hes excited to have a permanent home.

It was my first time getting adopted and I'm happy to be with this nice and good family and I can tell they're going to take really good care of us, said Zachary.

Zachary and his brother Michael have lived in other foster homes before. They said this home was different.

Nice people, pets and stuff... an actual home, said Michael.

Jon and Kirsten have fostered the brothers for nearly nine months. They said they knew immediately the boys were their sons.

They're really smart kids and they've got a lot of heart. Like the judge said, the sky is really the limit for them, said Jon.

Indiana Adoption Program is a branch of the Department of Children's Services. In honor of National Adoption Month, Vanessa Dove, a recruiter with Indiana Adoption, said the program has been traveling to courtrooms across the state to celebrate this special day with families.

It's usually a somber occasion when you're going to court. So today, seeing that joyous, that celebration, I think its really what makes a difference of today versus any of the other days in the year, said Dove.

Dove said the program was created to bring awareness to adoption being an option for parents who want kids. One thing Indiana Adoption particularly focuses on is getting older youth in homes.

When a lot of people think of adoption they only think of babies and infants, which is a big thing we're trying to overcome because there's so many kids in care, especially older youth, that are looking for homes and families, said Dove.

Dove said many kids still in the foster care system after age 14 will often ask Indiana Adoption to find them a home.

The first step for parents interested in adopting is to visit this website and make the inquiry. From there, Indiana Adoption Program receives the information request and recruiters will send interested adoption parents further information.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) -- A judge has granted a 72 hour extension for formal charges to be filed for the man accused of fatally shooting and killing a teen and injuring his brother Sunday. Alexander Garcia-Johnson cooperated with authorities Tuesday in his first court appearance.

The holiday and the weekend doesn't count, so prosecutors have until Tuesday to file formal charges.

Garcia-Johnson responded with a quick "yes" or "no" when asked questions in the courtroom at the Tippecanoe County Jail. Otherwise, he remained silent.

According to court documents, a woman who lives on Rubble Way told police she was woken up by a loud bang and saw Jontae Billups-Brooks on top of Alexander Garcia-Johnson. The woman also said she saw blood on Garcia-Johnson's face.

According to court documents, Garcia-Johnson told police he was punched and kicked multiple times by a person named "Jonathan." Garcia-Johnson said another person "KeeKee" stole items from him. Garcia-Johnson admitted to having a firearm at the apartment, according to prosecutors.

Keyonte Billups-Brooks refused to cooperate with police during the investigation, according to prosecutors.

LPD officers responded to a call of several shots fired at 3117 Rubble Way around 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 18. When officers arrived, they found 18-year old Jontae Billups-Brooks with one gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was taken to Franciscan Health Lafayette East where he was later pronounced dead.

Police also learned of a second victim who had left the scene. The second victim was identified as Keyonte, the brother of Jontae. He was taken to IU Health Arnett Hospital with one gunshot wound to the arm, officers said. Keyonte was treated for his injuries and later released from the hospital.

Neither the Billups-Brooks brothers nor Garcia-Johnson lived at the apartment where the shots were fired, Lt. Brian Phillips said. Officers said there was some sort of gathering at the apartment that night.
DETROIT (AP)  A judge has ordered a Michigan man to surrender two antique lighthouse lenses worth at least $600,000, months after the collector lost a court battle with the federal government.

Steve Gronow was supposed to turn them over last summer. U.S. Coast Guard officials and a lens expert recently went to his mansion in Howell, 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, but weren't allowed through a gate.

"I have no interest in putting anyone in jail ... but my orders are not going to be disobeyed," U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith said Monday as he gave Gronow until February to produce the lenses.

The government sued Gronow, saying he had no right to lenses from the Spring Point Ledge lighthouse in Maine and the Belle Isle lighthouse in Detroit.

The Maine lighthouse was automated around 1960, and the Detroit lighthouse was replaced in 1930. Gronow bought one lens from a seller on eBay and the other from the Henry County Historical Society in Indiana. The government apparently had lent it to the Indiana group in 1946.

The Coast Guard argued that it still owned the lenses. Goldsmith agreed last spring and gave Gronow a few months to surrender them.

"It is time for the games to end," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Caplan told the judge, seeking approval to use U.S. marshals and "all necessary force."

Gronow's attorney, James Pelland, said Gronow wants to be paid for storing the lenses before he gives them up. Goldsmith, however, said that's a separate matter.

"These essentially were thrown in the trash 70 years ago," Gronow told the judge. "And after not caring for 75 years, I'm sued."
WHITE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI)  Two men are in custody after deputies said they robbed a home and then led police on an interstate chase. White County Sheriff Pat Shafer said 37-year-old Jeffrey Down of Lafayette and 38-year-old Eric Maxson of Brookston are facing preliminary charges for the incident early Monday morning.

Jeffrey Down

Eric Maxson

Around 5:40 a.m. on Nov. 19, deputies received a report of a burglary in progress at a residence/business on State Road 231 north of the Tippecanoe/White County border. Deputies saw two men drive away in a white Dodge pickup truck with a Texas license plate.

Deputies tried to pull the truck over, but the driver didn't stop. The truck drove north on State Road 231, turned onto State Road 18 and then exited onto I-65 southbound. The driver then did a U-turn on the interstate before exiting back onto State Road 18. The chase ended near 450 West and 600 South when the driver drove down a gravel road leading to windmills.

Down, the driver, faces a preliminary charge of burglary and resisting law enforcement. He is being held in the White County jail on a $40,000 bond.

Maxson is facing a preliminary charge of Burglary with bond set at $40,000.
INDIANAPOLIS (WLFI)  Longtime State Senator Ron Alting has been named the new Indiana Senate Majority Leader Emeritus. Tuesday marked the ceremonial start of the 121st Indiana General Assembly, and many politicians were appointed to new positions.

Sen. Alting represents a large part of Tippecanoe County in District 22. A news release shows he was appointed due to his many years of service. Alting said he had no idea he was going to be elected to this position.

As part of the new title, Alting will decide what bills need to be heard. The upcoming year is a budget year, so Alting said he will be busy. However, he is looking forward to helping the community.

"It gives me a seat at the leadership table so hopefully I can make a difference even at a greater level in trying to do some great things for the constituents of Tippecanoe County," said Alting.

Alting will continue to serve as the chair of public policy. Alting has been serving Tippecanoe County in the state Senate since 1998.
RENSSELAER, Ind. (WLFI) -- A suspect has been identified in connection to a fatal hit-and-run in Jasper County in October, Sheriff Terry Risner confirmed.

Deputies said 43-year-old Joseph Bland of Terre Haute was the alleged driver of the semi that killed Melissa Deno on Oct. 10. The semi was found in East St. Louis, Illinois just a few days after the crash. Chief Deputy Pat Williamson said a report has now been filed with the Jasper County Prosecutor's office. Bland is not in custody, according to Williamson.

Williamson said trucking company, based out of Terre Haute, contacted the sheriff's office and identified Bland. He was passing through Rensselaer on Oct. 10 for a pick up or drop off.

As we reported in October, a statewide search was underway for a semi that drove off after running over a car and killing a woman. The woman was identified as 40-year-old Melissa Deno of Rensselaer.

On Oct. 10, police received a report of a crash between a car and a semi at the intersection of U.S. 231 and State Road 16. Within minutes, a second call was received that the semi had fled the scene westbound on State Road 16. It was also reported the driver of the car was trapped within the vehicle after it has gone under the semi.

When fire rescue and law enforcement arrived, they determined a white box trailer had failed to stop at the intersection and crashed into a car driven by Deno. The vehicle had gone under the semi, shearing off the roof of Deno's vehicle.

According to officials, Deno suffered serious injuries and was pronounced dead by medical personnel.

Tuesday, INDOT changed the intersection to a 4-way stop after a recommendation from the Sheriff's office. Sheriff Risner said the intersection has seen many fatal crashes due to careless drivers.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)  Top Republican legislative leaders don't expect lawmakers will take any action toward removing state Attorney General Curtis Hill from office even though the governor and other state officials have called on him to resign over allegations that he drunkenly groped four women during a party.

House Speaker Brian Bosma told reporters Monday that he anticipates some legislators to push for Hill's impeachment, while downplaying the chances of the Republican-dominated Legislature taking any action during its session that begins in early January.

"My honest opinion on this is it will be such a distraction that it would be all we did this session" and take focus away from other important matters, Bosma said. "I think this would be an unneeded distraction."

A special prosecutor declined last month to pursue any criminal charges against Hill, despite a state report that witnesses said the Republican attorney general touched the women inappropriately during a March party at an Indianapolis bar celebrating the end of the 2018 legislative session.

Hill has denied groping Democratic state Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon and three legislative staffers, who have said they intend to sue Hill, the state of Indiana and the attorney general's office on claims including assault, battery, defamation and false imprisonment.

Gov. Eric Holcomb, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Secretary of State Connie Lawson and Bosma  all Republicans  were among state leaders who said Hill should resign after the allegations became public in July.

Senate Majority Leader Mark Messmer of Jasper said Hill's future should now be decided by the voters. Hill's term runs through 2020.

"There won't be any legislative action to force him out. If he's not been convicted of a felony, there's no real reason to move that issue forward," Messmer said. "Leave it up to the voters next election cycle."

Bosma and Messmer both spoke after a legislative preview conference during which Indiana Chamber of Commerce President Kevin Brinegar said the business group supported the idea of making the attorney general position one appointed by the governor rather being an elected office.

Lawmakers are poised to move up the effective date of a law making the state schools superintendent an appointed position starting in 2021, rather than 2025, after current Superintendent Jennifer McCormick announced last month she wouldn't seek re-election.

Brinegar said the attorney general ought to be the governor's lawyer rather than having a separate agenda.

Bosma drew some audience laughs by stretching out the word "awkward" when asked about making the attorney general an appointed position.

Too many questions about the timing of such a change would come up by debating it now, said Bosma, who has also faced allegations from a former legislative intern that they had a 1992 sexual fling while he was a House member. Bosma has denied the allegation and the woman's claims that he tried to intimidate her with a campaign-funded investigation by a private attorney this year in order to keep her quiet.

Hill said in a statement that Indiana should remain among the 43 states with elected attorneys general.

"There will always be those who prefer to concentrate the levers of government in the hands of a powerful few, but I believe most Hoosiers value the freedom of electing their public servants by casting ballots," Hill said.
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Although heterosexuality is the most popular form of sexual relationship today, homosexuality is gaining acceptance in some parts of the world. Practices such as lesbianism, gayism, bisexualism, and transgenderism are no longer as widely criminalized as they were before. A resolution recognizing the LGBTQ community was passed by the UN. However, as of 2017, a total of 74 nations have still criminalized homosexuality and put in place stiff penalties including the death sentence for those found to be practicing it. The laws vary from country to country. Only 23 countries, mostly with developed democracies, recognize same-sex marriages. Most of the countries that have outlawed homosexuality are drawn from Africa and the Middle East.

Countries Where Homosexuality Is Illegal

Asian Countries

Most of the countries that have criminalized homosexuality and enacted laws against it are drawn from the Asian continent. At least 20 Asian countries have outlawed it while nine countries allow people in same-sex relationship to serve in departments such as the military. In Afghanistan, homosexuality is completely illegal and practicing it leads to imprisonment or death. In Bangladesh, those found to be engaging in it are sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Bhutan has a lenient sentence of only one-year imprisonment. Engaging in homosexual activities in India will attract a penalty of up to life imprisonment and sometimes torture and fines. Other countries in Asia where LGBTQ has been outlawed include Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar, UAE, and Yemen.

African Countries

In most African countries, homosexuality is considered immoral and mainly practiced in private with the LGBTQ community preferring not to disclose it. In some of the countries, it is considered illegal and laws have been passed to punish those who engage in it. In Egypt, engaging in homosexuality will attract 17 years imprisonment while in Morocco and South Sudan one will serve 3 and 10 years respectively. In Sudan, men are convicted to death on third offense while women are convicted on the fourth offense. Other countries where the offender will be prisoned for life include Gambia, Tanzania, and Uganda. In Nigeria and Mauritania, those found guilty are punished by death.

Caribbean Countries

Most of the countries in the Caribbean have legalized certain aspects of homosexuality such as same-sex sexual activities. However, the majority of the countries are yet to fully embrace the practice. Antigua and Bermuda have completely outlawed homosexuality with those convicted of the same are sentenced to 15 years in prison. Other countries include Barbados, Dominica, and Saint Vincent.

Polynesian and Melanesian Countries

Polynesian countries that have outlawed homosexuality include the Cook Islands and Samoa where penalty ranges from 5-14 years imprisonment. The Solomon Islands is the only country in Melanesia where homosexuality is outlawed.

Are Laws Against Homosexuality Enforced?

Although most of the countries that have criminalized homosexuality through legislation, in some countries, especially Muslim countries, it is the application of Sharia laws that have led to the criminalization of the act. However, most countries do not enforce such laws. In Kenya, those who engage in the act are simply cursed by the community as in some other African countries. Some of the laws are often vague and difficult to interpret, making it almost difficult to enforce. Some human groups have also challenged such laws like in India and Kenya where the outcome is expected to have a great influence on the LGBTQ community.
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania, also referred to as Mauritania, is one of the largest nations in Africa. The country covers an area of roughly 400,000 square miles and is the 28th largest nation globally. Evidence indicates that Mauritania has been home to human communities for a long time with one of the first groups that settled there being the Balfour. In ancient times, Mauritania was bordered by the region referred to as Libya. In the present day, Mauritania shares its borders with four nations: Algeria, Mali, Western Sahara, and Senegal. The land boundaries of the nation cover a distance of roughly 3,153 miles. Several events have affected the shape of Mauritanias borders with one of the most significant being colonization by the French.

Senegal

Senegal and Mauritania share a border that is roughly 742 miles long and is situated on the southwestern side of Mauritania. Some urban centers and towns are located on the Mauritanian side of the border with some of the most notable being Rosso, Bogue, Kaedi, and Mederdra. Roads link towns on the Senegalese side of the border to towns on the Mauritanian side of the border. Both Mauritania and Senegal were under the control of the French during the colonial era, and they determined the shape of the boundary between the two nations.

The Border Dispute With Senegal

From 1989 to 1991, Mauritania and Senegal were involved in a dispute about the nature of the border that separates the two nations. The conflict revolved around grazing rights and the River Senegal which forms part of the boundary between the two states. The conflict had some devastating impacts such as the creation of numerous refugees, the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations, and a significant number of people died on both sides. Several international organizations tried to help settle the dispute with the Organization of African Union (OAU) playing a huge role. Despite their best efforts, the Senegalese president, Abdou Diouf, played the biggest role in settling the conflict. Because of his efforts, Senegal and Mauritania signed a treaty that led to the re-establishment of ties between the two nations.

Mali

Mauritanias longest land border is shared with Mali and extends for roughly 1,390 miles in the eastern and southeastern section of Mauritania. The French colonized both Mali and Mauritania, and the border between the two nations was determined during the colonial period. There are several towns located on the Malian side of the border such as Selibabi, Kankossa, and Kobenni.

The Border Dispute With Mali

Mali and Mauritania were involved in a border dispute in 2010 because of the actions of the governments of Mauritania and France. The two governments carried out an unsuccessful operation to rescue hostages of French nationalities who were being held by AQIM fighters believed to be hiding in Mali. Since the Malian government did not sanction the operation, it led to the deterioration of the relationship between Mali and Mauritania. Apart from the 2010 dispute, Mali and Mauritania were also involved in a border dispute in 1963.

Western Sahara

A 97-mile long border separates the nations of Mauritania and Western Sahara. The border is situated on the northern side of the country and has been the subject of controversy for countless times. There are several towns on the Mauritian side of the border with some of the most notable being Tmeimichat, Zouerat, and Ain Ben Tili. There are roads connecting towns in Mauritania to towns in Western Sahara.

The Border Dispute With Western Sahara

One of the factors that contributed to a dispute between the two nations was the fact that Mauritanias annexation of part of Western Saharas territory. Mauritania later pulled out of those areas that it had annexed after the French government intervened to try and settle the conflict. During the dispute, close to 2,000 Mauritanian soldiers lost their lives. It is also estimated that more than 2,000 Mauritian soldiers may have been captured during the conflict. After pulling out of Western Sahara, the Mauritian government declared that it was neutral in the conflict and it hoped for a quick and peaceful end to the issue. Mauritania played a significant role in Western Saharas history as it was the birthplace of the Polisario Front.

Algeria

Mauritanias shortest land border is shared with the North African nation of Algeria which is roughly 286 miles long and is situated in the northeastern section of Mauritania. In 2018, the Mauritian and Algerian governments opened up a border crossing close to the city of Tindouf which is situated on the Algerian side of the border. The border crossing point was created to improve the security along the border of the two nations.

The Relationship Between Algeria and Mauritania

Several experts classify the relationship between Mauritania and Algeria as cordial. Despite the friendly relationship, Algeria and Mauritania have had several disputes. One of the most significant issues concerned the Western Saharan War where Morocco and Mauritania were on one side while Algeria and the Polisario Front were on the opposing side. One of the factors that contributed to Mauritania pulling out of Western Sahara was the economic and political pressure that Algeria exerted. In Mauritania, the Algerian government is represented by an embassy located in Nouakchott. On the other hand, the government of Mauritania is represented by an embassy located in Algiers.
Mongolia is the world's second-largest landlocked country. Archaeological evidence indicates that modern human societies have lived in Mongolia for more than 40,000 years and the long history of human habitation has dramatically affected the shape of the country's borders. Mongolia shares its land borders with China and Russia. Apart from Russia and China, the nation closest to Mongolia is Kazakhstan. Although the two nations do not share a common land boundary, they are only 23 miles apart at their closest points.

Border With China

China and Mongolia share a border that is roughly 2,877 miles long. China surrounds Mongolia on the southern, eastern, and western sections of the country. There are towns located on the Mongolian side of the border with some of the most notable being Sulanheer, Zamiin Uud, Chongol, and Hovuun. The towns situated on the Chinese side of the border include Baotou, Hohhot, and Datong. Several seasonal rivers cross the southern section of the China-Mongolia border, and on the Chinese side of the border, there are several water bodies such as the Gaxun Nur and the Sogo Nur. There are also several water bodies on the eastern side of the border with some of the most well-known being the Hulun Nur and the Buir Nur. On the eastern edge of Mongolia, the China-Mongolia border is often referred to as the Manchurian border as it marks the limits of the region often referred to as Manchuria. The Mongolia-China border also crosses through a section of the Gobi desert.

The Border Dispute With China

Mongolia and China were involved in a border dispute in 2016 due to the presence of the Dalai Lama in Mongolia. According to an article published by Aljazeera, the Chinese government closed one of the most crucial border crossing points roughly a week after the Dalai Lama had visited Mongolia. Experts believed that the Chinese government was punishing the Mongolian government for allowing the spiritual leader of Tibet to visit the country. The most significant impact of closing the crossing point was congestion particularly among large trucks that wanted to cross from one nation to the other. Apart from closing the border point, the Chinese government also put in place tariffs on goods moving between the two nations. Experts believe that if the relationship between the two nations deteriorates, it could hurt the Mongolian economy.

Historical Relationship With China

Throughout their shared history, Mongolia and China have had a remarkably complicated relationship. One of China's most famous features, the Great Wall of China, helped to ward off attacks from Mongolian invaders. One of the Mongolians who played a vital role in China's history was Kublai Khan, who was descendant of the most famous Mongolian leader, Genghis Khan. Kublai was credited with founding the Yuan Dynasty as well as bringing the entire nation of China under his control. The Chinese, under the Qing Dynasty, would later take control of Mongolia and their rule would last for more than 200 years. The fall of the Qing dynasty resulted in Mongolia gaining its independence as well as the establishment of the Republic of China.

Modern Relationship With China

In the modern era, China and Mongolia cooperate on several aspects with the most important ones being trade and development. The leaders of the two countries signed a treaty of cooperation in 1994 which bolstered the relationship. Data from both the Chinese and Mongolian governments indicates that within the first nine months of 2007 the value of goods traded between the two nations had already exceeded $1.13 billion. Because Mongolia is landlocked, the Chinese government had allowed Mongolia to use the Tianjin port to access the outside market.

Border With Russia

Mongolia and Russia share a border that is roughly 2,166 miles long and is situated on the northern edge of Mongolia. The present-day boundary between the two nations follows limits set out in a treaty by the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire referred to as the Treaty of Kyakhta. The original treaty ensured that the Tuva region remained within Mongolia's borders. However, after the Qing dynasty broke up, the region of Tuva broke away from Mongolia and fell under the control of the Russian government. The governments of Russia and Mongolia have set up ten official points along which people can legally cross from one nation to the other.

Issues Along The Border With Russia

One of the most significant issues along the border in 2005 between Mongolia and Russia was theft and smuggling. The most commonly stolen items were livestock which significantly affected the economy of Mongolia. The region that was most heavily affected was the Tuva.

Relationship With Russia

Russia and Mongolia have had generally positive ties that date back to the Soviet era. During this period, the government of the Soviet Union provided aid to the Mongolian nation. After the Soviet Union broke up, Mongolia and Russia still maintained close ties. In Mongolia, the Russian government is represented by an embassy situated in Ulaanbaatar as well as consulate generals located in Erdenet and Darkhan.

The Security Of The Mongolian Border

Border security is an essential issue to the government of Mongolia. The government has set up a department dedicated to safeguarding the border that is referred to as the General Authority of Border Protection and is under the Ministry of Justice. The Mongolian government relies heavily on techniques developed in the Soviet Union to keep its borders safe. Some sections of the Mongolian border have a fence to prevent unauthorized access.
U.S. President Donald Trump thanked Saudi Arabia for low crude oil prices Wednesday, a day after reaffirming his support for the Kingdom despite the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

Before the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran on Nov. 5, oil prices jumped to their highest level in four years in October. Brent crude hit $86.74 on Oct. 3, and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbed to $76.90.

After the U.S. granted waivers to eight major importing nations of Iranian crude, rising oil production worldwide created fears of oversupply in global market.

Lower global oil demand and weaker estimates for global economic growth continue to worry investors that crude demand could fall through 2019.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was the latest organization with a gloomy outlook Wednesday that lowered global growth forecast for next year to 3.5 percent, from 3.7 percent.

Since the beginning of October, crude prices fell about 30 percent and sank into the bear market territory, with Brent plummeting to $61.71 Tuesday and WTI sinking to $52.77.

Trump said last week he hoped Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would not cut production in the cartel's much awaited meeting next month.

He also reaffirmed his support for Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and said the U.S. "intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia and called the kingdom a great ally, despite Khashoggis killing.

The comments were condemned by American intelligence officials and lawmakers from both major political parties.

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Bob Corker, wrote on Twitter: I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

The Democratic ranking member of the committee, Bob Menendez, along with Corker, wrote a letter to Trump demanding his administration determine if the journalists murder was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, went missing after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

After weeks of denial, Saudi Arabia admitted Khashoggi was killed in the diplomatic building.

An Investigation by Turkey suggests a special hit squad went to the consulate, scouted Istanbuls Belgrad Forest, and tried to cover up evidence at the consulate.

The international community refused to accept the Saudis claim that the killing was not a premeditated murder.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed all details of the case should be revealed, including who gave instructions for premeditated murder.

Trump said he could impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia, but also signaled he did not want to harm bilateral relations.

Last week, the U.S. sanctioned 17 people tied to Khashoggi's murder, including the Saudi Consul General in Istanbul Mohammad al-Otaibi.
The EU and Turkish officials are set to discuss a range of issues, including an update on Turkish efforts on domestic reforms in the areas of judiciary and fundamental rights, an EU official said Tuesday.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity, the official said: "We'll be asking for an update on the reform [from Turkey]. You'll remember that the Reform Action Group gathered in August and said they would like to carry reform on the basis of EU and Council of Europe standards and norms. The next meeting of the action group is already in mid-December. We would like to get an update [to see where Turkey is]."

The official held a meeting with journalists to discuss an upcoming visit to Ankara by EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini and EU Neighborhood Policy Minister Johannes Hahn.

He said the EU cautiously welcomed the reform action group outcome in August seeking to overhaul the judiciary and forming a new human rights action plan.

Mogherini and Hahn will meet Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his deputy Faruk Kaymakci on Nov. 22 to discuss Turkey's foreign policy on the Syrian civil war, Middle East peace process, Jerusalem, Gaza, Libya and Iraq and Turkey's EU accession process.

Also, Customs Union, EU visa liberalization, fight against terror and data protection will be discussed.

Turkey does not want any political setback in its negotiations with the EU but expects enhanced EU support on counter-terrorism, namely against terror groups such as the PKK, the Fetullah Terror Organization (FETO) and Daesh, in Europe.

Speaking at a joint news conference following the 4th Reform Action Group held late August, Cavusoglu said: "We want to receive something in return for our efforts, including a visa-free regime, and we dont desire any political setback.

A joint declaration, issued following the meeting, stressed measures and improvements in counter-terrorism.

On Turkey-EU relations, the declaration he said: We [Turkey] primarily expect the EU to revive the accession talks.

Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 while accession talks began in 2005.

The talks between Turkey and the EU stalled in 2007 due to the objections of the Greek Cypriot administration in the divided island of Cyprus, as well as opposition from Germany and France.

Guncelleme Tarihi: 21 Kasm 2018, 12:05
Saudi Arabia has played a crucial role in working closely with the U.S. to keep oil prices at reasonable levels, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement on Tuesday.

Claiming that lower oil prices are important worldwide, Trump said he is relying on Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices low after his administration resumed sanctions against Iran.

"Saudi Arabia, if we break [our relationship] with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof," Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

"Ive kept them down. Theyve helped me keep them down," he said.

Oil prices plummeted by as much as 6.8 percent on Tuesday and further dropped after the White House released a statement about standing with Saudi Arabia."

The statement comes at a very sensitive time when the global spotlight is focused on Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and the countrys de facto ruler, and on his potential role in the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Trump is also under pressure to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's murder.

Brent oil traded at $63.62 per barrel at 07.11 GMT Tuesday while WTI saw prices of around $54.26 per barrel.

Trading of the international benchmark Brent began with prices of $67.17 per barrel at 05.51 GMT on Monday, while American benchmark WTI traded at $57.20 per barrel.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018

ATLANTA -- A Georgia woman says she is missing close to $9,000 and she's blaming Wells Fargo for what happened.

It's been 10 days since Roslyn Baitney put $8,754 cash in this drive-up tube. Baitney went into the drive-up tube to deposit with a teller, with Wells Fargo on Flat Shoals Road.

"These are her words: this deposit is too large. You need to go on the inside. She never said; hold on, Im sending the tube back," said Baitney.

The incident report says the teller alerted Baitney she was sending her money back through the tube.

"I tap on the window. I said, 'hey, where's my money?' said Baitney.

A car had been in line behind Baitney at the drive-thru.

"Then the teller said: oh I wonder why that car behind you didn't do a transaction, they just pulled off. Yes, because you gave them my money," said Baitney.

The police report also indicates security video was recorded off-site. The bank won't talk about the video. The money is not the only worry.

"Now I'm an open book because my identity is out there, my driver's license, my bank card, my bank information. It was all inside of that tube," said Baitney.

Baitney fears a thief now knows where she lives. She's been staying with her fiance.

"I don't like throwing people under the bus but there was a mistake made, and it was the bank that made the mistake," said Baitney's fiance.

A Wells Fargo spokesman e-mailed We are aware of the issue at the chapel square branch and are working to resolve it."

He refused to comment further due to "an on-going criminal investigation."

"That's my house note, my car note, my car insurance. What are you all going to do?" said Baitney.

Wells Fargo promised to pay Baitney her money by Tuesday.
Following the announcement that Amazon will divide its second corporate headquarters between Long Island City in Queens, New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, press reports indicate that the online shopping and logistics giant will reap $3.3 billion in incentives from New York state and New York City alone.

While Amazon will capitalize on locations adjacent to the centers of American finance and militarism, respectivelythe Crystal City location is literally across the street from the Pentagoncapitalist politicians like Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have sought to turn the relationship on its head, lauding the arrival of Amazon a boon to New York City.

Both the governor and mayor have pointed to Amazons promise of bringing 25,000 jobs with an average salary above $150,000, although this seems dubious given that the starting wage for Amazon employees is barely one-tenth that sum.

The agreement reached between Amazon and the State of New York comes at a cost of $1.525 billion to state taxpayers. $1.2 billion of the $1.5 billion state expenditure is coming from the states Excelsior Job Program and is based on the number of new hires. In essence, New York is offering to pay $48,000 per employeealmost one-third of Amazons purported labor cost.

The state will also pay Amazon a $325 million construction grant if it meets certain hiring deadlines, a figure that will increase to $505 million if the corporation hires 40,000 individuals by 2034.

The establishment of Amazon HQ2 in Queens will also impact the finances of the City of New York. According to officials cited in the New York Post, New York City has given Amazon $1.28 billion in tax incentives. These incentives include a Payment In Lieu Of Tax (PILOT) program, where the company would pay no property tax on part of its site, New York Citys Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP), and its Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP). Further public investment of $180 million in Long Island City was clearly allocated to entice the tech giant.

Between the state and city of New York, Amazon will receive at least $3.3 billion in public funds over the next ten years, to be paid for by cuts to already woefully underfunded social services and infrastructure that the citys workers rely on.

The presentation of these massive corporate handouts as performance-based incentives concerning hiring and building commitments is nothing but a pretense by politicians such as Cuomo and de Blasio to sell the contract as something beneficial to the public. The unfolding, and final result of, the negotiations between New York City and Amazon reveal the fundamental relationship in American and global society: the corporate executives dictate their terms and their politicians hurry to accept and implement them.

In an indication of the dictatorial character of the proceedings, Amazon maintained total control over the state and local governments with which they negotiated. Amazons ruthlessness encountered no resistance from elected officials, as all applicants were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. The details of the agreements were not publicly availableor even known by several key local political figuresuntil Amazons announcement.

Amazon also ran roughshod over government regulations. The waterfront site that Amazon intends to use is not currently zoned for commercial development, meaning that it would typically have to be rezoned before construction could begin. Usually, a business entity needs to start a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which allows for public discussion and oversight from public bodies such as the City Planning Commission, the Department of City Planning, and the City Council. However, to expedite the process for Bezos, the $164 billion man, Governor Cuomo has promised Amazon exemption from New York Citys land use proceedings.

A prior proposal to use the land for much-needed affordable housing has been shelved. And the potential site of Amazons corporate headquarters, next door to Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing project in the country, has been glossed over with the unlikely prospect that some of the thousands of residents, with median household incomes of $15,843, well below the federal poverty line for a family of four, might be lucky enough to find employment at Amazon!

The contrast between the city governments largesse to Amazon and its stingy treatment of the residents of public housing was so stark that even the Wall Street Journal editorial pagean adamant defender of the most ruthless free market nostrumswas compelled to publish an editorial contrasting, Billions for Amazon but rats, lead paint and mold for public housing. The editorial was headlined, A Tale of Two New Yorks, an obvious jibe at Mayor de Blasio, who first won office by claiming to oppose the division of New York into two cities, one for the super-rich and one for everyone else. Once in office, of course, De Blasio has been just as much a servant of the financial oligarchy as any other mayor.

In a final stipulation that epitomizes the arrogance of the whole deal, Bezos has demanded a helipad in both locations. It has been written into the contract that New York state and the city help Amazon obtain federal approval so that Bezos and other top-level executives can take helicopters to work. According to the wording of the contract, in the case that an onsite helipad is not feasible, the Public Parties will assist the Company in securing access to a helipad in an alternative location in reasonable proximity to the Development Sites.

As the workers of New York City contend with the increased stress on infrastructure, public transportation, and higher rents that the influx of Amazon corporate functionaries will bring, Bezos and his cronies will enjoy the New York skyline from their helicopters funded with public monies. Such is the inequality that defines New York and global society in 2018.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has placed the country on the frontline of the mounting US confrontation with China, which was on open display at last weekends Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG).

US Vice President Mike Pence exploited the opportunity to launch a savage attack on China and its policies throughout the region, including its militarisation of islets in the South China Sea, its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure plans for Eurasia, and alleged theft of intellectual property. He warned that unless China changes its ways, the US would continue to escalate its massive tariffs on Chinese goods.

Pences speech marked a sharp escalation, not only in US trade war measures against China, but in its military build-up in Asia in preparation for war. For Australian capitalism, the geo-political standoff has dire implications, since it continues to depend militarily on the US alliance, and financially on Wall Street, yet China remains its largest trading partner.

In his comments, Morrison absurdly maintained that Australia doesnt have to choose and we wont choose between the US and China. Despite Pences aggressive speech, the prime minister maintained that rifts between the worlds two largest economies would be patched up when President Trump met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of the month. The deep divide between the US and China is underscored by the fact that the APEC summit failed to issue a joint communique, for the first time in its 29 years, due to the failure of the two powers to agree on the wording.

In reality, the Morrison Liberal-National Coalition government, like previous Coalition and Labor governments, has already chosen to unambiguously side with the US as it prepares for trade war and war with China. The Australian military is closely integrated with US forces throughout the region. Moreover, new basing arrangements, agreed by the Gillard Labor government, give US Marines, as well as warships and military aircraft, access to bases in northern Australia.

Australia and New Zealand have functioned as junior partners of US imperialism in the South West Pacific, where both countries have had their own neo-colonial interests, ever since the end of World War II. PNG is a former Australian colony and Australian military forces virtually took over Port Moresby during the past week, in the name of providing security for the APEC summit. The Australian navy stationed a huge helicopter carrier, accompanied by patrol boats in the harbor, while Australian warplanes and helicopters patrolled the skies and hundreds of troops, including elite special forces, were stationed on land.

In a lengthy private discussion with Morrison, Pence welcomed the Australian governments major new assistance package for the Pacific island states, announced just weeks ahead of the APEC meeting. The plan includes $1 billion to support Australian business ventures in the region, $2 billion in infrastructure loans, a boost to defence collaboration, the establishment of five new diplomatic missions and a push to get Australian broadcast media into the Pacific. While Morrison declared that the initiative was not targeted against any other country, no one has any doubts that the aim is to undermine Chinese influence.

In the course of the APEC summit, Australia, the US, Japan and New Zealand signed an agreement with the PNG government to connect power and internet services to 70 percent of the countrys population by 2030. The deal is a direct challenge to a Chinese bid, and part of a broader joint infrastructure strategy in Asia to undermine Chinas BRI plans, which Pence denounced for drowning its partners in a sea of debt.

In a major new step to boosting the US military presence in the region, the US announced that it would join Australia and PNG in establishing a joint base on Manus Island, off the PNG northern coastundermining a Chinese proposal to build a port there. Due to its strategic location, Manus Island was the site of a huge US base during World War II, directed against Japan. An article in the Australian gloated that the US and Australia would now have access to a vital deepwater port, which has a sweeping command of Australias maritime approaches [and] is big enough to accommodate aircraft carriers and has anchorage capacity for hundreds of ships.

The Labor opposition has already given bipartisan support to Morrisons moves. Its foreign affairs spokeswoman declared that the party welcomed the governments long-overdue recognition of the importance of the Pacific and backed initiatives to work with like-minded countries to bring reliable power to PNG. She also welcomed Americas commitment to work together with Australia and PNG on the development of the Manus naval base.

The Australian media left no doubt as to the significance of the confrontational stand taken by the US, and allies like Australia, at the APEC summit. Peter Hartchers article in the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled Frontline in US-China power struggle reaches Australias doorstep, drew the parallel with the halt of Japans advance towards Port Moresby by allied troops during World War II.

The Pacific campaign in World War Two was an allied, US-led effort to halt the apparently unstoppable advance of the Japanese Imperial Army on its mission to establish the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Todays campaign is an allied, US-led effort to halt the apparently unstoppable Chinese Communist Party on its mission to create what its leader, Xi Jinping, calls a Community of Common Destiny.

Hartcher was the author, in 2016, of a virulently anti-Chinese article denouncing Chinese interference in Australia and branding politicians, businessmen, ethnic Chinese citizens and Chinese students as pests that needed to be eradicated. The article was part of a surge of anti-Chinese propaganda, which culminated in sweeping legislation against foreign interference that seeks to outlaw opposition to any confrontation and war with China. The draconian legislation sets a new benchmark for laws under consideration in the US and other countries.

The propaganda campaign continues as the government and media attempt to manufacture justifications for Australias engagement in the US war drive. Yesterday, the Australian Financial Review published an extensive article alleging a surge in hacking by Chinese spies seeking commercial secrets of Australian companies. No evidence was provided, beyond the unsubstantiated claims of unnamed intelligence sourcesthat is, the same agencies that made the claims of Chinese interference.

At the same time, the Australian government is blocking Chinese investment, in what it claims is key infrastructure. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced this week the official rejection of a $13 billion bid by Hong Kong-listed CK Infrastructure for gas pipeline giant APA Group, citing national interest concerns. The government has previously blocked any involvement by Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, in the rollout of the 5G telecommunications network.

The intensified US conflict with China, signalled by Pence at the APEC summit, sheds further light on the ousting of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister in an inner party coup in August. While Turnbull had supported the Trump administrations anti-China stance and backed the foreign interference laws, his willingness to wholeheartedly support a further stepping up of the confrontation was in question. Reflecting the view in Washington, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon told the ABC that Turnbull was too much of an appeaser towards China.

Bannon also underscored the strategic importance of Australia to the US in its hostilities with Beijing, describing it as the tip of the spear in the Pacific. Morrison, who has already lined up fully with the Trump administration in suggesting Australia might shift its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, fully committed at the APEC summit to Washingtons reckless war drive against China.
Thousands of salaried employees at General Motors in the US and Canada will be thrown out of their jobs at the beginning of 2019 as the Detroit-based automaker accelerates its cost-cutting campaign. The white-collar job cuts, which are also coming at Ford, are part of an expected blood-letting of salaried and hourly jobs amid declining sales worldwide and telltale signs of an impending restructuring of the global auto industry.

GM sources told the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News that at least 3,000 employees would be terminated because not enough had agreed to voluntary buyout offers sent out last month. The company is targeting 17,700 salaried workers with at least 12 years experience or more than a third of its white-collar workforce in North America.

According to internal sources who spoke to the Detroit media outlets, GM hoped to get at least 7,000 white-collar workers to sign up for the buyout offer by noon Monday, but managers told employees late last week that only 4,000 had done so. That means 3,000 or more salaried workers in North America could be terminated starting in January if the automaker in fact opts for forced job cuts, which it has said it would consider if buyouts fell short, the Free Press wrote.

GM managers held staff meetings last Thursday and Friday to ratchet up pressure on salaried workers to take the deals, which include six months of pay and health care coverage. It is unlikely many more will opt to do so since this is exactly the same severance package for a GM employee with 12 years or more seniority who is involuntarily terminated.

According to one source who spoke to the Free Press, GM will complete the voluntary buyouts by Nov. 29. The managers weve talked to are already making their list and will select their cuts in January. On January 15, he said, GM will announce the involuntary job eliminations, and walk people out.

Industry analysts said the cuts targeting engineers, designers, mid-level managers and others are only a prelude to slashing thousands of production workers jobs. Market economist Jon Gabrielsen, an adviser to the auto industry, told the Free Press, "I absolutely still believe that 7,000 to be the salaried job reduction number for GM in metro Detroit over the course of an auto downturn in the next two to three years, plus as much as another 7,000 in hourly based on how much sales soften," he said.

The global automakers are under enormous pressure from Wall Street to increase profit margins and shareholder payouts despite falling sales. Last month, GM reported that its third-quarter operating profits in North America increased by 37 percent to $2.8 billion despite an 11 percent drop in sales during the quarter in the companys key US market.

In an internal memo obtained by the Free Press, which was sent out to managers after the profit announcement, GM said, "We can't confuse progress with winning. Today, our structural cost is not aligned with the market realities nor the transformational priorities ahead. We must take significant actions now while our company and the economy are strong to reduce structural costs and improve vehicle profitability."

While GM is planning to cut $6.5 billion in costs, it has squandered over $10 billion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts for its richest investors since 2017, and $25 billion since 2012.

Earlier this month Ford said it will reduce its salaried US workforce of 70,000 employees by an unspecified number as part of its $11 billion fitness cost-cutting plan. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas projected a 12 percent cut in Ford staff worldwide in a note to investors in August saying, We do not see restructuring at Ford as a nice to have but as a crucial step to set the global business on a more balanced footing.

While seeking to slash jobs all of the automakers have increased the number of white-collar workers hired through temporary agencies who receive lower pay and few, if any, health care and pension benefits.

At the same time, the Detroit-based automakers have carried out temporary layoffs of production workers and permanent jobs cuts and plant closings are expected. Last month, Ford idled its Kansas City, Missouri plant, putting 2,000 workers on temporary layoff.

With sales of its Chevy Cruze compact falling, there are widespread concerns that GM may close its assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. GM laid off 1,200 workers when it eliminated the third shift at the plant last year and another 1,200 workers when the second shift ended in June.

A second-tier worker at Fiat Chryslers Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter that threats are being spread about the possible elimination of one shift at that facility. A supervisor told me to start watching the Illinois.gov WARN site for them to post a 60-day notice of layoff, the worker said, adding, our union steward said there is a very good chance that we will be laid off December 15 for an unspecified amount of time. More and more talk of eliminating the first shift is causing people to transfer departments and shifts in hope of saving their jobs.

Temporary layoffs have hit a number of Fiat Chrysler facilities including Belvidere Assembly and Kokomo, Indiana transmission plants.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) has not even made a pretense of opposing jobs cuts, echoing managements claims they are necessary to ensure continued profitability in the face of slowing sales. The automakers have been able to extract huge profits in North America, despite falling sales, with the collusion of the UAW, which has signed labor agreements slashing the wages of new hires, eliminating income security for laid off workers and expanded the number of temporary part-time workers who pay union dues but have no rights and do not qualify for supplemental unemployment benefits.

The salaried and hourly job cuts are clearly a shot across the bow of autoworkers in advance of the negotiations for new labor agreements, after the current deals expire in September 2019. In 2015, the threat of plant closures and mass layoffs was used by the automakers and the UAW to ram concession deals past the opposition of workers who initially voted down a contract at Fiat Chrysler, in the first such defeat of a UAW-backed national deal in three decades.

In a letter sent to workers, UAW Vice President for GM Terry Dittes made it clear the UAW would try to blackmail workers with job threats once again. Filling our plants with product would be the UAWs top priority in the 2019 contract negotiations, Dittes said, before echoing Trumps American First nationalism by railing against GM for expanding production in Mexico and China.

This underscores the need for autoworkers to build new organizations of struggle, including factory committees, controlled by rank-and-file workers themselves and independent of the corporate-controlled UAW, to wage a collective fight against the coming attacks on jobs and living standards. Such a fight must unite workers throughout the world against the transnational auto companies and the capitalist profit system, which enriches the corporate and financial elite at the expense of workers the world over.

Theyre instilling fears about cutting a shift and eliminating anyone hired after 2011, the Belvidere worker told the Autoworker Newsletter. Threatening more layoffs, all tactics are to get tier-two employees to take whatever they throw at us in upcoming contract negotiations.

The worker referred to the corruption scandal that has erupted in the UAW, which revealed how union negotiators had taken million in bribes to sign company friendly agreements. The tides have shifted. The UAW is no longer on our side and they haven't been in a long time. The more these cases are exposed, the more apparent that is becoming. Its very sad, but its true.
The City of London Corporation announced in 2015 that they would build 3,700 new council homes by 2025. So far just 62 have been built!

The London Evening Standard reported that only 900 structures, less than a fourth of the goal, would be completed by 2025. This projection, quietly released in Corporation documents over the summer, has been blamed on red tape.

It is claimed that a scheme to combine the three historic markets at Billingsgate, Smithfield and New Spitalfields into a single site would free up space for housing, but this could not be done without further consultation and parliamentary approval. However, other homes had been planned in the boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington.

Simon Cribbens of the Corporations Community and Childrens Services Department cited complexity and timeline issues, while another spokesman vaguely promised, We are developing a range of policies to ensure we deliver 3,700 extra homes much needed by Londoners as soon as possible.

Those estimated 250,000 Londoners on housing waiting lists would be well advised not to hold their breath. The callous indifference and lack of response by the authorities to the Grenfell fire tragedy have served to heighten public consciousness over housing shortages. The Evening Standard observed that the Citys decision had raised fears that other councils, particularly those with tighter budgets, will be unable to fund new social housing.

In May, Labour Party Mayor Sadiq Khan launched a project to construct 10,000 new council homes by 2022, claiming that the government has turned its back on local authorities, severely hampering their ambition to build by cutting funding and imposing arbitrary restrictions on borrowing. But even the homes promulgated by Khan, a minuscule target in the face of an unprecedented housing crisis, appear a highly unlikely eventuality.

A BBC Freedom of Information request revealed redevelopment plans to remove over 31,000 residents from 118 social housing developments, wiping out some 8,000 council houses. Over 80 of the 118 estates set for regeneration will be destroyed. They will join the 3,600 council homes that disappeared in 2016-17.

The affordable housing that will replace them will cost up to 80 percent of the average local market rent, an impossible sum for a working family to scrape together in London. Among the worst social cleansing councils are those run by the Labour Party. Neither will the Conservative governments lifting of the strict caps on local councils borrowing to pay for house building solve the problem when so many councils are set on gentrification, exacerbating the shortage.

Meanwhile, as the regeneration proceeds, the social disasters of homelessness, poverty and deaths among the homeless worsen. There has been a 97 percent increase in rough sleeping over the last five years. During the same period, the number of people dying on our streets or in temporary accommodation has more than doubled. The death toll in London between 2010 and 2017 was 158, but 40 people have already died in the first four months of this year.

As with other world cities, London is plagued by rising rents which working people simply cannot afford to pay. But in the case of the Square Mile City of London, a unique set of circumstances also prevail. Unlike the 32 boroughs over which Khan and his officials hold sway, the City of London Corporation is accountable to no one. It is unique among British local authorities for having the power to change its own constitution.

The Citys own website is unashamedly boastful: Within the City only the Sovereign takes precedence and outside the City the Lord Mayors status is on par with that of a cabinet minister. The site reassures us that the Lord Mayor works closely with the London Mayor, although they have distinct and separate responsibilities.

Democratic government has no place here. Although the approximately 9,000 residents who live in the four occupied wards are allowed a vote in the Citys local elections, the 21 other wards award the franchise to the massively wealthy non-resident bankers and other financial worthies. Institutions are allowed votes according to their size and wealth. This business vote was estimated at 24,000 in 2009.

As for the Citys archaic officialdom structures, starting off as a member of one of the City guilds or livery companies would be a favourable prerequisite for launching a political career. Then, if youre approved by the aldermen, you might become a freeman. As a freeman you would be positioned to become a common councilman, alderman, sheriff or even Lord Mayor.

The Corporation claims a mandate that supports and promotes London as a place to live, work, study and be entertained. The Lord Mayor acts as an international ambassador for the UKs financial and professional services sector. And, indeed, who wouldnt be attracted by a square mile in the centre of London, which is so autonomous that banking regulations prove ineffective and executive pay bonuses unchallengeable?

Since the Lord Mayor makes sure that the Citys interests are reflected in local and national policy, he enlists the assistance of another medieval character, the Remembrancer. He is, in modern terminology, the Citys official lobbyist, occupying a permanent seat behind the Speaker in the House of Commons, carefully watching out for any democratic threats to the untouchable Corporate Medieval fiefdom.

Following the Occupy London protests in 2012, the Corporation released information about City Cashthe sovereign wealth fund stemming from the 15th century. Over 52 percent of its reserve in that year came from investments, with 29 percent from school fees, 8 percent from rent, and 9 percent from grants, contributions and reimbursements. By 2016 its assets stood at 2.3 billion, generating 210 million yearly.

The 2018-23 Corporate Plan cynically insists everything we do contributes toward the achievement of twelve outcomes. Those listed include: People have equal opportunities to enrich their lives and reach their full potential and to Help provide homes that London and Londoners need.

The City of London is a microcosm of the capitalist system: a thin democratic veneer with the votes literally stacked against working people and its main energies devoted to furthering the inequality that exacerbates the social crisis and produces untold misery and hardship.
On November 16, the United National Party (UNP) leadership wrote to Facebook urging it to safeguard the identity of party supporters using the giant corporations social media platform. The letter said it feared the information could be used by Sri Lankas illegal administration to crack down on party members and activists.

The illegal administration is the UNPs description of President Sirisenas appointment of Mahinda Rajapakse as prime minister to head a new Sri Lankan government. Sirisena unconstitutionally removed UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister on October 26.

The two-page letter, which was addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and signed by party chairman Kabir Hashim, was later released to the media. It stated, in part: It is very likely that officials from the current illegal Administration of Sri Lanka headed by the President, Mr. Maithripala Sirisena, may ask Facebook for information on selected Sri Lankan users of Facebook that should rightfully be private. Such requests may include information on named individuals, geo-locations and other identification details of users who view and post on these pages.

The UNP urged Facebook to safeguard this information because the current illegal administration will most likely use these in ways which are legally prohibited.

The letter made no reference to Facebook blocking for several hours the UNPs social media page a day earlieron November 15and preventing the live streaming of a planned party rally in Colombo and press conferences. UNP officials later told the media that Facebook eventually lifted its censorship on November 16.

Facebooks actions, and UNP chairman Hashims letter, came amidst ongoing infighting within the Sri Lankan political elite following Wickremesinghes removal. The UNP demonstration on November 15 was called to demand Sirisena reverse Wickremesinghes dismissal and recognise that his party, and its allies, had a parliamentary majority.

On November 15, the Colombo Telegraph ran an exclusive story reportedly explaining Facebooks collusion with Sirisena. The article asserted that the presidents office had demanded Facebook disclose confidential information pertaining to pages operated by 16 politicians.

The newspaper alleged that those under scrutiny included 10 UNP leaders and politicians from Sirisenas faction, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), as well as Rajapakse and his son and parliamentarian, Namal Rajapakse.

According to the Telegraph, Sirisenas office had cited national security concerns to request the names of administrators and editors of the named social media pages as well as IP addresses and locations, information pertaining to the engagement of these pages, their demographics, and other confidential details.

It alleged that the request was delivered to a senior representative of Facebooks Department of Government Policy and Public Affairs (South Asia) during a meeting with the Sri Lankan president a week earlier. The Telegraph reported that the Facebook representative agreed to the request. In line with the demands of capitalist governments around the world, Facebook has used various anti-democratic techniques to curb freedom of speech.

The UNPs letter to Facebook absurdly claimed that the right-wing, big business party has a strong track record of protecting democracy, good governance, and enablement of economic growth for our people.

Significantly, the letter also stated that information about Facebook users should not be shared with government officials, unless it is properly sanctioned by a court of law in the country. In other words, the UNP is not averse to allowing the Sri Lankan courts and other state authorities to crack down on selected social media users.

In March this year, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government shut down Facebook and other online messaging platforms in Sri Lanka during the racial violence unleashed against the Muslim community in the Kandy district. The government falsely claimed it was to stop the incitement of communal violence.

Like Sirisena, UNP leader Wickremesinghe is no defender of freedom of expression. At the annual Colombo Defence Seminar in August this year, the then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, declared that global disruptive forces were using the internet and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to destabilise countries and were a threat to national interests. He specifically referred to the eruption of mass revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011 (see: Sri Lankan prime minister threatens increased internet and social media censorship).

Whatever their factional differences, the real political targets in the battle raging between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, and their political allies, are working people and youth now coming into struggle against Sri Lankas capitalist elite.

Facebook censorship and other attacks on freedom of speech by the giant corporation are primarily directed against left-wing and socially progressive web sites, with the World Socialist Web Site a principal target.

On November 12, Facebook removed a post on Sri Lanka by the World Socialist Web Site s official Tamil-language Facebook page. The censored article explained that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was opposing Rajapakses appointment as prime minister as part of its efforts to curry favour with Washington. Facebook claimed that the WSWS article violated the social media platforms community standards.

As the WSWS has pointed out, Facebook and the government agencies it collaborates with see the growing audience for international socialism as an obstacle to their efforts to exploit ethnic divisions in developing countries to further the geopolitical aims of US imperialism.
President Donald Trump issued a statement yesterday, which declared America First considerations ruled out taking any further action against the Saudi Arabian regime over the brutal murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The only US response has been token sanctions imposed last week on 17 Saudi individuals, whom the regime itself had implicated in the crime.

Trump made his announcement following the publication of claims on November 16 in the Washington Post that the CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination. The crown prince is the heir to the throne and de facto head of the monarchical dictatorship that rules over the oil-rich country.

Khashoggi, who had fallen out with the regime and publicly criticised it, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2 by a 15-man hit-team. His body was then dismembered and disposed of in an unknown location.

Trump brushed aside the top-level Saudi involvement in Khashoggis murder, writing: [I]t could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic eventmaybe he did and maybe he didnt!

His statement crudely spelled out that his only real concern was the national interest of American imperialism, which were its economic relations with the Saudi monarchy and Saudi support for US aggression in the Middle East, particularly with Syria and Iran.

The Saudi regime, he declared, had agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the US, including $110 billion in purchases of military equipment. If the US cancelled the contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries. Saudi Arabia, he went on, was a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. It was also the largest oil producing country after the US and had been very responsive to my requests to keep oil prices at reasonable levels.

According to Washington Post sources, as well as statements by Turkish agencies, the evidence that Khashoggis murder was ordered by the crown prince is overwhelming.

The Post reported that US intelligence intercepted a call by the crown prince to the Saudi ambassador to Turkey, Khalid bin Salman, instructing him to give assurances to Khashoggi that he could safely pick up divorce documents from the consulate. He was murdered within moments of entering the building. One member of the hit-team then called a top aide of the crown prince to report that the operation had been completed.

The version of events that was belatedly given by the Saudi regimeafter insisting for over two weeks that Khashoggi has left the consulate unharmedis that the killing was not planned and was a terrible mistake. It resulted from a fight in which the journalist died, after which officials sought to conceal what happened.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir declared that a Saudi investigation had shown that the crown prince had nothing to do with this issue. Some 11 people have been arrested in Saudi Arabia and the regime has indicated it will apply the death penalty to some of them.

The Saudi claims were so fantastic that they were almost universally dismissed as an embarrassing tissue of lies within the American establishment. Trumps endorsement of the transparent attempt to protect the crown prince has therefore provoked a raft of cynical criticism by his opponents in the Democratic Party and his own Republican Party, as well as in numerous media comments.

Despite all its war crimes, factions of the American capitalist class still desperately attempt to conceal the predatory character of its foreign policy with claims to be upholding democracy, the rule of law or human rights. They expected that the Trump administration would subject the Saudi regime to some further cosmetic wrist-slappingwithout, of course, threatening US relations with the country.

A comment by CNN White House reporter Stephen Collinson summed up the concern over Trumps America First statement. He complained that Trumps statement amounted to effectively repudiating the concept of American Exceptionalism, the idea that the US is embarked on a unique, moral mission exemplified by support for freedom, democracy and universal values.

Collinson felt compelled to admit that Washingtons actions, in the Vietnam War for instance or in the war on terror, have been seen by outsiders as falling well short of the lofty principles it has preached to others. American relations with the brutal Saudi regime, he also confessed, have often fallen on the hypocritical side of this line.

But Trump, he bewailed, is getting rid of any pretense. His statement on Saudi Arabia represented the latest show of force from a President who is showing signs of breaking free from any remaining restraints, and is increasingly confident in a course that has sown historic disruption.

In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who was one of the chief propagandists for the illegal invasion of Iraq and has justified numerous other war crimes as humanitarian operations, sanctimoniously condemned Trumps exoneration of the Saudi murder of Khashoggi. He asserted that he should have at least demanded some quid pro quo from the crown prince, such as the release of women imprisoned for driving and a ceasefire in the brutal Saudi air war against Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands and put millions at risk of starvation.

Friedman complained: [W]hat is the intangible damage to our moral standing all over the world from such a grotesque blood-for-money transaction?

The reality is that Trump, who is the personification of the parasitism and criminality of the American ruling class, could not care less what the worlds population think about the policies of his administration. To protect the interests of a billionaire corporate oligarchy, it has escalated the decades-long drive by US imperialism to prevent any power or group of powers challenging American global dominance.

Under Trump, the US has effectively declared economic war on the world and is openly threatening military conflict with Russia and China if they do not submit to American dictates. In the Middle East, it has mapped out a strategy of destroying the regional influence exerted by Iranan agenda that is assisted by the closest possible relations with both Israel and the Saudi dictatorship, regardless of what crimes they commit.

The tattered and discredited democratic mask of American imperialism has well and truly been tossed into the gutter. That is the only real concern in the US ruling circles over Trumps statement.
Pakistans new prime minister, Imran Khan, completed a four-day visit to China earlier this monthhis first trip since coming to office three months agoamid rising tensions and rivalries throughout the region between Washington and Beijing.

With Pakistan facing a worsening balance-of-payments, Khan was desperate to secure Chinese financial support. At the same time, he is under pressure from Washington to dilute Chinese influence in the country. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned in July that any IMF loan would be contingent on lessening Pakistans economic dependence on China.

Washingtons chief concern is the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a crucial part of Beijings broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to link the Eurasian landmass. The CPEC includes the development of road, rail and pipeline links between the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea and western China.

For Beijing, such a corridor is essential to help secure Chinas access to Africa and the oil-rich Middle East and strengthen its ability to resist a US blockade of Chinas vital shipping routes through South East Asia in the event of conflict.

Prior to his visit to China, Khan, under pressure from Washington, indicated that he would seek to renegotiate the terms of the CPEC. He insisted the government would shift the CPECs objectives from infrastructure to agriculture, job creation and foreign investment. Such a move would focus the project on economic rather than strategic issues.

As an initial step, Islamabad announced in October that it had revised the cost of key railway projects from $8.2 billion to $6.2 billion and wanted to bring it down to $4.2 billion.

If Khan was hoping for an immediate bailout from China, he was disappointed. At the visits conclusion, Pakistan and China issued a joint statement but it did not include specific financial aid. China is fully aware of the impact of the mounting US pressure on Pakistan and clearly requires guarantees of its interests before handing out further funds.

On the second day of Khans visit, Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said: As for the specific measures to be taken, the relevant authorities of the two sides will have detailed discussions. As for any revision of the CPEC, Kong effectively dismissed any significant changes. There is no change [in the CPEC] at all, he said. If there were, it would only be to increase, not decrease.

China is increasingly coming under fire from the US for engaging in debt trap diplomacythat is, luring countries with the offer of huge infrastructure loans that they are in no position to repay. Such criticisms are utterly hypocritical given that US imperialism and its allies have, for decades, exploited loans with strings attached to prosecute their economic and strategic interests.

In a video entitled Why China and US are vying dominance in Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal cited Sri Lanka as an example of a debt trap that Islamabad should avoid. China funded a sea port in Hambantota. When Sri Lanka could not afford to repay the loan Colombo reached a deal to give China the port on a 99-year lease and ensuring Beijing had access to a port facility along the strategic maritime trade route.

The joint China-Pakistan statement hit back, stating: Both sides dismissed the growing negative propaganda against CPEC and expressed determination to safeguard the CPEC projects from all threats. Pakistan recognised the immense contribution of the Chinese personnel working on various economic projects in Pakistan. The Chinese side expressed its appreciation for the measures taken for the security of Chinese personnel and projects in Pakistan.

Like countries throughout the region, Pakistan is engaged in a precarious balancing act between Washington and Beijing.

The premier informed his cabinet that his maiden official visit to China was more successful than expected and that the China has assured every kind of assistance to Pakistan. But Khan was unable to provide any detail of the particular assistance on offer beyond the generalities in the joint statement about agriculture, forestry, fishery, natural resources, etc.

The Dawn newspaper concluded that Khan had been given the cold shoulder by China during his visit. The prime minister arrived in Beijing assuming he was there to talk tough, get a better deal and more money, but was taken aback when the Chinese firmly told him off by demanding Pakistan fix its own problems and provide governance to its people instead of asking China to do so, it wrote.

The actual agreements15 in allsigned during Khans visit were limited, covering bilateral cooperation in fields like economy, agriculture, law enforcement and technology and Chinese assistance in social spheres such as education, health and safe drinking water. The two sides also agreed to alleviate the trade imbalance which is overwhelmingly in Chinas favour. Total annual trade between the two countries is about $15 billion of which Chinese exports to Pakistan account for about $13 billion. Chinas main concession is reportedly to allow trade to take place in Chinese yuan rather than US dollars.

On his return, Khan chaired meeting of Pakistans National Security Council where he briefed senior ministers and top generals. China has been pressing Pakistan to commit military forces to securing the transport routes from China through Pakistan. While the meeting reviewed the security situation and committed to the maintenance of peace, stability, and rule of law nothing was said about a military deployment to protect the CPEC.

Shortly after Khans election win in August, the top Pakistani officer, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, visited China to deepen military ties between the two countries. Amid concerns in Beijing about the new governments commitment to the CPEC, Zhang Youxia, a deputy chairman of Chinas powerful Central Military Commission, commented: China-Pakistan military ties are an important backbone of relations between the two countries.

In a country where the military has seized power more than once, this remark amounted to a veiled warning to Khan that Beijing would back the Pakistani generals above the elected government if the latter turned away from China.
Newly elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced over the weekend that she is likely to support longtime Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to become Speaker of the House when the Democratic caucus votes on the nomination November 28.

Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, told her nearly 800,000 Instagram followers that Pelosi was the most progressive of the potential candidates for Speaker. She said that the opposition to Pelosi was coming from the right-wing of the Democratic caucus, not the left.

My standard in this is: Im going to support the most progressive candidate that's leading the party, and right now, that is Nancy Pelosi, in terms of the running. I would like to see new, younger leadership, but I don't want new leadership thats more conservative.

Pelosi heads a trio of near-octogenarians who symbolize the sclerotic character of the Democratic Party. The prospective Speaker of the House is now 78. Steny Hoyer, the likely Majority Leader, is 79, while Jim Clyburn, the likely Minority Whip, is 78. All held the same positions when the Democrats last controlled the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011.

Ocasio-Cortez claimed that the House Democrats needed to transform our leadership, but that apparently does not include removing Pelosi, who in turn has endorsed Hoyer and Clyburn. Hoyer has the public support of at least 155 House Democrats, a clear majority of the caucus, while the only announced opponent to any of the top three, Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado, dropped her challenge to Clyburn Monday. It now appears that when the Democratic caucus votes on November 28, there will be only one candidate for each of the top three positions.

It is in fact true, as Ocasio-Cortez said, that the public campaign against reelecting Pelosi as the leader of House Democrats is spearheaded by the right-wing of the party in Congress. That only testifies, however, to the right-wing character of the party as a whole. For all the claims by Ocasio-Cortez and her DSA supporters that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left, even Pelosiwho blocked the impeachment of George W. Bush and ensured continued funding for the Iraq Waris considered too liberal by a sizeable faction.

On Monday the leaders of the anti-Pelosi campaign released a letter signed by 11 returning representatives and five newly elected members, pledging to vote against Pelosi in January when the House of Representatives begins its new session with Democrats in the majority. A half dozen other Democrats have made similar pledges but did not sign the letter.

While positions like Majority Leader and Majority Whip are chosen by the party caucus, the Speaker is elected by the entire 435-member House, and thus requires 218 votes. With the Democrats currently set to hold a majority of 234-201, if more than 16 Democrats refuse under any circumstances to vote for Pelosi, she would fall short of the majority and would fail to become Speaker.

The anti-Pelosi letter was organized by three representatives: Tim Ryan, of Youngstown, Ohio, who ran against Pelosi in 2016 and fell well short, losing 134-63; Kathleen Rice, from Long Island, the former district attorney of Nassau County; and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a former Marine Corps officer with four tours of duty in Iraq, who helped organize the influx of military-intelligence candidates into the Democratic congressional caucus this year.

Of the eleven newly elected military-intelligence Democrats, seven have publicly declared their opposition to Pelosi, including the two former CIA agents, Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger, and five military veterans, Jared Golden, Jason Crow, Max Rose, Conor Lamb and Mikie Sherrill.

While preaching a message of generational change from the current geriatric leadership, the organizers of the anti-Pelosi campaign have made it clear that they advocate a shift to the right on cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage, as well as on foreign policy.

The anti-Pelosi campaign has been unable to recruit a candidate against Pelosi, Hoyer or Clyburn. Press reports indicated the organizers were urging Representative Marcia Fudge, a leader of the Congressional Black Caucus from Cleveland, to run for Speaker, but she announced Tuesday she would support Pelosi.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, now numbering nearly 100 members, met with Pelosi last week and issued a statement effectively endorsing her, in return for a pledge that CPC members are represented proportionally on the key exclusive committees and that she envisions more elected leadership positions that CPC members can run for.

The New York Times, house organ of the Democratic Party, published a glowing tribute to Pelosi in its Sunday magazine, under the headline, Nancy Pelosis Last Battle, which hailed her leadership qualities while giving a glimpse of her right-wing politics. Pelosi told her interviewer, Robert Draper, that her long service on the House Intelligence Committee had demonstrated that we could always find our way in a bipartisan manner.

She outlined numerous possible areas of agreement with the Trump White House, including infrastructure and health care, and was described as smirking at calls for impeaching Trump or abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the spearhead of Trumps brutal crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers. The profile described Pelosi as a practicing Catholic, married to a real estate and investment multi-millionaire, with little in common withand at times little patience forthe new generation of activists in her party, to whom she sometimes refers as the lefties.

The prospect of a protracted stalemate in January over the election of a new Speaker was always remote, given the enormous pressure being brought to bear on Democratic representatives from the leadership itself, which controls committee assignments, as well as from groups like the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org, and Emilys List, and top Democratic Party fundraisers.

The backing for Pelosi by Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the public statement by Ilhan Omar, another left Democrat, who represents an inner-city district in Minneapolis-St. Paul, that she will vote for Pelosi, makes a successful challenge even less likely.

That the Democratic Party is now choosing between the continued leadership of Pelosi, one of the richest members of Congress and a diehard defender of Wall Street and American imperialism, and an even more right-wing figure backed by the militarist Seth Moulton and his group of CIA Democrats, only testifies to its reactionary character.

Ocasio-Cortez has been heavily promoted, not only by the DSA, but by a large section of the corporate media and the Democratic Party establishment itself, to give the Democratic Party a left cover while Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pursue an accommodation with the Trump administration.

Pelosis office issued a gushing tribute to Ocasio-Cortez in appreciation of her backing for Pelosi, noting that the Democratic House leader had met with Ocasio-Cortez numerous times in the past week.

Congresswoman-elect Ocasio-Cortez is a dynamic and engaging leader with an extraordinary gift for connecting with young people who may be getting involved in politics for the first time, said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill. Her groundbreaking use of social media is engaging and energizing a whole new level of grassroots.
The US state of California has been devastated by the most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the states history. While wildfires, like hurricanes, are rooted in natural causes, the horrific consequences are the product of corporate malfeasance and government neglect.

The most devastating impact had been in Northern California, where the Camp Fire largely destroyed the rural town of Paradise, population 26,000. The official death toll now stands at 81. Hundreds remain missing, with many likely to have perished in the blaze. Search and rescue teams continue to sift through the debris for remains from a fire that burned hot enough in parts to destroy bone. Millions of people face unknown health consequences from widespread air pollution.

With little to no warning, families had to flee the rapidly advancing flames only to find roads blocked by overwhelming traffic. Some managed to escape on foot, others died in their cars as the flames overtook them, while many never made it out of their homes. The lucky ones have still lost almost everything, forced to live as domestic refugees in crowded and unhealthy shelters or makeshift tent cities.

The victims in Paradise were older and poorer than the rest of California. The median age was 50, and the median household income $20,000 a year less than for the state as a whole. As far as the government response has been concerned, their lives and continued survival are a matter of indifference. Aside from a handful of shelterswhere a norovirus outbreak sent at least 25 survivors to the hospitaland a pittance in FEMA supplies, those fleeing Paradise have had to rely on friends, family and charity.

The Camp Fire joins the long list of disasters over the past few years, including Hurricanes Michael (60 dead), Florence (53 dead) and Maria (3,057 dead) in the US. It comes four months after the Attica wildfires in Greece, which killed 99. In each case, natural events have been compounded by crumbling infrastructure and inadequate emergency planning to create social catastrophes.

The response of government officials, Democrat and Republican, has been to downplay the extent of the disaster while seeking to deflect attention from those responsible. On Sunday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke absurdly declared that unnamed environmental radicals are to blame for preventing good forest management. This followed Trumps tour of the state with Democratic Party officials, which was characterized by empty platitudes and mutual declarations of support.

What are the real factors responsible for the devastation?

First, there is the role of the energy companies, whose aging infrastructure is known to have caused many fires.

At the heart of Californias energy infrastructure is a group of three investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) with monopolies in their respective regions. Combined, these utilities have been responsible for over 2,000 wildfires in California since the state began requiring them to report incidents in 2014. PG&E alone is responsible for over 1,500 fires, including 16 major fires in 2017. Eleven of those sixteen were determined to involve PG&E negligence, and the company faces potentially $17 billion in liability for the lives and buildings lost that year.

The precise cause of the Camp Fire is still being investigated, but it began next to Poe Dam, 10 miles east of Paradise, only minutes after PG&E reported a power failure on its lines there. Firefighters initially responding to the blaze reported downed powerlines.

In a document filed with the Security and Exchange commission last week, PG&E stated that if it was found responsible for the fire, the damages would exceed its insurance coverage and threaten its financial stability. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) immediately responded by issuing a statement Friday that it would limit damages victims could recover from PG&E to protect the companys financial status, under the provisions of the newly adopted state law supported by Governor Jerry Brown. In short, even if the company is found responsible through negligence, the state regulators will shift liability for the damages from PG&Es shareholders onto the victims.

Second, there is the impact of government neglect and the failure to take basic precautionary measures, despite ample warning. Paradise has long been known to be in danger. In 2002, a powerful wind storm toppled five PG&E steel towers at Poe Dam, sparking a fire that threatened the town. The incident commander at the time told the Chico Enterprise-Record that it was a miracle so many homes were saved, so few homes lost and no major injuries or fatalities.

In 2008, the Humboldt Fire threatened Paradise from the southwest, cutting off all but one rural road out. Luckily, the town was spared. A government report from the time noted that the city had only one viable evacuation route that was only designed to carry 1,200 cars an hour.

Despite all the predictions and near misses, the Democratic Party-controlled state government left the problem unsolved. When the fire came this month, no systematic citywide evacuation notice was given. The government issued no emergency broadcasts, and cell phone alerts were only sent to those who had opted-in, about 30 percent of the city. Many residents trying to escape found the roads clogged, with no planned escape routes.

Finally, there is climate change, which is responsible for increasingly severe natural events, such as hurricanes and droughts. Despite increasingly dire warnings from scientists, capitalist states have demonstrated their inability to take the necessary measures to halt the process of global warming. International agreements that have been adopted are wholly inadequate to the danger, and even these are under constant attack.

The basic obstacle to addressing the social causes of catastrophes like that in Northern California is the capitalist system, which subordinates all of economic life to the interests of the corporate and financial elite. There is not a single social problem, including the need for massive investment in social infrastructure, that can be solved without a frontal attack on the wealth of the ruling elite.

California is the richest state in the United States, home to movie stars and tech moguls. The states 144 billionaires have a combined wealth of $725 billion. They live a life apart in San Francisco luxury high-rises, advertised as life above it all, or in beach side mansions in exclusive enclaves. Workers in the state live an entirely different life, and there could not be a starker contrast between the extravagance of the super-rich and the scenes of desperation from the Camp Fire and its aftermath.

The working class must advance its own response. The Socialist Equality Party calls for the transformation of the energy companies into democratically-controlled public utilities, run on the basis of social need and not private profit. A massive public works program is necessary to make the electrical infrastructure safe, including by replacing all above-ground with under-ground lines.

An independent investigation of the fires must be carried out, with criminal prosecutions for any corporate and government officials determined to be responsible for creating the conditions for the deadly inferno.

The technology exists to protect even isolated communities from fast moving wildfires, but this requires scientifically planned investment in social infrastructure that will not be carried out by private companies. Brush clearance, fire breaks and controlled burns can prevent even intense fires from advancing quickly on urban areas so that residents have time to evacuate. Systematic evacuation plans using modern technology to notify residents, along routes designed with enough capacity, must be established in all threatened areas.

All workers have the right to safe, comfortable housing. It is a disgrace that victims are living in tent cities or crowded shelters. Those who have lost everything must be made whole.

The implementation of this program must be connected to the socialist reorganization of economic life, in the United States and internationally. Social need and scientific planning must be the basis of production, not the profit interests of corporations and the wealth of the ruling elite.
The more evidence that emerges about a violent incident in Melbourne on November 9, the more it exposes the doubtful claims of federal and state governments and the complicit media that it was a terrorist attack.

Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, a 30-year-old mentally-ill former Somali refugee who had lived in Australia since childhood, killed a man with a knife, injured others and set alight a car containing gas containers in the citys centre.

Late last week it was revealed that the police and courts had permitted Shire Ali to breach bail on a series of traffic offences. While media commentators immediately agitated for harsher bail laws, his long record of minor convictions and bail violations points to two facts.

Firstly, he was not a terrorist, but a troubled and unstable individual who frequently came to the attention of the authorities. Secondly, he was even more well-known to the police and intelligence agencies than they had previously admitted.

Already it was known that the federal government, acting on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), had revoked Shire Alis passport in 2015, allegedly because ASIO had evidence he wanted to travel to Syria. That alone pointed to the police and ASIO closely monitoring him and his family, including a younger brother whom ASIO had sought to recruit as a paid informant.

None of these facts have stopped the Labor Party joining the Liberal-National government in exploiting the incident to try to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment and expand the already vast powers of the police-intelligence apparatus.

Last week the Labor Party accused Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton of lying when he claimed that Shire Alis actions showed the necessity for the federal governments proposed bill to crack open internet and phone encryption programs.

There was not the slightest evidence that the authorities had needed to break any encryption codes to conduct surveillance on Shire Ali. Labors complaint, however, was not that Dutton had falsely claimed that such police powers could have averted the attack. Instead, it was that Dutton had asserted that Labor did not back the encryption bill.

Dutton himself later conceded that he did not know if the governments encryption bill would have made a difference in foiling the mans attack. Nevertheless, he claimed, without the slightest explanation, that it may well have.

Duttons intervention came after the countrys intelligence chiefs, who are part of the US-led global Five Eyes electronic spy network, last month demanded the passage of the Telecommunications (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 despite alarmed submissions by thousands of individuals, as well as social media and telecommunications companies. Companies such as Cisco have shown that the bill will introduce backdoors into tech products that will enable the authorities to access private data at will.

But Labors leaders were outraged because Dutton had suggested that they opposed the encryption bill. Dutton told Sky News that law enforcement agencies needed access to information contained in encrypted messages, such as WhatsApp, to fill a real gap in their surveillance capacity. Now Labor has said that theyre opposed to that. I hope that they reassess, he said.

Labors shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, wrote to Attorney-General Christian Porter calling on him to pull the home affairs minister into line, so as not to threaten the fine record of bipartisanship on national security. He declared: As you well know, this is a lie. Labor has never said we are opposed to this legislation.

Labor Party leader Bill Shorten said his party had helped pass 10 sets of national security legislation since 2014 alone, when he became leader.

Dreyfuss letter reiterated Labors readiness to back the encryption bill after a review by the bipartisan Coalition-Labor parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS). That review, like the many conducted into counter-terrorism bills since 2001, is certain to tick off on the bill after Labor proposes cosmetic amendments to head off public hostility.

The letter said Labor and the government had worked cooperatively on national security issues. Since 2014, the PJCIS had made more than 250 recommendations to which the government agreed, making laws stronger and more effective.

In other words, Labors amendments, often introduced on the pretext of protecting civil liberties, are always designed to bolster the capacity of the police and spy agencies to make use of the measures.

Dreyfus wrote: Bipartisanship is vitally important in the area of national securitythis is as it should be, and Australians rightly expect that such matters remain above politics.

The truth is that, precisely because of public opposition to police-state measures, and growing distrust of the political establishment, Labor and the Coalition have worked in unison to pass repeated barrages of terrorism legislation.

Over the past 17 years, these laws have authorised sweeping phone-tapping and other forms of electronic surveillance, permitted secret detention and questioning by ASIO, and overturned basic legal and democratic rights, such as no imprisonment without trial.

Knowing it will have Labors backing, Prime Minister Scott Morrisons government has used the Melbourne attack to propose new measures against immigrants. After Morrison declared the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam to be the greatest threat of religious extremism in this country, Dutton declared that the government would look at the way in which people are on a pathway to citizenship.

There has been an equally reactionary bipartisan response at the state level. Victorian Liberal Party leader Matthew Guy not only backed Morrisons anti-Muslim propaganda but also accused African gangs of domestic terror.

Guy said that if he took office after the November 24 state election he would expedite mandatory sentencing laws and deport violent offenders on visas. Before Christmas, legislation would be fast-tracked to give police powers to clamp electronic monitoring devices on suspects who have been radicalised towards violence.

Courts could also impose orders that such people must abide by curfews, avoid designated areas, undergo counselling, attend anti-radicalisation and/or drug and alcohol programs, and report regularly to police.

Labor Premier Daniel Andrews government quickly sought to outdo the Liberals. Andrews had already telephoned Morrison to congratulate him for his inflammatory comments, and pledged that the states police commissioner would receive any further resources the police requested.

A Labor spokesman said it had set up a counter-terrorism command and a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre. Were making the biggest investment in Victoria Police in our states history, recruiting and deploying an extra 3,135 police to keep people safe in the city, the suburbs and across the state, the spokesman said.

The Victorian state election campaign has become a testing ground for demonising immigrants and imposing police-state powers, regardless of whether state and federal governments are formed by Labor or the Coalition.

Under the false flag of keeping people safe, these measures will increasingly be used against the working class as a whole as economic and social conditions deteriorate, struggles erupt against the attacks on jobs and living standards, and growing numbers of people turn toward a socialist answer to the worsening inequality and danger of war.
The Pentagon has approved a long-awaited plan to reduce the number of US troops conducting counterterrorism missions in Africa over the next three years, three US officials tell CNN.

One defense official told CNN that the planned reductions would reduce the number of US counterterrorism troops and their enablers who support operations by approximately 25%.

Africa Armed forces Asia China Continents and regions Counterterrorism Defense departments East Asia Eastern Europe Europe Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government departments and authorities Government organizations - US International relations and national security Military National security North America Russia Terrorism Terrorism and counter-terrorism The Americas United States Unrest, conflicts and war US Department of Defense US federal departments and agencies

Officials say the projected plan will reduce the total number of US forces assigned to US Africa Command by "less than 10%."

While the exact number of affected forces is unknown, there are approximately 7,200 Department of Defense personnel assigned to Africa Command at present.

However, given the relatively few number of US troops assigned to counterterrorism missions in Africa, any reductions could still have an adverse effect.

Special Operations Command Africa has approximately 1,200 troops operating in about a dozen countries such as Niger, Somalia and Cameroon, where they primarily advise local forces battling a variety of terrorist groups.

US officials have been communicating the plan to African partner nations over the last few weeks and an official announcement is expected soon.

The Pentagon confirmed the plan in a statement issued later on Thursday.

"The Department of Defense released the National Defense Strategy earlier this year and provided clear guidance on how the department will prioritize efforts and resources for long-term competition with China and Russia, and build a more lethal force for major combat," Pentagon spokesperson Cdr. Candice Tresch said in a statement.

"We will realign our counter-terrorism resources and forces operating in Africa over the next several years in order to maintain a competitive posture worldwide," she said while adding that "this realignment specifically projects to reduce forces by about 10 percent over the next several years."

"The department and US Africa Command remain committed to ensuring the end result remains a mission-focused, adaptable and agile force with placement and access on the continent dedicated to assisting our African and international partners," she added.

The planned reductions are part of a broader global effort intended to help better align the US military's global posture with the Trump administration's new National Defense Strategy which focuses more on "near-peer" competitors like Russia and China as opposed to counterterrorism missions.

According to two officials familiar with the decision, the plan "will realign counterterrorism resources and forces operating in Africa over the next several years" in order "to maintain a competitive posture worldwide" while also adopting a more "sustainable" approach to counterterrorism.

"Being prepared for a counterterrorism fight is not the same as being prepared for a fight with Russia or China," a senior defense official told CNN.

The official said that the US would be "changing, and yes, reducing some of our efforts" and said "by recouping some of this investment, it allows us to train, experiment and plan for the near peer competitors."

Senior US military commanders warned last year that the terror threat in many African nations was growing, particularly in West Africa.

Defense officials said the reduction would have little to no impact on US troops conducting missions in Somalia, Djibouti and Libya.

The senior defense official said that the US was more concerned about terrorist threats emanating from North Africa, where ISIS's Libyan branch continues to have a presence, and East Africa where the al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab is located.

US troops in Djibouti are also involved in operations targeting the al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates in nearby Yemen.

Those concerns helped shield US counterterrorism forces operating in those areas from any significant cuts.

In West Africa, the plan will be to shift US troops away from tactical-level counterterrorism missions out in the field and shift them more into advisory roles at the strategic level, farther from the front line.

A senior defense official said that the presence of US allies in West and Northwest Africa, including thousands of French troops, helped reduce the risk of the US shifting from a "persistent presence" to a "periodic presence" there.

While US troops are primarily in a supporting role, they have encountered combat on multiple occasions, including a 2017 ambush in Niger that left four Americans dead.

Even before the planned reduction, senior military officials told CNN that US troops operating in Africa faced greater resource constraints than in places like Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan.

But defense officials say that despite the reductions, the new plan will "preserve the majority of US security cooperation, partnerships and programs in Africa that strengthen partner networks and enhance partner capability."

And the counterterrorism campaign appears to be continuing apace with the US military carrying out an airstrike earlier this month in support of local partner forces that killed four Al-Shabaab militants near Araara, Somalia.

As part of the administration's new China- and Russia-focused strategy, over the summer Africa Command submitted to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a plan to significantly reduce the number of US forces in Africa.

And while the Pentagon is seeking to focus its efforts more on Moscow and Beijing, US officials have expressed concerns about the growing Russian and Chinese presence in Africa.

Russia has sent military assistance to factions in Libya and trainers to the Central African Republic, while China has established major economic ties to a multitude of African nations and has built a major military base in Djibouti, close to a US installation.

The senior defense official told CNN that "there's always a risk" that Russia and China may seek to "backfill" the US military presence in Africa but said the US is taking steps to mitigate that risk.
The only female member of the infamous heroin-trafficking "Bali Nine" gang has been freed from prison, three years after the execution of the group's ringleaders caused huge tensions between Australia and Indonesia

Renae Lawrence left Bali's Bangli jail through a media scrum after serving 13 years of her 20-year sentence.

Asia Australia Bali Continents and regions Controlled substances Corrections system Crime, law enforcement and corrections Criminal offenses Drug crimes Drugs and society Indonesia Oceania Prison release Prisons and jails Society Southeast Asia Capital punishment Criminal law Law and legal system Societal issues

She had been arrested alongside the eight other members of the group in 2005, after they were caught attempting to smuggle heroin out of Bali's international airport and into Australia. Lawrence had 2.7 kilograms (5.9 pounds) of the narcotic strapped to her body.

A decade later, the execution by firing squad of the group's two ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was met with outrage in Australia, in what then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott called a "dark moment in the relationship" between the two countries.

Lawrence, 41, left prison on Wednesday evening in Bali, and is expected to be deported to Australia shortly. She will be placed on a blacklist that bars her from ever returning to Indonesia, immigration officials said.

She had initially been sentenced to life in prison, but later had the punishment commuted to 20 years and was released early on good behavior.

Lawrence has said that Chan threatened her life if she did not take part in the drug-trafficking scheme. She apologized to Indonesia during her court appeal.

Another member of the group died from cancer in prison in June, and the remaining five are all serving life sentences, meaning Lawrence may be the only member of the group to ever leave jail.

Police in New South Wales, where Lawrence is from, are likely to talk to have questions on her return, as there are two outstanding warrants for her arrest in the country relating to a high-speed chase involving a stolen vehicle, AFP reported.

The case of the Bali Nine highlighted the strict laws on drug trafficking in Indonesia, where several foreigners are currently detained on similar charges.

Last year, Australian woman Schapelle Corby was freed after nearly nine years in jail on the island, in a case which attracted similarly high levels of attention in Australia.

'Reformed characters'

Lawrence's release is the latest development in a years-long saga which has seen several protracted legal battles, prompted a severe diplomatic spat and generated significant media coverage.

It began when the members of the Bali Nine were arrested in 2005 by Indonesian police, following a tip-off from Australian authorities.

Lawrence and four others were caught at Densapar International Airport with over 8 kilograms of heroin strapped to their bodies, while another four were found at a hotel on the island of Kuta. Chan, described as the ringleader, was captured after boarding a plane to Sydney.

The smugglers fell foul of Indonesia's strict drug laws; Sukumaran and Chan were sentenced to death, and the other seven members were given life sentences in February 2006.

Several of the group's members saw their time reduced to 20 years soon after, only to have life imprisonment sentences reinstated on appeal. Lawrence did not appeal her 20-year sentence.

Australia repeatedly pleaded for clemency over Sukumaran and Chan's executions, only to have their appeals denied. The two men's legal teams had also fought for years to have their sentences reduced.

"Both men are reformed characters and both have helped to rehabilitate other prisoners. The prerogative of mercy should be extended to them," Abbott said in 2015 in an unsuccessful effort to spare them the death penalty.

But Indonesian President Joko Widodo rejected the calls, saying "our legal sovereignty must be respected." Australia recalled its ambassador to Indonesia after the men were executed.

Widodo told CNN that year that the country was in the midst of a "drugs crisis," and insisted that he would not be swayed by clemency appeals.
Tupelo Clear 36 Hi: 58 Lo: 30 Feels Like: 32 More Weather Columbus Clear 39 Hi: 57 Lo: 30 Feels Like: 35 More Weather Oxford Clear 43 Hi: 56 Lo: 28 Feels Like: 39 More Weather Starkville Partly Cloudy 34 Hi: 58 Lo: 29 Feels Like: 34 More Weather

We will see a dry day in store for our Wednesday. However, good chances for some showers and isolated thunderstorms will be found in our weather forecast for Thanksgiving.
CORINTH, Miss. (WTVA) - Corinth police are advising residents to hang up if they receive a phone call from the police department requesting personal information.

On Wednesday, police posted the warning to its Facebook page.

Police say they have received reports of scammers using the Corinth Police Departments phone number in an attempt to get financial or personal information from the public.

The phone number is 662-286-3377.

Police say they will never contact people over the phone for personal or financial information.
TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - A 2005 murder cold case in Lee County may be solved.

This is in relation to the Aug. 8, 2005, death of Nancy C. Stevens of Decatur, Alabama.



Nancy C. Stevens | Photo provided by Lee County Sheriff's Dept. Nancy C. Stevens | Photo provided by Lee County Sheriff's Dept.

On that day, Lee County deputies responded to County Road 41 to a report of a deceased woman found lying on the side of the road.

The body was identified a few days later.

The autopsy revealed she was murdered by means of manual strangulation, reports Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson.

Numerous leads were followed during the years, but the case eventually went cold.

Johnson says Lee County investigators were recently contacted by Texas Rangers and were advised that a man identified as Samuel Little, 78, had admitted to killing a woman named Nancy possibly in the Tupelo area.

On October 23 of this year, investigators traveled to the Wise County jail in Decatur, Texas, and interviewed Little. Johnson says Little confessed to killing Stevens, giving detailed information only the suspect would know.

According to investigators, Little said he and Stevens were traveling in his RV in 2005 and killed her in the West Main Street Walmart parking lot in Tupelo and dumped her body on the side of County Road 41.

In a news release from the Lee County Sheriffs Department, Littles criminal history started when he was young and slowly evolved from burglaries, assaults and robbery to eventually murder.

Little has admitted to at least 90 murders from the 1970s to mid-2000s. He has served time in numerous correctional facilities throughout the country and spent 30 days in the Tupelo city jail for theft in 1995.

RELATED: Samuel Little charged for 1978 murder of South Mississippi woman

The sheriff says the case against Little will be presented to a Lee County grand jury in January for murder.

Little is currently serving several life sentences for murders in California.

Johnson says Stevens family has been notified.
JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman is hoping to see a large turnout for Tuesdays runoff election.

Voters can cast a ballot for candidates in the U.S. Senate, judicial and other races.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. However, any voter in line at 7 p.m. is entitled to cast a ballot.

Here is other important information for election day.

Absentee voting deadline  The in-person absentee voting deadline is 12 p.m. on Saturday, November 24. Circuit clerks offices will be open from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Absentee ballots returned by mail must be received by the circuit clerks offices no later than 5 p.m. on Monday, November 26. The deadline for UOCAVA voters, including service members deployed outside their county of residence, to return their absentee ballot is 7 p.m. on election day.

Polling place location - Click this link for polling precincts in your area

Voter photo ID  Voters are required to show photo ID at the polls. A voter without an acceptable form of photo ID is entitled to cast an affidavit ballot. An affidavit ballot may be counted if the voter provides an acceptable form of photo ID to the circuit clerks office within five business days after the election.

MORE: Click here for more information on voting ID

During election night, you can find full results online at WTVA.com, on the WTVA 9 News mobile app (iOS & Android) and displayed on your TV during our nightly newscasts.
OKOLONA, Miss. (WTVA) - An Okolona man is now wanted by the Chickasaw County Sheriffs Office after a search warrant allowed deputies to recover nearly four pounds of narcotics.

Willie McMillians home in Okolona was searched by deputies, Okolona police and the North Mississippi Narcotic's Unit on Monday.

Nearly four pounds of marijuana was recovered, along with several ounces of crack cocaine and a handgun.

McMillian had been arrested a few months ago on a drug-related charge and was out on bond when the drug raid took place.

"We are looking for it to be enhanced, especially because of the firearms were involved, said Sheriff James Meyers. Not only that but with him being already out on one felony bond, there is a good possibility that the judges would hold him with that bond once we get him in custody."
Update 12/04/18 3:19 p.m.

WAPT-TV in Jackson reports Sean Sharp was captured this past weekend and was booked into the Newton County jail.

Update 11/21/18 4:07 p.m.

WLBT-TV in Jackson reports the second stolen vehicle is described as a 2007 black Honda Accord taken from his brother's shop off Highway 49.

The manhunt has been called off for now because the suspect is not believed to be in the area.

See the original post below.

MENDENHALL, Miss. (WTVA) - A manhunt is underway in South Mississippi for a man who stole a Mississippi Highway Patrol vehicle then stole another car, reports WLBT-TV.

According to MHP, troopers conducted a traffic stop at Highway 49 in Simpson County.

During the stop, 29-year-old Sean Patrick Sharp was taken into custody. While in custody, Sharp is accused of taking possession of an MHP patrol car, leading to a chase.

Troopers say the suspect made it to a home and stole another car.

The manhunt is taking place in the area of Highway 13 and Highway 149 in Mendenhall, reports WLBT-TV.

This is a developing story.
TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - Plans are starting to unfold in Tupelo for next Mondays arrival of President Donald Trump.

The presidents rally for Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is scheduled for November 26 at 5 p.m. at the Tupelo Regional Airport.

MGN Online MGN Online

Tupelo city leaders are urging local businesses and residents to be prepared for heavier-than-normal traffic.

At this time, plans call for the closure of a portion of Jackson Street. Details about that closure have yet to be released.

Further details for parking will be released later as well.

The City of Tupelo, Lee County Sheriffs Department and the Mississippi Highway Patrol are working in support of the president's security detail.

People who are attending the event are asked to be careful and plan their travel accordingly.

The event is being hosted by Hyde-Smith's campaign and/or the presidents campaign. The two campaigns are responsible for logistics such as ticketing, parking and timing.

Tickets can be reserved at DonaldJTrump.com.

We will update our information once more planning details become available.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP)  A white Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi has apologized for complimenting a supporter by saying she would attend a "public hanging" if he invited her to one.

In a debate Tuesday night, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith said she was apologizing to anyone offended by her comments. She says she meant no "ill will" and said critics have "twisted" her words to use as a "political weapon" against her.

(L-R): Hyde-Smith, Espy (L-R): Hyde-Smith, Espy

Hyde-Smith's Democratic challenger, Mike Espy, says the words came out of Hyde-Smith's mouth and were not twisted. He says her statement gave Mississippi a "black eye" it doesn't need.

Mississippi has a history of racially motivated lynchings.

Espy, a former congressman and former U.S. agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the state's first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

The winner of a Nov. 27 runoff gets the final two years of a term.
JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - The Public Service Commission has charged three telemarketers accused of violating Mississippis No-Call law.

In a statement from Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, the commissions investigation found these companies made 90 illegal calls to Mississippians.

The telemarketers are identified as:

Helios Media Prospects DM, Inc. Good Life USA

They face a $5,000 per-call fine if they are found guilty.

RELATED: Learn more about No Call Program
On Tuesday, President Trump stuck with the presidential tradition of pardoning a turkey before Thanksgiving. A vote on the White House website earned a turkey named Peas the right to a pardon, while his alternate, Carrots, might not be so lucky.

This was a fair election. Unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount, and were still fighting with Carrots, Trump said, receiving some light laughter. And I will tell you, we have come to a conclusion. Carrots, Im sorry to tell you the result did not change.

Along with sending a message of unity during his speech, Trump, of course, used the made-for-TV event to take a few digs at Democrats as well.

Even though Peas and Carrots have received a presidential pardon, I have warned them that House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas, he joked.

The event comes on the heels of Trump issuing a statement implying that the U.S. will not punish the Saudi crown prince for his alleged role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But that didnt stop the presidents attempts at humor from coming in hot.

Nonetheless, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will be issuing both Peas and Carrots a presidential pardon, he continued. Unfortunately, I cant guarantee that your pardons wont be enjoined by the Ninth Circuit. Always happens.

And even though Americans will consume around 46 million turkeys this holiday, Peas is safe  for now.

Peas, I hereby grant you a full pardon, Trump said.

Check out what Cindy McCain had to say about Donald Trump in her first interview since the passing of her husband, Sen. John McCain:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below.
Last week, as a freshman class filtered through the halls of Congress for orientation, Fox News sounded the alarm about four of the elected members and the radical new Democratic ideas theyd come to advance: free health care, free college, the abolishment of ICE and an infrastructure project designed to address impending climate catastrophe that theyre calling the Green New Deal.

Instagram Photo

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and New Yorks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are emblematic of a midterm election in which more women, more people of color and more progressives were elected than ever before. All four also happen to be Justice Democrats, a group thats quickly gained currency under the leadership of a handful of determined alumni from Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign.

And now the group (technically a political action committee, but one that doesnt accept corporate donations) is getting even more attention for announcing its intention this past weekend to challenge even more incumbent Democrats during the partys upcoming primaries.

We need new leaders, period, Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortezs chief of staff and one of the chief architects behind Justice Democrats success, said on a phone call with reporters this past weekend. We gotta primary folks. Entrenched leadership in Washington has recoiled in horror at the groups blunt declaration, but it should have surprised no one. This is exactly what many progressives have been saying for the last two years  and its the reason Ocasio-Cortez is in Congress at all.

The three leaders of Justice Democrats  Chakrabarti, Alexandra Rojas and Corbin Trent  met back in 2015, when the only thing they had in common was the fact that they each dropped everything they were doing and went to work for Sanders not long after he declared his candidacy. I wasnt entirely sure he had all the right solutions but I knew he was talking about the right problems, Chakrabarti tells Rolling Stone.

Story continues

Rojas was a community-college student working three jobs in Costa Mesa, California, trying to gain residency so she could qualify for in-state tuition. Chakrabarti was in tech, an early employee at a multibillion-dollar startup in the Bay Area, growing increasingly disillusioned with the industry. Trent had a couple of food trucks in Tennessee that hes started after watching his familys furniture-parts business devastated by NAFTA.

All three ended up on the Sanders campaigns Distributed Organizing Team  they were the ones responsible for harnessing any and all of the volunteer energy that existed beyond the early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada). They traveled around the country helping stage barnstorms (Bernstorms, in campaign parlance)  volunteer-led events meant to hype supporters up to hold their own phone-banks and canvasses afterward. And everywhere they went, this question of how Congress would react to a Bernie Sanders presidency dampened the optimism about his chances.

At barnstorm after barnstorm, Chakrabarti remembers, people would say, Hows he going to get anything done? We just saw what Congress did to Obama for the last eight years, theyre gonna do the same thing to Bernie and hes going in not just as an enemy of the Republicans, hes going to be an enemy of the Democrats too.

The idea for Brand New Congress, which the three went on to found in the spring of 2016, sprung directly from that idea: recruit 400 like-minded folks to run for Congress, by asking people to nominate individuals from their own communities. It didnt matter if they were Republicans or Democrats, they just had to want to work toward the same things: a world in which everyone had health care, made a living wage and money didnt rule all in politics.

Brand New Congress ultimately ended up with 12,000 applications. Just 12 of those applicants turned into actual candidates, and only one won a seat in Congress this year: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A single win? Id describe it as an abysmal failure from our original plan, Trent says.

Its only a failure, though, Chakrabarti says, if youre thinking about politics the old way. Caring too much about a win ratio is part of the reason he believes the Democratic Party would never have recruited Ocasio-Cortez. Were OK losing 90 percent of our races, if it means that the ones we win cause the kind of shift in thinking about whats possible  like Alexandrias race honestly did, Chakrabarti says. So thats a different way of measuring success.

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Trumps election, though, did change the way the team that started Brand New Congress thought about what they were trying to achieve. Gradually, in early 2017, Rojas, Chakrabarti and Trent transitioned away from Brand New Congress and toward Justice Democrats. (The brand, brainchild of YouTube stars Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks and Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk, already existed at that point, and their large platforms helped spur recruitment early on, but Uygur and Kulinski are no longer affiliated with the group.)

Justice Democrats ended up endorsing and supporting the bids of some 70 candidates  Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley among them. Now theyre focused on helping hammer out the details of their progressive agenda.

At the top of their list: the creation of a Green New Deal. Trent describes a Green New Deal as a huge multitrillion dollar economic expansion that hopefully will jumpstart our economic engine in this country and then hopefully put people in a meaningful way back to work and generate tens of millions of jobs.

It might sound like a heavy lift for a few freshmen representatives, but Chakrabarti says of Ocasio-Cortez, Thats part of her motivation, and why she ran at all, was to get that big stuff done.

And thats also what Rojas, Chakrabarti, Trent and Justice Democrats as a whole are turning their attention to: creating an entire system to support the candidates theyve helped elect as they pursue these big, ambitious projects.

We want to recruit candidates, we want to train candidates, we want to recruit campaign and Hill staff, we need better think tanks  theres this whole infrastructure that the establishment has right now that perpetuates the current status quo and thats whats not working, right? Chakrabarti says. Theres a whole pipeline for where people recruit current Hill staff from and its people who go through a kind of ideological training thats incorrect, Id say, and so theres a lot of work to do, and Justice Democrats is trying to figure out where it fits.

At the end of the day, Rojas says, its pretty simple: Justice Democrats is just a brand  a vehicle that were using to keep people accountable.
While you begin preparations for your Thanksgiving meal, This Is Us will serve up an unusual feast of drama for the holiday. Tuesdays episode, titled Six Thanksgivings, is structured in a similar manner to season 1s fall finale Last Christmas, in that each act unspools its own story. It wont be as traditional as what we do every week, This Is Us executive producer Elizabeth Berger tells EW. Were telling six different chapters that stand alone. I can tease that well see a return of William [Ron Cephas Jones], which were really excited about. We cant wait for everyone to see it.

Some of the action centers on the attempt by newly pregnant Kate (Chrissy Metz) and depression-battling Toby (Chris Sullivan) to cook a Thanksgiving meal at the home of Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson). Theyre going to be in charge this year because Randall has a political event that he has to go to, adds executive producer Isaac Aptaker, so we see what its like when theyre holding down the fort and trying to make dinner for the gang.

Elsewhere, Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and Miguel (Jon Huertas) will be feasting with his family, and what can you expect to see when he breaks bread with his grown-up children? They might not have the best relationship with Miguel, says Aptaker. (And in case youre wondering if Pilgrim Rick will make an appearance this year somewhere in this episode, Berger answers coyly: Traditions are kept alive.)

Meanwhile, in the 90s past, youll see Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca share what will be Jacks last Thanksgiving, and in the 70s past, you will see how soldiers in the Vietnam War spend their Thanksgiving. Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) has his plate full trying to help spiraling-out brother Nicky (Michael Angarano), as he has been given just two weeks to correct his seemingly doomed course. Those are a very seminal two weeks for Nicky, hints Aptaker. And we know how determined and heroic Jack is, and he is absolutely determined to try to bring back his brother, but its such a ticking clock. Hinting at those addiction issues for Nicky, Aptaker notes: Hes become dependent on a variety of things to get through the trauma and horrors of Vietnam. Thats something were going to be getting into more with these next few episodes as we see how the tale of Jack and Nicky over there unfolds.

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As for that story of Jack and the mysterious Vietnamese woman who was seen wearing the necklace that Jack gave Kevin (Justin Hartley), Aptaker teases: Were going to pick right up with a much meatier interaction for them. In other words: Bring your appetite to this sprawling Pearson Thanksgiving episode.

Aptaker and Berger break down all the drama from last weeks episode, Sometimes, right over here.

This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
Pfizer, Amgen, Walmart among companies withdrawing support for Mississippi GOP Sen. Hyde-Smith originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is one of several big-name companies calling on Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to return their campaign donations after a video surfaced on social media in which she talks about attending a "public hanging."

Hyde-Smith is in a tight runoff election race with Democrat Mike Espy, a former congressman who would be the state's first African-American senator since the 1800s.

We condemn racism and bigotry in all its forms, Pfizer spokesperson Sharon Castillo told ABC News Tuesday. We are withdrawing our support and have requested a full refund of our contributions, which were made months in advance of the senators comments.

PHOTO: A man walks past Pfizer's world headquarters in New York, April 28, 2014. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters, FILE)

Pfizer has made two contributions totaling $5,000.

Other companies in the pharmaceutical and medical industry, including Amgen, Leidos and Boston Scientific have requested refunds ranging from $2,000 to $5,000.

Pfizer and Amgen are among the leaders in the industry in terms of lobbying and for making campaign contributions in 2018, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Hyde-Smith's assignment to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Food and Drug Administration earlier this year "could not be more critical" for such companies to build relationship with the senator for "influence and access," according to Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen.

However, Hyde-Smith's recent remark led big names in the industry turn away from her.

The video in question shows Hyde-Smith in Tupelo, Mississippi, embracing a supporter and saying, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her. Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr  Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018

After the video was posted on Twitter, Hyde-Smith did not apologize but defended herself.

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"In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement," she said in a statement. "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."

When actress Debra Messing criticized Walmart for its donation to Hyde-Smith, the company responded that the senators comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates.

Hi Debra. Completely understand your concern. Sen. Hyde-Smiths recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates. As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations.  Walmart (@Walmart) November 20, 2018

We were not aware of Senator Hyde-Smiths remarks when this contribution was made on November 8, and we have requested a refund. We reject the Senators statements, which are not aligned with our companys core values.  Boston Scientific (@bostonsci) November 19, 2018

Walmart requested a full refund of $4,000 Tuesday, according to a company spokesperson, while AT&T has also requested a refund of $2,000.

ABC News has reached out to the senator's campaign office Tuesday but has not yet received a response.

Sen. Hyde-Smith, however, did vaguely refer to the "public hanging" comment and apologized at a debate with her opponent Espy on Tuesday.

"For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize," she said. "There was no ill will, no intent, whatsoever in my statements."

(MORE: Hyde-Smith alleges 'public hanging' comment used as 'political weapon' amid tightening Mississippi senate race)

(MORE: Controversies hamper candidates in Mississippi Senate race)

Four days after the first video surfaced, another video from Nov. 3 was tweeted in which Hyde-Smith tells a group of supporters in Starkville, Mississippi, that it would be a great idea to make voting just a little more difficult for liberal folks.

Cindy Hyde-Smith on voter suppression: "And then they remind me, that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea." Nov 2nd in Columbus, MS. pic.twitter.com/OxNY77XCft  Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 15, 2018

Hyde-Smiths campaign once again refused to apologize and released a statement saying, "Obviously Sen. Hyde-Smith was making a joke and clearly the video was selectively edited."

Hyde-Smith, appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, is facing the runoff with Espy after she netted 41.4 percent of the vote on Election Day while Espy had 40.6 percent.
New Africa/Shutterstock

It's complete darkness, through day and night, where I am. In the silence of the cool, loosely packed earth, Im reproducing. My eyes shoot forth stems, millimeter by millimeter, into the dirt around me. Aboveground, my green leaves bask in the sunlight, photosynthesizing sugars, which ease downward to nourish nodes along those stems. The nodes then swell with fleshnew potatoes in the making, each one a perfect clone of me. Cloning myself in the dark isnt the only way I reproduce. My second means of reproduction is fertilization of my flowers by another potato plant, and any variety will do. This insurance policy has given me maximum flexibility as a multiplier over the ages. Today, 8,000 years since humans began cultivating my ilk near Lake Titicaca in the Peruvian Andes, taxonomists have no idea how many cultivated and wild versions of me exist. I am the Solanum tuberosum, a member of the nightshade family and a close cousin of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tobacco. Dont let our shared moniker fool you: I am no relation to the sweet potato. Shes correctly described as a root vegetable, whereas my edible part is the stem, swollen into a starchy, filling snack. Thousands of years ago, I was but a knobby knot in the ground, hardly edible, at times even poisonous. In the dirt-caked hands of generations of farmers, Ive been bred so that my bitter glycoalkaloidsthe compounds that to this day make me go green after one too many days on your windowsillare at safe-to-eat levels, and my edible insides have expanded to accommodate the human appetite. As a result of this happy coexistence with my cultivators, Ive hitched my way all over the world and adapted to life on continents outside my home turf in the Americas. I can live at 12,000 feet in the dry, chilly mountains and at sea level in the tropics. My appearance is as varied as the places I live. I can be white, yellow, red, purple, pink, or blue; speckled, spotted, coiled, or mottled; knobby, smooth, thin, or stumpy; covered in skin thats thick and leathery or as thin as tissue paper. Despite this dazzling diversity, a North American shopper will encounter only a few varieties: russets, which are very starchy and thus good for baked potatoes and fries; Yukon Golds, which are moist and waxy and great for producing a silky mash; fingerlings and new potatoes, delightful when boiled; and red potatoes, perfectly tender and sweet in a potato salad. Around the world, I take many more forms, from soft purees to shatteringly crisp potato chips. Im rolled into cloudlike dumplings in Italy, bulk up Guinness stews in Ireland, and grace the tables of Frances haute temples of gastronomy, usually laden with butter and cream. Yet I didnt become the fifth-most-abundant crop across the globe in 2016 as an indulgence. I am a true staple, highly storable, surprisingly nutritious. Civilizations have depended on me. The Incan Empire grew on my back, its soldiers subsisting on me as they marched through harsh mountain terrain. Europeans relied on me through lean times, sometimes too heavily. My nemesis, the fungus that produces late blight, attacked me in the mid-1800s in western Europe and nearly collapsed Ireland, where about one million people died. More recently, Ive been identified by NASA as a food seemingly made for astronauts on missions, as I offer all nine essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins necessary for humans to maintain themselves. (That subplot of The Martian in which the Matt Damon character lives on potatoes alone may not be too off base.) Even the whitest and blandest of my brethren contain potassium, fiber, and an array of potentially cancer- and heart diseasefighting polyphenols in their flesh and skin. My most abundant polyphenol, chlorogenic acid, which is associated with lowering blood sugar, is important for diabetics. Today, scientists on Earth are breeding biofortified versions of me with double the normal iron content to feed parts of the world where anemia is pervasive. They are using genetic modification to develop a potato fully resistant to the fast-moving late blight, which is still the most aggressive threat to me. There is also a significant effort to develop varieties of me that tolerate the stresses of drought, soil salinity, and heat as climate change presses in on staple crops like me. Dare I say, thats progress for a tuber that got its start underfoot, in the silent darkness.

Perfect Boiled Fingerlings Recipe

Put whole fingerlings in a pot and cover with cold water. Now add salt, starting with 1.5 tablespoons per 4 cups of water, and then sprinkle in more until the water tastes as salty as the sea. (Dont worry: Most will go down the drain, and the little thats absorbed will make all the difference.) Add aromatics: garlic, a halved onion, carrots, celery, a bay leaf, and fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and sage. Bring water to a gentle simmer and cook anywhere from 25 minutes to two hours, until you can slide a fork into a potato without resistance. (The larger the potatoes and batch, the longer theyll take.) Turn the heat off; leave the potatoes until the water is warm. Discard the aromatics and herbs, drain the potatoes, and toss with melted butter or olive oil and minced parsley, chives, and/or tarragon. Add black pepper and salt to taste. Kate Lowenstein is the editor-in-chief of Vices health website, Tonic; Daniel Gritzer is culinary director of the cooking site Serious Eats.
Roasting a turkey is one of those things that seems really hard, but isn't actually that bad. Basically, it's like roasting an oversized chicken. As long as you follow the same general practices, scaled to size of course, you should be able to get a beautifully roasted bird on the table without a problem.

Let's say, though, that you've never roasted a chicken either. At least, this was my particular predicament the first time I hosted Thanksgiving dinner. At the time I was an intern at a fancy food publication, and I'd spent the week before T-Day probing every editor I ran into for their turkey roasting expertise. One said to me, "If you've roasted a chicken before, you'll be fine." Immediately, I started to panic, because I'd never roasted a chicken before! How was I supposed to successfully make a turkey if I hadn't even done that?

In my newly induced turkey terror, I spent hours scouring the web for all the pieces of advice I could find. In the end, my bird turned out OK. The meat was tender, the juices made a great gravy, and all of my guests were perfectly contented. Sure, the skin wasn't as browned and crispy as I would have liked, but I've since learned how to guarantee that always happensand I was able to hide it from my guests with a little behind-the-scenes magic.

When I finally did roast my first chicken, it was way, way easier than I ever imagined, probably thanks in no small part to what I learned from making a turkey. So whether you've done it or not, I'm living proof that you don't have to have roasted a small bird to successfully make a big one. Here, you'll find all the tips and tricks you need to roast a turkey from experts at Whole Foods Market and my own personal experience.

To determine what size turkey you should buy, use this simple trick.

Before you can roast your turkey, you have to buy it, and before you buy it, you need to figure out how big it should be. Theo Weening, Whole Foods Market global meat buyer, tells SELF that to do this, all you have to do is make sure your bird is 1.5 pounds per guest. That may seem like a lot for one person, but it takes into consideration the excess weight they won't be eating from the bones, and extras for leftovers, so in the end it should be just the right amount. He says that turkeys range from 6 to 22 pounds, so you should have no problem finding the right size for your guest count.

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And if you're feeding a crowd, the pros say you might want to consider buying an extra turkey breast.

If your crowd is going to be really, really biglike, so big that you're considering making two turkeysjust buy an extra breast instead, says Weening. According to Bon Appetit, if you do do this, you should buy a bone-in turkey breast, because the bone keeps the meat more tender for longer, meaning the leftovers will be moister and more flavorful than the breast meat you slice off of the turkey, which will dry out quickly without the bone.

Buy frozen turkeys at least three days ahead of time.

If you buy a frozen turkey, it's obviously going to need time to defrost. And since it's so much bigger than what you're normally defrosting, it's also going to need more time to defrost completely. Per the USDA, small turkeys (4 to 12 pounds) will need one to three days in the fridge, whereas large turkeys (20 to 24 pounds), can need up to six.

Weening says that if you're short on time, there is a way to speed up the process. Make sure it's sealed in an airtight container so that it doesn't get wet (a large plastic bag should work), then submerge it in cold tap water. Make sure to keep the water cold at all times; otherwise your turkey runs the risk of falling into the temperature danger zone between 40 and 140 degrees. And since you'll need about 30 minutes in the water per pound of turkey, defrosting it this way will require constant attention for most of the day. If you can buy your turkey ahead of time to let it defrost in the fridge, definitely do, but if this your only option, it works in a pinch.

Though you can usually find fresh turkeys if you preferyou just need to know where to look.

While fresh turkeys aren't sold everywhere, you can find them at specialty markets or your local butcher. Weening says that Whole Foods Market customers tend to prefer fresh turkeys to frozen, so they always keep them stocked during and before Thanksgiving. They're a bit more pricey than your basic frozen Butterball, but they don't require any labor-intensive defrosting. So if you're short on time, and you don't want to babysit a turkey in a bath, consider going this route.

Once you have your turkey, this is all the other equipment you'll need.

Molly Siegler, from the Whole Foods Market culinary development team, tell SELF that that the main piece of equipment you absolutely must have is a large roasting panshe says disposable is fine if you don't want to make an investment. You'll also need a meat thermometer to check that turkey has reached a safe temperature to eat when it's nearly finished.

Though not essential, she also recommends using a roasting rack. It'll help your bird get crispier because it will keep it above its juices, rather than soaking in them. Though if you don't have one and don't feeling like buying one, she says you can get away with roasting a turkey without one, the skin just won't be as crispy.

The first time you roast a turkey, forget dry brining and wet brining and keep it simple with a salt and pepper rub.

Around this time of the year, the Internet is rife with guides to dry brining and wet brining your Thanksgiving turkey. If it's your first time roasting a turkey, tune out that noise and keep your seasoning nice and simple. "If you get a good turkey," says Siegler, "all you will need to do is salt and pepper." I've been using this super simple recipe from the Barefoot Contessa since the start.

Season your turkey eight hours to two days before you plan to roast it.

The farther in advance you season your bird, the more time it will have to flavor your bird, tenderize the meat, and dry out the skin, which is the secret to getting that crispy, browned exterior. Salt plays a large part in this process as it sucks most of moisture from the skin (which is not unlike when you cure something with salt!). In fact, recipes that call for more salt than spices typically result in crispier skin overall.

And when you season it, make sure to get all the way underneath the skin.

Rub your seasoning absolutely all over the turkey: On top of the skin, underneath the skin, in the cavity, and so on. You may have to use a bit of force to separate the skin from the meat, but it'll be so worth it.

Keep your bird in your fridge uncovered for several hours. Then let it rest outside of the fridge for 30 minutes before you stick it in the oven.

To further let the bird dry out, let it sit uncovered in your fridge for a few hours before you roast it. This will zap any moisture that might remain. Then, Siegler says you should let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before roasting. "It will cook more evenly if it's not direct from the refrigerator to the oven," she explains.

Use the turkey gizzards and neck bone to make stock and stuffing.

I used to run and hide when my dad would pull the gizzards out of the turkey on Thanksgiving. Now I relish the activity. I love using those extra bits of bird because I get a kick from that feeling of not wasting anything. Not to mention, they add a ton of flavor to my feast. I use the bones and heart in my stock, which ends up adding flavor to a bunch of my dishes. I also like to cut up the bits of liver and actually add them to my stuffing. It's sounds kind of gross, but it tastes amazing (it gives the whole thing a flavor like pate!).

Before you stick it in the oven, there are a couple more things you need to do.

The other secret to ensuring your bird turns out browned? Fat. Butter and olive oil are the two most commonly used when it comes to roasting turkey. Olive oil will make a crispier skin because it has less water than butter (remember, moisture is the thief of crispiness). But nothing gives something that buttery flavor quite like butter.

Whichever one you choose, use it to coat the entire bird inside and outand that includes under the skin! Then, stuff the cavity with aromatics like citrus, herbs, garlic, and onions. These ingredients will guarantee your turkey is flavorful throughout. Do all of this just before you put your bird in the oven.

Depending on the size of your turkey, it'll need at least three to four hours in a 350-degree oven before it's ready.

Siegler says that a 14-pound turkey will need to roast at least three hours at 350 degrees before it will be ready to eat. The larger your bird, the more time it will need. But once you get past that three-hour mark, it can be hard to know exactly how much longer you should cook it for. Instead, Siegler says you should rely on a meat thermometer. Check on your bird every 30 minutes after the original three hours have passed. Stick your thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh (but don't touch the bone!). When it reaches 165 degrees, it's ready to eat.

Before you carve it, let it rest for 30 minutes.

When your turkey first comes out of the oven, it will be way too hot to handle. Letting it rest for 30 minutes gives it time to cool so that you can properly carve it, and it gives the turkey time to absorb all of the flavors and juices that have run loose.

Carving isn't easy, but with some tips (and YouTube videos), you shouldn't have a problem.

"The best way to get the most out of the turkey is to carve the full pieces of meat away from the bone and then slice each piece for easy serving," Siegler explains. "Using a very sharp knife and a two-pronged fork to steady the turkey, cut through the skin between the breast and leg. Force the leg away from the turkey and cut through the joint to separate the leg completely. Use your hands to rotate the leg away from the turkey to locate the join, and repeat with the other leg."

If you need some visual guidance, check out this video. You may need to watch it a few times (I know I did).

Carve the turkey away from guests. You know, in case things don't go as planned.

According to Siegler, you should carve the turkey in the kitchen away from your guests. "This makes it easier on you and also on your guests," she explains. As much as people think they want to see that beautiful bird all dressed up and on the table, the reality is they probably just want to eat it. And carving takes time. Do it in the kitchen before you bring it out to the table. That way, if you fudge it, which you probably will the first time around, you won't have 10 guests staring you down as you do it.

Even if your carving job isn't perfect, lay the bird out on a serving tray with some slices of lemon and sprigs of herbs. They'll make the whole look beautiful. Even if it's just OK, your guests will be none the wiser.
Matthew Whitaker, President Donald Trumps pick to replace ousted former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has come under fire for his objections to investigating the president, his suspicious business history and his possible legal violations.

Whitakers past raises serious questions about his eligibility to oversee special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russian interference in the 2016 elections  let alone his qualifications to be the countrys chief legal principal.

Here are five of the biggest issues with Whitaker taking over as acting attorney general.

He raked in over a million dollars leading a charity with no employees.

Whitaker collected more than $1.2 million as the leader of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a group that described itself as a charitable nonprofit dedicated to promoting accountability, ethics, and transparency in government and civic arenas, though it largely worked to promote conservative causes.

The Washington Post first reported on Whitakers massive financial gains leading the mysterious group, collected in the three years after he arrived in Washington, D.C., in 2014. FACTs origins and funding remain obscure, and the group had no employees aside from Whitaker and existed only on paper, the Post said Tuesday.

Its very possible that this organization is misusing its status as a charity, David Nelson, a specialist on nonprofit organizations who reviewed FACTs tax filings for the Post, told the paper. It appears the IRS never gave approval to FACT.

He may have broken the law by receiving political donations.

On Wednesday, the political watchdog group American Oversight called on the Office of Special Counsel to investigate Whitaker for possible violations of the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities by federal employees.

The complaint cites several political donations Whitaker received while serving as chief of staff and senior counselor in Sessions office, according to his financial disclosure forms. In one example, the complaint notes that Whitakers 2014 U.S. Senate campaign committee is still active and that he received four political contributions totaling $8,800 between Jan. 29 and Feb. 22 of this year.

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The nations highest law enforcement officer should be above reproach, but Acting Attorney General Whitakers financial disclosures raise potential concerns of both dishonesty and covert partisan conflicts of interest, Austin Evers, American Oversights executive director, said in a statement.

The filings also show that Whitaker revised his financial disclosure forms at least five times after he submitted them, HuffPost noted Tuesday.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, framed by a photograph of lower Manhattan, addresses law enforcement officials at the Joint Terrorism Task Force on Nov. 21, 2018, in New York. (Photo: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

It may not be constitutional for him to act as attorney general.

Several Democrats and legal scholars have argued that Trumps appointment of Whitaker as acting attorney general isnt legitimate.

On Monday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) filed a lawsuit calling into question Whitakers eligibility to take on the role without being in another Senate-confirmed position at the time of his appointment, as all acting attorney generals in the past have been.

The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel issued a 20-page opinion last week arguing that Whitakers appointment is lawful.

Upon Sessions forced resignation, several prominent legal scholars wrote in a New York Times op-ed that Whitakers appointment was unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause, given that the role of attorney general is a principal position requiring Senate confirmation.

Hes already taken a side in an investigation he should be impartial on.

In a conflict of interest thats most certainly not lost on Trump, Whitaker has been openly critical of Muellers investigation into the Trump campaign  an investigation he now oversees until Trump taps a permanent replacement.

Whitaker rose to prominence as a contributor on CNN, where he was best known for railing against the Mueller investigation. He insisted on air that nothing would come of it, that Muellers budget should be capped, that Donald Trump Jr. was not in the wrong for meeting with a Russian lawyer to talk about Hillary Clinton and that investigating the Trump Organizations financial ties to Russia crossed a red line.

In a CNN editorial published earlier this month, Whitaker argued that Muellers probe could become a mere witch hunt.

Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing, Whitaker wrote.

Hes friends with one of Muellers grand jury witnesses.

In another conflict of interest, Whitaker has a close friendship with Sam Clovis, Trumps 2016 election campaign co-chair who has testified before the grand jury in the Mueller investigation.

Clovis has said he and Whitaker became close when they ran against each other in a 2014 Senate primary campaign in Iowa. Whitaker eventually went on to serve as the chairman of Clovis campaign for state treasurer.

Walter Shaub, who served as director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics until resigning in July of last year, told Reuters that their relationship should disqualify Whitaker from overseeing Muellers investigation.

Whitaker has to recuse himself under DOJs regulation requiring recusal if you have a personal or political relationship with someone substantially involved in conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution, Shaub said.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Paris (AFP) - Rights activists filed two complaints in France against a visiting Abu Dhabi prince on Wednesday, accusing him of being complicit in torture as well as in war crimes in Yemen.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who is a close ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was in Paris for a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron.

The October 2 killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi loomed large over the meeting, with US President Donald Trump admitting Tuesday that the Saudi prince may have been behind his brutal murder in Istanbul.

Macron's office said the French leader and the Abu Dhabi crown prince discussed stability in the Middle East, the war in Yemen and Iran, among other issues, without giving details.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Huthi rebels in Yemen for the past three years.

One of the complaints against the Abu Dhabi prince was brought by three nationals of Saudi arch-foe Qatar, who claimed they had been detained and tortured by UAE security officials between February 2013 and May 2015, according to their lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur.

The trio said they had been subjected to "physical and psychological torture", including beatings, sleep deprivation and threats of rape, hanging and death, Sur said in a statement.

The second complaint, for "complicity in torture and war crimes" in Yemen, was brought by six Yemenis and the French-based International Alliance for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began, according to the World Health Organization, and 14 million people are at risk of starvation.

The complaint filed in Paris accuses the Saudi-backed coalition of "mass torture, indiscriminate bombings and a blockade leading to a famine," and says that Prince Mohammed bears responsibility as deputy chief of UAE's armed forces.

Prince Mohammed did not respond to the allegations.

He was not scheduled to speak to the media during his visit to France.
Oualata (Mauritania) (AFP) - A fledgling African regional force fighting jihadists in Sahel countries is more effective -- with fewer resources -- than a UN mission with a similar remit in Mali, the Mauritanian president said Wednesday.

"The G5 makes do with the little resources it has, despite lots of pledges, while MINUSMA has huge resources and doesn't do as well," Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz told French journalists. "Relatively speaking, the G5 has not failed."

The G5, whose secretariat is based in Mauritania, is a French-backed scheme conceived in 2015 to combat jihadism and lawlessness along the Sahara's southern rim, but lack of funding and shortfalls in equipment and training have led to delays in its operations.

It groups Mauritania with four other former French colonies -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger -- where militants of Boko Haram and the Islamic State group as well as armed gangs have gained a foothold.

As well as fighting militants, the G5 tackles smuggling and illegal immigration networks that operate in these vast, remote areas on the Sahara's southern fringe.

The extremism and lawlessness is the result of the chaos that engulfed Libya in 2011, the Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and the rise of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

The 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Mali, MINUSMA, has an annual budget of around a billion dollars (880 million euros).

Aziz, speaking two weeks before Mauritania is to host a donor conference for the G5 Sahel, said: "We don't understand why the international community continues to pour billions of dollars into MINUSMA without results while the five G5 countries... don't manage to raise even one-tenth of what goes every year to MINUSMA."

Nearly half of the funding pledges ($206 million out of $416 million) for the G5's start-up costs have been received so far.

The force needs another 100 million euros per year to operate, said Aziz, speaking on the sidelines of a cultural festival in the southeastern oasis town of Oualata.

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So far, about 80 percent of the G5 Sahel force, or 4,000 troops, have been deployed and six operations have been carried out.

A devastating attack in June on the force's headquarters in Mali, claimed by an al-Qaeda-linked group, destroyed the communications room, prompting a halt in operations that are now expected to resume in December.

MINUSMA, set up in 2013, ranks as the most dangerous in the world for blue helmets, with 173 fatalities according to UN figures.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned heads as soon as she came onto the scene as a candidate for New Yorks 14th congressional district. Most recently, its with a shoutout to one of her states own, rapper Cardi B, whose lyrics Ocasio-Cortez seemed to think were fitting to the recent criticism shes been facing.
By Sanjib Kumar Roy PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) - An American self-styled adventurer and Christian missionary has been killed and buried by a tribe of hunter-gatherers on a remote island in the Indian Ocean where he had gone to proselytize, local law enforcement officials said on Wednesday. John Allen Chau, 26, was slain on North Sentinel Island, which is home to what is considered the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world and typically out of bounds to visitors, said Dependra Pathak, the director general of police in Andaman and Nicobar. "A murder case has been registered against unknown persons," Pathak said, adding that the local fishermen suspected of illegally ferrying Chau to the 60-square-km (23-square-mile) island had been arrested on separate charges. Chau was killed by members of the Sentinelese community using bows and arrows, according to multiple media accounts. Chau's social media posts identify him as an adventurer and explorer. Responding to a travel blog query about what was on the top of his adventure list, Chau said: "Going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India." Chau also said in the blog: "I definitely get my inspiration for life from Jesus." Based on his social media posts, Chau appears to have visited India multiple times in the last few years, exploring and preaching in many parts of southern India. "We recently learned from an unconfirmed report that John Allen Chau was reported killed in India while reaching out to members of the Sentinelese Tribe in the Andaman Islands," members of the Chau family said in a post on his Instagram page. The family described him as a "beloved son, brother and uncle" as well as a Christian missionary, wilderness emergency medical technician, soccer coach and mountaineer. "He loved God, life, helping those in need and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people," the family said. "We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death. We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands." The family asked that local contacts not be prosecuted in the case. BURIED IN THE SAND Police said in a statement that they had launched an investigation into Chau's death after being contacted by the U.S. consulate in the southern Indian city of Chennai. "We are aware of reports concerning a U.S. citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands," a consulate spokeswoman said in an email, but declined to provide further details. Pathak said a Coast Guard vessel with police and experts on the tribe had gone to scout the island and formulate a plan to recover Chau's body. North Sentinel Island is about 50 km (31 miles) west of Port Blair, the capital of the island cluster. Chau made two or three trips to the island by canoe from Nov. 15, making contact with the tribe but returning to his boat, Pathak said. He told the fishermen on Nov. 16 he would not come back from the island and instructed them to return home and pass on some handwritten notes he had made to a friend. The next morning they saw his body being dragged across a beach and buried in the sand, the police chief said, adding: "This was a misplaced adventure in a highly protected area." A source with access to Chau's notes said Chau had taken scissors, safety pins and a football as gifts to the tribe. In his notes, the source said, Chau wrote that some members of the tribe were good to him while others were very aggressive. "I have been so nice to them. Why are they so angry and so aggressive?" the source quoted Chau as saying. The source, who asked not to be named, said Chau wrote that he was "doing this to establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island...Do not blame the natives if I am killed." In 2006, two fishermen who strayed onto the island were killed and their bodies never recovered. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community. (Reporting by Sanjib Kumar Roy; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Writing by Euan Rocha and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Gareth Jones and Lisa Shumaker)
The Telegraph

Teachers have always had to expect a certain amount of stick from their pupils. Its part of the job; normally we dont grumble too much about it. Over my 14 years in the profession Ive worked across nine secondary schools, teaching history in Wales, Blackpool, and Liverpool.
This is an opinion piece by Scott Pattison, CEO and executive director of the National Governors Association. He appeared at Yahoo Finances All Markets Summit.

The midterm elections will bring significant changes in Washington and the nations statehouses. Amid a time of transition, the National Governors Association (NGA) remains steadfast in helping governors achieve the goals with which voters have entrusted them, including creating a workforce equipped for long-term success.

The recent election exacerbated divisions in Washington, raising real questions about the ability of national leaders to forge compromises in the public interest. As a result, Americans are looking to their state capitals for leadership on important issues, such as programs that support reskilling and upskilling, innovation, and economic growth. Fortunately, NGA Chair and Montana Governor Steve Bullock has introduced an initiative, Good Jobs for All Americans, to help provide solutions.

American workers are buffeted by profound economic, social, and technological change, which is compelling them to work in new and different ways. These transformations carry the potential to enhance productivity and drive economic growth for generations, but as we grasp the opportunities in front of us, we also must ensure that no one is left behind.

Good Jobs for All Americans focuses on three goals: creating a skilled workforce, offering mid-career employees a meaningful second act, and reinvigorating rural communities facing difficult educational, infrastructure, and population challenges. With sustained investments in on-the-job training and apprenticeships, governors are making direct connections between businesses and skilled labor that offer a chance at prosperity for all.

Americas governors are seeking investment from around the world because they understand that Americans benefit from international trading relationships. In fact, U.S. exports support an estimated 11.5 million jobs across every state and territory. Governors have historically been the best marketers for their states, and they continue negotiating unique partnerships to bring foreign investment and economic development home.

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Thats where NGAs Global Program comes in. Launched last March, NGA Global equips governors for the world stage. The mission is to partner with world leaders to take on tough issues, such as energy, supply chain, agriculture, and investment  all with the goal of enhancing states global competitiveness.

Were providing a formal platform for transnational dialogue. U.S. states face many of the same issues as other countries, often at an equal scale, so governors and their constituents benefit from sharing ideas and best practices with leaders abroad.

For instance, when NGA Global hosted a large Australian delegation earlier this year, governors and premiers shared their experiences and insights regarding their similar infrastructure challenges. When we held a North American Summit welcoming representatives from Canada and Mexico, we discussed the skills gap affecting the whole region. And when Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo joined us for our Winter Meeting, we joined forces with ideas about how Africa and the U.S. can collaborate to bring economic benefits to both continents.

Right now, the global community is seeking out U.S. governors for continuity and certainty as our internal political dynamics shift. Operating within the bounds of federally created trade agreements, governors are working to maintain critical ties that bind countries together and result in important gains for American workers.

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb is a perfect example. He has attracted Indian company Infosys to build a technology hub at the former Indianapolis International Airport site. The deal also will bring workforce development and retraining programs through a partnership with Purdue University.

Governor Brian Sandoval of Nevada is teaming up with Poland on geothermal technology. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey gained entry to the E.U. market for her local businesses by way of Romania. And Governor Jay Inslee learned about electrifying Washington States ferries from officials in Norway.

These are just a handful of examples. Comparable efforts with counterparts in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and South America are advancing states interests in markets worldwide, and not only for commercial purposes. California Governor Jerry Brown, for example, organized a Global Climate Action Summit to address the urgent issue of climate justice.

Even as were hearing about U.S.-China trade differences, governors are engaging in vital exchanges with Chinese businesses and providing feedback to U.S. officials. For example, Governor Kim Reynolds has been advocating for Iowas farmers, while Governor Matt Bevin enticed a Chinese-owned company to reopen a 500-employee, Western Kentucky paper mill.

Efforts by governors to forge enduring cross-border relationships help underscore the immense value of the United States as a trading partner, a key message as diplomats work out fair bilateral and multilateral trade pacts. This is among the advantages of Americas unique federalist system, which puts national and state governments on equal footing with separate spheres of authority.

Newly elected governors are readying themselves to join the stalwarts highlighted here in pursuing ambitious and innovative projects and initiatives, both at home and abroad, that make good on their promises to constituents. NGA, which has served as the only bipartisan membership association of the nations governors since 1908, will continue to prepare, connect, and support them.

Scott Pattison is CEO and executive director of the National Governors Association.
President Trump defended his daughters use of a personal email account Tuesday, the day after news broke that Ivanka Trump had used a personal account to send hundreds of emails to fellow Trump Administration officials last year.

She wasnt doing anything to hide her emails, Trump said, speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House as he prepared to depart Washington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at his club in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump claimed the emails Ivanka sent were preserved in presidential records databases, as required.

They werent deleted like Hillary Clinton did, Trump said.

When House Democrats take control of a key oversight committee in January, they plan to investigate whether Ivanka appropriately used her personal email account while she was working as a senior adviser to her father in the White House. Last year, Republicans and Democrats in the House requested records about White House officials use of private email accounts for official business, but the White House didnt provide the information needed.

We launched a bipartisan investigation last year into White House officials use of private email accounts for official business, but the White House never gave us the information we requested,  Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement Tuesday.

Democrats will have the power to subpoena records from the Trump administration when the newly elected Congress gavels into session in January. We need those documents to ensure that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and other officials are complying with federal records laws and there is a complete record of the activities of this Administration, Cummings said.
By Karishma Luthria SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia will not sign up to a United Nations migration agreement because it would compromise its hardline immigration policy and endanger national security, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday. Australia joins the United States, Israel and several Eastern European countries in rejecting the U.N. Global Compact for Migration, which asks signatories not to detain would-be migrants arbitrarily and to use detention only as a last resort. Morrison said that would jeopardize national security. "The global compact on migration would compromise Australia's interest," Morrison told 2GB Radio. "It doesn't distinguish between those who illegally enter Australia and those who come the right way." Under Canberra's tough immigration policy, which has bipartisan support, asylum seekers arriving by boat are told they will never be allowed to settle in Australia. They are then detained in two detention centers on remote South Pacific islands until they are accepted by another nation or agree to return home. The camps have been widely criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups. "Australia is a textbook case of how not to treat boat arrivals, by sending them offshore to endure abysmal conditions for years and trying to shirk its international responsibilities onto less-developed countries," said Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch's Australia director. Australia's rejection of the U.N. pact is the latest move to tighten migration through a series of policies that are likely to form a central element of Morrison's bid for re-election at a national ballot that must be held by May 2019. Opinion polls indicate his conservative government is on course for a landslide defeat. Australia has an annual immigration cap of 190,000 places. Morrison said this week his government would likely reduce that threshold, a policy that is popular with voters. A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Monday found 45 percent of voters wanted immigration reduced, while a little more than 20 percent wanted an increase. Morrison's government said in October it would restrict new immigrants from living in Australia's largest cities - Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - for up to five years. Although likely to win favor with voters, critics argued such a policy could lead to labor shortages. Australia's central bank governor said in August an influx of new residents had helped to underpin strong economic growth. (Reporting by Karishma Luthria; Editing by Colin Packham and Paul Tait)
KABUL (Reuters), NOVEMBER 21, 2018 -Afghan authorities were struggling on Wednesday to identify the group behind a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 55 people attending a gathering of religious scholars in Kabul after the Taliban denied any responsibility.



The victims included religious delegates from various parts of the country, invited by the Afghan Ulema Council to celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad on Tuesday.



Without knowing who was behind the attack, it was unclear whether the aim was simply to undermine President Ashraf Ghanis government, or whether it was part of a strategy to keep the pressure on his government and its Western allies while they pursued talks with the Taliban, to end the 17-year long war.



As of now we dont know which militant outfit could be behind the attack. Investigations are at a preliminary stage, said a senior security official who was at the blast site on Wednesday morning to collect forensic evidence.



The council, the countrys largest religious organization, brought together scholars from the Sunni sect, but it was uncertain whether the attack could have had a sectarian dimension.



Though Sunni themselves, Taliban and Islamic State fighters have targeted religious scholars aligned with the Afghan government in the past.

Last week, Taliban leaders met U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at their political headquarters in Qatar in an effort to pave the way for peace talks. The three-day meeting was the second in the past month.
Dubai (AFP) - Bahrain detained and charged five people Wednesday for "obstructing the electoral process", the public prosecution said, ahead of parliamentary polls set for the end of the week.

The Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

Opposition movements have been outlawed and hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned -- with many stripped of their nationality.

Muhanna al-Shayji, head of Bahrain's electoral crimes unit, said one of the suspects was detained after calling on Twitter for a boycott of the November 24 elections, according to a statement released by the prosecution.

A second man was arrested for posting "fake news on the behaviour of one of the candidates" on social media, and the other three were detained for destroying advertisements of candidates, the statement said.

The country's two main opposition groups -- the Shiite Al-Wefaq and secular Waad -- have been prohibited from submitting candidates for parliament.

On November 13, Bahrain detained and charged a man for a tweet saying he would boycott the elections, with a rights group identifying him as Ali Rashed al-Asheeri -- a former member of parliament with Al-Wefaq.

Bahraini authorities accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom, an allegation Tehran denies.

Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the Al-Wefaq group, was sentenced to life in prison on November 4 for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar, in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty.

Human rights groups have frequently said cases against activists in Bahrain -- men and women, religious and secular -- fail to meet the basic standards of fair trials.
WASHINGTON (AP)  It's the thorny first question confronting newly elected House Democrats: Will you vote for Nancy Pelosi?

Even before they've taken office, the freshmen swept in by the midterm elections are caught at the center of an escalating power struggle over Pelosi's future.

The clash intensified Monday as Pelosi's critics unveiled a letter signed by 16 Democrats, including five freshmen, vowing to oppose her. If that holds, it could be enough to derail her bid. If not, she could reclaim the gavel she once held.

"It's the question that we got most often," Rep.-elect Joe Neguse of Colorado said on CBS. He intends to support Pelosi. "You know I think that it's important that we have steady leadership right now."

The vote on a new speaker will be among the first cast in the new Congress, a dramatic roll call that often becomes fodder for campaign ads. For many of the Democratic freshmen, it's a moment of truth after a number of them promised on the campaign trail to oppose Pelosi and demand new leadership.

For now, just five freshmen have signed onto the letter opposing Pelosi. Two of them, Anthony Brindisi in New York and Ben McAdams in Utah, are in races that have not yet been called by The Associated Press.

Other freshmen who have said they would oppose Pelosi did not sign the letter, and the fight for their allegiance is raging behind the scenes.

The showdown is splitting Democrats after they took control of the House in the midterm elections, overshadowing what would be the historic return of the first woman to ever hold the speaker's office.

Pelosi ally Jan Schakowsky of Illinois says she understands the freshmen's nervousness. But she also says, "Two years from now people are not going to decide whether they re-elect these people based on Nancy Pelosi. And even now I think it had very little to do with affecting the election. Hello! We won with Nancy Pelosi."

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On the one hand, Pelosi's supporters say now more than ever the party needs the California Democrat's leadership as a skilled strategist and tireless fundraiser to confront President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans in Congress.

On the other, Pelosi's critics say she has become such a weight on the party, starring as the chief villain in Republican attack ads against Democrats, that she needs to step aside and make way for a new generation of leadership.

Among those leading the effort against her, Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts has said his group is trying to protect the freshmen so they can survive their re-elections without having Pelosi's image hanging over their campaigns. The Pelosi opponents' theory is, once it's clear she doesn't have the votes, a new leader will emerge.

"Our majority came on the backs of a majority that said they would support new leadership," the group wrote in the letter. "We promised to change the status quo and we intend to deliver on that promise."

All of the freshman opponents so far are men, and Pelosi's critics have been criticized, especially on social media, as being led mostly by men. Just two of those signing the letter are women.

Several high-profile freshmen who have vowed to oppose Pelosi are notably missing from the letter.

Rep.-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia said Sunday on ABC she had "tremendous" respect for Pelosi, who "blazed a trail" for the record number of new women, but would be voting against her. She has not signed on.

"If we are going to turn a page and bring civility back to the political discussions, we need to change the people who are directing that conversation," she said. "But I have been very, very clear and honest about my intentions."

Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois said Sunday, "I have not made up my mind."

Pelosi's office insisted Monday she has the backing to become speaker again.

"Leader Pelosi remains confident in her support," said spokesman Drew Hammill.

With the Democrats holding 232 seats, Pelosi can't afford to lose many votes and still hold the 218 needed to become speaker, presuming all Republicans oppose her. That margin could shift, though, if lawmakers are absent or simply vote "present," which reduces the threshold.

Her supporters say that after winning difficult elections against Trump's campaigning, the Democrats can't afford to get bogged down in a protracted leadership fight ahead of the Jan. 3 vote.

They are heading toward an internal caucus vote when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving recess that will test Pelosi's support.

One potential rival, Rep. Martha Fudge of Ohio, did not sign onto the letter. That's a similar tack to the one taken two years ago by Fudge's ally, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, who challenged Pelosi during internal caucus elections. Fudge has said she will decide after Thanksgiving if she is running.

Republican Rep. Tom Reed of New York, a Trump ally who has said he could vote for Pelosi if she agrees to rules changes to move power away from the speaker's office, warned freshmen against waffling.

"They're going to get crucified, crucified with that first vote," Reed said in an interview. "You better think about that long and hard."

Some freshmen appear to be moving in Pelosi's direction.

"Right now, she's the only person who's running, so it would appear as though that's where my vote would go," Rep.-elect Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania said on CBS. "She's an effective person in that job."

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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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Follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lisamascaro and https://twitter.com/AP_Politics
Tehran (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Tuesday that he met with the family of jailed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe during his visit to Iran.

"No child should have to go this long without their mother," Hunt wrote on Twitter alongside photos of him with Zaghari-Ratcliffe's four-year-old daughter Gabriella.

He also met her mother and brother during his brief visit to Tehran on Monday, and pressed for her release during his meeting with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

"British-Iranian dual nationals wrongly imprisoned must be freed," Hunt tweeted later on Monday.

"I've pressed hard on this today -- innocent people should not be turned into diplomatic pawns."

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation -- the media organisation's philanthropic arm -- was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2016.

She is serving a five-year jail sentence for sedition -- and has denied all charges filed against her.
Brussels (AFP) - Brussels officially rejected Italy's big-spending budget on Wednesday, clearing the path for unprecedented sanctions and deepening a bitter row with Rome's populist government.

The conclusion by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, was harsh but expected, coming just weeks after it had sent back Italy's 2019 budget, in a historic first for the bloc.

Italy refused to back down after the Brussels ultimatum, setting the stage for Wednesday's final opinion that deplored "a marked backtracking" by Rome on past reforms.

"With what the Italian government has put on the table, we see a risk of the country sleepwalking into instability," Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a press conference in Brussels.

"We conclude that the opening of a debt-based excessive deficit procedure is... warranted," he added, referring to the EU's official process to punish member states for over-spending.

The coalition government, made up of Salvini's League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), insists the budget will help kickstart growth in the eurozone's third largest economy and reduce debt.

But the EU says the Italian budget abandons belt-tightening for a spending spree that includes a basic monthly income for the unemployed and a pension boost.

With its opinion, EU member states now have two weeks to decide whether to allow the commission to trigger the excessive deficit procedure, a months-long process that could lead to fines.

Once activated, the process allows Rome the opportunity to negotiate and correct its ways before Brussels can inflict a sanction of up to 0.2 percent of Italy's GDP.

Few in Europe expect that Italy's populist coalition will concede on the matter, at least until European elections next May, where the government hopes to ride a wave of anti-EU sentiment.

"Has the EU letter arrived? I am also waiting for Santa Claus," said the far-right deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, adding: "We will respond to the EU in an educated way."

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- Eyes on markets -

All eyes now are on the markets, which could raise the pressure on Rome to kowtow to Brussels,and even split the ruling coalition in Italy.

"While the government's stance may be tenable in the short and medium-term, it will only be sustainable if market conditions don't deteriorate significantly," said Mujtaba Rahman, a political analyst at Eurasia Group.

The closely-watched "spread" -- the difference between yields on 10-year Italian government debt compared with those in benchmark Germany -- reached 316 basis points Wednesday, down from 326 late on Tuesday.

It has more than doubled since May when negotiations to form the coalition government in Rome began, but is lower than the roughly 400 mark that Italy argues is the danger zone.

In its budget, Italy intends to run a public deficit of 2.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2019 -- three times the target of the government's centre-left predecessor -- and one of 2.1 percent in 2020.

Brussels forecasts Italy's deficit will reach 2.9 percent of GDP in 2019 and hit 3.1 percent in 2020 -- breaching the EU's 3.0 percent limit.

But Italy's big spending boost received a vouch of support from the OECD, the Paris-based organisation of developed countries.

"Does (the draft budget) question the sustainability of debt today? We don't think so. It is stabilising at its level," OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said.

"Obviously, there should not be a shock to growth, but for the time being (the debt) is stabilising."
Laredo (United States) (AFP) - Pete Saenz, the mayor of the southwestern Texan city of Laredo, looks at the military fencing that now hems his bustling border town and is uneasy with what he sees.

"It's a surprise to some of us, a shock frankly. We're not used to concertina wire," the mayor tells AFP.

Laredo, whose population of about 260,000 is more than 95 percent Latino, is one of the areas being "hardened" by the US military under orders from President Donald Trump.

As part of the contentious mission that has seen about 5,900 active-duty troops sent to the border, the Army has strung a shiny metal fence made of barbed and concertina wire along Laredo's grassy riverbanks.

Locals are starting to worry of economic consequences for a city that relies heavily on cross-border trade.

In an interview at his City Hall office this week, where the Mexican tricolor stands alongside the Texas flag, the black-mustached Saenz says he understands the federal government's desire to protect the border.

But he is concerned the military presence might cause a drop in legal foot traffic between Laredo and its sister city of Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande River in Mexico.

"Aesthetically, it doesn't look good. Obviously, if we could have our way as a city, I think we would object to the concertina wire," Saenz says, noting the city has had some initial discussions about challenging the federal government's fence.

Mexican shoppers account for about 40-50 percent of Laredo's retail trade, much of which is centered on a vast "outlet mall" that provides better prices and selections than anything in Nuevo Laredo.

Mexican residents of Nuevo Laredo are allowed into Laredo to shop and work, provided they have special permits, and some 17,000 people shuffle daily back and forth across a busy bridge.

- Joined at the hip -

Even a small drop in foot traffic could have a big impact on the local economy, and similar concerns are being echoed up and down the border.

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In Nogales, Arizona, for instance, foot traffic from Mexico has slowed dramatically and retailers are feeling the pinch with several stores at risk.

"I don't see it (as) good that (Trump is) putting in the fences. The people from Mexico, they go in and shop around, they leave their money over there," says Sandra Chavez, an American woman speaking in Nuevo Laredo.

"They are not doing nothing wrong."

Worries are especially acute at this time of year, during the usually frenetic Thanksgiving and Christmas retail seasons.

Saenz says it is too soon to know if legal border crossings are slowing, but anecdotally at least some observers have noticed changes.

Compared to two years ago, "there seems to be more shops that have closed, it seems to be more of a ghost town," Laura Pole, a British tourist who has visited Laredo three times in recent years, says in the picturesque town center.

But away from the historic square, which is flanked by an ornate Catholic cathedral and hacienda-style buildings, workers in larger shops say they have not seen any changes so far.

Laredo is inextricably linked to Mexico, and Spanish is by far the dominant language. The city changed hands multiple times during the 19th century and was once part of Mexico.

"I usually say we're tied (at) the hip," Saenz says.

Foot traffic goes both ways, with US citizens heading into Mexico, often to search for cheaper pharmaceuticals and property.

Sometimes, families are split between the two sides of the border.

"The Army being deployed here is ridiculous," huffs Angela Torres, an American whose husband was deported and now lives in Nuevo Laredo, while she also keeps a home on the US side and crosses daily.

- Biggest land port -

Critics have decried Trump's order to toughen the border as a costly political stunt, coming as it did just before the November 6 midterm elections.

A Customs and Border Patrol agent not authorized to give his name welcomed the military assistance as each day, hundreds of migrants attempt to cross the approximately 30-mile (50-kilometer) stretch of border he patrols.

The entire border operation will cost an estimated $72 million, according to the Pentagon. The mission is supposed to run through December 15.

Retail dollars aside, Saenz says Laredo is the biggest land port for goods coming into the United States, rivaled in size only by the maritime port of Long Beach in California.

Some $214 billion of trade crosses annually through the port of Laredo, according to Saenz, and just outside the city center a non-stop stream of massive trucks hauls cargo both ways across a bridge.

"This is what drives our city -- trade, logistics, warehousing, distribution -- and so this is why our relationship with Mexico is so sensitive," Saenz says.

The mayor adds that, going forward, he hopes the federal and state governments pay greater attention to the needs of border communities.

"You know it's easy to govern from Washington or from (state capital) Austin sometimes without knowing the impact on the border itself," he says.

"We live it, we sense it, we feel it, we take it in. And economically we depend on it."
Bamingui (Centrafrique) (AFP) - The forest rangers of Central Africa's Bamingui Bangoran park cannot focus only on saving the region's dwindling wildlife: they have themselves to protect too.

Often armed with little more than Kalashnikov assault rifles, these men must contend with rebel groups who can be far better equipped.

Added to their woes are poachers who prey on the wildlife they seek to protect.

Today, a column of men makes its way through the verdant park, spread over 10,000 square kilometres (nearly 4,000 square miles), or a third the size of Belgium, in the north of Central African Republic.

Sergeant Simplice is leading them towards the zone that Christelle, a young giraffe, has made her home.

These days Christelle gets special protection, because she is the last of her kind in this part of the park.

"She had others in her family, but they have all been killed by poachers," said Simplice as his men set up camp in a bee-infested shelter.

- Dwindling numbers -

"In 40 years, we have gone from more than 35,000 elephants to, I daresay... zero," said Hilde Vanleeuwe, who oversees conservation work at the park.

Embossed on the rangers' sleeves is the head of a giant eland, the world's largest antelope. It serves as the logo of Ecofaune+, a conservation project backed by the European Union since 2016.

The aim of the project, run by the country's waters and forestry ministry, is to protect the region's rich but dwindling wildlife population.

"The European Union has been supporting the management and protection of wildlife and biodiversity in the north of the CAR for about 30 years," said the park's coordinator, Andrea Ghiurghi.

But as each project comes to an end, it is only a few months before the good work is undone: once a team leaves, their base is looted and poachers, sometimes linked to armed groups, return.

Then a new team, working for the next EU-financed project, must start from scratch.

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"We're well aware of the problem," Ghiurghi said. But this time around, he said, the Ecofaune+ project will hand over seamlessly to its successor, Ecofac 6 -- another EU-financed project.

- Militia attacks -

As if the work was hard enough, the rangers also contend with the mainly Muslim Seleka militia who have operated in the region since 2013, the year they ousted Christian president Francois Bozize, sparking a conflict that has killed thousands.

Militiamen came to the area "to loot weapons and ammunition", one ranger recalled.

Some of his colleagues were even conscripted into the militia, he said, because of their combat experience.

The rangers have also faced off with armed Janjaweed horsemen from Sudan, who conduct long-range poaching missions across central Africa.

Sergeant Simplice will never forget one clash with the Janjaweed.

"One day, we were ambushed by a column of 80 Sudanese who better armed than us," he said, recalling their assault rifles, rocket-launchers and grenades.

"There were 12 of us, but only seven of us returned," he said, showing a scar left by a bullet that had grazed his neck.

The Janjaweed raids, while not as common as they were before 2013, have not stopped either.

After a UN arms embargo imposed on the country in 2013, the rangers rely increasingly on their knowledge of the terrain and on their training, which they get from a French former paratrooper.

The government does not want to supply more weapons for fear they will end up in rebel hands.

"We've only got the Kalashnikov, what can we do?" said Sergeant Eric. "It's a very, very dangerous job."

But he hopes they can help reverse the trend and bring the animals back, saying: "This is our heritage."
John Allen Chau, 27, was met with a volley of arrows as he set foot on North Sentinel Island, part of the Andaman Islands deep in the Indian Ocean.

An American missionary was shot and killed by a volley of arrows after ignoring advice and visiting an island home to protected indigenous people.

The tribe on North Sentinel Island is one of the few that is completely cut off from the outside world and inhabitants have been known to shoot at outsiders.

The 27-year-old, identified as John Allen Chau, is thought to have been brought to the island by local fisherman who have since been arrested.

A British academic has been sentenced to life in prison for spying for the UK government by an Abu Dhabi court.

Matthew Hedges, who was studying for a PhD at Durham University, was arrested at Dubai airport after a research trip.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned the shock decision could damage relations with the UK.

The billionaire founder of Bet365 has been given a pay rise to bring her salary to 265 million a year.

Denise Coates is now one of the highest-paid business leaders in the world.

The rise means the 51-year-old now earns around 30,000 an hour  more than the average British worker takes home in a year.

A German teenager has managed to lose his driving licence less than an hour after getting it.

The unnamed 18-year-old was stopped by police driving at 60mph in a 30 zone with four friends in the back.
School dinners. Photo: PA/Getty

Schools could be forced to change lunch menus if a no-deal Brexit disrupts food supply chains, a leading catering firm has warned.

The chief executive of Compass, which provides catering for one in 10 schools, colleges and universities in the UK, said Brexit now posed a serious threat to its business model.

Dominic Blakemore said the company may have to be flexible over menus if the UK crashed out without a deal, with EU ingredients potentially substituted for British or other produce.

He said the company had already drawn up contingency plans to gradually start stockpiling ingredients as Britains departure nears. It buys around 140m of food from other EU countries each year, and employs 60,000 people across the UK.

Parts of the firms UK division, which makes up only 10% of Compass global trade, are extending their inventory levels from two or three weeks to up to five weeks.

Blakemore told the Press Association: We are looking to increase some inventories where appropriate, but also be flexible around the menus.

The chief executive also joined Airbus, BMW and other business in backing prime minister Theresa Mays deal with the EU.

We would welcome clarity and certainty. A deal is better than no deal, he added.

His comments come after Compass, which does the majority of its business in the US, reported a 2.6% fall in pre-tax profits for the year to 30 September.

The chances of Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement appear to be receding however, after the new home secretary Amber Rudd said today that parliament would not allow it to happen.

At prime ministers questions, May then raised the spectre of Brexit not happening at all if MPs voted down her agreement with Brussels, rather than a no-deal Brexit.

If you look at the alternative to having that deal with the European Union it will either be more uncertainty, more division or it could risk no Brexit at all, she told MPs.

A Downing Street spokesperson later said no deal was still a possible outcome.
SYDNEY (AP)  Medical staff say that conjoined twins from Bhutan who were separated at an Australian hospital last week have been healing well, showing their cheeky side, and have become impossible to keep apart.

Joe Crameri, the head of pediatric surgery at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, told reporters Thursday there have been a few bumps along the road but that the 15-month-old girls, Nima and Dawa, are making good progress.

The girls were joined from the lower chest to just above the pelvis and shared a liver. They were separated during a delicate operation that lasted almost six hours. A major challenge had been to reconstruct their abdomens.

Crameri said the areas they'd tampered with during the surgery appeared to be healing well.

"The girls are getting back to a more normal life, so they're back to eating and they're starting to move around," he told reporters. "The area that we've repaired on their tummy wall seems to be holding up with the strain quite nicely. So, we're very happy, and especially Mum is very happy."

Kellie Smith, the hospital's nurse coordinator, said the twins have a close bond.

"We try and have them a little bit apart, but they manage to sort of bum shuffle back together and have their legs intertwined, always," she said. "So, we did initially try and have them in two beds but they didn't like that at all so they're in the one bed together and just happy, playing with one another, and it's actually beautiful to see."

Smith told reporters the girls are cheeky.

"They're happy, clapping, laughing, smiling at us all and, at times, telling us to go away when they've had enough," she said.
The advent of taxi hailing apps changed the way Sri Lankans access three wheelers and cabs. The average Sri Lankan mainly relies on three wheelers to get from one point to the other and long before the app based taxi hailing culture took root, three wheeler drivers had the final say in the rate for each ride. Those days the sight of a would be passenger haggling with a driver was a common sight. Three wheel meters which made an appearance sometime aftersomewhat evened the playing field for passengers. However, with the introduction of taxi hailing apps, the entire game changed. Recently, a group of three wheel drivers organized a protest against such apps, claiming that the playing field had once again acquired a slope to the disadvantage of unaffiliated drivers. Let us take a look at what is really going on.

Passengers

Recently, ITN aired a programme in which they talked to people from both sides of the spectrum. In the programme, passengers reveal that they still use a combination of choosing a metered three wheeler from a designated stand, hailing one off the road and using a taxi hailing app to book a three wheeler.

Passengers first and foremost seek a fair price along with safety. Out of the three wheel services available today, the random vehicles without a fixed meter charges passengers the highest rate. Even though, this type of service is rarely seen in Colombo or the major cities, once you venture further in, most three wheeler drivers still stick to the old method of dictating a price that they deem fit at any given moment. Three wheelers with working meters attached offer a fairer and a more manageable rate in comparison. The downside of this is that since most meters are not properly regulated, drivers can easily manipulate the meter and charge unsuspecting or hapless passengers exuberant rates. However, taxi hailing app based vehicles offer the lowest rate.

Safety conscious passengers invariably choose to rely on an app based taxi hiring systems as most platforms allow passengers the facility to track the driver and the route. As one of the passengers related, in case they leave behind personal belongings behind in the vehicle by accident, the tracking system acts as a life saver. Moreover, reliable and reputed app based taxi hailing companies hold their drivers accountable which allows passengers to travel without losing being overly anxious about their safety.

In good old Sri Lanka, reliability is a bonus. Generally and in the writers own experience app based taxi hailing services are reliable as they answer to a central entity.

While some passengers admit to using app based taxi hailing services simply as they offer the lowest rates in the market, an emerging number of passengers claim that they would use such services simply to feel safer during their travels. In a nutshell, passengers would always choose the option that provides them a fair rate along with the guarantee of safety and perhaps reliability.

Drivers

In the case of drivers, many of those who prefer to operate independently do so as it allows them more freedom to manage other aspects of lives along with work. For example, a working father would prefer to have a time frame free to take kids to and from school. As a driver who switched to working for an app based company afterworking independently with a meter attached to his three wheeler attested, app based services bring in more hires. One driver argued that while he can charge more from passengers if he operates independently, working in partnership with a company allows him to find an increased volume of hires.

For Example, one of Sri Lankas Taxi Hailing service PickMe, operates at the lowest per KM rate to the passengers, whilst complimenting the drivers with high incentive schemes varying as per fleet and driver preference of full time or part time.

As a recent report indicates, mobile penetration in Sri Lanka has risen from 96% in 2012 to 126% in 2017. As more and more Sri Lankans get used to relying on various apps (a growing trend in Sri Lanka), taxi hailing apps too will become even more relevant.

And finally

Sri Lankas app based taxi hailing market is a competitive one. The number of companies that offer this service has increased as of late. As long as the competition is healthy and no one tries to offer ridiculously lower rates to scare off competition and then build a monopoly, the new system should work in favour of both passengers and drivers.
Three Democratic senators filed suit Monday challenging Matthew Whitakers appointment as acting attorney general.

Senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island argued in their suit that Whitakers appointment is unconstitutional because he has not been confirmed by the Senate.

Installing Matthew Whitaker so flagrantly defies constitutional law that any viewer of School House Rock would recognize it. Americans prize a system of checks and balances, which President Trumps dictatorial appointment betrays, Blumenthal said in a statement.

Whitehouse echoed his that sentiment, subtly referencing the widely held belief that Trump elevated Whitaker, rather than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in order to exercise greater control over Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign.

The Justice Department has defended Whitakers appointment through appeal to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which allows a president to appoint someone who has not been confirmed by the Senate to fill a temporary vacancy.

There are over 160 instances in American history in which non-Senate confirmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, the duties of a Senate-confirmed position, DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Monday. To suggest otherwise is to ignore centuries of practice and precedent.

Kupecs statement closely resembled an opinion issued by the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel last week.

This office previously had advised that the president could designate a senior Department of Justice official, such as Mr. Whitaker, as Acting Attorney General, the OLC wrote, adding that Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, has been serving at a sufficiently senior pay level for over a year.

Whitakers appointment to succeed Attorney General Jeff Sessions has prompted prominent Democrats to call for legislation protecting Muellers probe. While a number of centrist Republicans have joined Democrats in raising the alarm regarding Muellers vulnerability, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has thus far dismissed calls for specific legislation to protect him as unnecessary.
By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three Democratic senators launched a new legal challenge on Monday to President Donald Trump's naming of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, accusing Trump of depriving the U.S. Senate of its constitutional power to act on such appointments. The lawsuit, filed by Senators Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Mazie Hirono, asks a federal court in Washington to deem the appointment unconstitutional and bar Whitaker from serving as the top U.S. law enforcement official. The senators are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which customarily reviews attorney general nominations. Congressional Democrats have expressed concern that Whitaker, a Trump loyalist, could undermine or even fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election has cast a cloud over Trump's presidency. "Americans prize a system of checks and balances, which President Trump's dictatorial appointment betrays," Blumenthal said in a statement. Other legal challenges to Whitaker's appointment were brought last week by Maryland's Democratic attorney general and by a plaintiff in a gun rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The senators' lawsuit said Trump violated the so-called Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution because the job of attorney general is a "principal officer" who must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Whitaker is not a Senate-confirmed official. It also accused Trump of violating a federal law that establishes the line of succession if the attorney general post becomes vacant, giving full authority to the deputy attorney general. Whitaker took over supervision of Mueller's investigation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when Trump appointed him on Nov. 7 as acting attorney general to replace Jeff Sessions, who the president ousted. The senators argued that Rosenstein, a Senate-confirmed Trump appointee who installed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017, should be the acting attorney general until a Sessions replacement is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Whitaker in the past criticized the scope of Mueller's probe and talked about undermining it by slashing the special counsel's funding. Whitaker has not recused himself from overseeing the probe despite Democratic calls for him to do so. 'DO WHAT'S RIGHT' Trump said in an interview on the "Fox News Sunday" program he would not intervene if Whitaker moved to curtail Mueller's investigation, and that his appointee is "going to do what's right." Trump, who said on Friday he had completed written answers to provide Mueller in the probe, has called the investigation a "witch hunt." The senators' lawsuit cited Whitaker's criticism of Mueller's probe and his ties to World Patent Marketing, a company accused by the government of bilking millions of dollars from consumers. "The U.S. Senate has not consented to Mr. Whitaker serving in any office within the federal government," it stated. The Senate, it added, needs an opportunity "to consider his espoused legal views, his affiliation with a company that is under criminal investigation for defrauding consumers, and his public comments criticizing and proposing to curtail ongoing DOJ (Department of Justice) investigations that implicate the President." The Justice Department last week issued a 20-page legal opinion calling Trump's appointment of Whitaker, who had been chief of staff to Sessions, lawful under a 1998 law called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Many legal experts have disagreed with the department's view. The department cited only one instance in U.S. history - in 1866 - in which a non-Senate confirmed person was named acting attorney general. Its legal opinion also relied on an 1898 Supreme Court ruling that a so-called inferior officer is legally able to perform the duties of a principal officer "for a limited time and under special and temporary conditions" without needing Senate confirmation. The Democratic lawsuit rejected that view, saying it fails to explain why Whitaker's appointment qualifies as "special or exigent." Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec issued a statement defending Trump's designation of Whitaker as lawful, saying it comports with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, past department opinions and actions of presidents from both parties. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham)
Left, a picture of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; right, President Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump continues to act as an ambivalent actor between his own intelligence agencies and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, suggesting on Tuesday that he doesnt know whether or not Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew about an alleged plot to kill a dissident journalist.

The CIA concluded earlier this week that bin Salman, who is sometimes known as MBS, was not only aware of the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi that took place earlier last month but that he had also ordered the killing himself, according to reporting from CNN. The agencys conclusion was based in part on audio recordings discovered by the Turkish government, as Khashoggi, who frequently criticized the leadership style of the crown prince, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

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After a shooting at Mercy Hospital in Chicago killed three people, including two hospital workers, doctors across the country are continuing to speak out against gun violence  and theyre pushing back on the National Rifle Associations (NRA) admonition that they should stay in their lane.

Earlier this month, the NRA responded to an Annals of Internal Medicine position paper on the urgency of reducing firearm fatalities with a tweet directing self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. The backlash from the medical community was swift and strong, with many doctors taking to social media to share their own experiences with gun violence  from treating trauma and suicide victims to counseling patients dealing with the psychological fallout of gun violence years later  under the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane.

This one tweet from the NRA galvanized physicians into a grassroots movement in a way that nothing else has, says Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. Five years ago, the reaction from doctors would not have been anywhere as strong as it has been in this context. Theres been a real shift in our public consciousness about the centrality of medicine and health in dealing with guns.

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. https://t.co/oCR3uiLtS7  NRA (@NRA) November 7, 2018

The movement reached a new level this week, after a gunman killed a police offer, a doctor and a pharmacy resident at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. (The shooter also died at the scene.) The shooting happened to coincide with the publication of an Annals of Internal Medicine editorial affirming that gun violence does, indeed, concern physicians, and that doctors are going to stay in our lane and keep moving forward.

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Thats a sentiment shared by doctors across the medical field. One is Dr. Heather Sher, a Florida-based diagnostic radiologist who earlier this year wrote about her experience treating Parkland shooting victims and co-wrote an open letter calling on the NRA to join doctors in working to reduce gun deaths. Sher says 38,000 doctors have signed that letter.

Ive spent my entire career in level-one trauma centers, Sher says. Handgun violence is bread-and-butter medicine in this country, and it shouldnt be that way. Every shooting is a preventable cause of death. And doctors see it as a public health crisis.

Sher says the rising number of high-profile shootings, as well as a growing acceptance of gun violence as a public health issue, have prompted more doctors to speak out.

Its such a polarizing issue that I think doctors have stayed silent and in the background for a long time, but thats changing, Sher says. The status quo isnt working.

The NRAs tweet also angered many physicians into action, says Dr. Linda Girgis, a clinical assistant professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The NRAs statement to physicians was offensive to many, because were the ones who are dealing with the fallout of guns, she says. We treat [victims] in the ER when they come in. We treat them years later when theyre still having problems from it. It really set off a lot of doctors.

The NRA did not immediately respond to TIMEs request for comment.

The path forward, doctors say, will require widespread acceptance of gun violence as a public health issue, and research funding to match. That funding has traditionally been difficult to secure, since a 1996 Congressional provision prohibited the use of federal dollars to promote gun control, effectively freezing many funding sources for prevention research.

The new Annals editorial, however, announced that the journal and the American College of Physicians are teaming up with the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM), a nonprofit that works to provide funding for firearm injury prevention research, to raise money and create science-backed recommendations for reducing gun injuries and fatalities.

Dr. Megan Ranney, a Brown University emergency medicine physician and chief research officer of AFFIRM who co-wrote the open letter along with Sher, says such work is pivotal to saving lives that might otherwise be claimed by guns.

Gun violence is indisputably an epidemic in the United States, and as doctors, we dont just treat epidemics, we also know how to fix them, Ranney says. Weve decreased car crash deaths not by taking away cars, but by putting in place things that make cars safer, like seat belts and airbags, and by educating drivers. We know that we can do the same for gun violence.

One crucial area, Ranney says, is helping train physicians to identify and treat people who pose a risk to themselves or others, ideally preventing gun violence in the first place. But solutions to such a wide-ranging problem will have to be similarly diverse  which is why, Ranney says, its important to have an array of medical professionals contributing their expertise.

#ThisIsOurLane came at a moment when many of us have been working on this for years, she says. Many of us were catalyzed by Sandy Hook, or by Pulse, or by Parkland or by Las Vegas. This is another catalyst toward physicians from across the political spectrum talking about how this is an issue that impacts us both personally and professionally every day.

That shift is overdue, Galea says. If this isnt a public health issue, why are so many people dying from it? Galea says. Its as simple as that.
President Donald Trump lashed out at Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday after the Supreme Court leader rebuked the president for suggesting parts of the federal judiciary are biased.

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country, Trump said over Twitter.

He added: We need protection and security  these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary, but if it is why......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

.....are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Trump dismissed a ruling against his administration on Tuesday because it came from an Obama judge.

In his first public criticism of the president, Roberts said in a statement, We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.

Roberts added, one day before Thanksgiving, that an independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

The presidents Obama judge comment came after U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar, who is based in San Francisco, put a stop on Monday to the Trump administrations ban on refugees seeking asylum outside official points of entry along the U.S. border.

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Trump attacked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which would hear an appeal of Tigars ruling.

You cannot win, when youre us, in the 9th Circuit, Trump said outside the White House when asked about the ruling.

The president complained that they file suits in the left-leaning 9th Circuit purposefully so that we get beaten, and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court. In the case of the asylum ban, they refers to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Referring to Tigar, he said on Tuesday, This was an Obama judge. And I tell you what, its not going to happen like this anymore.

79% of these decisions have been overturned in the 9th Circuit. @FoxNews A terrible, costly and dangerous disgrace. It has become a dumping ground for certain lawyers looking for easy wins and delays. Much talk over dividing up the 9th Circuit into 2 or 3 Circuits. Too big!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Trumps scorn for the nations judicial system isnt new. The 9th Circuit ruled against the Trump administrations attempts to enact a travel ban for people from several Muslim-majority countries last year, prompting Trump to sneer at a so-called judge in one of the cases.

Over Twitter on Wednesday, the president once again suggested the 9th Circuit was not an independent judiciary by claiming so many opposing view cases are filed there.

Trump cited a Fox News statistic on the court in a subsequent tweet on Wednesday, saying the Supreme Court has reversed 79 percent of decisions in cases it takes from the 9th Circuit. According to PolitiFact, the Supreme Court did reverse 79 percent of 9th Circuits decisions between 2010 and 2015. But in that time frame, the Supreme Court reversed even more decisions in cases from two other courts, the 6th Circuit and the 11th Circuit.

Notably, Trump has the opportunity to pack the 9th Circuit with some young, conservative judges, as there are currently six vacancies there.

The squabble between the heads of the executive and judicial branches comes more than a month after a nasty partisan battle to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh left some justices concerned about the Supreme Courts reputation as an impartial arbiter of justice.

Following Kavanaughs confirmation last month, Roberts stressed the importance of maintaining the judicial systems independence from what he called the political branches of government. The Supreme Court, he said, would be very different without that sort of independence.

This story has been updated with additional information on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Judge Jon Tigar. He is a U.S. district judge for the Northern District of California.

Related Coverage

Chief Justice John Roberts Stresses Court's Independence After Kavanaugh Confirmation

Trump Administration Temporarily Blocked From Banning Asylum Seekers

Chief Justice John Roberts Criticizes Trump For Obama Judge Asylum Comment

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President Donald Trump speaks to the media before leaving the White House to travel to Florida, where he will spend Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago. (Photo: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, President Donald Trump downplayed the fact that many U.S. troops will be missing Thanksgiving with their families this year because of his decision to send them to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Dont worry about Thanksgiving, Trump said. These are tough people. They know what theyre doing and theyre great. And theyve done a great job. Youre so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them. They are so proud to be representing our country on the border.

Asked his message for troops spending Thanksgiving stationed at the border, Pres. Trump tells @KarenTravers, "These are tough people...you're so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them. They are so proud to be representing our country on the border." pic.twitter.com/X0yfjePNjt  ABC News (@ABC) November 20, 2018

The presidents comments came shortly before he boarded a flight to spend Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has faced criticism for his decision to deploy 5,900 troops to the border shortly ahead of the U.S. midterm elections  a move he claimed was necessary to protect Americans from caravans of migrants seeking asylum, but that his political opponents regard as a last-ditch, fear-mongering effort to get out Republican voters.

There are about 8,500 to 10,500 people, mostly women and children, currently traveling in caravans who plan to seek legal asylum once they reach the U.S. About 6,000 of them are currently waiting to cross into San Ysidro, California. About 80 percent of those who joined the caravans this year came from Honduras, where chronic violence and political crisis have forced them to flee for safety.

Trump even said at one point that he might send as many as 15,000 troops to the border, far exceeding the number of people in the caravans.

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Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is overseeing the troop deployment at the border, told Politico on Monday that troops will be heading home as soon as this week. A Pentagon spokeswoman told HuffPost that she had no details on redeployment.

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Nicosia (AFP) - Cypriot authorities said Wednesday that 47 Syrian migrants had been found on the island's northwestern tip after being dropped off by suspected people smugglers.

Police said they believed the migrants had arrived by sea from Turkey in the early hours of Wednesday, but there was no sign of a boat when officers arrived.

A pregnant woman who was among the migrants was taken to nearby Paphos hospital for medical checks.

The migrants were taken to a reception centre in the capital Nicosia later on Wednesday.

Over the past 12 months a steady trickle of Syrian migrants have arrived in Cyprus, the European Union's most easterly state, from Turkey and Lebanon.

Cyprus has warned Brussels it faces growing pressure from increasing irregular migration.

EU data earlier this year showed it had received more asylum applications per capita than any of the bloc's other 28 nations.

Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said Nicosia received 4,022 asylum requests in the first eight months of 2018 -- 55 percent more than in the same period last year.

But despite lying just 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the coast of war-torn Syria, Cyprus has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey and Greece.
Sean Cronin, co-director and star of World War One drama Eleven (Evolutionary Films)

With 2018 marking the Centenary of the end of the Great War, thereve been a number of films released looking back at the Armistice of 1918.

From Peter Jacksons superb documentary They Shall Not Grow Old to Journeys End, the film adaptation of R. C. Sherriffs play starring Asa Butterfield and Toby Jones and now Eleven, a smaller release from Evolutionary Films, promises to offer an alternate look at the historical event.

The passion project of co-directors Sean Cronin and Rock Salt (available on digital download now) is an intimate look at the soldiers caught up in the conflict on the final day of the four-year war, and the folly of that final order to go over the top one last time.

Yahoo spoke with Cronin to learn more about his journey from appearing as a background extra in films like The Mummy, Star Wars: Episode I  The Phantom Menace, and The World Is Not Enough to making his directorial debut in 2017.

Heres what the filmmaker had to tell us about working with some of the biggest filmmakers on the planet, and the skills he picked up from them.

Yahoo Movies UK: You have a lot of amazing films on your IMDB  many uncredited, including Star Wars and Harry Potter  can you give us a history of your journey?

Sean Cronin in a still from Eleven (Evolutionary Films)

Sean Cronin: I was stopped in the Portobello Road around 20 years ago by a casting director and she said: you look really evil, do you want to be in The Mummy?

Two days later I found myself shaved from head to foot, including my legs and eyebrows, painted gold and wearing a nappy. That was kind of the beginning of my journey. When I walked onto that $200M set I was totally in awe. They had literally re-built ancient Egypt. It was there that I met legendary late Director of Photography Adrian Biddle (The Mummy, Bridget Joness Diary, The World is Not Enough).

I then got a little supporting role in The World Is Not Enough, where I again met Adrian, along with iconic action stunt co-ordinator Vic Armstrong (The Golden Compass, Die Another Day, The Amazing Spider-Man) and we became friends.

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I did a few more extra roles in Star Wars, The Mummy Returns, and Harry Potter films, but instead of waiting in the green room for the sandwiches I would always sit on the set and watch the director and the cinematographers and it was where that I began to learn my craft.

I made a conscious decision to give up extra work and get a proper agent and I never looked back. Since then instead of dying in the first 10 minutes of blockbusters, I started playing the main villain finally staying alive, at least until the end of a film (although I always seem to die in the end) and getting paid a bit more.

I recently played Kane in Kill Kane opposite Vinnie Jones, where Vinnie played the goodie opposite my baddie, which must have been a first for him. Through all of this I was always drawn to cinematography and directing and being behind the camera, as I knew it was a higher calling. Since then I have directed many music videos, commercials, short films and been Director of Photography on a few features. Eleven is my feature directorial debut alongside talented writer and co-director Rock Salt.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about the armistice through making Eleven?

November the 11th 2018, Armistice day was probably the most important centenary any of us will ever witness in our lifetimes, with over 11 million dead and 23 million wounded in the conflict.

I learned of the enormous sacrifice of those brave souls and the terrible futility and stupidly of war. I am sure they all thought The Great War was the war to end all wars but alas, as history, and probably the future, has shown/will show us it was not or is not to be.

Why is it important that this story continues to be told?

We must continue to tell this story so that we, and the generations that follow us, remember the sacrifices made by our ancestors.

When I first read Rocks screenplay for Eleven, I was totally smitten. I was immediately drawn to Rocks wonderful screenplay especially, as my great grandfather fought and died in the Great War, it was already a subject very close to my heart.

I was utterly compelled by the storys unique timeline in that the story is based on the last two hours of the war, and the folly of that final order to go over the top one last time, and the terrible consequences thereafter.

Even after the catastrophe of that final push, our story immerses us in the beauty of love of courage and of reconciliation and understanding that brings us to the finale of this heart felt and essential story, a story that just had to be brought to big screen.

Whats the biggest challenge of being a director/actor, of juggling those roles?

Actually, one of the biggest challenges as well as being an actor/director, is being a single dad. I have two girls, Mollie now age 11 and Georgia age 10 who have never met their mother. They actually play my daughters in Eleven.

Sean Cronin and his daughters in a still from Eleven (Evolutionary Films)

Juggling being a single dad in this business is a huge challenge. As far as being an actor/director and the challenges that brings, it is all about choosing and working with actors that you know can do the job and then letting them get on with it, especially when I was acting with them in a scene.

Rock cast most of the actors inEleven and did a great job; he also did a great job of directing me when I was on-screen. Co-directing is often thought not to work but on Eleven, the calibration did work. We had a great chemistry on set and were more often than not thinking the same way and often Rock would spot something I missed and vice-versa. Two heads were better than one on many occasions during the shoot.

You edited the film yourself, how important was it to you to retain creative control on this film?

As I co-directed and was cinematographer on Eleven and as the story is so close to my heart, I had to retain control of the edit. Often a film is literally made in the edit, however hard one tries to adhere to the screenplay.

On set there are always challenges. We discovered that there were timeline issues with the first part of the screenplay, as half the film is continuous, as it leads up the that pivotal moment at 11 oclock when the war ended.

These were only things that could be fixed in the edit. I took a huge leap of faith on Eleven in that I moved away from London with my girls to be in the country so Rock and I could work on the edit together. We also had some brilliant help from one of our lead actors, Joe Bryant, who as well as giving an outstanding performance as our protagonist Corporal Reeves, helped us with structuring the edit as the story unfolded. His unbiased perspective was an enormous help.

What directors have been the biggest influence on you?

Martin Scorsese is one. I adore films like Goodfellas and Casino and I cant wait to see what Martin does with The Irishman. Bringing greats like De Niro, Pacino and Pesci back together is going to be phenomenal.

What mostly influences me is the great directors who have struggled so hard to get their films made. Its that old Catch 22, You cant make a film until youve made a film.

The Godfather nearly didnt get made, they didnt want Francis Ford Coppola to direct, they didnt want Marlon Brando or Al Pacino to star, in fact Paramount hated everything about the film and it went on to be one of the greatest movies of all-time grossing in excess of $250M, being nominated for 11 Oscars and winning three.

George Lucas couldnt give Star Wars away, it was only his perseverance and tenacity that ultimately won through creating probably one of the most successful franchises of all time. Even James Cameron was mocked for his film about a boat. That film, as we all now know, was Titanic and in its day was the biggest grossing movie of all time. The directors that influenced me the most are those that refused to give up or surrender even though the studios were against them.

Sadly, this studio mentality is still with us today and if it wasnt for the likes of our producer Roy Rivett, supporting new and up and coming filmmakers, many films would never see the light of day.

What your current feelings on the state of the current British film industry? Is it in a good place?

With the birth of digital platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Sky Store etc, the industry is a very different beast for cinema releases and independent films being able to actually acquire a theatrical release is nearly impossible.

This has made getting finance to make films harder than ever. On the other side of the coin, those platforms have made it possible for newer filmmakers to have their work seen. So, although the industry is very different now, there is some positivity in change.

Is it important to you to nurture upcoming British talent? Does the UK do enough to nurture the arts?

Sean Cronin in a still from Eleven (Evolutionary Films)

In my dealings with the big studios they wont entertain films without bankable or A-list talent, which makes it very hard for new talent to break through, something that definitely needs to change.

This is something that both Rock and I agreed on and as a result, for the most part, we deliberately chose new and up and coming talent for Eleven, which we believe has become part of the charm of the piece. Wake up you guys give the new blood a chance is what I say and I think many would agree.

On Eleven we were so lucky to have such wonderful up and coming talent with some outstanding performances from Richard Dee Roberts as Sergeant Archibald Jones, Julian Gamm as Private Blaunt, Derek Carey Vernon as Corporal Bill Saunders. Ryan Green, who was just incredible as the young Private Perkins alongside the more established Jo Stone-Fewings as Captain Mullen. I have already mentioned the brilliant Joe Bryant as Corporal Reeves but he was so good I have to say it twice.

The lovely Grace Blackman was just wonderful as Mary Jones, as was the wonderful Sarina Taylor who plays my wife Maren Muller and even my two girls, Mollie Cronin, who plays Julia Muller and my youngest Georgia Cronin, who plays Anna Muller, my on-screen daughters. It was such a joy to direct my girls along with Rock and to act with them too, an experience not many in the business can cherish. The list of fresh talent goes on and on and both Rock and I are so proud and grateful to our fantastic cast, as well as our incredibly talented and hardworking crew.

You appeared in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, did you learn anything from that set that you brought over to Eleven?

Sean Cronin with Tom Cruise in a behind-the-scenes moment on Mission: Impossible  Rogue Nation (Universal/Paramount)

One thing I did bring to Eleven was my face, as you may remember Simon Peggs character Benji Dunn stole my face in the film. Luckily, I got it back in time for Eleven.

Another thing I brought from Mission: Impossible  Rogue Nation was coffee. I remember talking to Tom Cruise on set and joking that there was only filter coffee on set that day, the next day there was an Italian espresso van outside my trailer. Thank you Tom!

The man is a true gentleman, with nothing but respect and consideration for his cast and crew, which is definitely something I like to think I carried over to the set of Eleven. Look after your cast and crew and they will do you proud!

Eleven, a story of not only war but the love that binds soldiers together, is available on Digital Download now.

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Bonos daughter hits the big screen

De Niro splits from wife
15-month-old conjoined twins Nima and Dawa Peldon have been separated in an intense 6-hour operation at Melbournes Royal Childrens Hospital. The team, led by lead Paediatric surgeon Dr Joe Crameri, consisted of up to twenty-five different medical professionals over the course of the operation including surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses.



According to the University of Maryland, the chances of giving birth to conjoined twins is about 1 in every 200,000 births and out of those, at least 70% are female and are always identical. Unfortunately, there are also high mortality rates at birth for conjoined twins and if they do survive, separation is always a risky process.



Nima and Dewa were connected at the torso which is common with conjoined twins and while doctors knew the girls shared a liver, they were unsure of what the status was with other organs such as the bowel. We didnt find any surprises Dr Crameria said post-surgery. We knew the liver would be connected, we divided that successfully  the main challenge was getting the abdomen reconstructed.



While the surgery was being undertaken, the twins mother Bhumchu Zangmo visited the local Buddhist Temple to pray with members of the local Bhutanese community who came out to support her. After being advised the surgery was a success, Bhumchu went to see her babies but at the sight of them laying in separate beds, she had to ask nursing staff which twin was which as she was unable to tell them apart. The babies also didnt like being separated and while they are recovering quickly, they prefer to be kept close together so they are able to intertwine their legs and comfort each other.



This miracle operation was made possible by Australian charity the Children First Foundation who became aware of the twins situation after their paediatrician in Bhutan, Dr Karma Sherub, asked for advice from Australian doctors. Until now, conjoined twins had never been seen in Bhutan before. Dr. Sherub was also able to accompany the family out to Australia, acting as translator, as well as being able to observe the operation and gain valuable experience with conjoined twins.



While the Children First Foundations generous supporters have covered the familys airfares, accommodation and other expenses such as rehabilitation, the Australian Government has kindly announced that it will cover the AUD350,000 cost for the operation.



Eager to return home to Bhutan, Bhumchu has been overwhelmed by the support from the Australian public, especially from the school children who wrote letters of encouragement to the twins ahead of their surgery. I am so happy that so many people have good feelings and prayers for my twins surgery. Bhumchu said through a translator. I will take all these letters to Bhutan and when the girls grow up and are able to read, I will ask them to read them all.
Theresa May is holding a crunch meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday (Getty)

A special European summit to sign-off the Brexit deal could be cancelled just days before its set to take place, the EU has warned ahead of Theresa Mays visit to Brussels.

European leaders are set to gather in Brussels on Sunday to rubber stamp the deal, which consists of a withdrawal agreement and political declaration on the future of EU-UK relations.

The withdrawal agreement was finalised last week but talks over the political declaration, which will set the framework for a trade deal, are going down to the wire.

Theresa May is meeting European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday evening in a bid to finalise the document.

MORE: May and Juncker to finalise Brexit deal over afternoon tea

A commission spokesperson described the meeting, which will also be attended by EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, as afternoon tea.

But the stakes have been raised by warnings that Sundays summit could be called off if the political declaration isnt finalised imminently.

European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said the deal must be completed in time for a meeting of sherpas  representatives of European leaders  on Friday morning.

The European Council article 50 format is set to meet on Sunday as you know and for that we will need to have agreed beforehand the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet, he told journalists on Wednesday.

The European Commissions Valdis Dombrovskis said the deal must be concluded by Friday, but Germany want it sooner (Reuters)

Sherpas are due to meet on Friday and of course they will need to see a final text before then and the commission stands ready to consider the text and stands ready to take any action at any time.

Behind the scenes, the deadline is believed to be even tighter.

Germanys ambassador to the EU told a meeting of diplomats on Tuesday that Friday would be too late and a final text is needed by Thursday morning at the latest.

German chancellor Angela Merkel would pull out of the summit if that was not the case, the ambassador warned.

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MORE: EU commissioner mocks Rees-Moggs all male Brexit meeting

The warning comes as last ditch demands from some member states complicate efforts to seal the deal.

Spain has threatened to veto any deal that does not explicitly state that the future relationship between the EU and UK will not apply to Gibraltar without their consent.

Speaking in the German parliament, Merkel said: We still have an objection in Spain. I cant say exactly how we solve this issue, but I hope it will be solved by Sunday.

Juncker also said he would address the concerns of the French fishing industry over access to UK waters when he meets May.




Eve Hewson and Taron Egerton in Robin Hood (Lionsgate)

By Elizabeth Di Filippo, Yahoo Canada Style

Bonos daughter is readying herself for the spotlight.

She may be related to one of the biggest names in rock music, but Eve Hewson is determined to make a name for herself in Hollywood.

In a new interview with InStyle, the 27-year-old actress says she convinced her U2 frontman father and her activist mother, Ali Hewson, to let her move from Dublin to New York to pursue a career in acting when she was barely in her 20s.

After landing her first major role on the short-lived television series The Knick, Hewson has had minor roles in films like Bridge of Spies alongside Tom Hanks and Enough Said starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Now, the Irish actress is priming herself for the release of her latest film, a blockbuster remake of Robin Hood.

I learned while filming that Im a good stuntwoman, Hewson, who plays Maid Marian said. Now I plan to be the next Tom Cruise.

Although you may think that the daughter of rock royalty might be interested in hobnobbing with the whos who of young Hollywood, Hewson prefers to lead a quiet life in Brooklyn. The young star says she would rather stay in and have dinner parties with her older sister, Jordan, and her childhood friends who live nearby.

Eve Hewson and her father, Bono. Image via Getty Images.

Im one of those people who like to fist-bump in the club to the Top 40, she said. Im kind of uncool in that way, but I dont care. Ive been around that [scene] my whole life, so it doesnt get me going.

After ten years working as an actor, Hewson is letting her work speak for itself.

Parties are not the things that make me value my work, she explained. But I do hope I keep getting invited!

Robin Hood is in cinemas from 21 November.

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A former Cleveland judge was taken into custody after his sister called 911 and claimed he fatally stabbed his estranged wife just 4 years after he beat her so badly in front of their young children that she required facial reconstruction surgery, police said.

Shaker Heights Police confirmed in an incident report that former Cuyahoga County Judge Lance Mason was arrested after his estranged wife, Aisha Fraser, was found dead in her Shaker Heights, Ohio home last Saturday morning.

According to audio of the 911 call received by WKYC 3, police received an emergency call from Masons sister telling dispatchers that she found Fraser stabbed to death in the backyard of her former sister-in-laws home. Masons sister told dispatchers the couples young daughters were in the house at the time.

My brother is attacking his ex-wife, Masons sister told 911. He said he stabbed her  and shes dead.

According to police, as officers made their way to the crime scene, Mason attempted to flee, crashing his SUV into a police car and injuring patrol officer Adam Flynt. According to Cleveland.com, police said Mason then attempted to escape on foot after before police caught him.

Flynt and Mason are both currently in the hospital being treated for their injuries, although the Shaker Heights police said on Facebook that Flynt is expected to be released soon to recover at home.

Police have charged Mason with felonious assault for the crash. He has not yet been charged in connection to Frasers death.

Todays charge is the first of this investigation, and was brought in order to meet certain legal time constraints, Shaker Heights police department said in a statement, per WOSU. Additional criminal charges will be brought against Lance Mason relating to the death of Aisha Fraser.

Mason was sentenced to 24 months in prison for brutally beating Fraser in August 2014. According to police, Mason repeatedly punched Fraser in the face, bit and choked her as they were sitting in a car while their two young children were in the backseat.

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Following the attack, police arrested Mason in his home where they found multiple weapons, including nearly 2,300 live rounds of various calibers, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a semi-automatic rifle still in the box and four canisters of smoke grenades, according to Cleveland.com.

Mason was charged with felonious assault, kidnapping, endangering children and domestic violence.

He was released from prison after reportedly serving nine months of a two-year sentence. Following his early release from prison, Mason was hired by the Cleveland mayors office in August 2017 as a minority business development administrator. He was fired following this weekends arrest. In December 2017 the Ohio Supreme Court suspended his law license indefinitely.

Mason previously served as a state representative from 2002 to 2006, before being elected to the Ohio Senate from 2007 to 2008 and serving as an assistant minority whip.

Fraser worked as a 6th grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights. The Shaker Heights Teacher Association set up a GoFundMe to support her two daughters.

We are in deep mourning, SHTA said in a Facebook post. Aisha exemplified the best of Shaker Heights Teachers; smart, amazingly caring of her students and her colleagues, active in her profession and in Our Association. She is loved by many.
Intense fighting broke out in Yemen's port city of Hodeidah late on Monday, shattering a lull in violence that had raised hopes for a ceasefire between a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi insurgents as the United Nations tried to resume peace talks.

Coalition warplanes conducted more than 10 air strikes on Houthi positions and battles could be heard in the "July 7" district, 2.5 miles away from the port, residents said. One resident said a medium-range missile had been fired from the city centre towards the district in the suburbs.

The coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had last week ordered a halt in its offensive against the Houthi-held Red Sea port city, now a focus of the war, amid pressure from the West to end a conflict that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

The Iranian-aligned Houthi group announced early on Monday it was halting drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their Yemeni allies, in one of its biggest concessions since it quit the southern port city of Aden in 2015.

An injured Yemeni child receives medical aid at an emergency room in the Saada province early on November 20 Credit: AFP

The Houthi movement also said it was ready for a broader ceasefire if the coalition "wants peace".

Later Yemen information minister Moammar al-Eryani said the Houthis had "fired a missile towards Saudi lands", adding on his Twitter account the missile failed to reach its target and fell inside Yemen. Houthi authorities could not immediately be reached for comment on the report.

Armoured vehicles of the Yemeni pro-government forces are seen driving past destruction in an industrial district in the eastern outskirts of the port city of Hodeidah Credit: AFP

It was not immediately clear whether the renewed fighting in Hodeidah would derail efforts by U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths to salvage peace talks that collapsed in September when the Houthi delegation failed to show up.

"The fighting is escalating and we can clearly hear machine guns and mortar fire. This is one of the worst nights we have experienced," said Hodeidah resident Mustafa Abdo.

When asked about the fighting, a pro-coalition Yemeni military source told Reuters late on Monday that a ceasefire in Hodeidah would only start after the U.N. Security Council passes a British-drafted resolution on Yemen.

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It is not immediately clear when the text, submitted to the Security Council on Monday, could be put to a vote.

Kuwait's U.N. Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi told reporters he would propose amendments to the draft resolution as Kuwait was unhappy with "many things". He also said some council members didn't think it was the right time for a resolution.

The draft resolution, seen by Reuters, calls for a halt to fighting in Hodeidah, a stop to attacks on populated areas across Yemen and an end to attacks on countries in the region.

Malnourished Ferial Elias, 2, gestures as she is being weighed at a malnutrition treatment ward at al-Thawra hospital in Hodeidah Credit: Reuters

It also calls for an unhindered flow of commercial and humanitarian goods across the impoverished country, including a large, fast injection of foreign currency into the economy through the Central Bank of Yemen and more aid funding.

Western allies including the United States have called for a ceasefire ahead of peace efforts to end the nearly four-year-old war that has killed more than 10,000 people and caused the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis.

Western countries have provided arms and intelligence to the Arab states in the alliance, but have shown increasing reservations about the war since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul last month.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen's war in 2015 to restore the internationally recognized Yemeni government that was ousted from the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in 2014.

The conflict is seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Iran.

Griffiths said on Friday that Yemen's parties have given "firm assurances" they are committed to attending peace talks he hopes to convene in Sweden before the end of the year to agree on a framework for peace under a transitional government.
Four Finns have been arrested on a holiday island in Muslim-majority Malaysia for allegedly distributing pamphlets about Christianity, police said Wednesday, and may face up to five years in jail.

Religion is a deeply sensitive issue in Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of the populaton is Muslim, and critics say rising conservatism has chipped away at a traditionally tolerant brand of Islam in recent years.

Authorities detained the two men and two women on Tuesday after receiving complaints from members of the public that they were handing out Christian materials on the popular resort island of Langkawi, said local police chief Mohamad Iqbal Ibrahim.

"Police have arrested four Finnish nationals in Langkawi for allegedly distributing religious material in a public place," he told AFP.

"They were distributing pamphlets related to Christianity."

The Finns, aged between 27 and 60, were arrested at a hotel and police seized pens, notebooks and a bag.

They are accused of breaking laws that forbid people from disturbing religious harmony. If found guilty, they could be jailed for between two and five years.

The suspects have been remanded in custody while police investigate.

Langkawi, a jungle-clad island in northwest Malaysia, attracts millions of tourists to its palm-fringed beaches every year.

Malaysia, home to about 32 million people, has sizeable ethnic Chinese and Indian communities who have long complained about rising Islamisation.

In 2010, three churches were attacked with firebombs, causing major damage to one, as Muslims sought to prevent Christians from using the word "Allah".

Issues related to race, religion and language are considered sensitive in Malaysia, which witnessed deadly riots between members of the majority Malay community and ethnic Chinese in 1969.
Canada is Americas top source for oil (Giphy)

Donald Trump is celebrating low oil prices, and hes thanking Saudi Arabia for what he calls a big Tax Cut for America and the World [sic].

Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

But he might want to take another look at where the U.S. gets most of its imported oil. We Canadians are a polite bunch, not known to speak up. Luckily Bruce Heyman, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada, correctly pointed out its actually Canada.

Even with all our increased production, the US still needs imported oil and who is our #1 supplier? Nope Its not Saudi Arabia! If you guessed Canada our best friend you are right. We really dont need Saudi oil because Canada can supply all our needs. https://t.co/j9lzpJ3QcM  Bruce A. Heyman (@BruceAHeyman) November 21, 2018

In fact, Canada provides the U.S. with 4 times as much petroleum as Saudi Arabia. That includes crude oil, hydrocarbon gas liquids, refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel fuel, and biofuels including ethanol and biodiesel.

Around 79 per cent of Canadian crude gets sent across the border, the highest percentage in 10 years according to the National Energy Board. The NEB notes production in Canada is growing while domestic demand is falling. But the U.S. cant seem to get enough. The NEB chalks that up to refineries in the Midwest and Gulf Coast transforming to process heavier Canadian oil.

Top sources of U.S. petroleum imports in 2017 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

Clearly, Canada is doing its part by sending cheap oil across the border. Western Canadian Select is hovering around its lowest level in a decade.

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Consumers are benefiting at the pumps, but the situation is a drain on Canadas GDP. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says the price gap between WCS and WTI is costing the Canadian economy $80 million a day.

Does Trump really need to be besties with Saudi Arabia?

Trump has taken heat for his handling of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Critics are urging him to take a tougher stand.

If we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof, Trump told reporters on Tuesday. Ive kept them down. Theyve helped me keep them down.

Reimposed sanctions on Iran make Saudi Arabia an even more powerful player on the world stage when it comes to oil.

That gives Saudi Arabia room to fill the void, The Schork Reports Stephen Schork told Yahoo Finance Canada. OPECs pricing power has been more intensified now.

But that doesnt mean the Kingdom would drive up prices if relations with the U.S. splintered.

Oil is a huge part of Saudi Arabias economy, and Schork says the rise of alternative energy sources is very much on its radar. An elevated price would make oil far less attractive in comparison, bringing demand down.

Theres no reason Saudi Arabia would want to create a situation where they would want to force oil prices back to that $100 and beyond level.

Saudi Arabia does have options to boost prices though. But because so much of its oil is landlocked, Canadas hands are pretty much tied.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
Saint-Denis de la Reunion (AFP) - Thirty police officers have been injured in five days of protests over rising living costs on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, the government in Paris said Wednesday.

The "yellow vest" movement, which brought hundreds of thousands of people onto French streets last weekend to protest environmental taxes on fuel, has plunged La Reunion into its worst bout of violence in nearly 30 years.

Roads across the volcanic island of 850,000 people off southeast Africa remained blocked Wednesday by demonstrators, causing petrol stations to run low on fuel, and schools were closed for fear of violence.

The protest movement, triggered by a 23-percent rise in the price of diesel in the past year, has come to encompass broader grievances about the rising cost of essentials and a rollback in public services in small-town and rural France.

For several nights running, youths armed with petrol bombs and stones have clashed with police, leaving 30 officers injured so far, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said.

One officer lost his hand after a grenade accidentally went off in his car as it was being stoned by demonstrators, the authorities said.

There was no figure available for the number of injured among the demonstrators.

- Peugeot factory at standstill -

Across France, two people have died and over 500 have been injured since protesters began erecting barricades on roads across the country on Saturday to try to force the government to cancel planned tax hikes on fuel.

On the mainland, the protests had begun to fizzle Wednesday but in La Reunion the situation remained tense, despite the government agreeing to freeze anti-pollution taxes on fuel on the island for three years.

Griveaux blamed the violence on "gangs of youths" using the cover of the protests to "loot, sack and destroy" property and announced that police reinforcements were being sent from Paris.

In mainland France, businesses are also feeling the pinch after five days of unrest.

A PSA Peugeot-Citroen factory in the eastern French town of Sochaux suspended production Wednesday because supply trucks carrying parts from Spain had been unable to get past one of the few remaining roadblocks.

Macron, who has vowed to stay his course despite plummeting poll ratings, on Wednesday threatened "severe" action against protesters who breach the peace, endanger motorists' lives or intimidate opponents.
Theresa May. Photo: Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty

The majority of Goldman Sachs clients think Theresa Mays draft Brexit withdrawal deal will pass through the UK parliament, despite opposition to it on both the left and right.

Goldman conducts snap surveys of clients on various macro issues. It conducted one on Brexit on Tuesday. Almost 500 people took the survey, including over 80 Goldman staff.

The results show that the majority of Goldman clients and staff believe Theresa May will hang on to power and get her draft Brexit deal through parliament. The survey found:

46% of respondents think theres a greater than 60% chance May will survive a leadership challenge.

66% think Mays draft Brexit deal will pass through parliament on either the first or subsequent attempts.

46% believe Mays deal, or a variation of it, will be in place by 29 March 2019, the official Brexit date.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the survey when contacted by Yahoo Finance UK.

The results suggest the city has confidence in the prime minister and her deal, despite a tumultuous week.

Theresa May announced last week that she had agreed draft terms of a Brexit withdrawal deal with the EU. It was quickly attacked by both the left and the right as it would keep Britain under EU rules until at least 2020 with no say in the decision making process.

Brexit minister Dominic Raab resigned in protest last Thursday and Eurosceptic Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg called for May to resign. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also called for a new general election.

Mays position looked in peril as Rees-Mogg and allies moved to try and trigger a Conservative Party leadership challenge. However, the threat has subsided in the last few days as Rees-Mogg and his allies appear unable to secure the support of at least 48 Conservative MPs, which is the minimum needed for a leadership challenge.

While Goldmans clients are confident that May can survive a leadership challenge from her own party, they are not confident on her prospects if her future is decided by the general public.

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About 38% of respondents believe Britain will end up with a Labour party coalition in government if there is a general election before March, while 14% expect a Labour majority. Just 5% think there would be a Conservative majority and 27% expect a Conservative coalition. And 72% of respondents believe Britain would vote to remain in the EU if there was a second referendum.




Morgan Stanley downgraded Goldman Sachss (GS) stock to equal-weight on Wednesday, citing regulatory risks that could come from the U.S. Justice Departments investigation into its role in an international corruption scandal centered around the 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a Malaysian state investment fund.

In early November, the Justice Department unsealed documents alleging that senior-level Goldman bankers Tim Leissner and Roger Ng bribed and laundered money through relationships with 1MDB, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S. on July 16, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

1MDB was the center of a huge political scandal that engulfed former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was charged with funneling fund money into his personal account to purchase expensive jewelry for his wife.

The fallout appears far from over. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund is now suing Goldman Sachs, alleging the bank had a central role in the scheme. The fund guaranteed $3.5 billion in bonds to 1MDB over a year and is now taking Goldman to court to protect its business interests against an international conspiracy. Goldman Sachs says it arranged about $6.5 billion of debt securities for 1MDB, which helped the bank pocket about $600 million in fees.

In filings dated November 2, Goldman Sachs said it is cooperating with the Justice Department and all other regulatory investigations related to 1MDB but said it cannot predict the outcome of those investigations.

Morgan Stanley is projecting fines of $1.2 billion in addition to a return of its $600 million in collected fees.

These risks, coupled with potential headline risks in the coming months (additional lawsuits, additional regulatory probes, internal reviews), drive our Equal-weight rating, Morgan Stanley wrote.

Goldman on the defense

Goldman did not respond to requests for comment on the latest 1MDB-related developments. Between the second and third quarters of 2018, Goldman slightly increased its reserves for existing and estimable legal matters from around $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion.

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The company has also beefed up its legal team to handle the probes. The Financial Times reported November 6 that it hired former Justice Department deputy attorney general Mark Filip, who has a close friendship with the departments current criminal division chief, Brian Benczkowski.

Michael Volkov, a former deputy assistant attorney general who knew both individuals during his time at the DOJ, told Yahoo Finance he does not think Benczkowski will recuse himself in the case.

Volkov said he could ultimately see the company signing a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, adding that the fine will depend on how many regulators get involved and whether or not Goldman cleans up its compliance program.

They have to remediate, they have to determine the root cause of how this occurred, said Volkov, now head of his own boutique law firm. Then they have to address the root cause such that it can never happen again.

Failure to supervise

One question that remains: how high do the compliance issues run?

David Solomon, who replaced Lloyd Blankfein as Goldmans CEO on October 1, told Bloomberg November 15 that the two bankers, who no longer work for the bank, were rogue agents who managed to get around the companys compliance policies.

Its obviously very distressing to see two former Goldman Sachs employees went so blatantly around our policies and so blatantly broke the law, Solomon said. We take the whole matter extremely seriously and we continue to work with the authorities as they investigate it.

But Leissner was notably the banks Southeast Asia Chairman and Ng was a managing director, both high-ranking posts within the organization.

There is also speculation about whether Goldman Sachs will be charged with failure to supervise its employees, a label that regulators would use to punish the bank for poorly monitoring its employees compliance with relevant laws and regulations.

In a note November 14, Oppenheimer wrote that Goldman could face this charge given pretty clear evidence that Goldmans compliance programs failed dreadfully. But ultimately the note maintains their outperform rating.

We have confidence that Goldman as a firm will endure this admittedly bleak chapter, Oppenheimer wrote.

Shares of Goldman Sachs were trading up 1.57% to $194.34 as of 12:49pm ET.

Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the banking industry and the intersection of finance and policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz.

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The Board of Investment (BOI) yesterday announced that it has signed US $60.86 million worth investment agreements with local and foreign investors in apparel, logistics, plant tissue culture and packaging sectors.



The largest investment project was signed with W U S Logistics (Pvt) Ltd., to set up a logistics city, which will include warehousing facilities, cold room facilities, in-house value addition and multi country consolidation services, auditorium, business communication centre, exhibitions centre, logistic education centre and research & development facility.

Aiming to boost private sector investments in multi country consolidation services, the Finance Ministry in mid October issued a gazette effective from October 1, 2018, allowing privately-held warehouses to clear goods imported in less than a container load of cargo.



The committed investment by W.U.S Logistics (Pvt) Ltd is Rs 8.9 billion (US $49.8 million). The project will be located in Negombo and is expected to create 402 new employment opportunities.



W.U. Seneviratne & Company (Pvt), the parent company of W.U.S Logistics (Pvt) Ltd is a well-known envelop manufacturer.



The BOI also signed a US$ 3.5 million worth investment agreement with First Steps Babywear Lanka (Pvt) Ltd to set up a manufacturing plant to produce garments and other textile products, particularly the baby wear for the export market.



The project will be located in Modarawila Industrial Estate, Panadura and is expected to generate 20 employment opportunities.



J.C Biotech (Pvt) Ltd also entered into an investment agreement worth of US$ 0.5 million with BOI to produce tissue culture for ornamental plants for the export market in Welimada. The project is expected to generate 200 new employment opportunities.



Further, Y.C.G Packaging (Pvt) Ltd has signed an investment agreement worth US $7.6 million with BOI to manufacture garment accessories including hand tags, price tickets, over riders bands, body card, colour bands, body bands, label PVC, satin labels, size labels, booklets and packaging boxes etc.



According to BOI, Y.C.G Packaging (Pvt) Ltd will be based in Colombo 15, and will create 71 new employment opportunities.



The products of this company will be used by some of the leading apparel manufacturers and exporters in Sri Lanka including Brandix, MAS, and Hirdaramani, the BOI stated in a media communique.



The agreements were signed by BOI Chairman Hemasiri Fernando with representatives of the above enterprises.
Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's government said Tuesday it would legislate an end to a postal strike in a "few days," averting a disastrous holiday season for online retailers that rely on the carrier.

Nearly a year of collective bargaining had produced "limited progress" toward a deal, Employment Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement posted on Twitter.

"We strongly encourage both sides to reach a deal and are prepared to table legislation if we do not see a resolution over the next few days," she said.

With major Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events just days away, Ottawa is facing pressure from online retailers to legislate an end to the walkout.

Canada Post delivers much of the nation's online shopping and the last six weeks of the year are its busiest due to the holiday rush.

The rotating strike, now in its fifth week, has resulted in a delivery backlog of up to 30 days, with hundreds of trailers waiting to be unloaded outside sorting facilities.
The Great British Bake Off (Credit: Channel 4/Love Productions)

The boss of the production company which makes The Great British Bake Off says that he felt bullied by arrogant BBC executives while making the show for BBC One.

Love Productions was slammed in 2016 when it took the format to Channel 4 in a 75 million deal, many viewers accusing the company of being greedy.

It lost its hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, as well as judge Mary Berry, in the move, with fans complaining that lengthy ad breaks would ruin the series.

But Richard McKerrow, who runs the company, has accused BBC executives of being bullies, adding that the company had no choice but to take the show to another channel.

Speaking at an event at Leeds Trinity University, he said: We really had no choice. I think Bake Off would have died if we hadnt moved.

Unfortunately broadcasters bully independent producers and the BBC is the biggest bully of all and I dont think that is healthy for the industry. I felt bullied.

There is an arrogance that the BBC has that is not good for the industry.

He added that the companys relationship with the BBC soured three years before it left the corporation, after it accused it of copying the format for some of its other in house shows, notably the short-lived hairdressing contest show Hair on BBC3, and The Big Painting Challenge.

The row, and a resulting court case, were said to have caused a catastrophic breakdown in negotiations over the Bake Offs future on the BBC.

Paul Hollywood, Mel Giedroyc, Mary Berry and Sue Perkins (Credit: Ian West/PA)

I say we simply did it to protect the format. We took it to the one place which would protect the format, Channel 4, which is another public service broadcaster, McKerrow added.

It kept it free to air and I trusted them and knew they would look after it.

He added that the companys relationship with Channel 4 is fantastic.

While the BBC has declined to comment on the remarks, a BBC source told MailOnline that it was nonsense that a deal could not be done, adding: We made a very strong offer, everyone understands why the production company made the choice they made.

Story continues

While fans of the show have taken to new hosts Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding, as well as new judge Prue Leith, it has suffered a significant drop off in viewers.

This years final was watched by around 7.5 million people, while 14 million tuned in to the 2016 final on the BBC.

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Nairobi (AFP) - An armed gang abducted an Italian woman from a village in southeast Kenya, shooting and wounding five residents in the raid, police said Wednesday.

"The attackers fired indiscriminately at residents" before kidnapping the 23-year-old, who worked as a volunteer for an Italian charity, during the attack after dark on Tuesday at Chakama, a small village in the coastal Kilifi county, police said in a statement.

Three children were among those injured, with one, a 10-year-old boy, shot in the eye, according to police.

The wounded have been taken to hospital and police have been "deployed to track down the criminals".

Italy's foreign ministry named the victim as Silvia Romano.

Africa Milele Onlus, the small Italian charity for which Romano was volunteering, posted a statement on its website saying: "There are no words to comment on what is happening. Silvia, we are all with you."

Ronald Kazungu, a Chakama resident who witnessed Romano's abduction, said the gang had come to the village looking for "the foreigner".

"There came six men who came asking for the foreigner. I told them she had gone (out)... They began arguing, saying they had seen her in the house. It was then that I showed them where she was," he said.

- 'We need money' -

Another witness, James Alexander, said the gunmen had thrown an explosive device during the attack. "I found something on the floor. Suddenly it blew up and I saw someone in front of me with a gun," he said.

"Immediately he started shooting so I had to run away. Coming back I saw them taking the lady down towards the riverside. They were asking her for money: 'We need money, we are not going to hurt you'," he said.

The kidnappers are believed to have escaped with their victim across the Galana river. The village is about 60 kilometres (40 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi, which is popular with Italian tourists and expatriates.

Story continues

Kenyan police warned against speculation, rife in the local Kenyan press, that Shabaab militants from Somalia might be behind the abduction.

Police chief Joseph Boinnet said he did not yet know who the attackers were. "We are investigating, but people should stop speculating," he told reporters.

Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity about the ongoing investigation, said: "We understand that there has been a dispute at that orphanage and that is what we are looking at."

Kidnappings of foreigners are rare in Kenya, but have a damaging effect on the country's crucial tourism sector.

A spate of abductions on the coast in 2011 saw a British man shot dead and his wife kidnapped from a resort island, while weeks later a French woman was abducted from her home on the Lamu archipelago.

Soon afterwards Shabaab gunmen abducted two Spanish aid workers from the Dadaab refugee camp close to the Somali border in the only confirmed case of kidnapping inside Kenya by the jihadists.
Kuwait City (AFP) - Unprecedented heavy rains which recently lashed Kuwait unearthed dozens of land mines planted by Iraqi troops during their 1990-91 occupation, disrupting the emirate's popular desert camping season, officials said Wednesday.

Authorities have closed 18 desert sites and have so far removed at least 48 mines after receiving complaints from the campers, they said.

The civil defence committee has urged campers to delay their plans until after the defence ministry has searched the areas, said Fahad al-Shutaily, deputy director of Kuwait's Jahra and Farwaniya governorates.

"Floods have uncovered and carried away scores of mines, bombs and ammunition left by the Iraqi army in desert areas. We are waiting for the defence ministry to hand over the areas after clearing them," Shutaily told AFP.

The ministry of defence is currently searching at least 18 sites which are normally used for camping.

Iraqi troops, under former president Saddam Hussein, invaded and occupied Kuwait on August 2, 1990 before they were evicted seven months later by a US-led international coalition.

But before that, Kuwaiti authorities say Iraqis planted some two million mines mostly in the desert.

Through multi-billion dollar contracts, Kuwait removed some 1.65 million mines, leaving behind 350,000 others.

Since early November the desert state of Kuwait has received about 300 mm of rain -- almost three times its annual average rainfall -- which has caused widespread damage to residential zones.

The flooding of desert areas has come at the start of the camping season, when hundreds of thousands of Kuwaitis set up modern camps for around four months.

After waiting to enjoy the beautiful and usually uninhabited desert areas, some campers are refusing to heed the warnings.

"A majority of my relatives and neighbours are camping," Yousef Abdullah told AFP.

"No one is backing down because of fear from mines... We impatiently wait for the camping season," he added.

Shutaily however said that over the past two days, authorities have removed 36 camps and warned 60 others.
Holiday plans are looking drastically different for many who were heavily impacted by Florence in the Carolinas and Michael in the Florida Panhandle.

2018 was meant to be the first year that Lauren Auton's family gathered at her home to celebrate Christmas.

The western North Carolina native, who's a graduate student and assistant for student conduct and community standards at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), also anticipated having friends and family over to attend her December graduation.

Those plans have since changed. She and a smaller number of family members will now have a "pared-down Christmas" in her hometown. After Hurricane Florence ravaged North Carolina with severe flooding in September, the family now has no place near her to get everyone together, said Auton.



Hurricane Michael - AP Images

In this Oct. 23, 2018 photo, Ronald Lauricella cradles a kitten in his front yard in Bay County, Florida. The rural Bay County resident says some on the outskirts of the cities aren't getting needed services like electricity as fast as the populated areas. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush)

It's a bit tricky to set up a Christmas tree in a camper van, and hosting a group of loved ones in such a cramped space would prove even more difficult.

That camper van is Auton and her partner's temporary home on their property as their previously flooded and now gutted-out house awaits much-needed restoration.

They initially evacuated from the North Carolina coastline to the western part of the state before Florence hit. After seeing a Facebook video that showed the extent of the flooding on their street back home, Auton had to mentally prepare herself for the damage that awaited her upon her return a few weeks later.

"I'd never been to an area that flooded like this, so I didn't know what to expect," she told AccuWeather. "Basically, everything was gone. Never did we think it would flood as high as it did [in the house]."

Story continues

For Auton and her partner, much of the usual Christmas spirit reserved for this time of year has all but evaporated.

"We're trying to get back into it, but a lot of the money that we've used for gifts and other things for the holidays, we're now worried about replacing things that have been destroyed and making sure we have enough to get the house fixed," Auton said.

"The feel of it is very different," she said, adding that the soon-approaching Thanksgiving holiday has crept up on her, as she and her family have been preoccupied with making plans with insurance companies and contractors.

The Autons aren't alone in being taken aback by the seemingly swift arrival of the holiday season.

Natalie Buchholz, a photographer for the Cajun Navy who's known for her frequent fruit and supply deliveries to Hurricane Michael victims, said that her most recent trip to Panama City, Florida, was especially "heartbreaking."



Child walks down Michael-damaged street in Panama City, Florida

A child wanders down a street covered in debris from Hurricane Michael in Panama City, Florida. (Photo/Pam Hobbs)

"People are living in their cars in a parking lot, [as well as in] tents and RVs," Buchholz said. "The tents are directly on the tarmac, and they told me how very cold the last few nights had been with the low temperatures."

When she asked them what their holiday plans were, she said that most hadn't even thought about it and didn't realize they'd arrive so quickly. Recent wet and chilly weather has only helped to dampen holiday spirits.

"I mainly got the same answer from everyone: We're just trying to get by one day at a time,'" Buchholz said.

Many people seemed to be more focused on housing and trying to find work, she said, noting that one man desired neither donations nor food - but rather a job so that he could earn money and get back into a normal routine.

Panama City resident Pam Hobbs and her husband have no plans to celebrate Thanksgiving as they continue to recover from Michael's devastation and help others do so as well.

"We're not able to have Thanksgiving dinner at home this year," said Hobbs, owner of Mr.Rooter Plumbing of Northwest Florida, a Neighborly Company.

"Our daughters are going with their spouses out of town to their in-laws," she told AccuWeather. "My husband and I are just staying home and resting and as for Christmas, we really haven't even considered it - too much to contemplate at this time."

While she and her family do intend to "rise above and overcome" this hurdle, Hobbs said she's "just not in a holiday mood" this year.

Things that people experience on a daily basis are even more challenging when they've been displaced and are struggling to see past the devastation, Hobbs said.

"Our employees have to ride through it every day, knowing they can help some, but [not everyone]," she said. "One employee said he would need counseling before all this was done."

Gloria McCracken Godwin, who runs social media accounts for the Cajun Navy Foundation, told AccuWeather that while the group doesn't have the means to directly provide meals this year, they are working in Florida and the Carolinas to connect people with locations that are serving Thanksgiving meals in their areas.

Some Cajun Navy volunteers are also collecting food items to distribute to hurricane victims in need of a Thanksgiving dinner.

A list of locations where people can receive free Thanksgiving meals along the Florida Panhandle can be found here.
Editors note: From November 19-30, Yahoo Finance Canada will be highlighting the best of Canadian innovation in a series called The Future Is Now. Well be bringing into the spotlight some of the companies and individuals that arent just pushing the limits, theyre creating new ones, for themselves and investors alike. Well be shining the spotlight on homegrown talent in the fields of satellite technology, autonomous vehicles, wearable tech and more. Check out our hub page for even more coverage and let us know in the comments: Which companies do you think represent the best of Canada looking toward the future?

A look inside one of Sonders Montreal apartments, styled to feel both homey like an Airbnb, and clean like a hotel. (Sonder)

When Airbnb was founded ten years ago, it brought a unique concept to the market: find travel accommodations that feel like home.

But as the model has gained popularity, some of the stays have come to feel too much like home. Staying at some Airbnbs can feel like a game of Russian roulette: will this be the one with the kindly landlord who is responsive but far from the premises? Or will you be listening to the sound of their kids screaming through the night?

Its meteoric rise shows theres an appetite for the model, but many people want the reliability that a hotel can provide, while offering the like a local feel that home-stays can bring.

Thats the thinking behind Sonder, a company that marries the two travel experiences.

The idea began in 2012, when founders Lucas Pellan and Montreal-born Francis Davidson stayed at a home they had booked for a couple days. They couldnt get in touch with the host to find out how they were supposed to get inside. When they did make it in (the key under the doormat, naturally), they found half-eaten food in the fridge and dog hair covering the furniture. They opted to leave the rental and go for an apartment instead. While it was free of dog hair and debris, it was a non-notable room surrounded by sterile chain restaurants.

It spurred the pair to create a new kind of home-stay experience: Sonder manages apartments in trendy neighbourhoods through major cities, and opens them up to travellers for short stays. What makes the company notably differs from Airbnb is the hotel-like amenities, like toiletries, a cleaning service, 24/7 concierge and attention to detail in the design.

Story continues

A look inside one of Sonders Montreal apartments, styled to feel both homey like an Airbnb, and clean like a hotel. (Sonder)

While the company now runs its operation from San Francisco, Calif., Sonder CEO and co-founder Davidson says the company became a fully formed idea through participation in Montreals Founder Fuel program. Davidson says hed been mulling the concept for a few summers, but participating in that incubator turned out to be a game changer.

What were doing now is what we walked away from Founder Fuel thinking that we would do, says Davidson. It was really transformational. We got to meet entrepreneurs, investors, people that would ask tough questions including what the vision for the company was, and we hadnt really thought about that thoroughly.

Since then, Sonder has grown to around 3,000 units across four countries. Davidson says they work directly with developers, and turn buildings into properties managed by Sonder. The properties typically have less than 25 units, and are located in vibrant neighbourhoods, which you often cant get with a boutique hotel.

The spaces themselves are three, four times the size of a normal hotel room, says Davidson. So many hotels have beige walls and are kind of stuffy, and we have things that are uniquely designed and work really well for demographics often forgotten by the hotel industry, like friends, or families that are traveling with young kids.

You can have the presidential suite for a price less than a standard hotel room.

A look inside one of Sonders Montreal apartments, styled to feel both homey like an Airbnb, and clean like a hotel. (Sonder)

Davidson says their clientele skews slightly more to business travellers than typical hotels, as it offers amenities that frequent travellers often find themselves missing.

It gets a little old to not have a dining table, you cant just have some cereal in the morning, you dont have a couch that you can just lounge on, says Davidson of typical hotels. Stays of a longer duration work really well.

Davidson adds that people travelling for medical procedures have also found the Sonder apartments to be a good alternative to the typical hotel experience, especially when the length of their stay is unpredictable or when they have lots of family in tow.

Disrupting the hospitality industry

Sonder is in full-tilt expansion mode, with Davidson spending about 40 per cent of his time hiring to expand their 400 person team, he says. In August, the company announced that it had raised US$85 million in financing led by Greenoaks Capital. According to The Globe and Mail, Sonder generates US$100 million annually from its accommodations business.

Davidson says the companys plans for expansion are aggressive: ultimately, they want to be in 192 countries around the world. While they havent spent much on marketing so far, Davidson says that wont slow down the companys reputation.

The best businesses, honestly, just have a great product, says Davidson. Maybe thatll change in the future but so far weve been really lucky that the experience speaks for itself. Were operating at over 80 per cent occupancy, despite the fact that we dont have a marketing budgetthe value proposition is so strong theres no need for us to shout about it.

Instead, Davidson says the company is putting money into expanding into more countries, acquiring more properties, and developing a consumer app. Ten years down the road, he says hes got big expectations for what the Sonder experience will be like:

Hotels are disappointing we want to create an experience thats jaw-dropping, says Davidson. You walk into a Sonder, you arrive close by, the door unlocks by itself automatically. You open the door, music starts playing. A welcome message turns on that says Welcome to your Sonder, theres a little celebration. Theres fresh flowers in there. You have a welcome card. You look up, it looks like pages from Dwell magazine. And its a 1,000-square-foot apartment that you rented for less than the price of the Courtyard Marriott thats right next door, and you cant believe what just happened.

A look inside one of Sonders Montreal apartments, styled to feel both homey like an Airbnb, and clean like a hotel. (Sonder)

But Sonder doesnt see its reach stopping at disrupting the hotel industry. Davidson posits that the same sort of hospitality experience could extend into your home.

We viewed it as a natural extension to our business fairly early on, theres definitely a changing world in which people are moving more and more and want more flexibility and home ownership is becoming less and less accessible, says Davidson. He envisions customers who stay with Sonder permanently, supporting families in their homes and enabling residents to move when it fits them, and helping them in that process.

Theres something anachronistic with the 12-month lease, where you have to lug in your own furniture and youre locked into a property where you cant move away from, says Davidson. Were hoping what were building will lend itself to the housing industry.

As Sonder looks to the nearer future of 2019, Davidson says the near-term plan is to push further into Europe, following up on the success of its properties opened in London and Rome earlier this year.

Even though weve come quite far in terms of what weve done so far, we have some really exciting things that are going on that will make 2019 our breakout year as a company, says Davidson.

The goal for us is to reinvent the hospitality industry.

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By Alexander Cornwell DUBAI (Reuters) - International police organization Interpol on Wednesday elected Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as president, beating a Russian whose candidacy had raised concerns in Europe and the United States about the risk of Kremlin interference. Interpol's Secretary-General Jurgen Stock told reporters Kim's election was free and transparent after Russia said clear outside pressure had been exerted on the vote. Kim was elected president, a largely ceremonial role, at Interpol's annual congress in Dubai for a two-year term to succeed China's Meng Hongwei. The presidency is typically held for four years. "The general assembly elected Mr. Kim from Korea as president through a voting process which was democratic, transparent, free and clear," said Stock of Germany who heads day-to-day work at Interpol. The president is elected after winning a two-thirds majority among members in a secret ballot, according to Interpol's website. U.S. and European politicians and Kremlin critics had lobbied against the candidacy of Alexander Prokopchuk of Russia, a police major-general and one of Interpol's four vice-presidents. "No matter ... what the nationality of the presidency is, it is not affecting Interpol's neutrality and the independence of our organization," said Stock. Interpol's role is to facilitate cooperation between police forces around the world. Its charter forbids it from involving itself in disputes of a political, religious or racial nature. It is not a supranational police force and has no agents who are allowed to make arrests. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators this week accused Russia of exploiting the global body to settle scores and harass dissidents by issuing warrants, known as red notices, for their arrest. "Let me be crystal clear, the members of the executive committee, including the president, have absolutely no involvement or influence in the task force review or decision making process," said Stock. RUSSIAN REGRET Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "We regret that it wasn't our candidate, but nonetheless there are no grounds to disagree with the election result." Prokopchuk declined to comment. Kim, 57, worked in the South Korean police for more than 20 years before retiring in 2015. Kim, who had been acting president, is now completing the term of former president Meng, which was due to end in 2020. Kim will not be able to seek a second term under Interpol rules which limit the presidency to a single term, said Stock. Meng disappeared in September during a visit to China from where he sent a letter to Interpol announcing his resignation. Days after his wife reported him missing, Chinese authorities said he was under investigation. "Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety," Kim said in a statement. "To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future." South Korea's President Moon Jae-in congratulated Kim on becoming the first South Korean to head the organization. Pacific island nations Vanuatu and Kiribati were approved this week as new Interpol member countries, while Kosovo's bid was denied, bringing the total number of member states to 194. A number of countries including Serbia do not recognize Kosovo's independence from Belgrade, declared in 2008. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell in DUBAI; additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL and Tom Balmforth in MOSCOW; Editing by Gareth Jones and Janet Lawrence)
By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel plans to consult with the U.S. government over a decision by home-renting company to remove listings in Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday. Palestinians who want to establish an independent state in territory including the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war welcomed the San Francisco-based firm's move, announced on Monday and taking effect in the coming days. Israel called it a "wretched capitulation" to boycotters. "We will approach the U.S. government because 25 U.S. states have sanctions against American companies that boycott Israel," Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said on Israeli Army Radio. "In this respect, there is no distinction between this part or that part of the State of Israel," he said, asserting that the West Bank, which Israel has never annexed, should also fall under the anti-boycott protection. Palestine Legal, a Palestinian rights group that monitors U.S. anti-boycott legislation, said on its website that some of the laws enacted at U.S. state level apply both to Israel and "territories controlled by Israel", an allusion to areas such as the West Bank. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called Airbnb's decision an "initial positive step". Israeli settlements in occupied territory are considered illegal by most world powers. Palestinians deem the settlements to be obstacles to their goal of establishing an independent state. Israel disputes this. On its own website, Airbnb said "many in the global community have stated that companies should not be doing business here (in the occupied territories) because they believe companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced". Subsequently, it concluded it should remove the approximately 200 "listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians". Those listings would not include settlements in East Jerusalem, territory Israel annexed in a move not recognized abroad and which the Palestinians want for a future capital, or the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Airbnb said it has developed a framework for evaluating how it should treat listings in occupied territories around the world. "Israel is a special place and our over 22,000 hosts are special people who have welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to Israel. We understand that this is a hard and complicated issue and we appreciate everyone's perspective," Airbnb's Global Head of Policy and Communications Chris Lehane said in an emailed statement. Erdan said Airbnb "will have to explain why it is taking this discriminatory and racist line here in particular and not in other conflict zones in the world". Erdan, pointman in Israel's campaign against the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that wants to isolate it over occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state, offered government legal advice to any hosts who want to sue Airbnb. Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged the U.N. Human Rights Council to release a database of companies "profiting from the Israeli colonial occupation". Oded Revivi, mayor of the West Bank settlement of Efrat, said Airbnb had violated its own stated mission "to bring people together in as many places as possible around the world". Israel's Tourism Ministry said it was looking at options, including new taxation, for restricting Airbnb activities throughout Israel. Airbnb's move came on the eve of the publication of a report by Human Rights Watch on tourist rental listings in Israeli settlements. The New York-based group hailed Airbnb's "important recognition that such listings cant square with its human rights responsibilities". Airbnb is considering an IPO next year after announcing in February that it would not make a public debut this year. (Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Jerusalem (AFP) - A senior Israeli minister warned Wednesday that "time is limited" for Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip, days after a controversial truce ended a severe flare-up and triggered a coalition crisis.

"Yahya Sinwar's time is limited," said Housing Minister Yoav Gallant, a former general who once oversaw operations in the Gaza Strip.

"He won't finish his life in a retirement home."

Speaking at a conference organised by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Gallant said Hamas's leaders must "recalculate their route" and decide whether to fight Israel or retain the relative quiet of recent days.

A ceasefire with Hamas last week ended the worst escalation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since a 2014 war.

But the deal led hawkish Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman to resign in disagreement, sparking a coalition crisis that nearly forced early elections.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to avoid early polls when other key coalition members agreed to remain in the government.

Even if the coalition continues to hold, elections are due by November 2019 and politicians have been engaging in campaign-style rhetoric in a country where security issues are always at the forefront.

Speaking at the same conference, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said it was time for Israel to "move from defence to offence" in its battle with Hamas by "going back to targeted killings of the terrorist leaders of Hamas's military wing."

Erdan also said Israel should be "willing to capture and hold the Gaza Strip until we dismantle the terrorist infrastructure."

"Today we are closer than ever to doing this," he said.

Netanyahu has taken a more cautious approach to Gaza, saying he wants to avoid war if it is unnecessary.

He has allowed Qatar to provide the blockaded enclave with millions in aid and defended last week's ceasefire.

Story continues

His backers say he and his security chiefs are in agreement on their approach to Gaza, while many analysts warn against starting another war without a clear strategy for how it will end.

Lieberman had in the past taken an especially aggressive tone toward Gaza, but backed off after becoming defence minister and said he was committed to "reasonable policy".

Prior to becoming minister, Lieberman had pledged to kill Hamas leader Ismail Haniya within 48 hours if he did not hand over two detained Israeli civilians and the bodies of soldiers killed in a 2014 war. Haniya was not killed.
(Beijing) REUTERS: China believes the Maldives will make the correct choice to continue with a bilateral free trade deal, a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday, after a Maldives politician said the tiny nation would pull out of the pact.



Mohamed Nasheed, the chief of the Maldivian Democratic Party, which leads the ruling federal alliance, told Reuters this week that it was a mistake to strike such a deal with the worlds second biggest economy.



The Maldives parliament would not pass the law changes required for the zero tariffs agreement to come into force, he said.

His comments followed a warning from the new President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who took office on Saturday that the Maldives was in financial difficulty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders.



In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing that the trade deal had undergone friendly and equal consultations, and that it is mutually beneficial.



Its early implementation will lead to early benefits for both sides. We believe the Maldives government will make the correct choice, Geng said, without elaborating.

Best-known for its luxury resorts on palm-fringed coral islands, the Maldives is among a number of small countries where China has invested billions of dollars building highways and housing as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.



The initiative aims to boost Chinas trade and investment flows with much of Asia and parts of the rest of the world. However, projects are facing opposition in some countries amid concerns about a debt trap that China has rejected.



Former Maldives President Abdullah Yameen, who lost the election in September, signed the trade deal during a December visit to Beijing. The Maldives parliament ratified the treaty despite opposition protests that he had rushed through the 1,000-page document in less than an hour without any debate.



Nasheed, a former president and now an adviser to Solih, has called the agreement a one-way treaty that favours China.



Critics in the Maldives say a China-led infrastructure boom has left the country of a little more than 400,000 people debt-ridden, and a free trade pact would only make the situation worse given the lopsided nature of the relationship.



Between January to August this year, the Maldives imports from China were US$ 342 million, while its exports to China were just US$ 265,270, according to Maldives Customs data.
Since its clear that Daniel Craig (the sixth actor to officially play Bond since 1962) has one foot out the door of the Aston-Martin, the conversation about diversifying 007 has been happening in earnest. Is one of Hollywoods oldest properties ready for a reboot? A new survey, conducted by Morning Consult and the Hollywood Reporter, asked 2,201 U.S. adults how they would feel about the fictional spy shifting demographics: from British to American, from male to female, from straight to gay, or from Caucasian to another ethnicity. The results show that a narrow majority support a black James Bond and most approve of a U.S.-born Bond  but the idea of a female, Hispanic, Asian or gay Bond is still hard for most Americans to wrap their heads around.
Jude Law as Dumbledore (Credit: Warner Bros)

Jude Law has spoken candidly about the sexuality of Albus Dumbledore, the younger version of whom he plays in Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Potter writer J.K. Rowling revealed long after the final book in her boy wizard series was published that shed always considered the headmaster of Hogwarts to be gay.

But there was disquiet among some fans ahead of this latest movies release, when it emerged that his sexuality would be really be broached, with director David Yates downplaying the issue, saying that Dumbledore would not appear as explicitly homosexual.

Now Law has said that while it might not be up there on screen, its certainly in the make-up of his character  who its suggested had a boyhood relationship with Johnny Depps dark wizard Grindelwald  and that we should be fully accepting of it.

(Credit: Warner Bros)

Put it this way: This film is not about (Dumbledores) homosexuality, nor does his sexuality define him, Law told the New York Times.

But that relationship is certainly a defining element of who he is and what hes about.

I also dont think hes someone who has given his heart or his soul to many people. The aftermath of their relationship left him reeling, and hes packed his heart in ice, to be honest, and no ones quite thawed it.

I think the world is ready for it, he added, and if it isnt, it bloody well should be.

Though he added that he has no idea whether the aforementioned relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald would be explored in a future movie (there are three more to come in the planned series).

The movie is out now across the UK.

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Chris Pratt has dual roles in Lego Movie 2




Central American migrants moving in a caravan towards the United States - AFP

A federal judge on Monday put a temporary halt to a Trump administration order denying the possibility of asylum to people who enter the US illegally.

Donald Trump, the US president, issued the proclamation earlier this month as a matter of what he called national security as a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants made its way through Mexico toward the US border.

Jon Tigar, a US District Judge in San Francisco, issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump proclamation, thus granting a request from human rights groups who had sued shortly after the order was announced.

Under the proclamation, Trump said only people who enter the US at official checkpoints - as opposed to sneaking across the border - can apply for asylum.

Judge Tigar wrote that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 states that any foreigner who arrives in the US, "whether or not at a designated port of arrival," may apply for asylum.

"The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress," Tigar wrote.

At the border between the US and Mexico - where President Trump had hoped to ban asylum applications at unofficial entry points Credit: Guillermo Arias / AFP

"Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," Tigar added.

The judge's restraining order remains in effect until the court decides on the case.

Trump's administration has argued that he has the executive power to curb immigration in the name of national security - a power he invoked right after taking office last year with a controversial ban on travelers from several mostly Muslim countries.

The final version of the order was upheld by the US Supreme Court on June 26 after a protracted legal battle.

When the new policy was announced by the Department of Homeland Security on November 8, a senior administration official said it would address what he called the "historically unparalleled abuse of our immigration system" along the border with Mexico.

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Administration officials say anyone who manages to get across can request asylum and subsequently often vanish while their case sits in the court system.

"The vast majority of these applications eventually turn out to be non-meritorious," a senior administration official said, asking not to be identified.

A wire barrier has been created on the river bank of the Rio Grande River, on the border between Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico Credit: Thomas Watkins/AFP

Less than 10 percent of cases result in asylum being granted, the government says.

Human rights campaigners and other critics of the Trump crackdown say that by restricting asylum seekers to border crossing points - which are already under enormous pressure - the government is effectively shutting the door on people who may truly be fleeing for their lives.

"The government cannot abdicate its responsibility towards migrants fleeing harm," the New York Immigration Coalition advocacy group said.

But the administration official argued that "what we're attempting to do is trying to funnel credible fear claims, or asylum claims, through the ports of entry where we are better resourced."

That way, he said, courts will "handle those claims in an expeditious and efficient manner, so that those who do actually require an asylum protection get those protections."

In 2018, border patrols registered more than 400,000 illegal border crossers, homeland security said. And in the last five years, the number of those requesting asylum has increased by 2,000 percent, it said.
Senators have demanded that Donald Trump investigate what role, if any, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman played in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Two senior senators invoked the Magnitsky Act in an attempt to force the president to determine whether the prince was involved in the Washington Post columnists death at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The law, named after slain Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, allows the US government to impose sanctions against a foreign person determined to have been responsible for human rights violations.

Bob Menendez, a Democrat, wrote to Mr Trump alongside Republican Bob Corker in an update to a 10 October demand for a sanctions determination. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, Mr Menendez tweeted. The senators said they expected Mr Trump to make his determination within the 120-day deadline triggered last month.

In light of recent developments, including the Saudi governments acknowledgement that Saudi officials killed Mr Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, we request that your determination specifically address whether crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible, the pair wrote.

While Mr Trump has denounced Khashoggis killing as an unacceptable and horrible crime he has also made clear he does not want to punish Saudi Arabia for it.

Following a series of shifting denials, Riyadh eventually admitted Saudi operatives intentionally killed the columnist, but has insisted the Crown Prince was not involved.

Mr Trump has rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tough response, and dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that the crown prince must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!, the president said in a statement.

He has suggested that the kingdoms spending power and its opposition to Iran are his main concerns. He said in a statement laden with exclamation points and beginning with his trademark phrase America First! that Riyadh planned to invest some $450bn (350bn) in the US thanks to his diplomatic efforts.

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It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth, he said on Tuesday, giving top billing to purchases of military equipment from big guns Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

Mr Trump told reporters at the White House that oil prices would skyrocket if the US broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish.

He also praised the kingdom as a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.

The US has previously sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the 2 October killing of Mr Khashoggi, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Mr Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts would merely benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Asked by a reporter on Tuesday if he was saying that human rights were too expensive to fight for, he said: No, Im not saying that at all.

Mr Menendez tweeted a direct criticism of the presidents reasoning after sending his letter. He said: The fact is we cannot allow exaggerated profits from weapons sales and other business deals to drive our foreign policy at the expense of our broader interests, human rights, and promoting values that will make us secure over the long-term.

We know countries that observe democracy and human rights are less likely to go to war, less likely to draw American troops into battle, and better for global stability. In other words, when we stand up for democracy and human rights, we ARE putting America First.

Mr Corker tweeted that Maybe he did and maybe he didnt wont cut it. He added: I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Turkeys foreign minister also appeared to rebuke Mr Trump during a trip to Washington, saying Khashoggis slaying should not be covered up for the sake of maintaining trade ties with Riyadh..

Mevlut Cavusoglu also told Turkish journalists that Saudi Arabias cooperation over the investigation into the killing is not at the desired level. He added that Turkey would take formal steps to seek an international investigation if it reaches an impasse with Riyadh.

He added: This is a humanitarian issue. It concerns a murder. It is not possible to say our trade will increase, lets cover this up, lets ignore it.

Irans foreign minister mocked the president's announcement that he did not intend to punish the Saudi leadership. In a tweet sent late on Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that Mr Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of.

He went on to joke that perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests - just like the Finns do?

Mr Trump has said he plans to meet with Mr bin Salman at the G20 summit in Argentina in December.

Additional reporting by agencies




Watch the full episode 12 of Yahoo UKs The Royal Box here from Friday 23 November.

Prince Charles would have tried to stop former Prime Minister Tony Blair going to war in Iraq if hed been king at the time.

Charles level of political meddling has been the subject of widespread debate ahead of him becoming king when the Queen dies. Last week, he took the step of assuring the public he would be a hands-off monarch.

And royal biographer Robert Jobson, the author of Charles at Seventy, tells Yahoo UKs The Royal Box the prince would have made it more difficult for Mr Blair than the Queen.

I dont believe that had he been king when Blair took us to war in Iraq, that it would have been such an easy ride, he said.

The prince was very, very critical of Blair over it at the time and used to refer to him as our magnificent leader in a mocking tone and actually said to his closest people, how on earth did Mr Blair take us to war knowing what he knew?

The Chilcot report found that the decision to join the US-led invasion was taken before all other options had been exhausted and on the basis of false intelligence.

Former Labour leader Blair faced particular criticism after pledging to support President George W. Bush in the run-up to the wear whatever happened and failing to ensure there was a flexible, realistic and fully resourced plan.

The Prince of Wales and Tony Blair (PA)

More than 151,000 Iraqis had died and 179 British soldiers were killed by the time most British troops had withdrawn in 2009.

Charles recently revealed in the BBC programme Prince, Son & Heir, to mark his milestone birthday, that he wont speak out on issues he feels strongly about when he becomes king.

Acknowledging that some people have accused him of meddling in the past, for his views on topics such as the environment or architecture, he said: But I always wonder what meddling is, I mean I always thought it was motivating but Ive always been intrigued, if its meddling to worry about the inner cities as I did 40 years ago and what was happening or not happening there.

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The conditions in which people were living. If thats meddling Im very proud of it.

When asked whether Charles will be a good monarch, Jobson says: I think he will be somebody that will definitely in his role as king keep ministers and prime ministers on their toes.




Following an E. coli bacterial outbreak in 11 states and Canada that has sickened 32 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a stern warning Tuesday: Do not eat romaine lettuce.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, CDC officials say they are acting out of an abundance of caution as they investigate. The reported E. coli infections began between Oct. 8 and Oct. 31, but officials said there may be even more because it takes an average of two to three weeks for illnesses to be reported.

No deaths have been reported, although 13 of those affected were sick enough to be hospitalized and one person developed kidney failure.

Heres what you need to know about the outbreak:

Whats wrong with romaine lettuce, exactly?

The CDC is still investigating, but the agency announced that E. coli O157:H7, a strain of E. coli that produces a harmful toxin, has been linked to romaine lettuce.

The bacterial strain comes from cow feces and was first recognized as a pathogen in 1982. It contaminates the human food supply several ways, such as through unsanitary irrigation or spraying, flooding, or animals who carry the bacteria onto farmland. A 2006 E. coli outbreak linked to spinach  which sickened hundreds  was caused by wild pigs wandering between cow pastures and spinach fields in California.

How do I know if Im infected?

People who become sick with E. coli experience stomach cramps or pains, mild to severe diarrhea, and sometimes nausea or vomiting.

A fraction of those affected  5 to 10 percent  also experience kidney failure, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can be life-threatening. Symptoms include a lower frequency of urination, feeling very tired and losing the pink color in your cheeks, the CDC says.

Most people begin feeling sick three to four days after eating or drinking something that has the bacteria in it, although illness can begin anywhere from one to 10 days after consuming the contaminated food.

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Usually, symptoms clear up within five to seven days, but the most severe cases can lead to death.

I think I have an E. coli infection. What do I do?

Call your doctor, who may ask you to confirm the diagnosis with a stool sample. You are also asked to report your illness to state health departments, which in turn report to the CDC. A list of state health departments can be found here.

Romaine lettuce at a California grocery store. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you throw away any romaine lettuce you have. (Photo: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

What should I do with the romaine lettuce I have?

Throw it away, the CDC said, even if people in your household have eaten some of it and no one seems to be sick. Baby romaine, spring mixes and Caesar salad mixes could all be affected, too.

Dont order it at a restaurant, either, although restaurants have already been advised not to serve romaine or any lettuce mix containing romaine.

The CDC also recommends sanitizing your refrigerator by removing all the food, washing and drying removable parts, and cleaning the interior. A guide can be found here.

Where did the outbreak start?

Officials arent sure yet. Thats why the warning covers romaine all over the country.

When can I eat romaine again?

The CDC has yet to identify any grower, supplier, distributor or brand of romaine lettuce common between those infected. Until then, we should all steer clear of it.

In 2006, officials were able to tell the public which brand was affected (Dole spinach bags) about one week after first announcing the outbreak.

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Romaine Lettuce Is Unsafe To Eat, Should Be Thrown Out: CDC

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Seoul (AFP) - South Korea on Wednesday announced the formal shutdown of a controversial Japanese-funded foundation created to help former wartime sex slaves -- a move that will further sour ties between the neighbours.

It sparked a sharp reaction from Tokyo, which summoned the South Korean ambassador and urged Seoul to respect its "international promise".

The issue of the women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during the Second World War -- so-called "comfort women" -- is a highly emotional one that has marred the relationship between South Korea and its former colonial ruler Japan for decades.

Despite both being democracies, market economies and US allies which have to contend with the twin threats of an overbearing China and nuclear-armed North Korea, ties between Seoul and Tokyo are heavily coloured by disputes over history and territory.

The foundation was created as a result of a controversial 2015 bilateral deal, in which Tokyo transferred 1 billion yen ($8.8 million at current exchange rates) as compensation for the victims and Seoul agreed not to raise the issue again.

But the agreement -- finalised by former South Korean President Park Geun-hye as the US sought to repair its key Asian allies' relationship -- angered some victims who described it as falling short of holding Japan responsible for wartime abuses.

Park's successor and current president Moon Jae-in condemned the deal and his administration earlier this year vowed to return the money to Japan, while falling short of repudiating the pact.

"We... will take legal steps to formally dissolve the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation," said Seoul's gender equality ministry, which oversees the body.

"We have... decided to end the project based on the result of our reviews and current circumstances around the foundation," it said in a statement, adding it would seek to find a "reasonable way to handle" the remaining money sent by Japan.

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Tokyo reacted strongly, demanding South Korea honour the pact or risk tarnishing its reputation.

"The Japan-South Korea agreement of three years ago was the final and irreversible resolution," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo.

"If an international promise is broken, it becomes impossible to keep ties between one country and another. I hope that South Korea, as a member of the international community, will take a responsible action," Abe said.

The foreign ministry in Tokyo summoned the South Korean ambassador to explain the move.

Dozens of victims or their families have claimed 4.4 billion won ($3.9 million) from the foundation since its inception in 2016. The South's government has since covered the expense with its own funding.

Mainstream historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea but also from other parts of Asia including China, were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers.

Many South Koreans harbour resentment over Tokyo's brutal 1910-45 occupation of the peninsula, and the two nations are embroiled in a territorial row as well over Seoul-controlled islets also claimed by Japan.
By Benet Koleka TIRANA (Reuters) - Kosovo on Wednesday raised customs tariffs on Serbian and Bosnian goods from 10 to 100 percent after Serbia blocked its former province from joining Interpol, the international police organization. Its retaliation, which was criticized by the European Union, also required authorities to remove or prevent from entering any goods that did not address Kosovo by its constitutional name, Republic of Kosovo, which Serbia and Bosnia do not recognize. "This will halt any trade between Serbia and Kosovo," Serbia's Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said. President Aleksandar Vucic called a meeting of Serbia's National Security Council to review the tariffs. Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia - along with Albania, Montenegro and Moldova - are part of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) set up to help ex-communist states harmonize their economic and legal systems with EU demands. The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said Kosovo's move was a clear violation of CEFTA and of the spirit of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Union and Kosovo. "The Kosovo government has to immediately revoke these decisions," Mogherini said in a statement. Bosnia's Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Minister Mirko Sarovic said: "This is the biggest blow to the regional free trade zone." According to official figures, Serbia's exports to Kosovo amounted to 440 million euros ($500 million), while imports amounted to 21 million euros. Bosnia's exports to Kosovo reached 80 million euros last year. Two weeks ago Kosovo imposed a 10 percent import tax on goods coming from Serbia and Bosnia. The European Union has urged Pristina to reverse that decision. Kosovo's mostly ethnic Albanian population declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a NATO bombing campaign to end the killing of Albanian civilians by Serb forces during a two-year insurgency. It is now recognized by more than 110 nations but not by Serbia, Russia or five EU states. Belgrade and Moscow have blocked Kosovo from joining the United Nations. In 2013 both countries agreed to an EU-sponsored dialogue to resolve outstanding issues, but little progress has been made. Kosovo blamed a campaign by Serbia for its failure to join Interpol and said Serbia was against normalizing relations, key for both countries if they are to join the European Union. Bosnia also voted against Kosovo's membership. "The government has decided to impose a tax of 100 percent on imported goods coming from Serbia and Bosnia," Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said. (Additional reporting by Maja Zuvela in Sarajevo and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alison Williams)
A herd of ponies is seen roaming the streets in the Nuwara Eliya which frequently obstructs traffic driving in the area. Residents of the area and motorists said that continual representations by them in this regard to the Municipal Council had fallen on deaf ears. Pic by Shelton Hettiarachchi
Making foie gras (fattened liver) involves the controversial force-feeding of ducks or geese with more food than they would eat normally. Photo: Getty

Leader Jeremy Corbyn may have avoided setting out the kind of deal he wants with the EU, but at least one plank of Labours Brexit vision is now clear  banning foie gras imports.

The party tried to add a complete ban to Brexit farming legislation in the House of Commons on Tuesday, with one MP arguing it was why some people voted to leave the EU.

Foie gras production is banned in the UK, but French imports of the product, made from force-fed geese and ducks, cannot be stopped under the rules of the European single market. The Labour amendment failed to pass, but a Conservative minister said the government may consider a ban in future, depending on the deal negotiated with the EU over Britains departure.

Labour MP David Drew told parliament: If we ban production here, why are we still allowing imports to a very small number of establishments that still condone something that we would put at the extremes of animal cruelty?

It is one of the things that certain people prayed in aid of the advantage of leaving the EUthat is, that we could bring about some of these animal welfare changes. It was a crucial argument. It was not quite as big an argument as the 350m-a-week for the NHS, but it was nevertheless an argument, added the shadow minister for the environment, food and rural affairs.

Duck foie gras on sale in Perigueux, southwestern France. Photo: Patrick Bernard/AFP/Getty Images

George Eustice, a minister at the department for environment, food and rural affairs, agreed it was an important ethical issue, and told MPs that production had been illegal in the UK since 1911. But he said French products had been called ethical foie gras, adding that the geese were not force-fed.

It would be an option for a government, depending on the nature of the agreement we finally have with the EU, to ban the import of foie gras, in much the same way as India does, but I do not believe the Bill is the right place for it, he added.

The environment secretary Michael Gove had raised hopes of such a ban earlier this year, after Labour included the idea among 50 proposals to improve animal welfare. But he admitted in July that France may block any trade agreement that included a ban, in a bid to protect its farmers.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Pic: Reuters

The leader of Northern Irelands Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), long considered a close ally of the UK Labour party, has lambasted Jeremy Corbyn for his stance on the Brexit deal, calling it extremely bizarre and strategically poor.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Colum Eastwood said that Corbyns continued opposition to the draft Brexit withdrawal agreement on the grounds that it could result in a border down the Irish Sea was both wrong and disingenuous.

Eastwood was responding to statements made on Wednesday by Corbyn in the House of Commons, in which he asked prime minister Theresa May why she agreed to a deal that could create such a border.

To be clear, this deal does not involve a customs border in the Irish Sea, Eastwood said. There will be additional regulatory checks for some goods coming to Northern Ireland from Britain. There will be none going from Northern Ireland to Britain. This hardly constitutes a border in the Irish Sea, he said.

The SDLP has been clear: this deal is not perfect but it does offer us an insurance policy. The backstop protects us from a hard border and offers us a best of both worlds position in terms of trade.

Eastwood was echoing the views of Northern Ireland business organisations, who have mostly welcomed the deal and warned that a no-deal Brexit would be detrimental to the regions economy.

READ MORE: Varadkar says DUP does not want best of both worlds Brexit deal

The SDLP informally takes the Labour whip in the House of Commons, and was traditionally supported in Northern Ireland for many years by Labour, which has never officially contested elections there.

Corbyn told a leading UK business organisation on Monday that Labour would reject Mays botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal and demand a general election.

The Labour leader said that his alternative plan would involve a sensible jobs-first deal, and would avert a hard border in Northern Ireland.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (all times local):

3:10 p.m.

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is lashing out at President Donald Trump after the president argued that cancelling Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to U.S. defense companies would only benefit Russia and China.

Some of Trump's GOP colleagues have warned that not punishing Saudi Arabia for its role in killing a U.S.-based columnist will have dangerous consequences.

Critics have accused the president of ignoring human rights and giving the kingdom a pass for economic reasons.

Trump said his rationale for his decision was "America First."

Gabbard tweeted Wednesday that "being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First.'"

Messages left with the Hawaii Democrat's office seeking further comment were not immediately returned.

___

8:45 a.m.

President Donald Trump is thanking Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices amid criticism over his decision not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (jah-MAHL' khahr-SHOHK'-jee).

Trump tweeted Wednesday from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida it's "Great!" oil prices are getting lower and it's "Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World."

The international crude benchmark has fallen under $65 per barrel from a four-year high of more than $86 in October as the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia have increased output.

Trump writes, "Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!"

Trump made clear Tuesday he believes the benefits of good relations with the Saudis outweigh the possibility the kingdom's crown prince ordered Khashoggi's killing in Turkey. Critics say Trump is ignoring human rights.

Saudi prosecutors say agents sent to Istanbul dismembered Khashoggi's body.

___

3 a.m.

Turkey's foreign minister says the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi should not be covered up for the sake of maintaining trade ties with Saudi Arabia.

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Mevlut Cavusoglu also told Turkish journalists during a visit to Washington that Saudi Arabia's cooperation over the investigation into the killing is not "at the desired level." He added that Turkey would take formal steps to seek an international investigation if it reaches an "impasse" with Riyadh.

His comments came Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump made clear that the benefits of good relations with Saudi Arabia outweigh the possibility that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

Cavusoglu said: "This is a humanitarian issue. It concerns a murder. It is not possible to say 'our trade will increase, let's cover this up, let's ignore it.'"

___

1:40 a.m.

Iran's foreign minister has mocked President Donald Trump's announcement that he will not punish the Saudi leadership for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate last month.

In a tweet sent late Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that Trump "bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of."

He went on to joke that "perhaps we're also responsible for the California fires, because we didn't help rake the forests just like the Finns do?"

He appeared to be referring to recent remarks in which Trump suggested raking the forest floor prevented fires in Finland and would have helped to prevent California's devastating wildfires.

Trump has adopted a hardline stance on Iran since taking office, withdrawing from the landmark 2015 nuclear accord and imposing tough sanctions against the country. The White House views Saudi Arabia as a key partner in confronting Iran.

___

12:30 a.m.

President Donald Trump is defying calls from U.S. lawmakers to punish the Saudi crown prince for the slaying of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump made clear Tuesday that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says it's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia.

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Trump, also disagreed with the president, saying America must not lose its "moral voice" on the international stage.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the crown prince must have at least known about the plot to kill Khashoggi.
ATLANTA (AP)  School officials didn't believe a Georgia high school student and illegally retaliated against her after she reported that she was sexually assaulted by another student, according to a civil rights lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in Atlanta on behalf of the teen, who is identified only as "Jane Doe." It accuses Gwinnett County Public Schools officials of violating her rights under Title IX, a 1972 law that bars discrimination based on sex in schools that receive federal money.

The school district hadn't received the lawsuit Monday and couldn't comment, spokeswoman Sloan Roach said in an email.

The alleged attacker, who was a minor at the time, is not identified in the lawsuit.

Adele Kimmel, a lawyer with legal advocacy group Public Justice, which is representing Doe, said a complaint filed in August 2015 with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has been investigated but remains unresolved.

"We did not have confidence that this would get resolved in a way that would hold the school district accountable given the changes in policy in this administration," Kimmel said, explaining why they filed suit.

They had alleged systemic problems in the way Gwinnett County school officials handle sexual assault and harassment reports from students, but the Education Department now focuses on individual incidents rather than investigating the possibility of systemic problems, Kimmel said.

While the lawsuit asks for monetary damages, it also seeks policy and training changes, Kimmel said.

"What's most important to her is that she does not want this to happen to any other student," Kimmel said of the now-19-year-old Doe.

Shortly after classes ended for the day at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee on Feb. 4, 2015, the 16-year-old sophomore was waiting for her mother to pick her up when a male student asked if she wanted to go see the school's television network's room.

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Once there, the male student groped Doe and started to pull down her pants, the lawsuit says. She pushed him away and said, "No, stop!" and "What are you doing?"

He pushed her into a chair, forcibly kissed her and forced her to perform oral sex, the lawsuit says. When he eventually released her, she fled and went to meet her mother.

The male student sent a text message to a friend saying he felt "guilty" about doing something he shouldn't have done, the lawsuit says.

Doe told two teachers she trusted at the start of classes the next day, and one of them took her to meet with the school resource officer.

The officer and three assistant principals questioned her, asking her to repeat the details of the alleged assault multiple times and having her re-enact it, the lawsuit says.

The officer asked what she was wearing, whether she screamed, why she didn't bite the male student's penis and whether she was sure she hadn't wanted to have oral sex, the lawsuit says.

Doe was initially suspended pending a disciplinary hearing, after which she was suspended again.

During the joint disciplinary hearing for the two students, attorneys for the male student and for the school grilled her, the lawsuit says.

The school's attorney said he didn't believe Doe and that the male student's claim that the encounter was consensual was more credible because Doe hadn't screamed louder, had no physical injuries and didn't tell her mother immediately afterward, the lawsuit says.

School officials determined both students had violated the sexual misconduct policy.

When she returned from suspension, Doe dreaded running into her alleged attacker and was bullied by other students, the lawsuit says.

She eventually withdrew from the school before the end of her sophomore year, and her family left Gwinnett County "to escape unbearable hostility and retaliation in the community."

The lawsuit says school officials retaliated against the girl, failed to properly investigate and failed to correct a hostile educational environment. It also says the school district failed to properly train employees and implement policies to deal with sexual assaults.

Public Justice has gotten other calls about mishandling of sexual assault and harassment cases in Gwinnett and is looking into those, Kimmel said. She noted that the school district was the defendant in a landmark 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said Title IX does allow for monetary damages.

In that case, the school officials were accused of not doing anything after a student reported sexual harassment by a teacher.

"In my view, decades later, Gwinnett County Public Schools is still failing to properly handle students' reports of sexual assault and harassment," Kimmel said.
Paris (AFP) - African museum directors on Wednesday welcomed an expert report calling on France to allow the return of thousands of African treasures and artworks, a radical policy shift that could put pressure on other former colonial powers.

Calls have been growing in Africa for restitution, but French law strictly forbids the government from ceding state property, even in well-documented cases of pillaging.

French President Emmanuel Macron raised hopes in a speech last year in Burkina Faso, saying "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums."

He later asked French art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr to study the matter, and they are to present Macron with their report on Friday.

According to a copy seen by AFP, they recommend amending French law to allow the restitution of cultural works if bilateral accords are struck between France and African states.

The change would apply in particular to works held in museums which were "transferred from their original territory during the French colonial period," the report said.

"We propose changing heritage laws so that all types of cases can be taken into account, and the criteria of consent can be invoked," Sarr told French daily Liberation in an article posted late Tuesday.

The report was welcomed by advocates of the restitution of works which were bought, bartered or in some cases simply stolen.

"Today it feels as if we're just a step away from recovering our history and being finally able to share it on the continent," Marie-Cecile Zinsou, a daughter of Benin's former prime minister and president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Cotonou, told AFP.

Her sentiments were echoed by Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilization in Senegal's capital Dakar.

Noting that the works under discussion were taken "in the context of colonisation and subordination," he said: "It's a good decision that reflects the march of history."

Story continues

- Art dealers worried -

While the ownership controversy is nothing new, the issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2016 when President Patrice Talon of Benin asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.

France refused, citing its law that museums are forbidden from permanently parting with any piece in their collections.

Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris' Quai Branly museum, created by ex-president Jacques Chirac, a keen admirer of African and Asian art.

In order to proceed with any restitutions, "a request would have to be lodged by an African country, based on inventory lists which we will have sent them," according to the report.

The prospect has raised hackles among some curators and art dealers who say it would eventually empty museums and galleries in some Western countries.

They point to the fact that many objects came from kingdoms which no longer exist, and that in many cases the owners can claim they were obtained legitimately.

Critics also say the move could prompt private French collectors to move their works out of France for fear of seizure.

"No dealer in African art was consulted" by the report's authors, said Yves-Bernard Debie, a Belgian lawyer who is one of the most vocal opponents of returning works taken by soldiers, explorers and others during the colonial era.

European conservationists meanwhile have raised practical concerns, such as the danger of artefacts being stolen or poorly handled by inexperienced museums in politically unstable countries.

But the report's authors said art market professionals were indeed among those who contributed to the report, along with collectors, lawmakers, legal specialists and even "sceptics".

- Dispersed heritage -

Britain too has faced calls to return artefacts, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.

On Tuesday, the governor of Easter Island in the Pacific tearfully begged the British Museum to return one of its famous statues.

The London museum has held the Hoa Hakananai'a, one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island's stone monoliths, for 150 years.

Elsewhere in Europe, the French experts said 37,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa were at Vienna's Weltmuseum and 180,000 were at Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

The report said such collections were effectively depriving Africans of their artistic and cultural heritage.

"On a continent where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 20 years old, what is first and foremost of a great importance is for young people to have access to their own culture, creativity, and spirituality from other eras," it said.
Antananarivo (AFP) - Madagascan presidential hopeful Marc Ravalomanana on Wednesday withdrew his legal complaints over alleged irregularities in the first round of the election, his lawyer said.

Neither Ravalomanana nor his arch-rival Andry Rajoelina -- both former presidents -- won the 50 percent of votes required for a first-round victory in the November 7 ballot. A run-off vote is scheduled for December 19.

"For the peace and sovereignty of Madagascar, the TIM (Ravalomanana's party) have decided to withdraw all their complaints," Hasina Andrianadisaona, Ravalomanana's lawyer, told reporters.

Rajoelina took 39.19 percent of the first-round vote and Ravalomanana took 35.29 percent.

Rajoelina has lodged complaints with the courts and accused election officials of "manipulation".

The election commission issued a statement in response to Rajoelina's allegations insisting that it had "ensured the transparency of the electoral system at all times".

Hery Rajaonarimampianina, who is seeking to hold on to power, secured only 8.84 percent in the first round.

Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries, according to World Bank data, with almost four in five people living in grinding poverty.

The former French colony off the southeastern coast of Africa also has a long history of political instability and coups.
Photo: Reuters

The worlds sixth largest accountancy firm Grant Thornton faces a probe over its auditing of Patisserie Holdings (CAKE.L), the owner of the Patisserie Valerie brand.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said in a statement that is also investigating how Christopher Marsh, the UK cafe chains former chief financial officer, prepared and approved the firms financial statements.

Marsh resigned last month after an accounting black hole was discovered, raising fears over 2,500 jobs and the future of Patisserie Valerie branches across the UK. Patisserie Holdings chief executive Paul May also stepped down immediately last week.

Now Grant Thornton finds itself in the spotlight over the accounting scandal. Its auditing of the troubled cafe chains financial statements across three years  2015, 2016 and 2017  is now being investigated by the FRC.

Patisserie Holdings has been under heavy pressure since reports emerged last month that twice as many shares had been issued as the number disclosed in official filings.

It warned that core earnings for the current financial year would be 12m ($15.3m), 60% lower than expected. Its shares have been suspended for more than a month. Former finance director Marsh was arrested before being released on bail, and has since left the company.

CAKE.L shares. Chart: Yahoo Finance UK

The UK Serious Fraud Office also said last month that it had launched its own criminal investigation into an unnamed individual over the scandal. The company was only prevented from collapse by a 20m cash injection from its chairman, the entrepreneur Luke Johnson.

Stephen Francis, the former CEO of British pork producer Tulip Ltd, was unveiled as Mays replacement last week. Patisserie Holdings described him as a turnaround specialist.

The board looks forward to working with him in the revival of the business, said chairman Luke Johnson on 15 November.

Meanwhile, the probe comes after Grant Thornton unveiled Dave Dunckley, a member of its strategic leadership team, as the new CEO for its UK arm on Monday.

The accountancy giant said last month that its current CEO, Sacha Romanovitch, would leave by the end of the year, calling it a logical next step to create long-term sustainable profits for the firm without giving further details.
As "antique" gold coins from the Middle East pour into the United States, some looters are turning to spirits called "jinn" in their hunt for gold treasure. A few gold seekers even go so far as to try to get the jinn to possess them in hopes that the spirits will guide them to that hidden jackpot.

However, research by archaeologists and an investigation conducted by Live Science suggest that rarely, if ever, does using the jinn help looters find gold artifacts. Rather, metal detectors and mass excavation of archaeological sites seem to be the most effective ways of looting treasure. [7 Stunning Archaeological Sites in Syria]

Gold fever

Throughout the Middle East, looters have raided numerous archaeological sites over the past two decades. This theft is driven by multiple factors, including war, poverty and demand for artifacts, archaeologists have said.

U.S. government documents obtained by Live Science reveal that shipments of gold coins, which the records describe as being over 100 years old, shipped from the Middle East to the United States, have increased dramatically over the last 25 years. In fact, between 2011 and 2017, nearly 452 lbs. (205,000 grams) of these gold coins were shipped to the U.S. from the Middle East, compared with just 10.8 lbs. (4,900 grams) between 1992 and 2000.

That weight, 452 lbs., is the equivalent of more than 36,000 modern-day U.S. quarters, according to the U.S. Mint. It's not clear how many of the gold coins were looted. [30 of the World's Most Valuable Treasures That Are Still Missing]

Archaeologists working in the Middle East told Live Science that looters, as well as people not involved in looting, strongly believe that gold treasure  be it coins or otherwise  waits to be found in the region. Many looters think that the Ottoman Empire (which existed between 1299 and 1922) left behind gold as it retreated from parts of the Middle East.

"There's this big lore about Ottoman gold being left behind when the Ottomans left the area," said Morag Kersel, an anthropology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, who investigates the antiquities trade as part of her research. Kersel has talked to looters who operate in Israel, Palestine and Jordan. "They're always on the hunt for that."

Story continues

Spirit possession

Kersel and Salah Al-Houdalieh, an archaeology professor at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, have both noted that looters are particularly interested in jinn. This type of spirit, according to legends told in the Middle East, guards "protected treasure," usually consisting of gold.

"According to my interviews with sheikhs [individuals with religious knowledge] and antiquities looters, yes, of course, [they believe] most of the protected treasures are made of gold and the majority of the gold is coins," Al-Houdalieh told Live Science.

The sheikhs Al-Houdalieh interviewed said that "usually protection [for a treasure] is sought by the original owner who makes the request to a sorcerer ('saher') experienced in such matters. The sorcerer, in turn, summons his contact from the jinn world, usually the prince or princess of one of the jinn tribes [according to legend tribes consisting entirely of jinn exist]" wrote Al-Houdalieh in a paper published in 2012 in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology. If the owner dies, the jinn continue guarding the treasure, the sheikhs and looters told Al-Houdalieh.

In some instances, looters will try to get jinn to possess them, or someone with them, in hopes that the jinn will take the gold seekers to protected treasure, Al-Houdalieh's research found. The looter will hire a sheikh who will perform a ceremony that supposedly results in jinn possession.

"For the sheikhs, it is business. Either they receive money in advance, which is very rare, or they receive money after selling the hunted objects. They receive a share of 20 percent or more, depending on the deal they made," Al-Houdalieh told Live Science. During the spirit-possession ceremony, the sheikhs "read special verses of the Holy Quran," said Al-Houdalieh, adding that he has seen no evidence that hypnosis or drugs are used.

The looters who undergo spirit possession claim that they experience memory loss. From what the looters say, "there is a temporary loss of memory, but repeated possession by jinn may cause permanent negative impact on the behavior of the possessed person," Al-Houdalieh said. He's careful to note that in all instances he has seen, the supposedly possessed person fails to find gold treasure.

Looters believe they can interact with the jinn in other ways, too, Al-Houdalieh and Kersel said. In some cases, looters will search for signs in the landscape that the jinn has hidden treasure nearby. In other cases, looters claim that they are attacked by jinn when they enter an area that has treasure the jinn are protecting. Some of the looters that Al-Houdalieh has interviewed claim that the jinn can take both animal and human form and attack people when they get close to a protected treasure  with the spirits dressing in white clothes when they appear in human form.

In some stories, the jinn communicate through a young child or a sign that the jinn supposedly leave on a stone. "I have heard from folks that the jinn themselves haven't come to them but [instead] through a 5-year-old boy, or through someone else, or through a sign that's left on the stone [so that] they know that the jinn are telling them to dig here," Kersel said.

Al-Houdalieh noted a case in which a sheikh supposedly had a jinn possess a child, who then allegedly gave the location of treasure before the sheikh told the jinn to leave the child's body. Six looters used the information the child had given, but they never found that treasure.

Live Science investigation

Curious to learn more about this connection between looters and the jinn, I launched my own investigation. I joined an online social media group in which people who try to use the jinn to find treasure often congregate, and then I monitored the group for two months. I found that many of the people who use the jinn to look for treasure are based in Israel, Palestine or Jordan.

The people I encountered were particularly interested in what they claimed to be "signals" from the jinn. The users often posted photos and videos of features they encountered in caves or hillsides that they believed, if analyzed correctly, would lead to hidden treasure. These features often show fractures or holes on a rock surface. Those who posted the photos often asked for "expert analysis" from people in the group. On a few occasions, people found rock art or stone structures that are actual archaeological remains, but the users believed the sites to be "signals" from the jinn.

Some people posted about looting issues other than those involving the jinn, such as how to buy a metal detector in Jordan or how to recruit an expert who is knowledgeable about archaeological remains. One post discussed safety issues when trying to loot a site, such as how to tell when oxygen is running out in a cave (a candle going out is a supposedly a good indication) and how to crawl through tunnels without getting stuck. Members of the group rarely discussed spirit possession.

People sometimes posted pictures of artifacts, such as pottery, that they claimed to have found, with the help of the jinn or otherwise. But I found no evidence that anyone in the group had succeeded in uncovering gold artifacts while seeking the jinn's help. Al-Houdalieh found similar failures with the jinn.

How do looters really find gold coins?

Regardless of the jinn, gold artifacts are rarely found at archaeological sites, noted Kersel in an article published this summer in News & Notes, a magazine published by The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Given how hard it is to find actual ancient gold coins, people sometimes create forgeries. In Egypt, modern-day gold is sometimes molded into coins that are made to look ancient. "A lot of local jewelers fake gold coins and sell them as antiquities," Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist working with Egypt's Heritage Task Force, told Live Science in 2016.

When looters in the Middle East do find gold coins, the treasure hunters seem to have used metal detectors rather than the jinn. In a paper published last year in the Journal of Field Archaeology, researchers Neil Brodie and Isber Sabrine interviewed six people living in Syria who either are involved in looting or have extensive knowledge of looting activities.

Those interviewed said that metal detectors or massive work gangs that could dig up vast areas of an archaeological site quickly were used to look for coins and sometimes gold coins were discovered. The researchers granted the six people they interviewed anonymity to protect their identity and to allow them to speak freely.

One of the people the researchers interviewed claimed that a hoard of Roman gold coins found at the archaeological site of Tell Hamamiat was sold, along with some figurines, for $150,000 in the town of Al Madiq [also called Qalaat al-Madiq] in Syria. [Photos: Damage to Syrian Ruins Seen from Space]

"What stands out now from these interview texts is the use of metal detectors and the commercial importance of coins," wrote Brodie, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, and Sabrine, a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Girona in Spain, in their journal article. Coins are "very easy to loot, very easy to move and very easy to hide" Sabrine told Live Science.

Sabrine said that while he hasn't heard stories of people in Syria using the jinn to find gold treasures, it is possible. Regardless of which method looters use to find artifacts, Sabrine said that some of the most interesting looted artifacts from Syria may not appear on the antiquities market until years after the civil war in Syria ends. The war has been raging since 2011 and has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions of Syrians to flee their homes.

Originally published on Live Science.
SLMCs Rauf Hakeem has insisted that President Sirisena should attend the next session in parliament and be seated next to the Prime Minister with the view of finding a solution to the political cisis (Photo Reuters)

When sanity prevailed among legislators last Friday (November 16), most people assumed that the dust had settled and the country would wriggle out of the current imbroglio. Actually, it looked calm only in the relative sense. In absolute sense, the crisis is still simmering, but manifesting in different forms, unlike the rowdy scenes that broke out inside the Chamber of Parliament the previous days.

The passing of two no- confidence motions in Parliament amid violent protests did not serve the intended purpose of getting the current Cabinet dissolved because President Maithripala Sirisena declined, in clear- cut terms, to accept it on the basis that the due procedure was not adhered to. Also, he drove home the point during his meetings with the movers of the no confidence motion that United National Party (UNP) Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would not be reappointed as the Prime Minister.

The UNP, backed by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), will not consider yet another no- confidence motion. It has taken up the position that such a motion has already been adopted, and therefore the present Cabinet stands dissolved. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has accepted this position, but President Sirisena does not. Now, the Executive and the Legislature are at loggerheads with each other triggering the crisis to snowball in a different form.

Whatever the court ruling might be, the political parties are getting ready for elections. Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, during its meeting on Tuesday, decided to hold demonstrations throughout the country demanding elections

First, the UNP, backed by the like-minded parties, handed over a motion to cut off financial allocations to the Office of Prime Minister. Parliament will take it up for debate later. It is to be followed by similar motions to stop such allocations to the Cabinet Ministers step by step. Accordingly, trouble is brewing, and the Government would definitely have a hard time in the discharge of its functions.

At a recent party leaders meeting, former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake proposed to move a single motion seeking to cease allocations to the entire Cabinet at once. Nevertheless, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Leader Rauff Hakeem insisted that the whole country would be disrupted in the event of such curtailment of financial allocations to the entire Government. Instead, he asked to do it gradually. So, it will be moved against the Office of Prime Minister first.

Deadlock to continue

There is reason for the current deadlock to remain, or even to exacerbate. Either side cannot back down from its current standings since such an act would be deemed a defeat. No side is ready to accede to defeat ahead of possible elections.

Apparently, the UNP, together with the TNA and the JVP, has the numerical strength in the House. Therefore, it tries to steamroll its way to topple the Government with the overt and covert support of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.

Besides, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) tries to hold on to power only questioning the validity of the UNPs actions with the citations of the Standing Orders and the Constitutions. The UPFA is batting on a bad wicket because it does not have the numbers to face any motion. Also, it faces a problem in retaining some of its MPs who wish to join other sides for electoral gains, in the future.

To cling on to power under such circumstances will be an arduous task for the UPFA as a result. Alongside, pressure is applied from all quarters on the UPFA and the President to accede to the Speakers ruling no matter what.

TNA asks international community to pressurize Govt

As part of efforts to exert pressure on the Government, the TNA, as the main opposition, engaged with the representatives of 15 diplomatic missions in Colombo on Tuesday. India and the United States sent their low level representatives, but most western countries including European Union sent the Heads of their missions.

TNA Leader R. Sampanthan briefed them that his party supported the no confidence on the basis that the Government was unlawful. He requested the foreign envoys, particularly from the western countries, to prevail upon the President to accept the Speakers position to restore democracy in the country.

First, the UNP, backed by the like-minded parties, handed over a motion to cut off financial allocations to the Office of Prime Minister. Parliament will take it up for debate later

In this manner, international pressure will build on the Government in addition to hardships in Parliament from a numerically superior opposition.

The UPFA sees elections as a viable option to break the deadlock. For that, the Supreme Court has to rule on the matter. The court ruling will be announced on December 7.

Whatever the court ruling might be, the political parties are getting ready for elections. Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, during its meeting on Tuesday, decided to hold demonstrations throughout the country demanding elections. Also, it will have public meetings to discuss the current political matters.

Likewise, the UNP is to form a broad alliance with the like-minded parties. It had a meeting on Tuesday to discuss formalities for the registration of this alliance as a new entity.

The parties that will join hands with it straightway are SLMC, JHU, Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) and All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC).

UNP MP Jayampathi Wickramaratne, the architect of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, has been assigned to draft the constitution of the new alliance. SLMC General Secretary Nizam Kariapper and former MP M. Salman are the other two members involved with him in drafting this Constitution.

It is to be controlled by a leadership council instead, not by a single individual as the leader.

The current crisis would drive the country towards a snap General Election at one point. Some parties welcome elections, but others dont. But, no party can oppose an election openly. The UNP fears to go for an election under the present Government. Therefore, the UNP seeks to unseat the Government before elections. Its priority is to topple the Government first and then strike some compromise with the other parties for a general election.

Hakeem requested from the President at last Sundays meeting to attend Parliament and help resolve issues at hand.

The President declined to do so citing his inability to preside over sittings.

I can preside over a ceremonial sitting only, he said.

To cling on to power under such circumstances will be an arduous task for the UPFA as a result. Alongside, pressure is applied from all quarters on the UPFA and the President

But, Hakeem insisted that the President should attend the next session to be seated next to the Prime Minister.

Also, at this meeting, UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella had another message for Prime Minister Rajapaksa.

You are a popular politician. It is bad for you to cling on to power without a parliamentary majority. It is better for you to accede to the defeat and step down, he told Rajapaksa.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) shared a photo of herself wearing a Confederate soldiers hat and holding a rifle in a 2014 Facebook post that resurfaced on Tuesday.

I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi, Hyde-Smith wrote in a caption. Davis was the Confederate president during the Civil War. His former estate now serves as a museum and library in his honor.

This is a must see, Hyde-Smith wrote. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!

The freshman senator is facing Democratic challenger Mike Espy in a Nov. 27 runoff election and has drawn public scrutiny for her racist and off-color comments.

At a campaign stop earlier this month in Tupelo, Mississippi, Hyde-Smith said of a local rancher: If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be on the front row. The comment carried echoes of the Souths racist history of lynchings of African-Americans.

Espy, who could become the states first black senator since the years after the Civil War, called his opponents remarks reprehensible.

Hyde-Smith issued an apology later Tuesday during a debate amid the outcry over both events but accused her critics of twisting her words for political gain.

For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize, Hyde-Smith said. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statements.

She added: This comment was twisted, and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me.

Espy, however, said her words hadnt been misinterpreted because the comments came out of your mouth.

I dont know whats in your heart, but we know what came out of your mouth, the Democrat said.

Walmart on Tuesday said it would seek a refund for its campaign donation to Hyde-Smith, saying her remark about public hangings does not reflect the values of our company and associates.

The senator also appeared to endorse voter suppression during a campaign stop ahead of the Nov. 6 midterms. She said efforts to undermine voting among liberals at certain colleges would be a great idea.

Story continues

And then they remind me that theres a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we dont want to vote, Hyde-Smith told a small crowd of young people outside her campaign bus in a video taken Nov. 3 and posted online last week. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think thats a great idea.

This article has been updated with Hyde-Smiths apology late Tuesday.

Related Coverage

GOP Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith Just Made A Joke About Public Hangings In Mississippi

GOP Senator Says Voter Suppression Is A 'Great Idea'

Walmart Drops Mississippi GOP Senator After Joking About Public Hangings

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By John Whitesides JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) - A white Republican senator's casual reference to a "public hanging" has inflamed a special election runoff in Mississippi, fueling Democratic hopes of an upset in a conservative state with an ugly history of racist violence. The U.S. Senate race between appointed Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy, a black former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary, will test the power of the black vote and the viability of Democrats in a region where Republicans have dominated for decades. The Nov. 27 runoff, which caps a congressional election cycle drawn out by recounts and too-close-to-call races, will not affect the balance of power in Congress. Republicans will hold a Senate majority even if Hyde-Smith loses and Democrats will control the House of Representatives. Espy, 64, is a heavy underdog in the Deep South state, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982. But his campaign got a jolt of adrenaline when a video surfaced a week ago showing Hyde-Smith, 59, praising a supporter by saying: "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." The comment set off a furor in Mississippi, a state scarred by a history of racism and violence against blacks, including lynching. According to the NAACP civil rights group, Mississippi had 581 lynchings between 1882 and 1968, more than any other state. Advocacy groups conducting a voter turnout drive aimed primarily at African-Americans, who make up 38 percent of the state's residents, said their efforts had gained new urgency. "If people recognize the importance of this moment, there is an opportunity for Secretary Espy to win this race," said Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the black Democratic mayor of Jackson, the state's largest city. "If we can show progress in a state with such historic suffering, then what does it say about the future?" Hyde-Smith, a former state legislator appointed in April to replace retiring Senator Thad Cochran, released a statement calling the Nov. 2 comment "an exaggerated expression of regard" for a friend. She apologized for the remarks for the first time during a debate on Tuesday, but said Espy had twisted her words for political gain - a charge he denied. Retailer Walmart Inc, medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp and railroad Union Pacific Corp made public requests this week for Hyde-Smith to return their donations because of the remarks. Espy would be the first black senator from Mississippi since shortly after the Civil War. He told reporters that Hyde-Smith's "disappointing, hurtful" remarks perpetuated stereotypes Mississippi was striving to overcome. "There was already a high level of engagement but her comments took everything up to a whole new level," said Cassandra Welchlin, co-director of the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable, one of at least two dozen advocacy groups involved in turnout efforts. Welchlin's group is partnering with childcare centers, churches and sororities to target infrequent black women voters. Other groups are focusing on registered black voters who did not participate in the Nov. 6 election, using phone banks, texting parties and ride-shares to get them out. THE ALABAMA MODEL Mississippi Democrats hope to recreate the coalition that propelled Democrat Doug Jones to a Senate victory in neighboring Alabama last year by energizing black voters, particularly women, and appealing to white swing voters. Espy has used the Jones race as a template, focusing on issues like rural healthcare, equal pay and education. A political moderate, he portrays himself as a bridge-builder in a state where Republican President Donald Trump is popular. At a weekend breakfast in Jackson, Espy told black women leaders that Jones was elected because women turned out to support him. "What that did for Doug Jones in Alabama, you have to do for me in Mississippi," he said. The runoff to serve the last two years of Cochran's term was needed because no candidate gained more than 50 percent of the vote in a Nov. 6 special election. Hyde-Smith and Espy, who nearly deadlocked at about 41 percent, met in their only debate on Tuesday night. Both the Republican and Democratic national parties have sent help to Mississippi for the runoff. Trump will hold two get-out-the-vote rallies in the state next week, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee said it was spending at least $800,000 on ads. That will be augmented by $1 million from the Senate Leadership Fund, an outside group aligned with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. National Democratic committees are sending staff to help get out the vote, and the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC has started a $500,000 ad buy. Senators Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who are both African-American and potential 2020 presidential contenders, campaigned with Espy. "This is a race that has national importance," Harris said at the Jackson breakfast, saying the outcome would "make a point about who we are as a country, symbolized by the state of Mississippi." 'CONSERVATIVE STATE' Hyde-Smith has hammered Espy as too liberal for Mississippi. She touts her endorsement from Trump, who won Mississippi by 18 percentage points in 2016, and campaigns in a bus with a blown-up photo of her and Trump stretched across the side. "This race is a conservative versus a liberal and Mississippi is a conservative state," said Melissa Scallan, a spokeswoman for Hyde-Smith. She declined to comment on the hanging remarks. Hyde-Smith became embroiled in another controversy last week when a video surfaced in which she seemed to endorse the voter suppression of liberal students as "a great idea." In a statement, Hyde-Smith's campaign said she was joking. The wild card in the runoff will be how many supporters of Republican Chris McDaniel, a hardline conservative who captured 16.5 percent of the vote on Nov. 6, stay home or back Espy instead of Hyde-Smith. McDaniel had criticized Hyde-Smith, a former Democrat who switched parties in 2010, as insufficiently conservative but endorsed her. Hal Marx, a McDaniel supporter and mayor of the small town of Petal, said he was not enthusiastic about Hyde-Smith but would vote for her. "She isn't the best choice possible but of the two that are left we need a Republican in the seat," Marx said. (Reporting by John Whitesides; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)
Blackbeard is arguably the best-known pirate from the Golden Age of Piracy, which stretched from the late 1600s to the mid-1720s. Although his pirating career lasted only a few years, and he failed to accumulate much in the way of treasure, he and his men plundered many ships, and, in an audacious move, their mini pirate armada blockaded the city of Charleston for nearly a week. But the most iconic scene in Blackbeards storied life is his death, the 300th anniversary of which falls on Nov. 22. Here is how Blackbeard  whose real name was probably Edward Thatch or Teach  met his gruesome end, at the hands of British naval Lieutenant Robert Maynard, who was sent by Virginia Governor, Alexander Spotswood, to track him down.

Tipped off that Blackbeard and his men might be moored off North Carolinas Ocracoke Island, Maynards forces departed Williamsburg on Nov. 17, 1718, and sailed down the James River. Although Maynard would have preferred to have the services of a British man-of-war to take on the fearsome pirate, such a ship could not navigate the shallow waters of Pamlico Sound, so Maynard had to rely on the services of two small sloops, the Ranger and the slightly larger Jane, with 25 men placed on the former, 35 on the latter, which would be the vessel on which Maynard sailed. While these sloops could easily navigate the shallow and twisting channels around Ocracoke, they had no cannons, which meant that Maynards men would have to rely on their personal weapons in going up against a foe with nine cannons at his disposal.

By the afternoon of Nov. 21, Maynards sloops had reached the southern tip of Ocracoke. They soon spied two sloops at anchor in an inlet facing Pamlico Sound, which to this day is known as Teachs (or Thatchs) Hole. With evening coming on, Maynard anchored the Jane and the Ranger for the night.

Unaware of the force amassed nearby, Blackbeard, along with about 20 of his men on board the sloop Adventure, spent that evening drinking and carousing with local trader Samuel Odell, who had arrived earlier on his own sloop. The following morning, the sea was calm and the winds very light, and the only sounds to be heard were birds greeting the break of day. At nine, Maynard ordered the Ranger to make way for the sloops, still not certain that one of them was Blackbeards. The Jane followed close behind. Not long after setting out, the Jane grounded, and then the Ranger did the same. Men on the Jane began furiously throwing heavy materials overboard to lighten its load, while the Rangers crew staved their water casks to the same end. Both sloops were soon afloat again, but that precious element of surprise had been lost.

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Even if they had been in drunken stupors, Blackbeards men would have been alerted by all the nearby commotion. Realizing that he was under attack, Blackbeard ordered his men to cut the Adventures cable and get underway. To intimidate their attackers, the pirates began shooting at the approaching sloops. It appeared that Blackbeards plan was to head out of the channel that the sloops had just entered by engaging them in a running battle. As Blackbeard tried to reach the channels mouth, the Ranger headed straight for the Adventure, with the Jane right behind, its men straining at their oars to close in.

When the Jane pulled to within about half a pistol shot of the Adventure, there was a brief conversation between Maynard and Blackbeard. According to a second-hand account in the Boston News-Letter, the exchange was as follows:

Teach called to Lieutenant Maynard and told him he was for King George, desiring him to hoist out his boat and come aboard. Maynard replied that he designed to come aboard with his sloop as soon as he could, and Teach, understanding his design, told him that if he would let him alone, he would not meddle with him; Maynard answered that it was him he wanted, and that he would have him dead or alive, else it would cost him his life; whereupon Teach called for a glass of wine, and swore damnation to himself if he either took or gave quarter.

Maynards own account of the conversation is similar, but briefer, and makes one wish that the naval officer had not been so laconic. At our first salutation, Maynard wrote, Blackbeard drank damnation to me and my men, whom he styled sniveling puppies, saying, he would neither give nor take quarter.

As soon as the talking was over, Blackbeard took full advantage of his superior firepower and unleashed a booming broadside of partridge and swan shot that killed the commander of the Ranger and severely wounded five of his men, including the second and third in command. Shorn of its officers, the Ranger fell behind and was not a factor until the very end of the battle. The broadside also wounded many men on the Jane, but they continued to fight. In an amazing display of marksmanship, or, more likely, a lucky shot, they severed the Adventures jib halyard, the line holding the jib  a triangular sail  up, which caused the sail to collapse and thus slowed the vessel down. Not wanting to expose any more of his men to blasts from Blackbeards cannons, Maynard ordered all of them below decks, while he went into the cabin at the stern of the ship. Maynard was not only retreating to get out of harms way, but he was also setting a trap. Before going to the cabin, Maynard ordered the pilot and a midshipman to stay on deck and alert him as to what Blackbeard was doing. If it worked out as Maynard hoped, the pirates would soon come to him.

Seeing that the Janes decks were clear, Blackbeard thought that his cannons had done their deadly work, and the battle was all but won. To deliver the coup de grace, Blackbeard brought the Adventure alongside the Jane and led his men over the rails, with a rope in his hand to lash the vessels together. As soon as Blackbeard was aboard, the pilot signaled Maynard, who, along with 12 of his men, rushed to the main deck, catching the pirates off guard. During the six-minute melee that ensued, the combatants slashed, thrust, and shot at one another at close range, their grunts, screams, and groans intermingled with the sounds of clashing steel and exploding gunpowder.

When the smoke finally cleared, the great Blackbeard lay dead, and the rest of his men who had followed him onto the Jane were either killed or severely wounded. At about the same time, the Ranger arrived, and its men boarded the Adventure and beat the remaining pirates into submission. While doing so, one of the navy sailors was killed by friendly fire. Pirates who lost their nerve and jumped overboard, rather than fight to the end, were shot in the water as they tried to escape. None of them survived, and one corpse was found in the reeds days later, with buzzards circling overhead.

According to Maynard, none of his men on the Jane, whom he said fought like heroes, were killed during the fight, but many of them were miserably cut and mangled. Although various accounts disagree on the numbers, overall, approximately ten navy sailors and ten pirates died, and more than 20 sailors were wounded. Maynard took nine pirates prisoner, three of whom were white, and the rest black.

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One of the men wounded on the Adventure was trader Odell, who had visited Blackbeard to celebrate but was caught up in the battle. Although Odell fought with the pirates, Maynard and his men owed him a debt of gratitude, for if it had not been for his quick thinking, the death toll off Ocracoke that day would have been much higher. Before the fighting started, Blackbeard instructed one of his crew, a black man named Caesar, to blow up the ship in the event that the pirates were defeated. Caesar was in the hold, ready to light the ammunitions magazine, when Odell and one of his crewmen wrestled the flame out of his hand.

The death of Blackbeard is one of the most famous events in the history of piracy. Not surprisingly, the exact way in which he was killed is the subject of debate. The Boston News-Letter offered a colorful secondhand account of Blackbeards final moments for an enraptured public:

Maynard and Teach themselves two begun the fight with their swords, Maynard making a thrust, the point of his sword against Teachs cartridge box, and bended it to the hilt. Teach broke the guard of it, and wounded Maynards fingers but did not disable him, whereupon he jumped back and threw away his sword and fired his pistol, which wounded Teach. Demelt struck in between them with his sword and cut Teachs face pretty much; . . . one of Maynards men being a [Scottish] highlander engaged Teach with his broad sword, who gave Teach a cut on the neck, Teach saying, well done lad, the highlander replied, if it be not well done, Ill do it better, [and] with that he gave him a second stroke, which cut off his head, laying it flat on his shoulder.

Many subsequent authors embellished this description, transforming Blackbeards death into a scene worthy of a Hollywood epic. But the accuracy of the News-Letters blow-by-blow is highly questionable, considering that all Maynard had to say about Blackbeards demise is that he fell with five shot in him, and twenty dismal cuts in several parts of his body. Maynard added, I have cut Blackbeards head off, which I have put on my bowsprit, in order to carry it to Virginia. Blackbeards headless body was pitched into the murky water of Pamlico Sound, where, according to legend, it took a few laps around the Jane before sinking out of sight.

On Jan. 3, 1719, under sunny skies, the victorious Maynard sailed up the James River aboard the Adventure, with Blackbeards decomposing and no doubt pungent head hung from the bowsprit. As Maynard passed by the British warships Lyme and the Pearl, he saluted the ships with nine cannon blasts, which the naval ships returned in kind. As a warning to those who might consider piracy a profitable career, Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood had Blackbeards head mounted on a pike along the edge of the river  a location later christened Blackbeards Point.

According to some later accounts, Blackbeards head was eventually taken down, and the top half of his skull was turned into a punch bowl that was enlarged with silver, or silver plated, and used for a time at one of the taverns in Williamsburg. If this in fact is true, the grisly artifact is lost, for it has not turned up since.

Adapted from Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of Americas Most Notorious Pirates by Eric Jay Dolin. Copyright  2018 by Eric Jay Dolin. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.


Pyongyang blew up 10 guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone Tuesday as the two Koreas pursue a reconciliation drive, even while denuclearisation talks stall between the US and the North.

The move is one of the steps agreed during the Pyongyang summit between the South's President Moon Jae-in and the North's leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in September.

The North told the South that it would blow up the 10 facilities almost simultaneously, Seoul's defence ministry said, adding that Southern soldiers "observed and confirmed the guard posts were completely ruined at the announced time".

Seoul has been tearing down 10 guard posts of its own, mostly using excavators, a defence ministry spokesman said.

The North has more of the facilities - which include both surface structures and underground elements - and according to Yonhap news agency the moves will leave it with around 150 in the area, with the South having about 50.

The dovish Moon has pursued a policy of engagement with its isolated, nuclear-armed neighbour, in increasing contrast to Washington, which insists pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it denuclearises.

Despite its name the area around the DMZ is one of the most fortified places on earth, replete with minefields and barbed-wire fences.

But under plans to ease tensions agreed in Pyongyang, the two Koreas are demilitarising the border truce village of Panmunjom, to leave it manned by 35 unarmed personnel from each side.

Officially called the Joint Security Area (JSA), the enclave is the only spot along the 250-kilometre (155-mile) frontier where soldiers from the two Koreas and the US-led UN Command stand face to face.
The body of the baby washed ashore on Surfers Paradise beach in Queensland (Wikipedia/stock photo)

Police in Australia believe a nine-month-old baby who washed ashore on a Gold Coast beach was sacrificed by her family.

The naked body of the baby girl was found on Surfers Paradise beach in Queensland at around 12.30am on Monday morning.

Investigators believe she was thrown into the water at Jack Evans Boat Harbour in Tweed Heads on Saturday, with her empty pram being left alongside the waterway.

A family of four, including the baby, were tracked down on CCTV as they headed towards the harbour before heading back to Queensland without the youngster.

The babys father is expected to be charged following an appearance at Southport Magistrates Court (Google)

It is thought that the babys body drifted in the current for two days before washing ashore.

The childs father, a 48-year-old homeless man, arrived in Southport Magistrates court today but faces other charges which must be dealt with before he can be extradited to New South Wales to face charges.

He appeared in court wearing a white hospital gown and was represented by Sunil Dutt of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service.

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The mans aunt, Paulette, said she did not believe her nephew would be capable of killing his baby.

Sources told 9News that the 23-year-old mother admitted to knowing about the planned sacrifice but only the father would be accused of throwing her into the water.

The mother has since been released from custody and has reportedly been place in the mental health system in Queensland.

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From Car and Driver

UPDATE 11/26/18: Mitsubishi has removed Ghosn as chairman and appointed CEO Osamu Masuko as a temporary replacement. Executives from the three automakers are meeting in Amsterdam this week to discuss the future of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, according to Reuters, including possibly reducing Renaults stake and adding a fourth member to the Renault board.



UPDATE 11/22/18: In a unanimous vote, the Nissan board of directors voted today to remove Carlos Ghosn as chairman. Although details of the allegations against him have not been officially released, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Ghosn is accused of using company funds, through a subsidiary in the Netherlands, to buy multimillion-dollar residences and renovate them. He is also reportedly facing charges for having arranged consulting fees for his sister, who did not actually perform the work, according to an anonymous source cited by the Journal. These charges are in addition to the allegation that Ghosn grossly underreported his compensation in securities documents filed by Nissan. Ghosn retains a seat on the corporate board pending scheduling of a shareholder meeting.



UPDATE 11/21/18: Renault has appointed two interim executives as chairman and CEO while Carlos Ghosn is "temporarily incapacitated," according to a company statement. Thierry Bollore, chief operating officer, is taking over as CEO, while Philippe Lagayette, the Renault board's top independent director, will work as chairman. Ghosn is in a Tokyo jail and will remain there for an additional 10 days by court order, despite not yet being charged with any crime, according to the Wall Street Journal. Renault said it wants Nissan to "provide all information in their possession arising from the internal investigations." The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, whose government owns 15 percent of Renault, said that "we don't have any evidence at this point justifying the accusations brought against Carlos Ghosn." Ghosn reportedly bought homes in Brazil and Lebanon with company money through a "Dutch subsidiary," according to unnamed sources cited by the Nikkei Asian Review. We will continue to update this developing story.

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Carlos Ghosn is all but gone from Nissan. The high-profile Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi chairman and Renault CEO was arrested Monday in Tokyo and charged with underreporting his income in corporate filings, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.

Nissan said a whistleblower tip launched an "internal investigation over the past several months" regarding improper conduct involving Ghosn and Greg Kelly, a high-ranking board member with the power to sign contracts on behalf of the company. Their investigation, in conjunction with the Japanese Public Prosecutors Office, found that both men underreported their compensation in Tokyo Stock Exchange filings "over many years," Nissan said in a statement. According to NHK, for the total of the past five fiscal years ending in March 2015, Ghosn reported "less than five billion yen" ($44 million at todays rates) when it was actually almost twice that amount. Without elaborating, the company also alleged Ghosn took advantage of "company assets" for his personal use. CEO Hiroto Saikawa is calling on the board to immediately oust both executives from the company, with a meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Ghosn, who is also chairman of Mitsubishi Motors and CEO and chairman of Renault, joined Nissan when it was nearly bankrupt in 1999. At that time, Renault purchased a 37 percent stake in the struggling Japanese automaker and Ghosn, then also an executive vice president at the French automaker, took over as Nissans chief operating officer. As CEO in 2001, his Nissan Revival Plan quickly flipped the company back into the black with higher margins and expanding sales in China. While increasing low-cost models in emerging markets, including reviving the Datsun brand, Ghosn-who became CEO of Renault in 2005-also pushed Nissan into expensive battery-electric vehicles well before most mainstream automakers. He is also credited with backing quirkier, low-volume models like the Murano CrossCabriolet, a convertible SUV. Ghosn stepped down from the CEO position in 2017 but maintained his chairman title.

Ghosns trio of titles, along with the structure of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance itself, is a rarity in the automotive industry. Renault currently owns 43 percent of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15 percent of Renault and 34 percent of Mitsubishi. Ghosn has been reportedly working to merge the three companies into a single corporation.

In a statement issued Monday morning, Renault said it intends to hold a meeting of its board of directors "very shortly" and expressed the board's "dedication to the defense of Renault's interest in the Alliance."

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By Andrew MacAskill and William James LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labour Party is in no rush to topple Prime Minister Theresa May's government over Brexit, the party's finance policy chief John McDonnell told Reuters on Wednesday. McDonnell, the man who would become finance minister if Labour are able to capitalize on a crisis of confidence in May's leadership and form their own government, said the party wanted to first take a look at what more May can negotiate in Brussels. "We are not rushing a vote of no confidence by any means," McDonnell said in an interview following a speech at Reuters Canary Wharf offices. "It may well be that there are number of iterations of her proposals as the negotiations go on. We will judge it at each stage." After publishing a draft Brexit withdrawal agreement last week May appears to have lost the support of the small Northern Irish party that props up her government and is facing open revolt from within her own Conservative Party. McDonnell has raised the prospect that, faced with the reality that she can no longer command a majority in parliament, May should step aside without calling an election and give Labour a shot at delivering a different Brexit deal. Asked whether Labour could be in parliament within a matter of weeks, he said: "Anything could happen at the moment. But, he conceded that it was "difficult to see" Labour taking power without a general election. (Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, writing by William James; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
The time for offering of Katina Cheevera - thick robes for the rainy season to Buddhist priests who observed Vas or the rainy season sojourn ends on Il full moon poya day. Thus a series of meritorious activities connected with Vas and Cheevera puja also comes to an end. However, Il full moon poya day is of special significance to Buddhists due to numerous other religious events taken place on this day and during the month of Il. Sending missionaries for the first time for the propagation of Buddhism, conversion of three Kassapa brothers, Devarohanaya or descending from the celestial world, and the attainment of Arahant Sariputtas parinibbana are the significant events that had taken place on this full moon poya day and during the month of Il. Apart from these it was on this full moon poya day that Gautama Buddha gave the positive assurance or explanation to Maithri Bodhisattva of becoming a Buddha.

A period full of religious activities comes to an end

The previous month had been a very busy month for Buddhist priests who had to participate in Katina pinkama ceremonies. They had to attend to pirith chanting ceremonies, Katina cheevara ceremonies in other temples and Katina perahera ceremonies in addition to organizing religious events in their own temples. Minds of laymen are also full of faith and piety having offered Katina cheevara and having participated in religious events in addition to listening to Dhamma.

The positive assurance or explanation to Maithri Bodhisattva of becoming a Buddha

Maithri Bodhisattva who had completed the performance of Buddhist Ordinances as a prerequisite of becoming a Buddha i.e. Paramita during a period of Solos Assankeyya Kalpa Lakshaya was a celestial being. He had departed from heaven during Gautama Buddhas period and was born in Sankassa pura about 48 miles away from Shravasthi - Sewath Nuwara as the son of a rich nobleman named Siriwardhana.

He completed his studies under the great teacher Disapamok and inherited quite a lot of wealth from his parents. He had a large number of followers. He had the occasion to see Devarohanaya Maha puja and listen to the discourse between the Buddha and Arahant Sariputta. He was delighted and entered into priesthood under Buddha with his following numbering about one hundred. He attained the higher ordination, learnt the Dharma and taught the others. This thera observed vas and received a couple of valuable Katina cheevara. He knew the efficacy or the effect of Katina cheewara puja and offered both to the Buddha. With one of them he made a canopy for Buddhas fragrant house - Gandha Kutiya. He tore the other robe into strips and hung it at the edges of the canopy. Buddha explained the merits of offering cheewara and gave Niyatha Vivarana  permission to or assurance of becoming a Buddha.

Buddha told the followers that Maithri Bodhisattva would be born as the son of Sakwithi Raja universal king Sanka in the Kethumathi kingdom during this Maha Badra Kalpa. Brahmani Badrawathi will be his mother. Banyan -Nuga tree will be his Bodhiya.

Maithri Bodhisattva worshipped the Buddha and accepted the Niyatha Vivaranaya. This happened on an Il full moon poya day such as this.

Sending Missionaries

By the first Il full moon poya day, after Buddhas Enlightenment there were 61 Arahants including the Buddha Himself. There were the five Brahmin ascetics, Kondanna, Bhaddya, Vappa, Mahanama and Assaji. Kondanna was the youngest of the eight Brahmins who were invited for prince Siddharthas naming ceremony. He foretold that prince Siddhartha would certainly become the Buddha. Together with Bhaddhya, Vappa, Mahanama and Assaji who were the sons of four other Brahmins retired to the forest in anticipation of prince Siddharthas renunciation. They attended to ascetic Siddhartha when he was striving to attain Buddhahood. After the enlightenment, Buddha expounded Dhamma Chakka Pavattana sutta and they attained Arahantship. Kondanna was the first to realize the four Noble Truths and the eightfold path to Nibbana, He was followed by the other four.

Conversion of Yasa and his followers

Next to be converted was Yasa, son of a millionaire in Benares who met Buddha while going away from home after realizing the vanities of worldly life. When Buddha expounded Dhamma Yasa, attained Arahantship. Venerable Yasas father came across the Buddha while going in search of his missing son and became the first lay disciple to take refuge in the Triple Gem, Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Venerable Yasas mother and his former wife were the two female lay disciples of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Venerable Yasa had fifty four friends. Having heard of Venerable Yasas conversion they too entered the Order and attained Arahantship.

Sixty Arahants to propagate Buddhism for the good and well being of humanity

Thus by the first Il Full Moon Poya day after the Enlightenment of the Exalted One there were sixty Arahants excluding the Buddha Himself. Buddha dispatched them in various directions to propagate the sublime Dhamma. Caratha Bikkhawe Carikan, bahu jana Hitaya, Bahujana Sukhaya Buddha requested the first sixty Arahants to go forth for the good and happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, benefit and happiness of gods and men and to preach Dhamma which is excellent in the beginning, in the middle and at the end . He told them that no two should go in a single direction so that they could be of assistance to as many as possible.

He said that there were some who had lust in them but there were many who could understand Dhamma. With this exhortation Buddha dispatched His first sixty disciples to various directions and He Himself went to Uruwela in Senaigama.

It is better to seek oneself rather than to seek a missing woman

On His way to Uruwela Buddha met thirty young men. Twenty nine of them were with their wives. They had gone to a grove for amusement. The thirtieth prince who was a bachelor had taken a courtesan and that woman had fled away with the valuables of the others. When the princes were going in search of that woman they met Buddha and He explained to them that it was better to seek oneself rather than to seek a missing woman. They realized the truth and entered the Order and received the Higher Ordination.

Ordination of Jatila brothers

Buddha proceeded to Uruwela to be of service to the Jatila brothers who lived in Aramayas along the river Neranjana. The eldest Uruwela Kassapa who was very proud and arrogant lived in the upper part of the river with five hundred followers. Nadi Kassapa who had three hundred followers lived in the middle part of the river and the youngest, Gaya Kassapa lived in the lowest part of the river basin with two hundred followers.

Buddha first went to Uruwela Kassapas aramaya and subjugated him by displaying three thousand and sixteen miracles. Uruwela Kassapa who realized the truth entered the priesthood with his followers. Their crowns of matted hair were thrown into the river. Nadi Kassapa who saw his elder brothers matted hair floating in the river rushed to his Aramaya to ascertain what had happened to his elder brother and followers. When he went there with his followers Buddha preached Dharma and all of them entered the priesthood. Gaya Kassapa and his followers too entered the priesthood in the same manner.

Additta Pariyaya sutta- All inflames

Kassapa brothers and their followers had developed their own spiritual attainments and they could understand Buddhas doctrine without much difficulty. Buddha accompanied them to Gayasisa and preached the Aditta Pariyaya sutta - all in flames hearing which all of them attained Arahantship.

Buddhas visit to King Bimbisara at Rajagaha Nuwara

In keeping with a promise made to King Bimbisara, Buddha proceeded to Rajagaha Nuwara accompanied by one hundred and three Arahants including Uruwela Kassapa, Nadi Kassapa and Gaya Kassapa. King Bimbisara went with a large following to receive the Buddha and pay respects to Him. It was a difficult task for King Bimbisara to realize whether Buddha was a disciple of Arahant Kassapa or Arahant Kassapa was a disciple of the Buddha. It so happened because Arahant Kassapa was held with high esteem as an ascetic.

After reading the kings thoughts Buddha questioned fire worship. In order to clear the Kings doubt Arahant Kassapa explained why he had given up fire worship and said that Buddha was a Unique One and his teacher and that he was His disciple.

Offering of Veluwanaramaya - the Bamboo grove

The king and the people were happy about the clarification. In order to indicate that Buddha and Uruwela Kassapa were similarly converted in previous births too Buddha preached Maha Narada Kassapa Jatakaya. Having understood the Dhamma King Bimbisara attained Sowan, the first of the four paths to Nirvana. He invited Buddha and His followers to his palace for Dana and after offering Dana he also offered the Bamboo Grove - Veluwanaramaya for the use of the Buddha and His disciples.

Attainment of Arahant Sariputtas Parinibbana

It was on a subsequent Il full moon poya day that Dharma Senadhipathi and one of the Buddhas chief disciples, Arahant Sariputta attained Parinibbana.



Arahant Sariputtas assistance to his mother

His mother, Rupasari did not believe in the threefold refuge and remained heretic even in her old age. Arahant Sariputta contemplated as to whether she possessed the virtues of attaining Nibbana by the cessation of all desires and of re-existence realized that she could attain Sowan, the first of the four paths to Nibbana. Hence after obtaining permission from the Buddha to attain Parinibbana Arahant Sariputta made an opportune visit to his mother followed by hundreds of thousands of weeping people who had heard about the Maha Theras Parinibbana. Maha Thera preached to his mother the virtuous properties of the Buddha such as the moral conduct, intelligence, sense of liberation knowledge of emancipation, and meditation vision and philosophy and loving kindness to convince her that Buddha was a peerless teacher and the Unique One.

After listening to her son patiently Brahmani Rupasari gave up her beliefs in heathenism and attained Sovan. Arahant Sariputta Maha Thera was happy that he could re-pay his mother for bringing him up.

After being of service to many including his own mother Arahant Sarikaputra Maha Thera attained Parinibbana on an Il Full Moon Poya Day.
Rome (AFP) - The Leaning Tower of Pisa is now stable and has even straightened slightly thanks to engineering work to save the world-renowned tourist attraction, experts said on Wednesday

The tower's Surveillance Group -- set up to monitor restoration progress -- said in a statement that after 17 years of observation "the Tower of Pisa is stable and very slowly reducing its lean."

Engineering Professor Nunziante Squeglia of Pisa University said that the 57-metre (186-feet) monument had straightened by four centimetres (1.5 inches), Italian media reported.

The so-called Surveillance Group was set up after Michele Jamiolkowski, an engineer of Polish origin who adopted Italian nationality, coordinated an international committee to rescue the landmark between 1993 and 2001.

The Tower was closed to the public in January 1990 for 11 years over safety fears, as its tilt reached 4.5 meters (15 feet) from the vertical. It has since been straightened by more than 40 centimetres.

The medieval tower, a symbol of the power of the maritime republic of Pisa in the Middle Ages, has leaned to one side ever since building started in 1173.
Nationwide, the unemployment rate is below 4 percent. Here in the Midwest, no state has a rate above 5 percent, and Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have rates below 3 percent. After a slow, sometimes halting recovery, Rust Belt states in 2018 now have more jobs than they can fill.

Its an unfamiliar problem, if a good one to have. And it provides an opportunity for the federal government to undertake a long-overdue reform of disability insurance.

More than 10 million Americans receive federal Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. At a mounting cost to taxpayers, $143 billion per year, most disability beneficiaries are permanently out of the work force. But this doesnt have to be the case. By providing the proper support and incentives, reforms to disability insurance could spur reentry into the labor force for hundreds of thousands of workers.

Until very recently, SSDI grew at a staggering rate. Despite no changes in self-reported health and disability among the working-age population, the number of disabled workers on SSDI grew from 3 million in 1990 to a peak of nearly 9 million in 2014. While some of this was the product of overall population growth, an aging work force, and the entry of women into the labor force, nearly half of it appears to have come from the rising value of benefits for low-wage workers and changes to the programs eligibility criteria.

Impairments that involve pain or mental disorders represented half of disabled worker beneficiaries in 2017. These impairments, while serious, can be hard to define. If an applicant does not qualify on strict medical evidence, demographic characteristics such as age, work experience, education, language ability, and location are considered when weighing whether to offer benefits, and more then half of all SSDI determinations in 2017 included these vocational considerations. A 2013 RAND Corporation study found that nearly a quarter of SSDI applicants have conditions vague enough that whether they receive benefits largely depends on whether they get an easy or hard initial examiner.

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SSDI beneficiaries receive, on average, $1,196 per month, or nearly $14,000 per year. After two years, beneficiaries are eligible for Medicare. It is not lucrative. And applying for benefits is a lengthy process that can take from four to 33 months. But for many low-wage workers, particularly in rural America, applying for disability benefits became a lifeline as wages stagnated and jobs disappeared. The Washington Post recently found that of 102 counties in which at least one-sixth of adults receive disability, all but two are rural.

Now that the economy is red-hot and businesses desperately need workers, reforming federal disability ought to be part of the strategy to meet work-force needs. Disabled workers are an asset, and many of the disabled dont have to be permanently out of the work force. The Trump administration has proposed demonstration projects in eight states to experiment with the best ways to keep disabled workers from leaving the work force or to spur their return. The most recent Trump budget proposal sought enhanced scrutiny for SSDI beneficiaries who apply after being on unemployment insurance, as well as rehabilitation and occupational therapy for those with arthritis or back pain.

A new report from my employer, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, endorses federalism as the best solution. The 1996 welfare reform proved that states were better at structuring benefits programs to help citizens in need while creating the proper incentives for labor-force participation. The same thing could work with disability. The Secretaries Innovation Group, a partnership of state-level human-service and work-force secretaries, has developed proposals that would reward employers who make accommodations for disabled workers by providing tax incentives, creating partial and temporary disability benefits, and offering case management and early intervention.

A labor market with adequate jobs and rising wages is the perfect opportunity to reform disability insurance. And if Washington wont fix it, it ought to allow states that need workers the opportunity to take on the challenge. For disabled workers that can be retrained or rehabilitated, there are real opportunities to contribute. As it stands, too much human potential is being sidelined at too high of a cost.
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine opposition senators have demanded President Rodrigo Duterte reveal details of joint energy exploration plans with China, warning such a deal risked affirming Chinese territorial claims that are not recognized under international law. Early this year, the two countries set up a joint panel to work out how to explore offshore oil and gas in areas that both claim, without addressing the explosive issue of who has the sovereign rights to them. "Signing the Chinese deal will make the Philippines recognize an unlawful 'co-ownership' with China," the minority senators said in a resolution on the eve of Tuesday's visit to Manila by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Philippines, which relies heavily on energy imports is racing against time to develop oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea, but to do that needs foreign help, which China has offered. Though they intend to undertake some projects in waters that are not subject to competing claims, there are concerns among Philippine lawyers and diplomats about teaming up in areas that both countries claim, in particular, the Reed Bank, about 90 miles (167 km) off the Philippines' Palawan island. A 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in a case filed by Manila clarified, among other issues, that the Philippines had sovereign rights to exploit energy reserves at the Reed Bank. It also invalidated China's nine-dash line claim to most of the South China Sea, which the senate resolution said was "unlawful and expansive". China refuses to recognize the Hague tribunal's ruling. The idea of joint development was first hatched in 1986, but disputes and the complexities of the sovereignty issue have held up the plans. The senators said any agreement with China would be a violation of the constitution, and an impeachable offense. Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said any joint agreement would be constitutional, adding that it was too early to discuss senate scrutiny. "Any demand for a release of documents ... is premature and could be prejudicial to our country's interests, given that parties have yet to ink any agreement," Panelo said. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Clarence Fernandez)
Warsaw (AFP) - Poland's parliament on Wednesday passed legislation reversing a disputed Supreme Court retirement law, bowing to a ruling from the EU's top court, which had raised fears of a threat to judicial independence.

The governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party used its majority to push the changes through parliament at high-speed after proposing them just hours earlier.

The motion passed with 215 in favour, 161 against and 24 abstentions in the 460-member lower house of parliament.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Poland in October to "immediately suspend" its decision to lower the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65.

The disputed law had required more than a third of current Supreme Court judges to step down, including Poland's Supreme Court chief justice Malgorzata Gersdorf.

Presidential aide Andrzej Dera told Polish media on Wednesday that the unusually quick passage of the legislation was the result an "agreement by the government with the ECJ in order for Poland to avoid paying penalties."

The Luxembourg tribunal, could impose fines if it finds Poland in breach of EU law. It is yet to make a final ruling on the case.

Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government had previously defended the controversial April 3 retirement law as part of reforms to tackle corruption and overhaul a judicial system still haunted by the communist era.

But PiS MP Marek Ast, who submitted the draft legislation to parliament on Wednesday morning, said it reverses the retirement law, in compliance with the ECJ ruling.

- 'Systemic threats' -

"In accordance with the expectations of the ECJ... if the law comes into force, the affected judges will be able to return to the Supreme Court on the same terms (of employment), as if they had never left," Ast told Polish media.

To take effect, it must also pass in the Senate and be signed by PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda.

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However, the need for parliament to change the legislation has been called into question. Legal experts believe the ECJ ruling itself is enough to reverse the retirement law.

Supreme Court Chief justice Gersdorf asked 23 of the court's judges to return to work just days after the ECJ ruling.

Calling the law a "purge", Gersdorf had refused to step down, citing a constitutional guarantee that she serve a six-year term until 2020.

The ECJ's ruling on the Supreme Court retirement law took place within the context of a broader battle between Brussels and the PiS government over the sweeping judicial changes it has introduced since taking office in 2015.

The changes have also led the EU to trigger unprecedented proceedings against Poland over "systemic threats" to the rule of law that could see the country's EU voting rights suspended.
Warsaw (AFP) - Polish Catholic bishops apologised Monday to children who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of priests and other Church leaders in the majority Catholic country.

"We ask pardon of God, of all victims of sexual abuse, of their families, and of the entire Church community for all hurt inflicted on children and young people, as well as their families, by priests, believers, and lay people employed by the Church," the bishops said in a statement after a meeting in southern Poland.

"For the victims, these crimes are a source of profound suffering that marks their lives, those of their families, and of religious communities," they added.

For many, "it put a strain on their faith".

The statement came three weeks after the release of the film "Kler" (The Clergy) about abuse and corruption in the Catholic Church. The movie drew close to two million spectators in Poland in a week -- a record in the country of 38 million.

The bishops committed to fighting "this evil", by making sure that the accused in all "confirmed" abuse cases are referred to prosecutors.

The Polish Catholic Church apologised four years ago for crimes of paedophilia committed by its members.

According to the victim's association "Don't be afraid", there have been 56 convictions in recent years, including for possession of child pornography.

The Catholic Church worldwide is battling a paedophilia scandal following abuse revelations in numerous countries, accompanied by accusations that the leadership has dragged its feet in delivering an adequate response.

Earlier Monday, Spain's Catholic Church said it wanted to "eradicate" sexual abuse of minors and not cover them up.
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President Trump led the annual White House turkey pardoning Tuesday, offering traditional words of thanksgivingand less traditional jabs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.



The president said he would issue two turkeys, Peas and Carrots, a presidential pardon in celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday Thursday. While the origins of the annual ceremony are unclear, the White House has made the turkey pardoning an official tradition since the George H. W. Bush administration.



"Unfortunately, I cant guarantee that your pardons wont be enjoined by the Ninth Circuit," Trump said. "Always happens. They're guaranteed."



Ninth Circuit judges have repeatedly blocked Trump administration policies on immigration, including the travel ban on mostly Muslim-majority countries, efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children and most recently a rule restricting asylum.



On Monday, Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked the Trump administration rule that would bar asylum for migrants crossing the southern U.S. border outside of designated ports of entry.



Tigar said the new asylum rule "irreconcilably conflicts with the Immigration and Nationality Act and the expressed intent of Congress," which stated in the INA that migrants who enter the United States outside ports of entry are still eligible for asylum.



According to Wednesday reports from the Associated Press, Trump called Tigar an "Obama judge," and critiqued the ruling, saying, "Every case that gets filed in the Ninth Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won."



Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement Wednesday rebuking Trump's comments. Roberts said the United States doesn't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges."



Tigar imposed a nationwide injunction until Dec. 19. He'll then meet with lawyers on both sides of the suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of immigration nonprofits, to review whether a preliminary injunction should be imposed.



Department of Justice Civil Division Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Stewart had argued in Monday's hearing that the Trump administration's new rule did not conflict with the INA because it still allowed migrants to seek asylum if they entered through designated ports.
Prince William joined in on a discussion about mental health on Tuesday in London at the This Can Happen conference, where he opened up about his time as an air ambulance pilot, which he did both before and after he and his wife, Kate Middleton, welcomed their three children  Prince George, 5, Princess Charlotte, 3, and Prince Louis, 6 months.
Dhamma is a very simple procedure, which is taking place everywhere and every moment in every being, which anybody can comprehend as soon as it is uncovered of the veil of mystery in which it was encircled by the attitude, thinking and way of life.  Engels: [InDialectics of Nature]

For example, Buddhism de-emphasises individualism by highlighting anatta (no self) and anicca (impermanence) as two of the three symbols of existence. All beings are a mere combination of the ever-changing aggregates. Thus, a Buddhist cannot concede individuality because concepts like I, me, mine and you, yours are only illusions of such composites, which erroneously encourage us to consider that people are independent, static beings. We use these provisions only as a matter of convenience in as much as verbal communication does not have the capacity to describe a persistently changing being.

Ill and Katina

The Katina Cheevara is brought to their respective temples in processions and offered to the resident Upasampada monks, who observed Vas [rainy retreat] for nearly three months. The offering of Katina Cheevaraya is considered as a highly meritorious act, which takes place in most of the Temples during the month of Ill. Another among other significant things that had happened on the Ill full moon Day and recorded in the Buddha scripts has been that a deputation of 60 Arhants were launched from Dhamma preaching to a huge crowd of people.

On the other hand, if you learn the art of Dharma, you start understanding peace and concord within yourself. Keep your mind pure and full of love

Oh! Bhikkhus for the Welfare of the many, for the Happiness of the many, through Compassion to the World, Go Ye Forth, and spread the Doctrine of Buddha Dhamma for the benefit of Devas and Human Beings. In this manner, the first Buddhist Missionaries commenced their journey on Ill Poya day in various directions.

Similarities

Alexander Berzin, scholar, author and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, writing in his web speaks of similarities between Buddhism and Islam.

The Kalachakra is a term used in Vajrayana Buddhism meaning wheel of time or time-cycles. It is a tantric teaching in Tibetan Buddhism.

It circles around the concept of time and cycles from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of human inhalation, it educates the practice of working with the most delicate energies within ones body on the path to illumination.

Another interpretation of Kalachakras forecast is that it refers to internal war against mental and exciting aggression, that it largely refers to the inner battle of the religious practitioner against barbarian tendencies.

Berzin says, the Kalachakra presentation of the mythical Shambhala war and the Islamic discussion of jihad show remarkable similarities. Both Buddhist and Islamic holy wars are defensive tactics for stopping attacks by external hostile forces, and never offensive campaigns for winning converts. Both have internal spiritual levels of meaning, in which the battle is against negative thoughts and destructive emotions. Both need to be waged founded on ethical principles, not on the basis of unfairness and hatred. The Kalachakra literature in fact refers to the concept of jihad in the prasangika manner of taking it to its rational extreme to demonstrate a position to avoid.

According to Berzins studies, many leaders have distorted and oppressed the concept of jihad for power and gain. The same has happened with Shambhala and its argument of war against destructive alien forces. Just as opponents of Buddhism could focus on abuses of Kalachakras peripheral level of religious battle and dismiss the internal level, and this would be unfair to Buddhism as a whole; the same is true regarding anti-Muslim critics of jihad. The recommendations in the Buddhist tantras regarding the holy teacher may be useful here. Almost every religious teacher has a mixture of good character and faults. Although a follower must not deny the harmful qualities of a teacher, to dwell on them will only cause anger and despair. If, in its place, a disciple focuses on a teachers positive qualities, he will gain insight to follow the spiritual path.

The same can be spoken about the Buddhist and Islamic wisdom regarding holy wars. Both religions have seen abuses of its calls for an external battle when vicious forces threaten spiritual practice. Without refuting or dwelling on these abuses, one can achieve inspiration by focusing on the payback of waging an inner holy war in either faith. In both religions, the main importance is on the internal spiritual battle against ones own unawareness and destructive ways. The caliph was demonstrating his influence to rule the entire Islamic world after conquering his brother in a civil war. He did not force all the Buddhists of Kabul to convert, nor did he destroy the monasteries.Refer: Berzin ArchivesWebsite:November 2001

Dhamma

What ones mind holds, at a given moment, is Dhamma.One has to begin to understand the Dharma through realisation. It is free from all sectarian dogmas, beliefs, rites and rituals. Even sectarian names are not needed. You may or may not call yourself a Sinhalese, Tamil or a Muslim, but you should be a Dharmic being, a person existing with a life of Dharma. This means that you should remain pure. If your mind remains uncontaminated, then all your other dealings, vocal or physical, will obviously become pure.

Another interpretation of Kalachakras forecast is that it refers to internal war against mental and exciting aggression, that it largely refers to the inner battle of the religious practitioner against barbarian tendencies

On the other hand, if you learn the art of Dharma, you start understanding peace and concord within yourself. Keep your mind pure, full of love and concern; the tranquility and harmony that is generated within infuse the mood around you. Anyone who gets in touch with you at that time establishes experiencing peace and concord. You are doling out something good that you have. This is Dharma, the art of living.

The practice

We desire to discover for ourselves, with certainty and ask the question what is the purpose of life? To find the answer to this we must be rid of all dogmas, religions, philosophies, creeds, races, nationalities and rites, because we cannot discover our purpose in life with all these hindrances.

So long as there are restrictions, there is grief and it is from sadness that all men would escape. They are trying to find a way out of anguish, out of their entanglement in the wheel of sorrow and pain. In the attainment of excellence is Liberation to be found...grief and joy, pain and happiness, light and shade are the same thing. True conception is the outcome of concord which is perfection, the fragile poise of reason and of life...Have no fear of life and you will have no fear of death. The world is in an awful state where the men are caught in many a social and environmental influences which narrow their intellect and therefore limit their viewpoint and their contentment.

To find out for oneself what is right, all influence must end.

Surely, perception ought to take the place of our abstract thinking. The unconditioned mind can be associated with insightful mind. Life is not so very easy and the persons must have the strength and the ability not to be caught in the influence of unevenness. To find out for oneself what is right, all influence must end. There is no good conditioning or bad conditioning; there is only liberty from all conditioning. There are all kinds of things in life. Life is like the deep sea, which is tremendously deep, having vast currents and is teeming with all kinds of life. And self-determination from the very structure of thought is to be a light to one. To know yourself you need not read a book, go to a priest, to any psychologist.

The whole wealth is within yourself. In this light all action takes place. There is no how, no arrangement, and no practice. There is only the seeing which is the doing. One has to see, not through the eyes of a different person. As a mirror reflects all things held facing it, so when ones mind-mirror is quiet, one will be able to see a replicate in it the true quality of oneself and of the other ones mind can discover what is true only when it is liberated from all conditioning, not when it merely repeats certain words or quotes the books called scriptures. Such a mind is not free. It is only the free mind that can be imaginative and it can be creative only when it is open, free from conditioning like the following of a pattern, a principle, or a tradition set up by an organized religion. It is only the free mind that can find out or perceive the truth of something. One has to discover it every instant of the day as one is living.

Life is like the deep sea, which is tremendously deep, having vast currents and is teeming with all kinds of life. And self-determination from the very structure of thought is to be a light to one.

Sariputtha Thera

Among other significant events of Ill; Jatila monks Uruwela Kassapa, Nadie Kassapa and Gaya Kassapa who followed a different religion and living in Neranjala village, after listening to Buddhas preaching understood the dhamma. Saripuththa thera told Buddha that he was weak and feeble and he would not be able to return after seeing his mother at his native place and he would attain Parinirwana there. Thus Saripuththa started his sojourn to see his mother. He lastly preached Dhamma to his mother, who realized dhamma.

May all Beings be Happy!

The writer can be contacted at --kksperera1@gmail.com
What Happened This Week:

In finally unveiling her Brexit deal compromise to the public last week, British Prime Minister Theresa May set off a political firestorm, complete with cabinet resignations and calls for her ouster from members of her own party. This week has been quieter by comparison, but May is now preparing to travel to Brussels at the weekend to see if there is any room left for negotiation with the European leadership about the terms of the UKs exit from the European Union, due on March 29 next year.

Why It Matters:

Because its nearing crunch time for Brexit. The next few weeks will likely determine whether Britain leaves the E.U. in an orderly, amicable way, or if it crashes out and burns itselfand Europein the process. Absent a fundamental change to the proceedings, the U.K. is heading towards the binary choice of either opting for Mays Brexit deal or no deal at all.

Are there still ways for fundamental change to happen at this point? Absolutely. The first would be if May is ousted as leader of her Conservative Party (and by extension, as U.K. prime minister) by a vote of no confidence by the members of her party currently sitting in parliament. The second would be if new general elections are triggered, as the opposition Labour party has called for should Mays deal fail to pass Parliament. The third would be the announcement of a new Brexit referendum.

Any of the three would complicate the already shambolic Brexit process in still-unforeseen ways. Its almost two and a half years since the Brits voted for Brexit, and the drama may only just be getting started.

What Happens Next:

Domestically, May could yet face a vote of no confidence in her leadership, if the magic number of 48 Conservative lawmakers call for it. But there doesnt appear to be appetite to actually oust her as leader of the Tory party, perhaps due to the fact that there is no consensus candidate to replace her. That gives May some space to operate, as her party members would be prohibited from calling another no confidence vote against her for at least 12 months. Unfortunately, it doesnt look at all likely that May has the votes to get her Brexit deal to be approved by Parliament overall. But one political crisis at a time.

Story continues

On the European side, a summit of E.U. leaders is being convened on Saturday to officially bless a Brexit withdrawal deal that seems doomed to fail in the U.K. parliament. There actually is flexibility from the Europeans on the specific terms of the Brexit deal  and there is time left to renegotiate, despite all the talk of cliff-edge deliberations. But the EU leaders are unwilling to talk about it until the existing deal May has struck fails.

Lets not forget Brexit is a much lower priority for Europe than it is for the U.K. British politicians are completely consumed by it, as it will likely determine most of their political futures. Not so much for their European counterparts. All of which means that its going to be a tall task for May to make any breakthroughs in Brussels.

The Key Number That Explains It:

Eight: the number of resignations from Theresa Mays cabinet over the last year. And more are expected as early as this week.

The Key Quote That Sums It All Up:

A change of leadership at this point isnt going to make the negotiations any easier, and its not going to change the parliamentary arithmetic. What it will do is mean there is a delay to those negotiations and thats a risk that Brexit gets delayed or frustrated.  U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May.

(True enough. But doesnt mean it wont happen.)

The One Major Misconception About It:

That the people voting/supporting Brexit are all simpletons who dont understand whats happening. Theres good reason why many Brits made considered choices to vote leave. Its not hard to believe that the E.U. is on an unsustainable long-term path, and there are plenty of historical reasons why the U.K. has always felt unenthusiastic about the further integration which would be needed to make it work. So theres a case to be made for Brexitbut not by the political leaders that are currently driving this chaotic process, obviously

The One Thing You Should Read About It:

Theresa May is shaping up to be the most decisive single figure of the Brexit ordealno matter how negotiations shake out, its worth reading her story.

The One Thing to Say About It:

If the E.U. is going to break up anyway given the growing divide between east vs. west, north vs. south and core vs. periphery, getting out early might actually be preferable for the U.K.

The One Thing to Avoid Saying About It:

You know what the Brexit process needs? More Boris Johnson.
The stress of her break up caused Helens heart to stop. Pictured here with her two sons. [Photo: SWNS]

A mum has told how she nearly died of a broken heart when it stopped beating twice after she broke up with her childhood sweetheart.

Helen Ross, 38, was devastated when her relationship with her first love fell apart, but tried to throw herself into her modelling work.

She went to Florida for a two-week modelling stint, but her trip was cut short when she collapsed on her first day of a shoot.

Her heart stopped again in hospital and doctors diagnosed her with stress-induced cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome.

While the condition is usually only seen in elderly people who lose a life partner, in Helens case medics suspected it was brought on by the trauma of the break up.

According to the British Heart Foundation, the condition occurs when the heart muscle becomes suddenly weakened and stops pumping blood to the body as well as it should.

I had never heard of broken heart syndrome before it happened to me, explains Helen who now lives in Canterbury, Kent.

I couldnt believe a break up could affect me physically, to the point where I could have died.

I felt distraught by the break up, but I didnt realise it had actually broken my heart.

Helen broke up with her boyfriend of seven years, Andy, in July 2006, when she was 26. She admits to feeling inconsolable but jetted to Orlando to take her mind off things.

I loved him to bits and could have never pictured myself without him after wed built a life together  wed only just bought a house.

Id only been in Orlando for 24 hours and was feeling physically normal, but out of the blue I just collapsed, she explains.

Staff on the photo shoot called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital, where she woke up 30 minutes later.

The doctors and nurses were really great, they wired me up and explained Id have to stay overnight for observation so they could monitor my heart, Helen says. A nurse] asked me how I was feeling and how I had slept, and I told her fine  as far as I was concerned, Id slept like a baby.

Story continues

She told me my heart had stopped beating while I was asleep  it had flatlined. I was shocked and couldnt believe it had happened while I was asleep, I could easily have died! But weirdly, by the time the doctors had come rushing in with the defibrillator seconds later, my heart had started up again by itself. They called it pot luck.

Doctors were confused by Helens sudden collapse and couldnt explain why a healthy young womans heart had stopped, seemingly randomly.

She told them that she had recently broken up and they said the break-up was the likely cause.

I told them how hard the breakup had been for me, how devastated I was and they nodded and immediately said it was to blame, she explains.

I had no idea that this sort of thing could happen, but they explained it isnt entirely uncommon in elderly people who lose their life partner  but it was rare in someone so young.

Model Helen Ross almost died of a broken heart [Photo: SWNS]

Helen was eventually airlifted home and treated at Scunthorpe General Hospital with her dad at her side. She now lives with her two sons Hugo, six, and Henry, five, and runs a horse saddle pad business.

Looking back on her experience, the mum-of-two says its taught her not to be so dependent on a man.

It taught me to focus on the positives and everything I have going for me, as well as to love myself more. I know now I will never let myself get in that position again, she says.

When couples or close family members die in quick succession, its understandable that the second death is often sentimentally attributed to a broken heart. But is it really possible for the trauma of a break up to have the same impact?

The British Heart Foundation describes takotsubo cardiomyopathy as a temporary condition where your heart muscle becomes suddenly weakened or stunned. The left ventricle, one of the hearts chambers, changes shape.

It can be brought on by a shock. About three quarters of people diagnosed with takotsubo cardiomyopathy have experienced significant emotional or physical stress prior to becoming unwell, the charity says.

This stress could include break-up devastation.

As a result of broken heart syndrome, a person may develop an irregular heartbeat, or the heart may become too weak to pump enough blood throughout the body.

Many people simply recover  the stress goes away and the heart returns to its normal shape. But in some extreme cases, like that of Helen, the change in the shape of the heart can bring on a heart attack and even death.

A spokesperson for Cardiomyopathy UK, Dr Daniel Hammersley, said: The condition causes temporary weakening of the heart muscles which results in the pumping function of the heart.

It can be associated with events that cause intense stress or emotion in some cases. Patients who develop this condition generally experience symptoms of chest pain or breathlessness.

Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases the heart muscle function recovers within a few weeks. It is a rare condition overall. It affects women more than men. Most frequently it affects people in their 50s or 60s, although it has been seen in other age groups.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK.

Read more from Yahoo Style UK:

Relationship gaslighting explained  and how to tell if its happening to you

This womans relationship exit survey is completely brilliant

Science has a theory about why people stay in unhappy relationships
TOKYO (AP)  The arrest of Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn could extinguish any remaining hopes for a merger with key shareholder Renault, which the Japanese company's CEO has publicly opposed.

Ghosn had this year said he was open to the idea of a merger between Nissan and Renault, where he is chief executive and which he has tied into a cost-saving alliance.

But Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa has opposed such a move, which would see a Japanese corporate icon come under foreign control. And with the company's board gathering Thursday to decide on ousting Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct, it appears the possibility of a merger may be shelved for good.

"It has been interesting to see Nissan's current CEO Saikawa vocally oppose the idea of a merger," said Max Warburton in an analysis of the scandal. "Now we have Ghosn being defenestrated... It is hard not to conclude that there may be a gulf opening up between Renault and Nissan."

Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan after it helped save the company two decades ago and turned it around under Ghosn's leadership. Nissan owns 15 percent of Renault.

Analysts say the companies are likely to continue their alliance. Besides the financial ties through the share ownership, they share technology, like the basic parts on which vehicles are built, as well as parts purchases. "You can't go back on it that easily," said Masahiro Akita, auto analyst with Credit Suisse.

But the scandal is likely to end speculation of a merger, experts say.

That was clear in the share price of Renault, which Warburton says would have benefited from a Nissan merger. It tanked over 8 percent on Monday when news broke of Ghosn's arrest and has not fully recovered.

Ghosn will be detained for another 10 days as he is questioned over allegedly falsifying income reports by millions of dollars and misusing company assets for personal gain, Kyodo News service reported Wednesday. It cited the Tokyo District Court, which must grant approval for such detentions.

Story continues

The court and prosecutors declined to comment.

Under Japanese law, suspects can be held for 20 days per possible charge without an official indictment. Additional charges can be tagged on, resulting in longer detentions. Neither Ghosn nor Greg Kelly, another senior Nissan executive who was arrested, has been charged so far.

Ghosn is suspected of under-reporting $44.6 million in income from 2011 to 2015, according to prosecutors.

The maximum penalty, upon conviction for violating finance and exchange laws is 10 years in prison, a 10 million yen ($89,000) fine, or both.

Detainees undergoing interrogation in the Tokyo area are generally held in a center that is separate from the prison for those who have been convicted and sentenced. It is supposed to be nicer than a prison but it is austere with limited access to outside visitors.

Prosecutors have not confirmed where Ghosn is being held.

Westerners are sometimes given better treatment than Japanese in custody, to account for cultural differences, and so it is unclear what kind of conditions Ghosn might be in.

In 2015, Julie Hamp, a Toyota Motor Corp. public relations executive, an American, was arrested on suspicion of importing oxycodone, a narcotic pain killer, into Japan. The drug is tightly controlled in Japan. Police said the drugs were in a parcel Hamp mailed to herself.

She was released from custody after about three weeks of interrogation without charges and she quickly left Japan.

It is unclear that precedence has any relevance to Ghosn's situation because the allegations involve so much money, span a significant period of time, and involve the assets of a major company.

Meanwhile, Renault has decided to retain Ghosn as CEO and that the chief operating officer, Thierry Bollore, would fill in on a temporary basis.

Renault's board also requested that Nissan share details of its internal investigation into Ghosn, which the company says was sparked by a whistleblower.

From the start, Nissan has sought to distance itself from the arrests.

Saikawa denounced Ghosn and Kelly as "the masterminds," and made clear he thought they should be removed at Nissan's board meeting Thursday.

Ghosn, 64, is credited with turning around Nissan from near-bankruptcy after he was sent to Nissan by Renault in 1999. He served as Nissan's chief executive from 2001 until last year. He became chief executive of Renault in 2005, leading the two major automakers simultaneously.

In 2016, he became chairman of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. after Nissan took it into the alliance. Ghosn spearheaded Nissan's lead in the industry in electric cars, with the Nissan Leaf the best-selling electric car.

Kelly, 62, joined Nissan in the U.S. in 1988, and became a board member from 2012. His background over the years has been in human resources and alliance management. He has a law degree from Loyola University School of Law and a bachelor's degree in public administration from Augustana College.

When Saikawa was asked how such actions could have gone undetected for five years, perhaps longer, he blamed a murky system of checks and balances at Nissan and emphasized that he believed Ghosn had too much power.

Despite the arrests, analysts said the impact on Nissan Motor Co.'s auto sales would likely be minimal.

"I'd be surprised if it impacts car sales very much," said Christopher Richter, auto analyst for CLSA Securities Japan Co. "Consumers are discerning enough."

Richter noted sales dips after previous Nissan scandals were temporary. The deviations the automaker acknowledged in those scandals were more directly related to product quality, such as mileage, emissions and plant inspections.

Nissan shares tanked 5.5 percent Tuesday after the scandal surfaced and edged up 0.4 percent on Wednesday.

___

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AMESBURY, Mass.  Over his four years in Congress, Rep. Seth Moulton has earned plenty of praise. He upset an incumbent accused of corruption in a Democratic primary in 2014 while downplaying his heroics as a Marine in Iraq. His support from top military officials  he served as an aide to former Gen. David Petraeus  and willingness to buck his owns partys leadership made him the subject of national magazine profiles and 2020 presidential speculation. He was the very image of a Democratic rising star.

Now, as that willingness to criticize top Democratic officials reaches its peak with his leadership of a coup against likely House Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi, Moulton is feeling the backlash. At a town hall in his district on Massachusetts North Shore on Monday night, activists confronted Moulton with accusations of sexism and ageism, mirroring the assault hes facing from Pelosi allies in Washington.

Im totally pissed off, said Linda Christian, 80, a retired lawyer who sharply questioned Moulton at the event. I voted for him. I like this man. I think hes shown, if not animus, stupidity.

He feels women are disposable, and elderly people are disposable, she continued.

Moulton said sticking with the partys core House leadership  including the 78-year-old Pelosi and Reps. Steny Hoyer, 79, and James Clyburn, 78  would be ignoring the lessons of the Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm elections, at least as he understands them.

The American people cried out for change in this election, Moulton said at the town hall, referencing the LGBTQ people, military veterans and people of color who won seats in the House this month. I think if our party answers that call for change with the same status quo leadership team weve had in place since 2006, were failing the American people.

Activists supporting Nancy Pelosi's bid for speaker of the House are causing problems back home for Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. (Photo: Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Not all of the more than 100 constituents who filled this 17,000-person citys town hall were there to lambast Moulton. A roughly equal number expressed support for his stance against Pelosis continued leadership of House Democrats. But the hourlong event focused almost exclusively on the speakership battle  a lone question from a city council member about sewage overflow notwithstanding  and the fracas shows the political risk of Moultons decision to lead the anti-Pelosi forces. Activists in his district and operatives across the country who once supported him are now talking of recruiting a primary challenger to him in 2020.

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If we could do a CrowdPac for Susan Collins challenger, why couldnt we do one for a challenger to him? asked Bambi Snodgrass, who helped organize the pro-Pelosi protest and said she had knocked on more than 1,000 doors for Moultons campaigns.

Moulton and the other Democratic rebels opposing Pelosi on Monday released a letter with 16 signatories pledging to oppose their partys leader both in the Democratic caucus vote and on the floor of the House. Roughly nine other Democrats  many of them military vets who unseated GOP incumbents with Moultons support  have also said they wouldnt support her. The exact size of the Democratic caucus is still uncertain, but theres likely enough opposition to cause problems for Pelosi.

While grassroots conservative activists largely backed tea party and House Freedom Caucus challenges to John Boehners leadership, grassroots progressives like Snodgrass and the other protesters seem more likely to back the Democratic Partys established leadership. Indivisible, the network of local progressive groups that has played a major role in encouraging and organizing Democratic energy during the Trump era, endorsed Pelosi for speaker last week. Thats a potential problem for Moulton and the other rebels, who largely hail from the center of the political spectrum. Just two of the anti-Pelosi letters signatories are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Democratic Party appears split on the Pelosi question. A CBS News poll released on Monday night found 49 percent of Democrats want Pelosi to continue as speaker, 40 percent would prefer another Democrat and 10 percent are undecided.

The divide was visible in Amesbury.

The implication, that just because Im a white man, that Im being sexist just because Im opposed to 16 years of two people basically running the Democratic side of Congress, I resent that, one man said at the town hall.

Pelosi, meanwhile, has steadfastly insisted she feels no threat from the second-term Moulton and his allies, including Ohio Reps. Tim Ryan and Marcia Fudge. I will be speaker of the House no matter what Seth Moulton says, she boasted last week.

Democratic sources said Pelosis team has dispatched California Rep. Ted Lieu, a veteran and Pelosi ally, to lobby the freshmen military veterans who Moulton helped recruit, including Reps.-elect Jason Crow of Colorado and Jared Golden of Maine.

Moulton expressed confidence the newly elected members would keep their campaign trail promise not to back Pelosi, and predicted a quiet plurality of the Democratic caucus would prevent her from rising to a second stint as speaker.

Theres a lot of people trying to figure out what to do, Moulton told reporters after the Amesbury event. And a lot of people are staying quiet because they dont want to have a contentious town hall like this one.

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When youre asked to retell a story told dozens of times before how do you make it feel fresh and original?

That was the task Otto Bathurst faced when bringing to life Robin Hood once more in a brand new cinematic adventure.

We really wanted to drag Robin Hood into the 21st Century, the director tells Yahoo Movies UK. The story is more relevant than ever; religion is more oppressive than ever before, governments are more corrupt, theres more greed, more abuse going on in the world, so now we need more Robin Hoods and Maid Marians too for that matter.

Taron Egerton was cast as the titular hero, having whet his action hero whistle in the Kingsman franchise, with Eve Hewson beating several up and coming actors to the role of Maid Marian.

Robin Hood is needed right now, says director

Their characterisations are both faithful and different to the original tale  shes the commoner activist, hes the cavalier lord of the manor  while Jamie Foxxs John is an amalgamation of Little John and the black Moor sidekick first introduced to the Robin Hood stories in the TV series Robin of Sherwood.

The idea that a Christian and Muslim fighting during the Crusades, then teaming up, seems highly unlikely but nothing about this film is meant to be that factual.

Theres no historical accuracy in the movie at all and that was conscious, Bathurst explains. Were creating a metaphor, a spectacle, a fantastical thrilling world youre thrown into.

Otto Bathurst discusses his new movie with Yahoo Movies UK

Thats why the film looks more like The Hunger Games than 12th Century Britain with machine stitched costumes and machinery that might not have been available until after the Industrial Revolution.

Theres also an absence of East Midlands or Yorkshire accents but the director explains that thats because he wanted Nottingham to feel more international than local.

Yes it is set in Nottingham, but Nottingham didnt look like that and we wanted it to be feel big, international, also to be anachronistic and irreverent, he says. Yes they might pick holes in the accent but we painted Nottingham as this cultural metropolis.

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If you start a revolution in a small town in the North of England, so what? Whereas if you start it in this thriving metropolis which is seen as the cultural, spiritual and political capital of the country then the ripples of that revolution are going to be a bigger thing.

Robin Hood is in cinemas now

READ MORE

Taron Egerton wont be in the next Kingsman film

Peaky Blinders director confirms movie

Egerton on racial tension in Robin Hood
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  In a story Nov. 21 about claims made that the Romanian president was anti-Semitic, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Radu Ioanid is the director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is the director of the International Archives Program Division at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Romania president embroiled in anti-Semitic claims

Leaders of the Jewish community defend President Klaus Iohannis after a politician he'd refused to appoint as minister, accused him of anti-Semitism

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Jewish leaders have defended Romania's President Klaus Iohannis after a politician he refused to appoint as minister accused him of anti-Semitism.

Iohannis, who signs off on ministerial appointments, on Tuesday rejected two nominees including ex-business minister Ilan Laufer, who was selected to be development minister by the government.

Laufer, a Romanian Jew, hit back calling the president anti-Semitic.

The director of the International Archives Program Division at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Radu Ioanid told The Associated Press Wednesday "the accusation doesn't hold water."

He said Iohannis "supports our work in Europe and Romania combatting Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism."

Iohannis also condemned Laufer for "using such sensitive terms for political gain. "

Later Wednesday, Liviu Dragnea, leader of the governing Social Democratic Party, publicly distanced himself from Laufer's remarks.
Shanghai (AFP) - A crowd gathers at a Shanghai hospital, queuing for remedies made with plant mixtures and animal parts including scorpions and freeze-dried millipedes -- medicines that China hopes will find an audience overseas.

With a history going back 2,400 years, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is deeply rooted in the country and remains popular despite access to Western pharmaceuticals. Now the authorities are hoping to modernise and export the remedies, but they face major obstacles.

A veritable forest of medicinal plants surrounds patients waiting at Yueyang Hospital's pharmacy. Some leave with boxes of pills, others take away plastic sachets filled with herbal extracts.

Lin Hongguo, a 76-year-old pensioner, has bought herbal remedies that he will boil to make a tea to treat his "slow beating heart".

"I prefer it to Western medicines. It's not about the cost, it's because it works well," he told AFP.

Another patient, pet fish seller Wang Deyun, 51, is also a believer.

"Two months ago my skin had an allergic reaction to a modern medicine for high blood pressure," she said from her hospital bed.

But after a treatment of face masks and plant infusions, she said she's almost fully healed.

- Painting vs photography -

Traditional medicine is subsidised in China and is cheaper than Western medicine.

It consistently makes up one quarter of the country's pharmaceuticals market -- even as China increasingly opens up to modern medicine.

The World Health Organisation will next year include a chapter on traditional medicine in its "International Classification of Diseases" -- a tome of reference for medical trends and global health statistics.

China hopes the WHO inclusion will spur global recognition of its traditional remedies as it seeks to export them.

But Beijing still faces significant hurdles, not least the fact that TCM focuses on tailoring treatment to each individual, which means different people with the same condition can be prescribed different medicines and dosages.

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"It's like a painting -- it's composed differently each time, while Western medicine is more similar to photography" with its standardised products, said Wang Zhenyi, a proctologist at Yueyang Hospital.

That is the crux of China's challenge in gaining overseas acceptance: its traditional medicine is largely incompatible with modern clinical trials which require an identical product to be tested on a large number of patients.

As these medicines typically contain dozens of ingredients, understanding how they work together and proving their effectiveness is a complex task.

Even within China there have been public skirmishes over the efficacy of TCM, pitting its proponents against doctors who advocate evidence-based, peer-reviewed medicine.

Conservationists also say growing demand for products like rhino horn and pangolin scales -- which are used by some practitioners even though they have no proven medical properties -- have decimated vulnerable species.

China partially lifted a ban on trading tiger bones and rhino horns last month despite warnings from conservationists, though state media later quoted an official saying the change had been "postponed".

Chinese experts say endangered animal parts are increasingly being replaced by synthetic versions, but TCM may still prove a tough sell abroad.

"I think the best potential is in the consumer market, such as nutritional supplements," said Tony Ren, a pharma analyst with Kim Eng Securities in Hong Kong.

- AI to the rescue -

Few Western pharmaceutical companies are keen to try to untangle these difficulties.

But French biotech company Pharnext has taken on the challenge, partnering last year with Tasly, one of China's biggest producers of traditional medicines.

Together, they are looking to transform the industry by streamlining "the procedures to have a more stable production of plants which have identical properties and understand why the mixture works", said Daniel Cohen, founder and CEO of Pharnext.

The two companies are using artificial intelligence to understand how the medicines work as they look to standardise them, he added.

They face an uphill battle.

In the United States, Tasly has been trying for more than 20 years to get approval for Dantonic, an angina medicine based on sage and ginseng that was legalised in China in 1993.

Though the firm has completed medical trials, it has come up hard against US law, which does not allow treatments composed of different plants.

But Chinese medical professionals still feel the quest for acceptance abroad is worth the effort.

"Medicine is still a very young science, with many unknowns. You increase your ability to heal if you know both Western and Chinese medicine," said proctologist Wang of Yueyang hospital.

"It's the result that counts."
Alexander Prokopchuk, left, was beaten to the post by Kim Jong-yang of South Korea - AFP

Interpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations.

The US-backed Kim, acting president of the global police body, was picked at a meeting of delegates from member nations in Dubai to replace Meng Hongwei, who went missing in his native China in September.

Beijing later said Meng resigned after being charged with accepting bribes.

There had been growing calls within Western nations for Interpol to reject Russian candidate Alexander Prokopchuk - a Russian interior ministry official and current Interpol vice president - over fears Moscow could abuse the role to target political opponents.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw his weight behind Kim, who will serve out Meng's term until 2020.

"We encourage all nations and organisations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that," Pompeo told reporters.

Foreign Office minister Harriett Baldwin told Parliament on Tuesday that the Government would support Kim's bid.

Critics have raised concerns over Russia's previous applications for Interpol "Red Notices", or international arrest warrants, to target those who have fallen foul of the Kremlin.

Interpol's president chairs its General Assembly while day-to-day operations are handled by the organisation's Secretary general Juergen Stock.

In an open letter this week, a bipartisan group of US senators said choosing Prokopchuk would be like "putting a fox in charge of a henhouse".

"Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists," they wrote.

The controversy also comes amid security concerns over the Salisbury nerve agent poisonings and Russia's subsequent attempt to hack the network of the global chemical weapons watchdog.

Ukraine, deeply at odds with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists, threatened to pull out of Interpol if Prokopchuk prevailed. Lithuania also said it would consider withdrawing from the network.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the US senators' letter as a "vivid example" of an attempt to interfere in the vote. Moscow's interior ministry denounced a "foreign media campaign aimed at discrediting Russia's candidate".
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday it had delayed discussions on Sri Lankas next loan tranche due to the countrys political crisis.

The IMF has disbursed over $1 billion out of a $1.5 billion three-year extended fund facility (EFF) loan it agreed in 2016. The aim was to avert a financial crisis and support the economic reform agenda of the government then in power.

That government was sacked on Oct. 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena due to differences with former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was backing social market economic policies.

Since the removal of Wickremesinghe, Sirisena has dissolved the parliament and called for a fresh election, but the Supreme Court last week ordered a suspension of that decree until it had heard petitions challenging the move as unconstitutional.

In September, the IMF said its mission had made significant progress towards reaching a staff-level agreement with the government on completing the fifth review of the EFF and discussions will continue during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in October.

On Tuesday an IMF spokesman told Reuters via email: We are monitoring the situation and remain in close contact with our technical counterparts in Sri Lanka.

Program discussions on the 5th review of the IMFs Extended Fund Facility are currently on hold, pending clarity on the political situation.

After completion of the fifth review Sri Lanka would expect to receive a sixth tranche of about $250 million. The total loan was expected to have been disbursed with a seventh tranche by mid 2019.

The political crisis has hit the economy. Already the rupee currency has fallen about 1.8 percent since the crisis unfolded last month. On Monday, the rupee fell to a record low of 177.20 per dollar. Foreign investors have pulled out more than 30 billion rupees ($169.5 million) since the crisis unfolded on Oct. 26.

Moodys also downgraded Sri Lanka on Tuesday for the first time since it started rating the country in 2010, blaming a political crisis for exacerbating already problematic finances. (Reuters)
Moscow (AFP) - Arms giant Rostec is seeing strong demand for its advanced anti-missile systems despite international sanctions against the Russian defence sector, chief executive Sergei Chemezov told AFP in an interview.

Chemezov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, is nonetheless also charting a course to increase sales of Rostec's non-military products.

Since Russia's intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the world's second-largest arms exporter after the United States has been hit by several rounds of sanctions by Washington and the European Union (EU). Rostec and Chemezov himself have been specifically targeted.

"The sanctions are beneficial to US companies competing with us," the chief executive noted in an interview conducted via e-mail.

"At the same time, we are well aware of the negative attitude of many foreign companies, of our traditional foreign partners, to the sanctions."

An economist by training, Chemezov built a career in the import-export trade and met Putin when both were in Dresden, Eastern Germany, in the 1980s.

Chemezov worked for an industrial group, Putin for the KGB.

Now the head of the country's state-owned arms giant, Chemezov points to the S-400 air defence systems as an example of foreign demand for Rostec products despite the sanctions.

In late October, India agreed to a deal for multiple batteries worth more than $5 billion despite warnings from Washington.

"Currently, S-400 contracts are being implemented with Turkey and China," Chemezov added.

"We cannot yet tell about future plans, however, despite the active propaganda of the United States against Russian armaments, there is demand for the S-400, and it is big."

According to Bloomberg, an S-400 battery costs between $475-$625 million, compared with $550-$700 million for a US-made Patriot system, and boasts greater range and interception capabilities, and a faster set-up time.

The Rostec chief said the group was doing all it could to minimise the sanction's impact and argued that they were also detrimental to the US and EU.

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Rosoboronexport, the Rostec unit charged with selling arms abroad, has outstanding orders worth more than $50 billion, he said.

- From Soviet ruins -

Rostec was created in 2007 to transform the arms industry inherited from the Soviet Union.

It comprised more than 400 businesses, many of which were in ruins, and was saddled with 630 billion rubles in debt, roughly equivalent to $9.6 billion today.

The group now oversees more than 700 businesses, from arms manufacturers to camera and plane makers. Total sales in 2017 were 1.6 trillion rubles, or a little more than $22.8 billion.

While Rostec is modernising its military production, it also aims to make civilian products account for 50 percent of total output by 2025, compared with 28 percent at present.

"If we want to continue our sustainable development and remain adequately competitive, we must focus on civilian products," Chemezov said.

"We are well aware that supplies of arms have boundaries and limits."

- The Kalashnikov example -

The group has also successfully opened some subsidiaries to private investors and presents Kalashnikov, maker of the renowned AK-47 assault rifle, as an example.

Now 75-percent controlled by private investors, once-ailing Kalashnikov has rebounded and recently announced 1,700 new hires to manage increased exports.

"The concern nowadays is a manufacturer of not only small arms, but also unmanned aerial vehicles, fast boats, electric motorcycles, other hi-tech civilian products," Chemezov noted.

Rostec might now allow investors to buy into the optical-electronic systems group Shvabe as well.

Shvabe recently attracted attention with news it would reboot manufacturing of the iconic Soviet camera Zenit in partnership with the German firm Leica.

In aviation, Rostec is taking over UAC, which groups leading Russian manufacturers of military and civilian aircraft, including Antonov, Tupolev and Sukhoi.

"We are ready to compete with Boeing and Airbus for the global aviation market," Chemezov said.

The group's efforts should propel Rostec among the world's 10 biggest industrial corporations in terms of revenue, he said.
Madrid (AFP) - Pedro Sanchez on Thursday kicks off the first official visit by a Spanish leader to Cuba in 32 years, as Havana seeks closer ties with the European Union faced with a hardline United States.

Sanchez's Socialist government said his two-day trip will end the "anomaly" that no Spanish leader has paid an official visit to the communist island since 1986, despite Spain being Cuba's second biggest trading partner after Venezuela.

Other world leaders have visited Cuba in recent years, including US president Barack Obama's historic 2016 trip as he sought to thaw relations with Havana.

But relations between the two countries have declined under President Donald Trump.

The US has maintained its decades-long economic blockade of Cuba, citing repression of political opponents and curbs on freedom of expression.

It has also accused Cuba of being behind mysterious sonic "attacks" on US diplomats in the country who have suffered symptoms consistent with mild brain trauma -- including, in some cases, disorientation and hearing loss.

Cuba has rejected those accusations.

As relations with Washington have soured, Havana has sought new allies in the EU.

Sanchez's visit comes just days after EU and Cuban officials met as part of a landmark cooperation deal that took effect in November 2017.

Sanchez is due to meet with Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel but is not expected to hold talks with Raul Castro, who stepped down as president in April but still leads the ruling Communist Party.

Sanchez will host a breakfast gathering with Spanish business leaders and a forum for which some 200 companies from both countries have registered, including telecoms giant Telefonica or the airline Iberia.

Spain is the main foreign investor in several sectors of the Cuban economy, including tourism and financial services.

It hopes to increase its presence in tourism, renewable energy and infrastructure as the island opens up, the Spanish government said.

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Cuba is also keen for foreign investment as its economy suffers from a crisis in Venezuela, its biggest trading partner and oil provider.

Sanchez will also broach the thorny issue of recent unpaid debt from Cuba to Spain, which is blocking loan concessions.

He is not expected to meet with dissidents, according to the Spanish government, but will hold talks with members of Cuba's civil society, including Cuban writer Leonardo Padura and designer Idania del Rio.
Russia has been dealt a blow in its attempts to have their candidate elected as Interpols next president following the election of South Koreas Kim Jong Yang.

Mr Kim edged out Alexander Prokopchuk, a veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the US, Britain and other European nations.

The White House and its European partners had lobbied against Mr Prokopchuks attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation, saying his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents.

South Koreas Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols next president (PA)

Alexander Prokopchuk is a veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the US, Britain and other European nations (AP)

Mr Prokopchuk is a general in the Russian Interior Ministry and serves as an Interpol vice president.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the result as very important news for rule of law internationally after concerns Mr Prokopchuk would be victorious.

British financier Bill Browder, a long-standing critic of Mr Putin, hailed the vote and vowed to continue his battle to get Russia suspended from the police network over its serial abuse of arrest notices.

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He tweeted: Interpol rejects Russian candidate as president. Instead votes to elect South Korean candidate. Reason prevails in this dark world.

Interpol confirmed the decision had been made at its general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday.

Mr Kims win came after MPs joined fears expressed by prominent politicians of a mafia takeover if Mr Prokopchuk was elected.

There had been fears that Moscow would use Mr Prokopchuks position to target its political opponents (Getty)

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable was among those to give warnings, saying selecting the Russian would be an absolute insult to the victims of the Salisbury Novichok poisonings.

Tory MP and Conservative Commons Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat added to the BBC: We are looking at the possibility of one of the henchmen of a mafia state, one of Putins appointees, taking over an international law based organisation.

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This is an organisation that Mr Prokopchuk himself has already tried to corrupt by using the so-called red notice system, a system for international arrest, for opponents of the Putin regime, for journalists.

Former Interpol president Meng Hongwei has been detained in China (Getty)

Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab added that the election of the Putin-appointed police general would shred its credibility.

Concerns were also raised when the previous Interpol president, Meng Hongwei, was elected, because he was a senior official in the Chinese government, which has also been accused of misusing the system.

The latest election was sparked after Mr Meng was arrested in China during a purge against allegedly disloyal or corrupt officials.

Mr Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor.
Madrid (AFP) - Spain's National Court has ruled against the creation of a sex worker's union that left the feminist Socialist government red-faced upon discovering its own administration had approved it.

The court, which decides major cases, said Wednesday it had cancelled the statutes of the "Organisation of Sex Workers", which had been registered by the labour ministry and published in the official gazette on August 4.

It ruled that a union cannot defend members engaged in "activities that by nature don't come with a valid work contract".

It added that recognizing such a union would equate to "admitting that pimping... is a legal activity".

The OTRAS union, which vows to defend the rights of people in the industry, had argued that it represented pornographic film actors and phone sex operators in addition to prostitutes.

But the court decided that not excluding prostitutes meant the union was illegal.

OTRAS said it would appeal against the court's ruling and hold its first congress on Saturday in Barcelona to finalise its structure.

"In the 19th century, there were no unions in hotels, in mining or industry," OTRAS secretary general Concha Borrell told a news conference.

Spain's fiercely anti-prostitution Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was deeply embarrassed in August when news of the union's approval was exposed.

Sex work is tolerated in Spain -- neither illegal nor regulated -- but Sanchez came to power in June with a strongly feminist agenda promising to fight the exploitation of women.

The labour ministry had promptly launched proceedings to challenge the union's existence in court.

Labour Minister Magdalena Valerio told reporters at the time she was shocked by the fact such a union had been approved by her ministry's labour directorate general.

"As a minister and member of a feminist government, I would never have given the OK for this to be published in the official state gazette," she said.

The blunder was one of "the biggest" upsets in her life, Valerio added.
JAKARTA (Reuters) - A sperm whale found dead in a national park in Indonesia had nearly six kilogrammes (13.2 lbs) of plastic waste, including 115 cups, in its stomach, park officials said on Tuesday.

The 9.5-metre (31.17 ft) whale was found in waters near Kapota Island, part of the Wakatobi National Park, south east of Sulawesi, the park said in a statement.

The park is famous among divers for its large area of reefs and diverse marine life including rays and whales.

The cause of death was not known, but park officials found plastic bottles, bags, sandals, and a sack with more than 1,000 pieces of string in the whale's stomach.

In June, the death of a pilot whale in Thailand with 80 pieces of plastic rubbish in its stomach garnered headlines locally, but drew more attention outside the country.

Five Asian nations -- China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand -- account for up to 60 percent of plastic waste leaking into oceans, said a 2015 report by the environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment.

Indonesia, ranked second behind China in the 2015 study of mismanaged plastic waste from populations living near coastal areas in 192 countries, has pledged $1 billion a year to reduce marine plastic debris by 70 percent by 2025.

Wakatobi park planned to bury the whale carcass at high tide on Tuesday, and the remains would be used for study purposes by the local marine academy.

(Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
Addis Ababa (AFP) - Three Ethiopian students were killed and 34 injured after a fight on a campus escalated into deadly ethnic clashes in the west of the Horn of Africa country, the government said on Wednesday.

The unrest broke out on Tuesday after a fight at Assoa University erupted into wider violence between groups of students, Minister of Science and Higher Education Hirut Woldemariam said, quoted by Fana Broadcasting Corporate, which is close to the state.

While Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has received international praise for his reformist agenda, a wave of intercommunal violence -- mostly over land issues -- has marred the first few months of his rule.

The minister did not give details about how the three students died or say to which ethnic groups they belonged. But activists on social media said fighting was between students from the country's two main ethnic groups, Oromo and Amhara.

"The unrest degenerated into deadly clashes because of the interference of forces intent on causing chaos," the minister said without giving any further details.

She said scores of people suspected of being involved in the clashes were arrested and university officials, local elders and student organisations were trying to ease tensions.

Ethiopia's higher education institutions have been a centre of dissent since the 1960s and helped overthrow the last Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974. Universities are often the site of ethnic, political and religious clashes.

Last month, at least 44 people were killed in fighting between rival ethnic groups in western Ethiopia when youths armed with rocks and knives forced thousands of people to flee their homes until security forces were deployed to calm the area.
Cuts credit rating to B2 from BI and changes outlook to Negative

Says current political crisis exacerbates SLs refinancing risks

Expects slower pace of fiscal consolidation amid political turmoil

He further revealed the Central Bank is now in consultation with central banks in Qatar and Oman for swap arrangements. He said these swaps would be negotiated below the yield curve of international sovereign bonds.



Dr. Coomaraswamy also said they havent abandoned the plans to go for Samurai and Panda bond issues as announced earlier.

Further, he did not rule out the possibility of going for an international sovereign bond issue as previously announced.



Sri Lanka has to settle a US $ 1 billion sovereign bond maturing in January 15, 2019 and another US $ 500 million sovereign bond maturing in April.



The country will also have to keep on raising funds from various sources at least for the next few years, as the country has to settle US $ 4 billion on average for five years, starting next year.



The Central Bank Governor said as of November 14, Sri Lankas foreign reserves stood at US $ 7.2 billion, down from US $ 7.2 billion, partly due to a US $ 500 million payment under the Asian Clearing Unit.



The Central Bank hopes to end the year with US $ 7.8bn foreign reserves.

Delivering the first major blow to crisis-ridden Sri Lankas economy, Moodys Investors Service yesterday downgraded the Government of Sri Lankas foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured ratings to B2 from B1 and changed the outlook to Stable from Negative.



At the same time, Moodys lowered the local-currency bond and deposit ceilings to Ba2 from Ba1. The foreign currency bond ceiling was lowered to Ba3 from Ba2 and the foreign currency deposit ceiling was lowered to B3 from B2.



Citing reasons for the downgrade, Moodys said the current political turmoil in Sri Lanka has exacerbated the countrys debt refinancing risks amid the tightening of external and domestic financing conditions and low foreign reserve adequacy.



The rating agency recently placed Sri Lanka among Maldives (B2 negative), Mongolia (B3 stable), and Pakistan (B3 negative), who are particularly vulnerable to tightening external financing conditions, as the countrys large external financing needs and substantial foreign currency government debt raise its vulnerability.

Moodys also noted that even if the current political crisis is resolved quickly, it has heightened refinancing risks beyond levels anticipated when the rating agency affirmed the rating at B1 with a Negative outlook in July.



Further, Moodys projections include a slower pace of fiscal consolidation than assumed in July to reflect disruption to fiscal policy implementation in a period of political turmoil.



Sri Lanka is now in a political deadlock situation with President Maithripala Sirisena sacking his Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointing the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place on October 26.



The subsequent dissolution of parliament by Sirsena, which is now being challenged at the countrys highest court, has plunged Sri Lanka into further chaos.

Meanwhile, Moodys said Sri Lankas debt refinancing will remain highly vulnerable to sudden shifts in investor sentiment in a period of further tightening in financing conditions and political and policy uncertainty, with limited buffers to face such risk.



However, the rating agency expects that despite the current political crisis, any future government will remain broadly focused on implementing important fiscal, monetary and economic reforms that would strengthen the credit profile over the medium term.



Sri Lankas Central Bank last Wednesday assured that it has lined up various sources of funding to settle the maturing international bonds and other foreign borrowings next year, despite the political turmoil currently brewing in the country.



Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy revealed that three State-run banksBank of Ceylon (BOC), National Savings Bank (NSB) and Peoples Bank (PB) would together raise US $ 750 million to US $ 1 billion from the Middle East before the end of this year, while noting that the government has decided to upscale the term loan arrangement with China Development Bank by US $ 500 million.
President Donald Trump says he would meet with Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammad bin Salman at the G20 meeting in Argentina next month if he attends, despite American intelligence reports indicating the Arab leader likely directed the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr Trump made the remarks during an impromptu press conference with reporters outside of the White House, and after the West Wing indicated the president would not seek to punish Mr Salman for the murder. Mr Trump had indicated the US government stood with Saudi Arabia in spite of the killing, which was carried out at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, Mr Trump said in a statement. However, he added: Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran, Mr Trumps statement read.

The killing of Khashoggi, who resided in the United States and disappeared after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul ahead of his planned wedding, has led to rare bipartisan criticism of the Saudi Arabian government, including its involvement in the bloody war in Yemen.

Meanwhile, the White House has been cautious and has justified not punishing Saudi Arabia over Khashoggis death by citing the threat of Iran in the Middle East, and a $110bn arms sales contract that he claims  inaccurately  sustains 500,000 jobs in the US.

The Saudi Arabian government has admitted that Saudi government officials were involved in Khashoggis death, and the governments prosecutor plans on seeking the death penalty for five men involved in the slaying.

Khashoggi, a Saudi national, was a sharp critic of the government there before his killing.
President Trump on Tuesday reaffirmed the U.S alliance with Saudi Arabia and defended the kingdom from charges that it orchestrated the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a remarkable statement laden with exclamation points, the president called Saudi Arabia a steadfast partner and insisted we may never know who was responsible for Khashoggis murder.

Khashoggi, a former advisor to Saudi intelligence who had become a blistering critic of the the Saudi royal family and was living in voluntary exile in the U.S., was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2. He had entered the consulate to finalize divorce paperwork so he could marry his fiancee, who waited for hours outside but never saw him come out.

The Saudi government originally denied any knowledge of Khashoggis fate but later admitted that he was murdered at the consulate in what they claimed was a rogue operation they had not authorized.

The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone, Trumps statement said. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder.

The Trump administration has sanctioned 17 Saudis suspected to be involved with the murder but has not punished Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Western intelligence agencies, including the CIA, believe to have orchestrated the attack.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, the White House said. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! Trump said.
President Trump has a new target for his Twitter rage: John Roberts, chief justice of the United States.

Trump lashed out at Roberts on Wednesday in an escalating dispute over the independence of the federal judiciary that began the day before, when Trump attacked an appellate judge appointed by President Obama over a ruling that went against the administrations policy on refugee asylum, calling him an Obama judge.

Roberts rebuked the president for that remark in a statement to the Associated Press, provoking a response from Trump in which he implied that the chief justice has a lot to learn about how the U.S. court system works and told him to study the numbers on how often the Ninth Circuit (which covers the West Coast) has frequently overturned his administrations policies.

President Trump and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. (Photo-illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP)

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country, Trump wrote on Twitter. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security  these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

Trump had lashed out after Judge Jon S. Tigar issued a temporary restraining order on Monday blocking implementation of the presidents policy restricting applications for asylum by migrants entering the country from Mexico between official border crossings. The caravan of mostly Central American asylum-seekers began arriving at the border in the past week.

Trump called Tigars ruling disgraceful and noted that the judge had been appointed in 2012 by Obama.

This led Roberts to issue his own rebuke of the presidents understanding of the judicial system.

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges, Roberts said in a statement. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

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Presidents have often been critical of Supreme Court rulings, as Obama was after the courts ruling in the Citizens United v. FEC case and as George W. Bush was following a high court ruling that upheld the rights of U.S. prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the feud between Roberts and Trump is new territory for the country, since it concerns the role of the judiciary itself.

As most Americans were busy preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump continued to press his case that the court system itself was making the country less safe.

There are a lot of CRIMINALS in the Caravan. We will stop them. Catch and Detain! Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. Not good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

As of Wednesday evening, the chief justice had yet to respond further to the president.

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Read more from Yahoo News:
Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, report argues amid crisis over murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Donald Trump and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, take part in a bilateral meeting at a hotel in Riyadh. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

US arms sales to Saudi Arabia give Washington extensive leverage on Riyadh, while accounting for fewer than 20,000 US jobs a year  less than a twentieth of the employment boost Donald Trump has claimed  according to a new report.

Trump has repeatedly cited the importance of Saudi arms sales to the US economy as a reason not to cut the supply of weapons in response to the murder of the Saudi writer and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.

The president has frequently estimated the total extent of defence sales to the Saudi regime at $110bn, and variously said they would generate 450,000, 500,000 or 600,000 jobs.

According to a report by the Centre for International Policy thinktank in Washington, those figures are hugely inflated. The report, US Military Support for Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen, argues that Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, and the administration is underplaying its hand, if it wants to rein in Riyadh in Yemen  or punish the monarchy for Khashoggis murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Observers of the Trump White House argue that there are other factors in play behind Trumps staunch defence of the Saudi monarchy, and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in particular. Saudi support is critical to the administrations priority in the Middle East, exerting extreme pressure on Iran in the wake of Trumps scrapping of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. There is also a personal financial motive. Saudi block bookings have helped boost otherwise flagging revenues at Trumps hotel in New York.

The actual value of US arms sales to Riyadh since Trump took office is $14.5bn, the report says.

Even that figure refers to letters of offer and acceptance for new weaponry and support equipment, which is just one step in a longer process involved in arms transactions. It does not represent actual signed contracts. All of the major sales in the pipeline were initiated by the Obama administration, which was seeking to appease Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the Iran nuclear deal.

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The reports author, William Hartung, said it was difficult to pin a precise number of jobs to that volume of sales.

If we take a generous approach and include all jobs created in direct assembly and production of components, along with the jobs induced by the spending of wages by workers employed in assembly or component production, the $2.5bn in annual arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia would create 17,500 jobs in any given year, Hartung wrote, pointing out that it was a tiny fraction of 1% of the 160 million US workforce.

In defending his support of Riyadh, Trump has suggested that other arms suppliers like Russia or China would quickly take any business turned down by the US. But Hartung argued that Saudi armed forces are so dependent on US hardware it would be very hard to them to change suppliers selling totally incompatible equipment.

The preponderance of US equipment used by Saudi forces also makes it difficult for another supplier like Russia or China to replace the United States as a major supplier to Riyadh, the report said. It would take decades for the Kingdom to wean itself from dependence on US equipment, training and support, and new equipment might not be easily interoperable with US-supplied systems.
President Trump on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for the declining price of oil, one day after he said the United States would back the country even if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82, Trump said in a tweet. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!
Donald Trump has thanked Saudi Arabia for lowering oil prices, just hours after he refused to condemn the kingdom over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The president tweeted: "Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!"

He followed up moments later by repeating his slogan, "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!".

Mr Trump's statement strains credibility. Most oil analysts credit Russia for pressuring Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations to keep output up and oil prices down.

Mr Trump himself also played a role. By granting waivers from U.S. sanctions on Iran oil sales to China, Japan, and six other countries, he undermined expectations of a crunch and created an unanticipated glut in the market, collapsing oil prices.

The president likely hopes news about oil prices will divert attention away from his handling of the Khashoggi affair. The Washington Post columnist was ambushed, murdered, and dismembered by a Saudi kill team in Istanbul 50 days ago. Despite global outrage over the killing of the journalist, Mr Trump has insisted on sno erious consequences for the Saudi leadership believed to have ordered the assassination because of Saudi weapons purchases, the White House's confrontation with Iran, and oil prices.

Lower oil prices might please US consumers, but will likely not help Mr Trump politically. Despite a booming economy, Mr Trump's approval ratings remain low, with 53 per cent of voters disapproving of his presidency.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) today said it is of the view that the decision by Moody's to downgrade Sri Lankan Government's foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured ratings from B1 (Negative) to B2 (Stable) does not properly reflect the countrys macroeconomic fundamentals, and therefore unwarranted.

In a statement, the CBSL said it wishes to reiterate that Sri Lankas macroeconomic position has neither deteriorated nor has there been any policy slippage since Moodys last rating decision in July 2018, in spite of the recent developments in the countrys political sphere.

In fact, based on satisfactory programme performance, the Sri Lankan authorities and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached staff-level agreement following the fifth review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme on 26 October 2018, and the agreement was to be announced on 29 October 2018. The programme discussions are currently on hold, pending clarity on the political situation.

Sri Lankas current level of gross official reserves (GOR) amounting to US dollars 7.2 billion is sufficient for the country to meet its external debt obligations in the period ahead. In addition, as a precautionary measure, the CBSL has initiated negotiations with central banks of friendly nations with regard to obtaining foreign currency SWAP facilities of sizable amounts. These measures will further strengthen the countrys foreign reserve adequacy, and would enable timely servicing of external obligations while intervening cautiously in the foreign exchange market to prevent a disorderly adjustment of the exchange rate. In addition, the fiscal and macro prudential measures that are already in place are expected to result in an improvement in the external trade balance as well, thus reducing pressure on external reserves and the exchange rate.

Arrangements have already been made to ensure Sri Lankas track record of meeting debt obligations on time is sustained. In order to meet the Governments external liabilities of International Sovereign Bond (ISB) maturities of US dollars 1 billion in January 2019 and US dollars 500 million in April 2019, the authorities have already built a buffer fund from proceeds of the divestment of Hambantota port and the syndicated loan of China Development Bank (CDB). The space provided under the Active Liability Management initiative not exceeding a limit of Rs. 310 billion also provides for building required buffers and spaces to meet future debt service payments. In addition, the issuance of Sri Lanka Development Bonds (SLDBs) of around US dollars 750 million to US dollars 1 billion during the remainder of the year and in early 2019 is now at an advanced stage of completion. These investments would be sourced through enhanced credit lines for state banks from the Middle East and East Asia, together with remittance and tourism related inflows. In addition, the US dollars 500 million enhancement, in February 2019, to the syndicated loan obtained from CDB is also on track. This means that by February 2019 more than USD 2 bn will be mobilized. This would more than cover all the ISB payments due in 2019. In addition the buffer can be further built up through USD 600 mn expected as disbursements from bilateral and multilateral agencies during next year.

Meanwhile, domestic financing conditions have shown considerable improvement through spaces created and debt management strategies introduced recently. This has reduced the roll-over requirement of Treasury bonds and SLDBs in 2019, 2020 and in the medium-term. The Treasury bond maturities, which amounted to over Rs. 600 billion in 2018, are lower in 2019 and 2020, amounting to around Rs. 450 billion and Rs. 290 billion, respectively. Similarly, SLDB maturities, which amounted to around US dollars 2.3 billion in 2018, have also been reduced to around US dollars 0.62 billion and US dollars 0.82 billion in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Further, the new acquisition of government securities by the banking sector has increased by only 1.5 per cent in 2018 as against the trend increase of around 5 per cent in recent years. These developments along with resource availability among institutional investors highlight the substantial space that exists to meet financing requirements from the domestic market. Continued fiscal consolidation, particularly with the positive primary balance and the Active Liability Management initiatives, are expected to further strengthen the governments fiscal operations in 2019 and in the medium term.

Given these parameters, the CBSL is of the view that the recent rating action by Moodys is unwarranted. Such an action only on the premise of heightened political uncertainty, with no evidence of slippages in macroeconomic policies, cannot be justified, the statement said.
Donald Trump has doubled down on his support for Saudi Arabia, saying he intended for the the US to remain a steadfast partner, even though it could very well be Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In his most significant decision yet in regard to claims the powerful young prince was behind the journalists murder, Mr Trump said the US would not be imposing sanctions on Saudi Arabia or changing its business or strategic relationships.

He said the decision was at least partly taken because of Saudis historic opposition to Iran, and repeated Israels claim that Iran was the worlds leading sponsor of terror.

Im not going to tell a country....that has helped me keep oil prices down...Im not going to destroy our economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia, Mr Trump told reporters, as he left the White House to spend the Thanksgiving Day holiday in Florida.

Asked about reports the CIA had concluded the prince was behind Octobers killing of the journalist, he said: They did not make that assessment. They had nothing definitive.

He added: We are staying with Saudi Arabia, and by the way, I have no business with Saudi Arabia. I couldnt care less. This is about America first.

Earlier, the White House issued a statement that made clear Mr Trump had no intention of seeing to push for sanctions against Saudi Arabia, even if it emerged the prince was involved in a murder conspiracy that earned Saudi widespread global criticism.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi, said the statement, that contained Mr Trumps characteristic exclamation marks.

Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

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He added: That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

In recent days, the president has repeatedly sought to downplay media reports claiming US intelligence had concluded the prince must have been involved in last months plan to kill the journalist at the nations consulate in Istanbul.

In an interview with Fox News aired on Sunday, he responded to a question as to whether the prince was involved, by saying: Will anybody really knowAll right, will anybody really know?

Mr Trump said he would wait for a complete report to be handed to him  something that was done on Tuesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the president was obliged to follow policies that furthered the USs interests.

Speaking following a meeting with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington, Mr Pompeo said the United States will continue to have a relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Refusing to comment on reports the CIA had concluded the crown prince was behind the killing, he added: This is a long, historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to Americans national security.

Last week, the Washington Post reported the CIA had concluded the powerful crown prince ordered the assassination of journalist the 59-year-old journalist, who went missing after entering a consulate in Turkey to prepare for a trip to Saudi Arabia. Turkish investigators believe the journalist  a one-time close ally of the Saudi establishment who had become critical of the prince  was dismembered and his body parts taken out of the Istanbul facility by a 15-strong hit squad.

The newspaper said officials had high confidence in their assessment, which was based on multiple sources of intelligence. Those sources included a phone call the princes brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Mr Khashoggi, it said.

Few will be surprised by Mr Trumps announcement, even if regional experts will question many of the presidents assertions, including his claim that Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave.

Others were struck by the fact that Mr Trumps statement avoided all mention of Turkey, or any reference to the Natos investigation of murder. This will likely not sit well in Ankara, which continues to hold many powerful cards.

Mr Trump likewise repeated Saudis claim Mr Khashoggi was a Muslim Brotherhood member, something which both his family and employers have denied, and an assertion there is no evidence to support.

In Tehran, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed the presidents statement. Mr Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of, he tweeted.

Mr Trump repeatedly said he did not want to damage the USs business relationship with Saudi Arabia, even though the Guardian said a new report suggested as few as 20,000 US jobs were based on the relationship. Mr Trump has often claimed defence sales to Saudi Arabia were worth at least $110bn and would create as many as 600,000 jobs.

He returned to that point in his statement, in which he underscored Washington would not impose sanctions on the nation which awarded him its highest civilian honour when he visited in the spring of 2017. He said: If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries.

Mr Trump said he recognised there would be members of congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction.

I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world, he said.

In recent months, the US and the UK have faced increasing criticism over their support of the Saudi-led coalitions bombing campaign in Yemen, an operation that has led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and a humanitarian disaster that international officials say has few comparisons.

The UN Security Council is currently considering a resolution to call for fresh negotiations to end the three-year conflict, in which Saudi claims it is protecting itself from attacks from Houthi rebels.

David Beasley, executive director of the UN World Food Programme, recently returned from a visit to Yemen. He told journalists: This is not on the brink of a catastrophe. This is a catastrophe.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats were quick to attack Mr Trumps move. Congresssman Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence panel, called for an end of US support to Saudi Arabia and said it was inconceivable the crown prince was either unknowing or uninvolved in the murder of Mr Khashoggi.

Senator Dianne Feinstein said she would withhold support for Saudi Arabia and urged the US to impose sanctions.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump has ignited a firestorm of criticism and charges that he is politicizing the military by faulting a war hero for not capturing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden sooner.

Trump took shots at retired Adm. William McRaven in a Fox News interview Sunday in which he also asserted that the former Navy SEAL and former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command was a "backer" of Trump's 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, and supporter of President Barack Obama.

"Disgusting," the George W. Bush administration's White House counterterrorism adviser, Fran Townsend, wrote Monday on Twitter.

Leon Panetta, who was CIA director during the bin Laden raid and later served as secretary of defense, said Trump owed an apology to McRaven and to all of those in the military and intelligence agencies who played a role in tracking down bin Laden and carrying out the risky raid into Pakistan. He called Trump's remark "patently ridiculous."

"It demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of how our military and intelligence agencies operate and undermines the president's own standing as commander-in-chief," Panetta said in a statement.

The controversy follows a pattern of concerns raised by former senior military officers about Trump's grasp of the military's role, including those who assert that his decision to send thousands of active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm elections was a political stunt.

Trump also drew criticism for his decision not to visit Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day last week, following his trip to Europe. He said later he "should have" visited the cemetery but was too busy with official business.

McRaven told CNN he is a fan both of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, having served under them. "I admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and who use that office to bring the nation together in challenging times," he said pointedly.

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McRaven previously had drawn widespread attention for lambasting Trump for repeatedly calling the news media the "enemy of the people." McRaven had said the president's words were "the greatest threat to democracy" in his lifetime. When this was raised in the Fox News interview, Trump lashed out at McRaven, who organized and executed the bin Laden raid in Pakistan in May 2011 as head of the secretive Joint Special Operation Command.

"Wouldn't it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn't it have been nice?" Trump said.

Asked whether military leaders were not due credit for having killed the al-Qaida leader, Trump said, "They took him down but - look, look, there's news right there, he lived in Pakistan, we're supporting Pakistan, we're giving them $1.3 billion a year, which we don't give them anymore, by the way, I ended it because they don't do anything for us, they don't do a damn thing for us."
By Mike Stone WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month. Defying intense pressure from U.S. lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom. He said it would be a "foolish" move that would only benefit Russia and China, competitors of the United States in the arms market. Trump said U.S. intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi's killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and who planned it. Since the murder, Trump has taken varying positions on how to react, including possible sanctions. But on Tuesday, Trump stressed Saudi Arabia's weapons purchases and its role in keeping world oil prices low as influencing his decision. "It's all about, for me, very simple. It's America first," Trump said, adding: "I'm not going to destroy the world economy and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia." Speaking at the White House to reporters before departing for Florida, Trump said of the possibility that the Saudi crown prince had a hand in the murder: "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and argued that the CIA had not made a definitive determination. His comments contradicted the CIA, which believes Khashoggi's death was ordered directly by the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler widely known by his initials MbS. Trump was accused by Democratic lawmakers of undermining his own intelligence agencies and failing to confront Saudi Arabia over a human rights atrocity. "Human rights is more than just a phrase, it has to mean something. And that means standing up and condemning a brazen murder by a foreign government. Everyone who played a role in this killing must be held accountable," Senator Dianne Feinstein said. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have urged Trump to drop his support for MbS over the Khashoggi case, but the president has been reluctant. Trump said on Tuesday that both Saudi Arabia's King Salman and MbS "vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder," and that the truth may never be known. After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance, Riyadh said last week he had been killed and his body dismembered when "negotiations" to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. It said allegations the prince had ordered the killing were false. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Washington on Tuesday that Turkey was not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it was receiving from Riyadh on Khashoggi's murder and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry. Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they had asked Trump for a second human rights probe over Khashoggi's killing. Similarly, Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi's death. The law freezes U.S. assets of human rights violators and prohibits Americans from doing business with them. REGIONAL PARTNER Trump said Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, was an important business partner and a "great ally" in the fight against Iranian power in the Middle East. "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said. On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said of a White House statement: "Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of." U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, who is expected to become leader of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in January, said the United States should immediately end support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, suspend arms sales and reduce its reliance on Riyadh in the Middle East. Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, lived in the United States and was a Washington Post columnist. He went to the consulate to collect documents for a planned marriage. BROAD BACKING FOR A U.S. RESPONSE Trump has placed the alliance with Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East policy, and it was the first country he visited after becoming president in 2017. Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, has developed a close relationship with MbS. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump ally, said there would be bipartisan support for sanctions against Saudi Arabia, "including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms." Representative Eliot Engel, who has the power to block arms deals as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should use its ability to sell weapons to the Saudis as leverage to influence Riyadh's behavior. "The reality is that the Saudis couldnt simply buy their weapons somewhere else," Engel said in a statement. "It would take years for the Saudi military to re-equip with Russian or Chinese weapons." When Trump mentions the $110 billion package with Riyadh last year, he often adds that "it's 500,000 jobs." But arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome industry experts say is unlikely. Asked on Tuesday whether he was putting personal business interests over those of the United States, Trump said: "I have nothing to do with Saudi - just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia." At a political rally in 2015, however, Trump said: "I like the Saudis, they're very nice. I make a lot of money with them. They buy all sorts of my stuff, all kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions." (Reporting by Mike Stone; Additional reporting by David Alexander, Susan Heavey, Mohammad Zargham, Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; Editing by Grant McCool and Peter Cooney)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ignored criticism that he gave Saudi Arabia a free pass on the murder of a dissident journalist, instead praising the Islamic kingdom for keeping oil prices low.

Trump, on holiday at his Florida Mar-a-Lago Club, doubled down on an unusually worded statement from Tuesday that he was essentially ignoring the killing of Jamal Khashoggi because of what he said were more important US strategic and commercial interests.

"Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82," he tweeted. "Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!"

The fulsome praise for Saudi Arabia's help in maintaining cheap oil built on comments he made Tuesday at the White House, saying that "if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof."

"They've helped me keep them down," he said.

- Guns and money -

The focus on oil prices is one strand of Trump's argument against punishing the US ally for Khashoggi's death, even though the CIA reportedly found strong evidence that de facto Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was involved.

Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote for The Washington Post and had been critical of Prince Mohammed, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, killed and reportedly dismembered.

After lengthy denials, Saudi authorities admitted responsibility and said 21 people had been taken into custody. However, a CIA analysis leaked to the US media went further, reportedly pointing the finger at Prince Mohammed, who has especially close contacts with the Trump White House.

In a formal statement Tuesday -- released just after nearly the entire White House press corps had left to cover the lighthearted annual ritual of the president sparing a turkey from the Thanksgiving table -- Trump said the prince "could very well be" in on the crime.

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But he then went on to flatly reject any suggestion of punishing the Saudi leader, saying Washington "intends to remain a steadfast partner."

Trump's reasoning was that Saudi Arabia and the United States are partners in opposing Iran and the Saudis have committed to $450 billion in weapons contracts and other investments, as well as being a major oil producer.

"Very simply it is called America first!" Trump concluded.

This was in contrast to previously stated positions where Trump promised a tough response, warning in an October interview with The Wall Street Journal, for example, that the US-Saudi relationship "would take a while to rebuild."

- 'Crazy' prince -

Trump's posture has provoked rare dissension among the ranks of senior Republicans.

Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox News that Prince Mohammed is "crazy."

"It's not too much to ask an ally not to butcher a guy in a consulate," he said.

And Senator Bob Corker, the Republican leader of the foreign relations committee, tweeted scathingly: "I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

Corker and the senior Democrat on the committee, Bob Menendez, demanded that the Trump administration issue a clear statement on whether Prince Mohammed was involved.

Another prominent Republican, Senator Rand Paul, added "Let's put America first, not Saudi Arabia," while Khashoggi's old employer the Post said in an editorial that Trump's position meant "a world where dictators know they can murder their critics and suffer no consequences."

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back in a radio interview Wednesday, saying: "We are going to make sure that America always stands for human rights. We've watched the Saudis actually move in that direction during our time in office as well.

"It's not an unblemished record, but there certainly have been steps forward."
By Humeyra Pamuk and Tuvan Gumrukcu WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it is receiving from Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry if its liaising with Riyadh comes to an impasse, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Washington after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Cavusoglu said Turkey has shared the latest information on the Khashoggi killing with the United States and repeated Ankara's stance that the truth had to come out on who gave the orders to kill the journalist. "Until now, we have accepted Saudi Arabia's offers for cooperation with us without hesitation. However, looking at the cooperation now, since we can't find answers to the questions I just listed, this cooperation is not at the level we want," Cavusoglu said. "If there is an impasse here and this investigation only goes so far or there isn't full cooperation, then we can make the necessary applications for an international investigation," he said, adding that he discussed the issue with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post columnist who was a critic of the Saudi government run by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance, Riyadh said last week that he had been killed and his body dismembered when "negotiations" to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. The public prosecutor said it would seek the death penalty for five suspects in the case. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing was ordered at the "highest levels" of the Saudi government, but has not directly accused Prince Mohammed. Saudi Arabia has denied that the prince ordered Khashoggi's killing. Cavusoglu also said that both he and Erdogan had listened to the audio recording of Khashoggi's murder. "It is very disgusting. If you listen to it you can understand that it is premeditated murder," he said, adding that it was up to the Turkish judiciary to decide whether to release the recording. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia, despite saying that the Saudi crown prince may have known about the plan to murder the dissident journalist last month. Asked if he got the impression from U.S. officials that Washington was considering letting go of the Khashoggi killing, Cavusoglu said: "No. I did not get an impression that U.S. will not follow up," adding that Pompeo told him he wanted to see the outcome of both Turkish and Saudi probes on the issue. Cavusoglu also said that Ankara's purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, incompatible with NATO defenses, is a done deal and cannot be canceled, but said that Turkey was in need to for further defense procurement that could be bought from the United States. Turkey has also handed to the United States a list of 84 individuals who it wants extradited, Cavusoglu said, over their links with Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies involvement. Cavusoglu said that Ankara had passed on the list following a telephone conversation between Erdogan and Trump. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
ANKARA (Reuters) - Seventy four people, including soldiers, were sentenced to life in prison by a Turkish court on Wednesday for their role in an attempted coup, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said. More than 240 people, most of them unarmed civilians, were killed on the night of July 15, 2016, when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes in a botched attempt to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey blames U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen for the abortive putsch and has carried out a widespread crackdown on his suspected supporters, detaining some 160,000 people, including academics, soldiers and civil servants. Of those, 77,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during trial, according to the interior minister. On Wednesday, the court sentenced the 74 defendants to aggregated life sentences for "attempting to disrupt the constitutional order", Anadolu said. Aggravated life sentences are subject to a harsher regime in prison, and are not eligible for parole or general amnesty. It was not immediately clear how many soldiers were among the group sentenced. Rights groups and Turkey's Western allies have voiced concern about the scope of the purges, saying Erdogan had used the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. The government, however, says the measures are necessary due to the gravity of the threats it is facing. (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Humeyra Pamuk and Tuvan Gumrukcu WASHINGTON/ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey and the United States have discussed returning a jailed executive from state-owned lender Halkbank to Turkey where he can serve the rest of his sentence from an Iran sanctions-busting case, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday. In May, a U.S. court sentenced Hakan Atilla, an executive from Halkbank, to 32 months in prison for helping Tehran get around U.S. sanctions, in a case that has strained already tense ties between the NATO allies. Halkbank has since faced potential U.S. fines in relation to the case. Speaking to reporters following talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, Cavusoglu said Halkbank had not violated any U.S. sanctions, adding that he had discussed what steps could be taken in the case during his talks. "There is also the situation of Hakan Atilla being sent to Turkey. As part of bilateral agreements, he can serve the rest of his sentence in Turkey. We also evaluated what could be done on this issue," Cavusoglu said. Halkbank denies any wrongdoing and President Tayyip Erdogan has condemned the case as a political attack against his government, while his son-in-law, Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, said he did not expect the bank to face a fine. Cavusoglu said there were two ongoing processes in the United States over Halkbank with one being run by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the other by the U.S. Treasury. "The Halkbank case continues, as you know, at the court in New York and the Treasury. We also met with lawyers on this issue and exchanged ideas on what needs to be done and the steps to be taken," Cavusoglu said. Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that the federal court in New York had launched a second investigation against Halkbank and it could soon submit an indictment. "On the Halkbank issue, there is a process under way here at the Treasury and the judicial process in the southern New York area. There is also a Justice Ministry aspect. ... The court is carrying out a process here, the Justice Ministry has a role in this as well," Cavusoglu said. "We discussed what we could do. On the other hand, in the process in the Treasury, it is about administrative decisions." he added. Erdogan earlier this month said he has discussed Halkbank's case with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the talks were on a "positive path." He said Trump had told him that "he would instruct the relevant ministers immediately" regarding the Halkbank case, without elaborating. However, Cavusoglu warned on Tuesday that the legal proceedings against Halkbank must be stopped. "Since there was no evidence - and the jury couldn't prove it either - these proceedings need to be stopped. Otherwise they will be politically motivated," he said. Strained ties between Ankara and Washington began to improve after U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who was on trial over terror-related charges in Turkey, was released last month. The NATO allies remain divided on a host of other issues, including U.S. policy in Syria and Turkey's request for the United States to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a cleric Ankara blames for organizing the 2016 abortive putsch. Gulen denies involvement. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara; editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adler)
Sri Lankans have been experiencing unprecedented turmoil regarding the legislative, executive and judicial functions for a few weeks now. The immediate root-cause of this crisis is the removal of the former Prime Minister and appointment of a new one by the President in exercising his constitutional powers under the constitution. It is essentially an internal matter and the Sri Lankans possess the required stamina and institutions to resolve it.

However, it is cogently evident that a few countries self-styled as international community attempt to interfere with this internal matter callously disregarding the peremptory principles of customary international laws and treaty laws. The objective of this article is to examine the universal principles of international law and to analyze whether the conduct of some countries amount to violation of those rules in the current Sri Lankan context.

The battles to protect sovereignty

Sri Lanka is an independent sovereign country. Three western powers denied the Sri Lankans their freedom and sovereignty for more than 500 years from 1505 to 1972. In 1972, Sri Lanka regained the freedom and became a Republic.

Sri Lankans fought fierce battles against those powers, i.e. battles against Portuguese at Mulleriyawa,Kotte,Danture, Malwana and Gannoruwa from 1521-1638 and in 1762 and 1765 against Dutch.

The great rebellions at Uwa-Wellassa and Matale in 1818 and 1848 against the British provide ample evidence of their bravery and patriotism with which they fought. It inspires the present generations to resist any such illegal interventions.

Sri Lankans won some of those battles while others were mercilessly crushed. For example, the British Governor Robert Brownriggs infamous order; Slaughter every man, woman, and child, including babes suckling at the breast given to Maj. Gen. Hay MacDowell in 1818, speaks in volumes the most barbarous manner of suppression of those legitimate uprisings.

These uprising arose as the British breached the Kandyan Convention of 1815. They dishonoured it in spirit and substance which led to Uwawellassa peoples uprising in 1818.

This is what the British GA in Badulla; Herbert White; reported to London after crushing it.

It is a pity that there is no evidence left behind to show the exact situation in Uva in terms of population or agriculture development after the rebellion. The new rulers are unable to come up to any conclusion on the exact situation of Uva before the rebellion as there is no trace of evidence left behind to come to such conclusions. If thousands died in the battle they were all fearless and clever fighters. If one considers the remaining population of 4/5 after the battle to be children, women and the aged, the havoc caused is unlimited. In short the people have lost their lives and all other valuable belongings. It is doubtful whether Uva has at least now recovered from the catastrophe.

It is clear from the above evidence the magnitude of the genocide that the British troops committed in Sri Lanka.

The foreign interventions have taken place during the periods where there were internal political instability and clashes among local leaders for power, e.g. Portuguese captured power in Kotte when the three sons of Vijayabahu IIwere fighting for power. That history repeats now.

The United Nations and peremptory principles of international law

UN Charter created in Articles 2(1)-(5) legal obligations - jus cogens - among individual states;

(a) The principle of sovereign equality

(b) Member- states should observe those obligations in good faith.

(c) Member-states should resolve international disputes peacefully without endangering international peace, security, and justice.

(d) The principle against the use of threat or force against member-states.

(e) Member-states should refrain from giving assistance to any state against which UN is taking preventive or enforcement action.

(f) Non-member States should act in accordance with these principles as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

(g) The principle of non-intervention with the internal affairs of member-states.

Principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention

The principles in (a), (d) and (g) above have been further fortified through UN resolutions and international treaties, i.e. Two Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and Consular Relations 1963, and Rome Statue of International Criminal Court etc.

General Assembly Resolution 2625 stipulates that no state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of another state.

Also Article 2(7) forbids the UN itself from interfering with domestic matters of any State.

Article 3(1) of the Vienna Convention, 1961 specifies functions of diplomatic officials as;

(a) Representing the sending state in the receiving State.

(b) Protecting the interests and citizens in the receiving state to any limits admitted and permitted by international law.

(c) Negotiating with the government of the receiving state.

(d) Ascertaining with all the legal methods, any circumstances and developments occurring in the receiving state and reporting them to the government of the Sending State.

(e) Promoting friendly relations between the sending state and the receiving state and developing relationship in the fields of economy, culture and science.

Article 9 provides that diplomatic staff must not interfere with the domestic affairs of the receiving country. The receiving State has powers to declare such officer persona non grata (unwanted person) without assigning any reason.

The only exception to the non-intervention rule is acting in self-defence against an armed attack (Article 51).

Some countries hurriedly issued strong statements over the crisis. Are their concerns genuine? Do they make those statements in good faith? Are they our real diplomatic friends? Or do they all have a common objective with common agenda?

Judgements International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Let us now examine a few judgments of ICJ to understand the implications of non-intervention principle.

Nicaragua v United States of America;the Ambassador of Nicaragua filed this case in April 1984 against the USA. The allegations against the USAinter alia consist of the efforts by direct and indirect means to coerce and intimidate the Government of Nicaragua and intervention into domestic affairs.

The US counter-argument was that the Nicaraguan Government had taken significant steps towards establishing a totalitarian Communist dictatorship.

The ICJ held that adherence by a State to any particular doctrine does not constitute a violation of customary international law; to hold otherwise would make nonsense of the fundamental principle of State sovereignty on which rests, freedom of choice of the political, social, economic and cultural system of a State.

ICJ further held that it cannot contemplate the creation of a new rule opening up a right of intervention by one State against another on the ground that the latter has opted for some particular ideology or political system.

Accordingly, the ICJ defined state sovereignty as the freedom of states to freely decide on choice of a political, economic, social and cultural system. Intervention is wrongful when it uses methods of coercion in regard to such choices, which must remain free ones.

The interference into domestic affairs may take different forms. The common method is making damaging statements on domestic affairs. The following incidents illustrate this point.

In 1952, US ambassador to the Soviet Union, George F. Kennan, was declared persona non grata on making statement linking them to Nazi Germany.

In 1991, President R. Premadasa declared the British High Commissioner David Gladstone a persona non grata because he was involved in the local elections.

In 2007, the Sudanese government expelled the Canadian Charge daffaires to Sudan, Nuala Lawlor, due to her call for the release the opposition leaders.

Serbia expelled ambassadors of Montenegro and the Republic of Macedonia after these countries recognized the independence of Kosovo in 2008,

In 2010, President Hugo Chavez expelled US ambassador to Venezuela Larry Palmer due to his damaging comments on Venezuelas military.

US expelled Charge dAffaires at the Syrian embassy in Washington recently.

Also, Malawi expelled UK ambassador after Wiki Leaks exposed his disparaging comments on the President of Malawi.

Intervention into SLs Domestic Affairs

Some countries hurriedly issued strong statements over the Sri Lankan crisis. Are their concerns genuine? Do they make those statements in good faith? Are they our real diplomatic friends? Or do they all have a common objective with common agenda? Do those statements amount to threats?

The most appalling thing is that those states maintained pin-drop silence when the former regime-violated the constitution, robbed the central bank, postponed the local government and provincial council elections, interfered with the independence of judiciary, created ethnic tensions by deliberately adopting discriminatory state policies and conspired to assassinate the President with the help of national law enforcing authorities and foreign powers etc.

Statements by Foreign States

Let us now analyze relevant parts of the statements to understand their intention and to examine whether they amount to violation of non-interference, non-use of threats and sovereign equality principles.

(1) USA -.We call on the President, in consultation with the Speaker, to immediately reconvene parliament.. 

(2) UK - .Iurge President Sirisena, in consultation with the Speaker, to reconvene the parliament immediately 

(3) Australia - Australia has expressed its .disappointment with President Sirisenas decisionto dissolve the Sri Lankan parliament on 9 November

(4) Canada - Canada is gravely concerned by the president of Sri Lankas decision to dissolve Sri Lankas parliamet, the dismissal of the countrys prime minister and the proroguing and dissolution of parliament, run counter ...

Also, ambassadors of those countries participated in a meeting called by the ousted prime-minister and speaker.

Conclusion

Can those statements be construed as friendly and advisory? Or do they sound coercing and threatening? Do the demands made in those statements qualify to be interpreted as intervening into domestic affairs and violating the principles of sovereign equality by coercions when considered in the light of purposive principles of interpretation?

The obvious answer to all those quarries is in the affirmative.

The author is an Attorney-at-Law and Senior Lecturer - Head of the Department of Legal Studies, The Open University of Sri Lanka.

Email: rdarmasirie@gmail.com
By Tulay Karadeniz and Can Sezer ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police came for Yigit Aksakoglu before dawn, waking his young family and detaining him with a dozen other academics and activists accused of fomenting mass protests to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan's government. Friday's arrests, days before Turkey holds talks with the European Union, caused alarm in the West and reinforced a belief that Ankara's long crackdown has crushed not just Erdogan's opponents but also Turkey's last hopes of joining the EU. The EU Commission's foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and the commissioner for candidate countries, Johannes Hahn, are expected to raise the issue of the activists during talks in Ankara on Thursday with Turkey's foreign minister. Ankara still says EU membership is one of its top strategic goals, but Hahn has said several times it would be more honest to end the accession talks and try instead to forge an alternative partnership between Turkey and the union. Opposition in the EU to Turkish membership has been strengthened by Ankara's clampdown on critics of Erdogan since a failed military coup in 2016 and by fears that Turkey is sliding deeper into one-man rule. Aksakoglu's lawyer said he was one of 13 people detained on Friday, accused of supporting attempts by jailed businessman and rights advocate Osman Kavala to revive mass protests in Istanbul's Gezi Park in 2013 against Erdogan's rule. Police rang on his door at 6 o'clock in the morning. "Two officers dressed in special operations uniform, and half a dozen others in plain clothes entered the house and took Yigit to police headquarters," his lawyer Asli Kazan told Reuters. He testified for 10 hours before he was formally arrested and sent to prison. The 12 others detained on Friday have been freed, but Aksakoglu is now in a solitary cell in Silivri prison near Istanbul, his lawyer said. On the same day Aksakoglu was detained, Turkish media said that prosecutors ordered the arrest of 188 people, including 100 former air force personnel, over links to a U.S.-based cleric Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt. Since the failed putsch more than 77,000 people have been jailed pending trial, and widespread arrests are still routine. Authorities have suspended or sacked 150,000 civil servants and military personnel. Last week Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told parliament almost a quarter of Turkey's career diplomats had been purged. In the same speech he said full EU membership remains "an inseparable part of our future target for a modern Turkey that supports political and social change". LONG ROAD AHEAD Turkey says the scale of its crackdown is justified by the gravity of events on July 15, 2016, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, planes and helicopters, bombing parliament and government buildings in their attempt to seize power. In July this year the government formally lifted a two-year state of emergency imposed after the coup, but critics say Erdogan has retained many of those powers under an executive presidency that came into effect when he won elections in June. Relations with the EU's leading power Germany particularly suffered in the last two years. Berlin has condemned the crackdown, including arrests of dozens of German nationals. Erdogan compared the German government to Nazis. As Turkey's relations with the United States plunged into crisis earlier this year, helping drive the lira into meltdown in August, Erdogan's government sought to rebuild bridges with Europe. He made a state visit to Germany in September, and the Netherlands agreed to normalise ties after a year-long standoff. However an EU diplomat said any real improvement would take time: "You can't just turn a switch. You have to put the train back on track towards better relations". Turkey has also taken small steps to reverse a damaging rift with the United States caused partly by the detention of U.S. citizens and consular staff. A Turkish court ruling to free a detained U.S. pastor last month was praised by U.S. President Donald Trump and led both countries to lift symbolic sanctions against U.S. and Turkish government ministers. But sharp differences over Syria, U.S. sanctions on Iran and plans by NATO member Turkey to buy a Russian missile defense system remain an obstacle to rebuilding trust with Washington. An EU official, setting low expectations ahead of this week's talks in Ankara, said it was important to "keep open channels of communication" with Turkey. Work towards EU visa liberalization for Turkish nationals has been slow, and even the modest goal of modernizing a customs deal remains blocked after EU member states said work should be suspended. The EU official said their decision was linked to fears about rule of law and human rights in Turkey. "We do understand the concerns of Turkey and we don't want to prevent Turkey from fighting terrorism," the EU official said. However "if you lock up bloggers or journalists because of them saying something, then it becomes an issue." (Editing by Dominic Evans and Gareth Jones)
By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) - U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts defended the independence of the federal judiciary on Wednesday a day after President Donald Trump called a judge who ruled against his policy barring asylum for certain immigrants an "Obama judge," but Trump rejected the rebuke, chided Roberts and launched a new round of attacks.

The remarks by Roberts represented his first public response to Trump over the Republican president's persistent criticism of the federal courts. Opponents of Trump have called his criticism of judges an attack on the rule of law in the United States.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts, a conservative who was appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush, said in a statement released by the Supreme Court in response to a news media inquiry.

"What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for," Roberts added in the statement, which did not mention Trump by name.

In a Twitter post, Trump wrote in response: "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges,' and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country."

It is unusual for a U.S. chief justice, who presides over the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court, to issue such a statement in response to a president. The U.S. Constitution established the federal judiciary as a co-equal branch of government with the executive and legislative branches as part of a system of checks and balances on power. Presidents nominate federal judges and the Senate confirms them.

Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, said Roberts "is sending up a signal that Trump has gone beyond the pale of responsible political discourse."

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"For a long time the chief justice didn't respond to it. I suspect at some point Roberts decided enough was enough and he had to say something," Somin added.

OATH OF OFFICE

Roberts, who administered the oath of office to Trump when he was sworn in as president last year, has himself been the target of Trump's attacks, in particular because of a 2012 ruling that preserved Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare.

In a tweet after that ruling, Trump wrote, "Congratulations to John Roberts for making Americans hate the Supreme Court because of his BS."

Trump on Tuesday took aim at U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco, who on Monday temporarily blocked an order by the president that barred asylum for immigrants who enter the country illegally from Mexico. Tigar was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

"This was an Obama judge," Trump said. "And I'll tell you what. It's not going to happen like this anymore."

Trump also blasted the entire San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals from federal courts in nine western states including California.

Trump called the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit a "disgrace." That court has ruled against Trump in several high-profile cases including his travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries and his bid to rescind a program that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants brought into the country as children.

In Twitter posts on Wednesday, Trump heaped scorn on the idea that the 9th Circuit "was indeed an 'independent judiciary,'" and again brought up the idea of breaking up that court because the region it covers is "too big." He added, "Judicial Activism, by people who know nothing about security and the safety of our citizens, is putting our country in great danger. Not good!"

Judges in that region have also blocked construction of the Keystone XL pipeline project Trump has championed, and his administration's effort to restrict the military service of transgender troops.

Trump last year referred to a jurist who ruled against him on his travel ban as a "so-called judge." Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016 said a judge in a case involving Trump University was biased against him because of the jurist's Mexican-American heritage.

Neal Katyal, Obama's former acting U.S. solicitor general, wrote on Twitter that Trump's goal was to delegitimize the courts and Roberts because they are part of an institution designed to serve as a check "against his impulsivity and reckless disregard for the rule of law."

With the help of a Senate controlled by his fellow Republicans, Trump has appointed a succession of conservative judges in a bid to move the federal judiciary to the right. His appointments of Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court have solidified its conservative majority for perhaps years to come.

Roberts issued his statement in response to a request for comment from the Associated Press about Trump's Tuesday remarks.

(For a graphic showing Trump's impact on federal appeals courts, click tmsnrt.rs/2PPsGtM )

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to release more than 100 Iraqis it detained longer than six months while seeking to deport them, saying the government acted "ignobly" and made "demonstrably false" statements in the case.

Judge Mark Goldsmith of the Eastern District of Michigan sharply criticized the government for dragging its feet in following court orders and making untrue statements about Iraqi willingness to repatriate its citizens deported from the United States.

"The government has acted ignobly in this case, by failing to comply with court orders, submitting demonstrably false declarations of Government officials, and otherwise violating its litigation obligations," Goldsmith wrote. "Families have been shattered."

Goldsmith also said he was taking the rare step of imposing sanctions on the government for its behavior, though he said he would formally address that in a separate order.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

"Today's decision is about accountability," said Miriam Aukerman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, in a statement on the group's website. The ACLU represented the Iraqis in the case.

In 2017 the Trump administration detained the Iraqis as part of a broad effort to ramp up immigration enforcement and deportations across the country.

The Iraqis, who had been ordered deported years or decades ago because of criminal offenses but had been allowed to live in the United States, must be released within 30 days, unless the Trump administration can show a strong reason to detain them or can deport them in that time, Goldsmith ruled. One Iraqi man had been detained since January 2017, he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials managed to deport eight Iraqis in April 2017, but the Iraqi government backed out of further attempts to repatriate its citizens, according to government documents submitted to the court and cited in Goldsmith's order.

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Despite heavy lobbying by American diplomats in Baghdad, by July 2017 ICE officials concluded that Iraq was "among the most recalcitrant countries" when it comes to accepting its deported nationals, and tried to secure visa sanctions against Iraq.

Despite these developments, an ICE official signed a declaration in the court case on July 20, 2017 claiming that Iraq had agreed to accept deportees. Goldsmith ultimately found statements by U.S. officials that Iraq was willing to accept deportees to be unconvincing.

"There does not appear to be a clear way forward to repatriate Iraqi nationals at this time," he wrote.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Tom Brown)
(This story corrects Archer's place of residence to New York, from Montana, in headline and first paragraph)

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday overturned the conviction of a New York man on charges that he helped run a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe and multiple pension funds through the issue of $60 million worth of tribal bonds.

U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan ruled that the evidence at the trial earlier this year had not shown that the man, Devon Archer, knew that the bond issue was fraudulent, or that he received any personal benefit from it. Abrams said she was "left with an unwavering concern that Archer is innocent of the crimes charged."

She upheld the convictions of John Galanis and Bevan Cooney, who were tried and convicted alongside Archer.

"Mr. Archer has maintained his innocence throughout this painful process, and today's decision is a critical step in clearing his good name once and for all," Matthew Schwartz, one of Archer's lawyers, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the office of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment. Lawyers for Galanis and Cooney could not immediately be reached for comment.

The three men were found guilty by a jury in June.

Galanis is already serving a six-year sentence for a separate financial fraud involving manipulation of the stock of now-defunct reinsurer Gerova Financial Group Ltd. His son, Jason Galanis, has pleaded guilty to taking part in both the Gerova and tribal bond schemes, for which he has been sentenced to more than 11 years and five years, respectively.

Prosecutors said John Galanis persuaded an entity affiliated with South Dakota's Oglala Sioux Nation to issue bonds, using false representations. Jason Galanis, Archer and Cooney fraudulently induced pension funds to invest in the bonds through an investment adviser firm they controlled, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the defendants misappropriated the proceeds of the bond issues for themselves. The tribe was not accused of wrongdoing.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Dubai (AFP) - A United Arab Emirates court sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on spying charges on Wednesday, prompting a "shocked" Britain to warn of repercussions for relations with its longstanding Gulf ally.

Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student, had protested his innocence ever since his arrest at Dubai airport on May 5 and British ministers had raised his case at the highest level.

"We can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison," a family spokesperson told AFP.

"The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present."

UAE attorney general Hamad al-Shamsi said Wednesday that Hedges was handed a life sentence after "the defendant admitted before the court to the charges brought against him by the public prosecution", according to a statement carried by the official news agency WAM.

He added that the ruling "was not final" as Hedges has the right to appeal against the verdict before the Federal Supreme Court.

Hedges was researching the UAE's foreign and internal security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, studies that Britain insisted were entirely innocuous but which the UAE said threatened its political and economic security.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "deeply disappointed and concerned" at the verdict.

"We will continue to press this matter at the highest level with the Emiratis," she told parliament.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was "deeply shocked" by the UAE court's decision and warned of repercussions.

"Today's verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances," he said.

"The handling of this case... will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust.

"I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider," he added.

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Hunt said he had personally raised the case at the highest levels of the UAE government, including during a visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12.

The case comes with relations already tested by the UAE's heavy involvement alongside Saudi Arabia in a military coalition battling Yemeni rebels since March 2015.

The deployment of Emirati ground troops, trainers and advisers alongside government forces advancing on the lifeline rebel-held port of Hodeida has prompted calls for Britain to halt or place conditions on its huge arms sales to the UAE.

- 'Nightmare even worse' -

Hedges's temporary release on bail on October 29 had raised a glimmer of hope in his case but he was constantly monitored until Wednesday's court hearing, only his third since his arrest.

Hedges's wife Daniela Tejada, who had campaigned vigorously for his release, said the court ruling showed that the UAE was not a genuine ally.

"The overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matt's case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price."

Tejada was in court for the sentencing and said her husband "was shaking when he heard the verdict".

"The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice. I am very scared for Matt. I don't know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse."

She had previously expressed concern for his safety, saying he was being held in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location with limited access to the British consulate and his family.

- 'Take a stand' -

Tejada was deeply critical of the British government over the failure of its discreet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy in the case.

"Matthew is innocent. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them. This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthew's case seriously," she said.

"The British government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens."

Durham University in northern England, where Hedges was studying for his PhD, said it was "devastated" to learn of his sentence.

Vice-Chancellor Stuart Corbridge said the judgement had been "delivered in the absence of anything resembling due process or a fair trial".

"There has been no information given on what basis Matt was handed this sentence and no reason to believe that Matt was conducting anything other than legitimate academic research," Corbridge said in a statement.

The UAE's attorney general said earlier this month that Hedges was accused of "spying for a foreign country, jeopardising the military, political and economic security of the state".
Sanaa (AFP) - The UN's Yemen envoy flew into the rebel-held capital Sanaa Wednesday to push for renewed peace talks after fierce fighting for the lifeline port of Hodeida which has ramped up fears of a catastrophic famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as United Nations envoy Martin Griffiths spearheads the biggest peace push in two years.

But Hodeida residents reported clashes just hours ahead of Griffiths' arrival, and a devastating all-out assault still looms as the coalition eyes a key victory in its war with Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

UN agencies say the closure of Hodeida port due to fighting or damage could put up to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation.

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory and its port is the entry point for the vast majority of food and humanitarian aid into Yemen.

Griffiths was expected to meet rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in September after the insurgents refused to attend talks in Switzerland.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday that peace talks had been set for early December in Sweden, where "it looks like... we'll see both the Huthi rebel side and the UN-recognised government".

The Huthis have said repeatedly they need stronger international guarantees that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

- 'Sternest test' -

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing Hodeida's port to UN control.

"Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure," said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

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"If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process."

Both warring sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy's mission to convene new talks, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Residents in the east of the city told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

They said a limited number of people were leaving the city.

Mohammed Rashed, who is currently living in a makeshift tent to the east of the Sanaa, said he left Hodeida last week because of the clashes.

"We could not stay because of the air strikes," he told AFP.

"My house was struck, and my neighbours' homes were struck and people were killed."

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday that its teams had treated over 500 wounded people since November 1 and that it remained "extremely worried for its patients and staff threatened by fighting very close" to its facilities in Hodeida.

- Call for truce -

Britain on Monday presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove barriers to humanitarian aid.

"The only solution is for all the parties to set aside their arms, cease missile and air attacks on populated areas and pursue a peaceful political settlement," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told parliament on Wednesday.

He said the draft resolution was "designed to get a consensus from both sides that allow talks to start before the end of this month in Stockholm".

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, a regional ally that buys billions of dollars-worth of arms from the United States, Britain, and France.

Those governments have come under growing domestic pressure to scale back arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last month.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people -- mostly civilians -- have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began.

Human rights groups believe the real toll may be five times higher.

Save the Children said Wednesday that based on UN figures, between March 2015 and this October some 85,000 children under five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases.
HONG KONG (AP)  A U.S. aircraft carrier docked in Hong Kong on Wednesday, days after a pair of American B-52 bombers flew over the disputed South China Sea.

The arrival of the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group in the Asian financial hub is being seen as a friendly gesture ahead of a planned meeting later this month between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. That will mark the first time they've sat down together since the start of a bitter trade war and amid tensions over the South China Sea.

China has demanded the U.S. cease military activity of all kind near its South China Sea island claims that it has been rapidly fortifying. The U.S. says it takes no stance on sovereignty claims, but will continue to sail and operate wherever international law permits.

In late September, a Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in the South China Sea in what the U.S. Navy called an "unsafe and unprofessional maneuver."

Asked to comment Wednesday on the incident, Rear Adm. Karl O. Thomas, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, said the "vast majority of our interactions out there at sea are very professional."

"That was a rare, unusual occurrence," Thomas told reporters at a ship-board news conference. "In that particular case, the ship made some aggressive, continuing aggressive maneuvers and our ship warned them and had to maneuver to prevent a collision. It was unfortunate and I'd like to see that not happen again."

The Navy said in a statement that during the Reagan's visit, interactions will take place with Hong Kong citizens through sports, community relations projects and tours of the carrier. More than 4,400 men and women are usually aboard the ship.

The Reagan's visit comes two months after China rejected a similar request by another U.S. Navy ship amid a spike in tensions between the countries' militaries.

And while the port call is seen as a positive for bilateral relations, other events this week point to the ongoing rivalry between the sides.

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U.S. Pacific Air Forces said two B-52 bombers flew over the South China Sea on Monday, calling it a "routine training mission."

The B-52H Stratofortress bombers departed Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as part of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command's Continuous Bomber Presence operations that began in 2004, Pacific Air Forces said in a statement Wednesday.

"This recent mission is consistent with international law and United States' long-standing commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," the statement said.

Also this week, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, reported that China had installed a new platform on Bombay Reef, a remote undeveloped feature in the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam and Taiwan also claim the reef.

The platform appears to be topped with a radome and solar panels, and its strategic location makes it likely it is intended to extend China's radar or signals intelligence collection in the area, the report said. Bombay Reef already has a lighthouse to serve as an aid to navigation.

Unlike China's large man-made islands created by piling sand on top of coral reefs, installing the modestly sized Bombay Reef platform did not require inflicting major environmental damage, CSIS said. However, that illustrates how easily China could expand its footprint to other features such as Scarborough Shoal, which it seized from the Philippines in 2012, it added.

Compared to dredging and reclamation, the installation of a modest platform would be "harder to prevent at the time and more difficult to rally international condemnation against after the fact," the report said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday at a daily news briefing in Beijing that he had no information about the details of the report, while reasserting China's claims to the island group it calls Xisha.

"The Paracel Islands are China's territory. This is indisputable. China's construction on its own territory is beyond reproach," Geng said.

___

Bodeen reported from Beijing.
New York (AFP) - A US judge has dropped federal female genital mutilation charges filed against a Michigan doctor, ruling that Congress overstepped its authority in prohibiting a practice best left to state courts.

In what was hailed a landmark case, Jumana Nagarwala was charged in April 2017 with performing the widely condemned practice on nine girls at a clinic in Livonia, Michigan over a span of 12 years.

But in a decision filed Tuesday, Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that Congress had "overstepped its bounds by legislating to prohibit FGM."

Instead the practice should be considered a "'local criminal activity' which, in keeping with longstanding tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress," he wrote.

Congress passed a law in 1996 making it illegal to perform genital mutilation or cutting on any girl younger than 18.

Twenty-seven US states also have anti-FGM legislation, including Michigan, while 23 states have yet to criminalize the practice.

"As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault," wrote Friedman.

The judge's ruling saw charges of conspiring to commit and committing FGM dropped, as well as counts of aiding and abetting others to do so.

Nagarwala still faces other conspiracy charges.

Her lawyer, Shannon Smith, was quoted by CNN as saying that her client was "ecstatic" over the decision, but "nervous because she still faces other charges in federal court."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 513,000 women and girls in the United States in 2012 were at risk of or had been subjected to female genital mutilation.

The statistic was three times higher than one based on 1990 data, due to increased immigration from countries where genital mutilation is practiced.

Globally, at least 200 million girls and women alive today have suffered some form of FGM across 30 countries, according to the United Nations.

While concentrated in Africa, it is common in some communities in Asia, Arab states and Latin America. Half of those cut live in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, according to the UN.
Washington (AFP) - The United States and South Korea have scaled down an annual joint military exercise scheduled for the spring of 2019 to facilitate nuclear talks with North Korea, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday.

"Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy," Mattis said, adding that it would be "reduced in scope."

Foal Eagle is the biggest of the regular joint exercises held by the allies, and has always infuriated Pyongyang, which condemned it as preparations for invasion.

But the drill -- one of the world's largest field exercises involving 200,000 South Korean and some 30,000 US soldiers -- was delayed and scaled down last year as diplomatic detente took hold on the peninsula.

And following a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump announced that the US would stop holding joint exercises with the South, calling them expensive and "very provocative".

Since then the two allies have suspended most of their major joint exercises including the Ulchi Freedom Guardian in August and Vigilant Ace, slated for next month.

But more recently progress in talks with the North has stalled, with the US pushing to maintain sanctions against it until its "final, fully verified denuclearization" and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like."

Washington stations 28,500 troops in the South to defend it from its nuclear-armed neighbor, which invaded in 1950.

- 'Fait accompli' -

But differences are beginning to emerge between Seoul and Washington.

The South's dovish president Moon Jae-in has long favored engagement with the North, which is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

He has dangled large investment and joint cross-border projects as incentives for steps towards denuclearization, while the US has been adamant pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it fully dismantles its weapons programs.

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Seoul's defence ministry said Mattis' comments were in line with their shared view on the need to back diplomacy -- but a spokeswoman added that the question of whether the exercises will take place at all was "still under discussion."

Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the South's state-run Korea National Diplomatic Academy, said reducing the exercise was largely expected.

"The Trump administration claims Pyongyang's suspension of nuclear and missile tests as the key achievement of its North Korea policy and the joint drills have been postponed as a kind of corresponding measure," Kim told AFP.

"As long as talks continue, postponing or reducing major US-South Korea joint exercises has become a fait accompli," he said.

- 'No rush' -

Earlier this month Pyongyang threatened to "seriously" consider returning to its weapons drive if Washington did not end its tough economic sanctions.

And last month, the North's state media carried a near 1,700-word commentary accusing the US of playing a "double game", implicitly criticizing Trump for comments aimed at barring Seoul from lifting sanctions against Pyongyang.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday defended Washington's strategy on the peninsula, noting that North Korea had halted missile launches and had not conducted a nuclear test in over a year.

"And I do hope there'll be a summit between the two leaders early in 2019," he said in an interview with KCMO radio.

Pyongyang has declared its nuclear and missile development complete, saying it has no further need for testing.

Trump has also said he hopes to have a second meeting with Kim early next year, but talks between Pompeo and a top North Korean official, partly to prepare for the meeting, were cancelled.

The US said the North axed the talks because they weren't ready, and Trump insisted he was in "no rush."
The story is about a person who did not have the patience to receive his friends hospitality.

His best friend from Galle arrived in Kandy by train to watch the test match played at Pallekele.

On arrival, his Kandyan friend could not resist the idea of accompanying him in a trishaw to his house to spend the day.

On their way, the friends had one for the road as it was taboo at his residence. While on their way, the Kandyan was toying with the idea to serve his buddy lavishly and stopped the trishaw by the roadside to make purchases for the welcome party. While he went shopping, his Galle friend who was advised to stay in the trishaw got tempted to tour the city.

Later, he had returned but got into a parked trishaw mistaking it for the one they arrived in. Seeing all the vegetables, fruits, rice, curries and also a small cake inside the trishaw, our friend was overjoyed. Unable to control himself with a luscious cake besides him, he decided to go for a nib and was delighted and began to eat it. Suddenly, he was disturbed by the scream of a woman who got into the drivers seat. She shouted, thief! A crowd including two policemen who were on duty rushed to the scene.

With all the commotion taking place, the Kandy friend returned and started looking for his buddy, only to find the situation he has got himself into. (Dammika Gunawardene)
US Army and Marine engineers deployed to the nations southern border ahead of the arrival of a caravan of thousands of refugees and migrants are set to start returning home.

Army Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan said the US military troops currently deployed across the US-Mexico border have installed nearly 75 per cent of the obstacles they sought to emplace across various ports of entry, telling Politico, Once we get the rest of the obstacles built, we dont need to keep all those engineers here.

The first troops who were deployed to the region as Donald Trump warned of the migrant caravans imminent arrival will start heading home in the coming days, Politico reported, long before many of those migrants are able to reach the US-Mexico border  and just two weeks after the 2018 midterm elections.

However, despite the president previously saying the caravan needed to be met with a military presence, the military has resisted several of his requests, and now reportedly views the mission of those troops as nearly completed.

For example, Mr Buchanan said Monday the military had denied a Department of Homeland Security request for an armed force to assist US Border Patrol agents during a possible violent confrontation.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not it supported redeploying those troops before a previously set 15 December deadline.

Critics of the Trump administration lambasted the White Houses calls to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the southern border  a larger presence than that in Afghanistan  ahead of the midterms, calling it an election ploy designed to undermine the Democratic Party and its position on immigration.

Mr Trump further stirred controversy just before the election by falsely insinuating he could revoke the nations practice of providing birthright citizenship without amending the US Constitution.

He also signed an order denying migrants who arrived between ports of entry the possibility of asylum, defying US immigration laws. That order was blocked by US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco on Monday, who issued a temporary restraining order and said in his ruling current law allows migrants to apply for asylum whether or not at a designated port of arrival.

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The general overseeing the US-Mexico border deployment added that logistics troops will also be among the first troops to return home once the ports of entry have all been fortified by the military. He added that the troops withdrawal will likely be quieter than their deployment, with virtually all recently deployed troops leaving the region by Christmas.

As soon as Im done with a capability, what I intend to do is redeploy it, he said. I dont want to keep these guys on just to keep them on.
Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar with DUP leader Arlene Foster in 2017. Pic: Reuters.

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar said on Wednesday that Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did not want a best of both worlds Brexit deal.

Whats most important to them is the integrity of the Union, he told Irelands parliament, even if that means a lesser world.

He described the DUP, which is staunchly opposed to any Brexit deal that could see Northern Ireland treated differently to the rest of the UK, as a hardline unionist party that was not willing to take advice from parties in Ireland.

Jane Morrice, the former head of the European Commission representation in Northern Ireland, said last week that the Brexit deal negotiated by prime minister Theresa May would mean the best of both worlds for Northern Ireland, since it would effectively remain within the customs zones of both the UK and European Union.

READ MORE: Corbyns Brexit stance bizarre, says Labours Northern Ireland ally

By possibly staying in the single market and the customs union, Northern Ireland could become the envy of the British Isles, attracting foreign direct investment from far and wide, she wrote.

Morrice was echoing the views of business organisations, who have by and large welcomed the deal and warned that a no-deal Brexit would be detrimental to Northern Irelands economy.

Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley on Monday told business leaders in Belfast that the choice was between Mays deal or going back to square one.

The likelihood of a no-deal scenario has increased in recent days, following a spate of ministerial resignations in the UK and unrest within the Conservative Partys Eurosceptic wing.

Though Varadkar said on Wednesday that it was not inevitable that May would fail to get the deal through parliament, he warned that the UK and EU would have to agree on a no-deal deal to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland.

READ MORE: Varadkar: EU and UK would need a no-deal Brexit deal
Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar. Pic: PA

Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar on Wednesday said that the UK and European Union would have to agree on a no-deal deal to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland if the UK crashes out of the bloc in March 2019.

If we did end up in a no-deal situation, we would find ourselves having to negotiate a no-deal deal quite soon thereafter, he said, speaking in Irelands parliament.

In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the UKs trading relationship with other countries will be governed by World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

An agreement relating to regulations and customs would be necessary, Varadkar said, to avoid a hard border, and allow the UK to honour its WTO obligations, and Ireland its own obligations as an EU member.

He noted, however, that nobody knows for sure what would happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Though there is no specific rule that requires a country to secure its border, the UK may be forced to erect a border if other members see its absence as a breach of the organisations most-favoured-nation principle, which prevents a country from discriminating between its trading partners.

Concerns about a no-deal scenario have jumped in recent days, following a spate of ministerial resignations in the UK and increasing unrest within the Conservative Partys Eurosceptic wing about the Brexit deal that prime minister Theresa May negotiated.

But Varadkar said it was not inevitable that May would fail to get the deal through parliament.
Washington (AFP) - A former official in Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's government has pleaded guilty in a billion-dollar money laundering case, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, who was president of the Venezuelan National Treasury Office (ONT) between 2007 and 2010 and also headed the National Economic Development Bank of Venezuela, pleaded guilty in federal court in Florida to conspiracy to launder money.

The 54-year-old Venezuelan citizen residing in Wellington, Florida, admitted his guilt on December 22, 2017 and his sentencing is scheduled for November 27, the Justice Department said.

Also Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that another Venezuelan citizen, Gabriel Jimenez Aray, the 50-year-old former owner of the dissolved Banco Peravia of the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty of conspiracy to launder money on March 20.

Andrade and Jimenez's guilty pleas are part of a corruption scheme that also includes the Venezuelan billionaire owner of the private Globovision television station, Raul Gorrin Belisario, according to the department.

Gorrin, 50, lives in Miami and was charged on August 16, 2017 in the Southern District of Florida with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), as well as with money laundering.

According to the indictment, Gorrin paid millions of dollars in bribes to two high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Andrade, to secure the right to conduct foreign exchange transactions at rates favorable to the Venezuelan government.

The Justice Department did not identify the other official who allegedly received bribes from Gorrin.

US authorities did say that to conceal illicit payments, Gorrin made deposits through several front companies.

Investigators said the Globovision mogul teamed up with Jimenez to acquire Banco Peravia to launder bribes paid to Venezuelan officials.

The United States has very tense ties with Venezuela, where Chavez's successor Nicolas Maduro presides over an imploding state-led economy. Shortages of food and medicine combined with violent crime have fed mass emigration.

Crisis-torn Venezuela's socialist government has cracked down heavily on perceived breaches of strict currency exchange regulations, in place since 2003.

Maduro says his country is the victim of an "economic war" waged by opposition and the United States.
By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Endemic violence in Central African Republic is pushing the country towards famine with 63 percent of the population already needing emergency aid, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the country said on Wednesday. Central African Republic (CAR) has been in chaos since 2013, when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted the president, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias. The fighting has uprooted more than 1 million people. The U.N. humanitarian chief in the country, Najat Rochdi, said 2.9 million of the 4.6 million population needed aid, and 1.6 million were in acute need. In August, a food security survey assessed that for the first time, parts of CAR were in an "emergency". That is the level four in a globally recognized food security classification system, where five is "catastrophe/famine". "If the situation is remaining the same and people are not going back to work their fields... it means that, yes, in a very few years we will have a famine in Central African Republic," Rochdi told reporters in Geneva. Such a catastrophic scenario would not arise immediately, but could threaten hundreds of thousands, she said. Violence has continued in the south and east, and Rochdi said the United Nations had had to act as a government to keep basic services running. Part of her job was identifying areas that were now stable enough to hand over to local officials, so U.N. staff could be freed up for more urgent work. People uprooted in CAR include 620,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) and 570,000 refugees in neighboring countries, mostly in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad. In some areas, security was improving, allowing displaced people to come home and aid workers to get unaccustomed access. But in other areas, attacks on IDP sites was putting things "back to square one", Rochdi said. IDP camps at Batangafo in the northwest and Alindao in the south had been torched, obliterating years of work and leaving tens of thousands of people with absolutely nothing. Rochdi said that although the residents of both camps were Christian, it was simplistic to see it as Muslim-on-Christian violence, since Muslim and Christian militias were involved in both attacks. Ordinary people never talked about hating Christians or Muslims, and just wanted to live in peace, but the armed groups often justify their actions as vengeance for killings of particular groups, producing an endless spiral of violence. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
A soldier from Kentucky looks across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, toward Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, at a group of people on the riverbank on Nov. 17, 2018. (Photo: Thomas Watkins/AFP/Getty Images)

Immigration activists, federal officials and reporters wrestled Wednesday with interpretations of a White House memo authorizing a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary) by the troops deployed on the border with Mexico.

The directive specified the purposes for which force could be used as crowd control, temporary detention and cursory search. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis downplayed the likelihood of a serious clash, saying he envisioned the use of troops for minutes as a first response to an emergent threat. Enforcement will continue to be the responsibility of customs and Border Patrol officers.

The directive, which was first reported by the Military Times, immediately raised concerns about the role of approximately 5,900 U.S. troops that were rushed to the southwest border last month to confront groups of mostly Central American migrants traveling in caravans through Mexico toward the United States.

In what was viewed by many as a political ploy ahead of the midterm elections, President Trump ordered the troops to the border as a show of force against the migrant caravans, which at that point were still several weeks away from the U.S. Trump described the refugees as an invasion and an imminent national security threat.

The fear-mongering tactic of sending soldiers to the border for a danger that doesnt exist is now being extended to stoking tensions with threats of lethal force, said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Texas-based nonprofit Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES. This is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and for what? To rally a base based on racist and xenophobic lies? And to deny people their legal right to asylum?

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLUs National Security Project, called the latest memo an unnecessary escalation of a political stunt that risks harm to civilians and legal jeopardy for the military.

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In addition to serious concerns about violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, its hard to see how John Kelly, a civilian White House official, has the authority to issue any such order, she said, referring to initial reports that the directive issued to Mattis had been sent not by President Trump but by White House chief of staff John Kelly. On Wednesday afternoon, however, Newsweek reported that the order issued by Kelly was preceded by a decision memorandum signed by the president.

Members of the military sent to secure the U.S.-Mexico border sit in a truck near the Otay Mesa west of San Diego on Nov. 15, 2018. (Photo: Ariana Drehsler/AFP/Getty Images)

Nonetheless, concerns remain about potential violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 federal law prohibiting active-duty military forces from engaging in civilian law enforcement within the United States.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to comment on how the new authorities outlined in the memo would impact current operations at the border, where troops have largely been playing a supportive role, laying concertina wire and helping install additional barricades and fencing near ports of entry. A spokesperson for the Department of Defense could not be reached for comment.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan Washington think tank, pointed out that the memo authorizes the troops to engage in such activities at the direction of the secretary of defense.

The important thing is to watch and see whether any of these authorities are actually given to the troops, Cancian said, adding that Mattis has not done that, and I doubt if he will.

Cancian also observed that the language of the memo seemed designed to recognize the limitations imposed by the Posse Comitatus Act, specifically a line that states U.S. troops shall not, without further direction from the President, conduct traditional civilian law enforcement activities, such as arrest, search, and seizure.

You can feel the nervousness in this memo, said Cancian, speculating that the caution might reflect White House concerns about the possibility of a confrontation, in light of reports that the migrants, many living in tents or on the streets while waiting to be processed by U.S. immigration officials, have clashed with residents in and around Tijuana.

Marines fortify concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing near Tijuana on Nov. 20, 2018. (Photo: Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Cancian acknowledged, however, that theres not a very clear distinction between the traditional law enforcement duties forbidden under the Posse Comitatus Act and the kinds of tasks authorized in the memo, including detention and crowd control.

The problem for the troops is youre going to have people at very low levels trying to parse these new rules in real time, which is going to be hard for them, said Cancian. Soldiers arent trained in the legal rights of civilians or in limiting the use of deadly force. If these authorities are implemented, he predicted, there will likely be some instances that people regard as abusive because the line isnt clear.

Cancian said that while the memo may set off alarm bells for some, he is comforted by what he views as Mattiss minimalist interpretation. While speaking to reporters Wednesday, Mattis said of the limited detention authority granted in the memo, I would put it in terms of minutes. In other words, if someones beating on a border patrolman and if we were in a position to have to do something about it, we could stop them from beating on them and take them over and deliver them to a border patrolman who would then arrest them for it.

In their minds, this is for a worst-case scenario, said Cancian, describing a hypothetical situation of migrants breaking through a section of border fence and rushing across en masse, overpowering Border Patrol agents.

Short of that, I cant imagine any reason to do this, he said, adding that there is no evidence that any of these people are armed.

If they dribble across the border, thats what Border Patrol is for, he said. They can handle that.

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that he had been granted authority to allow troops on the Mexican border greater powers to help protect border officials, and would await direction from the Department of Homeland Security. Reuters reported on Monday that the White House was likely to give troops authority to protect Customs and Border Protection agents stationed along the U.S. border with Mexico if they come under threat from migrants seeking to cross into the United States. Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Mattis confirmed that he had been given the additional authority, but would await a request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before deciding how to use it. "I have the authority to do more, now we'll see what she asks me for," Mattis said, referring to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He said he had no immediate intention of changing the mission. Mattis said, depending on the DHS request, that troops may be given powers to temporarily detain migrants, but not the authority to arrest them. They would only be permitted to detain migrants for "minutes, not even hours" while they hand them over to border agents. He said troops could help protect the border agents with shields and batons, but would be unarmed. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a memo signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly gave Mattis the authority to protect immigration agents and if necessary, could include actions like use of lethal force, crowd control, temporary detention and cursory searches. The deployment of about 5,800 active duty troops to the Mexico border to bolster defenses ahead of the expected arrival of a caravan of mostly Honduran migrants has raised questions in Congress and among legal experts about troop deployments on U.S. soil. The Pentagon has said in the past that there were no plans for U.S. forces to interact with migrants and that they have been carrying out support tasks. The Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law on the books since the 1870s, restricts using the U.S. Army and other main branches of the military for civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil, unless specifically authorized by Congress. "There is no violation of Posse Comitatus, there's no violation here at all," Mattis said. Asked if the border mission could be extended, Mattis said it was dependent on the situation, but at least some troops would be back home before Christmas. He also said that fresh troops could be assigned new missions. The mission is currently authorized through Dec. 15. (Reporting by Idrees Ali, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Prince Harry is set to spend the anniversary of the day that he and Meghan Markle shared the happy news of their engagement in a special place, championing a special cause.

He is off to Africa, where he will visit projects in Zambia. Harry, who loves the continent and has visited there regularly with the Duchess of Sussex, is there to conduct some business on behalf of the Commonwealth (hes the youth ambassador of the family of nations linked to the U.K.) and meet with conservation group African Parks, of which he is president.

On Nov. 27  the one-year anniversary of when the world was told of the couples plans to marry  he will, poignantly, meet with an organization called CAMFED, which tackles poverty and inequality in sub-Saharan Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women. It is an issue close to his wifes heart and one she will make a central part of her public work.

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Prince Harry during a visit to Lesotho, Africa, in June

Harry, 34, starts his visit to Zambia the previous day with a reception celebrating links between the U.K. and Zambia.

On Nov. 27, the prince will head to Burma Barracks to commemorate the Zambian veterans from the two world wars, meet widows of veterans and be shown around a special photographic exhibition about the African soldier of WWI.

RELATED VIDEO: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Step Out for Date Night

At an event for The Queens Commonwealth Trust, of which he is also president, the royal father-to-be is set to chat to young leaders who are leading social purpose ventures around the world. He will also visit Circus Zambia, which helps young people from vulnerable backgrounds across Lusaka with life skills while providing educational and employment opportunities. Commonwealth Trust partner CAMA will be among those he will meet, including their alumnae network of CAMFED. Harry is set to make a speech.

Harrys final duty in the country will be a visit to BongoHive, the countrys first technology and innovation hub. Hell sit in on one of the workshops, meet entrepreneurs practicing their pitches ahead of the next funding competition and hear from founders of start-ups who have benefited from BongoHives support.
The public and VIP galleries in Parliament will be closed next Friday (23) as well, Sergeant at Arms Narendra Fernando said today.

Mr. Fernando told Daily Mirror that no one would be allowed inside the gallery on Friday except for media personnel.

Security arrangements in Parliament will be the same as it was on Monday where noone apart from the press was allowed into the gallery, he said.(Yohan Perera)
In the 1985 film, Peewees Big Adventure, when the stars beloved bike gets stolen he is desperate to find it. He was so desperate that he turns to a phony psychic named Madame Ruby who tells him that the bicycle can be found in the basement of the Alamo in San Antonio. After making his way to Texas, Peewee finds out the hard way that theres no basement in the Alamo. If Peewee had known just a little bit about Texas real estate, he would have known that most homes in Texas dont have basements.

According to the Dallas Morning News, there are a few very good reasons for this particular real estate quirk. First, in some parts of the state the water table is too near the surface of the ground to build a water-tight basement and no basement may be better than a leaky, flood-prone one. In other areas of the state, theres damp clay soil that can push into basement walls, causing them to crack if not built correctly with the help of an engineer. Theres also bedrock that looms near the surface in much of Texas that require digging through it for a basement, which makes the whole process just too darn expensive. Similarly, the frost line  the point in the dirt where the soil does not freeze in the winter  is much shallower in Texas than up north. In other parts of the country, home builders must dig deep to make it below the frost line and since they are already down in the dirt, they may as well put in a basement. Theres simply no need for that in most of Texas.

WATCH: See What Our Editors Had to Say About This Dallas Castle

Also, Texas homes are already big and tend to have sprawling footprints. They dont necessarily need the extra space that would justify the expense of digging out a basement. Why go down when you can stretch on towards the horizon?

Finally, according to Bill Bettis, president of the Greater Fort Worth Builders Association, since most people dont have basements in Texas, most people dont know what theyre missing. Its a little bit of a cultural thing simply because most people are not accustomed to being around basements unless theyre from up north, he told the Dallas Morning News.

And dont tell Peewee Herman, but according to Texas Monthly, in real life, the Alamo actually has two basements.
By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A witness at the U.S. drug trafficking trial of accused Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman on Tuesday testified that he paid a multimillion-dollar bribe to an underling of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005.

The witness, Jesus Zambada, also said he paid millions of dollars in bribes to former Mexican government official Genaro Garcia Luna on behalf of his brother, drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who remains at large.

A spokesman for Lopez Obrador did not immediately respond to a call and text message seeking comment.

Garcia Luna, in a written statement, said the accusations were "defamation" and "perjury" and made without any proof.

Garcia Luna said he had received commendations from high-level U.S. officials for his labors in fighting organized crime in Mexico and that he had been "systematically defamed" due to the actions he took against criminal networks.

"There has never been a single proof or evidence of all those infamies," he said.

Zambada gave his testimony about the bribes on the fifth day of trial under cross-examination by one of Guzman's lawyers, William Purpura. Guzman's lawyers have said they will try to prove that Guzman is being scapegoated and that Ismael Zambada was the real head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Guzman, 61, is charged with 17 criminal counts and faces life in prison if he is convicted. He was extradited to the United States in January 2017, after twice escaping Mexican prisons.

Zambada, who was called to testify against Guzman under an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, previously told jurors that his brother and Guzman worked together for years to move multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, while arranging for their rivals to be murdered.

During Purpura's cross-examination, Zambada said he paid "a few million" dollars to a Mexico City government official while Lopez Obrador was head of government there. He said the bribe was paid because it was believed at the time that the official could become Mexico's next secretary of public security.

Story continues

The name of the official was not immediately clear from the court testimony. But Gabriel Regino, a former subsecretary of public security in Mexico City who is now a criminal law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, wrote on Twitter that an accusation of bribery had emerged against him in the trial but was false.

Zambada also said under cross-examination that he handed a suitcase containing $3 million to Garcia Luna in 2005 or 2006, when Garcia Luna was director of Mexico's Federal Investigation Agency.

Garcia Luna said the charge was "unbelievable" since he was not able to appoint officials to posts, as Zambada alleged, and such designations were made by a council.

Zamabda said he gave him another $3 million to $5 million in 2007, when he had become secretary of public security, to secure favorable treatment for the cartel.

Garcia Luna said he never had contact with Zambada and there was a public record of all his meetings in and out of the office when he was secretary of public security.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Additional reporting by Michael Scott O'Boyle in Mexico City; Editing by Dan Grebler and Leslie Adler)
A rare sword, which was given as a present by SS commander Heinrich Himmler to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini during his visit to Nazi Germany in March 1943, is being auctioned online for the opening price of  35,000, which is the equivalent of some NIS 148,000.

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The sword was offered for sale on a British websiteThe Saleroom by the German auction house Hermann Historica, which specializes in selling historical items.

Sword given by SS commander Heinrich Himmler to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammad Amin al-Hu (Photo: HERMANN HISTORICA)

The auction will end on November 23rd.

The sword is 95-centimeter long and is made of "Damascus" steel. On one side of the blade appears the inscription "To the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, with loyal friendship, the Reichsfuhrer," with two swastikas and the emblem of the SSa pair of parallel vertical lightning boltsengraved at the beginning and at the end of the sentence.

On the other side of the blade the SS's motto "My honor is my loyalty" is imprinted.

The hilt of the sword is made of Nickel and wood, with numerous Nazi symbols carved on it.

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini during his visit to Germany (Photo: HERMANN HISTORICA)

In June, the Israeli Kedem Auction House put up for sale six rare, never-before-seen photographs, in which Husseini is seen touring a camp in Nazi Germany, accompanied by Adolf Hitler and Himmler.

Husseini (L) and Adolf Hitler (Photo: Heinrich Hoffmann)

The photographs were sold for $ 12,300, which are the equivalent of NIS 45,000.

In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked international outcry, claiming the grand mufti of Jerusalem was the one who convinced Hitler to implement his Final Solution plan.
The Hamas propaganda has succeeded. Some fiery speeches, some sweets being handed out in the streets and the right-wing is convinced Hamas won.

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This was the message in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday and at Education Minister Naftali Bennett's press conference on Monday. Both of them, it is important to note, spoke about the beginning of a new chapter. For a minute there, one could have thought the feeble government had been dissolved and a new one has been formed in its stead.

They said everything is going to change. Excuse me?! The prime minister and the education minister are both members of the Security Cabinet. They are the decision-makers. They were those who decided that restraint is preferable to another confrontation, which will contribute nothing. Netanyahu went as far as praising the restraint policy.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: AP)

So what changed? Nothing. But former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned, and Bennett made his threats. And all of a sudden, everything is different? Does Netanyahu suddenly know new things that a week ago he did not? Is there suddenly such a gap between his speeches? These are not rhetorical questions. These questions arouse fear in all of us.

Netanyahu's winning hand was that he was stately and not political as far as security and military matters were concerned. But in a heart beat he abandoned stateliness for politics.

The Israelis living in communities along the Gaza border have been suffering for months. Netanyahu did not succeed in finding a solution. His failure is neither due to a soft or a hard approach, nor because of the Military Advocate General, as Bennett claimed on Monday, sparking even Lieberman's ire. Netanyahu failed in finding a solution since Israel has no policy. Israel is only retaliating, not initiating. And no, this is not a disagreement between the Left and the Right.

Former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman (L) and Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Photo: Getty Images, AFP)

The disagreement lies between those thinking there is a need for a clear policy, which includes forming an international and Arab coalition that will forge an outline to improve the situation of Gaza's residents in exchange for demilitarization, and those who choose to do nothingas the current government does.

Since Netanyahu and Bennett are stirring the ship, it is unclear who they are placing the blame on. It is nice of Bennett not to resign. However, what new and surprising security policy is he talking about? Does the education minister intend to fire the chief military advocate general? The IDF chief of staff? Does he intend to drag Netanyahu and Israel to a fire-and-brimstone adventure, which will end exactly like the two last operations in Gaza?

A change is needed. But change does not equal confrontation; because so far, Israel has been going from one confrontation to another, and nothing has changed.

Change means policy. And it appears policy is exactly what is missing in the new government, which is actually the old one.

Until now it was clear, despite the slandering, that the prime minister has been avoiding military confrontations because of political interests. Has something changed? Let's pray not. But one shout admit that if, god forbid, a confrontation was to erupt, Netanyahu and Bennett succeeded in creating question surrounding Israel's chances of winning.
Portugal has become the most recent country to take the step towards compassion against animals with their government passing legislation to ban wild animals in circuses. The new legislation prohibits more than 40 species of animals from exploitation in circuses, including lions, camels, tigers, elephants, and zebras. Predictably, circus operators are in opposition of the ban claiming it will contribute to the disappearance of business but the government has advised that if they relinquish their animals to ethical sanctuaries by the 2024 cut-off date, they will be given support and training in a new profession. Animal rights groups from around the world applaud the move as Portugal joins countries such as Mexico, India, Iran, and the United Kingdom who have also passed similar bans.

Source: Veg News
A conference titled "Hebron First" will take place in the Knesset next week calling for the immediate evacuation of the Jewish settlement in the West Bank city.

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The conference, organized by Joint List MKs Ayman Odeh and Dov Khenin and Meretz MK Michal Rozin, will feature a speech from B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad, who recently spoke at the UN Security Council against Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

Other invitees to the event on Monday include activists from left-wing groups B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, Yesh Din and Palestinians from Hebron.

Joint List leader Ayman Odeh (Photo: Knesset)

"For 50 years, a handful of settlers living at the very heart of the Palestinian population in Hebron have been leading the government to enact a cruel segregation regime, both physical and legal, on the Palestinian population," the invitation for the conference read.

"Hundreds of soldiers are sent by the government to enforce this segregation, mass budgets are invested in that handful of settlersat the expense of the publicand the friction between the populations leads to a destructive reality of violence, extreme incidents like the massacre Baruch Goldstein carried out and the Elor Azaria affair, and the loss of human livesboth Jews and Palestinians."

According to Knesset regulations, any conference held at the parliament requires the approval of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein. A year ago, Edelstein sought to prevent MK Aida Touma-Sliman from holding a conference on "50 years of occupation." Because of that, the MKs organizing this event defined it as a "gathering," which the Knesset management cannot prevent.

"The settlement in Hebron is the expression of an extremist government policy that pours mass sums of money and endangers human lives to strengthen and maintain a handful of extremist settlers. The evacuation of the settlement in Hebron is a first and necessary step to promoting a diplomatic solution and bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end," the three MKs said in a statement.
A video from 2016, in which police officers are seen humiliating Arraba resident Nayef Yabin Yassin was released on Monday.

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Yassin was detained on suspicion of committing a traffic violation. After protesting his detention, the policemen told the Arraba resident they intend to give him a NIS 200 ticket and remove his vehicle off the road, claiming "the vehicle's wheels are square instead of round."

The policemen are suspected of mocking Yassin. They repeatedly told him that the wheels of his vehicle are square, adding, "All the wheels should turn together, which they don't. How did you get your driver's license?"

Nayef Yabin Yassin

Yassin's son, Mustafa, filed a complaint with the Police Internal Investigations Department. "The officers' behavior is a disgrace to the police. The most embarrassing thing is that they incriminated themselves in the video," he said.

"Today it's my father, tomorrow it can be any other old man," he lamented.

Attorney Ori Narov, who represents Yassin, said, "It is impossible not to be shocked by the video in which police officers are seen bullying an Arab driver, humiliating and degrading him, while exploiting Yassin's lack of Hebrew proficiency for their apparent personal amusement."

"Astonishingly, it appears the police officers documented their own offensive and inappropriate conduct," Narov went on to say.

"The entire incident reeks of racist police conduct," he concluded.

The Racism Crisis Center called on the police to immediately launch an inquiry into the incident, and bring the officers involved to justice.

"The police should make maximum effort to prevent the reoccurrence of the kind of offensive, humiliating, and racist behavior that is seen in the video to strengthen the public's trust in the law enforcement system," the Racism Crisis Center added.

Knesset member Ahmad Tibi (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Knesset member Ahmad Tibi (Joint List) demanded the Police Commissioner to immediately fire the two police officers from the force.

"(We witnessed) a despicable and contemptible behavior. The police officers filmed and distributed their shameful conduct, and they should be kicked out of the police as soon as possible," Tibi opined.

The police issued a statement, saying, "An inquiry launched into the incident shows that the video was filmed during a law enforcement activity in 2016, during which the driver was caught while driving with severe vehicle malfunctions. Therefore, the vehicle was taken off the road and the driver was fined.

"Nevertheless, the conduct of one of the police officers involved in the incident, is unacceptable and does not correspond with the values and norms expected of a public servant," the statement read.

"Even though over two years have passed since the incident, a disciplinary proceeding has been launched into the matter.

"We would like to stress that this unusual behavior does not represent all police officers, who carry out law enforcement activities on a daily basis, giving service to millions of civiliansJews and Arabsin a dedicated, professional manner and with mutual respect for each and every person," the statement added.
A senior Israeli Cabinet minister is threatening to kill the leader of the terror Hamas movement ruling Gaza.

Construction Minister Yoav Galant said Wednesday that "Yehiyeh Sinwar's time is limited" and "he will not end his life in an old folks' home."

Speaking at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference, Galant vowed there would be another Israeli campaign in Gaza and said Sinwar better "recalculate his route."

Israel and Hamas recently stepped back from the brink of their fourth war in a decade thanks to an Egyptian ceasefire.
Iraqi forces have killed 15 Islamic State terrorists inside a tunnel during a search operation in the northern Sunni-majority Salahuddin province, the military said on Wednesday.

Islamic State, which once occupied a third of Iraq's territory, has been largely defeated in the country but has continued to carry out ambushes, assassinations and bombings there and still poses a threat.
The opposition decided Wednesday to remove from the agenda the bill proposing to dissolve the government, subsequently preventing early elections.
Hamas has run out of credit. At least, as far as the IDF's top brass are concerned. And If Hamas chooses to escalate the security situation on the Gaza border for whatever reason, the IDF is prepared to strike back within several minutes, rather than days or hours. Israel will also no longer hold prolonged "inquiries" into who fried and where. The military's planwhich has already been presented to the Security Cabinetwill be put into action.

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These are the instructions the IDF's top leadership is conveying to the troops, and these are probably also the recommendations it makes to the political echelon.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (Photo: AP)

Hamas, meanwhile, can keep on laughing, since it was threatened with destruction many times before. And even Avigdor Lieberman resigned from his post as defense minister, because he did not believe that a similar planwhich he presented before the Security Cabinetwould be approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, this time Hamas better not listen to the Israeli leadership, but to the wishes of the Israeli public. The rules have changed not because the interests changed, but since Israel is on the verge of calling general elections. Election time triggers not only verbal pyrotechnics, but also military pyrotechnicsand not only on the Gaza front.

When the prime minister implies he accepted the recent ceasefire agreement with Hamas due to strategic problems elsewhere, one should wonder how urgent these strategic problems are, and whether they can cause problems for no reason. Lieberman defined Netanyahu's insinuations as "excuses not to do anything." It would be a shame if someone insists on proving him wrong.

Former defense minister Lieberman (L) and PM Netanyahu (Photo: Haim Horenstein)

The army advised the political leadership to accept Hamas's request for a ceasefire due to strategic reasons (on which Netanyahu implied) but also because of tactical-operational reasons.

In an attempt to differentiate itself from the political echelonwhich turned Gaza into a political, rather than a professional, argumentthe IDF is trying to show the public its recommendations are strictly professional.

When interim solutions are discussedranging from bombing Hamas assets to launching an all-out war the issue of targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders immediately arises. In government meetings, the IDF has recommended to halt the targeted killings. Because if the political leadership wants a weakened Hamas to continue ruling the strip, what would be the point in liquidating its leadership and risking anarchy? This question led the IDF to advise the government to suspend targeted assassinations, which are not only an act of deterrence, but also an invitation for an all-out confrontation.

Gaza border riots (Photo: Reuters)

As far as Hamas is concerned, the killing of seven of its men during a botch IDF operation last week, was a targeted killing. According to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the IDF gun he brandished during the funerals of the seven men killed was the one that took out most of them. As opposed to the Israelis, Gazans are sure the assassinations are still ongoing.

Hamas continues to play with firejust this past weekend some 13,000 rioters demonstrated along the Gaza border, with five explosive devices hurled at IDF soldiers. It's less than before, but the fuse is still lit. The terror organization did not commit to halt the riots, but rather to avoid coming closer than 100 km from the border.

Israel says the direction is positive, explaining why border crossings remain open, fuel continues entering the strip and Qatari money is still being transferred to Gaza. Since Qatar has committed to continue sending money to the strip over the next six months, maintaining the calm at least for that long is worthwhile to Hamas.

Incoming chief of staff Aviv Cochavi (Photo: Roee Idan)

So what's next? Nobody knows. The incoming chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, has returned from abroad and is already up-to-speed on everything. Will he be on board with the current IDF view that Hamas's credit has run out? How will he cope with the public and political pressure during election time?

Lieberman will not let go. The former defense minister will continue claiming the Qatari money and fuel are used by the terror organization's military wing, and that the national security advisor is deceiving the Security Cabinet by telling them there are mechanisms to prevent it from happening.
Gaza Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eliezer Toledano met Wednesday with 12th graders from the Shaar Hanegev Regional School who initiated the protest march toward Jerusalem two weeks ago, in an attempt to call attention to the security situation in the Gaza border region.

"Gaza is a broken place in civilian terms and you need patience, I cannot promise you that there will be quiet, things are under control and we need patience," Toledano told the students.
US President Donald Trump praised Saudi Arabia for helping to lower oil prices on Wednesday as pressure intensified to impose tougher sanctions on the Middle East ally following the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In a tweet, Trump thanked Riyadh for the recent drop in oil prices and called for prices to go even lower, likening it to "a big tax cut" that could boost the US and global economies.

Trump has repeatedly blasted high oil prices, criticized OPEC over its production and pressured Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, to act.

Oil prices rose more than 1 percent on Wednesday but have been trending lower for weeks. Prices slid on Tuesday after a report of an unexpected decline in US crude inventories.

"Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" Trump wrote.
A comprehensive study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on government-funded textbooks in Saudi Arabia found that, despite the kingdom's claims, the texts still promote hatred and violence against Jews.

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US President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia, despite the recent tensions between the countries after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump said he would keep his alliance with the kingdom in order to promote American and Israeli interests, but the ADL's report shows that the monarchy continues to spread anti-Semitic messages.

Anti-Defamation League's report

The report titled "Teaching Hate and Violence: Problematic passages from Saudi state textbooks for the 2018-19 school year"analyzes Saudi Arabia's school textbooks published in the past year.

The report includes dozens of disturbing statements made against Israel. For example, one textbook depicts the goals of Zionism and concludes that "the goal of the global Jewish Government is to control the entire world."

According to the ADL, the textbooks, translated from the original Arabic, "clearly propagate incitement to hatred or violence against Jews, Christians, Shiite Muslims, women, homosexual men, and anybody who mocks or converts away from Islam.

Another example examined in the report is a question posed to Saudi students: "explain how Zionism has used each of the following to reach its goals and achieve its schemes: 1. Money 2. Politics 3. Womankind 4. Drugs 5. The Media."

The CEO of ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, demanded greater scrutiny of the textbooks by Washington. The US cannot look the other way while Saudi Arabia features anti-Semitic hate speech year after year in the educational material it gives to its children, Greenbelt said.

Saudi Arabia has promised the US government to eliminate all incitement and intolerant passages from its textbooks until the start of the 2008 school year. A decade later, the ADL is positive these commitments have not yet been met. Last September, Saudi officials told an American audience that their textbooks no longer contain this kind of intolerant references.

US President Trump with Saudi King Salman (Photo: Reuters)

If you go back to around the time of 9/11, virtually every group of people that was demonized in Saudi textbooks then is still demonized in the kingdoms official textbooks today," The author of the report and ADL's Washington Representative for International Affairs, David Andrew, stated.

"Saudi Arabia has made some undeniably significant social and religious reforms in recent years, but such steps have yet to address the hate-filled invective against Jews, Christians and others that is being taught to the next generation of Saudis, he explained.

The Saudi curriculum is full of intolerant messages about Jews and Judaism, some of which even encourage violence against Jews. Other passages repeat classic anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories about alleged Israeli plots to attack the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Not only do these conspiracy theories deny the Jewish people's connection to the Temple Mount, they also attribute malicious intent to Israel.

"With the modern Jewish occupation of the State of Palestine, and despite all the international charters which forbid infringing on sanctities and sites of worship, the Jewish occupation does not stop night and day planning and plotting to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque and demolish it," a Saudi textbook reads.














MOSCOW A committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament on Wednesday recommended to the National Security Council that it change the rules on the use of nuclear weapons, RIA news agency reported.

The non-binding recommendations relate to a response to a hypothetical use of hypersonic and other non-nuclear strategic weapons against Russia, RIA said.
The Sri Lankan driver, who languished in prison in the Maldives for three years accused of involvement in a plot to assassinate a Maldivian President had been acquitted by a court lacking evidence, Provincial Councils & Local Government Faiszer Mustapha said today.

Lahiru Madhushanka is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka, tomorrow.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror from the Maldives the Minister said the Sri Lankan man had been in the Maafushi Prison for three years with no evidence against him.

The driver, Lahiru Madhushanka arrived in the Maldives to seek a business opportunity in 2015 and suddenly found himself accused of being a highly trained sniper trying to kill President Abdulla Yameen.

On 23 October 2015, while waiting for a flight back to Sri Lanka, he was arrested at the airport by plainclothes police who accused him of being involved in a plot to assassinate President Abdulla Yameen.

His family and lawyer said he had since been repeatedly denied access to legal representation, and while in custody had been subject to ill-treatment including prolonged solitary confinement and beatings with cables that caused him to temporarily lose hearing in one ear.

Earlier, the Amnesty International condemned the Cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of a Sri Lankan detained in the Maldives, saying he had been beaten and tortured.

"Following the orders of the President Maithripala Sirisena, I went for the Maldives to look up the case. The case was taken up today. The former President of the Maldives gave us a big support," Minister Mustapha said.

"He had a three-year-old child who did not see his father for three years. During the Three years of time, he had no any connection with his Sri Lankan Family, Minister said. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)
Former Minister Gideon Sa'ar called Wednesday for a "preemptive strike against Hezbollah's precision-missiles factory in Lebanon." since, according to Sa'ar, "we are approaching the point of no return in terms of Hezbollah." Sa'ar also announced that he intends to run in the Likud primaries ahead of 2019 elections.
A Palestinian man tried to cross Wednesday the fence of Har Gilo settlement, near Jerusalem, and was arrested by authorities.

Authorities found burglary tools, a Japanese knife and a kitchen knife in his bag.
US Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday strongly defended the federal judiciary a day after US President Donald Trump referred to a judge who ruled against his policy barring asylum for certain immigrants as an "Obama judge."

The remarks marked the first public response by Roberts to Trump over the Republican president's frequent criticism of the federal judiciary. Opponents of Trump have called his criticism of judges an attack on the rule of law in the United States.

"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts, a conservative who was appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush, said in a statement released by the Supreme Court in response to a news media inquiry.

"What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for," Roberts added.

It is unusual for a US chief justice, who presides over the nine-member US Supreme Court, to issue such a statement in response to a president. The US Constitution established the federal judiciary as a co-equal branch of government with the executive and legislative branches as part of a system of checks and balances on power.
If the Labor party gets into power and their proposed negative gearing changes are passed, the repercussions could effect our economy to the point of recession.

So says wHeregroups Todd Hunter, who believes altering negative gearing policies will not be beneficial to any sector of the market.

Labors policy, which aims to put an end to negative gearing on all property except new ones, will lead to further weakening of the market in his view.

The changes to negative gearing proposal alone will cripple our property markets right across Australia. The proposal is to abolish negative gearing on all property, unless it is new. So, lets sucker the investors into buying new stock to only screw them over when they want to sell, he said.

Why? Because that new property is no longer new, therefore limiting the buyers pool by one third (investors generally make up one-third of buyers) of the potential buyers who will be looking to buy your property. This is because tax breaks are only available on new property.

Huntermade a strong case as to why non-investors like sellers, retirees, and renters are bound to bear the brunt of the plans consequences, as any homeowner who opts to sell their house will have lesser buyers, given that the property is second hand. Hunter explained that the lower number of buyers would mean less competition, which will result in lower growth.

In the same way, tenants will have to suffer higher rental prices, as less investors will push the number of investment properties lower. As such, there will be more competition for each property.

The pools of properties coming onto the market will mainly only be new properties. Now in theory that sounds great, if there were investors around. Lets presume there are  well, new properties are not everywhere, therefore limiting tenants where they can rent, Hunter added.

This could create a situation where new land estates or high-rise apartment blocks are sold largely to investors seeking better tax treatment, making the entire area a 100% tenant zone.

From a tax perspective, Hunter also has this to say: How can you not allow negative gearing from a property, but then also tax you on a positively geared property?

Labors proposed changes also include a provision to reduce the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) discount from 50% to 25%, which is by no way a small tax hike, Hunter said.

On a $200k profit on the sale of a property, the taxable amount increases by $50k.

So by the time we pay Stamp Duty and then CGT, the government are taking a massive percentage of any profit that a property may earn, he said.
News

Washington, DC - The United States today sanctioned an international network by which the Iranian regime and Russia are providing millions of barrels of oil to the Assad regime in exchange for the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, and for onward transfer to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah.

The sanctions levied today directly target the Iranian regimes exploitation of the international financial system to hide revenue streams it uses to fund terrorist activity, provide support for sectarian militias responsible for abuses against civilian populations, and destabilize the region. The Iranian regime, Iranian-commanded forces inside Syria, and the proxy terrorist groups it supports such as those targeted today, continue to foment instability to extend their malign influence. These actions by the Iranian and Assad regimes undermine the legitimate processes to resolve the conflict in Syria.

Todays sanctions, in conjunction with economic, diplomatic, and other strategic initiatives, are part of the U.S. governments long-term maximum pressure campaign to counter the Iranian regimes influence and destabilizing regional activities, to deny it the funds it uses to bankroll terrorist and militant proxies, and to secure the removal of all Iranian forces from Syria.

They are also part of the United States effort to bring to bear on the Syrian regime the pressure necessary to help bring about a political resolution of the Syrian conflict. Disrupting the illicit network that we have designated today is a crucial element of a broader effort to disrupt the material ties between the Assad regime and its IRGC patrons. This effort will continue in the months to come.

We are committed to imposing a financial toll on the Iranian regime, Russia, and others who prop up the Assad regime and enable its abuses, as well as to disrupt the Iranian regimes funding of terrorist organizations. The United States will use every available tool to combat the Iranian regimes destabilizing and destructive influence in Syria and throughout the region.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - Between November 5th and November 19h, 2018 we have received 10 reports of water control valves and copper pipes being taken from non-residential buildings. There may be more that have not been reported. There is no specific area in town that this is taking place, but the victims are all businesses and one school.

No suspect information at this time.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please call the Yuma Police Department at 928-373-4700 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
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AMW Capital Leasing & Finance PLCreceiving their award and prize from the Chief Guest Dr. Prasad Medawatte, the GCEO of Lanka Hospitals PLC and Mr. Pradeep Edward, the President of SLIM.

The inaugural SLIM Marketers Quiz 2018, titled The Battle of Brain Champs, proved an exciting event with several corporate contestants pitting their intelligence against one another.

The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) at Lanka Hospitals PLC. Dr. Prasad Medawatte graced the occasion as the Chief Guest at the recently concluded contest held at the Hilton Residences. The competition was exclusivelyopen to organizations in the corporate sector, with teams comprising of a maximum of five membersjoining the fray. The SLIM Marketers Quiz was conducted as a table test of five rounds, each with 10 questions, covering topics such as Marketing Essentials & Concepts, Consumer Behaviour & Brand Fundamentals, International Marketing & Economics, Business Highlights & Strategic Thoughts and General Knowledge & International Affairs.

Hemas Manufacturing (Pvt) Ltd emerged the winner of the quiz,while the first and second runners-up were AMW Capital Leasing & Finance PLC and Peoples Bank respectively. The three top winning corporates of the Marketers Quiz 2018 competition were awarded cash prizes worth LKR 100,000/-, 50,000/- and 30,000/- respectively.

The Winning Team -Hemas Manufacturing (Pvt) Ltd receiving their award and prize from the Chief Guest Dr. Prasad Medawatte, the GCEO of Lanka Hospitals PLC and Mr. Pradeep Edward,the President of SLIM.

While congratulating the winners, the President of SLIM, Mr. Pradeep Edwardelaborated on the intent of the competition, As the foremost mentoring institute in marketing in the country,SLIM designed and launched the Marketers Quiz to offer an opportunity for professional marketers to test and prove themselves in the corporate battlefield as eminent marketing professionals.

He further stated, As the national body for marketing, SLIM has always remained proactive in adding value to the marketers in the country. SLIM continues toenhance the marketing fraternity in the country by introducing novel concepts,while being on par with international education systems.

SLIM has been promoting marketing excellence and elevating the status of the fraternity since 1970. It is a member of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL), the Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) and the Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) and the Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC). Internationally, the institute isa member of the Asia Marketing Federation, which in turn is affiliated to the World Marketing Association.

Peoples Bank receiving their award and prize from the Chief Guest Dr. Prasad Medawatte, the GCEO of Lanka Hospitals PLC and Mr. Pradeep Edward, the President of SLIM.
Royal Dutch Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company worldwide. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, Oil Products, Chemicals segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to market. The company also markets and trades natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, electricity, carbon-emission rights; and markets and sells LNG as a fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and marine vessels. In addition, it trades in and refines crude oil and other feed stocks, such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, marine fuel, biofuel, lubricants, bitumen, and sulphur; produces and sells petrochemicals for industrial use; and manages oil sands activities. Further, the company produces base chemicals comprising ethylene, propylene, and aromatics, as well as intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide, and ethylene glycol. Royal Dutch Shell plc was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands.

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KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., MMC 28 State Street Holdings Inc., MMC Borrower LLC, MMC Brazilian Holdings B.V., MMC Capital Inc., MMC Cascade Regional Holdings LLC, MMC FINANCE (EUROPE) LIMITED, MMC FINANCE HOLDINGS LTD, MMC Finance (Australia) Limited, MMC Finance (Singapore) Limited, MMC France Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., MMC GP III Inc., MMC Group Services sp. z o.o., MMC Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, MMC Holdings (New Zealand) ULC, MMC Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC International Finance (Barbados) SRL, MMC International Holdings LLC, MMC International Limited, MMC International Treasury Centre Limited, MMC Middle East Holdings Limited, MMC Poland Holdings B.V., MMC Realty Inc., MMC Regional Asia Holdings B.V., MMC Regional Caribbean Holdings Ltd., MMC Regional Europe Holdings B.V., MMC Regional LATAM Holdings B.V., MMC Securities (Europe) Limited, MMC Securities LLC, MMC Treasury Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC UK Group Limited, MMC UK Pension Fund Trustee Limited, MMOW Limited, MMRC LLC, MOW Holding LLC, MPIP III GP LLC, MPIP IV GP LLC, MPIP V GP LLC, MPIP VI GP LLC, Mangrove Insurance Europe PCC Limited, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC Limited, Manoel Management Services Ltd, Marchant McKechnie Insurance Brokers Limited, Marine Aviation & General (London) Limited, Marsh & McLennan (PNG) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agencies AS, Marsh & McLennan Agencies Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency A/S, Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, Marsh & McLennan Agency Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency Pty Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Argentina SA Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh & McLennan Colombia S.A., Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Funding Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Asia Pacific Treasury Center Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies BVBA/SPRL, Marsh & McLennan Companies Finance Center (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies France S.A.S., Marsh & McLennan Companies Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies Regional Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Services B.V., Marsh & McLennan Companies UK Limited, Marsh & McLennan Europe S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan GP I Inc., Marsh & McLennan Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Holding GmbH, Marsh & McLennan Holdings (Canada) ULC, Marsh & McLennan Holdings Inc., Marsh & McLennan Incorporated (for dissolution), Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings II, Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Limited, Marsh & McLennan Insurance Services Limited, Marsh & McLennan Ireland Limited, Marsh & McLennan Management Services (Bermuda) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Risk Capital Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Servicios S.A. De C.V., Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Canada Limited, Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Corporation, Marsh (Bahrain) Company SPC, Marsh (Beijing) Risk Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Marsh (China) Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh (Insurance Brokers) LLP, Marsh (Insurance Services) Limited, Marsh (Malawi) Limited, Marsh (Middle East) Limited, Marsh (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh (Pty) Ltd, Marsh (Risk Consulting) LLP, Marsh (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Marsh A/S, Marsh AB, Marsh AG, Marsh AS, Marsh Advantage Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd, Marsh Advantage Insurance Pty Ltd., Marsh Africa (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Argentina S.R.L., Marsh Associates (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Austria G.m.b.H., Marsh Aviation Insurance Broking Pty Ltd (for dissolution), Marsh B.V., Marsh Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh Brockman y Schuh Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Marsh Broker Japan Inc., Marsh Broker de Asigurare-Reasigurare S.R.L., Marsh Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh Brokers Limited, Marsh Canada Limited/Marsh Canada Limitee, Marsh Company Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Compensation Technologies Administration (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Isle of Man Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Malta Limited, Marsh Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Marsh EOOD, Marsh Egypt LLC, Marsh Emirates Consultancy LLC, Marsh Emirates Insurance Brokerage LLC, Marsh Employee Benefits Limited, Marsh Employee Benefits Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Marsh Eurofinance B.V., Marsh Europe S.A., Marsh FJC International Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh For Insurance Services S.A.E., Marsh Franco Acra S.A., Marsh GSC Servicos e Administracao de Seguros Ltda., Marsh GmbH, Marsh Holding AB, Marsh Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Marsh Insurance & Investments LLC, Marsh Insurance Brokers, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Macao) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers AO, Marsh Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh Insurance Consulting Saudi Arabia (in liquidation), Marsh Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers LLC, Marsh Intermediaries Inc., Marsh International Broking Holdings Limited, Marsh International Holdings II Inc., Marsh International Holdings Inc., Marsh Investment B.V., Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited, Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited (UK Branch), Marsh Ireland Holdings Limited, Marsh Israel (1999) Ltd., Marsh Israel (Holdings) Ltd., Marsh Israel Consultants Ltd., Marsh Israel Insurance Agency Ltd., Marsh Israel International Brokers Ltd. (in liquidation), Marsh JCS Inc., Marsh Japan Inc., Marsh Kft., Marsh Kindlustusmaakler AS, Marsh Korea Inc., Marsh LLC, Marsh LLC Insurance Brokers, Marsh LLC [Ukraine], Marsh Lda., Marsh Limited, Marsh Limited [Fiji], Marsh Limited [New Zealand], Marsh Limited [PNG], Marsh Ltd. [Wisconsin], Marsh Management Services (Bahamas) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Dublin) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Labuan) Limited, Marsh Management Services (MENA) Limited, Marsh Management Services (USVI) Ltd., Marsh Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, Marsh Management Services Inc., Marsh Management Services Isle of Man Limited, Marsh Management Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Marsh Management Services Malta Limited, Marsh Management Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Marsh Management Services Sweden AB, Marsh Marine & Energy AB, Marsh Marine Nederland B.V., Marsh Medical Consulting GmbH, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Nest Inc., Marsh Oman LLC, Marsh Oy, Marsh PB Co. Ltd., Marsh Philippines Inc., Marsh Privat A.I.E., Marsh Private Client Life Insurance Services, Marsh Pty. Ltd., Marsh Qatar LLC, Marsh RE S.A.C. Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh Rehder Consultoria S.A. (MRC), Marsh Rehder S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Marsh Resolutions Pty Limited, Marsh Risk Consulting B.V., Marsh Risk Consulting Limitada, Marsh Risk Consulting Ltda., Marsh Risk Consulting S.L., Marsh Risk Consulting Services S.r.L., Marsh Risk and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, Marsh S.A. Corredores De Seguros, Marsh S.A. Mediadores de Seguros, Marsh S.A.S., Marsh S.p.A., Marsh SA [Argentina], Marsh SA [Belgium], Marsh SA [Luxembourg], Marsh SA [Uruguay], Marsh SIA, Marsh Saldana Inc., Marsh Saudi Arabia Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Marsh Secretarial Services Limited, Marsh Semusa S.A., Marsh Services Limited, Marsh Services Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Marsh Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Szolgaltato Kft., Marsh Takaful Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Treasury Services (Dublin) Limited (in liquidation), Marsh Treasury Services Limited, Marsh Tunisia S.a.r.l., Marsh UK Limited, Marsh USA (India) Inc., Marsh USA Borrower LLC, Marsh USA Inc., Marsh Uganda Limited, Marsh Venezuela C.A. Sociedad de Corretaje de Seguros, Marsh Vietnam Insurance Broking Company Ltd, Marsh Zambia Limited, Marsh Zimbabwe Holdings (Private) Limited, Marsh d.o.o. Beograd, Marsh d.o.o. za posredovanje u osiguranju, Marsh for Insurance Services - Jordan, Marsh i-Connect (Pty) Ltd, Marsh s.r.o., Matthiessen Assurans AB, Mercer (Argentina) S.A., Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer (Austria) GmbH, Mercer (Belgium) SA-NV, Mercer (Canada) Limited/Mercer (Canada) Limitee, Mercer (China) Limited, Mercer (Colombia) Ltda., Mercer (Danmark) A/S, Mercer (Finland) OY, Mercer (France) SAS, Mercer (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Mercer (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Mercer (N.Z.) Limited, Mercer (Nederland) B.V., Mercer (Norge) AS, Mercer (Polska) Sp.z o.o., Mercer (Portugal) Lda, Mercer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer (Sweden) AB, Mercer (Taiwan) Ltd., Mercer (Thailand) Ltd., Mercer (US) Inc., Mercer Administration Services (Australia) Pty Limited, Mercer Africa Limited, Mercer Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Mercer Asesores de Seguros S.A., Mercer Asesores es Inversion Independientes S.A. de C.V., Mercer Broking Ltd., Mercer Career Unipessoal Lda, Mercer Consultation (Quebec) Ltee., Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Mercer Consulting (France) SAS, Mercer Consulting (India) Private Limited, Mercer Consulting B.V., Mercer Consulting Group Inc., Mercer Consulting Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Mercer Consulting Limited, Mercer Consulting Middle East Limited, Mercer Consulting S.L.U., Mercer Consulting Venezuela C.A., Mercer Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Mercer Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercer Danismanlik Anonim Sirketi, Mercer Deutschland GmbH, Mercer Employee Benefits - Medicacao de Seguros Unipessoal Lda., Mercer Employee Benefits Limited, Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Financial Services Limited, Mercer Financial Services Limited liability company, Mercer Financial Services Middle East Limited, Mercer Global Investments Europe Limited, Mercer Global Investments Management Limited, Mercer HR Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer HR Services LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, Mercer Holdings Inc., Mercer Holdings Inc. [Philippines], Mercer Human Resource Consulting Ltda, Mercer Human Resource Consulting S.A. de C.V., Mercer ICC Limited, Mercer Investment Consulting Limited, Mercer Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mercer Investment Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited, Mercer Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer Investments (Japan) Ltd, Mercer Investments (New Zealand) Limited, Mercer Investments LLC, Mercer Ireland Holdings Limited, Mercer Italia Srl Socio Unico, Mercer Japan Ltd., Mercer Korea Co. 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A Ghanaian police officer Phyllis Ama Tebuah Osei has been presented with the United Nations Female Police Officer of the Year Award.

She was presented the award by the United Nations for her dedication and impactful policing in Somalia.

The award, which was formerly known as the International Female Police Peacekeeper Award, is held annually to recognise female police officers who distinguish themselves in line of duty.

Assistant Secretary-General for Rule of Law and Security Institutions at the UN, Mr. Alexandre Zouve, presented the award to Mrs. Osei. Source: Citinewsroom.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: I still kneel before my husband despite my achievement - Nigerian billionaire

This years award ceremony was co-hosted by the United Nations Police Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations.

The UN commended Mrs. Osei for promoting and protecting women and girls rights in the host state Jubaland, Somalia.

Speaking after receiving her award, the Ghanaian Police Superintendent described the occasion as an honour.

It is an honour to work for UNSOM, where I assisted in strengthening activities on gender and child related issues, she said.

I also support the police in Jubaland on issues of Justice and Human Rights, she added.

Among Mrs. Oseis impacts was successfully initiating an adult literacy training for 49 female police officers in Jubaland.

Mrs. Tebuah Osei and her husband, Mr. Osei, with their daughter, Ama. Source: Citinewsroom.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale embarrasses himself during a BBC freestyle (Video)

She also supported female peacekeepers by forming a Female Peacekeeper Network (FPN) within UNSOM and AMISOM.

Mrs. Osei was deployed to Somalia earlier this year in February 2018, UN Police Adviser, Commissioner Luis Carrilho, said in a statement.

By April, she had already identified and trained two gender focal points in AMISOM who went onto mentor and advice police officers in the host state police, thereby contributing to the building of a much-needed capacity.

Soon after, Ms. Osei established four gender desks in the host state police, facilitated a training on sexual and gender-based violence, and initiated a proposal that called for the establishment of a police post near the community thus ensuring access for SGBV survivors.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Osei holds three Masters degrees from Middlesex University in the UK, the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) as well as the University of Ghana.

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Henceforth, only PhD holders will be allowed to teach in the various universities, the Education Minister Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has announced.

According to him, this is to enable the universities develop the capacity of teachers in the colleges of education.

He, however, added that lecturers in colleges who do not hold PhDs will be allowed to upgrade their knowledge through the British government support.

READ ALSO: Ghanaian named in BBC list of 100 most influential women

"Now if you do not hold a PhD, you will not be able to teach in a university," Dr. Prempeh said.

But most of the lecturers in our colleges of education do not hold PhD. So we are giving them time to improve their knowledge, through the British government support."

The Minister made this known during the meet the press series held in Accra on Tuesday.

He said if the lecturers of the colleges of education were part of the university, the university would help those lecturers to get onto the PhD programmes.

According to him, when lecturers improve their capacities, it improves the learning outcomes of the Ghanaian school child.

The Minister used Finland as a case in point, saying one requires a PhD to even teach at kindergarten level in the European country.

The Education Minister further added fuel to talks of a merger between the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), the Ghana Institute of languages (GIL) and the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI).

READ ALSO: I still kneel before my husband despite my achievement - Nigerian billionaire

He explained that the decision to merge the three universities has been deliberated upon for years and is therefore not new.

He added that despite the impending merger, each of the three universities would be a school that would be awarding their own degrees.

According to him, all three universities applied to be autonomous but it was rejected by the government.

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Former Ghana Ambassador to the Netherland, Dr. Tony Aidoo, has described as nonsense the 40-year development plan proposed by the erstwhile John Mahama government.

Speaking on Accra-based Starr FM, he said the plan was always bound to fail because it had no data backing it when it comes to monitoring and evaluation.

According to him, data such as births, deaths and elections are very key in planning the future of any nation.

Dr. Tony Aidoo. Source: Starrfmonline.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Only PhD holders to teach in universities - Education Minister

In the absence of these, Dr. Aidoo said, Mahamas 40-year development plan was nothing more than nonsense.

Ghana needs a data bank and a record keeping system. We need records for not just births and deaths, elections, monitoring & evaluations. We need data for future planning. The 40 year plan under Mahama is nonsense. You cannot plan without data.

A plan is one that is monetized and quantified. Without these two indicators, you cannot say you are planning, he stated.

Dr. Aidoo served as head of monitoring and Evaluation under the erstwhile Mahama government.

However, the former Ambassador maintains that the plan was not well-thought through by the NDC government.

The priority in Monitoring & Evaluation is to track government project and how it comes in sync with the government policy, he added.

Dr. Aidoo also touched on the Free SHS programme, saying the manner in which the policy was implemented would rather widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

READ ALSO: I still kneel before my husband despite my achievement - Nigerian billionaire

I thought the Free SHS should be for the benefit of those who could not afford to send their children to school, so that the playing field gradually levels. What the current arrangement will do is to widen the gap between the rich and the poor in the country, he said.

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Peter Mensah of Spartacus fame is one of the budding actors in Hollywood as he has really carved a niche for himself.

Not many Ghanaians know that Peter is a Ghanaian until YEN.com.gh reported recently that he came to Ghana for his fathers funeral.

The news of Peter being a Ghanaian really excited Ghanaians as they took to social media to express their happiness.

READ ALSO: Dating Bill Asamoah and pregnancy rumours hit me hard - Maame Serwaa

Peter has starred in lots of award-winning movies which include, Tears of the Sun, Hidalgo, 300, and Dead Space.

Mensah was born at Chiraa, Ghana, and comes from an academic family.

His parents hail from the Brong Ahafo Region, and relocated to Hertfordshire, England, with his father, Peter Osei Mensah, an engineer, his mother, a writer, and two younger sisters.

READ ALSO: Fella Makafui twerks wildly on Medikal (Video)

YEN.com.gh brings you seven wild photos of Peter that shows he is really making Ghanaians proud.

1. In this photos Peter smiled beautifully

2. Due to his acting skills, Peter is loved by many

READ ALSO: Suspected killer of Abass Nurudeen remanded

3. Peter is even loved by toddlers

4. He looked gorgeous in this outfit

5. Peter is one of the most popular actor in the world currently

6. Peter shows off his muscular body

7. Peter is always smiling

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A day after the country rating was downgraded, Moodys Investors Service (Moodys) yesterday downgraded the long-term ratings of three large banks in line with the sovereign rating over challenging operating conditions, exacerbated by the current political deadlock.



Moodys downgraded long-term local currency deposit and foreign currency issuer ratings of Bank of Ceylon, Hatton National Bank and Sampath Bank to B2 from B1, while revising the rating outlook to Stable from Negative.



The rating downgrade of the three banks closely followed the sovereign rating cut the previous day to B2 from B1, with outlook changing to Stable from Negative over the heightened debt re-financing risks triggered by the current political standoff amid the already elevated external and domestic financing conditions.



Foreign currency issuer ratings are directly pinned to sovereign ratings and the former moves in tandem with the latter.



Even before the current political imbroglio set stage, Sri Lankan banks were under stress due to weakening asset quality and slowdown in growth.

For three consecutive years starting from 2015, Sri Lankan banks have enjoyed a phenomenal growth in their balance sheets and earnings but when the Central Bank began its tightening cycle which became intense in 2018, banks felt the pinch acutely.

Moodys expects that, after years of strong credit growth, the weakening operating environment will have a negative impact on the banks asset quality and profitability, as seen by the system-wide nonperforming loan ratio increasing to 3.6 percent as of August 2018 versus 2.5 percent in December 2017, the rating agency said.



However, the third quarter earnings season, which ended last week, saw all the banks reporting elevated NPL ratios with some reporting substantially higher ratios.



The latest data seen by Mirror Business showed that the gross non-performing loan ratio in September has stayed at 3.6 percent levels.

Along with the downgrade of long term issuer ratings, Moodys has also downgraded the long-term foreign currency deposit ratings of the same three banks to B3 from B2.



Also, the rating agency has affirmed the short-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings of the banks at NP.



Moodys has further downgraded the Baseline Credit Assessments (BCAs) and adjusted BCAs of the three banks to b2 from b1.



As a result, Moodys has downgraded the three banks long-term local and foreign currency Counterparty Risk Ratings (CRRs) to B1 from Ba3, and their long-term Counterparty Risk Assessments (CRAs) to B1(cr) from Ba3(cr).



In addition, Moodys has affirmed the banks short-term CRR of NP and short-term CRA of NP(cr).



Moodys was the first to warn against a possible downgrade of sovereign rating within days after President Sirisena swapped prime ministers in a shock move.



Two other rating giants, Fitch and Standard & Poors appear to be still observing the unfolding drama as they are yet to strike with a rating action.
Some Ghanaians have expressed their anger at the decision of the government to send teachers to work in neighbouring countries.

This was after the minister of education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, disclosed that plans are in place to embark on the project.

Interacting with the media, he added that the move is part of an agenda to create employment for many of the countrys youth with the requisite qualification for teaching.

READ ALSO: Man arrested for kissing king's daughter in public (Photo)

Dr. Prempeh explained that Ghana stands to benefit from Francophone countries who are willing to exchange French tutors for English teachers, should the proposal work out.

This did not go down well with some social media users who expressed their opinions on the matter:

READ ALSO: Only PHD holders will teach in universities - Education Minister

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- Yet-to-be-disclosed results of the teacher lincensure exams has been described by Education Minister as not heartwarming

- Results of the said exams would be made public after a court procedure against the NTC is resolved

The results of teachers who sat for the first licensure examination and recruitment aptitude tests organised by the Ministry of Education have been described as not so good.

Speaking at press engagement session yesterday, November 20, 2018, to update the public on progresses made so far in the governments quest to improve teacher education, Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh said, the performance of the teachers was not heartwarming

He disclosed that the matter was still in court and could therefore not say much about it, or face contempt.

Education Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh Source: Supplied

Source: Depositphotos

READ ALSO: Only PhD holders to teach in universities - Education Minister

He however promised to make the results available to public once the court procedures were over.

Meanwhile, the National Teaching Council, organisers of the teacher licensure examination, summoned by an Accra circuit court to respond to a petition filed against it to have the exams suspended.

A ranking member on the Education Committee of Parliament, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, argued that the NTC had no clear road map to guide the conduct of the examination hence, it should have been postponed or better still halted.

However some graduate teachers who sat for the licensure exam wanted the NTC to ensure that the problems that were encountered during the exercise are not repeated in subsequent exams.

READ ALSO: Ghana will soon export teachers to other countries - Education minister

After weeks of stiff opposition and banter with the stakeholders involved, the licensure examination introduced in September 2018 took place as a way of recruiting qualified teachers at the basic level.

Over 29,000 candidates who sat for the exams across the country, were to be employed by the government should they make the 50 percent pass mark.

Most of the candidates who participated in the exams could not hide their frustration as almost all the papers they were set to write was however leaked by an unknown individual.

READ ALSO: Nigerian man reportedly arrested for kissing king's daughter in public

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It has been one year already since Asempa FM presenter Kwadwo Asare-Baffour Acheampong popularly known as KABA died but it seems his wife, Valentina Ofori Afriyie, is still in shock.

To mark the first anniversary of the loss of her husband, Valentina, host of Class FMs Evening news shared a heartbreaking message on social media.

Taking to her Facebook account, Valentina stated that she was yet to recover from the sudden demise of KABA.

"18th November 2017 my life changed. Words have failed me. I can only manage to say GOD KEEP YOU. I LOVE AND MISS U," she wrote.

Valentina's post has drawn much pity from social media users with many sympathising with the widow.

READ ALSO: 28-year-old man arrested for kissing king's daughter in public (Photo)

Former deputy minister of Tourism, Dzifa Gomashie prayed for strength for Valentina:

Ewuradjoa also prayed for same:

And so did Prince:

Isaac said KABA had been sorely missed:

Ama also condoled Valentina:

KABA was confirmed dead at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra on Saturday, November 18, 2017.

Until his sudden death, he was the host of popular late afternoon political talk show, Ekosii Sen on Asempa FM.

KABA joined the Multimedia Group in August 2009 as a broadcast journalist starting as host of news bulletin Asempa Today.

He also hosted the weekly current affairs programme Kukurantumi on Saturday morning.

Adjudged the Best Talk Show Host in the 2017 edition of the Radio and Television Personality (RTP) Awards, he had established himself as one of the topmost political talkshow hosts on radio before his sudden demise.

His steady rise even led to talks at the time of his death that a colleague had killed him.

Apart from Asempa FM, he also had stints as host of shows on other Multimedia platforms including 'Badwamon Adom TV and Dwaso Nsem on Adom FM.

He was 37 years at the time of his death and left behind a little daughter.

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YEN.com.gh is in possession of screenshots of bomb threats that have surfaced on the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

According to a report by MyNews.com, the messages surfaced on Jodel, a social media platform.

The platform reportedly hides the identity of the user, and for that reason, attempts to establish the identity of those behind the threats have proven futile.

Source: MyNewsGH.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Ghanaians go wild as education minister reveals plans to export teachers

For that reason, students are hesitant to go for lectures as part of the messages revealed plans to attack students in lecture halls on Wednesday, November 21, 2018.

Source: MyNewsGH.com

Source: UGC

On the various student platforms, some have called on the appropriate authorities not to make light of the situation, juxtaposing that to recent heighten events in the university.

Source: MyNewsGH.com

Source: UGC

Academic work at KNUST was restored to normalcy on Monday, November 19, 2018, after a violent students uprising led to the shutdown of the university for three weeks.

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale finally explains why he called Ghana a village

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- An aluminium fabricator, Ofosu Appiah, has petitioned the Chief of Staff over an alleged assault

- According to him, he was slapped by the deputy defense minister and also by the three army officers who accompanied him

Ofosu Appiah, a native of Asante Mampong and an aluminium fabricator, has petitioned the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, to take action against the Deputy Minister of Defence, Major (Rtd) Derek Oduro, for assaulting him.

According to him, he was contracted by the deputy Minister to make some sliding windows for him for an amount of GHC 500.

Appiah said he was initially paid GHC 200 after he was instructed by the deputy minister to keep the windows in the room.

Deputy Defence minister, Major (rtd) Derek Oduro Source: CitiNewsroom

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Ghana will soon export teachers to other countries - Education minister

The artisan said after a year, major Oduro called him to come fix them only yo his realisation that some of the windows were broken after they were moved from where it was initially kept.

There was a new caretaker at the building who said he had no knowledge of what happened to the windows.

However, the deputy minister showed less interest in the broken windows and was certain on getting them fixed for him, irrespective of the fact that it was broken.

READ ALSO: Nigerian man reportedly arrested for kissing king's daughter in public

In the petition, he said he went ahead to fix the unbroken ones, but that was followed by the unprovoked assault on November 10, 2018

He has thus petitioned the Chief of Staff to seek justice for the assault.

Hon Derrick Oduro on Saturday, 10th November 2018 at about 9:00 am came to my workplace with three army officers and without any provocation, gave me a heavy slap. One of the three army officers also gave me three heavy slaps, he stated in the petition.

It is however unclear whether the complainant has already reported the matter to the police.

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Ex-UBS trader Kweku Adoboli has revealed that a series of panic decisions he took resulted in his crime and his eventual deportation from the UK.

The 38-year-old was deported back to Ghana last week, following years of legal tussle with UK authorities.

Speaking about what led to his incrimination and deportation, Adoboli said everything was going well at UBS until he made certain terrible mistakes.

READ ALSO: Only PhD holders to teach in universities - Education Minister

He explained that there was pressure to generate profit, which led to him and his team working almost 20 hours a day.

According to him, those mistakes came about due to the pressure to reach the very goals the company set for him and his team.

In 2011, after an incredible start to the year where we generated $130 million in the first six months of the year, we then made a series of very bad decisions, he told Joy New Israel Laryea in an exclusive interview.

We panicked, we lost control primarily because we were working 20 hours a day for years unending. We were really tired and just lost clarity of mind and control, not out of criminality or because we wanted to enrich ourselves, but because we were trying to reach the very goals that were set for us, he added.

Adoboli was convicted by UK authorities for illegally trading away US$2 billion during his days at the Swiss investment bank UBS.

He was subsequently charged with two counts of fraud by abuse of position and four counts of false accounting.

READ ALSO: Ghanaian police officer wins UN female peacekeeping award

He had been in and out of court since June 2012, before finally being deported from the UK to Ghana on Wednesday.

Adoboli, who has lived in the UK for 26 years, was said to be in a distressed state before he left.

His local MP, Hannah Bardell in an interview with BBC expressed his disappointment over Adobolis deportation.

"No one is saying he hasn't committed a crime, but he has been rehabilitated and is being punished twice, she said.

However, Adoboli was treated to a marvellous welcome by his family upon his arrival in Ghana.

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Their business is known among most Ghanaians as 'Sakawa.' The suspicion among many is that these young men and to some small extent, women, indulge in internet fraud with backing from spiritual processes.

Recently, police caught a ring of fraudsters who planned to remit about GHC 326 million to themselves.

Despite their shady business, 'sakawa' or fraud boys, are not known to be quiet in communities. They are often showy, loud and quite expensive in their tastes.

YEN.com.gh brings you a list of the favourite cars that these fraud boys love to show off with.

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1. Toyota Corolla

There are hundreds if not thousands of tweets from Ghanaians who understand and accept fraud boys love their Toyota Corolla.

With a special emphasis on Corolla S, fraud boys are known to go back and forth in residential areas blasting loud music.

2. Toyota Camry

Still in the fold of Toyota, fraud boys do not look further than the Camry. It is car many struggle to differentiate from the Corolla.

It may be the affordability or just the comfort it brings but the Toyota Camry features high on the list fraud boys use their monies to get themselves.

3. Nissan Sonata

The Nissan Sonata is also one of the favourites of the Sakawa crew.

It is usually the case that those of them who feel that they are too easily identified with the Toyota models, tend to opt for the Sonata.

The Sonata model is an expensive car but it is not a big vehicle. It has come to represent the idea that these fraud boys have "made it".

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale calls Ghana a village over lack of hospital beds, poor roads, others

4. Chevrolet Cruze

And lastly, the Chevy Cruze.

This car is probably the highest point fraud boys have gotten to at the moment. This is because apart from it being expensive, it is also considered as classy.

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The five pupils of the Assin Atobease Primary School who were killed in a gory accident last Friday at Assin Atobease in the Assin South District of the Central Region have been buried.

Their burial took place at Atobease on the morning of Wednesday, November 21.

In photos sighted by YEN.com.gh, the deceased were put in identical coffins with their names and photos placed on them.

5 schoolgirls killed by articulator truck at Assin Atobease buried Photo source: William Appiah

Source: Facebook

Mates of the unfortunate young girls were seen with red headbands as they carried wreaths for their friends' burial.

READ ALSO: KABA's wife breaks hearts as she marks one year of his death

5 schoolgirls killed by articulator truck at Assin Atobease buried Photo source: William Appiah

Source: Facebook

And it was sadness and gloom judging from the faces of the bereaved pupils.

READ ALSO: 28-year-old man arrested for kissing king's daughter in public (Photo)

5 schoolgirls killed by articulator truck at Assin Atobease buried Photo source: William Appiah

Source: Facebook

The pupils, all girls, were run over by an articulator truck while they were attempting to cross the Yamoransa-Kumasi Highway which passes through the town after closing from school. The five died on the spot.

READ ALSO: Prophet Badu Kobis junior pastor caught in bed with another mans wife (Video)

5 schoolgirls killed by articulator truck at Assin Atobease buried

Source: Facebook

The Assin South District Director of Education Stephen Abanfo who witnessed the unfortunate accident narrated that he was in his office when he a heard an unusually loud noise so he rushed out.

READ ALSO: Kumawood actor Akrobeto chills with movie stars; buys Kantanka car on 56th birthday (Videos)

5 schoolgirls killed by articulator truck at Assin Atobease buried

Source: Facebook

After coming out, he realised that the articulator truck with registration number AS 8123-16 had veered off the road and run into the pupils after some metal joints on the car broke.

READ ALSO: Six die as Metro Mass bus collides with taxi on Sunyani-Techiman road

The incident was later confirmed by the Assin South district police commander, DSP Okyere Andam who stated that the truck which was fully loaded with about 850 bags of cement was travelling from Takoradi to Kumasi.

Just like the news of their deaths, the photos from their burial has caused a huge outpouring of emotions on social media.

Many who have been left heartbroken have taken to social media to express their sadness over the deaths.

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- The Supreme Court of Ghana has upheld the pardon granted the Montie 3 by former president Mahama

- The three were jailed and fined for threatening some judges of the Supreme Court ahead of the 2016 elections

- Three legal practitioners filed a petition to challenge Mahamas pardon which has been overturned by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has upheld the pardon granted to the Montie 3 by then President John Dramani Mahama in 2016.

This followed a petition filed by three Ghanaian legal practitioners challenging Mahamas pardon granted the Montie 3.

The said legal practitioners reportedly filed the petition against the Attorney General (A-G) to challenge the constitutional right of the former president granting the pardon.

READ ALSO: Akufo-Addo must go; my husband cant sleep with me well anymore  Woman cries in new video

But the Supreme Court has finally upheld Mahamas pardon, thus, freeing the Montie 3.

The decision was reached on Wednesday, November 21, 2018, at the Supreme Court.

Other members of the panel were Justices Jones Dotse, Anim Yeboah, A. A. Benin, Yaw Appau, Gabriel Pwamang and Baffoe Bonnie, as reported by Myjoyonline.com.

The Montie 3, made up of Salifu Maase (alias Mugabe), Alistair Nelson, and Ako Gunn were jailed for contempt of court in 2016.

They had threatened to rape the Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood and kill other judges who sat on a case brought against the Electoral Commission (EC) ahead of election 2016.

Montie 3: Supreme Court upholds Mahamas pardon

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Princess Shyngle and Sarkodie get together in latest hot photo

By presiding over the case brought against the EC, the three said the judges wanted to foment trouble in the country and that if the 2016 elections turned violent, they knew the homes of judges and would finish them.

Their comments were severely condemned by all well-meaning Ghanaians and were later hauled before the judges to answer why they should not be held liable for contempt.

The three, together with the directors of the radio station, Montie FM, and the owner pleaded guilty to the charges of contempt and were duly sentenced on July 27, 2016.

READ ALSO: I still love and miss you - KABA's wife mourns one year after his death

Apart from the four-month jail term, the three were each slapped with GH10,000 cedis fine.

Three of the FMs directors also had to pay GH10,000 each while the owner was fined GH30,000 cedis.

Meanwhile, one of the Montie 3, Godwin Ako-Gun, has been elected as deputy communications officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale finally explains why he called Ghana a village

Yenkasa: Some Musicians Share Thoughts on Kuami Eugene's 'Rockstar' Album| #Yencomgh

READ ALSO: Chilling account of 18-year-old boy who witnessed gruesome murder of his father (Video)

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Sri Lankan civil activists demonstrate in Colombo amid an ongoing political crisis (Photo by ISHARA S. KODIKARA / AFP)

Its time that the school authorities stopped inviting politicians for their functions because the countrys lawmakers have shown through their actions that they care less about the next generation.

The way our politicians plunder state money and waste assets make us think for a moment whether some of them even have children of their own. These lawmakers do the opposite of promoting Sri Lanka in the outside world and give a clear message that their abode-the parliament-is the place where one should aspire to be; because it entertains people with the worst track records.

Artiste Eraj Weeraratnes song Gemak Deela underscores how the underworld hugely depends on working for these lawmakers for a living. The song also recalls the history of the Parliament, which was once an institute packed with people who possessed the highest educational qualifications and also had a healthy upbringing.

The parliament once bred politicians who entered politics and spend their hard earned monies on the people. But today, politicians, who have zero assets, take to politics and earn a fortune.

This is why we occasionally have to encounter individuals who dont value ethics and fair play and need to be put in their place. One such lawmaker was Mervin Silva who was throwing his weight around when Rajapaksa was president of the country

Till recently, people were used to grin and bear the actions of these unscrupulous lawmakers. But with the advent of social media and the facility they afford to post video clips, these politicians have been caught with their pants down! Just the other day we read reports of some Western Province Councilors engaging in watching pornographic videos while sessions were on at the council. And whats alarming is Western Province Chief Minister Isura Devappriya going to the extent of making a request from the telecommunication authorities to block access to websites that have pornography and social media for computer users in the Western Province Council chamber. These councillors had been allegedly watching these movies while the Budget for 2019 was being presented.

Rise up

It is in this backdrop that we see social groups voicing their disapproval at the manner in which politicians are steering this nation towards disaster. Just the other day a citizens collective coming under the banner Rise up staged a rally in Colombo. Its participants were disapproving the derogatory status of political affairs in the country and demanding a political change that would render a better service to the nation.

Its enlightening to see academics and educated professionals finding the time to make their voices heard and warn the rulers that they should get their act together. All this time what was missing were the voices of the academics, young professionals and the elite. In other words their silence in the past could be termed as a sin.

Very recently this writer read somewhere that Indias silence- at the time Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as prime minister after Wickremesinghe was unceremoniously sacked -was interpreted as the islands closest neighbour endorsing what was wrong.

Rise Up has also called for legal action to be taken against those who misbehaved within the parliament. In this context this writer wishes to underscore that though a decision was taken some time back to have footage of parliament sessions with the view of making it serve as a deterrent against bad behaviour, such an effort has not served the purpose.

For a fact we know that a good number of politicians havent even passed the GCE OLevel Examination. There are reports on social media websites that there is a member of parliament who was selling flowers on the wayside of the road before he worked himself into Parliament.

Just the other day a citizens collective coming under the banner Rise up staged a rally in Colombo. Its participants were disapproving the derogatory status of political affairs in the country and demanding a political change

This is why senior citizens of this country have been suggesting for a long time to raise the qualification level to enter parliament to that of a degree. This will ensure that parliament is full of the cream of brains the country produces.

But that alone wouldnt suffice. This is because the power they acquire as politicians does have the potential to corrupt them. As much as a complete education at school is a must, the inculcating of good values in an individual must be done at home by parents.

Sri Lanka has moved away from the colonial times of suppression and today even the least affluent have a say in electing the countrys president at an election. Many years ago just 4% of the population could vote because Crew Mc Callum Reforms allowed only the educated and those who possessed assets to be entitled to a polling card. But that system was replaced by the Donoughmore Commission in 1931 which enabled anyone over 21 years to be entitled to vote. Even inquiring into ones caste is seldom heard within Sri Lankan communities because all are now equal where receiving an education and enjoying the opportunities available to enter parliament are concerned. Educated politicians might now notice cast for an example by the way someone cooks and may causally remark Are you from this clan because you people use a bit more chili and the smell of the dish suggest so.

Code of Conduct

As the years rolled by more folks from the downtrodden masses saw opportunities opening up to earn university degrees, do business and even enter parliament. Now we have people from all walks of life in all spheres of employment. This is why we occasionally have to encounter individuals who dont value ethics and fair play and need to be put in their place. One such lawmaker was Mervin Silva who was throwing his weight around when Rajapaksa was president of the country.

We now have politicians of the likes of Thewarapperuma and Weerawansa who make us question the entry qualification to set foot in parliament. There will be more of their kind in the future if the Code of Conduct already stipuated for parliamentarians is not strictly adhered to.

This is why senior citizens of this country have been suggesting for a long time to raise the qualification level to enter parliament to that of a degree. This will ensure that parliament is full of the cream of brains the country produces

When the last parliament session progressed peacefully it did come as a surprise. Sirisena had even thanked the MPs for adopting a peaceful approach to setting about duties within the parliament. We dont wish to see another epesode of commotion, swearing in filth and religious books being hurled at each other within the chamber. Reforming these lawmakers is possible, given that the majorty of these policians fear the Gods, even if they dont fear the law! What we need is for the lawmakers to get on with their businesses and provide lively debates which result in producing positive outocmes.
- Aggrieved Menzgold customers finally release date for demonstration against the company for reneging on payment of dividends

-The demonstration is scheduled to take place Tuesday, 27 November 2018 , at 7am

A group calling itself the Coalition of Aggrieved Customers of Menzgold Company Limited have disclosed that the would be demonstrating, come Tuesday, 27 November 2018.

They would be demonstrating to register their displeasure against the management of the gold-trading firm, to demand full payment of their principal investments locked up with the company.

According to them, the company has defaulted on its several promises to pay them an agreed 15 per cent of their principal.

Angry Menzgold customers finally release date for their demonstration Source: Supplied

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Deputy Defence minister assaults artisan over broken windows

Chairman of the Coalition, Timm Binob said the demonstration will start fromm the Obra spot, Kwame Nkrumah circle at 7 am prompt.

He explained that the company after several meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bank of Ghana ,promised to pay 15 per cent of their principal .

He added the company promised to pay the first tranche, by way of fulfilling their promise and obligations to pay fully the remaining percentage to them within 90 days beginning from 9 October 2018.

READ ALSO: Ghana will soon export teachers to other countries - Education minister

Binob lamented that they still haven't been paid since that promise was made them.

Menzgold has been unable to pay its clients their dividends due to an ongoing battle with SEC and the BoG over its operations.

While the state institutions say the company has not been licensed to take deposits, Menzgold insists it does not take deposits and does not answer to the two institutions.

READ ALSO: Only PhD holders to teach in universities - Education Minister

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The year 2018 may go down in the history of Ghana as one of the most turbulent years at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

A series of events that occurred on the campus have left sour tastes in the mouth of Ghanaians.

YEN.com.gh has sampled six instances in which KNUST appeared in the news for all the wrong reasons:

Prof. Kwesi Obiri-Danso, Vice-Chancellor of KNUST Source: Supplied

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Ghanaians mercilessly attack education minister over plans to export teachers

1. Demonstration: KNUST student embarked on a demonstration a few weeks ago, and it eventually resulted in the shutdown of the university.

2. Students arrested over a secret meeting: A group of students were arrested as they participated in a meeting.

3. Lecturers hold demonstration: KNUST lecturers laid down their tools and took the streets to register their grievances over the dissolution of the university's council.

4. Students turned away as school remains closed: Even after things had calmed down on the campus, some students were turned away after they reported to school, days after the demonstration.

5. Student threatens to bomb university: An unidentified student of KNUST took to a social media platform to declare an intent to detonate a bomb on campus.

READ ALSO: KABA's wife breaks hearts as she marks one year of his death

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- A Moroccan woman has killed her lover and served the remains to Pakistani workers as part of a traditional rice and meat dish

- The 30-year-old woman was said to have committed the crime in August but was only recently discovered

- Her lover's brother found the deceased's tooth inside a blender in her home and reported her brother missing

A United Arab Emirates-based Moroccan woman has been accused of killing her lover and serving his remains to Pakistani workers.

BBC reports that prosecutors in the United Arab Emirate said the 30-year-old woman cooked her boyfriend and served his remains as part of a traditional rice and meat dish.

Legit.ng gathers that the crime was said to have been committed in August but was only recently discovered when a human tooth was found insider her blender by the deceased's brother.

READ ALSO: Gifty Gyan wants DNA test to be done at Police Hospital and not private laboratory

The deceased's brother reported the deceased missing to the police, after which DNA test was run on the tooth. The result confirmed that the tooth belonged to the victim.

According to report, she confessed to police that she committed the crime. She was said to have called the crime a moment of insanity. Report has it that the woman had been in a relationship with her boyfriend for seven years.

The suspect, who will be tried pending an investigation, was said to have killed the victim when the latter told her he would be marrying someone else from Morocco.

READ ALSO: 7 wild photos of Peter Mensah of Spartacus fame that prove he is a Ghanaian

The police said the woman first told the brother she had kicked the victim out of the home, but later confessed to killing him after she was interrogated.

According to report, she has been sent to hospital for mental examination.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the police in Lagos arrested a 23-year-old housewife, Damilola Ayeni, for allegedly stabbing her husband and father of two children, Olumide, to death at their house on Bamgbose street, Lagos Island.

The incident, which reportedly happened on Friday, August 4, occurred during a disagreement between the couple.

The 36-year-old victim was rushed to the Lagos Island General Hospital where he died due to the injury sustained when his wife allegedly stabbed him.

The deceaseds father, Sunday Ayeni, who reported the case to the police, said his son was murdered by the wife over suspicion of infidelity.

READ ALSO: Dating Bill Asamoah and pregnancy rumours hit me hard - Maame Serwaa

He said: My son and I work at the Lagos Island General Hospital. While I work as a security guard, he worked in the pharmacy department. They got married at the Ikoyi registry.

They had issues many times and my son reported her to me. I told them to go their separate ways, but people said I should not come between them."

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Ghana will soon export teachers to neighboring countries in order to create employment for many of the countrys youth with the requisite qualification for teaching.

Education Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, explained that Ghana stands to benefit from Francophone countries who are willing to exchange French tutors for English teachers, should the proposal work out.

YEN.com.gh has sampled five reasons why the exportation of teachers to neighbouring countries is not a very prudent thing to do:

Education Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh Source: Supplied

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Deputy Defence minister assaults artisan over broken windows

1. Cost-benefit analysis: Government needs to examine the cost involved in training and sending teachers to another country against the benefit the country would derive from that deal

2. Teacher deficit: The country is currently facing a low students to teacher ratio, as the teachers available are not sufficient enough to cater for the increasing student number.

3. Language: In case these teachers are sent to some francophone countries, how would they be able to communicate if they have no French speaking background

4. Quality of education: Government needs to take a critical look at the educational background of teachers who would be going out and how their assessment procedure was going to be.

5. Free SHS: Government needs to learn from the challenges of the free SHS in order not to rush tings which would go against the government

READ ALSO: 5 ways KNUST ruined Ghana's reputation in 2018

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The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had urged the diplomats in a meeting held yesterday to use their influence with whoever necessary to set things right and put the country in the right path, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan said.

The TNA had a meeting at the Opposition Leader's office with the fifteen members of diplomate community to discuss matters pertaining to the prevailing political crisis which initially started on October 26 this year. Diplomats from US, UK, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, EU, India, Korea, Bangladesh participated in the meeting.

Addressing the media after the meeting, he said they discussed how the then Prime Minister was removed, how the new prime minister was purportedly appointed, how Parliament was prorogued and dissolved and interim order of the Supreme Court suspending the dissolution of Parliament.

The purportedly appointed Premier has not yet obtained a confident vote in parliament and proved majority in parliament despite various steps to secure majority," said TNA leader.

He said two motions of no confidence were passed in Parliament on two separate dates and subsequently, the steps taken to submit the signed documents of 122 members to the Speaker which then transmitted to Parliament and the President.

It seems that the purportedly appointed Premier and the Government continue to function and eventually it would create turbulence in the country, Sampanthan said.

The entire procedure into this has been done in violation of the Constitution and the law of the country. This a serious situation and thats why we urge the diplomates to bring this dangerous situation into the knowledge of the responsible bodies so that there would an end to this state of affairs, he added. (Sheain Fernandopulle)
The United National Front (UNF) and several civil society organizations today launched a Satyagraha demanding the authorities to cut the Expenditure Head of newly appointed Prime Minister. The demonstrators said the present government was functioning in an illegal manner. Pix by Pradeep Dilrukshana
For thousands of years, one of the worlds gravest crimes or scandals has been violence or discrimination against women especially those who are not well educated and come from what are thought to be mythical low classes of society. On Sunday, November 25 the United Nations marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the world body in a statement says, violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations today. It remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.

According to the UN, in general terms, this violence manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, encompassing intimate partner violence or battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide, sexual violence and harassment, rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber-harassment, human trafficking, slavery, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For instance, a 16-year-old girl was reportedly auctioned for 500 cows, three cars and ten thousand dollars on Facebook in South Sudan. The auction reportedly began on October 25 and the post was taken down by Facebook on November 9. Facebook,which reportedly has about two billion users worldwide, came under fire for being used as a medium that allowed the sale of a child bride.

To further clarify, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls issued by the UN General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

In most western countries, we have seen powerful groups like the Me Too movement coming out strongly against violence or sexual harassment of women and girls though the United States President Donald Trump is not taking a tough line on this because of allegations that he also was involved in sexual harassment or violence

against women.

The adverse psychological, sexual and reproductive health consequences of violence against women and girls affect women at all stages of their life. For example, early-set educational disadvantages not only represent the primary obstacle to universal schooling and the right to education for girls, down the line they are also to blame for restricting access to higher education and even translate into limited opportunities for women in the labour market, the UN says.

November 25 has been designated as Orange Day by the UN Women campaign Say No, Unite launched in 2009 to mobilize civil society activists, governments and the UN system to amplify the impact of the UN Secretary-Generals campaign, Unite to End Violence against Women. Participants the world over are encouraged to wear a touch of orange in solidarity with the cause; the colour symbolizes a brighter future and a world free from violence against women and girls.

The 2018 theme is Orange the World: #HearMeToo and like previous editions, the date marks the launch of 16 days of activism that will conclude on December 10, International Human Rights Day. A host of public events are being coordinated, among which iconic buildings and landmarks will be oranged to recall the need for a violence-free future.

According to reports, in Sri Lanka, about 17 per cent of married women aged 15 to 49 have suffered from domestic violence from their intimate partner. Two per cent of married women who suffered from domestic violence, experience some form of domestic violence daily. Prevalence of domestic violence by an intimate partner increases with the age of the women. Urban residents also reported the highest percentage of domestic violence (20 per cent). Kilinochchi and Batticaloa districts have the highest level of domestic violence (50 per cent).

Married women who belong to the lowest wealth quin-tile and those with primary education reported the highest percentages in domestic violence (28 and 30 per cent respectively). Among women who suffered from domestic violence, only about one fourth or 28 per cent have sought help, three fourths or 75 per cent seek help from their family members, 27 per cent from friends or neighbours and only 18 per cent seekhelp from the police. Half of the married women age 15 to 49 or 50 per cent indicated to know about the Sri Lanka Womens Bureau to combat violence, while 26 per cent mentioned the midwife and Womens Help Line.
France, Germany to Award First Next-Gen Fighter Contract in January



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PHILADELPHIA  Three men who ran a cocaine ring out of Philadelphia, Chester and Delaware in 2015 pleaded guilty to numerous charges on the eve of a trial in federal court this week.

David Toney, James Townsend, and Cheron Jackson were set to go to trial Monday, but instead tendered drug trafficking and weapons possession pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

According to a superseding indictment, Toney distributed wholesale quantities of cocaine to Townsend on credit. Townsend would then redistribute the drug to various dealers charged elsewhere.

Toney used an address on the 4100 block of Leidy Avenue in Philadelphia to package and distribute the cocaine and Townsend used an address on the 1500 block of Rainer Road in Chester as a cut house to dilute and prepare the cocaine for distribution, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said Townsend and Jackson also used an address on the 1400 block of Wight Terrace in Chester as a stash house.

Every day, members of our Criminal Investigation Division stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to root out dangerous drug trafficking organizations like the one these criminals operated, said Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland in a release. We are pleased that our ongoing efforts continue to make our community safe.

The indictment points to numerous coded and cryptic text messages the three men sent between themselves and others in 2015 discussing cocaine deliveries, payments, and other facets of the conspiracy. The defendants frequently changed their cell phone numbers and used numerous phones to evade detection by law enforcement, according to the indictment.

At the conclusion of a year-long investigation, law enforcement executed search warrants on the defendants residences and seized approximately two kilograms of cocaine, over $80,000 in cash, five firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and paraphernalia and equipment used for drug trafficking. Seized paraphernalia included digital scales, new and unused packaging, and a press used to re-process cocaine.

Among the recovered weapons were a .40 caliber Glock pistol loaded with 15 rounds of ammunition, an Ekol Sava Magnum 9mm pistol, a Beretta .165 caliber pistol loaded with three rounds of ammunition, an Armalite 7.62mm AR10 rifle and two Armalite AR10 magazines, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said Toney also had a Taurus 9mm pistol loaded with eight rounds of ammunition.

Those who supply and sell deadly drugs in the Eastern District will learn the hard way that they will be prosecuted, said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain in the release. These defendants now face substantial prison time for their crimes and will be held accountable for the misery they caused. Thanks to the excellent work of our local and state law enforcement partners, we were able to detect and disrupt this deadly drug trafficking organization.

Townsend and Jackson each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine; distribution of cocaine; possession with the intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine; and possession with the intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine within 1000 feet of the Ruth L. Bennett Homes, a public housing facility in Chester, as well as aiding and abetting charges.

Toney pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and possession of firearms and ammunition in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Toney and Townsend are scheduled for sentencing in February. A sentencing date for Jackson was not listed on electronic court records.

The Chester Police Department is grateful for the efforts of the U.S. Attorneys Office in securing this conviction and tying up the last loose end of this investigation, said Chester Police Chief James Nolan. Following the efforts of the Chester Police Narcotics Division, Pennsylvania State Police, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, and the Delaware County District Attorney, a plea agreement is an outcome we are pleased with. This was a large step in offering relief to those citizens that suffer at the hands of illegal drug trafficking and the collateral damage caused by it.

The case was investigated by the FBI, Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, Pennsylvania State Police, Chester City Police Department and Delaware County CID. The case is being prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys A. Nicole Phillips and Yvonne O. Osirim.
Zach Gibson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Nancy Pelosi has cut a deal with Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was mulling her own challenge for the House speakership, winning over the Ohio Democrat as she locks in support for House Speaker.

Despite a band of House Democrats announcing their opposition Monday to Pelosi's bid for speaker, Pelosi has remained confident she will win the race for speaker, working behind the scenes to solidify support in the House Democratic Caucus in the aftermath of the midterm elections.

In an unexpected development Tuesday evening, Fudge threw her support behind Pelosi after she announced her intention to restore the Elections Subcommittee of the Committee on House Administration in the 116th Congress and name Fudge the new chair.

Throughout her 20 years of public service, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge has been a relentless advocate for the right of every citizen to vote, and for all votes to be counted as cast," Pelosi, D-Calif., stated. I look forward to working with Chairwoman Fudge in this new role as we advance our efforts to offer all Americans a Better Deal for Our Democracy.

Fudge, a veteran Ohio Democrat, last week openly called for a challenger to step up and face off against Pelosi. Though she flirted with the idea of taking on Pelosi herself, she emphasized that she was looking for someone else to step forward.

Last week I announced that I was strongly considering a run for Speaker of the House. My consideration was due in large part to the lack of sustained efforts that ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels of the House," Fudge wrote in a statement Tuesday.

Fudge noted that she will work to reinstate and reform protections of the Voting Rights Act in her new post  giving her enough incentive to support Pelosi.

"I am now confident that we will move forward together and that the 116th Congress will be a Congress of which we can all be proud," Fudge stated. "I now join my colleagues in support of the leadership team of Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn."

On Monday, 16 House Democrats and members-elect released a letter announcing their opposition to Pelosi as House Speaker. Despite her expressed opposition last week, Fudge did not sign the letter.

If all 435 members of the next Congress vote in the election for Speaker, Pelosi must lock in 218 votes to win. Democrats are on track to hold at least 233 seats in the next Congress, according to ABC News' projections, so she can only afford to lose 15 of her Democratic colleagues. One House race, Utah's 4th Congressional District, remains too close to call, though the Democrat there, Ben McAdams, has pledged to oppose Pelosi for Speaker.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
By Abrahm Lustgarten

20 November 2018

(The New York Times)  The fields outside Kotawaringin village in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, looked as if they had just been cleared by armies. None of the old growth remained  only charred stumps poking up from murky, dark pools of water. In places, smoke still curled from land that days ago had been covered with lush jungle. Villagers had burned it all down, clearing the way for a lucrative crop whose cultivation now dominates the entire island: the oil-palm tree.

The dirt road was ruler straight, but deep holes and errant boulders tossed our tiny Toyota back and forth. Trucks coughed out black smoke, their beds brimming over with seven-ton loads of palm fruit rocking back and forth on tires as tall as people. Clear-cut expanses soon gave way to a uniform crop of oil-palm groves: orderly trees, a sign that we had crossed into an industrial palm plantation. Oil-palm trees look like the coconut-palm trees you see on postcards from Florida  they grow to more than 60 feet tall and flourish on the peaty wetland soil common in lowland tropics. But they are significantly more valuable. Every two weeks or so, each tree produces a 50-pound bunch of walnut-size fruit, bursting with a red, viscous oil that is more versatile than almost any other plant-based oil of its kind. Indonesia is rich in timber and coal, but palm oil is its biggest export. Around the world, the oil from its meat and seeds has long been an indispensable ingredient in everything from soap to ice cream. But it has now become a key ingredient of something else: biodiesel, fuel for diesel engines that has been wholly or partly made from vegetable oil.

Finally we emerged, and as we crested a hill, the plantations fell into an endless repetition of tidy bunches stretching for miles, looking almost like the rag of a Berber carpet. Occasionally, a shard of an old ironwood tree shot into the air, a remnant of the primordial canopy of dense rain forest that dominated the land until very recently.

Our driver, a 44-year-old island native and whistle-blower named Gusti Gelambong, had brought us here to show us the incredible destruction wrought by the growing demand for palm oil. The oldest male among nine siblings, he was modestly built but exuded a wiry strength. His father, he told us, was a king of one of Borneos dozens of Dayak tribes, the sixth descendant of the sultan of Old Kotawaringin, and his mother came from a line of warriors who served in the Indonesian special forces. In 2001, he said, he took part in a brutal ethnic cleansing of Indonesians who had moved in from the nearby island of Madura. He macheted his way through the nearby town of Pangkalan Bun, slaughtering dozens of people. He felt no remorse about the violence. But the palm-oil companies, Gelambong said, were much stronger than the Madurese. As we approached an intersection, we could see two plantation guards lying back in a shack, rifles propped against their knees. He sped past the guards, averting his eyes.

Most of the plantations around us were new, their rise a direct consequence of policy decisions made half a world away. In the mid-2000s, Western nations, led by the United States, began drafting environmental laws that encouraged the use of vegetable oil in fuels  an ambitious move to reduce carbon dioxide and curb global warming. But these laws were drawn up based on an incomplete accounting of the true environmental costs. Despite warnings that the policies could have the opposite of their intended effect, they were implemented anyway, producing what now appears to be a calamity with global consequences.

The tropical rain forests of Indonesia, and in particular the peatland regions of Borneo, have large amounts of carbon trapped within their trees and soil. Slashing and burning the existing forests to make way for oil-palm cultivation had a perverse effect: It released more carbon. A lot more carbon. NASA researchers say the accelerated destruction of Borneos forests contributed to the largest single-year global increase in carbon emissions in two millenniums, an explosion that transformed Indonesia into the worlds fourth-largest source of such emissions. Instead of creating a clever technocratic fix to reduce Americans carbon footprint, lawmakers had lit the fuse on a powerful carbon bomb that, as the forests were cleared and burned, produced more carbon than the entire continent of Europe. The unprecedented palm-oil boom, meanwhile, has enriched and emboldened many of the regions largest corporations, which have begun using their newfound power and wealth to suppress critics, abuse workers and acquire more land to produce oil. []
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Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. acquired JP Tech Insurance Services, Inc., a Los Angeles, California-based provider of insurance and risk management coverages and services to life science, technology, financial institution, REIT and hedge fund clients around the world.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

R. Joseph Plascencia and his associates will be relocating to Gallaghers Glendale, California office under the direction of Scott Firestone, head of Gallaghers Southwest region retail property/casualty brokerage operations.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG), a global insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting services firm, is headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.

The company has operations in 34 countries and offers client service capabilities in more than 150 countries around the world through a network of correspondent brokers and consultants.

FinSMEs

21/11/2018
NTT Venture Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of Japanese telecom company NTT Communications, closed its first fund, at $500m.

According to an SEC filing, Vab Goel, former general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, was the person related to the raise.

The creation of NTT Venture Capital was driven by the launch of rapidly evolving technologies and business models, as well as the aggressive expansion of innovative competitors and aims to boost the companys R&D division.

The main investment area of the fund will be digital technology.

NTT Communications is the global data and IP services arm of telecom leader NTT (TYO: 9432). The companys solutions are backed by a worldwide infrastructure, including global tier-1 public and private networks reaching over 190 countries/regions, and more than 400,000m of the worlds most advanced data center facilities.

FinSMEs

20/11/2018
Quantum Machines, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup developing the next generation of control and operation systems for quantum computers, raised $5.5m in seed financing.

The round was led by TLV Partners with participation from Battery Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Rona Segev, a partner at TLV Partners, and Itzik Parnafes, a general partner at Battery Ventures, are joining Quantum Machines board.

The funding will allow QM to develop its first system, OPERATOR-X.

Co-founded by Drs. Itamar Sivan, Yonatan Cohen and Nissim Ofek, three physics Ph.D.s with long track records in the fields of quantum computing and electronics, QM is advancing hardware and software that will allow organizations to solve computing problems more quickly than traditional technology.

The company, which is already working with quantum-computing groups worldwide, envisions selling its technology to companies now developing quantum processorsincluding the worlds largest Internet companiesas well as academic organizations.

FinSMEs

21/11/2018
Vitcord, a Barcelona, and Valencia, Spain-based provider of an app for users to create video stories, raises $2M in funding.

Backers included Gate 93 Ventures, Banc Sabadell BStartup fund, Alfonso Rodes, and Zarranz Group. In conjunction with the funding, Laura Gonzalez-Estefani, founder of The Venture City and former director of Facebook, and Sebastien Lefebvre, former director of growth at Twitter, joined Vitcords Board.

The company intends to use the funds to scale up, improve the product and user experience and prepare for future growth.

Led by CEO Adrian Domenech, Vitcord provides an app that allows users to publish stories on video, such as debates or challenges, interacting directly with what happens around them. They can respond with a video to an influencer, or add what happens in an event to a story created by another user.

The app is currently available through The App Store and Google Play. In the last 12 months, it has obtained 400k active users.

The new investors in the round joined existing ones including Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation, Sebastien Lefebvre, Eneko Knorr, Pedro Serrahima, David Nunez, Felix Ruiz, and Oriol Juncosa.

FinSMEs

21/11/2018
Wild Friends Foods, a Portland, Oregon-based clean-label food brand, closed a $3.5m Series A funding round.

The round was led by Cambridge Companies SPG, with participation from Katjesgreenfood, Echo Capital, CircleUp Growth Fund, Portland Seed Fund, and angel investors Tony Robbins, Steve Hughes, as well as Jamie Schmidt.

Led by co-founder and CEO Keeley Tillotson, Wild Friends is a clean-label food brand, specializing in non-GMO nut and seed butters and nut butter-based breakfast items, including Oats and Nut Butter.

The round followed Wild Friends launch of Oats and Nut Butter, a new oat cup line featuring a base of rolled oats, chia and flax, and the addition of a single serve nut butter packet. The new line is now available nationwide in Whole Foods Market, Sprouts and Publix.

Wild Friends has also recently announced other developments, including B-Corp certification and the addition of:

 Beth Hanson, formerly on the 301 Inc team at General Mills, who joined as VP of sales, and

 Christina McCalla, formerly Marketing Manager at Annies, who joined the team as director of marketing.

FinSMEs

21/11/2018




Midnight Express was happening in real time all around me. In 1969 I was in Istanbul, living in my VW camper and on my way to India. Istanbul was so exotic, a city of around two and a half million people. And the Sultanahmet district was seedy with a distinct air of danger. Middle class Turks mostly avoided it and, despite having the 4 top tourist destinations in the city-- Hagia Sofia , the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. But back in those days, Istanbul wasn't much of a tourist destination. There was only one first-rate hotel-- the Hilton-- and it was on the other side of town. But, in the late '60's into the '70s, Istanbul was a major stop on the Hippie Trail between Europe and India and Sultanahmet was filled with disheveled hippies-- like me. It was also the place the low life types of Turkish society came to rip off the hippies and sell them hash-- and where the police prowled to arrest the hippies and the crooks trying to take advantage of them. That was Sultanahmet in 1969, when I found myself in the Pudding Shop as what became the notorious film,was happening in real time all around me.





Today there is a picture of Bill Clinton with the Pudding Shop's owner in the window. Not many people know what happened 50 years ago to make the place famous. I visited it last week, not the first time since my 1969 trip to Istanbul. I like the city and have been there many times since. Right after the election I needed a veg-out period to regain by equilibrium. One iff my favorite hotels in the world is in Sultanahmet now, a 4 Seasons, no less, one of two in the city. Istanbul has exploded and now has a population of around 16 million, depending who you ask. Sultanahmet is the place to be today. And the drugs... no hash anywhere as far as I can tell but American tourists are definitely there to buy drugs... pharmaceuticals. I spent a couple of thousand dollars buying medicine-- no prescriptions needed-- that would cost at least 5 times more in the U.S., even with crappy insurance from the Republican part of Medicare, the only bad part of Medicare, Part D, Bush's drug plan-- a vision of healthcare meant to help big drug firms and screw patients.





In 2006, Pelosi tried to fix it but there were too many Blue Dogs and New Dems in her caucus and she had to cater to their conservative instincts and the fix-- like everything well-intentioned Democrats try to do when the Republican wing of their party has sway (as it does right now)-- only was a baby step, not the big bold step that was needed so badly.





The costs of medicines-- a pure rip off of the American people-- hasn't been seriously addressed. Politicians talk about it but nothing seems to get done. Well, two progressives who don't try to cater to the corrupt, Wall Street-owned shit-eating New Dems and Blue Dogs, have a new bill they're introducing, the Prescription Drug Price Relief Act . Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna will introduce it the day the Democrats take over Congress in January.





If the new Dems and Blue Dogs don't screw it up-- they will certainly try-- the bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make sure that Americans dont pay more for prescription drugs than the median price in five major countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan. If pharmaceutical manufacturers refuse to lower drug prices below that level, the federal government would approve cheaper generic versions of those drugs, regardless of any patents or market exclusivities in place. Does that thrill you? It thrills me.





When this legislation becomes law, the median price of brand name prescription drugs could go down by more than 40%, and savings for certain brand name prescription drugs could be even greater.





Ro Khanna: "There is absolutely no reason for the big pharmaceutical companies to make Americans pay higher prescription drug prices than they charge our friends in Canada, Germany, and the UK. Today were sending big pharma a message: market exclusivity is a privilege, and when you abuse that by price gouging the sick and aging, then you lose that privilege. This bill will bring down drug prices by taking on monopolies and boosting prescription drug competition."





Bernie: "No other country allows pharmaceutical companies to charge any price they want for any reason they want. Somebody in America today can walk into a pharmacy and find out that the medicine they have been using for years can double, triple or quadruple literally overnight. That needs to change. The greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans and it has got to stop."





In their press released they noted that "Trump said repeatedly during his campaign that he would take action against drug companies and bring down prices. But in the first seven months of 2018 alone, there were 96 drug price hikes for every price cut. And on Friday, Pfizer announced it is planning to raise prices on 41 more drugs in January. Earlier this year, Trump proposed a pilot program to gradually lower the prices of certain drugs covered by Medicare Part B to international price levels. But his proposal does not help the more than 150 million Americans who get private health insurance from their employer, many of whom struggle with high deductibles and copayments, or the more than 30 million Americans who are uninsured and must pay the full cash price of their prescription drugs at the pharmacy. Sanders and Khannas legislation would address the needs of both of those populations."





This is the one-page summary of the bill that Ro and Bernie released today:
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You know where there was no blue wave this cycle? Ohio-- not even a ripple. It was another status quo election in Ohio, as though nothing at all was going on in the country-- nothing at all. Just... same ole/same ole. All the incumbents in the gerrymandered congressional districts-- each one carefully designed to return incumbents-- were reelected. And in the one contest where there was no incumbent, the party stayed the same. The 12 Republicans were reelected and the 4 Democrats were reelected. Meanwhile Sherrod Brown was reelected Senator over self-funding far right Congressman Jim Renacci:

The same voters decided to elect Republican Mike DeWine governor over Democrat Richard Cordray. Compare the numbers in the Senate and gubernatorial races:

Schizophrenic electorate? Or just very, very conservative-- not just politically, but even more profoundly, just wanting nothing to change much. Ohioans elected another Republican Attorney General, Dave Yost, another Republican Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, another Republican Treasurer, Robert Sprague and another Republican State Auditor, Keith Faber. The Republicans maintained their supermajorities in both the state Senate and the state House.





And while the rest of the country is passing liberalized criminal justice and marijuana laws, Ohio Issue 1, the Drug and Criminal Justice Policies Initiative, failed overwhelmingly-- 2,716,958 (63.4%) to 1,568.347 (36.6%).





2016 was really ugly in Ohio too. In the Democratic primary voters picked the dull establishment status quo candidate over Bernie, 56.5% to 42.7%, ands then defeated her in all but 7 counties in the general. It was Trumpanzee 2,771,984 (52.1%) to 2,317,001 (43.5%) for Hillary. And these kinds of results play out badly in real life. Ohio's a screwed up mess.





I bet you never heard of Ron Hood or Nino Vitale, right? They're both really extreme right-wing legislators in the Ohio House. The two introduced HB 565, the purpose of which is to trigger a Supreme Court case that overturns Roe v Wade. Their bill proposes the death penalty for a woman who gets an abortion as well as for a doctor that performs one-- with no exceptions for rape, incest, or even danger to a womans life. So far there are 20 Ohio legislators who support it.





City Beat Cincinnati's reported that the 2 principal sponsors, "Hood and Vitale say the measure is meant to protect the lives of the unborn and, according to Vitale, protect women from the 'trauma' of abortion."

The legislation clearly flies in the face of interpretations of the U.S. Constitution set up by the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which guarantees access to abortion up until a fetus is viable outside the womb. In the (as of now) unlikely case that HB565 was passed into law, it would almost certainly set up a legal battle that could go to the U.S Supreme Court. That's something many boosters of the bill and similar legislation would actually like to see, however. After President Donald Trump's appointment of two conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices, some conservatives believe that the high court might amend or overturn Roe entirely, given the right case.



Hood has made it clear HB565 and the "heartbeat" bill are both aimed at this goal.



House Bill 258 is the vehicle that is needed to revisit Roe v. Wade, Hood said in a statement following the heartbeat bill's passage. The House passage of the bill is a critical step in that long-awaited process."



Abortion access advocates have strongly criticized the measure.



"Anti-choice extremists from the Ohio Statehouse to the White House are lining up their dominoes to topple Roe v. Wade and punish those who seek or provide abortion care," NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland said in a statement following the bill's initial introduction in March this year.



Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio spokesperson Danielle Craig called it "the worst intrusion on a woman's reproductive rights by the Ohio legislature to date" and "blatantly unconstitutional" in a statement earlier this year. Craig said if passed, the legislation would cost Ohio millions in court costs. Ohio has already spent several million in court battles over less-restrictive abortion regulations lawmakers have passed, often losing.

So where were women voters and progressive voters, millennials, minorities and the woke masses who helped the Democrats flip control of the House this month? Not in Ohio, that's for certain. Hood's district is southeast of Columbus, entirely within the 15th congressional district, represented by anti-Choice nut Steve Stivers. Hood was reelected November 6 against Democrat Amber Daniels 28,619 (67.9%) to 13,549 (32.1%). Vitale's district is northwest of Columbus-- and entirely within the red hellhole known as OH-05, Jim Jordan's sad excuse for a congressional district. The results were even worse there. Vitale was reelected against Democrat Garrett Baldwin 28,077 (72.9%) to 10,452 (27.1%).





Yesterday, Ron Brownstein, writing for CNN, seemed to discount the ability of a political party being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Maybe he's correct, since he was writing about the Democrats. He posed the question about the party concentrating on winning back Rust Belt voters or winning over Sun Belt voters . They really do have to do both. Certainly the Democratic Party was extremely successful in the midterms in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota Iowa and Wisconsin-- even if they bombed in Ohio and Indiana. "Though the 2018 election opened intriguing opportunities in the Sun Belt," wrote Brownstein, "new data suggest the shortest path back to the White House for Democrats may be through the three Rust Belt swing states that President Donald Trump dislodged from the 'blue wall' two years ago... [E]xit polls showed that in [Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania] Trump not only faced surging opposition from college-educated white women, but also suffered notable attrition among the blue-collar white women who were critical to his success there last time... Democrats held a Senate seat and won the governorship in each state, while also gaining a net of five House seats in Pennsylvania and Michigan combined."

[T]he most daunting Rust Belt results for Democrats came in Ohio. Though Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, a potential 2020 contender, won re-election, his margin was narrower than expected and Republicans comfortably held the governor's mansion. In the exit poll, 52% of Ohio voters approved of Trump's performance. And while college-educated white women tilted slightly away from him (with 52% of them disapproving), he retained very strong numbers there among non-college white men (67% approval), college-educated white men (62%) and non-college white women (59%).



But, if anything, Trump's continued Ohio strength among those groups only underscored his more precarious position with them in the other key Rust Belt battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.



"I think Ohio is much more of a core red state than the other three," says John Brabender, a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist. "The other ones are at their hearts blue states that will sometimes vote Republican. And it better be an awfully good year."

Bonus quiz: Ohio gave the U.S. eight presidents-- William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. What did all eight of these presidents have in common, besides being from Ohio?
Diageo Reserve appoints Talisker brand ambassador

Diageo Reserve has appointed Jason Clark as the new brand ambassador for its premium Scotch whisky, Talisker.

Clark has 20 years experience in the bar industry and has represented his homeland New Zealand in various global competition finals, including the Diageo Reserve World Class Global Finals in 2013 and 2014.

In recent years he has held the role of spiarits ambassador for companies including Diageo Reserve, William Grant, Remy Cointreau and Beam Suntory. He has also launched a cocktail book, The Art & Craft of Coffee Cocktails.

Clark said: I am really excited about my appointment as Brand Ambassador for Talisker. I have always been a fan and it is a huge privilege for me to be at the forefront. Of such an established brand. With activations such as the Race to Skye for me to become fully immersed in, I cant wait to begin my journey in the role.

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Infection with HIV increases cancer incidence, especially AIDS-defining cancers (ADC) such as Kaposi sarcoma (KS). In Uganda, where HIV is endemic, incidence of AIDS-defining cancers (those that HIV+ individuals are at high risk of developing) and non AIDS-defining cancers (NADC) are on the rise despite an increase in the number of HIV patients receiving antiretroviral therapies (ART).

Little is known about HIV status among cancer patients and how frequently HIV infection complicates the presentation of cancer in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Patients suffering from both HIV infection and cancer or other HIV-associated malignancies require careful therapy that must consider HIV-related factors such immune cell counts, progression to AIDS, and antiviral treatment. However, standards-of-care for treating comorbidities of cancer and HIV remain undefined due to a paucity of data on HIV-associated malignancies in HIV-prevalent regions such as SSA.

Dr. Bender Ignacio, a physician-scientist and the lead researcher on a recent publication in the Journal of Global Oncology, conducted a cross-sectional study using medical records at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) to determine HIV burden and how HIV infection is associated with disease progression among cancer patients. First, Bender Ignacio and colleagues surveyed records from 1,137 adults with cancer enrolled at UCI between June and September in 2015 to determine the prevalence of HIV. They found that 23% were positive, 48% tested negative, and 29% had no recorded HIV status. To tackle the problem of nearly 30 percent of cancer patients lacking an HIV test result and estimate the mean of the missing data, three different weighted imputations analyses based on sex, decade of life, or cancer diagnosis, were performed. The last method was considered to be the most accurate, as tumor diagnosis is heavily associated with patient age and sex. This method estimated that 21% of HIV+ occurrences were unrecorded, increasing the HIV prevalence among UCI patients to 29%, much higher than the overall HIV prevalence of 7.4% in Uganda. These results demonstrated that not only were many of the cancer patients at UCI infected with HIV, but that HIV incidence among cancer patients is four-fold higher than the national average, suggesting that HIV screening in cancer patients should be a high priority. Additionally, among those tested, 83% of infected individuals were reportedly receiving ART. This high frequency implies that patients who are already receiving care for HIV are more likely to be referred to UCI for cancer treatment. This may indicate that those with undiagnosed HIV or no HIV infection may be less likely to receive cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The Bank of Uganda sold the loans of International Credit Bank (ICB), Greenland Bank and Cooperative Bank using an agreement that recognises the English Law, rather the Ugandan Law, MPS on Parliaments Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) heard on Wednesday.

BoU signed an agreement with Nile River Acquisition Company to buy debts of the three banks worth US $5.2 million (Shs8.89 billion). The debts originally had a book value of Shs135 billion.

The MPs were perturbed by BoUs selection of the English Law rather than the Ugandan Constitution and the related banking laws of the country. We make these laws because we want them to govern all the transactions in our country, Committee Chairman Abdu Katuntu said.

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The MPs are probing BoU top officials led by the Governor Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile and his deputy Dr. Louis Kasekende.

BoU sold the loans at abnormal discount of 93 per cent to the company registered in Mauritius a tax haven but its parent Company M/s American Octavian Advisors LP is based in England.

At the end of the agreement, no names of those who signed. They were so much in the hurry that are no names of those who signed the agreement.

When asked why BoU decided to opt for English Law, its legal secretary, Margaret Kasule said the buyer-Nile River Acquisition preferred the English Law in case of a commercial dispute, the company being a foreign one.

Committee Chairman Abdu Katuntu said by ignoring the laws of Uganda in the transaction, BoU had contravened the Ugandan law. MPs wondered whether BoU was desperate to sell the debts whose value was reduced from 135 billion to just Shs8.89 billion.

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 per cent discount, the Auditor General says in his special audit report of BoU on defunct banks.

Aruu South Member of Parliament Odonga Otto said some government have used such agreements to fleece government of money. Concern also is that the Nile River Acquisition might not have paid taxes to government.

Up-to-date, the BoU officials have failed to produce all documents required by Cosase to validate the transactions of the three banks and now Abdu Katuntu has ordered the public servants to make an inventory of the reports and ensure that they search and being the missing reports to the Committee.

Benedict Sekabira to produce appointment letter

The committee members on Wednesday were tough on Benedict Sekabira, Director, Financial Markets Development Coordination, for failing to present his appointment letter as liquidator of Greenland Bank. He was tasked to bring the letter without fail tomorrow Thursday.

The former Executive Director of Supervision at BoU Justine Bagyenda also appeared before the committee to answer some queries, even as the Inspector General of Government is investigating her over alleged illegal accumulation of wealth.

However, MP Odonga Otto asked Committee Chairman whether it was procedurally right for Ms Bagyenda to appear before yet she declined to appear before the Parliaments Appointments Committee for vetting when Finance Minister Matia Kasaija appointed her to the board of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA).
TwitchCon, the annual gathering held for Twitch streamers and the community, is heading to Europe for the first time next year as TwitchCon Europe.

As detailed in a press release, the event will be held at at CityCube in Berlin, Germany from April 13-14 for the European Twitch community, containing much of the same elements as its United States counterpart.

The company selected Berlin as the location for TwitchCon Europe based on its centralized location, and Germany's reported status as one of the top performing countries in terms of both streamers and viewership.

In addition, Twitch sees the city as ideal based on proximity to attractions and accommodations, and its accessibility to those traveling from out of the country.

Additional TwitchCon Europe details will be shared in the coming months.
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Lerch, who served 12 years with the U.S. Coast Guard and another 30 in the reserves, died on Sunday evening of cancer.
Video shows anti-terror exercise : Terror attack simulation at Cologne/Bonn Airport

COLOGNE/BONN Two heavily armed terrorists storm Terminal 1 of Cologne/Bonn Airport, shooting up the place. Blood flows and people are killed. The terror simulation exercise carried out by police and customs agents depicts a realistic and brutal scene.

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It was the largest anti-terror exercise to date at a German airport. More than 1,000 people took part in the intense drill on Wednesday night. The scenario had two heavily armed terrorists storm into the arrivals area of Terminal 1 in Cologne/Bonn Airport at around 11 p.m. People playing the role of passengers filled the area. The terminal was completely closed off to actual passengers and the public during the exercise. With automatic weapons, the attackers shot wildly around them using blanks, while members of the press and other observers looked on. The duo showed no mercy: some passers-by were virtually executed by the terrorists.

The large-scale training exercise of the German Federal Police also involved numerous officers of the Cologne police and customs officers. Simulated fatalities and spilled blood were part of the plan as the terrorists' deliberate intention to kill was an integral part of the exercise, as Wolfgang Wurm, President of the Sankt Augustin Federal Police Headquarters, explained.

In the recent past, there has been no lack of examples of bloody terrorist attacks against defenseless people. Wurm referred in particular to the Islamist-motivated terrorist attack on January 7, 2015 on the editorial staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris: two masked terrorists entered the editorial offices of the magazine with assault rifles and killed eleven people. Exactly this type of violent scenario was simulated at Cologne/Bonn Airport, with shooters firing into the crowd of people, so that police and customs officers would be confronted with an extremely stressful situation: "Because it is different to talk about a dead person than to see one", said Federal Police Officer Wurm.

It was crucial for the customs officers who work at the airport to be involved in the practice response against the terror attack, since they are on duty there and could be faced with such a scenario. For this reason, customs was involved for the first time, which, according to Wurm, was an "integral part of the security infrastructure" on site. According to Jens Ahland, spokesman for Cologne's main customs office, around 130 of his colleagues carry weapons in the area of airport controls.

Wurm was pleased that the interaction between the three organizations involved worked out well during the challenging exercise. After just under fifteen minutes, the security forces had succeeded in eliminating both attackers in the chaotic and confusing situation, while at the same time exercising the necessary caution. Part of the challenge posed to the officers was that despite the pleading cries for help from the many victims, they had to first secure the area: "A second attack could have followed", expert Wurm pointed out.

Care for the numerous injured in a closed-off parking lot of Terminal 1 was part of a second exercise that immediately followed. It took place under the direction of the airport. Around 150 firefighters from the airport fire brigade, the Cologne fire brigade, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and the fire brigade of the Bundeswehr (German military) were involved.
Shortage of space : Womens shelters in Bonn and Cologne have been overstretched for years

Bonn By 2022, 50 new places are to be created in women's shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the Istanbul Convention, it should be 1,200 places. Here is a look at what facilities are available in the region.

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The most dangerous place for women is still their own home," says Eva Risse. She has been working in the independent women's shelter "Frauen helfen Frauen" (Women helping Women) in Bonn since 1985. There are a total of 22 spaces in this house - 13 for women and nine for children. In the women's shelter "Hilfe fur Frauen in Not" (Help for Women in Need) there are another 20 places available.

The need has been much higher than the spots available for many years now. "In 2017, we had to turn down 413 women in our house alone," says Risse. In the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2016, it was 5,888 women who had to be sent away. According to the Istanbul Convention, which Germany signed in 2017, the City of Bonn alone would be required to have 85 places - around twice as many as what it has now. The international treaty creates binding legal norms against violence against women and domestic violence.

"We are already talking about 2022, but we need the spaces now. Many women simply don't have time to wait for help," she emphasizes. The occupancy rate at the Bonn shelter Frauen helfen Frauen (Women helping Women) has been between 95 and 100 percent for ten years. "But in order for us to really be able to function as a refuge, it should be a maximum of 75 percent," said Risse.

Many women are placed in shelters more than 100 kilometers away. "This is often not possible. Either because of their work situation or because of the children's day-care and school. Besides that, it is precisely in such situations that you need your social environment," says Eva Risse. Especially the waiting period is a very dangerous time for the women. Claudia Schrimpf from "Frauen helfen Frauen" in Cologne also sees this. "When the women come to us, they have unfortunately had to endure violence for a very long time. Many come to us with an acute fear of death".

And even in Cologne the situation is not any better than in Bonn. On the contrary. The two independent women's shelters have room for a total of 20 women and 27 children. "In 2017 alone we had to find other places for 700 women," says Schrimpf.

However, the signal from the German government gives them hope: "In the past, we had to talk to the federal, state and local governments about adequate financing. One always referred us to the other," says Claudia Schrimpf. Her wish would be for complete federal funding. Currently, women in Bonn and Cologne have to pay a daily rate. At "Frauen helfen Frauen" in Bonn it is seven euros. In the Cologne shelters the daily rate is determined on the basis of income and can go up to 78 euros.

By 2022, 50 new places are to be created in NRW. According to the Istanbul Convention, there is currently a shortage of 1,200 places.

Further information and help can be found at www.frauen-info-netz.de.
Opening on Friday : Workers build up the Bonn Christmas market

Bonn Preparations are in full swing in Bonn as workers set up the Christmas market for the opening on Friday. Police have once again drawn up a comprehensive security concept.

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The city center of Bonn is currently a hive of bees: people work diligently everywhere, hammering, drilling and building. The construction of the stalls for the Christmas market is in well underway. The City-Skyliner on Remigiusplatz, the highest mobile lookout tower in Europe with a height of 81 meters, is attracting considerable attention. It is one of the attractions in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Bonn Christmas Market. But the first trip to the top won't happen until the official opening of the Christmas market this Friday at 5 pm.

For four weeks, merchants will offer their wares at over 170 stands. From modern art to classic Christmas decorations, there is something for every taste. Hungry and thirsty visitors are also provided for at many stands. For children, the Aktionshaus from the city opens its gates again. Here, children from the age of six can play, paint or do handicrafts.

The topic of security is a key priority: the police mobile station will once again be located near the large church called the Bonn Minster during the entire time the Christmas market is on. Market visitors can go to the police there at any time with questions or concerns. Those looking for advice can also contact the Ordnungsdienst (public order officers) located at Vivatsgasse. The officers will be clearly visible in the city center and will be on the lookout for potential trick and pickpocket thieves. Experience has shown that the thieves are especially prevalent in areas where many people come together. The "alarm bells", which can be tied to a handbag, can be used again to alert a person if someone has reached into their bag. But police advise all visitors to keep valuables in closed inner pockets of their outerwear.

Mobile barriers at three access points

The security concept for the Bonn Christmas market includes mobile barriers and concrete bollards on three access roads. These are located at the entrance to Friedensplatz, at the entrance via Martinsplatz and in the area of Mulheimer Platz, according to deputy city spokesman Marc Hoffmann. These barriers have been erected at the Christmas market ever since the attack on Berlin's Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz two years ago. Back then, Tunisian national Anis Amri raced into the Christmas market stands with a stolen truck, twelve people were killed.

There is still discussion in Bonn about retractable bollards in the area of Bonn's city center. "However, this is still being examined within the administration," Hoffmann said in response to a GA inquiry. Still to be nailed down are technical aspects and the regulation of access roads for authorized persons (hotel access roads, tradesmen, taxis, pharmacy suppliers) as well as for fire brigades and rescue services. Hoffmann said the administration would soon be submitting a proposal to city politicians.
The Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) report for the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (Eacop) is set to be completed by next month, according to Total East Africa B.Vs social and land manager Jean Lennock, who said the completion and approval of the report will give the green light to start of the implementation of the US$3.5 billion Ugandan-Tanzania pipeline project.

Mr. Jean Lennock pointed out that the report would be submitted to the National Environment Management Council (NEMC) by December for approval. Land surveys completed on all pipeline corridor and facility sites. Issuance of Esia certificates will follow after the report is being approved by the NEMA, Lennock said.

The Eacop project which links Hoima in Uganda to Tanga Port in Tanzania, is estimated upon completion, to have a capacity of transporting 216,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It will run 1,149km in Tanzania while navigating eight regions and 24 districts while the Ugandan section will be 296km-long passing through eight districts and 24 sub-counties.

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The companys environmental Manager Stan McBride, further said that the firm has embarked on various mitigation measures to minimize possible environmental hazards, to be caused by the pipeline.

The inter-governmental agreement for the project was signed in May 2017 and the implementation of the project, is bound to create 10,000 jobs for the host communities during construction and benefit the host countries through revenues and taxes. Funding for the project will be made through project finance agreement where banks and financial institutions are expected to finance 70 percent of the cost while the Ugandan and Tanzania government alongside stakeholders would finance the remainder.

The project is planned to transport crude oil produced in Ugandas Albertine Graben to Tanga Port in Tanzania to enable access to the market through the Indian Ocean. According to earlier negotiations, Uganda will pay Tanzania US$12.20 for each barrel flowing through the pipeline.

We expect to see a massive flow of foreign direct investment in the country amid completion of the pipeline project, Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporations advocate Goodluck Shirima said.

Upon completion, Eacop pipeline project will become the worlds longest heated crude oil export pipelines. It will enable access to the market through the Indian Ocean.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is one of several big-name companies calling on Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith to return their campaign donations after a video surfaced on social media in which she talks about attending a "public hanging."

Hyde-Smith is in a tight runoff election race with Democrat Mike Espy, a former congressman who would be the state's first African-American senator since the 1800s.

We condemn racism and bigotry in all its forms, Pfizer spokesperson Sharon Castillo told ABC News Tuesday. We are withdrawing our support and have requested a full refund of our contributions, which were made months in advance of the senators comments.

Pfizer has made two contributions totaling $5,000.

The video in question shows Hyde-Smith in Tupelo, Mississippi, embracing a supporter and saying, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

After the video was posted on Twitter, Hyde-Smith did not apologize but defended herself.

"In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement," she said in a statement. "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."

When actress Debra Messings criticized Walmart for its donation to Hyde-Smith, the company responded that the senators comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates.

Walmart requested a full refund of $4,000 Tuesday, according to a company spokesperson.

Other companies, including AT&T, Leidos and Boston Scientific, have requested refunds of $2,000, $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.

Sen. Hyde-Smiths campaign did not immediately comment.

Four days after the first video surfaced, another video from Nov. 3 was tweeted in which Hyde-Smith tells a group of supporters in Starkville, Mississippi, that it would be a great idea to make voting just a little more difficult for liberal folks.

Hyde-Smiths campaign once again refused to apologize and released a statement saying, "Obviously Sen. Hyde-Smith was making a joke and clearly the video was selectively edited."

Hyde-Smith, appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, is facing the runoff with Espy after she netted 41.4 percent of the vote on Election Day while Espy had 40.6 percent.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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.
xspraise at 21-11-2018 07:15 AM (3 years ago) (m)

A 40-year-old man, Mr Joseph Abanda has revealed that he killed one Umaru Yakubu, for having sex with his wife in the bush.

A 40-year-old man, Mr Joseph Abanda has revealed that he killed one Umaru Yakubu, for having sex with his wife in the bush.

According to Punch Nigeria, the Niger State Police Command has arrested Joseph Abanda, for the death of Umaru Yakubu of Kwagana village in Paikoro Local Government Area of the state.



The command confirmed the suspects arrest on Tuesday, stating that a team of detectives attached to the Kanfin-Koro Division apprehended the suspect over Yakubus murder.



Abanda, who hails from Beni Village in the Muya Local Government Area of the state, was alleged to have killed the deceased for having sex with his wife.



It was learnt that Abenda caught the deceased having sex with his wife in a bush and attacked and killed him.



Northern City News gathered that the suspect had previously warned the deceased to stay away from his wife, adding that he was prepared to kill and suffer the consequences.



The suspect told Northern City News that he killed his victim with a stick and another dangerous weapon. He said;



I had earlier warned him to leave my wife alone; I asked him to stop sleeping with my wife otherwise I would kill him and damn the consequences; the worst that would happen was that I would go to jail.



I killed him for the atrocities he committed against my family; it is an abomination in Islam to sleep with another mans wife. It is a mortal sin. According to Punch Nigeria, the Niger State Police Command has arrested Joseph Abanda, for the death of Umaru Yakubu of Kwagana village in Paikoro Local Government Area of the state.The command confirmed the suspects arrest on Tuesday, stating that a team of detectives attached to the Kanfin-Koro Division apprehended the suspect over Yakubus murder.Abanda, who hails from Beni Village in the Muya Local Government Area of the state, was alleged to have killed the deceased for having sex with his wife.It was learnt that Abenda caught the deceased having sex with his wife in a bush and attacked and killed him.Northern City News gathered that the suspect had previously warned the deceased to stay away from his wife, adding that he was prepared to kill and suffer the consequences.The suspect told Northern City News that he killed his victim with a stick and another dangerous weapon. He said;I had earlier warned him to leave my wife alone; I asked him to stop sleeping with my wife otherwise I would kill him and damn the consequences; the worst that would happen was that I would go to jail.I killed him for the atrocities he committed against my family; it is an abomination in Islam to sleep with another mans wife. It is a mortal sin.

Post Reply I am Victor, I write reportage on sport news and latest metro happenings in Nigeria. Posted: at 21-11-2018 07:15 AM (3 years ago) | Hero
clarajancita at 21-11-2018 02:43 PM (3 years ago) (f)

African migrants trying to cross to Europe have been dealt terrible blows after being forced off the ship. Libyan authorities forcibly removed dozens of migrants who had barricaded themselves in a container ship in the port city of Misrata for the past 10 days after being picked up at sea.

African migrants trying to cross to Europe have been dealt terrible blows after being forced off the ship. Libyan authorities forcibly removed dozens of migrants who had barricaded themselves in a container ship in the port city of Misrata for the past 10 days after being picked up at sea.

The migrants had refused to disembark, saying Libya is too dangerous for them. They were attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe earlier this month when they were rescued at sea by a cargo ship, Nivin, that was already bound for Misrata.



Human Rights Watch said some migrants were taken to the hospital late Tuesday while others were taken to a detention center in Misrata.



Libyas navy spokesman, Ayoub Jassem, said security forces boarded the ship after negotiations with the migrants failed to convince them to disembark voluntarily.

The migrants had refused to disembark, saying Libya is too dangerous for them. They were attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe earlier this month when they were rescued at sea by a cargo ship, Nivin, that was already bound for Misrata.Human Rights Watch said some migrants were taken to the hospital late Tuesday while others were taken to a detention center in Misrata.Libyas navy spokesman, Ayoub Jassem, said security forces boarded the ship after negotiations with the migrants failed to convince them to disembark voluntarily. Quote Only 14 of at least 94 migrants agreed to leave the ship, he told The Associated Press. Only six migrants were wounded in the operation and they were taken to a nearby hospital.



Libya was plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled Moammar Gadhafi, and has since emerged as a major transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and seeking a better life in Europe.



Rights groups say migrants face exploitation and abuse in Libya at the hands of smugglers and local militias.



In recent years, European countries have provided training and funds to Libyan authorities to reduce the hazardous sea crossings, which have claimed thousands of lives. But critics say those efforts leave the migrants trapped in Libya.

Libya was plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled Moammar Gadhafi, and has since emerged as a major transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and seeking a better life in Europe.Rights groups say migrants face exploitation and abuse in Libya at the hands of smugglers and local militias.In recent years, European countries have provided training and funds to Libyan authorities to reduce the hazardous sea crossings, which have claimed thousands of lives. But critics say those efforts leave the migrants trapped in Libya. Quote This is the worst possible conclusion to the desperate plea of the people on board the Nivin to avoid inhuman detention in Libya, said Judith Sunderland, of HRW.



The situation is the result of efforts by Italy and the European Union to obstruct rescue operations by non-governmental organizations and empower the Libyan coast guard even when Europe knows that Libya is not a safe place.



Human Rights Watch has urged Libyan authorities to Human Rights Watch has urged Libyan authorities to Quote immediately allow United Nations and non-governmental personnel to visit the people removed from the cargo ship, find alternatives to their detention, and investigate the possible use of unlawful force.



The UNs humanitarian coordinator for Libya, Maria Ribeiro, said in a statement Tuesday that the humanitarian community is saddened by the turn of events.



The UNs humanitarian coordinator for Libya, Maria Ribeiro, said in a statement Tuesday that the humanitarian community is saddened by the turn of events. Quote Their reluctance to leave the relative safety of the ship that rescued them from peril at sea is an understandable human reaction.  It is regrettable that mediation efforts undertaken did not lead to a peaceful resolution, Ribeiro said.



The migrants had been in the Misrata port since earlier this month, with the captain and crew of the ship taking refuge on the upper decks.



With just one rescue ship patrolling the Mediterranean, and European ports refusing to take in rescued migrants, commercial ships have become increasingly leery of rescuing people at sea.



Repeatedly in recent months, they have found themselves caught in the middle between governments hostile to new migrants and an obligation under international maritime law to save.



The United Nations migration agency says more than 850 migrants have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean since the start of 2018, down from some 2,100 deaths during the same period in 2017.



The agency estimates that more than 40,000 have reached Europe since January, compared to around 80,000 over the same period in 2017. Ribeiro said.The migrants had been in the Misrata port since earlier this month, with the captain and crew of the ship taking refuge on the upper decks.With just one rescue ship patrolling the Mediterranean, and European ports refusing to take in rescued migrants, commercial ships have become increasingly leery of rescuing people at sea.Repeatedly in recent months, they have found themselves caught in the middle between governments hostile to new migrants and an obligation under international maritime law to save.The United Nations migration agency says more than 850 migrants have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean since the start of 2018, down from some 2,100 deaths during the same period in 2017.The agency estimates that more than 40,000 have reached Europe since January, compared to around 80,000 over the same period in 2017.

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 21-11-2018 02:43 PM (3 years ago) | Hero
Retail experts are anticipating that the Thanksgiving shopping weekend will once again be record-breaking, particularly for online sales. Last year, the Monday after Thanksgiving -- nicknamed Cyber Monday -- saw a record $6.6 billion in sales , up 16.8 percent from the previous year.But if states are hoping for a revenue windfall in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year that allowed them to collect online sales taxes -- not so fast. "Ultimately, I think there will be a nice little bump to states," says Brian Kirkell, a principal at the tax consulting firm RSM, "but it's not going to change much."That's because there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to how much the ruling will affect revenues.States have long argued that they are losing out on tens of billions of dollars in sales tax revenue to online sales, which they previously weren't allowed to tax unless a company had a physical presence in the state. But as online retailers like Amazon have built more distribution centers across the country, more online sales were subject to the sales tax even before the ruling. Maryland, for example, now collects about one-fifth of its monthly sales tax revenue from out-of-state vendors.That evolution has led to wildly different projections of how much revenue states are missing out on. On the low end, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report estimated that state and local governments could gain between $8 billion and $13 billion in additional annual revenue from online sales taxes. The National Conference of State Legislatures, however, pegs that figure at around $23 billion a year.Even if state budgets don't see a billion-dollar bump in the coming months, the holiday shopping season will still provide valuable data, says Charles Maniace, director of regulatory analysis at the tax software provider Sovos. Any revenue effect, he says, is good information to have. It will also help states plan for the future as they look to their 2019 budgets.The next month and a half will also be a crucial technological test of whether state websites can handle the increased traffic both from businesses' software accessing sales tax rates to complete transactions, and from businesses remitting their sales taxes. "The uptick," Maniace says, "will be enormous."If the sales tax issue slows down customers' buying experience, he says, retailers may simply decide to disable their taxing system temporarily and charge customers later for the sales tax. "The last thing the seller wants is for that hourglass icon [to appear] when you click the 'Buy Now' button."The states that have yet to start collecting online taxes from out-of-state retailers have the most to gain -- but many won't this season. One-third of the country's population still isn't subject to out-of-state seller taxes because California, Florida, New York and Texas have yet to enact a rule or law doing so. While proposals have been floated in most of these states, Maniace says, the next few months could help shape these states' approach.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is defending the state's tax incentives for an Amazon HQ2 site in Queens after much criticism."The New York Post, which is representative of extreme conservatives, says essentially that New York 'gave Amazon $1 billion,'" Cuomo wrote in an op-ed published on the state's website Monday. "Their argument is factually baseless."New York State and New York City gave Amazon nothing."The Empire State is kicking in more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives over the next 10 years for Amazon's second headquarters, which will be split in two locations. The Seattle-based retail giant will create 25,000 jobs each at two HQ2 sites in Long Island City and Alexandria, Virginia, plus 5,000 jobs at a new operations hub in Nashville.Virginia is offering fewer incentives, reportedly totaling just $573 million, prompting many to wonder if New York "overpaid" for Amazon. The company said the cost per job for New York taxpayers is $48,000, compared to $22,000 for Virginia and $13,000 for Tennessee."Amazon, by our current tax structure, would generate approximately $1 billion per year in new revenue," Cuomo said Monday. "Our proposal offered that, when and if those revenues are realized, the government would effectively reduce their $1 billion payment by about $100 million for a net to New York of approximately $900 million. New York doesn't give Amazon $100 million. Amazon gives New York $900 million."Cuomo, who previously joked he'd change his name to "Amazon Cuomo" to seal the deal, called the agreement "one of the largest, most competitive economic development investments in U.S. history." Amazon received 238 proposals, including from Syracuse and other Upstate NY metro areas, before narrowing the list to 20 in January.The Democratic governor said other states offered more incentives, such as $7 billion from New Jersey, $8.5 billion from Maryland and $6 billion from Louisiana.Still, criticism came from the Post, The New York Times, CNN's parent company Warner Media, and the syracuse.com -- The Post-Standard editorial board. Some politicians, including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also opposed the "extremely concerning" tax breaks."This transaction is a lightning rod for the political rhetoric on both extremes. The extreme conservatives and the socialists both now vehemently oppose 'incentives' for Amazon, which is one of the most profitable companies in the country," Cuomo wrote. "Compounding the situation, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and Amazon and is a competitor to many interests currently involved in the discussion...""As for the local officials who now oppose the project, many of these same individuals signed a letter supporting the application for the same location knowing full well it was a national competition in which states and cities were putting together incentive packages. These same officials voted and authorized the long-standing economic development programs deployed in the Amazon transaction. It is pure political posturing."
A forged signature swapped for $1 -- or sometimes a cigarette.The crude exchange played out hundreds of times on L.A.'s skid row during the 2016 election cycle and again this year, prosecutors said Tuesday as they announced criminal charges against nine people accused in a fraud scheme.Using cash and cigarettes as lures, the defendants approached homeless people on skid row and asked them to forge signatures on state ballot measure petitions and voter registration forms, the district attorney's office said. The defendants -- some of whom were scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday -- face several criminal charges, including circulating a petition with fake names, voter fraud and registering a fictitious person.The charges, which were filed three weeks ago but made public Tuesday, followed a Los Angeles Police Department crackdown on suspected election fraud on skid row earlier in the year."They paid individuals to sign the names," Officer Deon Joseph, the senior lead officer on skid row, told The Times in September. "That's an assault on our democracy."State officials said petition signature scams aren't widespread in California, but Joseph said they do pop up from time to time on skid row. People hired to help qualify initiatives for the ballot are often paid per signature collected, typically $1 to $2, but officials said a recent slew of proposed ballot initiatives had pushed the rate as high as $6 a signature. It is illegal for the collectors, however, to pay people for signatures.Los Angeles police Capt. Marc Reina said officials used undercover officers and security camera video before arresting Kirkland Kauzava Washington, 38, one of the nine individuals charged by prosecutors. Washington allegedly set up a card table outside the Midnight Mission, where homeless people line up for meals and shelter, Reina said.Two other people arrested at the same time as Washington were either homeless or living in a single-room-occupancy apartment on skid row, but neither of them were among the nine defendants charged by L.A. County prosecutors."We didn't charge any homeless people," said district attorney spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales.L.A. County elections chief Dean Logan previously said it was unlikely the forgeries eluded his staff, who manually compare petition signatures with those on registration forms. But, Logan said, he worried about "any activity that causes voters to lose faith in the process."Washington, Harold Bennett, 53, and Louis Thomas Wise, 36, face up to six years and four months in prison. The others charged -- Richard Howard, 62, Rose Makeda Sweeney, 42, Christopher Joseph Williams, 59, Jakara Fati Mardis, 35, Norman Hall, 61, and Nickey Demelvin Huntley, 44 -- face up to four years and eight months in prison.
Description

GIS  21 November 2018: A conference focusing on the theme Evolution de la peche artisanale dans locean indien: contraintes, perspective et strategies, organised in the context of World Fisheries Day 2018, opened this morning at the Trevessa House, Seafarers Centre in Mer Rouge. The Minister of Ocean Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Premdut Koonjoo, and other personalities were present.

The three-day event, an initiative of the Federation des Pecheurs Artisans de lOcean Indien (FPAOI), aim at valorising the profession of fishermen and develop synergies with islands in the Indian Ocean. It also endeavours at enhancing collaborative works as well as cultural exchanges among the islands in the Indian Ocean. Some 50 delegates from Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros, Reunion, Rodrigues, including local representatives are attending the event.

In his address, Mr Koonjoo underlined that World Fisheries Day serves as an important reminder on the need to change the way global fisheries is managed as well as to maintain stocks and healthy aquatic ecosystems.

Government, the Minister highlighted, is putting in place several measures to facilitate the lives of fishermen and transform their fish catch into value-added fish product. These are namely: grant for the purchase of semi-industrial boats costing up to Rs 4 million; 60% grant (maximum Rs 60 000) for the purchase of boats engines and fishing nets; grant to a maximum Rs 200 000 to registered fishermen for the purchase of boats; fiscal exemption up to eight years on productivity; Octopus Fisheries Closure exercise; and training.

Moreover, Mr Koonjoo spoke about the need to sensitise the youth on the important contribution of the fishermen community in the advancement of the Mauritian economy, and, encourage young people to join the fishing industry thus help in making this sector one of the main pillars of the economy.

Speaking about the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (WFF), the Minister recalled that the WFF, an international network of small-scale fishing and fishing workers' organisations, was set up in 1997 to establish and uphold basic human rights, social justice and culture of small-scale fishermen and workers. The WFF, he emphasized, influences policies and ensures the effective participation of small-scale fishermen in decision-making processes and at the same time respects their rights and gives them due recognizance for their sacrifice and hard work.
(TNS)  Christine Sullivans last moments may have been captured by her Amazon Echo.A stray word might have activated the smart speaker as she called out the name of her attacker  either exonerating or providing a strong piece of evidence against Timothy Verrill, the man now charged with stabbing Sullivan and Jenna Pellegrini to death on Jan. 27, 2017, in Sullivans New Hampshire home.Or, in the hours before her death, Sullivan might have used her Echo to play music, make sensitive purchases, send an insulting message about a local politician, or do any number of private things of no particular importance to her case.Either way, state police and the Attorney Generals office want to know what Alexa, the female-voiced artificial intelligence that speaks from Amazons Echo smart speakers, heard that January night.The proper police procedures for searching a home or briefcase have been hammered out through decades of case law. But the question of how easy it should be for police to access the vast troves of data collected by the so-called internet of things  devices like Amazons Echo, Googles Home, smart toasters, and other household objects equipped with sensors and connected to networks  is far from settled law.Devices that record private conversations and network activity, sometimes even inadvertently and without the users knowledge, should not be treated as run-of-the-mill repositories of evidence, ACLU attorney Brett Max Kaufman wrote in an email. And the companies that users trust to operate these devices  must carefully scrutinize law-enforcement requests for this kind of data to ensure that their users rights are not trampled in the governments effort to exploit a new technology.With tech companies under intense scrutiny for the ways they protect user data, the Farmington double murder could prove an important test case for what kind of witness Alexa, or your refrigerator, could be.Amazon has not filed anything in response to a Strafford County Superior Court judges order that it produce two days worth of recordings. But its brief statement on the matter, and previous actions in similar situations, indicate it might not be ready to turn over Sullivans recordings so easily.Amazon will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us, the company said in a statement. Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course.In 2015, Arkansas police also sought Amazon Echo recordings while trying to solve a murder. In response, the company filed a 91-page memorandum arguing that police should have to meet a higher burden of proof to get a warrant for the recordings than they would to search a house, for example. The higher standard would include proving that there is no less intrusive way to obtain the information and establishing that there is a sufficient nexus between the device and the crime.Owners interactions with their smart speakers constitute protected free speech, the company wrote, and government requests to sift through those conversations would chill users from exercising their First Amendment rights to seek and receive information and expressive content in the privacy of their own home.The legal question wasnt settled in the Arkansas case, believed to be the first in the country involving smart speaker recordings. The defendant, who owned the Echo, agreed to turn the recordings over to prosecutors, who eventually dropped the murder charge against him.I find it hard to believe that the court system is going to adopt a policy, though, that would prevent this type of information from ever being turned over, said David OBrien, a senior researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. However, looking at it from Amazons point of view, they probably feel that meeting the heightened burden isnt that hard.Its the question of whether police must first exhaust every other less-intrusive means of obtaining the information they want that courts will really have to grapple with, he said.A persons privacy rights typically disappear when they die, so its possible that Amazon will not choose Sullivans murder as the venue to fight its battle. But Amazon seems to want to establish privacy for more than just its customers.In the Arkansas case, the companys lawyers didnt just argue that police needed to meet a higher burden of proof to obtain a warrant for the recordings of the Echos owner. Amazons lawyers claimed that the speech of Alexa, an artificial intelligence program, was also protected by the First Amendment. If a court ever ruled that way it could bring implications for the artificial intelligence industry.If AI ever does evolve to a point where it is actually the author of messages it creates rather than any human programmer  something on which futurists disagree vigorously  might it make sense to say the free speech rights belong to the AI? Toni Massaro, a law professor at the University of Arizona, wrote in an email. She and her colleagues have published several papers exploring the possibility of free speech rights for artificial intelligence.We conclude it is not inconceivable given how the courts approach free speech rights now, she added.In the nearer term, as lawyers for tech companies have to respond to more situations like the Farmington double murder, they may adapt the way they store recordings and data collected by smart devices.Right now, Amazon Echo owners can use a phone app to look up a transcript of every interaction theyve had with their device and delete portions of it.Mana Azarmi, a policy counsel for the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology, said its possible that companies will try to avoid storing the data themselves, or at all, and consumers worried about their privacy should push them to do so.Consumers should know what controls they have over these devices, she said. But also, there should be a demand for companies  knowing that these devices in the home are recording all kinds of sensitive information  that they should practice data minimization. Theres currently no obligation on them to do that.
In 2007, Dr. Dwight Mullen founded The State of Black Asheville as an undergraduate research effort at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Over the next 10 years, students utilized public data to compare outcomes by race and gender in the areas of education, housing, health care, criminal justice and economics.This research represented the most comprehensive effort to quantify the significant issues of racial equity that have existed in Asheville for decades. The data quickly became part of important policy discussions in the city and was the catalyst for Buncombe Countys innovative Isaac Coleman Economic Community Investment program When Dr. Mullen prepared to retire from the university in 2017, however, the project faced an uncertain future. As a former student of Dr. Mullen, I was eager to help, and we had already started planning a new website when the Code for America Community Fellowship program was announced. This program is designed to bring community and government partners together to tackle big issues facing cities across the country.We saw the Community Fellowship program as an opportunity to provide additional support during the projects evolution from an undergraduate research effort to a larger, community-driven resource. Furthermore, the Community Fellowship requires a government partner to sign on to the project; this allowed the Fellowship Team to build a strong, formal relationship with the city of Ashevilles Departments of Equity and Inclusion and Information Technology.Our Community Fellowship team in Asheville joins groups from Honolulu, Austin, and San Jose in piloting a new model to bring principles of civic technology and 21st-century government to communities across the country. This new approach provides direct support to volunteers from the Code for America network to scale up efforts in their own communities, while providing the structure to build formal partnerships between technologists, community advocates, and government entities.Code for America has already inspired a large volunteer movement through their Brigade network  bringing people together through the shared vision that government can work for the people, by the people, in the digital age. The Community Fellowship program is designed to leverage the existing relationships and local knowledge these groups possess to spur innovative projects to help vulnerable populations. It also gives volunteers an idea of what its like to really work in government, and gives government an idea of what its like to have civic technologists on staff.Our local brigade, Code for Asheville, has been actively involved with the citys open data efforts, starting with an Open Data Policy in October 2015 that has facilitated the release of over 200 data sets on Ashevilles Open Data Portal . In 2018, following the leak of body-cam footage showing an incident of police brutality, Code for Asheville led a community-driven petition effort calling for greater transparency around data sets related to public safety.Weve also produced several apps that are powered by open data provided by the city, including AVL Park and AVL Crime , so we knew quite a bit about the citys existing data sets and the effort required to put that information in a format that can be easily utilized by our community.For the State of Black Asheville project, we developed a vision of accessing public data in new and innovative ways, but quickly realized we had a few challenges to overcome. Most city data starts in structured query language (SQL) databases, and SQL is a great tool for the job of aggregation and statistical analysis  exactly what we need to show useful charts. Open data application programming interfaces (APIs), however, dont typically support these aggregation operations of grouping and filtering data. Instead they provide row-level information such as the details on a single permit, call for service, or a traffic stop.One technology had the tools we needed for the required data processing, and the other had the tools necessary for a dynamic Web application. We had to figure out a technical approach to handle this missing piece in the way open data is provided to the public today.Our Community Fellowship provided the perfect framework to work together with our government partners on a solution. We worked with the citys IT team to produce a read-only replica of its existing Postgres server. This was a win in itself  for the first time, anyone can use existing SQL tools to look at city data!Asheville had already developed an app, SimpliCity, which consumed their public data using modern Web technologies like React and GraphQL . We realized that our needs on the State of Black Asheville website were similar  interface with city data and visualize it in a way that makes sense to community members. Additionally, all of Ashevilles code was already published on GitHub.We decided to take an approach that is surprisingly rare in civic technology: rather than trying to build a better mousetrap, we actually built off of the citys existing repository. We decided to build our visualization library in React, and to interface with Ashevilles data using a GraphQL server forked from its own version for SimpliCity.We built a generic statistics endpoint on the citys GraphQL structure to provide us with a flexible method to query any city data set, allowing us to utilize an SQL-style syntax to perform aggregation and filters to produce the exact analysis we need in a dynamic manner. We had found our bridge that would allow developers to efficiently process city data while making it accessible to any modern Web application.Shortly after, Asheville identified an internal project with a similar need: an easy way to access statistics related to permitting trends in the city. So, we finally got to do something very exciting: submit a pull request back to the city so that they could deploy our enhancements. The close working relationship created by the Community Fellowship allowed us to identify a common need, and this example of code-level collaboration will provide benefits to everyone involved.Asheville saves valuable staff time by eliminating the need to develop the data feeds critical to performance metrics and operational dashboards. The Community Fellowship team benefits by having their modifications merged into a repository that is maintained by city work plans and deployed to their existing infrastructure.The Asheville IT department does a great job of committing to open source, modern technologies, and they publish most of their work onto GitHub to encourage community contributions. The Code for America Community Fellowship has allowed us to develop some successful strategies for civic tech collaboration, and were learning some important lessons along the way.For government to build truly collaborative efforts around open source software, it is essential that we go beyond simply sharing code and start to build working relationships around challenges that are common to both government and community efforts. By working together on shared technology, we can start to unlock the true potential of civic technology and 21st-century government.
(TNS)  Last year, as the Tubbs Fire scorched its way across Napa and Sonoma counties, environmental researchers at the University of California, Davis, fielded questions about the health impact of chronic exposure to smoke from a wildfire that torched trees and urban structures alike.UCDs Kent Pinkerton and Rebecca Schmidt and other researchers had the same questions. They sought studies on urban wildfires and found no answers.Everyone had concerns about their health and what was in the smoke, said Schmidt, who studies how environmental exposures influence child development. We just didnt have any answers to those questions, and when we looked and searched to see what was out there, we really found there wasnt much.Yet studies on air pollution do offer up clues to what happens when the human body is under assault from microscopic particles in the air, Pinkerton said. The UCD professor has spent decades studying the effects of air pollution on lung inflammation and disease.Longer-term, Pinkerton said, the health of people breathing in smoke from the wildfires might well depend on the degree of their exposure and whether the microscopic particles floating in the air manage to worm their way deep into lungs and circulatory systems.When exposed intermittently to bad air days, Pinkerton said, the average healthy person may experience irritated eyes, scratchy throats, a cough, maybe tightness of the chest, even wheezing. Other experts said people also report shortness of breath, headaches and nosebleeds.Various hospitals around Northern California are reporting a slight uptick in emergency room visits by people experiencing respiratory issues: In Sacramento, that includes both Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Medical Center.Other hospitals are seeing a surge of patients: In Sonoma County, emergency room doctors at St. Joseph health hospitals reported an influx of patients equal to what they saw when the Tubbs Fire raged across their county last year.It isnt so much about breathing the air thats closest to the fire, said Dr. Chad Krilich, chief medical officer for Sonoma County for St. Joseph Health. Its being in the area thats experiencing air quality issues. You dont necessarily need to be living in Paradise to be having these issues. Were actually seeing that play out in the volumes in our emergency departments. Were seeing lots of folks with respiratory issues.Doctors urged residents to monitor air quality, either through government sites such as www.airnow.gov or www.sparetheair.com , or via local news media. Stay indoors as much as possible, said Dr. Nicole Braxley, medical director of the emergency department at Carmichaels Mercy San Juan, and use N95 respirator masks when outdoors.Even if youre a completely healthy person, theres no reason to expose yourself to these particles, Braxley said. You might cause yourself harm.With progressive exposure to the wildfire smoke, Pinkerton said, healthy people tend to adapt to the conditions: Their eyes are not quite so irritated. They dont necessarily have that scratchy throat anymore. They cough less and their throats arent as tight.When we have repeated exposures, our bodies hunker down, Pinkerton said. It says, OK, I know this is a bad situation, so Im going to make some changes. The changes are all subconscious. We may breathe a little less deeply. Our cells might be a little bit more responsive in terms of not putting up lots of inflammatory factors. The epithelial cells that line our airways would become tolerant, meaning theyre not so easily damaged.Does that mean there is no risk of longer-term damage to the body?Actually, Pinkerton said, chronic exposures to fine particulates could elicit other responses.For instance, theres evidence that it can lead to asthma. In 1996, as the Olympics got underway in Atlanta, city officials acted to minimize the amount of traffic allowed within city limits, Pinkerton said, and there was a statistically significant drop in the percentage of people coming to emergency rooms with asthmatic symptoms.Links also have been found between exposure to traffic pollutants and problems with pregnancies, Pinkerton said. Studies have shown that pregnant women who live downwind of freeways were more likely to have premature births and to deliver low birth-weight infants. Both conditions are associated with higher risk of infant mortality.And, Pinkerton said, research also has shown that animals that breathe in particulate matter while pregnant have a tendency to deliver offspring with asthmatic lungs.One of the greatest concerns that researchers have, Pinkerton said, is whether an embryo will have a tougher time implanting to the uterine wall if its mother is exposed to the fine particulate matter of wildfire smoke during the first trimester.While doing research in Napa and Sonoma counties, Schmidt met several women who asked whether breathing in wildfire smoke could have caused them to lose their babies. She had to tell them there was no answer yet to that question. They asked to be included in the study, Schmidt said, because they wanted the answer.For that study, Schmidt and her team collected bio-specimens from the women  hair, blood, saliva, even placenta and umbilical cord blood. They will use the hair to check for bio-markers of stress, and theyll also look at the specimens to determine which pollutants were present and measure their impact.UCD researchers have funding to follow the babies progress for a year and are seeking funds to continue monitoring them through preschool. Their mothers have provided information on their exposure to the fire and to smoke and on protective measures they took, so researchers will be able to compare children who had greater exposure to those who had less. Theyll also be able to compare all the children to data on children in the general population.Respiratory and reproductive systems are not the only vulnerable targets in the body.Pinkerton explained: When we talk about particulate matter, or PM, we always think, Oh, well, the target organ is the respiratory tract, the lungs, but far more people have problems with cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality due to PM exposure than respiratory conditions.The fine particles being deposited in the lungs dont necessarily stay there, Pinkerton said, and even if they do, that doesnt mean their presence isnt felt by other parts of the body. Researchers have posited several theories about how these particles affect other organs and systems.The most common belief is that, during the lungs exchange of oxygen into cells, the microscopic particles hitch a ride into the circulatory system and subsequently cause problems in human organs or in blood vessels.The greatest concern, Pinkerton said, is that these particles are attaching themselves to plaque formations in blood vessels. Those formations are already bad news, because theyre composed of fat, cholesterol, calcium, and other substances. Its believed, Pinkerton said, that the particles could provoke inflammation that ultimately triggers a heart attack or stroke.Another theory, Pinkerton said, is that particles in the airway can disrupt how critical nerves perform their job. There are nerves in the bronchial tree that give automatic feedback to the heart and brain: Narrow the airway. Expand the airway. Speed up the heartbeat. Slow down the heartbeat.In essence, these nerves are part of the control system for the human flight-or-fight mechanism, Pinkerton said, but when the tiny particles land in the bronchial tree, they somehow delay or dampen the signal. That means the heart no longer immediately responds, said Pinkerton, noting that these are relationships UCD researchers found as part of their research on the health effects of secondary cigarette smoke.Because of the dearth of research on fine particulate from wildfires, an interdisciplinary team of UC Davis researchers sought funding from the National Institutes of Health to study the impact of breathing in fine particulate from wildfires in urban areas.The data from those studies is just coming in for analysis: survey responses from hundreds of people living in or near the wildfire boundaries, analysis of ash and gases from urban neighborhoods like Santa Rosas Coffey Park that were consumed by the blazes, sophisticated computer models of the movement of the smoke plume.This kind of scientific research is challenging, Schmidt said, and the toughest part is going to people who have been traumatized by the disaster and asking them to participate in a study. When they approached residents in fire-stricken communities, she said, roughly 2,000 households and 200 women pregnant at the time of the Tubbs Fire volunteered to participate.Usually, when we think about poor air quality, what were dealing with is a day or two, not a prolonged, several-day period, Pinkerton said. If we continue to have bad air for more than a week, that certainly is a concern. ... We oftentimes have asked the questions: What is the effect of chronic exposure? Is there a cumulative effect every day that we breathe particles? Is it building up? Is it doing something in that way?Researchers at UC Davis are moving closer to some answers.2018 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)Visit The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) at www.sacbee.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Claire Rubin shared another great resource, Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery. While it says "city," I think you can replace the word "city" with "community." Rural areas, for example, also have a sense of place and history that makes for a defined culture. Culture sometimes can be ignored when "do-gooders" from the outside come in and try to help immediately, and do not first delve into the culture of the area trying to recover from a disaster.See the description of the publication below:"As urban growth and development continue at a breathtaking pace across the world, cities are increasingly bearing the brunt of conflicts, crises and disasters, which themselves are growing in number, magnitude and complexity. The convergence of these two trends  increasing urbanization and growing crises  demands an enhanced approach to city reconstruction and recovery, one that puts culture at its heart. Elaborated by the World Bank and UNESCO, this Position Paper outlines one such approach, the Framework for Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery, also known as the CURE Framework. The CURE Framework is a culture-based approach to the process of city reconstruction and recovery in post conflict, post disaster and urban distress situations that accounts for the needs, values and priorities of people."
(TNS)  A new, dockless bikeshare has rolled into Honolulu to provide some competition for Biki, but in a slow and cautious way  and with considerable hurdles ahead. Sharee , Honolulus first dockless bikeshare, which allows riders to lock and unlock bikes via a smartphone app, officially launched Oct. 20 but has only about two dozen bikes in circulation. Most are at Ohana Hale Marketplace on Ward Avenue, but a few are in Chinatown, two are in Haleiwa, one is in Kakaako and one is at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.Basically, we thought there was an opportunity here to introduce a dockless bikeshare system, said Sharee CEO Alexander Wong. We knew it would be very complicated because of other factors involved, whether it was working with private property owners, working with government, working with fellow neighbors and locals alike. We thought it was a good initiative in terms of trying to reduce the number of traffic from rental cars.Wong, a startup entrepreneur with 20 years of retail travel experience, launched the bikeshare under Neptune New Solutions LLC. It is a for-profit venture but has the same stated goal as the city: to help reduce Honolulus carbon footprint.While the company has 400 registered, licensed bikes ready to go, most are sitting in storage.Dockless bikeshares have operated in other metropolitan cities for at least three years, and Wong said he thought they would be viable in Honolulu.The GPS-enabled Sharee bikes have a white frame, 24-inch wheels with green trim, and are equipped with a basket, smartphone clip and solar-powered lights. The bikes are single-speed for easier maintenance for the first phase of the rollout, according to Wong.They can be parked and locked at any public bike rack instead of docked at stations that take up parking spaces in neighborhoods, he said.To access the bikes, riders download the free Ride Sharee app, enter a phone number, pay with a credit card, then scan a QR code that unlocks the bike.One nifty feature is a reserve option, which allows riders to park and lock the bike for up to 15 minutes to run a quick errand, then resume the ride, at no extra charge. A rider who chooses the reserve button and returns before 15 minutes can unlock the bike and continue riding. Beyond 15 minutes the ride automatically ends.Lime of San Francisco attempted in May to launch dockless, electric scooters by placing them on Honolulu sidewalks overnight but was quickly booted by the city administration, which said they could not legally be parked on sidewalks.Lime, which got its start with dockless bikeshare systems (typically for $1 per half-hour), in July got a boost from Uber, which invested in its scooter startup and agreed to offer its service on its app. Lime recently announced the launch of its first car-sharing service in Seattle but has not attempted, so far, to return to Honolulu with dockless electric scooters or bikes.Sharee is asking riders to park only in the locations indicated on the app or at public bike racks. There are hundreds of bike racks throughout urban Honolulu, according to Wong, who is also working with private landowners to establish some parking zones.The company requests that riders not park the bikes on a residential lanai, inside a housing compound or in an above-ground or underground parking garage.The city issued a statement in response to Ride Sharees launch.The city supports the development of multimodal transportation alternatives and welcomes Ride Sharee as another option for residents and visitors to explore our city, said Jon Nouchi, city transportation services deputy director. It appears Ride Sharee is committed to a business model that utilizes only private property to conduct all commercial transactions to rent bicycles that are self-powered by the rider. However, all companies should be aware that city property, including public bicycle racks, cannot be used for commercial transactions until and unless they first obtain authorization from the city.While Sharee bikes can be parked at public city bike racks, renting one from a public rack would be considered a commercial transaction, according to the city.Wong said a patrol team tracks, monitors and collects the bikes nightly. Those left at city racks will be returned to the companys home base at Ohana Hale Marketplace within a day or two.The cost of a 30-minute ride is $3.50, with a minimum down payment of $10. Riders who put down $50 will get an additional $10 in free rides, with no time limits on when to use them.Ride Sharee is charging the same amount as Biki for a single-use, 30-minute ride at $3.50.Wong said he wanted to be competitive with Biki but not undercut Honolulus first bikeshare system, which is run by Bikeshare Hawaii, a nonprofit offering approximately 1,000 bikes at 100 Biki stops from downtown Honolulu to Diamond Head. Biki also offers monthly plans and a free spirit pass, a bank of 300 minutes usable at any time. Biki , which was launched in June 2017 with a $2 million subsidy from the city and state, recently announced it would be expanding by about 30 more stations and 300 more bikes by the end of the year with funds from the federal Transportation Alternative Program.Bikeshare Hawaii and our Biki program welcomes all shared modes of transportation that help to make our community healthier, greener and safer for all, said Bikeshare Hawaii Executive Director Todd Boulanger in a statement.He said the docked system was chosen by the community after it reviewed multiple options, including two dockless systems.As Biki ridership continues to grow, we are proud that other companies are recognizing the benefit and demand for bicycles and other transportation alternatives in our community, continued Boulanger.In the future, Wong said, Ride Sharee would implement a tiered paying system, with discounts for students and seniors, and possible promotions in partnership with local businesses. Data on routes will be shared with the University of Hawaii for planning purposes. The replacement cost for a lost or missing bike is $1,000.Wong said he is also following developments on Bill 57 , introduced by city Councilman Trevor Ozawa last summer, which sets up rules and fees and would require new bikeshare systems, whether docked or undocked, to obtain a city permit before providing their services. The bill is still in budget committee and has not been scheduled for a third hearing yet.While dockless bikes and scooters have mixed reviews in other cities  with vandalism, theft and rampant parking on sidewalks as issues  Wong said he is taking a leap of faith in humanity, believing most people will use Sharee bikes responsibly.As more people move into high-rise condos with limited space, he said he believes more will participate in a sharing economy.Sharing technology is a bet on the human race, he said. It is a bet that humans are civilized and will treat and respect property as if it is their own. To use common sense and take care of the overall community with regards to how to park, how to ride and respect for your fellow human being.
(TNS)  No one in the tech industry wants to deal with a patchwork of state privacy laws regulating their industry, but companies that dont collect large amounts of consumer information and sell or share it  the good actors  also dont want a want a new federal privacy law that lumps them in with bad actors like Google and Facebook.The Wikimedia Foundation, for example, filed comments with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) asking for a privacy law that is reasonable and proportional.The foundation  a nonprofit that hosts information websites like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource and others  collects very little information on its users and requires its editors to use pseudonyms to protect their personal identity and information.Unlike Google, these important protections mean that we hold a unique place as one of the few large internet platforms that do not rely on tracking or sale of user data to generate revenue, the foundation stated in its filing The foundation believes it is important for a federal privacy law to preempt a patchwork of state laws because dealing with 50 different privacy laws is exceedingly difficult for a smaller companies and nonprofits.The foundation also wants any new NTIA regulations to be both flexible and proportional, and has expressed concerns that the former might trump the latter.Flexibility in a regulation ensures that everyone has the ability to address privacy concerns in a way that is most intuitive to them, the foundation states. This is an important goal and should remain in the NTIAs framework. However, proportionality in a regulation ensures that the burdens are not equally placed on every actor, despite vast differences in their operations.The Wikimedia Foundations priority is a federal privacy law that is reasonable and proportional so that it doesnt burden tech companies of different types and sizes.We strongly believe that the goal should not only be reasonable minimization [of data collected], but simply minimization,' the foundation states. After all, minimization does not mean that no data must be collected, but that what is collected is as little as possible. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we intentionally minimize the data we collect on users in order to encourage free and open participation on our projects.The foundations point is that what is a minimization of data collection for the Wikimedia Foundation may look very different from what is a minimization of data collection for Google.I think it comes down to context, SiteLocks Research Security Analyst Jessica Ortega told InsideSources. Transparency could mean something really different for Google. For a company like Wikimedia, transparency could mean an email or a public link to all their records sent out to all their customers.One way to fulfill the foundations wish for proportionality is to create a privacy law with purposefully vague language, Ortega said.But a vague law could let the bad actors off the hook and fail to adequately protect consumers. While a more specific law could better protect consumers, it could also stifle innovation and hurt companies like the Wikimedia Foundation.Its not inherently bad for consumers, because it could mean stronger security measures, but it could also become weaker security measures, Ortega said. So theres definitely a case for being more specific, but when you make it more specific you lose innovation.Roslyn Layton, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) specializing in tech policy, told InsideSources that there are ways to ensure the kind of proportionality the Wikimedia Foundation wants in a privacy law while still cracking down on the bad actors like Google and Facebook.One way is a safe harbor, Layton said. If you have a checklist and do a certain set of things, then you shouldnt worry about the law coming after you. A safe harbor could address that proportionality issue. When they do enforcements and look at antitrust issues, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) takes this perspective: if you are 0.001% of the marketplace, theyre not going to look at you. You need to have a sizable impact on the market.Because bad actors like Google and Facebook are the reason for privacy talks, formulating a law to address their vices while being fair to good actors will be a substantial challenge for Congress.On the one hand you want a comprehensive approach but not comprehensive enforcement, Layton said. If in fact you only want to go after the big players, then why do you want comprehensive legislation?
(TNS)  North Dakota has issued a cease and desist order against a company that claims it offers security services for cryptocurrency.State Securities Commissioner Karen Tyler announced the order Monday against Union Bank Payment Coin (UBPC), accusing the company of "promoting unregistered and potentially fraudulent securities in North Dakota in the form of an initial coin offering (ICO), a financing method used by startups to raise funds, according to a news release. Companies create virtual coins or tokens to sell online to investors through ICOs in exchange for crypto- or fiat currency, the release said."Because ICOs are sold over the internet and pitched heavily through social media platforms, North Dakotans can be exposed to the offers whether the promoter is down the street or on the other side of the globe," Tyler said in a statement. "Financial criminals continue to cash in on the hype and excitement around blockchain, crypto assets, and ICOsinvestors should be exceedingly cautious when considering a related investment."UBPC stated it wanted to become the "world's first security token backed by a fully licensed bank," but the North Dakota Securities Department claims the company is attempting to fraudulently acquire funds by exploiting an announcement by Union Bank AG, a bank in the European country of Liechtenstein."The (UBPC) website further indicates that the Union Bank Payment Coin ... is a 'security token offering' that is invested in as a tool or mechanism "designed to store wealth by utilizing income-producing digital assets," the release said. "The company also represents it is issuing a 'stable coin that is fully backed by a fiat currency  the Swiss franc.' "The order came after the state set up an ICO Task Force through Tyler's office in an effort to identify investments related to cryptocurrency that pose risks to North Dakotans, the release said. It's also part of Operation Cryptosweep, a multi-jurisdiction investigation that include agencies from 40 U.S. and Canadian securities regulators.Cryptocurrency is a digital asset that can be used to exchange goods on the internet.This isn't the first order issued by the state against a company offering cryptocurrency services. The Securities Department issued similar order in October against Crystal Token, Advertiza Holdings (Pty) and Life Cross Coin, also known as LifecrosscoinGmbH.
Is Dunkins espresso really better than Starbucks? Lets find out. Photo: Melissa Hom

First they dropped the Donuts. Now, in its ongoing quest to convince the country that America really does run on Dunkin, the Massachusetts-based chain has unleashed its most antagonistic product possibly ever: A new espresso that is so enjoyable, Dunkin execs say, you dont have to go to Starbucks.

Grub loves coffee drama, and a direct shot across the bow of the worlds biggest coffee chain is enough to get our attention. So we tapped three coffee experts  Erika Vonie of Trade Coffee, Ezra Baker of Orens Daily Roast, and Kayla Baird of Joe Coffee  to put these claims to the test. The plan: hit a Dunkin, a Starbucks, and one objectively good coffee shop, and compare their shots of straight espresso to see whether the doughnut chains new espresso lives up to the hype.

The Great Coffee

We wanted to establish some quality parameters, so we went to Everyman Espresso, one of the very best coffee shops in New York. The baristas happily informed us that they were using a single-origin coffee from Guatemala for the shops espresso and the shots themselves were served in porcelain cups. Perfect shots require excellence at every step of the coffee-making process: growing, roasting, grinding, and extraction. Theres a reason people call them God shots. Everymans may not have been truly life-changing, but the shots were superb nonetheless. Vonie from Trade noted that Everymans espresso was immediately sweet and creamy, with a really nice raisin note that lingered and a warmly spiced graham-cracker taste that took over as it cooled down. It was difficult to imagine Dunkin living up to that.

Dunkin

After waiting in line at a nearby Dunkin and ordering our coffee, our experts were immediately surprised to see a relatively nice crema atop three of the four shots. They noted, however, that there was zero sweetness to the Dunkin espresso. Theres not even any acidity, Vonie said. It has a really nice body, but its super bitter and it kind of rips all the moisture out of the center of my throat because the beans have been torched.

It tastes like charred vegetables, Baker said. Its like drinking smoke.

There is one upside to such an aggressive flavor profile: our tasting panel agreed that this espresso would probably hold up pretty well in a latte and make it taste like coffee ice cream. (Its also worth noting that the total for all four shots was less than $5, making it by far the cheapest of our three stops.)

Starbucks

Unlike the Dunkin espresso, the Starbucks shots carried a sharp, almost burnt smell. The (presumed) culprit: over-extraction. According to Vonie, one-third of a coffee bean is water-soluble and only about 22 percent of that third produces good flavor. When the coffee grounds get over-extracted, the drying and astringent elements of the beans get mixed in with the sweet and creamy elements that make coffee taste good. The final assessment: Over-extraction meant the Starbucks espresso was real bad, and it was immediately clear why the chain tends to sell its espresso with loads of dairy and syrups.

The Verdict

According to our panel, Dunkins espresso is indeed better than what you can find at Starbucks  but barely. It just comes down to the extraction, Baker said. And Dunkins was better extracted than Starbucks.

You can have a lower quality coffee, Vonie explained, but if you make it better, itll taste better.
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Man jailed in theft case

The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld a verdict issued by the Court of First Instance sentencing a warehouse worker to nine months in jail to be followed by deportation and fining him Dhs135,000 after he was convicted of breach of trust and offering a bribe to his colleague to enable him to steal electric cables from a warehouse belonging to a company he worked for.


Joint Monitoring And Evaluation Commission Reconstituted

The Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) was reconstituted at a meeting convened on Monday 19 November 2018 by H.E. Dr Ismail Wais, the IGAD Special Envoy to South Sudan.

The IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan, Ambassador Ismail Wais [Getty images]

ADDIS ABABA, 19 November, 2018 [Gurtong]-The Special Envoy commended the IGAD Council of Ministers for their support of the Revitalized Peace Agreement as well as the Government of South Sudan and the Parties for their commitment to the peace process.



JMEC Interim Chairman Ambassador Lt. Gen. Njoroge told the members of the reconstituted JMEC: This august body is now reconstituted, made more inclusive, and bestowed with significant power and responsibility to monitor the Parties and stakeholders adherence to the implementation of the revitalized Peace Agreement. I can assert that we have the attention of the region as well as the people of South Sudan, and we must do our utmost to deliver.



The meeting was attended by the Parties to the Agreement and other stakeholders, comprised of faith-based leaders, eminent personalities, and representatives of womens groups, the business community, civil society, youth, and academia. Also present were the Regional Guarantors and the International Partners and Friends of South Sudan.



The reconstituted JMEC resolved as follows:



 Welcomed the reconstitution of the reconstituted JMEC by IGAD and expressed deep appreciation to H.E Dr. Ismail Wais, the IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan for his personal contribution that led to the success of the revitalization process.



 Congratulated the Interim Chairman Ambassador Lt. Gen. and all the representatives nominated to the reconstituted JMEC.



 Endorsed the statement of the reconstituted JMEC Interim Chairperson on the status of implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement.



 Commended the Parties for the positive steps taken in the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement, in particular nominations of representatives to the various institutions and mechanisms of the Peace Agreement and for the ongoing confidence building, and encouraged further progress.



 Endorsed the reconstituted JMEC Rules of Procedure 2018.



 Took note of the reports of the UNMISS, National Constitutional Amendment Committee (NCAC) and Ceasefire and Transition Security Arrangements Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM), and thanked the SGSR H.E Mustafa, and the Chairperson of NCAC Mr. Gichira Kibara for the good work and called for the immediate implementation of

their recommendations.



 Called upon all parties and stakeholders to observe the permanent ceasefire in all parts of the country without exception and to guarantee unimpeded humanitarian access.



 Commended the outgoing Chairperson of CTSAMVM Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Abduljelill for his contribution to the peace process in his tenure and welcomed the new CTSAMVM Chairperson Maj. Gen. Desta Abiche.



 Appealed to the international partners and friends of South Sudan to support implementation of the Pre-Transitional activities of the Revitalized Peace Agreement.



 Called upon the IGAD Office of the Special Envoy to ensure the immediate establishment of the Joint Defense Board, International Boundaries Commission and Technical Boundaries Committee.



 That next reconstituted JMEC meeting should be convened on 12th December 2018 in Juba.
Lapland is home to the northernmost university of applied sciences in Europe, Lapin AMK, which teaches close to 6000 students at campuses in Rovaniemi, Tornio, and Kemi. Over 500 of those students now hail from outside of Finland, choosing Lapin AMK to study one of their English language degrees or as part of a study exchange program.

As Finland redoubles its efforts to attract more international students, little attention has been paid to the far north of the country, where a small but rapidly-growing cohort of students from across the world are choosing to call this winter wonderland their home.

We spoke to students currently completing their degrees there to find out why they chose Lapland, and how the experience has shaped them.

Orsi, a 21-year-old international business student from Hungary, says that choosing Lapin AMK was the best decision shes ever made. After finding out about the course from a friend who she visited in Rovaniemi, she decided she wanted to experience Finlands world-class education system first hand.

Once Id decided on Lapland, my family just couldnt talk me out of it. The atmosphere here is great, its like high school at a university level. Classes are so small that all the teachers have time for you, and you tend to bond with your classmates quickly.

Orsi says the best advantage of her course, which is taught entirely in English, is that it is so hands-on. Students work in real business environments and collaborate on real-world projects rather than spending time on essays and exams. As part of Lapins Arctic Youth Forum, she and her classmates have organized an event called the Arctic Business Network, which will draw businesspeople from across the region to Rovaniemi for a summit.

Her class consists of students from across Europe and beyond, all of whom enjoy an active social life thanks to the students union. Of the locals, she says that Lappish people tend to be really open to internationals, and that the relaxing pace of life is what she enjoys most.

There is a surprisingly huge amount of opportunities here I know Ive made the right choice.

Steven meanwhile, is a third-year nursing student from Vietnam, who came to Finland after a long career in finance, which he found unfulfilling.

He now studies practical nursing with classmates from the US, China, Kenya, the UK, Cameroon, and Hungary, and says the cultural exchange element has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the course, saying you learn to bring out the best in each other

Despite the severe weather, which frequently drops below -30C in the winter, the environment is a major draw for Steven, who enjoys walking across the frozen sea near his home in Kemi to explore the islands.

The degree track is equally as hands-on, involving placements with hospitals across the region. While Steven has already secured post-study work as a practical nurse in Helsinki, he says the Finnish language requirements for the course have proven to be the biggest challenge, and that his Finnish is still basic.

The university offers language training for non-Finnish speakers, while the community college in Rovaniemi also offers courses throughout the year.

In terms of part-time work, the vast majority of international students work in Laplands booming tourism industry, as guides, shop assistants, waiters, translators, and hotel staff. The students we spoke to also expressed a strong desire to remain in Finland after graduation, either to continue their studies or to start their career here.

Katja Mattila, the officer for alumni relations at Lapin AMK, said that this is a very unique place, as well as a beautiful area to study. Many of our students quickly fall in love with the area and want to stay here. Its a true community where everybody knows everybody, and the teachers are highly approachable.

There is a total of five English-language courses offered in Lapland AMK; International Business, Business Information Technology, Nursing, Tourism, and a Masters Education in Business Administration (MBA).
Photo for illustration (Source: thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn)

Diverse activities such as Korean - Vietnamese cooking class, performances of the Vietnamese dance group Lotus and Korean dancing group Cycle and Korea - Vietnam Talent contest will be held to popularize specific culture of the two nations. In addition, there are some 100 booths introducing products of Vietnam - Korea.

Especially, the highlight is the performance of Vietnamese and Korean artists promising to bring an exciting atmosphere to visitors.

Entrance is free./.
Indian President Ram Nath Kovind delivers a speech at the plenary session of the 14th National Assemblys 6th meeting (Photo: VNA)



He made the statement when delivering a speech at the plenary session of the 14th National Assemblys 6th meeting on the morning of November 20th.

Ram Nath Kovind said that visits are vivid illustration of the sound relations between the two countries, citing the one by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 when both sides inked a historic agreement to upgrade their ties to comprehensive strategic partnership.

He said that his visit to Vietnam at the invitation of President Nguyen Phu Trong is the very first to the country and the first to Asia since he took office in 2017.

Regarding all-round cooperation, he said that the two countries have enjoyed strong bonds in economy, politics and people-to-people exchanges.

He described Vietnam and India as vibrant economies, saying that two-way trade reached USD12.8 billion in 2017. India is among ten largest trade partners of Vietnam while Vietnam and ASEAN have crucial roles in Indias trade balance.

Both nations have huge potential to cooperate and supplement each other in garment and textiles, agriculture and agricultural technologies, bio-tech and IT, energy and pharmaceuticals, infrastructure and mining, he said, underlining that Indian investors and service suppliers are eager to join the Vietnamese market.

The two countries continued committing to bilateral cooperation at space security and multilateral forums.

The Indian leader also expressed his hope that tourism collaboration will be further fortified, and both sides should work to increase the number of direct flights to connect the two nations.

National efforts of the two countries have been made for the prosperity in each nation, thus, promoting business relations and firm connection has played an important role in the progress, he highlighted.

The socio-economy has undergone substantial changes, and advanced technologies have changed lifestyles in both nations. India owns the largest startup ecosystem in the world, and is preparing to send an astronaut into space. The country stands ready to share experience with Vietnam in the fields of Vietnams interest and priority.

Vietnam and India shared their views on the settlement of disputes via peaceful means, respecting legal and diplomatic processes and in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).

On behalf of the Vietnamese National Assembly (NA), NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan thanks the Indian President for his speech, which highlighted the sound relations between the two countries.

She took the occasion to congratulate India on becoming the 6th largest economy in the world.

The Vietnam-India comprehensive strategic partnership has been developed in a sound manner, with political trust being tightened via regular high-level and people-to-people exchanges.

She said that the Vietnamese NA will do its utmost and join hands with the Parliament of India to consolidate the friendship for mutual benefits of the two peoples as well as for regional and global peace, prosperity, cooperation, and development./.
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He had what so many covet: a good job. His bank clerk position was entry level to be sure, but Frank Wells abilities and family connections would undoubtedly help him move up the ladder.The 20-year-old Connecticut resident,however,could not ignore the clarion call of patriotism, and he joined the Union Army as a second lieutenant of Company I, 13th Connecticut Infantry,on January 29,1862.He was appointed first lieutenant on February 20.

On March 23, the regiment departed from New York on board the ship City of New York bound for Ship Island,off the coast of Mississippi, a staging area for Federal troops.The new surroundings must have felt remarkably strange to the young New Englander.The portion on which the encampments are is entirely of sand.The other end of the island is wooded with swamps,and alligators are all around sunning,he observed.

On May 4, 1862, after the Navy had opened the southern Mississippi River to Union control, the 13th proceeded to Louisiana. On May 16,Wells was appointed commissary of the 1st Brigade and detached from the regiment.At some point during the summer of 1862, he wrote home about his situation:I am located in New Orleans.We have easy time of it.We have a nice house with everything necessary to a well-regulated establishment.When I was with General Phelps, I earned my pay, but it seems like cheating now.A bed is a luxury, isnt it? I hadnt had my clothes off in a long time before I came here.

On October 24, the regiment started up the Mississippi by boat. A few days later,after his first brush with combat,he wrote home. This is the kind of picnic I like best marching all day through an enemys country, seizing anything we want as we pass through these rich plantations and playing Yankee Doodle as we go through the villagesand sleeping at night in the open air with a big fire so near you as to burn ones bootsI never saw as fine a country as this is all along the Bayou,but I am not so enthusiastic about the reception they give us.I dont think I am more particular than most people, but there are far pleasanter sounds for me than the whistle of shells and minie balls.We had a nice brush at Napoleanville,eight miles back of here, and skedaddled a rebel battery supported by a tolerable force of infantry.

On April 13 and 14, 1863, the 13th took part in the Battle of Irish Bend.In a letter to his father written on the evening of April 14, Wells wrote,We drove the rebels from their positions at about two this afternoonI cant particularize about the conduct of the menthey stood like veterans minding the shots no more than they would white beans, and stood a raking fire of muskets for fifteen minutes (which is a hard test for any soldier).

Afterward he observed the more melancholy aspects of war:A battle is not a bad thing to read about or to see,but after the excitement is over and the maimed and bleeding forms of the brave fellows who were wounded or killed are all that tell the story and one thinks of the sad hearts in many a home, it is rather unpleasant.

In May the 13th joined the attack on the Confederate Mississippi River strongpoint at Port Hudson, La.The assaults of May 27 and June 14 were unsuccessful, and cost the Union many casualties.Wells came through both assaults without a scratch,but he noted, A bullet took a little piece out of the tail of my coat, and that is quite as severe a wound as I want for the present.

On June 15,the Union command called for volunteers to lead the next attack.Wells and nearly all the officers and many men of the 13th volunteered for this hazardous duty. The assault was never made, as the Union capture of Vicksburg made the surrender of Port Hudson inevitable.

In the months following the siege,Wells spent some time sick in the hospital and then on recruiting duty.In January 1864,he reenlisted as a veteran and was promoted to captain of Company B.That spring,the regiment took part in the Red River campaign,where Wells again escaped injury.

The 13th returned to New Orleans early in July.The reenlisted veterans were then sent home on furlough, but Wells was detailed to take charge of other men who were transferred to the 12th Connecticut Infantry in the Eastern theater under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan.

Captain Wells and his contingent journeyed to Maryland, and on August 1 he wrote to his sister from Monocacy: It is almost, not quite, worth losing a veteran furlough to be able to go on a campaign on Union soil for the first time.The people along the rail road show what seems to us accustomed as we are to the scowling Creoles of Louisiana,an immense degree of interest,giving apples to the men,helping them to get water and asking lots of questions which pleases the men greatly.

With Sheridans Army of the Valley at Halltown, just outside Harpers Ferry, he wrote to the assistant adjutant general of the 19th Army Corps on August 8 to ask again for a furlough.He got sick again,however,and was sent to an Annapolis hospital before he was granted the coveted reprieve.

Wells rejoined his regiment in September just as the army was preparing to attack the Confederates at Winchester,Va. Afew days later he wrote to his father.I left the hospital and by driving an ambulance myself all night from Harpers Ferry to Berryville,[was able] to reach the army at noon the day before the battle near Winchester.Was marching at two the morning of that glorious day and was in the first line that charged the rebels;it was an awful fight and the Johnnies were stubborn.Yesterday there was another fight [Fishers Hill] but although the proceeds were good it was not so sanguinary.Nineteen pieces of artillery,a good many prisoners and the utter demorilization of the rebel army are enough for one day.I thank my stars I was on my pins in time for the first victory that the Union army has had in the Shenandoah Valley.

Finally,on October 18,Wells was granted a five-day leave of absence in lieu of his missed veterans furlough.Before he left,however,early on the morning of October 19,the Confederates mounted a major surprise attack at Cedar Creek. After being driven from the field in the morning, the Federal troops rallied later in the day and counterattacked and routed the Confederates. It was Wells last major fight.

On December 11,Wells was made acting assistant adjutant general for Brig.Gen.Frank Molineux. On February 24, 1865, following the 19th Army Corpstransfer from Virginia to Savannah,Ga.,Wells was made acting aide de camp on the staff of Brig.Gen.H.W.Birge,a division commander for the 19th Army Corps.

After news of the end of the war reached him,Wells mused:What a comfort that no [offer of a] Conway Bank [clerks position] or [a girls] pretty eyes seduced me from my path of duty and made me leave the army before our final triumph.It is worth something to have had a few words with General Grant and a few more with General Sherman. Undoubtedly, his position as aide de camp to General Birge brought Wells into contact with top military leaders.

Wells also had the opportunity to see Jefferson Davis,who had been captured near Irwinville, Ga., when he went with General Birge aboard the ship in the Savannah River on which Davis and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens were being held.Wells recorded what he saw,including a manifestation of the rift that existed between Davis and Stephens.

About three oclockI went aboard the Emilie and steamed out to the Standish, the boat on which Davis and his party came from Augusta.My first glimpse of Davis was through the cabin window. He was engaged in the very natural occupation of buttoning his suspenders and pants.Allow me to testify that he did it very much the same as common men do the same thing.Vice President Stephensexpressed himself as sorry that he was to be taken north in the company with Davis as he (Stephens) had no desire to flee from the power of the Federal Government and did not wish to be confounded in the mind of the people with Davis and the other renegades.As they were going on the gangway from one boat to the other,I heard Davis say to his wife Now,my dear,we have to walk the plank.I have seen a good many distinguished men and talked to them since I have been in the army,but it was a special treat to fix my eyes on Jeff Davis for a half hour and try to imagine how he would look when he is being hung. Davis, however, was imprisoned for two years and then released.

Postwar duty in Georgia left Wells with much time to think back on the past several years.He wrote:Alone in my room tonightas I spend many of my evenings. I read some, write a little, smoke and look into the open fire more.An open fire is great company, as is my old pipe.I remember when I stood smoking it on the quarterdeck of the City of New York and saw the glistening spires of the thickly studded masts fade away in the distance.I remember too,very well,my first bivouac and the soldier who sat beside me and how I envied him as he filled his pipe and said,I smoked that at Bull Run.and again it is clear when I knocked the ashes out and put the old pipe in my pocket as the order to advance told that the battle of Irish Bend had begun.Goodness, I did not really know I had written so much about my pipe and myselfthe pipe deserves it, I dont.

On April 25, 1866,Wells and his regiment mustered out of the Army at Fort Pulaski,Ga.Wells returned to the banking business and eventually rose to the position of bank president at Brewster, N.Y. On June 22, 1867, in a retroactive action by the War Department,Wells was appointed to be Major by brevet in the Volunteer Force,Army of the United States,for gallant and meritorious services at Port Hudson,La.to date from March 13, 1865.

At a veterans reunion speech in 1879 he stated:I found it hard work while at Hartford to convince some of the old men of our company that I possessed a reasonable amount of fear while in battle. I think some of them thought I had no fear.Now, the truth of the matter is no one had a greater desire to live or a more full appreciation of the effect of a bullet than I did, but I never could see the necessity of getting excited or keeping my tongue still just because a generous shower of bullets were whistling around our ears. I had the thing solved down to a mathematical accuracy before the fight begun and never forgot it.To begin with,I thought, in quite a hot engagement, only about one man in four is usually hit at all. Of those hit, not more than one in seven is ever killed.

Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Americas Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
Gideon v. Wainwright leads justices to solidify right to counsel

Historically, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have tried diligently to do a good jobbut they are human, and they make mistakes. One of their biggest, in 1942, was Betts v. Brady. Scholars rank the decision 21 years later to overturn that ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright among the Courts dozen or so most important. Gideon concerns a simple, determined man with a checkered past and a compelling claim that American justice had done him an injustice. The issue: if a defendant cannot afford a lawyer, does the government have an obligation to provide that representation?

The topic is as old as the nation. The Sixth Amendment promises that in criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the Assistance of Counselbut says nothing about who pays for that counsel. Congress quickly realized that at times society should. Even before states had ratified the Sixth Amendment, Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1790 provided that in capital cases judges should assign counsel to all defendants who ask for help. Over time

judges came to arrange representation for indigent defendants in serious cases not subject to the death penalty. Local jurisdictions innovated in this arena; in 1913 Los Angeles, California, created a staff of city lawyers whose full-time job was representing indigent defendants. Finally, in 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires in every federal criminal case that the government provide a lawyer for a defendant requesting one.

That was in federal courts, however. Most criminal trials take place in state courts. Constitutional Bill of Rights guarantees do not automatically apply to the states. Until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, states were free to set their own juridical rules. The resulting standardthat states must assure due process of lawhad little meaning until the courts fleshed it out.

Justices hesitated to impose federal rules on state court trials. Only in 1932 did they address the issue of providing defendants with free attorneys, in a notorious prosecution in Scottsboro, Alabama, of nine black teens falsely accused of raping two white women. Voting 7-2, the court held that in some casesat least when a defendants life is at stakethe 14th Amendment requires states to supply not merely legal counsel, but effective legal counsel.

Ten years later, in Betts, the justices expanded on the Scottsboro holding. They refused to apply to state courts the federal court standard that every criminal defendant who wants an attorney must be given one. However, the 1942 ruling in Betts did acknowledge that in some cases an indigent defendants access to an attorney was so central to due process as to invalidate the conviction of such a defendant if that representation had not been provided. The tricky part was the in some cases proviso. A state court had to appoint a lawyer for an indigent defendant only when fundamental fairness demanded the state do so, the Court said. Justice Hugo Black issued a vehement dissent, arguing that states had to provide defendants lawyers in every felony case.

Almost impossible to apply in real life, the Betts standard predictably created not only confusion but a surge of litigation over whether a particular cases nuances required a lawyer.

Subsequent to 1942, the justices had to consider repeatedly whether a state wrongly withheld legal aid. The court usually found something in a case to trigger assigning a lawyerimproper prosecutorial conduct left unchallenged, or a youthful or unsophisticated or non-English-speaking defendant. The Betts rule simply was not working. When in 1963 the justices conferred privately on Gideon, Justice John Harlan said bluntly of Betts, It is a freak, and we should get done with it.

The justices had been seeking a chance to do just thatwith a case making a cleanbreak with embarrassing precedent by lacking conditions that by the Betts standard would require a court-appointed lawyer. A path opened when a petition, penciled by hand on lined paper, arrived from Clarence Gideon. Prosecuted for robbery in Florida, Gideon requested a lawyer. The state said no. Finding him guilty, a court sentenced Gideon to incarceration at Raiford Prison in Bradford County. From there he had written to the justices, asking that they look at his plight.

Gideon, 51, had a history of petty crimes. The latest: allegedly breaking into Panama City, Floridas Bay Harbor Pool Room and stealing change and bottles of beer and soda. A Panama City man testified that he saw Gideon leaving the pool hall at 5:30 a.m. Gideons lack of savvy on courtroom protocol sabotaged his efforts to defend himself. He was convicted and sentenced to five years at Raiford. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction, finding that under state law the judge had no duty to see that Gideon had an attorney.

The justices signaled clearly that this was a case in which they wanted to change national legal procedure: to represent Gideon before them, they appointed Abe Fortas, arguably the countrys most persuasive lawyer and soon to become a justice himself.

The court should have appointed a lawyer for Gideon, the justices all agreed. Due process demands such representation not only in special circumstances, but in every case, Justice Black explained in the Courts opinion. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours, he wrote. The decision personally vindicated Black, who 21 years before had assailed the logic of Betts. When the justices overturn a precedent, they typically do so with the excuse that time has brought new insight, obsolescing the prior decision. Not here. Blacks opinion declares, We think the Court in Betts was wrong. He told a friend, When Betts v. Brady was decided, I never thought Id live to see it overturned.

Events showed how correct the justices had been to rule as they did. Retried, Gideon was acquitted. His competent lawyer, hired by Florida, managed not only to impugn the sole prosecution witnesss reliability but hinted persuasively the man had been acting as a lookout for the actual robbers.

Clarence Gideons exoneration is not the reason Gideon v. Wainwright is one of the most important cases in Supreme Court history. Most states already required lawyers be provided for indigent defendants. In those states Gideon mandated no change. However, it did assure that state policy would not revert. And Gideon did reframe judicial procedure in the few states theretofore unwilling to provide lawyers to indigents. Florida alone released more than 1,000 prisoners because at trial courts in that state had unjustly denied those defendants requests for lawyers.

Gideons true legacy was to force America to scrutinize its system for providing the poor with legal aid and to institutionalize and rationalize that system. Rather than rustle up a lawyer each time an indigent defendant needed one, states and cities emulated the Los Angeles model, setting up public defender offices staffed with government-employed lawyers assigned to represent indigent defendants. The idea spread after Gideon; every state but Maine has such a program.
Though the Iron Brigade of the West was worn down and shot up by 1864, its soldiers were not about to shirk their duty.

Dawn came gray and damp to the Army of the Potomac camps at Culpeper,Virginia, on March 29,1864. A 6-inch snowfall of two days earlier was still slushy on the muddy ground. Along a railroad track a mile south of the town, small regiments in blue formed lines in a cold drizzlethe Army of the Potomac was waiting for a review by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.

One of the officers shivering in the rain was Lt.Col.Rufus Dawes of the 6thWisconsin Veteran Volunteer Infantry.His regiment was part of the famous Iron Brigade of the West,the 2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin,24th Michigan and 19th Indiana,which had earned a reputation for stout fighting at Antietam and Gettysburg. In 1862 and 1863, the brigade had been the pride of the I Corps of the Army of the Potomac,easily recognized by the tall black felt Model 1858 dress hats the men wore instead of the slouchy forage caps worn by most Federals.

By 1864,however,the once stalwart old I Corps was no longer.So many of its units, including the Iron Brigade,had been worn out and shot up that the corps had been dismantled over the winter of 1863-64 and merged into theVCorps.It was a bitter disappointment to the Iron Brigaders who were with the old corps when it was organized by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan in the Washington,D.C.,camps of 1861. The only bright spot was the order allowing them to retain and wear the red woolen circular badges marking the 1st Division of the I Corps instead of the Maltese cross of the V Corps.Those badges had been a great source of pride to the men from the West.

Corps badges couldnt keep them dry as the Iron Brigaders stood in the rain,disgustedly waiting for their new commanding general.To add to their sullen mood,twice before they had readied for review by Grant,but the general had failed to appear.

Grant and his escort finally did arrive, two hours late.The party passed slowly along the line. Like McClellan, Grant received loud cheers,but unlike his predecessor, he did not seem to notice them. He rode along in a slouchy unobservant way, one soldier said,with his coat unbuttoned and setting anything but an example of military bearing to the troops. Another thought Old Grantnot so hard-looking a man as his photographs make him out to be, but stumpy, unmilitary, slouchy and Western-looking; very ordinary in fact. Dawesimpression was more favorable:He looks like a plain common sense man,one not to be puffed up by his position nor abashed by obstacles.

But the 25-year-old Dawes,who had battled under various commanders at places such as the Cornfield at Antietam and a railroad cut at Gettysburg on July 1, was provoked by Grants offhand manner.There were,he admitted later,mixed emotions because the government had turned to a general who was not from the Army of the Potomac for the final push to end the war.Some soldiers welcomed the appointment because they hoped and believed fighting under Grant would end the war.Others were fearful because Grant never had confronted Robert E.Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia on a battlefield. Dawes wasnt sure what to think of the new man. He turned to face his regiment and said:As General Grant does not seem to think our cheering worth notice, I will not call for cheers. Maintain your position as soldiers.

When Grant reached the 6th Wisconsin, he was met with the required military salutes performed with exact precision,the hardened veterans standing as motionless as statues.The silence caught Grants attention more completely than the most thunderous of cheers.The lieutenant general halted, his gaze taking in the veterans of so many hard fights. Grant had never commanded these men in battle,their glory days had occurred when he was west of the Mississippi River.Nonetheless,the black hatsfighting prowess was well-known to Grant,and impressed with their reputation and soldierly bearing,the general decided they deserved additional recognition.

Grant took off his hat and made a low bow to the brigade. Regimental colors dipped in return salutes. Dawes said his Westerners understood the gesture immediately.It was to say,I did not come here for a personal ovation. It was a genuine Grantism and our men were highly pleased at it.Grant wants soldiers, not yaupers, Dawes soldiers told one another.

The story of the Iron Brigade of the West began in 1861,when the 2nd,6th,7th Wisconsin and 19th Indiana were brigaded together while camped near Washington.The regiments comprised the only all-Western brigade in the Eastern armies.We felt we were the test of the West,one private said. But for almost a year, officers and privates alike worried the war would be over before they could play a role.Of the four regiments, only the 2nd Wisconsin had seen action in the defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.

When the fighting did come in August 1862, it was almost more than the brigade could handle.The Westerners fought in four battles in less than three weeksGainesville or Brawners Farm, Second Bull Run, South Mountain and Antietam. It was during those weeks they became known as the Iron Brigade.

Private Jerome Watrous of the 6th Wisconsin said the name was first publicly attached to the brigade after the September 14 fighting at South Mountain, Md., by a newspaper correspondent who was at McClellans headquarters. The last terrible battle has reduced this brigade to a mere skeleton; there being scarcely enough members to form half a regiment, the reporter wrote in a dispatch printed September 22.The 2nd Wisconsin, which but a few weeks since numbered over nine hundred men, can now muster but fifty nine. This brigade has done some of the hardest and best fighting in the service.It has been justly termed the Iron Brigade of the West.

New Yorker soldiers claimed the name was stolen from them and that the original Iron Brigade was the 22nd, 24th and 30th New York regiments and 14th Brooklyn.I do not know that I can blame those western kids for taking up our name after we mustered out; but they should have added Jr.Making it the Iron Brigade,jr.,said one New Yorker.

An officer in the 24th New York said in a letter the name was attached to his brigade after a march that covered 50 miles in two days: Sixteen miles a day is considered good march, so you can see why we are sometimes called the Cast Iron Brigade.

The Wisconsin and Indiana men always believed there was no confusion, and it was their regiments that McClellan singled out as the Iron Brigade after the fighting at South Mountain. They were always careful to include a reference to their Western roots when using the name and noting it was won not by long marches, but by hard fighting.

Soon after South Mountain and Antietam, other soldiers began talking about a brigade of iron men from the frontier. But the reputation came at terrible cost.By gaining this name, we have lost from the brigade seventeen hundred and fifty men, a 7th Wisconsin man wrote home. We have never turned our backs to enemy in any engagement, although they have outnumbered us every fight we have had.

Joined after Antietam by the 24th Michigan,the brigade was engaged at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville and won everlasting laurels for its defensive stand at Gettysburg. But the heavy fighting in Pennsylvania, where the brigade lost 1,212 killed, wounded missing,or 65 percent of the 1,883 engaged,all but destroyed the five regiments. In many ways they never recovered.

The first sign of change came two weeks after Gettysburg.In complete disregard for tradition and morale, the 167th Pennsylvania was added to the brigade.The Pennsylvania unit had 800 men,more than all the survivors of the five original regiments,and had seen no serious fighting.But what most angered the veterans from Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan was the simple fact the new arrivals were ninemonth men and draftees.The Pennsylvanians were also sulky and mutinous because they believed their nine months had expired and they were entitled to go home. The first little difficulty with the new regiment,as a 7th Wisconsin man wrote in his diary,came on July 30,when the Pennsylvanians refused to go on guard duty and only did so after two or three of the mutineers were arrested.Two days later the drafted men refused to march.

The commander of the brigade was Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler, a former colonel of the 6th Wisconsin and a grim and serious New Englander with little patience. Cutler ordered the rest of the brigade to fall in with loaded weapons.The draftees were told they had five minutes to fall in and take arms.The 2nd and 6th halted in front of the Keystoners and took aim.That did it.The 167th fell in at the double quick.Within a short time,the regiment was transferred out of the brigade. The brass band belonging to the Iron Brigade serenaded them part way to the R.R., wrote a Midwesterner in his diary on August 5.

The return to an all-Western status lasted only a few days until the four companies of the 1st Battalion New York Sharpshooters were added to the brigade.The New Yorkers were three-year men and would stay with the brigade for most of 1864.As veterans they were generally welcomed, but the old Iron Brigade was not the same.No longer would the brigade be the deciding force in battle, and the men in ranks were beginning to realize that perhaps the Iron Brigades greatest days of service were behind it. Only several hundred remained of the 5,000 volunteers who had left Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan to save the Union.

That they were there at all in 1864 came down to the confusing and sometimes vexing veteran questionwhether the boys who enlisted in 1861 were willing to stay to see the war to its conclusion.Many of the volunteer regiments were reaching the end of their three-year enlistments just at a time when victory seemed a possibility.An order had been published June 25, 1863, giving authority for veteran reenlistments of all able bodied men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years,who have heretofore enlisted and have served not less than nine months. If three-fourths of the men on the roster of a volunteer unit would reenlist, the order said, then each soldier would receive a $402 bounty paid in installments (this at a time when privates collected $13 a month) and a 30-day furloughthe veteran volunteers to be sent home as a regiment to enjoy it.

The order caused a great stir. Many of the soldiers argued that the war probably could be brought to a successful conclusion within the year, and reenlistment would allow them to share the glory of a continuous service to the end of the war. It was the furlough that was a most tempting bait,but there were other matters just as important.Down in the hearts of the men there was the manhood of patriotism, one Iron Brigade veteran remembered,the feeling that the country needed them, and that they would not be contented at home while armies were contending.

The quandary was outlined in the diary of Charles Walker of the 7th Wisconsin:

October 5,1863:There is quite an excitement in camp about going into the VeteransCorps. The 19th Ind. took a vote on it tonight and they were all for it to a man.

October 6,1863:Went over to the Co.And put my name down for to go into the Veterans Corps.The boys are all going to a man.A lot of conscripts came in for the 2nd Brigade.

December 18, 1863:Very wet and sloppy underfoot. No inspection, but at noon we fell in without armsto find out how many were willing to go into the Veteran Corps and go home on a 30 day furlough.

Dec. 31, 1863:Was mustered in to serve 3 years longer.

January 1,1864:Signed the payroll and got my pay amounting to $194.50.

While a financial boon for some, the veteran question ended forever the associations begun in 1861.The 7th Wisconsin, with 249 on the rolls,enlisted 211 as veterans. The 6th Wisconsin, with 290 men, veteranized 227.The 2nd Wisconsin was used up and mustered only 40, with the remaining 170 to be sent home in June 1864 at the end of their three-year enlistment. The 19th Indiana reenlisted 213 menbut was somehow ruled short of the goal. The 24th Michigans three-year enlistment ran until 1865. Rufus Dawes wrote home the last day of 1863: The men, who have stood by the old flag through fair and foul weather, and through many bloody battles,almost to a man dedicated their lives and services anew to their country.

The month at home on veteran furlough the early weeks of 1864 was always remembered with fondness.Many of the soldiers of the 6th and 7th Wisconsin had not been home in almost three years,and the 30 days seemed to pass with great speed.One newspaper reported the furlough had gotten the men looking rugged and hearty.Another announced that the veterans had monopolized all the horses,cutters,sleighs and young ladys to be found in the vicinity and noted that Lieutenant William S. Campbell was wed to Millie Pixley in Portage City.

When the veterans returned,they found a flood of conscripts reaching the Army to be placed in the old regiments.There were a few volunteers, but most arrivals were drafted men or those who accepted bounties to join the Army.The tough veterans of the bloody fields of Antietam and Gettysburg were troubled by the new men cattle, one soldier called themand understood that safety in battle was best had by steadiness,persistence in firing,and most of all by holding together. Substitutes and drafted men, they said, weakened every battle line into which they were forced.No man can fight when surrounded by cowards who are easily panic stricken,and who are unrestrained by any consideration of pride from ignominiously running away to save their lives, one veteran said.

It was the bounty men who were most suspected and despised.The drafted men were given a grim acceptance by the veterans as fellows who just had bad luck to be conscripted, but were there doing their duty.Also among the new arrivals from Wisconsin were members of Indian tribes previously barred from service. Dawes wrote home that thousands of soldiers from other regiments gathered in wonder on the eve of the Battle of the Wilderness to watch a war dance by the rookie Ojibwas serving in the 7th Wisconsin.

The regiments were now inflated in numbers by the arrivals,but the new men were a different breed from the enthusiastic and eager volunteersof 1861. No longer were the companies made up of hometown boys. Strangers now served together in the same company.

There were also changes among the brigades officer corps, as the noncommissioned officers of 1861 traded in their stripes for the shoulder straps and additional responsibilities of commissioned leaders.The veterans, distrusting the new men, kept to themselves in small messes even as the companies and regiments readied for the campaign of 1864.

On May 5, the Army of the Potomac was plunged into what Dawes called that strange and terrible struggleof the Battle of the Wilderness.The brigade advanced in heavy woods with 344 men and 23 officers but lost its way in the dense underbrush and was struck on the flank and tumbled backward.As Dawes described:

I ordered a change of front on the color company to bring the regiment to face them.We here lost 40 to 50 men in a very few moments. The brush now served us well.The rebels came on yelling and firing.Our little band,as always under fire, clung around its colors.We rallied and formed twice or three times and gave the enemy a hot reception as they came on. When the rebels ceased pursuing us,we found ourselves alone as a regiment and lost in the woods,and we lay flat on the ground, not knowing certainly which way to go to join our troops.We were in the woods between the hostile lines and we felt our way cautiously back to the open ground around the Lacy House, where our corps was being formed after this repulse.

The fighting then moved to Laurel Hill and on to Spotsylvania Court House.The brigade was held in reserve and then moved forward in a driving rainstorm to within shooting distance of the Bloody Angle. We formed our line in the rear of the troops engaged and our orders were to move forward to their support, said Dawes of his 6th Wisconsin. He went on:

The mud was half boot-top-deep and filled with the dead of the battle over whom we stumbled in the darkness.At 100 feet,the line stalled,unable to advance.Sometime in the night I suspected the enemies were retreating. I then ceased firing and my exhausted men lay down as best they could and some laid their heads upon the dead and fell asleep.The rebel works presented an awful spectaclecrowded with dead and wounded, lying in some cases upon each other and several inches of mud and water.

The armies slid east and south to the North Anna River, where fighting raged for an hour with great fury. We came near being driven into the river, but the enemy has lost vigor in attack.Their men are getting so they will not fight except in rifle pits, a Wisconsin soldier wrote home.Dawes,in a letter written May 25, 1864, reported:I have had not a full nights sleep since May 7th when I took command of the regiment. Day after day, and night after night we have marched fought and dug entrenchments. I have not changed my clothing since May 3rd.Unwilling to lay siege to Richmond, Grant moved portions of his army over the James River to encircle Petersburg and began a siege of that city.

The Iron Brigade,meanwhile,continued to dissolve.The 2nd Wisconsin was detached so it could be sent home after three years. It was the first of the four original regiments to leave the brigade for good.Two companies of soldiers who enlisted after 1861 were later to be mustered into the 6th Wisconsin.The 19th Indiana was consolidated with the 20th Indiana,and a short time later,the 24th Michigan was sent to Fortress Monroe on Virginias coast and then to Baltimore to take charge of camps of drafted men.The regiment halted its travels at a draft rendezvous at Springfield, Ill., where it would serve as part of the honor guard for the burial of Lincoln in 1865.

The brigade also witnessed the explosion of a large mine in an attempt to blast open the Confederate line at Petersburg. Private William Ray of the 7th Wisconsin recorded in his diary for June 30, 1864:

Half past 4:00 arrived and with it the shaking of the ground awakened me. I rocked to and fro, looked at the ground to see the crack that might engulf methe mine had burst.There wereparts of things whirling and whizzing in the air.It was a grand sight.Just as soon as the thing burst, hundreds of pieces of artillery and different kinds and thousands of small arms belched forth Death and Destruction into the enemys lines. I fired as fast as I could. Five minutes after the fort blew up, our men piled over and into the fort and we see rebs coming in.Oh how our boys cursed and damned them and damned the officers for not reinforcing our brave fellows when the rebs would charge on them.There is something wrong says the boys.The boys yell too much commissary allowed meaning of this the officers was too drunk on commissary whiskey.For last night when our bridge ammunition team came up with ammunition they brought a barrel of whiskey. I suppose thinking that would be needful to insure success. But the rank and file didnt get a smell.

During the last half of 1864 there was fighting in Virginia at Globe Tavern,the Boynton Plank Road and the Weldon Railroad.The Battle of Hatchers Run came in early February 1865. For a time during those months, the 6th and 7th Wisconsin served in the brigade with several hundred drafted and bounty men.In March 1865, the 91st New York, a heavy artillery organization converted to infantry, arrived to fill the brigade. The three regiments now numbered 3,000 men.

On April 1, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan and elements of the V Corps overran the enemy at Five Forks,and the fighting led to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.We saw an officer come riding down the lines,his horse wet and covered with lather, a Wisconsin soldier remembered of the final day.As he passed along we saw the boys caps went up in the airthe shout rang with cheers.As he came in front of us,he shouted,Gen.Lee and army had surrendered to Gen.Grant.We yelled for joy for we knew the war was ended.

After the war, when the final tally was made, the Iron Brigade of the West was given a melancholy honor:During the four years of the war,1,131 soldiers from its five regiments were killed or died of wounds,a higher proportion of casualties than any other brigade in the Union armies.

Lance J. Herdegen is currently serving as the historical and content consultant for a new Civil War museum under construction at Kenosha,Wis. He is the author of several books, including The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name.

Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Americas Civil War. To subscribe, click here.
President Nguyen Phu Trong and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind witness the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry's Department of Foreign Affairs and Indian Business Association (Source: VNA)



The joint statement said during their talks, the two Presidents discussed bilateral ties and regional and international issues of common concern in a warm and friendly atmosphere.

The two leaders reiterated the time-honoured friendship between the two countries and agreed that bilateral ties have developed strongly across the fields following the establishment of a strategic partnership in 2007 and the elevation of ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016.

On the basis of the good bilateral ties, the leaders agreed to maintain regular visits at all levels and in all channels of Party, State, Government, legislature, localities and people-to-people exchange, as well as the regular operation of bilateral cooperative mechanisms while effectively implementing signed agreements.

The two leaders agreed that defence-security cooperation is an important pillar of the bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and reached a consensus on effectively implementing the Joint Vision Statement on Vietnam-India Defence Cooperation for 2015-2020.

They agreed to boost cooperation in personnel training, cyber security, information sharing, among others.

The leaders took note of strong growth in bilateral trade and expressed belief that the goal of USD15 billion in bilateral trade will be achieved early.

They urged the building of specific plans to realise signed agreements on promoting trade, while calling for removing trade obstacles, including technical and non-tarrift barriers, and stressing the need for close coordination and regular consultations to address problems arising in bilateral trade.

The leaders agreed to continue promote bilateral investment ties, including joint schemes between the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India in exploring and exploiting oil and gas on land, continental shelf and exclusive economic zone of Vietnam.

The Vietnamese President appreciated Indias long-term and continuous support in various forms for Vietnams development projects.

The two sides agreed to focus on implementing Indias non-refundable aid and preferential credit for Vietnam as well as annual projects under Indias Quick Impact Projects (QIPs) fund for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The leaders agreed on the importance of stronger connectivity between Vietnam and India and pledged to push the disbursement of the USD1 billion credit package for infrastructure and digital connectivity projects in the framework of the ASEAN-India cooperation.

The leaders welcomed bilateral coordination in cultural activities and heritage conservation, and affirmed their support of exchanges between their friendship organisations and scholars. They also promised to facilitate the operation of each others press and media agencies.

The two sides agreed on the importance of people-to-people exchange and tourism.

On regional and international issues of common concern, the two leaders shared many viewpoints. They affirmed the importance of building a peaceful and prosperous Asia and Indian-Pacific regions on the basis of respect for sovereignty and international law, navigation and aviation freedom.

The Indian President valued Vietnams contributions as coordinator of ASEAN-India ties in 2015-2018. The Vietnamese President affirmed support of Indias Act East policy and hailed Indias support of ASEANs central role in the forming regional structure.

The two sides pledged to continue coordinating and supporting each other at multilateral forums, especially those in the framework of the United Nations, and re-affirmed mutual support for each others candidacy as a non-permanent member in the UN Security Council, Vietnam in the 2020-2021 tenure and India in the 2021-2022 tenure.

The two sides expressed concern about current developments in the East Sea and reiterated the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation and overflight as well as no obstruction of economic activity in the waters. They emphasized the need to fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea and early finalise an effective and binding Code of Conduct. They underlined the importance of settling disputes by peaceful measures, including fully respecting legal and diplomatic processes in line with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The two sides condemned terrorism in all forms, and Vietnam shared Indias concern that terrorism is one of the most serious threats to global peace, security and stability.

President Ram Nath Kovind invited his Vietnamese counterpart to visit India, which the latter accepted with pleasure./.
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Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind (Source: VNA)



The two sides agreed to regularly maintain visits and meetings at all levels, as well as people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, and effectively implement existing cooperation mechanisms and seek new measures to promote bilateral relations.

PM Phuc took the occasion to convey his invitation to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to visit Vietnam.

The two leaders highlighted the effective defence cooperation between the two countries, agreeing that it is a key pillar of the bilateral ties. They applauded the implementation of the 100-million-USD credit package to support Vietnams border forces in building high-speed patrol boats.

They stressed the need to give priority to promoting economic cooperation in the coming time, towards soon reaching the goal of USD15 billion in two-way trade.

The two leaders suggested concerned ministries and sectors hold dialogues to explore possibilities to open up their markets, especially for goods of their strength.

PM Phuc thanked Indian leaders, especially Prime Minister Modi, for their goodwill and willingness to discuss solutions to reduce trade protection, thus protecting the interests of Vietnamese enterprises.

He appreciated India's investment in fields of its strengths and meeting Vietnams demand such as energy, renewable energy, and high-tech agriculture.

The two sides agreed to intensify cooperation between the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India and the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), especially in terms of stepping up the search and exploration of oil. They also agreed to actively implement the memorandum of understanding on cooperation in oil and gas exploration projects in third countries.

PM Phuc and President Kovind stressed the need to expand collaboration in the spheres of information technology, science-technology, culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchange, saying that there is huge potential for the two sides to boost their links in these fields.

They also emphasised that it is necessary to increase connectivity, while agreeing to lay smooth conditions for Vietjet to soon operate direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to New Delhi.

The two sides agreed to continue working closely and supporting each other at regional and international forums, especially within the United Nations.

Regarding the East Sea issue, the two leaders agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea; and peacefully settling disputes in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, and soon concluding an effective and binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea./.
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Voters follow along as Fire District Moderator Paul Harsch reads the act enabling expansion of the district's Prudential Committee.

Williamstown Fire District Voters OK Expansion of Prudential Committee



Prudential Committee members Ed Briggs and Ed McGowan follow Tuesday's special district meeting. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Williamstown Fire District on Tuesday approved a plan to restructure the way the district is managed.

Sixteen voters checked in to a special district meeting, where they unanimously approved a proposal to expand the Prudential Committee, which governs the town's Fire Department, from three to five members.

The same vote also authorized the district to change its clerk/treasurer position from an elected to an appointed office.

Both changes require a change to the district's charter and, therefore, need an act of the Legislature. If that blessing is received, the current Prudential Committee has announced its intention to hold a special election to increase its membership in advance of the regular May election.

The expansion was, in part, a reaction to comments the Prudential Committee members have heard over the years about under-representation in the district's governance.

The same criticism has led the committee in recent years to take steps like moving the annual district meeting to Williamstown Elementary School, site of Tuesday's special meeting. The committee also occasionally has held its monthly meetings at Town Hall, where it can be filmed by the town's community access television station, WilliNet.

Changing the clerk/treasurer position to an appointed office will allow the Prudential Committee to name the most qualified person it can find to the specialized office.

The fire district operates as its own taxing authority apart from town government. It holds a separate annual meeting to approve its budget and its own annual election of officers apart from the rest of the town elections.

The Prudential Committee is the functional equivalent of the town's Select Board and hires the fire chief, just as the Select Board hires a town manager to run town departments.
The tree is installed at Park Square on Wednesday morning. PreviousNext

Pittsfield's Places Annual Christmas Tree in Park Square



The tree is escorted to Park Square from Euclid Avenue. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The city's Christmas tree arrived in Park Square on the eve of Thanksgiving.

Standing about 35-feet tall, the Colorado blue spruce was donated to the city by Timothy and Susan Rapkowicz of Euclid Avenue.

Susan Rapkowicz said the couple planted the tree in their yard when they first moved into the home more than 30 years ago.

"I always wanted to put lights on it but it wasn't an option. Now it will be a very special Christmas tree because it will now have lights on it and will be in memory of our family members who have since passed away," she told city officials.

City workers felled the tree from the property Wednesday morning and with the help of LP Adams, which donated the use of a crane for the installation, installed it at Park Square.

The annual tree lighting ceremony is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.

The event typically features music from the Taconic High School chorus, Santa and Mrs. Claus arriving by fire truck to meet with children, and free hot chocolate.

Residents are typically asked to bring non-perishable food items to be donated to a local food pantry at the tree lighting.
Two officers receive decisions on joining the peace-keeping mission in South Sudan. (Photo: VnExpress)





On November 20, the Ministry of National Defence handed over the State Presidents decisions to two officers to assign them to take on duty at the United Nations peace-keeping mission in South Sudan.

Under the decision, Major Tran Duc Huong and Captain Nguyen Phuc Dong will serve as military observers at the South Sudan mission, bringing the total number of Vietnamese officers at the mission to five.

Handing the decision to the two officers, Senior Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam Peoples Army, expressed his belief that the two officers will unite and do their utmost to realize the missions. He also urged them to abide by the rules of the UN peace-keeping mission and local laws and customs.

Receiving the decision, Major Tran Duc Huong shared his feeling that the duty is both an honour and a challenge. We are proud of directly participating in the UN humanitarian activities, contributing to bringing peace and stability in countries that still report conflicts, he said.

According to Senior Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh, over the past 4 years, the nation has dispatched 27 officers to UN peace-keeping missions in Central Africa and South Sudan. In October, Vietnam, for the first time, sent a level-2 field hospital to South Sudan./.
November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - American militarism has gone off the rails -- and this middling career officer should have seen it coming. Earlier in this century, the U.S. military not surprisingly focused on counterinsurgency as it faced various indecisive and seemingly unending wars across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa. Back in 2008, when I was still a captain newly returned from Iraq and studying at Fort Knox, Kentucky, our training scenarios generally focused on urban combat and what were called security and stabilization missions. Wed plan to assault some notional city center, destroy the enemy fighters there, and then transition to pacification and humanitarian operations.

Of course, no one then asked about the dubious efficacy of regime change and nation building, the two activities in which our country had been so regularly engaged. That would have been frowned upon. Still, however bloody and wasteful those wars were, they now look like relics from a remarkably simpler time. The U.S. Army knew its mission then (even if it couldnt accomplish it) and could predict what each of us young officers was about to take another crack at: counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fast forward eight years -- during which this author fruitlessly toiled away in Afghanistan and taught at West Point -- and the U.S. military ground presence has significantly decreased in the Greater Middle East, even if its wars there remain infinite. The U.S. was still bombing, raiding, and advising away in several of those old haunts as I entered the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Nonetheless, when I first became involved in the primary staff officer training course for mid-level careerists there in 2016, it soon became apparent to me that something was indeed changing.

Our training scenarios were no longer limited to counterinsurgency operations. Now, we were planning for possible deployments to -- and high-intensity conventional warfare in -- the Caucasus, the Baltic Sea region, and the South China Sea (think: Russia and China). We were also planning for conflicts against an Iranian-style rogue regime (think: well, Iran). The missions became all about projecting U.S. Army divisions into distant regions to fight major wars to liberate territories and bolster allies.

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One thing soon became clear to me in my new digs: much had changed. The U.S. military had, in fact, gone global in a big way. Frustrated by its inability to close the deal on any of the indecisive counterterror wars of this century, Washington had decided it was time to prepare for real war with a host of imagined enemies. This process had, in fact, been developing right under our noses for quite a while. You remember in 2013 when President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began talking about a pivot to Asia -- an obvious attempt to contain China. Obama also sanctioned Moscow and further militarized Europe in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Crimea. President Trump, whose instincts, on the campaign trail, were to pull out of Americas Middle Eastern quagmires, turned out to be ready to escalate tensions with China, Russia, Iran, and even (for a while) North Korea.

With Pentagon budgets reaching record levels -- some $717 billion for 2019 -- Washington has stayed the course, while beginning to plan for more expansive future conflicts across the globe. Today, not a single square inch of this ever-warming planet of ours escapes the reach of U.S. militarization.

Think of these developments as establishing a potential formula for perpetual conflict that just might lead the United States into a truly cataclysmic war it neither needs nor can meaningfully win. With that in mind, heres a little tour of Planet Earth as the U.S. military now imagines it.

Our Old Stomping Grounds: Forever War in the Middle East and Africa

Never apt to quit, even after 17 years of failure, Washingtons bipartisan military machine still churns along in the Greater Middle East. Some 14,500 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan (along with much U.S. air power) though that war is failing by just about any measurable metric you care to choose -- and Americans are still dying there, even if in diminished numbers.

In Syria, U.S. forces remain trapped between hostile powers, one mistake away from a possible outbreak of hostilities with Russia, Iran, Syrian President Assad, or even NATO ally Turkey. While American troops (and air power) in Iraq helped destroy ISISs physical caliphate, they remain entangled there in a low-level guerrilla struggle in a country seemingly incapable of forming a stable political consensus. In other words, as yet theres no end in sight for that now 15-year-old war. Add in the drone strikes, conventional air attacks, and special forces raids that Washington regularly unleashes in Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and Pakistan, and its clear that the U.S. militarys hands remain more than full in the region.

If anything, the tensions -- and potential for escalation -- in the Greater Middle East and North Africa are only worsening. President Trump ditched President Obamas Iran nuclear deal and, despite the recent drama over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has gleefully backed the Saudi royals in their arms race and cold war with Iran. While the other major players in that nuclear pact remained on board, President Trump has appointed unreformed Iranophobe neocons like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to key foreign policy positions and his administration still threatens regime change in Tehran.

In Africa, despite talk about downsizing the U.S. presence there, the military advisory mission has only increased its various commitments, backing questionably legitimate governments against local opposition forces and destabilizing further an already unstable continent. You might think that waging war for two decades on two continents would at least keep the Pentagon busy and temper Washingtons desire for further confrontations. As it happens, the opposite is proving to be the case.

Poking the Bear: Encircling Russia and Kicking Off a New Cold War

Vladimir Putins Russia is increasingly autocratic and has shown a propensity for localized aggression in its sphere of influence. Still, it would be better not to exaggerate the threat. Russia did annex the Crimea, but the people of that province were Russians and desired such a reunification. It intervened in a Ukrainian civil war, but Washington was also complicit in the coup that kicked off that drama. Besides, all of this unfolded in Russias neighborhood as the U.S. military increasingly deploys its forces up to the very borders of the Russian Federation. Imagine the hysteria in Washington if Russia were deploying troops and advisers in Mexico or the Caribbean.

To put all of this in perspective, Washington and its military machine actually prefer facing off against Russia. Its a fight the armed forces still remain comfortable with. After all, thats what its top commanders were trained for during the tail end of an almost half-century-long Cold War. Counterinsurgency is frustrating and indecisive. The prospect of preparing for real war against the good old Russians with tanks, planes, and artillery -- now, thats what the military was built for!

And despite all the over-hyped talk about Donald Trumps complicity with Russia, under him, the Obama-era military escalation in Europe has only expanded. Back when I was toiling hopelessly in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army was actually removing combat brigades from Germany and stationing them back on U.S. soil (when, of course, they werent off fighting somewhere in the Greater Middle East). Then, in the late Obama years, the military began returning those forces to Europe and stationing them in the Baltic, Poland, Romania, and other countries increasingly near to Russia. Thats never ended and, this year, the U.S. Air Force has delivered its largest shipment of ordnance to Europe since the Cold War.

Make no mistake: war with Russia would be an unnecessary disaster -- and it could go nuclear. Is Latvia really worth that risk?

From a Russian perspective, of course, its Washington and its expansion of the (by definition) anti-Russian NATO alliance into Eastern Europe that constitutes the real aggression in the region -- and Putin may have a point there. Whats more, an honest assessment of the situation suggests that Russia, a country whose economy is about the size of Spains, has neither the will nor the capacity to invade Central Europe. Even in the bad old days of the Cold War, as we now know from Soviet archives, European conquest was never on Moscows agenda. It still isnt.

Nonetheless, the U.S. military goes on preparing for what Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller, addressing some of his forces in Norway, claimed was a big fight to come. If it isnt careful, Washington just might get the war it seems to want and the one that no one in Europe or the rest of this planet needs.

Challenging the Dragon: The Futile Quest for Hegemony in Asia

The United States Navy has long treated the worlds oceans as if they were American lakes. Washington extends no such courtesy to other great powers or nation-states. Only now, the U.S. Navy finally faces some challenges abroad -- especially in the Western Pacific. A rising China, with a swiftly growing economy and carrying grievances from a long history of European imperial domination, has had the audacity to assert itself in the South China Sea. In response, Washington has reacted with panic and bellicosity.

Never mind that the South China Sea is Beijings Caribbean (a place where Washington long felt it had the right to do anything it wanted militarily). Heck, the South China Sea has China in its name! The U.S. military now claims -- with just enough truth to convince the uninformed -- that Chinas growing navy is out for Pacific, if not global, dominance. Sure, at the moment China has only two aircraft carriers, one an old rehab (though it is building more) compared to the U.S. Navys 11 full-sized and nine smaller carriers. And yes, China hasn't actually attacked any of its neighbors yet. Still, the American people are told that their military must prepare for possible future war with the most populous nation on the planet.

In that spirit, it has been forward deploying yet more ships, Marines, and troops to the Pacific Rim surrounding China. Thousands of Marines are now stationed in Northern Australia; U.S. warships cruise the South Pacific; and Washington has sent mixed signals regarding its military commitments to Taiwan. Even the Indian Ocean has recently come to be seen as a possible future battleground with China, as the U.S. Navy increases its regional patrols there and Washington negotiates stronger military ties with Chinas rising neighbor, India. In a symbolic gesture, the military recently renamed its former Pacific Command (PACOM) the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

Unsurprisingly, Chinas military high command has escalated accordingly. Theyve advised their South China Sea Command to prepare for war, made their own set of provocative gestures in the South China Sea, and also threatened to invade Taiwan should the Trump administration change Americas longstanding One China policy.

From the Chinese point of view, all of this couldnt be more logical, given that President Trump has also unleashed a trade war on Beijings markets and intensified his anti-China rhetoric. And all of this is, in turn, consistent with the Pentagons increasing militarization of the entire globe.

No Land Too Distant

Would that it were only Africa, Asia, and Europe that Washington had chosen to militarize. But as Dr. Seuss might have said: that is not all, oh no, that is not all. In fact, more or less every square inch of our spinning planet not already occupied by a rival state has been deemed a militarized space to be contested. The U.S. has long been unique in the way it divided the entire surface of the globe into geographical (combatant) commands presided over by generals and admirals who functionally serve as regional Roman-style proconsuls.

And the Trump years are only accentuating this phenomenon. Take Latin America, which might normally be considered a non-threatening space for the U.S., though it is already under the gaze of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). Recently, however, having already threatened to invade Venezuela, President Trump spent the election campaign rousing his base on the claim that a desperate caravan of Central American refugees -- hailing from countries the U.S. had a significant responsibility for destabilizing in the first place -- was a literal invasion and so yet another military problem. As such, he ordered more than 5,000 troops (more than currently serve in Syria or Iraq) to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Though he is not the first to try to do so, he has also sought to militarize space and so create a possible fifth branch of the U.S. military, tentatively known as the Space Force. It makes sense. War has long been three dimensional, so why not bring U.S. militarism into the stratosphere, even as the U.S. Army is evidently training and preparing for a new cold war (no pun intended) with that ever-ready adversary, Russia, around the Arctic Circle.

If the world as we know it is going to end, it will either be thanks to the long-term threat of climate change or an absurd nuclear war. In both cases, Washington has been upping the ante and doubling down. On climate change, of course, the Trump administration seems intent on loading the atmosphere with ever more greenhouse gases. When it comes to nukes, rather than admit that they are unusable and seek to further downsize the bloated U.S. and Russian arsenals, that administration, like Obamas, has committed itself to the investment of what could, in the end, be at least $1.6 trillion over three decades for the full-scale modernization of that arsenal. Any faintly rational set of actors would long ago have accepted that nuclear war is unwinnable and a formula for mass human extinction. As it happens, though, were not dealing with rational actors but with a defense establishment that considers it a prudent move to withdraw from the Cold War era Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia.

And that ends our tour of the U.S. militarys version of Planet Earth.

It is often said that, in an Orwellian sense, every nation needs an enemy to unite and discipline its population. Still, the U.S. must stand alone in history as the only country to militarize the whole globe (with space thrown in) in preparation for taking on just about anyone. Now, thats exceptional.

Danny Sjursen, a TomDispatch regular, is a U.S. Army major and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his podcast Fortress on a Hill, co-hosted with fellow vet Chris Henriksen.

[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffers new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky's novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt's A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy's In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower's The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.

Copyright 2018 Danny Sjursen

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Lies And Propaganda

Trumps Statement Giving Saudi Arabia A Pass On Khashoggi Murder By Aaron Blake President Trump on Tuesday pretty much erased any doubt that he wouldnt hold the Saudi royal family accountable for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi  even as the CIA has concluded with high confidence that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was behind it. Perhaps anticipating a damning report, Trump released a long, exclamation-point-laden statement preemptively making the case for not punishing Mohammed or his father, King Salman, even if they were involved. Its a remarkable statement that even includes a smear against the slain journalist, while insisting that Trump didnt believe the smear. Below is the statement in full, with our annotations. November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraqs fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, Death to America! and Death to Israel! Iran is considered the worlds leading sponsor of terror. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States! Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body. Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world! I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First! This article was originally published by " Washington Post " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Clapper: Killing of Saudi journalist displays that Trump will accept the words of autocrats Trump exaggerated importance of Saudi arms sales Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
By Finian Cunningham November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - British Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly urged that the "national interest" is at stake over her Brexit plan. She is calling for businesses and politicians to rally around safeguarding ordinary people's jobs and livelihoods - and to back her draft divorce deal with the European Union. A parliamentary vote is due in the coming weeks. However, the timing of a shocking report on British poverty by the United Nations makes May's appeals rather hollow, and it sounds an alarm about the dire direction the country is headed. Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur, spent two weeks visiting diverse communities across Britain, and his report on growing poverty makes a damning case against the economic policies of present and past Conservative governments. From Brexit to Brokexit'

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What's more, the report concludes that poverty in Britain is likely to become even more acute and widespread following the country's departure from the European Union. While the deadline for divorce is at the end of March next year  only four months away  Britain is facing years of economic uncertainty in its transition out of the bloc, during which period the impact will be hardest on low-income people, according to the UN study.

Another factor is that Britain will no longer receive social development funds from the EU which had helped mitigate deprivation in many marginalized communities. Those who advocate for Brexit often complain that British taxpayers' money is funneled to Brussels as part of its membership of the bloc. They claim that after Britain quits the EU, then these funds will be available for spending on British public services.

Such logic is questionable in light of the UN poverty report. Prof Alston's investigation found that social deprivation in Britain has been compounded by "mean-spirited" and "callous" government policies which have prioritized economic austerity cutbacks over public welfare.

So, if successive British governments have not shown much care towards poor people over the past eight years, out of a dubious ideological conviction, then why would they suddenly adopt a caring attitude in a post-Brexit period?

Much more realistic is the expectation that as Britain undergoes wrenching changes to its economy over Brexit, the callous attitude of the political establishment will ensure that the disadvantaged become even more disadvantaged in order to pay for the costs of transition.

Admittedly, if a Labour government were to come to power in the next few years, then social policies could be more humane and progressive to improve the conditions for ordinary workers and their families, the unemployed, pensioners and those requiring long-term health care. But that's speculative. It might not happen.

What we can say for now is that the present government under Theresa May is making an insulting appeal that her Brexit plan is in the national interest. Whatever about the consequences for the rich elite, May's Brexit plan is certainly not in the interest of low-income Britons and the burgeoning ranks of the poor.

It is true that many working-class Britons voted for Brexit in the June 2016 referendum. But did they envisage what the consequences would entail? They were also sold a lot of false promises by the likes of Boris Johnson and other British toffs who fantasize about rejuvenating Rule Britannia Empire.

The UN report notes that Britain is the fifth richest economy in the world. Yet it has one of the highest rates of poverty among so-called developed nations. That's dysfunctional capitalism for you.

Since Conservative governments embarked on an ironclad policy of economic austerity, over the past eight years some 39 billion ($50 billion) has been axed from public welfare and services. Those cuts have directly impacted communities and social conditions turning cities, towns, villages and housing estates into depressed zones of blighted lives for millions of people. The UN report found record numbers of Britons subsisting by going to food banks and other charitable centers in order to get their next meal. That is even the case for people who have jobs, such is the rampant poverty-in-work culture across Britain.

Record numbers of people are living rough on the streets. Some have resorted to prostitution just to buy food. Or joined criminal gangs as a way to survive. Charles Dickens would have lots to write about if he were still alive.

A damning figure is this: the $50 billion that Conservative governments have cut in public spending over eight years is comparable to what Britain spends every year on its military budget.

The only way that Brexit would be in the national interest is if the country somehow acquires a government that is truly democratic and committed to social justice. A government that is courageous and willing to challenge the abysmal gap between rich and poor, to embark on social and economic policies that prioritize the needs of workers and ordinary people, not the rich elite.

The record of the British establishment shows that it has negligible concern for the working people of Britain, and is only dedicated to enriching the oligarchy and fueling its war machine for aggression against foreign "enemies" like Russia.

Under prevailing British politics, one thing is sure. Brexit means Brokexit  more hardship and poverty for the people of Britain.

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 " Sputnik " -

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By Dr. Cesar Chelala

November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Millions of children die every year as a result of environment-related diseases. Their deaths could be prevented by using low-cost and sustainable tools and strategies for improving the environment. In some countries, more than one-third of the disease burden could be prevented by environmental changes.



According to a World Health Organization (WHO) study carried out in 23 countries, more than 10 percent of deaths are due to unsafe water and indoor air pollution, particularly from solid fuel used for cooking. On a mission for the Pan American Health Organization in Panama, to assess and document the effect of pesticides on childrens health, I was able to see the negative effects of pesticides in the environment and on the soil on childrens well-being.



Children make up almost half the population of developing countries. Most of the deaths are among children under five and are attributable mainly to intestinal and respiratory infections. People living in industrialized countries are also affected by environmental factors such as pollution, occupational factors, ultraviolet radiation, and climate and ecosystem changes.

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The integrity of the global environment is being increasingly compromised by the deterioration of the atmospheric ozone layer and an ever-higher concentration of gases responsible for the greenhouse effect. To the degree that these factors intensify, the health of populations will be seriously affected.



Environmental factors affect children's health from the time of conception and intra-uterine development through infancy and adolescence. These factors can even exert an influence prior to conception since both ovules and sperm can be damaged by radiation and chemical contaminants.



It has been widely demonstrated that children are more susceptible than adults to environmental factors because, among other reasons, they are still growing and their immune systems and detoxification mechanisms are not yet fully developed.



Interventions both at the community and the national level can significantly improve the environment, including the promotion of safe-water treatment and storage, and the reduction of air pollution. The last measure by itself could save almost a million lives a year.



A series of measures being taken at the local level are having a significant impact on improving the environment. For example, in an overcrowded and unsanitary inner-city building housing several hundred people in South Africa, conventional environmental health control measures had failed. So, a democratically elected tenants committee initiated a series of measures to deal with the main problems affecting the building and its inhabitants. This project has laid the foundation for a participatory way of dealing with environmental problems in inner-city buildings.



In Cairo, Egypt, Dr. Laila Iskandar Kamel has implemented innovative social and environmental projects working with garbage collectors or Zabbaleen. These projects have helped garbage collectors break the cycle of exploitation and receive proper compensation for their work. In addition, she has organized girls from the community in reviving the most ancient of Egyptian crafts, weaving on a handloom using discarded cotton remnants and using the profits for improving their education and providing them with a livelihood.



In Qatar, fewer natural resources, climate change and the quality of the air are serious challenges faced by the authorities. The Ministry of Environment has taken a series of measures to improve the environment. Among those measures, creating awareness in the population, particularly among the mothers, is an important task. At the same time, a new school curriculum has been completed, placing emphasis on environmental issues.



In the countries in the Americas, an outstanding series of environmental activities are carried out by Ecoclubs, nongovernmental organizations made up basically of children and adolescents who coordinate their activities through several community institutions.



In Ecuador, the city of Loja was afflicted with dumping yards in inhabited areas, which led to outbreaks of infections and contagious diseases. Through an intensive sensitization and education campaign in which community members played a key role in establishing a sanitary landfill and a means for properly disposing of recyclable materials, there was a manifest improvement in the quality of life for Loja residents.



Children, in particular, increased their awareness about the environment and their role in improving it. The planning, design, monitoring, and management of the physical environment have proven to be an ideal terrain for children's inputs and participation.



Such initiatives are taking place worldwide with the aim of improving the environment and, as a result, people's health. More actions should be carried out in the main cities worldwide to protect all people, but particularly the most vulnerable. To curb pollution is expensive. More expensive, however, is the price paid in childrens lives.



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By Rafael Correa

The destruction of the rule of law

November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Can you imagine a democracy in which the president handpicks a council that proceeds to dismiss the Constitutional Court, the Judicial Council which oversees the judiciary, the National Electoral Council, the Attorney General, the ombudsman, and all six major regulators (superintendents)?

Unfortunately, that is the current situation in Ecuador. Abusing participatory democracy, and deceiving the public with the complicity of a corrupt press, on February 4 of this year they called an unconstitutional referendum.

Several articles in our constitution stipulate that the Constitutional Court must rule on the legality of any referendum questions, but, given the clear unconstitutionality of several questions, the government knew that a ruling would not go its way and called the referendum by decree. For the first time in its history, Ecuador had a nationwide referendum without a ruling from the Constitutional Court.

With the approval of the tricky and confusing question 3, they seized the so-called Council of Citizen Participation [CPCCS in the Spanish acronym], whose members were selected through national competitions, and which, according to the Constitution of Ecuador, is responsible for overseeing competitions that elect about 150 control authorities. [1]The unconstitutional referendum gave a Transitory CPCCS (which Ill refer to as the CPCCS-T) the power to evaluate and, if applicable, dismiss these control authorities. The dismissal of authorities is an exclusive constitutional power of the National Assembly. The Constitutional Court, which is not even selected by the CPCCS , cannot be dismissed by anyone else.

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At present, Ecuador does not have a Constitutional Court. The Presidents handpicked CPCCS-T [after dismissing the court] declared a two month absence of the court which expire this week and will surely be extended. Throughout this lapse, Ecuadorians have no one to guarantee our constitutional rights.

The illegally dismissed authorities had to be replaced by their [already selected] alternates, as the law demands, but the Transitory CPCCS-T directly appointed its replacements. Not even the unconstitutional referendum gave it the power to directly appoint authorities.

Ecuador is presently a Transitory Republic. We have a transitory CPCCS, a transitory Judicial Council, a transitory National Electoral Council, and similarly with the Prosecutor General, Ombudsman, Comptroller General, and all superintendents  all transitory and practically all open enemies of my government. All were illegally and arbitrarily appointed by the CPCCS-T and under its complete control.

The Ecuadorian state has five branches: the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Electoral, and the Transparency and Social Oversight branch. Three of these five branches are in the hands transitory officials directly appointed the Executives handpicked CPCCS-T.

The temporary authorities were sworn in before the CPCCS-T, violating article 120 of the Constitution which states that they must sworn in before the National Assembly. I hope you understand what it means to be pursued by an acting prosecutor directly appointed and sworn in before a transitory Council whose president  a personal and political enemy of mine- publicly insults me every day and says that I must go to prison.

The president of the CPCCS-T [Julio Cesar Trujillo] has explicitly declared that if his Councils decisions contradict the Constitution, then the former would prevail, because they are equivalent, according to him, to a Constituent Assembly. In reality, a constituent disenfranchisementis being carried out, without any authorization or even the knowledge of its supposed constituents: the Ecuadorian people.

The only constitutional aspect of question 3 in the referendum was the proposal that future members of the CPCCS be selected by popular vote and not through open contests based on merit. The Government knows that it will lose those elections, and is aware of all the abuses it perpetrated, so Trujillo has therefore proposed  that at the same time local elections are held in March of 2019  that another referendum take place so that the people can give blanket approval to all the violations and also eliminate the CPCCS!

In other words, in the same elections where the definitive members of the CPCCS were supposed be elected for the first time by popular vote, it is proposed that the CPCCS be eliminated after the handpicked CPCCS-T has already changed all the control authorities  the perfect coup dEtat.

The dismissal of the vice president

Our adversaries lost the [2017 Presidential] elections but took power anyway as we were betrayed. People voted for the continuation of the Citizen Revolution, but the program of the losing candidate was implemented. The referendum itself was the central proposal of the candidate who was defeated at the polls. This would not be possible without the brazen support of large media corporations.

To pull off this coup dEtat, it was necessary to get rid of Vice President Jorge Glas. This was achieved by implicating him in the corruption case regarding Odebrecht, which occurred in twelve countries. Odebrecht, a Brazilian company, was probably the largest construction company in Latin America, but it created an entire department dedicated to dispensing bribes to public officials.

On October 2, 2017, the Vice President was illegally placed in pre-trial detention. After 90 days, the President of the Republic directly declared the position abandoned and appointed the replacement of the Vice President, without waiting for any ruling by the Constitutional Court, as ordered by the Constitution.

Vice President Glas was implicated exclusively on the basis of the false testimony of a corrupt Odebrecht official. Glas was convicted of a crime that was not the one for which his immunity was lifted; and they sentenced him with a repealed code in order to increase the penalty and thereby prevent him from walking free and retaking the Vice Presidency. All this is unthinkable if the rule of law exists.

Meanwhile, the self-confessed corrupt Odebrecht officials were not pursued by Ecuadorian prosecutors, clearly revealing that a pact had been made that theyd be left alone if they accused the Vice President.

In March, the president of the National Assembly was dismissed, a former ally of the government who explicitly denounced the pact that had been made with Odebrecht. As in any other country in the world, the Vice President of the Assembly was supposed to have replaced him, but, again violating the Constitution, the Government made political deals in order to appoint another person.

That is, in addition to not having a Constitutional Court, and in addition to having all its control authorities illegally appointed, Ecuador has both a Vice President and a President of the National Assembly who were unconstitutionally appointed.

To this day, not a cent of illegally obtained money has been shown to have been received by Vice President Glas, which is recognized even by media that always opposed the Citizens Revolution. One of this medias most prominent voices just admitted that the Vice President is imprisoned without evidence against him, but by the force of circumstances. Read the medias lynching.

On October 21, Vice President Jorge Glas was transferred from a minimum security prison to a common prison. This was done by the Government in reprisal for Fernando Alvarado, former Secretary of Communication (another persecuted politician) breaking his ankle bracelet and seeking asylum in a friendly country. This reminds us of Nazi tactics: if a prisoner escapes, you kill five as revenge and as a deterrent. As in periods of fascism, reprisals are taken against the family and partners of the alleged offenders.

Even though pretrial measures can only be ordered by judges, the Government also announced that all members of my government who are supposedly being investigated are prohibited from leaving the country, revealing total control of the justice system and directly violating the American Convention on Human Rights.

To top it off, the acting prosecutor also said that in the next few days he will name perpetrators and accomplices of crimes perpetrated against the State, and that he will request the corresponding pretrial measures to prevent the flight of those who could be involved in these crimes.

Persecution and the blocking of political participation

In January of 2018, in an absolutely illegal way and through direct interference of the Government, they took away from us the party that I founded, the most successful and largest in Ecuadorian history: Alianza Pais.

We have tried three times to register a new political movement that represents the Citizens Revolution, but we have been illegally prevented from doing it. Trampling our political and human rights, and democracy itself, the countrys main political force, the Citizens Revolution  which in the last elections obtained nearly 40 percent of the citizens vote  is without a legally recognized political organization and is prevented from participating in elections.

Finally, as already mentioned, judicial persecution has been unleashed against the members of my Government. The main instruments of this persecution are the transitory comptroller whose appointment followed no legal process whatsoever  and the handpicked acting prosecutor  a position that does not exist in Ecuadorian law.

My former administrative team has been targeted by about 300 audits of the Comptrollers Office with criminal implications. The reports do not even mention the legal articles where the alleged crimes are described. Many of these former collaborators of mine are out of work and have had to sell their homes, vehicles, etc., in order to pay their lawyers.

Anyone who believes that these are mere opinions of mine should ask the Ecuadorian State for concrete things like the legal documents that correspond to the appointments of the comptroller, prosecutor or Judicial Council and analyze if they are constitutional. They simply do not exist.

In my personal case, I have 14 criminal proceedings against me, for things as ridiculous as a supposedly exceeding a legal limit on Ecuadors public debt, which, in addition to being false, is not criminal, never mind that the president is not directly responsible for debt management.

They accuse me for a decree stating that, to meet the 40 percent maximum public debt / GDP ratio, a limit that we set ourselves set in 2010, said the public debt had to be measured in a consolidated manner, as per an IMF manual. The Comptroller apparently did not like this, and therefore asks that a criminal investigation be initiated against an ex-president.

Another example is an accusation regarding the concession of an oil field called Singue, which I had not even heard of. I am implicated in the case because one of the companies sent a letter to the Presidency denouncing that it had been damaged. I never read the letter. Hundreds of communications arrive daily to the Presidency. The letter was forwarded directly to the corresponding ministry, but, even if I had read it, there is nothing criminal here. Imagine the precedent! Anyone who seeks to implicate the President in an alleged crime simply sends a letter to the Presidency, and that is enough.

Finally, since they could never prove me corrupt, nor will they ever, they implicate me in supposed cases of repression: kidnapping, murder and even an extrajudicial execution of a police officer killed by crossfire while protecting me on September 30, 2010  when there was a coup detat and it was me that they wanted to kill.

They put forward outlandish theories, for example that I had turned the intelligence services into a political police. In one of the cases, they hired supposed experts who compared my Government with the dictatorships of the Southern Cone, where, in Argentina alone, there were 30,000 dead and missing. But it turns out that all the alleged cases of repression are before 2013, when the current President of Ecuador was Vice President. How is it possible that he did not know something so serious? Its obvious that they lie.

The case that has advanced the most is the so-called Balda case, for which I have been called to trial in the most absurd way. I even had an arrest warrant against me since I was ordered to appear every 15 days in Quito, which was impossible because, as everyone knows, I have lived in Belgium for more than a year.

The false testimony of the confessed intellectual author of the alleged kidnapping, a policeman I do not even know, but who, according to his story, met with me three times and spoke with me on the phone three times is what involves me in the case.

They already had to admit that he lied when he said that he had met with me and that they have no proof of the alleged calls. Weve already managed to show that during one of the alleged calls I was actually flying from Guayaquil to Quito. In present day Ecuador, where the presumption of innocence no longer exists, the state does not have to prove someones guilt. Instead, after any false testimony, the accused has to prove their innocence.

The press has depicted Balda, the alleged victim, as a legislator, which is false. In fact, this guy has a long criminal record, was a fugitive from justice in Colombia, was dedicated to computer hacking, and was held for 35 minutes by his associates during these illegal activities. Shortly after the alleged kidnapping, he was deported by the Colombian government, since, in addition, his status in Colombia was not legal.

In 2013, Balda filed a complaint in Ecuador about this alleged kidnapping, where among the many defendants he does not even mention me.

Then, in 2015 he filed a complaint in Colombia against members of my government and against me, a complaint dismissed by the Colombian Prosecutors Office for lack of evidence.

Despite this, six years later, in April 2018, the case was reopened in Ecuador, the press giving it sensationalist coverage and portraying it as a state crime against a legislator.

In October of 2017 President Lenin Moreno announced that he had not lost hope of seeing me imprisoned, and Balda himself in November sent messages on social media saying that there would soon be a red alert from Interpol against me. Clearly, everything was planned.

One of Morenos main advisers admitted that he traveled to Spain, where a former intelligence secretary also implicated in the case resides, to tell him to surrender and accuse me. In exchange for that they would help him; otherwise, they were going to rain criminal charges on him.

We have documents and audiovisual evidence showing all of this.

Regional Lawfare

Lawfare is a regional strategy. It is what they are also doing against Lula da Silva and Cristina Fernandez. Its main instruments are the press and co-opted judges.

Judge Moros case is classic. He orders prison for Lula in a case of corruption that is extremely dubious, and in this way prevents him from participating in the presidential elections in Brazil, even though he was the frontrunner in the polls, thus opening the doors for the triumph of the fascist Jair Bolsonaro.

Moro will be the Minister of Justice of the new Government. It is all crystal clear.

The double standards are also infuriating. The only thing that exists in the international agenda on Latin America is Venezuela. If our leftist parties had perpetrated a coup detat like Brazils, or trampled all over the constitution as in Ecuador, or if our governments had persecuted political opponents as they are doing with Lula, Cristina, Jorge Glas or me, we would already be hauled before the International Criminal Court.

There is too much hypocrisy. In all Latin America, but particularly in Ecuador, not only democracy is being destroyed, but also the very pillars of civilization: justice, human rights, and truth.

Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017.

NOTE.

[1] There were seven unrelated questions in the referendum.

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Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump has submitted his answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller, the presidents attorneys told ABC News.



"The President today answered written questions submitted by The Special Counsel's Office. The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The President responded in writing, Jay Sekulow, Counsel to the President told ABC News in a statement on Tuesday.



The special counsel's office did not comment.



"I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers," Trump said last week when asked by reporters about the special counsels questions. "I was asked a series of questions, I answered them very easily."



The questions submitted to Mueller were broken up into five parts and focused on potential Russian collusion during the 2016 elections, sources close to the president told ABC News.



A few of the questions focused on Trump's longtime political ally, Roger Stone, though those questions did not dominate.



Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, told Axios that he and fellow team lawyers Jay Sekulow and Jane Raskin took handwritten notes before the material was typed up and were with the president in the Oval Office and the private dining room adjoining the Oval during the sessions.



Giuliani said Mueller asked whether Trump knew at the time about his son, Don Trump Jr., meeting with Russians during a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.



The special counsel also reportedly asked about Russian hacks that occured after Trump's July 27, 2016, press conference in Florida, when the then-candidate said: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing," according to Axios.



In returning his written answers to Mueller, the president capped a months-long negotiation with the special counsel over the subject and quantity of questions relevant to the Muellers mandated investigation of Russian meddling during the 2016 campaign.



"It has been our position from the outset that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. This remains our position today. The President has nonetheless provided unprecedented cooperation. The Special Counsel has been provided with more than 30 witnesses, 1.4 million pages of material, and now the President's written responses to questions. It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion, Rudy Giuliani, the presidents attorney told ABC News in a statement.



ABC News previously reported that the president spent several days last week huddling with his legal team to prepare his answers, which focus largely on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump told reporters last week that he was concerned investigators might be using the questions to try to catch him perjuring himself.



Despite repeatedly expressing a willingness to sit down for an in-person interview with special counsel prosecutors, Trump told Fox News Sunday over the weekend that he has probably ruled it out, though he reserved the right to change his mind.



Over the course of his 18-month long probe, Mueller and his team of prosecutors have secured indictments against 32 individuals and three Russian businesses on charges ranging from computer hacking to financial crimes.



Those indictments have led to six guilty pleas and three people sentenced to prison. A former campaign aide and three former Trump campaign officials  including his onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign chairman Paul Manafort  are among those who have pleaded guilty.





Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Chinese President Xi Jinping waves upon his arrival in Manila, the Philippines, Nov. 20, 2018. Xi arrived here on Tuesday for a state visit to the Philippines. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

MANILA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived here Tuesday for the first state visit to the Philippines by a Chinese head of state in 13 years.

On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Xi expressed cordial greetings and best wishes to the Philippine government and its people upon arrival at the airport.

As friendly neighbors across the sea, China and the Philippines enjoy geographical proximity and a strong bond that links the two peoples and cultures, Xi said.

Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office, thanks to the joint efforts of the two sides, China and the Philippines have reopened the door of friendship and cooperation to each other, bringing real benefits to the two peoples and making important contributions to regional peace, stability and prosperity, he said.

Good-neighborliness and friendship is the only right choice for China and the Philippines, two developing countries and emerging economies in Asia, he said.

"As I start this visit, I look forward to meeting with President Duterte for an in-depth exchange of views on how to further strengthen China-Philippine relations and on regional and international issues of mutual interests," Xi said.

Xi said he is convinced the visit will cement the traditional friendship, deepen the mutually beneficial cooperation and enhance the joint efforts of China and the Philippines for common development.

It will surely inject fresh and strong impetus into the good-neighborly relations and friendship between the two countries for the benefit of the two peoples, he said.

The Philippines is the last stop of Xi's three-country Asia-Pacific tour. He has already visited Papua New Guinea, where he also attended the 26th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, and Brunei.

4

1

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
Registering Israel's Useful Idiots



FDD and AIPAC need adult supervision



By Philip Giraldi

November 20, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - Depending on what criteria one uses, there are between 200 and 600 groups in the United States that wholly or in part are dedicated to furthering the interests of Israel. The organizations are both Jewish, like the Zionist Organization of America, and Christian Zionist to include John Hagees Christians United for Israel, but the funding of the Israel Lobby and both its political and media access comes overwhelmingly from Jewish supporters and advocates.

Many of the groups are registered with the Internal Revenue Service for tax purposes as 501(c)3 educational or charitable foundations, which enables them to solicit tax exempt donations. One might dispute whether promoting Israeli interests in the United States is actually educational, but as of right now the Department of the Treasury believes it can be so construed, protected by the First Amendment.

But there is a more serious consideration in terms of the actual relationships that many of the groups enjoy with the Israeli government. To be sure, many of them boast on their promotional literature and websites about their relationships with the Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, so the issue of dual loyalty or, worse, acting as actual Israeli government agents must be considered.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

There is a legal remedy to hostile foreigners acting against American interests and that is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Originally intended to identify and monitor agents of Nazi Germany propagandizing in the United States, it has since been applied to individuals and groups linked to other nations. Most recently, it was used against Russian news agencies RT America and Sputnik, which were forced to register. It is also being considered for Qatar based al-Jazeera.

FARA requires identified agents to be transparent in terms of their funding and contacts while also being publicly identified as representing the interests of a foreign nation. They must report to the Department of Justice every contact they have with congressmen or other government officials. The text of the Act defines a foreign agent as

any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or (iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States.

In spite of language that would presumably cover many of the hundreds of Jewish organizations acting for Israel, FARA has never been used to compel registration of any such groups or individuals even when it was public knowledge that they were working closely with the Israeli government to coordinate positions and promote other Israeli interests. That failure is at a minimum a tribute to Jewish power in the United States, but it is also due to the fact that the organizations are funded from within the United States by wealthy American Jews, not by Israel, which is the argument sometimes inaccurately made by the groups themselves to demonstrate that they are not being directed by the Israeli government.

The difficulty in proving that one is directed by a foreign government has been definitively resolved regarding one group the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has become the leading neoconservative bastion seeking a war with Iran, Israels bete noir. The recent al-Jazeera expose on the activities of the Israeli lobbies in both Britain and the United States, which I wrote about last week, included a surreptitiously filmed conversation with Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli intelligence officer who now heads the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is tasked with countering what is perceived to be anti-Israeli activity worldwide. The Ministry is particularly focused on the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is increasingly active in both the United States and Europe.

Vaknin-Gil was discussing his activities with Tony Kleinfeld, an undercover investigative reporter who was secretly recording and filming his encounters with various members of the Israel Lobby as well as of the Israeli government.Vaknin-Gil provided explicit confirmation that the FDD works directly with the Israeli government, making it an Israeli agent by the definition of FARA.

For those who are unfamiliar with FDD, it is probably currently the most prominent neocon organization though it nevertheless claims to be a non-partisan research group. It focuses on foreign policy and security issues by Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Freedom, as it informs us on its website masthead. It works to defend free nations against their enemies, which frequently means in practice anyone whom Israel considers to be hostile, most particularly Iran. FDDs Leadership Council has featured former CIA Director James Woolsey, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Bill Kristol. Its Executive Director is Canadian import Mark Dubowitz, who is obsessed with Iran. Its advisors and experts are mostly Jewish and most of its funding comes from Jewish oligarchs.

FDDs auditorium has become a preferred venue for senior officials of the Trump Administration to go and make hardline speeches, just as the American Enterprise Institute was under George W. Bush. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Nikki Haley have all spoken there recently, frequently focusing on Iran and the threat that it allegedly constitutes.

FDD aside, Vaknin-Gil also confirmed that there were other groups in the United States doing the same sorts of things on behalf of Israel. He said We have FDD. We have others working on this, elaborating that FDD is working on projects for Israel including data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail.

So Vaknin-Gil was admitting that FDD and others were working as Israeli proxies, collecting information on U.S. citizens, spying on legal organizations, and both planning and executing disinformation at Israeli direction. Kleinfeld also spoke with a Jonathan Schanzer, a senior official in FDD, who filled in a bit more of what the foundation is up to in terms of discrediting groups in the U.S. that support the BDS movement.

Schanzer admitted BDS has taken everybody by surprise before complaining that the Jewish response has been a complete mess. I dont think that anybodys doing a good job. Were not even doing a good job. He then complained that attempts to discredit Palestinian groups by linking them to terrorist groups had failed, as also had the use of the label anti-Semitism. Personally I think anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used to be.

So, when will the Justice Department move on FDD now that its true colors have been exposed by al-Jazeera? The group must be required to register if justice be done, but will it? Its principal partner in crime the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has avoided registering for more than sixty years by claiming that it is an American organization working to educate the U.S. public about the all the good things connected to Israel. Even though it meets regularly with Israeli government officials, it claims not to be representing Israeli interests. But just as in the case of FDD, it is time to require AIPAC to register as what it really is: a foreign agent. As a registered agent, it will still be able to exercise First Amendment rights to defend Israel but it would not be able to be involved in lobbying on Capitol Hill and directing money to politicians who are described as pro-Israeli, as it does now. Its finances will be transparent and it will be perceived as an official advocate for Israel, not as an educational resource for what is happening in the Middle East. Hopefully, when AIPAC stops throwing money around, the politicians and media types will find another place to roost.

To be sure the love fest for Israel in government extends far beyond FDD and AIPAC. It can be found in many dark corners. National Security Advisor John Bolton recently received the Defender of Israel award from the Zionist Organization of America. And one might suggest that the U.S. United Nations delegation, headed by Ambassador Nikki Haley, is directed by the Israeli government, particularly given events of last Friday whereby the U.S. voted against a motion condemning Israels continued illegal occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, thereby recognizing for the first time Israels sovereignty over the area. Whether Haley was speaking for herself or for the administration was characteristically unclear, but it hardly matters. Nikki Haley might be referred to as a useful idiot, as Lenin put it, but her consistent pattern of extreme loyalty in defense of Israel marks her out as being particularly beholden to the Jewish state, which will no doubt arrange to richly reward her through some position in financial services for which she is totally unqualified when she leaves her post in January. And then she will be well funded to run for president in 2020. Having Haley in charge,

one might just as well vote for Benjamin Netanyahu.

www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website isaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has fired heavy shots at President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly stealing the Rex Institutes Next Level logo and mantra as his 2019 campaign mantra. PDP in a statement on Wednesday, said by stealing its campaign logo and mantra, Buharis presidency has shown that it lacks integrity, and thrives only on deception and lies.

The opposition party further stated that the president lack the competence to initiate and articulate an original leadership blueprint, and as such, has resorted to copying and stealing.

See full statement below

The Muhammadu Buhari presidency has again disgraced our nation by stealing the Rex Institutes Next Level logo and mantra as his 2019 campaign mantra and presenting same to Nigerians as his idea and creation.

This revelation has further confirmed that the Buhari Presidency lacks integrity as a fraud syndicate that thrives on deception, lies, false performance claims, certificate forgery, corruption while always trying to take credit for the achievement of others.

We are not surprised that President Buhari, out of desperation has resorted to copying/stealing other peoples work, because, the President lacks the competence to initiate and articulate an original blue print for leadership.The is why Nigeria is in dire strait today.
Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide has said plans are underway to impeach the governors of Benue and Akwa-Ibom states. Omokri, a strong Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) member, made this allegations via his Twitter handle on Wednesday, saying he has it on good authority, the Buhari-led government, are doing all it could to impeach Governor of Akwa Ibom, Udom Emmaduel and Governor Samuel Ortom, of Akwa Ibom and Benue states respectively.

It will be recalled that Ortom, left the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC), a little while ago, after some internal unresolved issued  which prompted him to join the PDP, his former party. Ortom recently noted that, since he left the APC, he could now pay salaries, owing to the fact that, he no longer worries about godfathers.

Omokri, speaking via Twitter, wrote:

The Governors of Benue and Akwa-Ibom should brace up. I have it on good authority that the Buhari administration is determined to do all it can to impeach them. Akwa-Ibom Governor is first (to get funds for 2019) then Benue. Nigerians diligently protect your democracy.

See tweet
Former Malawi President, Joyce Banda, has endorsed the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Dr. Oby Ezekwesili.

Banda testified that Ezekwesili possesses the ability to fight corruption, adding that Nigeria needed a leader like her.

Banda, who was the President of Malawi from April 7, 2012 to May 31, 2014, said Ezekwesilis advice saved her from corruption allegations.

She said that Ezekwesilis international exposure, transparent and accountable skills would help the growth of Nigeria.

Endorsing the ACPN candidate on Wednesday, the ex-president said, While fighting corruption during my presidency in 2013, Oby Ezekwesili advised me to protect myself with a forensic audit, which United Kingdom government supported. I am forever grateful for this transparent, accountable daughter of Africa; a servant leader pushing #Nigeria #Hope2019.

On her part, Ezekwesili assured Nigerians that she would put effective structures in place to fight corruption.

She said that defeating corruption in Nigeria would ease job creation and boost the economy.

The female presidential candidate also assured the citizens that her tenure as president would end the attitude of using political positions for personal gains.

She said, Needless to say, every other area in our comprehensive manifesto, including our anti-corruption, sports, foreign policy, security agenda, and every other programme of our platform, will be evaluated on three questions: How much wealth is it going to generate? How many jobs is it going to create? And how many people it will get out of poverty?

We will measure our economic success as a government, not by the number of private jets parked at our airports, but by the number of Nigerians we lift out of poverty who go on to live richer lives. We mean business.

We will put in place a massive programme of deregulation of the Nigerian economy to unleash the depth of competition and efficiencies necessary for higher and deeper economic growth and expansion of the economy. The division and rebalancing of roles between business and government will reduce opportunities of corruption and bottlenecks that limit the competitiveness of the Nigerian economy.

While accusing previous governments of paying lip services to the fight against corruption and accountability, she stated that her promises would be fulfilled.

She said, When I make these promises, I do them with the realisation that you are tired of broken promises. The broken promises of previous administrations are still fresh in your memories and it has tainted the way you look at politics. That is why as a principle, our campaign will only promise what we can deliver, and will deliver what we promise.

Our politics is the promise of a new, honest start to rebuild and renew our country. Our direction is clear; and our destination is also clear. When we deliver, we would rebuild the crucial bonds of trust between the people and their government without which a democracy cannot flourish.

This election is the most important of our lifetime. I believe that the next four years could determine the next 40. If we fail to get it right, what would we tell our children? What manner of consequences would befall us? What would another four years of wrong leadership mean for you and I? More poverty. More divisions. More corruption. More debt. More insecurity. More disregard for human rights. More and more of the same.
Boko Haram terrorist have killed 44 soldiers and farmers in three days of attacks in northeastern state of Borno, security sources said on Tuesday.

Although the Federal government have always stressed that the Boko Haram was technically defeated, yet reports upon reports of attacks on both soldiers and civilians by the terrorist group, keep coming up.

Reacting to the recent attack on soldiers, the immediate past governor of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose said he is deeply concerned by way, officers of the Nigerian army, keep getting killed by members of Boko Haram insurgency. According to Fayose, the approach by the federal government to the fight against insurgency, must be a wrong one.

In a statement by the ex governor on Twitter on Wednesday, he said that Nigerians must come to the realisation that Boko haram is not technically defeated.

He wrote:
The principal suspect of the deadly Offa robbery of April, has died, says police. The information was given by the police to the Kwara state attorney generall and the commissioner of Justice.

Five suspects, who were involved in the deadly robbery were arraigned before an Ilorin High Court on Wednesday, and Kamaldeen Ajibade, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of the state, informed the court that there would be an amendment to the charges preferred against the accused.

According to him, the amendment was necessary following Adikwus death, and the fact that, he had made the statement with the police before his reported death. He noted also that the amendment was needed because the suspects(Ayoade Akinibosun, Ademola Abraham, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Niyi Ogundiran and Salahu Azeez) arraigned had no lawyers to represent them.

Justice Halimat Salman, who was presiding over the case agreed to the request by the state Attorney General, and adjourned the case till November 30.
Over the years a considerable number of international al students lucky to pursue higher education in English speaking countries. As the number increases each year, the English teacher is challenged to find the best and practical strategies for teaching academic English to non-native English students. There is a considerable challenge for ESL student learn the types of writing needed to perform various academic disciplines.

Understand the Difficulties These International Nigerian Students

Instead of universities focusing attention on the teaching of teaching English as a second language, understanding the challenges of those international Nigeria students exhibited in writing standard academic English is the best approach. These challenges result of widely varying access to educational facilities such as different varieties of English taught as well as inconsistent writing instruction and secondary educational levels.

In Nigeria, English instruction is more unequal, and most students who demand English education comes from private schooling while public educational facilities provide inadequate English instruction. Thus, the English levels these Nigerian international students present with when they matriculate at American universities can be inconsistent, which may lead to certain perceptions regarding Nigerian academic English writing performance.

Nigerian English is Quite Formal

In Nigeria, English is more precise, probably because of that how its taught. Most students are not taught formal and informal register and their application. Nigeria ESL has a mishmash of the two and their interaction with native English speakers; it takes longer for the student to adjust to the formality to comprehend what is said. In severe cases, their ear needs to be tuned to what is being said, and that can take some time to grasp.

Nigeria ESL Affected by Accent

There is a considerable issue, emphasizing the words and the speed at which a Nigerian student speaks. Nigeria student who has been in the US for long, for example, knows how to slow down a little as not many people are used to their accent. Even those with prior encounters may miss some words. There is a massive difference in pronunciation. How a Nigerian student emphasized certain words, one needs to understand the words and vocabulary.

Tone of Voice

The tone of view may be a contributory factor. The English Language is not just words, but the tone of voice and the way the speaker expresses themselves and their body language. Nigerians speak in a monotone which is initially hard to understand because emphasizing certain words gives a different meaning. The listener might be merely looking for these clues, and since this may be their focus, they could miss the purpose. Body language is imperative as these may differ significantly from native English speakers, they may misunderstand/not understand what ESLs are talking about.

Differences in Grammatical Levels

Deviant Use of Verbs. Use of stative verbs that denote perception, such as see, hear, look, notice; verbs of cognition and verbs of relations do generally not occur in the progressive aspect. For example, Please, send a text, my line is not reachable. I have a flat battery. (Have). Use of Dynamic Verbs that denote activity or express physical actions and occurs following aspect or non-linking verbs. A Nigeria student example;

Driver, please wait I want to get down Native English speaker driver, please stop, I want to get off.

Deviant Use of Reflexive Pronoun. In Nigerian languages, there are no distinctions between themselves, ourselves and each other. Nigeria English is affected by Yoruba; there is only one lexical item ara wa/ara won which corresponds to ourselves/themselves, one another/each other respectively.

Use of Personal Plural Pronoun for Singular Referents. The source of this type of deviation linked to the transfer of the pronoun awon / won in Yoruba, for instance, they. It is used by the Nigerian user of English to mean he/she or a person or an indefinite group of people in a context. In this context, they refers to the father of the person talking.

The omission of Function Words. The source of this type of deviation from standard English is the linked of Nigerian indigenous languages to English. The problem of the usage is that of a partial correspondence between the English articles the, a/an and for instance, Yoruba naa, kan respectively.

Nigeria Code-mixing in English. Code mixing in English is when a speaker mixing two languages within the elements of a sentence structure (in this case, English and Yoruba).

Examples

Mo try to late write, story came about the mans ordeal in the police station.

I tried to write a story about the mans ordeals in the Police Station.

At the lexical level. The errors identified are as a result cultural background of the learners as well as their linguistic background. Although some universities in the united states, the United Kingdom and Canada attempt to find ways to welcome such students to serve their academic needs better, they end being enrolled in course that offer a more-or-less traditional English as an ESL experience.

On the flip side, some ESL finds it very difficult to understand native English speakers for the same reasons we have mentioned above (but for the opposite reasons and many more). Nigeria ESL Students find it hard to adapt as in many cases the universities seem to take a one-size-fits-all approach in teaching English composition overlooking the actual academic preparation of non-native students. Nigerian students themselves often claim English as their first language, English teacher complain that their efforts devalued. They do not meet regarded as inadequate-defined western standard of writing. Most are skeptical of this ESL approach and feel the most accurate descriptor of English in Nigeria as a language learned concurrently with the indigenous languages such as Igbo and Yoruba. As a matter of fact, a lot of ESL students abroad address professional english essay writing services to get their papers written from scratch in accordance with their requirements. Most of them consider this solution the most effective for succeeding in education abroad.
Vanguard

PDP mocks Buhari over alleged plagiarism

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday flayed President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly stealing the Rex Institutes Next Level logo and mantra as his 2019 campaign mantra.

This Day

Reflecting on the manipulation of card reader during the 2015 general election, President Goodluck Jonathan has warned that any attempt to repeat the misuse of the electoral tool in the forthcoming 2019 presidential poll would be risky. The Nation

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed how he was pressured not to accept defeat in the 2015 election.

Guardian Ortom asks Amaechi to prove allegations on Mbalom killings Governor Samuel Ortom has asked the Minister of Transport, Chibuike Amaechi to prove his allegation on the killing of two priests and 17 other parishioners in Mbalom at the beginning of this year or retract his comments and tender a public apology to the families of the victims as well as the government and people of Benue State. The Sun Buharis 2nd tenure more reassuring than 8 years of Atiku, says UP The United Progressive Party (UPP) has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) literally forced it to endorse President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming general elections. Tribune Buhari Campaign Organisation to embark on ward-to-ward mobilisation in Bayelsa

The Buhari Campaign Organisation and Empowerment (BCO) in Bayelsa State says plan is underway to embark on ward-to-ward mobilisation for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Daily Trust

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has advised Nigerians not to allow the countrys democracy in the hands of non-democrats and hooligans.

Leadership
Former President Goodluck Jonathan launched his book, My Transition Hour on Tuesday in Abuja  An event well-attended by powerful actors in the Nigerian political scene.

The former president in his book, accused some governors and the former US president, Barack Obama, of sabotaging his governments effort in trying to rescue the secondary school girls, abducted in Chibo, Borno state, by Boko Haram in 2014.

In his words:

The governor of the state (a member of the opposition party) rather than join the federal government in the efforts to rescue the girls opted to stage a cross-continent roadshow in Europe and America, addressing foreign media when the issue that was burning was in his home state and the attention of the world was locked on Nigeria.

We were presented as the problem of Nigeria. For beyond the Chibok issue, they made it a point that they were only interested in regime change. If the Jonathan administration goes and the opposition comes, the security challenges posed by Boko Haram will vanish, the Chibok girls will be rescued and the country will be better off, it was echoed. Of course, it was a deliberate attempt to distort history and build faulty premises to worsen Nigerias future.

On what Obama did, he wrote;

The tactical attacks by the Obama administration were many. They refused to provide any real military backing for equipment to aid the rescue of the Chibok girls, citing the Leahy Law which they claimed prevented them from supporting any military that was engaged in human rights abuses, but this law did not stop them from assisting the armed forces of Nigerias neighbours which had been accused of serious human rights violations.

Even when the state of Israel expressed the willingness to sell attack helicopters to Nigeria, the gesture was frustrated by the Obama administration that kept waving the same Leahy Law like a banner. I believe one day some of the security experts and actors that were involved in the search and rescue will tell the world the truth about the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls.

See what they had to say about Jonathans statement on Obama

https://youtu.be/uuB33hI7ZrU

Nigerians should query @BarackObama @BBOG_Nigeria Borno Governor and fuel protesters for making @GEJonathan lose 2015 elections. Of course he did nothing wrong himself. #delusional  Jibrin Ibrahim (@JibrinIbrahim17) November 21, 2018

"Obama and Borno state govt frustrated my attempts to rescue Chibok girls

They used that to ensure I never go re-elected"~ Jonathan Oga Jona, the same girls you claimed were NEVER abducted?

Your wife made d "CHAIII DARIS GODUU O" video out of the denial that No girl was MISSING  CBN Gov Akinsola Ak (@cbngov_akin1) November 21, 2018

"Obama and Borno state govt frustrated my attempts to rescue Chibok girls

They used that to ensure I never go re-elected"~ Jonathan Oga Jona, the same girls you claimed were NEVER abducted?

Your wife made d "CHAIII DARIS GODUU O" video out of the denial that No girl was MISSING  CBN Gov Akinsola Ak (@cbngov_akin1) November 21, 2018
Super Eagles of Nigeria forward, Ahmed Musa, has revealed that Gambian Referee, Bakary Gassama, has sent him an apology for wrongly disallowing two of Nigerias goal as offside during their clash with the Bafana Banafa boys of South Africa at the HNK stadium, South Africa, last weekend.

With the scores at 1-1 in the first half, the pacy forward thought he had assisted Kelechi Iheanacho for the lead, but the goal was ruled out for offside call by the referee and his assistant.

Musa who also received an incisive through ball from Iwobi deep into the second half to put the ball in the back of the net also had his goal chalked off for offside and this stirred a reaction form the forward as he reacted furiously by questioning the calls on social media.

However, the forward revealed at the end of their friendly match with Uganda at Asaba yesterday that the referee has sent him an apology after his errors cost the Super Eagles two goals and that he has accepted since the national team have already qualified for the continental competition slated for Cameroon next year.

What he said:
Aerial photo taken on Oct. 29, 2013 shows a scene of Waigaoqiao area in Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ) in Pudong of Shanghai, east China. In the past five years, from tourism to agriculture, from technology to daily necessities and from costal cities to inland areas, China's FTZs have offered the nation copious advances in institutional explorations. On Sept. 29, 2013, China established its first pilot FTZ in Shanghai, the country's financial hub. And on Oct. 16, 2018, China rolled out a plan for establishing Hainan as a pilot FTZ, the 12th and largest among its peers. (Xinhua/Fan Jun)

BEIJING, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- China has approved the establishment of its 12th Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the southern island province of Hainan, demonstrating its unshakable faith in pushing ahead reform and opening-up.

Five years on, from tourism to agriculture, from technology to daily necessities and from costal cities to inland areas, the FTZs have offered the nation copious advances in institutional explorations.

The following dates are major milestones in the development of China's FTZs in the past five years:

-- Sept. 29, 2013: China established its first pilot FTZ in Shanghai, the country's financial hub.

-- Sept. 30, 2013: China first piloted a "negative list" in the Shanghai FTZ with 190 items on it.

-- Nov. 22, 2013: The Shanghai International Energy Exchange was unveiled in the Shanghai FTZ, a key step toward the launch of China's own crude oil futures.

-- March 4, 2015: The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, a jointly funded platform to prompt oil and gas reform and enhance China's pricing power, was registered within the Shanghai FTZ.

-- April 21, 2015: China expanded the pilot FTZ practice to three other coastal provincial-level regions: Tianjin, Guangdong and Fujian.

-- April 27, 2015: The Shanghai FTZ was enlarged to cover the city's commercial and financial center Lujiazui and the districts of Jinqiao and Zhangjiang.

-- Aug. 31, 2016: China's Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua that the government has approved the establishment of new pilot FTZs in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces as well as Chongqing municipality.

-- April 1, 2017: New pilot FTZs were launched in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces as well as Chongqing municipality.

-- March 26, 2018: China launched the trading of yuan-denominated crude oil futures on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange in the Shanghai FTZ, the first futures variety on the Chinese mainland to open to overseas investment.

-- June 30, 2018: China unveiled a new negative list for foreign investment in the pilot FTZs, with the number of items down from 95 to 45 compared to the previous year.

-- Oct. 10, 2018: The Shanghai FTZ issued the country's first negative list in the service trade field.

-- Oct. 16, 2018: China rolled out a plan for establishing Hainan as a pilot FTZ, the 12th and largest among its peers.

-- Oct. 24, 2018: In an instruction on the development of pilot FTZs, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for building the country's pilot FTZs toward new heights of reform and opening-up in the new era.

-- Nov. 5, 2018: When delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Xi announced the Shanghai FTZ would expand to include a new section.

"[We] will encourage and support bold and creative steps by Shanghai to advance investment and trade liberalization and facilitation so that more of its successful practices may be replicated in other parts of China," Xi said in the keynote speech.

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[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
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China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu (L, Front) addresses a Security Council meeting on Syria at the UN headquarters in New York, on Nov. 19, 2018. Ma Zhaoxu on Monday called for efforts to maintain the ceasefire in the Syrian city of Idlib and establish a constitutional committee as soon as possible. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu on Monday called for efforts to maintain the cease-fire in the Syrian city of Idlib and establish a constitutional committee as soon as possible.

The Syrian political process has maintained momentum recently while challenges remain, Ma told the Security Council.

He asked for efforts to promote the early establishment of the constitutional committee that is inclusive and acceptable to all by addressing the legitimate concerns of the Syrian government and all other parties.

The United Nations should enhance mediation and also give play to the Astana process in order to help with the consultations among the Syrian parties, he said.

Ma also asked for efforts to maintain stability in Syria. The parties that have influence should endeavor to maintain calm in the Idlib demilitarized zone.

The international community should respect the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria in order to advance the political process, Ma said.

The international community should support the voluntary return of Syrian refugees and help with the country's reconstruction, he said.

The Syrian government and the opposition groups, said Ma, should place their country's future and the people's interests first and try to find a political solution that is practical and addresses the legitimate concerns of all parties.

The international community should encourage the Syrian parties to compromise and build trust. The Security Council should strive for unity and speak with one voice, said the Chinese envoy.

He said China is willing to work with the international community and play a constructive role in pushing forward the Syrian political process, helping with Syria's rebuilding and improving the humanitarian situation in the country.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
Pakistan Railway Pakistan Locomoto Factory Risalpur Jobs

Latest Pakistan Railways Security Posts Risalpur 2021 Security Guards having matric education with 5 year experience, Mali, Sweeper and Valvemen are required in Pakistan Railway Pakistan Locomoto Factory Risalpur in Risalpur.

How to Apply on Pakistan Railways Job Advertisement

Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If an employer asks to pay money for any purpose, do not pay at all and report us at contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs may not be applied online here. Human typing error possible. Error & omissions excepted.
MANILA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- China and the Philippines upgraded their ties to comprehensive strategic cooperation relations and agreed to advance the Belt and Road construction after President Xi Jinping and President Rodrigo Duterte held talks here on Tuesday.

Xi arrived in the Philippine capital of Manila earlier Tuesday for the first state visit to the country by a Chinese head of state in 13 years.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]
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Angelique EagleWoman is seen in the undated photo provided by the subject. A woman who became the first female Indigenous dean of a Canadian law school has launched a lawsuit against the university, alleging it racially discriminated against her and forced her to resign from the post earlier this year. Angelique EagleWoman, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribe of South Dakota, was appointed head of the law school at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., in May 2016 and resigned in June.THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP - HO, Tracy Rasmussen
This need was highlighted at the launch event for the report on the implementation of the resolutions from the view of businesses, held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) on November 20 in Hanoi.

The VCCI survey, which was conducted on some 10,000 private firms, found that the companies saw significant improvements in the business climate in recent years. However, the level of improvement remained uneven across different sectors and localities.

VCCI Chairman Vu Tien Loc said the space for reforms remained large, adding more efforts were needed for the State management agencies and local authorities to boost efficiency and benefit enterprises.

Loc said the report would serve as a reference for the evaluation of the Governments Resolution 19 about improving the business environment and national competitiveness and Resolution 35 about business development for the compilation of new resolutions.

According to Dau Anh Tuan, Head of VCCIs Legal Department, surveyed businesses felt that starting a business and getting electricity were the two areas that saw the most improvements. However, trading across borders, protecting investors and resolving insolvency did not improve much.

It was necessary to have an independent organisation to evaluate the progress of deregulation and the level of transparency in applying business prerequisites, Tuan said.

Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said an independent organisation to review the issuance of legal documents should be set up, which would play important role in improving the business climate.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 45F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low around 45F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), Canada ranks 13th among the world's leading shrimp importers and the country has posted increasing demand for imports of warm water shrimp from Asian countries such as Vietnam and India.

Canada imports over 53,000 tonnes of shrimp each year. The top five leading shrimp suppliers for Canada include Vietnam, India, China, Thailand and Indonesia respectively.

While Canada reduced imports of shrimps from Thailand (down 33.5%) in the first three quarters of this year, the country increased the imports from Vietnam and India, up 5% and 9.4% respectively compared to the same period last year.

Vietnam and India are close rivals regarding export to the Canadian market and both Asian countries are entitled to enjoy 0% import tax on frozen shrimp coded HS 030617.

Canada is the sixth largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp, accounting for 4.3% of Vietnam's total shrimp exports to foreign markets in the first nine months of this year. Vietnam's shrimp exports to Canada have seen continuous positive growth rates since 2016.
KB Kookmin Bank CEO Hur Yin, right, holds up an agreement with Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae at a job fair hosted by the bank in Songdo, Incheon, Wednesday. Under the agreement, the lender will support students to find jobs after graduation via various programs and events. Yonhap
The exhibitions include the 2018 Vietnam Int'l Textile & Garment Industry Exhibition (VTG 2018), the 18th Vietnam International Textile and Apparel Accessories Exhibition (VITATEX), the Vietnam International Footwear Machinery & Material Industry Exhibition (VFM), and the 8th Asia International Dye Industry, Pigments and Textile Chemicals Exhibition (INTERDYE ASIA 2018).

VTG 2018 features the participation of more than 400 units with over 600 pavilions from hundreds of internationally famous brands, such as Bao Lun, Rich Peace, Tajima, ZSK (embroidery machines), Heinz Walz, Epson, Grafica and Sulfet (printing machines).

VFM is one of the new highlights of this years exhibition series, introducing footwear manufacturing equipment that offers multiple choices in terms of production components in the footwear value chain. Meanwhile, INTERDYE ASIA 2018 is a world-leading event that has taken place across Asia. Returning to the potential Vietnamese market this year, INTERDYE ASIA aims to contribute to developing the domestic textile & garment industry as a whole and the chemicals industry in service of the footwear sector in particular.

According to statistics, Vietnam has more than 700 manufacturers and roughly 1.5 million workers in the footwear industry. The country is in the process of becoming the third largest exporter of footwear and handbags in the world, with revenues from production and exports of other relevant products having also increased rapidly.

However, limited productivity with regards to Vietnams footwear machinery remains a weak point that requires addressing. Participation in multiple free trade agreements, especially the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, is seen as a good opportunity for Vietnam to receive international support and technology transfer to boost the development of the domestic footwear industry.

In the first six months of 2018, Vietnam attained a memorable record as its revenues from textile and garment production and exports were among the worlds top five. In addition, the export volume of Vietnams footwear products stood second in the world, accounting for 7.4% of the global export volume, just behind China.
Analysts say OPEC meeting key to determining future oil price



By Lee Kyung-min



The weeks-long bearish sentiment on oil prices could significantly reverse pending the outcome of an upcoming meeting of oil producers in December, analysts said Sunday.



The meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and 10 non-OPEC partners is scheduled for Dec. 6 in Vienna, Austria.



While the oil price hitting 6-week lows came as a "mixture of multiple negatives," no additional marked drop is expected for a while, according to an analyst.



"The price dropped partly because OPEC said in November's monthly report that next year's world oil demand would rise by 1.29 million barrels per day," said Shim Hye-jin, an analyst at Samsung Securities.



This was not only 70,000 barrels per day less than predicted last month but also the fourth consecutive reduction in its forecast.



Another factor, she said, was that Saudi Arabia had no response to a twitter message from U.S. President Donald Trump's who said Nov. 12: "Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. Oil prices should be much lower based on supply."



"Given OPEC member countries and Russia suggested Nov. 11 that they could cut supplies 2019 citing a predicted glut of oil on world markets, no immediate response to reiterate an earlier stance contributed to the fall," Shim added.



But the price is not expected to significantly drop any further, given the 6-week low has been enough of falling streak, she said.



"For the price to rise, oil producers should continue with their planned production cuts which will influence the market sentiment accordingly."



Political uncertainties involving the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Iran will also play into the price change, according to another analyst.



"Despite the recently restored U.S. sanctions on Iran, the diplomatic friction between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will largely impact oil production as part of the continued hegemony-oriented struggle in the Middle East," said Seo Tae-jong, an analyst at Korea Investment and Securities.



On Nov.16, WTI Crude Oil closed at 56.46 dollars a barrel, unchanged from a day earlier, while Brent Crude closed at 66.76 dollars a barrel, up 0.21 percent from a day earlier.



While the slight jump in Brent Crude came amid hopes that a coalition of oil producers may seek a production cut at the Dec. 6 meeting, the jump was too small to be considered a breakthrough to reverse falls of the past six weeks.



Oil prices have plummeted since Oct. 2, when the WTI Crude Oil and Brent Crude closed at 75.41 dollars and 84.98 dollars a barrel, respectively, at four-year highs.



At the time, some experts expressed concern that the prices may return to $100 a barrel in the coming weeks, which would pose major risk to the already protracted sluggish Korean economy with sluggish consumer confidence and investor sentiment.




Mirae Asset Tower in Shanghai / Korea Times file



By Park Hyong-ki





Mirae Asset founder Park Hyeon-joo / Yonhap
An American tourist was killed by arrows shot by protected tribesmen living in one of the world's most isolated regions tucked in India's Andaman islands, police said Wednesday.



John Chau, 27, had taken a boat ride with local fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to the remote North Sentinel Island where the indigenous people live cut off completely from the outside world.



As soon as he set foot on the island, Chau found himself facing a flurry of arrows, official sources told AFP.



Contact with several tribes on the islands, set deep in the Indian Ocean, is illegal in a bid to protect their indigenous way of life and shield them from diseases.



Police have registered a case of murder and seven accused persons have been arrested.



"The investigation in this matter is on," senior police officer Deepak Yadav said in a press release.



Chau had made several trips to the Andaman islands recently before finally managing to make it to the remote stretch by offering money to local fishermen.



"He tried to reach the Sentinel island on November 14 but could not make it. Two days later he went well prepared. He left the dingy midway and took a canoe all by himself to the island," sources said.



"He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body.



"They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the sea shore."



The Andamans are also home to the 400-strong Jarawa tribe who activists say are at threat from outsiders, who often bribe local authorities to spend a day out with them.



But tribes such as the Sentinelese shun all contact with the outside world and are known to be hostile to any encroachers.



The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150. (AFP)




Composer and conductor Kim Seong-guk rehearses with the National Orchestra of Korea for the "New Generation, New Arirang" concert featuring North Korean music at a rehearsal room in the National Theater of Korea in central Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Kwon Mee-yoo



Early signs of a thaw between North and South Korea came with music.



In February, North Korea's Samjiyon Orchestra performed in Gangneung and Seoul to support the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, and in April a South Korean troupe visited Pyongyang to present its "Spring Is Coming" concert. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un suggested "Autumn Has Come," a North Korean concert in the South, in return, which hasn't been realized yet.



"Cultural exchanges between North and South Korea have been halted for a long time and the traditional music field was no exception. I think learning about North Korean music is the start of understanding North Korea and its culture," said composer Kim Seong-guk, who conducts the National Orchestra of Korea (NOK) "New Generation, New Arirang" concert today. "I wish this concert would provide a better understanding of each other's traditional music."



The NOK has worked to bridge the two Koreas through music, introducing to South Korea North Korean music, including folk songs and popular music composed after liberation from Japanese rule, through concerts from 2000 to 2009.



"New Generation, New Arirang," held at the Lotte Concert Hall in southern Seoul, premieres some North Korean musical pieces for the first time in South, arranged in traditional Korean style, as well as two new pieces written for this concert by Kim and fellow composer Kim Dae-sung.



"I didn't know much about North Korean music either and had to do research for this project. Some South Korean musicians defected to the North and it is interesting to trace their changes. From what I understand, traditional music in North Korea developed reflecting the social environment there, absorbing modern music and popular demand as well as propagandistic purposes. Meanwhile in South Korea, musicians tried to preserve traditional music and it developed influenced by Western-style orchestral arrangement.



"Two major elements of traditional Korean music are rhythm and melody. Rhythm developed in a more diverse way in the South, while it became simplified in the North. Local colors of folk songs are better preserved in the South, too. I think North Korean music became standardized as only musicians who advocate the social system survived and their music was adapted for propaganda purposes," Kim explained.



At the concert, Chung Se-ryong's "Celebration," a North Korean style traditional orchestral piece with modernized traditional instruments, will be played.



North Korean composer Lee Han-woo's "Ongheya" is rearranged for a traditional Korean orchestra and violinist Oh Joo-young of the New York Philharmonic will accompany the NOK, while another Lee piece "Long Arirang" is arranged as a "danso" (short bamboo flute) concerto. Korean-Japanese danso player Lee Dong-shin will accompany the NOK.



"The songs I picked for this concert are relatively modern pieces, reflecting recent North Korean orchestra style. Ongheya and Long Arirang showcase how the same folk songs differentiated as the two Koreas became divided," Kim said.





Kim Seong-guk / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gestures while speaking during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday. AP



The United States wants to ensure that progress in denuclearizing North Korea is not outpaced by efforts to improve inter-Korean ties, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday.

Pompeo's remark underscores U.S. concerns that a recent flurry of inter-Korean activity could undermine sanctions placed on the North for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

"We have made clear to the Republic of Korea that we do want to make sure that peace on the peninsula and the denuclearization of North Korea aren't lagging behind the increase in the amount of inter-relationship between the two Koreas," Pompeo said in a news conference. "We view them as tandem, as moving forward together. We view them as important parallel processes."

South Korean and American officials were meeting in Washington the same day to launch a working group that will help coordination on the matter.

Pompeo said there is "complete agreement" between the sides on how the two efforts should proceed.
















By Jung Da-min







A Spanish-based pro-North Korean organization will hold a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang in April.







The Korean Friendship Association (KFA) said on its website that the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference will be held in the Science and Technology Complex in the North Korean capital April 22 and 23.







"International experts in the blockchain and crypto industry will gather for the first time in Pyongyang to share their knowledge and vision, establish connections and discuss business opportunities," it said.







Those with passports from South Korea, Japan and Israel are not allowed to attend. No journalists are invited.



U.S. citizens are "welcome to apply," KFA said, despite the U.S. government's travel ban that has been extended through Aug. 31, 2019.



North Korea in response to the U.S. ban that took effect since September last year said that it would "leave [its] door wide open to any U.S. citizen who would like to visit."







Conference participants also will tour the Information Technology Company and the Daedonggang Beer Factory on April 24.







The conference is being promoted as North Korea emphasizes its self-reliant economy against international sanctions slapped on it for its nuclear and missile programs.







The South's state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) in an August report said only a few with "special computer skills" are allowed to mine and trade bitcoins under the regime's direction.







The April conference also comes with tour packages priced at 3,300 euros ($3,761) a person.







The KFA has organized a six-day program for the event, including the two-day conference and four days of tours from April 19 to 21 and April 24.







Participants will visit landmark places in Pyongyang, Gaeseong and Panmunjeom. The itinerary includes the recently opened inter-Korean liaison office in Gaeseong.






Choi Nyeong-ju, 16, stands outside the main building at Buyeong Girls' High School, a boarding school in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, Nov. 13. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



Grand prize winner of The Korea Times' 7th Multicultural Youth Awards



By Lee Suh-yoon



Choi Nyeong-ju, 16, is an all-around A student at Buyeong Girls' High School in Yeosu, a small city on the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula.



Her strongest subjects are math and Korean. As her mother is from Japan, she also helps out in Japanese class by fluently reading out dialogue passages with the teacher.



Now a second-year student, she divides her time between studying and activities ranging from debates to badminton.



All the teachers The Korea Times met up with at Choi's campus Nov. 13 called her "a bright student" both in personality and academic achievement. Choi recently earned the highest midterm exam score in her entire grade.



Born on Jeju Island and raised in Yeosu since kindergarten, Choi speaks perfect Korean. Though her mother does not speak fluent Korean, she had three older siblings to practice her Korean with while growing up.



"Nyeong-ju breaks down the all the stereotypes that are sometimes associated with multicultural teenagers," Yun Ki-ok, a teacher in charge of counseling for multiracial children at the school, said. "We're very proud of her and hope she can become a go-between agent who breaks down the boundary between multicultural students and other Korean children."



In fact, Choi's dream is to become an elementary school teacher, a job that will likely bring her into contact with many multiracial children when considering the rapid demographic changes in Korea.





Choi, left, chats with her friends on her school's campus grounds. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday the United States supported Kim Jong Yang of South Korea to lead the international police agency Interpol, pitting Washington against the Kremlin's candidate for the job, Alexander Prokopchuk.

U.S. lawmakers have been lobbying President Donald Trump's administration to oppose Prokopchuk's candidacy, charging that Russia has been abusing Interpol, trying to settle scores and harass dissidents by issuing warrants for their arrest. (Reuters)












A rally participant sheds tears as she attends a weekly "Wednesday demonstration" near a "comfort woman" statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap



South Korea announced Wednesday that it will close down a Japan-funded foundation working to support domestic victims of Japan's wartime sex slavery.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which governs the foundation, made the announcement in a press release that it will carry out a legal process to dismantle the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation.

"We, along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have consulted with the relevant offices on how to handle the foundation and collected various opinions. Based on the current situations of the foundation and the review results, we have decided to close it down," it said.

"We will try our best in setting up policies to recover the honor and dignity of the victims," Minister Jin Sun-mee said.

The planned shutdown is seen as Seoul's move to effectively discard a 2015 accord between the neighboring countries on the "comfort women" issue.












Kim Jong-yang / Yonhap

Interpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations.

The U.S.-backed Kim, acting president of the global police body, was picked at a meeting of delegates from member nations in Dubai to replace Meng Hongwei, who went missing in his native China in September.

Beijing later said Meng resigned after being charged with accepting bribes.

There had been growing calls within Western nations for Interpol to reject Russian candidate Alexander Prokopchuk -- a Russian interior ministry official and current Interpol vice president -- over fears Moscow could abuse the role to target political opponents.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw his weight behind Kim, who will serve out Meng's term until 2020.

"We encourage all nations and organisations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that," Pompeo told reporters.

Critics have raised concerns over Russia's previous applications for Interpol "Red Notices", or international arrest warrants, to target those who have fallen foul of the Kremlin.

Interpol's president chairs its General Assembly while day-to-day operations are handled by the organisation's Secretary general Juergen Stock.

'Political persecution'

In an open letter this week, a bipartisan group of US senators said choosing Prokopchuk would be like "putting a fox in charge of a henhouse".

"Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists," they wrote.

Harriett Baldwin, a minister of state at the British foreign office, told parliament on Tuesday that London would support Kim's bid.

Anti-Kremlin figures had also raised concerns, including Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has been repeatedly jailed by authorities.

"Our team has suffered from abuse of Interpol for political persecution by Russia," Navalny wrote on Twitter. "I don't think that a president from Russia will help to reduce such violations."

US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis echoed the endorsement for Kim.

"As recent events show, the Russian government abuses INTERPOL's processes to harass its political opponents," he said on Twitter.

The controversy also comes amid security concerns over accusations of Russian agents attempting to poison an ex-spy in Britain and trying to hack the network of the global chemical weapons watchdog.

Ukraine, deeply at odds with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists, threatened to pull out of Interpol if Prokopchuk prevailed. Lithuania also said it would consider withdrawing from the network.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the US senators' letter as a "vivid example" of an attempt to interfere in the vote.

Moscow's interior ministry denounced a "foreign media campaign aimed at discrediting Russia's candidate".

But two foes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have been targeted by international arrest warrants sought by Moscow, also said Tuesday they were launching a bid to get Russia suspended from Interpol for abusing the agency.

The legal challenge was announced by financier Bill Browder, named in multiple Interpol warrants, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- a former oil baron who spent 10 years in a Russian jail and now lives in exile in London.

"The Interpol constitution has very specific rules which forbid countries who are serial abusers from using the system," Browder told reporters.

Briefly arrested in Spain this year under a Moscow-issued Red Notice, Browder said the Russian candidacy was an attempt by Putin to "expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe".

He fought for -- and in 2012 secured -- US sanctions against Russian officials believed to be involved in the death of his tax consultant, Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of a $230-million tax fraud.

Russia has rejected the claims and this week announced it was opening a new probe into Browder on suspicion of running a "transnational criminal gang", even suggesting he was behind Magnitsky's death.

Russian prosecutors said he would be put on an international wanted list "in the near future".

Multilingual Prokopchuk worked in tax enforcement before starting as a Russian representative at Interpol in 2006, according to the interior ministry. (AFP)
This is the first visit to Vietnam, as well as the first visit to the Asian region, by the Indian President since taking office in July 2017.

India is located in South Asia with a total area of nearly 3.3 million km2 and is rich in natural resources. India's population is over 1.3 billion. After the victory of the 2014 general election, the ruling Indian People's Party (BJP) has implemented policies that were committed to voters to ensure a situation of stable politics and security.

In 2017, GDP of India reached US$2.45 trillion, up 6.7% over 2016, and per capita income posted at US$1,989. India has become the sixth largest economy in the world. The country has also accomplished great achievements in science and technology and is considered as a key player in shaping the industrial revolution 4.0.

Vietnam and India have a long-lasting traditional friendship. Since the establishment of the diplomatic relations in 1972, the Vietnam - India traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation, whose foundation was laid by President Ho Chi Minh and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Neru, has been continuously nurtured and promoted by generations of leaders and people of the two countries.

India actively supported Vietnam in the struggles for national independence and unification in the past, as well as in the current cause of renewal and economic development. The two countries established the strategic partnership in 2007. In September 2016, the bilateral relationship was upgraded to the comprehensive strategic partnership, reflecting the deep and effective development of the relations between India and Vietnam. In 2017, the two countries held significant activities to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the diplomatic relations and the 10th anniversary of the strategic partnership.

We are pleased to see that the bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and India has developed strongly in all aspects, including politics, economics, culture, education, science and technology, energy, national defense and security. The two sides also hold regular exchanges of delegations at all levels and the relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and other political parties of India are increasingly expanding. Bilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the Joint committee, Political consultation, Defence policy dialogue and Security dialogue were also successfully held in 2018.

The bilateral cooperation in the field of economy and trade has also flourished. India is one of the 10 largest trading partners of Vietnam and the two-way trade revenue rose by five times over the 10 years between 2007 and 2017. As of September 2018, the bilateral trade volume was estimated at about US$8.3 billion (up 47.1% over the same period in 2017). The two sides strive to raise the two-way trade turnover to US$15 billion by 2020.

India has invested in 182 projects in Vietnam, with a total registered capital of US$816 million, ranking 28th among 126 countries and territories investing in Vietnam. Vietnam currently has seven investment projects in India with a total registered capital of nearly US$6.15 million. Vietnam and India are now members of the ASEAN-India Investment Agreement under the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement.

The two countries have also witnessed positive development in security and defense cooperation in addition to finance - credit, oil and gas, and science - technology cooperation. Cultural and educational cooperation has made remarkable progress with the establishment of the Indian Cultural Centre and the Indian Research Centre in Hanoi in 2016 and the Vietnam Research Centre in New Delhi in March 2018. The cooperation on tourism and people-to-people exchanges is also growing with the increasing number of Indian tourists to Vietnam, posting an annual increase of 17% in the 2010 - 2016 period and 30% in 2017.

Vietnam and India have coordinated closely, shared mutual trust and supported each other on various regional and international issues. As a coordinator of India-ASEAN relations in the 2015 - 2018 period, Vietnam supports India's implementation of the "Act East" policy and other regional connectivity initiatives. Meanwhile, India supports ASEAN's central role in the region.

The State visit of Indian President Ram Nath Kovind and his spouse intend to consolidate the political trust between the two countries, creating momentum for further development of the traditional friendship and comprehensive strategic partnership for the interests of the two peoples as well as for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.
Lee Chun-sik, 94, at an interview at his flat in Gwangju. Lee worked at a steel mill in Kamaishi, Japan, from 1943 to 1945 during Japan's colonial occupation of Korea. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



On Nov. 14, The Korea Times interviewed Lee Chun-sik at his home in Gwangju. Lee is the first wartime forced laborer to win a compensation suit against a Japanese firm. He gave us his thoughts on the historic ruling last month and recounted his time at a steel mill in Kamaishi, Japan.









By Lee Suh-yoon, Video produced by Lee Min-young



Lee Chun-sik, 94, is a self-proclaimed patriot.



But his faith in his country took a blow in the long court battle demanding compensation for his forced labor at a Japanese steel mill during World War II. The judiciary power abuse scandal this year revealed the previous government and Supreme Court systematically held back Lee's and other wartime forced labor cases for five years to maintain good ties with Japan.



The delay was costly. Three plaintiffs passed away during this time, leaving Lee alone in the courtroom, Oct. 30, to hear the first legal victory for wartime forced laborers.



"They say it happened during President Park Geun-hye's administration, and the minister of foreign affairs was also involved," Lee said with a conflicted expression, sitting in his home two weeks after the ruling. "I wonder why they did such a thing."



Tired of the drawn-out legal battle, Lee tried to drop out of the lawsuit  filed against Nippon Steel in 2003  several times. But he always showed up at the lawyer's office at the last minute, carrying requested documents.



"It was very stressful for him to go back and forth to the courtrooms," Lee's eldest son Lee Chang-hwan said. "I think he held on in the end because he knew the lawsuit would have bigger repercussions for other victims of wartime forced labor."



Yet with Nippon Steel toeing the line with the Japanese government's vocal opposition to the ruling, getting the 100 million won ($87,000) compensation may mean another long fight. Lee wants the Korean government to step in.



"The government should take care of the uncollected compensation in advance," Lee said. "If I die tomorrow, what then?"



Three years at Kamaishi



Despite his age, Lee still remembers how he ended up at the steel mill in Kamaishi.





Lee holds up a medal of honor awarded for his military service during the 1950-53 Korean War. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



In 1941, during the 1910-1945 Japanese occupation of Korea, Lee, 17 at the time  along with 80 other middle and high school students  was "chosen" by the then Japanese mayor of Daejeon to join a "national service squad."



"They told us we would learn advanced technical skills, as well as study," Lee said.



The group held a farewell event in front of City Hall before boarding a train to Busan. From there they were ferried across the waters to Shimonoseki, Japan. After a stopover in Tokyo, Lee arrived at Kamaishi, formerly known as the "steel town" of Japan's eastern coast, but soon realized his expectations were far from reality.



"All I did there was hard manual work," Lee said. "Whenever the train from Hokkaido appeared out of the tunnel, we unloaded coke and shoveled it into the smelting furnace."





'They made us cry a second time': wartime forced laborer, 87, continues fight for justice Daughter of World War II conscript helps forced labor victims A talk from heart to heart: Wartime forced labor victim Lee Chun-shik The factory was filled with dust and poor electrical wiring. Korean laborers were assigned to the most strenuous and dangerous tasks. Injuries were commonplace, sometimes resulting in death. Lee himself was hospitalized for three months after tripping over molten steel on the factory floor.



After work, they rested in the factory's dormitory rooms, each holding about a dozen people. For the first six months, no one was allowed to leave the factory grounds.



"They used a brass horn to wake us up, and to tell us to go to bed or work. Everything was timed to the minute," Lee said.



Lee never received any wages over his three years at the factory.



"They told us the Japanese government was saving up our wages in a separate account, to give it to us all at once when we finished," Lee said.



After the first six months, Lee and his fellow Korean laborers were allowed to leave the factory and visit the town on Sundays. Having no money on them, they earned their meals by helping locals out with their work.



Lee shows old court documents and newspaper clippings related to his forced labor case. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

"Japanese fisherman invited us onto their boats to go fishing with them at the port," Lee recalled. "If I caught some tasty ones, they treated me to a meal at their house."



After three years, he was given a physical test and sent to train at Japan's military training base in Yongsan in Korea for three months. Afterward, he was put in charge of watching over U.S. military prisoners at a base in Kobe, Japan.



Japan's surrender finally ended World War II in 1945 and liberated Korea. Lee went back to Kamaishi to collect his wages, only to find the steel mill had been bombed to rubble. He later found out from the company's files  published by a Japanese academic  that only 23.8 yen ($0.20) had been saved in his name.



Left with no choice, he went back to Korea and became a police officer, and weathered through another conflict, the Korean War, a few years later, this time as a soldier.



Lee says he does not blame all Japanese people for the overdue wages or an apology. He has received a continuous flow of support from Japanese civic activists and lawyers over the long legal battle.



"I don't know why Prime Minister Abe is so greedy, but the Japanese in general are upright people."



He hopes his ruling will give other victims the courage to speak up.




Kim Seong-soo, a murder suspect, responds to questions from reporters at Yangcheon Police Station in southwestern Seoul, Wednesday, before being sent to the prosecution for indictment. Kim is accused of killed a part-time worker of an internet cafe over what he claims was improper treatments. / Yonhap



By Jung Hae-myoung



Police sent the case of Kim Seong-soo, 29, who is accused of brutally murdering a part-time worker of an internet cafe, Oct. 14, to the prosecution for further investigation and indictment Wednesday.



However, they stated that Kim's younger brother, who was present and holding the victim during the attack, was not an accomplice to murder but was involved in an initial physical assault.



"I am so sorry to the victim, his family and my family," Kim said before boarding a police van that took him to the prosecutor's office.



He also claimed it was not wrong of him to tell the worker, who looked "uncomfortable" to clean the cafe, and a verbal altercation that became physical was a result of this.



After this incident, Kim went home and then returned with a knife which he used to stab the worker 32 times in the face and neck after first assaulting him. He was arrested two days later.



The victim's family members claim Kim's brother restrained the victim during the stabbing; however, he has stated that he was trying to stop the attack.



Police concluded Kim used the weapon on the victim after knocking him down, implying the brother was not involved in the murder.



During questioning, Kim claimed he had been suffering from depression for 10 years. If this is recognized by a court as "mental instability," it could reduce his punishment if found guilty due to the concept of diminished responsibility.



Following the claim, over a million people signed a petition on Cheong Wa Dae's website saying Kim's mental condition could not justify his behavior, and leniency for this and in any other such cases should not be considered.



Kim was examined by the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry under the Ministry of Justice, which concluded he was not suffering from any debilitating psychiatric condition when he was alleged to have committed the crime.


By Kim Hyun-bin



Police have found more evidence showing the controversial Twitter account ID used in illegal campaigning for Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung belonged to his wife, Kim Hye-gyeong, despite their strong denials.





Kim Hye-gyeong, the wife of Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung

According to police, Tuesday, the Twitter account "@08_hkkim" with the ID "Hyegyeonggung Ms. Kim," which spread false information about Lee's opponents and rivals, is linked to the gmail ID "khk631000."

Officers then searched to find if the khk631000 ID was used on other domestic websites, and found it on one of the nation's portals, Daum. The Daum account was deactivated in April shortly after police started their investigation into the allegations of illegal campaigning ahead of the June local elections.



The personal information of the Daum user was not retrieved as the account had been deactivated, but police obtained the last login information, which was traced back to the governor's house.



With this evidence, the police concluded earlier this week, that Kim was the user of the controversial Twitter account, and asked the prosecution to indict her.



Kim's lawyer claimed the gmail ID was made by one of Lee's secretaries when he was Seongnam mayor, so his secretaries and aides could share his schedule as well as the ID.



"The secretary who made the account was questioned by officers and stated there was a third party who was suspected of having stolen the ID to post problematic posts on the account, but they disregarded such testimony that exonerates Kim," the lawyer said.



In December 2016, when Lee was competing against Moon Jae-in the Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) primary for the presidential election, Hyegyeonggung Ms. Kim falsely claimed that Moon's son received special treatment when landing a public agency job in 2006 thanks to his father who was then a senior presidential secretary.


Bob Caruso, head of Intentional Media that owns SOCAP, the big tent for social value investment, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in San Francisco in October. Korea Times photo by Oh Young-jin





By Oh Young-jin



October's SOCAP 2018 in San Francisco showing key members of Korean society _ consumers, corporations, banks, communities and nonprofits _ a direction to go to address the widening income gap and spread responsibilities among its members. Bob Caruso, former head of Select Equity Group, a hedge fund that manages $25 billion, leads the Intentional Media Group that owns SOCAP (Social Capital Markets), an annual big-tent event for nonprofits, asset managers and government officials. During the event, The Korea Times talked with Caruso. The following is some of what he had to say.



More aware consumers, investors



When we had a chance to buy SOCAP two years ago, this whole social impact space was growing. Almost everywhere you could hear about it. Now over 80 percent of consumers say they want companies to be more impactful and sustainable in how they build their businesses. SOCAP is a platform for bringing people together  people like philosopher Jed Emerson, asset managers, NGOs and governments who can catalyze more capital. It is the power of convenience for the purpose of continuing this conversation. The media plays the role of spreading powerful storytelling programs to engage more people in this movement and increase consumers' and investors' awareness when they buy products and invest.



Inevitable trends



When I got interested in social impact investing in 2008, it was when Rockefeller came out with its first report on impact investing. To me it was the beginning of the movement when many more individuals wanted to get involved. Companies like Warby Parker and Toms Shoes incorporated social missions into their business models, making them more attractive to millennials and other consumers who want to make positive societal changes. The more we can tell this story and use this movement to inspire the people and spur more young entrepreneurs or kids in college to study this, the better we can solve some of the world's toughest challenges. Philanthropy and public sector support are not enough. You need more private sector money involved to be able to do that.



Example setting



If I make a lot of money, who cares? But if I can make a positive impact on the world, I can be encouragement to the kids and tell them, "you need to care more about the planet, you need to care more about your neighbors and communities." If I can use my capital and my experience to talk to and mentor others for a cause for my neighbors, community and the planet, as I was by my mentors and role models, that is a beautiful thing.



After the tech bubble burst, I joined a hedge fund. Then, more people were looking for more absolute returns, safer risk-adjusted returns. The hedge fund business was nascent and seemed likely to grow quite a bit. This impact investing industry feels the same as the hedge funds did back then. There is a lot of excitement, a lot of energy.



Growth path



Impact investing had largely been led by private families and individuals and big nonprofits. Now you see almost every major bank, almost all private equity funds involved in it. Here in the U.S., new legislation spurs economic development in some of the most hard-hit cities in almost all states of the country. That will spur all traditional investors to think how to build more sustainable practices. You have all clients of these firms and you have all baby boomers and their kids saying how my portfolio is invested for the planet. That is a movement that won't stop. We are in the second or third inning of that. As more of these bigger firms are getting into it, we will see a dramatic change, a dramatic money flow. We can be at the center of it.



No charity



Now you have a whole new movement  one can invest, make money and make positive societal changes. That is better and it is no longer charities. Warby Parker, the glasses maker for instance, is very smart. Instead of paying as much for marketing and using some of the traditional distributors, it gives glasses to the needy and helps underprivileged people with eye care. It can hold its margins, as millennials will get excited to see this company benefit society for the money they spend to buy its glasses. That will have the competition pause to think and find ways of following.



Nailing double bottom line



The industry is trying to quantify something that is not purely financial and not entirely quantifiable. The problem is every business is different. In some businesses, quantification is how many people you hire, and in another it can be how many glasses you give to the needy. So we need to find some type of standardization. Anything short of standard would be anecdotal and become a story. If you are a hard-nosed investor, you don't rely on it because it is a story that can mean different things to different people.



SOCAP in Korea



One of SOCAP's big goals is how to take it to other regions of the world that desperately need it. Europe is more advanced than the U.S. in a lot of this type of investing. But there is a big opportunity in South America; there is certainly tremendous opportunity in Asia. It is really hard to go to new places not knowing their cultures, history and language. So we need a strong local partner who can make content relevant to the people. We are certainly interested in Korea and can be adjustable in format but it can take place next year if conditions are met.



Industrial shift



You have a perfect storm of things happening. You have millennials, the biggest working class in the U.S., and there will be the biggest wealth transfers from their parents  $40 trillion. The millennials are pushing financial advisers and banks to find investment products that are more aligned with their values. You have older people who ask to have their portfolio more aligned with the values. Those value-seeking firms will beat the competition. The process is self-fulfilling.




By Kim Yoo-chul



The two Koreas are speeding up negotiations on reconnecting air routes on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea renovating its two main airports.

Government officials said Wednesday, the main runway of Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, the largest airport in North Korea has been resurfaced and most of the right-angle cross-connections between the taxiway and the main runway have been replaced with diagonal ones.

Progress on new terminals is also underway. Changes are also being made at Samjiyon Airport, the closest gateway to Mount Paektu, offcials said.

"The two Koreas are discussing renovating North Korea's old airport facilities including Samjiyon Airport. Seoul plans to provide assistance depending upon circumstances," one official said.

Under the "2007 October 4 Declaration," South and North Korea agreed to initiate tour programs to the North Korean mountain, which has spiritual significance to both Koreas, and open a air route between Seoul and Samjiyon. The two Koreas initially pushed to renovate Samjiyon Airport, but that didn't materialize.

The unification ministry said the opening of the route between the two Koreas would be within the framework of sanctions, but it won't allow South Korean air carriers to pay fees for using North Korean airspace, which is said to be estimated at about 800,000 won ($720).

In February this year, North Korea requested the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which dictates territorial airspace, to establish a new Air Traffic Service (ATS) route between Pyongyang and the Incheon Flight Information Region (FIR).

South Korean airplanes were able to fly through North Korean airspace following the North's opening of the Pyongyang FIR to international traffic back in 1998. But the flights were stopped when South Korea imposed sanctions in May 2010, a ministry official said.
Protesters tear up posters with "Reconciliation and Healing Foundation" and "2015 Korea Japan Agreement" written on them, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Korea in central Seoul, Wednesday, after the government announced it would close the foundation. / Yonhap



Japan expresses displeasure at shutdown



By Kim Jae-heun



The government announced Wednesday the closing down of a Japan-sponsored foundation established to support Korean victims of Japan's wartime sex slavery.



The decision is likely to aggravate the already strained diplomatic relations with Japan, which has said the foundation was the result of a deal struck between the two nations over the issue.



The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which governs the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, said it would carry out the legal procedure to shut down the foundation. The decision came two years and four months after its establishment following a 2015 agreement between the former Park Geun-hye administration and the Japanese government led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was agreed that the two sides had settled the issue "permanently and irreversibly" with Japan paying 1 billion yen (10 billion won) to support the victims.



There have been growing calls to scrap the agreement, which surviving victims and civic groups said did not reflect all of the victims' opinions and did not include an official formal apology from Japan.






By Kim Yoo-chul



Floor leaders from the country's five major political parties agreed, Wednesday, to launch a National Assembly investigation next month into hiring irregularities at public firms.

The investigation will also deal with illegal hiring practices at state-owned institutions and agencies nationwide.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) and the minor opposition Bareunmirae Party agreed to end their boycott of Assembly sessions after the agreement.

The accord came a day after the two conservative parties began boycotting all sessions, demanding the DPK accept calls for an investigation into the scandal.

"Chiefs of the country's five parties including the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the LKP also agreed to investigate allegations related directly to favoritism in the job market," a DPK official said.

The official added National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang mediated talks to fix the specifics for the upcoming Assembly investigation.

Earlier, four opposition parties said a joint probe into the widespread practice of public agencies, including the state-owned casino operator Kangwon Land, as a key prerequisite to normalize the Assembly.

But the ruling DPK initially refused to agree, asking the opposition parties to move forward with 90 bills pending at the Assembly.

A full investigation into the alleged hiring irregularities emerged as an urgent issue for the parties after recent revelations that around 2,000 of the 17,084 employees of Seoul Metro were in some way related to other employees.

Representatives Kwon Seong-dong and Yeom Dong-yeol were recently charged with abuse of power and business interference, for exerting undue pressure in requesting friends and acquaintances be hired as trainees at the casino.

The country's top financial regulators found more than 25 cases of hiring malpractices at five local banks early this year after Woori Bank, a leading private lender, was accused last year of hiring more than a dozen entry-level workers who were mostly children or other relatives of the "elite."
Hong Joon-pyo, center, former leader of main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), leaves the LKP headquarters, Seoul, June 14, file photo, after announcing his resignation as the LKP leader after a large defeat in June local elections. / Korea Times file



By Park Ji-won



The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) is keeping silent about the outspoken former leader Hong Joon-pyo's pledge to resume political activities.

"Korea is a free country, and he can do anything he wants to. He didn't mention running for party leader and so. I have nothing to comment on," Kim Byoung-joon, LKP's interim leader, said Tuesday.

Apart from Rep. Hong Moon-pyo, who served as secretary general of the LKP under Hong Joon-pyo's leadership, LKP lawmakers are refraining from commenting on his resurgence, adopting a wait-and-see attitude. Hong Moon-pyo said "Hong Joon-pyo wants to work for the country, and I respect his decision."

The reactions came after Hong Joon-pyo, a former presidential candidate, pledged to resume political activities Tuesday after a five-month hiatus. He left the political scene in June to take responsibility for the party's defeat in local elections.

Since then, the LKP has been looking for a new platform by forming an emergency committee on party reform led by Kim Byoung-joon, former presidential policy chief for the Roh Moo-hyun administration. However, Kim's leadership has continued to face challenges, clashing with senior LKP lawmakers and failing to come up with concrete measures to rebuild the troubled party.

Hong made it official on Facebook posting, "I said I would return when people started to believe that Hong was right. I would say I am returning to the real political scene because I never left."

He added that he will run his own YouTube channel and form a political forum where intellectuals can discuss the country's philosophy.

The political heavyweight was well known for his biting remarks against the government and ruling party, drawing public attention whenever he said something.

Meanwhile, other parties welcomed Hong's return with sarcastic comments implying his comeback will benefit them.

The minor Justice Party spokesman Choi Suk said, "We hoped that he would make the extinction of the conservatives come true. Party for Democracy and Peace spokesman Kim Jung-hyun said "His return will not help the party's reform. The LKP added a headache."Minor opposition Bareunmirae vice spokesman Kim Ik-hwan said, "I can expect that the government and ruling party are getting excited about Hong's political return."

Critics say Hong's re-entry is a strategic move to take back control of the conservative party.

"If he doesn't return to the party now, it will be hard for him to play a central role in forming his political base as LKP members are getting into the power game now before the end of the emergency body," said Park Sang-chul, a politics professor at Kyonggi University.

"People who are against Hong Joon-pyo, such as former President Park Geun-hye's supporters, don't want him back. They could clash with people for Rep. Kim Moo-sung. LKP members will wait and see what happens."

"Kim Byoung-joon's leadership was hit by the process of firing one of its reform body members, Jun Won-tchack. After the decision, party members are starting to move on their own," said Professor Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University.
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions chant slogans in their one-day general strike in front of the National Assembly, Yeouido, Seoul, in protest against the government's plan to expand the flexible work hour system, Wednesday.



By Kang Seung-woo



One of the nation's two umbrella labor unions went on a general strike, Wednesday, to protest the government extend the flexible work hour system.



According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), 160,000 workers  130,000 of whom were from the hard-line Korean Metal Workers' Union, one of its affiliates  participated in the nationwide walkouts. The union staged rallies in 14 areas, including Seoul, Busan, Daegu and Ulsan.



The KCTU claims the Moon Jae-in administration's labor policy has been regressing, taking a pro-chaebol stance.



"We can no longer tolerate the Moon government's labor policy that is focused on what it must not do regarding workers," KCTU head Kim Myeong-hwan said in one rally held in front of the National Assembly in Seoul.



The biggest sticking point between the government and unions is expanding the flexible work hour system.



Under the current system where weekly work hours should be no more than 52, workers are allowed to work for up to 64 hours a week when necessary, later working fewer hours to make up for the overtime work. Currently, such flexibility will be allowed for up to three months.



The government plans to increase this to a six-month maximum in consideration of complaints from businesses.



According to the unions, the extended system could lead to a 7 percent decrease in workers' income because they cannot receive extra money for overtime.



It says a worker on 10,000 won ($8.9) an hour could lose 780,000 won in six months.



"The government and the National Assembly are trying to undermine the maximum 52 work hour system. If the flexible operation period is extended, employees will face a heavier workload," Kim said.



However, the Ministry of Employment and Labor refutes the argument, urging the KCTU to join a multilateral committee seeking dialogue that involves representatives from unions, management and the government, as well as other experts.



The general strike drew only displeasure from political circles.



"Instead of dialogue, the KCTU opted for a strike. However, it remains to be seen if such a massive walkout could help address issues that the labor sector currently faces," said Rep. Hong Young-pyo, the floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.



"We hope that the KCTU will change its stance as it is an important member of society."



He added that the expansion of the flexible work hour system was not aimed at urging unions to unilaterally concede to the government plan.



The minor conservative Bareunmirae Party also criticized the KCTU's strike, asking the union to return to the multilateral committee.



"The general strike is an act failing to meet the expectation of the people," the party said in a media statement.




Outstanding middle school students



Kim helps friends with her excellence in study





Kim Tae-hee

Kim Tae-hee, a student at Buwon Girls' Middle School in Incheon, is a member of Rainbow Choir, a choir comprised of biracial children. She took part in the choir's performance at the United Nations General Assembly in 2016.



Besides her talent in music with the choir experience, the 13-year-old is a top student excelling in almost all subjects.



She tutors her friends in English and math and helps them adapt to the school environment.



Fluent in Chinese thanks to her Chinese mother, Kim has been studying the language in Gyeong-in National University of Education's Global Bridge program since she was in third grade, and earned the top prize for a bilingual speech contest organized by the school.









She passed Level 3 of the Chinese Proficiency Test and is currently studying to obtain the certificate for the next level.





Patience, endless efforts are Jung's strength





Jung Ji-yang
He made the statement when delivering a speech at the plenary session of the 14th National Assemblys 6th meeting on the morning of November 20.

Ram Nath Kovind said that the visits are vivid illustration of the sound relations between the two countries, citing the one made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 when both sides inked a historic agreement to upgrade their ties to comprehensive strategic partnership.

He said that his visit to Vietnam at the invitation of President Nguyen Phu Trong is his very first to the country and the first to Southeast Asia since he took office in 2017.

Regarding all-round cooperation, he said that the two countries have enjoyed strong bonds in economy, politics and people-to-people exchanges.

He described Vietnam and India as vibrant economies, stating that two-way trade reached US$12.8 billion in 2017. India is among the ten largest trade partners of Vietnam, while Vietnam and ASEAN have crucial roles in Indias trade balance.

Both nations have huge potential to cooperate and supplement each other in garments and textiles, agriculture and agricultural technologies, bio-tech and IT, energy and pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, and mining, he said, underlining that Indian investors and service suppliers are eager to join the Vietnamese market.

The two countries continued to commit to bilateral cooperation in space security and multilateral forums.

The Indian leader also expressed his hope that tourism collaboration will be further fortified, and both sides should work to increase the number of direct flights to connect the two nations.

National efforts of the two countries have been made for the prosperity of each nation, thus, promoting business relations, and firm connections have played an important role in the progress, he highlighted.

The socio-economy has undergone substantial changes, and advanced technologies have changed lifestyles in both nations. India owns the largest startup ecosystem in the world, and is preparing to send an astronaut into space. The country stands ready to share experience with Vietnam in the fields of Vietnams interest and priority.

Vietnam and India shared their views on the settlement of disputes via peaceful means, respecting legal and diplomatic processes and in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).

On behalf of the Vietnamese National Assembly (NA), NA Chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, thanked the Indian President for his speech, which highlighted the sound relations between the two countries.

She took the occasion to congratulate India on becoming the 6th largest economy in the world.

The Vietnam-India comprehensive strategic partnership has been developed in a sound manner, with political trust being tightened via regular high-level and people-to-people exchanges.

She said that the Vietnamese NA will do its utmost and join hands with the Parliament of India to consolidate the friendship for mutual benefits of the two peoples, as well as for regional and global peace, prosperity, cooperation, and development.
Special jury award



Hong improves with self-directed learning





Hong Ye-seul

Hong Ye-seul, a sixth grader at Uijeongbu Singok Elementary School in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, has strong self-motivation for study and other activities.



She says that while other people think she is good at English thanks to her Filipina mother, she makes more effort than others to improve her English skills. She is a diligent student who tries hard to improve her academic ability.



Hong surprised the teachers and students when she read 20 books every week, and 100 books over the summer vacation. Such massive reading helped her to think logically.



With her challenging spirit, she entered an English speaking contest organized by the school and received an excellence award.



Hong, who hopes to become a doctor, is also a model student who empathizes with and listens to other people. She is sensitive and caring for students with disabilities and listens carefully to the stories of others who are sometimes alienated from the class.













Semoon Chang award



Na's linguistic talent shines in all places





Na Su-jin

Na Su-jin, 18, a second grader at Ansan International Business High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, received the top prize for her fluent Russian at a foreign language contest organized by the Foreign Language Examination Center under Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 2018.



With her linguistic talent, she hopes to become a translator in the future. Alongside her Russian skills learned from her mother who is from Russia, she is studying English hard as well for her future job, although she already has good English skills, getting good scores in business English and English speaking classes.



Na is a model student for fellow classmates, showing full responsibility for class affairs, and is popular among her friends for caring for others. She cleans boards and floors in the classroom to keep it tidy, which shows her service spirit for the community, and has earned multiple school awards.





Asian Friends Hope Scholarship



Sa believes multicultural background is special





Sa Sun-gung


By Choi Sung-jin





Not a weekend goes by without Gwanghwamun Square in the heart of Seoul being occupied by demonstrators of one sort or another.



Last Sunday was no exception, but a little unusual. In one corner, members of the Committee to Extol Baekdu were praising North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, calling for his visit to the South by the end of the year.



In another, people who belonged to the Committee to Do Away with Baekdu were denouncing Kim and voicing their opposition to his visit to Seoul. Baekdu is Korea's highest, and most spiritually significant, mountain situated on the Sino-Korean border, and from which the North says Kim's clan originated. If Kim visits Seoul, a similar scene of conflict will likely be awaiting him.



Still, Kim should come to South Korea and the sooner, the better.



The talks between the United States and North Korea are at a crossroads. Expectations are turning into disappointment and hopes are being replaced by worry. Immediately after the mid-term elections, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly said he was "in no rush" to deal with the North's nuclear weapons programs.



In addition, Vice President Mike Pence reiterated Washington's adherence to the complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea. In return, Kim Jong-un was seen observing the test of his country's latest "ultramodern tactical weapon."



The denuclearization talks are entering into a "now or never" stage. U.S. hard-liners are skeptical about a negotiated settlement of the North's nuclear crisis. This was shown by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) revelation of old  if not fake  news about the North's ongoing nuclear and missile programs. All this was not unexpected but embarrassing for inter-Korean well-wishers.



One thing seems inevitable: The two Koreas cannot go back to eight months ago when they  and the U.S.  were mired in escalating verbal battles, which increasingly threatened to develop into armed conflict.



The sides involved must find a way to maintain the current momentum for dialogue and negotiation. They can ill afford to repeat the failed previous pattern of suspending talks faced with stumbling blocks in the course of disclosing, inspecting and verifying the North's nuclear facilities.



President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart ought to hold their fourth summit. Now that three South Korean presidents have visited Pyongyang, it is Kim's turn to reciprocate and come to the South. Kim needs to reaffirm his will to denuclearize and agree on concrete steps. If the North Korean leader makes a vow before the South Korean people, his words will become irrevocable.



The U.S. and North Korea should hold a high-level meeting before the month passes, and Kim ought to make a visit to the South by the year-end, which would serve as a stepping stone to the second summit between him and Trump.



The unprecedented visit to Seoul by the North Korean leader should also be an occasion to establish holding inter-Korean summits on a regular basis. There will be lots of topics for them to discuss, including reinvigorating economic cooperation, facilitating exchange visits by separated families and bidding for the joint hosting of the 2032 Olympic Games. If the North's nuclear issue is not settled, none of these joint programs will be able to become a reality.



President Moon's speech before 150,000 North Koreans, Sept. 19, was nothing short of a historic event. "Let's turn this beautiful land of ours  from Baekdu to Halla (mountains)  into the base of peace, free from nuclear weapons and threats, and hand it over to our descendants," Moon said. "We have lived for 5,000 years together and for only 70 years have we been divided."



The North Korean audience responded with roars and applause. A South Korean leader directly expressing his aspirations to the North Korean people and drawing their immediate response was unthinkable just a year ago. And all this was arranged by none other than the North's leader. This writer must not have been the only one who found the possibility of the two Koreas living in a union of nations, if not one nation, something that could come to pass.



Kim should do the same in front of South Koreans. Unlike North Koreans who are under tight control, some people here will oppose and protest his visit. That points to the need for Kim to make clear his intention to denuclearize his impoverished country and pursue economic growth and co-prosperity with the South, which will turn jeers into cheers.



If the North Korean leader can tread on southern soil, and express his will for inter-Korean cooperation, it could speed up Pyongyang's talks with Washington, too.



It may be natural that some South Koreans are feeling dizzy with the sudden, enormous changes occurring on this divided peninsula. Some sarcastic comments on North Korea-related news articles seem to reflect such feelings.



As people feel pain when using muscles not used for a long time, it is not easy to change Cold War mindsets formed over seven decades. For the skeptics, the North is a never-changing regime, and inter-Korean stories may appear to be fake news.



Some difference of views and positions between Seoul and Washington and unexpected remarks and behavior of North Korean officials could have made these critics even more uncomfortable.



The opposition parties, even if they think Seoul and Pyongyang are moving too fast, should not oppose ratifying the Panmunjeom Declaration. If President Moon and his party are convinced their North Korea policy will continue even if political power changes hands, they will not be so anxious to reach a quick deal.



Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon was right when he said in Washington last week that Kim's visit to the South within this year was "not just possible but necessary."



Kim should come and make clear his unwavering intention for peace and co-prosperity to the people in the South and around the world.





Choi Sung-jin is a Korea Times columnist. Contact him at choisj1955@naver.com.


New framework needed to resolve historical issues



The already-soured relations between South Korea and Japan are feared to deteriorate further following Seoul's decision to disband a Tokyo-funded foundation to help wartime sex slavery victims. On Wednesday, the Moon Jae-in government announced it would dissolve the foundation created under a controversial 2015 agreement between the two countries to settle the "comfort women" issue.



The decision will certainly have negative implications on bilateral ties. But it is not surprising because the Moon administration had already hinted at the shutdown of the nonprofit foundation, for which Japan handed over 1 billion yen ($8.8 million) as not compensatory but "consolatory" money to the former sex slaves for Japanese troops.



The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation was established in 2016 under an agreement signed by the Park Geun-hye government. It has so far provided a combined sum of 4.4 billion won ($3.9 million) to 34 surviving victims and bereaved families of 58 dead victims. But the remainder of the surviving victims and civil rights activists are strongly against the agreement, saying Tokyo still refuses to acknowledge to and apologize for its wartime atrocities sincerely.



Against this backdrop, the Moon government has tried not to implement the accord, even though it did not scrap it or push for renegotiation. It blamed the previous administration for too hurriedly striking the deal, under which the two countries agreed to resolve the sexual slavery issue "finally and irreversibly" for the sake of forward-looking bilateral ties.



But the deal was doomed to failure from the start. The reason is because it lacks two key elements of a genuine solution: Japan's sincere apology and reparations for its crime against humanity. South Koreans feel that no deal is better than a bad deal.



Seoul's decision to shut down the foundation has virtually tolled the death knell for the agreement. It came after the Supreme Court of Korea last month ruled in favor of four Koreans forced to work for Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. during World War II. The ruling has reignited a diplomatic row over Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.



Tokyo has maintained a firm position that individual rights to reparations were terminated by the 1965 treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between the two countries. However the court ruling rejected the Japanese stance.



Seoul's action against the foundation has added fuel to the fire. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said immediately the decision was "unacceptable." So it will be inevitable to see tension between the two countries rise further.



Now the question is how to resolve historical issues between Seoul and Tokyo and mend ties to develop a future-oriented partnership. Some experts say a new framework is necessary to find a viable solution. Most of all, Japan should first reflect on its past misdeeds, offer a genuine apology and take legal responsibility. Without doing so, no solution is in sight.








By Nam Hyun-woo





Renault Samsung CEO Dominique Signora

Renault Samsung and GM Korea are desperate to secure new model production orders from their headquarters, according to industry analysts Wednesday, as they need to assemble new cars here to boost sales and keep their plants running.



The two carmakers have brought several new models assembled abroad into the country this year, but these have largely failed to compete with locally produced vehicles, the analysts said.



They stress it is a must for the companies to manufacture cars at their local plants if they want to compete with other automakers and maintain the size of their workforces.



Renault Samsung is paying keen attention as to whether its head office will allocate new models, including the Twizy micro electric vehicle, to its plant in Busan.



"Getting new models is critical to sustaining the plant and expanding our product portfolio," a Renault Samsung official said.



"New model allocations will be made based on the group's efficiency. Though we have not been informed about new models yet, headquarters appears to be discussing this."



Renault Samsung has suffered faltering sales throughout this year. From January to October, the French carmaker's Korean unit sold 190,525 cars, down 15.1 percent from the same period last year.



To address the sluggish sales, in May Renault Samsung rolled out the Clio hatchback, which is one of Renault's best-selling models in Europe. It is manufactured in Turkey.



In order to meet domestic consumers' preference for imported cars, the Korean unit even placed Renault's emblem on it, instead of its own, but ended up selling just 3,052 in the period, far short of its monthly sales target of 1,000.



Market observers attribute the slow sales of the Clio to its uncompetitive price range  19.9 million won to 23.2 million won depending on trim.



"Since the Clio's release, there have been doubts over the car's success in Korea because of its price," an industry source said. "Also, it was affected by domestic consumer sentiment of not seeing the car as an imported model which they are willing to buy even at a higher price."



Another concern for Renault Samsung is the arrest of Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, because Nissan's Rogue SUV accounted for 47 percent of the Korean unit's manufacturing output last year. Reportedly, Ghosn opted for Renault Samsung when Nissan was allocating the Rogue in 2014.



Since Renault Samsung's production contract for the Rogue will end next year, it is uncertain whether the company can win another production order from the Japanese carmaker.





GM Korea CEO Kaher Kazem
By Nam Hyun-woo







Samsung Heavy Industries has applied a solvent-free coating on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, the shipbuilder said Wednesday, adding it is the first case of a commercial ship applying such an eco-friendly paint.







According to the company, it has successfully applied the solvent-free coating, which it jointly developed with Norwegian paint firm Jotun, to its 7,500 cubic-meter LNG carrier.







A solvent is a chemical additive used to reduce the viscosity of paints for better application.







The company said its solvent-free coating is an eco-friendly paint that is safe from fire and explosion hazard and harmless to humans.







Despite their advantages, existing solvent-free coatings in the market have not been popular in the shipbuilding industry because of their cost, time and high viscosity.







Also, domestic shipbuilders are faced with the government's tightened environmental regulations on hazardous air pollutants, requiring them to install air-cleaning facilities worth tens of billions of won. The company said its solvent-free coating will be a viable option for it to cut costs.







"It has been difficult to use robots or other automated methods for ship painting because existing solvent coatings pose an explosion hazard," Samsung Heavy Industries Production R&D Center head Nam Seong-kil said. "With this successful case, development for ship painting automation technology will be spurred and it will improve productivity."






China believes the Maldives will make the "correct choice" to continue with a bilateral free trade deal, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday, after a Maldives politician said the tiny nation would pull out of the pact.



Mohamed Nasheed, the chief of the Maldivian Democratic Party, which leads the ruling federal alliance, told Reuters this week that it was a mistake to strike such a deal with the world's second biggest economy.



The Maldives parliament would not pass the law changes required for the zero tariffs agreement to come into force, he said.



His comments followed a warning from the new President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who took office on Saturday, that the Maldives was in financial difficulty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders.



In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing that the trade deal had undergone friendly and equal consultations, and that it is "mutually beneficial".



"Its early implementation will lead to early benefits for both sides. We believe the Maldives government will make the correct choice," Geng said, without elaborating.



Best-known for its luxury resorts on palm-fringed coral islands, the Maldives is among a number of small countries where China has invested billions of dollars building highways and housing as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.



The initiative aims to boost China's trade and investment flows with much of Asia and parts of the rest of the world. However, projects are facing opposition in some countries amid concerns about a debt trap that China has rejected.



Former Maldives President Abdullah Yameen, who lost the election in September, signed the trade deal during a December visit to Beijing. The Maldives parliament ratified the treaty despite opposition protests that he had rushed through the 1,000-page document in less than an hour without any debate.



Nasheed, a former president and now an adviser to Solih, has called the agreement a "one-way treaty" that favours China.



Critics in the Maldives say a China-led infrastructure boom has left the country of a little more than 400,000 people debt-ridden, and a free trade pact would only make the situation worse given the lopsided nature of the relationship.



Between January to August this year, the Maldives' imports from China were $342 million, while its exports to China were just $265,270, according to Maldives customs data. (Reuters)




The lawyer for Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian acquitted of capital blasphemy charges, appealed on Tuesday to Germany to give her whole family citizenship to start a new life in Europe.

Saiful Mulook told a news conference in Frankfurt that Bibi was now free but she and her family needed a passport to leave the country.

Bibi, 53, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 over allegations she made derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim.

The Supreme Court acquitted her last month.

"The whole world is asking why she's not coming," Mulook told reporters. "The answer is first that to leave a country you need a visa or you require a passport of another country."












British Prime Minister Theresa May briefed her ministers Tuesday ahead of a final push to secure a Brexit deal, but faced fresh pressure from her Northern Irish allies -- while Spain warned it could still veto the agreement.



May will meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday as she seeks to finalise the outline terms of Britain's future trading relationship.



EU leaders will then meet on Sunday to approve this framework and the withdrawal agreement struck last week, hoping finally to put an end to the uncertainty over Britain's exit scheduled for March.



But there remain challenges to overcome before then.



May faced a storm of domestic opposition over the divorce terms announced last week, and her Northern Irish allies have stepped up their demands for a change in the arrangements for the British province.



Splits meanwhile have emerged on the European side, with Spain warning it could veto the deal over the issue of Gibraltar, a British territory long claimed by Madrid.



"I regret to say that a pro-European government like Spain's would vote no to Brexit unless there are changes" to the terms of the agreement concerning Gibraltar, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.



Future of Gibraltar



Two of May's top ministers, including her Brexit secretary, quit last week over the divorce deal, while MPs from all parties came out against it.



A leadership challenge by May's own Conservative MPs has failed to materialise, however, and when she gathered her new-look cabinet Tuesday, they agreed to press on.



Officials are now racing to agree details of an accompanying outline statement on the future trading and security relationship for after Britain leaves the EU's single market and customs union.



May will meet Juncker for afternoon tea on Wednesday as "part of the ongoing negotiation process", her spokesman said.



European ministers have signed off on the draft divorce terms, but the agreement now risks being derailed by opposition in Madrid.



Spain wants the right to negotiate the future on Gibraltar with Britain on a bilateral basis.



"As a country, we can't conceive that what will happen with the future of Gibraltar will depend on a negotiation between Britain and the European Union," Sanchez said.



Spain's stance is opposed by both London and Belfast, where Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said a deal that took nearly two years to negotiate "should not be changed now".



'Show our displeasure'



Opposition to the agreement is also building in the House of Commons in London, which will vote on the final Brexit deal, likely early next month.



Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), on whom May's Conservatives depend for their majority, fears it will lead to a special status for the province, and is beginning to flex its muscles.



Late Monday, DUP MPs abstained on three budget votes in the Commons and voted against the government on a fourth, in apparent defiance of their deal to back the Conservatives on finance matters.



"We had to do something to show our displeasure," DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson told the BBC.



Pro-Brexit Conservatives have also savaged the divorce deal, which they say keeps Britain too close to the EU.



Rebels led by MP Jacob Rees-Mogg failed in their attempt to force an immediate confidence vote in May's leadership, but warned they would keep trying.



And Scotland's pro-independence leader Nicola Sturgeon, who heads the Scottish National Party (SNP), held talks with Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn about voting down May's "bad deal" and figuring out what to do instead.



Their opposition raises the risk of the deal failing and Britain ending its four-decade membership of the EU with no other arrangement in place.



Bank of England backing



Despite the resistance, May has continued to defend her deal in meetings with politicians, business leaders and party members.



Bank of England governor Mark Carney joined a chorus of business support on Tuesday, telling MPs the deal would support current forecasts based on "a smooth transition" for the economy.



May also used an editorial in the Belfast Telegraph to reassure people in Northern Ireland that it would put them "in a fantastic position for the future" while preserving the province's place in the UK.



The withdrawal agreement sets out plans for a 21-month transition after Brexit, in which Britain and the EU want to turn their outline agreement on the future relationship into a full trade deal.



But controversially, it says that in case that deal is not agreed in time, Britain will adopt a "backstop" arrangement to keep open its land border with Ireland.



This would keep all of Britain in the EU's customs union, and Northern Ireland also in parts of the single market. (AFP)




The two sides agreed to regularly maintain visits and meetings at all levels, as well as people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, and effectively implement existing cooperation mechanisms and seek new measures to promote bilateral relations.

PM Phuc took the occasion to convey his invitation to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to visit Vietnam.

The two leaders highlighted the effective defence cooperation between the two countries, agreeing that it is a key pillar of the bilateral ties. They applauded the implementation of the US$100 million credit package to support Vietnams border forces in building high-speed patrol boats.

They stressed the need to give priority to promoting economic cooperation in the coming time, towards soon reaching the goal of US$15 billion in two-way trade.

The two leaders suggested concerned ministries and sectors hold dialogues to explore possibilities to open up their markets, especially for goods of their strength.

PM Phuc thanked Indian leaders, especially Prime Minister Modi, for their goodwill and willingness to discuss solutions to reduce trade protection, thus protecting the interests of Vietnamese enterprises.

He appreciated India's investment in fields of its strengths and meeting Vietnams demand such as energy, renewable energy, and high-tech agriculture.

The two sides agreed to intensify cooperation between the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), especially in terms of stepping up the search and exploration of oil. They also agreed to actively implement the memorandum of understanding on cooperation in oil and gas exploration projects in third countries.

PM Phuc and President Kovind stressed the need to expand collaboration in the spheres of information technology, science-technology, culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchange, saying that there is huge potential for the two sides to boost their links in these fields.

They also emphasised that it is necessary to increase connectivity, while agreeing to lay smooth conditions for Vietjet to soon operate direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to New Delhi.

The two sides agreed to continue working closely and supporting each other at regional and international forums, especially within the United Nations.

Regarding the East Sea issue, the two leaders agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea; and peacefully settling disputes in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, and soon concluding an effective and binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea.
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What was it about Vikings that struck fear into the hearts of their enemies? Was it their willingness to brave the frigid elements? Their skill at piloting longships resembling dragons in battle? Their ruthlessness in conquering neighboring villages? Or was it something else, something they ate?

These famous warriors dined on one of the most fearsome foods known to humanity  lutefisk.

The Nordic delicacy translates to lyefish in Norwegian and what its name promises, it delivers. Lutefisk is dried whitefish reconstituted in a solution of water and lye, a metal hydroxide that's often used to make household cleansers, cure olives and dissolve bodies. The fish soaks in the lye liquid until it turns into a quivering gelatinous hunk. No wonder it's pronounced lewd-eh-fisk.

One theory claims lutefisk was a retaliatory dish, created by victimized villagers to poison the invading Vikings' stockfish reserves after dousing them in caustic lye water. The plan failed and no Vikings were harmed. The villagers, however, seemed to develop a taste for the dish.

This epic tale of tainted stockfish is apocryphal (read: probably made up) but, as time marched on, lutefisk became a holiday tradition that's still celebrated, even thousands of miles from its Norwegian homeland.

The Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys, is one place where Norskis (slang for a Norwegian or Norwegian-American) and Norskis at heart flock for a lutefisk feast every winter.

Two men attend the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

"We've been doing lutefisk dinners for 35 years," says Barbara Appleton, a lodge member who oversees the kitchen. "I've been trying to get out of it for 10 years so someone younger can do it."

As a bonafide lutefisk lover, I decided to join them as they prepared their annual feast, held the second weekend of November.

I love lutefisk because of its distinct flavor, which I'd describe as a fishy ammonia. I also like the singular texture of wet gelatin. But for some reason, I can't seem to find dining partners for this one-of-a-kind feast. I've invited friends and family, some of whom are of Scandinavian heritage, and still, no takers. A few gourmands quote food critic Jeffrey Steingarten, also known as "The Man Who Ate Everything." He once said, "Lutefisk is not food, it is a weapon of mass destruction." So much for eating everything.

A full plate at the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

Unfashionable Fish Dish

At the height of its popularity, in 2008, the Norrona Lodge served half a ton of reconstituted Icelandic cod to approximately 1,300 guests at its holiday lutefisk dinner. In recent years, the number has plummeted to less than half that amount and only 500 or 600 guests.

Some lodge members see lutefisk consumption as a form of paying dues, a hazing ritual to prove they're made from solid Scandinavian stock. Others choke it down with a generous drizzling of clarified butter then move on to more palatable items, like meatballs smothered in gravy or the anise-flavored rye bread known as limpa. Still others, especially younger guests, skip the lutefisk course entirely.

Traditionally, lutefisk is cod, haddock or pollock that's hung to dry in the open air for preservation then stored for eating during the winter. The dried stockfish becomes as thin and stiff as a piece of wooden board. When reconstituted with a lye-water solution, it can inflate up to eight times its dried weight, a time-consuming process that requires at least a week to complete.

SoCal's local Sons of Norway lodge purchases pre-reconstituted fish from Olsen Fish Company in Minnesota and prepares it in their commercial kitchen. The fish is cooked in hot water at 135 to 150 F for approximately 15 minutes, before it literally dissolves. (They don't need to use lye because it has already reconstituted in a lye solution at Olsen.) The lutefisk is then ready to serve.

The result is a fish fillet that's flaky yet viscid and more gelatinous around the edges. The flavor is a faint fishiness with a note of ammonia. Dash on the butter and it becomes poor man's lobster. That's my opinion as a certified lutefisk lover but most people call it "slimy and stinky."

Lutefisk at the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

The Old Guard

People who grew up eating lutefisk often have mixed feelings about it. It's not a meal most of them look forward to, it's more of a duty. That goes double for people who have never tried it.

"It's like a rite of passage," says Helen Hawkins, a college student who's eating lutefisk for the first time. "I don't mind it. I finished one piece. I don't need to try it again."

Herein lies the reconstituted cod quandary. How do you solve a problem like lutefisk when nobody wants to eat it?

"The older generation of Norwegians were the ones who kept it going for decades. Now they're in their 90s or dying off but few of the younger people are keeping it going," says Ryan Ole Hass, a realtor and long time lodge member.

"This lodge tries to involve the young people. They're trying to pass it on to the next generation so it doesn't die out," says lodge volunteer Steve Rudolph, who wears a t-shirt that reads "Lutefisk: The Norwegians Attempt at Conquering the World."

That hasn't made lutefisk more appealing to the under-70 set.

One of the tween-aged servers at the Sons of Norway dinner tells me, "I love the lutefisk dinner." When I ask what he likes about lutefisk, he says, "I don't eat the fish. I love the meatballs."

Volunteer Steve Rudolph prepares lutefisk at the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

A New Generation

"About 10 years ago, after attendance began to dip, we started to see the room change," said Ole Hass. "There were guests who were not Norwegian or Scandinavian coming to eat lutefisk. Mostly by word of mouth, people were finding out about us."

An episode of Visiting with Huell Howser, shot at the Norrona lodge in 1999, helped.

"For a few years now, a Chinese group would come in a tour bus for the dinner. It was a big group," Ole Hass says.

These new faces rekindled his hope that the lutefisk dinner might extend beyond lodge members, especially since revenue from the event helps pay the organization's taxes.

I know why I enjoy lutefisk but I was curious to find out what other people outside of the Sons of Norway liked about it.

I sat down for the Saturday dinner and waited for the arrival of the Chinese lutefisk aficionados. I waited and waited but they never showed up. Maybe the Daughters of Iceland had started throwing a competing Hakarl Dinner. I have no idea.

However, another group of diverse, non-Scandinavians showed up  college students from Cal State L.A.

Students of professor Steve Paulson, a professor of communication at Cal State L.A., attend the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

Steve Paulson, a professor of communication disorders, led the group. Paulson's mother is Norwegian and his father is Swedish. Every year, he treats his students, who come from all sorts of backgrounds, to the Norrona Lodge's lutefisk dinner.

One of his colleagues, Chandon Suresh, who is Indian, says, "Steve was talking about lutefisk since day one. I think it's a very strong taste and smell." But he keeps coming back. His wife, Arleth, who is Filipina, has also become fond of lutefisk. "It's good," she says. "I like it. It's like regular fish."

CSULA student Jacquelyn Lopez, who is Mexican-American, says, "I heard it's an interesting taste." Her friend Benny Hinojos adds, "I thought it would smell pretty bad. I had to cover it in gravy. It was very gelatinous, like fish jello, but it was a very light fish flavor. I don't hate it."

Sam Soudah, who hails from Jordan, is less enthusiastic: "I don't like the fish. I like the meatballs."

The famous meatballs at the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

"It's not as bad as described," says Julia Ritter, who's half-German and half-Korean. "But I'm not a fan. The texture turned me off."

It's not looking too good for lutefisk. However, I eventually find like-minded fans and, like me, they happen to be Chinese.

Kaycee Chan has subjected herself to lutefisk dinners for five years straight and it was not love at first bite.

"First time, I was like 'It's okay' and now it's a tradition. People are scared of the strong taste but when you really taste it, it's not bad. Tastes like seafood and jello," she says.

Eric Wu, another Chinese-American, is a lutefisk virgin. "I didn't know what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's like fish jello." Wu was methodical in his approach, each time he ate a piece, he did it differently. "First I ate it with nothing. Then with butter. Then with gravy. Next time, salt and pepper." Wu consumed a total of five fillets.

Kristen "of Copenhagen" Carr holds up toy trolls at the annual lutefisk dinner held by Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge #50, in Van Nuys in Nov. 2018. (Eddie Lin for LAist)

Lodge member Barbara Appleton emphasizes the social aspect of the dinner, "It's family style. People sit together at a table and get to know each other. They learn about the food and about each other."

Chan reinforces this idea. "It's grown on me. The food, the stories, the tradition. I like these. It's the whole package."

Professor Paulson agrees, "I do it for the students. I like sharing experiences and culture," he says. But, he also admits, "I like scaring them too."

As for me, it's my fourth lutefisk dinner at the Norrona Lodge. I power down six pieces plus all the fixings. There's one fillet left and all the wives and daughters and of the Sons of Norway are looking at me to polish off the platter. I can't eat another bite, so novice lutefisker Janet Lucas suggested a take-out box.

"I'm not sure it'll be good later," I say. She replies, "Well, what good do you see in it now?"

I get why the Vikings had to be so tough.
A trio of art galleries is making its way to Prospect Street  within half a mile of one another. Within the last six months, Little Bench Art Center (1298 Prospect St.) and Art Me San Diego (862 Prospect St., Suite A) have opened to call La Jolla home. And in the coming months, Modernist Cuisine Gallery (1241 Prospect St.) will join the lineup.

Little Bench Art Center

Part gallery space, part working studio, Little Bench Art Center opened in October under the watchful eye of Nancy Linke Patton. Original art is such a wonderful experience, she philosophized. To have original work that has been contemplated and thought out, is something special.

Working in the back, sunlit space of the gallery, Patton creates art and hosts a rotating selection of artists.

Exhibits slated for 2019 include Share the Love 1+1, through which established artists will submit work and select an emerging artist to show with them; and another with date to be determined, in which participating artists will show three paintings.

Patton, who lives in the area, said having a gallery space was never part of her plans, but when the space become available, she was inspired.

I was walking with my mother, who was visiting from Utah, and the former owner was here and we struck up a conversation. She said she was moving to Marin County and giving up her lease, and I didnt think anything of it, she said. As we were leaving, my mother excitedly recommended I take over the space and open a gallery. It wasnt on my radar, but, admittedly, I was looking for something to do.

After she turned 50, Patton said, and having worked at institutions such as Qualcomm since she was 16, she wanted to take a break from the 9-to-5 routine and dedicate time to her art  having a space for it  seemed to fit.

Although she said she doesnt like being confined to one description and finds labels hard to understand, she describes her art as simply beautiful, interesting and stimulating.

Patton said shes inspired by the instructors she worked with, such as Peggi Kroll Roberts, known for capturing light and value; and Jeffrey Pollack, who taught old techniques of drawing what youre going to paint, covering it with a dark color and then, layer by layer, lightening it with white and then layering it again with color.

One piece took me three months! she said, as she walked through her small space, providing the story behind every piece on her walls.

Art is work, Patton opined. It is hard work. People think you just pick up a brush and something beautiful happens, and for some people it does. But its still work.  (858) 712-0052.

Art Me San Diego

Opened in June, this creative art space hosts classes for adults and children, as well as exhibits by artists on a rotating basis. Through December, owner Sarah Jacob is presenting work by photographer Melissa Montoya and psychedelic painter Carolina Arrieta.

Work by Carolina Arrieta, on view at Art Me San Diego Courtesy

While Jacob often teaches painting classes for all ages, she is trained in multiple media, and is inspired by children. She previously told La Jolla Light: Kids look at things and theyre not tainted nor jaded by what somethings supposed to be like or how its supposed to look. They can paint a flying hippopotamus if they want, and I love that.

I love that passion, I love that creativity, and I love that freedom. I embrace it. Theres no wrong way to art in my eyes. artmesandiego.com

Modernist Cuisine Gallery

Nathan Myhrvold, the photographer and co-author of the biblical Modernist Cuisine cookbooks, brings his new perspective on food photography to a new La Jolla gallery, set to open in early 2019. He and his team cut equipment in half, shoot food close-up, and work with software not typically used in food photography to take the images from cookbook to gallery.

Work by Nathan Myhrvold, the photographer and co-author of Modernist Cuisine cookbooks Courtesy

When I decided about a decade ago to create Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, I saw an exciting opportunity to do something new in food photography  to portray food in unexpected ways that simultaneously draws readers in, and to illustrate the science at work in ones kitchen. Modernist Cuisine broke many of the rules for cookbooks, including how they should be illustrated. My goal is to connect with people who see food as I do  as something that inspires passion and curiosity, the artist told La Jolla Light, via email.

A regular visitor to La Jolla, Myhrvold said The Village would be the perfect location for its fourth gallery (others are in New Orleans, Las Vegas and Seattle).

With its exceptional food, strong art scene, and beautiful views, its no wonder so many people, including myself, regularly visit, he said. I am excited to open the gallery in a community with an unmatched lifestyle and appreciation for art. When I found gallery space in La Jolla  where you can easily have an exceptional meal and look at great art without walking more than a block  I knew it would be the perfect location.
People in Your La Jolla Neighborhood:

As in many homes, the photos on Gary Rectenwalds mantel display children engaged in proud-parent moments: high-school sports, graduations, proms.

But the children in Rectenwalds photos arent his  at least they werent initially.

Rectenwald, 68, adopted six kids in 1999 to save them from the ravages of war-torn Kosovo. He moved them into his 2,800-square-foot Mt. Soledad home. He also paid for three of them to attend college, after all graduated from La Jolla High School. (One graduated with honors from the University of San Diego, two others went to St. Marys of Moraga.)

Thats not all. Rectenwald also housed their parents, who slept in one bedroom while the kids slept  in two bunk beds and a queen  in another.To pay for all this added financially unplanned expense, Rectenwald  a Toledo, Ohio native who worked for IBM until 1995, when Big Blue tried to relocate him out of La Jolla  came out of retirement to start a business-to-business travel company.

Rectenwalds sacrifices dont even end there. In 2010  when the original extra eight grew to an extra 14 plus a dog  Rectenwald bought them their own house. The Ramnabajas now live in National City  except for the youngest daughter, Valbona. She stayed with Rectenwald for the 20-year duration and  along with her husband and their two daughters  moved out only three weeks ago.

So what kind of person does all this?

If you ask Rectenwald, the answer begins with Catholic. A self-described deeply devout servant of Jesus, Rectenwald has been active for 30 years at All Hallows Parish. Hes also the executive director of the Catholic Community Foundation of San Diego, where he has raised more than $50 million help parishes, Catholic schools and social-services organizations in his first two years.

But, even as selfless Catholics go, Rectenwald is an exceptional case. Rather than trying to convert his new family members to the religion he believes so passionately in, he allowed them to continue practicing their native Islam in his own house.

Feeling uncharitable in comparison? Youre not alone.

Rectenwald (top, second from left) poses with the Ramnabaja family, whom he took in shortly after they arrived in La Jolla. (COURTESY)

What was your own childhood like?

I grew up with one brother and one sister. From a very young age, my mom and dad were very service-oriented, never said no to anybody who needed help. And they instilled that in us. To this day, if theres something I think Im capable of doing and somebody needs it, Ill find the time to do it.

Have you ever married or had a family?

No, Ive always been single, always out volunteering my time to others. So this was my first opportunity to have my own family. At the time, my mom, dad, sister and brother were all living in Florida. And Ive been out here since 1989 by myself. I wasnt necessarily looking for a family.

So how did this one come to you?

I was volunteering for Father Joes Villages and Catholic Charities. It was early 1999, following the Kosovo War, and there were a number of refugees assigned the right to seek refuge in the United States. They had lost everything in the war. The Serbian police used to come into the schools and randomly shoot children, just to put their stake in the ground and let people know they were in charge.

Most of these families were two-to-four people. But there was this one family of eight that Catholic Charities was having a lot of trouble placing. The eldest girl, Jehona, was born four months after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 and had a hole in her heart. Kosovo was 400 miles downwind, so a lot of children born around that time had health problems. That was picked up by the NATO doctors at the refugee camp in Macedonia. And because there was a rheumatic bacteria going through Eastern Europe, they were afraid that if she caught it, it would kill her. So they targeted San Diego because Radys Childrens Hospital specialized in the kind of heart damage she had.

So you volunteered your home when you first heard about them?

Not at first. Through Catholic Charities, I helped get them through all the health screening and we got them social-security numbers. But then, they were going to split them up and put them in foster homes. And I just couldnt let that happen. Catholics believe in stewardship and, in so doing, we are called to gratefully give back to God in proportion to Gods gifts and blessings to us. I believe God called me to do His work with the Ramnabaja family.

To go from living by yourself in a house to sharing it with eight other people  thats an unusual degree of sacrifice!

Actually, I couldnt do enough for these kids, just because of what they had experienced and witnessed  things that I will never experience and witness. I was just lucky to be born in a very safe place at a very safe time. Ive often thought, What if I was born in Kosovo in the early 90s, when all this ethnic cleansing was taking place? And I just wanted to make them safe and secure here and give them the chance to live the American dream.

One of the most incredible things about this story is that you allowed a Muslim family to continue its own religious practices in your home. Did your mission to do the best thing for other people ever chafe against your Catholic mission to save their souls?

You know? Not really. I bought them korans in Albanian and English. I bought them prayer rugs and they used them to pray five times a day. They worship God just like I worship God. Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, but they regard him as a prophet. We would talk a lot about Jesus. Once a year, I would put on the movie, Jesus of Nazareth and the girls would ask why theyre killing that wonderful man who did all these miracles. And I would explain what our belief was, but I always wanted them to make their own decision.

How has this experience changed you as a person?

I now have an extended family, and they really are my family. We really care deeply about each other.

Are you surprised that this had such a happy ending, or did you know it would?

I have to tell you this  Jehona just passed away about four weeks ago, during childbirth. So its a very sad time for our family. Because of her heart condition, they didnt think she would be able to get pregnant. And when she did, she thought it was a miracle and a gift from God, and she wanted to see it out.

But her son did survive. His name is Dijan. Hes a beautiful little baby who looks just like her, and were so grateful for that, because she literally gave her life for his.
Its not a solution to the current state of world pandemonium, but Sandemonium, the latest one-woman show from the irrepressible Sandra Bernhard, promises to at least be an entertaining reaction. It plays the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center on Dec. 12.

In the show, Bernhard, 63, weaves her biting comedy around musical numbers she sings with a backing band. A broadwayworld.com review of the New York premiere stated: Keeping the show lively without abandoning who she is and being honest about the state of the world without wallowing it in was something of a high-wire act  (but) she never bailed on her promise to remain upbeat.

Phoning the Light from her Manhattan apartment, Bernhard called the show a real roller-coaster ride.

Some of it is stand-up, some of it is more storytelling, some is rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness, she said. It kind of wraps in and out of songs and dramatic moments. I go all over the map.

Bernhard is in the midst of a resurgence in her acting career. Known primarily for starring on the hit sitcom Roseanne from 1991 through 1997, she drew more recent raves for portraying a Satanic high priestess on this past seasons American Horror Story. She has also logged well-reviewed guest appearances on the Hulus Difficult People and another cameo, on Sweetbitter, just got fleshed into a recurring role for the Starz series upcoming second season.

I do as much as I can get my hands on thats really good, Bernhard said. Im keeping myself out there and really appreciating it in a way I might not have 20 or more years ago. Theres a lot more stuff out there to do, but its not all good. As an actress, you want to keep doing stuff that stretches your ability.

Bernhard has been a pop-cultural fixture since The King of Comedy, Martin Scorseses 1982 black comedy in which she and Robert DeNiro played the unstable kidnappers of a narcissistic talk-show host embodied by Jerry Lewis.

According to Bernhard, the role was not a stretch for Lewis, whom she described as never very nice to her. (The comedy legend, who died last year at age 91, famously frowned on all female comedians, saying in 2000 that he found their material unfunny because a female to him was a producing machine that brings babies in the world.)

It was obvious that he didnt appreciate my sensibilities, which was fine, Bernhard said, recalling that Lewis asked her to shoot a scene in which he strikes her, she spins around in high heels and a bra and panties and then falls into a glass table. Bernhard proudly recalled exactly how she worded her refusal: I dont want to spend the rest of my life on Percocet, like you, because I hurt my back.

Such willingness to dish about celebrities, living or dead, made Bernhard among David Lettermans favorite bookings for his early-80s late-night TV talk show. It also made Letterman very uncomfortable, because Bernhard appeared to use the spots to come onto him.

Oh, I definitely was attracted to David Letterman back in the day, Bernhard said. It probably would not have panned out. I think it really did make him uncomfortable, although part was a little bit of shtick  Oh, look at this crazy dame. I was at the peak of my most intense and kooky.

Bernhard staged her first one-woman show, Im Your Woman, in 1985. She followed it up with 1988s Without You Im Nothing, With You Im Not Much Better, which played off-Broadway and spawned an album and film.

In the face of the increasing political correctness demanded by woke millennials, bitterly skewering celebrity culture and political figures in an unfiltered way in front of a live audience can seem more like a minefield than a job. But Bernhard knows her new show will probably not appeal to college-age audiences, and shes fine with that.

When I started off, all bets were off, she said. You could talk about anything and people wanted you to. I performed a lot on college campuses, they all loved it, and it was fun. But I cant imagine how college kids would take me now.

IF YOU GO: Sandra Bernhards Sandemonium show plays the David & Dorothea Garfield Theatre at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12. Tickets, $48-$68, at lfjcc.org
In October, the San Diego Historical Resources Board (HRB) took a nuanced and complex vote on whether a parcel of land in La Jolla Shores is historic, due to its proximity to the Mut kula xuy/Mut lah hoy ya site, in which artifacts and remains of native tribes have been found. It voted yes.

Because of its placement atop an area of cultural significance to the Kumeyaay native tribes of San Diego, the ground below the Shores house proposed for renovation  but not the house itself  was designated historic. The address was not listed due to its association with a tribal resource.

The HRBs first designation of a portion of the Mut kula xuy/Mut lah hoy ya site, similar to the most recent designation, was in 1999. Seven other portions of the site were designated between 2003 and 2015.

A cultural resources study concluded, according to a HRB report that: the property lies within an area of La Jolla with known significant cultural sensitivity associated with the Mut kula xuy/Mut lah hoy ya site, and that the resource is significant under HRB Criterion A. Staff concurs that the property is a significant historical resource under HRB Criterion A.

The designation applies to the site only and excludes the 1923 two-story residence and all other above-ground structures currently located on the premises.

Criterion A means a property exemplifies or reflects special elements of the Citys, a communitys or a neighborhoods historical, archaeological, cultural, social, economic, political, aesthetic, engineering, landscaping or architectural development.

La Jolla Historical Society preservation chair Diane Kane explained there is a huge archaeological site in La Jolla Shores known as the Spindrift Archaeological District.

The City knows theres a village (under) The Shores and were not sure of the extent because there hasnt been a thorough archaeology exploration, Kane told La Jolla Light. Whenever anyone does construction and grading, they hit stuff that includes ashes from a campfire to pottery to human remains  the finds are literally all over the map.

The HRB report states of its latest investigation that: the area is composed of several large hidden areas, temporary camps, pottery and lithic scatters, various shell scatters, and burials found throughout multiple, consecutive layers representative of different cultural phases found in the San Diego region.

While there is general knowledge of ancient, native artifacts buried underground in La Jolla Shores, Kane said, where this is, what this is, and the depth is not known.

The HRB report goes onto state: The 20-acre knoll, historically known as the Richards Tract and the La Jolla Vista Tract, was originally investigated and recorded by Malcolm Rogers during the late 1920s, and by James Moriarty in the 1960s, and has been associated with occupations by groups from the La Jolla Complex and the Late Prehistoric Kumeyaay.

As such, any time a property within looks to be redeveloped, demolished or built upon, it must go before the San Diego HRB for review. In this case, the entire property was inspected for artifacts during a cultural resources survey and cultural materials, including marine shell identified on the surface, indicate the presence of elements of the prehistoric village complex referred to as the Spindrift Archaeological District.

HRB trustee Cortney Coyle explained: This project came before us because it calls for the demolition of the current structure and building of a new structure  but staff bifurcated what was above ground to what was below ground. We were tasked with looking at what was in the ground.

She added there was quite a bit of discussion about it at the HRB meeting on Oct. 25. Its a nuanced and complex situation, Coyle said.

The Kumeyaay Perspective

The decision means one more parcel of land can be recorded as part of the broader Kumeyaay map.

Brandon Linton, councilmember for the Mesa Grande Band and vice chair of the Kumeyaay Heritage Preservation Committee said the issue is one that spreads across the country with a history spanning thousands of years.

There is nowhere you can go in San Diego County where you wont find Kumeyaay artifacts and things like that, he said. When San Diego was built, it was built up so quickly  especially La Jolla  and there were no environmental laws, so everything was built on what was there. People could move dirt and build on top of it. Archaeology wasnt recorded or preserved, so anytime you dig up a street or road near peoples houses in areas like La Jolla, you find village sites that still have dense amount of artifacts and remnants of population that was there before.

He said while the Kumeyaay and scientific measurements conflict as to how long exactly the Kumeyaay have had a presence in La Jolla, the common thought is at least 10,000 years. He said Kumeyaay people were removed from La Jolla and forced east toward the deserts and down toward Mexico.

Its so important for Kumeyaay that these sites are recorded because there people who would like to think we werent here before, that we got here just before the Spanish settlers, Linton said. We want people to understand what was here before, so we are always trying to preserve and protect our cultural sites  the more that are deemed insignificant, the harder it is for us to prove our existence. Its a common issue across America. The onus is on us to prove we existed here before the Europeans were here.

But even with the designation and documentation that sites in La Jolla are historically significant, there is still a battle between the native, the scientific and the archaeological communities.

Scientists and archaeologists look at it as finding the separation between us and the remains; they say we are not connected to them because they want to study them. We have to reestablish this connection, Linton said. It is up to us to prove the remnants are our ancestors. One side will say we dont have a connection, we say we do, so we need to meet in the middle. Its important to preserves (these sites) to keep our history alive. There is a constant struggle that resonates throughout the county. La Jolla just happens to have a lot surrounding it. There are a lot of burials in that area.
Staring out at the glistening blue water from any beach in Bird Rock or WindanSea, youd never know. But according to the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, those waters are prime territory for lobster poachers and are, in fact, the most prolific poaching areas in San Diego.

The targeted area is called the South La Jolla State Marine Reserve, and it runs from Palomar Avenue to Diamond Street in Pacific Beach and out about a mile. Its designated as a marine protected area, or MPA  one of 11 in San Diego County (La Jolla has four).

The South La Jolla State Marine Reserve is a full-closure reserve, meaning you cant take anything out of the water, but you can fully access the area. But the rules for each MPA vary  some have limited take, which means you can use a hook and line to catch fish, others allow only spearfishing, and still others allow some small-scale commercial fishing.

According to Wildcoast Conservation Director Zachary Plopper, therein lies the problem. It makes it challenging to get the word out that these places are there and what the rules are for each one, he told La Jolla Light.

Plopper explained that the MPAs, established in 2012, were designed to function as a network, given the unique quality of each area. Its not just throwing shapes at a map. Theres a scientific process to develop this. So a threat to one MPA is really a threat to the entire network, he said.

Why all the poaching now?

Plopper speculates that because its a protected area, the lobster population has increased dramatically since 2012, so theres a lot of money to be made catching them.

Oddly enough, most lobster poaching takes place on the weekends  the most popular time to be out on the water.

Its safety in numbers, Plopper opined. They might not know that its an MPA, but they see boats inside the MPA and so theyll go, too. Some weekends, wildlife officers have witnessed as many as 40 violations at one time in the South La Jolla State Reserve.

However, some poachers are being caught. Two recent examples this year: The sportfishing boat, Pacific Star had its licensed suspended for five years in February for 18 poaching-related violations after a four-year investigation.

Another lobster poacher was prosecuted in July for taking more than a dozen lobsters out of the water off Bird Rock after four previous violations. The violator spent 45 days in jail, was fined $1,000, and was ordered to forfeit his fishing gear and stay away from the marine reserve while on three years probation.

Wildcoast representatives met with City Attorney Mara Elliott last year, and she is now supporting its efforts instead of tossing cases aside, Plopper pointed out, adding: We explained that its not so much a wildlife crime. Its more of a theft against all San Diegans, because its a shared resource that is protected through these MPAs that we can all benefit from.

The beauty of having abundant wildlife in all these places also has a spillover benefit. These lobsters grow and then they move out of the MPA, and they spill over to areas around it, where its totally permissible to fish, if you have a fishing license and a boat of appropriate size. So its framing a bigger picture that all of us suffer because this is a theft of our resources, not just a crime against a lobster.

Signs are posted at several ocean-access sites along the coast of La Jolla and PB, identifying those waters as MPAs and outlining the rules. Look for 10-15 more signs to be installed at ocean-access points in La Jolla in the next several weeks.

In August, Gov. Brown signed a new law cracking down on illegal ocean poaching (proposed by California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher from San Diego) that will take effect in January 2019. The new law is aimed at commercial fishing operators who poach in MPAs.

These greedy poachers have done an enormous amount of damage, showing that the current penalties are nominal to their bottom line and they dont seem to work, Gonzalez Fletcher said. Im pretty sure this new laws threat of a hefty fine will get their attention. The new legislation increases fines from $100-$1,000 to $5,000-$40,000.

Right now, La Jollans, trained volunteers, and San Diego City lifeguards are watching the waters for suspicious signs of poaching. According to Plopper: Theyve been great eyes on the water ... and lifeguards have done some ticketing ... but were going to be working much more closely together moving forward.

 To report poaching: Citizens can anonymously report suspected incidents of poaching to CalTIP, the Department of Fish and Wildlifes confidential witness program at (888) 334-2258. Tips can also be sent via text to 847411 by texting CALTIP followed by a space and the message.
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.
>>> Friendship with Vietnam is special to India: Indian President



>>> National Assembly wraps up sixth session

Presided over by NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu in the morning, the legislature adopted the revised Law on Corruption Prevention and Control with 452 approval votes, accounting for 93.2% of the total.

The meeting also passed the Law on amendments and supplements to several articles of 37 laws regarding planning with 418 approval votes, making up 86.19% of the total.

The amended Law on Peoples Public Security was also ratified with 85.77% of approval.

On the occasion, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind also addressed the meeting.

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind addresses the meeting. (Photo: NDO/Duy Linh)



In his speech, the Indian President said the two countries have worked closely together in politics, economy and people-to-people exchange and facilitated regular visits by legislators over the past years.

President Kovind and NA Chairwoman Ngan expressed their wishes to continue strengthening bilateral friendship for the common interest of the Indian and Vietnamese people, and for peace, prosperity, cooperation and development in the region and the world.

Later, member of the NA Standing Committee, NA Secretary General and Chairman of the NA Office Nguyen Hanh Phuc delivered a report on acquiring feedback on the Resolution of the sixth session.

NA Vice Secretary General Hoang Thanh Tung presented a draft Resolution of the sixth session. The NA then adopted the Resolution with 95.26% of votes.

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan made a closing speech at the event.

Following the closing ceremony, the NA Secretary General chaired an international press conference to announce the outcomes of the session.
Preventing the threat of use of biological agents is a key priority for Sri Lanka, stressed Sri Lanka Permanent Representative in Geneva Ambassador Azeez, addressing the International Seminar convened by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and the Implementation Support Unit (ISU) of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) on 'the importance of disease surveillance and alert mechanisms: lessons for the BWC held on 20 November 2018.

The Seminar focused on the operationalization of Article 7 of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which accentuated the importance of technical assistance and international cooperation, to respond effectively to epidemics involving bio-agents.

Representing Sri Lanka at this health - security interface forum, Ambassador Azeez explained the existing disease surveillance mechanism in Sri Lanka, which comprised a wide range of medical and administrative networks including at national, provincial, and district levels. He also drew attention to the role and contribution of hospitals and primary health care units in addressing this challenge efficaciously as well as to laws and policies in place in this context. Continuing work on strengthening the existing system involved further updating of policies and programmes to empower the National Disease Surveillance System as part of an integrated health-security mechanism, he added.

While outlining the challenges Sri Lanka is faced with in the arena of disease surveillance, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka further stated that despite the existence of a robust disease surveillance system, the effective prevention and control of diseases including through laboratory management in line with international standards remained a continuing priority. He commented that Sri Lanka has an exemplary platform which could be further built on, to be more effective in meeting new and emerging challenges as well as unanticipated outbreaks of epidemics, with the active support of all stakeholders.

The need for a web-based surveillance system that facilities heightened surveillance by integrating hospitals at all levels as well as the effective pursuit of a meaningful public-private partnership, which could enhance the feeding of data into the central database, was highlighted at this forum. Such carefully developed partnerships, it was stressed, would go a long way in ensuring efficacious responses to future challenges.

Prof. Maurizio Barbeschi, a scientist at the WHO working on global health emergencies, appreciated Sri Lankas system of disease surveillance, indicating that it provided an appropriate base to be further worked on as a model.

Health Security experts representing Japan, Russia and South Korea, and regional and international organisations and the private sector also made presentations on the varied aspects of disease surveillance mechanisms that are in practice in their respective countries and organisations and their effectiveness in responding to sudden outbreaks of epidemics, including those resulting from the use of bio-agents as security threats.

Statement delivered by Ambassador

Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to UN

Geneva

21 November 2018
>>> Vietnam, India issue joint statement



>>> Party, State leader hails first visit by Indian President

During his trip, the Indian leader held talks with Party General Secretary and President Trong, met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and Secretary of the Party Committee of Da Nang city Truong Quang Nghia.

He delivered a speech at the Vietnamese NA, attended the Vietnam-India Business Forum, and met with Indian expats living, working and studying in Vietnam.

He toured Da Nang city and the world cultural heritage My Son Sanctuary in the neighbouring province of Quang Nam. He also laid wreaths at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Martyrs Monument in Hanoi.

On the occasion, the two sides issued a joint statement on the State visit of President Ram Nath Kovind to Vietnam.

During meetings, Vietnamese and Indian leaders highlighted the strong development of bilateral relations between Vietnam and India across fields since they established a Strategic Partnership in 2007 and upgraded ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2016.

The two sides agreed to maintain regular visits at all levels across the channels of Party, State, Government, parliament, and locality, as well as people-to-people exchanges; maintain regularly and on-schedule bilateral cooperation mechanisms, and effectively implement results of high-level visits and signed agreements.

They agreed to effectively implement the joint vision statement on Vietnam-India defence relations in the 2015-2020 period; promote links in training human resources; and expand cooperation between their armies, air forces, navies and coast guards as well as cooperation in the field of cyber security and information sharing.

The two sides proposed the early building of concrete plans for the effective implementation of signed agreements in order to further promote bilateral trade, including trade and investment promotion measures.

The Indian side pledged to continue providing scholarships for Vietnam through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme and the Cultural Exchange Programmes General Cultural Scholarship Scheme (CEP/GCSS), as well as those for students and postgraduates from ASEAN countries to pursue doctoral courses in India.

The Vietnamese and Indian leaders stressed the need to increase connectivity, while agreeing to lay smooth conditions for Vietjet to soon operate direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to New Delhi.

The two sides agreed to continue working closely and supporting each other at regional and international forums, especially within the United Nations.

Regarding the East Sea issue, they agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea; and peacefully settling disputes in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, and soon concluding an effective and binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea.
If you lived anywhere near the California wildfires that took at least 81 lives this month and destroyed more than 12,000 structures, a look out the window or a breath of air provided an immediate sense of the scale of the disaster.

But if you turned on 24-hour cable news, before getting an update on the worst fire in the states history, you likely had to sit through the latest breakdown on the House races, the recount of the elections in Florida, more hints on special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and an analysis of the latest rant from President Trump.

The infernos that devastated the town of Paradise and leveled homes throughout Southern California  leaving 870 missing as of late Tuesday and destroying nearly 250,000 acres  did not get the kind of wall-to-wall coverage that is often standard on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel when hurricanes hit the East Coast. Some West Coast residents expressed outrage and dismay on social media, accusing the channels of giving short shrift to the regions tragedy because it isnt in their backyard.

If this was happening somewhere in or near the Boston-Washington corridor  and if the air in New York City and Washington was remotely as bad as the air in the Bay Area (where I live)  TV news would be on the story almost nonstop, Dan Gillmor, a professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, said in an email to The Times.

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Based on an analysis of keywords from closed-captioning audio from the major cable networks over a 16-day period, the Washington Post found that wildfires were mentioned far less frequently than hurricanes were during the storms that occurred over the last two years.

Representatives at CNN and MSNBC had no comment on the Post analysis. Several news network executives who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter acknowledged that the California fire coverage was competing with a heavy load of other news coming out of Washington last week.

Fires take a proportional amount of coverage based on what else is going on, one executive said. When there are fires in August, a typically slow news period, they get a lot of coverage. There is a lot of other stuff politically happening at this moment and the fires are the only other story that has gotten coverage of any note.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest on the California wildfires 

Although critics may have been unhappy with the volume of national coverage of the fires, there were still significant resources devoted to it.

Fox News had three correspondents on the fire story, including Los Angeles-based Jonathan Hunt, who has filed 30 reports on the disaster since Nov. 13. He covered one from the Malibu block where he used to live that saw several homes destroyed. MSNBC had several correspondents delivering live reports every hour and prime-time anchor Lawrence ODonnell did his program from Los Angeles. CNN sent six correspondent teams into the field to report the story.

The magnitude of the wildfires was recognized by the three broadcast networks, which sent their New York-based evening news anchors across the country to cover the story. The programs had a collective average audience of 24.8 million viewers a night last week, according to Nielsen, with ABC World News Tonight With David Muir and NBC Nightly News With Lester Holt scoring their largest audience in several months.

Viewers were also able to find extensive coverage of the fires on local TV stations, which often provide video to the cable news channels and their websites.

There are also logistical reasons why hurricanes generally get a lot more TV airtime than fires. Hurricanes provide a narrative that news networks can prepare for in advance, as forecasters can predict the track and severity of a storm and the time when it will land. With several days to plan, networks are able to get personnel securely positioned along a coastline.

Hunt, who covered 10 fires and at least six hurricanes during his 16 years at Fox News, said it takes longer for fires to capture the countrys attention because they are so unpredictable.

With a fire, were talking hours in terms of a warning, Hunt said. It pops up much more suddenly as a national news story and the public has to catch up to it, as opposed to a hurricane where for days were saying, Its coming, its coming, its coming, its coming. 

With 870 still missing in Northern California fire, officials fear rains will wash away victims remains 

Close proximity to a fire can be also more dangerous than with a hurricane, limiting the ability of newsgathering operations to get continuous live pictures during their coverage. TV correspondents who stand up against high gusty winds in a hurricane are usually near a safe, secure location. When Hunt was in the Carolinas to cover Hurricane Florence in August, he reported a short distance from a solid, covered concrete parking lot where he could take refuge.

During fires, reporters movements are restricted by firefighting personnel. You have to go where they are, where they are telling you to go, Hunt said. I think were all aware that when youre playing with fire, it could kill you. When youre playing with wind, not so much.

Networks also devote more resources to hurricanes because they take aim at the more highly populated East Coast  often across several states  where the potential for casualties is extremely high. Even though the Camp fire was the deadliest in California history, it does not appear the final tally will approach the 3,000 lives lost in Hurricane Maria last year.

But the surprising severity of this months fires may lead to some rethinking of how much time to devote to the disasters in the future.

The general trend toward more violent natural disasters might spur news organizations to bake that into their planning in the years ahead, said Jonathan Klein, who oversaw CNN from 2004 to 2010. Its a sad statement about the world, but it might be smart logistically.

stephen.battaglio@latimes.com

Twitter: @SteveBattaglio
You can always rely on the films of Ethan and Joel Coen to have eye-popping visuals and exquisitely detailed production design. Their frequent collaborator Jess Gonchor, who received Academy Award nominations for his work on True Grit (2010) and Hail, Caesar! (2016), joined them again as production designer on this years quirky western anthology, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

When you first read the script, you think about all these grand vistas and try to figure out how to put your own stamp on the movie, Gonchor says in a recent interview. It turns out that a western is actually one of the hardest things you can work on. You just dont get to a beautiful canyon or a prairie to shoot. It involves a lot of work and planning.

Youve become the go-to guy for westerns, having worked on movies such as No Country for Old Men, True Grit and The Lone Ranger. What made this project different from your previous experiences with the genre?

This was an anthology, so it was like six movies in one. The brothers didnt really discuss the common theme between the six stories, but after working on them for a few months, you begin to realize that theyre all about characters dealing with loneliness and mortality. I had to come up with a quick visual identity for each of the six stories. Some were based on classic westerns, but others were just pulled out of thin air.

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Concept art of the cantina from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. (Courtesy of Jess Gonchor)

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Can you walk us through some of the visual influences for each of the sections?

Well, the first story, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is the most color-saturated one, which looks like a grand Hollywood western. We were thinking of the films of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and the Singing Cowboy era (B-movies of the 1930s and 40s). Near Algodones, which stars James Franco and Stephen Root, was more of a High Plains Drifter, a Clint Eastwood western set in a dusty prairie town, monochromatic and wind-swept. All Gold Canyon is really its own thing, based on a Jack London story. John Waynes The Big Trail inspired us for The Gal Who Got Rattled. We had to build those huge wagons from scratch, because nothing that big really exists. The Mortal Remains featured a higher-altitude gypsy wagon, theatrical show, something like McCabe & Mrs. Miller, set in a damp, high-altitude Colorado town.

Concept art of wagon train from the Girl Who Got Rattled section of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. (Courtesy of Jess Gonchor)

Which section was the toughest to prepare for in terms of production design?

The All Gold Canyon section, which stars Tom Waits as a miner, was one of the most difficult ones to shoot because we had to build a lot of the elements. We had to build a gold-mining pit and shoot it. Constructing the wagon trains for The Girl Who Got Rattled was also challenging. They were honestly 30 or 40 feet long. People used to bring their entire houses with them when they were moving across the country. We shot all of The Mortal Remains on a stage in New Mexico. I still dont know whether the characters in that story are dead or alive or just living in the afterlife. The Coen brothers didnt discuss it. We built these monochromatic super facades, which were lit from behind. It was a storybook version of what the afterlife might look like.

Tom Waits as the Prospector in the All Gold Canyon section of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. (Netflix)

One of my favorite parts of the job was creating the hanging tree from the Near Algodones section. We found this cottonwood tree in the middle of the desert, and it had the right character. We had to cut down the tree into 25 parts and transport it 50 miles to another part of New Mexico, and then bolt it together. It looked a little bit alive and a lot dead. We also had to build some give into it, because it was very windy there. We cemented it 16 feet deep into the ground. It was quite an engineering feat.

The Coen brothers asked you to work with them after seeing your work in the 2005 movie Capote, and youve collaborated on seven very different movies together since then. What sets them apart from many of their contemporaries?

You know, if I could put my finger on it, Id bottle it and sell it to everyone. They create such a pleasurable working experience. We also share the same sense of humor, so we get along very well. The pre-production experience is always exciting because youre trying to figure out this unique puzzle. They have a way of making the mundane very exciting. For this movie, the idea was to do almost everything in camera and have it look as real as possible. After people see their movies, they tell me, Oh, you must have used CG, and I tell them, No, it was mostly real. And they dont believe me. I love the movies and watch them over and over again, but I do enjoy the journey more than the destination!
Narcissister Organ Player

The documentary Narcissister Organ Player, directed by and starring the performance artist Narcissister, leads with shock factor: TMZ footage of the mannequin-masked artist on the arm of Marilyn Manson wearing a gown with a vagina cutout; trolling the hosts of Americas Got Talent; pulling wigs and rubber masks from various orifices. But this film quickly reveals itself to be a beautifully heartfelt and poetic tribute to the filmmakers mother.

There are multitudes contained within the artist known as Narcissister and within her truly daring work  a blend of dance, sculpture, burlesque, drag and corporeal exploration that the New York Times has referred to as avant-porn. She uses her body but never shows her face, wearing the mask that allows her to so boldly grapple with cultural constructions of sexual and racial identity. Much of her work is inspired by the life of her mother, a Jew from Morocco who married an African American man from Watts.

Each piece is inspired by events from her mothers life and her own upbringing in La Jolla. Performances are interspersed with narrated memories while Narcissisters tattooed hands sift through family snapshots, carefully covering her face. The artist crawls through goo-covered canals, rebirthing herself on the stage, and in an animated sequence, a tiny collage version of Narcissister moves inside her mothers fragile heart. The film, a profoundly moving acknowledgement of the ineffable closeness of their bond, is an artists statement as much as it is a performance piece.

 Katie Walsh

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Narcissister Organ Player

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Playing: Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m. Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles; Laemmle Town Center, Encino; Laemmle Claremont; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena

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The Long Shadow

Producer Sally Holst in her hometown of Meridian, Miss., from the documentary The Long Shadow. (Passion River)

Spanning American history from before its independence to the present day, The Long Shadow explores how African Americans are treated in the United States. Director Frances Causeys documentary takes the Ken Burns approach  talking-head interviews with experts and panned shots over archival photos  to discuss how the echoes of slavery still affect the lives of black Americans today.

The Long Shadow has the look of a pre-Pawn Stars History Channel documentary, but theres insightful content here, particularly in sharing lesser-known aspects of history. Causey deserves real credit for reckoning not only with Americas legacy of slavery and prejudice, but also examining her own ancestors specific roles in the racist treatment of African Americans.

 Kimber Myers

The Long Shadow

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Playing: Starts Nov. 23, Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

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Roll With Me

Gabriel Cordell, front, in the documentary Roll With Me. (Array)

For recovering addict and paraplegic Gabriel Cordell, a cross-country trip is no vacation in the documentary Roll with Me. As he attempts to traverse 3,100 miles and set a record in his unmodified wheelchair using only his hands for power, the journey proves to be a galvanizing experience for Cordell and the crew that joins him.

Starting in Santa Monica, with his hometown of West Hempstead, N.Y., as his final destination, Cordell travels with director Lisa France, his fellow addict and nephew, Chris, and a crew with issues of their own. Changes in elevation, environment and the teams emotions challenge the group as Cordell goes through states and countless pairs of protective gloves.

As with any road trip, the team members grate on each other  and sometimes the audience  but France joins Cordell for an ultimately inspiring ride. Roll with Me avoids the tropes that narratives about people with disabilities often offer, instead giving a fully developed picture of a man who wants his family to be proud of him and his accomplishments.

 Kimber Myers

Roll with Me

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Playing: Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m. Laemmle Glendale; Nov. 27, 7:30 p.m. Laemmle Noho 7, North Hollywood; Nov. 29, 7:30 p.m. Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

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Postcards From London

Postcards From London, which follows the adventures of a fetching 18-year-old named Jim (Harris Dickinson) who becomes Sohos favorite gay rent-boy, may sound like an enticing coming-of-age film but, with its static theatricality, curious chasteness and high-minded chatter, proves pretty much a bore.

Writer-director Steve McLean, making his first film since 1994s New Queer Cinema offshoot Postcards From America, has re-created a stylized version of a Soho of yore  though the film is arguably set in a kind of timeless present  entirely on soundstages. Despite a skillful use of color, lighting, framing and music, the movies artificiality might have played in a short film but becomes tedious and pretentious when stretched to 90 minutes.

The slender, episodic story finds the aforementioned Jim, a handsome, fit bloke from the suburbs looking for an education in the big city, falling in with a kind of Greek chorus of high-end male escorts and learning about art, sex and commerce as he goes from hustler to muse to authenticator of fine paintings.

That last job  and qualification  comes courtesy of a strange condition called Stendhal Syndrome that causes Jim, apparently oversensitive to beauty (oh, please), to faint at the sight of great art, then imagine himself in the paintings, often posing for supposedly gay Italian artist Caravaggio (Ben Cura). Its just one more arch conceit in a film thats decidedly, irrevocably full of them.

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Gary Goldstein

Postcards From London

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Playing: Starts Nov. 23, Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

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Miss Dali

Joan Carreras and Rachel Lascar in a scene from Miss Dali. (Els Films de la Rambla)

Ventura Pons, the writer-producer-director of Miss Dali, has crafted an oddly clunky, egregiously overlong biopic thats technically about Salvador Dalis younger sister and his onetime model, Anna Maria, but is closer to a cradle-to-grave lecture about the legendary Spanish surrealist. And all this curiously without offering even a glimpse of the painters iconic work.

In 1989, shortly after Salvadors death, the elderly Anna Maria (veteran Welsh actress Sian Phillips) is visited at her lovely home in seaside Cadaques, Spain, by lifelong friend Maggie (the also venerable Claire Bloom). Over drinks, food, strolls and lots of forced smiles and gazes, banal rejoinders and pensive gazing, Anna Maria methodically recounts for Maggie (make that: for us, Maggie already knows most of this) the highlights  and lowlights  of the Dali siblings lives.

We thus flash back to an endless checklist of unevenly re-created events featuring such characters as Salvador and Anna Marias lawyer-notary father (Josep Maria Pou); Salvadors seemingly monstrous wife, Gala (Rachel Lascar); poet-playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (Jose Carmona); filmmaker Luis Bunuel (Alberto Ferreiro); and others.

Despite scads of stiff exposition and constant proclamations of Salvadors genius, the brash, eccentric, weirdly mustachioed artist remains an elusive and puzzling force. That hes played, unconvincingly from teen years to death, by an often annoying Joan Carreras doesnt help.

Gary Goldstein

Miss Dali

In Catalan, English, Spanish and French with English subtitles.

Not rated

Running time: 2 hours, 49 minutes

Playing: Starts Nov. 23, Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica

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The Perfect Kiss

Lucie Vondrackova in the movie The PerfectKiss. (Marcova Productions)

The Perfect Kiss

Billed as a romantic comedy but really a farce, The Perfect Kiss is the perfect example of a movie that is so bad its  no, not good, just terrible. Unlike a film such as the The Room, which was elevated to cult status and notoriety by Tommy Wiseaus wacky, deadpan sincerity (not to mention James Francos portrayal in The Disaster Artist), this disaster by writer-director Tina Adams (a.k.a. Martina Adamcova, who is also credited as producer, executive producer, costume choices and concept, casting director and driver) is merely 83 minutes you will never get back.

Lucie Vondrackova plays Tanya, a ditzy 30-year-old Realtor who gets fired shortly after we meet her. Her real challenge, however, is escaping her nutty spy parents (Luc-Martial Dagenais, Liliana Komorowska), with whom she still lives. The parents, more cartoonish than Bullwinkles Boris and Natasha, exist primarily to deliver bits of slapstick with very little payoff.

Tanyas adventure gets her as far as the couch of her married friend Britney (Sophie Gendron) and entanglement in domestic woes. A wintry sprint through the local park leads to an encounter with a frisky jogger (Samy Osman) and a series of nonsensical moments devoid of passion or humor.

The strangest thing about The Perfect Kiss is its surprisingly high production values (apparently made possible by the government of Canada and a tax credit from the province of Quebec), giving its Montreal locales the sheen of a studio rom-com, even if the foreground is ridiculous.

Kevin Crust

The Perfect Kiss

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

Playing: Starts Nov. 23, Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica

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Roughly halfway through Green Book, about one of the unlikeliest friendships of the civil rights era, Jamaican piano prodigy Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), explains to his Italian American driver and companion, Frank Tony Lip Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), that though hes found success playing popular music, he was trained for the classical stage.

Trained? says Vallelonga. What are you, a seal? People love what you do. Anyone can sound like Beethoven or Joe Pan or them other guys you said. But your music, what you do, only you can do that.

Thank you, Tony, Shirley says patiently. But not everyone can play Chopin, not like I can.

The scene, one of the films most poignant insights into the musicians conflicted feelings about his identity and legacy, was not always written that way.

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Dr. Shirley used to just say, Thank you, Tony, and thats it, thats the scene, recalled Ali over lunch in Los Feliz. Like, I appreciate it, youre right. People love my music and despite the racism, what I became as a result is alright, Im cool with it. And that scene always ate at me. It just didnt ring true to me as a black person. It felt like what I would call a TV moment.

After watching Nina Simones Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? Ali was able to pinpoint just what it was that bugged him about the scene and brought it to director Peter Farrelly.

I spoke at length with him about Nina Simone in that, as much as we love and appreciate her music, she didnt become who she wanted to become, she became who she was allowed to become, he said of the legendary dive-bar chanteuse, whod originally had designs on being a classical pianist.

Nina Simone lived and died not being what she wanted to be. I think that that is true for so many black artists. And Don Shirley was the same way. Mahershala Ali

The fact is, as a person, as an individual knowing and feeling the creativity within herself, Nina Simone lived and died not being what she wanted to be. I think that that is true for so many black artists. And Don Shirley was the same way.

Green Book, which is now playing nationwide, is already being floated as a potential best picture nominee after claiming the Oscar-predictive Peoples Choice Award in its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Alis portrayal of the emotionally tortured Shirley is all but guaranteed to earn him a supporting actor nod. If so, it would mark his second Academy Award nomination, after a breakout turn in Barry Jenkins dazzling Moonlight, for which he took home the trophy in 2016. But awards consideration, though appreciated, couldnt be less of a driving force for the actor.

Were not going into it like, OK, so when we look at the Oscar contenders, these films need to have these boxes checked, he said. Rather, the 44-year-old just wants to continue taking on roles that are different from those hes played over the course of 20 years in the industry.

For me, its about the diversity of my experience as an actor, he said. Im just constantly looking for something that feels appropriate for me at the time. I dont ever want to do something Ive already done, Im not interested in that at all.

Though Farrelly calls him an unbelievable actor, the director was hesitant to cast Ali because of the tonal difference between the outwardly powerful drug-dealer Juan in Moonlight and the more delicate, internal restraint of Shirley.

Mahershala Ali in a scene from Green Book. (Universal Pictures via AP)

He was such an imposing figure in Moonlight, said Farrelly. He was big and strong and really a force. And Dr. Shirley is not that. I thought maybe Mahershala might be too big a figure for this film, but when I met him, and he talked about who this guy was, he quickly became him. It was such an impressive performance.

This is going to sound like B.S., but it was an honor and a pleasure [working with Ali], said Mortensen. For me, the foundation of good acting is always good reacting. Im looking at his face and there are all these incredible, minute, beautiful reactions. Like, so precise, his work. It was really difficult to keep a straight face because he was so hilarious and getting perfect timing.

What an incomparable talent the guy is, Farrelly added. Ive had a couple people point out to me, Boy, that scene out in the rain, thats an Oscar scene. I said, Well, not really, not to me. The Oscar scene is the entire rest of the movie when he is telling us how he feels and its all inside him but were feeling what hes feeling in a very, very nuanced performance. Thats the tough acting.

The painstaking performances of the two leads elevate the films fairly simple premise: In 1962, Shirley, a distinguished pianist, prepares to embark on a concert tour that will take him through the Deep South. He knows he needs to hire some muscle, which is where Lip comes in, a racist bouncer who just lost his job at Manhattans Copacabana nightclub. (The title Green Book came from The Negro Motorist Green-Book, Victor Hugo Greens guide for African Americans to find safe accommodations in segregated Southern towns.)

Over the course of the trip, Shirley and Vallelonga become friends, a dynamic which has earned the film comparisons to The Odd Couple and deemed a reverse Driving Miss Daisy, a description that rankles Ali.

Theres absolutely no such thing, its impossible, he said. Because in either scenario, if you make the white person the driver or if you make the white person the passenger, the white person is still free in society. Thats like saying, Now the white person is black in this scenario. The white person is never black in any scenario. The switch just doesnt work.

He also rails against the notion that the film employs cinemas longstanding white savior trope.

Its unfair to say we cant see a movie in this time where a white guy does something that helps a black guy, he said. I think thats kind of stupid, honestly. Because then it always has to be the black person saving or doing something that is heroic for the white person because weve got to balance out 100 years of cinema.

Mahershala Ali, from Green Book, photographed in the L.A. Times Photo and Video Studio at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto, Ont., Canada on September 10, 2018 (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Ali was immediately sold on the opportunity to play a character as dynamic and rich in texture as Shirley.

Don Shirley was exceptional ... I havent seen him on film, he said. The opportunity to step into the shoes of a man with that much complexity  who spoke eight languages, was a piano prodigy, had affluence and was successful and connected  even though hes in an environment that limits his freedom, I think that he has more power than any other black character that Ive personally seen in a pre-civil-rights-era film or story.

Despite being doubled in the films concert scenes by composer and pianist Kris Bowers (who also provides the score), Ali took months of piano lessons to prepare for the role. (I wanted Pete to be able to use as much of me as possible, he explained.)

The lessons served a dual purpose, also offering the actor a better understanding of how piano mastery might have affected Shirleys sense of self and belonging.

I feel like the mastery of that instrument impacted everything else he did in the world: how he picks up a glass, his feelings about the whiskey being left on the piano, how he throws the chicken bone, he said. I felt like I needed to be on that piano to understand how to move throughout the rest of the piece.

Echoing the stick-straight posture of a pianist proved difficult (It hurt, it was uncomfortable, he said. I think my muscles started changing after about a week.), but pretending to play the piano convincingly posed the biggest challenge, especially because he wasnt told in advance what piece of music they were scheduled to shoot.

It was really hard to rehearse the musical parts because I always wanted to make sure that I was in the right place on the piano, he said. And also being conscious of what the left arm is doing, what the right arm is doing, where it is on the piano at what time. Because whatever they decided to use, my body needed to be doing the right thing. Im not trying to be a distraction to the movie, that was going to break my heart.

Viggo Mortensen, left, and Mahershala Ali in a scene from Green Book. (Universal Pictures via AP)

Since he took home the Oscar for best supporting actor in Moonlight, Ali says his career has seen a significant change, most notably via offers for lead roles rather than supporting ones. But at home, he has yet to unpack the trophy from its protective casing.

Its not even out right now, he said with a laugh. We just moved so its been bubble-wrapped for like six months because we were doing some renovating. But Im going to break it out.

Though they both grapple with themes of identity and self-perception, one of the most glaring contrasts between Moonlight and Green Book is the way each film and filmmaker tackles the subject of race.

I think Barry approached race without ever speaking it, said Ali. This film tells you what it is, so naturally in the marketing, in the conversations about the piece, they are more consciously addressing race. But then also I think the major difference is the responsibility I have to speak on behalf of the film because of being one of the leads.

That sense of responsibility inspired him to speak out about a contentious moment that occurred when Mortensen came under fire for using the N-word in a discussion of how times have changed since the Green Book era during an awards season Q&A. Acknowledging the lack of awareness that contributed to the incident, Ali was able to find the silver lining in what he calls a teachable moment.

Theres nothing in me that believes that Viggo is racist, he said. And even in him using the word, it wasnt intended to be racist, if anything it was the opposite. Its sort of a perfect moment in that its actually exactly what the film is about  awareness.

Anytime a non-black person says that word, a little bomb goes off, he continued. What Viggo said, its not about it being politically incorrect because he was well-intended, but within [the black] community, thats a word that we get to figure out how and when we want to use it, if we want to use it at all. Thats something that we as a community need the time and space to have a conversation about.

We spoke and we are better friends than ever now, said Mortensen of what happened following the Q&A. We understand each other and Im relieved because we started out really tight. Sometimes a friendship can get tested and if youre lucky, you can come out on the other side even better and thats actually what happened. Hes a big man and he has a big heart and I love him.

Though it only makes sense that conversations about race dominate the press run for Green Book, Ali says its a nagging point of discussion no matter what project hes promoting.

When I go and do these press junkets ... I always spend a good 30% to 40% of the time talking about race, he said. You spend so much time as a black artist speaking about the black experience that its almost like the writers are conditioned to speak to me on those terms. Which is cool, but they still dont necessarily reserve enough space to really get into the nuances of the work.

He takes issue with the tendency for black art to become tangled up in clunky conversations about race and representation, rather than being lauded for its merits the way white art is.

People really lean towards talking about the cultural relevance, he said. So much time is spend on clapping and celebrating the feat or the achievement of a black project doing well and black people being multidimensional. So much time is spent on Wow! A multidimensional thug in Moonlight! I appreciate it, but what about the work is transformational?

Despite this, he allows that Hollywood is much more open to diverse stories and storytellers now than in the recent past.

I think Hollywood is always ready to embrace a new vein, a new anything thats going to help expand storytelling that is also economically beneficial. Mahershala Ali

I think Hollywood is always ready to embrace a new vein, a new anything thats going to help expand storytelling that is also economically beneficial, he said. If Hollywood is making money off of something, then they want to figure out ways to tap into that. And for us, the positive thing is that we get to tell our stories how we want to tell them.

He points to the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness and Insecure by way of example.

By no means is Issa Raes show about race, but it doesnt escape it, he said. I think the creatives are arguing the value of Hollywood not beating people over the head with race, but telling stories that are more of a reflection of how black people experience race. Which is not the N-word all the time, its the lack of opportunity or its the look of Do you belong here? Its not just about doing Malcolm X II or Selma: The Day After, theres other, more contemporary ways to approach it.

Up next, he joins the networks third season of True Detective, following in the footsteps of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the titular role, another part that will likely entangle him in more conversations about the intricacies of race in America.

Thats just the life of a black artist, he said. Because traditionally, theres just not enough of us, so we have to look to those who have a platform in some regard to reserve a slice of that experience to be leaders. And its not easy, theres a lot of pressure, no doubt. But I dont believe God gives you anything you cant handle.

sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com

follow me on twitter @sonaiyak
>>> Vietnam-China border defence friendship exchange begins

Following the welcome ceremony held in Phuc Hoa district of the northern border province of Cao Bang, the two ministers cut the ribbon and planted trees to inaugurate Ta Lung friendly cultural centre.

They also attended a ceremony marking the fifth establishment anniversary of friendly ties between Phuc Hoa district and the Chinese district of Long Zhou in Chong Zuo city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Addressing the event, Secretary of the Party Committee of Phuc Hoa district Nong Thi Ha said that the two districts share a 22km border line, a kindred spirit of neighbourliness, as well as many similarities in terms of customs and culture.

Since the establishment of friendly relations in 2013, the two sides have reaped achievements in various fields such as border trade, cultural and sport exchanges, and tourism promotion, she said.

The ministers later visited an area displaying local products at the Ta Lung friendly cultural centre.

Witnessing a joint drill on disaster and disease relief aid in Phuc Hoa district, Wei applauded the coordination, fighting spirit, and professionalism of the two armies, noting that the exercise has contributed to demonstrating the cooperation outcomes between the two sides.

For his part, Lich said the building and protection of the shared border towards friendship, stability, and development, as well as the support for residents in border areas in non-traditional security have remained top priorities for the Vietnamese and Chinese Parties, Governments, people, and armies.

He stressed that the cooperation, friendship, comradeship and brotherhood between Vietnam and China have been reflected through the drill.

The same day, the two sides engaged in a friendship seminar, and a cultural and art exchange programme held in Cao Bang province.

The border defence friendship exchange aims to enhance political trust, build friendship and solidarity, and promote result-oriented cooperation between the border guards, authorities, and people of border localities of the two countries, thus helping to build a common border of peace, friendship, stability, cooperation, and development.

Prior to activities in Cao Bang province, the two sides participated in a range of activities in Chinas Long Zhou district.

The first Vietnam-China border defence friendship exchange programme was held in 2014 in Quang Ninh province, the second took place in Lao Cai in 2015, the third in Lang Son in 2016, and the fourth in Lai Chau last year.
Midway through a recent Wait Wait  Dont Tell Me production meeting in the office National Public Radio station WBEZ here, writer Peter Gwinns phone thrummed with a news alert. It is Thursday afternoon, less than five hours before the taping of NPRs weekly comedy news quiz.

Fine-tuning the script for that nights show were host Peter Sagal, official judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, executive producer Mike Danforth, show creator and current benevolent overlord Doug Berman participating by Skype, and a small staff of producers, production assistants and interns.

The news alert concerned Donald Trumps acknowledgement that it certainly looks like Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, was dead. Up to this point, the president had resolutely refused to declare that Khashoggi had been murdered at the risk of jeopardizing relations (and arms sales) with the Middle East ally.

Late-breaking news is an occupational hazard for Wait Wait, which marked its 20th anniversary at the end of last month with a Very Special Episode broadcast from the august Chicago Theatre. (It airs at 11a.m. Saturdays and Sundays on KPCC-FM (89.3). What happens a lot these days is that by [this afternoon] some astonishing news story is taking over the front pages and well have to shift gears, Sagal said.

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Sagal and staff wrestled with how to find a lighter touch on a horrific story. One of the things Im legitimately worried about is lets say we do a lighthearted thing about Donald Trumps ridiculous excuses for this obvious crime and then tomorrow the tape of Jamal being murdered is released, Sagal reflected. This could happen because this is 2018. We need to think about that.

Its a serious balancing act for a show with a passionate fan base that considers Wait Wait to be comfort radio. Its part of my regular weekend ritual, stated Jonathan Howell, a Fort Collins, Colo., resident in the audience for the sold-out live taping that night. It makes the week a little happier and gives the sense that when you get depressed about bleak current events everything will be OK.

That approach is clearly working. Wait Wait is now heard on 725 stations with a weekly audience of 4.1 million.

The current administration is putting Sagals nonpartisan approach to the program to the supreme test. Be they conservative or liberal, he said, he wants listeners to consider Wait Wait to be a Christmas Eve truce for one hour a week.

When we make fun of Donald Trump, were not being liberal or anti-conservative, he explained. Were making fun of this guy who to put it mildly is giving us a lot of material to work with. But one of the things I found true about doing this for 20 years; I cant make jokes if I dont believe in them. I cant hide my feelings about our president.

Wait Wait premiered Jan. 3, 1998. Berman had created the immensely popular Car Talk and NPR asked him to develop a companion show. People were listening to NPR for news all week; it made logical sense to build off that, Berman recalled. He took further inspiration from You Bet Your Life, the comedy TV quiz show hosted by Groucho Marx.

Its beginnings were not auspicious. Wait Wait aired on 12 stations and had less than 200,000 listeners. Sagal jokes that around the offices of NPR it was known as `Wait Wait Dont Cancel Me. Not quite the case, maintained Berman. Car Talks success earned him time for the show to find itself.

Nobody was considering canceling it, he said. They said its not there, but give the guy a couple of months. We worked hard and figured out what was and was not working. And we did that on the air.

What was not working was that the show was recorded in studio with panelists weighing in from remote locations. Not until 2005 did the show switch to a live format (the 90-minute tapings are edited to fit the hour time slot). It became obvious that the shows in front of an audience were so much better because people were laughing and it sounded like a good time, Sagal said.

Sagal, originally a panelist, was given a battlefield promotion and took the reins in May 1998 after the original host, Dan Coffey, a member of Ducks Breath Mystery Theater and best known as Dr. Science, did not pan out.

What the show did have in its favor was Carl Kasell as official judge and scorekeeper. At the time, he was the voice of NPR, Sagal said. His contribution and his participation was incalculable in terms of value and credibility. Once we began to realize that Carl was this amazing comic weapon we could use far better than we had been, it just got better than better. (Kasell died in 2018).

While Wait Wait is mostly improvised, there is scripted material that introduces the shows segments and provides context to news stories. For the segment Bluff the Listener, each panelist writes a news story tied to a specific theme; only one of them is true and a listener has to guess which isnt  wait for it  fake news.

The bulk of a typical Wait Wait work week is spent news-gathering. The job is to find the funny in timely and often divisive news stories.

Its a particular obsession of mine, Sagal noted. I spend a fair amount of time interacting with our audience and they tell me, We cant wait to hear what youre going to say about (a news event). I feel that obligation personally.

Sagal, Kurtis and the Wait Wait staff take their place around a table in a four-cubicle oasis in the WBEZ offices. They read through and fine-tune the script written the previous day. As they discuss Khashoggis disappearance, several darkly comic jokes are pitched. They are met by producers with, Funny, but no. On a less serious note, the tease of that weeks special guest, author John Grisham, evokes several inevitable lawyer jokes until it is suggested, Are lawyer jokes tired? Responds writer Gwinn, If you cant make a lawyer joke with John Grisham.

Some news stories would seem to be right in Wait Waits wheelhouse. Take Horseface (please). That week, Trump tweeted about his legal victory over adult film star Stormy Daniels and referred to her visage as equine-like.

Do we make jokes about Donald Trump being misogynistic and crude? Sagal mused. We need to work harder than that. A joke that says something out loud that the audience agrees with is cheap, easy and ultimately not doing anybody any good. We cant merely satisfy the audience. Our job is to tell them things they dont already know in a funny way.

The meeting will last about 2 hours. In the remaining two hours before the taping, the script will be sharpened yet again. A lot of what we painstakingly prepared will not only not get used in the final [edited] show but will not even be spoken aloud, Sagal said.

That is the case with that weeks show. In teasing Grishams appearance, a joke about whether a hero lawyer is the realm of the legal thriller or fantasy was replaced with a reference to the Bret M. Kavanaugh hearings: We will ask him if its a believable plot line for a judge to shout out, I like beer under oath and end up on the Supreme Court.

Wait Waits status as one of the jewels in the NPR crown is reflected in the high wattage of the celebrity guests for the recurring segment, Not My Job, in which they answer questions about an occupation only tangentially related to their own. For Grisham, it was questions about briefs, as in underwear. Grisham turned out to be a winning guest, although he only answered one out of the three questions correctly.

I love it when someone comes on the show who you would not expect to be funny and charming, Sagal said. It gives them the chance to expose a side of themselves that they dont normally do.

One of the ways Wait Wait has stayed fresh and attracted new and younger listeners has been to expand the diversity of the panelists who pit their news acumen (and jokes) against one another. On the show this night was stand-up comedian Hari Kondabolu, a more recent addition to the roster.

I assumed when I first did it they would give me the questions ahead of time, he said. It took awhile to learn how to merge into the traffic of words. The fans are really, really, really obsessed with the show. They are absolutely rooting for you. They want to know youre paying attention and not just trying to put jokes in. They want to see camaraderie [with the other panelists]. As much as were competing with each other, were all working in tandem to make the funniest show possible. The scores at the end are secondary.

What next? This is first and foremost a radio show, Berman states. We have people who count on listening every week. Were focused on keeping our show fresh. There is always new stuff to talk about and new panelists who come on and stay for awhile. That will be the focus of the next 20 years; keeping it interesting and funny and making sure that were smart and good companions.

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Syrian-born filmmaker Talal Derki (The Return to Homs) lives in Berlin but returned to his conflict-wrecked homeland, under the guise of a jihad-sympathetic war cameraman, to film an Al Qaeda family for two years. The resulting documentary, the Sundance award-winning and Spirit awards-nominated Of Fathers and Sons, makes for grimly compelling viewing in its unprecedented access, and insight into fevered Islamisms particular stranglehold. As with any tightknit clan, whats passed from loving parent to adoring child is usually sacred. Its just that in this case that intimate legacy is, tragically, a cult of death.

Derkis subject, living remotely in the bombed-out north of the country, is fortysomething Al Nusra Front leader Abu Osama. A stocky, bearded husband and father, he talks matter-of-factly about the coming world war and the surety of a caliphate, beams in the presence of his lively sons, and is all business when focused on his particular specialty: locating and disposing of mines. (He also makes them.) The oldest of his eight children, 13-year-old Osama, eager to follow in his dads warrior footsteps, and 12-year-old Ayman, who takes to study and school, were filmed in their transition years from pint-sized roughhousers to balaclava-wearing trainees in a camp.

The culture of violence is pervasive. Taught to believe females shouldnt be seen outside the house, the boys throw rocks at passing schoolgirls. A captured bird we see in one scene is slaughtered (off-camera), we learn, by one of the sons, whose brother gleefully reports that it was a beheading like you did, dad. (Osama spent time in prison, although we never learn for what.) Most of the boys cant wait for firearm training.

Derkis ruse to secure Abu Osamas trust  even his only crew member, a cameraman, didnt know  involved a stated desire to get better acquainted with religion. The secret is never exploited for morally perilous suspense. But there are scenes that skirt the edge of what we dont want to see in a documentary and are worried we will, including a moment in which the father is trying to finish off a motorbiker with his long-range rifle, and a The Hurt Locker-meets-Huckleberry Finn scene in which the boys are assembling their own plastic-bottle bomb to play with, then later kicking it around outside.

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The nuances in Derkis portraits are what deepen the elements that could easily have been a distancing turnoff. Abu Osamas spirits regarding perpetual war in a fractured country are a fragile thing  you dont entirely believe him when he sighs how its going to take time to win, that he cant lose hope  but his joy is clearly his kids, even as his chosen life strives to rip them from their childhood. Hes even less convincing when he affirms that Al Nusra wont send them to battle too early. A life in jihad has a way of altering those certainties, though, as circumstances dictate halfway through the film.

The sons, meanwhile, whether scrapping in the neighborhood or in fatigues at camp getting bullets shot near their heads or feet  thats part of the training  always look like awkwardly tough-acting kids. Huddled together at night under blankets, complaining about the adults yelling, one wonders if theyd rather this were a temporary sleepover than preparation for combat.

Derki provides some sparsely poetic narration at the opening and closing, tied to his emotions in returning to a Syria he no longer recognizes. They serve to frame Of Fathers and Sons with the feeling that youre seeing a warped dream of family survival, one in which still-noticeable human bonds cant help but be corroded by isolating hatred and extremist ideology.

------------

Of Fathers and Sons

In Arabic with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Playing: Starts Nov. 23, Laemmle Music Beverly Hills

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

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Attorney Michael Avenatti will not face felony charges based on allegations of domestic violence lodged against him by a 24-year-old actress.

Los Angeles County prosecutors announced Wednesday they sent the case to the L.A. city attorney for possible misdemeanor charges. County prosecutors and a city attorneys office spokesman declined to comment further.

Avenatti, who gained fame as the attorney representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against President Trump, was arrested Nov. 14 on suspicion of domestic violence, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. He was released on $50,000 bail.

Avenatti has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, lashed out at media outlets and insinuated in a series of tweets that his arrest was a setup by a conservative activist.

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I am thankful that the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office has rejected filing any charges against me after a fair, careful and thorough investigation, Avenatti wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. I have maintained my innocence since the moment of my arrest. I wish to thank my supporters, friends, family, attorneys, and clients for the outpouring of support they provided. This Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful for justice.

Mareli Miniutti claimed Avenatti had a history of being verbally abusive and financially controlling during their yearlong relationship, according to a declaration made as part of a request for a restraining order against Avenatti filed in Santa Monica this week.

In the 38-page filing, Miniutti said a fight about money led Avenatti to shove her, twist her arm and drag her out of their luxury West Los Angeles apartment last week.

Miniutti and Avenatti began dating in October 2017, and she said she had lived with Avenatti since the beginning of the year, according to the document.

During the argument last week, Avenatti allegedly cursed at Miniutti, calling her ungrateful before hitting her in the face with pillows.

Do not disrespect me. You dont get to sleep in my house tonight, he said, according to the filing.

Miniutti said she suffered scratches to her side and leg, as she was partially undressed when the incident took place, according to the filing. Pictures attached to the filing showed a deep red bruise on a part of Miniuttis body.

She also said Avenatti had been violent toward her at least once before, in February, according to the filing. Miniutti said the lawyer had been drinking and grew angry when he pushed her into a hallway, causing Miniutti to bang her head against a door.

Avenatti also threw shoes at her during the February incident, according to the filing.

Miniutti has appeared in at least eight films, including an uncredited role in Oceans Eight, according to IMDB.

Attempts to contact Miniutti were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which is representing her, declined to comment this week.

Avenatti, a possible 2020 presidential candidate who has made a habit of verbally sparring with and insulting Trump on Twitter, has repeatedly denied the accusations in a series of statements and tweets since last week.

He has indicated that his arrest was somehow orchestrated by Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old Trump booster and conspiracy theorist from Orange County who gained recognition this month when he was linked to uncorroborated sexual assault allegations against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating possible collusion between Trump and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

Surefire Intelligence, a D.C.-based investigation firm linked to Wohl, tweeted that the firm had struck again shortly after Avenattis arrest. In an email to The Times last week, Wohl denied any involvement in Avenattis arrest and said the tweet from the Surefire account was a joke.

Avenatti has not commented on why he thinks Wohl was behind his arrest, and he has not said whether he was basing his claim solely on the tweet. Last week, Avenatti tweeted that he was coming for you Jacob Wohl aka Surefire, and suggested that he, like Mueller, had been falsely accused.

Wohl filed a report with the Irvine Police Department claiming Avenatti had threatened him, a city spokeswoman said.

Times staff writers Richard Winton and Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

james.queally@latimes.com

Twitter: @jamesqueallyLAT

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Twitter: @Hannahnfry
Standing on a beach Tuesday near the concertina wire-topped fence that divides the U.S. and Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen fought back against assertions that Central American migrants bound for the United States as part of a caravan were docile women and children fleeing violence.

Instead, saying she wanted to set the record straight, she said most of the thousands of caravan members are adult or teenage males leaving their home countries for economic reasons or to be reunited with family members living in the U.S.

Wanting a job is not a basis for asylum under U.S. law, Nielsen told reporters at Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach. Wanting to be reunited with your family is not a basis for asylum under U.S. law. Wanting to live in the U.S.  not a basis for asylum under U.S. law.

She said more than 500 criminals, including documented gang members, have been identified among the caravan, but she would not say how the alleged criminals were identified.

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Let me be clear, she added, the caravan does not give one a special right to enter this country. Members of the caravan will wait in the back of the line of those already waiting to be processed at our ports of entry.

Nielsens remarks came after she got a glimpse of the concertina wire that crews recently wrapped around the metal fence dividing Imperial Beach and Tijuana  the same site where a week earlier the first arriving caravan members gathered to celebrate, with some boldly climbing on top in triumph.

Guided by Rodney Scott, chief Border Patrol agent for the San Diego sector, Nielsen walked along the fence as onlookers gathered on both sides of the border.

Just an hour earlier, as members of the news media awaited Nielsens arrival, a man swam from Mexico into the U.S. He was detained and taken to a station to be processed, officials said. It was unclear whether the man was a member of the caravan.

The secretarys sharp assessment of the migrants counters criticism that the Trump administration is exaggerating the threat they pose and going overboard by deploying troops to aid border authorities.

Nielsen said there are more than 6,200 migrants camped out in Tijuana and more than 3,000 caravan members in Mexicali, 110 miles to the east. Combined with other groups still traveling through Mexico, officials expect as many as 10,000 migrants to arrive at the border, she said.

That number starkly differs from what the Mexican Consulate has reported: 2,610 in Tijuana, 2,995 in Mexicali and an additional 2,600 or so en route farther south in Mexico. Tijuana officials have confirmed that most of the migrants in the city are adult males.

The crisis is real, and it is just on the other side of this wall, Nielsen told reporters.

Nielsen said that based on historic trends, intel and open-source reporting, officials anticipate that most caravan members will make frivolous or unsubstantiated claims of asylum.

She said only 9% of migrants from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Central America  Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador  were determined to be eligible for asylum by a federal immigration judge in 2017.

To fuel the sympathetic narrative we continue to see repeated in U.S. media, we know that organizers of the caravan have been pushing women and children and others to the front of the caravan in hopes law enforcement will not engage them, Nielsen said.

She blamed the influx of migrants, which she described as an unprecedented crisis, on what she characterized as loopholes created by poorly drafted federal laws and a deeply flawed ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that bans the detention and immediate deportations of minors and families.

She also said she was deeply disappointed and troubled by a federal judges emergency ruling Monday against President Trumps attempt to deny migrants who cross the border illegally the chance to seek asylum.

Nielsen said the government plans to appeal that order, but in the meantime, the Trump administration plans to adhere to the ruling.

Our weak immigration laws have encouraged caravans to try to break our immigration laws, she said, calling on on Congress to close the loopholes.

Meanwhile, troops are continuing to work along the Southwest border, with particular focus in California, on fortifying the fence to prevent illegal crossings.

Of the 5,600 troops, about 1,300 are in California, most of them Marines from Camp Pendleton, Miramar and Twentynine Palms.

Nielsen pushed back on reports that the troops might be pulling out early, saying shed spoken with Defense Secretary James N. Mattis.

I have no doubt they will continue to partner with us in this mission until it is resolved, she said Tuesday. An end date of Dec. 15 for the military mission had been set previously.

U.S. Northern Command said Tuesday: We may shift some forces to other areas of the border to engineering support missions in California and other areas. No specific timeline for redeployment has been determined.

Along the border fence, the ramping up of operations was unmistakable.

Near inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, about two dozen Customs and Border Protection officers in riot gear lined up for crowd control drills. The officers were brought in from south Texas within the last week to reinforce staffing, CBP said.

They join 250 Border Patrol agents who arrived Tuesday from the northern U.S. border to supplement manpower.

Between nearly each vehicle lane on the approach to the U.S., concrete road barriers topped with three levels of concertina wire have been staged  the work of visiting troops. Should the vehicle lanes need to be closed quickly, the barriers can be swung into place with military forklifts to block traffic.

Thats exactly what happened early Monday as border authorities said they received information that a group of migrants was assembling near the vehicle lanes to rush into the U.S. The military quickly responded about 3 a.m. and closed most of the lanes, resulting in major delays for travelers. A rushing of the border did not occur.

Meanwhile at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry on Tuesday, Marine engineers were busy with the tedious work of topping the border fence with roll after roll of concertina wire, which is designed more to snag clothing than mutilate. These are the Marines who dig ditches, clear fields and build perimeters to set up forward operating bases for their fellow troops to securely inhabit.

The work begins by measuring and cutting metal stakes, then welding two together into a sort of cross. The cross is then welded onto the top of the border fence, adding about 3 feet of height to the already new 18-foot-high fencing being erected along the San Diego border.

Other troops then come behind the welders, raised on cherry picker platforms, unspooling lengths of wire onto the stakes in a sort of pyramid stack  two rows on each side of the fence and one on top, bound together with barbed wire.

Other portions of the 14-mile border fence in San Diego require more hardening, either due to patches caused by ongoing construction or to aging, lower fencing.

Military police from the Army patrol were close by as armed protection should the Marines run into trouble as they work. MPs have come from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and Ft. Bliss, Texas.

The units have typically been working shifts dictated by the sunlight, except for the predawn emergency shutdown Monday.

Although many of these Marines live close enough  either on or off base  to go home each night, they are camped out together as a true special purpose Marine air-ground task force. Logistics units are included with the deployment, providing hot showers and meals, and military helicopters are on standby to transport men and women as needed.

Its all about that mindset. To be able to do this you have to be able to focus on that mission, said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Edward Guevara, a military spokesman stationed at Camp Pendleton. Going back home to barracks, or to family obligations each night, would be distracting, he said.

Its essentially the same thing youd see if they were deployed anywhere else, Guevara said.

The location of their base camp has not been made public, but it is close to the border for a quick response if necessary.

Also Tuesday, the Border Patrol in El Centro met with members of the Honduran Consulate  which is hastily being set up south of the border  to familiarize them with the process if one of their citizens is arrested on suspicion of crossing the border illegally.

We appreciate their visit, Customs and Border Protection tweeted.

Hernandez and Davis write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The 24-year-old actress who accused Michael Avenatti of domestic violence last week claims he had been abusive to her before, according to court records made public Tuesday.

Mareli Miniutti claimed Avenatti had a history of being verbally abusive and financially controlling during their yearlong relationship, according to a declaration made as part of a request for a restraining order against Avenatti filed in Santa Monica this week.

In the 38-page filing, Miniutti said a fight about money led Avenatti to shove her, twist her arm and drag her out of their luxury West Los Angeles apartment last week.

Avenatti  who gained fame as the attorney representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against President Trump  was arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence on Nov. 14, police said. He was released on $50,000 bail and is expected to appear in court next month.

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The Los Angeles County district attorneys office has yet to receive a case from the LAPD. Avenatti has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, and has lashed out at media outlets and insinuated in a series of tweets that his arrest was a setup by a conservative activist.

Miniutti and Avenatti began dating in October of 2017, and she said she had lived with Avenatti since the beginning of the year, according to the document.

During the argument last week, Avenatti allegedly cursed at Miniutti, calling her ungrateful before hitting her in the face with pillows.

Do not disrespect me. You dont get to sleep in my house tonight, he said, according to the filing.

Miniutti said she suffered scratches to her side and leg, as she was partially undressed when the incident took place, according to the filing. Pictures attached to the filing showed a deep red bruise on a part of Miniuttis body.

She also said Avenatti had been violent toward her at least once before, in February, according to the filing. Miniutti said the lawyer had been drinking and grew angry when he pushed her into a hallway, causing Miniutti to bang her head against a door.

Avenattti also threw shoes at her during the February incident, according to the filing.

I look forward to a full clearing of my name and disclosure of all of the facts. I have NEVER abused a woman or committed domestic violence against anyone. Any claim to the contrary is completely bogus and fabricated. I am a target. And I will be exonerated.  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) November 20, 2018

Miniutti has appeared in at least eight films, including an uncredited role in Oceans Eight, according to IMDb.

Attempts to contact Miniutti were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which is representing her, declined to comment.

Avenatti is due in court on the domestic violence allegations on Dec. 5, and a hearing on whether to grant the restraining order is scheduled for Dec. 10, court records show.

The attorney  a possible 2020 presidential candidate who has made a habit of verbally sparring with and insulting Trump on Twitter  has repeatedly denied the accusations in a series of statements and tweets since last week.

On Tuesday, he indicated he might sue the gossip website TMZ  which erroneously reported last week that the victim in the incident was Avenattis estranged wife  and he said video evidence would prove his innocence.Two of Avenattis former partners have released statements through Avenattis attorneys saying he had never been violent toward them.

When the truth and the facts are fully disclosed, including the security camera footage, I will be vindicated and a lot of people and news organizations are going to owe me an apology as well as money, he wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. Completely bogus.

He has said on Twitter that there are Instagram videos that undercut Miniuttis claims, but has not elaborated.

Avenatti has intimated that his arrest was somehow orchestrated by Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old Trump booster and conspiracy theorist from Orange County who gained recognition this month when he was linked to uncorroborated sexual assault allegations against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating possible collusion between Trump and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

Surefire Intelligence, a D.C.-based investigation firm linked to Wohl, tweeted that the firm had struck again shortly after Avenattis arrest. In an email to The Times last week, Wohl denied any involvement in Avenattis arrest and said the tweet from the Surefire account was a joke.

Avenatti has not commented on why he thinks Wohl was behind his arrest and he has not said if he was basing his claim solely on the tweet. Last week, Avenatti tweeted that he was coming for you Jacob Wohl aka Surefire, and suggested he, like Mueller, had been falsely accused.

Wohl filed a report with the Irvine Police Department claiming Avenatti had threatened him, a city spokeswoman said.

Times staff writers Richard Winton and Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.
Richelle Huizar ended her brief campaign for Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday, following a tumultuous month marked by two lawsuits against her husband and an FBI raid of her home.

Huizar, wife of Councilman Jose Huizar, had launched a bid for her husbands seat two months ago and was immediately seen as a major contender. But her campaign plans were disrupted dramatically two weeks ago, with federal investigators searching the couples residence in Boyle Heights and two of her husbands offices.

Today, I am announcing my withdrawal as a candidate for City Council in order to focus on my family, she said in a statement. I am eternally grateful for the support that I have received since announcing our campaign in September.

In her statement, Huizar also said she intended to remain involved in improving our communities.

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Her political consultant, Derek Humphrey, said Huizar, a former city commissioner and a mother of four, would have no further comment. We ask that everyone respect her privacy and the privacy of her children at this time, he said.

Richelle Huizars campaign had been silent in the wake of the FBI searches. What had started out as a campaign asset  the Huizar family name  suddenly became a glaring liability, said political consultant Dermot Givens, who does not have a candidate in the race.

I would assume that whatever consultant they had probably told her, theres no way they could even raise money for her, he said. Who would bet on that horse?

Richelle Huizar had been running in the 2020 election in a district stretching from Boyle Heights to Eagle Rock. As recently as late October, she held fundraisers with community leaders, City Hall lobbyists and veteran Eastside politicians, including former state Sen. Richard Polanco and former Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez.

Thank you for your support of my candidacy for Los Angeles City Council! Great leaders: Tony Cabral, Senator Polanco, Mike Hernandez, Priscilla and David Lizarraga, Ernie Camacho, Moctezuma Esparza, Art Gastelum, and George Pla. #CD14 #LosAngeles #TeamHuizar pic.twitter.com/pisLAelDGx  Richelle Rae Huizar (@Richelle_Huizar) October 31, 2018

Jose Huizar, first elected to public office in 2001 and facing term limits in two years, accompanied her to community events and regularly promoted her on social media.

But those efforts were upended dramatically, first by lawsuits, then by the raids.

One former Huizar staffer filed a lawsuit against the councilman on Oct. 22, alleging that he retaliated against her for complaining about unethical activities. In her filing, Mayra Alvarez accused Huizar of instructing staffers to work on his wifes upcoming campaign on city time.

The second lawsuit, filed by another former Huizar staffer roughly a week later, accused the councilman of engaging in retaliation and discrimination. That aide, Pauline Medina, claimed that Huizar staffers had been assigned to perform inappropriate tasks, such as moving Richelle Huizars car to the other side of the street on street-sweeping day so that she would not receive a parking ticket.

Both staffers also alleged that Jose Huizar had an affair with an unnamed aide.

Jose Huizar said the various allegations were outlandish and completely false  and part of a coordinated political attack. Still, the assertions in the two lawsuits had the potential to become campaign issues for Richelle Huizar.

FBI agents raided the Huizar home and two of the councilmans offices on Nov. 7, carrying out an array of materials, including a cardboard box labeled Fundraising. An FBI spokeswoman declined to say what investigators were looking for but confirmed the IRS was involved in the investigation.

Richelle Huizar, 49, earned a law degree from UCLA and has served off and on in various roles at City Hall. For a decade, she worked for the citys Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families. Until last month, she was on the Commission on the Status of Women, serving as an appointee of Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Hernandez, the former councilman, said he was sad to hear of Richelle Huizars decision. He said that in recent weeks, he had been hoping she could continue her campaign and be judged on her merits  rather than on any issues surrounding her spouse.

If its strictly because of her husbands activities, I think thats sad, said Hernandez, who served on the council from 1991 to 2001. Ive always seen her as an advocate for families and for children, and I thought the council could use that.

Jose Huizar, 50, was elected to the school board in 2001. He won a seat on the council four years later, replacing Antonio Villaraigosa, who vacated the seat to serve as mayor. Since then, he has repeatedly won reelection by comfortable margins.

On Tuesday, Huizar made his first appearance on the council floor since the raids. He declined to discuss the FBI investigation, saying only that he was at City Hall to do his job. A day later, however, he did not show up for the councils regularly scheduled 10 a.m. meeting.

Four other people have filed paperwork to raise money to run for Huizars seat.

Wednesdays announcement could open the door to additional candidates who may have thought twice about running against a family member of Jose Huizar, a veteran campaigner and skilled fundraiser, said Jaime Regalado, emeritus professor of political science at Cal State Los Angeles.

Candidates might have held back, Regalado said, out of fear that they couldnt match the money that would be poured into the race on her behalf, he said.

Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles) declined to say whether she has ruled out a run for Huizars seat but noted that several community leaders had mentioned her as a possible candidate. At the moment, Im committed to my district-focused agenda that best helps improve the lives of people I was elected to serve, she said.

Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) declined in recent days to comment on whether he is considering a run for the seat. Yet another possible contender is state Sen. Kevin de Leon, who lost his bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein two weeks ago.

De Leon spokesman Jonathan Underland would not say whether his boss was eyeing Huizars seat.

Ever since election night, hes expressed a firm commitment to public service, Underland said. But what that looks like remains to be seen.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Twitter: @DavidZahniser

emily.alpert@latimes.com

UPDATES:

3:40 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction and background.

This article was originally published at 12:20 p.m.
The cadaver dog alerted to a corner of the charred metal frame, what probably was once the kitchen of a mobile home in Paradise, Calif. Searchers in white jumpsuits walked over, with shovels and gloves, to sift through the debris.

After about 10 minutes, they determined there were no bodies or bones in the rubble  just burned sausages.

For days, hundreds of searchers have been methodically working through the destruction left by the massive Camp fire, looking for clues that someone couldnt escape, such as a wheelchair or a footprint. They scour places where people may have tried to protect themselves from flames: under a mattress, inside a bathtub.

So far they have discovered 81 bodies  people who died in cars and homes; people outside, probably trying to outrun the flames. But with 870 people still missing and more than 12,600 destroyed homes to comb through, their grim mission is far from over.

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We have so many souls unaccounted for, I believe that this search for remains is going to go on for a long time, said state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), whose district includes Paradise. Could be weeks.

And now, a pair of incoming storms are threatening to hamper recovery efforts. 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.

Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire 

Deborah Laughlin last heard from her son and his pregnant wife just after the couple evacuated their Magalia home. Its been almost two weeks, and she has no idea whether they survived.

Please dont tell me he died, said Laughlin, tears in her eyes, from the cafeteria of Bidwell Junior High School in Chico. Please.

She said she is clinging to hope that theyll be reunited soon. The 63-year-old lost her home in Paradise. Shes afraid of the approaching storms because she knows there are 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.

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 rain was beginning to fall Wednesday morning in the Sacramento Valley, with stronger showers 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.

Officials are preparing for a long, wrenching cleanup.

It is a historic, almost biblical disaster, Nielsen said Tuesday. Old Testament stuff.

Its unclear how much of the burn zone has already been searched by crews, but its a slow and arduous process. On Tuesday, four members of Oakland Fire Departments Urban Search and Rescue Task Force lifted a charred box spring and began combing through a mixture of ash, dirt, shredded wood and pieces of roofing tiles.

This is hard, one of them said. But were trying. Let everyone know were trying.

If they find bones, they call an anthropological team to determine whether the remains belong to a human or an animal. If they conclude the remains are human, coroners investigators respond to conduct their own investigation.

Were doing a shoulder-to-shoulder search through the debris, Moses said. We have a very specific objective, and that objective is going to be met whether there is rain or no rain.

Some bodies were burned so badly that they are difficult to identify.

Were finding remains in various states, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. I suspect there are some that will have been completely consumed.

And despite the thorough search effort, Honea warned residents that when they return to their properties, they could still find victims.

I know thats a very difficult thing to think about, but thats the difficult situation we find ourselves in today, he said.

Already, scenes from the blaze have given Anthony Salzarulo nightmares. He said the fire was worse than any other that hit the region, including one that took his home about a decade ago.

When he was evacuating Concow, he saw dead animals. A bobcat with burns walked near him.

Now, he worries a mudslide may take out his home, which was damaged in the blaze, and its made him anxious.

I hope I have a home after this storm, because it sounds like its a pretty bad one, the 60-year-old said. I was dreaming that there was a tornado, and all these things were sticking to me. They were human bones.

The Camp fire burned homes but left trees standing. The science behind the fires path 

For others who have yet to return to their homes, the rain is another stone in their troubled path. They would like to see what possessions, if any, remain before the mountainsides turn to slurry.

Brandy Connell, 40, worries that the rain will trigger a mudslide in her area of Magalia and that there will be nothing left to comb through at the ruins of her white mobile home.

The roof had collapsed on the home before fire ravaged its insides, and Connell hopes that collapse might have saved much of what her family of four was forced to leave behind. Perhaps the equipment used to run her business selling handmade soap, candles and shea butter survived.

Mostly, Connell has been thinking about her fathers ashes. He died from pancreatic cancer in May and had requested that his ashes be scattered in San Francisco, where he was raised. She wants to fulfill that final wish and find the small wooden box that held a good man.

It was one of those things we didnt think to grab, she said.

Instead, she quickly packed mismatched clothes for herself and her two sons, Zack, 13, and Kyle, 7. She thought they would be gone only a few days. More than a week later, they are staying at a shelter at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds in Yuba City.

Zack, an eighth-grader who likes chatting up strangers, is anxious to return to Magalia. He, too, has rain on his mind.

If the whole thing slides, he said, Im giving up all hope.

Vives and Knoll reported from Paradise, Tchekmedyian from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Joseph Serna, Howard Blume and Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

UPDATES:

10:45 a.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from state Sen. Jim Nielsen.

8:25 a.m.: This article was updated with rain beginning to move in.

This article was originally published at 3 a.m.
Moments before her ex-fiance fatally shot her in the parking lot of the hospital where she worked, a Chicago doctor called 911 to report that she had spotted the man and feared for her life, police said Tuesday.

As investigators tried to piece together the events that ended with the deaths of the doctor, a police officer, a hospital employee and the gunman, they were able to fill in details about an attack Monday at Mercy Hospital on the citys South Side.

Dr. Tamara ONeal had recently called off her engagement to Juan Lopez, so when she saw him, she called for help. She also told an acquaintance in the parking lot that she was afraid before that person retreated to the hospital to call 911 as well.

When Lopez confronted her, the former couple argued about ONeal calling off the engagement, and Lopez demanded that she return the engagement ring. Then, police said, people inside and around the hospital heard gunfire.

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ONeal fell to the ground. Witness James Gray looked out of a hospital window to see where the gunshots had come from and watched as Lopez stood over her and shot her three more times, he told reporters.

As a squad car pulled up, Lopez turned his Glock semiautomatic handgun on police, striking the vehicle multiple times before he ran into the hospital. Officers gave chase.

Once inside the medical center, he kept firing at officers and at one point turned and fired at Dayna Less, a first-year resident in the hospitals pharmacy, when the doors of the elevator she was on opened.

Officer Samuel Jimenez was struck in the neck, just above the bulletproof vest he was wearing, and soon died. Jimenez had been delivering his stations mail to the post office when he turned and followed other squad cars racing to the hospital.

There were indications that Lopez wanted to shoot even more people. One witness, Jennifer Eldridge, was hiding in the pharmacy when she heard the gunfire and the sound of the gunman jiggling the handle of the locked door, an apparent effort to get in.

During the exchange of gunfire, Lopez was shot once in the abdomen. It was then that Lopez, who fired a total of more than 30 shots and had reloaded his weapon, put the gun to his head and killed himself, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Investigators said they found nothing to indicate that Lopez had a criminal record. At the time of his death, he was an employee with the Chicago Housing Authority, and officials there said there had been no reports of any problems in his nine months on the job.

But there were other signs of trouble in recent years.

In 2014, Lopez was kicked out of the citys firefighting academy after threatening a female cadet. When the Chicago Fire Department learned of the threats, Lopez was told he would be disciplined. But instead of returning to the academy to meet with department officials, Lopez went AWOL and was fired, Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said Tuesday.

Records from that same year indicate that a girlfriend of Lopez sought an order of protection against him because he was incessantly texting her. When she reported the texts to police, officers told her to change her phone number and seek an order of protection. Records show that she sought the order but not whether she ultimately received one, Guglielmi said.

Lopez had a permit to possess a concealed firearm, and it was unclear if officials knew about the 2014 complaint when the permit was granted, said Guglielmi, who said Lopez had legally purchased four guns in the last five years. It was also unclear whether an order of protection, if granted, would have forbidden Lopez from owning weapons.
The white nationalists mailed their donations in dribs and drabs: Sometimes a $10 check, sometimes as money orders, sometimes in cash  often in U.S. dollars, but also in British pounds and other foreign currencies.

All of it went to support the Daily Stormer, the Internets most notorious neo-Nazi website, featuring sections including Jewish Problem and Race War. Over the last five years, the far-right site operated by Andrew Anglin, 34, raked in at least $100,000 to $125,000 from supporters, according to an estimate contained in court records filed last Friday.

The money went to an office  and later, a P.O. box  in Worthington, Ohio, maintained by Anglins father, Greg, a retired therapist, who would collect and deposit the funds. Greg Anglin had helped his son, at the time a far-right blogger, set up the website in 2013 and it soon became one of the Internets top destinations for unabashed racists.

I was sitting in my living room of my condo with my son, and he told me that he was going to start another website, Greg Anglin said in a deposition on Oct. 31, where he also revealed the details about the sites donations and finances. And I said, OK. And he asked me if he could use my credit card to register the name. And I asked how much it was, and it wasnt very much money, so I said fine.

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And thus the Daily Stormer was born.

When asked why he had assisted his son in setting up the site  and helped file incorporation documents and deposit donations  Greg Anglin replied: I have a difficult time as a dad sometimes knowing what to support and what not to support. I dont take responsibility for someone elses actions.

But, under oath, he also indicated he was displeased with his son for registering the Daily Stormer website under his name.

We had a very direct conversation where I told him I was very disappointed in him that he allowed that to happen, and that I wanted it removed immediately, Greg Anglin said. He also claimed not to know anything about the Daily Stormers financial condition.

The disclosures provide a new window into the Daily Stormers operations at a time when Americas organized far right has been besieged by lawsuits and corporate crackdowns, a backlash incurred by the movements increasingly bold attempts to gain more mainstream attention via social media and rallies.

Public concern about the movements activities is arguably greater than ever, as law-enforcement officials report a sharp rise in hate crimes, including an Oct. 27 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead.

The Daily Stormer, which features a disavowal of violence on its homepage, first rose to public prominence in 2015 after a commenter on the site, Dylann Roof, killed nine black worshipers at a church in Charleston, S.C.

My ideology is very simple, Andrew Anglin said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times after the massacre. I believe white people deserve their own country.

Its occasional targeted hostility has made many critics feel unsafe. After Anglin organized his readers to go on a troll storm against a Jewish woman in Montana  unleashing hundreds of messages directed at her  she filed a federal harassment lawsuit against the Daily Stormer in 2017 with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-extremism nonprofit that has filed a series of lawsuits against white supremacist groups, some of which have then gone into bankruptcy.

An attorney for Anglin has tried to mount a free speech defense to dismiss the case, but a federal judge in Montana rejected the request last week, writing, Anglin exploited the prejudices widely held among his readers to specifically target one individual.

Several hundred white nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches march through Charlottesville in August 2017. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)

That has cleared the way for Anglin to face trial and possible financial damages.

Naturally, its hard to run a website full time if you dont have the money to pay for web hosting  or food, or rent  which is among the things that makes litigation such a threat to the outlets of the far-right movement. But Anglin has made himself a hard man to reach.

Process servers for multiple lawsuits failed to locate Anglin in Ohio, and lawyers learned that Anglin had requested an absentee ballot for the 2016 election be sent to Krasnodar, Russia. Anglin checked a box that read, I am a U.S. citizen residing outside the United States, and my return is not certain.

Anglin was also sued for defamation in federal court in Ohio by SiriusXM Radio host Dean Obeidallah after the Daily Stormer falsely accused Obeidallah, a Muslim American, of masterminding the 2017 terror attack in Manchester, England.

Anglin has declined to show up in court, so Obeidallahs attorneys have requested summary judgment to secure damages. As part of that request, they deposed Anglins father to learn more about Andrew and his assets, filing excerpts of the deposition into the public record to support further discovery in the case. (An attorney for Obeidallah declined to comment.)

Greg Anglin told Obiedallahs attorneys that he didnt know where his son was, and he speculated that Andrew Anglin had been out of the country for five years, possibly in Russia and Thailand at various times. (Greg and Andrew Anglin did not respond to messages seeking comment.)

He would have come and seen me if he was in the country, Greg Anglin said, adding: Hes a private person, and Im a talkative guy. And so he prefers and I prefer to not know where he is.

Which is how Greg Anglin said he ended up handling his sons mail.

He said the donations started to spike in mid-2017, which is when the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., brought new attention to the far-right movement, and some of the donations include bitcoin.

His sons hate-for-profit business, registered in Ohio as Moonbase Holdings LLC, appeared to have benefits for Greg Anglin: In April of 2017, while undertaking a real-estate rehab project in Columbus, Greg Anglin said he borrowed $60,038 from his sons accumulated donations and paid the money back when he was done.

But Greg Anglin also hinted that the Daily Stormer had injected a frost into his relationship with his son, telling the lawyers that he had told his son that he was frustrated that he had to testify and that he told his son that I will not open any correspondence addressed to Daily Stormer or to Moonbase holdings.

Greg Anglin said he made his final deposit for his son in December 2017  I just think that we were winding up that whole cash thing  and revealed the comical futility of outsiders now trying to mail anything to his son.

I put them in a big plastic tub, Greg Anglin said of the legal documents that his son receives.

And what happens to them afterwards? an attorney for Obeidallah asked.

They sit in the tub.

You dont forward them on to anybody?

No, I do not.

And what about letters from the Internal Revenue Service that were directed to that address, what did you do with those?

Greg Anglin responded: Throw them away.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Matt Pearce is a national reporter for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @mattdpearce.

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One of the most important cooperating witnesses in the prosecution of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman appeared poised to implicate Mexicos president-elect in corruption on Tuesday while recounting payoffs to high-level politicians  until he was stopped by the judge.

Defense attorney William Purpura led former Guzman deputy Jesus El Rey Zambada Garcia through a tightly choreographed dance around allegations about which the court had limited testimony during a lengthy sidebar before jurors were brought in Tuesday morning.

After an extended back-and-forth about bribes that the witness said he paid Mexicos former top cop, Genaro Garcia Luna, on behalf of his brother, Sinaloa cartel boss Ismael El Mayo Zambada, Purpura asked about a man named Regino, whom Zambada Garcia identified as a deputy to then-Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

And what if any relationship did Regino have to Lopez Obrador? Purpura asked, before Judge Brian Cogan sustained an objection from federal prosecutors, preventing him from giving an answer. Instead, the defense lawyer pressed the witness over exactly how much money Regino had received at their meeting in 2005.

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Im not sure, but it was a few million dollars, Zambada Garcia replied. It was paid to him because it was said he was going to be the next secretary of security, and if so it would be for our protection.

Within minutes, Gabriel Regino Garcia, a professor of criminology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, tweeted out a fierce denial.

Its false that during my exercise of public service, I received any bribe from on behalf of the witness Jesus Zambada, he wrote.

Lopez Obrador is the president-elect of Mexico.

Its not the first time Guzmans lawyers have sought to paint Mexican politicians as corrupt, nor fought with the court over what role that alleged corruption can play in their case. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman was warned to steer clear of it in the second half of his opening statements last week, and Cogan ruled to curtail what Purpura could ask about corruption Tuesday in his cross-examination of Zambada Garcia.

Individuals and entities who are not party to this case would face embarrassment and harassment if this information were made public, Cogan told the court Tuesday morning. He ruled that the entire half-hour sidebar would be kept out of the public record, and that prosecutors motion to exclude such testimony would be redacted before it was entered.

Still, Purpura got close to asking the question.

If Mayo could corrupt the president of Mexico, hed do it, wouldnt he? the lawyer asked.

Perhaps, the witness answered.

Zambada Garcia testified that he had twice bribed Garcia Luna, first when he was head of the Federal Investigation Agency and again when he was the secretary of public safety in charge of Mexicos federal police. Both times, the witness testified, he met the police official in a restaurant, where he gave him millions of dollars on behalf of his brother, El Mayo. He also testified that drug traffickers had put together $50 million in protection money for Garcia Luna.

The exchange was part of a long and at times testy back-and-forth. Purpura attacked Zambada Garcias credibility, picking apart previous depositions from scores of government proffer sessions in which the witness had detailed his associates crimes to federal investigators.

You and your brother Mayo met with Luna in a restaurant some time between 2005 and 2006. Do you remember that? the attorney asked.

No, not right now, the witness replied. Thats a mistake, he elaborated when shown a transcript of his previous deposition. I met with my brothers attorney and with Luna  just like that, there can be a lot of mistakes with the interpreter.

The bribery accusations capped close to four days of testimony from Zambada Garcia, who nodded to Guzman as he stepped down from the stand. Just before the cooperating witness was led from the courtroom for the last time, his old boss nodded back.

Sharp is a special correspondent.
The statement was made by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam during his working visit to the Ha Tinh province on November 20.

Addressing the working session, he appreciated the achievements gained by the province in the fields of education and healthcare.

Ha Tinh province has promoted the grassroots-level health care network as well as deploying electronic health records, helping people grasp their health status.

Regarding education, the Deputy PM asked Ha Tinh to create conditions for universities and vocational schools to open branches and training levels that are appropriate to the needs and practices in the locality.

Earlier, Deputy PM Dam visited several schools and medical stations and also attended a ceremony celebrating Vietnamese Teachers Day at Ha Tinh University.
Tugging wagons loaded with chicken dinners, blankets, coats and shoes, Mike Benavides and his partner, Sergio Cordova, guided half a dozen volunteers across the bridge from Texas into one of Mexicos most dangerous states.

They walked past Mexican customs and headed to a group of about two dozen migrants camping under tarps at the foot of the bridge. Days before, the volunteers had brought them the tarps.

Its a routine repeated every evening as the volunteers enter Mexico to feed and clothe the stranded asylum seekers.

U.S. Customs officers stationed at the center of the bridge wave volunteers through but keep asylum seekers from entering the country. Mexican immigration officials instruct the migrants to add their names to a waiting list that has now stretched to 80 people. Some had been waiting for more than a month.

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Mike Benavides, left, and Sergio Cordova prepare snack bags at their Brownsville home. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The lucky ones would be allowed to cross the bridge, be held in immigration detention and then released at the bus station in neighboring Brownsville, Texas. There, some of the same volunteers would greet them with donated backpacks of supplies, breakfast tacos and help deciphering their bus tickets and court paperwork.

In a sense, its the new Ellis Island, but run by local volunteers.

Sergio and I sometimes feel like were spitting on a bonfire. Shouldnt they have the Red Cross or somebody over here? said Benavides, 49. But if we dont do it, they go hungry.

Asylum seekers surged into Matamoros and surrounding Tamaulipas state even before a migrant caravan arrived in Tijuana last week. With attention focused on the caravan, asylum seekers here say theyve languished.

Tamaulipas is a perilous place to get stuck waiting. Drug cartel violence  kidnappings, disappearances, murders  has turned it into one of the most dangerous states in Mexico. Some of the U.S. volunteers like Cordova hadnt crossed the bridge in more than a decade.

Mike Benavides, third from left, helps immigrants in Brownsville who are seeking political asylum. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Now, Cordova said, its a daily mission. If were not going to the bus station or the bridges, were sorting clothes. Theres no free time.

He and Benavides started crossing to help the migrants after volunteering at the bus station in nearby McAllen in July. Separated due to the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy, migrants were being dropped off there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement with notices to appear in immigration court.

The next week, the couple posted a donation drive on Facebook, gathered items at Sams Club and began taking them to migrants at the Brownsville bus station and across the bridge in Matamoros. If migrants were sick, Benavides and Cordova picked up medication and took it to them. Before long, they rented an apartment near the border bridge for $440 where fellow volunteer Brendon Tucker, 23, started cooking the nightly dinners they deliver.

The couple, who both work for the local school districts special education department, grew up in the Rio Grande Valley. Like many here, they descended from immigrants. Benavides was one of 14 children born to Mormon parents. He served two years on a mission in the Dominican Republic and fought in the U.S. Army during Desert Storm before returning to south Texas. Cordova was the youngest of four boys and a product of the Brownsville public schools system.

Ruth Avila, 19, of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, tries on a donated beanie after being released from immigration detention in Brownsville. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The two dont have nonprofit status or a budget, relying instead on donations through Facebook and a GoFundMe page. They have recruited 20 helpers, whose ranks sometimes swell to 50. They call themselves Team Brownsville.

For now, they operate out of the couples ranch-style house. The garage is packed with supplies, its walls lined with donated toiletries, underwear, shoe laces and other essentials. Migrants shoe laces are confiscated for safety reasons when theyre detained, and they often dont get a chance to bathe while in detention.

The couple converted two spare bedrooms into temporary shelters. Theyve hosted 20 migrants so far, and persuaded a local homeless day program to open a temporary migrant shelter to take in more. The migrants generally leave the next day by bus. If they have far to go, the couple gives them $10 to $20 for food. They call the migrants our sons for the day.

Migrants who have stayed with the couple keep in touch via text messages and social media. Earlier this month, a Guatemalan asylum seeker messaged Benavides for advice. His court case in New Jersey was still pending, but his attorney told him he likely would not be granted asylum.

Benavides replied with a text showing asylum denial rates for various nationalities. Guatemala was among the highest.

He could either show up for court and get deported or take his chances, Benavides said later. I said thats between you and God.

Sergio Cordova helps asylum seekers travel to their destination after they were released from detention in Brownsville. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Cordova, 51, receives several texts a day from migrants hes helped. They call him padrino  godfather. He always replies. The men are lonely and see him as part of their family, he said. Many dont have friends in the U.S.

I dont want them to think I forgot, or I dont care, Cordova added.

The couple are careful not to offer legal advice. When migrants call in search of lawyers or rides to court, the men refer them to apps and advocacy groups. All of the asylum seekers the couple stays in touch with have attended their court hearings, they said. But so far, only one has been granted asylum, a 17-year-old Honduran who brought police reports documenting that he had seen his mother killed by an assailant who wielded a machete and also attacked him.

A Guatemalan man who recently stayed with the couple told them he fled after drug traffickers threatened him because hed refused to work for them. Benavides wasnt optimistic the man would be granted asylum since he had not brought along any evidence of the attack.

Its emotionally draining, he said as he waited at the bus station.

As the morning dragged on, immigration officials dropped off five Central American women, all pregnant. The next morning, they dropped off several dozen men from Central America and Cuba.

Benavides gave the migrants maps that traced their routes, listing stops and transfers. He scanned the crowd for migrants who had been allowed to cross from Matamoros, but didnt see any. Fewer have been allowed to cross lately, he said. Most of those who had crossed came on foot illegally through the Rio Grande river.

Asylum seekers blocked at Texas border bridges say Mexican officials are demanding money to let them pass 

Benavides knows two elderly women from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca who have been waiting to cross for more than a month. One of the women had trouble talking to Mexican immigration officials because she speaks an indigenous language.

People just keep passing by them, Benavides said.

Even after migrants are allowed across the bridge, it can take years for them to be released from U.S. immigration detention, especially if they cant afford to pay their bond. One Honduran man spent two and a half years in detention, Benavides said, so long that he emerged fluent in English.

Over the last few months they have also helped migrants from as far as Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, Kosovo and Russia.

History is going to say: Did we welcome them, or did we turn our back on them? Cordova said.

For Thanksgiving, the volunteers plan to deliver three turkeys: One baked, one barbecued, one fried. They will celebrate the holiday by sitting at the foot of the bridge and sharing the meal with the migrants.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

@mollyhf
A white Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi said during a debate with her African American Democratic opponent Tuesday night that she apologizes to people who were offended when she complimented a supporter by saying she would attend a public hanging if the supporter invited her.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smiths remark was caught on video that was released last week. It has brought widespread criticism both inside and outside Mississippi, a state with a history of racially motivated lynchings.

For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statement, Hyde-Smith said Tuesday during a televised debate with Democrat Mike Espy.

The apology was a new approach for Hyde-Smith, who repeatedly refused to answer questions about the hanging comment at a news conference Nov. 12, the day after the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted the video on Facebook and Twitter.

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The clip shows Hyde-Smith praising a cattle rancher at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be on the front row. Shortly after the videos release, she said in a statement that the expression was an exaggerated expression of regard and said it is ridiculous to read any negative connotation into it.

There has never been anything, not one thing, in my background to ever indicate I had ill will toward anyone, Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner, said Tuesday night. Ive never been hurtful to anyone. Ive always tried to help everyone. I also recognize that this comment was twisted and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me, a political weapon used for nothing but personal and political gain by my opponent. Thats the type of politics Mississippians are sick and tired of.

Espy responded during the debate: No ones twisted your comments because your comments were live, you know, it came out of your mouth. I dont know whats in your heart but I know what came out of your mouth. It went viral in the first three minutes around the world. And so its caused our state harm. Its given our state another black eye that we dont need. Its just rejuvenated those stereotypes that we dont need anymore.

Hyde-Smith is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress. Espy, a former congressman and U.S. Agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the states first African American senator since Reconstruction.

During the debate, Hyde-Smith questioned a $750,000 lobbying contract Espy had in 2011 with the Cocoa and Coffee Board of the Ivory Coast. She noted that the countrys ex-president, Laurent Gbagbo, is being tried in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including, Hyde-Smith said, murder, rape and unspeakable things against young girls.

I dont know how many Mississippians can really relate to an income that can command a $750,000 check from one person for a lobbying job, said Hyde-Smith, who is a cattle rancher.

Espy, who is an attorney, said: I found out later that this guy, the president, was a really bad guy. I resigned the contract.

Federal registration papers show Espy terminated the contract two weeks before its scheduled end.

Hours before Tuesdays debate, President Trump defended Hyde-Smiths public hanging remark, saying at the White House that she loves the people of Mississippi and the U.S.

It was just sort of said in jest, Trump said. Shes a tremendous woman and its a shame that she has to go through this.

Walmart asked Hyde-Smith to return a $2,000 campaign contribution because of the hanging remark. Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins said Tuesday that the company donated to Hyde-Smith Nov. 8, three days before the release of the video.

Sen. Hyde-Smiths recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates, Jenkins said in a statement. As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations.

Hyde-Smiths campaign did not respond to questions from the Associated Press about whether it would refund Walmarts contribution.

Senate races rarely gain national attention in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state. But this matchup  the last major race of the 2018 midterm  has drawn scrutiny after Hyde-Smiths remarks.

Trump is traveling to Mississippi for two Hyde-Smith rallies Monday on the eve of the election. Former Vice President Joe Biden has endorsed Espy.

Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate to temporarily succeed longtime Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April amid health concerns. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41% of the vote when four candidates were on the ballot Nov. 6. If she wins the Nov. 27 runoff, Hyde-Smith would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Before joining the Justice Department, acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker earned nearly $1 million from a right-leaning nonprofit that doesnt disclose its donors, according to newly released financial disclosure forms.

The documents show Whitaker received $904,000 in income from the Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust from 2016 through nearly the end of 2017. He also received $15,000 from CNN as a legal commentator, according to the documents released Tuesday by the Justice Department.

The nonprofit group, known as FACT, styles itself as a nonpartisan government watchdog promoting ethics and transparency. The tax-exempt group is supposed to serve the public interest without supporting or opposing specific candidates for office. However, its challenges and its website have focused largely, though not exclusively, on Democrats and their party.

Whitaker used his role as president and executive director of FACT in 2016 as a platform to question the ethics of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

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Several news outlets, including the Associated Press, and outside groups had requested the documents after President Trump ousted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and elevated Whitaker to the top Justice Department post on Nov. 7.

The documents show that Whitaker began revising his public disclosures the day he was appointed acting attorney general. He revised the forms four more times, including on Tuesday.

In a disclosure form Whitaker completed when he joined the Justice Department in September 2017, he reported receiving $1,875 in legal fees from a company called World Patent Marketing. Whitaker has come under scrutiny for his involvement with the company, which was accused of misleading consumers and is under investigation by the FBI.

Whitaker also disclosed his partial interest in a family farm in Ely, Iowa, that he valued at $100,000 to $250,000. The forms also included disclosures of $20,000 to $30,000 in credit card debt in 2017.

FACT drew its funds from 2014-16 mainly from Donors Trust, another nonprofit designed to provide anonymity to conservative and libertarian donors. Though such tax-exempt groups can legally withhold the identity of their contributors and generally do so, there may be a distinct irony when a group dedicated to transparency keeps its funding sources in the shadows.

Whitakers appointment has been criticized by Democrats who have challenged its constitutionality and are concerned that he will interfere with special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs Russia investigation.

Earlier Tuesday, the Senates top Democrat asked the Justice Departments watchdog to investigate communications between Whitaker and the White House.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked the inspector general to look into whether Whitaker had access to confidential grand jury information in Muellers probe. Schumer also wants investigators to examine whether Whitaker shared information with Trump or others in the administration.

John Lavinsky, a spokesman for the inspector general, declined to comment on Schumers request.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking Justice Department official, had been overseeing the special counsels Russia investigation until Whitakers appointment. Whitaker is now overseeing the investigation.

Schumer and other Democrats have said they are concerned about Whitakers past criticism of the Mueller probe, which is looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and ties to Trumps campaign.

After Whitakers appointment, Schumer called for Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the investigation and said he would seek to tie a measure protecting Mueller to must-pass legislation if he refuses to do so.

Whitakers past public statements have included an op-ed article in which he said Mueller would be straying outside his mandate if he investigated Trumps family finances. In a talk radio interview he maintained there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

On Monday, three other Senate Democrats  Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island  filed a lawsuit arguing that Whitakers appointment was unconstitutional because he has not been confirmed by the Senate. The Justice Department issued a statement Monday defending Whitakers appointment as lawful.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Schumers request on Tuesday.
President Trump told his counsels office last spring that he wanted to prosecute political adversaries Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James B. Comey, an idea that prompted White House lawyers to prepare a memo to the president warning of consequences ranging up to possible impeachment, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Then-White House Counsel Don McGahn told the president he had no authority to order such a prosecution, and he had White House lawyers prepare the memo arguing against such a move, according to the report, which the Associated Press confirmed with a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the situation and requested anonymity. McGahn said that Trump could ask for such a probe, but that even asking could lead to accusations of abuse of power, the newspaper said.

Presidents typically go out of their way to avoid any appearance of exerting influence over Justice Department investigations.

Trump has continued to privately discuss the matter of prosecuting his longtime adversaries, including talk of a new special counsel to investigate both Clinton and Comey, the newspaper said, citing two people who had spoken to Trump about the matter.

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Trump has repeatedly and publicly called on the Justice Department to investigate Clinton, and he has tweeted his dismay over what he saw as former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions reluctance to go after Clinton. Trumps former personal lawyer, John Dowd, urged Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein in a memo last year to investigate Comey and his handling of the Clinton email investigation.

Sessions last year said he was directing senior federal prosecutors to look into matters raised by House Republicans related to the Clinton Foundation and a uranium mine transaction benefiting the foundation that was approved when Clinton was secretary of State. The FBI has been investigating that matter. Sessions, in March, told lawmakers that he was not prepared to appoint a special counsel to investigate the FBI and potential political bias there.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. McGahns lawyer, William Burck, also did not respond to a request for comment.
President Trumps plan to give U.S. troops permission to use force to protect the Border Patrol is raising new questions.

TOP STORIES

Could This Border Mission Cross a Line?

When President Trump ordered thousands of U.S. troops to the southern border before the election, critics decried it as a political stunt. Now, there are deeper questions about the mission, as the president plans to give the troops authority to use force to help protect Border Patrol officers. Trumps order could be challenged in court, in light of a federal law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which is intended to limit the use of military personnel in law enforcement duties within the United States. There is also the risk that a confrontation with unarmed migrants could escalate into deadly violence.

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A New Challenge in a Grim Search

In the aftermath of the Camp fire in Northern California, search crews have found the remains of 81 people. But with 870 still reported as missing, their work is far from over. Now, authorities face a new complication: Two storms could bring up to 6 inches of rain to the burn area, creating not only the chance of flooding and debris flow but also the possibility that victims remains may be lost forever.

More About the Fires

-- Paradise narrowed its main road by two lanes years ago, despite warnings of gridlock during a major wildfire.

-- In the Woolsey fire burn area straddling Ventura and L.A. counties, experts are more worried about storms in the next few months than todays anticipated rain.

-- In a season of suffering and loss, columnist Steve Lopez finds the small gestures of goodwill being made at an Agoura Hills donation center.

-- Two of Trumps Cabinet secretaries say federal agencies need more authority to manage the nations forests to prevent tragic wildfires.

The World Is a Very Dangerous Place!

After weeks of scrutiny over how Trump would respond to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist from Saudi Arabia who had been living in the U.S., the president made clear he wont be punishing the kingdom or its crown prince. Trump did so in an unusual official statement of realpolitik, albeit one full of disputed claims (and exclamation points), that cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies, emphasized Saudi Arabias role as a counter to Iran and argued that economic deals outweigh human rights. Or, as Trump said of Khashoggis slaying and dismemberment: It is what it is.

More Politics

-- Democrats will examine Ivanka Trumps email use when they take control of the House in January after reports that she used a personal email address to conduct official government business.

-- Thanks to heavy partisan gerrymandering, lopsided Republican electoral majorities in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin survived intact after the midterm election.

-- Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, the only Democrat who had publicly considered a challenge to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for the House speakership, has abruptly announced she will support Pelosi.

Is the Go-Go Stock Market Gone?

Right before Thanksgiving and the holiday shopping season, the stock market delivered a turkey: a drop in share prices Tuesday that hit Americas technology giants first, then spread through the market. That, combined with other recent losses, effectively wiped out the years gains. The catalyst: the Trump administrations trade war with China. While analysts are generally not expecting a bear market at this point, they do have concerns the years-long rally is fizzling out.

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MUST-WATCH VIDEO

These 360-degree videos show the Woolsey fires damage to Paramount Ranchs Western Town and Oak Forest Estates mobile home park.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Each Thanksgiving, charities in L.A. provide free turkey dinners to thousands of people. Its a tradition that goes back decades. During the Great Depression in 1935, The Times reported on the meals at the Midnight Mission as well as Los Angeles General Hospital.

Nov. 28, 1935: Thanksgiving dinner at the Midnight Mission in downtown L.A. (Los Angeles Times Archive / UCLA)

CALIFORNIA

-- Alex Villanueva, the retired cop whos commanded a startling lead in the election for Los Angeles County sheriff, is edging closer to a victory over incumbent Jim McDonnell.

-- Bail bond industry groups are trying to block a law that will overhaul the cash bail system. Theyve submitted signatures in an effort to bring a ballot measure before voters in 2020.

-- Prosecutors have announced criminal charges against nine people accused in an election fraud scheme to get homeless people on L.A.'s skid row to sign fake names in exchange for cigarettes and cash.

-- La Plaza Cocina, a museum and educational kitchen devoted entirely to the history and evolution of Mexican food, will open in downtown L.A. early next year.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- The massive fires in California have disrupted TV and commercial production throughout the state.

-- Movie reviews: Ralph Breaks the Internet has wit and energy to burn but takes a cynical turn, while Michael B. Jordan is a knockout again in Creed II.

-- Black Panther redefined superhero movies. Can it do the same thing for the Oscars?

-- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is getting the rock star treatment. Does pop culture need to give it a rest?

NATION-WORLD

-- Federal food safety officials say you should not eat any romaine lettuce after another outbreak of a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria.

-- An elevator in a Chicago skyscraper fell 84 floors, requiring a dramatic rescue. As one occupant said: I believed we were going to die.

-- Israel has reacted with anger to Airbnbs announcement that it will drop rental listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

-- Seventy years ago in Spain, Nicolas Sanchez-Albornoz was sent to prison for painting the words Long Live Free University! This week, he reenacted the crime.

BUSINESS

-- SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musks infamous marijuana video reportedly was no joke to NASA, which will launch a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing Co.s efforts to build capsules to take astronauts to the International Space Station.

-- A Department of Education audit found Navient Corp., one of the largest student loan servicing companies, may have driven borrowers into higher-cost repayment plans. The report was kept secret.

SPORTS

-- LeBron James I Promise School in Cleveland might be experiencing growing pains, but the seeds of success have been planted.

-- Meet Trevor Hendershot, who works as a greeter at the team stores of the Angels, Ducks, Rams and USC.

OPINION

-- How do we prepare for the new abnormal wildfire risk in California? Lets start with a discussion of power lines.

-- Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III might soon bring charges that even Trump die-hards cant trivialize.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- Sources say that in the spring Trump told then-White House counsel Donald McGahn he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James B. Comey. McGahn reportedly told Trump he had no authority to do so. (New York Times)

-- Watergate revealed that multinational corporations were bribing politicians. An excerpt from the book Kickback: Exposing the Global Corporate Bribery Network. (Longreads)

-- The argument for why puns are among the highest forms of humor. (The Paris Review)

ONLY IN L.A.

The wallpaper looks leafy. Tree branches surround a desk. And the crystals? Theyre everywhere. As a YouTube star, Joey Graceffa is all about being an online presence, but the office in his 6,373-square-foot Los Angeles home is all about nature, or a close approximation thereof. Think of it as an enchanted storybook forest.

If you like this newsletter, please share it with friends. Comments or ideas? Email us at headlines@latimes.com.
Did you run to the freezer to check the label on your socked-away package of ground turkey after hearing about the recall of Jennie-O products last week? If not, do it now. Well wait.

On Thursday, just a week before the traditional day of mass-scale turkey consumption, the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a recall of nearly 150,000 pounds of raw ground turkey that may contain the Reading strain of salmonella bacteria. The USDA recommends that if you have one of the suspect packages, throw it out or return it to the store. Although you can cook the danger away and avoid contamination with proper handling, the USDA says, the risk from this antibiotic-resistant bacteria is too great.

Normally, the illness caused by salmonella infections is relatively minor, if unpleasant, and it passes in a few days. But in this outbreak, 63 people have been hospitalized, and one person in California died.

Over the last 12 months, at least 164 people in 35 states have been infected.

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And dont relax if the turkey or package of drumsticks thawing in your fridge for Thanksgiving dinner isnt on the recall list. It may well be teeming with salmonella Reading. Indeed, theres a widespread outbreak of this strain, which has been reported in whole birds and a number of other raw turkey products, and in more brands than just Jennie-O. Over the last 12 months, at least 164 people in 35 states have been infected.

In fact, inspectors have found the same strain in samples of raw turkey products taken from 22 slaughterhouses and seven processing facilities. Which ones? We dont know, and the USDA is not saying.

A number of consumer advocacy groups, including Consumer Reports, say this secrecy endangers public health. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue last week, the Safe Food Coalition urged the USDA to publish an urgent public health alert naming the turkey slaughterhouses and processing establishments linked to the salmonella outbreak. It seems a reasonable request, considering the scope of the outbreak, but USDA officials responded by attacking consumer groups as special interests making irresponsible suggestions. Its disappointing that food safety officials view the public as a special interest best kept in the dark until the smoking package of salmonella-tainted turkey infects some unsuspecting diner.

If the USDA doesnt want to implicate a single turkey supplier, then perhaps it ought to consider the broader approach taken by other agencies faced with serious food-borne illness outbreaks. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, reacted quickly to an outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce in April and within two weeks warned consumers to avoid all romaine lettuce from the entire Yuma growing region. And on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified a second, unrelated outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce and warned consumers to avoid any form of the lettuce from any source and from any location until authorities figure out where the bacteria originated, thus implicating all lettuce suppliers.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Why the disclosure disparity at federal agencies? Hard to say, though the USDA has long been criticized by consumer advocates for being too cozy with the agricultural industry it is tasked with regulating. This outbreak is just another example of the USDA putting corporate interests over the health of American families, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement last week. She is pushing legislation to define antibiotic-resistant salmonella as an adulterant in poultry products, which would make them subject to USDAs mandatory recall authority. Multi-drug resistance has become a real threat to human health due to heavy use of antibiotics to prevent disease in poultry and livestock.

For now, its best to be exceptionally careful with turkey and closely follow cooking and safe handling recommendations. The same applies to chicken: The CDC is also tracking an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella that has been reported in 29 states among 92 people who consumed various chicken products. The same strain has been found in samples from 58 undisclosed chicken slaughterhouses and processing facilities.

Or maybe you should just go for the tofurkey this year.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Hundreds of thousands of midterm votes are still being counted across the United States, but you can already verify this result: The Democratic blue wave contained a lot of azul.

The national Democratic Party, which  after ignoring Latinos for too long  wised up and spent more than $30 million to get out the voto and turnout was 174% higher than in the 2014 midterms. A record number of Latinos  Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, South Americans  will enter Congress. In California, victories by two Latinas from the Central Valley, Anna Caballero and Melissa Hurtado, helped restore the Democrats super-majority in the state Senate.

This surge in Latino political power is a credit to the activists who laid its foundation in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of them, both Angelenos, died earlier this month: civil rights activist Antonio Gonzalez and UCLA professor Leo Estrada. Their passings barely registered in local and national media, but their fingerprints were all over the Democrats 2018 success.

Gonzalez was the longtime leader of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and its policy arm, the William C. Velasquez Institute. A 2005 profile in Time Magazine  which named him as one of the 25 most influential Latinos in the U.S.  described Gonzalezs philosophy best: democracy as trench warfare.

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This surge in Latino political power is a credit to the activists who laid its foundation in the 1980s and 1990s.

The SVREP was created to register Latino voters across the United States, regardless of political affiliation. Whether you were a fifth-generation Chicano or someone whose parents were in the country illegally, Gonzalez wanted you to participate in the grand American experiment. So he did everything to make sure that happened. He worked Capitol Hill but also went door-to-door in barrios across the country registering people.

He taught newbies the ins and outs of American politics, community activism and running for office. And once Latinos stepped inside the corridors of power, Gonzalez pushed them to work on big issues  such as the war on drugs and environmental justice  that may not have been obvious choices, but directly effected Latino communities.

Gonzalez even understood the importance of community journalism: Despite an impossibly busy schedule, he hosted a weekly one-hour radio show on KPFK from 2004 to 2016, using his platform to let local, national and international activists explain their struggles on the air to a Southern California audience.

Chipping away, pushing, prodding, Gonzalez told Time back in 2005 about his work strategy. Weve created a new culture of participation.

Estrada was even lesser known than Gonzalez  yet in some ways, more influential. The El Paso native started at UCLA in 1977 and helped to transform the schools urban planning department into one of the most vital in the United States. Through his work on demographics in the Southwest and how it played out politically, Estrada got Latino progressives to realize that activism couldnt come just from the streets, but also academia.

In an appreciation published by UCLA when Estrada retired earlier this year, he recalled asking a dean at the university if it was OK for academics to involve themselves in local affairs.

I think our faculty in the field of planning should be in the community, so you do what you have to do, Estradas boss told him. Try not to get arrested.

He took those words to heart, and helped to break down the ivory tower by teaching a generation of scholars that their work had concrete, on-the-ground application  and wasnt just for stuffy university journals.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

The profe led by example. He worked on the Christopher Commission that examined the Los Angeles Police Department policies in the wake of the Rodney King beating and advocated for reforms such as community policing. Government officials used his demographic breakdowns of political districts to better allocate funds toward Latinos. The American Civil Liberties Union and other nonprofits used his data to craft lawsuits that alleged disenfranchisement of Latino voters across the country. His consulting was crucial in the voting rights case Garza vs. Los Angeles County, the federal court decision that led to a redrawing of county supervisorial districts and helped Gloria Molina become the first non-white to become a county supervisor.

Just as crucial was what Estrada did quietly: mentor scores of former students who went on to become professors, nonprofit workers and activists, whether with a letter of recommendation or a pep talk when they needed it the most. Dozens posted testimonials about his grace and genius on social media. The modern scholar of color doesnt have time to work with the next generation, said Alexandro Jose Gradilla, a professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Fullerton. Estrada did it over and over again without blinking.

Estrada and Gonzalez were never in the spotlight like, say, former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or longtime labor leader and newly minted state Senator Maria Elena Durazo. Yet they were California at our best: always looking to better the future of the downtrodden. When the Democrats take power in Sacramento and Washingtonin January, party leaders should hold a moment of silence in their honor.

And for anyone else who want to show our respect? Easy. Vote. Then register someone to do the same.

mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com

Twitter: @GustavoArellano
Nobody showed up at the first Thanksgiving carrying a green-bean casserole. Whatever was on the menu at that semi-mythical gathering it didnt include a dish made with string beans, canned cream-of-mushroom soup, a bit of soy sauce and canned french-fried onions. And yet, along with the turkey and cranberries weve enshrined as the culinary symbols of Plymouth colony, millions of home cooks will make green-bean casserole this year, a dish bearing every hallmark of its 20th century origins. Introduced in 1955 as Green Bean Bake, by the end of that decade it had become a holiday icon, right up there with pilgrim hats.

Its a remarkable trajectory for a casserole born in a corporate test kitchen. Typically were reluctant to alter our holiday menus, packed as they are with memory and tradition. But no sooner had families across the country tasted green-bean casserole than they started saving space for it on the sideboard as faithfully as if theyd gotten the recipe from Great-Grandma.

Dorcas Reilly, the Campbell Soup Co. home economist who invented green-bean casserole, died last month at the age of 92. But happily for historians, her working notes on the project survive, typed up with some handwritten additions on a card headed Vegetable  Oven that the company donated to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. She started her experiments at the request of Cecily Brownstone, the food editor at the Associated Press. Brownstone had attended a press luncheon where a simple casserole of green beans with an intriguing topping caught everyones attention. She especially liked the backstory: On a trip to the U.S., the shah of Iran and his wife, Queen Soraya, had been served the same casserole, and the queen said she loved it. Brownstone asked Campbells to help her devise an easy recipe for the dish, suitable for home cooks using packaged foods, and Reilly took up the challenge.

Thanksgiving isnt about elegance, its about America.

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She tested version after version  was it better with celery salt? Or maybe Worcestershire sauce? Was a quarter-teaspoon of soy sauce enough? Needs more pep so I stirred in extra soy sauce, Reilly wrote. Several of her co-workers tasted the results, and it was one of these tasters, identified in Reillys notes only as EH, who came up with the inspired notion of including french-fried onions in the soup mixture as well as sprinkling them on top.

Brownstone published her story on April 21, 1955 (Beans Fit for a Queen of Iran), and although Reilly continued to tinker with the recipe for years, the dish was launched.

But notice the date of Brownstones story. This was a springtime recipe; Thanksgiving was nowhere in sight. Yet four years later, in November 1959, Ruth Ellen Church, the food editor at the Chicago Tribune, was reporting on what had already become the popular treatment for Thanksgiving string beans: Just bake them in mushroom soup with canned onion rings on top. Reillys invention, a plain-spoken homage to convenience and crunch, had leapt to classic status.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Why green-bean casserole, of all possible candidates for immortality? The Campbells test kitchen was constantly turning out canned-soup recipes, many of them quite a bit more arresting than this one. Asparagus soup turned up in a cheese souffle, tomato soup was the operative ingredient in a molded gelatin salad, cream-of-mushroom soup was mixed with ground meat to become the filling for a French-toast sandwich  but none of these outlived their novelty.

Similarly, there are innumerable ways to serve green beans, but few can compete with the casserole on Thanksgiving. Tossing green beans with butter and slivered almonds, for instance, which Ruth Ellen Church suggested as an alternative, is easier; its also more elegant and doesnt take up room in the oven. Never mind. Thanksgiving isnt about elegance, its about America. Green-bean casserole appeals to a deeply characteristic streak in our national appetite, a sensibility that brings us back to packaged foods even when we think weve cut the ties.

Farmers markets, seasonal produce, fresh and local  these mantras are relatively recent preoccupations. Packaged foods, by contrast, are woven into our culinary DNA. What delighted the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island wasnt fresh vegetables, but canned peaches, and fluffy white bread as sweet as cake. Those were the miracle foods that told newcomers they had arrived in the land of plenty, and the foods that shaped our tastes for generations. When Reilly and her team approved a just-right version of green-bean casserole, it was because they recognized a beloved old friend  the nostalgia was baked in.

All liked, Reilly wrote on the card. We still do.

Culinary historian Laura Shapiro is the author of Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America among other books.

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The statement was made by NA Vice Chairman Do Ba Ty at a reception for Secretary of the Nur Otan Party Central Committee K.B. Zhumasev in Hanoi on November 21.

The Vietnamese official hailed the visit as an important contribution to developing the relations between the two countries political parties.

He spoke highly of the role played by the Nur Otan Party in the political system of Kazakhstan and expressed his belief that under the leadership of the party, Kazakhstan will further prosper in the future.

Ty stressed that the Party, State and people of Vietnam never forget the valuable support and assistance the former Soviet Union countries, including Kazakhstan, have given to Vietnam during its past struggle for national independence and unification as well as current national development.

Vietnam attaches importance to fostering the traditional friendship with Kazakhstan, he added.

According to the NA Vice Chairman, the cooperation between the Vietnamese and Kazakhstani parliaments has been continuously consolidated and developed, both bilaterally and multilaterally. The two sides have maintained the exchange of high-level delegations and those of the legislatures committees.

He said he wishes that the Nur Otan Party leaders will support the promotion of collaboration between the two countries legislative bodies, making it closer and more effective.

For his part, K.B. Zhumasev said Vietnam is an important partner of Kazakhstan in the Southeast Asian region in terms of economy and politics.

As Vietnam and Kazakhstan share a lot of similarities, the two countries may enhance cooperation and sharing of experience in lawmaking, supervision and deciding on major national issues, he said.
Another day, another mass shooting  nearly one a day in this country, a dozen people dead this time, and a gunman who mocked the world on social media even as he was killing people in a Thousand Oaks bar. Its too bad I wont get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it, he posted as police were arriving at the Borderline Bar. I hope people call me insane  wouldnt that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah  Im insane  but the only thing you people do after these shootings is hopes and prayers 

A different murder-suicide rampage, in Isla Vista in May 2014, compelled Democratic state legislators Das Williams of Santa Barbara and Nancy Skinner of Berkeley to craft the Gun Violence Restraining Order measure. Its been state law for nearly three years. If someone with guns looks to be suicidal or homicidal, then a relative, a roommate, or law enforcement can go to court to get a restraining order.

It can bar someone from owning or buying guns for three weeks. That person can make his case to the judge for getting his guns back. Or he could lose them for a year.

Its a lower hurdle to reach than the states current 5150 law, which requires a mental health disorder diagnosis to hold someone against his will, as a danger to himself or others. Williams is now a Santa Barbara County supervisor, and with so many lives that might be saved by a gun violence restraining order, it worries him that more people dont use it. A court ruling separating the person from the guns means families dont have to go it alone. Williams himself once felt he had to take a gun away from his grieving father, so he knows whereof he speaks.

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Click here for the full archive of Patt Morrison Asks podcasts 

Tell me about the law thats been in effect since 2016.

This created one of the nations first red flag laws, referring to whenever people, after events like this, say there were red flags about someones mental illness. What it would do is allow family members, roommates and law enforcement to obtain a gun violence restraining order that removes someone who is a danger to themselves or others from their firearms for a 21-day period. [That gun owner] can respond to the petition at the court, and then the court decides whether to have the firearms deprived of that individual for a longer period of time.

Some people believe that a 5150 is easy enough to obtain, and it really isnt. A 5150 is whats called an involuntary hold. Its when you are determined by a psychologist or psychiatrist that you are a danger to yourself or others, but it has a very high threshold.

You have to pose an imminent threat, and the person who makes that determination has to know what the means of the violence would be, and a general sense of the timing of the violence, and thats all a pretty high threshold for someone to reach.

And in most of these cases, a mentally ill person  even someone whos having a lot of issues like some of the recent tragedies  wouldnt reach the threshold for a 5150 unless the psychologist knew [specifically] when they were going to act and how they were going to act.

But to give you an idea, [Isla Vista mass killer] Elliot Rodger, who issued a manifesto against all young women  even after the manifesto came out, technically you could not have reached the threshold for a 5150, because his threat was not specific about anyone in particular.

Its a useful tool, but its not the only tool that should be out there for law enforcement, which is why we passed this law. But the main issue with it is, most people dont know it exists. And so most family members dont know what to do if they have a son or daughter whos suicidal and has firearms, or one who poses a threat to other people because they are shooting off guns in the night or suffer from a great deal of anger or paranoia.

Most parents in this situation dont know what to do. I just want them to know that there is one thing you can do, especially if you know they are in possession of firearms. If you care about them, deprive them of those firearms, and you can do so by petitioning the court for a gun violence restraining order.

This could also stop these people from buying firearms, as well as handing over the guns that they have in their possession already?

Thats right.

Law enforcement was called to the home of the Borderline Bar and Grill shooter, and evidently it was determined by a mental health team that he was not a danger. Do you think that even law enforcement knows that this is out here as a tool for them?

I think that its important to note that what the visit determined was that it did not meet the threshold for a 5150. That does not mean that someone is OK, and thats my point about how difficult it is to reach the threshold for a 5150. And law enforcement has what I would call a medium level of awareness about this law.

Its higher in some jurisdictions like Santa Barbara County. Because weve been through this tragedy, we have a higher level of knowledge about it. Its not being used very often by members of the public. I hope that in order to reduce the frequency of shootings like this  and even more so to reduce the incidence of suicide by firearms  that people would avail themselves of the gun violence restraining order process.

The Borderline killer and his mother had supposedly had a number of loud arguments. But the mother had reportedly told someone  a neighbor, a friend  that she wasnt concerned about her safety. She was concerned about her sons safety. Could this law could have applied there, from what you know?

Its hard to judge the situation without being able to hear the conversations with the parent or with law enforcement, but on its surface, it seems like a textbook example of how a gun violence restraining order could help the situation.

And statistically, the mother was right: its more often that someone in this kind of situation becomes suicidal than homicidal. The number of [gun] suicides in the United States is staggering. I think it would save lives  not only reduce the incidence of mass shootings, but even more so reduce the incidence of suicide by firearms, if people knew about this law and petitioned the court to remove firearms from loved ones who pose a threat to themselves or others.

You introduced this law the same year that Rodger went on his killing spree. What was it about his case that might have qualified under the GVRO law?

Did his family try to intercede? Did others try to intercede and got nowhere?

His family was at a loss for what to do, but his roommates knew they were clearly in danger. In fact, his roommates all moved out because they felt they were in danger, and it was the new set of roommates that Mr. Rogers slaughtered.

If you feel yourself that you are in enough danger to move out because you can hear your roommate lock and loading a firearm in his room, and screaming at the heavens and yelling and ranting, then you probably should take the trouble to petition the court instead of just moving out.

There was a welfare check made on Mr. Rodger, and if this tool had been around, it could have been used either by law enforcement or his roommates.

Dame magazine did a pretty deep dive into domestic violence, family killings, and found that about a quarter of women were afraid to try to get any kind of legal action like restraining orders because they might find themselves the victim of violence for even having tried to stop the violence. So here is the GVRO, but you put it in the hands of people who may be afraid to use it.

People are inherently afraid of confrontation, but confrontation in situations like this could save lives. The first instinct that people have is, what do you do to make sure this never happens again?

That is a natural emotion, but it is not based in reality. Were not going to stop these things from ever happening again. But we could reduce how often they happen. And people are understandably fed up with how often this happens. And my thought is, if we channel some of that anger and dismay into action in our everyday lives, to maybe say, This fellow is going through a lot. Hes someone that I even may empathize with. But hes not somebody that should have firearms in his possession.

I think only four other states have this law. Why so few?

Some of parents of the victims of the Isla Vista massacre are going legislature by legislature [to get the GVRO law on the books in other states]. I think with some of the gains that Democrats just made in the state legislatures and the national election, there will be more of these.

The process of government and the courts seems pretty opaque to your average person. Walk us through the procedure for getting a gun violence restraining order in California.

In California, you have to be either a family member or a roommate or a law enforcement official to obtain a gun violence restraining order. Its inclusive of somebody whos living with you.

And you would ask a [Superior Court] judge for the restraining order. The judge would check some of the basic things like, are you one of people who qualifies [to file for a GVRO], and some of the circumstances around it,. If there is cause to believe it has merit, the 21-day clock would begin, and in that time the person would be deprived of their firearms by law enforcement. The person would have a chance to respond and go to the court and say. You know what? My mom thought I was depressed, but Im OK now.

So after 21 days, either the person gets back their firearms, or the judge decides that, no, this person actually is a danger to themselves or others. And then they would be deprived of their firearms for a year, with the possibility of that being reinstated a year from then.

The way I respond to the detractors to the red flag law is, say the worst-case scenario that happens  a situation of a gun violence restraining order that just doesnt have a whole lot of merit  is that someone loses their gun for 21 days. I dont believe that that is a tragedy comparable to the tragedies that are happening. We have mass killings in this country with blinding frequency, hundreds per year.

Even though it was a mass homicide that sparked the law, the reality is that more people will be saved from suicide by this. One of the reasons why family members shirk away from doing this is out of some weird misplaced loyalty to the person in question. If you really love someone, you do not want them to be suicidal with a firearm  or potentially even worse than suicidal, homicidal with one.

I can speak from experience that its the right thing to do, to deprive a loved one of a firearm, even if its a temporary measure.

My own fathers life partner  his girlfriend, but that understates her value to him  passed away after a long battle with cancer. I knew he had a weapon, I knew he shouldnt have the weapon, I took the weapon. In the 1990s, when that happened to me, that was your only real option. Now that there is a legal means to take away a loved ones firearm when they are not in the mental condition to be in possession of a firearm, my hope is that people will use it.

It sounds as if you were afraid he would take his own life.

Yes. I was relatively certain that there was at least a small amount of danger of that. [His father is still living, and well.]

And think about back in the 90s, the amount of attention that had to be put on domestic violence in order to make domestic violence restraining orders known to the public. Now everybody knows that thats what you do. But that wasnt true back in the 1990s. It took a concerted effort to highlight the issue and educate the public.

I think its almost incalculable, the number of lives that domestic violence restraining orders have saved in the past couple of decades. But that wouldnt have happened without a whole lot of attention.

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To the editor: Your article spells out the facts about the continued decline of the Republican Party in California, much which can be attributed to the GOPs lack of attention to the voters of our state. However, it fails to identify the danger of becoming a one-party state.

History has shown that when power is concentrated in one political party, the prospect of losing some of our freedom is real.

This country enacted a constitutional amendment limiting the number of terms an individual can serve as president, fearing that concentrated power in the executive branch of government could undermine our democracy. Single-party governments throughout history have demonstrated that the people in power tend to disregard those who do not fully agree or comply with their ideology.

Time will tell if history repeats itself.

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Frank Deni, Lake Forest

..

To the editor: Since we are close to having effectively a one-party state, wouldnt this be the ideal time to overthrow the horrible top two system of elections that has proved to be a real hindrance to democratic choice?

This effectively eliminates any third-party candidate from appearing on a general-election ballot, and it has certainly shown itself not to result in more moderate candidates. If we went back to party primaries, then at least we could have a chance to elect from a broader field.

Im a Democrat who would love to see a variety of parties represented in Sacramento  Republican, Green, Libertarian and more. We could be more like a European parliamentary scheme that seems to work better than our two-party system in solving problems.

Carole Lutness, Valencia

..

To the editor: The comment from a former Republican Party official that the GOP exists in small regional pockets, where there are enough white, non-college-educated working class communities, underscores exactly why the party has become all but irrelevant in California.

The Republican Partys leadership at both the state and national levels is run by people who prey on the fears and insecurities of their supporters. The California electorate has rejected the tactics of these party leaders.

One can only hope that the old adage, as California goes, so goes the nation, is correct.

Gary Tereshkow, Palm Springs

..

To the editor: What can the Republican Party do to turn California red again? Frankly, as a conservative, I believe we can do nothing to make that happen.

But there is a monster on the horizon that could do the trick: single-payer healthcare. The progressive left has been emboldened by the election of Gavin Newsom, who ran on his support for single-payer, to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown. The results will be major payroll and sales tax increases to support this monstrosity.

Upper-end earners will flee California, and healthcare costs will spiral out of control. Taxpayers will revolt, and the people of this state will turn to conservative values once again.

Joseph Schillmoeller, Gardena

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A few days before the midterm elections, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos  an up-and-coming Democratic leader who was campaigning for one of her partys House candidates  walked into a dimly-lit pizza shop for lunch and a break.

It didnt take long for her to shift back into campaign mode.

At the next table was Roger Anthis, a 53-year-old railroad worker who voted for President Trump and proudly doesnt like politicians, especially Democrats. That didnt faze Bustos, who first chatted him up about whats good on the menu  the white pizza sauce  before shifting to his political concerns.

He worried that Democrats want to curtail his gun rights, which she deflected by telling him about her own state-issued gun-permit card and about her husband, a police officer. They bonded over their shared support for unions. By the time the last slice was gone, Anthis had agreed to support the local candidate Bustos was there to help, vowing to put a Brendan Kelly pin on his red Make America Great Again hat.

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Shes a ninja, Anthis said with a Southern drawl, crediting Bustos with talking him into bucking years of voting for the GOP.

Bustos, who represents a northern Illinois congressional district that Trump narrowly won, is now betting she can parlay that skill of winning over Trump voters into the upper ranks of House Democratic leadership.

While many of her rival leadership aspirants are pitching to the left wing of the party, Bustos is trying to carve a niche closer to the middle  both politically and geographically. The candidate she was promoting in the pizza shop lost on Nov. 6, but Democrats won back the House, largely by picking off seats in moderate suburban districts that Trump won in 2016.

Bustos says her ability to serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone to better understand Midwestern voters will be vital in helping Democrats keep and expand those wins.

I know how to do well in really, really tough districts, she said. Were going to have more than 30 Democrats in the House coming from Trump districts, so we just have to figure out how to button these up and hang on to them and grow our margin in 2020.

Bustos, 57, currently in the lower ranks of leadership, is hoping to be elected to run the partys campaign arm, one of 10 coveted posts that will be decided next week in a secret ballot. The jobs are viewed as a launch pad to higher office in House leadership, even more so as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi faces pressure to either step aside or begin to at least wind down her leadership of the caucus in the coming two years.

Bustos, who grew up in the Illinois capital of Springfield where President Obama got his start and you cant walk a few feet without running into something named Lincoln, is the only one of about 18 leadership candidates who doesnt represent a district along one of the coasts. She is one of only two contenders representing a district won by Trump.

And shes probably the only member of Democratic leadership whose go-to road food while campaigning is an indulgent, heart-clogging ButterBurger from Midwestern fast-food chain Culvers.

Her pitch to Democrats of all stripes is that the partys majority is fragile. If its political pendulum swings too far to the left in next two years or Democrats are seen as coastal elites, they risk losing in those moderate districts, especially when Trump himself is on the ballot, she said.

We dont hang on to that majority by having a Democratic message that is viewed as extreme in rural America or in the heartland, she said.

In an autopsy of Democrats losses in the 2016 election, she implored fellow party members to focus on voters economic anxieties by talking about infrastructure, education and small business, and staying away from social issues.

Bustos represents the resurgence of the kind of Democratic moderate who largely got wiped out of the House in the last several election cycles as Republicans built a majority.

She supports abortion rights but doesnt lead with the contentious social issue. Her stump speech is big on reducing healthcare and prescription drug costs but doesnt lean into government-run Medicare for all. She had an A- rating from the National Rifle Assn. two years ago, but it dropped to F after she endorsed a series of gun control measures.

Moderate Democrats such as Bustos will likely be pivotal to the partys success in 2020. The Democratic presidential candidate will have to appeal to their voters to have any shot of denying Trump a second term. And in the House, 21 Democrats newly elected in Trump districts will have to figure out how to sustain the Democratic enthusiasm they rallied this year while not angering their Republican or independent voters too much. There are only nine Democrats who won reelection in Trump districts this year.

In the race to become head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Bustos is up against another Democrat who won in a Trump district, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, as well as two Democrats from Washington state, Reps. Dennis Heck and Suzan DelBene. All of them, like Bustos, have worked with the campaign group in prior years.

Pelosi, who is facing her own leadership election, has not put her thumb on the scale in the DCCC contest. But Bustos said Pelosi has personally said to me and many others that she wants to see a woman in the job. A Pelosi spokesman declined to comment on a private conversation.

Bustos has a record to tout: Shes helped lead coalitions to recruit candidates, especially women and people in the Midwest. Shes raised or given away $3 million to more than 100 candidates. And she won by the largest margin of any Democrat in a Trump district (although Trump won her district by less than one percentage point).

The campaign arm post is not often seen as ideological. But DCCC leaders have sometimes run into political buzzsaws, such as when abortion-rights groups  including NARAL Pro-Choice America  criticized them for not requiring all DCCC-backed candidates to support abortion rights.

Bustos declined to weigh in on how she would handle prospective candidates who oppose abortion rights, saying she would deal with the issue if and when it came up.

Fellow Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a prominent progressive who represents a liberal district outside Chicago, said progressives have nothing to worry about. Shes supporting Bustos.

Shes certainly going to have to work with the entire caucus, Schakowsky said. Its not really an ideological job. It really is execution  making things happen  and I think shell be good at that.

The latest from Washington 

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

@jenhab
The only Democrat publicly considering a challenge to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for the House speakership abruptly announced Tuesday that she would support the San Francisco Democrat instead, after being given a new committee chairmanship.

It was a setback for the Democratic rebellion trying to block Pelosi from regaining the speakers gavel, and a reminder of her effectiveness at sidelining opposition. It showed Pelosi is willing to use an aggressive strategy to flip her opponents, including doling out coveted committee assignments.

The decision by Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) to step aside comes as Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), another prominent member of the anti-Pelosi faction of Democrats on Capitol Hill, was shouted down at a town hall meeting Monday over his stance on Pelosi. Some protesters blamed his opposition on sexism, an allegation he has denied. And on Wednesday, another Democrat who had vowed to oppose Pelosi, Rep. Brian Higgins of New York, reversed course  another sign of promise for the minority leader.

Fudge was named chairwoman of the soon-to-be-restored House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, which will work on protecting voting rights.

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I look forward to working with Chairwoman Fudge in this new role as we advance our efforts to offer all Americans a better deal for our democracy, Pelosi said in a statement.

Fudge made clear that the committee job and her support for speaker were linked.

Leader Pelosi has granted me the opportunity to [do work so that] the protections of the Voting Rights Act will be reinstated and improved, Fudge said in a statement. She has also assured me that the most loyal voting bloc in the Democratic party, black women, will have a seat at the decision-making table. I am now confident that we will move forward together and that the 117th Congress will be a Congress of which we can all be proud. I now join my colleagues in support of the leadership team of Pelosi, [Rep. Steny H.] Hoyer and [Rep. James E.] Clyburn.

Pelosi has launched an aggressive campaign, currying endorsements from Democrats in various House factions and advocacy groups. Former President Obama praised her Tuesday but didnt explicitly endorse her on the podcast of his longtime advisor David Axelrod.

Fudge had been a high-profile member of the anti-Pelosi movement among House Democrats and the only person who had publicly hinted at challenging her. The group argues that new leadership is needed at the top of the caucus, which Pelosi and her two lieutenants have led for over a decade.

Pelosi said before the election that she wants to be a transitional leader  hinting at an impending retirement  but that hasnt been enough to fully quash her opposition in the Democratic ranks.

Still, the former speaker faces a math problem. Sixteen Democrats signed a letter released Monday promising to not support Pelosi on the House floor. (Fudge was expected to be on the letter but did not sign it.)

Higgins was one of the signers on the letter. He told the Buffalo News on Wednesday that he agreed to support Pelosi after she assured him that one of his key issues  infrastructure  would be a priority and that he would be a lead voice on a pet cause, allowing people to buy into Medicare at age 50. Neither is a much of a concession; Democrats had already made clear they intend to support an infrastructure plan.

Still, several other Democrats have pledged to vote against Pelosi but did not sign the letter, including Rep.-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Rep. Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania.

And there are other Democrats who expressed skepticism of Pelosi during their campaigns but didnt draw a hard line.

Rep.-elect Gil Cisneros said during his California race against Republican Young Kim that he supports new leadership. His campaign manager left the door open for Cisernos to vote with his fellow Californian.

He supports new leadership and is waiting to see how the leadership race shakes out, his campaign manager, Nic Jordan, said.

Depending on the results of the last uncalled House races, Pelosi will be able to lose just 14 to 19 Democratic votes on the House floor when Congress picks a new speaker in January.

Times staff writer Christine Mai-Duc in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

The latest from Washington 

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

Twitter: @jenhab

UPDATES:

9:10 a.m. Nov. 21: This article was updated with Higgins comments.

This article was originally published at 4:55 p.m. Nov. 20.
Utahs Mia Love was tabbed as a rising star in the GOP when she became the first black Republican woman in Congress with her 2014 victory.

But on Tuesday she became the latest Republican incumbent to fall in the midterm elections Democratic wave that has seen more than three dozen Republican-held seats flipped across the country.

Ben McAdams, a Democratic mayor of Salt Lake County, defeated Love by fewer than 700 votes in a back and forth race that took two weeks to sort out in deep-red Utah.

Love had a built-in advantage with Republican voters outnumbering Democrats three-to-one in the mostly suburban Salt Lake City district, but she never seemed to catch on with voters the way other Republican incumbents have in the state, said Damon Cann, a political science professor at Utah State University.

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She tried to distance herself from President Trump on trade and immigration and she highlighted the times she stood up to the president, like when Trump used an expletive to describe her parents home country of Haiti.

Trump won Utah in 2016 but the states voters have long been uncomfortable with Trumps brash style and his comments about women and immigrants.

She seemed to struggle a little bit more how to strike that balance without losing too many votes, Cann said.

Trump didnt appreciate her approach, calling her out by name in a news conference the morning after election day, where he also bashed other Republicans who he said lost because they didnt fully embrace him.

Love, the only black Republican woman in Congress, was seeking a third term. She said in a statement she planned to call McAdams, but didnt say if she would concede or congratulate him. She said shes traveling with family for Thanksgiving and wont speak about the race until Monday.

Regardless of how you voted, I want to express my sincere appreciation to you for engaging in the process, Love said. It is one of many reasons this is the greatest country on Earth.

Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams defeated incumbent U.S. Rep Mia Love by fewer than 700 votes. (Steve Griffin / Deseret News)

McAdams touted himself as a moderate, and not a typical Democrat, in a pitch that seemed to resonate in the district where nearly four in 10 voters are independents. He also benefited from record voter turnout that was driven in part by a medical marijuana ballot proposal that spurred progressive voters to the polls, Cann said.

McAdams was an excellent candidate and also probably benefited from displeasure with Trump and the Republican Party, Cann said.

The winds were all at McAdams back, Cann said.

McAdams will become the first Democratic member of Utahs congressional district since 2014 when longtime Rep. Jim Matheson retired.

This race was about connecting with Utah, McAdams said. This race was about who was best positioned to serve Utah and working to not get it caught up in a national, partisan election.

Love finished about 20 votes short of being able to request a recount in a race where about 269,000 votes were cast.

This is the second time she has lost a bid for Congress by a razor-thin margin. In her first run in 2012, Love lost to Matheson, the incumbent, by 768 votes. She went on to defeat Democrat Doug Owens in 2014 and again in 2016.

For McAdams, its a victory that validates his reputation as an emerging political force in Utah.

He is an attorney who graduated from Columbia Law School and practiced in New York before returning to his home state of Utah. He has been a political figure in the state for a decade. He was elected as one of the few Democrats in the GOP-dominated state Legislature in 2008 and successfully ran for the Salt Lake County mayors seat four years later.

He became known for working with the states Republican leaders on issues such as homelessness, where he backed a narrow Medicaid expansion to cover treatment and once went undercover as a homeless person when the issue reached crisis mode downtown.

McAdams said during the campaign he would not support Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) as House speaker and insisting hed be able to work with the president. He has already signed a letter along with 15 other Democrats vowing to oppose Pelosi.

He sharply criticized Loves support for the GOP-backed tax overhaul and said she had not been available enough to her constituents at town halls. Love pushed back hard, saying the tax overhaul has been good for people in Utah and defending her approach of meeting with voters in smaller groups, on the phone or online.

Voter turnout among registered voters was the highest for any midterm election in Utah since 1962 at about 74%, according to Justin Lee, the state elections director.
A man suspected of being a member of a white supremacist group involved in violence at a Huntington Beach political rally in March 2017 pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge.

Tyler Laube, 22, of Redondo Beach formally pleaded guilty in federal court in Los Angeles to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act. The plea came a week after he signed a plea agreement.

He faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing March 25.

Laube is one of four Southern California men linked to the Huntington Beach-based Rise Above Movement who were indicted on federal charges this month.

As part of his plea deal, Laube admitted to being associated with the organization, originally known as the DIY Division and later rebranded as the Rise Above Movement, or RAM.

The other defendants are Robert Rundo, 28, of Huntington Beach, who authorities say is a founding member of RAM; Robert Boman, 25, of Torrance; and Aaron Eason, 38, of Anza.

Rundo was arrested Oct. 21 at Los Angeles International Airport, the FBI said. Laube and Boman were arrested Oct. 24. Eason surrendered to the FBI on Oct. 28.

The indictment charged the four with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and included detailed accounts of 47 acts by RAM members or affiliates. It also accused them of using interstate travel or commerce to organize, promote or participate in a riot.

RAM regularly held combat training for members and associates to prepare to engage in violent confrontations with protesters and other individuals at political rallies, according to Laubes plea agreement.

The document says Laube attended a RAM combat training event in San Clemente on March 15, 2017.

Ten days later, he attended a Make America Great Again rally in Huntington Beach, where violence broke out between opponents and supporters of President Trump. According to court documents, Laube and several RAM members assaulted protesters and others.

Following that rally, RAM members used the internet to post photographs and videos of assaults committed by the defendant and other RAM members in order to recruit members to engage in violent confrontations at future events, the plea agreement said.

The other defendants are scheduled for trial Dec. 12 in Los Angeles.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

julia.sclafani@latimes.com
Longtime Corona del Mar resident James Lindberg, a retired Air Force brigadier general and community leader, has died of congenital heart failure.

Dad, who turned 100 on May 23, passed away on Nov. 13, said Elizabeth Lindberg, his daughter who lived with him at their cottage on Dahlia Street. My father became ill in early November, spent a few days at Hoag Hospital and then was taken to a rehabilitation center, where his heart finally gave out. He never complained, and fought death all the way to the end.

James Lindberg, a Pasadena native and USC graduate, served in the Air Force as a command pilot, flight instructor and procurement officer in the United States, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before his promotion to brigadier general and Air Force deputy chief of staff for systems and logistics in 1967. He retired in 1970 after 30 years of active service.

My father didnt want a funeral or celebration of life, said Elizabeth Lindberg, a former director and script supervisor for several television shows. But he was a member of the Neptune Society, and our family will scatter his ashes in Newport Bay.

The generals other survivors include son Jamie, who lives on Balboa Island and is a retired American Airlines captain and former Marine Corps combat pilot in Vietnam, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The generals wife, Jane, his Pasadena High School sweetheart, died in 1963 at age 44 following a lengthy illness.

After his retirement from the Air Force, James Lindberg, who had moved to Corona del Mar, became foreman of the Orange County grand jury and served on the Orange County Fair Board. He also was vice president of Dart Industries and a member of the Balboa Yacht Club and owned a 30-foot Catalina-class sailboat.

Dad drank two glasses of vodka before our dinner every night, and he always said the vodka helped him live to a ripe old age, Elizabeth Lindberg said. He gave up cigarettes and cigars many years ago and swam in the ocean and jogged on the beach up to three years ago, when his legs began to give out. But with the help of a cane, he walked in the backyard every day to keep his strength up.

James Lindberg told the Daily Pilot during a February interview that he had lived in his Dahlia Street house for nearly 40 years and that it was built in 1910 by a bean farmer in a field in present-day Irvine. In 1913, the house was cut in half and moved in two sections by horse-drawn wagons to its current site by a Los Angeles doctor who had bought it for a summer vacation home.

Lindberg, who added two bedrooms, a second bathroom, an upstairs office and an observation deck, said: My house was built in 1910 and I was born in 1918. Wow! The house in even older than I am.

David C. Henley is a contributor to Times Community News.
With homelessness on the rise in Orange County, a local nonprofit is hoping a new program will incentivize landlords to rent to the destitute.

The Orange County United Ways Landlord Incentive Program will remove financial barriers that may discourage landlords from renting to homeless people.

The nonprofit recently received $250,000 from the county following approval from the Board of Supervisors for a pilot program that will test the feasibility of the effort. The nonprofit has raised about $600,000.

The funds can be used for expenses related to leasing, holding fees, application expense reimbursement, damage claims assistance and security deposits, among others.

Susan Parks, chief executive officer of Orange County United Way, said the pilot program is underway and will likely wrap up in February.

The program is new for Orange County but is common around the country.

Housing authorities in the city of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego have similar programs, said Orange County spokeswoman Molly Nichelson.

This has worked very well in other markets, Parks said.

Parks said theyre hoping to place 40 people in homes during the pilot program. Those being placed have vouchers from the Orange County Housing Authority.

Nichelson said about 100 people who have yet to be placed into housing have vouchers from the housing authority.

Schroeder Management Co., a Newport Beach-based property management firm, is donating apartment units for the pilot program. The organization operates 55 apartment communities throughout Orange County.

Ernie Schroeder, president and chief executive officer of the company, said they are hoping to house 10 people for the program. The organization is currently in the process of placing six individuals.

Schroeder, a member of OC United Ways leadership council, said his company has worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for many years by housing homeless individuals.

The residents through HUD have been fantastic, Schroeder said. We have had very little problems with them.

The Landlord Incentive Program is part of Orange County United Ways United to End Homelessness campaign.

The effort, which began in late February, seeks to raise awareness about homelessness in the county. Its primary goal is to get sufficient permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

A 2017 UC Irvine study commissioned by the nonprofit concluded that the county would save $42 million per year if housing were provided to the chronically homeless.

I always approach this from the head and the heart, Parks said. Doing the right thing would also save us money as a community.

A state bill passed in late August calls for the creation of an Orange County Housing Finance Trust to finance 2,700 homes for homeless people. The Orange County United Way backs that decision, but that lofty goal may take some time to come to fruition.

In the meantime, Parks is hoping theyll be able to attract enough landlords to the program to make an impact once the pilot concludes.

The pilot will show us how it all works and hopefully we will be able to bring in more landlords early next year, she said.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter:@benbrazilpilot
What better Thanksgiving message than reporting on the success of the 2018 Chef Masters gala benefiting the Alzheimers Family Center?

The fall dinner event unfolded at Pasea Hotel & Spa in Huntington Beach, attracting some 375 patrons at dining tables created and supervised by 31 of the top chefs in Orange County.

The event is the brainchild of Kristin Martin, producer and founder of Chef Masters.

Community members stepping forward for the Alzheimers cause were AFC board President Mary Lou Shattuck of Huntington Beach; Gwyn Parry, director of Hoag Hospitals Community Benefit Program; and AFC Chief Executive Joanna Richardson-Jones, praising Hoag for 40 years of support through its dementia-specific center in Huntington Beach.

Paseas executive chef, Kevin Meyer, joined celebrity guest chef Pascal Olhats along with the 31 VIP table chefs creating the extravagant dinner.

Major financial support for the event came from Julia Argyros and Sue Gross, with additional support from underwriter Mona Lee Nesseth.

Nashville Nights

Childhelp went country for its fifth annual fall gala, Nashville Nights. The Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Coast welcomed the passionate Childhelp family to the high-spirited evening co-chaired by Susan Hill, Kristen James and Pam Pharris. An impressive $460,000 was raised for the cause.

Making the success possible were donors Jacquie and Michael Casey, Cleo Bluth, Christine Bren, Patricia and Brent Ford, Lil and Bill Knight, Erna Minkoff and family, the Cable family, Becky and Gary Cooper, Janet Phelps, Michele and Jim Yang and Becky and Zlatko Zadro.

Also front and center were Childhelp advocates Patti and Jim Edwards joining George and Shannon Argyros, and Joe and Ivy Ciolli.

Celebs in the crowd creating a buzz were Dancing with the Stars Maksim Chmerkovskiy and NASCARs Paulie Harraka.

Rivals United

USC and UCLA rivals left their gridiron differences on the field (in spite of UCLAs recent victory at the Rose Bowl meeting), coming together for Rivals United for a Kure to support finding a cure for cancer. Actually, the organization known as Kure It Cancer Research specifically funds research to cure otherwise underfunded, lesser-known forms of the deadly c word.

City National Grove of Anaheim welcomed hundreds of supporters Nov. 11 for the organizations 10th-anniversary gathering. Founded by the late Barry Hoeven in 2007 following his diagnosis with a rare kidney cancer, Kure It Cancer Research has raised some $7 million over a decade to make a difference. Special guest of the evening was Mary Sullivan, keynote speaker and childrens cancer survivor.

A path to sober living

NorthEast of the Well, a small but powerful group of O.C. locals joining forces to support fellow residents fighting substance addiction, will gather for a holiday celebration Dec. 15 to spread their message that lasting recovery requires more than just abstinence.

People need to form deep relationships with others, have the opportunity to feel significance and connect with something greater than themselves, said the organizations Kristel Miles.

For those unfamiliar, the name of the organization is taken from the New Testament  John, Chapter 4  describing a woman at a water well encountering Jesus Christ. In the modern era, NorthEast of the Well offers an outreach program affecting some 350 O.C. residents every week in various forms of rehab.

Volunteers visit some 15 county programs and sober residences and provide more than 1,400 meals each month. In addition, the group transports recovery addicts weekly to worship services.

To attend the holiday event or learn more, visit northeastofthewell.org.

Celebrating success

Economist and former president of Chapman University Jim Doti joined Chapman Woman of the Year Lauren Peterson, vice president of Whittier Trust, at a fall reception in Newport Beach recognizing her impact on the regions financial sector.

The financial firm opened three years ago in Newport, expanding to new regional offices of more than 10,000 square feet to accommodate record growth. Whittier Trust manages $12.7 billion in assets.

Greg Custer, executive vice president in charge of the Orange County office, welcomed 175 guests including Doti and Peterson for a catered reception in Whittiers new MacArthur Court location.

B.W. COOK is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.
Voting for six open seats on the Crescenta Valley Town Council wrapped Saturday, with three incumbents capturing the full-time posts and three newcomers chosen as alternates.

Of the approximately 567 votes cast, Michael Claessens received 23%, Sophal Ear garnered 20.2% and Desiree Rabinov, previously an alternate, got 16.4%. They will each serve three-year terms.

Of the newcomers, Carin Hoffman received 16.4% of the votes, Donna Libra got 11% and Jeffrey Rodriguez received 7.2%. They will each serve one-year terms.

Theyve got interesting ideas, and theyre energized, Aram Ordubegian, a current council member and election commissioner, said of the incoming alternates. That brings energy to the council.

One candidate, Charles Beatty, who served last year as an alternate, did not receive enough votes to return to the council.

All newly elected members will be sworn in Jan. 17 by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. Council members advise Barger on various matters of local importance but do not have legislative power.

While the number of votes might not seem staggering, it was an unusually large turnout for the town council race, according to Ordubegian.

It got to the point where we had to make sure we had enough ballots  which we did, Ordubegian said.

Ordubegian attributed the high voter-participation level to a town-hall-style meeting candidates took part in Thursday, the evening before the polls opened. While the meetings are held every year, this years event was particularly well attended.

It put [the election] in front of everyones mind, Ordubegian said.

Approximately 70 people attended the meeting, including many residents who had not previously engaged with the council and had little to no knowledge of what it does or how it operates, according to Ordubegian.

Big-picture questions about the candidates experience and their vision for the council dominated the meeting, he added.

The candidates expressed varied goals in written statements they submitted before the election.

Rabinov, a transportation planning manager, said she wanted to see the council push for enhanced or new bus service to address linking northern parts of the Crescenta Valley, using funds from a Los Angeles County tax known as Measure M.

Both Ear, an associate professor at Occidental College, and Claessens, a retired attorney, discussed the need for responsible land use and planning.

My goal is helping to maintain our sense of community while managing tremendous growth. Im not beholden to developers, Ear wrote.

Two fresh faces, Hoffman and Libra, both Realtors, said the councils website could be improved.

lila.seidman@latimes.com

Twitter: @lila_seidman
The event will offer an opportunity for enterprises and investors in Vietnam and abroad to comprehensively grasp strategies and potentials, as well as challenges, for Vietnamese tourisms development.

The summits first session will take place on December 5 under the theme of The need for restructuring the sector. The delegates will discuss the infrastructure of Vietnamese tourism, measures to attract investment and human training in the field.

Sustainable development of Vietnamese tourism until 2030 will be the theme of the high-level session on December 6, with a research report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as well as memoirs on improving competitiveness for tourism, destination management and aviation infrastructure.

On the occasion, a signing ceremony will be held regarding investment from international businesses to Vietnam and from domestic enterprises to localities as well as strategy funds for Vietnam Travel and Tourism Summit in the next three-five years.

The organising board invited founders, chairmen and general directors of the worlds largest tourism corporations from major tourism markets of Vietnam; along with senior representatives from the World Tourism Organisation and many other international agencies, to attend the summit.

Notably, the event will also feature the presence of Googles leaders of Asia-Pacific Operations and CNN's Senior Vice-President for Asia-Pacific.
Nov. 12

Burglary, residence: 4800 block of Ocean View Boulevard. A man reported leaving his home the day before at around noon, securing all doors and windows prior to leaving. When he returned at around 7 p.m. that day, he noticed the glass portion of a rear door had been shattered and inside, his bedroom and his daughters bedroom had been ransacked. Among the items missing were an 18-carat yellow diamond Rolex watch, two brown Luis Vuitton wallets and an unspecified amount of cash.

Nov. 14

Burglary, residence: 5000 block of Louise Drive. A man told deputies a Ciocc 7003 road bike that had been hanging inside the attached garage of his home was missing. Hed noticed the bikes absence that day, and recalled the last time hed seen it was Nov. 7. He said its possible hed left the side door of his garage unlocked.

Burglary, vehicle: 700 block of Foothill Boulevard. A woman reportedly secured her 2013 BMW 328i in a rear parking lot at around 9 a.m., locking her drivers side door with a valet key because her key fob battery was dead. About two hours later, she was notified by an employee at Chase Bank that the trunk of her vehicle was open. The victim noticed the doors had also been unlocked. A black and brown lanyard with a crucifix, a black canvas Banana Republic bag and some cash were missing, and possibly more items, the woman told deputies.

Nov. 16

Grand theft: 635 Foothill Blvd. A woman reported that sometime between 1:45 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. someone snatched her purse from inside her shopping cart while she was shopping at Gelsons Market. The black, double-handled Hermes Birkin bag had been hanging from the cart when she went to look at an item on a shelf. When she returned to the cart, the purse, which contained her Texas drivers license, an iPhone 6, a Hermes wallet and gift card and miscellaneous credit cards, had been stolen. The victim told deputies shed seen a suspicious man  a white male in his 20s, about 5 feet 10 and with a slim build, wearing a dark gray hat and windbreaker jacket  near where the purse went missing.

Nov. 17

Petty theft: 4463 Oak Grove Drive. A man told deputies he and a friend had gone to La Canada High School at around 4 p.m. to film some videos and that hed left his iPhone 6 in his friends truck. When he returned to the vehicle 15 minutes later to retrieve the phone, it was gone. The victim said he cannot recall if the truck had been locked at the time.

Compiled by Sara Cardine

sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
His profile said he was from Portland, Ore. No picture, but only a handsome man could be so disarming. He was coming to work in Los Angeles and needed a place to stay within biking distance of his firm in Santa Monica. My Venice apartment, on Rose Avenue, a few blocks from the beach, suited his needs.

But how would my intriguing guest get a bike onto a train? I asked if he wanted to borrow mine and learned he carried along his folding bicycle when he traveled. That riding a bicycle was important to him delighted me. Other men, like my ex-husband, scorned the notion of Los Angeles public transit system and refused to even consider riding a bike. The bourgeoisie French guy? Tu est comme une enfant, he said of my carless existence. You are like a child.

C had nothing but nice things to say to me. He praised the book selection; the quietness of the bedroom; the glitzy, crystal chandelier; the baby grand piano. No weird complaints or outraged private messages that there wasnt a mat in the bathroom or that the bed was too low to the ground.

His sweetness, after so many insane and picky guests, dripped into my brain like an IV. He said that my apartment was an oasis of culture and beauty from a long-lost era and that my kitchen was well equipped for cooking his breakfast.

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His kindness brought tears to my eyes. He was instantly more than just another guest whose easygoing vibe made hosting pleasant. My ex-husband said that nonstick frying pans caused cancer, that my knives were dull. And why had I painted the dining room red?

After so much criticism, my guests simple niceness felt otherworldly, as if Oregon was not just a different state but an alternate planet that sustained and nourished brilliant men. He said he would be traveling often to Los Angeles and would like to stay at my place again if it was available. He likes me, I thought. Also, thinking of this man from Portland observing my city gave me a dirty thrill, like noticing someone at the party checking out your boyfriend.

Are you a veteran of L.A.'s current dating scene? We want to publish your story

When things improved for me financially, I stopped hosting  except my charming C. Our emails grew more personal, a little longer as time passed.

I once referred to him as my friend from Portland, and he replied that indeed, I did have a friend there. The quiet pride with which he mentioned his significant others writing impressed me.

Most of all, I loved entering my apartment after he left. In our anonymous domesticity I felt my presence intertwine with his. Instead of stripping the bed, Id slip into it, curling around the pillow hed used. He belonged to someone else, but I pretended he was mine when he stayed in my apartment.

Surely he would not have washed up his breakfast dishes so tidily for just any host. And the towel. Id never seen a man fold a damp towel before. Los Angeles is about as gentle as a well-paid dominatrix, and I was suffering blows for which I couldnt even begin to pay.

Seeing the city through a visitors eyes, I felt, meant he also saw its cruelties, the impossible economics, the droves of homeless on the street. I sensed an empathy that extended as far as sunlight.

He was always so thoughtful, it wound up so easy for me to pretend that he loved me. I reciprocated the fantastic affection, giving the cold shoulder to the guys who occasionally tried to talk me up. One was, at 25, several years younger than myself. He told me that he was an architect.

C works for an architect firm, I said, blurting out this amazing fact.

Whos C? asked the attractive guy with sandy-blond hair.

More L.A. Affairs columns

Do you know him? I demanded.

I mean, maybe, he said, but his lack of certainty disappointed me, and I walked away. A month and a half later, C sent a polite inquiry, as he always did  but this time he mentioned he was bringing his novelist along. Thats what we called her. The Novelist.

It had been cute, our nickname. It was our thing. But now it wasnt cute. I burst into tears. I was insane. She was probably beautiful too. I told him via email that no, no I could not host the two of them. What you ask is unkind. It isnt fair. Its too much, I wrote. I had borrowed his empathy, love and respect for her, just as much he had borrowed my home.

He replied that he wanted to respect my feelings, but that he was confused by my communication. Apparently, there was no thing.

Many months later, driving in the unfamiliar city of Glendale, I mused less painfully upon C. The very next second, I saw the name of his firm on a banner affixed to a chain-link fence surrounding a building.

Then, a few weeks later, I found Id inadvertently biked upon the architectural firms Los Angeles location. Emblazoned on the side of the building? The same logo adorning the stationery on which he once penned a thank-you note.

Unobtrusive greenery breathed from the permeable pavement. Someone had worried about conserving nonexistent rainwater? But it looked sophisticated and gentle as the man himself. My eyes caressed the pores of the place. I could see through the windows that the interior was painted an intense, friendly yellow. This must be where he worked. Or was I imagining this too?

What do you see? On the building? I asked a woman walking past me as I stood straddling my bike. I almost grabbed her. She looked at me, then at the building, and calmly read the logo out loud.

Ha. Im not crazy, I said.

Its OK, she said.

And suddenly, it did feel OK, because maybe our thing really had been sort of a thing. C remains the nicest man a girl could ever never meet, and the thought of him still touches me.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for love in and around Los Angeles. If you have comments or a true story to tell, email us at LAAffairs@latimes.com.

MORE L.A. LOVE STORIES 

Im black. Hes white. Heres what happened

I went on a bunch of blind dates with total losers

I was sleeping alone in a strangers bed  and falling for him

home@latimes.com
People who come to Vegas to live out their fantasies will have a different chance to fulfill their inner wishes when a new attraction opens in January.

In Police Chase Las Vegas, you can be a good guy chasing a bad guy, lights and sirens flashing, and a bad guy fleeing a good guy.

You also can try to PIT a suspects car, a scenario in which an officer essentially creates a controlled crash, whereby one vehicle makes contact with the rear quarter panel of the other vehicle, putting that vehicle into a controlled spin, thereby ending a chase, co-founder Damian Sheets said.

Prices vary according to which experience you choose, starting at $109 for the PIT experience.

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Then theres a chance to be on the receiving end of the action.

Retired police cruisers will be used for the chases, which will take place on a purpose-built, 1.1-mile strip of concrete near the Speedways NASCAR racetrack. The attraction is near the track where officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department learn tactical maneuvers.

The squad cars and what Sheets called bandit vehicles are equipped with special bumpers to prevent body damage.

Retired police officers will serve as the instructors and provide training to guests before they climb behind the wheel. Theyll also be seated in the vehicle, so they can intervene if someone gets reckless at speeds of as much as 80 mph.

The passenger seat has access to a series of controls, Sheets said. They can shut the motor down. They can take control of the steering or apply the brakes, in the event we have someone who panics or makes an error.

Police Chase, which opens Jan. 13, is accepting online reservations.

The attraction will be closed during NASCAR races and other large events at the Speedway.

Info: Police Chase Las Vegas

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Eataly Las Vegas plans December opening in Park MGM. In a first for the brand, it will stay open 24/7

How to be sure youll get a parking space at LAX for the holidays: planning, a reservation and maybe a bit of luck

Cipriani, Catch and other restaurants make their Las Vegas debuts, and more are on the way

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
The gruesome killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi diplomatic installation in Turkey early last month has cast a world spotlight on rights abuses by the conservative desert kingdom.

But the outcry over President Trumps seeming indifference  his declaration on Tuesday that he was, in essence, taking the word of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over that of American intelligence agencies, which say the kingdoms young de facto ruler almost certainly authorized Khashoggis assassination  points up another uncomfortable phenomenon: Although Western governments are often critical of the Saudi flouting of human rights standards, most are nonetheless willing to continue doing business with its oil-rich absolute monarchy.

Its not that other abuses go undocumented. On the same day that Trump explicitly framed his response to the murder-dismemberment of Khashoggi in terms of American financial interests, two international watchdog groups  Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International  raised allegations that incarcerated Saudi women activists were being subjected to electric shocks and beatings that left some unable to properly stand or walk.

The U.S. State Department, in its annual human rights report last year, cited Saudi practices including unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, restrictions on freedom of expression, gender discrimination, human trafficking and criminalization of homosexual activity.

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Here is a look at some widely cited violations of basic rights in Saudi Arabia.

HARSH PUNISHMENTS:

Saudi Arabias judicial system is grounded in sharia, or Islamic law. It has one of the worlds highest rates of executions, usually carried out by beheading with a sword. Human Rights Watch counted 48 cases of capital punishment in the first four months of this year, half of them for nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses. Other punishments include amputations of a hand or foot and public floggings.

WOMENS RIGHTS:

Crown Prince Mohammed, the heir to the Saudi throne, won worldwide plaudits in June by lifting the ban on women driving  a high-profile gesture that fit with a reformist image. But Saudi women are still subject to guardianship rules, rooted in Islamic law, that relegate them to the status of legal minors, requiring the permission of a male relative, sometimes a young boy, to marry, travel abroad or make other important life decisions. Most women adhere to a strict public dress code that calls for wearing a concealing cloak known as an abaya and a head scarf. Many public spaces remain segregated by gender.

SIDELINING OF RIVALS:

A year ago, the crown prince launched what was billed as an anti-corruption drive that saw the detentions of about 200 people. Among those caught up in the crackdown were government officials, business leaders and members of the royal family, including one of the worlds wealthiest men, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. A luxury hotel, the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, served as a prison, but in a jarring contrast to the luxurious surroundings, reports filtered out of at least some of the detainees being abused to the point of needing medical care. The government said it seized more than $100 billion in improperly gained assets, but suspicions that Mohammed was acting primarily to consolidate his power were fueled by secrecy surrounding the crackdown and a lack of transparency in any legal proceedings.

JAILING OF DISSIDENTS:

Saudi Arabia has for decades kept a tight lid on dissent, and rights groups say that practice has continued unabated  even intensified  since Mohammed became crown prince in 2017, with clerics, journalists, intellectuals and activists among the targets. Dozens of human rights defenders have been placed behind bars, sometimes without trial. Well-known cases include that of blogger Raif Badawi, charged with offenses including undermining the regime, who was sentenced to a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes, the first of which were publicly administered in 2015, according to Amnesty. His sister, Samar Badawi, has been held since the summer on charges related to her activism. Some self-exiled dissidents have been the target of efforts to lure them home or snatch them overseas, in a chilling echo of the Khashoggi case. Loujain Hathloul, who campaigned for womens right to drive, was forced to return from the United Arab Emirates and remains imprisoned. .

REPRESSION OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES:

Saudi Arabias Shiite Muslim minority, making up about 15% of the population, has long been subject to discrimination and repression. Those who seek equal rights have faced sharp reprisals; Shiite activist Israa Ghomgham, who took part in peaceful protests for rights for the Shiite minority, was jailed and could face the death penalty.

PUSHBACK AGAINST OUTSIDE CRITICS:

In August, Saudi Arabia responded to mild criticism from Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland about the imprisonment of dissidents with a full-on diplomatic tantrum  expelling the Canadian ambassador, ordering Saudi students out of Canada and dumping Canadian assets. Many observers viewed the episode as a warning that no criticism of the monarchy would be tolerated  again, an eerie foreshadowing of the fate of Khashoggi, a Virginia resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post, some of them critical of the crown prince.

THE WAR IN YEMEN:

Prince Mohammed has spearheaded Saudi Arabias military role in the the 3-year-old civil war in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest country. Even before he was named crown prince, the 33-year-old thrust Saudi Arabia into a proxy conflict with Iran by employing massive military force against Houthi rebels, a costly battle that remains a stalemate.The grinding conflict has given rise to the worlds most acute humanitarian crises; at least half of the population of 28 million is considered at risk of famine, and this week, the charity Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children younger than 5 have starved to death.

SPHERE OF SAUDI INFLUENCE:

Saudi Arabia is the main Sunni Muslim power in the region and has presented itself to the Trump administration as a crucial bulwark against Shiite Iran. Other Sunni states, particularly Saudi Arabias neighbor and ally, the United Arab Emirates, sometimes take a cue from the kingdom in their own treatment of anyone considered to pose a threat, however mild, to the rulers. This week, British academic Matthew Hedges was sentenced to life in prison in Abu Dhabi on what critics call trumped-up charges of spying for Britain. Rights groups said his court hearing lasted less than five minutes, without a lawyer present.

laura.king@latimes.com

@laurakingLAT
Israel has reacted with anger to Airbnbs announcement that it will drop rental listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The decision announced Monday by the San Francisco-based home-sharing platform is expected to affect about 200 rental units. It is viewed as a significant symbolic victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement aimed at pressuring Israel on its treatment of Palestinians. Israel, which has pushed back against the BDS movement, responded by calling for lawsuits and plans to disrupt Airbnbs business.

Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said the miserable decision was a disgraceful surrender by the company and ordered his office to develop measures to hinder Airbnbs activity in the country.

The boycott movement seeks to pressure Israel to, among other things, end its military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

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Israel has not annexed the West Bank, and its settlements in the contested land that Palestinians claim for their state are considered illegal under international law.

But Gilad Erdan, the Israeli governments point person for fighting the boycott movement, said in a radio interview that there is no distinction between this part or that part of the state of Israel.

He compared his ministrys efforts to that of the Israeli army, that continuously attacks terrorist organizations, even though there are occasional attacks. He called on property owners to sue Airbnb using Israels Law for Prevention of Damage to the State of Israel Through Boycott.

Airbnb appeared wary of stepping into the heated international melee, acknowledging in its statement that we are most certainly not the experts when it comes to the historical disputes in this region and noting that its team wrestled with this issue.

Airbnb said that U.S. law allows it to host listings for the properties. However, it concluded after a review that it should remove listings in the West Bank settlements that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.

David Rosenberg, a columnist for the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz, noted that the big win for BDS  wont even scratch the Israeli economy, or even that of the settlements, but it did drive the government into hysterics.

Palestinian leaders did not express corresponding levels of praise for the policy so harshly condemned by Israel.

Saeb Erekat, a top official in the Palestinian Authority, said in a statement that it would have been crucial for Airbnb to follow the position of international law that Israel is the occupying power and that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute war crimes.

Groups that have long championed a boycott of Israeli settlements applauded the move.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee lauded the company for a first step in the right direction to end Airbnbs profiting from Israels theft of indigenous Palestinians lands and natural resources.

In a 65-page report published Tuesday, the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch said that by delisting rentals in illegal settlements off-limits to Palestinians, Airbnb has taken a stand against discrimination, displacement and land theft.

Arvind Ganesan, the watchdog groups business and human rights director, said that the continued business activities of Booking.com and other companies in settlements contribute to entrenching a two-tiered discriminatory regime in the West Bank, in which Palestinians do not have access to Israeli settlements.

Airbnbs move is a step in the right direction, Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS movement, told The Times. But he said the action was insufficient because Airbnb is not removing property listings in East Jerusalem and in the contested Old City of Jerusalem.

Companies that are complicit in Israels egregious human rights violations must end their complicity and involvement  and involvement with settlements in particular is a major form of complicity, because Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem are considered a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The boycott movements aim to affect Israels economy and policies remains a steep challenge.

On the same day Airbnb posted its statement, the Jerusalem-based image-editing tech company Lightricks announced it raised $60 million in a financing round led by the New York venture capital firm Insight Venture Partners.

The economic impact of the boycott movement is not very considerable yet, Barghouti allowed, but the far-right government in Israel and the BDS movement seem to agree that it will grow.

He pointed to a whole [Israeli] industry dedicated to fighting BDS, capped by Erdans Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy.

When a company decides to end its complicity in Israeli settlements, this far-right government goes absolutely crazy because theyve gotten used to lack of accountability, total impunity, with the massive support from the far-right in the U.S., Barghouti said.

On the other side, pro-Israel voices decried what they described as open corporate anti-Semitism.

This is not about disputed territories, as Airbnb has listings in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Turkish-occupied Cyprus, and more, Eugene Kontorovich, a George Mason University professor of law, said in a statement.

So it is only Jewish properties in the Jewish homeland that are banned. Airbnbs approach of singling out Jews from all the disputes in the world will put it at odds with U.S. state BDS laws and principles of discrimination.

Airbnb offered a muted response to critics accusations.

Israel is a special place, and our over 22,000 hosts are special people who have welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to Israel, said Chris Lehane, head of global policy and communications at Airbnb. We understand that this is a hard and complicated issue, and we appreciate everyones perspective.

Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Hugo Martin in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Major Tran Duc Huong and Second Lieutenant Nguyen Phuc Dong will serve as military observers at the South Sudan mission, bringing the total number of Vietnamese officers at the mission to five.

At the decision handover ceremony, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Senior Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh instructed the two officers to abide by rules of the UN peacekeeping mission and local laws and customs, while quickly adapting to the new situation and fulfilling their duties.

He also advised them to keep good relations with their colleagues, the UN mission and local organisations and residents, as well as ensure safety for themselves.

According to Sen. Lt. Gen. Minh, after more than four years officially joining in UN peacekeeping activities, Vietnam has dispatched 27 officers to UN peacekeeping missions in Central Africa and South Sudan. Recently, Vietnam has dispatched a level-2 field hospital to South Sudan.

He said Vietnam is making necessary preparations for the second level-2 field hospital and the engineer corp, making them ready for UN peacekeeping missions.

In June 2018, the UN recognised the Vietnam Department of Peacekeeping Operations as one of four international training centres in the region and agreed to carry out training under the three-party partnership (comprising Vietnam, the UN and a partner country).

At the meeting of EU Chiefs of Defence in August 2018, the EU invited Vietnam to dispatch officers to be mobile trainers at some UN peacekeeping training centres of the EU in Central Africa, Somalia, Mali and some European countries.
Industries 84% energy savings with the new avancon conveyor system

Energy efficiency: the new ZPC conveyor system by Avancon SA

21.11.2018 10:46:08 - The new conveyor system of the Swiss company Avancon SA, in Riazzino, is very safe and looks modern and impressive. In addition, investment, installation and maintenance costs are drastically reduced. But above all there is huge savings in energy; an amazing contribution to achieving the climate goals.



(live-PR.com) - December 2015: At 19:16, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suddenly returned on the stage, flanked by senior UN officials. The last compromises were resolved, he said. And suddenly they were all on their feet. (...) The delegates clapped, cheered and whistled wildly, hugging and crying. *)

Francois Hollande said: "The Paris Climate Agreement is an 'opportunity to change the world. **)



In - December 2015: At 19:16, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suddenly returned on the stage, flanked by senior UN officials. The last compromises were resolved, he said. And suddenly they were all on their feet. (...) The delegates clapped, cheered and whistled wildly, hugging and crying. *)Francois Hollande said: "The Paris Climate Agreement is an 'opportunity to change the world. **)In the face of increasing climate disasters (hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, tsunamis), humanity will have no option but to reducing CO2 emissions drastically, even though the US will no longer participate in with president Trump.

On June 14th, 2018, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU Council reached a political agreement that stipulates a mandatory energy efficiency target for the EU of 32.5% for 2030.



That's why the new award-winning design of the Avancon ZPC concept should be used in materials handling systems everywhere, as it makes conveyor systems significantly more efficient and helps to achieve these goals.



Goods are accumulated before intersections, switches and work processes, because the cycle at the point of delivery and the cycle at the various delivery points and at the end of the conveyor line are always different.

Basically, zero-pressure-accumulation (ZPA) roller conveyors are known, which are divided into individually controlled sections for these purposes of accumulation of goods. Because this is more expensive, these functions for accumulation are used only at certain points of a conveyor system.



"We decided to use this patented ZPC concept in general for all our conveyor systems," says Avancon SA CEO Christian Durst, "because this concept brings so many benefits to everyone. The manufacturer and integrator of material flow systems saves assembly time, installation time, programming effort and, last but not least, also the operator of a logistics and distribution centers saves maintenance costs  and yearly a lot of energy. - Accordingly, we make life easier for everyone and help them generate more profit.  As a result, our incomparable ZPC system ensures the achievement of climate goals."



Even if this ZPC-System seems to be more expensive at a first glance, this is more than compensated by the many benefits and savings.

This avant-garde conveyor system referred by its inventor as the ZPC, -Zone Powered Conveyor system, has its own brushless DC motor, electronic control and light sensor for each zone.

It drives only those zones, on which a material has to be transported. If the zone in front is occupied, the motor remains switched off; if the zone in front is free, the motor conveys the goods to the next zone, etc. -

Instead of using an oversized gear motor from 0.5 to 1 KW in a long conveyor with flat belts and couplings or similar, the ZPC system needs only a brushless DC motor of 48 V /40 W in each zone.



If one item only has to be transported on a long conveyor line - which occurs outside of peak hours, at many hours of the day, each 2 running motors a 40 W consume together only 80 W, which is about 84% energy savings compared to a 500 W motor that drives a long conveyor track always and continuously. - And even at peak times, where the conveyor systems run constantly, the savings still are up to 30%. - That's a huge energy reduction.

And, incidentally, the operator of such a system saves several hundred thousand euros (or $) per year, depending on the size and capacity of the system.



The patented and cleverly designed ZPC system can be easily assembled, is very safe, simple and future-oriented. From the outside you see the smooth, streamlined aluminum profile, but no drive belts, no controls, cables or screws. Thus, no costly guards per roller are necessary to avoid accidents.



The whole system - whether very large or small - is controlled by the worldwide known field bus AS-interface. It is easy to program and it controls everything fully automatically and autonomously. - The installation and programming costs can be reduced by more than 60% (measured by the AS-interface Association). The individual control elements, the so-called "Slaves", as well as the "Master" are simply pressed onto the AS-interface cables inserted in the specified ribs and clamped with a slider  thats all!



The autonomous electronic control data can communicate with higher bus or IT infrastructure every 0.1 ms via the integrated gateway.  In this way, the programming costs can be drastically reduced.



In addition to the reduced energy consumption, the reduced maintenance costs and reduced programming, you dont need a central distribution cabinet anymore. Even pulling cables on the construction site is no more necessary - and therefore no more additional cable ducts. - What do you mean, how much does that matter? - The investment costs of a complete large material flow plant will be quickly cut down by 20% to 30%.



With this ZPC system, you can transport about 80% of all goods that can be transported around the world in the range up to a maximum of 50 kg - and this millions of time every day!



The avant-garde ZPC conveyor system is distributed by the company Avancon SA in Riazzino, Ticino, Switzerland exclusively through its partners, the manufacturers and integrators of conveyors and logistics systems worldwide.

the face of increasing climate disasters (hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, tsunamis), humanity will have no option but to reducing CO2 emissions drastically, even though the US will no longer participate in with president Trump.On June 14th, 2018, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU Council reached a political agreement that stipulates a mandatory energy efficiency target for the EU of 32.5% for 2030.That's why the new award-winning design of the Avancon ZPC concept should be used in materials handling systems everywhere, as it makes conveyor systems significantly more efficient and helps to achieve these goals.Goods are accumulated before intersections, switches and work processes, because the cycle at the point of delivery and the cycle at the various delivery points and at the end of the conveyor line are always different.Basically, zero-pressure-accumulation (ZPA) roller conveyors are known, which are divided into individually controlled sections for these purposes of accumulation of goods. Because this is more expensive, these functions for accumulation are used only at certain points of a conveyor system."We decided to use this patented ZPC concept in general for all our conveyor systems," says Avancon SA CEO Christian Durst, "because this concept brings so many benefits to everyone. The manufacturer and integrator of material flow systems saves assembly time, installation time, programming effort and, last but not least, also the operator of a logistics and distribution centers saves maintenance costs  and yearly a lot of energy. - Accordingly, we make life easier for everyone and help them generate more profit.  As a result, our incomparable ZPC system ensures the achievement of climate goals."Even if this ZPC-System seems to be more expensive at a first glance, this is more than compensated by the many benefits and savings.This avant-garde conveyor system referred by its inventor as the ZPC, -Zone Powered Conveyor system, has its own brushless DC motor, electronic control and light sensor for each zone.It drives only those zones, on which a material has to be transported. If the zone in front is occupied, the motor remains switched off; if the zone in front is free, the motor conveys the goods to the next zone, etc. -Instead of using an oversized gear motor from 0.5 to 1 KW in a long conveyor with flat belts and couplings or similar, the ZPC system needs only a brushless DC motor of 48 V /40 W in each zone.If one item only has to be transported on a long conveyor line - which occurs outside of peak hours, at many hours of the day, each 2 running motors a 40 W consume together only 80 W, which is about 84% energy savings compared to a 500 W motor that drives a long conveyor track always and continuously. - And even at peak times, where the conveyor systems run constantly, the savings still are up to 30%. - That's a huge energy reduction.And, incidentally, the operator of such a system saves several hundred thousand euros (or $) per year, depending on the size and capacity of the system.The patented and cleverly designed ZPC system can be easily assembled, is very safe, simple and future-oriented. From the outside you see the smooth, streamlined aluminum profile, but no drive belts, no controls, cables or screws. Thus, no costly guards per roller are necessary to avoid accidents.The whole system - whether very large or small - is controlled by the worldwide known field bus AS-interface. It is easy to program and it controls everything fully automatically and autonomously. - The installation and programming costs can be reduced by more than 60% (measured by the AS-interface Association). The individual control elements, the so-called "Slaves", as well as the "Master" are simply pressed onto the AS-interface cables inserted in the specified ribs and clamped with a slider  thats all!The autonomous electronic control data can communicate with higher bus or IT infrastructure every 0.1 ms via the integrated gateway.  In this way, the programming costs can be drastically reduced.In addition to the reduced energy consumption, the reduced maintenance costs and reduced programming, you dont need a central distribution cabinet anymore. Even pulling cables on the construction site is no more necessary - and therefore no more additional cable ducts. - What do you mean, how much does that matter? - The investment costs of a complete large material flow plant will be quickly cut down by 20% to 30%.With this ZPC system, you can transport about 80% of all goods that can be transported around the world in the range up to a maximum of 50 kg - and this millions of time every day!The avant-garde ZPC conveyor system is distributed by the company Avancon SA in Riazzino, Ticino, Switzerland exclusively through its partners, the manufacturers and integrators of conveyors and logistics systems worldwide. Press Information:

avancon sa



via campagna 27

6595 Riazzino TI



Contact Person:

Christian Durst

CEO

Phone: 0041912221010

eMail: eMail



Web: http://www.avancon.com





21.11.2018 10:46:08 -

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Economic Data - US Treasury yields move higher as investors await economic data 21-11-2018 02:14



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On December 2 2005, Starwood filed before the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) an application for registration of the trade mark W for Classes 43 (services for providing food, drink; temporary accommodation) and 44 (medical services; veterinary services; hygienic and beauty care for human beings or animals; agriculture, horticulture and forestry services) of the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification). On February 26 2007, Starwood's application was granted and the W mark was registered in its name.

On May 29 2009, W Land, whose application for registration of the W mark was successfully opposed by Starwood in 2006, filed a petition for cancellation of Starwood's mark for non-use under Section 151.1 of Republic Act No. 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (IP Code), claiming that Starwood had failed to use its mark in the Philippines because it has no hotel or establishment in the Philippines rendering the services covered by its registration and that Starwood's W mark application and registration barred its own W mark application and registration for use on real estate.

In its defence, Starwood denied having abandoned the subject mark on the ground of non-use, asserting that it filed with the director of trade marks a notarised Declaration of Actual Use (DAU) with evidence of use on December 2 2008, which was not rejected. Starwood argued that it conducts hotel and leisure business both directly and indirectly through subsidiaries and franchisees, and operates interactive websites for its W Hotels in order to accommodate its potential clients worldwide.

It should be noted that RA 8293 or the IP Code was adopted and came into force on January 1 1998. It followed the first to file system which provided that rights in a mark shall be acquired through registration made validly in accordance with the provisions of the IP Code.

The IP Code however requires use to maintain the application (124.2) and the registration (145).

Thus 124.2 and 145 of the IP Code provide:

SECTION 124. Requirements of Application. 

xxx

124.2. The applicant or the registrant shall file a declaration of actual use of the mark with evidence to that effect, as prescribed by the Regulations within three (3) years from the filing date of the application. Otherwise, the application shall be refused or the mark shall be removed from the Register by the Director.

SECTION 145. Duration.  A certificate of registration shall remain in force for ten (10) years: Provided that the registrant shall file a declaration of actual use and evidence to that effect, or shall show valid reasons based on the existence of obstacles to such use, as prescribed by the Regulations, within one (1) year from the fifth anniversary of the date of the registration of the mark. Otherwise, the mark shall be removed from the Register by the Office.

It bears asking, what is the value of requiring the submission of a DAU? Its importance lies in its ability to prevent the abuse of the system of trade marks, such that protection is only granted to trade marks actually being used in commerce in the Philippines. The requirement of the submission of the DAU prevents the stagnation of trade marks which would have otherwise remained registered with owners who cannot or do not have the intention of making use of them, depriving other legitimate business proprietors from using the marks. This may be considered anti-competitive conduct.

The Supreme Court's ruling

The Supreme Court said the following:

"Based on the amended Trademark Regulations, it is apparent that the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has now given due regard to the advent of commerce on the internet. Specifically, it now recognises, among others, "downloaded pages from the website of the applicant or registrant clearly showing that the goods are being sold or the services are being rendered in the Philippines," as well as "for online sale, receipts of sale of the goods or services rendered or other similar evidence of use, showing that the goods are placed on the market or the services are available in the Philippines or that the transaction took place in the Philippines," as acceptable proof of actual use. Truly, the Court discerns that these amendments are but an inevitable reflection of the realities of the times. In Mirpuri v. CA, this Court noted that "[a]dvertising on the Net and cybershopping are turning the Internet into a commercial marketplace:"

The Internet is a decentralized computer network linked together through routers and communications protocols that enable anyone connected to it to communicate with others likewise connected, regardless of physical location. Users of the Internet have a wide variety of communication methods available to them and a tremendous wealth of information that they may access. The growing popularity of the Net has been driven in large part by the World Wide Web, i.e., a system that facilitates use of the Net by sorting through the great mass of information available on it. Advertising on the Net and cybershopping are turning the Internet into a commercial marketplace. (Emphasis and underscoring supplied).

The fact that Starwoods websites are directed towards Philippine consumers may be sufficient to establish that they are doing business in the Philippines. However, this is not commensurate with actual use of the mark

Thus, as modes of advertising and acquisition have now permeated into virtual zones over cyberspace, the concept of commercial goodwill has indeed evolved:

In the last half century, the unparalleled growth of industry and the rapid development of communications technology have enabled trademarks, tradenames and other distinctive signs of a product to penetrate regions where the owner does not actually manufacture or sell the product itself. Goodwill is no longer confined to the territory of actual market penetration; it extends to zones where the marked article has been fixed in the public mind through advertising. Whether in the print, broadcast or electronic communications medium, particularly on the Internet, advertising has paved the way for growth and expansion of the product by creating and earning a reputation that crosses over borders, virtually turning the whole world into one vast marketplace. (Emphasis and underscoring supplied).

Cognizant of this current state of affairs, the Court therefore agrees with the IPO Director General (DG), as affirmed by the Court of Appeals (CA), that the use of a registered mark representing the owner's goods or services by means of an interactive website may constitute proof of actual use that is sufficient to maintain the registration of the same.

It must be emphasized, however, that the mere exhibition of goods or services over the internet, without more, is not enough to constitute actual use. To reiterate, the "use" contemplated by law is genuine use  that is, a bona fide kind of use tending towards a commercial transaction in the ordinary course of trade. Since the internet creates a borderless marketplace, it must be shown that the owner has actually transacted, or at the very least, intentionally targeted customers of a particular jurisdiction in order to be considered as having used the trade mark in the ordinary course of his trade in that country. A showing of an actual commercial link to the country is therefore imperative."

The Court found that this was readily established as Starwood was able to show that it owns Philippine registered domain names, i.e. www.whotels.ph, www.wreservations.ph, www.whotel.ph, www.wreservation.ph which displayed the W trade mark. Further, it was shown that the websites were accessible by residents and citizens in the Philippines, and through such websites, they were able to make bookings and reservations with Starwood. Even further, Starwood's websites also provided a Philippine local number, which consumers could reach for inquiries and other concerns. Finally, such websites were in English, a language which is commonly understood in the Philippines, and the prices displayed could be converted into Philippine peso denominations. The Court found that all these factors taken together were sufficient to establish a discernible doing of business by Starwood in the Philippines through the use of such websites. As such, these websites which prominently displayed the subject W trade mark constituted sufficient evidence of use for the purposes of the DAU.

The cancellation case was thus dismissed by the Court. This ruling was promulgated on December 4 2017.

A critique

It is rather problematic that the Court ruled in this manner in this case. A more careful examination of the facts and the law would reveal that the websites presented by Starwood do not actually qualify as sufficient evidence of use.

The pertinent rules on which the decision relies are as follows:

RULE 205. Contents of the Declaration and Evidence of Actual Use.

xxx

(c) The following shall be accepted as proof of actual use of the mark: (1) labels of the mark as these are used; (2) downloaded pages from the website of the applicant or registrant clearly showing that the goods are being sold or the services are being rendered in the Philippines; (3) photographs (including digital photographs printed on ordinary paper) of goods bearing the marks as these are actually used or of the stamped or marked container of goods and of the establishment/s where the services are being rendered; (4) brochures or advertising materials showing the actual use of the mark on the goods being sold or services being rendered in the Philippines; (5) for online sale, receipts of sale of the goods or services rendered or other similar evidence of use, showing that the goods are placed on the market or the services are available in the Philippines or that the transaction took place in the Philippines; (6) copies of contracts for services showing the use of the mark. Computer printouts of the drawing or reproduction of marks will not be accepted as evidence of use.

What the law requires under item (2) is that the service should be rendered in the Philippines. The fact that Starwood's websites are directed towards Philippine consumers may be sufficient to establish that they are doing business in the Philippines. However, this is not commensurate with actual use of the mark. The decision itself emphasises that the use contemplated by law is genuine use  that is, a bona fide kind of use tending towards a commercial transaction in the ordinary course of trade. It thus bears asking why the Court considered evidence that the website intentionally targeted consumers in the Philippines. What the law requires is actual use, that actual transactions (for example, bookings) occurred on Starwood's website, not evidence showing that the website intentionally targeted consumers in the Philippines.

It must be noted that Starwood's W mark is registered for Classes 43 and 44, which are services. As such, the service for which the mark is registered for must be performed within the Philippines, which is not the case for Starwood as it had no hotel or establishment in the Philippines rendering the services covered by its registration. The website cannot be considered sufficient evidence of use for the purpose of the DAU. It would be a different story if the mark was registered for goods, as goods may be shipped to the Philippines after a consumer has ordered them online via the proprietor's website, which is not the case for services.

Starwood may argue that the bookings facilitated by its website may be considered under item (5) as a transaction that took place in the Philippines. However, in such a case, they should have presented receipts of said bookings. In this case, only the website itself was discussed, and no mention of the receipts was taken up.

It must be remembered that trade mark law rests on the doctrine of nationality or territoriality. Trade mark protection may only be granted to those marks actually being used in the Philippines.

As much as the case is one step forward towards modernisation in its recognition of the internet as a growing platform for commerce changing the field of intellectual property law, it seems it has also taken two steps back as it has compromised an essential principle underlying trade mark law.

Ignacio Sapalo Ignacio S Sapalo is the managing partner at Sapalo Velez Bundang & Bulilan. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1963 and a Bachelor of Laws from Ateneo de Manila in 1967. He was the director of the Philippine Bureau of Patents, Trade Marks and Technology Transfer from 1987 to 1996. During this time, he led the group that drafted the 1998 IP Code of the Philippines.



He is the author of Background Reading Material on the Intellectual Property System of the Philippines (WIPO, 1994) and has been a professor of IP at the Ateneo School of Law since 1991 and at the Jose Rizal University since 2016. He has been a pre-bar reviewer since 1994, also at Ateneo School of Law. He is the founder and president of the Intellectual Property Foundation, and the president of IProbe (an IP investigation and consulting firm). He is also a member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the Philippine Bar Association, the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriete Industrielle, the Asian Patent Attorneys Association and the Intellectual Property Association of the Philippines.

Kristine Sherika P Chy Kristine Sherika P Chy is a junior associate at Sapalo Velez Bundang & Bulilan. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 2013 from the Ateneo de Manila University, and a Juris Doctor degree in 2017 from the Ateneo Law School. In 2018, she was successfully admitted to the Philippine Bar. She primarily handles intellectual property cases, as well as maritime, civil and litigation cases.

The material on this site is for law firms, companies and other IP specialists. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws.  2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

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China great wall 168

Corporate confidence is growing in the Chinese patent system, particularly since the introduction of new offerings such as two dedicated IP courts and the hiring of more trained IP examiners into its patent office.

According to in-house sources, there are still challenges when it comes to registering, validating and litigating patents, but considerable improvements have been made that have smoothed the path to easier patent portfolio management in the region.

The patenting system in China has become collectively robust, says the patent lead at a Swiss confectionery company. There was a time when most patent applications would have been challenged or questioned, but today most of our patents are granted.

Many companies are still finding it difficult to determine whether they have freedom to operate in China, but overall its IP developments are helping it shed its anti-IP and protectionist reputation and beginning to cement it as a region for top-tier patent protection.

Patent knowledge

Non-Chinese businesses do continue to experience problems when it comes to registering patents in the countrys National IP Administration (CNIPA), according to in-house sources. A big complaint is that Chinas fast-growing economy has set off to a patent boom that its IP office is struggling to keep up with.

Tom Duke, the UK Intellectual Property Offices attache to China and Hong Kong, explains that this growth has occurred partly because of increased foreign investment in the region but, more importantly, because domestic Chinese businesses are embracing IP.

He says that global patent applications from domestic Chinese businesses now significantly outnumber those from non-Chinese businesses in most major jurisdictions, including in China itself.

Over the past year, the way patents are considered in China has evolved and it has become much easier to get a patent granted or validated

These Chinese applications used to be dominated by a few companies in the IT sector and now you are seeing the long tail of Chinese businesses applying for patents overseas and monetising their portfolios. It is a much more diverse conversation than five years ago.

The head of IP at a Netherlands-based factory tech manufacturer says that the downside for filers is that the CNIPA has found it difficult to recruit and train examiners quickly enough to meet the new demand.

Examiners do not always understand our field particularly well and that can be a challenge for us, he says. We have sometimes had problems with examinations and subsequent appeals to get a patent granted because of the way that he or she reviews the patents using hindsight to decide that something is obvious.

But sources say that while the Chinese patent-boom comes with its challenges, it is also indicative of growing confidence in the Chinese patent granting and validation system that has come about as China aims to buttress the quality of its patents.

Over the past year, the way patents are considered in China has evolved and it has become much easier to get a patent granted or validated, says the patent lead at a Swiss confectionary manufacturer.

The IPR manager for a tools and abrasives manufacturer and the head of IP transactions at a global telecoms firm agree, and adds that they now find little difficulty in getting a patent granted at the CNIPA.

Litigation

Another traditionally uncertain part of having patents in China was the capability of the countrys courts  and non-Chinese businesses still exercise caution in the region when it comes to litigation.

We follow up on infringements or potential infringements in China but have so far chosen not to take actions very far, the tools and abrasives IPR manager tells Managing IP. We are watching what happens and may progress actions in the future, but at the moment our sales are sufficient and it is too difficult to tell what the outcome of litigation might be.

The head of IP transactions at a global telecoms firm adds that litigation is still a challenge because domestic companies are often still protected.

You might still find it tricky to litigate in the west of China and there is still a certain amount of protectionism over local companies there, but the IP system is going a good way

But China has taken enormous strides in this area as well, according to in house sources. The telecoms head of IP transactions says the recent introduction of IP courts in Beijing and Shanghai is a good sign that country is improving its IP litigation resource.

Those courts have a very good knowledge of intellectual property. You might still find it tricky to litigate in the west of China and there is still a certain amount of protectionism over local companies there, but the IP system is going a good way.

The senior IP counsel of a Netherlands-based automotive company says that China is showing a lot of ambition in its IP offering, particularly in the CNIPAs efforts to attend international roadshows and demonstrate its new court resources.

It may take them a few years to get to the same level as some more established IP courts, but they will get there, he says. He adds, however, that his company is still planning to approach litigation in China was caution because its IP courts are so new and relatively untried and untested.

The head of IP at a Netherlands-based factory tech manufacturer says that his one experience of litigation in China was very positive. He explains that his firm sued a Japanese company for infringing its patent and the company filed invalidation proceedings. The Japanese firm won at first instance but lost at appeal.

I was extremely impressed by the decision because they found in our favour for the right reasons and their arguments were legally sound  it was not just a matter of finding for us because of a dislike for Japanese companies.

The reasoning in the judgment looked as though it could have come from the European Patent Office.

Freedom to operate

Ensuring freedom to operate (FTO) in China is where non-Chinese businesses still tend to get stuck. The telecoms head of IP transactions says the recent wave of patent applications, particularly from local companies filing utility models after the company has established the product in China, makes ensuring FTO challenging.

Those applications make it difficult to prove that the company is the owner of a technology before the priority date of the utility model or to invalidate that utility model, he says.

He adds that his company has responded by implementing sophisticated processes for monitoring newly granted patents and product clearing.

But as the tools and abrasives IPR manager points out, a company that is perhaps not well-established in China and does not know the complexities of the system can still have trouble ensuring FTO. He says that his biggest problems are that the patent offices in China are not as accessible and the language barrier prevents an effective analysis of the patent landscape.

The Swiss confectionery patent lead agrees, and adds that developing a sound knowledge of the Chinese patent system is top of his firms agenda to ensure it has FTO.

Local patents are in Mandarin or Cantonese and that hinders direct access to the significance of the patent. That creates a foggy landscape where we do not know what is valid and what is not.

But even here, the country is making efforts to improve the openness and transparency of its patent offices. UKIPO China attache Duke says he has been working with Chinese authorities and UK-based businesses to help them better understand the system and ensure FTO.

While China still has some way to go in developing its patent system, its progress is impressive. The introduction of dedicated IP courts and better trained IP examiners into the CNIPA is translating into smoother portfolio management for non-Chinese businesses in the region and slowly eroding its reputation for protectionism.

A big job for Chinese IP authorities now is to better educate businesses on the various complexities of its system  which it has already started to do.

The material on this site is for law firms, companies and other IP specialists. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws.  2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

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Pamaba : Amid the tense situation prevailing in Sabarimala, Union Minister and BJP leader Pon Radhakrishnan has began his journey to Sabarimala.

The Minister is expected to reach Pamba by 10 am. Meanwhile, the police have eased the restriction, by allowing to devotees to rest ( Viri vekkal) in temple nadapanthal.

The resting areas along Valya Nadapanthal has been opened for pilgrims from Tuesday night.The development follows a high court observation regarding the same.
BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday exchanged congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In his congratulatory message to the Palestinian president, Xi said the two countries enjoy a long history of friendship. China is among the first countries to support the just cause of the Palestinian people and to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as one of the earliest countries to establish diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine.

Over the past 30 years, the two countries have conducted exchanges and cooperation in various fields with fruitful results, Xi said.

The Chinese president said he attaches great importance to the China-Palestine relations, and is willing to work together with Abbas to continue pushing forward bilateral friendly cooperation, so as to better benefit the two countries and their peoples.

Noting that China has always supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights, Xi said China firmly supports the establishment of an independent Palestine state with full sovereignty on the basis of 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

China will push forward the Palestine-Israel peace talks and continue to play a positive role in the early realization of a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian issue, he said.

In his congratulatory message to Xi, Abbas said that he is very proud of the traditional friendship between the two countries and their peoples, and highly appreciates the outstanding and important role that China has played in supporting the Palestinian people and their cause.

Noting that the Palestinian people will continue to carry forward the traditional friendship with China, Abbas said he will, as always, value and promote bilateral relations, in order to benefit the two peoples and realize their shared vision.

Also on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah exchanged congratulatory messages.

In his message, Li said since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China and Palestine have witnessed high-level exchanges, deepened political mutual trust, expanded cooperation in various fields and healthy development of bilateral ties.

Li said he is ready to work together with his Palestinian counterpart to bring about greater progress in the friendly cooperation between the two countries.

Noting that China will, as always, support the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights, Li said China sincerely hopes that the Palestinian people can achieve their dream of establishing an independent state at an early date.

In his message to Li, Hamdallah expressed deep gratitude for the precious support from China in the past 30 years, saying that Palestine is willing to boost and expand bilateral relations and cooperation with the Chinese government to realize their common interests.
Stock Market Buy the Dip is Dead

Heres todays big headline from Bloomberg, one that really caught my attention.

Lets determine the stock markets most probable direction by objectively quantifying technical analysis. For reference, heres the random probability of the U.S. stock market going up on any given day, week, or month.

*Probability = certainty.

Buy the dip is failing (or dead)

Lets get back to the Bloomberg headline:

For the first time in more than a decade, buying the dip isnt working in the stock market. As a way of measuring it, Morgan Stanley looked at rolling five-day declines in the S&P 500 Index this year and found that on average, the sixth day also generated a loss: of -0.05 percent. While the drop is small, its a big departure from the past 16 years, when dips gave way to gains. Since 1980, the years when the buy-the-dip mentality was missing all involved bear markets: 1982, 1990, 2000 and 2002. To Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanleys chief U.S. equity strategist, its a sign the market is sussing out troubles ahead, be it economic growth or corporate earnings.

It seems like Morgan Stanley is limiting the data on purpose to create evidence to support their market outlook. Why not run the same study all the way back to 1950? It isnt hard.

In my experience, whenever someone limits the data on purpose (e.g. 1980  present) instead of looking at the data holistically, they are trying to manipulate the data to confirm their own bias. Its like saying If I ignore the bullish cases and only look at the bearish cases, this study supports my bearish market outlook.

Heres the complete data set from 1950  present.

As you can see, this happens a lot more than you think, especially from the 1970s  1960s.

I dont see this as a long term bullish or bearish sign. Its mostly irrelevant. This basically just looks at if the S&P has been falling over the past 5 days, whats the probability of a bounce vs. decline on the 6th day. Its a poor representation of buy the dip in the stock market.

Lots of volatility

The U.S. stock markets volatility remains high, with lots of big DOWN days.

Volatility is mean-reverting and tends to move in the opposite direction of the stock market.

6 of the past 29 trading days have seen the S&P 500 fall more than -1.5%.

Heres what happened next to the S&P 500 when 6 of the past 30 days saw the S&P fall more than -1.5%, while the S&P was within 20% of a 3 year high.

*Data from 1928  present

As you can see, the stock market tends to bounce over the next 2-3 months, after which forward returns deteriorate.

Back-to-back losses on Monday

The S&P 500 has seen back-to-back -1.5% Mondays.

Is this bad for the stock market? Is this a sign of systematic selling?

Heres every single case of back-to-back -1.5% Mondays, from 1927  present. As you can see, this is neither consistently bullish nor bearish for the stock markets long term direction, although there is a bit of a bearish lean.

Click here to see yesterdays market study

Conclusion

Our discretionary technical outlook remains the same:

The current bull market will peak sometime in Q2 2019. The medium term remains bullish (i.e. approximately next half year). The short-medium term is mostly a 50-50 bet, although there is a slight bearish lean to it.

Focus on the medium term and long term. The short term is usually just noise.

Our discretionary outlook is usually, but not always, a reflection of how were trading the markets right now. We trade based on our clear, quantitative trading models, such as the Medium-Long Term Model.

Members can see exactly how were trading the U.S. stock market right now based on our trading models.

Click here for more market studies

By Troy Bombardia

BullMarkets.co

Im Troy Bombardia, the author behind BullMarkets.co. I used to run a hedge fund, but closed it due to a major health scare. I am now enjoying life and simply investing/trading my own account. I focus on long term performance and ignore short term performance.

Copyright 2018  Troy Bombardia - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




Can We Expect A Major Rebound In Crude Oil Prices?

After declining by more than 20 percent from the October peak, oil prices are showing some signs that they have now bottomed out.

WTI hit a low point at $56 per barrel on Wednesday and Brent hit a low just below $65 per barrel. Both crude benchmarks regained some ground at the end of the week, despite the huge increase in U.S. crude oil inventories. In fact, rising prices in the face of the 10-million-barrel increase in crude stocks suggests that oil may have already hit a bottom. [Y]esterdays price reaction to the US inventory data shows that negative news is now largely priced in, Commerzbank said in a note. This is the only way to explain why an increase in US crude oil stocks of a good 10 million barrels failed to put further pressure on prices.

At the same time, crude stocks have now climbed for eight consecutive weeks, surely a sign that the market is decidedly back in a surplus situation. That is bearish, to be sure, and helps explain the collapse in oil prices over the past month.

But it also significantly increases the odds of a response from the OPEC+ coalition in early December. [W]e believe oil is oversold and will likely bounce up from the current levels, as OPEC+ dials back production in December, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note on Wednesday. The bank said that it no longer sees Brent rising to $95 per barrel next year, as it previously thought, noting that oil bulls have capitulated and so have we.

However, the liquidation of net-long positioning by hedge funds and other money managers has taken a lot of pressure out of the market. As a result, there is more room on the upside once again. [T]he oil market is a lot cleaner now from a positioning standpoint. Given that inventories are still not too high, we believe oil prices should find some support from a fundamental perspective, BofAML wrote.

Barclays pointed to some fundamentals to suggest that things arent as bad as they seem. For instance, OECD stocks in terms of days of demand cover, remain below the five-year average. Based on our balances, we expect the amount of inventories in the OECD on a days of demand cover basis to remain supportive of prices through the end of next year, Barclays said in a note.

Moreover, the waivers on Iran sanctions are temporary, and even though the U.S. was more lenient than expected, Iran should continue to lose exports in the months ahead. Indeed, the recent price crash actually gives the Trump administration a lot more room to work with, and it can take a harder line with the eight countries it granted waivers to the next time around.

Finally, lower prices could shut in marginal supply and stimulate demand. Barclays even suggests that Iran may step up threats on the Strait of Hormuz because of lower prices, while Venezuela might lose output at a faster rate.

Still, a price increase from current levels hinges on action from OPEC+. Saudi Arabia has already signaled that it intends to lower exports by 500,000 bpd in December, and that further action might be forthcoming from OPEC+. Russian officials told Reuters that they are not enthusiastic about the 1.4-million-barrel-per-day cut that was reported in the media, but that they might sign on to something more on the order of 1 mb/d.

These rumors tend to drive the market and the price gains seen on Thursday and Friday may have been somewhat driven by rising expectations of OPEC+ action. As these things go, oil traders buy and sell on the rumor. More specifically, the 500,000-bpd Saudi cut is already being priced into the market, and the potential 1-mb/d cut from OPEC+ collectively is now increasingly being factored into the market as well. Because there are now rumors of a cut as large as 1.4 mb/d, the 1 mb/d option could take on a middle-of-the-road option. Anything less will be a huge disappointment and could drag oil prices back down.

The IEA noted that the global supply surplus could rise to as much as 2 mb/d in the first half of 2019 based on the trajectory of the current fundamentals. It will require OPEC+ action to head that off.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

Link to original article: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Can-We-Expect-A-Major-Rebound-In-Oil-Prices.html

 2018 Copyright OilPrice.com - All Rights Reserved



Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.



 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




The Real Price of LNG, Climate Change, Coming Fracking Environmental Disaster

This is a spectacular day for all British Columbians, again not one that happened today, not one that happened yesterday but one that has happened over the past few decades. I cant tell you how proud and pleased I am to have the opportunity to lead the government to work with all levels of government to make life better for British Columbians. I cant stop smiling.

That was John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia, declaring his support for, what, a plan to tackle unaffordable housing? Ending the fentanyl crisis? A major infrastructure project that will lower the frustration of Lower Mainland commuters?

No, what Premier Horgan was smiling about on October 2nd, was the signing of a final investment decision by LNG Canada. Flanked by industry leaders and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Horgan said that despite belching out 3.45 megatonnes of carbon emissions a year, BC would meet its climate change goals of cutting greenhouses gases by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. The Pembina Institute estimates that between LNG Canada and Woodfibre LNG, the other, so far, approved BC liquefied natural gas project, the plants will increase annual carbon pollution by 9.1 megatonnes by 2030 and 10.2MG by 2050. But the targets will be met, somehow. Trust us.

To actually meet the provinces climate change goal, massive carbon cuts would have to be made elsewhere. The government says its currently rolling out a new climate plan. Were not expecting any dramatic revelations.

China, Russia and Canadas current climate policies would drive the world above

a catastrophic 5C of warming by the end of the century, according to a study

that ranks the climate goals of different countries.

Of course, it was the lure of the buck that made Horgan and his Cabinet become sudden converts to LNG, despite opposing it while in Opposition to the Christy Clark Liberals (Horgan said at the time that LNG was giving up too much revenue to attract foreign investment - ironic now, considering the NDP gave LNG Canada a $5.3B tax break), who came up with the idea with much fanfare - even promising to pay off the provincial debt with the windfall of LNG cash.

The NDP says the LNG Canada project will bring in $22 billion over 40 years.

That sounds pretty good, but it assumes there are no costs associated with building a new LNG industry in BC. A fossil-fuel-intensive industry that goes against the prevailing mood (excluding the Trump Administration) of weaning ourselves off carbon through the use of cleaner technology like nuclear energy and renewables.

But there are costs. And they could be huge. Much greater than $22 billion. Why? Because the BC LNG industry is being built at exactly the wrong time. We know that climate change is upon us. Yes, even in beautiful British Columbia. The evidence is everywhere, and we have written on it extensively. (Read our five-part series) Rising ocean levels and temperatures, frequent and more intense storms, droughts, forest fires, retreating glaciers, calving ice sheets, mudslides, newly active volcanoes, melting permafrost in the Arctic leaving bubbling cauldrons of methane - a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Plus the negative effects of the natural gas industry that continue to be seen in the form of methane escapes into the water and atmosphere, benzene poisoning among the people of northeastern BC who live near fracking wells, polluted lakes, more CO2 and other toxins that are emitted permanently into the atmosphere when natural gas is burnt to produce energy.

In 2017, global economic losses from natural disasters and man-made catastrophes were the highest ever amounting to US$337 billion.

This article will take a closer look at those costs, and poses the question: How are we going to address climate change by encouraging the development of a fossil-fuel driven LNG industry in British Columbia?

Forest fires and climate change

It doesnt take a scientist to notice that forest fires and droughts (the two being inter-related) have been getting worse over the years. BC entered its third consecutive year of serious wildfires. This summer was the worst fire season on record and anecdotally, there was a lot more smoke than in 2017. So much that there was a run on HEPA air filters in the Lower Mainland, usually immune from the smoke up north or in the Interior. People were checking daily air quality warnings like we were living in China. In fact Kelowna hit a record one day as having worse air quality than Beijing.

Close to 13,000 square kilometers were burnt, breaking the previous record set in 2017; that year, the government spent $568 million on fire suppression. This year is estimated to come in at over $300 million.

While the forest fire season is over in Canada, state-side they continue to rage. In California this week, over 100 people, many of them seniors, are missing as firefighters battle the Camp Fire, the largest in the states history. Fifty people have perished in two major fires burning in California. According to CNN the Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire - one in northern and the other in southern California - have so far destroyed 8,083 homes or structures and scorched 232,620 acres.

So what to make of these fires? Are they caused by climate change? That seems to be the narrative in the press, although the problem is more complicated than that. Prescribed burns, as forest companies used to do, are no longer government policy in the United States or Canada, leaving hundreds of hectares/acres of dangerously dry tinder, easily ignited by a match or a lightning strike. Prescribed burns are bad for tourism. Residents dont care much for them either.

But warming temperatures and an extended drought in the western United States are certainly major factors. The Guardian reports that of the 20 largest wildfires in Californias history, 15 of them have been since 2000, during which time forests have become warmer and drier. Since 1970 the temperature increase in the west is about double the global average.

Given strong relationships between climate and fire, even when modified by land use and management such as fuel treatments, projected climate changes suggest that western forests in the United States will be increasingly affected by large and intense fires that occur more frequently, a government report states.

The Union of Concerned Scientists notes that higher temperatures in the summer and spring are causing soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood of droughts and a longer wildfire season. In the US southwest, its predicted that the fire season will soon be all year long rather than just seven months. A NASA study states that droughts caused by climate change are getting worse and could become more frequent in the western US.

See below for a current drought map. Almost everything west of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico now ranges from abnormally dry to exceptional drought.

In the summer over half of the United States fit this description.

In BC, similar conditions prevailed this year. Two weeks of hot weather in July drove up the fire danger rating, followed by widespread lightning in early August.

Not only do wildfires chew through forests/ agricultural land, drive people from their homes, destroy property and sometimes kill people, they also cause flash floods, in areas where all the vegetation has been burnt, leaving nowhere for water to be absorbed; and drive a climate change feedback loop.

The loop happens when forest fires burn the carbon stored in trees, emitting a toxic brew of carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, causing further warming, drier forests, and more fires.

An independent report released by the BC government states that in 2017, wildfires emitted 190 million tonnes of carbon into the environment - six times the total from other sources and almost triple BCs annual carbon footprint.

Another effect of global warming is the increasing intensity of forest fires. This past summer some fires in BC were so hot, they couldnt be put out with water alone. CBC quotes Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at the University of Alberta, saying that many large fires are spreading in BC, year after year, due to a ridge of high pressure that is stuck over the province for much of the summer. The ridge forms along the West Coast due to melting Arctic sea ice, and the air beneath it is warm and dry, creating the perfect conditions for a raging inferno according to Flannigan.

Governments backing LNG

Apparently though, Premier Horgan didnt make the connection between the fires, and the onslaught of greenhouse gases that LNG is set to unleash on British Columbians in coming years, as he sat grinning in a room with Trudeau in October.

Why is LNG Canada going ahead while the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is tied up in more consultation? An Alberta Cabinet minister says the LNG project will have a greater environmental impact than TMX. We agree.

Its going to result in about 177-per-cent increase in tanker traffic compared to TMX which will result in a 14 per cent increase, Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous told reporters at the Alberta legislature, via CBC.

A Globe and Mail article put the two projects side by side to examine the impacts - both economic and environmental. In terms of CO2 emissions, the Globe analysis assigns a much heavier footprint to LNG Canada - 3.45 million tonnes annually - versus just 0.4 million tonnes from TMX.

Maybe the politicians dont realize it, but developing an LNG industry in BC requires widespread fracking. Of all the natural gas reserves left in BC, only 22% are conventional, with the rest found in unconventional formations, known as tight gas.

At Ahead of the Herd we have done extensive research into fracking, and recently reviewed the history of the practice in BC. We revealed a number of disturbing occurrences. Among them: earthquakes; rules to protect caribou were broken and unenforced by the Oil and Gas Commission; unsustainable (and possibly illegal) draw-downs of water; and the most disturbing of all, heightened levels of benzene, a dangerous carcinogen, found in pregnant native women.

For more read our LNG: Another environmental disaster coming to BC

We also found evidence of a BC Liberal government cover-up of the risk fracking presents to dam safety:

Senior BC Hydro officials have quietly feared for years that earthquakes triggered by natural gas industry fracking operations could damage its Peace River dams, putting hundreds if not thousands of people at risk should the dams fail. Yet the Crown corporation has said nothing publicly about its concerns, opting instead to negotiate behind the scenes with the provincial energy industry regulator, the BC Oil and Gas Commission.

In spite of all this, Premier Horgan says hes okay with fracking.

Weve been fracking in B.C. for decades and we do it fairly well. Ive been to a number of frack sites, and Im comfortable with the technology, Horgan said in 2012, when asked whether the NDP supports fracking.

Although the current BC government denies it, it seems pretty clear that Horgans NDP was thinking of LNG when it agreed to let the controversial Site C dam project go ahead last year - despite railing against it in Opposition.

Thats because Site C will be needed to power LNG Canada and future LNG plants that are in the works. Add in the cancellation of Kinder Morgan, the fact there are only so many pipeline routes through mountainous BC, and a $5.3 billion tax break given to LNG Canada, and the evidence only points in one direction: the BC NDP.

The proof? A year ago it was reported that BC Hydro expects at least three LNG projects will need power from Site C.

Its also interesting to note that the nascent LNG industry in BC is being encouraged by the federal Liberals. In 2017 Trudeaus Liberals passed Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which stops crude oil tanker traffic on the northern coast of BC - thus formalizing a voluntary Tanker Exclusion Zone thats existed since 2015.

Excluded from the bill, though, are gasoline, naphtha, jet fuel, propane and liquefied natural gas (LNG) - allowing the unfettered expansion of a new LNG industry in BC.

Recall back in 2016, the federal government made a questionable bargain with the oil industry and Canadians - approving the $36 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project near Prince Rupert, while at the same time assuring Canadians that the massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the project (later cancelled by Petronas), would be part of a national climate plan. As we now know, that plan includes a carbon tax that all provinces must buy into.

So it seems that the feds have been on board with LNG since 2016, or perhaps earlier, obviously without much knowledge of the science  or maybe our Provincial and Federal politicians just dont care?

Once the gas is fracked and put in a pipeline, it arrives at the terminal - however in a form unsuitable for tanker transport. To turn it into a liquid, it must be cooled to 163 degrees below zero. To do that requires a great deal of power, with massive compression units running 24/7.

Its estimated that if LNG Canada were to use only hydro-electric power to convert NG to LNG, would require 40% of the capacity of the Site C dam currently being built. The more likely scenario is that LNG Canada will use a combination of hydro electricity and natural gas to power the plant - the same fracked gas that came via pipeline to the terminal. And it makes sense to do that, since NG is a lot cheaper than hydro.

The bottom line? LNG is not clean energy, its dirty energy - pumped up from the ground with the help of chemicals that leach into the water supply. When burned for electricity, natural gas gives off emissions that are in the atmosphere forever, contributing to the greenhouse effect of global warming.

Todays announcement is a new form of climate denial: The idea that we can build new fossil fuel projects that will cause millions of tonnes of additional emissions while reducing our emissions at the same time, said Sierra Club B.C.s climate campaigner, Jens Wieting, the day of the LNG Canada announcement. By sweetening the pot for fracked gas export, the government is laying out a red carpet for investors to help destroy our climate.

The real costs of LNG

$22 billion seems like a lot of revenue to glean from one LNG project. Imagine if two more projects of similar size could be built. That would wipe out BCs current debt of around $67 billion.

But this is just the gross revenue. To find the net, we have to calculate the costs of LNG, to our health, our environment, and natural disasters that could easily occur as a result of an industry that is really a ticking time bomb. Then subtract them from the gross. Lets give it a try.

Health

The best way to measure the health effects of LNG is to look at the natural gas industry in the United States, where fracking has been done with gusto for nearly a decade - using the same techniques that will be done in BC.

Its been found that people who live near areas where hydraulic fracturing is taking place, are more likely to be hospitalized for heart conditions, neurological illness and cancer. Thats according to a study done in 2015 by the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, where researchers looked at hospitalization rates in Pennsylvania in areas with fracking versus those without.

The technology to recover natural gas depends on undisclosed types and amounts of toxic chemicals. A list of 944 products containing 632 chemicals used during natural gas operations was compiled. Literature searches were conducted to determine potential health effects of the 353 chemicals identified by Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) numbers. More than 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems.

Approximately 40-50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations.

These results indicate that many chemicals used during the fracturing and drilling stages of gas operations may have long-term health effects that are not immediately expressed. In addition, an example was provided of waste evaporation pit residuals that contained numerous chemicals on the CERCLA and EPCRA lists of hazardous substances. Natural Gas Operations From A Public Health Perspective, wv4mom.org

A 2017 study at the University of Montreal found that fracking releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene into the environment:

The researchers tested urine samples of 29 pregnant women in Chetwynd and Dawson Creek, two small communities near heavily-fracked shale gas fields in BCs Peace River Valley. They measured two biomarkers that our bodies produce when we're exposed to benzene, a carcinogen thats been linked to low birth weights and some defects.

Environmental

Fracking defenders say the process is perfectly safe and contained. The reality is that pollutants are released throughout the process - into the air and water.

Tens of thousands of wells will be drilled, then a concoction of chemicals, water and frac sand will be pumped in at high pressure to break apart the shale rock in order to create fissures that release the natural gas. The fracking fluid and natural gas will then be pumped back up and burped for several weeks, while the gas is separated from the fluids. Sour gas is burned, releasing carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the environment. Thirty to 40% of the fracking fluid is left in the well. The flowback liquid that is left after the gas is extracted contains water and a number of contaminants, including radioactive material (like radium, which can cause leukemia), heavy metals, hydrocarbons, bromide and other toxins.

This wastewater is then stored in pits, injected deep underground, or treated off-site.

The wastewater pumped underground goes into oil and gas waste wells or saline aquifers. There are serious concerns about the ability of these caverns and aquifers to handle the increased pressure and the evidence is showing that deep-well injecting is linked to the occurrence of earthquakes.

Benzene, a cancer-causing carcinogen mentioned above in the study on pregnant women, can seep into the groundwater, helped along by further cracks in the Earth if the procedure results in tremors.

Wastewater stored on surface is no better. The toxic ponds continue to off-gas for years and poisons may leach into the water supply. In the Netherlands, methane was found in the drinking water supply of the nearby aquifer, 50 years after a blow-out occurred in an underground natural gas reservoir.

Methane in water is explosive and can cause asphyxiate people if its not detected. Methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells.

Then theres the extreme water use.

Each well uses between 1.5 million and 15 million gallons (American Geosciences Institute) of locally-sourced fresh water (an estimated 28,000 wells have been drilled so far in Northeastern BC, that number could easily double), which will be permanently contaminated by toxic chemicals contained in the fracking fluid, in ground contaminants and the mixing of the two to create new toxic substances. This is water that could be used for drinking, by animals or humans, or for irrigating crops and pastures. Billions of gallons of fresh water will be destroyed.

A recent study from Duke University found a huge increase in water use for fracking operations over the past five years. The paper published in Science Advances revealed that water use per well increased by up to 770% between 2011 and 2016. Wastewater volumes rose by 1,440% in two Texas shale formations.

Keep in mind, this water is being taken by oil and gas companies for free. Pretty galling considering most of us have to pay for our water. Imagine how much it would cost if they had to pay for it? Billions. In BC we pay an average $37.50 a month for water. In drought-stricken areas, its a lot higher. Water rates in California have been going up. Multiply $37.50/mo times 2.4 million (the 4.8 million population of British Columbia conservatively divided by two to account for multiple-person households) and you get $2.167 billion a year.

When it comes to air pollution, natural gas is, prima facie, better for the environment than coal. NG plants emit about half of the carbon dioxide compared to coal-fired plants, and a natural gas-powered vehicle will release 15 to 20% less pollutants than one powered by gasoline.

But there will still be emissions, lots of them, plus, the really negative effects of natural gas occur at the drilling, extraction and transportation phases. This is because the industry cant stop the escape of methane, the main component of natural gas. Methane is terrible for the atmosphere, and a large contributor to global warming, because it is much more efficient than CO2 at trapping heat. Scientists estimate methane contributes about 25% to global warming.

Fugitive methane emissions run from 1% to 9% of total natural gas life cycle emissions. In order for natural gas power plants to be cleaner than coal, methane emissions over the plants life cycle must be kept below 3.2%, according to one study.

Most methane leaks come from flaring excess NG instead of putting it into a pipeline. Think methane emissions are no big deal, just a cost of doing business? The journal Nature earlier this year published a study saying that the US oil and gas industry emits 13 million tonnes of methane a year, which is 60% higher than the EPAs estimate.

The biggest methane leak in US history occurred in California in 2015. It took SoCal Gas nearly four months to plug the leak at the Alison Canyon gas field - during which an estimated 109,000 tonnes of methane was released into the atmosphere. While that sounds bad, the methane emissions from one natural gas field - the sprawling San Juan Basin in the US southwest - emitted 291,162 tonnes of methane in 2014, according to the EPA. The Front Range tight gas formation in Colorado reportedly leaks 19.3 tons of methane an hour.

In some areas where fracking occurs, there have been increases in other hazardous pollutants besides methane - namely particulate matter and ozone. Living under half a mile from an unconventional gas well puts you at greater risk of respiratory symptoms, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to one study quoted by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

On top of the methane gas escapes and other toxic emissions, methane in the water, ruined fresh water that could be put to productive and healthy uses, dangerous health risks including benzene poisoning leading to cancer and birth defects, earthquakes, the risk to dams and other large structures, we added two more detrimental effects of fracking in a recent article: danger to killer whales from much higher LNG tanker traffic, and the exacerbation of global warming witnessed by retreating glaciers and a newly active volcano right here in BC.

Mount Meager just north of Vancouver is a ticking time bomb, with glacial retreat exposing fumaroles or vents spewing hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and steam.

Of course we cant attribute fracking to venting and retreating glaciers on Mount Meager, the site of a massive mudslide in 2010 - the second largest in Canadian history. But if fracking goes ahead in northeastern BC, as it undoubtedly will with two LNG projects on the runway and 12 more proposed according to Natural Resources Canada, there will be more carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases released, increasing the likelihood of another disaster at Mount Meager, and other BC volcanoes coming to life.

Conclusion

Climate change is real. We dont know whether its human-caused or a function of natural cycles, or maybe a combination of both. Actually we dont care. We only know that its here, and we need to plan for it. Most of the population is happy to go on with their lives, knowing that the Earth is warming, but without much concern it will affect them. This includes politicians who are the gate-keepers of our natural resources, our air and our water.

With the acceleration of an LNG industry in BC, these gate-keepers have given the keys to large, foreign multi-nationals who dont care about BC. They only want to buy our gas and ship it overseas, supposedly to get Asia off of coal and onto cleaner natural gas. But as we have shown, NG is anything but clean. When burned, it emits noxious pollutants. These emissions are part of the problem of climate change, not the solution. Methane release makes the problem many times worse. The more methane in the atmosphere, the warmer the planet will get. Its just science.

The only way to get the liquid natural gas is to frack it, which comes with a whole host of problems, presenting huge risks to human and animal health, and the environment. Is it worth it? Is 20 billion dollars over the 40-year life of one project worth the risk of what were going to do to northeastern BC?

Not from the economic sideThe financial cost to us BC residents is massively lopsided. BC politicians are giving them, the LNG multinationals, none of which are Canadian Companies, a $5.3 billion tax break and $86.68 billion in free water over the 40 period they supposedly give us $20 billion. The Feds are giving them another $250m. Hmmmmm.

And what price will BC residents pay for failing to reach our stated carbon footprint reduction goals? We at Ahead of the Herd believe that the costs to human health of fracking natural gas, pipelining and burning it to get LNG, in terms of increased hospitalizations, and drains on the Medical Services Plan, plus the many negative effects on the environment  contributing to global warming causing earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes erupting, the extinction of BCs Killer Whales etc - to name a few will cost a great deal more than $20 billion, over the next 40 years.

What is the net benefit to BC of just one LNG project, let alone two or three more and a massive pipeline system that would have to be built to move all that gas around? I strongly suggest there is none.

By Richard (Rick) Mills

www.aheadoftheherd.com

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Its been a turbulent time for the aviation industry recently. And now another airline looks unlikely to weather the storm. Flybe is up for sale, with the regional air carrier calling in accountants from KPMG in an attempt to save itself from collapse. Half-year profits have plunged and the companys auditor, PwC, warned of significant doubt over its future. KPMG's involvement should have instantly set alarm bells ringing, as they were also the administrator of Monarch Airlines last year.

For flight and cabin crew, as well as all the office staff and engineering support in Exeter, this will put a serious dampener on the coming festive period.

Management incompetence

So what is going on?

When you speak to people working for Flybe, it soon becomes clear that there have been some serious management blunders over the years.

First there was the instance of a failed IT systems upgrade, which resulted in Flybe losing millions. Then in September 2017, Flybe decided to take on Scottish airline Loganair, with key links to the Northern and Western Isles. But by the time Flybe realised the pointlessness of this venture, both airlines had lost millions.

Their recruitment policy has also been inadequate, to say the least. And to top it all off, their investment in expensive Embraer jets has been a bit of a disaster.

None of these factors, however, are fundamental in the demise of Flybe. The regional market is a tough one, and economies of scale play a role.

Aside from management blunders, on its European routes Flybe is competing for passengers with Europes two low-cost giants, easyJet and Ryanair  and losing / Image: MaxPixel

On its European routes Flybe is competing for passengers with Europes two low-cost giants, easyJet and Ryanair. Once Flybe has built up a link to a sizeable scale, then a bigger airline with lower costs tends to move in and take all the market.

This is what happened to routes such as Glasgow or Edinburgh to Bristol, which have now been taken over by easyJet. Flybe is then left with secondary or tertiary routes, many of which are barely viable in this cut-throat environment.

Faster than rail or road?

Flybe's former slogan of faster than rail or road is also questionable.

Most airports in the UK are awful places. By the time you've reached the airport, parked a mile away, waited for a bus in the cold and rain to take you to the terminal, been shouted at in a security queue, and negotiated your way through a noisy shopping centre, you could have already driven halfway to where to you want to be.

Even if the plane is faster than train or car, it is rarely better as an overall experience. And that is a big problem for the likes of Flybe on its domestic routes.

Socialists are not Luddites; we are not against air travel. (The present author regularly flies 70 ton aircraft all over Europe.) But one has to ask: what are we doing as a society that it is now often cheaper to fly than to go by train?

Stobart Air, using the Flybe franchise, even flies to Manchester from Southend, three times a day, often with just a dozen passengers per flight. A rationally planned society wouldn't tolerate such environmental waste.

With a socialist plan  involving nationalisation of the railways, airlines, and other transport  we could invest in airplane technologies (such as hybrid carbon-neutral jet propulsion) and provide free public transport and efficient rail travel / Image: Flickr, Josh Hallett

Any regular commuter in todays Tory Britain will be able to tell you what a shambles the transport infrastructure in the UK really is. Train ticket prices have spiralled out of control. The market is unable to provide adequate transport links throughout the country.

With a socialist plan  involving nationalisation of the railways, airlines, and other transport  we could invest in airplane technologies (such as hybrid carbon-neutral jet propulsion) and provide free public transport and efficient rail travel.

Turbulence ahead

The uncertainty about Flybe's fate affects a lot of people. It also places a question mark next to certain essential routes. Flybe has been providing crucial links to and from the islands. For example, the Isle of Man government is heavily dependent on the daily flights to Liverpool for patients.

Incidentally, just a few months ago the flight and cabin crew of Stobart Air in the Isle of Man, who have been providing this service so far as a subcontractor to Flybe, were effectively told they would be out of a job soon as Flybe will take this route back in-house next March. What will happen to these crucial medical transfers if Flybe folds?

At the time of Monarch's collapse, people were speculating that the airline was going to be bought for airport slots. Instead, competitor airlines let it fail by itself, and then bought what they wanted from the administrators without the associated headache of a needless acquisition.

With KPMG now going in, as they did with Monarch, history may well repeat itself  although it can't be excluded that the Stobart Group may take a gamble and buy Flybe outright.

The most likely scenario, however, remains Flybe being carved up and the vultures picking the premium slots on core profitable routes. In other words: asset stripping.

This is meant to be a Golden Age for the aviation industry. Indeed, for flight crew at least, these last years have seen a small relative upswing compared to the days of the 2008 crash.

The tide, however, has started to turn. The writing is now truly on the wall. Monarch went bust last year, as did Primera Air a few months ago. The feeling amongst insiders is that we are due a big one.

Dark clouds are gathering on the horizon  and Flybe may well end up in them.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday affirmed Washington's commitment to its partnership with Riyadh citing national interests, remaining an ambiguous attitude toward the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said in a statement released by the White House.

Calling Saudi Arabia a "great ally" in U.S. fight against Iran, Trump emphasized Riyadh's estimated 450-billion-U.S.-dollar investment in the United States following his trip last year, including expected 110 billion dollars' spending on arms purchase from major U.S. companies.

Meanwhile, the White House host avoided making judgment on the alleged Saudi royal family's involvement in the recent killing of Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, which has stirred up the international community and invites criticism to the Middle East kingdom.

"Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event -- maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump noted.

U.S. media, citing insiders, reported last week that the CIA had concluded the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered to kill Khashoggi, while the crown prince himself kept denying the accusations.

"We now know many details of this horrible crime," said Trump in the statement, adding that "we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi."

Trump also revealed that he acknowledged the intention of many U.S. Congress members, who were seeking tough punishment on Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi incident, but indicated little willingness to echo their call.

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," Trump noted.

Khashoggi has been missing since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. The Saudi authorities had said Khashoggi died in a "brawl" in its consulate.

After releasing the results of its initial investigation, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 people were arrested for their alleged connections with the killing.

U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on 17 individuals over their alleged roles in the killing of Khashoggi last week, following U.S. State Department's decision in late October to revoke 21 Saudi suspects' visas.

U.S. Congress has urged a thorough investigation of the case, and threatened to take more actions against Saudi Arabia if those responsible were not held accountable, such as suspending U.S. military sales.
At 8 a.m. Tuesday, ships horns echoed through the river valley as the 76th joint patrol of the Mekong River by law enforcement from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand set sail, marking its 7th anniversary.

Chinese police officers on a patrol ship take part in a joint patrol operation along the Mekong River.

Wearing uniforms, helmets and life jackets, rows of police officers stood at attention on deck, with automatic rifles in hand.

Once every month since 2011, the patrols targeting drug trafficking, smuggling and other cross-border crimes along the Mekong, conduct random inspections in waters near key regions, including the Golden Triangle.

The Mekong River, known as the Lancang River at the Chinese stretch, runs through China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is an important waterway for transnational shipping and a border area known for criminal activities.

Complex river conditions also pose a danger, with torrents and rocks constantly threatening to strand or capsize ships on the river.

"The unexpected can always happen on Mekong. Varied and changeable situations along the waterway make navigation charts impossible, and years of experience is the only reference," said Huang Cheng, a captain for the patrols.

It can take about eight years to train an independent Mekong captain, he said.

Huang is the youngest of the 10 experienced Mekong captains selected for river patrols to tackle safety concerns, after a gang hijacked two cargo ships and killed 13 Chinese sailors in Golden Triangle waters on Oct. 5, 2011, including Huang's uncle.

"I was also on the Mekong, about two hours after my uncle's Huaping [ship]. I saw his ship hijacked but that was a common occurrence for robbery at that time and I never thought he would die," Huang said.

Photographs of the sailors' bodies showed that the victims had their hands tied and their mouths gagged before being executed and some had been blindfolded with tape.

After the brutal attack, the four countries issued a joint statement on law enforcement and security cooperation along the Mekong River. More than 280 officers from China's border force were selected to form a patrol team. Huang applied to join the team.

Two months later, the first joint patrol left the town of Guanlei in southwest China's Yunnan to escort 10 cargo ships into downstream countries in an event marking the resumption of international shipping on the Mekong, which had been halted after the October attack.

STABILIZING THE REGION

"To guarantee the absolute safety of cargo ships is our top priority," said Yan Fan, a member of the river patrol team.

A total of 39 cargo ships resumed shipment after the first joint patrol and the number jumped to 574 after the eighth, he added.

"The patrols have greatly improved security and stability in the region, bringing benefits to residents along the river and promoting trade activities," said Khamsone, a lieutenant colonel with the Lao People's Army.

During the third joint patrol in January 2012, a merchant boat Shengtai 11 was attacked by unidentified gunmen in the Golden Triangle region, with bullets hitting windows, walls and doors. Police officers from China and Laos were sent to the spot immediately and safely escorted the boat back to China.

In March 2013, about 578 kilograms of methamphetamine were seized by the joint force, an effective deterrent to drug dealers in the region.

By the end of October, 640 vessels and about 12,000 law enforcement personnel from the four countries had participated in 75 missions, inspecting 808 ships and more than 70,000 tonnes of cargo, while helping 121 ships out of danger.

"The patrols have effectively boosted shipping safety on the river," said Li Yong, a senior official with the river patrol team.

Success of the patrols has won applause from local residents. "In the first several years, we could see banners and hear cheers welcoming us on both sides of the river," Huang said.

For seven years, security cooperation between the four countries has been getting closer with joint patrols a regular monthly phenomenon. The cooperation has expanded to the cracking down on terrorism and human trafficking, as well as joint search and rescue.

"It has been seven years. Sailing through the water area where my uncle was killed, I still feel heavy. But from shipping to patrolling, I am proud that I can make a difference," Huang said.
Paleontologists have identified over 100 dinosaur footprints in Yiwu in eastern China's Zhejiang Province after a dinosaur research project concluded its excavation stage.

The findings, the largest of its kind in southeast China, suggest the city, the world's biggest hub for small commodities, was bustling with giant lizards 100 million years ago.

The over 100 fossilized footprints were unearthed in the city's Guanyintang Village in a period of over four years, according to researchers with the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History.

The footprints date back 80 million to 100 million years ago to the late Cretaceous period. They were excavated together with a number of fossilized dinosaur eggs and skeletons, said Jin Xingsheng, deputy curator of the museum.

"Every year we discover footprints that belong to different categories of dinosaurs. The first year were theropods, the second year pterosaurs, the third year sauropods and the fourth year ornithopods," Jin said.

Yiwu was located in the Jinqu Basin, which was a foresty paradise for dinosaurs with its warm, humid climate about 100 million years ago, said the paleontologist.
China's first AI textbook series designed for primary and secondary school students is expected to debut in 2019, reports the paper.cn.

Six textbook covers of China's first 10-volume AI textbook series designed for primary and secondary school students. The remaining four books are scheduled to be published in 2019. [File Photo: East China Normal University Press]

The 10-volume series, recently released in Shanghai, will reportedly be introduced by hundreds of schools across the country as elective courses, or be part of their school-based curriculum.

Part of the textbook collection has already been piloted in Shanghai, with the books said to be lauded by local students.

Significant progress is being reported in China in AI technological research and development, with authorities now moving to promote AI-related education.

The country's first artificial intelligence textbook for high school students was released earlier this year.
Apart from barter trade, Tehran and Baghdad are mulling the idea of using the Iraqi dinar for mutual transactions to reduce reliance on the US dollar amid banking problems Iran is facing due to US sanctions.

Considering the problems that have emerged in dollar-based banking transactions, a joint proposal between Iran and Iraq is using Iraqs dinar in trade, Iranian ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi said, as quoted by Irans Fars News Agency.

Read more

The announcement comes two weeks after Washington brought into action the second round of anti-Iranian sanctions that target the countrys oil, shipping, and financial sectors. The previous batch of penalties, which came into effect in August, hit cars, carpets, metals trading, as well as access to the US dollar.

According to Masjedi, the current trade turnover between Iran and Iraq totals $12 billion and the countries plan to increase the figure up to $20 billion. The official said that Baghdad has recently been under strong pressure from the White House over its business dealings with Iran, its top trade partner.

Apart from energy resources, Iranian exports to Iraq include livestock, food items, plastic products, construction materials and vehicles.

The Iraqis need Irans natural gas, electricity, food items and industrial materials, Masjedi said. If exports of these to Iraq are stopped, there will be problems not only for Iran but also for the Iraqis.

Last week, Reuters reported that Baghdad had been looking for Washingtons approval to import Iranian gas and energy supplies in exchange for food items. Iraq, as well as some other of Irans partners, was granted a waiver from the US, allowing it to gradually reduce energy purchases from the Islamic Republic. However, Iraqi authorities say the exemption of only 45 days is not enough to stop importing Iranian gas and oil.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section
After reports that South Korea would restart its imports of Iranian crude, now sources familiar with refiners plans in both South Korea and Japan, told Reuters both countries will resume Iranian oil imports beginning in January.

Earlier this month, S&P Global Platts reported, citing unnamed sources, too, South Korea will resume Iranian crude oil imports at a rate of about four million barrels a month. At the same time, the sources added, the country will continue to look for alternative sources of the commodity.

Read more

Also earlier this month, Japans Trade Minister Hiroshige Seki said, as quoted by Reuters, Japanese refiners were now preparing to resume Iranian oil imports.

It would be up to the judgment of private firms, but based on this decision, the (Japanese) companies would likely prepare for resuming Iran crude imports, Seki said, declining to comment on the size of shipments as compared to imports before the announcement of the sanctions.

The moment the Trump administration granted waivers from the sanctions to eight major importers, it was clear they will resume their imports, at least for the next six months or so, which is the length of the waivers. What wasnt clear was how quickly they will restart imports.

Based on what Reuters sources said, South Korea and Japan seem still reluctant to go back to importing a lot of Iranian oil and no wonder since they would only have the right to do it for 180 days beginning November 5, when the sanctions came into effect.

And there is something else: most tankers carrying Iranian crude are booked until December, the sources said, so January is the earliest point when shipments could restart. Also, They are seeking to get the best price and are in talks with Iran, one source told Reuters, referring to South Korean refiners. The size of shipments was not mentioned.

Japanese refiners, on the other hand, could start importing Iranian crude at a rate of 100,000 bpd, compared with 165,000 bpd before the sanctions hit.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com
Chinese oceanic scientists on Tuesday revealed their plan to upgrade the country's real-time scientific observation network in the tropical West Pacific by exploring the feasibility of deploying subsurface buoys of more than 3,000 meters under the sea, during the 2018 global deployment of China's Kexue (Science) research vessel.

The research vessel, operated by the Qingdao-based Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, set sail from its home port in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province on Monday, embarking on its 8,500-nautical-mile journey to the tropical West Pacific, according to a statement by the institute sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

Wang Jianing, a research fellow with the institute, and also the chief scientist for the project, said in the statement that "a real-time observation network has been established in the waters since the end of 2017.

Chinese scientists have successfully collected deep sea monitoring data from 3,000 meters under the sea for over 320 days," he said.

"The latest journey for the vessel eyes to maintain the existing undersurface buoys while upgrading their observing capabilities by increasing the numbers of buoys and exploring the possibility of deploying buoys at greater depths," Wang said.

Chen Linlin, another research fellow with the project, who cooperated in the research vessel's 2017 trip, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "the monitoring data includes the temperature, salinity and current information in the Western Pacific Warm Pool where the buoys are installed."

"Real-time observation of these maritime indicators, helps the Chinese scientists better understand the water dynamics in the Warm Pool, providing key data to study and predict the extreme weather such as typhoons and drought in the East Asian region, as well as the global climate change phenomena such as El Nino," Chen explained.

Researchers aim to deploy buoys that are capable of transmitting such data in a real-time manner deeper than 3,000 meters during the new journey for the vessel, Wang Min, a publicist with the institute told the Global Times.

He stressed that it has yet to determine how much deeper its attempt will be.

"The deeper the buoys can go, the more accurate indicators for the study will be. However, going deeper also means longer transmission distance and more interfering factors," Wang said.

According to Wang, Chinese scientists first achieved real-time scientific observation of 1,000 meters under the sea at the end of 2016 and had enhanced such capabilities to 3,000 meters under the sea by the end of 2017.

The research vessel is expected to return to Qingdao by February 2019.
Man convicted of murdering two at West Rockhill campground
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.
BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The landscape of China's pilot free trade zones (FTZs) will be further broadened with the southern island province of Hainan, which was designated this year as the latest and largest pilot FTZ, a move seen to further open the country's market and to attract foreign investment.

Within five years, pilot FTZs have been springing up in the country, with Shanghai as the first testing field to blaze the trail in 2013, followed by 11 more established or being built in a vast land from provinces of Fujian and Guangdong on the southeastern coast to inland provinces of Shaanxi and Sichuan in western China.

Such expansion, however, is not randomly made or a mere duplication of others. Thoroughly planned and researched, the geographical distribution of these pilot FTZs has a far-reaching impact over the development of the Chinese economy, and each of them has displayed its own advantages.

STRENGTH FROM SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

As the financial center of China, Shanghai spearheaded the FTZ experiments particularly in the sphere of financial innovation.

Shanghai Municipal government has taken great efforts to consolidate its financial strength. Data showed 41 renowned international financial institutions have set up 56 asset management companies by November in the Lujiazui Financial City, which is a part of Shanghai pilot FTZ, driving the area a step closer to the target of becoming a global asset management center.

to Shanghai, Zhejiang pilot FTZ aims to foster the oil and gas business amid the country's rising demand for oil and natural gas.

Connecting a wide range of regions across the Pacific, Zhejiang shows strong geographical advantages in establishing an oil and gas base, according to the National Energy Administration.

Zhejiang pilot FTZ saw transactions of 161.4 billion yuan (about 23.39 billion U.S. dollars) of oil products and 1.23 million tonnes of natural gas in the first nine months of 2018.

South China's Guangdong Province, where the special economic zones led the reform and opening-up of China 40 years ago, is also a pioneer of FTZ experiment.

As China pushes forward the establishment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangdong pilot FTZ plays an important role in promoting coordinated development of the three regions.

Through reforming the tax system, Guangdong pilot FTZ has reduced 3.5 billion yuan and 15 million yuan of tax for eligible enterprises of Hong Kong and Macao since 2017, respectively.

Unlike the earlier reforms where the eastern coast stole the show, in this new round of reform, inland provinces have been actively engaged. In 2017, five inland provincial regions, all major transportation hubs in the framework of Belt and Road Initiative, jumped on the wagon in an effort to promote the country's undeveloped interior and facilitate the Belt and Road Initiative.

Chongqing pilot FTZ, for instance, is exploring its strategic importance as a junction for international logistics. Through China-Europe freight train service, an international logistics system has been formed, connecting Chongqing with the Pacific in the east, Europe in the west, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the south and Russia in the north.

Northwestern China's Shaanxi pilot FTZ, however, is devoted to developing modern agriculture. Shaanxi has China's first agricultural hi-tech industry demonstration zone in Yangling, which led the research and development of agricultural technologies in arid and semi-arid regions in China and cooperated with countries in similar climate conditions along the Belt and Road.

NEW MISSIONS TOWARD A BETTER FUTURE

About 40 years ago, China established special economic zones, which served as windows and testing grounds when the Chinese government decided to open up the domestic market and modernize the country's economy.

Foreign investment pumped in, new regulations were issued and new technologies were tested first in these areas and later spread to other parts of the country, contributing to the fast growth of China's economy over the years.

Observers see the establishment of pilot FTZs as a new move for China to push ahead reform and opening-up under new domestic and external environment.

Compared with special economic zones, pilot FTZs aim to achieve "mutual benefit" and enable the country to participate in global economic cooperation and competition at a higher level, Luo Qinghe, a professor with the Shenzhen University, wrote in a research paper.

A raft of measures was taken for pilot FTZs to create a more investor-friendly business environment in support of fair competition.

The negative list for foreign investment, for instance, has been widely adopted in pilot FTZs to broaden market access. Over the past five years, the negative list has been shortened from 190 to 45 items in Shanghai pilot FTZ.

Application and trade convenience have been largely improved in pilot FTZs. In Chongqing pilot FTZ, the time for getting a new enterprise approved has been shortened from 20 working days to a matter of three hours.

Liaoning pilot FTZ, the only pilot FTZ in northeast China, upgraded the processes for examination and approval in the port of Dalian to facilitate circulation of goods, with the cost for customs clearance slashed by 10 percent.

"After introducing pilot FTZs, the competition between local governments has gradually shifted from GDP growth to reforms," said Yin Chen, a researcher with the Shanghai-based Fudan University.

So far, about 123 measures first tested in pilot FTZs have been gradually promoted and adopted nationwide, and more new reform measures will be made, said the Ministry of Commerce.
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Rodrigo Duterte (Photo/Xinhua)

Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to the Philippines is expected to bring China-Philippines relations "a knot higher" and comprehensively deepen bilateral cooperation in each field, said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte made the remarks during a recent joint interview with Chinese media in the Philippines.

Duterte said that China-Philippines ties once touched a low point, but he decided to usher in a new chapter after he was elected the President of the Philippines in June 2016. Under joint efforts from both sides, bilateral relations moved back to the right track of friendly cooperation ever since.

When talking about the current relations between the two countries, Duterte noted that bilateral ties have maintained sustainable and stable development, and is at a peak at present. He is pleased with the current situation and is glad to see that bilateral cooperation is benefiting both peoples.

China is the Philippines largest trading partner. Duterte noted that more and more Philippine products, including tropical fruits, are entering the Chinese market thanks to the continuous development of China-Philippines economic and trade cooperation.

The Philippines export to China is witnessing a rapid growth, the president added, expressing his confidence in the continuous growth of trade between his country and China in the future.

Both leaders from China and the Philippines have reiterated that the two countries would further enhance alignment of development strategies. Duterte told Peoples Daily that the Philippines is currently promoting large-scale infrastructure construction, and multiple projects are being implemented under the cooperation between China and the Philippines, some of which are about to be completed soon.

According to him, he will further negotiate with Xi about how to deepen bilateral cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and will put more into practice.

Duterte remarked that as neighboring countries, the Philippines and China share similar history and cultures, as well as lifestyles of the people. He introduced that more and more Chinese tourists are visiting the Philippines, and the increasingly people-to-people exchange will further boost bilateral friendship.

The Philippine President also recognized Chinas support to his country in anti-terrorism and drug control, saying China, different from other countries, has given help and support wholeheartedly with no strings attached.

China and the Philippines have formed a community of shared future, and maintained friendship between the two countries conforms to each others interests, Duterte said.

He hopes that the two sides can enhance cooperation in trade and economy and further strengthen people-to-people exchanges. The Philippines is willing to expand cooperation with China in national security and the safeguarding of regional peace and stability, Duterte noted.

Duterte has visited China many times and witnessed the development of the country. During the interview, he hailed Chinas reform and opening up, saying huge changes have happened in the country over the past 40 years. He hopes the Philippines could make the same achievements in the future.

Duterte has a 14-year-old daughter who is currently learning Chinese. He disclosed that he might ask her to communicate with or sing a song for Xi in Chinese when the latter visits the Philippines.

Duterte joked that his daughter is shy, but he believes she would be willing to sing the Chinese song for the visiting Chinese President, and he would let her start practicing immediately.
It took me 5 years to prepare ...
As neighbors separated by only a strip of water, China and the Philippines enjoy a long history of traditional friendship.

With the wise decisions and under the correct leadership of the two countries, China and the Philippines have realized a comprehensive turnaround in bilateral relations, and have continuously consolidated, deepened, and moved which to a fast track of acceleration and upgrading since Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes state visit to China in October 2016.

China and the Philippines have witnessed increasingly frequent and close high-level exchanges and constantly deepened strategic mutual trust over the years.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have held five important meetings on bilateral and multilateral occasions, which have effectively charted the course for the development of mutually beneficial and win-win bilateral relations.

China and the Philippines attach importance to intensifying exchanges between the ruling parties of the two countries on national governance, actively held bilateral dialogues in fields including diplomacy and defense, and enjoyed ever-closer coordination in international and regional affairs.

The two countries have held many meetings of the China-Philippines Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea (BCM) and meetings of the Joint Coast Guard Committee on Maritime Cooperation (JCGC) and carried out mutually beneficial cooperation on such fields as fishery, maritime affairs, joint search and rescue, marine science research, and environmental protection.

Moreover, rich fruits have also been constantly yielded from the China-Philippines cooperation in areas including drug control, counter-terrorism, and military.

With the potential of economy and trade of both countries being unleashed rapidly and vigorously, China and the Philippines have seen remarkable achievements in bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

In 2017, trade volume between China and the Philippines exceeded $50 billion for the first time, while Chinese direct investment in the Philippines totaled $53.84 million, up 67 percent over the previous year.

China has become the largest trading partner, the biggest source of imports, and the fourth largest export destination of the Philippines. The two countries have carried out effective bilateral dialogues in areas including economy and trade, agriculture and fishery, science and technology, and energy, leading to the signing of over 40 cooperation documents.

China attaches great importance to the integration of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative with the Philippines Ambisyon Natin 2040 development strategy and the massive infrastructure program "Build Build Build".

The construction of the bridges across the Pasig River in the Philippine capital Manila, drug rehabilitation centers in Mindanao, and Chico River Pump Irrigation Project in northern Philippines, all funded by China, has started, and the construction of other major infrastructure projects financed by China such as Kaliwa Dam, Philippine National Railways South Long-Haul Line, Safe Philippines Project, as well as the Chinese industrial park in the Philippines is expected to begin as soon as possible.

Besides, China has also vigorously supported the economic and social development of the southern Philippines Mindanao region, actively taken part in the post-war reconstruction in Marawi, and helped Davao with its endeavor to pursue peoples welfare.

In Davao, China has funded and helped the city with the construction of a variety of infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, markets, a water pumping station, and schoolhouses, which demonstrates Chinas endeavor to help the Philippines improve peoples livelihood, reduce poverty, and achieve sustainable development.

China is the second largest source of international tourists of the Philippines. During the first three quarters of this year, a total of 972,000 Chinese tourists have visited the Philippines, an increase of 34.9 percent year-on-year.

It is expected that the total figure of Chinese tourists to the Philippines for the whole year will probably exceed 1.5 million, which will bring 32 billion pesos (about $610 million) in revenue for the Philippines.

Major Philippine cities including Manila and Cebu have launched flights to multiple Chinese cities and ports. Meanwhile, China and the Philippines have also witnessed growing dynamism in bilateral exchanges in sister cities, science and education, culture, media, think tanks, and youth.

Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to the Philippines is the first state visit to the Philippines by a Chinese head of state in thirteen years. We have every reason to believe that this visit will greatly promote the China-Philippines relations in the new period and help make the relations the model for the building of new type of international relations and a community of common destiny for mankind.

Zhao Jianhua is the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines.
Chinese national flags are waving on PNGs Independence Boulevard that opened to traffic in recent days. Photo by Wang Xiaodong, Liu Qing

China has become a focus in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG), the host city of the 26th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in recent days. The Chinese elements , fresh Butuka Secondary School renovated by China, the wide China-aid Independence Boulevard, as well as the buses offered by China running across the city, can be seen almost everywhere in the city.

The people of PNG raised banners in both Chinese and English to welcome visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, extending their thanks to the president for building schools and roads for them.

PNG Prime Minister Peter ONeill noted that his country couldnt have made such rapid development as it is doing today or organized the APEC meeting in such a smooth manner without Chinas help.

Chinas contribution to the Asia-Pacific in promoting regional cooperation and common prosperity is obvious to all.

China is the worlds second largest economy and one of the largest consumer markets. Its economic development has an impact on the future trend of global economy, said PNGs Minister for Finance, James Marape. He believes China plays a vital role among APEC members.

China has raised a series of proposals and ideas within the APEC framework in recent years that have exerted huge influence on not only APEC, but also other global organizations, Marape underscored.

PNG citizens pose for pictures by an advertising board of APEC. Photo from Xinhua News Agency

Alan Bollard, APEC Secretariat executive director holds that as a major economy that has a huge influence in the Asia-Pacific region, China has been extensively engaged in APEC activities, playing a significant role in multiple schemes to enhance regional economic integration.

As this year marks the 5th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Chinese proposal has become a hot topic among politicians, businessmen and scholars attending the APEC.

On Nov. 12, the first day of the APEC week, China and Fiji officially inked a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation within the framework of the BRI.

The BRI proposed by China bears an important referential significance, Bollard said, adding that Chinas rich experience in infrastructure and poverty reduction over the last few years has gradually been adopted into regional agenda, contributing to the development of the Asia-Pacific.

China and Japan are respectively the second and third largest economies of the world, and they should jointly take the responsibility to cope with global challenges, said Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono at a recent press conference.

To enhance infrastructure and improve regional interconnectivity could become a focus of China-Japan cooperation in the future, he noted, adding that Japan welcomes the cooperation with China that complies to international codes.

Climate change is also one of the major topics at the APEC summit. Pacific island countries attach high importance on climate change, and we will never forget the last years United Nations Climate Change Conference which concluded with success under the support from China, said chief economic adviser Joseph Veramu to the Prime Minister of Fiji, host of the 23rd United Nations Climate Change Conference last year.

David Morris, Pacific Islands Trade and Investment Commissioner in China highly praised Chinas fulfillment of its obligation in the Paris Agreement, as well as the countrys efforts to coordinate each country to find the "biggest common denominator" for cooperation, saying China has played a leading role in emission reduction.
Carroll County Independent Cryans upsets Kenney in Executive Council race

by Tara Giles

Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter Sports reporter - Coos County Democrat and Berlin Reporter write the author REGION  In his fifth run for the seat, Hanover Democrat Mike Cryans secured a spot last week as one of the five Executive Councilors in the state. Cryans will represent District 1, which includes 109 towns and four cities. The district spans two thirds of the entire state.



"This is proof that persistence really does pay off," said Cryans after his win.



For the first time since 2014, the council will have a Democratic majority.



The job of the executive council is to review appointments made by the governor to include all of the judges throughout the state. The council advises the governor on all matters and provides a check on the governor's power. While the governor has the right to veto legislation and commands the New Hampshire National Guard, the council has veto power over pardons, nominations and contracts that exceed the amount of $10,000.



Cryans said, "I'm pleased regarding the win and am looking forward to the opportunity to serve for the next two years. There are a lot of wonderful things that can be done to help the people in district 1. This is an awesome responsibility and a tremendous opportunity."



Cryans went on to say, "District 1 is unique because of its size and distance from Concord. There needs to be a strong constituent service. I need to be available to individuals as well as to the towns, select boards and other counsels that are asking for help. Sometimes there are issues that take up an entire area, such as Northern Pass, which is something that affects the entire district."



On moving forward Cryans said, "I think once you're elected you represent everyone. It's not a Democrat versus Republican issue. Sometimes things tow the party lines a bit but there are things that affect everyone such as the opioid issue. That is a concern for all of us."



Cryans said that there should always be more wedding announcements and birth announcements in the paper over obituaries. To him, that shows that young people are willing to stay in the area. His goal is to work on ways to keep young people eager to stay in District 1.



Cryans first ran for Executive Councilor against Ray Burton in 1996. He will assume his new role in January. REGION  In his fifth run for the seat, Hanover Democrat Mike Cryans secured a spot last week as one of the five Executive Councilors in the state. Cryans will represent District 1, which includes 109 towns and four cities. The district spans two thirds of the entire state."This is proof that persistence really does pay off," said Cryans after his win.For the first time since 2014, the council will have a Democratic majority.The job of the executive council is to review appointments made by the governor to include all of the judges throughout the state. The council advises the governor on all matters and provides a check on the governor's power. While the governor has the right to veto legislation and commands the New Hampshire National Guard, the council has veto power over pardons, nominations and contracts that exceed the amount of $10,000.Cryans said, "I'm pleased regarding the win and am looking forward to the opportunity to serve for the next two years. There are a lot of wonderful things that can be done to help the people in district 1. This is an awesome responsibility and a tremendous opportunity."Cryans went on to say, "District 1 is unique because of its size and distance from Concord. There needs to be a strong constituent service. I need to be available to individuals as well as to the towns, select boards and other counsels that are asking for help. Sometimes there are issues that take up an entire area, such as Northern Pass, which is something that affects the entire district."On moving forward Cryans said, "I think once you're elected you represent everyone. It's not a Democrat versus Republican issue. Sometimes things tow the party lines a bit but there are things that affect everyone such as the opioid issue. That is a concern for all of us."Cryans said that there should always be more wedding announcements and birth announcements in the paper over obituaries. To him, that shows that young people are willing to stay in the area. His goal is to work on ways to keep young people eager to stay in District 1.Cryans first ran for Executive Councilor against Ray Burton in 1996. He will assume his new role in January.


Plymouth Record Enterprise Thornton officials cut the ribbon on newly replaced covered bridge

by Donna Rhodes write the author

On Monday morning, Thornton selectmen Marianne Peabody, Brad Benton, John Paul-Hilliard, Jack Gaites and Roy Sabourn cut the ribbon on a new bridge that replaces a smaller structure that was damaged in 2011 by Tropical Storm Irene. (Photo by Donna Rhodes) (click for larger version) THORNTON  Officials in Thornton were pleased to finally cut the ribbon on a new bridge that has been in need of replacement since Tropical Storm Irene hit the state in 2011.



The bridge, located at the entrance to Covered Bridge Road, promises to be a much sturdier structure that will withstand the flow of water beneath it, even during heavy rains and flood conditions.



Roy Sabourn is the Chair of the Thornton Board of Selectmen and said the previous bridge was installed in 1988 when land on the east side of Mill Brook was developed. The developer had a covered bridge-style structure placed over the brook but failed to make it long enough or strong enough for storm conditions. In 2011, floodwaters left behind by Irene overflowed the banks and caused structural damage to the bridge.



The town contacted FEMA about the matter but learned the agency wasn't covering that type of damage at that time. Selectmen then turned to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and found they could receive 80-percent of the cost to replace the bridge through a municipal bridge fund. The bad news however was that the money wouldn't be available until 2018.



As they waited, conditions of the covered bridge deteriorated. After another storm in July of last year part of the road was washed out and the bridge was reduced to one lane only.



Representatives from HEB Engineers in North Conway were called upon to examine the structure and they further recommended the roof of the covered bridge be removed to lighten the load it had to bear.



This summer the money was finally granted and Daniels Construction of Vermont got to work removing the old bridge and building the new. Sabourn said the new bridge, designed by HEB, is now 40-feet long, 17 feet longer than the previous structure, and will carry the water it needs to carry when a storm hits. Actual construction costs for the bridge were $520,000 and there was a total of $165,000 needed for engineering and permit fees. In addition to that another $40,000 was spent repairing the berm beneath the bridge, bringing the total expense to $725,000.



With the money from the state however, the cost to the town boiled down to just $145,000.



"We got this great bridge for less than a quarter of a million dollars, which saved the tax payers a lot of money," Sabourn said.



The selectmen aren't through yet though. Sabourn said they are still pursuing some funding that FEMA may now have available and while it won't be a lot, he hopes they may possibly get another $30,000 toward the project.



"It was a long haul to get here and we're lucky we didn't lose the [old] bridge before this, but it's done now," he said as the board officially opened the new bridge. THORNTON  Officials in Thornton were pleased to finally cut the ribbon on a new bridge that has been in need of replacement since Tropical Storm Irene hit the state in 2011.The bridge, located at the entrance to Covered Bridge Road, promises to be a much sturdier structure that will withstand the flow of water beneath it, even during heavy rains and flood conditions.Roy Sabourn is the Chair of the Thornton Board of Selectmen and said the previous bridge was installed in 1988 when land on the east side of Mill Brook was developed. The developer had a covered bridge-style structure placed over the brook but failed to make it long enough or strong enough for storm conditions. In 2011, floodwaters left behind by Irene overflowed the banks and caused structural damage to the bridge.The town contacted FEMA about the matter but learned the agency wasn't covering that type of damage at that time. Selectmen then turned to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and found they could receive 80-percent of the cost to replace the bridge through a municipal bridge fund. The bad news however was that the money wouldn't be available until 2018.As they waited, conditions of the covered bridge deteriorated. After another storm in July of last year part of the road was washed out and the bridge was reduced to one lane only.Representatives from HEB Engineers in North Conway were called upon to examine the structure and they further recommended the roof of the covered bridge be removed to lighten the load it had to bear.This summer the money was finally granted and Daniels Construction of Vermont got to work removing the old bridge and building the new. Sabourn said the new bridge, designed by HEB, is now 40-feet long, 17 feet longer than the previous structure, and will carry the water it needs to carry when a storm hits. Actual construction costs for the bridge were $520,000 and there was a total of $165,000 needed for engineering and permit fees. In addition to that another $40,000 was spent repairing the berm beneath the bridge, bringing the total expense to $725,000.With the money from the state however, the cost to the town boiled down to just $145,000."We got this great bridge for less than a quarter of a million dollars, which saved the tax payers a lot of money," Sabourn said.The selectmen aren't through yet though. Sabourn said they are still pursuing some funding that FEMA may now have available and while it won't be a lot, he hopes they may possibly get another $30,000 toward the project."It was a long haul to get here and we're lucky we didn't lose the [old] bridge before this, but it's done now," he said as the board officially opened the new bridge.


By PTI

NEW DELHI: Hero Cycles Wednesday said it has entered into a strategic alliance with Japan's Yamaha Motor Co Ltd and Mitsui & Co for technology, manufacturing and marketing of electric bicycles.

The first product for India to roll out from this alliance would be a high-end electric-mountain bike (E-MTB) under the Hero brand, the company said in a statement.

ALSO READ | Hero Cycles to gift Tamil Nadu girl who donated piggy bank savings for Kerala flood relief

"The partnership has been formed with a forward-looking plan which includes the development of new e-mobility products jointly by Hero and Yamaha, with go-to-market sales, distribution and marketing support by Mitsui & Co Ltd," Hero Motors Company (HMC) Chairman Pankaj M Munjal said.

ALSO READ | Hero Cycles opens six stores in Chennai

Hero Cycles, the flagship company of the HMC group, had recently announced its 'Cycle Valley' project proposed to be set up in Ludhiana and serve as a hub for end-to-end supply chain of the bicycle industry.

The project is to be led by Hero Cycles as anchor investor with an aim to create an ecosystem of suppliers in joint ventures with global bicycle component makers.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Popular messaging app WhatsApp Wednesday named Abhijit Bose as its India Head, meeting one of the key demands made by the Indian government.

Bose, who will join the messaging platform early next year, will build WhatsApp's first full country team outside of California and will be based in Gurugram, WhatsApp said in a statement.

Bose and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small, connect with their customers, it added.

ALSO READ | WhatsApp hits the road with skits to stamp out fake news in India

WhatsApp is deeply committed to India and we are excited to keep building products that help people connect and support India's fast-growing digital economy," Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer of WhatsApp, said.

As a successful entrepreneur himself, Bose knows what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that can serve businesses across India, he added.

He joins WhatsApp from Ezetap where he has served as co-founder and CEO.

Founded in 2011, Ezetap is an electronic payments company backed by top-tier Venture Capitalists. The appointment comes at a time when the Facebook-owned company has been under tremendous pressure to put in place a mechanism to curb fake messages on its platform, that incited mob fury.

The government has been pressing WhatsApp to develop tools to combat fake or false messages, and also identify message originators.

Apart from the traceability request, the government had asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate presence and appoint a grievance officer to address complaints.

ALSO READ | WhatsApp sets up system to store payments-related data locally to meet RBI norm

Whatsapp has recently appointed a grievance officer for India.

Following multiple incidents of mob-lynching across the country, the government had slapped WhatsApp with two notices, with the second one warning that it will treat the messaging platform as an abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow if adequate checks are not put in place.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI : The Institute of Cardiac and Advanced Aortic Disorders, SIMS Hospital, will conduct the 8th International Aortic Summit 2018 from November 22 to November 24. According to a press release, over 200 veteran cardiac and cardiothoracic surgeons from all over India are expected to participate in the summit. Also, faculty members from Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, Belgium, Oman and Canada will attend the summit.

The summit will be inaugurated by Ravi Pachamoothoo, chairman, SRM Group. The summit is aimed at exchanging knowledge and experiences on treatment and management of aortic diseases. A large segment of people are affected by various kinds of aneurysms in India.

Dissecting aneurysm is a serious aortic disease that results in higher mortality rate if not treated immediately. Various modalities of treating dissecting aneurysm will be presented and discussed during the summit.
SV Krishna Chaitanya By

Express News Service

CHENNAI : Rains on Wednesday and Thursday will seal the fate of Chennai. With 61 per cent deficit, the city is staring at a potential monsoon failure. The current depression in the Bay of Bengal is coming as the only hope for some redemption. November is supposed to be the wettest month for Chennai receiving an average normal rainfall of 374.4 mm rainfall. However, the city, so far, has received about 55 mm with only 10 days remaining. Firstly there was an unprecedented delay in onset of monsoon and later there were hardly any notable rainy days. It rained for hardly five days this month. As per IMD records, Chennai gets good rains on 11.5 days in November.

S Balachandran, deputy director general, regional meteorological centre, agreed that Chennais deficit was getting ominously wider, but said it was too early to draw any conclusions. Chennai is expected to get moderate to heavy rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday as the depression is forming in Bay of Bengal, he told Express.

IMD has issued heavy rainfall warning in Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Tiruvannamalai, Pudukottai, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Karaikal, Ariyalur, Tiruvarur, Thanjavur districts. Squally winds 40-50 kmph gusting to 60 kmph is likely to prevail along and off Tamil Nadu coast. Sea condition will also be very rough.

Noted weather blogger Pradeep John said Chennai can not miss this spell. The system is moving in north-north westerly direction towards Cuddalore and is likely to intensify further. Chennai should receive a minimum of 150 mm in next two days, otherwise we will be staring at a huge deficit. After Thursday, Chennai is likely to enter another dry spell with models showing no significant rains till month-end, he said.

On Tuesday, city was generally cloudy and Nungambakkam weather station has recorded 6 mm of rainfall, although some suburbs have witnessed intense spells of rainfall.
By AFP

DELHI: A groom, shot by two gunmen as he rode a chariot to his wedding in New Delhi managed to return just hours later after surgery and take his vows, police said Wednesday.

The unidentified assailants mingled with wedding guests dancing in an extravagant street procession as the 25-year-old groom made his way to the ceremony.

Police said the pair climbed onto the horse-drawn carriage and opened fire before fleeing amid the panic.

The groom was struck in the shoulder and rushed to hospital, where doctors stemmed the bleeding but could not remove the bullet easily without major surgery.

The groom, bandaged up, returned to his bride-to-be just three hours later and performed his wedding rituals.

"The bullet is stuck between the shoulder bones," Vijay Kumar, a deputy commissioner of police in Delhi, told AFP.

Police are searching for the two suspects, who have not been found. They have not established a motive for the brazen attack but said it did not appear to be a random act of violence.

Many Indian cities are in grip of wedding fever with the traditional marriage season kicking off last week.

The shooting is not the first of its kind at an Indian wedding. A groom was shot dead in northern Uttar Pradesh state in April as during his wedding rituals.

The murder was captured on film, with the groom clutching his chest with both hands before slumping forward.

In 2016, a groom was accidentally shot dead by a reveller as he rode a horse for his wedding ceremony in Uttar Pradesh.
Steni Simon By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finding it difficult to dispose of IV tubes, urine bags, needles and blades generated at your home? Aimed at addressing the biomedical waste woes, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation along with health authorities has identified three spots in the city where medical waste will be collected, from homes and hospitals alike.

Earlier, hospitals were directed to dispose of diapers and sanitary napkins in disposable pouches which would then be handed over for disposable to the biomedical waste treatment facility. However, the directions were found to be flouted time and again. "Though clear instructions were issued to the sanitary workers who handle hospital waste, most of the time, the disposal method is not strictly followed," said K Sreekumar, Health Standing Committee chairman, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.

Taking this into consideration, the authorities plan to conduct surveys and make household-level registrations. Through this, they will spread awareness about disposing of biomedical waste in a scientific way.  We have already identified Palayam, Chalai and Mannanthala as the centres which will boast of a bio-medical waste collection facility. We are hoping to recruit a team of workers who will collect waste from the houses, said Alexander T, health supervisor.

Though there are around 300 hospitals, the city only boasts of a single bio-medical waste treatment plant. The Corporation had handed over the responsibility of collecting biomedical waste from hospitals to the Indian Medical Association Goes Eco-friendly (IMAGE). However, there was no such plan for homes. All houses cannot do away with medical waste in the same manner. Kitchen bins have been provided for each home but residents are finding it difficult to dispose of the medical waste, because of its hazardous nature, said Alexander.

Although diapers and sanitary waste can be burnt in incinerators, it is not a permanent solution as it causes pollution. The Corporation, along with the Pollution Control Board, is planning to do away with these incinerators taking the pollution factor into consideration.

Since diapers and napkins cannot be avoided at homes, the Corporation plans to promote diapers and napkins using cotton with zero plastic. The Corporation, with the help of college students, is conducting a survey to study the type of waste generated at homes. Along with this, they also plan to recruit an agency to collect and treat different kinds of bio-medical waste in houses. Three bags will be given to each household. Since there are frequent complaints on the exorbitant prices charged by sanitary workers, the Corporation hopes to make the waste disposal system, more affordable.

Survey to be held

The Corporation, with the help of college students, is conducting a survey to study the type of waste generated at homes. Along with this, the civic body plans to recruit an agency to collect and treat different kinds of bio-medical waste in houses.
Amit Agnihotri By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: To take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan, the Congress has deployed several veterans, including former Union ministers and parliamentarians. Sources in the party who were privy to strategy discussions said the idea was to ensure experienced hands in the event that the party wins.

The list of veterans includes former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, state unit chief and former union minister Sachin Pilot, former MLA, state minister and former union minister CP Joshi, former state minister and Lok Sabha MP Girija Vyas and former Lok Sabha MP Harish Chaudhary.

Sitting Lok Sabha members Raghu Sharma from Ajmer and Karan Singh Yadav, who trounced the BJP in the LS bypolls in February this year, have also been fielded. Their victory was seen as a huge boost to the party.

Harish Meena, who is a sitting BJP Lok Sabha MP from Dausa and recently joined the Congress, has also been given a ticket. The deliberations took some time but the leadership has retained 20 of the 23 sitting MLAs, said sources.
Photo taken in northeast of Bruneis capital Bandar Seri Begawan, on Nov. 17, 2018, shows the construction site of the Phase 1 of Zhejiang Hengyi Petrochemical Project on Pulau Muara Besar (PMB). Undertaken by Chinas Hengyi Petrochemical Co. Ltd, the future modern petrochemical industrial base is expected to become a strong driving force for Bruneis industrial upgrading, and help the country free itself from the dependence on resources export. (Xinhua/Wang Shen)

Brunei Darussalam, located in northern part of the Kalimantan Island, has long been praised as the abode of peace, and often referred to as the pearl of Borneo.

According to scholars, the exchanges between China and Brunei could date back to Chinas Western Han Dynasty, which is over 2,000 years from now. And trade contacts between the two countries have sprung up since Chinas Song Dynasty in over 1,000 years ago.

Several hundred years later in Chinas Ming Dynasty, Chinese navigator Zheng He, well-known for his seven maritime expeditions, visited Brunei with his fleet.

Since the year 1991 when the two nations officially established diplomatic relations, China and Brunei have witnessed frequent high-level contacts and rapid development in bilateral ties.

In 2013, the two countries upgraded the China-Brunei ties to a strategic cooperative relationship. With the care of leaders from both countries, China-Brunei ties have become a model of relations between big and small countries featuring equal treatment, mutual benefit, win-win cooperation, and common development.

Five years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the important Belt and Road Initiative, injecting unprecedented strong impetus to a deepened cooperation between China and Brunei.

Since Brunei, together with other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member, economic and trade cooperation between China and Brunei has ridden the wave of momentum for a dramatic growth.

China is now Bruneis largest source of imports. More and more Chinese enterprises are attracted to Brunei, whether for investment or expanding businesses.

The Zhejiang Hengyi Petrochemical Project on Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), the largest joint venture project between China and Brunei, is now under construction in full swing. Once put into operation next year, the project will generate substantial economic and social benefits and boost local employment.

At the same time, the Guangxi-Brunei Economic Corridor, another flagship project of China and Brunei, is under accelerated construction, thanks to which bilateral cooperation in such fields as harbor operation, sea farming, spices processing, and trade has moved forward steadily.

Their cultural and people-to-people exchanges have been intensified as well. In 2003, China granted the visa-free access to Bruneian citizens, and since 2016, Brunei has offered convenience to Chinese residents with the visa-on-arrival rule.

A growing number of direct flights have also been launched between their cities in recent years. Last year, 52,000 Chinese tourists visited Brunei, a record-breaking number that made China the largest source of international tourists to Brunei.

Their increasingly dynamic exchanges in education, culture, media, youth, and sister cities have also drawn the peoples of two countries closer and closer day by day.

Sharing a wide range of common interests in international and regional affairs, China and Brunei have understood and supported each other on issues involving each others core interests and major concerns, and have pushed China-ASEAN relations for steady development.

Moreover, China and Brunei have jointly safeguarded the peace and stability of the South China Sea by sticking to the dual-track approach in dealing with the issue.

Geographically located in the central area of the ASEAN, Brunei is the core of the East ASEAN Growth Area (Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area, also referred to as BIMP-EAGA for short) and also an important partner of China in jointly building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with the ASEAN and other parties.

President Xis state visit to Brunei, the first one by a Chinese President in thirteen years, is of milestone significance in lifting the China-Brunei relations in the new period.

I believe that this visit will bring China-Brunei relations to a new historical point, starting from which they will usher their peoples into a brighter future and make new contributions to regional prosperity and stability.

(The author Yang Jian is the Chinese Ambassador to Brunei.)
Donita Jose By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: NTRs granddaughter! That was the only magical catchphrase that TDP leaders had when Suhasini Nandamuri started her maiden padayatra across Kukatpally on Tuesday. Touring parts of Hasmatpet, Congress and TDP workers were seen relying heavily on the NTR family tag to introduce the rather tight-lipped campaigner to the settler population of Kukatpally.

Over 250 supporters thronged the narrow streets of the Anjaiah Nagar in Old Bowenpally, from where Suhasini started her rally after offering prayers at a local temple. Our focus will be on providing 2-BHK houses and ensuring regular water supply, she said speaking to Express. Touring over 10 colonies, Suhasini promised to address issues of the constituency if voted to power. New to the political scene, her party workers to it upon themselves to explain her background to curious onlookers, her links to actors Balakrishna and Junior NTR.

After their previous candidate from the area, Madhavram Krishna Rao deflected to TRS, some TDP workers are hoping to project Suhasini as the one who will make up for defections from the yellow party last election season.

A Congress worker said: The sentiment is pro-TDP, but many have questioned us why Madhavaram Krishna Rao switched camps and never worked for the people. We have been assuring them that Suhasini is a part of the NTR and Naidu family and will always work for the peoples benefit.

Women voters are thrilled. We are sure madam will understand issues of women and the community better, says Swaroopa B, member of the local Mahila sangham. I voted for TRS the last time but they did not fix the major issue affecting our area -- water supply. Even now, we have not had water for the last three days!

But, not all feel that way. She is an outsider at the end of the day. How will she know issues specific to this place? We feel the BSP candidate P Harish Chandra Reddy, who is educated and well versed with local issues is a more promising candidate, says Niranjan Reddy, a local resident.

Kukatpally not full of Andhra settlers

The constituency has over 3.75 lakh voters and perceived as an AP settler stronghold with leanings to TDP. However, TDP thinktanks says that is not the case. It is wrong to assume that Kukatpally is full of AP settlers. Our estimates suggest there are 1.9 lakh voters TS settlers and 1.10 lakh are AP settlers and only 75 thousand original residents. So there is no specific focus on AP settlers, TDP is for Telugu people on the whole, said a leader with the manifesto committee.
K Shiva Shanker By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Anyone who owns a laptop can earn Rs 2,400 by participating in the digital coverage of the Assembly Elections. A little over 33,000 people will be required to relay and record CCTV footage from polling stations across the State, providing students with an easy way to make a quick buck.

While only half the polling stations in the State were given CCTV coverage in 2014, Telangana Election Commission officials said cameras would be installed in all 32,796 stations across the State this election. At sensitive spots, cameras will be installed outside the stations as well. However, the ambitious project of digitally covering all the polling stations poses two challenges: Procuring more than 32000 CCTV cameras and finding people who can perform the task.

With this, the demand for the number of people who will operate cameras has increased this poll season. While footage will be relayed live from stations that have Internet connectivity, and recorded otherwise. Those interested can register by logging on to http://bit.ly/TSwebcast2018. They can leave their name, email address and other details in the online form, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Amrapali Kata said. He added that anyone with a laptop, including students, cab help and be paid.Those who are selected will be trained under a returning officer.
By Online Desk

MUMBAI: On Tuesday, actor Akshay Kumar stated that the shooting for the fourth instalment of the 'Housefull' franchise has concluded.

He took to Twitter and shared a photograph of the team and captioned it: "While we have called it a 'wrap' for 'Housefull 4', fun never ends..See you all in 2019!"

Actress Pooja Hegde, who is part of the film, had a special message for Akshay Kumar. She took to Twitter and said, "Been crazy fun shooting with this comedy genius Akshay Kumar sir. The child-like qualities, improvisations, the martial arts.n also, the biggest lesson being, never ever play a game with him coz he ALWAYS wins (except for those 2 epics but rare, Ludo games which I won)."

Meanwhile, actress Kriti Sanon shared the same image, and wrote that the "mad fun crazy ride comes to an end! It is a wrap for 'Housefull4'."

Been crazy fun shooting with this comedy genius @akshaykumar sir.d child like qualities,improvisations,the martial arts.n also,the biggest lesson being,never ever play a game with him coz he ALWAYS wins(except for those 2 epic but rare,Ludo games which I won) #Housefull4 pic.twitter.com/Szjnsv1Xsu  Pooja Hegde (@hegdepooja) November 20, 2018

ALSO READ: Here are some stunning photos of the Tollywood diva Pooja Hegde

"Housefull 4" also stars Riteish Deshmukh, Bobby Deol, Kriti Kharbanda and Rana Dagubatti.

The film has faced several ups and downs.

Rana replaced veteran actor Nana Patekar after the latter was accused of sexual misconduct by actress and former beauty queen Tanushree Dutta on the sets of 2008 film "Horn OK Pleassss".

In October, filmmaker Sajid Khan stepped down as its director after he was accused of several sexual harassment incidents. He was replaced by Farhad Samji.

(With inputs from IANS)
By Online Desk

The recent 'Cyclone Gaja' left many Tamil Nadu districts devasted, with the death toll reaching 45.

As cyclone Gaja has wreaked havoc in nearly a dozen districts of Tamil Nadu and rescue operations are underway, members of the Tamil film fraternity have joined hands to do their bit.

Many celebrities like Rajinikanth, Vijay, Suriya and Vijay Sethupathi among others have come forward to donate to the Cyclone Gaja relief.

Now, Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman announced via Twitter that a part of the proceeds from the Toronto concert which is set to take place on 24th December will go to the Gaja Cyclone relief.

His tweet reads, "My Sufi Ensemble and I will perform a benefit concert in Toronto on 24 Dec at Metro Toronto Convention Centre Part of the proceeds will go to for Gaja Cyclone relief in TN I will be joined by Javed Ali, Sivamani & Sana Moussa."

My Sufi Ensemble and I will perform a benefit concert in Toronto on 24 Dec at Metro Toronto Convention Centre Part of the proceeds will go to for Gaja Cyclone relief in TN I will be joined by Javed Ali, Sivamani & Sana Moussa



Log on to https://t.co/dQwCs6TNu0 for details/tickets  A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) November 20, 2018

Suriya along with his father Sivakumar, brother Karthi and wife Jyotika have together donated a sum of Rs. 50 lakh as relief fund through various NGOs in the cyclone Gaja affected areas.

VIEW GALLERY: Check out the contribution of Kollywood for Cyclone Gaja relief

Superstar Rajinikanth, via a statement, on Tuesday announced relief materials worth Rs. 50 lakh towards the relief fund.

Actor Vijay has donated around Rs. 40 lakh to 9 bank accounts of his fan club heads to help those affected by cyclone Gaja.

Actor Vijay Sethupathi has announced a relief fund of Rs. 25 lakh to be spent towards buying rechargeable torch lights and saplings for those whose farms have been destroyed by cyclone Gaja.

Actor-producer Sivakarthikeyan donated Rs. 10 lakh to the Tamil Nadu CM relief fund in addition to Rs. 10 lakh worth of relief materials.

'2.0' director Shankar has announced donation of Rs. 10 lakh to the Tamil Nadu CM relief fund.

(With inputs from IANS)
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRI NAGAR: Muzaffar Hussain Beigh, Lok Sabha member from Baramulla-Kupwara in north Kashmir, is all set to part ways with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of which he was a founding member.

Hitting out at the party for boycotting the recent urban local bodies (ULB) and panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir, Baig hinted at quitting the party and joining the third front that may emerge in the state.

It wont be easy for me to resign from the party I founded. I will have to think over it before taking a decision, he said at a press conference here. Baig said he was hurt and disillusioned by the way matters were handled by the PDP brass, the failure of alliance with the BJP and the party copying the National Conference (NC) to boycott the ULB and panchayat polls.

Asked if the press conference was his first step towards moving out of the PDP, Baig said, It could be! It depends on the other side (PDP). If they stop aping NC, which is responsible for the rise of militancy in 1987, then it is one thing. If they dont, then I will have to think of another choice.

Claiming he was not consulted by the party on a boycott of polls, he said, PDP has betrayed its own MLAs by depriving them connectivity with the people NC founder Sheikh Abdullah had also boycotted polls, but realised his fault and joined the mainstream and contested elections.Asked whether he would be part of the front that separatist-turned-mainstream politician Sajjad Lone was trying to cobble up, Baig said, It is premature to say anything at this time. However, if it emerges, I will seriously consider joining it.
By Online Desk

Around 30,000 drought-hit farmers and tribals from Ahmednagar, North Maharashtra, Bhusawal, Marathwada and Vidarbha are holding a two-day march from Wednesday in Mumbai, demanding the implementation of welfare measures promised by the government.

The protestors, who came to Thane on Saturday after marching from Nashik, are seeking land reforms and the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report which proposed a loan waiver. Other demands included allocation of cultivable land for landless peasants, a minimum support price which is 50 per cent higher than the production cost, drought compensation of Rs 50,000 per acre for non-irrigated land and Rs 1 lakh per acre for irrigated land.

The march, which started at a toll plaza in Thane town to end at Somaiya Ground in Mumbai's Sion area on Wednesday, will have members affiliated to the Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM) and has been supported by the Maharashtra unit of Aam Admi Party, Janata Dal (Secular), Peasants and Workers Party and Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav among other activists and political factions. Magsaysay award winner Dr Rajendra Singh, also known as Waterman of India, is among the marchers.

Speaking to the New Indian Express, Tanveer Ahmed, National Spokesperson, JD(S) said, Issues affecting farmers are present in every part of the country but they have been highly prevalent in Maharashtra for a very long time. Ever since the BJP has come into power in the state, they have failed to understand the problems especially that of sugarcane ones. This has resulted in the farmer suicide rate of Maharashtra being the highest in the country. We have always understood such issues and hence we stand with them in such movements. He also said that the party will try bringing in the support of Congress, who has a coalition with them in the Karnataka government.

After the state government announced the loan waiver last year, the banks are not ready to give the crop loans to the farmers. Besides, the farmers are getting less than the MSP for their produce and there is no mechanism to complain about it, said Pratibha Shinde, General Secretary of the LSM, who is handling the protest march.

The march will continue the following day from Somaiya to Vidhan Sabha (State Legislative Assembly) and will have a rally by the LSM which is expected to be attended by Left-affiliated organisations. Shinde said they had sent around 20,000 postcards to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis earlier this month, announcing the march.

In March this year, around 35,000 farmers from the Left-leaning All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) carried out a similar march from Nashik to Mumbai with the same demands. The protest was called off when Fadnavis assured the Kisan Sabha that "most of their demands would be accepted", but the Kisan Sabha has claimed that the promise wasnt fulfilled.

(With inputs from PTI)
By UNI

NEW DELHI: Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Wednesday refuted reports that the agriculture ministry has accepted that farmers have been adversely affected by demonetisation.

''Certain media channels and newspapers have been running a story that the agriculture ministry has accepted that farmers have been adversely affected by demonetisation and were unable to purchase seeds due to unavailability of cash. This is far from truth,'' the Union Agriculture Minister tweeted.

Earlier, attacking the Narendra Modi Government on demonetisation, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the Note ban policy has destroyed lives of crores of farmers.

Taking to Twitter, Rahul, reacting to reports that the Agriculture ministry had told a parliamentary standing committee associated with the Finance Ministry that farmers had been adversely impacted by demonetisation, said,''Demonetisation has destroyed lives of crores of farmers. They do not even have enough money to buy seeds and fertilizers. However, even today Mr Modi makes fun of their misfortune.Now even their agriculture ministry says that demonetisation broke the back of farmers."

According to reports, the Agriculture ministry had told a Parliamentary standing committee associated with the ministry of finance that demonetization had an adverse impact on farmers.
Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: In a major breakthrough, Punjab Police has traced the grenade attack on Nirankari Satsang Bhawan in Amritsar to ISI-backed Khalistani forces in Pakistan. The police arrested one of the two perpetrators less than 72 hours after three persons were killed and twenty injured in the attack.

Addressing a media conference on Wednesday, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said the accused has been identified as 26-year old Bikramjit Singh alias Bikram, a native of Dhariwal village, near Rajasansi in Amritsar. He was arrested on Wednesday morning from near Loharka village.

Bikram, an operative of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has given significant information saying that the grenade used in the attack was provided a person named Happy in Pakistan.

Happy is suspected to be the chief of the Pakistan-based KLF. A PhD holder, he is believed to have been the mastermind of a conspiracy to carry out targeted killings of RSS, Shiv Sena and DSS leaders and workers, as well as a Christian pastor in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017, in collaboration with Pakistani establishment and the ISI.

Amarinder categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack, describing it as yet another attempt by the ISI and Pakistani establishment to carry out terrorist attacks and disturb peace in the state. It is in Pakistan's interest to keep the border on the boil to ensure peace in Pakistan, Amarinder said.

Attempts by the ISI and Pakistan establishment to link up with Punjabi and Kashmiri militant groups is a matter of concern, the CM said, adding that the police are working closely with central agencies to stop these forces from spreading their influence across the state.

Amarinder said that preliminary investigation and CCTV footage of the incident led to the arrest of Bikramjit, who has identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa (32) of Chak Mishri Khan village, Lopoke (Ajnala) in Amritsar.

Giving further details, Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said Bikramjit was riding a motorbike at the time of his arrest. Bikram's black Bajaj Pulsar, which was used in carrying out the attack, has also been recovered.

Bikramjit has disclosed that Avtar Singh called him up on the night of November 3, asking him to be ready for an assignment next morning. Around 4.30am, Avtar reached Bikram's house and both set off on Bikram's bike to collect the hand grenade from an orchard on Majitha-Hariyan link road. They retrieved the HE 84 hand grenade, which had been buried in a half feet deep pit under a Shisham tree, police said.

According to Bikram's initial questioning, the recee of Nirankari Satsang Bhawan was carried out on the morning of November 13 when no one was present at the premises.

During the recee, the two conspirators especially checked out the locations of CCTV cameras en route, the layout plan of the Bhawan and the distance from the main gate on the boundary wall of the Bhawan to the Satsang Bhawan building.

Bikramjit has further disclosed that as decided on November 16, Bikram reached the house of Avtar Singh at Chak Mishri Khan village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle at about 9 am, where they removed the number plate of the motorcycle. They started for village Adliwal at about 9.30 am and covered their faces on the way, near Manawala village. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at the Satsang Bhawan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time.

Bikramjit has further revealed that while Avtar successfully slinked into the Satsang Bhawan complex through the open gate, along with the Sangat which had just reached there, he himself managed to subdue and take control, at gunpoint, of the two sewadars who had been deployed at the two gate-posts of the Satsang Bhawan complex.

After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on Bikramjit's mobile and reached Avtar's village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the Pistol from Bikram. After changing his clothes and appearance, Bikramjit drove back to his village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle.

According to Bikramjit, Avtar Singh was in touch with one Happy in Pakistan, who had got the hand grenade dumped near the Orchard near Majitha through some of his other associates. Bikramjit has revealed that the geo-location details as well as pictures of the dump location were sent to Avtar on his mobile to facilitate the retrieval of the hand grenade.

Harmeet Singh Happy had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand-grenade (Arges Type HG-84) of the same specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh of Samana (Patiala) a self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police (Patiala) on October 31, 2018.

It may be mentioned that Punjab Police had earlier recovered five such hand grenades, as part of a huge consignment comprising AK 47 Rifle (1), MP 9 Rifle (1), Pistols (7), which had been sent by BKI and ISYF Rode across the Indo-Pak border and recovered them from the terrorist module of Sher Singh- Mann Singh on May 21, 2017.

It has been learnt that HG 84 hand grenade is produced by Arges of Austria and also manufactured in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) of Pakistan (as the "84-P2A1"). Such grenades are commonly used by the Armies of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Austria. HG 84 is a destructive type of grenade, which causes fragmentation after the explosion and has an effective range of 30-meter radius. These are mainly used to attack and kill a gathering of persons. Such grenades have been used in J&K in the past.

Since March 2017, Punjab Police has busted seventeen terror modules and arrested 81 militants, thereby preventing a large number of terrorist actions in the State. The State Police has seized 77 weapons from these terrorists, including very sophisticated automatic weapons, RDX/other explosives, as well as 12 hand grenades.

Since March 2017, at-least three arms consignments, pushed into Punjab by Pak ISI in collaboration with Chiefs of different Pak based Sikh militant outfits, such as International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), Khalistan ZindabadForce (KZF), Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), have been recovered by the Punjab Police. These consignments consisted of AK-47 Rifles (5), MP 9 Rifle (1), Pistols (10), hand-grenades (11).

A case was registered on November 18, under sections 302, 307, 341, 452, 427 IPC. 25 Arms Act, 3/4/5/6 Explosive Substances Act and 13 UAPA at Rajasansi Police Station.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday extended the relief by a day from arrest granted to civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, professor Anand Teltumbde and priest Stan Swamy in a case against them over the Koregaon-Bhima violence and alleged links with Maoists.

A bench of Justices B P Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal will hear on Thursday the petitions filed by the three activists, challenging the FIR registered against them by Pune Police on January 1 in connection with the Elgar Parishad event held on December 31, 2017.

The police had alleged that Maoists supported the Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune, which led to the violence.

At the event, held a day before the January 1 caste clashes at Koregaon Bhima village near Pune, the activists had made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements that contributed to the Koregaon Bhima violence, police said.

Several activists were named in the FIR.

Some of them, including Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj, P Varavara Rao, and Gautam Navlakha, were initially put under house arrest on directions of the Supreme Court.

However, all of them except Navlakha were re-arrested and taken into custody by police recently.

Navlakha was released by the Delhi High Court, after which he moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIR against him.

Teltumbde and Swamy are yet to be arrested in the case.
Sana Shakil By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Centre will now maintain a detailed countrywide data of crimes committed by khap panchayats. Currently, there is no official database of crimes involving khaps but the National Crime Records Bureaus (NCRB) Crime In India report of 2017, expected to be released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the coming days, will document such crimes.

Experts said registration of these crimes would help in ascertaining the extent of criminal activities involving khaps and in identifying the most vulnerable areas.

But they said the authorities should collect countrywide data of crimes involving khaps and not restrict themselves to just two-three States where khap panchayats are most prevalent. This is an important move and will help the authorities in preventing crimes involving khap panchayats. But the authorities collecting data should be careful in ensuring that data of such crimes is not restricted to Haryana, Rajasthan and UP where khap panchayats are the common name of such kinship groups, a noted human rights activist working in Rajasthan said.

He said such groups exist in many states but they were called by different names. In Jharkhand for instance, such groups are called jaati panchayats but they pass equally regressive rulings, he said.

A spokesperson of Haryanas Sarva Khap Jat Panchayat said the move was an attempt to paint the khaps as a group of criminals.

Khaps have never committed any crime. It is because of khap panchayats that Indias culture and values are intact in many parts of the country, said Sube Singh Samain. Samain made national headlines in 2012 when he suggested that lowering the marriage age of women would prevent rapes.

Khap panchayats are caste or community groups and they are largely present in rural areas. They act as quasi-judicial bodies and pronounce harsh punishments based on age-old customs.

Punishments range from fines, flogging and ostracising errant members to rapes and even honour killings. There is largely no rule of law followed in handing out decisions or meting out punishments.

The country registered as many as 251 honour killings in 2016 against 28 in 2014, the year from which the NCRB started maintaining a record of such incidents.
Chinese national flags are raised on a street of Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei. Photo by Lin Rui from Peoples Daily

The co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping has received active response and strong supports from Brunei.

In the country, a series of major cooperation projects, including the Empangan Jubli Emas Ulu Tutong, have boosted interconnectivity and become a symbol of China in Brunei.

Bruneis Three Gorges Dam--Empangan Jubli Emas Ulu Tutong

Empangan Jubli Emas Ulu Tutong is Bruneis largest hydraulic project co-built by Power Construction Corporation of China and local company Pahaytc Venture Sdn Bhd.

The dam is located in a tropical rainforest 23 kilometers from Kampong Belaban, Tutong District. The region used to be immersed in floods for two or three months each year since it is near the Tutong River, but flood scarcely occurred after the dam was constructed a year ago, a local resident told Peoples Daily. Local media said that the dam would benefit over 250,000 people.

Students of Bruneis Chung Hwa Middle School demonstrate calligraphy works. Photo by Sun Guangyong from Peoples Daily

The project was officially delivered to the Bruneian side on Nov. 17. Every detail of the project was delicately built, said a Bruneian official named Zaki, adding that besides relieving flood disasters, the project also provides water resources for Bruneian economic development.

After renovation by the Chinese company, the 23-kilometer path linking the Kampong Belaban and the dam is no longer muddy and rugged, but a flat road covered by asphalt.

The transportation has become more convenient thanks to the new road. Some villagers have gradually left the mountains and built new houses along the road, said a local villager, who compared the dam to the Three Gorges Dam in China and expressed his gratitude to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Brunei's largest container terminal-- Port of Muara

Bruneian technicians give thumbs up for Empangan Jubli Emas Ulu Tutong, a dam jointly built by a Chinese contractor and a local company. Photo by Sun Guangyong from Peoples Daily

The Port of Muara is an important part of the construction of the Guangxi-Brunei Economic Corridor. In February 2017, the Muara Port Company Sdn Bhd, a joint venture, established by China's Guangxi Beibu Gulf Port Group and Brunei's Darussalam Asset, took over the operation of the Brunei's largest container terminal.

Muara Port is the only public dock in Brunei. Mike is the head of the companys container operation department who has worked at the port for years. According to him, the Chinese company has brought drastic changes to the port.

He noted that no new equipment was purchased at the port during the past 20 years. But within a couple of months after the joint venture was formed, four lifting machines, three stacking machines, as well as other facilities, were immediately added. Also, computer replaced labor force in managing the port.

Mike and his colleagues made new achievements under the support of the advanced technologies. In the first 10 months of this year, the Muara Port handled 93,257 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 7 percent.

An aerial picture of Zhejiang Hengyi Petrochemicals project in Brunei. File photo

In a years efforts, the average operating efficiency per ship of the port reached 30.2 units per hour, up 50 percent from a year ago. The efficiency of picking up and returning the containers has been slashed by more than half an hour to 25 minutes on average.

The changes of the Muara Port have brought tangible benefits to the Bruneian people.

Malcolm, general manager of Wan Ling Trading Company, which imports dozens of containers from Singapore each month, said he had to spend about 1,800 Brunei dollars, or 9,000 yuan on shipping each TEU before the port was built. Also, extra would be cost when failures of lifting machines happened or holidays come. Besides, he had to pay for the storage expenses.

But now the cost is much lower and the efficiency for picking up the goods is much higher. The Chinese technologies and management experiences have brought concrete benefits to us, he said.
By Express News Service

RANCHI: Congress spokesperson and party Jharkhand unit president Ajoy Kumar on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) against Advocate General Ajit Kumar and the then District Mining Officer in West Singhbum alleging them of misguiding the Jharkhand High Court in connection with payment of Rs 250 crore penalty imposed on Shah Brothers by the deputy commissioner.

Kumar alleged that the then Additional Advocate General Ajit Kumar gave wrong information to the HC, which was also against the stand of the state government, with an intention of profiting Shah Brothers causing huge loss to the state exchequer.

We demand that an FIR be lodged against the Advocate General and others involved in the conspiracy on the basis of the facts provided by us in the application. A probe must be ordered .... he said. The state government, in connivance with Shah Brothers, reduced the penalty of Rs 1,300 crore to just Rs 250 crore allowing them to pay it in instalments, he said. Kumar said that later it was revealed that the AG had given wrong information from the government side, hence the verdict went against the government.

Kumar said that the role of Chief Minister Raghubar Das, who is in-charge of the Mining Department, is also dubious as it is unacceptable that the CM was unaware of the letter written by the then Additional Chief Secretary Uday Pratap Singh explaining the irregularities made by Shah Brothers and the AAG.
By Express News Service

BHOPAL, NEW DELHI: On the campaign trail in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday cautioned farmers of the state not to get carried away by the Congress promises of a loan waiver.

A few months ago the Congress had promised a similar loan waiver to farmers in Karnataka, but what is happening in Karnataka now? Forget about waiving of interest or the actual loan, warrants are being issued against defaulter farmers... Modi said while addressing a poll rally in tribal-dominated Jhabua district.

The Congress has promised a waiver of farmers loans up to Rs 2 lakh in its manifesto. The PM further claimed that in 2008, Madams (Sonia Gandhis) remote-controlled regime at the Centre had promised an ambitious loan waiver for farmers. But what happened actually was that out of the total Rs 6 lakh crore outstanding loans, not even Rs 60,000 crore loans were waived off... claimed Modi.

Meanwhile, BJP vice-president and Madhya Pradesh in-charge Vinay Saharsabuddhe, while stating that the party is mapping each house in MP with a lotus diya (earthen lamp) and the partys flag, claimed, The people are not falling for the farm loan waiver promises of the Congress...He said that though the BJP sought to contest on the development agenda, the Opposition put forth narratives of banning the RSS and cow-protection.
By PTI

CHANDIGARH: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday to immediately announce a "generous" financial package for the year-long celebrations of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

In a letter, the chief minister apprised Modi that his government was launching a series of developmental programmes to commemorate the historic occasion.

Singh listed some of the schemes for which funds were needed.

The schemes include establishment of Pind Babe Nanak Da at Sultanpur Lodhi, setting up of a National Institute of Inter-Faith Studies at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, establishment of a Medical College at Batala, construction of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji Marg connecting places visited by the first Guru, both in Punjab and other States, and development of 47 smart towns/villages associated with the Guru.

The chief minister said a financial package should be given to the state forthwith at least for these projects.

Referring to his earlier meeting with the PM, Singh said the state government had already submitted a memorandum for seeking the assistance of Rs 2,145 crore from the Centre for the celebrations.

The CM said he highlighted the importance of the celebrations in the meeting of the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog held in June 2018.

He said all these proposals were included in the memorandum submitted to the Union government and were discussed by the National Implementation Committee in its last meeting on November 8.

However, he said, the state government had yet not been conveyed about its outcome.

Meanwhile, the chief minister has also written to Union Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal to consider a tri-weekly train from New Delhi to Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala district so that the pilgrims coming to pay obeisance were provided with proper connectivity and ease of travel.

Sultanpur Lodhi would be the epicentre of the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev, the chief minister pointed out, adding that lakhs of pilgrims and the general public from across the globe were expected to converge there during these celebrations.

He also requested Goyal to immediately take up the upgradation of the Sultanpur Lodhi Railway Station with a special focus on strengthening its passenger facilities for the convenience of large flow of pilgrims.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The very idea of a grand coalition in Jammu and Kashmir has given the BJP jitters, former chief minister and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti said on Wednesday night after the dissolution of the state assembly by the governor.

Former chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said Governor Satyapal Malik's decision to dissolve the assembly "cannot be a coincidence" as it came within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti staking claim to form the government.

Mehbooba tweeted, "In my twenty-six-year-old career as a politician, I thought I had seen it all! But like they say never say never! Nevertheless, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to @OmarAbdullah and @Ambikasoni4 ji for helping us achieve the seemingly impossible."

In series of tweets, she said since the past five months, regardless of political affiliations, "we shared the view that the state assembly be dissolved immediately to avert horse-trading and defections".

"Oddly enough our pleas fell on deaf ears. But who would have thought that the very idea of a grand coalition would give such jitters," she said.

She also said in a lighter vein that "In today's age of technology, it is very strange that the fax machine at HE Governor's residence didn't receive our fax but swiftly issued one regarding the assembly dissolution."

Abdullah said his party had been pressing for dissolution of assembly for the last five months.

"JKNC has been pressing for assembly dissolution for 5 months now. It can't be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears," Abdullah tweeted minutes after the governor's decision to dissolve the state assembly.

The leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad said while the talks for the formation of a popular government were in its infancy, the BJP government at the Centre was so worried that they dissolved the state assembly.

"It is clear that BJP's policy is either we or nobody," Azad told PTI.

Former BJP leader and former union minister Yashwant Sinha said the dissolution of the assembly was the latest example of the BJP to not let anyone form the government even if that meant bypassing the Constitution.

The Jammu and Kashmir governor on Wednesday night dissolved the state assembly, which has been in suspended animation, shortly after rival alliances staked claim to form the government.

Governor's rule was clamped in the state on June 19 for a six-month period following the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition government after the saffron party withdrew support.

The state assembly was also kept in suspended animation so that political parties could explore the possibility of forming a new government.
Parvathi Benu By

Express News Service

Is it right to call life away from social media therapeutic? Shehla Rashid Shora would definitely vouch for it, thanks to the endless number of trolls, abuses, allegations and threats that this 29-year-old had to work her way through. For the average internet troll who thought of every Muslim as a terrorist, she was the perfect victim  a vocal Kashmiri Muslim woman who went to JNU.



After a decade-long stint as an active Twitter user, Shehla decided to deactivate her account a week ago and that came as a shock to Twitterati. Some were happy. Quite a few were sad. But this ex-JNUSU vice-president was definitely in need of a break. "Life is way better without twitter," she tells us. "A few days off Twitter and I feel so much better. Usually, I wake up and the first thing I do is check Twitter. The trolls there would cripple me and I would be so suffocated that I wouldn't want to get out of bed."



ALSO READ | Shehla Rashid files complaint against don Ravi Poojary for threatening her



They had a good run though. Twitter had been her good companion for years. A decade ago, a curious Engineering student in NIT Srinagar joined the microblogging platform to follow Barkha Dutt and Omar Abdullah. Years down the line, she acted as an influencer who spread awareness about menstruation and raised a good amount of funds for the Kathua rape victim's family. But when it started biting her back with baseless allegations of her misusing the funds, Shehla knew that she had hit her limit. Even though she says that she may be be back to the platform, right now, she needs some time to take care of herself.

She was preparing for her PhD thesis' presentation, due in a couple of weeks when we caught up with her. Nevertheless, she spent a good thirty minutes, patiently and calmly answering all the questions we had.





Shehla Rashid (Facebook Photo)

Excerpts:



You've been asked this many times before. But what was the exact reason you left twitter?



Ever since I've deactivated Twitter, I've been asked to be strong, ignore and not worry about it. I can easily land a comfortable job that pays me a six-digit salary. Yet, I chose to be an activist because I'm a sensitive person. We activists believe that compassion and empathy make us human beings. But we can't become numb to abuse and trolling. Abuse isn't acceptable. When I'm talking to someone, I try my best to not hurt them. I'm soft spoken and I don't abuse people. I deserve the same treatment. Just because I'm from a different sect, I'm not going to put up with this. The magnitude of abuse and trolling I get is unmatched. These abusers do it because they know that I'm vulnerable and from a marginalised community. I'm called an ISIS supporter and they get away with it because I'm Muslim. Try calling Modi the same and they'll land up in jail.



Do you reckon you'll be back?



I may be, but right now I need some time to take care of myself. Even if I report these trolls, it doesn't get treated seriously. As the 2019 elections approach, BJP IT cells are stepping up. Abuse is going to increase. Twitter needs to pull its socks up. They call themselves neutral, but they're not. Because of influencers, people join Twitter and we're creating content and engagement. Twitter can't get away with it. Abuse is making us worse as a society. My supporters also feel that I shouldn't congratulate someone from the opposite party. This makes us polarised as a society.



You're still active on Instagram and your Facebook page is still up. Why did you choose to keep those active?



The abuse on other platforms isn't that bad. These pages are my way of reaching out. I don't go on TV debates now. The last time I went on one, an RSS spokesperson told me that "the Ram Mandir will be built for sure and you'll also perform an aarti there."



What are a few funny and upsetting things that the trolls have called you?



Have you heard of a word called Chrislamocommie? Shefali Vaidya used it once while referring to me. I really liked it. It was very funny.



There are two terms that hurt me very much. One was being called a Madrasa Chap or someone being educated in a Madrasa. I was always a topper, the state topper in class XII. No matter whatever you achieve in life, if you're a Muslim, you are called this. But do they know that in some parts of the country even Hindu kids go tot he Madrasa because they offer cheap education? Whenever I write something, I'm called a Halala ki paidaish and I didn't know what it meant. For the longest time, I ignored this because I didn't know what it meant. When I realised what it meant, I was shocked. The ruling party is supporting these people and many of them are followed by the PM and the entire right-wing ecosystem. They write against you, but they won't land up in jail. By the way, I'm not even counting the rape threats here.





Shehla Rashid at JNU (Facebook Photo)

Have you ever complained against the rape threats?



Whom should I file a complaint against? Abhijeet Bhattacharya once called me a sex worker on Twitter. Everyone outraged, but I didn't comment. I was so immune because I get to hear this all the time. We've become that way. We're okay with bad roads and garbage. We go on with the 'ignore' and 'chalta hai' attitude.



Not even when they call you a terrorist just because you're Muslim?

I've been called a terrorist millions of times. But these people don't realise that the Muslims in the mainstream resist extremism. We know that there can be another way of fighting issues. We're prone to terrorist attacks more. I've grown up hearing that Muslims must join the mainstream. But once that happens, we're being pushed away. How will you inspire people if you see the way Muslims like me are targetted? Is it going to inspire them to join the mainstream and participate in democracy?



Has this taken a toll on your mental health?

I've never seen a therapist. But I feel like seeing one because the kind of abuse I get is mind-wobbling. It affects your sense of self-esteem and self-respect.



Let's forget abuse for a bit. Let's focus on something happier. What were the kind of books you were reading while growing up?

The school that I went to never let us go to the library. I'd run away every now and then pretending to go to the toilet and go to the library. I'd read books for 10 minutes. The librarian loved me and he started lending me books. I read about the slave trade in Class VI, Charles Dickens and Psychology in class VII. My mother has an elaborate library at home. What set me apart was, the whole class would memorise essays. I found that a problem, so I'd read a lot of magazines and newspapers and write an essay in my own words. The teachers would appreciate it. That set a new trend in our class.

Shehala says she has been called a terrorist millions of times (Facebook Photo)

Did you always want to study at JNU?

I didn't know about JNU until 2012. I joined a three-month course that year in IIMB on Women Leadership. They had a week-long exchange programme in JNU. For the first time, I gained a real understanding of gender. Since childhood, I was never satisfied with my teachers. But after a week in JNU, I was startled by the quality of teachers there. That made me prepare for the university's entrance. I felt that I started understanding issues and was encouraged to think originally.



How was life in JNU when the whole anti-national debate happened?

It was quite difficult at first. We didn't know how to deal with it. But the students of JNU stuck together and that gave us the strength to deal with it. Before that, I was active in the occupy UGC movement. This time, it was different. I couldn't believe that Kanhaiya was arrested. I was shocked.

(This interview was originally published on EdexLive)
By Online Desk

A twenty-year-old unemployed man has confessed to raping and killing nine girls aged between three and seven in Delhi and other cities in India, according to media reports.

Police had on Monday arrested the accused, Sunil, on charges of raping and murdering a three-year-old child in a slum area of Gurugram. The man, who hails from UPs Mahoba district, was arrested in Jhansi eight days after he committed the crime. During questioning, he confessed to having killed eight other girls after raping them.

"He used to first break the legs of the victims before attempting rape. Then he would murder them," Subhash Boken, an assistant sub-inspector and public relations officer with the Gurugram police was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The accused had committed his last crime on November 11 while visiting his sister in a Gurugram slum area where the victim lived.

Of the nine cases, four were committed in Delhi, three in Gurugram and one each in Jhansi and Gwalior, police said.

The accused, who was occasionally working as a daily labourer, said he targeted girls visiting community kitchens for free food. He would abduct them after offering them sweets or money, Boken quoted him as having told police.
By ANI

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday denied relief to Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case and refused to stay trial court proceedings.

The court has adjourned the case for the next two weeks.

The Supreme Court on Monday had asked the Bombay High Court to hear Lieutenant Colonel Purohit's plea challenging the validity of the prosecution sanction for his trial under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

ALSO READ: Purohit to get copy of photos, videos of Malegaon blast site

A Special NIA Court had earlier commenced a trial against Lieutenant Colonel Purohit and six other accused in the case. On September 29, 2008, a bomb placed in a tiffin box tied to a motorcycle near a mosque in Malegaon exploded killing six people and injuring many.

On October 30, the court had framed charges against Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sudhakar Chaturvedi, accusing them of a terror conspiracy, murder and other related offences.

Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, an Army officer, was arrested the same year for allegedly masterminding the blasts.
Harpreet Bajwa By

Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: In more trouble for veteran actor Alok Nath, who was among the many big shots to be dragged into the #MeToo movement, Mumbai Police on Wednesday registered a rape case against him on a complaint filed by a writer-producer who accused him of raping her almost twenty years ago.

READ | Alok Nath's misbehaviour one of Bollywood's worst-kept secrets: Renuka Shahane

An FIR was registered at Oshiwara police station in Andheri on Tuesday night, a police officer said. The actor, who had built up a Sanskari image with notable character roles in films such as Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Hum Saath Saath Hain, was booked under IPC Section 376 (rape), Paramjit Singh Dahiya, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 9, said.

The complainant, best known for a popular television show of the 90s, accused Nath of raping her in a social media post last month. She gave a detailed account of the incident in the post. Her revelation came on the heels of actor Tanushree Dutta bringing harassment charge against big screen stalwart Nana Patekar. Her complaint triggered the now infamous #MeToo movement. Several biggies from the entertainment industry and other fields were called out by their victims as the movement picked up steam.

ALSO READ | #MeToo: Mumbai Court rejects Alok Nath's wife's plea seeking injunction order against writer Vinta Nanda

Nath had dismissed the charge and even filed a civil suit against the complainant in a Mumbai court. The writer-producer had handed in her complaint at the Oshiwara police station on October 17. While the actors wife recorded her statement before a magistrate seeking defamation proceedings against the complainant, The Cine and TV Artists Association expelled Nath in the light of the allegation.
By Online Desk

Mehbooba Mufti-led People's Democratic Party (PDP), along with Congress and National Conference (NC) stakes claim to form a government in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

PDP, which has 29 MLAs, has written to Governor SP Malik claiming support of 15 MLAs of NC, 12 of Congress in the 87-member state assembly.

"You might have gathered from the media reports that the Congress and the National Conference have also decided to extend support to our party to form a government in the state. The National Conference has a strength of 15 MLAs and the Congress 12. That takes our collective strength to 56. Since I am presently in Srinagar, it would not be possible for me to call on you immediately and this is to keep you informed that we would be seeking your convenience shortly to stake the claim for forming the government in the state," Mehbooba said in her letter to the Governor.

In a tweet later, Mehbooba said that the fax machine at Raj Bhavan was not working.

"Have been trying to send this letter to Rajbhavan. Strangely the fax is not received. Tried to contact HE Governor on phone. Not available. Hope you see it @jandkgovernor (sic)," she wrote on Twitter.

"Sending the letter also by mail," she said in another tweet.

Earlier, businessman-turned-PDP leader Altaf Bukhari said in Srinagar that all the three parties have decided to form a coalition government in the valley state.

"The leaders have agreed to form an alliance. The PDP, NC, Congress at the leadership level have agreed. What are the contours of the alliance, it has not come down to MLAs? I am an MLA and I have been told only this much," Bukhari said.

Bukhari, who met National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah earlier in the day, said he did not discuss the alliance issue with the former chief minister.

"We keep on meeting. I had no talks about the alliance but generally we all meet," he said.

ALSO READ | Will NC, PDP and Congress sink differences to form next Jammu and Kashmir government?

Bukhari, who is tipped to lead the alliance if it comes to fruition, denied that he had called a meeting of PDP MLAs in connection with government formation.

Asked if he was in the running for the chief minister's post, Bukhari said, "There is no such thing. The chief minister will be from among the leaders. This issue is not about chief ministership".

"This alliance is being formed to address the Kashmir issue, the situation in Kashmir and to protect the special identity of the state that we have in the Constitution of India.

"As elected representatives, we have to respond to the aspirations of the people and the emerging situation. Article 370 and Article 35-A are under attack. This alliance is not being formed for being in power," he added.

To a query on when would the alliance be announced formally, he said, "It should be made very soon. Nothing has been planned for today in view of Eid Milad-un-Nabi celebrations".

(With Inputs from PTI)
By PTI

LONDON: Fugitive Indian businessman Vijay Mallya on Thursday faced a major setback in his battle to save his luxurious London house from foreclosure by Swiss bank UBS after the United Kingdom (UK) High Court rejected scores of the arguments presented by his legal team during the trial of the matter.

The judicature has issued an order asking Mallya to pay a hefty amount of 88,000 to UBS Investment Bank, which had issued 20.4 million in the mortgage loan for his London property.

The property was referred to in the UK High Court as a "high-class home for Dr Vijay Mallya and his family members and United Breweries Group corporate guests".

While a trial in the case has been set for May next year, the High Court on Wednesday ruled on the UBS' application to strike out parts of the defence and found substantially in favour of the bank.

"UBS is pleased with the decision. Given that proceedings are ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further," UBS said in a statement.

In his judgment following a two-day hearing last month, Judge Chief Master Marsh concluded that he can see no basis upon which the defendants should be given an opportunity to amend their defence.

"They have had an ample opportunity to explain their case in answers to UBS' request for information. The case they put forward is not curable by simple amendments," he said.

"The language of the contractual terms in this case could not be more stark. The loan was made on an uncommitted basis and repayable on demand," the judgment notes.

ALSO READ | ED resisted my efforts to repay banks, Vijay Mallya claims in PMLA court

The judge also expressed his displeasure at the way Mallya's defence team had conducted itself during the case, which meant avoidable delays for the court.

There was a breakdown in the relationship between Mallya's previous law firm, Blake Morgan LLP, "including in relation to fees", which was one of the factors flagged by the court.

"I accept that the change of solicitors put the defendants' legal team under considerable pressure. However, I am not satisfied that the defendants (Mallya) have shown a good reason for seeking an adjournment. It seems to me that the defendants are largely the authors of their current misfortune," the judgment reads.

The case relates to a mortgage taken out by Rose Capital Ventures, one of Mallya's companies, with the 62-year-old businessman, his mother Lalitha and son Sidhartha, listed as having the right of occupancy on the property.

While Mallya's team claims the bank had called in the loan ahead of an agreed period, the bank has claimed that it is within its rights to call in the mortgage for non-payment.

The application relating to the judgment this week was filed by the bank to strike out claims that any rights to remain in the property by the defendants take priority over the mortgage before a full trial in May 2019.

READ: I'm a political football, scapegoat, says Mallya as Arun Jaitley rubbishes claims of meeting him

Meanwhile, Mallya remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed by Scotland Yard last year on fraud and money laundering charges brought by the Indian government, amounting to nearly Rs 9,000 crore.

A ruling in his extradition case is expected at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London next month.

The extradition trial, which opened at the London court on December 4 last year, is aimed at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya and establishing there are no bars to him being extradited to face Indian courts over the allegations relating to loans made out to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

In separate legal proceedings, the businessman had also lost his appeal in the UK's Court of Appeal against a High Court order in favour of 13 Indian banks to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds.

The High Court order, earlier this year, in favour of the State Bank of India (SBI) led consortium had reinforced a worldwide freezing order against Mallya's assets.
Dancers of Ballet Philippines perform in Beijing. The group visited Beijing and Shanghai this year, a return visit to the Philippine by the National Ballet of China two years ago. Photo by Xinhua News Agency

China and the Philippines have enjoyed sound development of cultural exchanges in recent years.

At the 39th Manila International Book Fair held this September, booths of Chinese books made their debut. Among them, the first and second volumes of Chinese President Xi Jinpings book "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" attracted a number of Philippine readers at the fair.

In addition, Chinese book corners have been established in many public libraries such as the National Library of the Philippines. They bring great satisfaction to Chinese-language learners in the country and opened a window for Philippine readers to know more about China.

China-Philippines education cooperation also made new progress. Chinese has been officially introduced as a foreign language to the curriculum system of Philippine public middle schools by the countrys Department of Education.

At present, 82 public middle schools in the Philippines offer Chinese-language courses, and China has trained 304 Chinese-language teachers for the Philippines, according to Zhang Shifang, chief of the Chinese Language Program of the Philippine Department of Education.

This year, 11,000 students from Philippine public middle schools have taken part in the Chinese Proficiency Test, China's only standardized test of Chinese language proficiency for non-native speakers, Zhang noted.

Chinese language teaching shows a vital momentum in Philippine mainstream society, and the Philippine Department of Education is looking forward to enhancing cooperation with Chinas Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) in the training of local Chinese language teachers, Zhang said.

Tourism cooperation has become a highlight after China and the Philippines embraced the turnabout of bilateral ties. In the first 7 months of 2018, 760,000 Chinese tourists visited the Philippines, up 40 percent from a year ago. The whole-year figure is expected to hit 1.5 million.

People-to-people exchanges between China and the Philippines have withstood the tests of disasters. China always lends a helping hand immediately after natural disasters occur in the Philippines.

The country actively assisted the infrastructure reconstruction of Marawi and promoted water system project in the Philippines rural region, supporting the Philippines to improve livelihood, reduce poverty and realize sustainable development with practical action.

Philippines-China relations are at best in recent years, said Sixto Benedictovice chairman of Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU). It is believed that through expansion of openness and communication, China and the Philippines can continue to enhance mutual understanding and trust, and consolidate public opinion basis, so as to become reliable cooperation partners for each other, he noted.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Accusing Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of working like Adil Shah and Aurangzeb, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Tuesday vowed to spearhead an Ayodhya-like agitation across the country to protect the traditions of the Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala.

The VHP also rued the Supreme Court was resorting to delaying the hearing and delivering judgment on petitions concerning the Hindu faith, while lamenting 13 review petitions are pending before the apex court on the Sabarimala issue.

By crushing the Hindu Astha (faith) and traditions, the Chief Minister is trying to turn Kerala into a Hindu-free state like Kashmir. On the Sabarimala issue, his behaviour has become like that of a ruthless dictator.

He has been repeatedly torturing Hindus under the pretext of implementing the Supreme Court decision. In the name of preserving the rights of women, he is abusing the women very cruelly, said Surendra Jain, joint general secretary of VHP.

The VHP leader stated his organisation is actively taking part, besides extending support to groups who have filed review petitions in the Supreme Court, in the ongoing agitation against the Kerala government enforcing the apex court verdict to allow entry of women of all ages to the Ayyappa temple.

The VHP asked why Section 144 is being imposed around the temple. Was there any possibility of any kind of riot breaking out there? Surendra Jain asked.

Special Commissioner seeks directive to cops: Provide pilgrims access to mahakanikka

KOCHI: Pointing out denial of devotees rights, the Special Commissioner in his report filed before the Kerala High Court sought a directive to the state police to provide pilgrims access to mahakanikka at Sannidhanam. The mahakanikka, located on the right side of the sacred steps of Sabarimala, has been cordoned off by the police citing security reasons. Hence, devotees are unable to offer mahakanikka, which is an important ritual of the pilgrimage. According to the Commissioner, the police have maintained valiyanadapandal and lower thirumuttam as separate zones following protests and vigilantism at these places when the temple was opened after the Supreme Court issued its verdict.
By PTI

AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Wednesday accused the BJP-led NDA government of converting the Central Bureau of Investigation into a "collection bureau" and damaging the independence of the Reserve Bank of India.

The state government had recently withdrawn the "general consent" accorded to the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct raids and carry out investigations in the state.

"An official of the CBI himself revealed the Prime Ministers Office's interference in the agency's functioning.

The official filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on the interference of (National Security Adviser) Ajit Doval and the Union Law secretary," the CM said, referring to CBI DIG Manish Kumar Sinha's petition in the apex court levelling allegations against various top functionaries in the Alok Verma case.

A Telugu Desam Party release said Naidu made these remarks during a teleconference with party leaders Wednesday.

Hitting out at the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, the TDP supremo accused it of converting the CBI into a 'collection bureau' and damaging the independence of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

"Rafale is the country's biggest defence scandal. The BJP is pushing the country's security into peril. There is not one great programme that the Modi government has initiated in the 54 months of its rule," he said.

He alleged that the Centre failed in controlling prices of petrol and diesel while the value of rupee depreciated tremendously.

"All this has left the country's economy in shambles while common people are forced to bear undue (financial) burden, leading to a decline in their purchasing capacity," Naidu said.

Naidu, who is striving to bring the opposition parties on a single platform to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, asked the TDP rank and file not to claim that he would become the prime minister.

"I have made AP number one in every aspect. My capabilities should be useful for the state only as I want it to become number one in the world," he said.

The state government withdrew the "general consent" accorded to the CBI to conduct raids and carry out investigations in the state due to the recent allegations against the top officials of the country's premier investigation agency, state Deputy Chief Minister (Home) N China Rajappa recently said.

BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao had alleged that the Chandrababu Naidu government's decision was a "clear malafide exercise of power" to ensure that its "corruption" was not exposed.
Shreyas H S By

Express News Service

RAICHUR: As many as 19 farmers have committed suicide in Raichur so far this fiscal. All of them belonged to the SC/ST or OBC communities. According to data provided by the district agriculture department, till November 19 this year, the number of recorded suicides was 19. One case of suicide in Devadurga taluk is yet to be confirmed by the department.

The number of suicides last financial year was 35. This year, the highest number was recorded in Sindhanur, which has the highest irrigated area. Sindhanur taluk has witnessed nine deaths so far.The Joint Director of agriculture department, Chetana Patil, said that Sindhanur also has dry land. We cant say that farmers of irrigated land committed suicide. There is a lot of dry land in this taluk as well, she said.

In Manvi, five farmers ended their lives, while three farmers in Lingasugur took the extreme step. Raichur and Devadurga taluks witnessed one suicide each. According to data, seven farmers among the 19 were from the SC, two from ST and 10 from OBC families. The state government has paid compensation to the families of 10 deceased farmers. While three cases were rejected, six are pending for redressal.

The farmers here have been in dire condition since the region received less than 50 per cent of normal rainfall this monsoon. The adverse conditions led to crop loss in around 1.25 lakh hectares, following which the state government has sought Rs 90 crore as compensation for the district from the central government.

In the rabi season, farmers one again hoped for rain. In the wake of deficient rainfall, the agriculture department is now predicting crop loss to the tune of 1.63 hectares. In a bid to prepare themselves for the difficult times ahead, the farmers are turning towards the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). Over 70,000 farmers enrolled in the scheme this kharif season, and they have started registering themselves for the rabi season too.
Bechu S By

Online Desk

History could be made by Chandramukhi Muvvala who is contesting the upcoming Telangana assembly election from Goshamahal constituency as a Bahujan Left Front (BLF) candidate. If she wins, the artist-turned-activist will become the first transgender MLA in the state.

It is a David vs Goliath scenario for the 32-year-old gender rights campaigner as she takes on BJP heavyweight and sitting MLA T Raja Singh on her electoral debut. The Congress-led Grand Alliance too has fielded a strong candidate in veteran leader and former minister Mukesh Goud.

Explaining her entry into politics, Chandramukhi said though many political parties have been elected to power, the transgender community remains ignored and unrepresented.

"Politicians don't care much about transgenders. If they are not willing to represent us, then we have to stand up for ourselves," said Chandramukhi.

READ | BJP strongman Raja Singh got richer by 14,107 per cent in four years

Though she is a fresh face in parliamentary politics, she is not new to the socio-cultural issues of Telangana. Chandramukhi's life has been hardened by agitations, activities and other services for the cause of women, children and sexual minorities.

Why Goshamahal?

Goshamahal constituency has not been a random choice for Chandramukhi. The TV artist said there are many reasons why she decided to contest from the constituency.

"Goshamahal is a region where the trans community has been living for so many years. The women voters of the constituency are close to us and know about the hardships that we face in our everyday lives," she said.

"The constituency also has a strong presence of the Marwari community which has always been respectful towards trans people. The two communities share a very strong bonding, further increasing my chances at Goshamahal," added a confident Chandramukhi.

READ | BJP candidate Raja Singh has 43 criminal cases pending against him

She had no property to declare in the affidavit to the election commission. Her only material asset is a bank balance of Rs 48,000 and she plans to limit all her election expenses to a small sum. Also, she will carry out her campaign by foot.

"My identity is my strategy"

Backed by the CPI-M, AAP and multiple Ambedkarite parties, Chandramukhi says her poll strategy is straight and simple. "I am a transwoman and that is my strategy. When I go to people, won't they think why a transwoman has been chosen unlike in the previous years?" she asks.

Not just gender politics

Though she means to make the voice of her marginalised community heard, Chandramukhi says her agenda doesn't end there. She is very much aware of the civic issues faced by the constituency and is determined to bring a change. She said her primary focus will be on eradication of child labour and establishing proper drainage connections, which she says are the two long-standing problems concerning Goshamahal.

READ | Telangana polls: Political parties ignore women in seat allocation

"I vow to improve the drainage, road connectivity and solid waste management in the constituency. People still live in slums and child labour is on the rise. As an MLA, I will fight to improve the situation."

Refusing to comment on the sitting MLA or any other candidates, Chandramukhi added that she isn't planning to make name-calling a part of her campaign. Though she had earlier expressed her displeasure with the Congress, TRS, and TDP, Chandramukhi said she isn't interested in making any comments on her rival candidates.

The BLF was formed as an alternative to the major parties of Telangana. The joint front of 28 political parties was officially formed in Hyderabad on January 25 in a public meeting attended by Prakash Ambedkar and Sitaram Yechury among many other prominent figures. The BLF is contesting all 119 seats in Telangana.


By PTI

BEIJING: China on Wednesday presented an upbeat picture of Sino-India ties ahead of this week's border talks, saying the relations maintained "sound momentum" as the two countries "properly managed" differences through dialogue and consultations.

The 21st round of India-China border talks between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be held at the picturesque Dujiangyan near southwest China's Chengdu city from November 23 to 24.

Announcing the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: "under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have maintained sound momentum of growth".

With ever-deepening cooperation in all areas, the two sides have maintained close communication and coordination in all border-related affairs.

"We have properly managed the differences through dialogue and consultation. The border areas on the whole maintained stability," he said, answering a question on how China viewed the progress made during the 20th rounds of talks.

Both Doval and Wang are designated Special Representatives for the border talks.

This will be the first round of talks for Wang who earlier this year succeeded State Councillor Yang Jiechi in a reshuffle.

Special Representatives' talks are regarded as highly significant by both the countries as they cover all aspects of bilateral relations besides making efforts to resolve the border dispute.

The India-China border dispute covered the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC). China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of its southern Tibet.

Officials maintain that this round of talks may focus more on reviewing the progress of dialogue being held on trade and maintenance of peace at borders than movement towards solution to the dispute as India headed for general elections early next year.

Elaborating further on China's view on the border talks, Geng said the two sides attached great importance to it.

The two special representatives will have in-depth exchange of view on border-related issues.

They will follow the guidance of the consensus reached by the two leaders bearing in mind the general picture of the bilateral ties and benefits of the two peoples on the basis of the outcomes that have been achieved to actively promote the negations.

"At the same time, we properly manage differences, peace and tranquillity at the border areas. The two sides will also exchange views on major issue of bilateral ties and the regional and international issue of mutual interest," he said.

Officials on both sides maintain that though a solution to the border dispute still eludes the two countries, a lot of headway has been made in the 20 rounds of talks in terms of working out mechanisms to restore peace and tranquillity along the border to resolve tensions out of the aggressive patrolling by troops.

The last round which was held in New Delhi between Doval and Yang took place in the immediate backdrop of 73-day standoff between the two militaries at Doklam over Chinese military's plan to build a road close to India's strategic Chicken Neck corridor connecting the northeastern states.

It ended after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) halted the plans to build the road.

The Doval-Yang meeting in New Delhi in December last year also prepared the ground for the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in April, which resulted in not only normalisation of relations but gave a new fillip to the improvement of relations in all spheres of the relations notwithstanding the border dispute.

Since then, both the countries have held several rounds of talks to enhance India's exports rice, sugar as well as pharmaceuticals to China to reduce the USD 51 billion trade deficit as well as improving military-to-military relations.

Ahead of the border talks, top defence officials of India and China held the 9th India-China Annual Defence and Security Dialogue here on November 13 after a one year gap due to the Doklam standoff.

At the talks, both the sides agreed on enhancing defence exchanges and interactions at different levels between the two militaries.
By PTI

JUBA: Five hundred cows, two luxury cars, USD 10,000, two bikes, a boat and a few cell phones made up the final price in a heated bidding war for a child bride in South Sudan that went viral after the auction was pointed out on Facebook.

It is the largest dowry ever paid in the civil war-torn country, the government said.

The highest bidder was a man three times the 17-year-old's age.

At least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed, said Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month.

Among the bidders was the state's deputy governor.

"She has been reduced to a mere commodity," Ngong told The Associated Press, calling it "the biggest test of child abuse, trafficking and auctioning of a human being."

Everyone involved should be held accountable, he said. Earlier this month, Nyalong became the man's ninth wife.

Photos posted on Facebook show her sitting beside the groom, wearing a lavish dress and staring despondently at the floor.

The AP is using only her first name to protect her identity.

ALSO READ | Activists to ask government to declare Nov 1 as Anti-Child Marriage Day

The groom did not respond to requests for comment.

South Sudan has a deeply rooted cultural practice of paying dowries for brides, usually in the form of cows.

It also has a long history of child marriage.

Even though that practice is now illegal, 40 per cent of girls still marry before age 18, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

The practice "threatens girls' lives" and limits prospects for their future, said Dr.Mary Otieno, the agency's country representative.

The bidding war has caused local and international outrage.

It took several days for Facebook to remove the post that first pointed out the auction, and after it was taken down other posts "glorifying" the situation remained, George Otim, country director for Plan International South Sudan, told the AP.

"This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets. That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world's biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief," he said.

The auction was discussed, not carried out, on the site.

Facebook did not reply to a request for comment.

While South Sudan's government condemns the practice of child marriage it says it can't regulate communities' cultural norms, especially in remote areas.

"You can't call it bidding as if it was an auction. It's not bidding. If you see it with European eyes you'll call it an auction," government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told the AP.

"You have to see it with an African eye, as it's a tradition that goes back thousands of years. There's no word for it in English."

Some local lawmakers and activists disagree.

In a statement released this week, the National Alliance for Women Lawyers in South Sudan called upon officials to comply with the government's plan to end child marriage by 2030.

Ending the practice includes putting a stop to the auctioning of girls.

South Sudan's anti-human trafficking chief called the case reminiscent of others he has seen across the country, in which girls are forced or tricked into marriage after being told they are going to live with relatives and go to school instead.

"It is clear that some human trafficking practices are hidden in our culture," John Mading said.

In other cases, some girls who grow up in the South Sudanese diaspora are brought back to the country and forced to marry.

The AP spoke with several people who know girls who arrived for what they thought was a vacation, only to have their passports taken away and forced into marriage by their families.

"Some families want children to marry in their countries and in their ethnic communities, but most do it if the kids are misbehaving," said Esther Ikere Eluzai, undersecretary for South Sudan's ministry of gender.
NEW YORK: An Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund sued Goldman Sachs on Wednesday for allegedly conspiring against the Middle Eastern fund to further a criminal scheme by Malaysia's scandal-plagued 1MDB.

The suit, filed in a New York court on behalf of Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Company, names Goldman Sachs as well as former Goldman officials who were charged by the US Justice Department in indictments unsealed earlier this month.

"This action seeks redress for a massive global conspiracy on the part of the defendants to defraud and injure plaintiffs," said the lawsuit, which also named former executives from IPIC and its subsidiary Aabar Investments.

"As part of the scheme, Goldman Sachs conspired with others to bribe IPIC's and Aabar's former executives...to join the conspiracy and act against the interests of IPIC and Aabar."

Goldman Sachs said it would fight the lawsuit.

ALSO READ | Goldman Sachs appoints Prachi Mishra as chief India economist

"We are in the process of assessing the details of allegations and fully expect to contest the claim vigorously," a Goldman Sachs spokesman said in an emailed response.

Goldman Sachs has been under scrutiny since the Justice Department on November 1 unveiled indictments against two former Goldman Sachs executives who were charged as key players in the scandal surrounding the scandal-plagued Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.

One of the former Goldman officials, Tim Leissner, pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $43.7 million in restitution of ill-gotten gains.

In a November 2 securities filing, Goldman Sachs noted the criminal documents released by the Justice Department alleged "the firm's system of internal accounting controls could be easily circumvented and that the firms business culture, particularly in Southeast Asia, at times prioritized consummation of deals ahead of the proper operation of its compliance functions."

Goldman Sachs said it was cooperating with federal prosecutors and other authorities, adding that it was "unable to predict the outcome" of the probe but that a resolution could result in "significant fines, penalties and other sanctions against the firm."
By PTI

HANOI: India and Vietnam have decided to step up defence cooperation and oil exploration to boost their bilateral ties as they reaffirmed the importance of freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, amid China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region.

The two countries, during the state visit of President Ram Nath Kovind to Vietnam, shared the view that defence and security cooperation has become an important pillar of the comprehensive strategic partnership, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

READ|Avail new opportunities to connect and grow with India: Ram Nath Kovind to Indian diaspora

They welcomed the sustained mutual visits by each other's naval/coast guard vessels, particularly in 2018 and in the years to come.

Kovind and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong agreed to effectively implement the Joint Vision Statement on Vietnam-India Defence Cooperation for the period of 2015-2020.

They agreed to step up cooperation in human resources training, and promote collaboration between the Army, Air Force, Naval and Coast Guard of the two countries, as well as cooperation in cyber security and information sharing, the joint statement said.

Vietnam appreciated India's offer of the USD 500 million line of credit to defence industry.

The two sides agreed to step up experience sharing in the training of personnel for participation in the UN peace-keeping operations and cooperation in addressing war legacies in Vietnam, and to strengthen criminal information exchange and law enforcement experience sharing.

They agreed to actively support each other and step up coordination at multilateral defence and security cooperation frameworks, the statement said.

In the spirit of the proposal for an ASEAN-India Strategic Dialogue on maritime cooperation made at the commemorative summit held in New Delhi in January, they agreed to hold the first Maritime Security Dialogue on issues related to maritime domain and further encouraged port calls of each other's naval and coast guard ships, it said.

India and Vietnam also agreed to continue promoting bilateral investment, including cooperation projects between Vietnam Oil and Gas Group PVN and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in oil and gas exploration on land, continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Vietnam.

The two leaders encouraged the two sides to be more active in identifying models for cooperation, including those involving third country.

The Vietnamese side welcomed and agreed to create facilitating conditions for Indian companies to invest into new thermal energy and renewable energy projects in Vietnam, the statement said.

India and Vietnam exchanged views over the current developments in the South China Sea, and reiterated the importance of the maintenance of peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation and over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, it said.

China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea and has also laid claims on the Senkaku islands under the control of Japan in the East China Sea.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the South China Sea.

The US is periodically deploying its naval ships and fighter planes to assert freedom of navigation.

India and Vietnam stressed the necessity of full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea as well as the early conclusion of a substantive, effective and binding Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the statement said.

They emphasised the importance of peaceful settlement of disputes, including the full respect for diplomatic and legal processes, and complete compliance with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS), the statement said.

The two sides reiterated that the parties concerned should continue exercising self-restraint and refrain from the use of force or threat to use force, it said.

India and Vietnam unequivocally condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism, the statement said, adding that Vietnam shared India's concern that terrorism is one of the most serious threats to global peace, security and stability.

They underscored that there is no justification whatsoever for act of terrorism and recognised that terrorism cannot be and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic groups, it said.

They called upon all nations to adopt a comprehensive approach in combating terrorism, blocking sources of financing terrorism, dismantling terrorist bases, safe havens and countering misuse of the internet, including social media and other communication techniques, the statement said.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate in building a strong consensus for early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), it added.

India proposed a draft document in 1996 on the CCIT at the UN but so far, UN member states have not forged a consensus on a common language.
By AFP

DUBAI: Interpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations.

The US-backed Kim, acting president of the global police body, was picked at a meeting of delegates from member nations in Dubai to replace Meng Hongwei, who went missing in his native China in September.

Beijing later said Meng resigned after being charged with accepting bribes.

READ| Former Interpol-chief's wife not sure if husband is alive; fears her own safety

There had been growing calls within Western nations for Interpol to reject Russian candidate Alexander Prokopchuk -- a Russian interior ministry official and current Interpol vice president -- over fears Moscow could abuse the role to target political opponents.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw his weight behind Kim, who will serve out Meng's term until 2020.

"We encourage all nations and organisations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity.

We believe Mr Kim will be just that," Pompeo told reporters.

Critics have raised concerns over Russia's previous applications for Interpol "Red Notices", or international arrest warrants, to target those who have fallen foul of the Kremlin.

Interpol's president chairs its General Assembly while day-to-day operations are handled by the organisation's Secretary general Juergen Stock.

In an open letter this week, a bipartisan group of US senators said choosing Prokopchuk would be like "putting a fox in charge of a henhouse".

"Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists," they wrote.

Harriett Baldwin, a minister of state at the British foreign office, told parliament on Tuesday that London would support Kim's bid.

Anti-Kremlin figures had also raised concerns, including Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has been repeatedly jailed by authorities.

"Our team has suffered from abuse of Interpol for political persecution by Russia," Navalny wrote on Twitter.

"I don't think that a president from Russia will help to reduce such violations. US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis echoed the endorsement for Kim. As recent events show, the Russian government abuses INTERPOL's processes to harass its political opponents," he said on Twitter.

The controversy also comes amid security concerns over accusations of Russian agents attempting to poison an ex-spy in Britain and trying to hack the network of the global chemical weapons watchdog.

Ukraine, deeply at odds with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists, threatened to pull out of Interpol if Prokopchuk prevailed.

Lithuania also said it would consider withdrawing from the network.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the US senators' letter as a "vivid example" of an attempt to interfere in the vote. Moscow's interior ministry denounced a "foreign media campaign aimed at discrediting Russia's candidate".

But two foes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have been targeted by international arrest warrants sought by Moscow, also said Tuesday they were launching a bid to get Russia suspended from Interpol for abusing the agency.

The legal challenge was announced by financier Bill Browder, named in multiple Interpol warrants, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- a former oil baron who spent 10 years in a Russian jail and now lives in exile in London.

"The Interpol constitution has very specific rules which forbid countries who are serial abusers from using the system," Browder told reporters.

Briefly arrested in Spain this year under a Moscow-issued Red Notice, Browder said the Russian candidacy was an attempt by Putin to "expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe".

He fought for -- and in 2012 secured -- US sanctions against Russian officials believed to be involved in the death of his tax consultant, Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of a USD 230-million tax fraud.

Russia has rejected the claims and this week announced it was opening a new probe into Browder on suspicion of running a "transnational criminal gang", even suggesting he was behind Magnitsky's death.

Russian prosecutors said he would be put on an international wanted list "in the near future".

Multilingual Prokopchuk worked in tax enforcement before starting as a Russian representative at Interpol in 2006, according to the interior ministry.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. will not punish Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at this time nor cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the killing of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump called the killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a "horrible crime" that the U.S. does not condone, but said Saudi Arabia is a "great ally" and cancelling billions in arms sales would only benefit China and Russia, which would be glad to step in and make the sales.

Trump's decision, announced in a statement released just before he left for the long Thanksgiving weekend in Florida, will disappoint and anger critics who have called for a much firmer rebuke to the kingdom and especially bin Salman.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that bin Salman, the kingdom's de factor leader, ordered the Oct. 2 killing, according to a U.S. official familiar with the assessment. Others familiar with the case caution that while it's likely that the crown prince had a role in the death there continue to be questions about the degree to which he was involved.

ALSO READ | Have been briefed on Khashoggi tapes but advised not to listen it: Donald Trump

The U.S. earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions.

Trump said Tuesday in his statement that the king of Saudi Arabia and the crown prince "vigorously deny" any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Khashoggi.

"Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said.

"That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."

He said the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of the United States. "America First!" he wrote.

Trump said he knows some members of Congress will disagree with his decision. He said he would listen to their ideas, but only if they are focused on U.S. national security.

Late last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that calls for suspending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia; sanctions on people who block humanitarian access in Yemen or support the Houthi rebels, and mandatory sanctions on those responsible for Khashoggi's death.

ALSO READ | No 'final conclusion' on Jamal Khashoggi murder: US

France's top diplomat said Monday that his country was mulling sanctions against Saudi Arabia. And Germany on Monday announced that it has banned 18 Saudi nationals from entering Europe's border-free Schengen zone because of their suspected connections to the killing. German officials, who earlier banned new weapons exports to Riyadh, also said they were halting previously approved arms exports.

Some foreign policy experts have not only recommended tougher punitive measures against Saudi Arabia, but have advocated for a complete reset on relations with Riyadh.

Emile Nakhleh, a former member of CIA's senior intelligence service, said that since the crown prince assumed power three years ago, he has turned his country into a "strongman autocracy" that can't be trusted.

"His ruthless power grab, repression of potential challengers within his family, and crackdown on all opposition to his policies and projects inside and outside of Saudi Arabia have put American-Saudi relations at risk," Nakhleh wrote in an op-ed article Monday in the online intelligence newsletter The Cipher Brief. "He feels empowered to crush his potential rivals within the ruling family by his close relationship to President Trump and Jared Kushner."

Kushner, the president's son-in-law, has worked with the crown prince on various issues, including on how to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping (fifth from left) and other participants pose for a "family photo" during the 2018 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on Sunday. Photo: Xinhua

Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies on Sunday to bring their cooperation to a higher level based on a keen appreciation of the trend of the world and its economy.

Experts said Asia-Pacific countries and regions are expecting to see a wider scope of cooperation through opportunities provided by the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative (BRI).

Underlining the trend of economic globalization and economic integration in the region, Xi urged the economies to keep the momentum of Asia-Pacific cooperation in a speech he delivered at the 26th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting held in Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Sunday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Chinese president said that the economies need to advance economic integration in the region so as to build an open economy in the Asia-Pacific.

"We should continue to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation," Xi said.

Xi urged APEC members to improve their network of connectivity to promote inclusive and interconnected development, and to forge a closer partnership and jointly meet common challenges, according to the Xinhua report.

Su Ge, chairman of the Beijing-based China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times at the summit that "economies around the globe are highly integrated, interdependent and share common interest."

Su said development is the common pursuit of each country instead of a game that some win while others lose.

Economic globalization will maintain momentum in the future, Su noted.

The Chinese government has shown its resolute determination at home and abroad to strengthening its opening-up, which will help drive the country to further improve its business environment and enhance trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, said Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

South Pacific countries are small that need cooperation with others to advance economic growth, Bai told the Global Times on Sunday.

"Ties between countries in the region need to upgrade to a new level and the BRI can offer such a platform," he said, noting that Asia-Pacific countries and regions can cooperate in a wider scope than ever before through the BRI.

No debt trap

APEC is at a critical stage of development and all parties should demonstrate a responsible and constructive attitude, bearing in mind the original intention of APEC and grasping the direction of Asia-Pacific development, Hua Chunying, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement released on Sunday.

Hua's comment came after US Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday during a speech at the APEC CEO summit that China creates debt burdens for Pacific island countries.

"No country either in the Asia-Pacific region or in any other region is falling into a debt trap because of its cooperation with China," Wang Xiaolong, an official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a media briefing in Port Moresby on Sunday.

When asked by a foreign reporter if China's aid in the region may improve its influence and change the current order of the area, Wang said that China is a developing country helping fellow developing countries, "in this region on infrastructure development, enhancing industry capacity, and improving the general welfare of local people."

"We never touch political areas," Wang said.

Clifford Faiparik, a reporter with PNG's local newspaper The National, told the Global Times on Sunday that "we really appreciate China's aid to us because we definitely need the funding to help us improve our social living standard, in education and health."

China is helping fund infrastructure, which PNG lacks and the assistance is very timely, Faiparik noted.

"When we have good infrastructure, we have economic activities," he said. "We have good products in remote areas, such as coffee and fruits but now we do not have roads for access to market. But the BRI can help with that by supporting local infrastructure construction."

"We local people do appreciate it," he said.

"To deal with international issues, we must follow the rules created in common and differences should be resolved through talks," Hua said in the statement released on Sunday, noting that countries should not set up artificial barriers.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Mobile phone services were shut down in Pakistan's major cities on Wednesday as the authorities beefed up security to prevent terror attacks during the Eid Milad-un Nabi celebrations, in the wake of a suicide attack in neighbouring Afghanistan that killed over 50 people, mostly clerics.

Officials said the security was tightened to avert any tragedy on the occasion of the Eid Milad-un Nabi, marking the birth anniversary of the Prophet.

However, internet services were available but faced periodic glitches. Terrorists usually use mobile phones to detonate explosive devices.

Eid Milad-un Nabi is celebrated in Pakistan with special religious fervour. The day dawned with 31 gun salutes in Islamabad and 21 salutes at all provincial capitals.

Special prayers were held in the mosques in the early morning. Processions, religious songs, speeches and distribution of free food are the main features of the day.

However, common people are facing trouble due to closure of mobile phone services which is done to stop its misuse by militants. The suicide attack in Kabul killed more than 50 people on Tuesday.

Congratulating the nation on the occasion, President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan in their separate messages called for truly following the teachings of the Prophet to realise the objective of establishing an Islamic welfare state.

"We should give preference to collective national and religious interests and bring positive change in our deeds and actions to transform the country in accordance with the State of Madina," said Alvi.

Khan in his message said the nation should make firm pledge that it will follow the life of the Prophet in true spirit while rising above any petty interests.

"We should refrain from steps which distort the image of Islam in the world," the prime minister added.
By AFP

WELLINGTON: A decision by New Zealand's largest gay pride parade to ban police officers in uniform from marching at the event has seen sponsors and participants withdraw in protest.

While uniformed police have taken part in previous years, Auckland Pride organisers said they were not welcome at the next parade in February 2019 because some members of the gay community felt unsafe around them.

The decision, announced this week, has sparked heated debate, with New Zealand Defence Force members withdrawing from the march in support of their police colleagues.

Corporate sponsors have also dumped the event, with Westpac bank, Vodafone and the Bank of New Zealand among the companies distancing themselves from the anti-police stance.

"It's simply the right thing to do to stand with the police in this instance, as we would with any excluded group, and insist on inclusion for all," Vodafone New Zealand said in a statement.

The decision has also caused deep divisions within the gay community, drawing condemnation from the Rainbow New Zealand Charitable Trust.

"(It) appears to be driven by a small and vociferous minority in the community, and is contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the rainbow community," the trust said in a statement announcing it was withdrawing sponsorship.

New Zealand legalised gay marriage in 2013 and last year moved to quash historical convictions against homosexuals for engaging in gay sex.

Even British actor Rupert Everett, a long-time gay rights advocate, weighed into the police debate, saying "we can't just pretend" gay police officers don't exist.

"It feels to me that not making them wear their uniforms, is in denial," he told the stuff.co.nz news website.

"There's so much violence towards us brewing up in places that we need to be friends with police as much as we can."

The Auckland Pride Board would not back down, saying it was committed "to creating a space for our rainbow communities to feel safe celebrating their gender and sexual identity".

"If members from our community are highlighting concerns around discrimination by those institutions, we expect them to work to address them," chairwoman Cissy Rock said.

"That may include making compromises regarding their participation at the Pride parade."

The Pride board will reportedly face a vote of no confidence in early December.
By PTI

UNITED NATIONS: Voicing concern over inadequate resources available for implementing peacekeeping mandates, India has warned that asking peacekeepers to "do more with less" is a strategy that is "setting us all up for a tragedy".

A day after an Indian peacekeeper deployed with the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) was wounded in an attack, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin highlighted during a Security Council debate that peacekeeping missions in Africa are operating in vast environments.

READ| India concerned over proposed changes to formula for dividing UN peacekeeping bill

Drawing the attention of the Council to what MONUSCO peacekeepers are facing while deployed in sensitive areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Akbaruddin said the central sector of the country constitutes more than 500,000 sq kms of a total area of 2.34 million sq kms, with more than 11 million people of a total population of 81.5 million.

For this vast area, four battalions of UN peacekeeping operations, totalling only about 3,000-odd troops, are responsible for the area of operations. This comes to one soldier per 158 sq km, he said.

"If in such a scenario, we task the troops deployed to enforce protection of civilians, without even providing enabling air assets for rapid reinforcement operations, it is obvious that the size and scale of UN deployment are insufficient for the tasks entrusted.

The strategy of peacekeepers, needing to do more with less, is setting us all up for a tragedy," he said Tuesday at the debate on 'Strengthening Peacekeeping Operations in Africa'.

According to the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO), a member of the Indian Formed Police Unit was "lightly wounded" in an attack launched Friday evening by suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) elements in the area of Boikene, close to Beni in North Kivu Province.

In the attack, a civilian was reportedly wounded, and two homes and a civilian vehicle were destroyed.

The injured peacekeeper was a Border Security Force personnel and is "out of danger".

Peacekeepers from Tanzania and Malawi were killed last week while serving the peacekeeping in MONUSCO.

Akbaruddin further said that given the multi-dimensional peacekeeping mandates, the UN needs to resist the temptation of adding disproportionate mandate components and aim at prioritisation of mandates.

This would help in judicious allocation of meagre resources available for implementing the mandates, he said.

Predictable and sustainable financing is also a pre-requisite for all peacekeeping operations to succeed, he said adding that India supports the UN secretary-general's recommendation that African peacekeeping operations, authorised by the Security Council, should be considered for assessed contribution.

He also pointed out that troop-contributing countries are working out arrangements for deployment with the most number of caveats when deploying in Africa.

"This results in unfair work distribution among various troops on the ground and thereby affecting the missions' performance.

It is time we do away with such practices," he said.

With Africa collectively contributing the largest number of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, Akbaruddin said it is time to look at how UN member states can support this through mechanisms of soft coordination.

He added that India's partnership with Africa is based on building instruments of empowerment that would enable Africa to find solutions to its problems.

"We urge that the UN also look at longer-term efforts for expanding African capacities and enhancing collective cooperation.

India is ready to walk along this path of political and diplomatic engagement of partnering African states and entities, in line with their own articulation of needs and requirements of a continent in the throes of change," he said.
By PTI

PESHAWAR: Three children were killed when an old mortar shell they were playing with exploded in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region on Wednesday, police said.

The incident occurred in Matta Tehsil of Swat valley - once the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban militants.

The children were playing with the mortar shell in a field, unaware of it being a bomb, when it went off injuring five of them, police said.

While three of the injured succumbed to their injuries in a hospital, two others are receiving treatment, police added.

The police said they have launched an investigation after collecting evidence from the site of the blast.
By UNI

KABUL: Afghan authorities are working to identify those responsible for a suicide bombing that killed at least 55 people and wounded scores more who were attending a religious gathering in Kabul.

The victims included religious scholars from all over Afghanistan, invited by the Ulema Council to celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad on November 20.

"As of now we don't know which militant organization could be behind the attack. Investigations are at a preliminary stage," a senior investigator who was at the site said on November 21.

READ| Afghan peace: Khalilzad hopes for peace deal with Taliban before April 2019

The Ulema Council, the country's largest religious organization, brought together scholars from the Sunni sect. Though Sunni themselves, Taliban and Islamic State fighters have targeted religious scholars aligned with the Afghan government in the past.

But the Taliban quickly denied any involvement, and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said late on November 20 that his group condemned any attack on civilians or religious clerics, rfe/rl reported.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared a national day of mourning on November 21.

The US ambassador to Kabul, John Bass, tweeted that he was "sickened and saddened by tonight's terror attack". The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it was "outraged by Kabul bombing when communities across Afghanistan are marking day of special religious significance.

" Last week, Taliban leaders met US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at their political headquarters in Qatar in an effort to pave the way for peace talks. The three-day meeting was the second in the past month.

Khalilzad has declared a deadline of April 20 -- when Afghanistan's presidential election falls due -- to end the war, but the country's security situation has worsened since NATO formally ended combat operations in 2014.
Reporter

Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
Workers at a construction site of China Railway Construction Corporation in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, more and more Chinese businesses and investments have entered Papua New Guinea, helping it with its infrastructure development, boosting local economy and providing employment opportunities. (Photo: Liu Qing/People's Daily Online)

China will host the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in April 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping disclosed in the keynote speech delivered at the 26th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on Nov. 17. This message has been warmly responded by the world.

Over the past five years, more than 140 countries and international organizations have signed cooperative agreements with China on the Belt and Road Initiative. The Belt and Road construction, as well as the principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits have been included in the outcome documents of the UN and other major international mechanisms.

Chinas trade with Belt and Road countries has exceeded $5 trillion and outward direct investment has amounted to over 60 billion dollars, creating over 200,000 local jobs. Chinas overseas investment has become an important engine driving the growth of global foreign direct investment.

Making ideas into actions and vision into reality, the Belt and Road construction has achieved fruitful results. It presented a bright path where China shares opportunities with the world for common development.

Scholars have good reason to believe that the Belt and Road has been creating a super large global market.

On one hand, China, with a population of nearly 1.4 billion, has a huge domestic market and has become a major driver of global economic growth and a primary source of dynamism.

Over the past four decades of reform and opening up, China has pursued development with open doors, becoming the worlds largest trader of goods, the largest tourism market and a major trading partner of more than 130 countries. The country has proven its resolution to support free trade and open its market to the world by concrete actions.

On the other hand, the Belt and Road is leading a new balance of the global market, continuously stimulating new demands, and realizing the rebalance of global economy. The co-construction of the Belt and Road is of great importance and has also played a key role in developing new economic growth points, increasing internal dynamism and boosting global economic growth.

The Belt and Road is an initiative for economic cooperation, instead of a geopolitical alliance or military league, and it is an open and inclusive process rather than an exclusive bloc or "China club." It does not differentiate countries by ideology or playing the zero-sum game. As long as countries are willing to join, they are welcome, according to President Xi.

He pointed out that the broad support for the BRI shows aspiration from countries involved, developing countries in particular, for peace and development.

China has been following the principle of conducting consultation and collaboration for shared benefits and common prosperity. The Chinese stance has gained increasing understanding and praise from the international community.

Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies of Cambridge University, believes that China is advocating a new type of global cooperation. Chinas proposals, including the Belt and Road Initiative and the concept of building a community of shared future for all humankind, are the best demonstrations of Chinas worldview.
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Chief Executive Carrie Lam says she has conducted more than 30 outbound visits since assuming office, adding that the trips help showcase abroad the success of one country, two systems in Hong Kong.

Mrs Lam was speaking to reporters ahead of today's Executive Council meeting.

She noted her frequent trips are necessary for Hong Kong to explore more opportunities and markets as it faces the challenges of economic globalisation.

These visits, which cover those overseas as well as to the Mainland, can also strengthen ties with the rest of the world and enhance Hong Kong's status as a global city, she added.

Mrs Lam has just returned from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 2018 Economic Leaders' Meeting in Papua New Guinea and will embark on a duty visit to Beijing next month.

The Chief Executive also said she will likely make a similar number of trips next year as in this year, because they are beneficial to Hong Kong.
Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit to the Philippines will enhance mutual trust, improve bilateral relations, and create bright prospects for China-Philippines cooperation, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Philippine House of Representatives Speaker and former Philippine President, said in an interview with Peoples Daily.

Arroyo, 71, was the President of the Philippines from 2001 to 2010, and was elected as the Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives this July.

The relationship between China and the Philippines is very important for the Philippines, said Arroyo, adding that cooperation between the two countries in various areas has brought benefits to both peoples.

Impressed by Chinas achievements in development during the last four decades since reform and opening up, Arroyo used the word breathtaking to describe Chinas transformation.

Rather than a competitor, China has proven to be a partner in development. It is a market for developing countries, a donor, a provider of capital and technology, said Arroyo, recalling her years as an official in the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry when she wondered if China would become the Philippines chief competitor in the world market.

There is much for the Philippines to learn from China on national governance and development, expressed Arroyo, citing that China has applied four principles in governing the country, such as long term planning, strong discipline in implementing strategies while eyeing the collective good, the use of state-of-the-art technology, and strengthening in infrastructure.

Arroyo expressed that Chinas development has had a positive influence on regional development, and that she is glad to see the pragmatic cooperation between China and the Philippines is benefiting the two peoples.

She noted that the bilateral ties between China and the Philippines will develop further, while the prospects for growth in the Philippines will be enhanced by the economic momentum generated by China in the region.

Infrastructure will be very important for the Philippines in the coming years, and there is no country in the world that matches China's recent track record and capability in this area, Arroyo told Peoples Daily.

Arroyo said Chinas Belt and Road Initiative has profound significance.

She explained that the development of the world economy requires not only trade and investment, but also good infrastructure.

The Belt and Road Initiative has injected strong impetus to infrastructure construction in countries along the route, including the Philippines, and promoted the prosperity of trade and investment, expressed Arroyo, adding that China and countries along the route have made breakthroughs in the co-construction of various projects.

Under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, China and the Philippines enjoy broad prospects for bilateral cooperation, Arroyo pointed out, adding that nothing builds mutual trust and cooperation better than having actual projects that can be worked on jointly.

She expressed hope that more Filipinos join the efforts to promote Philippines-China people-to-people exchanges, and those who up to now have only heard of the tremendous economic progress of China could have the opportunity to actually visit China and see for themselves the result of Chinas economic miracle in past 40 years.
The Government will continue to invest in education to nurture talents in Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today.

Mrs Lam was responding to media questions ahead of the Executive Council meeting on the city slipping a few places in the latest IMD World Talent Ranking.

She said she was not too worried about the drop in the ranking, noting that the Government has rolled out quite a few specific measures on nurturing talents.

Spending in education is the best investment that the Government could make because it will nurture talents to meet the needs of the economy in future. So well continue to invest in education.

She also noted the Government is reviewing the current arrangements to achieve quality education, including the curriculum and teachers career development, and she will carefully study the recommendations of the review.

The Government has been promoting Life-wide Learning among students by providing internship and exchange opportunities on the Mainland and overseas to broaden students horizons, especially in STEM education, she added.

So we'll continue to roll out those measures and evaluate their effectiveness. If they are not sufficiently effective, then certainly, my Government will do more.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam

In the global business of logistics, connections are critical. The more connections your logistics sector has, the more complex and interrelated they are, the more effective it will be. In that regard, Hong Kong is truly blessed. Thanks to "one country, two systems", we enjoy ever deeper transport and logistics connections to Mainland China and to the opportunities therein. Thanks to that same system, we also continue to build our ties with the world.

Together, those singular connections make Hong Kong excel in the global business of logistics. They make our partners excel too. Consider this morning's keynote speaker, the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN, as a group, is our second-largest trading partner. We signed a free trade agreement and related investment agreement one year ago this month, which will begin to take effect in January next year and will surely boost our trade, our investment and our overall connectivity. I am sure the Secretary-General will agree with me when I say that relations between ASEAN and Hong Kong have never been better, never more promising than they are now.

The agreements show that Hong Kong and the ten member states of ASEAN believe in free trade, and in the mutual rewards trade and logistics can bring to our economies, our companies and our peoples. As we all know, free trade is taking something of a thrashing these days, given the rising undercurrent of unilateralism and protectionism. Let me assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that for Hong Kong, the primacy of free trade is immutable. I am pleased to say that we have successfully concluded free trade agreement negotiations with Australia just a few days ago.

It's thanks to free enterprise and our ability to adapt to the changing market that has made Hong Kong one of the world's leading trading economies, and a leading international financial and logistics centre. Indeed, trading and logistics is one of our four pillar industries. It contributes 22% of our GDP and accounts for some 19% of Hong Kong's total employment. Our trade value amounts to more than three times our GDP, standing today at about US$1.06 trillion.

Hong Kong's local market may be modest, but our ability to serve and create markets, to trade in goods and services with the world, is inexhaustible. For that, we can thank our formidable foundation for international trade. I'm talking about world-class infrastructure, superb connectivity, an unbeatable location at the heart of Asia and the gateway to the Mainland. I'm talking about our institutional strengths, as well as an abundance of talent in a wide range of professional services and business sectors.

Our foundation is buoyed by our expanding investment in infrastructure and transport networks. These connect Hong Kong with hundreds of destinations throughout Asia and around the world. Hong Kong today is home to one of the world's busiest transshipment container ports. Serving about 320 liner ships a week, it's linked to more than 470 ports worldwide. Last year, Hong Kong Port's throughput stood at 20.8 million TEUs which accounts for 4% of the throughput of Asia, up 5% over the previous year. Our Shipping Register is the world's fourth largest, with a gross tonnage of more than 120 million. In short, we will continue to be a key maritime player in the Asian region.

We are a force to be reckoned with in the air as well. Our airport has been the world's busiest in international air cargo for the past 22 years in a row, serving an ever-growing demand for high-value logistics in the Asia-Pacific region. Hong Kong enjoys Air Services Agreements with 67 countries. Our airport handles more than 1,100 flights daily to over 220 destinations, including some 50 Mainland destinations. Last year, we moved 5 million tonnes of cargo and air mail, and handled 73 million international passengers.

To enhance capacity, we are building the third runway for our airport. Upon completion, the Hong Kong International Airport will be capable of handling 100 million passengers and 9 million tonnes of cargo annually. The third runway will be in operation by the end of 2022, while the entire three-runway system, including all upgraded facilities, is expected to commission by the end of 2024.

The Hong Kong International Airport is located on Lantau, our biggest island which is now serving as a double gateway. Apart from connecting Hong Kong to the world through our airport, Lantau is also linking Hong Kong to other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which comprises Hong Kong, Macau and nine affluent cities in the Guangdong Province. Together, the Greater Bay Area has a population of 70 million and a combined GDP of US$1.5 trillion.

Enhancing connectivity between Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area is a central policy commitment of my Government. The recent commissioning of this mega Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has given us a huge boost. The world's longest combined sub-sea tunnel and bridge, a piece of world-class infrastructure, it has sharply cut travel time to the Mainland cities on the Pearl River's west bank. For example, thanks to this new bridge, the journey between Hong Kong International Airport and Zhuhai, one of southern China's fastest-growing cities, has been reduced from four hours to just 45 minutes. This will surely attract time-sensitive, high-value goods to the bridge and, from there, to the rest of the world through the Hong Kong International Airport. Let me add that the time needed to travel from Zhuhai to our container port in Kwai Chung is also reduced from 3.5 hours to 75 minutes.

Last month, my Government unveiled long-term plans to reinforce the role of Lantau. Among the planned developments is a Premium Logistics Centre, with a built-up space of some 380,000 square metres which will allow us to capture the opportunities presented by the fast-emerging retail revolution. The centre, relying on robotics and automation, will be able to process 1.7 million tonnes of cargo a year when it opens in 2023.

Challenges generally come hand in hand with opportunity. Today, developed economies, Hong Kong included, must contend with long-term labour shortages, a reflection of our ageing population. And then there's e-commerce, its continuing growth fuelling an insatiable demand for faster and faster small-parcel shipments.

Automation and artificial intelligence can meet these challenges. Indeed, robotics, automated ports and blockchain technology are transforming logistics, increasing handling capacity and expanding efficiency. Every one of us in the logistics industry in general must embrace these innovations.

Innovative technology without innovative talent will surely fail to deliver on its outsized promise. That's why, in 2014, we set up the Maritime & Aviation Training Fund. It offers a wide variety of training schemes, providing scholarships and other initiatives to boost talent intake in both sectors. More than 6,200 students and industry practitioners have benefitted from the fund to date. To sustain the momentum, I announced in my Policy Address last month that the fund would receive an additional US$25 million.

Our logistics connectivity extends to the industry services on offer. Hong Kong's 800 shipping-related companies present a flotilla of maritime services. They include ship agency and management, broking and chartering, finance, marine insurance, and maritime legal and arbitration services. Many of the world's logistics giants call Hong Kong home. They are joined by over 8,700 Mainland and overseas companies from various sectors which have established a presence in Hong Kong, among them over 1,500 are regional headquarters and some 2,400 are regional offices.

The world is here because Hong Kong is Asia's most connected city - the multilateral, multilayered business bridge linking Mainland and global opportunity. The logistics and maritime sector, like every other sector, industry and business, looks to Hong Kong to build a rewarding future. I encourage all of you to join us, to connect and excel right here in Asia's world city.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave these remarks at the Asian Logistics & Maritime Conference on November 20.
Mr Yeung (centre right) joins an activity during his visit to the integrated services centre.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung receives a souvenir from two children during his visit to the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Tung Chung Integrated Services.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung today visited an integrated services centre in Tung Chung and met Islands District Councillors to discuss education and district issues.

Mr Yeung visited the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Tung Chung Integrated Services in Fu Tung Estate.

He toured the centre's facilities and talked with its clients, including students and parents of students with special educational needs about their studies and service requirements.

The centre provides children, young people, families, seniors and new immigrants with services including guidance, healthcare, rehabilitation, training, employment and counselling.

Mr Yeung said the Government attaches great importance to the whole-person development of students.

He said the Chief Executive proposed in her 2018 Policy Address to provide a new recurrent Life-wide Learning Grant with an annual provision of $900 million, starting from the 2019-20 school year.

The grant will support public sector schools and schools under the Direct Subsidy Scheme in taking forward life-wide learning.

Mr Yeung said: For example, activities like field studies and workplace experience can enable students to learn in real-life contexts and broaden their horizons. Community service can also help develop students' care for others and empathy.

We trust that the enlivened and enriched learning experiences will not only enhance students' interest in learning, but also help them develop positive values and attitudes."

The Government will also enhance its efforts to provide support for students with special educational needs.

Starting from the 2019-20 school year, an additional funding of $800 million per year will be offered to schools so they can acquire more resources and teaching staff, as well as professionals such as educational psychologists and speech therapists.

Mr Yeung said he hopes with the concerted efforts of the Government, schools and social welfare organisations, children and young people with different talents will be better supported in unleashing their potential.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam today met Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee Li Xi at Government House.

She was joined by Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung, Secretary for Innovation & Technology Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah, Secretary for Transport & Housing Frank Chan, and Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip.

Mrs Lam welcomed Mr Lis first visit to Hong Kong after assuming his post last year. She also welcomed the delegation he led, which includes Guangdong Governor Ma Xingrui.

She thanked Mr Li for supporting the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Governments work since he took office, in particular in providing Hong Kong young people with more opportunities for exchanges, studying and starting businesses in the province, and implementing measures to help Hong Kong people living in the Mainland.

Mrs Lam also pointed out that Hong Kong has contributed to the countrys reform and opening up and developed close ties with the province, in which the city is still the largest source of external investment.

Looking ahead, Mrs Lam said Hong Kong will continue to step up co-operation with the province, especially in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development.

She added Hong Kong and Guangdong may complement each other to jointly establish an international innovation and technology hub in the bay area, and both places may arrange more activities to promote the advantages of the bay area overseas.

Mrs Lam hosted a lunch for Mr Li and the delegation members after the meeting.
THE Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 disturbances that resulted in the death of six people and damage to property is resuming today amid reports that MDC-Alliance leader, Mr Nelson Chamisa, is also likely to come and testify.



Mr Chamisa was subpoenaed by the Commission after his name was implicated by earlier witnesses as one of the people who incited violence on August 1.



Initially, Mr Chamisa publicly refused to appear before the Commission during a press conference where he vowed that he could only do so if President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his deputies appeared before the same Commission.



Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mrs Virginia Mabiza confirmed in a statement yesterday that the hearings are resuming today.







The general public is hereby invited to attend public hearings to be held in Harare at Cresta Lodge on Wednesday 21 November 2018, said Mrs Mabiza.

The hearings start at 10AM.





So far, several prominent people including senior military personnel such as the Commander Zimbabwe Defence Force General Phillip Valerio Sibanda and Police Commissioner General Godwin Matanga have appeared before the same Commission.





Both Gen Sibanda and Comm Gen Matanga denied that the military personnel deployed in the streets of Harare under the National Reaction Force, opened fire on the rioters.

Gen Sibanda confirmed that he heard gun shots from his office at the Defence House before the deployment of the National Reaction Force.





They said the people died before the deployment of the National Reaction Force.

Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba, also testified and said the fatal incident could have been avoided if the MDC-Alliance leadership and its supporters had allowed the electoral body to announce the election results as enshrined in the constitution without hindrance.





Meanwhile, police said they had opened a murder case docket in relation with the August 1 shootings.





The Commission, which is chaired by former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, was appointed by President Mnangagwa to investigate the August 1 incident and is expected to come up with recommendations on the way forward. Herald




LAST November was possibly the busiest and most breathtaking moment for Father Fidelis Mukonori, a Roman Catholic cleric whose ties with former President Robert Mugabe are well documented.





To see the man he had been close to all his life cornered and being made to negotiate a power transition that elbowed his long-time ally could have been one of the most daunting tasks for the man of the cloth.





His love for Mugabe was not a secret and so is his love for peace, and Mukonori was surely between a rock and a hard place.





Supporting Mugabe was imperative, but the former leader was cornered and there was need to balance his love for him and the love for a peaceful Zimbabwe.





But a year after the coup that toppled Mugabe, Mukonori said the former President is fine and moving on with his life.





A year on, Mugabe seems to have accepted his fate and things seem to have changed from the time he addressed a Press conference supporting opposing leader Nelson Chamisa, but softened up after the government went all out of the way to assist him and his wife at the funeral of his mother-in-law in September.





He has slowly accepted the new dispensation after he had constantly attacked his predecessor President Emmerson Mnangagwa over the manner in which he got into power.





And Mukonori said he has no regrets over his role and wishes Zimbabwe to move forward.





I did what I had to do and let Zimbabwe move forward, Mukonori said in an interview.





I am sure things will be okay in future.





On Mugabe he said its been a while since he met him, but they always talk over the phone and he sounds okay.





I am sure he is at home. I havent met him for some time, but I have been in touch with him by phone and I talked to him a few weeks ago after the death of his mother-in-law and he sounded fine.





Thereafter I think he travelled so I havent been in touch with him since then.





Mukonori said he was not sure if Mugabe still misses power, the high life where he was always at the centre of discussions both locally and internationally.





Since his removal from power last year, many people have said there is nothing really tangible that the new administration has achieved in terms of making life easier for the majority.





Mugabe, now nearing 95 years couldnt imagine life away from power. During his days as a feared leader, Mugabe created a strong system that pounced on anyone who dared challenge his continued grip to power, particularly within the ruling Zanu PF.





Mugabe has been full of surprises.





Almost a year ago, as the former strong mans rule fell like a deck on the cards, millions of Zimbabweans and many others across the world waited for his anticipated resignation but alas, he delivered a speech which he coined by the Swahili saying Asante Sana where he stubbornly tried to paint a picture that he was firmly in charge.




I note, in particular, that the basis of the invitation appears to emanate from testimony and allegations made by a witness to the effect that I incited violence. I consider the allegation to be malicious. Since my response to this contrived allegation is required, I consider it fair and just that I should be afforded all the relevant information relating to the allegations so as to enable me to prepare adequately. I kindly, therefore, ask the commission to favour me with the full transcript of the relevant part of the testimony; to better understand the nature, circumstances, scope and credibility of the allegations made against me, he wrote.
Hwange-based coal mining company Makomo Resources has denied grabbing Zambezi Gas land.



This comes after Zambezi Gas appealed to the Temba Mliswa-led parliamentary panel to help get its land back allegedly grabbed by Makomo Resources, which is the largest privately-owned coal producer in Zimbabwe. Zambezi Gas shareholder and deputy managing director Linos Masimura told Mliswas committee that its special grant allocated it 19 000 hectares but the company has been given access to only 8 000 hectares, with the rest allegedly grabbed by Makomo Resources.



We never took anyones land, that land was idle. I am told that Zambezi claim that they have 19 000ha. With the 7 000 they are claiming that we have, and 8 000 a they have, it adds up to 15 000ha and they have another 4 000 somewhere which they have to explain who took that land? Makomo Resources director Raymond Mutokonyi said, adding they were given an official special grant from the Presidents Office in October 2010 over the land.









Mutokonyi also denied that Makomo Resources was owned by Zanu PF admin secretary Obert Mpofu, saying the only association we had with Mpofu was when we started our operations in 2010, he had a transport business called Maminza and we gave him a contract to ferry our products from the mine. Daily News
Two Philippine girls read Manila Bulletin. Photo by Zhao Yipu from Peoples Daily.

On Nov. 19, Chinese President Xi Jinpings published a signed article titled "Open up a New Future Together for China-Philippines Relations" just before his state visit to the country on three Philippine newspapers, Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin and Daily Tribune.

Peoples Daily reporters paid a visit to Manila Bulletin on Nov 19 to learn the stories behind the publication of Xis signed article.

The article grabbed the front page headline of Manila Bulletin on Nov. 19. A big picture of Xi waving his hands and greeting was put at the top of the front page, and the article was placed to the left of the picture.

Isabel C. De Deon (right), news editor of Manila Bulletin, and the typesetter Jeffrey talk about the format of front page which carries Chinese President Xi Jinpings signed article. Photo by Zhao Yipu from Peoples Daily.

It was the first time for the Manila Bulletin, a 118-year-old newspaper to carry a signed article by a foreign state leader with picture.

President Xis article sparked heated discussion among us. We are proud to publish such an important article on our newspaper, said Isabel C. De Leon, news editor of Manila Bulletin, adding that many readers called to congratulate them after reading the article.

I am really excited to be the first reader of the article, said Leon. By midday Nov. 19, the newspapers had been almost sold out at newsstands across the country. Todays sales volume is surely much better than before! she said with confidence.

Philippines-China relationship is very important. China has always been helping our country, so we must attach high importance to President Xis signed article, said Cris J. Icban, JR., publisher and editor-in-chief of Manila Bulletin.

Currently, more and more Philippine readers have realized the importance of boosting Philippines-China relations, and Manila Bulletin has increased its coverage on China.

We are delighted to report China, which we think is consolidating the friendly relations between the two countries, Leon told Peoples Daily. The newspaper often publishes articles about China, especially about the Belt and Road Initiative.

A staff worker with the publishing house of Manila Bulletin reads Chinese President Xi Jinpings signed article on the front page upon printing. Photo by Zhao Yipu from Peoples Daily.

Leon said the prospering Philippines-China relations have brought plenty infrastructure construction projects and investment from China. The Philippine people have benefited a lot from the friendly cooperation, she noted, believing that in the future the cooperation will deliver concrete benefits to the Philippine people.

In recent years, the newspaper has sent several reporters to China to cover major events. Amor A. Lopez was one of the Philippine journalists who attended the Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road hosted by Peoples Daily in Beijing last year.

Lopez recalled a guest from the UK mentioning that a China-Europe freight train carrying a full load of Chinese products could arrive in the UK from China in just 16 days, and then come back to China fully loaded with goods from the UK. He said the freight train is a proof of enhanced interconnectivity brought by the Belt and Road initiative.

We are very pleased that Manila Bulletin could publish President Xi Jinpings signed article. It is an honor of the 118-year-old newspaper, said Sec. Herminio B. Coloma, Jr., former secretary of Presidential Communications Operations Office of the Philippines and Executive Vice President of Manila Bulletin, expressing his belief that Xis article will help more Philippine people understand China and Philippines-China relations, and further promote cooperation between the two countries.
Thousands in LA Schools

May Have to Enroll Elsewhere
(Newser)  Might Heather Locklear end up under a conservatorship just like Britney Spears did? After two arrests (one in February and one in June) and other problems in recent months, TMZ and other outlets reported Monday that the 57-year-old actress had been hospitalized under an involuntary psychiatric hold over the weekend due to ongoing mental health issues. Now, sources tell Us, her loved ones are considering a conservatorship and her lawyer has consulted with Spears' conservatorship lawyers. Sources say Locklear's family believes she left her most recent stint in rehab too early, the Blast reports.

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"Heathers family feels absolutely helpless and feels this could be the only way to save her life," a source says. "She wont stay in treatment and consistently checks out early." Spears was placed under a conservatorship after a 2008 breakdown and cannot make personal or financial decisions on her own, but Locklear's potential guardianship "would be of Heather as a person only, nothing involving her finances or estate." (An EMT is reportedly planning to sue Locklear.)
(Newser)  Harvard graduate student Jane Britton, 23, was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in the Cambridge apartment where she lived alone in 1969. For nearly half a century, the case went unsolved, but on Tuesday, officials announced Britton's killer had been identified thanks to DNA evidence: convicted rapist Michael Sumpter, who died of cancer in 2001 at age 54, 13 months after he was paroled to hospice care, WCVB reports. He had been serving a prison sentence for a 1975 rape at the time of his death. After his death, authorities started linking him to other assaults in the same area during the same time period. Authorities found one of his male relatives via Ancestry.com, Boston.com reports; that relative gave a DNA sample that was matched to a sample taken when Britton was found dead.

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Sumpter had already been posthumously found responsible for a 1973 murder and rape of a 24-year-old and the 1972 murder and rape of a 23-year-old; he is also believed to have committed a rape in 1985 when he escaped from a work release. "A half century of mystery and speculation has clouded the brutal crime that shattered Janes promising young life and our family. The DNA evidence match may be all we ever have as a conclusion," Britton's brother, the Rev. Boyd Britton, said in a statement. "Learning to understand and forgive remains a challenge." (A 78-year-old may be responsible for more than 90 cold case murders.)
(Newser)  Two children and two adults were found dead Tuesday at a burning mansion that was intentionally set ablaze in an upscale community near the New Jersey shore, officials said. One of the owners of the home is a technology CEO with a relative whose house not far away also caught fire Tuesday, records show. Authorities said they were investigating whether there was a link, the AP reports. A man was found dead outside the burning 5,700-square-foot mansion in Colts Neck, and the three others were found inside, Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said at a news conference. The three found inside were severely burned, making it difficult to identify them, he said. No identities have been released, and a medical examiner was still investigating the manner and cause of death for all four, he said. Sources tell the Asbury Park Press the man found outside had been shot to death.

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"It's important to emphasize that we have no reason to believe that anyone in the community is in any danger at this time," Gramiccioni said. Firefighters responded to the fire around 1:30pm, and hours later, the fire continued to burn at the home, surrounded by fields and featuring a large swimming pool. Video showed smoke pouring from the roof of the two-story, four-bedroom home in Colts Neck as firefighters battled the blaze. Colts Neck is a well-to-do community about 50 miles south of New York City and is home to horse farms. Typical homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at about $750,000. Bruce Springsteen owns an estate there, and his son is a former member of the fire department. Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart and his wife operate an animal sanctuary there; Queen Latifah sold her mansion there in 2015. Public records show the mansion that burned Tuesday is owned by Keith Caneiro, 50, and Jennifer Caneiro, 45; per LinkedIn, Keith Caneiro is founder and CEO of a company called Square One. Sources say the relative whose home also caught fire is Keith Caneiro's brother, who is listed as VP of Square One. (Read more arson stories.)
(Newser)  President Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey but was persuaded not to, according to a bombshell report in the New York Times, which cites "two people familiar with the conversation." The sources say then-White House counsel Donald McGahn told Trump he didn't have the authority to order the investigationand that if he requested it, he would be accused of abuse of power. The Times' sources say McGahn asked White House lawyers to prepare a document for Trump outlining the possible consequences of having the Justice Department investigate Clinton and the former FBI director, including impeachment.

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Trump hasn't let the matter drop and is still talking about appointing a special counsel to investigate Clinton and Comey, the sources say. A lawyer for McGahnwho left the administration last monthsaid he wasn't going to comment on legal advice given to the president. The president never, to McGahn's knowledge, "ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey," attorney William A. Burck said. The Law & Crime blog calls this a "non-denial denial," noting that McGahn isn't saying Trump never wanted to order the prosecution. The blog also notes that McGahn has reportedly been cooperating with Robert Mueller's investigation, and the NYT reports he could be the "finishing touch" if the special counsel is pursuing an obstruction of justice case. (Trump's lawyers called Comey "Machiavellian" and "dishonest" in a secret memo to Mueller.)
(Newser)  A 54-year-old man on his way to work early Tuesday was killed after a chunk of concrete went through his windshieldand police don't believe it was an accident. Investigators believe the concrete was thrown from the Shelby Avenue bridge in Nashville onto Interstate 24 below, the Tennessean reports. It went through the windshield of Joe Shelton's Nissan GTR and hit him in the face around 4:54am. Shelton, who was on his way to work at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, was found dead at the scene.

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Police say Shelton's vehicle sideswiped a pickup truck and a guardrail before coming to a stop, WTVC reports. "We are saddened to learn of Joe's passing," Nissan North America said in a statement. "Our deepest sympathies are with his family members, friends, and colleagues at this difficult time." Police say Tennessee Department of Transportation bridge inspectors examined the chunk of concrete and determined it was probably a piece of curb, not part of the bridge. They are now reviewing surveillance footage and have urged anybody with information to come forward. (Last year, a 32-year-old Michigan man was killed by a rock thrown from an overpass.)
(Newser)  Nedim Yasar produced a memoir about leaving a life of crime behindand was killed as he left the launch for that book. The 31-year-old ex-gangster was shot twice as he left the event in Copenhagen on Monday, a day before Roots: A Gangster's Way Out was released, the BBC reports. Yasar, who left the infamous Los Guerreros drug gang in 2012 when he learned he was going to become a father, was a radio host and often spoke about his life experiences, reports Reuters. The gunman fled on foot and has not been apprehended. Soren Paulson, Denmark's justice minister, described the slaying as "sad and infinitely meaningless." (Read more Denmark stories.)
(Newser)  An imprisoned treasure hunter has taken back a pledge to turn over 500 missing coins minted from gold found in a shipwreck off the South Carolina coast, the AP reports. Tommy Thompson agreed last week to deliver the coins to a court-appointed receiver by Sunday to settle a lawsuit brought by an investor, reports the Columbus Dispatch. The paper says the deal fell apart when Thompson said he has no idea how to obtain the coins. Thompson found the SS Central America in 1988 after convincing more than 100 investors to fund the voyage for nearly $13 million. Thompson never repaid the investors. He became a fugitive in 2012 and fled to Florida. (After his recapture in 2015, he claimed that he couldn't reveal the location of the coins because he was having memory problems.)
(Newser)  A suicide bomber targeted a gathering of hundreds of Islamic scholars in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people as Muslims marked the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad. Another 83 people were wounded in the attack, with 20 of them in critical condition and the toll likely to rise, Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh says. The suicide bomber was able to sneak into a wedding hall in Kabul where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the holiday, the AP reports. No one immediately claimed the attack, but both the Taliban and a local ISIS affiliate have targeted religious scholars aligned with the government in the past.

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"The victims of the attack unfortunately are all religious scholars who gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Mohammad," says Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief. He says police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing, calling it "an attack on Islamic values and followers of the Prophet Mohammad," and declaring Wednesday a day of mourning. "It is an attack on humanity," Ghani said. (In June, a suicide bomber killed seven people at a meeting of the country's top clerics.)
(Newser)  A convoluted story out of New Jersey, where police have charged Paul Caneiro with aggravated arson in connection with a fire at his own homeone that the Asbury Park Press reports occurred seven hours before a fatal fire at his brother's mansion. Around 5am Tuesday, firefighters responded to Paul Caneiro's Ocean Township home and put out flames on the roof. Around 12:30pm, fire broke out at brother Keith Caneiro's home 12 miles away in Colts Neck, where police say a quadruple homicide occurred: Keith Caneiro, 50found on the front lawn with a gunshot wound that didn't appear to be self-inflicted, per NJ.comdied along with his wife, 45-year-old Jennifer Caneiro, and their son and daughter, who were found inside, a law enforcement source tells the Asbury Park Press. The New York Times describes both children as under the age of 10.

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The brothers appear to have been close. Born in Brooklyn, they shared a Staten Island address for more than a decade before moving to New Jersey with their wives, per NJ.com. They would take up separate abodes: Paul in a single-family home on Tilton Drive in suburban Ocean Township, Keith in a $1.5 million mansion in upscale Colts Neck, home to celebrities like Bruce Springsteen. But Paul would still work for Keith owner of EcoStar Pest Management and apparent web development company Square Onewho also served as his best man. "They're wonderful people," says a neighbor of Paul, who saw family members Tuesday outside the house believed to have suffered damage to its back and attic, per the Times. "It's pretty shocking stuff." An earlier version of this story erroneously reported Paul Caneiro as being charged in the Colts Neck fire. (More on the case here.)
The National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue of the First China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

Openness brings progress while seclusion leads to backwardness. Active integration into the world is a common characteristic of development for major economies.

According to a World Bank report released in 2008, 13 economies had achieved high-speed growth for at least 25 years in a row. Openness was a common feature of them, the report pointed out.

Opening-up injects strong support and energy into economic development as it offers a country more resources and bigger market, and allows it to take part in the global division of labor and cut costs.

A drop of water will not dry up as long as it runs into the ocean; a country will maintain its vitality as long as it integrates itself into economic globalization.

For a while, black swans and grey rhinos have frequently occurred, with some countries adopting protectionism or retreating to unilateralism, which hindered economic globalization.

However, history has proven that self-seclusion will only make a country lose the world and eventually itself.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the APEC CEO Summit, attempts to erect barriers and cut the close economic ties among countries work against the laws of economics and the trend of history, and run counter to the shared desire of people around the world. This is a short-sighted approach and is doomed to failure.

For a long time, economic globalization has put together capital, technologies, products, industries, and labor force of different countries. Apple Inc once released a list, showing that it was cooperating with 769 suppliers across the world. Its fair to say that upholding openness and jointly building an open global economy conforms to the trend of times as well as the requirement to create more space for development.

Of course, economic globalization is a double-edged sword, because it both provides strong power for global development and brings new situations and challenges.

When the global economy faces downward pressure, it is hard to enlarge the benefits of economic globalization, and the contradictions between growth and distribution, capital and labor, and efficiency and fairness are more obvious. Both developed and developing countries will shoulder the pressure and impact.

This is an issue that the world has to face seriously, but isolation is never a solution. Only by saying no to protectionism and unilateralism and upholding the WTO-centered multilateral trading system, can countries expand converging interests and share opportunities through opening-up and cooperation, and make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.

The just-concluded first China International Import Expo (CIIE) was a grand get-together of enterprises around the world. Deals for intended one-year purchases of goods and services reached a total of $57.83 billion, indicating the huge market potential of China and the countrys determination to open up.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up. During this extraordinary period, China opened itself to the world and created the globally remarkable Chinese miracle. The country will continue advancing an open world economy on a higher level and promoting openness of the world.
(Newser)  A massive cleanup effort has been ordered on a quietly devastating oil spill that's been contaminating the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years. The Washington Post reports the US Coast Guard has mandated Taylor Energy "institute a  system to capture, contain, or remove oil" from the affected site off the Louisiana coast, infused with up to 30,000 gallons (about 700 barrels) of oil a day since Hurricane Ivan destroyed a company oil platform in 2004, per DOJ estimates. Contractors commissioned by Taylor Energy had previously said the oil spill was minimal, at the most around 2,000 gallons a day. If the company doesn't comply with the Coast Guard's new decree, it could be hit with a fine of up to $40,000 per day. To put it in context, the BP Deepwater Horizon spill dumped 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf before it was capped after 87 days in July 2010; the Taylor spill could be at 3.5 million barrels.

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The Taylor spill remained hidden from the public by both the company and the Coast Guard for six years after the hurricane. It was discovered only when nonprofits and environmental groups investigating the BP spill came upon oil slicks that didn't appear to be related to that particular incident. Taylor Energywhich contends the oil "sheens" on the surface of the water aren't from leaking wells, but from oil and gas floating up from the oil-heavy seafloorsays full containment of the leak could cost more than $1 billion, the Times-Picayune reports. Still, "the time to clean this up was 14 years ago," a rep for the Gulf Restoration Network says. "Taylor Energy has shown nothing but negligence all this time." (The largest tanker oil spill in three decades happened earlier this year.)
(Newser)  South Korea's Kim Jong Yang was elected Interpol's president on Wednesday, reports the AP, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the US, UK, and other European nations. Kim's surprise election was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied until the final hours against Alexander Prokopchuk; the BBC notes that a bipartisan group of US senators said electing Prokopchuk would be "akin to putting a fox in charge of the henhouse." Russia accused critics of running a "campaign to discredit" Prokopchuk. Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and China use Interpol's red notice system to round up political opponents, journalists, or activists, even though its rules prohibit that.

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The US and others expressed concern that the Russian's election would have led to further Kremlin abuses of the system. Groups working to clean up Interpol celebrated, as did South Koreawhich called Kim's election a "national triumph." Financier and Kremlin critic Bill Browder, who says Russia used the diffusion system against him, celebrated the vote, saying, "This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it." Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year term of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there. Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Meng's departure. Russia's Interior Ministry said after the vote that Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position.

(Read more Interpol stories.)
(Newser)  In what's sure to be some kind of record, a teen in Germany managed to lose his driver's license a mere 49 minutes after getting it. Traveling with four friends he might've been trying to impress, the 18-year-old was returning from his successful driving test when he was allegedly clocked speeding somewhere near the western towns of Iserlohn and Hemer at around 60mphabout twice the 30mph speed limit, per the BBC.

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"Some things last foreverothers not for an hour," local police said in a statement after the teen's license was temporarily revoked. He's barred from driving for at least four weeks and until he completes "expensive retraining," police say, noting he'll have to foot the bill. The driver will also be forced to pay a $228 fine, while his probationary period is to be doubled to four years, reports Deutsche Welle. (This new driver drove into a chasm.)
(Newser)  President Trump on Tuesday expressed that, despite Jamal Khashoggi's murder, the US stands by Saudi Arabia. It's a sentiment that's not going over entirely well, both within his own party and without. And it's one that got amplified Wednesday, by way of a tweet in which Trump publicly thanked the country for a drop in oil prices. It reads, "Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" The latest:

Fox News reports Trump on Nov. 12 tweeted that "hopefully" Saudi Arabia wouldn't cut its production, and that the drop in prices is due to a bump in production by it, the US, and Russia. Oil prices are also not yet feeling the full impact of the sanctions Trump imposed on Iran one week prior to that, as several countries remain able to purchase oil from Iran for six months due to a waiver.

The AP reports that after sharing his decision not to "foolishly" cancel arms contracts with Saudi Arabia, a reporter questioned whether human rights are too costly to fight for. "No, I'm not saying that at all," replied Trump, who then moved to discuss the "terrorist nation" of Iran.

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As he departed for a Thanksgiving holiday at Mar-a-Lago, he elaborated on the financial motivations of his decision, telling reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would "skyrocket" if the US were to sever ties with the country, and that he wasn't about to "destroy" the global economy by being "foolish with Saudi Arabia."

Sen. Rand Paul touched on the topic of Saudi Arabia vs. Iran, tweeting, "The President indicates that Saudi Arabia is the lesser two evils compared to Iran and so the US won't punish Saudi Arabia for the brutal killing and dismemberment of a dissident journalist in their consulate. I disagree."

Sen. Bob Corker was another Republican expressing displeasure. The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tweeted, "I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

Sen. Lindsey Graham addressed the move in a critical series of tweets, reports CNN, writing, "One thing I learned during the Obama years is that when you look the other way regarding problems in the Middle East, it seldom works out. ... It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal #Khashoggi."

Politico reports that the Magnitsky Act can be used to compel Trump to come to a conclusion about human rights violations by global leaders if the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asks the president to do so. The committee updated its Oct. 10 request, which didn't ask for Trump's determination on whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind Khashoggi's murder, to specify that he make that determination. Trump has 120 days to comply.

(Read more President Trump stories.)
(Newser)  A Michigan judge acknowledged that female genital mutilation is "despicable"in a 28-page opinion that concluded the federal government's 22-year-old law against the practice is unconstitutional. As such, the mutilation charges against two Michigan doctors have been dismissed. Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who allegedly performed the surgery, and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, who allegedly allowed his Livonia clinic to be used, were defendants in America's first female genital mutilation case, which involves 9 alleged victims. Lawyers for the doctors argued the constitutionality point, and US District Judge Bernard Friedman found "FGM is a 'local criminal activity' which, in keeping with long-standing tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress."

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The Detroit Free-Press explains the federal law was passed under the Commerce clause; Friedman determined there was "nothing commercial or economic" about the mutilation, while the prosecution argued interstate commerce can be at play, as when parents drive their girls across state lines to undergo the procedure. As for state regulation, 27 states ban it, and Michigan is included in that list. But its law was passed subsequent to Nagarwala's April 2017 arrest, reports the AP; as such, it can't be applied to the doctors, and so prosecutors were relying on the federal law, which carries a sentence of up to five years. Prosecutors say they will decide whether to appeal the ruling. Nagarwala isn't off the hook, however, and faces conspiracy and obstruction charges that carry a sentence of up to 20 years if she's convicted. The trial is set to begin in April. (This year, the US deported a man back to Ethiopia over the practice.)
(Newser)  Five hundred cows, two luxury cars, $10,000, two bikes, a boat, and a few cell phones made up the final price in a heated bidding war for a teenage bride in South Sudan that went viral after the auction was pointed out on Facebook. The government says it's the largest dowry ever paid in the war-torn country, while a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month calls it "the biggest test of child abuse, trafficking, and auctioning of a human being," per the AP. The highest bidder was a man three times the 17-year-old's age, a man who reportedly has eight other wives. Lawyer Philips Anyang Ngong said at least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed for the girl, identified as Nyalong, including the deputy governor. Photos posted on Facebook show Nyalong sitting beside the groom, wearing a lavish dress and staring despondently at the floor.

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South Sudan has a deeply rooted cultural practice of paying dowries for brides, and a long history of child marriage. Even though that practice is now illegal, the government says it can't regulate communities' cultural norms, especially in remote areas, and an estimated 40% of girls still marry before 18. "It's not bidding  it's a tradition that goes back thousands of years," a government rep tells the AP, though the scene caused both local and international outrage. "It is clear that some human trafficking practices are hidden in our culture," the country's anti-human trafficking chief said after related posts were removed from Facebook. He said the case was reminiscent of others he has seen across the country, in which girls are forced or tricked into marriage after being told they are going to live with relatives. (This child bride was dead by 9.)
(Newser)  President Trump took a potshot at a comedian on Tuesday, so he probably shouldn't be surprised that Michelle Wolf has responded in the form of a one-liner. "I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist," Wolf tweeted, a reference to Trump's decision to stand by Saudi Arabia after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The president had gotten things started with a dig of his own: "So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian," he tweeted. "Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?"

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Wolf did indeed host last year's dinner, and she made headlines with unsparing jokes about the White House, with Trump and press chief Sarah Sanders among the more notable targets. Trump did not attend the dinner, but he criticized Wolf as "filthy" afterward. In her tweet in response to Trump's Tuesday put-down, Wolf used the hashtag #BeBest, which ABC News explains is another dig: It's a reference to Melania Trump's anti-bullying campaign. (Wolf went on NPR after the dinner and defended her routine.)
(Newser)  It didn't take long for President Trump to respond to a rare rebuke from the chief justice of the Supreme Court. After John Roberts criticized the president for belittling a federal judge who ruled against the White House, Trump took to Twitter to make his case. "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges,' and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country," he wrote. Trump also continued his criticism in particular of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco. Trump asserted that the court tilts to the left so much that opponents of his polices make a point to file appeals there.

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If the court were truly independent, they "why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned," he asked. "Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and securitythese rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!" Earlier, Roberts took issue with the president's criticism of 9th Circuit Court Judge Jon Tigar, who ruled against the White House plan to stop asylum-seekers at the border. Trump called Tigar an "Obama judge." The 9th has blocked multiple Trump initiatives on immigration and national security, notes the Hill. (Read more John Roberts stories.)
21 November 2018, Manila

1. Upon the invitation of His Excellency Rodrigo Roa Duterte, President of the Republic of the Philippines, His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, paid a State Visit to the Philippines on 20-21 November 2018.

During the visit, the two Leaders held a bilateral meeting, wherein they recalled the history of friendly exchanges between China and Philippines, charted the course for the future of China-Philippines bilateral relations, had in-depth exchange of views on regional and international issues of common interest, and reached important consensus.

President Xi Jinping also had a joint meeting with the Honorable House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Honorable Senate President Vicente Castelo Sotto III.

2. The Philippines congratulates China for its impressive achievements over the past four decades of its reform and opening up, and wishes China well in realizing its Two Centenary Goals. China congratulates the Philippines on its outstanding progress in upholding national security as well as in promoting sustainable economic growth and social development under the leadership of President Duterte, and expresses best wishes for the greater development of the Philippines.

3. Both sides agree that the sound development of China-Philippines relations serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples. Both sides recognize that the bilateral relations have achieved a positive turnaround and a sound momentum of development through the joint efforts and mutual trust of both sides. Both sides acknowledge that intensified efforts are required in order to achieve meaningful gains from cooperation agreements that were initiated.

4. The two leaders recognize that the elevation of China-Philippines relations to higher levels is in line with the fundamental interests and shared aspiration of the two countries and peoples. Thus, on the basis of mutual respect, sincerity, equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, the leaders decided to establish the relationship of Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation.

5. Both sides reaffirm the importance of existing China-Philippines bilateral dialogue mechanisms such as the Foreign Ministry Consultations, Consular Consultations, Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Cooperation, Annual Defense Security Talks, Joint Committee on Agriculture, Joint Committee on Fisheries, and the Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology, among others, in enhancing understanding, broadening cooperation, and striving for a stronger partnership.

6. The two Leaders agree to maintain close high-level communication through bilateral visits, phone calls, exchange of letters, and side meetings in multilateral fora, so as to strengthen the planning of bilateral relations, institute timely communication on major regional and international issues, and promote the sharing of experience in state governance. The Philippines reaffirmed its observance of the One-China principle.

7. Both sides welcomed the signing of the MOU on Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative. Both sides also welcome the contributions of similar connectivity initiatives in the region, including the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025.

8. The two countries recognize that defense and military cooperation are significant components of bilateral relations and contribute to the peace and stability of the region. Both sides will jointly implement the MOU on Defense Cooperation through practical cooperation in the areas of counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance, disaster response and mitigation, and peacekeeping operations.

9. Both sides recognize the need to advance cooperation and collaboration in matters relating to health. The two Leaders agree to continue jointly promoting and developing cooperation in the Fields of Health through exchanges and cooperation in the fields of traditional medicine, human resource development for public health experts and medical scientists, public health, ICT application in health care, and health management.

10. China reiterates its firm support to the Philippine government's efforts in fighting against illicit drugs and drug-related crimes, and expresses willingness to strengthen cooperation in areas including combating the smuggling of illegal drugs and their precursor chemicals, intelligence sharing, joint investigation and operation as well as drug rehabilitation. The Philippines spoke highly of the completion of the drug rehabilitation center in Sarangani Province and the construction of the rehabilitation center in Agusan del Sur, both financed by China through grants, and conveyed its appreciation to China for its assistance in personnel training and donation of drug detection, seizure, and testing equipment.

11. Both sides strongly condemn terrorism in all forms and committed to cooperate in the areas of information exchange, and capacity building, among others, to jointly prevent and address such threats. The Philippines expresses appreciation for China's support and assistance to the Philippines in counter-terrorism efforts and in the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Marawi City.

12. Both sides agree to strengthen law enforcement cooperation, and will enhance cooperation and communication to combat transnational crimes, including job-related crimes, telecommunications fraud, illegal on-line gambling, cybercrimes, human trafficking and illegal wildlife trade. Both sides agree to speed up the discussions with a view to signing a bilateral agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Persons.

13. Both sides hail the progress in bilateral trade and economic cooperation, and will continue to actively implement the Six-Year Development Program for Trade and Economic Cooperation (2017-2022), The two sides agree to promote bilateral trade and investment settlements denominated in domestic currencies, and further strengthen exchanges and cooperation between the two customs, to further facilitate economic and trade activities.

14. China expressed its commitment to import more high-quality agricultural products including tropical fruits from the Philippines through expeditious completion of the accreditation process to enhance two-way trade balance.

15. The two sides will speed up the implementation of the China-Philippines Industrial Park Development Program, which was signed during this visit, and will continue to provide an enabling environment for their enterprises to invest in each other's country.

16. Both sides recognize that infrastructure cooperation has been a highlight of China-Philippines bilateral cooperation. The two sides will work for the timely completion of the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project and the Binondo-Intramuros and Estrella-Pantaleon Bridges, facilitate the implementation of projects such as the New Centennial Water Source  Kaliwa Dam Project, the Safe Philippines Project Phase I and the Philippine National Railways South Long Haul Project, and other priority projects lined up for feasibility study support and implementation, and ensure effective implementation of ongoing projects. Both sides will work towards the formulation of relevant procedures and protocols for government concessional loan (Renminbi-denominated loan), and utilize preferential buyer's credit, commercial loans for development and co-financing arrangements between China and multilateral development banks, and provide financial support to key infrastructure projects.

17. Both sides will give full play to the role of the Sino-Philippine Center for Agricultural Technology (PhilSCAT) Technical Cooperation Phase (TCP) III, and promote cooperation in the fields of high quality seeds, agriculture infrastructure and machinery. Both sides will step up cooperation in fishery. The Philippines appreciates China's donation of the first batch of 100,000 grouper seeds in 2017 and assistance in relevant capacity building, and welcomes the upcoming donation of another 100,000 grouper seeds in November 2018 and 15,000 fresh water fish seeds for broodstock development early next year. Both sides will exchange best practices and cooperate in projects on poverty alleviation.

18. Both sides agree to promote cooperation in Science and Technology through exchange of experts and scientists, best practice sharing, joint researches, high tech park cooperation, joint organization of seminars, symposiums, and workshops, and other forms of cooperation mutually agreed upon under the framework of the Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology. Both sides agree to implement collaborative efforts on rice research, bamboo post-harvest and processing, renewable energy, green oil from cashew, traditional medicine, and technology transfer. The Ministry of Science and Technology of China also expresses readiness to host young Filipino scientists to China for the Talented Young Scientists Program (TYSP), so as to support the capacity building of the Philippines. Both sides welcome the adoption of the ASEAN-China Joint Statement on Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation during the 21st ASEAN-China Leaders' Meeting.

19. Both sides will encourage cooperation in the area of information and communication technology (ICT) to improve their respective technology and service capabilities.

20. Both sides recognize that the growing Chinese tourist arrivals in the Philippines over the past years have contributed to the economic growth of the Philippines. Both sides will encourage their citizens to travel to each other's country, strengthen cooperation in tourism infrastructure development and encourage airlines to open more direct flights between cities of the two countries, in order to further facilitate people-to-people exchanges.

21. The two sides fully recognize the importance of education exchanges including technical vocational education and training (TVET) and cooperation in enhancing the understanding and friendship between the two countries, and encouraged relevant government agencies and educational institutions of various types and levels to engage in active cooperation.

China will provide an additional 50 Chinese Government Scholarships Grants for Philippine students on annual basis from 2019-2021. Both sides will implement the Executive Program of Cultural Agreement between China and the Philippines, 2019-2023 signed during the visit and encourage their cultural institutions and groups to increase exchange of visits.

China will set up a Chinese Culture Center in the Philippines. Both sides supported more twinning agreements between their cities and provinces.

22. Both sides agree to strengthen its bilateral relations in the field of labor and employment and committed to implement the Memorandum of Understanding on the Employment of Filipino Teachers of English Language in China which was signed on 10 April 2018 in Boao, China, and welcome the implementation of arrangements for Filipino teachers of the English language working in China. The MOU signifies China's cognizance of the qualifications and competence of Filipino teachers to work in tertiary educational institutions as teachers of the English language. The MOU also endeavors for both countries to ensure the protection and promotion of the welfare of teachers while working onsite.

23. The Philippines welcomes the official launch of the Chinese Consulate-General in Davao City. Reciprocal arrangements for diplomatic premises in both countries will be made in the spirit of the 1975 Joint Communique, on the basis of international practice and reciprocity, with priority given to the most immediate concerns.

24. Both sides exchanged views on issues regarding the South China Sea, and reaffirmed that contentious issues are not the sum total of China-Philippines bilateral relations and should not exclude mutually beneficial cooperation in other fields. Both sides also reaffirm the importance of maintaining and promoting regional peace and stability, freedom of navigation in and over-flight above the South China Sea. Both sides stay committed to addressing disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned, in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 UNCLOS.

25. Both sides note that the situation in the South China Sea has become generally more stable as a result of joint cooperative efforts between China, the Philippines, and other ASEAN Member States. Both sides, together with ASEAN Member States, will work for the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety. Both sides agreed to maintain the positive momentum of the negotiations on the Single Draft Code of Conduct (COC) Negotiating Text, with a view towards the early adoption of an effective COC, based on consensus.

26. Both sides agree to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability. Both sides also note the importance of confidence-building measures to increase mutual trust and confidence. In this regard, both sides affirm the importance of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea and the Maritime Cooperation Joint Committee between the two Coast Guards.

The two sides agree to maximize and strengthen the on-going coast guard, defense and military dialogue and liaison mechanisms, with a view to facilitating quick responses to situations on the ground and contributing to the enhancement of mutual trust and confidence between their coast guard and defense agencies.

27. Both sides welcome the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the two governments, and agree to discuss maritime cooperation including maritime oil and gas exploration, sustainable use of mineral, energy and other marine resources.

They also agree to strengthen existing cooperation mechanisms in other maritime-related areas. Both sides agree to cooperate in the implementation of relevant international maritime instruments to ensure the safety of life at sea, marine environmental protection, and human resources development.

28. The two sides spoke positively of the development of China-ASEAN relations, and congratulated the 15th Anniversary of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and the China-ASEAN Year of Innovation. Both sides welcomed the adoption of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 during the 21st China-ASEAN Leaders' Meeting. China supports the Philippines as the Country Coordinator of the China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations and the coordinator for cooperation between China and BIMP-EAGA. The Philippines welcomes and supports the enhancement of cooperation between China and BIMP EAGA, which will contribute to ASEAN Community Building and China-ASEAN cooperation.

29. Both sides agree to promote international peace and security, a rules-based multilateral free trade regime, and promote development, as well as enhance cooperation under relevant multilateral frameworks including the United Nations (UN) system.

30. Both sides welcomed the signing of various agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) during the visit, as listed in the Annex.

31. The two sides agree that the milestone visit of President Xi Jinping has contributed to the advancement of friendship and cooperation between China and the Philippines. President Xi Jinping appreciated the warm and friendly hospitality accorded to him and his delegation by President Duterte and the Philippine government, and extended an invitation to President Duterte to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing, China in April 2019. President Duterte accepted the invitation with pleasure.
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) hosted a delegation from the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Co-existence and the This Is Bahrain to present Bahrains distinguished experience and pioneering initiatives in the field of tolerance, co-existence, as well as religious and sectarian diversity.

Bahrains Ambassador to the UK, Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, academicians, researchers, students and representatives of religions in the UK attended the event which held in conjunction with the World Day of Tolerance, observed all over the world on 16 November each year.

King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistences Board of Trustees Chairman, Dr Shaikh The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) hosted a delegation from the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Co-existence and the This Is Bahrain to present Bahrains distinguished experience and pioneering initiatives in the field of tolerance, co-existence, as well as religious and sectarian diversity. Bahrains Ambassador to the UK, Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, academicians, researchers, students and representatives of religions in the UK attended the event which held in conjunction with the World Day of Tolerance, observed all over the world on 16 November each year. King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistences Board of Trustees Chairman, Dr Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Second Deputy Chairperson and Chairperson of the This Is Bahrain Society, Betsy Mathieson, in addition to Professor of the King Hamad Chair in Interfaith Dialogue and Peaceful Co-Existence, Alessandro Saggioro, took part in the forum.

Dr. Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa highlighted, in his statement, Bahrains deep-rooted experience in tolerance and co-existence among various religions, sects, and ethnicities in love and peace throughout its long history without distinction based on religious or sectarian considerations. He also spoke about the idea behind the establishment of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence, noting that its role is to consolidate tolerance and peaceful co-existence, promote concepts of the acceptance of the other, peaceful co-existence and religious freedom for which the world is in dire need today. bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Second Deputy Chairperson and Chairperson of the This Is Bahrain Society, Betsy Mathieson, in addition to Professor of the King Hamad Chair in Interfaith Dialogue and Peaceful Co-Existence, Alessandro Saggioro, took part in the forum.

Dr. Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa highlighted, in his statement, Bahrains deep-rooted experience in tolerance and co-existence among various religions, sects, and ethnicities in love and peace throughout its long history without distinction based on religious or sectarian considerations. He also spoke about the idea behind the establishment of the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence, noting that its role is to consolidate tolerance and peaceful co-existence, promote concepts of the acceptance of the other, peaceful co-existence and religious freedom for which the world is in dire need today.
The Kingdoms embassies across the world yesterday confirmed successful voting with a high turnout for this years elections to the parliament. Polling stations at 29 diplomatic missions abroad opened for 12 hours for citizens to exercise their democratic right. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, expressed his pleasure and satisfaction with the smooth-running polling process abroad and the strong voter turnout, which reflects the voters belief in the reform approach of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and their understanding of the importance of this national event.

The Minister affirmed that the polling process in the diplomatic missions of the Kingdom abroad has gone well. He also added that the embassies and consulates of the Kingdom had taken all necessary arrangements to ensure that the polling process is done at ease, in a well-organized environment that correlates with such an important national event.

Shaikh Khalid pointed out that the diplomatic missions of the Kingdom of Bahrain abroad received citizens from 8 am to 8 pm, in 29 different capitals and cities all over the world. He added that a specialised committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been following up the round-the-clock polling process which began at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Tokyo and will end at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Washington and the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Bahrain in New York tomorrow at 4:00 am.

The minister congratulated His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Royal Highness the Prime Minister, Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, on the the success of the polling process in the diplomatic missions of the Kingdom of Bahrain abroad. The elections are being held this year under the theme Its Our Call. Queues were seen outside Bahrain embassies in many countries a few minutes after the polls opened, say sources. Just a few minutes after the polls opened, the first voters at the Embassy for the Parliamentary elections 2018 cast their votes, Bahrains embassy in the UK stated.

The voting for the parliamentary elections began at the Embassy of the Kingdom in Moscow from 8 am onwards. Ambassador Ahmed Al Saati and diplomats at the embassy were among the first to vote, Bahrains embassy in Russia stated. Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS) monitored polls in Egypt and the UAE, BHRWS General secretary Faisal Fulad said.
HNX - 8/10/2020 8:20:00 AM

- Name of issuer: Quang Nam Urban Environment Joint Stock Company

- Stock code: QNU

- Securities type: Common stock

- Name of person discharging managerial responsibility /Director: Chung Thanh Dong

- Position in the listed company: Member of the BOD, General Manager

- Number of shares held by the shareholder before transaction: 273,100 shares (4.02%)

- Number of shares registered for acquisition: 47,600 shares

- Number of shares acquired: 0 share

- Total holding following transaction: 273,100 shares

- Total percentage holding following transaction: 4.02%

- Reason for not completing transaction: Market development and Covid-19 epidemic

- Start date of transaction: 07/07/2020

- End date of transaction: 31/07/2020
Undersecretary for Islamic Affairs at the Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments Ministry, Dr. Fareed Al Meftah, has stated that Bahrain is gearing up for the parliamentary and municipal elections later this week, which will confirm its civilizational and democratic approach spearheaded by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Ever since HM the King launched the Royal Reform Project, the pace of development and modernization in the kingdom has been accelerated in all fields, he said, stressing that the great number of candidates and the fierce competition among them is a strong proof of the Bahraini peoples keenness to support the sound royal reform project.

The Undersecretary called on all the citizens to answer the call of duty and assume their religious and national responsibility through active participation and voting in the elections. He also called on the candidates to place the national interests above anything else and to work vigorously and sincerely for a bright future for the kingdom and its generations.
Bahraini economic delegation on a visit to explore opportunities in cross-border commerce in China has signed major deals at the Bahrain  Zhejiang Business Forum in Hangzhou. This is in addition to the eight landmark agreement signed by the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) delegation to deepen economic ties with Shenzhen last week. A senior delegation from EDB met with ZHANG Zexi, Vice Chairman of Zhejiang Provincial Political Consultative Committee and a number of local government officials and business leaders at the Bahrain  Zhejiang Business Forum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.

The forum coincides with the signing of friendly cooperation between the Capital Governor Sheikh Hisham Bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa and Chen Weiqiang, Vice Mayor of Hangzhou. Both Bahrain and Zhejiang have highly digitised economies. We believe a partnership with the Zhejiang government and local leading businesses, such as Jolly Chic, will help both Bahrain and Zhejiang accelerate digital transformation in the 21st-century economy, said Capital Governor Sheikh Hisham Bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa.

Hangzhou and Bahrain have had a long history of trade - since ancient Maritime Silk Road. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, we believe Hangzhou and Manama will have even greater opportunities for cooperation, said Chen Weiqiang, Vice Mayor of Hangzhou. Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of the Bahrain EDB, said that the agreements will pave the way to create a shared future for Bahrain, China, and the Gulf region.

Being the regions freest economy, Bahrain can be the ideal hub for Chinese business, SMEs and startups to access the numerous opportunities available in the region. The Bahraini delegation will head to Shijiazhuang and Beijing as it continues to explore deeper economic ties with China ahead of the 30-year anniversary.
For the first time, the Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde brings together in a single watch two of Maurice Lacroixs signature complications: the square wheel and the retrograde date. Visually, both these elements share the dial, producing an unusual combination of shapes, with the square wheel and the clover-leaf-shaped gear alongside the arc of the retrograde date, taking up three-quarters of the visible area.

Maurice Lacroix, which has its headquarters in Saignelegier in the Swiss Jura, introduced its innovative square wheel back in 2010. It is the result of the watchmakers own research into different ways of telling time, and its association with the Haute Ecole de lArc in Le Locle, just half an hour away. Mechanically, the two wheels  one square and the other clover-leaf-shaped  mesh together perfectly. The square wheel, driven by its clover-leaf partner, can govern either the hours (as in the very first Masterpiece Square Wheel watches) or the seconds. But behind this relatively simple description lies a world of cutting-edge technology and execution, in terms of calculating the angles of the teeth on the two gears, which are all different, and the materials used, along with the photolithography and electroforming procedures used to machine micro-components measuring just 0.5 mm thick.

The square wheel mecanism on the new Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde  Maurice Lacroix

Maurice Lacroix has always shown a preference for retrograde displays, or even double retrograde; they can be used for power reserve, calendar, moon phases or second time zone, all of which can be found in Masterpiece watches. The needle moves along an arc and, at the end of its journey, it jumps back to the beginning and starts over again.

In the new Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde, the square wheel mechanism displays the seconds using one of its spokes as a pointer. Compared with an hour wheel, a seconds wheel naturally revolves more quickly, offering a unique animation on the watch face. The highly readable retrograde date is displayed along a generously-proportioned arc between 4 and 6 oclock.

The two versions of the new Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde  Maurice Lacroix

The Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde comes in a 43 mm steel case with a depth rating of 100 metres, in a choice of two dial colours: silvered with blue accents, or black with red gold. The hobnail motif underneath the square wheel and the date register provides a striking contrast to the sand-brushed surface of the silvered dial. On the black version, vertical Geneva stripes bring a traditional note to a highly original and contemporary dial.

The sapphire caseback reveals another fascinating sight  the wheels and gears of the self-winding Calibre ML 258. It features a module developed and assembled in the Maurice Lacroix workshops, and beats at a frequency of 28,800 vph, offering a power reserve of 36 hours. The skeletonised rotor is decorated with Geneva striping, and the bridges are sand-brushed and snailed.

Both versions of the Masterpiece Square Wheel Retrograde come on a black alligator strap with an Easychange system. They are priced at CHF 6,900.
The #BringBackOurGirls coalition has again protested against the continued detention of 112 Chibok schoolgirls and other hostages by Boko Haram insurgents.The group led a procession to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday, but were prevented from accessing the State House by policemen.The group in a statement by Edith Yassin, Nifemi Onifade, and Gapani Yanga admonished President Muhammadu Buhari to focus on rescuing the hostagesIt said, During the Goodluck Jonathan Administration, our advocacy was treated with scorn instead of focusing on measures to rescue the girls from the terrorists.The advent of the Muhammadu Buhari Administration had brought hope with a spate of rescues. Sadly that enthusiasm has been diminished by an apparent complacency to complete the task at hand.The BBOG asked the President to focus on governance and expedite the rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls, including Leah Sharibu.The movement accused the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of not doing enough to rescue their workers abducted by Boko Haram in March 2018.We believe that if these three ladies were foreign nationals, the handling of the situation by both organisations would have been more proactive. There must be a greater commitment on the part of both organisations beyond issuing press statements, the group stated.It asked the ICRC and UNOCHA to liaise more effectively with the Federal Government to ensure that the surviving hostage, Alice Nggadah, was not killed by the insurgents.The BBOG noted that it was evident that the insurgency was far from over, adding that long-standing issues of poor feeding, non-payment of stipends, inadequate manpower, and poor intelligence were affecting the morale and fighting capabilities of the security forces in the North-East.See tweet:Today BBOG Protested To The Villa in Continuous Demand For The Rescue Of The Chibok Girls,Leah Sharibu,Alice and Every Other AbducteeWatch This Video As Aisha Yesufu Speaks The Truth To Power https://t.co/VX2l1Q4j8f #BringBackOurGirls (@BBOG_Nigeria) November 21, 2018
The Department of State Services (DSS) says it has arrested a medic who treats Boko Haram insurgents and kidnappers. The medic, wh...





The Department of State Services (DSS) says it has arrested a medic who treats Boko Haram insurgents and kidnappers.





The medic, whose name was given as Yusuf Bala Saliu, was apprehended at Sabon Birni in Igabi local government area of Kaduna.





Peter Afunanya, spokesman of the service, made this known in a statement on Wednesday.





He said the suspect was arrested on November 9 by a joint DSS and military team. Until his arrest. Saliu operated a medicine store and regularly treated wounded kidnappers and their victims.





The service spokesman said the suspect had been linked with 13 high profile Boko Haram commanders on the wanted list of security agencies in the country.





He said four members of a gunrunning syndicate have also been arrested while two members of the group, Bitrus Badung and Emeka Obi, were still at large.





The suspects are Kim Dung, a local AK-47 rifle fabricator, Hubert Akubulo, aka Okafor, Chidi Stanley and Elochukwu Oguabia.





Afunanya said the DSS also arrested a suspected kidnapper, Muhammad Musa, aka Zara, while perfecting plans to kidnap a lawmaker and a prominent personality in Kaduna and Kano respectively.





He said the suspect was arrested November 7 at Mararaban-Jos, also in Igabi LGA of Kaduna.





The spokesman said the service also arrested Umar Nuhu, a suspected member of the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) who was a close associate of Liman Maitukwane, current leader of the Ansaru group.





He said the suspect was arrested November 13 at Rafin-Guza, Kaduna, by the joint team.




Images have emerged of a meeting Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and the Director General of the President Mohammadu Buhari Campai...

Images have emerged of a meeting Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and the Director General of the President Mohammadu Buhari Campaign Organization, Rotimi Amaechi held with former President, Olusegun Obasanjo.





The meeting between the duo and ex-President Obasanjo was held in Ota, Ogun State behind closed-door.
President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Musa Abaji as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.He made this announcement via a letter he sent to the Senate on Tuesday.In the letter which was read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, he said the appointment was according to the advice of the National Judicial Council.In line with 1999 constitution upon the advice of the National Judicial Council, I hereby refer for confirmation the appointment of Justice Musa Abaji as the Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.While hoping that this is expeditiously considered by the Senate, accept the assurances of my highest regard, the letter read.In another letter, the president declined assent to the Institute of Chartered Biochemist and Molecular Biology of Nigeria Bill 2018.He said his decision to withhold assent to the bill was because, if passed, the bill will infringe on the mandate of the National University Commission and the National Board for Technology Education.He also said there are drafting issues on the bill.Pursuant of section 68(4) of the constitution, I hereby convey to the senate the decision on the 5th November 2018 to decline presidential assent to the Institute of Chartered Biochemist and Molecular Biology of Nigeria bill 2018 recently passed by the National Assembly for the following reasons;A. The provisions of section 13(3) to give the chartered biochemist and molecular biology power to approve academic program and even close down programs in tertiary institutions will infringe on our mandate of the National University Commission and the National Board for Technology Education.B. There are certain drafting and administrative issues in the bill, including the failure in section 13(8), 14 and 22(2) to designate a chairman for both the practice and publicity committee and or specific process for how a chairman should emerge for either of the education, practice and publicity committees.This can lead to confusion in the administration of the council, the president wrote in his letter.
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Tuesday insisted that there i...





The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Tuesday insisted that there is no bad blood between him and the current Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode.





Obviously referring to recent scathing remarks about him by the governor, Sanwo-Olu said they were getting on well.





On the Ambode issue, let me state it here that there is no Ambode issue. He is my governor. We are one party and our goals are the same. A better and greater Lagos is our challenge.





There is no rancour. We meet. We talk. We are clear about what Lagos needs to excel and that is our collective goal, Sanwo-Olu tweeted.





Ambode had in September accused Sanwo-Olu of undergoing rehabilitation at the Gbagada General Hospital in Lagos, saying the then governorship aspirant was unfit of ruling Lagos.




The Senate, on Wednesday, summoned the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to explain the Federal Governments plans for the Enugu and Port Harcourt railway lines.In a discussion on the floor of the Senate, senators decried the state of the development of railways lines in the South Eastern part of the country.Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu started the conversation after citing, Orders 42 and 52. He said, For a country to survive there has to be equity, fairness and justice. Less attention is being given to the Eastern part of Nigeria.Contributing to the debate, Senator Shehu Sani said, We invited the Minister of transport and he promised us that Port-Harcourt -Maiduguri route would be the next priority. Nothing has been done.That line has a lot of political, social and economic advantage as it can open many opportunities. I request that the Senate bring the Minister of transport to answer these questions.A Delta State senator, James Manager, added, I remember following these lines as a young boy, that part of this country is very stressful. Everything about the railway lines will improve the Nigerian economy as a whole. This is a matter of great interest to all Nigerians.Senator Ahmad Lawan speaking on the issue said, The problem is that there is only rehabilitation and not modernization. What is given to other parts of Nigeria should also be given to the Eastern part.Mr. President has said that every capital in Nigeria should be linked to a railway line. Let us ensure this is done.At the end of the discussion, the Senate resolved to invite the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi to brief the Committee on Land Transport and Local & Foreign Debt on the Federal Government plans for rail development from the Port Harcout and Enugu railway axis.
Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, has launched his re-election bid on the platform of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP)....

Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, has launched his re-election bid on the platform of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP).





Sani named Monday Onyebuchi, a Kaduna-born Igbo man, as the director-general of his campaign.





The senator had resigned from the All Progressives Congress (APC) following the controversies which trailed the partys primaries for the 2019 elections.





Today, Im launching my bid for re-election to the senate to represent Kaduna Central as the flag bearer of the Peoples Redemption Party PRP, Sani said on Tuesday.





I seek to represent you in order to remain your force for freedom and your voice for justice. I seek for your new mandate in order to continue to defend and project your interest.





I appointed a Kaduna born and based Igbo man, Chief Monday Onyebuchi, as my Campaign DG.





You have a choice in Kaduna central; to vote for me or to vote for a sit-in stooge who will be there to keep the seat for the Governor.





The future of your country is in your thumb. You either move to the promised land or remain in Egypt.

Read his full speech below:





Today, Im launching my bid for re election to the senate to represent Kaduna Central as the flag bearer of the Peoples Redemption Party PRP.





Im here again to seek the support, the solidarity and the votes of the people of Kaduna central for the upcoming general elections slated in February 2019.





I seek to represent you in order to remain your force for freedom and your voice for justice. I seek for your new mandate in order to continue to defend and project your interest.





I have in the last three and half years been able to stand for you and speak for you within and outside of the senate. I have also been able to positively impact on the lives of so many of you through visible and verifiable intervention projects and empowerment programs.





This is another phase in the history of our country and in your lives, to take a decision and make a choice of where your future should be.

In the last three and half years, you have endured suffering, hardships and deaths. You have become victims of false promises and arrogance of power in Kaduna state. You were afflicted with a leadership that is so destructive and treacherous. You were caged and exploited by a crude right wing parasitic leadership that latched and hang on the name of your President.





Iniquitous and failed leadership in Kaduna has turned the state into a hub for Kidnappings,religious extremism and deaths.The Government in Kaduna is lead by a divisive emperor unjust to both Christians as well as Muslims.He rules and want to continue to rule by exploiting your diversity and religious differences.Reject APC in Kaduna state and anyone associated with it.





A nation on the precipice,on the cliff, must carefully gauge its option before moving to the next level.The Senate should not be a refuge for political protection, it should not be an old peoples home,it should not be a pensioners station or a reward home for stooges and loyalists. The Parliament is the most important organ of Government that needs people of principles, intellect and capacity to hold sacred the baton of representation.





You have a choice in Kaduna central; to vote for me or to vote for a sit in stooge who will be there to keep the seat for the Governor.





The PRP is not one of the two big parties. The two big parties will depend on their might and strengths but we will depend on our honour, our spirit, our faith and our ageless and untiring and unwavering bond with the masses.





You have been through the tunnel of horror, you must not end up into another one of tragedy. The ruling party has no enough stock of honour and justice to dispense even to its members not to talk of others. They will depend on the use of state resources to buy your votes and your conscience and use the state machinery to repress you, but you must remain firm to defend your votes.





The future of your country is in your thumb. You either move to the promised land or remain in Egypt.





President Buhari is a good and honest man, but a demanding leadership in a nation of myriads of challenges needs more than sainthood. Present and future Nigeria doesnt need a senate of lackeys, satraps, puppies and puppets, Stooges in the senate cannot hold the executive to account. If you have a Parliament inhabited and dominated by puppets and puppies, you will have a tyranny in your country.





Even if ruling party tickets were for sale as its done at the gate of the theatre, the opera, the tollgate, the stadia, you must not sale your conscience and votes.




Magnus Abe, senator representing Rivers south-east, says Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, categorically asked him not to co...





Magnus Abe, senator representing Rivers south-east, says Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, categorically asked him not to contest Rivers governorship election.





Abe said the unacceptable episode played out in his house, in the presence of his wife.





The minister and senator have been at loggerheads over the All Progressives Congress (APC) structure in Rivers.





Amaechi is backing Tony Cole, co-founder of Sahara Group, who is the APCs recognised governorship candidate.





Speaking with The Interview Magazine, Abe said his insistence to contest the Rivers governorship election is the root of his disagreement with Amaechi.





I have no grievances with the transport minister because he did not support me in 2015. That is a very skewed narrative. We have been friends, we have been together, long after 2015. We have been together, running around together, doing everything together long after 2015, he said.





My grievances with the transport minister have nothing to do with him supporting me or not supporting me. I have told him clearly that he is free to support who he wants to support. I told him that personally. Ive told him that publicly, and I have said so everywhere I went.





My disagreement with the minister is that he said I should not run and I said I would run. I said since you are the leader of the party, create an atmosphere where everybody can participate as party members and contest.





I would have been celebrated for the number of votes that I got. And I was ready for that. But to say I will not be allowed to contest; to come to my house, call me in front of my wife and tell me not to try contesting I said no, I will not accept that one. I will contest. And I will contest.





So, there are certain things, you dont skew the narrative to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion. I am a democrat. I am very, very satisfied with the distance my God has taken me and where he has placed me as far as this country is concerned.




The National Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Chekwas Okorie, on Tuesday defended the partys adoption of President Muh...





The National Chairman of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Chekwas Okorie, on Tuesday defended the partys adoption of President Muhammadu Buhari as its candidate in the 2019 presidential election.





He said the decision is to preserve the zoning formula of the party, adding that the re-election of President Buhari will enable power shift to the South in 2023.





Mr Okorie stated this in a statement made available to journalists after a press briefing at the partys secretariat in Abuja.





The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the UPP in August decided the party would not field a presidential candidate in 2019 but back Mr Buhari.





After leading a South-east group to a closed door meeting with Mr Buhari on Friday at the Presidential Villa, Mr Okorie announced the partys decision to adopt Mr Buhari as UPP presidential candidate.





The unwritten power-sharing agreement known as zoning aims to alternate the presidency between northern and southern parts every eight years.





It was consolidated during Nigerias first two democratic transfers of power  in 1999 and 2007.





It was however truncated in 2011 when former President Goodluck Jonathan, from the South-south, contested and won the general elections.





Mr. Jonathan also contested in 2015 against the wish of political blocks who felt the presidency ought to have been zoned to the North for eight years.





Although the very desirable rotation of power in Nigeria has not been provided for in the Nigerian constitution, a noticeable convention of rotation of power between the North and South has been operative for a while, the party chairman explained.













Since 1999 when Nigeria returned to democratic rule, this pattern of rotation has assumed the status of a convention rather than the rule. The expectation of shift of power from South to North and North to the South has some soothing effect on the perennial agitation for power shift, especially during each general election.





It is therefore our position and for the sake of national stability, cohesion and unity, that four more years of President Muhammadu Buhari is far more reassuring and beneficial to most Nigerians whether from the North or the South than a possible eight years of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar government which will also foist on Nigerians the sad memories of the 16 years of nightmare Nigerians lived under the PDP government in Nigeria.





Mr Abubakar, a former vice president, became the main challenger of the incumbent president at next years polls after clinching the presidential ticket of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).





Outlining how UPP will campaign for Mr Buhari, Mr Okorie also aimed shots at the PDP.





As Nigerians we feel the difficult economic times the nation is facing. We are also aware of the enormous challenges of having to rescue Nigeria from imminent collapse as a result of the mindless and unconscionable looting of our common patrimony and treasury by the PDP administration consistently for over 16 years that the party held sway at the Federal and state governments including the outright control of a criminally compliant and conniving National Assembly.





There is no discerning Nigerian or patriotic and rational political party that will have an objective assessment of President Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar that will not come to a logical conclusion that President Buhari towers head and shoulder above Mr Abubakar in integrity and all other consideration.





As we hit the campaign train we shall from time to time share with Nigerians the many sound and logical reasons why president Buhari shall be returned to complete his second term in office and why it shall be a tragedy of a monumental proportion to return the years of profligacy, unbridled corruption, scandalous leakages and highly compromised judiciary, to power.





Mr Okorie said the core values of his party remain unchanged but its main target from now is to aggressively campaign in a very robust, vibrant and civilized manner to ensure the victory of President Buhari in the 2019 polls.




Designer, influencer, musician and founder of the Fragment company, Hiroshi Fujiwara is known worldwide for his collaborations with several brands as well as for the concept stores POOL Aoyama and THE CONVENI.

After an initial meeting and a deep dive into the product archives of the manufacture, the designer learned about the history of the TAG Heuer Carrera. The chronograph has occupied pole position in the world of motor racing for 55 years, and the collection takes its name from the legendary week-long Carrera Panamericana road race held in Mexico during the 1950s. Designed for drivers, the watch offered a revolutionary design of its dial with the ring securing the dial on the case featuring the indispensable seconds scale.

Hiroshi Fujiwara chose this original model from 1963 and he joined forces with TAG Heuer to redesign it in a truly disruptive avant-garde spirit.

Carrera Heuer 02 by Fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara  TAG Heuer

The TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02 by Fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara stays true to the brands commitment to its Swiss avant-garde spirit with its Calibre Heuer 02 automatic manufacture movement.

Three black counters with lacquered white hands adorn the black dial: a minute counter at 3 oclock, a permanent second subdial at 6 oclock and an hour counter at 9 oclock. Beige indexes and rhodium-plated hour and minute hands with beige SuperLuminova complement the sleek black dial, which also features a silver flange and the signature logo at 12 oclock. The shimmering 39 mm stainless-steel case has a special stainless-steel screw-down sapphire caseback, specially engraved with its limited-edition number.

 TAG Heuer

The watch features a new powerhouse strap design in black and an additional black and grey NATO strap is included in the display case.

A limited edition of 500 pieces, the TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02 by Fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara is on sale exclusively in TAG Heuer boutiques and at www.tagheuer.com
Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawki Allam has denounced the " Disgraceful" terrorist attack, which targeted a gathering of religious scholars in Afghanistan's Capital Kabul, killing at least people 55 people celbebrating Prophet Mohammad anniversary on Tuesday.

The Mufti said the terrorist attack shows these organizations' hate toward scholars and reveal their attempts to shut down " the voice of righteousness" that stand against their false ideas.

" The targeting of innocent people joyfully celebrating the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad is the clearest evidence of their aversion from the teachings of the prophet, which stress the sanctity of blood and value love and tolerance among people.

Afghan authorities were struggling on Wednesday to identify the group behind a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 55 people attending a gathering of religious scholars in Kabul after the Taliban denied any responsibility.

The victims included religious delegates from various parts of the country, invited by the Afghan Ulema Council to celebrate the religious gathering.

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Egypt's interior ministry has approved requests by 44 Egyptians to acquire a foreign nationality without retaining their Egyptian citizenship.

The decision was published in Egypt's official gazette on Wednesday.

The ministry explained that the decision comes per the constitution and Nationality Law 26 of 1975, which regulates nationality status.

The ministry said that the individuals who received approval include those who seek to become citizens of Germany, Austria, Lithuania, Norway, The Netherlands, Kuwait, China, Taiwan, Oman and Japan.

Article 10 of the Nationality Law stipulates that an Egyptian citizen who fails to obtain prior permission from the Ministry of Interior to acquire a foreign nationality would continue to be considered by the authorities as a citizen of Egypt.

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Cairo is hoping 2019 will be the year when political and economic deals come to fruition

Senior Hamas and Fatah sources, speaking from Gaza and Ramallah, say their latest meetings with the mediation team sent by Cairo have raised the possibility of a deal being signed before the end of the year.

The basis of the deal Hamas and Fatah have tentatively agreed is built on the reconciliation paper Cairo first proposed in October 2017.

Delegations from both groups are expected to arrive soon in Cairo for follow-up talks with Egyptian officials.

One informed Egyptian source refused to be drawn on precisely when the deal is expected to be signed, though he noted there is a positive attitude from both Hamas and Fatah which has not been there until quite recently.

He said Cairo had briefed Washington, and that by late this year or early next year  shortly after the end of the international holiday season the Palestinians would be in a relatively unified position.

This is an important development given that the word coming from Washington is that [US President Donald] Trump is planning to announce his peace proposals before the beginning of the holiday season or right after  the latter being the most likely.

According to the same source, Egypt has been in touch with Jordan, a key partner in managing the Palestinian file.

Containing Palestinian rifts and reducing the tensions between Gaza and Israel are a top priority for Cairo which is hoping to play a central role in  possibly hosting  any peace held between the Palestinians and Israelis once the Trump deal is offered.

I dont think anyone can be sure how things will develop but I can safely say that a deal will be offered and talks will take place, some of them in Egypt, said the source.

Egypts effort to promote peace on the Palestinian-Israeli front is part of a wider diplomatic drive by Cairo that includes the promotion of a possible basic deal for Libya.

In the course of talks UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame held with Egyptian officials during his visit to Egypt two weeks ago Cairo promised to intensify its efforts to assemble a unified Libyan army, under the direct supervision of Khalifa Haftar, as Salame attempts to set the stage for possible elections in Libya in May 2019.

According to a source in Rome, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi told his Italian interlocutors during the Libyan conference held last week in Palermo that a unified Libyan army was achievable in the first few weeks of the new year.

We will do our part and we are hoping that Ghassan Salame will be able to manage the political process in a way that sets the tone for elections, said an Egyptian source.

The situation in Libya might improve, even in the absence of an immediate stabilising deal.

We are talking about setting the basic terms of a reconciliation agreement between east and west Libya. The troubled south is another story, he said.

On yet another parallel track, Egypt could soon play host to meetings of Syrian political figures as a precursor to forming a committee to draft a new constitution for the troubled country.

It is still only an idea, said the Egyptian source. But we have hosted meetings before to bring together Syrian players who could work together and with the Syrian regime.

The source added that Egypt is keen to help out on the Syrian front.

Cairo is clearly uncomfortable with so many signs of foreign intervention in a country that is key to Egypts strategic interests.

Egypt is particularly discomfited with the Iranian/Turkish presence in an important Arab country.

Cairo is also keen to help Syria return to the Arab League and is making no secret of its wish to consolidate Bashar Al-Assads regime as a possible ally.

We have already tested the water a couple of times and will try again, said the Egyptian source.

Cairos objective is to ensure any new Syrian constitution does not open the door to a sudden shift in the balance of political power in Syria  a euphemism for keeping Islamists, especially groups allied with Qatar and Turkey, out.

Egypt has counted on its allies the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to push for this balance in Syria and the growing rift between Riyadh and Ankara, and the isolation of Qatar within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), could well lend further impetus to Cairos aims.

The issue has been thoroughly discussed with Russia, the same Egyptian source said, and it is also being discussed with our friends in the Gulf.

Syria was a top issue on the agenda of this weeks talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Valdimir Putin when the two leaders met on Monday during celebrations to mark the completion of the offshore phase of the gas pipeline beneath the Black Sea.

It will, however, be fairly low on the priorities of the GCC summit due to take place during the first week of December, with a dedicated Kuwaiti mediation that aims to end the rift among the member states of the grouping,

Yet Cairo remains hopeful that the Putin-Erdogan meeting and the GCC summit will allow for the consolidation of the sensible power balance it has been targeting for Syria.

Egypt is also keeping its fingers crossed that the GCC summit in Kuwait will give a push to a political deal to end a four-year war in Yemen.

This has been a very consuming war and we have offered our help to end it many times. Finally, there seems to be sufficient international and regional interest to push for a political agreement that takes into consideration legitimate Saudi concerns over Iranian infiltration while simultaneously allowing all Yemeni people groups, including the Houthis, a fair share in power-sharing, the Egyptian source said.

By the end of the first week of December Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy to Yemen, is scheduled to host inter-factional Yemeni talks in Stockholm. Griffiths, who has already held talks on a possible peace deal in Saudi Arabia, is due to head to Yemen next week to meet with opposing factions ahead of the Stockholm talks.

Cairo has sounded a cautious note, though it hopes that the latest moves on Yemen could at least consolidate the recently secured ceasefire and perhaps lead to a temporary peace deal.

Egypt is well aware the conflicts that have dogged the region for years will not be resolved in a few weeks. Yet it remains hopeful the trend towards political and military de-escalation could serve its plans for economic growth which are based on two pillars.

The first is to establish itself as a natural gas regional hub  the initial plan includes Israel and, later, Greece and Cyprus as well as some Arab countries. The second is to develop tourism and industrialisation across Sinai, in the north and south of the peninsula.

There is considerable economic potential and we are discussing clear plans with our partners in and out of the region. We are hopeful that next year will see the beginning of the launch of these projects though for this to happen we need to push for de-escalation as hard as possible, the Egyptian source said.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: De-escalation first

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Franchises are playing a more and more important role in the Egyptian economy

This week Cairo hosted the 16th Middle East and North Africa International Franchise and Licence Exhibition (MIFE), an annual event drawing attention to the growing role of franchises in the Egyptian economy.

This year saw first-time exhibitors in the Egyptian market, said Hatem Zaki, secretary-general of the World Franchise Council (WFC) and board member of the Egyptian Franchise Development Association that held the MIFE.

The MIFEs annual meetings aim to shed light on the success stories of trademark holders, businesspeople in the Egyptian market, and the holders of trade names wishing to sell their trademarks to others seeking job opportunities, Zaki said.

Franchising is a way of distributing products and services based on a contract between two parties that are independent legally and economically in which the franchisor lends his trademark to the franchisee who pays a royalty for the right to do business under the franchisors name in an agreed-on region for a certain time.

According to a franchising contract, the franchisor is committed to extending technical help when needed in return for fees or economic interests. Egypt was first introduced to franchising in the 1970s with the advent of US fast-food chains in the country.

The MIFE draws attention to some of the franchise opportunities available and connects sources of finance with people seeking loans for projects. This year the sources of finance included the Social Fund for Development, the National Bank of Egypt and the Export Development Authority, Zaki added.

The MIFE was held this year under the title of Social Franchising and Sustainable Development and aimed to apply franchising to achieve social benefits, instead of simply individual gains, through allying a social target with a successful economic model and creating new job opportunities.

The annual growth rate of franchises in Egypt has reached 20 per cent, Zaki said. Direct franchise investments in Egypt are estimated at LE80 billion, while indirect franchise investments recorded LE90 billion. Together, they provide 90,000 direct job opportunities and 1.6 million indirect ones.

Annual franchise sales exceed LE12 billion annually in Egypt, and there are now around 60,000 franchised outlets across the country, including restaurants, stores, coffee shops, hotels, banks, law and international accounting firms, schools, universities, factories and real-estate companies.

According to Hussein Abul-Fath, secretary-general of the Egyptian Franchise Development Association, franchise projects can provide job opportunities for many Egyptian young people.

These projects are often less risky and have a higher success rate, he said, adding that the MIFE presents an array of opportunities for local and international franchises and encourages national and foreign investors. It is the perfect environment for Egyptian and international exhibitors to strike deals with potential investors.

A recent WFC study on the economic effect of franchising revealed that the gathering represented 40,000 international trademarks and 2.6 million stores or other units around the world.

WFC franchises produce 2.7 per cent of gross world economic product and employ 29 million workers.

Franchising gives the franchisor an opportunity for his trademark to expand outside the borders of his country, Abul-Fath said, adding that the Egyptian Franchise Development Association is working towards a draft bill focusing on registering contracts between the parties and terms of disclosure.

The association has held hearings with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, lawmakers, the Federation of Egyptian Industries, business associations and academics to draft a law guaranteeing the rights of both franchisor and franchisee, he said.

The three-day event was held in conjunction with the WFCs annual meeting comprising 46 federations from 43 countries, together with the European Franchise Federation, the Asia-Pacific Franchise Confederation, and the Ibero-American Franchising Federation.

Exhibitors from China, Singapore and Malaysia attended the MIFE for the first time.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Franchise opportunities

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The United States has moved to disrupt an Iranian-Russian network that sent millions of barrels of oil to Syria and hundreds of millions of dollars to indirectly fund militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The complicated arrangement, described by the U.S. Treasury in a statement on Tuesday, involved a Syrian citizen using his Russia-based company to ship Iranian oil to Syria with the aid of a Russian state-owned company.

Syria then helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to Hezbollah, which functions as a political party that is part of the Lebanese government and as a militia, as well as to Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Since 2014, vessels carrying Iranian oil have switched off transponders to conceal deliveries to Syria, the Treasury Department said, adding it, the State Department and the U.S. Coast Guard had issued an advisory to the maritime community about the sanctions risks of shipping oil to Syrias government.

The alleged arrangement shows how Russia has sought to undercut U.S. policy toward Syria, where Washington and Moscow back opposite sides of a civil war that began in 2011, as well as toward Iran, which the United States wants to curb its nuclear and missile programs and support for militant proxies.

Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the (Syrian President Bashar al-) Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement announcing sanctions on those it said were tied to the network.

Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, he added.

Richard Nephew, a sanctions expert at Columbia University, said: The arrangement exposes Russias efforts to support Assad for their own interests, which has the function of thwarting the U.S. desire to no longer have Assad in power.

Those targeted include Syrian Mohammad Amer Alchwiki and his Russia-based company Global Vision Group, which were central to the delivery of Iranian oil to Syria and the transfer of funds to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Forces lethal proxies, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Other targets include Syrian national Hajji Abd Al-Nasir, Lebanon national Muhammad Qasim Al-Bazzal and Russian national Andrey Dogaev, as well as Iranian nationals Rasoul Sajjad and Hossein Yaghoubi Miab, the statement said.

Sajjad and Yaghoubi, Central Bank of Iran officials, worked to facilitate Alchwikis transfers, it said.

Others sanctioned include state-owned Russian company Promsyrioimport, a subsidiary of the Russian Ministry of Energy, which the U.S. Treasury said had facilitated shipments of Iranian oil to Syria, as well as Mir Business Bank and Iran-based Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company.

Russia will continue supplying oil to Syria in line with its agreement with Damascus despite pressure from the United States, RIA news agency quoted Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian Federation Council, as saying late on Tuesday.

The political defeat in Syria apparently prompts the United States to return to the idea of regime change in Damascus. Therefore, economic pressure through oil supply shutdown becomes a tool of the new economic war with Bashar Assad and indirectly with Moscow and Iran, he said.

According to Morozov, Russia acts and will act absolutely legally.

We have an agreement with Syria and therefore its up to us to decide what we supply and to whom. This will be our answer, (it is) much more effective than counter sanctions, he added.

The Russian Energy Ministry, to which Promsyrioimport belongs, declined immediate comment.

The Treasurys designation of the individuals and entities effectively cuts them off from the global financial system by blocking any of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and in effect warning non-U.S. institutions against dealing with them.

The United States is at odds with Britain, France and Germany as well as with Russia and China over U.S. President Donald Trumps May 8 decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, negotiated with the other world powers during Democratic President Barack Obamas administration.

That agreement removed many U.S. and other economic sanctions from Iran in return for Tehrans commitment to curtail its nuclear program.

Trump restored U.S. sanctions on Nov. 5 and has threatened more action to stop its outlaw policies.

Iran, in turn, called Trumps actions economic warfare and vowed to defy the sanctions. European powers that continue to back the nuclear deal said they opposed the reapplication of sanctions.

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The UN Yemen envoy faced his "sternest test" on Wednesday as he headed to the rebel-held capital Sanaa to try to avert all-out fighting for the port of Hodeida and widespread famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as UN envoy Martin Griffiths makes the biggest peace push in two years.

But a devastating all-out assault on the city's lifeline docks still threatens as coalition commanders scent a potentially game changing victory in their three-and-a-half year war on the rebels.

UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port of Hodeida is closed by fighting or damage.

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory in the densely populated highlands, and some 80 percent of commercial food imports and virtually all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through its docks.

Griffiths was due to fly into Sanaa for talks with rebel political leaders later on Wednesday as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in acrimony in Switzerland in September when the rebels failed to show up.

The rebels have said repeatedly that they need stronger security guarantees from the international community that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

- 'Sternest test' -

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing over of the port of Hodeida to UN control.

"Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure," said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

"If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process that has been stalled for the past two years.

"But if he fails, peace in Yemen will look increasingly remote and the prospects for its embattled population increasingly dire."

Both sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy and his mission to convene new peace talks in Sweden, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Just hours before Griffiths' planned arrival in Sanaa, residents in the east of Hodeida told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

- Call for truce -

On Monday, Britain presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove all barriers to humanitarian aid.

The proposed resolution would significantly ratchet up pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the rebels to seek a negotiated settlement.

It also calls for a large injection of foreign cash to support Yemen's collapsing currency and for salaries of civil servants, teachers, and health workers to be paid within a month.

Multiple past attempts to hold negotiations have failed.

Griffiths said Monday he hoped the rivals would meet in Sweden "within the next few weeks". No date has been set.

- 'Stop selling weapons' -

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people -- mostly civilians -- have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began, but human rights groups believe the toll may be five times higher.

The World Food Programme says up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation.

Save the Children said on Wednesday that some 85,000 infants under the age of five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases between March 2015 and this October based on UN agency figures.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Seventy four people, including soldiers, were sentenced to life in prison by a Turkish court on Wednesday for their role in an attempted coup, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

More than 240 people, most of them unarmed civilians, were killed on the night of July 15, 2016, when a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes in a botched attempt to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey blames U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen for the abortive putsch and has carried out a widespread crackdown on his suspected supporters, detaining some 160,000 people, including academics, soldiers and civil servants.

Of those, 77,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during trial, according to the interior minister.

On Wednesday, the court sentenced the 74 defendants to aggregated life sentences for "attempting to disrupt the constitutional order", Anadolu said.

Aggravated life sentences are subject to a harsher regime in prison, and are not eligible for parole or general amnesty. It was not immediately clear how many soldiers were among the group sentenced.

Rights groups and Turkey's Western allies have voiced concern about the scope of the purges, saying Erdogan had used the coup as a pretext to quash dissent.

The government, however, says the measures are necessary due to the gravity of the threats it is facing.

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International efforts are intensifying to reach a ceasefire in Yemen before the warring parties meet in Sweden

International efforts are ongoing to launch a new round of Yemen negotiations in Sweden next month amid mediations to cease continuing firefights. The Houthi Movement announced Sunday night a halt of missile and drone attacks on the borders of Saudi Arabia.

Nonetheless, military conflict didnt cease on the domestic front. Local Yemeni sources said the situation in Al-Hodeida has reached a complicated juncture, further highlighting the need to focus on efforts to reach a ceasefire.

Saudi King Salman said, our standing by Yemen was not an option but a duty to support the Yemeni people in confronting the aggression of Iranian-backed militias.

His remarks were addressed to the Saudi Shura Council, a top governmental advisory body, confirming his support for a political solution in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2216, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative to end the political stalemate in Yemen, and the results of the Comprehensive National Dialogue conference.

He added his kingdom would continue fighting extremism and terrorism and rise to its role of leadership in the region.

UN Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths proposed at the latest Security Council meeting a resolution  the details of which are still unpublished  based on UN Resolution 2216, the GCC initiative and the outcomes of the Comprehensive National Dialogue in addition to talks in Kuwait, considered the longest round of negotiations to broker a peace agreement in Yemen.

It appears, however, that Griffiths has merely passed the proposed resolution to international concerned parties.

Russian Ambassador to Yemen Vladimir Dedushkin called on the international community and conflicting parties in Yemen to support the resolution drafted by Griffiths.

He told the Russian news agency TASS on Saturday, for the first time in three years since the conflict in Yemen started, a specific document has been presented, which must be supported by all sides of the conflict and by the international community represented by the UN Security Council.

The document must be mandatory, this is of fundamental importance. Besides, this will be a difficult compromise, during which the sides have to make significant concessions, he added.

We are talking about basic security parameters and political steps that ultimately would put an end to the conflict and restore Yemens statehood. Naturally, the document outlines the task of creating the corresponding political and military mechanisms to realise these objectives, as well as necessary guarantees, the ambassador stated.

Dedushkin added that achieving this is no easy task given current conditions. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us.

Earlier this week, the head of Griffiths office, Nicola Davis, met with the Houthi Foreign Minister in the movements unofficial and unrecognised cabinet Hisham Sharaf.

Yemeni sources suggested the meeting was preparatory to a visit by Griffiths to put the finishing touches on the schedule of a next round of negotiations, in addition to laying out some tactical moves to set the mood to discuss the issue of detainees.

Griffiths announced he was close to striking a deal with Yemeni parties to release prisoners.

Daviss meeting in Sanaa resulted in the Houthis cessation of escalation, but only on the borders. Mohamed Ali Al-Houthi, head of the Houthis so-called Revolutionary Committee, wrote on Twitter that halting the fighting was in compliance with the UN envoys request.

The movement, hours later, released a military communique in support of the move, expressing its readiness to halt military operations on all fronts to reach a just and honourable peace, as long as the other side showed the same commitment.

Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Washington have seen similar efforts to establish peace in Yemen.

Griffiths met with Reem Al-Hashemi, the UAE minister of international cooperation, and Youssef Al-Oteiba, the UAE ambassador in Washington. Reports of these meetings focused on efforts to stop the war in Al-Hodeida.

Based on current developments, it is believed the issue of Al-Hodeida will be the focus of rounds of talks to establish a ceasefire between the warring parties.

Yemeni analyst Abdel-Aziz Al-Maguidi told Al-Ahram Weekly: It looks like the parties involved in the conflict have been exhausted. Furthermore, they are falling under international pressure after the latest escalation in Al-Hodeida, and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions of the Yemenis.

He added: A ceasefire on the domestic front has not materialised and is expected to remain fragile even if it happens, because of the complicated situation on the field, putting into consideration that the battle in Al-Hodeida has turned into street fights.

Political analyst Mohamed Al-Shemiri concurred. He told the Weekly, the Houthis tactical moves cant be trusted. It is an attempt to negotiate a price with international powers within the frame of the Wests mood, specifically to contain the Houthi Movement.

Thus, what is happening now is an attempt [of the Houthi Movement] to save itself from collapsing after its retreat in the field.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Tactical moves on Yemens front

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Case Paper Opens New Converting and Distribution Facility in California

Case Paper has opened a new 103,250 sq. ft. converting and distribution facility, along with office space, in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Nov. 20, 2018 - Case Paper announced that its California branch on Oct. 1 moved into a new converting facility and office space in Rancho Cucamonga with paper and board inventory arriving onsite on November 16.

Our former office in Arcadia, California was too small for our needs, said Simon Schaffer, Chief Marketing Officer at Case Paper. So we created a new, 103,250 sq. ft. converting and distribution center that can more efficiently serve the needs of all our West Coast customers.

The move will allow Case Paper to not only provide greater warehousing options but will also streamline production. The installation of a new, state-of-the-art Marquip twin-knife sheeter will provide stock custom-sized paper and board grades, and a new guillotine cutter will be able to trim folio sheet sizes down to smaller paper sizes.

A slitter-rewinder will be installed over the coming months that will be able to trim rolls down to narrow widths.

Tim Resser, General Manager of Case Paper California, added, A capital investment of this magnitude demonstrates Case Paper's exceptional commitment to our valued customers, throughout California and beyond, as well as to our staff and their families.

Established in 1943, Case Paper Co. is one of the largest privately held distributor and converter of paper and board for the packaging and printing industries. To learn more, please visit: www.casepaper.com .

SOURCE: Case Paper Company
Bookkeepers, Mad Mullahs, And The Sources Of Iranian Conduct

11/21/18

By Paul Pillar (source: LobeLog)

The Trump administration's policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran so far shows no sign of inducing any desirable change in Iranian policy. Several reasons underlie this failure. The administration has given the Iranian regime no realistic proposition to which it could say "yes" even if it were so inclined, instead issuing a list of broad and unrealistic demands that would amount to Iran rolling over and playing dead. The sanctions the administration has imposed-unlike those that preceded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral nuclear agreement on which the administration has unilaterally reneged-lack international support, and they hurt the Iranian people more than they hurt regime hardliners. The reneging on the JCPOA has greatly discredited the Trump administration in Iranian eyes as a potential negotiating partner.

With each passing week of maximum pressure having minimum results, the folly of abandoning the JCPOA becomes harder to deny. If the administration's efforts to bludgeon European business into ostracizing Iran were to succeed to the point of Tehran deciding that its own continued adherence to the JCPOA was no longer worthwhile, then Iranian production of fissile material would once again be unrestrained. This would mean a new nuclear crisis courtesy of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the administration's obsession over stoking conflict with Iran is the single biggest cause of severe damage to relations between the United States and its allies. It is one of the two biggest causes (along with the administration's subjugation to the Israeli government on other issues) of the United States becoming more globally isolated than it had been in decades.

Despite the failure to induce policy change by Iran, committed opponents of the JCPOA have always had another line of argument, which is based not on inducing the targeted regime to change policy but rather on impeding it from executing what is presumed to be its policy. The latter approach can be a legitimate objective of certain types of sanctions. A country whose unconventional weapons programs are of concern, for example, may become subject to trade restrictions designed to keep out of its hands materials and technologies that it otherwise could use to develop the feared weapons. Applied to Iran today, the specific argument is that the JCPOA is bad because it gave Iran resources that it uses to finance the "malign, nefarious, destabilizing behavior" that critics of Iran keep talking about. At a conference last week sponsored by the American Conservative, former Trump NSC official Michael Anton and Weekly Standard editor Kelly Jane Torrance voiced exactly that argument.

The argument always has had major problems, going back to when it was used as ammunition to try to shoot down the JCPOA even before the agreement was completed. Contrary to the usual phrasing of the argument, Iran wasn't "given" anything through the JCPOA. The partial sanctions relief the agreement provided involved unfreezing some assets that belonged to Iran all along and the partial removal of impediments to normal commerce with Iran. Moreover, the economic benefit to Iran of even this partial relief has routinely been overstated.

Probably the biggest set of problems involves how the whole notion of malign, nefarious, destabilizing behavior gets flung around as a catchphrase divorced from any specific facts or analysis. Sorely lacking is examination of why Iran does what it does, how what it does is or is not different from what other states in the region do, and what difference any of this does or does not make for U.S. interests. These deficiencies have applied to rhetoric about Iran's policies toward the rest of the region and to the subject of terrorism. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi-demonstrating that today Saudi Arabia, not Iran, engages in the nefarious practice of extraterritorial assassination of nonviolent dissidents-stimulated some modest attention to these sorts of questions, but evidently not from the Trump administration.

Implied Iranian Decision-Making

Set all that aside for a moment, however, and consider what the argument at hand-that the JCPOA led Iran to do more bad things in the region because Iran had more resources to pay for them-implies about how Iranian policymakers supposedly think. Those policymakers have long been portrayed with alarm as mad mullahs. That is why Iran was deemed unworthy of being trusted with nuclear weapons in a way that India, Israel, and Pakistan seem to be trusted. It is a portrayal that was propounded most loudly by many of the same people who became the loudest opponents of the JCPOA. But the notion of more bad regional behavior resulting from more financial resources implies that Iran is a nation of bookkeepers, who carefully check how many rials they have in their bank account before deciding how much mayhem to indulge in.

More precisely, the implied picture of Iranian decision-making is a weird and implausible combination of mad mullahs and bookkeepers. The picture is one of decision-makers who are both careful about checking the balance in that bank account and intent on draining the account for nefarious behavior abroad to the exclusion of other needs and priorities. The picture suggests periodic phone calls in Tehran in which the head of the Revolutionary Guard asks the finance minister, "How much money do we have for nefarious behavior this month?"

One problem with this picture is that other needs and priorities do matter, and matter a lot-not only to an elected president such as Hassan Rouhani but also to the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Iran has real politics, and, just as in the United States, domestic economic vulnerabilities imply political vulnerabilities that politicians try to avoid.

Another problem is that some of what Iran does in the region that gets big play from American hardliners is too inexpensive for resources to be much of a consideration at all. The outstanding example is Iranian aid to the Houthis in Yemen, which is minor and almost trivial compared to the far larger Saudi-led war effort. Yemen is not one of the more important places for Iran, but giving a little help to the Houthis is a cheap way for the Iranians to enjoy the satisfaction of watching Mohammed bin Salman stew in the quagmire he has made for himself.

Security Matters More Than Money

The main problem with the implied picture of Iranian decision-making is that even with more expensive Iranian endeavors, political and especially security issues that are important in Iranian eyes are what govern Tehran's decisions, not the number of rials in the national bank account. Iran demonstrated this during the extremely costly Iran-Iraq War, when it decided to continue the war even after Saddam Hussein was ready to sue for peace. Today, as Iraqi analyst Abbas Kadhim observed in a different panel at the American Conservative conference, Iraq is extremely important to Iran, which shares not only the bloody history of the war but a 900-mile border. Iran will pursue, no matter what the cost, its objective of having significant influence in Iraq and a regime in Baghdad that has cordial relations with Tehran. Something similar could be said about Iran's major investment in Syria, which is the one longstanding ally that Iran has had in the Arab world.

If the anti-JCPOA argument about resources and nefarious behavior were valid, then the history of the Islamic Republic would show a strong correlation between the resources and the behavior, with Iran being better behaved (in Western eyes) during times in which sanctions have cut into the available resources. The International Crisis Group recently published a study examining exactly this question. The finding: no such correlation.

That reality will not keep anti-JCPOA hardliners, including the Trump administration, from trotting out the same old arguments. The more time that passes without a positive outcome from the resulting policy, the more indefensible those arguments will be.





About the author:



Paul R. Pillar is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community. His senior positions included National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Deputy Chief of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Pillar's degrees are from Dartmouth College, Oxford University, and Princeton University. His books include Negotiating Peace (1983), Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (2001), Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy (2011), and Why America Misunderstands the World (2016).


Ex-employees of erstwhile UT and Capital Banks have welcomed the assurance by the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta that the exit pay will be paid before Christmas this year.



The minister gave the assurance in an interview with Kwame Sefa-Kayi on Peace Fm, an Accra-based radio station on Friday.



Over the past 15 months, we, the staff of the affected banks, have been living in despondency; some of our colleagues are bedridden and others have lost their lives. We have written petitions to His Excellency the President, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), among others. We have also engaged in various media engagements and taken other initiatives to highlight our plight. The assurance by the Minister of Finance is therefore a welcome relief, and we are hopeful that the exit pay will be paid as indicated to help alleviate our financial distress. Once again, we express our appreciation to the media for giving us the platform to air our grievances.



Background



On 14th August, 2017, ex-employees of the defunct UT and Capital Banks, were hit with the shocking news that in line with Section 123 of the Banks and Specialized Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930), Bank of Ghana (BoG), had revoked the licences of the respective banks due to severe impairment of capital, and had appointed Messrs Vish Ashiagbor and Eric Nana Nipah, both Directors of PricewaterhouseCoopers Ghana Limited, as Joint Receivers for the purpose of winding down the affairs of the two banks.



As a result of the receivership, the Joint Receivers terminated the contracts of staff, numbering about 1,200.



On 19th September, 2017 the employees engaged Union of Commerce, Industry and Finance (UNICOF) to negotiate an exit pay on behalf of the ex-workers.



On 13th November, 2017, negotiations were held with the Joint Receivers, and as per the Joint Receivers letter dated 15th January, 2018, an exit pay was agreed for all ex-staff.



However, 14 months after the liquidation, staff entitlements remain unpaid.



On 9th October, 2018, the Joint Receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers (Ghana) announced in a statement that it had realized over GH400million through sale of assets of the defunct banks and recovery efforts to help clear the liabilities of the banks.



The employees called for the exit pay to be paid since it was just about 10 per cent of the amount recovered to help alleviate their plight.



On 16th November, 2018 the Minister of Finance gave the assurance that the exit pay will be paid before 25th December, 2018.

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.

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According to him, investigations have revealed that some of the banking staff masterminded most of these frauds and urged management of Banks to be wary of people they recruit and do proper checks before employing them.

Dr France said this in Accra at the launch of EMP-Verify, a GAVAC Business Solutions that detects the backgrounds of individuals to mitigate risks in organizations as well as the banking sector.



More than GH30m lost to financial crime in 2017



The amount of money the banking sector in Ghana lost to various types of fraud in the year 2017 amounted to GH30.08 million the BoG has revealed.



Reported incidents of fraud increased by 41.66 per cent from 1001 cases in 2016 to 1,418 in 2017.



In the same year, the total value reported for fraud or attempted fraud amounted to approximately GH190.38 million, of which 16 per cent, or GH30.08 million, was reported as losses while 84 per cent  i.e. GH160.30 million was recovered.



Non-banking financial institutions reported 725 incidents, which is 51.2 per cent, whereas rural and community banks recorded the 223 incidents accounting for 15.72 per cent of all reported incidents. Commercial banks reported 470 incidents representing 33.15 per cent.



The gross monetary value of fraud incidents reported to the central bank by commercial banks is approximately GH110 million, while that of rural and community banks was over GH677,000 while over GH550,000 was reported by the non-banking financial institutions.



Cash and deposit suppression recorded the highest incidents in fraud and attempted fraud reported, with 697 incidents reported to the Bank of Ghana in that year. Ninety per cent of the fraud incidents reported by non-banking financial institutions hinged on cash and deposit suppression. The gross value loss of suppression incidents is over GH15 million with about GH11 million lost in net value.



Overall, cyber fraud recorded the largest volume of GH110,865,960. But not much was actually stolen through cyber fraud, with less than one per cent  i.e. GH232,818.516 lost in net value1.



GH244.32m fraud hits banks, others in 2016



The total monetary value involved in all reported fraud cases by financial institutions, both successful and attempted, for the year 2016 amounted to approximately GH244.32 million.



The amount constitutes 1,001 fraud incidents in 2016 reported to the Bank of Ghana (BoG).



Main fraud cases

The main fraud cases reported were suppression of customer accounts by staff of financial institutions, card fraud, forgery and alteration of documents, manipulation of accounts, and negotiable instruments.



Others included fraudulent collection of international remittances by persons not named as recipients, transactions involving cloned and stolen cheque, and fraudulent transfers through hacked email accounts, the report added.

Types of complaints against banks





BoG explained that the complaints received from the public covered aspects of banking service delivery such as unauthorised withdrawals from customer accounts, especially through internet banking, payment of international remittances to persons other than the intended beneficiaries, and ATM-related disputes.



1,529 Complaints from general public

The report also revealed that a total of 1,529 complaints were received from the general public with respect to banking business.



1,362 Cases against Non-Bank Financial Institutions

Out of this total, the report said 1,362 cases were complaints made by customers of Non-Bank Financial Institutions, especially microfinance institutions.



Dr France the financial sector thrives on trust and confidence, and that, it was imperative for financial institutions to do due diligence in recruiting staff for optimum performance.



He explained that one case of fraud could dent the reputation of the bank, urging players in the sector to exhibit high sense of integrity in the discharge of their responsibilities.



He said on their part, the Bank of Ghana had put in place strong mechanisms to check the backgrounds of staff before engaging their services.



That, he explained, was necessary because the first sector handles funds of clients and it was prudent for the public to have confidence in fund managers and ensure that the funds are protected from any threats.



You can have the best employees who are doing well, but if their integrity and trust is questionable, then it poses serious problems, he added.

He called for collaboration to flush out these risks through robust systems.



MrsMaameYaaTiwaaAddo-Danquah, the Director General, Criminal Investigation Department, said her outfit had digitised all convicted crimes from 1957 to date for easy references. She said one of the challenges facing the department is the ability to put a credible evidence at the court since there were weak documentations.



Truth is not evidence. You may be saying the truth, but if it is not backed with evidence, it becomes difficult for prosecution, she added.

She commended GAVAC Solutions for bringing on board a system to check background of potential staff before recruitment and urged organizations to take advantage of the system to protect and secure assets.

Mr Harry Baiden, the Founder of GAVAC Business Solutions said statistics revealed that 88 per cent of curricula vitae are falsified.



He said comprehensive checks not only look at criminal and educational records but the candidates conduct, social network and reputation, employment history and place of residence. He explained that the EMP-Verify system help Human Resource partners and recruiters to make informed decisions, avoid negligent hiring, the negative impact and cost associated with it.







Source: Finder Newspaper









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.

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The departure of Israels hawkish Avigdor Lieberman as defence minister has been seen by some as a victory for Gaza. But grand machinations continue against the entire Palestinian cause

The resignation of Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman last week ushered in a new phase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some regard the resignation of the hawkish minister, who described efforts to reach a truce with Hamas as capitulation to terror, as a victory for the Palestinian resistance.

After accepting Liebermans resignation, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took over the defence portfolio, thereby putting himself at the head of three ministries foreign affairs, health and defence  not to mention the government as a whole.

His coalition also retains a slim 61-seat majority in the 120-member Knesset enabling it to remain in power without having to call for early elections.

Netanyahu, who is shrewder and more experienced than Lieberman, knew that a ceasefire with Gaza, at this time and in this manner, would cause him some trouble, which he would be able to absorb, while a war against Gaza could bring his defeat in the next elections, said writer and journalist Suleiman Abu Arshid.

Simultaneously, Netanyahu realises that the decline in his popularity will not increase the popularity of a strong rival, such as the Labour Party, but rather that any popularity loss would be distributed among the collection of parties from his own right-wing camp and that no matter how large these parties become they will remain mere branches or limbs of the larger Likud Party, which he heads.

Abu Arshid also observed that, at the more general political level, Netanyahus agreement to the truce stemmed from the realisation that there is no military solution to the question of Gaza and that the solution has to be political.

In fact, the recent tensions, which originated from the failure of a military operation in the heart of Gaza, occurred in the midst of the prelude to a political solution, he said explaining that the solution took the form of a transfer of Qatari funds to pay the salaries of government employees and it was preceded by the delivery of amounts of fuel necessary to increase the hours of electricity generation in Gaza.

Netanyahu depends on such arrangements in order to promote his tactic of dealing with Gaza as a separate entity from the West Bank, thereby prolonging and deepening the political and geographic rift between the West Bank and Gaza and depriving the Palestinians of a unified representation locally and internationally.

This tactic furthers the strategy of the Israeli right, which is to back out of the two-state solution by isolating Gaza and to entrench the system of self-rule regions in what remains of the West Bank after the annexation of Area C to Israel and the recognition of Gaza as the Palestinian state.

Political analyst Adnan Abu Amer observes that we are still in the process of analysing the ramifications of the military setback that Israel sustained from its recent aggression against Gaza.

He adds: We have arrived, today, at the implications of the missile shelling that the resistance staged against Israeli targets in the vicinity of the settlements within range of Gaza, and the political messages these conveyed. The resistance has thereby demonstrated a sophisticated level of political maturity commensurate to its military capacity.

It is nothing new that the Israeli violation of the ceasefire understandings, which had been brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the UN, gave the resistance the political justification for activating its military capacities in order to retaliate against that flagrant violation, Abu Amer continued.

Nor is it a secret that the hours that followed the Israeli violation and preceded the resistances response occasioned feverish political movement between Gaza, Cairo, Tel Aviv and other capitals.

The resistance had clearly notified all those parties that it was in a position in which it had no alternative but to respond to the Israeli violation which came as a slap in the face to all those regional and international efforts.

True, Abu Amer said, the resistance did not wait to receive a go-ahead from those mediators, even though it appreciates the important role they play in stabilising the situation in Gaza.

However, on this occasion, when we bear in mind how the resistance was fed from the previous confrontation which led to the prioritisation of action in the field over political action, the resistance demonstrated its sound judgement in its attempt to strike a balance between the two modes of performance, the diplomatic and the military.

Mediators, encouraged by the resistances restraint, condemned the Israeli aggression and held Israel responsible for any deterioration in the situation in Gaza.

An instance of this restraint was the resistances decision not to shell an Israeli bus carrying IDF soldiers, despite its ability to do so. That instance conveyed a significant political message, Abu Amer said. It stated that the resistance was not inclined to bring down the roof of the temple on all inside or to break the rules or reshuffle the cards even if there was no alternative to a military response to Israeli aggression.

According to Abu Amer, it appears that Israeli decision-makers grasped the message and digested it, as difficult as this may have been for them.

Perhaps this was because all sides converged on this point, which was to avoid escalation to an open confrontation which would destroy everything.

Meanwhile, it also appears that Netanyahu is keen to take advantage of the closest ever ally he has in Washington, US President Donald Trump, and that he realises that he may never again have such a unique opportunity to put paid to the Palestinian cause.

This means that he cannot afford to waste time in domestic squabbles and cabinet reshuffles and that his priority, now, is to help produce that Deal of the Century which has been the subject of so many leaks and conjectures.

In September, Trump said that he would propose the plan within two to four months. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, this would occur in December or January unless the forthcoming elections were brought forward from their scheduled date in November 2019 to February or March.

In that event, the US administration would probably put off unveiling the so-called deal because it would make no sense to propose it without a government in Israel to accept it.

According to journalist and political analyst Hani Al-Masri, some members of the administration in Washington favour proposing the deal as soon as possible in light of an unprecedented wave Arab-Israeli normalisation and other developments, such as the repercussions from the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.

The Gulf countries, in particular, are more inclined to support the deal now than they were before or, at least, they are less keen to oppose it.

However, Al-Masri stresses, all such talk is pointless in view of the steps that the Trump administration has already taken to implement the deal before unveiling it.

These steps began with the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the annexation of the US consulate to the embassy (the US Consulate in East Jerusalem has been there since 1844, which is to say more than a hundred years before the establishment of the Israeli state), all of which were intended to eliminate the question of Jerusalem from final status negotiations.

In addition, the US has also halted its support for and called for the elimination of UNRWA, it altered the definition of refugee so as to reduce their number to only 40,000, it has suspended its support for the Palestinian Authority (PA) apart from its security functions, and it has shuttered the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) office in Washington.

At the same time, it has pressed forward with the plan to sever the West Bank from Gaza and to legitimise Israeli settlement expansion, which Trump claims does not hamper prospects for peace, while David Friedman warned that to dismantle a single settlement would trigger an Israeli civil war.

Many who support the deal believe that there is no reason to fear if the deal fails to win support after it is proposed since it is already being carried out on the ground and since failure would not reverse the de facto realities it has created and the fact that the Trump administration has changed the rules that have governed the political process for decades, making it impossible for any future president to turn back the clock.

One of the factors that would propel Trump to announce the deal sooner rather than later is the results of the mid-term elections in the US.

These were hardly as spectacular for the Republicans as Trump had claimed. Democratic Party control of the House will hamper Trump in legislation and accelerate action against him in the framework of the investigations into Russian tampering in the presidential elections and other scandals.

He would therefore be more inclined to use foreign policy, and specifically the Arab-Israeli conflict, as a means to score a historic achievement that would enhance his prospects in presidential elections two years from now.

In Al-Masris opinion, regardless of whether Trump unrolls the deal now or later, or not at all, the situation of the Palestinian cause will remain dire.

In view of Arab confusion and fragmentation, the upheaval in priorities, and the lack of an effective and unified project or mode of action, the Arabs and Palestinians will remain unable to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves or to repel dangers when they arise.

Against this backdrop, in the event the deal is proposed, the Palestinians will have to accept it or agree to negotiate on the basis of it, which is bad. If they refuse, they risk sanctions and exclusion from the political process. In other words, they would lose everything, or everything they have left. If the deal is not proposed, its implementation is still in full swing and advancing the scheme to create a new reality that makes the Israeli solution the only one available and feasible.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Victory for Gaza resistance?

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The all-new Suzuki Swift which has been designed with improved features and performance has been introduced unto the Ghanaian market by the giant automobile dealer, CFAO Motors.



The newly launched car promises a new world of experience with its automobile styling, indulgent interiors and flawless enhancement.



Customers in Ghana can now have the opportunity to drive a car that scores so high on many levels as it competes strongly on design, safety, reliability, interior space and practicality at an affordable price.



Launching the vehicle at a short ceremony at Suzuki showroom at Airport city, Mr. Paulo Fernandes Managing Director  CFAO Ghana Ltd urged new vehicle buyers to come and test the all-new Suzuki Swift which guarantees excellent performance with a whole new world of safety.



Almost three years ago, CFAO has embarked in an exciting journey to offer the wide range of Suzuki vehicles to the various categories of Ghanaian customers: individuals, private companies and public entities. Up to 2016, the Suzuki brand was not so popular. He said



At CFAO, we want to go beyond that in providing customers with more information on how to use and maintain their vehicles, more enjoyable experiences throughout the life cycle of their vehicles, more safety, and more mobility



Our ultimate ambition is obviously to be the number one car dealer in the heart of the Ghanaian customers. He added



Brand Manager, SUZUKI, Mr. Julius Akyeampong also said, the incredibly stylish and comfortable sedan has over the years been one of Suzukis best selling models in various markets across the world. It clocked 6 million units global sales in February 2018, since its launch in 2004.



The Swifts 1.2 litre petrol dual jet engine is great in power and efficient in fuel mileage (4.9litres per 100km) far above that of its competing class and giving the owner a breather with the current high cost of fuel.



The solid platform is designed with Suzukis TECT principle on the use of high tensile steel, very rigid but light in weight and impact absorption abilities. Backed with front MacPhersons strut suspension and rear torsion beam gives the driver stability and a comfortable experience driving in our rugged nature of roads in the country. he said

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.

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The Ministry of Health (MoH) has begun the drafting of a legislation to institutionalise the integration of various government departments to address anti-microbial resistance (AMR) which occurs as a result of abuse of anti-biotics in Ghana.



The draft follows the launch of the National Anti-Microbial Policy & Strategic Plan by President Akufo-Addo earlier this year, where he called on the MoH to work with the Attorney Generals Department to ensure appropriate legislations are put in place to address the situation.



This announcement was made at the opening of the 2nd Call to Action on AMR which seeks at address the rise and spread of drug-resistant globally and in particular in lower and middle income countries which have the heaviest burden of disease.



The two-day event brought together health representatives from national governments and agencies, civil society, the private sector and global philanthropies to focus on ambitious actions to fight AMR.



Opening the conference in Accra on behalf of President Akufo-Addo, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia said the call for action has become more urgent as the world strives to achieve sustainable development targets and the overall goal of the SDGs.



He said although anti-microbials play significant roles in reducing infectious disease burden since the discovery of penicillin, it has the potential to severely affect the efforts at achieving SDGs.



Access to medicines and for that matter good health is a right issue and government over the years is doing all it can to remove barriers as well as increase access as it strives to achieve universal health coverage for all.



UHC cannot be achieved in isolation if SGDs and issues related antimicrobial resistance are not tackled in one health approach in which allows different government agencies to synergize towards health for all, he opined



The vice president stated that the aim of the global community should be first to halt and then reverse the trend of anti-microbial resistance as the future of the human race may just depend on this.



The Vice President of Liberia, Jewel Haward Taylor, said tackling AMR requires a multi-sector approach due to the interconnected nature of human, animal and environmental health.



Reflecting this cross-cutting nature, groups from across governments communities and sectors have come together to develop innovation solutions aimed at reducing illnesses and deaths cause by superbug, she mentioned.



Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu added that anti-microbial resistance will become meaningless if the global community does not pay attention to the development of action plans and seeing it through the effective implementation of the plans and strategies for accountable governance.



Ghana is pursuing this health security threat and making sure this is followed under One Health Agenda because it is the right thing to do, especially so when His Excellency the President of the Republic is a co-advocate for the SDGs, he pointed out.



The World Health Organization (WHO) data shows that although there has been some progress in countries developing or have developed national plan of action, only 38 per cent out of the 93 per cent of these countries have implemented this plan and 15 per cent have no plan at all, highlighting the long way to go if the world is to turn the tide on AMR.



The Inter-Agency Coordination Group (IACG) on AMR is expected to submit their report to the UN Secretary General which will include recommendation from the Call to Action conferences. The UN Secretary General will then report back to the UN General Assembly in 2019.



When AMR was tabled at the UN General Assembly in 2016, it was only the fourth time in history of the UN that a health topic had been discussed at the General Assembly representing the severity of the issue for every country around the world.



The misuse or abuse of anti-biotics is a contributory factor to AMR

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.

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Three members of the diplomatic community  the Irish and Swiss High Ambassadors to Ghana and the United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator  yesterday bade farewell to President Akufo-Addo.



This was when they called on him at the Jubilee House in Accra to inform him of the end of their duty tour of the country.



First to call was the outgoing Irish envoy, Sean Hoy, who had stayed in the country for four years.



In a brief remark, he indicated that even though he was based in Nigeria where the mission is located, he has fond memories of the times he spent in Ghana during the period of his duty tour particularly when it comes to security.



He disclosed that Ireland would be looking at expanding relations with West Africa and Ghana would be one of the key countries within the sub-region that stands to benefit from these relations.



On his part, President Akufo-Addo congratulated Hoy on his new posting to Brazil.



He was, however, hopeful that in the near future, the Irish government would consider the option of setting up a permanent consulate in Accra, the capital of Ghana.



The outgoing United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator in Ghana, Christine Evans-Klock, was of the conviction that Ghana is on the right path in her quest to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



She therefore promised to support her successor in his or her work in Ghana.



President Akufo-Addo commended the UN envoy for her commitment and dedication to duty which according to him were visible, for which reason she would be missed.



He stressed his unwavering commitment to ensure that Ghana continues to partner UN to ensure its sustainable development.



During his turn, the outgoing Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, Markus Nicklaus Paul Dugly, who had the privilege of serving for a year and a half in Ghana, assured the President of his governments commitment to a partnership in the Ghana Beyond Aid initiative, a partnership where aid would not substitute private investment but would capitalise them.



Even though his stay in the country was short, he promised to give his successor all the support he can from his newly assigned base in Luxembourg.



President Akufo-Addo, in his remarks, said Ghana values highly its relations with Switzerland and therefore urged the outgoing envoy to continue his advocacy for Ghana wherever he finds himself.

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.

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Government has indicated that its taking steps to export Ghanaian professional teachers to three West African nations.



Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku-Prempeh, made this known on Tuesday in Accra during the Meet-The-Press Series organized by the Information Ministry.



The media interaction was intended to highlight measures being put in place by the Akufo-Addo administration to improve teacher quality in Ghana.



According to him, Ghanaian teachers are to be sent to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.



He indicated that he would hold a meeting with the Guinean Ambassador to Ghana on Friday, November 23, 2018 to see how best some French teachers from Guinea would be imported while English teachers from the country would be exported to Guinea.



He stated that the move has become necessary because Ghana does not have enough qualified French teachers to support the development of French education domestically.



The exportation of Ghanaian teachers to Sierra Leone and Liberia, whose educational systems have been ravaged by several years of civil wars, is to promote quality education in both countries.



Reforms



Dr. Opoku-Prempeh said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has undertaken reforms in partnership with development partners to enhance teacher quality in the country.



He stated that the teacher reforms have been undertaken under the direction of the Ministry of Education with the following partners- National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), National Accreditation Board (NAB), National Teaching Council (NTC), Ghana Education Service(GES), Committee of Vice Chancellors Ghana, Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment(NaCCA), Teacher Transformation Education and Learning (T-TEL) Project, Ghana Teacher Task Force (GTTF), Principals of Colleges of Education & Teacher Education Universities, Teacher Unions- GNAT, NAGRAT, CTAG, DFID, UNICEF, UNESCO, JICA and Norwegian Teacher Initiative (NTI).



According to him, the reforms have helped improved practical teaching in schools.



He said the government has set up a National Teachers Standards (NTS) which would assess all student teachers.



The minister added that the guideline sets out the minimum levels of practice that all trained teachers must reach by the end of their pre-service teacher education programme. The National Teaching Council (NTC), with support from T-Tel, provides the framework for future professional and career development for all teachers.



He said that five selected public universities have developed curricula aligned to the NTS and NTECF using the Curriculum Writing Guide. The institutional arrangement to deliver the four-year B. Ed this academic year will be managed by the University of Cape Coast.



According to him, Colleges of Education have admitted trainee teachers to pursue a four-year B. Ed degree for the 2018/19 academic year, starting October 2018.



Merger



He reiterated that the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and Ghana Institute of Languages (GIL) shall be merged into one university in the near future to award degrees.

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.

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It has been revealed to the media through the maiden edition of bi-weekly media briefing program introduced by the Minister of Information, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah that United Arab Emirates (UAE) has unveiled new laws on carrying personal medications into the country.



Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has announced to Ghanaians that the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has unveiled a law that requires all tourists and residents entering the UAE with personal medication to seek approval from the Ministry of Health and Prevention before their arrival in that country.



According to him, the law was announced in October this year by health authorities at the UAE and states that approval can only be granted after a person has met certain guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Prevention.



United Arab Emirates require persons interested in visiting Dubai to complete an electronic form which can be downloaded from the website www.mohap.gov.ae.



The guideline is for the person to ensure that over the counter and prescription medicine do not exceed a period of three (3) months and one (1) month respectively; thus, applicant must submit a prescription issued by a recognized physician.



The new law of UAE is that someone can only be permitted to enter Dubai after the person has submitted their medical reports for approval by health facility.



Again, copies of Emirates ID of residents and passports of visitors must be submitted first; thus, UAE will have to confirm the duration of stay of visitors before one will permitted to travel to Dubai.



He however reminded that applications would be reviewed and approval given within one (1) working day (Sunday to Thursday) if the requirements including the documentations are met.



He stressed that persons who flout the new guidelines would not face sanctions, but their medications would be seized at the port of entry.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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.

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The Committee of Eminent Chiefs who have been working on the Dagbon crises will today present their recommendations to the President Nana Akufo-Addo at Jubilee House.



The recommendations will focus on how to achieve a peaceful end to the Dagbon crises.



Agreement reached to perform funerals



The Otumfuo-led Mediation Committee on the Dagbon peace process has successfully facilitated an agreement between the Abudu and Andani feuding parties to perform the funerals of the late two Yaa-Naas of Dagbon to pave way for lasting peace.



The mediation committee resolved that the Abudu Royal Family performs the funeral of the late Yaa-Naa Mahamadu Abdulai IV, beginning December 14 to 28, 2018 while the funeral of the late Yaa-Naa Yakubu Andani II be performed on January 4 to 18, 2019.



Over a decade now the parties have been engaging on how to find peace at the feet of the eminent chiefs.



Upon assuming power, President Akufo-Addo injected resources, time and commitment into the decade long process.



He has also assisted in providing the necessary assurances that eliminated suspicions that prolonged a peaceful resolution to the matter.



President to facilitate implementation of recommendations



The President is expected to take steps to facilitate the implementation of recommendations that will lead to peace in Dagbon.



A statement issued in Tamale and read at a media briefing, the two funeral rites of the late two kings is to be performed at the old Gbewaa Palace in Yendi in the Northern Region.



Mahama Sintaro, a Convener of the statement, appealed to both Abudu and Andani Royal Gates to remain resolute while focusing on the singular objective of organizing the funeral of the late Yaa-Naa with pride and harmony to mark the occasion of a historical moment.



He said, We must remain vigilant against hostile and aggressive tendencies seeking to undermine this momentous opportunity for peace and development.

We call on the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC), the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to facilitate the promotion of peace, and tolerance among our people, he added.



The Northern Regional Security Council (REGSEC), religious leaders and opinion leaders must ignore machinations by chieftaincy contractors whose evil plots marred previous attempts to resolve the issues.



We urge creativity, tolerance and tact on the part of elders from both families with responsibility for the performance of these funerals, which will bring lasting peace to Dagbon, he stressed.



The statement further added that We are resolute in our commitment to support the process, and to stand up against anybody seeking to thwart this process.

Dagbon deserves peace, cultural harmony and a healthy continuity of the time-tested traditional system of administration, the statement further added.



Mahama expressed gratitude to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the Nayiri Naa Bohagu Abdulai Mahama Sheriga, the King of the Maprugu Traditional Council and the Yagbonwura Tuntumba Boresa, King of the Gonja Traditional Council for their level of wisdom, diplomacy as well as patience for the mediations leading to the peaceful resolution of the problem.



He appealed to religious leaders to preach peace, tolerance and understanding among the youth, while lauding governments commitment at ensuring lasting peace in the historical influential descendants of NaaGbewaa.







Source: The Finder









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.

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The Director of Communications for the Ghana Gas Company Limited, Ernest Owusu Bempah, has denied reports that his outfit is the cause of the countrys current power challenges.



He says the problem is from their distributors who had technical challenges in the supply of Gas for further distribution.



His comment follows a statement by the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) which attributed recent power outages experienced mostly in the capital to a drop in the supply of gas to the Aboadze Thermal Plant in the Western Region.



The development, according to GRIDCo, is responsible for the blackouts during peak periods between 7 pm and 9 pm in recent times.



Supply of power has been erratic over the past couple of days prompting social media discussions of a possible return to the dreaded days of dumsor, which crippled business activities for nearly four years.



But speaking on Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' programme, Mr. Owusu Bempah vehemently denied media reports that Ghana Gas could not give enough gas to generate the needed capacity of power, stressing that the report was fallacious and misleading.



"Tullow Ghana Limited, operators of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah are facing challenges with their machines, a situation that has led to a significant reduction in the amount of available gas for the generation of power," he said.



According to him Ghana Gas cannot be blamed for the current power outages.



"Our job is to wait for gas from Tullow but unfortunately, Tullow is having issues with their machines which are supposed to supply the gas, that is why we keep experiencing the recent power outage," he added.



However, he thinks the problem has been rectified and supply will soon be restored to the power producers.





Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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.

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Audio Attachment: Listen to President Akufo-Addo when the Chairperson of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, presented the roadmap for the Dagbon peace process to him, at a brief ceremony at Jubilee House.

The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has stated that the time has come for Dagbon, which has been scarred by decades of conflict, to be restored to its former glory and greatness.



According to President Akufo-Addo, the conflict in Dagbon has dragged on for so long that many Ghanaians, including some sons and daughters of Dagbon, had become skeptical about the ability to resolve the matter, and secure enduring peace in Dagbon.



I was never one of the sceptics. I have an unshakeable faith in the capacity of the Ghanaian people to resolve their own problems. That faith has paid off.



The President made this known on Wednesday, 21st November, 2018, when the Chairperson of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, presented the roadmap for the Dagbon peace process to him, at a brief ceremony at Jubilee House.



Describing the roadmap as an important milestone in the decades old search for a permanent solution to the Dagbon problem, the President congratulated the people of Dagbon for this achievement, as well as the three Eminent Chiefs, Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Nayiri, Naa Bohugu Abdulai Mahami Sheriga, and Yagbonwura, Tuntumba Boresa Sulemana Jakpa, for their tenacity and resilience, and for not giving up on the Dagbon people.



With the killing of the late King of Dagbon, Naa Yakubu Andani, on 27th March, 2002, President Akufo-Addo noted that that terrible event shook the entire country with grief, horror and deep regret.



However, upon becoming President of the Republic, on 7th January, 2017, I was determined to help bring finality to the matter, and, in the process, witness the enskinment of a substantive Ya Naa for the people of Dagbon.



The President continued, I did indicate, in October 2017, that I wanted to celebrate the Damba festival with the people of Dagbon, with a new Ya Naa sitting in state, before the end of 2017. Alas, that was not to be. Nonetheless, I am fully expectant that, soon, I shall be celebrating Damba with the people of Dagbon in the presence of a substantive Ya Naa.



President Akufo-Addo noted that Dagbon, one of the most ancient traditional states of Ghanas history, is generally recorded by historians to have been founded in the 14th century, even before the Asante Kingdom was established in the latter part of the 17th century.



The people of Dagbon, he stressed, ought, justifiably, to be proud of this heritage, and guard it jealously, adding that an important contribution to this is to consolidate the culture of enskinning Ya-Nas without hitch, confusion or bloodshed.



President Akufo-Addo, thus, urged the people of Dagbon to give peace a chance, adding that it is attainable, in my view, if there is a will, and a readiness to compromise.



He indicated that for an ethnic group with no clan cleavages, they have the best opportunity to mend fences, restore the dignity of their kingdom, and ensure the forward march of Dagbon.



In so doing, they must learn to accommodate one another. I would appeal, from the bottom of my heart, to the Kampakuya Na and the Bolin Lana, the sons and regents of Naa Yakubu Andani and Naa Mahamadu Abdulai, respectively, young men with bright, promising futures before them, to rise above the passions that have fuelled the disputes that have marred Dagbon, the President said.



As an expression of their love for their people, President Akufo-Addo urged the Kampakuya Na and Bolin Lana to help in the effective implementation of this road map to bring lasting peace to Dagbon, and lay the basis for its rapid development.



The overwhelming majority of the people of Dagbon, especially the youth, are tired of this age-old conflict, and just want the opportunity to enhance their lives in normalcy and security, he added.



The President reiterated the commitment of Government to providing the requisite financial, material, moral, physical and security resources necessary for the sustenance of the peace process that has been embarked on.



Even though Government has already spent a huge amount of money and resources in maintaining peace in Yendi these last sixteen (16) years, he assured that Government will not relent in its determination to help foster, again, peace and unity in Dagbon.



As I have said on many occasions, I am not a Dagomba, and I, therefore, cannot be an Andani or Abudu. I have no candidate for the office of Ya Na. That is a matter for the people of Dagbon. I am just an ordinary Ghanaian who wants to see the peace, progress and prosperity of all parts of our beautiful country, without any discrimination or differentiation, President Akufo-Addo noted.





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.

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The Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has announced that from now, only PhD holders will be allowed to lecture in a university.



"Now if you do not hold a PhD, you will not be able to teach in a university," the Education Minister said.



But most of the lecturers in our colleges of education do not hold PhD. So we are giving them time to improve their knowledge, through the British government support" he added.



Speaking at the meet the press series in Accra Tuesday, he explained further that the move was to enable the universities to develop the capacity of teachers in the colleges of education.



He was hopeful that if the lecturers of the colleges of education were part of the university, the university would help those lecturers to get onto the PhD programmes.



Dr Prempeh explained that every capacity improvement was to the benefit of the Ghanaian schoolchild to improve the learning outcomes.



He cited for instance that in Finland, even at the Kindergarten level, it was teachers with PhD while in Ghana it was diploma holders, describing it as unacceptable.



Dr Prempeh explained that, it was as a result of it that government had decided that all teacher trainees would be degree holders.



He explained that even though producing graduates would have an implication on the government budget, government is more interested in the learning outcomes and not the budget.



Merger



Dr Prempeh hinted that the Ghana Institute of Journalism, the Ghana Institute of languages and the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) would be merged to form a single university.



He said each of the three would be a school that would be awarding their own degrees, explaining that the idea was long mooted by the previous government and that it was not anything new.



Dr Prempeh explained that each of the three wanted to stand as autonomousuniversity, but that was not accepted, explaining that it was to ensure that resources were maximized.



National service for trainees



He said after initial protest from the teacher trainees against the directive that they were to go through national service under the National Service Secretariat (NSS) so far 16,000 of them had registered with the secretariat to do the service.



I met with the coalition of newly trained teachers and the Teacher trainee association of Ghana and they went and met with the GES and finally signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to do the national service, he explained.



He insisted that the ministry was not seeking to discriminate against teacher trainees, insisting that he rather made it easier for them to do the service to cover the one-year probation, one-year induction.



Dr Prempeh explained that the trainees and the ministry reached an agreement where they would have to accept the posting from the NSS



Professional bodies



Justifying the licensure examination, Dr Prempeh enumerated various professions such as the lawyers, nurses and doctors which had their own regulatory bodies that decided what made someone a member.



He, therefore, stated that those who were teacher trainees could decide not to take up teaching as a profession and for that matter would not write the licensure examination, stressing that as long as you want to be professional teacher, then you have to be assessed by the regulatory body, which is the National Teaching Council (NTC).

Source: Graphic Online









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President Donald Trumps administration is considering giving U.S. troops on the border with Mexico the authority to carry out medical screening of migrants, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

The proposal, which is still in draft form and circulating within the administration, would involve the military in screenings for things like illness and injury only if U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency personnel were overwhelmed and unable to do so on their own, the officials said.

The proposal would expand the mission for the Pentagon, which said previously it did not expect its forces to directly interact with migrants.

The Pentagon declined to comment on internal deliberations. In a statement, it said the operation would cost about $72 million through Dec. 15, based on current plans.

U.S. military duties on the border, including stringing up concertina wire and building temporary housing, have been aimed at supporting CBP personnel.

The U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters about the proposal did so on condition of anonymity because Trump has not yet signed off on the idea.

It was unclear if the proposal, if confirmed in the coming days, might prolong the deployment of at least some troops at the border.

The commander of the mission told Reuters last week that the number of troops may have peaked at around 5,800, and he would soon look at whether to begin sending forces home or shifting some to new border positions.

LAST RESORT

Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 after a campaign promising to crack down on illegal immigration, has seized upon migrant caravans headed toward the U.S. border, comparing it to an invasion.

Critics have derided his position as a stunt that politicizes the military.

About 6,000 Central Americans have reached the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, according to local officials. More bands of migrants are making their way toward Tijuana, with around 10,000 expected.

In Tijuana and other ports of entry, CBP officers are trained to check migrants and travelers for obvious signs of infectious conditions, like fever, bleeding from the eyes or other symptoms of quarantinable and communicable diseases, according to a 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service.

One U.S. official said that under the latest proposal, U.S. troops would carry out medical screenings only if other officials, such as from state and local governments or the National Guard, were not available or overwhelmed.

The intent of the authorities is not to bring the troops in closer contact with the migrants but to provide medical assistance if needed, the official said.

On Monday, Reuters reported that Trump was likely to give U.S. troops authority to protect immigration agents stationed along the U.S. border with Mexico if they come under threat from migrants seeking to cross into the United States.

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BBC has released a video showing how one of its reporters, Athar Ahmad alongside a private investigator, Laura Lyons, unmasked a Nigerian online dating scammer who claimed to be Paul Richard, a US soldier based in Dubai but was later discovered to be a Nigerian named Okechukwu who owned a barbing salon in Ibadan, Oyo state.



Athar whose mission is to unmask online dating scammers, had set up an account on a dating site as Kathryn Hunter - a wealthy divorcee looking for love. Not longer after he registered, four men, all claiming to be soldiers, hit her up. The most consistent was Paul Richard who claimed he was a US soldier in Dubai.



It's not long before the catfish begin to bite. Four men approach me online and they all claim to be US soldiers''Athar said.

Paul asked for her number and when he called her, his dialing code showed he was calling from Nigeria and what was most astonishing was his thick African accent despite his claim of being a US soldier. He later sent her his picture which was that of a white soldier. When asked why he had such an accent depsite being American, Paul said he had a cold, hence his distinct accent.

As the conversation between them continues, Paul professed his undying love for Katryn and wished he could marry her immediately. He also started asking her to send him money.

A breakthough in unmasking his identity came when he accidentally leaves a name tag - Dan Coolman - on one of his WhatsApp pictures.



Laura carried out a search on all the Dan Coolmans in Nigeria and was alble to narrow her search down to one who runs a barbershop in Ibadan, Oyo state. A more detailed search on the number showed it was registered to one Daniel Joseph Okechkwu.



With this information, Athar and his team visited Ibadan to confront Okechukwu. However, before they got to his barbing shop, he had fled. When contacted, Okechukwu confessed to the crime, saying it was his first time of venturing into online dating scam. According to him, he was forced to close down his barbing shop because it wasn't making money as it used to. He asked for forgiveness and also pleaded with Athar and his team to give him money so he would stop scamming people online.



Watch a video detailing the whole experience below.























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Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has disclosed that the country is likely to access the first tranche of the 2 billion dollars SINOHYDRO infrastructure for bauxite facility deal in the early part of next year.



According to the Minister, after the initial hurdles were successfully managed, Ghana is ready to tap into the first tranche of the Master Project Support Agreement between the Government of Ghana and SINOHYDRO of China worth $649 million dollars which was entered into last year and subsequently approved by Parliament.



Speaking at the first in the series of his bi-weekly media briefing, Hon Oppong Nkrumah, indicated that two sets of contracts, namely Engineering Procurement Construction contracts (EPC) and Deferred Payment Agreements (DPA) have to this effect been laid before Parliament.



He therefore elaborated that Parliaments Finance committee and Roads and Highways committee are scheduled to meet on the agreements at 2pm Wednesday, after which the committees report will be presented to the plenary hopefully before the end of this month to pave way for construction work to begin.



Below is the list of roads that the first tranche of the facility will be used to construct:



1. Accra Inner City Roads--- 84.0km



2. Kumasi Inner City Roads--- 100.0km



3. Tamale Interchange Project--- 1



4. PTC Roundabout Interchange Project, Takoradi--- 1



5. Adenta- Dodowa Dual Carriageway--- 14.00km



6. Sunyani Inner City Roads--- 39.00km



7. Western region and Cape Coast Inner City roads--- 32.19km



8. Upgrading of Selected Feeder Roads in Ashanti and Western Regions--- km



9. Rehabilitation of Oda-Ofoase-Abirem Road--- 38.00km



10. Construction of Hohoe - Jasikan - Dodo Pepesu--- 66.40km



TOTAL--- 441.59





Further Details

LOT 1: ACCRA INNER CITY ROADS



1. Ga North  Trobu--- 19.03km



2. Ga Central  Anyaa Sowutoum--- 23.97km



3. Ga East - Dome Kwabenya--- 21.70km



4. Ledzokuku  Teshie--- 11.3km



5. Nanakrom Santeo--- 8.0km



Total--- 84.0



LOT 2: KUMASI INNER CITY ROADS



1. Manhyia Sub-Metro---11.00km



2. Suame Sub-Metro---9.45km



3.TafoPankrono Sub-Metro---9.79km



4.Asokwa Sub-Metro---9.91km



5.Kwadaso Sub-Metro--- 6.29km



6.Oforikrom Sub-Metro---7.43km



7. Subin Sub-Metro---8.98km



8. Nhyiaeso Sub-Metro---7.00km



9. Bantama Sub-Metro---10.00km



10. Asante Mampong---20.15km



Total---100.0km



LOT 7: WESTERN REGION AND CAPE COAST INNER CITY ROADS



1. Akotokyir Roads (Cape Coast)---3



2. Amamoma Area Roads (Cape Coast)---6



3. Abura New Community Area Roads (Cape Coast)---7



5. Polytechnic Area Roads (Cape Coast)---3



6. Apawusika Road and Links---3



7. Prestea Town Roads---10.19



Total---32.19km





LOT 8. SELECTED FEEDER ROADS IN ASHANTI AND WESTERN REGIONS



1. Achiasejxn. - Wansamere - Awisasujxn. Feeder road---7.2km



2. Mpasatia - Town roads---4km



3. Nyinahin - Adupri feeder road--4.5km



4. Nyinahin - SeresoTimpon - Achiasejxn feeder road---29.7km



5. Nyinahin - Town roads---4.1km



6. Nyinahin Market jxn. - Pentecost Church feeder road---1.5km



7. Nyinahini - Kyekyewere feeder road---14km



8. Kessekrom - Adiembra feeder road---3km



Total---68km





Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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.

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There was heated argument between the Majority and Minority as Parliament begins debate on the 2019 budget statement and economic policy for the 2019 financial year.



The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, on Thursday presented the 2019 budget highlights to Parliament detailing government programmes and policies for year.



Dr Mark Assibey Yeboah, Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament who set debate rolling, stated that when the NPP took over the administration of government, they were forced to extend the IMF programme started by the previous government, because they have derailed from the programme and missed all targets they agreed with the Fund.



He said after 22 months of the NPP administration all the macroeconomic indicators have improved significantly, which shows a positive outlook for the country.



He said Ghana would be exiting the IMF programme by the end of 2018 and the government determined not to go back to the programmes.



Mr Speaker as matter of fact, I have news for them, we are exiting the IMF programme you sent us to the IMF, see we are getting the country out of the IMF, you should be applauding our effort.



Dr Assibey Yeboah also stated that the NPP was delivering on its manifesto promise to provide a competent administration for the people.



He said the Bank of Ghana was working hard to clear all the mess in the countrys financial sector to ensure a sound banking system for the country.



Mr Cassiel Ato Forson, Ranking member on Finance in his contribution, stated that the NPP Eurobond borrowing was used for chop, chop since there were no visible projects shown on what the money was for.



He said he did not see any hope for the 2019 budget statement, since this would also end up like the previous ones without achieving anything.



He raised concerns about the countrys oil revenue, which he said was not going to the right places, saying the Minister of Finance was encouraging members to breach the Petroleum Management Act, Act 815.



The minority will not be part of this budget, which seeks to breach the Petroleum Management Act815.



Mr Ato Forson also stated that, as at the end of September 2018, the net borrowing of government, which should have been GHC7.7billion had jumped to GHC9.05 billion, also domestic financing had shot from GHC2.4 to GHC4.1 billion.



He revealed that Ghanas public debt had increased to GHC170.8 billion from last years figure of GHC138.8 billion, saying the NPP government has added GHC32 billion to the countrys debt stock in just 12 months.



This mounting debt does not show a government which claim to be competent but a substandard one, he added.



Mr Ato Forson also stated that within four years of the John Mahamas administration from 2013 to 2016 the amount of oil revenue, which accrued to them was GHC6.56 billion, however from 2017 to 2019 the expected oil revenue that would accrued to the NPP government was GHC12 billion.



He questioned the NPP administration to show to Ghanaians what they had done with all the oil revenues that they had received since they came to power.



Show us what you have done with all the oil revenues you have received since came to, unfortunately they cannot tell us anything, he chided.



Mr Ato Forson also stated that from every projection of the government showed that the 2019 budget was dead on arrival and has nothing to offer Ghanaians.



I thought this administration is going to learn from what has happened this year 2018 and make realistic revenue projections but unfortunately the budget introduces no measure to tackle that.



Mr John Jinapor, Member of Parliament for Yarpei Kosugwu in his contribution, slammed the NPP administration for failing to deliver on their mouth-watering promises that they made to Ghanaians.



He said though the House has approved GHC300million for the Zongo Development Fund, the only thing they have done with the money was to build five Astro-turfies.



He said despite the NPP propaganda, the Minister of Finance during the budget presentation could not tell the number of factories built under the One District One Factory (1D1F) policy, adding that Upper East region has been left out of the whole programme.



Mr John Jinapor also stated that the One Village One Dam policy was also in shambles, saying that no dams have been constructed since the NPP came to power two years ago.



He called on the government to withdraw what he described as obnoxious taxes such as the luxury vehicle tax, NHIL flat rate, the GETFund tax and the 30 percent income tax.



The people of Ghana entrusted power to the NPP based on their mouth-watering promises, we were made to believe that the Nana Akufo-Addo has the magic-wound, indeed he promised us in 18 months he would transformed this country, instead of achieving this promises from the NPP, Ghana now is in a state of misery, he added.



Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister of Information in his contribution slammed the previous NDC administration for leaving behind an economic mess, which the current administration was resolving.



He said currently the countrys macroeconomic stability had been restored to the admiration of all economic watchers.



He said NDC government decelerated the countrys economic growth to 3.7 percent and at least the NPP in its first year brought it up to over eight percent.



Mr Oppong Nkrumah also announced that through the numerous social intervention programmes the government was reducing the hardship among the people.



He said contrary to incessant claims by the NDC that they borrowed to build infrastructure, the countrys national infrastructure was in a deplorable state.



The roads, railways, bridges and water systems were not built, indeed if they were built why we would be crying for infrastructure now, he said.

He said in the few instances where attempted to build the deplorable state and the quick breakdown of that infrastructure today shows us the quality of work that was done on that day.



The Akufo-Addo administration acknowledges that this is task we must fix and fixed it we will, he added.

Source: Daily Guide









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will embark on a three-day working visit to the Eastern Region from November 22 to 24, 2018.



The visit according to Minister for Information and Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayerebi, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah forms part of the president's commitment to deepen grassroots participation in his government and to also obtain first-hand information from the people.



Speaking on Okay FM's Ade Akye Abia programme, the visit, according to him, will afford the president an opportunity to account for his stewardship to the voters who gave him the mandate to govern the country.



As part the of the visit, Nana Akufo-Addo will inspect some ongoing development projects and inaugurate the Akim Oda-Akwatia-Winneba Urban Water Supply system at Akim Oda, among other completed projects.



Nana Akufo-Addo will also attend a durbar to be organized by the chiefs and people of the region in his honour.



The president since assumption to office has visited other regions including the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, volta, Western regions.

Source: Isaac kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Dr Tony Aidoo, a staunch member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has described the 40-year national development plan for Ghana as nonsensical.



Responding to a question on Starr FM on Tuesday, 20 November 2018 about comments made by President Nana Akufo-Addo in the early part of 2018 concerning the need to create a database for the various sectors in the countrys economy, the former Ambassador to the Netherlands said: Data is everything, my friend; it is not only for births and deaths, and not only for electoral register, it is not only for monitoring and evaluation, it is also for planning.



You need data to plan; you look at a community: how many toilets do they have? Potable water availability, how much can we spend to provide those items? What about the neighbourhood community?  All those are matters of data. You dont plan without data; the so-called 40-year plan that was developed under the Mahama administration was to me, nonsense. How do you plan without data?



You dont have the adequate staff at the local level of the planning authority, which is the district assembly to collect and give you the data. At the sectoral level, no data is available because people are reluctant to release the data and you said you have done a plan, he wondered.



The former Senior Presidential Aide and Head of Policy Evaluation and Oversight Unit of the Office of the President from 2009 to 2013, said in his opinion: A plan is one that is monetised and quantified, without these two elements, there is no plan.









Source: classfmonline.com









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The debate on the 2019 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the government took off yesterday in parliament with the majority New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) fiercely battling out on whose government is more incompetent or competent.



The majority NPP led by the Chairman of the Finance Committee and MP for New Juaben South, Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah and the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah said after the previous NDC government had messed up the economy and left it an economic abyss, the NPP with a competent economic team led by the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has been able to pull the economy from the huge mess and stabilized the macro-economy of the country.



The Chairman of the Finance Committee said the NPP government has been able to use two years to clean the mess of NDCs eight years rule with the economy now put on the right footing for massive industrial and infrastructural development in 2019 to create wealth for the people.



The New Juaben South MP said sustaining macroeconomy stability as well as improving expenditure efficiency and domestic resource mobilization will lead to creation of more fiscal space and provide additional resources to fund the governments growth-oriented and employment-generating development programmes.



In order not to allow the NDC reverse or erode the gains made so far in the economy, the NPP government will introduce a new law called the Fiscal Responsibility Act to ensure that in the unlikely event that the NDC comes back to power it will not get the opportunity to spend beyond certain thresholds to widen budget deficit and destabilise the economy.



The Information Minister who is also the MP for Ofoase/Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah said having inherited a shattered economy, the NPP government has been able to stabilize the fundamentals of the economy with the 2019 budget ready to fast-track the economic growth of the country.



According to him, there are about six strategic pillars to move the economy ahead including introducing a comprehensive industrialization plan to add value to natural and agricultural resources and also leverage the rising population of the educated youth.



Mr speaker, we will embark on massive and unprecedented $2 billion efficient infrastructure including roads, railways and energy to drive our industrialization and agricultural modernization programmes, the Information Minister said



He said the 2019 budget will strengthen all governments social interventions in order to ensure that no one is left behind as the economy is transformed.



The minority NDC led by the ranking member of the Finance Committee, Ato Forson, however, said that the 2019 budget did not specify where it was going to get $2 million to embark on that ambitious infrastructural projects stressing that the budget only allocated GH4.6 billion for capital infrastructure which is about $1 billion.



The ranking member who is the MP for Ajumako/Enyan/Essiam said the NPP under President Nana Akufo-Addo in two years earned GH6.5 billion from oil resources which was the same as what the NDC had in four years under former President Mahama but nothing could be shown for all those moneys.



In fact, Mr Speaker, the NPP only used all these oil money and the huge money borrowed for only consumption purposes.



He indicated that that since the NPP took over from the NDC in 2017, it has added a whooping GH48 billion to Ghanas debt stock in two years and that in only one year from November, 2017 to November, 2018, the government had borrowed GH32 billion.



As at the time NPP was taking over the reins of government in 2017, every Ghanaian was owing GH4,300 but just in less than two years, every Ghanaian is owing GH5,793 because of NPPs appetite for borrowing



The NDC MP for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo said the NPP is so incompetent that it could not save seven local banks from collapsing for people to lose jobs.

Source: Daily Guide









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This photo taken on June 2018 shows Silvia Costanza Romano, 23, the Italian volunteer that was kidnapped Tuesday evening, Nov. 20, 2018, in Chakama, in the county of Kilifi, Kenya. Silvia, who was working with Africa Milele Onlus, was kidnapped by a group of gunmen who also wounded several people when they opened fire in the trading center. (Silvia Cristaldi/UGC via AP)
As the African Union moves towards a more inclusive and democratic structure, the question remains as to who will fund its efforts

The 11th extraordinary session of the African Union Summit concluded 18 November in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the headquarters of the AUs secretariat, attended by many African leaders.

The summits agenda focused on administrative and institutional reform of the AU, with attendees agreeing on equal distribution of posts among all regions of the continent, as well as men and women.

The two-day summit issued several resolutions, most notably that the composition of the AUs High Commission will include a chairperson, one deputy and six commissioners.

The six commissions are agriculture and rural developments; trade, mining, and industry; education, innovation and technology; infrastructure and energy; health, humanitarian affairs and social development; and politics, peace and security.

The resolution will be implemented at the end of the current commissions tenure in 2021.

The AUs General Assembly decided to choose senior officials in the commission based on equality between the regions of the continent (north, west, central, east and south), and fair post distribution between men and women.

Rotation will be based on the English alphabetical order of country names in each commission.

The High Commissions chairperson and deputy will be a male and female from different regions. Commission leaders will be evenly distributed among men and women and chosen from the three other regions that are not those of the chairperson or deputy.

Representatives from the regions of the chairperson and deputy cannot choose the six commissioners.

The commission also created a senior committee composed of five African figures representing the five regions that will oversee nominations for senior positions.

The chairperson and deputy will be chosen by secret ballot by one third of AU members that are eligible to vote. The decision, which amended Article 38 of the AU Statute, stipulates they must have a qualifying track record in government, parliament, civil society or the private sector.

The chairperson and deputy must also have integrity and impartiality.

The Supreme Committee will be in charge of evaluating the credentials of candidates to the eight positions, assisted by an independent African firm.

The General Assembly assigned the AU to draft a plan to attract and retain African talent that is lured to work outside the continent.

The resolution placed accountability and transparency as principle characteristics of leaders, who will be chosen based on competence and qualifications.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the chairman of the AU for 2018, said the goals of the extraordinary session were to move forward on the institutional reform of the AU. The goal is to simply empower Africa and grant our people the future they deserve, Kagame said.

The AUs Commission Chairman Moussa Mohamed Faki (former Chad foreign minister), said at the inaugural session: The Commission needs to show more flexibility in management so it can continue to respond more quickly and effectively to events it faces.

These decisions were part of an overhaul that began in the previous round in 2017 which chose Kagame as chairman.

He made great progress in opening the door for women and youth, and streamlining AU operations, but was unsuccessful in achieving financial independence for the AU. Most African countries refused to add import tariffs to fund the AU and its activities.

There is a perpetual problem in Africa, with the AU and before that with the Organisation of African Unity, explained Mahmoud Hamdi, professor at the Institute of African Studies at Cairo University.

Everyone is worried about their independence. He continued: Africans sacrificed a lot to win their independence, and refuse to lose that in favour of an international organisation that would have greater power over them. Meanwhile, in many countries, Africans lived, and continue to live, in the shadow of strongmen who control the fate of their people, and in turn do not want to lose their political power.

There are 15 African countries ruled by presidents who have been in power for more than 15 years each. The longest presidential tenure is seven years which can be renewed once.

However, over the last few years several presidents amended their constitutions to remove two-term limits, which brought the continent back to patriarchal rule, according to some observers.

Imposing export tariffs would bring huge losses in revenue for African countries, which are already limited, said Hamdi.

The Chinese presence hinders the empowerment of the AU, he added, because Beijing is wealthy and its companies can complete projects at very competitive prices compared to any Western investor.

This advantage gave African countries independence from their former colonisers who cannot accomplish what China is doing because of cost differences, said Hamdi.

Over the past two decades, China has given more than $100 billion in infrastructure projects, along with low interest soft loans, and many African countries paid their dues by allowing China to invest in their natural resources such as mining, agriculture and energy.

Hamdi noted that widespread corruption in several African countries will delay the creation of an AU that is based on transparency and competence.

That is why we cannot envision building a strong AU, but this does not mean that Africans have not taken a giant leap in that direction, he added.

Several African countries have successfully combatted corruption, including Senegal and Botswana, among others.

What is more prevalent, however, is the trend of the rule of strongmen which  in the African experience  is accompanied by corruption and can even end in civil war or famine.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: AU edges towards reform

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Kosovo's government says it will put a 100-percent import tax on all goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as diplomatic tensions rise.

Wednesday's decision appears to be retaliation against what Deputy Prime Minister Enver Hoxhaj said was Serbia's ``aggressive campaign against Kosovo on the international stage.'' A day earlier, Kosovo failed to join Interpol because of what it claimed was campaigning by Serbia.

``That was a very aggressive stand from Serbia,'' Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj told a news conference.

The tariffs come into power immediately and don't apply to international brands produced in the two neighboring countries.

Haradinaj said that Serbia and Bosnia had never respected the Central European Free Trade Agreement, or CEFTA, rules in the trade relations with Kosovo, causing significant financial losses.

Earlier this month, Kosovo introduced a 10-percent tax on goods from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, both of which haven't recognized Kosovo's 2008 independence.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has called the national security council, Serbia's top body dealing with the military and police, to address the issue, according to state Tanjug news agency.

Despite simmering tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, business ties have grown and Serb imports to Kosovo amount to about 400 million euros ($460 million) a year, while Kosovo's exports to Serbia are much lower.

Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said Kosovo's move came as a result of its failure to get an Interpol seat.

Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak likewise called the tariff ``payback'' for the Interpol decision.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Kosovo to revoke the decision, saying that ``is a clear violation of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and of the spirit of the Stabilization and Association Agreement between the European Union and Kosovo.''

Zahir Tanin, head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo, also expressed his ``concern regarding the potential impact on the people of Kosovo as well as the political implications on the dialogue and normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.''

Kosovo and Serbia have been in European Union-mediated negotiations for seven years. The EU has told the two sides they must normalize relations as a precondition to entering the bloc. Vucic has said that Serbia wouldn't take part in the talks until Kosovo lifts the recently-introduced taxes.

``It is 20 years since the war, 10 years from independence, and Serbia has not shown the good will to normalize ties,'' Haradinaj said.

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A BIG PROBLEM

MANISTIQUE  A public meeting addressing the lack of childcare in the area took place last week. The meeting comes on the heels of the Schoolcraft Tourism and Commerce application...

OH, WHAT A NIGHT

Ladies Night Out took place over the weekend in downtown Manistique. The annual Schoolcraft Tourism and Commerce event, expanded this year to take place over the course of three days,...
KAMPALA- Makerere University don Prof Mwambutsya Ndebesa has thrown his weight behind the agitators of the national dialogue, saying the country has many unresolved social, economic and political issues.

President Museveni is expected officially launch the Uganda National Dialogue Process on Wednesday but there has been skepticism from several stakeholders whether it will have any impact. Recently, the Deputy Attorney General Mwesigwa Rukutana said there is no crisis in the country to warrant the dialogue.

But Prof Ndebesa said the discussion is necessary.

Yes, we need a national dialogue in Uganda because there are very many unresolved questions. Uganda has been a country of questions since independence. A dialogue is different from other discussions that take place. We do not want to see whips in the national dialogue who are going to take sides. A national dialogue should be a give and take situation, he said during the Wednesday morning discussion on NBS TV.

He listed some of the unresolved issues like political contestations and the land wrangles.

Prof Ndebesa said: The Uganda land question is more complicated because we have many land tenure systems in the country. The British complicated the land question in the country, there is land grabbing by the state, people and foreigners.

Mr Mike Kennedy Sebalu (NRM), a member of the East African parliament, also agreed with Prof Ndebesa and said that the country should adopt the culture of dialogue.

I do appreciate that dialogue is a good process, we do it every day at home and in the corporate world. Dialogue should not be out of a crisis, it should be a culture we adopt, he said.

However, Prof Ndebesa called for a level playing field in the dialogue process.

The President presiding over the opening ceremony of the National Dialogue and the Speaker of Parliament presiding over the closing ceremony means that there are people who are going to be dialogued instead of dialoguing, he warned.

The dialogue will be moderated by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda and the Elders Forum.

In October, the main Opposition parties listed seven demands that they said must be addressed by the conveners of the talks as a benchmark for their participation. They insisted the dialogue must be based on a clear agenda and guarantees of mutual respect for the outcomes of the talks.

Our country is in the grip of a grave national crisis. This situation has become highly toxic and explosive. This toxic atmosphere has now infused all sectors and all levels of our national life. There is a need for a serious, genuine and well-prepared national dialogue to address this crisis, the statement reads in part.

Already, the Democratic Party has vowed not to take part in any activities connected to the dialogue due to what they call a non-conducive environment.

While addressing the press at Sheraton Hotel in Kampala last Tuesday, Norbert Mao, the party president, stressed that his party will not attend the launch of the dialogue despite their belief that it can be important if organized in a conducive environment.

He said DP are the authors of dialogues in Uganda and strongly believe in them but the current one is organized for government benefit instead of national benefit.

The Uganda National Dialogue Process will formally adopt the Uganda National Dialogue process framework paper, which sets out the agenda and modalities for the dialogue; thematic working groups will be set up will focus on the agreed dialogue agenda themes; and lastly, it will authorize the planned formal nation-wide citizens consultations to take place in all the sub-regions of the country.

However, according to Mr. Mao, the way it has been prepared is not satisfactory due to what he calls continued oppression of opposition members by state agents, insecurity and failure of government to tackle unemployment issues among others.

We shall in the future reconsider our position but this time the Democratic Party is not attending. Continued threats by security agencies, despotic tendencies by president Museveni to achieve life presidency, increased insecurity make the environment not suitable for the dialogue to take place, Mr. Mao added.

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The Broward Sheriff's Office police commander who reportedly oversaw the agency's response to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February has resigned.

Commander Jan Jordan had been described in testimony before a commission investigating the Valentine's Day massacre as being "ineffective" and having a "dream-like" nature to her speech during the incident.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel reportedly accepted Jordan's resignation on Tuesday, according to a local ABC News affiliate.

Parkland District Sergeant Brian Miller was also placed on restrictive administrative dutyvideo shows that he remained in the parking lot even after other law enforcement officers entered the school building, according ABC News.

The commission has also determined that at least seven other deputies had arrived on scene before Jordan, and none had entered the building.

The investigation remains ongoing.
A reserve police officer with the Miami Police Department was arrested following a hit-and-run crash over the weekend.

Miami police spokeswoman Kiara Delva told WPLG-TV that 55-year-old Milton Roy Lovett served as a full time police officer with the City of Miami for 14 years until he retired in July 2013. Lovett is currently a reserve officer with the department.

Lovett reportedly left the scene briefly, but then walked back to the crash site and admitted to responding officers that he had caused the collision.

Officers reported smelling alcohol on Lovett's breathLovett was also allegedly slurring his words as he spoke.

Lovett refused to perform a field sobriety test, and officers eventually had to take him to the ground to place him under arrest.

Lovett faces charges of DUI, DUI with property damage or damage to a person, resisting an officer with violence and careless driving.
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Emmy and Tony Award nominee Brian Tyree Henry recently told the Hollywood Reporter that he is looking closely at roles that portray police officers because he is interested in learning more about law enforcement officers and the challenges they face.

The film, stage, and television actorwho has four older sisters who work in security roles in the Washington DC areaadmitted to once begging all of them to leave their jobs following the shooting of 32-year-old Philando Castile in Minnesota in 2016.

Henry told the Hollywood Reporter, "I called my sisters like, 'Quit your job right now. Not only are you a black woman, but you're a black woman cop.' One of them was like, 'I can't. I really can't. I can't do that.' I took a step back, I was like, I can't make her do that."

He added, "Who am I mad at?"

Henry said his focus is on picking characters he cares about and bringing humanity to the roles.

"I want to do what really speaks to my heart. Navigating these menthese black menI want there to be a way for people who don't have access to men like this to realize that they're still human beings, to realize that their stories are still important, to realize that if you are this man, there's a representation of you somewhere," Henry said.

"There's a reason I'm playing these detectives," Henry told the Reporter. "The one thing I like about these detectives is it is now putting me in this frame of mind of this person who chose this jobwho wants to protect us," Henry said.

Henry provides the voice of Jefferson Davisan African American police officer who is the father of a teenage Spiderman by the name of Miles Moralesin an upcoming animated Marvel feature film presented by Sony Pictures.
A Russian mission is to visit Egypt in December during the Intra-African Trade Fair 2019, holding talks with governmental and private sector actors on furthering cooperation and investment

Egypt will host mid-April 2019 the 12th round of the Egyptian-Russian joint committee for trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation, Minister of Trade and Industry Amr Nassar said during extended talks with Russian Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov in Moscow.

The meetings will be held under the auspices of the trade ministers of both countries and will take up means of bolstering cooperation between Egypt and Russia in the fields of trade, industry, health, tourism, education, information technology, customs, agriculture, transportation, energy and investment.

The talks tackled furthering cooperation in the economic domain during the coming phase and mechanisms and timelines set for various projects.

Nassar said that a Russian mission is to visit Egypt in December during the Intra-African Trade Fair 2019.

The mission will hold meetings with senior figures in government and the private sector to discuss investment opportunities in the Russian industrial zone to be established in the Suez Canal Zone (SCZone), he said.

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Shoppers in Dearborn are encouraged to expand the idea of Small Business Saturday into an entire week.

Local businesses in downtown Dearborn starting celebrating on Nov. 24 and running through Dec. 2 will offer discounts and chances to win prizes.

Community partners, including the East and West Dearborn Downtown Development Authorities and the Dearborn Area Chamber of Commerce, have assembled a wide selection of retailers and restaurants to offer in-store deals and a chance to win local gifts.

American Express launched its Small Business Saturday program in 2010 to encourage people across the country to support small, local businesses.

Shoppers are encouraged to pick up a #ShopSmall #DowntownDearborn Passport at one of 44 participating locations featuring deals and specials and get it stamped as they make purchases at as many locations as possible through Dec. 2.

Every time someone makes a purchase, they will receive a stamp (does not need to be the special or discount item offered). For every stamp received, customers are then entered to win prizes provided by participating businesses.

A downloadable version of the passport is available at DowntownDearborn.org or via the Downtown Dearborn Facebook page.

Locally-owned businesses reinvest more than 70 percent of their earnings back into their community, said Cristina Sheppard-Decius, executive director of East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority/West Dearborn Downtown Development Authority. When you shop local, you are helping to grow your downtown which supports the people who live and work in your community. With nearly 50 participating restaurants and shops, this years #ShopSmall initiative offers great opportunity to check off everyone on your holiday list with great finds from local merchants.

Passports must be returned to one of the following locations by Dec. 9 to be entered to win prizes:

Dearborn Downtown Development Authorities  13615 Michigan Ave. (East Downtown Dearborn)

Dearborn Area Chamber of Commerce  22100 Michigan Ave. (West Downtown Dearborn)

Henry Ford Centennial Library  16301 Michigan Ave. (Dearborn)

STEP Thrift Store & Donation Center  23830 Michigan Ave. (Dearborn Heights)

Village Picture Frame & Art Gallery  22191 Michigan Ave. (West Downtown Dearborn)

Participating businesses include:

*East Dearborn:

Alcamos Market, Arab American National Museum Store, Blick Art Materials, Esper Library, Factory Finish Shoe Repair Inc., Green Brain Comics, JB Bamboozles Pub & Grille, Joes Top Dog Restaurant & Bar, Liles Sandwich Shop, M Cantina, Retro Image Antiques and Stormy Records

*West Dearborn:

Baileys, Brome Modern Eatery, Bryant Library, Common Grace Coffee Co., Dearborn Brewing, Dearborn School of Music, Famous Hamburger, Glass Academy, The Great Escape Spa ~Dearborn, Head To Tail, La Fork, Lue Thai Cafe, Manno Clothing & Tailoring, Mens Wearhouse, Mint 29, Nichols Ski & Snowboard Shop, Nigosian Rug Company, Om Day Spa, Orangetheory Fitness Dearborn, Posh Hookah & Cigar Lounge, Sneaker Legends, Steven Bernard Jewelers Ltd., Sweet Peas Childrens Resale, Things We Love, Unburger Grill, Village Picture Frame & Art Gallery, Yogurtopia, Zazas Italian and Mediterranean Cuisine

The Shop Small program is sponsored by Om Day Spa, Steven Bernard Jewelers Ltd., East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority and the West Dearborn Downtown Development Authority.

For more details, visit downtowndearborn.org.
The AIIB currently funds projects in Egypt worth $510 million, with further investment firmly placed within the bank's international strategy

During a tour to project sites in Ismailia and Port Said governorates on Wednesday, a delegation from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) praised Egypt's achievements in projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, affirming that the bank is planning to pump more investments into infrastructure projects in Egypt during the upcoming period.

The tour also included visits to other mega projects in renewable energy, and the delegation plans to visit later on Wednesday a solar energy project in the Upper Egyptian city of Aswan.

Chairman of the board of the AIIB Jin Liqun said he was apprised in the last few days by the Egyptian government on its plans in the fields of economic, financial and monetary reform, describing Egypt's latest accomplishments as "impressive."

Liqun and an accompanying delegation are to conclude a three-day visit to Egypt Thursday. They met Monday with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to discuss ways of boosting cooperation.

The ministers of electricity, investment, planning, transport, finance, irrigation, and the governor of the Central Bank of Egypt attended the meeting.

Madbouly expressed his happiness that Egypt is the first non-Asian country to be visited by AIIB officials, adding that Egypt is looking forward to bolstering cooperation with AIIB.

The Prime Minister hailed the bank's decision to give Egypt a special status in the bank's strategy, saying that AIIB funds projects in Egypt worth $510 million.

Liqun, during the meeting, stressed that AIIB pays great attention to Egypt. He also hailed construction being carried out in the New Administrative Capital.

During the meeting, Hesham Arafat, transport minister, expressed Egypt's interest in benefiting from cooperation with the bank in the domains of roads and rail transport in particular.

AIIB officials welcomed further cooperation in the transportation sector, which comes second in investment only to energy.

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CropIn Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd. , an agriculture technology startup, has raised INR 58 crores ($8 million) in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India ) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda tion Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle) . The financing will scale CropIn 's ' SmartFarm ' technology platform in India and globally to expand its reach from 3 million acres across 2 million farmers to more than 10 million actively monitored acres across 7 million farmers. With this capital infusion and its increasingly rich data-set, the Company will further develop its machine-learning-based ' SmartRisk ' platform to achieve unprecedented levels of plot-level crop detection and yield prediction.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787489/CropIn_Founders.jpg )



Headquartered in Bengaluru with 180+ customers across 29 countries, CropIn enables businesses in the agriculture-ecosystem to adopt a data-driven approach through its ground-to-cloud technology platform. It thus empowers agribusinesses to 'grow more with less', and drive initiatives around Digitization, Traceability, Predictability, Sustainability and Compliance. CropIn's client portfolio includes many large global agribusinesses, banks, government bodies and development agencies. Through its product platform, CropIn addresses a global market of digital-based agriculture services that is estimated to hit $4.5 billion by 2020.

The company's initial product, SmartFarm, is a highly customizable mobile app and web interface for farm management deployed across agribusinesses' own field agents allowing for business-to-business-to-farmer plot-level farm management. Because data is collected and curated by agribusiness employees active at the plot-level and scrubbed for any inconsistencies by CropIn, there is high confidence that the information accurately reflects what is happening on the farm representing 'ground-truth' data. CropIn then builds on this data to enhance traceability and monitoring for its agribusiness clients through various software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

"To feed the 9.7 billion people in the world in 2050, agriculture efficiency must increase by 35% - 70% and technology is the key. India's rich mix of farming practices and small landholdings provide a massive data set to inform our models. Further, as a SaaS company, geography has never been a limiting factor for expanding our customer base. We are currently active throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and in select European markets. As ground-truth information from these geographies continues to fill our data lake, it provides insights that create a paradigm shift in the agriculture ecosystem globally," says CropIn Founder & CEO Krishna Kumar.

At the back end, CropIn's data lake amplifies this ground-truth data with local weather information and high-resolution satellite imagery, which form the foundation of machine learning. By analyzing and interpreting this data for the 265 crops with nearly 3,500 variants on its platform across billions of data points that grow every day, CropIn is building an agri-information highway that will detect patterns and predict the future of the crop highlighting the risk and opportunity for agri stakeholders. CropIn provides near-real-time actionable insights to agriculture processors, distributors, inputs providers, lenders and insurers through its connector APIs. Additionally, CropIn's algorithms can establish historical performance of every pixel at farm and regional level.

"We fundamentally believe in the founders' vision of creating a global agri-tech leader, while partnering with multiple stakeholders including agri-businesses, farming companies, financial lending & insurance companies. The sheer impact of CropIn for their global customers across 29 countries based on the unique data sets captured by the platform is staggering. The potential to revolutionize agriculture leveraging technology and machine learning has never been greater, and we believe Krishna and Kunal will continue to pioneer this industry for years ahead," according to Karan Mohla, Executive Director, Chiratae Ventures India Advisors.

With this investment, CropIn has raised a total funding of $12 million from investors including Singapore-based venture capital firm Beenext.

SOURCE CropIn Technology
MUMBAI, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

INOX Leisure Ltd. once again redefined movie watching experience for cinema lovers by bringing them an all exclusive screening of the Fantasy thriller 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald' in association with Warner Bros. Pictures. These special screenings were held in 10 screens across 6 locations - Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata and more than 2000 guests watched the gripping movie at INOX locations.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/788041/INOX_screening.jpg )

INOX will continue to delight its movie enthusiasts with more such exclusive and one-of-its-kind special content.

Considering the fanaticism, the buzz and to top it off Children's day celebration, INOX got an overwhelming response at the 'Fandom screening'. Some diehard fans also received merchandise as special prizes and were thrilled to be at INOX to experience this unique opportunity to watch the movie before the rest of the world saw it.

The Fans had also taken part in the weeklong contest and were overjoyed to win goodies and free tickets to the Fandom Screenings. The guests had an amazing experience and they exclaimed that the movie came alive more at the IMAX screens where INOX brought to them the exclusivity of watching the movie with a never before experience.

The movie released worldwide on November 16th, 2018

LIVE THE MOVIE only at INOX!

About INOX Leisure Limited

INOX Leisure Limited (INOX) is amongst India's largest multiplex chains with 133 multiplexes and 542 screens in 67 cities. INOX has redefined movie experiences in India making it truly 7-star. Each INOX property is unique with its own distinct architecture and aesthetics. INOX boasts of bringing the very latest in projection and audio technology, plush micro adjustable leather recliners with a butler on call facility, gourmet meal choices by celebrity chef, designer staff uniforms and many more. For easy and convenient ticket booking, INOX offers online booking on http://www.inoxmovies.com and through its smart phone applications across Android and Apple platforms.

For movie updates and various offers, one can follow us on:

Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/INOXLEISURE )

Twitter (https://twitter.com/inoxmovies )

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/inoxmovies/ )

Media Contact:

Pooja Basu

[email protected]

+91-9831443033

Manager - Brand & Corporate Communication

INOX Leisure Ltd

SOURCE INOX Leisure Ltd.
NEW DELHI, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Under the impetus of the GIFEN - French Nuclear Suppliers Association and Business France, the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, and with the support of EDF, 19 French suppliers to the nuclear industry will attend Indo-French nuclear business meetings from November 26th to December 1st. A 'French Nuclear Night' will also be held, as a part of this event, which will gather the Indo-French Nuclear ecosystem to provide a networking platform.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/651714/Business_France_Logo.jpg )

The French delegation will attend 2 main events:

A technical seminar and B2B meetings to strengthen Indo-French relationships ( Mumbai , November 26 th and 27 th )

, and 27 ) A 4-day roadshow to meet stakeholders, CTOs and their staff from the main Indian NPPs and representatives from renowned companies involved in nuclear industry ( Mumbai on November 28 , Kanyakumari on November 29 , Chennai on November 30 and Karwar on December 1st ).

France has chosen for many years to incorporate nuclear electricity in its energy mix. France has developed technologies with the highest safety standards and adopted strict rules, controlled by an independent authority. Therefore, France is covering the entire nuclear energy cycle from fuel manufacturing up to decommissioning of nuclear power plants and waste management.

Today, France has across the world a variety of projects in which French nuclear SMEs are involved and working with foreign companies:

1. New projects and construction of power plants

4 EPR reactors under construction in 3 countries ( France , Finland , UK) and 2 EPR units are being commissioned in China

, , UK) and 2 EPR units are being commissioned in 4 already authorized ATMEA1 units in Turkey under the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and Japan

under the intergovernmental agreement between and Participation to different reactor designs: PHWR, VVER, AP1000, CAP1000, HPR100, ESBWR, BWR

The Jaitapur project for 6 NPPs, in which the French Nuclear Industry wishes that the collaboration with Indian companies will lead to a significant Indo-French achievement

2. Operation and maintenance of reactors in operation

French companies have supplied around the world more than 350 nuclear reactors (AREVA experience) and built more than 130 reactors in 12 countries

73 reactors in operation in France and in the United Kingdom

and in the An area where France and India could jointly execute large projects for safe, reliable and efficient operations can be for the Indian reactors

France has been supporting countries in the nuclear energy field for years. They expect that nuclear cooperation between France and India will become increasingly strong and continue as part of a long-term partnership.

France is ready to leverage key success factors for the development of sustainable nuclear energy in India by:

Sharing knowledge and skills with local industry Cooperating in education and training development Supporting industrial development and establishing strong linkages between both industries

The French delegation comprises of the following firms:

APAVE, ASSYSTEM, BAUMERT, EDF, EGIS, EKIUM, EMERSON, FAYAT METAL, FREYSSINET, I2EN, JST TRANSFORMATEURS, KEMICA COATINGS, NUVIA, OAKRIDGE, ONET, REEL, SPX FLOW, TRACTEBEL, VELAN.

Key relevant figures of the French nuclear industry:

France possesses 58 reactors and its expertise is globally acknowledged in the nuclear sector. This expertise is the fruit of the constant commitment and investment of French industrial groups and SMEs for the past 60 years in the nuclear field.

 The French Nuclear Industry represents a total of 50 billion in turnover per year, of which 20% is generated from cooperation in international projects. France today accounts for half of the European nuclear industry

 It is composed of 2,600 companies with 115000 highly qualified people

 1.8 billion are invested in R&D programs each year

About Business France:

Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France. It promotes France's companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and runs the V.I.E international internship program. Business France has 1,500 personnel, both in France and in 70 countries throughout the world, who work with a network of public- and private-sector partners. For further information, please visit: http://www.businessfrance.fr and youbuyfrance.com.in.

Media Contact:

Kushal Sengupta

[email protected]

+91-2266694027

Trade Advisor Industry & Cleantech Department

Business France

SOURCE Business France
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The Cabinet has also approved an agreement signed in October with The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to inaugurate its representation office in Egypt

The Egyptian cabinet approved on Wednesday a 214 million euro deal with the European Investment Bank (EIB) aimed at improving sanitation services and the environment for the people living in the Nile Delta region.

The deal will be used to finance the depollution of the 69 km-long Kitchener Drain, the main agriculture drainage canal spanning across the governorates of Kafr El-Sheikh, Gharbiya and Daqahliya in the Nile Delta region, and which is known to be one of the country's most severely polluted canals.

The deal was signed during a visit by Egypt's Investment Minister Sahar Nasr to Luxembourg in October.

"The project will contribute to raising the living standards of Egyptians in many governorates," said president of the EIB Werner Hoyer at the signing ceremony, according to a statement by the bank.

The project is part of the bank's Economic Resilience Initiative (ERI), which seeks to "improve the resilience of the Egyptian economy and build stronger socio-economic infrastructure."

The bank said it this will be the first integrated depollution project in Egypt, comprising investments in wastewater and sanitation, solid waste, and drain rehabilitation.

Up to around 6 million people are expected to benefit from improved sanitation and solid waste services as a result of the predicted investments, according to the ERI statement about the project.

The European Union is providing a large grant of around 46 million euros through the Neighbourhood Investment Facility to finance investments and technical assistance in the project, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is contributing 148.3 million euros, Egypt's investment ministry said in a statement.

The project will involve the rehabilitation and expansion of around 30 sewage plants and the establishment of central sewage collection systems, the ministry added.

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Valerio Mieli's award-winning second feature screened for the second time at an Egyptian festival after its premiere in the Venice Film Festival

Italian film 'Ricordi?' (Remember?) screened recently at Cairos 11th Panorama of the European Film in the presence of its director Valerio Mieli, who discussed the film with audiences afterwards.

The films premiere at the Venice Film Festival was followed by its success overseas, resounding with Egyptian audiences at the Gouna Film Festival this September and at the Panorama.

On the second screening at the Panorama, audience members said it was their second or even third time watching the film, attesting to its commercial appeal.

From the inside out

Starring Luca Marinelli and Linda Caridi, Ricordi? recounts a long love story told entirely through the memories of the two protagonists.

Their first meeting, their time together, time apart, and with other people are all subjectively recounted through the misty lens of their memories, like unreliable narrators.

Not only are memories of the same event different for both of them, but their memories change with their moods and over time.

The plot itself is quite classical, and the skeleton of the timeline is linear. Its the montage of memories that makes the film unique and refreshing, engaging and memorable; a meticulous feat credited to film editor Desideria Rayner.

Daria D'Antonios cinematography also captured and reinforced a charming, intimate mise en scene. She draws us into the couples personal lives with tight close up shots, and harnesses the magic in the all the places and spaces that frame the story.

Mielis previous film, his 2009 debut Ten Winters, was also a lengthy love story told in an unconventional way, following a couple over the course of 10 years, as their lives repeatedly push them apart and then back together.

He compares the two films in an interview with Cineuropa, saying that Ten Winters was told objectively from the outside, like opening a window every year to see what is happening, while Ricordi? is told from the inside out and the perspectives of the characters.

Earlier reviews have described Mielis style as "between realism and fairytale," a trait that seems he carried on to Ricordi?

2

Language of memories

Between his and her perspectives of how things unravelled between them, the film plays out like a stream of consciousness where every moment is scattered into several memories.

The film is as much about the "language of memories" as it is about the character development.

Its about how they both grow and change based on their memories, how their memories shape not only who they are, but how they behave at a given moment.

By bringing us back to both characters childhood memories, Mieli invites us to think of how they can remain the same person, but also transform and become very different.

At first we see a striking difference between their memories. In his mind, the party where they first meet is gloomy, quiet and even sad. He wears his usual dark blue t-shirt and she is wearing a red dress. In her memory, the party was festive, well lit and lively, and he is wearing a suit and she dons a white dress.

Mieli makes it a very clear distinction, alternating between both views in a way that explains the film and lays the groundwork for his approach.

Having established this, it goes on to colour our perception of the film. We are not sure whose memory is more accurate and have surrendered the quest to find one true version of the events.

Instead it liberates us to enjoy the journey through the muddled, subjective memories of the characters and allows us to connect with them.

As their relationship develops and the film progresses, their language becomes less polarised, and it becomes less clear whose memories they are.

This feels intuitive on a visual, emotional and symbolic level; as the couple bonds, their language is synthesised.

The rhythm of the film reaches a harmonious peak before everything starts to come undone, and when they separate their memories become disparate versions again.

Subjective and abstract

Space, time, and identities are all abstracted and subjective in Ricordi?

Just as we never truly know exactly how an event played out, we never know how much time has passed between events, what city they are in, or even their names.

A large aspect of the story focuses on how memory is connected to places.

Mieli explains that the house where the couple lived was modelled after the one he grew up in. They had to make two sets, though, one larger than the other.

Because spaces seem larger to a small child, the character comments; "I don't remember [the house] being this small."

Even though time is suspended, timing is central to the story and plays a role in steering the relationship.

Things like missed connections, or meeting at the right time, are elements that Mieli was interested in and wanted to weave into the tale.

On his decision to keep them nameless, Mieli said in the discussion: When I wrote the film they didnt have names, and it felt contrived to do so afterwards. I also liked the scene where they whisper their names to each other. So I wanted to leave something thats just privately shared between the two of them.

It is delicate choices like these that lift the film from the otherwise worn, classic love story.

The conversations that they have are also about memories, adding another layer to the films themes and adding density to an already complex visual format.

In one of their first exchanges, he tells her that nostalgia makes things seem more beautiful. She, however, believes that the passage of time reveals more truth, and in retrospect we realise we were already happy.

When she suggests that he is remembering an embarrassing childhood moment incorrectly, she strikes a chord. It is as if from that moment he will start untangling his over-dramatised childhood traumas and gloomy disposition.

In turn, as he becomes more present and light hearted, her time with him starts triggering bad memories she had sugar-coated or entirely forgotten.

Her wardrobe changes from a bright, almost naive style, to darker colours and a more mature, uptight style.

1

Translating a stream of consciousness

The films script was also written by Mieli, who trained at the Italian National Film School, and additionally studied philosophy.

The director admits the script was a challenge to put to words, and not very easy for the actors to read.

At first I had a process more like flow writing. I then I felt it was not suitable to go about it like a novel, and started going at it more structurally, he said.

He believes the visual format of the film makes the story easier to follow, because it tells the story in a way that is familiar to the brain and how it works in images. When writing it though, it was like translating from the language of the mind, to text and back to the mind again.

In the end, Ricordi? remained very faithful to Mielis script and storyboard, even while much of it was fine tuned in the editing room.

However, the film falls a bit short on the expectations it sets up, and ends up not being as "experimental" as it could be and leans more towards classic linear storytelling.

For instance, while the synopsis and Mieli himself note that there is "no present" in the film, the middle part of the film unfolds clearly in a present tense, especially since we can follow the linearity of the relationship.

Whether it was for fear of being too complex and "trippy," or just a result of the safe and structured approach, Mieli could have pushed it even further and still made a great film.

Nonetheless, it was good news for Mieli that the film was accessible and not too complex, as he mentioned during the discussion. Instead of wanting to explain his vision, Mieli seemed to appreciate the chance to hear peoples responses to his film, which were all very positive.

Pairing a collage of memories with a linear structure made for a good balance that will likely appeal to a wide range of viewers.

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

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Rebuilding Median By LaGuardia Kicking off construction of a project to rebuild and beautify the Ditmars Blvd medians between 78th Street and the airport (82nd Street), a press conference...

Marathon 2021 Runners of all racing stripes took part in the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon on November 7. Racing categories in this, the largest marathon...

Mount Sinai Queens Opening New Infusion Center The last week of October was marked by an expansion of health care capacity in the borough, as Mount Sinai Queens celebrated the opening of...
A crowd gathers at a Shanghai hospital, queuing for remedies made with plant mixtures and animal parts including scorpions and freeze-dried millipedes -- medicines that China hopes will find an audience overseas.

With a history going back 2,400 years, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is deeply rooted in the country and remains popular despite access to Western pharmaceuticals. Now the authorities are hoping to modernise and export the remedies, but they face major obstacles.

A veritable forest of medicinal plants surrounds patients waiting at Yueyang Hospital's pharmacy. Some leave with boxes of pills, others take away plastic sachets filled with herbal extracts.

Lin Hongguo, a 76-year-old pensioner, has bought herbal remedies that he will boil to make a tea to treat his "slow beating heart".

"I prefer it to Western medicines. It's not about the cost, it's because it works well," he told AFP.

1

Another patient, pet fish seller Wang Deyun, 51, is also a believer.

"Two months ago my skin had an allergic reaction to a modern medicine for high blood pressure," she said from her hospital bed.

But after a treatment of face masks and plant infusions, she said she's almost fully healed.

Painting vs photography

Traditional medicine is subsidised in China and is cheaper than Western medicine.

It consistently makes up one quarter of the country's pharmaceuticals market -- even as China increasingly opens up to modern medicine.

The World Health Organisation will next year include a chapter on traditional medicine in its "International Classification of Diseases" -- a tome of reference for medical trends and global health statistics.

China hopes the WHO inclusion will spur global recognition of its traditional remedies as it seeks to export them.

2

But Beijing still faces significant hurdles, not least the fact that TCM focuses on tailoring treatment to each individual, which means different people with the same condition can be prescribed different medicines and dosages.

"It's like a painting -- it's composed differently each time, while Western medicine is more similar to photography" with its standardised products, said Wang Zhenyi, a proctologist at Yueyang Hospital.

That is the crux of China's challenge in gaining overseas acceptance: its traditional medicine is largely incompatible with modern clinical trials which require an identical product to be tested on a large number of patients.

As these medicines typically contain dozens of ingredients, understanding how they work together and proving their effectiveness is a complex task.

Even within China there have been public skirmishes over the efficacy of TCM, pitting its proponents against doctors who advocate evidence-based, peer-reviewed medicine.

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Conservationists also say growing demand for products like rhino horn and pangolin scales -- which are used by some practitioners even though they have no proven medical properties -- have decimated vulnerable species.

China partially lifted a ban on trading tiger bones and rhino horns last month despite warnings from conservationists, though state media later quoted an official saying the change had been "postponed".

Chinese experts say endangered animal parts are increasingly being replaced by synthetic versions, but TCM may still prove a tough sell abroad.

"I think the best potential is in the consumer market, such as nutritional supplements," said Tony Ren, a pharma analyst with Kim Eng Securities in Hong Kong.

AI to the rescue

Few Western pharmaceutical companies are keen to try to untangle these difficulties.

But French biotech company Pharnext has taken on the challenge, partnering last year with Tasly, one of China's biggest producers of traditional medicines.

Together, they are looking to transform the industry by streamlining "the procedures to have a more stable production of plants which have identical properties and understand why the mixture works", said Daniel Cohen, founder and CEO of Pharnext.

The two companies are using artificial intelligence to understand how the medicines work as they look to standardise them, he added.

They face an uphill battle.

4

In the United States, Tasly has been trying for more than 20 years to get approval for Dantonic, an angina medicine based on sage and ginseng that was legalised in China in 1993.

Though the firm has completed medical trials, it has come up hard against US law, which does not allow treatments composed of different plants.

But Chinese medical professionals still feel the quest for acceptance abroad is worth the effort.

"Medicine is still a very young science, with many unknowns. You increase your ability to heal if you know both Western and Chinese medicine," said proctologist Wang of Yueyang hospital.

"It's the result that counts."

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RFE/RL, November 12, 2018

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
US proposals to set up an Arab NATO defence pact in the Middle East dangerously misunderstand the true dynamics of the region

The US administrations proposal for a new strategic alliance in the Middle East, or what has been called an Arab NATO, imprecise as this term may be, is a risky diplomatic adventure that reveals how the administrations approach to the region is founded on outdated concepts that do not reflect the complex dynamics that have prevailed in it for many years.

According to the details in one document outlining this project, it seeks to reproduce the 6+2+1 formula proposed by the administration of former US president George W Bush following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, including the six Gulf countries, Jordan and Egypt, and the US.

This formula was a political mechanism meant to frame discussion of political alignments in the region. The same Arab countries are now envisioned as being at the core of the so-called Arab NATO.

The riskiness of the project resides in the historically demonstrable absence of the necessary mainstays to develop or build any regional security arrangement, in the strict sense of the term, capable of ensuring the collective security of its member states.

This is not due to a shortage of ideas on the mechanisms for such an arrangement or to the lack of treaties for the purpose.

Rather it is due to the lack of common perceptions among the countries in question regarding the sources of any threats and hence to a lack of agreement on the instruments needed to confront them.

Perhaps a good testimony to this is the failure to form the joint counter-terrorism force that Egypt proposed for the region in 2015.

Moreover, for several years the region has been in the process of a strategic transformation primarily associated with the former Obama administrations principle of taking a back seat for the US in world leadership.

This triggered intense rivalry and competition between the US and countries such as Russia and China.

The influence these countries have succeeded in building during this period in the region will not suddenly vanish through the creation of a military alliance such as the American-proposed Arab NATO.

In addition, the adoption of the principle of retreating from a leadership position by the US threw the overall power balances between the regions countries into such disarray that it became hard to speak of a regional leader or hegemon despite the attempts on the part of one regional power or another to play such a role.

The foregoing observations do not in themselves preclude the creation of a collective regional security arrangement that would guarantee the security and stability of its members and furnish peaceful means to handle any rivalries and disputes between them.

However, any such pact must accommodate the complexities that have come to exist in the Middle East.

Above all, they must furnish answers capable of obtaining a consensus among the countries that would join such a pact to four main questions that cannot be ignored when considering the creation of any regional security arrangements.

The document pertaining to the US-proposed project has not supplied any such answers to these questions.

They include, first, how would such a military pact handle the mounting challenges that violent non-state entities pose to states in the region? There are many instances in which the countries in question have come to accommodations with such entities by assimilating them into their institutions or reaching a formula for managing their relationship with them.

Second, how would any such new military pact relate to the recently formed Saudi-led military coalitions in the region, such as the Arab Coalition and the Islamic Coalition that also includes non-Arab states? While it is impossible to predict the future of such coalitions, it is also impossible to ignore them when considering the US-proposed pact.

Third, what will the relationship be between this new pact and Russia, whose influence in the region is in competition, and in certain cases in open conflict, with the traditional spheres of US influence? The same applies to the influence of China.

Any notion of striking a non-competitive equilibrium in the region, as has been voiced during discussions of the Arab NATO project, does not reflect the realities of the types of interplay in the region.

Fourth, what country is the pact being built to oppose? Israel is not a common enemy to all the eight countries that are supposed to form the new Arab NATO.

Indeed, a cornerstone of the concept is that many countries are prepared to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians and the perception of Israel as an enemy is fading in the mindsets of their ruling elites.

Evidence of this was seen in the recent visit of the Israeli prime minister to Oman and in similar visits by Israeli ministers to other Gulf countries.

As for Iran, the eight countries involved also do not see eye-to-eye on this question for reasons pertaining to their permanent or shifting interests.

The same applies to Russia and other powers that have succeeded in building spheres of interest in the region over recent years.

* The writer is a resident research fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Towards an Arab NATO?

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This years centennial of the end of the First World War has many important lessons for the present

Many historians and political analysts view World War II as the most important event in modern world history, and few of them treat the First World War with the same respect. However, World War II had far greater impacts than are credited by these historians, and these have been pointed to as the world marks a century since the end of the First World War by the signing of the famous Armistice Agreement in November 1918.

This marked the end of a bloody chapter in history that witnessed the deaths of 21 million people and paved the way for further bloodshed in World War Two.

World War I, or the Great War, was the first glimpse of what modern warfare would be like. The introduction of airplanes, aerial bombardments and dog fighting in the skies of Europe during the course of the war was a revolution in the history of warfare.

It meant that no longer could a strong ground army made up of infantry, cavalry and cannons suffice alone without aerial coverage. The same war witnessed the final eclipse of the cavalrys role on the battlefield.

Such units had been essential to any army worth the name since the Bronze Age, and they had been instrumental in all warfare through the early modern and early industrial periods.

But now horses and cavalry units were replaced by mechanical infantry units and armoured tanks, which were first introduced by the British in 1916 as a possible solution to trench warfare.

They later turned the tide of battles up to and including the Second World War, when tanks became the main component of all ground forces.

World War II also saw the first battles in the sky in the ferocious dogfights in which the Germans seemed to excel in the early episodes of the war, with legendary pilots such as the German Manfred Von Richthofen, also known as the Red Baron, dominating the skies until his death in 1918.

Von Richthofen was possibly the most decorated pilot in history and was even respected by his enemies. His exceptional flying skills affected how aerial warfare was taught and fought for years afterwards and marked the importance of possessing a strong air force able to back up ground troops no matter how strong the latter were thought to be.

The lack of proper defensive tactics in the First World War coupled with the advanced weapons introduced during its course, including modern machine guns, contributed to the enormous human casualties that the belligerent nations had experienced by the end of the war.

According to some estimates, these totalled nearly 41 million men, 20 million of whom were killed and 21 million injured.

As a result of World War I, two major empires, the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918) and the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) saw their final days.

Both had played major roles in the course of history, and they were replaced by Austria and the other successor states of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Republic of Turkey.

The war also saw the rise of the former Soviet Union from the ashes of a retreating Russian Empire in October 1917 following the Bolshevik Revolution, itself later constituting one of the worlds two superpowers.

Perhaps the most critical result of the war was that it did not end the hostilities between the belligerent nations, as the formal end of the conflict in the Treaty of Versailles was an explosive charge that exploded nearly two decades later igniting the Second World War.

Most historians consider World War I to be simply the prelude to the second, and the Treaty of Versailles was perceived to be so humiliating to the Germans that German dictator Adolf Hitler managed to manipulate them into fighting a second war to reverse it.

Among the other results of this was the end of the ill-fated League of Nations (1920-1946), which had aimed to keep the peace but had not been able to do so because this international body did not have effective tools.

The present centennial of the Armistice serves two purposes, the first being to remember the sacrifices of the soldiers in the course of the war and how they paid the heaviest of prices for foolish imperialist and colonialist policies.

The second is that the centennial of the end of World War I serves as a reminder of how far destruction can go if reason does not prevail.

Sadly, the world is now living through one of its most unstable periods in decades, and the current struggle between the worlds powers that includes threats and counter-threats resembles the similar atmosphere before the First World War.

Only the players are different. There was an arms race in Europe between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany on one side and the French and Russians on the other, and this marked the beginning of a long conflict and ended in global war in 1914.

The current American, Chinese and Russian arms race and the possible US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed in 1987 marks an ominous downturn in events resembling those that took place before World War I.

Europeans before 1914 were living in relative prosperity, and Europe constituted two-thirds of the worlds economy, signifying the strength of the European powers compared to the rest of the world.

All this was squandered on the battlefield in search of further gains and yet more colonies.

The current rise in radicalism and the global war on terrorism have not quelled the chances of a new global conflict. There are hotspots across the world that could ignite a nuclear conflict, such as on the Korean Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and in the Middle East.

Even in the West there has been the rise of the alt-right and ultranationalist far-right that spare no efforts in fostering hate and stirring up racism within Western societies.

Things could get worse in unforeseen ways. In November this year, 200 neo-Nazis serving in the German army were arrested for plotting the assassination of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians as well as of a number of immigrants in a plot they called Day X.

The number of those involved is significant, especially since these German Special Forces could have wrought havoc on the German state.

Some may downplay this as an event of secondary importance, but that could be a fatal mistake. The butterfly effects of such a plot could have been catastrophic, and they could have been the catalyst for further events to follow.

World War I was ignited by the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914) in Sarajevo. Who knows what could have been the impact of the later assassination plot had it been allowed to succeed.

With the worlds nuclear powers now possessing enough firepower to destroy a planet 50 times the size of Earth, the warning signs could not be more serious.

Humanity cannot afford to ignore even the slightest signs of warning. Let us hope that World War II will be the last global war witnessed on this planet, and let the humbling lessons to be drawn from World War I be our guide in saving ourselves and the planet.

* The writer is a political analyst and author of Egypts Arab Spring and the Winding Road to Democracy.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Lessons from World War I

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Massachusetts, which voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2016, opened the first recreational marijuana stores on Tuesday.

The first shops to have been authorized for in the state are "Cultivate", in Leicester, and "New England Treatment Access (NETA)", in Northampton.

Stephen Mandile, an Iraq war veteran, was invited to be the first customer at Cultivate while Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz was invited to be its first customer by New England Treatment Access, reports The Boston Globe.

In the Massachusetts, the laws allow for possession of up to 1 oz on person and have up to 10 oz in home. It is legal to grow up to 6 plants in home and up to 12 plants for 2 or more adults. But it is illegal to smoke pot in public.

Massachusetts legalized medical marijuana in 2012, and as of October 30, 2018, 42 registered marijuana dispensaries (RMDs) were given final approval to open.

Maine is another state, which approved recreational use of marijuana in 2016. However, the state is yet to open a legal recreational marijuana dispensary. There are 8 licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in the state.

Related Reading

Pot Stocks To Ponder

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Political News
Radian Group Inc. (RDN) said it has acquired Independent Settlement Services LLC, a national appraisal and title management services company.

Radian noted that the acquisition is consistent with its growth and diversification strategy, and its focus on the core product offerings of its Title, Mortgage and Real Estate Services businesses.

Independent Settlement Services is a provider of real estate information and valuation solutions in all 50 states, and offers proprietary disruptive through Vendor Information Bridge or VIBe, a web-based, fully-integrated, real-time vendor management and settlement services technology system.

VIBe provides lenders, appraisers, servicing firms, due diligence firms, and appraisal-management companies with a fully-automated platform to manage the ordering and delivery of products and services.

Radian noted that Independent Settlement Services will operate under its current brand through its office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ed Chezosky, one of the company's founders, along with the existing senior management team, will continue to lead the day-to-day operations.

Radian said that in the coming months, Independent Settlement Services will transition to the new One Radian brand identity as an integral part of the company's Real Estate Services .

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
North Korea announced its plan to host the country's first international blockchain and cryptocurrency conference next year. The conference will be conducted in the Pyongyang Science and Technology Complex from April 18 to 25, 2019.

International experts in the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency industry will gather for the first time in Pyongyan, the country's official website says. They will share their knowledge and vision, establish connections and discuss opportunities.

The eight-day program costs 3,300 euros or around 2,900 pounds for each delegate. Apart from Blockchain and Cryptocurrency sessions, the conference also includes a tour of the country with bowling, shooting, and a trip to the Daedonggang Beer Factory.

The organizers of the conference are Alejandro Cao de Benos, Special Delegate for the Committee for Cultural Relations and President of the Korean Friendship Association, and Chris Emms, Blockchain and Crypto expert.

North Korea invites any interested person from all countries, except from South Korea, Japan and Israel. Journalists are also not allowed to attend.

The announcement also included a warning that any mass printed propaganda or digital/printed material against the dignity of the Republic is not allowed.

There were reports earlier that the country has been looking to the decentralized to bypass crippling sanctions imposed by the US. Cryptocurrency experts were invited in the past to take lectures for students of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Technology News
Bipartisan leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote a letter urging President Donald Trump to ascertain if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman played a role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Senators Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letter as Trump defended his decision not to hold the Saudi rulers accountable for Khashoggi's killing, arguing that maintaining strategic ties with Saudi Arabia was in the best interest of the U.S. and necessary to keep global oil prices down.

Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who had been living in the U.S., was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2nd.

The Turkish Government alleges that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Khashoggi, who had been a thorn in the side of the conservative Saudi regime and had called for free expression in the Kingdom.

U.S. media has reported that the CIA believes the powerful prince is behind the murder of the 59-year-old journalist.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Khashoggi's death on rogue agents but denied claims that the crown prince had knowledge of the operation.

In the letter to Trump, the Senators triggered a second investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

Under the 2016 Act, the President, upon receipt of a letter from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, must decide within 120 days whether to impose sanctions on any foreign person he determines is responsible for extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of human rights against Khashoggi.

This is the second letter from the Senate triggering a Global Magnitsky investigation.

On October 10th, a bipartisan group of top US Senators had written to Trump asking him to order an investigation into the whereabouts of Khashoggi and impose sanctions against anyone found responsible for his killing. The first letter did not specifically name the Crown Prince.

In a statement Tuesday making it clear why he will stand with the Saudi Arabian monarchy, Trump said, "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region."

Trump also acknowledged "it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didn't."

He noted that Saudi Arabia, the second largest oil producing nation in the world, "have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels - so important for the world."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
A day earlier than usual due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday, the Labor Department released a report on Wednesday showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly edged higher in the week ended November 17th.

The report said initial jobless claims rose to 224,000, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 221,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 215,000 from the 216,000 originally reported for the previous week.

With the unexpected uptick, jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 232,000 in the week ended June 30th.

The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also crept up to 218,500, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised average of 216,500.

Meanwhile, the report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, dipped by 2,000 to 1.668 million in the week ended November 10th.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims still climbed to 1,649,750, an increase of 7,500 from the previous week's revised average of 1,642,250.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
A summary of some of the popular stories on cryptocurrency and blockchain during the past 24 hours.

North Dakota Issues Cease and Desist Order Against fraudulent Russian ICO

North Dakota's securities watchdog issued a cease and desist order against a Russia-based initial coin offering (ICO) Union Bank Payment Coin, also known as UBPC over an attempt to impersonate a Liechtenstein-based major bank to promote "unregistered and potentially fraudulent securities" in the state. The Securities Commissioner said that the Union Bank Payment Coin solicitation appears to be an attempt to fraudulently acquire funds through the exploitation of an announcement made by Union Bank AG, a fully licensed and regulated bank based in Liechtenstein.

ICE's Bakkt sets new launch date for Bitcoin Futures

Digital Assets Platform Bakkt, created by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has set a new target date of January 24, 2019 for the much-awaited launch of the Bakkt Bitcoin (US dollar) Daily Futures contract for trading, and the Bakkt Warehouse. The trading was initially set to go live on ICE Futures US on December 12, 2018. The delay in listing will provide additional time for customer and clearing member onboarding prior to the start of trading and warehousing of the new contract. The new listing date is subject to regulatory approval.

North Korea to host international blockchain and crypto conference next year

North Korea announced its plan to host the country's first international blockchain and cryptocurrency conference next year. The conference will be conducted in the Pyongyang Science and Technology Complex from April 18 to 25, 2019. The eight-day program costs 3,300 euros or around 2,900 pounds for each delegate. Apart from Blockchain and Cryptocurrency sessions, the conference also includes a tour of the country with bowling, shooting, and a trip to the Daedonggang Beer Factory.

UK Regulator considering ban on sale of Cryptocurrency Derivatives

The Financial Conduct Authority or FCA, the U.K.'s finance regulator, is likely to ban the sale of cryptocurrency derivatives such as futures. At The Regulation of Cryptocurrencies event in London, FCA executive director of strategy and competition Christopher Woolard expressed concern that retail consumers are being sold complex, volatile and often leveraged derivatives products based on exchange tokens with underlying market integrity issues.

BitPay adds third stable coin For Receiving Settlements

Bitcoin payment processor BitPay has added a third U.S. dollar-backed stable coin, Paxos Standard token (PAX), to provide merchants and businesses one more option to receive the settlement for their payments. It had already added support for two stable coins, Gemini Dollars (GUSD) and Circle USD Coin (USDC), in mid-October. Holders can redeem these stable coins directly for US dollars without the risk of value change or price volatility for holders.

Current Prices

As of this writing, Bitcoin is losing 4.85 percent of $224.12 at $4415.79. Ethereum is trading down 4.48 percent or $6.17 at $131.88 on Coinbase.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex News
President Donald Trump says he is considering to attend White House Correspondents Dinner for the first time, which he boycotted in the past.

"So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian," Trump tweeted.

The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) announced earlier this week that Ron Chernow, one of the most eminent biographers of American presidents and statesmen, will be the featured speaker at its annual dinner, to be held on April 27, 2019.

Trump described the decision as "Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition."

He closed the brief statement with a half-hearted question: "Maybe I will go?"

WHCA president Olivier Knox said that "Ron will share his lively, deeply researched perspectives on American and history...As we celebrate the importance of a free and independent news media to the health of the republic."

Chernow said he will make the case for the First Amendment, and promised that his history lesson "won't be dry."

His biography of President George Washington won the Pulitzer Prize.

Michelle Wolf made a sharply anti-Trump performance at the WHCA Dinner speech this year, which evoked criticism from the White House.

And the organization's president said Wolf's controversial routine was "not in the spirit" of the group's mission.

Trump broke the tradition by staying away from the high profile event.

Trump has skipped the event last year too.

This is for the first time in past few decades that the White House Correspondent preferring not to invite a comedian to deliver the key note address at the annual dinner.

Wolf responded to the move to cut comedy from the dinner by calling the White House correspondents "cowards."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Mass celebration in Hodeida to mark Prophets birth anniversary [21/November/2018] HODEIDA, Nov. 20 (Saba)  Thousands of citizens in Hodeida province on Tuesday celebrated the anniversary of Prophet Mohammeds birth in unprecedented crowd.



The citizens scanned slogans to express their joy to celebrate this inherited the celebration of the prophets birth from their ancestors.



At the ceremony, which was attended by acting Governor of Hojjah and the leaders of the provinces of Hodeidah, Rimah, Hajjah and al-Mahweet, the acting governor of Hodeidah Mohammad Qahim praised this great public attendance to commemorate the birth of the Prophet.



He said that the celebration of this blessed day amidst this great public presence has great implications for the status of the greatest prophet in the hearts of the people of Yemen and the Islamic nation.





AA

Saba


Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar (file photo) Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar was questioned by a Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT) on Wednesday in connection with an alleged deal mediated by him between jailed Dera Sachha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, police sources said. The questioning began around 9.45 a.m. and was video recorded.



Akshay, who landed at the Chandigarh international airport on a chartered flight from Mumbai earlier in the day, drove straight to the high-security state police headquarters in Sector 9 here and appeared for the questioning.



He remained inside the headquarters for almost two hours.



When the questioning ended, Akshay was taken away in his vehicle through a side gate of the police premise to help him avoid the waiting media.



The SIT grilled Akshay regarding the alleged deal, his relationship with the sect leader and Badal. He was also asked if the Dera leader lived in the same locality in Mumbai as his, police sources said.



Akshay apparently challenged the SIT officials to show evidence of the allegations raised against him and not go only by hearsay, an officer not willing to be identified revealed.



Dismissing all allegations, the 51-year-old actor said that he had great regard for the Sikh religion and would never do anything to dishonour or hurt it.



Earlier, while coming out of the Chandigarh airport, he told the media in Punjabi: "Tussi vi aao, naal challo" (You too, come along). Before he raced pass in a luxury SUV.



The Punjab Police SIT, which is probing sacrilege of the Sikh holy book the Guru Granth Sahib and subsequent firing on protesters in 2015, had earlier in November summoned the "Gold" actor as a witness.



Akshay had on Tuesday moved a request that he be allowed to meet the SIT officials in Chandigarh instead of Amritsar, where he had been originally asked to appear.



He was questioned regarding his alleged role in brokering a Rs 100-crore deal between the Dera chief, who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years in prison and Badal in Mumbai in 2015 just days before the release of a film of Gurmeet Ram Rahim.



Akshay has denied the allegations, terming them to be "rumours and false statements".



"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 path," Akshay had tweeted after he was summoned by the Punjab Police.



On his part, Sukhbir Badal said on Tuesday: "I have never met Akshay Kumar outside Punjab." Badal was questioned by the SIT here at the police headquarters on Monday.



He termed the questioning as a sham and alleged that the Congress government led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was indulging in "political vendetta".



Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was on November 16 questioned by the SIT headed by Additional Director General of Police Pramod Kumar and Inspector General Kunwar Vijay Pratap.



The senior Badal said that he told the SIT that he had not ordered firing on Sikh protesters agitating against the sacrilege incidents in October 2015.



Amarinder Singh had earlier said that his government had no role in the summoning of the Badals and the actor by the SIT.



The SIT was set up by the Amarinder government in September to probe the sacrilege cases and the firing ordered on those protesting the sacrilege in October 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal was in power in the state.



Two persons were killed in the police firing in Behbal Kalan village near Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.




Is todays divisive political rhetoric in the US, much of it used by US President Donald Trump, fostering hostility or criminal acts

In October this year, 15 potentially explosive devices, or what are known as pipe bombs, were sent to prominent and high-ranking Americans including the Obamas and the Clintons.

Film star Robert De Nero, former vice-president Joe Biden, Eric Holder, former US attorney-general, and billionaire George Soros were amongst those who received the bombs.

A pattern emerged whereby all those targeted were critics of US President Donald Trump or had been slighted or defamed by him.

The US then went on the defensive as the authorities asked anyone who had been a critic of Trump, or whom Trump may have publicly slandered, to remain vigilant.

Once the suspect, Cesar Sayoc, was caught, his partisanship surfaced. His van, which doubled as his base, was festooned with stickers that supported Trump and denounced his critics. He had also plastered red targets over the faces of those he construed as enemies in the van.

Trump has had altercations with most of the bomb recipients. He has denigrated Democratic Party presidential elections candidate Hillary Clinton, for example.

He listened to and chuckled at the lock her up rants during his campaign rallies, he said that the Second Amendment people, those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms in the US, should do something to Hillary, and he dubbed her crooked Hillary.

The same thing goes for all those who were targeted.

Later, in a shoot-out on 27 October a gunman, Robert Bowers, a white supremacist, killed 11 Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburg in the US. He had targeted Jews on social media and made anti-Semitic statements during the shooting.

For much of the media, Trumps behaviour and rhetoric had egged on Bowers and his like. During an earlier white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, a civil rights protester was killed, and Trumps comment then was that there were very fine people on both sides, equating white supremacists with ordinary Americans.

In a petition, thousands asked Trump not to visit Pittsburg after the shooting unless he denounced white nationalism ahead of it.

The question today is whether the divisive political rhetoric in the US fosters hostility or even criminal acts. In other words, was Sayoc a by-product of Trumps rhetoric? Was Bowers a consequence of the same? And is this rhetoric reshaping American politics as well as Americans at large?

Trumps rhetoric is indeed divisive and racially charged. It has polarised Americans and fed partisanship, stoking hatred and empowering the heartless.

According to Trump, no one is above defamation. Envision the message that Trump supporters receive when they hear the following: the Democrats will give illegal immigrants free cars; the Democrats will abolish American borders; the Democrats want to open our borders to a flood of deadly drugs and ruthless gangs, the Democrats want to turn America into a giant sanctuary for criminal aliens dont kid yourself. That whats going to happen, for example.

Does this kind of crassness pass unnoticed by Americans, or will grudge-bearing pro-Trump individuals follow suit in tone and standards? Knock the crap out of him, would you? I promise you, I will pay your legal fees; Id like to punch him in the face; Ill beat the crap out of you; maybe he should be roughed up; we are tired of the garbage; get out of here; and part of the problem is that no one wants to hurt each other anymore are samples of Trumps outbursts.

Trump is also bringing out the worse in those who dislike him, for partisan infighting rules in the US today.

Robert De Nero slammed Trump on the US TV programme Saturday Night Live, and Soros described Trump as a danger to the world.

Holder used a sentence from former US first lady Michelle Obama, when they go low, we go high, but then kicked it up a notch by saying when they go low, we kick them.

Can such ranting go unnoticed and not leave its mark on Americans? I doubt it. Moral and ethical standards are sinking and losing ground; vulgarity rules; trifling sacred beliefs is taken lightly; and wishing others ill has become the norm.

The end result is that Americans will change, as this rhetoric provides a green light to the Sayocs and the Bowers of the world.

When asked if he plans on toning down or softening his rhetoric, Trump said that his intention was to tone it up. He has no intention of restraining himself, for Trump is at the most Trumpish when he is combative.

* The writer is a political analyst.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 22 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Braving the rhetoric

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In the second such conviction leading to capital punishment in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a trial court awarded the death penalty to a man after holding him guilty of murder while another person was given life imprisonment in the case.

Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey awarded the death penalty to Yashpal Singh and sentenced Naresh Sherawat to life imprisonment.



The prosecution demanded the death penalty to the two, saying it was the rarest of rare case. But the defence counsel pleaded for leniency.



The court also slapped a fine of around Rs 35 lakh each against the two convicts and ordered to pay the fine as compensation to the surviving family of the deceased.





The offences the convict committed belong to rarest of rare case category, the court said while pronouncing the quantum of sentence.



"They (convicts) being the influential neighbours of the victims, without any provocation, caused horrendous crime of murder and looting," the court said.



The court noted that the convicts eliminated all victims because of their faith, community and religion which led to their (victim's) displacement.



"Such victims would never be able to forget the tale of their horrors or to rehabilitate themselves in the privious position," the court said.



Last week, the court convicted Sherawat and Yashpal Singh of murder, attempt to murder, dacoity and voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous weapons.



Sherawat and Yashpal Singh were accused of killing Hardev Singh and Avtar Singh in Mahipalpur area of south Delhi during the riots that followed the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.



The violence claimed hundreds of lives, mostly in Delhi.



On a complaint by the victim's brother Santokh Singh, the police lodged a case. But in 1994, the police wanted to close the case citing lack of evidence. The case was reopened by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).



Earlier in 1995, a trial court had convicted a man named Kishori for murder and ordered that he be hanged. However, the Supreme Court in 1999 reduced the sentence from capital punishment to life imprisonment.



Kishori was convicted for violence in Trilokpuri in east Delhi on November 1, 1984.



Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader H.S. Phoolka, who has been fighting anti-Sikh riots cases, said that Tuesday's verdict was the beginning of delivery of justice.



"This is a great verdict. We are thankful to the judge for this bold decision and this is the beginning of delivery of justice. Many cases are now pending which are at final stages. We are expecting that we will achieve success in those cases also." Phoolka told IANS.



He said arguments have concluded in the case involving Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and the judgement was reserved.



"Now we expect we will succeed in that also."



Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also welcomed the sentence.



"Welcome the conviction by a Delhi court in the 1984 riots case. Justice has finally been meted out to the perpetrators of the heinous crimes. Hope the others involved in the attacks are also soon brought to book," he tweeted.



Union Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal said justice had been delivered to the two culprits due to efforts of the National Democratic Alliance government.



"They killed! They burnt! They raped! Today they hang!! I thank Waheguru for giving Sikhs a ray of hope in today's verdict against two culprits of 1984 Sikh genocide and pray for similar punishment for Sajjan, Tytler, and their partners in crimes against Sikhs!!



"Today, justice has been delivered to 2 culprits of the 1984 Sikh genocide because of the efforts of NDA goverment. I thank PM Narendra Modiji for setting up SIT in 2015 and reopening the case closed by Delhi Police in 1994.



"We will not rest till the last murderer is brought to justice," she said in tweets.
A suicide bombing on Tuesday at a hall in Kabul where hundreds of religious scholars had gathered to commemorate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday left at least 50 people dead and more than 70 others wounded, officials said.

The attack was carried out by a lone insurgent inside the Uranus wedding hall, Kabul police spokesperson Basir Mujahid told Efe.



"The explosion took place as hundreds of ulema (Islamic scholars) and people were gathered in the hall to observe Mawlid and recite passages from the Quran," he said, adding that police had not been advised of a need for security beforehand.



All of the victims were civilian men, health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Majroh told Efe.



Afghan President Ashraf Ghani blamed the "unpardonable crime" on the "enemies of Islam."



"Once again, the terrorists have acted against the teachings of the Prophet," he said in a statement.



While no group claimed responsibility, the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest insurgency, took the unusual step of denying involvement, reports Efe.



"The Islamic Emirate (as the Taliban call themselves) energetically condemns attacks against gatherings of civilians and religious people," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.



Thousands of gatherings were taking place throughout the country to mark the Prophet's birthday on what was a public holiday in Afghanistan.



The Uranus wedding hall is located on Airport Road in northern Kabul, where there is a concentration of similar venues which are often booked for events other than weddings.



The Afghan capital is frequently rocked by terror attacks, often carried out by the Taliban or Islamic State, but Tuesday's assault was one of the deadliest in recent months.
Listen up good folks. In the Sunday Samoan of 18th November 2018, a series of stories about agritourism were published.

A central theme of the stories is the Governments plan to open an Agritourism Park, taking up 10 acres at Nuu, and the reaction from members of the community.

The plan, which has been in the pipeline for a couple of years now, will apparently cost a whopping $9.14million tala. It is to be partly paid for by funding from the European Union.

The Park, it appears, is one of the Governments grand plans, most probably conceived during the time of former Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Laauli Leuatea Polataivao.

That said, the current Minister of Agriculture who took over the portfolio last year, Lopaoo Natanielu Mua, has been handed the baton and he is hell bent on seeing it through. Thats judging from what hes saying at least.

Speaking to the Sunday Samoan, Lopaoo said he hopes the park will be open for business next year, explaining that his vision goes beyond tourism; he also wants a beautiful green recreational space.

I think the environment is going to be quite tremendous for people who want to have a break from their house, he said. It is a park, at the end of the day, so people can go there and enjoy.

But thats not all. If he had it his way, the minister said he would love to see a babbling brook or small stream in the park as well.

There is nothing like sitting on a bench in a park, where you can hear the water, he said, adding: You can see that I am a dreamer.

Well theres nothing wrong with being a dreamer. Every great invention started from a silly dream of some sort. Which is why its good that our leaders are dreaming of positive ideas.

But are they the best ideas? Are they the best ways to spend aid funding that could perhaps be used to address some of the sectors more pressing concerns?

Well you can be the judge.

Suffice to say, the proposal has already met objections from members of the Agriculture Sector who no doubt believe that the plan will be another glorious waste of funds.

Take the Chairman of the Samoa Farmers Association and former Member of Parliament, Afamasaga Toleafoa, for example.

If were talking about government money, and for government to run this, I would have reservations. Government is not designed to run businesses, but the private sector is, he said.

According to Afamasaga, the agritourism industry needs large-scale investment in a few farms that need development, before they are ready to function in the tourism sector.

Adapting farms with a bit of investment and improvement to receive tourists would probably be more authentic, in terms of showing off Samoas way of life than a big project created especially for it, he said.

It doesnt have to be high class but it has to be organized. We need to be selective and start with those who can do it, with farmers who are commercial in orientation and have money to invest in their farm and receive tourists.

A member of the farming community and a cacao farmer from Tuanai, Floris Niu, was straight to the point, calling the plan a half baked idea.

We are already doing this, why dont you support us by giving us some sort of funding or a hand up? she said, adding that the Government should be investing in the people-making economies out of agri-tourism in villages all across Samoa, instead of concentrating energies in a brand new park.

Its just the most ridiculous thing ever. I mean, come on, how authentic would that be? Or, lets look at it a different way - how many people are they going to employ in that one tourist farm, as opposed to how many individual farmers and their families that are could benefit and be able to make economies from that?

Youve got to be able to put the numbers together.

Well Ms. Niu has hit the nail on the head. We couldnt agree more.

See, while a agritourism park is a nice idea, its definitely not the best of ideas.

Today, this is a country that needs the best ideas. We dont need nice ideas that end up being a waste of money. Weve seen enough already with so many white elephants staring us in the face, as if they are to remind us of how this Government continues to get it wrong.

Now stop for a second and think of that cool $9.14million tala and how it could be used to help farmers across the country who really need it? Think of all the coconuts, koko Samoa, banana, vegetables and more that could spring from it, if the money were used as seed funds for local farmers. Think of the equipment that could be bought and presented to the farmers, giving them a hands up to go out and fulfill their potential and realise their dreams.

Lastly, the Minister and this Government dont need a park where they can hear the water. This is Samoathere is water everywhere. We are surrounded by water, all you have to do is get out of your air conditioned car to hear it.

Besides, everywhere you look in Samoa, there is some sort of plantation. Why then do we need to spend another $9.14million on a plantation park when the entire country is naturally a plantation?

What do you think? Write and share your thoughts with us!

Have a wonderful Wednesday Samoa, God bless!
The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Labour, Lautafi Selafi Purcell, yesterday emphasised the important role state owned enterprises play in maximising profits for the Government.

Lautafi also called for better management of assets, management of finance and the management of human resources.

If you are spending a lot of money on buying assets you dont need then theres not going to be any returns on the investment, he said.

If you are mismanaging assets then you are going to have to spend a lot of money to maintain it. So good management of all aspects of businesses is required by Government for you all.

The Minister made the point during a gathering for Directors, Chairpersons and Members of Government Boards at the Tanoa Tusitala Hotel.

The occasion also saw the presentation of certificates to Directors who successfully completed the professional programme for Directors (see story page 5).

Speaking about public beneficiaries bodies, he said their objective is to operate efficiently, effectively and to provide quality service to the public.

The effectiveness and efficiency is measured not only by the quality of the service that they provide, but also by the level of dependency to the budget of Government, Lautafi said.

So if you are one of these, and you are relying on Government every day, every year, then maybe its time to relook at some of your operations.

Some of the public beneficiaries bodies include N.H.S. which will merge with the Ministry of Health, National Kidney Foundation, National University of Samoa, Samoa Tourism Authority and others.

Lautafi highlighted the importance of operating successfully, effectively and efficiently as a business.

Not only trading bodies. That is the underlying message and requirement for all public bodies. Like any other business, they exist to excel, prosper, maximise returns to its shareholders, he said.

There will be some who will not always be able to make financial returns because of the nature of the business that they are in, however it does not exclude them from running their business as effectively and efficiently as mandated by Government.

The Minister also highlighted that his Ministry is responsible for monitoring the 28 public bodies in accordance with the requirements of the Public Bodies Act.

The ministry is to ensure the public bodies deliver services that are of high standard and efficient to the public and provide and economic and social return on Government investment in your operations, that is very critical, and every board member, every chairman, and management should be aware of that, Lautafi said.

Public bodies are divided into three categories, public trading bodies  operate successful businesses, to be as profitable and efficient as comparable to businesses that are not owned by the Government, and there are 16 public training bodies including Development Bank of Samoa, Polynesian Airline etc.

Mutual bodies and these include National Provident Fund., Accident Compensation Corporation etc. These bodies are owned by its contributors and are mandated to run effective and profitable business to maximise returns for the contributors.
The man who owns the security firm on duty at the launch of Samoa Airways flights in Brisbane last week, when two men attempted to attack Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi, has spoken out about the ordeal.

Galumalemana Aurthur Nanai said he chased the men after they stormed the building and threw a pigs head at the Prime Minister.

There were three cars waiting in the parking lot for them and they took off as soon as they saw me in pursuit, he said in an interview released by the Government Press Secretariat.

I know the unmasked kid. Hes from here.

The attack is being investigated by the Queensland Police.

But Galumalemana, who hails from Matautu Falelatai, said the men threw eggs, fruits and papers.

They came from behind the hall and took everyone by surprise, he said.

It is a total embarrassment.

Galumalemana also apologised to the Prime Minister.

As a leader he deserves our highest of respects and what these two boys did is totally against our culture and values especially when its our Prime Minister, he said.

My sincere apologies to Prime Minister Tuilaepa. He does not deserve this because he has done great things for Samoa and our families back home.

Galumalemana added that Samoa owes Tuilaepa.

My family now has transport because of Tuilaepas road switch. Hundreds of Samoans are working in Australia as seasonal workers because of Tuilaepa, he said.

He continues to fight for Samoa on the world stage so that our home is protected from climate change. The list goes on and on. Tuilaepa is a man of his word.

As for the two suspects, Galuemalemana vows that he will assist authorities.

I can promise you that they can run but cannot hide.

Our Samoan Brisbane community is together on this and we will do everything for the two to answer to their mischief. And I am certainly going to assist police with their investigation. Whatever they want I am at their disposal.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa has described his attackers as rascals and pipsqueaks.

If the two rascals think that they have accomplished their mission, than I am sorry to say that is far from the truth, Tuilaepa said.

I pity the two pipsqueaks because the truth of the matter is, they are now on the wanted list of every patriotic Samoanot just because of their insults towards me as a Samoan, but also they committed the cardinal sin in the eyes of Samoa, by disrespecting the Prime Minister and leader of the Government and people publicly.
Nine of 15 Directors who successfully completed the professional programme for Directors course were awarded certificates of competence in directorship yesterday.

Held at the Tanoa Tusitala Hotel, the five-day course was organised by the Samoa Institute of Directors and ran from July 30-August 3, 2018.

Chief Executive Officer for Samoa Institute of Directors, Funemalafai Onosefulu Fuatai said the project focused on upskilling directors and how they can better perform their tasks and responsibilities.

Part of the training familiarises the directors from the private sector on the Government framework and how it works, Funemalafai said.

You can be a doctor, a lawyer but you need to be trained to understand the work of the Government because for some they might have not worked in a Government department before.

The course gives them an understanding of what they should know like company finances, legislations and basically understanding its application.

Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Director, Muaausa Joseph Walter said the programme is recognised by the Samoa Qualifications Authority and comprehensively covers the basic skill and competences required for dynamic directors.

Funemalafai said six of the directors who completed the training couldnt make it to receive their certificates because of work commitments.

The training focused on the role and responsibility of directors, legal requirements and obligations of boards and directors, company structures, board appointed committees, financial operations, understanding strategic planning, board and C.E.O. relationship and company analytics.

The 15 awardees are: Shorley Mariner, Gabrielle Apelu, Taito John Roache, Amiatu Cathy Faolotoi, Ulu Vaomalo Ulu Kini, Tamaseu Leni Warren, Fiu Peni Asi, Fua Meki Hazelman, Seulupe Michelle Macdonald, Tufuga Gafoa Faitua, Toala Risale Risale, Laufaleaina Lesa, Reverend Afereti Uili, Tuilaepa Eti Faolotoi and Matautia Rula Levi.
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP)  Disgruntled police, military and prison guards stormed Papua New Guinea's Parliament on Tuesday in a violent pay dispute stemming from an international summit hosted by the impoverished South Pacific island nation over the weekend, a lawmaker said.

Images posted by opposition lawmaker Bryan Kramer on social media showed broken windows, smashed furniture, pictures torn from walls and plants tipped over.

Parliament's security check point including a metal detector was trashed and doors were destroyed along with their fingerprint-reading locking systems, Kramer said.

He said the protesters had not been paid their promised allowances for their security work at the Pacific Rim leaders' summit held in Port Moresby, a city described by the World Bank as among the world's most violent due to high unemployment and brazen criminal gangs known as "raskols."

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting was attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and others.

When the protesters tried to enter Parliament, "there was a confrontation between Parliament security and members of the security forces," Kramer said. "It erupted into a scuffle, several staff were assaulted as they made their way into Parliament."

Kramer said he did not see anyone use a weapon in the conflict and he was not aware of any serious injuries, although there were spots of blood throughout the building.

Kramer and his opposition colleagues remained in a meeting room within the Parliament building throughout the 30-minute attack.

Following the rampage, more than 100 police, military personnel and prison guards waited outside Parliament demanding to be addressed by the government about their allowances, Kramer said. But they eventually left the area.

Working police later provided security for parliamentary staff in the building and patrolled surrounding streets.

The violence at Parliament coincided with reports of looting of surrounding businesses, as criminals apparently took advantage of the breakdown in law and order.

Neither Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's office nor police chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas immediately responded to requests for comment.

Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the protesters went to Parliament to demand the immediate payment of APEC allowances.

Papua New Guinea APEC Coordination Authority chief executive Chris Hawkins said allowance payments to security personnel after a major event would normally take a week.

"The meeting ended two days ago and the security operation is now winding down," Hawkins said in a statement. "The payment of individual allowances has already commenced and individual security force members should check with their banks as payments are made."

Papua New Guinea is a largely undeveloped Pacific nation of more than 8 million mostly subsistence farmers with widespread poverty, corruption and lawlessness.

The annual APEC summit brought together representatives of 21 nations that account for 60 percent of the world economy.

What's been called Papua New Guinea's global coming-out party has caused both pride and discord and underlined the yawning gulf between a small well-educated minority and the poor, who include the 85 percent of people living in the highlands and other remote areas.

Ahead of the APEC summit, the government was criticized for acquiring a fleet of 40 expensive Maserati cars to ferry the world leaders to meeting sites, but it assured citizens that the vehicles would be sold afterward.

A VIP terminal costing about $19 million was added to the city's airport. Construction of an iconic building called "APEC Haus" for the summit was paid for by oil and gas company Oil Search, which operates all of Papua New Guinea's oil fields, in exchange for tax credits.

"I think the money should have been used to fix our backyard instead of decorating the front porch. We have health, education and infrastructure deficiencies that need to be addressed," activist and writer Martyn Namorong said before the summit.
The writer was invited by Samoas National Human Rights Institution and U.N. Women as the Moderator for a session on the topic Engaging with Religion and Faith-Based Actors to Address Family Violence at the Ending Violence in Samoa (EViS) roundtable. The Panelists included Dr. Mercy Ah Siu-Maliko, Maiava Iulai Toma, Judge Talasa Lumepa Saaga, Afamasaga Faauiga Mulitalo-Afamasaga and Deacon Dr. Kasiano Leaupepe. This is what Mataafa said:

Ao laalaa ane le tamaitai o Sina i le maota paepaevalu i lana asiga o le gasegase o le Tuimanua, fai mai le tala, a laa se vae o le tausala e faatulou, a sii foi se lima o le tausala, e faatulou. E faapena le lagona i le aso.

O Samoa o le atunuu tofi. O outou paia i ona tulaga faale Atua, faale-malo, faale atunuu, o le a nuunuu atu ia Faatini o Tausala.

Ae tau ona ou faatalofa ma faafeiloai atu ia tatou malo faapitoa o afifio atu i le laulau nei, aemaise le paia loaloa o le tatou aofia. Ae o le ou faaogaina le gagana faaperetania e faatautai ai le tatou mafutaga ona o loo filogia le tatou faatasiga.

When it comes to the movement to end gender-based violence in Samoa, we know that our vaa (canoe) has well and truly set sail. This is the continuation of a voyage; one we know is fraught with difficulties and challenges.

But we have set sail nonetheless. We are here today because of the momentum, that has been generated by the wonderful work done by so many different people, partners and sectors, driven by UN Women, the Ombudsmans Office as Samoas National Human Rights Institution, and their partners.

Id like to acknowledge with gratitude the work that has been done by Papalii Mele Maualaivao of UN Women as well as Ombudsman Maiava Iulai Toma and his team. So much work has been done but we must also not kid ourselves that much, much more work remains to be done.

Today is another step, a small but significant step.

In Samoa, the church is one of the strongest pillars we have. Statistics show that more than 99 percent of Samoas population go to church with Christianity the predominant religion. Statistics from different sources also show that the issue of domestic violence is far from being resolved. More and more cases of domestic and family violence are being reported to the Police, ending up in Court.

I dont need to explain this.

Suffice to say, we believe the church has a critical role to play in efforts to stamp out gender-based violence. The church has such influence on the lives of our people, and when it is channeled correctly to help achieve our cause, it can be a powerful tool for change.

Why has that not happened yet? Why has it taken this long for these conversations to happen? The questions are valid but the answer is not important. The important part is that it is happening and we have started it. One can never deride the value of this conversation.

While the issue of gender-based violence is far from being resolved  and it probably never will be completely eliminated  the fact that you are here, is a positive step nonetheless. Talking about it is better than ignoring it completely.

That said, this is an informal forum, where people who are passionate about achieving the goal of ending gender-based Violence, are free to discuss ideas, to further promote the cause. While there are experts in the different fields and many of us are great at the work we do, the truth is no one is an expert in ending gender-based violence. Not that we know of anyway.

If there were experts, we wouldnt be having this gathering today. Our problem would have already been solved.

As it stands, you and I know the sad truth.

When all is said and done, these discussions are about alofa, ava fatafata, va tapuia, tautua, mafutaga ma le Atua and our relationships with one another.

This is why all views matter. Like a crew on a vaa, everyone has a critical role to play. I do a bit of paddling so let me tell you a little story. On a V6 canoe for example, Seat 1 and 2 set the pace, 3, 4 and 5 provide the power while Seat 6 steers and provides guidance from the back.

For the canoe to go faster and slide along the water more efficiently, all six have to paddle. Together. They have to reach, get their paddle in the water and pull together. To do that, no one is more important than the other.

Everyone has a function and it is only when all those functions are fulfilled, and carried out effectively and efficiently, that you will be able to sense the canoe glide across the ocean effortlessly. Its a beautiful thing when the crew feel the rhythm of the canoe.

Thats how it is today. We each have a part to play, which is why we are here to share views about an issue that has continued to plaque our society. Violence, especially gender-based violence is nothing new. And there is also no shortage of whats being said and written about it.

The questions are, what can we do? When? How? On our canoe for this session to help us provide some answers we have got some wonderful paddlers in our panelists.

Dr. Mercy Ah Siu-Maliko has done research on gender issues and violence against women from a public theology perspective. Her dissertation, of which she will present today, is Tatala le Taui a le Atua (Rolling Out the Fine Mat of Scripture): Transforming Church Response to Gender-Based Violence against Women in Samoa.

Ombudsman Maiava needs little introduction. A Deacon of the All Saints Anglican Church, he has long advocated for Churches to become more committed to addressing Family Violence within their congregations.

We are grateful to have Judge Talasa Lumepa Saaga of the District Court and Family Violence Court with us. She has been a strong and vocal advocate for ending family violence and encouraging Faith based organizations to lead.

The Government plays a critical role in this effort. Which is why we are pleased to have Afamasaga Faauiga Mulitalo-Afamasaga, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, joining us to talk about community-oriented interventions to end violence against women and children.

Last but not the least, we welcome Deacon Dr. Kasiano Leaupepe, the Chairman of the National Council of Churches. We know the church has copped a lot of flak in relation to the issue. So Dr. Leaupepes views today will be very important to hear.

That said, think about that V6 canoe again. Which seat are you on? God bless!
Dear Editor,

I read the recent articles about the Samoa Business Network mission to Samoa supported by the Government of Samoa.

I managed to get along to the business day and hear from the speaker and companies from NZ, Australia and American Samoa.

It was good to hear of their success and business expansions, but I also question why the Government would support missions like this where the end outcome they have is to set up business in Samoa.

I would understand if they are businesses not already here but some of them are plumbing, civil engineering, accounting and business services, a clothing company - by them setting up in Samoa that takes away business from already established businesses, I know we would probably lose some clients to those new businesses.

I think the Government should support and look at helping Samoa companies and businesses before helping overseas Samoa businesses come back to take our business away.

Help us not kill us - faiaku ai foi.

Matty A.R.
Public trading bodies have failed the Government in generating new capital and investment, says Minister of Commerce, Industry and Labour, Lautafi Selafi Purcell.

Speaking at a gathering of directors at the Tanoa Tusitala Hotel on Tuesday, Lautafi said Government reduced the percentage of dividend from 50 to 35 per cent so that public trading bodies can meet some of their obligations, but the return is still not profitable.

You may be aware that the recent policy change on the return of equity at the dividend which was recently endorsed by Cabinet, and it wasnt easy to convince Cabinet to reduce percentage from 50 to 35, he said.

Why? Because there have been public bodies that have been struggling and still struggling to meet the 50 percent of the net profit after tax, which is the dividend for trading bodies.

We have reduced that to 35 percent, so weve given you 65 percent for your operations, and Government now expect only 35, so that you can meet some of the obligations.

Lautafi said the Governments expectations of the public bodies are high because State owned enterprises contribute significantly to the social and economic well-being of Samoa.

Government has a significant equity investment in public trading bodies, totally approximately $814 million as of June 2017, he said.

The performance as far as dividends are concerned is a mere $3 million, which is equivalent of 0.4 per cent of return of equity. Very significant missed opportunities there to supporting the overall budget in generating new capital for investment in this under performance.

And I cant help calling anything else its the public trading bodies; its under performance, that we have failed what the Government has set for us.

Lautafi highlighted issues such as poor control, analysis of capital expenditure, cash flow management and asset management impact the achieving of desired results.

Including asset utilisation and non-core assets, in particular concerns have been raised about the impact of investment decisions for non-financial gains, and no-financial reasons, but it is understood that Government will sometimes make decisions, he said.

It is important as director to request management for a vigorous financial assessment and performance analysis to allow the board to make informed decisions.

As responsible Minister, Lautafi said, moving on he expects full compliance from all public bodies in line with the Public Bodies Act.

He told the gathering that as Directors they must strengthen their roles to improve the productivity of their organisation.

We do better when we work together, Lautafi said.
Following a roundtable discussion on religions role in ending family violence, Dr. Mercy Ah Siu Maliko believes some church leaders are still in denial.

The office of the Ombudsman alongside UN Women facilitated a panel-led public discussion on the matter, where following presentations by the panellists the public were invited to have their say.

Ombusdman Maiava Iulai Toma opened by reflecting on the conclusions their National Inquiry into Family Violence had regarding the church.

Sadly, based on the views of submissions and those who gave evidence to the inquiry, the church is not seen to be doing enough, he said.

Rare observed house visits and counselling, uses of the bible to bolster violence, and little action on competitive financial giving were just some ways churches are hindering progress, according to the Ombudsman.

As a Christian nation, the churches must lead the charge against family violence or nothing will change, Maiava warned.

However, not all in attendance agreed with the sentiment.

During the open floor session, a pastor stood to say he doesnt believe the church promotes violence.

Another said violence will never end because it part of human nature. Periodic fasting to atone, however, could help.

Panelist Dr Mercy Ah Siu Maliko is a theologian and researcher at Otago University and Piula Theological College, and believes Samoa needs to decide together on a public theology, or activity of Christians engaged in the social sphere, which will determine how they behave.

After the public discussions, Dr Maliko said she felt many people were still in denial about the role of the church in the enduring problem of family violence.

In pointing out and labelling what is happening we can be able to move forward in a positive way, we cant keep on denying this is a major problem.

A misinterpretation of what it means to clearly label the issue of family violence for what it is, is holding some back from beginning to solve the problem, Dr Maliko believes.

We cant move forward if we keep on saying that we are labelling people, we are condemning people.

Sometime the negativity can help us identify positive ways of moving forward.

But it is not just the leaders who have to take charge on this issue. Dr Maliko sees the church as any and every member of a congregation.

When talking about church, its not just the leaders we are talking about here, its everyone that belongs to the body of Christ, Dr Maliko said.

The [inquiry] recommendations said the church is not doing enough, so that is a call for the church to look for other ways.
Reports on the alleged attack on Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi in Brisbane recently have been blown out of proportion.

This is the response of Minister of Commerce Industry and Labour, Lautafi Selafi Purcell, in response to questions on whether the safety of the Prime Minister was compromised during the launch of Samoa Airways Apia-Brisbane service recently.

As if enough hasnt been said on that, Lautafi told the Samoa Observer, in relation to the reports on the incident.

Well I think things have been blown out of proportion to an extent. I came back on Friday afternoon and I saw some stuff and a whole lot of things have been said. What I can categorically say is that some of the comments and things thrown at the Prime Minister are not true.

With that little incident, to me the scale of things is insignificant event, and its been blown out like theres a threat to the life of the Prime Minister.

Lautafi said it is sad that reports stating that the pigs head was thrown at Tuilaepa makes people think it almost hit him.

But no, it was far away. It was about 30 metres and I am not sure if there was any intention to hit the Prime Minister, they just want to throw it inside the hall, and to make a point, whatever their point is, he said

I didnt know there was anything thrown in. The only thing I saw was some leaflets. I didnt know how many people were involved because thats how far away we were. People were standing up.

There was never a time that I felt that the safety of the Prime Minister was at risk during that incident. I think it lasted about five seconds, thats all, they just came in, threw the stuff in, yelled the Prime Ministers name, and threw leaflets and then we found out there was this pig head, so to me it was a storm in a tea cup.

Lautafi said the intentions of those who carried out the actions are unknown, but any Samoan in his right mind, would not have disrupted an event that would benefit them in the future.

The matter is in the hands of the Police, but they look like youths from what weve seen now, but like I said on the night, I didnt even see them.

None of things happen, especially in a church environment in a Samoan community, this is the whole Samoan community representative in the whole of Brisbane, and their president Lemalu Roy Slade coordinated all this, with the help of all the other Samoan leaders there. So it was a representative of the whole Samoan community in Brisbane.

And its sad, and I think they probably underestimated, nobody knew it was going to happen. And apart from that, nothing else happened. We went there two months ago, there was no security, there was nothing in Brisbane as well when we went to announce the intention of flying there.

Lautafi said the majority of the comments from people condemn the action against the Prime Minister.

Some misguided youths, you know some people can always behave irrationally. People overreacted to some of the things they read about, that they are not fully aware of the situations, yet they just get led by whats being said on Facebook, whats been said by the media. I dont put much emphasis on it, I dont think thats the feeling of majority of Samoa.

I just want to assure the public that somebody was there with the Prime Minister and I dont feel at all that the safety of the P.M. was compromised at all, and little incidents like that and it doesnt mean we go and bring the army to protect the P.M.

Whatever their reasons are, I am sure they are sitting down now and thinking oh gosh, why the heck did we do that the whole country is now against them.

Lautafi said they will let justice take its course targeting those who committed the act.
The National Kidney Foundation (N.K.F) will expand to 60 dialysis units next year to cater for the growing number of patients with late stage kidney failures.

Minister for Health Tuitama Dr Leao Talalelei Tuitama announced that the Government has approved the move from the current site to another building.

The move comes after NKF accepted a gift of five new dialysis units from the Rotary Club of Samoa. The foundation now has 27 dialysis units up from 22, which cater for 110 patients needing dialysis in Upolu alone, with another 12 patients in Savaii.

To meet their needs, hours expanded to 6:30am to 11pm, with three rotations of patients coming in each day to get their thrice weekly needs of dialysis.

The Rotary Clubs donation has made a big difference to the foundation, said Minister Tuitama.

We are continually struggling to keep up with the number of people needing dialysis, he said.

We have gone from just five patients in 2005 to 125 patients who require regular treatment.

Not only that, but there are approximately 300 people in the pre-dialysis stage, who are awaiting treatment and attempting to slow the degeneration of their kidneys.

Mulipola Lose Hazelman, NKF general manager said while of course he would like to see less patients needing dialysis, the foundation has no choice but to expand.

We have a big problem with NCDs (non-communicable diseases) in this country, he said.

The majority of people on dialysis have end-stage rental failure because of unmanaged NCDs, and we are seeing patients younger and younger all the time.

Education and prevention is key, said Renal Services manager Christina Poloai.

When someone comes in for treatment their whole family brings them in to support them, she said.

So while we have them all there we take that opportunity to educate them, and make them aware this is all preventable.

Free kidney screenings to catch kidney related problems early can help delay the progression of issues like diabetes and hypertension and avoid dialysis altogether, she added.
A national day of prayer, a fast, village committees, a new theology: these were all suggestions made by church members at a roundtable on ending violence against women, held yesterday in Apia.

U.N Women and the office of the ombudsman gathered church leaders and members, academics and the government to address the issue of religion and family violence.

Guests were addressed by a panel of five people experienced in the issue: Ombudsman Maiava Iulai Toma, Dr Mercy Ah Siu Maliko, Deacon Kasiano Leaupepe, Afamaaga Faauiga Mulitalo and Justice Talasa Lumepa Atoa Saaga.

Dr Mercy Ah Siu Maliko is a theological lecturer at Piula Theological College, and a researcher at Otago University. She presented her thesis on how a public theology has the power to end family violence.

Public theology, she explained, is the activity of Christians who engage actively, and are obligated to be present and active in the public sphere.

According to Dr Maliko, the values that undergird the faasamoa and Christian values overlap in meaningful ways.

In both the faasamoa and the Christian faith, love is the central value from which all other values flow.

In both alofa and Christian love, violence against women is an impossibility, she said.

The judge of Samoas family violence court, Justice Talasa Lumepa Atoa Saaga said in Samoa, the church is the most powerful institution there is.

For the family court to work, it needs community support, she told the audience.

This is not a legal problem, its a social problem.

The Judge, who had a copy of the bible at her side, said its teachings can save lives when applied properly.

73 per cent of people coming to my court list no church, or denomination unknown on their forms, yet they all get character references from their pastors.

The government, the ministry of justice just doesnt have the resources, I believe, so I implore you, pastors and ministers, to mobilise.

Churches could provide funds and shelter for women and children with abusive husbands and fathers

Judge Talasa said she frequently witnesses women withdraw complaints against their perpetrators for fear of losing financial security.

Women will continue to put up with violence because they see only their children, and that they could have no income, she said.

Reinforcing the point of collaboration, chief executive officer of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development Afamaaga Faauiga Mulitalo said Samoa can no longer work discretely and individually.

Church leaders have the authority in Samoa, and our people tend to listen to them, she said.
The life and contribution of the late Sau Justina Sau to Samoa was honoured recently at a directors luncheon at the Tanoa Tusitala Hotel.

A minute of silence was observed by chairpersons, members of government boards and directorswho stood up to pay their respectsto one of Samoas top government bureaucrats.

On behalf of the Board of Institute of Directors, I would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution made by the boards recently deceased member, Sau Justina Sau, to the development of the institute and its professional programmes, said Muaausa Joseph Walter, board chair of the Institute of Directors.

She has served as a member of the board for eight years, also 13 years ago as Assistant Chief Executive Officer of the state monitoring division of the Ministry of Finance. She assisted in the establishment of this institution.

Sau was just reappointed last year to another three-year term as Chief Executive Officer of Unit Trust of Samoa prior to her passing last month.

The luncheon also saw the presentation of certificates to nine of 15 directors, who successfully completed a five-day professional training programme for directors.
LONDON (AP)  British Prime Minister Theresa May told skeptical lawmakers on Wednesday that rejecting her divorce deal with the European Union would mean uncertainty and division, before a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to help finalize the Brexit agreement.

May and Juncker held late-afternoon talks in Brussels as negotiators worked to pin down agreement on issues of contention so that EU leaders can meet in Brussels on Sunday to rubber-stamp the package.

The U.K. and the European Union agreed last week on a 585-page document sealing the terms of Britain's departure, but are still working to nail down agreement on future relations.

With wrangling continuing on issues including Gibraltar and fishing rights, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said Wednesday that the political declaration on future relations was "not there yet."

He said diplomats would meet Friday to prepare Sunday's summit, and "they will need to see a final text before then."

"The Commission stands ready to consider the text and take any action at any time," he said.

At home, May is under intense pressure from pro-Brexit and pro-EU British lawmakers, with large numbers on both sides of the debate opposing the divorce deal. Brexiteers think it will leave the U.K. tied too closely to EU rules, while pro-Europeans say it will erect new barriers between Britain and the bloc, its neighbor and biggest trading partner.

May fended off a barrage of criticism from both opposition and government legislators Wednesday during her weekly Commons question-and-answer session dominated by Brexit.

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn branded the agreement "half-baked"  and said his party could negotiate a better one  while Conservative Andrew Rosindell urged May to ditch the plan and remove "the tentacles of the EU over our cherished island nation."

May replied that "we want to ensure we continue to have a close trading relationship with the European union" after Brexit.

She said the alternative to the agreement was either "more uncertainty, more division or it could risk no Brexit at all."

Madrid has raised objections to wording in the agreement about Gibraltar, the tiny territory at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula that was ceded to Britain in 1713 but is still claimed by Spain.

Last year's EU guidelines on the Brexit negotiations effectively gave Spain veto powers over future relations between the bloc and the British overseas territory, and the Spanish government says it will vote against the Brexit deal if Gibraltar's future isn't considered a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday that his government "cannot accept that what will happen to Gibraltar in the future depends on negotiations between the U.K. and the EU."

But May reassured British lawmakers that "we will not exclude Gibraltar from our negotiations on the future relationship."

Spain's EU Affairs State Secretary, Luis Marco Aguiriano, said there was still time to "legally clarify" the agreement before Sunday.

The deal also needs to be approved by the European and British Parliaments  a tough task for May, whose Conservatives lack a majority in the House of Commons.

May won a reprieve from some of her Conservative Party foes after pro-Brexit rebels acknowledged that a bid to trigger a no-confidence vote in May had failed, for now.

But Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party  whose 10 lawmakers prop up May's minority government  has begun abstaining on votes in the House of Commons as a sign of their displeasure at the deal. The DUP opposes plans for keeping the border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland open after Brexit, saying it weakens the ties binding the U.K. by creating separate trade rules for Northern Ireland.

The prospect of Parliament rejecting the deal when it comes up for a vote  likely next month  has increased fears among businesses that Britain could crash out of the bloc without a plan to keep trade running smoothly.

Conservative lawmakers loyal to May also warned that defeating the agreement could mean that Brexit never happens, because Parliament would halt Britain's departure rather than accept a chaotic "no-deal" exit.

"I think people will take a careful look over the abyss ... and consider whether they think it is in the best interests of the whole country," Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said.

"The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit," she added.
A major new study on Alzheimers disease provides previously unknown evidence of how the brain-robbing illness may originate.

Moreover, it proposes that certain HIV drugs called reverse transcriptase inhibitors could immediately be repurposed for Alzheimers patients. These drugs might also ward off Alzheimers in those with Down syndrome, who generally develop the disease as they age.

Led by scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, the study finds that, as long suspected, Alzheimers is a genetic disease. But in nearly all cases, its not inherited. Rather, it arises during a patients lifetime by genetic rearrangements in neurons.

The process copies and rearranges segments of DNA into different sequences. This reshuffling creates a mosaic of slightly differing cells. The immune system uses a similar process to make antibodies, but nothing like it has been seen in the human brain.

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The DNA comes from a gene known to be associated with Alzheimers when it malfunctions. It also requires an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that frequently makes copying mistakes. Alzheimers arises from these garbled sequences.

Published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the study can be found at j.mp/alzmosaic.

Confirmation of the findings is required, said Dr. Jerold Chun, the lead author. But Chun says testing with the HIV drugs should begin immediately. Even a low degree of effectiveness would be better than what is now available.

The study combines single and multiple-cell analytical methods to examine 13 donated human brains, some normal, some with Alzheimers. Its findings jibe with epidemiological data from elderly HIV patients. They have been treated with reverse transcriptase inhibitors for decades, and almost never get Alzheimers.

The first documented case of Alzheimers in an HIV-positive individual was reported in 2016.

Cautious praise for the study came from Dr. Paul Aisen, a longtime Alzheimers researcher who specializes in clinical trials. Aisen heads the USC Alzheimers Therapeutic Research Institute in San Diego.

The authors carefully demonstrate that there are extensive modifications to genetic material in the Alzheimers disease brain, Aisen said by email.

These are changes that occur with aging, rather than inherited genetic characteristics. While this is an intriguing idea, the actual contribution of this age-related genetic change remains uncertain.

 A genetic reshuffling mechanism that targets a gene associated with Alzheimers is present in the brains of Alzheimers patients.

Fred Rusty Gage, president of the Salk Institute and a noted brain expert, said the studys results back up the claim that DNA sequences are copied and inserted back into the neuronal genome.

These results are quite striking and could have implications for Alzheimers disease diagnosis and progression, Gage said by email.

About 5.7 million Americans today have been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, according to the Alzheimers Association. That number is expected to double by 2060, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In recent years, Alzheimers researchers have changed their view of the disease. They now say Alzheimers begins decades before symptoms appear. Eventually, the damage eating away at the brain becomes severe enough to affect cognition and memory.

So increasingly, researchers are looking for the earliest possible signs that Alzheimers is developing, before mental functions are affected.

The study traces the ultimate cause to the genetic rearrangements, so blocking this reshuffling should block Alzheimers.

Normal brains also show genetic variation in individual cells. Research suggests this condition is a regular part of brain development. Instead of having billions of identical neurons, each may vary slightly in a way that helps the brain work, Chun said.

Malfunctioning gene

This process goes wrong in producing the Alzheimers-causing variations, derived from a gene called APP. Certain variants of this gene are strongly linked with Alzheimers.

Because genes produce proteins, these rearrangements of the APP gene likely produce variations of toxic brain proteins called beta amyloid, known to be involved in Alzheimers. APP is an abbreviation for Amyloid Precursor Protein, normally found throughout the body.

The APP link also pertains to Down syndrome, in which people have three copies of Chromosome 21. Usually, people inherit two copies, one from each parent. The APP gene is located on Chromosome 21.

Moreover, extra copies of other genes on that chromosome are linked to Downs symptoms and brain changes like those found in Alzheimers, according to a 2018 study published in the journal Brain.

People with Down syndrome generally have from mild to profound mental deficiency. With proper support, some can live independent lives. Their average lifespan is 60 years. By that time, most have developed Alzheimers. The structural changes begin decades earlier.

Some of the APP genetic variants are found in a very rare form of Alzheimers that is directly inherited. Virtually all people with these variations come down with Alzheimers.

But this familial form constitutes only a few percent of all Alzheimers cases. The vast majority of what are called sporadic Alzheimers cases show genetic tendencies, but fall far short of a perfect correlation.

The study provides an explanation for sporadic Alzheimers: Because these disease-causing genetic changes only occur in the brain, they dont show up when a persons genome is sequenced.

In addition, it may explain the failures of amyloid-based therapy. Billions of dollars have been spent developing drugs according to what is known as the amyloid hypothesis, with virtually nothing to show for it.

Chun said this may be because the amyloid drugs are aimed at a single molecular target, and theres molecular diversity in amyloid.

What our data strongly supports is that there could be many, many other targets that would have been missed by these single molecularly targeted therapeutics, Chun said.

This means the amyloid hypothesis is essentially correct, but doesnt go deep enough, Chun said.

In an accompanying perspective article, two UC San Diego Alzheimers researchers said the study was also important because it provided the surprising existence in the brain of what is called somatic gene recombination.

This phenomenon, which has previously been reported only in antibody generation in immune cells, increases the diversity of proteins encoded by a given gene through DNA-shuffling mechanisms, wrote Guoliang Chai and Joseph G. Gleeson.

The study hints at a previously unanticipated mechanism in the development of Alzheimers, and expands our understanding of the genesis of brain mosaicism, they wrote. But whether accumulation of (the recombined DNA) in neurons is a cause of or is caused by Alzheimers disease remains to be proved.

Going to patients

Aisen cautioned that some studies indicate that Alzheimers is more likely linked to defects in removing amyloid, not their manufacture.

So while there could be therapeutic implications of these new findings, additional clarification of this mechanism is needed, Aisen said.

Doctors could use the HIV drugs on Alzheimers patients as an off-label use, Chun said. But that would require careful ethical consideration.

On the positive side, theres no treatment now that affects the underlying neurodegeneration Alzheimers brings, and the safety profile of the HIV drugs is well-known.

Lets say this only works 25 percent of the time, thats still 1.5 million patients in the United States, not to speak of their families, he said.

And even a modest effect of preserving cognition for a few years would mean a great deal to those families, he said.

However, all drugs have risks, and Alzheimers patients tend to be elderly and may have other conditions.

Such off-label use also doesnt provide a scientific basis for officially approving the drugs for Alzheimers. Thats the job of a properly designed clinical trial.

Designing such a trial will be complicated, Chun said. Theres the need to accurately find the patients who will likely benefit. Brain scans for amyloid deposits, which are now available, might help. But as for now, actual detection of the pathological brain mosaicism in living people isnt possible.

 Genetic rearranging that appears to take place in Alzheimers brains isnt random mutation, but a process that recombines DNA into different patterns, according to a study led by Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute scientists. This re

HIV link

The APP-linked variations spread with the help of an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that HIV uses to replicate, the study says.

With the help of reverse transcriptase, HIV copies its genome into the genome of infected cells. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors, a regular part of HIV therapy, block this process.

Reverse transcriptase is also naturally found in the human body, and presumably plays an important function.

Whether HIVs reverse transcriptase is identical to the human version isnt known, Chun said. One element of the genome believed to encode for reverse transcriptase is called Line1.

But there are 517,000 copies of Line1 in the genome, he said. So which one is the right one? And also most of those are thought to be dead enzymes.

The study follows up on research a Chun-led team published in 2015 that found evidence of Alzheimers-associated genetic variation in neurons.

The difference though is that here we have identified actual gene recombination, and so its not a helter-skelter nonselective phenomenon, Chun said.

It actually does act upon at least this single (APP) gene, which of course raises the possibility that there might be other genes affected. Thats a worry for the future.

Research funding was provided by The Shaffer Family Foundation; The Bruce Ford & Anne Smith Bundy Foundation; Sanford Burnham Prebys; the National Institutes of Health, and the government of Taiwan.

Related reading

The amyloid hypothesis on trial

Replica villages for Alzheimers patients planned in 100 cities

Leading Alzheimers scientist moves from TSRI to Sanford Burnham Prebys

Alzheimers brains have key genetic differences

Milestones in Alzheimers research

Alzheimers, Down syndrome link found

Scientist out to solve Alzheimers mystery

Help available for Alzheimers patients

Dr. George G. Glenner, 67, Dies; Researched Alzheimers Disease

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020
Stuck in procedural red tape, the proposed $3 billion makeover of San Diego International Airport is no closer to clearing its first major hurdle  a certified environmental impact report  despite local agencies recently coming together to agree on a path forward.

Tuesday, Kimberly Becker, chief executive of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, sat down with leaders from the city, the county, the Port of San Diego, the San Diego Association of Governments and the Metropolitan Transit System to hash out differences around how the airport should handle the traffic and transit impacts of the planned redevelopment of Terminal 1.

The summit was organized by Mayor Kevin Faulconer in response to the agencies thundering criticism of the plans environmental impact report. On the agenda were the agencies top issues: Increased traffic congestion from a terminal that will triple in size, along with what had been perceived as a hands-off stance by the airport around creating a transit connection to the property.

Though much still remains to be settled, airport executives and the mayors office said they were encouraged by Tuesdays get-together.

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We left the meeting believing that there is a commitment (from the agencies) to help us find a way forward to get the Terminal 1 project completed, said Dennis Probst, vice president of development for the airport.

CEO Becker shared with attendees that the airport is working on several alterations to the EIR, including more detailed explanations of plans where needed and a revised analysis of its passenger forecast, Probst said. The latter addresses a concern that the current forecast is dated and may not adequately accommodate for an unprecedented growth in travelers to San Diegos airport in the past year. The new forecast should be completed before the end of the year, the airport said.

The airport will also work to better illustrate in the report how it would connect the airport to a still-conceptual intermodal transit center, or a type of centralized station north of the airport where trolleys, buses, Amtrak and Coaster trains could all converge. The agency has yet to take a position on technology, leaving a decision about whether to support a trolley extension, people mover or skyway for a later date.

Becker also reiterated that the airport will help fund whatever connection is decided upon.

We need to upgrade Terminal 1 and we need to do it in the right way, Faulconer said in a statement. The Airport Authority committed to reworking its development plan to fully analyze transportation solutions both inside and outside its footprint, including enhancing transit connectivity and reducing traffic congestion.

Or as Probst put it, The best way forward is to go back.

That means a potentially significant and costly delay to the project timeline.

The airport had planned to certify the EIR this year, start construction in 2020 and complete the new Terminal 1 in 2023. A new timeline is in the works with airport staff currently reevaluating the schedule. The most likely scenario is that the airports revisions will require it to recirculate the report for public comment, though a formal decision wont be made until the spring.

If we do recirculate (the EIR), the expectation is that we will not be able to get back to the board with certification until late next year, Probst said.

Plus, the year-long delay could cost the airport as much as $100 million in higher construction costs, he said.

Still, the city is characterizing Tuesdays political powwow as positive momentum for the project.

Todays meeting was an important first step, and I am looking forward to the Airport Authority delivering a plan to improve connections to San Diego International Airport that meets the needs of the entire region, Faulconer said.

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jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin
Ray Chavez, the nations oldest surviving veteran of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Wednesday at the age of 106.

Kathleen Chavez, who had been her fathers live-in caregiver for more than 20 years, said he passed away peacefully in his sleep between 3 and 6 a.m. Wednesday. His health had declined in recent months and he was on hospice care when he passed.

A memorial Mass for Chavez will be held at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 13 at St. Michaels Catholic Church at 15546 Pomerado Road in Poway. A burial will full military honors will follow at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego.

Kathleen also said that she will be flying to Oahu in her fathers honor for the 77th annual Pearl Harbor memorial on Dec. 7 as a guest of the Spirit of Liberty Foundation. Chairman Richard Rovsek is planning a wreath-floating service in Rays honor.

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Chavez surged into national prominence three years ago when fellow Pearl Harbor veterans recognized him as the oldest survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack that ushered the U.S. into World War II.

At its peak, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association had 58,000 members. Today, there are fewer than 200, according to Stu Hedley, 97, who heads the associations now-10-member San Diego chapter.

Ray Chavez was a very active member for years and I admired the man, said Hedley, 97, a retired Navy chief petty officer who served on the USS West Virginia at the time of the attack.

Because of his senior position among Pearl Harbor vets, Chavez was a frequent guest at commemorative events around the country, including a visit to the White House last Memorial Day weekend.

The soft-spoken Chavez often said he was overwhelmed by the media attention but he was proud to represent his country.

Ray was the epitome of the greatest generation, said Richard Rovsek, a trustee of the nonprofit Spirit of Liberty Foundation in Rancho Santa Fe, which underwrote many of Chavezs trips over the past six years. He was always proud to be an American and proud of the military.

Oldest Pearl Harbor survivor Ray Chavez turns 105 years old.

Chavez was born in San Bernardino in 1911 and grew up in San Diegos Old Town and Logan Heights communities, where his large family ran a wholesale flower business.

In his early 20s, he married and had a daughter. In 1938, at the age of 27, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the minesweeper USS Condor at Pearl Harbor.

At 3:45 a.m. Dec. 7, 1941, Seaman 1st Class Chavezs crew was sweeping the east entrance to the harbor when they spotted the periscope of a Japanese midget submarine. After depth charges were dropped to sink the sub in 1,500 feet of water, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully.

He told the Union-Tribune that he was asleep at home in nearby Ewa Beach when the Japanese bombing raid began at 8:10 a.m.

My wife ran in and said, Were being attacked and I said, Whos going to attack us? Nobody. She said that the whole harbor was on fire and when I got outside I saw that everything was black from all the burning oil.

He spent the next nine days on continuous duty in and around Pearl Harbor and said the scenes he witnessed left deep emotional scars.

Photos taken of Ray Chavez during his years in the U.S. Navy from 1938 to 1945. The Poway Navy veteran was the nations oldest surviving Pearl Harbor veteran until his death Nov. 21, 2018, at the age of 106. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Over the next four years, he rose to the rank of chief, serving on transport ships that delivered tanks and Marines to shore in eight Pacific battles. Although he wasnt injured during the war, he retired from the Navy in 1945 with psychological wounds from the carnage he witnessed.

He said that after a couple of the battles he saw, he started to shake, Kathleen said. First it was his hands, then it was his arms. By the time the war was over, his whole body shook.

During his exit physical from the Navy, a doctor wanted Chavez to spend some time recovering in a mental health clinic, but he feared it would impact future job opportunities. He declined the offer and moved back to San Diego, where he got a job at a nursery. After two years working outdoors in the fresh air, he got better, Kathleen said.

In the 1950s, he and his wife, Margaret, suffered an unimaginable blow when their daughter, son-in-law and 18-month-old granddaughter were killed in a car accident.

To mend their broken hearts, they adopted 5-year-old Kathleen from a San Diego orphanage in 1957. She, too, served in the Navy, from 1974 to 1991 and was recognized as the Navys first woman jet engine mechanic. She had lived with her father since her mothers death in the mid-1980s.

Chavez, an avid reader and traveler, spent 30 years as a groundskeeper at UC San Diego. Then he ran his own landscaping and grounds-keeping business in the Poway area until he finally retired at age 96.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus described Chavez as a beloved hometown figure.

Poway knew Ray not only as the oldest Pearl Harbor survivor but one of the last of the greatest generation, Vaus said. And though he was a humble hero, he was still idolized and fawned over more than anybody else ever in Poway.

When he was 101, Chavez fell and broke his arm and his health and weight declined. Kathleen signed him up with personal trainer Sean Thompson, who she said extended her fathers life by several years by getting him back in shape.

Kathleen said her father never spoke about his Pearl Harbor experiences until 1991, when he was invited to attend the 50th anniversary memorial in Hawaii.

It was such a moving experience for him, that he and Kathleen went back to the Pearl Harbor events more than a dozen times.

We went last year and if he was still alive, we were going back again next month, Kathleen said. I think he enjoyed the experience but he never saw himself as any different from the other men he served with. Hed always say, Im no hero. I just did my job.

Chavez was the child of Mexican immigrants and Kathleen said her father experienced some racism and discrimination as a high school student and in the Navy. But he remained a patriotic citizen.

From the age of 21, he voted in every election, mostly for Democratic candidates. He told Rovsek that the only Republican he ever voted for was Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Army veteran.

Chavezs political leanings caused a minor kerfuffle last May when he was invited to meet President Trump at the White House, Kathleen said. The night before his Oval Office visit, Chavez was interviewed at his hotel by a CNN reporter and said on video aired nationally about Trump: I didnt vote for that guy.

Nonetheless, Chavez charmed the president the following morning and Trump later praised him during a public Memorial Day service.

The crowd just stood up and erupted, said Rovsek, who escorted the Chavezes to Washington, D.C. A White House source told Rovsek on Wednesday that President Trump is planning to honor Chavezs memory in the coming days.

On Dec. 7, Hedley will host the local Pearl Harbor Survivors Associations annual memorial service aboard the USS Midway Museum. Chavez, and five other local members who passed this year, will be honored with a two-bell ceremony.

Kathleen said she wont be able to attend the local Pearl Harbor memorial service because she will be flying to Oahu, as a guest of the Spirit of Liberty Foundation, to attend the 77th Pearl Harbor anniversary memorial in her fathers honor. Rovsek is arranging a wreath-floating ceremony for Chavez in Pearl Harbor.

Rovsek described Chavez as a man of few words, but he did say Chavez was troubled by the state of politics in the U.S. today.

He said to me, cant we just keep America together? Why are we so divisive. In my life time, Ive never seen the divisiveness I see today. It made him sad, Rovsek said.

Kathleen Chavez said the public is invited to attend her fathers memorial mass at St. Michaels parish. In lieu of flowers, she suggests donations be made to VFW Post 7907 by calling (858) 257-3412 or visit vfw7907.com/.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
A group of residents of the Harmony Grove area west of Escondido, where two housing developments totaling about 800 homes were recently approved by the county, warned Tuesday that a fire evacuation tragedy like that which happened during the Camp Fire in Paradise could happen here.

Standing just off Country Club Drive where one of two housing developments, was approved in July by the Board of Supervisors, members of the Harmony Grove/Elfin Forest Town Council made their point.

Many on the council have joined in a lawsuit against the county challenging the approvals, primarily on the fire danger and evacuation issue.

This area has burned many, many times, including the Cocos fire (May 2014), said JP Theberge, chair of the council.

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In a dead-end bowl like this, there should be at least two ways out. Our Fire Authority and our supervisors have approved these projects without that secondary egress.

Theberge and others said when evacuations are ordered, far too many people will be bottle-necked along Country Club Drive and other roads in the community. They are not designed to handle anything close to the kind of traffic that will happen when flames and smoke are threatening the community.

Those of us who live in these communities all over the unincorporated area, weve taken that risk, Thebarge said. We know we live in a fire zone and we are prepared to evacuate. But when you put another 800 houses on two-lane roads with only one way out  there is a mathematical impossibility of getting people out in a limited amount of time.

The point of the news conference, said Jacqueline Arsivaud, a member of the council and a candidate earlier this year for county supervisor, was to bring community awareness to the problem, to raise funds to help support their litigation, and perhaps to influence the courts when a judge decides whether the approval should be reversed.

She and others rejected the idea that they were exploiting the recent fire tragedy in Northern California where at least 79 people have died and nearly 13,000 homes have been destroyed in the Camp Fire, the most deadly and destructive wildfire in state history.

Many who perished were stuck in traffic while trying to flee.

During the supervisors hearing on July 25, when the Harmony Grove Village South and Valiano projects were approved, fire and law enforcement officials assured the supervisors that an orderly, controlled evacuation of the area was possible should wildfire threaten the area.

The supervisors said they were satisfied with precautions taken by the developers and stressed the need for more housing in the county.

But several people said yesterday an orderly evacuation is not possible when people are afraid they are going to die.

Scott Sutherland, vice chair of the Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council, said studies show that at key intersections in the area only 500 cars can get through in an hour. During an evacuation, no matter how much law enforcement tries to control it, thousands will clog the roads all at once putting everyone at risk.

The group said their warning also applies to other large housing projects that have either been approved or are awaiting approval in the unincorporated areas such as Newland Sierra north of Escondido, Lilac Hills Ranch in Valley Center and Warner Ranch near Pala.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones
For a chef, cooking at the James Beard House in New York is considered the culinary equivalent of playing Carnegie Hall, while Thanksgiving dinner is called the Super Bowl of meals.

So how is it that 20-year-old San Diego culinary student Rebekah Suarez  who is one of just six students from around the country chosen to help cook Thanksgiving dinner Thursday at the James Beard House  seems as calm as a julienned cucumber?

Im not nervous. I know I can do it, and even if I cant do something, at least Ill learn from it, Suarez said confidently a few days before she left on her all-expenses paid trip to New York.

Its really an honor. I didnt think Id get picked for that, said Suarez, who is studying for a bachelor of science in culinary management at the Art Institute of California. But Im a competitor, so I dont feel stressed.

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Many of the nations  and worlds  most accomplished chefs have cooked special meals at the venerable Beard House, named after the legendary chef and author. (In fact, JoJo Ruiz, of downtown San Diegos Lionfish, will be there Nov. 29.) The annual James Beard Awards are likened to the Oscars of the food world.

The six-course, $140 Thanksgiving dinner will be a gourmet affair befitting its setting; the turkey and fixings include smoked guinea fowl porcini quenelle and truffle-crusted turkey roulade with foie gras dressing.

On Friday, Suarez, who lives in Linda Vista, said she didnt know what portion of the meal shed be working on. She does know shell be too busy for sightseeing in New York or eating at the citys A-list restaurants. I have a packed schedule. I think Ill have something like four hours free in five days, she said, her eyes growing wide.

That sounds like a typical week for Suarez, who said she spends 16 hours a day at the Mission Valley campus of the Art Institutes International Culinary School. When not in class, she works in the warehouse tracking inventory, she tutors her fellow students, studies recipes, computes ingredient ratios and leads her classmates as the captain of the schools culinary competition team.

Members of the culinary team from the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of California in San Diego include captain Rebekah Suarez (left), twin sister Sarah (right) and Doug Fyall. Its Sarahs job to keep the team on track during training. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

On Friday, the five member team  which includes Rebekahs twin sister, Sarah  practiced their knife skills and cooked a timed four-course meal in preparation for the Dec. 8 state competition in Hollywood.

Sarah Suarez, who is joining her sister in New York, will likely be her biggest cheerleader there.

Im really proud of her. She deserves this so much. She earned it, Sarah said.

She works so hard. When Im in bed, shes up learning recipes, when Im on the computer, shes at school working. Shes always studying, reading and thinking about food. Sometimes, shell be trying to figure out (recipe) ratios and will pop out of bed in the middle of the night and say, Ive got it! Just seeing her is really inspiring. For her, its her passion. Even me, as her sister, I look at her and Im like, Whoa! 

But both sisters impress their instructors, said chef Rudy Kloeble.

Its been a lot of fun watching these two grow. These two have stood out from the first day, we could see the initiative, he said.

Cooking at the Beard House will be something Rebekah will remember the rest of her life, he said. The networking opportunities and the connections with people nationwide that shell make are great.

Life lessons started early for Rebekah, who has known she wanted to be a chef from when she 14. She has developed a skill for making pasta from scratch and enjoys modernizing old, classical French and European dishes.

Growing up in a family of 11 children, ranging in age from five months to 26, Rebekah said her parents are supportive of her career and dream to have her own restaurant. And her mom taught her to always add one special ingredient to her dishes.

She said to cook with love, that bad food can always taste good with love. We might have had a limited income, but the food was good because it was made with love.

Being in New York doesnt mean the sisters will be missing out on Thanksgiving dinner at home; the family doesnt celebrate the holiday. My father says we should be thankful every day of the year, not just on one day, Rebekah said.

Shell be grateful, though, if the customers celebrating at the Beard House can taste the passion shes bringing to their meal.

Im going to do my best to give them a quality meal, and that it has meaning, she said. I just love peoples faces when they taste new foods. I want to make them happy. That makes my day.

michele.parente@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @sdeditgirl
Evidence was presented in a San Diego military courtroom Tuesday to determine whether a Navy SEAL platoon commander will be tried on charges that he failed to act when made aware of atrocities allegedly committed by another SEAL during a 2017 deployment in Iraq.

Lt. Jacob Xavier Portier faces seven charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and dereliction of duty.

Military prosecutors allege Portier knew about the actions of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, who is accused of killing of a wounded teenage ISIS combatant in Mosul. In the hours after the killing, Portier conducted a reenlistment ceremony for Gallagher next to the teenagers corpse.

Portier then, according to the prosecution, ordered his platoon to take a group photo next to the dead prisoner.

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Prosecutors said that although Portier was not present during the killing, he was made aware of it by other SEALs.

The defense argued that Portier reported Gallagher as soon as the lieutenant found out about the incidents.

Marine Capt. Conor McMahon argued the governments position in front of Navy Cmdr. Phil Hamon, who presided over the hearing at Naval Base San Diego.

This case is about a Navy lieutenant who didnt possess the moral courage to do the right thing, said McMahon, in his closing comments. Lt. Portier didnt take out a hunting knife and stab a prisoner in the neck. He didnt get behind a sniper rifle and shoot at a little girl trying to escape from ISIS and he didnt shoot an old man taking water jugs to the river. But he knew about it  and he did nothing.

Tuesdays hearing  called an Article 32 hearing  was not a trial, but a preliminary hearing, similar to what would be held in front of a civilian grand jury. Hamon will make a report to military authorities, who will then determine whether Portier will stand trial.

Navy judge advocates said that decision was expected by early December.

Prosecutors allege that other, unnamed members of the platoon came to Portier throughout the deployment with concerns about Gallaghers conduct in the field, including shooting at least two non-combatant civilians.

After the platoon returned to San Diego, some of its members continued to lobby Portier to hold Gallagher accountable for his actions, prosecutors said.

It got so bad that by February or March 2018, (the two SEALs) were so frustrated that they went to Lt. Portier and told him if an investigation wasnt launched, they were going directly to NCIS, the Commodore or Fox News, McMahon said. This is not a case about any minor misconduct by the enlisted sailors in the platoon or any perceived guilt by association. This is about Chief Gallagher killing civilians indiscriminately and the chain of command that did nothing about it.

Prosecutors also allege Portier made false statements when questioned about Gallaghers actions by his commanders.

Attorney Jeremiah Sullivan, who represents Portier, said there are conflicting accounts from members of the platoon, and that instead of reporting the incidents to him, the SEALs actually kept information from Portier. Once he found out, he did report Gallagher to his chain of command. Sullivan is asking for a speedy trial for Portier, saying the prosecutions case was weak.

Its not going to go well for the government, he said in comments to the hearing officer.

After the hearing, Sullivan told the Union-Tribune that members of the platoon had had meetings in order to get their stories straight and that a war crime was never reported to (Portier).

Portier was an ROTC cadet at Ohio State University and reported to the Navys Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL school upon his graduation in March 2010. He has served with San Diego-based SEAL units since then. His awards include the Bronze Star with combat V device and the Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

Contact Andrew Dyer via email or Twitter.
Standing on a beach near the concertina wire-topped fence that divides the U.S. and Mexico, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Tuesday fought back against assertions that Central American migrants bound for the United States as part of a caravan were docile women and children fleeing violence.

Instead, saying she wanted to set the record straight, she said most of the thousands of caravan members are adult or teenage males leaving behind their home countries for economic reasons or to be reunited with family members already living here.

Wanting a job is not a basis for asylum under U.S. law, Nielsen told reporters at Border Field State Park in Imperial Beach. Wanting to be reunited with your family is not a basis for asylum under U.S. law. Wanting to live in the U.S.  not a basis for asylum under U.S. law.

She also said more than 500 criminals including documented gang members have been identified among the caravan. She would not say how the alleged criminals were identified.

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Let me be clear, she added, the caravan does not give one a special right to enter this country. Members of the caravan will wait in the back of the line of those already waiting to be processed at our ports of entry.

Nielsens remarks came after she got a glimpse of the concertina wire that crews in the past week wrapped around the metal fence that divides Imperial Beach and Tijuana  the same site where a week earlier the first arriving caravan members gathered to celebrate, with some boldly climbing on top in triumph.

Guided by San Diegos Chief Border Patrol Agent Rodney Scott, Nielsen walked along the fence as onlookers on the beach on both sides of the border observed.

Just an hour earlier, as media awaited Nielsens arrival, a man swam from Mexico into the U.S.  apparently illegally. He was detained and taken to a station to be processed, officials said. It was unclear if the man was a member of the caravan.

The secretarys sharp assessment of the migrants counters criticism that the threat is overblown, and that the deployment of military troops to aid border authorities is overkill.

Nielsen said there are more than 6,200 migrants camped out in Tijuana and more than 3,000 caravan members in Mexicali. Combined with other groups traveling through Mexico, en route to the border with the U.S., officials expect as many as 10,000 migrants to arrive at the border, she said.

The number is starkly different from what the Mexican Consulate has reported: 2,610 in Tijuana, 2,995 in Mexicali and another 2,600 or so farther south in Mexico headed north. Tijuana officials have confirmed that most of the migrants in the city are adult males.

1 / 6 Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen tours the U.S.-Mexico border fence under the gaze of a mass of cameras at Border Field State Park. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 6 U.S. Customs and Border Protection mounted patrol position themselves for the press conference. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 6 U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents patrol the waters at the border prior to the press conference. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 6 Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen takes questions about border security and the migrant caravan. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 6 People mill about on the beach at Playas de Tijuana prior to the press conference. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 6 A man waves an American flag as reporters wait for the press conference. (Sam Hodgson / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The crisis is real, and it is just on the other side of this wall, Nielsen told reporters.

Nielsen said that based on historic trends, intel and open-source reporting, officials anticipate that most caravan members will make frivolous or unsubstantiated claims of asylum.

She said only 9 percent of migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America  Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador  were determined to be eligible for asylum by a federal immigration judge in 2017.

To fuel the sympathetic narrative we continue to see repeated in U.S. media, we know that organizers of the caravan have been pushing women and children and others to the front of the caravan in hopes law enforcement will not engage them, Nielsen said.

She blamed the influx of migrants, which she described as an unprecedented crisis, on what she characterized as loopholes created by poorly drafted federal laws and a deeply flawed ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that bans the detention and immediate deportations of minors and families. She also said she was deeply disappointed and troubled by a federal judges emergency ruling Monday against President Donald Trumps attempt to deny migrants who cross the border illegally the chance to seek asylum.

Nielsen said the government plans to appeal the court-issued order, but in the meantime, the Trump administration plans to adhere to the ruling.

Our weak immigration laws have encouraged caravans to try to break our immigration laws, she said. She called on Congress to close the loopholes.

Meanwhile, troops are continuing to work along the Southwest border, with particular focus now in California, on fortifying the border fence to prevent illegal crossings.

Of the 5,600 troops, about 1,300 of them are in California, most of them Marines from Camp Pendleton, Miramar and 29 Palms.

Nielsen pushed back on reports that the troops might be pulling out early, saying shed spoken with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

I have no doubt they will continue to partner with us in this mission until it is resolved, she said Tuesday. An end date of Dec. 15 for the military mission had been set previously.

U.S. Northern Command said Tuesday: We may shift some forces to other areas of the border to engineering support missions in California and other areas. No specific timeline for redeployment has been determined.

Along the border fence, the gear up in operations was unmistakable.

Near the inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, about two dozen Customs and Border Protection officers in riot gear lined up for crowd control drills, their large, see-through shields protecting them from an unseen threat to the south. The officers were brought in from south Texas within the past week to reinforce staffing, CBP said.

1 / 10 U.S. Mexico border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego was recently fortified with concertina wire. Heighten security measures were taken in the wake of the arrival of groups with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 10 With entry lanes remaining open for entry into the U.S., agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection dressed in riot gear stage drills at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego. Heighten security measures were taken in the wake of the arrival of groups with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 10 U.S. Marines deployed to the U.S. Mexico border in San Diego, work to fortify the border wall with concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 10 U.S. Marines deployed to the U.S. Mexico border in San Diego, work to fortify the border wall with concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 10 U.S. Marines deployed to the U.S. Mexico border in San Diego, work to fortify the border wall with concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 10 U.S. Marines deployed to the U.S. Mexico border in San Diego, work to fortify the border wall with concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 10 U.S. Mexico border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego was recently fortified with concertina wire. Heighten security measures were taken in the wake of the arrival of groups with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 10 U.S. Mexico border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego was recently fortified with concertina wire. Heighten security measures were taken in the wake of the arrival of groups with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 10 With entry lanes remaining open for entry into the U.S., agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection dressed in riot gear stage drills at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 10 U.S. Marines deployed to the U.S. Mexico border in San Diego work to fortify the border wall with concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of entry. Heighten security measures were taken in the wake of the arrival of groups with the Central American migrant caravan in Tijuana. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

They join another 250 Border Patrol agents who arrived Tuesday from the northern U.S. border to supplement manpower.

Between nearly each vehicle lane on the approach to the U.S., concrete road barriers topped with three levels of concertina wire have been staged  the work of visiting troops. Should the vehicle lanes need to be closed quickly, the barriers can be swung into place with military forklifts to block off traffic.

Thats exactly what happened early Monday, as border authorities said they received information that a group of migrants was assembling near the vehicle lanes to rush into the U.S. The military quickly responded around 3 a.m. and closed most of the lanes, resulting in major delays for travelers. An insurrection did not occur.

Meanwhile at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry Tuesday, Marine engineers were busy with the tedious work of topping the border fence with roll after roll of concertina wire, stuff more designed to snag clothing rather than mutilate.

These are the Marines who dig ditches, clear fields and build perimeters to set up forward operating bases for their fellow troops to securely inhabit. That work is usually done on deployments overseas, but for these California-based Marines, this time it is oddly in their own backyard.

The work begins by measuring and cutting metal stakes, then welding two together into a sort of cross. The cross is then welded onto the top of the border fence, adding about 3 feet of height to the already new 18-feet-high fencing being erected along the San Diego border.

Other troops then come behind the welders, raised on cherry picker platforms, unspooling lengths of wire onto the stakes in a sort of pyramid stack  two rows on each side of the fence and one on top, bound together with barbed wire.

Other portions of the 14-mile border fence in San Diego require more hardening, either due to patches caused by ongoing construction or to aging, lower fencing that has yet to be replaced.

Army military police from Fort Bliss, Texas, were close by as armed protection should the Marines run into trouble as they work.

The units have typically been working shifts dictated by the sunlight, except for the predawn emergency shutdown on Monday.

While many of these Marines live close enough  either on or off base  to go home each night, they instead are camped out together as a true special purpose Marine air-ground task force. Logistics units are included with the deployment, providing hot showers and hot meals, and military helicopters are on standby to transport men and women as needed.

Its all about that mindset. To be able to do this you have to be able to focus on that mission, said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Edward Guevara, a military spokesman stationed at Camp Pendleton. Going back home to barracks, or to family obligations each night, would be distracting, he said.

Its essentially the same thing youd see if they were deployed anywhere else, Guevara explained.

The location of their base camp has not been made public, but it is close to the border for a quick response if necessary.

Also on Tuesday, the Border Patrol in El Centro met with members of the Honduran Consulate  which is hastily being set up south of the border  to familiarize them with the process if one of their citizens is arrested for crossing the border illegally.

We appreciate their visit, CBP tweeted.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Alex Villanueva, the retired cop whos commanded a startling lead in the election for Los Angeles County sheriff, edged closer to triumph Tuesday, stretching his margin to nearly 87,000 votes ahead of incumbent Jim McDonnell.

Almost 261,000 ballots still need to be counted in a race that  no matter who wins  has already defied convention in Los Angeles County as a nail-biter challenge against a sitting sheriff.

Villanueva had 1,193,670 votes 51.9%  compared with McDonnells 1,106,750 or 48.1%, according to the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerks Office. Villanueva, a retired sheriffs lieutenant, claimed victory last week, though he has yet to receive a concession from McDonnell.

In a statement released by the department Tuesday, the sheriff said he would not concede until the ballot count has been completed.

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I realize that the statistics appear to favor my opponent. I plan to reach out to Mr. Villanueva to discuss an orderly transition, should that be necessary, he said in the statement, calling for reforms to continue and for the office of sheriff to remain nonpartisan.

The latest vote tally comes as the Los Angeles County district attorneys office is investigating a complaint about potential straw donors to Villanuevas campaign. Villanueva has said that he believes all the contributions to his campaign were legal and that he is not considering refunding them.

Under state campaign finance laws, an individual may not conceal their campaign contributions by using another person  a so-called straw donor  to make the payment under the straw donors name.

McDonnell, who won in 2014 vowing to clean up a department marred by a jail abuse scandal, has argued hes the best person to continue reforms in one of the nations largest policing agencies.

The former Los Angeles Police Department official, who also served as Long Beach police chief, touted a drop in serious jail assaults under his administration and his support for the 2-year-old Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission, though some community advocates have expressed frustration that the department hasnt become more transparent.

McDonnell said just after the election that he did not anticipate having to battle for his seat when he began thinking about the campaign last year.

Im proud of what weve been able to accomplish, and I would hate to see that being undone. With the reform and relationships with the communities we serve  it would be tragic to see those things diminished, he said.

Villanueva has promised to rid the department of corrupt officials  holdovers, he says, from the time of former Sheriff Lee Baca, who was convicted last year of obstructing an FBI probe into the jails he oversaw.

Villanueva trumpeted his status as a Democrat and promised to kick immigration agents out of the county jails, earning him a key endorsement from the Los Angeles County Democratic Party as well as from an immigrant rights group. But hes also said he would deliver inmates directly to immigration authorities.

At an event Tuesday, Villanueva said that he disagrees with preliminary recommendations of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Committee calling for the department to stop honoring requests from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain inmates in the countys jails.

You have very dangerous convicted felons. Youre gonna have rapists, sexually violent predators. I cannot release them into the public knowing that theyre eligible for deportation, he said.

Political experts have said that the cues Villanueva provided to voters about being a Democrat and taking a stand against immigration agents were crucial in a race that typically gains little attention from most voters.

Outside groups that financed mailers to voters homes promoted Villanuevas platform. McDonnells campaign manager acknowledged the sheriffs platform lacked an equally effective messaging strategy.

maya.lau@latimes.com

Twitter: @mayalau

UPDATES:

7:10 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from McDonnell and Villanueva.

This article was originally published at 5:10 p.m.
Between insulting a respected military leader and disparaging an influential Democrat, there was a window of nearly pure presidential behavior by Donald Trump.

It happened in what may be the most politically inhospitable place for him in the nation: California.

It tends to stand out when Trump acts presidential because he gets so much attention  a lot of it self-generated  when he does not.

Trump on Saturday toured the devastated town of Paradise, which essentially no longer exists after the Camp fire swept through several days ago. He appeared with Gov. Jerry Brown and Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, two Democrats Trump has criticized in the past and vice versa.

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But the three put their differences aside and pledged to work together to help the fire victims in the Butte County and Malibu areas. The president toured Southern California neighborhoods burned by the Woolsey fire as well.

He also met privately with people directly affected by the Nov. 7 mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, where a gunman killed 12 before taking his own life. Trump reportedly kept his views on gun control to himself and described the incident as a horrible event in a great area.

We just hugged them and we kissed them  and everybody. And it was very warm, the president said after talking with survivors of the attack, family members and first responders.

It was tragic, and yet in one way it was a very beautiful moment.

Trump also kept his comments about forest management to a minimum. Last week, he was roundly criticized for blaming the fires on what he considers the states lack of such management and threatened to withhold federal money from California if it didnt start doing a better job.

But conflict wasnt on anybodys agenda during the presidents fire tour. Brown praised Trump on Face the Nation Sunday.

The president not only has signed a presidential declaration giving California substantial funding, but he said and pledged very specifically to continue to help us  that hes got our back. And I thought that was a very positive thing, Brown said. There have been some back and forth between California leaders and the president. But in the face of tragedy, people tend to rise above some of their lesser propensities.

Unlike his predecessors  Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton  public empathy does not seem to come easily to Trump. But he expressed being truly shocked by the breadth of fire destruction.

Trumps visit was far from perfect. He was ridiculed for suggesting California could lessen the fire threat by raking forest floors like they do in Finland. That flummoxed the president of the Nordic country  who Trump said was the source of the information  and many of its residents. At another point Trump misspoke, mentioning Pleasure when he meant Paradise.

The apparent truce with the Trump administration didnt last. After the trip, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed the fires on radical environmentalists who he said have prevented forest management. Some experts dispute that claim.

Then on Tuesday questions were raised about whether the $500 million Trump said was in the farm bill for fire suppression through forest management actually existed.

While here, at least Trump didnt create any images that were widely criticized, as he did last year when he tossed rolls of paper towels to victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Regardless, California leaders will be closely watching Trumps follow-up. Puerto Rican officials say federal aid still has been inadequate and was slow in coming.

As is often the case, the subject changes quickly with Trump. As if to assure us hes back in character after his somber California visit, Trump took to Twitter Sunday to profanely criticize Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, who questioned the legitimacy of the appointment of acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. Schiff is in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which likely will investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, among other things.

The president also made headlines by criticizing retired Adm. William McRaven, who was head of special operations for the armed forces. McRaven oversaw the efforts that took down Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

McRaven has been a public critic of Trump and recently said the presidents attitude toward the media is perhaps the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.

In a Fox News interview taped last week and broadcast Sunday, Trump maintained McRaven backed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (McRaven said he didnt endorse her) and Obama. McRaven said he was a fan of Obama and Bush, both of whom he worked for.

Trump further criticized the retired admiral by suggesting it took too long to find bin Laden, even though the search was conducted by the CIA, while the operation was carried out by a team of Navy SEAL commandos.

At least he didnt say it here, where the SEALs central command is located in Coronado.

Just as Trump sought to recover from his initial response to the fires by making the trip to California, he seemed intent on trying to offset criticism that he hasnt been properly respectful to the military  his spat with McRaven notwithstanding.

The president was scored harshly for his failure to visit an American burial ground in France during a recent trip to commemorate the end of World War I and Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day. He told Fox News Chris Wallace  in the same interview where he lashed out at McRaven  that he planned to visit U.S. troops in war zones. Trump has yet to do that since he took office in January 2017.

There has been no word yet about whether the president will visit military personnel closer to home  the troops he stationed along the border in San Diego and other locations in the Southwest to protect against an invasion by migrants who caravanned from Central America.

Hed better hurry. The elections over and hes preparing to start sending those troops home.
Three people involved in cannabis and real estate investments in the San Diego area were charged Monday in a murder-for-hire plot foiled by an FBI informant they allegedly paid to kidnap and kill a business associate, prosecutors said this week.

Salam Razuki, Sylvia Gonzales and Elizabeth Juarez were arrested last week and charged Monday in U.S. District Court in San Diego with felony counts of conspiracy to kill, kidnap or maim an individual.

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, Razuki and Gonzales told the FBI informant  whom they believed would carry out the hit for $2,000  that they wanted the business associate to be shot in the face, and directed the informant to take him to Mexico and have him whacked.

Prosecutors said the defendants were entangled in a business dispute involving approximately $40 million with the victim targeted in the murder plot, who was identified in the criminal complaint only by his initials, N.M.

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You need to get rid of this a--hole, hes costing me too much money, Gonzales allegedly told the informant during the second of at least five meetings.

Prosecutors say Juarez joined the conspiracy in November over a sushi dinner. During the meal, Gonzales and Juarez told the informant they wanted to put the turkey up to roast before Thanksgiving  and then asked the informant to take a cellphone photo of them to commemorate the occasion, according to court documents.

Razukis attorney did not immediately respond to phone and email messages Tuesday night. Gonzales apparently did not have an attorney as of Tuesday, according to court records.

Allen Bloom, a longtime criminal defense attorney, said his client, Juarez, has never been in trouble, is a wonderful person and is completely innocent.

Im convinced that by the end of this case, the evidence will show Elizabeth is not only not guilty, but shes innocent, Bloom said in a phone interview Tuesday night. The evidence will show she is not responsible for any part of any conspiracy or plot of any kind.

FBI agents and federal prosecutors allege that the plot to have N.M killed was set in motion on Oct. 17, when Razuki and Gonzales first met with the FBI informant.

In court documents, prosecutors added a footnote that Razuki himself had been a confidential source for the FBI since May 2014 in other cases.

However, Razuki has not informed the FBI of any of his actions, or those of Gonzales or Juarez, in attempting to have N.M. kidnapped and killed, prosecutors noted.

The person the group believed would kill N.M.  whose name, gender and other identifying details were not disclosed  began cooperating with the FBI in 2009 and had reliably provided information  over the years leading to the successful identification and prosecution of drug traffickers, money launderers, and other subjects, prosecutors wrote.

About three weeks after the first meeting, Gonzales allegedly met with the informant alone and called herself the honey badger, saying business associates often send her to handle problems. Gonzales said during this meeting at a Hillcrest restaurant that the informant didnt have to kill N.M., but she was making a slashing movement across her neck indicating she wanted N.M. to be killed, court documents said.

Three days later, on Nov. 8, Gonzales met the informant again at a La Mesa sushi restaurant, where she said the informant needed only to lure N.M. to Mexico, where Juarez would take care of him over there, according to court documents. When Juarez showed up, prosecutors said, the trio negotiated the price for the informant to carry out the hit, then the informant took a cellphone photo of Juarez and Gonzales.

Juarez  who mentioned once drugging and kidnapping a Vista woman, and who allegedly said the plot against N.M. wouldnt be her first rodeo  advised Gonzales not to watch the killing because it would be gruesome and haunt her, court documents said. Juarez also said the hit should be carried out in Mexico because Its easier to make things go away, you pay for your freedom.

A day after the sushi dinner, the three defendants met somewhere in the Stockton neighborhood of San Diego to give the informant details needed to carry out the hit, according to court records. After agreeing to pay the informant $1,000 both before and after the job was done, Gonzales left the meeting, walked across the street to the Goldn Bloom Dispensary and came back with $1,000 cash.

On Nov. 13, the defendants had a court hearing in downtown San Diego in connection with the civil litigation with N.M. Prosecutors allege that the trio invited the FBI informant into the courtroom to see N.M., but the informant declined.

Instead, Gonzales took photos of N.M. and described him to the informant, who waited outside the courthouse, prosecutors said.

Last Thursday, the FBI interviewed N.M., who confirmed his business dealings with Razuki, mostly real estate investments involving cannabis dispensaries.

Later that same day, the FBI informant met with Razuki and told him hed finished the job, prosecutors said in the court filing. Razuki told the informant he didnt want to see proof, which the informant was offering to show him.

Gonzales was arrested Thursday and denied involvement in any conspiracy to kidnap and kill N.M, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Juarez and Razuki were both arrested Friday, prosecutors said, and while Razuki also denied his involvement, Juarez allegedly admitted to FBI agents that she had meetings and conversations about kidnapping and killing N.M., but said she didnt think the group would actually go through with it.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com
Authorities say Jonathan Felix aimed a loaded gun at off-duty San Diego police officers outside a Mission Valley bar, so they disarmed and detained him.

He now faces felony charges stemming from the incident, and he made a brief appearance with his attorneys Wednesday in San Diego Superior Court.

Felix, through his lawyers, alleged the four officers were drunk and attacked him without provocation, beating and kicking him as he went in and out of consciousness.

Security camera footage outside McGregors Ale House, on San Diego Mission Road, captured the encounter, but Felixs attorney said she hasnt seen it yet.

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My client maintains he never pulled a gun on them, said Alicia Freeze outside of a San Diego Superior Court courtroom. He felt threatened by four large, drunk men coming at him. He was trying to leave.

Felix, 38, was arrested Nov. 7 on charges including assault and battery on police officers. He was taken to a hospital before being booked into jail then released on $50,000 in bail.

At his Nov. 9 arraignment, he was charged with two felony counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a felon in possession of ammunition, and a misdemeanor count of possessing cocaine for personal use, Deputy District Attorney Michael Runyon said.

The felony charges each carry a three-year maximum prison sentence, he said.

Felix, a chef at Greystone Prime Steak & Seafood in the Gaslamp Quarter, was in court Wednesday to schedule his next court appearances. A preliminary hearing was set for Dec. 19, when a judge would hear evidence and decide if Felix should stand trial.

A number of people showed up in support of Felix, with one community activist saying San Diego police need to be transparent about what happened outside the bar.

We want the officers to be on suspension, said Tasha Williamson. We want immediate action by the Police Department. The video has not been made public. There has not been a news release.

This is a botched cover-up.

Freeze said Felix suffered a head injury that required staples to close, a fractured vertebrae and lung problems that have made if difficult for him to breathe.

San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said the department would not release the names of the officers because they are victims of a crime.

Out of court, Runyon and Freeze offered differing versions of what happened early on Nov. 7 after McGregors bar had closed.

Runyon said the off-duty officers were hanging out in the parking lot and noticed Felix driving a car out of the lot and back in, and then riding a bicycle in and out of the lot over a 40-minute period.

An officer had concerns about the defendants activities in the parking lot, possibly casing vehicles, Runyon said. He said that officer contacted Felix, then a second officer joined them.

It is alleged by the officers that the defendant pulled a firearm and pointed it at them, Runyon said. The officers drew their own weapons.

Fortunately, no shots were fired. The officers detained the defendant until on-duty officers arrived, Runyon said.

Freeze said Felix parked his car in McGregors lot as he often does after work because spaces fill up at his nearby apartment complex.

She said he had a drink inside, then was arranging his backpack and getting his bike out of the car so he could cycle home. He was lingering, waiting for the officers to leave first.

He told her the officers were drunk, loud and rowdy and he thought they were students, Freeze said. Then he had words with them and remembers only some of what happened next as he was punched and kicked.

Freeze declined to comment on why Felix had a gun.

Runyon did not give any details on Felixs past felony conviction.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @pdrepard
Black students are more than twice as likely to be suspended as students overall in San Diego County, while foster youth are almost five times as likely to be suspended, according to a new batch of suspension data released by the state on Monday.

Last school year, more than 15,000 students in the county were suspended at least once, and more than a quarter of them were suspended multiple times. About 1,500 of those suspended students were in kindergarten through third grade.

Still, suspension rates are significantly lower than they used to be. San Diego Countys overall suspension rate was 2.8 percent for 2017-2018, down from 4.5 percent in 2011-2012. San Diego County suspends students at a rate lower than the current state average of 3.5 percent.

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While the overall suspension rates may seem small, they become disproportionately high when looking at certain student groups. The data show that black students and foster youth are more likely than any other student groups to be suspended, echoing a national trend. The rates are also higher than average for students with disabilities, homeless youth and low-income students.

The very students who do need that additional time and supports, like foster youth, are the ones who are being sent out of the classroom, said Carrie Hahnel, interim co-executive director of Ed Trust  West, an Oakland-based advocacy organization that focuses on education equity.

Foster students, of which there are about 2,300 in San Diego County, are suspended the most out of all student groups. Fourteen percent of foster students were suspended last school year, a rate close to the state average.

Meanwhile, about 7 percent of African-American students are suspended, a rate more than three times as high as the rate for white students and more than twice as high as the rate for Hispanic or Latino students. Black students make up only 5 percent of San Diego County enrollment but 13 percent of the suspensions. Statewide, 9 percent of African-American students are suspended.

Experts say suspensions are problematic because they not only take students out of the classroom and reduce learning time, but they isolate students socially from their peers and place them in an adverse relationship with their teachers, Hahnel said.

California students lost 763,690 days of instruction time in 2016-2017 because of suspensions, according to a UCLA Civil Rights Project report published this year. Studies have found that suspended students are more likely to drop out than their peers.

Experts have said that the discipline disparities among students of color and disadvantaged student groups are largely driven by adult biases and staffs subjective interpretations of a students behavior. For example, about 16 percent of suspensions statewide and countywide are for willful defiance, an offense that critics say is too subjective.

Studies we reviewed suggest that implicit bias  stereotypes or unconscious associations about people  on the part of teachers and staff may cause them to judge students behaviors differently based on the students race and sex, the U.S. Government Accountability Office wrote in a discipline disparities report published in March.

Rather than suspending students, experts suggest schools should invest in supports for those students, such as counselors and, for foster youth, case management services. The inclusion of suspension rates in the California School Dashboard, a tool introduced last year that the state uses to measure school quality, has led schools to increasingly look at ways to reduce suspension rates, Hahnel said.

Kristen Taketa

Email: kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @Kristen_Taketa
At the age of 92, the historian Nicolas Sanchez-Albornoz is an unlikely graffiti artist. But on Tuesday, 70 years after being sent to a prison labor camp in a wave of repression by Spains Franco dictatorship for painting the words Long Live Free University! he returned to the scene of the crime for a symbolic reconstruction of the slogan.

I am moved, a tearful Sanchez-Albornoz said after receiving tributes from students at Madrids Complutense University, where he had been arrested as an undergraduate in 1948 along with 13 other members of the underground University Students Federation. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment in a work camp on the site of Gen. Francisco Francos colossal mausoleum, now known as the Valley of the Fallen.

When I was at university, we couldnt imagine seeing an event like this, Sanchez-Albornoz said before applying the first slosh of black paint to the symbolic reconstruction on the wall of the political science and sociology building.

The event was held on a notorious date in Spain  Nov. 20  when groups of Franco sympathizers mark the anniversary of the deaths of the dictator, in 1975, and that of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the fascist Falange party, who was executed by Republican forces in 1936, the first year of the civil war that led to a four-decade dictatorship. According to the Francisco Franco Foundation, 16 churches around Spain were holding special Mass services for the dictator on Tuesday. At the Valley of the Fallen basilica 30 miles northwest of Madrid, several hundred fascist supporters joined in prayer, some offering stiff-arm salutes over the military rulers tomb.

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Far-right Falange members perform the fascist salute during a demonstration marking the anniversary of the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in Madrid on Nov. 18. (Oscar del Pozo / AFP/Getty Images)

Spains socialist government has said it will soon end the anomaly of honoring the dictators resting place in a public building. It plans to exhume Francos remains and allow his family to bury them privately. However, Francos grandchildren want his body re-interred in Madrids cathedral, leading to a delay in the governments plans as it seeks a legal remedy to prevent the countrys former dictator swapping one monumental tomb for another  in the center of the capital.

Sanchez-Albornoz turned out to be among the more fortunate of those who ran afoul of Franco. He escaped the concentration camp after a few months and, together with his fellow university activist, Manuel Lamana, slipped through a security cordon and made it to the nearby monastery town of El Escorial. There, two young American women, the author Barbara Probst Solomon and Barbara Mailer, sister of the author Norman Mailer, were waiting in a small Renault they had driven from Paris. Counterfeit ID papers for the two men allowed the group to pass roadblocks and guards on the border with France.

Freedom for the two men also meant exile, however. They both moved to Buenos Aires, where Lamana died in 1996, while Sanchez-Albornoz was exiled again, this time to the United States, when Argentina itself became a military dictatorship. He became a professor of history at NYU, eventually moving back to Spain after Francos death to become director of the Cervantes Institute.

Lamanas daughter, Maruja Lamana, joined Sanchez-Albornoz at the ceremony, expressing anger at what she sees as Spanish amnesia over the dictatorship.

You cannot build a dignified society while denying the past, she said. Schools do not offer information on the Franco era or the civil war, and half of society does not distinguish one side from the other when what happened was a coup against democratic Republican Spain.

Sanchez-Albornoz said that his former prison camp was built as a monument to the glory of Francos Nationalist crusade by prisoners whom the state rented to construction companies. They charged the firms 10.5 pesetas per prisoner a day, and the budget to feed us was five pesetas. There was no cost; the regime made money out of us. The whole system was corrupt and the civil servants stole half of the food sacks to sell on the black market.

The historian believes that the monument was so poorly built that it will eventually crumble. Except for the 150-meter stone cross that stands over the basilica, he said dynamite would speed things along. Nature should be allowed to take its course, but with a little helping hand.

Badcock is a special correspondent.
A federal judge Tuesday struck down a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, one of the most restrictive in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled that the law unequivocally violates womens constitutional rights.

The record is clear: States may not ban abortions prior to viability, Reeves said, citing Supreme Court rulings.

The only abortion clinic in Mississippi sued when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the law March 19, and Reeves issued a temporary restraining order the next day to keep the state from enforcing the law.

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The Mississippi law and the responding lawsuit set up a confrontation sought by abortion opponents, who are hoping federal courts will ultimately prohibit abortions before a fetus is viable outside the womb, the dividing line that the U.S. Supreme Court set in its 1973 ruling saying that women have the right to terminate pregnancies. An Iowa law, also challenged in court, bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The Mississippi law would allow exceptions to the 15-week ban in cases of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality. Doctors found in violation of the ban would face mandatory suspension or revocation of their medical license.

A national abortion rights group, the Center for Reproductive Rights, helped represent the Mississippi clinic.

Our victory today means that women in Mississippi will maintain the ability to make their own decisions about whether and when to terminate a pregnancy, Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the center, said in a statement Tuesday. Todays decision should be a wake-up call for state lawmakers who are continuously trying to chip away at abortion access. Such bans will not stand in a court of law.

Bryant was traveling Tuesday and it was not immediately clear whether he would ask a federal appeals court to overturn Reeves ruling. He has said abortion restrictions are meant to protect womens health.

Reeves wrote that this Court concludes that the Mississippi Legislatures professed interest in womens health is pure gaslighting. He cited the states high infant mortality statistics and noted that Mississippi has not expanded Medicaid, which is an option most states have taken under the 2010 federal health law signed by President Obama.

Reeves also wrote that the 15-week abortion ban is closer to the old Mississippi  the Mississippi bent on controlling women and minorities.

Bryant has said frequently that he wants Mississippi to be the safest place in America for an unborn child. At a Nov. 12 news conference where Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith received an endorsement from the president of the national Right to Life Committee, Bryant talked about what he saw as the genocide of over 20 million African American children in the U.S. since a 1973 Supreme Court ruling made abortion legal in all states.

I am confused about where the outrage is at  about 20 million African American children that have been aborted, Bryant said. No one wants to say anything about that. No one wants to talk about that.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and top local and county law enforcement officials gathered with community leaders and others Tuesday outside City Hall to announce new executive directors for two of the citys citizen advisory groups on public safety.

Pastor Jesus Sandoval, a former gang member who is now a pastor at New Harvest Christian Fellowship of East San Diego, was named executive director of the citys Commission on Gang Prevention and Intervention, city officials said.

The Rev. Gerald Brown, of the nonprofit Unified African American Ministerial Action Council, will be the new executive director for the citys Citizen Advisory Board on Police-Community Relations.

Both groups are designed to act as a bridge and a two-way line of communication between the public and city government on matters involving law enforcement and safety.

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We have advisory positions here at the city that give the community a voice at City Hall on public safety matters, Faulconer said during remarks Tuesday. And having trusted, trusted community leaders in those positions gives the public more confidence that their concerns are not only being heard, but that those concerns are being taken seriously.

A community leader for more than 20 years, Brown has advised San Diego law enforcement on deescalation, trauma-informed practices, interfaith dialog and community policing, Faulconer said. In his new role, Brown will work with the board and stakeholders throughout the city to to promote accountable and community-centered policing and help law enforcement build trust in every neighborhood.

After the announcement, Brown said, I hope to bring all the communities in San Diego together and instead of us looking at the police as being separate from us, they are a part of us, OK? And so how do we work together to find solutions?

Brown said he will look to places of worship, barber shops and other settings where people tend to congregate as forums for conversations about what concerns people have with law enforcement, what concerns law enforcement officers have and where there might be enough common ground for solutions to take root.

Sandoval is a former gang member who has devoted his life to his faith and his work preventing violence, reunifying reformed gang members and their families and providing services to children and young adults emerging from the justice system, city officials said. As executive director for the advisory commission, Sandoval will help develop intervention and prevention programs for the city of San Diego.

In an interview after the announcement, Sandoval said he has lived in neighborhoods the commission and city want to target, so he can reach shot-caller gang members and show them how, through mentoring and support programs, they, too, can build purpose-driven lives as community leaders who inspire others to do positive things.

When youve got one guy influencing five guys to do negative stuff, and those five guys another five  so now the opposite is happening, Sandoval said. Theyre finding their purpose now from all the pain they went through and all the trauma they caused in the community, and theyre trying to now say, OK, were going to go from being gang members but still finding that leadership role in a positive way and finding fulfillment that way.

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
A two-alarm fire that may have started in an outdoor courtyard area ripped through an apartment complex in Imperial Beach early Wednesday morning, leaving about 40 people displaced, fire officials said.

A sheriffs deputy helping to wake up and evacuate residents suffered a minor burn on his arm. He was treated at the scene by paramedics, said Imperial Beach Fire Chief John French.

The blaze was reported shortly before 4 a.m. at an apartment complex on Iris Avenue near 13th Street. The fire was initially reported as a rubbish fire, French said, so only one engine responded.

Chula Vista Battalion Chief Chris Manroe told OnScene TV that crews thought they were responding to a propane tank that was on fire, but by the time firefighters arrived they found multiple units involved and called for assistance.

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The fire went to first alarm and then second alarm. In all, about 50 firefighters from Coronado, Imperial Beach, National City and San Diego responded. The flames were knocked down in about 30 minutes, French said.

All the residents in the eight-unit complex were evacuated safely. Four units sustained major damage and another suffered partial damage, French said.

Three units were undamaged, the chief said.

All the residents in the complex  30 adults and 10 children  were displaced because power and water service to all the units was disconnected for safety, French said.

Firefighters had worried flames might spread to a neighboring Navy property, the Naval Outlying Landing Field, and a building on the installation had some scorching from the blaze, French said.

The Red Cross was called in to assist the residents with temporary housing.

No damage estimate was immediately available. Investigators from the sheriffs bomb-arson units were trying to determine how the fire ignited, French said, but had not yet made a determination Wednesday afternoon.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

11:35 a.m.: This story was updated with additional detail.s

This article was originally published at 7:10 a.m.
The state Supreme Court on Tuesday recommended that Gov. Jerry Brown pardon former state Sen. Roderick Wright for a 2014 conviction on felony charges that involved lying about living in his legislative district.

The action comes as the nonpartisan First Amendment Coalition filed a motion Tuesday asking the court to unseal records Brown filed on the clemency petition, saying there has been a troubling pattern of secrecy that has cloaked a record number of clemency actions during his administration.

This long-standing, flawed practice of immediately sealing records of this kind amounts to a sort of secret docket at the states highest court, said David Snyder, the coalitions executive director. We believe the state and federal constitution prohibit this practice  and there is an intense public interest in seeing these records, in particular as they pertain to an elected official convicted of serious felonies.

The motion also asks that all documents in other pending and future clemency cases be made public.

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The high courts recommendation of a pardon on Tuesday follows signals from Browns office that he is likely to grant clemency in the case before he leaves office in January.

As the Board of Parole Hearings has found, Sen. Wrights application presents a favorable case for a pardon, Peter A. Krause, the governors legal affairs secretary, said in a letter to the court last month.

The court did not provide the reasoning for its recommendation, which it made based on the record that includes a recommendation by the parole board in September.

Wright, 66, said he believed he complied with state law.

Im certainly sorry for the challenges I brought forth in terms of questions about my house, and I take full responsibility, Wright said in a recent interview. I thought I was correct, but the jury didnt agree with me.

Wright, a Democrat, resigned from the Senate and was barred for life from holding public office as a result of the conviction on eight felony charges that included perjury and voting fraud. He was sentenced to three months in jail but served less than a day because of overcrowding.

During the criminal trial, prosecutors said Wright made it appear that he lived in a rental complex he owns in Inglewood to run for the Senate seat in 2008, but that his true residence was a house in Baldwin Hills, outside the district.

Wright told a Los Angeles County jury that he believed he had taken the necessary steps to establish the Inglewood property as his domicile and had not intended to deceive voters when he arranged to rent a bedroom in the unit.

Wright, who has been teaching at UC Davis, said the law on residency was ambiguous.

The problem is there is nothing in the election code that says how many days you have to sleep in your domicile, Wright said. People commonly say you have to live in your district, but that is not in the elections code.

Coverage of California politics 

Browns office gave the court a review of the pardon request and letters from people who support a pardon, but the governors staff refused to make those documents public.

Wrights application also requests a pardon for a 1972 conviction, when Wright was 19, for taking a motor vehicle without the owners consent. He served three years probation for the older conviction.

The crimes for which Sen. Wright was convicted  vehicle theft, perjury, false declaration of candidacy, and fraudulent voting  were nonviolent in nature, Krause wrote to the court. Moreover, Sen. Wright has devoted much of his life to public service, including serving six years in the California State Senate and six years in the California Assembly. Since his conviction, Sen. Wright has been employed as a consultant on government affairs and is an adjunct professor.

Krause noted that after Wrights conviction, the Legislature enacted a new law that clarifies the requirements regarding where legislators live, writing that the Board of Parole Hearings found that establishing a domicile in the manner Mr. Wright did during the period of 2007 to 2009 would be permissible under the bill.

The motion by the First Amendment Coalition seeks public release of documents deemed confidential by the court and governors office including a Pardon Investigation Report, Wrights criminal record and letters of support for the pardon.

While releasing a letter from the governors office asking for a review, the court and governors office rejected a request by The Times for copies of other documents in the case involving Wright, who represented part of Los Angeles County. The coalitions requests for documents were also turned down.

These sort of documents include both sensitive and deliberative information, said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor.

The courts written operating practices say the papers and documents transmitted to the court by the governor with the application often contain material that the governor may have the right to withhold from the public.

The policy cites a section of state law that exempts from public disclosure personnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Also cited is an exemption for investigations conducted by law enforcement, and for correspondence of the governor or his office, or in the custody of or maintained by the governors legal affairs secretary.

Accordingly, the court treats these files as confidential and does not make them available to the public, the policy says.

The motion notes that Brown has issued a record number of pardons and clemency requests  more than 1,000  during his time in office. By comparison, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued fewer than 20 pardons, and none were granted by former Gov. Gray Davis, the filing said.

The filing also says that the public has a right to inspect clemency materials under the California Rules of Court, the common law, and the federal and state constitutions.

The public also has an independent interest in overseeing the conduct of the Governor and any public officials to which clemency is granted, in order to root out public corruption, it says.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99
The day after Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced a landmark public power-buying program for the city, San Diego Gas & Electric backed away from its long-standing position that it was legally obligated to purchase a natural gas-fired plant in Otay Mesa for $280 million.

Instead of acquiring the plant, SDG&E told the California Public Utilities Commission in a letter last month that the company wants a new five-year contract with the owner, Calpine Corp., for rights to the power generated by the Otay Mesa Energy Center.

SDG&E is seeking the agreement, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even though the company acknowledged it may not need the electricity because San Diego and other cities are forming power-buying alternatives known as community choice aggregation, or CCAs.

SDG&E could be serving less than half of the load in its service territory within the next few years, utility executives told regulators in a Oct. 26 letter. Departure of the city of San Diego alone eliminates SDG&Es need for the (Otay Mesa) resource.

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Company officials said the proposed Calpine agreement is a good deal for ratepayers even though SDG&E could pay more under the contract than it would spend to buy the plant outright.

The agreement pricing and cost is confidential, and SDG&E believes the agreement is beneficial for customers by reducing costs, spokesman Joseph Britton wrote in an email. The agreement has been submitted to the CPUC for (its) concurrence and approval.

Under California Public Utilities Commission rules, contracts between utilities and power generators remain confidential for three years. Even after that, the amount consumers pay under specific agreements is difficult to ascertain because the rates are often combined in public reports rather than broken down individually.

SDG&E said the proposed five-year deal was reviewed by a committee of commission staff and other stakeholders to ensure the price is reasonable.

But environmentalists and consumer advocates are skeptical.

Buying more expensive polluting gas as we transition to 100 percent renewables is unnecessary and unjustified, and will be a bad deal for ratepayers and clean air, said Nicole Capretz, the Climate Action Campaign executive director who was instrumental in convincing Faulconer to pursue community choice in San Diego.

Under CCAs, public entities decide what sources of electricity they want. Most choose renewable sources like wind and solar rather than less climate-friendly power plants like the one in Otay Mesa, which burns natural gas.

Investor-owned utilities like SDG&E continue to maintain power lines and process billings under the community choice model.

CCA members who leave the traditional utility are charged an exit fee to compensate utilities for their longer-term investments. According to estimates from SDG&E, the San Diego fee will be increased from 2.5 cents to 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. That would equate to an exit fee of $16.50 per month for a prospective residential customer using 500 kilowatt hours a month.

The proposed agreement between Calpine and SDG&E may be an effort by each side to buy time until the rules governing community choice are more clear. Its possible neither company wants long-term ownership of a fossil fuel-burning plant at a time when California is moving toward 100 renewable power.

From a risk perspective, SDG&E believes a shorter-term capacity agreement is relatively more attractive in an environment where the resource adequacy and procurement model in California is in the process of fundamental reform, SDG&E wrote to the commission.

In his Oct. 25 announcement, Faulconer said community choice aggregation would save consumers money and allow the city to meet its climate goals years ahead of a state mandate that 100 percent of California electricity comes from renewable sources by 2045.

I want San Diego to lead this region into a cleaner future, the mayor said.

In its 2019 rate-setting proceeding now before the utilities commission, initiated before Faulconer embraced community choice, SDG&E asserted that it was legally obliged to purchase the Otay Mesa plant and requested $280 million in future billings to finance the purchase and millions more to operate the facility. No decision has been issued in that application.

The Otay Mesa Energy Center can generate just over 600 megawatts, enough electricity to power some 330,000 homes. It opened in 2009 after Calpine secured a 10-year agreement with SDG&E. The original contract expires next October.

Even before the plant opened, the utilities commission added language to the deal granting Calpine the right to sell the facility to SDG&E for $280 million prior to April 2019. The same amendment, known as a put-call option, gave SDG&E the option to require Calpine to sell it the plant for $377 million.

The utility said without the five-year agreement, Calpine would exercise its right under the put-call option.

SDG&E evaluated a number of factors and believes that, as compared against the ownership option, the proposed contract is beneficial to customers, Britton wrote.

Bill Powers is a board member of the Protect Our Communities Foundation, a San Diego nonprofit that is opposed to SDG&E contract. Ratepayers already were charged hundreds of millions of dollars for power from the Otay Mesa plant and a new agreement is unnecessary, he said.

In effect, its an end run, Powers said. The whole deal was squirrelly from day one. That put-call option was always difficult to defend.

The Protect Our Communities Foundation has called on the commission to change its previous decision granting Calpine and SDG&E rights to buy and sell the Otay Mesa plant.

The put-call option was not the only unusual aspect of the original Calpine-SDG&E deal.

According to a one-time utility lawyer, former utilities commission president Michael Peevey coerced SDG&E into signing the 10-year contract with Calpine in exchange for permission to acquire the Palomar Energy Center in Escondido.

Kelly Foley, who was a lawyer for SDG&E sister company Sempra Energy Resources back in the 2000s, told a state Senate committee in 2015 that Peevey made it clear that SDG&E would not be permitted to buy the Escondido plant if it did not sign the $740 million Calpine deal.

Its important to relay to the Legislature that while its problematic, whats more problematic is that it was business as usual, Foley testified before the Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications.

Lawmakers on the committee, which is chaired by Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, asked no questions and took no action as a result of the testimony. SDG&E issued a statement at the time defending the contract and saying it had complied with all commission rules.

The Foley disclosure came about six months after the California Attorney Generals Office opened a criminal investigation into state utilities commission practices.

The commission spent more than $12 million on private lawyers in response to the probe.

Despite judges finding probable cause that felonies were committed and issuing at least six search warrants, no charges resulted from the criminal investigation.

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Anthony Ghio, the last of the four co-founders of the landmark San Diego restaurant Anthonys Fish Grotto, died Monday at his home in La Jolla at the age of 97.

He had an incredible sense of business integrity, said Ghios nephew, Craig Ghio, who worked alongside his uncle for 40 years. During his tenure as CEO, there wasnt ever one account that ever got stiffed. There werent late payments, there werent defaults  It was just that whole, If you owe it, you pay it philosophy. Its how he ran things.

Fresh out of the U.S. Navy after World War II, Ghio in 1946 joined other members of his family to assist his mother in opening the first restaurant in San Diego that served seafood only.

The original site was tiny  just 30 feet by 30 feet, with 17 stools and two tables seating four people each  but proved to be an instant hit. Locals lined up to get a taste of the menu items prepared by Catherine Mama Ghio, a determined woman who zealously guarded the familys secret light-batter recipe that gave the seafood at Anthonys a distinctive flavor.

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In 1946, when no San Diego eateries served only seafood, the Ghio family filled the void by opening the original Anthonys Seafood Grotto near G Street pier. Patrons soon were standing in line for a spot. (U-T file)

The restaurant was named for Mama Ghios grandfather in Italy and for St. Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen.

Mama Ghio and son Tod ruled the kitchen and when he wasnt waiting on customers, Anthony manned the cash register. Within a month of the restaurants debut, Roy Weber, the husband of Anthonys sister, Adel, joined the business.

The crowds grew so large that people sat in their cars and took numbers to wait for a spot to open. Ever the entrepreneurs, the Ghio family would serve guests martinis while they waited in their sedans.

We didnt know then that so many people like fish, Anthony told the Union-Tribune on the restaurants 40th anniversary.

Within five years, the original restaurant moved to a larger space that was built on pilings on San Diego Bay at 1360 N. Harbor Drive.

Eventually, Anthonys grew to become San Diegos largest family-owned food service operation, with four retail markets and seven restaurants that employed 510 people and racked up $22 million in annual sales in 1994.

Overlooking a spring-fed lake, Anthonys Fish Grotto in La Mesa remains open but in January 2017, the mainstay on N. Harbor Drive closed its doors to comply with San Diego Unified Port District lease requirements and was replaced by Portside Pier, a group of restaurants by the Brigantine chain.

I think (Anthony Ghio) was sad when the landmark restaurant closed, said Patti Ghio, who was married to Anthonys son, Rick. But he had a realistic view about it. He would say, Well, we had a good run. He understood time moves forward.

A native San Diegan and proud graduate of San Diego State (Class of 1943, with a bachelors degree in physical education and a minor in history), Anthony Ghio became a driving force in the citys business community.

Anthony A. Ghio, co-founder of Anthonys Fish Grottos, was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau for 1981. (U-T file)

He served as president of the California Restaurant Association in 1969 and founded the San Diego Restaurant Association in 1981, the same year Ghio was elected president of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Ghio was instrumental in getting the San Diego Convention Center issue on the ballot and working with friend and fellow businessman Ray Lubach, Ghio helped entice Holland America to become the first cruise ship line to come to San Diego.

It all required tons of work and tons of hours, Patti Ghio said, but from that generation of Italians, thats what you do  you work.

Anthony Ghio outlived his wife, Josephine, who died from complications from a brain tumor in 1999, and his three sons, Rick, Michael and Anthony Paul (Nino).

He had a lot of personal tragedy in his life but he was a man of faith, said Craig Ghio, who is the CEO of the La Mesa Grotto. There are people who turn their back on religion and their faith in the face of adversity and personal tragedy, but heres a guy who never did.

A meticulous man, Anthony Ghio left notes for his family preceding his death that cited his business and personal milestones.

A seven-page missive concludes with Ghio relating a story from his time in the Navy. Stationed at the time in Bremerton, Washington, a homesick Ghio wangled a leave of absence from his commanding officer to fly home to San Diego for Thanksgiving. But a severe snowstorm descended the night before the flight.

That evening, I knelt down and prayed like I had never prayed before, with conviction and devotion, Ghio wrote.

The next morning, the skies broke clear and Ghio made his flight and arrived home to Little Italy just before Thanksgiving dinner.

Craig Ghio said its appropriate his uncle passed away on Thanksgiving week.

The last couple years have been difficult for him, Craig Ghio. He was ready to go home to his family and be with God.

Among his extended family, Anthony Ghio is survived by daughter-in-law Patti; granddaughters Angie Allen, Jenna Shaun Murphy and Katie Ghio, and four great-grandchildren.

A funeral mass will be held Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla.

U-T news researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.

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rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski
Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping?

That is a question the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be asked at every opportunity.

Thank you for granting me an audience, Your Majesty, everyone should say. Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping?

President Donald Trump should be similarly interrogated, along with the members of his team who so far seem eager to become accessories after the fact to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

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Given that the Saudis have reverted to a lie so preposterous that even their own chief prosecutor felt compelled to abandon it weeks ago, the president should be asked: Why are you abetting this crime?

Are we really OK, as a country, with an ally luring a journalist living in Northern Virginia into what should be a diplomatic sanctuary for the purpose of assassination and dismemberment  and then baldly, brazenly, ludicrously lying about it?

Apparently, for Trump, the answer is yes, were fine with that. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fine. National security adviser John Bolton, not concerned.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are you fine with that? Speaker Paul Ryan? Will Congress go along with this coverup?

Because that also will be a choice. Congress does have alternatives.

For starters, it could summon CIA Director Gina Haspel, who listened to the tape of Khashoggis killing, who knows the truth, who almost certainly knows who ordered Khashoggis killing, and ask her: Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping?

Recall the sequence of lies that the Saudi regime has presented about this case:

Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist who would have turned 60 on Oct. 13, entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, at his governments invitation, shortly after noon on Oct. 2 to take care of some minor paperwork. He told his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, that he would be out shortly, and asked her to wait. She waited  until after midnight. She never saw him again.

The regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told The Post, told Congress, told the world: Khashoggi left the consulate not long after he entered.

We, too, are concerned.

Khashoggi was our friend.

Why would we harm him?

This was the story told by the crown prince and the crown princes younger brother, who happened to be the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Khalid bin Salman.

Where is the videotape of him leaving, they were asked. Our cameras were broken, they said. Where is the paperwork he came to fill out? They did not bother to reply.

No doubt they would have stuck by that story, malfunctioning cameras and all, but evidence got in the way. The Turkish government had photographs of a 15-man hit squad arriving from Saudi Arabia and entering the consulate shortly before Khashoggi. The Turks had audiotape of Khashoggis brutal killing, almost as soon as he entered the consulate. They knew that the hit squad included a forensic specialist who arrived with his bonesaw, who put on earphones and listened to music as he dismembered the body.

The Saudis retreated to a new story: No, our friend Jamal had not walked out of the consulate. Yes, they admitted, he had died inside. But he had perished in a brawl, when he tried to grapple with the security team (not a hit squad!) that had been sent to meet him.

That story, too, was too preposterous to sustain  or so we thought  and the Saudi prosecutor abandoned it, coincidentally just as Turkey was playing the audiotape for Haspel. Never mind, they said, there was no brawl; Khashoggi was the victim of a premeditated murder, after all.

Who had premeditated it? They would find out and tell the world, the crown prince himself assured Pompeo, and Pompeo assured us.

But on Thursday, the brawl myth was back. The Saudis announced that Khashoggis death was unintentional, that a friendly invitation to return to Saudi Arabia had gone awry.

Why would you need a 15-man team to tender such an invitation?

And even if what you had in mind was only a forcible rendition  what you or I would call a kidnapping  why would you need a bonesaw?

Oh, and where is Khashoggis body? Turned over to a mysterious Turkish collaborator, whom the Saudis are unable or unwilling to identify, even to Turkish police.

Probably no one in the United States government harbors the slightest doubt that the architect of this crime was the crown prince, as the CIA has concluded. His closest henchmen orchestrated the deed, and they would not dare act without his knowledge.

He bets that it wont matter. He bets that he can feed an already discredited fairy tale to Trump and Pompeo and Bolton, and they will obediently swallow it.

So far his bet seems safe.

But that doesnt mean the rest of us have to go along.

Why bring a bonesaw to a kidnapping, Your Highness?
President Donald Trump has talked tough on border security and immigration enforcement, with extreme rhetoric and harsh actions. Yet his administration has not materially changed the situation at the southwest border.

As measured by apprehensions of those who cross illegally, the southwest border today looks similar to what it was under the Obama administration. In fiscal year 2017, President Trumps first year, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 310,531 people. Apprehensions were up in fiscal year 2018 to 396,579. By comparison, apprehensions during the Obama administrations last six years ranged from 340,252 to 486,651. President Trumps numbers are toward the lower end, but they are not materially different.

His failure to drive down the number of unauthorized migrants results from policy prescriptions that are not grounded in the reality attendant to illegal crossing. To the contrary, the administrations policies  zero tolerance, troops at the border, prohibiting asylum claims  have been geared to stir political effects not achieve operational results.

There are effective steps that can be taken to further reduce and deter illegal migration. Migrants continue to arrive at the border because they succeed in entering the country in a legal way by claiming asylum, establishing credible fear (a low standard), and then being granted entry to await immigration proceedings. These proceedings, however, occur years later because of a hopelessly backlogged immigration court system.

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The immigration courts require an infusion of resources to hire more judges and expand capacity so that cases can be fairly resolved in weeks  not years. Since the majority of cases that go to a decision result in a denial of asylum, fair but expedited proceedings would create an effective deterrent to irregular migration. The costs of undertaking a dangerous journey more likely than not to end in deportation would close the loophole that is the essence of the illegal migration problem today. The presidents current gambit of restricting asylum by executive decree, by contrast, is both legally questionable and does not address the underlying court-capacity problem.

Reforming the immigration courts is not a shortcut, however, and it should be pursued with other measures. For instance, the United States could work with Mexico to build a credible asylum system there and require Central Americans who enter Mexico to use it according to a safe third country agreement of the type we have in place with Canada. Another related option is to establish safe zones in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala where those seeking asylum status in the United States (or Mexico) can have their claims heard in a protected environment. These types of efforts would go far in furnishing refuge to those who deserve it while deterring those whose principal motivation is economic migration.

Over the long term, the United States and Mexico must confront the issues that plague Central America. Development requires a multi-decade commitment, which will require real resources to address. If the United States turns its back on Central America, as the president has threatened to do by cutting aid to them, the problem will only continue to end up on the southwest border.

The time for action is becoming more urgent. Over the last three years, the United States has relied heavily on Mexico to help mitigate the flows of Central American asylum seekers. Indeed, by some estimates, Mexico has deported more Central Americans than the United States since 2015. But the incoming Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, may well be less accommodating than his predecessor in addressing this problem. Should Mexico direct resources and attention elsewhere, and return to its traditional exclusive focus on the human rights aspects of irregular migration, we will continue to see a substantial increase of Central Americans at the Tijuana/San Diego border.

The possibility of a clash between Presidents Trump and Lopez Obrador over illegal immigration is real, and the current caravan of Central American migrants could be the first crisis the new Mexican president confronts when he assumes office in December. Absent real coordination between the two governments  which is difficult in the transition between Mexican administrations  the nonstop arrival of migrant caravans at the U.S. border could result in consequences that substantially damage the countries relationship.

Border security and immigration enforcement are important issues that deserve attention and effective, realistic public policy. Inflammatory rhetoric, which has lost any deterrent value, should end. It is time for the Trump administration to address the actual issues impacting irregular migration at the southwest border.

Bersin, Bruggeman and Rohrbaugh worked together at U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration. Bersin, who served as commissioner, was previously the U.S. attorney in San Diego.
The California Republican Party is reeling. It hasnt elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump got just 32 percent of the vote two years ago  the worst showing by any major-party candidate in the state since 1924. And earlier this year, the number of Californians registered as decline-to-state actually passed the number of registered Republicans.

But as bad as things were for the GOP before election day, theyre now much worse. The results were so harsh that its an open question whether the party will be an afterthought in policy debates going forward. It appears that only eight of the states 53 House members will be from the GOP, down from 14. In the Legislature, Democrats will have their strongest supermajority yet, with 60 or more of the 80 Assembly seats. In statewide races, no Republican got even 40 percent of the vote.

The bad news doesnt end there, either. Republicans used to be able to count on anti-tax sentiment among state voters. But a measure to repeal gas tax hikes went down in flames this month. Supporters can blame misleading ballot language if they want, but voters recent support of tax hikes is also telling.

To see our editorial on how California Democrats should use their firm grip on power in the Capitol, go here.

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Meanwhile, voters dont appear to be holding incumbent Democrats to blame for any of the states problems  for Californias housing crisis, its high rates of poverty or its weak record educating English-language learners. Voters seem to endorse Democratic values so strongly that they dont sweat the details about everyones lives improving.

So where does the state GOP go from here? Former gubernatorial candidate Travis Allen is running for state party chair on a platform that emphasizes small government and immigration bashing. Given the election results, he might as well be in the pay of the Democratic Party. But he has a point when he says that there is no evidence that the approach of his opponent, former Assemblyman David Hadley  encouraging Republicans to moderate and drop their focus on hot-button issues  helped the GOP under outgoing Chairman Jim Brulte.

So is there any hope for Californian Republicans? A glimmer can be found in the results from 2006. That year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won re-election by 17 percent over state Treasurer Phil Angelides. He did so long after the novelty and excitement of having an action hero as governor had worn off and a year after sweeping reforms he sought to impose had been defeated in a special election. His re-election came after a legislative session in which Schwarzenegger worked closely with Democrats to craft Assembly Bill 32, the states landmark law combating climate change, signed bills raising the minimum wage and helping poor people with the cost of the cost of prescription drugs, and successfully recast himself as a deal-maker eager to compromise to advance a positive agenda. Polls showed voters believed Schwarzenegger  after years of stops and starts  had become an effective leader.

California Republicans with a similar can-do mindset, a willingness to compromise (only starting with immigration issues) and a full embrace of environmentalism just might have a chance at being relevant again. The question of whether they can do so with candidates who lack Schwarzeneggers charisma should be a concern. But after Nov. 6s wipeout, the GOP needs to try something new  at least if the party aspires to hold political power in Sacramento instead of just shout from the sidelines.

Coming Saturday: How should California Democrats use their firm grip on power in the Capitol?

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Clean energy need not be the most expensive

Re Is California going the way of Germany when it comes to energy? (Nov. 11): The article removes any confusion that Californias renewable energy efforts will mirror Germanys. Unfortunately, some quoted experts downplayed the economic strength of our states clean energy revolution. The Public Utilities Commission reported that in 2017 the average price of utility-scale photovoltaic solar contracts signed by investor-owned utilities was 3.3 cents per kilowatt. Elsewhere in the U.S., solar with battery backup can be found for 3.6 cents.

SDG&Es 9.8-cent electricity generation is triple the price of solar and most of the utilitys electricity comes from either fossil fuels or unknown sources. Clean energy prices in California have become a major benefit, not a liability.

It has been great to see Mayor Kevin Faulconer embracing Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) so that San Diegans will finally have access to clean, affordable energy.

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Tyson Siegele

University City

So much effort  all to save a few pennies

Re Glad to see San Diego embrace green energy (Nov. 11): Want another example of a CCA con job? The council member from Solana Beach brags that the citys brand new CCA will save its ratepayers $200,000 a year. Lets do the math  $200,000 divided by 7,200 (the total number of ratepayers in that city) equals $27.78 per year total or just $2.31 per month per ratepayer.

Go through all those gyrations for pennies? What it does do is give the local government control of its citizens access to and usage of electricity. Now the city of San Diego wants to create a costly monstrous bureaucracy to establish a CCA and for what, saving just pennies, all to make enviro-zealots feel good?

Lou Cumming

La Jolla

If the CCA is a better idea for buying energy, the CCA should expand to include the entire SDG&E territory and assumes contracts and responsibility to buy all the energy. SDG&E exits the business. The exit fee issue goes away entirely.

Jim Waring

San Diego

CCA payoff may not be worth the risks

Re Mayor gives support to energy-choice program (Oct. 26): Community choice aggregation (CCA) is lauded for lower cost renewable energy through adding another layer of government on top of the government-awarded existing service area monopoly SDG&E has. Our high-energy costs are as a result of government action, and government has approved every charge SDGE passes on to the ratepayer.

A Solana Beach council member has told me in an email he is saving about $5 month now as a CCA participant. Another Solana Beach resident, in a post to an article in the paper said his, and his neighbors cost reduction was in the $1 to $2 per month range. How each resident computes the cost difference is unknown to me. Exit fee costs are soon to be added, reducing the current savings.

These are trivial savings in exchange for the cost of enlarging government including its indirect costs to oversee the CCA and accepting financial risk to the taxpayer.

Bill Stoops

Solana Beach

Renewable energy still are the most expensive

Re Clean energy need not be the most expensive (Nov. 20): Unfortunately the letter writer perpetuates the myth that energy from renewable sources can be cheap. These often-quoted low-prices are cherry-picked from an assortment of choices, often subsidized, and do not apply to 24/7/365 sources.

In todays market SDG&Es 9.8 cents actually might be a bargain. As to CCAs, since California is already committed to rely 100 percent on renewable sources (at yet-to-be determined prices) is it really worthwhile to pay for an additional layer of government bureaucracy to buy power for us?

James Fish

Carlsbad

Its about much more than just saving money

Re So much effort  all to save a few pennies (Nov. 20): The reader who complains that Solana Beach is putting too much effort and money into having renewable electricity for its residents fails to understand the real reason for the project. It is to save the Earth for future generations.

One should feel good about spending money that is protective to our Earth. Yes, years out it should be a cost-saving measure as well. But the main reason is care of our environment.

Id say those who are against these measures for cost reasons are only thinking of themselves. They have no vision of the future or even care for future generations. They wish to rape the land for their own pleasures.

Sharon Smith

La Mesa

Support for carbon fee is a good first step

Thank you for your recent article on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Once again, the worlds scientists are telling us of the urgent need to move rapidly to a 100 percent clean-energy future, and the dire consequences of failing to do so.

Of course this will not be an easy task. Some will say it is too hard. Others will recoil from such an undertaking, seeking solace in denial of the truth of man-made climate change. As the IPCC report recognizes a price on carbon emissions is the first and best step forward on the path to a livable world.

The good news is that a steadily-rising, revenue-neutral carbon fee, with all proceeds returned to American households, will cause emissions to rapidly drop without harm to the overall economy or to American families. This is the solution we need. Tell Congress you support it.

Carl Yaeckel

San Diego

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Punjab, Pakistan -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/20/2018 -- Considered as one of the pioneering online eyewear store Ainak.pk is Pakistan's most inclusive yet exhaustive eyewear web store with an array of premium eyewear products that have been sourced from local and international suppliers allowing their valued customer to buy online eyeglasses in Pakistan. This year, Ainak.pk celebrated the completion of two years of successful service after launching in 2016, the Ainak.pk team is eager to evolve in to a bigger platform under the leadership of the founder and CEO of Ainak.pk.



Two years ago, the Ainak.pk platform was developed with the aim of providing a more convenient option for buying a complete variety of eyewear including exclusive lines and diverse selection of glasses and sunglasses with prescription lenses from the best contact lenses brands. The store was aptly named Ainak, which is the word for glasses in the Urdu language. The online store's name helped it to develop a distinct but clear identity with its clients that resonate with the local language.



The store prides itself for having premium quality glasses and sunglasses including functional and on trend designs suitable for men and women. Ainak.pk spokesperson Usman Khan said: "We developed the Ainak.pk platform with the understanding that your eyewear is a significant part of your daily life. The right frame will not only be a functional accessory but will also define the way you look. We want you to have only the best eyewear along with a convenient and comfortable shopping experience. "



After having served hundreds of satisfied clients throughout the different regions of Pakistan over the course of the last two years, the online Ainak.pk is also ready to conquer new horizons, open new doors, and seize new opportunities to serve their clients better. The minds behind the Ainak.pk platform are working on sourcing new eyesight glasses frames and exciting ideas to help the brand grow further to become the largest online eyewear store of the country.



The Ainak.pk spokesperson further said, "We are excited and eager to enter a new phase of evolution for our website. Ainak.pk has been our CEO's dream project and throughout the years, we have dedicated a lot of effort, love and passion into the platform. We will continue to provide our new and old customers with premium quality products and amazing customer services."



About Ainak.pk

Ainak.pk is a Lahore, Pakistan based online eyewear store extensive setup and cater to all kinds of eyewear. The founders of Ainak.pk portal have been in the eyewear business for more than a decade. The store's offerings include premium quality glasses, prescription and cosmetic contact lenses and sunglasses. For more information, please visit: https://www.ainak.pk/




Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/20/2018 -- A recent report by ResearchMoz.us, titled, " Iron Ore Mining in Australia to 2022 - Production Remains Buoyant Supported by New Projects," unravels the trajectory of the top export sector in the continent. It studies the various macro-fundamentals and industry-specific factors affecting mining, and the revenue generated from it. It also glances at the major players operating in the domain of iron ore mining in Australia.



Australia holds a crucial place in iron ore mining, alongside Brazil and Africa. While Brazil is home to the world's five biggest iron ore mines, Australia and Africa collectively host the following six largest. The ones in Australia are known as Hamersley, Chichester Hub, and Karara. All of them, in Western Australia, store billions of tons of proven and probable iron ore reserves. In fact, western Australia's iron ore output accounts for a lion's share of the total iron ore produced in the nation. A crucial steelmaking ingredient, most of those are imported to China, South Korea, Japan, India, and the U.S.



Royalties earned from large private mining giants operating in Western Australia, is a major revenue source for its government. Two such top players, BHP and Rio Tinto Group, are constantly expanding their facilities and improving their operations in order to up production and profit margins.



Get a Sample PDF: https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1925908



They are also seen spending huge amounts on automating the entire process to up efficiency and reduce operating costs. Automating logistics is something they have been particularly keen on. All such big players have their own private rail networks to transfer ore from their mining pits to the ports on the coast and are increasingly launching driverless trains for the purpose.



The large scale iron ore mining in Australia nevertheless does have a few hiccups to overcome. Those include technical and other glitches in operations such as derailment of trains carrying iron ore. Tax evasions by mining giants has also posed a problem for the government. Litigation battles are being fought against massive corporate tax bills. Another issue is the fallout on the environment.



However, despite such problems the iron ore mining in Australia is set to soar. BHP has recently approved a US$4 billion iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara. Meanwhile, Fortescue too has announced a new US$1.3 billion Eliwana project in the Pilbara. Rio Tinto is expected to approve the $3 billion Koodaideri mine soon enough.



Construction boom in the developing nations of India and China and demand from the automobile industry worldwide is expected to support growth of iron ore mining in Australia.



The report studies the aforementioned trends and announcements molding the path of iron ore mining Australia. To do so, it leverages both primary and secondary research. It tries to throw light on every facet of the market so as to enable key stakeholders bet right on the mining activities in Australia.



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Sellbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/20/2018 -- Growing need for hot water and space heating solutions across cold climatic regions along with shifting trend toward adoption of energy efficient heating units will drive the global market growth. Government efforts toward promotion of energy efficient systems in high carbon footprint buildings will further augment the product deployment. The European Union adopted the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD), targeting a zero-greenhouse gas release from building infrastructures by 2050.



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Healthcare commercial boiler market size is set to grow on account of rising demand for space heating and hot water needed for cleansing of medical tools, sheets and floors. In addition, growing investments toward modernization and development across private and public healthcare facilities will boost the deployment of commercial boilers across the industry. As per the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. in 2017, invested over USD 3.5 trillion toward healthcare, with a projected investment of over USD 5.7 trillion by 2050.



The U.S. market is predicted to surpass an annual installation of 80,000 units by 2024. Resurgent economic growth coupled with rapidly increasing population will drive the industry growth in coming years. As per the World Bank, the U.S. has witnessed a GDP growth of 34.5% between 2009 and 2017, and a population surge of 6.1% within the same period.



Gas fired commercial boiler market size is predicted to expand over 3% by 2024. Low carbon emissions, relatively lower operational cost and low maintenance requirement will accelerate the product adoption. Growing investments toward development and extension of gas infrastructure will further drive the business growth. In 2016, as per the European Commission, the EU has invested over USD 200 million toward the development of Balticconnector, a natural-gas pipeline connecting Estonia and Finland.



Introduction of stringent government legislatives toward the reduction of carbon emissions will boost the condensing commercial boiler market. For instance, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants was implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency in order to restrict the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and commercial establishments. Reliable operation, simple controls and compact design are the underlying features that will boost the product adoption.



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Growing efforts toward minimizing the effects of global warming in conjunction with the introduction of stringent efficiency and emission standards will propel the market growth. Investors and respective governments are continuously striving toward the development of ecologically and economically sustainable commercial infrastructures. For instance, the European Commission in 2017, introduced Framework Level(s), a voluntary framework toward enhancement of building sustainability.



Germany market is set to witness a revenue growth of over 1% by 2024. Stringent government regulations and standards to limit GHG emissions along with efforts toward adoption of energy efficient heating systems will drive the industry growth. The government of Germany has introduced the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency (NAPE) in 2016, with a target to reduce the country's energy consumption by 20% by 2020 compared with 2008 levels.



Browse key industry insights spread across 520 pages with 1001 market data tables & 37 figures & charts from the report @ https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/commercial-boiler-market



Global commercial boiler industry research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of Units and USD from 2013 to 2024, for the following segments:



Global Commercial Boiler Market, By Fuel

- Natural gas

- Oil

- Coal

- Others



Global Commercial Boilers Market, By Application

- Offices

- Healthcare

- Institutions

- Lodgings

- Retail



Notable industry participants across the global market include NIBE, Atlantic, Viessmann, Babcock and Wilcox, Bosch, A.O. Smith, Weil-McLain, Miura, Johnston, Lattner, Fulton, Parker and Hurst.
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/21/2018 -- The Hungarian fixed telephony market depends upon the existence of local telephone operators by a geographical division. The three companies named as significant market power (SMP) are the pioneers in telecos operations: Magyar Telekom, Invitel and UPC. Though telecom revenue was hit hard by the economic turmoil in 2008-09, the surge in the disposable income has boosted the market. These insights are according to the report titled "Hungary Telecoms Mobile And Broadband Statistics And Analyses"which has been recently added to the repository of Market Research Hub.



The three incumbents' market shares have continued to plunge over the past few years owing to the stiff competition from cable operators. On the other hand, television persists to have a huge role in the Hungarian telecommunication market. According to the National Regulatory Authority, about 90% of all households have a pay TV service and almost 50% of them subscribe to it through a bundled offer. As of May 2018, Liberty Global made a consent to sell its cable unitUPC Hungary to Vodafone Group; the deal is projected to enhance the position of Vodafone in the bundle service market.



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The super-fast broadband reach to the previously shunned areas can be attributed to the deal struck by the government with the telecos giant Maygar Telekom and other operators in the last quarter of 2015. Maygar Telekom has taken the Hungary' telecommunication market to new heights by launching a 2Gb/s fibre service and NB Internet of Thing platform. The market has been further bolstered by the investment of whooping HUF 150 billion done by Hungarian government to provide universal 30Mb/s broadband services. Moreover, the reality of bringing broadband reach in every nook and cranny of Hungary has been bolstered by the cut-throat competition in the broadband market. Apart from that, healthy competition is being witnessed between cable network and DSL services.



Hungary- Telecoms, Broadband and Mobile Statistics and Analyses: Report Content



The analysis of this report provides a thorough assessment on the Hungary- Telecom, Broadband and Mobile Statistics and Analyses market. Furthermore, the report gives an in-depth analysis with regards to market size production, value and consumption Essentially, the report delves into major drivers, restraints, trends, predominant players in the market and product categories along with market estimation. Besides, the report gives an over-view on the fixed line, broadband and mobile sectors.



The report comprises of the regulator's market data to June 2018, recent market developments and operating data to second quarter of 2018. Also, the report gives a thorough analysis on the acquisitions and launch of products or services.



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The report starts with the executive summary which highlights market size in terms of revenue, market value and production. In addition, an exhaustive analysis of the competitive landscape highlights profiles of eminent players in the global market space. Moreover, the report also assesses the strategic moves, areas of interest, and developments undertaken by major players in the market.



Hungary- Telecoms, Broadband and Mobile Statistics and Analyses: Research Methodology



A robust research methodology has been adopted with regards to providing a dynamic research approach consisting of secondary and primary research. The insights in the report is the result of the exhaustive secondary research, primary interviews and in-house reviews by panel of experts.



The secondary research includes but is not limited to SEC filings, company websites and presentations by investors, industry white paper and statistical database. Whereas, the primary research incorporates face to face interviews, phonic interviews and phonic interviews coupled with honest reviews of the shelf label market regardless of geographies. To provide the readers with authentic report, a panel of expert sifts the data collected from different sources.



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Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/21/2018 -- A new research study profiling the success of Wardah Cosmetics has been added to the repository of Market Research Hub (MRH). The report titled, "Success Case Study: Wardah Cosmetics - Capitalizing on growing demand for Halal cosmetics as a religious requirement and lifestyle choice" offers in-depth insights on the success case study of Wardah Cosmetics.



The case study offers in-depth information on the key motivations and inspirations of consumers while choosing a personal care brand. The study tracks the success of Wardah Cosmetics, a brand owned by PT Paragon Technology in Indonesia. The religious obligations of women in Indonesia have been taken care of the brand while manufacturing its products, as it focuses on maintaining Halal standards in its production. The success of Wardah Cosmetics has made it one of the leading cosmetics brands in Indonesia.



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According to the study, although a lot of companies claim to sell Halal products, ambiguity about the origin of the product, combined with presence of dubious companies in the market have meant that Halal-certification is a must. Wardah Cosmetics is a Halal-certified company, and it uses this as a key selling point in the market.



The research study also finds that Wardah Cosmetics has adopted multi-pronged approach towards marketing and advertising to cement its place among Indonesian consumers. In addition to commercials on TV, the brand is also focusing on tying up with influencers. Influencer marketing is growing in Indonesia, and the company is tying up with designers and film stars to boost its image among the key consumers.



Use of online media is also a part of Wardah's marketing strategy, and according to the study, the surging popularity of the brand has been leveraged by the company. The company has targeted women who wear hijab as well as those who do not, and has kept its product portfolio a mix of both premium and affordable. The high popularity of Wardah products in Indonesia has also led to a surge in appeal for products in Bangladesh and Malaysia.



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According to the study, the popularity and success of Wardah Cosmetics in Indonesia is an example and offers key takeaways that other personal care brands can adopt in their product and marketing mix. The information given in the study can also be leveraged by other brands and they can use it to reduce their chances of failure.



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About Market Research Hub

Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRH's expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.



MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.



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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/20/2018 -- The latest report, Silver Bonding Wires market enables stakeholders to gain insights into their potential consumers to construct more effective marketing strategies for the forecast period, 2018 to 2025. Most importantly, the document empowers business owners to seek information about potential consumers and where they can find them. With an exclusive coverage of the top vendors, the study enables business owners to know more about the local market and locate potential consumers.



The comprehensive study offers an overview of the current state of development of the business as well as predicts the course of progress across different regions. A large number of factors including the major driving forces, threats and opportunities are taken into account to present an analytical picture of the industry portrayed in the report.



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The research further examines and provides data on the market by type, application and geography interspersed with illustrations and other graphical representations. The market analysis not only determines the attractiveness of the industry but also the evolving challenges and opportunities and their association with the weaknesses and strengths of prominent market leaders.



Estimating the potential size of the Silver Bonding Wires industry:

Industry experts conducting the study further estimate the potential of the Silver Bonding Wires industry. Such information is important for firms looking to launch an innovative service or product on the market. Industry experts have measured the total volume of the given market. Researchers have calculated the industry in terms of sales by the competitors and end-user  customers. Data on the entire size of the Silver Bonding Wires market for a particular product or a service for the forecast period, 2018 to 2025 covered in the report makes it valuable. This information reveals the upper limit of the Silver Bonding Wires industry for a specific product or service.



Market Segment by manufacturers, the report covers the following companies:

Heraeus Holding, Amkor, Sumitomo Metal Mining, Tanaka, California Fine Wire, Kulicke & Soffa, KITCO, Custom Chip Connections, The Prince & Izant, Doublink Solders



Market Segment on the basis of Product, the report covers:

- SEA Type

- SEB Type



Market Segment on the basis of Application, the report covers:

- IC

- LSI

- Transistor

- Other



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Extensive data on market segmentation:

The Silver Bonding Wires market report divides the market of potential buyers into different groups, or segments/sub-segments, based on various characteristics. The segments and sub-segments identified contain buyers who are expected to respond or react similarly to certain products and services. The report further finds out consumers who share traits including similar expectations, interests, geography and needs. The segmentation sheds light on how some customers are likely to purchase a product or service than others to enable marketers to allocate their focus as well as the resource.



Market share:

The report discovers the market's total sale that is generated by a particular firm over a time period. Industry experts calculate share by taking into account the product sales over a period and then dividing it by the overall sales of the Silver Bonding Wires industry over a defined period. Subject matter experts further use this metric to offer a general idea of the share and size of a firm and its immediate rivals. By providing an in-depth knowledge of the position a company, as well as an entrepreneur, holds in the Silver Bonding Wires market



The research provides answers to the following key questions:

- What is the expected growth rate of the Silver Bonding Wires market? What will be the market size for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025?

- What are the major driving forces responsible for transforming the trajectory of the industry?

- Who are major vendors dominating the Silver Bonding Wires industry across different regions? What are their winning strategies to stay ahead in the competition?

- What are the market trends business owners can rely upon in the coming years?

- What are the threats and challenges expected to restrict the progress of the industry across different countries?

- What are the key opportunities that business owners can bank on for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025?



The study segments the complete Silver Bonding Wires market on the basis of different application, end-use, end-user, and production capability. From a business standpoint, the industry has been thoroughly examined across various countries located in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and others. The size of the industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2025 is evaluated on the basis of current sales figures and past financial report can be used to forecast the future sales.



Read More @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/silver-bonding-wires-market



Key Stakeholders

- Silver Bonding Wires Manufacturers

- Silver Bonding Wires Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers

- Silver Bonding Wires Subcomponent Manufacturers

- Industry Association

- Downstream Vendors

- Available Customizations



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Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/21/2018 -- According to the new market research report "Waterborne Epoxy Resin Market by Type (High Molecular Weight, Low Molecular Weight), Application (Coatings, Adhesives, and Composites), End-use Industry (Construction, Automotive, Textile, Packaging, and Furniture), and Region - Global Forecasts to 2022", The market size of waterborne epoxy resin is estimated to grow from USD 2.79 Billion in 2017 to 4.31 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 9.1% from 2017 to 2022. The market is driven by the rising demand for waterborne epoxy resins and composites from construction and automotive industries.



Don't miss out on business opportunities in Waterborne Epoxy Resin Market. Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=96799074



Coatings the largest application market for waterborne epoxy resin



The coating segment led the waterborne epoxy resin market in 2016. Waterborne epoxy resins are used in coatings, adhesives & composites applications. The market for waterborne epoxy resin is expected to grow during the forecast period due to the increasing infrastructural developments in the emerging economies in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.



Browse and in-depth TOC on "Waterborne Epoxy Resin Market"

111 - Tables

31 - Figures

149 - Pages



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https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/waterborne-epoxy-resin-market-96799074.html



Low molecular weight waterborne epoxy resin the fastest-growing type segment of the waterborne epoxy resin market



Low molecular weight waterborne epoxy resin is the fastest-growing segment of the waterborne epoxy resin market. Low molecular weight waterborne epoxy resins are extensively used in coatings, adhesives & composites. They offer good abrasion resistance, improved dry performance, easy mixing, and low odor. Increased government investments on commercial building & construction projects is driving the demand for low molecular weight waterborne epoxy resins, globally.



Asia Pacific the largest market for waterborne epoxy resin



Asia Pacific is the largest market for waterborne epoxy resins. The economic growth in the region (particularly in China and India) and growing end-use industries such as construction, automotive, textile, packaging, and furniture are driving the waterborne epoxy resin market.



The waterborne epoxy resins market has witnessed a significant growth in the recent years, and this growth is projected to persist in the coming years. Waterborne epoxy resins due to its characteristic properties such as amorphous thermosets with excellent mechanical strength and toughness, good thermal and electrical properties, minimal shrinkage and improved high temperature adhesive properties. Owing to these properties waterborne epoxy resins are widely used in various end-user industries such as construction, automotive, textile, packaging and furniture. Automotive is one of the major end-user industries of waterborne epoxy resins market. waterborne epoxies have wide spectrum of applications in coatings industry being used for different applications such metal packaging and water pipes, as anti-rust body primer in automotive, as thermosetting coats on coils, and flame retardants in general uses.



Currently, Asia-Pacific is the biggest market of waterborne epoxy resins, accounting for nearly 52.69% of the total market size in terms of value in 2014. Among all the countries, China dominates the waterborne epoxy resins market, which had the maximum market share in 2014 closely followed by the U.S. coatings industry is the largest consumed application of waterborne epoxy resins followed by adhesives. The European market is comparatively mature with a consumption growth rate well below the average market growth.



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Market players in the waterborne epoxy resin market



Hexion Inc. (US), Allnex GmbH (Germany), Huntsman Corporation (US), Evonik Industries AG (Germany), Olin Corporation (US), Kukdo Chemical Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Aditya Birla Chemicals (Thailand) Ltd. (Thailand), Reichhold LLC (U.S.), Nan Ya Plastics Corporation (Taiwan), ADEKA Corporation (Japan), DIC Corporation (Japan), Spolchemie A.S. (Czech Republic), Resoltech (France), LEUNA-Harze GmbH (Germany), Helios Resins (Slovenia), and Kumho P&B Chemicals Inc. (South Korea) are the players operating in the waterborne epoxy resin market.



Browse Adjacent Markets @ Chemicals Market Research Reports & Consulting



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The cold supply chain logistics session at the Asian Logistics and Maritime Conference (ALMC) in Hong Kong provided an insight into what goes into the process that allows consumers in Japan to enjoy fresh pork from Eastern Canada.

Setting the scene session moderator Robert Armstrong, president of the Chartered Institute of Logistics  North American Chapter said: The cold supply chain is far more integrated than a normal supply chain and have to far more control.

Food safety

With the transportation of goods such as meat understanding perishibility is a key factor and the cold supplu chain has a huge impact on public health around the world. This was echoed by Keith Reardon, svp consumer products supply chain growth for CN, who said: It's people's lives that are at stake when you talk about food safety.

Headquartered in east of Montreal, Canada in St-Hyacinthe Olymel is the country's third largest hog producer, but most of its exports head to Asia not just the other side of the country, but also across the Pacific.

The company's main export market for chilled pork is Japan  a six to seven day journey across Canada to Vancouver followed by a containership voyage across the transpacific. This is a total of 20 days providing for 35 days shelf life in Japan according to Alexandre Tarini vp of logistics for Olymel. Air freight is not an option due both to the volume shipped and the cost.

Time sensitive

The pork is shipped by rail across Canada in 53 foot containers. Timing is of great importance to ensure the product arrives in good condition and has adequate shelf life for customers in Japan. We make sure we send the cargo at the proper time to meet the proper ship, everyday of shelf life is very important, if we miss that sailing add an addtitonal seven days of transport, Reardon explained.

Ensuring that the pork arrives in Vancouver in good condition is a challenge not just because of the distances involved but also the Canada's weather that can vary from 35 degrees celcius in summer to minus 35 degress celcius in winter. Tarini explained that they have telematic monitoring of the container for temperature and airflow, and if necessary, they can stop the container mid-way in Winnipeg. Reardon of CN said: We have selected vendors who are able to repair these units in all the towns our trains go through.

According to Tarini over time issues with containers have reduced from 6% to less than 1%. The risk of getting a bad product to the customer is almost absent. What we've done with companies like CN is relaibilty of service, he said.

ALMC is part of Hong Kong Maritime Week.
CSP and PSA inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Wednesday for two additional berths at Cosco-PSA Terminal (CPT) in Singapore.

The additional berths will increase the joint venture's capacity from 3m teu a year to 5m teu with five berths all capable of handling mega-containerships. PSA said the berths would be supported by automated technologies at its Pasir Panjang Terminal.

Read more: Singapore port container volumes grow 8.9% to 33.7m teu in 2017

Zhang Wei, vice chairman and managing director of CSP said: The addition of the two new berths will enable us to secure more volume from the parent company and shipping alliances by providing them with high efficiency services. As our major hub port for transhipment in SE Asia, the expansion in the terminal will facilitate us to capture more volume from the new global trade momentum in the region.

Ong Kim Pong, regional ceo Southeast Asia, PSA International, said, PSA is honoured by the trust that CSP has placed in us to serve as their main hub port for container transhipment in Southeast Asia.

The CPT joint venture was founded in 2003 when PSA in moved away from being a purely common user facility in Singapore.
Being forced to queue for well over an hour in order to get through the House of Commons lamentably slow security system meant that many guests didnt actually make it to the UKMPG event until half-way through the allotted two hours.

By that stage, chilled to the bone, the talk was whether there would be hot chocolate or mulled red wine and whether we would really have to take off our coats  at all, ever. (Two nos and one yes, since you ask.)

And so to the speeches, which were a fine mix of Brexit despair and Brexit optimism.

Shadow secretary of state for transport Andy McDonald talked about the food warehousing issue  people are running out of space and no one knew about that better than those in the room, he noted  and said it was hard to be over-optimistic at this time.

We see the figures about car exports and vehicles shipped through our UK ports and I share an awful lot of trepidation about the future, he said.

The agreement now being proposed between the UK and the European Union was only a temporary fix, he said. We look at this with great anxiety  there is no other way to describe it.

Shipping Minister Nusrat Ghani was upbeat, describing Brexit as now the biggest priority and telling guests: We are working with countries across the world to ensure Britain becomes a global leader in free trade once we leave the EU. We aim to remove barriers and bring benefits to UK consumers.

Read more: Brexit: UK to retain leadership in Maritime Services, vows Minister

The government was making plans both for a deal and also for the unlikely scenario of no deal, said Ghani. Ports, she said, had a massive role to play as we become more outward looking.

The event included the launch of the UKMPGs new 5-point plan for growing the success of the UKs major ports. These were outlined by Charles Hammond, chief executive of Forth Ports and UKMPG chair, who highlighted the fact that the ports industry contributes 7.6bn to the UK economy. Every direct job in the ports sector supports at least six in the broader economy, he said.

Over the last five to seven years, we have grown our economic contribution by 25%, improved our productivity and our skills base, and attracted global capital.

Read more: A politician realises ports are important

What is the ports sector looking for in return? The UKMPG list: ensuring that the UK has a major ports sector that can continue to thrive in a changing world; connectivity that boosts trade, productivity and sustainability; a positive planning and development framework; a balanced environmental approach that delivers both sustainability and growth; and ensuring that the UK is well-placed to develop the ports of the future.

Connectivity is a must, Hammond said: We would ask you [the government] to look at any major road or rail scheme and consider trade and the links of that scheme to the nearest port.

A lot of coastal communities in which ports operate are very hard-pressed, he said, and could do with sharing some of the prosperity generated by trade.

UKMPG members want red tape cut in planning, said Hammond, who called for the creation of free trade areas at ports around the country as well as recognition that the sector saves more carbon than it creates.

I have been in the industry for almost 30 years. When I started, we occasionally got a visit from the Department for Transport (DfT). Now we have real partnership.

Now the UKMPG was asking government to take that a bit further, he said, with the suggestion of forming a policy board in which government and the industry could work jointly.

And finally, in the interest of balanced reporting, I should say: guests were assured that the issue of the long, frozen queue would be raised with the Speaker of the House of Commons. And anyway, it wasnt all negative. Just outside the door at this frictionful border, the security staff had helpfully place a box, into which people could dispose of their broken umbrellas, blown hopelessly inside out by the icy blasts on Cromwell Green. An impressive, but forlorn, collection.
Press Release

November 21, 2018 ANGARA WANTS PUP DESIGNATED AS 'NATIONAL POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY' Senator Sonny Angara is pushing for a legislation that would officially designate the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), the country's largest state university by student population, as the "National Polytechnic University." Angara has filed Senate Bill 2037, which seeks to strengthen the PUP as an institution and solidify its position as one of the country's premier state universities. "It is high time that we strengthen the PUP and officially designate it as the 'National Polytechnic University,' which will cater to educating and developing the country's future industry leaders," Angara said. Founded in 1904, the PUP has more than 20 campuses serving more than 70,000 students, making it the largest state university in the Philippines in terms of student population. Its main campus is located in Sta. Mesa, Manila. Prior to the enactment of law providing free higher education in public colleges and universities, the PUP is considered the state university that offers low tuition but still provides high quality education. Through his proposed measure, Angara said the government will strengthen the PUP as an institution and equip it to better fulfill its mandate of providing technical and professional instruction, training students in the applied arts and sciences. "In doing so, the PUP will be able to propagate more widely the ideals for which its core values are based--social justice, peace, freedom, academic excellence, ethical and moral standards, cultural identity, and respect for diversity, civil society engagement, and passion for learning," Angara pointed out. "The PUP has stood out, being among the first in the country to emphasize hands-on, skills-based education that respond to market demands and societal needs," he added. Aside from pioneering two-year associate's degrees that bring students faster and closer to gainful employment, Angara said the PUP piloted ladderized technical courses, which the national government is currently working to ramp up across the country with the recent passage of the Philippine Qualifications Framework. Moreover, Angara said the PUP has performed consistently well, producing topnotchers in the various licensure exams such as in engineering, architecture, and information technology. "On top of this, the results of annual surveys conducted by Jobstreet.com show that employers in the Philippines consider graduates of PUP as their top choice for employment--underscoring that a PUP education is competitive and relevant to society's needs," he added. Angara's bill, to be known as the Revised PUP Charter, provides that as the National Polytechnic University, the PUP shall enjoy fiscal and institutional autonomy. Taking into account national goals and priorities, the PUP shall exclusively determine its teaching research and extension thrusts, plans, policies, programs and standards. On the basis of such determination, the university shall recommend its annual budget to the President and Congress.
Press Release

November 21, 2018 De Lima demands full transparency on PH deals with China Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has sought for full transparency on the 29 deals entered into between the Philippines and China during the first day of Chinese President Xi Jinping's two-day state visit in the country. De Lima, who chairs the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development, underscored the need to make public all of these signed agreements to ensure that the best interest of the country and the people remains paramount. "Considering that the interests of China are totally opposed to ours, especially in respect to the West Philippine Sea issue, the government should always follow the principles of transparency and accountability which require that the terms of any deals or loan agreement be subjected for extreme scrutiny to protect our country's economy and national security," she said. "Alarmingly, Malacanang has not given the Filipino public a complete details about its Memorandum of Understanding with China aside from the number of deals signed and its title," she added. In response to Mr. Duterte's invitation to him to visit the Philippines when they first met in Beijing in October 2016, Xi will be in Manila for a two-day state visit from Nov. 20 to 21. Based on media reports, Xi and Duterte signed 29 deals last Nov. 20 including memorandum of understandings on oil and gas development and on cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative. It may be recalled that Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier revealed that Xi's visit will "put pressure" in hastening the approval of China-financed infrastructure projects. Notably, Xi's visit comes after the group led by Davao-based businessman Dennis A. Uy and state-owned China Telecom Corp. Ltd. was declared as the provisional third telco player in the Philippines. The Senator from Bicol said Duterte's inclination to favor Chinese nationals has since posed serious concerns about his loyalty to serve the country and the Filipino people. "As I've said before, Duterte's lack of transparency on his dealings with his Chinese masters raises questions whether or not his loyalty belongs to China or the Philippines. We need to scrutinize if the President's action vis-a-vis China really have a positive impact on the socio-economic development of the Philippines," she said. In November 2016, De Lima has filed Senate Resolution No. (SRN) 222 which seeks to inquire into the various investment deals entered into by the Duterte administration during the President's State Visit to China in October 2016. In May 16, 2017, she also filed SRN 377 urging the Senate to look into the possible onerous terms and long-term financial and economic repercussions of the multi-billion dollar loans and investments package offered by China to the Philippines under its belt and road initiative. Last February, she again filed SRN 628 directing the appropriate Senate committee to investigate the complete terms and conditions of the loans entered into by the Philippine government to fund its "Build, Build, Build" Program to assess the possible impact of Chinese loans on our economy and national security. De Lima also expressed concern over the administration's obvious lack of transparency over the terms of Chinese loans to fund the infrastructure program especially because lenders, including China, pay around 2-7 percent finders' fee for each agreement.
Press Release

November 21, 2018 HONTIVEROS: JOINT OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION AGREEMENT DOES NOT ASSERT PHILIPPINE SOVEREIGNTY AND CONSTITUTION Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros on Wednesday said that President Rodrigo Duterte failed to assert the country's sovereignty and the Constitution after he signed a framework agreement with China on joint maritime oil and gas exploration. Hontiveros made the statement after a copy of the agreement was leaked to the media. "Dehadong-dehado ang Pilipinas sa kasunduan. If the leaked copy of the agreement is proven authentic, President Duterte signed a document that did not assert our Constitution and sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea against China's discredited nine-dash line, which lays claim to every shoal, reef and islet in the region," Hontiveros said. Hontiveros decried the absence of the 60-40 equity rule in the agreement as required by the 1987 Constitution. She also hit the agreement's confidentiality clause which states that any document, information or data concerning the joint exploration shall be kept confidential. The Senator also pointed to the dispute settlement provision of the agreement which she said favors so-called friendly consultations instead of arbitration and other multilateral approaches. Hontiveros called on the Executive branch to divulge the full details of the agreement together with 28 other agreements signed by the Philippine government with China during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the country. "The people need to scrutinize all these documents. We need to know whether or not these agreements are compatible with our sovereign and territorial interests and in full compliance with our international obligations, particularly the arbitral tribunal ruling on the West Philippine Sea," Hontiveros said. "The Senate must lead this initiative given that it has material interest in ensuring that the foreign policy adopted by the Executive is in the best interest of Filipino citizens," Hontiveros concluded.
Press Release

November 21, 2018 Gordon bill to create culture of organ donation among Filipinos Senator Richard Gordon has filed a bill that aims to create a culture of organ donation among Filipinos. Gordon said a number of countries have already adopted the "Opt-Out" system of organ donation where citizens are presumed to have given their consent to donate their organs upon death unless they specifically refuse to become organ donors "Explicit Opt-Out laws have long been among the major interventions used to increase the pool of potential donors in countries such as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey," Gordon, who is also the Red Cross chairman, said. He said evidence showed that organ donations in countries practicing the "presumed consent" had sharply increased from 25 percent to 35 percent as compared to countries requiring "explicit consent" to donate their organs. Gordon said organ donation rates in the country would likely increase once Senate Bill No. 2096 would be passed into law because those who do not register a preference either way would be treated as donors. Under current laws, donors have to give their explicit consent to donate their organs. Gordon said an increasing number of Filipinos had been diagnosed with kidney disease or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), the last stage of chronic kidney disease, as a consequence of underlying diseases such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension. He said the patients with kidney failure have either to undergo dialysis, which costs as much as P3,000 per session, or kidney transplantation. Despite the availability of dialysis machines, he said kidney transplantation was still the treatment of choice for ESRD patients because it offered a better-quality life and long term survival. The estimated expectancy post-transplant is 17.19 years as compared to only 5.48 years, if the patient remains on dialysis, he said. Unlike in other developed countries, Gordon said 95 percent of kidney donors in the Philippines come from living related donors and five percent from deceased donors despite efforts of government and non-governmental organizations to encourage organ donations. He said the passage of SBN 2096 into law would put a "legal obligation on any citizen to contribute to the system they stand to benefit from." Under the bill, Filipinos aged 18 and above, who object to the removal of any part or organ from his or her body after death will be required to register his or her objection with the Department of Health-Philippine Network for Organ Sharing (PhilNOS). The DOH-PhilNOS will issue a certification and an opt-out card to the person as proof that his or her objection was duly recorded and registered. Filipinos who have lost their citizenship and obtained citizenship in another country but are residing in the Philippines may donate their organs by registering their consent with DOH-PhilNOS. Under the proposed legislation, the DOH-PhilNOS shall establish and maintain a national register of all Filipino citizens and all Filipinos who opted-out not to donate any organ, tissue or cornea after their death. It shall also maintain a national register of all persons who opted-in to donate any organ, tissue or cornea after their death. The act prohibits the selling and buying of organs as well as prohibits unauthorized persons to remove and/or transplant any organ, tissue or cornea of a person. Violation of the act includes imprisonment of 20 years and a fine of not less than P1 million but not more than P2 million, according to the bill. "If a person can be an organ recipient, they should also be able to give an organ and vice versa. This principle is consistent with the view that a fair concept of justice calls for reciprocal altruism," Gordon stressed.
Serko shares dropped to a two-month low yesterday as the global tech sell-off overshadowed earnings in line with the firm's expectations.

The online travel booking software developer lifted first-half sales and earnings and affirmed annual guidance as it continues its push into the Northern Hemisphere, where it sees an opportunity to grab market share.

Sam Trethewey, a portfolio manager at Milford Asset Management, said the company delivered exactly what it said it would. He's comfortable with how it's executing its plan as a small player in a large corporate travel space.

However, the timing of the result coincided with an ongoing sell-off of tech stocks on Wall Street that weighed on domestic peers such as Pushpay Holdings, Eroad and Gentrack.

"The business is executing to plan - it's more what's happening in other markets," Trethewey said. "Serko hadn't moved really until yesterday's result, which triggered investors to review it."

Serko shares were unchanged today at $3 after dropping 8.8 percent yesterday. They are still one of the top performers on the S&P/NZX All Index, up 37 percent so far this year and more than 10 times the 29 cents it was trading at in early 2017.

The company yesterday reported a net profit of $920,000 in the six months ended Sept. 30 from $1.1 million a year earlier, when it first achieved profitability. First-half revenue climbed 23 percent to $11.8 million, and the company affirmed annual guidance for operating revenue to grow 20-to-30 percent, implying sales of $21.9 million to $23.8 million in the year ending March 31.

The lower profit was due in part to Serko's dual-listing on the ASX, and as it spent more on new hires and contractors to support its growth ambitions, and bolstered research and development.

Serko expects that extra spending will deliver earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of around $2.2 million in the year ending March 31, largely the same as the year earlier. First-half ebitda rose 12 percent to $1.5 million in the six months ended Sept. 30.

However, chief executive Darrin Grafton anticipates the added cost this financial year will be earned back to Serko the following year.

While Serko says it's carefully managing investment after raising $15 million in August, it's still open to making acquisitions to kick-start growth.

Grafton told BusinessDesk previous purchases are a good indication of where Serko is looking. That includes expanding the firm's technology stack, acquiring new customers, or adding infrastructure when new systems are needed.

The company is establishing a foothold in the Northern Hemisphere with a successful trial of its Zeno platform by travel management company ATPI in the UK. That's going to be extended to other corporate clients in the second half and will likely get rolled out to Europe and North America in the same period.

Partnering with other companies in resale arrangements means a lot of the cost is front-loaded and that spending can be dialled back when an agent is comfortable with the platform.

"The opportunity to go into 50 countries is there," Grafton said, adding that it's currently setting up in seven countries simultaneously.

Serko has signed Zeno agreements with other travel management companies and is in talks with others. It expects to close another reseller agreement in the current financial year, with revenue set to flow from a final deal in subsequent financial years.

The company's shareholder register has swelled to 1,208 investors as at Nov. 15 from 779 a year earlier. That includes the addition of new institutional investors from the August capital raising.

Grafton says those institutional investors have been heavily engaged since coming on the register, something he puts down to the depth of the ASX which has a number of travel management companies and online booking agents.

(BusinessDesk)

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PMK founder Ramadoss has been voicing out against the onscreen smoking culture among Tamil actors. Ramadoss opposed Superstar Rajinikanth, Vijay and many other leading actors in Tamil film industry. Recently in theposter, actor Vishal posed with a beer bottle on his hand.

Satirically criticizing Vishals pose in the first look poster, Ramadoss said: In the first look poster of Ayogya, Vishal appears with a beer bottle. As he is the General Secretary of Nadigar Sangam, I even wrote to him that smoking scenes in films should be banned. But now, he is posing with a beer bottle. These posters should be immediately withdrawn. What kind of message Vishal is intending to say to his fans with this poster? I expect basic social responsibility from Nadigar Sangams General Secretary.
"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the department of defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday.

: The United States has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive early this year, the Pentagon has said.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as deputy assistant secretary defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January of this year is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern -- that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbors," Sedney said.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the department of state and the National Security Council, as well as acting president of American University of Afghanistan.

He was a part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a daring raid by US commandoes in Abbottabad.

Over the last few days Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of bin Laden.
US renews accusations of unfair trade practices against China



Washington, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



The United States has accused China of failing to change its "unfair" trade practices, highlighting persistent tensions between the economic giants ahead of a planned meeting between their presidents.

The renewed accusations from President Donald Trump's administration come as markets grow pessimistic that the world's two largest economies can resolve their burgeoning trade war any time soon.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to discuss trade when they meet later this month during the Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

In an update to a report issued in March, the Office of US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday that China had not remedied practices long criticized by the United States and other major economies.

"This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation," Lighthizer said.

American authorities accuse China of seeking global industrial dominance in cutting-edge sectors like robotics and renewable energies through a variety of illicit means.

Those include stealing American intellectual property by forcing or pressuring US companies present in China to surrender it or through state-sponsored corporate acquisitions, hacking and industrial espionage as well as massive state subsidies and dumping.

Beijing rejects the charges but Brussels and Tokyo have joined Washington in denouncing Chinese trade practices. The three economies issued a joint statement on the subject in September.

China was restrained in its response to the latest US accusations.

"The China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular press briefing on Wednesday.

"Economic and trade frictions are normal. The key is to conduct dialogue and consultation on the basis of mutual respect, equality and integrity," Geng said.

The report released Tuesday said China "indeed appears to have taken further unreasonable actions in recent months."

The report cited the conclusions of civilian cybersecurity firms, according to which Chinese hacking efforts had continued unabated, with state-sponsored entities targeting the "cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, biomedicines, civilian space, alternative energy, robotics, rail, agricultural machinery, and high-end medical devices sectors."

In October, the Justice Department also announced charges against Chinese intelligence officers and agents accused of overseeing the cyber-theft of intellectual property and confidential information from aerospace and high-tech companies.

Trump has enacted punishing tariffs on more than $250 billion in imports from China, which has in turn put counter-tariffs on more than $100 billion in goods China buys from the United States.

The American president on Tuesday reiterated a threat to put tariffs on all Chinese imports if Beijing failed to satisfy his demands. US duty rates on $200 billion in Chinese goods are due to rise to 25 percent in January if no resolution is reached.

US stocks have fallen hard this week, pushed lower in part because of a standoff at the weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that revived worries about the US-China trade rift. The meeting ended for the first time in APEC history without a group communique.
Rising tensions on the Indian subcontinent with minorities like Muslims, Dalits, and Sikhs being increasingly targeted by political and mob violence has resulted in a spike of asylum cases from India states a newly released refugee claims analysis report.

The number of asylum seekers in Canada from India, a majority of them Sikhs, has soared by over 300% in the past two years alone, with international groups like Amnesty International actively launching campaigns like Halt the Hate against violence targeting Indias minorities.

In 2017, an alarming number of alleged hate crimes  including assault, rape, and murder  were reported against people from marginalized groups, said Amnesty International India. The group has launched an interactive data website, Halt the Hate.

The Refugee Claims Analysis Report (RCAR), compiled by the Intelligence and Analysis section of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), shows that in the first six months of 2018, the number of refugee claims (asylum seeking applications) shot up to 1,805, surpassing the total figure of 1,487 claims made in the entire 2017.

The refugee claims made in the first six months of 2018 are over 310% of the total claims made in 2016, which stood at 582.

Canadian authorities are expecting the number of cases to jump up to 4,200 this year (2018) - an increase of nearly 720% over 2016 and nearly 285% compared to figures of 2017.

Most claimants were born in Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, the report stated.

The RCAR, pointed out: A frequent basis of claim cited by Indian nationals is the fear of arbitrary arrest or abuse by the police based on accusations of supporting militant organizations. It should be noted that the vast majority of these claims are filed by Indian Sikhs.

From being ranked 15th as a refugee source country in 2016, India is now No. 2 rank, behind Nigeria, which has 6,166 claims until June 2018.

In 2017, an alarming number of alleged hate crimes  including assault, rape, and murder  were reported against people from marginalized groups, especially Dalits and Muslims, said Amnesty International India today, as it launched an interactive data website, Halt the Hate.

The Amnesty report said:

The first step to ensuring justice and ending impunity for hate crimes  where people are targeted because of their membership of a particular group  is to highlight their occurrence, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India.

Our website aims to draw attention to some of these crimes by tracking and documenting them. Many of these incidents are deeply disturbing: Dalits have been attacked for merely sporting mustaches, and Muslims lynched for transporting cattle. Dalit women have been branded as witches and raped and killed.

Unfortunately, the extent of hate crime in India is unknown because the law  with some exceptions  does not recognize hate crimes as specific offenses. The police need to take steps to unmask any potentially discriminatory motive in a crime, and political leaders must be more vocal in denouncing such violence.

In the case of Indias Sikhs, tensions are rising between the Indian government and the countrys Sikh population due to calls by factions within the community, particularly by the global Sikh diaspora, to hold an unofficial referendum in 2020 on the question of independence.

According to the Refugee Claims Analysis Report, (Indian) government officials argue that the Sikh diaspora is attempting to revive the regions former militant independence movement.

Critics argue that arbitrary detention and false charges of militancy are being used by the state to silence calls for self-determination.

The basis of claim analysis also indicates that Sikhs regularly report detention, assault, and torture by police based on vague accusations of supporting militants.

As government pushback against the Sikh community continues, fear of arbitrary arrest and abuse by authorities will likely prompt more Indian Sikhs to leave the country.

In light of current tensions between the Indian government and the Sikh community, it can also be expected that claimants will continue to include a large number of individuals born in Punjab or Haryana.

Other significant bases of claims include honor killings, political persecution of opposition party supporters, and discrimination based on sexual orientation, the report stated.

The National Post reported that there are suggestions the Trudeau Liberals are manipulating the process for political purposes.

Sources suggest that in 2016, Canadian visa officers in India were told to facilitate people seeking temporary resident visas, at the same time as senior officials sympathetic to increased Sikh immigration were brought in to oversee the program.

This fall, visa officers in India were reportedly given verbal instructions to issue multi-entry visas valid for 10 years to all parents with children in Canada and to others with relatives in Canada, the paper said.

Mathieu Genest, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, denied the suggestions and said the independence of visa officers is enshrined in law and no political direction was given.

Canada is a preferred destination for Indian visitors, business travelers and students and we value their contributions to Canadian society, he said. While the overall number of Indian TRV (temporary resident visa) holders claiming asylum has risen, these claims represent less than one percent of all Indian travelers to Canada. The vast majority of Indian nationals visiting or migrating to Canada do so through regular means.

The rising numbers come in the wake of the 34th anniversary of the anti-Sikh riots that broke out after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The trigger for Gandhi's killing was the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar city for four months.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the anti-Sikh riots that followed with rights activists accusing the Congress Party of having turned a blind eye while others say some of its leaders helped orchestrate the violence.

Jagmeet Singh, the federal New Democratic Party leader, who is aiming to secure a parliamentary seat in Burnaby, wants the House of Commons to recognize the carnage carried out by the fanatic Hindu mobs in November-1984 as genocide.

The Indian government sees this move as alarming evidence of Sikh extremism on Canadian soil.

At the same time the US-based group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), with chapters in the U.K. and in Canada, is running a global campaign with regards to re-establishing Punjab as a nation state.

Punjab Referendum 2020 is a campaign to liberate Punjab, currently occupied by IndiaOnce we establish consensus on the question of independence, we will then present the case to the United Nations for re-establishing the country of Punjab, states the groups campaign website called referendum2020.org.

Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) is targeting Sikh communities and temples in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver to join some 100 cities worldwide to build consensus on the question of independence.

Canada has reaffirmed its support for a united India.
Guest Commentary

Jamie Liew

Theres been a lot of talk about getting rid of birthright citizenship in Canada and the United States. President Donald Trump announced that hell issue an executive order and the Conservative Party of Canada passed a motion that, should they be the next federal government, birthright citizenship will be no more.

In the U. S., the president will have to contend with the fact that he cant just unilaterally eliminate a right in the 14th Amendment of the constitution.

In Canada, birthright citizenship can be eliminated simply by amending or repealing parts of the Citizenship Act.

In both countries, the preoccupation with ending birthright citizenship is tied to the argument that migrants are engaging in birth tourism and challenging the integrity of citizenship. But the facts say otherwise.

As Andrew Griffith, former director general at Citizenship and Immigration Canada points out, fewer than 0.1 percent of total births in Canada in the last 10 years (except 2012) involved births of children to foreign mothers. Griffiths concludes, An impartial observer would conclude that there is currently no business case for changing Canadas birth policy.

Aside from the business case, whats not talked about is how the elimination of birthright citizenship would affect not just migrants, but all of us. Undoubtedly, such a policy would increase the number of stateless persons in Canada.

Every person born in Canada would have to apply for citizenship. More tax dollars would be needed to process the applications. Clerks would suddenly have the power to make substantive and legal determinations about the status of every person who applies for citizenship. Like any administrative system, mistakes would be made. Bad or wrong decisions would be challenged in the courts at great expense to both the state and people affected. People would struggle with the fact that they are stateless in the interim.

Being stateless has serious implications.

Stateless persons have difficulty accessing education, employment, health care, social services and freedom of movement. Simple things like obtaining a bank account, cellphone account or registering birth, marriage or death are complicated, if not impossible. Stateless persons would be subject to arrest, detention and potential removal to places they may never have been to before.

The elimination of birthright citizenship would affect the most vulnerable the greatest: the indigent, less educated, those with mental illness, children in precarious family situations or wards of the state. These are the people who may not have the appropriate paperwork or proof that they do qualify for citizenship or they wont have support for obtaining citizenship.

This one policy would create an expensive social problem for the state.

The elimination of birthright citizenship is then not an act to preserve or protect the integrity of citizenship. The policy is a dividing tool that fuels discrimination against those of different races and socio-economic classes. Its a tool to delegitimize persons who have a genuine and effective link to Canada. It would create barriers to important rights that come with citizenship, including the right to vote.

We only need to look at how stripping citizenship and the denial of citizenship in other places of the world have encouraged discrimination, persecution, and violence against stateless persons. For example, the oppression of and the genocide against Rohingya was precipitated by their denial of citizenship in Myanmar, a country they called home for generations.

Canadians should be cautious when considering the idea to get rid of birthright citizenship. It wouldnt stop migrants from coming. Instead of making it harder to get citizenship, we should trust our well-oiled immigration system to deal with the entry of persons within our country.

Such a policy would not build confidence in the integrity of Canadian citizenship. Instead, citizenship would be more precarious than ever before.

Canadians should also be mindful that Canada has signed onto the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which obligate Canada not to create situations of statelessness.

My father was born stateless because the state he was born into didnt confer birthright citizenship. It affected his opportunity for education, employment, and his mental health.

Being a child of a previously stateless person, Im proof enough that welcoming stateless persons to Canada with the conferral of citizenship is the best way to build a nation.

Jamie Liew is an immigration lawyer and an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, and a contributor with EvidenceNetwork.ca, which is based at the University of Winnipeg.
Facebook's Zuckerberg says he is not considering resigning



Washington, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



Embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he has no plans to resign, sounding defiant after a rough year for the social platform.

"That's not the plan," Zuckerberg told CNN Business when asked if he would consider stepping down as chairman.

He also defended Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has drawn criticism over her handling of the social media giant's recent crises.

"Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts for a lot of the biggest issues we have," said Zuckerberg.

"She's been an important partner to me for 10 years. I'm really proud of the work we've done together and I hope that we work together for decades more to come."

Facebook has stumbled from one mess to another this year as it grappled with continuing fallout from Russia's use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which user data was harnessed in a bid to help candidate Donald Trump, and a huge security breach involving millions of accounts.

Most recently, an investigative piece published last week by The New York Times said Facebook misled the public about what it knew about Russia's election meddling and used a PR firm to spread negative stories about other Silicon Valley companies and thus deflect anger away from itself.

"It is not clear to me at all that the report is right," Zuckerberg said of the Times article.

"A lot of the things that were in that report, we talked to the reporters ahead of time and told them that from everything that we'd seen, that wasn't true and they chose to print it anyway."

Zuckerberg also defended his company against the broader wave of flak it has taken this year.

"A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us," he said.

"There are big issues, and I'm not trying to say that there aren't... But I do think that sometimes, you can get the flavor from some of the coverage that that's all there is, and I don't think that that's right either."

dw/qan

Facebook
Virtual reality resurrects ancient Rome bit by bit



Rome, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



Gazing upon the splendours of ancient Rome is no longer a luxury reserved for visitors to the Italian capital, as temples opened their doors internationally with a digital project launched Wednesday after decades of planning.

The Rome Reborn tour is the first to show users over 7,000 buildings and monuments from the year AD 320, allowing both those with Virtual Reality goggles or just a computer to explore over 14 square kilometres (five-and-a-half square miles).

"I first came up with the idea in 1974. I was determined to find a way to bring these wonderful monuments to the world, but the technology didn't exist then," the project's director, digital archaeologist Bernard Frischer, told AFP.

"We had to redesign the model three times as technology advanced, but 22 years after we began, and three million dollars (2.6 million euros) later, we're finally here," he said.

Users can currently do a "fly-over" of ancient Rome as well as stop and explore two sites, the Roman forum and the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, designed with input from a team of archaeologists.

"We chose AD 320 because we have the most information for that period so we can be as accurate as possible, and after that the empire's capital moved to Constantinople," said 69-year-old Frischer.

"At the moment you can travel in a virtual hot air balloon over the ancient city, and teleport between different parts of historic sites to see them as they were and learn more about them.

"In the next two to three years we will add other key sites, such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon," he said.

Users are able to switch between views of the monuments as they are now -- the ruined remains -- and as they were then.

The project is named after the words of 15th century papal secretary Flavio Biondo, who is the first documented person to have called for a reconstruction of ancient Rome.

Frischer, a classics scholar who teaches a PhD in Virtual Heritage, said users wearing virtual reality goggles would eventually be able to train together as gladiators in the Colosseum or race each other in chariots around the Circus Maximus.

Flyover Zone, the company behind Rome Reborn, plans to reconstruct Athens in the time of Socrates and Jerusalem in the period of Jesus Christ.

It is not the only project which allows people to see Rome as it was under various emperors, but those wanting to explore Nero's Domus Aurea palace and the Caracalla thermal baths have to use virtual reality goggles on site.
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Bulgaria sends 200,000 landmines back to Greece



Sofia, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



The Bulgarian government said Wednesday it has finally shipped back to Greece nearly 200,000 landmines that have been waiting to be destroyed since a deadly explosion ripped through the plant where they were stored four years ago.

"Bulgaria completed the transportation to Greece of 190,570 landmines from the plant near Gorni Lom," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Greece had contracted a private Bulgarian firm to destroy a total of 1.5 million landmines at the plant, but an explosion ripped through the factory on October 1, 2014, killing 15 people.

The privately-owned plant was then stripped of its licence to decommission the remaining landmines.

With worried local residents long pressing for the removal of the mines, Sofia and Athens have been negotiating their safe transfer back to Greece.

Bulgaria's arms industry, which flourished during communism, was largely privatised in the 1990s.

But many of the new owners had neither the necessary know-how nor the financial means to invest in safety and accidents, sometimes deadly, were frequent.

At the plant in Gorni Lom itself, six workers were also injured in explosions in 2007 and 2010.
US, South Korea scaling back military exercise: Mattis



Washington, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



The United States and South Korea have scaled down a joint military exercise scheduled for the spring of 2019 to facilitate nuclear talks with North Korea, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday.

"Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy," Mattis said, adding that it would be "reduced in scope."

US and South Korean forces have been training together for years, and routinely rehearse everything from beach landings to an invasion from the North and even "decapitation" strikes targeting the North Korean regime.

But personal insults and threats of war between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were replaced last year by a rapid diplomatic rapprochement.

The thaw culminated in a historic summit in Singapore in June, where the leaders signed a vaguely-worded document on denuclearization of the peninsula.

The US and South Korea have since suspended most of their major joint exercises, including the Ulchi Freedom Guardian in August and the Vigilant Ace air force training initially slated for next month.

In September, the then nominee to head US and UN forces in South Korea said the pause in drills had been a "prudent risk" to help facilitate a detente on the peninsula.

But there "was certainly a degradation in the readiness of the force, for the combined forces," General Robert Abrams told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing.

Abrams went on to say that the continued suspension of the drills risked a further erosion in "readiness and capability and interoperability of the combined forces," though he noted officials were working to minimize issues by running smaller scale staff exercises.
US, South Korea scale back military exercise



Washington, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



The United States and South Korea have scaled down a joint military exercise scheduled for the spring of 2019 to facilitate nuclear talks with North Korea, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday.

"Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy," Mattis said, adding that it would be "reduced in scope."

US and South Korean forces have been training together for years, and routinely rehearse everything from beach landings to an invasion from the North and even "decapitation" strikes targeting the North Korean regime.

But personal insults and threats of war between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were replaced last year by a rapid diplomatic rapprochement.

In April, citing a "fresh climate of detente and peace" on the peninsula, Kim declared the nuclear quest complete and said his country would focus on "socialist economic construction."

The thaw culminated in a historic summit in Singapore in June, where the leaders signed a vaguely-worded document on denuclearization of the peninsula.

Washington and Seoul have since suspended most of their major joint exercises -- characterized by Trump as expensive and "very provocative" -- including Ulchi Freedom Guardian in August and Vigilant Ace, slated for next month.

But little other progress has been made, with the US pushing to maintain sanctions against the North until its "final, fully verified denuclearization" and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like."



- 'Double game' -



Earlier in November Pyongyang threatened to "seriously" consider returning to a state policy aimed at building nuclear weapons if Washington did not end its tough economic sanctions.

And last month, the North's state media carried a near 1,700-word commentary accusing the US of playing a "double game", implicitly criticizing Trump for his comments aimed at barring Seoul from lifting sanctions against Pyongyang.

Despite a flurry of diplomacy on and around the peninsula differences are emerging between Seoul and Washington, which stations 28,500 troops in the South to protect it from its nuclear-armed neighbor.

The South's doveish president Moon Jae-in has long favored engagement with the North, which is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

He has dangled large investment and joint cross-border projects as incentives for steps towards denuclearization, while the US has been adamant pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it fully dismantles its weapons programs.

Pompeo on Wednesday defended the US strategy on the peninsula, noting that North Korea had halted missile tests and has not conducted a nuclear test in over a year.

"And I do hope there'll be a summit between the two leaders early in 2019," he said in an interview with KCMO radio.

Trump has also said he hopes to have a second meeting with Kim early next year, but talks between Pompeo and a top North Korean official, partly to prepare for the meeting, were cancelled.

The US said the North axed the talks because they weren't ready, and Trump insisted he was in "no rush."
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Distressed Are Ships in the Med Ignoring Refugees in Distress?

Migrants are still trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean. But ever since Italy has closed its ports to ships that have saved refugees from the waves, there are indications that some captains have grown more willing to sail on by without helping.
A Worn Out Welcome Ecuadorian Embassy Sours on Julian Assange

In 2012, Julian Assange was granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Today, even as he faces the threat of a possible U.S. indictment, the new Ecuadorian leadership would like to get rid of their guest.
English20/11/2018

REQUEST FOR DISMISSAL OF ALL SERBS IN JOINT INSTITUTIONS TO BE MADE TOMORROW

SARAJEVO, November 20 /SRNA/ - The Chairman of the BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, has said that he, as the Serb member of the BiH Presidency, will take measures as early as tomorrow to remove from office all Serbs in joints institutions and the BiH Council of Ministers.



I think that people gave me the mandate and that I can do it. I will establish a system of representation of Republika Srpska in Sarajevo the way the people empowered me, Dodik told reporters after the inauguration of the BiH Presidency members.



He feels that the government at the level of BiH should be formed as soon as possible.



Dodik reiterated that his basic goal is to restore sovereignty to the BiH Presidency by abolishing the institution of the High Representative and by removing foreign judges from the Constitutional Court.



If this does not happen, I dont see a reason to expend energy on some other issues, Dodik has said.



According to him, interventionism has been harmful for BiH.



A system was made which is stalled and I want to unblock it, but it certainly will not be unblocked by interventions of any ambassador, their meddling in the work of institutions such as the Prosecutors Office or the Court. We will try to reach consensus without international interventionism, Dodik has said.



According to him, the preservation of peace and stability will be a crucial measure of success, but there can be no stability and peace with international interventionism.



We must free BiH from imposed procedures and procedures must not be an obstacle to any investment, Dodik has said.



He has said that one should not expect that he as a member of the Presidency has a different position from Serbia in multilateral and regional meetings.



We consider Serbia our homeland and we will share our policies. I am committed to regional cooperation in establishing peace, Dodik has said.



He has said that he is ready to sign in advance any decision concerning any development program in the FBiH, but that he will ask his colleagues to do the same for Republika Srpska.



We accepted and given approval for the reconstruction of the Tuzla Clinical Center, and when we needed approval from the FBiH or when we should have built a natural gas pipeline, we did not get a permit to build it under the River Drina. I will not tolerate such things, Dodik has said.



He has said that Croats in BiH, before HDZ BiH leader Dragan Covic, and the Croatian state, abandoned the concept of the Dayton constitutionality and led the Croatian people to a bad position.



I will abide by the genuine Dayton Agreement. Earlier Croatian policies, of 10-15 years ago, abandoned the Croats in BiH who were left to themselves, while the High Representatives derogated from rights in the FBiH, Dodik has said. /end/sg
English21/11/2018

CUBRILOVIC: DAYTON AGREEMENT IS A FIRM FOUNDATION WHICH PROTECTS SERBIAN PEOPLE

BANJALUKA, November 21 /SRNA/ - The Speaker of the Republika Srpska Parliament, Nedeljko Cubrilovic, wished today all citizens of Republika Srpska and BiH a happy 23rd anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, stressing that in addition to having established peace, the Agreement represents a firm foundation which protects the Serbian people in BiH and Republika Srpska.



On this day we should remember all those who laid their lives so that we could be equal and have Republika Srpska institutions, Cubrilovic has said.



According to him, Republika Srpska today celebrates peace and the day when the Agreement which guarantees the equality and survival of Srpska was signed, says a press release from the Republika Srpska Parliament.



The Annex 4 to the Dayton Agreement which guarantees the equality of the two Entities and the three constituent peoples protects the rights of all the peoples and citizens of this country and guarantees the countrys survival and development, says Cubrilovic in his greeting.



He has said that this is why Republika Srpska on many occasions confirmed its commitment to the implementation, respect for and preservation of the Dayton solutions. For us, the Dayton Agreement is a lasting, legal and political category, Cubrilovic has said.



He has said that the signing of the Dayton Agreement confirmed the continuity and international and legal subjectivity of Republika Srpska, and stressed that Republika Srpska will not allow any additions to the agreement or any constitutional reform, since Srpska is firmly convinced that the Dayton Peace Agreement provides a sufficient framework for the equality and development of all peoples and citizens of Republika Srpska and BiH.



Today is the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the General Framework Peace Agreement and its 12 annexes at the US Wright-Patterson Base in Dayton, Ohio, which ended the war in BiH and established its constitutional order.



Republika Srpska celebrates this day as a Republic holiday. /end/sg
Lieutenant General He Lei speaks in a joint interview with reporters who are taking part in the Cross-strait Social Media Mainland Tour.

Lieutenant General He Lei, former vice-president of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Chinese PLA, said in a recent interview that there is only one thing I still hope for in my 50 years of military service: the reunification of motherland.

Speaking of the Taiwan question, Lt. Gen. He lamented the separation of Taiwan from the mainland for nearly 70 years caused by the civil war. As a Chinese veteran, He Lei has been looking forward to Taiwans return to the motherland and the complete reunification of China.

He regretted to say as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, China is the only country that has not achieved national unity. To achieve the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation and realize the reunification of the country, this is one hurdle that we have to cross, added He.

He Lei pointed out that the unity of the motherland and ethnic solidarity are in line with Chinas overall development strategy and are also the hope of Chinese nation. Taiwan's return can not only contribute to national rejuvenation, but also be conducive to its own development.

After 40 years of reform and opening-up, the mainland has become the second largest economy in the world and is progressing steadily towards being the largest one. Once the goal to build a strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful socialist country has been achieved by the middle of this century, China would take the center stage of the world. Therefore, we hope that the Taiwan authorities can see the larger picture and accept national reunification as an irresistible historical trend, He Lei said.

In the Taiwan question, He Lei believed that the prosperity and strength of the mainland is the greatest attraction and cohesion for the Taiwan people. Besides, China's military development is the largest deterrent and strike force for Taiwan separatists as well as a strong positive energy for Taiwan's peaceful return.

He said, I still remember an old marshal once said that we waited for Taiwans return to the motherland for so long that our hair turned grey. Unfortunately, the old marshal passed away some years ago. I, as a successor and a veteran of 50 years, have had my hair turned grey too. But I hope that the next generation will not have to wait for so long.

I sincerely hope that the treasure Taiwan island can return to the motherland and the Taiwan compatriots can return to the motherland in the near future, added He Lei.

Disclaimer: The author is Wang Siyu from www.taiwan.cn. The article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by China Military online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Chinamil.com.cn does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. If the article carries photographs or images, we do not vouch for their authenticity.
Would better access to the Mississippi River be advantageous to Ste. Genevieve?

Yes! It would boost tourism and be awesome for locals.

Not really. Anyone who really wants to see it can drive to the ferry landing. View Results


The Chinese rescue team is ready for the exercise. (Photo by Li Jin)

VIETNAM, Nov. 21 (ChinaMil) -- According to the agenda of the fifth high-level border meeting between Chinese and Vietnamese militaries, a China-Vietnam border area disaster relief joint drill was held in the vicinity of Phuc Hoa District of Cao Bang Province in the northeast region of Vietnam on November 20.

Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe, and Ngo Xuan Lich, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party and Defense Minister of Vietnam, inspected the joint drill and highly praised the efforts of the two militaries to deepen cooperation and deal with non-traditional security challenges.

The exercise was conceived as a typhoon hitting the border area between China and Vietnam. The Chinese side was invited to send a rescue team to participate in joint rescue in accordance with international rescue formation standards.

Luo Qiang, commander and coordinator of the Chinese participating troops, said that the idea and subjects of the drill were practical, embodying the spirit of cooperation between China and Vietnam in combating natural disasters.

The context of the joint exercise is that such natural disasters as mountain torrents caused by typhoon have broken out in Cao Bang Province of Vietnam, leading to victims in border areas. Through communication with the Chinese side, Vietnam requested Chinese side's assistance with disaster relief according to the Memorandum on Joint Disaster Relief Cooperation Mechanism. The Chinese side dispatched a rescue team to the stricken areas to assist the Vietnamese side in carrying out humanitarian relief. Vietnam is always affected by similar natural disasters all the year round. The subjects set in the drill reflect the spirit of collaboration in fighting against natural disasters, Luo Qiang said.

The drill was organized in four stages: command post establishing, rescue preparation, rescue implementation, and rescue evacuation. Chinese and Vietnamese sides established a joint disaster relief command post to jointly implement search and rescue and medical assistance, and eight rescue subjects including dismantlement, top bracing, rescue in small spaces, ruin clearance, and casualties handling were set up during the drill.

145 personnel from the two sides participated in the exercise. They acted fast, cooperated closely, operated in line with the rules, and successfully completed the scheduled disaster rescue mission, displaying enterprising fighting spirit and superb professional skills.

Senior Colonel Wen Zhenzhou, commander-in-chief of the joint disaster relief exercise from the Chinese side, said that the drill provided a valuable platform for cooperation and exchanges between the two militaries in related fields.

This drill is an exchange of military operations other than war (MOOTW) , in which the two sides have demonstrated the spirit of high-level cooperation and coordination. Exchanges between the two sides have been strengthened through this activity, which has further enhanced our mutual learning. There are many things Chinese side can learn from the Vietnamese rescue team, added Wen.

Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe observed the drill on site and said that the joint drill reflected the results of the cooperation between the two militaries.

Ngo Xuan Lich, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party and Defense Minister of Vietnam, also spoke highly of the drill. He said at the scene that the successful completion of the drill reflected the spirit of friendly cooperation between the two countries and the two militaries, which will be conducive to building a border area of friendship, peace, stability, and common development between China and Vietnam.

The drill today fully demonstrates the spirit of friendly cooperation between the two socialist neighbors who are comrades and brothers by nature. The joint drill has made great contributions to the successful holding of the fifth Vietnam-China border defense exchanges, added Ngo Xuan Lich.

The fifth high-level border meeting between Chinese and Vietnamese militaries was held in Longzhou County of Chongzuo City in south Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Cao Bang city of Cao Bang Province in the Northeast region of Vietnam, and related port areas of Vietnam in succession since November 19, 2018.



Chinese rescuers equipped with professional equipment get ready to enter the rescue scene. (Photo by Li Jin)
Elad Gross, a Jewish attorney from St. Louis, announced last week that he is running for Missouri attorney general.

Gross, a Democrat, served as an assistant attorney general under Chris Koster. The candidate recently made headlines for filing a lawsuit aimed at forcing a nonprofit associated with former Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, to reveal donor records. Gross has described A New Missouri as a dark-money group designed to skirt campaign finance laws and has been critical of Attorney General Josh Hawley for not investigating it.

I have been trying to fix a lot of the ethics issues we have in our state, and [that] led me again and again to the attorneys general office, said Gross, 30. Unfortunately, I got to see firsthand what happens when the [office] doesnt do such great work.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has named State Treasurer Eric Schmitt to replace Hawley, who recently unseated U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat. The next election for the attorney general position will be held in 2020.

Gross, who also founded an organization aimed at providing better educational opportunities to at-risk children, said he will focus his campaign on ethics reform issues, getting dark money out of politics, prosecuting corruption.

He or another Democrat nominee will likely face an uphill battle in a state that has becoming increasingly red. President Donald Trump won Missouri by 19 points, and Hawley won by 10.

Im more focused on fixing the office and making sure it works for Missourians rather than as a person from one party, said Gross, who was one of the recipients of the Jewish Lights Unsung Hero award in 2016.

A Cole County judge dismissed the lawsuit against the Greitens nonprofit last week, but Gross said he plans to appeal.
Construction of a 30-story hotel on the North Korean border with China has been abruptly halted, allegedly because Beijing took issue with Pyongyang's plans to build a casino there, Radio Free Asia reported Monday.

One source in Dandong, China told RFA that construction was halted "suddenly" after more than 20 floors had been built, adding there are rumors that Chinese authorities belatedly found out about the casino plan.

The Chinese government is struggling to rein in rampant overseas gambling by its citizens and may not want a casino so close to its border.

But it is equally possible that something went wrong with the financing. Another source in Dandong reported rumors that the man behind the hotel, Dutch-Chinese billionaire Yang Bin, was trying to attract foreign capital to finance the construction. Yang, once considered one of the richest men in China, was appointed to run a special economic zone in Sinuiju in the North in 2002 but was later arrested by Chinese authorities on charges of tax evasion.

A source said North Korea already operates a casino in the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone near the Chinese border. "From North Korea's standpoint, it doesn't make sense to build a casino in Sinuiju, which is difficult to control access to, whereas in the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone access is strictly limited to foreigners only. Besides, it seems unlikely that China would object to the construction of a casino on the North Korean territory."


DGAP-Ad-hoc: Airbus SE / Key word(s): Change of Personnel

Airbus selects Dominik Asam as future Chief Financial Officer



21-Nov-2018 / 07:59 CET/CEST

Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Ad-hoc release, 21 November 2018

Airbus selects Dominik Asam as future Chief Financial Officer

In the context of the ongoing management transition process led by its Board of Directors, Airbus SE (stock exchange symbol: AIR) has appointed Dominik Asam, 49, to succeed Harald Wilhelm, 52, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in April 2019. Asam, currently CFO of Munich-based Infineon Technologies AG, will join Airbus on 1 April 2019 ensuring a smooth handover with Harald Wilhelm, who remains in charge in his current role until the Annual General Meeting on 10 April 2019.



"We are very pleased to have Dominik Asam joining Airbus as CFO. Dominik is one of the most highly rated CFOs of the German DAX30. He has an outstanding professional background and he will, no doubt, be a great wingman for Guillaume Faury, who will succeed me at the helm of Airbus next spring," said Tom Enders, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus.

As CFO, Dominik Asam will report to future CEO Guillaume Faury and become a Member of the Airbus Executive Committee.

Guillaume Faury, President Airbus Commercial Aircraft, said: "I am very much looking forward to working with Dominik to continue improving our company's financial performance. A finance expert with an engineering and wide industrial background is a great choice for this mission."

In 2011, Dominik Asam was appointed CFO of Infineon Technologies where he has been responsible for functions including Group Controlling, IT, Treasury, Investor Relations, Compliance & Risk Management, Export Control and Sustainability and Business Continuity. During his tenure as CFO, Infineon took top spots in Institutional Investor rankings and obtained a long-term Standard & Poor's credit Rating.



Before joining Infineon, Dominik Asam was Head of Group Controlling at RWE AG in 2010. From 2005-2010, he worked at Siemens AG where he held positions such as CEO of Siemens Financial Services and Corporate Vice President and Treasurer.

From 2003-2005, he headed Investor Relations, Mergers & Acquisitions and Strategy at Infineon Technologies.

A 1994 graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich,

Dominik Asam began his professional career in 1996 in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs Inc. with postings in Frankfurt, London and New York. Further to his studies in his hometown of Munich, Asam holds a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD as well as a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Ecole Centrale Paris.

* * *

About Airbus

Airbus is a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services. In 2017 it generated revenues of EUR 59 billion restated for IFRS 15 and employed a workforce of around 129,000. Airbus offers the most comprehensive range of passenger airliners from 100 to more than 600 seats. Airbus is also a European leader providing tanker, combat, transport and mission aircraft, as well as one of the world's leading space companies. In helicopters, Airbus provides the most efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions worldwide.

Contacts for the media

Martin Aguera martin.aguera@airbus.com +49 175 227 4369

Rod Stone rod.stone@airbus.com +33 630 521 993

This and other press releases and high resolution photos are available on: AirbusNewsroom
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.
Sales of Samsung's Galaxy A7 that hit store shelves last month reached 100,000 in less than a month. One industry insider said, "Chinese smartphones have improved drastically and pose a big threat to Korean rivals, so Samsung and LG are going on the defensive."

The new cheaper phones have all the functions of premium phones as technological differences between products dwindle to minute tweaks, so frugal consumers rarely lose out.

Competition is intensifying in the Korean market for low to mid-priced smartphones ahead of the Christmas season. Xiaomi was the first to release a new phone in this category through the three major Korean telecoms, and Samsung and LG are following suit with their products priced between W200,000 and W400,000 (US$1=W1,127).

On Monday, Samsung launched the Galaxy J4 Plus priced at around W200,000. It has a multitasking function that allows two apps to be run simultaneously. A Samsung staffer said, "We're targeting teenagers and 20-somethings who exchange messages with their friends while surfing the Internet or watching movies."

LG rolls out the Q9 next month, which is priced at around W400,000. It has improved screen clarity under outdoor lighting conditions as well as high-quality sound, the same features found in its premium G7. The only differences are that the Q9 has less memory capacity and fewer cameras.

Chinese companies are aggressively targeting the market segment here. Xiaomi launched the Pocophone F1 on Monday priced at around W400,000, the first time a Chinese smartphone is being sold through the three major telecoms here.

The Pocophone F1 has 64 GB of memory and a 4,000 mA battery, which are usually features of premium phones. Huawei joined hands with KT to launch the affordable BeY3 last month that has two cameras on the rear.

In collaboration with China's ZTE, low-cost mobile operator SK Telink rolled out a phone last week that only costs around W100,000 and also targets young consumers. The phone allows games, social media and Internet search functions to be shut off while studying.

One industry insider said, "We are seeing back-to-back releases of unique smartphones targeting various consumer groups as premium functions are being lowered to meet frugal tastes."
Shanghai promotes tourism via unique food culture in NYC

From:Xinhua | 2018-11-20 10:29

Participants learn to make Xiaolongbao, or steamed soup dumplings, during the Shanghai Food Festival and Tourism Promotion at Macy's flagship store in New York, the United States, Nov. 19, 2018. Themed "Eat, Love, Shanghai", the three-day event kicked off here on Monday, aiming to attract more American tourists to Shanghai by introducing its unique culinary culture. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

NEW YORK, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai Food Festival and Tourism Promotion kicked off here on Monday, aiming to attract more American tourists to Shanghai by introducing its unique and spectacular culinary culture.

Themed "Eat, Love, Shanghai," the three-day event is held at Macy's flagship store in New York City. It features a free taste of Shanghai's signature food including Xiaolongbao (or steamed soup dumplings), Qingtuan (green sticky rice balls) and savory mooncakes, as well as a hand-on experience of making the above food. A VR promotional video showcasing a panoramic view of the beauty of Shanghai is also offered.

Ira Slutzky, 78, a New York resident and ardent fan of Chinese food, was animated when making his first Xiaolongbao at the culinary class.

"It's quite difficult for me to fold the dough into proper shape. But as a first try, I am satisfied with it," Slutzky told Xinhua, adding that he plans to travel to Shanghai and taste authentic local food there.

The activity was co-sponsored by Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, Macy's, Marriott International, China Eastern Airlines, American Airlines, and Shanghai Spring Tour Company.

"It's wonderful that we're partnering with Shanghai to offer this global cross-cultural connection to let people come and experience all of the best of Shanghai," said Keri Hanson, director of international tourism marketing at Macy's.

"People in New York and Shanghai have so much in common love of food, art, culture and fashion, so it's a natural connection to have both cities cooperative partners," she added.

"Great food is always an integral part of a city' s charm as tastes and flavors define its character. The event is part of our overall effort to expand tourism among New Yorkers and we hope to introduce more in-depth tour products and experiences to encourage more U.S. tourists to visit Shanghai and stay longer," Wang Jing, deputy division chief of public service department from Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, told Xinhua.

In 2016, Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration and NYC & Company jointly announced that the two cities had formed a city-to-city tourism partnership to promote tourism in both cities.

The "Eat, Love, Shanghai" promotional event was a key event to mark the second anniversary of the partnership between the two cities.

The United States is Shanghai's second largest source of international visitors. In 2017, the city welcomed 737,500 American tourists, a 6-percent growth from the previous year and about 600,000 U.S. tourists visited Shanghai in the first three quarters of 2018, about 12.25-percent increase from the same period last year, according to data from Shanghai tourism authority.

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Home  Just In  Ambassador appointment: House panel calls for complaints against nominees

Kathmandu, November 21

The Parliamentary Hearing Special Committee on Wednesday has called people to file complaints against four persons who have been recently nominated for Nepals ambassadors to different countries.

A meeting of the Committee held this afternoon decided to give one weeks time beginning this Friday to file complaints against Nilambar Acharya, Anjan Shakya, Udaya Raj Pandey and Krishna Prasad Dhakal.

Acharya, Shakya, Pandey and Dhakal have been nominated for Nepals missions in India, Israel, Malaysia and UAE respectively.

Meanwhile, the panel has also decided to tell the government to send detailed documents on the criteria set for ambassadorial appointment for the study of its members, according to its cospokesperson Keshav Aryal.
The latest to join this fad are Swarovski, who have created a Swarovski-studded star that sits atop a giant Christmas Tree in the distinguished environs of the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York.

Created by noted designer Daniel Libeskind, the crystal-emblazoned tree is nine feet tall, weighs some 900 pounds and comes with 3 million double-cone crystals placed on 70 spikes that emerge from its centre.

Each protruding edge is created using 6mm ESG glass with crystals affixed to the inside face and features LED lighting components developed in-house by Swarovski.

The centre of the tree is manufactured using 70 custom-machined aluminium components, plus 140 LED lighting spots. The star took two years to complete and was assembled on-site at the Rockefeller Center.

Speaking about the creation, Libeskind said, Its a sculpture, a three-dimensional panoramic star that is exploding into dynamic light,

The technology, the form, the complexity, the crystals in the millionsit was really a challenge and a beautiful adventure.

The star can be witnessed in its full glory when it is officially turned on on 28 November, at which point it will emit 106,400 lumens of white light.
Home  Just In  From the Kathmandu Press: Wednesday, November 21, 2018

It has been exactly 12 years since then government and rebelling CPN-Maoist signed the Comprehensive Peace Accord which formally ended the decade long conflict in Nepal. Therefore, all Nepali and English broadsheet dailies published from Kathmandu on Wednesday have given the top priority to the issue. Besides, contemporary political issues have been highlighted on the front pages of major newspapers today. A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament about the recent controversial purchase of two wide body aircraft for the state-owned Nepal Airlines Corporation and Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis statement at a function in Kathmandu have also been featured on the front pages.

Likewise, the appointment of Rajendra Mahato as the coordinator of Rastriya Janata Party Nepal has also received significant priority.

Important

Is peace process already complete in Nepal?

Most of the newspapers have commented that many victims and their families are waiting for justice over past 12 years. Kantipur reports that the victims are preparing to issue a charter expressing their suggestions today. Meanwhile, The Kathmandu Post has blamed the political leadership for the failure to assure the victims. Reports in Nagarik and Republica focus themselves on how much honey has been spent in the process.

Nepal Samacharpatra reports that two transitional justice mechanisms have been largely failed to carry out their assignments.

House panel launches probe in NAC wide body purchase

Annapurna Post and The Himalayan Times report that the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Representatives has decided to launch an investigation into the controversy surfaced in the purchase of two wide body aircraft.

THT reports that officials of the NAC and the Tourism Ministry have been summoned to the Committee meeting on November 25. Meanwhile, the Committee may commission a subpanel to investigate into the issue, adds Annapurna Post.

PM blames policy recommendations for development delays

Gorkhapatra, Annapurna Post and The Kathmandu Post have covered Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis statement that various faulty provisions are responsible for the delay in development works of the country.

During an introductory meeting of the Policy Research Academy, the think tank established by the government to conduct research and recommend initiatives for the government, Oli said, All the policies dogging the development works must be corrected.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister assured that the government would not give any undue pressure to the think tank, Gorkhapatra reports.

Ignored

Peace Park contractors incommunicado

Four construction companies which were awarded the contract to construct the National Martyrs and Peace Park in Jagadol, Gokarna of Kathmandu have come incommunicado without completing the assignment, Kantipur reports in a snippet.

The government has allocated Rs 460 million for the project, and 25 per cent of the charge has already been paid to the contractors, according to the report.

Five companies interest to be NAC partners

Five foreign airline companies have expressed their interest to establish a strategic partnership with Nepals national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation, according to a three column story in Karobar.

Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Lufthansa Consulting and Air Arabia have floated their proposals informally as the NAC has been looking for strategic partners for long, according to the report.

Govt dissolves Poverty Alleviation Fund

Rajdhani reports in a four column story that the government has dissolved the Poverty Alleviation Fund, a mechanism formed to help citizens combat with poverty, and assign the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation to carry out its duties.

The report identifies internal conflicts among the officials and political interference as reasons of the dissolution.

Interesting

Sandeep Lamichhane to get minimum USD 50,000 for PSL berth

Annapurna Post and Rajdhani report that Pakistans Lahore Qalandars has contracted Nepals Sandeep Lamichhane for this years Pakistan Super League.

The team bought Lamichhane during the auction held on Tuesday.

As Lamichhane has been selected under the Gold category, he will receive at least US 50,000, which is approximately equal to Rs 5.7 million, according to Annapurna Post.
Mahendranagar, November 21

Nepali Congress leader Gagan Thapa says the investigation into the rape and murder of 13-year-old Nirmala Pant in Kanchanpur district of western Nepal cannot conclude unless Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapas term ends.

Addressing a meeting of his partys cadres in Mahendranagar on Wednesday, the youth leader said Home Minister Thapa, who is also known as Badal, has been the badal, which means cloud, over hopes of parents of girls like Nirmala Pant.

Earlier, I had questioned the competency of Minister Thapa, the opposition leader said, Listening to his statements over recent incidents, it seems there is cloud over his competence, and he has been the cloud for many other parents.

There will be no rains until the clouds are cleared. Dirt of our society will not be removed before it rains, he metaphorically said.

He demanded that Home Minister Thapa resign.

Earlier, the Congress leader met parents of Pant in front of the District Administration Office, where the could are staging an indefinite demonstration.

Thapa had assured the couple that he would hold talks with top leaders of both ruling and opposition sides over the issue.
Isolated Indian tribe kill American intruder



Port Blair, India, Nov 21 (AFP) Nov 21, 2018



Members of one of the world's last tribes untouched by modern civilisation have killed an American who ventured illegally onto their remote island, Indian police said Wednesday.

John Allen Chau, 27, was hit by a hail of arrows as he set foot on North Sentinel Island, part of the Indian Andaman Islands, last Saturday, official sources told AFP.

"He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body," the source said.

"They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the seashore."

North Sentinel is home to the Sentinelese people, believed to number only around 150. To protect their way of life, foreigners and Indians are banned from going within three miles (five kilometres).

Chau had offered local fishermen money to take him to the island, the source said. They took him some of the way and he paddled the rest in a canoe.

Some Indian media suggested that Chau was a missionary seeking to convert the islanders to Christianity but a local policeman told the News Minute website this was inaccurate.

"He was on a misplaced adventure in (a) prohibited area to meet uncontacted persons," Dependra Pathak told the website.

Media reports also said the fishermen told a preacher in the main town of the Andamans, Port Blair, about the incident and the preacher contacted Chau's family in the United States.

A spokesperson for the US consulate in the southern Indian city of Chennai told AFP only that they were aware of "reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands".



- Hostile hunters -



The Andamans are also home to the 400-strong Jarawa tribe who activists say are threatened by contact from outsiders. Tourists have previously bribed local officials in a bid to spend time with them.

But the Sentinelese still shun all contact with the outside world and have a record of hostility to anyone who tries to get close.

In 2006, two Indian fishermen who moored their boat to sleep were killed when the vessel broke loose and drifted onto North Sentinel, according to Survival International, a group protecting tribal people's rights.

The Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters.

The island was hit by the devastating 2004 tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean but not much is known about the impact it had on the reclusive inhabitants.

After the tsunami one member of the tribe was photographed attempting to fire an arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter.

Indian authorities make periodic checks on the tribe from boats anchored at a safe distance from shore.

Survival International, based in London, said that the "tragedy" of the American's death "should never have been allowed to happen".

"The Indian authorities should have been enforcing the protection of the Sentinelese and their island for the safety of both the tribe and outsiders," it said.

"Instead, a few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe's island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event."



- Arrests -



Since the Indian authorities keep away from the island, it was unclear whether Chau's killing will have legal repercussions.

Indian police said a murder case had been registered against "unknown" tribespeople and that six fishermen and one other person were arrested.

"The investigation in this matter is on," senior police officer Deepak Yadav said in a press release.

Police official Pathak said the authorities were consulting "anthropologists and tribal welfare experts" to work out how best to retrieve the victim's body.
Home  Business  Govt assures reopening of Tatopani border point by May next year

Kathmandu, November 21

The government says the Tatopani border point between Nepal and China, which has been closed after the 2015 earthquake, will be open for trade activities by May next year.

The Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport says it will repair the road connecting Kathmandu to the border point. The road was severely damaged by the earthquake.

The Department of Roads is preparing to call for tenders to repair the road. It has been learned that the Ministry has directed the Department to make sure that the works will be complete before May.

However, officials say the government has not allocated sufficient funds to renovate the road. Currently, Rs 350 million has been allocated.

Around two months ago, Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Raghubir Mahaseth, has visited the border point to assess needful works to reopen the trade activities via Tatopani.

China, on the other hand, has expedited improving the condition of infrastructures on its side.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa Tuesday said Pakistan had paid the highest military, economic, political and social cost and the world should acknowledge that.



We shall continue to contribute towards peace in Afghanistan but Pakistans honour and Pakistans security shall always stay premier, Director General of Inter Services Public Relations, Major General Asif Ghafoor quoted the COAS as saying on his official twitter handle.



Pakistan has successfully fought against terrorism while also contributing to regional peace. Pakistan has done much more for peace in Afghanistan than any other country, COAS added.APP




MONITORING DESK



KARACHI: The Pentagon, in an apparent attempt to lessen the damage caused by US President Donald Trumps Twitter outburst, termed Islamabad a critical partner to its South Asian strategy, according to Aaj News.



The statement from the Pentagon comes a day after Trump sparked off a Twitter spat with the Prime Minister Imran Khan when he reiterated the allegations he had levelled in a Fox News interview a day earlier. The US president accused Pakistan of doing nothing for the US despite receiving billions of dollars in aid.



The US and Pakistan have strong mutual interests in the region, reported NDTV while quoting Director of Defence Press Operations for the US Department of Defence Colonel Rob Manning IIIs comments during an off-camera news conference.



As you know, they [Pakistan] are critical [and] vital to the South Asia strategy, including the facilitation of a peace process that would lead to a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.



Manning also clarified that there was no change in the military-to-military relationship between Pakistan and the United States.



When asked whether the Pentagon differed with Trumps views, the official said he did not have any announcement on any change to the military-to-military relationship with Pakistan.




EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

President Emmanuel Macron of France and his wife, Brigitte, are currently in Belgium for a two-day state visit. Heres a look at the sparkling jewels they wore for their first day of engagements, including the glittering state banquet!

THIERRY ROGE/AFP/Getty Images

On Monday morning, the state visit began with an official welcome ceremony at the Royal Palace in Brussels.

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Queen Mathilde wore her gorgeous diamond and pearl wedding earrings for the welcome events.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

On Monday evening, the Belgian royals hosted a grand state banquet for their French guests.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

Queen Mathilde wore diamonds with her deep red velvet gown for the occasion.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

She chose the base of the Nine Provinces Tiara, pairing it with elaborate diamond ribbon and fringe earrings.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

Madame Macron also wore diamonds with her evening gown.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

Heres a look at the full ensembles worn by each couple.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

A few more members of the royal family were also in attendance. Princess Astrid, wearing the Savoy-Aosta Tiara, attended with her husband, Prince Lorenz.

GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAAERT/AFP/Getty Images

And Princess Claire, wearing her diamond and pearl tiara, was accompanied by her husband, Prince Laurent.
Canada will be pumping $17.5 million to empower women and girls in the Philippines access sexual and reproductive health information and services against a backdrop of strong opposition from the Southeast Asian nations powerful Catholic Church.

The Sexual Health and Empowerment (SHE) project will help at least 85,000 people across 13 provinces in the Philippines, a press statement said.

The Philippines, a deeply devout country where abortion is illegal, and a lack of knowledge about modern family planning methods mean that birth control isn't widely used.

Historically, teen pregnancy rates have held steady in the Philippines while declining elsewhere in Asia, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

According to the 2017 national survey, 28% of young married women in the Philippines said they aren't getting the birth control they need. For unmarried sexually active women, almost half say they don't have access to contraception.

In 2014, after a 14-year battle with the Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups, the Philippines passed a reproductive health law that mandated universal access to birth control and more reproductive health education, with a goal of reducing the country's birth rate.

Legal challenges slowed the law's full implementation until late in 2017 when the country's Food and Drug Administration lifted a temporary Supreme Court court order banning 51 types of contraceptives by ruling that they did not induce abortion.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has also pushed for more birth control to be made available for the poor, and last year signed an executive order calling for extra funds and support.

However, the fight for access to adequate family planning in the Philippines continues with no shortage of vicious rhetoric with Duterte being labeled a modern-day Herod and the Catholic church adhering to its declaratory motto: contraception is corruption.

Oxfam in the Philippines Country Director Maria Rosario Felizco said the SHE project will address the barriers that prevent people, especially women and girls, from exercising their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Felizco said these barriers include gender inequality, sex trafficking, low access to SRHR information and services, sexual and gender-based violence, and a range of discriminatory socio-cultural practices.

Sexual health and reproductive rights remain among the most contentious global health issues. We have a role to play in that battle in the Philippines and around the world, Felizco said during the launch.

Data from the 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey showed that 9.7 million girls aged 10 to 19 in the Philippines will most likely be mothers by age 19.

The same survey also showed that the teenage pregnancy rate in the country is considered the highest in Southeast Asia. This resulted to a higher mortality rate at 114 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Felizco said many of these deaths were due to complications from pregnancy and childbirth, which could be avoided.

Canadas Ambassador to the Philippines John Holmes said ensuring the sexual and reproductive health and realizing the rights of women and girls is critical in achieving equitable and sustainable development.

The SHE project is one initiative that supports Canadas commitment to empowering women and girls and reflects our governments feminist international assistance policy. It is also well aligned with the priorities of the Philippine government and will contribute to the full implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive (RPRH) Law, Holmes said in his speech.

The five-year project will also strengthen health systems and community structures to improve the delivery of quality and gender-sensitive health services. It will also build the capacity of womens organizations and networks to advocate for the rights of women at all levels and prevent gender-based violence.

The SHE project has a total budget of 18.2 million CAD (PHP747.5 million) with 17.5 million CAD (PHP718.3 million) from Global Affairs Canada and 730,000 CAD (PHP29.9 million) from Oxfam.
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Linkedin Shah Suraj (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 16:53 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d1f7b9 3 Opinion gig-economy,skilled-workers,workforce,Go-Jek,Grab,mobility,workers,income-inequality Free

The growth of the gig economy and app-based service providers such as Go-Jek and Grab have changed the way we go about our daily lives. Starting out by offering on-demand transportation services, these companies have expanded to offer food and parcel delivery, as well as mobile massage, cleaning and mechanical services.

The advances that these tech companies have unlocked should be acknowledged for their contribution to economic development. More than offering expanded choice, everyday convenience and better protection for consumers, these companies have institutionalized efficiency and created employment for over a million people, with McKinsey & Co saying in a 2016 report that these services could deliver a productivity windfall worth US$120 billion a year to the national economy within the next decade.

Criticisms of these companies, however, are abound, the most prevalent being that they have expanded phenomenally on the backs of exploited workers. Gig economy workers are typically classed as business partners, yet voluminous research shows they are not nearly as autonomous as tech companies would like us to believe, a worker-employer relationship labeled as disguised wage labor by University of Oxford professor Barbara Harris-White.

These criticisms, certainly valid, are generally targeted at the short-term welfare of the workers themselves. Yet there are deeper issues that concern all of us, consumers as well as workers, pertaining to the macroeconomic health of the national economy, especially a middle-income country such as Indonesia.

In the short-term, while these services have unlocked bottlenecks in economic development, they are no miracle for growth - they simply and efficiently match supply and demand. They improve upon the key drivers of growth, but do not create new ones or shift the economy to a higher stage of production.

Crucially, in the medium- to long-term, they ensnare a sizeable portion of the labor force into a skills trap. A Go-Jek driver, for example, will always be a Go-Jek driver. He or she cannot upskill in their craft or take on a management role. They quite simply drive all day.

Indeed this skills trap contradicts the sustained growth model that industrialization and technology should bring as described by Russian-born economist Simon Kuznets.

Kuznets argued that industrialization created sustained growth, because industrialized work required more skills and education than agricultural work. Workers benefited from learning and contributed to cultural change, urbanization and business growth. New technologies and large-scale production methods could not have been exploited if people were illiterate, unskilled or tied to the village.

Succeeding generations, Kuznets said, continued to benefit from these cultural and industrial activities in a virtuous cycle as industrial methods and technologies improved, which helped to save labor and achieve economies of scale.

But with the growth of the gig economy that requires armies of low-skilled workers in order to scale up, we now appear to be seeing the reverse. Indeed this situation is a form of deindustrialization, with workers moving away from semi-skilled production to low-skilled services. Meanwhile, business executives and engineers are handsomely rewarded by tech companies, symptomatic of a dual economy.

Whats particularly concerning is that these low-skilled jobs are attracting skilled young people. A survey on Go-Jek drivers in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Banyuwangi by Gadjah Mada University (UGM) found that 49.74 percent of respondents were aged 19 to 30 and 29.1 percent were aged 31 to 40.

According to UGM researcher Rifki Maulana, young people were attracted to jobs in the gig economy because of a lack of alternative opportunities. This is unsurprising given that Statistics Indonesia recently reported that unemployment stood at 5.34 percent, with vocational and high school graduates respectively making up 11.24 and 7.95 percent of the unemployed. Analysts point to a skills mismatch between formal education and market demand.

Although opportunities in the gig economy can provide a stop-gap for the unemployed young, it is crucial that they find jobs that are more likely to offer opportunities for training and upskilling, vital to achieving higher incomes.

If this situation persists, national inequality is likely to rise. Economics professor at Beijing Normal University Li Shi argues that the gulf between cities and the countryside in emerging economies has narrowed thanks to the earnings of migrants employed in the gig economy. Indeed a University of Indonesia study found that the income of Go-Jek drivers, many of whom come from rural areas, contribute Rp 8.2 trillion (US$567 million) a year to the national economy.

But if these workers are unable to raise their incomes in the medium-term, or if they lose their jobs because of expanding public transportation or driverless technology, the urban-rural divide would widen again and the Gini coefficient would worsen. Statistics Indonesia data shows that Indonesias Gini coefficient stood at 0.39 at the beginning of 2018. A coefficient above 0.4 is a warning sign of dangerous inequality.

So what happens when workers cannot improve their lot through upskilling or being rewarded for their greater experience? It will likely result in industrial disputes and social instability. Tech companies may be forced to raise wages, and thus prices, wiping out any productivity gains created in the first place.

While the term emerging middle classes has been popularized in recent times, a sizeable number of people still live a livelihood that is structurally precarious. Income levels and the supply of skills are still low, and gig economy workers are especially vulnerable to technological advances.

Another popular term In Indonesia, the demographic dividend, is also taken for granted. It could be a demographic time bomb if serious efforts are not made to upskill workers in the gig economy.

***

The writer is an advisor at the School of Social and Political Sciences of Gadjah Mada University on the nature of work in the era of disruptive technology. The views expressed are his own.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 09:05 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d02757 4 Art & Culture Panji,Cerita-Panji,Panji-Tales,Panji-Mbulan,Kediri Free

Performers from China, Spain, France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia took part in a theatrical performance interpreting ancient Indonesian folklore through contemporary dance.

The art event, Panji Mbulan, was held on Sunday at Selomangleng Cave in the city of Kediri, East Java, reported Antara.

Panji Mbulan is about Panji, a famous character of old Kediri Kingdom folklore. His numerous tales are referred to as Cerita Panji (Panji Tales) and have been recognized by UNESCO as a Memory of the World (MoW).

Kediri Mayor Abdullah Abu Bakar said the event was held to introduce people to the citys culture and tourism.

Read also: Reviving Panji tales in arts and culture

Kediri has no tourist destinations that naturally attract visitors, so we have to design them, just like this one, he said.

The event also showcased several traditional Javanese dances, such as reog, jaranan, gambyong macan ucul and orek-orek. Visitors could also enjoy local dishes sold at the event. (iru/kes)
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Linkedin Celine Cornu (Agence France-Presse) Rome, Italy  Wed, November 21, 2018 14:05 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d18ac1 2 Art & Culture Banksy,show,art,artist,Milan,Italy,exhibition Free

His identity is a mystery that adds to his allure, but a new exhibition in Italy dedicated to street artist Banksy looks beyond the feverish headlines to explore his works as vehicles for protest.

The solo show, organized by the Museum of Cultures in Milan, is "the first on Banksy organized by a public museum -- apart from the one in Bristol put on by the artist, but that was a one-off performance," curator Gianni Mercurio said Tuesday.

The Italian show was organized without Banksy's say-so and was "very difficult, it was like working with a ghost," he told AFP.

Banksy's true identity has been a closely-guarded secret since the start of the 1990s. He is known to be British and comes from Bristol. He uploads photographs of his works onto his website, but never comments.

"Banksy owes a lot of his success, or rather to his popularity, to the fact that he is an anonymous artist. It's a contradiction: his notoriety comes from his anonymity," he said.

Mercurio said he opted for "a slightly academic approach" in putting together the exhibition, entitled "A Visual Protest", which opens Wednesday and runs until April.

"I want the public to understand who Banksy is as an artist and not just as a media phenomenon. He has become a myth and that means his art has become secondary," he said.

Read also: Banksy admits shredding stunt didn't go as planned

- 'Storyteller and realist' -

The show starts by looking at the artist's influences, from the Situationism movement to the May 1968 uprising in Paris.

It explores key works such as "Love is in the Air", a stenciled graffiti which captures a man in the act of throwing flowers instead of a Molotov cocktail in a peaceful but hard-hitting protest.

The show for the first time unites under one roof around 80 works, including paintings, sculptures and prints by the artist, as well as 60 record and CD covers he has designed.

Several works show how Banksy subverts world-famous images by changing elements in them to alter their meaning.

In "Flag", he takes Pulitzer prize-winner Joe Rosenthal's photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the US flag and replaces them with young rebels from Harlem, who are raising it over a burnt-out car.

In "Turf War", he transforms British former prime minister Winston Churchill into a Punk icon, calling it "creative vandalism".

The exhibition also pays tribute to Banksy's famous rats, who he transforms into rappers, violin players or artists.

Banksy's art, at once satirical and politically engaged, denounces everything from consumerism to US imperialism or war.

In "Can't beat the feelin'", for example, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald are superimposed onto the famous photograph of the naked girl fleeing napalm bombings in Vietnam, holding her hands as she runs.

"Banksy's essence is the message. He is a storyteller and a realist because he uses elements and people from everyday life," Mercurio said.

"He has revived the rebel and political side of street art which had been abandoned. Which is to his great credit".
Eurojust and Europol cooperate successfully with national authorities

With the support of Eurojust and Europol, the Spanish judicial authorities (Juzgado de Instruccion no 1 in Torrevieja) and the Belgian Public Prosecutor's Office and judicial authorities, in coordination with the Spanish Guardia Civil and the Belgian Federal Police, arrested a Belgian fugitive, described as 'very dangerous', in Torrevieja, Spain.

The action day, which took place on 7 November, was prepared by the Eurojust Belgian and Spanish Desks, which liaised directly with their national authorities. The Belgian and Spanish magistrates worked together in Spain to draft the European Arrest Warrant, and direct the arrest, as well as the searches and seizures of three houses and a restaurant in Spain, resulting in the shutdown of the restaurant used to launder the money and the freezing of two properties, bank accounts and a vehicle, as well as documents, electronic devices, credit cards and a substantial amount of cash.

The suspect escaped from Belgium in January 2018 after committing more than 20 extremely violent robberies. He had then been sought by the Belgian authorities. The suspect belonged to an organised crime group and is the alleged perpetrator of other crimes, such as drug trafficking and the illegal trade of firearms. The Belgian Federal Police suspected the fugitive could be hiding in Torrevieja, and requested the cooperation of the Spanish Guardia Civil, which launched an investigation and surveillance activities. The investigation revealed that the fugitive laundered the illicit proceeds derived from his criminal activity in Belgium through a restaurant in Spain  a cash-intensive business  and then reinvested the money in real estate.

Europol provided analytical support during the investigation by cross-checking data and facilitating information exchange.

Photo  Shutterstock
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Linkedin News Desk (Bloomberg)  Wed, November 21, 2018 17:19 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d219c6 2 Science & Tech China,Beijing,technology,surveillance,behavior,citizens Free

Chinas plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.

The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal governments website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get green channel benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.

The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be unable to move even a single step, according to the governments plan. Xinhua reported on the proposal Tuesday, while the report posted on the municipal governments website is dated July 18.

China has long experimented with systems that grade its citizens, rewarding good behavior with streamlined services while punishing bad actions with restrictions and penalties. Critics say such moves are fraught with risks and could lead to systems that reduce humans to little more than a report card.

Read also: China's Social Credit: New challenges and benefits

Ambitious plan

Beijings efforts represent the most ambitious yet among more than a dozen cities that are moving ahead with similar programs.

Hangzhou rolled out its personal credit system earlier this year, rewarding pro-social behaviors such as volunteer work and blood donations while punishing those who violate traffic laws and charge under-the-table fees. By the end of May, people with bad credit in China have been blocked from booking more than 11 million flights and 4 million high-speed train trips, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

According to the Beijing governments plan, different agencies will link databases to get a more detailed picture of every residents interactions across a swathe of services. The proposal calls for agencies including tourism bodies, business regulators and transit authorities to work together.

The tracking of individual behavior in China has become easier as economic life moves online, with apps such as Tencents WeChat and Ant Financials Alipay a central node for making payments, getting loans and organizing transport. Accounts are generally linked to mobile phone numbers, which in turn require government IDs.

The final version of Chinas national social credit system remains uncertain. But as rules forcing social networks and internet providers to remove anonymity get increasingly enforced and facial recognition systems become more popular with policing bodies, authorities are likely to find everyone from internet dissenters to train-fare skippers easier to catch -- and punish -- than ever before.

 With assistance by Claire Che, David Ramli, and Dandan Li
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States  Wed, November 21, 2018 10:09 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d0e289 2 Lifestyle Glamour,magazine,media,fashion,Ireland,united-states Free

Glamour, the fashion and beauty magazine popular with young women, is ditching its monthly print editions and embracing the online revolution, its chief editor and publishers Conde Nast announced Tuesday.

As Conde Nast navigates choppy waters for print media, Glamour's 37-year-old editor-in-chief Samantha Barry announced the change in an email to staff, saying that special print editions would still be released.

"We're going to move off of a monthly print schedule, but please know this does not mean we are ceasing print entirely," she wrote.

"We're going to use print the way our audiences do -- to celebrate big moments, like Women of the Year, with special issues that are ambitious, lush and have longevity," she added.

The focus on digital investment will expand the magazine's video and social story telling.

It comes after the Conde Nast empire -- which includes glossies Vanity Fair and Vogue, and which reportedly lost $120 million last year -- has already scrapped regular print editions for Teen Vogue and Self.

Rival publishing company Hearst also announced recently that its magazine Seventeen would cut down its print editions to special editions only.

"In print we reach two million readers, but when you look at our digital footprint, we reach 20 million Glamour fans," wrote Barry.

Read also: Famed Village Voice newspaper set to shut down

She said audience traffic was up 12 percent year-on-year at the magazine's website, with social engagement up 27 percent year-on-year and YouTube followers up 111 percent year-on-year.

Online access to Glamour will remain free, for now.

Barry, an Irish digital journalist, took over at Glamour in January. The magazine, which first launched in the United States as Glamour of Hollywood in 1939, is on the cusp of celebrating its 80th year.

"This is my plan, because it makes sense," Barry told The New York Times in an interview. "It's where the audiences are, and it's where our growth is. That monthly schedule, for a Glamour audience, doesn't make sense anymore."

Barry was previously head of social media at CNN.

Bob Sauerberg, chief executive of Conde Nast, gave her his full backing.

"Glamour has grown and expanded from a successful print brand that connected with readers once a month to an always-on brand that is in constant conversation with its audience on all platforms," he wrote to staff.

"That's today's Glamour -- connecting with women wherever they are."
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Linkedin Clement Sabourin (Agence France-Presse) Havre-Saint-Pierre, Canada  Thu, November 22, 2018 01:02 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d2afb7 2 Environment Canada,Quebec,dam,hydroelectric,hydroelectric-dam,energy,forest,water Free

On a frigid night, the roar of heavy machinery chipping away at rock echoes through Canada's boreal forest: in the far north of Quebec province, four massive hydroelectric dams that will produce "clean energy" for the northeastern United States are nearing completion.

Flowing more than 500 kilometers through the wilderness, the Romaine River in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec is about to hit a literal wall at 51 degrees north latitude with the erection of the fourth and last power station.

Once completed, the construction project -- which started in 2009 -- will see the cold, clear waters of one of Canada's longest untamed rivers flood surrounding lands claimed by indigenous tribes.

From a distance, the bright lights at the site where more than 800 heavy dump trucks, drills and giant backhoe loaders are in use look like reflections of stars in the night sky.

The teams from Hydro-Quebec are working on two fronts.

They are razing a mountain to make room for the power station. They are also erecting a dike 500 meters long and 90 meters high that will hold back the water to be used to generate electricity.

Quebec has a power surplus, so the government is hoping to sell the power produced here to its American neighbors to the south -- and in turn do its bit to help alleviate global warming.

Read also: Collector cards inspire visits to dams in Japan

- Dangers of dam building -

The construction site extends over several kilometers: there is a full cement factory, an infirmary for workers, offices, a quarry and a dynamite depot.

"This is a major project -- there are many different stakeholders, many simultaneous activities, and many dangers to manage daily," including inquisitive wolves and bears, says Christian Guimond, who is in charge of the dam's construction.

Already four workers have died, which forced the public utility Hydro-Quebec to suspend construction in 2017 while it reviewed its workplace safety practices.

There's now a greater awareness of the risks for workers, said Guimond.

From atop a nearby mountain peak, he points to a kilometer-long tunnel and a ditch built to divert the raging river in order to start construction of the dam itself on the dry riverbed.

The dam is to be completed in 2019.

Costing more than Can$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), it is among the top 10 largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Canada, ranking behind two nuclear plant refurbishments, three other hydroelectric projects and a new Toronto subway line.

For residents of the region, the hydroelectric project has been a mixed blessing, creating jobs in a remote and economically-depressed region but flooding the local indigenous people's traditional hunting grounds.

"I didn't want it at first, but I needed work... when I got my first paycheck, I changed my mind about it," said Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman and member of the Innus of Mingan.

His father, who is also chief of the small tribe that lives on a reserve on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, is a fierce opponent of the project.

The chief has the backing of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which have decried huge hydroelectric dams as "ecologically devastating."

"It pains me, makes me sad what we're doing to nature," said Patricia Bacon, a 24-year-old Innu who came here to work at the cafeteria in order to pay for her university studies.

"But times have changed -- every house must have electricity now."

Read also: Hi-tech conservationists fight Indonesia wildlife crime

- Export to US -

Once fully operational in 2021, the four power plants on the river will cumulatively generate 1,550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city or an estimated 1.5 million homes.

Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs.

The new Quebec provincial government of Francois Legault, with the backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has pledged to build even more dams once the Romaine project is completed.

The aim is to export as much power as possible to the United States, saying it would be "the biggest contribution that Quebec could make to the planet."

Other provinces also have big hydroelectric projects on the go, such as Newfoundland's Muskrat Falls, Manitoba's Keeyask and British Columbia's Site C.

Neighboring Ontario, meanwhile, is spending Can$25 billion to refurbish two aging nuclear power plants.

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC university in Montreal, expressed doubt after visiting the Romaine project about the need for more power plants, pointing to Quebec's current surplus energy.

"In the northeastern United States, there is a great desire to decarbonize electricity production in New England or New York state, so there is a real opportunity for Quebec," he told AFP.

"La Romaine could provide this renewable energy."

However, more transmission lines connecting the power stations to US buyers still need to be approved and built.
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Linkedin Francesca Landini (Reuters) Milan, Italy  Wed, November 21, 2018 11:08 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d11032 2 Food Nutella,Italy,Ferrero,Barilla,pasta,palm-oil,food Free

Chocolate spread Nutella has long had pride of place on supermarket shelves but faces imminent attack from an Italian rival usually found in the pasta section.

Italy's Barilla, known internationally for its spaghetti and maccheroni packaged in blue boxes, is preparing to launch a chocolate spread next year in a major challenge to the brand that became a global phenomenon in the 1980s, sources said.

Nutella, invented by family-owned firm Ferrero, is a favorite among sweet-toothed youngsters at home and abroad and generates annual sales of more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

With 54 percent of the global market for chocolate spreads, Nutella is the leader and faces virtually no major competition as a mass-marketed brand.

Cokokrem of Turkey's Yildiz Holding is the second most popular spread with a share of only 2 percent, according to market research provider Euromonitor International.

But two sources familiar with Barilla's plan say its new spread, Crema Pan di Stelle, seeks to exploit a perceived weakness of Nutella: its use of palm oil.

The ingredient has drawn a consumer backlash due to health and environmental concerns. Ferrero launched an ad campaign in 2016 to defend its use of palm oil, saying it was safe when refined at controlled temperatures and that the company only bought oil from sustainable palm plantations.

Barilla decided to mount a challenge to Nutella after sensing that Ferrero was starting to encroach on the pasta-maker's lesser-known biscuit business, one of the sources said.

Industry sources said Ferrero will launch a Nutella-filled biscuit next year, seen as a direct challenge to Barilla's own chocolate cookie brand, Baiocchi.

Ferrero declined to comment on the new biscuit.

To take on Nutella, Barilla has prepared a recipe that contains sunflower oil, 10 percent less sugar, Italian-only hazelnuts and cocoa from sustainable farms, one source said.

Read also: Chocolate company Lindt launches chocolate hazelnut spread

Crunchy taste

Barilla, also a family-owned firm, has presented its spread to buyers at major supermarket chains and could launch it as soon as January in Italy, the sources said.

Still, it faces a tough challenge.

One industry expert said it could cost several million euros just to secure a spot on the same supermarket shelves as Nutella, which commands a premium eye-level position.

"Crema Pan di Stelle will increase competition for Nutella in Italy thanks to the considerable brand awareness it has among domestic customers, but Barilla will find it difficult to take the challenge abroad," said Marco Eccheli, director at the Italian unit of consulting firm AlixPartners.

Contacted for a comment Barilla said it would answer questions about new products in coming weeks.

The name Crema Pan di Stelle is taken from another of Barilla's successful biscuits brands, Pan di Stelle or 'bread of the stars' which is sold mainly in Italy.

"It will contain crumbles of Pan di Stelle cookies to make it taste crunchy," the source said.
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Los Angeles, United States  Wed, November 21, 2018 12:06 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d14b11 2 Entertainment robert-de-niro,marriage,divorce Free

Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro and his wife of more than 20 years have separated, media reports said on Tuesday.

De Niro, 75, and Grace Hightower, 63, have been living apart for some time, The Hollywood Reporter, celebrity website TMZ and People magazine said, quoting anonymous sources.

De Niro's spokesman did not return a request for comment.

The "Raging Bull" actor and Hightower married in 1997 and have two children. It was De Niro's second marriage.

Read also: Suspicious package sent to Robert De Niro in New York: police

"Sometimes things don't work out the way you hope or want them to," a source close to the family told People magazine.

De Niro, one of America's most respected actors and winner of two Oscars, has tended to keep his family and his private life out of the spotlight.

He made headlines last month when he was among a slew of critics of U.S. President Donald Trump who were sent crude pipe bombs in the mail. None of the devices exploded and a Florida man was arrested and is awaiting trial.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 19:36 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d26f54 1 Entertainment Robin-Hood,Taron-Egerton,Jamie-Foxx,film-review,Movie,Summit-Entertainment,Jamie-Dornan Free

The legendary archer in tights has returned, except in this origin story he is ditching the tights for a machine-stitched suit jacket that might have been bought from H&M.

Robin Hood is based on the heroic outlaw from 15th century English folklore. Taron Egerton plays Robin of Loxley, a noble sent to Arabia as a crusader, leaving his lover Marian (Eve Hewson) at home. Returning after four years, Robin finds his manor in shambles and seized by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn). Marian also has a new beau Will (Jamie Dornan), after being told that Robin was lost in action.

Enraged, Robin teams up with John (Jamie Foxx), a former battlefield enemy who lost a hand and a son, to take down the sheriff. After going through a training period a la 2008's The Dark Night, Robin turns into a heroic thief known as The Hood while maintaining his Bruce Wayne-like noble alter ego Robin of Loxley. Turns out, Marian is also plotting a scheme against the corrupt church with her friend and Robins confessor Friar Tuck (Tim Minchin) despite Wills dissent.

Director Otto Bathurst daringly establishes Robin Hood as an action movie. With the crusade combat in Arabia, Robins training montage with John, the thieving scenes, this reimagining is action-packed. Every arrow shot is an instant kill, with bodies piling up on the streets. Bathurst seems to have a knack for maximizing fun through camerawork and editing, though explosions, fiery roads and blood splatters can feel excessive. Another thing he needed was to hit the brake on the slow motion scenes. Not a single action sequence in the movie escapes its slow-mo fate, ruining the tension and making the movie feel outdated.

Read also: 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle': Star-studded cast, bigger action

The battle in Arabia resembles a video game shooter, except this time its with bows and arrows instead of assault rifles. The miners are relentless workers who disapprove of their rulers and are cluelessly waiting for someone to lead their revolution, a typical working class of young adult dystopian fiction, The Hunger Games in particular comes to mind.

The lackluster performances dont help much either. Egerton plays Robin Hood unlike anyone before; hes young, flirty and sleek, and yet is still bland in comparison to his Kingsman performances. Foxx overdoes the character with grunts and growls, F. Murray Abraham is ridiculously underused and Hewson is forgettable. Mendelsohns victim-turned-to-sadist sheriff and Minchins comical Tuck are the only solace, though nothing outstanding.

Seemingly craving for the youths attention, Robin Hood feels erroneously modernized. Robins suit jacket aside, the characters looks are out of their period. The sheriff, a prime example, bears a dandy, long grey leather coat with a perfect comb-over haircut. Tuck is a rambling, insecure confessor with long hair and bright-colored clothes. At least Robin actually wears a hood instead of a feathered bycocket.

Robin Hood tries to stand as a fresh adaptation, but ends up being another of Hollywoods countless tiring attempts at reimagining the folklore. It ends with a good villain twist but also an open ending, obviously calling for a sequel. Will it be necessary? Absolutely not. (iru/wng)
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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram  Wed, November 21, 2018 07:35 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877cfe20b 1 National Baiq-Nuril-Maqmun,sexual-harassment,amnesty,Jokowi,ITE-Law,West-Nusa-Tenggara,AGO,Supreme Free

Baiq Nuril Maqmun, a 37-year-old teacher in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) who was convicted of defaming a man she accused of sexually harassing her, has reported her former superior to the police for his alleged crime.

Accompanied by her husband Lalu Isnaeni and 15 members of her legal team, she visited the NTB Polices general crime investigation directorate on Monday, bringing evidence.

Among the evidence submitted was a copy of the Mataram District Courts ruling that her former boss, M, committed sexual harassment against her.

M was reported for violation of Article 294 (2) (1) of the Criminal Code on officials committing obscene deeds against subordinates or persons under their responsibility. The penalty carries a maximum seven years' imprisonment, Joko Dumadi, one of Nurils lawyers, said on Monday.

The Supreme Court sentenced Nuril to six months' imprisonment and ordered her to pay a fine of Rp 500 million after finding her guilty of defaming M, who was at the time of the alleged harassment the headmaster of the public high school where she worked.

She was convicted of circulating a recording of a phone call in which M talked about his sexual relations with another woman. She claimed she had only taped the phone call and someone else distributed the recording.

No immediate jail and fine

On Monday, the head of the communications office of the Attorney General's Office, Agung Mukri, said his office would delay Nuril's incarceration and fining. "We've heard the public perception of [a miscarriage of] justice, so we are delaying carrying out the sentence," Mukri said as quoted by Antara.

He said the decision was also in response to a request by Nuril's legal team to delay carrying out the sentence, which was slated for Wednesday. Mukri encouraged the lawyers to quickly file for a case review.

Nuril said she believed the delay was related to the support she got from President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. On Tuesday, she thanked the president for his support. Activists called on Jokowi to give Nuril amnesty but Jokowi, saying he supported Nuril's fight to get justice, instead suggested she file for a case review.

I can imagine, without the support from all parties, it would surely be very difficult for me to get true justice, Nuril told the press during a briefing at the Mataram Universitys School of Law.

Nurils lawyer Hendro Purba said Nuril learned about the delay only from the mass media. He said he would seek confirmation on Wednesday from the Mataram Prosecutors Office.

We will ask for a written statement from the prosecutors office on the delay so Nuril will have legal force for it, he said.

However, the lawyers would not be able to immediately file for a case review by the Supreme Court, he said, because they had not received a copy of the Supreme Courts ruling, which is required for a case review submission.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 06:44 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877cfcb04 1 City becak,Sebaja,Rasdullah,Ancol,Monas,tourism,UPC,UI Free

For decades, the Jakarta Pedicab Drivers Union (Sebaja) has been fighting for permission to work in certain neighborhoods in North and West Jakarta in peace, without risking raids.

After Governor Anies Baswedan gave them the green light to operate in limited areas in January this year, the drivers now face an unexpected enemy in Jakartans who look down on them and their pedicabs as embarrassing relics of the past.

Last month, City Council Speaker Prasetio Edi Marsudi vowed to never approve the revision to a bylaw prohibiting becak (pedicabs), saying they would downgrade Jakarta residents. People in Jakarta should be encouraged to use good quality mass public transportation, such as the Transjakarta bus, commuter line and later MRT, Prasetio said.

The Jakarta administration has prohibited becak from operating on its main roads since 1970.

Needed in lower-income areas

But in the back alleys in certain neighborhoods, about 1,600 becak drivers have still been operating for years, risking raids every day. When leaving Pejagalan Jaya traditional market in West Jakarta with bags full of groceries, just call out becak and pedicabs will come pedaling up to take you to your destination.

The Pejagalan Jaya traditional market has one of the few official shelters for becak in Jakarta, situated at the markets entrance on Jl. Pejagalan 2. More than five pedicabs can be seen waiting for passengers on the 15-meter square shelter on Saturday morning.

The pedicab drivers, mostly in their 60s, who gathered at the shelter told The Jakarta Post that it was their morning routine to go back and forth from the market to transport passengers. Most of their customers are housewives carrying groceries. Some are regulars who hire becak to pick up their children from a school nearby.

Solar-powered pedicabs

Sebaja chairman Rasdullah said the group had engaged with a team at the University of Indonesia (UI) to discuss the development of becak, which led to the idea to develop a solar-powered becak.

Some [drivers] are not as strong as they used to be to pedal their becak, he said.

To solve the issue, a solar-powered, environmentally friendly alternative was proposed.

Sebaja, UI and the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) have been working together to realize the idea.

Herlily, a lecturer from UIs school of architecture who is involved with the project, told the Post that modifying the becak was part of a bigger improvement in the becaks operation. Her team has been working to collect data on Jakartas becak and becak drivers, improving the route and now providing an ergonomic vehicle.

We will still keep the classic vintage form of the becak. Its mechanical operation will be modified, she said.

Gugun Muhammad of the UPC said the innovative becak would be powered by solar cell panels attached to the roof.

[The solar-powered becak] aims to show the City Council that pedicabs can be more humane, he said, adding that the installment of solar cell panels would be optional for the drivers.

Anticipating accusations that the new models would swarm larger roads and be speeding, he emphasized that the solar panels would help the old drivers, not increase the speed of the vehicle.

Becak drivers, who were in the hundreds of thousands in Jakarta during their heyday, had been accused of causing traffic jams and disorder.

Herlily, however, said solar power was only one option; the modification could be as simple as attaching a dynamo, like those on electric bicycles.

Rasdullah joked that he had already thought of the name for the vehicle: Becak Online Cepat dan Irit (fast and economical app-based becak), or Be'ol Cepirit for short, which can also be loosely translated as excreting.

The name became viral after his joke was picked up by several online media platforms last week. Gugun has since clarified that there were no plans to actually call the new becak that.

But he did express the hope that the modified becak would fit the modern image of the capital.

[Hopefully], the becak can operate within tourist areas such as Ancol Dreamland Park [North Jakarta] and Monas [The National Monument], where passengers can order becak through an app, he said.

Rasdullah said he always envisioned modern-looking pedicabs in Jakarta to silence critics and convince the City Council to allow them to operate.

He said Sebaja was trying to push for legal certainty, which could only be achieved by the revision of Jakarta Regulation No. 8/2007 on public order.

The city administration submitted a draft revision to the City Council on Sept. 13. Until now, there has been no progress on the deliberation.

Improving drivers behavior

In an attempt to combat the stigma attached to the becak and its drivers, Rasdullah said Sebaja was trying to improve how they worked.

We want to show that we are organized, behave in an orderly fashion and can be trusted, the 54-year-old said.

Therefore, he said, Sebaja has locked its registered members at 1,685 drivers across 16 subdistricts, obliged them to attach to their becak a joint-agreement letter signed by the union and the Jakarta Transportation Agency and wear a green vest as part of their uniform.

Some people still need becak, especially in disadvantaged places and lower-middle income residents. Becak drivers in pangkalan [base] or within neighborhoods are always there when needed, he said, recalling his midnight experience when he pedaled some neighbors to the hospital.

Jakarta resident Fadila Paramitha, 28, said she opposed becak for being old-fashioned and nearly obsolete as a mode of transportation.

However, she supported having becak in tourist areas, citing countries like Japan that had implemented a similar idea.

Becak powered by solar energy sounds cool. I think it would be great for our tourism, she said. (sau)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 18:51 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d252e5 1 National KPK,aceh,Papua,integrity-index Free

The Aceh administration has reportedly received the highest score in the Corruption Eradication Commissions (KPK) 2017 Integrity Evaluation Index, while the Papua administration ranked at the bottom of the survey.

The regional evaluation of state institutions operated on a scale of 0 to 100, according to KPK head of research and development Wawan Wardiana.

The survey was conducted across 36 ministries, state departments and regional administrations.

Wawan explained that a high ranking suggested a lower probability for corruption, in addition to a robust system that restricts and prevents graft.

Both external and internal respondents in the 2017 survey were evaluated based on their understanding of and experience in antigraft culture, their management of the state budget, as well as their handling of human resources.

As many as 2084 internal respondents  comprising state officials and administrative staff  and 2142 external respondents, consisting of state service customers, participated in the survey.

The Aceh administration is the highest-ranking institution in the 2017 survey, with a score of 77.39. In contrast, the Papua administration is among the lowest-ranking respondents with a score of 52.91, Wawan said in Jakarta on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com, adding that the average score was 66.

Other highest-ranking institutions included the Bandung administration in West Java with a score of 77.15, the Customs and Excise Directorate with 76.54, the Health Ministry with 74.93, the Madiun administration in East Java with 74.15 and the Transportation Ministry with 73.4.

Meanwhile, among the lowest-ranking institutions included the North Maluku administration with a score of 55.29, the National Police with 54.01, the Banten administration in West Java with 57.64, the Bengkulu administration with 58.58 and the West Papua administration with 59.1.

However, Wawan noted that a score approaching 100 did not guarantee a completely graft-free institution.

High scores do not necessarily indicate a totally graft-free institution. As we all know, even the most fool-proof systems have loopholes that could be abused by criminals, he said. (rfa/swd)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 13:16 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d17fb6 1 City Jakarta-administration,Ancol,land-sinking,normalization,North-Jakarta Free

The city administration has taken responsibility for serious damage to several houses in Ancol, North Jakarta, which officials say was caused by dredging in the Ciliwung River.

It is our fault. Thats why we will fix [the damage], Jakarta Water Management Agency (SDA) head Teguh Hendarwan said on Tuesday, as quoted by tempo.co.

The land beneath the houses in Kampung Lodan gave way after the dredging of the Ciliwung River reportedly loosened the foundation of the old concrete embankment.

The subsidence has rendered uninhabitable eight semi-permanent homes, whose occupants have sought shelter in emergency tents or are staying with relatives.

One of the displaced residents, Sukaesih, said the street in front of the row of houses had been sinking for almost a month.

They dredged [the river], then the banks become eroded, and then the foundation supporting the concrete columns collapsed, Sukaesih said, as quoted by tempo.co in the shelter.

She said the agency had tried to rectify the situation by installing a new concrete embankment, but that effort had only made the sinking worse.

Teguh said the agency usually studied the rivers distance and depth before dredging to anticipate subsidence.

This incident was caused by the lack of calculation before dredging, he said. (gis)
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Linkedin Richard Carter with Joseph Schmid in Paris (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo, Japan  Wed, November 21, 2018 16:04 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d1baab 2 Business #Japan,#automotive,Nissan,Carlos-Ghosn,custody Free

Japanese authorities Wednesday extended Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn's detention by 10 days, as it emerged the car giant itself could face charges over the alleged financial misconduct that laid low its once-loved leader.

Monday's stunning arrest of the millionaire auto tycoon, who is credited with turning around the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Motors alliance, sent shockwaves through the global car sector, corporate Japan and beyond.

On Wednesday, several media reported that the Tokyo district court had ordered the 64-year-old Brazil-born businessman held for a further 10 days as prosecutors step up their investigation over the alleged under-reporting of Ghosn's package by about five billion yen ($44.5 million).

Prosecutors had 48 hours after his arrest to either press formal charges, release him or request this 10-day custody extension to continue the probe.

The titan of the car industry is being held in a detention centre in northern Tokyo in conditions far removed from his flashy lifestyle. "In principle, he will be all alone in a cell," lawyer Ayano Kanezuka told AFP.

"There is everything you need, heating, a bed but conditions are spartan," said Kanezuka's colleague Lionel Vincent, who also said there would be an inner courtyard with bars.

The crisis appeared to be going from bad to worse for Nissan, as the Asahi Shimbun reported that prosecutors believe the firm also had a case to answer. Both Nissan and the authorities declined to comment.

- 'Too much authority' -

Nissan's board will decide Thursday whether to remove him as chairman, a staggering reversal of fortune for the once-revered manager who created the three-way alliance which together sells more cars worldwide than any other automaker.

Ghosn's fate appears all but sealed after his hand-picked replacement as CEO, Hiroto Saikawa, launched an astonishing broadside at his mentor, saying "too much authority" had been placed in his hands and lamenting the "dark side of the Ghosn era."

Saikawa pointedly refused to offer the deep "apology bow" that usually accompanies corporate scandals in Japan and played down the role Ghosn had personally played in reviving the firm's fortunes.

However, in France, Renault said it was sticking with the fallen manager as chief executive although it named chief operating officer Thierry Bollore as deputy CEO, handing him the "same powers" as the "temporarily incapacitated" Ghosn.

After an emergency board meeting, Renault urged its sister company Nissan to share "evidence seemingly gathered" against Ghosn from a months-long internal investigation, saying it was unable to comment on the charges without this information.

Paris and Tokyo have been scrambling to contain the fall-out from the arrest, with the finance ministers of both countries declaring strong support for "one of the greatest symbols of Franco-Japanese industrial cooperation."

The scandal -- the latest in a string to affect Japan Inc. -- wiped millions off the stock value of all three companies but Nissan bounced back marginally in opening Tokyo trade, climbing nearly half a percentage point in a falling market.

And Ghosn won some support on the street of Tokyo, with passer-by Yoshiaki Watanabe telling AFP: "I think this is someone who was able to do what we Japanese, stuck in our ways, were not able to do."

- 'Flamboyant glory-hogging ways' -

Ghosn was once the darling of corporate and even popular Japan -- even having a manga comic inspired by him -- and has been the glue holding the auto tie-up together since 1999.

He had a reputation as a workaholic and won the nickname "Le Cost Cutter" in France for his slash-and-burn approach to corporate restructuring.

Under his stewardship, Nissan and Renault became deeply entwined.

Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan while in turn the Japanese firm has a 15-percent stake in Renault.

Nissan has become the alliance's key player however, posting sales of 12 trillion yen ($106 billion) last year compared with Renault's 59 billion euros ($67 billion).

According to the Financial Times, Ghosn was working on a merger of the two carmakers that Nissan opposed because it feared the Japanese company could be relegated to a secondary role.

Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, told AFP that Ghosn was "a victim of his own hubris and success."

"He trampled on Japanese cultural norms with his flamboyant glory-hogging ways, and his massive compensation incited jealousies and invited retaliation," he told AFP.

- 'Greedy' -

Local media reported that Nissan's representative director Greg Kelly, who was arrested along with Ghosn, ordered other executives to "hide salaries."

Some compensation due to other executives reportedly ended up going to Ghosn, although it is not clear how the scheme worked.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that Nissan had paid "huge sums" to provide Ghosn with luxury homes in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam "without any legitimate business reason."

Even when his reputation was sky-high, he attracted criticism for a flashy lifestyle at odds with traditional Japanese corporate culture and his salary -- an estimated 13 million euros in total last year.

Media reports also spoke of a lavish Marie Antoinette-themed party in 2016 for Ghosn's second wedding, at the grandiose palace of Versailles.


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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21 2018

At their headquarters on Monday, the Jakarta Police reconstructed the case of the recent murder of an entire family that took place in Bekasi, West Java.

Diperum Nainggolan, 38, his wife Maya Boru Ambarita, 37, and their two children, Sarah Boaru Nainggolan, 9, and Arya Nainggolan, 7, were found dead in their home on Tuesday last week.

During the reconstruction, a conversation between the suspect Haris Simamora and the victims prior to the murders was revealed.

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Linkedin Vela Andapita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 11:27 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d12b16 4 City transjakarta,urban,jakarta,Transportation,crime,thief,abuse,security Free

Faisal was heading home to his house in Cilincing, North Jakarta, on a Transjakarta bus on the morning of Nov. 8 after completing a night shift at a hotel where he worked as a security officer.



He fell asleep during his trip at 8 a.m. that day from the Halimun bus stop in South Jakarta to BPKP Pemuda in East Jakarta. He awoke as the bus reached the Utan Kayu stop and saw a wallet on the floor. He said, thinking that the wallet belonged to a passenger sitting next to him, he picked it up and gave it to the person, who received it, who said that it was his.



However, another passenger suddenly shouted at Faisal, accusing him of stealing the wallet.



Onboard Transjakarta officers put Faisal in handcuffs, preventing him from getting off the bus at his destination. He was taken to the Pulogadung bus stop in East Jakarta and then to the Harmoni stop in Central Jakarta. He said he cooperated, thinking that he was being taken to give information to the police.



However, at the Harmoni bus stop, Faisal was allegedly harassed and assaulted by Transjakarta security officers, his lawyer M. Al Marsyahdan said.



Can you imagine that? Amid his fatigue, Faisal, who only wished to get home as soon as possible after a night shift, had to deal with such a situation, Marsyahdan told The Jakarta Post on Monday.



He added that at Harmoni, the 38-year-old was allegedly locked up inside the security room with eight security guards until 9 p.m. Marsyahdan accused the officers of beating up Faisal while inside and forcing him to make a statement in a letter admitting misconduct.



He was forced to take off his clothes and pants and was told to sit-walk around the Harmoni bus stop while wearing a signboard saying I am a pickpocket, Marsyahdan said.



He added that his client had undergone a medical check-up and reported the case to the Central Jakarta Police a day after the incident. Faisal and his team of attorneys would visit the Central Jakarta Police on Wednesday to ensure the report was being processed. Faisal would also issue a subpoena for Transjakarta over the alleged ill-treatment.



We only want justice for our client. We demand Transjakarta take responsibility for Faisals suffering and publicly apologize to restore Faisals good name, Marsyahdan said, adding that Faisal had not returned to work since the incident because of alleged trauma and injuries.



Signboards stating I am a pickpocket are among the measures used by Transjakarta to punish alleged pickpockets the company claims to have caught committing the crime onboard buses or in bus stop areas. The company has said that the action serves as a social sanction and is used before proceeding with a report to police.



Following the report, Transjakarta, however, stood its ground, continuing to accuse Faisal of being a pickpocket based on a report by the companys security officers who investigated the incident.



It is not a wrong accusation. We have enough evidence to prove that the person [Faisal] really is a pickpocket, Transjakarta operational manager Daud Joseph told the Post on Tuesday, adding that the management had questioned the officers on guard that day for detailed information about the incident.



Among the strongest pieces of evidence was an eyewitness account, he added. Asked whether any footage from the bus CCTV camera was included, he said, Yes, that too.



Now that Faisal and his lawyers have filed a report with the Central Jakarta Police, Joseph said the company was ready to face a lawsuit.



Joseph, however, refused to comment on the alleged abuse and denied that the company conducted any vigilantism. He reiterated that the officers follow the companys own procedures before handing out punishment to alleged pickpockets. The procedures include questioning victims and witnesses and checking CCTV footage, he said.



The company said it would maintain its procedures and rely on its own security officers to handle such cases. Transjakarta would only involve police if the victims made reports to them, Joseph added.

This article was originally published in The Jakarta Post's print edition on Nov. 21, 2018, with the title "Security officers accused of abuse, humiliation of rider".
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21 2018

House of Representatives Speaker Bambang Soesatyo has pledged to expedite the deliberation of the long-awaited sexual violence bill, calling violence against women in Indonesia an emergency.

Bambang said in written statement on Monday that he would push House Commission VIII, which oversees social and religious affairs and is tasked with deliberating the bill, to focus on it on Wednesday when the House sits again.

The bill is a way for the justice system to process all sexual violence cases. [The expected law] will be the main reference point for law enforcement to give victims a sense of justice, Bambang added.

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Linkedin Sonny Tumbelaka (Agence France-Presse) Bangli, Bali  Wed, November 21, 2018 20:09 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d27663 2 National #Bali,#drugs,Australia,drugs,smuggling,freed Free



The first member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang was released from prison Wednesday after serving 13 years, in a case that caused a huge diplomatic rift between Indonesia and Australia.

Renae Lawrence, 41, the only female member of the group, was arrested in 2005 when authorities caught her 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.

She was initially handed a life term, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further cut due to good behaviour.

Surrounded by immigration officials and a swarm of media who jostled to get a picture of her, Lawrence left Bali's Bangli prison shortly after 5:00 pm (0900 GMT) and got into a waiting car.

Lawrence is set to fly to Brisbane on Wednesday evening, according to an intelligence source, who asked not to be named.

"We'll put her on a blacklist which bans her for life from ever coming back to Indonesia," said Agato Simamora, head of Bali's immigration department.

Earlier Wednesday, Bangli prison chief Made Suwendra told AFP that Lawrence was healthy and ready to leave prison.

"She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous," Suwendra said.

- Firing squad -

The Australian Police Commissioner for the state of New South Wales, Mick Fuller, told The Australian newspaper there were two outstanding arrest warrants for Lawrence and that they will speak to her when she returns to the country.

Reports in Australian media said Lawrence could face arrest once she is back home over a high-speed chase involving a stolen vehicle dating back to just before she was arrested in Indonesia.

Of the nine in the original group, 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.

Another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died in prison in June 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.

Dozens of foreigners are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drugs offences, with executions carried out by firing squad.

Among them are a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother, an American caught with crystal methamphetamine, and several west African inmates sentenced to death for drug crimes.

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.

Foreigners are routinely arrested for drug crimes in Indonesia, including a Frenchman busted in October with nearly four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of narcotics including cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, while an Australian was arrested in August for allegedly dealing cocaine to Bali holidaymakers.

This summer, a Frenchman detained for 18 years after trying to smuggle hashish into Bali was allowed to leave Indonesia after serving several years of parole in the country.


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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21 2018

The South Jakarta District Court has seized the Granadi Building, owned by the family of former president Soeharto, also known as the Cendana family, in relation to a misuse of funds under the now-defunct Supersemar Foundation.

The confiscation is part of efforts to execute a Supreme Court verdict that ordered the foundation, set up by the countrys former ruler, to pay a fine of Rp 4.4 trillion (US$320 million) after it was found guilty of misusing scholarship funds.

[The building] has been officially confiscated, South Jakarta District Court Spokesperson Achmat Guntur said as quoted by tempo.co on Monday.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 19:13 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d262fa 1 City tax,vehicle-tax,sticker,tax-collection Free

The Jakarta Tax and Levy Agency is planning to put special stickers on vehicles owned by those who have not paid their taxes.

The head of the North Jakarta and Thousand Islands management unit for vehicle taxes and vehicle ownership transfer fees, Robert L. Tobing, said the policy would be enforced to shame those who had not paid their vehicle taxes.

It will be a deterrent effect for people to see [stickers indicating that] there are those who have not paid their taxes. Other kinds of taxes, such as land and building taxes or restaurant [taxes], already have billboard warnings, Robert said on Wednesday, kompas.com reported.

He said the agency was still discussing issues related to the matter, such as where to place the stickers.

We havent enforced it because we are still discussing things like the sticker type, the sticker appearance and where they would be placed. If the stickers were on the body of the vehicle, the owners might get angry, but on the windshield, perhaps not, Robert said.

He said the policy would be enforced by the end of the year at shopping malls or other crowded places and that the agencys officers already had a smartphone app that could detect whether a vehicles taxes had been paid.

Nowadays, we carry [our equipment] everywhere. Even if we are far away [from the office], we can check whether the taxes of a vehicle have been paid for or not. Just type in the license plate and it [the information] will come out, Robert said. (ami)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 17:04 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d20ce8 4 Business Jokowi,investment-policies,exports,value-added-exports Free

While the latest economic policy package was just announced earlier this week, President Joko Jokowi Widodo has called on his ministers to further evaluate policies on investment and tax incentives to ensure they were apt to attract investors.

The key for higher economic growth was investment and exports, said the President at Bogor Palace in West Java on Wednesday, adding that, therefore, the government needed to continuously carry out improvements in investment policies to make Indonesia more competitive.

All the efforts were needed as the country posed a dual deficit  a current account deficit and a trade deficit, he added.

We have to assure that the incentives will go to the sectors that can strengthen our industry to strengthen our national economy, the President said when opening the limited Cabinet meeting on investment and taxation.

He said more investment in the manufacturing industry would help Indonesia transform its economy from its dependency on natural resources to more dependency on manufactured products that have more added value for the economy.

With all those efforts, we would be able to revitalize our industry and to reduce our dependency on imported raw materials and to maximize the utilization of domestic economic resources, Jokowi said as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Jokowi said the target of the investment policy was not only to create jobs and reduce unemployment, but also to help businesses, particularly micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and cooperatives expand.

It can be implemented through the transfer of technology and partnerships between large companies and MSMEs.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 14:25 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d194a1 4 Business Jokowi,SKKMigas,chief,appointment Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo is still reviewing candidates to replace Amien Sunaryadi, who has completed his term as the head of the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKK Migas).

Nov. 18 should have been my last day, Amien said as quoted by kontan.co.id on Wednesday.

SKK Migas is currently completing its work plan and budget, as well as drafting the plan of development (POD) for several oil and gas blocks, including the Masela Block and IDD Chevron, which must be approved by the SKK Migas head.

Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry spokesman Agung Pribadi could not provide any details about the appointment, saying that "no signals" had been made yet on the new SKK Migas head.

SSK Migas spokesman Wisnu Wibawa Taher made a similar statement, that he had no clue as to who the President would appoint. When asked whether the government was facing difficulties finding a suitable candidate, he replied, No comment.

However, he said that the regulator could still operate normally.

SKK Migas was established under Presidential Regulation No. 9/2013 to manage upstream oil and gas exploration and production activities. In particular, it is responsible for establishing contracts with corporations to generate maximum state revenues from the sector. (bbn)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21 2018

The nearly completed terminal of the Kuala Tanjung shipping port in Batubara regency, North Sumatra, will use an investment loan worth Rp 479 billion (US$32.8 million) for the automation of its management system to guarantee the efficiency of the port, which is poised to become one of the largest international hubs in Indonesia.

Director Moedi Utomo of the ports developer, PT Prima Multi Terminal (PMT), told reporters in Jakarta on Monday that the loan from state infrastructure financing company PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI) would be used for, among other things, installing the electrical wiring and computers needed for the operation of the port from a single control room.

The multipurpose terminal, the construction of which was 99 percent complete, would start fully operating by next February, he said after signing the loan agreement with SMI.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 12:58 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d17007 1 National Muhammadiyah,PAN,amien-rais,Haedar-Nashir Free

Amien Rais has urged Muhammadiyah, the countrys second largest Muslim organization, to decide which presidential candidate to support in the upcoming 2019 election.

Amien is the patron of the National Mandate Party (PAN) and an adviser to the Muhammadiyah central executive board. The party is part of the coalition backing the Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno camp alongside Gerindra, the Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

If you did that [remained silent], I will pinch your ear. In the upcoming presidential election, you cant just say it's up to you! Amien said on Tuesday during the organization's 106thanniversary event at the Islamic Center Surabaya in the East Java capital.

Amiens calls for Muhammadiyah to publicly declare its support for a presidential ticket, however, were quickly dismissed by the organization's student grouping.

The central executive board of the Muhammadiyah Students Association (IMM) called on its parent organization to remain neutral and unswayed by Amiens calls to support a particular candidate.

If we did support a certain candidate, how would we be different from a [campaign] success team or a political party? IMM central executive board chairman Najih Prastiyo said in a written statement on Wednesday.

Najih said that Muhammadiyah should stay true to itself, remain independent and not issue an instruction for its members to pick a side during political events like the presidential election.

Muhammadiyah is home to all elements of the nation, he said as quoted by tempo.co. Whoever is elected the President, Muhammadiyah will remain as a critical partner of the government.

Muhammadiyah chairman Haedar Nashir had recently reiterated that the organization would uphold its philosophy of ummatan wasathon (moderates) and would not pick sides in national politics.

Muhammadiyah will maintain its impartiality in politics, Haedar said. (swd)
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Linkedin Naomi Kawaguchi (The Japan News/ANN) Tokyo, Japan  Wed, November 21, 2018 08:51 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d00a04 2 Business #Japan,#automotive,Nissan,Chairman,Carlos-Ghosn,arrest Free

The arrest Monday of Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn  an unexpected fall for the charismatic international businessman who shepherded the recovery of the Japanese carmaker and led the three-way alliance of Nissan, Frances Renault SA, and Mitsubishi Motors Corp.  has sent shock waves through the automaker.

At about 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nissan put out a shocking press release saying that a number of significant acts of misconduct have been uncovered in regard to Ghosn. The single sheet of A4-sized paper concisely described the suspicion that the chairman has understated his compensation in a securities report for years.

Nissan President and Chief Executive Officer Hiroto Saikawa denounced Ghosn at an emergency press conference that started a little past 10 p.m. Monday at the companys headquarters in Yokohama. The alleged misconduct was totally unacceptable, Saikawa said.

If proved to be true, the suspected wrongdoing  the falsification of the securities reports, personal use of company funds for investment, and misuse of company expenses  could demonstrate that Ghosn was treating the company like his own personal possession.

I feel strong indignation, far beyond regret, said Saikawa with an agonized expression.

A proposal will be introduced to the Nissan board of directors to remove the two suspects  Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly  and their dismissal appears certain.

Executive: Ghosn is greedy

Ghosn is greedy, a Nissan executive officer said. He says the right things, but all he cares about is money after all.

The executive compensation Ghosn received in fiscal 2017 totaled about 1.9 billion ($16.9 million)  about 700 million from Nissan; about 900 million from Renault, where he also serves as CEO; and about 200 million from Mitsubishi Motors as its chairman.

Ghosns name became well known in 1999 when he was sent from Renault to financially troubled Nissan as its chief operating officer. He announced a restructuring program dubbed the Nissan Revival Plan, earning the nickname Cost Cutter. Ghosn established his reputation as a corporate manager by closing the carmakers Murayama plant in Tokyo, where its flagship car brands had been manufactured.

Delicate balance

In recent years, however, there has been discord in the company with regard to Ghosn. Nissan has globally expanded its sales, but Renaults have been stagnant. The Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi trilateral partnership was led by Nissan, but the number of executive officers Ghosn invited from outside Japan has increased year after year.

The other suspect, Greg Kelly, is a lawyer who joined the company in 1988 as an employee of Nissan North America Inc. He became corporate vice president of Nissan Motor Co. in 2008 and representative director in 2012. Two directors  Jean-Baptiste Duzan and Bernard Rey  were invited from Renault.

Nissans board of directors was treading a delicate balance between the apparent Ghosn faction of four members  including Ghosn himself  and five Japanese members.

Ghosn was seen inside Nissan as someone who keeps receiving high remuneration without confronting his own responsibility even when the company underperforms, while telling his subordinates to strictly achieve targets.

Deepening fault line

The fault line further deepened around 2015 as moves to review the Nissan-Renault capital partnership began to simmer. Management, including Saikawa, was strongly alarmed by moves for the two companies to completely integrate their management in keeping with the French governments intentions, and nervously watched every step Ghosn made.

When the scandal over improper inspections at Nissan emerged in 2017, Ghosn failed to fulfill his accountability and passed the responsibility down to Japanese executives.

The trilateral alliance was formed by Ghosn, but his alleged misconduct was revealed by a whistle-blowers report. At Mondays news conference, Saikawa expressed regret, saying: Ghosn is also Renault chairman and CEO and chairman of Mitsubishi Motors. Too much power has been concentrated in one individual.

He then expressed his belief that Ghosns arrest was a good chance to pursue a sustainable corporate system by ending management excessively dependent on a specific individual.

A radical change in the companys management appears inevitable.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 18:25 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d248cf 1 City toll-gates,Bekasi,odd-even-license-traffic-policy Free

The Greater Jakarta Transportation Agency (BPTJ) has planned to enforce the odd-even license plate policy at the Tambun tollgate in Bekasi, West Java, in early December, in an attempt to alleviate traffic on the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road.

The policy was previously implemented at the Bekasi Barat and Bekasi Timur tollgates.

BPTJ secretary Hindro Surahmat said information on the planned policy had been disseminated through loudspeakers, variable-message signs (VMS) and pamphlets.

After the trial, the police would take action against any drivers who violate the policy, Hindro said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that the same policy would be implemented at the Pondok Gede Barat and Pondok Gede Timur tollgates. (cal)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 12:34 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d15a73 4 Business oil-palm-tree-growers,impact,price,decline Free

Oil palm tree growers in Indragiri Hulu, Riau province have been experiencing losses amid declines in the price of oil palm fresh fruit bunches to only Rp 600 (4 US cents) per kilogram, from Rp 1,300 per kg in previous months.

Growers are reportedly only keeping around Rp 250 per kg from sales after paying workers to harvest the commodity.

If we sell the fresh fruit bunches to collectors, the price will only be between Rp 600 and 700 per kilogram. But if we sell directly to palm oil manufacturers, prices could be up to Rp 930 per kilogram, said Emy Rosyadi, one of the farmers, as quoted by tribunnews.com on Tuesday.

Emy said the price decline had occurred in the last two months.

Joni Sigiro, also a farmer, said he had been selling fresh fruit bunches to collectors because palm oil manufacturers were no longer buying the fruit.

The price is low because palm oil manufacturers in this area are not buying the fruit because they still have stock, Joni said.

With such low prices, Emy said, growers were not able to consider ways to improve productivity because they had no money to buy fertilizer.

Its difficult for us to even buy food for ourselves, said Emy, who criticized negative campaigns against the commodity.

Previously, the Trade Ministry has issued a crude palm oil (CPO) reference price for September of US$603.94 per metric ton (MT), which is 4.46 percent lower than the reference price in August, which was set at $632.17 per MT. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Wed, November 21, 2018 09:29 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d0dba9 2 World #USA,Saudi-Arabia,Donald-Trump,Mohammed-Bin-Salman,journalist,killing Free

President Donald Trump acknowledged Tuesday that Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman could have known of the murder of a dissident journalist -- but said there would be no fallout anyway for Saudi-US relations.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said in a statement.

"We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," he said. "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia."

The gruesome murder of Khashoggi, who vanished after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, has hugely embarrassed Washington.

The killing torpedoed a powerful PR campaign led by the crown prince to show that the conservative Islamic state has embarked on a new reformist path.

It also threw into question the White House strategy to make MBS, as the royal is widely known, its main partner in the tinderbox region.

Trump has for weeks resisted accepting mounting evidence of Saudi government involvement in the Khashoggi killing -- and accusations that MBS ordered the hit.

However, with The New York Times reporting that the CIA has definitively concluded that Prince Mohammed was involved, the focus turned to whether Trump would punish his Saudi partner or find a way to let it slide.

In his statement, released by the White House press office, Trump took the latter option, saying that the US-Saudi relationship was more important than the possible involvement in the crime of Prince Mohammed.

He noted that Saudi King Salman and the crown prince "vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi."

Also, Saudi Arabia, he said, provides crucial help in the US struggle to contain Iranian ambitions, as well as having committed to $450 billion in US weapons contracts and other investments. In addition, the Saudis have helped in keeping oil prices low, Trump said.

"The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," he said.

Trump acknowledged a strong push in Congress for the United States to sanction MBS and take other action against the Saudi leadership.

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," he said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 11:16 1099 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d11779 1 City murder,bogor,Bekasi,suspect,arrest,drum Free

Police have confirmed Tuesdays arrest of MN, 35, who is suspected of murdering former journalist Abdullah Fithri Setiawan, whose body was found in a drum in Bogor, West Java, on Sunday.

Police arrested the suspect near a car wash in Bantargebang subdistrict, Bekasi, West Java, at 2:30 p.m., Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Com. Argo Yuwono said on Tuesday night as quoted by kompas.com.

Argo said police also found the victims cell phone, ID card, drivers license, ATM card and passbook during the arrest.

The suspect, who is undergoing questioning, is a resident of Rawalumbu subdistrict, Bekasi.

Abdullah, known as Dufi to family and friends, was a father of six.

Dufi had worked as a journalist and marketing staff at mass media companies, including Rakyat Merdeka and Indopos, as well as at Berita Satu, iNews TV and TVRI television stations.

The victim started his own advertising company while working at TVRI and freelancing at TV Muhammadiyah.

Dufi was laid to rest on Monday morning in the same plot as his father at Semper Cemetery in North Jakarta. (sau)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 18:04 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d232b0 1 City water,pipe,driver,West-Jakarta Free

A car hit a water pipe on Jl. Puri Indah, Kembangan, West Jakarta, on Wednesday, causing the pipe to leak and spray around the area.

West Jakarta Transportation Agency officer Zulkarnain said the car that hit the pipe was driven by a 17-year-old man, identified as Michael Kurniadi, at around 3 a.m.

He was out of control, veering from lane to lane [before hitting the pipe]. Zulkarnain said on Wednesday, kompas.com reported.

He said the car was driving from Jl. Puri Kembangan Timur heading to Jl. Puri Indah. The car is suspected to have been going at high speed when crossing an intersection before hitting a sidewalk.

He said the car then hit the pipe, which was in the middle of a waterway. The car was stuck on steel wires that covered the pipe.

He hit the sidewalk and street signs for Jl. Puri Indah. The signs fell and became detached, Zulkarnain said.

He said the driver suffered no injuries but the front part of the car was damaged.

The pipe sprayed water onto the street, causing traffic jams. (ami).
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 12:42 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d16068 1 City murder,South-Jakarta,woman,suspects,arrest,Jambi Free

Police have arrested two people in Merangin, Jambi, who allegedly killed a woman, only identified as CLP, at her home on Jl. Mampang Prapatan in South Jakarta on Tuesday.

South Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Indra Jafar said the police were still investigating the motive behind the murder and the reason the suspects, identified only as YAP and R, chose to flee to Jambi.

We haven't interrogated them so far. But they intended to flee, Indra said on Tuesday, kompas.com reported.



He said the suspects had been identified after investigators had reviewed footage from CCTV cameras installed at the victim's rental home. Police tracked down the suspects and coordinated with Merangin Police in Jambi to arrest them.



With CCTV cameras [the suspects were identified] and the suspects were arrested within the jurisdiction of the Merangin Police. The police arrested them there, and we will fetch the suspects to be brought to Jakarta, Indra said.



Previously, Mampang Police chief Comr. Triharijadi said the victim had been murdered. CLPs body was found in a cupboard with wounds from a blunt object on the head. (ami)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, November 21, 2018 14:50 1098 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877d1a124 1 City infrastructure,project,LRT,railway,Cikampek-toll-road,postponement Free

The central government will postpone two out of three infrastructure projects passing along the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road, namely the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the light rail transit (LRT) projects, owing to traffic congestion caused by the construction.

Construction of the Jakarta-Cikampek II elevated toll road, meanwhile, is still ongoing with a targeted completion date of June 2019, during the Idul Fitri holiday.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said on Tuesday that the decision was made to alleviate severe traffic congestion at several points along the 73-kilometer toll road, which is operated by PT Jasa Marga, such as the 11 km and 17 km points.

For example, Ive asked the KCIC [PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China] not to carry out [the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway] construction here [on the toll road] for the time being, but [do other parts] somewhere else. While for the LRT, Ive asked to postpone their work at the 14 km point for several months, he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Jasa Marga president director Desi Arryani suggested that road users not enter the toll road at night as the toll operator was speeding up the Jakarta-Cikampek II elevated project.

From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. please dont use the toll road because thats when construction is happening, she said. (vla)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Thu, November 22 2018

The Jakarta Post published an interesting letter on Nov. 2 from European Union Ambassador Vincent Guerend regarding the EUs position on Indonesias palm oil exports to Europe.

In addition to palm oil, there are problems with the export of other agricultural products to the EU.

A case in point is Indonesian tea, which in the last few years has increasingly been sidelined in EU countries.

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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Kuala Lumpur  Thu, November 22 2018

After more than a decade of no progress, Indonesia and Malaysia finally agreed on a technical and legal basis for two delimitation proposals in the Sulawesi Sea and the southernmost part of the Malacca Straits.

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and her Malaysian counterpart Saifuddin Abdullah announced the latest development after the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Saifuddin said after 13 years of discussing the maritime boundary demarcation, negotiators finally agreed on the aforementioned segments during the 34th technical meeting held in Malacca from Friday to Sunday.

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It all began with Ibu Jasitem, a modest woman who built a hut on some spacious hilly land in the village of Linggarjati in Kuningan, West Java, long before Indonesian Independence.

Ibu Jasitem never had the chance to see that her property, now the Linggarjati Museum, hosts artefacts of one of Indonesias historical moments  the signing of the Linggarjati Agreement in November 1946  seen by many historians as a fundamental diplomatic achievement for Indonesia in getting recognition as a sovereign state.

The meeting certainly did not take place in a humble hut but in an elegant colonial-style building transformed by Dutch trader Jacobus Van Os in 1930.

Syamsudin, one of 12 museum officials, gave a glimpse inside through the museum tour. Visitors are only required to pay Rp 2,500 (57 US cent) for building maintenance, he says.

The 800-square-meter building still stands strong, but it looks a little dark inside. It has a long history of ownership and utilization, from Ibu Jasitems small hut to a Dutch traders resort and hotel  Hotel Roostood, Dutch military headquarters, Japanese hotel Hookay Ryokan to a local elementary school.

Syamsudin enthusiastically showed the mock-up rooms, where Indonesias founding fathers, Sutan Sjahrir, Ali Budiardjo, Muhammad Roem, A.K. Gani, J.Leimena, Soedarsono, Amir Sjarifuddin and Soesanto Tirtoprojo, had been involved in a heated meeting with delegates from the Netherlands  Willem Schermerhorn, M.J.M. Van Poll, F. De Boer and P. Sanders and with a British mediator, Lord Killearn.

Numerous black and white photographs and sketches of Indonesian and Dutch delegates hang on the white corridor heading to the guest bedrooms, living room, music and study room, kitchen and a big bathroom. Some of the photographs and archives came from Holland, but the furniture sets here are still original, we just changed the upholstery, Syamsudin said.

The collections and reading materials available at the museum give visitors an impression of life during that time, but they also reflect on the struggles and experiences of those involved in this important moment.

Veteran diplomat Umar Hadi shared his view in an article saying that: The Linggarjati Agreement is considered important, because it was the first time that politicians of the young republic were invited to sit down at the same table with politicians from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

It was actually a de facto recognition of Indonesia as a new state.

The agreement should therefore be perceived positively as a strategic diplomatic achievement.

To properly maintain this precious historical site, now under the auspices of the cultural and archaeological agency, more funding will be needed aside from the meager entrance fee income.

A museum should not become a thing of a past, but an important education center for younger generations to enrich their understanding about the history of their country in a way that no school textbook can do. However, young people are not keen on visiting such an unattractive place. There must be some ways to lure them to love going to a museum.

It is such a classical and an actually solvable problem with museum management and curatorial efforts in Indonesia, which has only around 428 museums for its 254 million population.

Data from the Ministry of Education and Culture show that only 15 percent of the 428 museums were properly managed and operated.

In the case of Linggarjati Museum, a massive renovation with funding from state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina took place after the late Poppy Sjahrir, wife of Sutan Sjahrir, the late vice president, and Indonesian proclamator Muhammad Hatta visited the dilapidated building in 1975, more than 30 years ago.

The head of the Kuningan tourism agency said the museum had become one of the regencys cultural attractions, luring thousands of visitors a year. There were around 8,000 people coming to the museum during the last Idul Fitri holidays, he said.

During the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Linggarjati Agreement two years ago, the Kuningan administration also held a Tour de Linggarjati, attracting national and international cyclists.

Thousands of visitors are expected to spend the Indonesian Independence Day holiday at the museum. For teenagers like high school students Annie and Hilman this museum is a romantic place with shady trees and a green landscape.

We can take a lot of beautiful pictures and post them on our Instagram accounts, said Annie.

A number of foreign visitors, mostly from European countries, were among those entering the museum. I am here to trace back my great grandfathers footsteps, said Marijke from Amsterdam.

To many Dutch citizens, Linggarjati Museum is a nostalgic reminder of family history.

It was touching to read a note written by Joty ter Kulve-Van Os, whose father, Johannes Jacobus van Os, built the house where she grew up there until World War II broke out. She recorded her visit in a documentary entitled My Visiting to Linggarjati, produced by Twan Spierts.

Many Dutch people have found their way to the Linggarjati Museum. Linggarjati has become a symbol, a spirit of conciliation and good governance. May this spirit be spread throughout the world, van Oss was quoted as saying.

Kuningan: A journey to the countrys past

Visiting the quiet and cool Kuningan, a small town near Cirebon in West Java, was a thoughtful and soul-enriching experience, at least to take a breather from the current political hustle and bustle of Jakarta and other big cities in Indonesia.

Bordering Cirebon to the north, Majalengka to the west and Brebes in Central Java to the east, Kuningan regency nestles on an elevation of 680 meters above sea level  on the slope of the 3,076 m high Mount Ciremai, an active volcano in West Java.

Dede Sembada, deputy regent of Kuningan who was in charge of the administration at the time of regional election season, said Kuningan was a conservation regency with 40 percent of its area retained as a forest area and the remaining 60 percent designated for residential agricultural and small-scale industrial sites.

Not many people recognize the importance of Kuningan in the course of Indonesias history as a nation. Kuningan has pre-historical sites and historical wealth, Dede said.

Whats more, Kuningan hosted the countrys first diplomatic gig as a sovereign state during the Linggarjati agreement in l946.

The Linggarjati museum is evidence of our founding fathers diplomatic struggles to establish an independent and sovereign nation  Indonesia. But, very few people, the younger generations in particular, are largely unaware of the historical stage, he said.

On a three-day trip to this regency, we dropped by the stunning Cipari archaeological park, where remains of the megalithic era  dolmen, menhir, stone altar and coffin graves are scattered all over the 7,000-square-meter site. Scholars said they were the remains of the neolithic and beginning of the bronze era, estimated to date around 1,000 BC.

Kuningan witnessed the countrys stages of history starting from pre-historic, Hindu, Islam and independence periods.

The name Kuningan is believed to have existed since the 14th century when the Hindu Galuh kingdom designated the area as a duchy according to Carita Parahyangan (the Story of Parahyangan  the ancient Sundanese land).

But, local legends spiced up the story of this small place. Kuningan in Sundanese means yellow, or a local name for brass. Other stories passed on from one generation to the other were related to prince Arya Kuningan, a son of an Islamic ruler in Cirebon, Syarif Hidayatullah and his queen Ong-thien Nio from the Ming Dynasty in China.

The prince took over the reign from the last Hindu king, Prabu Siliwangi, who escaped Kuningan, while his soldiers were transformed into fish, called ikan dewa (1 to 2 m long fish), which are found in Cibulan fish pond, a guard at the pond told visitors.

Eka Komara, head of the Kuningan Development Planning Agency, explained that Kuningan, with a population of 1.2 million, needs to attract investment.

The majority of young people go to urban cities to find work because the only jobs available here are in agriculture, which are not attractive to the youth, he said.

We often call these young people bukopin workers. It does not refer to Bukopin (a large bank in Indonesia)  it stands for bubur kacang ijo (green bean porridge), kopi (coffee) and indomie (instant noodle brand), because they ended up working in the informal sector selling these things in big cities like Bandung or Jakarta, Eka says.

With the new opening of the multi-million dollar Kertajati International Airport in the neighboring town of Majalengka, access to Kuningan might be widely opened for both tourists and investors.

Kuningan is known as an agropolitan city. New investment must be adjusted to our medium- and long-term development plan. We do not need large-scale investment, which will destroy our natural and historical treasures.
Image courtesy of the London Jazz Festival

afterwards

The festival opened last Friday with a show-stopping gala performance led by Guy Barker and his 42 piece orchestra, who found themselves accompanied by an array of grippingly soulful and equally powerful vocalists. Together, they previewed the diverse sampling of sounds that you could expect to find throughout the rest of the festival. Lea DeLaria, who you may recognize from Netflixs Orange is the New Black, kicked off the event with a wonderfully frenetic rendition of Welcome To My Party from the Broadway show The Wild Party. The tune served as the perfect, upbeat icebreaker for the festival, as host Jumoke Fashola explainedthat in its respective musical, it welcomes guests to a 1920s party full of drink, drugs and of course, sex. Deva Mahal, daughter of American blues musician Taj Mahal, slowed things down a bit, offering an emotionally provocative rendition of the title track from her latest album,Following such an energetic opening from Delaria, Devas voice took center stage with a truly compelling performance.One of the great things about the event was the divergent styles offered by the talent gathered. This was on full display when Lisbons Mariza welcomed the audience into the harrowing world of fado, a stripped down Portuguese genre that was simply saturated with laments. I wasnt quite sure what to expect from her performance, but her presence on stage, as well as her vocals, were just so commanding that I could tell I was, with the rest of the audience, totally awestruck.

Video courtesy of the London Jazz Festival

BBCs Young Jazz Musician 2018 Final, where 5 of the most promising youth talents play for the top spot in a concert format competition, to the scenes new, with sets still to come from actor Jeff Goldblum to concepts so creative that they simply have to be checked out. A prime example of the latter would be Fini Bearmans 'This is Not America', which explores the musical catalogue of Brixtons own Davie Bowie through the lens of a true jazz artist.

For the full listing of events, click here and to get tickets and more information on the EFG London Jazz Festival itself click here

Londons own Zara Macfarlane gave a hauntingly beautiful performance, singing 'Silhouettes'track from her album Arise. Her ability to not just manipulate, but have fun with, unique tonalities was on full display as she, too, captivated the crowd. As deserving as the collective of vocalists were of the nights billing, a real standout moment of the galas opening came when Guy Barkers orchestra took the spotlight for a medley of tunes from 1968. For about 15 minutes the orchestra ebbed and flowed between upbeat tunes with clear influences from not just the world of jazz, but funk and soul as well. While the night was focused on vocalists, this was a clear reminder that the London Jazz Festival was a celebration of all aspects of music. From here, the festival is chock full of worthy performances, ranging from the young in shows such as
...This evil Anti-Semitic attack is an assault on humanity. It will take all of us working together to extract the poison of Anti-Semitism from our world. We must unite to conquer hate.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2018

You think that Trump wouldve tweeted something great by now about the Hero in the Waffle House shooting if the hero was the one on the right instead of being the killer? @AP pic.twitter.com/67GtJa0crQ  Mr. Reynolds (@melreynoldsU) April 23, 2018

Students were parading with Trump signs around their school and chanting, White power!

Students at a middle school in Michigan were chanting, Build the wall!

The worlds premier white supremacy organization, the Ku Klux Klan, held a victory parade for Trump

Although these attacks have been directed at certain ethnicities or beliefs, their impact is far greater. This is an attack on everything America claims to stand for. Of course I am not accusing Donald Trump of directly causing or approving of these attacks, however it is his outspoken and oppressive views- along with his silence on some events- that has stoked the environment in which America now resides. Trump has changed the identity of the racist and the white supremacist. In past years, these people would hide behind hoods and slurs. Now, a white supremacist takes the form of a lawyer, a politician, senators. Trump has made it acceptable for these people to step out of the dark. These crimes are being committed in the name of the Greater Good, in a bid to Make America Great Again. The thing that struck me most about those 72 hours was the Presidents presence on his twitter page. He was quick to condemn the attack on the synagogue as well as the packages being sent to his political opponents.However, scrolling down Trumps feed I cannot fail to notice the absence of a single tweet or retweet regarding the shooting of the two African Americans who were shot by a white gunman in a grocery store in Kentucky. The man had originally tried to force entry into an historically black church but had turned to the store when he failed to enter the place of worship. In April, a white man entered a Waffle House in Tennessee and shot three African Americans one Latino. Speaking on this, thereported,'The presidents glaring silence on the four minority victims and the African-American hero who likely spared other lives from being taken speaks volumes to critics, who pointed out that Trump has taken the time to gripe about almost everything  except for this incident of home-grown terrorism. Since the shooting, Trump has taken the time to bang out angry tweets regarding the dumb Comey memos, a so-called witch hunt and the border wall.' What the President does not realise is that this silence sends one message to his white supremacist supporters; THAT THE PRESIDENT APPROVES.This is what thein response to the shooting in the synagogue: Look at the violence all over the world, the world has violence, the world is a violent world. And you think when youre over it it just sort of goes away. But then it comes back in the form of a madman, a wacko, I think one thing we should do is we should stiffen up our laws in terms of the death penalty. In past interviews, Trump has failed to condemn the Ku Klux Clan, has attacked muslim immigrants, as well as the populations of South America who are fleeing for their lives. After Trump was elected in 2016, the, Rhode Island, released an article entitled 'This HORRIFYING List Is Exactly Why We Cant Say It Will Be Okay Under Trump.' Amongst the list were these terrifying events:

Image Credit : Progressive Charlestown

Students at Maple Grove High School found, Fuck n*****s, #fuckallporchmonkeys, #whitesonly, #whiteamerica, and Trump Train, with the word blacks inside a circle with an x through it scrawled on a classroom door

Muslim women in three disparate locations around the country reported being attacked for wearing hijabs. One man choked his victim with her hijab

Nazi imagery is appearing around the country, including the words, Trump, and Seig Heil, some of which appeared on the anniversary of Kristallnact, or the night in 1938 that the Nazis burned and looted Jewish businesses and synagogues.

As thewarned in 2016 Intentionally or not, Mr. Trumps remarks are resonating with  and mobilizing  white supremacists, many of whom have traditionally refrained from participating in the political process. Of course, Trump does not control who supports him. What he can control, however, are his owns words and actions, which to the people of America, speak volumes. He needs to actively identify the fact that white supremacists support him, and not only ask why, but address them directly and condemn them. Until the President starts addressing and tackling home-grown terrorism, the problem will only continue to worsen.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Mostly clear. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low -2C. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Mostly clear. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low -6C. Winds light and variable.
Two of Montreals greatest ambassadors will be on stage Tuesday, Nov. 27 for the benefit of the Lachine Hospital Foundation. Taking place at Lachines LEntrepot concert hall, Chapleau & Aislin live Deux Solid Dudes  a wink to Two Solitudes, Hugh MacLennans 1945 novel about Canadas linguistic divide  will bring together editorial cartoonists Serge Chapleau and Terry Mosher (Aislin) for a retrospective look at their careers.

Although the pair have gotten together on numerous occasions to give humorous presentations of their work, Mosher says this one will be a bit different. There will be additional elements to this. As opposed to just showing the best cartoons of year, as weve often done for the Canadian Club and others, were going to talk a little bit about ourselves, how it evolved, how we became cartoonists, and its surprising how similar it is.

Aside from the languages in which they work, there are many similarities. Both men, for example, grew up in what Mosher calls reduced circumstances. Its very helpful to be a cartoonist in terms of having a lot more empathy for common people than for politicians and the powerful.

Chapleau graduated from LEcole des Beaux-arts in the late 1960s and began cartooning in the early 70s. Hes been with La Presse since 1996 and his long-running, weekly television series on Radio-Canada starring the CGI animated Gerard D. Laflaque character remains one of the funniest shows on television  in any language.

Mosher, now semi-retired and living in his beloved Lachine, also attended LEcole des Beaux-arts, graduating a few years before Chapleau, and went straight into cartooning for the Montreal Star before switching over to the Montreal Gazette in 1972.

Both men immediately hit it off when they first met in the 70s, have been friends ever since, are members of the Order of Canada and were bestowed honorary doctorates from Concordia University. Who knew that we would do so very well, said Mosher with a chuckle.

The idea for this fundraiser was born about three years ago when, during one of his many charity events, Mosher met Lachine Hospital Executive Director Monica McDougall.

I was just very impressed that she was involve in both the French and English community working very hard at these things, and I said just to her casually, Maybe Chapleau and I could do something for you sometime, said Mosher, adding, It took a few years to put together because of commitments.

Those commitments included Moshers work on on his bestselling book, From Trudeau to Trudeau  50 years of Cartooning, accompanied by long-running exhibits in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. When that was done, Mosher followed up on his promise. I asked Chapleau, and again, I said, Look Serge, weve done this for other people, would you mind doing it for my hospital? And he graciously said, Terry, Id love to do this for you. Which is very good of him. Hes a busy guy, as you know.

I also introduced him to Lachine and he was quite surprised at how charming Lachine was. A lot o people dont know much about Lachine, you know, said Mosher, adding with his familiar, hearty laugh. Not that I want them all moving here.

Since its inaugural edition in 2014, the Lachine Hospital Foundations annual fall fundraising show has raised close to $160,000 in support of the modernization of the Lachine Hospital  the only community hospital of the MUHC. The evening will also include a question-and-answer session as well as money-raising auctions. The theatre is a good size, It holds about 300 people. We can fill the hall, but at the same time its quite intimate. We dont need microphones in the audience to ask questions, for example.

By the way, in addition to giving back to his community, Mosher practically admitted to maybe having ulterior motives. Im not a fool, you know. Im getting older so to do a good thing for my local hospital is pretty smart, I think.

Chapleau & Aislin live Deux Solid Dudes will take place at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27 at LEntrepot in Lachine (2901 Boul. St. Joseph just east of 29th Ave. Tickets are $95. For more information or to reserve your tickets, call the Lachine Hospital Foundation at 514 934-1934 ext. 77333.
News

Cross mountain traffic decision stalled

Still a few problems between cyclists and cars on the Camillien-Houde Road

Based upon the results of a public consultation that was carried out throughout the summer by the citys OCPM (Office de la Consultation Publique de Montreal), the Plante administration is bound to face some stiff opposition if it finally decides to close cross-mountain traffic over the old Camillien Houde Road. Sources within the OCPM report that theres a well-organized opposition thats doing whatever it can to keep the road open. Some 25,000 have signed a petition to keep the road open. Some 7,000 have signed one to keep it closed.

Despite that, following last weeks presentation of the 9-page report on the follow-up work that was done during and after this summers pilot project, Plante administration authorities believe the project was a qualified success. According to the reports preliminary evaluation of the pilot project...

 There was a net reduction of traffic vehicles including at least 75% of the global volume of cars on the mountain along with the (almost) total elimination of cross over traffic.

 There was a drastic reduction in noise levels throughout the mountains environment.

 Traffic safety standards were much improved except for a noticeable rise in cycling speeds down the mountains switchback road that leads to the Outremont intersection near Fletchers Field. According to the report, there is still some conflict between cyclists and motorists and ...dangerous behavior on the part of motorists and cyclists were still noted.

While a ...variable increase in traffic, was observed on certain alternate routes around the mountain, evidence indicates that alternative roads and intersections were never overwhelmed by city traffic that could no longer use the mountain road. Although theres still some question about the viability of the mountains present parking facilities, the report also mentions that punctuality on the two STM bus lines was much improved, especially as abnormally long transit times over the weekend were eliminated.

Although Luc Ferrandez  Montreals Executive Committee member in charge of parks told the press that the follow-up report ...was more than we hoped for, concerned citizens will have up to the 30th of this month to provide a digital opinion about the project. Should they want to deliver a written or oral opinion, they must register with the OCPM before the November 22nd deadline. Following the first public opinion session that s scheduled for the 28th of November, further sessions will be held until the final report is finally ready to be handed over to the city for further consultation and a final decision thats due late this year.
What

The UKs greatest celebration of all things French, The France Show, returns to Olympia, London. The event, now in its twelfth year, is a great day out for those that love French food and wine, enjoy holidays in the sunshine, or for those looking to find their dream French property.

The France Shows Event Director Debbie Macleod says:

The France Show is a fully-immersive experience that showcases the best of France from its culinary specialities, right through to property. This year we have an exciting line up of experts and top chefs in our live theatres providing inspiring cooking demonstrations and wine and champagne-tasting sessions. The extensive French Market will be stocked with all the usual Gallic goodies, and of course no French event would be complete without can can dancers. Our dancing troupe will be on hand to entertain the crowds at regular intervals.

Where

The France Show 2019 takes place in Olympia London. The nearest railway station is Kensington (Olympia) which is a London Overground station, a London Undergroundstation and a mainline rail station.

When

25th 27th January 2019

How Much

One day entry ticket costs 12 (+ 0.72 fee & VAT).

SPECIAL HALF PRICE OFFER

Use promo code TRAVMAG to get 50% discount on regular ticket price ( 12 6).

CLICK HERE to get a special 50% discount

Whats On

The Flavours of France Stage

This is a variety of exciting cooking demonstrations hosted by chef and culinary expert Guy Wolley. Wine professional and television personality Susy Atkins will also be on hand, pairing each dish created with the perfect wine to accompany. Susy will also lead the Cave a Vins wine-tasting sessions, offering the opportunity to sample a selection of fine French wine from the shows exhibitors.

The Wine Theatre

Following last years sell-out, Neil Phillips (aka The Wine Tipster) will return to lead this years Wine Theatre, offering tutored wine and champagne masterclasses throughout the weekend. Through these entertaining and informative sessions, Neil will showcase a selection of his favourite wines from vineyards across the regions of France.

The French Property Exhibition

For those looking to buy their dream home in France, the largest French Property Exhibition in the UK will be based on the second floor of the venue. Here, visitors can browse through the thousands of available properties, be guided through the buying process with a range of experts and learn more at the free property seminars taking place across the entire weekend.

How to Forum

Visitors with burning questions on French property, living in France and holidays can also visit The Living France Theatre, and the How To Forum. You will get free essential advice from specialists on the above topics during complimentary sessions that run throughout the weekend.

PLUS: Courtesy of P&O Ferries, guests will have the opportunity to sample an array of French delicacies and treats as they meander through The French Market. And new to the show in 2019 is LAtelier du Fromage, an area to taste some of Frances best cheeses.

To brush up on French speaking skills or to get inspired for the next French holiday, the Language and Travel Forum will also offer free seminars, sponsored by FRANCE Magazine.

All of this will be to a backdrop of vintage 1920s jazz provided by band Oriana and the Charmers.

MORE INFO: The France Show 2019

Disclaimer: this is a sponsored post on behalf of Archant Community Media, the organisers of The France Show
MBABANE  This is amazing; it is the first of its kind. These words were shared by an excited Mzwakhe Myeni, the chief organiser of the festival that is set to change the face of Christmas Day in the country.



Myeni said this was a new concept they were introducing as Ezomoya Communications, whereby thousands of people are expected to come together in the evening of December 25 and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at Mavuso Trade and Exhibition Centre. It has been confirmed that South African Prophet Mboro of Incredible Happenings Ministries will be the guest speaker during the event that is themed Eswatini Christmas Blestival. Also expected to grace the event is Apostle Justice Dlamini, who will introduce the prophet during the event.



It wouldnt be a celebration without music and the line-up for this event is mouth-watering as it consists big names such as South African, Hlengiwe Mhlaba and Donny Ngwenyama. While local stars such as Ndududzo Matse, Linda Dlamini, Phathwakahle, Mzwakhe Myeni, Phetsile Masilela, Shiba and the Travellers, and Make Maculuve are geared to lift the roof during the festival. The show will see over 25 gospel artists belting it out on stage. Myeni confirmed the news and further said tickets were already out. The general tickets cost E50, while the VIP stands at E250. The tickets can be bought via the MTN Mobile Money platform.



This will be the biggest show in the country. We are excited to have invited the biggest Prophet Mboro, who will heal people on the night and also pray for the New Year, Myeni added.

When contacted, Prophet Mboro confirmed he would be coming for the event, while adding it was the first time in 30 years he would be travelling out of South Africa.



It is the first time I have been invited. I do not normally get invited. Again, it will be the first time I will be coming to Eswatini. The last time I left South Africa was about 30 years ago when I travelled to Lesotho, so I am excited about the invite from Eswatini, he said.



Expecting



Mboro said he was expecting to fill up the venue as he said he was aware of his huge following in the country.

I usually attend to people at my church who usually tell me they are from Eswatini, he said.

The prophets main church in Soweto attracts over 60 000 people every Sunday. He also has his own TV channel, where most of his sermons and prophecies are aired.



Other famous pastors who have graced the land include Ernest Angle and Prophet Bushiri .

The Eswatini National Council of Arts and Culture (ENCAC) CEO Stanley Dlamini said he was not aware of the event.
MBABANE  Sickness, marriage, bad luck, miracle money and prophecies are some of the many issues Prophet Mboro vowed to solve when he touches down on Christmas Day.



The popular prophet said he was ready to solve everyones problems in the country. He further advised people to take pictures before he healed them and after he had prayed for them. Those pictures must be shared on social media for everyone to see the power of God, he advised.



solved



I am coming there to show people the power of God. People will get healed and all their problems will be solved. I can advise them to take pictures now and also come with their medical reports to the event, and they will see miracles. They will see the difference once I have prayed for them, he said.



Moreover, after it came to light that he was headed to the country for a service on december 25, a number of his followers expressed their excitement, and among them were a few who publicly shared their testimonies, as they said they were healed through touching their television sets.

Senzo Malaza from Mbhuleni shared a voice note through the popular social medium, Whatsapp, where he expressed his excitement over the coming of the prophet.



My life was a mess; I had lost hope after I lost my job and further watched as my marriage crumbled down. I was watching Soweto TV when I saw him praying and I touched the screen, it felt like a burden had been removed from my back. A few days later, I received a call and I got hired as a truck driver. I have even bought kombis and I want to meet and thank him for what he has done for me, Malaza said.



Mandla Phakathi said he was preparing an offering for the prophet, as he also benefitted from his prayers. I had been diagnosed with a critical sickness and the doctors had told me it can only be controlled through medication, but after I had touched the television set, I got healed. I hope I will get a chance to meet him in person, he said.



Another person, a female (her name withheld), said she was HIV-positive, but after she had touched the screen, she recovered.

I went for testing at Manzini Nazarene and my results were negative, she said.



The Ministry of Health Director of Health Vusi Magagula asked to be called later when he was contacted, as he said he was busy with certain people. Before the publication of this article, Magagula could not be reached.



The mouth-watering festival, set for Christmas Day, will also have musicians belting it out on stage. The line up consists of big names such as South African Hlengiwe Mhlaba and Donny Ngwenyama. Other local stars such as Ndududzo Matse, Linda Dlamini, Phathwakahle, Mzwakhe Myeni, Phetsile Masilela, Shiba and the Travellers and Make Maculuve also form part of the line-up.



Mboro was recently in the news for allegations that he went to heaven and took selfies to prove it. He later told eNCA that he never went to heaven and foreigners were responsible for the selfies that allegedly show him in heaven.






PIGGS PEAK  Having long hair is not allowed at Mhlatane High School. The school has a strict code which stipulates that hair should be at least styled to brush-cut and no hairstyles are permitted.



Throngs of pupils had their hair forcefully cut yesterday by teachers as a form of punishment for keeping it long.



However, the pupils were not happy with the hairstyles left by the teachers who appeared to have been making unsightly shapes with their hair.

This left many of the pupils furious and complaining that they were humiliated in that they had to leave school for the nearest barbershops to cut their hair.

One of the pupils who had her hair cut claimed she had been writing a Maths exam at the time but was ordered out just when she was about to finish.

The teachers are said to have gone from class to class to cut the pupils hair.



This is humiliating for us because we have to walk through town with this kind of hair, one pupil said.

Another had a line made popular by Nelson Mandela in one of his photos taken during his prison trial.

Though some people made fun of the situation, others were not pleased.



The pupils also complained that they were not prepared to part with E10 each for a proper haircut.

Some of the pupils claimed they had to borrow some money from friends while others called their parents to assist.



Why did they not tell us yesterday that we should come to class with short hair? asked a pupil.

For barbershop owners, however, it was a bonus. I was actually having a bad day and then suddenly there was over 30 pupils queuing, said a barbershop owner.
MANZINI  I have nothing to hide. These were the words of the prince who has been accused of allegedly raping a university student.

The name of the prince is known to this publication but will be deliberately withheld as he has not been formally charged.



In an interview, the prince said the law should take its course as he had nothing to hide.

He said he was not in hiding but available to answer to anything when the time came. He ruled out any assumptions made regarding the matter and him being royalty. Some of the assumptions made through social media were that the case might be treated special because the prince was from the royal family.



Availed



The prince said he believed police would deal with the matter accordingly and he would avail himself if he was needed.

He said he would have wanted to narrate his side of the story but he could not because the matter was still under police investigation. He emphasised that he was available to assist in the matter where he could and was not in hiding.



The prince said this at a time when certain activists are screaming enough is enough!

This was the buzz phrase as a group of concerned members of the public, including gender activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), went to demand answers from the police on why the prince and his friend, who are allegedly implicated in the UNESWA student rape case, were still not arrested.



The main concern of the individuals and NGOs was that the incident allegedly took place in the early hours of September 8, 2018 in one of the guest houses in the outskirts of Manzini and a rape case was reported on the same day but no arrest had been made yet.



About 20 people went to Manzini Police Station, where the case was opened against the prince and his friend and demanded to see the Station Commander, Raphael Maseko.



The NGOs included the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) and Women and the Law and they met after signing and sharing on their social media pages an online petition to the office national commissioner of police.



Maseko was available to meet them but only five were allowed into his office because of space constraints.

According to the five members, they asked the station commander how far the police had gone with the investigations into the case in question and what was delaying the arrest of the prince and his friend.



We told him that our concern was that its been a while since the matter was reported but the suspects were roaming around freely and possibly doing other things, they said.
PIGGS PEAK  When a pupil resisted having his hair cut at Mhlatane High School, he ended up with his hand injured following a scuffle with a teacher.



The Form II pupil had to be treated at the Piggs Peak Government Hospital after he was injured by a pair of scissors during a scuffle with his teacher.

On Tuesday, several pupils had their hair forcefully cut to conform with school regulations.



They were left with part of their hair cut as a way of forcing them to shave it all at barbershops.

Yesterday, the situation, however, turned bloody when a pupil attempted to flee while refusing to have his hair cut. The teacher is then alleged to have given chase and caught up with the pupil, and a scuffle ensued.



Struggled



According to the pupil, who spoke on condition of anonymity, he injured his hands while they struggled.

He also alleged that the teacher held him by the neck as a way of restraining him.

The pupil had about three notable cuts on his left hand for which he had to be treated at the hospital.



He then returned to the school after receiving treatment. His medical note has the words, Sustained injury after being assaulted by teacher inscribed on it, which were handwritten by a medical officer. This is the narration of events the pupil allegedly gave the medical staff.

The Head teacher at Mhlatane High School, Dr Mandla Dlamini, disputed the version which was given by the pupil.



Dlamini said the pupil had been trying to flee and that he accidently injured himself while his hair was being cut.

The head teacher said it was unfortunate that the pupil had used the situation to seek sympathy yet all the pupils had already been informed to have their hair cut.



Dlamini said all the pupils with long hair had been informed to have it cut but that many of them still kept it longer.

You are free to come to the school and see the actual situation as we have nothing to hide, said the head teacher.
MBABANE  One of the key duties of a pastor is to unite but it was allegedly not the case for a clergyman at Swaziland Reformed Church Hhohho.

Bheki Mabena was dismissed for among others things allegedly causing division and conflicts within the church.



Despite being dismissed Mabena is reported to be defiant in that he continued to administer the word of God in the church.

Mabena was dismissed from the house of worship after the chairman of his disciplinary hearing recommended that he should be removed from the office of tent maker.



His alleged defiance has resulted in the church filing an application at the High Court where it is seeking an order restraining him from entering the church and from performing or conducting any pastoral activities in relation to the Swaziland Reformed Church, Mbabane Branch.



Giving background of the matter, Pastor Alfred Gama who is the chairman of the church, stated that during the course of 2012 and afterwards a number of events culminated in the Hhohho Church Council of the church suspending Mamba from preaching and any other administrative duties in the Mbabane branch.

He alleged that the respondent (Mabena) was suspended through a letter dated July 25, 2015.



suspension



According to Gama, Mabena allegedly ignored the letter of suspension and acted as if he was not suspended. He said to date Mabena continues with his normal duties.

He pointed out that in pursuit of the suspension, the church set up disciplinary committee to hear evidence in support of the charges which Mabena was facing. Gama submitted that the respondent was invited to attend a disciplinary hearing wherein all the charges he was facing were stated.



Two members of the Swaziland Reformed Church were requested to go and serve the respondent with the notice to attend the disciplinary hearing. He (Mabena) refused to accept the letter and stated that the secretary of the church had phoned him and advised him of same, alleged Pastor Gama.

Gama argued that this was clear evidence that Mabena was aware of the charges.



proceeded



He alleged that the hearing nonetheless proceeded on August 19, 2017 in the absence of the respondent who reportedly elected not to attend.

Gama said, the chairperson concluded her work and submitted her findings and ruling on the matter.



The leaders of the church met to discuss the findings of the independent chairperson and they came to a conclusion that the respondent be removed as a tent maker in the Mbabane branch, averred the chairman of the church. Gama highlighted that the decision was reduced into writing and allegedly forwarded to the respondent.



Mabena is reported to have, however, refused to accept the letter and allegedly said he was not interested in knowing what was inside.

remain

He submitted that, even after all these efforts, Mabena remained and continued to remain defiant in performing preaching duties at the Mbabane branch, which resulted in disciplinary proceedings being initiated against him.

Mabena is also accused having changed the lease agreement of the premises where the church was renting. He allegedly excluded the church as a tenant. The chairperson of the disciplinary hearing is said to have also found him guilty on the above charge.



He has no right in law or otherwise to continue to preach and execute other administrative responsibilities in the church, argued Gama. The church is represented by Mzwandile Ntshangase of Ntshangase Attorneys in Mbabane and the matter is still pending at the High Court.
MBABANE  Government is returning the 12 rented Toyota Forturners for ministers back to the dealership they were leased from.



The sport utility vehicles (SUVs) were rented through the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. This was done on November 3, 2018 leading to the swearing-in of Cabinet ministers. The vehicles were rented from Woodford Car Hire in Mbabane and were first publicly seen during the swearing in ceremony for the legislators held at the Cabinet offices at Hospital Hill.



Minister of Public Works and Transport Chief Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandwe, confirmed that government would be returning the cars to the dealer. He said his ministry was working on returning all the leased vehicles to relieve government from what has been termed exorbitant expenditure by social commentators.

The minister said the strategy was to fix government cars that would be used to chauffeur the ministers.



Discount



On a daily rate, without discount, the vehicles cost E4 900; however, given that they were rented in bulk for a longer period, their daily rate was discounted to E3 000.

To this, the minister said: We are working around the clock to fix vehicles within the central pool so that they may be given to the ministers who were using the Toyota Fortuners.



Despite not being specific on the time frame anticipated for the return of the rented cars, Chief Ndlaluhlaza said his ministry was treating the issue with the urgency it deserved given the daily rate and the current fiscal challenges.



He said there were no initial plans to rent the SUVs but after an inventory of the government fleet was done, it was established that out of the 611 vehicles purchased in 2013 at about E400 million, only six were in a good status to be used by the politicians. These are six Chevrolet Trailblazers, which retail at about E450 000 apiece. When the 611 fleet was procured, among them there were 32 Chevrolet Trailblazers. They were also used by the politicians of the 10th Parliament.



On the other hand, the Toyota Fortuner vehicles were anticipated to be with government for a period not less than three months. This is because Finance Circular No.2 of 2013 prescribed that ministers and presiding officers should be afforded SUVs benchmarked at E800 000 to use while engaging in government business.



However, in April 2018, His Majesty King Mswati III appointed the Royal Commission to review the remuneration and perks awarded to politicians. Currently, the commission is still at work reviewing Finance Circular No.2 of 2013 to formulate what should be paid and awarded to the 11th Parliament legislators.

The term of office for the commission was extended to January 31, 2019 and, therefore, leaving the politicians with no instrument to pay and allocate them perks. This, by default, according to Government Press Secretary Percy Simelane, made the circular used by the 10th Parliament to be in force pending the finalisation of the new circular.



While waiting for the circular by the Phil Mnisi-led Royal Commission to guide the Ministry of Finance on the perks and remuneration structure for the politicians, government is currently spending E36 000 per day for the vehicles.



Noting the date they were leased, for the month of November 2018, government will pay E1 008 000. This is because they will be with government for 28 days in this month if the alternative cars being prepared are not ready by the close of business next week Thursday.



This amount can finance the purchase of two SUVs of the same model. This follows that according to a sales agent in one of the car dealerships in the capital city, a 2.4 Diesel Toyota Fortuner retails at about E486 000 and after discount it costs E460 000.
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Iranian deputy police chief for combating drugs said Iran is standing as a barrier against drug transit to other countries in the world, especially in Western countries, irna.ir reports.

On the sidelines of the '53th Summit of the United Nations subcommission on Combating Drug Trafficking in the Middle East and Central Asia', Colonel Majid Karimi said in Baku that Iran has so far carried out many projects as a neighbor of Afghanistan.



He added, 'The objective of the Islamic Republic of Iran to participate in this summit is to reflect the great efforts of our country to the international community.'



'We expect the international community to come in line with the principle of our common responsibility and help us regardless of political issues,' he added.



Iranian deputy police chief for combating drugs pointed to the obstacles to fight drig traffickers, and said, 'The biggest problem is that the countries have not yet understood the importance of the issue of exchanging information on the fight against drugs and still engage in political considerations in the exchange of information.'



He added that another hindrance is the political position of some countries in the face of providing necessary equipment for Iran.
By Trend





Some 146,536 real estate properties were sold in Turkey in October 2018, which is 19.2 percent more compared to the same month in 2017, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) said in a statement.

During the period, 27,156 real estate properties were sold in Istanbul, 13,430 properties in Ankara, and 7,419 properties in Izmir, the message said.

"The remaining 98,531 real estate properties fall to the share of other cities," the TUIK message read.

During the reported period, 6,276 real estate properties were sold to foreigners in Turkey, which is 134.4 percent more compared to the same month in 2017.

"In October 2018, foreigners purchased 2,283 real estate properties in Istanbul and 1,160 properties in Antalya. The remaining 2,833 real estate properties purchased by foreigners fell to the share of other Turkish cities," the message said.

The message also noted that in October, the Iraqi citizens acquired 557 real estate properties in Turkey, and the citizens of Iran purchased 378 properties.

"The remaining 5,341 real estate properties fall to the share of citizens of other countries," the TUIK message read.
The new big exhibition titled Crete. Emerging cities: Aptera  Eleftherna  Knossos at the Museum of Cycladic Art, traces the life in these three cities from their birth, progression and abandonment, as well as findings from the latest excavations, int.ert.gr reports.

The show , which will run from 12 December 2018 to 30 April 2019, includes about 500 antiquities of every kind from the three capital cities of Ekatompolis in Crete, many of which are exhibited for the first time. Certain antiquities stand out from the personalized stories that accompany them, and it is the first time so many ancient exhibits leave from the natal site, Crete, for a periodic exhibition.

This exhibition deals with cities that have ceased to live and are forgotten, only their own name is remembered, often wrongly, clarifies the museums director, Professor Nikos Stambolidis. Those who died and were forgotten, but were brought back from oblivion through the haze of myth and history, from people who do not forget, nostalgists who came back, remembered, which they sought through their love and interest for the past or for a variety of other reasons: cartographers, travelers, storytellers, naturalists. For Renaissance people. 

The exhibition is co-organized by the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Regional Directorates of the Ministry of Culture and Sport and in particular by the Antiquities Ephorates of Chania, Rethymno and Heraklion.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: pixabay.com
He had numerous coins from Ancient Greek and Roman era in his possession

Greek port authorities arrested a Turkish national who was attempting to smuggle ancient Greek artifacts out of the country to France, protothema.gr reports.

Among other items, port authorities confiscated several ancient coins found in the possession of the 42-year-old man who tried to flee Greece at the international port of Igoumenitsa in western Greece.

During checks of the Regional Drug Enforcement unit of the Port Authority, 121 coins of copper and silver from the Hellenistic-Roman and Byzantine ears were discovered in the mans vehicle. The search also revealed 3 rings with a bezel, a simple bronze link, a lead sealer, and an intact clay lamp.

The Igoumenitsa Port Authority, which is conducting the preliminary investigation, confiscated all the findings, which will be handed over to the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thesprotia.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Jebulon License: CC-BY-SA
Hamburg 21.11.2018. COTRI has released its latest Chinese outbound tourism data for Q3 2018, revealing strong year-on-year growth compared with Q3 2017, albeit at a slower rate than seen in the first two quarters of 2018.

The third quarter of the year saw 43 million border crossings made by Chinese nationals worldwide. Among this figure, 20 million arrivals were recorded within the Greater China region (Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan), while the remaining 23 million  53% of the total  were made in destinations around the rest of the world.

Overall, Q3 2018s 43 million border crossings represent a 10% year-on-year increase against 2017s results, while Q1 and Q2 2018s year-on-year growth rates were 17% and 16% respectively.

COTRIs recent results bring the total for the first three quarters of 2018 to a combined 123 million border crossings worldwide, a figure 14% higher than 2017s equivalent. Should Q4 2017s 37 million Chinese arrivals be matched, COTRIs forecast total of 160 million annual border crossings for 2018 will be reached. However, factoring in a year-on-year increase of 10% as seen in Q3 2018, this total becomes 164 million.

The most-recent quarters lower growth in comparison to the figures posted in the first two quarters of the year can be attributed in part to a gradual slowdown in year-on-year increases in Hong Kong following its strong start to 2018, but weak growth in key destinations including Thailand, Australia, Singapore and Germany among others has also impacted results. The US and UK notably have seen dropoffs in Chinese arrivals, with increased political stability and the fear of potential visa issues exacerbating problems.

Among destinations to have seen success in attracting Chinese arrivals in Q3 2018, Nepal stands out as a leading example having recorded 40,000 arrivals for the quarter (YoY +77%) and a total of 110,000 for the year so far. Should the country be able to maintain its positive course, Nepal could well exceed its record high annual arrivals total of 123,000 set in 2014 before the impact of the 2015 earthquake and recent political instability affected its destination image among the Chinese outbound market.

While traveller expenditure data is not yet available for the period, trends suggest that overseas spending has plateaued, if not decreased. This can be attributed to the fact that long-haul destinations have not been able to grow their market share, while shopping is losing its importance as a key activity for Chinese outbound travellers. Furthermore, the continuation of Beijings anti-graft campaigns means that growth in expensive overseas purchases such as on luxury goods and real estate is slowing as many travellers exercise caution in their spending.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: pixabay.com
According to CBC data, the investment funds assets increased by 3% to 4.85 billion compared with 4.7 billion in June 2018

Investment Funds operating to Cyprus reached 142 in the third quarter of 2018, marking a new all-time high, according to data released by the Central Bank of Cyprus, CNA reports.

The majority of the Investment Funds assets were distributed to equity with 1.87 billion or 38.4%, followed by real estate with 1.38 billion or 28.5% and other assets with 0.91 billion or 18.9%. Mixed assets amounted to 0.54 or 11.1% of total assets, while bonds holdings amounted to 3.11% of total assets or 0.14 billion.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Efforts to repatriate the remaining mosaics from the Church of Panagia Kanakaria, along with all other cultural treasures illicitly removed from the occupied areas of Cyprus

Cyprus Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works, announces that the mosaic of Apostle Markos, which adorned the apse of the occupied church of Panagia Kanakaria in Lythragkomi, Ammochostos District, has been repatriated to Cyprus from the Netherlands, pio.gov.cy reports.

The mosaic was located in the Principality of Monaco by the Dutch private detective Arthur Brand, known for tracing major works of art, working with the police Authorities of many countries. Information about the mosaic was originally provided to the Cypriot Authorities in 2016 by AHEPA, a Greek - American organization in the USA.

The walled mosaics of Panagia Kanakaria, dating back to the 6th century AD. are very important works of art and among the few remaining early Christian mosaics in the world. The mosaic of Apostle Markos was violently detached and stolen from the church, between 1977-79 by the Turkish looter and art dealer Aydin Dikmen, along with the rest of the mosaics depicting the Apostles and other saints. The mosaics were broken down in pieces and found their way in the art markets of the world.

Parts of the mosaics, such as the figures of Apostles Luke, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Thaddeus, Thomas and Andrew, as well as the upper part of the Virgin Mary and Christ, the hands of the Virgin Mary and the hand of Archangel Gabriel, were gradually repatriated since 1983, while a few more pieces of the mosaic decoration is still missing.

The specific mosaic was handed over by Arthur Brand at the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in The Hague, in the presence of the Ambassador Mr Elpidoforos Economou, Mr Martin Finkelnberg of the Dutch Police and of the team travelling from Cyprus, composed of the Director of the Department of Antiquities Dr. Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, the Legal Counselor of the Holy Archbishopric of Cyprus Mr Leonidas Georgiou, the Inspector Officer of the Assistant Chief of Police Mr Michalis Gavrielides and the Conservator specialist in mosaics of the Department of Antiquities Dr. Eleftherios Charalambous. The repatriation was made possible through the coordinated actions of all involved authorities of the State including the Legal Service of the Republic, the Department of Customs and Excise and the Church of Cyprus.

The Department of Antiquities, in cooperation with all responsible authorities and bodies, continues its efforts to repatriate the remaining mosaics from the Church of Panagia Kanakaria, along with all other cultural treasures illicitly removed from the occupied areas of Cyprus.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: pio.gov.cy
Saudi Arabias General Authority of Zakat and Tax has renewed its call for businesses whose annual revenues exceed SR375,000 ($99,900) to register for VAT before December 20.



In June 2016, the GCC countries agreed to impose VAT across the GCC region. In February 2017, Saudi Arabia ratified the GCC VAT framework and imposed VAT on January 1, 2018.



VAT was introduced at a standard rate of 5 per cent. The General Authority of Zakat and Tax stressed that failure to register for VAT on time will expose businesses to regular penalties as per the VAT law and regulations.  TradeArabia News Service
Travelstart, a provider of simple and secure travel search tools, has announced an integration with Google Flights, an online flight booking search service, becoming the first online travel agency (OTA) in the Middle East to do so.



Travelstarts Paulina Klotzbucher said: In addition to offering a data-rich and intuitive flight booking experience, Google Flights is the ideal platform as it helps us reach those customers who begin their journey by searching for flights directly from Google.



Google Flights is a powerful flight search engine that helps travellers find and book flights. It displays results for open-ended flight searches based on criteria such as budget, luggage allowance, time of departure and arrival and number of stops.



As the first OTA in the Middle East to embrace Google Flights we anticipate serving new customers and giving them the best prices, ease of booking and support throughout their journey, Klotzbucher said.



Travelstart is growing in the Gulf and delivers a localised version of the website in several countries including United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In addition to being key markets for Travelstarts operations in the Middle East, Google Flights is currently available to users residing in those countries.  TradeArabia News Service




Jumeirah Group, the global luxury hotel company, has announced that it will open seven new hotels in the GCC and international markets between November this year and the end of 2019.

The announcement was made during its annual GCC roadshow from November 11 to 14, which commenced in Saudi Arabia, and included the cities of Jeddah and Riyadh, followed by Bahrain and concluding in Kuwait.

Amongst the most prominent hotels highlighted during the roadshow is Jumeirahs first hotel in Saudi Arabia - Jabal Omar Jumeirah in Makkah Hotel. Anticipated to open in 2019, the hotel will offer guests and visitors to the Holy Capital, Jumeirahs superior hospitality services with facilities including 1,033 guestrooms and 93 villas, a variety of dining experiences, meeting facilities, executive lounge, gymnasium and over 90 retail units throughout the complex.

Set in a prime location, Jabal Omar Jumeirah is walking distance from the Holy Mosque and comprises four towers with stunning views of Masjid-Al-Haram.

In addition to Jumeirah at Saadiyat Island Resort, which opened in Abu Dhabi on November 11, 2018, other Jumeirah hotels to open soon include:

 Jumeirah Al Wathba Desert Resort & Spa  Q1 2019

 Jumeirah Guangzhou  China  Q1 2019

 Jumeirah Muscat Bay  Oman  Q2 2019

 Jumeirah Bali  Indonesia  Q2 2019

Jumeirahs current collection of luxury hotels and resorts continue to prove attractive to Bahraini visitors, the company said. The top five hotels in the UAE visited by Bahraini tourists in the first three quarters of 2018 are Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Jumeirah Al Naseem, Jumeirah Creekside Hotel, Jumeirah at Etihad Towers and Jumeirah Mina ASalam.

The most popular hotel outside of UAE is Jumeirah Royal Saray in Bahrain followed by Jumeirah Carlton Tower in London, Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel & Spa in Kuwait and Jumeirah Grosvenor House Suites in London.

Additionally, Jumeirah Beach Hotel remains a popular choice with Bahraini visitors. The hotel, which was fully renovated during 2018 and re-launched in October, offers 618 rooms and suites and remains Dubai's premier lifestyle destination, integrating exciting and exhilarating experiences designed for couples, families and friends.

Earlier this year, Jumeirah appointed Jose Silva as its chief executive officer, who brought to the position over 35 years experience in the premium luxury hospitality industry.

Additionally, Michael Ellis joined Jumeirah as the chief culinary officer, a new role introduced to the groups management team, reflecting Silvas strategy to refresh and elevate Jumeirahs culinary offering throughout its luxury portfolio. Prior to taking up this new role, Ellis was the global director for Europe, Asia and the Americas at Michelin Restaurant and Hotel Guides. The appointment of Ellis marks the first step in delivering Silvas vision to put dining as a core pillar of the Jumeirah experience and its strongest market differentiator, the group said.

Jumeirah Group has an established reputation as a valued partner for successful hotel owners and investors globally and is currently operating 23 Jumeirah-branded properties across eight destinations and is growing a second brand, Zabeel House by Jumeirah, an eclectic collection of hotels with a focus on locations at the heart of interesting and exciting neighbourhoods. - TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain aims to develop the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (Mice) sector, which is one of the main growth pillars of the kingdom, said a top government official.



Our strategy focuses on enhancing the kingdom's position as a leading hub within the Mice sector by hosting major events, exhibitions and trade events throughout the year," remarked Shaikh Khaled bin Humood Al Khalifa, the CEO of Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA).



He was speaking after inaugurating the debut Gulf Property Show mall event on November 21 at The Avenues mall in the presence of Ronnie Middleton, managing director of Al Hilal Group, Jubran Abdulrahman, managing director of the organisers Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE), and Ahmed Suleiman, exhibitions director of HCE.



The Gulf Property Show is a boutique showcase for the real estate and property development sector in the kingdom and aims to highlight present and future developments in Bahrain and the Gulf.



The event also aims to provide the opportunity to promote upcoming real estate opportunities in Bahrain as well as regional and international opportunities for investors in commercial and residential real estate projects, said the organisers.



A total of 19 exhibitors, representing 17 companies, including real estate developers, service providers, consultants as well as specialised financial institutions are taking part.



On the expo, Shaikh Khaled said: "It is our pleasure to inaugurate the Gulf Property Show which comes as part of BTEAs commitment to support initiatives that contribute significantly towards the development of the national economy."



"We would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions for organising such exhibitions and events that aims to strengthen the kingdoms position as an investment destination," he stated.



The Gulf Property Show brings together representatives from the largest real estate development companies from around the world.



Visitors will also be able to identify the investment opportunities available in the participating countries such as Bahrain, Hungary, Turkey, UAE and the UK.



Supporting the Gulf Property Show comes in line with the BTEAs strategy to promote the Mice sector and further develop the countrys tourism sector under the slogan of Ours.Yours., which contributes towards Bahrain's economy and the 2030 Economic Vision.-TradeArabia News Service
2018 Adam Smith Prize Awarded to UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner

Guided by the maxim People will do anything for money, even the right thing, the German Forum Okologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft - FOES - awards the Adam Smith Prize for Environmental Economic Policy each year for distinguished policy leadership and/or research that harnesses market tools and forces for the environment and sustainability. This years prize was given to UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, who accepted the award today in Berlin.

As Adam Smith wrote over 200 years ago, aligning public and private interests can be a powerful mechanism to bring about social good, said Steiner when he accepted the prize. I hope the FOES Adam Smith award will continue to raise greater awareness of both the urgency and the opportunity to transform our economies to address the 21st century challenges of sustainability and equity. Markets are not only an economic construct but also an expression of public choice which reflect our cultural and normative values. Societies thrive when public policy and effective markets are aligned.

Steiner has had an extensive career in sustainable development and environmental policy, leading both the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme before being appointed as Director of the Oxford Martin School. In 2017, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Steiner to head the United Nations Development Programme. Under his leadership, UNDP has continued to expand its support to countries implementing the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. Building on existing partnerships with the private sector, Steiner has also invested in new platforms for UNDPs cooperation related to the insurance sector and financial markets in development as well as the Green Commodities Programme, and new initiatives such as SDG Impact financing for SDGs and the Lions Share.

Mr. Steiner will join fellow notable recipients of the Adam Smith Prize such as Former President of Germany Dr. Horst Kohler, Minister of Finance Hans Eichel and EU Commissioner Dr. Janez Potocnik.
The Hague - UN Development Programme Administrator Achim Steiner wrapped up a two-day visit to The Netherlands where he met with senior Dutch officials to discuss their leadership on priority issues such as climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The Netherlands has been a longstanding partner of UNDP, and a champion and leader on sustainable development and climate change, said Steiner. We thank them for their increase in funding to UNDP, and we look forward to continuing our productive partnership for many years to come.

The Netherlands increased their funding for 2018 to 30 million Euros.

While in The Netherlands, Steiner met with senior Dutch officials, including Minister for Development Cooperation and International Trade, Sigrid Kaag, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary General, Yoka Brandt and the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management, Stientje van Veldhoven. He also met with the Development Committee of the Parliament and with leaders in the private sector and financial community.

As one of UNDPs largest government contributors, The Netherlands is a vital partner in UNDPs mission to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UNDPs work and the priorities of the Dutch Government converge in many areas, especially in its shared ambition to help countries reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through strengthening democratic governance and the rule of law, building resilience and preparedness in response to crisis and natural disasters, and supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Dutch support, through UNDP, is making a difference to peoples lives by helping to stabilize societies and rebuild institutions in some of the most challenging development contexts in the world.

The top ten recipients of Dutch funding through UNDP from 2014 to 2017 were Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan, Mali, Kenya, Programme for the Palestinian People, Libya and Ukraine.

IMPACT OF DUTCH SUPPORT:

IRAQ:

Nearly 3 million Iraqis returned home

1,544 projects completed or underway to stabilize newly liberated areas

Critical infrastructure restored, such as water, electricity, health clinics, hospitals, schools and universities

12,857 displaced people in Iraq received free legal aid and social services in 2017

LIBYA:

Stabilisation Facility reaches over 1 million people, expanding to over 2 million in 2018

16 schools rehabilitated and municipal electrical, water and sewage systems repaired

11 hospitals repaired or re-equipped and 14 ambulances supplied in 2017

LEBANON:

Support to Lebanese and Syrians towards improved livelihoods and basic services, including:

Training for 300 staff to improve basic services at 19 social services and primary health care centres; and

Equipment and training for 10 agriculture and agrifood cooperatives, benefiting 1587 members, 50% of them women

SOUTH SUDAN:

Improved access to justice for vulnerable groups, including:

Legal aid services for 1,573 (584 of them women); and

Psychosocial care for 247 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence
Children in Lake Chad Basin attend school with help from UN-backed fund

United Nations, Nov 21 (UNI) Some 3.5 million children living in the Lake Chad Basin in Africas Sahel region do not have access to education according to the UN-backed Education Cannot Wait fund.

The children who are refugees from other countries, internally displaced by conflict and drought and those simply living in some of the poorest parts of the country have not been able to go to school.

The Lake Chad Basin, which includes Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria is one of the most deprived and dangerous regions of the world. Climate change and environmental degradation have exacerbated the challenges the region faces, while Boko Haram extremists have terrorized people across the four countries causing much of the displacement.
Over 2,000 Syrian refugees return from Jordan via Nasib crossing

Damascus,Nov 21 (Xinhua) Over 2,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Jordan to Syria since the Nasib crossing re-opened between the two countries last month, state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday.

A total of 2,380 Syrians, who had lost their official documents, have returned to Syria within a month, the report cited Mazen Ghandour, head of the immigration center in Nasib in the southern province of Daraa, as saying.

It said the Syrian embassy in Amman has provided the Syrian refugees, who had fled to Jordan during the war and lost their documents, with temporary clearances to allow them back into the country.
UN chief advocates for a strengthening of peacekeeping in Africa

United Nations, Nov 21 (UNI) Citing the encouraging progress achieved by United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa  which hosts half of all ongoing missions  UN chief Antonio Guterres has called the international community to strengthen cooperation and commitment to peacekeeping, during an open debate held at the Security Council.

Currently, half of all peacekeeping missions  seven out of 14  and four in five UN blue helmets are based in Africa. In addition, African nations provide nearly half of peacekeepers deployed worldwide, including almost two thirds of all women peacekeepers, and the majority of UN police officers.

Peacekeeping in Africa continues to present some of our greatest challenges, said Mr Guterres on Tuesday.
GLO.ACT helps provide legal and social assistance to vulnerable Warao migrants from Venezuela in Belem do Para

Belem, Para, Brazil - 21 November 2018 - From 29 October to 2 November 2018 the Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants ( GLO.ACT) continued to provide support to vulnerable migrants from Venezuela, this time with special focus on Warao indigenous migrants. GLO.ACT supported the Federal Public Defender's Office (DPU) in delivering its mobile assistance Itinerant DPU programme in Belem, in the Para state of Brazil. The mission focused on providing quality legal assistance, disseminating information, and identifying cases of trafficking in persons (TIP) and smuggling of migrants (SOM). The Itinerant DPU aims to reach those living in risky and remote areas that do not normally have access to legal assistance.

This mission represents the third time GLO.ACT provided assistance to Venezuelan migrants. Similar missions were carried out in October 2017 to assist vulnerable Venezuelan migrants arriving in the cities of Boa Vista and Pacaraima in the State of Roraima , and in July 2018 in the city of Manaus, Amazonas.

On the first day of the mission in Belem do Para, meetings aimed at assessing the local situation of migrants and their access to rights were held with the local anti-TIP network, including the State Committee Against Trafficking in Persons of Para and the State Commission for the Eradication of Slave Labor, as well as different government authorities. On the second and third day of the mission GLO.ACT supported the Federal Public Defender's Office to provide free legal assistance to Warao migrants at the state and municipal shelters, as well as visiting homes (targeting those that are renting accommodations) and major hotels where Venezuelan Warao migrants tend to concentrate. Over 300 migrants were assisted during the mission, with special attention being paid to helping migrants validate their legal status, access cash transference programs, and health services. During the mission, several migrant families, living in extreme conditions of vulnerability were identified and transferred to shelters.

The Itinerant DPU mission included six public defenders belonging to the Federal Public Defender's Office Assisting the Victims of Human Trafficking, Migration, Statelessness and Refugee, Eradicating Modern-Day Slavery, and Indigenous Thematic Working Groups. Apart from the DPU members, representatives from ILO, OIM, and NGOs such as the Brazilian Association for the Defense of Women, Childhood and Youth, a human rights journalist, and a Venezuelan migrant working for the City Hall of Belem also participated.

The week concluded with a public hearing on 2 November 2018 to discuss the rights and responsabilities of Warao migrants in Belem do Para. Over 350 people participated of the event. Grown-ups focused on discussions while a "Play Corner" was set up for the children during the event. At midday, the public hearing took a break and lunch was provided to all participants of the event.

The Warao are an indigenous Amerindian people inhabiting northeastern Venezuela's Orinoco Delta region, with smaller numbers in neighboring Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. The term Warao translates as "the boat people" and they speak an agglutinative language, Warao. They have lived for centuries in the Orinoco Delta in northeastern Venezuela. Since the establishment of oil companies in the region, the Orinoco Delta occupied by the Warao villages has begun to deteriorate. Warao leaders have drawn attention to the pollution caused by the oil industry and to the displacement of communities caused by the construction of the Caroni dam. Over the last several decades, fish supplies declined in their home territory as major rivers have been diverted and deepened for shipping. During the Venezuelan crisis, their already precarious situation has been exacerbated. Furthermore, over the past few years, the crisis in Venezuela has led to an increasing number of its nationals, including members of displaced indigenous populations, crossing the Venezuela/Brazil border. For many the main destinations are Boa Vista in Roraima, Manaus in the Amazonas, and Belem, Para. This population has been identified as being particularly vulnerable to the humanitarian crisis by local human rights institutions.

The first arrivals of Warao migrants arrived via Pacaraima, lived on the streets and begged, refusing to go to shelters with non-indigenous people. They have begun migrating from Roraima to Manaus, Amazonas, and then by boat to Belem, Para, passing through the city of Santarem. They have few work prospects. As Brazilian authorities scramble to accommodate tens of thousands of desperate Venezuelans crossing the country's northern border to escape their homeland's economic collapse and political unrest, the indigenous Warao are emerging as their biggest challenge. Traditionally poor and marginalized in Venezuela, the Warao are facing health problems, combined with cultural and linguistic differences. Many Warao have little education and barley speak Spanish, and all these factors make them especially vulnerable to exploitation.

The Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT) is a four-year (2015-2019), 11 million joint initiative by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The project is being implemented in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). GLO.ACT aims to provide assistance to governmental authorities and civil society organizations across 13 strategically selected countries: Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Mali, Morocco, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, South Africa, Ukraine. GLO.ACT works with the 13 countries to plan and implement strategic national counter-trafficking and counter smuggling efforts through a prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships approach. It supports the development of more effective responses to trafficking and smuggling, including providing assistance to victims of trafficking and vulnerable migrants through the strengthening of identification, referral, and direct support mechanisms.

To read a report on the DPU's work with the Warao click here

For more information, please contact:

Email: glo.act@un.org

Twitter: @glo_act
International Bake Sale Nov. 28-29 at UW

Students in the University of Wyomings first-year seminar on Food Culture and Language will host an international bake sale in the Wyoming Union Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 28-29.

Proceeds will go to the Karma Fund, which is a program that helps raise money for international students to help pay for medical expenses in the case of medical emergencies.

There will be delicious foods inspired from different countries around the world at the bake sale, student Bailey Schupp says. We hope to see you all there.

Hours are 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday and 1-5 p.m. Thursday.

The sale is the culmination of international conversation partnerships in which the first-year students participated as part of a service learning component of the course. The 17 students were matched with partners representing four different continents and held conversations about culture, government and food traditions.

In previous years, students sold cookbooks that were inspired by the conversations. This year, they opted to cook and bake the recipes instead.

By giving students the choice of a fundraiser, they have more investment in it, instructor Mollie Hand says.

The students also selected the Karma Fund as the recipient, as it helps local international students when they are in need.

The ingredients and cooking tools needed for the sale were funded by a UW Service, Leadership and Community Engagement office grant.
UW Research Scientist Coordinates Satellite Images to Help Control California Fires

UW students Magali Romanet, of Lyon, France, and Morgan Elsom, a senior from Buffalo, analyze a satellite image of a California wildfire. Ramesh Sivanpillai, a UW senior research scientist, was tapped by the International Charter Space and Major Disasters to be project manager for the California wildfire response effort. (Ramesh Sivanpillai Photo)

For nearly two weeks, unprecedented fires have raged in California, resulting in 80 lives lost and thousands missing or displaced, thousands more homes destroyed and the air quality polluted to dangerous levels. Even a historic movie ranch in Agoura Hills used to shoot HBOs Westworld has perished.

On Nov. 14, Ramesh Sivanpillai, a University of Wyoming senior research scientist in the Department of Botany and the Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center (WyGISC), was tapped by the International Charter Space and Major Disasters to be the project manager for its California wildfire response efforts. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) initiated the response effort and nominated Sivanpillai as the project manager.

Im coordinating satellite image acquisition and distribution activities for this event, says Sivanpillai, who is conducting his work from the UW campus. In fact, folks from 17 agencies in 14 countries are members of the Charter, and everyone is volunteering their time for this cause.

My job is to evaluate the quality of these images and get them to the National Guard Bureau official who will get them to interpreters and analysts, he explains. As the extent and direction of the fires change, I have to submit new requests to the member agencies in order to collect additional images.

Sivanpillai says the satellite images can be used in two primary ways: For firefighters and rescue workers, the images can be used to chart the trajectory of the fire and what fuel, such as dead trees, lie in its path; and to chart smoke direction and air quality levels, and issue health warning announcements or recommend school closures.

Firefighters and rescue workers can use the images for damage assessment, he explains. Many times, when you have these disasters, most first responders are not from that area. They are coming from other areas and other states. Many workers know where California is, but dont know where Paradise, Calif., is.

Paradise is a California community that was engulfed early by the Camp Fire, which started Nov. 8. The fire forced the towns residents to flee, as the fire was reported to be burning at a rate of 80 acres a minute, due to strong winds and low humidity.

This satellite image of the Camp Fire that engulfed Paradise, Calif., and others are acquired in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is invisible to human eyes. (USGS Image)

Student Volunteers Help

Sivanpillai has assembled a team of undergraduate and graduate student volunteers from his remote sensing course to assist with image processing tasks. In that class, students learn fire mapping. Morgan Elsom, a senior from Buffalo majoring in rangeland ecology and watershed management, jumped at the chance to help.

I needed a project. When Ramesh brought this up as an option, it seemed like something realistic you would do for a job, Elsom says. There are techniques we are learning in class that we are trying out to create a footprint of burned areas.

Elsom explains that some of the methods the students are using look at how much light is coming back in different regions of California to determine areas that have burned and those that havent. The Camp Fire is located in Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire is occurring in Southern California.

So far, 11 students have participated in image analyses, Sivanpillai says. This is an added benefit to these UW students.

Besides Elsom, the team consists of Caleb Gray and Evan Trotter, both of Casper; Jace Nerger, of Saratoga; Ann Stephens, of Worland; Elizabeth Mosqueda, of Salinas, Calif.; Chloe Mattilio, of Lancaster, Pa.; Britton Bentz, of Juntura, Ore.; Ryan Benjamin, of Nyssa, Ore.; Brandon Fulcher, of Dallas, Texas; Magali Romanet, of Lyon, France; Michael Mintah Baidoo, of Kasoa-Accra, Ghana; and Sunil Raju Vysyaraju, of Srikakulam, India.

Charter Origins

The Charter, formed in 1999 by the United Nations, consists of members from 14 countries and has responded to disasters in 125 countries, providing free satellite data for the impacted regions.

The Charter is a worldwide collaboration through which satellite data are made available for the benefit of disaster management. By combining Earth observation assets from different space agencies, the Charter allows resources and expertise to be coordinated for rapid response to major disaster situations, thereby helping civil protection authorities and the international humanitarian community.

This unique initiative is able to mobilize agencies around the world and benefit from their know-how and their satellites through a single access point that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and at no cost to the user.

Sivanpillai says he likely received the call to lead because he had experience working on major disasters. In 2011, he was tapped by the Charter to assist with major flooding in the Mississippi River that started in Illinois, an event that lasted roughly five months. Two years before that, Sivanpillai was selected by the USGS for project manager training in Denver. While a student at Texas A&M University in 1999, he volunteered to help with relief efforts in Nicaragua.

This work is from a remarkable community of dedicated people, says Sivanpillai, who adds he plans to process and provide more new images over the Thanksgiving weekend. They dont get paid, and everyone is working on this -- even on the weekends. This is day and night. We are hoping they will bring the fire under control.

For more about the Charter activation for the California wildfires, go here. For a list of countries involved and Charter members, go here.
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This is definitely a value wine. It was picked up by my wife while grocery shopping as a backyard casual sipper. In fact, this can be ...
Amid a tide of animosity focused on people of Mexican and Latin American descent in the US, the vineyard workers of the West Coast have recently brought in another harvest. Occasional labour shortages have had a perhaps surprising cause. Rather than dodging ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids, vineyard workers in Napa and Sonoma in particular are desperately seeking somewhere affordable to live.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric hit fever pitch just before our mid-term elections, as President Trump and the Republican party fixated upon a caravan of Central American migrants making their way north from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador towards the American border. Trump and his political allies decided to use these asylum seekers as an opportunity to rail against the state of US immigration policy and the ideology of their political rivals in the hope of affecting election outcomes.

Even though this dangerous migrant invasion has hardly been mentioned by the President since the election, 5,200 military troops have been sent to the border with Mexico to assist with border security, which is tighter and more punitive than it has been in decades. The Washington Post reported on 9 November that October saw 23,121 arrests at the US-Mexico border, up 39% from the previous month and the highest monthly number in the countrys recorded history.

This border-focused enforcement has also been accompanied by enforcement efforts in communities around the country, especially in California, which has come into direct and open conflict with the federal government for its refusal to detain and prosecute immigrants simply because of their lack of documentation.

Read the rest of the story on JancisRobinson.Com.

This article is my monthly column at JancisRobinson.Com, Alder on America, and is available only to subscribers of her web site. If youre not familiar with the site, I urge you to give it a try. Its only 8.50 a month or 85 per year ($11/mo or $111 a year for you Americans) and well worth the cost, especially considering you basically get free, searchable access to the Oxford Companion to Wine ($65) and the World Atlas of Wine ($50) as part of the subscription costs. Click here to sign up.

Image of a harvest worker courtesy of George Rose.
US troops sent to the border could begin coming home this week


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Enbridge, the giant Canadian oil pipeline company, has drawn criticism from opponents of Line 5, the twin 65-year-old pipelines that span the Straits of Mackinac, running along the bottom of great channel. Opponents of Line 5 fear that a rupture in the line could cause unprecedented environmental damage to Lakes Michigan and Huron, and many demand that the line be shut down.

At the southern end of Line 5 in Marysville, where Line 5 dips under the St. Clair River to Canada, Enbridge is seen much differently.

Enbridge has always been a good corporate citizen (in Marysville), said City Manager Randy Fernandez.

The company has shared its largesse with Marysville since 2014, when the firm rebuilt Line 6B, which also crosses under the St. Clair River to Canada at Marysville.

Line 6B ruptured near Kalamazoo in 2010, triggering the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

Enbridge proved generous and fast acting in making Marysville more than whole for damages from a power surge caused during the Line 6B work in the city, when numerous residential refrigerators and freezers were knocked out a few days before Thanksgiving.

As the Line 6B work wrapped up, Enbridge donated a piece of property to the city  ostensibly for a dog park  that had been used as a staging area for the rebuild.

Two years ago, it contributed $5,000 to the creation of Ellas Playground in Marysville Park.

Around that time, Enbridge contributed $19,500  the citys match for a grant  to a lighting project for the citys riverfront.

Last fall, in its negotiations with Gov. Rick Snyder, Enbridge offered to put Line 5 in a tunnel under the St. Clair River.

A year ago, the company contributed $11,000 toward the purchase of a new utility rescue vehicle for the fire department.

The firm also contributes to a number of city events, such as Hot Wheels Weekend, a car show that takes place in Marysville Park in August.

Now the firm will spend $25,000 to refurbish Mermaid Park on the citys northeast side.

Many Marysville residents probably do not know the location of Mermaid Park.

The park plunges at a near 45-degree angle toward the St. Clair River from a scenic turnout on M-29 near the city limits with Port Huron.

Many who do know where it is located have not been down to the waters edge, including Mayor Dan Damman, he said at the councils Nov. 12 regular meeting.

I wouldnt cut the grass there, said Fernandez, referring to the steepness of hill.

Environmental Consulting & Technology Inc., the Detroit firm that engineered most of the citys waterfront improvements over the past half-decade, will design and build the improvements.

Fernandez anticipates a design that will incorporate giant boulders and native plantings and be basically maintenance free.

Additionally, the project will be designed with Wildlife Habitat Council Conservation Certification as an achievable goal through Enbridge, said Annette DeMaria, principal Environmental Consulting & Technology Inc. engineer, and Tonya Hunter, landscape engineer, in a Nov. 6 letter to Fernandez.

I think this is great, said Damman. Enbridge has really proven itself to be part of this community. Im all for it as long as its maintenance free.

Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Hayman made the motion to approve the park proposal, with council member Rita Hendricks in support. The council voted 7-0 to endorse the project.

The work could be completed this spring.

Jim Bloch is a freelance writer. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
Governor Visits Plater Youth Club

United Nations Universal Childrens Day on Tuesday 20th November saw HE the Governor, Ed Davis attend a youth session at Plater Youth Club where members delivered a number of presentations on Childrens Rights.

The interactive session by young people at Plater portrayed a key message, Every child worldwide has a right to be safe from harm, be in education and reach their full potential.

A spokesperson for the Gibraltar Youth Service said that this was a great opportunity for HE to see first-hand the informal learning that takes place within a youth club setting.

'Towards the end of the session His Excellency took time to play cards and chat with members discussing their extra curriculum activities.'
From 5-9 November 2018, experts from the World Customs Organization (WCO) worked together with their counterparts in the Bahamas Customs and Excise Department (BCED) to review the organizations Human Resource Management (HRM) and Integrity approaches. Particular topics of focus in addition to HRM and Integrity included Competency Management, Health & Safety as well as Training.

The working groups comprised members of BCEDs HR and Training Units, as well as representative from the Ministry of Public Service. Meetings were also held with senior members of the Bahamas WTO Accession Working Group from the Ministry of Financial Services, Trade, Industry and Immigration and a cross section of representatives from the private sector to gain different perspective on the opportunities and challenges facing Customs officers in the Bahamas today.

Using the methodologies and frameworks drawn from the WCO People Development Diagnostic Tool (PDDT) and the Integrity Development Guide (IDG), the working groups reviewed the extent to which BCED aligns with current best practices, any gaps, and identified priorities and recommendations for the way forward. Taking advantage of the timing of the mission, which occurred in the middle of the 18-month WCO-Bahamas Training Programme, a review was undertaken of the current status of activity under the Bahamas Mercator Implementation Plan, noting achievements and lessons learned to date and planning for 2019.

This was delivered as part of a wider program of training support to BCED, linked to the WCO-Mercator Programme aiming to help Bahamas align with the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and under the umbrella of the IADBs Bahamas Trade Sector Support Program. The week was very successful in providing a clearer view of the current priorities and needs for BCED, in conjunction with WCO principles for customs professionalism and integrity in the context of the countrys plans for future accession to the WTO.

For more information about this activity, please contact: capacity.building@wcoomd.org
The WCO National Workshop for Lao Customs on border enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) was held in Vientiane, Laos from 12 to 16 November 2018, under the sponsorship of Japanese Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF/Japan). A total of 12 Lao Customs officers participated in the Workshop and resource speakers from the Asia/Pacific WCO Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB A/P) and Japan Customs participated in the Workshop to share their knowledge and practices with the participants and to facilitate the discussions.

To further improve IPR enforcement, Lao Customs has showed its strong commitment to revise its IPR administrative regulation and participants intensively discussed the details of the draft regulation. In parallel, participants examined the organizational setting required to effectively implement IPR laws and regulations within Customs administration. Participants also exchanged opinions with Right Holders to address existing challenges and identified possible solutions to improve the cooperation between Customs and Right Holders.

The Workshop was concluded with the strong determination of the Lao Customs to continuously work towards enhanced IPR border enforcement in close cooperation with Right Holders.
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10 years of SA-CERN

Collaboration on Fundamental Physics celebrates a decade, of among others, Wits involvement in accelerated technology development.

The 10-year celebration of the partnership between the South African physics community and CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is being celebrated at the iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences (iThemba LABS) in Cape Town, from 19 to 21 November 2018.

The event attracted a full house on its first day, with the French and Swiss Ambassadors to South Africa, the Vice-Chancellors of the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand, and a number of internationally renowned physicists attending.

IThemba LABS, a research facility funded by the Department of Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation, employs senior scientists dedicated to the SA-CERN programme and offers world-class infrastructure and administrative support.

The research programme in fundamental physics at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has brought many opportunities for South Africa's science community.

Founder of the SA-CERN Programme, Prof. Zeblon Vilakazi, said the partnership received support at the highest levels, with a recent visit from the Minister of Science and Technology, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.

Professor Vilakazi said that, since the launch of the programme, South Africa had established a solid presence at CERN. Over the past decade, SA researchers have contributed to major breakthroughs at the global facility, including the historical discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012.

Dr Zinhle Buthelezi, a Senior Researcher at iThemba LABS, who benefited from the collaboration at postgraduate level, said that the experience had been life-changing, and praised the Department of Science and Technology for funding the SA-CERN initiative. She also welcomed the Department's expansion of the initiative to include software and hardware engineering, which holds huge benefits for local students.

The Department's Deputy Director-General: Research Development and Support, Dr Thomas Auf der Heyde, said that the initiative has contributed significantly to the growth of the physics community in South Africa. South African papers in the sub-fields of nuclear, particle and field physics increased to between 2,5 and 3 times the global average, while the overall standing of work in applied, fluid, plasma, atomic and mathematical physics remained unchanged. Racial demographics have also improved, although gender representivity remains skewed in favour of men, with only 12% of publications attributed to women.

Dr Auf der Heyde said that the partnership between CERN and South Africa, as well as between South Africa and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, had contributed to strengthening nuclear-related physics in South Africa.

The partnership with CERN has also accelerated technology development, enhancing both technological and social innovation, and providing advanced scientific training for new generations of scientists and science managers. Partnerships around global infrastructures such as CERN allow South African research to benchmark itself against its global partners and rivals, thereby establishing an objective perspective on its standing in the global world of science.

The human capital development aspect of the collaboration has also been significant. Currently, about 29 senior researchers, 13 postdoctoral fellows and 50 master's and doctoral students from South Africa participate in two LHC experiments, namely, on ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) and ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus). Several participate in the research activities at the radioactive ion beam facility ISOLDE (Isotope Separator On-Line Device). South Africa also has seven senior researchers, two postdoctoral fellows, and 12 MSc and PhD students that collaborate with the LHC Theory Group.

Over the past three years, the total number of postgraduate students has increased from about 30 to over 50, and is expected to grow to more than 80 in the next few years. The master's and doctoral degrees are of the highest international standing and all students who have graduated so far have been able to find employment in South African universities and research councils, as well as various private sector institutions (including some in the financial services sector). Owing to the CERN collaboration, there have been instances where South Africa has retained skilled scientists that might otherwise have been lost to the African Science Diaspora.

Black student representation is expected to increase from 35% in 2014 to 65% in 2019, and women representation is expected to increase from 30% in 2013 to 50% in 2019. These targets are further supported by an aggressive science awareness campaign that will showcase the SA-CERN programme at previously disadvantaged universities.

Dr Auf der Heyde said that there were ongoing discussions with the National Research Foundation about bursaries dedicated to the SA-CERN programme.

The number of visits for students (including postdoctoral fellows) is expected to treble from 2013 to 2019. Being part of a large collaboration exposes students and researchers to an international group sharing a very high standard of science, and the most advanced techniques and latest advances in software.

The growth experienced in academic, technical, and scientific staff and postdoctoral fellows who have been through the SA-CERN programme over the past few years of this partnership bodes well for growing South Africa's national competence to manage and promote a wide range of computationally and theoretically intense domains and projects, such as the Square Kilometre Array project, the Centre for High Performance Computing (and the SA-GRID initiative), the Radioactive Ion Beam project at iThemba, and the High Throughput Electronics Facility project at the University of the Witwatersrand.

These projects and others have benefited from an infusion of skills from students trained at CERN and researchers participating in CERN experiments, it is expected that this valuable cross-over of skills will continue.




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Council say no disruption to service for 88 people as contingency plans put into operation following Allied Healthcare uncertainty

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Nov 21st, 2018

Wrexham Council is offering assurances that care services will not be subject to disruption as they say provider Allied Healthcare may not be operating in the new year.

Previously there has been uncertainty over the future of care provider Allied Healthcare after the Care Quality Commission raised concerns over the UK wide homecare providers financial sustainability.

Wrexham Council have told us this afternoon there are 88 clients under Allied Healthcare, adding: Wrexham Adult Social Care Department is aware of the issues and is working closely with Allied and other Wrexham domiciliary care providers in order to secure a new provider and ensure there is no disruption to service.

Councillors have been provided with an update that states the situation has changed very quickly and as a result Allied Healthcare is now no longer in a position to continue operating past December.

Due to this Wrexham Council have put contingency plans into operation that will see smooth transfer of Allied Healthcare contracts move to alternative domiciliary care Providers.

Hand delivered letters have been given to service users affected, along with letters for Allied Healthcare staff.

In the update to Councillors it is noted: We expect to have this work completed and new Providers appointed by the end of next week.

This will then allow transition time and mean that Allied Healthcare staff know which Providers they will transfer to which will provide assurances for them and help to maintain stability.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Allied Healthcare has told us: The Stage 6 notification has negatively impacted Allied Healthcare, leading a number of customers to transfer care services to alternative providers, and disrupting staff retention and recruitment.

These developments have intensified the impact of the challenging environment within which we operate and come immediately prior to the Christmas period, when pressures on care providers are at their highest. This has also meant that we have had to re-evaluate our long-term business plan.

We are therefore actively exploring a range of options in order to minimise disruption to continuity of care, including the sale or transition of care and support services on a regional or contract-by-contract basis to alternative providers best placed to deliver care at a local level. Such sales or transitions will involve the transfer of staff. This process will be conducted in close cooperation with our customers.

We continue to trade safely while this process is underway. RBS as our existing lender has agreed to extend our current credit line by up to three weeks beyond 30 November, enabling us to deliver safe continuity of care whilst we explore and implement these options.

We will work closely with the CQC and all commissioners of care to ensure that there is minimal disruption to the care that we provide across the UK whilst this transition takes place. Continuity of care is our number one priority.
MP will vote against Prime Ministers worst of all possible worlds Brexit deal

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Nov 21st, 2018

Wrexhams MP Ian Lucas has said he will vote against Theresa Mays draft Brexit plan as it is not in the best interests of his constituents or the country as a whole.

Last week the 585 page withdrawal agreement which sets out the terms of the UKs departure from the EU was heavily criticised when it was finally made public after a several hour cabinet meeting. The fallout since has been well documented, with the plan being criticised from all political sides.

A question, that Wrexham.com has often been tagged in on various social media, has revolved around where Mr Lucas stands on the draft Brexit plan.

Mr Lucas described the contents of the agreement as a grave disappointment, and in a statement released to Wrexham.com, he outlined his reasons for opposing the deal.

Mr Lucas said: In its present form, it is not a deal I can support  and I will vote against it.

My sincere belief is that this is not in the interests of my constituents, or in the interests of the country as a whole.

The present deal must be understood to be an interim arrangement. If it were to be agreed, then it would lead to the application of the existing rules when Britain leaves the EU on March 29.

This will mean that the UK would operate subject to EU rules and laws for the period beyond our membership. We would have no input in any of those rules or laws, during what the Government calls an implementation period, and will still be subject to those rules and laws.

This, to me, seems to leave us with the worst of all possible worlds.

A better agreement could have been secured if the Prime Minister had reached across the House of Commons to other parties to seek something which was in the best interests of the country as a whole. However, instead she allowed individuals within the Conservative Party to guide her approach  and those individuals have deserted her now that they have decided the deal is not in their personal best interests.

There are still a myriad of options on the table and it is impossible to anticipate what will happen next. From my perspective as MP for Wrexham, I will continue to try to make decisions on the basis of what I believe to be right, taking into account the views of contrasting kinds which are expressed to me by my constituents.

Back in June 2016 Wrexham and the UK voted to Leave the EU (relive the coverage here!) with a total of 70,407 voting in Wrexham  with Remain 28,822 against Leave 41,544. At the time Mr Lucas had campaigned to remain.

The Prime Minister has said she hopes Parliament will vote on the withdrawal deal before Christmas.

The UK is due to leave the EU on March 29th 2019.
Productive meeting with Finance Secretary over business rates concerns from town traders

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Nov 21st, 2018

Local Assembly Member Lesley Griffiths facilitated a discussion between a fellow Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary and local business representatives on the topic of business rates.

Recently the Town Centre Forum Chairman Alex Jones, who runs The Bank bar in town, wrote to Mark Drakeford AM Cabinet Secretary for Finance over the subject of rates asking for support for traders, at the time saying: The High Streets are under immense pressure, and the increase in the multiplier and decrease of the High Street rate relief from 1500 to 750 by the Welsh Government is having a negative impact on traders.

In England the rate relief is currently set at 15,000 yet in Wales we are 12,000 and thats without the big changes ahead. The small business rate multiplier in England is 48.0p, in Wales its 51.4p.

Last weekend the concerns were put direct to Mark Drakeford AM during a meeting set up by Lesley Griffiths AM, who said: I was pleased to welcome Mark Drakeford AM to Wrexham on Saturday. Before taking part in the latest hustings for the Welsh Labour Leadership at Glyndwr University, I invited the Welsh Governments Cabinet Secretary for Finance to sit down with members of the Town Centre Forum to discuss business rates.

Although the Welsh Government has no control over how businesses rates are calculated  this task is undertaken by the Valuation Office Agency  powers were recently devolved to the Welsh Government to provide rate relief.

Schemes are in place but the Welsh Government is currently looking at reforming the business rates system, as well as considering wider and longer-term implications. The overriding aim is to provide greater resilience for local authorities, fairness for citizens and businesses and to ensure there is sustainable funding for vital local services. Local authorities and businesses are being invited to bring forward proposals for how regional approaches can help drive economic growth.

With traditional high streets up and down the country struggling, the issue of business rates is a growing concern and I am very grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for coming to Wrexham to discuss the important points with local business owners. I remain in regular discussions with Mr Drakeford and will continue to make representations and monitor the situation closely.

Town Centre Forum Chairman Alex Jones commented: The discussions were productive, and we are all looking to the future for a positive outcome.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - On Thanksgiving eve, Farm Share is distributing food, including turkeys, to help ensure people have a hot holiday meal.

Farm Share is distributing the food Wednesday at the Centre of Tallahassee behind the pavilion area near the Burlington Coat store.

Leon County Sheriff's Office deputies are there helping out in support of Farm Share, Living Stones, Project GOO and Destiny Church.

They began distributing food at 11 a.m. and will continue to be given away on a first come first serve basis while supplies last.

People invited to drive through and pick up food for their Thanksgiving meal, including drinks, cakes and pie-shell fillings.

The food also includes macaroni and cheese, mash potatoes, green beans and bananas.
DEKALB COUNTY, GA (WSB/CNN)  A Georgia woman said shes missing close to $9,000, and shes blaming Wells Fargo for what happened.

On Friday, Nov. 9, Roslyn Baitney said she put $8,754 into a drive-thru tube to deposit with a teller at a Wells Fargo location in DeKalb County.

Baitney said the teller told her the deposit was too large and that she would need to go inside.

She never said, Hold on, Im sending the tube back, Baitney said.

The incident report said the teller alerted Baitney she was sending her money back through the tube.

"I tap on the window. I said, 'Hey, where's my money?' Baitney said.

A car had been in line behind Baitney at the drive-thru  and seems to have driven away with Baitneys deposit.

And then the teller said: Oh, I wonder why that car behind you didnt do a transaction. They just pulled off. Yes, because you gave them my money," Baitney said.

The police report indicates security video was recorded off-site, but the bank wont talk about the video.

And the money isnt Baitneys only worry.

Now Im an open book because my identity is out there: my drivers license, my bank card, my bank information. It was all inside of that tube, she said.

Baitney fears a thief now knows where she lives, so shes been staying with her fiance.

"I don't like throwing people under the bus, but there was a mistake made, and it was the bank that made the mistake," said Baitneys fiance, who didnt provide his name.

A Wells Fargo spokesman e-mailed: We are aware of the issue at the Chapel Square Branch and are working to resolve it.

He refused to comment further due to an ongoing criminal investigation.

"That's my house note, my car note, my car insurance. What are you all going to do?" Baitney asked.

Wells Fargo promised to pay Baitney her money soon.

Copyright 2018 WSB via CNN. All rights reserved.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Thanksgiving is just one day away, and families are busy preparing for the big day.

Tallahassee is rich in Native American History.

WTXL ABC 27's Jada Williams shares how indigenous Americans are blending their culture with the holiday.

There are many Native Americans right here in the Capital City. This holiday season, some are blending parts of their culture like beadworking with other traditions, like the big thanksgiving feast.

There's a strong Native American presence here in Tallahassee.

Thelma Bowers is an employment and training coordinator with the Florida Governor's Council on Indian Affairs

"It felt like coming home, to be honest with you because I've always been drawn to this area and I don't know why," she said.

Bowers left her Muscogee Creek tribe in Oklahoma to be with her husband, a Seminole.

"I didn't know what to expect moving to Tallahassee," Bowers said. "Tallahassee is a Creek word, and there are so many mounds still in this area."

Like Bowers, Kathy Atkinson, executive director of the Florida Governor's Council on Indian Affairs, left her Iroqua tribe in Upstate New York,

"I had 4 children and I wanted them to see what the culture was outside of the tribe, so we moved," Atkinson said.

But despite leaving the tribe, Atkinson wanted her children to remember their roots.

"We do a lot of cultural work, a lot of cultural beadwork," Atkinson said. "This is just an example. This is part of a moccasin I started."

So for so many Native families blending cultures, how is Thanksgiving celebrated?

"A lot of the different Native American tribes celebrate Thanksgiving and a lot of them don't because with the cultural changes in a lot of Native Americans not being recognized, for who they are, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving," Atkinson said.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Some people who are at high risk for developing a serious flu-like related complications include children younger than 5, adults 65 years of age or older, those with Asthma or blood disorders like sickle cell disease, and pregnant women.

We talked with officials from from the Leon County Health Department about the importance getting children vaccinated.

"Infants, toddlers, school age children, especially since they are around one another," said Labake Ajayi, with the Leon County Health Department. "Definitely recommend for them to get the flu vaccine especially after last year and the amount of pediatric deaths seen nation wide, it's definitely recommended."

Even though adults are at a lower risk than children officials still warn that anyone, even healthy adults, can acquire serious problems related to the flu.

"The idea of trying to beat something your self is kind of foolhardy, but it would help to have and attenuated virus in you already that you can fight against it so you can put up a better fight than ignoring the vaccine and its entirely," said Simon Lopez with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.

If you would like to know how you can protect you and your family from the flu, log onto cdc.gov/flu.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-20 04:59:36|Editor: xuxin

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Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station is lit up in blue in Mumbai, India, Nov. 20, 2018, to support the global UNICEF "Go Blue" campaign to mark Universal Children's Day. (Xinhua/Stringer)

by Xinhua writer Ma Jianguo

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Children around the world are welcome to "Go Blue" to mark World Children's Day on Nov. 20 and make sure that every child's voice is heard, a senior UNICEF official said Monday.

"Children are encouraged to tell the world what they want, how they want to create and to build a better world," said Paloma Escudero, director of communications of UNICEF, expressing her hope that children and young people can show their solidarity, every child is educated and protected from harm, and their full potential is fulfilled.

Kids and adults worldwide are encouraged to "Go Blue" -- wearing something blue on Nov. 20 to show support for the world's children; doing something blue: sign UNICEF's global petition and ask leaders to commit to fulfilling the rights of every child now and for future generations; or shopping vital supplies which children need to survive and thrive.

There will be many events around the world, she said. Many countries will have the children act as journalists and take over TV programs and radio shows, and write for main newspapers.

In some countries, children are going to take over the offices of prime ministers and ministers, telling what they expect politicians and governments to do in favor of the poor, Escudero said.

The most prominent buildings in some countries will be transformed into blue to remind people why children should be thought about in celebration of the World Children's Day. Hundreds of events are expected to be held in about 190 countries, according to the official.

She said that it was very important for UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore to sign an MOU with Xinhua News Agency in Beijing a few months ago, which said UNICEF and Xinhua would join hands in communicating about the key issues that affect children around the world.

The media is very important in raising awareness on education, water and sanitation, health, protection related to children in continents like Africa and Asia, she said.

"In China, we have lots of programs for early childhood development, especially inviting people to be much better informed on how to be good parents, and programs around water and sanitation, and working a lot on children's health," Escudero said.

At the moment, she said, UNICEF is focused on health issues, especially on the health for children in their first years. When they reach adolescence, UNICEF also has a very strong work on nutrition, especially about malnutrition.

Education is also a very big concern for UNICEF, especially for the 260 million children out of school and for those in conflict areas, the official said.

In Yemen, UNICEF is carrying out its biggest operation to deal with the country's malnutrition situation. "We are aiming to keep the schools open, especially in places and areas where teachers have not been paid for a long time, and it is very important that the Yemeni children don't lose their education."

UNICEF is trying hard in the country to guarantee cash transfer so that people have the minimum income to maintain their families, and are able to buy medicines and food, she said.

In Central African Republic, UNICEF has been working on water and sanitation, protection of education, immunization, and key prevention of epidemics, she said.

UNICEF wants every single member of its staff and volunteers to sign a petition to reaffirm their commitment to defending and protecting the rights of every child, Escudero said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:14:10|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's leading ride-hailing platform Didi has recently launched audio and video recording functions on its online ride-hailing service across over 10 cities.

This move, however, has sparked heated online discussion on the dilemma of whether the surveillance measure will help boost the safety of passengers or it could infringe personal privacy.

As of noon on Tuesday, the online survey launched by Didi over its platform on whether the interior space of the online ride-hailing vehicle is private or public has attracted over 310,000 respondents, with more than 220,000 people voting in favor of public space.

As for installing recording equipment in online ride-hailing vehicles, more than 36,000 of the participants chose to back up the idea, while over 24,000 feel that audio and visual recordings might be an invasion of privacy.

"Passengers come and go, therefore, the online ride-hailing vehicle tends to be a relatively public environment," said Zhang Yue, a Didi user from the city of Chengdu, who agreed that it was a good idea to install cameras in the vehicles.

It can be more convenient to have lost items found or disputes between drivers and passengers resolved with the help of the recording data collected by Didi, said Zhang.

A Didi user with the screen name Kanglongyouhui is also in favor of Didi's move, saying security should be the top priority. The recording equipment would serve as a guarantee for both passengers and drivers, meanwhile it could also deter potential criminals, the user said.

However, some Didi users expressed their concerns about personal privacy.

"The interior space of the vehicle is owned all by myself when I am using the online ride-hailing service," said a citizen surnamed Wang in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province.

Wang said that now he cannot get access to the online ride-hailing service if he refuses the use of audio and visual recordings on the app over his smartphone. "To some extent, it's invasion of privacy. Didi users should have the right to choose if they are to be recorded or not."

Sun Heng, a staff with Didi, told Xinhua that the new measure of setting up audio and visual recordings in the vehicles was rolled out for security reasons, helping avoid misjudgment of disputes.

If a dispute occurs, Didi will review the recordings, which can provide important evidence after being approved by the passengers, Sun explained.

To protect users' privacy, the recording data will be encrypted and saved on the device for seven days. If no dispute occurs within seven days, the data will be automatically removed, said Sun.

Sun said that the final results of the online discussion will provide a reference for Didi to formulate relatively reasonable rules and solutions.

As a significant step of strengthening safety supervision, Didi has activated the audio recording function nationwide and will continue to expand the visual recording function across the country.

Liu Ruisheng, an associate researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said there is no contradiction between emphasizing security and protecting privacy. However, Didi can not force consumers to accept the audio and visual recordings, and their options should be guaranteed.

Didi ought to have a detailed procedure of data processing to ensure data security while asking for passengers' permission before starting the recording function, Liu said.

As China's largest mobile ride-hailing platform, Didi offers a wide range of app-based transportation options for 550 million users worldwide, with about 30 million rides each day.

However, the murder of a young female passenger by her Didi driver August in east China's Wenzhou city, the second such case in about three months, raised public concerns over the platform's capability to ensure safety.

The Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Public Security and nationwide authorities ordered Didi to rectify operation patterns so as to ensure the safety of its services and legitimate rights and interests of passengers.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:14:10|Editor: yan

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MINSK, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Belarus has started to supply poultry meat to China, the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry said on Tuesday.

According to Aleksei Bogdanov, head of the Central Office for Foreign Economic Activities of the ministry, Belarusian enterprises have already supplied 207 tons of poultry meat to China.

Meanwhile, China had certified five Belarusian factories to export poultry to China, Bogdanov said.

By the end of the year, Belarus plans to expand the range of products for export to include offal, legs and some other parts of poultry not included in the original list.

The official mentioned that earlier his country also started to supply beef to the Chinese market, with two enterprises already certified.

In the first nine months of this year, Belarus' export of meat and meat products to China amounted to 320 tons with a total value of over 1 million U.S. dollars, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:14:11|Editor: yan

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JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's new economic reforms are facing serious hurdles due to stagnant economic growth and state-owned companies' poor finances, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

In an assessment report released late on Monday, the IMF noted that the optimism experienced after President Cyril Ramaphosa's election has "dissipated as growth remain stuck in low gear."

In October, the IMF revised the country's economic growth forecast down to 0.8 percent, from a previous forecast of 1.5 percent, for 2018.

With the finances of state-owned companies such as power utility Eskom and airline SAA remaining in the doldrums, more work should be done to improve their conditions, the IMF said.

"Economic reforms in a number of areas, in particular strengthening the finances of state-owned enterprises, reducing costs of doing business and increasing competition are proceeding, albeit slowly," the report said.

The IMF warned that the consequences of poor economic growth might be disastrous.

"Weak growth and deteriorating public finances could trigger additional capital outflows, potentially creating adverse spillovers through the interconnected financial systems," the report said.

Responding to the IMF report, Lumkile Mondi, a senior lecture at the Wits university school of economics, told Xinhua on Tuesday that the government is aware of what should be done.

"Some of the government companies should be sold, privatized and restructured. Cyril Ramaphosa has been rebuilding some of the institutions, but it will take another 25 years to get things right," Mondi said. "Economic reforms should be implemented."

Dawie Roodt, a senior economist at Efficient group, said reforms should be implemented at state-owned enterprises.

The IMF said public debt is set to rise as a result of public-sector wage bill and state-owned enterprises' requiring bailouts.

"There must be a restructuring at state-owned entities. The state needs to be reduced in size," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:34:14|Editor: yan

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BELGRADE, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Serbia and Denmark aimed to expand bilateral relations through more economic cooperation, foreign ministers of the two countries told a press conference after their meeting here on Tuesday.

They, however, highlighted differing views over the status of Serbia's southern province of Kosovo and Metohija. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia rejects it and considers Kosovo its own province.

Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic said that "it is important to intensify the political dialogue" not only between foreign ministries, but other parts of the governments.

Dacic said the two countries can improve bilateral ties despite Danish recognition of the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo.

For his part, Danish foreign minister Anders Samuelsen expressed his support for Serbia's European integration process, as well as its developing cooperation with the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Samuelsen said that Denmark "encourages the implementation of reforms in Serbia", stressing they must continue because "a progress is needed in the areas of rule of law, media freedom as well as in harmonization of Serbia's foreign policy with the EU".

He encouraged the continuation of the dialogue between Serbia and its southern province, stressing that "it must be constructive and lead towards a legally-binding agreement".

Samuelsen also met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, discussing bilateral relations, economic ties, progress on Serbia's European Union (EU) accession path, as well as the overall situation in the region.

According to a statement released by the president's cabinet, Vucic expressed hope that "progress on the European path will also be reflected through the greater confidence of Danish investors in investing in the Serbian economy".
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:39:15|Editor: yan

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WARSAW. Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Poland will not support a United Nations global migration pact, the government said Tuesday in a statement.

The UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is set to be adopted on Dec. 10 and Dec. 11 at a UN conference in Marrakech.

The Polish government said that the pact "did not fulfill Poland's demands regarding adequately strong guarantees of the right of a sovereign state to decide who the countries accept in their territory and the distinction between legal and illegal migration".

Also on Tuesday, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a public radio interview: "We believe that this (the pact) is not a good solution. This is not a method that would make it possible to reduce the migration crisis."

The UN migration pact, which was approved by the UN in 2016, is a non-legally binding, cooperative framework to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner.

Countries including The United States, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria had announced not to join the pact.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 01:49:16|Editor: yan

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TUNIS, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Tunisia plans to increase investment in its mining sector and raise its revenues by 10 percent in 2019, local media reported Tuesday.

According to the 2019 economic budget document released by the media, Tunisian government intends to mobilize investment of 180 million dinars (about 62 million U.S. dollars) for the mining sector.

The phosphate sector alone is expected to get investment of around 140 million dinars in 2019.

In 2010, Tunisia was among the top five countries in the world in the mining industry, especially in phosphate production.

Since then, the Tunisian industry has gradually lost its advantages in face of fierce competition from some countries including Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Brazil.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 02:09:18|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- African governments should design education policies that cater for the needs of children and youth displaced by conflicts and natural calamities in order to foster growth, peace and stability in the continent, experts said on Tuesday.

The experts, who spoke at the launch of the UNESCO's 2019 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report in Nairobi, said policies that promote life-long learning among refugee children and youth are required to ensure they are part of their host countries' socio-economic transformation.

Kebede Tsegaye, senior advisor at Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), stressed the need for African countries to integrate refugees' education in their national development plans.

"The governments in the Horn of African region that has a huge refugee crisis should enact policies that facilitate access to basic services like education to the youth and children living in camps," said Kebede.

Senior policymakers, representatives of relief agencies and campaigners attended the launch of UNESCO's 2019 global education monitoring report whose theme is "migration, displacement and education: building bridges and not walls".

The report makes a powerful case for investments in basic education and vocational training for young refugees to ensure they make positive contribution in society.

It says that education can be a tool for fostering inter-ethnic harmony that is key to preventing conflicts responsible for the high refugees' burden in Africa.

Anna Cristina D'Addio, senior policy analyst in the UNESCO'S GEM report, said that African countries should implement continental and global pacts that roots for refugee education as a means to realize durable peace and stability.

"The Djibouti Declaration in particular obliges countries in this region to promote rights of refugees by ensuring they have access to education," said Anna.

"Governments require data to inform development of refugee inclusive education programs," she added.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 4 million refugees aged 5 to 17 were out of school in 2017 across the globe.

Walpurga Englbrecht, UNHCR deputy representative in Kenya, said that political goodwill coupled with affirmative action is key to boosting school enrollment among displaced children and youth in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 02:24:26|Editor: yan

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ZAGREB, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Former owner of Croatia's food and retail group Agrokor Ivica Todoric was released from prison here on Tuesday after paying a bail of 7.5 million kuna (1.15 million U.S. dollars).

Todoric was detained on Nov. 7, after he was extradited from London to Croatia where he is suspected of illegal withdrawal of some one billion kuna (150 million U.S. dollars) from Agrokor.

Todoric's lawyers, who had earlier claimed that such a big bail might be a serious problem for their client, told reporters on Tuesday that his friends stepped in and collected the needed money in three days.

The founder and former owner of the biggest private company in Croatia handed over his passport before being released from the investigative prison at the Zagreb County Court. He is forbidden to leave Zagreb and will have to report to the police.

Ivica Todoric was born in 1951, and after graduating from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, he started a company dealing with flower production.

Agrokor was founded in 1989 and soon started spreading its business by buying factories such as "Stars", "Jamnica" and the chain of "Konzum" food stores that became part of the company.

He became the "largest capitalist in Croatia" and expanded his business empire in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.

Agrokor came into a debt crisis in 2017 after banks didn't want to issue new liquidity loans. Russian Sberbank accused Todoric of falsifying the scales and misrepresenting the company's business.

The State Attorney's Office of Croatia is charging Todoric with illegally gaining more than one billion kuna from the company together with two sons and twelve former Agrokor managers. Later the investigation was extended to the loans Agrokor received.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 02:39:29|Editor: yan

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MOSCOW, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday it had detained a suspected participant in the 1995 terrorist attack in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, in which 129 people were killed and 415 were injured.

Its statement did not provide details of the detention of the suspect identified as Khazvakh Cherkhigov, a Russian citizen born in 1978.

The Budyonnovsk attack, in which more than 1,500 people were taken hostages, was carried out in June 1995 by a gang led by militant leader Shamil Basayev.

The terrorists then seized a local hospital and held hostages for several days, demanding the withdrawal of the Russian military from the rebel region of Chechnya.

Basayev managed to successfully negotiate a stop of the advance of Russian troops, and the attackers then returned to Chechnya under the cover of human shields.

For this crime, 31 participants have been convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment between 1995 and 2013, while 18 others have been killed, the FSB statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 02:49:30|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday asked for support for peacekeeping in Africa, saying conflicts in Africa threaten global security.

"In our interconnected age, security challenges on one continent present a risk to the whole world. The factors that drive conflict in Africa, including poverty, youth unemployment, climate change, competition for resources, and transnational crime, threaten global security," he told the Security Council.

"Improving the impact and effectiveness of peacekeeping in Africa is a collective responsibility," he said.

He said the world needs to understand that UN peacekeeping has limits. "We face more and more situations where we need peace enforcement and counter-terrorism operations that can only be carried out by our partners -- namely, the African Union and various sub-regional organizations."

Therefore, it is essential that African-led peace operations acting under the Security Council's authority are provided with strong mandates and predictable, sustainable and flexible finance, including through UN-assessed contributions where appropriate, he said.

He specifically called for support for the Group of Five Sahel force in combatting terrorism and organized crime.

The joint military force of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania has reached initial operational capacity. But shortfall in funding constrains its capability to meet the serious security challenges in the region, he said.

So far almost half the pledges have not been earmarked, let alone disbursed, he noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 02:59:32|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday asked for support for peacekeeping in Africa, saying conflicts in Africa threaten global security.

"In our interconnected age, security challenges on one continent present a risk to the whole world. The factors that drive conflict in Africa, including poverty, youth unemployment, climate change, competition for resources, and transnational crime, threaten global security," he told the Security Council.

"Improving the impact and effectiveness of peacekeeping in Africa is a collective responsibility."

He said the world needs to understand that UN peacekeeping has limits. "We face more and more situations where we need peace enforcement and counter-terrorism operations that can only be carried out by our partners -- namely, the African Union (AU) and various sub-regional organizations."

Therefore, it is essential that African-led peace operations acting under the Security Council's authority are provided with strong mandates and predictable, sustainable and flexible finance, including through UN-assessed contributions where appropriate, he said.

He specifically called for support for the Group of Five Sahel force in combatting terrorism and organized crime.

The joint military force of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania has reached initial operational capacity. But shortfall in funding constrains its capability to meet the serious security challenges in the region, he said.

So far almost half the pledges have not been earmarked, let alone disbursed, he noted.

Overall, peacekeeping in Africa continues to present some of the greatest challenges for the United Nations, said Guterres.

UN peacekeeping missions are carrying out complex operations with multidimensional mandates in extremely dangerous environments. Transnational crime, non-state armed groups and terrorist groups pose serious challenges, sometimes targeting the peacekeepers directly, he said.

"Against this backdrop, our partnership with the African Union and African member states is vital to our collective efforts for peace, and we must continue working to strengthen it."

There is excellent cooperation at the highest levels between the United Nations and the African Union, he noted.

He and AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki will soon sign a joint communique guiding the work of the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission in strengthening UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, paving the way for more adequately supported African peace operations, said Guterres.

"We are working closely with the AU on joint planning for the mandating of their peace support operations, and on legal and human rights compliance frameworks," he said.

African peace operations, including those mandated by the African Union, have played a key role in maintaining peace and security on the continent. They deserve predictable systems of support, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 03:29:38|Editor: yan

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Twelve people died in a bus accident in eastern India on Tuesday night, local media reported.

The accident occurred in India's eastern state of Odisha when a bus heading toward the city of Cuttack suddenly fell off the Mahanadi bridge in Jagatpur area, English daily Hindustan Times quoted a senior state official Ramesh Prasad Sharma as saying.

Besides, several people were injured and admitted in the S.C.B. Medical College and Hospital for medical treatment and care.

The ill-fated bus was carrying around 30 passengers. According to preliminary reports, the bus driver lost control of the vehicle when he suddenly swerved to save a buffalo which had come in the way.

The bus, which was reportedly at a great speed, smashed into the bridge's cement railings and fell 30 feet onto the riverbed. There is no water in the river.

The death toll is feared to rise since some of the injured were in critical condition.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 04:04:47|Editor: yan

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YAOUNDE, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Security forces were searching for the 15 school children and a teacher abducted Tuesday morning in crisis-hit southwestern Cameroon, a local government source told Xinhua on Tuesday.

According to a witness, the kidnapping took place in a private school in Kumba in the Meme division of the Southwest, one of the two war-torn English-speaking regions of Cameroon. Local authorities confirmed the abduction, but said the number of those kidnapped was still unknown.

"Gunmen came to the school in the morning and asked the children to queue. They started trekking with them to an unknown destination. They fired guns in the air as they left," a local resident who declined to disclose his identity told Xinhua.

Chamberlin Ntou'ou Ndong, senior divisional officer for Meme division, said the military had begun a "thorough search" for the children.

The Cameroonian government is tracing the incident, Cameroon's minister of communication and government spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, told Xinhua by telephone.

No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

It was the second abduction of students this month in Cameroon's troubled Anglophone zone, where armed separatists have ordered the closure of schools in the regions.

In early November, the government accused separatists of kidnapping 79 children of a private school in the Northwest. They were released a few days later. Separatists, however, insisted that most of the kidnappings were staged by the government to tarnish their image internationally.

Local authorities said separatists had torched more than 100 schools that refused to close.

Since November last year, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two regions to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new country called "Ambazonia".
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 04:09:49|Editor: yan

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by Elias Gebreselassie, Wang Shoubao

ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Few Ethiopians have heard of Transsion, a Chinese phone maker based in Shenzhen. However, millions of Ethiopians use its mobile handset products.

Two of Transsion's affordable and quality mobile brands, Tecno and Itel, are wildly popular in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.

Transsion employs 1,800 Ethiopians in its three local plants that produce around 1 million units annually.

On Monday evening, Transsion celebrated a milestone of its presence in Ethiopia, clearing the mark of 100 million U.S. dollars in export of mobile phone products manufactured in its Ethiopian factories in the last two and half years.

The achievement is seen in Ethiopia as a big step forward to fulfilling the country's ambition of becoming a light manufacturing hub in Africa by 2025.

Speaking at a ceremony in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Yu Weiguo, senior deputy general manager of Transsion Holdings' Business Unit, said the company has managed to face serious challenges since its debut in the country seven years ago.

"In 2011 we started our business in Ethiopia at a very small warehouse, and at that time we faced different challenges and together with government support we resolved all of the issues and now we reached this achievement," Wu said.

Emphasizing that Ethiopia's young export-oriented manufacturing sector needs all the help it can get, Wu thanked the Ethiopian government for helping realize the 100-million-dollar export milestone.

"For countries like China and Vietnam, this amount may be very small, but in Ethiopia I think it's a great achievement, gained with the support of Ethiopian government departments," he said.

Transsion is among many Chinese companies that have established manufacturing plants in Ethiopia.

Liu Yu, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, said Chinese companies are encouraged to make at least 10 billion dollars in investments in Africa in the next three years.

She praised Transsion for continuing and expanding its investment in Ethiopia over the years, even when the country faced severe foreign exchange shortage, which had particularly affected manufacturing firms.

"Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government recently published its administrative programs in which investment promotion and export expansion are highly stressed," Liu said. "The shortage of foreign currency can be regarded as the biggest hurdle for sustainable development of Ethiopia's economy. Actually China faced similar difficulty decades ago."

China is now Ethiopia's largest trading partner and Chinese firms are the single biggest source of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia, a fact Teka Gebreyesus, deputy commissioner at Ethiopia Investment Commission, was keen to stress.

"We are expecting more from Chinese phone maker companies, especially in the export side," he said. "Transsion is planning to manufacture some of the mobile phone parts in Ethiopia's industrial parks."

"It's amazing for Ethiopians seeing the country exporting mobile phones to other countries. Transsion is an exemplary company for other Chinese companies as well," Gebreyesus said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 04:14:51|Editor: Li Xia

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Sudan's First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh (R) shakes hands with Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay during their meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, on Nov. 20, 2018. Fuat Oktay on Tuesday vowed here to implement the agreements signed between his country and Sudan. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir)

KHARTOUM, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Vice President of Turkey Fuat Oktay on Tuesday vowed here to implement the agreements signed between his country and Sudan.

Oktay on Tuesday held joint talks with his Sudanese counterpart Bakri Hassan Saleh in Khartoum.

"The two countries agreed to reactivate the signed agreements as soon as possible," Oktay told reporters.

He stressed Turkey's readiness to contribute to enhancing Sudan's position in the region through helping it utilize its oil and agricultural resources.

Oktay noted that Turkey has provided Sudan with its experience in fields of education and health, saying that the cooperation between the two sides in the military and defence field is distinguished.

He further stressed the importance for the two countries to work together to increase the volume of trade exchange to reach 10 billion U.S. dollars annually.

During the visit of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Khartoum in December last year, the two sides signed 12 cooperation agreements.

Oktay arrived in Khartoum on Monday in a three-day visit to Sudan accompanied by a high-level ministerial delegation.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 04:19:52|Editor: yan

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VALLETTA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- According to a new European Commission report, students reading for their first degrees in Malta's higher education get some of the best financial support in Europe, Malta's Education Ministry said on Tuesday.

The report, which covers the 2017/2018 scholastic year, found that Maltese students had the most access to grants for funding their education -- some 93 percent students reading for a first degree received a grant, while the country charges no fees for first degrees.

The report describes the range of fees charged to students, specifying the categories of students that are required to pay and those who may be exempt. It also considered the types and the level of public support, tax benefits and family allowances available.

Among the 43 studied higher education systems, nine have a no-fee policy for first-cycle full-time home students. Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey were the remaining eight countries in this category. 11 higher education systems see all first-cycle students pay fees.

Last month, the European Commission's Education and Training Monitor found that while, as a proportion of GDP, Malta education spending was well above the EU average, the performance of Maltese students in international assessments remained poor.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 06:10:19|Editor: yan

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by Xinhua writer Chen Wenxian

JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- A bright future of the cooperation in cutting-edge technologies between China and Israel was expected by the delegates of the seventh China-Israel Hi-Tech Investment Summit which was concluded on Tuesday.

More than 200 officials, entrepreneurs and experts attended the summit held in northern Israeli city of Haifa.

The participants showed their full confidence over the cooperation between China and Israel in the fields of life sciences, digital health, 3D printing, and robotic and autonomous technologies.

Such cutting-edge techs are the major fields for the future investment direction and cooperation between China and Israel, said the attendees.

Haifa is an important hub for scientific and technological innovation and high-tech investment. The China-Israel Hi-tech Investment Summit has been held for seven consecutive years in the city, said Chinese Ambassador to Israel Zhan Yongxin at the summit.

This shows the important position of Haifa in the innovation cooperation between China and Israel and reflects the great potential of our cooperation, added Zhan.

In October, the fourth meeting of China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation was held in Israel, and the two sides signed the Plan of Action on China-Israel Innovation Cooperation from 2018 to 2021.

According to Zhan, in the next three years, China and Israel will continue increasing investment, jointly build innovation centers, set up R&D centers, and further strengthen innovation cooperation in 13 priority areas, such as science and technology, health, education, transportation, environment and agriculture.

The ambassador encouraged companies and institutions from both sides to seize this opportunity, carry out more innovation cooperation, and make more investment in Israel and China.

"Haifa has made a lot of efforts in order to deepen the relations between Israel and China and succeeded a lot," said Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav at the summit.

During the summit, a memorandum of understanding was signed to build an accelerator between the Haifa Economic Corporation and Chengdu Bekesen Science and Technology Development.

This is another new start for the cooperation between China and Israel and the relations of the two nations will be further accelerated, said Yahav.

The accelerator, the first Chinese accelerator in Haifa, will serve as a platform for Chinese-Israeli cooperation in the areas of digital health, life sciences, smart cities and agri-tech. The accelerator will be built in the Haifa Life Sciences Park.

Wide prospects are also expected for the deep cooperation of basic research and high-edge technologies between universities from China and Israel, said Xu Hongbing, vice president of the University of Electronic and Technology of China in an interview with Xinhua.

The university has already conducted deep cooperation with several well-known Israeli universities and research institutions and also established a joint research center in the university, Xu added.

Israel is a world-renowned start-up nation with more than 6,000 high-tech start-ups and over 350 R&D centers invested by multinational companies. Chinese companies such as Huawei, Legend and Xiaomi have already established R&D centers in Israel.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 06:30:22|Editor: Li Xia

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CHICAGO, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) agricultural futures closed mixed on Tuesday, with soybeans rallying over bargain buying after a double-digit decline in the previous session.

The most active December corn was down 1 cent, or 0.28 percent to close at 3.6125 dollars per bushel. March 2019 wheat was up 2 cents, or 0.39 percent to settle at 5.085 dollars. January 2019 soybeans were up 7.25 cents, or 0.83 percent to settle at 8.81 dollars per bushel.

Soybeans suffered more than two percent losses on Monday over uncertainty surrounding the U.S. trade relations with China. Bargain hunting reversed the downturn on Tuesday.

CBOT soybeans were also boosted by export sales. Private exporters on Tuesday reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture a total sale of 123,567 metric tons of soybeans for delivery to unknown destinations during the 2018/19 marketing year.

Chicago wheat found support from a sharp year-on-year drop of Russian wheat inventory. Official data as of November 1 indicated 60 percent to 80 percent declines in wheat stocks in several Russian export hubs.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 07:00:26|Editor: Li Xia

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing from the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 20, 2018. Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller probing into the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, local media on Tuesday quoted the president's attorneys as saying. (Xinhua/Ting Shen)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller probing into the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, local media on Tuesday quoted the president's attorneys as saying.

"The President today answered written questions submitted by The Special Counsel's Office. The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The President responded in writing," Jay Sekulow, Counsel to the President, told ABC News in a statement.

"The President has nonetheless provided unprecedented cooperation. The Special Counsel has been provided with more than 30 witnesses, 1.4 million pages of material, and now the President's written responses to questions. It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion," Rudy Giuliani, the president's attorney, also told ABC News.

"It has been our position from the outset that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. This remains our position today," Giuliani said.

Trump told reporters last week that he has completed written answers personally, instead of his legal team.

"I've answered them very easily," Trump said at the time.

On Sunday, Trump said in the "Fox News Sunday" interview that he "probably" won't sit for an interview with Mueller.

"I think we've wasted enough time on this witch hunt, and the answer is, probably, we' re finished," the president said in the interview.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed any collusion between his campaign and Russia in the U.S. 2016 elections.

Trump has also attacked the probe by calling it a "hoax" or "witch hunt," raising long-running speculation that he would force it to be shut down, a move that analysts say could trigger a political firestorm.

The Mueller probe started in May 2017. Since then, Mueller's prosecutors have secured indictments against 32 individuals and three Russian businesses on charges ranging from computer hacking to financial fraud, leading to six guilty pleas and three people sentenced in jail.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 07:30:31|Editor: Li Xia

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ROME, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Video-on-demand pioneer Netflix is facing a new hurdle in Italy, after a decree from the country's minister of culture aimed to slow the process for cinematic releases to make their way to online streaming services.

U.S.-based Netflix, founded in 1997, is the world's largest subscription-based video streaming platform, with services in 190 countries and 11.7 billion U.S. dollars (10.3 billion euros) in revenue last year.

Starting in 2011, more than half of Netflix's subscribers have been outside the U.S., and the non-U.S. market has grown much faster than the company's domestic subscriber base. As of the third quarter of this year, around 80 million of the company's 140 million subscribers are located beyond the U.S.'s borders.

Under the new rules, Netflix's nearly 1 million Italian subscribers will have to wait longer than in the past for cinema productions to make their way to computer screens. The law prohibits Netflix or other streaming services from offering major films for at least 15 weeks from when the film first screened in Italy's nearly 4,000 cinemas.

"The goal of the new decree is to help protect the country's cinemas while making sure that every kind of film will be able to find its audience," Lionello Cerri, a film producer, cinema owner, and a former president of ANEC, Italy's National Association of Cinema Operators, said in an interview.

The decree from Minister of Culture Alberto Bonisoli offers exceptions to the waiting period for smaller motion pictures.

For example, Italian films that screen for three or fewer days as part of special events can be shown on streaming services ten days after their premiere. Those that open on 80 or fewer cinemas -- major productions in Italy usually open in hundreds of cinemas simultaneously -- and that screen to fewer than 50,000 paid movie goers in their first three weeks can screen on streaming services after 60 days.

The limits for smaller films are only applicable for Italy-made productions, Cerri said, while the 15-week (105 day) waiting period is applicable to all films, Italian or foreign.

In a statement, Bonisoli said the rules will push some films to skip showing in cinemas all together, while allowing cinemas to focus on high-revenue productions.

"Cinemas can only operate if they show popular films that generate income," Bonisoli said.

Since 1990, cinema attendance in Italy has remained relatively stable, with around 100 million cinema tickets sold each year. But that comes despite increases in population and per capita wealth since then, and higher costs for producing films.

The new decree -- dubbed the "anti-Netflix" law by the Italian media -- was sparked by the high-profile world premieres of several films produced by Netflix or online retailer Amazon at this year's Venice Film Festival. Among them was "Roma," a film by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron that went on to win the festival's top prize.

"Roma" did not have a film cinema distribution deal before the Aug. 29-Sept 8 Venice festival, but on the back of its victory producers signed a deal for the film to open in cinemas Nov. 21, and be made available on the Netflix platform 23 days later, on Dec. 14. A concern among cinema operators is that that short span will dissuade interested movie-goers from watching the film in a cinema and instead wait for it to become available online.

If the new decree had been in force, "Roma" would not be eligible to appear on Netflix until March 6, 2019 -- 105 days after its official cinema premiere.

Analysts differed on how effective the new measure will be in protecting the country's cinemas or whether it will help curb interest in for streaming services. But Raffaele Barberio, founder and director of Key4Biz, a portal focusing on the digital economy, said there is a strong case to be made for helping to protect the country's cinema operators.

"It is not just a question of protecting cinemas and the people they employ," Barberio told Xinhua. "Cinemas are part of the community around them. They help support nearby restaurants and bars. The cinema is a cultural touchstone."

Netflix-Italia declined to comment on the new developments.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on his investigation of potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 20, 2017. (REUTERS/File Photo)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- More than half of American adults say they want Congress to pass a law to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

Fifty-two percent of the respondents support such a legislation, including 53 percent of independents, 23 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of Democrats, the CBS News poll showed.

Meanwhile, seven in 10 Americans say that President Donald Trump should not take action to hamper Mueller's probe, including 76 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans, according to the poll.

Mueller is looking into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and any potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, among other matters that may arise from the investigation.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the probe by calling it a "hoax" or "witch hunt," raising long-running speculation that he would force it to be shut down, a move that analysts say could trigger a political firestorm.

The poll interviewed 1,103 adults nationally with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 07:45:34|Editor: Li Xia

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SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. internet giant Google said Tuesday it has taken down more foreign-related accounts linked to coordinated influence operations targeting political content in the United States.

In an update to its crackdown on state-sponsored activity released on Aug. 23, Google said it has removed six G+ pages, one blog site and 34 YouTube channels identified as being engaged in Iran-linked operations.

These channels have achieved 20,794 total U.S. views on English-language political videos, Google said.

The Mountain View, California-based company accused Russian actors of running operations on one YouTube channel linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The channel, which had only 94 views in the United States on one English-language video, was also removed immediately.

The IRA has previously named by two other tech giants Facebook and Twitter as "a bad actor" involved in "inauthentic accounts" aimed at spreading fake information on their platforms earlier this year.

Google has launched constant campaigns against online misinformation activities that used its services since early this year. It announced purging more than 100 fake accounts and pages for state-sponsored phishing attacks and coordinated influence operations in August.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 08:42:43|Editor: Li Xia

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People visit a charity Bazaar at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 20, 2018. The United Nations Women's Guild (UNWG) organized the annual international charity Bazaar on Tuesday to raise funds for disadvantaged children around the world. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 08:40:45|Editor: mmm

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LONDON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Former European champion Nigel Levine of Britain has been banned from competition for failing a drugs test, the UK Anti-Doping announced on Tuesday.

Levine, who won a European outdoor relay gold in 2014 and an indoor relay gold in 2013, has been banned from all sport for four years.

It was revealed that the 29-year-old, who competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics in the 4X400m relay event, tested positive for banned asthma drug clenbuterol following an out-of-competition test on 24 November 2017.

Clenbuterol is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list because it is deemed a performance-enhancing drug and can induce weight loss.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 10:26:02|Editor: Li Xia

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which is slated to be signed late this month, is likely to have no easy time in Congress due to emerging complaints from both Democrats and Republicans about the updated North American trade deal.

The agreement, reached more than a month ago despite unsettled differences over steel and aluminum tariffs, is expected to be signed on Nov. 30 by leaders from the three countries when they meet for G20 meetings in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

The new version of the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has revised trade rules on cars, dairy and other goods.

Democrats, who control the House of Representatives after the just concluded midterm elections, have long demanded tougher labor rules in Mexico and stronger protection from pollution, among other things. The lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the new deal for lacking a strong enough enforcement mechanism to ensure a reasonable wage for Mexican workers.

New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, who is positioned to chair the House Committee on Ways and Means, said last week that there should be "not only changes in the legislation but more enforcement" for the deal to pass the House.

A number of Democrats might also try to push for the removal of tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, which are considered to harm American manufacturers, consumers and workers, and raise costs for a wide array of industries.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are protesting new protections for LGBTQ workers, urging cancellation of the requirements that workers should be protected from discrimination over sexual orientation and gender identity. Canada requested the measures in talks.

A group of some 40 conservative House members on Friday said in a letter: "It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept."

If the tripartite trade agreement goes to Congress, it is expected to face a simple yes-or-no vote under the so-called "fast-track" law, a 2015 trade legislation, with no amendments or procedural delays allowed. However, the Democrats-controlled House could challenge that by introducing a rule to remove the deal from the "fast-track" consideration.

If the deal fails to pass the divided Congress, the White House might threaten to pull out of the NAFTA completely, upsetting both Democrats and Republicans, as there is no alternative available.

Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico's economy minister, has ruled out changes to the labor provisions in the new trade deal, saying "not even through side letters," and "The design of this agreement we already have and will be signing considered a scenario where there's a Democrat-majority Congress."

Pascrell said some of the U.S. Democrats are still waiting to see a U.S. International Trade Commission analysis of the impact of the new deal on the U.S. economy and industries, which could be ready by mid-March.

"I think we're going in the right direction," he said. "I'm confident we're going to have a better document."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 11:06:11|Editor: Li Xia

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SYDNEY, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Female Tasmanian devils cope better with a major cancer than their male counterparts, pointing to better understanding of treatment and wildlife evolutionary processes, Australian research showed Wednesday.

Researchers from the University of Tasmania monitored the effects of the cancer, known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease, on two wild populations of Tasmanian devils, which are the world's largest marsupial carnivores, in the northwest of the Australian island state over three years.

The team found that as the disease progressed with tumor sizes growing, it was the female response to the debilitating condition that came as a surprise, the study's lead author Manuel Ruiz said in a statement.

"The most surprising and interesting result is that females lose much less body condition than males as the disease progresses," he said.

"While males can lose up to 25 percent of their body weight because of the cancer, in females this impact is approximately 5 to 10 percent."

The findings highlighted the evolution of tumors and suggested that female devils may have some ways to cope with the disease better than males, said Ruiz.

The co-author of the latest report, Dr. Rodrigo Hamede, said several studies have demonstrated that the animals are adapting to the cancer epidemic in the last five years.

"This is another layer of evidence showing that devils are learning to live with the cancer" and that coexistence between devils and the disease is a "possible outcome," said Hamede.

More research into the differences in tolerance to the disease between males and females and their impact on wildlife needed to be done, said Ruiz.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences academic journal.

"This will help to create a better understanding of how devils and tumors may be evolving in natural conditions, and how these findings may complement the current efforts to preserve the species," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 11:21:12|Editor: Li Xia

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CANBERRA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The government of South Australia (SA) has revealed a plan to implement a speed limit for boats in the state's dolphin sanctuaries.

Under the plan, boats in the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, a 118.7-square-km area that houses up to 400 wild dolphins, will be held to a speed limit of seven knots (12.96 km per hour).

SA Transport Minister Stephan Knoll made the announcement on Wednesday after a petition calling for the speed limit received more than 20,000 signatures.

Knoll dismissed a 10-knot speed limit in the area as "unworkable" in May but on Wednesday changed his tune.

"The state government has consulted widely and taken into consideration the feedback of all stakeholders on this issue," he told News Corp Australia.

"Port Adelaide is not only our state's busiest port but it's also used by our recreational and commercial fishers, various recreational boating groups and those who wish to enjoy the dolphin sanctuary."

The "Protect Our Dolphins" campaign was launched by Messenger Community News publications, which are owned by News Corp, after four of the seven dolphin calves born in the sanctuary in 2017 died as a result of "blunt trauma".

A report published by the SA Museum found that 17 out of 35 adult dolphins deaths in the region were also a result of blunt trauma.

Mike Bossley, a dolphin expert who has studied the sanctuary for more than 30 years, said that the deaths could have only been caused by boats.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 11:51:19|Editor: mmm

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council Tuesday condemned "in the strongest terms" the terrorist attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul that targeted a gathering of religious scholars.

At least 43 people were killed and 83 others injured in the bombing that struck a hotel in Kabul amid a meeting of religious scholars to celebrate the Miladun Nabi or the birthday of Prophet Mohammad. Several top clerics were reportedly among the victims.

The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the government of Afghanistan, and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured, said the 15-nation council in a press statement.

The council members underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice, and urged all UN member states to cooperate actively with the Afghan government and all other relevant authorities in this regard.

The council members reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, and stressed the need for all states to combat by all means threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 11:56:20|Editor: ZD

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BRASILIA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's future economy minister Paulo Guedes announced a plan Tuesday to create a privatization secretariat to speed up the denationalization of state-owned firms.

When serving as economic coordinator for Bolsonaro during his presidential campaign, Guedes, a liberal graduated from the University of Chicago, advocated the privatization of state-run services such as the postal service and subsidiaries of state oil and gas giant Petrobras.

On Monday, Bolsonaro dismissed the idea of privatizing Petrobras outright, but said parts of it could be sold off.

He has said the privatization process will follow a specific well-defined plan.

In addition to the privatization program, the economic agenda of the incoming Bolsonaro administration includes tax and pension reform, further opening up the economy, creating an independent central bank, and scaling back state intervention to a minimum.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 11:56:20|Editor: ZD

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CANBERRA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has declared he has no sympathy for a convicted drug smuggler who is preparing to return to Australia.

Renae Lawrence was released from Indonesia's Bangli Prison on Wednesday after serving more than 13 years imprisonment for her involvement in the Bali Nine drug smuggling plot.

Lawrence will be arrested by New South Wales (NSW) Police upon her return to Australia for her alleged involvement in two offences prior to her arrest in Bali in 2005.

Dutton on Wednesday dismissed the notion that Lawrence should be shown leniency by NSW authorities after serving her sentence for drug smuggling.

"If you commit that offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia," he told Sky News Australia.

"If you've committed offences in our country, you need to face the justice system here."

Lawrence was the first member of the Bali Nine, who attempted to smuggle 8.3 kg of heroin from Indonesia to Australia in 2005, to be released from prison.

She was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for her involvement but had the sentence reduced to 20 years because of her cooperation with the investigation.

More than six years were taken off the sentence for good behaviour.

Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in April 2015 despite the Australian government working for nearly a decade to have their sentences changed to life imprisonment.

"The Indonesian government, like the Australian government, takes the issue very seriously," Dutton said on Wednesday.

"If people are travelling they need to understand that there are serious penalties, particularly in Southeast Asia, including the death penalty in some countries."

Five other men involved in the plot are serving life sentences and a sixth, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died of cancer in May.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 12:06:22|Editor: mmm

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Delhi Police have issued an alert regarding the possibility of two suspected terrorists entering the country's capital city, local media reported Wednesday.

The police also released a photograph of the two terrorists standing by a signboard showing Delhi "360 kilometers away."

Following the alert, security officials had tightened the security of important offices, including the prime minister's office and the Defence Ministry, besides other key government installations.

Fearing the terrorists to be hiding in the Paharganj area of central Delhi, the police issued an advisory for locals to immediately call the police if they spot these two men in Delhi or surrounding areas.

Meanwhile, the police in northern state of Punjab had also issued a high alert for the national capital after receiving information about seven Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists who are feared to have entered the region via Punjab.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 12:16:23|Editor: ZD

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MEXICO CITY, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing will launch its transport services in Mexico's capital on Wednesday, in a bid to further expand business in the country.

Home to some 22 million people with Internet access and a lack of reliable transportation, Mexico City and the metropolitan area presents an attractive market, said Pablo Mondragon, the company's head of operations for the nation's capital and nearby Toluca.

"Latin America is one of the fastest growing regions in terms of Internet use, especially Mexico. We have about 90 million Internet users (nationwide), which makes entry (into the market) easy for these types of apps," Mondragon said.

In Mexico, DiDi first launched operations in Toluca, a city located 60 km west of Mexico City, in April and has expanded to Guadalajara, Monterrey and now Mexico City.

"Mobility issues in Mexico, specifically Mexico City, are a huge challenge," Mondragon said.

"We are in one of the (world's) largest cities, with the biggest mobility problems," he added.

DiDi's expansion plans cover the northern cities of Chihuahua, Mexicali as well as Tijuana, Merida to the southeast, and Puebla, near Mexico City.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), greater Mexico City registers some 34.56 million daily commutes, of which 58.1 percent are for going to work, with the average commute lasting from 30 minutes to two hours.

At the company's Mexico City recruitment office, the hustle and bustle has been on the upswing, with hundreds of drivers interested in becoming DiDi partners.

Compared with other big names in ride-sharing, such as Uber, the Chinese company's offer is quite different, said Mario Aguilar, a DiDi driving partner in Toluca.

"DiDi offered me less hours and lower labor output. In addition, the treatment from DiDi has always been very humane," said Aguilar, who left Uber after two-and-one-half years.

"DiDi came and positioned itself very well, not to fill a void, but rather to find its niche. The competition here is stiff and DiDi has earned its place in Mexico," Aguilar said.

According to Aguilar, since joining DiDi, his earnings have increased on average between 4,000 and 6,000 pesos (213 and 320 U.S. dollars) a week. DiDi receives 20 percent of each fare, less than the 25 percent Uber charges.

Aguilar also likes DiDi because it is a Chinese company. "China is the master of apps. In other words, it knows the business," he said.

"The Chinese ... way of working as a team attracts your attention. And DiDi has accomplished so much more than Uber in a shorter time span," he said.

"All of the technology we are developing in China we are going to bring here to Mexico, so we can continue to learn from the city through all the data we are generating, to continue to offer more efficient service," Mondragon said.

According to the company, DiDi has 31 million drivers worldwide, making 10 billion trips per year and transporting 550 million passengers.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 12:31:26|Editor: ZD

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ZHENGZHOU, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The China-Europe freight train has opened a regular postal service linking Zhengzhou, a transport hub in central China's Henan Province, and Poland's Malaszewicze.

On Tuesday, a train carrying seven tonnes of parcels departed from Zhengzhou Putian Container Center Station, marking the start of the service.

The new rail service is expected to reduce the cost of mailing, expand the scope of delivery and shorten transportation time, according to the route operator Zhengzhou International Hub Development and Construction Co.

The China-Europe rail service is a significant part of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

The number of China-Europe freight trains reached a new high in 2017, surpassing the past six years combined, with more than 3,000 cargo trains traveling on 57 lines. The number of such train trips is expected to reach 4,000 in 2018, according to China Railway Corporation.

Zhengzhou has become an international transport hub with regular freight train services to over 100 cities in Europe and Central Asia.

At present, the China-Europe freight train departs from Zhengzhou to Europe and returns eight times a week.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 12:51:31|Editor: mmm

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KILIFI, Kenya, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- An Italian woman was kidnapped and five children injured when unknown gunmen attacked a children orphanage in Kenya's coastal region of Malindi on Tuesday evening, police said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 13:08:43|Editor: mmm

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Photo taken on Nov. 20, 2018 shows the closing ceremony of the sixth session of Vietnam's 14th National Assembly in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. The sixth session of Vietnam's National Assembly (NA), the country's top legislature, concluded here on Tuesday after nearly one month of discussing and approving personnel matters and nine laws, and debates on six other bills, the NA Office announced. (Xinhua/VNA)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 13:11:33|Editor: Li Xia

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SYDNEY, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers on Wednesday said they are developing novel artificial intelligence technology that will allow people to self-diagnose skin cancer using smartphones.

The most critical cue for early diagnosis of skin cancer is changes in the appearance of moles and lesions over time, and the technology "will allow a person to simply scan their body with a smartphone by taking a large number of high-resolution images," said project leader Anders Eriksson from the Queensland University of Technology in a statement.

"The images will be sent to a remote server for processing and within a matter of minutes, a complete 3-D reconstruction of the individual's body is returned, with every mole and lesion identified, analyzed, assessed and compared with previous scans," said Eriksson.

"This early warning of a change in a mole or lesion will alert a person to see a skin cancer specialist that they can have treatment as soon as possible."

The breakthrough technology would give Australians the ability to detect skin cancer at an early stage by conducting monthly skin cancer screenings for a fraction of the cost of a physical examination, said Eriksson.

"About 30 new diagnoses of melanoma are made each day in Australia - early detection is vital to skin cancer prognosis," he said.

"Mortality is directly related to the depth of the cancer, which depends on how long the skin cancer has been growing unnoticed.

"This technology when fully developed could lift the survival rate of melanoma, as we know if it is caught early the five-year survival rate is greater than 90 percent."

The research was in its early stages but the new technology was anticipated to be ready in the next three years, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 13:46:38|Editor: Li Xia

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PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad met his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan here on Wednesday as the two leaders pledged for cooperation.

At a press conference following a brief meeting, the two leaders said they had discussed several topics of mutual interest especially on anti-corruption and tourism.

"We have had a long relationship. We have some similar problems and we will continue dialogue to discuss solutions. We discussed foreign direct investments, privatization, tourism and food," Mahathir said.

Mahathir also said that Khan had sought his help in making Pakistan a dialogue partner with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the two countries would continue their mutual defense cooperation.

In Khan's first visit to Malaysia since becoming prime minister in August, he said he was eager to learn of Malaysia's efforts at combating corruption.

"Both of us are in similar situations as we both came to power on an anti-corruption platform with high national debt," Khan said.

Khan also said that Pakistan was keen to develop its potential for tourism and looked to Malaysia for help with developing tourist resorts.

"We have many tourist spots but not many resorts. We want to learn from your experience to raise our own gross domestic product (GDP) and our per capita income," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 13:56:39|Editor: Li Xia

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SUVA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) Australia has identified a gap in the digital space for marketing tourism in the region including Fiji.

PTI Project Officer Onorina Fugawai was quoted as saying by Fiji Broadcasting Corporation Wednesday that with tourism being a big earner for the Pacific, it is vital that operators maximize all avenues.

Fugawai said tourism was changing and more travellers were now resorting to online platforms to plan and book their gateways.

She added many operators in the Pacific have failed to create a website to make them more accessible.

A total of 21 tourism operators on Wednesday undertook training on digital tourism, to learn how best they can market on a global scale.

Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association (FHTA), the co-facilitator of the training, believed this workshop would further boost the tourism industry.

FHTA Chief Executive Fantasha Lockington said the training is targeted towards the small and medium enterprises.

"We see this as an opportunity for our smaller operators who have not been given the opportunity to get into that segment of business to find out what it is that they can do to improve their businesses through getting into digital tourism and putting their products and services online."

Through the enhancement skills obtained from the digital tourism platform, Pacific island countries were able to earn around 15 million Fijian dollars (about 7.07 million U.S. dollars) last year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 14:11:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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Boat racers take part in the Water Festival in the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 21, 2018. Cambodia began to celebrate the three-day Water Festival here on Wednesday with boat races attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the kingdom. (Xinhua/Sovannara)

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia began to celebrate the three-day Water Festival on Wednesday with boat races attracting tens of thousands of spectators from across the kingdom.

The annual boat race is held along a 1.7 km-stretch of the Tonle Sap river in front of the royal palace in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.

Bou Chumserey, vice chairman of the boat-racing technical control committee, said about 295 dragon boats with 19,017 oarsmen took part in this year's regatta, up from 265 boats with 18,000 rowers in last year's event.

"We encourage boatmen and people to participate in the festival in order to preserve this age-old tradition," he told Xinhua.

"Boat race is to remember the strength of the powerful Khmer marine forces during the ancient Khmer Empire in the late 11th century," he said.

The festival is also to mark the end of annual rainy season and the unique reversal flow of the Tonle Sap river that connects the Tonle Sap Lake with the Mekong river, he said.

"It is to express our gratitude to the Mekong river for providing us with fertile land and abundant fish," he said.

According to Chumserey, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, along with Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and other dignitaries, will watch boat races from a stage erected on the riverbank in front of the royal palace late Wednesday afternoon.

"This is our Khmer tradition, and our Khmer kings have celebrated this boat-race festival since the ancient time until the present time," spectator Ho Khema, 20, told Xinhua.

"In the old time, boats had been used by marine forces to do war against the invading enemies," she said.

The National Police said that more than 13,000 security personnel have been deployed to ensure security and safety for the festival-goers during the three-day holiday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 14:11:41|Editor: mmm

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A court in India has sentenced a man to death and another for life over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that left nearly 3,000 people dead, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, officials said Wednesday.

The court pronounced the sentences on Tuesday, 34 years after two men were killed by a group of mobs during the riots.

"Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey awarded the death sentence yesterday to 55-year-old Yashpal Singh and a life sentence to 68-year-old Naresh Sherawat, both for murdering two men in south Delhi's Mahipalpur," an official said.

The court also directed the duo to pay a penalty of 49,086 U.S. dollars (3.5 million Indian rupees) each.

The court last week held Naresh and Yashpal guilty of killing Hardev Singh and Avtar Singh on Nov. 1, 1984 during the riots. The convictions followed testimonials of Hardev's brothers Kuldeep Singh and Sangat Singh who had left Delhi with their family in 1985 and are now settled in a Jalandhar village.

Sikhs were targeted in the capital and elsewhere after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by one of her Sikh bodyguards. Gandhi's assassination came four months after the storming by the Indian army of the Golden Temple - the Sikh holy shrine in Punjab's Amritsar, where Sikh militants were fighting for an independent homeland.

The anti-Sikh violence lasted three days, with Hindu mobs hunting down Sikhs across India.

Chief Minister of northern Indian state of Punjab Amarinder Singh welcomed the verdict.

"Welcome the first conviction by a Delhi court in the 1984 riots case. Justice has finally been meted out to the perpetrators of the heinous crimes," Singh said in a statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:11:53|Editor: xuxin

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The White House has invited the chief executive officers of three major German automakers for talks amid growing concern that the temporary suspension of U.S. tariffs on European cars is nearing an end, according to U.S. media reports.

The Bloomberg news, citing anonymous sources, reported Tuesday that the CEOs of BMW AG, Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG have received invitations to Washington after Nov. 22, the Thanksgiving Day, for negotiations between the United States and the European Union (EU) toward a broader trade deal.

The executives were consulting with German government officials over the trip, said the report. And the White House communication staff didn't immediately respond to the request for comment.

The automobile industry has been a sticking point in the U.S.-EU trade disputes, with the White House threatening to slap tariffs on European cars and car parts while singling out Germany's largely vehicle-driven trade surplus over the United States.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker managed to secure a truce for the trade disputes when he met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in July. Trump agreed to put the potential levies on hold at the time, but Juncker hinted recently that the pause may not last until the end of the year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:26:56|Editor: xuxin

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SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's export kept rising for the first 20 days of November thanks to demand for oil product and automobile, customs office data showed Wednesday.

Export, which accounts for about half of the South Korean economy, amounted to 31.6 billion U.S. dollars in the 1-20 period of November, up 5.7 percent from the same period of last year, according to the Korea Customs Service.

The daily average export gained 5.7 percent to 2.04 billion dollars in the cited period.

The export growth was led by solid global demand for oil product and automobile, of which outbound shipments expanded 23.9 percent and 14.2 percent, respectively.

Semiconductor export, which had led the overall export expansion with a double-digit growth, rose 3.5 percent in the cited period on lower chip price.

Exports for steel product and LCD panel declined 0.2 percent and 37.1 percent each.

Import advanced 12.8 percent over the year to 31.2 billion dollars in the November 1-20 period, sending the trade surplus to 339 million dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:26:56|Editor: xuxin

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SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Wednesday expressed a strong protest against Japanese politicians' rally in Tokyo to claim sovereignty over Dokdo islets, called Takeshima in Japan, lying halfway between the two nations.

Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement that some Japanese politicians held a demonstration in Tokyo to demand an early resolution of the Dokdo islet issue despite its repeated warnings over Japan's sovereignty claim to the islets.

The ministry strongly protested against the rally, demanding an immediate abolishment of the event.

It urged Japan to immediately stop a futile claim to Dokdo, which the ministry said is an inherent territory of South Korea historically, geographically and by international law.

The ministry called on Japan to clearly recognize that the right understanding of history would be a foundation for the development of relations between South Korea and Japan.

South Korea and Japan have long been at odds over a set of historical issues, including the wartime sexual slavery, the wartime forced labor and the islets, to which Japan has laid territorial claims on various occasions.

South Koreans regard the territorial claim as Japan's refusal to repent for its imperialist past as the rocky islets were incorporated into Japan's territory during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea regained its sovereignty over the rocky outcroppings right after its liberation from the colonial rule.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:36:58|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- More pilot state-owned enterprises (SOE) will carry out mixed ownership reform in key areas, according to an official from the state asset authority.

"A number of centrally and locally administered SOEs with a wider range of business categories will be chosen to enrich the ongoing mixed ownership reform," said Weng Jieming, vice chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), told China Daily.

"The government will not only encourage non-public capital to participate in SOE reform, but also support the development of private business together with SOE resources."

From 2013 to 2017, the private sector invested 1.1 trillion yuan (about 158 billion U.S. dollars) and 500 billion yuan respectively to take part in mixed ownership reform of central and provincial SOEs, according to SASAC.

Since 2016, China has selected 50 SOEs in three batches to conduct the pilot reform in fields including power, energy, civil aviation, telecommunications and defense.

China has now approved plans of mixed ownership reform from 23 SOEs in the third batch, and plans for another eight SOEs in the same batch are yet to be approved.

Mixed ownership is believed to be vital to deepening SOE reform as it can improve efficiency and competitiveness of state-owned assets.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:36:58|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese commercial banks' asset quality will maintain its overall stability, with the bad loan ratio predicted to stay below 1.9 percent, according to a report released by the financial research center of Bank of Communications.

With accelerating economic restructuring and an improving financing environment for private and small businesses, commercial banks will see less downward pressure on asset quality, the report said.

In addition, higher profitability will enable lenders to do more to deal with bad loans and reduce financial risks, according to the report.

The bad loan ratio of Chinese commercial banks stood at 1.87 percent by the end of the third quarter, 0.01 percentage points higher than at the end of Q2.

Despite the slight increase in the ratio, the amount of new bad loans dropped markedly and the banks' provision coverage ratio, which measures how lenders are protected against bad loans, went up, the report said.

Meanwhile, it warned of risks of negative impact on banks' asset quality from certain sources, including property developers with high debt ratios, local governments' hidden debts and corporate bond defaults.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:41:59|Editor: xuxin

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KILIFI, Kenya, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- An Italian woman was kidnapped and five Kenyans were injured when unknown gunmen attacked a children orphanage in Kenya's coastal region of Malindi on Tuesday evening, police said.

Joseph Boinnet, inspector-general of police, said on Wednesday the assailants armed with AK 47 rifles raided Chakama trading center, about 80 km west of tourism resort town of Malindi, Kilifi County, injuring five people including three children.

"The gang then abducted an Italian lady known as Sylivia Constanca aged 23 years," Boinnet said in a statement.

He said all the injured were taken to hospital and contingents of police officers were mobilized to track down the criminals.

"We appeal to members of the public in the area to report promptly to the nearest police officer should they sight the criminals with the abducted lady. No effort is being spared to track and rescue the victim," said Boinnet.

The east African nation has blamed members of Somalia's al-Shabaab for a series of abductions of foreigners and grenade and landmine attacks on its territory near the border with Somalia.

Local police chiefs and Red Cross officials said the heavily armed assailants shot and wounded three children and two adults before kidnapping the Italian woman who is a volunteer of an NGO operating in the area.

Police sources said the kidnapped woman has been abandoned in a forest. The motive and the identities of the attackers were still unknown.

The coastal region has been a target of terror attacks in the past, often staged by al-Shabaab terrorists. Police believe that the militant group still remains the major threat in areas along the common border.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:47:00|Editor: xuxin

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SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea decided on Wednesday to dissolve a Japan-funded foundation for the domestic victims of sex slavery during World War II as it was set up in defiance of the victims and their bereaved families.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which governs the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, said it would launch a legal process to close down the foundation, based on the current situations and the review results.

The ministry said it consulted with relevant offices, along with the Foreign Ministry, over ways to handle the foundation and collected various opinions.

The foundation was established in July 2016, with 1 billion yen (8.9 million U.S. dollars) offered by Japan after the then South Korean government of impeached president Park Geun-hye reached a final, irreversible agreement with Japan in December 2015 to settle the wartime sexual enslavement issue in return for the contribution.

Historians say as many as 400,000 women from Asian countries, including from the Korean Peninsula, were forced into sex slavery for Japanese military brothels during WWII. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945.

The Moon Jae-in government, which was inaugurated in May 2017, decided to replenish the 1-billion-yen fund with its own budget as the living victims and civic groups supporting the victims protested against the foundation.

The victims demanded the Japanese government's sincere apology and its acknowledgement of legal responsibility for the wartime atrocities.

The Japanese government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has refused to do it.

In 2018, six former South Korean sex slaves, euphemistically called comfort women, passed away. Among 240 comfort women victims, who identified themselves as former sex slaves, only 27 are still alive in South Korea.

The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation has paid 4.4 billion won (3.9 million U.S. dollars) in compensation to 34 comfort women victims and the bereaved families of 58 late victims.

However, they refused to receive any money from the Japan-funded foundation and called for Japan to sincerely apologize and acknowledge its legal responsibility for the wartime crime against humanities.

The operation of the foundation actually stopped late last year as all of the civilian board members quitted from the fund.

Regarding the remaining fund of the foundation, the ministry said it will collect opinions from the victims and civic groups to handle the fund in a reasonable way.

The Foreign Ministry would reportedly seek to consult with Japan on ways to handle the 1-billion-yen fund. Advocacy groups have demanded returning all the money to Japan.

Jin Sun-mee, minister of gender equality and family, said the ministry will make utmost efforts for policies to recover the honor and dignity of the comfort women victims.

The Seoul decision to close down the Tokyo-funded foundation was forecast to add a strain on the already soured bilateral relations following the South Korean top court's ruling on the wartime forced labor.

The South Korea's highest court ruled in October that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, a Japanese steel producer, should pay 100 million won (around 88,000 U.S. dollars) per plaintiff in compensation to four South Korean victims for their forced labor during WWII.

Japan protested against the ruling, claiming that the wartime forced labor issue was fully resolved through a 1965 treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between Seoul and Tokyo.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 15:52:02|Editor: xuxin

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (L) shakes hands with his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nov. 21, 2018. Mahathir Mohamad met Imran Khan here on Wednesday as the two leaders pledged for cooperation. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad met his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan here on Wednesday as the two leaders pledged for cooperation.

At a press conference following a brief meeting, the two leaders said they had discussed several topics of mutual interest especially on anti-corruption and tourism.

"We have had a long relationship. We have some similar problems and we will continue dialogue to discuss solutions. We discussed foreign direct investments, privatization, tourism and food," Mahathir said.

Mahathir also said that Khan had sought his help in making Pakistan a dialogue partner with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the two countries would continue their mutual defense cooperation.

In Khan's first visit to Malaysia since becoming prime minister in August, he said he was eager to learn of Malaysia's efforts at combating corruption.

"Both of us are in similar situations as we both came to power on an anti-corruption platform with high national debt," Khan said.

Khan also said that Pakistan is keen to develop its potential for tourism and looked to Malaysia for help with developing tourist resorts.

"We have many tourist spots but not many resorts. We want to learn from your experience to raise our own gross domestic product (GDP) and our per capita income," he added.

In a joint statement released after the press conference, the two leaders welcomed the establishment of Bilateral Consultation between the senior officials of both Ministries of Foreign Affairs as the mechanism to intensify engagements between both sides.

Malaysia and Pakistan will convene the first Bilateral Consultation in Islamabad next year.

The statement added that both leaders had reaffirmed the Malaysia-Pakistan Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (MPCEPA) signed in 2007 in Kuala Lumpur both leaders recognized the importance of regular discussions to strengthen the trade relationship in key sectors.

Malaysia also invited Pakistani companies to invest in Malaysia in both manufacturing and services sectors where the companies are able to leverage Malaysia's strategic location in expanding their investments into ASEAN and the Asia Pacific regions.

In response, Pakistan invited potential Malaysian companies to explore the possibility of investing in Special Economic Zones to take advantage of Pakistan's strategic location at the crossroads of Central, South and West Asia.

Both leaders reaffirmed the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation and looked forward to the 13th Joint Committee on Defence Cooperation (JCDC) which will be convened in 2019 in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia invited Pakistan to participate in the upcoming Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA) in 2019.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:02:04|Editor: Yamei

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MANILA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China and the Philippines issued a joint statement Wednesday, stipulating cooperation on Belt and Road construction and agreeing to discuss maritime cooperation during President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country.

Xi and his Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, held a bilateral meeting, wherein they charted the course for the future of China-Philippines bilateral relations, had an in-depth exchange of views on regional and international issues of common interest, and reached important consensus, according to the joint statement.

The Chinese and Philippine presidents decided to establish the relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, sincerity, equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.

The two leaders recognize that the elevation of China-Philippines relations to higher levels is in line with the fundamental interests and shared aspiration of the two countries and peoples, the joint statement said.

The Chinese and Philippine sides welcome the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, it added.

Both sides welcome the signing of the MoU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the two governments, and agree to discuss maritime cooperation including maritime oil and gas exploration, sustainable use of mineral, energy and other marine resources, read the joint statement.

They also agree to strengthen existing cooperation mechanisms in other maritime-related areas, according to the document.

The two-day state visit to the Philippines has been the first one by a Chinese head of state in 13 years.

Related:

China, Philippines agree to step up legislative exchanges
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:02:04|Editor: xuxin

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MALE, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has informed his new cabinet that the Maldives will be a part of the Commonwealth of Nations again after it pulled out in 2016, a statement from the President's Office said here Wednesday.

During a cabinet meeting, the ministers underscored the advantages of being a Commonwealth member, noting that it would open up several opportunities to the Maldivian people, especially for the youth, the President's Office said.

The ministers further discussed the facilitation of education scholarships and the vast opportunities for Maldivians athletes to perform internationally by being a member of the Commonwealth.

Following the president's decision, the respective authorities are in the process of setting things in motion for the Maldives to rejoin the Commonwealth.

The Maldives first became a member of the Commonwealth in 1982, and left the Commonwealth in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:07:05|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) meets with Philippines' House of Representatives Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (L) and President of the Senate Vicente Sotto III in Manila, the Philippines, Nov. 21, 2018.(Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

MANILA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Visiting President Xi Jinping has called on legislative bodies from China and the Philippines to further exchange experience in state governance and push forward multilevel, multiform cooperation for the development of the two nations' bilateral ties.

Xi expressed the hope that the Philippines' top legislature will play a bigger role in promoting China-Philippines friendship, during a meeting with the Philippines' House of Representatives Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and President of the Senate Vicente Sotto III here on Wednesday.

Friendly exchanges between legislative bodies of both sides form an important part of the China-Philippines relations, which now stand at a new historic starting point and thus possess broad development prospect, Xi said.

In recent years, the China-Philippines relations have displayed new vitality and achieved leapfrog development, bringing benefits to the two peoples as well as encouraging regional peace and stability, according to the president.

The upgrade of the China-Philippines relations to comprehensive strategic cooperation had been jointly announced by Xi and his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte here on Tuesday.

"We must continue going on the right path, deepen practical cooperation, consolidate the material basis of the bilateral ties, expand people-to-people exchanges, cement public support, properly handle the South China Sea issue, stick to the right direction for the development of bilateral ties, and make good neighbors and partners that share the prosperity," Xi told Arroyo and Sotto.

The president praised them for being good and old friends of the Chinese people and contributing to the China-Philippines friendship for a long time. He also called for more support from the legislative bodies on practical cooperation, especially in areas of education, culture and tourism.

For their part, Arroyo and Sotto, while applauding the upgrade of the bilateral ties, both expressed their willingness to step up exchanges with Chinese legislative bodies and deepen practical cooperation in all fields, for the benefits of the two peoples and the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

With all-round cooperation going well and China being one of the most important partners for the Philippines' economic development, the Philippines-China relations are now at the best period in history, said Arroyo and Sotto.

The Philippines would like to learn from China's success in achieving rapid economic and social development, push for more cooperation in trade and infrastructure, strengthen people-to-people exchanges and better benefit the two peoples, they added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:17:08|Editor: xuxin

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SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have agreed to hold working-level talks later this week to upgrade the inter-Korean direct communication lines across the border, Seoul's unification ministry said Wednesday.

The talks would be held Friday at the joint liaison office of the two Koreas in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong.

During the talks, the two sides would focus on replacing the current direct inter-Korean communication lines, made of copper, with optical cables.

The five-member South Korean delegation will be led by Chung Chang-min, a director-general-level official with the Ministry of Science and ICT. The DPRK delegation will be represented by Ri Yong Min, a senior official in charge of communications affairs.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:17:08|Editor: xuxin

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JERUSALEM, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have found new evidence of the process of "swallowing" a dwarf galaxy by two large galaxies close to it, according to Tel Aviv University on Tuesday.

The discovered celestial object is in the shape of a tadpole with an elliptical "head," centered at two galaxies and behind it there is a huge "tail" of about 500,000 light-years.

It was discovered about 300 million light-years from Earth.

Swallowing of galaxies takes about a billion years and occurs when the stars of the dwarf galaxy are attracted by the gravitational force of the large galaxies.

The head of the tadpole probably originated from the stars of the dwarf galaxy, which were close to the two "predator" galaxies observed in the center of the head.

The giant tail is made up of the remains of farther stars in the disintegrating galaxy. The observation by the researchers caught the decomposition process in full swing.

The group of galaxies observed in this study is called "HCG 98" and consists of a dense group of four galaxies.

In observations and deciphering, the astronomers used special technology - a telescope that enables observation and photography of a relatively large space in the sky, and a method of processing that brings together many photographs of the same area.

This method allows researchers to watch even very pale bodies.

The researchers also included scientists from the University of California and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The observations were made at the Wise Observatory in southern Israel.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:37:12|Editor: xuxin

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NAIROBI, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Kenya marked the International Children's Day on Tuesday and reaffirmed commitment to boost access to education and social safety for children.

Amina Mohamed, cabinet secretary of the Education Ministry, said that robust policies are in place to promote universal school enrollment among children.

"We have already unveiled requisite measures to ensure every child has access to compulsory basic education," said Mohamed.

The theme of this year's International Children's Day called upon governments to ensure that all children could receive education and protection, and unlock their full potential.

Mohamed said Kenya has made targeted investments to ensure that empowerment of children is realized through life-long learning and access to critical services like health, shelter and proper nutrition.

"The government is paying particular attention to early childhood education to ensure it meets the physical and emotional needs of young ones. The ongoing curriculum reforms are geared towards boosting soft skills and cognitive abilities of children," said Mohamed.

She noted that Kenya is on the verge of achieving universal primary school enrollment thanks to abolition of tuition fees and other incentives such as free meals and text books for young learners.

The enactment of the country's children's act has strengthened protection of children against physical and emotional abuse from their parents, teachers and other caregivers, she added.

"Besides enacting a strong legislative framework, the government has partnered with key stakeholders to raise awareness on threats to child survival including sexual abuse, harmful cultural practices like early marriages and female genital cut as well as conscription into criminal gangs," said Mohamed.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said in the 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report released on Tuesday that refugee school-age children in Africa are facing numerous challenges to access education.

Stefania Giannini, UNESCO assistant director-general for education, said children's right to receive education should be protected no matter where they are from, where they live and what legal paperwork they carry with them.

"Half of the world's forcibly displaced people are under the age 18. Many may not see the inside of a classroom for years, however, those who are lucky to be going to school are learning under very dire circumstances," Giannini said.

According to the 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, there is a severe shortage of teachers while many in displacement settings lack any formal training, with overcrowded classrooms and linguistic differences adding to the pressure.

The Africa Report on Internal Displacement last year revealed that over 12.6 million people in the continent have been displaced by conflict, violence or disasters, with at least 37 out of 55 member states of the African Union facing the risk of failing to meet national and regional development goals unless the issue of internal displacement is addressed.

Despite challenges refugee children undergo, Mohamed said, education provides the displaced and migrants with a protective and stable environment, and is also the best way of building resilience as well as providing opportunities for identifying and enhancing the skills, values and attitudes needed to facilitate their integration into the host community and their eventual re-integration back to their countries.

"However, for education to deliver these benefits, governments and other partners must work collaboratively to put in place long-term plans and investments that are informed by high-quality, timely and reliable data," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 16:52:16|Editor: Liangyu

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ULAN BATOR, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A total of 28 Mongolian children suffering from congenital heart disease departed Wednesday for Beijing, capital of China, to receive free surgeries.

They are the first group of all 47 Mongolian children who will receive free treatment in China this year, according to the Mongolian Red Cross Society.

Last month, cardiologists from Beijing Anzhen Hospital and Inner Mongolia People's Hospital arrived in Ulan Bator to conduct screening for congenital heart disease for children aged 1-14, and 47 children were selected to receive free heart surgeries in China.

The free treatment is part of the program "Angels Tour -- Belt and Road Humanitarian Rescue Mongolia Action for Children with Severe Diseases," a humanitarian aid program launched last year by the Chinese Red Cross Foundation(CRCF).

As planned, a total of 100 children with congenital heart disease will receive free surgeries in China. Last year, 53 young patients were treated in Chinese hospitals, with the CRCF covering all the necessary costs.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 17:47:30|Editor: xuxin

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BEIRUT, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Joseph Aoun on Wednesday urged the Lebanese army to remain alert on the southern border of the country to stop any violations by Israel.

Aoun urged the army to protect the land while implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 in all its clauses in a speech on the country's 75th Independence Day, according to the army's website.

The army will strengthen its capability to confront the "enemy" and expose its aggressive intentions in front of the whole world, he said.

"You are now deployed at the northern and eastern borders to secure this stretch of Lebanese land against any infiltration attempts made by terror groups and to prevent smuggling operations and illegal entry," he told the army.

He added that the armed forces are determined to hunt down terrorists and to protect the citizens against their wrongdoings.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 17:57:34|Editor: xuxin

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BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iraq aircraft on Wednesday killed five Islamic State (IS) militants and destroyed their hideout in central Iraq, a provincial official said.

"Iraqi aircraft bombarded a hideout of terrorist Daesh (IS group) militants in the village of Albu Sulaibi near the border of the provinces of Salahudin and Diyala," Mohammed al-Obiedi, head of al-Udhiem town council, told Xinhua.

The airstrike completely destroyed the hideout and left five IS militants killed, al-Obiedi said.

The hideout is usually used by IS group as a gathering site for their militants and a weapon armory, he added.

The village of Albu Sulaibi is part of the rugged Mteibijah area, some 100 km southeast of Salahudin's provincial capital of Tikrit.

It has long been a hot bed for the extremist IS militant despite repeated operations by the Iraqi security forces to hunt them down as the militants are using the area as a launching pad to attack civilians and the security forces in the cities in Salahudin and Diyala provinces.

On Dec. 9, 2017, Iraq officially declared full liberation of its territories from IS militants after Iraqi forces recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.

However, small IS groups and individuals regrouped in desert and rugged areas and carried out attacks against the security forces and civilians despite operations from time to time to hunt them down.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 18:07:36|Editor: xuxin

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GABORONE, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least 30, 000 people in Botswana have been left vulnerable to the impacts of climate change-induced drought that affected the southern African country between 2014 and 2017, a senior government official said Wednesday.

Thato Raphaka, the permanent secretary in Botswana's Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Ministry made this revelation in his speech at the high-level national breakfast meeting in Gaborone, Botswana's capital city.

The meeting was held in preparation of the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change scheduled for Katowice, Poland early next month to finalize the rules of the implementation of Paris Agreement on climate change.

"An estimated 500,000 livestock deaths and over 30,000 people were left vulnerable to the impacts of the drought between 2014 and 2017. The droughts are closely related to the ongoing climate change in the country," said Raphaka.

In the last decade, available reports have suggested that climate change has led to about 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars in disaster losses in developing countries resulting in the number of people affected by natural disasters doubling from 102 million in 2015 to 204 million in 2017.

According to Raphaka, the number of food insecure population is at 27 million in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region alone because the regional bloc suffered the worst drought in 35 years caused by the El Nino phenomenon.

"The devastating negative impacts of climate change continue to weigh heavily on the vulnerable communities," he said.

As such, Raphaka said strategic interventions targeted towards sustainable production and consumption to keep the planet at a safer level and help realize the Paris Agreement should be a matter of priority to all.

The long term goal of the Paris Agreement makes provisions for limiting global temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius through transparent and ambitious emission reductions.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 18:27:41|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A dead sperm whale was aground on a shore in central Indonesia had digested over 1,000 pieces of plastics or nearly six kg, chief of national park in Wakatobi district Heri Santoso said on Wednesday.

The park chief said that the items found in the stomach of the 9.5 meter long mammal included 115 drinking cups, 4 plastic bottles, 2 flip-flops, 25 plastic bags and over 1,000 assorted pieces of plastic.

The species was recovered in a beach near Kapota island in the Wakatobi National Park of Southeast Sulawesi province, Heri Santoso revealed.

"Our team recovered the whale in a condition of dead and started to decay," he said in a statement.

Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said on Wednesday that the plastic waste came from land and were channeled through rivers to the sea.

She called for intensifying measures to address the problem, starting from upstream sector until the downstream of the sector.

"The garbage was from land and this must be well addressed," she said Palembang, the provincial capital of South Sumatra.

Every year, over 9 million tons of garbage is produced on land in Indonesia, a vast archipelagic nation home to over 17,500 islands, the minister was quoted by a local media as saying.

Indonesia has launched a campaign to abolish garbage at sea.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 18:32:43|Editor: Liangyu

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MANILA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China and the Philippines issued a joint statement Wednesday, stipulating cooperation on the Belt and Road construction and agreeing to discuss maritime cooperation during President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country.

During their meeting, Xi and his Philippine counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, charted the course for the future of China-Philippines bilateral relations, had in-depth exchange of views on regional and international issues of common interest, and reached important consensus, according to the statement.

ELEVATION OF RELATIONS

China and the Philippines, according to the document, recognized that the bilateral relations have achieved a positive turnaround and a sound momentum of development through the joint efforts and mutual trust of both sides.

The two presidents decided to establish the relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, sincerity, equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.

The two leaders recognized that the elevation of China-Philippines relations to higher levels is in line with the fundamental interests and shared aspiration of the two countries and peoples, the statement said.

They agreed to maintain close high-level communication so as to strengthen the planning of bilateral relations, institute timely communication on major regional and international issues, and promote the sharing of experience in state governance.

PRACTICAL COOPERATION

The Chinese and Philippine sides welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, according to the document.

Both sides hailed the progress in bilateral trade and economic cooperation and recognized that infrastructure cooperation has been a highlight of China-Philippines bilateral cooperation.

China expressed its commitment to import more high-quality agricultural products including tropical fruits from the Philippines through expeditious completion of the accreditation process to enhance two-way trade balance.

The two sides will speed up the implementation of the China-Philippines Industrial Park Development Program, which was signed during this visit, and will continue to provide an enabling environment for their enterprises to invest in each other's country.

China reiterated its firm support to the Philippine government's efforts in fighting against illicit drugs and drug-related crimes, and expressed willingness to strengthen cooperation in areas including combating the smuggling of illegal drugs and their precursor chemicals, intelligence sharing, joint investigation and operation as well as drug rehabilitation, according to the statement.

The document also stipulated cooperation between China and the Philippines in other areas including defense, health, counter-terrorism, science and technology, tourism and education.

MARITIME COOPERATION

According to the document, China and the Philippines welcomed the signing of the MoU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the two governments, and agreed to discuss maritime cooperation including maritime oil and gas exploration, sustainable use of mineral, energy and other marine resources.

They also agreed to strengthen existing cooperation mechanisms in other maritime-related areas, the document added.

Besides, the document reads, both sides exchanged views on issues regarding the South China Sea, noting that the situation has become generally more stable as a result of joint cooperative efforts between China, the Philippines, and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states.

Both sides, together with ASEAN member states, will work for the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety.

Both sides agreed to maintain the positive momentum of the negotiations on the Single Draft Code of Conduct (COC) Negotiating Text, with a view towards the early adoption of an effective COC, based on consensus.

Meanwhile, China supports the Philippines as the Country Coordinator of the China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations and the coordinator for cooperation between China and Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).

The two sides agreed that the milestone visit of President Xi has contributed to the advancement of friendship and cooperation between China and the Philippines.

Xi extended an invitation to Duterte to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing, China in April 2019. Duterte accepted the invitation with pleasure, according to the statement.

Xi's two-day visit ending Wednesday has been the first one by a Chinese head of state to the Philippines in 13 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 18:47:47|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will travel to China to attend the 21st Special Representatives' Meeting on the China-India Boundary Question from Friday to Saturday.

Doval will be visiting China at the invitation of State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, announced Geng Shuang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wednesday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 19:02:53|Editor: xuxin

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by Mao Pengfei, Nguon Sovan

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia celebrated the Water Festival on Wednesday, reviving the more than 800-year-old tradition in the Southeast Asian nation.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators, mostly from rural areas, flocked to the riverfront in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, to enjoy an annual boat race, which is the centrepiece of the country's water festival.

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, accompanied by Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and other dignitaries, watched the race from a stage erected on the riverbank in front of the royal palace.

A total of 295 dragon boats with 19,017 oarsmen have taken part in the three-day regatta, which is held along a 1.7-km stretch of the Tonle Sap river that runs in front of the royal palace, said Bou Chumserey, vice-chairman of the boat-racing technical control committee.

"Boat race is to remember the strength of the powerful Khmer marine forces during the ancient Khmer Empire in the late 11th century," he told Xinhua.

During the reign of Angkorian King Jayavarman VII, the king had used naval forces, with boats as transport means, to fight against the invading Chams and defeated them in 1181, he said.

Chumserey said the festival is also to mark the end of annual rainy season and the unique reversal flow of the Tonle Sap river that connects the Tonle Sap lake with the Mekong river.

"It is to express our gratitude to the Mekong river for providing us with fertile land and abundant fish," he said.

A team leader of a racing boat from Southern Takeo province Sos Soeun, 46, said his boat has 73 rowers and their participation was to help preserve the age-old tradition for next generations.

"We participate in this national festival every year. It is to show our gratitude to King Jayavarman VII, who used marine forces to defeat the Cham rivals, and the water festival has been celebrated since then," he told Xinhua.

The Water Festival, which will last until Friday, is the kingdom's largest annual festival. Phnom Penh governor Khuong Sreng expected that the festival would attract up to 3 million spectators.

Besides viewing the regatta at daytime, festival-goers can enjoy the procession of illuminated floats and fireworks as well as concerts at nighttime.

"This is our Khmer tradition, and our Khmer kings have celebrated this boat-race festival since the ancient times," spectator Ho Khema, 20, told Xinhua.

"In the old days, boats had been used by marine forces to fight war against the invading enemies," she said.

Khema said she had never lost her excitement in watching the boat race although she had seen it almost every year.

"There are a lot of people and boats taking part in the festival. It's really happy," she said.

Farmer Muong Mok, 56, from Southeastern Kampong Cham province, said it would be a regret if he had not seen the water festival once in his life.

"This is the first time I come to see the water festival, it's really marvelous," he said. "The festival is to honor the heroism of our ancient kings who used boats to defend the territory."

With its long history in the country, the water festival is a special occasion for rural people to come to the capital city of Cambodia and bring home with good memories.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 19:22:58|Editor: xuxin

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RABAT, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Morocco on Wednesday launched successfully its second Earth-observation satellite, according to video and statement from the launching base.

The satellite, called Mohammed 6-B, was launched from the European spaceport in French Guiana on the northern coast of South America.

An Arianespace Vega rocket launched the Mohammed 6-B satellite and placed it in the same orbit with its twin satellite Mohammed 6-A which was launched one year ago, also on a Vega rocket, Arianespace said in a statement.

Morocco plans to use the satellites for land mapping, natural disaster prevention and management, environmental monitoring and border surveillance.

Airbus Defence and Space built the satellite platform while Thales Alenia Space supplied the payload and the ground segment for image processing, the statement added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 19:33:01|Editor: xuxin

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TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran will unveil new defense achievements including a destroyer and a submarine next week, Iran's navy commander said on Wednesday.

"Sahand Destroyer and Fateh Submarine are to be unveiled over the next week," Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

The destroyer could carry large helicopters, missile defense systems and fighter jets, he said.

The indigenous medium-class submarine "would surprise the Islamic republic's enemies," Khanzadi said without providing further details.

The commander played down the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran's naval industry.

Iran has been successfully weathering sanctions for more than 40 years now, Khanzadi said, noting that the pressures had "taught us to stand on our own feet and not to depend on other powers for our security."

On Tuesday, Iran's Defense Ministry unveiled a homegrown state-of-art armored military vehicle, named Toofan (hurricane), and inaugurated its assembly line.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 19:48:05|Editor: xuxin

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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The United States space agency NASA has ordered a safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, two companies it has hired to fly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), according to U.S. media on Tuesday.

The review was prompted by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk's behavior on a webcast live in September smoking marijuana and sipping whiskey.

NASA described the safety review as a "cultural assessment study" in coordination with SpaceX and Boeing to "ensure the companies are meeting NASA's requirements for workplace safety, including the adherence to a drug-free environment."

"We fully expect our commercial partners to meet all workplace safety requirements in the execution of our missions and the services they provide the American people," NASA said in a statement.

In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded NASA contracts to build separate capsules to launch astronauts to the space station, with a total value worth up to 6.8 billion U.S. dollars.

SpaceX said in a statement that it took seriously its responsibility to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS and that its engineers had worked side by side with NASA for years to develop its Crew Dragon astronaut capsule.

"There is nothing more important to SpaceX than this endeavor," the company said.

"SpaceX actively promotes workplace safety and we are confident that our comprehensive drug-free workforce and workplace programs exceed all applicable contractual requirements," he said.

"The culture at Boeing ensures the integrity, safety and quality of our products, our people and their work environment," Boeing said in a statement.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was quoted by media as saying the agency wants to make sure the public has confidence in its human-spaceflight program.

"If I see something that's inappropriate, the key concern to me is what is the culture that led to that inappropriateness and is NASA involved in that," Bridenstine told media.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 19:58:09|Editor: xuxin

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SANAA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The UN Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, headed along with his delegation to downtown in capital Sanaa on Wednesday and made no statements to reporters upon his arrival.

On Friday, Griffiths told the UN Security Council that he planned to visit the embattled port city of Hodeidah. He urged the council to adopt a humanitarian truce before holding peace talks in Sweden within weeks.

A round of talks in Geneva collapsed in September after Houthi delegation did not attend.

Yemen has been in civil war in the past three years, pitting Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the government of Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition to support the Hadi government.

Houthi rebels have announced the halt of launching missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:03:10|Editor: Liangyu

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LUANDA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of seven Chinese agricultural experts are providing a two-week training program for Angolan technicians in central Angola's Huambo city in efforts to help cultivate more local talents and strengthen agricultural cooperation between the two countries.

The training, which started early this week, has attracted more than 20 Angolan agricultural technicians.

According to the delegation, the training mainly focuses on crop production and livestock breeding technologies, which cater to the local technicians' needs to build up their productive capabilities.

"I think the knowledge imparted by the Chinese teachers is quite useful in real work," said Raguel, a 30-year-old Angolan technician with around 10 years' experience in agriculture.

Abrantes Carlos, chief of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Huambo, said the training offered by Chinese experts is timely and necessary since the lack of agricultural talents has long been an obstacle to the development of the province's agriculture-dominated economy.

"We are looking forward to more technical and educational support of such kind," he said.

Angola, a major oil-dominated economy in Africa, has been seeking to develop its agricultural sector to reduce reliance on imports and create more jobs in recent years.

Zhu Jinlin, president of Jiangzhou Agriculture in Angola, said the company has signed an agreement with the Huambo provincial government to help more Angolan students study agriculture in China.

"We are glad to see more Angolan talents, which will definitely further contribute to the mutual cooperation in agriculture." Zhu said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:13:12|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping returned to Beijing on Wednesday after state visits to Papua New Guinea, Brunei, and the Philippines, and attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting at Papua New Guinea's capital city of Port Moresby.

During his stay in Papua New Guinea, Xi also met with leaders from the Pacific island countries that have established diplomatic ties with China.

Xi's entourage included Ding Xuexiang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee; Yang Jiechi, 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; State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi; and He Lifeng, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

When Xi left Manila for Beijing Wednesday afternoon, senior Philippine officials saw him off at the airport.

Before heading home, Xi also met with representatives of Chinese nationals and Chinese Filipinos living in the Philippines, encouraging them to make new contributions to the country's development and Sino-Philippine friendly cooperation.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:13:13|Editor: xuxin

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MOSCOW, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- New U.S. sanctions targeting an Iranian-Russian network of oil supplies to Syria are "awkward," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

"Attempts to indict oil supplies to Syria, whose armed forces have been fighting terrorists for eight years, look like a statement of support for terrorists and also a wish to prevent the restoration of a ravaged country with a large population deprived of electricity and heat," it said in a statement.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on an Iranian-Russian oil supply network, saying it was shipping "millions of barrels of Iranian oil into Syria" and funded Hamas and Hezbollah with the revenue.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the new U.S. sanctions against Russia were the 11th in the last three and a half months and were increasingly becoming a routine.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:13:14|Editor: xuxin

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BRUSSELS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday rejected Italy's draft budgetary plan for 2019 again, paving the way for disciplinary procedures against the eurozone's third-largest economy.

European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said in a press briefing at noon that "with regret, that today we confirm our assessment that Italy's draft budget plan is in particularly serious non-compliance with the Council recommendation of 13 July."

"We conclude that the opening of a procedure for excessive deficit based on the debt is thus warranted," Dombrovskis added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:18:16|Editor: xuxin

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OSLO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Data centres in Norway that produce crypto currencies will lose the right to the government's power subsidy and the benefit of discounted full electricity bill from New Year on, newspaper Aftenposten reported Wednesday.

Today, those factories with a capacity of more than 0.5 megawatts pay 0.48 ore (0.0056 U.S. dollars) per kilowatt hour, instead of 16.58 ore.

The subsidy will stop in the aftermath of budget negotiations between the government and the Christian Party, the report said.

Recently, voices have been raised in Norwegian public against the fee relief for the so-called "bitcoin factories" that are blamed to use a lot of energy and generate large greenhouse gas emissions on a global level.

Norwegian IT interest organization calls the government's decision "shocking," as it was made "without discussion, consultation or dialogue with the industry."

"Norway scores high on rankings of political stability and predictable framework conditions, but now the government is playing a gambling role with this credibility," Roger Schjerva, chief economist of ICT, was quoted in a press release.

"We still need to supply power to these centres within the Nordic power market. (With this decision,) We simply say no to income and work in many municipalities in Norway. We can only hope that politicians understand that computing that requires energy is one of the things we will be living in future," Schjerva added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:18:18|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The biggest ever anti-terror exercise at a German airport took place at the Cologne Bonn Airport during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Based on a scenario of a terror attack by a group of militarily trained assailants, the drill involved about 1,000 operational forces from different departments including the special forces of the Cologne police department and the GSG 9 unit of the federal police.

Martin Pauly, press spokesman for the federal police at the Cologne Bonn Airport, told Xinhua on Wednesday that "the exercise was definitely a success".

"For the first time, we were able to simulate such an attack on a German commercial airport and thus bring the police officers on-site, who are the first to encounter the attackers in an emergency, into this situation," said Pauly.

Comparable exercises have already been carried out throughout Germany, especially at railway stations. A "novelty" was the attack on an airport, Pauly said.

According to the federal police, there were currently no concrete indications of possible attacks, but such a scenario was conceivable at any time in view of the "increased risk situation in Germany".

"It is important that we are prepared in the best possible way in the event of an actual attack," said Wolfgang Wurm, president of the federal police headquarter in the city of Sankt Augustin. The fictional scenario would have been developed based on the findings of the attacks in Belgium and France and was very realistic. None of the practicing policemen would know exactly what to expect.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:23:18|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Beijing municipality will complete a project to register "credit scores" for all permanent residents by 2020, the local economic planner said Wednesday.

The move comes as China intensified its efforts to build a social credit system for improving its business environment and boosting development.

The credit scores are expected to impact market access, public services, travel, job-hunting and the ability to start businesses, according to a plan to improve the city's business environment published by Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform.

"The city will improve its blacklist system and publish the default records of individuals and enterprises regularly, for penalizing such behavior," the plan said.

The plan also encourages government bodies in the city to share credit information for coordinated actions.

At a meeting in June, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for building a social credit-centered regulatory mechanism and enhancing social credit building in key areas concerning people's livelihoods.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:28:19|Editor: xuxin

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TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Economy Ministry plans to establish an "anti-sanctions management room" in a bid to counter U.S. embargoes against Iran, the chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Economic Commission said on Wednesday.

The members of commission held a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday attended by the economic minister and banking officials, Mohammad Reza Pour Ebrahimi was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

"The formation of anti-sanctions management room in the Economy Ministry is aimed at monitoring the Americans' measures in the banking sector and (Iran's) moves to strengthen (its) banking system," Pour Ebrahimi said.

The Iranian lawmaker declined to elaborate on the plan, saying that "some strategies to counter U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks are confidential."

Earlier in November, Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran's oil exports, banking sectors and its international financial transactions. The move was followed the U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from Iran's international nuclear deal clinched in 2015.

U.S. administration has vowed to exert more pressures on Iran, seeking to make the Islamic republic "change its behavior" in the region.

Tehran has dismissed U.S. sanctions' pressures, urging that it will continue its "constructive role" concerning regional policies.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:33:21|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Foreign military attaches from nearly 60 countries have been invited to visit the Ministry of National Defense's peacekeeping center, a military source said Wednesday.

The foreign military attaches, stationed in China, were invited by the office for international military cooperation of the Central Military Commission (CMC). They also shared the experience and discussed UN peacekeeping operations with the Chinese side, according to the military source.

The military attaches said China has long been actively participating in UN peacekeeping missions and played an important role in stabilizing international and regional situations. They expressed hope to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with the Chinese side on UN peacekeeping missions and make greater contributions to safeguarding world peace.

China has joined 24 operations, sending more than 36,000 peacekeepers, since the country first participated in UN peacekeeping missions in 1990.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:53:26|Editor: xuxin

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People visit an art exhibition entitled "Myanmar: Through the Dragon's Brush", inspired by China-Myanmar culture exchange project, in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov. 21, 2018. (Xinhua/U Aung)

YANGON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- An art exhibition by Chinese artists was launched in Myanmar' Yangon Wednesday as part of China-Myanmar culture exchange program.

The exhibition, titled "Myanmar: Through the Dragon's Brush,"was jointly organized by China Daily Asia Pacific Limited and the Chinese Culture and Art Association.

"It is my great pleasure to present the very fine artworks by nine of China's highly-admired painters. Over the last few days, our artists have visited historically significant locations of exquisite beauty in Myanmar to capture the spirit of these places on their canvas," Zhou Li, editorial board member, China Daily Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief told the event.

The exhibition aims to introduce Myanmar's beautiful landmarks to the world through artistic cultural perspectives of Chinese artists, Chai Bu kuk, director of the Chinese Artists Association, told Xinhua.

The two-day exhibition features more than 100 artworks of Myanmar's landmarks and scenery by nine artists from the Chinese Culture and Art Association.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 20:58:27|Editor: xuxin

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NAIROBI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is seeking to leverage on Chinese manufacturers setting up base in Kenya in order to boost exports, a senior government official has said.

Peter Munya, cabinet secretary for industry, trade and cooperatives told a trade forum in Nairobi on Tuesday that Kenya welcomes Chinese companies to invest in manufacturing and value addition in order to boost Kenyan exports.

A trade mission from China's Anhui Province is currently visiting Kenya to explore business opportunities with the East African nation. According to Munya, there are more than 400 Chinese companies in Kenya.

"But we need many more Chinese firms especially in the manufacturing sector," he said.

The Kenyan official said the government is working tirelessly on improving the investment climate which has witnessed an unprecedented improvement in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index with Kenya's rank moving from 136 in 2014 to 61 in this year's ranking.

Munya said that the government will support Chinese investors to do business in the country, noting that the large Chinese business delegation is an indication of their willingness to partner with Kenya in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative.

He said that Kenya is prioritizing expansion of market access for locally manufactured goods in order to lure more foreign investors to set up operations in the country.

Early this year, Kenya signed the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), said Munya. According to the African Union, 44 African countries have signed the AfCFTA as of March 2018.

He said that once it is operational it will bring together 54 countries with a combined population of over one billion and a gross domestic product of approximately 349 trillion Kenya shillings (about 3.4 trillion U.S. dollars).

Munya said that trade and investment play a significant role in the country's growth and development through linkages to all sectors of the economy.

Li Xuhang, charge d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Kenya said that the Chinese government is encouraging its business community to invest in Kenya, adding that Kenya is also an important country in the Belt and Road Initiative and industrial cooperation.

He noted that Kenya is the gateway into East Africa due to its excellent geographic location as well as stable political and economic environment.

The diplomat noted that President Uhuru Kenyatta's Big Four Agenda on affordable housing, universal healthcare, food security and manufacturing also provides opportunities for Chinese investors.

The envoy observed that China has become a major force for Kenya's economic development because the Chinese enterprises operating in Kenya have created over 150,000 job opportunities for locals over the years.

Li said that over the years, Sino-Kenya relationship has been developing rapidly through improved mutual trust, pragmatic cooperation as well as growing people-to-people exchanges.

Zhou Xi'an, Deputy Governor of Anhui Province said that investors from his province are keen to invest in Kenya due to the strong complementarity between Kenya and China.

Betty Maina, principal secretary at Kenya's ministry of industry, trade and cooperatives said Chinese companies will help Kenya to meet its industrialization agenda of expanding the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the economy.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:08:29|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves Downing Street for Prime Minister's Questions in London, Britain, on Nov. 21, 2018. May has a scheduled meeting later today with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. (Xinhua/Stephen Chung)

LONDON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May headed for Brussels Wednesday for Brexit talks, as politicians and political commentators in London said she would struggle to get her proposed Brexit plan through the British parliament.

May has a scheduled meeting later Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as she continues her struggling political career.

They will discuss the future political relationship between Britain and the European Union (EU) ahead of a crucial meeting of the European Council on Sunday.

Both sides hope the Sunday meeting will lead to support for the Brexit plan from the leaders of the 27 European member states.

Even if it crosses that hurdle, the proposals need to be ratified by each of the governments of the member states.

May's plan for Britain's departure from the EU have faced opposition from politicians from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and wide criticism from mainland Europe.

The loudest noises on the continent come from Spain, which voiced it will vote against May's plan if the situation of Gibraltar, the territory that Britain owns on the Iberian Peninsula, is not clarified.

With May winning full support from her new-look cabinet and so far escaping the prospect of a no-confidence vote from her own Conservative Party, she has reached the half-way point in her critical week unscathed.

Delegates at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry gave May a guarded thumbs-up for her strategy this week.

The expectation is that May's Brexit plan will be agreed after minor tweaking at the European Council on Sunday. EU countries want to avoid a no-deal scenario at all costs, boosting the chances of a yes vote in Brussels.

Then her plan faces a journey into the unknown in what will be a roller-coaster ride through the parliaments.

Ten MPs from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party have said they will oppose May's plan due to its possible impact on Northern Ireland's border.

The largest contingent of MPs from the Scottish Nationalist Party have threatened to vote against, and there is likely to be a thumbs down from Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party.

With opposition among both so-called "remainers" and "leavers" on her own Conservative benches, some commentators believe May is heading for a mission impossible.

Conservative members in the parliament hope that there will be enough MPs to vote in favor of May's Brexit plan. Any failure might lead to a collapse of the Conservative government, and then a general election.

That could see not only the end of May's tenure at Downing Street, but also loses of dozens of parliamentary seats for her MPs.

May's advisors hope that when the finger-biting finale happens in December the deal will win backing.

If it is rejected. the whole issue will be plunged into unknown waters, and Britain is likely to depart from the EU with no deal. Even the British military have been primed to prepare for such a leap into the unknown.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:13:29|Editor: xuxin

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The European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici reacts during a press conference at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 21, 2018. The European Commission on Wednesday rejected Italy's draft budgetary plan for 2019 again, paving the way for disciplinary procedures against the eurozone's third-largest economy. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday rejected Italy's draft budgetary plan for 2019 again, paving the way for disciplinary procedures against the eurozone's third-largest economy.

European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said in a press briefing at noon that "with regret, that today we confirm our assessment that Italy's draft budget plan is in particularly serious non-compliance with the Council recommendation of 13 July."

"We conclude that the opening of a procedure for excessive deficit based on the debt is thus warranted," Dombrovskis added.

Italy presented its initial draft budgetary plans (DBP) on Oct. 16. The European Commission on Oct. 23 identified the initial DBP as having "a particularly serious non-compliance".

Italy then presented a revised DBP on Nov. 13. But that was again shot down by the European Commission on Wednesday.

Italy's DBP sees a deficit of 2.4 percent of its gross domestic product, a level seen as too high by Brussels.

"At 131.2 percent of GDP in 2017, the equivalent of 37,000 euros per inhabitant, Italy's public debt exceeds the 60 percent of GDP reference value of" EU rules, according to a European Commission press release, which criticized Italy's "risk of significant deviation" from the path to reduce its debt.

"Let me stress that the situation in Italy is of common concern. Euro area countries are in the same team and should be playing by the same rules. These rules are here to protect us, to provide certainty, stability and mutual trust," Dombrovskis said.

"And in the situation of very high debt, Italy is essentially planning significant additional borrowing instead of the necessary fiscal prudence," he added.

Proportionally, Italy's debt - at more than 130 percent of GDP - is the second highest in the eurozone after Greece's.

But in Rome, the Italian government of the right-wing League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement believes that increased borrow-and-spend is the way to boost its economy. Between its initial and revised DBP, only minor changes were made, not satisfying Brussels.

According to EU rules, the excessive deficit procedure requires the country in question to provide a plan of the corrective action and policies it will follow, as well as deadlines for their achievement. Euro area countries that do not follow up on the recommendations may be fined.

As the clash between Rome and Brussels escalates, the EU is entering uncharted territory. No country has actually been fined pursuant to the excessive deficit procedure.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:23:31|Editor: xuxin

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MOGADISHU, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States military said Wednesday it conducted an airstrike in Somalia on Tuesday, killing seven al-Shabab militants.

The U.S. Africa Command (Africom) which oversees American troops on the African continent said the latest airstrike which was conducted in the vicinity of Quy Cad did not injure or kill any civilians.

"This precision airstrike was conducted in coordination with and in support of the Federal Government of Somalia as it continues to degrade al-Shabab," Africom said in a statement.

"Airstrikes reduce al-Shabab's ability to plot future attacks, disrupt its leadership networks, and degrade its freedom of maneuver within the region," it added.

The latest airstrike comes after the U.S. military announced on Tuesday its special forces conducted two airstrikes in central Somalia Monday, killing a total of 37 al-Shabab terrorists.

The Washington strikes have largely targeted al-Shabab figureheads and based in southern Somalia where the group still maintains a strong grip in some regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:28:33|Editor: xuxin

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RAMALLAH, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A member of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee Wednesday slammed the demolition of 20 commercial buildings in Shufat refugee camp in East Jerusalem.

Israel's demolition in the camp is considered "waging war against the camp under unlawful pretexts of lack of construction permits," said Ahmad Abu Holy, who is in charge of the PLO's Refugees Affairs Department, in a statement.

He described the Israeli move as "a dangerous and systematic crime and a part of Israel's practice of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem."

A large number of Israeli troops with bulldozers carried out a wide demolition operation in Shufat refugee camp Wednesday morning, leveling to the ground 20 commercial building including shops and businesses belonging to Palestinian refugees, and a source of living for at least dozens of families.

Khader Al-Dibs, Shuafat refugee camp popular committee's public relations coordinator, told Xinhua that "this demolition is a new episode in the implementation of Israel's plan to take over the refugee camp by stopping the services offered by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), and eventually Judaize the entire city and force its people out of it."

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel has approved only 1.5 percent of the construction building permits called by the Palestinians in the city.

Last September, former Israeli mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barakat declared a plan to shut down UNRWA services in the city, in contradiction of international law, mostly targeting Shuafat refugee camp, which is home to nearly 24,000 Palestinian refugees.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:33:34|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned defense of her government's controversial support for a new United Nations (UN) migration compact on Wednesday.

Speaking during a general debate in the federal parliament (Bundestag), Merkel said that the recently presented final draft for the UN compact would help to find multilateral solutions to global issues. The veteran stateswoman argued that the compact was in Germany's "national interest" as well because it could improve migratory conditions across the world.

While the governing "grand coalition" in Berlin is supportive of the pact, the document has been attacked for allegedly reflecting the agenda of "leftist dreamers and globalist elites" by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alexander Gauland. Health Minister Jens Spahn, one of the candidates to succeed Merkel as Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader in December, is also among the critics of the pact and has recently called on his own party to reopen discussions on the subject.

The compact is scheduled to be passed formally at a special UN summit in Morocco in mid-December. According to the UN, its key four objectives are to ease the pressure on host countries, enhance refugee self-reliance, expand access to third-country solutions, and support conditions in countries of origin for return in safety and dignity.

Although the compact largely builds on existing international law, a handful of countries, including the United States, Austria, Hungary and Australia, have already announced that they would refuse to add their signatures. Representatives from these states have cited concerns that doing so could limit their national sovereignty and complained that the pact failed to distinguish between regular migrants and refugees.

The German chancellor emphasized during her speech on Thursday, however, that the compact was not legally binding and had no bearing on national laws. Because the document is technically speaking just a declaration of intent, Germany's federal government does not require parliamentary approval for its support thereof.

Merkel said that the events of the 2015 refugee crisis had shown the importance of countries working together to solve issues of migration in an "international context", rather than attempting to do so alone. "German interest always also means thinking about others," she added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:53:38|Editor: xuxin

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BERLIN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Two thirds of people with a migratory background in Germany experience discrimination as a result of their foreign roots, a study published on Wednesday by the country's Federal Association for Property Ownership, House Building and Urban Development (vhw) finds.

The vhw emphasized in a press statement that there was a growing sense within the group of being disadvantaged in the labor and housing market in particular. Although inter-ethnic and cultural coexistence was still rated positively by a broad majority of Germans with migratory backgrounds, the study highlighted concerns that the quality thereof could deteriorate.

The findings were based on a representative survey of 2,053 citizens with migratory backgrounds aged 15 or above which was conducted by the Heidelberg-based SINUS institute. Individuals are officially considered to have a migratory background in Germany when they were not born with German citizenship or have at least on parent to whom this circumstance applies.

According to vhw president Juergen Aring, the survey responses indicated that some sub-groups were increasingly resigned and isolated from the majority population. "The traditional and precarious environments feel a significantly stronger sense of belonging to their culture of origin than 10 years ago," Aring said. He noted that this was especially true for the "relatively small group" of individuals which were strongly rooted in their religious identity.

Nevertheless, Aring warned that it would be wrong to project the issues of these groups to all individuals with migratory backgrounds. The majority of respondents were actually much better integrated than was previously the case and naturally viewed themselves as part of German society.

In seven out of 10 migrant environments assessed by the vhw, religion did not play a significant role. While wanting to preserve their own cultural roots, the share of respondents who indicated that they wanted to adapt to the lifestyles of the broader German population without migratory backgrounds grew as well.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:53:39|Editor: mym

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ISLAMABAD, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- At least three children were killed and two others critically injured in a blast on Wednesday in Pakistan's northwest Swat district, local media reported.

According to local Urdu channel Geo TV, the blast took place when the children were playing with a mortar shell in a field in Arkot village of Mata area in Swat, a district in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Police and rescue teams rushed to the site and shifted the bodies and injured to the nearby hospital.

Local police said that the explosion was triggered when the children started throwing the live mortar shell to each other considering it as a toy.

Police said the mortar was fired from an unknown location, which missed its target and did not explode also.

Police have registered a case and launched a search operation to make sure that no other shell is present in the area.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:53:40|Editor: Liangyu

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ALGIERS, Nov, 21 (Xinhua) -- Algeria and China are due to launch a construction mega project on Sunday for the exploitation of phosphate, an industrial expert told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia will launch the mega project, which is established in the easternmost region Algeria, on the border with Tunisia.

The project will be realized in partnership between two Algerian groups and two Chinese groups, the expert said.

China's share in the mega project is estimated at 49 percent, while the Algerian party will hold the majority share of 51 percent, in accordance with the investment law of the North African country.

The shareholders are due to establish their consortium group on Sunday, while the production phase is planned for 2022.

On Sept. 13, Algerian Minister of Industry and Mines Youcef Yousfi said that this phosphate complex will enter into service in 2022.

Also, the project whose production should reach six million tons per year will include the duplication of the railway connecting the production site to the port of Annaba, and would generate 2,500 permanent jobs.

The project aims at exploiting huge quantities of high quality phosphate, which will then be used to produce fertilizers, ammonia, silicon and other materials used in economic activities.

Through the project, Algeria aims to be able to export annually fertilizer worth two billion dollars, and gradually manage to increase its phosphate and natural gas reserves through the establishment of structured transformational and wealth-generating industry, which would help Algeria become one of the largest exporters of fertilizer in the world.

In Oct 2016, Algiers and Beijing signed a pact for the reinforcement and diversification of their bilateral partnership in the fields including the processing industry, exploitation of energy resources, metal trades, railways, iron and steel and basic infrastructure.

The first meeting of the joint commission in charge of the implementation of the agreement held in Algiers drew up a list of five projects -- the mega port of El Hamdania western Algiers, the phosphate mining project in eastern Algeria, the establishment of automotive subcontracting plants, manufacturing electronic payment devices, and developing granite and marble mining.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 21:58:40|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian authorities on Wednesday released Renae Lawrence, a member of drug trafficking group "Bali Nine" from a prison.

Indonesian authorities also banned her from entering the Indonesian territory for life.

Renae Lawrence, a 41-year old Australian, had served more than 13 years for drug trafficking in Indonesia's Bangli Prison. She is to be deported to Australia.

She will surely be entitled to an immigration sanction: a ban from entering the Indonesian territory for good, Head of Bali immigration department Agato Simamora said on Wednesday.

Lawrence, released from Bangli prison on Wednesday evening, was escorted by Indonesian police as well as immigration and security personnel to Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport.

She was placed in an immigration detention cell in the airport before boarding a plane.

Lawrence was arrested with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped in her body while attempting to bring the contraband to Australia at the Bali airport in 2005.

That amount of heroin was part of the plot by "Bali Nine" to smuggle 8.2 kilograms of the drug from Bali to Australia.

She was initially handed a life term but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years, and then further cut due to good behaviour in prison.

Lawrence is the first and the only one of the "Bali Nine" group to be freed. The group has a total of nine Australians.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:03:41|Editor: Liangyu

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MANILA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China and the Philippines have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on energy cooperation, which Philippine Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said Wednesday is a "positive step" to achieve common development.

It is "one step forward" towards finding a way to develop and tap the resources in the region, Cusi told Xinhua.

He hoped that this document will inspire other countries to seek energy development in the region. "Let's see and we hope that we can develop something that is good for everybody to follow."

China and the Philippines have signed the MoU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development and agreed to discuss maritime cooperation including maritime oil and gas exploration, sustainable use of mineral, energy and other marine resources, according to the joint statement released during the state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Southeast Asian country.

Xi's two-day visit ending Wednesday has been the first one by a Chinese head of state to the Philippines in 13 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:03:41|Editor: Yang Yi

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Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attends a seminar with newly appointed, Beijing-based members of the CPPCC National Committee, in Beijing, capital of China. The seminar ran from Monday to Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang has asked political advisors to understand the importance, urgency and long-term nature of continuous learning.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), made the remarks at a seminar with newly appointed, Beijing-based members of the CPPCC National Committee, which ran from Monday to Wednesday.

Learning concerns the progress of political advisors and the future of the cause of the CPPCC, while focusing on learning is a longstanding tradition and a significant task of the CPPCC, he noted.

Wang called on political advisors to enhance their political awareness by resolutely upholding the leadership of the CPC, and maintaining a clear mind and a correct stance regarding major issues of right and wrong.

Strengthening the guide through theories and widely building consensus should be a core principle of political advisors, who should also pay more attention to improving the quality and effectiveness of their work, he said.

Moreover, Wang asked political advisors to enhance their discipline by always fulfilling their duties within the law and the constitution of the CPPCC, and to improve their capabilities in political consultation.

Over 500 new members of the CPPCC National Committee attended the seminar.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:03:41|Editor: xuxin

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RIGA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- After a tender that lasted for more than three years, Spanish manufacturer Patentes Talgo S.L.U. (Talgo) on Wednesday was awarded the contract to supply new passenger trains to Latvia, local media reported.

Other bidders participating in the tender include companies from Poland, Spain and the Czech Republic.

Rodzers Janis Grigulis, CEO of Latvia's state-owned rail passenger carrier Pasazieru Vilciens, announced the winner of the competition at a news conference that was held in a train at the Riga Central Railway Station on Wednesday.

Talgo won the bid with an offer of supplying 32 electric trains with 450 passenger seats in each train for 225.3 million euros (257.07 million U.S. dollars). The trains' estimated service life would be 35 years. The supplier is expected to gradually deliver the trains from 2020 to 2023.

In November 2018, the Latvian government earmarked 259 million euros (295.53 million dollars) for the purchase of the new passenger trains, their spare parts and maintenance equipment, as well as construction of a new railway depot.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:08:42|Editor: xuxin

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WINDHOEK, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Namibian government and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday launched the computer-based SCOPE (System for Cash Operations) for its social safety net Food Bank programme in Namibia's capital, Windhoek.

The electronic system, adapted towards the effective administration of the Food Bank, will be piloted in Windhoek before it is rolled out to other regions.

Launching the system, Namibia's Minister of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, Zephania Kameeta said that the newly introduced biometric system would be used to register beneficiaries as well as monitor the distribution and transfer of food parcels.

"Previously the Food Bank was run via a paper-based system. The old system brought many challenges regarding the registration of beneficiaries, sortation of food parcels, transfers and furthermore fraud. SCOPE addresses all the above challenges," Kameeta said.

As part of the new electronic system, beneficiaries will be issued with a card that contains their details.

"The card will also be linked to their fingerprints and will each have its unique identification number; done to prevent duplication and fraud," he said.

According to Kameeta, the electronic system would also accelerate national efforts geared towards advancing social welfare for its citizens in the face of persistent poverty and vast gaps of inequality in the country.

WFP's Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro said that the Namibian government becomes the first in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region to adopt the SCOPE system, and thus becomes a model for other countries.

"The implementation of the biometric system would, therefore, lead to improvement, through the effective management of a database of beneficiaries and also saves time," Castro said.

According to Castro, the launch of the SCOPE system further promotes the adaptation of technology and innovation to propel and drive development to achieve zero hunger, as stipulated under Goal two of the Sustainable Development Goals to which Namibia has ratified.

The Food Bank, officially launched on June 30, 2016, by Namibian President, Hage Geingob currently benefits more than 17,000 citizens from the Kharas, Khomas, Hardap as well as Kavango East and West regions.

The Namibian government has dedicated 8.7 percent of its national budget of social protection interventions in the current fiscal year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:33:48|Editor: yan

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MANILA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday concluded a seven-day Asia-Pacific trip with reaffirmed Chinese commitment to open and inclusive cooperation, common development as well as a friendly neighborhood.

From Nov. 15 to 21, Xi attended the 26th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting, paid state visits to Papua New Guinea (PNG), Brunei and the Philippines and met with leaders of the Pacific island countries that have diplomatic ties with China during his stay in PNG.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during the trip, Xi discussed approaches to regional economic integration with APEC members, planned strategic cooperation with Southeast Asian neighbors, and envisioned sustainable development with Pacific island countries.

Xi's trip highlighted the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, and helped deepen partnerships, boost the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) construction, enhance confidence in multilateralism and broaden the consensus on common development, Wang said.

PROMOTING OPEN, INCLUSIVE ASIA-PACIFIC COOPERATION

While attending the APEC meeting, Xi offered China's wisdom and approaches to achieving economic development and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large, amid increasing economic instability and uncertainty and other global challenges, Wang said.

Noting the world is at a critical juncture, Xi proposed focusing on openness, development, inclusiveness, innovation and a rules-based approach.

Wang noticed an extensive support for Xi's appeal for efforts from the APEC economies to further integration and the construction of a regional free trade area, safeguard the multilateral trade system and boost freer flows of trade and investment, with consensus reached on enhanced connectivity, digitization, inclusive development and post-2020 cooperation, among other things, which deepens the Asia-Pacific cooperation.

Xi envisioned a common growth prospect featuring partnerships, a key role of innovation, digitization and exchanges, as well as a need to maximum connectivity in the Asia-Pacific, Wang said.

Xi's proposals, Wang said, can help expand the common ground of interests and increase growth points, promote the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as lead the economic globalization in the right direction.

On the sidelines of the APEC meeting, Xi met bilaterally with leaders of different countries. While talking with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Xi said the two countries should reinforce mutual trust, properly handle the sensitive issues and coordinate efforts to secure progresses in denuclearizing and building a lasting peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

Xi and Indonesian President Joko Widodo hailed in their meeting the latest advancements in bilateral ties, including signing the memorandum of understanding on boosting joint construction of the China-proposed Belt and Road and the Indonesia-proposed Global Maritime Axis, as well as extending currency swap. They also agreed on strengthening coordination and consultation within the multilateral framework.

In his talks with Chile's President Sebastian Pinera, Xi urged efforts from both sides to secure more early results in BRI cooperation and push bilateral cooperation to a higher level.

ENHANCING RELATIONS WITH BRUNEI, THE PHILIPPINES

Wang said Xi's visits to Brunei and the Philippines provided important opportunities for developing bilateral ties with them. The visits both featured top-level design and the lift to higher-level relationship, namely a strategic cooperative partnership with Brunei, and the relationship of comprehensive strategic cooperation with the Philippines.

Wang said that it was stressed that China, with each of the two countries, shares extensive interests in the South China Sea, adding that the two countries agreed to resolve differences with China through friendly consultations, further maritime cooperation and push talks on a code of conduct in the South China Sea.

The two members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) also agreed to work together with China towards greater progress in China-ASEAN cooperation.

Wang said Xi discussed with leaders of the two countries overall plans for aligning the BRI with their development strategies and deepening win-win cooperation, and witnessed the signing of related agreements.

Xi also reached consensus with leaders of the two countries on closer people-to-people exchanges, and agreed to expand cooperation in sectors such as education, culture, sports, public health and tourism.

Wang said the fruitful results of Xi's visits to the two countries showed once again that friendship and cooperation dominate the relations between China and its neighbors while serving the interests of regional countries and their peoples. Friendship, common development and proper management of differences will help make the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation, contributing to regional stability, growth and prosperity.

STRENGTHENING TIES WITH PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

Xi and the leaders of the eight Pacific island countries that have diplomatic ties with China agreed to elevate their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership featuring mutual respect and common development, providing strong political guidance to the development of China's ties with the island countries, Wang said.

China and the island countries have been good friends, partners and brothers regardless the change of international situations, Xi said.

The Chinese president stressed that China supports the rights of the peoples in these countries to choose their own development paths, and the countries' efforts in united self-improvement and equal participation in international and regional affairs, Wang said.

According to Wang, cooperation documents in jointly building the Belt and Road were signed with the island countries that have diplomatic ties with China, which marks that the BRI speeds up taking root in the region.

The outcome of Xi's visit, including about 60 cooperation agreements signed between China and the island countries, has once again proved that the foundation of bilateral cooperation is expanding, Wang said.

Xi's visit sends out a clear signal that it is China's long-term and unchanging strategic choice to strengthen the unity and cooperation with developing countries, including the Pacific island countries, Wang said.

The cooperation between the two sides is open and transparent without any political conditions, not targeting any third party, not seeking any private interest or so-called "sphere of influence," so that it can stand the test of time and history as well as the assessment of international community, Wang said.

Wang said the cooperation, featuring mutual support and assistance between developing countries and friends, has vitality and a promising future.

At the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, Xi recalled China's achievements over the past 40 years since its reform and opening-up, emphasized the country's resolve to deepen its reform and promote investment and business environment, and again demonstrated China's firm willingness to create developing opportunities and share prosperity with other countries, Wang said.

Xi's visit made it clear that peace, development and win-win cooperation are the irresistable trend of history and also the common hope of all peoples in the world, Wang said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:48:51|Editor: yan

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JUBA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan on Wednesday said 70 percent of its country's oil producing fields have remained unexplored and urged international energy companies to explore them in a bid to spur the country's economic revival.

Ezekiel Lul Gatkuoth, minister of petroleum said that despite Africa's youngest country only exploring 30 percent of its oil fields, he is optimistic that by the end of the year, the country will restore production to the level before the civil war.

"By the end of Dec. 31, 2018 we must go back to what we used to produce, which is 290,000 barrels per day before the war broke out in mid-December 2013," Gatkuoth told a three-day energy forum in Juba.

He said the government has signed exploration agreements with three international oil and service companies as part of plans to boost the production so as to achieve a win-win partnership between the government and the oil companies.

"We have been working closely with our partners to realize the resumption in block 1, 2 and 4. We really thank them for their opportunity that they are providing to the people of South Sudan," the minister said.

Gatkuoth revealed that Juba and Khartoum are working jointly to rehabilitate the Unity Power Plant in order to increase oil production as soon as possible.

Azharia Abdalla, Sudan's petroleum minister said that President Bashir's government is committed to supporting President Salva Kiir's administration to expand its oil exportation to the world market.

"As I speak to you now there is more than 800,000 barrels of South Sudan oil in Port Sudan ready for export now," Abdalla said.

He disclosed that the two countries will soon sign an agreement that will see South Sudanese geologists, engineers, and technicians visit Khartoum oil facilities to learn and borrow some of the successful technologies that they use.

South Sudan in partnership with African Oil and Power (AOP) organized a three-day international energy forum to woo foreign oil companies and services in an effort to revamp its vital energy infrastructure and spark economic growth.

According to the World Bank, South Sudan is the most oil-dependent nation in the world, with oil accounting for almost all of its exports and around 60 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:53:52|Editor: yan

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KIGALI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Officials and experts said Wednesday that Africa needs more political will to achieve free movement of people.

Thirty-two African countries have signed the protocol relating to free movement of persons, the right of residence and the right of establishment in Africa, according to the African Union (AU). However, it needs to be ratified before being effective.

A lack of political will and capacity of African countries to implement the decisions taken at the ministerial level in different regional economic communities cause difficulties to achieve free movement of people in Africa, said Emelang Leteane, social affairs officer for United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

The official has said this at a panel session during UNECA's 22nd Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa.

Africa needs a more coherent position on the protocol on free movement of persons, along with greater political commitment to make it effective at national, regional and continental level, said Cyrus Nkusi, chief executive officer of Governance for Africa based in Rwanda.

Over 250 participants, including senior government officials, experts and representatives from the private sector from the 14 member states of UNECA's Office for Eastern Africa, attended the meeting running from Nov. 20 to Nov. 22.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 22:58:52|Editor: yan

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BERLIN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Thyssenkrupp has recorded a slight increase in revenue and solid order growth in what it described as a "challenging" 2017/18 fiscal year, earnings figures published on Wednesday by the German industrial conglomerate show.

In spite of negative currency effects and the launch of far-reaching corporate reforms, annual revenue rose by 3 percent to 42.7 billion euros (48.6 billion U.S. dollars). While Thyssenkrupp's order intake of 42.8 billion euros matched the high prior-year level of 2016/17, however, net income fell significantly from 271 million euros to 60 million euros.

"The past fiscal year was a turbulent and challenging one for thyssenkrupp" chief executive officer (CEO) Guido Kerkhoff commented on the development. Kerkhoff noted that the company had initiated one of the "biggest realignments" in corporate history and identified "potential for further improvements in all businesses" which it was now systematically addressing.

"This will raise the performance of thyssenkrupp as a whole", the CEO added.

Together with the full-year earnings figures, the executive board also presented a roadmap for the previously announced separation of the industrial and technology group. In September, Thyssenkrupp gave in to long-standing pressure from some of its major investors to divide its operations into two individual thyssenkrupp Materials AG and thyssenkrupp Industrials AG entities.

Thyssenkrupp explained on Wednesday that the new firms would be "managed as independent listed companies with direct access to the capital market." Aside from reducing complexity, the separation was seen as enabling each company to "respond to their respective customer's markets faster and more effectively and address investors with different interests."

The corporate reforms are scheduled to be approved by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in January 2020. "We are convinced that in this new set-up the businesses will be able to develop better and concentrate on their strengths. With the roadmap in place, we will now press on with the separation of the Group", Kerkhoff said.

The creation of the transaction structures for the separation of the Group is anticipated to impose a "high three-digit million euro" cost on net income and free cash flow in the 2018/2019 fiscal year. Nevertheless, Thyssenkrupp expressed confidence that the separation would have a "positive impact on equity and the balance sheet" upon completion.

Thyssenkrupp further highlighted that it had achieved an "important milestone" in the past year by signing a joint venture agreement to combine its European steel activities with those of rival Tata Steel. The merger was progressing on schedule and was expected to boost group net income and reduce pension obligations once finalized. Thyssenkrupp is currently targeting a rise in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to over one billion euros in the 2018/19 fiscal year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:03:53|Editor: yan

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BANGKOK, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) of Thailand said Wednesday that cannabis for medical use in the country is expected to be legalized by May next year.

Speaking to Xinhua at the seminar "Medical Use of Cannabis: Experiences of Australia, Canada and the Netherlands," Chuanpit Choomwattana, advisor to the ONCB said, the legalizing of cannabis for medical purposes will have to go through several legislative readings before it becomes legalized.

"The National Legislative Assembly (NLA) will have to pass the first reading to legitimize the use of cannabis for medical purposes only," said Chuanpit. "

In February next year, the NLA will then pass another bill to allow possession of cannabis, but again only for medical purposes before giving cannabis full legalization before the month of May next year.

The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) had in September begun working with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Narcotics Suppression Bureau to launch a research project on developing and mass-producing medicines from marijuana.

The Narcotics Suppression Bureau has already given 100 kilograms of seized marijuana to the GPO as raw material for their research.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Prajin Junthong who presided over the opening of the seminar expressed confidence over the 55.8 billion U.S. dollars lucrative industry.

"Thailand is a tropical country which is most suited to grow high hemp plant," said Prajin.

"The Kingdom has the potential to be a world leader in the development and production of cannabinoid medicines, which would enhance the efficiency of medical care and treatments in many patient groups."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:08:55|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's National Health Commission has released a work plan for the nationwide promotion of pain relief methods during labor and delivery.

The three-year plan aims to make fewer mothers turn to caesarean sections to escape unbearable labor pain, thus increasing rates of natural childbirth and lowering rates of cesarean delivery.

Painless delivery is yet to become common in China due to several factors, including a shortage of anesthetists at hospitals and widespread myths surrounding labor pain relief methods.

A number of pilot hospitals will be chosen around the country between 2018 and 2020 to normalize and improve labor pain relief, before it is widely promoted, according to the work plan.

It demanded the hospitals to set up specialized teams for labor pain management, strengthen training for medical staff, as well as offer personnel, facilities and other necessary support for such pain relief services.

The plan also called for improved education via books, media and internet for expectant mothers and their families so they can better understand and accept labor pain relief.

The commission also released two norms attached to the work plan, one regarding labor pain relief operation procedures and the other in analgesia technical management.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:18:58|Editor: yan

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MAPUTO, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- More than 1,000 residents from the community of Mitumbate, district of Mocimboa da Praia in northern province Cabo Delgado of Mozambique, began to return to their places of origin after abandoning them six months ago, the district administrator confirmed to Xinhua on Wednesday.

The displacement of the villagers followed the attacks from a group of unidentified armed men, who stormed their village killing the community leader and setting fire to their houses.

"Mocimboa da Praia district is today one of the safest places in the country, and indeed families are returning to their places of origin as well as resuming their life particularly income generating activities," said the administrator Marques Naba.

Authorities said living conditions in the community have returned to normal, although defense and security forces remain at the village.

"Situation is much better now, we are bit by bit working, however, we feel totally safe to stay in our farms until late hours," said Manuel Constancio, a local resident.

Commercial activities in the community are also functioning again and businessmen said trust and tranquility are being restored.

The sporadic attacks that began in Mocimboa da Praia more than one year ago, spreading to other districts including Palma and Moeda, have left at least 90 people dead and hundreds of houses burnt down.

More than 200 people accused of involvement in the attacks have been detained, and the trial beginning in October in the city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado, is currently underway.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:49:02|Editor: yan

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by Nick Kolyohin

JERUSALEM, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Technion, a leading Israeli institute for technology based in the port city of Haifa in northern Israel, and Intel, a U.S. multinational corporation specialized in making computer chips, have inaugurated a new center for artificial intelligence (AI) in Israel.

Professor Shie Mannor from the Technion was appointed as the director of the new center.

"Technion is the leading university in Israel in the field of AI, and it is one of the top ten universities in the world in this field," Mannor said in an interview with Xinhua.

Intel and Technion researchers will work together to better understand how AI can make a better life for humanity and how it can be implemented in commercial products.

AI is a new way of programming and computing.

"AI is the science of making computers improve with additional data and appear smart," Mannor explained.

"In traditional programming, you have got what you programmed precisely but the machine will not exhibit behavior that wasn't pre-programmed," he added.

Mannor predicts that in the future, robots with AI will help elderly, translate languages, talk to people in human voice and manners. Computers will take some of the burdens of daily human life.

Moreover, our face will be the key to everything with perfect AI face recognition technology and the medicine will be tailor-made to each person in ten years.

Mannor sees Israel as a global power in the field of AI.

"Israel is very good at AI. China and the U.S. are the leading global powers in AI. Israel, Britain, France, and Canada follow them."

Intel and Technion have enjoyed a strong relationship through years, as generations of Technion graduates have joined Intel's development center in Haifa, which was established in 1974.

Oren Gershon, one of Technion's alumnus who joined Intel, is now the manager of Intel Israel AI Products Group.

"The Intel Technion AI Center will allow academic researchers to create real-world applications that can be applied by the industry and we need it to stay competitive as a global corporation," Gershon told Xinhua.

Intel believes that AI will be everywhere from the smallest devices to high-end servers.

Technion and Intel want more companies and researchers to join their AI center.

"Companies in different fields will bring its unique knowledge and capabilities to solve exciting problems," said Gershon.

"We have discussions with large Chinese companies and I look forward to making a formal collaboration with them. I believe it will happen," Mannor added.

The present AI still can't imitate high-level abstract thinking of human beings, according to Mannor, who defines it as "high-level strategic thinking" which computers don't have.

Many people believe that one day AI can take control and use its power against humanity, but the AI center representatives don't afraid it.

"I don't think it will happen soon, and it is not something we need to take into account right now. AI of the present time is limited for specific applications and it has nothing to do with awareness," said Gershon.

"Any technology can be used for good or bad causes, and AI will have a more positive effect on our lives than negative in my belief," said Mannor.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:54:03|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's National Healthcare Security Administration said Wednesday it will soon launch a nationwide campaign to combat medicare fund fraud.

The administration said the campaign will target medical institutions, drugstores and the insured, focusing on violations including the fraudulent use of social security cards and falsification of medical documents.

"The supervision and management of medicare funds still need to be enhanced," said Huang Huabo, an official with the administration, responding to two recently exposed cases of medicare fund fraud in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

"The administration will comprehensively enhance its supervision on the funds," Huang said, adding it will improve the supervision mechanism and impose tougher punishments.

The administration also encouraged the public to report illegal activities.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-21 23:59:03|Editor: yan

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MINSK, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of Belarus and Russia on Wednesday expressed concern over the growing tensions in the Eurasian continent.

The U.S. intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the buildup of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's military activity near the borders of Belarus and Russia pose challenges to the two countries' security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said here at a press conference following a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministries.

The Russian minister stressed that the challenges require an appropriate response.

Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said that there is a feeling that the world has not become aware of the growing threat of a large military conflict.

The minister said the destruction of the fundamental agreements on international security continues and military capabilities are further strengthened, including in Europe, close to Belarus.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 00:04:07|Editor: yan

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XI'AN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- In the remote mountains in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, musk deer breeding has sprang up over the past few years and is expected to lift local impoverished residents out of poverty.

The Qinling Mountains and Daba Mountains are the main habitat of wild forest musk deer, which are known for their musk, a kind of aromatic substance commonly used in perfumes across the world and widely used in traditional herbal medicine in China.

People living in these mountainous regions have long suffered a backward transport infrastructure and poverty.

As one of the most valuable natural substances in the world, musk has been called "soft gold." Listed as a national protected species, wild musk deer are not allowed to be hunted or captured in China. Obtaining musk from artificial breeding musk deer is the only legitimate access allowed in the country.

"Glandular secretions collected from male deer are important materials in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), as nearly 300 kinds of TCM use musk. Many famous international perfume makers also use musk as a fixative in perfume," said Wang Wanyun, director of the forest musk deer protection and breeding center in Shaanxi.

"China started musk deer domestication trials in 1958. Musk deer breeding techniques have seen great improvements due to 60 years of effort. Chinese farmers have mastered the skills of extracting musk from male deer without harming them."

Thanks to the development of artificial breeding techniques, musk deer farming has slowly developed in China, while a growing number of rural residents have benefited from the thriving industry.

As of 2017, there were more than 20,000 musk deer being bred in captivity in China, producing around 150 kg of musk in one year. While in Shaanxi, 14,000 musk deer produced 100 kg of musk last year, according to Wang.

In the face of high demand from the fragrance industry, governments in poverty-stricken counties in Shaanxi consider musk deer breeding a promising industry. They have made great efforts to develop the industry and encouraged more locals to participate.

"A male deer can produce around 15 grams of musk per year, and each gram is about 400 yuan (58 U.S. dollars). The rising industry can help residents cast off poverty in the short term," said Feng Shiliang, chairman of Huayuan Breeding Ltd. in Fengxian County.

"With the support of local governments, more and more poor people have begun to raise musk deer, seizing the opportunity to earn more and live better lives."

Since the cost of musk deer farming is relatively expensive, local governments encourage residents to take part in the industry through supplying forage and working for musk deer breeding companies.

More than 500 impoverished households in Fengxian County are expected to escape poverty this way in 2018.

Peng Zhong, a villager in Simudi Village in Ningshan County, said his county began to develop musk deer breeding in 2014, and many villagers have participated in a musk deer breeding cooperative.

Peng's parents have suffered prolonged illness, and his family is impoverished due to illness-related expenses. Without enough money to raise musk deer, Peng offered his land to a musk deer breeding cooperative and works for the cooperative.

"I can get a steady income by renting the land and working for the cooperative. I'm planning to build a barn to raise musk deer in the future, so I can easily earn 10,000 yuan every year," Peng said.

"The scale of the industry is expanding and the industrial chain has taken shape, and the musk deer breeding industry in Shaanxi is expected to play an important role in poverty relief," said Lu Yijian, director of the forestry administration of Ningshan County.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 00:19:10|Editor: yan

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CAPE TOWN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's Parliament on Wednesday rejected a request from civil group AfriForum to set aside a report on the necessity to amend the Constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation.

Parliament will be opposing the application from AfriForum to have the report set aside, parliamentary spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said.

This came after AfriForum approached the U.S. Embassy and some other foreign embassies earlier this week, seeking their help to force the South African government to stop its attempt to expropriate land without compensation. AfriForum made the move following the adoption of the report by Parliament's Joint Constitutional Review Committee (JCRC).

Last week, the JCRC adopted its report in favor of an amendment of section 25 of the Constitution to pave way for the state to expropriate land without compensation. Specifically, the committee has recommended that section 25 of the Constitution be amended to make it explicitly clear that expropriation of land without compensation by the state in the public interest should be one mechanism to address the injustices of the past, inflicted on the majority of South Africans.

The committee will present its report to both Houses of Parliament, Mothapo said, adding that Members of Parliament will engage in further debate on the report.

Earlier this year, both Houses of Parliament - the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces - instructed the committee to undertake a process to establish whether a review of section 25 of the Constitution and other clauses is necessary to make it possible for the state to expropriate land in the public interest without compensation.

The JCRC adopted its report following a series of extensive public hearings from June 26 to August 4, as well as a number of workshops and discussions in Parliament.

Thousands of South Africans came to these hearings held in several localities in each of the nine provinces, according to Mothabo.

"They came to join the national conversation about land and its role in building our democracy and redressing the wounds of our past," said Mothabo.

The inquiry which the JCRC undertook will be remembered as one of the most consultative, participatory processes of democracy - outside of the country's regular non-racial elections, he said.

"The process which the committee has now completed is in keeping with the responsibilities which our Constitution demands of Parliament as the legislative authority of our republic," Mothabo said.

The proposed land expropriation without compensation has been strongly resisted by opponents who argue that the process will drive away white farmers, kill jobs and threaten food security.

But the government has assured that it will pursue the land reform without destabilizing the agricultural sector, endangering food security in the country, or undermining economic growth and job creation.

Since taking power in 1994, the government led by the African National Congress has made land redistribution from whites to blacks without compensation one of its priorities.

But land remains predominantly in white hands more than two decades after the end of apartheid, sparking growing discontent among South African blacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 00:19:11|Editor: yan

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PRAGUE, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Czech customs officers in Moravia have seized about 110 kilograms of a medicine containing pseudoephedrine, said police spokeswoman Pavla Zdobnicka on Wednesday.

In a consignment from Bulgaria, the customs officers found 26,000 packagings with a total of 364,000 pills containing about 44 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, which could be used to produce 29 kilograms of pervitin worth more than 20 million crowns (877,000 U.S. dollars).

Near the Vrbice village close to the Slovak border, customs officers chose a van with the Bulgarian number plate for a random check. Upon request, the driver produced documents showing that the consignment was heading from Bulgaria to the Czech Republic and Poland.

According to Zdobnicka, the customs officers had a suspicion that the medicines may be misused for drug production. Experts from the National Institute for Drug Control have already confirmed that the given medicine is not officially registered for sale in Czech and that the amount of pseudoephedrine in these pills exceeds many times the amount that is permitted in Czech.

Pseudoephedrine is a substance that is often illegally used as precursor in the production of the hard drug pervitin (methamphetamine).

(1 U.S. dollars=22.8 crowns)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 00:44:17|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian government has approved a draft free trade agreement (FTA) with Israel during a meeting on Wednesday, the country's Economic Development and Trade Ministry said.

The cabinet authorized Stepan Kubiv, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the country's Economic Development and Trade Minister, to sign the deal, the ministry said in a statement.

Later on the day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said that the FTA between Ukraine and Israel will be inked in the coming weeks.

According to Interfax-Ukraine news agency, once the agreement enters into force, Ukraine and Israel will immediately eliminate duties on 70 percent and 80 percent of their respective industrial imports and 6.8 percent and 9.2 percent of agricultural imports.

Within three years, tariffs on Ukraine-made clothes, furniture and glass exported to Israel will also be partially eliminated.

Last year, trade between Ukraine and Israel stood at 772.5 million U.S. dollars, with Ukrainian exports amounting to 604.6 million dollars.

Ukraine and Israel launched the free trade talks in 2013.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 01:04:24|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Over 2,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Jordan to Syria since the Nasib crossing re-opened between the two countries last month, state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday.

A total of 2,380 Syrians, who had lost their official documents, have returned to Syria within a month, the report cited Mazen Ghandour, head of the immigration center in Nasib in the southern province of Daraa, as saying.

It said the Syrian embassy in Amman has provided the Syrian refugees, who had fled to Jordan during the war and lost their documents, with temporary clearances to allow them back into the country.

A total of 300 of the returnees were wanted to report to the military service and arrived in the country to take advantage of a pardon offered for draft dodgers who return to the country within a specific period of time.

In August, the Syrian cabinet announced the formation of a committee to coordinate the return of refugees to Syria through "intensifying contacts with friendly countries to provide facilitation to enable the refugees to return."

The border crossing was closed in 2015 when the rebels took over the Nasib area and the crossing in the countryside of Daraa province in southern Syria.

The Syrian army captured Daraa and the border crossing in July after the rebels in the province surrendered to the army and agreed to evacuate to rebel-held areas in northern Syria, mainly the northwestern province of Idlib.

Both Jordan and Syria officially re-opened the Nasib-Jaber crossing last month.

It's estimated that 1.4 million Syrian refugees are located in Jordan.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 02:14:39|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Wednesday assured tourists of their safety hours after unknown gunmen abducted an Italian woman in the coastal region of Kilifi.

Najib Balala, cabinet secretary for tourism and wildlife, said the abduction of 23-year-old Sylivia Constanca, a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, was an isolated incident. She was kidnapped when the gunmen raided Chakama trading centre, about 80 km west of tourism resort town of Malindi, injuring five Kenyans including three children.

"The ministry would like to affirm that this is an isolated incident that occurred well away from any popular tourist areas in Kilifi County," Balala said in a statement.

"To this end, we would like to assure all that are travelling to and within Kenya that our country is safe and open for travel," he added.

The East African nation's coastal towns are the backbone of the country's thriving tourism, which has been hit by the fear of terror attacks and the kidnapping of foreigners by Somali militants from resorts near the border with Somalia.

Balala said no hotel was affected nor any tourist injured during the Tuesday evening incident. "The coastal region remains safe and under constant surveillance," he said.

"We are working with the tourism sector stakeholders to monitor and assist with any enquiries. We urge all intending to travel to Kenya to continue with their travel plans," said Balala.

Kenya's tourism suffered a decline in the number of tourists arrival since September 2011, when the Somali militant group, the al-Shabaab, carried out the kidnappings of tourists in the Lamu archipelago and the kidnapping of the Spanish volunteers.

Kenya sent troops into Somalia to battle the militants in October 2011 after several attacks, including the kidnapping of a French woman and a British tourist - and the killing of her husband - damaged its key tourism industry.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 02:19:40|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson agreed to strengthen the partnership between their countries on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

During the meeting in London, the two sides discussed the current security situation in Ukraine and the prospects for expanding Britain's "practical assistance" for Kiev.

At the meeting, Poltorak thanked Britain for providing trainings for the Ukrainian military and organizing joint exercises, saying that such assistance is very important for Ukraine.

For his part, Williamson pledged to continue the Operation Orbital UK's training program for the Ukrainian armed forces and announced that HMS Echo, the multi-role hydrographic survey ship, will be deployed in the Black Sea next year as a part of Britain's support for Ukraine.

Since 2015, British military instructors have been providing trainings for Ukrainian servicemen, who fight against pro-independence armed groups in eastern Ukraine.

Since being in the East European country, the UK troops have trained some 9,500 members of Ukraine's army.

Poltorak arrived in London on Tuesday for an official visit.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 03:34:51|Editor: yan

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BUCHAREST, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The President of the European Parliament (EP) Antonio Tajani said Wednesday that the EP is ready to have a collaboration as good as possible with Romania during the latter's presidency of the EU Council.

"We need your support on two to three matters, crucial to the European Parliament," Tajani told Romanian President Klaus Iohannis during their meeting at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, noting that the elections for the EP will be organized during Romania's rotating presidency of the EU Council in the first semester of 2019.

Brexit will be the first issue during Romania's presidency. "We must fight to guarantee the citizens' rights, to secure the necessary funds for the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and solve the Irish border issue," he said.

On the issue of refugees, Tajani said an agreement must be reached in the Council regarding the Dublin Regulation reform.

Tajani emphasized on the importance of the future MFF, saying that the EP wishes to increase the funds gathering to the EU budget, from 1.1 percent to 1.3 percent.

Iohannis said Romania wants to contribute to promoting common European agenda in a constructive manner.

"The European Parliament is a key partner... in terms of the cooperation with all European institutions," he said, noting that Romania fully shares the pro-European orientation.

"We are aware of the complexity, of how complicated the context in which we will take over the presidency of the EU Council is," said the head of state.

"We will face multiple challenges that affect both the lives of citizens, as well as of the governments. That is why we need to show realism but also ambition in the way we will approach our mandate," Iohannis added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 04:09:56|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Kenya and Mozambique on Wednesday signed a visa waiver framework aimed at boosting trade and free movement of people between the two countries.

The agreement will also boost the two countries' cultural exchanges, said Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta who witnessed the signing of the deal in Nairobi with his Mozambican counterpart Filipe Jacinto Nyusi.

Nyusi welcomed the signing of the visa waiver, saying it was a move in the right direction in bolstering the cooperation between the two countries.

He said their discussions mainly focused on economic and other areas of mutual cooperation including tourism and the energy sector in which Kenya has excelled.

"We discussed important issues of our economy and finance as well as issues of avoiding double taxation so as to facilitate trade for our business people and for the flow of business between our two countries," Nyusi said, according to a statement issued by Kenyatta's office after the joint meeting in Nairobi.

He reaffirmed his government's commitment to work towards enhancing cooperation and bilateral relations with Kenya.

Nyusi is in Kenya for a reciprocal state visit that will see him attend the opening of the world's first Sustainable Blue Economy Conference that is co-hosted by Kenya, Japan and Canada in Nairobi next week.

Kenyatta noted the tremendous progress made in the growth of gas, coal and oil exploration in Mozambique, saying Kenya seeks to learn from Mozambique's best practices including transfer of technology as it embarks on developing its own extractive industry.

He disclosed that one of the proposals that Kenya is considering is the importation of liquefied gas and coal from Mozambique starting next year through a government-to-government agreement.

He said Kenya is also considering opportunities in aviation with a focus on technical training and the establishment of an aviation training organization.

"As a nation we have the capacity to offer the requisite technical assistance in this field," he added.

As two ocean-facing countries, the Kenyan leader said the two countries have agreed to champion the sustainable use of the blue economy resources to accelerate economic growth and development.

Kenyatta said that the port cities of Maputo and Mombasa form an integral part of the trade relations between the two countries.

"I encourage our relevant authorities to work much close together to see how we can partner and develop our port facilities as a sure way of improving trade linkages between our two countries," the president said.

He said the two countries are also exploring the existing potential in the aviation sector between that is yet to be fully exploited and which will enhance greatly the tourism and trade ties.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 04:19:58|Editor: yan

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NEW YORK, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The New York-based China Institute will present next week its annual Blue Cloud Award to honor individuals who have promoted greater cross-cultural understanding between the United States and China.

The annual Blue Cloud Gala, which is scheduled for Nov. 28 in Manhattan, New York City, will bring together leading figures in the arts, culture, business, philanthropy, and education of both countries, four of whom will be awarded.

Under the name of "Blue Cloud," or "Qingyun" in Chinese, the award represents the traditional Chinese symbol of high virtue and status.

Last year, Governor of the U.S. state of New York Andrew Cuomo and prominent wedding dress designer Vera Wang were among the recipients of the award.

The China Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing understanding and deepening trust between the United States and China. The Blue Cloud Award was first introduced in 1984.
A man walks in a commercial port of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov on August 14, 2018. (AFP Photo)

MOSCOW, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Russian inspections of ships sailing through the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait are legitimate as Russia has sovereignty in waters near the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Russia resolutely rejects any accusations of its "aggressive and illegal actions" in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait as Crimea is part of Russia, which can exercise its sovereign rights in nearby waters, the ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine accused Russia of "aggressive actions" in the Sea of Azov after Russia inaugurated a bridge over the Kerch Strait earlier this year and started carrying out inspections of commercial ships sailing through the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

By the end of this year, Ukraine will establish a new maritime security department at the State Border Guard Service, which will take control over the entire maritime border of the country in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday.

Russia is seriously concerned about the continuing attempts by Ukraine to exacerbate the situation in the Sea of Azov, the Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.

The inspections of vessels carried out by Russian border guards are not discriminatory, said the ministry, adding that these measures are for security purposes instead of exerting political or economic pressure on Ukraine.

"Contrary to the statements of Kiev and Brussels, Russia does not increase its military presence in the Sea of Azov. The forces stationed there are mainly used to guard the Crimean Bridge," the statement said.

Crimea became part of Russia following a local referendum in March 2014, but Kiev and Western countries reject the results.

Russia-Ukraine relations have been filled with disputes and the United States has imposed rounds of sanctions against Russia over Crimea since then.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 04:50:09|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Wednesday called for international cooperation to combat wildlife crimes and other forms of transnational crimes.

Miwa Panholzer Kato, director of division for operations at United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told a forum in Nairobi that wildlife crime is a low-risk, high-profit transnational organized crime, which is overwhelming countries and communities, affecting biodiversity and development.

"The truth of the matter is that there is no alternative to international cooperation to tackle organized crime and combat wildlife crimes - there is no single country that will alone, be able to curb the plight that wildlife crimes represent," Kato said during the closing ceremony of the Wildlife Inter-Regional Enforcement (WIRE).

The three-day event was held under the umbrella of the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).

ICCWC is a consortium composed of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Interpol, World Customs Organization, World Bank and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that is undertaking the task of fighting the multifaceted nature of wildlife crime.

The conference was the first WIRE meeting to be held in Africa and brought together police, customs, prosecutors and financial investigators from over 20 African and Asian countries with a focus on improving Africa-Asia cooperation on the prosecution of wildlife crime.

Kato said that eliminating the trafficking of endangered species requires the greatest degree of cooperation to deliver on the 2030 sustainable development agenda especially on goals 14 and 15 which are ambitious and require proportionally ambitious responses.

She noted that illicit wildlife trade not only endangers animals but also slows down progress and development in many areas of the 2030 development agenda.

The UN official said that customs officers, financial intelligence units, police, wildlife investigators and prosecutors across the global should establish sustainable linkages among themselves.

She revealed that interagency collaboration at country level is as important as cooperation among countries to reduce the operations of wildlife criminal syndicates.

Margaret Mwakima, principal secretary at Kenya's ministry of tourism and wildlife, called for joint global efforts to preserve the earth's flora and fauna against great odds that are caused almost uniquely by human greed and selfishness, search for financial wealth and status and by a disregard for law.

Mwakima said that dealing with cross-border crime is difficult given that every nation has its own unique legal framework and internal regulations that govern how wildlife crime is tackled.

She noted that practical and workable solutions including financial investigations, identification of risk indicators for transport routes for trafficking of illegal wildlife products as well as cross-border information exchange should help to halt the international trade in the endangered species.

Noordin Haji, director of Kenya's Public Prosecutions, said the world is a global village and that transnational organized crime constitutes a major threat to regional peace, security and rule of law.

Haji said that there should be a paradigm shift from regarding wildlife crimes as a conservation issue to a national, regional and international security threat.

"We must also remain conscious of the link between wildlife trafficking and other transnational organized crimes such as terrorism," he said.

He added that improving Africa-Asia cooperation on the interception, investigation and prosecution of wildlife crimes is critical to combating wildlife trafficking.
File Photo: A displaced Syrian child poses for a photograph in a flooded refugee camp in the Idlib countryside, northwestern Syria, on Oct. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarian workers are "deeply concerned" about the 3 million people in Idlib and surrounding areas as an increase in fighting in the Syrian northwest.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) remains "deeply concerned by reports of hostilities throughout northwest Syria, including in areas believed to be in or near the demilitarized zone, that are affecting the protection and safety of civilians," chief UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

"With 3 million women, children and men in Idlib and surrounding areas at risk, an escalation of hostilities in northwest Syria must be averted at all costs," he told reporters at a regular briefing.

"Failure to do so will bring about humanitarian suffering at a scale not yet seen in the conflict," he said.

There were clashes in several areas between Syrian government forces and non-state armed groups, Dujarric said, adding that there were several civilian casualties, as well as temporary displacement of civilians.

The spokesman explained that there were reports of fighting in southern, rural Aleppo governorate and shelling in northern Aleppo, eastern and southern Idlib, as well as in northern Hama governorate.

"The United Nations continues to urge all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and to exercise restraint," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 05:15:14|Editor: Yang Yi

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Egyptian students visit a cultural expo introducing Beijing, capital of China, at Suez Canal University in Ismailia, Egypt, Nov. 21, 2018. The expo was opened on Wednesday in the building of Confucius Institute of Suez Canal University. "The expo was meant to provide the visitors, mainly the Chinese-learning students, wide-scope information about Beijing," said Hassan Ragab, director of Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)

by Marwa Yahya

ISMAILIA, Egypt, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- In the building of Confucius Institute of Suez Canal University in Egypt's northeastern province of Ismailia, a cultural expo introducing Beijing, capital of China, was opened on Wednesday.

"The expo was meant to provide the visitors, mainly the Chinese-learning students, wide-scope information about Beijing," said Hassan Ragab, director of Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University.

The cultural landscape of Beijing across different eras, both old and modern times, were shown in the expo, Ragab told Xinhua.

Roqqia Lotfy, a student at Confucius Institute, said the expo provides rich information about Beijing and its history.

Under each photo, the caption was written in both Chinese and Arabic, which, Lotfy said, was of great help for someone like him who has just joined Confucius Institute.

Lotfy said she admired the architecture of the old houses as well as the design of the modern skyscrapers in Beijing.

"Confucius Institute will keep such kind of expos as permanent not only for the students specialized in Chinese language but also for the school students in different ages," said Ragab.

Zhu Tingting, Chinese director of the Confucius Institute, said the expo was "a platform for learning more about Chinese culture especially the Chinese houses which are an essential part of their lives."

She said the expo chose Beijing this time because it is the most famous Chinese city in Egypt, and also is very rich in history.

The visitors could travel along the history of the Chinese capital via the expo's models, she noted.

In addition, the expo has run some activities about Chinese traditions including paper-cutting, faces painting and tea ceremony, as well as Chinese music, for visitors.

Islam Mahmoud, a student from the School of Science, said he was dazzled by the photos about the Place of Heaven.

"I learnt many things today about China, and I knew that the summer season is the best in Beijing," Mahmoud said.
George Town, Cayman Islands, Nov. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Global Banking System's Capacity for Crypto: Experts Estimate $1.2 Trillion

Over $1.2 trillion  this is the global banking system's potential crypto assets growth capacity over the next few years. Experts from ICOBox's Blockchain Research Center (IBRC) came up with their estimate based on the recommendations from international regulators to banks interested in trading cryptocurrency assets.





The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has recently established the maximum ratio of crypto assets to the total capital of the country's banks: it should not exceed 4%. Considering that Switzerland is clearly aiming to become one of the world's crypto industry leaders looked up to by many governments in managing their banking systems, the FINMA's approach may become a gold standard for other international financial institutions.





"This number, $1.2 trillion, allows us to assess the potential volume of crypto assets in the global banking system in the next 2-5 years. Today's crypto market, with its current capitalization of $223 billion, will take years to absorb this amount of capital. And if all the banks in the world were suddenly allowed to keep up to 4% in crypto assets in their accounts, this could potentially constitute the "second coming" of bitcoin," says Anar Babaev, ICOBox's Co-Founder and Managing Partner.





EtherDelta Runs into Trouble with the SEC

On November 8, the SEC charged EtherDelta founder Zachary Coburn with operating an unlicensed securities exchange. The charges come after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that EtherDelta conducted unauthorized transactions of securities over an 18 month period and engaged in over 3.6 million transactions of specific tokens, which the SEC claimed were classified as securities.





EtherDelta is a decentralized exchange (DEX), meaning it enables buying and selling orders directly on the blockchain with no central intermediary by using transactions to serve as the placement of said buy and sell orders.





Coburn was also fined over $380,000 for alleged unlawful profits. Speaking on the confusion in cryptocurrency regarding classification, Daria Generalova, Managing Partner at ICOBox, stated, It is essential that cryptocurrency projects identify and adhere to the correct legislative and regulatory guidelines early in their business development phases, as they can easily be miscategorized. Diligent analysis is needed so project owners, exchange providers, and everyday cryptocurrency users can navigate the industry easily, said Generalova. The case of EtherDelta demonstrates the need for increased effort regarding preemptive legal review and classification as to not damage the integrity of the cryptocurrency sector.









Bitcoin Cash Hardfork: Something to Watch

November 15 marks the date for the Bitcoin Cash network update, which will result in the currency splitting into two forks  Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. This is the biggest hardfork of the recent months. Although the imminent event is extremely exciting and advantageous for most industry players, it is also capable of revamping the market, which has been hanging in the "red" zone for a while.





Bitcoin Cash is the forth biggest cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization. This is a very large asset, and no market participant worth his salt can overlook the event. As soon as the announcement of the hardfork was out, the BCH's volatility immediately went up, with its value jumping nearly 40%. For today's market, in which all leading cryptocurrencies have been on a negative trend for awhile, this is an impressive number.





"This is a brilliant move. It is hugely beneficial to the BCH holders large and small, it plays into the hands of major crypto exchanges, and it has the potential of roping in everyday folk who might be looking to make a profit from one currency splitting into two. This translates into a dramatic increase in market players' activity, a powerful rise in one of the leading cryptocurrencies' liquidity, an impressive upswing in its trade, and high price volatility of the new digital assets over the 3-4 weeks after the fork. So overall, this is a very positive and much-needed shakeup for the market which has been stagnating and shifting gears for quite some time," says Dima Zaitsev, Head of International PR at ICOBox.





Cryptocurrency Market Hits the Rocks

Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market took a deep nosedive, losing $26 billion  a staggering amount by any metric. This was one of the most dramatic daily selloffs in the entire 2018. Bitcoin, which remained exceptionally stable in August-November, suffered a drop of more than 11% over a 12-hour period. This unexpected fall in the BTC rate created a domino effect for other major cryptocurrencies. The market is yet to bounce back.





Daria Generalova, Managing Partner at ICOBox, commented "I believe there are several reasons for the latest market collapse. First, there was a massive cryptocurrency selloff, which was partly related to the news of today's hardfork of Bitcoin Cash. Second, the crypto market is continuing to react to the situation in securities markets, which are also falling in response to the decline in oil futures. And third, since the start of the week bitcoin hashrate dropped by 20%. This may have to do with the suspension of operations in Chinese provinces Xinjiang and Guizhou for the duration of their tax audit. All of these factors combined might've resulted in the recent massacre in the crypto market.





But knowing that pretty much any fall is usually followed by a rise, I have no doubt that eventually we'll return to a relatively even keel. This is crypto  things are meant to be dynamic. So buckle up and take a ride!"





About ICOBox:

ICOBox is the first and biggest new generation Blockchain Growth Promoter and Business Facilitator for companies seeking to sell their products via ICO crowdsales. We had helped more than 80 clients collect over $650 million.




Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 05:25:17|Editor: yan

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ABUJA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's apex body of culture on Wednesday hosted "China Day" as part of the activities marking the 11th International Arts and Crafts Expo in the capital Abuja.

The National Council for Arts and Crafts (NCAC) said the China Day celebration at the seven-day expo, themed "Networking Nigerian Arts and Crafts to the World," was put together in recognition of the strong cultural bond between China and Nigeria.

Showing the rich cultural heritage of China and its people, various performances, including the Chinese Dragon Dance, were in colorful display at the China Day celebration. All the performances were done by locals, mostly secondary school students in Abuja.

Li Xuda, the cultural counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, said cultural exchange between China and Nigeria "has come to stay and would lead to better cooperation in the future."

Li, also director of China Cultural Center in Abuja, said that having China Day at the cultural expo is a dream coming true, and it shows Nigeria's commitment toward having a stronger cultural exchange with China.

He noted that as part of the cultural integration program between the two countries, 12 "Chinese Corners" have been established in Abuja.
An Iranian submarine participates in a maritime drill in Iran's southern waters on Jan. 1, 2012. (AFP file photo)

TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Iran will unveil new defense achievements including a destroyer and a submarine next week, Iran's navy commander said Wednesday.

"Sahand Destroyer and Fateh Submarine are to be unveiled over the next week," Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

The destroyer could carry large helicopters, missile defense systems and fighter jets, he said.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (R 2) attends the launch ceremony of Iran's first indigenous destroyer Jamaran at the port of Iran's southern city of Abbas, on Feb. 19, 2010. (Reuters file photo)

The indigenous medium-class submarine "would surprise the Islamic republic's enemies," Khanzadi said without providing further details.

The commander played down the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran's naval industry.

Iran has been successfully weathering sanctions for more than 40 years now, Khanzadi said, noting that the pressures had "taught us to stand on our own feet and not to depend on other powers for our security."

On Tuesday, Iran's Defense Ministry unveiled a homegrown state-of-art armored military vehicle, named Toofan (hurricane), and inaugurated its assembly line.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 05:35:20|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The humanitarian response is cranking up to help at least 437,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon hit by separatist attacks, the chief UN spokesman said on Wednesday.

"The humanitarian presence and response is slowly increasing in the affected areas," the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

"The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that urgent humanitarian concerns remain in Cameroon, with at least 437,000 people currently displaced in the Southwest, the Northwest and in neighboring departments due to hostilities between armed groups and security forces," he told a regular briefing.

Dujarric said that priority has been given to the Southwest region with 246,000 IDPs.

OCHA has strengthened its capacity in Cameroon, while other UN humanitarian agencies establish a presence in the Southwest and the Northwest regions.

OCHA says that while insecurity is affecting access to populations in the areas, the humanitarian response is also limited by a shortage of funding.

The 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan for Cameroon, which seeks 320 million U.S. dollars, is under-funded by less than 37 percent, while a response plan requesting 15 million dollars to urgently address the needs of 160,000 people has only received a 5-million-dollar rapid response grant from the United Nation's Central Emergency Response Fund, OCHA said.

Since last year, separatist fighters in Cameroon have staged attacks in Cameroon's English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions in protest of marginalization by the country's French-speaking majority.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 06:10:27|Editor: yan

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YAOUNDE, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Nine school children and one teacher who were kidnapped on Tuesday from a private school in Kumba, a town in Southwest, one of the two strife-torn anglophone regions of Cameroon have been released, Chamberlin Ntou'ou Ndong, senior divisional officer for Meme division told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Local residents initially said, about 15 students and one teacher were abducted but Ndong insisted the information was false.

"The students have been released. The teacher has been released though he is wounded. All of them are free and with their families." Ndong said, adding the children were kidnapped by armed separatists whom he called "assailants." Separatists have not claimed responsibility for the abduction.

He said four separatists were killed during the rescue mission conducted by government forces.

"They (separatists) should surrender. The state is ready to support them financially if they surrender" Ndong said.

It was the second abduction of students this month in Cameroon's troubled Anglophone zone, where armed separatists have ordered the closure of schools in the regions.

In early November, the government accused separatists of kidnapping 79 children of a private school in the Northwest. They were released a few days later. Separatists, however, insisted that most of the kidnappings were staged by the government to tarnish their image internationally.

Local authorities said separatists had burned more than 100 schools that refused to close down.

Since November last year, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two regions to secede from the majority French-speaking nation and form a new country called "Ambazonia".
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 06:15:27|Editor: yan

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GABORONE, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier exchanged views on areas in which the two countries can strengthen their bilateral relations in official talks here on Wednesday.

Briefing the media after the talks, Masisi said they also discussed ways in which the Southern African region can benefit from Germany.

Masisi said the two countries can work together in developing the energy sector which is part of Botswana's priority areas in transforming its economy and improving the lives of the citizens.

"Energy production is one of our top priority areas which we need to address fast," he said.

For his part, the German president, who is on a 2-day state visit to Botswana, said his country is focused on using hydro power and wind for supply of energy and urged Botswana to take full advantage of the solar energy.

"Energy is an expensive resource and therefore producing it locally can save a lot of capital which could be extended to other developments," he said.

He said his country is committed to assisting Botswana in any way possible.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-22 06:40:30|Editor: yan

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HELSINKI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Finland commenced on Wednesday its six-month presidency of the Council of Europe (CoE). Observers have noted the most difficult issue during the Finnish presidency concerns the membership of Russia.

Established in 1949, CoE is not related to the European Union. It comprises today 47 countries including non-EU countries like Norway, Switzerland and Russia.

In the wake of the 2014 Crimean crisis, the voting rights of Russian delegates in the Parliamentary Assembly of CoE were suspended. In response, Russia initially restricted and later stopped its payments to the Council.

Addressing the transfer ceremony of the presidency from Croatia to Finland in Strassbourg, France, Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini described the Council as "an essential platform for the rules-based multilateral co-operation in Europe".

In his speech, Soini did not touch the issue of Russian membership directly, but said he believes "it is of interest for all countries to remain a part of multilateral cooperation".

He also said that "all member states should fulfill their membership obligations. This includes membership fees."

When CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland visited Helsinki earlier in November, both Soini and Jagland underlined their hope that Russia will stay in the Council.

Valentina Matviyenko, Speaker of the Russian Federation Council, said in September that Russia is close to pulling out of CoE.

She added though that Moscow is interested in strengthening CoE as "a universal European organization with unique mechanisms, which would ensure a united humanitarian and legal space", according to TASS.

Matviyenko insisted that the CoE Parliamentary Assembly should ensure "equal rights for all the 47 member states."

The published priorities of the Finnish CoE presidency include strengthening the system of human rights and the rule of law in Europe, supporting equality and women's rights, focusing on young people and the prevention of radicalization.

Finland will also raise questions relating to the impact of new technologies on human rights. A conference on artificial intelligence and human rights will be organized in Helsinki on 26-27 February 2019.

The Finnish presidency will terminate with a ministerial conference in Helsinki on 16-17 May, 2019.

Following the CoE presidency, Finland will be the chairman country of the European Union during the latter half of 2019.
The opposition parties attack the planned upgrade of the Paks nuclear power station because they want electricity to be bought from foreign energy firms, ruling Fidesz said, in response to criticism by green opposition LMP and conservative opposition Jobbik.

LMP considers the Paks 2 nuclear power plant expansion project the worst deal of the century and recommends that the government should cancel the agreement it signed with Russia on the upgrade, one of the partys lawmakers said.



The politician said it was now clear that contrary to the governments assurances, the two power plants would not be operating simultaneously, which he said would make the project even more expensive for Hungary.



Ungar said this way the investment would be akin to every Hungarian family taking up a rouble-denominated loan of one million forints.



This investment has failed in every way, Ungar said.



Commenting on the governments argument that the Paks 2 project is a means to securing cheap electricity and utility fee cuts, Ungar said there was no way to know how the expansion would affect electricity prices.



He added that the total cost of the project was also an unknown. Jobbik said in a statement that the Orban regime would collapse unless it resumes control over the increasingly chaotic Paks 2 investment project.



Fidesz said in response that many people in Hungary would prefer to see the countrys dependence on import electricity increase from which they could financially benefit.



The Paks nuclear power station will guarantee cheap, predictable and secure supply of electricity to the Hungarian public and companies even in the long term, it said.
Opposition parties slammed the decision to grant former Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski political asylum, saying the Hungarian government and the Immigration and Asylum Office have broken Hungarian and international law in the process.

Conservative Jobbiks Adam Mirkoczki, the head of parliaments national security committee, called an extraordinary committee session for Wednesday morning.



The interior ministry and the immigration office have broken the law by misleading committee members regarding the Gruevski scandal, he said.



The interior ministry rejected the accusation, saying that the directorgeneral of the office had provided credible briefings on the asylum request.



The ministry considers unworthy and categorically rejects any political attack directed at government officials who carry out their duties in accordance with their oaths of office, it said.



The Socialist Party accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban of turning Hungary into an immigration country that harbours convicted corrupt politicians.



The leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) called the news of Gruevskis asylum a scandal on a global scale. Spokesman Sandor Ronai said that it could be interpreted by the worlds criminals and terrorists as a message that they can find refuge from the law in Hungary.



He added that Europes first people smuggler government was insisting that it hasnt broken several Hungarian and international laws through this affair.



The opposition Parbeszed party said that Orban has turned Hungary into the depository of political scum, coleader Timea Szabo said. The EU Treaty says that perpetrators of particularly severe crimes cannot be granted asylum, she noted.



The Liberal Party said that by backing Gruevski, Hungarys government has officially sided with a criminal.



While the government leads a hate campaign against people in real need of asylum, it has given over 20,000 people of possibly questionable background access to Europe through residency bonds, the Liberals said, adding that the asylum grant for Gruevski crowned that process.



MTI photo: Soos Lajos
The Hungarian government is set to grant a total of HUF 25 billion in credit to the Republic of Kenya and Cape Verde, according to a report by Hungarian online business news portal mfor.hu.

The government has allocated HUF 14 bln tied aid credit to the Republic of Kenya. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto will inform the government of Kenya, and discuss the related financial cooperation framework program.

Hungary is also offering a HUF 11 bln aid loan to Cape Verde, to implement water management and irrigation capacity development projects. Szijjarto will be in charge of these negotiations as well.

An important criterion of the declaration is that both of the loans can be drawn down only if this does not endanger favorable development of the domestic debt ratio, the report added.
Dublin, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Frozen Food Market in Europe 2019-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Frozen Food Market in Europe to grow at a CAGR of 3.95% during the period 2019-2023.



Frozen Food Market in Europe 2019-2023, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.



One trend affecting this market is premiumization of frozen food products. The general consumer perception about premium products is that they are made using high quality ingredients.



According to the report, one driver influencing this market is the adoption of new packaging strategies by vendors. The players in the market are revamping the packaging, sizing, and labelling of their products.



Further, the report states that one challenge affecting this market is the adverse impact of product contamination and recall. A product recall severely affects a company's brand image as well as its operation and sales.



Key questions answered in this report

What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate be?

What are the key market trends?

What is driving this market?

What are the challenges to market growth?

Who are the Key vendors in this market space?

What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the Key vendors?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Key vendors?

Market Dynamics

Increasing frequency of M&A in the market

Distribution challenges

Emergence of private-label brands

Key vendors

Dr. August Oetker

FRoSTA

McCain Foods

Nestl

Nomad Foods

Orkla

Key Topics Covered:



PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT



PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2018

Market size and forecast 2018-2023

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY PRODUCT

Market segmentation by product

Comparison by product

Frozen ready meals - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Frozen fish and seafood - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Frozen meat and poultry - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Frozen fruits and vegetables - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Others - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Market opportunity by product

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE



PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Western Europe - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Eastern Europe - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK



PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: TRENDS



PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Dr. August Oetker

FRoSTA

McCain Foods

Nestl

Nomad Foods

Orkla

PART 14: APPENDIX



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/45tksm/europe_frozen?w=12





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.
Moderna sau BioNTech? Opiniile expertilor despre alegerea vaccinului pentru doza 3

Cand vine momentul pentru doza a treia de vaccin impotriva coronavirusului, multe persoane s-ar putea intreba daca ar trebui sa ramana la ultimul tip de vaccin sau ar putea trece la ceva mai bun. Desi cele mai recente cercetari arata [citeste mai departe]
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San Diego, CA, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) ("Gopher), a company specializing in the development of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technologies, including a global mesh network technology platform for both mobile and fixed solutions, announced today it has completed its MESH network Gateway design, produced its electronic schematics and started its firmware integration. Gopher MESH network gateway is designed to communicate with NODES and other Gateways on one network, receiving/transmitting radio based payloads.



These payloads contain data that will be later processed by a backend computer program. The data can contain a wide range of inputs including GEO location (Topographical Coordinates), time/date, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature, and more. Gateways enable access and communication to the Internet, sending and receiving data to a server backend program. The backend program is designed to communicate with a web based interface and mobile app, both synchronized for data viewing. The Gateway will include a built-in encryption sub-system for signal security and privacy. In addition, the backend program will also include security mechanisms that are integrated within the mobile app to ensure safe and secured operation. The Gateway unit includes BLE (Low Power Blue Tooth), Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardwire connection. This is done to enable maximum flexibility for Internet access. The unit will work with a rubber ducky type of antenna for high performance. The Gateway unit electronic schematic has been successfully completed and the system will enter now into its testing/debugging mode by next week.

"We are glad to announce that we completed our MESH system's Gateway unit electronic design and produced its schematics. We are now starting its FW (Firmware) design implementation and testing," stated Danny Rittman, Gopher's CTO. "A robust MESH network depends on an efficient gateway architecture since its a key player within the system. With our MESH network we expect to use only few gateway units, placed in key topographical locations, to cover very large areas. Our gateway system is designed to provide advanced performance, security and can be used for wide variety of MESH applications, among them are military/security, autonomous machines/robotics and global tracking."

About Gopher Protocol Inc.

Gopher Protocol Inc. (OTCQB: GOPH) (Gopher) (http://gopherprotocol.com/) is a development-stage company which consider itself Native IoT creator, developing Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence enabled mobile technology. Gopher has a portfolio of Intellectual Property that when commercialized will include smart microchips, mobile application software and supporting cloud software. The system contemplates the creation of a global mesh network. The core of the system will be its advanced microchip technology that can be installed in any mobile or fixed device worldwide. Gopher envisions this system as a low-cost, secure, private mesh network between any enabled devices, providing shared processing, advanced mobile database management/sharing and enhanced mobile features as an alternative to traditional carrier services.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission located at their website (http://www.sec.gov). In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, governmental and public policy changes, the Companys ability to raise capital on acceptable terms, if at all, the Companys successful development of its products and the integration into its existing products and the commercial acceptance of the Companys products. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.
The buyer of an 84-mile pipeline encircling Philadelphia has disclosed detailed plans to convert the pipeline from oil to natural gas, saying the project would require several new compressor and valve stations to move fuel to its Marcus Hook destination.

Adelphia Gateway LLC, which announced in November it is buying the underused pipeline for $189 million from Talen Energy Corp., filed its 1,285-page application Friday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Adelphia, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, announced the filing late Monday.

"This important project will utilize existing infrastructure to provide greater access to clean, safe, affordable natural gas to underserved markets in the Greater Philadelphia region," Stephen Westhoven, chief operating officer of New Jersey Resources, said in a statement.

The company asked FERC to approve the project by Aug. 1 so that it can complete the purchase of the pipeline, which is now known as Interstate Energy Co. LLC.

The underground pipeline now delivers either oil or natural gas to two Talen power plants in Northampton County, but would be converted to exclusively transport gas. Adelphia Gateway plans to convert the southern 50-mile portion of the pipeline, which formerly carried oil and has been idle since 2014, to transport gas southward to customers in Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware Counties.

The pipeline is the latest piece in a massive regional build-out of energy infrastructure to accommodate new demand for natural gas, triggered by the boom in fracked gas from the region's shale fields. The pipelines have aroused fierce resistance from neighbors and environmentalists, who oppose the expansion of fossil-fuel consumption.

The Adelphia conversion project would require construction of two new 5,625-horsepower compressor stations, near Quakertown and in Marcus Hook. Adelphia also wants to build a new valve station at one of two proposed locations in Concord Township, Delaware County: Off Baltimore Pike, west of Stoney Bank Road, or next to Springlawn Road, near Purple Martin Drive.

The plans include several meter and regulator facilities, typically where the pipeline connects with customers or meets other pipelines, and eight new "blowdown" assemblies located at existing valve stations. A blowdown is the release of gas from a pipeline to the atmosphere to relieve pressure so the pipe can undergo maintenance.

Adelphia also proposes to build two new 16-inch-diameter lateral pipes to connect the planned Marcus Hook compressor station to the gas distribution systems of Peco Energy Co. and Delmarva Power.

The company said the conversion would create "minimal environmental impacts" and the need to acquire few new easements. Nevertheless, the project has already drawn flack from environmental groups.

Adelphia in November conducted an "open season" to solicit bids from potential new customers who would use the pipeline, and said it received more than twice as many bids as the pipeline's 250,000-cubic foot capacity. The robust interest prompted the Sierra Club of New Jersey to warn that Adelphia wants to double the pipeline's capacity, though the company's filing does not include any expansion plans.

The company did not disclose its primary customers, but the interconnections with Peco and Delmarva Power suggest that local utilities and their customers could tap into the new capacity. Other potential customers include the Energy Transfer Partners' Marcus Hook Industrial Complex, the Monroe Energy refinery in Trainer, and the Braskem polypropylene plant in Marcus Hook, which could use the gas for power generation or as a raw material in petrochemical production.

"The project will also increase the reliability and flexibility of the natural gas pipeline grid in the area by adding new capacity to the market and increasing the number of interconnections along the grid," the company said in the filing.

The 18-inch diameter pipeline connects with the Texas Eastern natural gas pipeline at an existing interchange near Rich Hill Road in Richland Township, Bucks County, where a new compressor station is proposed. The pipeline also intersects with two other interstate pipelines.

The pipeline was built in the 1970s to deliver oil from Sunoco's former Marcus Hook refinery to power plants owned by Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. It was partly converted to natural gas in 1996 as oil began to fall from favor as a fuel source for electricity generation.

Adelphia will continue to supply natural gas on the northern 34-mile section of the pipe to Talen Energy's Martins Creek and Lower Mount Bethel generating stations.

Adelphia's parent company, New Jersey Resources, which is based in Wall, N.J., also owns New Jersey Natural Gas.

In addition to FERC approval, the project will require review by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which regulates the current pipeline.
A petroleum pipeline that encircles the Pennsylvania suburbs around Philadelphia will be converted to deliver natural gas from Bucks County to Marcus Hook under a $189 million deal announced Thursday between Talen Energy Corp. and New Jersey Resources Corp.

Talen, which is based in Allentown, is selling its Interstate Energy Co. LLC pipeline unit to Adelphia Gateway, LLC, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, which is based in Wall, N.J. The 84-mile underground pipeline was now delivers either oil or natural gas to two Talen power plants in Northampton County.

Adelphia Gateway plans to convert the southern 50-mile portion of the pipeline, which now transports oil in a northern direction, to transport gas southward to customers in Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties. Adelphia on Thursday launched an "open season" to solicit bids from potential new customers.

The 18-inch diameter pipeline will connect with the Texas Eastern natural gas pipeline at an existing interchange near Rich Hill Road in Richland Township, Bucks County and would deliver up to 250,000 thousand cubic feet of gas a day, providing a substantial new source of gas to the region.

"Today, the Philadelphia market is constrained with limited access to affordable energy sources," said Steve Westhoven, senior vice president of NJR Midstream, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources. "With the Adelphia Gateway project, we look forward to applying our market expertise to serve customers and support economic development opportunities in the region."

Adelphia will to continue to supply natural gas on the northern 34-mile section of pipe to Talen Energy's Martins Creek and Lower Mount Bethel generating stations.

The pipeline was built in the 1970s to deliver oil from Sunoco's former Marcus Hook refinery to power plants owned by Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. It was partly converted to natural gas in 1996. With the refinery's closure and oil's fall from favor as a fuel source for electricity generation, the pipeline becomes the latest piece of energy infrastructure converted to accommodate new gas production from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale fields.

The sale requires the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, and is expected take about a year to close.
Transactions Positions Aleafia as Major Supplier, Retailer of Adult-use Cannabis

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aleafia Health Inc. (TSXV: ALEF; OTCQX: ALEAF, FRA: ARAH) (Aleafia or the Company), and Serruya Private Equity (Serruya and together with the Company, the Parties), have settled final forms of definitive joint venture and other agreements that will see the Parties launch a Canada-wide cannabis retail Joint Venture (Retail JV) along with a domestic and international cannabis brands Joint-Venture (Brands JV, and together with the Retail JV, the Joint Venture). Serruya will also make a $10 million strategic investment in Aleafia via a non-brokered private placement financing (Private Placement) and Aleafia will invest $5 million of such gross proceeds of the Private Placement into the Joint Venture.



The Brands JV will conduct business under the name Flying High Brands Inc. with Aleafia owning fifty-one percent (51%) and Serruya owning forty-nine percent (49%). The Joint Venture enables multiple income streams throughout the value chain, with Aleafias cultivation producing cannabis for processing, extraction, packaging and eventual listing in retail locations and with provincial distributors.

Additional Highlights:

Backed and supported with a $10 million investment by Serruya and its affiliate, International Franchise Inc., which has over 4500 quick service restaurant locations in over 50 countries

Serruya has also been a leading early cannabis industry force as cannabis industry investors in both emerging and established issuers and other industry participants

Launch approximately 20 proposed retail outlets, with a subsequent national and international expansion plan (excluding the U.S.)

With turn-key store launch, licensing agreements cover established, commercially proven international cannabis brands

Ready-made store design and retail systems in place, along with intellectual property including genetics and packaging

We greatly look forward to working closely with Aleafias strong management team. Together we will build and scale a retail cannabis chain with immediate national reach and global expansion plans, said Aaron Serruya, a principal of SPE. We are very excited to once again play an early role in developing one of the worlds largest cannabis companies.

Aleafia is now well positioned to produce commercially proven international cannabis brands for our national cannabis retail network along with provincial distributors, said Aleafia Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Benic. In launching adult-use cannabis operations, we will greatly benefit from working with and receiving Serruyas substantial financial backing. These transactions will see Aleafia immediately assume a leadership role in adult-use cannabis production, supply and retailing, complementing our proven medical cannabis operations.

Strategic Investment:

Serruya will also make a strategic investment in Aleafia through a $10 million non-brokered private placement and in return acquire 5 million common shares in Aleafia at a price of $2.00 per share.

The Retail JV will conduct business under the name One Plant (Retail) Corp. with Aleafia owning 9.9 percent and Serruya owning 90.1 percent. Aleafia will have the right of first refusal to increase ownership in the Retail JV up to 49 percent, subject to compliance with applicable provincial regulations at all material times. Aleafia will purchase its 51 percent stake in the Brands JV company by way of an issuance from treasury and the issuance of 6 million common shares in Aleafia to Serruya.

The transactions are subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of final approvals of the TSX Venture Exchange.

For Investor & Media Relations, please contact:

Nicholas Bergamini, VP, Public Affairs

IR@AleafiaInc.com

About Aleafia Health Inc.:

Aleafia is a vertically integrated, national cannabis company with major medical clinic, cannabis cultivation and R&D operations. The company is a federally licensed producer and vendor of cannabis and will reach an annual production capacity of 98,000 kg of dried cannabis in 2019.

Aleafia operates 22 medical cannabis clinics staffed by physicians and nurse practitioners, with over 50,000 patients. The company is highly differentiated, maintaining the largest medical cannabis dataset in the world with significant intellectual property holdings and current R&D operations.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of management and reflect the Company's current expectations. When used in this press release, the words "estimate", "project", "belief", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "plan", "predict", "may" or "should" and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release includes information relating to the implementation of Aleafia Health's business plan. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with the implementation of Aleafia Health's business plan and matters relating thereto, risks associated with the cannabis industry, competition, regulatory change, the need for additional financing, reliance on key personnel, the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers or directors, and the volatility of the Company's common share price and volume. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
As it becomes harder to find building lots in desirable neigbhorhoods like Rittenhouse Square, developers are manaufacturing new real estate through overbuilds. But the designs often stick out like sore thumbs, like this addition at 2110 Walnut by Urban Space Development. Read more

The south side of Walnut between 21st and 22nd Streets is a classic, 19th-century, Rittenhouse Square ensemble. While each four-story townhouse is slightly different in design, it's clear they all belong to the same regiment. The windows skip along at the same height, flowing from one house to the next. The top floors all feature sloping mansard roofs. The elegant streetscape, which includes a pair of houses designed by Frank Furness, is bracketed at the corners by slim high-rises.

But over the last year, an interloper has appeared among this well-mannered group, sowing discord. Poking out from a pleasant street wall of warm limestone and chocolaty brownstone is a slick, mini-skyscraper faced in flat glass panels. The modern structure looks as if it had made an emergency landing on the roof of the old townhouses. At the west end of Chancellor Street, a dull-gray wall looms like a medieval rampart over the tiny, 19th-century carriage houses.

The mini-skyscraper is, in fact, an overbuild, a kind of vertical addition that is becoming an increasingly common feature in Philadelphia's skyline. The glass structure sprawls across three properties, which have been combined to form a nine-story, nine-unit luxury condo tower. The building now tops out at 127 feet, more than double the height of the four-story townhouses. But the height of the condo project isn't the problem. The design is.

Architects love to use glass when they're making additions to historic buildings. They claim that the material is so ethereal that it appears to melt into the sky. Don't believe it. This glass addition, designed by Cecil Baker + Partners for developer Tim Shaaban, is solid proof that glass is just as visible and imposing as any other building material.

Rather than pretending the vertical addition wouldn't be seen, it would have made more sense to unify the project's three main parts. That probably would have meant using real limestone to match the facade of the Furness townhouse that forms the base of the new tower.

Instead, the developer and architects treat each section of the overbuild with a different material and different architectural style. The result is an architectural Frankenstein that looks as if it had been pieced together from a collection of disparate body parts.

To be fair, some of the worst aspects of the design spring from the developer's efforts to appease a group of self-centered and irrational neighbors.

Shaaban had originally planned to locate the curb cut for the condo's garage on the Chancellor Street alley. But it turned out that the narrow lane is a private street, and the property owners vetoed the idea. As a result, Shaaban moved the garage entrance to Walnut Street. Not only is Walnut one of Center City's premier streets, it is a major route for pedestrians walking to the universities and motorists heading to I-76. The last thing Center City needs right now is more congestion from drivers crossing the Walnut Street sidewalk to enter the garage.

The Chancellor Street neighbors made a technically complicated project even more complicated. The nine-story condo tower (which is being called 2110 Walnut) was created by combining three properties: the Furness townhouse, a new modern townhouse and a Chancellor Street carriage house. That new townhouse was built on a small, vacant lot, which had been used for private parking since the '60s.

The parking lot's existence is the reason that Shaaban was able to get city's approval for a garage entrance on Walnut Street. In the view of the Zoning Board, once a curb cut has been approved, it exists for eternity, no matter how disruptive it might be to the public good.

Eric Leighton, who led the architectural team, said he designed the new townhouse as a modern riff on the Furness house, which dates from 1868. But the white fiber cement panels, which were used to mimic Furness' dusky limestone, fool nobody. Even the glass on the overbuild is flat and lifeless. Most shocking is the required fire wall on Chancellor Street, which will be a blight on the neighborhood for decades.

Of course, you can find much worse designs going up all around the city. What makes 2110 Walnut so disappointing is that it represents what is supposed to be the leading edge of Philadelphia architecture. The condos have been selling for $1,100 a square foot  essentially New York prices  and the penthouse went for $6 million.

The bland and awkward design is especially discouraging because it sets the tone for future developer overbuilds. Even though Philadelphia is a big sprawling city (142 square miles, to be exact) and still has a huge inventory of vacant lots (over 40,000 at last count), developers continue focus their efforts on the same handful of neighborhoods.

Their range narrows even more when they are building high-priced condos. It's rare to find a developer willing to stray beyond the confines of Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill. Yet those two neighborhoods have practically run out of vacant land.

Because both are also historic districts, developers can't simply tear down an older building to make room for a bigger, fancier one. They can, however, get permission to modify them. One way to do that is with an overbuild, which effectively creates new real estate out of thin air.

Shaaban's companies, Astoban Investments and Urban Space Developments, now specialize in such overbuilds. They scour Center City for undersized buildings in high-density zoning districts. Last year they put a three-story condo addition on the Philadelphia Blueprint building at Eighth and Chestnut. Shaaban is now constructing a four-story overbuild on a nondescript building at 22nd and Chestnut, across from the Greenfield Elementary School. Meanwhile, another developer has jumped on the bandwagon and is raising the roof on a modest four-story building at 23rd and Walnut.

Although developers see overbuilds as a means to extract value from older buildings in desirable areas, the additions can also have a public benefit. Like facadectomies  a variation in which only the front of the building is preserved  overbuilds can offset the cost of renovating historic structures. Even though the Furness house in Shaaban's project was previously occupied by apartments, its handsome limestone facade had been ignored for decades, probably because the rental income didn't justify major investment.

But just because overbuilds are a preservation tool doesn't excuse what happened at 2110 Walnut. Blank walls, curb cuts, and bland design are far too steep a price to pay for preserving Philadelphia's valuable architectural heritage.
Erin, Julie and Miriam Rebbechi (left to right), Zahara Shapiro (top) and daughter Aliyah Shapiro at a Tuesday night vigil in Paddock Park for a toddler struck and killed at a nearby YMCA parking lot. Read more

They were there, men and women holding candles and hot chocolate in the wintry cold of a darkened playground in Haverford Township, because the 2-year-old girl who died in the YMCA parking lot a block away could have been their own.

They were there  moms and dads, children and childless adults, and workers of the YMCA itself  even the woman who mops the shower floors during Saturday-morning swim lessons. All had trudged through the crunchy autumn leaves of Paddock Park to stand beneath a moonlit sky, shoulder to shoulder, in the heart of Havertown.

They had come to pray, because that seemed the only thing anyone could do.

Many were strangers. All were there for a 27-month-old girl most had never met. For a 34-year-old mother who had noticed a moment too late that her tot had wandered away from the family car on Saturday afternoon, and been struck by an SUV pulling into another spot.

They were there, too, for the driver, a 59-year-old man who police said had pulled into the YMCA for a workout but left devastated  "as shook up as anybody could be," in Police Chief John Viola's own words to me.

The YMCA had closed at 7 for the Tuesday-night vigil and cordoned off the spot in its busy parking lot where the accident had happened. Traffic cones and a small chair with flowers and stuffed animals marked the space where the little girl lost her life around lunchtime on a busy Saturday at one of Pennsylvania's busiest YMCAs. A bench by the front door overflowed with toys and flowers, too. A little girl leaving the Y with her mom asked about the bench.

"Because somebody got hurt," the woman said, gripping the girl and her older sister as she shepherded them toward their own car in the lot. "Come on, girlie girls."

A viewing for the child, identified by police as Lindsay Pham Vo, was held Tuesday night, ahead of a planned Wednesday Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Manoa.

Beyond the devastation of her mother and father, there has been shattering grief across the community. A shuddering reminder that life can be so cruel to anyone at any time. That parenting itself is a high-wire act that can go haywire more often than any parent can afford to admit.

From the very moment a child is born, you spend millions of infinitesimally small moments trying to keep that little creature safe. No one tells you this until you have a kid, but life actually slows down as you learn, minute by minute, to feed the nonspeaking infant. To read the child's mind and call the doctor when something seems wrong. To make sure the child doesn't drown in the bathtub. Doesn't tumble down the steps. Doesn't choke on a piece of cheese.

The child makes it to school age, and still  there is worry, worry, worry. What happened in that parking lot is a version of every parent's worst nightmare.

"This is Molly," Jaime DiZio told me beneath a small park pavilion lit by candles and a few donated lights plugged into a generator. Jaime is 44, a mom of three. Molly, 8, is her youngest and the only one with her. "I told her I brought her here because I needed someone's hand to hold."

Why come to this vigil, I asked?

"I just wanted to support the family," Jaime told me. "It hits very close to home. It could happen to any family."

But why for a stranger? I wanted to understand more deeply what was going through this parent's heart.

Jaime began to cry.

"I have a daughter who had cancer. She survived. She's doing wonderfully," she said, her voice buckling with every other word. "Just being so close to loss; I've stared down that path many times. I can only imagine what this mother is going through. She's been on my mind.

"It just makes you want to wrap your arms around your family extra tight." Jaime pulled her daughter close.

On happier days, this park is crowded with hundreds of children whose parents schlep them over for everyone-wins-a-prize running races. Kids as little as 2 toddle toward the finish line in what is quite possibly one of the cutest things you'll ever see on a Sunday afternoon.

This park is in the heart of a suburban Philadelphia town brimming with young families. Older residents in recent years have sold their modest twins and singles to newcomers. Schools are at capacity. The Y is in the geographic center of town, crowded with 27,000 members because it serves the Main Line, Upper Darby, Broomall, and many other communities.

Many people were at the Y when Lindsay was struck. One of them, a man perhaps in his 60s, walked into police headquarters on Monday and found the chief. But not to offer a witness account.

Rather, this man had lost his own child 15 years ago in a bicycle collision. Chief Viola had investigated that tragedy. The man was reliving his child's death all over again.

"He was pretty emotional," Viola told me. "He just wanted to talk to somebody."

Joe Leopold, whom I met at the vigil with his 4-year-old son, Jacob, and 5-year-old daughter, Eva, had been at the Y during the accident. He has a 28-month-old daughter, too  same age as Lindsay.

"I had trouble sleeping that night," Joe said.

One can only imagine the depth of suffering in the hearts of Lindsay's parents. Hearts that must be crushed by the cruelty of it all.
President Donald Trump (left) as sharply rebuked for his shameful defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which ignored the CIA's conclusion that the prince ordered the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (right). Read more

Three things happened this Thanksgiving week that made me thankful to be an American journalist  even as President Trump continues his war on the press.

First, the Trump administration was forced by a federal judge to restore the White House press credentials it revoked from CNN correspondent Jim Acosta for specious reasons.

Second, the president was sharply rebuked by both GOP and (newly empowered) Democratic legislators for his shameful defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS), which ignored the CIA's conclusion that the prince ordered the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Finally, the Kremlin used a cowed court system to crush the New Times, the last independent news magazine in Moscow, reminding us of what happens to investigative media in countries that lack checks and balances.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we have a free press if we can keep it  and can curb a president who wishes he could silence the critical press.

The punishment of Acosta was part of the president's battle against the "enemies of the people"  a Stalinesque label he confers on journalists who challenge his lies and conspiracy theories. The battle will continue.

Trump's response to the Khashoggi murder reveals his affection for autocrats who tolerate, or order, the killing of critics. There is no way two planes containing a 15-man hit team full of top aides to MBS could have been dispatched to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul without the Crown Prince's knowledge.

Yet, in a presidential statement labelled "Standing with Saudi Arabia" Trump sloughed off the murder. Moreover, Trump's claims that the Saudis are a security bulwark against Iran and a source of $450 billion in investments in the USA are gross exaggerations. Almost none of the defense contracts Trump bragged about have materialized.

And every foreign venture MBS has tried has turned sour, including the endless war in Yemen. He has been of little help in pushing back Iran or helping Trump concoct his long-awaited deal for Palestinian-Israeli peace.

So why won't Trump pressure the Saudis? Is it because his son-in-law Jared Kushner is buddies with MBS?

Whatever the reason, the president's support for the Crown Prince sends a signal he's indifferent to murders of journalists by autocrats he favors. Indeed, Trump has repeatedly defended Vladimir Putin when queried about the dozens of murdered Russian journalists during Putin's presidency.

Other autocrats get the message: Don't expect any U.S. pushback if you snuff out pesky journalists; the leader of the free world doesn't give a damn about freedom of the press.

Yet, to understand how privileged American journalists still are, you need only pay attention to Kremlin efforts week to silence New Times, the last Russian news magazine that doggedly critiqued the Kremlin.

Russian officials have long harassed New Times' indomitable editor Yevgenia Albats, with whom I shared an office as an exchange journalist in 1990. Albats was the first writer-in-residence for a short spell at University of Pennsylvania's Perry World House last year in a program for journalists under threat.

And the threats were blatant: A bomb was placed under her car hood several years ago. Advertisers, printers, and distributors were scared away, forcing New Times to switch to a digital-only format. "We are too political and toxic," Albats told me by Skype from Moscow. "To give us money is to announce your disloyalty to Putin himself."

This week, a Russian appeals court confirmed a previous order for New Times to pay more than 22 million rubles (nearly $330,000) on specious charges that the paper had failed to report foreign funding. The original court order was issued three days after Albats did a radio interview with Alexei Navalny, the most prominent Russian opposition leader, who is a thorn in Putin's side.

Amazingly, after Albats announced her plight, small donations poured in from all over Russia, raising $380,000 in several days, enough to pay the fine and keep the magazine going for the short term.

When we spoke, however, Albats expressed sharp disappointment at Trump's treatment of the U.S. press, and his indifference to repression of journalists elsewhere. "We looked up to the USA as some kind of model," she said. "Now, no longer. It is very frightening to see what we saw with Acosta. And calling journalists 'enemies of the people' is very disturbing."

But she added, in reference to Acosta: "I cannot even imagine someone who went that hard against Putin and would regain access to the Kremlin. That suggests you [American journalists] are still able to fight back."

So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful that we Americans still fight back with the help of (so far) independent courts. I am thankful that a majority of Americans still believe in a free press, despite the plethora of conspiracy websites that Trump admires.

Yet, at a time when the U.S. president excuses foreign leaders who hate journalists and shows no appreciation for a free press, we must take to heart Albats' final warning: "It is important for you to realize that freedom is very easy to lose."
Archbishop Wood High School Director of Marketing and Communications Lisa James shows video on her phone from a test run of the newly installed technology that allows security cameras that detect someone with a weapon to immediately send text alerts to staff and police. Read more

It's the nightmare scenario that has already played out in American schools from Littleton, Colo., to Parkland, Fla., and now terrifies every educator: An intruder makes it onto school property with a loaded firearm.

But this time it's different. As soon as the school security camera captures an image of the gunman, artificial intelligence, or AI, software picks up the presence of the weapon and sends an instant alert to the smartphones of school administrators and police. Within a few seconds, school leaders can confront the intruder through a loudspeaker and order a lockdown.

When that scenario played out this month at Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, it was only a demonstration  a test of the school's new object-recognition software, aimed at offering educators hope that AI-driven technology is a way to stop the next deadly school shooting before it starts.

The Bucks County Catholic high school this fall became the first in the nation to connect its security cameras to a server with the AI software developed by startup Athena Security. The company was co-founded by a Cheltenham native, Chris Ciabarra, whose mother taught chemistry at Wood for nearly 50 years.

"I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it," said Gary Zimmaro, president of the nearly 900-student high school, explaining why Wood eagerly signed up to become the pioneering user of the detection system. He noted that the high school has never had a shooting incident and has always been safety-conscious, with 30 security cameras and required access swipes.

A high-tech solution like the Athena system typically runs $100 per month for each camera  Wood officials wouldn't say how much they paid as a test client  and has yet to prove its effectiveness in a real-life threat.

But the interest in such a futuristic solution shows the urgency school leaders are placing on innovative security measures in the wake of February's assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, which claimed 17 lives and was one of roughly 200 school shooting incidents since 1999's Columbine High School massacre in Littleton.

The most frequent responses  active-shooter drills and Stop the Bleed programs  tend to be reactive rather than proactive, which is a selling point for the AI system touted by Athena.

"Why would you want humans looking at TV screens all day?" said Ciabarra in explaining why he and partner Lisa Falzone, who also worked with him on a Silicon Valley payment-system startup called Revel Systems, have such high hopes for the AI solution. "If they get tired or go to the bathroom, they miss the problem."

With the Wood installation, Athena, based in Austin, Texas, has planted a flag amid a growing number of rivals like SN Technologies  which recently sold its AI-driven system to a school system in western New York state for $3.3 million  seeking to profit in the push for more effective security measures.

The 42-year-old Ciabarra experienced the typical ups and downs of a high-tech venture with Revel, which had raised $130 million for its point-of-sale software; he and Falzone had just sold the firm to a venture-capital outfit when news broke of 2017's Las Vegas shooting that took 58 lives.

"With all the school shootings we're seeing, we thought, how can we use technology to stop all these crimes?" Ciabarra said. The Athena founders were aware, he said, of recent advances in facial- and object-recognition software through technology like IBM's Watson, but saw a need for a niche product targeting potential shootings.

School and company officials said the system installed at Wood has been fed thousands of images of various weapons and has a 99 percent success rate in demonstrations like the one this month attended by parents and educators from other local schools.

Zimmaro noted that the smartphone app sends the live video along with an alert so school officials can determine whether there's an actual threat before confirming it with Warminster Township police, who are also plugged into the system.

Ciabarra said he believes a feature that would allow a school staffer to speak into his or her phone and address an apparent intruder through a speaker has the potential to defuse some potential incidents. "That way you can try to talk them down," he said.

The new security system is running in just two locations  the other is an ice cream shop in Northern California  but the start-up has more sales in the pipeline. Already, the firm is working on expanding the system's capabilities  including lowering the cost of radar technology aimed at detecting concealed weapons under clothes or even through walls.

"You can also do fight detection," Ciabarra said. "We're working on knives. Basically, our customers are coming to us with different requests."

At Wood, officials said there are plans to expand the network of security cameras to more than 50 locations on its 32-acre campus. Officials at other Catholic schools that attended the meeting are interested in the system, Ciabarra said.

"I hope we never have to use it," Zimmaro said of the weapons alerts. "We haven't had threats at Archbishop Wood, and we hope we never do."
Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks to the crowd as she presents her memoir during her book tour stop in Washington on Nov. 17. Read more

Miscarriage is "lonely, painful, and demoralizing," Michelle Obama writes in her new memoirs. Yet, by some estimates, it ends as many as 1 in 5 pregnancies before the 20-week mark.

The former first lady's disclosure that she and former President Barack Obama suffered from fertility issues, including losing a pregnancy, has sparked conversations about miscarriage, a common but also commonly misunderstood loss.

Psychologists say that ignorance can contribute to the emotional and psychological toll of losing a pregnancy, isolating women and their partners and leaving loved ones uncertain of how to comfort them.

Nearly five years later, Becky Shaw of Woodbridge, Va., still remembers texting her friend after her miscarriage, just asking if she was around to talk. Within a couple of minutes, her friend called. "I don't even remember what she was saying, but she made me laugh," Shaw said.

The trauma began early in her first pregnancy. Shaw, now 35, had experienced some bleeding when she and her husband showed up for her checkup on Christmas Eve in 2013. The nurse performing the ultrasound was wearing a Santa hat.

"You can tell when something's wrong," Shaw said. "She's just staring at the screen. And then she was finally like, 'Can you hold your breath?' "

The nurse struggled to find the baby's heartbeat, which she said was dangerously low and could stop. For weeks, Shaw felt "like a time bomb." She miscarried in early January.

Shaw said it is important for a woman like Obama to speak out about her miscarriage. "It just makes people feel less alone," she said. "My miscarriage wrecked me, and I had the most supportive friends and the best doctors."

Many grief counselors are praising Obama for illuminating  and normalizing  miscarriage, helping families cope with their own loss.

"What a gift," said Helen L. Coons, a clinical health psychologist specializing in women's behavioral health at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Miscarriage, or the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks, is so common that Americans often stay quiet about their pregnancies until after the first trimester, when the majority of miscarriages occur. Improvements in early pregnancy detection and the use of fertility treatments have also increased the likelihood that couples learn they have miscarried, whereas they once might not have even known they were pregnant.

The risks are greater for black women, who are more likely to experience pregnancy loss than white women. (Black infants are also much more likely to die during their first year of life, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

For such a common occurrence, though, much about miscarriage is widely misunderstood. A 2015 survey found that many people do not understand its causes, with more than a fifth of respondents saying they believed lifestyle choices (such as smoking or drinking alcohol) are the most common cause. In reality, most miscarriages are caused by genetic problems.

Other factors that respondents wrongly identified as potential causes included lifting heavy objects (believed by 64 percent); having had a sexually transmitted disease (41 percent); and even getting into an argument (21 percent).

It is uncommon to find out the cause of one's miscarriage, and women frequently blame themselves. The survey also found that 47 percent of those who had experienced a miscarriage reported feeling guilty; 41 percent reported feeling alone. Some women are also left with worries that they are infertile.

Nancy Molitor, a clinical psychologist and professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said she asked herself the same question as many women when she suffered her own miscarriage, a trauma that nearly killed her: What did I do wrong?

In 1996, when she miscarried, "nobody talked about it," she said. Now she counsels women, some in their 80s or 90s, who bring up their miscarriages decades later. "There's a wistfulness about the fact that they never talked about that," Molitor said, adding, "You were told, 'move on, honey. Move on, dear. It wasn't meant to be.' "

Couples who miscarry also find themselves grappling with a grief that comes with no set rules or rituals. Stefania Patrizio of Philadelphia and her husband waited until she was 12 weeks along to tell their family and friends she was pregnant. She was showing by the time she miscarried at around 20 weeks.

"There were a lot of people who didn't know how to handle it, because it's a different type of grief, it's a different type of  I guess I'll say death, because it's not someone you knew," she said. "It was a grief of a dream."

Conceiving her daughter  who was born a year after her miscarriage, almost to the day  did not ease her fears. "I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to get excited," said Patrizio, now 34. "Even just the click click click of the [ultrasound] machine would give me so much anxiety."

Coons recommends that pregnant women reach out to at least one or two people close to them to discuss any fears they may have. That could mean disclosing an early pregnancy to a couple of friends before revealing it publicly, so they not only can talk about their anxieties but also have loved ones ready to help should something go wrong.

Aline Zoldbrod, a Boston-based psychologist who runs SexSmart.com and has written about infertility, recommends loved ones avoid using lines like "you'll have another one" to comfort those who have lost a pregnancy, which can come across as delegitimizing their loss. She said it can be enough to simply say, "I am so sorry."

Many have found peace in their own rituals or remembrances. After losing their pregnancy, Patrizio and her husband camped out together on a pullout sofa they dubbed "our island"  eating, sleeping, visiting with friends and crying.

They also traveled to Scotland, where they spent time hiking. One day, alone by a lake, they held their own ceremony, reading a poem before throwing a few keepsakes from the pregnancy into the water.
Outspent and outmatched in her 2014 bid to reclaim a congressional seat she held for one term in the 1990s, former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Margolies engaged in what federal prosecutors have called a conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.

Her campaign, they said, illegally spent money flagged for the general election in a bid to pull her across the finish line in the primary. Later, when asked to repay those funds, she accepted money raised by her top political strategist and forwarded it to her campaign, describing it on her finance reports as a personal loan.

But as she described those maneuvers to a federal jury Wednesday, the 76-year-old Democrat said it was the strategist  Ken Smukler  who assured her every step of the way that what she was doing was legal.

"My question to Ken was, 'Is this OK?'" she said. "His answer was yes."

Margolies' testimony came in the fifth day of Smukler's trial. A fixture in Philadelphia Democratic circles and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady's longtime political guru, Smukler is charged with violating federal campaign law while working on Margolies' campaign and in a reelection bid for Brady in 2012.

But as Margolies delivered her own account of her 2014 campaign, the circumstances under which she was testifying were almost as remarkable as what she said.

Margolies  whose daughter-in-law is Chelsea Clinton and who has also been a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor  spoke under a grant of immunity from prosecution.

Testifying Wednesday, she maintained that she never believed she had broken the law  a fact that Smukler's lawyer, Brian McMonagle, emphasized during his cross-examination.

Since Smukler was indicted last year, McMonagle has questioned both in and out of court how if what the strategist did was illegal, the candidates with whom he did it aren't seated alongside him at the defense table.

For her part, Margolies described the 2014 primary campaign  a four-way race, won by Brendan Boyle, to replace former Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz in the 13th District  as hectic and stressful. Vying for the opportunity to again represent parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, she said she was surprised at how quickly her bid foundered  as were others involved in the race.

Jonathan Saidel, Philadelphia's former controller, told the jury that he at one point had mulled running but considered Margolies a formidable opponent given her connection to the Clintons and their donors, and the support she had in Washington.

"It was my assumption President Clinton was going to swoop into Northeast Philadelphia and hold a rally for her, and it was going to catapult her into winning the primary," he said. "If, in 2013, Clinton had come to Northeast Philadelphia, my own mother would have gone to that rally."

Saidel described being summoned to an early 2014 meeting at which Brady and Smukler tried to persuade him to not run against Margolies. The congressman, he said, handed him a phone with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer on the other end to demonstrate that Margolies had Washington's backing.

Saidel left that meeting with an offer to join Margolies' campaign. But signs of trouble were already apparent as Boyle, with strong union backing, was proving to be stiff competition.

By April 2014, the Margolies campaign had run out of money that it could legally spend in the primary. So, as prosecutors tell it, Smukler illegally tapped contributions that had been earmarked for the general election. Federal campaign finance laws forbid such spending and require that losing primary candidates refund all money given to them to support a general election run.

When Margolies lost to Boyle by more than 14 percentage points, she and Smukler did not have enough to pay back her contributors.

Prosecutors allege that to raise the necessary funds and hide what he had done in the earlier phase of the campaign, Smukler solicited $225,000 from his brother and a friend, and routed it through his consulting and communications companies back to Margolies' campaign, which falsely described the transfers as reimbursements.

The Federal Elections Commission later discovered that Smukler's businesses had "refunded" the campaign more than it had paid him in the first place. To fix the problem, the government says, Smukler wrote a $25,000 check from one of his companies to Margolies and told her to transfer the bulk of that money back to her campaign.

Margolies later reported the money as a personal loan on behalf of the candidate. Prosecutors now describe it as an illegal contribution from Smukler.

Smukler also is accused of obstructing a later FEC investigation into those transaction based on a complaint filed by State Sen. Daylin Leach, who was also a candidate in the 2014 race. The FEC dismissed the complaint.

At trial, Smukler has argued that he did legal research to back up his actions and assure himself that the transactions he undertook to repay Margolies' donors were legal. Even if he was wrong, he has argued, he never intended to break the law.

Dylan McGarry, Margolies' former campaign manager, echoed that sentiment in an internal campaign email presented to jurors Wednesday.

"Your research said that the FEC wasn't even fining people for this," McMonagle said while questioning the campaign manager, "let alone indicting them."

But despite McGarry's and Margolies' views about the legality of the campaign's financial moves, prosecutors persistently sought to emphasize just who it was who convinced them.

"Who told you this was legitimate?" asked prosecutor Richard Pilger while questioning Margolies.

The ex-congresswoman's reply: Smukler.
Canada Goose coats are being banned at a school in England. Read more

A British school is banning Canada Goose-brand coats and other pricey outerwear starting in 2019, after students return from winter holidays.

The decision at Woodchurch High School, affiliated with the Church of England and located in a suburb of Liverpool, is meant to protect the self-esteem of youngsters who can't afford the coats  some of which cost as much as $1,000. The ban, which extends to Pyrenex coats that cost $800 and Moncler coats that go for $2,000, is generating widespread reaction in England as well the United States.

Explaining the ban, Woodchurch's head teacher, Rebekah Phillips told CNN: "These coats cause a lot of inequality between pupils. They stigmatize students and parents who are less well off and struggle financially."

Support from parents in the school, which CNN reports has a student body that is 46 percent disadvantaged, has been positive, according to the Liverpool Echo. The decision was made after students and parents had been consulted, the Echo reported.

The ban is part of a campaign of what's being called "poverty-proofing" in British schools. "Poverty-proofing enables schools to identify and overcome the barriers to learning that children and young people from families with less financial resources face," Jeremy Cripps, chief executive of Children North East, a British education nonprofit, told CNN.

The ban roiled the Twitterverse. Opposed to it, some wondered whether expensive haircuts would be outlawed next, or if students would be limited to $10 shoes. One person labeled the ban "absolutely ridiculous."

Others cheered, with one British woman calling Canada Goose coats "an egregious" symbol of wealth.

In Philadelphia, a School District spokesperson said he'd not heard of any such bans of high-end clothing in local schools. "I highly doubt it," he said.

Representatives from the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did anyone from Canada Goose Inc., based in Toronto, or Nordstrom, one of the stores that sell the coats.

The garment is something of a status symbol at the University of Pennsylvania, according to students.

Sophomore Carmen Duran, from Maiden, N.C., said she was amazed that "Penn kids are saying the best ways to stay warm in winter are Canada Goose jackets. I'm from low-economic status, and my father's incarcerated. I can't afford it."

Penn sociologist Annette Lareau said that she and a doctoral candidate have been conducting research on the experiences of first-generation students, the first in their families to attend college. Lareau said that many students brought up Canada Goose coats in their conversations.

"The first-generation students were in wide-eyed amazement that so many others had them, because they're so expensive," Lareau said.

The Canada Goose ban brought to mind school uniforms for Temple University sociologist Judith Levine.

"Schools put students in uniforms usually to take away inequalities, so the cost of fashion is not in the way for kids," she said.

She said, however, that she's not aware of school uniforms extending to coats. At Woodchurch, in fact, students wear uniforms. "I don't know of any example of a U.S. school saying no to North Face jackets," she said.

For high school students, Levine said, "clothing is a real marker of class status. It can be a really socially difficult thing for students who feel pressure to wear clothes they can't afford."

In the United States, Canada Goose isn't widely known, according to CNBC, which reported that the company, with a logo that includes a rendering of the North Pole surrounded by maple leaves, achieved only 16 percent brand awareness in 2017.

Still, as CNBC reported, with overall Canada Goose revenue at $291 million as of 2016, it's clear the coats are winding up on the backs of quite a few customers. Company officials like to point out that the coat was worn by the first Canadian to climb Mount Everest, the man who had the fastest solo South Pole expedition, an Iditarod champion, and Arctic pilots.

The animal-rights group PETA has criticized the manufacturer for using coyote fur and down feathers for its coats.
Instagram famous celebrity hairstylist Cliff Vmir poses for a portrait at 8th and Market on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. Vmir, 21, grew up in Philadelphia and Delaware, and is now entering music. Read more

Cliff Vmir is used to people stopping him on the street. Since he was a teenager, the 21-year-old celebrity hairstylist who grew up in Wilmington and Philly has been Instagram famous.

His parents had pushed him to be a nurse technician. But Vmir became wealthy by selling hair extensions and products. He recalls wanting to be a hairstylist from childhood. By the time he reached eighth grade, he would take the allowance he got for keeping a clean room and buy prepaid debit cards so he could order practice mannequins from Amazon. The mannequins stayed hidden under his bed, out of view from his father, who deeply objected to his career dreams and didn't accept him for being gay.

Vmir (va-MEER) remembers calling the police when his father turned violent after discovering the mannequins. And he recalls the financial crisis that ensued after his dad left the family when Vmir was a high school freshman. That period, he said, is when his true hair hustle began.

Today, he's grown past his first viral client photos, and also past the goosebumps he used to walking into the homes of the celebrities who came calling. He's expanded the product line he launched at 16 and has more than 720,000 followers on Instagram. Every couple of months or so he still styles chart-topping rapper Cardi B, an early fan.

With his success in hair established, he's now reaching for rap stardom. His first single, "Pink City," was released in the fall. He's expecting barriers ahead for being a femme-presenting gay male in hip-hop, but he senses he's ready. Being himself, he said, has been a key to his success.

Vmir, who lives in Atlanta, visited the Inquirer and Daily News to discuss what he's learned in his career so far. The conversation has been edited.

How did you arrive at putting together a product and hair line after you first started going viral?

I [was] like, 'OK, what's next?' Because the followers are here; I'm getting clients, but how else can I maximize my income? I'm young  I should be making money in my sleep.

I was known for straightening hair very well. I was like, I'm going to come up with like a spray to help get the hair really, really straight. And literally I did some research. I reached out to a chemist. I had got an edge control [gel] and a spray. It did so good.

When did you start to see, "Not only am I good as I am, but I know that I can push my business further as myself"?

[Back] when I was doing hair and I still was wearing the makeup but I had a Mohawk, I feel like people liked me and stuff. But I feel like, now that I have the wig and I have this personality? I was like, 'This is the person people love. This is who they was waiting on. This is Vmir.'

That's when people like fell in love with who I was. And I fell in love with myself, because you can always talk that confident stuff, but the question is, are you very confident?

So, honey, that year ago, when I first put on that wig? I ain't turn back. And I been going.

So now you're at the stage in your career where you're branching out and you're looking at music. Why music?

I love being in the spotlight. I love all eyes on me. That's just how I am. And I feel like rapping right now. I feel like I have an easy open shot. Especially with me doing all of these people's hair in the industry and being a big celebrity hairstylist, people already know who I am. So now it's time to show them what I'm working with and push through.

Who are your favorite rappers?

Cardi B is the turn-up queen. She's like going to the club and you just dance and have a great time. Nicki Minaj, I love her  Of course, I love Lil' Kim. I love Eve, Missy Elliott. Honestly, I feel like all female rappers are really dope. I really do.

Music has definitely changed. I feel like it's not hip-hop no more. It's more like trap music, and that's fine. A lot of AutoTune, and that's fine if we're going to go with that sound, but I definitely felt like you can never go wrong with just spitting a raw nice rap.

What about your style, your approach to hair  is it really a Philly, Delaware, South Jersey thing?

Honestly, everything I do is like a Philly thing. When I'm in Atlanta and they're like, 'Oh, my God, how do you get it so flat and shiny and close to face?' and it's like, 'You wouldn't understand because it's a Philly thing.'

What is it like navigating all the different expectations that come with the different businesses you have?

No matter what I'm doing, I'm still the same Cliff. I still act the same exact way.

Even when I'm working with my celebrity clients, I've learned that when you act uptight and you act nervous, they start being mean to you. And they start feeling like, 'Well, why are you nervous? You should know what you're doing.'

How do you stay true to yourself?

My mom raised me very well. She taught me right from wrong. She told me, 'Don't let people get over on you.'

I pray all the time  When I'm true to myself and true to God, that's all that matters.

You got to remember, I'm wearing a whole wig and makeup and stuff. So if I wasn't true to myself, I would be like, 'I'm not gay. I'm not.' But I'm true to myself. I've been like that since I was 16. I put it on a table. Like, 'This is what it is, Dad. And I'm going to do hair. I know you don't like it, but you're going to have to get to like it.'

You fought your fight to be yourself before you were even famous on Instagram.

Mmm-hmmm. Even in high school and middle school, I felt like I always had to fight to prove to people: 'This is who I am.'

Vmir now lives in at Atlanta but regularly flies to Philly to get his nails done.
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, speaks during a meeting with local law enforcement officers in Des Moines on Wednesday. Read more

In the three years after he arrived in Washington in 2014, Matthew Whitaker received more than $1.2 million as the leader of a charity that reported having no other employees, some of the best pay of his career.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust described itself as a new watchdog nonprofit dedicated to exposing unethical conduct by public officials. For Whitaker, it became a lucrative steppingstone in a swift rise from a modest law practice in Iowa to the nation's top law enforcement job. As FACT's president, he regularly appeared on radio and television, often to skewer liberals.

But FACT's origins and the source of funding used to pay Whitaker  now the acting attorney general  remain obscured. An examination of state and federal records, and interviews with those involved, show that the group is part of a national network of nonprofits that often work in concert to amplify conservative messages.

Contrary to its claims in news releases and a tax filing, the group was created under a different name two years before Whitaker's arrival, according to incorporation and IRS records. At least two of the organizers were involved in another conservative charity using the same address.

In its application to the IRS for status as a tax-exempt organization, the organizers reported that the group would study the impact of environmental regulations on businesses, records show. In that incarnation, the group took no action and "only existed on paper," one man named in IRS filings as a board member told The Washington Post. Another named in a state filing as a board member said he never agreed to be on the board.

Whitaker's 2017 pay from the charity  more than $500,000 for the first nine months, or half the charity's receipts for the year, according to tax filings  and the group's earlier, dormant incarnation have not been previously reported by media.

Whitaker did not respond to requests for interviews. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to answer detailed questions about his involvement in FACT, referring a reporter to the charity.

A FACT spokesman who provided a statement on the condition that his name not be used declined to disclose the source of its funding.

"Like nearly all non-profit organizations  including those with similarly stated missions  FACT does not and is not required to release its donor information," the statement said. "This protects free speech rights of all of these groups' supporters as outlined in the First Amendment."

The statement said that FACT "properly notified the IRS of its name change."

"It is not unusual for a corporation, not for profit or profit, to refine its name and purpose, and since its inception FACT's purpose has always been consistent with non-profit law and all appropriate notifications were made," the statement said.

The spokesman did not address questions about whether the group told the IRS about its change in mission, as is required by IRS rules.

When the nonprofit was launched in 2012, Whitaker was a former U.S. attorney with a modest legal practice in Iowa that paid him $79,000 that year, according to a later disclosure he filed for a failed Senate bid. He also had several local side businesses, including a day-care center and a trailer manufacturer.

A Virginia resident named Raymond Wotring and two others filed papers to create the Free Market American Educational Foundation, state and federal records show. Its stated mission was to "conduct research and provide informational studies on free market concepts in relation to government regulations and policy."

Wotring and one of the other founding members had also served on another conservative nonprofit, Americans for Limited Government, which shared the same mailing address, records show.

Wotring did not respond to multiple phone calls or to a note left at his home.

James Crumley, who provides marketing services to conservative nonprofits and campaigns, was listed in an IRS filing as one of the directors. In a phone call, he initially said he did not remember anything about the group, including why it was formed.

"I can only speculate since I didn't even remember this group existed," he wrote in an email later.

Crumley said he'd learned that the group held no meetings and apparently had no bank account in its first two years. "The organization only existed on paper and didn't do anything at all," he wrote.

Noah Wall, now a vice president of advocacy for a conservative nonprofit called FreedomWorks, was listed in Virginia state filings as a director of the group in 2014. Wall said he was surprised to learn of his role. He said he was approached by Wotring but never agreed to join.

"I never signed anything," he said. "I'm not entirely sure what any of this is."

On July 21, 2014, the IRS approved the group's application for tax-exempt charity status, which was also signed by Wotring, the group's secretary. In its application, the group said it would be nonpartisan and aim "to develop unbiased research on how government regulations on environmental policy can impact business." The group by then had changed its address to a UPS Store in Fairfax, which was also used by Americans for Limited Government.

But just six weeks later, the newly approved charity changed its name, according to corporate records in Virginia. It was briefly called Working for Rights to Express & Communication.

The name was changed again in October of that year, to the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, according to records in Virginia. That same month, Whitaker, who had lost a primary bid for a U.S. Senate seat, became the group's leader, according to Kupac, the Justice spokeswoman.

The charity's mailing address was moved from Virginia to an office suite at a prestigious spot on K Street in the nation's capital  a virtual office and mailing address shared by 200 organizations.

Kupec did not respond to questions about how Whitaker connected with the nonprofit.

Marcus Owens, a lawyer and nonprofit specialist who oversaw the IRS's exempt-organizations division for a decade, said that in its first years the nonprofit appears to have been a "shell charity" that "was not utilized and remained on the shelf" until Whitaker's arrival.

Taking over an existing charity makes it easier for groups to quickly stand up the operation and accept tax-deductible donations, he said. But charities that change their names and missions are required to alert the IRS, he said, to ensure they are still operating within guidelines for charities.

"It's very possible that this organization is misusing its status as a charity," said David Nelson, a specialist on nonprofit organizations and a former tax partner at the Ernst & Young accounting firm, who reviewed the group's tax filings at The Post's request. "It appears the IRS never gave approval to FACT."

In its federal tax filing for 2014, FACT declared that it had not changed its name or its mission that year, records show, and there was no mention of the prior names. The spokesman for FACT declined to provide documents that he said showed it had notified the IRS of the name change.

In the 2014 filing, FACT reported that it had no employees and that it paid Whitaker $63,000 for three months of work, 30 hours a week, as president and director. It received $600,000 in donations, the document shows.

The Post determined from other tax filings that the money came from DonorsTrust, a large nonprofit organization that wealthy contributors have used to anonymously give millions to conservative nonprofits in recent years.

The president of DonorsTrust, Lawson Bader, declined to identify the source of the funding contributed to FACT through his organization.

FACT launched its advocacy efforts shortly after Whitaker took over, describing itself in a news release as a "new watchdog group."

On its website and in tax filings in 2014, FACT said that its mission was "to educate the public about unethical conduct on the part of public officials by publicizing these actions through media outlets throughout the country" and through its own website.

The new three-member board now comprised Whitaker, Whitaker's former law partner and a conservative activist, Neil Corkery, who is involved in operating or funding multiple conservative charities.

Whitaker's former partner, William Gustoff, did not return calls for comment. Corkery did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.

The IRS prohibits charities from directly or indirectly participating in political campaigns, for or against candidates. The prohibition is rarely enforced.

The FACT spokesman said the group is nonpartisan and focuses on Democrats and Republicans alike.

A Post analysis of more than 200 television and radio appearances by Whitaker from 2014 to September 2017, when he was named chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, shows that Whitaker was overwhelmingly focused on Democrats.

Whitaker or the often-conservative television hosts interviewing him uttered the name of one of the five Republican lawmakers that the group has targeted in elections complaints a combined 37 times, compared with more than 750 mentions of Hillary Clinton.

Most of those Clinton references  more than 600  came in the run-up to the 2016 election, and nearly all were comments critical of Clinton's tenure, including her email scandal or possible ethical conflicts surrounding the Clinton Foundation.

After the election, Whitaker's focus in those interviews turned to another target, special counsel Robert Mueller. Whitaker or hosts named Mueller 185 times.

Tax filings show that one of FACT's biggest contractors was America Rising, a research and communications firm in Arlington, Virginia, "whose mission is to help its clients defeat Democrats," according to its website. FACT paid America Rising at least $500,000 for research from 2015 to 2017, tax filings show.

FACT paid another half-million dollars to CRC Public Relations in Alexandria, Virginia. The FACT representative who declined to be named in this report is a CRC executive.

In December 2014, FACT began posting news items and commentary on its new website, including the prediction that a super PAC formed to promote Clinton's presidential aspirations might someday illegally coordinate with her future campaign.

"These moves will likely draw [Federal Election Commission] complaints due to possible federal election law violations," the post says.

Whitaker, the face of the organization, was often in Iowa in those early months, according to a review of interviews he conducted at the time. But being the president of a nonprofit conferred legitimacy on him, helping to raise his profile in Washington even as it allowed the group's backers to claim tax deductions.

He was increasingly appearing as a commentator on conservative media outlets  including Newsmax TV and Fox TV  and last year became a paid legal analyst on CNN.

In addition to targeting Clinton, Whitaker took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., while filing election law complaints against Democrats and some Republicans. When asked by a radio host about the group's pursuit of Democrats, Whitaker said, "It is a target-rich environment."

In the three years he worked at the charity, Whitaker's pay rose sharply each year, tax filings show. Last year, he was paid $55,000 a month. In all, he earned $1,219,000  more than a third of the donations the group received from 2014 to 2017.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment, citing federal privacy law.

The Washington Post's Alice Crites and Andrew Ba Tran contributed to this report.
Bruce Rogal's crashed van at his ex-wife's West Bradford home, where he shot himself after a police chase. Read more

Three Pennsylvania state troopers followed the law when they fired their guns at Bruce Rogal, the 59-year-old Glenmoore man who killed his parents in September during a rampage and then fatally shot himself, the Chester County District Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

The troopers confronted Rogal after he crashed his minivan into his ex-wife's West Bradford home about 1 a.m. on Sept. 20, prosecutors said. District Attorney Tom Hogan said in a statement that "the firearm discharges constituted a lawful use of force" by the troopers. Hogan's office conducted an independent investigation of the discharges.

The night before, Rogal shot his parents, Nancy, 87, and William, 89, at the Bellingham retirement community in East Goshen. Hours earlier, he attempted to shoot his ex-wife, Catherine Christian, outside her home. Her divorce from him had been finalized the day before and she had a prior protection-from-abuse order against Rogal that expired last year.

The troopers located Rogal's silver Honda Odyssey based on a tip and followed it until the crash. They heard gunfire and discharged their weapons, but Rogal had already killed himself.
TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited (BlackRock Canada), an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK), today announced the November 2018 cash distributions for the iShares ETFs listed on the TSX which pay on a monthly as well as XIU. Unitholders of record of a fund on November 28, 2018 will receive cash distributions payable in respect of that fund on November 30, 2018.



Details regarding the per unit distribution amounts are as follows:

Fund Name Fund

Ticker Cash

Distribution

Per Unit ($) iShares Balanced Income CorePortfolio Index ETF CBD 0.061 iShares 1-10 Year Laddered Corporate Bond Index ETF CBH 0.053 iShares Balanced Growth CorePortfolio Index ETF CBN 0.040 iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Corporate Bond Index ETF CBO 0.041 iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index ETF CDZ 0.090 iShares Equal Weight Banc & Lifeco ETF CEW 0.027 iShares U.S. High Yield Fixed Income Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CHB 0.090 iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Government Bond Index ETF CLF 0.038 iShares 1-10 Year Laddered Government Bond Index ETF CLG 0.045 iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Preferred Share Index ETF CPD 0.049 iShares Short Duration High Income ETF (CAD-Hedged) CSD 0.077 iShares US Dividend Growers Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CUD 0.062 iShares Convertible Bond Index ETF CVD 0.071 iShares Global Monthly Dividend Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CYH 0.058 Dynamic iShares Active Tactical Bond ETF DXB 0.042 Dynamic iShares Active Canadian Dividend ETF DXC 0.040 Dynamic iShares Active Crossover Bond ETF DXO 0.057 Dynamic iShares Active Preferred Shares ETF DXP 0.072 Dynamic iShares Active Investment Grade Floating Rate ETF DXV 0.039 iShares Canadian Financial Monthly Income ETF FIE 0.040 iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF XBB 0.074 iShares Canadian Corporate Bond Index ETF XCB 0.053 iShares Core MSCI Global Quality Dividend Index ETF XDG 0.045 iShares Core MSCI Global Quality Dividend Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XDGH 0.045 iShares Core MSCI Canadian Quality Dividend Index ETF XDIV 0.074 iShares Core MSCI US Quality Dividend Index ETF XDU 0.042 iShares Core MSCI US Quality Dividend Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XDUH 0.042 iShares Canadian Select Dividend Index ETF XDV 0.112 iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XEB 0.066 iShares S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index ETF XEI 0.089 iShares S&P/TSX Capped Financials Index ETF XFN 0.092 iShares Floating Rate Index ETF XFR 0.031 iShares Canadian Government Bond Index ETF XGB 0.044 iShares Canadian HYBrid Corporate Bond Index ETF XHB 0.066 iShares U.S. High Dividend Equity Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XHD 0.069 iShares U.S. High Dividend Equity Index ETF XHU 0.055 iShares U.S. High Yield Bond Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XHY 0.088 iShares U.S. IG Corporate Bond Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XIG 0.062 iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund XIU 0.178 iShares Core Canadian Long Term Bond Index ETF XLB 0.069 iShares S&P/TSX North American Preferred Stock Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) XPF 0.068 iShares High Quality Canadian Bond Index ETF XQB 0.044 iShares S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index ETF XRE 0.069 iShares Core Canadian Short Term Bond Index ETF XSB 0.055 iShares Conservative Short Term Strategic Fixed Income ETF XSC 0.045 iShares Conservative Strategic Fixed Income ETF XSE 0.049 iShares Core Canadian Short Term Corporate + Maple Bond Index ETF XSH 0.044 iShares Short Term Strategic Fixed Income ETF XSI 0.056 iShares Short Term High Quality Canadian Bond Index ETF XSQ 0.034 iShares Diversified Monthly Income ETF XTR 0.050 iShares S&P/TSX Capped Utilities Index ETF XUT 0.081

Estimated November Cash Distributions for the iShares Premium Money Market ETF

The November cash distributions per unit for the iShares Premium Money Market ETF are estimated to be as follows:

Fund Name Fund

Ticker Estimated

Cash

Distribution

Per Unit ($) iShares Premium Money Market ETF CMR 0.069

BlackRock Canada expects to issue a press release on or about November 27, 2018, which will provide the final amounts for the iShares Premium Money Market ETF.

Further information on the iShares Funds can be found at http://www.blackrock.com/ca .

About BlackRock

BlackRock helps investors build better financial futures. As a fiduciary to our clients, we provide the investment and technology solutions they need when planning for their most important goals. As of September 30, 2018, the firm managed approximately US$6.44 trillion in assets on behalf of investors worldwide. For additional information on BlackRock, please visit www.blackrock.com/ca | Twitter: @BlackRockCA | Blog: www.blackrockblog.com/can

About iShares ETFs

iShares unlocks opportunity across markets to meet the evolving needs of investors. With more than twenty years of experience, a global line-up of 800+ exchange traded funds (ETFs) and US$1.8 trillion in assets under management as of September 30, 2018, iShares continues to drive progress for the financial industry. iShares funds are powered by the expert portfolio and risk management of BlackRock, trusted to manage more money than any other investment firm1.

1 Based on US$6.44 trillion in AUM as of 9/30/18

iShares ETFs are managed by BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited.

Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with investing in iShares ETFs. Please read the relevant prospectus before investing. The funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. Tax, investment and all other decisions should be made, as appropriate, only with guidance from a qualified professional.

Contact for Media:

Julia Koene

T  416-643-4010

Email: Julia.Koene@blackrock.com
Philadelphia police outside row house on 5100 block of Malcolm in West Philadelphia site of a multiple homicide on Monday afternoon, Nov. 19, 2018. Read more

Two men killed in this week's execution-style quadruple homicide in West Philadelphia considered each other stepbrothers and recently moved into the rowhouse where they were found slain in the basement alongside two women, a relative of one of the men said Wednesday.

Greg Brinkley, 59, of East Falls, said that a guardian for his great-nephew Maurice Taylor, 31, had recently purchased the home on the 5100 block of Malcolm Street on Taylor's behalf, using money from a long-ago civil lawsuit related to Taylor's near-drowning in a swimming pool at a Philadelphia apartment complex. Akeen Mattox, 28, also was living there and helping to renovate the property, Brinkley said.

Taylor's childhood accident caused lasting brain damage, and his relatives were "in shock" that he was shot dead in his own home, Brinkley said.

"Maurice wasn't the type to have somebody out to get him," said Taylor's cousin James Cade, 27, of Olney, who added: "He didn't want that disability to control his life. He lived a regular life. He was happy."

Philadelphia Police declined Wednesday to offer new details about their investigation, or even confirm the victims' names. Homicide Lt. Norman Davenport said that investigators had not yet made contact with relatives of one of the slain women, and that police would not release identities until family members of each victim had been notified.

Taylor's relatives said they did not know the women's identities, and police have not divulged their connection to Taylor or Mattox.

Attempts to reach Mattox's relatives this week were unsuccessful.

Davenport said in an interview that detectives were seeking surveillance video from around the crime scene and probing the backgrounds of the victims for potential clues, as is routine in murder investigations.

Police discovered the four bodies Monday after a relative called to check on the welfare of people who lived there. Each of the victims was declared dead at 12:21 p.m.

Commissioner Richard Ross, addressing reporters at the scene Monday, said that investigators were not certain how long the bodies had been in the basement, but that a neighbor reported hearing a few "bangs" around 10 or 11 p.m. the night before. The neighbor initially believed the noises related to ongoing renovations inside the home, Ross said.

The commissioner said that there were no obvious signs of a struggle or robbery, and that it appeared the victims had been led to the basement because they had not been bound, tied up, or appearing to have other injuries.

Police do not believe the crime was random, but Davenport said a motive was not yet clear. He declined to say whether police were searching for one or more gunmen, or how many shell casings, if any, were found.

Mattox had a number of recent arrests, according to court records, but it was not clear whether they had any connection to the killings. His most recent conviction was in 2016, when he pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to nine-to-23 months in prison, the records show.

Cade, Taylor's cousin, said he had communicated with Taylor on Instagram on Saturday, and was looking forward to seeing him for Thanksgiving.

"To lose him," Cade said of his cousin, "everybody's life is going to be different now."
Steveann Wynn (right), executive director of Share Food Program, is retiring. She talks with Linda Gerald, a volunteer for 21 years, at the Share warehouse. Read more

Steveanna Wynn first saw deep poverty back in her native Narrows, in southwest Virginia.

Destitute neighbors in that tiny Appalachian town were sleeping in a rusted-out potato-chip truck, listing on a country road beside a mountain.

"That's poor," said Wynn, 72, executive director of the Share Food Program in Hunting Park, a multifaceted agency that provides food for around 500 pantries in the city. "And I never forgot it."

After 31 years, Wynn is leaving Share on Nov. 30. Word of her retirement shot through the anti-hunger community in Philadelphia like one of those dreaded can't-be-true rumors, the disbelief palpable.

Among those who battle hunger for a living or a cause, Wynn is a mentor and patron saint, a caring, straight-talking, Maker's Mark-imbibing mega-advocate whose Southern-accented voice, made rough by too many cigarettes, can slide from honeyed hellos to profane tirades, depending on the circumstance.

In a profession where people regularly burn out, Wynn has burned on, steady and bright, because, she said, "I have to make sure people do not go hungry in this city."

With the vision of Virginia mountain poverty etched in memory, Wynn has collected food that has fed millions. In the Share warehouse, she herself has moved uncountable tons of goods with the skill of a balletic Teamster helming a purple forklift.

She oversees about 25 employees and an astonishing 2,000 or more volunteers a month. Every growing season, the urban farm she cut into the dirt next to her warehouse yields thousands of pounds of produce.

Wynn disburses free commodity foods from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and manages much of the money the state earmarks for the city to feed people in poverty.

In anticipation of a Katrina-like catastrophe striking Philadelphia, Wynn has these past years been the USDA-designated leader who would be in charge of feeding every one of us as the coordinator of emergency food.

Over the decades, she's made herself indispensable, those who help the needy say, a key weaver of the safety net that stretches, fraying and thin, beneath people in poverty.

"She is a giant in this field," said Sandy Sherman, director of nutrition education at the Food Trust, a nonprofit that promotes healthy food. "She is the bedrock of our food system in Philadelphia."

Needed in Nashville

Wynn is leaving the job she once swore she'd never give up because her former daughter-in-law killed herself last March, and Wynn wants to help her son and three grandchildren in Nashville.

"They need me more than I'm needed here," Wynn said. "Every day, they ask, 'Grandma, when are you coming?'

"I thought I'd never retire. I thought I'd die here at my desk. But "

Advocates have told Wynn they're waiting for her to rescind the retirement, issue a "just kidding," and allow them to sleep soundly again.

"People believe I'll be back," Wynn said, crying. "Leaving is harder than I thought. But this is permanent."

As though outdoing one another with laudatory farewells, those who've toiled with Wynn all these years were unstinting in their praise:

"We're lucky to have worked with a legend," said Paula Schaefer, administrator of the MontCo Anti-Hunger Network in Lower Gwynedd. The network is part of Share. "Her wit and manner make her memorable, her passion and determination make her remarkable."

"She has taught and trained so many of us," said Mariana Chilton, the Drexel University School of Health anthropologist and anti-hunger advocate. "Steveanna is a wise soul  perhaps the only one  in the Philadelphia fight to end hunger."

What people are impressed with most is Wynn's flexible ability to load trucks with onions, meet with corporate donors, then testify before the USDA or fight with the state to get more money for food.

"She's the perfect blend of hands-on worker and advocate," said Anne Ayella, former director of community relations at Nutritional Development Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Asked to recall her favorite interaction with Wynn, Portia Lyles, who runs a food cupboard, did not hesitate: It was the turkey story.

"I'd gone to Share to pick up some broccoli around Thanksgiving last year," said Lyles, who runs Triumphant Faith IWC Food Cupboard in Olney. As she spoke with Wynn at the warehouse, Lyles told her that she'd taken off work to get the vegetables and that she'd prayed to God for turkeys.

'"You did what?'" Lyles recalled Wynn asking.

Lyles told her that the cupboard didn't have the funds to buy and distribute the turkeys it usually had purchased for Thanksgiving. "Then Steveanna looked at me and said, 'You skipped work to feed people?'

"I said yes. Then she offered me 150 turkeys on the spot and told me, 'You have the heart it takes to be in this community.' And the next day, she called me to pick up potatoes and cauliflower, too.

"I don't know who else has that passion."

Final act

It's that core belief in helping others that Wynn took with her from Virginia, said Linda Samost, founder and director of Sunday Suppers, a local nonprofit that focuses on low-income families. Wynn helped nurture the organization.

Samost said that as a kind of final act, Wynn has coordinated what is being called a "tsunami" of food being released by the USDA. Many U.S. farmers are unable to sell their bounty abroad because foreign nations have retaliated against tariffs imposed by President Trump by taxing American agricultural products. The USDA is buying that food and diverting some of it to the charitable food network.

In all, $1.2 billion of pork, apples, and other commodities will surge through the emergency food system. Wynn is making sure anti-hunger organizations receive portions of the federal largesse, estimated to be worth around $60 million in Pennsylvania. It will start to arrive in mid- to late December.

By then Wynn may well be raising a ruckus in Nashville. "It's more southern than Virginia," she said. "More Baptist, more Republican. I hope not to embarrass my son, but who knows?

"I'll probably be out marching in the street for something."
Firefighters work the scene of the suspected arson fire in a Colts Neck mansion where a family of four was found dead Tuesday. Read more

Police are investigating the deaths of a family of four whose bodies were found after a suspected arson fire in their $1.5 million mansion in the well-to-do Monmouth County town of Colts Neck.

District Attorney Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said Wednesday the four were victims of a "targeted" homicide. They were identified as Keith Caneiro, 50, his 45-year-old wife, Jennifer, and their children Jesse, 11, and Sophia,8.

Authorities in the meantime arrested the Keith Caneiro's brother, Paul Caneiro, 51, and charged with him setting fire to his own home in Ocean Township hours before the blaze in Colts Neck, about 10 miles away, was reported.

Gramiccioni said investigators were looking at a possible link between the two fires, but declined to say if Paul Caneiro was a suspect in the homicides. At the same time, he said he did not think residents needed to fear a killer was on the loose.

Firefighters responding to the Colts Neck blaze after noon Tuesday found the body of Keith Caneiro, who had been shot, outside the modernist house and discovered the bodies of his wife and their children inside after extinguishing the flames. No cause has been reported yet for the victims inside the house.

Gramiccioni said the investigation was hampered because forensic teams had no yet entered the house while waiting for engineers to say it was safe for them to do so.

Keith Caneiro is described as the CEO and chief technology officer for a company Square One in Asbury Park and also is a licensed real estate agent. Paul Caneiro is listed as vice president of Square One, which calls itself a "full service technology consulting firm."

The fire at Paul Caneiro's house was reported around 5 a.m. Tuesday, officials said. His wife and two adult children escaped unharmed.

The slaying shocked usually genteel Colts Neck in Monmouth County's horse country. Besides being a bedroom community for wealthy investors and business people from New York it is home to a number of celebrities, including Bruce Springsteen and Queen Latifah.
The Mexican government Tuesday night honored a Norristown agency, the Center for Culture, Art, Training and Education (CCATE), for bettering the lives of Mexican Americans in Montgomery County.

Alicia Kerber-Palma, head consul for the Mexican government in Philadelphia, presented the Ohtli Award, which comes from the Nahuatl word that means road or path.

"The vision with which CCATE has been created helps this organization, driven by the community, to develop the talent that Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and people from Latin America bring and multiply with the local community and surroundings," Kerber-Palma said at the ceremony, held in the organization's public space.

Obed Arango Hisijara, CCATE's executive director, said the award honors the nonprofit's commitment to helping young people in its community.

"We decided from the beginning that love would be our guide, and so we receive this prize thinking about the thousands of refugee and migrant children around the world, including those who are in this country in need of a community of love," Arango Hisijara said.

Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) presented a citation from the state Senate, honoring the organization.

Founded in 2011, CCATE serves 275 Latino families who participate in educational, art, health, and environmental science programs at The Centre Theater in Norristown. CCATE is the 10th organization to receive the Ohtli Award, which was first granted in 1996, and the first organization in the Philadelphia region.

The Mexican government's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Institute of Mexican Abroad gives out the award. Its name recognizes those who best open a path for others.
At the border of his property in West Rockhil Township, Tom Cuce points to his home. He and his wife, Rose Merrigan, live next door to the proposed site of a compressor station for the Adelphia Gateway natural gas pipeline. Read more

Tom Cuce spent three years building the retirement house of his dreams, his little slice of pastoral bliss on a winding country road in upper Bucks County.

He envisioned a place to plant vegetables and a back stretch of tree cover to do some hunting. A cluster of compressor engines that push through 250 million cubic feet of natural gas every day wasn't a part of that plan. And yet, it may soon be a reality.

Adelphia Gateway LLC has included a "Quakertown Compressor Station" in its proposal to repurpose a hybrid oil and natural gas pipeline it purchased last November from Talen Energy Corp. The station's plans  now under review by state and federal authorities  call for three compressors, a total of 5,625 horsepower that will run around the clock to pressurize the natural gas as it makes it way down to a refinery in Marcus Hook.

That refinery is more than 50 miles from Cuce's back porch in West Rockhill Township. The compressor station would be about 500 feet away.

"The reason why we're against this thing is, number one, it's in the middle of a residential neighborhood," Cuce said. "It shouldn't exist here. It shouldn't be built somewhere where the zoning doesn't allow it."

He said his protests have done little to sway Adelphia Gateway or township officials, whom he faults for not being aggressive enough in defending him and his neighbors. Those officials take a different tack, saying there's little they can do to influence a project that's under federal jurisdiction.

Now, Cuce and Rose Merrigan, his longtime partner, are rallying their neighbors in voicing opposition to the Adelphia project. A group of them plans to caravan to a Dec. 4 hearing that the state Department of Environmental Protection is holding in their township as part of its review process.

As some residents dig in to fight the pipeline project, others on Rich Hill Road and the surrounding streets are pulling up and moving on.

Sheila Vogelsang McCarthy, who owns 11 acres next door to Cuce, wrote a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission  which has oversight of natural-gas pipelines  saying she'd be willing to sell her property to Adelphia for $600,000.

McCarthy, 77, had already planned to sell her home, she wrote in her letter, and the announcement of the "mammoth compressor structure" only motivated her further.

"Evidently, federal authority supersedes local regulations and the interests of homeowners," she wrote. "I might add I still pay taxes on this property, and even if the value declines, my taxes will not while the pipeline companies pay nothing and yet make substantial profits."

The pipeline company hasn't responded to her offer, and signs posted outside her home indicate that it will go on sale at a public auction Dec. 5.

Adelphia, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, maintains that it's acting in the best interest of the community as it plans its pipeline, which also includes another compressor station in Marcus Hook as it cuts south through more densely packed communities in Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties.

"We will continue to consult with West Rockhill Township and adjacent neighbors to the extent possible on creating a visually harmonious facility while delivering much-needed natural gas safely to its intended end users," Katelyn Howard, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement.

But Cuce and Merrigan can't understand why Adelphia chose to put the station on a 1.5 acre lot surrounded by homes. The lot is owned by Interstate Energy Co., a subsidiary of Talen, and houses a small metering station for the Talen pipeline. When the project is formally approved by FERC, the property will transfer to Adelphia.

"The site is too small to be safe; it's as simple as that," Cuce said. "The only reason they're putting it here is to save money."

Howard said the company chose the lot as part of its strategy of relying on brownfield locations where infrastructure is already in place, saying that allows it "to keep construction and impact to the community to a minimum."

The compressor station will be built using technology designed to minimize noise pollution, Howard said. Plans Adelphia filed with FERC estimate that the station will operate at a maximum noise level of 52 decibels along its boundaries with other properties.

Howard likened that to the sound made by a "household dishwasher," and noted that it falls within the permissible noise range set by the township.

But that does little to put the residents' minds at ease.

"There are large developments downwind of this that will receive the air pollutants of this facility, because of the size of this facility," Merrigan said. "And what about us? This pollution is going to fall into our backyard constantly. We won't get any respite from it."

In filings with the state DEP, Adelphia has said the natural gas-fed combustion engines that power the compressors will emit carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds, albeit in levels they estimate to be below what the department considers a "major source" of pollutants.

The DEP will consider those estimates and other details as part of its air quality review process, which began this month. The department's upcoming hearing will allow residents to voice their concerns as the DEP, along with FERC, weighs the environmental impact of the pipeline.

It's a process that's left local leaders feeling powerless as they're battered by complaints from the people they represent.

Greg Lippincott, West Rockhill Township manager, is not used to having his authority trumped by a natural-gas company and its ranks of lawyers and experts.

"We are having a tough time letting everyone know that FERC is the decision-maker, not the township," he said. "In 99 percent of land developments, the township decides. This is one instance where the township does not decide, and it's very frustrating."

Mary C. Eberle, the township's solicitor, sent a strongly worded letter about the project to FERC in July, saying representatives from Adelphia were "very vague" during their initial meetings about the station, which she said was originally described to township officials as a "small equipment enclosure."

When Adelphia staff later came to a township Planning Commission meeting to publicly reveal the plans, the scale and scope of the project surprised them.

"The entirety of this process has been replete with a lack of effective communication and disingenuous dialogue on the part of Adelphia's representatives," Eberle wrote. "The project interferes with the residents' right to reasonable use and enjoyment of their property."

In its filings with FERC, Adelphia has not specified how large the station that houses the compressors will be. But Eberle's letter cited estimates from Adelphia of a 45- to 55-foot structure "covering 8,000 to 10,000 square feet." A rendering of the station that the company mailed to Cuce and Merrigan is more specific: a 35-foot building covering 11,120 square feet.

Howard, the Adelphia spokeswoman, said those renderings were drafts provided to homeowners "to continue the conversation and get their input." She declined to provide the draft to the Inquirer and Daily News.

In a response to Eberle's letter, Adelphia Gateway counsel William P. Scharfenberg wrote that the company "never sought to hide its plans leading up to the Planning Commission meeting," and has continued to seek out and engage with West Rock Hill officials.

Scharfenberg noted that the pipeline is not subject to the local laws or oversight, given its status as a interstate project overseen by FERC.

Tamara Young-Allen, a spokeswoman for FERC, confirmed that the agency's initial approval of this type of project supersedes any local requirements.

That was a grim revelation to Cuce, Merrigan and their neighbors.

They should not be allowed to destroy an entire neighborhood, Cuce said. And thats what theyre going to do. Thats what this is going to be.
A surveillance system picture of the suspects who authorities say shot Sylvia Williams, 38, of Pottstown, on the evening of Nov. 18 at her home on North Washington Street. Read more

Authorities are searching for two people who broke into a Pottstown woman's home, robbed her, and fatally shot her in the head, leaving police to find her body in a second-floor bedroom on Sunday night.

Sylvia Williams, 38, of North Washington Street, died as a result of the gunshot wound, authorities said Wednesday. Police found her body when they responded to an alarm at her house about 6:45 p.m.

The security system at Williams' home captured two people wearing masks as they came in through the kitchen door. An image pulled from the footage shows one of the suspects holding a black handgun.

Authorities have not said what the suspects took from Williams.

Anyone with information about the slaying is being asked to call Pottstown police at 610-970-6570, or the Montgomery County Detective Bureau at 610-278-3368.
Classic cars drive by during the reopening of the newly-built Walnut Street Bridge in Perkasie, Bucks County, on Wednesday, Nov. 21 2018. The bridge was closed in October 2017 to allow workers to demolish the bridge and then build a new one for $5.1 million. Read more

The Walnut Street Bridge in Perkasie, closed for reconstruction last October, opened Wednesday with a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony that heralded its $5.1 million architectural face-lift.

The bridge, which allows easier navigation around the borough, spans the east branch of the Perkiomen Creek.

Bucks County commissioners, members of the Perkasie Borough Council, and local residents celebrated the bridge's reopening with an inaugural bridge-crossing, procession, and reception.

It is the fourth version of the bridge since it first opened in 1867 and connected the already established Bridgetown with the developing village of Comleyville, which was later renamed Perkasie, according to the Perkasie Historical Society.

The latest rebuild was a long time coming, said Perkasie Mayor John Hollenbach. The work had been scheduled several times, but financial issues delayed the project for years until the county finally came up with the money.

"It's certainly going to be a wonderful thing for the businesses," Hollenbach, a lifelong Perkasie resident, said in an interview before the ribbon-cutting. "This bridge being down certainly directed and caused some traffic issues for us at different spots in the town. Nothing we couldn't handle, but there was some inconvenience to get to some businesses."

The bridge, owned by Bucks County, measures an estimated 210 feet long and 49 feet wide. It accommodates two lanes of traffic, and sidewalks line both sides of the bridge.

As part of the rebuild, the road leading to the bridge was fitted with better sidewalks and drainage features, new vehicular and pedestrian signage, and ramps to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, among other changes, county spokesman Larry King said.

H&K Group Inc., of Douglasville, was hired as the project's contractor, and Warrington-based Carroll Engineering Corp. handled bridge and roadway design.

The state will reimburse the county for 80 percent of the $5.1 million it spent to plan and construct the bridge, hopefully within a month, King said.

The newest incarnation of the bridge hardly resembles the first version, which was built from wood and used by workers and students to cross the creek to go to work and school, according to the borough's Historical Society.

But the bridge hasn't forgotten its history. Four plaques attached to the structure recognize that the bridge was first constructed in 1867, rebuilt in 1907 because of growing safety concerns, and widened in 1970 before officials shut down the deteriorating bridge in 2017 to build it anew.

The new bridge, King said, is expected to last for at least a century.
The Environmental Protection Agency's Peter Grevatt, Director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, and Cosmo Servidio, Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, listen to members of the public speak during a community meeting in Horsham to address PFAS contamination in drinking water. Read more

State health officials have sent blood-sampling results to the 235 residents tested in the Bucks and Montgomery County towns where drinking water was tainted by chemicals from nearby military bases and hope to release in weeks a public report on the scope of the contamination.

The testing occurred as part of a pilot program for a federal initiative to sample residents' blood in communities affected by the contamination. Pennsylvania officials will share information from their testing of Horsham, Warminster, and Warrington Township residents with federal agencies to help develop potential testing programs in other communities across the country.

>>> READ MORE: Nearly 400 military bases must be tested for drinking water contamination  and it will take years

The blood tests were completed by the end of September, and study participants received their results in October, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. On Monday, the Health Department sent letters to each person showing his or her results compared to a community summary showing the overall results. Department officials declined to provide a copy of the community summary to The Inquirer and Daily News.

A complete report on the test findings will be released in December with a public meeting to follow, said department spokesperson Nate Wardle. No date has been yet scheduled for the meeting.

State health officials originally sought 500 participants for the study, and more than 600 randomly selected people had agreed to participate. But only 235 followed through with getting tested, even after the state extended the deadline. Because a scientific study needs a random sample, officials could not take volunteers.

Lynne Wahl, of Warminster, one of the residents who was tested, said the results she received in September showed that her blood has high levels of some of the chemicals  several times more than the national average and above the 95th percentile for one of the chemicals. Wahl, 69, said she took the results to her doctor.

"You can't make sense of it," she said. "I could see what was out of range but nowhere does it tell that's what it means."

Wahl said she agreed to have her blood tested because she has lived in Warminster for more than 40 years and is a breast cancer survivor. Her husband, who also had cancer, died in the last year.

After the blood-test results came in, Wahl said her doctor simply advised her not to drink contaminated water, but her township already changed its drinking-water source. Wahl said even though the test cannot prove whether the water contamination was connected to her or her husband's cancers, she still wanted to know her level because she's "had enough" health problems and frustration over the contamination.

Wahl said Wednesday that she had not yet received the community results summary that the state said it had sent to participants.

Pennsylvania was chosen by federal agencies for the pilot program to help officials examine how best to do studies in areas nationwide affected by the contaminants known as PFAS.

"That was the entire goal of this project  to look at how a study can be done on an area that has been affected by these chemicals, to help make sure that robust studies can be done in the future," Wardle said.

The water contamination, made widely public in Horsham, Warminster, and Warrington in 2014, threw local residents into uncertainty that was later mirrored in communities across the nation. Residents with private wells were given bottled water, and public water supplies were shut off, filtered, or changed, making them free of the contaminants.

Relatively little is known about PFAS, the class of chemicals that seeped into drinking water after being used in firefighting foam at military bases. The scope of health effects on humans remains unclear. Scientists have linked the chemicals to a variety of health problems, including increased risk of liver damage, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, and certain types of cancer.

A state Health Department study updated this spring found elevated rates of cancer in the three townships, but said the results did not show a consistent pattern.

Many have clamored for blood testing and demanded an urgent government study of the issue. During the summer, the Environmental Protection Agency created goals for addressing the problem and said it was developing a "PFAS management plan," while agency officials held a string of public meetings nationwide, including in Horsham.

Last week, the EPA released a draft document assessing the toxicity of some other chemicals in the PFAS group. The assessment is open for public comment. The agency is working to release the management plan "as soon as possible," according to a Nov. 14 statement.

Gov. Wolf has also created a PFAS Action Team that is scheduled to hold its first public meeting next week. Patrick McDonnell, the Department of Environmental Protection secretary, said in a news release announcing the meeting that Wolf is committed to take action on PFAS at the state level "in the absence of a federal response" to set better drinking-water standards.
Philadelphia officials say they have found a big chunk of the unreconciled $33 million that sent accountants on a yearlong hunt for the money.

Last week, accountants figured out that seven debt payments totaling $21 million had been paid from the wrong account, throwing off the city's books.

The $21 million is part of the $33.3 million in unaccounted-for funds reported earlier this year. It wasn't clear at the time whether the money was missing or misreported as the result of accounting mistakes. City Treasurer Rasheia Johnson said Tuesday that it was the latter.

So far, no money has been found to be missing or owed in payments, Johnson said. The money was for the most part deposited or paid from accounts different from where the transactions should've occurred.

The reconciliation team, which includes city accountants and outside help, say they have settled most of the accounts and have $2.1 million left to resolve. They expect to have that done before the end of the year.

City officials, however, are not holding anyone responsible for the errors.

"We're not immune to making mistakes. Mistakes happen, I wouldn't say often, but sometimes," Chief of Staff Jim Engler said Tuesday. "The key part about when we make mistakes is that we acknowledge it."

Previous audits had pointed to the city's sloppy bookkeeping, and two years went by between 2014 and 2016 without monthly reconciliations of accounts, allowing mistakes involving millions of dollars to pile up. When Johnson came into office in 2016, she went to city Finance Director Rob Dubow about the unbalanced accounts, which soon after were discovered to have $40 million in discrepancies between what the bank accounts showed and what the city reported in its records. Johnson's staff worked to reconcile those accounts.

During the spring budget hearings, Councilman Alan Domb brought up that the city's 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), released in February, noted that $33.3 million was unaccounted for (down from the initial $40 million). Then came a scathing audit from City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, who said Philadelphia has the worst accounting practices among the nation's 10 largest cities; she blamed the mistakes on the Finance Department's reduced staff and lack of technology.

The Kenney administration hired Horsey, Buckner & Heffler (the firm is to be paid up to $500,000 for its work) and created a task force to help reconcile the $33 million. The city also started monthly reconciliations between the books and bank records to catch future accounting mistakes before they become a problem.

"With the amount of transactions the city has in our accounts on a monthly basis, if you're not reconciling on a monthly basis, they accumulate like this has over time," Johnson said.

Dubow, who also served as finance director during the Nutter administration when the reconciliations stopped, said Tuesday what he has said in the past: "They should've been done and they weren't, and we're doing them now."

Aside from the $21 million in seven misplaced debt payments, accountants also found that a $4 million payment was mistakenly recorded twice due to an initial bounced check. In other unaccounted-for transactions, amounts had been entered incorrectly in the books or deposited into the wrong account.

Johnson said she has hired two additional accountants to continue the reconciliations (plus a third to be hired soon) and is searching for a new deputy treasurer to oversee the process.

She and Dubow expect a full reconciliation of the money by the end of the year, at which point a report will be released detailing the work done and the policies put in place to prevent such mistakes in the future.

As to the question of whether anyone will be fired over the $40 million in accounting mistakes, Engler said: "No, that's not how we operate."

Correction: A previous earlier version of this story inaccurately described a $4 million payment as not being received.
Raeanna Woody's crimes hardly seemed like they would add up to a life sentence in prison. She had two nonviolent drug convictions, for possessing marijuana and delivering 12 grams of methamphetamine. But when she was arrested in a third drug case, she said, the office of U.S. Attorney Matthew Whitaker decided to make an example of her.

Under Whitaker, who is now acting attorney general, Woody was given a choice: spend the rest of her life in jail, or accept a plea bargain sentence of 21 to 27 years, according to court records. She took the deal.

Federal Judge Robert Pratt in the Southern District of Iowa later accused prosecutors of having "misused" their authority in her nonviolent case. He urged President Barack Obama to commute her sentence  and Obama did shorten her term, after she had served 11 years.

Woody's case highlights one of the most controversial if little-known aspects of Whitaker's career: his efforts to obtain unusually stiff sentences for people accused of drug crimes.

Whitaker spent nearly five years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. His office was more likely than all but one other district in the United States to use its authority to impose the harshest sentences on drug offenders, according to a finding by a different Iowa federal judge, Mark Bennett, who it called a "deeply troubling disparity."

"If the president can look at my case and he can see that what I had done wasn't severe enough to warrant that many years, then why was I given that many years to begin with, why was that much of my life taken from me?" Woody, a 57-year-old mother of five, said in an interview. "I blame Whitaker's office and everybody underneath him."

The Justice Department declined to comment for this article.

Whitaker's record on drug sentencing is newly relevant after President Trump ousted Jeff Sessions as attorney general this month and replaced him with Whitaker, who was Sessions's chief of staff.

Trump last week announced his support for legislation that would give judges more discretion in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders and reducing prison terms. Sessions had opposed the bill. Now Whitaker, as acting head of the Justice Department, is in a powerful position to try to influence the outcome.

Whitaker has come under intense scrutiny since Trump appointed him on Nov. 7. His unorthodox selection, with no Senate confirmation, has drawn attention because of concerns that he would interfere with or shut down special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

He has also drawn scrutiny for saying that judges should have a "biblical view" of the law and that courts should be an "inferior branch" of government. In addition, he worked as a board member for an invention-marketing company that shut down in May and agreed to pay nearly $26 million to resolve a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, which accused it of bilking customers.

Supporters cite Whitaker's five years as a U.S. attorney as the most relevant experience to be acting attorney general. He was working as a private attorney when he was recommended for the job by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. President George W. Bush nominated Whitaker, and he was sworn into office on June 15, 2004.

A year later, Whitaker said that his office had tried 500 cases, of which 271 were drug cases, most of them involving methamphetamines. At the time, Iowa, like many states, was trying to quell the growing use of meth.

The Bush administration had encouraged tough sentences on repeat offenders, and Whitaker used a powerful tool that gave him discretion to impose longer jail times than other parts of the country.

In 1970, Congress passed legislation that gave U.S. attorneys the ability to dramatically lengthen prison terms. It was called an "851 enhancement" filing, under which a second-time offender's sentence could be "enhanced" so that a 10-year sentence automatically was extended to 20 years. A third-time offender could receive a life term.

A judge had no choice other than to impose the longer sentence. A prior offense could be as little as an aggravated misdemeanor in a state court that led to no jail time. Critics have long said it has been misused in some jurisdictions by overzealous federal authorities.

Questions about the use of these filings came to the attention of Bennett, a U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Iowa. He suspected that defendants in his court were more likely to face increased sentences than those in neighboring Nebraska, and he took it upon himself to conduct a nationwide analysis.

He found a wide disparity and inserted the results of his study into his ruling in a case that had come before him. He found that Whitaker's office used its power to make such filings more than any other U.S. attorney except one in a Florida district. (A U.S. attorney in Guam, a U.S. territory, had a higher rate but a statistically insignificant number of cases.) The judge based his finding on cases during fiscal 2006, 2008 and 2009. Whitaker's term began in mid-2004 and ended in January 2009. While the report covered part of Whitaker's service, it was a broad enough sample to be considered representative by Bennett.

The rate at which Whitaker's office and another one in Iowa imposed the harshest possible sentence was a "jaw-dropping and deeply troubling disparity compared to the vast majority of federal courts in the nation," Bennett said in a statement to The Washington Post. Whitaker never appeared before him, and he declined to comment about Whitaker's term as U.S. attorney.

Whitaker's Southern District of Iowa used enhanced sentences in 84 percent of relevant cases, compared with 26 percent nationwide, Bennett's finding said. Bennett concluded that a defendant in the Northern District of Iowa  which had a rate of filings similar to Whitaker's district  was 2,532 percent more likely to be subjected to an enhanced sentence compared with someone convicted of a similar offense in a Nebraska district.

"I found their harshness in filing 851 notices inexplicable," Bennett said.

In Raeanna Woody's case, the filing was used as leverage by Whitaker's office. Woody, whose last name at the time was Paxton, appeared before Judge Pratt in the Southern District on July 10, 2008.

Her previous drug convictions resulted in little or no jail time. Her third offense occurred when authorities determined that she drove a car in which another individual was pursuing a drug deal.

Woody said a prosecutor from Whitaker's office, Jason Griess, had informed her that, as a third-time offender, her sentence could be "enhanced" to mandatory life in prison under an 851 filing. She said she had no choice but to make a plea bargain that resulted in the sentence of 21 to 27 years.

"I remember them saying through Jason that he wouldn't budge, and 'me and my office are going to make an example out of you.' "

Griess declined to comment for this article.

When the sentencing came before Pratt, he made clear he was appalled that Whitaker's office had used the threat of a life sentence to get Woody to agree to the plea bargain.

"I think that's entirely too long a sentence," Pratt told Woody, according to the sentencing transcript, but he said the agreement left him no choice.

The matter eventually came to the attention of JaneAnne Murray, who runs the University of Minnesota Law School's Clemency Project. Murray, who took on the case, said Woody's "sentence was excessive by any measure."

Murray wrote a report to Pratt urging clemency. Pratt then wrote a letter to Obama's pardon attorney expressing his displeasure with how the case had been handled by Whitaker's office. Pratt wrote in the May 13, 2016, letter that he was forced to impose a sentence that "was entirely disproportionate" to her crime.

The "most compelling reason" that the president should grant clemency, Pratt wrote, was that Whitaker's office "misused" its power by threatening Woody with a life sentence by using the 851 filing, "effectively removing my discretion" to give Woody "a fair sentence." Pratt stressed that Woody "was and is a nonviolent offender. She was not a significant player in the overall 'conspiracy' in this case. . . . This was not a conspiracy that involved 'drug kingpins.' It was a situation where methamphetamine-addicted individuals resorted to selling the drug to support their own addictions."

Pratt declined to comment for this article.

While Woody was serving her 11th year in federal prison, she received a phone call telling her that Obama had granted her clemency. She eventually was freed, got remarried and moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she works at a factory assembling medical devices.

Whitaker was replaced as U.S. attorney by Nicholas A. Klinefeldt, who became interested in the job partly because of his outrage over the sentencing of his father. Michael Klinefeldt, who was given a 10-year term in a methamphetamine case brought by Whitaker's predecessor. Nicholas Klinefeldt said that by 2013 he stopped using 851 enhancement filings to lengthen sentences.

"This is an issue I completely disagreed with Matt Whitaker on," Klinefeldt said. "Frankly, we are never going to prosecute our way out of our drug problem. Lengthy sentences for drug criminals is not the answer."

Whitaker, who lost a 2014 campaign for the Senate, subsequently seemed to have made a turnabout on sentencing. On July 20, 2016, two months after Pratt wrote his letter urging Woody's clemency, he attended a news conference in support of legislation to reduce sentences of nonviolent drug offenders. Standing by the bill's co-sponsor, Grassley, Whitaker declared that it would "free up" space in federal prisons and enable the government to "focus on violent criminals."

A month later, Obama commuted Woody's sentence.

Carol D. Leonnig and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Kambi Group plc (Malta Registration Number C49768 of Registered Address at Level 3, Quantum House, Abate Rigord Street, Ta' Xbiex XBX1120, Malta) held an Extraordinary General Meeting on the 21st November, 2018, in Sweden

Two resolutions were presented to the meeting. Both resolutions were approved:





 Directors' fees 2018 approved as reproposed;

 Marlene Forsell elected Director;





By order of the Board

Maureen Ehlinger

Company Secretary
Frances Jacqueline Blakney, 87, of North Philadelphia, a social-services worker for 35 years and a church and civic volunteer, died Wednesday, Nov. 7, of complications from liver cancer at Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Mrs. Blakney was diagnosed with the disease in 2010, but with treatment, the cancer went into remission, said her son, Ralph Preston Blakney. It returned this June.

Born in Reading, Mrs. Blakney moved to Philadelphia to be with family, and was educated in the city's public schools. She had a beautiful soprano voice that soared above the others when she sang with the choir at the United Methodist Church in North Philadelphia. While performing in her late teens, she attracted the attention of a group of visiting church elders.

"They were so impressed that they said she has to go further because of how well she sings," her son said.

The United Methodist Church paid the tuition for her freshman year at the National College for Christian Workers in Kansas City, Mo. Relying on odd jobs to survive financially for the next three years, Mrs. Blakney earned a bachelor's degree from the college in 1954 at age 23.

Mrs. Blakney told her family that during her hunt for her first job, she encountered racial bias. "A woman called her in for an interview," her son said, "and when she got there, the woman said, 'Oh, I thought you were white. If I had known, I wouldn't have called you in. Everyone who works here is white, and the clients are white.'

"My mother didn't get the job," her son said. "The woman was nice about it  she paid her for the day. My mother had a long career in social services, but it had a very rocky start."

Starting in 1960, Mrs. Blakney worked for five years as a social-services caseworker for the Philadelphia Department of Public Welfare. For the next 30 years, she directed programs for the Crime Prevention Association and Boys and Girls Club programs that the association ran at that time. She retired in 1996.

Outside the office, Mrs. Blakney volunteered as director of the young adults group at the Belmont-Southwest YWCA and as center director for the United Neighbors Association, both in Philadelphia.

She also volunteered with the Martin Luther King Older Adult Center, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, and the Methodist Commission on Religion and Race. She used her singing as a fundraising tool as well, performing 20 concerts to benefit churches, youth organizations, and community groups.

Mrs. Blakney was honored by the United Methodist Church in Philadelphia and New York. She received the Harry Hosier Award from the Methodist Church's Committee on Inclusiveness. She received the Bronze Keystone Award from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and a service certificate from the Crime Prevention Association.

One of her proudest moments was singing the national anthem during a New York Boys and Girls Club conference at which former U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress, was the keynote speaker, her son said.

She was a longtime member of Mount Zion United Methodist Church, where she served as church school superintendent, director of the children's choir, and district delegate to the annual conference of the United Methodist Church. She joined Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in 2009 and loved it, her son said.

Her granddaughter Niara J. Blakney said Mrs. Blakney sent her a letter with some money in it each week during her college years. "She always wanted to give what she had," her granddaughter said. "She sent out cards every single holiday to her friends, my dad's friend, and my friends. I was lucky to have known her as long as I did."

Mrs. Blakney was married to Joysie Blakney, who died in 2002. Another son,William Martin Blakney, died in 1992.

In addition to her son and granddaughter, she is survived by another granddaughter, a brother, nieces and nephews, and a large extended family.

Services were Friday, Nov. 16.
A man and his daughter look at building plans for the new South Philly Food Co-op, where'll be a member-owner. Read more

We have seen growth in the big-name, big-money grocery chains here in Philadelphia  the massive Whole Foods reboot in Fairmount, the Mom's Organic Market in Center City, the brand-new Sprouts "farmers market"-style grocery on South Broad, and the forthcoming Heirloom Market from Giant about to open in Graduate Hospital.

According to a study released Nov. 12 by Hunger Free America, almost one in five Philadelphia residents is food insecure. This means they have limited or uncertain access to adequate food  often because they do not have the resources to travel to grocery stores and purchase enough food.

It's tempting to think all our new food options will make the city less food insecure. But we suspect that as long as most stores remain corporate-owned, profit-driven national chains, Philadelphians won't see real benefit.

The reality is none of the aforementioned grocers are opening in neighborhoods with the greatest food insecurity. None are based in Philadelphia  meaning they are taking much of their profits elsewhere  and they have extreme gaps in compensation between their executives and in-store employees. Sprouts, for instance, is based in Arizona. Their CEO took home $4.5 million in compensation in 2017. Whole Foods was bought by Amazon last year, a company recently valued at over a trillion dollars and of which Jeff Bezos owns 16 percent.

<< READ MORE: A new kind of Giant is coming to 2303 Bainbridge St.

While we are encouraged by Giant's recent $1 million donation to Philabundance, a critical hunger relief organization in our region, this is a drop in the bucket for this international corporation. Giant is owned by Ahold Delhaize, a company based in the Netherlands that publicly reported paying its deputy CEO 135 times the average compensation of all its employees in 2017.

When we talk about food insecurity, let's not ignore that Ahold Delhaize placed third in 2017 among employers in Pennsylvania with the highest number of employees enrolled in SNAP (formerly known as food stamps)  behind only Walmart and McDonald's. Amazon placed fifth. Even as these companies publicly champion the value of fresh food through extensive marketing campaigns, they don't pay employees enough to fill their grocery baskets without public assistance.

Food co-ops  and cooperative businesses of all kinds  take a different approach, one rooted in community wealth and well-being. Most food co-ops are collectively owned and democratically governed by consumers in the neighborhood. These households  often called "member-owners"  can purchase a one-time equity share in their local co-op, which entitles them to vote for the board of directors, raise issues of concern to the member-ownership at large, and share in profits when the store is thriving. Equity shares are often subsidized for lower-income households. Through these practices, the control and benefit of food co-ops stay local and community-focused.

Here in Philadelphia, we have Weavers Way and Mariposa Food Co-op serving Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill and West Philadelphia, with Kensington Community Food Co-op and South Philly Food Co-op opening within the next year in their respective neighborhoods. These stores not only live by cooperative principles, but they also play active roles in educating its memberships and communities about issues of equity.

In these times of tremendous income and wealth inequality, it is unsurprising that we are seeing a huge resurgence in the cooperative movement. From housing and consumer co-ops to worker co-ops and more, cooperative enterprises are a natural response to structural inequity, like huge pay gaps. They provide a tool for communities to take ownership over basic goods and services, rather than rely on gigantic corporations that are disconnected from shoppers' everyday lives. Cooperative enterprises start from a place of concern for community and then build a business model  rather than make an exorbitant amount of profit and then figure out how to attempt generosity.

We need more cooperative businesses, especially in industries providing basic needs, such as food. For those of us with the opportunity to choose where we food shop, we must take this privilege seriously and consider where our money is going.

Leigh Goldenberg is board president and Emily Wyner is capital campaign organizer of the South Philly Food Co-op.
FILE  This Feb. 19, 2013, file photo, shows OxyContin pills arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. Prescription painkillers should not be a first-choice for treating common ailments like back pain and arthritis, according to new federal guidelines designed to reshape how doctors prescribe drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin. Amid an epidemic of addiction and abuse tied to these powerful opioids drugs, the CDC is urging general doctors to try physical therapy, exercise and over-the-counter pain medications before turning to painkillers for chronic pain. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File) Read more

After 1,217 people died in Philadelphia of drug overdose in 2017, it would have been reasonable to expect that City Council would have made the opioid epidemic a top priority. This year to date, City Council as a body has been quiet on the issue and not passed a single bill addressing the crisis. Granted, some Council members  especially those whose districts are most affected, like Maria D. Quinones-Sanchez  are vocal about this complex problem, but this is a problem the whole city faces. All of Council should be working together to find legislative solutions. City Council has an opportunity to improve its record before the year ends. Two bills currently being considered by Council aim to intervene at different points in the addiction continuum  preventing initiation of opioid use and ensuring that overdoses are not fatal.

The first bill, cosponsored by Councilmembers Bill Greenlee and Cindy Bass, aims at reducing the supply of prescription drugs. The bill would require pharmaceutical marketing representatives to register with the Department of Health and submit the written materials that they give to health-care practitioners. Further, the bill bans representatives from giving practitioners gifts, meals, or anything else of value. Research shows that when health-care practitioners receive gifts from pharmaceutical representatives they are more likely to prescribe the medications of the companies being represented. As such, if the enticing company sells opioids, a gift could increase the amount of opioids a provider prescribes  without a proper medical indication. The hope behind the bill is that if there are prescribers in Philadelphia that overprescribe opioids because of these types of perks, the ban would interrupt that relationship and reduce the amount of opioids prescribed.

The second bill, sponsored by Councilmember Bobby Henon, aims to reduce the number of fatal overdoses in the city by requiring that every pharmacy have two doses of naloxone  an opioid reversal medication  in stock at all times. Both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are working hard to increase access to naloxone. In 2015, current-state Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, who at the time was Pa.'s physician general, signed a standing order for naloxone, making it, in essence, an over-the-counter medication in Pennsylvania. Since then, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health has been conducting overdose reversal training and distributing tens of thousands of naloxone doses. In March, the city allocated $100,000 for an ad campaign to promote the carrying of naloxone. However, according to a survey by the Department of Public Health, one in four pharmacies in the city don't have naloxone in stock  undermining the city's efforts.

The success of these efforts will depend on the enforcement of these regulations, which would fall to the Department of Public Health.

The impact of these bills will probably not be huge; in fact, both bills are rather innovative and so far untested. But when people are dying daily, Council should signal it's taking it seriously by exploring other legislative solutions on such issues as expanding access to treatment and regulation of recovery houses. Enacting these two bills would be a first step.
Stating what has been unbearably obvious for years, Philadelphia Mayor Kenney declared gun violence a public health crisis in September and ordered his staff to come up with a new battle plan by Jan. 5.

At the time, there were already more than 230 homicides. Since then, about 70 more people have been killed. And, on Monday, police found four bodies in a West Philadelphia basement, kicking the number of homicides over 300 for the second time in two years.

The numbers fluctuate but the steady rain of gunshots, hitting two children on Halloween or four people just before Thanksgiving, doesn't. It traps residents in fear, turning their homes into prisons.

With this escalation of the violence, it's clear Police Commissioner Richard Ross can't wait until the report comes out in January. The bodies are going to keep piling up. Ross should do more of what he knows works and dial back on what doesn't, such as stop and frisk, which hasn't reduced violent crime. At the same time, he should broadcast his overarching vision to the city to get more help.

The department employs a variety of reactive tactics, such as deploying police to high-crime areas or driving shooting victims to the nearest hospital instead of waiting for an ambulance.

One thoughtful strategy, however, reduced crime. Beginning in 2013, the city, District Attorney's Office, and other agencies focused on gangs in South Philadelphia. When one member of a gang got into trouble, the entire gang paid for it with higher bails and sentences as well as enhanced enforcement of child support orders and fines for breaking the rules in public housing. The working group partnered with Temple University to study the program's effectiveness and learned that it reduced shootings by 35 percent. That's effective  so why not apply the program across the city?

None of these are bad approaches. The problem is there aren't enough of them to keep up with the bloodshed. Violence has many causes, including poverty, the rampant drug trade, the opioid crisis, and the proclivity of some to solve problems with a gun instead of talking it out. To reduce violence, the city's going to have to keep experimenting both with long-term solutions, such as reducing poverty  especially by improving educational opportunities and jobs  as well as short-term solutions, such as smartly deploying police. It also should increase university and hospital partnerships and take notes from other cities. Chicago, for example, teamed up with the University of Chicago to analyze where guns used in crimes are coming from. A similar approach could help Philadelphia get a handle on gun trafficking in a city awash in guns.

Kenney wants to focus on prevention and enforcement, treating gun violence like a public health issue. It's about time, because policing alone  while critical  won't be enough to stop the slaughter.

Of the upcoming report, he said, "I don't want something that sits on the shelf, something that is nice to announce and is forgotten."

We shouldn't be waiting for a report. The relentless carnage won't allow it. Action is required now.
Congress candidate A Maheshwar Reddy refused allegations levelled by AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi that the former had offered Rs 25 lakhs to cancel Owaisi's Nirmal rally in poll-bound Telangana, as reported by news agency PTI on Wednesday.

Reddy who is a candidate from Nirmal constituency termed the charges as "baseless and false" and said he would quit politics if Owaisi proved it.

Earlier on Monday night, Owaisi had alleged that Reddy had attempted to offer the bribe as "party fund" to cancel his rally in support of the TRS. Addressing a public meeting organised by his party in Nirmal, Owaisi alleged that Reddy had called an AIMIM leader on phone and offered to pay Rs 25 lakh as bribe to stop him from holding the meeting. He also claimed to have recorded the conversation.

Strongly refuting Owaisi's allegations, Reddy dared Owaisi to prove the charge with evidence. "Why should somebody stop someone's rally. Owaisi has already started campaigning for TRS party and now this man says that he is being stopped with an offer of Rs 25 lakh. Why somebody will offer him Rs 25 lakh and why he will stop," he told PTI.

"I want to make it very clear if really somebody had called him or met him or if he has any evidence let him show the evidence. I am ready to take it as a challenge and I am ready to quit politics if it is proved. Is he ready to quit politics, if it is untrue? he asked. They were talking of something which was "baseless and false," Reddy added.

"Never spoke to him. Just to create sensation, he said I offered Rs 25 lakhs. How can I offer 25 lakhs to a man who has thousands of crores of money? Ready to quit politics if he proves it," news agency ANI quoted Reddy as speaking.

The AIMIM, which is on friendly terms with the TRS, has not fielded its candidate in Nirmal Assembly seat, and organised the meeting in support of the ruling party candidate though there was no formal electoral tie-up between the two parties for the December 7 Assembly elections.

The party is contesting eight seats -- all in Hyderabad -- while the TRS is going alone in the polls to the 119-member assembly. The Congress heading a 'grand alliance' of TDP, CPI and TJS has announced candidates for 94 segments.

"Now when this jalsa (meeting) is happening the Congress people tried to buy Asaduddin Owaisi. Maheshwar (Reddy) phoned a MIM leader telling him to stop Owaisi Saheb, (and) will give Rs 25 lakh party fund. I have the recording (of that phone conversation)," Owaisi said at the meeting.

"This Congress candidate wants to buy my party for Rs 25 lakh. Ye log samajthe hain ham apni jamat ka sauda karenge (these people think we do deal for our party) Rs 25 lakh that is the sign of their arrogance," the Hyderabad MP alleged.

Reacting to Owaisis remarks, Congress party's star campaigner Khushbu Sundar told a press conference that the AIMIM chief should come out with proof.

"He (Owaisi) has to prove it. All I want to say is other than coming out with such an allegation, he should have come out with evidence first and then see if Rahul Gandhi takes action ( issue). We don't think that the AIMIM is such a big group that it is going to threaten the Congress party (partys opportunities). It is a very small group and communal group," she said.

She alleged that there was a nexus among BJP, TRS and AMIM parties.

Meanwhile, the BJP Tuesday demanded that the Election Commission take cognisance of Owaisi's comments. "What Owaisi has stated constitutes an attempt in electoral corruption," BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told reporters.

"Because, the state is currently undergoing election campaigning, Election Commission must take cognisance of this and must enquire into this and establish as to the culpability of the parties involved," he said.

The Congress party's desperation and its old habit of indulging in vote bank politics is once again evident, he claimed. "This also shows some kind of a nexus between the Congress party and AIMIM led by Owaisi," Narasimha Rao said.

In Delhi, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said Owaisi should not be taken seriously and charged him of having a "gathbandhan" with the BJP.

"We do not need to take Owaisi and his party seriously. We don't need to take a party seriously who travels from Hyderabad to Mumbai to fight elections, which tells their own story on whose support, on whose bidding, for what purpose. We do not need to take seriously a party which does the same thing in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and then swears by secular unity.

"It is the strangest distortion and new definition of a unity of secular forces with MIM. It is well known that the closest 'gathbandhan' exists between BJP and such electoral forces. So you can imagine whose proxy is speaking for whom and I do not understand who they are to give instructions to which person and which case on what locus," Singhvi said.
INDORE: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday categorically rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s charge that the UPA government led by him was "remote-controlled" by Sonia Gandhi for 10 years.

"It is wrong to say that my government was remote-controlled," Dr Singh said in a press conference in the Indore district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

While speaking at an election rally in Rewa on Tuesday, PM Modi had alleged that the UPA government led by Dr Manmohan Singh was remote-controlled by then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Driving his point home, Dr Singh said that the "Congress government functioned in a way that the party and the government worked in sync on the stage. And I think that the reason for the success of my government was that there was no difference of opinion between the government and the party."

Coming down heavily on the BJP-led NDA dispensation at the Centre, the former prime minister said that there is something fishy about the Rafale fighter jets deal signed by the Narendra Modi government with France.

The Congress veteran also ridiculed the Modi government for continuously ignoring the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal.

''The people of the country are suspicious of the Rafale deal, the Opposition and various groups are demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe but the Modi government isnt ready for it,'' the former Prime Minister said adding, ''Isse pata lagta hai daal mai kuchh kaala hai (this proves that there is something fishy about the deal).''

Attacking the BJP regime, Dr Singh said that the credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI has been systematically denigrated in Narendra Modi's rule.

He alleged that the Centre was making "careful, well-thought-out calibrated effort" to weaken democracy.

While stating that the corruption was peaking in the Modi government, Dr Singh said, "The country has witnessed the credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI systematically denigrated. There is a careful well-thought-out calibrated effort to weaken democracy."

"The rule of law is under attack. History shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed," he said.

The Congress is out of power in the state since 2003 while the BJP is seeking a fourth consecutive term by winning the election to the 230-member legislative assembly.

The state will have one-day voting on November 28. Counting of votes will take place on December 11.

(With Agency inputs)
BHOPAL: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday released its manifesto for Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, promising health and education services like those provided by its government in Delhi.

Claiming that the party is an alternative to the ruling BJP and main opposition Congress, Delhi minister Gopal Rai and Madhya Pradesh AAP chief Alok Agrawal released the manifesto, printed in the form of a notarised affidavit.

"Due to privatisation, the situation in health and education sectors in MP is worrisome. The poor and the middle class are unable to access health facilities," Rai said.

The party's government will appoint a "Lokpal", and the Vyapam admission and recruitment racket and scams in mining and e-tendering, among others, will be re-investigated, he said.

Agrawal said the party will introduce health and education services on the lines of Delhi.

"AAP in Delhi has set up Mohalla clinics in urban areas and panchayat hospitals in rural areas where medicines, tests and surgeries are free," he said.

AAP government will provide quality and free education to all and government schools would be made better than private ones, as in Delhi, he added.

The manifesto also promised loan waiver, free electricity for a few hours and fair prices for produce to farmers.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led party is contesting Assembly elections in the state for the first time. It has fielded candidates on 208 out of 230 seats for the November 28 polls.
A delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday met the Election Commission (EC) in Delhi and requested to take legal action against Congress for violating model code of conduct.

The delegation comrising of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, SS Ahluwalia, Meenakshi Lekhi, Anil Baluni and Om Prakash urged EC to take legal action against Congress for inciting religious sentiments by appealing to a particular religious community, news agency ANI reported.

In the letter, the BJP accused Congress president for Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath of bribery and corruption. They also accused the Congress of spreading fake news and propagating fake news.

BJP accused a private news channel of broadcasting an opinion poll on November 18th, which is a violation of model code of conducts, the letter stated. According to Election Commission's code of conducts, no opinion polls can be published before December 7.

BJP therefore accused Kamal Nath of paying the news channel for doing so. The letter stated that this is a 'clear case of paid news'.

BJP also targetted one of Kamal Nath's tweet where he promised to regularise the anganwadis and sahayikas and also said that wages of mid day meal workers will be raised. The letter says that no such promise was mentioned in the election manifesto of Congress for the state of Madhya Pradesh ahead of Assembly elections.

BJP also accused Kamal Nath of devided people on 'religious lines' and said that the Congress chief for Madhya Pradesh appealed to muslim voters in a gathering to mobilise 90% votes for the Indian National Congress (INC) in the 'muslim' booths.

"It is tragic that Kamal Nath chose to even devide the booths along religious lines," the letter stated.

BJP has therefore asked the EC to take action against the Congress and Kamal Nath.

Earlier on November 18, the Congress had targetted Prime Minister Narendra Modi referring to fake video in a rally.

MPCC wrote a letter to EC which said that PM Modi, in one of his rallies, had violated the code of conduct and misguided voters, news agency ANI reported.

Modi in his public rally in Chhindwara had said, "Kamal Nath says that Congress will give tickets to goons, all it needs is a candidate who can win."

The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11.
HYDERABAD: Days ahead of the crucial December 7 Telangana Assembly polls, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who earlier quit from Telangana Rashtra Samithi, met Congress chief Rahul Gandhi fuelling rumours of him joining the grand old party.

The 55-year-old MP from Chevella in Ranga Reddy district, reported to be the richest lawmaker in the state, met Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday.

MP from Chevella, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy who had resigned from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) yesterday, meets Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi pic.twitter.com/egPeFT59p8  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

The Chevella MP resigned from TRS on Tuesday citing disappointment with the party at various levels. Reddy said he would also resign from the Lok Sabha.

In a three-page letter to KCR, he listed disappointments at five levels  personal, injustice to karyakarthas who worked for Telangana statehood, constituency, state and party. "I fought for the party in 2014 when the party needed me. However, the party has induced people who were against Telangana and our ideology into the cabinet and given them more power and prominence. I feel people who were fighting for Telangana and share a common ideology including me are no longer needed in the party," Reddy writes in the letter.

I after introspection of the very reason I joined politics (Regional development) and after many discussion within the the TRS party, with a heavy heart I submitted my resignation to the TRS Party.  Vishweshwar Reddy K (@VishweshwarRed1) November 20, 2018

The heavyweight MP's resignation and likely move to Congress is being viewed as a major blow to TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

Congress is trying to build a grand alliance in the state consisting of Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) and Communist Party of India.

Congress left 25 seats to the partners - 14 to TDP, eight to TJS and three to CPI. However, TJS has rejected the offer and has demanded for 12 seats. Congress is also facing massive internal protest over the distribution of tickets. The final seat sharing between the parties is yet to be announced.

The 119-member Telangana Assembly is scheduled to go to polls on December 7. The counting of votes will take place on December 11. The house was dissolved prematurely in September on the recommendation of the ruling KCR-led TRS government.
New Delhi: Talented actor Rajkummar Rao, who has been shooting for 'Made In China', on Wednesday announced the schedule wrap of the film. The actor took to Twiter to share the news with his fans writing, "Schedule wrap for #MadeinChina. What a fun shoot, cant wait to share it with you guys on the big screen."

He also shared a group photo of the team along with the tweet on the social media. Take a look at his post here:

Speaking about the film, 'Made In China' has been directed by Mikhil Musale, who had directed the National Award winning Gujarati film 'Wrong Side Raju'. The film is produced by Dinesh Vijan and also features Mouni Roy and Boman Irani in the lead roles. Mouni will be seen as Rajkummar's wife in the film.

The film is a hilarious take on a struggling Gujarati businessman and the bizarre journey he undertakes to become a successful entrepreneur. It is scheduled to release on August 15, 2019, and may face a clash with John Abraham's 'Batla House'.

On the work front, Rajkummar Rao was last seen in Amar Kaushik's 'Stree'. Apart from 'Made In China', he also has 'Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga', co-starring Sonam Kapoor and Anil Kapoor, 'Mental Hai Kya' alongside Kangana Ranaut and Hansal Mehta's 'Turram Khan' in the pipeline.

Mouni recently made her Bollywood debut with Reema Kagti's period sports drama 'Gold' co-starring Akshay Kumar. She will next be seen in Ayan Mukerji's 'Brahmastra'.
NEW ALBANY, Ohio, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) today reported that on November 20, 2018, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share on the Class A Common Stock of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., payable on December 17, 2018 to stockholders of record at the close of business on December 7, 2018.



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The Bihar government on Tuesday approved a hike of 30% in the basic salary of Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) and Member of Legislative Council (MLC).

The salary will be hiked from Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000, news agency ANI reported.

Apart from this, the legislators would also be given Rs 10-15 lakh in advance for buying luxury vehicles. The annual travel allowance has been increased from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

The announcement was made in the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

According to news agency PTI, The Bihar cabinet gave approval to to the second supplementary budget proposals for 2018-19 which would be presented in the winter session of the Assembly.

The first supplementary budget was of Rs 19771 crore. Bihar's budget for 2018-19 is of Rs 176990 crore

The cabinet meeting approved the second supplementary budget of Rs 10463.15 crore for 2018-19 and it would be tabled during the five-day winter session of the state Assembly beginning November 26.

In another decision, the cabinet gave its nod to education department's proposal to give Rs 200 per month as a medical allowance to the pensioners and family pensioners who retired from all government colleges and universities of Bihar, cabinet secretariat department's special secretary Upendra Nath Pandey told reporters.

They would get medical allowance with effect from August one, 2014.

It also approved the creation of two posts - Additional Registrar, District Judge (Entry Point) and Research Officer, Civil Judge (Senior Division) - for better supervision of matters relating to juvenile justice, Pandey said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday slammed the Congress and said that the Rahul-Gandhi led party denied justice to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims.

BJP also targetted Congress' Kamal Nath and said that the latter was removed by Congress as the party's in-charge for the Punjab Assembly elections following protests by Sikhs. Targeting Nath, who has been accused by some Sikh bodies of having links to the riots, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad noted that the Congress had removed him as its in-charge for the Punjab polls last year following protests by people.

The statement by Prasad comes a day after Delhi court gave death sentence to Yashpal Singh and life term to Naresh Sehrawat for the killing of two Sikh men in Mahipal village in South Delhi in 1984.

Prasad said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to carry out the probe which led to the sentencing.

"We (BJP) are very satisfied," the Union minister told reporters about his party's stand on the verdict and added that people needed to be told that the Congress had, during its rule, tried to ensure that the Sikh riot victims did not get justice. The opposition party did it to save its own people, Prasad alleged.

There was no reaction to the court verdict from the Congress on Wednesday, but its spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had welcomed it on Tuesday.

"The Congress's stand is clear. This is a legal process, a legal process which must be allowed to work out its course and we are very proud, happy and fortunate that it is taking its course," Singhvi had told reporters.

Tuesday's court verdict gave some sort of a balm to those suffering for over 30-35 years, Prasad said.

The law minister said his party wanted to assure the Sikhs, especially those whose families had suffered, that the SIT would probe the cases honestly, without any undue outside interference, and take action against the guilty.

Earlier on Wednesday, Former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had said that UPA chief Sonia Gandhi should be questioned in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. He demanded that the special investigation team summon Sonia for a probe.

"SIT should summon Sonia Gandhi as the conspiracy (1984 anti-Sikh riots) was hatched at her residence and her husband was in power. Captain Amarinder Singh should also tell her (Sonia) to go for a lie detector test," Badal said as quoted by news agency ANI.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Badal had also expressed satisfaction at the verdict while hitting out at Congress. "Justice has been served, even after 34 years. Cong's attempts to shelter #1984SikhGenocide perpetrators have been defeated due to the SIT by Modi govt which reopened the cases in 2015. I join the Sikh community in expressing satisfaction at just punishment to the two convicts. Now it is the turn of the two big butchers of Delhi - Tytler & Sajjan to face the hangmans noose. Sikh community also awaits unmasking of role of Gandhi family and other Congress leaders in the execution of the genocide and hopes they also will be proceeded against as per the law," Badal tweeted.

(With PTI Inputs)
INDORE: Coming down heavily on the BJP-led NDA dispensation at the Centre, former prime minister and Congress veteran Dr Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said that there is something fishy about the Rafale fighter jets deal signed by the Narendra Modi government with France.

The Congress veteran also ridiculed the Modi government for continuously ignoring the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal.

''The people of the country are suspicious of the Rafale deal, the Opposition and various groups are demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe but the Modi government isnt ready for it,'' the former Prime Minister said adding, ''Isse pata lagta hai daal mai kuchh kaala hai (this proves that there is something fishy about the deal).''

The people of the country are suspicious of the #Rafale deal, the opposition and various groups are demanding a joint parliamentary committee but Modi government isnt ready for it. Isse pata lagta hai daal mai kuchh kaala hai: Former PM Manmohan Singh pic.twitter.com/f71OIEKl5y  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

Dr Singh made these remarks while addressing a press conference in the poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

Attacking the BJP regime, Dr Singh said that the credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI has been systematically denigrated in Narendra Modi's rule.

he alleged that the Centre was making "careful, well-thought-out calibrated effort" to weaken democracy.

While stating that the corruption was peaking in the Modi government, Dr Singh said, "The country has witnessed the credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI systematically denigrated. There is a careful well-thought-out calibrated effort to weaken democracy."

"The rule of law is under attack. History shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed," he said.

Dr Singh had earlier ridiculed the Narendra Modi government for failing on all counts and not delivering on the promises which it made to the electorate at the time of 2014 polls.

Very recently, the 86-year-old Congressman also vehemently criticised the Modi government on the second anniversary of demonetisation.

Addressing a press conference, Dr Singh called the demonetisation move as ''an ill-fated and ill-thought exercise'' that the Modi government undertook in 2016.

Reacting to the drive, the Congress leader also said the scars and wounds of demonetisation have become more visible with the passage of time.

He reiterated that economic misadventures can roil the nation for a long time and so economic policy-making should be handled with thought and care.

Dr Singh and his party led by its president Rahul Gandhi had launched an all-out offensive against the Modi government over the Rafale deal, alleging rampant corruption and favouritism in signing the deal with France's defence manufacturer Dassault Aviation.

The Congress party has labelled the Rafale fighter jet deal with France as the country's biggest defence scam so far.

Under pressure from all quarters and complying with the directions of the Supreme Court, the Centre recently submitted the details regarding the pricing of the Rafale jets and the decision making procedure followed by the centre in sealing the deal with the French firm.
The Delhi Police on Tuesday arrested the man who allegedly attacked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with chilli powder and further informed the attacker was found to be "unstable and incoherent", as reported by news agency ANI.

After arresting 40-year-old Anil Kumar Sharma for attacking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief, the police said that they have registered a case in the matter while adding that no formal complaint has been received from the Chief Minister Secretariat yet.

Sharma threw red chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his chamber at the Delhi secretariat. The man came to the secretariat on the pretext of giving a letter to Kejriwal. He handed the note to the Chief Minister and touched his feet, during which the chilli powder fell from his hand. He then tried to smear the remaining powder on Kejriwal's face, but was caught by some people.

"The accused Anil Sharma has been arrested. A case has been taken up for investigation. Since the accused has threatened Chief Minster, a joint interrogation was conducted by Intelligence Bureau, special cell and local police. He was found to be unstable and incoherent," the Delhi Police said.

"After taking suo-motu cognisance, a case has been registered. No formal complaint has been received from the Chief Minister Secretariat. A cognisable offence at prima facie made out. Therefore, a case has been registered under Sections 186, 353, 332 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," added the Delhi Police.

Earlier, the Delhi Police, in a statement, had said that the chilli powder, which was found on the floor of the Delhi Secretariat may have fallen out of Sharma`s hand and the attack may have been unintentional, according to ANI.

"Sharma had gone to the Chief Minister`s office to submit a complaint with a staff member`s reference. After handing over the complaint to the minister, he bent down to touch his feet during which Kejriwal`s security persons intervened and his spectacles fell down," ANI reported quoting a statement.

"Subsequently, security personnel moved him aside and found him carrying a pouch in his hand which apparently contained chilli powder, which later got torn," the statement added.

The AAP criticised the Delhi Police`s statement and accused them of lying on record. "Instead of owning up its serious lapses, the Delhi Police is spreading lies under political pressure. Delhi government will explore all legal options to deal with the situation," the Kejriwal-led government said in a statement.

Citing that the attack took place in a high security zone, the AAP questioned the preparedness of Delhi Police, even as it accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of hatching a controversy.

Addressing a press conference shortly after the attack, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia accused the BJP of hatching a conspiracy to carry out fatal attack on the Chief Minister in collusion with the Delhi Police.

Sisodia cited the incident at the inauguration of Signature Bridge in the national capital when Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari reached the stage, along with some goons, when the Chief Minister was delivering his speech. He added that they were carrying a bottle, alleging that there might have been acid inside it. We are not going to be cowed down by BJP'S petty tactics, the deputy chief minister added.
NEW DELHI: A day after Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorist Ansar-Ul-Haqe was arrested for the murder of CID Intelligence Officer, authorities are now on the lookout for his girlfriend Sadiya Sheikh.

Sheikh is a civil services aspirant. She along with Haqe had tipped-off terrorists about the travel plans of sub-inspector Imtiyaz Ali Ahmad Mir, whose bullet-ridden body was found in Pulwama last month.

Delhi Police's Special Cell on Tuesday arrested Haqe from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport and is currently in the custody.

On October 28, the bullet-ridden body of 30-year-old Mir was found in Chewa Kalan area of Pulwama district. He was working with the CID department, was going home in his car to meet his parents when he was allegedly abducted by terrorists and brutally murdered.

Mir had been warned about a possible attack on him and even his superiors had told the officer against venturing into his village.

Sharing details about the incident, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Pramod Singh Kushwah said that Haqe told his girlfriend to ask for a lift from Imtiaz and then tipped off Hizbul terrorists about his exact location.

On November 20, police received information that Haqe would come to Delhi Airport from Bengaluru and will head to Srinagar. Accordingly, a trap was laid at IGI Airport and in the early morning on Tuesday, the accused was nabbed at T3 terminal of IGI Airport, the senior police officer said.

Haqe was a former worker of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party, which he had joined in 2014, police said.

He was motivated by a local terrorist, Wajid, also a resident of Pulwama. Through him, Haqe came in contact with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and was in regular contact with other terrorists of the outfit, the officer added.

With agency inputs
A fresh political storm erupted in the Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday as Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the Assembly even as former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) staked claim to form government with the support of the National Conference and the Congress party.

The decision of the Governor did not go down well with the PDP, the National Conference and the Congress party, who decided to form an unprecedented alliance in Jammu and Kashmir. Leading the attacks were former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, who have been arch rivals in the polity of the state.

Expressing shock over the decision of the Governor to dissolve the Assembly in a sudden manner, both Mehbooba and Abdullah claimed that they had been demanding the same for the past five months but their repeated requests were not paid any heed to.

Taking to microblogging site Twitter, the PDP chief said, In my twenty six year old career as a politician, I thought I had seen it all! But like they say never say never! Nevertheless, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to @OmarAbdullah and @Ambikasoni4 ji for helping us achieve the seemingly impossible.

Mehbooba said that the grand coalition had given jitters to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government. Since the past five months, regardless of political affiliations, we shared the view that the state assembly be dissolved immediately to avert horse trading & defections, she tweeted.

Oddly enough our pleas fell on deaf ears. But who would have thought that the very idea of a grand coalition would give such jitters.

She also raised question on the Governors House fax allegedly not receiving her fax, but swiftly issued one regarding the assembly dissolution.

Her sentiment was echoed by Omar Abdullah, who retweeted her tweets and said it cannot be a coincidence that the decision to dissolve the state Assembly emerged soon after Mehbooba shared the letter to stake claim to form the government.

JKNC has been pressing for assembly dissolution for 5 months now. It cant be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears, he said.

Retweeting Mehbooba, Abdullah further said, And I never thought Id be retweeting anything you said while agreeing with you. Politics truly is a strange world. Good luck for the battle ahead. Once again the wisdom of the people will prevail.

The Congress termed the move of the Governor as unconstitutional and undemocratic. Senior Congress leader Saifuddin Soz said that Mehbooba must move the court, alleging that the development was on the instructions of the central government.

Former J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad also attacked the BJP over the issue, saying, I said this afternoon also that it's a suggestion & no final decision has been taken yet (on PDP-NC-Congress alliance). BJP dissolved the assembly even though only a proposal was made.

The BJP on its part defended the move, terming the new partners of the rival alliance as terror-friendly parties. Citing the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP tweeted that the best option in such a scenario is to go in for a fresh election at the earliest. This assembly cannot produce a stable government.

The proposed alliance between the INC and the PDP broke up even before it was formed. They have taken contradictory positions on dissolution. One supports it and the other opposes it.

Keeping the security scenario of J&K in mind, can it afford horse-trading and instability? J&K needs a firm administration to deal with terrorism and not a combination of terror-friendly parties, the BJP further said in a tweet.
President Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday morning on a three-day official visit. This is the first visit of an Indian President to Australia.

President Kovind and First Lady Savita Kovind were received by the official Secretary to Governor-General of Australia Paul Singer MVO along with other dignitaries.

During his bilateral trip, the President will address the Indian diaspora and unveil the statue of Mahatma Gandhi marking his 150th Birth anniversary. He is also scheduled to meet Linda Dessau AC, Governor of Victoria and address the students at Melbourne University.

Prior to his visit to the island nation, President Kovind was on a four-day trip to Vietnam where he addressed the National Assembly and met with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong and agreed to strengthen relations in defence, civil nuclear energy outer space, oil and gas, infrastructure, agriculture and innovation-based sectors.

He also held discussions with Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Phuc on wide range of issues of mutual interest including trade, energy and regional security.
The BJP kept the pot boiling on the Sabarimala issue Wednesday with Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan lashing out at the left government, saying its "master plan" was to "harass" pilgrims, as the Kerala High Court slammed the police for its alleged excesses on devotees.

As the stand-off on entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine continued, A Padmakumar, president of the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the shrine, said their aim was to have peaceful atmosphere in the temple and the TDB was prepared to hold talks with anyone on the matter.

In the midst of the tense situation, there was no rush of devotees and the 18 holy steps, which normally sees a heavy crowd, wore a deserted look.

Criticising the Inspector General of Police in-charge of Sabarimala and Superintendent of Police for the alleged action against pilgrims at Sabarimala and Nilackal recently, the court asked whether these officials were having any criminal antecedents.

The court also observed that experienced officials should be put in charge.

A division bench, comprising Justices P R Ramachandra Menon and N Anil Kumar, directed the Pathanamthitta district magistrate to produce all files and records which led to declaration of Section 144 banning assembly of four or more people in Sabarimala 'Sannidhanam' and surrounding areas.

Hitting out at the CPI(M)-led LDF government on the Sabarimala issue, Radhakrishnan said its "masterplan" was to "harass" the devotees and not allow them to go to the Ayyappa temple.

The union minister, who offered prayers at the hill shrine this evening carrying his "irrumudikettu" (holy bundle with offering to Lord Ayyappa) was displeased with the manner in which Superintendent of Police Yatish Chandra had behaved with him at Nilackal, a base camp.

When the minister wanted to know why private vehicles of devotees were not being allowed to Pamba from Nilackal, while Kerala state transport corporation buses were plying, the officer explained that post floods the facilities at Pamba were meagre.

The senior police official explained to the union minister about the features of Pamba, an environmental fragile area. He also said if the union minister gives him in writing to allow private vehicles to Pamba, he was prepared to allow all vehicles.

"He asked me whether I will take responsibility.Can the SP ask the same question to a state minister of Kerala?. Will they allow him to ask this query?" Radhakrishanan asked reporters after offering prayers.

The minister declined to answer a question on the September 28 Supreme court verdict allowing women of all ages to offer worship at the shrine, saying "I do not want to go into that.. My concern is with devotees. Do not harass the devotees."

State BJP general secretary, A N Radhakrishnan, who was accompanying the minister, alleged that the IPS officer spoke "arrogantly" and "misbehaved" with the union minister and said the matter would be brought to the Centre's notice.

Meanwhile, a court in Pathanamthitta district Wednesday granted conditional bail to 72 people, including K Surendran, BJP general secretary, who were arrested in connection with Sabarimala temple row.

Surendran along with two others had been arrested on November 18 from Nilackal as he tried to proceed to the Ayyappa Temple despite being advised by police personnel against visiting Sabarimala due to law and order issues.

The 69 others were arrested after they held a "nama japam" (chanting Lord Ayyappa mantras) inside the shrine complex late on Sunday, defying prohibitory orders.

Though it is 55 days since the Supreme Court delivered its verdict, no women in the traditionally barred age group of 10-50 years has made it to the temple.

Some devotees on Wednesday said they had no problem with the restrictions imposed by authorities.

An elderly woman said she was happy that she could offer prayers to Lord Ayyappa.

"I have never had such a good opportunity to see the Lord," the beaming woman said.

Another devotee said he had been coming to the shrine for the past 12 years.

"This year's was the most satisfying darshan," he said.

Both the BJP and the Congress-led UDF opposition have intensified their attack on the left government on the Sabarimala issue.

Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam, who visited the Sabarimala complex Monday, attacked the state government for turning the temple complex into a "war zone" and treating the pilgrims like "dacoits".

BJP chief Amit Shah has said the government's handling of the situation at Sabarimala was "disappointing" and alleged that the pilgrims were being treated as

"Gulag inmates" and made to spend the nights next to "pig droppings".

A delegation of the United Democratic Front (UDF), comprising congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and Oommen Chandy, had defied the prohibitory orders Tuesday at the base camps at Pamba and Nilackal.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has alleged that the sangh parivar's agenda was to create trouble by sending 'kar sevaks" to take control of the sabarimala temple and make pilgrims "scapegoats".

The Ayyappa temple was opened on November 16 for the over-two-month-long pilgrimage season amid tension.
In a shocking incident, a US citizen was killed by a community of hunter-gatherers in North Sentinel Island, one of the Andaman Islands, as reported by news agency Reuters. The community live there isolated from the outside world, two police officials said on Wednesday.

The tourist has been identified as John Allen Chau. At least seven people have been arrested in connection with the case.

An FIR has been registered by the police in a case of murder.

Police have launched an investigation, Deepak Yadav, a police officer in the island chain in the Bay of Bengal, said in a statement late on Tuesday.

"We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands," a spokeswoman for the United States consulate in India`s southern city of Chennai said in an email.

"When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts," she added but declined to provide further details over privacy concerns.

The North Sentinel Island, off-bounds to visitors, is home to the Sentinelese who killed the American after he was illegally ferried there by fishermen, the officials added. "A murder case has been registered," one of the officials told Reuters. Both officials sought anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The Sentinelese refuse to connect with the rest of the world and are also among those tribes, worldwide, who are averse to modern-day civilization.

Earlier this month, in an interview to travel forum, The Outbound, Chau had said, "Going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India is on the top - there's so much to see and do there!" Outbound had asked him what was on the top of his must-do adventure list.

According to the forum, Chau is 23-year-old.

Reuters was not immediately able to trace contact details for a family member or representative of Chau.

One of the police sources said Chau, who had made previous visits to the islands, had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese.

Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on Nov. 16, before transferring to a canoe, the official said. His body, spotted the following day by the fishermen on their return, has not yet been retrieved, the official added, although the fishermen who took him there have been arrested.
NEW DELHI: The Congress is deliberating an alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the National Conference (NC) with an eye on forming a government in Jammu and Kashmir.



"All parties thinking on the possibility of joining hands and forming a government in the state. For now, it is being deliberated upon just as a suggestion and not with a view to forming the government," Ghulam Nabi Azad said. The grand alliance is likely to be formed with a view on creating a popular government in the state.

J&K is currently under Governor's rule which cannot be extended after it completes its six-month period on December 19. The government led by Peoples Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti fell when its partner BJP pulled out of the ruling coalition on June 16.

There has been speculation that efforts were underway to prop up a government headed by Sajjad Lone's People Conference, which has only two MLAs, with the support of 25 MLAs of BJP. However, this combination would fall short of the required majority of 44 which is sought to be made by splitting the PDP which has been rocked by dissidence.

The plan envisages a coalition between PDP and Congress, which have been partners in a government between 2002 to 2007, backed from outside by the National Conference. The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC with 15 and Congress with 12 which will make up for a clear majority.

The National Conference sources made it clear that they were not interested in joining a coalition government but would not be averse to giving outside support to a PDP-Congress coalition.

If such an arrangement comes about, Mehbooba Mufti is unlikely to be the chief minister but the government may be headed by a senior PDP leader.

Coming together of traditionally bitter rivals, the PDP and the NC, would mark a significant realignment of political forces in the state. The National Conference had offered its support to the PDP after the 2014 assembly polls but the latter ignored the offer and aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
SEATTLE, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- CFN Media Group (CFN Media), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article discussing Supreme Cannabis Co. (TSX-V: FIRE) (OTCQX: SPRWF).



The cannabis industry has boomed in recent years supported by the access to inexpensive capital, which has stemmed from a voracious investor appetite for cannabis exposure and the prospects of outsized returns. In turn, many licensed producers have quickly deployed any raised capital to feed the investor frenzy and the demand for growth prospects and transactions without necessarily looking at the long-run and the need to maximize return on capital.

There are a few exceptions to this, and the Supreme Cannabis Co. is an issuer that has taken a disciplined approach with a focus on maximizing shareholder value over the long-run by ensuring prudent capital management and allocation.

Utilizing Product Experts in a Segmenting Market

A recent clear example of Supremes strategy can be found in its approach to cannabis extract production. Cannabis oils have had a significant share of the medical cannabis market, according to Health Canada . As such, it is not surprising that many licensed producers have invested significant capital in building out large extraction facilities to produce cannabis oils. Dedicating capital to this function is a calculated risk with a rapidly evolving market and international opportunities on the horizon that might require this capital.

Supreme Cannabis has generally taken a contrarian view in its approach to the market. In the case of domestic cannabis oil extraction, Supreme Cannabis has not deployed capital to build domestic oil facilities. Instead, the company has operated on the thesis that as the cannabis market evolved it would naturally segment, and dedicated product experts would be established. This is the same trend the company has observed in mature US markets.

Supremes thesis played out correctly as dedicated extraction companies such as MediPharm Labs Corp. and Neptune Wellness Solutions Inc. have come to market. The company recently signed a deal with MediPharm to produce Supremes first line of cannabis oils. Supreme will provide an initial 1,000 kilograms of dried cannabis flower that will be converted into approximately 200,000 40ml tinctures in the first year. The agreement runs for three years, and the initial amounts constitute minimum annual production levels which can be increased as needed. Canopy Growth also has taken advantage of these experts  supplementing its extraction capabilities with an agreement with Neptune .

This agreement provides Supreme with the same cannabis oil market exposure as its peers with none of the capital costs and associated risks  allowing the company to deploy capital in other opportunities.

Supreme Cannabis Becomes Sixth Largest Canadian LP by Revenues

Supreme Cannabis Co.s revenue rose 229 percent to $5.14 million during its first quarter of fiscal 2019 (calendar Q3). These results are driven by a growing number of supply agreements with other licensed producers and deals with six provinces to supply recreational cannabis to consumers.

At an annual revenue run rate of $20.6M, these results rank Supreme sixth among the Canadian LPs: 1) Aurora Cannabis has a revenue run rate of $118M, 2) Canopy Growth at $93M, 3) Aphria at $53M, 4) Tilray Inc. at $52M, and 5) CannTrust at $50.35M. It is noteworthy that every single one of the LPs listed above trades a significant valuation premium to Supreme Cannabis, as well as several companies with lower reported revenues.

Looking Ahead

The Supreme Cannabis Co. (TSX-V: FIRE) (OTCQX: SPRWF) represents a compelling investment opportunity in the burgeoning cannabis industry. With its disciplined approach to the market, the company is laser-focused on generating high rates of return on its deployed capital and ultimately building significant long-term shareholder value.

For more information, visit the companys website or download its investor presentation .

Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/supreme-cannabis-focused-disciplined-deployment-capital/

Disclaimer

The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/

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CannabisFN.com is not an independent financial investment advisor or broker-dealer. You should always consult with your own independent legal, tax, and/or investment professionals before making any investment decisions. The information provided on http://www.cannabisfn.com (the Site) is either original financial news or paid advertisements drafted by our in-house team or provided by an affiliate. CannabisFN.com, a financial news media and marketing firm enters into media buys or service agreements with the companies that are the subject of the articles posted on the Site or other editorials for advertising such companies. We are not an independent news media provider. We make no warranty or representation about the information including its completeness, accuracy, truthfulness or reliability and we disclaim, expressly and implicitly, all warranties of any kind, including whether the Information is complete, accurate, truthful, or reliable. As such, your use of the information is at your own risk. Nor do we undertake any obligation to update the items posted. CannabisFN.com received compensation for producing and presenting high quality and sophisticated content on CannabisFN.com along with financial and corporate news.

The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/

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Srinagar: In a potentially far-reaching realignment of political forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP, Congress and the National Conference appear to be joining hands to form a popular government, sources in the three parties indicated Tuesday.

The state is currently under governor's rule which cannot be extended after it completes its six-month period on December 19. It is proposed to impose President's rule thereafter but the 87-member assembly is not being dissolved, according to Governor Satyapal Mallik.

A popular government headed by the Peoples Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti fell when its partner BJP pulled out of the ruling coalition on June 16.

Political circles have been agog with speculation that behind the scene efforts were underway to prop up a government headed by Sajjad Lone's People Conference, which has only two MLAs but which would be banking on support by the 25 MLAs of BJP. However, this combination would fall short of the required majority of 44 which is sought to be made by splitting the PDP which has been rocked by dissidence.

The sources said that in order to checkmate such efforts to prop up another BJP-backed government, mainstream parties such as the Congress, PDP and the National Conference are in touch to form a government.

The plan envisages a coalition between PDP and Congress, which have been partners in a government between 2002 to 2007, backed from outside by the National Conference. The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC with 15 and Congress with 12 which will make up for a clear majority.

The National Conference sources made it clear that they were not interested in joining a coalition government but would not be averse to giving outside support to a PDP-Congress coalition.

If such an arrangement comes about, Mehbooba Mufti is unlikely to be the chief minister but the government may be headed by a senior PDP leader.

Coming together of traditionally bitter rivals, the PDP and the NC, would mark a significant realignment of political forces in the state. The National Conference had offered its support to the PDP after the 2014 assembly polls but the latter ignored the offer and aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After the June 16 pull-out, Lone is understood to have been approaching disgruntled PDP leaders for forming an alliance with the BJP, the sources said.

Imran Ansari, former PDP minister, is among a few others who have been cosy with the People's Conference, which has also approached some of the MLAs for joining the alliance with the BJP.

A former separatist leader, Lone had been successful in breaking away National Conference's chief spokesman Junaid Muttu, who recently contested the urban local body elections and became Mayor of Srinagar.

Efforts made to get a response from Lone did not fructify as he did not respond to messages sent by PTI.

A founder member of PDP, Muzzafar Beigh also joined the bandwagon of Lone on Tuesday and held a press conference here and said "the PDP betrayed the workers, denying them a chance to connect with the people, by boycotting the elections. They left a vacuum and that space has now been occupied. Politics does not wait for people who boycott."

Beigh said, "Now this talk of NC-PDP alliance. How will people of Jammu react? How will people of Ladakh react? It will be an alliance of one religion. Jammu would not like it, Ladakh will not remain part of the state. This will lead to trifurcation of the state."

A former member of People's Conference, Beigh said he was not averse to formation of a third front led by Lone and went on to say "Sajad Lone is like my son. I had contested the elections that led to registration of Peoples Conference as a political party. If Sajad (Lone) is interested in (formation of third front), it should be encouraged. People want something different from the beaten track".

"Sajad has not contacted me directly. The BJP has not contacted me (on government formation or third front formation). However, there are people within the party (PDP) who want an elected government," he said.
NEW DELHI: Communist Party of India (Marxist) has hit out at the Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS) in stand-off over the entry of menstrual age women to Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. CPIM Politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai alleged that RSS is creating trouble in Sabarimala.

"They (RSS) are behaving like Taliban and Khalistan terrorists. Why are they trying to create trouble in Sabarimala? They should allow everything to be peaceful, theyre not doing it," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also alleged that the Sangh Parivar was making the pilgrims 'scapegoats'. Vijayan asserted that Sabarimala would not be allowed to be transformed into a "centre of violence" and his government "will not compromise" with those perpetrating violence in the temple complex. He claimed that the Sangh Parivar was "exploiting Sabarimala in the name of faith" and trying to take control of the temple.

Vijayan also defended the arrest of 69 people from the temple complex on Sunday night and slammed the Congress for opposing implementation of the Supreme Court order. He alleged the RSS and Congress "have become one" on the Sabarimala issue.

Meanwhile, BJP President Amit Shah accused the Kerala government of treating pilgrims as 'Gulag inmates'. In a series of tweets, Shah said, "If several reports of flushing resting places for devotees and them having to spend nights next to pig droppings and dustbin are true, then Pinarayi Vijayan must realize that he can't treat Ayyappa devotees like inmates of Gulag. We won't let LDF crush people's faith with impunity."

Gulag was a system of forced labour camps established during Joseph Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union.

Shah's comments underlined his party's support to devotees protesting against the state government's move to implement the apex court order that allowed the entry of women of all groups to the temple.

Shah said the way in which the Vijayan's government is handling the sensitive issue of Sabarimala is disappointing as the "Kerala police is treating young girls, mothers and aged inhumanly, forcing them to take the arduous pilgrimage, without even basic facilities like food, water, shelter and clean toilets".

"If Pinarayi Vijayan thinks he can rise against people's movement to preserve Sabarimala by arresting K Surendran, BJP's Thrissur district president and six others, then he is mistaken," Shah had said.
Thane/ Mumbai: Over 20,000 farmers are marching from Thane to Mumbai, demanding state government's support on several issues including compensation for drought and loan waiver.

The two-day march started at Thane on Wednesday at 10 am. Farmers will reach Mumbai's Somaiyya Ground at 5 pm, where a rally is scheduled to be held. The march will conclude at Azad Maidan on Thursday, where farmers will stage an indefinite sit-in till demands are met.

The march has been organised by Lok Sangharsh Morcha. It is being led by water conservation activist Rajendra Singh and Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav, reported news agency PTI.

Traffic jams are likely in Mumbai as the protesting farmers.

In March this year, nearly 50,000 farmers walked all the way from Nashik in north Maharashtra to Mumbai to demand loan waiver and implementation of the Forest Rights Act, among other things.

"Farmers across Maharashtra are reeling under insensitive and anti-farmer policies of the state government and therefore we have no option but to strike the government with farmers' unity," general secretary of the Morcha, Pratibha Shinde, said at a press conference.

Protesters' demands include time-bound implementation of Forest Rights Act, total loan waiver, stopping of displacement of tribal villages due to Nar-Par, Damanganga and Vagh Pinjal river linking projects, stopping of acquisition of land for the Mumbai-Nagpur expressway and bullet train, she said.

"Our march will be peaceful and we will ensure that people in the city are not inconvenienced," she said, adding, "Government's loan waiver scheme has not given any relief to farmers."

Political parties such as the Janata Dal (S), Aam Aadmi Party and several NGOs are supporting the protest, she said.

With agency inputs
A fire broke out at a room on the first floor of a building in Sewri area of Mumbai on Wednesday.

According to news agency ANI, four fire tenders were present at the spot.

No accidents and injuries have been reported so far.

Operations to douse the fire are underway, ANI reported.

Earlier on November 17, a level-two fire broke in Mumbai Madanpura area.

(This is a developing story, more details are awaited.)

(With ANI Inputs)
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday refused to stay trial court proceedings and denied relief to Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit, one of the accused in the Malegaon blast case.

The court adjourned the case for two weeks.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had asked the Bombay HC to hear Purohit`s plea challenging the validity of the prosecution sanction for his trial under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed the high court that Purohit's plea be dealt with on November 21.

A special NIA court on November 2 had commenced the formal trial against Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five other accused after framing of charges under various penal law in the Malegaon blast case. Earlier this week, the court directed that a copy of photographs and videos pertaining to the 2008 Malegaon blast be provided to Purohit.

Purohit, in an application filed last week, had asked the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court to give him copies of photographs and videos related to the incident to prepare his defence.

During the argument on Monday, the prosecution objected to his plea, saying no other accused had asked for these documents and that this was a delay tactic.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.

With agency inputs
New Delhi: The gorgeous Indo-Canadian actress Lisa Ray is a fighter and that we all know! The beautiful actress battled cancer in 2009 and gave it a tough fight. Recently, she recalled her tumultuous journey and how she dealt with the deadly disease.

Lisa shared some incredible posts on Instagram and in one of them she wrote: Nine years and a few months ago, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. Im still here. I chose to share my diagnosis from the red carpet of the Toronto International Film Festival and I wrote about it in a blog titled, #TheYellowDiaries. But what hasnt been extensively shared is I relapsed in 2012, around the time of my (first and only) marriage. And after drawing on both allopathic and complementary therapies, I was back in remission. .

Stay open and curious they say, suck the meaning from every experience. Then about four years ago, just before moving to Hong Kong and Mumbai, I found myself as patient number 12 in a second stage clinical trial for a revolutionary new way of approaching cancer treatment: immuno-oncology. Chemotherapy kills the bad cells, along with the good- its doesnt discriminate. But immuno-oncology boosts the immune system in a way that it can target only those rogue cancer cells. .

Dr Armand Keating was conducting the trials for NK-92 @thepmcf and looking for patients who had relapsed just once. Yes! Thats me...and so I became part of a clinical trial that I believe has made all the difference. Life was unusually crazy as I would travel to Asia and then back to Toronto for one week of infusions and monitoring at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Im unspeakably grateful to Dr Keating, his staff, Princess Margaret, serendipity and the goddess forces that have guided me, fearlessly, humour intact, into places where I have discovered that cheeky survivor personality that lies within us all. .

Im not special. We each of us has the potential to tap into something far greater than the individual...and also the wisdom to understand when its time to let go. The universe is for you, not against you. Thats what I have come to understand through cancer, in a line.

@thepmcf pictured: my portacath.

Lisa has been an inspiring figure for all!

The actress was diagnosed with multiple myeloma on June 23, 2009. It's a cancer of the white blood cells known as plasma cells, which produce antibodies. It is a rare disease.

The actress is in a happy space now. She has embraced motherhood and welcomed twin daughters via surrogacy. In April 2010, Lisa announced that she was cancer-free, after a stem cell transplant.

The actress-model got married to longtime beau Jason Dehni on October 20, 2012.
Newlyweds Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh are currently in Bengaluru for their wedding reception, which is believed to be held at The Leela Palace. The event will see most of Deepika's relatives in attendance.

Deepika and Ranveer had a fairytale wedding in Italy last week. Though there were not many photos of the adorable duo earlier, but ever since they have returned back to the country, the social media has been flooded with their latest photos, with the two decked up in the best of their outfits.

On Wednesday, a new set of photos of the newlywed couple came out where the duo can be seen seated on the back seat of their car as they were heading to The Leela Palace where the reception is being held tonight. While Deepika is seen in a black outfit and sunnies, Ranveer is seen in a grey hoodie.

Interestingly, neither Deepika not Ranveer could take their eyes off each other as they got clicked having a conversation with each other. The two even took a second to greet the media and smiled at them.

Take a look at their photos here:

(Photo courtesy: Yogen Shah)

Speaking about the reception ceremony, it is said to be held in the grand ballroom of The Leela Palace and it is beautifully decorated. The couple is expected to host a second wedding reception in Mumbai for their friends and the media.
A powerful blast at a mosque in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province's Chaman area on Wednesday injured at least seven people, including the prayer leader, according to police.

The blast occurred at the time of evening prayers in the mosque, which is located on Taj Road in Chaman, bordering Afghanistan.

At least seven people, including the mosque's prayer leader, have been injured as a result of the blast, which rocked the entire neighbourhood, Dawn reported.

The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where a state of emergency has been declared.

A video shared on Twitter appears to show the damage caused by the explosion in the mosque.

Authorities have cordoned off the site of the explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.

Chaman is considered a sensitive town in Balochistan as it shares a border with Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province.

Security was tightened on Wednesday across the country to avert any tragedy on the occasion of the Eid Milad-un Nabi, marking the birth anniversary of the Prophet.

Mobile phone services were shut down in major cities to prevent terror attacks during the celebrations, in the wake of a suicide attack in neighbouring Afghanistan on Tuesday that killed over 50 people, mostly clerics.
British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives in Brussels on Wednesday to attempt to agree a blueprint of Britain`s post-Brexit ties with the European Union, which the bloc`s diplomats said was being held up by disagreements over Gibraltar, fisheries and trade.

All EU leaders are due to meet on Sunday to rubber-stamp the Brexit deal, consisting of Britain`s withdrawal agreement and an outline of the two sides` new relationship after Britain exits the EU.

The fate of the withdrawal accord is uncertain. British lawmakers are stepping up a fight over the terms of departure, with some trying to open the way for the country to change course.

While the EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the nearly 600 pages of dense legal text that forms the divorce deal, some of the remaining 27 member states also have issues with it.

Attempting to address those issues in ongoing talks on the document that will outline future ties, national EU envoys of the 27 states met on Brussels in Tuesday.

"Still some work is needed on three aspects: fish, goods and Gibraltar," one diplomat said of the meeting, held on the eve of May`s talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU`s executive. "Juncker and May will try to sort it out tomorrow."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday threatened to vote against the overall Brexit accord on Sunday unless it makes clear that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks between Madrid and London.

"Spain does have a very real problem on Gibraltar," said another diplomat.

Many in the EU`s political hub Brussels said they thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a looming domestic election.

They believed the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to push so far as to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk.

"We are following the latest developments with growing concern," said a third EU diplomat after Madrid said it would want changes to the already-negotiated divorce deal.

"No one wants to reopen the withdrawal agreement. That would lead to the crumbling away of the whole Brexit agreement and lead us all into no-man`s land."

Within the EU, a withdrawal treaty is adopted by qualified majority and not unanimity, so formally a single state like Spain cannot block it. However, EU leaders are seeking unanimity on the deal.

With the fate of the tentative Brexit agreement still far from clear, both sides have also been advancing their contingency plans for the most damaging scenario under which Britain would crash out of the EU with no deal in place.

Another diplomat who took part in Tuesday`s meeting said Britain was seeking an easy flow of goods post-Brexit that was too close to that enjoyed by bloc members only.

"The UK wants free movement of goods, which they won`t get because that`s back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we don`t do," the person said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britain`s rich fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under control after Brexit.

EU members with pending issues to be resolved are seeking to either address them through the blueprint that is now being negotiated, or via separate EU statements that would not formally be part of the deal with Britain. France has backed such extra declarations, while Germany opposed them, saying the focus should be on finalising the outline of the future EU-UK relations.

Following May`s meeting with Juncker, EU envoys will meet to discuss the approximately 20-page blueprint on Thursday, and then the leaders` negotiators will look at it again at a meeting scheduled on Friday, two days before the summit.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in September.

Defying intense pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom, claiming it would be a "foolish" move that would only benefit Russia and China.

Trump said US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi`s murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and who planned it. Since the murder, Trump has taken varying positions on how to react, including possible sanctions.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn`t!" Trump said in a statement issued by the White House. His comments contradicted the Central Intelligence Agecy, (CIA), which believes Khashoggi`s death was ordered directly by the crown prince, Saudi Arabia`s de facto ruler widely known by his initials MbS.

Trump was quickly accused by Democratic lawmakers of undermining his own intelligence agencies and failing to confront Saudi Arabia over a human rights atrocity. "Human rights is more than just a phrase, it has to mean something. And that means standing up and condemning a brazen murder by a foreign government. Everyone who played a role in this killing must be held accountable," Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have urged Trump to drop his support for MbS over the Khashoggi case, but the president has been reluctant. Trump said on Tuesday that both Saudi Arabia`s King Salman and MbS "vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder," and that the truth may never be known. He also stressed that Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, is an important business partner and a "great ally" in the fight against Iranian power in the Middle East.

"The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said.

On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said of the statement: "Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of."

Congressman Adam Schiff, who is expected to become leader of the House of Representatives` Intelligence Committee in January, said the United States should immediately end support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, suspend arms sales to the kingdom, and reduce its reliance on Riyadh in the Middle East.

"The president adds to his track record of ignoring his own intelligence agencies, and undermining American values at home and abroad, by giving Saudi Arabia a pass for the brutal and premeditated murder of a U.S. resident and journalist. Outrageous," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said.

REPUBLICANS` CRITICISM

Some of Trump`s fellow Republicans have also vowed to break with him and push for firmer U.S. action against Saudi Arabia. Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi`s death.

The legislation hits human rights violators with freezes on U.S. assets, U.S. travel bans, and prohibitions on Americans doing business with them.

Trump has placed the alliance with Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East policy, and it was the first country he visited after becoming president in 2017.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump ally, said there will be bipartisan support for sanctions against Saudi Arabia, "including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms." "While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behaviour of the crown prince  in multiple ways  has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," Graham said.

Trump`s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has developed a close relationship with MbS, and both he and Trump have tried to maintain the alliance.

Trump said on Tuesday he would not suspend arms sales to Riyadh. "If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries - and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!" Trump said.

Representative Eliot Engel, who has the power to block arms deals as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States should use its ability to sell weapons to the Saudis as leverage to influence Riyadh`s behaviour. "The reality is that the Saudis couldnt simply buy their weapons somewhere else," Engel said in a statement. "It would take years for the Saudi military to re-equip with Russian or Chinese weapons."

When Trump mentions the $110 billion package with Riyadh last year, he often adds that "it`s 500,000 jobs." But arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome industry experts say is unlikely.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Trump`s support for Saudi Arabia. The United States was obligated to adopt policies that furthered U.S. national security interests, Pompeo told a news conference following a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington.

Cavusoglu said that Turkey is not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it is receiving from Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi`s murder, and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry.
SEATTLE, Wash., Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- CFN Media Group (CFN Media), the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the North American cannabis industry, announces publication of an article discussing Halo Labs Inc. (NEO: HALO) (OTC: AGEEF). HALO is a cannabis extraction company that develops and manufactures high-quality cannabis oils and concentrates. In October, the company completed its public listing on the NEO Exchange, under the ticker symbol HALO, and management continues to improve liquidity, transparency, and reach while simultaneously growing revenue with over 2.7 million grams of cannabis oil sold since inception.



The cannabis industry has rapidly evolved over the past year. In addition to the federal legalization of adult-use cannabis in Canada, the United States midterm elections could foretell a shift in federal policy over the coming months. Investors have many different options when looking for exposure to the industry, but its important to look at both improving operations and a focus on improving transparency and liquidity.

Uplisting Helps Improve Reach

Halo Labs began trading on the NEO Exchange on October 3, 2018 under the ticker symbol, HALO, following a $12.9 million brokered private placement. The move enables investors to easily purchase the stock in their brokerage account without having to worry about the onerous regulations surrounding private investments. In addition, the company can more easily raise capital to support its ongoing expansion efforts.

The NEO Exchange is a next-generation Canadian stock exchange founded on the principles of fairness, liquidity, transparency, and efficiency. By eliminating predatory high-frequency trading and lowering exchange fees, the exchange provides a better option for companies to go public and makes market data much more accessible. The level playing field helps capital flow from investors to companies without all of the intermediaries.

Improving Industry Fundamentals

The cannabis industry received a strong boost from the midterm elections. In fact, many publicly-traded companies experienced sizable gains following the electioneven Canadian companies that have no stake in the United States. There is a hope that new Democratic officials could help boost the prospects of favorable federal legislation, while the removal of the former Attorney General will help reduce negative enforcement.

Democrats took control over the House of Representatives following the election. While theres still a long way to go toward federal legalization, there are many ways that Democrats could help advance cannabis legislation. Republicans prevented any marijuana amendments or bills from receiving votes from the entire House, but Democrats could exercise their power to add cannabis-related amendments to existing bills.

The sudden resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions could also be a positive for the cannabis industry. As an outspoken critic of cannabis legalization, Sessions repealed the Cole Memo and set the cannabis movement back several years. Cannabis advocates are hoping that the new Attorney General will be more supportive of cannabis and open the door to safer business operation within the industry by reinstituting the Cole Memo principles.

Looking Ahead

Halo Labs Inc. (NEO: HALO) (OTC: AGEEF) represents a compelling investment opportunity in the cannabis space. The companys management team has focused on building liquidity and reach through its listing on the shareholder-friendly NEO Exchange, while simultaneously growing its operations through deals like its $2 million per month extraction agreement with Falcon International to supply cannabis oil in California.

Halos management team is moving to bring two manufacturing facilities online in Southern California consisting of 1,600 sq. ft. and 7,800 sq. ft. of space, respectively. The initial facility should commence production this month, and should have a capacity of over 100,000 grams of concentrate per week. The team is also looking to establish distribution operations in one facility in Cathedral City to supply the rapidly growing California cannabis market.

For more information, visit the companys website at www.halocanna.com .

Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/halo-labs-improving-investor-reach-transparency-liquidity/

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Washington: The United States has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive early this year, the Pentagon has said. "USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January of this year is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbors," Sedney said.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was a part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a daring raid by US commandoes in Abbottabad.

Over the last few days Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of bin Laden.

"On Osama bin Laden, I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book, 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Osama Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sydney said.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremists groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, he added. "What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, against Lashkhar-e-Taiba, and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbors," he said.

"But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan, and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sydney alleged.

We see leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence, he said.

"If Pakistan would take some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly," he argued.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.

"Similarly, if Pakistan would take strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney said.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion aid to Pakistan will remain suspended till the country does not act against militant safe havens inside its territory.

"I want Pakistan to help us. We're no longer paying USD 1.3 billion to Pakistan. We're paying them nothing because that's what they've done to help us. Nothing," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday before leaving for his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Over the last few days, Trump has accused Pakistan of not helping it in its fight against terrorism. In an interview to Fox News over the weekend, Trump said that people in Pakistan knew that Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda leader, was living in a mansion near their garrison city of Abbottabad, but they did not tell the US and kept on accepting billions of dollars in aid.

"And I cut those payments off a long time ago. We're not paying Pakistan any money because they're not helping us at all and we'll see where it all goes," Trump said.

Early this year, Trump had announced to stop all security assistance to Pakistan. "I hope to have a good relationship with Pakistan," said Trump indicating that the relationship between the two countries can come back on track, if Pakistan takes action against terrorist groups and their safe havens.

"But right now, we're paying Pakistan nothing. I cut them off. They were getting USD1.3 billion a year. They're not getting anything now," Trump asserted.

However, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, said Trump might be incorrect in saying that Pakistan has not done anything for the US.

Over the decades, Pakistan has helped the United States with some of its policy objectives, he said. "He is right in noting that Pakistan has offered tactical cooperation in return for aid while at the same time undermined strategic US objectives," Haqqani said.

Pakistani leaders, he said are being disingenuous in describing the US as "ungrateful".

Americans have provided over USD 43 billion in military and economic assistance since 1954, helped build Pakistan's conventional military capability, and bailed Pakistan out of both economic and political crises on several occasions, he said.

Haqqani, who is the director for South and Central Asia at the prestigious Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, said Islamabad would continue to be tempted to go back to old transactional patterns, but not Washington.

"It is the Americans who are likely to be less interested in returning to what I describe in my book on the subject as 'Magnificent Delusions.' Not only do Pakistan's ambitions in Afghanistan conflict with US plans but the two countries strongly disagree about China's expanding influence in Asia," Haqqani said.

Observing that only a strategic rethink on the part of Pakistan can lead to a reset in US-Pakistan ties, Haqqani said until then, occasional twitter spats and "we paid a heavy price for being your ally" statements will continue to characterise the unusual relationship.
The first sentence for high treason was announced in Crimea: the court convicted the ex-deputy of the local parliament Vasyl Hanysh and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. However, the defendant claims that he did not betray his homeland

Who and how convicted Hanysh



The trial of the ex-deputy Vasyl Hanysh lasted more than three years. His case, starting in August 2015, was considered by the judges of the Dniprovsky district court of Kyiv, and finally on November 19, the court announced its final decision.



Hanysh was found guilty of high treason on two of three episodes and sentenced to 12 years in prison without confiscation of property.



As the head of the panel of judges Oksana Birsa noted, his guilt was proved during the investigation: the ex-deputy participated in the voting for the Russian Constitution of Crimea and participated in the Russian elections to the city council of Theodosia, thereby contributing to the subversive activities of Russia in Ukraine and committing treason.



In addition, Hanysh also has to pay legal fees in the amount of UAH 5400 (USD 193).



However, the relevant sentence has not yet entered into force. This will happen only after the consideration of the appeal, which the defense of the ex-deputy promised to file immediately. Until then, Hanysh will remain under house arrest, as he was before.

What Hanysh was accused of?



Initially, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Prosecutors Office supported the state prosecution in criminal proceedings opened against the former deputy of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Vasyl Hanysh on suspicion of treason on three episodes.



Episode 1. Referendum



The first in the list of ex-deputy atrocities was his participation in the meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on March 6, 2014, at which, as you know, the decision was held to hold a referendum on the annexation of the peninsula to the territory of the Russian Federation.



As noted by "Krym.Realii", in court Hanysh confirmed that he was present at the said meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, but was the only deputy who voted against that decision.



Indeed, the vote of March 6, 2014 passed with the result: 78 voted for the annexation, 1 voted against, this is confirmed by the video from the session hall.



Despite this, the prosecutors initially insisted that the ex-deputy still committed a crime, allegedly created a quorum by participating in the meeting, but then, in November 2016, completely dropped the charges on this episode.

The reaction to the Hanyshs sentence

The sentence imposed as a result of the district court session, fully satisfied the prosecutor's office. This is the first sentence on almost 100 indictments that we sent to the court against former Crimean deputies who are accused of treason. The court provided an assessment of our work on documenting and proving the crimes of the former deputy who contributed to the attempt to annex the peninsula, commented on the decision of the court Crimean prosecutor Gunduz Mamedov.



In turn, the chief prosecutor of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, added that those guilty of high treason sooner or later will get what they deserve.



But the defense of the former deputy of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Vasyl Hanysh was disappointed with the work of Ukrainian justice.



According to lawyer Andriy Rudenko, the court did not take into account the main thing - that his client was the only deputy who voted against the referendum on the status of Crimea.



Hanysh himself announced that he would seek his justification in the higher courts. I dont consider myself a traitor. For me, this humiliation is concrete. I did not commit any crime. I was, am and will be Ukrainian. Ill fight for my freedom. Time will tell. Together with a defender we will appeal, and there will be a cassation and European court. I will fight till the end ", said the ex-deputy.



In his opinion, the judges pronounced the verdict under pressure from the leadership of the Prosecutor Generals Office of Ukraine, and the decision on his case was a show-off, because the prosecutors needed the first detained Crimean deputy to be punished.



Accordingly, the Ukrainian society was divided into two camps: some consider Hanysh a separatist, others believe in his pro-Ukrainian attitude.

Vasyl Hanysh, former member of the Crimean Parliament, who was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for state treason on November 19, 2018 Krym.Realii

What else is known about Hanysh



Vasyl Hanysh was born on August 18, 1957 in the Kolomyya district of Ivano-Frankivsk region. An economist by education, in 1988 he graduated from the Ivano-Frankivsk Institute of Oil and Gas.



Later he came to Feodosia, began his labor activity as an economist at the relevant department of the deep-drilling oil and gas exploration expedition, and after almost ten years reached the post of its head.



In 1997, he was appointed Head of the State Tax Inspectorate in the city of Feodosia and concurrently held the position of Minister in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Council of Ministers (until 2006).



In 2007, he headed the Department of State Ecological Expertise and State Environmental Control of the State Azov-Black Sea Environmental Inspectorate. A year later, he went into politics - was twice elected as a deputy of the Feodosia City Council, was a deputy local mayor.



In 2010, being a member of the Party of Regions, he was among the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea, but he was not a prominent politician.

The ministry claimed that they extorted $ 45,000 in bribes for changing the article imputed to him for less serious. However, later both prosecutors were released on bail, and a year later the case against them was closed due to lack of evidence.



In February 2017, the head of the panel of judges Olexander Fedyuk was dismissed, and the process began from scratch with a new composition of judges.



Vasyl Hanysh is married and has two adult sons.

What to expect from the case of Hanysh



The defense of the former Crimean parliament member Vasyl Hanysh has exactly 30 days to file an appeal against the decision of the Dniprovsky district court of Kyiv dated November 19, 2018.



If it is filed, the first meeting of the Court of Appeal may take place as early as January next year. This means that the case will be considered again, Hanysh will be under house arrest, and his sentence will remain without execution for an indefinite period of time.

Read the original text at 112.ua.


112 Agency



Almost a month after the start of the heating season, the first snow has already appeared on the streets, but the radiators in hundreds of Kyiv apartments are still cold. You do not even have to take the street jacket off, users of social networks say ironically. Kyivteploenergo company (engages in the production, transmission, and sale of heat and hot water in Ukraine - 112 International), which supplies heat to two-thirds of Kyiv houses, explains that the heating systems were not ready for the load: after the start of the heating season, about 900 emergency damages had to be repaired, and the pipeline itself was almost 80% worn out.



Naftogaz began to supply gas to Kyivteploenergo only on October 12; therefore, until that time it was not possible to carry out a trial start of heating and repairs on time. The pipes were empty for a long time, and the corrosion started to damage them. The repair campaign began quite on the eve of the heating season, leaving many houses without heating," explains Serhiy Dyachenko, the situation housing and communal services expert.



Kyivteploenergo reports that as of November 13, 61 sections of the heating network were blocked due to emergency work, as a result of which 95 consumers, including hospitals and schools, had to be turned off from the heating. But despite reports on the work done, in some houses, there is still cold. Because of the "inexplicable reasons" of cold in the apartments, the people of Kyiv began to protest on the streets.



At Zoolohichna street, a couple of dozens of local residents blocked the pedestrian crossing and stopped the car traffic. We resorted to such an action because we had no heat for a month. We repeatedly addressed all government and hotlines. We heard different versions: a damage of the pipes on Vozduhoflotsky Avenue, in other places. We all went there to see  but there were no damages, "one of the protesters described the situation. However, not all Kyivans have the time and desire to go to rallies so they quietly endure the cold in the apartment, hoping that the situation will somehow be resolved.



"In our house, on Heroiv Stalingrada St. everyone is cut off from heating. I left applications on the website of the housing and communal services. There is no feedback from the utility services at all, none of the neighbors know when the heating will be provided and what the problem is, complains Olena Teplyakova, a resident of the Obolon district.

"They gave us heating only on November 9, but the radiators are completely cold. You can't directly contact the housing office now. There is a general dispatching office in the district, they say that the plumber came and did something, but we never saw him," says Oksana Volkodav, the resident of the 16-storey building on Vernadskogo street.

There were such cases when there was no heating in the apartment, but neither the housing office, nor Kyivteploenergo did not respond to residents' complaints and charged money in bills for "phantom" services. Kyivans are indignant. Before the neighboring house the yard was dug up for two weeks already, but I have never seen emergency crews. In my house, on Muromska 17/20, since the beginning of the heating season, the radiators have never been warm. At the same time, according to the testimony of Kyivteploenergo, heat is delivered to our house and everything is fine. And when I contact the dispatcher service of our district, they answer me that there are damages in the heating network at the site. I left there my application that the heating service was not provided, they registered it. But despite this, I received a bill for a more than 500 hryvnias. In the "Center of Municipal Service" I was refused to do recalculation, because the peoples applications are not sufficient for this reason. The same situation was last year. Then I also received bills for nothing, but the recalculation was refused, because the office provides only information and advisory services, and the applications registered there are not delivered to the service provider, that is, Kyivteploenergo, complains Olga Bilozovska from Kyiv.

Who is to blame and what to do?



In Kyiv, there are three companies that are engaged in the production and supply of heat and hot water  the Kievteploenergo communal service, the private company LLC Kievteploenergo and LLC Euro-Reconstruction. They stand at the top of the chain to provide the population with these public services. However, it should be noted that these parties are responsible for the availability of heating and hot water.



The area of responsibility of Kyivteploenergo is production and supply of services to the house, that is, control of the temperature of the heat carrier; maintenance of heat points in proper condition; repair of heating systems; reading and verification of heat meters; billing for centralized heating and hot water. The area of responsibility of the balance holder (housing department, housing cooperative, etc.) concerns "domestic" problems: preparing the house for the heating season; ensuring the safety of the house heat meter; removal of air from the pipes; elimination of damages of intrahouse networks; ensuring the correct operation of heat points on the balance. The consumer himself also has obligations, in addition to the timely payment: to maintain their own radiators and apartment networks in good condition; prevent loss of heat through cracks in windows, doors, etc.



When a situation arises that there is no heating in the apartment, it is necessary to contact both the management company that manages the residential house and the utility company. Dispatcher service of the district refuses to work in extreme situations, therefore, the reason for the lack of heating is the lack of perseverance of those who complain, said Oleksandr Sergienko, Director of the City Institute Analytical Research Center.



According to him, the current problems of tenants related to housing and communal services are very poorly regulated by current legislation.

"You must call a commission from the housing department, call two neighbors, draw up an act of claiming the absence or low-quality supply of public services, and with this act go further - to the heating company. There is no clear mechanism that would describe the recalculation procedure and determine those responsible. The easiest way is to solve it means installing meters for each radiator. These meters determine how many gigacalories your apartment used separately. However, the meaning of these will be noticed only when they are installed in the whole house, and these indicators are transmitted to the house-based computer. But this is expensive and requires the consent of all residents and, secondly, this is also hampered by legislative uncertainty: the Parliament adopted a law, according to which the installation of meters and equipment should be at the expense of residents, and the Cabinet of Ministers has not yet issued a ruling that describes this procedure ", explains Olexander Sergienko.



According to Kyivteploenergo, almost 20% of residential buildings in the capital are not even provided with a house heat meter. Having been hostages of the law and unable to install a heat meter, consumers are forced to overpay, according to experts, almost 70% of the normal tariff. It should be noted that there are two tariffs just for such situations: in the presence of a meter, you pay UAH 1354.78 (48 USD) per Gcal, including VAT; in homes without a meter - 31.52 UAH (1.12 USD) per square meter per month.



'In our house there is no meter, we receive huge bills for heating. Last year there were about 3,000 hryvnias for a three-room apartment. Its good when there is heating in general. We should pay in full, although the radiators in one room are completely cold. My child is sick, she wraps herself in several bathrobes,' complains Oksana Volkoldav.

Read original article at 112.ua
This holiday is not one of the twelve Great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but remains very popular among believers

statue of Archangel Michael in Kyiv Open source

The Orthodox believers like to celebrate St. Michael's Day due to some traditions of this holiday.

Why feast is called St. Michael's Day?

The Orthodox believers also call the holiday the Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Michael and all the Heavenly Hosts. People have simplified the name as it usually happens. As a result, it became simply the St. Michael's Day.

It is clear that the holiday was named after the Archangel Michael.

The main warrior of the Lord, the protector of the world, guarding the gate of paradise. This is only a part of his regalia.

Archangel Michael is patron saint of warriors. Ordinary people pray to him for protection from misery, sorrow and ask for healing.

When did the holiday appear?

Oh, it was a long time ago, about 363 CE.

The holiday originated in Laodicean Church. It was decided to worship the Archangel because of the numerous miracles attributed to him. In particular, a miracle in Khoni, when Michael helped a sacristan to protect the church built in his honor from pagans.

By the way, the celebration of St. Michael's Day falls for November 8 according to the Julian calendar.

Number 8 is connected with the Last Judgment. As is known from the religious translations. Archangel Michael is to be judge at the Last Judgment.

The Last Judgment is the last judgment of God over people aimed to identify righteous people and sinners, and determine the award for the righteous and punishment for sinners.

It will look something like this:

the Last Judgment mural by Michelangelo Buonarroti Open source

Traditions on the St. Michael's Day

People who love to celebrate with swing, will appreciate this holiday. Our ancestors, for example, were feasting for a week.

By this time, the harvesting was completed, so there were plenty of everything to eat and enjoy.

The traditional food on the festive table - pie, roast meat and home-made beer.

On this day, you cannot do any serious housework, because any work on this day offends Michael, and you do not want the archangel to be angry, right?

On St. Michael's Day, you must not quarrel with anyone and it is important to be in good humor. One should help those who ask for it and refrain from doing something for your benefit. Otherwise you could face the angels punishment.

On this day, it is advised to go to the bathhouse to drive away all the illnesses.

By the way, there is a statue of Archangel Michael in the capital of Ukraine, - Kyiv, where he is the patron saint.
The Association Agreement between Ukraine and EU should have been signed at a summit meeting of Eastern Partnership in Vilnius held through November 28-29, 2013. However, on November 21, Ukrainian government decided to stop the preparation for signing the Association Agreement. On the same day, late at night, people started gathering at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv to protest against this government's decision

The Day of Dignity and Freedom is celebrated on November 21 every year in Ukraine.

The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU should have been signed at a summit meeting of Eastern Partnership in Vilnius held through November 28-29, 2013. However, on November 21, the Ukrainian government decided to stop the preparation for signing the Association Agreement. On the same day, late at night, people started gathering at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv to protest against this government's decision

The History of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine is here.

Traditionally, Ukrainian authorities make a lot of statements this day blaming, accusing, praying, and so on.

Lets see what was done - if anything had been ever done.

Lets start with the history of the holiday

- The Day of Dignity and Freedom was established as a public holiday by the Presidential Edict of Petro Poroshenko in 2014.

- The Day of Dignity and Freedom is a kind of successor of another state holiday  Day of Freedom to commemorate Orange Revolution of 2004. It has been celebrated in 2005  2010 widely before the next president Viktor Yanukovych abolished it with his presidential decree.

- Nowadays, its a tradition to lay flowers at the Heavenly Hundred Memorial in Kyiv and hold other memorial ceremonies this day.

The investigation

- In September 2018, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine took judicial proceedings against former fighters of Berkut special squad, charged with abuse of power during the Revolution of Dignity.

Earlier, the Prosecutors also completed an investigation against former Head of the Kyiv City Administration, head of public security at the Interior Ministry, and 13 other officers of the Kyiv department of Berkut special squad.

- In October, Prosecutors Office completed the pre-trial investigation in criminal cases against 4 ex-fighters of Berkut  the case of clashes on the night of 29  30 November at the Square of Independence in Kyiv.

Another officer of the Kyivs Berkut who is an acting police officer now was served with charge papers in illegal detention of the supporters of a peace rally on November 30, 2013.

- In November, another National Guard sniper was detained on suspicion of murder of Maidan activist in February 2014.

- Earlier in August 2018, Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraines Prosecutor General, announced that the investigation of mass shooting at Maidan was almost completed.

Actually, we have got the legal permissions to hold special absentee investigation.

- Before that, in February 2018, Serhiy Horbatyuk, the Head of the Special Investigations Office at the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, announced:

27 investigators, 20 prosecutors, and 16 judges were serves with charge papers in illegal detentions and arrests of protesters. In total, 413 persons were served with charge papers, 208 of them are law enforcement officers.

50 of them were found guilty, only two were jailed.

Related: Prosecutor's Office files new motion on restrictive measure for Euromaidan activist Bubenchyk

Whats next?

A month ago, on October 22, Serhiy Horbatyuk, the Head of the Special Investigation Office, stated that the investigators cant hold the crime re-enactment on the Heavenly Hundred Alley due to the temporary memorial,

He mentioned that the relatives of the victims agreed to move the memorial, thought the Kyiv City Administration gives no response, thus disabling the investigative experiments.

So the Heavenly Hundred Memorial has been dismantled. The investigative experiments are planned to last for at least 16 days.
The alleged agent planned to undermine the container with the voting papers on November 11

Open source

The militants of the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) have declared the detention of the agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who supposedly prepared the sabotage for the disruption of the elections on November 11 as the separatist media reported.

It is noted that the so-called Ministry of State Security held the special operation and detained a man during the pass of the incendiary device to the member of the commission on November 11 at the back room of one of the polling stations. A commissions member should put the device in the container with voting papers.

According to the terrorist act plan, the device equipped with the electronic ignition and timer should be activated after the transportation of the mentioned container and other containers from the polling stations to Central Election Commission. Subsequently, the large-scale fire should take place and it could lead to the heavy casualties, the message said.

The Ministry of State Security noted that it succeeded to prevent the sabotage and detain the SBU agent.

The so-called elections took place in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on 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). Denis Pushilin was "elected" as the head of the territory of Donetsk region occupied by the pro-Russian militants (Donetsk People's Republic).

Related video:
61% of the deaths and injuries were caused by mines and explosive devices

In October 2018, 18 civilians suffered from combat actions in eastern Ukraine, as the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says.

According to the UN, five people died, 13 were injured as a result of the conflict last month. 61% of the deaths and injuries were caused by mines and explosive devices.

On October 17, a man sustained injuries because of a grenade explosion near a kindergarten in Luhansk region.

On October 18, a married couple from Zolote-5 in Luhansk region blew up on a mine. A man died immediately, a woman sustained wounds and called for help. As the area where the couple blew up was mined, nobody could provide medical aid, and the people died. Their bodies could be evacuated only on the sixth day after the tragedy.

On October 23, two repairers, who were coming back after the repair of a water pipe, sustained injuries when their tractor blew up on a mine.
Open source

Tuesday, November 20 appeared to be relatively quiet in Donbas. Since small hours till 6 p.m., one case of enemy combat activity was observed in the area of Pisky, Donetsk region, Joint Forces Operation HQ reports.

The press office of the Ukrainian authority added that none of the Ukrainian defenders were killed or wounded over the mentioned period.

Earlier, we reported that the illegal armed units of Russian mercenaries continued to amass the armored vehicles in Donbas, including the Minsk-banned 'Grad' missile launchers.

Earlier, we reported that a group of former servicemen of the Russian military turned to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, asking the authority to consider the actions of pro-Kremlin armed mercenaries in Donbas. Radio Liberty wrote that, quoting Yevgeny Shabayev, head of the All-Russia Officers Assembly and one of the group's members.

'Shabayev told RFE/RL that his group has identified people who would be willing to testify about their experiences if the ICC opens an investigation. According to the veterans' groups' letter to the ICC, 'employees of private military firms are intentionally deprived of their legal status, as a result of which they do not receive the health and economic benefits afforded to veterans by the government and are prosecuted under the law on mercenary activity.' The group contends that the use of mercenaries in this way violates Article 7 of the ICC's Rome Statute, which bans the "enforced disappearance of persons...with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law." They also cite the same article's prohibition on transferring people by force 'from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law,' the story reads.

It remains unclear, however, whether the ICC would reply to the appeal of the Russian officers, as Russia is not a member of this Court. 'The ICC has jurisdiction only when a countrys own government is unwilling or unable to prosecute an extremely grave crime, and only over crimes committed on the territory of its member states', the outlet wrote.

Read the full story here.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has rejected the cassation appeal of the Russian Gazprom against the decision on the recovery of the fine and penalty in the sum of $6,2 billion for the abuse of authority as the decision of the court says.

It is ordered to disallow the cassation appeal of Gazprom and the decision of Kyiv Economic Court dated June 19, 2018, and the regulation of Kyiv Commercial Court of Appeal dated August 30, 2018, on the case #910/18299/16 without changes, the message said.

It is noted that the regulation comes into force from the moment it was adopted and it is the final and non-appealable.

On January 22, 2016, Ukraines Anti-Monopoly Committee fined Russian energy company Gazprom for $3,4 billion. The reason is Russian companys abuse of its position at the gas transit market, where Russia uses gas pipelines running through the Ukraine territory.

The notification on the payment of the fine was sent to Gazprom on March 4, 2016? and it had to be paid until May 4, 2016.

On April 12, 2016, Gazprom filed an appeal to Kyiv Economic Court with a request to find the decision of the Anti-Monopoly Committee as non-valid, however, the courts of higher instances confirmed the legality of such decision.

Anti-Monopoly Committee filed a lawsuit on the recovery of the fine and penalty to the Kyiv Economic Court on October 5, 2016. The decision on the payment of the fine and penalty took its force on February 22, 2017.
New York, NY, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- GoIP Global Inc. (otcpink:GOIG) announced today that the company retained the certified public accounting firm of Turner, Stone & Company, LLP, www.turnerstone.com, to complete the company audits. This is a further step in bringing the company to full compliance with previously announced merger terms with CUBEIT Inc. and having GOIP fully audited.



Further the company has submitted all required financials to OTC Markets and expects to have its status updated to current this week.

Mr. Ike Sutton commented, Having just returned from the MJBIZCON in Las Vegas, and meeting with the team at CUBEIT, my confidence has grown for the future of the business segment as well the direction of our company.

ABOUT CUBEIT

CUBEIT Inc., located in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a manufacturing and management services company. Focused on the emerging Cannabis Industry, CUBEIT Manufacturing produces the industry standard CubeIT Grow modular. It is a cost-effective, code-compliant, fully-scalable turnkey solution for launching or expanding a growers operations during all phases of the cultivation process.

CubeIT Services LLC provide consulting and management services to the industry in the areas of cultivation, processing, licensing, compliance, operations and more.

www.cubeitcorp.com

ABOUT GOIP Global

GoIP is exploring and developing strategic opportunities in the areas of energy and smart technologies within the energy sector, as well opportunities in emerging industries.

Safe Harbor Statement Information in this news release may contain statements about future expectations, plans, prospects or performance of GoIP Global, Inc. that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor Provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words or phrases "can be," "expects," "may affect," "believed," "estimate," "project," and similar words and phrases are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. GoIP Global, Inc. cautions you that any forward-looking information provided by or on behalf of GoIP Global, Inc. is not a guarantee of future performance. None of the information in this press release constitutes or is intended as an offer to sell securities or investment advice of any kind. GoIP Global, Inc.'s actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, some of which are beyond GoIP Global, Inc.'s control. In addition to those discussed in GoIP Global, Inc.'s press releases, public filings, and statements by GoIP Global, Inc.'s management, including, but not limited to, GoIP Global, Inc.'s estimate of the sufficiency of its existing capital resources, GoIP Global, Inc.'s ability to raise additional capital to fund future operations, GoIP Global, Inc.'s ability to repay its existing indebtedness, the uncertainties involved in estimating market opportunities and, in identifying contracts which match GoIP Global, Inc.'s capability to be awarded contracts. All such forward-looking statements are current only as of the date on which such statements were made. GoIP Global, Inc. does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which any such statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
The German foreign minister delivered a speech on the occasion of the Day of Dignity and Freedom in Ukraine

Open source

The government of Germany will carry on to apply efforts to reach peace and ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister said this in his speech on the occasion of the Day of Dignity and Freedom in Ukraine.

'Five years ago, thousands of Ukrainians came to Maidan in Kyiv, in order to observe their democratic right; they spoke for the rule-of-law state and the free and independent Ukraine. Lest we forgot the hopes of these people', he said.

Maas added that the sufferings that Ukrainians endured over the past five years are not forgotten, either; over a hundred people deceased during protests in early 2014, and thousands more died in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. 'Even now, they shoot in Donbas every day', he said.

The Day of Dignity and Freedom is celebrated on November 21 every year in Ukraine.

The Association Agreement between Ukraine and EU was to be signed at a summit meeting of Eastern Partnership in Vilnius held through November 28-29, 2013. However, on November 21, the Ukrainian government decided to stop the preparation for signing the Association Agreement. On the same day, late at night, people started gathering at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv to protest against this government's decision.

As time passed, the protest movement got more and more powerful and eventually led to the ousting of the-then Ukrainian government and President Yanukovych. The Revolution of Dignity proved victorious, but over a hundred of people lost their lives during the bloody fights in Kyiv in January and February 2014.
The authority in its current shape cannot guarantee peace and security of the international society, said Eduard Fesko, the counselor to Ukraine's permanent office in the UN

Open source

The UN Security Council (UNSC), in its current mode, cannot guarantee peace and security of the world's society; thus, it needs to be reformed. Eduard Fesko, the counselor to Ukraine's permanent office in the UN said that as quoted by Ukrinform news agency.

'It is obvious to everybody that the Security Council in its current shape does not really suit the effective solution of problems of the 21st century,' he said.

According to the official, Ukraine's experience of chairing the UNSC in 2016 and 2017 only made it clearer that without the said reform, the Council is doomed to lose its role and position in the wide international context.

Ukraine state it was open to discussing all options and approaches to this reform, as long as they aim for the result. Kyiv will officially insist on two principal moments: 1) the Eastern European regional group should have its own representative in the Council, 2) the role of veto in the UNSC's frameworks should be reconsidered.

Currently, the USNC consists of fifteen member states. U.S., Russia, France, the UK and China are the permanent members that enjoy the veto right. The remaining member states are selected for the geographic reasons - five states per a year, with the two-years-long cadence.
Open source

Ukraine's SBU, the state security service has revealed the personal data of three militants from Wagner private military company; they sided with Russian mercenaries who fight in Syria. All three were killed in action.

It appears to be the reply to the Russian Foreign Ministry's flashmob called #TheyAreNotThere (IkhTamNet).

'Ukraine's security service joins the initiative of the Russian MFA, which launched the flashmob #TheyAreNotThere. We use this hashtag and release another selection of personal data of the mercenaries of Wagner PMC that participated in combat in Ukrainian Donbas. For the specific purpose of Mariya Zakharova (spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, - 112 International), we indicate the last names of Russia's unknown #59, #60 and #61 who died during the assault in Syria's Deiz-ez-Zor in February 2018. The names of the previous 58 were released on the website of the SBU,' reads the message.

The SBU added that the bodies of the deceased fighters were not handed over to their families until April, after the presidential election in Russia.

Previously, Ukraine's state security service identified 26 Russian officers who served as combat instructors in Wagner PMC. They trained the militants in many disciplines, such as tactical and firing practice, engineering and artillery practice; they trained the crew members of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and anti-aircraft defense systems.

Wagner mercenaries have been first spotted in Donbas in May 2014. They were involved in combat action in eastern Ukraine in 2014-2015; the Ukrainian military command insists they are responsible for the IL-76 tragedy, the attack on Luhansk airport (2014) and the siege of Debaltseve in early 2015. Then, they moved on to Syria, supporting the Russian army contingent within the Syrian campaign.
Anastasia Stanko, Ukrainian reporter replyua

The Committee to Protect Journalists honored courageous journalists from around the world with its 2018 International Press Freedom Awards. The ceremony took place in New York City on Tuesday.

Ukrainian reporter Anastasiya Stanko appeared among the honorees.

'These brave journalists have faced legal action, physical attacks, threats, and arrests in retaliation for their work', the CPJ said.

CPJ also honored Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, founder and chief executive officer of the news website Rappler, with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.



CPJ's 2018 IPFA honorees are:



- Amal Khalifa Idris Habbani, Sudan

- Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom," Vietnam

- Luz Mely Reyes, Venezuela

- Anastasiya Stanko, Ukraine

Anastasiya Stanko is a Ukrainian journalist and TV presenter and a member of the "Stop censorship" movement, an anti-censorship group made up of journalists and media organizations in Ukraine. In 2013, she co-founded the independent media channel Hromadske, which is registered as a non-governmental organization. She previously had worked for the national TV channels Pershiy and TVI.

In March 2014, Stanko was in Crimea covering the referendum and annexation of the peninsula. Two months later, she became a war correspondent, reporting on the conflict in the Donbass area of eastern Ukraine. In June 2014, she and her cameraman were taken hostage by the so-called Luhansk People's Republic and held in the basement of a building in Luhansk city. Two days later, they were freed.

Stanko has produced various video reports and articles about the war, with an emphasis on civilians living in and around the conflict zone. She started a project called Hromadske.East which focuses on the stories around the conflict. She has also authored several investigations about the mass shooting on Maidan Square in early 2014, which feature interviews with the police's special forces unit who were charged with killing unarmed protesters. As a result of these works, Stanko won the main prize at the 2016 Mezhyhirya Festival and was a finalist at another journalism competition.

Stanko continues to report on human rights violations by the police and Ukraine's Security Service in the conflict zone. Her latest documentary, "The Secret Compound," is about people illegally detained by Ukraine's Security Service.
Earlier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov said that the actions of the Russian Federation in the Sea of Azov fit into the agreement with Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait of 2003

Open source

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine claimed that the agreement between Ukraine and Russia of 2003, which addresses the cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, does not give Russia the right to carry out discriminatory inspections of vessels traveling to Ukrainian ports, reads the message of the Ukrainian MFA.

We once again observe free reading and interpretation of the norms of bilateral and multilateral agreements by Russia. None of the provisions of the 2003 treaty gives Russia the right to carry out discriminatory and long-lasting inspections of vessels traveling to the Ukrainian ports, reads the message.

The Ministry noted that Russia has no right to interfere with the freedom of navigation. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine also expressed gratitude to Ukraines partners for a clear and consistent position regarding the condemnation of violations of international law by Russia in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.

Ukraine will continue to remain faithful to the UN Charter and the norms of international law and will continue to defend its rights in arbitration proceedings on the violation by Russia of the UN Convention on the Law of Sea in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and in the Kerch Strait, the mission added.

Earlier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov said that the actions of the Russian Federation in the Sea of Azov fit into the agreement with Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait of 2003.

Over the past three months, Russia's activity in the Sea of Azov has increased significantly. The Russians do not allow commercial vessels going to and leaving Ukrainian ports to pass through the Kerch Strait without hindrance.

Moreover, in July, Russia detained 148 ships for inspection in the Sea of Azov. Due to this, President Poroshenko entrusted the Defence Minister, the Head of the General Staff, and Command of Ukraines Naval Forces to take measures to stop Russian provocations concerning the blockade of Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov.
Images from the satellite show the construction sinking in certain sections, which is likely due to the unstable sea bottom in the area where the bridge's bulks were built

Open source

The bridge over Kerch Strait, which links Russia and the occupied Crimea, is apparently sinking. Ukraine's Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories reported that on Wednesday, referring to the recent images from the satellite.

The railroad arch appears to be raising, while the arch over the roadway on the bridge is sinking. Part of the Tuzla sandspit subsides as well, which is possible due to the unstable sea bottom in the area where the bridge's bulks were built.

The Ukrainian experts warn that moving across the bridge may be dangerous, and the situation could get even worse in the winter period.

As it was reported earlier, President of Russia Vladimir Putin has opened a vehicle part of the bridge over the Kerch Strait that connects the annexed Crimea and Russia's Krasnodar Krai. Putin at the wheel of Kamaz headed the convoy of the vehicles and cargo equipment that made the first trip over the bridge. The automobile traffic over the bridge was opened prematurely at 5:30 am, on May 16 (Moscow time).

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered to sue Russia for the ecological damage brought by the construction of the bridge over Kerch strait in occupied Crimea.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch expressed confidence that the ongoing construction of the bridge over Kerch Strait could vastly interfere with Ukraines transport connection with international markets.
The searches targets at checking information on the involvement of officials of the bodies in the illegal schemes for tax evasion in particularly large amount

state fiscal service 112 Agency

November 21, the Prosecutor Generals office of Ukraine jointly with the Security Service of Ukraine held searches in the office space of Chernivtsi customs and the Directorate General of State Fiscal Service, the press office of the Prosecutor Generals office reports.

The mentioned measures are explained with the necessity to verify information on the involvement of officials of the bodies in the illegal schemes for tax evasion in particularly large amount during the export of walnuts, reads the message.

It is also noted that Ukraines law enforcement agencies defused a criminal organization in Vinnytsia region, which used similar schemes for walnuts export, and caused damage to the state of more than USD 10.8 million.

A pre-trial investigation is carrying on. The head of the Directorate General of State Fiscal Service of Ukraine in Vinnytsia region, his first deputy, as well as, the controlled heads of the economic entities were served with charge papers for having created a criminal organization to commit an offense, for abuse of authority or official position and tax evasion.
An action for the memory of the victims of the Revolution of Dignity takes place on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, November 21. The reporter from 112 Ukraine TV channel claimed this from the scene.

Several dozen people gathered on Maidan Nezalezhnosti near the Independence Monument, where the Revolution of Dignity started five years ago. They hold an improvised meeting, they also recall the events that happened 5 years ago, most people were directly involved in the Revolution of Dignity. People honor the memory of the deceased heroes of the Heavenly Hundred and bring icon, lamps, and flowers, the reporter claimed.

Security measures on Maidan are reinforced, dialogue police, law enforcement officers, and the National Guard are on duty.

November 13, 2014, President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree according to which Ukrainians mark the Day of Dignity and Freedom in honor to the start of two revolutions: the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Revolution of Dignity.

The 2004 Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. It was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud. The protests were prompted by reports from election monitors as well as the widespread public perception that the results of the run-off vote of 21 November 2004 between leading candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych were rigged by the authorities in favor of the latter. The nationwide protests succeeded when the results of the original run-off were annulled, and a revote was ordered by Ukraine's Supreme Court for 26 December 2004. The final results showed a clear victory for Yushchenko, who received about 52% of the vote, compared to Yanukovych's 44%. Yushchenko was declared the official winner and with his inauguration on 23 January 2005 in Kiev, the Orange Revolution ended.

Euromaidan demonstrations began on the night of 21 November 2013, when protests erupted in the capital after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing UkraineEuropean Union Association Agreement with the European Union, to seek closer economic relations with Russia. The protests lasted from November 2013 through February 2014 and gradually evolved into clashes with the riot police; the rise of violence in February 2014 led to deaths of unarmed protesters and several policemen. The revolution ended as the-then President Yanukovych and his sidekicks fled the country.
November 21, general producer of 112 Ukraine Artem Marchevsky and director of NewsOne Yuriy Budiak pay an official visit to Brussels to meet with co-Chair of EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee Dariusz Rosati and Speaker of European People's Party for Ukraine Michael Gahler

During the conversation, the leadership of the channels informed the MEPs about the pressure on independent media in Ukraine and cases of physical aggression against employees of these TV channels. Dariusz Rosati stormy reacted to the fact that the Ukrainian government and law enforcement agencies are inactive and do not take any measures in this incomprehensible situation for the European community.

I personally promise that European politicians will observe the situation around 112 Ukraine and NewsOne. The Ukrainian authorities and the law enforcement bodies will be under close supervision, they have to ensure the safety of the media workers, regardless of their views, co-Chair of EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee Dariusz Rosati claimed.

The second meeting for the leadership of 112 Ukraine and NewsOne was with MEP of the Peoples Party Michael Gahler. I am very concerned about this situation. Since the freedom of opinion is the basis for a European future. A vote on the EU-Ukraine Association will take place in Brussels in early December, and it may be possible to raise this issue among all members of the Parliament, he said.

The situation around 112 Ukraine and NewsOne has received wide publicity in the EU countries. This is not our first visit to Brussels. MEPs are shocked by the unprecedented steps of the Verkhovna Rada regarding the suppression of freedom of speech in Ukraine. Everyone remembers how the existing government declared the European way of our country and guaranteed respect for the principles of freedom of speech in Ukraine. However, we all see that Ukraine has tremendous problems with this, so we continue to meet with MEPs to stop the pressure on Ukrainian journalists and defend the right to broadcast on 112 Ukraine and NewsOne channels. In the conditions of absolute inactivity of Ukrainian institutions, we have high expectations for the European community, which strongly supports us, general producer of 112 Ukraine Artem Marchevsky said.

It will be difficult for Ukraine to overcome the planned path to Europe without respect for democratic principles. I hope that our further cooperation will bring positive results not only for our TV channels but also for the country as a whole, director of NewsOne Yuriy Budiak advised.

As we reported, the journalists of 112 Ukraine and NewsOne TV channels met with the representatives of OSCE mission that assesses the needs of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR OSCE) on November 20. The meeting took place in the Office of the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine.
Ukraine builds up the forces for the defense of its territory from the Russian invasion from the sea

Open source

New Sea Guard Department of the State Border Guard Service will heavily guard the whole maritime border from Izmail to Mariupol until the end of 2018. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko made such a statement as the presidential press service reported.

According to him, Ukraine builds up the forces for the defense of its territory from the Russian invasion from the sea.

Poroshenko added that the system of the military reserves with powerful weaponry and armored hardware can cover the threatened direction as soon as possible was created.

The president reported that we are taking large steps on the re-equipment of the sea guards departments for covering of the territory of Ukraine from the sea; the detachments of the rapid response Dozor, including for the holding of the special actions on the water were formed according to the best world standards.

Poroshenko promised that 24 modern light patrol helicopters would be purchased for the border guard service in the next two years.

President reminded that the thousands of the border guards participated in the deterrence of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

433 border guards were wounded. 856 border guards received state awards for the courage and heroism in the fights against the Russian occupants 70 border guards gave their lives for Ukraine, Poroshenko noted.

Over the past three months, Russia's activity in the Sea of Azov has increased significantly. The Russians do not allow commercial vessels going to and leaving Ukrainian ports to pass through the Kerch Strait without hindrance.

Moreover, in July, Russia detained 148 ships for inspection in the Sea of Azov. Due to this, President Poroshenko entrusted the Defence Minister, the Head of the General Staff, and Command of Ukraines Naval Forces to take measures to stop Russian provocations concerning the blockade of Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov.
Lithuanian English

In 16 November 2018 AB "Amber Grid" asked the UAB EPSO-G audit committee for an opinion on the proposal of the person concerned to conclude a transaction for the provision of a publishing service.

In accordance with Article 372 Part 6 of the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania we hereby inform you of receipt of the written opinion of the Audit Committee.

At the request of the Shareholder by written or electronic means, at the latest within 3 days from the receipt of the request, the Company shall send a copy of this opinion to the Shareholder by signing or send by registered mail or by electronic means if the security of the transferred information is ensured and the Shareholder's identity can be established. The Shareholder can also get acquainted with the opinion received at the head office of the Company at Savanoriu pr. 28, Vilnius, during the Company's working hours, by sending an acknowledgment of receipt to the following telephone or e-mail address within 1 business day.

Dovile Jukneviciute

Lawyer of Legal Division

tel. +370 5 236 0314

fax +370 5 236 0850

e-mail: d.jukneviciute@ambergrid.lt
Sergiy Horbatyuk, the Head of General Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department zn.ua

Nine people were sentenced to imprisonment for the crimes committed during the Revolution of Dignity, as Serhiy Gorbatyuk, Head of General Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Department, said at the briefing, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

According to indictments considered by the court, 52 people are found guilty. They were sentenced. Nine people were sentenced to imprisonment, he noted.

Horbatyk added that the law enforcers served 442 people with charges papers. In particular, 279 indictments were already sent to the court.

13 people are in custody on the cases sent to the court or being investigated. There could be more of them, but the judges often change the restrictive measures. Even for those, who were suspected in committing, for instance, three murders and 33 attempted murders. After the restrictive measures were changed in April 2017, they escaped from Ukraine, he stressed.

Gorbatyk calculated that 42 people were served with charge papers since his last report in February. Five of them are prosecutors, seven are judges, 24 guardians of law and order, one of which is an investigator, and five bullies.

This year, 16 indictments against 34 people were sent to the court. Courts accepted four indictments concerning four individuals, imprisonment for three of them, he stressed.

Earlier, Gorbatyuk stated that the majority of 4,700 documented crimes committed against the activists of Euromaidan are solved  conditions of the crime the perpetrators and organizers are defined.

Today, on November 21, Ukraine marks the Day of Dignity and Freedom. President Poroshenko set this holiday in 2014 to mark the so-called Revolution of Dignity, or Euromaidan.
Moment of silence in Ukraine's Parliament censor.net.ua

Ukraines Parliament observed a minute of silence to honor those who deceased during the Revolution of Dignity. 112 Ukraine broadcasted the event.

I would like to congratulate everyone with the Day of Dignity and Freedom. The Revolution of Dignity and Freedom began five years ago, it was a response of the Ukrainian nation to the attempt of the then pro-Russian Yanukovychs regime to return Ukraine to colonial dependence on Russia. Though it seemed impossible, we knew, that we had to prevent Ukraines return to colonial Russia. We began this path then, Andriy Parubiy, Parliaments Spokesperson, said.

He stated that the fight, which began on Maidan, is underway in the work of the MPs in Verkhovna Rada.

Our barricades were transported from Instytutska and Hrushevsky to Shyrokyne, Stanytsia Luhanska (Donbas, - ed.). Our guys are defending Ukraine and the free world there every day as we used to defend Maidan five years ago. Deepest gratitude and eternal glory to the deceased heroes of the Heavenly Hundred and the Ukrainian soldiers who gave their lives for Ukraines independence in a fight with Russian aggressor. May their sacrifice and love to the Motherland be our main prayer, Parubiy said.

Serhiy Yevrushka, representative of Fatherland faction, proposed to announce a minute of silence.

I would like to honor those guys who gave their lives for dignity, for our children to have free, democratic, legal, prosperous country, the peoples deputy said.

Earlier, on November 21, 2013, the Ukrainians showed up at the second Maidan. 112 international summarized what has changed in five years, in particular, concerning the investigation of the murders on the Independence Square.
Such decree was solemnly passed over to the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia for the upcoming 85th anniversary of Holodomor

Senate of Poland passes over the decree on Holodomor to Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia The Embassy of Ukraine in Poland Facebook

On November 21, the Senate of Poland recognized Holodomor of 1932-1933 as a genocide against the Ukrainian people by the communist regime. The Senate unanimously adopted a resolution for the 85th anniversary of this terrible tragedy. This was reported by the press service of the Embassy of Ukraine in Poland on its Facebook page.

"The Senate of the Republic of Poland have just unanimously adopted a decree to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The Ambassador of Ukraine Andriy Deshchytsia was present during the adoption of the decision," the statement says.

At the same time, it is explained that Poland expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people in preserving the memory of victims of this tragedy and reaffirmed its decision of 2006 to recognize Holodomor as a genocide committed by the communist regime.

It is noteworthy that the text of the decree was solemnly passed over to the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia.

On November 24, Ukraine will honor the memory of Holodomor victims. Traditionally, on the fourth Saturday of the month, memorial services are held in the country, and the pots with grain and candles will be laid at the memorials.

The leaders of the state will attend ceremonial events near the memorial sign Candle of Memory in Kyiv, including the heads of foreign countries, parliaments and international organizations, government officials from different countries, diplomats, representatives of religious denominations, regional delegations, public and cultural figures, witnesses of the great hunger

It is important: our diplomats are making great efforts to make the world community recognize Holodomor in Ukraine as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. This year is the 85th anniversary of the tragedy of 1932-1933.
Israel will become the 46th country with which Ukraine has signed FTA

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine authorized First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv for the signing of the agreement on the Free Trade Area (FTA) with Israel as 112.ua reported.

It is supposed that the FTA agreement will promote the activation of the trade between Ukraine and Israel, growth of export, creation of new working places, transfer of technologies, experience exchange, creation of the enabling environment for the provision of the access to the goods at the markets of Ukraine and Israel.

Israel will abolish the import duties for 9,2% for the agriculture goods (fish, vegetable oils, preserved vegetables) and about 80% for manufactured goods (medicine, fertilizer, building materials) from the moment the agreement will come into force. Moreover, the transition period for the full abolishment of the taxes, partial liberalization of the duties are provided and the exceptions from this trade regime are defined.

Israel will become the 46th country with which Ukraine has signed the agreement on Free Trade Area.

Ukraine and Israel completed the technical initializing of the deal earlier this year; the talks were completed in March. Later, in August, the sides agreed to sign it.

The document totally consists of 12 sections and the number of additions, which were processed, concurs with the international practice of concluding such documents.
Courtesy of Plume

Just be writing! Jennifer Simpson declared as one of her highest goals for Plume, a self care for creatives monthly subscription box created by her and Melanie Unruh. She went on, Or just do something, because God knows that the world today isn't going to feed your soul. You have to make your own meal.

Independently and for many years both Simpson and Unruh had been practicing writing and found it a source of sustenance. Writing changed my whole life, Unruh said, taking her from Pennsylvania to New Mexico for graduate school at UNM, where she earned an MFA in creative writing; Simpson's trajectory was similar. Graduate school is, in fact, where the two met. Simpson had a business and marketing background, which made her an asset to the development of Plume, a business idea that Unruh had had the vision for. More than complementing one another's skill sets, the two shared the passion for inspiring others and worked well together to outline their mission and goals. When Plume was accepted into the UNM Business Plan competition, the project started to gain momentum.

They didn't win, but it put them on the right path. They wrote business plans, learned QuickBooks, developed marketing and created viable pitches to bring to partners. It gave us a goal, Simpson explained. That really helpedit kept us on track. We had deadlines. It focused us. A Kickstarter campaign grew out of the competition which provided the financial support to really get the thing off the ground, and numerous professional connections to ensure Plume's continued success.

Courtesy of Plume

As opposed to other subscription boxes that have a similar bend, Plume doesn't promise a path to getting published. There aren't any gimmicks, it is just an honest attempt to support others in the writing communitywhether locally or farther afieldin their practice. We are about nurturing the creativity within. We look at writing as a lifestyle. People do this whether they get published or not, because it's good for the soul, Simpson said. We aren't giving this information from on high, Unruh continued. We have had some successes, but we're not acting like we're above anyone.  It's more egalitarian, we want to create more of a community, and be a stepping stone.

We care a lot about community building, especially as women, Unruh explained. We need support, we need people to turn to. We want it to not just be something you get in the mail, but where you can interact with others. To that end, the packages don't exist in a vacuum, but are supported by a website where Unruh and Simpson intend to feature writing that is generated in response to the monthly prompts they send out, and a growing Facebook and Instagram community. (Find all these with the handle @plumeforwriters and plumeforwriters. com. ) In the future, the two are dreaming bigabout writer's conferences and regular meet-ups.

The physical is a value of Plume's. The connection that comes out of sitting down and sharing your ideas with other creatives, and just so the tangible objects that come in their curated boxes. It can make you slow down, Simpson said of the physical objects that they include in their boxesthings like a small zine built around the work of a featured writer, tea, a bookmark, writing prompts, a candle, something to eatmost of which are sourced locally. They help you find that contemplative space to dig deep as a writer. Self care isn't something completely different for writers, Unruh elaborated, but I think there's a different part of your brain you're trying to tap into. You really have to let go of all that stuff in your life to get into that creative space.  [These things] can help you get there.

As the business grows, the usual stressors compound. Despite all of this, Simpson and Unruh find themselves more inspired in their own craft, and in this endeavor. It's definitely got me thinking more, and working on essays, Unruh said. It has gotten me to get out of my own comfort zone and write things I probably wouldn't have before. For Simpson's part, she's had renewed energy for the memoir she has been writing for the last several years. All of this the two count as successbecause it really is about the little things. I think we need to change this idea of success. I don't think we need to lower our standards, but I think we should be realisticI mean, [National Book Award-winner] Dorothy Allison has a day job.

Plume holds that if you can just be writingeven if it never gets published, even if no one ever reads ityou will have benefited from the process. There's so many studies that show that writing helps you heal, lowers your blood pressure, calms your heart rate.  Any of these tools we can use to calm ourselves, to be intentional, I think that is good for the world, Simpson said. Following that up, Unruh added, even if for one day we can inspire someone's writingthat is success.

Sign up for your monthly inspiration at plumeforwriters.org, or just keep track of this burgeoning local business as it grows and adds more beauty and written words to the world.
Rob M.

Grass Roots Rx welcomed me with a sign and a locked door. It was closed for a lunch break. There had been no mention of it on the website (or hours of any kind), but I've worked a few jobs where they leave you alone on-duty. I'd put up signs, too. I get it. I killed 20 minutes in my car reading comics and listening to talk radio. Neither really made an impact, and I can't remember what they were about. I caught a guy in a pickup uninterestedly looking my way. We both pretended to see through each other and scan past. I checked my phone again, searched my fingernails for dirt, checked my phone again.

A patient went through the door and I realized the sign was gone. I pulled on the car door handle, and the guy in the pickup hopped out. He slammed his door, twisted on a heel to look at me with panicked eyes and started nonchalantly walk-jogging toward the door. I didn't have anywhere to be, but I thought about trying to beat him to it, just for kicks. The storefront was a good 10 yards closer to me, and I was fantasizing about running up to it and holding the door open for himreally sticking it to the guy.

Instead, I stayed back for a second and let him have it. Jokes are always wasted on the hurried. I meandered on the sidewalk and kind of slid in the front doorlike I hadn't known the place was there and had definitely not been waiting in my car like a stalker for it to open.

The dispensary was a little cramped and very warm. The man from the pickup was nervously tittering at a budtender and scratching the back of his head. His feet scraped against the floor, clearly wanting to stomp through. His rigid spine said, Hurry, hurry.

A second tender called me up. I handed my cards over and filled out the patient forms, but kept glancing out of the corner of my eye at my friend. He was alternating between imaginary itchesone behind the left ear, another on the left elbow and a third beneath his ribs.

Enthralled, I missed a question. Pardon? I'm sorry. What's a good sativa? A jazzy one. My budtender seemed like a very attentive and nice woman, but I paid no attention to her answer. The other patient caught me watching him. He grimaced, and I had a flash of telepathy. I'm going to scream if I wait any longer, he thought at me. We nodded, and I refrained from smiling.

My budtender paused. I was supposed to answer here. Yes. I'll take  that one. None of the strain names were recognizable in any way. My new pal snatched a bag from his budtender with an audible sigh of relief and made a break for it while I paid. A moment later I was leaving the building, expecting to see his back as he hurried to the pickup. Instead, I saw swirling dust devils and caught his wild eyes flashing behind the windshield as he fired the engine up and tore out of the parking lot.

I slowed my pace on principle and drove the long way home, congratulating myself on exhibiting poise whilst my fellow man rushed to and fro. It was a long drive.

Back home I broke up a bud of Wild Thailand (THC: 20.12%, CBD: 0.08%$10) while I languished in my self-righteousness. It was a little too dry and hardly produced any odor. It tasted a little like sweet basil with woody highlights. Though harsh, I had no problem sucking the whole thing down in a minute. At first, I felt nothing. Bogus! I hemmed and hawed, smacked my lips and packed a bowl of Sugar Black Rose (THC: 14.3%$10). Before I lit it, I stood up to get a glass of water. After one step, my head swam a little. The second one registered that maybe the Thailand hadn't been so impotent after all. The third step informed me that my joints had become rubber. I turned to tell my dog that things had gotten all funny, but the look on her face was too weird.

I decided to wait on the Rose. A hunger snuck up on me and I ate a whole bag of grapes while watching muted nature shows and listening to gospel choirs. I laughed the whole time.

I finally made it back to the pipe and the Sugar Black Rose. This bud was also drier than it should have been. It barely smelledI stuck my nose into the canister and inhaled so hard a chunk flew up and got stuck in my nose hairs. I detected limes and a slight hint of cat piss. I blew and blew into a tissue before lighting up.

It hardly tasted like anything and went down smooth. I was again ready to blast it for being terrible, but I ended up pleasantly falling back against the couch cushions, my muscles relaxing and my brain slowly drifting away while my eyes stared, sightless, at birds on the patio.

Three golden finches fought over equally spaced perches on a feeder. I was mesmerized, unblinking. They played musical chairs, hopping from one bar to another, pecking at the next jerk. It slowly dawned on me that there were two people at the shop. Why was it closed for an hour?
A photo exhibition by former LA Times photojournalist, Don Bartletti, documenting Central American stowaways on Mexican freight trains. Bartletti shares stories from his 30-plus year career.

Join us Friday, October 5, 6:00 pm  8:00 pm for the opening of Enriques Journey, a photo exhibition by former LA Times photojournalist, Don Bartletti, documenting Central American stowaways on Mexican freight trains. Bartletti will share stories from his 30-plus year career as a photojournalist. The exhibit opens October 5 and runs through December 28, 2018 at the New Mexico Humanities Council, 4115 Silver SE, Albuquerque. Visitors are welcome Monday through Friday, 9:00 am  4:00 pm.

In the vast migration thats changing the face of America, thousands of Central Americans annually attempt a harrowing 1,500-mile journey through the length of Mexico on the tops of freight trains.

Nearly all are visited by cruelty, hunger and fatigue. Stowaways call the unscheduled train they run to catch La Bestia or The Beast. Some are maimed or killed by the iron wheels. In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mara Salvatrucha gangsters, corrupt immigration and police officers and opportunist citizens hunt them like animals. By contrast, in the state of Veracruz trackside residents throw gifts of food, water and clothing to migrants as the train passes by.

Among these migrants are children as young as 12 who travel alone. Most are trying to find parents  usually mothers - who left them behind years ago to work in the U.S. For children, the dream of reunification becomes the quest for the Holy Grail. Success comes only to the brave and the lucky.

In 2003, Bartlettis six-part photo essay in the Los Angeles Times, Enriques Journey was awarded a Pulitzer for Feature Photography. Bartletti was the first U.S. photojournalist to document the ongoing Central American diaspora of children clinging to freight trains and their dreams of crossing into the U.S.

Bartletti has an interesting New Mexico connection, too. In 2003, he was assigned to photograph legendary New Mexico author, Tony Hillerman, for a Los Angeles Times Travel Section story written by Hillerman. Bartletti will share with exhibit reception guests his wild adventure in the Sandia Foothills capturing the portrait of a New Mexico treasure.

Enriques Journey exhibition is part of the "Democracy and the Informed Citizen" initiative, which is administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils. The series is aimed at deepening the public's knowledge and appreciation of the interconnections joining democracy, the humanities, journalism and an informed citizenry.

Special thanks go to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its generous support of the initiative and to the Pulitzer Prizes for their partnership. Thanks, too, to the City of Albuquerque's KiMo Theatre as a major sponsor of the series.
Paramount Pictures

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The Thanksgiving-to-Christmas movie season is a brief but intense one, stuffing stockings full-to-bursting with big budget sequels, musicals, sci-fi epics, Oscar-bait dramas and the occasional cheapjack horror flick. Unlike the Memorial-Day-to-Labor-Day run of summer films, youve got barely a month in which to race to movie theaters and absorb the holiday seasons would-be hits. So what should you be spending your hard-earned ticket money on this year? Lets take a look.All dates are subject to change.This low-budget horror thriller purports to tell the story of what happensthe closing credits of your typical exorcist drama. A cop just out of rehab (Stana Katic from Castle) takes the night sift at the city morgue, only to face a series of bizarre incidents after the dead body of a reputedly possessed young girl shows up in a body bag.A zombie apocalypse threatens the small town of Little Haven, forcing Hannah and her friends to fight the undead. At Christmas.  Also, this is a musical.Famed motion-capture actor Andy Serkis () directs this adaptation of Rudyard Kiplings famed fable about a human child raised by wolves.Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Willem Dafoe star in this odd musical drama about a pair of teenage sisters who survive a violent school shooting and compose a pop song about it that catapults them to fame. Years later, the younger sister (Portman) tries to revive her fame as a pop diva following a career fraught with scandal a troubled teenage daughter of her own and another terrifying act of violence.Raunchy superhero parodyreturns to theaters for one night only with a family-friendly PG-13 recut. (Yes, you heard that right.) Also, theres a new wraparound segment in which Deadpool narrates the story of the movie to Fred Savage. (Yes, thats ajoke.)Yorgos Lanthimos () directs this historical biopic about Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and her close, often romantic relationship with her best friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz). But when a new servant (Emma Stone) arrives in the palace, the Queens attention wanders.James Baldwins acclaimed 1974 novel about a woman in Harlem scrambling to prove her fiance innocent of a crime while pregnant with their first child comes to the big screen courtesy of filmmaker Barry Jenkins ().Peter Jackson () produced and co-wrote this sci-fi fantasy based on the YA novel by Philip Reeve. In the post-apocalyptic future, cities (like London) are towering machines on wheels, motoring around the wasteland and doing battle with one another.Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this crime drama about a 90-year-old man who gets caught transporting $3 million worth of cocaine through Michigan for a Mexican drug cartel. Believe it or not, its based on a true story.The latest intimate epic from writer-director Alfonso Cuaron () chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 70s. Do we smell autobiography?This animated spin-off of the Spider-Man films is a deep-dive for even longtime Spider-fans. Seems that the multiverse has suffered a fracture causing spider-based heroes of all kinds (from original flavor Spider-Man Peter Parker to Ultimates Universe Spider-Man Miles Morales to Spider-Gwen to Spider-Man Noir to Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham) to unite. Nicolas Cage, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Liev Schreiber, Lily Tomlin and Jake Johnson are among the voice cast.Disneys 1964 live-action/animated musical fantasy (based on the book series by P.L. Travers) gets a very belated sequel starring Emily Blunt () as the magical British nanny.Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) gets his own superhero franchise as the ocean-protecting half-Atlantean known as Aquaman, battling a war-loving usurper to the Atlantean throne (Ocean Master) and an armored villain (Black Manta).Sandra Bullock headlines the cast of this horror thriller about a woman trying to protect her two children in a post-apocalyptic world filled with unknown creatures who will drive humans to suicidal madness if they are so much as glimpsed. The only solution: Stay blindfolded and hope for the best.This spinoff of the Transformers movie series heads back to 1987, where a teenage girl (Hailee Steinfeld) discovers a battle-scarred robot that can turn into a battered Volkswagon Beetle.Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly star in this humorous take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyles famous crime-solving duo.Jennifer Lopez stars in this romantic comedy about a big box store worker who gets mistaken for an accomplished Wall Street consultant and is hired by a private finance firm to handle a major business deal.Based loosely on the 2010 documentary, this dramatic fantasy tells the story of an outsider artist (Steve Carell) who becomes the victim of a violent assault. He eventually finds escape and healing in creating and photographing an elaborate, miniature World War II village. The plastic inhabitants to the village are brought to life via CGI.A very de-glammed Nicole Kidman stars in this crime thriller as a LAPD detective unwittingly reconnecting with dangerous gang members from an undercover assignment in her distant past. Karyn Kusama () directs.Felicity Jones () takes on the role of young Ruth Bader Gisnsberg and the struggles she overcame to become a US Supreme Court Justice.Controversial former Vice President Dick Cheney is the subject of this biopic starring a surprisingly transformed Christian Bale. Sam Rockwell is George W. Bush. Steve Carell is Donald Rumsfeld. Amy Adams is Lynne Cheney.Six strangers (Deborah Ann Woll and Tyler Labine among them) find themselves trapped in a deadly room and must use their wits to survive.  Heck, thefilms inspired the rise in escape rooms, so its only fair that escape rooms would inspire yet another-like film.A puppy travels 400 miles in search of her owner in this animal-loving, live-action adventure. A chirpy Bryce Dallas Howard () voices the dogs inner monologue. Its based on the novel of the same nameby the guy who wrote the similarly sappy book-turned-movieIn addition to his duo work on Holmes & Watson, John C. Reilly co-stars as Oliver Hardy (alongside Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel) in this biopic about the famed comedy duo embarking on a swan song tour of post-war Britain.Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart star in this tearjerking comedy (based on the French film) about the relationship between a wealthy man with quadriplegia and the homeless ex-con he hires to look after him.M. Night Shyamalans secret superhero movieand his secret supervillain movie(spoiler alert!) combine forces, allowing superpowered security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) to hunt down superpowered psycho Kevin Crumb (James McAvoy).
Earlier this year we polled our well-traveled readers, asking them what their favorite spots to eat, stay and see outside of Albuquerque are. They responded, and we wrote up the winners . So if you feel the need to get out of town for a day or two but dont want to leave the Land of Enchantment, heres another chapter in Alibi s Day Tripper travel guide.

Abiquiu

Ghost Ranch

In the mid-18th century, Abiquiu, was one of the largest settlements in New Mexico. And there's lots of good reasons why that was the caseabundant water by way of the Rio Chama, and a position on the Old Spanish Trail trade route, proximity to other outposts like Santa Fe (about 50 miles to the south), and an unmatched landscape of red rock.

That red rock became iconic in the work of artist Georgia O'Keeffewho is now a cultural touchstone and among the most famous artists that the US has ever seen. O'Keeffe, who hailed from Wisconsin, spent almost 40 years of her life living and working at nearby Ghost Ranch. A zeitgeist for the American Westher iconic flowers, land and cityscapeshelped to define the art of the 20th century. O'Keeffe herself was enigmatic and her presence in northern New Mexico drew her creative contemporaries to the state, helping the area to carve out its reputation as one of North America's arts capitals.

To this day, Ghost Ranch remains one of the primary draws of Abiquiu. O'Keeffe purchased her first portion of Ghost Ranch, Rancho de los Burrosa small home and seven acresin 1940. O'Keeffe eventually acquired other property in Abiquiu but kept her plot at Ghost Ranch, even after the rest of the property was given to the Presbyterian Church, who still own it today. Savvy visitors will recognize some of the surroundings near Ghost Ranch from O'Keeffe's paintingslike the red hills across from the Ranch's headquarters or nearby Kitchen Mesa and the Pedernal, a nearby flat-topped mountain. These days, visitors can forge their own connection to the land at Ghost Ranch via tours, horseback rides, classes, retreats and, of course, appreciating unmatched and storied views.

Beyond the legacy that O'Keeffe has left behind are amazing vistas best experienced on one of numerous trails, epic camping alongside the Chama River, a rare chance to swim in the man-made Lake Abiquiu, and the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. The monastery is notable as the web's first scriptorium and for its creation of Abbey Brewing Company, a small operation run by the residents of the monastery that has steadily gained traction, with a taproom opening in Albuquerque and distribution in eight states outside of New Mexico.

Abiquiu offers monkish escapes like a retreat at Ghost Ranch or a few nights at Monastery of Christ in the Desert, though perhaps the most tranquility visitors might hope for is discovered by tossing a sleeping bag in the dirt and sleeping under the abundant stars of this remote high desert atoll in one of New Mexico's northernmost reaches.

Favorite Place to Eat

Cafe Abiquiu

Favorite Place to Stay

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Favorite Place to See/Do

Ghost Ranch

Favorite Thing We Forgot

Hike Plaza Blanca
London, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- During 2018 Mobile Broadband Forum, Turkcell and Huawei jointly announced the commercial launch of the 5G oriented DIS (Digital Indoor System) in the Istanbul New Airport. The LampSite Sharing solution has been deployed, which will provide indoor high-speed and deep coverage for users. The airport is the world's largest airport with DIS deployment and is ready for 5G.



Striding between Europe and Asia, Istanbul has always been one of the world's most important transportation hubs. When completed, the Istanbul New Airport will cover an area of 1,500,000 square meters. Its annual passenger traffic is expected to reach 150 million, making it the world's largest airport and an icon of national pride of Turkey. The airport features high traffic, high user experience requirements, and a large number of high-value international roaming subscribers. In the early stage of the airport's construction, Turkcell required an indoor network that can meet the high-speed requirements of the current users and is available for 5G evolution in the future. In the meantime, the construction period of the mobile network in the airport is short. Therefore, fast delivery became an important requirement of the project.

Based on such requirements, Turkcell chose the LampSite Sharing solution for deploying a 4.5G network at the airport. Turkcell served as the host operator and shared the network with two other local operators. Easy to deploy, the LampSite Sharing solution provides huge capacity with 4T4R and supports multimode multiband applications, E2E visualized O&M, and co-construction and sharing among operators. These features give it unique strength to tangibly improve coverage and eliminate coverage holes in airports, helping provide ubiquitous MBB experience to end-users. Once 5G spectrum is provisioned, 5G network can be deployed without changing the positions of pRRUs or redeploying cables.

Mr. Gediz Sezgin, CTO of Turkcell, commented, "Digitalization is a company strategy of Turkcell. Based on this, we provide users with the best experience and a great variety of services. The airport is a window into a city. It represents the image of Istanbul and that of Turkcell. I am very glad to see the commercial launch of full-digital indoor coverage at the airport. We offer up to 1 Gbps speed. Meanwhile, we also provide 100% indoor 4T4R coverage in densely populated areas such as check-in counters, departure lounges, and tax-free shops, bringing world's leading indoor coverage experience to our subscribers."

Mr. Ritchie Peng, President of Huawei Small Cell Product Line, said: Representing the image of cities, airports need to accommodate high traffic volume and high user experience. The LampSite Sharing solution is the perfect answer in this regard. Huawei's LampSite solution has been successfully deployed in many airports around the world. We are glad to support Turkcell in building the Istanbul New Airport and complete network commercial launch as scheduled. We will continue to cooperate with Turkcell in communication technology innovation, helping Turkcell accelerate the digitalization process across Turkey."





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Chang-Dong Lees slow-to-no-burn mystery thriller Burning is like a thousand-piece LEGO set that builds itself slowly, one tiny block at a time. There are moments when progress is so gradual you cant even recognize the pattern. But in the end, there it is, fully formed and staring you right in the face.

It starts with the smallest of coincidences, when occasionally employed college grad Jong-Su (Ah-In Yoo) bumps into Hae-Mi (Jong-Seo Jeon) on the streets of Seoul where shes working as a sidewalk model (little more than a living billboard) at a dinky electronics store. Seems that Jong-Su and Hae-Mi grew up in the same rural village just a stones throw from the North Korean border. They havent seen each other since junior high. Jong-Su, for his part, hardly recognizes his old schoolmate. In the intervening decade, shes grown up, gotten a touch of plastic surgery and is pretty, now, huh? (as she puts it). Despite his poor memory and taciturn manner, Jong-Su finds himself invited out by Hae-Mi for a catch-up drink.

The two have little in common, other than that long-ago desire to flee their restrictive hometown. Jong-Su recently finished college with a degree in creative writing. He harbors vague ideas of becoming a writer but has no idea where to start. Given the pedestrian, go-nowhere nature of his life, its no wonder hes at a loss for ideas. Hae-Mi, on the other hand, is busy living life in the moment. Despite being broke shes about to take off for Africa, touring the jungles and generally searching for the meaning of life. On a whim, she asks Jong-Su to look after her pet cat while shes away. On the same whimpresumablyshe also sleeps with him. The next day shes gone, a pleasant if puzzling memory for Jong-Su.

For the next couple of weeks, Jong-Su dutifully visits Hae-Mis cramped apartment to take care of shy pet. Its an extra burden, given that hes just opted to vacate urban Seoul for his parents small cattle farm up north. Mom abandoned the family when Jong-Su was just a kid. Now dad has had an angry run-in with a local agriculture inspector and is facing jail time. Jong-Su is prevailed upon to return and look after the lonely old homestead.

Eventually, Hae-Mi drifts back to South Korea. Much to Jong-Sus confusion, however, shes got a new friend in tow. Ben (Steven Yeun, better known as poor dead Glenn on The Walking Dead) is a mysterious rich kid, whom Hae-Mi befriended in Africa. Ben is a good looking young fellow who drives an expensive Porsche and lives in a spacious modern apartment in Gangnam. When asked what he does for a living, he offers vague responses like, Theres no difference between work and play these days. Jong-Su isnt sure what to think of the guy, but hes definitely all turned around about where he stands with Hae-Mi now. Are they a couple anymore? Were they ever a couple? Is Ben Hae-Mis new lover? Or are they all just a bunch of happy-go-lucky millennial pals, free of serious entanglements?

Abruptly transformed into a third wheel, Jong-Sus normally passive, go-with-the-flow personality starts to slip. He grows suspicious of Ben. He becomes uncharacteristically philosophical. Assessing the wealthy young Ben, he laments, There are so many Gatsbys in Korea. Jong-Sus search for answers fuels the remaining narrative of Burning. To say more, though, would rob the film of its icy punch. What is the deal with Ben? What is his connection to Hae-Mi? Are Jong-Sus suspicions based in reality or on deep-seated class-conscious jealousy? And for that matter, what the heck kind of movie is Burning? Sorry, I cant say.

Burning is like a hard-boiled egg that takes two hours to crack. When it does, spilling its messy secrets, its a doozy. But getting there requires a good deal of patience. It lacks the energetic craziness of other contemporary Korean films like I Saw The Devil or The Wailing. In fact, its got more in common with the chilly sangfroid of some Nordic noir cinema (one film in particular springs to mind, though naming it would also spill a few too many of Burnings secrets). Jong-Sus flat affectation and stubborn lack of dialogue make him a difficult protagonist, adding to the inscrutability of the story. But the more you stick with the 148-minute run time, the more youll realize what a long game the writer-director is playing. Pay attention to the credits and youll notice the screenplay is based on the short story Barn Burning by Japanese author and gritty surrealist Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Kafka on the Shore). That should give you a further clue of what youre in for. Subtle, slow-going and shot through with a storyline that starts out slack and tightens to painful tension, Burning is the sort of film to make you question everything you know and everything you think you know.
PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Reel World Shoot It! Punk rock cinema auteur, DIY Grammy nominee and extremely cool Santa Fe resident Jon Moritsugu is teaching a two-day filmmaking crash course on Dec. 1 and 2. Moritsugu writer- director of such underground hits as Mod Fuck Explosion, Terminal USA, Fame Whore and Pig Death Machinepromises to teach students how to break the rules, ignore the fools and sharpen your tools. Moritsugus class covers everything from preproduction to releasing a movie. Fundraising, script writing, auditioning actors, no-bullshit directing, shooting with no money and only an iPhone, promotion and self-distribution are also topics on the table. Students are advised to come prepared with an idea that you want to make real. This class takes place Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 1 and 2 from 9am to 4pm at the Santa Fe Business Incubator (3900 Paseo Del Sol). Enrollment is limited. Early registration is $80 ($100 day of event). To ensure your spot, Paypal jonmoritsugu@gmail. com or go to jonmoritsugu.com for more info. View in Alibi calendar

Survey It! Are you a local screenwriter, director or producer? The New Mexico Film Foundation is putting together a Project Survey. The nonprofit organization is collecting data on current film and media projects by New Mexico filmmakers as a way to inform our new state administration just how much work is being done by in-state talent. Documentaries, pilots, web projects, short films are all welcome to submit. The resulting database will not share contact info, unless NMFF receives specific permission. NMFF conducted this survey last year and is looking for a follow up. So, if you participated last time and want to provide an update on a project, please do so. On the other hand, if youre a filmmaker with a brand new project, please feel free to add your work to the survey. They are looking for projects in pre-production, production, post-production and ones that were released in 2017-18. To add your project to the survey, go to nmfilmfoundation. org/ current- project- survey.
The Garrity Group

There is just so dang much going on in this city and this state, news-wise, that I thought I would tell you all about it in a series of brief communiques. Besides being timely and informative, these utterances speak to the fact that some Burquenosand even, perhaps those in the wider world, via the interwebzare getting their news from Weekly Alibi.

So, orale, step up, mind the gap or strap on your jammy packwhatever the vernacular of your particular subculture requiresto mark your entrance into the realm of local and regional news updates provided with aplomb and coated with the peculiar yet resilient dust of this town.

ART Turnabout

Every morning when I pry the lid off the big black kettle holding my email, theres a helluva lot going onwhat with bubbles rising here and thereincluding much news from the official channels at the City of Albuquerque.

Now as you may recall, weve been big fans of the Keller administration from the get-go and are quite glad to see that the city has decided not to cite drivers using or crossing the ART bus lane demarcations. Thats a great step forward towards lessening consumer (read: citizens of Burque) anxiety and even anger over the perpetually frozen transportation project.

On the other hand, I did witness near chaos near the corner of Atrisco and Central Avenue this morning, right next to the ART bus stop, interestingly. A young driver in the parking lot that now houses Burlington Coat Factory and Conns Home storesand thats an upgrade from the long-standing K-Mart that haunted the neighborhood for yearswas attempting to turn left, or west onto Central Ave.

Although they were able to somehow snake across four lanes of traffic in two directions while navigating the ART edifice and its separate lane, nearly three accidents happened in time with their crossing. At least one might have been vicious. I winced and somehow made it throughbut thought about how a lack of enforcement of traffic laws in general has made this town hell to travel through, ART or no ART. Will even less enforcement of the laws applying to driving through town in a machine result in more civilization or less? I guess well have to find out.

Our Leadership Team

In other news emanating from City Halland for those of you who are wondering, yes the word emanating was purposely chosen; the mayors a metal head after all and that word has certain cred, we believe, in the parlance of that particular subculture.

Ahem. Anyway, this past Friday, the mayors office announced the appointment of three professionals whose role in the administration will be to bolster and continue to implement Kellers progressive agenda.

Brian Osterloh, a longtime city employee, was named to be the permanent head of the department of Technology and Innovation, after having served as the interim director since Kellers inauguration. In a nod toward the humanist future the mayors administration has long proposed, Osterloh told reporters, In this position, I hope to further the vision of making technology available to all parts of our city to support everyone.  We dont support servers or cables or laptops or softwarewe support people.

Also joining the crew over at City Hall will be new City Budget Officer Olivia Padilla-Jackson. The former director of the New Mexico Board of Finance, Padilla-Jackson was also a member of the very influential New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee. Padilla-Jackson, currently the Board President of Manzano Day school has been quoted as saying, Albuquerque is a great place to be, and I want to use my experience to revolutionize the way we look at budgets and outcomes in the city.

Kellers administration can also be credited with furthering the underlying progressive mission of proving better and more efficient early childhood education.

Toward that end, the city recently announced that Shana Runck has been chosen to oversee Burques Early Head Start, Early Pre-K, Pre-K and Preschool programs. Formerly part of the leadership team for Head Start at the Pueblo of Laguna, Runck also worked in community relations at the Nusenda Foundation, as well as holding an adjunct professorship at CNM. Envisioning her tenure in city government, Runck stated, If my focus on early childhood education has taught me one thing, its that every child has the potential to do amazing things. Its my goal to make sure Albuquerque kids have a solid start to achieve success and thrive.

Health Insurance Time

Do not fret dear progressive readers and comrades. There is still an Affordable Care act and there is still an insurance exchange designed and implemented to help citizens find the best and most affordable health insurance options for individuals and families.

If the above sounds like leftist propaganda, then get the heck out of here. Its a well established fact, after all, that having health insurance is a damn healthy thing to carry around with ones skin and bones. Scientific studies have shown that individuals without health insurance suffer increased risks for chronic disease and early mortality. Serio.

So what are you waiting for compadres? If the answer has to do with access and affordability, then do yourselfand your familya solid by checking out Be Well New Mexico, our states official, state law created health insurance exchange.

The organization has a mission statement thats heavy on improving the collective health and well-being of all New Mexicans and you can jump on that joyful bandwagon, dear citizen by getting hooked up with affordable medical care through this organization if you live in New Mexico, are not covered by an affordable healthcare plan through your employer or are not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. The nonprofit also has a division directed towards working with small businesses to facilitate better healthcare options for employees.

As now until Dec. 15 marks the yearly open enrollment time provided by insurance companies, regulatory bodies and various commercial and nonprofit exchanges, now is the time get with Be Well New Mexico if you qualify for their services based on the four qualifiers mentioned in the previous paragraph of this article.

The New Mexico Exchange offers a wide array of events meant to make convenient the sometimes complicated process of choosing and implementing health insurance. Heres a breakdown of the next enrollment events happening in the Duke City, but for a complete listing of enrollment events visit Be Well New Mexicos enrollment events page.

 Wednesday, Nov. 21: Greater Albuquerque Housing Partnership Enrollment Event, 310 Indian School Rd. NE from 5 to 7pm

 Thursday, Nov. 29: Greater Albuquerque Housing Partnership Enrollment Event, 310 Indian School Rd. NE from 5 to 7pm

 Tuesday, Dec. 4: Health NM Event, 2529 San Mateo Blvd. NE, Ste. 4 from 3 to 6pm

 Wednesday, Dec. 5: Greg Koch GLK Insurance Event, 1700A Southern Blvd. SE, Rio Rancho, 3 to 6pm

 Wednesday, Dec. 5: Integrity Insurance Event, 9577 Osuna Rd. NE, Ste. E, 3 to 6pm

 Wednesday, Dec. 5: Health NM Event, 2529 San Mateo Blvd. NE, Ste. 4 from 3 to 6pm

 Thursday, Dec. 6: Jerry Smith and Associates Event, 4200 Meadowlark Lane, Ste. 1-E, Rio Rancho, 3 to 6pm

 Thursday, Dec. 6: Greater Albuquerque Housing Partnership Enrollment Event, 1319 Fourth Street NW, from 5 to 7pm

 Saturday, Dec. 8: CNM Workforce Training Center Enrollment Event, 5600 Eagle Rock Ave. NE, 10am to 2pm

 Friday, Dec. 14: Catholic Charities Enrollment Event, 2010 Bridge Blvd. SW, 3 to 7pm

A Healthy Narrative

Recently, Weekly Alibi received an official transmission from Be Well New Mexico, illustrating how important affordable healthcare can be to citizens of this state. It goes something like this:

Diane Lodge, who was going through a divorce, moved to New Mexico from Connecticut to be closer to her son Dan and daughter-in-law Amanda.

Because of this, Diane knew she needed to purchase health insurance. She went online to look for insurance companies. She found bewellnm.coms website, which advises customers to call the enrollment center if they need help. So she did. She had an appointment with an enrollment counselor in two days. The process was extremely quick, Diane said.

The counselor asked her questions about her health, such as how frequently she sees a doctor. Diane has high blood pressure, so she knows she has to be established with a doctor and maintain her medications. Not surprisingly, during the divorce proceedings and her travels to England to care for her mother, Dianes blood pressure went up.

Every November Diane now makes an appointment at the enrollment center to renew coverage face-to-face with a counselor. They are so good. They know what they are doing. It doesnt take very long. Why do it yourself? said Diane.

And thats the word from a fellow citizen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making healthcare more affordable and more convenient for New Mexico citizens and, ultimately, a progressive underground community newspaper that wants to see its entire readership live long and prosper. Sabes?

As a final reminder, open enrollment ends on Saturday, Dec. 15.
Yazmin Irazoqui-Ruiz

Okay Alibi readers, you are going to have to read fast and assimilate quickly to keep up, because our local governing bodies have been busy in the last couple weeks. Bernalillo County Commission put some future jingle in some of our pockets, while the Albuquerque City Council proclaimed support for statewide affordable healthcare for all.

BernCo View

More Money For Us and Them

Attention Bernalillo County minimum wage workers: There soon could be a few more cents in your pocket after the Bernalillo County Commission raised the minimum wage $.20 from $8.85 to $9.05. This raise goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2019.

Newly elected officials who start their terms Jan. 1 will also get more annual money. Incoming County Commissioners will get about $39,000 per year, nearly $10,000 more than sitting commissioners. Treasurer, clerk and assessor will gain about $20,000, to take home around $86,000. The sheriff will see an increase from about $68,000 to $90,000 in his salary. The new Probate Judge will go from about $28,000 to $38,000 per year. Officials elected in 2020 also will receive this raise, in 2021. The last pay bump for county officials was approved in 2006 and took effect in 2007 and 2009.

More Money to Help

Commissioners approved a new $3 million annual appropriation for the Countys Department of Behavioral Health Services to expand triage crisis mental health and substance abuse services for adults in need of immediate treatment.

The four-phase plan starts with the first two phases transitioning the MATS detox center to the University of New Mexico Hospital, to give UNMH a larger administrative role. This will allow the MATS detox services center to expand its programsincluding a public inebriate programby about 36 beds overall. The third phase would be an outpatient clinic with some innovative peer-based treatment ideas. And the fourth phase is a real freestanding mental health hospital with emergency medical and psychiatric urgent and emergency care.

Phases one and two are expected to be gearing up early next year. This overall plan will provide our emergency services personnel with a place to take those struggling with mental health and substance abuse to get full service help. It is hoped and expected that this will take a huge number of patients out of hospital emergency rooms and out of the criminal justice system.

All this is being funded in part with monies from the 2015 mental health and substance abuse gross receipts tax passed by the voters and implemented by the county.

More Development

Santolina, the 13,700-acre master-planned community sitting southwest of I-40 and 118th Street, is one step closer to becoming reality. Commissioners approved a development agreement with Western Albuquerque Land Holdings to develop about one-third of the West Mesa property. When fully built, Santolina could host about 96,000 people. The city-county water authority recently said there is water available on the property but not within the water authoritys current capacity. It would cost $600 million over several decades to develop a delivery infrastructure for the water under the proposed development. The development is estimated to use about 11,700 acre-feet of water per year with a daily use of about 18.5 million.

The approval did not come easy as a couple dozen folks showed up at the Nov. 13 meeting to oppose the move. The commission split down gender lines, probably coincidentally, with the three men at the table voting yes and the two women voting no. A construction timeline has not been set.

City Council Watch

Official No Toss Policy

Councilors at their Nov. 19 meeting made their rise in littering fines official. Just as a reminder: 250 clams is the penalty for being a first-time litterbug, $350 for the second and a whopping 500 simoleons will be charged to third time dumpers. Cigarette butt tossers will face $250 for their first offense and $500 for each one of those frajos tossed thereafter. Local authorities are on alert.

Health Request

Councilors approved a resolution urging the upcoming 2019 Legislature to pass the Health Security Act, legislation that would enable New Mexico to set up its own healthcare plan. Supporters say it would be set up like a cooperative, would cover most New Mexicans who choose to participate, would offer a comprehensive set of healthcare services and freedom to choose providers, and would be administratively simple while being paid for with existing monies from public funds, employer contributions and income-based premiums. Certainly worth a hard look!

More City Business

 Several bills were passed that will amend the citys election code in a few ways, including moving the municipal election held in odd-numbered years to November from October. They approved propositions that will be submitted to the voters at the Feb. 5, 2019 special election, but they deferred adding the Democracy Dollars Charter amendment for 60 more days.

 Councilors keep kicking down the road the idea of reconfirming Edward Harness as the Director of the Civilian Police Oversight Agency. This time it was deferred until the Dec. 3 meeting. Council staff reminded the table that a decision needed to be made prior to the next US District Court hearing regarding progress of the Court Approved Settlement Agreement between the citys police department and the Department of Justice.

 In almost an afterthought, Councilors approved a five year vision statement with goals to help guide the citys budget, resource allocation, performance and other work plans. We will be taking a look at what our leaders see ahead for residents.
English French

Bernin, November 21, 2018

INFORMATION RELATING TO THE TOTAL NUMBER

OF VOTING RIGHTS AND SHARES

FORMING THE SHARE CAPITAL

(Article L. 233-8 II of the French Commercial Code and article 223-16 of the General Regulation of the French financial markets authority (A.M.F))

Name and address of the Company: SOITEC

Parc Technologique des Fontaines

Chemin des Franques

38190 BERNIN

Statement date Total number of shares forming the share capital Total number of voting rights 10/31/2018 31,636,932 (1) Number of theoretical (gross) voting rights (2) : 32,490,265 Number of exercisable (net) voting rights (3) : 32,215,823

(1) Including (i) 31,367,567 ordinary shares of 2.00 par value each, listed on the Euronext Paris regulated market under ISIN code FR0013227113 and the mnemonic "SOI", and (ii) 269,365 preferred shares of 0.10 par value each not listed.

(2) The total number of theoretical voting rights (or "gross" voting rights) is used as the basis for calculating the crossing of shareholding thresholds. In accordance with article 223-11 of the AMF General Regulation, this number is calculated on the basis of all shares to which voting rights are attached, including shares without voting rights (in the present case, the 5,077 treasury shares and the 269,365 preference shares of 0.10 par value each) and after taking into account the number of shares entitled to double voting rights.

(3) The total number of exercisable voting rights (or "net" voting rights) is calculated after taking into account the number of shares entitled to double voting rights, and after deduction of the shares without voting rights (in the present case, the 5,077 treasury shares and the 269,365 preference shares of 0.10 par value each).
Dublin, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Middle East & Africa Ride Hailing Market By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Micro Mobility Vehicle), By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, 5G & Wi-Fi), By Service Type, By Vehicle Connectivity, By Country, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2017-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



Middle East & Africa ride hailing market is projected to grow $ 7.3 billion by 2023



Key factors expected to drive demand for ride hailing services in the region are rising urbanization, growing young population, increasing investments by several major players in ride hailing services, and surging number of internet and smartphone users.



Moreover, ease of booking and enhanced passenger comfort offered by ride hailing services are likely to further propel growth in the Middle East & Africa ride hailing market during the forecast period.



Middle East & Africa Ride Hailing Market, 2017-2023 discusses the following aspects of ride hailing market in MEA:

Ride Hailing Market Size, Share & Forecast

Segmental Analysis - By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Micro Mobility Vehicle), By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, 5G & Wi-Fi), By Service Type, By Vehicle Connectivity, By Country

Competitive Analysis

Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities

Why You Should Buy This Report?

To gain an in-depth understanding of ride hailing in MEA

To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years

To help industry consultants, ride hailing distributors and other stakeholders align their market-centric strategies

To obtain research-based business decisions and add weight to presentations and marketing material

To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players

To avail of 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs



Some of the major players operating in the Middle East & Africa ride hailing market are



Uber Technologies Inc.

Lyft Inc.

Didi Chuxing

BMW AG

Aptiv PLC

Robert Bosch GmbH

IBM Corporation

Gett Inc.

ANI Technologies Private Limited

TomTom International

Key Topics Covered:



1. Product Overview



2. Research Methodology



3. Analyst View



4. Middle East & Africa Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.1.1. By Value

4.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.2.1. By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car Vs. Micro Mobility Vehicles)

4.2.2. By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, and 5G)

4.2.3. By Service Type (E-hailing, Car Sharing, and Station Based Mobility)

4.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity (V2P, V2I, V2V, and Others)

4.2.5. By Country

4.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)

4.4. Market Attractiveness Index (By Internet Connectivity)

4.5. Market Attractiveness Index (By Service Type)

4.6. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Connectivity)

4.7. Market Attractiveness Index (By Country)

4.8. Middle East & Africa Ride Hailing Market Country Analysis

4.8.1. South Africa Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.8.1.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.8.1.1.1. By Value

4.8.1.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.8.1.2.1. By Vehicle Type

4.8.1.2.2. By Internet Connectivity

4.8.1.2.3. By Service Type

4.8.1.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity

4.8.1.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)

4.8.2. UAE Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.8.2.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.8.2.1.1. By Value

4.8.2.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.8.2.2.1. By Vehicle Type

4.8.2.2.2. By Internet Connectivity

4.8.2.2.3. By Service Type

4.8.2.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity

4.8.2.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)



5. Market Dynamics

5.1. Drivers

5.2. Challenges



6. Market Trends & Developments



7. Competitive Landscape

7.1. Uber Technologies Inc.

7.2. Lyft Inc.

7.3. Didi Chuxing

7.4. BMW AG

7.5. Aptiv PLC

7.6. Robert Bosch GmbH

7.7. IBM Corporation

7.8. Gett Inc.

7.9. ANI Technologies Private Limited

7.10. TomTom International



8. Strategic Recommendations



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/2pcvfq/middle_east_and?w=12





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.
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Silicon Legal Strategy today announced that Robert Huey has joined the firm as Vice President of Finance in its San Francisco office.



As VP of Finance, Robert oversees the planning, financial reporting, accounting, tax, treasury, and financial systems for the firm. Prior to joining SLS, Robert held various senior financial roles in professional service firms including Director of Finance at Meyers Nave, a law firm with attorneys advising on more than 20 complex fields of law, serving public, private and non-profit organizations located throughout California, and as Corporate Controller and Director of Operational Finance for Prophet Brand Strategy, a global consultancy that helps its clients find better ways to grow. Additionally, Robert was an early employee of Zentropy, one of the first digital advertising agencies, where he was Director of Finance. Subsequent to Zentropys acquisition by Interpublic Group, Robert was Vice President, Director of Finance for MRM Partners Western Region.

"Like a lot of entrepreneurial firms, Silicon Legal is always looking to expand and take things to the next level. I am excited to be able to join a firm that walks the walk, invests in both its people and clients all while maintaining a positive culture that makes it enjoyable to go to work each day," said Huey.

Robert will play a critical role in the development and implementation of new financial analyses, processes and initiatives that will allow the firm to expand, said Andre Gharakhanian, partner at Silicon Legal Strategy. With a team of 40, we are incredibly well-positioned for continued growth into 2019.

About Silicon Legal Strategy

Silicon Legal Strategy is the premier boutique law firm providing targeted, bottom-line-oriented advice to technology startups, innovative entrepreneurs and seasoned investors. Trained at the top firms in Silicon Valley, our attorneys and staff are incredibly passionate about technology and have extensive experience representing early stage companies and investors. We are a known quantity in Silicon Valley, and work with or sit across the table from every major law firm in the area. Perhaps most importantly, we ourselves are entrepreneurs. We truly understand the challenges of a startup -- like building and motivating a team, creating repeatable processes to ensure continued customer satisfaction at scale and dealing with infrastructure issues. We dont merely observe these challenges as lawyers on the sidelines -- we face them every day -- and as a result, are able to deliver more relevant, bottom-line-oriented advice. Put simply, we actually "get" what entrepreneurs are going through.

Jaime Madden

info@siliconlegal.com
English Danish

Stock Exchange Announcement

Copenhagen, 21 November 2018

Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH) has reached an understanding to the key elements of a new charges agreement with the airlines that account for the majority of the traffic. The agreement provides clarity about the price the airlines will pay to use the airport until the end of 2023 and creates the foundation for continued expansion and growth at CPH.

The charges agreement applies from 1 April 2019 to 31 December 2023 and determines the price for using the airport runways, terminals and services. Initially, prices will be approx. 5% lower in 2019 compared to 2018, after which they will increase marginally during the agreement period. The charges reduction comes in addition to the already implemented 10 % reduction which took effect per 1 April 2018. This secures Copenhagen Airports competitive position as being among the cheapest major airports in Europe.

Last year, the Danish government presented a new national aviation strategy. Copenhagen Airports fully supports the objectives of the strategy which focus particularly on increasing Denmarks international and domestic accessibility. It has therefore been decisive for us to create a solid framework for our finances so that we can uphold a high investment and expansion level. The new agreement runs for almost five years and thus provides a good, stable foundation for our ambitious investment plans, says Thomas Woldbye CEO of Copenhagen Airports A/S.

The new adjustment of airport charges adopted last year formed the basis for the new charges agreement.

In the coming years, CPH will invest in e.g. the construction of Pier E, which will be handling large long-haul aircraft, new aircraft stands and gates, new baggage system etc. Besides, CPH will continue to analyse how to realise further expansions efficiently going forward.

Key elements of the new charges agreement will now be presented to those airlines that are not already part of the agreement as well the Danish Transport Authority (DAA) for approval. Subject to DAAs approval, the agreement will enter into force on 1 April 2019 and run until the end for 2023. Since the agreement will not have effect on the charges until next year, it will have no impact on CPHs expectations for the current financial year.

P.O. Box 74 Lufthavnsboulevarden 6 DK-2770 Kastrup Kontaktperson: Peter Krogsgaard CCO Telefon: 3231 3231 Fax: 3231 3132

E-mail: cphweb@cph.dk

www.cph.dk

CVR nr. 14 70 72 04

Attachment
Dublin, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "South America Ride Hailing Market By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Micro Mobility Vehicle), By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, 5G & Wi-Fi), By Service Type, By Vehicle Connectivity, By Country, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2017-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



South America ride hailing market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.5% by 2023, owing to growing urbanization and rising internet penetration across the region.



Moreover, rising concerns regarding air pollution levels, development of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles, and increasing number of collaborations between domestic and international service providers are expected to fuel demand for ride hailing services across the region.



Some of the other factors that would have a positive impact on the market are rising population and shifting trend from traditional taxis to ride hailing services in the region.



South America Ride Hailing Market, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2017-2023 discusses the following aspects of ride hailing market in South America:

Ride Hailing Market Size, Share & Forecast

Segmental Analysis - By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car & Micro Mobility Vehicle), By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, 5G & Wi-Fi), By Service Type, By Vehicle Connectivity, By Country

Competitive Analysis

Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities

Why You Should Buy This Report?

To gain an in-depth understanding of ride hailing in South America

To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years

To help industry consultants, ride hailing distributors and other stakeholders align their market-centric strategies

To obtain research-based business decisions and add weight to presentations and marketing material

To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players

To avail of 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs

Some of the major players operating in the South America ride hailing market are



Uber Technologies Inc.

Lyft Inc.

Didi Chuxing

BMW AG

Aptiv PLC

Robert Bosch GmbH

IBM Corporation

Gett Inc.

ANI Technologies Private Limited

TomTom International

Key Topics Covered:



1. Product Overview



2. Research Methodology



3. Analyst View



4. South America Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.1.1. By Value

4.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.2.1. By Vehicle Type (Passenger Car Vs. Micro Mobility Vehicles)

4.2.2. By Internet Connectivity (3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, and 5G)

4.2.3. By Service Type (E-hailing, Car Sharing, and Station Based Mobility)

4.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity (V2P, V2I, V2V, and Others)

4.2.5. By Country

4.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)

4.4. Market Attractiveness Index (By Internet Connectivity)

4.5. Market Attractiveness Index (By Service Type)

4.6. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Connectivity)

4.7. Market Attractiveness Index (By Country)

4.8. South America Ride Hailing Market Country Analysis

4.8.1. Brazil Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.8.1.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.8.1.1.1. By Value

4.8.1.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.8.1.2.1. By Vehicle Type

4.8.1.2.2. By Internet Connectivity

4.8.1.2.3. By Service Type

4.8.1.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity

4.8.1.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)

4.8.2. Argentina Ride Hailing Market Outlook

4.8.2.1. Market Size & Forecast

4.8.2.1.1. By Value

4.8.2.2. Market Share & Forecast

4.8.2.2.1. By Vehicle Type

4.8.2.2.2. By Internet Connectivity

4.8.2.2.3. By Service Type

4.8.2.2.4. By Vehicle Connectivity

4.8.2.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type)



5. Market Dynamics

5.1. Drivers

5.2. Challenges



6. Market Trends & Developments



7. Competitive Landscape

7.1. Uber Technologies Inc.

7.2. Lyft Inc.

7.3. Didi Chuxing

7.4. BMW AG

7.5. Aptiv PLC

7.6. Robert Bosch GmbH

7.7. IBM Corporation

7.8. Gett Inc.

7.9. ANI Technologies Private Limited

7.10. TomTom International



8. Strategic Recommendations



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/326v6w/south_america?w=12





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.
Latvian English

Riga, 2018-11-21 16:10 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

During the third quarter of 2018 the Company reported turnover of 5.005 million EUR - decrease by 4% in comparison to the same period of 2017. The third quarter 2018 sales results also showed 4% sales volume decrease in comparison with previous quarter  2018 Q2.

During first 9 months of 2018 the Company reported sales volume increase by 11% compared to the same period of 2017 and reached turnover of 16.090 million EUR.

During 2018 Q3 the Company reported quarterly EBITDA result of 0.777 million EUR and quarterly net profit result of 0.153 million EUR. The reported EBITDA result showed 31% decrease in comparison with Q3 2017 and 20% decrease compared to the previous quarter, 2018 Q2. 2018 Q3 net profit results demonstrate 71% decrease in comparison with Q3 2017 and 62% decrease compared to previous  Q2 2018. Reporting period results represent quarterly EBITDA margin of 15.5% and net profit margin of 3.1%.

During first 9 months of 2018 (9m) the Company reported EBITDA result of 2.801 million EUR and net profit result of 1.058 million EUR. The reported EBITDA result shows 2% decrease in comparison with 2017 9m. The 9 month net profit results for 2018 demonstrate 11% decrease in comparison with 2017 9m. Results represent 6 month EBITDA margin of 17.4% and 9 month net profit margin of 6.6%.

2018 9m results and the achieved y-o-y growth level reflect the firm commitment of the Company to execute its growth strategy. Lower 2018 Q3 sales in comparison with 2018 Q2 and 2017 Q3 sales are to some extent explained by the particular electronic component deficit in the global market and by, previously reported in the Company 2018 Q2 financial report, fire event that broke out in 2018 Q3 in one of AS HansaMatrix clients wharehouses and was expected to have negative impact on AS HansaMatrix data networks segment sales in 2018 Q3 and Q4 due to supply chain delivery times of additional new components. This fire accident is not expected to impact the segment sales volume in the longer term. EBITDA and net profit margins in Q3 2018 and 9m 2018 have decreased but remain comparatively strong, influenced by the manufactured product mix with comparably high added value.

Trailing twelve months (TTM) period sales (period starting at October 1, 2017 and ending with September 30, 2018) at 2018 Q3 reported to be 21.216 million EUR, increase of 1% in comparison with TTM period ended at 2018 Q2. EBITDA result for the TTM 12 month period reported to be 3.616 million EUR, decrease by 9% in comparison with 12 month period ended at 2018 Q2. Net profit for TTM period reported 1.391 million EUR, 21% down if compared with 12 month period ended at 2018 Q2. Averaged EBITDA margin for TTM period is reported to be 17.0% and net profit margin for the same period is reported to be 6.6%.

Attachments:

 JSC HansaMatrix Unaudited Interim Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements for the 9 month period ended September 30, 2018

Investor and media contact:

Maris Macijevskis, CFA

Management Board Member, Finance director

Phone: (+371) 6780 0002

E-mail: invest@hansamatrix.com

http://www.hansamatrix.com

About JSC HansaMatrix

HansaMatrix is a fast-growing, high-technology company offering product design, industrialization and complete manufacturing services in data networking, Internet of Things, industrial segments and other services to high added value business segments. In addition to complete manufacturing services of OEM products, the company offers an ODM business model to both start-up and established companies that seek product development partnerships.
Dublin, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Analysis of the ASEAN and Taiwan Infrastructure-as-a-Service Market, Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The ASEAN cloud infrastructure market will gravitate towards a hybrid deployment model (partially premises-based and partially cloud-based) in the next 3-5 years.



The demand for managed cloud offerings has been increasing, particularly for Application-as-a-Service and Network-as-a-Service offerings. Enterprises are looking to deploy more open-source private cloud platforms across hybrid environments, as hybrid IT emerges as a new norm. Adoption of multi-cloud solutions will accelerate, owing to factors such as the migration of development applications to the public cloud and disaster recovery and business continuity purposes.



Enterprises are moving up the IT infrastructure stack and are demanding applications support, as well as integrated management solutions in multi-cloud environments (such as cloud orchestration, automation, and abstraction). Active government initiatives such as Smart Cities in developing countries and key digital hubs present new monetization opportunities for service providers in developing verticalized cloud solutions to address governments' digital transformation ambitions. There is expected to be increasing demand for integrated management solutions in multi-cloud environments. Managed hybrid cloud platforms are in demand to accommodate workloads, ranging from enterprise applications (such as email, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and cloud-native applications) and analytics to Internet of Things (IoT).



While cloud security and privacy remain major concerns for many companies in the ASEAN region, they present monetization opportunities for vendors to provide ancillary managed security, cloud, and other professional services. The expansion of open-source technologies, as well as advances in application programming interfaces (API)-accessible single-tenant cloud servers, helps promote acceptance towards managed cloud providers. Established data center markets such as Singapore and countries experiencing high data center growth rates such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand are expected to be the key focus areas for cloud infrastructure market growth in the ASEAN region, owing to the availability of necessary infrastructure and connectivity, as well as the presence of hyperscale cloud vendors.



Key Issues Addressed

What is the addressable market opportunity for cloud infrastructure services?

What are the driving and restraining factors that will shape the future of the data center services market in ASEAN and Taiwan?

What are the significant developments in the cloud infrastructure services space in ASEAN and Taiwan?

Which are the key participants in the market and what are their market strategies?

What are the key customer adoption trends in the cloud IaaS market in ASEAN and Taiwan?

Where are the growth opportunities, and what are some actionable recommendations for service providers and vendors to capitalize on these opportunities?

Key Topics Covered:



1. Executive Summary

Key Findings

Market Engineering Measurements

CEO's Perspective

2. Market Overview

Market Definitions

Geographical Coverage

Cloud Offering Models

Key Questions This Study Will Answer

3. Key Trends

Key Trends Impacting Cloud Infrastructure Services in ASEAN

Key Trend 1-Strategic Collaborations to Monetize Government Opportunities

Key Trend 2-Aligning Business Capabilities with Government Regulations

Data Sovereignty Regulation Scenario in the ASEAN Region

Key Trend 3-Shift from Traditional Cloud Infrastructure Offerings to Broader Service Portfolios

4. Drivers and Restraints-Total IaaS Market

Market Drivers

Drivers Explained

Factors Driving End-user Demand for Cloud Computing

Market Restraints

Restraints Explained

5. Forecasts and Trends-Total IaaS Market

Market Engineering Measurements

Forecast Assumptions

Revenue Forecast

Revenue Forecast Discussion

Competitive Analysis

Decision Making Factors for End Users When Selecting a Cloud Computing Provider

Growth Analysis by Country

6. Companies to Watch Out For

Market Participant Profile-AIMS

Market Participant Profile-Cloudfabrix

7. Growth Opportunities

Key Growth Opportunities

Growth Opportunity 1-Demand for Managed Cloud Service Offerings, with a Focus on Applications and Networks

Growth Opportunity 2-Integrated Infrastructure, Platforms, and Services to Enable Hybrid Cloud Architecture

Growth Opportunity 3-Developing Verticalized Focus Toward Government and Smart City Initiatives

Strategic Imperatives IaaS Providers (IaaSPs)

8. Singapore



9. Malaysia



10. The Philippines



11. Thailand



12. Indonesia



13. Vietnam



14. Myanmar



15. Taiwan



16. The Last Word

The Last Word-Predictions

Legal Disclaimer

17. Appendix



Companies Mentioned



AIMS

Cloudfabrix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/2htv6j/asean?w=12





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.
HELENA, Ala., Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- International Expeditions, a pioneer in upscale experiential adventure, has announced $1,500 per person savings on select 2019 small-ship cruises to the Galapagos Islands, Peruvian Amazon, and Pacific coasts of Costa Rica and Panama during their annual holiday sale.



On International Expeditions 10-day Galapagos cruises, guests travel aboard the 32-guest yacht M/V Evolution, enjoying oversized, newly renovated cabins as well as the archipelagos best guide-to-guest ratio on small-group departures of just 26-32 travelers. In addition to daily snorkeling and hiking through deserts, rainforests and volcanic terrain, other highlights include calling on a family run sugar cane farm, which also produces small-batch moonshine, and stopping at the Charles Darwin Research Center, famous for its tortoise breeding programs. Discounted pricing for the May 10, June 28 and August 9, 2019 Galapagos Islands cruises starts at $5,998.



Nature enthusiasts and river cruise connoisseurs alike will love a luxurious adventure deep in the Peruvian rainforest. Guests on International Expeditions 10-day Amazon Voyage enjoy a refined stay aboard the 18-cabin Zafiro, while days are spent plying the creeks and tributaries of the pristine Pacaya-Samiria Reserve during kayaking, hiking and boating excursions. This modern riverboat features airy suites, delicious cuisine and even a spa. Discounted pricing for the May 17, June 7, June 28, July 5 and August 16, 2019 Amazon River cruises starts at $4,198.



Travelers seeking a warm-weather escape blending beaches, snorkeling and rainforest can cruise south for the holiday on IEs 10-day Costa Rica to Panama Voyage aboard the sleek yacht Voyager. Alongside an incredible field staff, guests explore famed national parks including the remote Darien. Tuna, rays and dolphins are common, while humpback and sperm whales migrate through the protected waters of the Pearl Islands, Manuel Antonio National Park and Restingue Island, where guests will enjoy swimming and snorkeling. Pricing for the December 21, 2018 departure starts at $4,299.



International Expeditions holiday sale runs until December 14, 2018.



For additional information on International Expeditions journeys, visit http://www.ietravel.com or contact 800-633-4734.



###

About International Expeditions

Celebrating 38 years of nature travel, International Expeditions specializes in small-ship voyages and escorted journeys to more than 20 countries worldwide. Hosted by knowledgeable local naturalists, International Expeditions travelers survey the habitats, cultures, cuisine and traditional lore of Earths most exhilarating destinations. A pioneer of environmentally responsible travel, IE is committed to preserving natural habitats and improving the welfare of the people and communities it visits.

Attachments
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COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT NO 65/2018  21 NOVEMBER 2018

Interim Report for 1 January - 30 September (9M) 2018

Consistent commercial execution and historically warm summer drive solid earnings growth

Due to a wide range of commercial initiatives and a historically warm summer in Northern Europe in 2018, Royal Unibrew posted solid financial results for the first three quarters of 2018. Net revenue increased by 10% adjusted for M&A activities and 16% in total, while the EBIT margin ended at 19.4% compared to 17.7% for the same period last year.

Throughout 2018, we have seen a strong commercial execution in our core markets supported by our broad product offering, a high level of innovation and commercial activities. Furthermore, we have expanded our offerings into new product categories to help our customers meet a more diversified consumer demand across sales channels. Key brand initiatives have been the introduction of new packaging formats for our Crodo products, Supermalt Ginger Beer in the UK and a Jaffa low-sugar range in Finland. Lastly, we have seen the launch of beers with non-/low-alcohol content with the products Royal Organic 2.3% and Heineken 0.0%.

The results for the first three quarters are in line with our guidance updated in August 2018. The acquisition of Bev.Con ApS (CULT) is expected to be closed during December 2018 following approval from the Danish competition authorities. CULT is not expected to change the full-year guidance.

Financial highlights Q1-Q3 2018

Net revenue for Q1-Q3 2018 amounted to DKK 5,624 million compared to DKK 4,869 million last year and was positively affected by solid organic growth and the impact from the acquired businesses Terme di Crodo and Etablissements Geyer Freres (Lorina) as well as the extraordinarily good weather in Northern Europe. Acquisitions contributed revenue of DKK 288 million during the first nine months.

EBIT for Q1-Q3 2018 was DKK 1,092 million compared to DKK 862 million last year. The improvement was driven by increased revenue, improved mix and efficiency gains through operational leverage. It is estimated that the extraordinarily good weather during the summer of 2018 has contributed to an increase in EBIT of approx. DKK 70-90 million. The newly acquired businesses in France and Italy also contributed positively to EBIT. Profitability increased in all segments.

Market shares slightly improved compared to the same period last year, mainly driven by an increase in market shares during Q3 as our total supply chain proved its agility in a fast-moving and demanding market.

Free cash flow amounted to DKK 1,034 million for the first nine months compared to DKK 711 million last year.

Net interest-bearing debt amounted to DKK 2,397 million, which is an increase of DKK 1,335 million from last year. The increase is primarily related to the acquisitions.

Acquisitions

With the expected closing of the CULT acquisition in December 2018, four acquisitions will have been closed in less than 12 months.

Outlook

The full-year outlook is narrowed and slightly upgraded.

 Net revenue: DKK 7,200-7,300 million (August 2018: 7,000-7,200 million)

 EBITDA: DKK 1,660-1,685 million (August 2018: 1,625-1,675 million)

 EBIT: DKK 1,315-1,340 million (August 2018: 1,275-1,325 million)

Selected financial highlights and key ratios

Q1-Q3 Q1-Q3 Q3 Q3 mDKK 2018 2017 2018 2017 Sales (thousand hectolitres) 8,401 7,599 3,175 2,579 Net revenue 5,624 4,869 2,106 1,686 EBITDA 1,343 1,076 543 433 EBITDA margin (%) 23.9 22.1 25.8 25.7 Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) 1,092 862 451 359 EBIT margin (%) 19.4 17.7 21.4 21.3 Profit before tax 1,08 853 444 355 Net profit for the period 852 668 351 278 Free cash flow 1,034 711 420 214 Net interest-bearing debt 2,397 1,062 ROIC incl. goodwill* 21 20 ROIC excl. goodwill* 34 30 NIBD/EBITDA* 1.5 0.8 Equity ratio (%) 34 46 *(running 12 months)

For further information

Hans Savonije, President & CEO, tel. +45 22 20 80 17

Lars Jensen, CFO, tel. +45 29 23 00 44

It will be possible for investors and analysts to follow Royal Unibrews presentation of the Interim Report on Thursday, 22 November 2018, at 9 am CET by audiocast at the following telephone numbers:

Participants from Denmark: +45 35 15 80 49

Participants from the UK: +44 (0) 330 336 9105

Participants from the USA: +1 929-477-0402

The presentation may also be followed at Royal Unibrews website www.royalunibrew.com.

Financial Calendar 2019

6 March 2019 Annual Report 2018

25 April 2019 Interim Report for the period 1 January - 31 March 2019

25 April 2019 Annual General Meeting 2019

27 August 2019 Interim Report for the period 1 January - 30 June 2019

13 November 2019 Interim Report for the period 1 January - 30 September 2019

Attachment
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Indonesia Economic Forum hosted a conference today on Connecting Indonesia: A New Five-Year Agenda to discuss key priorities for the nation over the next five years.



Panel speakers including Jaspal Sidhu, Founder & Chairman of SIS Group of Schools , and representatives of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture discussed how to meet the challenges of tomorrow by future proofing education with a focus on STEAM fields: science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics.

At SIS we not only have extremely high standards in STEAM, our students are recognised by the Outstanding Cambridge Learner Award for national and world top marks, states Jaspal Sidhu. However, we believe that academic discipline should be combined with a modern learning environment that builds character. This is extremely important as we do not know what challenges children will face in the future.

How can parents prepare children for an uncertain tomorrow when many of the jobs of the future do not even exist today?

According to the World Economic Forums Future of Jobs Report 2018 the skills required to perform most jobs in 2022 will have shifted towards more analytical thinking and active learning1.

Skills growing in prominence include technology design but increasing demand for technology is only part of the story. Many of the human skills required today will increase in importance in the future2.

The education systems of the 34 democratic nations represented at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are evaluated and ranked every few years.

Using the comparative science, reading and mathematics proficiency of 15-year-old students, the OECDs Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings are dominated by Asia Pacific education systems3.

The top four places in the OECD PISA rankings go to Singapore, Hong Kong (China), Japan and Macao (China). So how are leading curriculums like that of Singapore adapting to this uncertain future?

The worlds leading schools are future-proofing their programs by re-orienting themselves. Instead of focusing on what to learn and examination rank, they are increasingly focused on teaching students how to be excellent lifelong learners.

In Singapore, for example, children will no longer be ranked by test scores alone. Starting in 2019, exams for primary years 1 and 2 students will be phased out.

Learning is not a competition, stated Ong Ye Kung, Singapores Education Minister in October, 2018. Singapores Ministry of Education (MOE) is planning a series of changes aimed at encouraging individuals to concentrate on their own learning development4.

In the search for the best international school for your children, it is therefore not only important to assess the campus and teachers, but the pedagogy and curriculum used by the school.

Our vision at SIS Group of Schools is to inspire learners toward greater heights, states Jaspal Sidhu. We do this by sparking curiosity and enquiry while developing values and 21st century skills prioritising learners and personalised learning to make a better world.

For more information on SIS Group of Schools please visit https://www.sisschools.org . Parents are invited to book a personal tour of any of the campuses across Indonesia here .

About Singapore Intercultural Schools (Video: https://youtu.be/FqOKy6gD9lU)

SIS Group of Schools was established in 1995 with its first premises in North Jakarta, Indonesia. Today, SIS Group of Schools supervises seven schools across Indonesia: Singapore Intercultural School Bona Vista ( SIS Bona Vista ), SIS Pantai Indah Kapuk , SIS Kelapa Gading , SIS Cilegon , SIS Semarang , SIS Palembang , and SIS Medan .



Recognised as a qualified international educational institution through the use of the Singapore Curriculum, one of the best educational systems in the world, the International General School Certificate of Education (IGSCE) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes, SIS Group of Schools reputation of excellence is well-established.

SIS Group of Schools CONTACT:



Mr. Indra Kurnia Erwin

Senior Manager

Marketing & Sales

SIS Group of Schools

indra.erwin@sis-kg.com

+62 818 0790 8283 Agency CONTACT:



Ryan McClure

Managing Director

TWOMC Public Relations

ryan.mcclure@twomc.com

References

1(2018). The future of jobs report 2018. Cologny/Geneva, Switzerland, 91-93 route de la Capite CH-1223: World Economic Forum.

2Nair, L. (2018, October 5). In the future of work its jobs, not people, that will become redundant. Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/future-of-jobs-humans-skills-leena-nair

3Armstrong, M. (2016, December 7). OECD PISA The top rated countries/regions 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/chart/7104/pisa-top-rated-countries-regions-2016/

4Wood, J. (2018, October 13). Children in Singapore will no longer be ranked by exam results. Here's why. Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/singapore-has-abolished-school-exam-rankings-here-s-why

Social Media

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A video accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cab9081a-88f3-4d4a-831c-1699d866bcfd

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3884a16e-c70b-46df-8b10-7539cede22ba
TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the unconscionable passing of Bill 47, which takes away basic workplace rights from Ontarians, this government has shown again that it is governing for the few, making decisions without sufficient consultation and research that will drive millions of working Ontarians into poverty, say labour and community advocates.



The Ford government is attacking workers across this province. Workers have been telling them whats needed for a dignified life: workplace laws that offer protections based on the realities of modern workplaces and the very real need for a $15 minimum wage. Instead, this government has chosen to treat Ontario as if the laws of the 1990s will do the trick today. They wont, said Ontario Federation of Labour President Chris Buckley. Passing Bill 47 leaves millions of Ontarians without the protections and wages that are needed for them and their families to thrive in our province.

It is clear that workers cant count on their government to support them. Unions will. I urge all Ontario workers to join a union so they can collectively bargain better rights in their workplaces and keep fighting until these protections are the law for every worker in this province, added Buckley.

The Ontario economy benefited from the labour law reforms introduced in 2017, with 83,000 new jobs created since the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act came into effect. Unemployment has also dropped to record lows, after minimum wage was increased to $14.

Passing Bill 47 shows that this government is not considering the real-world effects of decent work laws, which have helped the Ontario economy, added Buckley. It also ignores the voices of the people who will be most affected by these laws  women workers, racialized workers, Indigenous workers and workers with a disability. Now, it will be much easier for unscrupulous employers to take advantage of their employees. I say shame on this government for the damage it has done to Ontario workers.

Todays announcement by the government of Ontario repealing the majority of Bill 148 steals basic rights from Ontario workers. Fords plan eliminates paid sick days, cuts wages, makes it easier to fire workers in precarious work, makes it more difficult to join and keep a union, cancels fairer scheduling laws and lowers fines for employers who break the law.

This announcement also means a real-dollar wage cut for minimum wage employees.

Under this new act, it will be at least 2025 before minimum wage workers see a $15 minimum wage, and by then it will be, once again, a sub-poverty wage, said Pam Frache, Coordinator of the Fight for $15 and Fairness. Doug Fords government is cutting our $15 minimum wage just six weeks before it was to take effect. To cut wages, to cut sick days, and to make it easier to fire workers who are already in precarious situations is cruel and callous in the extreme.

Ontarians have held marches, rallies, signed and presented petitions, called and emailed MPPs demanding this government protect workplace rights and the $15 minimum wage. Nonetheless, the government has passed Bill 47, despite growing public opposition.

Removing equal pay for equal work provisions will increase the gender and equity wage gap, and intensify the discrimination that so many workers face in the labour market, said Frache. And it goes without saying that as long as employers are allowed to pay part-time staff less than their full-time counterparts, employers will have an incentive to create multiple part-time jobs instead of creating full-time ones.

We know that without strong workplace protections and a $15 minimum wage, workers health suffers. We hear from educators that students who face poverty face difficulty learning in school and themselves often work to supplement the low wages of their parents, said Buckley. By contrast, a higher minimum wage is good for workers, for the economy, and for our communities. Thats why the labour movement and communities are going to continue to push for changes, including a $15 minimum wage.

The Fight for $15 and Fairness is a growing movement of workers committed to fighting for decent work, and includes students, faculty, labour groups, health providers, anti-poverty activists and faith leaders. To learn more, visit: www.15andFairness.org .

The Ontario Federation of Labour represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter .

To arrange interviews or for further information, please contact:

Nil Sendil

Communications Coordinator,

Fight for $15 & Fairness

info@15andfairness.org l 647-710-5795

Meagan Perry

Director of Communications,

Ontario Federation of Labour

mperry@ofl.ca l 416-894-3456

cope343
English French

PRESS RELEASE

Red Electrica de Espana awards Nexans with a turnkey contract worth around 50M Euros to manufacture and install an interconnection cable between Majorca and Menorca

The turnkey contract worth around 50 million euros covers engineering, design, supply, installation and testing of the interconnection.

The contract was awarded and approved only 20 days after the Spanish Council of Ministers granted the administrative authorisation for construction to Red Electrica and declared it as a public utility project.

In addition, Menorca's Special Maintenance Plan will benefit from a special crane to enable round-the-clock work on the high-voltage grid.

Paris La Defense, November 21, 2018 - Red Electrica de Espana has awarded Nexans with a contract worth around 50 million euros to manufacture and install a power cable that will connect the islands of Majorca and Menorca in Spain. The contract was signed only 20 days after the Spanish Council of Ministers granted administrative authorisation and declared it as a public utility project. The interconnection is due to be up and running in 2020.

Red Electrica's General Director of Transport, Eva Pagan said, "We have streamlined all the necessary procedures to shorten the deadlines as much as possible and have a new cable functioning in the shortest time span, taking into account the complexity of the tender. In this sense and prior to the approval by the Council of Ministers, we had been working for months to advance in all the previous and essential steps to carry out the tender."

As a global expert in advanced cabling and connectivity solutions, Nexans has secured a turnkey project covering engineering, design, supply, installation and testing of the interconnection.

"We are thrilled to bring our expertise to Red Electrica, building on Nexans' long track record of successful power interconnector projects, including the recent NordLink project between Norway and Germany or the MonIta project between Montenegro and Italy," commented Ragnhild Katteland, Nexans Vice President Subsea and Land Systems. "By delivering a power interconnector between Majorca and Menorca, Nexans will bring security of supply, improving renewable integration and enhancing efficiency for both islands."

The new underground and submarine 132 kV power cables, which will link up Majorca and Menorca, will be 68 kilometres in length. The submarine cable will be laid on the seabed at a maximum depth of 81 metres. The global interconnection project between Majorca and Menorca, which represents a total investment of 84 million euros, will strengthen the security and quality of supply on both islands and will allow greater integration of renewable energy under safe conditions for the system and a greater efficiency of the interconnected systems.

The subsea cable will be manufactured by Nexans Norway in its Halden facility while the underground cable will be produced by Nexans Benelux in Charleroi, Belgium. The fiber optic element will be delivered by Nexans Norway's specialised unit in Rognan. The installation of the interconnector will be carried out using the specialised cable laying vessel, C/S Nexans Skagerrak.

Bolstering of the Special Maintenance Plan

Furthermore, under a separate, but related contracted Red Electrica de Espana has reinforced, in coordination with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, the Balearic Government and the insular administration of Menorca, the Special Maintenance Plan for Menorca by incorporating additional technical and human resources. For example, a special crane which is designed to adapt to the terrain and enable 24/7 access to carrying out works on the high-voltage grid.

This will give additional support and further shorten the response times in the case of any future unpredictable and unforeseen events such as that which happened on 28 October, when a waterspout tornado hit the island from north to south.

As the transmission grid on the island is not prepared or designed for the direct installation of emergency generators following incidents like this, Red Electrica is continuing to implement measures to ensure the power supply on the island. For example, by replacing materials and repairing the grid infrastructure.

The Special Maintenance Plan was activated in 2018 and has all the necessary manpower and technical resources to strengthen the security of supply and reliability of the transmission grid in Menorca and to reduce power restoration times as and when the need arises.

About Nexans

As a global leader in advanced cabling and connectivity solutions, Nexans brings energy to life through an extensive range of best-in-class products and innovative services. For over 120 years, innovation has been the company's hallmark, enabling Nexans to drive a safer, smarter and more efficient future together with its customers.

Today, the Nexans Group is committed to facilitating energy transition and supporting the exponential growth of data by empowering its customers in four main business areas: Building & Territories (including utilities, smart grids, emobility), High Voltage & Projects (covering offshore wind farms, submarine interconnections, land high voltage), Telecom & Data (covering data transmission, telecom networks, hyperscale data centers, LAN), and Industry & Solutions (including renewables, transportation, Oil & Gas, automation, and others).

Corporate Social Responsibility is a guiding principle of Nexans' business activities and internal practices. In 2013 Nexans became the first cable provider to create a Foundation supporting sustainable initiatives bringing access to energy to disadvantaged communities worldwide. The Group's commitment to developing ethical, sustainable and high-quality cables drives its active involvement within several leading industry associations, including Europacable, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), International Cablemakers Federation (ICF) or CIGRE to mention a few.

Nexans employs more than 26,000 people with industrial footprint in 34 countries and commercial activities worldwide. In 2017, the Group generated 6.4 billion euros in sales. Nexans is listed on Euronext Paris, compartment A.

For more information, please visit: www.nexans.com & follow us on:

Contacts :
English French

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Knowledge First Financial is committed to helping low-income families benefit from the Canada Learning Bond (CLB), giving families a head-start towards saving for their childs post secondary education. Owned by a not-for-profit Foundation, Knowledge First Financial is making a commitment to help 10,000 additional families receive the CLB over the next three years with a flexible, no-cost, CLB-only plan.



The Canada Learning Bond is a financial contribution from the Government of Canada to a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for eligible children from low-income families born in 2004 or later. The CLB provides an initial payment of $500 into an RESP, as well as additional payments of $100 for each year of eligibility, up to age 15, up to a maximum of $2,000.

Having money saved for education changes the conversation about a childs future possibilities after high school, said George Hopkinson, President & CEO of Knowledge First Financial. The funds can be used on any post-secondary related costs including tuition, textbooks, housing and other living costs. No personal contributions are required to receive the Canada Learning Bond for a child.

According to a recent survey conducted with Ipsos1, among those with household incomes less than $40,000, 94% place an importance on post-secondary education for their children. However, 63% of those who are not saving for education say they do not have the financial means to do so.

Many of these families are eligible for the Canada Learning Bond, yet 42% dont understand how it can help them pay for their childs future education, added Hopkinson. We have over 1,400 RESP specialists across the country that can help families access the Canada Learning Bond, provide advice and develop a savings plan. Our no-cost CLB-only plan will be opened in a Flex First plan, which is an individual RESP. Flex First is the product of choice for our new Knowledge First Financial customers.

RESP specialists also support parents in maximizing available grants, including the Canada Educations Savings Grant (CESG), a 20%-40% matching grant based on contributions and income level. 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of the Canada Education Savings Grant, which is being recognized during Education Savings Week (November 18-24, 2018).

To find out if youre eligible for the Canada Learning Bond, please contact a Knowledge First Financial Sales Representative through the website: www.knowledgefirstfinancial.ca

About Knowledge First Financial



Canadian families have relied on education savings plans offered by Knowledge First Financial for more than 50 years. Since 1965, payments from the plans have reached $6.6 billion and the Knowledge First Foundation has further enhanced Education Assistance Payments to students by over $50 million. Today, the company manages $6.4 billion in assets for more than 500,000 RESPs.



Knowledge First Financial Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Foundation and is the investment fund manager, administrator and distributor of Registered Education Savings Plans. Knowledge First Foundation is a not-for-profit Canadian corporation with no share capital. The Foundation is therefore able to reinvest excess revenues in initiatives that support students, such as the Knowledge First Financial Graduate Scholarship Awards.

1 Ipsos online poll of 1,006 Canadian parents of children aged 12 or younger conducted between October 26 and November 1, 2018. Sample weighted to reflect Census data. Poll is considered accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

For media inquiries

Morgan Murphy

Smithcom Ltd.

416-629-2143

morgan.murphy@smithcom.ca
MONTREAL, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Siyata Mobile Inc. (the "Company" or "Siyata") (TSX-V:SIM / OTCQX:SYATF) is pleased to announce it will be attending and presenting at the LD Micro Annual Main Event, occurring December 4-6, 2018, in Bel-Air, California.



In addition, the Company will be conducting one-on-one meetings on the Tuesday and Wednesday, December 4 and 5.

Marc Seelenfreund, CEO and Chairman of Siyata Mobile, commented, As we begin our North American rollout of the UV350, our commitment to shareholders is expanding our U.S. investor audience, targeting both relevant investors and institutions that recognize the value of our very unique position to be launching our flagship in-vehicle smartphone with the largest distribution channels in the United States.

The Uniden UV350 is the worlds first and only dedicated 4G in-vehicle smartphone with Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) while being compatible on Band 14. As an all-in-one, purpose-built in-vehicle smartphone designed to upgrade single purpose hardware, the Uniden UV350 creates in-vehicle efficiencies never seen before in the commercial fleet and vehicle market.

According to the United States Department of Transportation, in 2015 there were over 12 million commercial fleet vehicles and 1.85 million first responder vehicles in the United States.

About LD Micro

LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into several influential events annually (Invitational, Summit and Main Event). In 2015, LD Micro launched ldmicro.com as a portal to provide exclusive intraday information on the entire sector, including the first pure micro-cap index (LDMi), which covers stocks in North America with market capitalizations between $50 million to $300 million.

For more information about the conference or to schedule a one-on-one meeting with the Company, please contact Kin Communications at sim@kincommunications.com .

About Siyata

A TSX Venture Top 50 Company, Siyata Mobile Inc. is a leading global developer and provider of cellular communications systems for enterprise customers, specializing in connected vehicle products for professional fleets, marketed under the Uniden Cellular brand. Since developing the worlds first 3G connected vehicle device, Siyata has been a pioneer in the industry, launching the worlds first 4G LTE all-in-one fleet communications device in 2017. Incorporating voice, push-to-talk over cellular, data, and fleet management solutions into a single device, the company aims to become the connected vehicle communications device of choice for commercial vehicles and fleets around the world.

Siyata also offers rugged phones for industrial users and signal boosters for homes, buildings, and fleets with poor cell coverage. Siyatas customers include cellular operators, commercial vehicle technology distributors, and fleets of all sizes in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and the Middle East.

Visit www.siyatamobile.com and http://www.unidencellular.com/ to learn more.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of:

SIYATA MOBILE INC.

Marc Seelenfreund

CEO and Chairman

Investor Relations:

Arlen Hansen

Kin Communications

1-866-684-6730

SIM@kincommunications.com

Sales Department:

Glenn Kennedy, VP Sales

Siyata Mobile Inc.

416-892-1823

glenn_kennedy@siyatamobile.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.




TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new Forrester Consulting study 1 commissioned by TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) revealed that 69% of financial services decision makers in Canada agree that fraudsters are constantly evolving their tactics and are always one step ahead.



The study also found that even though customers expect financial institutions to protect them from fraud, they have limited tolerance for customer experience being compromised through increased security measures. The findings point to an increasing challenge that executives in both the financial services and insurance industries face when balancing fraud prevention and a positive customer experience.

The constant evolution of patterns, tools and evasion methods from fraudsters have resulted in an ongoing vulnerability for these industries, said Anne-Marie Kelly, Executive Director of Identity Management and Fraud Solutions for TransUnion Canada. In this connected world, consumer identity and identity security is contradictory to each other. Consumers struggle to remember an ever-growing number of user names and passwords and organizations struggle to manage them. The result is a constant tug of war between organizations and consumer needs, which provides criminals with a playground of information to use to perpetrate identity crimes.

The Forrester financial services study found that fraud is a widespread issue in the industry with 96% of Canadian firms experiencing some sort of fraud in the past two years. Furthermore, in the last year, both insurance and financial services executives in Canada have seen an increase in various forms of fraud:

Two-thirds of financial services respondents (66%) saw an increase in synthetic identity fraud (using a fabricated identity) and 64% have seen an increase in identity theft (or new account fraud).

More than six in 10 insurance respondents (66%) saw an increase in soft fraud. Soft fraud is also known as rate evasion, where applicants or policyholders alter or omit information to obtain a lower premium or misrepresent the value of a claimed item. Furthermore, more than half (58%) have seen an increase in identity fraud.

This increase in fraud paired with evolving techniques from fraudsters presents sufficient industry challenges. In fact, almost half of participants acknowledged they lack the specialized skills needed to detect increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes (46% of financial services respondents; 45% from the insurance sector).

Fighting Fraud While Keeping Customers Satisfied

In addition to fighting fraud, the study highlighted the importance of providing an exceptional customer experience. Approximately 72% of Canadian financial services decision makers claimed their current fraud detection and mitigation processes have either substantial or significant impact on the abandonment of a customer before an acquisition is complete. Nearly eight in 10 Canadian insurance professionals (77%) agree that the end user authentication process is too complicated, resulting in a poor customer experience.

Consumers have come to expect that every digital interaction, customer service call and application process should be seamless and consistent, said Kelly. Despite the proliferation of new fraud schemes in these industries, companies cannot simply prevent fraud by developing an onerous process. They need to access a wide range of variables to highlight the level of fraud risk associated with the identity of the consumer and enable straight-through processing for those consumers who present the lowest risk. We understand the challenge these companies are facing, which is why were always thinking about identity management strategies that are effective yet also maintain a frictionless consumer experience.

Striking this balance has proven to be difficult for many Canadian companies. More than half (56%) of Canadian financial services leaders indicated their current identity verification and fraud detection processes are too complex and burdensome  not only for customers to conduct transactions, but also for the organization to maintain. Furthermore, half of Canadian financial institutions are not satisfied with the capabilities that they currently have in place.

At TransUnion, we view fraud as the result of poor identity management, said Kelly. To develop a seamless fraud prevention and identity management framework, its incumbent on business leaders to utilize evolving, overlapping networks of physical and digital risk signals that include an ecosystem of configurable identity validation, identity verification and fraud detection tools. Companies that apply such information into their identity models will not only help prevent fraudsters from causing financial and reputational harm, but also ensure existing and prospective customers will continue to do business with them in the future.

To learn more about TransUnions fraud services click here.

For more details on the study, please click here .

About the study

Forrester study participants included 465 decision makers in the financial services and insurance industries from Canada, the United States and India and was completed within the August/September 2018 timeframe.

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)

Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion reaches consumers and businesses in more than 30 countries around the world on five continents. Based in Burlington, Ontario, TransUnion Canada provides local service and support throughout Canada. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide. We call this Information for Good. Visit www.transunion.ca to learn more.

1 Fraud Detection And ID Verification In Financial Services, an August 2018 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of TransUnion, and Insurers: Strike The Right Balance Between Fighting Fraud And CX, a September 2018 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of TransUnion.
English French

Paris, 21 November 2018

No. 16-18

General shareholders' meetings of

Wednesday 12 December 2018:

Provision of preparatory documents

Etablissements Maurel & Prom ("M&P", Euronext Paris: MAU, ISIN FR0000051070) informs its shareholders that, in addition to the Extraordinary General Shareholders' Meeting taking place on Wednesday 12 December 2018 at 10.45 a.m. at the Cercle National des Armees, 8 place Saint-Augustin, 75008 Paris, France (the "EGM"), an Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting held on second call will take place at 9.30 a.m. on the same day and at the same venue (the "OGM"). The OGM aims to approve Resolutions Four to Seven of the Combined General Shareholders' Meeting of 20 June 2018 (related-party agreements between PIEP and Maurel & Prom) for which the quorum was recorded as unmet.

For the OGM, the second meeting notice with the agenda was published in the Bulletin des Annonces Legales Obligatoires (BALO) of 21 November 2018, number 140, announcement 1805257 and in the official legal gazette "Les Petites Affiches" of the same date. The text of these draft resolutions is shown in the notice published in the BALO of 11 May 2018, number 57, announcement 1801935. For the EGM, the meeting notice was published in the BALO of 7 November 2018, number 134, announcement 1805064 and contains the agenda and the draft resolutions that will be submitted to the EGM. This has been followed by the publication today of the EGM meeting notice in the BALO, number 140, announcement 1805258 and in the official legal gazette "Les Petites Affiches" of the same date. The notices published in the BALO may also be consulted on the M&P website (www.maureletprom.fr, section "Investor relations", sub-section "General Meeting 2018").

The preparatory documents for the OGM and the EGM referred to under Article R. 225-73-1 of the French Commercial Code may be consulted on the M&P website at www.maureletprom.fr, section "Investor relations", sub-section "General Meeting 2018". In addition, the preparatory documents regarding the OGM and the EGM referred to under Articles L. 225-115, L. 225-116 and R. 225-83 of

the French Commercial Code may be consulted at the registered office of M&P (51 rue d' Anjou, 75008 Paris, France). Any shareholder holding registered shares may ask to be sent the documents and information regarding the OGM and/or EGM referred to under Articles R. 225-81 and R. 225-83 of the French Commercial Code up to and including the fifth day before the date of the meeting concerned (OGM or EGM). This request must be sent by post to M&P or to CACEIS Corporate Trust (CACEIS Corporate Trust, Service Assemblees Generales, 14 rue Rouget de Lisle, 92862 Issy-les-Moulineaux Cedex 9, France). Shareholders holding bearer shares may also obtain these documents by sending a request to CACEIS Corporate Trust (details shown above) and supplying a certificate of registration issued by their authorised financial intermediary as proof of shareholder status.

Finally, it should be noted that any person able to prove their shareholder status may attend the OGM and the EGM in person, be represented or vote by post. Maurel & Prom draws the attention of its shareholders to the fact that, in accordance with the provisions of Articles R. 225-77 and R. 225-79 of the French Commercial Code, postal voting forms sent to Maurel & Prom and mandates granted for the Combined General Shareholders' Meeting of 20 June 2018 on first call remain valid for this OGM held on second call on the same agenda. The procedures for participating in the OGM are described in the OGM meeting notice published in the BALO of 21 November 2018, number 140, announcement 1805257 and those for the EGM are described in the EGM meeting notice published in the BALO of 7 November 2018, number 134, announcement 1805064 and 21 November 2018, number 140, announcement 1805258.

For more information, visit www.maureletprom.fr

Contacts

MAUREL & PROM

Press, shareholder and investor relations

Tel: +33 (0)1 53 83 16 45

ir@maureletprom.fr

NewCap

Financial communications and investor relations

Julie Coulot/Louis-Victor Delouvrier

Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 98 53

maureletprom@newcap.eu

Media relations

Nicolas Merigeau

Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 98

maureletprom@newcap.eu

This document may contain forward-looking statements regarding the financial position, results, business and industrial strategy of Maurel & Prom. By nature, forward-looking statements contain risks and uncertainties to the extent that they are based on events or circumstances that may or may not happen in the future. These projections are based on assumptions we believe to be reasonable, but which may prove to be incorrect and which depend on a number of risk factors, such as fluctuations in crude oil prices, changes in exchange rates, uncertainties related to the valuation of our oil reserves, actual rates of oil production and the related costs, operational problems, political stability, legislative or regulatory reforms, or even wars, terrorism and sabotage.

Maurel & Prom is listed for trading on Euronext Paris

CAC All-Share - CAC Oil & Gas - Next 150 - PEA-PME and SRD eligible

Isin FR0000051070 / Bloomberg MAU.FP / Reuters MAUP.PA
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nurix Therapeutics, Inc., a private company discovering drugs that harness the bodys natural process to control protein levels, today announced that Arthur Sands, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer, will present at the 30th Annual Piper Jaffray Healthcare Conference to be held on November 27-29, 2018 at the Lotte New York Palace in New York City.

Presentation Details: Presentation Title: Nurix Corporate Overview Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 Time: 12:50  1:10 p.m. ET

About Nurix Therapeutics

Nurix discovers drugs that harness the bodys natural process to control protein levels. Our drugs control ubiquitin E3 ligases, the key enzymes responsible for protein breakdown in human cells, as a unique therapeutic approach to treat a broad range of diseases. Our initial focus is on developing drugs as treatments for hematologic cancers and immune-mediated diseases including immuno-oncology therapeutics for cancer. Nurix was founded by internationally-recognized experts in ligase biology and immunology and is funded by leading life science investors Third Rock Ventures and The Column Group. In September 2015, Nurix and Celgene entered into a broad collaboration targeting protein homeostasis for next-generation therapies in oncology, inflammation and immunology. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit http://www.nurix-inc.com .

Media Contact

Sara Zelkovic

LifeSci Public Relations

Sara@lifescipublicrelations.com
MILFORD, Conn., Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Technology Revealed LLC (TR), an Apple-focused IT consulting, support, and services firm, is partnering with St. Mary School, a Catholic PreK-Grade 8 parochial school located in Milford to collect donations and provide Christmas trees to active duty and inactive service members from Connecticut and their families through the Milford VFW.



I get really emotional when I hear about our troops facing hard times. These men and women put everything on the line so we can live in peace and prosperity. That some of them cant afford Christmas trees, or that their kids go without simple gifts from Santa really hits home, said Frank Zabski, founder and managing member of Technology Revealed. This country has given me and my family so much over the years, and it's our turn to give back.

The joint endeavor is called Operation St. Nicholas, and they have a GoFundMe page set up to accept monetary contributions that help pay for Christmas trees for the families of underprivileged service members in Connecticut, and for gifts for their children. Volunteers are also needed to assist with packaging and deliveries. For more information, or to make a contribution, please visit http://operationstnicholas.org

St. Mary Schools annual Christmas tree and wreath sale will begin on November 24th with fresh cut trees and wreaths coming straight from Quebec, Canada. Handmade cemetery pieces will also be for sale. Hours are Mon-Fri 5pm-9pm and 9am-9pm Sat & Sun and St. Mary School is located at 72 Gulf Street in Milford. All proceeds benefit St. Mary School.

About St. Mary School

St. Mary School is a fully accredited member of the Commission on Independent Schools and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Located in Milford, CT, the school provides a nurturing and challenging environment which encourages children from preschool through grade eight to grow in faith and knowledge. The school integrates Catholic beliefs with a strong academic curriculum. The goal of the school is to prepare its students to become citizens who live the message of Jesus by serving others.

Learn more at: https://www.saintmaryschoolmilford.org

About Technology Revealed

In business for more than 25 years, Technology Revealed is the leading provider of Apple IT, support, and consulting services in Connecticut, Westchester County NY, and in New York City. Technology Revealed is a highly respected member of the Apple Consultants Network, employs a team of fully qualified Apple Certified engineers, and consistently earns rave reviews from its corporate and consumer clients.

Learn more at: https://www.technologyrevealed.com
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on November 20 met with President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Liliane Maury Pasquier on the sidelines of his working visit in Strasbourg, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress.

During the meeting the acting FM congratulated the PACE President on election and wished success in this responsible position. Touching upon the problems facing the PACE Zohrab Mnatsakanyan expressed support to the ongoing efforts aimed at overcoming them. He said each member state of the Council of Europe must contribute to raising the effectiveness of the activity and ranking of the structure gathered across common European values.

In the context of the recent domestic political developments in Armenia, the acting FM highlighted the governments commitment to continue the process of reforms based on the mandate given from the people, the next destination of which will be holding fair, transparent elections that will express the will of the people.

The acting FM introduced the PACE President on Armenias approaches over the Nagorno Karabakh conflicts peaceful settlement. In this context Mnatsakanyan stated that all attempts to shift the discussions over the conflict from the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, as the only international mandate for the conflict settlement, to another platforms do not contribute to the conflict solution and harm establishment of stability and peace in the region.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan held a meeting with Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni and Director of the Office of the Directorate General of Programmes of the Council of Europe Verena Taylor and ambassadors of donor countries within the framework of discussions of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia in Strasbourg.

During the meeting the sides discussed the Armenia-Council of Europe 2015-2018 plan implemented programs, results, as well as issues relating to the preparation of the 2019-2022 action plan, the foreign ministry said.

Mnatsakanyan was pleased to note that the Council of Europe is one of Armenias important partners on the pathway of deepening democracy and establishment of civil society institutions, and that the Armenian government is committed to enhance and strengthen this partnership. In this context he highly appreciated the introduction of the Council of Europe expert and specialized capabilities in the ongoing democratic processes in Armenia. He emphasized the necessity of targeted involvement of the action plan in sectors of greater importance for Armenia.

The Armenian caretaker FM briefed the Council of Europe officials on the latest domestic developments in Armenia, emphasizing the governments commitment to implement a comprehensive agenda of reforms based on the broad mandate given by the people, aimed at strengthening the rule of law and justice, combating corruption and enabling equal opportunities in the social and economic sector.

The sides also exchanged ideas over the existing situation in human rights protection and democracy in Europe and other topical matters of international significance.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The presentation of the agreement on Accession of Armenia to the Eurasian Economic Union was held during the plenary session of the World Trade Organizations (WTO) Committee on Regional Trade Agreements on November 19, Armenias ministry of economic development and investments told Armenpress.

According to the WTO procedures, the document, which includes comprehensive analytical information about Armenias membership to the EAEU and post-membership developments, has been developed and agreed upon by the WTO secretariat and has been circulated within the frames of the WTO member states.

The session was attended by Armenias delegation led by deputy minister of economic development and investments Avag Avanesyan.

The representatives of the WTO member states, respective officials of the secretariat, delegations of all EAEU member states and the Eurasian Economic Commission, as well as representatives of various international structures participated in the session.

Deputy minister Avag Avanesyan delivered report on the topic. The representatives of the WTO member states also delivered remarks on the report, presented their stances which was followed by comprehensive discussions.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of Armenia Armen Sargsyan met with Armenian businessmen engaged in different sectors of the economy. The meeting was held under the motto Business Environment and Investments: Challenges and Solutions.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, addressing the meeting, the Acting Prime Minister referred to those economic processes underway in Armenia and the prospects for economic development. In his speech, Nikol Pashinyan stated, in part:

Honorable President of the Republic of Armenia,

Dear Businessmen,

Dear Guests,

The President of the Republic of Armenia rightfully noticed that we are in a very important stage of our countrys development, when the political revolution must be transformed, or more properly combined with an economic revolution. And of course, our greatest ally is Armenias business class. We rely on the talent of our business people because as I have repeatedly pointed out, not every person can create a masterpiece of art, or break into science; doing business calls for a special talent, too.

I am convinced that many representatives of the Armenian nation, and the Armenian people, in general, have the needed skills, and not only those who are already engaged in it, but also those who for some reason have so far refrained from doing business in Armenia. Our mission is to encourage and help them tap their skills.

Preterm parliamentary elections are going to be held in Armenia, and you may know that fewer business people will run for the National Assembly in the upcoming general elections, which is the result of political processes going on in Armenia. But I want to emphasize that this should not be interpreted as downgrading or somewhat humiliating the businessmans status in our country. On the contrary, we are convinced that we want and we will ensure that there are many more businessmen in the Republic of Armenia, since they are the ones to generate added value, and therefore, they are supposed to enjoy a higher status than MPs, ministers, and government officials.

I feel that the roles should be reshuffled as we are building our countrys future. Also, I do believe that business and the economy should not be politicized in any way. I think it to be in the best interest of both the business circles and the public at large as it will result in a more effective management.



You may recall that the September decline in the economy was talked about much in the country. The Governments comments are as follows: natural processes of transformation are taking place in the economy, and we are witnessing a change in Armenias economic structure.

The next months economic activity indicators came to prove that our explanation of the situation was justified because after Septembers fall we had a 3% economic activity index in October. In other words, we have an increase in economic activity while the traditional spheres - agriculture and mining  have recorded a double-digit decline in the same period. We have an 8.1% industry growth in October, owing to production, and not mining. This is a pretty optimistic indication for us. At the same time, we boasted a 12% export growth in October, which means that the predicted recovery process is underway in our country.

This does not mean indeed that we are underestimating the mining industry or agriculture. The point is that we have a clear objective that Armenias mining industry should meet best international standards and be predictable in environmental and security terms.



We will strongly support the introduction of new technologies in agriculture: technologies that will not have any negative impact on the environment. At the same time, the farming sector will not be dependant on weather conditions and the infective pests that have been secretly imported to Armenia.

There has been too much talk about investments in recent months. To be honest, I avoided talking about the topic, and even now I am not that pleased to dwell on it because I do not want to address this issue unless there are specific investments made in Armenia. But now, as we enter a new phase, I want to state in confidence that if we manage to implement those investment programs, over which we have specific arrangements and commitments, the Republic of Armenia will have a new status, as some of these large investment projects will not only be able to completely change the image of the Armenian economy, but will also open up new development horizons.



And I want to express the hope that this message will be circulated throughout Armenia and outside of Armenia. We want to once again reaffirm that there will be no redistribution of property in Armenia, the right of ownership is guaranteed, the security of investments is guaranteed.

We hope that the ongoing political processes will encourage our businessmen to make more investments because the most important and functional feature of a resolution is the participation of every citizen and every businessman in it.



We hope that anyone desirous of making his move will do so. We hope that new people and layers will be involved in that process, and the Republic of Armenia shall become a country where major businesses will never get smaller, instead the smaller ones will grow into medium-size entities and so on.

This is very important because sometimes there is an impression that by favoring small entities, we force them to be small forever, and by attempting to counterbalance major businesses, we make them shrink as much as possible.



We want to build a truly technological and industrial economy that would meet the 21st century standards with ever wide opportunities and prospects available in order to respond to the challenges that exist in our country in economic, political and security terms.



Dear Friends,

Our meeting is held on the eve of a landmark pan-Armenian event. As you may know, tomorrow another telethon will be organized by Hayastan All-Armenian Fund (HAAF) in Los Angeles.

HAAF serves one of the most important tools for our countrys development. It is designed to unite our efforts and mobilize us in implementing joint programs and goals. The Funds past record somewhat shaded its activities and undermined its resource of public confidence. The substitution of the executive director was meant to restore peoples trust in the Fund and make of it a new platform for the consolidation of the Armenian people.

Drastic changes will be made in the management process, making it more transparent, controlled, accountable, and effective. These changes will soon be visible and will be publicly available. The Funds executive board will be transformed to ensure maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

I feel that the Fund can deal with such issues that the Government cannot solve at this point with existing resources. That is why I would highly appreciate the business communitys support to the Fund.

All the money raised this year will be used to build deep wells and drip irrigation systems in Artsakh, develop infrastructure in Armenia, ensure school heating with solar energy, create favorable conditions for high-tech startups and establishing a youth creative center. The Funds operations will be completely transparent and highly accountable. We will do our utmost to have every donation serve its purpose. After all, our efforts sought that very goal in the past few months. I think you are all well aware of it. You may remember many wondering whether it should have been done in such a transparent manner and in public.



I think yes, it is just what we need to do to make sure that the Armenian government will not tolerate any use of a lump in any way because the HAAF has the money collected through the efforts and sweat of all Armenians and, therefore, these amounts should definitely go into credible and trustworthy hands. There is no doubt that we will do everything possible to make the Fund more effective and transparent.

I hope that all these measures and the atmosphere that prevails nationwide will be echoed by all Armenians, and the Hayastan All-Armenian Funds regular fundraising will be held with great enthusiasm and will yield good results.

Thank you."
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government is transitioning from an ineffective economy to an effective economy, caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a meeting with local community officials in Aragatsotn province.

When I was [speaking] in parliament as a candidate for prime minister, it was a period of time when a decline of economic indicators was recorded in Armenia. Upon studying this occurrence I noted that recovery processes are taking place in the economy. Now this decline has continued, despite this decline we had a 3% economic activity growth in October. This took place due to the activeness industry and small and medium enterprises. On this background we have a 12% exports growth after last months decline. This shows that our comment regarding the economy is justified. We are transitioning from an ineffective economy to an effective economy, Pashinyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting defense minister of Armenia Davit Tonoyan visited the Camp Marmal military base in Afghanistan where he got acquainted with the service conditions of the Armenian peacekeepers, reports Armenpress.

Defense ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan posted a video on Facebook where the acting minister talks to the Armenian peacekeepers and gets acquainted with their service conditions.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting minister of energy infrastructures and natural resources Garegin Baghramyan attaches importance to the maintenance of the same balance of energy system with Iran and exchanges with the Iranian transmission lines, reports Armenpress.

The acting minister commented on the US sanctions imposed on Iran and stated that recently they met with the US State Department representatives.

The US sanctions on Iran also existed before. We have thoroughly presented them that today, as long as we have closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, our energy system has developed in that direction, the acting minister said, adding that there will not be a problem in this regard for the Armenian side.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Armenia is negotiating with Russian, Chinese and French investors having specific proposals in the atomic energy sector.

Caretaker minister of energy and natural resources Garegin Baghramyan told reporters today that all proposals will be studied and depending on their appeal, as well as compatibility with Armenias conditions, a decision will be made.

Speaking about renewable energy, he also noted that in the coming two-three years it is expected to develop a tender package for a 100-120 MW solar power station.

There is a pilot program that we want to carry out. During the recent Energy Week in Armenia we also spoke with representatives of Siemens, who said that they will consider the implementation of a pilot program on a small accumulative station in Armenia with grant money, he said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan met with President of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Guido Raimondi in Strasbourg on November 20, the foreign ministry told Armenpress.

During the meeting the acting FM valued the cooperation with the ECHR and stated that the multilateral platforms are important for small states to express the sovereign equality, but today when this multilateral platform faces new challenges, the importance of cooperation over promotion of universal interests becomes more relevant.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan stated that this system of human rights is unique and can be really effective only in case of practical democracy.

The officials also exchanged views on deepening and further raising the efficiency of Armenias cooperation with the ECHR.

The acting FM introduced the official on the recent domestic political developments of Armenia. He also touched upon Armenias positions and approaches on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

Introducing the judicial process launched by Azerbaijan against citizen of Armenia Karen Ghazaryan, who is currently in the Azerbaijani captivity, the acting FM said the involvement of person suffering health problems by the violation of international humanitarian law is condemnable.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan participated in the VI CIS Annual Meeting of Security Council Secretaries in Moscow, Russia.

Grigoryan said on Facebook that the agenda of the meeting included issues relating to combating terrorism, terror funding and biosecurity.

In accordance with the agenda, Grigoryan delivered remarks and presented the domestic political situation of Armenia. He highlighted the implementation of joint efforts in combating international terrorism, terror funding, extremism, money laundering and organized crime and presented the work that is being carried out in Armenia in this direction.

In his remarks, Grigoryan outlines the significance of the active reference labs in Armenia, in the context of early prevention of hazardous pandemics both inside and outside the country and organizing the actions relating to overcoming them.

Grigoryan noted that Armenia has always displayed and continues displaying willingness in cooperating with stakeholder sides for ensuring biosecurity and is acting within the framework of international law, maximally transparent and predictable.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Isodiol International Inc. (CSE: ISOL ) (OTCQB: ISOLF ) (FSE: LB6B.F ) (the Company or Isodiol) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Leonardo Matesanz to its board of directors.



Mr. Matesanz boasts extensive experience in executive planning, strategy, and management and has served as a Marketing Director in multiple capacities. He has worked in consumer-facing environments in a variety of industries and for internationally-renowned companies like Black & Decker, among others.

Mr. Matesanz is the CEO and Founder of an international company that offers ecologically-minded and environmentally-friendly promotional products and services. These green goods and services include developing solar farm projects for clean, renewable energy as well as creating projects with LED lights for industrial, semi-urban, and urban use. The company has established successful operations around the world, including Hong Kong, China, Europe, South America and North America.

Matesanz has also developed a unique distribution strategy in the pharmaceutical line that covers the sales of antivenoms in Mexico. He works extensively with government agencies and through those contracts, has developed beneficial relationships in a variety of business sectors.

More recently, Mr. Matesanz has worked in the CBD industry, helping establish operations in Mexico while leading the development in European markets in countries such as Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Croatia, and Spain.

The Company is very excited to announce the appointment of Leonardo Matesanz to its board of directors as he brings vast experience in developing international markets with sales and marketing operations, said Isodiol CEO, Marcos Agramont. His current knowledge and passion for the CBD industry will make for an easy transition, especially as Isodiol continues to establish operations across the globe, added Agramont.

Isodiol also announces the departure of Director and Chairman, Aman Parmar. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Parmar for his dedicated service. Isodiols Board of Directors is now composed of Marcos Agramont, Patrick Ogle, Marvin Washington, and Leonardo Matesanz. The Companys executive leadership is composed of Mr. Agramont (Chief Executive Officer), Eli Dusenbury (Chief Financial Officer), and Mr. Ogle (Chief Operating Officer).

About Isodiol International Inc.

Isodiol International Inc. is focused on the development of CBD-based pharmaceuticals and CBD consumer products. With a dedicated passion for the industry it serves, the companys mission is to create a cultural movement by building awareness and social acceptance, ultimately empowering people to live better lives  globally. This mission is enacted through unique divisions and subsidiaries that help deliver the powerful benefits of CBD to people around the world.

Since its inception, Isodiol has directed its efforts toward advancing CBD research, education, development, and manufacturing. The company has made tremendous strides in the CBD space through clinical research and forging valuable partnerships that have allowed the manufacturing of goods in accordance with strict industry practices and standards.

BSPG Laboratories, a subsidiary of Isodiol, was recently registered with the United Kingdoms Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for producing CBD as an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) for use in pharmaceutical applications for humans and animals.

Isodiol is a publicly-traded entity with corporate offices based in Vancouver, Canada, and additional operations in the United States, South America, and the U.K. For more information about Isodiol, please visit https://isodiol.com or call (855) 979-6751.

Join Us On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsodiolInternationalInc/

Twitter: @Isodiolintlinc

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Marcos Agramont , CEO & Director

INVESTOR RELATIONS:

Ir@isodiol.com

604-409-4409

MEDIA CONTACT:

Christopher Hussey

media@isodiol.com

Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to statements regarding the Company's business, products and future the Companys business, its product offerings and plans for sales and marketing. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance and developments to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, the risks that the Company's products and plan will vary from those stated in this news release and the Company may not be able to carry out its business plans as expected. Except as required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation and does not intend, to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information in this news release. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct and makes no reference to profitability based on sales reported. The statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. At the order of the Armenian healthcare minister, the circulation of Serbian-made (Zdravle) Spasmalgon, 500mg+5mg+0,1mg tablets, serial number 1801800 (expiration date 12.2019) in the country have been banned.

The healthcare ministry said that the medication is not registered in Armenia.

The ministry has ordered the importer to recall all batches from pharmacies and medical facilities nationwide.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Russian investigators have launched a criminal investigation on violating airport safety requirements of flights after a Boeing 737 struck and killed an Armenian citizen on the runway of Moscows Sheremetyevo airport, Moscows investigative authorities said.

The man, a 25-year-old Armenian national, is said to have arrived in Moscow from Spain after being deported. He was on his way to Armenia. The plane that struck him on the tarmac was a taxiing Boeing 737 operated by Aeroflot bound for Athens. The plane continued the takeoff and landed safely in Greece.

According to preliminary information the victim checked in for the Moscow-Yerevan flight and headed toward the shuttle bus with other passengers to board the plane.

Later, in circumstances that are yet to be determined, the young man went in an unknown direction in the runway area upon boarding the shuttle bus, investigators said, adding that he was hit by a taxiing Boeing 737 on the number 2 runway of Sheremetyevo.

Russia has set up a special commission to probe the fatal incident at Moscows Sheremetyevo airport when a 25-year-old Armenian citizen was struck and killed by an airplane on the runway. The investigation will last ten days, Russias Federal Air Transport Agency director Alexander Neradko said, according to TASS.

He said that the plane that struck the man was operated by Aeroflot.

Neradko declined to comment on details of the incident until the probe is completed.

According to Interfax, the plane that hit the man landed in Athens with a damaged fuselage.

Athens airport told Interfax that the Boeing 737 landed at 22:50 local time and emergency personnel immediately examined the aircraft.

Biological traces and damages were discovered on the external parts of the fuselage. The aircraft has been temporarily grounded.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Chaired by Acting Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan and UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for the Republic of Armenia Shamsbi Sharp a session on the mid-term review of the cooperation program between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) took place on November 21.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the office of Tigran Avinyan, greeting the participants of the session, the acting Deputy PM said that the Government attaches great importance to the cooperation with the UN and its specialized bodies. He noted that thanks to joint efforts Armenia has recorded major success in the implementation of 203 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Tigran Avinyan recalled that recently they held the first session of the board of directors of National Innovation Center for Sustainable Development Goals.

The acting Deputy PM emphasized that following the velvet revolution that took place in April-May 2018 new prospects for further enhancing and strengthening the cooperation with the UN emerged. He added that the priorities of the Government are the further development of democratic institutions, rule of law and protection of human rights, as well as creation of a system of effective administration and ensuring inclusive economic development.

According to Avinyan, the reforms will go on in a faster pace following the upcoming early parliamentary elections, which undoubtedly will be the freest and most transparent in the history of the 3rd Republic of Armenia, for which Armenia closely cooperates with the UN and particularly with the UNDP.

Shamsbi Sharp noted in his speech that its already 25 years the UNDP operates in Armenia and is a strategic partner for the Armenian Government. The UNDP Resident Representative highly appreciated the cooperation between Armenia and its international donors.

During the session that sides noted that the mid-term review of the cooperation program between the Government of the Republic of Armenia and the UNDP gives an opportunity to re-evaluate the works done during the past years and move forward making the necessary corrections.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Acting prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan paid a working visit to Aragatsotn Province today. The visit kicked off by a consultation with community heads at the governorate, during which issues referring to the development of the Province were discussed.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, before starting the discussion of economic issues, Pashinyan touched upon the early parliamentary elections to take place on December 9. You know that early parliamentary elections will take place soon and we have set a task before us that those elections be the best in the history of our country. Saying the best I mean that the results of the voting must clearly reflect the will of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, he said.

Afterwards, Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the existing economic situation, tendencies and the indexes in Armenia, and talked about future plans. In October we recorded 3% growth of economic activation index. It happened in the light of activation of industry, small and medium enterprises, and following the decline of the previous month we have a 12% rise of export. This shows that an economic transformation process in underway in our country, Pashinyan said.

Referring to the development of agriculture, the acting PM said that serious changes are necessary in order to minimize the effects of factors such as hail and pest insects. Pashinyan also spoke about shadow economy in the agricultural sphere, emphasizing that this problem will be solved very quickly.

As refers to investment projects, Pashinyan told the participants of the consultation that at the moment investment projects worth 500 million USD are in the stage of discussions, and added that the Government will spare no efforts to bring them to life.

During the workin visit Pashinyan also toured in the manufacturing enterprises of Aragatsotn Province, familarized himself with the activities and development projects of the companies.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
Seeing PNG and Chinese flags fly alongside each other was a powerful statement to the West that China is already ahead in the game of chess when it comes to geo-politics in PNG and the region.

The sight of Chinese flags waving on rows of poles erected on the side and middle of roads designated for APEC leaders and their convoy of vehicles would have rung alarm bells especially among the Western leaders.

Chinas significant presence in PNG and the region may well be one of the major factors as to why the US and China could not agree to the wording of a communique. In a high profile summit like APEC, compromises had to be made in the spirit of diplomacy. Unfortunately that was not the case.

PORT MORESBY - If there was going to be a place to test the seriousness of US and China to engage with the Pacific; Papua New Guinea was going to be that place and the APEC 2018 summit provided that opportunity  the first communique less summit in the 25 years since it was established.

The West knew it had to quickly counter. The US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan made huge commitments in the area of education, border protection, defence and electricity. But will it be enough to counter Chinas rapidly growing influence in the region?

Chinese funded project although grandiose in nature have often been criticised for its lack of transparency and respect for due process. Furthermore, some of these projects have been described as a waste of money given they are not suited to the needs of the host country.

The projects are often secretly negotiated within governments. Details of the projects and loans that fund them are at best sketchy and hidden from public scrutiny, raising skepticism among the general populous.

The US and its allies must take a different route, one that embraces consultation and transparency not only at government to government level but most importantly at ground level, directly reaching out to landowners, community groups, civil society organisations and churches.

Whether it be the construction of the naval base in Lombrum, bilateral or multilateral trade agreements, climate change or movement of people and goods and services across borders. the West must endeavour to consult and enter dialogue with citizens of the region.

The US and its allies should not attempt to bulldoze their way into PNG and the Pacific, rather they must work on building new and improving existing people to people relationships as part of their grand geo-political ambition.

The fruits of this may not be immediately visible compared to investing in large infrastructure projects but its legacy will endure and will form the bedrock for future bilateral or multilateral engagements.

People to people relationship, rather than offering half-hearted gestures that only benefit politicians, diplomats and business people, are critical to maintaining the region within the US sphere of influence. Politicians and diplomats come and go but the people will always be there.

At its core, this strategy must open opportunities for Papua New Guineans and Pacific Islanders to gain meaningful skills and knowledge and have access to appropriate technology to harness the natural environment and so generate wealth for their families, communities and the nation.

Unlike the West, most land in the Pacific is traditionally owned and it makes sense to actively engage with the people as well as government. At present the benefits from large impact projects such as PNG LNG have had very little impact in transforming the lives of the people.

At the same time, governments in the region need to be more open and transparent in conducting their affairs. State institutions should be free from political interference and justice dispensed without fear or favour.

The West must be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with Papua New Guineans and Pacific Islanders on issues such as climate change and fair trade. This is the time as the pendulum of history is now with the Pacific.

To deal with the governments and citizens of the Pacific, the US and its allies must have patience and perseverance and at times be willing to take a leap of faith. They must listen not just to the government but to the voice of the people.

China is not only promoting its image as a major power but it is looking ahead with investments as part of its Belt and Road initiative. A similar coordinated plan needs to be developed by the US and its allies so that efforts to counter Chinese influence are sustained over time. Central to that plan must eb a greater focus on strengthening people to people relationships.

In the haste to halt Chinese burgeoning influence in the region, the US and its allies must not attack fire with fire but must maintain faith in promoting good governance and mutual respect among the people of the Pacific and the West.
Stephen Dziedzic - media coverage was poorer for the lack of Pacific voices

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC | Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Journalism in action is often not as simple or straightforward as non-journalists assume. The ABCs Stephen Dziedzic, recently in Port Moresby covering APEC, in this article addresses criticisms of the lack of visibility of Pacific islands leaders in media coverage. These remarks originally appeared as a Twitter thread but I thought them important enough to record here before they disappeared out of sight in the social media morass - KJ

PORT MORESBY - Some Pacific experts like Tess Cain and Ashlee Betteridge have argued the media neglected and ignored Pacific leaders in our coverage of APEC.

In the spirit of open friendly debate, I thought Id offer an explanation, a mea culpa and a defence, all in one.

First, a mea culpa. Yes, its true - there were very few Pacific voices in our coverage. Looking back, it was clearly an omission. We talked a huge amount about the Pacific, without talking to many people from the Pacific. Our coverage was poorer for it.

Id point to one exception though - the largest Pacific nation, Papua New Guinea. Leaders from PNG featured heavily in our coverage, largely because as chair it wielded influence and bore plenty of responsibility. Pato, ONeill etc were significant players and prominent figures in our stories.
Counter-plans were developed, including: more generous Australian infrastructure aid to Pacific countries , obviously to counter Chinas growing influence ; an attempted rebranding of the traditional diplomatic term Asia-Pacific region to Indo-Pacific region.

Chinas President Xi had been the first leader to accept the 2016 invitation to attend the 2018 APEC meeting in Port Moresby, extended by the chairman, PNG prime minister Peter ONeill. At that time, the focus of Chinese interest was thought to be seeking to involve more Pacific island countries in joining Chinas One Belt One Road regional trading infrastructure initiative. Peter ONeill was the first Pacific leader to sign up for One Belt One Road.

CANBERRA - There is still a lot we do not know about how and why the APEC summit in Port Moresby was such a diplomatic disaster, from which APEC may not readily recover anytime soon.

"Morrison and ONeill watched on mutely, like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, as the meeting wound down to its disastrous end"

This was a clumsy attempt to belittle Asias and Chinas centrality; and an ill-conceived and inappropriately-timed announcement by US vice-president Mike Pence at APEC, that an Australia-US joint military base would be set up on the now infamous Manus Island In PNG, to confront the presumed adversary to the north, China.

APEC has a long and creditable history. It was a mainly Australian vision, under Hawke and Keating, to develop an Asia-Pacific regional cooperative grouping that would not go the way of that discredited and now moribund Cold War relic, SEATO.

The focus would be on economic cooperation under a free market framework, but not aggressively so. APEC would be open to all. It was understood that it was desirable to try to bring ASEAN and China and Russia on board as important Asia-Pacific seaboard country members.

All this required a subtle and sensitive Australian diplomacy, which in those years Australia had the the skills and political maturity to practice.

None of this was in evidence at the diplomatic debacle just ended in Port Moresby, from which APEC as an institution may not recover any time soon  perhaps never.

The US sent its vice-president Mike Pence, who was clearly cranked up and ready to play hardball with China. Bizarrely, he chose to accommodate himself in safe and comfortable Cairns, from where he would fly to Port Moresby to do battle with the Chinese each day, [a decision that was reversed in practice].

The meeting itself took place, equally bizarrely, on ocean liners moored in Port Moresby harbour.

The meeting was preceded by weeks of mounting US verbal assault on Chinese trade practices, and the unilateral imposition of US tariffs (trade sanctions) against China, contrary to World Trade Organisation rules.

This global contest effectively came to eclipse any contest over local influence in South Pacific nations. Both China and the US were now playing for bigger stakes before a bigger audience that included India, Russia, Japan,Korea and the ASEANs.

We dont yet know a lot of what transpired at the meeting. The skills of former Pacific ABC correspondents like Sean Dorney and Mary Louise O'Callaghan in ferreting out useful behind-the- scenes colour and movement are sadly missed these days in the ABC.

We do know from the public record that Xi appealed passionately for observance of traditional multipolar courtesies among sovereign nations which had come together freely in APEC. He condemned blatant bloc-building efforts by the US.

Pence, undeterred, handled himself as if he was attending a NATO or SEATO meeting. This would be for the US an opportunity to lecture China about her alleged aggression in the South China Sea, to humiliate a captive Xi in front of a largely Asian audience of his peers.

To his discredit ONeill as chairman made no apparent effort to control the meeting, to pull the Americans into line, to remind them of APECs conciliatory diplomatic traditions and protocols developed over decades.

Nor did Australia seem to play any role encouraging him to do so. Australian diplomacy seemed missing in action.

In fact, Morrison and ONeill watched on mutely, like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, as the meeting wound down to its disastrous end, marked by an anti-climactic and dispirited Aussie barbecue party on an Australian Navy vessel for anyone who was still there.

Before that, there had been some kind of unpleasantness of four burly Chinese diplomats allegedly trying to shove their way into foreign minister Rimbink Patos office, [although Pato denied it happened].

But my guess is that the Chinese may have got wind of a planned anti-China communique fait accompli to be forced through the meeting under US pressure, which would have meant international loss of face for Xi and a victory of sorts for Pence.

Chinese diplomats would have been determined  as was Chinas right  that this would not happen. They got their way, in that no communique was issued, which would support my supposition of the possible sequence of events.

Both Morrison and Peter ONeill were manifestly way out of their depth. Morrison spoke in marketing platitudes, trotting out archaic and now otiose Howard-era lines to the effect that Australia could maintain a close strategic alliance with the US while also maintaining China as our no 1 trade partner.

He tried to grin his way through the mess, and nothing he might say on it now after the event could be trusted again.

ONeill lacked the confidence or authority to ensure that China and the US would both behave according to the protocols of APEC.

Australian diplomacy, which should have been stiffening PNGs chairmans spine, was missing in action. The meeting fatally degenerated into a theatre for China-US rivalry.

No doubt Australias US-compliant mainstream media will spin this story in coming days to try to make it all look like Chinas fault. They have already started to do so. But the more experienced Asia-Pacific leaders who were present will not be fooled by such propaganda. They saw with their own eyes what happened, including Australias US-facilitating role.

For Australia to host Pence simultaneously in Cairns  an insult to PNG  and to allow Pence to announce in the APEC meeting in PNG the Australia-US joint base to be built on PNG sovereign territory, was grossly insensitive and clumsy. These errors will cost us.

Australia seems under the faltering Morrison administration to be backing away from meaningful and mutually respectful engagement with our region at the rate of knots.

First the continuing regional disaster over the Jerusalem Embassy gambit, now this Port Moresby debacle. We will know to our cost if this government in its remaining months manages comprehensively to alienate some of our most important historical partners in our Asian region.

Diplomatic relationships are easy to destroy, much harder to rebuild. A country at odds with its region needs to put a lot of GDP into defence and police, and be prepared for a tense life.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, and the author of five books, most recently Return to Moscow
Negotiations to secure an orderly Brexit deal will go down to the wire after Theresa May said she would return to Brussels for more talks on the eve of a planned signing summit. After an inconclusive trip to Brussels to meet EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker, the British prime minister said she would return on Saturday to finalise preparations for a full EU meeting the next day. It is believed that the texts of the deal will not be final before a meeting of top EU diplomats -- the summit's so-called "sherpas" -- on Friday, frustrating some European leaders. "There are some further issues that need resolution. We have given direction to our negotiators this evening. The work on those issues will now start immediately," May said in a statement on Wednesday. "I believe we have been able to give sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues," she said, adding that she would meet Juncker again on Saturday. With less than four days until Sunday's meeting, a European Commission spokesperson said: "Very good progress was made in meeting between President Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May." But she added: "Work is continuing." News of Saturday's last-ditch meeting will not go down well in Berlin, where Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel had earlier urged negotiators not to reopen talks on the main withdrawal agreement. "I hope it will be solved by Sunday," she told German lawmakers. "We know how difficult the discussions are in Britain, but I can say for the German government that we agree with this exit agreement." Negotiators are hammering out details of a political statement on future UK-EU ties that will accompany the divorce deal, under pressure to put it together before the sherpa meeting on Friday. After enduring another parliamentary grilling at prime minister's questions in London, May slipped out of the Westminster bear pit and crossed the Channel to meet the head of the EU executive. Having seen off -- at least for now -- a potential leadership challenge by hardline Brexiteers in her own party, she hoped to wring out of Brussels a Brexit arrangement that she can sell to her parliament. The withdrawal treaty itself is all but final, and preparations are under way for Sunday's summit to sign it, but there remains the matter of the parallel 20-page political declaration on future relations. European diplomats and EU officials have been in intense talks on the declaration this week. May must show that she has left nothing on the table if she is to convince British members of parliament to ratify the deal in the coming weeks. May and Juncker were expected to cover fishing rights and the movement of goods after Brexit, as well as the duration of the transition period and the British territory of Gibraltar, which lies on an outcrop off Spain. - Spain, N. Ireland pressure - May faces pressure from her Northern Irish allies, who oppose a deal they say weakens British sovereignty in their province, and from Spain, which has warned it might oppose the accord over Gibraltar. Madrid wants a veto over applying any agreement on post-transition relations to Gibraltar but May told MPs that Britain "will not exclude Gibraltar from our negotiations on the future relationship". There is frustration among some EU countries at Spain trying to play hardball so late in the game. "We are following the latest developments with growing concern and incomprehension -- among the EU27 our Spanish friends are all alone on this," an EU diplomat told AFP. Madrid reiterated its threat on Wednesday to vote against the draft deal. Two of May's top ministers quit last week, including her Brexit secretary, while MPs from all parties came out against the withdrawal deal -- increasing the chances that Britain will crash out of the Union on March 29 without an agreement. The withdrawal deal covers Britain's financial settlement, expatriate citizens' rights, contingency plans to keep open the Irish border and the terms of a post-Brexit transition. - 'Show our displeasure' - Opposition to the agreement is also building in the pro-Brexit camp. Anti-Europe Conservatives have savaged the divorce deal, which they say keeps Britain too close to the EU. Rebels led by MP Jacob Rees-Mogg failed in their attempt to force an immediate confidence vote in May's leadership, but warned they would keep trying. The withdrawal agreement sets out plans for a 21-month transition after Brexit, in which Britain and the EU want to turn their outline agreement on the future relationship into a full trade deal. burs-dc/pdw/har/aph/jah Theresa May heads to Brussels looking for a political declaration on Brexit that she can sell to the British parliament Theresa May will take afternoon tea with the president of the EU commission, Jean-Claude Juncker Updated timeline of the Brexit talks
Irvine, California, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Team president Michael Mahon proudly announces a merger of Lawyers Realty and the First Team Real Estate office of Rancho Cucamonga, California.

The demand for real estate in Southern California is still very real, with the average days on market in Rancho Cucamonga, CA down 21 days compared to last year;* First Team Real Estate has seized on this opportunity by merging with one of the top brokerages in San Bernardino CountyLawyers Realty. First Team has pinpointed opportunities, created jobs, and rapidly expanded its services across diverse communities in Southern California. Making a difference in the communities we call home, stated President of First Team Michael Mahon, has always been the common thread of our partnerships. Lawyers Realty and First Team will now unite our efforts to make a difference for our customers in Rancho Cucamonga, California and the surrounding market. Joining forces will enable First Team to expand their services, increase their dominant market share, and create greater jobs in support of the growing local economy.

Lawyers Realty, an independent, family-owned brokerage focused within the Inland Empire, was an ideal candidate for First Team to partner with. Their brokerage consists of like-minded professionals, dedicated to uniting with First Team in continuing to make a difference within the community. With the merging of these new offices, First Team and Lawyers Realty will lead the market as an over-$300-million real estate entity.

Robert L. Adams, founding and managing partner of Lawyers real estate operations, expressed his positive outlook on the new venture: The diversity of our talents makes our alliance one of vast opportunity. First Team touts a wealth of experience, and Lawyers Realty is eager to be a part of their expansion across Southern California and the promise they hold for our agents. Lawyers belief in putting the Service in Full Service Real Estate aligns perfectly with First Teams focus on agent and client care. Lawyers Realty will now greatly profit from all that First Team has to offer, including a marketing concierge service, non-competing office staff, and proprietary digital marketing.

Celebrating over 40 years of putting clients and the agents that serve them First, First Team possesses the experience and positive growtheven in a time when other brokerages are strugglingthat enables them to successfully welcome rising brokerage entities to join their team, creating further job opportunities in the community. With 8,841 successfully closed transactions last year, First Team is excited to grow its market opportunity further across the Inland Empire. Lawyers is key to establishing the foundation of our growth in the area, stated Cameron Merage, founder and CEO of First Team, as we are equally investing in the expansion of our First Team University. We have a lot of exciting, new changes for our First Team family that will be unveiled throughout 2019this is just the start.

Rancho Cucamonga, California has a growing local economy and low unemployment that are driving community factors and increasing housing demand. In response, First Team has positioned itself to further support consumers wishing to engage in education courses with Lawyers Realtys assistance. This partnership will better reach those who are working towards their real estate license and seasoned agents who will help service the companys growing client-services portfolio.

With the addition of new officeslike the successful growth of First Teams newest one in Rancho Cucamonga, CAFirst Team Real Estate is hiring in support of their rapid growth; please consult www.firstteam.com for their latest career development opportunities.

* Collateral Analytics Report Comparing November Days on Market of 2018 to 2017

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Cypriot authorities said Wednesday that 47 Syrian migrants had been found on the island's northwestern tip after being dropped off by suspected people smugglers. Police said they believed the migrants had arrived by sea from Turkey in the early hours of Wednesday, but there was no sign of a boat when officers arrived. A pregnant woman who was among the migrants was taken to nearby Paphos hospital for medical checks. The migrants were taken to a reception centre in the capital Nicosia later on Wednesday. Over the past 12 months a steady trickle of Syrian migrants have arrived in Cyprus, the European Union's most easterly state, from Turkey and Lebanon. Cyprus has warned Brussels it faces growing pressure from increasing irregular migration. EU data earlier this year showed it had received more asylum applications per capita than any of the bloc's other 28 nations. Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides said Nicosia received 4,022 asylum requests in the first eight months of 2018 -- 55 percent more than in the same period last year. But despite lying just 160 kilometres (100 miles) from the coast of war-torn Syria, Cyprus has not seen the massive inflow of migrants experienced by Turkey and Greece. Syrians arrive at a refugee camp near the Cypriot capital Nicosia on September 10, 2017, after being rescued off the island's northwestern coast
The governor of Easter Island on Tuesday tearfully begged the British Museum to return one of its famous statues, saying: "Give us a chance so he can come back". The London museum has held the Hoa Hakananai'a, one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island's stone monoliths, for 150 years. "My grandma, who passed away at almost 90 years, she never got the chance to see her ancestor," said governor Tarita Alarcon Rapu after meeting officials from the British Museum, accompanied by Felipe Ward, Chile's national assets minister. "I am almost half a century alive and this is my first time," she added. The statue, or "moai", is one of hundreds originally found on the island. Carved by Polynesian colonisers, each of the big-headed figures was considered to represent tribal leaders or deified ancestors. It was an emotional moment for the indigenous Rapa Nui visitors when they saw the basalt statue, which for them, contains the spirit of their people. The monolith stands 2.4 metres tall and weighs four tonnes. "I believe that my children and their children also deserve the opportunity to touch, see and learn from him," Rapu said, with tears in his eyes. "We are just a body. You, the British people, have our soul," she added. Hoa Hakananai'a was taken without permission in 1868 by the British frigate HMS Topaze, captained by Richard Powell, and given to Queen Victoria. The British Museum has faced numerous claims to return artefacts to the countries they originate from, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. - Cautious optimism - The Rapa Nui people, who last year gained self-administration over their ancestral lands on Easter Island, have launched a campaign to recover what they consider as one of the most important statues of the nearly 900 scattered across the South Pacific island. With its scowling eyes, straight-lined mouth and paunchy profile, the monolith stands at the entrance to a gallery in the British Museum. The moai is distinguished by carvings on the back depicting the island's birdman cult and other ceremonial aspects of Easter Island's enigmatic past. The Rapa Nui believe it brought peace to the island, around the year 1000, ending inter-tribal wars. After the meeting, Ward said he was optimistic but cautioned that the campaign for the return of the statue would be a long one. "This is the first of many conversations we will have," he told reporters at the museum. "We are looking forward to the next, and probably the Second one will be in Rapa Nui (Easter Island), where we invited the authorities of the museum." It is the first time that the British Museum, which holds cultural treasures from around the globe, has agreed to hold talks about the statue.But on Tuesday the museum was talking only of a loan, not the return, on the artefact. "The museum is one of the world's leading lenders and the trustees will always consider loan requests subject to usual conditions," a spokeswoman said. The institution typically states its exhibits can be seen by millions of visitors for free in a global heritage context. Hoa Hakananai'a, one of Easter Island's most spiritually important monoliths, is a towering presence in London's British Museum Easter Island governor Tarita Alarcon Rapu gave an emotional plea for the statue's return Demonstrators outside the British Museum call for the monolith to be returned to Easter Island


A cafe on the Gold Coast has been scammed out of more than $2000 by a tradie and his mate who devised an elaborate trick at the EFTPOS machine to confuse staff.

The alleged incident happened at Caffe Republic in Southport on Saturday morning, but the ploy was captured on CCTV, showing one of the men changing bank cards halfway through the transaction.

According to cafe owner Peter Dufty, one of the men took the EFTPOS machine out of the hands of the staff for security reasons, then altered the cost of his coffee and cake order from $25 to $2250, which he charged to a stolen card.

He then asked for a refund, but then said he had to go to work  leaving it to his mate to complete the scam by charging it back to a second card, meaning he still walked away with $2250 in the bank.

According to the cafe owner, the man took the EFTPOS machine out of the hands of the staff, then altered the cost of his coffee and cake order from $25 to $2250. Source: 7News

The mans friend was allegedly left to complete the scam by charging the $2250 back to a second credit card. Source: 7 News

When we spoke to the bank they said theyd heard of it happening, and its happening quite a bit, Mr Dufty told 7News.

Theres a couple of blokes out there who are doing their best to ruin small businesses that are working hard for their money and to support the local economy.

The CCTV vision has been shared thousands of times on social media, leaving Mr Dufty hoping that someone will recognise the pair and report them to police.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page.
The exiled assistant of a prominent Vietnam dissident has been deported from the country after she tried to return home to see her family, sources told AFP Wednesday. Le Thu Ha was jailed this year for "attempting to overthrow the state", but was quietly released from prison and put on a plane to Germany in June along with her former boss Nguyen Van Dai who was convicted on the same charge. Ha -- not herself an active dissident -- and Dai were released under the condition that they would leave Vietnam and would not be permitted to return. On Tuesday evening, Ha arrived at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport and tried to enter the country before she was turned away by immigration officials and put on a plane to Thailand, Dai told AFP. "She herself made the decision to come back to Vietnam for her mother," he said from Germany, where Ha is expected to return. A second source who requested anonymity confirmed she was blocked from entering Vietnam. Dai said that after more than two years in a Vietnamese prison, Ha had a difficult time adjusting to life in Germany and often talked about coming home to see her elderly mother. "Because of pressure from security forces in jail she was under a bit of stress," Dai said. Vietnam's foreign ministry did not confirm Ha was deported, but said she had been allowed to travel to Germany initially for "humanitarian" reasons, spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told AFP. The pair were arrested in 2015 and convicted in April along with four others connected to the Brotherhood for Democracy activist network. They were accused of called for multi-party elections and carrying out human rights training. Dai was sentenced to 15 years in jail and Ha was given nine years. A lawyer by training, Dai was a perennial thorn for authorities in the single-party state where all political parties apart from the ruling communist regime are banned. Vietnam routinely jails its critics, but it has waged a crackdown over the past two years since a conservative leadership took power. More than 50 have been jailed this year alone. It is not uncommon for Vietnam to release political prisoners, but it is almost always done on the condition that they will leave the country. Last month, blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh known by her pen name "Mother Mushroom" was secretly released and sent to the United States with her young children and mother. Vietnam's prominent lawyer Nguyen Van Dai was sentenced to 15 years in jail, and his assistant Le Thu Ha (not pictured) was given nine years
A general strike shut down most of Haiti Wednesday as tension and uncertainty gripped the Caribbean country following deadly protests over the weekend and the president's unexplained absence from public. Schools, shops and private businesses were closed in the main cities, heeding the opposition call for a general strike in the country, which is the poorest in the Americas and still battling to overcome a years-old cholera epidemic and the aftermath of a major earthquake. As police patrolled otherwise empty main avenues in normally chaotic Port-au-Prince, burning barricades went up in some neighborhoods and sporadic gun shots set residents on edge. "It's only when the streets are empty that politicians begin to see that there is a problem," lamented Alix Bernardin, 27, a resident of the capital. "Too much blood has flowed in the country. Jovenal has to go," he said, referring to President Jovenel Moise. At least three people were killed by gunfire during mass protests over the weekend demanding Moise's resignation, the national police said. The opposition said 11 people lost their lives. Moise has said nothing since Sunday's protests. He was supposed to speak to the nation Tuesday in a televised address but it was dropped several hours after being announced, with no explanation given. "We had technical failures," Emmanuel Jean-Francois, an advisor to the president, said Wednesday after being reached by telephone. "We are taking all measures to broadcast it this morning," he added, declining to give a time or say what it would be about. In any case, said Haitian resident Jean Junior, 30, the president only makes "promises that he doesn't keep" while the people lack "potable water, hospitals, housing." "We can no longer live like this, frustrated, because we know how people live in other countries," Junior said. - Desperate for fuel - National police spokesman Gary Desrosiers said the force was braced for the aftermath of the protests. "We remain on the ground to assure everyone's protection," he told AFP. In the upscale Petionville neighborhood, the only two gas stations open were besieged by motorcycle taxi drivers desperate to refuel. The breakdown in presidential communications was widely criticized on social media. Many refused to believe the delay was caused by technical problems, and others criticized the incompetence of the presidential services. On Monday, the presidency released only a brief statement with a picture of Moise and Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant, surrounded by the heads of both chambers of parliament and the president of the supreme court of appeals. The statement said the meeting had three objectives: "that the executive pursue dialogue with all sectors of national life, resolve problems linked to insecurity, and intensify programs of social relief." Various opposition groups, arguing that the situation is out of control, have proposed ways to remove the president in order to resolve the crisis. The protests were part of a sporadic movement that began during the summer over a scandal at the heart of a Venezuelan aid program known as Petrocaribe. Through Petrocaribe, Venezuela for years supplied Haiti and other Caribbean and Central American countries with oil at cut-rate prices and on easy credit terms. But investigations by the Haitian Senate in 2016 and 2017 concluded that nearly $2 billion from the program were misused. A dozen of Haiti's former cabinet ministers -- all members of the current ruling party -- have been implicated but no legal proceedings have followed, sparking public anger. Moise is seen as blocking any court action over the scandal. A street in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince is full of debris and barriers on the third day of strikes A man sits on stairs after being shot by men on a motorcycle, during the third day of strikes in Port-au-Prince, after at least three people died in mass protests against President Jovenel Moise People walk past burning tires placed by protesters in the streets of Port-au-Prince Members of the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH) patrol the streets of Port-au-Prince
Unprecedented heavy rains which recently lashed Kuwait unearthed dozens of land mines planted by Iraqi troops during their 1990-91 occupation, disrupting the emirate's popular desert camping season, officials said Wednesday. Authorities have closed 18 desert sites and have so far removed at least 48 mines after receiving complaints from the campers, they said. The civil defence committee has urged campers to delay their plans until after the defence ministry has searched the areas, said Fahad al-Shutaily, deputy director of Kuwait's Jahra and Farwaniya governorates. "Floods have uncovered and carried away scores of mines, bombs and ammunition left by the Iraqi army in desert areas. We are waiting for the defence ministry to hand over the areas after clearing them," Shutaily told AFP. The ministry of defence is currently searching at least 18 sites which are normally used for camping. Iraqi troops, under former president Saddam Hussein, invaded and occupied Kuwait on August 2, 1990 before they were evicted seven months later by a US-led international coalition. But before that, Kuwaiti authorities say Iraqis planted some two million mines mostly in the desert. Through multi-billion dollar contracts, Kuwait removed some 1.65 million mines, leaving behind 350,000 others. Since early November the desert state of Kuwait has received about 300 mm of rain -- almost three times its annual average rainfall -- which has caused widespread damage to residential zones. The flooding of desert areas has come at the start of the camping season, when hundreds of thousands of Kuwaitis set up modern camps for around four months. After waiting to enjoy the beautiful and usually uninhabited desert areas, some campers are refusing to heed the warnings. "A majority of my relatives and neighbours are camping," Yousef Abdullah told AFP. "No one is backing down because of fear from mines... We impatiently wait for the camping season," he added. Shutaily however said that over the past two days, authorities have removed 36 camps and warned 60 others. Iraqi soldiers cross a highway carrying white surrender flags 25 February 1991 in Kuwait City
A US federal judge temporarily blocked Donald Trump's administration from denying asylum to people who enter the country illegally, prompting the president to allege Tuesday that the court was biased against him. Trump issued a proclamation earlier this month saying that only people who enter the US at official checkpoints -- as opposed to sneaking across the border -- can apply for asylum, as a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants made its way north through Mexico. But US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump proclamation, thus granting a request from human rights groups that had sued shortly after the order was announced. "It's a disgrace," Trump said, alleging judicial bias and appearing to refer to Tigar -- who was appointed by US president Barack Obama -- as an "Obama judge." "We will win that case in the Supreme Court of the United States," Trump said. Tigar wrote that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 states that any foreigner who arrives in the US, "whether or not at a designated port of arrival," may apply for asylum. "The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress," Tigar wrote. "Whatever the scope of the president's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden." The judge's restraining order remains in effect until the court decides on the case. Trump's administration has argued that he has the executive power to curb immigration in the name of national security -- a power he invoked right after taking office last year with a controversial ban on travelers from several mostly Muslim countries. - 'Broken' asylum system - The final version of the order was upheld by the US Supreme Court on June 26 after a protracted legal battle. "Our asylum system is broken, and it is being abused by tens of thousands of meritless claims every year," a joint statement from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security said after the asylum ruling. "We look forward to continuing to defend the executive branch's legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border." When the new policy was announced by the Department of Homeland Security on November 8, a senior administration official said it would address what he called the "historically unparalleled abuse of our immigration system" along the border with Mexico. Administration officials say anyone who manages to get across can request asylum and subsequently often vanish while their case languishes in the court system. "The vast majority of these applications eventually turn out to be non-meritorious," a senior administration official said, asking not to be identified. Less than 10 percent of cases result in asylum being granted, the government says. Human rights campaigners and other critics of the Trump crackdown say that by restricting asylum seekers to border crossing points -- which are already under enormous pressure -- the government is effectively shutting the door on people who may truly be fleeing for their lives. "The government cannot abdicate its responsibility toward migrants fleeing harm," the New York Immigration Coalition advocacy group said. But the administration official argued that "what we're attempting to do is trying to funnel credible fear claims, or asylum claims, through the ports of entry where we are better resourced." That way, the official said, courts will "handle those claims in an expeditious and efficient manner, so that those who do actually require an asylum protection get those protections." In 2018, border patrols registered more than 400,000 illegal border crossers, according to the Department of Homeland Security. And in the last five years, the number of those requesting asylum has increased by 2,000 percent, it said. - 'Criminals' in caravan - Speaking at the border in Imperial Beach, California, Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen doubled down, threatening to arrest or deport all caravan migrants who dare to cross into the United States. "The crisis is real and it is just on the other side of this wall," she said. "Make no mistake -- we are very serious. You will not get into our country illegally... If you try to enter our country without authorization, you have broken the law of the United States, you will be detained, prosecuted and repatriated." She claimed that at least 500 of the caravan migrants have been identified as "criminals," without offering up proof or further details on the nature or origin of the claim. Speaking at the border Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen threatened to arrest or deport all caravan migrants who dare to cross into the US Chart showing illegal immigration apprehensions on the US-Mexico border since 1960 In 2018, border patrols registered more than 400,000 illegal border crossers The US administration says it is "trying to funnel credible fear claims, or asylum claims, through the ports of entry where we are better resourced"
Kosovo imposed a 100 percent tariff on Serbian imports Wednesday, after it blamed Belgrade for sabotaging its bid to join the international police organisation Interpol. The massive tariff increase is a response to the "aggressiveness of Serbia against Kosovo by all means", Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj told reporters after the measure was approved in government. The new tariffs also apply to Bosnian imports but exclude international brands. The retaliation comes after Kosovo's application to join Interpol was rejected on Tuesday, a blow to its efforts to boost global recognition of its statehood. Kosovo is a former province of Serbia that officially seceded in 2008 after a guerilla war, though Belgrade does not accept the split and has tried to block it from international organisations. Kosovo's foreign ministry blamed the failed Interpol bid on Belgrade's "abusive" lobbying inside the international police organisation. On Twitter, Deputy Prime Minister Enver Hoxhaj wrote that in addition to the new tariff, "further measures" would be announced soon in response to Serbia's "aggressive campaign against Kosovo". The tariff hike drew sharp rebuke from the EU and Belgrade, where Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said it amounted to "an absolute ban of trade" between Serbia and Kosovo. Speaking in a public television address, Vucic added that it could lead to "conflict and destabilisation of the region". He called on Kosovo to "please withdraw the decision so we can sit down and talk," adding that Belgrade would not issue any countermeasures. - 'Clear violation' - Tensions had already been running high between the neighbours, who are under pressure from Brussels to normalise relations if they want to progress towards EU membership. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini swiftly condemned Kosovo's tariff move, saying it was "a clear violation" of a regional free trade agreement. "The Kosovo government has to immediately revoke these decisions," Mogherini said in a statement. Serbia is Kosovo's biggest trade partner in the region, with its exports totalling more than 400 million euros ($454 million) annually. Sanije Jusufi, an economic reporter for the Koha Ditore daily newspaper, said the new tariff was a "political" move that would likely hit ordinary Kosovars. "There will be a rise in prices in Kosovo, and when prices grow the biggest burden will weigh on consumers," he said. Earlier this month Kosovo introduced an initial 10 percent tariff on Serbian imports. That measure has already cut the flow of Serbian exports by half, according to Kosovo Customs. Kosovo says it is recognised as a sovereign state by about 115 countries, although it is barred from joining the UN because of vetoes from Serbia's allies, Russia and China. Belgrade claims it has managed to convince a dozen nations to revoke their decision, which Pristina disputes. Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj accused Serbia of thwarting its bid to join Interpol
African museum directors on Wednesday welcomed an expert report calling on France to allow the return of thousands of African treasures and artworks, a radical policy shift that could put pressure on other former colonial powers. Calls have been growing in Africa for restitution, but French law strictly forbids the government from ceding state property, even in well-documented cases of pillaging. French President Emmanuel Macron raised hopes in a speech last year in Burkina Faso, saying "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums." He later asked French art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr to study the matter, and they are to present Macron with their report on Friday. According to a copy seen by AFP, they recommend amending French law to allow the restitution of cultural works if bilateral accords are struck between France and African states. The change would apply in particular to works held in museums which were "transferred from their original territory during the French colonial period," the report said. "We propose changing heritage laws so that all types of cases can be taken into account, and the criteria of consent can be invoked," Sarr told French daily Liberation in an article posted late Tuesday. The report was welcomed by advocates of the restitution of works which were bought, bartered or in some cases simply stolen. "Today it feels as if we're just a step away from recovering our history and being finally able to share it on the continent," Marie-Cecile Zinsou, a daughter of Benin's former prime minister and president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Cotonou, told AFP. Her sentiments were echoed by Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilization in Senegal's capital Dakar. Noting that the works under discussion were taken "in the context of colonisation and subordination," he said: "It's a good decision that reflects the march of history." - Art dealers worried - While the ownership controversy is nothing new, the issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2016 when President Patrice Talon of Benin asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey. France refused, citing its law that museums are forbidden from permanently parting with any piece in their collections. Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris' Quai Branly museum, created by ex-president Jacques Chirac, a keen admirer of African and Asian art. In order to proceed with any restitutions, "a request would have to be lodged by an African country, based on inventory lists which we will have sent them," according to the report. The prospect has raised hackles among some curators and art dealers who say it would eventually empty museums and galleries in some Western countries. They point to the fact that many objects came from kingdoms which no longer exist, and that in many cases the owners can claim they were obtained legitimately. Critics also say the move could prompt private French collectors to move their works out of France for fear of seizure. "No dealer in African art was consulted" by the report's authors, said Yves-Bernard Debie, a Belgian lawyer who is one of the most vocal opponents of returning works taken by soldiers, explorers and others during the colonial era. European conservationists meanwhile have raised practical concerns, such as the danger of artefacts being stolen or poorly handled by inexperienced museums in politically unstable countries. But the report's authors said art market professionals were indeed among those who contributed to the report, along with collectors, lawmakers, legal specialists and even "sceptics". - Dispersed heritage - Britain too has faced calls to return artefacts, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. On Tuesday, the governor of Easter Island in the Pacific tearfully begged the British Museum to return one of its famous statues. The London museum has held the Hoa Hakananai'a, one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island's stone monoliths, for 150 years. Elsewhere in Europe, the French experts said 37,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa were at Vienna's Weltmuseum and 180,000 were at Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. The report said such collections were effectively depriving Africans of their artistic and cultural heritage. "On a continent where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 20 years old, what is first and foremost of a great importance is for young people to have access to their own culture, creativity, and spirituality from other eras," it said. Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris' Quai Branly museum Macron, during a visit to Burkina Faso last year, said "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums" Benin's President Patrice Talon asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey Calls have been growing in Africa for the restitution of its cultural treasures Britain has faced calls to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece
IRONWOOD, Mich., Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Keweenaw Land Association, Limited (KEWL: OTC US) today reported financial and operating results for the three months ended September 30, 2018. Revenue from all sources increased by 57% year over year from $3.7 million in the third quarter of 2017 to $5.8 million in 2018. Results were bolstered by higher timber sales revenue and a land sale to the US Forest Service, which resulted in the company realizing a net gain of $1.0 million. Including the land sale, EBITDA was $1.6 million compared to $0.4 million for the same period in 2017. Net Income for the quarter was $1.2 million compared to $0.1 million for the same period in 2017.



Timber operations

Revenue from timber operations was $4.6 million compared to $3.5 million in third quarter of 2017, a 31% increase from last year. Timber sales volume was 34 thousand cord equivalent units (cd-eq) in the third quarter compared to 29 thousand cd-eq in the same period of 2017, a 17% increase. The percentage of timber sold as sawtimber also increased to 25% compared to 22% in the third quarter of 2017. Sales realization for the quarter was $133 compared to $122 per cd-eq for the same period in 2017, an increase of 9%. Favorable product mix and pricing for sawbolts were the primary drivers of the improved timber sales revenue.

Cost of goods sold, which includes logging, freight, road building, sort yard allocation costs, and depletion totaled $96 per cd-eq compared to $90 per cd-eq for the third quarter of 2017. Nearly the entire increase was attributable to higher freight costs due to construction delays along a major highway that required trucks to detour up to 30 miles to make deliveries to the Keweenaw Log Yard in Ironwood. This route was recently reopened in October and normal trucking has resumed. Despite higher costs, gross profit contribution from timber operations improved to $37 per cd-eq compared to $32 cd-eq for the third quarter in 2017. Gross profit for the period increased by 33% to $1.4 million.

Other income

Other income including mineral royalties, lease and rental income, investment earnings and land sales were $1.2 million in the third quarter of 2018, up from $0.2 million in the third quarter of 2017. On September 27, 2018, the Company closed on the sale of 1,811 acres of land to the USDA-Forest Service in Gogebic County, Michigan for approximately $1.4 million. The property was located in a remote area with limited access and was considered non-strategic to the Companys core operations. The net gain realized on the sale after expenses which included Commercial Forest Act withdrawal penalties and the timber basis was $1.0 million, as highlighted in the Land Sales line of the income statement.

Option Agreement for the sale of conservation easement to State of Wisconsin

The Company continued to move forward with the previously announced 14,352-acre conservation easement sale per the terms of an Option agreement dated July 24th, 2018 between Keweenaw and the State of Wisconsin, Department of Natural Resources, including a price of $5.7 million dollars, with $0.4 million of the proceeds to be set aside in an endowment to assist in covering annual costs of repairs and maintenance on specific access roads on the property. The project is proceeding through the review process led by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources before submission to the Wisconsin Natural Resource Board which is anticipated to occur in December. While we expect the review and approval process to be routine, and a possible completion of the sale in the first quarter of 2019, regulatory processes are inherently unpredictable. There can be no assurance that such closing will actually occur.

Update on Management and Board Matters

The Board believes its over-arching goals are two-fold: To maximize the Companys intrinsic value and to address any gap that might exist between intrinsic value and the stock market price. In pursuit of these longer-term objectives, the Board has identified as its first-order priorities overhauling the Companys corporate governance structure- to empower shareholders and facilitate improved capital allocation decisions- and increasing cash flows without compromising long-term harvest sustainability. Over the near-term, the Board is also actively addressing the management continuity challenges.

The Board has continued to address the way the Board and Committees operate putting in place new committee charters which will be available on the Companys website. The Board, with the Nominating and Governance Committee, is also working on proposals for amendments to the Articles of Incorporation and bylaws to address director accountability to shareholders and the Companys various corporate defenses, including the staggered board (which in many cases will require shareholder approval to change). We expect there to be considerable progress on this front by the 2019 Annual Meeting.

As previously disclosed, Brian Glodowski will leave the Company on December 1 when his settlement contract expires. Brian will remain available in a consulting capacity to assist on transition issues as they arise. On behalf of the shareholders, the Board would like to thank Brian for his 25 years of service to the Company.

On October 15, the Board promoted Mark Sherman from Operations Manager to Chief Operating Officer. He will also become President on December 1 when Brian departs. Mark is an experienced production forester who has managed the Companys timber operations since 2015. Prior to joining the Company, Mark worked at Plum Creek where his responsibilities as Operations Manager included all aspects of production and sales for over 500,000 acres in the Lake States. Marks expanded role will include oversight of the Companys real estate efforts, which he managed prior to 2015 for the Company.

The Executive Search Committee continues with the process of finding a new CFO for the Company. In the meantime, former CFO James J. Simmons Jr. is serving as the Companys interim Treasurer in place of Bonita Estola, who has resigned. The Company has also retained a respected industry consultant, American Forest Management, to help increase productivity by streamlining the Companys accounting-related workflows and improving functionality provided by the Companys log accounting and general ledger systems.

The Audit Committee is in the late stages of a process to identify and retain a PCAOB-certified independent accounting firm to conduct the Companys 2018 financial audit. PCAOB certification is a pre-requisite to a listing on any exchange, and important for complying with Pink Sheet/ OTC Markets information requirements that have created issues recently for some investors given transfer restrictions imposed by custodians. The Company is also working toward providing more robust financial information in its reports to shareholders, targeting its annual disclosure for 2018.

The Board has decided that the Company will not elect REIT status for 2018. While the Company has implemented the structural changes to do so, the Board concluded that the value of the expected tax benefits from converting in 2018 are insufficient to justify the reduction in balance sheet flexibility including the reduction in available cash that would result from the conversion. The Board intends to evaluate the benefits of becoming a REIT on an ongoing basis.

As we focus on 2019, with an enhanced corporate structure, and cash flow profile, we look forward to updating you on the progress of the Company.

About Keweenaw Land Association, Limited: Keweenaw is a forest products and land management company located in Ironwood, Michigan. Keweenaw has land holdings of approximately 183,900 surface acres and over 400,000 acres of mineral rights, located predominantly in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin. Additional information is available on the Companys website at www.keweenaw.com.

Forward-Looking Statements: This letter contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and should not be relied upon as predictions of future events or promises of a given course of action. A number of factors such as changing economic conditions, price fluctuations, land use, environmental and other governmental regulations, and risk of loss from natural disasters, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. As with any investment, past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The Company is currently not subject to the filing requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company is categorized as not current under the OTC Pink Sheets.

KEWEENAW LAND ASSOCIATION, LIMITED Consolidated Balance Sheet (Unaudited) September 30, 2018 ASSETS Sept. 30, 2018 Sept. 30, 2017 Current Assets Cash & Cash Equivalents $ 2,929,803 $ 2,866,857 Accounts Receivable 870,693 530,274 Investments in Marketable Securities 2,619,201 3,329,814 Other Current Assets 496,964 457,094 Total Current Assets 6,916,661 7,184,039 Other Non-Current Assets 2,372 513,973 Equipment 1,286,087 1,279,894 Properties 32,196,921 30,518,302 TOTAL ASSETS 40,402,041 39,496,208 LIABILITIES & CAPITAL Current Liabilities Accounts & Deposits Payable $ 177,260 $ 38,171 Commercial Lines of Credit & Other Debt - - Deferred Income Tax Liability 393,564 821,473 Other Accrued Liabilities 909,111 538,637 Total Current Liabilities 1,479,935 1,398,281 Non-Current Liabilities Long Term Debt 18,507,338 17,700,000 Deferred Income Tax Liability 203,981 284,502 Total Non-Current Liabilities 18,711,319 17,984,502 Total Liabilities 20,191,254 19,382,783 Capital Common Stock Issued 85,111 85,021 Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income 1,195,830 1,426,769 Retained Earnings 18,929,846 18,601,635 Total Capital 20,210,787 20,113,425 TOTAL LIABILITIES & CAPITAL 40,402,041 39,496,208

KEWEENAW LAND ASSOCIATION, LIMITED EBITDA Consolidated Statement of Income and Expense (Unaudited) September 30, 2018 3rd Quarter Year to Date 2018 2017 2018 2017 INCOME Timber Operations Timber Sales $ 4,587,232 $ 3,496,250 $ 10,645,574 $ 8,112,877 Cost of Sales 3,149,315 2,416,492 7,395,036 5,746,286 Gross Margin on Timber Sales 1,437,917 1,079,758 3,250,538 2,366,591 Forestry, Management & General Admin 865,134 527,798 2,052,295 1,484,252 Timber Operations Income (EBITDA) 572,783 551,960 1,198,243 882,339 Real Estate Development Developed Lot Sales 35,000 - 61,000 - Development Costs 34,371 - 59,562 - Gross Margin on Developed Lot Sales 629 - 1,438 - Total Operations Income 573,412 551,960 1,199,681 882,339 Other Income Mineral Royalties 10,407 5,381 15,155 10,002 Lease and Rental Income 61,095 91,027 187,085 136,404 Investment Earnings 13,095 11,344 59,153 76,128 Profit (Loss) on Security Sales - - - - Land Sales 1,053,859 - 1,064,932 112,153 Other 27,073 56,585 120,634 146,341 Total Other Income 1,165,529 164,337 1,446,959 481,028 Other Land And Board Expense 144,704 286,506 938,015 873,601 EBITDA 1,594,237 429,791 1,708,625 489,766 Depletion, Depreciation, and Amortization 182,958 192,920 479,624 428,100 EBIT 1,411,279 236,871 1,229,001 61,666 Interest Expense 178,592 125,789 495,552 318,266 Change of Control Agreements (2,502 ) - 1,280,791 - Earnings Before Income Taxes 1,235,189 111,082 (547,342 ) (256,600 ) Provision for State and Federal Income Taxes 17,058 31,389 (187 ) 102,204 Net Income (Loss) 1,218,131 79,693 (547,155 ) (358,804 ) Other Comprehensive Income, Net of Tax Unrealized Gains (Losses) on Securities Unrealized Holding Gains Arising During the Period 212,444 (14,508 ) 48,217 253,838 Less: Reclassification Adj. For Gains Included in Net Income - - - - Other Comprehensive Income 212,444 (14,508 ) 48,217 253,838 Comprehensive Income 1,430,575 65,185 (498,938 ) (104,966 ) Net Gain (Loss) Per Share: Basic $ 0.94 $ 0.06 ($ 0.42 ) ($ 0.28 ) Diluted $ 0.94 $ 0.06 ($ 0.42 ) ($ 0.28 ) Comprehensive Net Gain (Loss) Per Share: Basic $ 1.10 $ 0.05 ($ 0.38 ) ($ 0.08 ) Diluted $ 1.10 $ 0.05 ($ 0.38 ) ($ 0.08 ) Weighted Average Shares Outstanding: Basic 1,301,550 1,300,174 1,301,550 1,300,174 Diluted 1,302,125 1,300,174 1,302,125 1,300,174



______________________

*In the Q3 2018 period, Keweenaw incurred $0.3 million in Professional Service expenses, recorded a de minimis ($2,502) credit for change of control expenses and had no expense related to proxy expenses or the previous Chairmans fee. September 2018 Year to date, Keweenaw incurred $0.8 million in professional service expenses, $1.3 million in change of control expenses, and $0.4 million in proxy expenses and the previous chairmans fee. Proxy Expenses are included in Other Land and Board Expense, while the Chairmans fee, Professional Service Expenses and Change of Control Payments are included in Forestry, Management and General Administration.
A man was killed on the runway at Moscow's largest airport when he was hit by a plane that was taking off, Russian investigators said Wednesday. Russian news agencies quoted sources as saying the man was on a stopover in Moscow and had earlier picked a fight on board his flight from Spain. The 25-year-old somehow ended up on the runway where "a Boeing 737 plane inflicted deadly injuries on him during takeoff," the Russian Investigative Committee said on Twitter. The incident occurred in Sheremetyevo airport at around 8pm on Tuesday as the plane was taking off on a flight to Athens. The head of Russia's aviation watchdog Alexander Neradko told Russian agencies that the plane was operated by Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot. Investigators said in a video posted on Twitter that they found down from the man's coat and a shoelace among the fragments scattered on the runway. No official criminal probe has been launched yet. Sheremetyevo Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russian news agencies said the man had been escorted by police in Sheremetyevo to the boarding gate for his connecting flight, but then walked away instead of boarding a bus to the plane. Sources quoted by Russian agencies said the man had been due to fly on to Armenia. Interfax news agencies also quoted a source as saying that airport services and police inspected the plane when it landed in Athens and found "holes" in the fuselage. Aeroflot, which flies from Sheremetyevo, said on its website Wednesday that a number of flights have been rescheduled as one of the three runways was closed. A man on a stopover in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport ended up on the runway where a "plane inflicted deadly injuries on him during takeoff," Russian investigators said
A young Perth man has been told hell never walk again after a drifting crash overseas left him paralysed.

Danny Westwood has been left stranded in a Japanese hospital and cant come home until a $100,000 medical bill is paid.

His family and friends are now pleading for help so the self-proclaimed thrill-seeker can travel back to Australia.

Danny Westwood has been told hell never walk again. Source: GoFundMe

Mr Westwood was in Japan pursuing one of his dangerous hobbies known as drifting, where drivers intentionally oversteer, causing their car to slide at speed.

He travelled to Japan to fulfil his dreams, famously portrayed in the Fast and the Furious franchise film Tokyo Drift.

However while driving, the 25-year-old lost control and crashed.

Mr Westwoods travel insurance didnt cover motorsport accidents. Source: 7News

Mr Westwood broke his neck and vertebrae and damaged his spinal cord.

He now has limited movement in his arms and no feeling from the ribcage down.

Its beginning to take a toll, not being able to communicate clearly with the doctors and not having a clear understanding is starting to wear on him, Mr Westwoods friend Georgia Cottnam said.

Mr Westwood has travel insurance, but it doesnt cover motorsport accidents.

Japanese doctors wont let him fly home to Perth until his rising medical bill is paid.

His friends and family are trying to raise funds to bring him home from hospital in Japan. Source: 7News

In WA, drifting is legal in formal competition. About 250 drivers compete and there are strict safety guidelines.

Cars must have a protective frame known as a roll cage, while helmets are essential. But overseas the rules are more lax.

Hell do everything in his power to walk again. Even if the doctors tell him he cant, hell be ready to try and prove them wrong, Ms Cottnam said.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by Ms Cottnam, who is looking to help cover his growing medical costs so he can come home.

He was living every young guys Tokyo Drift fantasy and it is a shame that an unforeseeable scenario has led to this accident, she wrote.
Japanese authorities Wednesday extended Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn's detention by 10 days, as it emerged the car giant itself could face charges over the alleged financial misconduct that laid low its once-loved leader. The arrest of the millionaire auto tycoon, who is credited with turning around the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Motors alliance, sent shockwaves through the global car sector, corporate Japan and beyond. On Wednesday, several media reported that the Tokyo district court had ordered the 64-year-old Brazil-born businessman held for a further 10 days. Prosecutors are stepping up their investigation over allegations that Ghosn under-reported his pay by about five billion yen ($44.5 million). Prosecutors had 48 hours after his arrest to either press formal charges, release him or request this 10-day custody extension to continue the probe. Ghosn is being held in a detention centre in northern Tokyo in conditions far removed from his flashy lifestyle. "In principle, he will be all alone in a cell," lawyer Ayano Kanezuka told AFP. "There is everything you need, heating, a bed but conditions are spartan," said Kanezuka's colleague Lionel Vincent. The crisis appeared to be going from bad to worse for Nissan, as the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that prosecutors believe the firm also had a case to answer. Both Nissan and the authorities declined to comment. - 'Too much authority' - Nissan's board will decide Thursday whether to remove him as chairman. That would be a staggering reversal of fortune for the once-revered manager, creator of the three-way alliance which together sells more cars worldwide than any other automaker. Ghosn's fate appears all but sealed after his hand-picked replacement as CEO, Hiroto Saikawa, launched an astonishing broadside at his mentor. He said "too much authority" had been placed in his hands and lamented the "dark side of the Ghosn era." Renault said it was sticking with the fallen manager as chief executive but named chief operating officer Thierry Bollore as deputy CEO. "This leadership guarantees the correct functioning of the Renault company," French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters on Wednesday. "The leadership of Renault is solid, but it is provisional," he added. He said he would meet his Japanese counterpart on Thursday to discuss "prolonging" the alliance. After an emergency board meeting earlier, Renault urged its sister company Nissan to share evidence against Ghosn from a months-long internal investigation. It said it was unable to comment on the charges without this information. Paris and Tokyo have been scrambling to contain the fall-out from the arrest. The scandal -- the latest in a string to affect Japan Inc. -- wiped millions off the stock value of all three companies. Nissan bounced back marginally on the Tokyo stocks exchange, after plunging following Ghosn's arrest. Ghosn appeared to have some support on the streets of Tokyo. "I think this is someone who was able to do what we Japanese, stuck in our ways, were not able to do," passer-by Yoshiaki Watanabe told AFP. - Merger plan report - Ghosn was once the darling of corporate and popular Japan -- even having a manga comic inspired by him. He has been the glue holding the auto tie-up together since 1999. He had a reputation as a workaholic and won the nickname "Le Cost Killer" in France for his slash-and-burn approach to corporate restructuring. Under his stewardship, Nissan and Renault became deeply entwined. Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan while in turn the Japanese firm has a 15-percent stake in Renault. Nissan has become the alliance's key player however, posting sales of 12 trillion yen ($106 billion) last year compared with Renault's 59 billion euros ($67 billion). According to the Financial Times, Ghosn was working on a merger of the two carmakers that Nissan opposed because it feared the Japanese company could be relegated to a secondary role. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, told AFP that Ghosn was "a victim of his own hubris and success." "He trampled on Japanese cultural norms with his flamboyant glory-hogging ways, and his massive compensation incited jealousies and invited retaliation," he told AFP. - 'Greedy' - Local media reported that Nissan's representative director Greg Kelly, who was arrested along with Ghosn, ordered other executives to "hide salaries." Some compensation due to other executives reportedly ended up going to Ghosn, although it is not clear how the scheme worked. Public broadcaster NHK reported that Nissan had paid "huge sums" to provide Ghosn with luxury homes in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam "without any legitimate business reason." Even when his reputation was sky-high, he attracted criticism for a flashy lifestyle at odds with traditional Japanese corporate culture and his salary -- an estimated 13 million euros in total last year. burs-ric/aph/rlp/jh Carlos Ghosn was probably the best-known foreign CEO in Japan The crisis at Nissan appeared to be deepening day by day Comparison of key statistics for Renault and Nissan (2017 figures) Ghosn in happier days
A number of P-platers are getting caught breaking road rules they probably didnt know existed.

While most are aware of speed restrictions and bans on consuming any alcohol before driving, some are unknowingly breaking the law when it comes to rules around mobile phones.

There can be confusion when it comes to certain mobile phone rules, as those on their full license can use their devices hands-free if the phone is secured in a mounted fixture or used through the cars Bluetooth.

But these same laws do not apply to P-platers in most parts of the country.

P-platers are not allowed to mount their devices to use GPS maps or use Bluetooth to talk on the phone hands-free, or listen to audio.

In all states except for WA and Tasmania, the law states P1 drivers must not use their mobile phones (hand-held or hands-free) for any function while driving.

The law also extends to P2 drivers except for in Queensland where they are allowed to use phones hands-free.

Many P-platers across the country are not allowed to use the GPS function on their mobile phones while driving. Source: Getty

Researcher Verity Truelove from Queensland University of Technologys Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety found many P-platers were actually not aware of the laws, despite them being in place for more than 10 years.

The P1 license phone-related restrictions were widely unknown and the least complied with, particularly regarding using the phone for Global Positioning Service applications and the use of Bluetooth to listen to music, Ms Truelove said in a statement.

The drivers I spoke to were also unaware of the penalties involved, with several stating they were now much more likely to comply given theyd been made aware of the laws and the severity of the punishments.

Some P-platers say they are not aware of some of the road rules around using mobile phones while driving. Source: AAP

Ms Trueloves research also found the P-platers who were aware of the restrictions on playing music on their phone through Bluetooth broke the law because they thought legislation had not caught up with technology, so dismissed the law as not valid.

The laws apply to NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia.

Story continues

But in WA and Tasmania the same mobile phone laws apply to all drivers, meaning P-platers can use GPS and Bluetooth as long as the device is secured in a mounting affixed to the vehicle.

In Queensland you can be fined almost $400 and three demerit points if a P1 driver breaks mobile phone laws.

There are different rules for those on their full license in some parts of Australia. Source: AAP

In NSW drivers will be fined $337 and penalised five demerit points, which would result in a P1 driver losing their license.

In Victoria a driver will lose four demerit points and fined $484 for breaking the law and in South Australia P1 drivers will be fined three demerit points and $334.

In the Northern Territory provisional drivers are fined $250 and three demerit points.

Those in Western Australia who drive while using a hand-held mobile phone cop three demerit points and a $400 fine.

Drivers who also use a hand-held phone while driving in Tasmania are slapped with three demerit points and a $326 fine.
Poland's parliament on Wednesday passed legislation reversing a disputed Supreme Court retirement law, bowing to a ruling from the EU's top court, which had raised fears of a threat to judicial independence. The governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party used its majority to push the changes through parliament at high-speed after proposing them just hours earlier. The motion passed with 215 in favour, 161 against and 24 abstentions in the 460-member lower house of parliament. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Poland in October to "immediately suspend" its decision to lower the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65. The disputed law had required more than a third of current Supreme Court judges to step down, including Poland's Supreme Court chief justice Malgorzata Gersdorf. Presidential aide Andrzej Dera told Polish media on Wednesday that the unusually quick passage of the legislation was the result an "agreement by the government with the ECJ in order for Poland to avoid paying penalties." The Luxembourg tribunal, could impose fines if it finds Poland in breach of EU law. It is yet to make a final ruling on the case. Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government had previously defended the controversial April 3 retirement law as part of reforms to tackle corruption and overhaul a judicial system still haunted by the communist era. But PiS MP Marek Ast, who submitted the draft legislation to parliament on Wednesday morning, said it reverses the retirement law, in compliance with the ECJ ruling. - 'Systemic threats' - "In accordance with the expectations of the ECJ... if the law comes into force, the affected judges will be able to return to the Supreme Court on the same terms (of employment), as if they had never left," Ast told Polish media. To take effect, it must also pass in the Senate and be signed by PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda. However, the need for parliament to change the legislation has been called into question. Legal experts believe the ECJ ruling itself is enough to reverse the retirement law. Supreme Court Chief justice Gersdorf asked 23 of the court's judges to return to work just days after the ECJ ruling. Calling the law a "purge", Gersdorf had refused to step down, citing a constitutional guarantee that she serve a six-year term until 2020. The ECJ's ruling on the Supreme Court retirement law took place within the context of a broader battle between Brussels and the PiS government over the sweeping judicial changes it has introduced since taking office in 2015. The changes have also led the EU to trigger unprecedented proceedings against Poland over "systemic threats" to the rule of law that could see the country's EU voting rights suspended. Filer of July 3 demonstration at the Supreme Court in Warsaw in support of judges Poland's right-wing government tried to retire early
On a frigid night, the roar of heavy machinery chipping away at rock echoes through Canada's boreal forest: in the far north of Quebec province, four massive hydroelectric dams that will produce "clean energy" for the northeastern United States are nearing completion. Flowing more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) through the wilderness, the Romaine River in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec is about to hit a literal wall at 51 degrees north latitude with the erection of the fourth and last power station. Once completed, the construction project -- which started in 2009 -- will see the cold, clear waters of one of Canada's longest untamed rivers flood surrounding lands claimed by indigenous tribes. From a distance, the bright lights at the site where more than 800 heavy dump trucks, drills and giant backhoe loaders are in use look like reflections of stars in the night sky. The teams from Hydro-Quebec are working on two fronts. They are razing a mountain to make room for the power station. They are also erecting a dike 500 meters (1,640 feet) long and 90 meters high that will hold back the water to be used to generate electricity. Quebec has a power surplus, so the government is hoping to sell the power produced here to its American neighbors to the south -- and in turn do its bit to help alleviate global warming. - Dangers of dam building - The construction site extends over several kilometers: there is a full cement factory, an infirmary for workers, offices, a quarry and a dynamite depot. "This is a major project -- there are many different stakeholders, many simultaneous activities, and many dangers to manage daily," including inquisitive wolves and bears, says Christian Guimond, who is in charge of the dam's construction. Already four workers have died, which forced the public utility Hydro-Quebec to suspend construction in 2017 while it reviewed its workplace safety practices. There's now a greater awareness of the risks for workers, said Guimond. From atop a nearby mountain peak, he points to a kilometer-long tunnel and a ditch built to divert the raging river in order to start construction of the dam itself on the dry riverbed. The dam is to be completed in 2019. Costing more than Can$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), it is among the top 10 largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Canada, ranking behind two nuclear plant refurbishments, three other hydroelectric projects and a new Toronto subway line. For residents of the region, the hydroelectric project has been a mixed blessing, creating jobs in a remote and economically-depressed region but flooding the local indigenous people's traditional hunting grounds. "I didn't want it at first, but I needed work... when I got my first paycheck, I changed my mind about it," said Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman and member of the Innus of Mingan. His father, who is also chief of the small tribe that lives on a reserve on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, is a fierce opponent of the project. The chief has the backing of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which have decried huge hydroelectric dams as "ecologically devastating." "It pains me, makes me sad what we're doing to nature," said Patricia Bacon, a 24-year-old Innu who came here to work at the cafeteria in order to pay for her university studies. "But times have changed -- every house must have electricity now." - Export to US - Once fully operational in 2021, the four power plants on the river will cumulatively generate 1,550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city or an estimated 1.5 million homes. Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs. The new Quebec provincial government of Francois Legault, with the backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has pledged to build even more dams once the Romaine project is completed. The aim is to export as much power as possible to the United States, saying it would be "the biggest contribution that Quebec could make to the planet." Other provinces also have big hydroelectric projects on the go, such as Newfoundland's Muskrat Falls, Manitoba's Keeyask and British Columbia's Site C. Neighboring Ontario, meanwhile, is spending Can$25 billion to refurbish two aging nuclear power plants. Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC university in Montreal, expressed doubt after visiting the Romaine project about the need for more power plants, pointing to Quebec's current surplus energy. "In the northeastern United States, there is a great desire to decarbonize electricity production in New England or New York state, so there is a real opportunity for Quebec," he told AFP. "La Romaine could provide this renewable energy." However, more transmission lines connecting the power stations to US buyers still need to be approved and built. A view of Hydro-Quebec's Romaine 1 dam floor in Canada -- the huge construction project, ongoing for a decade, is nearing completion Hydro-Quebec plans to sell the clean energy generated by the Romaine project -- the Romaine 4 dam is seen here -- to customers in the northeastern United States Two construction workers get ready to go up in a lift at the massive Hydro-Quebec construction site, which stretches over several kilometers Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman at the dam construction site, is also a member of a local indigenous tribe -- he says he was against the project at first, because it will flood traditional hunting grounds, but he is now on board Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs -- the four new plants will generate enough electricity to power a city, or 1.5 million homes A Hydro-Quebec employee looks out over the spillway for the Romaine 3 hydroelectric dam in Quebec -- the hope is to attract more and more US customers with the prospect of clean energy
Fenyang City, China, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oranco, Inc. ("Oranco" or the "Company") (OTC: ORNC), a premium alcohol wholesaler in China, announced today its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended September 30, 2018.



Mr. Peng Yang, President of Oranco, Inc., commented, "We are pleased to announce our financial results for the first quarter of 2018. We have achieved an increase in sales volume of our Chinese liquor products and our high-margin imported wine products. We have also achieved an increase in our revenues, net income, and gross margin."

We will continue developing creative alcoholic concepts and packaging in the coming quarters. We also expect to increase our marketing efforts and adopt technological innovations to better guarantee the authenticity of our premium products. We believe that our capability in product distribution, our product quality, and our marketing efforts will drive further growth as we continue providing uniquely designed liquor products tailored for a variety of demographic and cultural groups in China.

First Quarter 2018 Financial Highlights

For the Three Months Ended September 30, (RMB millions, except per share data) 2018 2017 % Change Revenues 23.96 21.71 10.4% Fenjiu liquor products 21.37 19.23 11.2% Imported wine products 2.59 2.48 4.4% Gross profit 17.89 15.69 14.1% Gross margin 74.7% 72.3% 2.4 pp* Income from operations 14.04 12.95 8.4% Net income 9.89 9.35 5.8% Earnings per share 0.02 2.13 -99.1%

*Notes: pp represents percentage points

Revenue increased by 10.4% to RMB23.96 million from RMB21.71 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Gross profit increased by 14.1% to RMB17.89 million from RMB15.69 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Gross margin increased by 2.4 percentage points to 74.7% from 72.3% for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Net income increased by 5.8% to RMB9.89 million, or RMB0.02 per basic and diluted share from RMB9.35 million, or RMB2.13 per basic and diluted share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

First Quarter of Fiscal 2018 Financial Results

Revenue

Revenue for the three months ended September 30, 2018 increased by RMB2.26 million, or 10.4%, to RMB23.96 million from RMB21.71 million for the same period of last year. The increase in revenue was due to the increase in sales of both Fenjiu liquor products and imported wine products.

For the Three Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 (RMB millions) Revenue Cost of Sales Gross Margin Revenue Cost of Sales Gross Margin Fenjiu liquor products 21.37 5.36 74.9% 19.23 5.29 72.5% Imported wine products 2.59 0.71 72.5% 2.48 0.72 70.8% Total 23.96 6.07 74.7% 21.71 6.02 72.3%

Revenue from the Fenjiu liquor wholesale business increased by RMB2.15 million, or 11.2%, to RMB21.37 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB19.23 million for the same period of last year. The increase was mainly due to the increased sales volume of our Fenjiu liquor products.



Revenue from the imported wine wholesale business increased by RMB0.11 million, or 4.4%, to RMB2.59 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB2.48 million for the same period of last year. The increase results from the Company adopting a new strategy to sell products with higher profit margins and to increase the selling price of such products.

Gross profit and gross margin

Total cost of sales increased by RMB0.05 million, or 0.9%, to RMB6.07 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB6.02 million for the same period of last year. Gross profit increased by RMB2.21 million, or 14.1%, to RMB17.89 million for three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB15.69 million for the same period of last year. Overall gross margin increased by 2.4 percentage points to 74.7% for the three months ended September 30, 2018, compared to 72.3% for the same period of last year.

Gross margins for the Fenjiu liquor wholesale business and imported wine wholesale business were 74.9% and 72.5%, respectively, for the three months ended September 30, 2018. This compared to gross margins for the Fenjiu liquor wholesale business and imported wine wholesale business were 72.5% and 70.8%, respectively, for the same period of last year.

Income from Operations

Selling and distribution expenses decreased by RMB0.23 million, or 19.0%, to RMB0.98 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB1.21 million for the same period of last year. The decrease in selling and distribution expenses was primarily due to the decreased packaging expenses during the three months ended September 30, 2018, as compared to the same period of 2017.

Administrative expenses increased by RMB1.35 million, or 88.0%, to RMB2.88 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB1.53 million for the same period of last year. The increase in administrative expenses was primarily due to salaries, foreign exchange loss and professional fees.

Income from operations increased by RMB1.09 million, or 8.4%, to RMB14.04 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB12.95 million for the same period of last year.

Net income

Net income increased by RMB0.54 million, or 5.8%, to RMB9.89 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 from RMB9.35 million for the same period of last year. After deduction of non-controlling interest, net income attributable to shareholders for the three months ended September 30, 2018 was RMB9.89 million, or RMB0.02 per basic and diluted share. This compared to net income attributable to shareholders of RMB9.09 million, RMB2.13 per basic and diluted share, for the same period of last year.

Financial Condition

As of September 30, 2018, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of RMB55.70 million, compared to RMB26.50 million as of June 30, 2018. Cash provided by operating activities was RMB27.84 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018, compared to RMB17.43 million for the same period of last year. Cash used in investing activities was RMB0.05 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018, compared to RMB0.17 million for the same period of last year. Cash provided by financing activities was RMB1.40 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018, compared to RMB6.00 million for the same period of last year.

About Oranco, Inc.

Headquartered in Fenyang City, China, Oranco, Inc. (OTC: ORNC), is engaged in alcohol wholesale business in China. We currently focus our business on the sale of Chinese Fenjiu liquor and imported wines. Our goal is to promote premium alcoholic beverages to Chinas population. We aim to achieve this goal by catering to the ever-evolving tastes in alcohols through our creative marketing strategies and innovative product designs that target different age groups of Chinas population. Oranco, Inc. has developed various innovative products, such as its Fenjiu Group72 Bian, which brings modern visuals, ancient stories and new interpretations of Chinese culture to traditional Fenjiu liquor. We are constantly renovating the traditional Chinese culture to attract various age and cultural groups in China.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains information about the Companys view of its future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from historical results or those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with its ability to raise additional funding, its ability to maintain and grow its business, variability of operating results, its ability to maintain and enhance its brand, its development and introduction of new products and services, the successful integration of acquired companies, technologies and assets into its portfolio of products and services, marketing and other business development initiatives, competition in the industry, general government regulation, economic conditions, dependence on key personnel, the ability to attract, hire and retain personnel who possess the technical skills and experience necessary to meet the requirements of its clients, and its ability to protect its intellectual property. The Company encourages you to review other factors that may affect its future results in the Companys registration statement and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact Information

For investor and media inquiries please contact:
Pedro Sanchez on Thursday kicks off the first official visit by a Spanish leader to Cuba in 32 years, as Havana seeks closer ties with the European Union faced with a hardline United States. Sanchez's Socialist government said his two-day trip will end the "anomaly" that no Spanish leader has paid an official visit to the communist island since 1986, despite Spain being Cuba's second biggest trading partner after Venezuela. Other world leaders have visited Cuba in recent years, including US president Barack Obama's historic 2016 trip as he sought to thaw relations with Havana. But relations between the two countries have declined under President Donald Trump. The US has maintained its decades-long economic blockade of Cuba, citing repression of political opponents and curbs on freedom of expression. It has also accused Cuba of being behind mysterious sonic "attacks" on US diplomats in the country who have suffered symptoms consistent with mild brain trauma -- including, in some cases, disorientation and hearing loss. Cuba has rejected those accusations. As relations with Washington have soured, Havana has sought new allies in the EU. Sanchez's visit comes just days after EU and Cuban officials met as part of a landmark cooperation deal that took effect in November 2017. Sanchez is due to meet with Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel but is not expected to hold talks with Raul Castro, who stepped down as president in April but still leads the ruling Communist Party. Sanchez will host a breakfast gathering with Spanish business leaders and a forum for which some 200 companies from both countries have registered, including telecoms giant Telefonica or the airline Iberia. Spain is the main foreign investor in several sectors of the Cuban economy, including tourism and financial services. It hopes to increase its presence in tourism, renewable energy and infrastructure as the island opens up, the Spanish government said. Cuba is also keen for foreign investment as its economy suffers from a crisis in Venezuela, its biggest trading partner and oil provider. Sanchez will also broach the thorny issue of recent unpaid debt from Cuba to Spain, which is blocking loan concessions. He is not expected to meet with dissidents, according to the Spanish government, but will hold talks with members of Cuba's civil society, including Cuban writer Leonardo Padura and designer Idania del Rio. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will visit Cuba, which is seeking new new allies in the EU as relations with the US sour
Nearly eight years into the Syrian war, Selim still refuses to perform his military service, just like many fellow Druze from Sweida province rejecting the regime's conscription call. "I don't want to get involved in the Syrian bloodbath," said the 27-year-old, who gave a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. The Sweida region south of Damascus is the Syrian heartland of the country's Druze minority which follows a secretive offshoot of Islam. After the anti-government protests that sparked Syria's war in 2011, the Druze obtained a de facto exemption from military service in exchange for their tacit support of the regime. Last week however, President Bashar al-Assad urged the minority, which accounted for around three percent of Syria's pre-war population, to send its young men to the army. After rotating out some very long-serving conscripts, the regime is looking for fresh blood to beef up its ranks and exercise real control over the swathes of land it reconquered from insurgents and jihadists. Assad's appeal came after the government helped release, earlier this month, a large group of Druze civilians who had been taken hostage by the Islamic State group in Sweida. His call appeared to terminate a deal whereby the Druze were allowed to organise their own militia rather than serve in the army, but its implementation could prove tricky. - 'Daesh or the army' - "I don't want to have to kill the people of Hama, the people of Homs or any other province, for the sake of keeping one man in power," Selim told AFP by phone from Sweida. "The army is your grave," said the young man, explaining that the lack of a time limit on conscription during war means recruits will not be able to know when they can return home. To be on the safe side, Selim never leaves Sweida, a province in southern Syria that borders Jordan and where the Syrian security services have a limited presence. Young Druze men have in recent years enlisted in local militia to protect their region from jihadists and the regime's interests. In July, Selim was among hundreds of other residents who took up arms to pin back IS after a series of attacks that left at least 260 people dead. During the assault, the deadliest to have hit the Druze community since the start of the war, the jihadists kidnapped about 30 people, mainly women and children. The last of the surviving hostages were released on November 8, leading to Assad's demand that the Druze contribute to the national war effort. "The regime is trying to tell us: it's Daesh or the military service," said Selim, using a acronym for the Islamic State group. Khattar Abu Diab, a Paris-based professor of political science and a specialist in Druze affairs, said Assad was attempting to intimidate the minority. "He wants to use the residents of Sweida as cannon fodder for future battles," he said. - Punishment - Sweida was mostly spared by the deadly Syrian conflict and only faced sporadic jihadist attacks they managed to repel. Residents on several occasions in 2014 besieged detention centres to obtain the release of men who had been rounded up to join the army. At the time the central government was at its weakest, stretched very thin on many fronts and had humoured the Druze not to risk opening up another. That level of autonomy now comes at a cost for Sweida, where security is all but guaranteed by the presence of the Syrian police. Some residents see a deliberate government effort to maintain a level of chaos in the province. "The regime uses other means to punish Sweida: the Islamic State instead of barrel bombs, crime and disorder instead of arrests," activist Hamam al-Khatib said. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, around 30,000 Druze men are liable for military service. The group's head, Rami Abdel Rahman, alleged that the government told Druze leaders it would remove the IS threat if they promise to support the conscription drive. IS fighters who had been holding out in the volcanic area of Tulul al-Safa, between Damascus and Sweida, finally retreated last week after heavy regime bombardment and a government-negotiated deal. Regardless of the agreements being cut in Damascus and by their leaders, Druze youngsters willing to serve in the national army are hard to come by. "The war just keeps going on... we are not killing machines," said Uday al-Khatib, a 25-year-old Sweida resident. "Yes, the Sweida youth don't do military service, I'm one of them, but we are the ones who pushed back IS and the army didn't help us," he told AFP in a phone interview. A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 13, 2018, shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad receiving a group of former Druze hostages and their families in the capital Damascus A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on October 20, 2018 shows a Druze woman and four children who had been held hostage by the Islamic State group after their release Druze in the Israelio-annexed part of the Golan Heights hold the Syrian flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad (C) and late Arab Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash (R) during a rally in the village of Majdal Shams on February 14, 2018
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday gave US officials a list of 84 members of Fethullah Gulen's movement -- including the cleric himself -- whose extradition Ankara is requesting. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Gulen -- whom he once regarded as an ally -- for the July 15, 2016 failed coup plot against him, but calls for his extradition have so far been unsuccessful. Turkey's chief diplomat said he did not receive any "assurances" after meeting with his American counterpart Mike Pompeo and national security advisor John Bolton during a visit to Washington. "But we have given this list of the people that we request the US to extradite," Cavusoglu said. President Donald Trump "asked Erdogan to send that list and I gave that list to both Pompeo and ambassador Bolton," he said. Trump said Saturday that he had no plans to extradite Gulen, who strongly denies any involvement in the coup attempt. "It's not under consideration," Trump told reporters, while also saying that Erdogan is "a friend of mine. He's a strong man, a tough man and a smart man, so whatever we can do, we'll do... but at this point? No." US-Turkish relations have recently been strained, but they warmed up after Ankara's release in October of American pastor Andrew Brunson. The fate of Gulen remains a central point of tension between the countries. NBC News has reported that the White House was seeking ways to extradite Gulen in a bid to reduce Turkish pressure on Saudi Arabia over the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul. Following his disappearance on October 2, Turkish officials kept up a steady stream of leaks on the gory details of Khashoggi's killing, even as Saudi Arabia denied involvement. The kingdom eventually branded the murder a "rogue" operation. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left shakes hands with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Washington
A United Arab Emirates court sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on spying charges on Wednesday, prompting a "shocked" Britain to warn of repercussions for relations with its longstanding Gulf ally. Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student, had protested his innocence ever since his arrest at Dubai airport on May 5 and British ministers had raised his case at the highest level. "We can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison," a family spokesperson told AFP. "The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present." UAE attorney general Hamad al-Shamsi said Wednesday that Hedges was handed a life sentence after "the defendant admitted before the court to the charges brought against him by the public prosecution", according to a statement carried by the official news agency WAM. He added that the ruling "was not final" as Hedges has the right to appeal against the verdict before the Federal Supreme Court. Hedges was researching the UAE's foreign and internal security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, studies that Britain insisted were entirely innocuous but which the UAE said threatened its political and economic security. British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "deeply disappointed and concerned" at the verdict. "We will continue to press this matter at the highest level with the Emiratis," she told parliament. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was "deeply shocked" by the UAE court's decision and warned of repercussions. "Today's verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances," he said. "The handling of this case... will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust. "I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider," he added. Hunt said he had personally raised the case at the highest levels of the UAE government, including during a visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12. The case comes with relations already tested by the UAE's heavy involvement alongside Saudi Arabia in a military coalition battling Yemeni rebels since March 2015. The deployment of Emirati ground troops, trainers and advisers alongside government forces advancing on the lifeline rebel-held port of Hodeida has prompted calls for Britain to halt or place conditions on its huge arms sales to the UAE. - 'Nightmare even worse' - Hedges's temporary release on bail on October 29 had raised a glimmer of hope in his case but he was constantly monitored until Wednesday's court hearing, only his third since his arrest. Hedges's wife Daniela Tejada, who had campaigned vigorously for his release, said the court ruling showed that the UAE was not a genuine ally. "The overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matt's case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price." Tejada was in court for the sentencing and said her husband "was shaking when he heard the verdict". "The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice. I am very scared for Matt. I don't know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse." She had previously expressed concern for his safety, saying he was being held in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location with limited access to the British consulate and his family. - 'Take a stand' - Tejada was deeply critical of the British government over the failure of its discreet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy in the case. "Matthew is innocent. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them. This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthew's case seriously," she said. "The British government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens." Durham University in northern England, where Hedges was studying for his PhD, said it was "devastated" to learn of his sentence. Vice-Chancellor Stuart Corbridge said the judgement had been "delivered in the absence of anything resembling due process or a fair trial". "There has been no information given on what basis Matt was handed this sentence and no reason to believe that Matt was conducting anything other than legitimate academic research," Corbridge said in a statement. The UAE's attorney general said earlier this month that Hedges was accused of "spying for a foreign country, jeopardising the military, political and economic security of the state". A United Arab Emirates court has sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on spying charges despite the efforts of his wife Daniela Tejada to prove his innocence Britain has warned of "repercussions for the relationship" with its longstanding Gulf ally the United Arab Emirates after an Emirati court sentenced a British academic to life imprisonment despite its appeals for clemency The role of UAE troops training, advising and fighting alongside Yemeni government forces in the country's devastating civil war has already placed Britain's longstanding defence ties under pressure
A former official in Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's government has pleaded guilty in a billion-dollar money laundering case, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, who was president of the Venezuelan National Treasury Office (ONT) between 2007 and 2010 and also headed the National Economic Development Bank of Venezuela, pleaded guilty in federal court in Florida to conspiracy to launder money. The 54-year-old Venezuelan citizen residing in Wellington, Florida, admitted his guilt on December 22, 2017 and his sentencing is scheduled for November 27, the Justice Department said. Also Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that another Venezuelan citizen, Gabriel Jimenez Aray, the 50-year-old former owner of the dissolved Banco Peravia of the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty of conspiracy to launder money on March 20. Andrade and Jimenez's guilty pleas are part of a corruption scheme that also includes the Venezuelan billionaire owner of the private Globovision television station, Raul Gorrin Belisario, according to the department. Gorrin, 50, lives in Miami and was charged on August 16, 2017 in the Southern District of Florida with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), as well as with money laundering. According to the indictment, Gorrin paid millions of dollars in bribes to two high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Andrade, to secure the right to conduct foreign exchange transactions at rates favorable to the Venezuelan government. The Justice Department did not identify the other official who allegedly received bribes from Gorrin. US authorities did say that to conceal illicit payments, Gorrin made deposits through several front companies. Investigators said the Globovision mogul teamed up with Jimenez to acquire Banco Peravia to launder bribes paid to Venezuelan officials. The United States has very tense ties with Venezuela, where Chavez's successor Nicolas Maduro presides over an imploding state-led economy. Shortages of food and medicine combined with violent crime have fed mass emigration. Crisis-torn Venezuela's socialist government has cracked down heavily on perceived breaches of strict currency exchange regulations, in place since 2003. Maduro says his country is the victim of an "economic war" waged by opposition and the United States. Venezuelan migrants seek shelter at a makeshift camp in Bogota, Colombia
Minutes after he took a seat among hundreds of religious scholars at a ceremony for the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Kabul, a huge explosion shook the room, throwing Ahmad Fareed to the floor. Scattered around him were the bloodied bodies of turbaned men who had taken the full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life. "It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh," Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries. "My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving." At least 55 people were killed and 94 wounded when the bomber blew himself up in the middle of the banquet hall at the Uranus Wedding Palace on Tuesday evening -- one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year. A video posted on social media purportedly filmed by one of the hundreds of attendees showed a large gathering of men listening to a recitation of the Koran before an explosion triggered pandemonium. On Wednesday morning, as cleaners prepared the multi-storey venue for more events, bloodied turbans, sandals, overturned chairs and broken glass still littered the cavernous room where the massacre happened. The attack drew widespread condemnation in Afghanistan and abroad, with the United Nations describing it as an "atrocity". US ambassador to Kabul John Bass said he was "sickened and deeply saddened" by the bombing, while the European Union delegation to Afghanistan said the explosion was "an attack on all of us, religious or not, who value freedom". Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack, which he described as an "unforgivable crime". - Finger of blame - There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the Taliban were quick to condemn the blast. The Islamic State group, which has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul this year, has not issued a statement. Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's equivalent of prime minister, pointed the finger of blame at the Taliban. "Whether they deny it or they don't, they have created that sort of an environment, they are responsible for the violence," Abdullah told AFP in an interview in Paris. Security at the wedding hall had included a body search by an armed guard followed by physical checks by several religious students, said Obaidullah, a survivor who suffered multiple injuries to his face and body. It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar. While Muslims around the world celebrate the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, some fundamentalists criticise the events as heretical innovations in Islam. Most of the people at the gathering were Sufis, a mystical branch of Islam, said Mehrab Danish, an adviser to the religious affairs minister. "But it is too early to say they were targeted because they were followers of Sufism," he cautioned. Sectarian militants in Pakistan have long targeted Sufis, but such attacks on the group are rare in Afghanistan. The bombing of the religious gathering in Kabul was one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year The suicide bomber blew himself up among hundreds of people attending a ceremony to mark Prophet Mohammad's birthday It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar Afghanistan observed a national day of mourning for the victims on Wednesday


Sydney could find itself blanketed by a red haze later this week with the possibility of a dust storm sweeping across western NSW reaching the capital.

Forecasters are closely monitoring a system that has already brought dust storms to South Australia and western NSW. Eerie footage recorded at White Cliffs in far western NSW was posted on social media on Tuesday.

High winds could pick up masses of loose dust caused by drought conditions and send it towards more eastern parts of the state.

If it does happen it could have big impact, Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Anita Pyne told AAP.

Dust storms can affect transport and even stop planes from landing.

A dust storm in White Cliffs in outback NSW on Tuesday. Source: Bradley Atkins

In 2009, Sydney and Brisbane had red skylines caused by dust storms.

Residents on the Gold Coast told the Bulletin at the time that visibility had been reduced to 500 metres with work stopping on construction sites due to health concerns.

However, BOM forecaster Lachlan Stoney said theres a zero per cent chance of southeast Queensland being hit by another dust storm this time.

Thats based mostly on the dry soil and direction of the wind, Mr Stoney told Yahoo7.

There is some potential for it to push into southwest Queensland but that area has had recent rainfall leading to damp soil.

A dust storm battering South Australia earlier this week. Source: 7 News

However, parts of Queensland could be hit by damaging wind gusts and heavy rainfall through the central and south-eastern interior.

BOM also issued a strong wind warning for Wednesday and Thursday on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, areas of Melbourne have been battered by rain in the past 24 hours.

Areas around Olympic Park, Essendon and Footscray have received up to 24mm.

Carrum and Frankston North in the southeast received up to 32mm of rainfall.

South Australia is also set to be hit with damaging winds of up to 65km/h along with showers and thunderstorms in areas including Adelaide, Maitland and Port Lincoln.

It follows heavy winds battering parts of the state on Tuesday, with the SES responding to more than 80 calls.

Blankets of dust were captured on camera turning the sky red.
There are health fears in Sydney after a whooping cough cluster was uncovered at a school in the citys eastern suburbs.

Parents have been told to be alert but not alarmed after a number of students at Bronte Public School fell ill with whooping cough.

At least three children have been diagnosed with the potentially deadly illness in an area where vaccination rates are considered to be dangerously low.

It is important to vaccinate and keep the diseases under control. It is worrying that more and more people dont think that its harmful or even death for children, concerned mother Kat Nunnerley told 7 News.

At least three students at Bronte Public School fell ill with whooping cough. Image 7 News

News Corp reports that while the principal did notify parents, she failed to inform health authorities.

Parents however, do not seem too concerned that this process reportedly slipped through the cracks. They are just happy that they knew about the outbreak.

Whooping cough starts out like a cold but turns into a seriously painful cough.

Commonly referred to as the 100-day cough, health experts say that this is a timely reminder to make sure vaccinations are up to date.
Cayuga Community College recently welcomed Daniel Charles as its new student trustee.

Charles, 24, a 2012 graduate of Auburn High School in his first semester at the college, was sworn into its board of trustees Nov. 15.

I thought I might be too busy at first to be the student trustee, between classes and my other commitments, but this was a great opportunity, he said in a news release. I want to make the most of the Cayuga experience, and the real-world experience that being a part of the college board of trustees provides was too good to turn down.

Charles is pursuing an Associate of Science degree in liberal arts and sciences: math and science. He enrolled at the college after working at several restaurants in the Auburn area. He plans on transferring after earning his degree, and hopes to work in the fields of pharmaceutical development or pathology.

Daniels passion for Cayuga Community College and his respect for his fellow students make him an excellent addition to our college board of trustees, college President Dr. Brian Durant said in the release. Daniel has already shown his eagerness to help other students through his work as a tutor, and on our board of trustees he can continue those efforts. Were excited to work with him and are proud to have him represent our students.

For more information, visit cayuga-cc.edu.

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OTTAWA, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) applauds the Government of Canada for taking steps to enhance the competitiveness of Canadas mineral sector, as announced in todays Fall Economic Statement (FES).



To support mineral exploration in Canada, government will renew the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (METC) for five years until 2024. This is the first multi-year renewal of the METC since its inception in 2000, something PDAC has long championed and advocated for.

Todays commitment by the government is a monumental sign of support for the growth of, and investment in, Canadas mineral exploration sector, says Glenn Mullan, PDAC President. The METC is a critical component of our industry that helps to catalyze investment in mineral exploration projects that lead to the discoveries that could become the mines of the future.

Canadas mineral sector faces strong global competition for investment, and obtaining financing for exploration activities, largely undertaken by junior companies, has become increasingly challenging. The flow-through share regime, enhanced by the METC, has played an essential role in attracting investment for small to medium sized, non-revenue generating exploration companies operating in Canada. It is an effective incentive that has stimulated investment in mineral exploration over the past 18 years.

We are pleased that the government has heard our concerns about Canadas waning competitiveness and adopted our recommendation, says Lisa McDonald, PDAC Executive Director (Interim) & COO. Renewal of the METC for five years will help to provide greater certainty and boost confidence for investors, and signals governments appreciation of the importance of our junior exploration sector.

Todays METC announcement will provide stability for exploration companies, increasing the opportunity for multi-year exploration program flow-through funding and allowing for longer-term planning. This is vital for exploration programs as mineral deposits are carried out in stages over an extended period of time. Exploration companies and investors depend on some level of certainty to finance not only the current year of their exploration programs, but also any subsequent exploration necessary to fully scope the mineral potential of a particular property.

Canadas mineral exploration and mining industry generates significant economic and social benefits in remote communities, Indigenous communities, and cities across Canadaemploying 634,000 workers and contributing $96.5 billion annually to Canadas GDP (both directly and indirectly). Governments support for the sector is critical in driving new discoveries that will lead to new mines, and helping to advance Canadas mineral industry competitiveness well into the future.

About PDAC

The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) is the leading voice of the mineral exploration and development community. With 8,000 members around the world, PDACs mission is to promote a globally-responsible, vibrant and sustainable mineral sector that encourages best practices in technical, operational, environmental, safety and social performance. PDAC is known worldwide for the annual PDAC Conventionthe premier international event for the industrythat has attracted over 25,000 people from 135 countries in recent years and will next be held March 3-6, 2019 in Toronto. Please visit www.pdac.ca.
Is Black Friday dead?

I've been asked that question every November since stores started Thanksgiving Day openings in 2012.

The answer: Not by a long shot.

On Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, 164 million shoppers will hunt for bargains, according to this year's National Retail Federation holiday survey. Of those, only 21 percent plan to shop on Thanksgiving. Black Friday is king, with 71 percent, or 116 million, heading into stores.

Several big box retailers will again open on Thanksgiving. JC Penney opens at 2 p.m., Brandsmart at 4 p.m., Best Buy, Macy's, Kohl's and Target open at 5 p.m., and Walmart starts deals at 6 p.m. Many will offer the same doorbuster deals online.

Most retailers buck the early-opening trend. Lowe's Home Improvement, Nordstrom, The Home Depot, Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Home Goods, Publix, Office Depot and IKEA stay closed on Thanksgiving, instead offering deals online and opening stores early on Black Friday. Tradition lives.

This year's NRF survey of 7,313 adults shows sales will be stronger than last year, thanks to a booming economy. Consumers are projected to spend an average of $1,007 during the shopping season, up 4.1 percent from last year.

Consumers will equally split shopping online and in department stores, the survey found.

Savings will be bountiful for five days starting Thursday. My advice to bargain hunters: Don't stress about deals. Instead, use my tips and tricks to save more in stores and online, no matter what day you plan to shop.

SHOPPING IN STORES

Research. Buy the Thanksgiving Day newspaper. The biggest paper of the year is stuffed with ads and coupons that are an invaluable resource. Clip the best offers and keep them together.

Set a budget and stick to it. Draw up a list of what and for whom you need to buy and when and where and what day you'll shop. Resist budget-busting impulse purchases so you don't start the New Year in a hole.

Sign up and get social. Join reward clubs, download retailer apps and follow stores on social media to get early notifications of sales. For instance, Best Buy's Early Access sale starts on Nov. 18 for Elite Plus and Elite members and Nov. 19-20 for all My Best Buy members. It's free to sign up at BestBuy.com/rewards.

Use price matching. Many stores and online retailers have price-match policies, though they are not valid on upcoming limited-quantity doorbuster deals. Target and Best Buy, among others, price-match against each other and Amazon. BrandsMart U.S.A. offers a 110 percent low-price guarantee. Bring ads or online offers on your smartphone to the service desk. (Walmart no longer price-matches competitors, according to a new policy.) Check retailer websites for policies before you shop.

Save receipts. Keep sales slips in an envelope so you can easily find them if you have to return items. Also, ask for gift receipts and include them in packages in case items need to be exchanged or returned.

SHOPPING ONLINE

If you don't want to dine and dash for deals on Thanksgiving, bargain hunt from the couch in your jammies while the turkey cooks. Retailers who don't open stores on the holiday will offer online deals with sale times listed in their ads.

Know when to shop. Adobe analyzed a trillion online visits and 55 million products to make its 2018 holiday predictions on the best days to get the biggest discounts online. Thanksgiving is the day to buy sporting goods; Black Friday is the best day to purchase computers, tablets and televisions; No-name Sunday (Nov. 25) is the day to shop for clothes, appliances and jewelry; Cyber Monday is when to buy toys; Giving Tuesday will yield the best offers on furniture and bedding.

Amazon sales. The Seattle-based online retailer's Black Friday Deals Week runs Nov. 16- 23 at Amazon.com/BlackFriday. Get nice savings on toys, electronics and Amazon devices with free shipping. Then, expect more deals starting on Black Friday.

Free shipping. Paying for shipping is a deal-breaker for most consumers. A whopping 94 percent will take advantage of free shipping online, according to the NRF. This year, Target and Amazon are both offering free shipping with no minimum purchase. Free Shipping Day is Dec. 14, when more than 1,000 retailers offer the service with guaranteed delivery by Dec. 24. Sign up for an email reminder at FreeShippingDay.com. If you have to mail gifts, the U.S. Postal Service deadline for Christmas arrival for first-class mail is Dec. 20.

Install browser extensions. Automatically get coupon codes and ensure you're getting the best prices by using free plug-ins installed on internet browsers, which run in the background while you surf for deals. They're easy to install. Honey (JoinHoney.com) will find coupon codes automatically at checkout when you put items in your shopping cart. CouponFollow.com and PriceBlink.com are other good choices.

Use price trackers and price-adjustment apps. CamelCamelCamel.com magically finds you the lowest price on Amazon. Rakuten Slice (Slice.com) and Moolah (JoinMoolah.com) picks up tracking numbers in your emails whenever you buy something and gets you a refund if prices drop.

Get rewarded. Get free gift cards and cash back on purchases from ShopKick.com, Ebates.com, Ibotta.com and Swagbucks.com.

Track sales. Retailers are offering hot doorbuster deals at different times online and in stores. Use GottaDeal.com's Online Black Friday Deal Tracker to see start times of sales with links to ads. The list can be sorted by store. The site also has an online coupon section.

Abandon items in your cart. Add items to your shopping cart and leave them there without paying. Usually, retailers will start sending emails offering additional discounts or free shipping to close the deal. Another trick: Change the ZIP code (Google to find them) when searching retail sites to see if you're getting the lowest price. Many retailers set online prices based on region.

Cyber Monday. Cash in on the bargain bonanza on Nov. 26, which is projected to be biggest online shopping day ever. Did you know the NRF coined the term Cyber Monday? It also operates CyberMonday.com, with 900 participating retailers offering deals and free shipping. Also, go to RetailMeNot.com for online promo codes for extra savings, free shipping or both.

Keep up with the latest deals: "Like" the Sentinel Deals page on Facebook or follow Doreen Christensen on Twitter @PrettyGoodIdeas. (c)2018 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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A week after he was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence at the Los Angeles apartment building where he resides, Michael Avenattiwho gained overnight fame earlier this year as the media-friendly lawyer for AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against Donald Trumpfaced detailed accusations against him in a court filing by actress Mareli Miniutti, the alleged victim in the incident, NBC News reported.

On Monday, Miniuttiwho is reportedly in her 20s and a native of the Estonia, a country in the Baltics regionfiled for a restraining order against Avenatti, and on Tuesday she was granted a temporary restraining order by an L.A. County Superior Court judge, according to the Hollywood business site The Wrap.

In a declaration in support of her request for the order, Miniuttiwho most recently appeared in a small, uncredited role in the Sandra Bullock-starring film Oceans Eightgave her description of the incident that she says took place on the evening of November 13.

According to the celebrity news site The Blast, Miniutti alleges that an angry Avenatti called her an ungrateful fucking bitch, and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her out of his apartment and into an outside corridor. She says that she was clad only in underwear and a T-shirt at the time and as a result suffered minor injuries, including scratches and red marks on her skin.

Miniuttis account, however, contradicted details in an initial report on Avenattis arrest by the gossip site TMZ, which claimed that the victims face was swollen and bruised from the incident.

Miniutti also alleged in the court filing that Avenatti struck her in the face with pillows, after moving very close to me in a threatening manner that made me feel afraid."

"Do not disrespect me. You don't get to sleep in my house tonight, Avenatti told her, according to Miniuttis allegations.

Avenatti on his Twitter account said Tuesday that security camera video from the building contradicts many of the details in the TMZ story, and said that he has requested the footage be made public.

I want the truth to be knownall of it, Avenatti wrote. The truth about the alleged incident on Tues night/Wed am, as well as the truth about TMZ's completely false reporting about last Wed afternoon. I want it ALL disclosed. ASAP.

While not specifically denying the details of Miniuttis allegations in her court filing, Avenatti asserted, I will be proven innocent. I have done nothing wrong, according to NBC News.

When the truth and the facts are fully disclosed, including the security camera footage, I will be vindicated and a lot of people and news organizations are going to owe me an apology as well as money. Completely bogus, he wrote on his Twitter feed.

Photo Luke Harold / Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
SAN FRANCISCO  Today, NakedSword Originals releases the second episode in its new series, Nob Hill, which debuted last week exclusively on NakedSword.com. The second episode, 'Great Holes of Glory,' was shot and directed by NakedSword's award-winning mr. Pam, starring Timarrie Baker, along with Max Adonis.



For the past 50 years, locals, and tourists have flocked to San Franciscos legendary Nob Hill Theatre to see, and touch, their favorite gay adult entertainers. Earlier this year, owners Larry and Gary decided it was time for a change of scenery. NakedSword Originals' love letter to the historic theatre, Nob Hill, follows the owners and the sex-hungry staff as they prepare for the theatres grand finale event: a live double-penetration three-way in front of a sold-out audience!



In episode two, horse hung businessman Timarrie Baker unexpectedly finds himself with some time to kill, so he visits The Nob Hill Theatre to do a little cruising. After a flirtatious exchange with Max Adonis at the counter, Timarrie heads downstairs for some head. Adam Killian lures him into the booth next to his and Timarrie instantly whips out his 11 monster. Before he can stick it through the hole Leo Forte catches his husband up to no good and orders Adam out of the booth. Max is so horny that he takes his break and ventures downstairs just in time to suck Timarries thick piece of meat that emerges from the glory hole. Max proves to be an expert sucker, swallowing the giant tool to the base and gagging as it grows to rock-hard perfection in his throat. Timarrie eventually strips out of his business suit and falls to his knees to suck Max through the hole. Finally, Timarrie and Max know they have to take it to the next level so they sneak into a private play space to get more intimate.

"The sex scene in this episode is so amazingly hot and explosive! Timarrie and Max are both super sexual, powerhouse performers. The setting of the infamous Nob Hill video arcade and glory hole added to the chemistry, as there's just something about the anonymous encounter that makes this scene extra hot," mr. Pam says. "The scenario played out in the scene was so authentic to the history of the theatre and reflected the types of encounters that have gone on for decades in that same space. This is one of the best scenes from the movie, and I'm honored to have shot and directed it!"
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RSI International Systems Inc. (TSX-V: RSY) (RSI or the Company) has provided the following commentary further to its third quarter 2018 condensed consolidated interim financial statements as released November 21, 2018.

RSI President and CEO, Tim Major, commented, For almost two years we have worked hard to make our Company more efficient in order to reduce our monthly cash burn. I am very pleased to announce that not only have we achieved Operating Free Cash Flow positive for two consecutive quarters, but we are also positive for the year up to the end of the third quarter.

Mr. Major added, While we are proud of this progress, we are very aware of the changing dynamics of the hotel property management system marketplace and for hospitality technology in general. With this in mind, we still believe the best way to serve our customers and best deliver value to our shareholders, is to complete the sale of our RoomKeyPMS business to NSight. We are working as fast as possible to bring this transaction to a conclusion and look forward to reporting to investors as we have further details.

On September 7, 2018, The Company announced that it had signed a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with NSight Inc (NSight) for the sale of RSIs RoomkeyPMS business and assets for gross proceeds of US $4.6 million in cash, before applicable adjustments. Under the terms of the LOI, nSight will pay RSI gross proceeds of US $4.6 million for the Companys current business and assets related to the development and operation of RSIs RoomKeyPMS. This figure will be adjusted to account for the timing of certain receivables, payables, deferred revenue, prepaid costs and other items that are assumed by NSight. RSI will also incur some costs related to the disposal of its RoomKey business for certain contractual obligations. The US-dollar figure will be converted to Canadian dollars by averaging the posted Bank of Canada closing US$/CDN$ exchange rate for the seven days preceding the LOI date of September 7, 2018, and the same exchange rate for the seven days preceding the closing of the transaction. Should the exchange rate move more than five percentage points in either direction, the disadvantaged party will have the option to terminate the transaction. RSI and nSight are working towards negotiating a Definitive Agreement, to replace the binding LOI. The transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including completion of satisfactory due diligence, the entering into of definitive documentation and the receipt of all necessary regulatory and third-party approvals and consents, including approval by RSI shareholders. For further details please see the news release dated September 7, 2018.

As illustrated in Table 1 below, the Company was Operating Free Cash Flow positive in Q3 2018 by $210,473, versus a deficit of (-$156,045) in Q3 2017, for an improvement of 235%. Over the first nine months of 2018, the Company has improved its Operating Free Cash Flow to positive $109,358 versus a deficit of (-$328,098) in the first nine months of 2017. This represents an improvement of 133%.

Table 1 (All figures C$ and taken from the Companys applicable period financial statements)

Q3 2016 Q4 2016 Q1 2017 Q2 2017 Q3 2017 Q4 2017 Q1 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2018 Cash Flow from Operations $ (91,055 ) $ (76,683 ) $ 48,554 $ 112,500 $ 10,717 $ (343,840 ) $ (97,194 ) $ 45,935 $ 210,473 Equipment & Technology Investment $ (203,508 ) $ (201,446 ) $ (158,283 ) $ (174,824 ) $ (166,762 ) $ (55,449 ) $ (27,854 ) $ (22,002 ) $ - OPERATING FREE CASH FLOW $ (294,563 ) $ (278,129 ) $ (109,729 ) $ (62,324 ) $ (156,045 ) $ (399,289 ) $ (125,048 ) $ 23,933 $ 210,473 Change in Working Capital $ 176,836 $ (49,375 ) $ 19,551 $ (30,255 ) $ (126,987 ) $ 400,404 $ (6,900 ) $ 21,129 $ (4,012 ) Net Free Cash Flow $ (117,727 ) $ (327,504 ) $ (90,178 ) $ (92,579 ) $ (283,032 ) $ 1,115 $ (131,948 ) $ 45,062 $ 206,461

The Company defines Operating Free Cash Flow as cash flows from business activities that are not related to working capital management and financing activities. It calculates the figure from the Statements of Cash Flows as the sum of Cash provided by / used in operating activities, minus bad debt expense, before changes in non-cash working capital items, and Cash Used in Investing Activities. Versus Basic or Net Free Cash Flow, Operating Free Cash Flow does not take into account changes to non-cash working capital items and financing activities as those activities can have significant timing components that are not directly related to the operating activities of the business during a particular period and therefore, have the potential to mask the true operational cash flow of the business.

For more information on these matters, please see the Companys Financial Statements and Management Discussion & Analysis, as released November 21, 2018. For more information on the Companys products and services, please visit www.roomkeypms.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.

About RSI

RSI International Systems Inc. is the developer of RoomKeyPMS, a web-based Property Management System (PMS) that incorporates a fully integrated Online Reservation Booking engine and seamless real-time connectivity to the major Global Distribution and Internet Distribution Systems. RSI markets its RoomKeyPMS and a number of other proprietary hosted software solutions to a wide variety of Hospitality Industry clients around the world. For more information, please see our website at www.roomkeypms.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not strictly historical fact are considered "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements cannot be guaranteed and involve assumptions and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to materially differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and not place undue reliance upon forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements made herein are made as of the date hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation and disclaims any intention to revise or update any forward-looking information and statements except as required by applicable laws.

For more information, please contact:
What are living conditions like for the Syrian community in Egypt, asks Doaa El-Bey

Generally speaking, Syrian people living in Egypt have one dream  to return to their country soon. But until then they are trying to live as part of this society, work for it, enjoy its privileges and accept its shortcomings. They live here as if it were their country, said Hoda, a Syrian housewife who has lived in Egypt for the last six years.

Thousands of Syrians are now living in Egypt, mostly in relatively new communities like 6 October city and Rehab, the Haram area, Nasr City and Obour. There are also small numbers in other governorates like Alexandria, Kafr Al-Sheikh, Mansoura, Suez, Port Said and Ismailia.

In areas heavily populated with Syrians, it has become a common sight to see Syrian shops selling famous Syrian delicacies and Syrian food. Perhaps one of the most famous is Halab (Aleppo) Street in 6 October city  a name it has acquired because of the Syrian shops on both sides of the street.

Numerous Syrian restaurants offering delicious Syrian food have also opened in other places in Egypt. In the past, when I fancied a Syrian shawerma or a falafel sandwich, I had to travel. Now, my fancies are easier to find, said Marwa, an Egyptian who is a big fan of Syrian food.

Many Syrians flocked to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt after the eruption of the countrys civil war in 2011. According to the UN refugee agency the UNHCR, there are 130,300 registered Syrians in Egypt, or 43,763 households.

Egypt is part of the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), a coordination effort between countries neighbouring Syria such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq and UN agencies and NGOs including UNHCR and other partners. Egypt is the only non-neighbouring state in the plan.

Most Syrians now abroad suffered from the horrors of war before deciding to leave for a safer place. Integrating into the new society is not only an important matter for them, but is also a therapeutic factor that helps them to regain the sense of security, according to Fadya Farag, who helps Syrian families to settle into their new homes.

Educated and open-minded families have no problem settling in. But it is more difficult with the less privileged. Some families are so scared that they just want a roof over their heads and a life away from people. Fortunately, most of them give up their fears gradually and start to mix with society, she said.

Marwa believes that society should accept them and help them to integrate. There are people, a tiny minority from my experience, who have a problem accepting newcomers. They argue that the Egyptian economy cannot bear further burdens from refugees, notably in terms of social services, medical treatment, education, jobs and shelter, she said.

Perhaps the most challenging problem that faces Syrian families is finding shelter and a job. When many Syrians came to Egypt, rent was relatively cheap. However, because of high demand for accommodation, rents in areas like Sheikh Zayed or 6 October city have started to increase, posing a real challenge to Syrian families especially those on low incomes.

I pay LE1,100 of my husbands salary of LE2,300 on rent. The rest of the money is hardly enough for food and basic needs, said Um Omar, a Syrian housewife living in 6 October city. She came to Egypt illegally via Sudan over a year ago. Her husband joined her a few months later. Her husband now works in a plastics factory. Um Omar works from home wrapping sweets to help make ends meet.

EMPLOYMENT ISSUES: Finding a job to meet lifes basic needs is a challenge facing many Syrian refugees in a country that is already suffering from unemployment.

Most Syrians living in Egypt work in trade, the clothes industry and manual work. Not everyone sticks to the type of job they used to do back home, according to Syrian worker Abu Wagih.

I used to be a carpenter, but now I work in a clothes factory. It was not easy to find a job that suits my background, and I do not have the luxury of waiting until I find one. I need to pay the rent and feed my children, he said.

It was probably easier for Hossam to stick to his original job. He is a wholesale merchant who used to have a clothes factory making the kind of traditional Syrian coats that many Syrian women prefer to wear.

Working in wholesale trade here in Egypt is not easy because of the low demand in comparison to home. I thought that renting a shop would boost my business, but the rising prices are not working in my favour. Consumers are not willing to buy clothes because of the prices, he said.

In 2011, the government decided to allow Syrians access to state schools, a step that meant sending children to school a straightforward matter. However, the already crammed schools and the bureaucracy have presented problems for some Syrians. In addition, the decision only applies to those who have valid residence papers.

Others say that children have difficulty coping with the school system in Egypt. This prompted Hoda to enrol her children in a Syrian learning centre in 2016-2017, though she could not afford to do so last year.

The learning centres that have opened their doors over the last three or four years offer a Syrian curriculum as well as assistance with the Egyptian curriculum for students. They are also a source of jobs for Syrian teachers. But students need to sit for exams in Egyptian schools to guarantee that they will be granted residence in Egypt.

Um Omar was left with no option apart from sending her children to a Syrian learning centre. I do not have a legal residence here because I entered the country illegally via Sudan. Egyptian schools are closed as a result. I cannot afford the fees of the private centres, but fortunately a kind Syrian family pays them for me, she said.

Egypt used to have straightforward residence procedures. Any family with children enrolled in school could get residence, but renewing it has become more difficult and time-consuming, according to many Syrian families.

Perhaps the increasing number of people applying for or renewing residence contributed to making the procedures more challenging and taking longer than before. They also ask for a lot of documents, said Um Ammar, who has three children in school. She came to Egypt more than four years ago.

Hoda, who also has three children in school, said the renewal of residence should take place every two years, especially for those who have been staying for more than four years and abide by the law. Perhaps the most challenging matter facing many Syrians is receiving medical treatment, however, according to Syrian mother Um Islam.

The government has taken the decision that Syrians should be treated in public hospitals in Egypt like Egyptians. Egypt, with the help of the UNHCR and NGOs, has mainstreamed healthcare for Syrian refugees, but the increasing number of refugees together with the conditions in some Egyptian hospitals have presented obstacles.

Egyptians and Syrians face the same obstacles when they have medical problems, especially if they require admission to hospital. Besides, hospitals prefer to deal with Syrians as expatriates and charge them non-Egyptian rates that are usually double or triple the Egyptian rates, Um Islam said.

Meanwhile, the number of Syrian refugees is increasing, though more slowly than before, and integrating them into society is not an option but a must.

I took my Egyptian neighbour to the Damascus Club, a private social club on the outskirts of 6 October city. We attended a moulid [religious festival] that I used to attend in Syria. I felt that this was a real piece of home, she said.
Kate Swann is to step down as CEO of travel site operator SPP Group after five years with the business.

Swann will remain in the role until 31 May 2019 when she will be succeeded by Simon Smith, currently CEO of the business UK and Ireland operations. SSP said Smith and Swann will work closely together over the next six months to ensure a smooth transition.

The news comes as SSP  which operates a number of UK travel sites for brands including Starbucks and Upper Crust  published its full-year results today (21 November).

Today weve announced another record set of results, growing earnings a further 24% and proposing 150m return of cash to shareholders, so I am stepping down at a time when the business is clearly in great shape, with a strong senior management team and enormous future growth potential, said Swann.

Smith joined SSP Group in 2014 and, since then, his role has expanded to allow him to take on wider global leadership responsibilities, most recently looking after the integration and development of the companys joint venture business in India, which has delivered excellent results.

Prior to that, Smith worked at WH Smith for 10 years, most recently as managing director of its travel division.

Simons strong leadership skills combined with his considerable experience in the food travel and retail space, as well as his track record at SSP, make him well placed to lead SSP to continued future success, said Vagn Srensen, SSP Group chairman.
In the Atlanta of the 1950's there were no shopping centers and most of the big department stores were in downtown Atlanta. The most famous of which was Rich's Department Store. They were famous for the fact that you could return anything you bought from them with no questions asked. Often not even a receipt was required. There are many stories around about wedding dresses and silverware returned after the wedding. Some would think this was an urban legend but it was true. The theory was if you bought it from Rich's you could depend on getting good service, support and satisfaction guarantee. The volume of sales easily covered the cost of this lenient return policy. Later Sears started the same support with its Craftsman line of tools.Rich's was associated with two holiday traditions. The first was the lighting of the Great Christmas tree on the Crystal Bridge between the two buildings of Rich's downtown location. This was the official start of the shopping season.We would sometimes go downtown to see the lighting of the Great Christmas tree. This was long before we had any shopping malls. Each level of the bridge would have a choir singing Christmas Carols. My 7th grade classmate Lawrence was a member of the Boys Choir and sang there one year. I recently asked him about it and he was amazed that I remembered that. That was sixty years ago but for some reason it is a vivid memory for me.The Pink Pig is still talked about today and even though Rich's has gone through many ownership and name changes, they still have a Pink Pig ride which is now located at Lenox Square. Lenox was the first large shopping mall in Atlanta. Today the Macy name is the parent and it is called the Macy's Pink Pig. They retired to twin monorail cars some time back.I recently saw a painting Facebook on one of the Atlanta memory pages bragging about riding the pink pig.Traditions are a good thing, I hope you have a few to remember during the holidays.
A Staten Island police officer accused of planting marijuana in a black teenager's car won't face any discipline, officials said Monday, despite two newly released videos that have raised serious concerns about the circumstances of the arrest.

In police body camera footage shared by the Legal Aid Society, and first published by the NY Times, Officer Kyle Erickson can be heard fuming about the lack of contraband found on a young man, whom he believes to be a gang member. Shortly after, hes seen on video dropping something into the backseat of the suspects car. According to public defenders and police accountability activists, it was the joint that landed Lasou Kuyateh, then 19 years old, in a Brooklyn jail for two weeks.

"It's really brazen and unbelievable, but it happens right there in front of you," said attorney Taylor Poor, who represents Kuyateh. "Officer Erickson fabricated evidence that resulted in my client spending two weeks in jail."

The incident happened on February 28th of this year, when Kuyateh was driving through the Park Hill neighborhood of Staten Island with three friends. Officer Kyle Erickson and his partner Elmer Pastran pulled over the vehicle, initially claiming that the windows were illegally tinted and that the driver had failed to signal before turning. They said the car smelled like marijuana, and after one of the passengers admitted to smoking weed prior to the traffic stop, the officers searched all four men and both rows of the car. No incriminating evidence was found at first, to the apparent dismay of the officers.

"We gotta find it. We have to find something," Erickson told Officer Pastran. "You know what I mean?" Moments later, Erickson's body camera turns offthe result of a malfunction, hed later claim.

Though the camera does not turn on again for nearly five minutes, Erickson is sometimes visible on Pastran's body camera. At one point, he can be seen fiddling with something behind the driver's seat. The footage, according to Poor, shows Erickson "leaning into the back left passenger seat of the car, placing an object on the seat, arranging it, then wiping his hands." Seconds later, Kuyateh becomes angry, accusing the officers of "putting something in my car." He's subsequently handcuffed and prevented from filming.

According to the NYPD's body camera policy, police officers in New York City are required to turn on their devices when searching someone's property or conducting a car stop. But as a "failsafe" mechanism, the cameras are technically always running, and are programmed to preserve thirty seconds of soundless video prior to their activation. Cops seeking to manipulate their own recordings have occasionally been stymied by the feature, most notably in Baltimore, where an officer was recently indicted after he unwittingly recorded himself planting pills on a suspect.



In this case, the 30 second automatically recorded video captures Erickson fingering an evidence bag in the center console, moments before reaching purposefully into the space behind the driver's seat. The area had been repeatedly searched by both officers, and deemed "all clear" by Pastran minutes earlier. But just as the video's audio is reactivatedsignalling that the camera has been switched onErickson recovers a joint, which he proudly presents to his partner.

"I found this blunt, okay?" he says. "It was lit when I found it on the floor. Do you want to take them all?" The joint does not appear to be lit as Erickson holds it up. When told by Pastran that only the driver should be arrested, Erickson responds, "All right, listen, we found it, okay?"

Kuyatehwho pleaded guilty to assault as a minor, but had his record adjudicated and sealedwas arrested for the small quantity of weed. A judge granted the prosecution's request for $1,000 bail, which Kutayeh couldn't meet, and he spent fourteen days in the Brooklyn Detention Complex. Over the last eight months, he's appeared in court on ten different occasions, at one point rejecting a plea deal that would've given him no additional jail time.

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Kuyateh said that since the arrest, he's been routinely targeted and harassed by Staten Island police officers. Last month, he was ordering food at a deli when he overheard a shooting. Erickson arrived on the scene and threatened him, Kuyateh says, before directing detectives to cuff him and take him to jail. Despite have no connection to the shooting, he spent eight hours handcuffed in a cell, according to his attorneys.

"Sometimes I can't sleep. I can't drive my car. I just keep thinking: if he can put me behind bars for two weeks, if he can direct another man to arrest me, then what else can he do to me?" Kuyateh told Gothamist. He added that many of his friends in Park Hill had some experience with police brutality or misconduct. "These aren't the white neighborhoods where you can just chill. They want to lock everyone here up."

The most unusual part of this case, public defenders say, came during an evidentiary hearing last month, when Kuyateh's attorneys had their first opportunity to grill the police officers about the suspicious footage. But as Poor was preparing to cross-examine Erickson, Judge Christopher Robles abruptly intervened, stopping the hearing for the day and informing the assistant district attorney that Erickson should consider seeking a lawyer. The following day, the case was dismissed and sealed by the Staten Island D.A.'s office, with no further explanation from prosecutors or the judge, according to attorneys.

"It's hard to see it as anything other than the judge trying in some way to protect the officer," Poor told Gothamist. "Our client sat in jail because of evidence planted in his car, so we're absolutely calling for the officer to be fired, at the very least."

When our attorney complained he said, "This case is dismissed and sealed. What I'm not going to allow happen is my courtroom to become a political place where these things are brought up."  Rebecca J. Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) November 19, 2018

The defendant and his attorneys have encountered fierce resistance in their search for answers and accountability regarding the arrest. Both officers were cleared following a "thorough investigation," according to NYPD spokesperson Phillip Walzak, which determined that there was "no evidence that the officers conducted anything but a lawful stop, performed a consensual search, and had probable cause to arrest the defendant." Walzak also claims that internal investigators have made several attempts to get in contact with Kuyateh; Kuyateh says he spoke to them once, and that they never called him back.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Civilian Complaint Review Board confirmed to Gothamist that they'd received a complaint, but wouldn't say whether an investigation was underway. The Staten Island District Attorney's Office did not respond to our request for comment.

Beyond the apparent lack of consequences for Officer Erickson, police reform advocates say the case illustrates the ongoing failure of New York's incremental approach to marijuana decriminalization.

Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement that police would no longer arrest New Yorkers for smoking pot in public, glaring loopholes in the policy have essentially "shifted the evidentiary threshold to incentivize cops" to make bad arrests, said Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University specializing in police accountability and criminal law. Smokers can still be arrested if they don't have identification, if they have an open arrest warrant, if they've been convicted of a violent crime, or if they're on parole or probation.

Without full legalization, police can continue using the smell of weed as a pretext for stopping and frisking those deemed suspiciousan outcome repeatedly shown to disproportionately impact people of color. And the NYPD's reliance on technically illegal arrest quotas, advocates says, means that persistent racial disparities in low level arrests will likely continue in New York City, regardless of piecemeal announcements on marijuana enforcement.

"This is the quota system in action," Fagan told Gothamist. "If they're going to incentivize arrests, but there's not much crime out there, that's incentivizing police to create crimes."
Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving, circa 1928

Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving, a festive segment of the Four Freedoms series - "Freedom from Want," circa 1943.

Will you be traveling more that 50 miles to be with family on this Thanksgiving - 2012? 17.11% I will be traveling more than 50 miles 75% I will be traveling less than 50 miles 7.89% It's not important 76 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!

As America transforms to more of a Socialist sociopolitical economy, do you remain thankful, or do you require more? 79.62% Yes, I am thankful for what I have 9.55% No, I need more free stuff 10.83% The Lord will provide 157 total vote(s) Voting has Ended!

Thanksgiving as a holiday just makes profound sense. It is one of the Unites States's oldest holidays and is emblematic of who Americans are ... or maybe were.In the past, most Americans were thankful for their inherited right to call this nation their home. With the United States of America as one's homeland, Americans were afforded the freedom to work towards a goal, and succeed or fail, but at least they had the freedom to attempt to live out their dream.As of late, we've seen a small, but vocal, segment of Americans show a much greater initiative to whine rather than to work. Wesee students, slackers, anarchists, Socialists, and yes, Big Labor, in the Occupy movements in the 24 hour news cycle, yet there are hardworking, near exclusively Mexicans, who are hopefully legal, restoring roofs all over the eastern North Carolina in the wake of the Hurricane Irene devastation, here in Autumn, 2011. What is wrong with this picture here?Obviously, there is a huge disconnect with some Americans as to what is expected of the individual in a truly free society.Shortly after the 102 Pilgrims, nearly half puritans, landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, rather than the intended Jamestown, Colony of Virginia, they set up a communal society where they would be free. It did not work as was planned.Long before the systemic economic problems of present day Europe, the horrible initial year of the Pilgrims was one of the the first signals that Socialism does not work.In the early days of this fledgling colony that would become New England, colonists were allowed to work to gather food, build shelter, or to pursue other interests. What eventually occurred is that more than half of the colonists pursued the direction of other interests, and the sustenance to continue the colony could not be sustained. Come the first New England Winter, many within the colony froze or starved to death - a completely untenable position for a colony to be continued.Governor William Braddock, whose sole charge was to sustain the colony, decreed that families would be given a plot of raw land, and their survival would be determined by their willingness to work, to persevere. In short: Your don't work, you don't eat.Within a short two year window of time, and with the help of the indigenous Wampanoag Tribe, the remaining Pilgrims had built the foundation for their very survival. They were relatively warm in the frigid New England Winters, and they had a bounty of food after the 1623 harvest, which they shared with each other and the Wampanoag people, who, in part, provided for their survival.Years later in present day America, we celebrate this tradition of being thankful for the bounty, that has long been the promise of being an American, on the fourth Thursday of November. This established date for this hallowed day of thanks was set, during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, on December 26, 1941. Previously, the United States of America celebrated Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November since 1863, when that date was set during President Abraham Lincoln's administration.Americans, who have always worked hard and have much to be thankful for, celebrate this day for the promise that their freedom insures. Hopefully, our vast majority of Americans will continue to understand that there will always need to be sacrifice to sustain that freedom.


A voter ID law passed in 2013 was struck down in court for violating the rights of minority voters. (CJ Photo by Kari Travis)

Right to Hunt and Fish - Approved, 57 percent-43 percent

Marsy's Law - Approved, 62 percent-38 percent

Income Tax Cap Amendment - Approved, 57 percent-43 percent

Judicial Selection for Midterm Vacancies - Defeated, 33 percent-67 percent

Legislative Appointments to Elections Board and Commissions - Defeated, 38 percent-62 percent

The 2018 ballot was loaded with constitutional amendments. Six, to be exact. Four will become part of the state constitution, but the General Assembly must pass enabling legislation for one, "Requires a photo ID to vote in person." It passed by a 55 percent-45 percent vote.The voter ID amendment is a workaround for a 2013 law struck down in court for violating the rights of minority voters. The statute defined acceptable identification as a state driver's license, a state-issued ID card, a military ID, or a U.S. passport. Under the guidance of this amendment, the legislature will make laws governing which forms of identification voters can present at polling places before they cast ballots.The General Assembly will return Nov. 27 to pass legislation implementing the amendment, and probably taking up other business. While more than 30 states have some form of voter ID requirement, including three of North Carolina's neighbors , courts recently have given tougher scrutiny to states which have implemented photo ID mandates.Lawmakers will have to decide which forms of identification the state will accept when registered voters cast ballots - and if the new law will allow voters who don't have driver's licenses (the ID most widely accepted) to get a state-approved ID at no cost, and where to obtain it.Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, who chairs the House Rules Committee, said in June if the amendment passed, the enabling legislation would address concerns brought up by opponents of the measure. Groups such as the NAACP have said publicly they intend to protest and challenge legislative action.The 2018 statewide ballot had five other amendments. Here's a rundown of what else we voted for, what we voted against, and what it all means now that election day is past.Creates a constitutional right to hunt and fish.The amendment subjects the right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife to laws that preserve wildlife conservation and management. It also classifies hunting and fishing as a means of managing and controlling North Carolina's wildlife.Expands the constitutional rights of crime victims.The amendment boosts and expands multiple rights for crime victims, including the right to receive timely notice of court proceedings, the right to be present at pleas, sentencing, and parole hearings, and the right to present views and concerns to the governor or agency taking an action that could release the accused. The measure was part of an expensive, national campaign to enact similar amendments in other states.Changes cap on income tax from 10 percent to seven percent.The amendment prohibits the state government from raising the income tax rate above seven percent. The state's current personal income tax rate is 5.499 percent.Creates a process involving a commission, legislature, and governor to appoint judges to vacant state seats.The amendment would have created a nine-person commission, members of which would have been chosen by state legislators, to select potential judicial appointees for vacant seats between elections. The amendment would've enabled lawmakers to have significantly more sway over the judicial branch.Makes the legislature responsible for appointments to state election board.The measure would've given the North Carolina General Assembly authority to appoint members to the Bipartisan State Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement, the group that oversees ethics and election laws.The legislature also may need to revisit the structure of the elections board in its post-Thanksgiving session. The current version of the board was ruled unconstitutional in mid-October by a three-judge Superior Court panel. But the panel delayed enforcement of its order to allow the current election results to be certified.The court said the current board will be dissolved Dec. 3.
WATCH: Mexican Protesters Warn 'Trump Was Right,' Caravan 'Is An Invasion'Hundreds of Tijuana residents gathered on Sunday to protest the caravan migrants that are coming through Mexico to the United States, warning thatand chanting,The Associated Press reported.WATCH:Mexican protestor today in Tijuana on the caravan: "Donald Trump was right, this is an invasion! What Donald Trump said was correct: this is an invasion!"Crowd chants:Alden Rivera, the Honduran ambassador in Mexico, told AP that Honduras wants the migrants to "return to Honduras."The news comes as hundreds of migrants reached the border fence that separates Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, early last week and "some of them began illegally entering the U.S. after climbing the fence," The Daily Wire reported.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report in early November that stated there areDHS reported.Department spokesperson Tyler Houlton wrote on Twitter in late October.Citizens of countries outside Central America, including countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere are currently traveling through Mexico toward the U.S.The Mexican government has already had to deport migrants in the caravan who are wanted for alleged crimes in their home countries and some migrants in the caravan have admitted to having criminal histories.One migrant told a Fox News reporter in late October that he was headed to the U.S. because he "got in trouble" in his home country for "attempted murder."another migrant told Fox News.
Should Beaufort County elected officials demand that every alleged incident of Child Rape be investigated in Beaufort County?

Yes, without fail, irrespective of the parties involved; this heinous crime must be investigated, and the truth be known, and responsible parties prosecuted.
After Aretha Franklin died in August, New Yorkers moved quickly to put up makeshift tributes to the Queen of Soul at subway stations and other public places, like they did with David Bowie, Prince, and so many other recently-deceased musical legends. At the forefront of the recent tribute was LeRoy McCarthy, a cultural advocate who put up a spray chalk tribute at the Franklin Avenue stop, and was able to convince the MTA to put up more permanent "Respect" memorials in the station.

This wasn't the first time McCarthy has gotten involved in an effort to get the city to pay tribute to someone: he got a street in Queens co-named for Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor Way, he got a street co-named for Sylvia Robinson in Englewood, NJ, and this month, Brooklyn Community Board 2 voted to rename the stretch of St. James Place between Gates Avenue and Fulton Street "Christopher Wallace Way" in honor of Notorious B.I.G.

McCarthy has now turned his attention toward his next project: getting a street in Staten Island named in honor of hometown heroes the Wu-Tang Clan.

"New York City has been lackadaisical in the honoring of their indigenous art and hip-hop culture," McCarthy told Gothamist. "Wu-Tang Clan put Staten Island on the map through hip-hop, and The Wu deserves to be recognized with a street named for them in Shoalin."

Wu-Tang Clan are of course nearly synonymous with Staten Island; earlier this month, SI officials proclaimed that November 9th will henceforth be known as Wu-Tang Clan Day. Local artist Cody Prez recently paid tribute to the group with a 2,000 square-foot mural piece titled, "Climate Change Ain't Nothing To Mess With." Even Mayor de Blasio has gone on the record as a fan.

The street co-name application for "Wu-Tang Clan District" was submitted to the City Council for vetting and approval last week by councilmember Deborah Rose's office. The location for the sign would be at the corner of Targee Street and Vanderbit Avenue in the Park Hill section of Staten Island, where the music video for "Can It All Be So Simple" was filmed.

Another major hip-hop landmark McCarthy has been fighting to create for several years now: honoring the Beastie Boys with a street sign in the Lower East Side. Unfortunately, it's been rejected several times by CB3, though McCarthy is hopeful it will happen at some point.

"Regarding the Wu, I am told that because many members of the group are alive it might be difficult for the application to get passed," he added. "However I shared that Wu-Tang is an organization and one of the three founding members ODB died, which makes the street co-name eligible in NYC Council, just like Run-DMC JMJ Way which is in Queens."

McCarthy, who previously worked in the music industry for Bad Boy and other labels in the '90s, now works in film & TV production as a locations manager, but much of his passion derives from shedding more light on the city's musical history. "Hopefully NYC will honor hip-hop like New Orleans honors jazz, and Nashville honors country music," he said. "If those cities are proud of their native artist and artistry, then NYC should be able to do a better representation of itself through recognition, and these hip-hop act street signs in each borough would be a good start."
The headline for an Army News Service article reads, Army must update logistics operations as part of modernization efforts. The article details remarks made to an Association of the United States Army Institute Land Warfare breakfast in early November by Lieutenant General Aundre Piggee.

Piggees opinion matters: he is the Army's deputy chief of staff for logistics.

He drove home four points:

Self-Sustaining Brigade Combat Teams. Translating this into commercial terms, we need to delegate responsibility and authority to operating teams, and let the team run with it.

Additive Manufacturing, or 3D Printing, is a game changer. The benefit to an operating force operating thousands of miles down the supply line is real. The same opportunity exists in the private sector. A seismic shift may is coming. This technology might actually be more fundamental than Block Chain.

Global Supply Visibility: the Army has been working on this for years, and their system is now fully fielded. That was the easy part. Now that they have global near real time data, what are they going to do with it? Once again, the general is on target, saying we have to make sure we are using all this data that we're pumping out to make good decisions."

Autonomic vehicles enabled by Artificial Intelligence are within reach, and some would argue that they are already here. How does this capability reshape logistics and material handling? Piggee offered an idea: autonomous vehicles could be a key element in resupply. Are we going to be able to do the same thing in the private sector? If we can't do it over the road, can we do it in the warehouse?

We have to give the General credit, and his thoughts should serve as a catalyst for any logistician.
Things are not looking good for Michael Avenatti. His ex-girlfriend Mareli Miniutti says he violently dragged her out of bed and called her a 'fking bitch.'

Mareli Miniutti, 24, is described as an "aspiring actress" by CNN. A Los Angeles judge today granted Miniutti a restraining order against celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti, whom she claims physically and verbally assaulted her.

Miniutti says she was in a relationship with Avenatti, who is 47, and that they lived together. She accuses him of hitting her face with pillows, shouting that she was an "ungrateful fu**ing bitch," and dragging her across the floor.

Avenatti was arrested last week by police in Los Angeles as a suspect of felony domestic violence, and released on bail the same day.

He denies having been violent against "any woman," "ever."

He has not been charged with a crime.

CNN and other news organizations today confirm that Miniutti is the woman who is the alleged victim in last week's much-covered arrest.

Avenatti would probably claim that he's the victim, but I digress.

I also spoke with Mareli Miniutti's husband, Michael Miniutti. He told me: "In Mareli's defense, she was never aggressive. She never put me in an aggressive state of mind or anything like that. She's a very calm, well-mannered, respectful individual. Very polite. Classy woman."  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) November 20, 2018

Excerpt from CNN:

In a declaration filed as part of the request for a restraining order in Los Angeles Superior Court, Miniutti, 24, said she and Avenatti had been dating since October 2017 and living together since January of this year. She described an altercation last week in which she and Avenatti began fighting about money, leading to him calling her an "ungrateful, f***** bitch." Avenatti proceeded to get "very close to me in a threatening manner that made me afraid," Miniutti said in the declaration.

As the altercation worsened, Miniutti alleged, Avenatti "began forcefully hitting me in the face with pillows from the bed," and then grabbed her wrist and, later, her arm. "He dragged me on the floor of the apartment towards and out of the door into the public hallway," Miniutti said. "I was wearing only my underwear and t-shirt at the time, and suffered scratches to the bare skin on my side and leg." Miniutti said she eventually went down to the ground floor of the building, with Avenatti following. Miniutti said a friend picked her up and took Miniutti to her home, after which she called the police and gave them her statement. The next day, Miniutti said, she returned to the building to retrieve her belongings from the apartment. As she began to gather her things, Miniutti said, Avenatti appeared, so she ran to the balcony in fear. "A short while later, police detectives entered the apartment and told me that (Avenatti) had been arrested," Miniutti said in the declaration.

Miniutti also said there was another occasion  in February of this year  when Avenatti "acted in a physically violent manner" toward her. He "had been drinking," she said, "and became angry at me." "Respondent pushed me out of the apartment into the public hallway where I hit my head against a door across the hallway. Respondent then threw my shoes at me, striking me in the leg." She also alleged that Avenatti had a history of being "very verbally abusive and financially controlling" toward her.

Avenatti has repeatedly denied the allegations against him, telling CNN he never laid a hand on Miniutti. He also appeared to briefly blame Jacob Wohl last week, in an encounter with photographers from TMZ dot com.

As the altercation worsened, Miniutti alleged, Avenatti "began forcefully hitting me in the face with pillows from the bed," and then grabbed her wrist and, later, her arm. "He dragged me on the floor of the apartment towards and out of the door into the public hallway."  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) November 20, 2018

In a declaration filed as part of the request for a restraining order in Los Angeles Superior Court, Miniutti described an altercation last week in which she said she and Avenatti started fighting about money.  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) November 20, 2018

Miniutti also said there was another occasion  in February of this year  when Avenatti "acted in a physically violent manner" toward her. He "had been drinking," she said, "and became angry at me."  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) November 20, 2018

Avenatti's attorneys: "Ms. Miniutti and Mr. Avenatti had an argument during which Ms. Miniutti behaved in a volatile, agitated and irrational manner. However, Mr. Avenatti did not inflict any corporal injury or cause any traumatic condition upon Ms. Miniutti."  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) November 20, 2018

In court docs, Miniutti states that she is "afraid that [Avenatti] may cause harm to me and harass me." https://t.co/8OJj58dOPj  The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 20, 2018

ABC News has obtained the declaration of Mareli Miniutti, the woman who has accused @MichaelAvenatti of domestic violence. She reveals she had been dating Avenatti since October 2017 and the relationship ended on November 13, 2018- the night of the alleged abuse.  Kaitlyn Folmer (@KaitlynFolmer) November 20, 2018

Meet Mareli Miniutti, the actress seeking Michael Avenatti restraining order https://t.co/aFueBdkbis pic.twitter.com/c9MGPAvkMC  New York Post (@nypost) November 20, 2018



PHOTO, TOP: Mareli Miniutti, via her Instagram, photographed in 2018.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, let's be grateful for the short memories of the tabloids, which gleefully forget what they've previously written the moment it's inconvenient for them.

Prince Harry's wife "Meghan Meets Diana's Secret Daughter!" screams the cover of this week's Globe, describing how Sarah, allegedly "conceived in a bizarre fertility test before Prince Charles and Diana wed," met with the latest addition to the Royal Family on the last day of her recent visit to New Zealand.

Yes, this is the same love child who was murdered by Prince Charles on the Greek isle of Crete in May 2016, according to a report the following month in  where else?  the Globe.

Fortunately the demise of Diana's mystery child has not curtailed her globe-trotting, and she turned up in the antipodes to warn Meghan: "Beware! Charles is a killer!" Though clearly not a very good one, if Diana's daughter Sarah is still alive two years after Charles definitively killed her.

The Globe explains her earlier demise as "a ruse to save her life!"

Such a shame that the Pulitzer Prize for fiction has already been awarded this year.

George Clooney's wife of four years "Amal Takes The Twins!" proclaims the National Enquirer cover, reporting that the couple's "$520 million divorce explodes!" The Globe goes old school with its headline "Bossy Wife Drives Clooney Loony!" and claims "He wants out after she bans sausage, cigars, snoring and cussing."

Unsurprisingly, neither party has actually filed for divorce, let alone cited "sausages" as grounds for the split. And let's not forget that the tabloids have been floating this identical story from the moment the couple signed their marriage certificate. "George & Amal: $220 Million Divorce!" yelled the cover of the Enquirer on October 29, 2015. These divorce stories have continued repeatedly through their marriage, and earlier this month the Globe cover touted "George Clooney Divorce Papers." How soon they forget.

Thirty seven years after her death, "Natalie Wood Body Exhumed!" reports the Globe. Only one minor detail: the actress's body has not been exhumed. It seems the Globe has forgotten the story that ran in its sister tabloid the Enquirer on June 29, 2015, under the headline: "Natalie Wood's Body Exhumed." Except it wasn't then, and probably won't be now. The only thing exhumed was the headline.

For those who like their tabloids vintage retro, the newly-revived Sun, still sadly only a supplement within the National Examiner, reveals that "Adam & Eve Were Alien Agents . . . sent from space to control life on earth," and that a greedy squirrel ate so many nuts that it exploded, injuring bystanders who suffered broken bones, in the picturesque Kookaburra Park in Australia. Inexplicably, the exploding squirrel failed to be noted in a single Australian newspaper.

"Soul transplants are coming!" raves the Sun, reporting that "emotions and memories would move to healthy young body," which seems a vast improvement on the previous week's story promising head transplant surgery in America any day now.

An "Old Maid's Ghost" in a 19th century home in Cincinnati, Ohio, is "dead set on joining family," while remnants of NASA's Genesis probe that crash-landed in the Utah desert 14 years ago are actually a "flying saucer," the Sun explains.

Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Kate Bosworth wore it best, that actor Bobby Moynihan "recently discovered" and now loves "Korean yams," that Raven-Symone carries buttons, pencils and a latex Cheshire Cat wallet in her Tate Modern tote, and that for once the stars are "not like us"  they fly on private jets, mingle with Royals, get vampire facials (don't ask), sit court-side, and have flunkies hold their umbrellas. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. All those stars sipping coffees, pumping their own gas and buying their own groceries each week must have been just an elaborate cover-up for the real lives of luxury and indulgence they have long kept hidden behind closed doors. Who knew?

The best news of the week coms courtesy of the Examiner, which reports: "Pizza Protects Against Cancer!" Who cares if the story is based on clinical research that was published more than 15 years ago, in July 2003? But just try to get a single slice covered by your health insurance.

Onwards and downwards . . .


Yes, Trump is a pathological liar, but he's also the first US president to call Ted Cruz a liar, the first to admit that the Saudis were likely behind 9/11, the first to admit that the Saudi royals can kill a lot of journalists but that the US will still do business with them because they buy a lot of American bombs, that Nancy Pelosi blew a chance to impeach Bush, that pharma and defense contractors rip off the American public, that politicians are for sale to their political donors, that Vladimir Putin doesn't have a monopoly on political assassination (and that the US is hardly innocent on this score), and that going into Iraq was a "big, fat mistake."

But as preposterous as it sounds, there's a case to be made that he's simultaneously America's most honest president. Every now and then, in the midst of his unending eruption of prevarication, Trump will blurt out the truth about the United States in a way that no normal politician ever has. Most recently, when asked whether he would consider sanctioning Saudi Arabia for its Mafia-like murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump was hesitant. Why? "Because they are ordering military equipment. Everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it. We got it.  Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon  I don't wanna lose an order like that."

This Thanksgiving, I'm Grateful for Donald Trump, America's Most Honest President [Jon Schwarz/The Intercept]
For the past few weeks, an ominous sound has been emanating from a mysterious source in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Does anyone know what the incessant "bing bing bing" noise is allllll day long today in Bay Ridge? From where is it coming, and what is it?!  E Depluribus Unum (@dac_mav) November 1, 2018

Its hard to describe the Bay Ridge bing, which got its nickname from New York City Councilmember Justin Brannan.

"You know those bells at a carnival, where you swing the little mallet and you hit the top, if youre strong enough to hit the bell? said Brannan by phone. Its sort of like that, over and over again."

I normally hear the sound in the mornings, said Britt Ancona, a lifelong Bay Ridge resident. The first time I heard it, it was around 8:30 a.m. on November 1st. It was an eerie, perfectly-timed bing sound that seemed like it was coming from the sky. For me, there was no one direction where you could say it was coming from. It was just there.

Its a metallic sound, repeating in a steady, thrumming beat, said another Bay Ridge resident, Jennifer Kruger. Its both loud and muffled, like its something loud happening far away. Kruger took this cellphone video documenting the bing; you may be able to hear it better with headphones:

Earlier this week, Brannan tweeted that the mystery is solved. He says the sound is coming from this multi-pronged, terrifying-looking, elevated boata liftboatthats been spotted off the shores of Bay Ridge.

All hail: the mysterious #BayRidge "bing" is a mystery no more!



It was the sound of this thing pounding its legs into the sea floor. pic.twitter.com/N306fLMKZ5  Justin Brannan (@JustinBrannan) November 18, 2018

So whose boat is it? The Coast Guard pointed WNYC to Verizon, which contracted the vessel. A Verizon spokesperson explained the boat was boring holes as part of exploratory work being done to expand the network of fiber cable that connects Brooklyn and Staten Island to New Jersey and the rest of the country. (So to answer the big questions: no, this is not an offshore oil drillship. And yes, this means Verizon is looking to expand services like FiOS in Brooklyn and Staten Island.)

The work was completed on Monday evening and the barge is expected to leave at the next high tide, said David Weissmann, public relations manager for Verizon, by email on Tuesday afternoon.

As to the reported sounds, he continued, it is possible that they were a result of the work being done, but we cant say for sure.

But waittheres a wrinkle in this timeline: Weissmann says Verizons work began on the Staten Island side last week and on the Brooklyn side this past Saturday. That doesnt line up with observations from November 1st, when Ancona and many other people in the neighborhood claimed to have noticed the bing sound.

Were sorta doing deduction here, said Brannan, explaining that people saw the boat and correlated it with the sound. But Ive watched enough Law and Order to know you could be in for a surprise ending at some point.

Listen below to hear the story, and the bing sound, from WNYC. And Bay Ridgites, tweet at @WNYC or @shubasu if you hear the sound again! Now that the boat has moved on, your observations will help us solve the mystery of whether the bing is truly connected to the Verizon vessel.

Shumita Basu is a host, producer and reporter in the newsroom. You can follow her on Twitter @shubasu.


The Sackler Family (previously) are a family of self-styled philanthropist billionaires who have been largely successful in their campaign to whitewash their family name by giving away a few percentage points off the profits they earned from deliberately creating the opioid epidemic by tricking and bribing doctors to overprescribe Oxycontin, falsely claiming that it was not addictive, and promoting the idea that any doctor who left a patient feeling pain was engaged in malpractice.



Destroying America was only the beginning for the Sacklers: even as their family business, Purdue Pharma, was admitting to its wrongdoing, they were engaged in exactly the same kind of deliberate corporate murder in new markets like Brazil  and then attacking public education with a ideologically motivated PR campaign aimed at replacing public schools with charter schools.





But the noose is tightening on the Sacklers: as the family dissolves into a bickering mess, they are facing mass litigation and criminal investigations all around the world.





The Guardian's Joanna Walters rounds up a good cross-section of the legal troubles descending on the Sacklers, who are on the receiving end of legal threats from cities, states, class actions, and more.



A spokesman for John Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, declined to comment. Prosecutors for the southern and eastern federal districts of New York state did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the northern district of New York said the Department of Justice does not confirm, deny or comment on the existence of any investigation. A spokeswoman for the western district of New York declined to confirm or deny whether the US attorney is conducting a criminal investigation into the Sacklers. A spokesman for Purdue Pharma declined to comment on behalf of the company and the relevant members of the Sackler family. Those same Sacklers were also sued by name in a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts in June. This alleges that Purdue, its directors and owners "deceived prescribers and patients to get more people to use Purdue's opioid products, at higher doses, for longer periods" by misrepresenting and downplaying the addictive and deadly risks of the drug. And even claiming that OxyContin, which is derived from opium, was safer than paracetamol or ibuprofen, the common painkillers sold over the counter, the state alleges. The Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, told the Guardian that experts estimate that the epidemic cost the state almost $15bn in 2017 alone in lost productivity, public safety and healthcare, to say nothing of the human tragedy that has cost thousands of lives in that state alone.



Sackler family members face mass litigation and criminal investigations over opioids crisis

[Joanna Walters/The Guardian]

(Image: Edwardx, CC-BY-SA)
Each week of The Bureau has an electronic music soundtrack for each panel. Here is this week's playlist:

On the subject of Killing Thug

President Thug, is of course, a work of complete fiction. Born under the harsh unloving glare of his father, Slumlord Sigmund "Fred" Thug, young Jung grew up covered in money but without the nurturing warmth that many humans require for sustainable organ function. Subsequently, at age five Jung's heart collapsed. This was an emergency situation where the nation's top doctors found the only possible cure: Spray Tanning liquid, administered almost around the clock, administered via tube through the top of his head, a location selected for its soft indentable surface and lack of use. A straw hood of hay was sewn to cover his head, which he would famously wear throughout the remainder of his life.

Thug's heart regained normal human size and capacity but the constant injections altered his brain, causing irreversible vanity, impotence, and brain damage. As Thug grew older his intelligence continued to decline, setting a Guinness World Record for dumbest mammal. After a brief attempt at writing fictional books on success and dealmaking, Thug had a brief but memorable career in Hollywood, most notably playing The Gremlin in the Twilight Zone's "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".

Jung Thug, before becoming President, tearing apart a plane in mid-air.

Thug appeared in the original 1963 episode as The Gremlin and reprised his role as The Gremlin in The Twilight Zone Movie

Soon, he found politics and became the President of the United States. In this unforeseen role, he became 'The Nation's Gremlin', Thug proceeded to tug at every wire of government  As he had practiced through mere acts of fantasy in the Twilight Zone  This time inflicting real damage on the country's Constitution, the safety of its people, and its standing in the world.

Jung Thug would be an immediate threat to our collective survival.

If such a scenario were to actually occur, it would certainly become a global emergency in need of immediate action. But as The Bureau is merely a comic book story, it can merely present you the terrible story of President Thug and provide a play button for you to kill him over and over:

Have a very good holiday.

The Bureau will return Wednesday, November 28th, 12:38pm PST.

Read all installments of this series.
- Virgil van Dijk netted Holland's equaliser that fired his country into the finals of the Uefa Nations League

- The Liverpool defender took some time out to console a referee who lost his mother moments before the clash

- Dijk reportedly wished the match official strength

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Liverpool star defender Virgil van Dijk on Monday night, November 19 showed his class side as he consoled a match official who lost his mother moments before Holland's clash against Germany in the Uefa Nations League.

During the match, Dijk scored the equalising goal to send his country into the Nations League finals.

Timo Werner and Leroy Sane handed Germany a two-goal advantage within 19 minutes of game play at the Veltins-Arena before Quincy Promes and Van Dijk scored late to seal a vital 2-2 draw for the Dutch.

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Dijk latched onto Tonny Vilhenas cross in the 90th minute, volleying home past a helpless Manuel Neuer.

The Oranje captain then approached Romanian official Ovidiu Hategan broke down in tears as the match reached its crescendo to comfort him, Briefly.co.za learned.

According to the Metro UK, it emerged before the encounter that the referee on the night, Ovidiu Hategan, had just lost his mother but had made the decision to officiate regardless.

Speaking on his gesture, Dijk admitted that he felt sorry for the match official and took time to wish him strength.

READ ALSO: Video captures moment armed suspects robbed man in broad daylight

READ ALSO: Friends or foes? Atul Gupta retweets EFF and Twitter has questions

'That man broke down, stood with tears in his eyes because he had just lost his mother,' Metro UK quoted the Liverpool star.

"I wished him strength and said that he had blown well. Its a small thing, but maybe it helps him," he added.

Meanwhile, the crucial draw earned Netherlands a place the Nations League semi-finals, with Germany being relegated to second tier.

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Source: Tuko.co.ke

Source: Briefly.co.za
- EFF leader, Julius Malema has said that he will not talk to mainstream media until they question the minister on his daughter's  fraudulent dealings within the government

- Gordhan has further been accused of fighting dirty against the EFF because they questioned the appointment of a minority as finance minister

- Malema has said that there will be casualties and even  loss of life in the fight against the minister

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The EFF has set their targets on Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan once again. Julius Malema, leader of the party took the opportunity outside the state capture commission on Tuesday to continue his attack on Gordhan.

Speaking to protesting EFF supporters, Malema accused the minister of  hating Africans.

Julius cited his questions aimed at ex-president Zuma as to why minorities were the preferred candidates for the position of finance minister as the reason for Gordhans hatred of the EFF, but particularly of himself.

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Since that time it has been evident that Pravin does not like me but his hatred does not end there. Now Pravin has gone into all state-owned entities and removed all the black excellence because he hates black people, said Malema

When you fight against Pravin you must be ready ... there will be casualties ... there might even be a loss of life, he continued.

Malema also said that he would decline to speak to mainstream media until they questioned the minister about his daughters her business interests. He accused her of being a part of corrupt schemes within the government.

He further alleged that the minister fought dirty against people he saw as a threat to his looting which is far greater than the looting that was being done by the Guptas.

According to the notorious EFF leader Gordhan is in the same league as white monopoly capitalists Johann Rupert and the Oppenheimers but reassured his followers that he wasnt afraid of white people and would handle them.

READ ALSO: Gordhan retaliates against EFF's Shivambu after VBS testimony

While giving testimony at the inquiry Gordhan once again appealed to anyone with any evidence of his wrongdoing to present it before the commission and testify under oath. He went on to say that being a minister was a calling to him, not a business.

I have never been party to state capture as those outside this forum would like to have you believe. I have never been manipulated by anyone [in order to do them any favours] or manipulated anyone myself for my own gain, said Gordhan.

Malema further said the answer as to why is Pravin [Gordhan] rotten? It was because they come from the same tree called the ANC. They are in the same WhatsApp group with Jacob Zuma.

The leader went on to say that the ANC was on the verge of implosion and that it was due to a lack of principles. Today Dali Mpofu is representing Supra Mahumapelos faction of the ANC in court. We are happy when such things happen because this fuels confusion within the ruling party, he said.

The reason the EFF is taking on Gordhan? According to Malema, their aim was to expose the corruption within the ruling party and as a result, bring the ANC to its destruction. He also claimed that his party had no personal reason for their attacks on the minister.

We are fighting monopoly capital. Zuma stood between us and white monopoly capital and we had to remove Zuma. Our attack on Pravin is an attack on white monopoly capital because Pravin is the dog of monopoly capital. We will beat him until the master takes heed of what we have to say, he added.

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Source: Briefly.co.za
- Julius Malema has been causing a stir outside of the state capture inquiry, hurling insults at Pravin Gordhan and now Advocate Paul Pretorius

- The insults aimed at the Advocate are a direct violation of the inquiries own legal framework

- Malema is now facing the possibility of a fine or even a prison sentence.

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While Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom fighters might be enjoying the limelight after his antics at the state capture inquiry, the leader may just have taken it too far.

Their attacks on minister Pravin Gordhan has reached a whole new level. The minister stands accused of being a racist and of being Jacob Zumas biggest supporter.

This time around Gordhan was not the only one at the receiving end of the EFFs wrath. This time Advocate Paul Pretorius was also scrutinised. Pretorius is the head of the state capture investigation and has a personal connection with Gordhan.

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In 2017 the advocate represented the minister's spokesperson Adrian Lackay at a CCMA arbitration case against SARS. Lackay had previously worked for the tax firm. Due to this connection, The Academic Professional Staff Trade Union ( APSA) has asked Pretorius to recuse himself from the inquiry.

However, Chief of the Inquiry Zondo dismissed this and confirmed that Pretorius would continue regardless.

This did nothing to quiet the Economic Freedom Fighters. Addressing the crowd Malema told them that this bastard doesnt ask questions in reference to the advocate. He repeated the phrase a number of times referring to Pretorius and this has landed him in some serious trouble.

READ ALSO: Malema won't talk to media, threatens "loss of life" over Gordhan

A section in the inquirys Terms of Reference clearly states that and insults or disparaging behaviour towards the investigative team could result in a fine or prison sentence.

Any person who insults, disparages or insults the Chairperson  or any member of the or commission, or prejudice the inquiry or proceedings or findings of the commission  is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction of a fine, or to a period of imprisonment not exceeding six months  Section 12 (1) of the State Capture Inquiry Terms of Reference.

No doubt Julius has landed himself in hot water this time and while he might argue freedom of speech its a clear violation of the commission's judicial frameworks. Only time will tell if the fearless Malema will be fined or even imprisoned.

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Source: Briefly.co.za
News / National

by Staff reporter

A BULAWAYO cyclist, who was injured in an accident involving an Inter-Africa (Mukumba Brothers)-owned bus in 2015, has filed a $67 000-lawsuit against the company at the Bulawayo High Court.The accident victim, Amina Sibanda, filed summons at the court, citing the bus driver Emmanuel Nhidza of Cowdray Park and Inter-Africa Buses of Kelvin West, in Bulawayo as first and second respondents, respectively.Sibanda said he was claiming payment of $67,000 in damages for injuries sustained in the accident, the medical expenses she incurred, permanent disability and injuries caused as a result of the accident as well as cost of suit.He is also demanding interest on the $67 000 at the prescribed rate from August 22, 2015 to the date of full payment.Sibanda submitted that on August 22, 2015, Nhidza was driving the bus along Fourth Avenue in Bulawayo, but ran over Sibanda at the Give Way sign into Herbert Chitepo Street, causing him serious injuries as he was riding on a bicycle."In that he failed to keep a proper look and failed to maintain a suitable distance between himself (his bus) and the plaintiff. 1st defendant failed to observe or ignored a Give Way traffic signal which he was facing and plaintiff was facing from the left. He had no valid Zimbabwe Driver's licence when he drove the bus belonging to second defendant (Inter Africa)," read the claim."The 1st defendant was arrested and taken to court where he was being charged for negligent driving and driving without valid driver's licence. First respondent absconded in the middle of trial at Bulawayo magistrate's court."Sibanda submitted that Nhidza and the bus company were refusing to pay the cost of damages and hospital bills resulting from their negligence."The medical doctors who attended to the plaintiff have assessed and awarded plaintiff a medical injury of 20% disability. The Insurance Council of Zimbabwe and Excellence Insurance Company have rejected the claim of compensation, citing that the first and second defendants were responsible and did not follow the ruling by allowing to drive an unlicenced driver, who also was not medically examined and had no defensive driving certificate," the claim further read.Inter-Africa and Nhidza have, however, since entered an appearance to defend. They are being represented by Sengweni Legal Practioners.
News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

A Harare high court judge Justice Phiri has issued a provisional order banning the Vice President of the smaller AFM faction Reverend Amon Chinyemba from entering the AFM Cranbone Revival centre in Harare.Justice Phiri was ssuing a judgement in a case where an AFM parishioner Philimon Mamutse had taken Chinyemba and AFM to court demanding the court to issue an arrest judgement for Chinyemba who had violated a previous court order that banned him from entering church premises.Said the judge, It is hereby ordered that panding return date of this matter; The 1st respondent and all those acting through himbe and and are hereby prohibuited from entering AFM Cranbone Revival centre. The provisional order issued by this Honourable couple remains in full force and effect The officer in charge of Braeside is hereby directed to enforce the terms of this order 1st respondent to pay costs on a legal practitioner client scale.Earlier this month we reported that the fight for control over the Apostolic Faith Mission church (AFM) has taken a new twist with revelations that the main faction led Reverend Amon Madawo is taking steps to expel members of the smaller rival faction led by Reverend Cossum Chiangwa and Reverend Amon Nyika Chinyemba.A church insider who spoke to us said," I can authoritatively tell you that the splinter group led by reverend Reverend Cossum Chiangwa will soon be expelled from the church and will they will be removed from church premises. Chiangwa's faction has no access to assets ownership or bank accounts so really they are not a strong group and their project is doomed."Over the years, some of the churches that have come out of AFM include Life House International led by the late Evangelist Talent Chiweshe, Heartfelt International Ministers led by Bishop Tavonga Vutabwase, United Family Church International led by Pastor Emmanuel Makandiwa and International DSD led by Pastor Oliver Chipunza.
News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

The ZANU PF Secretary for Youth Affairs Lewis Matutu has called upon the law enforcement agents to arrest former leader of the dreaded Chipangano Jim Kunaka over allegations that he confessed to beating and killing opposition members.Kunaka was testifying in front of the 1 August killings Commission of Inquiry led by Kgalema Motlanthe."Jim Kunaka has conceded perpetrating violence against the opposition and killing people for political gains live on TV before the commission of inquiry. All this was done under the oath. It is the duty of the law enforcement institutions to apprehend him and be charged under the laws of the land. He should not be allowed to get away with this!"Matutu said in a statement."If he was given instructions as he alleges, he must name those who gave him such orders if they do exist. Let him name those that were working with him. He just complicated his life because mhosva hairovi he must be held accountable."Matutu said the former terror leader was bitter at ZANU PF because he is broke."Some people may wonder why Jim Kunaka of all the people hate ZANU PF to the core. He is very broke drained and in serious debt and the only way to make money is representing the opposition. However, the fact that he admitted to criminal activities let him take responsibility."Majority of the things that he said shows hate, bitterness and disorder but they are of no substance to the commission of enquiry, probably he should have understood the commission s terms of reference."Matutu further explained.Giving his evidence in chief before the commission Kunaka said, "I was a Provincial Leader of ZANU PF in Harare and I was in charge of commanding violent activities if you check on the internet my name is there. Professor Charity Manyeruke who is seated there in the commission is one of the architects of violence in ZANU PF . She was one of the people with whom we would sit down to discuss how we would beat up MDC people."Manyeruke was my Boss who sent me to do violence and my commander who gave me instructions so I will not respond any questions from my commander because when we were in ZANU PF I was merely her foot soldier."MDC leader Nelson Chamisa is expected to appear before the Commission of Inquiry on Monday next week.
The Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services invites all interest groups in the media industry to roundtable discussions towards contributing, to the amendment and realignment of media laws to the Constitution.The roundtable discussions will be held at Compensation House 11th Floor Boardroom on the following dates:Print Media and Publishing Houses - 26 November 2018TV and Radio Broadcasters - 27 November 2018Civic Media Organizations & Special Groups - 28 November 2018Advertising Agencies and Online Publishers - 29 November 2018Academics and interested parties - 30 November 2018

Interested parties in the media industry are free to submit write-ups of their contributions towards the amendment and realignment of the media laws to the Constitution to the following address:Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services,Munhumutapa Building,Samora Machel and Sam NujomaorBox CY 1276,Causeway,Harareoremail lindamunemo@gmail.com,mobiem20@amail.comSubmission deadline of write-ups is 30 November 2018.For more information contact 0712 237 234, 0712 237 245 or (242) 790402.RSVP: 23 November 2018, closing time 1600 hours.
News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

Nelson Mandela Square confirms that a fire started in a restaurant on 21 November at approximately 12pm.

The centre undertook an emergency evacuation of the premises for the safety and security of its shoppers, tenants, and staff.

The Fire Department is on site and have contained the situation. The cause of the fire will be investigated accordingly.

It is Nelson Mandela Square s topmost priority to ensure the safety and security of all staff, tenants,

and shoppers and we are working closely with the Fire Department and SAPS to maintain everyone is wellbeing.

Fire right now in Sandton Square! pic.twitter.com/kDGJeHnWcQ  Pikkie Greeff (@PikkieGreeff) November 21, 2018

A fire broke out at a restaurant in Nelson Mandela Square located at the posh Sandton town of south Africa on Wednesday.Three people were treated for smoke inhalation and one was transported to hospital for further observation, according to the Joburg Public Safety department statement.Nelson Mandela Square also released a statement on Facebook page that read:Weather analyst are speculating that the fires that are happening in various Southern African countries may be cause by the high levels of heat temperatures. There has an increase of fire incidents in Zimbabwe in the past two weeks which have claimed property and lives.
Its clear that people were  lets just use the word  engaged this election season, and they have the voter turnout numbers to show for it. Preliminary figures show that 37 percent of registered voters in New York City turned out to the polls, an 88 percent jump from the 2014 midterm elections. Of course, such a notable leap is at once exciting and depressing, since turnout went from miserably low to just low.

Nationally, the numbers were a bit higher, with more than 47 percent of voters turning out on November 6th. Thats considered massive by American standards, and while we can and should do better, the turnout on Election Day is something to celebrate.

But our democracy depends on people staying engaged all the other days of the year, too.

Perhaps with that understanding, New York City voters passed a ballot measure on Election Day to create a civic engagement commission, which would implement participatory budgeting citywide and, in theory, have more regular dialogue with community organizations and civic leaders in our neighborhoods. The commission comes after Mayor Bill de Blasio hired the citys first chief democracy officer, whose work involves getting more city residents voting and making it easier for people to get involved in civic life.

Even House Democrats have said their first order of business in Washington, once taking control of the chamber in January, will be to focus on legislation that strengthens democracy, like making it easier for people to vote.

Point is, many are feeling an urgent need to get people involved and engaged in civic life, and to do so on an ongoing basis. Thats why WNYC and Gothamist committed to reporting on civic participation, and answering questions about how to be more civically involved, over more than two months leading up to the midterms. We based our Ask a Reporter project on this notion: For our democracy to function properly, there needs to be more interaction, and more trust, between the public and the officials who make policy. Because right now, there isnt enough of either of those things.

Greater turnout on Election Day is a step toward rectifying the problem. But its just one. Heres what we learned about how civically involved people are these days, and how to take more steps forward. You can even start small with just your block.

So, how civically engaged are we?

Theres been a push over the last couple of decades to renew the countrys civic health. A 2017 report by the National Conference on Citizenship noted an overall decline in traditional civic participation, such as fewer Americans having membership in community organizations.

The report also noted a drop in the national volunteer rate, from 30 percent of the population in 2005 to less than 25 percent in 2015.

Take note: New York Citys volunteer rate, according to a national survey, was far less than the national rate even, at 14 percent.

But beyond the actions that people take, the National Conference on Citizenship report also flagged disturbing trends around trust. Fewer Americans believed they had a say in government, or that public officials cared what they think. Fewer Americans were also trusting each other, giving way to increased partisanship.

Another survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic in late August, found the majority of Americans had negative feelings about the state of the country. A majority also felt doubtful that people with opposing views can work together to solve national problems.

Its not all bad.

That same survey found that people responded differently when asked about addressing issues on a local level. More than half of people surveyed said they felt more confident bridging divides within their own communities, believing that people with different politics could work together to tackle local problems.

In New York City, a pilot study looking deeper into volunteering showed that people give their time in all kinds of ways that were not explicitly asked about in the national survey, such as volunteering for their houses of worship.

And its important to note that people are engaged in ways that are not fully captured by traditional indices  such as consumer activism, or the innovative ways that people stay informed and engaged through new technology.

In a 2017 policy paper about the need for building civic capacity, authors Hollie Russon Gilman and Sabeel Rahman noted that public officials and the people they serve must have more interaction and partnership.

While we tend to associate democracy with specific institutional forms such as elections, at its core, democracy is fundamentally about a type of relationship between citizen and stateone where constituencies can mobilize and make binding claims on policymaking institutions, they wrote.

I called Russon Gilman to talk about the paper and how its concepts align with our reporting about civic engagement. She and Rahman also co-authored the forthcoming book Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis. My overarching question to her was this: How can we actually cultivate that ongoing relationship with the State, and make sure we have a say in shaping our city  our blocks, even?

Your civic capacity is not a static thing, said Russon Gilman. Sometimes I think about it like a physical muscle. So, how do you train or flex that muscle so that you build capacity overtime?

Sometimes people just need to find a way in, she said. You then build confidence to take on larger issues; you acquire a sense of savvy on how to get things done.

Our Ask a Reporter project sought to answer questions from our audience about navigating city agencies and figuring out how to accomplish changes within local communitieshow to get a mural in your neighborhood; how to tackle a litter problem; or how to become a more informed voter. We attempted to demystify processes and give people concrete steps to take.

If you don't actually understand who to call and what to ask for, then half the battle is already lost, said DeNora Getachew, the New York executive director of the civics education organization Generation Citizen. It's much less likely that you're going to be civically motivated to engage in a process that you don't understand.

But democracy requires us to be engaged even on these seemingly small levels, said Getachew, because democracy  as she likes to say  is a full contact sport.



Blanche Romey is the unofficial mayor of her block in Bushwick and an active member of East Brooklyn Congregations (Jenn Hsu / WNYC)

Sweating the Small Stuff

One of the best exemplars of civic-mindedness that I met over the last two months was Blanche Romey, an action-oriented, hat-wearing, 78-year-old long-time resident of Pilling Street in Bushwick.

She moved to her block 38 years ago, after she and her husband bought what she calls a raggedy old house in need of major repairs. The block needed work too.

When I moved on Pilling Street, I said, This place is filthy, Romey said.

But she described herself as a worker, and a neighbor nudged her toward action.

He said, Blanche if you start sweeping from your end to the corner in front of your house, and I do it from mine, it'll be be beautiful. I've been sweeping for 38 years, she said.

Thus began a labor of love on Pilling Street. Emphasis on the labor, though.

Along with fixing up the 10-room house, tasks included: forming a block association; getting tree guards in the sidewalks; confronting drug dealers; adopting a waste basket from the Department of Sanitation (yes, thats a thing); and getting police to focus on a prostitution ring nearby.

Tackling these issues, large and small, required some civic savvy, some time and, in many cases, the help of others.

Don't go it alone.

After years of doing, Romey learned how to organize her neighbors. She also absorbed the teachings of some of the best civic leaders around: East Brooklyn Congregations. EBC is a coalition of congregations and other community leaders thats part of the larger network of faith groups called Metro Industrial Areas Foundation. Romey was wearing a large EBC button the day we toured her neighborhood.

With the power of a large and decades-old organization behind her, Romey was able to take on entrenched issues, such as drugs and affordable housing, that affected her neighbors. She was also recently part of a successful push to win more affordable housing for seniors.

Problems are not happening in a vacuum, said Reverend David Brawley, a co-chair of East Brooklyn Congregations, adding that, to get to the root of an issue, You cant go it all alone.

To have the most impact you have to organize, he said. And by that I mean people have to get together, talk to each other, listen to one another, and discern together in community, What are our issues? And then I would say start with issues that you can win. Dont aim for the fence, get on base.

Amber Spry, a political science professor at Brandeis University, said people may feel most effective when they go local  hyperlocal  and work with their neighbors to solve a problem on their block or in their neighborhood.

When it comes to helping people get engaged I think it really does have to come from a personal place, Spry said. How can you take what you're passionate about and what you care about to make your community thrive?

Spry stressed that organizing neighbors to beautify your block, for example, isnt really just about beautifying your block. Its about exercising power.

Having a voice in your community, having an impact on the people around you is not only a way that individuals can empower themselves to make a difference, but it's also something that is so powerful to communities, Spry said.

Identifying a problem, organizing people to create a solution and then effectively executing that solution takes hard work and perseverance, as weve reported. But its a power that can be executed on a regular basis  far more frequently than our citys Election Days.




News / National

by Ndou Paul

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority would like to advise all partners, stakeholders, the media and the general populace that after wide consultations it has been decided to defer the hosting of the Harare International Carnival.



The much anticipated annual national event which was pencilled for December 2018 will not be held this year and this decision was not arrived at lightly. The year 2018 was punctuated by numerous competing events that led to the postponement of the event from its original October timing and we had hoped to hold the carnival before year end.



The competing events at this time of the year, careful consideration of the weather conditions that are usually characterised by rainfall and the current prevailing economic climate contributed to getting to this decision. We want to make sure that the event is everything it should be and without adequate resources and to conducive environment, it would be to disservice to the Harare International Carnival Brand and the general populace.

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority has cancelled the Harare International Carnival citing competing events and the prevailing economic climate.Controversial businessman and Harare International Carnival Ambassador Genius Kadungure, popularly known as Ginimbi, is was recently bailed after being arrested on allegations of tax evasion amounting to $22 million.ZTA chief executive, Dr Karikoga Kaseke named the controversial Kadungure as Harare International Carnival Brand Ambassador.Kadungure would be the Face of the Harare International Carnival for the next three years.Ginimbi also appeared before Harare magistrate Morgan Nemadire on allegations of defrauding Chegutu West legislator Dexter Nduna, Ivon and Enock Gatawa of more than ZAR1 million on the pretext of supplying mining equipment in 2012.Below is the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority statement:
News / National

by Ndou Paul

Paradzai says the cartridge from a small arm falls closer to the person who fired the gun



Says those who claim they found cartridges at ZCTU Offices Second Floor office must explain where they got them



It might mean person who fired the gun was in that office#August1Inquiry  C. Mambo  (@cemambo) November 21, 2018

A ballistic expert has alleged that bullets fired during Zimbabwe's post-election violence were from small arms.Officer Commanding Ballistics Superintendent Tsitsi Paradzai was giving testimony to the Kgalema Motlanthe led Commission of Inquiry into Zimbabwe post-election violence.Paradzai, the ballistic expert who is also the head for the CID's Forensic Department, told the Commission of Inquiry that from her conclusion the bullets used during the violence were fired from small arms."We cannot pick which calibre because all the holes had been tampered with," she said. After saying that, there were protests from people attending the hearing causing the chairman of the hearings, Motlanthe to appeal for order.Paradzai, who has been working for CID since 2005, explained that what according to them, small arms includes shotguns, pistols and rifles. She clarified that an AK47 is a rifle and also classified as a "small arm".The expert said the cartridge from a small arm falls closer to the person who fired the gun. She said those who claim they found cartridges at ZCTU Offices Second Floor office must explain where they got them from as it might mean that the person who fired the gun was in that office.Paradzai said evidence, that is, bullet holes, at City Centre car park had been tampered with when they visited the crime scene. They, police, also saw a Barclays bus which had a bullet hole. There was also a victim, Adrian, who was shot but had been operated and healed.
News / National

by Mandla Ndlovu

Exiled Former G40 Kingpin Professor Jonathan Moyo has condemned the Act of parliament that was used to takeover South Africa based business tycoon Mutumwa Mawere's Shabani Mashaba mines calling it diabolic and spiteful."I think the Reconstruction of State Indebted Companies Act of 2004 was a diabolic and spiteful piece of legislation conceived by Patrick Chinamasa at the instigation of Emmerson Mnangagwa to target Mutumwa Mawere,"Prof. Moyo said."Of all the lawyers I worked with in govt and ZanuPF, I found Mnangagwa a bush lawyer and Chinamasa a Rhodesian lawyer with no sense of justice!"Shabani Mashava Mines, in Zvishavane and Mashava, ground to a halt in 2008, three years after the government seized them from Mawere, under a controversial Reconstruction law that allows the State to take over assets of businesses deemed to be insolvent and incapable of servicing loans and charges owed to State institutions and agencies.The mines were subsequently placed under the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), which has been looking for an investor to put up $140 million required to re-open the mines.Former President Robert Mugabe in 2009 said he had not been apprised of all the facts when he approved the seizure of Mawere's business empire and promised to look into the case which he did. Mugabe promptly appointed Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to look into Mawere's case and recommend a way forward.In a dramatic U-turn, Gono, who had earlier led the state case against Mawere after accusing the businessman of contravening the country's foreign exchange laws, then recommended to Mugabe that Mawere's companies be given back to him because the circumstances in which they were seized were unjust.Gono's full report to Mugabe then sparked a fierce battle between Gono and the then Mugabe's ministers opposed to giving the companies back. Several meetings were held in which the then Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and current President Emmerson Mnangagwa opposed Gono's report. Sources close to the meetings said Mnangagwa and Chinamasa were shocked at Gono's U-turn because he formulated the charges that led to the seizure of Mawere's companies.
Technology / Internet

by Agencies

The Online Brokerage Industry Was Born



Regulation Becomes the Buzzword

Conclusion

Long gone are the days that trading the financial markets was reserved purely for the high net worth individuals and the institutional traders. Over ten years ago a trading revolution occurred that overhauled the old-fashioned methods of trading, which opened the gateways to the everyman to start trading the financial markets, even from the comfort of his or her own sofa. The online trading revolution was born. Suddenly anyone with a decent internet connection, and a computer terminal could engage in the financial markets. The online forex trading age was born.In this age, there sprung an entire market place for people to start trading currencies, then CFD's, and now even cryptocurrencies online. Along with the consumer demand, grew the online brokerage industry, to meet its needs. Suddenly, each month new brokers came online, offering investing and trading to anyone, anywhere. They promised you the ability to trade from your mobile, no matter where you were, they offered a huge selection of assets to trade, a variety of different trading platforms and better and more shiny bonuses and promotions. Choosing an online broker became a really hard proposition, with competition rife all round. Suddenly news sites and portals were conducting online brokers reviews, in order to help people choose who to trade with. Reviews would cover all aspects of the online brokers, and usually come up with a rating or score at the end of it. Often the reliability of these portals, who rely on brokers advertising was questionable.Luckily many brokers began to offer demo-trading accounts for people to test out their services and product before actually depositing with the company. Islamic accounts were created for those clients following Shari'ah law and were unable to pay rollover overnight fees, for religious reasons.Suddenly the word on everyone's lips was "regulation". It became crucial to know whether a broker was regulated. An entire industry was spawned of regulators offering to protect traders, with investor compensation schemes, meaning clients wouldn't lose their deposits if the broker became insolvent. Additionally they promised to keep the brokers' behaviour in check, by guaranteeing transparency, and honest reporting, plus a minimum level of security, like keeping traders accounts segregated from the brokers accounts.This brings us to today, an entire mature industry of brokers, with healthy competition, giving traders or people who have never traded before access to the sometimes lucrative, sometimes risky trading arena to either trade full time, for a second income, or just as a hobby.Remember some of the most reliable online brokers can be found on the investment portal InvestorGreg.com
The federal government is reappointing a special mediator to help end the Canada Post strike and says it will table back-to-work legislation if an agreement isn't reached in the next few days.

A statement from the office of Patricia Hajdu, the minister for employment, workforce development and labour, said legislating an end to the dispute would be "a step we do not take lightly."

"For nearly a year, we have been supporting and encouraging both sides to reach a negotiated agreement," the statement read.

"We provided conciliation officers, appointed mediators, and offered voluntary arbitration. Despite all of this, limited progress was made and we have exhausted our options."

Earlier Tuesday a group that represents small and medium-sized Canadian businesses called on the federal government to pass back-to-work legislation to end the Canada Post strike, arguing that two-thirds of their members have been hurt by the dispute.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has 110,000 members across the country, and the group says on average each one has been hit to the tune of $3,000 by the disruptions to mail and parcel delivery.

Canada Post's largest union started rolling strikes across the country in the middle of October, and while the specific shutdowns are moving to new places every day, the aggregate affect has been enough to bring package delivery in particular to a grinding halt.

The carrier has already asked foreign mail services to stop sending packages to Canada to add to the backlog, and now says it is too late to get delivery back on track to cover the busy holiday season.

"Canada Post is advising commercial customers and Canadians that mail and parcels in or entering its network will have long and unpredictable delays before being delivered," the carrier said Tuesday.

That's bad news for small businesses who rely on the mail service to deliver products to customers. Two-thirds of CFIB members say they plan on using the mail service less in the future because of the pain the disruption has caused them, CFIB president Dan Kelly said.

Story continues

Canada Post says there are currently more than 500 truckloads full of undelivered packages sitting idle at various facilities across the country. Many of the items in there originated from small retailers, and Kelly said the lost orders, late payments and the need to shift to more expensive shipping alternatives have already cost the typical member about $3,000.

"The rotating strikes have gone on long enough," he said.

That's why the group calling on government to pass back to work legislation by week's end, if the two sides can't reach a deal.

They may have a sympathetic ear in Ottawa to that request.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that "all options are on the table" in dealing with the impasse. "Of course, I'm very preoccupied of the fact that Christmas is coming  important shopping days are coming, and we need to see a resolution to that."

"We've encouraged [both sides] to work together, we've appointed special mediators," she said. "They are not open to voluntary arbitration, so we're reviewing the evidence right now and we'll have more to say in the days to come."

Such a move would not be without precedent. In 2011, the Conservative government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper tabled back-to-work legislation when Canada Post locked out its employees.
The operators of a Halifax business that specializes in selling handmade scarves, mittens and aprons online says enterprises like theirs are slowly becoming casualties of the ongoing Canada Post dispute.

Dale Kearney, who runs Monkeys and More with his wife, Sherrie, said the holidays are an important time for the business, and they typically get orders from across Canada and the United States.

But he said this year customers are reluctant to place orders for fear the ongoing strike action by Canada Post workers means their purchases won't reach them by Christmas.

"Normal years we're sold out by now," Kearney said. "The rotating strike, it's just killing us."

On Monday, the Canada Union of Postal Workers rejected a Canada Post offer to pause the rotating strikes until February. Instead, the union said it will continue with the job action.

The union and Canada Post have been in a dispute since October over pay and job safety issues.

Submitted by Dale Kearney

Kearney said the decision to continue the strike hurts small businesses as they work toward the holiday season.

"We're getting about 300 or 400 people every couple of days looking at our web page and not ordering because of the fact that they're uncertain the product's going to get to them in time for Christmas," he said.

Monkeys and More started an online poll on Sunday asking potential customers if "postal issues" were the reason they weren't placing orders. Twenty-one of the 50 respondents said it was the reason.

Kearney said they don't have a lot of local customers and 95 per cent of their business is online. He said this is the worst year they've had since they opened back in 2014.

As for switching to a courier service in lieu of Canada Post, Kearney said it isn't a viable option. Canada Post rates are lower than most couriers.

"We can send out two of our scarves by Canada Post and it's under $5. If you go by courier it's at least $15-20."

Story continues

Kearney said he's spoken to other business owners online who say they have the same problems. While he said he's sympathetic to the Canada Post workers, striking before the holiday season is "destroying so many businesses."

Calls for back-to-work legislation

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Tuesday that two-thirds of its members have been hurt by the dispute, and called on the federal government to pass back-to-work legislation to end the Canada Post strike.

The group, which represents small and medium-sized businesses, has 110,000 members across the country. It said on average each one has been hit to the tune of $3,000 by the disruptions to mail and parcel delivery.

The union said Monday it didn't want to harm the public, but could not accept the Canada Post offer since it didn't address its safety concerns. Federal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu said she hopes the two sides will continue bargaining.

"Even if they go back after Christmas, they're still going to have a big workload to work through," Kearney said. "It just keeps piling up for them.

"That's what I don't get."
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian air force is increasingly running short of combat-capable fighter jets and pilots and government attempts to address the problem have only made it worse, the nation's top watchdog said on Tuesday. The report by Auditor General Michael Ferguson is another blow to a decade-long, trouble-plagued attempt by successive administrations to replace Canada's CF-18 jets, some of which have been flying for almost 40 years. "National Defence (defense ministry) has not done enough to manage risks related to Canada's fighter aircraft fleet ... until a replacement fleet is in place," said Ferguson. Defense officials are set to issue final specifications for a new fleet of 88 jets next May. The contract will be worth between C$15 billion ($11.3 billion) and C$19 billion. Repeated delays mean some CF-18s will have to fly until 2032, much later than expected. Ferguson said the planes had not been significantly upgraded for combat since 2008 - in part because officials thought the new jets would be operating by 2020 - and were therefore increasingly vulnerable. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said in a statement that Ottawa would launch new initiatives to recruit and retain pilots and was also moving to upgrade the CF-18s. In 2016, at a time when qualified pilots and technicians were leaving in growing numbers, the ruling Liberals ordered the air force to increase the number of fighters available for operations by a quarter. To help overcome the shortage of planes, the government vowed to buy 18 Boeing Co F-18 Super Hornet jets. Ferguson said it did so even though the defense ministry indicated the move would worsen the personnel shortage by taking pilots away from an already stretched CF-18 fleet. Ottawa later scrapped the plan after a dispute with Boeing and moved to buy used CF-18s from Australia. James Bezan, defense spokesman for the opposition Conservatives, accused the government of creating the crisis and urged it not to buy "rusted-out Australian jets." Ferguson said the military would have to spend an extra C$3 billion to extend the lifespan of the CF-18s and buy and operate the Australian jets "without a plan to deal with its biggest obstacles to meeting the new operational requirement: a shortage of pilots and declining combat capability." Ferguson said the defense ministry did not have a plan to boost the number of CF-18 pilots. If they continue to leave at the current rate, there will not be enough left to train the next generation, he added. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by David Gregorio and Peter Cooney)
As Dana Meise trudged into Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., last week, his mind was 10 years and 21,000 kilometres away.

The Sherwood Park man was finishing his on-foot trek of Canada's Great Trail, becoming the first person to touch the country's three coasts as he journeyed from the Atlantic to the Pacific and finally up to the Arctic Ocean.

"When I was first seeing the lights of Tuk  it was really emotional, like, I was definitely crying. I had flashbacks in my head of the beginning and my first hundred kilometres, and I remembered the first step I took," Meise said Monday in an interview with CBC's Radio Active.

He started the Great Hike in 2008 in honour of his father who suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk. He chose the trail, formerly the Trans-Canada Trail, because it connects community, history, beauty and geography

Those first kilometres were in Newfoundland, where Meise found himself in the middle of the worst rainstorm he's ever experienced. Turns out, that was just a taste of the adventures yet to come.

The fly of his tent was shredded  twice  by ravens. Another time, he woke up to 30 C and a snow-covered tent.

He hobbled through the extreme pain of plantar fasciitis. ("I would rather break my leg and this is not a joke," he said later.)

He went through 27 pairs of boots.

He suffered a concussion, injured his shoulder and hurt his back.

During a stop in Saskatchewan, he had all his gear stolen and burned. At one point, he was taking so many painkillers, he developed ulcers.

"There were times I certainly questioned my sanity, because it starts taking up so much of your life," laughed the 44-year-old.

CBC

But after a certain point, quitting just wasn't an option. Meise said it would be like attending university for three years, then quitting without a degree. "Like Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip said, no one's interested in something you didn't do. So if I didn't finish, I wouldn't say [it was] wasted time but it certainly wouldn't have been productive time."

Story continues

It hasn't been a continuous journey: Meise would spend half the year away from the trail working as a forestry technician in Prince George, B.C., before rejoining it exactly where he left off, as he covered roughly 16,500 kilometres east to west. He also took a three-year hiatus after suffering a concussion and back injury at work in 2015.

"I told everyone that I never Iooked at the map. That's the thing. If you're going to do something huge like that, never ever look at the map. You just look at what's in front of you."

Meise is taking time to adjust to the end of the road. The final stretch of the walk took him two months. Since arriving home, he dreams that he has to wake up and start walking again.

But with the trek over, Meise is excited about new opportunities that lie ahead. During the journey, he posted to his Facebook page and to Twitter when he had access, and filled dozens of journals with tales of his adventures.

Using his now-intimate knowledge of Canada from coast to coast to coast, he is planning to start a podcast and write a book. There may even be a television series in his future, he said.

Dana Miese

"When I did my hike, people were blown away by, you know, by the country," he said. "And this is embarrassing, but I met a lot of Canadians and I'd say I'm walking to all three oceans and they look at me and say, 'What's the third one?'"

Meise hopes that telling the story about his trek will inspire other Canadians to take time to investigate new corners of the country, instead of simply fleeing the cold for a beach vacation.

"I want to get something back out of this and I have something to give," he said.

"So the journey hasn't ended. It's only begun."
A man, his wife, and two young children were found dead after a fire broke out at their NJ home on Tuesday. Now the man's brother has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to his own home in a neighboring town, while his own wife and daughters were inside. It was not immediately clear whether the fires are linked.

Firefighters responded to a fire at 15 Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck, NJ, after 12:30 p.m. They found Keith Caneiro, 50, dead, reportedly with a gunshot wound, outside the home. Three "badly burned" bodies were found in the house, and it's believed they belong to Caneiro's 45-year-old wife Jennifer and their two children; law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 they appear to have been stabbed.

On Tuesday, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said, "We are investigating this as an arson, an intentional fire. But I have nothing further in terms of investigating the fatalities that I can provide at this time." Sources told WABC 7 that the family seemed to be homicide victims.



Firefighters fighting the blaze at 15 Willow Brook Road, Colts Neck (Noah K Murray/AP/Shutterstock)

Caneiro's brother, Paul Caneiro, 51, was arrested after a fire was set at his home in Ocean Township. His house is about a 20-minute drive from his brother's Colts Neck house.

Paul J. Caneiro, 51, of Tilton Avenue in Ocean Township, is charged with one count of second degree Aggravated Arson in connection with a fire Monday at his residence. Investigators are urging anyone with any information about this incident to call 800-533-7443. pic.twitter.com/26pIvKq4Il  Monmouth Prosecutor (@MonCoProsecutor) November 21, 2018

Keith Caneiro owned a tech consulting business, Square One, as well as a pest management company, EcoStar Pest Management, in Asbury Park. A person who works in the same office building told NJ.com that Paul Caneiro was involved in both businesses. NJ.com notes that the brothers "grew up in Brooklyn before both marrying women from Staten Island and moving to New Jersey."

Columbia University confirmed that Keith Caneiro attended the School of General Studies from 2010 through 2014, and graduated in 2014. Caneiro also received a Master of Science from Columbia's School of Professional Studies in February of this year.



Residents outside 15 Willow Brook Road, Colts Neck (Noah K Murray/AP/Shutterstock)

Colts Neck is a wealthy suburb with celebrities in the community. Bruce Springsteen is a resident, while Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey have an animal sanctuary there. Queen Latifah sold a house there in 2015. Keith and Jennifer Caneiro "paid off the $1.8 million mortgage two years ago."

The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office will hold a press conference this afternoon to address its investigation. A vigil for Keith and Jennifer Caneiro's family is planned for 5 p.m and
A Yellowknife cab driver that made headlines for beating up a passenger in 2017 will not be allowed to continue operating a taxi in the city.

Matar Mahamed Mahamud lost an appeal to reinstate his chauffeur's permit  which allows people to operate taxis in the city  at a special council meeting on Monday.

"I need another chance for my chauffeur permit. That is my second chance," said Mahamud.

Mahamud was convicted in May of assault causing bodily harm following an incident in July 2017, when he attacked a passenger who could not pay his fare because he only had a debit card.

The victim was left with two black eyes and a concussion.

Mahamud was sentenced in October to eight months of house arrest and one year probation.

Under city bylaws, a chauffeur's permit will not "be issued to any person who has been convicted under the Criminal Code of Canada of  any offence while on duty as a taxi driver."

Drivers are required to report any convictions to the city's senior administrative officer, but Mahamud never did that. His permit wasn't revoked until October, after the city learned of his conviction through local media.

Failing to report a conviction is grounds to cancel a driver's permit immediately, according to the bylaw.

Gabriela Panza-Beltrandi/CBC

"We should have been here many, many months ago," said Michael Woodward, a solicitor for the city, during Monday's meeting.

Woodward said Mahamud should have reported his conviction as soon as it happened.

"[Mahamud] has shown himself to be ungovernable by failing to comply with the bylaw," said Woodward.

"He's not a fit and proper person to operate a taxi cab in the city of Yellowknife."

Woodward also pointed to Mahamud's version of events of the attack. According to court documents, Mahamud claimed the passenger pushed him to the ground and kicked him.

However, testimony from a witness said Mahamud punched the victim while he was lying on the ground, and Mahamud's evidence was rejected by the judge.

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Despite this, in an Oct. 31 letter appealing the revocation of his chauffeur's permit, Mahamud wrote, "[My passenger] grabbed me and then he fell down."

"It appears that that fictitious version of events is going to be continued," Woodward said.

Gabriela Panza-Beltrandi/CBC

'I need another chance'

In addressing city council, Mahamud maintained that he was innocent and accused his victim of lying about the attack.

"I'm a victim," he said.

"I am [a] good person. I need another chance to support my family until I get something, [a] different job."

Coun. Niels Konge asked Mahamud if he had been told he was required to report any criminal convictions to the city when he first received his chauffeur's permit.

Mahamud said that yes, he had been told.

After discussing the matter behind closed doors, councillors voted unanimously not to reinstate Mahamud's permit.

Mahamud said he plans to fight his criminal conviction in N.W.T. Supreme Court.
Maura Ward is taking on the challenge to raise money for Parkinsons charity (Johnny Ward)

A 70-year-old Mum with Parkinsons is climbing Mount Fuji to raise money for a charity funding research to cure the disease.

Maura Ward, from Northern Ireland, was diagnosed with the illness in 2012 after noticing a tremor in her leg.

But, according to her son Johnny, Maura used her diagnosis as a motivation to live life for the moment.

Johnny, who will tackle the 3,776 metre climb with his mum, has started a campaign about their trip to raise money for the Cure Parkinsons Trust.

He told Yahoo News UK: For a normal 70-year-old to climb Fuji that would be tough, but for a 70-year-old with Parkinsons this is like her Everest.

I think shes feeling the pressure about raising the money, and knowing the she cant fail but shes really looking forward to it and I know she wont give up.

Since her diagnoses Maura has joined Johnny, a travel blogger who has visited every country in the world, on a number of trips, including backpacking through Baghdad last year.

Maura has joined son Johnny on a number of intrepid journeys (Johnny Ward)

Shes very young at heart, I know its a cliche but when someones genuinely young at heart you understand what that really represents, Johnny said.

She doesnt want to sit and watch Jeremy Kyle she wants to get out and live her life.

I feel so proud it can make me cry. I think about it every day. Shes really going for it.

Maura raised Johnny and his sister as a single parent in Northern Ireland, relying on welfare and working two jobs.

Her son describes her as a really amazing, selfless person who sacrificed everything for her family.

After she found out she had Parkinsons, Maura turned vegetarian and started going to the gym to improve her fitness.

On her 65th birthday she completed a skydive to raise money for a Parkinsons charity, raising more than 3,500.

Maura Ward did a skydive on her 65th birthday to raise money for charity (Johnny Ward)

Maura and Johnny will climb Mount Fuji in July next year, and will tackle the ascent over two days, waking up at 1am to reach the summit.

They are also hoping that others will join them on the climb and trip to Japan, hopefully raising more money for the Cure Parkinsons Trust.

Story continues

To donate to the appeal, visit gofundme.com/climbing-mount-fuji-at-70-with-Parkinsons.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo
They've only been in Canada a short while, but a group of Syrian refugees living in Brockville, Ont., is already paying it forward by sponsoring a family of eight from their homeland.

Khaled and Aveer Sultan and their six young children arrived at the Ottawa International Airport Tuesday to cheers, tears and hugs from their sponsors, who pinned tiny maple leaves to the newcomers' lapels.

The sponsors will act as guides, translators and an extended family to the Sultans as they adapt to their new life in Brockville.

"This family is like my brother, like my family," said sponsor Omar Alahmed.

Sandra Abma/CBC

Relatives left behind

The five sponsor families have their own worries about relatives left behind in precarious circumstances, but say they decided to open their arms to strangers because of the way Canadians welcomed them.

"Canadian people did not know me, but they helped me," said sponsor Ahmad Alkafrei, who arrived as a refugee in January 2017.

The sponsorship program the families are taking part in is administered by the Refugee Hub at the University of Ottawa and funded by two charitable groups, The Shapiro Foundation and The Giustra Foundation, as well as six other donors in Canada and the U.S.

Together, they're donating $3.5 million dollars to 150 sponsor groups across the country to support the resettlement of 685 refugees, drawn from a list compiled by the United Nations.

Sandra Abma/CBC

Met at recruitment drive

Kailee Brennan, an outreach officer with the Refugee Hub, first met the families in August at a recruitment event in Brockville. They came hoping to bring their own relatives to Canada, Brennan said, but soon learned that's not how the program works.

"Of course, many of them had left family behind, and it's always so difficult to explain that." Brennan said.

CBC

After a prolonged discussion in Arabic, the translator, Brockville businessman Ahmad Khadra, declared the group had decided to open their arms to a family they didn't know.

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"I told them, 'You are not a refugee anymore. You are now 100 per cent Canadian, and Canadians love to do something good,'" said Khadra, who came to Canada from Syria in 1995.

Khadra was also at the airport Tuesday, handing out cups of strong Syrian coffee to the new arrivals.

The sponsors have rented a furnished apartment in Brockville for the Sultan family, and will be close by to help them access food, clothing and medical care. They'll also be able to point them to the best places for Arabic food and other small comforts that will help the family ease into their new life in Canada
By Julie Zhu HONG KONG (Reuters) - Careem, Uber's main Middle East rival, is looking at raising between $100 million and $200 million from Chinese investors, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Investment bank China International Capital Corporation (CICC) is advising Dubai-based Careem, but it was not immediately clear when or if a deal would be finalised, the source said, adding there was a lack of familiarity and interest among Chinese investors in Middle Eastern start-ups. Beijing-based CICC and Careem both declined to comment. Reuters reported on Monday that CICC and New York-based investment bank Jefferies were both advising Careem on potential investment options and capital raising, including a possible Middle East M&A deal with Uber. Careem, which counts German car maker Daimler and Chinas largest ride-hailing company DiDi Chuxing among its other backers, competes head-to-head with Uber in most of the major cities in the Middle East. Careem said in October it had secured $200 million in a new funding round from existing investors, and that it expected to raise more to finance expansion plans. That investment, combined with previous fund raising and company growth into new markets and segments, gave Careem an estimated valuation of more than $2 billion. Reuters reported in March that Careem was in early talks to raise as much as $500 million. (Writing and additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Alexander Smith)
New York City taxi drivers and their advocates are experiencing sticker shock over a significant fare hike set to take effect in much of the city, which they fear will spell doom for the already struggling industry.

Starting in January, it will cost $5.80 just to start a trip in a yellow cab in most of Manhattan, thanks to a $2.50 "congestion fee" included in the budget passed by the state legislature in April. That new charge will affect for-hire vehicles that touch a congestion zone below 96th Street, and comes on top of an existing $2.50 pick-up fee and 80-cent accessibility and mass transit charge levied on yellow taxis. Taken together, the fees represent a "potentially devastating" threat to the cab industry, according to Taxi & Limousine Commission Chairwoman Meera Joshi.

App-based services like Uber and Lyft also face a new fee$2.75 for single rides and 75 cents for pooled trips in the same zone. But they will feel less of an impact, Joshi told the Wall Street Journal, because "they're not bound to a metered fare" and "can reduce the price of the trip so that the passenger doesnt feel the effect." A spokesperson for Uber disputed that characterization, noting that the state law requires the fee "be passed along to passengers.

According to Uber drivers who spoke to Gothamist anonymously, there are rumors swirling that the company is preparing to institute a major fare increase in New York City in the coming weeksand widespread confusion about whether the hike will impact their wages. A study conducted last year by Uber and New York University found that the take home pay of drivers is essentially unaffected by fare changes, due to the ease that drivers and customers can exit or enter the system.

But yellow cab drivers, who face a more stringent regulatory environment and plummeting values for their required medallions, do not have the same luxury. They say that the city's long delay in regulating the e-hail industry has made it nearly impossible for them to earn a living, and contributed to an ongoing suicide crisis. Last week, Queens-based cabbie Roy Kim became the eighth professional driver to take his own life in the past year, after he reportedly racked up more than $500,000 in debt on his medallion purchase.

According to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the congestion fee will dramatically exacerbate this crisis, and could cost yellow cab drivers as much as $15,000 a year in income. "The state and the city need to understand that the once stable path to middle class earnings for yellow cab drivers has been destroyed by uneven competition," NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai said in a statement. "Now is the time to stabilize income for this workforce, not to sink workers deeper into poverty and despair."

Asked about the reaction to the fee, a spokesperson for Governor Andrew Cuomo, Tyrone Stevens, called the charge a "first step" toward congestion pricing, and noted the money would go toward the MTA's Subway Action Plan. "Next year," he added, "we will continue to work with the Legislature to evaluate this surcharge and pass comprehensive congestion pricing once and for all."

When the taxi surcharge appeared in the budget earlier this year, City Councilmember Brad Lander told Politico, "I still see nothing approaching a serious effort to fix [the subway system]. Everyone seems to think the scale of whats required... is at an order of magnitude higher than what were spending.
A day later the apex court cleared its bid for Binani Cement, Ultratech Cement announced on November 20, that the Braj Binani group flagship company has become a subsidiary of Ultratech.

The board of Binani Cement has also been reconstituted, Ultratech told the stock exchange.



"In terms of the Company's Resolution Plan approved by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, the Board of BCL has been re-constituted and BCL has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company with effect from 20th November, 2018," Ultratech said in a notification to the Bombay Stock Exchange.



The Supreme Court on November 19 upheld the appellate tribunal's order that approved Ultratech's bid for Binani Cement as part of the insolvency law. The NCLAT on November 14 had dismissed rival bidder Dalmia Bharat's plea on the ground that its offer of Rs 6,932 crore was "discriminatory" against some operational as well as financial creditors.

Through its offer of Rs 7,950 crore for the asset, Ultratech has gotten the ownership of a 6.25 MT plant in the state of Rajasthan that comprises an integrated cement unit with capacity of 4.85 MT and a 1.4 MT split grinding unit. Binani Cement has also expanded its operations to Dubai and China and apart from India, enjoys major market share in countries like UAE, Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar and Namibia, according to information on its website.



India's largest cement maker Ultratech has been on an acquisition spree. Last year it had added 21.2 MT of ready capacity by acquiring six integrated plants of Jaypee Associates. This year in May, the company had absorbed the cement business of Century Textiles and Industries by way of a demerger of the latter's business through a share swap.



With Binani becoming its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ultratech has now reached a capacity of more than 116 MT and has further strengthened its presence in the western market of Rajasthan.

Binani Cement reported annual revenue of Rs 1,535 crore for the year 2016 with a total net loss of Rs 348 crore.

Vatsala Gaur, Economic Times
27th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change held in New Delhi has urged advanced countries to enhance their support to developing nations in effectively implementing Paris Agreement to combat climate change. BASIC countries comprise Brazil, South Africa, India and China. This comes ahead of UN Conference of Parties (COP) scheduled to be held in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland.

Outcomes of Meeting

Participating BASIC countries reaffirmed that Paris Agreement is significant step to advance global action against climate change, recognising needs and special circumstances of developing countries.

They also reaffirmed member countries commitment to implement UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) its Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. It resolved to promote low carbon transition to safeguard future of mankind.

As a group they will continue to push for developed countries on their earlier commitment to providing $100 billion annually from 2020. They also urged developed countries to take urgent actions to close pre-2020 implementation gaps by 2023 which they said can be useful input for first Global Stocktake (GST). Brazil will host next BASIC meeting in 2019.

Global Stocktake (GST)

GST refers to proposed five-yearly-review of the impact of climate change action undertaken by countries. Under the Paris Agreement, each country has to present a climate action plan every five years. Under the Paris Agreement, the first global stocktake will happen in 2023. It will help world to determine whether it needs to do moreand how much more. India is demanded for 10-year period for GST, while EU and some others demanded five-year cycle. India argues that five years is too short a time to assess whether the actions were having the desired impacts.

BASIC

BASIC countries are bloc (geopolitical alliance) of four large newly industrialized countries  Brazil, South Africa, India and China. It was formed by agreement in November 2009. They were committed to act jointly at Copenhagen climate summit 2009, including possible united walk-out if their common minimum position was not met by developed nations during climate talks. It is working to define common position on emission reductions and climate aid money and try to convince other countries to sign up to Copenhagen Accord.
A man who became stranded on a remote island while on holiday to mark the end of his cancertreatment has died.Jon Paul McAllister travelled to Madagascar with his partner Craig Park to celebrate completing his chemotherapy and the couple's recent engagement.However soon after arriving for their once-in-a-lifetime trip, the 38-year-old fell ill and a scan revealed that the Scot's stage-four bowel cancer had returned.Wellwishers raised 25,000 to help get Mr McAllister home, but on Saturday he revealed that he was deemed too sick to fly back to Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire.In an emotional post, relatives revealed that Mr McAllister 'slipped away peacefully' on Reunion Island.'He slipped away peacefully with his rock and best pal, Craig, by his side.'Jon Paul fought so hard against this awful illness for nine long months and now he's at peace.'He was a legend that will live on forever in our memories and in our hearts.'We were so close to getting JP home. A medical repatriation service had been organised to fly him home on Saturday before his health rapidly deteriorated.'Unfortunately, this was a non-refundable cost. We are now doing everything we can to bring JP home for that Scottish send off he deserves.'Mr Park had said a scan showed the treatment was shrinking the deposits left behind following surgery to remove a tumour, and the couple were advised they were fine to go on the long-awaited trip.But shortly after arriving, the social worker's health deteriorated rapidly and he spent two weeks in an 'unsanitised' medical facility in Madagascar.Mr McAllister was then transferred on an air ambulance to improved medical facilities on nearby island Reunion 6,000 miles away from home.To donate to the JustGiving page, click here
Matteo Guendouzi is poised to rebuff attempts from Morocco to get him to represent them at international level after he pledged allegiance to FranceThe Arsenal midfielder was born in a Paris suburb but has Moroccan heritage and the nation has tried to recruit him for the African Cup of Nationscampaign starting next summer.Guendouzi has been rewarded for his excellent Arsenal form since joining for 7million from Lorient in the summer, with France handing him his first Under 21 cap in the 2-2 draw with Croatia on Thursday.And the 19-year-old appears to have snubbed Morocco's approach, admitting his desire to play for France, indicating he would turn down any approach from the African side.'Since I was young, I've always played with the French teams,' he told Canal+.'It's a dream to play with the France senior team.'And I'm hoping to get there, it's a dream for me to make it happen.'MATTEO GUENDOUZI ARSENAL STATSPremier LeagueApps:9 Goals:0 Assists:0 Mins:524Europa LeagueApps:4 Goals:1 Assists:1 Mins:303League CupApps:2 Goals:0 Assists:2 Mins:146Morocco have previously been successful in luring Hakim Ziyech and Younes Belhanda away from France.But despite the African Nations Cup being played moving to summer months to avoid clashing with the European domestic season they look like missing out on Guendouzi.The 19-year-old's impressive display against Croatia, and in a 1-1 draw with Spain on Monday, will only enhance his chances of turning out for the world champions but in the short term it provides a good sign for the Gunners.Unai Emery's side are unbeaten in their last 16 games but have not won a Premier League match in over two months ahead of their trip to Bournemouth on Sunday.
In 2010, Matt Green decided to walk every block of every street in New York City's five boroughs, living on a $15/day budget the entire time. He originally believed the journey would take around 2.5 years, but in the end it took him closer to six years. And now, the massive projectpart vision quest, part history project, part social experiment, part L-I-V-I-N'has been distilled into a 95-minute documentary.

The finished piecewhich thoughtfully covers his 8,000-mile walking tour (which he also documented online)doesn't just highlight every corner of NYC, but the people in it, and the history hiding in plain sight. The NY Times noted, "He can locate the unmarked building in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States; and expound on a deadly gas tank explosion in Staten Island in 1973 while passing by the present-day site."

The original plan was not to film the journey, but director Jeremy Workman reached out to Green early on, asking, "Shouldnt I be filming your walk?" He says, "I knew it was going to be a tough sell for Matt. I immediately offered a solution that might make it easier for him to say yes: Id do everything myself. No crew - just me and a camera. Id be just a fly on the wall buzzing through an entire city. Somehow (Im still shocked), Matt said okay." And then Jesse Eisenberg got on boardin the below interview he explains how Workman reached out during the editing process for some creative input, and he was immediately drawn the film and its subject.

The World Before Your Feet is now in theaters, and tonight (Wednesday, 11/21) producer Jesse Eisenberg, director Jeremy Workman, and Green himself will be on hand at screenings at Quad Cinema.
A mother-of-two nearly died 'of a broken heart' after she discovered her partner of seven years had left her for her friend.Helen Ross, now 38, from Canterbury in Kent, was diagnosed with stress-induced cardiomyopathy  also known as broken heart syndrome  after her former childhood sweetheart announced he was leaving her.Just days later, she collapsed and her heart stopped beating, leaving her needing a pacemaker for seven years afterwards.'I couldn't believe a break up could affect me physically to the point where I could have died,' she said.The former model, who was 26 at the time, admits she was 'inconsolable' at the break down of her relationship but jetted to Orlando, Florida, to throw herself into work to take her mind off things.But her trip was cut short when she collapsed on her first day of a shoot. Her heart stopped again in hospital and doctors diagnosed her with stress-induced cardiomyopathy.Ms Ross now runs her own business making saddle pads for horse riders and lives with her two sons, Hugo, six, and Henry, five, from a separate relationship.She said: 'I had never heard of broken heart syndrome before it happened to me.WHAT IS BROKEN HEART SYNDROME?Broken heart syndrome, known medically as stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo syndrome, happens when the heart fails because of extreme stress.It is usually triggered by an emotional event such as the death of a loved one.The condition affects around 3,000 people a year in the UK, and is more common among women than men.It causes part of the heart to become temporarily enlarged, preventing the organ from pumping blood properly. It can cause it to stop altogether.Although broken heart syndrome is not triggered by disease  it isn't linked to blocked arteries or high blood pressure  it is believed to be able to cause long-lasting damage by weakening the heart and affecting its pumping motion.Spokesperson for Cardiomyopathy UK, Dr Daniel Hammersley, said: 'Patients who develop this condition generally experience symptoms of chest pain or breathlessness.'Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases the heart muscle function recovers within a few weeks. It is a rare condition overall. Most frequently it affects people in their 50s or 60s, although it has been seen in other age groups.'Sources:Cardiomyopathy UKand theAmerican Heart Association'I couldn't believe a break up could affect me physically, to the point where I could have died.'I loved him to bits and could have never pictured myself without him after we'd built a life together - we'd only just bought a house.'I felt distraught by the break up, but I didn't realise it had actually broken my heart.'Stress-induced cardiomyopathy is a reaction by the heart to sudden release of stress hormones, which can be triggered by emotional upset.This causes part of the heart to become temporarily enlarged and struggle to pump blood properly.It may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because symptoms and test results are similar, but there's no evidence arteries become blocked in the condition.The condition is more common among women than men and is more likely to affect older people, such as people who lose their lifelong spouses.A study last year suggested the condition can cause long-lasting damage to the heart by reducing the strength of the muscle and slowing down its pumping motion.'I'd only been in Orlando for 24 hours and was feeling physically normal,' she explained, 'but out of the blue I just collapsed  there were no warning signs.'Staff on the photo shoot called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital, where she woke up 30 minutes later.Doctors were dumbfounded and couldn't explain why a healthy young woman had collapsed seemingly randomly, so they kept her in overnight.And when she woke up the next morning she noticed a nurse watching her anxiously.Ms Ross said: 'She asked me how I was feeling and how I had slept, and I told her fine  as far as I was concerned, I'd slept like a baby.'She told me my heart had stopped beating while I was asleep  it had flatlined.'I was shocked and couldn't believe it had happened while I was asleep, I could easily have died.'But weirdly, by the time the doctors had come rushing in with the defibrillator seconds later, my heart had started up again by itself. They called it pot luck.'Doctors asked if she had experienced a recent trauma which might have triggered the heart problem and, when she explained the break-up, they diagnosed her with broken heart syndrome.Ms Ross explained: 'I told them how hard the break-up had been for me, how devastated I was and they nodded and immediately said it was to blame.'I had no idea that this sort of thing could happen, but they explained it isn't entirely uncommon in elderly people who lose their life partner  but it was rare in someone so young.'They thought it had almost certainly happened to me the day before, and was the reason I had collapsed at the photoshoot.'When back in the UK, Ms Ross was fitted with a pacemaker to regulate her heart, which she had removed in 2014 after no further complications.She went to the University of Lincoln to study equine sciences and has since set up her own business, HRP Equestrian.Ms Ross also founded a charity called Hugs4Lungs, running a 24-hour support line for parents with children who have breathing difficulties.Having had relationships since the ill-fated one 12 years, Ms Ross vowed never to let herself feel so dependent on a man again that she risked her life.She added: 'It taught me to focus on the positives and everything I have going for me, as well as to love myself more.'I know now I will never let myself get in that position again.'
Sri Lanka: Fishermen of the collided fishing boat rescued, will be brought ashore tonight

November 21,2018 | Source: Colombo Page

The fishermen onboard a fishing boat collided with a ship in deep sea 40 knots off Kirinda coast have been rescued and they will be brought ashore tonight, the Search Operations Unit of the Fisheries Department's said.



The fishing boat named "Sadev-1" with five fishermen aboard has collided with a ship at around 1 am this morning. A multi-day fishing boat named 'Madhusha-5' fishing nearby have rescued the five fishermen on Sadev-1 at around 4:30 am.



A Sri Lanka Navy craft has been dispatched to the location of Madhusha-5 to bring back the rescued fishermen. Since Madhusha-5 is engaged in fishing activities, its current location cannot be pinpointed and the Navy and the Search Operations Unit of the Fisheries Department are monitoring the sea area, according to the reports. Sudev-I is currently sinking, the reports say.
World News: What does the ocean have to tell us? Sustainable Ocean Day event at 10am on Friday, November 23, 2018 at COP14

November 21,2018 | Source: CBD

The one day event at CBD (Conference of Parties)COP 14 will seek to answer the question, how can these ocean voices help us to chart the path to the future we want? This special gathering, being convened by the CBD Secretariat, with financial support from the Government of the Republic of Korea, the Government of Sweden, the European Union, and the French Biodiversity Agency, will provide a forum for the voices of the ocean. Stakeholders and partners from across the globe will be invited to bring these voices to COP 14. They will use innovative means (e.g., inspirational story-telling, dialogues, film, poetry, performance, music, visual art) to tell these stories. ICSF shall be talking about the importance of Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF) and the SSF Guidelines for securing sustainable SSF. Costa Rican Marine Responsible Fishing Areas Network shall be participating in Oceans Peoples of the Future.



The detailed programme is available at:

https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/4583/c077/305d32315ef76fb89d2a125d/cop-14-ocean-programme-en.pdf
BANGLI: The first member of the Bali Nine heroin-trafficking gang was released from prison Wednesday after serving 13 years, in a case that caused a huge diplomatic rift between Indonesia and Australia.





Renae Lawrence, 41, the only female member of the group, was arrested in 2005 when authorities caught her with 2.6 kg of heroin strapped to her body as she tried to fly out of the international airport on the holiday island of Bali.





She was initially handed a life term, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further cut due to good behaviour.





Surrounded by immigration officials and a swarm of media who jostled to get a picture of her, Lawrence left Bangli prison shortly after 5:00 pm (0900 GMT) and got into a waiting car.





It is likely that Lawrence will be deported shortly after her release.





Well put her on a blacklist which bans her for life from ever coming back to Indonesia, said Agato Simamora, head of Balis immigration department.





Earlier Wednesday, Bangli prison chief Made Suwendra told AFP that Lawrence was healthy and ready to leave prison.





She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous, Suwendra said.





Firing squad





The Australian Police Commissioner for the state of New South Wales, Mick Fuller, told The Australian newspaper there were two outstanding arrest warrants for Lawrence and that they will speak to her when she returns to the country.





Reports in Australian media said Lawrence could face arrest once she is back home over a high-speed chase involving a stolen vehicle dating back to just before she was arrested in Indonesia.





Of the nine in the original group, 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 worlds strictest drug laws including the death penalty.





Another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died in prison in June 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.





Dozens of foreigners are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drugs offences, with executions carried out by firing squad.





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.





Foreigners are routinely arrested for drug crimes in Indonesia, including a Frenchman busted in October with nearly four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of narcotics including cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, while an Australian was arrested in August for allegedly dealing cocaine to Bali holidaymakers.





This summer, a Frenchman detained for 18 years after trying to smuggle drugs into Bali was allowed to leave Indonesia after serving several years of parole in the country.

Renae Lawrence the only Bali Nine member to be released early under Indonesia's leniency laws

Lawrence spent close to 13 years behind bars for attempting to smuggle 2.7 kilograms of heroin, that was strapped to her body, from Bali to Australia.





She has been released before her full term of 20 years due to Indonesia's leniency process, where inmates are granted the opportunity to reduce their sentences twice a year during Independence Day and a religious holiday, for good behaviour, among other unclear reasons.





It is also unclear why the other Bali Nine members were not being granted the same leniency.





Narcotics Agency spokesman Sulistiandriatmoko said Lawrence had completed her sentence according to Indonesian law and her deportation would be handled by both the Australian Government and the Indonesian Immigration Department.





"She has no permits or rights to remain in the country, so the matter will need to be addressed by the Immigration Department," he said.





"We will no longer be involved."





'Media circus' to follow Lawrence





Australians who are convicted of crimes in Indonesia have often been followed by scores of journalists who descend on the country, most recently for the deportation of Schapelle Corby in May last year.





The ABC's Media Watch dubbed the coverage of Corby's return to Australia as a "media circus", due to the hawkish nature of Australian media trampling over each other to get the latest scoop.





But little is ever mentioned about the Indonesian perspective or how big a role such a circus plays in the lives of everyday Indonesians.





Mr Sulistiandriatmoko said the attention was something that could not be avoided due to the prominence of Lawrence's release, but it would "indeed become a media circus".





"We can't stop the media covering her release," he said.





"But I guess the circus is not only in Australia, but also in Indonesia."





The costs of staying behind bars





The Indonesian Government has been widely criticised for its tough stance on drug-related crimes.





Dio Wicaksana, from the Indonesian Judicial Monitoring Society in the University of Indonesia, said there were clear inconsistencies in the sentencing of cases in Indonesia due to a lack of clear guidelines.





"There are no official criminal codes to provide sentencing guidance for court judges, while there is one for prosecutors," Mr Wicaksana said.





The Indonesian court system does not determine cases through a jury, instead adopting a judicial panel that deliberates and determines the final sentence.





Lawrence was initially held at Bali's Kerobokan prison, but was later moved to two different jails  the last being Bangli prison in the island's south-east.





Her time in prison has been marked by issues of overcrowding in the underfunded prison system.





There are about 250,000 people in detention across the country  up from 160,000 in 2013  while the total capacity can only accommodate half of that figure.





Almost 60 percent of detainees are incarcerated for drug-related offences, according to the National Corrections Database.





Local media report that it costs the Indonesian Government and taxpayers roughly $1.50 a day for meals consisting of rice and vegetables for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with occasional protein such as salted fish, tempeh and a boiled egg.





While a seemingly paltry amount, that fee alone has racked up to almost $7,000 for Lawrence's nearly 13 years behind bars.





Indonesia's hard stance on drugs a 'moral issue'





Mr Wicaksana said the Government's hard stance on narcotics was a "moral issue", with drugs seen as a destroyer of the "nation's moral fibre and the younger generation".





"Because the issue of narcotics is seen as tearing apart the nation, it [seemingly justifies] the solution of tough sentences for dealers and the criminalisation of drug users," he said.





Mr Wicaksana said the use of the death penalty, such as in the case of executed Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was pitched as the effective solution to deter other foreign nationals from bringing drugs into the country.





"At a glance, it looks like you are solving a social issue, when in reality it is not proven whether it is scientific evidence or not," he said.





Lawrence is the only member of the Bali Nine to be released from prison, while five others remain incarcerated in Bali as they were said to not be eligible for the same remission applications.





Bali Nine members Michael Czugaj and Matthew Norman, who were both 18 years old at the time, carried less heroin than Lawrence but had their 20-year jail terms increased to life following their unsuccessful appeals.





However, Mr Sulistiandriatmoko denied allegations that Lawrence received favourable treatment.





"The court decision was made by assessing the role of each member of the Bali Nine's crimes and sentences were determined accordingly," he said.





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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Agence France-Presse, November 21, 2018 abc.net.au , Tasha Wibawa and Erwin Renaldi, November 20, 2018
Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden. (Photo: File | Representational)

Washington: The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. The Pentagon's statement came days after Trump said Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col. Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday. No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney said. "Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Sedney was part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid by US commandos in Pakistan's Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden. "I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sedney said.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism, Islamabad has also enabled terror groups that attack its neighbours, he said.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.
VinFast, a subsidiary of Vietnam's biggest private firm Vingroup, presented three models and their prices at its maiden show in Hanoi Tuesday afternoon.

Its five-seat sedan Lux A2.0 and seven-seat SUV Lux SA 2.0, which had already been revealed to the public for the first time at the Paris Motor Show last month, cost VND800 million ($34,305) and VND1.136 billion ($48,709) respectively.

The smaller hatchback Fadil, presented for the very first time, costs VND336 million ($14,410).

These prices are exclusive of a 10 percent value added tax.

The company said it was announcing favorable prices for the "initial phase." The original prices of the hatchback, the sedan and the SUV are VND423 million ($18,140), VND1.336 billion ($57,300) and VND1.818 billion ($78,000) respectively, it said.

VinFast's SUV Lux SA2.0

But VinFast did not say for how long the promotional prices will last or how many cars will be produced in the initial phase.

VinFast surprised industry insiders by completing its first two units, the SUV and the Sedan, within one year.

Its first two models are built on frames from BMW. Their components have been engineered by Canadian firm Magna Internationals Magna Steyr, while design work was done by Italian design house Pininfarina.

The small hatchback, Fadil, meanwhile, was developed from the background of the Opel Karl Rocks model in the European market. Its structure is almost equivalent to the latest Chevrolet Spark generation.

Attending the exhibition, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said building strong Vietnamese brands means promoting patriotism, self-reliance and self-esteem and building a consumer culture in Vietnam.

"I hope more Vietnamese companies and entrepreneurs follow in the footsteps of VinFast to express an aspiration to dominate the domestic market and reach out to the international level."

VinFast's Lux A.20.

Previously, Mike Dunne, an independent industry analyst who has spent more than three decades in Asia, said that he doubted VinFast cars would generate much demand in a country with an average income of $2,385 last year.

Vietnams population is around 93 million, larger than South Korea, but car consumption is only around 300,000 units a year, he told U.S. television channel CNBC.

While there is little doubt the market would grow, it wont happen fast enough to absorb VinFast's production, planned at 250,000 vehicles annually, he added.

There are only 358 businesses in the auto industry in Vietnam compared to 2,500 in Thailand, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Over 90 percent of auto parts are imported, it added.
Vietnams total oil refining capacity will nearly quadruple by 2023 as two new refineries go on stream, market data provider Fitch Solutions reports.

The Dung Quat refinery in the central province of Quang Ngai operated by the state-owned PetroVietnams subsidiary Binh Son Refinery Limited (BSR) remains the sole facility now, with a crude oil processing capacity of 148,000 barrels per day (b/d).

Dung Quat will soon be joined by Nghi Son refinery in the central Thanh Hoa Province. Nghi Son is currently testing at full capacity and is scheduled to start commercial operations this month.

The $9 billion Nghi Son project is owned by the Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC (NSRP), a joint venture between PetroVietnam, Kuwait Petroleum, Japans Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui Chemical. It will have a designed capacity of 200,000 b/d of crude oil.

Meanwhile, the long-delayed construction of the Long Son refining and petrochemical complex in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau resumed in February this year, putting it on track to go on stream by the first half of 2023.

Licensed in 2008 and initially slated to begin operations in 2014, Long Son hit a roadblock due to site clearance issues and disagreements over the development strategy between the project partners.

This caused Qatar Petroleum to withdraw from the project in 2015. Thailands Siam Cement Group (SCG) increased its stake to 71 percent after it bought the 25 percent stake owned by Qatar Petroleum, while PetroVietnam held the remaining 29 percent.

In May this year SCG agreed to acquire PetroVietnams 29 percent. The refinery is expected to cost $5-6 billion. Once completed it will be able to process 200,000 b/d of crude oil and produce 1.6 million tons of olefins annually.

"The two new refineries would increase competition in the domestic fuel market, which could require refiners to upgrade, cut costs and move up the value chain to win market share," Fitch Solutions said in a report released Monday.

This also spells an end to Dung Quats status as the countrys sole refiner, which it has enjoyed since 2010.

Competition from Nghi Son will be stiff as the government has granted a host of incentives to successfully commission its second standalone refinery, including tax concessions, tariff exemption on crude imports from primary feedstock provider Kuwait and an offtake guarantee from PetroVietnam for the first 15 years of operation.

The Quang Ngai provincial government in early November sought the same incentives for the Dung Quat refinery to ensure "fair competition".

BSR is also planning to invest $1.8 billion over the next three years to expand Dung Quats capacity by 23,000 b/d and upgrade the quality of its fuels to Euro 5 from the current Euro 2.

Fitch Solutions said the upgrade would enable Dung Quat to process higher-sulphur crudes, helping reduce its dependence on Vietnamese light, sweet crudes, mostly from the Bach Ho field, which is depleting and thus becoming more expensive.

Besides the competition between themselves, the refineries also face significant pressure from imports, mostly from South Korea and Southeast Asian countries, which are of higher quality and priced competitively due to free trade agreements, the report noted.

"Competition is likely to peak in 2024, when tariffs on fuel imports from ASEAN and South Korea are scheduled to be cut to zero. Concerns about mounting competition have also led both Dung Quat and Nghi Son to consider exports to countries like Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia.

"Vietnams improving self-sufficiency in refined fuels would reduce its need for imports, reorienting trade flows from some of its major fuel suppliers to alternative markets."

While insufficient to entirely meet domestic demand, this nevertheless would weigh on the market positions of Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and China, which account for nearly 95 percent of Vietnams fuel imports, according to Fitch Solutions.

Malaysia and Thailand have the highest exposure to Vietnams fuel market -- 11 percent and 16 percent of imports.

Major international fuel suppliers are also likely to find room for growth in the Vietnamese market increasingly hard to come by as their quality advantage over locally produced fuels dissipates with the ongoing upgrades, the firm added.
Cars park at an on-street parking area on Le Lai Street in Ho Chi Minh City's District 1. Photo by VnExpress/Vu Doan

People in HCMC are unhappy that parking fees in the downtown area have been hiked steeply.

From October 1 the rate for parking cars under nine seats in Districts 1, 3 and 5 is VND35,000 ($1.51) for the first two hours and VND20,000 (0.85) for every subsequent hour.

The monthly rate has been increased by five times to VND5 million ($214).

The fee for cars under nine seats in the three districts used to be VND20,000 per time at day and VND40,000 per time at night.

The fees for motorbikes have almost been doubled to VND6,000 for four hours during the day and VND9,000 at night.

Increasing the parking fees is a move HCMC had been mulling for a long time to reduce the number of private vehicles coming into downtown and encourage people to switch to public transport to tackle traffic gridlock.

But not many people are happy.

While members of the public doubted the move could ease traffic, experts called the decision "unreasonable."

Comments below the line in VnExpress pointed out that the fee hike would not stop people from driving into downtown because they have to go there every day for work and school and most people cannot switch to public transport.

"The quality of public buses is way too low and so far the service can only attract college students who cannot afford motorbikes," a reader named Huy Tran Quang said.

Pham Hoan Phuc of the HCMC Bar Association said the Peoples Committee had no legal basis to hike the parking fees because all commercial buildings must offer facilities like parking while apartments are obliged to provide free parking space to residents.

Therefore, the parking fee paid in apartment buildings should only to cover the cost of hiring parking lot attendants and is not meant for anything else, and the decision of the city is not reasonable, he told Saigon Giai Phong newspaper.

From August 1 the city also raised the rates for parking cars on 23 streets in Districts 1, 5 and 10 by four to eight times.

Pham Xuan Mai, former head of the transport engineering faculty at the HCMC University of Technology, said the city has always fixed the fees for parking in mall and apartment basements lower than on streets to discourage the latter.

Now, with the fees hiked for both private parking lots and streets, "where could people park?" Thanh Nien newspaper quoted him as asking.

He argued that drivers would now move out of basements and park on roads where they do not have to pay a fee, which would only worsen the gridlock.

"The city has still failed to improve public transport and develop proper parking lots in the downtown area. It is not acceptable for the city to burden the public with its responsibility."

By August last year, up to 7.6 million motorbikes and 700,000 cars were being used in the city.
The Tan Vu-Lach Huyen Bridge is the longest sea bridge in Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/ Ba Do

Iron nails have been scattered on a section of Vietnam's longest sea crossing bridge in the northern city of Hai Phong, endangering commuters.

Local authorities are investigating a nail trap placed on the Tan Vu - Lach Huyen Bridge after receiving complaints from many drivers Monday.

The drivers said a pile of 5cm-long nails were scattered on a section of the bridge, making them afraid of getting flat tires.

Project managers mobilized resources to clean up the bridge and collected two kg of nails.

The management unit said it was planning to install more cameras on both sides of the bridge to prevent miscreants and arrange a rescue vehicle.

The nail trap, a scam in which thugs scatter nails or sharp objects along the road to cause flat tires and then charge exorbitant fees to fix them is not uncommon in Vietnam.

About two kilograms of iron nails found in the bridge.

The Tan Vu - Lach Huyen Bridge spans 5.4 km (3.4 miles) and has four lanes. It is part of the $523 million Tan Vu - Lach Huyen road project, which spans 15.6 km and connects the Hanoi - Hai Phong expressway to the Lach Huyen international sea port in Hai Phong's Cat Hai District.

The Vietnamese government secured funds from the Japan International Cooperation Agency for the project.
Two Vietnamese military officers leave for UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan

Two more Vietnamese officers will join U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. Photo by VnExpress/VT

Vietnam has deployed two military observers to oversee United Nations peacekeeping in South Sudan.

Major Tran Duc Huong and Captain Nguyen Phuc Dong received their orders from the Ministry of Defense at a ceremony Tuesday.

U.N. military observers roles include patrolling demilitarized zones, monitoring the military situation in their area of responsibility, looking into and reporting violations of ceasefires and other arrangements and negotiating and mediating in difficult or tense situations.

Speaking at the ceremony, Colonel General Pham Ngoc Minh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, expressed confidence that the two officers would strive to fulfill their assigned duties.

Major Huong said while the mission would be challenging, it was an honor for him.

"[We are] proud that we will get to directly take part in the United Nations' humanitarian work and contribute to bringing peace and stability to countries still suffering from conflict."

They left from Noi Bai International Airport the same evening.

Since 2014 Vietnam has deployed officers for U.N. peacekeeping missions in South Sudan and the Central African Republic on 29 occasions.

Last month, for the first time ever, it sent a team of military doctors to work at the U.N. field hospital in South Sudan.
17 Vietnamese citizens who reached Australia after 29 days at sea were caught and deported. Two of them are in custody.

The central province of Quang Binh detained Tran Ngoc Chau, 49, and Nguyen Trung Kien, 39, on Monday, while placing Pham The Nhan, 35, under house arrest, pending investigation for "organizing and/or coercing other persons to flee abroad," a crime punished by up to 20 years in Vietnam.

In June, Chau and Kien devised plans to go to Australia and do business there. They met up with Pham The Nhan, owner of a fishing boat, and struck a deal to buy the boat for VND1.7 billion ($73,128), and persuaded him to join the enterprise.

Tran Ngoc Chau is questioned by investigators. Photo courtesy of Quang Binh Police Province

Another 14 people, between 24 to 46 years of age, residents of Quang Binh, also joined the trip.

On July 29, the group of 17 departed from Da Nang port, 330 kilometers (205 miles) to the south, on a fishing boat. Along the way, Kien and Chau announced the trip would cost VND150 million ($6,451) per person. The price included VND800 million for travel expenses.

After 29 days at sea, on August 26, when the boat was about 100 meters away from mainland Australia, the group abandoned the fishing vessel, got into two smaller rescue boats and paddled their way ashore. It has been reported that the vessel was destroyed to conceal evidence.

However, they were discovered and deported by Australian authorities.

Tran Ngoc Chau fled custody as soon as he arrived in Vietnam, but was apprehended again by Quang Binh authorities on November 17 in Thua Thien Hue Province.

Further details of the trip and subsequent developments have not been revealed.
Phan Van Vinh, former director of the General Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, stands trial in Phu Tho Province on November 19, 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Pham Du

Prosecutors have sought a jail term at seven or seven and a half years for a senior police official involved in a multimillion-dollar online gambling case.

A court in the northern province of Phu Tho, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Hanoi, has completed questioning 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 Department for High-Tech Crime Prevention in a case where theyve been charged with "abusing of power or position in performance of official duties."

Vinh was arrested in April and Hoa a month earlier.

The trial, which opened on November 12, also questioned 90 other defendants, who are charged with six different crimes: gambling, organizing gambling, money laundering, and trading illegal receipts.

By Wednesday, 89 of the defendants, including public workers and college students, confessed that the charges were correct, while the other three, Le Thi Lan Thanh, Vinh and Hoa, denied them.

Vinh said he did not engage in "abuse of power," and was only guilty of being "irresponsible." Hoa blamed his actions on others.

Investigators said 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 worked 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.

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 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, they charged.

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.

According to the nations premier prosecuting agency, the Supreme Peoples Procuracy, Vinh and Hoa were accomplices who worked together to help organize the gambling ring.

Since investigators have not found any evidence proving the duo gained any individual benefits, they were being charged with "abusing power."

The prosecution suggested that Vinh and Hoa be jailed for 7- 7.5 years and 7.5-8 years, respectively.

The court should sentence Duong and Nam to 11-13 years and 6-7 years in prison respectively, it added.

Final verdicts are expected when the trial wraps up early next month.

Prosecutors have said Vinh and Hoa will be investigated further to find out if they were involved in bribery and other forms of corruption.
Cabinet increases expenditures in revised 2019 state budget draft

There are also certain adjustments regarding subsidies to the population.

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Ukraine's MHP buys Slovenian poultry firm Perutnina Ptuj

MHP is undertaking a major strategic step with the acquisition of Perutnina, which will add value to the company and strengthen its position as a global player.

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Saudi Arabia lifts ban on cattle imports from Ukraine

In 2017, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum on investment cooperation in agriculture.

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Economy Minister Nadia Calvino with European commissioner Pierre Moscovici. V. LERENA (EFE)

The 2019 budget blueprint that Spain has sent Brussels has failed to convince the EU executive.

The plan runs the risk of missing EU budgetary targets and could force Madrid to make big structural adjustments in 2020, said the European Commission in a draft document to which EL PAIS has had access.

Spain is in a relatively special situation compared to other countries, because we have been unable to send Brussels anything other than a plan

Economy Minister Nadia Calvino

The EU executive is warning about the risk of a significant deviation from the medium-term objectives (MTOs) established by the Stability and Growth Pact, a set of rules to coordinate sound fiscal policies across member states. The document also expects Spain to fail to meet its public debt-reduction goals.

This verdict is an added blow to the Socialist Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has been struggling to secure parliamentary support for his budget plan back home. Sanchez has been at the helm of a minority government since early June, and on Tuesday he conceded that if his budget plan is not approved, he may call early elections in Spain.

Warning signs

The European Commission had been issuing warnings about Spains budget plan for a month. First it requested additional information. Then it noted that the planned adjustments would have almost no effect, meaning that Spains deficit level is likely to reach 2.1% of GDP in 2019 rather than the 1.8% forecast by the Spanish executive.

PM Pedro Sanchez at the Spain Summit on Tuesday. J.J. Guillen (EFE)

Brussels has stopped short of sending the budget plan back for rework, as it did with Italy in late October. But that does not mean that it is happy about it. The EU executive is particularly concerned about the planned increase in spending, and about the efforts to make structural adjustments, which it views as insufficient. The Commission also does not believe that Spain is going to meet its goal of reducing its high public debt, which is currently around 97% of GDP.

Spains economy minister, Nadia Calvino, had told Brussels in July that the Spanish economy would end the year 2018 with a deficit of 2.7% of GDP, half a percentage point higher than the goal set by the previous Rajoy administration. But Brussels never agreed formally to this change, and noted that this is above the 2.2% required by the finance ministers of the euro zone.

Relative uncertainty

Economy Minister Calvino had also asked Brussels to consider the relative uncertainty of Spains 2019 budget when appraising the plan she sent in.

Spain is in a relatively special situation compared to other countries, because we have been unable to send Brussels anything other than a plan, she reiterated on Tuesday at the Spain Summit, a Madrid event organized by the newspaper The Economist.

Once Spain brings its deficit down from 3% of GDP, which it is expected to do this year, the Commission will focus on getting the government to make structural reforms worth around 8 billion, equivalent to 0.65% of GDP. There is a two-year grace period when the goal may be partially unmet, but this means that most of the efforts would be left for 2020.

English version by Susana Urra.
A new law will see that all babies born in the Spanish region of Murcia, whether by natural birth or cesarean section, have the right to remain with their mothers and enjoy skin-to-skin contact  otherwise known as kangaroo care  immediately after delivery.

Although this practice had been habitual at many hospitals for years, this is the first time that it has been included in regional legislation, and advocates note that the law also gives the newborn the right to a unique clinical history from the moment of birth.

Not separating mothers from their babies after birth is an obvious biological rule

Ricardo Garcia de Leon, pediatrician

The legal reform won unanimous support in the regional assembly and took just one month to become law. Murcia is the first Spanish region to turn the practice  already prevalent at its main hospitals  into a legal right.

Not separating mothers from their babies after birth is an obvious biological rule, says pediatrician Ricardo Garcia de Leon, president of the association Until You Say So (HQTQ), which sponsored the reform. All mammals do it, he explains. Those first hours are crucial to a newborns ability to adapt to its new environment.

According to Garcia, there is extensive scientific evidence supporting the benefits of uninterrupted contact, and not only for premature babies where kangaroo care has been shown to be the best way to prevent hospital-bred infections. The contact between mother and child also helps stabilize the babys vital functions  its body temperature and its breathing  as well as stimulating breastfeeding.

Skin-to-skin contact is credited with having health benefits for newborns. Getty

As mothers, we instinctively recognize the advantages, which is why we become anxious when we are separated from our baby, says Clara Maria Garcia, spokeswoman for the breastfeeding support groups in the Murcia region. To have this right recognized by law is a step in the right direction. It is, however, actually just restoring something that had been the norm throughout history, but which was lost with the introduction of health protocols regarding deliveries and intrusive measures. We went backwards and now we are catching up.

In Spain overall, the chances of a mother and child being allowed to bond right after birth depend on the hospital and whether the medical team involved in the delivery is aware of its benefits, says Garcia de Leon.

Concepcion Martinez, a midwife and the deputy chief of nursing at Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital in Murcia, is excited by the new legislation. This busy center, which delivers more babies than anywhere else in the country (7,400 in 2017), has been practicing kangaroo care with natural births since 2012, and last year adopted it with planned cesareans.

Local health centers were treating newborns without any prior medical history beyond what the mother could tell them about it

Teresa Roma, Association of Healthcare Users

Martinez recognizes that there are certain professionals who prefer to separate babies from their mothers after birth to clean, dress and examine them. But, she adds, a healthy baby does not need this kind of attention. The law means that all professionals will have to respect [skin-to-skin contact], and that the protocol indicating the medical exceptions for separating a baby from the mother is clear, she says. Midwives, nurses and pediatricians will now be questioned on their motives for separating mother and child because, if its not justified, the family can report it.

Santa Lucia hospital in Cartagena, which is the second biggest in the region, ensures that babies are not separated from their mothers if the birth is natural, with a rate of 60% in the case of C-sections. Making the practice legally official will not change much in the day-to-day running of the hospital, but Paloma Ortega, head of gynecology, is confident that it will help ensure more staff are aware of the benefits of kangaroo care and that space is allowed for it after all deliveries.

According to Jose Ramon Salcedo, president of the Biolaw, Ethics and Health Studies Center at Murcia University, moving from good clinical practices to having that practice enshrined in law is a real turning point. In Spain, both national and regional laws are generic, he says, and while they allude superficially to the kangaroo care of the newborn, none have gone into detail on the subject until now.

Salcedo also believes that introducing legislation to ensure the baby is given his or her own medical record is of great significance. The baby has until now been considered a product of the birth, not a subject in its own right and a reality apart from the mother, he says, referring to attitudes that have governed policy until now.

Teresa Roma from the Association of Healthcare Users in Murcia Region adds: There are factors during the birth that are critical to the subsequent development of the child and to his or her future health. But [in the past] we were finding that local health centers were treating newborns without any prior medical history beyond what the mother could tell them about it.

Roma insists that opening an independent medical record with details of the birth gives the baby the right to be a person in his or her own right, and not just an extension of the mother. However, she says that making the law was the easy part; far more challenging is enforcing it and making sure there is a network in place to protect the mother and babys rights at this crucial point in their lives.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Police have not provided more information on the murder. Kike Para

A man has been shot dead in the middle of the street in a residential estate in Marbella, in Spains Costa del Sol, in what is suspected to be a payback killing. The crime took place at around 8:30pm on Tuesday, and is being investigated by the organized crime and narcotics unit (UDYCO) of the National Police.

Although details of the crime remain unknown, preliminary evidence suggests the man was killed to settle scores between drug gangs. This is just the latest murder in a series of violent crimes to hit Costa del Sol in the past months. Since the beginning of the year, the popular tourist destination in Malaga has been rocked by around 15 murders, clashes between drug gangs and even explosions.

A man was shot dead in October while he was eating at a restaurant

In October, an explosive device went off in the Mirador de la Alqueria housing estate in Benahavis, and a second one in an industrial site in San Pedro de Alcantara, Marbella. No one was killed, but the explosions caused extensive property damage, police sources said at the time. And a gym located near the affected warehouse had gone up in flames a few months earlier; the gym owner was shot down just days after that as he was emerging from a religious ceremony.

Another man was shot dead in October while he was dining at a restaurant in Fuengirola, and the body of another was found in Algeciras two hours after he was kidnapped in Estepona.

In September, police discovered a homemade explosive device near the Altos de Los Monteros housing estate on the outskirts of Marbella. Officers deactivated the device and days later arrested a Dutch man with ties to an international drug gang. At the time, then-Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido described all these incidents as isolated events.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
Foreign Minister Josep Borrell (c) in Brussels on Monday. OLIVIER HOSLET (EFE)

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has been accused by Eurosceptic politicians in the United Kingdom of encouraging the Scottish Independence movement. Defenders of Brexit  the UKs exit from the European Union  have had harsh words of criticism for the Catalan politician, after hearing him say in Brussels that Spain would not oppose the inclusion of an independent Scotland in the EU. The Scottish nationalists of the SNP, meanwhile, led by Nicola Sturgeon, applauded his words, and said that they saw in them a historic change of course compared to that taken by the previous Spanish government led by the Popular Party (PP).

Borrell took part on Tuesday in a conference organized in Brussels by the online newspaper Politico. At the end of his appearance, he was presented with a loaded question: Would Spain back an independent Scotland joining the EU? Why not? the minister answered. If it left the United Kingdom in accordance with the internal laws of the country and Westminster [the British parliament] is in favor, we are not going to be more Catholic than the pope, why would we object?

We are not going to be more Catholic than the pope, why would we object?

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell

This isnt the first time that Borrell has voiced such arguments, and his statements were peppered with caveats and nuances, insisting that the situation of Scotland has no relation to the ongoing independence drive in Catalonia, nor with that of Kosovo, a country whose independence has yet to be recognized by Spain. But the timing could not be worse.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is currently fighting her own party and the opposition to get her Brexit deal approved, after long and agonizing months of negotiations.

Reaction to Borrells words was swift to arrive. In the words of former UK Brexit minister David Jones, they amounted to appalling hypocrisy, while Scottish conservatives accused him of being completely mistaken.

In the words of former UK Brexit minister David Jones, the ministers words amounted to appalling hypocrisy

The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP party, meanwhile, immediately shared Borrells comments on Twitter, and applauded his words. Independence will allow Scotland to be an equal partner in Europe, instead of being dragged out against our will by the Tories [Conservatives], said George Adam, a member of the Scottish parliament. That message of hope is increasingly powerful as the reality of a Tory hard Brexit begins to bite.

The non-nationalist forces in Scotland have argued until now that Scotland could not join EU institutions were it to achieve independence because the Spanish government, concerned about the Catalan independence drive, would veto it. Borrells words have dealt that view a crushing blow, as well as for the conservative Eurosceptics. Im much more concerned about the unity of the United Kingdom than the unity of the Kingdom of Spain, he said in the interview with Politico. I believe that the UK will break up before the Kingdom of Spain.

Earlier this week Josep Borrell said that Spain would not sign off on the UKs withdrawal agreement, unless a clause referring to future negotiations on the relationship between the country and the EU excluded the issue of Gibraltar, the contested British Overseas Territory located in the south of Spain. His words were later backed by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Characters of the new series 'Narcos: Mexico.' Netflix

The hit Netflix show Narcos is back for its fourth season, and this time the action has moved to Mexico. The latest series on the streaming service charts the history of drug trafficking, starting from the 1970s. As it did with its first season, with the figure of Colombian drug dealer Pablo Escobar, these new episodes focus on the life of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, played by Diego Luna, and who was nicknamed The boss of bosses for managing to bring together all of the Mexican drug families into a powerful organization that first monopolized the trafficking of marijuana to the United States, and then cocaine. This is the story of the Guadalajara cartel.

Below you will find a whos who of the characters featured in the series.

Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (Diego Luna)

Gallardo was known as The Godfather, and before he created the biggest drug empire ever seen, he was a police officer in Sinaloa and the personal bodyguard of state governor Leopoldo Sanchez Celis between 1965 and 1968.

The drug trafficker was the heir to the empire run by Pedro Aviles, amassing a huge fortune thanks to his links with Pablo Escobar in Colombia and the Honduran trafficker Ramon Matta Ballesteros.

In April 1989, Gallardo was arrested in Guadalajara and the business passed to Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, aka Don Neto. These three traffickers were accused of the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar and the pilot Alfredo Salazar Avelar. These arrests cut off the head of the Guadalajara Cartel, and cleared the way for the recently created Sinaloa Cartel  led by Hector El Guero Palma and Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo  to move in.

Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo is currently serving a jail sentence in a high-security prison in Almoloya de Juarez, Mexico State.

Kiki Camarena (Mike Pena)

Enrique Camarena was a DEA agent with Mexican origins and US nationality. Camarena closely monitored the rise of the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s, and managed to infiltrate the criminal organization.

One of the incidents that is portrayed in the Netflix show is the Mexican army operation at the Rancho Bufalo marijuana plantation, which belonged to Caro Quintero. It was a thousand-hectare field, where more than 3,000 people worked. The raid on the site was one of the biggest drug operations of the time.

When the bosses discovered that Camarena was a DEA agent in 1985, Gallardo ordered him kidnapped. He was picked up in broad daylight by corrupt officers from the Federal Security Directorate (DFS) on instructions from the cartel. Camarena was tortured to death.

Rafael Caro Quintero (Tenoch Huerta)

Known as the Narco of Narcos, Caro Quintero is the co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, and, like Gallardo, was originally from Sinaloa. Pedro Aviles introduced him to marijuana growing and he was in charge of production for the organization.

Caro Quintero was accused of the kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena. After spending 28 years in jail on a number of charges, Caro Quintero was freed in 2013 on the orders of a judge in Jalisco. On January 16, 2015, his rearrest was ordered by a federal court. He is currently on the run from the Mexican justice system and the United States is offering a reward for his capture.

Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Don Neto (Joaquin Cosio)

A capo in the Guadalajara Cartel, Don Neto, as Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo was known, was involved in drug trafficking from 1970 onward  first from Ecuador and then in Mexico. In 1985, Fonseca was arrested in the residence of the governor of Jalisco. He served a prison sentence for the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena until 2016, then he was placed under house arrest given his advanced years and fragile health. In 2017 he was granted complete freedom. Don Neto is related to members of the Juarez Cartel and is the uncle of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, aka The Lord of the Skies.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes, The Lord of the Skies (Jose Maria Yazpik)

Leader of the Juarez Cartel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes was known as The Lord of the Skies thanks to his fleet of aircraft, including a number of Boeing 727s, which the trafficker used to transport drugs from the Guadalajara Cartel and one of his main allies, Pablo Escobar. After the death of the Colombian drug lord, Carrillo became the main supplier of cocaine to North America. He died in a Mexico City hospital in 1997 while undergoing a plastic surgery procedure aimed at changing his appearance so he could elude the authorities.

Juan Jose, El Azul, Esparragoza Moreno (Fermin Martinez)

They say that this drug trafficker was known as El Azul due to the intense color of his skin. Esparragoza Moreno began in the Guadalajara Cartel under the orders of Amado Carrillo Fuentes. When the organization was split in 1989, El Azul was left leading the Juarez Cartel while still in jail, answering only to Amado Carrillo. Esparragoza Moreno had a very important role in forging the alliance between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels in the 1990s.

Joaquin Guzman Loera, El Chapo (Alejandro Edda)

The leader of the Sinaloa Cartel began working together with the Guadalajara Cartel, only to later establish himself as the biggest trafficker in the recent history of Mexico. The kingpin has been captured three times by the authorities after having escaped on two occasions from the jails in which he was being held. The last time he escaped was from the maximum-security jail in Almoloya, where other drug gang leaders are being held in custody. The leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is currently on trial in a New York court, where he is facing drug trafficking and criminal organization charges. In 2013, El Chapo was among the 100 most powerful people in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Gibraltar on Tuesday. A.Carrasco Ragel (EFE)

Spain and the UK have reached a bilateral preliminary agreement on Gibraltar. Both governments have closed the deal that will guide relations between Spain and The Rock once the UK withdraws from the European Union in the process commonly known as Brexit.

The preliminary agreement, which is part of the Gibraltar Protocol in the draft Brexit deal, comprises four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and one tax treaty, according to Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo. Government sources have confirmed this information to EL PAIS.

The memorandums of understanding address the four most sensitive areas for relations between Spain and Gibraltar

This negotiation has been conducted on the sidelines of the general Brexit agreement, to which Spain is still voicing strong objections. Despite the uncertainty currently surrounding the general withdrawal agreement, the Spanish and British governments have chosen to press ahead with these bilateral talks while they await further developments.

Veto threat

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday night admitted to this preliminary deal, but said that he would still veto the general Brexit agreement if Spains conditions regarding future relations with Gibraltar are not met.

Sanchez spoke on the telephone with British PM Theresa May to tell her that Spain will vote no to the draft Withdrawal Agreement on Sunday unless the document makes it clear that the way in which the future relationship between the UK and EU applies to Gibraltar must be negotiated solely between Madrid and London, said sources in the Spanish government.

Spain says the bilateral relationship with be more balanced as a result

If the problem is not resolved, Spain will have to vote no to the Brexit agreement because if affects the essence of our country, of our nation, said Sanchez in Valladolid, where he was attending a Spain-Portugal summit.

And you are hearing this from a government that has managed to negotiate a protocol and four memorandums on the relationship with Gibraltar. Ours is a constructive attitude, he added, alluding to the breakdown in relations under the previous Popular Party (PP) administration.

A spokesperson from the British government said that May used the call with Sanchez to reiterate her commitment to agreeing a deal that works for the whole UK family including Gibraltar, the other UK Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies.

The May administration has said that it is negotiating a global agreement and that Gibraltar will not be excluded from these talks about post-Brexit arrangements.

We will not exclude Gibraltar from our negotiations on the future relationship. We want a deal that works for the whole UK family and that includes Gibraltar, said May in the House of Commons.

MoUs

The MoUs address the four most sensitive areas for relations between Spain and Gibraltar, including tobacco products. The agreement stipulates that Gibraltar authorities pledge to raise the price of these products to make them less attractive to smugglers.

Ours is a constructive attitude

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez

Another crucial item is the fate of cross-border workers, an important matter for Spain as there are around 10,000 Spaniards who cross for work into Gibraltar every day.

The third MoU involves environmental concerns, and the fourth addresses cooperation on police and border control issues.

The tax agreement, perhaps the most important one of all, seeks to reduce what Spain views as unfair competition from Gibraltar, where many businesses choose to register because of the lower taxes even through their activities take place in Spain.

Picardo, who returned from Madrid on Wednesday morning, said that work has concluded and is now subject only to text stabilization, legal checks and minor clarifications, according to a Gibraltar government release.

The chief minister will provide further information to Gibraltar institutions on Thursday. Meanwhile, Spanish authorities are suggesting that the five texts meet most of Spains demands, and that the bilateral relationship will be more balanced as a result.

English version by Susana Urra.
Ireland's low cost airline Ryanair is considering Ukraine as the top three promising countries for development of an IT hub in 2019, Ryanair Chief Commercial Officer David O'Brien said at a press conference in the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine on Tuesday.

The airline's engineer is visiting several cities of Ukraine, he said. The airline is mulling a possibility of opening the IT center in Ukraine in the future, and when reaching the critical mass for flights we would consider a possibility of opening the plane maintenance facilities in the country, he said.

O'Brien said that the negotiations are being held with airports of Odesa, Kherson and Kharkiv.

He said that Ryanair is discussing a possibility of launching flights from regional airports of Ukraine, but the issue could be solved in several years.

"We will receive 40 or 50 planes in winter 2019 and then we will talk about new cities in Ukraine," he said.

Earlier, at a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, O'Brien said that the result of the previous meeting with the head of state was the introduction of the position of Chief Technology Officer by Ryanair together with the software lab. He expressed hope that the fourth office of this lab will be established in Ukraine.

As reported, Ryanair plans to invest $1.5 billion in Ukraine by 2023, expanding the fleet to 15 planes.

Ryanair offers flights from Kyiv to six cities in Poland, one destination in Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Slovakia, the U.K. and Sweden, as well as two destinations from Lviv to Germany and Poland, one to the U.K.
Hungary's low cost airline Wizz Air plans to resume operations of the Ukrainian subsidiary  Wizz Air Ukraine  in 2019, the airline has reported.

Wizz Air Ukraine has the goal of obtaining the license of the Ukrainian operator in 2019, the airline said.

After a meeting of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi the sides have achieved the accord regarding the fact that the resumption of operations of Wizz Air Ukraine would contribute the development of the Ukrainian aviation sector, offering fares for trips effective from the point of view of the expenses and quality ratio.

Varadi said that in confirmation of the airline's commitment to Ukraine and in response to high consumer demand, Wizz is ready to significantly increase its investment in the country in the near future. In particular, this is the resumption of the operation of its Ukrainian subsidiary - Wizz Air Ukraine. Here the airline is counting on the necessary support from representatives of the Ukrainian government, he said.

The airline plans to invest $2.5 billion to increase the Ukrainian fleet to 20 new Airbus A320 and Airbus A321 planes.

"These aircraft will be delivered to the base of the airline in Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine. As a result, the planned volume of transported passengers will be 6 million per year by 2025," Wizz Air said.

According to the management of the airline, the resumption of operations of Wizz Air Ukraine will create about 6,000 local jobs both in direct and related industries. It will stimulate a significant development of Ukrainian tourism and services.

At the same time, the airline said that the resumption of flights of Wizz Air Ukraine will expand the network of its low-cost routes to/from Ukraine.

Wizz Air closed its Ukrainian subsidiary Wizz Air Ukraine in 2015, continuing the service of flights from the country by the Hungarian airline. The top managers of the airline explained the decision to close the Ukrainian subsidiary by the unstable situation in the east of Ukraine and the devaluation of the hryvnia. Later, the airline several times announced the possibility of resuming its subsidiary after stabilization of the situation and in the event of an increase in demand for air transportation in the country.

As reported, Irish low cost carrier Ryanair plans to open five new flights from Ukraine in 2019, and to invest $1.5 billion in Ukraine over three to five years, increasing the fleet to 15 aircraft and passenger traffic to 5 million people.

Wizz Air offers flights on 41 routes to 12 countries from three Ukrainian cities - Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has announced the signing of an agreement on a free trade zone (FTA) between Ukraine and Israel in the coming weeks.

"In the coming weeks, we will sign our open-ended agreement on a free trade zone with Israel," the foreign minister said at a high-level international conference on countering anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Vienna on Wednesday.

As reported, on Wednesday, November 21, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine authorized First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv to sign a free trade area (FTA) agreement between Ukraine and Israel.

According to the accompanying documents to the draft decision, a copy of which has been sent to Interfax-Ukraine, Israel plans to annul imports duties for 9.2% of agricultural goods and around 80% of industrial goods. Ukraine will retain the current tariff rates for the following goods: poultry and byproducts, frozen pork, some types of fish, dairy products, vegetables, grains, fats, finished meat products, sugar, sweets, canned vegetables, sauces, wines, tobacco products and other goods.

At the same time, the expert opinion to the draft resolution indicates that Ukraine intends to abolish import duties for 6.8% of agricultural goods and about 70% of industrial goods.

"In addition, this agreement is "an agreement with exceptions," since it provides for not full liberalization of import duties, but transitional periods until the full abolition of import duties, partial liberalization of import duties and exceptions for the preferential trade regime," the government said in the document.

Most of all, in absolute terms, Ukraine's exports to Israel of grain and cereals (except raw rice and wheat), dairy products, vegetable oils, oilseeds, other foods, beverages and tobacco products could grow. Most of all, in absolute terms, imports from Israel of other industrial products, chemical products and rubber products, other food products, vegetables and fruits, finished metal products, other machinery and equipment could grow, according to the accompanying documents.

At the same time, in the expert opinion, in addition to the possible positive effect of this agreement for Ukrainian exporters to Israel, there is also a negative impact on the manufacturers of light industry and mechanical engineering in Ukraine.
Businessman Ihor Kolomoisky has said that the decision of the High Court of England to freeze his assets worldwide in litigation with PrivatBank has allowed protecting the 1+1 TV channel from possible illegal seizure attempts, in particular, by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

"The structure of these assets was very interesting only to Petro [Poroshenko], because of all the assets he is interested in is only the 1+1 [TV channel]. We talked about this in court. And, in general, the structure of Ukrainian assets today is legally not available for Petro Poroshenko," he said in an interview with the KishkiNa channel.

At the same time, the Ukrainian businessman does not rule out that the incumbent president will try to establish an "editorial policy" in the TV channel in other ways.

"My opinion is that the litigation in the English court is not the only proceeding that is going on, and [taking into account] the inclination of our president to illegal seizures, especially with regard to media groups," Kolomoisky said.

In addition, the Ukrainian businessman said that the court's decision provides for the freezing of all his assets, and not only $2.5 billion. "But I am totally fine with that, there is nothing wrong with that," he said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said that Germany will continue helping Ukraine in the implementation of reforms.

We will continue to strongly advocate for the peace and territorial integrity of Ukraine. And we will continue supporting the Ukrainian government in implementing reforms to improve people's lives, Maas said on Wednesday. The text of his statement in connection with the 5th anniversary of Maidan was published by the press service of the ministry.

According to the minister, over the past five years, more than a hundred people have died in Ukraine in protests, more than a thousand people have become victims of the conflict in the east of the country.
Minister of Defense of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak, within the framework of his official visit to the UK, has met with Secretary of State for the defense of this country Gavin Alexander Williamson.

"During the meeting, negotiations were held on the security situation in Ukraine, on the stages of defense reform and the country's defense potential," the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
Regional offices of human rights commissioner to appear in every Ukrainian region in 2019  Denisova

Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova has announced plans to expand the regional network of ombudsman's offices in 2019.

"Starting next year, we are expanding the regional network of ombudsman's offices. Starting from 2019, such offices will be opened in each region," the ombudswoman wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday after meeting with the rapporteurs of the PACE monitoring mission.

Denisova also told the rapporteurs of the mission that in the spring of 2019 there will be 17 public monitors in Ukraine who will monitor the observance of the rights of voters in the presidential elections.

"This is provided for by a memorandum of cooperation with the Civil Network Opora, which I signed this summer. During the presidential elections, we will, together with Opora, analyze the activities of law enforcement agencies and courts to investigate electoral crimes. In addition, public monitors will work with electorate for the protection of their rights in all regions of Ukraine," the ombudswoman said.

According to her, after the presidential elections, additional training will be conducted for such monitors and, if necessary, their number will be increased during the parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2019.
Over the past day, the militants opened fire on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine six times, with no casualties among the Ukrainian soldiers, the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"The invaders opened fire on the positions of our troops six times. At the same time, the enemy twice used weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements. ... No casualties reported during hostilities," the JFO staff said on Facebook on Wednesday morning.

"They opened aimed fire from grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the defenders of the villages of Krymske, Pisky, Verkhniotoretske, Vodiane, and Lebedynske," it said.

Illegal armed formations shelled the Ukrainian positions in the areas of the settlements of Krymske, Pisky, Verkhniotoretske, Vodiane and Lebedynske.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, four militants of the illegal armed formations were killed, four more were injured.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has authorized First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv to sign a free trade area (FTA) agreement between Ukraine and Israel.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that the decision was made at a government meeting on Wednesday.

According to the accompanying documents to the draft decision, a copy of which has been sent to Interfax-Ukraine, Israel plans to annul imports duties for 9.2% of agricultural goods and around 80% of industrial goods. Ukraine will retain the current tariff rates for the following goods: poultry and byproducts, frozen pork, some types of fish, dairy products, vegetables, grains, fats, finished meat products, sugar, sweets, canned vegetables, sauces, wines, tobacco products and other goods.

At the same time, the expert opinion to the draft resolution indicates that Ukraine intends to abolish import duties for 6.8% of agricultural goods and about 70% of industrial goods.

"In addition, this agreement is "an agreement with exceptions," since it provides for not full liberalization of import duties, but transitional periods until the full abolition of import duties, partial liberalization of import duties and exceptions for the preferential trade regime," the government said in the document.

Most of all, in absolute terms, Ukraine's exports to Israel of grain and cereals (except raw rice and wheat), dairy products, vegetable oils, oilseeds, other foods, beverages and tobacco products could grow. Most of all, in absolute terms, imports from Israel of other industrial products, chemical products and rubber products, other food products, vegetables and fruits, finished metal products, other machinery and equipment could grow, according to the accompanying documents.

At the same time, in the expert opinion, in addition to the possible positive effect of this agreement for Ukrainian exporters to Israel, there is also a negative impact on the manufacturers of light industry and mechanical engineering in Ukraine.
The Senate of Poland has adopted a resolution on the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor in Ukraine, Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Andrii Deshchytsia has said.

"Today, the Senate of the Republic of Poland has unanimously adopted a resolution on the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor in Ukraine. It is symbolic that this happened precisely on the Day of Dignity and Freedom. Thank you for memory, support and solidarity!" he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

"We believe that the dissemination of information about that great tragedy in Europe will contribute to a better understanding of the consequences that led to the communist ideology and totalitarianism," the Polish Senate said on Twitter.
The election of a representative of the Republic of Korea Kim Jong-yang as president of INTERPOL has come as a victory for the entire organization, and Ukraine has become a coordinator of efforts for his victory.

The victory of the South Korean representative has become the victory of the entire organization, the Ukrainian National Police said in a statement, quoting Vasyl Nevolia, head of the International Police Cooperation Department at the National Police, as saying.

"This is the victory of the organization, which has managed to demonstrate its consolidation, its fellowship. Ukraine has acted very actively, there is no exaggeration, it has become a kind of a center for consolidation and coordination of the efforts by its neighboring states and the world's leading nations," the chief of the Ukrainian bureau of INTERPOL said.

"We can now really say with dignity 'Glory to Ukraine!' and glory to our professionals who have created all the conditions for this victory to happen," Nevolia said.

As reported earlier, on November 21 morning, during the vote in the elections of the president of INTERPOL, the representative of the Republic of Korea received 101 votes, while he rival, a representative of Russia, INTERPOL's Vice President Aleksandr Prokopchuk only got 61.

Before the vote at the 87th session of the INTERPOL General Assembly, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a statement against electing a representative of Russia as president of the organization because of Russia's involvement in a number of crimes across the globe over the past few years. The ministry said Russia had been "misusing INTERPOL's system" and called on other nations "not to turn the reputable and respected professional organization into a hostage of the aggressive and criminal Russia."
Kim Jong Yang has been elected Interpol president, according to an INTERPOL statement posted on Twitter.

"Delegates attending INTERPOL's General Assembly have elected Kim Jong Yang of the Republic of Korea as the Organization's new President," the statement said.

His tenure will last for two years.

Kim formerly served as the acting INTERPOL President.

Kim was appointed acting INTERPOL President on October 7, 2018.

Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk, who became the INTERPOL Vice-President in 2016, was another candidate for the position.

The INTERPOL's supreme ruling body, the General Assembly, elects the INTERPOL president once in every four years. The General Assembly holds annual meetings under the chairmanship of the INTERPOL president.

Ukraine objected to Prokopchuk's candidacy. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said before the ballot held at the INTERPOL General Assembly that a representative of Russia must not lead the INTERPOL given Russia's involvement "in a series of crime scandals all over the globe and abuse" of the INTERPOL system.
Ukraine has supported a proposal by the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands to include Novichok-class chemical substances into the list of controlled chemicals, Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar has said.

"Ukraine's delegation has condemned Russia's aggressive actions in using chemical weapons in the territory of the United Kingdom and covering up those who have used chemical weapons in Syria Also, we have voiced our solidarity with a proposal by the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands to include Novichok-class chemical substances into the list of controlled chemicals," he wrote on Facebook on November 21, commenting on the results of the Fourth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Also, Ukraine condemned Russia's aggressive actions in the area of nonproliferation of chemical weapons.

The deputy foreign minister said the Ukrainian delegation supported a decision of the 23rd session of the Conference on the mechanism of establishing those responsible for chemical attacks.

"We have called on the international community to continue pressure on Russia so that it would stop threatening the international security and violating international law by way of aggression against its neighboring nations, in particular, Ukraine," he said.
Ukraine's Air Assault Forces will receive new types of weapons as soon as possible, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

"The pace of retooling on new types of weapons does not fully meet our needs. I want to assure you that the state will do everything to solve these problems as soon as possible," Poroshenko said during a meeting with the squad of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after completion of exercises in the Zhytomyr region on Wednesday.

According to him, short meetings have already been held with representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the leadership of the General Staff.

"Tasks have been set to make relevant proposals, relevant instructions will be given to the Ukrainian government, and appeals to parliament," the president said, adding, "I declare the following: the Ukrainian army will always have the full support of the commander-in-chief."

Poroshenko said in 2019 Ukraine's Air Assault Forces would receive both domestic and foreign equipment.

"Next year, work will be continued on staffing the units of the airborne assault troops with armored personnel carriers ... and the best models of foreign, cargo and special vehicles, Svityaz command and staff vehicles, anti-tank missile systems ... including the Javelin," Poroshenko said, adding that 40 Hummer and ambulances have already been received from foreign partners.
Ukrainian companies operating in the European market will be able to reach greater heights if they pay more attention to environmental issues and human rights, Swedish Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Hagstrom believes.

"For most companies from Sweden and the EU, it is important to cooperate with partners who respect human rights, who pay attention to environment protection. This is what you must take into account and then you can reach great heights in cooperation with partners and in exports, because for many companies their consumers are very important," Hagstrom said at the conference "Women in Business. Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Future" in Kyiv.

He also noted that an insufficient number of women are involved in business.

"Now in the world there is a growing understanding of the fact that it is very important to attract the entire population but not only half of it to business," the ambassador said.
Tehran, Nov 21, 2018 (AFP)



Iran's foreign ministry denounced the latest US Treasury sanctions as "fruitless and senseless" in a statement issued on Wednesday.

"These fruitless, senseless and ineffective sanctions... will undoubtedly never achieve the desired outcome of their designers and enforcers," it said.

"Sooner or later they will become aware of the futility of their schemes."

Washington slapped fresh sanctions on Tehran Tuesday, accusing it of creating a complex web of Russian cut-out companies and Syrian intermediaries to ship oil to Damascus, which in turn bankrolled Hezbollah and Hamas.

The US considers both Hezbollah, a heavily armed Lebanese militia, and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, to be terrorist organisations.

The US Treasury said in a statement that Tehran, "working with Russian companies, provides millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian government" of President Bashar al-Assad.

"The Assad regime, in turn, facilitates the movement of hundreds of millions of US dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Qods Force for onward transfer to Hamas and Hezbollah," it said, referring to Iran's main foreign military operations unit.
Prominent Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, Abdolfattah Soltani has been conditionally released, local news outlets reported on Wednesday, November 21.

In an exclusive interview with Radio Farda, the lawyer's daughter, Ma'edeh Soltani, confirmed the reports and reiterated that her father has been released after spending more than half of his term behind bars.

Under the Islamic Republic law, convicts can be granted conditional freedom after serving at least half of their prison terms.

The state-run Iran Students News Agency( ISNA) reported Wednesday that Abdolfattah Soltani was reunited with his family after an Islamic Revolution Court ruled to release him on Tuesday.

Earlier, Abdolfattah Soltani was granted a furlough August 4 to attend his 27-year old daughter, Homas funeral who has died of heart failure.

The 64-year old lawyer was back behind bars despite his fragile health. It is not clear how long he will be able to stay out of prison, but his attorney, Saeid Dehqan, told state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA) that the Islamic Republic authorities might extend his clients furlough.

The reason and timing of his release are also not clear, although it could be related to Tehran's desire to improve its image both internally and externally amid difficult international and economic challenges.

Soltani co-founded Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) in 2001 with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and other activists. He was sentenced to ten years jail time in 2011 on charges of anti-government activities during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency.

In October 2012, Soltani was awarded the International Bar Association's Human Rights Award. Because His daughter Maede Soltani received it on his behalf.

According to well-informed sources, President Hassan Rouhanis Ministry of Intelligence was directly responsible for keeping the prominent human rights activist in behind bars.

Nevertheless, President Rouhanis Special Aide on Citizen Rights Affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi joined thousands of other people paying homage to Homa Soltani and officially delivered a message of condolences to the bereaved father.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department also expressed its sorrow for Soltanis loss in a tweet.

Abdolfattah Soltani, who represented a number of prominent dissidents and political prisoners prior to his arrest in September 2011, was serving a thirteen-year prison sentence for being awarded the [2009] Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, giving interviews to the media about his clients cases, and co-founding the Defenders of Human Rights Center.

While doing his term, the renowned lawyer, repeatedly went on hunger strike to protest unbearable prison condition and maltreatment of the inmates across Iran. He suspended his last strike on March 26 at the request of thousands of attorneys and civil society activists who believed the move threatened his life.

Soltani announced he would suspend his hunger strike until April 10 to allow parliament and lawyers unions time to research his case and reinstate his rights in a tension-free atmosphere.

Prior to his arrest, Soltani defended Baha'i minority members as well as the relatives of the victims of the so-called political Chain Murders.

The Chain Murders were a series of 198898 murders and disappearances of certain Iranian dissident intellectuals who had been critical of the Islamic Republic system in one way or another; the murders and disappearances were carried out by Iranian government operatives, later officially described as "rogue elements".

Reportedly, the victims included more than 80 writers, translators, poets, political activists, and ordinary citizens, and were killed by a variety of meanscar crashes, stabbings, strangulation, shootings in staged robberies, injections with potassium to simulate heart attackin what some say was an attempt to avoid the connection between them. The pattern of murders did not come to light until late 1998 when a former minister of labor, Dariush Forouhar, his wife Parvaneh Eskandari Forouhar, and three dissident writers, Mohammad Mokhtari, Majid Sharif and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh were murdered over a span of two months.
A group of students at Tehran University held a protest on Tuesday to show support for the workers of Haft-Tapeh sugar cane factory in Shush, southwestern Iran.

Video clips published on social media show the students holding placards saying, "We are children of workers, we will stand by them" and "Detained workers must be freed".

The Haft-Tapeh workers have been on strike and protesting for more than two weeks for their unpaid wages and other grievances. On Sunday, security forces arrested 18 workers, among them some labor leaders. Later, they released most of the detainees but the labor leaders are still being held.

Other labor groups, teachers' unions and associations of retired workers and teachers have already voiced support for Shush workers.

While protests in Shush still continue, workers demand four months of unpaid wages as well as control of the sugar factory. The authorities have rejected the demand.

Workers argue that the owner, who received the factory from the state for a small fee a few years ago, has disappeared and the factory has been left to its fate.
While signature collection is reportedly underway in Majles (Iran's parliament) to impeach the Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, his subordinates have raised voices to defend their boss.

Talk of Zarifs impeachment by some conservative MPs on Monday became more pointed on Tuesday as one MP claimed collecting signatures has already begun.

Based on the Iranian parliament's procedural law, at least ten MPs should sign a motion to launch the impeachment process.

In the meantime, a member of parliament's presidium denied any moves on impeachment on Wednesday November 21, according to Mehr news agency.

In a controversial comment on November 11, Zarif had said that those who profit billions of dollars from money laundering in Iran are spending millions of it to prevent the passage of the bills requiring more financial transparency.

The foreign minister went on to accuse state-owned agencies that he refrained from naming, of mounting the campaign against President Hassan Rouhanis' proposed legislation known as Palermo Bills.

"We cannot challenge the scenes set by these wealthy and mighty state-organs, he said.

The comments triggered a wave of enraged responses from the conservative camp dominating Iran.

Meanwhile, Zarif's sidekicks, including his first deputy Morteza Sarmadi and Tehran's Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad followed the foreign ministry's spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, in defending their boss.

Sarmadi tried to downplay the row over Zarif's controversial comments by stressing, "Based on reliable statistics, nearly 10-15 billions of dollars are annually laundered in Iran.

"Zarif has not accused the opponents of the passage of the Palermo bills of being involved in money laundering; he has only condemned individuals who are benefiting from money laundering," Sarmadi noted.

In an interview with the state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Sarmadi said on Tuesday, "According to the latest statistics, money laundering in Iran amounts to $10-15 billions of every year."

Iranian Ambassador to London, Hamid Baeidinejad also joined the chorus to defend Zarif by insisting that the Islamic Republic's authorities have long been aware of the high level of money laundering in the country.

The authorities have been monitoring the main smuggling points of entry for years, and are fully aware of the precise amount of money gained through these points of entry, Baeidinejad tweeted on Tuesday.

"Smuggling narcotics in Iran amounts to $3 billion, and hard currencies and goods $12.6 billion, each year," Baeidinejad said on his Twitter account, adding, "Forty million liters (roughly 10.5 million US gallons) of fuel is smuggled out of Iran, every day."

Conservative attacks that first started with condemnations of Zarifs remarks turned into rumors of his resignation and then a threat by some MPs to impeach him.

Then on Tuesday, hardline MPs started collecting signatures to pave the way for Zarif's impeachment.

An outspoken ultraconservative member of Majles, Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani told the government's official news agency (IRNA) that Zarif was expected to present evidence of widespread money laundering in Iran, but he has failed to do so.

"Since his failure, the legislators decided to collect the necessary signatures for his impeachment," Haji-Deligani maintained on Tuesday, November 20.

It is not clear at all if the impeachment move will result in any serious action, as a prominent conservative MP begged to differ with his political comrades.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a senior legislator who chaired the Majles National Security and Foreign Policy Committee for many years, told IRNA on Tuesday that Zarif should not be impeached for just a single remark.

Head of the diplomatic apparatus is not supposed to resign or be impeached for one sentence, Boroujerdi reiterated.

However, he immediately criticized Zarif for making the comments. It was better for the foreign minister to avoid commenting on such an issue", Boroujerdi insisted.

The adoption of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing laws by Iran can help its standing with European countries that have pledged to help Iran continue doing trade despite U.S. sanctions.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP)

Iranian media say authorities have released a prominent human rights lawyer after eight years in prison.

The semi-official ISNA news agency reported Wednesday that Abdolfattah Soltani was reunited with his family after a Revolutionary Court ruled to release him the day before.

Soltani co-founded a human rights group with Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in 2011 on charges of anti-government activities during the rule of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Under Iranian law, convicts can be granted conditional freedom after serving at least half of their prison terms.

Soltani was briefly released from prison to attend the funeral of his 30-year-old daughter Homa who died in August of a heart attack.

Iran has jailed scores of lawyers and activists on similar charges.
A new $10 million plant for dairy products has recently launched its operations in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, in an effort to cut Iraq's heavy reliance on imports from Iran and address shortages caused by U.S. sanctions on the neighbouring country.

The factory, which operates with a capacity of 10 tonnes per hour, aims to serve rising local demand in Basra and expand to other provinces as the Iraqi government hopes to turn the southern city into an investment destination.

"We came to Basra in 2013 and we found it a suitable place for investment as it is close to the sea port and several border crossings. In addition, it has an international airport," factory director Bilal Ahmed said.

The plant was launched last month with Lebanese investment. Iraq has previously published a list of some 157 projects for which it is seeking investment. Baghdad has said it is determined to tackle corruption that hampers investment.

"The factory will largely contribute more to covering the local need in Basra and extend to some other provinces. Therefore, the quantity produced by the factory should be increased to compensate shortage caused by lack of imports either from Iran or any other countries. This will be positively reflected on the development of the infrastructure of factories producing food products and other plants," director of Basra Investment Authority, Ali Chasb, said.

Basra's consumption of dairy products is the highest in Iraq, with daily consumption in the summer reaching 250 tonnes per day, one local trader estimated.

"We hope that more factories will be established, two or three at each province. For example, if this province has two dairy factories and are not enough to meet the need of its population, we can buy from other nearby provinces such as Nasiriya. Therefore, the provinces will compete among each other for producing the best," local trader, Abdul Kadim Hamadi, said.

Iraq invited foreign investors last year to help in the reconstruction process after defeating Islamic State. The government said up to $100 billion would be needed to rebuild its war-torn cities.

The United States has granted Iraq a 45-day waiver over Iran sanctions to import gas earlier this month, several days after reimposing sanctions on Tehran's oil sector.

Iraq central bank officials said in August that the country's economy is so closely linked to Iran. Earlier this month, Iraq's president urged the United States to consider Baghdad's political and economic position as the countries negotiate on relief for Iraq from Washington's reimposed sanctions against Iran.

The current temporary waiver is conditional on Iraq not paying Iran for imports in U.S. dollars.
The U.S. Treasury Department has targeted six individuals and three entities that it says are part of an Iranian-Russian network providing millions of barrels of oil to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and funding the militant groups Hamas and Hizballah.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said on November 20 that Russia facilitated the delivery of Iranian oil to Syria, and that a variety of mechanisms were used in an attempt to conceal the shipments and payments.

"Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the lower house of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, called the latest U.S. sanctions "absolutely illegal and unlawful."

Russia and Iran have given Assad crucial support throughout the war in Syria, which began with a government crackdown on protesters in March 2011. The conflict has left more than 400,000 people dead, displaced millions, and devastated many historical sites across the country.

Those added to the U.S. list of sanctioned entities and persons include Syrian national Mohammad Amer Alchwiki and his Russia-based company, Global Vision Group, Russia's state-owned company Promsyrioimport, and its deputy director, Andrei Dogayev, who is a Russian citizen, the Treasury said.

The other targets are Iran's Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company, Iranian nationals Rasoul Sajjad and Hossein Yaghoubi Miab, Syrian national Hajji Abd al-Nasir, and Lebanon national Muhammad Qasim al-Bazzal.

The move blocks any of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and warns non-U.S. institutions against conducting transactions with them.

With reporting by Reuters and Interfax
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

On 15th and 16th November, the 3rd Banking Forum was held in the Boulevard Hotel, Baku. The event was titled Cashless Economy: Transformation from Traditional Banking Toward Digital Banking and participants discussed the challenges of making the economy cashless. Top and middle management of a number of financial and economic authorities, commercial banks, local and international organizations, and embassies of foreign countries were among the guests. Overall, about 600 participants representing 20 leading companies in Azerbaijan attended the event.

Seymur Muradov, EY Tax and Legal Senior was among the speakers at the event.

Seymur said: "The 3rd Banking Forum was dedicated to the transition from traditional banking to digital. The introduction of new technologies provides banks and their customers with convenient tools. However, aside from convenience, new technologies create new challenges from a regulatory perspective. These challenges require joint and coordinated actions by all stakeholders, including the government, banks, and financial and technology companies."

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction, and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY works together with companies across the CIS and assists them in realizing their business goals. 4,500 professionals work at 19 CIS offices (in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Kazan, Rostov-on-Don, Togliatti, Vladivostok, Almaty, Astana, Bishkek, Baku, Kyiv, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Minsk and other locations).

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

EY in Azerbaijan

EY made a major commitment to the development of Azerbaijan and the region by opening the office in Baku 24 years ago. Today, in addition to being the leading audit and consulting firm in Azerbaijan, we are the leading professional services firm in the region. As a result of our experience and competence, we have been able to assist both domestic and international companies as well as state-owned entities to develop and manage the challenges of the international economy.

There are currently more than 200 people working in our Baku office that serve our clients in Azerbaijan. EYs strength in the Caspian Region and the firms commitment of resources are important to the entities operating in the region. It means that as we grow, EY will continue to demonstrate a tradition of hiring and training local professionals to be leaders in our practice.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Armenian Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ignores humanitarian activity constantly encouraged by the OSCE Minsk Group, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys acting spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva told Trend on Nov. 21.

Abdullayeva was commenting on Pashinyans recent statement, where he spoke out against the return of two Azerbaijani civilians held in Armenian captivity.

The mentioned statement of Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan clearly demonstrates that he is a person far from civilian attitude, the one that speaks about peace and truce in words but rejects the fundamental humanism principles in deeds, she added.

His statement shows that Pashinyan has no difference from his predecessor Serzh Sargsyan, Abdullayeva said.

The issue of exchange of prisoners of war and detainees by mutual agreement of the belligerent parties is part of the international humanitarian law and is widely used in international practice, she said.

Based on the relevant Conventions of international law and in line with the fundamental principles of humanism Azerbaijan came up with the proposal of exchange of detainees, instead Pashinyan with his recent statement admitted that his country violates its commitments taken by the Geneva Conventions and their additional Protocols, Abdullayeva said. It is also an indicator of ignorance by him the humanitarian activities widely promoted by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

During an operation in July 2014 in the Shaplar village of Azerbaijani Kalbajar district, occupied by Armenia, the Armenian special forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and took hostage two other Azerbaijanis, Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov. A "criminal case" was initiated against them. Afterwards, a "court" sentenced Asgarov to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years in prison.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Samir Ali - Trend:

Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov is holding a meeting in Baku with chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Vladimer Chachibaia.

At the meeting, the sides are discussing issues of developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, including ensuring the security of projects being implemented in the region, and a number of other issues.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

The members of the delegations led by chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Vladimer Chachibaia, who are in Azerbaijan to participate in the meeting to be held in a trilateral format, have visited the Alley of Martyrs in Baku, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry said in a message Nov. 21.

The members of the delegations laid wreaths and flowers to the graves of the martyrs and to the Eternal Flame monument erected in memory of Azerbaijani citizens who died in battles for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Samir Ali - Trend:

The trilateral meeting of defense officials of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia is a vivid example of strategic cooperation, Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov said at the meeting of the trilateral format with chiefs of the general staffs of the Georgian and Turkish armed forces.

The minister reminded that this meeting is being held for the third time.

The main goal of the meeting is to contribute to restoring peace and stability in the region, ensuring security of strategic economic projects being implemented by three neighboring states and deepening cooperation between the armed forces of the three states, Hasanov said. I am confident that the meeting will be held at a high level.

Zakir Hasanov is holding a meeting in Baku with chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Vladimer Chachibaia.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

Head of Azerbaijans State Border Service, Colonel-General Elchin Guliyev received a delegation led by chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler, the State Border Service said in a message Nov. 21.

At the meeting, the sides highly appreciated the state of bilateral relations between Azerbaijans State Border Service and the Turkish Armed Forces, and exchanged views on prospects for cooperation.

Guliyev particularly noted the exceptional merits of national leader Heydar Aliyev in building friendship and strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Guliyev stressed that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attaches great importance to the development of these relations, adding that mutual relations are at the highest level.

During the conversation, the parties raised the issue related to the operational situation on the state border of Azerbaijan, threats to border security, including continuation of the occupation by Armenia of 20 percent of the territory and a part of the state borders of Azerbaijan, as well as the use of these territories for illegal purposes.

Information was provided on measures to combat illegal migration, smuggling, drug trafficking, strengthening the border security system, etc.

The sides exchanged views on strengthening border security, exchanging experience and information, organizing joint exercises, expanding mutual cooperation and other issues of mutual interest.

The meeting was attended by Ambassador of Turkey to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Samir Ali - Trend:

The ties of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have a long history, chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia said in Baku Nov. 21.

He was speaking at the meeting with Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov and chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler.

Chachibaia noted that all three countries are strategic partners in the region.

Military cooperation within this partnership is also very important, he said. Cooperation in ensuring security of economic projects in the region continues successfully. We understand that todays meeting is very important.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Samir Ali - Trend:

Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia are successfully expanding military ties, chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler said in Baku Nov. 21.

He was speaking at the meeting with Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov and chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia.

Guler noted that the military ties of the three states have reached a strategic level.

We will continue to make every effort to expand them, said Guler.

As representatives of the power structures of the three fraternal and friendly countries, we gathered in Baku today for an important meeting, he noted. This is our third meeting. After holding meetings in bilateral and trilateral formats, we will discuss the situation in the region. The military ties are developing successfully. I believe that very important results will be achieved at todays meeting.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend:

The ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) plays the role of an indicator of Azerbaijan's political atmosphere, Deputy Chairman and Executive Secretary of the NAP, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov said at an event marking the 26th anniversary of the NAP on Nov. 21.

Ahmadov noted that the creation of the NAP is one of the important events in Azerbaijan's modern history, and the party is satisfied with its activity over the past period.

"Over these years, Azerbaijan has significantly strengthened its position in the region. Today, Azerbaijan is one of the countries whose name is pronounced with respect," Ahmadov said.

He noted that the NAP unites 725,000 Azerbaijani citizens as its members.

Ahmadov stressed that this unity is due to the belief in national leader Heydar Aliyev's ideas.

He also stressed that Azerbaijan's future is as bright as the greatness of its historical past.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

Representatives of the power structures of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia signed a protocol on the results of a trilateral meeting in Baku.

The meeting of Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov, Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Major-General Vladimir Chachibaia was held in Baku.

The meeting discussed issues of developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, ensuring the security of projects implemented in the region, etc.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

The 6th meeting of Secretaries of Security Councils of the CIS member states is underway in Moscow Nov. 21.cc

Azerbaijan is represented at the meeting by Head of the countrys Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev and President`s Assistant for Work with Law Enforcement Bodies and Military Issues, department head Fuad Alasgarov.

The secretaries of Security Councils of the CIS member states are discussing areas of joint work to curb the financing of terrorist activities, including countering the legalization of proceeds from crime.

Other relevant issues of ensuring regional security in the CIS space, international cooperation through security councils are also on the agenda of the meeting.

Opening the meeting, Secretary of Russias Security Council Nikolai Patrushev noted that the agenda of the meeting contains problems on common threats and challenges for the CIS member states.

Patrushev stressed that since holding such a meeting in 2017, the CIS member states have organized an exchange of analytical information about the situation around the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and their affiliated structures in the Afghan-Pakistan border area and the Middle East.

Meetings of the CIS foreign ministers were held at the UN Security Council site to discuss topics related to building regional partnership in Central Asia, he said.

During command-staff and practical antiterrorist exercises, joint measures were worked out to curb the activities of members of international terrorist groups, he noted.

Military-technical cooperation has received additional development, he said.

Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev, acting Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Valery Semerikov, representatives of the Security Councils, ministries, departments and scientific organizations of the CIS member states are taking part in the meeting.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Samir Ali  Trend:

The next trilateral meeting of the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia will be held in 2019 in Turkey, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said.

Hasanov made the remarks in Baku on Nov. 21 at a press conference held after his meeting with Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, Army General Yasar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia.

The minister added that the date of the meeting will be clarified after the invitation of the Turkish side.

Developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, ensuring the security of projects being implemented in the region, and a number of other issues were discussed at the Nov. 21 meeting.

The meeting testifies that the cooperation of the three fraternal countries is at a strategic level, he said. The meeting was aimed at ensuring the security of strategic, economic projects being implemented in the region, as well as rendering support for the peace and stability in the region.

"The high level of cooperation of the countries' armies in a trilateral format was confirmed at the meeting, he added. The cooperation in the military, military-medical and other spheres is planned to be further strengthened.

"Presently, tripartite command and staff exercises are being held in Turkey, Hasanov said. The military personnel of the three countries have been involved in the exercises since 2018."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend:

Belarus visit is another success of the foreign policy by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Deputy Chairperson of the Azerbaijani parliament Bahar Muradova told reporters in Baku Nov. 21.

She reminded that Azerbaijan and Belarus are strategic partners and noted that the two countries carry out mutually beneficial cooperation on many important issues.

We have the same opinions on many issues, she said. During this visit, it was said that both states, without discussions, will protect each others interests.

She noted that this visit attracted the attention by the issues discussed, the signed documents and the spirit of the statements made by both presidents.

The emphasis on the importance of settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as similar conflicts, on the principles of international law, within the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states shows that more countries in the world support this position, she said. At the same time, we have witnessed that the strong friendship between the heads of state, our peoples and the close cooperation of the relevant state agencies positively affect bilateral relations.

On Nov. 18-19, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was on an official visit to Belarus, and nine Azerbaijani-Belarusian documents were signed there.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has visited the "People's Memory" memorial complex in Ashgabat.

The complex features monuments commemorating the victims of Ashgabat earthquake of 1948, and those fallen during the battle of Geok Tepe.

President Aliyev laid a wreath at the Eternal Glory monument.

The president then familiarized himself with the Sacred Homeland Museum.

The museum features exhibits highlighting Geok Tepe battle, World War II, and Ashgabat earthquake of 1948.

The president viewed the installation of Geok Tepe battle of 1881.

President Aliyev signed the museums guest book.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated President of the Lebanese Republic Michel Aoun.

On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I congratulate you and your people on the occasion of the Independence Day of the Lebanese Republic, the president said.

On this remarkable day, I extend my best regards to you, and wish the friendly people of Lebanon peace and prosperity, he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has viewed the Turkmen national carpet museum in Ashgabat.

The museum was established in 1993 under the order of the president of Turkmenistan. The goal of the museum is to protect and develop the carpet weaving art of Turkmenistan. The day the museum was founded is annually celebrated as Turkmen Carpet Day in the country.

The museum also houses an administrative building of the Turkmenkhali state joint stock corporation. The museum occupies a total area of 5,000 square meters.

More than 2,000 carpet samples are kept in the museum. One of the highlights is the Golden Age carpet measuring 301 square meters. Woven to mark the 10th anniversary of Turkmenistans independence, this carpet is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest handmade carpet.

The president signed the museum's guest book.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

The head of Azerbaijans Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev discussed in Moscow the legal status of the Caspian Sea with the Secretary of Russias Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, the press service of the Security Council of the Russian Federation reported, according to Russian media.

"The prospects for interaction between various ministries and departments of Russia and Azerbaijan, countering terrorism, as well as the topics of the legal status of the Caspian Sea were discussed with the head of Azerbaijans Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev," said in the message.

On Aug. 12, the heads of five Caspian states signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea at the 5th Summit of the Heads of Caspian States in Aktau. The Convention is a historic document for the region, the work on which has been carried out for two decades since 1996.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

Co-organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Azerbaijans Ministry of Culture and the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum Seven Beauties exhibition, which promotes the great Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavis legacy, has been launched at the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum.

Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Leyla Aliyeva highlighted the concept of the exhibition which is based on the poem of the Azerbaijani poet of the 12th century Nizami Ganjavi "Seven Beauties" and the ballet of the same name by the world-renowned Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev.

Leyla Aliyeva thanked director of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum Elena Titova and those who contributed to the organization of the exhibition.

In her remarks, Titova hailed very good relations with their Azerbaijani counterparts, as well the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum. She thanked the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for the organization of the exhibition.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu pointed out that a number of significant events dedicated to Azerbaijan has been recently held in Moscow. He noted that all of them were organized with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and thanked vice-president Leyla Aliyeva for her active involvement and assistance in the organization of these events.

The project comprehensively presents Azerbaijani culture in the synthesis of carpet, jewelry, miniature, national classical music, classical dance and contemporary art.

The exhibition space immerses the viewer into the legend of the seven beauties and Shah Bahram. The philosophical world of this important literary work for Azerbaijani culture will be recreated through the carpets, projections of book miniatures, objects of decorative and applied art, installations.

The exhibition includes scenes from the ballet "Seven beauties" by Kara Karayev, written on the basis of the poem by Nizami Ganjavi, and archival materials on this staging.

The exhibition will run until February 3, 2019.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

Trend:

Second-year Process Automation Engineering students of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) Ali Yusifov and Elnur Shahbalayev won a scholarship enabling them to continue their education abroad.

Under the sponsorship provided by Malaysia's Petronas, a global energy giant, they will study at the Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS located in Perak state of Malaysia. The scholarship covers the tuition fees as well as transportation, accommodation and living expenses.

The BHOS undergraduates were awarded the scholarship as the winners of the selective competition conducted by the company.

The Rector Elmar Gasimov held a meeting with the scholarship holders and their parents. Having extended his congratulations to the undergraduates, he emphasized that he is proud of their success and achievements in the study.

In their turn, the students parents expressed their gratitude to the Higher School management for the conditions created at BHOS and the high-quality education provided here.

Speaking at the meeting, Galib Shahbalayev noted that one-year study at BHOS enabled his son to improve English language skills and gain deep knowledge of information technologies. This progress helped Elnur to win the competition and obtain the scholarship for study in Malaysia, he said.

Petronas is one of international partners of the Baku Higher Oil School. Ali Yusifov and Elnur Shahbalayev participated in the companys Educational Sponsorship Program implemented in the framework of cooperation between Petronas and BHOS.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Sara Israfilbeyova  Trend:

The Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO) CJSC is studying the possibility of transition to the standards of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which will be introduced beginning from 2020, the company told Trend.

Beginning from January 1, 2020, the sulfur content in heavy fuel used on ships sailing in international waters should not exceed 0.5 percent.

In order for ships to meet these requirements, there are two ways - to replace heavy fuels with light ones or to install a special exhaust gas cleaning system (EGCS), the company noted.

Today, 14 ASCO ships are sailing in international waters [in the Azov, Black and Mediterranean seas], and the company intends to choose one of the two above-mentioned solutions.

"We are conducting research in this area, and after receiving the results, we will choose one of the two options," the company stated.

As for the ships of the company that are sailing in the Caspian Sea, the company said that the vast majority of them use diesel fuel, to which the new standards do not apply. The sulfur content in the heavy fuel used by the remaining vessels does not exceed 0.1 percent.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Russias agricultural firm KRiMM and the German breeding company NORIKA tried to grow the Tyumen seed potatoes in Uzbekistan in 2007, but the project was unsuccessful, Director General of KRiMM Gennady Ryazanov told Trend.

According to him, the Russian company currently does not plan to grow seed potatoes outside the Tyumen region of Russia, but is going to supply seeds for growing potato crop instead.

Ryazanov noted that the company will supply potato seeds to Uzbekistan, and plans to receive an early potato harvest in May-June.

Every day, up to 400 tons of potatoes and other vegetables are shipped through the terminals of KRiMM. As of today, 3,000 tons of potatoes have been delivered to Uzbekistan.

"There is an opportunity to establish a full-fledged cooperation with Uzbekistan. During the visit to this country of the delegation of the Tyumen region, headed by the governor, we suggested that our trading partners buy KRiMMs potato seeds and grow them. It will be possible to arrange supply of fresh products back to us in May or even earlier, around the time when a certain deficit is usually observed," Ryazanov noted earlier.

To develop further cooperation, the parties agreed to improve the supply logistics.

"There are lots of nuances in the supply of potatoes, which lead to delays. We need to consider this and remove extra barriers. It is also a good idea to load wagons, returning from Uzbekistan, with cherries, dried fruits, fresh onions, garlic and apples. That will certainly look like a full-fledged trade cooperation. Such proposals are already being discussed," Ryazanov added.

Russia is the second largest trade partner of Uzbekistan. In January-September 2018, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Russia amounted to $4.18 billion, of which $1.53 billion account for exports from Uzbekistan and $2.65 billion for imports from Russia.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rashid Shirinov  Trend:

In January-September this year, foreign trade turnover between Kazakhstan and the European Union amounted to $28.6 billion, Finprom.kz reported.

This is 30 percent higher than the turnover of last year ($22 billion).

Interestingly, Kazakhstan's exports to the EU were almost 5 times higher than imports: during the reporting period, exports amounted to $23.6 billion, and imports totaled $5 billion.

The main EU countries importing Kazakh products were Italy ($8.8 billion in January-September 2018), the Netherlands ($4.8 billion), France ($2.7 billion), Spain ($1.5 billion) and Romania ($1.1 billion).

Thus, the EU's share in Kazakhstan's foreign trade is increasing: in 2016 it was 38.4 percent, but now it accounts for 41.9 percent of the total trade turnover of the country.

At the same time, investments from the EU to Kazakhstan are showing growth. In the first half of this year, the EU countries invested $5.7 billion in Kazakhstan, which is 14.2 percent more year-on-year.

The EU accounts for almost half of the country's total investment flows  46.1 percent.

The main EU countries-investors in the economy of Kazakhstan are the Netherlands ($3.8 billion in January-June 2018), Belgium ($797.5 million), France ($431.6 million), the United Kingdom ($292.9 million) and Germany ($145.6 million).

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Chinas Gansu Hengya Cement Co. will invest in the construction of a new cement plant in Kattakurgan district of Samarkand region of Uzbekistan, Uzbek media reported.

The cost of a new cement plant with a capacity of over 2.4 million tons of cement per year is $420 million.

The project will be implemented in two stages. At the first stage (2018-2020) worth $220 million the plant will produce up to 1.2 million tons of cement per year. The second stage of the project will be implemented in 2020-2023 and will allow reaching full capacity.

The plant will produce cement of M-400, M-500 (white and gray) and M-600 grades.

China is the largest foreign trade partner of Uzbekistan. In January-October 2018, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and China amounted to $5,228.4 million, of which $2,202.1 million is exported from Uzbekistan, and $2,826.4 million is imported from China.

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Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

German companies have expressed willingness to take part in the seawater desalination projects, according to Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper.

A business forum is scheduled to be held in Berlin in February 2019. The management of the board of the Eastern Committee of the German economy is expected to visit Turkmenistan in March.

During the recent visit of the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to Hamburg and Berlin, several meetings were held.

The meeting was held with Chairman of the Board of the Eastern Committee of the German economy Wolfgang Buchele. The prospects for cooperation in such areas as energy, gas and chemical industry, transport and communications, the banking sector were discussed during the meeting.

German companies make a significant contribution to the implementation of long-term projects in Turkmenistan. Among them are such companies as Siemens, Daimler, Claas, Rohde & Schwarz, Dresser-Rand.

As of 2016, 167 investment projects and contracts with German capital worth $540 million and about 555 million euros were registered in Turkmenistan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) issued the instructions on return details of the hard currency earned by exporters back to the domestic financial system, Iranian media reported.

The instructions, which aim to lead the export revenues from the non-oil exports back into the countrys economy through the Forex Management Integrated System (NIMA), mandate all the exporters of goods and services to guarantee bringing back to the country the foreign exchange amount allocated to them by the government at lower prices than the free market.

The exporters with the total of one million euros of exports per year are exempted from offering their income at NIMA.

Those with total exports of one to three million euros per year are required to offer 50 percent of their received foreign exchange from the government at NIMA.

The exporters with annual exports of three to 10 million euros are obliged to offer 70 percent.

Those with exports of above 10 million euros per year must offer 90 percent of the received foreign exchange at NIMA.

According to the estimations, some $47 billion of hard currency will be injected back to domestic financial system via exports by the end of the present Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2019).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

The Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russia (Rosselkhoznadzor) imposed restrictions on the import of fruits and vegetables in luggage and hand luggage by passengers arriving from Uzbekistan, the Foreign Ministry of Uzbekistan reported.

Due to the systematic detection of quarantine objects in the quarantined products coming in luggage and hand luggage of passengers arriving from Uzbekistan, from April 16, 2012, Rosselkhoznadzor introduced temporary restrictions on the import of products of fruits and vegetables in luggage and hand luggage by passengers arriving from Uzbekistan, the statement of the Foreign Ministry read.

Russia is the second largest foreign trade partner of Uzbekistan for the supply of agricultural products. In January-October 2018, the trade turnover of agricultural products between the two countries amounted to 200,500 tons amounting to $139.3 million.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Some 146,536 real estate properties were sold in Turkey in October 2018, which is 19.2 percent more compared to the same month in 2017, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) said in a statement.

During the period, 27,156 real estate properties were sold in Istanbul, 13,430 properties in Ankara, and 7,419 properties in Izmir, the message said.

"The remaining 98,531 real estate properties fall to the share of other cities," the TUIK message read.

During the reported period, 6,276 real estate properties were sold to foreigners in Turkey, which is 134.4 percent more compared to the same month in 2017.

"In October 2018, foreigners purchased 2,283 real estate properties in Istanbul and 1,160 properties in Antalya. The remaining 2,833 real estate properties purchased by foreigners fell to the share of other Turkish cities," the message said.

The message also noted that in October, the Iraqi citizens acquired 557 real estate properties in Turkey, and the citizens of Iran purchased 378 properties.

"The remaining 5,341 real estate properties fall to the share of citizens of other countries," the TUIK message read.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend:

The Agency for Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Azerbaijan is interested in cooperation with scientific and educational centers, Chairman of the agencys board Orkhan Mammadov said.

He made the remarks Nov. 21 during the ceremony of signing a memorandum between the agency and the Azerbaijan State University of Economics.

He noted that the memorandum will define specific areas and forms of this cooperation and will create a broad platform for action.

The agency is developing models and mechanisms designed to support SMEs in fulfilling the tasks set by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, said Mammadov.

Another important area of cooperation includes supporting innovative initiatives, he noted.

Mammadov stressed that the integration of scientific innovations into business is of particular importance from the point of view of organizing and increasing the competitiveness of business entities at the level of modern requirements, and also noted that the memorandum provides for joint efforts aimed at achieving specific practical results in this direction.

One more important area of cooperation includes promotion of volunteering, he said.

I am confident that our joint efforts in these areas will make significant contribution to the course of economic reforms, having ensured sustainable development of entrepreneurship, he added.

The Agency for the Development of SMEs of Azerbaijan was established on the basis of the decree on improvement of management in the field of SMEs signed by President Ilham Aliyev in December 2017.

The task of the agency is to ensure the consistency of reforms, as well as the improvement of the business regulation system and the application of effective coordination, enhancing the role and competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses in the countrys economy, and the compliance of the management system of this sphere with modern requirements.

As a single structure with special powers, through the Houses of SMEs, the agency will organize, coordinate, evaluate and regulate the services rendered by state agencies and organizations in this area.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on Nov. 20 to discuss the state of affairs in the oil and gas industry and its further development, the press service of the head of state said.

It is planned to implement 30 investment projects worth $36.5 billion in geological exploration, production and deep processing of hydrocarbons for the further development of the oil and gas sector until 2030.

It was noted at the meeting that if specific measures are not taken to increase hydrocarbon reserves, the existing reserves will shrink in half over the next 10-15 years. In this regard, the management of Uzbekneftegaz was instructed to expand the scale of geological exploration and increase production, modernize existing and open new fields, deeply process oil and gas resources, and expand investment attraction.

The president also noted that most of the gas pipelines and the gas distribution system was built in the last century and is in need of repair. In the future, in order to guarantee the supply of natural gas to consumers, a project worth $1.6 billion will be implemented to modernize the trunk gas transmission system and control gas flows (SCADA).

In January-October 2018, Uzbekistan reduced oil production to 624,300 tons, which is 9.2 percent less compared to the same period in 2017.

At the same time, natural gas production amounted to about 49.46 billion cubic meters, which is 6.8 percent more compared to the same period of 2017.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rashid Shirinov  Trend:

With a capacity of 3,600 megawatts, the Rogun HPP of Tajikistan will be the most powerful hydroelectric power plant in the region, said the Ambassador of Tajikistan to Azerbaijan Rustam Soli at an event dedicated to the recent launch of the first unit of the Rogun HPP.

The diplomat noted that after commissioning of the first unit, the HPP was connected to the country's energy system. According to the plans, the second unit will enter into service in 2019, and all six units are due to come on line in December 2024.

The hydroelectric power plant, exploiting renewable clean sources of electricity, will serve all the countries of the region, and its reservoir with a capacity of some 13.5 cubic kilometers will play a major role in the regulation of water resources, especially in periods of water shortage, Soli said.



He added that the reservoir will also provide the possibility of irrigating more than 300,000 hectares of arid lands.

The ambassador also noted that some 22,000 people are currently working at the Rogun HPP site, and 20,000 of them are Tajikistan nationals.

Since the construction began to the present time the government of Tajikistan has financed the facility to the tune of $1.9 billion from the state budget. Also, shares of the Rogun HPP were sold for $500 million, Soli added.

Of these, 38 percent were purchased by investors from the US, 24 percent  from the UK, 35 percent  from the EU, and 3 percent  by Asian investors.

The ambassador noted that Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and in the future India, are considered as potential markets for the electricity generated at the Rogun HPP.

The Rogun HPP is located 110 kilometers from Tajikistans capital Dushanbe. Being the most powerful facility among the plants along the Vakhsh River, this hydroelectric power plant is made up of 6 units, each having a capacity of 600 megawatts.

Construction and installation work at the Rogun HPP are carried out with the involvement of 70 organizations and institutions, well-known local and foreign contractors, 22,000 specialists and workers using 3,600 vehicles and mechanisms.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rashid Shirinov  Trend:

Asset quality is the primary reason for several Kazakh banks failures and liquidity issues, reads the Kazakh Banks Datawatch for 3Q18, published by Fitch Ratings.

Although the sector's average impaired loans ratio equaled a moderate 10.7 percent at end-3Q18 and has remained stable over the year, the underlying asset quality is weaker due to restructurings and grace periods on principal repayments, says the report.

Fitch noted that the scale of loan transfer at the second-largest Kazakh bank Tsesnabank (24 percent of gross loans at end-2Q18), materially exceeding its regulatory impaired loan ratio (5 percent), is evidence that the banking sector asset quality is significantly weaker than reported.

The rating agency added that in 3Q18, Tsesnabank, which accounts for about 9 percent of Kazakh banking sector assets, had a liquidity squeeze and received a 200 billion tenge loan from the National Bank of Kazakhstan. The authorities also announced a transfer of agricultural loans equaling to 450 billion tenge from Tsesnabank to state-owned Problem Asset Fund at net book value.

Earlier this year, the National Bank suspended licenses of three smaller banks: Bank of Astana, Eximbank and Qazaq Banki.

We believe that license suspensions and massive support to Tsesnabank indicates the authorities' willingness to continue the sector clean-up, although no formal bank resolution framework is in place, reads the report.

Fitch noted that banks other metrics remained largely stable in 3Q18. The sector's return on average equity was a high 23 percent in the first 9 months of 2018, while average capital and liquidity metrics remained strong.

However, these ratios diverge significantly between banks and there are still several banks in the sector with sluggish performance and weaker capital and liquidity buffers, the rating agency added.

Official exchange rate on Nov. 20 is 367.3 KZT / USD.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Taleh Mursagulov - Trend:

Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide technical assistance to the Azerbaijani Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), Head of the ADB Azerbaijan Office Nariman Mannapbekov said.

He was speaking at a public hearing on the improvement of legislation in the field of entrepreneurship development held in the Azerbaijani parliament.

He said that the ADB is helping the Agency for Development of SMEs to attract three experts. One expert will be developing a guide to assessing the impact of laws and regulations on SMEs, he noted.

Mannapbekov added that the ADB strongly supports legislative discussion in this direction.

We value the level of cooperation and professionalism [of Azerbaijan] regarding the assessment of the impact of legislation and regulations on SMEs, he said. Very few countries carry out such assessment. Mostly these are European countries, Australia, New Zealand. We really want this kind of assessment of the impact of regulations and amendments to be considered comprehensively. Thus, business will develop.

In addition, Mannapbekov added that the second expert will be a lawyer, a law consultant who worked in this area and who knows where and how to improve the legislative framework in the first place. He also noted that such an expert in the near future will be hired with grant support from the ADB.

He said that the ADB views the private sector as the main driver of economic growth.

He noted that at the expense of private investments, sustainable, stable and most importantly - inclusive economic growth can be ensured.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:

MasterPass payment service will appear in Azerbaijan in 2019, Head of Business Development and Digital Payment Department of MasterCard Hakan Tatlici told Trend.

"In general, in the coming year we will witness the appearance of such new digital payment technologies like MasterPass, contactless payments through mobile phones and the use of other smart payments will expand by 2020," Tatlici said.

He noted that presently, the penetration rate of smartphones in Azerbaijan reaches 60 percent, and the internet - 65 percent.

"And it means that the market is ready, people are ready to make online payments and conduct sales through electronic trading platforms. On our part, we are trying to increase the share of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan," Tatlici added.

The annual volume of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan will reach about 17 billion manats by 2021, according to the state program on the expansion of digital payments in 2018-2020.

Implementation of the program will allow to increase the share of non-cash payments by seven percent annually.

According to the program, the share of cash payments in transactions carried out in the country's economy will fall from 74 percent to 40 percent.

Three basic terms and specific goals for each of them have been defined in order to speed up the implementation of the state program.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend:

In January-October 2018, the number of Asian and Middle Eastern tourists who visited Azerbaijan significantly increased, State Tourism Agency of Azerbaijan told Trend.

During the reported period, 330,000 tourists arrived from the countries of the Middle East, which shows an increase of 42 percent compared to the same period of 2017. Most tourists from this region came from Saudi Arabia, Israel and Kuwait.

Russians are in the first place among those who arrived in Azerbaijan in January-October 2018 (752,000 tourists). The number of Russian tourists increased by 3.3 percent compared to the same period of 2017 and made up 31 percent of all foreign citizens who visited Azerbaijan.

The most remarkable increase was seen in the number of Indian and Pakistani tourists, with growth of 183 and 149 percent, respectively.

Over the ten months of 2018, in total, the number of tourists arriving in Azerbaijan increased by 6.1 percent and reached 2.416 million people (previously 2.277 million).
From November 16 to 19, 2018, Kubanychbek Omuraliev, Ambassador of the Kyrgyz Republic to Latvia, visited Riga to hold bilateral meetings and participate in official events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Latvia, kabar.kg reports.

During the visit, bilateral meetings were held with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Janis Mazakes, Director of the First Department for Bilateral Relations of the Foreign Ministry of Latvia Dainis Garanchs and Prosecutor General of Latvia Eric Kalnmeyers. Also within the framework of the above events, protocol talks were held with Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economy Arvils Asharedens and Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgard Rinkevics and other top leaders of Latvia.

During the meeting, the sides discussed a wide range of issues - the current state and prospects for cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Latvia in bilateral and multilateral formats.

The sides noted the importance in enhancing and deepening bilateral cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, as well as strengthening in the framework of the EU-CA interaction.

The sides stressed the necessity of developing a bilateral political dialogue by organizing reciprocal visits at the highest and high levels, expressing hope for further intensification of the whole complex of relations between the countries, including in the direction of enhancing trade and economic relations and cultural-humanitarian cooperation.

In general, the sides expressed mutual interest in further increasing the dynamics of the Kyrgyz-Latvian interaction in all areas of interest.
A bilateral Kyrgyz-Russian working consultation on international and regional security issues was held in Moscow, kabar.kg reports.

The press service of the Kyrgyz Presidents Office reported that this event took place within the implementation of the Plan of Cooperation between the Secretariat of the Security Council of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Office of the Security Council of the Russian Federation for 2018-2019.

At the consultations, the sides discussed issues on the state and prospects of cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Russia in the military and military-technical sphere, as well as on the practice of countering the recruitment of citizens of Kyrgyzstan and Russia, primarily young people, into international terrorist and extremist organizations.

At the meeting of Secretaries of the Security Councils of the two states Nikolay Patrushev and Damir Sagynbaev, other aspects of further military-technical cooperation in ensuring the security of the region and countering threats of a transnational nature were discussed.

This consultation was held just before the sixth meeting of the secretaries of the Security Councils of the CIS member states, which was scheduled for November 21.
Fifty-seven countries of the world have provided some 39 million U.S. dollars worth of more than 20,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Tajikistan over the first ten months of this year, according to the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, news.tj reports.

Over the report period, among donors countries the greatest share reportedly came from India  16.2 percent; Russia  15.6 percent; Switzerland  11.2 percent; China  11.1 percent; and others.

Over the same ten-month period last year, fifty-one countries provided more than 65.1 million U.S. dollars of humanitarian aid to Tajikistan.

In January-October 2017, among the donor countries the greatest share in value reportedly came from China  33.6 percent.

In all, fifty-eight countries provided 73.644 million U.S. dollars worth of 24,353.5 tons of humanitarian aid to Tajikistan last year and the greatest share came from China  32.2 percent.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Turkmenistan is chairing the CAREC (Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation) Program, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported.

This issue was raised during a government meeting in Ashgabat.

With Turkmenistans chairmanship in CAREC, cooperation in the fields of energy, trade, customs, transport, tourism, creation of economic zones will be increased, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said at the meeting.

CAREC, initiated by ADB, brings together 11 countries (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Since 2001, as part CAREC, more than $31.5 billion of investment has been mobilized to develop a multimodal transport route in the region, addressing issues of energy trade, security and others.

An integrated trade program for the period until 2030 has been recently adopted during the 17th CAREC Ministerial Conference in Ashgabat.

Takehiko Nakao, head of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said at the conference that the program will help countries expand trade through more open trade policies, removal of barriers and simplified procedures. He said the document is intended to strengthen economic diversification, including trade in services and e-commerce.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

A workshop dedicated to digital economy, organized by the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is being held in Ashgabat, Altyn Asyr TV channel reported.

Employees of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Education, the Central Bank, the State Statistics Committee, the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan are attending the event.

During the workshop, participants will review various aspects of the digital economy, including its business models, interaction with traditional economy.

The workshop will last until Nov. 23.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

An OSCE delegation led by High Commissioner on National Minorities Lamberto Zannier is expected to visit Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21-24, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

Meetings of the OSCE delegation are planned to be held in the Turkmen parliament, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Education during the visit.

Zannier is also expected to address lecturers and students of the International University for Humanities and Development and the Institute of International Relations of the Turkmen Foreign Ministry.

The OSCE high commissioner also intends to visit Turkmenistans Dashoguz region during the visit.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.21

Trend:

On November 21, 2018, in accordance with the Presidential Resolution, Turkmen delegation headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of Turkmenistan has arrived on a working visit to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with the aim to attend the event related to starting the construction of the mosque for 500 persons in Akina township, Andhoy region, Faryab province of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

At the same time, on the day of the beginning of the construction of the Akina mosque, a ceremony was held to start the construction of an additional railway line with the length of 10 km in order to develop the Akina railway station sector. The heads of railways agencies of the two countries have attended this event. As is known, in November 2016, with the participation of the Presidents of both states, the first line of the Kerki  Ymamnazar  Akina railroad was commissioned.

Turkmenistan permanently provides humanitarian assistance to neighboring Afghan state. The construction of the mosque will be carried out on the basis of the corresponding Program of the cultural and humanitarian direction for 2018-2020 between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. The construction of the mosque will be carried out by Turkmen side and will be another evidence of friendly relations.

The ceremony of laying foundation of the mosque has been attended by Mr. Nakibullah Gayik  the governor of Faryab province, senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Turkmen and Afghan representatives of religious affairs, elders and other government officials.

The construction works will start in November, 2018 and the mosque will be ready by December, 2020.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.21

By Elnur Baghishov, Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The European Union (EU) supports Irans accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), said director for international affairs in the European Commission's DG Agriculture John Clarke.

He made the remarks on the second day of the seminar dedicated to the development of agricultural cooperation between Iran and EU, standards, food products and agricultural products in Tehran, Mehr news agency reported.

Although the US hinders Irans joining the WTO, the EU is making efforts for ensuring Irans membership in this organization.

Rules are always changing in Europe and consumers always demand high standards for food products. Iran and EU face problems in financial exchange and indeed, such meetings are first steps towards improving the relations, said Clarke.

Iran's Working Party for accession to WTO was established on May 26, 2005. The Working Party has not yet met.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the worlds trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.21

By Elnur Baghishov, Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The fuel problem of Iranian airlines still remains unresolved, albeit no external flight has been cancelled so far and the flights are carried out on schedule, said Secretary of Iran's Aviation Companies Association Maghsoud Asadi-Samani.

He pointed out that Iranian airlines are trying to take some measures to prevent any possible problems in external flights, Mizan news agency reported.

Asadi-Samani said that some Gulf countries, as well as Lebanon and Turkey have banned fuel supply to Iranian airlines.

Nevertheless, Irans airlines are trying to carry out flights with planes that do not depend on fuel supply from other countries, he noted.

Irans Civil Aviation Organization and Foreign Ministry are making every effort to overcome the fuel problem. We hope this problem to be resolved soon in cooperation with other countries, added Asadi-Samani.

Earlier, managing director of Iran Air, Irans national flag carrier, Farzaneh Sharafbafi said that the company has no concern and problem in terms of supplying fuel for its fleet in foreign flights.

She noted that Iran Air has started negotiations with the non-European manufacturers of airplanes in line with renovation of its fleet.

We will negotiate with any manufacturer which can supply airplanes for us without requiring permits from the US Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), she said.

OFAC has cancelled licenses for Boeing and Airbus to sell airplanes to Iran after Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement in May and reimposed sanctions on the country.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday it was shameful that U.S. President Donald Trump had pledged support for Saudi Arabia despite the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate, Reuters reported.

Trump had issued a statement that began: The world is a very dangerous place!

The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraqs fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more.

Trump went on to vow to stay a steadfast partner of Riyadh despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder Khashoggi in Istanbul.

Zarif tweeted that Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of.

Zarif also referred to Trumps unfavorable comparison of forestry management in wildfire-ravaged California and Finland, adding:

Perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests  just like the Finns do?
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Rome late Wednesday to take part in the annual International Mediterranean Dialogues Conference (IMED), IRNA reported.

In addition to holding talks with the Italian officials and his counterparts on the sidelines of the event, Zarif will also participate in several economic and cultural programs.

Zarif who is visiting Italy upon an official invitation of the country's foreign minister, is to deliver a speech during the IMED.

Representatives from 56 countries are expected to attend the conference.

The Iranian foreign minister participated in and addressed the third round of IMED last year.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

Armenian Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans categorical statement regarding the exchange of prisoners of war with Azerbaijan shows that the government of this country is not interested in resolving long-standing Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and does not intend to abandon the aggression and occupation policy towards Azerbaijan, independent Turkish political analyst Shirin Ali told Trend on Nov. 21.

Pashinyan has recently stated that Armenia refuses from Azerbaijans proposal on exchange of prisoners of war.

Pashinyans statement grossly violates the norms of international law, as well as the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, she said.

"Meanwhile, as a result of the Armenian aggression, more than a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people whose rights and freedoms were violated, Ali said.

Moreover, two Azerbaijani civilians Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov were illegally taken hostage by the Armenian side in the occupied Azerbaijani territory - in Kalbajar district when they tried to visit the graves of their relatives, she added. They are still in captivity. Despite these people did not have weapons, the Armenian side named them saboteurs. Guliyev and Asgarov are brutally mistreated and subjected to various tortures all these years."

Thus, the Armenian side continues to grossly violate the provisions of the Geneva Convention, Ali said.

According to Article 13 of the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war should be treated humanely and any illegal act or action by a country taking people hostage, leading to the death of a prisoner of war, or putting his health at risk is prohibited and considered as serious violations of this Convention, she said. In particular, no prisoner of war can be subjected to acts of violence, intimidation, etc."

Ali expressed regret that the actions and measures taken by Azerbaijan to free Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev taken hostage by Armenia, remain futile.

"Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani sides numerous appeals in this regard to international organizations have not yielded any results, she said. Asgarov and Guliyev are still in captivity. They were taken hostage as a result of an illegal trial on the basis of falsified charges brought by the separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territories.

This fact is a gross violation of all norms and principles of international law by Armenia, and the fact that this issue has not got off the ground is indifference of the leading countries and the corresponding international organizations to this issue," Ali said.

As opposed to the two Azerbaijani civilians illegally detained by Armenia, Zaver Karapetyan is being detained in Azerbaijan because of an attempt to commit sabotage on the front line, she said.

"The Armenian saboteur acted as part of the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Armenian armed forces, which in June 2017 tried to cross the defense line of the Azerbaijani armed forces to attack Azerbaijani positions, Ali said. According to the Azerbaijani legislation, Karapetyan was arrested. As opposed to Armenia, Azerbaijan fulfills its obligations in accordance with the Geneva Convention and adheres to all the rules and laws of international law."

She stressed that Pashinyans statement once again testified that all the crimes committed by Armenia during the conflict are part of the aggressive policy that it has been systematically pursuing for many years.

"The international community and the OSCE MG must direct their efforts to prevent illegal actions of Armenia and force the country's leadership to comply with the laws of international and humanitarian law," Ali added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recognised Georgia as a model country for supporting successfully small and medium-sized businesses, announces Georgias Ministry of Economy, agenda.ge reports.

The announcement was made at todays OECD Eurasia Week that takes place in Paris, France, where the Georgian delegation is headed by the deputy Economy Minister Ekaterine Mikabidze.

OECD highlighted Georgias strategy and efforts made for developing SMEs in the country and for successfully fulfilling the recommendations set by the OECD.

Mikabidze said that developing the SME sector is one of the major priorities of the government of Georgia.

The business sector and especially the small and medium-sized businesses play an important role in developing the economy and at the same time supports sustainable and inclusive growth. SME also play an important role in creating job places, Mikabidze said.

Mikabidze added that the government is working constantly to improve access to finance for the SME sector.

To note, a two million GEL grant programme was announced today to finance start-ups in Georgia.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a new programme to support agricultural business development in Georgias western city of Kutaisi, agenda.ge reports.

This five-year program will create 3,000 new jobs, increase sales by $60 million and leverage more than $7 million of increased investments from the private sector, read the press release published by USAID.

The USAID Agriculture Program will mobilise former USAID - US Agency for International Development partners and leading Georgian agribusinesses to share their knowledge and skills with emerging Georgian enterprises.

The US government is proud to partner with the government of Georgia and the Georgian private sector, renewing the US commitment to supporting Georgia along its journey to self-reliance, said Ambassador Wilson, US Embassy Tbilisi.
Japanese prosecutors are considering bringing a case against Nissan Motor Co after Chairman Carlos Ghosns arrest on suspicion of financial misconduct, the Asahi Shimbun daily said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Ghosn, one of the global car industrys best-known leaders, was arrested on Monday after Nissans internal investigations found he had allegedly engaged in years of wrongdoing, including personal use of company money and under-reporting earnings. The Japanese company plans to remove him as chairman on Thursday.

Prosecutors said Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly conspired to understate Ghosns compensation over five years starting in fiscal 2010 as being about half of the actual 10 billion yen ($88.65 million).

The Asahi quoted unnamed sources as saying that the mis-stating meant the company also bore responsibility and that prosecutors were eyeing the possibility of putting together a case against it.

Prosecutors were not immediately able to comment. Nissan declined to comment on the report.

There has been no comment from Ghosn or Kelly on any of the allegations against them, including a report in Japans Nikkei business daily on Tuesday that Ghosn had received share price-linked compensation of about 4 billion yen over a five-year period to March 2015 but that it went unreported in Nissans financial reports.

Reuters could not contact Ghosn or Kelly for comment.

Ghosn is also chairman and chief executive of Nissans French partner Renault, and chairman of Japans Mitsubishi Motors Corp, the third partner in the alliance.

Renault on Tuesday tapped its chief operating officer and a senior board member to fill in for Ghosn, but the board refrained from firing him while awaiting for detail on the allegations - a decision that could buy more time for an accelerated, permanent succession process.

Shares in Nissan rose 0.6 percent on Wednesday after falling nearly 6 percent a day earlier.
Head of the Russian Central Banks representative office in Beijing Vladimir Danilov considers Chinese commercial banks referring to sanctions of third countries in transactions with Russian partners unfounded, TASS reports.

"Despite a wide correspondent network and growing number of payments in national currencies there are certain problems related to the fact that a number of Chinese commercial banks extensively interpret restrictive measures applied against Russia," he said on Wednesday.

"We regularly interact with the Peoples Bank of China on those issues and would like to note that from its side the Bank of Russia creates no artificial barriers for Chinese or Russian partners. We assume that Chinese commercial banks referring to sanctions of third countries are unfounded as those sanctions do not restrict payments via the blacklisted banks," Danilov said.

However, "the problem exists nevertheless," he emphasized. "The US sanctions against persons included in the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals - TASS) list do not cover legal entities, in which mentioned people sit, unless they represent those enterprises in particular financial transactions," Danilov explained.

"Being on the SDN list does not cause expansion of sanctions to the whole bank. That is what one always has to point out as Chinese commercial banks extensively interpret the problem," he said, adding that in this regard the two countries central bank have agreed "to submit relevant explanatory files on a regular basis to solve those issues."
Poland will not sign a UN global pact on migration as this document does not provide proper guarantees that a country has a right to decide whom to accept and on its territory, the Polish government's press service said on Tuesday, Sputnik reported.

"The Polish government has decided that Poland will not support the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration neither in Marrakesh nor during the subsequent vote at the UN General Assembly," the statement said.

According to the government, this document does not provide guarantees of a state's sovereign right to decide whom to accept on its territory and it does not contain a clear distinction between legal and illegal migration.

The migration pact, approved in July by all UN members except for the United States, aims to make the growing tide of international migration more safe and orderly, and came about as a response to the 2015 migration crisis that hit Europe.

Earlier in the day, Israel refused to support this migration pact. The United States and Hungary were the first nations which announced their plans not to join the future agreement.
Germany will back an agreement on Britains withdrawal from the European Union, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, and she hoped Spains objection to wording over the disputed British territory of Gibraltar could be resolved by Sunday, Reuters reports.

We know how difficult the discussions are in Britain, but I can say for Germany that we will agree to this exit agreement, Merkel told German lawmakers on Wednesday in a wide-ranging speech during a budget debate.

We still have an objection in Spain. I cant say exactly how we solve this issue, but I hope it will be solved by Sunday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.21

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

The Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe today passed from Croatia to Finland, at a meeting at the Organizations Strasbourg headquarters, attended by representatives of its 47 member States, said a message from the Council of Europe.

The outgoing Chair, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia, gave an overview of her countrys achievements.

The new Chair of the Committee of Ministers, Timo Soini, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, presented the priorities of the Finnish Presidency which will run for six months.

These priorities include strengthening the system of human rights and the rule of law in Europe, supporting equality and womens rights and promoting an open and inclusive society (with a focus on young people and the prevention of radicalization).

The Committee of Ministers is the Council of Europes statutory decision-making body. Its role and functions are broadly defined in Chapter IV of the Statute. It is made up of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of member States. The Committee meets at ministerial level once a year and at Deputies' level (Permanent Representatives to the Council of Europe) weekly. The conduct of meetings is governed by the Statute and Rules of Procedure. The Ministers Deputies are assisted by a Bureau, rapporteur groups, thematic coordinators and ad hoc working parties.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Prime Minister Theresa May heads to Brussels on Wednesday to try to finalize a blueprint for Britains future ties with the European Union, hoping to secure commitments that will appease Brexit rebels at home, Reuters reports.

With just over four months before Britain leaves the bloc, the two sides are trying to hammer out their divorce terms and an outline of their future relationship before a summit on Sunday. That would give their parliaments enough time to consider a deal that will end more than 40 years of partnership.

The blueprint on future ties is a political document of about 20 pages, meant to be agreed side-by-side with an exit treaty of 600 pages of dense legal text, unveiled last week.

That draft accord so far has done little to win over lawmakers in Britain, with eurosceptics in Mays Conservative Party and her allies in Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party piling on pressure to try to force her to change tack.

It has also stirred some anger in other EU capitals, with Spain threatening to vote against the treaty over Gibraltar, and others at odds over fishing rights and trade.

Without approval from EU leaders and parliament back home, Britain risks leaving the EU abruptly with no treaty governing its relations to the bloc, a scenario that companies fear would cut supply lines and thwart investment and trade.

Before the meeting between May and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at 1630 GMT, one EU diplomat said there was still some work ... needed on three aspects: fish, goods and Gibraltar.... Juncker and May will try to sort it out.

Mays spokesman gave little away, saying only: It is fair to describe it as part of the ongoing negotiations.

The EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the draft treaty, while at the same time seeking to assuage concerns expressed by some of the remaining 27 member states.

To be valid, the exit treaty must be backed by a qualified majority of at least 20 EU states accounting for 65 percent of the EU population. But the bloc is seeking unanimity since this would be needed for future trade deals once Britain leaves.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez demanded assurances that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks between Madrid and London.

His Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Wednesday: We will not give our agreement until... we are assured that... the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union will not include Gibraltar, that this would be a separate negotiation which Spain would need to agree on.

Many in Brussels thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a local election in the southern Andalusia region on Dec.2. They said the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to push so far as to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk. [L8N1XW2P7]

We are following the latest developments with growing concern, said a second EU diplomat. No one wants to reopen the withdrawal agreement.

With the fate of the tentative Brexit agreement still far from clear, both sides have also been advancing contingency plans for the worst case scenario  Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement.

Diplomats in Brussels said Britain was also seeking an easy flow of goods after Brexit, which was too close to the privileges allowed only for countries that sign up to EU single market rules, including free flow of people and services.

The UK wants free movement of goods, which they wont get because thats back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we dont do, another diplomat said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britains fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under its control after Brexit.

EU states with pending issues are seeking to address them either through the blueprint of post-Brexit EU-UK ties or through separate EU statements that would not formally be part of the deal with Britain. France has backed such extra declarations, while Germany opposed them, saying the focus should be on completing the blueprint.

Following Mays talks with Juncker, EU envoys will meet to discuss the outline of future ties on Thursday morning. The leaders negotiators will then look at it again at a meeting scheduled on Friday, two days before the summit.
Germany and France said they would sign a contract with Airbus and Dassault Aviation to start work on a next-generation fighter jet in early 2019, with next steps on a joint tank program due by the end of 2018, Sputnik reports.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel first announced plans for the two big arms program in July 2017 as part of an effort to deepen bilateral defense cooperation.

This is a decisive step for European defense, which shows that France and Germany can unite for future projects, the two governments said in a statement on Wednesday.

They said significant progress had been made on a program to develop a new fighter to replace the Eurofighter and Dassaults Rafale beginning in 2040.

The statement said the French and German defense ministers agreed on Monday that Airbus and Dassault would co-lead a study on a common concept and architectures (including connectivity) for the new Future Combat Air System (FCAS), to include a jet fighter and a range of associated weapons, including drones.

Industry sources said the study would last two years, while the statement noted that additional studies and contracts for work on aircraft and engine demonstrators would be announced at the Paris Air Show in June 2019.

Airbus Defence and Space CEO Dirk Hoke, who had warned France that demanding too big of a share of the program could prevent approval by the German parliament, welcomed that the agreed study would have clearly defined responsibilities. No comment was immediately available from Dassault.

French electronics maker Thales is also expected to take a role in the program, along with European missile maker MBDA, German engine makers MTU Aero Engines and French enginemaker Safran, industry experts say.

Peter Harster, director of the Next Fighter Project at MTU, welcomed the commitment to build demonstrators for both the new aircraft and its engine, saying it would be crucial to test new technologies such as 3D printing and emerging materials.

Key technology challenges for the firms will be the design of an engine fulfilling the needs of a stealthy aircraft with high connectivity and excellent performance.

While France will lead the warplane project, Germany will head up development of a new battle tank, with a conceptual study to be agreed by the end of 2018. Germanys Rheinmetall AG and Franco-German tank maker KNDS would be asked to propose further studies beginning in mid-2019.
Israeli NGO, IsraAID, is sending an emergency response team to California to help communities affected by the unprecedented fires that have killed 80 and destroyed more than 13,000 homes and buildings. Some 1,200 people are still listed as missing, breakingisraelnews reports.

The two blazes broke out 10 days ago in both Northern and Southern California, and quickly spiraled out of control. The Camp Fire, which wiped out the town of Paradise in Butte County (population 27,000), is already the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history, torching an area the size of Chicago.

The Woolsey fire has burned nearly 100,000 acres in southern California near the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

After a request from local communities, IsraAID is to conduct a needs assessment of the population in affected areas, promote community resilience and recovery, and distribute relief items to families currently staying in temporary accommodation after losing their homes in the fires.

Yotam Polizer, co-CEO of IsraAID, said that a team of four Israelis have already flown out to California, and plan to set up operations in Chico, where many evacuees are now living in tent cities, shelters and even sleeping in their cars.

Weve seen a lot of disaster zones over the years, but this is a whole different level of devastation. Everything has been burned to the ground, and there are so many people still missing, said Polizer, who has just returned from California.

The search and rescue teams arent looking for survivors; they are looking for remains. From a psychological perspective, its on a whole different scale. When we talk to local people we see they are getting support, but theres very little psycho-social support there. Thats where we are planning to focus our efforts, he said.

We were devastated by the tragedy of these fires in California, said Polizer. Its a place very close to our hearts. We have an office there, lots of staff members and volunteers. A lot of local people asked that we come and help. We are planning to be there to support the people as long as we are needed. IsraAIDs team will include Israeli and U.S.-based mental-health specialists, who will work with partner organizations on-the-ground to support affected communities as they recover and promote community resilience.

This is not the first time that IsraAID has sent aid in the wake of deadly fires in California. In October last year, a team of seven aid workers, including Polizer, helped out in evacuation centers in Napa Valley, after a series of wildfires swept the state killing 44, causing $14.5 billion in damages, and forcing 90,000 people to evacuate.

The Israeli team were stationed in Santa Rosa, Calif., and assisted in coordinating and providing relief supplies and stress management to the affected community.

Even today, IsraAID continues to work with the community there to help them build resilience.

IsraAID has extensive experience responding to disasters in the United States and all over the world.

This year alone, the organization provided aid to victims in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Michael, North Carolina, after Hurricane Florence, to the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Kenya and to Guatemala after the volcano.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemns the suicide bomb attack on a religious gathering in the Afghan capital of Kabul, his spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday, Sputnik reported.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is a clear violation of international humanitarian law. Every effort should be made to bring perpetrators to justice. The Secretary-General extends his deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and the Government of Afghanistan. He wishes a speedy recovery to those injured," the statement read.

The UN Security Council slammed the attack as well.

"The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government of Afghanistan and they wished a speedy and full recovery to those who were injured. The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," the council's press statement read.

The UN mission in Afghanistan said that it was "outraged" by the bombing of a gathering bearing special religious significance. UN human rights teams are currently engaged in investigation.

US Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement that the US is committed to peace in Afghanistan and also strongly condemns a suicide bomb attack.

"The United States strongly condemns the attack in Kabul today at a religious gathering," Nauert said on Tuesday. "The United States remains committed to peace and stability in Afghanistan, and stands by the people of Afghanistan who want peace and a future free from these horrific acts of violence."

Afghanistan has long been suffering from unstable political and humanitarian situation, which had worsened due to the activities of various terrorist groups such as the Daesh and Taliban. The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are currently conducting joint offensive operations to combat terrorism across the country.
Russia and South Africa have signed a roadmap for the implementation of joint projects in the market of platinum group metals, as well as agreement on exploration, extraction and processing of mineral resources until 2025, TASS reports.

On the Russian side, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dmitry Kobylkin signed the documents.

"Russia and South Africa, possessing rich reserves of mineral resources, have long traditions in the development of the mining industries, as well as a high level of technological knowledge, have the opportunity to promote the growth of the market of platinum group metals through partnership and cooperation," the document for the meeting said.

"The trade turnover between our countries is quite good. We hope it will reach $1 bln by the end of the year," Kobylkin said after signing the documents.

Kobylkin said earlier that in the first 9 months of 2018, trade turnover between Russia and South Africa increased by 26% to $797 mln. According to him, in 2017, South Africa accounted for 20% of Russia's total trade with all countries in the region.

Kobylkin also noted that joint projects in nuclear energy, subsoil use, oil and gas, as well as projects in agriculture are being worked out between the two countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin can met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud during the G20 summit in Argentina, TASS reports.

According to Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the talks between the Russian leader and the Saudi crown prince "cannot be ruled out." "I dont know what will be discussed, although, of course, such an exchange of views cannot be ruled out," the Kremlin spokesman told reporters when asked whether there were plans to discuss the situation in the oil market.

"We assume that both of them [Putin and Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud] will attend that summit [in Argentina], so they will have an opportunity to talk to each other on its sidelines one way or another," Peskov added.

The G20 summit is scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires from November 29 to December 1.
Washingtons intention to quit the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty creates challenges to Moscows and Minsks security and requires a proper response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after a joint board meeting of the Russian and Belarussian foreign ministries on Wednesday, TASS reports.

"We expressed concern over soaring tension in Europe, which is largely a result of NATOs soaring military activity near our borders and Washingtons declared intention to quit the INF Treaty. It goes without saying that this creates challenges to our security, which requires a corresponding response by the Union State and by the Collective Security Treaty Organization," Lavrov said.

US President Donald Trump on October 20 and 22 declared in public the United States intention to quit the INF Treaty. There has been no formal notification from Washington to Moscow yet.

For the first time the United States accused Russia of violating the treaty back in July 2014. Washington has since repeated the accusations many a time. Moscow strongly disagreed and put forward its own counter-claims regarding the United States non-compliance with the INF Treaty, signed in Washington on December 8, 1987.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The idea of creating a single European army is connected with the fact that the EU wants to get rid of US hegemony, UNESCO Cultural Diplomacy, Governance and Education Chair Holder, Director of Diplomatic and Strategic Studies Center in Paris, Turkish expert Naciye Selin Senocak told Trend.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said that a single European army is required to be allies, rather than vassals of the US.

The French president also stressed that in order to reduce dependence on the US and anyone else, France must make more efforts, both to ensure its own security and security of Europe as a whole.

Commenting on this fact, the expert stressed that last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a conference of the European Parliament entitled The Future of Europe, also made a similar, but even stronger statement saying that only strong EU will be able to protect Europe.

Despite France and Germany have common views on this issue, Dutch Defense Minister Anck Beyuveld said that this statement is "groundless" and the army of his country is committed to partnership within NATO, she added.

The threats of terrorism, the fight against organized crime, regional problems, the refugee crisis and cyberattacks force the EU to develop new strategies, Senocak said.

The expert added that despite some EU countries perceive Russia as a threat, on the contrary, France is taking steps to create and strengthen strategic cooperation with Moscow.

"As is known, an increase in customs duties between the US and the EU, as well as the fact that the EU did not respond to US appeals for the renewal of sanctions against Iran, led to the beginning of an economic war and loss of trust between the EU and the US," Senocak said.

If one thoroughly analyzes the statements made by the French and German sides, it is possible to see that the idea of creating a single European army has appeared as a result of the desire to overcome dependence on the US in the defense industry, she said.

Senocak stressed that the EU countries and, in particular, France and Germany also intend to strengthen their defense industry and thereby increase the supply of military products to other EU countries.

The expert does not exclude that another reason for creating a European army is related to the fact that European countries are afraid that in case of a real threat, the NATO alliance will be unable to ensure the EU security.

Until the EU countries come to a common opinion on this issue and each country acts proceeding from its own interests, the creation of a European army will be a very complicated issue, Senocak said.

For example, Belgium, which shares a similar opinion with the Netherlands regarding the creation of a European army, instead of buying Rafale military aircraft at a more reasonable price, acquired 34 US F-35 fighters at 3.6 billion euros, she said. Belgiums such move was considered as betrayal in a number of countries."

In the EU each country has its own unique national culture, as well as defense and military strategies, she said. A lot of efforts and long work are required to overcome all this and create a single European army.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Turkey is not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it is receiving from Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and could seek a formal United Nations inquiry over the issue if its liaising with Riyadh comes to an impasse, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said late Tuesday during a press conference in Washington D.C., Daily Sabah reported.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Cavusoglu said Turkey has shared the latest information on the Khashoggi killing with the United States and repeated Ankara's stance that the truth had to come out on who gave the orders to kill the journalist.

"We do not see Khashoggi's murder as a bilateral matter between Turkey and Saudi Arabia; it is a humanitarian issue," the top diplomat said.

"The truth has to come out on who gave the instructions regarding his killing," he added.

After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance, Riyadh said last week Khashoggi had been killed and his body dismembered when "negotiations" to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. The public prosecutor said it would seek the death penalty for five suspects in the case.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing was ordered at the "highest levels" of the Saudi government but has not directly accused Prince Mohammed. Saudi Arabia has denied that the prince ordered Khashoggi's killing.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Crown Prince M. bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, ordered the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, according to a U.S. official familiar with the assessment. Others familiar with the case caution that while it's likely that the crown prince had a role in the death there continue to be questions about the degree to which he was involved.

Turkey has also handed to the United States a list of 84 individuals that it wants extradited, Cavusoglu said, over their links with Gulenist Terror Group (FETO) leader Fetullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.

He added that Ankara had passed on the list following a telephone conversation between Erdogan and Trump.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkish Armed Forces have destroyed three strongholds of the PKK terrorists, Turkish General Staff said in a statement Nov. 21.

A large number of firearms, as well as gas cylinders and foodstuffs were seized during the operation, the statement said.

On Nov. 15, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu stated that from early 2018, 87,838 operations have been carried out against the PKK terrorist organization in Turkey.

Soylu noted that 289 PKK terrorists were killed during the operations carried out in Turkey.

The minister also noted that in 2017, the PKK terrorists planned 965 attacks, while this figure dropped to 677 in 2018.

"In 2017, 380 PKK terrorists and in 2018, 343 terrorists surrendered to Turkish law enforcement agencies," Soylu said.

The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has lasted more than 25 years, claiming more than 40,000 lives. PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the UN and the EU.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkish cargo ship "Kilich 1" is burning off the coast of Greece, Turkish media reported on Nov. 21.

The reports stated that the ship was heading from Tunisia to Turkey.

The fire broke out in the ships engine room, reports said.

The reports also noted that the entire crew of the vessel (11 people) was evacuated by the Turkish Coast Guard.

Other details of the incident, as well as regarding the cargo being transported on the ship, have not been revealed.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The Fethullah Gulen movement poses a real threat to the Turkic-speaking countries, Turkish Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim said at a conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-Speaking Countries (TurkPA) in Izmir.

Turkey hopes that the Turkic-speaking countries together will be able to counter this threat, Yildirim noted, Turkish media reported on Nov. 21.

"The Turkic-speaking countries should strengthen relations with each other," he said.

Fethullah Gulen and his supporters are accused of the 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 21

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Europe will pay dearly for supporting the FETO terrorists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Turkish media reported.

"I assure our European friends: the time will come, and these terrorists of Gulen movement, who are hiding by your side will use weapons to destabilize the situation in your countries," Erdogan said.

He noted that countries supporting the FETO terrorists do not have the right to talk about democracy.

Fethullah Gulen and his supporters are accused of the 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
The United States is endorsing the current acting head of Interpol, Kim Jong Yang, to become the organizations next president, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press briefing on Tuesday, Sputnik reported.

"Interpol is electing a new president. Its an important organization. We strongly endorse Kim Jong Yang, who is serving as its acting president," Pompeo told reporters.

Pompeo said the leader of Interpol must have both credibility and integrity, and Kim is the candidate that has both. Last month, former Interpol President Meng Hongwei resigned from his post, after going missing in China in September.

According to media reports, the two main candidates for the new head of Interpol are Kim Jong Yang and Russias Maj. Gen. Alexander Prokopchuk.
The US-led coalition against the Daesh terrorist group conducted 19 airstrikes in the area of the Syrian city of Hajin on late Friday through Saturday, Department of Defense spokesperson Col. Rob Manning said, Sputnik reported.

"Coalition conducted a total of 19 strikes in the Hajin area between the hours of 11:00 p.m. on Nov. 16 and 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 17," Manning told reporters on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the SANA news agency reported that the coalitions airstrikes hit the al-Buqa village near the town of Hajin in the province of Deir ez-Zor leaving 40 civilians dead. The coalitions spokesman Col. Sean Ryan told Sputnik that the coalition had conducted strikes in the area, which, however, did not result in any civilian casualties.

The airstrikes were conducted in support of ground forces fighting the Islamic State in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, Manning added.

The US-led coalition also said in a statement on Saturday it had detected 10 non-coalition strikes in Deir ez-Zor. Manning said during a press briefing on Monday that the unidentified strikes in eastern Syria over the weekend are suspected to come from Syrian and Iran-backed forces.

The coalitions activities in Syria are authorized neither by the Syrian government, nor by the UN Security Council.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that a joint military exercise with South Korea called Foal Eagle would be reduced in scope next year so it does not harm diplomatic efforts with North Korea.

Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy, Mattis told reporters.

The Foal Eagle field exercise, which usually involves thousands of combined ground, air, naval and special operations troops, takes place every spring.

Mattis did not provide details on what a scaled back version of the exercise would entail.

At an unprecedented summit in June, US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to work toward denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula, and establish new relations.

Since then, the United States and South Korea have suspended a number of military exercises to encourage talks with North Korea.

But negotiations have since made little headway, with Pyongyang upset by Washingtons insistence that international sanctions must remain until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons.

Trump caught many US officials off guard earlier this year when he announced after his summit with Kim that the United States was suspending the summers joint military drills with South Korea, known as Ulchi Freedom Guardian.

The new commander of US forces in South Korea, General Robert Abrams, said in September the decision to suspend some joint exercises was a prudent risk but had caused a slight degradation in military readiness.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States has told its ally South Korea it should not improve ties with North Korea faster than Pyongyang takes steps to give up its nuclear weapons.

Last month, in a rare sign of discord between Seoul and Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Pompeo had expressed discontent at an inter-Korean military pact reached during a summit in September.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 22, 2018 - 01:14 | Urgent, All, World

U.S. prosecutors have been investigating Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. since late last year on suspicion of breaking anti-money-laundering regulations involving North Korea, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

A subpoena was issued for MUFG after the state of New York said the group had intentionally ignored an internal filter meant to keep it from doing business with companies and people on international sanctions lists, the paper said in its online edition.

The state's Department of Financial Services reportedly said the group had also failed to set up a system for checking the identities of some of its Chinese customers doing business along the North Korean border, a hot spot for money laundering.

It was not clear whether prosecutors had found any evidence that North Korea laundered money through MUFG, but the holes in the system designed to trace such transactions were a chief concern of the department, the paper added.

In 2013, the New York department fined MUFG's banking unit $250 million for removing information from its records about transactions that involved parties in states like Iran and Myanmar. It also fined the unit a year later an additional $315 million for trying to hide information about that misconduct.
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New Delhi: The very auspicious occasion of Eid Milad Un Nabi celebrates is here and the Muslims across the globe commemorate the day with full festive zeal. The day marks the observance of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. He is the founder of Islam and revered as the final Prophet of God. He imparted valuable teachings of the religion.

On Eid-Milad-Un-Nabi , the birthday of Prophet Muhammad is commemorated in the third month of Islamic calendar which is also known as Rabi'al-awwal. In some parts of the globe, Mawlid term is used which has meaning 'to give birth' in Arabic.

However, in a few countries, such as Egypt and Sudan, Mawlid is used as a generic term for the festivity of birthdays of local Sufi saints and are not limited to the ceremony of the birth of Muhammad.

The term also means for the 'text especially composed for and recited at Muhammad's nativity festivity or "a text recited or sung on that day".

PM Modi took twitter to greet the nation on Eid Milad Un Nabi, He tweeted, Greetings on Milad-Un-Nabi. We remember the noble teachings of the venerable Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and pray that there is harmony, brotherhood and peace all around.

Mawlid al-Nabi al-Sharif is celebrated in the country besides Sri Lanka, Canada, United Kingdom, Nigeria, France, Italy, Germany and Russia. In mainstream Muslim dominated nations, Mawlid is a national holiday apart from for Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Indian President concludes State visit to Vietnam



General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee (CPVCC) and President Nguyen Phu Trong (R) and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind on November 20 wrapped up his three-day state visit to Vietnam at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee (CPVCC) and President Nguyen Phu Trong. During his trip, the Indian leader held talks with Party General Secretary and President Trong, met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and Secretary of the Party Committee of Da Nang city Truong Quang Nghia. He delivered a speech at the Vietnamese NA, attended the Vietnam-India Business Forum, and met with Indian expats living, working and studying in Vietnam. He toured Da Nang city and the world cultural heritage My Son Sanctuary in the neighbouring province of Quang Nam. He also laid wreaths at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Martyrs Monument in Hanoi. On the occasion, the two sides issued a joint statement on the State visit of President Ram Nath Kovind to Vietnam During meetings, Vietnamese and Indian leaders highlighted the strong development of bilateral relations between Vietnam and India across fields since they established a Strategic Partnership in 2007 and upgraded ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2016. The two sides agreed to maintain regular visits at all levels across the channels of Party, State, Government, parliament, and locality, as well as people-to-people exchanges; maintain regularly and on-schedule bilateral cooperation mechanisms, and effectively implement results of high-level visits and signed agreements. They agreed to effectively implement the joint vision statement on Vietnam-India defence relations in the 2015-2020 period; promote links in training human resources; and expand cooperation between their armies, air forces, navies and coast guards as well as cooperation in the field of cyber security and information sharing. The two sides proposed the early building of concrete plans for the effective implementation of signed agreements in order to further promote bilateral trade, including trade and investment promotion measures. The Indian side pledged to continue providing scholarships for Vietnam through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme and the Cultural Exchange Programmes General Cultural Scholarship Scheme (CEP/GCSS), as well as those for students and postgraduates from ASEAN countries to pursue doctoral courses in India. The Vietnamese and Indian leaders stressed the need to increase connectivity, while agreeing to lay smooth conditions for Vietjet to soon operate direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to New Delhi. The two sides agreed to continue working closely and supporting each other at regional and international forums, especially within the United Nations. Regarding the East Sea issue, they agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea; and peacefully settling disputes in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, and soon concluding an effective and binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea.


Vietnam pledges close coordination with India



Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong (R) and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind

Vietnam will continue its close cooperation with India to further deepen the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two nations, Party General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong has said. He made the affirmation on November 20 while meeting with domestic and international press in Hanoi to announce the outcomes of his talks with visiting Indian President Ram Nath Kovind. Besides discussing regional and global issues of mutual interests at the talks, both leaders laid stress on the necessity to deepen the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership in all sectors, and agreed to maintain cooperative mechanisms and carry out high-level agreements and documents inked between the two sides. They described defence-security as one of the important pillars in bilateral ties and stressed that both sides should strive to remove bottlenecks as well as work out practical policies and measures to elevate two-way trade with a view to increasing import-export revenue to 15 billion USD in the coming time. Also, they reached consensus to step up investment promotion activities in the fields of Indias strengths and Vietnams priority for development. Both leaders welcomed the cooperation between the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India in oil exploration and exploitation in Vietnam, saying that more effective cooperative models should be put in place. In addition, they were unanimous in bolstering collaboration in culture, tourism, aviation, people-to-people exchange and education-training, among others. Host and guest affirmed close coordination and support for each other at multilateral forums, especially the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Vietnam welcomed Indias Act East policy, and spoke highly of Indias backup of ASEANs central role in the forming of the regional structure in East Asia. As a coordinator, Vietnam has made significant contributions to fostering the ASEAN-India relations, the host affirmed. The two leaders stressed the importance of building the Indo-Asia-Pacific into a peaceful and prosperous region based on respect of sovereignty, international law, and freedom of aviation and navigation. Vietnam attached importance to Indias stance on the East Sea issue in the past time, and thanked the Southern Asian country for continuing to support Vietnams viewpoint on this issue. Ram Nath Kovind, for his part, thanked Party General Secretary and President Trong for giving him and the Indian delegation a warm welcome. Vietnam is a strategic pillar of India in its Act East policy and an important dialogue partner of the country in the ASEAN. As the comprehensive strategic partners, Vietnam and India are enjoying thriving relations based on mutual trust and understanding, and close cooperation at multilateral forums. He expressed his delight over the robust economic ties between the two nations, with two-way trade reaching 12.8 billion USD in 2017. He said he hopes that with concerted efforts made by the two countries, they will realise the set goals of increasing trade revenue to 15 billion USD in 2020. The Indian President also underlined that similarities in culture have served as a catalyst to strengthening bonds between the two countries. Following their talks, both leaders witnessed the signing of several cooperation deals, including the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the MoU between the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications and Indian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, the MoU between the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Indian Confederation of Indian Industry, and the MoU between the President of the Indian Business Chamber in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of Foreign Affairs of Localities. Friendship with Vietnam is special to India: Indian President







Vietnam holds important position in Indias Act East policy, and the Southeast Asian country is among the nations that India has special friendship with, said visiting Indian President Ram Nath Kovind.



Indian President Ram Nath Kovind delivers a speech at the plenary session of the 14th National Assemblys 6th meeting



He made the statement when delivering a speech at the plenary session of the 14th National Assemblys 6th meeting on the morning of November 20.



Ram Nath Kovind said that visits are vivid illustration of the sound relations between the two countries, citing the one by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 when both sides inked a historic agreement to upgrade their ties to comprehensive strategic partnership.



He said that his visit to Vietnam at the invitation of President Nguyen Phu Trong is the very first to the country and the first to Asia since he took office in 2017.



Regarding all-round cooperation, he said that the two countries have enjoyed strong bonds in economy, politics and people-to-people exchanges.



He described Vietnam and India as vibrant economies, saying that two-way trade reached 12.8 billion USD in 2017. India is among ten largest trade partners of Vietnam while Vietnam and ASEAN have crucial roles in Indias trade balance.



Both nations have huge potential to cooperate and supplement each other in garment and textiles, agriculture and agricultural technologies, bio-tech and IT, energy and pharmaceuticals, infrastructure and mining, he said, underlining that Indian investors and service suppliers are eager to join the Vietnamese market.



The two countries continued committing to bilateral cooperation at space security and multilateral forums.



The Indian leader also expressed his hope that tourism collaboration will be further fortified, and both sides should work to increase the number of direct flights to connect the two nations.



National efforts of the two countries have been made for the prosperity in each nation, thus, promoting business relations and firm connection has played an important role in the progress, he highlighted.



The socio-economy has undergone substantial changes, and advanced technologies have changed lifestyles in both nations. India owns the largest startup ecosystem in the world, and is preparing to send an astronaut into space. The country stands ready to share experience with Vietnam in the fields of Vietnams interest and priority.



Vietnam and India shared their views on the settlement of disputes via peaceful means, respecting legal and diplomatic processes and in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).



On behalf of the Vietnamese National Assembly (NA), NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan thanks the Indian President for his speech, which highlighted the sound relations between the two countries.



She took the occasion to congratulate India on becoming the 6th largest economy in the world.



The Vietnam-India comprehensive strategic partnership has been developed in a sound manner, with political trust being tightened via regular high-level and people-to-people exchanges.



She said that the Vietnamese NA will do its utmost and join hands with the Parliament of India to consolidate the friendship for mutual benefits of the two peoples as well as for regional and global peace, prosperity, cooperation, and development.
Through Jan. 23, 2022

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum 212 N. Sixth St., Springfield Downtown

Special Music Events

Open during normal museum hours. From Muddy Waters to REO Speedwagon, Cheap Trick to Earth Wind and Fire and Chance the Rapper, the Land of Lincoln has produced some of the most highly celebrated music in rock history. Musicians, legendary radio stations, and musical gear have shaped the sonic history of Illinois and the world.This exhibit will showcase the achievements and contributions of Illinois finest in music. Written by award-winning author, documentary-producer and former Chicago Sun-Times Columnist and Critic, Dave Hoekstra.And you just might see an Illinois musician performing or being interviewed by a visiting radio personality or podcasterState 217-558-8844
Description

M&V Limousines LTD is excited to announce the NYC Christmas Express Trolley! Trolleys will run every Saturday and Sunday from November 25th through January 1st, 2019. Two rides each day: 4 PM - 8 PM and 9 PM - 1 AM.



About the NYC Christmas Express Trolley

Enjoy a Christmas Trolley ride through NYC to Brooklyn. Guests arriving on the Christmas Express Trolley will be greeted by Santa and his Elf with warm hot chocolate. In NYC, you will pass through Park Avenue, 5th avenue storefronts including Trump Tower and Lord and Taylor and a glimpse of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. All the storefronts will be pointed out by the tour guide elf. After the tree the trolley will head straight towards Brooklyn for the Dyker Heights Christmas lights. Once at Dyker, there will be a group tour on foot of all the Christmas lights along the streets. Santas elf will be guiding you through the best streets in Dyker Heights. After Dyker Heights, the Trolley will return to the pickup location and will be given candy canes upon departure. The trolley is festively decorated for the holidays including holiday music, lights and more.



Locations

Pick-up location is 480 Lexington Avenue (between 46th and 47th St.).

Drop-off at pickup location at 480 Lexington Avenue (between 46th and 47th St.).



Visit M&V's website today to secure your tickets!
Description

November is the month of giving. As we think back on how quickly 2018 has gone by, we realize we have to take a moment and smell the roses. Specifically, we want to thank our community for trusting us and coming to us when they need help the most.

Because were in the giving spirit, the team at Siler & Ingber, LLP are hosting a giveaway! On Wednesday, November 21, well be giving away free pies! Only one pie per person.

Follow these steps for your free pie:

Like our Facebook page. Private message us to receive a link to place your order (choose between apple, pumpkin, blueberry, and cherry). Visit us on Wednesday, November 21 to pick up your pie!

Pie pickup will be between 10 am and 12 pm at our office, located at:

301 Mineola Blvd.

Mineola, New York

11501
ABSTRACT

xMoO 2 -(1-x)-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticle system with molarities x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 was successfully synthesized by mechanochemical activation of MoO 2 and -Fe 2 O 3 mixtures for 0 - 12 hours of ball milling time. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Mossbauer spectroscopy and magnetic measurements were used to study the phase evolution of the molybdenum dioxide-hematite nanoparticle system under the mechanochemical activation process. Rietveld refinement of the XRD patterns yielded the values of the crystallite size and lattice parameters as function of milling times and indicated the presence of Mo-substituted hematite and Fe-doped molybdenum dioxide at long milling times. The Mossbauer studies yielded the magnetic hyperfine fields and the relative abundance of a quadrupole-split doublet as function of the milling time for all molar concentrations involved. Recoilless fraction was determined using our dual absorber method and was found to decrease with increasing ball milling time. Magnetic measurements recorded at 5 and 300 K in an applied magnetic field of 50,000 Oe showed the magnetic properties in the antiferromagnetic and canted ferromagnetic states. The Morin transformation was evidenced by zero-field cooling-field cooling (ZFC-FC) measurements in a magnetic field of 200 Oe.

Keywords:

Milling, Spectroscopy, Magnetic Properties

1. Introduction

Due to its potential applications in energy-related materials, catalysis and electrochemistry, molybdenum dioxide (MoO 2 ) is currently the subject of intense investigations. Thus, it has been proposed that surfactant-free self-assembly of reduced graphite oxide-MoO 2 nanobelt composites can be used as electrode for lithium-ion batteries [1] . In a different study, MoO 2 nanoparticles were found to serve as high capacity intercalation anode for long-cycle lithium ion battery [2] . In [3] , the MoO 2 /MoS 2 electrode indicates higher specific capacitance than that of pure MoO 2 and pure MoS 2 . A facile hydrothermal method was proposed in [4] for the synthesis of MoO 2 nanoparticles for high-performance supercapacitor electrodes and photocatalysts. In addition, the synthesis and electrochemical properties of MoO 2 /reduced graphene oxide hybrid for efficient anode of lithium ion battery were reported [5] . A MoO 2 -based cathode for CO 2 and H 2 O electrolysis was obtained in [6] . Hierarchical MoO 2 /N-doped carbon heteronanowires with high rate and improved long-term performance for lithium ion batteries were subsequently developed [7] . Titanium-doped molybdenum dioxide system was obtained to study the kinetics of hydrogen reduction [8] . All these investigations point towards obtaining mixed systems of MoO 2 nanoparticles and another system, which would be able to tailor its functional properties.

We chose this additional system to be hematite, as hematite has various applications in scientific and industrial fields and can be used as semiconductor compound [9] , magnetic material [10] , catalyst [11] and gas sensor [12] . In particular, nanocrystalline hematite obtained by high-energy ball milling was found to exhibit decreased grain size, expansion of lattice parameters and two kinds of particles which coexist in the sample: Nanostructured and micrometer hematite [13] .

Conventional and magnetic ball milling techniques have emerged lately as green methods used to synthesize novel phases at moderate temperatures in an environmentally friendly fashion. Recently, the authors have undertaken several investigations on mechanochemical synthesis of various nanostructured oxide systems [14] . In this paper, the authors report the successful synthesis of molybdenum dioxide-hematite nanoparticles systems with different molarities (x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7). The synthesis was carried out using the mechanochemical activation method. The ball-milling of molybdenum dioxide and hematite mixtures was performed at room temperature at milling times in the range 0 - 12 hours. The structural, magnetic and hyperfine properties of the molybdenum dioxide-hematite nanocomposites were investigated using X-ray powder diffraction, Mossbauer spectroscopy and magnetic measurements as function of processing parameters.

2. Materials and Methods

Nanocomposites of xMoO 2 -(1-x)-Fe 2 O 3 have been obtained using high energy ball milling starting from precursor powder of molybdenum and iron oxides purchased from Alfa Aesar. The starting average particle sizes were 100 and 50 nm for MoO 2 and Fe 2 O 3 , respectively and their purity was better than 99.9%. Samples of hematite and molybdenum oxides were introduced in a stainless-steel cylinder with 12 stainless-steel balls using the SPEX 8000 mixer mill for milling periods of time selected in the range 0 to 12 h. The powder: ball mass ratio used throughout the experiments was 1:5. A homogeneous mixture of the starting powders was obtained by manually grinding the samples in air prior to introduction in the milling chamber. A PANalytic XPert Pro MPO powder diffractometer with CuK  radiation (45 kV/40mA,  = 1.54187 A) was used to obtain the powder diffraction patterns of the molybdenum oxide hematite particles at all molarities studied. The Xcellerator detector was employed and a scan range of 2 from 10 to 80 with a preselected step size of 0.02. The Scherrer method was employed in order to derive the average sizes of the crystallites for all different molarities. The Rietveld structural refinement of the XRD patterns was utilized to derive the optimized values of the lattice parameters for both molybdenum dioxide and hematite phases. 57Fe Mossbauer spectra were recorded at room temperature in the transmission geometry using a state-of-the-art SeeCo constant acceleration spectrometer. A 25 mCi 57Co source diffused in a Rh matrix was used in all experiments. Least-squares fittings of the Mossbauer spectra were performed in the assumption of Lorentzian lineshapes using the WinNormos package of programs. Hysteresis magnetic measurements were performed in the temperature range 5 - 300 K in an applied magnetic field up to 50,000 Oe while zero-field cooling was done at 200 Oe. All measurements were performed using a Quantum Design SQUID magnetometer.

3. Results and Discussions

Figures 1-4(a)-(e) represent the XRD patterns of molybdenum dioxide-hematite system at different molarities, corresponding to milling times between 0 and 12 h. For the ball-milled composites (Figures 1-4(b)-(e)), the XRD patterns show slight peak broadening with milling time. This peak broadening is associated with the decrease in crystallite sizes for both hematite and molybdenum dioxide samples. It can also be seen that the diffraction peak intensities of hematite and molybdenum phases decrease with the increase in ball-milling time, indicating the possible ion substitutions between Mo4+ and Fe3+ in the corresponding hematite and molybdenum dioxide lattices.

Figure 5(a) shows the lattice parameter a for hematite as function of ball milling time for all molarities and milling times employed, while Figure 5(b) displays the parameter c for hematite determined using the Rietveld refinement method. It can be seen that the lattice parameter a increases with milling time for all values of the molarities employed, with the exception of the equimolar concentration (x = 0.5) which exhibits steady values. As well, it can be noticed that the lattice parameter c increases slightly with ball milling time while it exhibits a more pronounced increase for molar concentration x = 0.7. This is due to Mo substituting Fe in the hematite lattice and this substitution is in principle possible, based on the values of the ionic radii for the two ions (~65 pm).

Figure 1. XRD patterns of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.1) at ball milling time of (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 2. XRD patterns of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.3) at ball milling time of (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 3. XRD patterns of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.5) at ball milling time of (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 4. XRD patterns of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.7) at ball milling time of (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 5. Lattice parameters a (a) and c (b) for hematite at different molarities and ball milling times.

Figure 6(a) shows the lattice parameter a for molybdenum dioxide as function of ball milling time for all molarities and milling times employed, while Figure 6(b) displays the parameter c for molybdenum dioxide for the same values of the processing parameters. Overall, both lattice parameters show a steady evolution with the milling time for all values of the molar concentrations employed.

The values of the crystallite size for both hematite and molybdenum dioxide phases were determined from the XRD patterns using the Scherrer method and plotted in Figure 7(a) and Figure 7(b), respectively.

It can be seen that the crystallite size decreases as function of milling time for all molar concentrations employed. For x = 0.5, for instance, molybdenum-doped hematite and molybdenum dioxide are the only crystalline phases present after 2 hours of milling time, with an average crystallite size decreased to 38.9 and 72.5 nm, respectively. This crystalline size decreases even further, down to 17.7 and 49.9 nm after 12 hours of mechanochemical activation. During the milling process, a microstrain concentrates in the lattice and increases the lattice distortion and strain energy. The increase in the lattice distortion, decrease in grain size, and ions substitution result in the variation of lattice parameters a and c. In fact, it is well documented in the literature that lattice parameter changes, either contraction or expansion, are expected when the grain sizes decrease as compared to the values of bulk materials.

Figures 8-11(a)-(e) show the room temperature transmission Mossbauer spectra of the molybdenum dioxide-hematite composites with various molarities, after ball milling for 0, 2, 4, 8 and 12 hours, respectively. The hyperfine parameters corresponding to these spectra are given in Figure 12.

Figure 6. Lattice parameters a (a) and c (b) for molybdenum dioxide at different molarities and ball milling times.

Figure 7. Crystallite sizes for hematite (a) and molybdenum dioxide (b) at different molarities and ball milling times.

Figure 8. Mssbauer spectra of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.1) at ball milling time of: (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 9. Mssbauer spectra of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.3) at ball milling time of: (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 10. Mssbauer spectra of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.5) at ball milling time of: (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 11. Mssbauer spectra of mechanochemically activated MoO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 composites (x = 0.7) at ball milling time of: (a) 0 hour; (b) 2 hours; (c) 4 hours; (d) 8 hours; (e) 12 hours.

Figure 12. Magnetic hyperfine field (a) and percentage of quadrupole doublet (b) as function of molarity and ball milling time.

At 0 h of milling time, the spectra were fitted with 1 sextet with a magnetic hyperfine field of 51.65 T (Figures 8-11(a)), corresponding to -Fe 2 O 3 . The spectra corresponding to 2 - 12 hours were fitted with one sextet with decreasing values of the hyperfine field (Figure 12(a)) and a quadrupole split doublet. These sextets correspond to Fe ions having a different number of Mo as nearest neighbors and demonstrate the onset of Mo substitutions for Fe in the hematite lattice. For x = 0.5, for instance, the hyperfine magnetic field decreases from 51.65 T to 51.37 T. However, we did not observe multiple sextets for each spectrum, such that there is only a limited solubility of Mo in the hematite lattice. This is reinforced by the values taken by the linewidth, which increases from 0.3 to 0.45 mm/s in Figures 8-11(b)-(e), supporting the existence of Mo-substituted hematite, in qualitative agreement with the XRD results.

The quadrupole doublet corresponds to Fe substituting Mo in the MoO 2 lattice, giving rise to a nonmagnetic phase (Figure 12(b)). Its abundance increases steadily with the milling time for all values of the molar concentration considered in the study. We propose that the relative area of this doublet is a measure of the Fe substitutions for Mo. Figure 13(a) shows an example of the transmission Mssbauer spectrum of the xMoO 2 -(1-x)-Fe 2 O 3 sample (x = 0.5) after 8 hours of ball milling, recorded simultaneously with a stainless steel etalon in order to determine the recoilless fraction based on our previously proposed dual absorber method [15] . The spectrum was fitted using an additional singlet with negative isomer shift of 0.27 mm/s, representing the stainless-steel etalon. From the relative areas and chemical arguments, we could derive the values of the recoilless fraction f 1 :

f 1 = f e ( N e / N 1 ) (  1 /  e ) ( m e / m 1 ) ( A 1 / A e ) (1),

where f e is the recoilless fraction of the stainless-steel etalon, N e and N 1 are the numbers of iron nuclei per formula unit for etalon and sample,  1 and  e are the molar masses for the sample and etalon, m e and m 1 are the masses corresponding to the etalon and sample, and A 1 and A e are the resonant areas for the sample and etalon, respectively.

Figure 13(b) presents the values determined for the f factor as function of ball milling time for x = 0.5. It can be seen that the recoilless fraction decreases from 0.4 at 0 hours to 0.18 at 12 hours of milling time. Indeed, longer milling times correlate with smaller crystallite sizes and consequently, lower values for the f factor.

Figure 14(a) and Figure 14(b) show the hysteresis loops of equimolar molybdenum-doped hematite samples for different ball milling times recorded at 300 and 5 K respectively, in an applied magnetic field up to 50,000 Oe. At 5 K, the dependence of magnetization on the applied field for the 0-hour sample is practically a straight line, as the sample is in the antiferromagnetic (AF) state. As the milling time is increased, the magnetic susceptibility is enhanced probably first, due to some surface effects induced by the grinding process and second, due to the new magnetic phases with Mo substitutions for Fe in the hematite lattice, which add increasingly higher contributions. The hysteresis loops measured at 300 K reveal the canted ferromagnetism (above the Morin transformation), the saturation not being reached even for 5 T.

Figure 15 shows the zero-field-cooling-field-cooling experiment performed on the equimolar composition milled for 0 - 12 hours in an applied field of 200 Oe between 5 and 300 K. While heating pure hematite, the magnetization should be zero (antiferromagnet) below the Morin temperature [16] and above that temperature, the magnetization should suddenly increase because the spins are no longer antiparallel. If all hematite crystallites had the same dimension and the structure was perfect, this increase should be a step. Due to milling, the average crystallite size decreases and the Morin temperature (which depends on the crystallite size) takes lower values and are distributed over a temperature range. Consequently, the transformation is not a step any more, but resembles an incline.

4. Conclusion

Molybdenum dioxide-hematite nanoparticle system of the type xMoO 2 -(1-x)-Fe 2 O 3 with different molarities (x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7) was successfully synthesized using mechanochemical activation for times ranging from 0 to 12 hours. The structural and magnetic properties of the system were investigated using XRD, Mossbauer spectroscopy, hysteresis and zero-field cooling measurements. The

Figure 13. Spectrum with stainless steel etalon (a) and recoilless fraction (b) for x = 0.5 and milling time of 0 - 12 hours.

Figure 14. (a) Hysteresis loops of the molybdenum dioxide-hematite equimolar system recorded at 300 K in a magnetic field of 5 T. (b) Hysteresis loops of the molybdenum dioxide-hematite equimolar system recorded at 5 K in a magnetic field of 5 T.

Figure 15. Zero-field-cooling-field cooling experiment performed in applied field of 200 Oe between 5 and 300 K.

lattice parameters, average crystallite size, hyperfine parameters, phase evolution and magnetic properties were derived using these techniques. Compared to other mixed-oxide ceramic semiconductor systems investigated previously, the molybdenum system singles out due to the convincing demonstration of limited solubility during mutual substitutions between the two main phases present: Mo-containing hematite and Fe-containing molybdenum dioxide.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, USA under grants DMR-0854794 and DMR-1002627-1. The authors from the National Institute of Materials Physics-Romania, thank the support of the Core program PN 10N, as well as of the European Union and Romanian Government, under POS-CCE project CEUREMAVSU-Nr. 01/01.03.2009, allowing the acquisition of the research infrastructure.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Cite this paper

Knauss, M., Tolea, F., Valeanu, M., Diamandescu, L., Trotta, R., Wood, K., Grabias, A. and Sorescu, M. (2018) Mechanochemical Synthesis and Characterization of Molybdenum Dioxide-Hematite Nanostructures with Different Molarities. Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, 6, 587-600. https://doi.org/10.4236/jmmce.2018.66042

References
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the politician who soon will become the youngest woman to serve in Congress, proposed replacing Columbus Day with a national voting holiday on Election Day.

Ocasio-Cortez proposal was made in that raucous battleground for U.S. politics, Twitter. The suggestion began when she tweeted a question during the weekend: How is Columbus Day a holiday but Election Day not?

How is Columbus Day a holiday but Election Day not?

 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 18, 2018

In short order, David Martosko, U.S. political editor for Britains Daily Mail, weighed in to accuse Ocasio-Cortez of angling for more vacation days. That tweet struck many as a not-so-subtle reference to the inaccurate yet longstanding stereotype of Hispanics as lazy. Martoskos tweet was quickly ratioed, with more than three comments for every retweet as of Monday afternoon, and with most of those comments excoriating Martosko.

For her part, Ocasio-Cortez responded with the suggestion to swap out Columbus Day for an Election Day holiday.

While I would disagree with your complaint that Americans get too much vacation time (we work some of the longest hours of any dev country & have no Fed required paid leave),



I am willing to compromise by eliminating Columbus Day to give Election Day off.



See? I can be pliant. https://t.co/NITFcBSmxw

 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 18, 2018

Since she defeated a ten-term incumbent during a June primary race in New Yorks 14th district, Ocasio-Cortez has become something of a lightning rod for far-right media, including a now-deleted tweet that seemed to obsess over her clothing choices.

Story continues

Other politicians such as Bernie Sanders have called for making Election Day a holiday. Although voter turnout in 2018 was the highest for a mid-term election in a century, some feel the 49% turnout figure is still low given that many people dont take time off for work to vote.

Others are opposed to the practice, arguing that, while a voting holiday might give many white-collar workers and students a day off, people working in restaurants, hotels, and retail stores will still need to work that day. In some states, early voting and mail-in ballots are alternatives for those who need to work on Election Day.

In recent decades, some people have advocated replacing Columbus Day with a different national holiday, such as Indigenous Peoples Day.
Former President Barack Obama told attendees of the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday that with cooperation, people can remake the worldwhich badly needs remaking.

The single most important thing we have to invest in ispeople, said Obama when speaking about combating climate change, according to NBC News. We have got to get people to figure out how they work together in a cooperative, thoughtful, constructive way.

The former president said the United States has failed to make progress on many issues because we are still confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism, mommy issues.

While his last point resulted in laughter, Obamas statement carries weight. Despite what some may believe, racism still exists in the United States, and the numbers point to a growing problem: there were over 7,000 hate crimes last year, an increase of 17% from the year before.

Obama encouraged those at the Chicago summit to take action against injustices, but realize that society will always be slow to change.

You should be extraordinarily impatient about the injustices and nonsense and foolishness you see around you and you should be finding opportunities at every juncture to challenge those things, he said, according to the Chicago Tribune. At the same time, you have to keep in your mind: Societies are these complex, organic things that you dont turn [like] switches. They evolve. They shift. They change.

In conversation with author Dave Eggers, Obama also reflected on his time as a community organizer in Chicago, his experiences as a politician, and the history of civil rights in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, Northern District of California (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)



A California judge Tuesday issued a nationwide order blocking the Trump administration's efforts to restrict asylum-seekers, saying a new rule imposed eligibility conditions that went beyond the powers granted by Congress.



The Trump administration's rule and a related presidential proclamation, restricting asylum claims on the southern border to those individuals who enter the U.S. at designated ports, run afoul of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act, or INA, U.S. District Jon Tigar said. In some instances, Tigar said, the rule would have categorically prevented some immigrants from making asylum claims.



"The rule barring asylum for immigrants who enter the country outside a port of entry irreconcilably conflicts with the INA and the expressed intent of Congress," Tigar wrote. "Whatever the scope of the presidents authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden."



Tigar imposed a nationwide injunctionthe latest against a Trump administration immigration policythat is set to run at least until Dec. 19. The ruling came just hours after a hearing in San Francisco federal district court, where the American Civil Liberties Union, representing nonprofit plaintiffs, argued against the so-called "asylum ban." A related court hearing also was held Monday in Washington, D.C.



U.S. Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart argued the Trump administration's asylum rule did not flatly bar asylum-seekers so long as they enter through designated U.S. ports.



Tigar's ruling is certain to be challenged by the Trump administration, which has railed against the number of nationwide injunctions blocking immigration and other policies. Tigar said he would meet with the lawyers in the case on Dec. 19 to review whether a preliminary injunction should be imposed.



"Potential asylum seekers are exposed to numerous harms while waiting to present their claims, including not only physical privations like physical assault but also the loss of valuable, potentially meritorious claims for asylum," Tigar wrote. "The rule, when combined with the enforced limits on processing claims at ports of entry, leaves those individuals to choose between violence at the border, violence at home, or giving up a pathway to refugee status."



ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement: This ban is illegal, will put peoples lives in danger, and raises the alarm about President Trumps disregard for separation of powers. There is no justifiable reason to flatly deny people the right to apply for asylum, and we cannot send them back to danger based on the manner of their entry. Congress has been clear on this point for decades.



In the Washington case, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan did not issue an immediate ruling. Sullivan in August drew national headlines when he ordered the U.S. government to turn around a plane midflight carrying a woman and her daughter who had been seeking asylum. The judge was incensed that the government, despite assertions to the contrary, had removed the family amid emergency proceedings in the case.



Read more:



Federal Judge Sharply Questions Trumps Shift on Asylum



Jeff Sessions Inveighs Against Federal Judges in Heritage Foundation Speech



'Turn That Plane Around' and Other Times Judge Emmet Sullivan Was Outraged
* Monetary policy less effective in stimulating growth -c.bank research head

* Says fiscal policy should be more pro-active

* Focus should be on boosting investment

* Qualified local govts should be allowed to issue more debt (Adds details, quotes)

BEIJING, Nov 20 (Reuters) - China should rely more on fiscal policy to support the economy as downward pressure sharply increases, a senior central bank researcher said on Tuesday, as debate grows over whether Chinese authorities are considering more sweeping stimulus measures.

With the economy growing at its weakest pace since the global crisis, authorities are widely expected to decide on further measures soon on top of recent steps to spur bank lending, cut taxes and fast-track infrastructure projects.

But business conditions are still expected to get worse before they get better -- and higher U.S. trade tariffs are looming from Jan. 1 -- raising questions among China watchers over how much support will be needed to stabilise the economy, let alone turn it around.

"Monetary policy is more effective in curbing economic overheating than stimulating growth," Xu Zhong, head of the PBOC's research bureau, said at a finance forum in Beijing.

"Our country should implement more active fiscal policy. There is ample room for fiscal policy. The pro-active fiscal policy should focus on boosting infrastructure investment."

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has slashed banks' reserve requirements four times this year, and financial markets are wondering if it is considering more aggressive steps such as a cut in its benchmark lending rate.

China had cut benchmark rates systemwide several times in the last downturn in 2014-15. But policymakers have opted for more modest, targeted measures since which they believe are better able to direct cash to parts of the economy facing the biggest strains.

Chinese economists have been debating whether the government should expand its fiscal deficit ratio beyond 3 percent next year.

Story continues

But Xu cautioned against fiscal stimulus that was too forceful. China's policymakers have been working for several years to tackle a mountain of debt left over from past stimulus binges.

The downward pressure on the economy is caused partly by previous policy adjustments, including property controls to cool home price rises and curbs on local government debt, Xu said.

Qualified local governments should be allowed to issue more debt via the "front door", or official channels, to fund infrastructure projects, he added.

But a rebound in infrastructure investment alone would not solve all of China's economic woes, analysts at Societe Generale said in a recent research note.

Consumer spending is faltering and property sales are falling, while Chinese exports to the United States are expected to slide soon as higher U.S. duties start to bite, SocGen said, adding that many companies continue to have trouble getting affordable financing despite official credit easing measures.

Xu also said China should improve its short-term demand management, adding that it should strengthen policy coordination and avoid "one-size-fits-all" policies.

"When the economy is going downward, recovery should precede reforms. Only when the economy operates normally, reforms can be pushed forward effectively," Xu said, pointing to how the U.S. government dealt with the global crisis. (Reporting by Kevin Yao Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)
REGINA, Saskatchewan, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CN (CNR.TO) (CNI) and 4-H Canada, today announced the renewal of their partnership to advance youth leadership and safety in Canada. Made possible through a four year commitment, the renewed annual 4-H Canada Leadership Excellence Awards of Distinction (L.E.A.D.) recognize exceptional 4-H senior youth members and showcase their accomplishments in the area of leadership excellence and safety.



L.E.A.D. is 4-H Canadas most prestigious scholarship that recognizes 4-H senior youth that are making lasting contributions to their communities and that seeks to help them as they move into their post-secondary careers, said Shannon Benner, CEO of 4-H Canada. This partnership renewal is a testament to CNs commitment to fostering youth leadership and safety in Canada and our shared value in investing in youth in rural and agricultural communities.

L.E.A.D. recipients each benefit from four-year scholarships in the amount of $5000 per year toward their post-secondary studies. They also are matched with a mentor who plays a leadership role in their industry and community. This mentorship relationship is an important component of the award program and will help the L.E.A.D. recipients as they forge their careers. Recent studies have estimated that from 2013 to 2022 there will be almost 74,000 job openings in Canadian agriculture, but only 49,000 projected job seekers. This represents a huge opportunity for the countrys youth and it starts with mentorship opportunities and skills transfer.



CN is excited to continue our support for the L.E.A.D. program that fosters rural youth leadership, said Sean Finn, Executive Vice-President of Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer of CN, who announced the renewal of CN sponsorship for four more years in Regina today. The program has been very successful in meeting the goal of developing future leaders who will promote our shared values of leadership and safety across our nation.

Story continues

Agribition is honoured to be the venue for such a significant announcement between CN and 4-H, says Canadian Western Agribition CEO Chris Lane. CN has a long history of investing in agriculture programming, and both 4-H and CN are big parts of this show. Its great to see support for the future of the industry.

The recipients of the L.E.A.D. scholarships will be announced in the Fall of 2019.

About 4-H Canada

For over 100 years, 4-H Canada has been one of the most highly respected positive youth development organizations in Canada. 4-H Canada has close to 25,000 members and more than 7,700 volunteer leaders. Our goal is to help young Canadians Learn To Do By Doing in a safe, inclusive and fun environment. We believe in nurturing responsible, caring and contributing youth leaders who are committed to positively impacting their communities across Canada and around the world. To learn more about 4-H Canada, please visit 4-h-canada.ca .

About CN

CN is a true backbone of the economy whose team of more than 25,000 railroaders transports safely more than C$250 billion worth of goods annually for a wide range of business sectors, ranging from resource products to manufactured products to consumer goods, across a rail network of approximately 20,000 route-miles spanning Canada and mid-America. CN  Canadian National Railway Company, along with its operating railway subsidiaries  serves the cities and ports of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile, Ala., and the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Duluth, Minn./Superior, Wis., and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America. For more information about CN, visit the Companys website at www.cn.ca.

For more information, media may contact:



Jay Poulton

Marketing and Communications Director

4-H Canada

613-759-1013 ext. 131

jpoulton@4-h-canada.ca
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank played only a secondary role as a so-called correspondent bank to scandal-hit Danske Bank, limiting what it needed to know about the people behind the transactions, the German lender's regulation chief said on Wednesday.

Danske, Denmark's largest bank, is facing allegations of money laundering through its Estonia branch. Deutsche as a correspondent bank helped process up to $150 billion in suspicious payments, a source with direct knowledge of the case has said.

Deutsche Bank took action once it noticed suspicious transactions, its Chief Regulatory Officer Sylvie Matherat said at a conference when asked about the issue.

Matherat's comments amount to an effort to distance Deutsche from the affair as Germany's financial markets watchdog - BaFin - reviews whether to open a formal investigation into its role.

Matherat said that Deutsche's relationship with Danske lasted eight years before Deutsche ended it. Matherat declined to comment on the volume of transactions Deutsche executed for Danske.

She said that Deutsche conducts about between $400 billion and $450 billion in transactions every day and monitors them closely.

(Reporting by Andreas Framke; Writing by Tom Sims; Editing by Thomas Seythal/Keith Weir)
FILE PHOTO: A staff member prepares for the EU-China High-level Economic Dialogue in Beijing FILE PHOTO: A staff member prepares for the EU-China High-level Economic Dialogue at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Tuesday provisionally agreed on rules for a far-reaching system to coordinate scrutiny of foreign investments into Europe, notably from China, to end what a negotiator called "European naivety".

Negotiators for the European Parliament and the EU's 28 member states struck a deal to protect strategic technologies and infrastructure, such as ports or energy networks.

Under the plan, developed in the wake of a surge in Chinese investments, the European Commission would investigate foreign investments in critical sectors and offer opinions.

The opinions could address concerns over whether the security of vital infrastructure could be compromised or that innovations that have had years of expensive research could be lost to foreign hands.

"It will mark the end of European naivety," Franck Proust, who headed the parliament's negotiating team, said ahead of the talks. "All the world powers - the United States, Japan, China, - have a method of screening. Only Europe does not."

The proposed new law does not name China, but its backers' complaints over investments by state-owned enterprises and for technology transfers are clear references to Beijing.

The proposal, demanded by France, Germany and the previous government of Italy, still needs the support of the 28 EU states at a meeting on Dec. 5. Their backing is by no means certain given opposition from a number a countries, including Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta and Portugal.

Some of the opponents have welcomed Chinese investment, such as Greece, whose largest port Piraeus is majority-owned by China's COSCO Shipping.

"This is not about closing down our markets but about acting responsibly," said Austrian Economy Minister Margarete Schramboeck, whose country represented the EU states and urged them to back the compromise text.

Parliament will vote on the proposal in February or March.

EU lawmakers succeeded in pushing through tougher screening than initially proposed, such as obliging the Commission to screen deals and requiring EU countries to cooperate.

Story continues

They also extended the list of "critical sectors" to include aerospace, health, nano-technology, the media, electric batteries and the supply of food.

The system would not require individual countries to carry out screening. Currently 13 nations have a system in place. Those that do will need to inform other EU members and the Commission if they screen an investment.

All would have to provide an annual report to the Commission, which would also be obliged to give its opinion if a third of member states expressed concerns about a planned foreign investment.

However, EU countries, and not the Commission, would still make final decisions on whether to block foreign investments on security and public interest grounds.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Alison Williams)
Horatio Mihet, senior litigation counsel at the Liberty Counsel. Courtesy photo



A self-described religious freedom group argued in federal court that Tampa's ban on conversion therapy, which seeks to covert participants to heterosexuals, violates First Amendment privileges.



Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based litigation organization, is representing licensed therapists Robert Vazzo and David Pickup, and the pair's young clients, in their suit against Tampa over Ordinance 2017-47.



The ordinance, which was adopted by the city in March 2017, bans "any counseling, practice or treatment performed with the goal of changing an individual's sexual orientation or gender, including, but not limited to, efforts to change behaviors, gender identity or gender expression, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings towards individuals of the same gender or sex."



Under Tampa's municipal codes, violations of the ordinance could cost up to $1,000 for first offenses and $5,000 for repeat violations.



Liberty Counsel is seeking a preliminary injunction to put a stop to Tampa's enforcement of that ordinance. It commenced legal action in December 2017.



The city of Tampa has no authority to prohibit counselors from providing counsel which their clients seek, Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's founder and chairman said in a press release. The government has no business eavesdropping inside the counseling rooms, and the city has no authority to enact a local counseling regulation."



Horatio Harry Mihet, an attorney with Liberty Counsel, told the Daily Business Review that he expects the court to release a decision following the submission of additional post-hearing briefs in the days to come.



He called the hearing "remarkably one-sided."



Defendants "made no effort to engage with any of the evidence we put forth to show the court this ordinance was not narrowly tailored," Mihet said. "The U.S. Supreme Court decision in McCullen v. Coakley makes it clear a city such as Tampa must consider less restrictive alternatives  before it burdens protected speech."



"It seems to me like were still debating whether or not the speech at issue here is actually speech or conduct. That seems to be the main thrust of the defense," he added, noting the varying degrees of protection and scrutiny afforded to speech versus conduct.



"We obtained in discovery documents in which Tampa was calling conversion therapy professional speech in its internal communications.  Everyone was in agreement this was a form of professional speech," Mihet said. He contended opposing counsel did not engage with the plaintiff's findings in court.



The organization, which is designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has also sued Boca Raton and Palm Beach Counties over their bans on conversion therapy.



Defense attorney Robert V. Williams, a litigator with the Tampa office of Big Law firm Burr & Forman, declined comment, citing Tampas policy against commenting on ongoing litigation.



Gay advocacy groups have taken note of the litigation, and at least one has stepped into the fray with a motion to intervene and become a party to the suit. Equality Florida Institute Inc. hired Tampa-based Carlton Fields Jorden Burt lawyers Brian C. Porter and Sylvia H. Walbolt, as well as attorneys with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its counsel did not respond to requests for comment by press time.







Related stories:



Gay 'conversion therapy' center sued under Consumer Fraud Act



DCF Under Fire Over LGBT Conversion Therapy Rule Change



This Law Group is Providing a 'Playbook for Resistance in the Time of Trump'
Fluor Corporation FLR has won a contract from ioneer Ltd. for completion of the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for its Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron project in Nevada.



In addition, Fluor will provide engineering, procurement and construction management services (EPCM). The project will deliver critical materials, lithium and boron, which are used in everyday items and innovative technologies for ensuring a sustainable future.



Annually, the production of lithium carbonate is expected to be 20,200 tons and that of boric acid is targeted at 173,000 tons. The production is anticipated to start in 2021.



ioneer, being an emerging lithium-boron supplier, has been one of the key clients for Fluors Mining, Industrial, Infrastructure & Power segment. Prior to this project, the company helped ioneer to become the worlds largest low-cost lithium producer, while completing the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS).



Fluor has a solid track record of receiving awards, which have helped in generating higher revenues. During the first nine months of 2018, new awards of $10.3 billion for the said segment grew more than three times from the prior-year period. Notably, its recent wins included a copper project in the south of Peru and an international bridge project in Canada.



Notably, shares of Fluor have underperformed its industry in the past three months. The underperformance mainly stemmed from the companys recently reported dismal third-quarter results. Fluors adjusted earnings and revenues missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.2% and 0.8%, respectively, in the third quarter of 2018. Earnings and revenues also decreased 13.4% and 5.7% year over year, respectively, due to higher tax rate, pre-tax charges on two projects and lower-than-anticipated ramp in mining, infrastructure and energy, and chemicals projects. Meanwhile, lower contribution from Energy & Chemicals and power business lines also added to the woes.





Story continues





Nonetheless, Fluor remains optimistic about its end markets, including mining. This is because leading indicators of future capital spending like industrial production and capacity utilization are improving in several regions and industries. The companys Mining & Metal business backlog came in at $16.5 billion as of Sep 30, 2018 compared with $10.1 billion a year ago. The significant increase in backlog stemmed from a whopping new awards count, which is expected to generate higher revenues in the future.



Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider



Currently, Fluor carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks from the same industry are Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. JEC, KBR, Inc. KBR and Altair Engineering Inc. ALTR, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



Jacobs earnings for the current year are expected to increase 35.2%.



KBR surpassed earnings estimates in three of the past four quarters, delivering average positive surprise of 12.6%.



Altairs earnings are expected to grow 19.2% in 2018.



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Editor's note: This article is part of The American Lawyer's State of Litigation special section, along with an analysis of President Donald Trump's federal court nominations.



This year has seen significant developments in the field of class action litigation. Last years Bristol-Myers decision has created a growing split as to the viability of a large number of nationwide class actions. The D.C. Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in the ACA International case, significantly altering the landscape for Telephone Consumer Protection Act litigation. Spokeos impact on standing challenges continues to wind its way through courts across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court and appellate courts have also issued significant decisions on related topics, including the judicial approval of nationwide class action settlements, the tolling of statutes of limitations during the pendency of class actions, and state court jurisdiction over securities class actions. This article highlights at a high level the years most noteworthy developments in this field and offers insights for their likely impact for litigants and practitioners.





Split on 'Bristol-Myers'





In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court that a California court lacked jurisdiction over the claims of nonresidents where Bristol-Myers was not a citizen of California and the nonresident claims lacked any connection to California. Since Bristol-Myers was decided, defendants have argued that the decision should similarly bar nationwide or multistate class actions where the defendant is not subject to general jurisdiction. District courts have diverged on this question, and the split has only continued to deepen over the past year as additional decisions have come out. This issue will surely continue to work its way through the federal courts of appeals in the coming year, and could potentially have a major impact on the continued viability of nationwide and multistate class actions.





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TCPA Cases





In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit released its long-awaited ACA International v. Federal Communications Commission decision, which reviewed the validity of a 2015 FCC order that had broadly interpreted the statutory language of the TCPA.



The decision set aside the FCCs interpretation of automatic telephone dialing systems," including rejecting the interpretation that they included all equipment with the potential capacity (not just present capacity) to perform certain statutorily specified functions, reasoning in part that such a broad interpretation would cover everyday devices like personal smartphones. The decision also set aside the FCCs one-call safe harbor, under which a caller may contact the reassigned number of a previously consenting party one time without violating the TCPA, because the FCC could not justify a one-call limit that may or may not give the caller notice that a number was reassigned. The D.C. Circuit upheld the FCCs rule that a called party may revoke consent at any time through any reasonable means, orally or in writing, that clearly expresses a desire not to receive further messages. The decision also upheld the exemption of certain nontelemarketing health care calls from the TCPAs general ban.



The ACA International decision has already impacted numerous cases and opened the door for further interpretive issues, including before the FCC, which has sought and received comment on the impact of the decision. In particular, a consensus has begun to emerge among the courts of appeal that ACA International vacated the FCCs interpretation of dialing systems, but the courts have differed thus far in their interpretations of the statutory definition. In addition, courts and the FCC are considering whether and to what extent individuals can revoke consent to receive communications when that consent was given in a bilateral contract.





Grappling With 'Spokeo'





Since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Spokeo v. Robinsholding that plaintiffs asserting claims based on statutory violations must nonetheless satisfy Article IIIs concrete injury requirementdistrict and circuit courts across the country have grappled with the decisions impact on class actions arising under various statutes.



Over the past year, courts have continued to find a lack of Article III standing for certain Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act violations that were not shown to increase the risk of identity theft. For instance, in February the Ninth Circuit joined the Second and Seventh circuits in holding that failing to truncate credit card expiration dates on receipts by itself does not give rise to Article III standing. The Ninth Circuit similarly held in March that taxi companies alleged printing and distributing credit card receipts containing the first digit and final four digits of a consumers credit card number was not a harm sufficient to give consumers Article III standing.



On the other hand, this years case decisions generally have continued to find injuries in fact for violations involving invasion of privacy under the TCPA, even without a showing of tangible harm. Recent decisions have also continued the trend of finding standing where personal information was improperly disclosed in violation of a privacy statute. This last area is likely to develop further in the coming year with the rise of data breach litigation.



Also of note this year is a Seventh Circuit opinion holding that the existence of Article III standing is a prerequisite for removal to federal court, and thus, where a case is removed and the court finds that the plaintiff lacks standing, the proper course is remand to state court rather than dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.





Nationwide Settlement Rejection





Under Ninth Circuit precedent, material differences in state law can overwhelm common issues and preclude predominance for a single nationwide class. In In re Hyundai and Kia Fuel Economy Litigation, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit applied this precedent in vacating a nationwide settlement, holding that the district court failed to undertake the required predominance analysis in granting settlement approval. The panels decision thus injects additional complexity into settlement negotiations and increases the burden on parties and courts in analyzing requests for approval of nationwide settlements.



Subsequent decisions indicate that approval of nationwide settlements remains possible. In July, for example, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the $10 billion settlement in the Volkswagen Clean Diesel litigation, noting that, unlike in Hyundai, the district court had provided a thorough predominance analysis. Notably, the Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear the Hyundai decision en banc. Oral argument occurred in September and the courts decision was pending at press time.





Tolling Individual Claims





Under American Pipe and Construction v. Utah, the pendency of a class action was held to toll the statute of limitations for class members claims that could be separately asserted. On June 11, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified in China Agritech v. Resh that the American Pipe doctrine does not extend to successive class actions. In China Agritech, shareholders filed a putative class action alleging securities fraud. The named plaintiffs had been absent members of two nearly identical putative class actions where class certification was denied. Under China Agritech, putative class members hoping to file their own class action after the limitations period are out of luck.





State Court Jurisdiction





Based on the Supreme Courts decision in Cyan v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund, issuer defendants, such as newly public companies, will likely have to defend themselves in state court against class action suits brought under the Securities Act of 1933. In addition to holding that state courts have jurisdiction over class actions alleging violations of only the Securities Act, the court further held that the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 prohibits defendants from removing such cases to federal court. Subsequent district court decisions have clarified, however, that the act's anti-removal provision do not bar defendants from removing cases under other statutes, such as the Class Action Fairness Act.



The developments discussed here are wide-ranging in their impact, affecting the viability and settlement of nationwide class actions, TCPA cases, statutory damages class actions, removal of securities class actions, and more. In the next year, district and circuit courts will continue to grapple with these topics. The Supreme Court also recently granted review of a case involving removal under the Class Action Fairness Act. In short, the next year promises to deliver additional significant developments in the field of class action litigation.



Neal Marder is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Firm counsel Andrew Jick, associate Kelly Handschumacher and law clerk Shelly Kim also contributed to this article.
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 52F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 52F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
North Korea bitcoin cryptocurrency

In a bid to showcase some of its technological advancement and show its support for the blockchain technology, North Korea has announced plans to hold a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference. This comes on the heels of a similar conference held in August.

The country announced that plans are already in the works for them to host some of the foremost experts in cryptocurrency operations and blockchain technology from all over the world to speak and share some of their knowledge in the Pyongyang Blockchain Conference, which is slated to hold for a whole week. Within this week, guests and delegates will also be treated to a tour of the country, the Independent UK reports.

A promotional website for the event says experts in the blockchain and crypto industry will gather for the first time in Pyongyang to share their knowledge and vision, establish connections and discuss business opportunities

However, it is also important to note that, while Americans are welcomed to attend, the conference will not be open to delegates from South Korea, Israel, and Japan. In addition, journalists as well as any mass propaganda or printed/digital material that is against the dignity of the Republic wont be granted a pass to the event, according to the report.

The continued interest from North Korea in decentralized currencies and blockchain has been well documented in recent months. Just last year, a cybersecurity company called AlienVault discovered a software that mines Monero, which sends the crypto to a server at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. Another hacking unit, the Andariel group were also reportedly behind a cryptojacking attack on a South Korean company, per Bloomberg reports.

It is speculated that the country has been exploring the possibility of making use of digital assets as a means of escaping some of the sanctions imposed on her by the United States.

In its release, the California-based security firm stated, Cryptocurrencies may provide a financial lifeline to a country hit hard by sanctions, and as a result, universities in Pyongyang have shown a clear interest in cryptocurrencies. They also added that the installer they analyzed might be The most recent product of their endeavors.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post North Korea to Host Another Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference appeared first on CCN.


OUTFRONT Media Inc. OUT recently announced that its in-house creative studio  OUTFRONT Studios  has designed a campaign for the Florida's Space Coast Office of Tourism, using one of the largest 3D displays in an out-of-home (OOH) campaign.



OUTFRONT Studios have designed three creatives to display three popular tourist attractions  Cocoa Beach, Port Canaveral and Signature Rocket Launches. As the billboard spins, each of these are exhibited in every seven seconds. Notably, the companys trivision billboards were used to display Florida's Space Coast's diverse assets.



Furthermore, the company has installed a 30-foot tall 3D rocket embellishment in front of the trivision that will be easily visible to Orlando travelers commuting east on Interstate 4. OUTFRONT Studios levers on an innovative network to deliver engaging campaigns across the United States. In fact, it aims to produce original designs for use on its OOH network.



Per management of Florida's Space Coast, By partnering with OUTFRONT on this one-of-its-kind billboard, we were able to build a landmark and inspire passerbys to discover our local destinations."



In fact, trivision is a dated advertising medium  impactful designs are not effective on trivisions  that it is overshadowed by better options like digital OOH. Nonetheless, the company has been able to successfully portray Florida's Space Coast attractions.



OOH advertising is growing at a rapid pace with the market share continuously improving compared with other forms of media due to its cost-effectiveness and ability to efficiently reach target audiences.



Hence, the company is banking on this trend and modernizing its assets to provide a unique technology platform to advertisers.



Shares of OUTFRONT Media have outperformed the industry it belongs to, in the past three months. During this period, shares of this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company have rallied 3.6%, as against the industrys loss of 2.2%. Moreover, the stock has seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year funds from operations (FFO) per share being revised upward by nearly 2% in a months time.

Story continues





Other Stocks to Consider



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Cousins Properties FFO per share estimates for 2018 has been revised marginally upward to 62 cents in 30 days time.



PS Business Parks Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 FFO per share has been revised marginally upward to $6.42 in the last month. Its shares have returned 16.8% over the past six months.



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The LauncherOne rocket hangs from the 'Cosmic Girl' plane - Virgin Orbit

Sir Richard Bransons newly-formed rocket launch company has successfully completed a first test flight of a modified jumbo jet designed to launch satellites into space.

Virgin Orbit, which the British billionaire spun out of his Virgin Galactic venture last year, plans to launch small commercial and government-built satellites into space. Rather than taking-off from the ground, rockets containing the satellites are strapped to a specially adapted commercial jet before being launched midair.

On Sunday, the companys specially modified Boeing 747-400, known as Cosmic Girl, completed its first test flight in California, carrying a 70-foot-long rocket under its wing.

Virgin Orbit said the 80-minute flight was used to gather data on the systems performance, take-off and landing. It hopes to launch a rocket into orbit in the new year.

The company says it has already compiled mountains of data and plans to conduct more test flights, with and without the rocket attached. The next step will be to complete a drop test during which a rocket will be launched from the plane to collect data on the rockets performance as it falls through the atmosphere.

Virgin Orbit says that launching rockets while airborne, rather than taking off from a launch pad, saves on costly ground infrastructure. Midair launches are less weather dependent and free up missions from traffic jams at launch sites.

It is planning to launch the rocket next year Credit: PA

Its sister company Virgin Galactic has faced multiple delays as it seeks to send passengers into space. Sir Richard told The Telegraph earlier this year that a full launch was tantalisingly close. The company has faced some setbacks including a crash of the VSS Enterprise in 2014, which killed one of its two pilots.

Sir Richard last month cancelled a proposed billion-dollar investment in Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit amid the alleged murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

He recently stepped down from the board of another US venture, Virgin Hyperloop One, which this month replaced its chief executive amid a management clear-out.
* OPCW budget passed in vote of 99-27, in defeat for Moscow, Syria

* Russia had lobbied members to block new powers to assign blame

* New team of 10 specialists will begin Syria work early in 2019 (Updates with budget passed)

By Anthony Deutsch

THE HAGUE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Members of the global chemical weapons watchdog on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a Russian-led push to undercut new powers that allow the agency to point the finger of blame for the use of banned toxic munitions in Syria.

The full membership of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons voted 99 to 27 in favour of passing an increased budget for 2019, which will partly fund the Western-backed new powers, and rejected proposals by Russia and Iran aimed at blocking it.

The votes came at a time of heightened tension between Russia, whose forces support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the West over systematic use of chemical weapons in the Syrian war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said giving the OPCW additional powers overstepped the boundaries of its founding treaty, the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

The new powers "of a prosecutor are a gross violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, decisions of the UN Security Council and contrary to the position of the majority of states parties to the convention," he was quoted by Sputnik News as saying.

Dutch authorities say they disrupted an attempted hack into the Hague-based OPCW in April, when the watchdog was looking into both the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain and chemical strikes in Syria which the West blames on Assad.

Scores of attacks with sarin gas and chlorine have been carried out in the Syrian conflict by government forces and rebel groups, according to a joint United Nations-OPCW investigation.

OPCW members on Tuesday voted down a Chinese-Russian proposal to block the new team mandated with assigning blame for attacks in Syria, a power that had been with a joint United Nations-OPCW investigation until its extension was vetoed by Russia last year.

China, which voted against the budget, called for an end to the "present atmosphere of polarity and politicization".

Story continues

Russia had lobbied strongly among OPCW members to win a reversal of a decision in June to adopt a British-led proposal to set up a team to identify organisations or individuals responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Opponents said allocating new powers to identify perpetrators will create more division at the OPCW, where Russia, much like at the United Nations, has blocked efforts to take action against its close ally Syria.

"This organisation will be left in shambles," said Magzhan Ilyassov, Kazakhstan's ambassador to the OPCW, who supports Russia's position. He said the new team should not be funded and that the OPCW "will continue to disintegrate and fall apart."

Under the June decision, a new team of 10 specialists will start work on Syria early next year.. The team's mandate will later be widened to identify those responsible for attacks worldwide.

The OPCW's new chief, Fernando Arias, on Tuesday won support for a budget increase of 3.6 percent to just below 70 million euros ($80 million), 2-2.5 million euros of which will partly fund the new team.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Photo credit: Apic/RETIRED - Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics

A foreboding cloud of black ash blocks out the sun from Europe to Asia. An outbreak of bubonic plague coincides with a piercing cold snap. Crops fail. Starvation, darkness, and squalor abound.

All of these conditions were pervasive throughout the northern hemisphere in the year 536 A.D. The year was a tipping point in an era of unprecedented devastation. It was so bad that researchers are now labeling that year the worst time to be alive in the history of humankind. Or as Harvard History professor Michael McCormick told Science: "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year."

Although the origins of the black, ashen cloud were previously a mystery, a new paper published in the journal Antiquities indicates that a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland triggered the 18 months of darkness. Two more eruptions in the years 540 and 547 would compound the cloud.

The ash blocked out the sun, ushering forth frigid temperatures that blighted crops, resulting in starvation. Adding to the gloom, an outbreak of bubonic plague spread throughout the Eastern Roman Empire in 542 A.D., killing droves and giving way to an economic downturn that lasted 30 years.

The study-co-authored by McCormick, Nottingham University history professor Christopher Loveluck, and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine in Orono-measured ice samples in the Swiss Alps for evidence of pollutants and atmospheric change that could potentially shed light on the dark cloud's origins. While conducting the study, researchers discovered lead pollutants in the ice, created by the surge of volcanic activity.

Ironically, historians believe these pollutants sparked the European economy's revival, pulling it out of the deep, depressing chasm around 100 years later. Lead was crucial in the production of silver, which eventually spurred an economic resurgence as the sky cleared and the pestilence waned. As Loveluck told CNN: "There is evidence of total economic transformation between 640 and 660."

Story continues

So count your blessings. We've got nothing approaching that cataclysmic level of abject despair. At least, not yet.

Source: CNN, Science

('You Might Also Like',)
PARIS (AP)  Carlos Ghosn will remain chairman and CEO of Renault despite being detained in Japan on allegations he misused assets of partner Nissan Motor Co. and under-reported millions of dollars in income.

The French carmaker's board of directors announced its decision after an emergency meeting in Paris on Tuesday.

The board, however, said it was appointing the automaker's No. 2 executive, Chief Operating Officer Thierry Bollore, to temporarily fill in for Ghosn.

"Mr. Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains chairman and chief executive officer," a statement from Renault's board said. But while Ghosn deals with his legal issues in Japan, Bollore will have the same authority to run the company as the CEO, it added.

Renault's board said its decision was made with an eye toward keeping the company on a steady course "to preserve the interests of the group and the continuity of its operations."

Japanese prosecutors were considering Tuesday whether to file formal charges against Ghosn.

Ghosn runs Renault, Nissan and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance that he helped turn into the world's biggest car-seller last year, and both France and Japan want to keep it intact.

Renault's move to appoint a temporary leader was in line with a demand by the French government, which owns a 15 percent stake in the automaker. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had said earlier Tuesday that Ghosn was not in position to lead the Renault Group while fighting the accusations in Japan.

The decision not to part ways with the CEO may also reflect the esteem in France for Ghosn, who recently met with President Emmanuel Macron, and had met with four past presidents.

Renault's board, meanwhile, said it is requesting that Nissan pass along details of its investigation into Ghosn's alleged wrongdoing.

Japanese prosecutors said they were holding Ghosn, 64, for allegedly collaborating to falsify securities statements and underreporting $44.6 million in income from 2011 to 2015. A second Nissan executive, Greg Kelly, was also suspected of collaborating with him.

Le Maire said authorities have examined Ghosn's tax situation in France but have found no wrongdoing.

Story continues

Bollore, a member of Renault's executive committee, joined Renault in September 2012 and was named chief operating officer only last February. He has a long career with both tiremaker Michelin and auto parts company Faurecia, spending time in Asia with each.

There was no word from Ghosn himself. Japanese prosecutors have refused to say where he is being held.

The prosecutors, who reportedly arrested Ghosn after questioning him upon his arrival by private jet at Tokyo's Haneda airport, have 48 hours from the time of his arrest Monday to decide whether to press charges. They can hold a suspect for up to 20 more days per charge if they decide they need more time.

Nissan's board was due to meet Thursday to consider dismissing Ghosn and Kelly. Earlier this year, Ghosn signed a contract that would have run through 2022.

Of French, Brazilian and Lebanese background, Ghosn also is a towering corporate figure in France, where Renault is one of the heavyweight industrial survivors. No major economic event in France was held without Ghosn.

Ghosn's Lebanese heritage is a source of pride in Lebanon, and in Beirut the foreign minister, Gibran Bassil, issued a statement saying the Lebanese ambassador to Tokyo was told to look out for "the model of Lebanese success abroad."

In Japan, where foreign executives are scarce and even the biggest corporate bigwigs tend to keep a low profile, Ghosn's status is more ambiguous.

He is admired for driving a turnaround at Nissan when it was near bankruptcy and for his foresight in pushing to bring electric and autonomous cars to the masses.

But in a 90-minute news conference late Monday night, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa said Ghosn had too much power and the company was overdue for some change.

Public broadcaster NHK said Ghosn was in charge of allocating pay among Nissan's top executives and is suspected of siphoning off some of that compensation.

He also is suspected of underpaying his share of rent and misusing company funds on his company-issued housing in Lebanon, Paris, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, where his apartment is on the wealthy Copacabana beach strip.

Ghosn's compensation from Nissan, generous by Japanese standards, was only part of his overall income since he also has salaries from alliance partners Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motor Corp.

Repeatedly questioned over how the company could have let financial misconduct persist for so long, Saikawa said systems inside Nissan limited transparency.

___

Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Haruka Nuga, Angela Charlton in Paris and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.
Singapore Stock Exchange Blockchain

The Singapore Exchange has published a list of its expectations of listed companies that intend to raise funds using digital token sales.

In a post published on its official website on November 15, the exchange revealed that while it is not interested in passing judgement on the commercial benefits of investment value of ICOs and cryptocurrencies, companies are required to liaise with Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo) before launching ICOs so as to enable shareholders to make informed decisions.

Legal Opinions and Shareholder Education

The note, which was signed by SGX RegCo CEO Tan Boon Gin stated that firms looking to launch ICOs must provide legal and auditor opinions on the nature of the digital asset in question and its accounting treatment. If further specified that at the point of announcement, ICO issuers must declare certain information so as to appraise shareholders of the fund raising.

An excerpt from the note spells out the information to be provided to shareholders:

The rationale for, and risks (including operational, cyber security, manipulation, legal and reputational risks) arising from, the ICO;The use of funds raised and key milestones to be achieved in utilising the funds; Know-your-customer checks to be conducted to address money laundering and terrorist financing risks; The accounting and valuation treatments for the ICO; The use of existing issuer funds to conduct the ICO, if any; The financial impact on the issuer as a result of the token issuance as well as impact of any contingent settlement provisions; Any impact on existing shareholders rights; and Any other information as SGX RegCo thinks necessary.

In addition, issuers are also required to obtain an agreement with statutory auditors providing assurances that the ICOs financial statements are in good order and that funds have been used for the purpose they were allocated for.

Special Measures for Security Tokens

SGX further revealed that token sales that are classified under securities/capital markets products under Singapores Securities and Futures Act (SFA) will be required to meet prospectus registration requirements for securities offers as well as SFA-mandated securities dealer licensing requirements. In addition, such issuers may be rrequired to carry out the ICO through a subsidiary.

Story continues

According to SGX RegCo, it is not in a position to make investment judgement on crypto-related products, but it nevertheless has to act to protect its own interests and that of shareholders. Ultimately the regulator said, the responsibility for maintaining an effective risk management system lies with the token issuers board. Continuing in a similarly hands-off tone, SGX RegCo concluded with an appeal to companies to consult with it for more clarity, stating that effective regulation is possible only when there is regular communication between all stakeholders.

This comes at a time when Singapore is becoming recognised as an increasingly crypto-friendly jurisdiction. Earlier in November, CCN reported that SGX and the countrys central bank successfully developed a smart contract-powered Delivery versus Payment (DvP) mechanism for settlement of tokenized assets over different blockchain platforms.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post Singapore Exchange Reveals Expectations For Listed Companies Conducting ICOs appeared first on CCN.


A worker drives a forklift to transport aluminum bars at a factory in Anshun, Guizhou province, China, in this July 1, 2013 file picture. REUTERS/Stringer/Files

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States and China clashed on Wednesday at a World Trade Organization meeting with a U.S. envoy accusing Beijing of using the WTO to pursue "non-market" policies and a Chinese official saying it was Washington that was flouting the rulebook.

U.S. President Donald Trump has outraged U.S. trading partners by erecting a tariff wall against imports of steel and aluminum - justified by U.S. national security concerns - and has hit Chinese goods with huge tariffs over accusations of stealing U.S. intellectual property.

At the meeting on Wednesday, where a slew of legal disputes over Trump's trade policies entered a formal adjudication phase, U.S. Ambassador Dennis Shea said China was using the WTO to promote "non-market" policies, which had distorted world markets and led to massive excess capacity, especially in steel and aluminum.

The Chinese official retorted that Beijing did not want to get into a blame game and said the United States had failed to back up its "unfounded" claims about China's economy, which it was using to disguise its own violations of the WTO rulebook.

Both sides accused each other of hypocrisy.

Shea said the WTO should throw out a lawsuit brought by China, along with those brought by the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia and Turkey, because WTO rules allowed exceptions for actions taken for national security concerns.

"Some (WTO) members have expressed concerns that invoking the national security exception in these circumstances would undermine the international trading system. This is erroneous, and completely backwards," Shea said, according to a copy of his remarks provided to Reuters.

"Rather, what threatens the international trading system is that China is attempting to use the WTO dispute settlement system to prevent any action by any Member to address its unfair, trade-distorting policies."

The United States also triggered its own litigation to contest retaliatory measures by Canada, Mexico, China and the EU, which say Trump's metal tariffs are thinly disguised U.S. protectionism.

"The United States cannot abide this level of hypocrisy," a second U.S. official told the meeting.

Story continues

In response to the U.S. intellectual property complaint, China's representative highlighted the fact that the WTO still had several unresolved disputes on its books, including a 2004 ruling against a U.S. violation of the WTO's agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS).

At the same time, the United States was suggesting its intellectual property protection was supreme.

"That claim itself lacks the credibility given the simple fact that the U.S. has deliberately delayed the implementation in this case for more than 14 years," the Chinese official said.

"China has fully complied with the TRIPS agreement while the U.S. has not. And we believe that until the U.S. faithfully and entirely honors its TRIPS obligations, the comparison suggested by the U.S. is clearly without the legal benchmark."

The Chinese official said the United States had failed to back up its "unfounded" claims about China's economy, which it was using to disguise its own violations of the WTO rulebook.

"The statement made by the U.S. reeks of hypocrisy," the official said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Richard Balmforth)
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  November 21, 2018  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Antero Resources Corp. AR, Gulfport Energy Corp. GPOR, Approach Resources Inc. AREX and Apache Corp. APA.

Today, Zacks is promoting its ''Buy'' stock recommendations. Get #1Stock of the Day pick for free.

Here are highlights from Tuesdays Analyst Blog:

Bet on 4 Shale Producers as Winter Cold Boosts Gas Prices

This is an opportune moment to invest in natural gas producers since the futures price of the commodity recently crossed the psychological mark of $4 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) for the first time since late-2014.

The demand story, that is primarily backing the price rally, is not just limited to room heating this winter. Escalating export volumes of the commodity owing to rising global demand for clean energy is another catalyst. But, apprehensions of a freezing winter this year with tight supply of natural gas for heating up rooms are also fueling the rise.

Natural Gas Price Strong Amid Tight Supply

Winter paid an early visit to the United States this year, taking most analysts by surprise. Now, there has been several forecasts that the nation will witness a frigid winter, as reported by media reports.

Meanwhile, as of Oct 31, 2018, the United States wrapped up its natural gas refill season with underground storage level at 3,208 billion cubic feet (Bcf)  per the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). EIA added that the United States has never closed its natural gas refill season  generally during Apr 1-Oct 31  at such a low level in the past 13 years.

Overall, with tight natural gas supplies amid forecasts of a bitter cold, analysts expect the commodity futures price  recently traded at $4.929 per MMBtu, the highest since February 2014  to remain high throughout winter. In other words, since natural gas is used for room heating purposes, demand for the commodity will likely to strengthen since the storage level is at a record low mark.

Story continues

Bet on Marcellus, Utica & Permian Producers

The fate of natural gas producers is positively correlated with the price of the commodity. The favorable gas pricing scenario will likely prompt upstream energy players to generate more cashflows for shareholders.

Hence, producers of natural gas in some of the prolific shale resources like Marcellus, Utica and Permian are well placed to capitalize on the strong commodity demand. Notably, in North America, Marcellus is touted to be among the richest gas fields.

Our Choices

We have employed our proprietary Stock Screener to narrow down the search for winning stocks to the following four. All the companies carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Headquartered in Denver, CO, Antero Resources Corp. is among the leading upstream energy players with operations in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays. In the Utica shale, the company has more than 137,000 net acres and over 484,000 net acres in the Marcellus.

Since, natural gas contributes to more than 70% of the companys production, the stocks prospects seem bright. We expect the stock to see earnings growth of 233.3% through 2018.

Gulfport Energy Corp., headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, is a leading natural gas producer in the domestic market. In the Utica shale, the company has 215,000 net acres. The company, with natural gas accounting for nearly 90% of its total production, will likely gain from the uptick in commodity price.

The stock is expected to record year-over-year earnings growth of 23.4% in 2018.

Headquartered in Fort Worth, TX, Approach Resources Inc. is also a leading explorer and producer with strong presence in the Permian Basin. Of the total production, natural gas contributes the highest proportion, followed by natural gas liquid and oil.

Approach is expected to see year-over-year earnings growth of 33.3% in 2018.

Apache Corp., based in Houston, TX, is among the leading natural gas explorers and producers. In the Permian Basin, Apache has exposure to more than 3.1 million gross acres. Notably, the companys production has equal weightage to oil and natural gas.

Hence, with significant exposure to natural gas production, the company is likely to see earnings growth of 737.5% in 2018.

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Continuous coverage is provided for a universe of 1,150 publicly traded stocks. Our analysts are organized by industry which gives them keen insights to developments that affect company profits and stock performance. Recommendations and target prices are six-month time horizons.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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Pakistan summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country to formally protest President Donald Trumps allegations that Islamabad had sheltered al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, despite receiving billions of dollars in U.S. assistance.

Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua told American charge daffairs Paul Jones on November 20 that Trumps baseless rhetoric and unsubstantiated allegations were totally unacceptable for her country, according to a foreign ministry statement issued after the meeting.

Rejecting the insinuations about OBL (Osama bin Laden), Foreign Secretary (Janjua) reminded the U.S. CdA (charge daffairs) that it was Pakistans intelligence cooperation that provided the initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of OBL, the statement noted.

This is the first time Pakistan has publicly admitted it had played a role in helping the U.S. locate and kill bin Laden in 2011 during a night helicopter raid on his hideout not far from the countrys prime military training academy in Abbottabad.

Until now, Pakistani leaders have insisted state security institutions were unaware of bin Ladens presence in the country and complained Washington conducted the unilateral raid without informing Islamabad.

Janjua stopped short of warning Trumps tirade against Pakistan would undermine bilateral working with the U.S. in coordination with regional stakeholders to seek a politically negotiated end to the prolonged conflict in Afghanistan.

At this critical juncture, baseless allegations about a closed chapter of history could seriously undermine this vital cooperation, she said.

Afghan Peace Process

The United States has recently opened direct talks with Taliban officials based in Qatar to try to begin an Afghan peace process. Washington has acknowledged Islamabads cooperation in furthering the nascent dialogue process with the insurgents whose leaders are allegedly using Pakistani territory for planning attacks on the Afghan side of the border, charges Pakistani officials deny.

Foreign Secretary Janjua recounted her country's unprecedented human and economic losses while fighting the U.S.-led war on terror as a partner nation. She noted U.S. leaders repeatedly acknowledged Islamabads cooperation helped in "decimating" the al-Qaida network in the region.

Pakistans continued support to the efforts of international community in Afghanistan through Ground/Air and Sea lines of communication was unquestionably critical to the success of this Mission in Afghanistan, Janjua noted.

Pakistani military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa also defended his countrys successes against terrorism, saying it has done "much more" for peace in Afghanistan than any other country.

We have paid the highest military, economic, political and social cost and the world should acknowledge that. We shall continue to contribute towards peace in Afghanistan but Pakistans honor and Pakistans security shall always stay premier, an army statement Monday quoted Bajwa as saying.

The United States and NATO continue to heavily rely on Pakistani land and air routes for sending supplies to their troops in landlocked Afghanistan.

Pakistan Slams Trump

In an interview with Fox News this weekend and subsequent tweets on November 19, Trump asserted that "everybody in Pakistan" knew bin Laden was hiding in the country, but they withheld the information from the United States, despite receiving $1.3 billion a year in aid.

Trumps tirade angered Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who slammed the American leader for making false assertions.

Khan noted that Pakistan has suffered 75,000 casualties since joining the war on terror and incurred economic losses of more than $123 billion. He added that "U.S. "aid" was what he called a "minuscule" $20 billion.

The traditionally uneasy relations between Pakistan and the U.S. have deteriorated particularly since August 2017, when President Trump announced his South Asia strategy to tackle the resurgent Afghan Taliban. He directly accused Pakistan at the time of sheltering Taliban and other militants involved in deadly cross-border attacks against U.S. troops.

Islamabad swiftly rejected the accusations as politically motivated and stemming from Afghan battlefield setbacks.

 Reported by the Voice Of America
One Fort Carson soldier shot and killed another early Saturday in southeast Colorado Springs after finding his wife in their bedroom with the other man, police said.

Army Spc. Shakir D. Cook-Troynel, 23, was slain about 2 a.m. at the Stratus Apartment Homes at South Murray Boulevard and Airport Road.

Arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder was Pfc. Isaiah Towns, 20, who remained in El Paso County jail Tuesday on $100,000 bond.

An affidavit says Towns gave police this account:

Armed with a pistol, he entered the apartment he shared with his wife, Ashley Charmain Mary Pace, 27, and heard moans coming from the master bedroom. Towns entered and found Pace mostly naked and Cook-Troynel in the closet with the door open. Towns said he intended to intimidate Cook-Troynel to get answers, but his adrenaline was high and Pace was yelling at him and trying to push him out of the room.

Towns fired his pistol, shooting Cook-Troynel in the upper torso.

Pace, who has a child with Cook-Troynel from a prior relationship, had told Towns on Friday that she wanted a divorce.

Pace told police she did push Towns but wasnt struggling with him when he shot Cook-Troynel.

Pace and Towns got married Oct. 5, county records show.

Cook-Troynel, of Homestead, Fla., had been in the Army since May 5, 2015. He came to Fort Carson in February and was assigned to the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. He was deployed to Afghanistan from May to July.

Cook-Troynel received several commendations during his 3 years of service, including the Army achievement medal.

Spc. Shakir D. Cook-Troynel served honorably as an indirect fire infantryman in the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, over the past nine months. He was only with our unit for a short time, but while here he demonstrated excellent performance, said Lt. Col. Ryan D. Barnett, the battalion commander, in a statement. He was instrumental in the success of the unit, and he made a lasting impact on our formation and everyone whose life he touched. Our most sincere condolences go out to the Cook-Troynel family.

Towns, of Batesville, Miss., also was assigned to the combat team as a signal support systems specialist, records show. He has served in the Army for 17 months.

Towns doesnt have a previous criminal history in Colorado, court records show.

Cook-Troynels death is the citys 31st homicide this year, compared with 27 at this time last year, police said.
Reporter

Stephanie Earls is a news reporter and columnist at The Gazette. Before moving to Colorado Springs in 2012, she worked for newspapers in upstate NY, WA, OR and at her hometown weekly in Berkeley Springs, WV, where she got her start in journalism.
Fellow Republicans have unanimously appointed new state Sen. Dennis Hisey, a former El Paso County commissioner, to the Joint Budget Committee.

Rarely does a freshman legislator get sent to the JBC, said term-limited Republican Senate President Kevin Grantham, whom Hisey is replacing in Senate District 2.

Its rather unusual, Grantham said. Usually that is a testament to the ability of the individual and the background of the individual.

Hiseys county experience put him in tune with the committees priorities and terminology, his predecessor said.

Its a short ramp-up time from when you finally get past the election to, Oh, my God, Im going to be sworn in. But hes far more capable than his predecessor in doing that, Grantham joked.

District 2 covers Peyton, Calhan and Fountain, then takes in Idaho Springs to the north.

Hisey beat Democratic opponent Beth Harz on Nov. 6 by nearly 2-to-1.

Knowing that the race likely would lean his way, Hisey said, he chatted with Senate Majority Leader Chris Holbert about a possible appointment to the JBC, the powerful bipartisan group that manages the state budget.

And we just kind of left it there, Hisey said. Then some time later, when I was talking to him again, he said, You mentioned the JBC. Well, its a possibility.

He said hes now attending daily meetings of the committee to learn about its recent work and set priorities, and hes been somewhat familiar with the issues thanks to his county experience.

The JBC likely will take up funding for child welfare programs when the next Legislature convenes Jan. 4. Hisey said hed also consider offering incentives statewide to companies that build affordable housing.

It was a surprise issue in my district. It didnt matter where I was, affordable housing or worker-type housing was an issue, he said. And homelessness has become an issue in Canon City as the homeless kind of spread from the Colorado Springs and the Pueblo area. Its a fairly recent phenomenon.

Hisey will have valuable insight into such human services issues because of his county work, Grantham said.

The state has to provide the funding, and the counties are providing the services, he said. Hes going to have a unique perspective on what we can and cannot do.

Transportation also remains a top issue. Hisey said he doesnt anticipate more money going to Interstate 25, which already is being widened between Castle Rock and Monument in a $350 million project. More likely, he said, the state might issue bonds to build and maintain roads, and the JBC would have to find the money to pay for them.

The mountain passes need some pretty significant help, including a slower lane for the trucks that are going over them every day, Hisey said. The I-70 corridor is also an issue for me. Come ski season, (people along that corridor) feel like theyre prisoners in their own home, and they cant get on the interstate to go in town and have lunch on a Saturday.

I agree there needs to be more lanes, Grantham said, but then it becomes an issue of where. Theres only so much you can fit in there side by side when the entire canyon goes straight up and down. It doesnt cost the same, like laying asphalt on the Eastern Plains. Its a whole different animal.

New roads or byways also could encroach on historical towns or buildings, which can sour residents quickly, Grantham said.

The state Department of Corrections also will require JBC attention, said Grantham and outgoing Committee Chairman Kent Lambert.

Canon City is home to the maximum-security Colorado State Penitentiary.

The growth in population and in the prison system will require some cool heads and some smart heads, Grantham said. That always costs money.
The illegal marijuana market is too profitable for cartels to pass up, DEA agent Tim Scott said.
It has been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Thats certainly true for the wealth of breakfast-focused restaurants and daytime eateries  both new and old  in the Colorado Springs area.

The fast-food sector has been seen as driving increased restaurant breakfast business in recent years. McDonalds introduction a few years ago of all-day breakfast gave a hefty boost to the chains sales.

But if you think people in this frenetic, on-the-go society only have time to grab an Egg McMuffin or other quick breakfast snack, think again. Sit-down restaurants are getting their share of the morning crowd.

We have a lot of regular customers who eat with us three or four times a week, says Randy Price, who owns three Urban Egg, a Daytime Eatery (formerly Over Easy) restaurants in the Springs as part of his Rocky Mountain Restaurant Group. They go to the office, drop their briefcase, then might grab a colleague and come down for a business meeting. Instead of in a conference room, they like to do it over breakfast and a cup of coffee.

The National Restaurant Association says breakfast offers huge potential for repeat business, because many people get entrenched in morning routines. Becky Fairchild, the marketing storyteller for Snooze, an A.M. Eatery, says the Denver-based chain is finding that more and more people who didnt used to make breakfast a priority are doing so now.

People are really starting to focus on how they start their day, she says. Snooze, which plans to open a location on the north side of Colorado Springs next spring, is a place where they can gather their thoughts in the morning and really connect with other humans before they start their day.

At Sandys Restaurant on the east side of the Springs, which serves breakfast and lunch, were super busy on the weekend, says owner Connie Crippen. But that doesnt mean youre guaranteed a quick seat during the week.

On any given day, we can be super busy, too, Crippen says. You never know.

Crippen was just 13 when she started working at Sandys in the early 1980s; she bought the business in 2001. The secret to her success? Basically trying to keep prices as low as possible, she says. And everything is made in-house, including the bread and the cinnamon rolls and the biscuits and the chilies and soups and gravy.

At Western Omelette, which has operated near downtown for 27 years, owner Bill Borders also has a simple formula for success.

The people of this town have been very good to me, he says. We try to give them quality food at a good price with good service.

Though hes changed a couple of little things, like adding a bar for bloody marys and stuff like that, the menu has stood the test of time largely unaltered. Weve basically stayed the same, Borders says.

At The Omelette Parlor on Fillmore Street, we havent changed a lot, but we definitely add what we see our customers are wanting, says general manager Susan Whitlock. So several years ago, we added hash browns instead of just our round sliced potatoes. Weve added gluten-free items. We try to keep up with the times. But people come here for certain items, and weve kept those.

One of those favorites: a homemade pork green chili. Another thing that doesnt change: half-price omelettes every morning from 6 to 7.

Other restaurants are trying to blaze new trails in breakfast fare. When Price opened the first Over Easy in downtown Colorado Springs in 2012, we didnt feel like the breakfast options that were on the market at that time were really doing anything that innovative. We really wanted to come in with an innovative, locally sourced, organic, kind of upscale menu  gourmet pancakes, build-your-own bloody mary bar, unique and interesting Benedicts.

That concept, he says, really struck a nerve with the Colorado Springs market. Because of that following, he maintained the Over Easy name in the Springs even after learning there were other restaurants across the country with that same name. But he adopted the name Urban Egg as he expanded outside of the Springs to Denver and Fort Collins. This month, the three Springs restaurants became Urban Egg.

We just need to be united under one brand, Price says. But other than the new name and some new menu items to mark the rebranding, nothing has changed, he said. Its still the same outstanding service and the same local ownership.

Operating a daytime eatery has advantages over an all-day restaurant or dinner destination, Price says. While those working in the restaurant industry typically work a lot of late nights, Urban Egg employees can enjoy time with their families in the evening. And retail centers benefit from breakfast business, he says.

I think we bring a lot of energy into the centers early in the morning. I think thats great from a retail perspective.

First Watch, a Florida-based chain that bought the Egg & I chain in 2015, converted two of the three Springs Egg & I locations into First Watch this year. Like Urban Egg, First Watch also stresses innovation, says spokeswoman Eleni Pierce  from restaurant design to technology to the menu, which includes everything from classic favorites to a kale tonic juice and a Power Breakfast Quinoa Bowl.

We now have five different seasonal menus throughout the year, available about 10 weeks at a time, Pierce says. That really gives us a chance to introduce new ingredients, funky things that our customers maybe wouldnt normally try, especially during the breakfast hours. Like quinoa for breakfast, who would do that? But its such a success.

Snooze, meanwhile, touts fresh twists on Americas favorite classics.

Its not one of those brunch places where you feel intimidated by the menu, Fairchild says. There are things that are familiar, but then you get these surprising little twists that make it exciting. Were constantly innovating with seasonal menus.

But its the employees, known as Snoozers, who really make the chain stand out, Fairchild says.

We really think of our Snoozers as our family. We have found that by allowing them to be themselves and comfortable and be the hospitality piece for Snooze, they make these connections, not just with each other but with guests.

While Snooze is focused on opening the one location, in the new Chapel Hills East development under construction at North Academy Boulevard and Agora Point, it is not out of the question to look for a second, Fairchild says. We have a whole real estate team that is constantly looking at places in Colorado Springs.

Similarly, while theres no property secured for more First Watch locations in the Springs, Pierce says, theres definitely room for more development there.  Typically we dont stop growing a market with two restaurants, so dont be surprised if in a few years you start to see more First Watches popping up in town.

Crippen, of Sandys Restaurant, doesnt fret about the new competition that also includes Denver Biscuit Co., which opened this year as part of the Atomic Cowboy bar-and-restaurant complex on South Tejon Street.

You cant worry about people coming and going, she says. We do what we do and we hope the best for everybody around us. Theres enough people in this town to spread it around. I need places to go to eat, someplace different, too, so I appreciate the fact that there are other places opening up.
These are the officially licensed 'Starfleet 2364' heavy denim jackets available from Volante Design's Superhuman Streetwear collection. They're available in both men's and women's fits in Command Red, Operations Gold, and Sciences Blue, and include an asymmetrical zipper, two snap closure external pockets, and an internal pocket. Admittedly, they're pretty sharp looking, and something I might actually wear. Granted they're not something I might actually buy, because they cost $315. I've never spent more than $100 on a jacket, and that one was signed by someone with a very convincing Michael Jordan signature. "They misspelled Michael AND Jordan." I was twelve. "Were you though?" It was last week. "Did you try to get your money back?" He'd already moved his car.

Keep going for a bunch more shots.

Thanks to Alyssa, who agrees whatever you do, always get the person in the red jacket to stand in front of you.
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There is currently a lot of excitement about passivating contacts among the solar cell community, said Dr Byungsul Min at the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (ISFH), Germany. This year, the technology allowed his laboratory to set a new record efficiency of 26.1% for the kind of solar cells that dominates the photovoltaics market. Commercial solar panels currently operate with an efficiency of around 20%.

Passivating contacts consist of two thin layers of oxidised and crystallised silicon sandwiched between a solar cell and its metal contact. Speaking to a packed hall this September at the European Photovoltaics Solar Energy Conference in Brussels, Belgium, Dr Min said that the layers work by healing broken atomic bonds on the silicon surface and reducing the risk of electric charges getting trapped as they flow out of the solar cell.

The design was developed in 2013 by ISFH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany. In recent years, it has driven the energy conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics above 25% - a ceiling that had limited the efficiency that researchers could achieve in the lab for over a decade.

Mass fabrication

Still, Dr Min says that few manufacturers have so far adopted passivating contacts in industry. As part of a project called DISC, he is now coordinating work with research institutes and equipment manufacturers across Europe to streamline their design for mass fabrication.

Making record-setting solar cells with passivating contacts has so far required costly materials and complex laboratory techniques that Dr Min says cannot be adopted in factory assembly lines. However, by getting rid of these sophisticated approaches and substituting them with tools that are already common in the solar cell industry, the DISC consortium expects to bring down manufacturing costs for the technology.

ISFH has notably replaced an expensive and highly conductive indium-containing layer that is deposited on the cell surface to better collect electrical charges out of the passivating contact. By fine-tuning pressure and temperature conditions during production, Dr Min can now form a zinc-containing layer that presents comparable physical properties while using abundant materials.

We have to go to higher solar cell efficiencies. Dr Martin Hermle, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Freiburg, Germany

Dutch equipment provider Meco is swapping complex lithography steps with plating techniques that can metallise the electrical contacts of passivating contact solar cells in throughputs high enough for factory assembly lines.

Over the past year, DISC samples have shuttled across France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands as partners play their part in an international supply line. Each laboratory adds a layer of silicon or other materials in which it specialises, gradually building up the stack of semiconductors into a functioning solar cell.

This August, we completed our first industry-sized solar cells, said Dr Min. They have already reached energy conversion efficiencies above 21%. This falls within the range of solar cells on the market today.

Over the coming year, Dr Min expects that fine-tuning the layers in these factory-friendly devices will help edge their performance above that of the competition. In an industry where a difference of just half a percentage can make or break companies, a technology with a proven potential of over 25% efficiency in the laboratory offers enticing prospects for manufacturers.

We have to go to higher solar cell efficiencies, agreed Dr Martin Hermle, one of the pioneers of passivating contacts at Fraunhofer ISE. His research group is now developing industrial deposition methods for the solar cells produced in DISC, and developing ways of further boosting their energy conversion efficiency in another project called Nano-Tandem.

The cost of solar panels is largely dictated by their surface area. If you can make cells with 30% efficiency instead of 20% or 15%, that really helps reduce the overall cost of solar energy.

Technology developed by two German institutes set a new record efficiency for solar cells of 26.1%. Image credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.

33% efficiency

Earlier this year, Fraunhofer ISE produced a solar cell that reached a staggering 33% efficiency. Researchers stacked a silicon solar cell that incorporated passivating contacts with two additional solar cells made of more exotic materials, based on elements in the third and fifth group of the periodic table.

These top cells are good at absorbing blue shades of light, but they are made of comparatively rare elements, like gallium or indium, that are also slower to assemble than conventional silicon solar cells, said Dr Hermle. If you want to compete on the mass market, you have to bring the cost of the material deposition down by about two orders of magnitude.

One solution Nano-Tandem is exploring is to use less of them. Fraunhofer ISE has shipped silicon solar cells with passivating contacts to IBM Research Zurich, where project partners are placing solar cells on top of them not as solid layers, but as carpets of wires barely 1000 atoms wide. Startup Sol Voltaics and Lund University in Sweden are developing a potentially cheaper way of manufacturing the nanowires, assembling them from gas molecules as they fly through a tube furnace.

Nano-Tandem coordinator Professor Lars Samuelson at Lund University says that the raw materials used are expensive, but that photonic effects in them could turn their economics around. He says that, assembled wisely, manufacturers could in principle use 90% less material without much impact on the efficiency or light absorption of their solar cells.

This is the kind of innovative edge that Dr Hermle describes as crucial in keeping European research institutes at the head of solar cell technology. As the market for solar cells skyrockets into 11-digit annual figures, Asian competition is increasingly muscling European manufacturers out of business.

Dr Hermle says that passivating contacts offer an example of how European industry can remain relevant in the face of global competition. This is a technology that really came from Europe to the solar cell market, he said.

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.
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IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them.





They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country.





However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia.





"Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination.





Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia.





They should be lovingly helped.





Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948.





To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts:





While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 :

Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell.

The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites.



A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught.



The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers.



Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites."



Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers.









There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks.





This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work.





It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter.





In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam.













In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir.





" The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life."





An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir .





In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance).





Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed).





Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance).









Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam.





It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way.





A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah.





Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs).









Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life".





Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology.





Islam is a supremacist ideology.





Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism.





Islam is a civilization.

Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization.





Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life.

It has a say about every conceivable human act .





Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam.

























The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic.





Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111).





A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44)





Muhammad himself said:

I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30)









Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad.




Much is being made of the presidents targeting of CNNs Jim Acosta, but TV news bears as much blame as anyone for our democracys dystopian decline, culminating in the presidency of an ignoramus with a personality disorder.



With Congress supine and the courts packed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, readily consumable news stands as the last guardrail of American democracy. Yet rather than fulfilling that vital role, TV news unwittingly amplified Donald Trumps propaganda during the 2016 presidential election and now perpetuates it with such blind reliability that it must surprise even him.



They must immediately stop doing three things: repeating his demagoguery verbatim, playing the outrage game, and focusing on him to the exclusion of other important stories. Instead, they must embrace their solemn duty and educate the population about our great challenges  ratings be damned.

A famous journalist once said, The vitality of democracy itself depends today upon the popular knowledge of complex questions. How far we are from that ideal  and President Trump needs it that way.His strategy to distract and divide the country is so obvious at this point that we have no excuse not to counter it. He has stated repeatedly that all press is good press. He intentionally does something outrageous, such as insulting a sexual assault survivor or prisoner of war, and TV news always reacts predictably. In their shameless quest for ratings, anchors read his tweets verbatim or show clips of his vile behavior. They then spend hours fomenting outrage instead of covering myriad other worthy stories. They project him into our subconscious from TVs in airports, gyms and office buildings. Reluctant Trump supporters feel the backlash from the media, whom they already distrusted, which drives them closer to him.Weve seen this strategy before  from terrorists. Driven by hatred and nihilism, terrorists commit deplorable acts knowing that they will drive their enemies mad with anger, and that overreaction will help them consolidate tribal support. They encourage their followers to hate the other side more than they love their country. President Trump terrorizes in word and deed every demographic who voted against him, and relishes their public pain.President Trump swore an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, yet he violates that oath nearly every day. Sadly, due to either myopia or greed, TV news has abetted his effort to remake America in his image, making them currently no less destructive than he.If they intend by their behavior to protect American democracy, it isnt working. Domestic terrorism is on the rise. Meanwhile, Brett Kavanaugh got confirmed to the Supreme Court in part because major news outlets ran with some salacious but dubious allegations of sexual assault. By stooping to his level, CNN gave Sen. Lindsey Graham an excuse to draw moral equivalency and remind Trump supporters why they hated the media. Democrats lost major ground in Senate races.We are relearning old wisdom: Never wrestle with a pig; youll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.In short, American democracys Achilles heels are ignorance and demagoguery, and the amoral Donald Trump will exploit them as long as we allow him to. If we keep behaving in the way that fueled his rise, we should not expect a different result. That isnt fair, but fairness isnt on the menu. We should not expect fairness in an existential fight against an amoral man.
PHOTO BY FLETCHER FARRAR Joy Burgess, right, chief organizer of the expungement summit, works at the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, but also did it as a labor of love. Oh my God it feels good to be able to help people, she said. Denise Church, left, a

A conviction and prison time for marijuana possession more than 10 years ago prevents him from becoming a registered nurse, said one of the 204 who showed up for the Expungement and Record Sealing Summit held Nov. 17 at Matheny-Withrow School. In my youth I was reckless and misguided, he says. Hes turned his life around and now has a responsible job as a cook, but cant go further. Having a criminal background closes a lot of doors, he said.



He knows hes not a candidate to have his criminal record erased, or expunged. According to Illinois law, expungement is a possibility only for those who were never convicted of anything, but still have a record because they were arrested, their case was dismissed, or they were given supervision.

But sealing would help, he said, and he may be a good candidate. A 2017 law greatly expanded the types of criminal convictions that can be sealed from public view, with access allowed only by court order. Now nearly all nonviolent felony convictions are eligible to be considered for sealing. Once paperwork is completed, it usually takes about four months to get the record expunged or sealed, authorities said.The man with the marijuana conviction also noted that the summit is saving him a lot of money and hassle. By order of a judge the $120 filing fee for applying for sealing or expungement was waived for those who went through the process Saturday. A lawyers services could add to the costs for someone filing on their own, but here there were 15-20 volunteer lawyers on hand, one assigned to each case to help for free. And there were experts on hand to answer questions, including Sangamon County States Attorney Dan Wright, Circuit Clerk Paul Palozzolo, and a representative of the Prisoner Review Board. Think of all the running around you would have to do, the man said.Another trying to get loose from his criminal record said hes been a truck driver for 20 years, but hasnt been able to move up to a larger trucking company because they do background checks. In 1996 I was living the street life, selling drugs to take care of my family, he said. He sold to an undercover officer and wound up with a Class X felony conviction. With the new law, I might be able to get it sealed.A man who said he will be 65 in January is working on his fourth masters degree, has authored numerous books and has taught college classes locally. He once worked for a federal housing agency but since then has been turned down for work at 10 or 12 state and federal agencies where hes applied. They dont give you a reason, but I know, he said. Years ago he was charged with battery and was given supervision, a record hes now trying to get expunged.Joy Burgess of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation was a lead organizer of the summit, with assistance and sponsorships from numerous organizations, including the Sangamon County Bar Association, Springfield Urban League and Springfield Bahai community. Burgess said it feels good to be able to help people shed the weight of their criminal past that has kept them out of jobs and housing. We need to remember that ex-offenders become re-offenders if the community doesnt give them a chance to succeed, she said in an interview following the event. She said the summit was able to help in all but about five percent of the cases brought in Saturday.I not only feel good myself, I feel good for them, she said. I told the group were here to help because we believe youre worth it. They must feel like theyre worth it too.
Chad Martin has been a frequent flier at the Sangamon County jail. Charged with robbery, burglary and battery and mob action, he was freed on his own recognizance last spring. Now, hes an accused killer.

Authorities havent said what led Michael Trone to the Sleep Inn.



Trones body was found Sept. 7 in a room at the hotel at 3470 Freedom Drive, barely a mile from his Westchester home. Two men and two women have been charged with first-degree murder. Authorities say that Trone was beaten and strangled. It was, according to prosecutors, a robbery that turned into something worse  authorities say that the defendants stole Trones bicycle.

Retired from the pizza business, Trone, 53, ran a wellness center on Wabash Avenue that offered smoothies, yoga classes and weight-loss programs. Trone himself appeared on his businesss website as an example of what exercise and eating right can accomplish. After six months of healthy eating and exercise, he wrote, with accompanying before-and-after photos, that hed lost 45 pounds. I feel younger and more energetic than I did 20 years ago.On the surface, Trone would seem to have had little in common with his accused killers. He lived in Springfield for most of his adult life, with just two traffic tickets on his record in Sangamon County. A member of St. Agnes church and the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, Trone left behind two children and a spouse whom he married in 1987.Inside, however, Trones veins coursed with fentanyl and morphine, according to toxicology reports, a telltale sign of heroin use. Two of his accused killers, James Lyman and Chad Martin, have histories of drug use, and worse, according to court records and police reports.Lyman, 33, has a record in Sangamon County going back to 2002 that includes four prison stints for burglary and robbery. He was most recently sentenced to 10 years after pleading guilty to burglary in 2011.Martin, 38, has a felony record in Sangamon County dating to 2001, when he was charged with forgery, drug offenses and damage to property. He pleaded guilty to methamphetamine-related charges and got a two-year sentence. In 2004, he was returned to prison after pleading guilty to identity theft charges. In 2011, he got busted in California while attempting to smuggle two Mexicans over the border in a Nissan Quest equipped with a special compartment  he said hed gotten paid $2,000. Within weeks of being sentenced to 27 months in California, Sangamon County prosecutors dismissed pending charges of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and possession of meth-making materials. Local prosecutors dismissed misdemeanor charges of shoplifting and theft in 2011 and 2014. Its not clear why from court records.Martin landed in trouble again in the summer of 2017, when he was charged with robbing a Jimmy Johns sandwich shop on Dirksen Parkway  hed used a BB gun according to police reports, and zip-tied an employee to a food rack. He also was charged with burglary  prosecutors say that hed been breaking into storage units. When police caught up to him the day after the Jimmy Johns heist, officers found more than $700 in quarters in his 1997 Ford Explorer, along with heroin, methamphetamine and hypodermic needles. According to police, Martin and his brother also had burglarized a coin-op laundry and used a power grinder to break into a change machine.Martins legal woes deepened last January, when he was charged with aggravated battery and mob action for an incident in the Sangamon County jail. With no job and bond totaling $530,000, hed been convicted of felonies at least four times and had an equal number pending. Then, last March, Martin walked free, released on his own recognizance. Its not clear why, but multiple sources tell Illinois Times that Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John Madonia freed Martin based on a promise to help cops solve other crimes.Martin suggested to officers that he could lead police to bigger fish when they arrested him in 2017.He told me it was only $500 that they got, an officer who arrested Martin after the sandwich shop robbery reported. He said he could help narcotics investigators with something that is better than someone taking $500.Daniel Fultz, Martins lawyer in the robbery and burglary matters, declined comment. The court docket shows that Madonia freed Martin over the objection of prosecutors. Sangamon County states attorney Daniel Wright said that he could not comment on the judges rationale for releasing Martin.The reason for our objection (to release) was the serious nature of the charges at the time and his criminal history, Wright said.After the Salvation Armys Adult Rehabilitation Center wouldnt accept Martin, he was given drugs that are supposed to help curb addiction and released from jail. He initially was supposed to stay home, but conditions were relaxed so that he could attend church on Sundays and subsequently eased further so that he only had to be home at nights, between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. each day. On Aug. 30, eight days before Trone was found dead, Martin cut an electronic monitoring band from his ankle, prosecutors say, and vanished.Police found Martin four days after the killing. He was with his girlfriend, Callie Pierce, 23, in the home where she lived on East Keys Avenue. She, also, has been charged with first-degree murder, as has Brandy Tate, 29. Each of the accused are being held on $2 million bond.
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This is, like most things that Rouhani says, a lie. Just days prior, fully equipped riot police that was sent to Irans Haft Tapeh sugar factory to suppress the calls of the striking workers, who are merely asking for their wages to be paid, through any means necessary including violence and arrest.

Whats more, Rouhanis comments about the economy also mean nothing to the Iranian people or even the leaders of his own faction. Many loyal Rouhani supporters have come out to decry this optimistic idea.

Hossein Kamali, the former labour minister, said: I once told the president that we suffer from losing the trust in us. Trust is the greatest social asset. Our officials have talked but acted differently.

On November 16 Kamali acknowledged to a Keyhan newspaper that there is widespread discontent about the regime from the Iranian people, something that could well cause the next Iranian revolution.

He said: Where else in the world [do you witness that] when problems and issues occur, and protests happen, it targets the ideologic foundations of the country. Why do our officials allow the problems and issues to be blamed on Islam, the regime and the leadership [meaning specifically the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei]?

While Rouhani tries to point to a stable currency and gold market as proof that US sanctions havent worked, Arman newspaper, which is close to the Rouhani faction, has exposed the Regimes deception. In a report, they cited analysts who said that the Regime artificially increased the currency and gold prices in order to create a bubble that would then be burst after the sanctions to show that Iran is not dependent on other nations.

While Majid Hariri, a government official in the Iranian trade chamber, said that the reasons for increases or decreases in the value of the currency were much more to do with political issues than economic ones.

Jahan-e Sanat, another paper close to the so-called moderates, said: Its always the governments political play that has the last say and the economy always surrenders to the countrys politicians desires. Therefore, controlling the currency value isnt an inspiring policy and can even be a sign of the countrys damaged economic climate.

While Mohammadqoli Yousefi, an economist close to Rouhanis faction, challenged Rouhanis claim that the Iranian people have become more optimistic and advised that there is neither a sign of economic stability in the country.

He said: Since the governments economic policies aimed at circumventing the people and since [the people] dont see any benefits from the governments economic war, they wont be willing to share enough of the current situation and bear this much of economic hardship.
According to Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist, and leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, businessman and president of the International American Council believes that certain journalists are all too willing to naively, or perhaps maliciously, lap up every shred of misinformation about the Iranian opposition and augment every iota of pro-regime propaganda. These useful idiots crop up in newspapers and on radio and television in Europe and the US.

The propaganda has increased and a well-funded, highly organized misinformation campaign is working to demonize the the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), by likening them to a terrorist cult. The MEK is only viable alternative to Tehrans rulers. For four decades they have opposed the theocratic regime.

The final phase of tough new US sanctions on Iran, which target oil exports, shipping and financial transactions has gone into effect.

In Iran, protests are spreading nationwide, and the clerical regime is floundering. As usual, the government has responded with repression at home. The economy is collapsing, with massive unemployment especially among the young and well-educated Iranian population. The Iranian people are angry because Irans vast oil resources have been systematically misused to enrich the mullahs and to finance proxy wars across the Middle East. Protests have become a common, if not daily, occurrence.

As Iran Human Rights Monitor has reported, executions have been on the increase, including 22 hangings in two weeks. Arbitrary murders, deaths in custody, inhuman treatment, cruel punishments, and appalling prison conditions have also been reported.

However, protesters are still willing to push back against the repression to make their voices heard. Dr. Rafizadeh explains, Unable to crush the unfolding uprising at home, the Iranian regime is striking overseas. Terrorist plots targeting the MEK in Albania, France, the US and Denmark have been foiled this year. One Iranian diplomat is jailed in Belgium, three have been expelled from France and the Netherlands, and the terrorist arrested in Denmark has been exposed as closely linked to the regimes ambassador in Norway. Thankfully, those attacks have been to no avail.

He also enlightens us about the misinformation campaign regarding the MEK, whom Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has described as the foot soldiers of the uprising. Tehran is desperately seeking Western journalists and media outlets that can be persuaded to smear the MEK, in conjunction with a widespread campaign to manipulate Facebook and Twitter. Tehran is also employing the services of Iranian nationals posing as journalists to do the bidding of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), says Dr. Rafizadeh.

In fact, Facebook closed 652 accounts and Twitter shut 770 accounts, last August  identifying them as the Iranian government disseminating fake news and lies. Many accounts were used to smear the Iranian opposition. Articles demonizing the MEK began appearing in the US and Europe at the same time, mostly written by pseudo-journalists and experts affiliated with Tehran. The sources who they quote in their articles as former members of the MEK seem to have a documented history of collaboration with Irans MOIS. The lies are readily accessible to fact-checking in numerous independent sources. That publications in Europe and the US would give them any attention is deeply disturbing.

Recently, Iranian agents in Europe and America were arrested. Assassinations and terror attacks on members of the Iranian opposition were being planned, as evidenced by last summers failed bomb plot against the Iran Freedom Rally in Paris, which many independent scholars and personalities from all political parties and from differing religious and ethnic backgrounds who annually attend.

A significant majority of the Iranian people are demanding change, despite the risks of dire reprisals. The MEK and its parent coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led by the charismatic Maryam Rajavi, offers a viable democratic alternative, claims Dr. Rafizadeh.
- A Facebook post claimed that Ferdinand Marcos was listed as Guinness World Records Most Brilliant President in History

- However, the post was debunked by a French news agency, AFP

- Marcos was listed in Guinness Greatest Robbery of a Government

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A social media post went viral saying that the late President Ferdinand Marcos was allegedly honoured by Guinness World Records. However, KAMI learned from ABS-CBN News that no such title was given to the late President.

In a Facebook post, a photo was shared showing that Marcos was Guinness Most Brilliant President in History. The user even wrote in the caption, Hindi nila mapapantayan man lang ang mga achievements ni Apo Kaya tuloy ang paninira at pambabaligtad sa katotohanan.

Photo from Inquirer

Source: Facebook

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However, as reported by Inquirer, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), Marcos do not hold the aforementioned title.

No accolade for Worlds Most Brilliant President exists for Marcos on the Guinness World Records site, they stated.AFP has an account for the site and can access the whole list of its records.

Photo from Inquirer

Source: Facebook

As mentioned by AFP, Marcos was listed in Guinness World Records for Greatest robbery of a Government.

The French news agency had detected the false viral post that had 2,700 reactions and 1,000 likes. It was posted by a page supporting former police chief and Senate candidate Ronald Bato dela Rosa.

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Philippines social experiment: can you answer these tricky questions? Today we are going to ask the Philippines strangers some very funny Tagalog tricky questions! WHAT is PMS? Do you think you can answer them correctly? These individuals from the Philippines have their answers!  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: Kami.com.ph
- Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed his gratitude over China and PHs friendship

- For Xi, the developing ties of two countries is the only right choice

- He also shared that China is willing to work with Philippines for the betterment of both countries

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For Chinese President Xi Jinping, the friendship and good-neighborliness between China and Philippines is the only right choice for the betterment of the two countries and to attain their goals despite the complex issues the world is currently facing.

KAMI learned from Philippine Star that upon the arrival of President Xi in the Philippines, he has been talking about the stronger ties between China and Philippines. In his arrival statement, he mentioned about the cooperation and progress of both countries.

"Given the profound and complex changes in the world, good-neighborliness and friendship is the only right choice for China and the Philippines, two developing countries and emerging economies in Asia, and our peoples have higher expectations for stronger ties and cooperation across the board between our two sides," Xi stated as reported by ABS-CBN News.

China stands ready to work with the Philippines for even greater progress in our relations, he added.

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As previously reported by KAMI, Philippines and China had signed 29 deals during the first day of President Xis state visit in the country on November 20 to 21. Included in the deals is the memorandum of understanding for the oil and gas development.

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Philippines social experiment: can you answer these tricky questions? Today we are going to ask the Philippines strangers some very funny Tagalog tricky questions! WHAT is PMS? Do you think you can answer them correctly? These individuals from the Philippines have their answers!  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

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- Lea Salonga sang for the Chinese delegation in the state dinner held for the Chinese President Xi Jinping

- A clip of her song number was posted on Senator Sonny Angara's Instagram account

- The former Miss Saigon actress earned praises for showing such excellent performance

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Lea Salonga performed a special song number for the Chinese delegation in the state dinner for President Xi Jinping. It was posted by Sen. Sonny Angara on his Instagram account.

"Highlight of the state dinner was the performance of @msleasalonga wow just wow," Sen. Angara wrote.

Singing the song 'I Dreamed A Dream', Lea gained praises from the netizens.

Here are some of their reactions:

"Grabe no? Ang galing ni @msleasalonga - world class, top of the heap, Filipina! "

"nag iisa lang siya yan ang kanta diko type bbirit tapos dina naiintindihan wala ng lyrics na lalabas sigaw na lang love you leah"

"Wow just to honor the Chinese President..."

"Goosebumps!!!"

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In a previous report by KAMI, Lea Salonga rushed to Regines rescue after receiving so much flak from bashers.

Lea already made a name for herself locally before garnering international stardom for her being cast for Les Miserables.

She sang for numerous Disney films such as A Whole New World for the Aladdin and Reflection for Mulan.

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The topic of this episode is a day we are waiting for the whole months. Yes, Im talking about the PayDay in the Philippines. Have you ever promised yourself to start making savings? Click Play to watch our hilarious expectations vs. reality video about PayDay in the Philippines. - on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: Kami.com.ph
- Some flag protocols were breached during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping

- According to RA 8491, the Philippine flag should be placed at the most left when placed in a row of flags

- However, one also said that presidents could maintain or break such traditions

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has recently been in the Philippines for a two-day state visit. KAMI learned that during the short trip of the Chinese president, some flag protocols were breached.

In a report by Philippine Star, historical researcher Eufemio Agbayani III of National Historical Commission has pointed out some incident where the government allegedly violated flag protocols.

Through Twitter, Agbayani shared that the foreign flag or Chinese flag was placed at the most left (viewers point of view) when President Xi visited the Palace. As stated in Section 18 of RA 8491 or The Code of the National Flag, Anthem, Motto, Coat-of-Arms and Other Heraldic Items and Devices of the Philippines, the Philippine flag should be at the most left when placed in a row of flags.

SEC. 18. When displayed in a row or in a parade with flags of other countries, the National Flag shall be on the left (observers point of view) of the other flags. The flags of other countries should be arranged in alphabetical order from left to right.

When displayed in a row of house flags, the National Flag shall be in front of the center of the line or on the left (observers point of view) of the row. The house flags should be arranged in alphabetical order, by precedence or by protocol order from left to right (the observers point of view).

When in a parade with house flags, the National Flag shall be in front of the center of the first line. The house flags should be arranged in alphabetical order, by precedence or by protocol order from left to right (the observers point of view).

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In addition, during the walking ceremony of President Xi, only the flag of China was carried instead of Philippine flag. Usually, the National flag is carried along with foreign flags as reported by Interaksyon.

However, according to former Presidential Communications Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III, presidents can maintain and/or break traditions.

In a previous report by KAMI, President Xi and President Rodrigo Duterte has signed 29 deals to strengthen the ties between two countries. Included in the signed deal was the oil and gas development for West Philippine Sea.

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Philippines social experiment: can you answer these tricky questions? Today we are going to ask the Philippines strangers some very funny Tagalog tricky questions! WHAT is PMS? Do you think you can answer them correctly? These individuals from the Philippines have their answers!  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

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OCOEE, Fla. (AP)  A central Florida town where dozens of African-Americans were massacred and a black neighborhood was burned down almost 100 years ago is renouncing its racist past.

Ocoee city commissioners plan to issue a proclamation Tuesday acknowledging the 1920 attack on the black community in that caused African-Americans to move away for decades.

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The proclamation renounces the citys past as a sundown town, a place where African-Americans could be endangered if they were in city limits after sunset. The Orlando Sentinel reports the proclamation reads: Let it be known that Ocoee shall no longer be known as a sundown city but the sunrise city with the bright light of harmony, justice and prosperity shining upon all our citizens.George Oliver, who this year became the first African-American elected to the Ocoee City Commission, said its time to let people know that Ocoee has evolved.If you were black, you didnt want to go through here, day or night, but if you had to, you made sure if at all possible that you got out of town before the sun went down, Oliver said. Thats changed. Its time we let people know.

In 1920, a white mob attacked Ocoees black community after African-Americans attempted to vote. The mob surrounded the home of July Perry, set fire to Perrys neighborhood and massacred dozens of black residents. The mob lynched Perry in nearby Orlando.

After the massacre, about 500 black residents fled Ocoee, leaving behind their homes and possessions. Ocoee had no black residents until the 1980, according to the U.S. census.

African-Americans now make up about a fifth of the towns 46,000 residents, and Hispanics represent under a quarter of the population, according to the census.

Ocoee Mayor Rusty Johnson accompanied a group of central Florida residents to the April opening of a national lynching memorial and museum in Montgomery, Alabama. He said the memorial moved him.

It sends chills down your back, Johnson said.

Perrys 79-year-old granddaughter, Gladys Franks Bell, said she never thought shed live to see official recognition of the tragic event by town officials. Her then-teenage father and his siblings escaped Ocoee by hiding in woods and swampy wetlands.

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None of my family has ever forgotten, Bell said. Its time for other people to remember.
Byron Ragland

KIRKLAND, Wash. (AP)  Police in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland apologized this week for helping the owner of a frozen yogurt shop kick out a black man because employees said they felt uncomfortable.

The owner called officers on Nov. 7 about Byron Ragland, who works as a court-appointed special advocate and was supervising a court-sanctioned outing between a mother and her son, The Seattle Times reported .

Officers responded and told him that the owner of the Menchies yogurt shop wanted him to leave. Ragland left without incident.Outrage led police to announce they have launched an internal investigation, and the city apologized Monday. Officials didnt say if the officers violated any laws or policies.

Our initial assessment showed that the interaction that occurred did not meet the expectations of our community or the high standards we set for ourselves, Kirkland Police Chief Cherie Harris and City Manager Kurt Triplett said in a joint statement.

The incident follows the high-profile arrests of two black men at a Starbucks coffee shop in Philadelphia in April after a manager called police to say they refused to make a purchase or leave.

The owner of the Washington state yogurt shop, Ramon Cruz, apologized Monday. He had called police on Ragland after his employees said they were kind of scared because he looks suspicious.

Police arrived and requested Raglands full information and the names of the woman and boy he was with, according to a police report. Ragland, a nine-year Air Force veteran, told officers the request to leave was not necessary but left the store without complaining.

Cruz said he had previously encouraged employees to call the police if they felt uncomfortable but will now instruct them to call him. Cruz said he will then visit the store and determine whether to call police.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Tax violations have led to an indefinite suspension of an attorney by the Kansas Supreme Court

For years, the respondent engaged in the private practice of law in Kansas City, Kansas. The respondent was the sole proprietor of her law office. The respondent employed others at her law office. For an extended period of time, the respondent withheld federal employment taxes from her employees' paychecks, but did not pay over the withheld funds to the Internal Revenue Service (hereinafter "the IRS'). In total, the respondent withheld but failed to forward more than $238,000 in federal taxes to the IRS.

In 2002 and 2003, while the respondent filed individual federal income tax returns, the respondent failed to pay her individual federal income taxes.

She paid the taxes after charges were filed and self-reported the conviction .

the federal court sentenced the respondent to a controlling sentence of 36 months in prison, 36 months post-release supervision, and restitution in the amount of $70,118.34, for the interest which previously accumulated on the unpaid employment taxes, for the individual federal income taxes, and for the interest on the individual federal income taxes. On May 7, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the respondent's convictions and sentence.

The root of the problem

The respondent suffers from depression and an addiction to gambling. It is clear that the respondent's depression and addiction contributed to her misconduct...

The respondent presented compelling testimony that she has been rehabilitated. The respondent has not practiced law for eight years, as her license has been temporarily suspended or transferred to disability inactive status throughout that time period. Also, the respondent has not gambled for eight years. The respondent acknowledged that if she resumes gambling she will 'literally die.

Sanction

After careful consideration, a majority of the court holds respondent should be indefinitely suspended effective as of October 5, 2011the date this court first temporarily suspended respondent's license to practice law. The majority sets this effective date with the understanding respondent will be eligible to apply for reinstatement under Rule 219 as of the date of this decision, which will require a reinstatement hearing. A minority of the court would disbar respondent.

Oral argument video is linked here. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2018/11/tax-violations-have-led-to-an-indefinite-suspension-of-an-attorney-by-the-kansas-supreme-court-for-years-the-respondent-eng.html
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

NPR (Nov. 21, 2018): U.S. Judge Strikes Down Mississippi Law That Bans Abortion After 15 Weeks, by Emily Sullivan,

A district court judge permanently enjoined a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks with exceptions for medical emergencies and severe fetal abnormalities. Although the state tried to argue that the law did not impose an undue burden, the court recognized that the law was a ban and not a regulation and emphasized that, "[t]he record is clear: States may not ban abortions prior to viability; 15 weeks [since a woman's last menstrual period] is prior to viability."

The decision also invalidates a 15-week ban in Louisiana, which would only go into effect if the Mississippi law survived court challenge.

Judge Carlton Reeves expressed some frustration with the Mississippi legislature for passing a law that was so clearly unconstitutional.

"The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade," Reeves wrote. "This Court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature."

He also expressed skepticism about the legislature's purported interest in women's health when the legislature has failed to do anything to address the state's "alarming infant and maternal mortality rate."

If Mississippi decides to continue its challenge to Roe v. Wade, the next stop will be the Fifth Circuit.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/reproductive_rights/2018/11/us-judge-strikes-down-mississippi-law-that-bans-abortion-after-15-weeks.html
Forget what you learned about the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It did not begin with the Pilgrims and Indians in 1621, when English settlers invited Native Americans to dinner. And Abraham Lincoln was not the first U.S. president to call for a national day of Thanksgiving.

Instead, says historian Penny Colman, the origins of the holiday are more complex. They are rooted in ancient traditions, one womans activism, and political and business interests.

Harvest festivals and days of thanksgiving

Colman wrote the book Thanksgiving: The True Story. She explains that people around the world have held harvest festivals and days of thanksgiving for centuries. Usually leaders called for a day of thanksgiving after winning a battle or surviving a difficult time.

In 1789, U.S. President George Washington called for a national day of thanksgiving during his first year in office. He did not say anything about Pilgrims and Indians. Instead, he urged Americans to thank God for their new government.

One womans activism

Then, in the middle 1800s, Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer and editor, began pressing for a yearly day of thanksgiving. Hale could see that the country was changing. Families were separating  some people were moving west, and others were divided over the issue of slavery. At the same time, new immigrants were arriving. Hale wanted all Americans to come together to, in her words, unite as one Great Family Republic.

So Hale campaigned for the U.S. government to create a national Thanksgiving holiday on the last Thursday in November.

Historian Penny Colman told VOA some of Hales reasons: The end of November was the end of the harvest, but also a time when travelers returned home, and diseases were fewer. Thursdays were light days for housework. And the country had only two other national holidays  George Washingtons birthday in February, and Independence Day on the Fourth of July. Hale argued that Thanksgiving could honor the work of women, not just political or military success.

But in 40 years of letters, articles and speeches, Colman says, Hale never said anything about Pilgrims and Indians. 

Lincoln sees a political opportunity

In 1863, Hales idea gained the attention of then-President Abraham Lincoln. At the time, the country was in the middle of a Civil War. Lincoln likely wanted to use Thanksgiving to unite Americans, Colman says.

The president released a Thanksgiving Proclamation for the last Thursday of November. He asked his fellow-citizens to thank God, as well as to ask for God's forgiveness. He also remembered widows, mourners, and others who had suffered in the war  but not Pilgrims and Indians.

Lincolns declaration did not have the force of law. However, many state governors accepted his call. From then on, a thanksgiving celebration became a yearly tradition in many parts of the country.

What about the Pilgrims and Indians?!

However, Thanksgiving was not yet a legal holiday. And it was still not related to Pilgrims and Indians.

Colman says that linkage began in the late 1800s. Around this time, the United States was changing again: More immigrants were arriving, many people were poor, and the country was becoming an international power. At the same time, stories about English settlers and Native Americans sharing a thanksgiving dinner together began appearing in books. Not all the details were the same. The dates were different, and some of the information was not correct. But the general story caught on.

Colman suggests that the story was effective because Americans at the time liked its messages. It was about survival during difficult times. It was about the tests strangers faced in a new place. And it was about kindness  especially the kindness of the English colonists sharing their feast.

Colmans research shows that in the early 1900s, the story was repeated in classrooms, picture books, newspapers, and in theaters. Most Americans came to accept the story as the true origin of Thanksgiving.

Business interests carry the day

Then, in 1939, Thanksgiving changed. Business leaders noted that, that year, the month of November had five Thursdays. They also noted that the day after Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the winter holiday season. So business leaders asked then-President Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving a week earlier to permit an extra week of Christmas shopping.

It was a time of great economic hardship, and Roosevelt agreed.

At first, many people objected to the idea of changing the date. Some state lawmakers refused. Finally, the U.S. Congress stepped in. In 1941, they made the fourth Thursday in November  instead of the last  a legal holiday.

What does this story say about America?

Historian Penny Colman says the actual origins of Thanksgiving tell a different story about the holiday than the Pilgrim and Indian version. These origins show what she sees as the three parts of American culture: dynamism, pragmatism, and opportunism.

In other words, the supporters of the new holiday believed that things can and do change. Sarah Josepha Hale especially gave common-sense reasons for her idea. Finally, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and business leaders saw a chance to use the holiday for their own political and financial purposes.

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly reported this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

Editor's Note: This story was first published in November 2018.

_________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

origin - n. the point or place where something begins or is created : the source or cause of something

editor - n. a person who decides what is published

article - n. a piece of writing that is included in a magazine or newspaper

widow - n. a woman whose husband has died

shopping - n. the activity of visiting places where goods are sold in order to look at and buy things

dynamism - n. energy and a strong desire to make something happen

pragmatism - n. a reasonable and logical way of doing things or of thinking about problems that is based on dealing with specific situations instead of on ideas and theories

opportunism - n. trying to get an advantage or something valuable from a situation
Three years after closing its beloved toy store on Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz has returned to New York City.

A new FAO store opened last Friday in world famous Rockefeller Center. It is about 10 streets from its former home near Central Park.

For more than 150 years, FAO Schwarz was known in New York for its high-class and sometimes high-priced toys.

The Fifth Avenue store opened in 1986.

But financial problems at the parent company and rising rents forced that store to close in 2015.

Now, FAO Schwarz is pulling back from the worst financial crisis since it was founded in 1862. In recent weeks, laborers worked 24 hours a day at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to get the new store ready.

Workers filled the nearly 2,000 square meter space with hundreds of stuffed animals: bears, elephants and more. The new store has the large clock that once occupied the entrance to the old store. And the buildings second floor has a large piano keyboard. It looks just like the one on which Tom Hanks danced in the 1988 movie Big. By the way, copies of the more than 6-meter-long instrument sell for $128.

There is also a toy food-market, where children can shop among plastic fruit.

For $75, another interactive play station shows children to care for baby dolls, while a nurse explains how to hold them. A 9-meter tall rocket is filled with stuffed bear astronauts.

We are about experiences. Thats whats different from other toy stores, said FAOs David Niggli.

Other smaller, but temporary FAO stores are also opening for Christmas in England, Spain and Australia. A March opening is planned for a permanent store in Beijing. The company has announced plans for smaller stores in airports and other places across the U.S. and Canada.

The business was started in 1862 by Frederick August Otto Schwarz, a German immigrant to the United States. He sold high-end toys, many imported from Europe.

In the 20th century, the store became famous for selling pricey, high-end toys. The new store continues to sell such products, like a child-size, driveable Mercedes Benz. It sells for $25,000. But there are plenty of less costly toys, too.

I think thats part of what you come to FAO to see. Its part of the magic, said Niggli.

Im Susan Shand.

The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for VOA Learning English. The editor was George Grow.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

toy  n. a childs plaything

rent  n. permission to use something or occupy a building in exchange for money

stuffed  adj. filled with soft material or something else

shop  v. to examine products in search of the best product for the price

keyboard  n. a row or set of keys that are pushed to play a musical instrument (such as a piano)  sometimes used before another noun

magic  n. tricks that seem to be impossible and that are done by a performer to entertain people

doll  n. a plastic baby played with by children
Technology is forever changing the way we get our news. Many people now get a lot of their news on electronic devices, instead of traditional media, such as newspapers, television or radio. An increasing number of people also report turning to social media for information.

Now, there is a new technology that could greatly change the way we get the news: computer-created news readers.

Recently, Chinas state-supported news agency Xinhua launched what it called the worlds first artificial intelligence, or AI news presenters. Xinhua said it worked with the Chinese search engine Sogou to develop the AI presenters.

The news readers - created by machine learning technology - are based on two real-life Chinese newsmen. One is able to present newscasts in English; the other, in Mandarin Chinese.

In Xinhuas report about the launch, it said machine learning was used to examine video images and sounds of the two newsmen. The system then created the AI robotic presenters, which look and sound like real people.

Similar technology has been used to create video products known as deepfake videos. A deepfake is a video that looks real, but was electronically changed. Such videos can make people appear to say things they never said or do things that never actually happened.

Xinhua said the AI presenters will be a great improvement to the news team because they can work 24 hours a day on its website and on social media. One of the presenters even promised to work tirelessly to keep people informed.

Xinhua claimed the AI newsmen were able to read the news as naturally as a human presenter.

Some machine learning experts said the system showed off Chinas latest progress in voice recognition, text-to-speech technology and data analysis. But several experts suggested that the term AI does not correctly describe abilities of the robotic news readers.

On social media, many Chinese noted that the AI presenters did not seem real. People criticized them for not being more lifelike. On Chinas Twitter-like service Weibo, several users wrote that the news readers have no soul. One user joked: What if we had an AI leader (of China)?

Others wondered about the effects robots might have on employment and workers. It all comes down to production costs, which will determine if [we] lose jobs, one Weibo user wrote.

Some people argued that only low-level jobs requiring heavy labor will be easily replaced by robots. Others praised the technology as a way for companies to make money from low-cost labor machines.

A writer for the MIT Technology Review declared Xinhuas news reader announcement as fake news. Chinas news presenter isnt intelligent at all, the report said.

MIT Technology Review said the presenter itself is little more than a digital puppet that reads. It added, The AI in this case is the software that learns what makes a convincing-looking face and voice. While the demonstration was clearly evidence of improved technology, it was a very narrow example of machine learning, the report said.

Some businesses have experimented with similar technology for possible use in news operations.

Britains BBC recently released a video that used machine learning to make it look like one of its news readers was speaking different languages. The London-based company that developed the system says its goal is to remove the language barrier for many different kinds of video across the internet.

Also, developers working on Amazons Alexa smart speaker system have worked to create a special news reader voice for the electronic assistant.

Trevor Wood works on text-to-speech technology for the Alexa system. He said in an internet post that a machine learning system was able to help Alexa learn to speak in a news-like voice after only a few hours of examining data.

Such a system could be further developed to provide other kinds of speaking voices for different situations, Wood said. Amazon is reportedly preparing to launch Alexas news reader voice in the near future.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English. His report was based on reports from the Reuters news agency, VOA News and online sources. George Grow was the editor.

How do you feel about robotic news readers? Would you trust the news delivered by one? Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

-

Quiz - Future of News: Will Robot Readers Take Over? Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

artificial intelligence  n. ability of a machine to use and analyze data in an attempt to reproduce human behavior

data analysis  n. process of using computers to gather and inspect facts and other information

soul  n. the part of a person that is not their body, which some believe continues to exist after death

determine  v. discover the facts or truth about something

fake  adj. false, not true

puppet  n. a person controlled by someone else

software  n. programs used to make a computer do different things

convincing  adj. able to make you believe that something is true
In the year 1620, Native Americans met the English settlers who arrived in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. Those settlers, known as Pilgrims, helped launch the United States as we know it today. But for the Native Americans who had long been living in the area, the settlers arrival was the beginning of the end, one tribal leader said.

Today, historians, educators and activists are preparing for the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims landing. They are aiming to better tell the native peoples side of the story.

Wampanoags

The Native American group that helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter is called the Wampanoag Nation. New exhibits aim to show how the Wampanoag were later cheated and enslaved.

Also, in the coming months, members of the Wampanoag tribe will lead visitors around the area where English settlers first arrived in 1620. They will show the special places where their ancestors once lived.

Jim Peters is a Wampanoag. He directs the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs. He says, Well be able to tell some stories of what happened to us  Hopefully it will give us a chance to re-educate people and have a national discussion about how we should be treating each other.

Hearing the Native Americans story is especially important after what happened 50 years ago. In 1970, many events honored the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims arrival. A leader of the Wampanoag Nation was invited to speak. Wamsutta Frank James planned to talk about the disease, racism and oppression the Native Americans experienced after the Pilgrims arrived. When state officials learned about the speech, they withdrew James invitation to talk.

In answer, leaders of some tribes in the area organized a yearly event to remember what happened to native people in the United States. Instead of following the usual tradition of Thanksgiving, they observe a National Day of Mourning.

For the upcoming 400th anniversary of the English settlers' arrival, Peters says there is pressure to get the historical facts right.

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

exhibit - n. an object or a collection of objects that have been put out in a public space for people to look at
President Donald Trump has publicly thanked Saudi Arabia for holding down world oil prices.

Oil prices getting lower, Trump wrote. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World.  Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower. His comments appeared on the news and social messaging service Twitter.

While the United States is the worlds largest producer of oil, Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil exporter.

Trumps tweet comes one day after the president said he would not punish the Saudi government for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S.-based Saudi journalist went missing last month after entering Saudi Arabias diplomatic offices in Istanbul, Turkey.

Before leaving Washington and going to Florida, Trump told reporters that national security and economic interests are more important than human rights concerns.

Punishing Saudi Arabia would be a terrible mistake, he said, adding were staying with Saudi Arabia.

Trump said the Saudi government's purchases of American military equipment are worth "hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment."

Russia and China "are not going to get that gift," Trump said.

While noting Saudi Arabias opposition to Iran, Trump talked mostly about oil. He said that oil prices would rise a lot if the United States broke with Saudi Arabia.

"I'm not going to destroy the world economy and destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," he added.

'Maybe he did, maybe he didn't'

Reporters asked Trump about a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely knew about or ordered the plot to kill Khashoggi.

The president answered: Maybe he did, maybe he didn't." He added that the CIA's report was not definitive.

The president denied that his decision not to punish the Saudis for the killing had anything to do with his own business interests.

"I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't make money from Saudi Arabia," Trump said.

Earlier in the day the president said that some members of Congress wanted to take steps to punish Saudi Arabia "for political or other reasons."

"They are free to do so," he said. Trump also said he would consider ideas from Congress if they provide for the security and safety of America.

The Saudi government has cleared the crown prince of the murder. It is holding 21 people in connection with the case and called for five to be put to death for the murder.

Turkish reaction

On Wednesday, Turkey accused the United States of trying to turn a blind eye to Khashoggis murder. It also dismissed Trumps comments on the issue as comic.

Yesterdays statement is a comic statement, said Numan Kurtulmus, an official of Turkeys ruling AK Party. It is not possible for an intelligence agency such as the CIA  to know who gave this order, he added.

Turkey has repeatedly said the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government. However, it has not directly accused Prince Mohammed, noted the Reuters news agency.

Im Susan Shand.

VOAs Steve Herman reported this story. Susan Shand adapted this story for Learning English. Her reports includes information from the Reuters news agency. George Grow was the editor. ________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

comic  adj. causing laughter or something funny

definitive  adj. providing a final solution or an end to something
People from two towns in the eastern state of Connecticut are arguing again about which is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the state.

Connecticut, which was one of the British colonies, has a long history.

The trouble started when experts discovered artifacts in the town of Wethersfield that are believed to date to the 1630s. The town says it was established in 1634.

But a few miles up the Connecticut River is Windsor, which claims it was settled in 1633.

The dispute has gone on for many years with both towns claiming to be the oldest.

There is even a dispute over the definition of a town.

Town or no town

Settlers from Plymouth, Massachusetts established a trading post in Windsor in the year 1633.

Opponents say settlers from Watertown, Massachusetts made Wethersfield their home in 1634. They say people in Windsor did not build homes until the following year.

Brian Jones is an archaeologist for the state. He said, I dont think it will ever be settled.

Jones noted that the Dutch built a fort in Hartford in 1633 before the Windsor trading post and there is some evidence of a trading post there from 10 years earlier.

Recent evidence might throw some light on the dispute.

Archaeologists working in Wethersfield say they have physical evidence of a settlement by people with European ancestors.

They found a fence from the 17th century believed to have been used as a defense against Native Americans. They also found metal money and ceramics, beads used for trade and other objects including shells and animal bones.

Sarah Sportman is an archeologist with the group Public Archeology Survey Team. She said, The 17th-century stuff was the most exciting because nobody knew it would be here.

Some of the objects appear to date back to the 1630s.

The non-profit group will save the objects for the public and write a report on them. The study began two years ago and ended in November.

The discovery was made when work started on a visitor center for the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum in the town. The museum includes the home of Joseph Webb. In 1781, George Washington and French General Compte Jean de Rochambeau met there to discuss battle plans during the Revolutionary War. The house of Silas Deane is also part of the museum. He served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and as a diplomat to France. Deane worked with Benjamin Franklin.

The archeological study was required by the state government to preserve any important artifacts found.

That however does not change the mind of Windsors supporters.

Christine Ermanc is the executive director of the Windsor Historical society. We maintain that Windsor really is the earliest European settlement. They helped the Native Americans. They helped some of the traders going to Wethersfield, she said.

Im Mario Ritter Jr.

The Associated Press reported this story. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

_________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

inhabit - v. to live in (a place) : to have a home in (a place)

artifact n. a simple object, such as a tool or weapon, that was made by people in the past

maintain v. to keep in good condition by making repairs and correcting problems.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping received a red-carpet welcome in the Philippines yesterday, as he paid his first visit to the U.S. treaty ally with offers of infrastructure loans and new accords to prevent clashes and possibly explore for oil and gas in the disputed South China Sea.

Xi was met by top officials as a military brass band played in Manila, the last stop in a three-nation swing through Asia in which hes offering infrastructure loans and aid and championing free trade in a rivalry for influence with the United States.

Classes were suspended in Manila and thousands of police were deployed to secure the overnight visit of Xi, who Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte once called a great president. More than 300 protesters with placards that read Philippines not for sale and Hands off our land and seas rallied in front of the Chinese Consulate in Manila.

Xis visit to the Philippines is the first by a Chinese president in 13 years.

We have reopened the door of friendship and cooperation [] bringing real benefits to our peoples and making an important contribution to regional peace, stability and prosperity, Xi said in a statement issued after his arrival.

Beijings relations with Manila stagnated over long-seething territorial rifts in the South China Sea until Duterte won the presidency in mid-2016 and rebuilt ties with China while often pillorying U.S. security policies in a dramatic pivot. The administration of Dutertes predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, brought the disputes with China over the strategic waterway to international arbitration and won, but China has ignored the outcome.

Duterte has refused to immediately demand Chinese compliance to the landmark ruling, which invalidated Chinas sweeping claims to the waters, where Beijing has transformed a string of disputed reefs into missile- protected island bases.

Dutertes rapprochement has fostered a new era of warming relations with the Asian economic powerhouse, with which he has sought trade and investment, infrastructure financing and weapons to fight insurgents. While Western governments have sharply criticized Dutertes brutal crackdown against illegal drugs, China has not. Both Xi and Duterte have often been in the crosshairs of human rights groups.

After a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal in a Manila seaside park that was cordoned off by police, Xi and his entourage will meet Duterte and top Philippine officials later yesterday at the nearby Malacanan presidential palace.

Two Philippine officials told The Associated Press that Dutertes administration would likely sign a memorandum of understanding to support Beijings Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure loan program that has been criticized by the United States as endangering debtor nations to debt bondage and could compromise their independence.

Xi has denied the Chinese loans could lead to foreign debt trap.

The Philippine government wont likely immediately accede to proposals for oil and gas exploration in disputed waters but may sign an agreement to explore maritime cooperation and establish a committee and a task force to hasten talks that may lead to a decision for a joint hunt for undersea fuel deposits, said the Philippine officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the touchy issue.

China has sought a so-called Maritime and Air Liaison Mechanism, an arrangement for forces of both countries to coordinate their naval and aircraft movement to prevent incidents in the contested waters, but the proposal has been opposed by Philippine defense officials, the officials said.

Filipino nationalists have warned that any agreement that can undermine the Philippines internationally recognized exclusive rights to fish and exploit resources within a 200-nautical-mile stretch of waters from the countrys coast would violate the Philippine constitution.

The Philippines should not waive our sovereign rights as affirmed by the arbitral ruling, said Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who has made extensive studies on the territorial conflicts. Jim Gomez, Manila, AP
The Angolan President will seek to increase the level of bilateral cooperation with Portugal during an official visit to the country from November 22 to 24, he said in an interview with Portuguese weekly Expresso.

We will not start a new relationship, we will continue with a cooperative relationship that dates back to the first days of independence, (of Angola, November 11, 1975), said the Angolan President.

Joao Lourenco said he will try to attract Portuguese private investors to invest their capital in Angola in all possible areas.

In addition to meetings and protocol visits, the Angolan President will take part in the Portugal-Angola economic seminar, which will bring together business people from both countries in the city of Porto, in the north of Portugal.

The regulation of the debt owed by Angolan public entities to Portuguese companies is expected to be discussed during the visit, which is intended to consolidate the premises launched during the visit by Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa to Angola.

One of the practical results of the Portuguese PMs trip was the signing of a convention to eliminate double taxation and the creation of the 2018/2022 Strategic Cooperation Program.

The Portuguese prime minister also announced an increase in the export credit line from 1 billion euros to 1.5 billion euros, which is a sign of the political will to reverse the slowdown in trade.

Official figures show that, in the first quarter of 2018, Portuguese exports to Angola reached 348.7 million euros, or a 22.35 percent drop compared with the same period of 2017 (449.1 million euros).

Portuguese imports of goods from Angola almost doubled on year between January and March, rising from 62.5 million euros in 2017 to 124.9 million euros in 2018. MDT/Macauhub
The Macau Orchestra (OM) last week performed a series of concerts dedicated to French classical music at the Macao Polytechnic Institute, the University of Macau and the Macau University of Science and Technology. Held on November 15 and 17, the three concerts  titled University Concert  Indulge in Music of Paris  were conducted by OMs Assistant Conductor Francis Kan, who led the OM for a lively program specially designed for teachers and students. The OM performed several pieces by French composers, such as Deux Marches et un Intermede by Poulenc, Petite Suite by Debussy and Mother Goose Suite 5 Childrens Pieces by Ravel. Kan also discussed the musical style of the compositions and the history of classical music.

MGTO launches application guidelines of establishments

The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) launched the Guidelines of Application Procedures and Technical Requirements for Licensing and Modification Works of Hotel Establishments. The guidelines provides nine sets of guidelines for application procedures and technical requirements for all the categories of MGTO-licensed establishments. The MGTO also produced flowcharts of application procedures, formalities and forms for different license categories to familiarize industry operators with the respective application procedures, formalities and issues to pay attention to. According to a statement, the bureau also presented Portuguese and English versions of the above.

Wang Anyi to give talk at UM on Chinese literature

The University of Macau (UM) will hold a honoris causa Lecture titled Chinese-Language Literature in a Global Context on December 3. Wang started publishing in 1977 and is a renowned Chinese writer and this years recipient of the Doctor of Letters honoris causa degree from UM, will be the keynote speaker. Her books won several awards, including the Mao Dun Literature Award for Song of Everlasting Sorrow; the National Award for Short Story of 1981 for The Destination; and Writer of the Year 2007 and Xiao Hong Womens Literature Award of 2011 for Age of Enlightenment. In 2015, she was invited to share her writing experience at the Macau Literary Festival. In the same year, she was appointed a writer in residence at Cheng Yu Tung College, where she held seminars and writing workshops for the students there. The lecture will start at 5p.m. in Mr and Mrs Lau Chor Tak Lecture Theatre, Anthony Lau Building (E4-G078), UM. It will be conducted in Mandarin, with simultaneous interpretation into English.

Tak Chun Group launches new VIP club

Tak Chun Group opened a VIP Club on Monday at MGM Cotai. The clubs opening ceremony was officiated by the groups CEO, Levo Chan, and representatives to the shareholders, namely MGM Chinas chief operating officer of gaming, John Shigley, as well as the executive vice president of MGM Asia Pacific, Kenneth Fong. In the coming year, we plan to actively tap into overseas markets by identifying new business locations, expanding our empire and also enhancing our VIP services and facilities in order to provide unparalleled, bespoke treatment to our VIP guests, all with the aim of bringing stable and sound development to the group, Chan said during the event. To meet the markets demands, Tak Chun Group has earlier this year expanded its VIP Clubs at StarWorld and Wynn Macau, the group stated in a press release.

Agenda 2019: DNA database bill and computer crime bill

The Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, said yesterday that the government will strive to complete the amendment to the computer crime act in 2019. The government is considering setting up specific charges for fraudulent mobile base station crimes and increasing penalties regarding intrusion into organizations of critical infrastructure. In addition, the security force will also try to complete the DNA Database bill in 2019. The law will propose that the government can only collect suspects DNA with their consent.

IFT hold Open Day on Sunday

The Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) will hold an Open Day at IFT Mong-Ha Campus on Sunday, to provide an opportunity for prospective students, parents, as well as the general public to learn more about IFT and its programs. All campus facilities will be open to the public during Open Day. Faculty members and students will meet visitors, introduce the programs and provide admissions information. Outstanding alumni will also join the Alumni Sharing Session to discuss their study life and career prospects after graduation. The head of International Affairs and the Regent for Internship will also host a talk on exchange programs and overseas internship opportunities. In addition, according to a statement issued by the IFT, a diverse range of activities including guided tours, a tray race competition, a dining etiquette workshop, performances, and stations for outdoor BBQs, mocktails and egg rolls will also be arranged.
Student filmmakers who will have their projects screened at the Cinematheque Passions student film festival this month say that more established local directors are an influence on their work. Local filmmakers Tracy Choi, Emily Chan and Mike Ao Ieong are among those inspiring  or in some cases actively mentoring  the so-called new wave of Macau cinema.

The students are participating in the Future Roads  Cross-Strait cum Hong Kong and Macao College Student Film Festival 2018, organized by Cinematheque Passion, which seeks to bring together young filmmakers from mainland China, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan for an educational exchange.

A total of 27 films will be screened at the festival, some of which have previously received awards at other film festivals. They range in topic from science fiction to romance and from environmental issues to studies of familial relationships, with all of the stories very close to our daily lives, according to Cinematheque Passion.

Organizers say the main purpose of the festival is to connect young filmmakers from across the greater China region and help them to explore ways to further their education in the film sector. But it also serves as a good platform for secondary school students interested in studying film or television at university.

Its important to give young filmmakers [students] a chance to explore what is going on in other parts [of China] in terms of film education, said Rita Wong, chief operating officer of Cinematheque Passion. In Macau, we do not yet have our own film school, but there are many people with a passion to make a career in film. There are still many independent filmmakers and freelancers exploring this field.

We have a lot of people going overseas to study film. And this [festival] gives people a chance to discover places for them to continue their studies. In this way, it is an exchange program. It creates a dialogue and an exchange at the festival, she explained.

At a press conference for the festival held yesterday, several student filmmakers agreed that film studies at Macaus tertiary education institutions remain underdeveloped, with the majority of budding directors usually opting to study media or communications courses.

Pun Chi Cheng, whose Cyberland explores the differences between our online personas and human reality, told the media that local universities are lacking specialized courses for filmmaking.

It is an opinion shared by Kitty Wu In Teng, who graduated this year from the University of Macau with a communications degree. She said that the universities in the MSAR are not able to equip young filmmakers with all the skills they need.

Ng Ion Chong, who recently graduated with a multimedia major from the Macao Polytechnic Institute, said that he plans to continue his studies in order to build a more solid education base and advance in his filmmaking career.

But the student filmmakers do find inspiration among the so-called new wave of Macau film, which has seen the likes of Tracy Choi, Emily Chan, Mike Ao Ieong and others join some of the worlds biggest names at the annual International Film Festival and Awards held each December.

Ieong Hoi Tongs 10-minute short Our Age is a reflection of the simpler times of the 1990s when the sense of human warmth and spirit of neighborly assistance was more noticeable in Macau. A fourth-year student at the Macao Polytechnic Institute, Ieong says she was mentored by award-winning Tracy Choi, who provided advice on how to shoot the large-scale production.

Kitty Wus 404 Not Blue tells the story of several high school students on a mission to find a blue sky in a place where the sky is always grey. She says that her 25-minute environmentally-lucid film was made because of the impressions left by our dreams. Wu also told the media that she was inspired by one of her teachers, local filmmaker Mike Ao Ieong, who taught her that movies can be more creative than she had previously imagined.

The eight-day festival starts Saturday afternoon with two sessions of the opening gala where eight films handpicked by each of the participating universities and colleges will be screened. Student filmmakers and educational instructors will attend the opening gala to share their views with the audience. The festival runs until December 2 with screenings almost every day, and with subtitles in Chinese and English.
To mark the 11th anniversary of the annual Michelin Guide Hong Kong Macau, City of Dreams will present a gala dinner themed Metamorphosis on Dec. 11.

For one night only, six acclaimed chefs from two and three-Michelin-starred restaurants will join hands to craft a dining experience, the gaming operator noted in a statement.

This years theme is inspired by the modern evolution of culinary trends and the industrys proclivity to adapt in several ways.

In addition to City of Dreams own chefs, Fabrice Vulin of two-Michelin-star The Tasting Room and Kelvin Au Yeung Man Yin of two-Michelin-star Jade Dragon, the event will feature visiting culinary masters such as Alain Ducasse, Masa Takayama, Chan Yan Tak and David Kinch.

The evening will conclude with French pastry creations by the legendary Pierre Herme.

Celebrated chefs to gather at asias 50 best restaurants in March

The Asias 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony and associated event program will return to the region March 26, 2019.

According to a statement issued by organizers, Asias 50 Best Restaurants will gather the regions most celebrated chefs, renowned restaurateurs, industry VIPs and international media at Wynn Palace Cotai to reveal the 2019 list and special award winners.

The prestigious awards ceremony is hosted with the support of the Macao Government Tourism Office.

The gala awards evening is the highlight of a week-long series of events in Macau which will see culinary talent from across Asia gather for collaborative dinners, interactive talks and the annual Chefs Feast celebration. The 2019 program will include the popular #50BestTalks event at Wynn Macau on March 25.

The one-day curated forum will bring together chefs and culinary leaders to discuss ideas around sustainability, sourcing, over-consumption and other current issues facing chefs, restaurateurs and diners under the heading Vital Ingredients.
China is allowing a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and its battle group to make a port call in Hong Kong after it earlier turned down a similar request amid tensions with Washington.

The Hong Kong Marine Departments website listed the USS Ronald Reagan and three other Navy warships as approved to arrive today.

China in September turned down a request for a Hong Kong port call by the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, the first time it had denied such a visit since 2016.

The earlier denial came amid a spike in tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea that resulted in various exchanges being put on hold. China claims virtually the entire strategic waterway and regularly challenges U.S. Navy ships sailing close to its island claims in the area.

While such tensions remain, the Reagans expected visit precedes a planned meeting later this month between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Argentina that will mark the first time theyve sat down together since the start of a bitter trade war. AP
The city of Mindelo, on Sao Vicente Island, will host the 23rd edition of the Cape Verde International Fair (FIC 2019), which will take place from November 13 to 17, the president of FIC recently announced in Praia.

Gil Costa, speaking at the closing session of FIC 2018, said that the objectives set for this years edition of Cabo Verdes main trade fair had been fully achieved and that several exhibitors reported it had been worth taking part in the event.

This years edition of the Cabo Verde International Fair was held from 14 to 18 November in Praia and was attended by 130 exhibitors from Cabo Verde, Portugal, Spain and Brazil over 220 stands.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Energy, Alexandre Monteiro, also present at the closing session, restated the structural measures to be introduced in the areas of business financing, transport, taxation and energy, with a view to improving the business environment and competitiveness of the country.

The event was marked by the signing of an agreement to buy and sell the 80% stake held by the state in the Barlavento and Sotavento chambers of commerce and Cabo Verde tourism.

The remaining 20 percent remains in the hands of Cabo Verde TradeInvest. MDT/Macauhub
The Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, presented the crime statistics for the first nine months of 2018 yesterday. At the press conference, the secretary noted that money exchange gangs have already posed a direct threat to Macaus security.

In October, the Judiciary Police (PJ) and the Public Security Police Force (PSP) conducted 20 and 21 actions respectively. More than 881 people (412 related to money exchange) were taken to the police station for investigation.

In the first nine months, fraud registered significant growth, with 871 cases this year compared to 169 cases during the same period in 2017, representing an increase of 24.1 percent.

The number of phone scams in the first nine months of 2018 is lower than 2016 and 2017, with a total of 98 phone scams being registered. In 2017, there were 120 cases.

In 46 of the phone scams, criminals pretended to be from mainland government departments. This also occurred in 105 cases in the first nine months of 2017,

Around 50 phone scams relating to calls asking guess who I am were registered in 2018, 36 more than in 2016.

Upon calling the victims, criminals of guess who I am normally call the victims name directly, and because of this, people fall victims to the scams.

The police authority also reported a significant increase in theft cases on buses and public streets.

In the first nine months of 2018, there were 189 pickpocketing cases recorded in public streets, an increase of 45 cases against 144 cases in the same period of 2017.

There were 205 pickpocketing cases recorded in public buses, an increase of 73 cases against the same period of 2017.

The crime of usury registered a growth as well with 403 cases, representing 85 more compared to the first nine months of 2017.

Wong believes that the increase is due to the police authority taking initiatives to investigate relevant crimes.

The police authority detected 45 cases of document forgery, 38.8 percent more compared to that of 2017.

In addition, the PJ requested non-local internet registration companies or server hosting companies to block 237 websites involving scams related to Macaus casinos.

Around 130 websites have ceased operation.

4,600 taxi infractions recorded

Authorities have recorded 4,600 taxi infractions so far this year. There were 819 more cases than last year, representing a 21.7 percent increase. The infractions include 2,480 cases (61.7 percent) of over-charging and 1,013 cases (22 percent) of taxi drivers refusing to accept passengers.
A federal judge barred the Trump administration from refusing asylum to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally.

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 9 that said anyone who crossed the southern border between official ports of entry would be ineligible for asylum. As the first of several caravans of migrants have started arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump said an asylum ban was necessary to stop what hes attacked as a national security threat.

But in his ruling yesterday [Macau time], U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar agreed with legal groups that immediately sued, arguing that U.S. immigration law clearly allows someone to seek asylum even if they enter the country between official ports of entry.

Whatever the scope of the Presidents authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden, said Tigar, a nominee of former President Barack Obama.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment on the ruling, which will remain in effect for one month barring an appeal. In issuing the ban, Trump used the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban that was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

If enforced, the ban would potentially make it harder for thousands of people to avoid deportation. DHS estimates around 70,000 people a year claim asylum between official ports of entry. But Tigars ruling notes that federal law says someone may seek asylum if they have arrived in the United States, whether or not at a designated port of arrival.

Individuals are entitled to asylum if they cross between ports of entry, said Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued the government alongside the American Civil Liberties Union. It couldnt be clearer.

Around 3,000 people from the first of the caravans have arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it closed off northbound traffic for several hours at the San Ysidro crossing. It has also installed movable, wire-topped barriers, apparently to stop a potential mass rush of people.

As of yesterday, 107 people detained between official crossings have sought asylum since Trumps order went into effect, according to DHS, which oversees Customs and Border Protection. Officials didnt say whether those peoples cases were still progressing through other, more difficult avenues left to them after the proclamation.

DHS has said it wants asylum seekers at the southern border to appear at an official border crossing. But many border crossings such as San Ysidro already have long wait times. People are often forced to wait in shelters or outdoor camps on the Mexican side, sometimes for weeks.

ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said that some people seeking asylum cross between official ports because theyre in real danger, either in their countries of origin or in Mexico.

We dont condone people entering between ports of entry, but Congress has made the decision that if they do, they still need to be allowed to apply for asylum, he said. Nomaan Merchant, Houston, AP
Disgruntled police, military and prison guards stormed Papua New Guineas Parliament yesterday in a violent pay dispute stemming from an international summit hosted by the impoverished South Pacific island nation over the weekend, a lawmaker said.

Images posted by opposition lawmaker Bryan Kramer on social media showed broken windows, smashed furniture, pictures torn from walls and plants tipped over.

Parliaments security check point including a metal detector was trashed and doors were destroyed along with their fingerprint-reading locking systems, Kramer said.

He said the protesters had not been paid their promised allowances for their security work at the Pacific Rim leaders summit held in Port Moresby, a city described by the World Bank as among the worlds most violent due to high unemployment and brazen criminal gangs known as raskols.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting was attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and others.

When the protesters tried to enter Parliament, there was a confrontation between Parliament security and members of the security forces, Kramer said. It erupted into a scuffle, several staff were assaulted as they made their way into Parliament.

Kramer said he did not see anyone use a weapon in the conflict and he was not aware of any serious injuries, although there were spots of blood throughout the building.

Kramer and his opposition colleagues remained in a meeting room within the Parliament building throughout the 30-minute attack.

Following the rampage, more than 100 police, military personnel and prison guards waited outside Parliament demanding to be addressed by the government about their allowances, Kramer said. But they eventually left the area.

Working police later provided security for parliamentary staff in the building and patrolled surrounding streets.

The violence at Parliament coincided with reports of looting of surrounding businesses, as criminals apparently took advantage of the breakdown in law and order.

Neither Prime Minister Peter ONeills office nor police chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas immediately responded to requests for comment.

Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the protesters went to Parliament to demand the immediate payment of APEC allowances.

Papua New Guinea APEC Coordination Authority chief executive Chris Hawkins said allowance payments to security personnel after a major event would normally take a week.

The meeting ended two days ago and the security operation is now winding down, Hawkins said in a statement. The payment of individual allowances has already commenced and individual security force members should check with their banks as payments are made.

Papua New Guinea is a largely undeveloped Pacific nation of more than 8 million mostly subsistence farmers with widespread poverty, corruption and lawlessness.

The annual APEC summit brought together representatives of 21 nations that account for 60 percent of the world economy.

Whats been called Papua New Guineas global coming-out party has caused both pride and discord and underlined the yawning gulf between a small well-educated minority and the poor, who include the 85 percent of people living in the highlands and other remote areas.

Ahead of the APEC summit, the government was criticized for acquiring a fleet of 40 expensive Maserati cars to ferry the world leaders to meeting sites, but it assured citizens that the vehicles would be sold afterward.

A VIP terminal costing about USD19 million was added to the citys airport. Construction of an iconic building called APEC Haus for the summit was paid for by oil and gas company Oil Search, which operates all of Papua New Guineas oil fields, in exchange for tax credits.

I think the money should have been used to fix our backyard instead of decorating the front porch. We have health, education and infrastructure deficiencies that need to be addressed, activist and writer Martyn Namorong said before the summit. Ciaran McQuillan, Port Moresby, AP
A male resident over 30 years old has been charged after a car accident occurred at Estrada do Altinho de Ka Ho in the early hours of November 17.

According to the Public Security Police Force (PSP) spokesperson, the police was alerted by an emergency call at about 7:45 a.m. and in response deployed police officers and an ambulance to the location.

Upon arrival, the authorities found only an empty vehicle that had allegedly lost control and drifted down the hillside, turning upside-down in the process.

Near the vehicle the officers also found two transparent packages and another two rolled aluminum foil tubes that looked like drug paraphernalia.

After collecting evidence and reviewing the surveillance footage in the area, the PSP discovered that at a man had driven the car at about 2:50 a.m. in that area and crashed without an apparent cause.

The footage also shows that around 5:30 a.m., another man in a motorcycle travelled to the location and picked up the man who had crashed the vehicle.

Although the PSP had been able to identify the two men, they did not know their whereabouts until the family of the car driver called the police later that morning to say that the person had been found in the surroundings of his home.

According to the family report, the man was confused and had a fracture on his left leg. Consequently, he had been taken to the hospital.

The man told the police that he had no memory of what had occurred. Tests for alcohol and drug consumption came out negative.

The man denied accusations that he had tried to shed responsibility for the accident, but the police forwarded the case to the Public Prosecutions Office yesterday on that accusation.

The PSP have not yet been able to find the second male. According to the investigation findings, the police said they have confirmed that the substance found in the packages collected near the vehicle was a crystal methamphetamine often called ice.
A Taiwanese exchange student accused of threatening to shoot up his high school near Philadelphia was spared additional time in prison at his sentencing yesterday [Macau time], but he will be deported and barred from returning to the U.S.

A federal judge Monday after nearly two hours of testimony sentenced An-Tso Sun also known as Edward to time served and deportation. The judge did not impose a fine. Sun had been facing up to 10 years in prison and a USD250,000 fine for his guilty plea to a firearms- related charge.

Sun has been in local or federal custody since March after local school authorities were alerted that Sun talked about a May 1 shooting at Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School in Upper Darby, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) west of Philadelphia. The 18-year-old student called the talk a joke, but authorities found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition, as well as weapons, in the home of his host family.

Robert Keller previously said his client had no intention or plans to commit a school shooting and many items found were what he wore to school for a Halloween costume contest.

A military-style ballistic vest, ammunition clip pouches, a high-powered crossbow and live ammunition were found in Suns bedroom in Lansdowne, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. A search of his school-issued iPad indicated searches on how to buy an AK-47 or an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, police said.

He previously pleaded guilty to state terroristic threat charges and was sentenced to four to 23 months. He was immediately paroled and remanded to federal custody to face a charge of an alien in possession of ammunition.

The judge considered a number of factors, the fact that he was very young, and very immature, was not from this country and did not appreciate the seriousness of the threat he made, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Wolfe from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. I think also the fact that he is going to be removed from this country permanently, thats a very significant consequence of this conduct. The defendant was hoping to attend Temple University for college and that is no longer going to happen. So that is a pretty substantial consequence.

Sun agreed to the deportation as part of a plea agreement, and his attorney said it could take four to six weeks for him to be deported through Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. He will be transferred to the ICE detention center in York, Pennsylvania.

Keller said Suns parents, Taiwanese actor and assistant film director Sun Peng and actress Di Ying, will remain in the U.S. until their son is deported. AP
A peace settlement for war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina has been brokered in the United States.

US President Bill Clinton announced the deal after 21 days of seemingly deadlocked negotiation at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The plan, known as the Dayton Accord, has been agreed between the Bosnian, Serb and Croat leaders and will be enforced by 60,000 Nato troops, who will begin to arrive in the country during the next few days.

If a success, the settlement could end the most brutal conflict in Europe since the Second World War, which has resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people  mostly civilians  and left two million homeless.

Under the agreement Bosnia will remain a single state, but most power will be devolved to two new territories  a Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian-Serb republic.

A central authority controlling foreign, trade and monetary policy will operate from a united capital in Sarajevo.

President Clinton said the deal would allow the Bosnian people to move from the horror of war to the promise of peace.

And US Secretary of State Warren Christopher praised the accord  which is scheduled to be officially signed in December  as a victory for all of us.

But splits have begun to appear in the fragile treaty almost as soon as it had been initialled by the leaders.

Serb delegation member Momcilo Krajisnik called it a big mistake.

Our delegation did not accept this plan, nor did sign it, nor will it sign the maps or the plan itself, he said.

But Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said the deal was a good beginning.

To my people I say  this may not be a just peace, but it is more just than the continuation of war, he said.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

The Dayton Accord was signed by the presidents of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia on 14 December 1995.

The agreement managed to impose a lasting  if uneasy  peace in the region. Real stability was only achieved when the political landscape changed and the war leaders went.

Franjo Tudjman died in 1999, Alija Izetbegovic stepped down in 2001 and Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at The Hague a year later for war crimes. He died in his cell in March 2006.

The new, more moderate, governments met at a summit in July 2002  the first time the countries leaders had sat round the same table since the accord was signed.
British Prime Minister Theresa May was aiming to seal business support for her Brexit deal with the European Union yesterday, but remained on a collision course with a group of lawmakers seeking to unseat her.

The draft agreement has triggered an avalanche of criticism in Britain and left May fighting to keep her job.

She planned to say in a speech to business lobby group the Confederation of British Industry that the deal fulfils the wishes of the British people to leave the EU, by taking back control of the U.K.s laws, money and borders.

Mays Downing St. office said she would confirm the governments plan to end the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work in the U.K., saying Britains future immigration policy will be based on skills, rather than nationality.

It will no longer be the case that EU nationals, regardless of the skills or experience they have to offer, can jump the queue ahead of engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi, May plans to say.

The deal sealed last week between Britain and the EU after a year and a half of tense negotiations has infuriated pro-Brexit lawmakers in Mays Conservative Party and sparked a leadership crisis. The Brexiteers want a clean break with the bloc and argue that the close trade ties called for in the agreement will leave Britain a vassal state, bound to EU rules it has no say in making.

Two Cabinet ministers, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, resigned in protest, and rebels are trying to gather the signatures of 48 lawmakers needed to trigger a no-confidence vote.

One of the rebels, Simon Clarke, yesterday urged wavering colleagues to help trigger a leadership challenge.

It is quite clear to me that the captain is driving the ship at the rocks, he said.

Even if May sees off a leadership challenge, she still has to get the deal approved by Parliament. Her Conservatives dont have a parliamentary majority, and its not clear whether she can persuade enough lawmakers to back her agreement.

May argues that abandoning the plan, with Britains withdrawal just over four months away on March 29, could lead to a disorderly and economically damaging no deal Brexit  or to a situation in which Britains exit from the EU is postponed indefinitely.

Some Conservative Brexiteers, including Raab, say May should stay in post but try to renegotiate the deal  something May and other EU leaders insist is impossible.

Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said Monday that the withdrawal treaty is as good as it will get, while Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn also said there is no better Brexit deal for Britain.

We must make it understood today that this deal which is now on the table is the best one possible. There is no better one for this crazy Brexit, Asselborn said as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels ahead of a leaders summit on Sunday at which the bloc intends to sign off on the deal.

While the 585-page, legally binding withdrawal agreement is complete, Britain and the EU hope this week to flesh out their far less detailed seven-page declaration on future relations.

A painful week in European politics is starting, said Austrias minister for Europe, Gernot Bluemel. We have the divorce papers on the table; 45 years of difficult marriage are coming to an end. Jill Lawless & Raf Casert, London, AP
Interview with Dr. Manfred Takyi, CEO of Joy Industries

What is your assessment of the industry in 2018? What are the latest trends? Is it a very competitive sector? Are there new entrants?

We are in the herbal manufacturing industry. In the beginning, in 2001, the business was registered as an herbal enterprise. While we were growing, we registered it as a limited liability with three brothers as shareholders in the company. Then, along the line, we had a technical person who is in charge of the formulation of the products, Dr. Fafa. He is also the one with more of the herbal knowledge. As a team, we have come together to build a strong brand. When you talk about one of the best herbal medicine companies in the world today, Joy Industries is rated number one.

What are your competitive advantages? Why is your product better than the others?

We manufacture a lot of health products. We include alcohol in this, which might sound a bit strange. However, we have a lot of knowledge of medicinal herbs, herbs that will make the body grow strong. We have introduced those medicinal herbs in our alcoholic beverage product so that when you drink our alcoholic beverages, instead of feeling the negative effects of alcohol, the medicinal herbs that we have infused neutralize the effect of alcohol as a whole in the human system. It is quite unique and in no other part of the world can you get a product like the one that we produce here. We also produce herbal medicines without alcohol such as herbal soap, herbal ointments, etc.

Can you give more detail about your products?

People have faith in our product and like the trade name, Joy, we are doing our best to maintain that trademark. For anything that we produce, we make sure that whoever will consume that product will be filled with joy after taking it.

We started producing ointment first and we later introduced our herbal soap. The other herbal medicines followed. What made us go into alcohol is that in Ghana, especially in the remote areas, when you visit the villages, you see people that have drank alcohol. We have an alcoholic product that is brewed locally called Akpeteshie. It effects people quite strongly because of its content. It is not brewed to its finest level. Neither does it contain any medicinal properties. So, we decided that with our knowledge in healing herbs, we had to introduce those herbs into alcohol. We have herbs that take care of the kidneys, the liver, that strain the blood, or that are good for general well-being. People drink our alcohol not just like drinking any alcoholic product, they are taking it so that they will also get the medicinal benefit. It is doing wonders for so many people. We have had calls from all angles of customers that drank our alcoholic beverage when they were having an illness or sickness, and they cannot feel it anymore. It is because of the medicinal herbs that we use in producing the alcoholic beverage.

Is Ghana the only place you sell this product?

We have started exporting to neighboring African countries like Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Liberia, and others. It is making massive inroads there because of its potent medicinal effects.

What makes your product unique? Do you use a special technology?

Scientifically, there is a unique way of doing things. We are knowledgeable about what we do and passionate about what we do. We think about our fellow human being. We have a heart of healing, we do not have a heart of only taking money or getting money from our customers. Our priority is that whoever will take our product will benefit and have good health. Our motto is Good health brings Joy. Once someone buys our product, they get value for their money. You do not buy something with money, then at the end of it all, develop health problems from it. So, we have that at the back of our minds that we need to produce good things for our consumers all over the world.

What does Joy mean for people? How do people perceive your brand?

It is the top brand in Ghana now and other countries, too. You will never regret taking our product. Our products are purely organic. Human beings are organic so organic materials, organic things, are very good for the body, for the system, compared to artificial materials. People have faith in our product and like the trade name, Joy, we are doing our best to maintain that trademark. For anything that we produce, we make sure that whoever will consume that product will be filled with joy after taking it.

You sell to distributors, not directly to customers. What is your specific strategy towards them?

We have a good marketing plan with our distributors and they are happy with it. They sell our products and make a good profit. They even make a better profit than we as manufacturers do.

Are you looking to attract partners or investors to your business?

As we are developing, our slogan is healing the world. We are not healing just a few people. Investors are all welcome from all angles. We need to boost our production so that if not all, at least the majority of the population can benefit from the good things we are doing here as an industry.

What current projects are you focusing on?

Our current project is getting a facility that will last and increase our production yield.

Is that a future plan or is it something that you have already started?

It is something we want to start soon with the help of other investors who would like to come in.

Is there anything else you feel strongly on that you would like to give a message about?

As a corporate entity, we have so many responsibilities, in social interventions, especially. We take care of people who have serious health problems that need to undergo surgery and we do full sponsorship of such cases. Before we take any step, we have an NGO, the DMAC Foundation, that we deal with, who investigates the case. When or if it is genuine, they bring the proposal to the company and then we bear full cost for such people. We do a lot of things as part of our social responsibility, too. We go to villages and give money to people who cannot afford more than one or two square meals a day. We do a lot of programs with the aged as well as much more.

Project yourself two to three years time, in the medium term. What do you want to achieve? What is your mission for the company?

In three years time, we want the brand that we have already built to be very solid everywhere. Then, we will go into soft drinks. We have developed soft drinks which we want to make accessible to everyone and some of the other unique products that are under development.

In terms of capacity you are also regional, not only in Ghana?

We want to reach out to most of the African countries and then probably, we will export some of our products to European countries and to the United States.

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(HealthDay)U.S. health officials have warned all Americans to stay away from romaine lettuce this holiday season, due to potential contamination with E. coli.

So far, 32 people across 11 states have been sickened. Although no one has died, illnesses have been so severe that in 13 cases patients had to be hospitalized, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

So who's most at risk from E. coli?

Dr. Robert Glatter is an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City who's seen the effects of infection with the gastrointestinal bug firsthand. It's not a minor ailment, he said.

"In general, symptoms of E. coli infection generally begin about three to four days after consuming the bacteria, and may include abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, and watery or bloody diarrhea, along with fever," Glatter said.

And while healthy people who battle a bout of E. coli typically recover within five to seven days, the illness can be more protractedand even deadlyfor people already made vulnerable by chronic disease or advanced age.

"People with diabetes, kidney disease or those with cancer or autoimmune disease run the risk of a more severe illness," Glatter explained.

The particular strain of E. coli detected in the current lettuce outbreakE. coli O157:H7is particularly nasty, he noted.

"Most strains of E. coli do not actually cause diarrhea, but E. coli O157 produces a powerful toxin that injures the inner lining of the small intestine, leading to bloody diarrhea," Glatter said. Even a tiny amount of ingested bacteria could spur this type of illness.

"It can make people much more ill, and may lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, in some cases," he said.

Indeed, the CDC has reported one such case already in the latest outbreak.

In many cases, antibiotics are used to help beat back an E. coli infection, but these drugs can affect the kidneys, Glatter noted.

"Antibiotics may be necessary in certain cases, so it's important to see your doctor if you have continued and severe symptoms such as fever, bloody diarrhea, and you are not able to eat or drink," he said.

However, in the case of E. coli O157:H7, "taking antibiotics may actually increase your risk of developing kidney failure, so it's important to speak with your health care provider if you should develop severe symptoms," Glatter advised.

And if you do think you might be sick with E. coli, or any other foodborne illness, make sure you don't spread it to those near you.

The bacterium "can be transmitted person-to-person, so it's vital that anyone who is potentially infected wash their hands thoroughly and not share utensils, cups or glasses," Glatter said. "This also goes for bath towels. Linens also need to be washed in hot water and treated with bleach."

He noted that "ground beef, unpasteurized milk, fresh produce, and contaminated water are common sources of E. coli bacteria."

As for the current outbreak, cases have so far been reported in California (10 cases), Connecticut (1 case), Illinois (2 cases), Massachusetts (2 cases), Maryland (1 case), Michigan (7 cases), New Hampshire (2 cases), New Jersey (3 cases), New York (2 cases), Ohio (1 case) and Wisconsin (1 case).

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that romaine lettuce typically has a shelf life of about 21 days, so contaminated produce could still be on store shelves or in people's refrigerators. For that reason, "consumers throughout the U.S. should not eat romaine lettuce until further notice," the agency advised.

The exact source of the outbreak remains unclear, but tests are being done on romaine lettuce throughout the U.S. market.

"The quick and aggressive steps we're taking today are aimed at making sure we get ahead of this emerging outbreak, to reduce risk to consumers, and to help people protect themselves and their families from this foodborne illness outbreak," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in an agency news release on Tuesday. "This is especially important ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, when people will be sitting down for family meals."

More information: Robert Glatter, M.D., emergency physician, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; news releases, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Robert Glatter, M.D., emergency physician, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; news releases, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Find out more about E. coli illness at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have collaborated on a clinical trial that identifies indicators for nonalcoholic fatty liver diseasea typically asymptomatic disease caused by fat buildup in the liver and the leading cause of liver disease in the United States.

Mohammad Siddiqui, M.D., an associate professor in the VCU School of Medicine, and researchers with expertise in cardiology, hepatology, and exercise physiology have been conducting research with a focus on the link between heart and liver damage. Their efforts have resulted in a study in which they draw a connection between patients with aggressive types of fatty liver disease and limitations in exercise capacity.

Siddiqui is senior author of the study, "Diastolic Dysfunction and Exercise Intolerance are Linked to Severity of Hepatic Fibrosis in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease," which the team recently presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in Chicago.

"Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is often missed in primary care, so by the time patients get the appropriate subspecialty referral, they have usually developed advanced stages of the disease," said Siddiqui, a practicing hepatologist who sees patients with suspected liver disease at the VCU Health Department of Digestive Health.

"We are doing the research that informs eventual guidelines for the best evidence-based care," he said.

VCU Health Pauley Heart Center exercise physiologist Justin Canada, Ph.D. presented the study at the Scientific Sessions. Researchers and clinicians from around the world gather at the annual event to hear from thought leaders on the latest advances in cardiovascular science.

Limitations in exercise capacity

Rather than analyzing people who already had cirrhosis or heart failure, as previous studies have done, the interdisciplinary VCU research team analyzed people who had suspected liver damage and had been referred by their physicians to VCU Health for a liver biopsy.

About 35 patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease proven at biopsy who did not have a diagnosis of heart failure participated in a clinical study in the Clinical Research Services Unit at VCU Medical Center. Patients received echocardiograms and stress echocardiograms while researchers watched their heart function as they exercised on a treadmill. The study was the first of its kind to include liver biopsies and exercise capacity assessments along with questionnaires in the overall analysis.

"With the questionnaires, we were able to focus on how the functionality assessments translated into how the patients feel," Siddiqui said.

The researchers found that patients who had a more aggressive type of fatty liver disease, called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, were more likely to have limitations in exercise capacity. As patients started to get more scarring in their liver, they were more likely to have further reductions in exercise capacity.

"They can't do the same level of activity as somebody who doesn't have that type of scarring," Siddiqui said.

While more research is needed to inform how to best screen patients and improve clinical outcomes, the VCU-led research sheds light on what is happening in patients who have not yet developed a lot of damage to their heart or liver. It indicates that patients who do not have a diagnosis of heart failure, but have fatty liver disease, might be at risk for developing symptoms that lead to heart failure.

Providing more nuanced care

Siddiqui credits his ability to conduct the research for the study to the VCU C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, which supports clinical research at VCU and VCU Health. The study that was presented at the AHA Scientific Sessions conference was supported through a $50,000 endowment fund that Siddiqui received through the Wright Center last year. The fund supports clinical and translational research that moves discoveries in the laboratory and preclinical studies toward the development of clinical trials.

Siddiqui was named an inaugural Wright Center Translational Science Scholar earlier this year. The newly developed program, which is funded through the university, allows researchers to allocate 40 percent of their time to research for three years. "We created the Translational Science Scholar program as a means for supporting a diverse group of faculty who work along the spectrum of translational science," said Patrick Nana-Sinkam, M.D., associate director of the Wright Center.

"The program is intended to provide research training and mentorship to junior faculty in an effort to enhance their research trajectory, position them to be competitive for extramural research funding and eventually become leaders in clinical and translational research," Nana-Sinkam said.

Siddiqui said the money provided by the endowment fund along with the time allocated through the Translational Science Scholar program positioned him for success.

"The Translational Science Scholar program has provided me with protected time to do research and push the needle on where the field of liver disease treatment is headed," he said.

"The opportunities provided through the Wright Center have allowed me to mold my practice in such a way that the patients who I am seeing in my clinical practice are people whose conditions align with my research interest," he said. "I am able to provide more nuanced care for those patients based on scientific evidence that goes beyond the current guidelines."

Explore further Study examines the effect of alcohol consumption on survival in non-alcoholic fatty liver
Klotho (green) is expressed around an injury site in muscle tissue (red) in young mice. Credit: Sahu et al. (2018), Nature Communications

One of the downsides to getting older is that skeletal muscle loses its ability to heal after injury. New research from the University of Pittsburgh implicates the so-called "longevity protein" Klotho, both as culprit and therapeutic target.

The paper, published this week in Nature Communications, showed that, in young animals, Klotho expression soars after a muscle injury, whereas in old animals, it remains flat. By raising Klotho levels in old animals, or by mitigating downstream effects of Klotho deficiency, the researchers could restore muscle regeneration after injury.

"We found that we were able to rescue, at least in part, the regenerative defect of aged skeletal muscle," said lead author Fabrisia Ambrosio, Ph.D., director of rehabilitation for UPMC International, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Pitt, and core faculty at the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine. "We saw functional levels of muscle regeneration in old animals that paralleled those of their young counterparts, suggesting that this could potentially be a therapeutic option down the road."

Suspecting that Klotho acts through mitochondria dysfunction, the researchers gave Klotho-deficient animals a mitochondria-targeting drug called SS-31, which currently is in phase III clinical trials. Treated animals grew more new muscle tissue at the site of injury compared to untreated controls, and their strength after recovery rivaled that of genetically normal mice.

In young muscle, high levels of Klotho maintain mitochondia, which aids regeneration after injury. Age-related declines of Klotho lead to mitochondrial damage and impaired healing. Credit: Sahu et al. (2018), Nature Communications

Similarly, injecting Klotho into older animals a few days after injury resulted in greater muscle mass and better functional recovery than their saline-treated counterparts. Normal, healthy mice did not benefit from SS-31 after injury.

Clinically, these findings could translate to older adults who either sustained a muscle injury or underwent muscle-damaging surgery. Giving them Klotho at the appropriate timepoint could boost their muscle regeneration and lead to a more complete recovery.

Ambrosio cautions that the timing, dosage and route of administration will require future research.

"If you just bombard the muscle with Klotho, we do not expect to observe any functional benefit," Ambrosio said. "We've found that mimicking the timing profile we see in young animals seems to be critical. We think that this gives some insight into the therapeutic window."

Explore further Scientists uncover new gatekeeper function of anti-aging molecule

More information: A. Sahu et al, Age-related declines in -Klotho drive progenitor cell mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired muscle regeneration, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications A. Sahu et al, Age-related declines in -Klotho drive progenitor cell mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired muscle regeneration,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07253-3
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The abundance of personal smartphones in southern African countries got University of Washington professor Sarah Gimbel thinking: What if these phones were used by front-line health workersnamely nursesto collect and analyze data on patients living with HIV or AIDS to improve their care?

Gimbel, an implementation scientist at the UW School of Nursing, tested her hypothesis and found that smartphone applications, or apps, have the potential to improve efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases both in the African subcontinent and around the world. By designing software for mobile devices, Gimbel believes that will empower nurses by putting cutting-edge tools into their hands.

"I want to get nurses more engaged in the process of analyzing and using their data," said Gimbel, who holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Global Health.

Nurses provide care but also collect data. If they can be actively engaged in using that data, it can lead to improvements in data quality and, ultimately, better health outcomes, Gimbel said.

In a paper published in the September issue of Current HIV/AIDS Reports, Gimbel and her co-authors evaluated the current use of mobile phones and tablets in HIV-related care in low- and middle-income countries around the world. The use of this new technology in the health care system is also known as "mHealth."

The authors found that a larger selection of phone applications, or apps, are needed to improve the tremendous resources that have been provided to improve HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. And the applications must be designed to be used by huge volumes of users, in other words, to scale.

"Scientists, researchers and practitioners increasingly are borrowing tools from engineering and bringing them to the intersection of quality improvement and health," Gimbel said.

Leveraging existing health resources  including smartphones  will help nurses work better and smarter, Gimbel said. Nearly 100 percent of the world's population lives within reach of a cellphone signal, and many nurses in developing economies are able to afford a smartphone. Smartphones can run apps to collect and transmit data of all kinds, from patient adherence information to monitoring drug protocols, and more.

Gimbel and her team focused on HIV/AIDS as opposed to other chronic conditions due to its burden and the amount of resources that have been invested to fight the pandemic. "It's our laboratory to understand how to make chronic care systems work. So HIV is our testing ground," Gimbel said. "It has a lot of commonalities with other chronic diseases."

Now, Gimbel argues, academics and industry must work collaboratively to develop scalable solutions for mHealth innovations to combat HIV and other diseases.

Explore further UK doctors and nurses routinely using own smartphones for patient care

More information: Sarah Gimbel et al. A Missing Link: HIV-/AIDS-Related mHealth Interventions for Health Workers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, Current HIV/AIDS Reports (2018). Sarah Gimbel et al. A Missing Link: HIV-/AIDS-Related mHealth Interventions for Health Workers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,(2018). DOI: 10.1007/s11904-018-0416-x
Two Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physicians call on medical and public health communities around the world to condemn the attacks on health care facilities and services in Yemen conducted by the Saudi-led coalition in the three-year-old war. In their Perspectives article receiving early online publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, Amir Mohareb, MD, MGH Division of Infectious Diseases, and Louise Ivers, MD, MPH, DTM&H, executive director of the MGH Center for Global Health, write, "The Yemeni medical disasters are man-made, with outbreaks of infectious diseases and starvation following bombing. The war has been characterized by a violation of medical neutrality."

The physicians call on health care providers to take a role in condemning the war. They describe how hospitals and clinics in the capital city of Sana'a and other areas of the country "have continued to be destroyed, both indiscriminately and sometimes apparently deliberately," since the war began in March 2015. An outbreak of choleraestimated to have infected more than 1.1 million people and led to more than 2,000 deaths, 20 percent in children under 5has been exacerbated by the bombing of water-treatment plants and a lack of fuel needed to operate remaining facilities. Both diphtheria and measles have also increased, probably because of a drop in immunizations, and concerns are rising about a polio outbreak.

The Saudi-led blockade of Yemeni ports has kept out international relief agencies and much-needed food supplies, leading to a near-famine that puts 14 million people at risk of starvation, the physicians write. Even after an easing of the blockade last year, "importation of essential medicines, vaccines and health care equipment remains limited." Citing the U.S. agreement to sell more than $100 billion in arms and provide other support to the Saudis, the authors stress that mounting evidence of attacks on civilians and on health facilities should induce suspension U.S. military support, as has been proposed by a bipartisan Senate resolution. Giving international humanitarian agencies the ability "to investigate attacks on medical facilities and personnel committed by parties on either side of the conflict" is also essential.

"These responses are, in our view, the only just course of action and are the way to erect necessary safeguards for the future," they write. "We rely on humanitarian programs and on the principal of medical neutrality as a salve for the painful consequences of armed conflict. The moral responsibility for this catastrophe is collective. Those of us whose governments support the war's attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure through their direct actions or through their inaction at the United Nations Security Council can do more than stand by silently wondering what the warring parties hope to inherit at the end of the day. A generation of Yemeni people is being sacrificed."

Ivers is an associate professor of Medicine, and Mohareb is a research fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Their article will appear in the January 10, 2019, print edition of NEJM. The MGH Center for Global Health serves the hospital's mission to contribute to improving the health of our global community through service, research and innovation, and medical education.

Explore further ICRC says 600,000 Yemenis could contract cholera in 2017
A new study published in the journal Social Theory & Health has called into question how patients interact and respond to psychiatry when they present to mental health services.

The research focuses on how the public view mental disorders and treatments, ranging from anxiety and depression through to schizophrenia, in order to consider how care might better be deployed and managed.

By analysing published research on the topic and examining the wider context which has seen mental health services rise in prominence among policy-makers, the study advocates that service provision must adapt in line with patients' views on mental health.

Since the 1960s there has been an ongoing debate about whether psychiatry is helpful or is harmful to those who use it. Many of these criticisms have focussed on whether psychiatry has a valid evidence base.

Several ways of thinking about 'mental disorder' have been proposed since the 1970s with some focussing on the biology of the brain; others focussing on psychological factors such as a person's upbringing and others focussing on social factorssuch as a person's living environment. Whilst these arguments have gone on for some time, psychiatry still lacks a unifying theory which is widely accepted.

Reflecting this mixed picture, the new study finds that members of the public increasingly accept the view that mental health problems are genetic and can require medical treatment. But it also highlights an ambivalence towards psychiatry and a widespread belief that the public see mental illness as being highly influenced by social factors.

In addition, the public tends to prefer treatments that are not favoured by psychiatry, often giving preference to talking treatments over drug treatments. Against this backdrop, argue the researchers behind the study, mental health professionals need to acknowledge the beliefs that exist and adapt practice accordingly. Specifically they suggest that psychiatrists, nurses and social workers need 'to be transparent about the limits and uncertainties of psychiatric knowledge and to acknowledge that sharp lines cannot yet be drawn between sanity and insanity.

They advocate that mental health professionals should spend more time understanding how individual patients understand mental health problems and should adjust treatment options accordingly. They argue that attention should be given to whether a patient has mental capacity, which can be understood as the ability to make an informed decision about their care.

Where this is the case, treatment should be planned around patient preferences. Where patients are in favour of medical understandings of mental health problems, then advice about psychiatric treatment can be given. However, where patients reject biological explanations of mental health problems, other options such as talking therapies or greater social support should be explored and mental health professionals should be willing to help patients reduce or stop medications.

Lead researcher, Dr. Jeremy Dixon from the University of Bath's Department of Social & Policy Sciences, explained: "No other medical field has faced so much controversy when it comes to thinking about illness and diagnoses than psychiatry.

Much of this debate has focussed on the polar positions for and against the psychiatric profession. Our paper takes a new approach through reviewing evidence about what the general public thinks about mental disorder and about psychiatric treatment. This shows that the public has a greater range of views about the different ways of understanding mental health problems than is commonly acknowledged either by supporters of psychiatry or its opponents.

We argue that mental health professionals have a tendency to make assumptions about what users of mental health services want. In order to improve care, mental health professionals need to question these assumptions and speak to users of services to understand what their position is.

Co-author, Dr. Dirk Richter from the University Bern Psychiatric Services, added: "By acknowledging the different ways that people understand mental illness, mental health professionals help to reduce the risk of conflicts between professionals and patients, and this will contribute to safer and more humane care settings." The research team acknowledge the dilemmas that exist for practitioners in shifting how they operate, but they suggest that adapting practice could significantly help to improve patient outcomes.

More information: Jeremy Dixon et al, Contemporary public perceptions of psychiatry: some problems for mental health professions, Social Theory & Health (2017). Jeremy Dixon et al, Contemporary public perceptions of psychiatry: some problems for mental health professions,(2017). DOI: 10.1057/s41285-017-0059-9
Babies as young as five months old were able to recognize embedding in innovative tone sequences created for the study. Credit: Nikolaus Brade / MPI CBS

At a mere five months of age, babies seemingly have the ability to recognize very complex grammatical structures. That is what a research team headed by Professor Angela Friederici from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) and Professor Jutta Mueller from the University of Osnabruck has now shown in a new study published in Science Advances.

Human language follows certain regularities. For instance, a plural noun must be accompanied by a plural verb, as in the following sentence: "The kids from the neighborhood are playing." As a result, relationships arise where information at the beginning of a sentence is relevant at the end of the same sentence. In German, subordinate clauses can be inserted, before a sentence is completesuch structures are referred to by linguists as embeddings or nested structures. The following is a simple example, "The boy standing over there laughs."

It is believed that the ability to recognize such embedding is unique to humans. Although some animals are capable of learning individual words and their simple combination, they appear unable to grasp the complexity and possible combinations present in human language. The team around study leader Dr. Claudia Mannel from the Department of Neuropsychology now ask: If this ability is part of what makes us human, when does it begin? At the Children's Language Laboratory at MPI CBS, the scientists tested 38 babies to see if and how infants can handle nested structures. Remarkably, babies as young as five months old were able to recognize embedding in innovative tone sequences created for the study. These results mark the earliest evidence to date of this basic ability in humans.

Working with babies is not easy, particularly when studying language perception. One cannot simply play sentences and explain the task to the infants. Prof. Jutta Mueller, a collaborator from the University of Osnabruck, explains that this can actually be helpful. "In early childhood research we work with built-in errors or rule deviations and determine whether children can detect them. If babies do so, we then know that they already have the underlying knowledge. Together with the group, we considered how to test this in babies, without overstraining them with too demanding spoken sentences." The team decided to simplify the experiment using simple tones insteadmore specifically, five-tone and seven-tone sequences in separate experiments. Embeddings were created by specific arrangements of different tone frequencies.

Dr. Claudia Mannel describes the structure of the experiments: "Children learn by frequency information and acoustic deviationswe know that they perceive such deviations in the womb when you play them sounds. We used this knowledge for the experimental arrangements in the Children's Language Lab. However, in our experiments it wasn't the individual tones that deviated, but the sequences of tones, including the embedding as a whole. We varied these to see if babies recognize the construction of embedded structures. With the brain activity we measured, we could then see from the EEG curves that the infants did in fact register the deviating sequences and thus they must have processed the nested structures. "

The next step is to investigate whether non-human primates might also have the ability to recognize such embedded structures, which would address the question of how this ability may have phylogenetically evolved.

More information: "Infant cognition includes the potentially human-unique ability to encode embedding," Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar8334 advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaar8334 Journal information: Science Advances "Infant cognition includes the potentially human-unique ability to encode embedding,"
(HealthDay)The advent of the e-cigarette appears to have spurred a huge drop in tobacco smoking rates among teenagers and young adults, a new study claims.

Previous research has argued that vaping could prove to be a gateway drug for smoking, by getting youngsters hooked on nicotine and used to the physical actions associated with smoking.

Instead, smoking among teens dropped off dramatically after e-cigarette use became more widespread in 2013, said lead researcher David Levy. He is a professor with the Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Washington, D.C.

"The rate of decline in cigarette use tripled," said Levy.

The new findings come days after U.S. regulators pledged to strengthen policies that prevent the sale of flavored vaping products to minors.

"I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a U.S. Food and Drug Administration statement. "We won't let this pool of kids, a pool of future potential smokers, of future disease and death, to continue to build."

For the new study, Levy and his colleagues analyzed responses to five different national surveys that track tobacco use.

The surveys showed that, prior to 2013, cigarette smoking was gradually declining among young people between the ages of 15 and 25, the researchers reported.

But after 2013, that gradual decline turned into a steep decline. The annual relative reduction in smoking tripled among 10th and 12th graders, the investigators found.

Why? Levy and his colleagues suggested that, in part, it's because vaping became popular.

Past 30-day vaping among high school students increased from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 4.5 percent in 2013, and to 13.4 percent in 2014.

"When e-cigarette use came in, smoking rates dropped between 25 and 40 percent," Levy said. "Smoking rates in young adults have dropped by almost 50 percent, and most of that [has been] since 2013."

Levy said he's worried that tough e-cigarette regulations could reverse those trends.

"My concern is if we have very strict policies on e-cigarettes, it's kind of like throwing out the baby with the bathwater," Levy said. "We might see more smoking."

But Patricia Folan, director of the Northwell Health Center for Tobacco Control in Great Neck, N.Y., said the new report gives vaping too much credit for the decline in tobacco use among young people.

"Anti-tobacco media campaigns, increasing taxes on cigarettes, tobacco-free environments, the removal of cigarettes and other tobacco products from some pharmacies and other retail stores, as well as efforts to restrict and reduce point-of-sale advertising have all contributed to a reduction of smoking among teens and adults," Folan said.

Levy agreed that these measures have played a part, but argued that "of the between 25 and 50 percent drop in smoking rates, maybe 10 percent might be explained by other policies."

In fact, the availability of e-cigarettes might make other anti-smoking efforts more effective, Levy added.

"Those other policies probably have become a lot more powerful as a result of e-cigarettes being there as a substitute for cigarettes," he said.

But Folan noted that even if young people are vaping rather than smoking, they're still being exposed to nicotine.

"Vaping is often perceived as a healthy alternative for teens and adults," she said. "However, for teens the exposure to nicotine can have an adverse effect on the developing brain and lead to lifelong addiction."

It also shouldn't be assumed that e-cigarettes are harmless, said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The vapor inhaled by users contains a wide array of chemicals.

"This is not a non-toxic thing to do, just because it's not burning paper and burning tobacco," Horovitz said. "There's nothing OK about vaping."

The study was published online Nov. 20 in the journal Tobacco Control.

Explore further New study is a smoking gun, shows vaping is no deterrent to teen tobacco use

More information: David Levy, Ph.D., professor, Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, D.C.; Patricia Folan, RN, DNP, director, Northwell Health Center for Tobacco Control, Great Neck, N.Y.; Len Horovitz, M.D., pulmonary specialist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Nov. 20, 2018, Tobacco Control, online David Levy, Ph.D., professor, Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, D.C.; Patricia Folan, RN, DNP, director, Northwell Health Center for Tobacco Control, Great Neck, N.Y.; Len Horovitz, M.D., pulmonary specialist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Nov. 20, 2018,, online The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more about upcoming e-cigarette regulations. Journal information: Tobacco Control

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The New York Mets released Jenrry Mejia on Tuesday afternoon despite a strong winter ball campaign for the Toros del Este in the Dominican Republic.

Mejia, 29, was given a conditional reinstatement in July that allowed him to pitch in two minor league games to close out the 2018 season. The move clears a potential 40-Man roster spot that he would have needed upon his return from the Commissioners Exempt List.

Mejia most recently threw four shut out innings for Toros del Este, in which he only gave up one hit, struck out four and walked nobody. He has a 3.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP in nine winter ball innings this season.

Mejias last stint in the major leagues came in 2015 with the Mets. For his major league career, the right-hander is 9-14 with 28 saves (all in 2014), 3.68 ERA and 1.48 WHIP in 183.1 innings.
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ARCHIVED - Fewer foreign tourists expected in Spain this year but more economic activity generated



81 million visitors are expected to spend 90,000 million euros in Spain this year

It has been confirmed by the Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel Oliver, that the forecast regarding foreign visitor numbers in Spain this year is for a slight decrease of 0.8 per cent to approximately 81 million.

The stagnation in visitor numbers has become apparent over the summer of 2018, and is thought to be the result of a combination of various factors: on the one hand, the dependence on the British market, which supplies well over 20 per cent of all foreign tourists, has contributed, due perhaps to Brexit and the devaluation of the pound against the euro over the last couple of years, while at the same time it is indisputable that the return of political stability to other Mediterranean destinations such as Egypt and Morocco has strengthened the competition.

But Sra Oliver, speaking at the 4th Shopping Tourism and Economy Summit in Madrid on Monday, also pointed out that the amount spent by visitors from abroad in Spain this year has increased, and by the end of December is expected to have reached 90,000 million euros (an increase of 3 per cent over the figure for 2017). This, she says, means that international tourism is still growing in Spain, and she also highlighted the need to view tourism as a sector of the economy rather than merely a demonstration of how attractive the country is as a holiday destination.

Image: Isabel Oliver being interviewed by Michael Reid of The Economist

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When additional radio frequency spectrum earmarked for 5G networks is licensed in South Africa, the aim is for cellular network operators to share it.

This is according to the Minister of Telecommunications, Siyabonga Cwele, who was answering questions from MyBroadband about how 5G spectrum would be licensed in South Africa.

Additionally, would a significant portion of it be given to the governments proposed wholesale open access network (WOAN), as Cweles department plans to do with 4G spectrum?

Cwele did not provide specifics, but confirmed that the spectrum will be shared. In line with his departments policy on 4G spectrum, where 5G spectrum is assigned to a single network operator, that operator will be obligated to offer wholesale open access to its network.

The minister reiterated his promise that the government has no intention of nationalising the spectrum already assigned to network operators. He also confirmed plans to license 5G spectrum as soon as the global regulatory environment for it has been agreed upon.

5G spectrum licensing debate

South Africa will begin licensing radio frequency spectrum for use in 5G networks as soon as the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) concludes next year in November.

The International Telecommunications Union will hold WRC-19 Egypt from 28 October to 22 November.

Among the discussions scheduled are the frequency bands to be used in the International Mobile Telephony 2020 (IMT2020) standard. IMT-2020 is also known as 5G.

11 frequency bands in the range from 24.25GHz to 86GHz are being studied for compatibility with existing radio communication services, and to determine the feasibility of using these frequency bands for IMT2020.

5G spectrum licences are expected to be issued in South Africa during 2020, which the department said will put the country in a position to be among the first in the world to offer 5G services.

However, Vodacom and MTN have stated that there is no need to wait to begin the process.

ICASA could begin by licensing radio frequencies in the 3.5GHz band, which is also suitable for 5G networks.

While various bands are being discussed and tested for 5G purposes, Vodacom said ICASA should set aside as much spectrum as possible which is underutilised or unallocated in the 3.3GHz to 3.8GHz bands, and invite operators to apply for it.

Rain recently unveiled a live 5G site on its network which runs on frequencies it had available in the 3.6GHz band.

Vodacom said that ICASA should also consider spectrum in the 26GHz band which is unallocated and underutilised.

4G spectrum deadlines

While the debate over the licensing of 5G spectrum continues, Cwele has committed to release spectrum that has been highly sought after for 4G networks.

Cwele aimed to license outstanding 4G and digital dividend spectrum by March 2019. However, the ministry later added that it hopes to conduct an auction for this high-demand spectrum in April.

The department said that when the assignment process kicks off, they plan to allocate spectrum in the 2.6GHz, 700MHz, and 800MHz frequency bands.

It is worth noting that the 700MHz and 800MHz bands will only be available when South Africa completes its migration from analogue to digital TV broadcasting.

The latest deadline for digital TV migration is June 2019.

Now read: Minister publishes CSIR spectrum report and draft Policy Direction
Liquid Telecom will expand its long-distance fibre route and metropolitan networks in South Africa, said the companys group CEO Nic Rudnick.

The announcement follows Liquid Telecoms unveiling of the availability of Microsofts Azure and Azure Stack suite of hybrid cloud services across its entire network footprint in Africa.

It also follows the company stating in July that it has signed an agreement with Telecom Egypt to complete construction of a terrestrial fibre network from Cape Town to Cairo.

Rudnick said that Liquid will continue to build out its fibre network across Africa, which is approaching 70,000km in length.

Of the 15 countries were in, were going to build in every single one of them, he said.

They will be focusing on builds in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and South Africa.

Big in SA

Earlier this year, Liquid Telecom reported that it had over 16,000km of fibre in South Africa  and its focus has been on its national and metro fibre routes, as well as business fibre services.

This is set to continue in 2019, said Rudnick.

The expansion of Liquid Telecoms fibre network will help it deliver cloud services more effectively throughout the regions it operates, he added.

The five regions where Liquid Telecom will offer Azure hybrid cloud services are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. More countries are scheduled to go live during 2019.

Clients will also be able to purchase cloud services in their local currencies and only pay for what they use.

In addition to expanding its fibre networks, Liquid Telecom will build out its data centre infrastructure. The aim is to increase the capacity of its data centres five-fold over the next five years, it said.

Now read: Liquid Telecom building fibre network from Cape Town to Cairo
Beringer has received two cease and desist orders from the St. Helena Planning Department concerning Las Alcobas Hotel. The first one was on Feb. 26, 2018 for utilizing the Beringer winery warehouse to store materials and other goods for their hotel operations. This is not allowed in the winery zoning.

The second one was on Aug. 15, 2018 for utilizing the Beringer winery property at 1000 Pratt Ave. to receive packages and deliveries for the hotel operations. This is also not allowed in the winery zone. The city council and planning commission did not do their homework when the Las Alcobas Hotel was approved.

Now the Las Alcobas Hotel is building a bridge from their property to the Beringer property on Main Street. Beringer owns the property behind the Las Alcobas hotel. Since these two business seem to be in bed with each other, Beringer could lease Las Alcobas enough property to park the 40-50 cars that are presently using the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This would be a more lasting solution to this parking problem.

This Beringer property already has an access road to Spring Mountain Road. It could be graveled and oiled to keep down the dust as well as the parking area. This road could also act as an emergency exit in case of fire or another type of emergency. The only thing Beringer would have to do is rezone this very small piece to accommodate the parking area.

Anthony Michelli

St. Helena

Editors Note: The Star reached out to Noah Housh, St. Helena planning director, Debra Dommen, vice president of Government and Industry Affairs for Beringer, and Guneet Bajwa, manager principal for Presidio Companies, which owns Las Alcobas. Bajwa did not respond to our request, but the responses from Housh and Dommen are printed below.

From Noah Housh:

Beringer is free to rent space off site, however it must be in a zoning district that permits such uses. We did issue violation letters and have confirmed these activities are no longer occurring.

Additionally: Las Alcobas was designed to meet all hotel development standards identified in the zoning code (including parking) and was built according to the approved plans.

Regarding Beringer leasing property to Las Alcobas for parking, Housh states, This would require Use Permit approval to modify what is allowed to occur on the Beringer property (similar to their unpermitted use of the warehouse above) and is likely not even able to be permitted due to the winery zoning of Beringer property.

For Beringer to rezone their property to accommodate the parking area, Housh responds: This would be a significant undertaking potentially involving CEQA due to creek proximity and a 'partial rezone' as referenced is an equally significant undertaking, potentially involving a General Plan amendment (also requiring CEQA) and may be illegal if classified as 'spot zoning.'"

From Debra Dommen:

Earlier this year, Beringer did receive two separate code compliance letters. One in reference to leasing our warehouse to Las Alcobas for their storage needs and the other for leasing office space. Shortly thereafter, we were made aware that our efforts were not compliant with our use permits and we immediately made plans for them to vacate our buildings. Our intent in leasing the space was to be a good neighbor and to isolate daily truck traffic, minimizing traffic impacts in St. Helena.

As an agricultural business, we have no interest in rezoning land from agricultural to commercial and remain committed to being a good community member and neighbor.
I am writing today to convince you and anyone who reads this to see refugees like I do. My entire school read the book Refugee for our Napa County Reads yearly book. It's really awesome to be able to read and take home a book, especially when each and every student receives one to keep. We read and annotated while discussing the problems and solutions of refugees. It was really moving and made me think, made me imagine.

Imagine being a mother, living in a dangerous country, scared for your children's safety. Imagine deciding that you and your family will uproot everything and walk, walk to the promised land: America. This idea of America is enticing to these refugees. Refugees feel that they will be safe there, can start a new, successful life. There are 22.5 million of these hopeful refugees today. If you really think about it, refugees are people who did nothing to deserve the treatment they're given. Refugees are people who need a new home. There's even refugees in Wine Country, where we feel far from global problems like these. You are in a unique position to help these refugees -- you have the power to make the difference. If you do something to help, you could be one of the people trying to stop the problem.

You may not believe me. You may ask, why should I listen to such a young writer  someone who can't even vote yet? I'll tell you why: I am the next generation. I am the future.

The future is where we solve this problem, but we can help now as well. Right now, in fact. We all can help displaced people and refugees by donating to organizations like the UNHCR  the UN Refugee Agency, or UNICEF. Both are agencies that use our donations to provide food and clean, fresh water to refugees and displaced families. With your money, these people can go out and help these refugees who need our support.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope now you will be able to see refugees the way I do, and know that you can help them. You can be the one to save the little boy on the raft crossing the unforgiving Mediterranean, just hoping he makes the night.

Samantha Pecota, student

Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School
Imagine a child lost in a crowd of refugees looking for their parents and unable to find them -- this is similar to what refugees experience while leaving their country. I am writing today to convince you to try to help refugees. If you think about it, refugees are people who leave their countries because of reasons related to war, and you are in a unique position to send the news out to help refugees. You have the power to get people  the helpful people  to help refugees.

You may ask yourself, why should I listen to this random student? However, you should listen to me because my class has spent considerable time reading about and studying the refugee crisis. You should listen to me because I may be young, but my generation is the future -- later it will be up to us to take care of refugees. Furthermore, you should listen to me because I know a lot about the refugee crisis.

Think about the refugees who are still living in places that are dirty and hard to live in. Think about how they look at the houses as they walk down the streets of towns and think of how nice it would be to live in those houses. There are approximately 25 million refugees worldwide. If you get the word out, you could help ameliorate the problem.

In conclusion: Help us send the word out. Thank you for taking your time to read my request. Please search your heart and help the refugee crisis be solved.

Silvio Nadalie, student

Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School
Desiree Borden thought she had time to pack her things. But a friend called to say the Camp Fire in Paradise was barreling toward her home in Paradise and would be at her doorstep in a matter of minutes. Borden and her husband grabbed their toddler, their dogs and raced out with the sad resignation that their home would burn to the ground.

A few hours later, Borden got a Facebook message from someone she didnt know: I know this is random, it read. Is your house at . . . Chloe Court in paradise?

Borden replied: Yes. Is it gone. Are you ok?

Then the response came: We got trapped there. It saved our life.

Borden was momentarily confused.

The sender, nurse Crissy Foster, explained: Our ambulance caught fire and we used your garage to keep our patients until we could get to safety. . . . Your garage is a safe haven!

Borden replied: I have chills all over my body! I am so happy my home saved you!

It turned out that in an act of desperation, a paramedic had broken into Bordens home that day, Nov. 8, through a doggie door. The ambulance crew then loaded three patients into the garage. They were joined by others, and ultimately 13 people took refuge from the fire.

Bordens home was the only one in sight that miraculously had not caught fire, and the medical staff and patientsincluding a woman who had just had a C-Sectionhuddled in Bordens garage as fire rained down around them, said Tamara Ferguson, one of the nurses in the group.

It was unfathomable how fast the fire was moving, there was no way out, Ferguson said. The safest thing to do was wait right there.

The medical staff had escaped with some patients from Feather River Hospital in Paradise that morning in two ambulances with little time to spare. The ambulances were on a narrow road heading away from the fire, looking for a safe route out of town.

Just when they thought the situation couldnt get worse, it did.

They were about a mile from the hospital at 9:15 a.m. when the ambulance in front of Ferguson broke down from the thick smoke, then started to melt.

We were behind them. There was nowhere we could go, Ferguson said. We turned at the closest cul-de-sac and we found the one house that was not on fire. We had to break into it.

One of them, Ferguson didnt know who, crawled into the doggie door, then opened the garage door from the inside.

They quickly unloaded the three patients and settled them in the garage.

Ferguson said she was sure she was going to die.

I made phone calls to my family and said goodbye, she said.

But Paradise Fire Chief David Hawks found them and swiftly gave everyone orders, likely saving their lives. Everyone did as he said. Some people climbed onto the roof with hoses, others cleared pine needles from gutters.

There was fire all around us, the house next door to us was on fire, Ferguson said. He told us what to do. He was like, You, go get brush. You, spray down the roof. We all worked together.

The group of 13 people, including three patients, nurses and a pediatrician, hunkered down in the garage for two hours, waiting for the fast-moving flames to pass. Medical staff and fire fighters continued to clear brush and try to keep the house safe. Finally, a sheriffs van pulled up and the whole group piled in, heading to a different hospital several miles away. Everyone was fine.

It turned out that all the patients and staff had safely evacuated from Feather River Hospital that morning, but the building was badly burned.

Once the nurses returned to safety, Foster sent the Facebook message to Borden. She found her by searching Borden on Facebook, and took a guess she had the correct one based on the name on the mailbox.

Borden said she was in utter shock when she got the message.

I was not just in shock that our house made it, but that those people were able to be safe there, she said.

Just earlier that day, she had driven out of Paradise watching things burn all around her.

We drove away thinking the house is gone, she said. Things were on fire right next to us. Some things got spared and others didnt, theres no rhyme or reason to it. Its so scary.

As for Ferguson, her house in the nearby town of Chico is fine. But she has 14 relatives and close friends staying with her because their homes were claimed by the flames. She wrote her dramatic story about the garage incident in a Facebook post the day after it happened, saying I will forever be changed by yesterday as so many thousands of others are, but not by what was physically lost, but the reminder that life changes quickly.

Borden, also, reflected on the situation emphasizing that more than 80 people are confirmed dead and at least 1,200 more are missing. She wants to let people know that amid the horrors, there were also stories of hopelike her house becoming a safe haven for people in dire need.

I saw our whole town burning down, Borden said I needed to share something positive.
Fire crews are still working to contain the deadly inferno that leveled the town of Paradise, virtually wiping it off the map. Thousands of people are homeless, living in tents, trailers and parking lots. Dozens are dead. Hundreds are still missing.

While rain before Thanksgiving is expected to clear away the smoke and mercifully reduce fire danger, this weather change is tempered by a grim reality. Scientists say as temperatures continue to warm, drying out brush, grasses and trees into explosively flammable fuel by late summer and autumn, catastrophic fires and the unhealthy smoke they spew hundreds of miles away will almost certainly become more frequent in California and across the West in the coming years.

Climate change is not the cause of these fires, said Park Williams, a climate scientist at Columbia Universitys LamontDoherty Earth Observatory in New York. But the warmer atmosphere is causing most fires to be harder to contain. They are burning bigger and hotter.

The numbers are stark. California has warmed roughly 3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1980 during the autumn months of September, October and November. Rainfall in those months has fallen by about one-third over the same time. And the result has been a state increasingly on fire.

From 1980 to 1990, roughly 300,000 to 400,000 acres a year burned in California. Last year, 1.4 million acres burned. This year, so far, 1.8 million acres _ an area six times the city of Los Angeles _ of federal, state and private land has been incinerated. Similar trends are afoot in other Western states.

We dont even say fire season any more. Its year round, said Scott McLean, deputy chief of Cal Fire, the states primary firefighting agency. The climate change we are dealing with is related to that.

Put another way, 15 of the 20 largest fires in California history have occurred since 2000. Four of the five largest have happened since 2012. And the two all-time biggest in terms of acres burned _ the Mendocino Complex Fire centered in Lake County this summer and the Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties last December _ both happened in the last 12 months.

Were in a new abnormal, a grim Gov. Jerry Brown said at a news conference to discuss the Paradise disaster. Things like this will be part of our future. Things like this and worse.

Even Ryan Zinke, the Department of the Interior secretary in the Trump administration, which has been skeptical of climate science, conceded the changing conditions on Wednesday during a visit to Paradise.

Zinke said he did not want to finger point and said there were multiple reasons for the worsening fires. But those include the fact that fire seasons have gotten longer and the temperatures have gotten hotter, Zinke said.

The climate is warming because burning fossil fuels traps heat in the atmosphere. The 10 hottest years on Earth since modern temperature records began in 1880 all have occurred since 1998, according to NASA and NOAA. But climate change is not the only reason for the growth in wildfires, scientists and firefighters say.

Centuries ago, lightning and Native Americans clearing land burned more acres a year than are burning now in California. But those fires were mostly low-intensity affairs, helping clear dead underbrush. Today, because fire crews have put out blazes for generations, many forests have so much dead and living vegetation that they often explode out of control, wiping out large trees and seeds.

More than a century ago, it was not uncommon for whole towns to burn down. The 1871 Peshtigo Fire killed about 1,500 people in Wisconsin and Michigan, with so many fatalities that there werent enough survivors in some communities to identify the dead. The Great Fire of 1910 burned 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana, killing 86 and sending smoke plumes to New York. Afterward, the U.S. Forest Service set a policy of putting out fires by 10 a.m. the next morning, and radios, helicopters, planes and other equipment improved safety dramatically over the generations.

But now, with hotter, larger fires growing ever more intense in a warming world, creating fire tornadoes and walls of flame hundreds of feet tall, whole towns could again burn down, fire experts say.

This is the kind of urban conflagration Americans thought they had banished in the early 20th century, wrote Stephen Pyne, an Arizona State University fire historian, last week, of the Paradise disaster. Its like watching measles or polio return.

Earlier this year, California lawmakers passed a bill that promises $1 billion in state funding over the next five years in grants to cities, counties, fire departments and nonprofit groups to thin overgrown forests around towns, cut fuel breaks and conduct controlled burns to restore some natural balance.

Scott Stephens, a fire scientist at UC Berkeley, has estimated that the state and federal government will need to increase such thinning and controlled burning tenfold from current levels to make a difference. That will cost billions of dollars.

Another challenge is population growth.

From 1990 to 2010, there was a 41 percent increase in the number of houses in Americas wild land-urban interface _ the area where homes and forests meet, and where wildfire problems are most pronounced, according to a study last year led by the University of Wisconsin. One in three Americans now lives in those fire-prone areas.

Add to that Californias 2012-2017 drought, which killed 129 million trees, mostly in the Sierra Nevada and its foothills. That left enormous amounts of dead vegetation, primed to burn.

McLean, of Cal Fire, said the solution going forward must be more vigilance. More education campaigns to teach people how to create defensible space around their homes. More forest thinning. More controlled burns. More escape route drills. More firefighting equipment.

Others say that tougher building codes are needed. Some suggest burying power lines, which cause many of Californias worst fires. But that costs 10 times as much as stringing them on poles. And there are 176,000 miles of power lines in California.

While 3 degrees of warming in the past 40 years might not seem like a lot, it makes a big difference in the moisture levels of plants, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. Moisture levels in vegetation across California remain today at some of the lowest levels ever recorded, even as autumn wind conditions increase fire risk.

Normally, by mid-November, the ground and the vegetation is damp. So sparks from cars, power lines and campfires have a difficult time growing into large fires, Swain noted. But increasingly, the storms that once soaked California have been blocked in the fall and spring months because of ridges of high pressure in the Pacific Ocean. Some scientists are tying those ridiculously resilient ridges to changes driven by melting sea ice in the Arctic.

Unfortunately, the later and later extent of the fire season into autumn is something we are going to have to cope with, Swain said. We are already starting to see it. We didnt really get major wildfires into November and December before, but we are now. This really is a new thing.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
OXNARD -- Smoke stung his eyes and throat, but Santiago said his supervisor told workers to go faster because ash from the wildfires could wreck the produce.

As public health officials urged people to stay inside, Santiago remained bent in the field. No one gave hima protective mask against the dangerous air quality, he said.

"They don't care about our health," said the 34-year-old farmworker in muddy jeans, who spoke on a first-name-only basis because he is undocumented.

"They just care about the strawberries."

A sharp increase in wildfires, heat waves, and other climate-fueled disasters has added urgency to California's efforts at employee protection, especially for the most vulnerable: low-income and undocumented workers on the state's sprawling farms.

The California Labor Federation, which represents some 2.1 million workers, said it is pressing for tougher legislation aimed at protecting those most at risk, such as farmworkers.

"We're most concerned about farmworkers, construction workers and others in low-wage industries that might not have scrupulous employers and are vulnerable to exploitation," said federation spokesman Steve Smith.

State law requires employers to provide protective gear to outdoor workers during wildfires.

Sheriff's deputies wore protective masks as they helped residents evacuate and maintained order during the Hill and Woolsey fires in Ventura County, said Garo Kuredjian, a captain with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Companies are also required to train employees how to wear the gear - typically N95 disposable face masks - and regularly check on their safety.

But the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project and the Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy - both groups that serve California migrant workers - said only some field managers followed those rules to their fullest extent, exposing many of the roughly 36,000 farmworkers in the area affected by the wildfires to the dangerous air. Organizers said they visited 25 area farms last week and saw workers without protective covering at practically all of them.

In interviews with The Washington Post, workers and supervisors in the strawberry fields described a patchwork of measures - including shortened hours and partial access to protective masks - to deal with the air quality threat.

When Ventura County declared a health emergency Nov. 13, closing schools and warning residents to keep their windows shut and avoid outdoor exercise, photographers captured pickers still bent between dense rows of strawberry plants.

The fires released potentially hazardous levels of particulate matter over Ventura County's strawberry fields at least three times over the last 10 days, according to the local Air Pollution Control District.

The risk increases the longer workers are outside - particularly if they already have heart or lung disease.

"Factors to keep in mind are physical exertion while outdoors, the amount of time spent outdoors and preexisting medical conditions," said Frank Polizzi, public information officer for the state's Department of Industrial Relations.

Cal/OSHA would not immediately say how many employers it has cited for failing to protect workers this year during the wildfires.

Mallory Ham, manager of the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District's monitoring division, said outdoor work on even the most moderate smoke days could pose a risk.

"The wind can carry smoke a certain way to where certain workers are - and we could miss that," Ham said. "Smoke rolls into the ocean and circulates back into the coastal plain where the most of the strawberry farms are."

Some strawberry pickers told The Washington Post they went to work wearing the face masks recommended by authorities or covered their mouths with bandannas. Others said they rejected what they saw as itchy, damp facepieces.

Santiago's company did not distribute respirators, he said, so he brought a black fleece winter mask to work.

"I want to go to a doctor," he said, speaking through a translator in Mixteco, an indigenous language from southern Mexico. "I want to ask about the longer-term effect on my health, but I can't afford it."

Rob Roy, general counsel for Ventura County Agricultural Association, which represents dozens of enterprises in the area, disputed claims that pickers were not offered adequate protection.

"There were only two days when the winds shifted that a couple of production areas may have been impacted," he said in an email.

Advocacy groups that raised concerns online have exaggerated the threat, he said, "They were just looking free publicity and soliciting funding on Facebook making it appear that they were helping farmworkers."

Other employers said they took additional action to protect workers. One Camarillo field manager, Juan Gonzalez, said on a smoky day last week, he let the workers go after four-and-a-half hours. "They didn't need masks," he said. "It wasn't that bad."

Some workers in other fields said their companies did distribute disposable masks - but did not make it clear the coverings should be tossed out after a day of use.

Gabriela, a mother of five who spoke on a first-name-only basis because she is undocumented, said her employer gave her just one disposable mask to last the week.

"For three days the smoke was so bad - it looked like a big storm was coming," she said.

After one shift, her mask was too sweaty and dirty to wear, she said. It was hard to breathe.

She pulled a bandanna over her face, took Tylenol for her headaches and drank cinnamon tea with lemon to soothe her throat.

"Still I was so dizzy," she said, "but what can I do? I have to feed my kids."

Halting the strawberry harvest during the fires wasn't realistic, advocates said, because pickers lose income - an average of $11 an hour, California's minimum wage - for every day they miss in the field.

An estimated 60 percent of pickers in Ventura County are undocumented, according to the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, which makes them especially vulnerable to labor abuses.

Many speak indigenous languages and don't know who to trust if they do try to lodge a complaint.

During the fires, workers said they experienced sore eyes, upset stomachs, headaches and dizziness.

Worsening the problem, former government officials say, is a scarcity of oversight at Cal-OSHA. The state's worker protection agency employs just 210 field inspectors in a state with roughly 200,000 farmworkers, according to the latest data from California Employment Development Department.

Cal/OSHA also lacks inspectors who speak Mixtecan languages that are dominant among the thousands of pickers from Oaxaca, some of whom struggle to understand Spanish, said Ellen Widess, who led the agency from 2011 to 2013.

"Wildfires just exacerbate the long-standing lack of protections for farmworkers," she said.

The strawberry industry's complicated structuremakes it easy for the people in power to blame each other.

Many California farms are small enterprises that hire workers through labor contractors and funnel strawberries to larger distributors, such as Driscoll's, Giant and Naturipe Farms.

Driscoll sent employees to meet with each of its growers in Ventura County to run through safety procedures, the company said in a statement.

"We provided our growers with N95 masks to distribute to workers in accordance with Cal/OSHA guidelines," the company said.

But many farmworkers still report to advocates that they feel overlooked.

"What happens often is everybody along the supply chain points their finger in the other direction and refuses to take responsible for how farmworkers are treated," said Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit focused on migrant laborers. "The burden falls on the farmworkers."

The strawberry production schedule is relentless, regardless of the air quality, said Patricia Frausto, development director at the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project.

"Most farms seem to keep their workers in the field and speed up productive to keep their crop from being damaged," she said.

In one Oxnard field, Filiberto, 41, who also speaks only Mixteco, said he watched his supervisor drop off a box of masks last week but could not understand what he was saying.

The picker wasn't sure if he was allowed to take one, he said, so he wrapped a Mexican flag bandanna over his nose and mouth.

A supervisor forced him to take three unpaid days off during the Thomas fire last year when he expressed concern about air quality, Filiberto said.

Now the Oaxaca native said he's faced with a dilemma: Few other places hire undocumented workers, but he dreads picking strawberries through another blaze.

"My eyes burn," he said. "My throat is irritated. I know we should leave, that it's not good for us to be here."
In the first few hours after the midterm election, I saw the result as a rebuke rather than a repudiation of President Donald Trump. But two weeks later it appears to be more of a repudiation than it had appeared at first blush.

True, some high-profile Democrats were defeated, notably Beto O'Rourke in Texas, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida, and Democrats lost one or two seats in the Senate. But they won Republican-held Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada to go along with a special-election victory in Alabama, and they gained at least 37 House seats - their biggest pickup since the 1974 post-Watergate election. At the state level, Democrats won seven governor's offices and roughly 250 state legislative seats, taking control of seven chambers in six states.

With his typical tendency to evade responsibility, Trump now says, "My name wasn't on the ballot." His motto might as well be: The buck stops somewhere else. But the president was closer to the truth when he declared before the election: "I am on the ticket, because this is also a referendum about me."

As Ron Brownstein noted in the Atlantic, exit polls show that midterm voters disapproved of Trump by 54 percent to 45 percent - and "fully 90 percent of Trump disapprovers said they voted for Democrats for the lower chamber." Nate Silver estimates that 60 million people voted for Democrats, compared with the 45 million votes Republicans received in their 2010 wave election.

Trump's xenophobic closing argument, highlighted by hysteria over the migrant caravan in Mexico, shored up Republican candidates in rural areas but contributed to a GOP wipeout in suburban districts. Maricopa County, Arizona, centered on Phoenix, was the most populous county in the United States that Trump won in 2016. On Nov. 6, it supported Democrat Kyrsten Sinema for the Senate.

Tarrant County, Texas, which includes Fort Worth, was the second-most-populous county to go for Trump in 2016. It supported Democrat O'Rourke for the Senate. Even more dramatic is the fact that Orange County, California, the birthplace of Richard Nixon and of the modern conservative movement, is for the first time since the 1930s represented entirely by Democrats in the House.

These shifts came about because women, the young, minorities, the college-educated and independents deserted the GOP in droves. The percentage of women with a college degree voting for the Democrats went from 51 percent in the 2016 presidential race to 59 percent in the 2018 congressional race, according to Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg. He points out that even among white working-class men - Trump's core constituency - Republican support declined from 71 percent in 2016 to 66 percent in 2018. Even some of these Trump voters must have noticed that he hasn't revived smokestack industries or built a border wall.

The most gratifying results for me, as a Trump critic from the center-right, was to see moderate Republicans voting for Democratic candidates. Conservative analyst Henry Olson writes, "Across the nation, moderate college-educated independents who had frequently backed Republicans in prior elections switched sides." Greenberg reports that "40 percent of moderate Republicans either voted Democratic or stayed home." Turns out we #NeverTrumpers are not as inconsequential as pro-Trumpers claim.

The shift was particularly dramatic in Arizona. In 2012, Mitt Romney crushed Barack Obama among college graduates in Arizona, 63-36 percent. This year, Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally lost college graduates, 47-52 percent. Olson says these RINOs (Republicans in name only) provided Sinema's margin of victory.

Here's an ominous statistic for Republicans concerned about their party's future: The share of Democratic support among under-30 voters increased from 55 percent in the 2016 presidential race to 67 percent in this year's congressional election. Here's another: The Democratic margin among Latinos grew from 26 percentage points in the 2014 midterm election to 40 percentage points in 2018.

Republicans have become the party of grumpy old white people who live in rural areas and lack college degrees. Trump managed to squeeze a narrow electoral-college margin out of those voters in 2016. It is possible that, with his demagogic skills, he can do so again in 2020. But the writing is on the wall for the GOP, because every year there are more minorities, more college graduates and more residents of suburban or urban areas. The entire country will no longer be majority white by the 2040s. With Trump in the pilot's seat, the national Republican Party is in a demographic death spiral.

If you want to see the fate that will befall the GOP if it continues to blindly follow Trump, look at the California Republican Party. It took a tough anti-immigrant line in the 1990s under Gov. Pete Wilson. Today the GOP has all but ceased to exist in the nation's most populous state. Not a single statewide elected officeholder is a Republican, Democrats won supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature, and Republicans now will control only eight of 53 House seats. As goes California, so goes the country? The self-centered president doesn't care, because he will leave the White House in 2021 or 2025 at the latest, but his Republican enablers will be left to wander, like victims of a firestorm, through the smoking ruins he leaves behind. They can't say they weren't warned.

Max Boot, a Washington Post columnist, is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a global affairs analyst for CNN. He is the author of The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right."
Now we know that Democrats really did ride a blue wave on Nov. 6 to take control of the House of Representatives. Lets see if they can avoid getting dragged underwater by a messy election of party leaders.

More than a score of House Democrats, including a dozen of the newly elected members, have said they wouldnt support Nancy Pelosi of California for speaker. The problem is that there is no electable alternative who has the skill and toughness to navigate the challenges the party faces with its tenuous majority.

And thats a problem in itself; the three top Democratic House leaders are 78, 79 and 78 years old, a team that would make for a strange symbol of party vitality after a change election.

African-Americans and Latinos like New Mexicos Ben Lujan, who ran the partys campaign committee, deserve to be represented in the leadership. With a quarter of the caucus consisting of freshmen, the sclerotic seniority system should be altered.

A new speaker will be elected by the full House in January. This month, the party must make its choices, and will need a united front going into the speakers election. Since she wont get any Republican votes in a House where Democrats will have about a 232-203 edge, Pelosi cant afford to lose many more than a dozen votes on her side of the aisle.

There is a way around this conundrum, though getting to it would require unusual skill by a swing group that could lay down these conditions:

Pelosi would agree to step down from the speakers chair after two years. In the meantime, there will be no diminution of her authority. Other top slots would be filled by younger members such as Cheri Bustos of Illinois and Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts.

There should be a class-of-2018 member in one of top six or seven positions. The younger leaders would be the public face of House Democrats. Think of the representatives in two categories: indoor politicians, who are superb vote counters and legislative tacticians, and outdoor ones, the effective communicators.

In more than four decades writing about the House, Ive never seen a better indoor politician than Pelosi. But shes not so good outdoors. (Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York, whos about to turn 68, also is a better indoor than outdoor politician.)

Nancy has incredible strengths as a leader that no one else has, said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served with her in the House for six years and as White House chief of staff worked with her to push through the Affordable Care Act. We also need younger voices on those shows and responding to Trump.

Enact term limits for committee chairs. This was the only constructive change enacted by Republican Newt Gingrich when he became speaker in 1995.This plan would create its own problems. For example, the 78-year-old Pelosi could lose effectiveness if she were a lame-duck speaker. In her case, though, thats a risk worth taking; shes exceptionally tough and effective and is likely to remain a force in the party after 2020.

The second- and third-ranking Democratic leaders, Marylands Steny Hoyer, 79, and 78-year-old James Clyburn of South Carolina, are distinguished lawmakers who cant just be cast aside. Hoyer should be awarded a major committee chair or other significant designation.

Clyburn is part of the Congressional Black Caucus, which loves the seniority system that has benefited many of its members. But hes never going to become speaker and should make way for younger African-American leaders for whom thats a real possibility, like Hakeem Jeffries of New York or Karen Bass of California.

Clyburn could be given a select committee to lead a much-needed examination of voter suppression, a problem created by Republicans who have put roadblocks to voting in front of some important Democratic constituencies in the name of fighting nonexistent voter fraud. Fraud could even be on the select committees agenda.

There are three ways for Democrats to resolve their critical first test, and two of them would make a mess. In a year when their House delegation has a record number of women, they could dump the first female speaker for an untested leader. Thats a terrible idea.

Or they could apply heavy pressure, including from contributors, and use gimmicks to let Pelosi eke out a victory. That approach would hurt some of the impressive new members from marginal districts, like Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens of Michigan, Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, and Max Rose of New York.

Even if these newcomers keep their commitment to vote against Pelosi, they would be exposed to the Republican refrain: We told you if you voted for the Democrats it would be back to the old order.

Or theres the sensible middle ground that keeps a remarkably skilled leader in place  shes especially good at dealing with perpetual liberal discontent  while shaking up the system and developing possible future speakers who communicate well with voters.

Keeping the status-quo team of Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn along with some less talented senior members who are angling for other leadership positions would be a gift to Republicans.

Albert R. Hunt is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. He was the executive editor of Bloomberg News, before which he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor at the Wall Street Journal.
Armenian PM: Remains of Vano Siradeghyan will be transferred to Armenia soon

Armenian PM: 40-45 square kilometer territories of Armenia under Azerbaijani control after Azerbaijan's May 12 attack

Armenia premier says what the heaviest blow was during his term of office, adds that it's not the defeat in the war

Armenia PM: I had planned to deliver a message on circumstances of war and negotiations on Nov. 9

PM: Armenia decides road through which communication between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan will be ensured

Armenia PM: Karabakh conflict settlement and unblocking of communications shouldn't be discussed in '3+3' format

Pashinyan fails to clearly state whether Armenia applied to Russia and CSTO in writing in regard to Nov. 16 attack

Armenia PM: Azerbaijan is trying to turn the region into a jungle

Pashinyan: Armenia and Azerbaijan recognized each other's territorial integrity when they acceded to CIS in 1991

Pashinyan: If government of Armenia was a giver, there wouldn't be shootings

Armenia PM: 32 servicemen were captured on Nov. 16, according to unverified information

PM: It's the first time that direct communication is established between Armenian and Azerbaijani defense ministers

Armenian premier: Armenia will not give in to that policy of blackmail

Armenia PM answers question about online meeting with Azerbaijani leader on Nov. 9

Armenia PM on upcoming meetings with Azerbaijan President in Brussels and Sochi

Azerbaijani plane flies from Nakhchivan to Baku through Armenia's airspace (PHOTOS)

Armenia PM is giving a press conference

Armenian demining experts demine 2,000,000 square meters of territory in Damascus along with UNMAS

Armenia opposition movement holding march in Yerevan, calling on citizens to join

NEWS.am daily digest: 23.11.21

Russian analyst: Karabakh's regions under Azerbaijan's control are becoming a serious problem for Aliyev

Stepanakert: Azerbaijan intends to create terrorists training centers in Karabakhs territories

Iran and Georgia hold talks on creation of Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor

Israeli FM demands Turkey to close offices of Hamas movement

Opposition MP: Situation in Armenia's judiciary is impacting security issues

Armenia PM calls UN Under-Secretary-General's attention to facts of destruction of Armenian heritage

Ruling party MP: If Russia's proposals are acceptable for Armenian premier, they are in Armenia's interests

Putin, Pashinyan and Aliyev to hold talks in Sochi on November 26

Armenia Ombudsman: Baku's Armenophobia is policy aimed at maintaining hostility between two peoples around the world

Karabakh National Security Service: Citizen gets lost, in territory under Azerbaijani control, taken into custody

ECHR awards  5,000 each to judges detained in Turkey after 2016 putsch

American Center of US Embassy in Yerevan sends more than 5,000 Armenian library items to United States

Iranian Ambassador to Turkey: Iran supports '3+3' regional format

Azerbaijan MOD thanks Turkish ASELSAN's CEO for equipment used during war against Karabakh

Armenia MOD receives Russia Ambassador and embassy's Defense Attache

MFA: Armenia has informed Moscow about its willingness to normalize relations with Turkey without preconditions

UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues calls US a nation of paradoxes

Armenian parliamentary commission honors memory of soldier who died yesterday

Alen Simonyan briefs Gerard Larcher over continuing aggressive behavior of Azerbaijan

China and Russia are discussing details of Putin's possible visit to Beijing Olympics

Yerevan court rejects motion to apply to Constitutional Court due to lack of procedures for overcoming MP's immunity

Criminal case initiated into death of Armenian soldier

Employee of Norabak village council on exchange of fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan, issue of wounded soldiers

Russian peacekeepers donate humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh

Coronavirus in Armenia: 48 new deaths

116 million AMD assistance to minors with disabilities in Shirak Province from Mikayel Vardanyan

Armenian soldier who died in Armenia's Gegharkunik Province was Yezdi by nationality, was in army for a year

Taliban want to establish 'fraternal' ties with Turkey

Letter addressed to UN Security Council President about Azerbaijani attack published as SC official document

Armenia, India to end process of mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccination certificates soon

Syrian mercenaries who fought on Azerbaijani side during 44-day war complaining about not having received 'salaries'

Armenia Ombudsman: Videos about captured Armenian servicemen being explored, translated from Azerbaijani and identified

Armenia National Academy of Sciences Physiology Institute wins Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's grant

Armenian MFA on news about Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting

Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker receives ARF-D Lebanon Central Committee member Hagop Pakradouni

Armenia MOD: Conscript dies after Azerbaijani soldier's gunshot fired in Gegharkunik Province

Did the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan speak about 'the liberated territories'?

Armenia PM appoints new head of Vedi village

Armenian army's General Staff chief holds working consultation, presents current situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia Deputy PM receives Eurasian Economic Union's minister in charge of integration and macroeconomics

Armenia's new Ambassador to Iran presents credentials to FM

Aysor.am: Armenia MOD: Exchange of fire began near Norabak village on border with Azerbaijan

Ambassador to Baku: United States makes persistent efforts for Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders' tete-a-tete meeting

Azerbaijan's special detachment soldiers conducting exercises under Turkish specialists' supervision in Nakhchivan

Armenian movement leader: If Armenian parliamentary opposition can't do anything, why is it in parliament?

Armenia MP to protesters: Our sovereign territories can't be transferred illegally and behind people's backs

Armenian military servicemen score medals at championship in Iran

Iranian FM, Azerbaijani Deputy PM discuss situation in Caucasus

Karabakh emergency situations service: Remains of another serviceman found in Varanda region

Armenia Parliament Speaker meets with French Senate President Richard Ferrand

Yerevan protesters demand to declassify content of Armenian-Azerbaijani document

G7 FMs to discuss human rights protection issue in Liverpool

Exchange rates in Armenia

Level of Armenia's Lake Sevan drops by 2 cm in one week

Armenia is interested in Russia's Ka-52M and Mi-28NE attack helicopters

Azerbaijan President invites South Korean companies to work in Nagorno-Karabakh's occupied territories

Opposition 'Armenia' faction MP: Azerbaijanis built customs terminal in Nakhchivan, will try to obtain road

Armenia PM, Belarus President hold phone talks

Syria Ambassador to Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker: Turkey's actions are fully targeted against regional stability

Armenia applies to ECHR for ensuring fundamental rights of Armenian soldiers captured on Nov. 16

Armenian Ombudsman presents Azerbaijani aggression facts to US Congressman Adam Schiff

More than 40 people killed in heavy rains in southeastern India

Opposition 'Armenia' faction MP Armen Charchyan greeted with applause in courtroom

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
The states first case of dengue fever this year has been confirmed in Miami-Dade County, health officials have reported.

The most common symptoms of the mosquito-borne virus are fever and one or more of the following symptoms: headache; eye pain (typically behind the eyes); muscle, joint, or bone pain; rash; nausea and vomiting; or unusual bleeding (nose or gum bleed, small red spots under the skin, or unusual bruising).

There is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat the illness. Symptoms usually lasts 4 to 7 days, according to the Florida Department of Health.

Miami-Dade has reported 21 cases of dengue fever during the past decade, with Broward County reporting four cases during that same span.

It is a big public health concern that we have dengue, said vector-borne specialist John Beier, professor and director of the Division of Environment and Public Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. People need to be informed and take precautions.

Beier tells us what we need to know about the virus:

What type of mosquito spreads dengue fever, and what precautions should people take?

Dengue is spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. People need to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes, and as much as possible, they should remove standing water outdoors around their homes.

Can an infected person pass along dengue fever to another person through sexual contact?

No

South Florida experiences almost year-round hot and humid weather. Do we need to take precautions against dengue fever throughout the year, and can mosquitoes that carry dengue survive even when our weather cools down?

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are present year-round in Miami-Dade County. Populations decrease a lot due to colder temperatures in the winter. From December through March, the mosquitoes are present at lower levels. Nevertheless, people should take precautions throughout the year.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito can also spread the Zika virus. Miami-Dade experienced an uptick in Zika cases a couple years ago. Do we now have it under control, and if so, to what do you attribute the decline in infection rates in our county?

After the 2016 Zika outbreak here, Miami Dade Mosquito Control upgraded mosquito control operations. Zika died out in the Americas, so we do not have so many imported cases from travelers. Better mosquito control and the much lower number of imported cases is the reason why we no longer see local Zika transmission.
IS-linked Group Accuses Media of Obfuscating Cause of California Wildfires, Motives Behind Attacks in Europe
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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.

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Make it Right. The irony.

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yiiiiikes this is nagl

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You got more money than you can ever spend. How's about you own up to what you didn't do.

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If you put yourself front and centre in the publicity of something, then you should wear some of the consequences when it goes wrong.



What a shitbag - as if he couldnt afford to pay to fix all those houses without even feeling it.

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For sure. I saw on some gossip rag site that he got a bunch of stuff for the kids all around his house (skate park, bouncy house thing, etc) just to one up Angelina in the custody battle. He sounds like trash. He has no integrity. What kind of asshole does a PR campaign like a white savior around him giving these people homes and then runs when they aren't constructed correctly?

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claims it was not his responsibility to make sure the homes were properly built



damn what a harsh af statement



You're the founder of a company that builds roofs over the heads of people who have lost their homes and yet shrug with OH YOU WANTED A LIVABLE, SUSTAINABLE PIECE OF ARCHITECTURE I didnt know it was that serious.

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THIS

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Ah yes being charitable in the name of tax breaks and vanity and then when shit hits the fan, ya bounce.



Fuck this Dollar Tree Robert Redford

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You should have just sat there and ate your romaine salad, brad.

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My whole family is sick RN from that shit. Im the only one who is fine bc I hate lettuce.

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I'm not a lawyer, but this makes sense to me? If someone has a legal complaint against my nonprofit I don't think it would make sense for the executive director, or me, or whoever to be named in the suit unless we somehow were personally involved.





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This is the same charity that didn't even bother to look if the name "Make It Right" was trademarked before launching. (It was) Oversight and attention to detail has never been their strong suit.

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Isn't the trademark owned by Mike Holmes, the house building dude?

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Yes and Brad just started using it without checking to see if it was available.

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but isn't architecture his official pretentious actor hobby

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Okay Im now firmly #TeamAngelina fuck brad...flighty bitch

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He is not requesting that Make It Right be let off the hook, but only wants himself personally dismissed.



Wait... Isn't it his foundation, though? He wants the employees to go down for this while he gets off? Can an ONTD lawyer explain this to me, please?

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He seems like a shitty person for a variety of reasons, including this. He could fix the homes up if he truly wanted to and he still wouldn't be hurting for money. Go on somewhere, Brad.

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it's your foundation you drowned leather bag

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look if my face and name was attached to a company id want to make sure that things are going to code. doesn't mean i have to be an engineer or architect but it does mean i hold the people i employee to a high standard so the end product is of quality otherwise and if it means long meetings where they have to walk me through their process step by step then so be it.



his comment is way harsh and very telling of his morals

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A day after the American Petroleum Institutes weekly inventory estimate slowed down the price decline in West Texas Intermediate, the Energy Information Administration dampened optimism by reporting a build of 4.9 million barrels in U.S. crude oil inventories for the week to November 16.

This followed an inventory build of 10.3 million barrels for the prior week, which added weight to already falling prices on the back of rising production and global economic growth skepticism.

The authority also said refinery run rates last week averaged 92.7 percent, with throughput at 16.9 million barrels daily, up from last week, and gasoline production at 10 million bpd. Distillate fuel production averaged 5.2 million bpd. This compares with 10.1 million bpd in gasoline production a week earlier and 5 million bpd in distillate fuel production.

Gasoline inventories brought some joy for oil bulls. They fell by 1.3 million barrels last week but are still above the average. Distillate fuel inventories shed 100,000 barrels in the week to November 16. This compares with a 1.4-million-barrel draw in gasoline inventories and a 3.6-million-barrel decline in distillate fuel inventories a week earlier.

Meanwhile, after yesterday oil price fell by as much as 6 percent for Brent and more for WTI after President Trump said he would stick by Saudi Arabia despite the Khashoggi affair, saying prices would be through the roof if the U.S. broke up with its Middle East ally.

Today, however, prices have recouped some of the losses as OPEC is talking about more production cuts less than six months after it decided to end the first cuts and begin raising production. News that Indias crude oil imports hit a seven-year high in October also helped prices inch up.

The improvement has been reluctant, however, as economic concern remains. Yesterday, IEAs Fatih Birol said, as quoted by Reuters, the global economy remained vulnerable to shocks, which brought unprecedented uncertainty for oil markets.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads from Oilprice.com:
Not only the exchange gap, but also these fuel subsidies have been feeding militia coffers, via smuggling revenues. For oil and gas investors willing to brave what is essentially a civil war that is nowhere close to being resolved, resolving this liquidity crisis and getting fuel subsidies under control wouldaccording to officialsput $1.8 billion into budget coffers next year, enabling them to start (or re-launch) major energy development projects. We note, however, that there are multiple variables

Libyan officials say the liquidity crisis should be resolved by February of next year by converging the rates and restoring supply of Libyan dinars and dollars. The next step will be to start fuel subsidy reductions, on which Libya is currently spending some $5 billion annually.

While it wont resolve the broader war for control of Libyas government (read: oil wealth), getting a handle on the countrys liquidity crisis could starve militia groups who are making money off this (not counting for their funding from external actors). Militias have been making money off the gap between official and black market exchange rates.

Sources

- Middle East analyst based in Dubai, with access to Saudi royal advisors and business elite

- Libyan investigative journalist in Tripoli

- Turkish investigative journalist in Istanbul

- Top aid to Turkish deputy foreign minister

Libyas Currency Crisis: Part of the Resource Problem

While it wont resolve the broader war for control of Libyas government (read: oil wealth), getting a handle on the countrys liquidity crisis could starve militia groups who are making money off this (not counting for their funding from external actors). Militias have been making money off the gap between official and black market exchange rates.

Libyan officials say the liquidity crisis should be resolved by February of next year by converging the rates and restoring supply of Libyan dinars and dollars. The next step will be to start fuel subsidy reductions, on which Libya is currently spending some $5 billion annually.

Not only the exchange gap, but also these fuel subsidies have been feeding militia coffers, via smuggling revenues. For oil and gas investors willing to brave what is essentially a civil war that is nowhere close to being resolved, resolving this liquidity crisis and getting fuel subsidies under control wouldaccording to officialsput $1.8 billion into budget coffers next year, enabling them to start (or re-launch) major energy development projects. We note, however, that there are multiple variables that will determine whether this plan is successful. The most dangerous variable will be how militias respond, which will possibly not become clear until authorities start reducing fuel subsidies. This is where militias wont sit idly by and simply let it happen, and we expect a major resurgence of violencedirected and oil facilities.

Turkey Isnt Getting Gulen Back--Yet

Its been increasingly interesting to watch Turkeys passive-aggressive diplomatic maneuvers in the wake of souring relations with the U.S. and the Khashoggi murder. One of Ankaras biggest gripes against Washington is its refusal to extradite Fethullah Gulen, linked by Erdogan to the 2016 coup attempt.

Recently, an article appeared in NBC saying that Washington was going to extradite Gulen to Turkey in order to ease Turkish pressure over its response to the Khashoggi murder. This, of course, is exactly the kind of leverage Turkey is hoping to gain from its pressure; however, our sources say there is no indication the Gulen will be extradited.

According to a top aide of the deputy foreign minister, Gulens extradition is a very routine subject in talks between Washington and Ankara, but Ankara has received no such assurances from Washington, while publicly Trump has denied any deal.

In fact, the source said, Ankara believes that the NBC report was a manipulation designed by the Gulenists to fish for their own assurances from Trump and prompt a response at a time when Gulen is clearly concerned about his fate as a result of any outcomes in U.S.-Turkey relations.

MBS Isnt Going Anywhere

In the meantime, rumors are surfacing that senior royal family members are reconsidering MBS as the next king to take over from his father, King Salman. We suggest that investors not fall victim to these rumors, whose purpose is largely to sow uncertainty for a longer period of time. Such rumors benefit certain family members and external actors such as Qatar and Iran, but we view them as unreliable and having no real value beyond this. According to a Middle East analyst with access to royal court advisers and Gulf business elite, MBS is still firmly in position, and even King Salman would have great difficulty displacing him at this point.

What were seeing right now is the continuation of international pressure (Germany just halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia), and Saudi Arabia will respond to this here and there to try to defuse it, but there is no smoking gun, and Trump by Tuesday had made it clear that no real action was going to be taken. Even if the CIA uncovers a smoking gun, they wont be able to do much with it without Trumps approval.

Global Oil & Gas Playbook

Its this time of the year again when OPEC begins to talk about production cuts, this time caught by surprise by the latest decline in oil prices. Just as the cartel was beginning to get comfortable with higher production rates on expectations of tighter supply after the Iranian sanctions went into effect, pessimistic economic growth forecasts dampened optimism and prompted the talks.

Like last time, Russia is playingand will likely play until the very last momentthe role of the indecisive partner before it agrees to join the cuts. Of course, there is always the possibility, however small, that Moscow will this time decide to sit the cuts out but it will all become clear in early December when OPEC is scheduled to meet in Vienna.

Meanwhile, however, some producers are already bargaining for exemptions. Libya, notably, expects to be spared another round of cuts because of the troubles it has had in raising and maintaining its oil production, the head of its state oil company, Mustafa Sanalla said earlier this week. Chances are it wont be the only one trying to avoid the cuts, suggesting some OPEC producers would rather expand production than seek higher prices even though they would all benefit from them.

Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions

- Ineos, one of the big independent players in the North Sea, is in exclusive negotiations with ConocoPhillips for the acquisition of the supermajors assets in the area. The assets could be worth as much as $3 billion. They exclude ConocoPhillips Teeside oil terminal and a trading unit based in London, but include a 6.5% interest in one of the most promising fields in the UKs continental shelf: the Clair field holds an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil in place. If the deal goes through, Ineos will join in its development BP, which holds 45% in Clair.

- Cimarex Energy will buy smaller sector player Resolute Energy for $1.6 billion that also includes Resolutes debt. The target company has acreage in the Delaware basin that neighbors Cimarex property. The deal is the latest sign of the ongoing consolidation in the oil and gas sector following the 2014 oil price collapse and the subsequent recovery that intensified competition among those left still standing after the flurry of bankruptcies.

- Israeli Delek Group has plans to exit the giant offshore Tamar gas field by spinning off its remaining 22% interest in it, after last year it spun off 9.25% of its Tamar stake and put it up for sale expecting proceeds of $980 million. Meanwhile, the spinoff has taken a larger share in the Tamar field, in which Delek partners with Noble Energy and three smaller energy companies.

- The oil equipment and services industry recorded mergers and acquisitions worth a combined $9.9 billion over the third quarter of the year, a more than double increase on the previous quarter when the total value of M&A deals stood at $4.1 billion. At the same time, the deals in the third quarter declined in number, further pointing to an industry recovery as sellers got higher prices for their assets and operations.

Tenders, Auctions & Contracts

- Russia and Turkey marked the completion of a section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline that will increase the flow of Russian natural gas to Europe to the chagrin of many in the European Union. Turkish Stream will have an annual capacity of 31.5 billion cu m, half of which would stay in Turkey to satisfy its domestic demand. The second half would supply gas to eastern and southern Europe, according to Russian President Putin, although the routevia Bulgaria or via Greecehas yet to be determined.

- Carlyle Group-owned Black Sea Oil & Gas has signed a gas distribution contract with French Engie. Under the terms of the contract, Engies Romanian subsidiary will buy natural gas produced at two offshore fields in Romanian waters, beginning at a rate of 500 million cu m annually, over a period of 10 years. The Midia Gas Project spans five offshore production wells at two fields, Doina and Ana, and Black Sea Oil & Gas expected to start commercial production in 2019. However, the project is still pending a final investment decision.

Discovery & Development

- Albertas government is considering imposing obligatory cuts on crude oil production as local producers continue to struggle with huge discounts of their crude compared with West Texas Intermediate and other international benchmarks. The idea of cuts was first proposed by Cenovus chief executive, who argued oil producers in Alberta are losing too much money because of pipeline bottlenecks to continue pumping at ever-increasing rates. An analyst from Tudor Pickering went further this week, saying the price of bitumen mined in Canada has slipped into negative territorysomething which is not reflected in the benchmark Western Canadian Select price as it also includes light blends.

- Japan and South Korea will resume Iranian crude oil imports beginning in January or later, sources from the refining industry in the two countries have said. The window for imports, however, will be pretty tight as the waivers South Korea and Japan scored with the U.S. Department of Treasury earlier this month are temporary, to last six months.

- Russias Novatek has announced a new gas field discovery in the Yamal-Nenets region in northwestern Siberia, where the companys operations are focused. The largest private gas company in the country said the Nyakhartinskoye field yielded a flow rate of over 300,000 cu m of natural gas daily. The field neighbors another field operated by Novatek, Yurkharovskoye, which the company is developing by utilizing hydraulic fracturing technology.

- Japans Inpex officially launched its Ichthys LNG project in Australia worth $34 billion, which will add a substantial chunk of supply to global LNG markets. Production and shipment of gas from the project actually began earlier, with the first shipment of LNG from Ichthys leaving last month. Some 70% of the gas pumped from Ichthys will go to Japan, with peak production planned at 8.9 million tons of LNG annually.

Company News

- Brazils new president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro has named a pro-privatization executive the next CEO of oil major Petrobras. The move was not a surprise since Bolsonaro had already spoken about selling parts of Petrobras. Castello Branco used to be member of Petrobras board and while his specific position on how much of the company should be privatized has yet to be made public, he would have to contend with Bolsonaros preference for limited privatization and the incoming economy ministers view of a full privatization.

- Warburg Pincus is raising $2.5 billion for an energy-focused investment fund that would its second one oriented exclusively towards energy investments. Interestingly, however, the size of this fund is smaller than the size of its first one, for which the firm raised $4 billion. The smaller target suggests Warburg Pincus is proceeding with caution amid heightened price volatility. Still, it is proceeding, seeking to take advantage of the overall recovery in oil since 2016.
RED II, the EUs new Renewable Energy Directive, will phase out biofuels made from high-risk ILUC food and feed crops entirely by December 2030. Which biomass feedstocks are considered high risk and which are low risk will not be formalised until a report

More importantly, the EU has gone to war on the issue, targeting food and feed crops used to produce biofuels, which it considers at high risk of ILUC. However, the new legislation -- designed to decarbonise transport - looks more likely to sustain conventional oil demand than reduce it.

Does that sound harsh? It is. Its near impossible to draw direct lines of causation between land use change in Europe and those on a different continent, but ILUC is nonetheless a logical extension from real situations in which measures to expand biofuel use, such as blending mandates, have resulted in environmentally bad outcomes, for example deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil production.

It stands for Indirect Land Use Change and describes a change in land use, for example in Brazil as a result of a change in land use somewhere else. In other words, if farmer A moves into soybean for biodiesel production, farmer B on a distant continent might cut down some virgin forest to take advantage of the slack left in the soybean-for-food market. Farmer A is held responsible, albeit indirectly.

ILUC is a little-known acronym that strikes fear into the heart of biofuels producers.

It stands for Indirect Land Use Change and describes a change in land use, for example in Brazil as a result of a change in land use somewhere else. In other words, if farmer A moves into soybean for biodiesel production, farmer B on a distant continent might cut down some virgin forest to take advantage of the slack left in the soybean-for-food market. Farmer A is held responsible, albeit indirectly.

Does that sound harsh? It is. Its near impossible to draw direct lines of causation between land use change in Europe and those on a different continent, but ILUC is nonetheless a logical extension from real situations in which measures to expand biofuel use, such as blending mandates, have resulted in environmentally bad outcomes, for example deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil production.

More importantly, the EU has gone to war on the issue, targeting food and feed crops used to produce biofuels, which it considers at high risk of ILUC. However, the new legislation -- designed to decarbonise transport - looks more likely to sustain conventional oil demand than reduce it.

RED II, the EUs new Renewable Energy Directive, will phase out biofuels made from high-risk ILUC food and feed crops entirely by December 2030. Which biomass feedstocks are considered high risk and which are low risk will not be formalised until a report is submitted on the subject to the European Parliament by the European Commission on or before February 1, 2019. Palm oil is certain to be in the firing line, while soybean biodiesel is also under threat.

This is not the only line of attack. RED II, which has more than a hint of environmental extra-territorialism about it, will usher in a tightening of the greenhouse gas (GHG) savings to be achieved by different biofuel production processes, affecting both EU production and imports.

Minimum GHG savings for biofuels are fixed at 50% for production capacity installed before 5 October, 2015, rising to 60% for installations up to end-2020 and 65% thereafter. This will hit corn (maize) ethanol and other cereals that use natural gas for heat and power, as well as rape seed, sunflower, soybean and palm oil biodiesel, according to the EUs own figures in Annex V of the legislation.

Use of food and feed crops will also be limited to 7% of the final consumption of energy in road and rail transport as part of an overall target of sourcing 14% of road and rail energy use from renewables by 2030.

Behind target

Blending of conventional food-based biofuels is expected to reach 4.1% in the EU this year, according to estimates made by the US Department of Agriculture, well short of the 7.0% cap, which comes into effect in 2020. At 4.1%, conventional biofuels blending would be lower than in 2012.

As such, RED II may set the scene for short-term expansion. 7% is a maximum one-time use-it-or-lose-it offer. Fail to get there by 2020 and the cap nationally for EU member states will be set at one percentage point above the share of such fuels at that time.

However, expansion may not be on biofuels producers minds because RED II confirms that the EU is a hostile regulatory environment when it comes to first generation biofuels. Individual member states can set a lower limit on food and feed crop biofuels, and can introduce harsher restrictions still on high-risk ILUC feedstocks should they want to. Hardly a sector promising regulatory certainty.

But the real problem with RED II is that it jumps the gun. By restricting what are the most prolific forms of first-generation biofuels, with the exception of sugar cane ethanol, it under-estimates the availability of alternative, more sustainable feedstocks and the technological readiness of the advanced biofuels sector.

The EU is not on course to meet its 10% target for renewable fuels in transport by 2020 in any case. Total biofuels blending is estimated for 2018 at 5.2% on an energy basis, although the EU calculation will come in a bit higher as a result of its double counting rules for advanced biofuels. What has been achieved is down almost entirely to the first generation biofuels RED II seeks to curb.

An additional 1% comes from advanced biofuels made from waste fat and oils. They are not so much advanced as easy. They are already oils and need purification rather than chemical conversion, and have neither food competition nor ILUC implications. The problem is that the feedstock is limited and inelastic, inhibiting expansion.

That leaves a meagre 0.2% coming from genuinely advanced non-crop biofuels, which RED II mandates expanding to 3.5% by 2030.

That perhaps doesnt look too ambitious, but advanced biofuels have been two to three years away from commercial development for more than two decades. Less than 1% of announced worldwide advanced biofuel capacity has actually been built, producing a volume so small as to be irrelevant, according to ethanol producer Ethanol Europe Renewables.

As a result, there are only two likely scenarios under RED II; something else fills the gap, or the target is simply missed.

The EU has taken one measure to guard against this latter possibility, but it is not one that is particularly useful. If EU member states food and feed biofuels cap is below 7% in 2020, then the overall 14% target is reduced commensurately, rather than advanced biofuels having to make up the additional shortfall.

Meanwhile, the problem with both electricity and hydrogen - the primary alternatives to biofuels - is that unless they have dedicated renewable energy behind them, they arent renewable.

The EU is undoubtedly keen on green electricity, offering not just to double count it towards the 14% target, but under RED II quadruple count when it comes to road transport. So even if the transport target was met largely by renewably-backed electrification, it wouldnt represent 14% of road and rail energy use anyway.

The policy response to RED II may be for EU governments to throw their weight behind electrification and hydrogen as the only possible means of reaching the legislative target. This needs to be kept on the radar screen. But option two  a missed target one way or another  looks the more likely outcome.

As a result, RED IIs impact on European oil demand is unlikely to keep oil sector suits awake at night.
China and the Philippines have just announced an official agreement to go forward with a groundbreaking joint oil and gas exploration deal - reportedly the biggest oil and gas development in all of Asia. This memorandum of understanding (MOU) was just one of a whopping 29 agreements signed this week during Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to the Philippines, many of which focused on strengthening trade and working together on massive infrastructure strategies being pushed forward by Beijing. Xi, who is the first Chinese leader to set foot in Manila in over a decade, described the state visit as a milestone in the relationship between China and the Philippines.

The recent visit and ensuing deals are just one part of a larger effort on the part of Beijing to strengthen their economic and diplomatic ties with the Philippines. The friendliness between these Asian nations is particularly notable in light of their long-standing dispute over the resource-rich South China Sea, but even that delicately contentious topic was broached during Xis visit to Manila. After the talks Xi said that China will be working to address the disagreements over the South China Sea over the next three years by finalizing a code of conduct for the disputed body of water in cooperation with other Southeast Asian countries.

There are still relatively few details known to the public about the terms of this weeks hush-hush oil and gas deal. The exact location remains undisclosed, but Philippines Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi disclosed to reporters after the meeting that the deal covers the "West Philippine Sea/South China Sea." According to a framework draft (its still unclear how similar the Philippine officials framework agreement is to the final agreement) made public by Senator Antonio Trillanes, an opposing senator in the Philippines, the exploration would be mutually beneficial for the two nations, and their opposing views on the South China Sea, and more broadly on sovereignty and maritime rights, would not be challenged on either side of the deal. This simply means that neither country will change their claim to the West Philippine Sea nor recognize each others territorial claims over long-disputed waters like Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal or the Spratlys Islands by signing the MOU. The type of deal made, a memorandum of understanding (MOU), is typified by a lower level of commitment as compared to the more binding memorandum of agreement (MOA). Related: Goldman Expects Extreme Volatility In Oil Markets This Month

Despite being touted as mutually beneficial the memorandum is not universally supported, with many people in the Philippines feeling that giving any economic concessions to China undermines the nations territorial claims in the South China Sea. In the process of meeting with Xi and signing the oil and gas agreement, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte set aside a landmark 2016 international tribunal ruling that declared Beijings blanket claim of the South China Sea as baseless. Hundreds of protesters in Manila expressed concern with what is seen as Dutertes weakness and lack of transparency on the territorial dispute in his effort to court Chinese investment in demonstrations outside of the Chinese embassy in Manila this week, chanting Philippines is not for sale.

A 2005 joint exploration deal between China, the Philippines, and Vietnam is currently still tied up in the Supreme Court after lawmakers challenged its constitutionality. The Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking, approved by the Arroyo administration in the Philippines, was an agreement for oil companies from the three nations - the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), the China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOC), and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp (PetroVietnam) - to jointly conduct research of offshore oil reserves in both disputed and undisputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal hasnt been able to move past litigation thanks to a section of the 1987 Constitution which mandates all companies involved in joint development of natural resources to have at least 60 percent ownership by Filipino citizens.

It remains to be seen how the new Chinese deal will sidestep these murky legal and literal waters, but its clear that Duterte and Xi are both eager to begin extracting offshore oil - so much so that their deal would become the biggest development in the Asian continent.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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India imported 21.02 million tons of crude last month, the highest number in at least seven years and a 10.5-percent increase from October 2017, data from the oil ministry cited by Reuters revealed.

The increase followed the end of maintenance season at many refineries, with demand for fuels still healthy despite rising prices at the pump that the government had to step in and cap to stop a rising tide of resentment among the population. Now is also a seasonally high-demand time as festive season approaches.

Imports from Africa in particular hit a three-year high last month, while shipments from Iran fell by 12 percent to 466,000 bpd. Overall, however, crude oil shipments from Iran to India rose by 34 percent between April and October.

Indias crude oil imports from Africa jumped on the back of refiners who rushed to secure more African barrels amid uncertainties over the U.S. waivers for Irans oil, while a narrowing premium of Brent Crude prices over Dubai swaps made Brent-linked African grades more attractive for buyers in Asia. These stood at 874,000 bpd, more than double the import rate of African crude a year earlier. African oil imports therefore came to account for as much as 20 percent of Indias crude oil intake.

India was among the eight Iranian oil importers that expectedly won waivers from the sanctions from Washington earlier this month. It has also maintained that it cannot bring Iranian oil imports down to zero as it grapples with higher prices that are adding a lot of weight to its oil import bill: India imports most of the oil it consumes.

The news of the import high helped oil prices recoup some of the losses suffered a day earlier, when benchmarks fell by about 6 percent. More help came from APIs latest inventory estimate, which surprised the market with a draw.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Saudi Arabias crude oil exports hit their highest in 20 months in September, while the Kingdoms production in early November appears to have hit the highest on record, on the back of high customer requests made in early October when the market feared a hefty loss of Iranian supply this month.

According to data by the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) database, which collects self-reported oil figures from 114 countries, Saudi Arabias crude oil exports in September rose by 219,000 bpd from August to a 20-month high of 7.43 million bpd. This was the highest export level since the OPEC/non-OPEC production cut deal began in January 2017.

Saudi oil production stood at 10.5 million bpd in September, and Saudi Arabia also drew 93,000 bpd from its crude inventories to supply the market, run its refineries, and feed power generation plants.

The JODI data has a two-month lag, but more recent reports say that Saudi Arabia has pumped record volumes of oil in early November. Saudi Arabias crude production was between 10.8 million bpd and 10.9 million bpd earlier this month, industry executives tracking Saudi output told Bloomberg on Wednesday.



Related: Saudi Arabia To Raise Oil Shipments To China

The very high production in early November was the result of extra volume nominations from Saudi Arabias clients. Those customers had made the nominations in early October, when oil prices rallied on fears that the U.S. sanctions would choke off a lot of Iranian oil supply in November. Saudi Arabia typically decides four to five weeks before the 1st of every month what its production will be, Bloomberg notes.

Its not clear yet if the Kingdom will keep those very high production volumes through November and what the average November production will be. The current monthly record is 10.72 million bpd, set in November 2016, just before the start of the production cuts.

The U.S. waivers that came along with the sanctions on Iran totally erased the earlier fears of a supply crunch and flipped the market mood to expectations of oversupply, together with expectations of slowing global economic and oil demand growth.

Saudi Arabia has already said that it would be cutting December oil exports by 500,000 bpd from November and that OPEC may have to consider changing course and reduce production again.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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TWO suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with police early Wednesday, November 21, in Talisay, Batangas.The Batangas City Police Office reported that the policemen conducted an entrapment operation

TWO suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with police early Wednesday, November 21, in Talisay, Batangas.

The Batangas City Police Office reported that the policemen conducted an entrapment operation during a ransom pay-out for the release of a kidnap victim identified as Riz-John Biscocho.

Biscocho was abducted in Barangay Berinayan, Laurel town on November 9.

While negotiation was ongoing, one of the suspects noticed that they were transacting with a police operative.

The suspect then drew his firearm and fired at Biscocho's wife, prompting the police to return fire.

The suspects were able to flee on board a motorcycle toward Talisay town but they were intercepted by police personnel positioned in Barangay Sampaloc, Talisay. A shootout ensued, resulting in the killing of the two suspects.

Recovered from the suspects were two caliber .45 pistols.

Biscocho remains missing. (SunStar Philippines)
FILIPINO fans of Swedish home furnishing retailer Ikeafrom those who've visited its numerous stores around the world, to those who've seen its furniture on the internetcan now rejoice as

FILIPINO fans of Swedish home furnishing retailer Ikeafrom those who've visited its numerous stores around the world, to those who've seen its furniture on the internetcan now rejoice as it is set to open its first-ever store in the Philippines.

Here are five things we know about the project for now:

Part of the Family

Ikea has more than 422 stores in 50 countries. And the Philippines is finally part of that list of countries that has an Ikea store. Soon, you'll get to furnish your home with its wide-range of home products.

To the North

It is set to open by late 2020. Announced on Tuesday, construction is underway and the store will be situated at the Mall of Asia (MOA) in Pasay City. Okay, so technically, it's not opening anytime soon (so no meatballs yet). But, hey! There's plenty of time to save up for that furniture you've so longed for to buy. You never know, it might be there.

Crazy Plenty

Expect more than 8,000 products coming your way. That's what it says in its website: www.ikea.ph. Prepare those mood boards/inspiration boards, people!

Number One

The Ikea store in the Philippines will occupy 65,000 square meters with its five floors. Most of the space will be dedicated for retail while the rest of the space will be allocated for a warehouse, call center, and e-commerce facility. This will surpass Korea's Ikeaa 60,000 square meter store.

Additional Jobs

With Ikea having a store in the country, this means more job opportunities. It is expected to hire as many as 500 peopleor moreonce operational. (MRL)
SIX suspected members of a robbery hold-up group were killed following an encounter with police forces in Cagayan on Tuesday evening, November 20.The Cagayan Police Provincial Office reported that Gener

SIX suspected members of a robbery hold-up group were killed following an encounter with police forces in Cagayan on Tuesday evening, November 20.

The Cagayan Police Provincial Office reported that Gener Dunag, the leader of the robbery group, was killed along with five other robbers in a shootout along the national highway in Barangay Bangag, Lal-lo, Cagayan around 10:35 p.m. Tuesday.

The shootout happened after the suspects robbed traders passing by the national road in Barangay Bicud. The incident was reported to barangay officials and police by a passerby.

The police went to the area and spotted the group onboard a vehicle along the Maharlika Highway and moving toward Magapit in Lal-lo town. The police then promoted their counterparts, who established a checkpoint in Barangay Bangag.

The police said that instead of submitting themselves for inspection at the checkpoint, the robbers fired shots at the cops, resulting in the shootout.

One of the suspects who managed to maneuver and escape was eventually arrested at the Magapit Bridge by pursuing operatives.

Police said initial information revealed that the group was involved in a series of robberies in Cagayan.

The victims said the group obtained at least P296,000 cash, jewelries and cellphones from them. One of the victims was also shot by the suspects in the right leg. (SunStar Philippines)
Manila defended its newly signed joint energy exploration deal with Beijing in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, after critics said the move undermined an international tribunal ruling in favour of the Philippines.

After a red-carpet welcome for Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Malacanang Palace in Manila on Tuesday, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding for joint oil and gas development in the contentious waters, in another sign of Manilas warming ties with Beijing under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The agreement comes at a time of intensifying tensions between China and the United States  a defence treaty ally of the Philippines  that have gone beyond their trade war to clashes over Chinese militarisation of the South China Sea.

In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the nations said the South China Sea dispute should not affect their cooperation.

They said the disputes should be resolved through peaceful negotiations among the claimants  a veiled reference to the US  and no side should resort to violence. Both nations should exercise restraint to avoid letting the disputes escalate.

Duterte said at the Asean regional summit in Singapore last week that China was already in possession of the South China Sea, so it made more sense to work with it in the resource-rich waters rather than create frictions.

China is there, he told reporters. That is a reality, and America and everybody should realise that they are there.

As Manila pursues an independent foreign policy that seeks to balance between the greater powers, Duterte argued that if tensions in the South China Sea result in war, the Philippines will be the first to suffer.

In May, then Philippine foreign secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, struck a bullish tone, saying: Nobody can extract natural resources there on their own. The president has declared that. If anyone gets the natural resources in the West Philippine Sea-South China Sea, he will go to war.

Story continues

Dutertes government said territorial disputes would not have to get in the way of joint development, and the Philippine leader insisted it would have to be advantageous to the country to move forward.

It also remains to be seen how the joint exploration deal will fit into Manilas independent foreign policy, with analysts envisaging more difficulty for the Philippines to avoid becoming collateral damage as tensions escalate between China and the US, including in the South China Sea.

If youre talking about spillovers  the South China Sea is going to be the arena where those geopolitical issues are going to play out, Herman Kraft, a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman, said.

Philippine opponents of the joint exploration deal argue that Dutertes rapprochement with Beijing has prioritised major infrastructure agreements  the two sides signed 29 deals on Tuesday, some including more Chinese funding  at the expense of the southeast Asian nations interests in the South China Sea.

In 2016, under the administration of Dutertes predecessor, Benigno Aquino, Manila won a lawsuit at an international court that invalidated Beijings nine-dash line claims to more than 80 per cent of the waters after the two countries engaged in a stand-off at Scarborough Shoal  about 200km (124 miles) west of the Philippines port of Subic Bay on Luzon island  in 2012.

Opposition politicians called for an investigation into proposed joint exploration, with Senator Antonio Trillanes IV publishing a two-page agreement ostensibly drafted by the Chinese side. The draft proposed the establishment of a joint steering committee and working group to forge the deal in the waters Manila officially terms the West Philippine Sea, an area both governments claim.

The joint oil and gas exploration shall not affect the respective position on sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of the two parties, the draft document said, indicating China authorised China National Offshore Oil Corporation to take part in the joint exploration.

But current Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin Jnr insisted on Twitter that he alone wrote the agreement signed on Tuesday, without consulting the so-called Chinese draft.

Wrote one entirely out of whole cloth, and it is impossible to attack and irresistible to praise for its sheer breathtaking elegance, he wrote.

Things are getting worse for us, but we are not afraid

Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya Pilipinas

Environmental groups and campaigners criticised the deal for jeopardising the biodiversity of the West Philippine Sea, the livelihood of Filipino fisherfolk in the area, and the 2016 arbitration ruling. In recent years, Beijing has been increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, including building artificial islands and militarising the areas it claims.

China cannot just draft a framework agreement concerning our sovereignty and impose it to the Philippines, fisherfolk group Pamalakaya Pilipinas, which represents for more than 100,000 people in the industry, said. There can never be mutual respect and benefits in the joint venture when China was the one who crafted the framework agreement.

Fernando Hicap, the groups chairman, said the fisherfolk felt their situation was deteriorating under the Duterte administration  a government widely criticised for its policy of extrajudicial killings, with six leaders in their organisation killed in the past two years.

Things are getting worse for us, but we are not afraid, he said. The fisherfolk have nowhere to go, but to ask for their rights.

Celia Lamkin, founder and global chairwoman of the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea, also criticised the joint exploration deal for defying the tribunal ruling.

Its not only the Philippines that is being affected by what China is doing in the South China Sea, said Lamkin, who funds the group to raise awareness about the territorial issue and provide help to fisherfolk. We have to assert our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. What is ours is ours.

Analysts said other questions surround the agreement, including potential violations of the Philippine constitution for allowing joint development within the countrys exclusive economic zone, an area reaching 200 miles from the shoreline, as well as where other claimant nations such as Vietnam will be involved.

Kraft said joint development was an idea that had been raised for decades, but Chinas growing power in the region and the arbitration decision has changed the context of those discussions.

The Duterte administration is, of course, trying to push joint development  its part of the whole idea of fixing up ties with China, Kraft said.

The question that comes to mind is, why should we, from the Philippine standpoint, agree to joint development when it seems that joint development means both of us have claims, but what the arbitral decision shows is that Chinas position as far as a claim to resources in the area is not as strong as it was before the arbitral decision came out. How do you accommodate that without seeming to keel over, or accept the way China frames the issue?

This article As Beijing and Manila shake hands on South China Sea energy deal, backlash from Filipino critics begins first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Chinese President Xi Jinpings two-day state visit to the Philippines starts on Tuesday as relations continue to thaw following years of tensions over the two countries competing claims to the South China Sea.

It is the first visit by Chinas head of state in 13 years, and comes with usual trappings  a welcome ceremony, a state banquet and a number of agreements to be signed.

The trip is also the final leg of Xis diplomatic tour of the Pacific, as part of a drive to expand Chinese influence.

Here are the five things to look out for.

1 Joint Exploration Deal

Efforts to reach a deal on the joint oil and gas exploration of the South China Sea are at the heart of the renewed cooperation between the two sides.

In January, the Philippines identified two areas to be searched for oil and gas, and the following month the two sides set up a special panel to work out how to how to explore disputed areas both sides claim.

Dutertes stance is in sharp contrast to that of the previous government, which took the territorial dispute to an international tribunal and secured a ruling in its favour.

There are also legal hurdles to overcome, with Philippine law banning foreign companies prospecting for resources in waters the country claims, as well as considerable domestic opposition.

Fishing groups worried that the deal will undermine the Philippine claim to the South China Sea are planning to protest during Xis visit, using the slogan China, out of the Philippine waters!

A deal would also be significant for China, since it would provide a model for any future cooperation with other South China Sea claimants such as Vietnam.

2 Dam project

China has been funding irrigation schemes in the Philippines under its Belt and Road Initiative since Dutertes accession in 2016 ushered in a more Beijing-friendly stance.

This month they expected to sign the loan agreement for the Kaliwa Dam in Quezon province, which is designed to address the risk of future water shortages in the Metro Manila area.

Story continues

But many people inside the Philippines oppose this project, some on environmental grounds while others fear it will lead the country to take on debts it will struggle to repay  a common criticism of the Belt and Road Initiative.

3 Arms supplies

Last October, China donated US$22 million worth of guns and ammunition to the Philippine National Police. The weapons  some of which will be used to fight terrorism  include 3,000 M4 rifles, 3 million rounds of assorted ammunition, and 30 sniper scopes.

Observers are watching whether Xis trip will result in more arms deals.

Such a move could help to draw Manila further away from Washington. In 2016, the US blocked the sale of 26,000 M4 rifles in 2016 over concerns about the countrys crackdown on drugs, which has prompted widespread accusations of extrajudicial killing.

4 Coastguard

Fishing crews from the Philippines have frequently complained about the activities of Chinas coastguard, and Xis visit may help pave the way for a change in their stance.

The role of the coastguard in protecting Chinas interests in the South China Sea has prompted protests by Duterte and accusations from a US congressional committee that they are being used as a tool of coercion.

In May, coastguards intercepted a group of Filipino fishermen operating off the Scarborough Shoal, which is currently under Chinese control, and seized their catch.

After protests from Manila that the practice was unacceptable, an agreement has been secured to allow Filipinos to carry on fishing there, but it remains to be seen how the coastguard will act in future.

5 The United States

If the two sides do sign any strategic agreements, they must be considered in light of the Philippines long-standing relationship with the US.

However, since he came to power in 2016, Duterte has been trying to pivot away from the countrys reliance on America  which in turn gives China an opportunity to expand its own sphere of influence.

In 2016, the Philippine leader vented his anger at American criticism of his deadly anti-drug crackdown, hurling insults at the former US president Barack Obama and saying bye-bye America.

More materially, the following year he cancelled the annual joint military exercise with the US military in the South China Sea.

This article From South China Sea deals to loosening ties with the US: five things to look out for on Xi Jinpings visit to the Philippines first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte stand at attention during a welcoming ceremony for the Chinese leader at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Philippines. (Photo: REUTERS/Erik De Castro)

The Philippines rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday  the first state visit by a Chinese leader in 13 years.

Xi is expected to seal billions of dollars worth of loans and deals in his trip to a country that is a traditional US ally but has pivoted toward China since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office.

As Beijing and Washington jostle for supremacy in the South China Sea, Manila wants to avoid any miscalculations.

Theres friction between China and Western nations, Duterte said during the ASEAN summit last week in Singapore. Im worried.

Do you prefer to side with China or the USA? Have your say in our poll and leave a comment below.

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Chinas Xi visits Philippines to deepen ties with US ally

From South China Sea deals to loosening ties with the US: five things to look out for on Xi Jinpings visit to the Philippines

Xis Manila Visit Expected to Yield Deals Worth Billions
U of M entomologist Dr. Jeffrey Marcus. Credit: University of Manitoba

The "Stanley Cup of entomology" has been won by a U of M biologist.

The grey buckeye butterfly is dark brown, speckled, and somewhat mothlike, but it's actually a beautiful new speciesthe first new one identified in North America since 2016. And it's the first new one found in California for decades.

University of Manitoba entomologist Dr. Jeffrey Marcus and his graduate student Melanie Lalonde identified the grey buckeye butterfly (Junonia grisea) while studying variations in wing patterns of buckeye butterflies from across the entire Western Hemisphere.

Marcus explains: "Naming a new butterfly species from North America is very uncommon these days because so many researchers have studied the butterflies of this region for a very long time."

He adds: "When a new one is named, it is either because it is rare and found only in an obscure place, or because it looks very similar to another species and the two were lumped together under one name. This was a 'lumping situation.'"

In fact, identifying a new species is so rare, it's like winning the Stanley Cup of entomology, sort of.

The great buckeye butterfly was first identified by U of M researchers. Credit: University of Manitoba

Marcus muses: "Including the grey buckeye, there have only been six new species of butterflies described from North America (north of Mexico) since the year 2000, so that's about one new species every three years. Since someone wins the Stanley Cup every year, maybe that's like winning three Stanley Cups."

Marcus and Lalonde collected some specimens in California, though many others were examined in museum collections, ranging from the Wallis Roughley Museum of Entomology at the U of M to the California Academy of Sciences in California, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, and the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity in Florida.

It had long been thought that grisea was simply a member of a known species, Junonia coenia, but through their examination of its physical appearance, life traits, and DNA markers, the Manitoba entomological detectives realized the butterflies were two distinct species.

Marcus says: "The grey buckeye is abundant in California and with its wings closed it's about the size of a toonie, so people definitely saw it, but almost everyone just thought they were seeing the same kind of buckeye butterfly that is common in the Eastern USA."

The grey buckeye butterfly in its natural habitat. Credit: University of Manitoba

The eyespots on the wings of Junonia grisea are as "bullseyes" to attract the attention of visual predators like birds out towards the periphery of its wings and away from the head and body.

Marcus developed expertise in buckeye butterflies starting in 1996 when he was a Ph.D. student in North Carolina, where these butterflies are common, bringing that expertise with him when he moved to Manitoba in 2009.

He explains: "My students and I continue to work with them because we know the group really well, even though it is slightly less convenient since they are not native here. We do projects involving local Manitoba butterflies, too, but we haven't found any new species here yet."

Butterflies are Marcus' prime interest because studying them allows a combination of fieldwork and natural history with lab work. He says: "Some days I think about what is happened at the cellular and sub-cellular levels, while other days I'm working to answer questions at the level of entire ecosystems."

Lalonde's research is focused on the fluttering creatures because she considers them beautiful and highly diverse insects. She says: "They can be found nearly everywhere in the world and in many shapes and colours, something that is quite fascinating to me."

Grad student Melanie Lalonde is fascinated by lepidoptera. Credit: University of Manitoba

Explore further On the wings of Lepidoptera
Truffle from Mont-Ventoux. Image: Wikipedia.

The lucrative truffle industry is set to disappear within a generation due to climate change, according to new research by a University of Stirling academic.

A warmer and drier climate will be responsible for the decline  which will have a "huge economic, ecological and social impact"  and could be accelerated by other factors, such as heatwave events, forest fires, pests and diseases.

With the truffle species Tuber melanosporum trading at more than 1,000 per kilogram, the industry is worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Estimates have suggested that it could reach as much as 4.5 billion over the next 10 to 20 years, but the new study suggests a bleaker future for the sector.

Dr. Paul Thomas, from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Stirling, led the research, which is the first study to consider the future threat of climate change on European truffle production.

He said: "Our new study predicts that, under the most likely climate change scenario, European truffle production will decline by between 78 and 100 per cent between 2071 and 2100.

"However, the decline may well occur in advance of this date, when other climate change factors are taken into account, such as heatwaves, forest fires, drought events, pests and disease.

"We risk losing an industry worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy. However, the socio-economic impact of the predicted decline could be substantially larger as truffle harvesting and related activities form a key component of local history and cultural activity."

Dr. Thomas, working with Professor Ulf Buntgen at the University of Cambridge, studied continuous records, spanning 36 years, of Mediterranean truffle yield in France, Spain and Italy.

The team correlated the data with local weather conditions to assess the impact of climate on production  and combined the results with state-of-the-art climate model projections to predict the likely impact of climate change on truffle yields.

"This is a wake-up call to the impacts of climate change in the not-too-distant future," Dr. Thomas said. "These findings indicate that conservational initiatives are required to afford some protection to this important and iconic species. Potential action could include the expansion of truffle plantations into new territories of a more favourable future climate.

"Management strategies should further include mulching materials and cultivation practices to mitigate soil temperature fluctuations and conserve soil moisture."

The study, "A risk assessment of Europe's black truffle sector under predicted climate change," is published in Science of the Total Environment.

Explore further First luxury Perigord truffle is cultivated in Britain

More information: Paul Thomas et al. A risk assessment of Europe's black truffle sector under predicted climate change, Science of The Total Environment (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.252 Journal information: Science of the Total Environment Paul Thomas et al. A risk assessment of Europe's black truffle sector under predicted climate change,(2018). DOI:
Swiss livestock farmer Armin Capaulinspired by conversations with his cattlehas managed to force a national vote on cow dehorning

Concern over the cruelty of removing a cow's horns had not been one of Switzerland's most pressing political issues.

So when livestock farmer Armin Capaulinspired by conversations with his cattlemanaged to force a national vote on the question following an upstart campaign that began with few resources and no political support, he became a media celebrity.

But Capaul, whose wild grey hair and unkept beard accurately identify him as a man of the mountains, insisted that his insurgent bid to limit dehorning in Switzerland is not about him.

"It's the cow that's important, not me," the farmer, in his 70s, told AFP at his home in Perrefitte, a municipality in the heart of the Jura mountain range.

Capaul credits his cows with giving him the idea to push for Sunday's referendum.

"I always talk to my cows in the barn. They asked me if I could do something for them, if I could help them keep their horns," he said.

"One way or the other, something had to be done and if the animal welfare organisations weren't going to do anything, then I would do it," he said.

'They laughed at me'

The proposal on Sunday's ballot does not call for a ban on dehorning. Instead, it seeks a constitutional amendment that would create incentives for farmers to let horns grow.

The poll is part of Switzerland's famous direct democracy system, but in many ways it stands apart from other initiatives put to a vote in a recent years.

Often a proposal has the backing of established political parties, which use their networks to secure the 100,000 signatures needed to force a vote. The parties then typically set up lobby groups to campaign for their policies.

Switzerland has used the image of the horned cow to promote everything from its chocolate to its mountainous landscape

This was not Capaul's method.

In 2010, he wrote a letter to the federal agriculture office asking it to make horn preservation part of its animal welfare strategy.

"They laughed at me," Capaul said.

He then petitioned Swiss lawmakers in both the upper and lower house.

When that strategy failed, he launched a popular initiative, securing 119,626 signatures within the 18-month deadline in a campaign that ultimately attracted support from environmental and animal rights groups.

"If my wife had known what this would cause, she would not have supported me," he joked, in reference to the intense Swiss media focus heaped on the previously anonymous farmer in recent weeks.

'National animal'

Beyond animal cruelty, debate over the initiative has touched on the realities of the livestock business.

Some argue that dehorning cows is crucial because it allows farmers to house more animals in close proximity with less risk of injury.

Capaul and some of his backers counter that preserving horns is the right thing to do both for animals and for Switzerlandthe country has used the image of the horned cow to promote everything from its chocolate to its mountainous landscape.

"The horns are part of the cow... there is a lot of blood inside, more than in the tail of a dog, which it is forbidden to cut," he said.

In Switzerland's famous direct democracy system, a proposal usually has the backing of established political parties, which use their networks to secure the 100,000 signatures needed to force a vote

"In Switzerland, there are still 10 percent of cows that still have horns and these are the ones that I want to save," he added.

"The cow is, in a sense, the national animal. Its (image is) everywhere."

Pointed issue

The Federal Council, Switzerland's executive branch, is opposed to granting subsidies for horn preservation.

"There is no study that says cows or goats without horns are disproportionately harmed," it said in a statement.

It argued that farmers must remain free to dehorn their livestock for "entrepreneurial" reasons, if they so choose.

The Swiss Farmers' Union, the country's main agricultural organisation, has stayed neutral.

Polling conducted this month suggests the result is too close to call.

A survey by the Tamedia company had 52 percent of respondents against, versus 45 percent in support. The GFS Bern polling and research firm has 49 percent voting yes, and 46 percent voting no.

For a popular initiative to pass, it needs the backing of both a majority of voters and support in more than half of Switzerland's 26 cantons.

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 2018 AFP
Credit: Caltech

If there's a central tenet that unites all of the sciences, it's probably that scientists should approach discovery without bias and with a healthy dose of skepticism. The idea is that the best way to reach the truth is to allow the facts to lead where they will, even if it's not where you intended to go.

But that can be easier said than done. Humans have unconscious biases that are hard to shake, and most people don't like to be wrong. In the past several years, scientists have discovered troubling evidence that those biases may be affecting the integrity of the research process in many fields.

The evidence also suggests that even when scientists operate with the best intentions, serious errors are more common than expected because even subtle differences in the way an experimental procedure is conducted can throw off the findings.

When biases and errors leak into research, other scientists attempting the same experiment may find that they can't replicate the findings of the original researcher. This has given the broader issue its name: the replication crisis.

Colin Camerer, Caltech's Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics and the T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair, executive officer for the Social Sciences and director of the T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience, has been at the forefront of research into the replication crisis. He has penned a number of studies on the topic and is an ardent advocate for reform. We talked with Camerer about how bad the problem is and what can be done to correct it; and the "open science" movement, which encourages the sharing of data, information, and materials among researchers.

What exactly is the replication crisis?

What instigated all of this is the discovery that many findingsoriginally in medicine but later in areas of psychology, in economics, and probably in every fieldjust don't replicate or reproduce as well as we would hope. By reproduce, I mean taking data someone collected for a study and doing the same analysis just to see if you get the same results. People can get substantial differences, for example, if they use newer statistics than were available to the original researchers.

The earliest studies into reproducibility also found that sometimes it's hard to even get people to share their data in a timely and clear way. There was a norm that data sharing is sort of a bonus, but isn't absolutely a necessary part of the job of being a scientist.

How big of a problem is this?

I would say it's big enough to be very concerning. I'll give an example from social psychology, which has been one of the most problematic areas. In social psychology, there's an idea called priming, which means if I make you think about one thing subconsciously, those thoughts may activate related associations and change your behavior in some surprising way.

Many studies on priming were done by John Bargh, who is a well-known psychologist at Yale. Bargh and his colleagues got young people to think about being old and then had them sit at a table and do a test. But the test was just a filler, because the researchers weren't interested in the results of the test. They were interested in how thinking about being old affected the behavior of the young people. When the young people were done with the filler test, the research team timed how long it took them to get up from the table and walk to an elevator. They found that the people who were primed to think about being old walked slower than the control group that had not received that priming.

They were trying to get a dramatic result showing that mental associations about old people affect physical behavior. The problem was that when others tried to replicate the study, the original findings didn't replicate very well. In one replication, something even worse happened. Some of the assistants in that experiment were told the priming would make the young subjects walk slower, and others were told the priming would make them walk more quicklythis is what we call a reactance or boomerang effect. And what the assistants were told to expect influenced their measurements of how fast the subjects walked, even though they were timing with stopwatches. The assistants' stopwatch measures were biased compared to an automated timer. I mention this example because it's the kind of study we think of as too cute to be true. When the failure to replicate came out, there was a big uproar about how much skill an experimenter needs to do a proper replication.

You recently explored this issue in a pair of papers. What did you find?

In our first paper, we looked at experimental economics, which is something that was pioneered here at Caltech. We took 18 papers from multiple institutions that were published in two of the leading economics journals. These are the papers you would hope would replicate the best. What we found was that 14 out of 18 replicated fairly well, but four of them didn't.

It's important to note that in two of those four cases, we made slight deviations in how the experiment was done. That's a reminder that small changes can make a big difference in replication. For example, if you're studying political psychology and partisanship and you replicate a paper from 2010, the results today might be very different because the political climate has changed. It's not that the authors of the original paper made a mistake, it's that the phenomenon in their study changed.

In our second paper, we looked at social science papers published between 2010 and 2015 in Science and Nature, which are the flagship general science journals. We were interested in them because these were highly cited papers and were seen as very influential.

We picked out the ones that wouldn't be overly laborious to replicate, and we ended up with 21 papers. What we found was that only about 60 percent replicated, and the ones that didn't replicate tended to focus on things like priming, which I mentioned before. Priming has turned out to be the least replicable phenomenon. It's a shame because the underlying conceptthat thinking about one thing elevates associations to related thingsis undoubtedly true.

How does something like that happen?

One cause of findings not replicating is what we call "p-hacking." P-value is a measure of the statistical likelihood that your hypothesis is true. If the p-value is low, an effect is highly unlikely to be a fluke due to chance. In social science and medicine, for example, you are usually testing whether changing the conditions of the experiment changes behavior. You really want to get a low p-value because it means that the condition you changed did have an effect. P-hacking is when you keep trying different analyses with your data until you get the p-value to be low.

A good example of p-hacking is deleting data points that don't fit your hypothesisoutliersfrom your data set. There are statistical methods to deal with outliers, but sometimes people expect to see a correlation and don't find much of one, for example. So then they think of a plausible reason to discard a few outlier points, because by doing that they can get the correlation to be bigger. That practice can be abused, but at the same time, there sometimes are outliers that should be discarded. For example, if subjects blink too much when you are trying to measure visual perception, it is reasonable to edit out the blinks or not use some subjects.

Another explanation is that sometimes scientists are simply helped along by luck. When someone else tries to replicate that original experiment but doesn't get the same good luck, they won't get the same results.

In the sciences, you're supposed be impartial and say, "Here's my hypothesis, and I'm going to prove it right or wrong." So, why do people tweak the results to get an answer they want?

At the top of the pyramid is outright fraud and, happily, that's pretty rare. Typically, if you do a postmortem or a confessional in the case of fraud, you find a scientist who feels tremendous pressure. Sometimes it's personal"I just wanted to be respected"and sometimes it's grant money or being too ashamed to come clean.

In the fraudulent cases, scientists get away with a small amount of deception, and they get very dug in because they're really betting their careers on it. The finding they faked might be what gets them invited to conferences and gets them lots of funding. Then it's too embarrassing to stop and confess what they've been doing all along.

There are also faulty scientific practices less egregious than outright fraud, right?

Sure. It is the scientist who thinks, "I know I'm right, and even though these data didn't prove it, I'm sure I could run a lot more experiments and prove it. So I'm just going to help the process along by creating the best version of the data." It's like cosmetic surgery for data.

And again, there are incentives driving this. Often in Big Science and Big Medicine, you're supporting a lot of people on your grant. If something really goes wrong with your big theory or your pathbreaking method, those people get laid off and their careers are harmed.

Another force that contributes to weak replicability is that, in science, we rely to a very large extent on norms of honor and the idea that people care about the process and want to get to the truth. There's a tremendous amount of trust involved. If I get a paper to review from a leading journal, I'm not necessarily thinking like a police detective about whether it's fabricated.

A lot of the frauds were only uncovered because there was a pattern across many different papers. One paper was too good to be true, and the next one was too good to be true, and so on. Nobody's good enough to get 10 too-good-to-be-trues in a row.

So, often, it's kind of a fluke. Somebody slips or a person notices and then asks for the data and digs a little further.

What best practices should scientists follow to avoid falling into these traps?

There are many things we can doI call it the reproducibility upgrade. One is preregistration, which means before you collect your data, you publicly explain and post online exactly what data you're going to collect, why you picked your sample size, and exactly what analysis you are going to run. Then if you do very different analysis and get a good result, people can question why you departed from what you preregistered and whether the unplanned analyses were p-hacked.

The more general rubric is called open science, in which you act like basically everything you do should be available to other people except for certain things like patient privacy. That includes original data, code, instructions, and experimental materials like video recordingseverything.

Meta-analysis is another method I think we're going to see more and more of. That's where you combine the results of studies that are all trying to measure the same general effect. You can use that information to find evidence of things like publication bias, which is a sort of groupthink. For example, there's strong experimental evidence that giving people smaller plates causes them to eat less. So maybe you're studying small and large plates, and you don't find any effect on portion size. You might think to yourself, "I probably made a mistake. I'm not going to try to publish that." Or you might say, "Wow! That's really interesting. I didn't get a small-plate effect. I'm going to send it to a journal." And the editors or referees say, "You probably made a mistake. We're not going to publish it." Those are publication biases. They can be caused by scientists withholding results or by journals not publishing them because they get an unconventional result.

If a group of scientists comes to believe something is true and the contrary evidence gets ignored or swept under the rug, that means a lot of people are trying to come to some collective conclusion about something that's not true. The big damage is that it's a colossal waste of time, and it can harm public perceptions of how solid science is in general.

Are people receptive to the changes you suggest?

I would say 90 percent of people have been very supportive. One piece of very good news is the Open Science Framework has been supported by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which is a big private foundation, and by other donors. The private foundations are in a unique position to spend a lot of money on things like this. Our first grant to do replications in experimental economics came when I met the program officer from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I told him we were piloting a big project replicating economics experiments. He got excited, and it was figuratively like he took a bag of cash out of his briefcase right there. My collaborators in Sweden and Austria later got a particularly big grant for $1.5 million to work on replication. Now that there's some momentum, funding agencies have been reasonably generous, which is great.

Another thing that's been interesting is that while journals are not keen on publishing a replication of one paper, they really like what we've done, which is a batch of replications. A few months into working on the first replication paper in experimental economics funded by Sloan, I got an email from an editor at Science who said, "I heard you're working on this replication thing. Have you thought about where to publish it?" That's a wink-wink, coy way of saying "Please send it to us" without any promise being made. They did eventually publish it.

What challenges do you see going forward?

I think the main challenge is determining where the responsibility lies. Until about 2000, the conventional wisdom was, "Nobody will pay for your replication and nobody will publish your replication. And if it doesn't come out right, you'll just make an enemy. Don't bother to replicate." Students were often told not to do replication because it would be bad for their careers. I think that's false, but it is true that nobody is going to win a big prize for replicating somebody else's work. The best career path in science comes from showing that you can do something original, important, and creative. Replication is exactly the opposite. It is important for somebody to do it, but it's not creative. It's something that most scientists want someone else to do.

What is needed are institutions to generate steady, ongoing replications, rather than relying on scientists who are trying to be creative and make breakthroughs to do it. It could be a few centers that are just dedicated to replicating. They could pick every fifth paper published in a given journal, replicate it, and post their results online. It would be like auditing, or a kind of Consumer Reports for science. I think some institutions like that will emerge. Or perhaps granting agencies, like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, should be responsible for building in safeguards. They could have an audit process that sets aside grant money to do a replication and check your work.

For me this is like a hobby. Now I hope that some other group of careful people who are very passionate and smart will take up the baton and start to do replications very routinely.

Explore further Testing the reproducibility of social science research
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Cobalt deposits in one of Earth's largest cobalt-mining regions are 150 million years younger than previously thought, according to a new study by University of Alberta geologists.

Working with former post-doctoral fellow Nicolas Saintilan, U of A geochemist Robert Creaser, Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry, used a new, rhenium-osmium dating system to examine the rich cobalt deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Their results show that cobalt and copper mineralization occurred during a period of mountain building and deformation between 610 and 470 million years ago, suggesting that the deposits formed 100 to 150 million years more recently than originally thought.

The study also provides critical insight into exploration for cobalt, an important component in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in everything from smartphones to hybrid cars.

"Using this new knowledge of the timing of events that formed cobalt deposits, we can target regions for exploring known cobalt deposits and discovering new ones," said Creaser.

Cobalt enables rechargeable batteries to stock energy without overheating. It is a strategic metal for the technological revolution, critical in efforts to face and remediate climate change.

Because of its use in lithium-ion batteries, cobalt is a hot commodity on the international marketcreating steep competition. Most large cobalt deposits are located in developing or poverty-stricken regions in Central Africa. Exploration can be mired in human rights, geopolitical and sustainability issues, Creaser explained.

"The conundrum is that the western world needs cobalt, and the conditions in some places we currently get it from can be exploitative.

"The biggest value of this research is opening the possibility of finding more prospective areas worldwide for sources of cobalt. This background information helps exploration geologists develop ideas of where and where not to look," said Creaser.

The research was supported by David Selby at Durham University in the United Kingdom. Key samples were provided by Stijn Dewaele at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.

The paper, "Sulphide Re-Os Geochronology Links Orogenesis, Salt and Cu-Co Ores in the Central African Copperbelt," was published in Scientific Reports.

Explore further Researchers publish discoveries in battery technology

More information: N. J. Saintilan et al. Sulphide Re-Os geochronology links orogenesis, salt and Cu-Co ores in the Central African Copperbelt, Scientific Reports (2018). Journal information: Scientific Reports N. J. Saintilan et al. Sulphide Re-Os geochronology links orogenesis, salt and Cu-Co ores in the Central African Copperbelt,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-33399-7
In this Tuesday, Nov, 13, 2018 photo, Andreas Wiebe, founder of Swiss privacy-focused search engine Swisscows, is photographed in London. In the battle for online privacy, U.S. search giant Google is a Goliath facing a handful of European Davids. The backlash over Big Tech's collection of personal data offers fresh hope to a number of little-known search engines that promise to protect user privacy, such as Britain's Mojeek, France's Qwant, Unbubble in Germany and Swisscows, which say they don't track user data, filter results or show "behavioral" ads. (AP Photo/Kelvin Chan)

In the battle for online privacy, U.S. search giant Google is a Goliath facing a handful of European Davids.

The backlash over Big Tech's collection of personal data offers new hope to a number of little-known search engines that promise to protect user privacy.

Sites like Britain's Mojeek , France's Qwant , Unbubble in Germany and Swisscows don't track user data, filter results or show "behavioral" ads.

These sites are growing amid the rollout of new European privacy regulations and numerous corporate data scandals, which have raised public awareness about the mountains of personal information companies stealthily gather and sell to advertisers.

Widespread suspicion in Europe about Google's stranglehold on internet searches has also helped make the continent a spawning ground for secure searching. Europe is particularly sensitive to privacy issues because spying by the Nazi-era Gestapo and the secret services in the Soviet Union is still within living memory.

"For us, it's all about citizens and citizens have the right to privacy," said Eric Leandri, chairman of Paris-based Qwant. He said that view contrasts with the mindset across the Atlantic, where internet users are seen as consumers whose rights are dictated by the terms of their agreements with tech companies.

Traffic numbers show interest is rising. Qwant's queries tripled to 10 billion in 2017. On a monthly basis, it's getting 80 million visits while requests are growing 20 percent. Leandri says the site now accounts for 6 percent of search engine market share in France, its biggest market.

Qwant is even getting official support. Last month the French army and parliament both said they would drop Google and use Qwant as their default search engine, as part of efforts to reclaim European "digital sovereignty."

The site doesn't use tracking cookies or profile users, allowing it to give two different users the exact same result. It has built its own index of 20 billion pages covering French, German and Italian and plans to expand it to about two dozen other languages, for which results currently come from Microsoft's Bing.

To be sure, Google's in no danger of toppling. The company based in Mountain View, California, accounts for three-quarters or more of global market share, depending on whom you ask, and rules the mobile market with its Android operating system.

Mojeek, based in Brighton, England, operates on similar principles and has so far cataloged 2 billion webpages. The company says it gets 200,000 unique visitors a month and search queries have quintupled over the past year.

Another British startup, Oscobo, does anonymous searches for U.K. users with results licensed from Yahoo/Bing. Netherlands-based Startpage anonymizes Google search results, stripping out ads and tracking.

Pat Walshe, a U.K.-based privacy consultant, has been using Startpage and Qwant for years and says has never felt their services were inferior to Google's.

"I don't think people would go back if they started using these sites," Walshe said. They're "allowing you to have greater choice and control and should hopefully minimize the tracking," which means you'll no longer, for example, see the same ad for a pair of shoes following you around online, he said.

Walshe likes Startpage's new "anonymous view" feature, which goes a step further and lets users visit websites anonymously, so they won't be exposed to tracking by websites even after clicking a search result.

Germany's Unbubble is a "meta-search" site, sending encrypted queries to more than 30 other search engines. It promises neutral search results rather than ones filtered by an algorithm catering to personal biases.

Outside Europe, there's also U.S. site DuckDuckGo.

Some privacy search operators say it's equally important to help users avoid "filter bubbles," in which content is pre-selected by the likes of Google and Facebook based on previous searches and other data.

"The main idea is to provide neutral information and allow people to depend less on machine learning-based filters," said Unbubble founder Tobias Sasse. "If you are using Google today, perhaps you'll notice that there is always the same mainstream information," preventing people from seeing the "great diversity" online, he said.

Some sites rely on donations, others from "affiliate advertising"links from shopping sites that pay a commission but don't target or track users. That's different from Google's behavioral, or targeted, ads that come up based on your search history, which many find creepy and invasive.

Mojeek has private investors. Founder Marc Smith, who began in 2004 with two servers in his bedroom, believes advertising is "a necessary evil and we'll look for whatever route we can to avoid it," said marketing chief Finn Brownbill.

In Switzerland, a country whose banking sector became a byword for secrecy, Swisscows has thrived, with monthly search queries jumping by nearly half to 20 million from a year ago, said founder Andreas Wiebe, who also runs software company Hulbee.

Even so, Wiebe said he met plenty of skepticism at the start. "In 2014, I had people talking to me (saying) 'you're crazy'," and that the project would be dead within a year. Instead, National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of U.S. government surveillance in 2015 gave it a kickstart.

Explore further 'Privacy' search engines see jump after NSA row

 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
(a) Neotrogla sp. in copula. (b) Terminal abdomen of N. curvata in copula. Female structures are highlighted by red. (al) Morphology of the female (ci,k) and male ( j,l ) genitalia in Sensitibillini, with the homology scheme indicated by colours. (c,ij) Neotrogla truncata. (d) N. curvata. (ef,k  l) N. aurora (note that N. brasiliensis and N. sp. also have this type of genitalia). (g) Sensitibilla etosha. (h) Afrotrogla oryx. Dotted regions of illustrations indicate membranes and others are sclerite ((ch): approximately to scale). Arrowheads in (ch) indicate the opening of the spermathecal duct, and arrowheads in ( j) and (l ) indicate the presence (filled) or the absence (open) of male vaginal pouches. (ce) Lateral view; (fi,k) ventral view; ( j,l ) dorsal view. Credit: Biology Letters (2018). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0533

A team of researchers from Japan, Brazil and Switzerland has found evidence that suggests female penis-like appendages in two types of cave insects evolved independently. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the group describes their study of Sensitibillini insects and what they discovered.

Four years ago, a team of researchers from Japan discovered a genus of insect living in a cave in Brazil with females that had penis-like appendages and males with vagina-like pouches. The insects were given the name Neotrogla. Researchers noted that only one other insect had similarly reversed sexual organs, one named Afrotrogla. The two species fell within the same genera, so the researchers with this new effort wondered if the reversed organs developed just once, before the two species diverged, or if they evolved independently. They noted that there was another closely related genus called Sensibilia, but its sex organs were not reversed. They then studied the sex organs of all three very carefully, and came to the conclusion that the reversed organs in the two species evolved independently.

Once the researchers came to this conclusion, they focused their attention on why it happenedit seemed quite coincidental, considering that just about every other known animal species has the more familiar male penile appendage. After comparing the environments in which the two species evolved and continue to live, they suggest it likely came down to competition for food. Both live in caves where food is scarce. Because of that, males appear to be more interested in finding food than in mating. This has led the females to assume the role of pursuer and initiator. And to prevent the male from escaping before his sperm has been collected, the female has evolved a hook that latches onto the male, keeping him in place for two or three days.

The researchers note that there are many examples of males and females evolving in tandem to accommodate the transfer of sperm, but none compare to the unique anatomy of the Sensitibillini. They also suspect that predation in their environments likely played a role in the development of their sex organs as well.

More information: Kazunori Yoshizawa et al. Independent origins of female penis and its coevolution with male vagina in cave insects (Psocodea: Prionoglarididae), Biology Letters (2018). Journal information: Biology Letters Kazunori Yoshizawa et al. Independent origins of female penis and its coevolution with male vagina in cave insects (Psocodea: Prionoglarididae),(2018). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0533

 2018 Science X Network
Typical Cradle of Humankind landscape today. We believe that at specific times in the past, this environment was much wetter and more vegetated than today Credit: Dr Robyn Pickering

New research from an international team of scientists led by University of Cape Town isotope geochemist Dr. Robyn Pickering is the first to provide a timeline for fossils from the caves within the Cradle of Humankind. It also sheds light on the climate conditions of our earliest ancestors in the area.

Published online in the journal Nature on 21 November 2018, the work corrects assumptions that the region's fossil-rich caves could never be related to each other. In fact, the research suggests fossils from Cradle caves date to just six specific time periods.

"Unlike previous dating work, which often focused on one cave, sometimes even just one chamber of the cave, we are providing direct ages for eight caves and a model to explain the age of all the fossils from the entire region," says Dr. Robyn Pickering.

"Now we can link together the findings from separate caves and create a better picture of evolutionary history in southern Africa."

The Cradle of Humankind is a World Heritage Site made up of complex fossil-bearing caves. It's the world's richest early hominin site and home to nearly 40% of all known human ancestor fossils, including the famous Australopithecus africanus skull nicknamed Mrs Ples.

Using uranium-lead dating, researchers analysed 28 flowstone layers that were found sandwiched between fossil-rich sediment in eight caves across the Cradle. The results revealed that the fossils in these caves date to six narrow time-windows between 3.2 and 1.3 million years ago.

Field photograph of massive flowstone layers from one of the South African hominin caves, with red cave sediments underneath Credit: Robyn Pickering

"The flowstones are the key," says Pickering. "We know they can only grow in caves during wet times, when there is more rain outside the cave. By dating the flowstones, we are picking out these times of increased rainfall. We therefore know that during the times in between, when the caves were open, the climate was drier and more like what we currently experience."

This means the early hominins living in the Cradle experienced big changes in local climate, from wetter to drier conditions, at least six times between 3 and 1 million years ago. However, only the drier times are preserved in the caves, skewing the record of early human evolution.

Up until now, the lack of dating methods for Cradle fossils made it difficult for scientists to understand the relationship between East and South Africa hominin species. Moreover, the South African record has often been considered undateable compared to East Africa where volcanic ash layers allow for high resolution dating.

Professor Andy Herries, a co-author in the study at La Trobe University in Australia, notes that "while the South African record was the first to show Africa as the origin point for humans, the complexity of the caves and difficultly dating them has meant that the South African record has remained difficult to interpret."

"In this study we show that the flowstones in the caves can act almost like the volcanic layers of East Africa, forming in different caves at the same time, allowing us to directly relate their sequences and fossils into a regional sequence," he says.

Dr. Pickering began dating the Cradle caves back in 2005 as part of her Ph.D. research. This new publication is the result of 13 years of work and brings together a team of 10 scientists from South Africa, Australia and the US. The results return the Cradle to the forefront and open new opportunities for scientists to answer complex questions about human history in the region.

"Robyn and her team have made a major contribution to our understanding of human evolution," says leading palaeoanthropologist Professor Bernard Wood, of the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at the George Washington University in the USA, who is not an author on the study.

"This is the most important advance to be made since the fossils themselves were discovered. Dates of fossils matter a lot. The value of the southern African evidence has been increased many-fold by this exemplary study of its temporal and depositional context."

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More information: Robyn Pickering et al, UPb-dated flowstones restrict South African early hominin record to dry climate phases, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Robyn Pickering et al, UPb-dated flowstones restrict South African early hominin record to dry climate phases,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0711-0

Provided by University of Cape Town
This artist's concept shows the InSight lander, its sensors, cameras and instruments. Credit: NASA.

When NASA's new InSight lander touches down on Mars on Nov. 26 to begin new explorations of the Red Planet's interior structure, Virginia Tech's Scott King will be anxiously awaiting the first feedback of data.

King, a professor with the Department of Geosciences in the Virginia Tech College of Science, is heading one of 24 new research teams selected this past summer by NASA to receive data science collected by the lander as it explores the planet during the next four years. When InSight  that's short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport  arrives on Mars after its 301 million-mile journey, the robotic explorer will take on the mission of studying Mars' crust, mantle, and core.

In NASA's words, this first-of-its-kind mission will "give the Red Planet its first thorough checkup since it formed 4.5 billion years ago." In King's words, "I'll be thinking a lot about what's inside Mars for the next few years." King will focus on the size of Mars' core and how it moves and wobbles, or rotates.

"At the end of the project, I hope that we have a model for the composition of the interior of Mars, including the composition of the core, the size of the core, and the composition of the rocky mantle above it," King said. "I hope this model will be consistent with all the available observations we havefrom InSight, from Martian meteorites, from the compositions of the surface rocks from the rovers, and from the global models of gravity and topography. Knowing the composition will help us understand Mars' evolution through time: When did the magnetic field start and stop? And why did it stop? What is the origin of the large volcanoes and why are they on one hemisphere of Mars?"

InSight's exploration of Mars is not King's first project with NASA. He was part of the Dawn at Ceres mission and is continuing to study Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt. He has published papers on Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The Red Planet, though, has remained a top focus.

"I've always been fascinated with the large volcanoes on Mars, including Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system," King said. "It seemed counter-intuitive to me that a planet smaller than Earth would have volcanoes two to three times larger than Earth."

Working with King will be Josh Murphy, a geosciences doctoral student from Stafford, Virginia. "I have long been curious about the internal structure of Mars, particularly the state of the coresolid vs. liquidand how geologically active present-day Mars is. The data from InSight will help answer these questions as well as provide key constraints for my research modeling the volcanic history of the Red Planet."

InSight launched on May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and is managed by JPL, a division of Caltech, and is part of NASA's Discovery Program.

Before the craft launched, NASA received 100 or so proposals from scientists seeking to join InSight's science team and work with the data that would be returned from InSight. King ended up being among the 24 finalists. Unlike NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, where scientists "borrow" time on the observatory to take on specific missions, Scott and his fellow scientists will be part of an early core group to get a first look at data as its collected by InSight.

"We are developing numerical models using laboratory measurements to interpret the seismic data," King said. "What we really want to know is what is the composition of the interior and does it change with depth? We take the seismic data and compare that with various assumed compositions and find the composition that best fits the data."

NASA said one instrument on the lander will burrow beneath the surface as it seeks out how the planet was formed.

"Studying Mars' interior structure answers key questions about the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar systemMercury, Venus, Earth, and Marsmore than 4 billion years ago, as well as rocky exoplanets," the agency said. It's not the first time NASA has tried to study the interior of the planet. In the 1976 Viking lander, the robot's seismometer failed because it was too exposed to the windy environment.

Explore further Five things to know about InSight's Mars landing
Nissan said it had uncovered "numerous significant acts of misconduct" including a sustained under-reporting of Carlos Ghosn's compensation package

Carlos Ghosn, one of the world's most influential executives, is under arrest in Tokyo, in a stunning fall from grace that raises questions about the future of his sprawling Franco-Japanese auto group.

Details are starting to emerge about the allegations of financial misconduct against the 64-year-old executive, who has not yet issued a statement on his fate.

Here is what we know so far about the unfolding scandal:

What is Ghosn accused of?

Nissan said it had uncovered "numerous significant acts of misconduct" including a sustained under-reporting of his compensation package.

After a months-long internal probe using information from whistleblowers, Nissan handed over its evidence to authorities.

Prosecutors accused Ghosn and representative director Greg Kelly of conspiring to understate the chairman's income five times between June 2011 and June 2015.

They said income was reported of 4.987 million yen ($44.5 million) instead of the actual 9.998 million yen in financial statements submitted to authorities.

Nissan also accused him of "personal use of company assets".

Public broadcaster NHK reported Nissan had paid "huge sums" to provide Ghosn with luxury homes in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam "without any legitimate business reason".

What has the reaction been?

There has been a brutal reaction on the markets. Nissan shares plunged more than five percent after the news broke while sister company Mitsubishi Motors dropped nearly seven percent.

The news came out while European markets were still open, meaning that Renault was worst affected by the initial sell-off, falling more than 12 percent at one point in Paris.

Paris and Tokyo have scrambled to shore up the Franco-Japanese "alliance" of Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, with finance ministers in both countries pledging "strong support".

President Emmanuel Macron said France would remain "vigilant" over the stability of Renaultin which the French state holds a 15-percent stakeas well as the alliance.

There has been no reaction from Ghosn or his representatives. The tycoon is being held in a detention centre in northern Tokyo.

Is he still in a job?

Nissan will hold a board meeting on Thursday to decide its chairman's fate. However, things are not looking good after the current CEO laid into him and his legacy at a news conference following his arrest.

Hiroto Saikawa said "too much authority" had been placed in his former mentor's hands and lamented the "dark side of the Ghosn era".

On the other hand, Renault declared after an emergency board meeting that it was sticking by its boss as it had not yet seen Nissan's evidence against him.

Nevertheless, it promoted chief operating officer Thierry Bollore to deputy CEO with the "same powers" as Ghosn, who was "temporarily incapacitated".

Mitsubishi Motors is expected to decide Ghosn's fate some time next week.

What impact on his reputation?

Overnight, the reputation of the once-loved tycoon is in tatters.

He had already sparked concern over his high pay packet and lavish lifestyle, including a reported Marie Antoinette-themed party at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris in 2016.

Now local media cite employees as calling him "greedy" and "all about the money".

In an astonishing news conference, Saikawa hauled Ghosn's reputation and legacy over the coals, even appearing to downplay his part in Nissan's revival.

What happens next?

Under Japanese law, Ghosn can be held for 48 hours after which prosecutors must decide whether to press formal charges, release him or prolong his detention.

His detention can be prolonged for two periods of 10 days, during which he will be questioned.

At the end of this period, the process can begin again with a new charge.

If found guilty, the crime of deliberately hiding income is punishable by a fine of 10 million yen and/or 10 years behind bars.

However, he does not appear to be facing the music in France.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said he had ordered an inquiry into Ghosn's tax affairs immediately after learning of his arrest in Japan but that it showed up "nothing in particular about his tax situation".

The allegations levelled against Ghosn in Japan do not include tax evasion in France.

Explore further Nissan chief Ghosn arrested over financial misconduct: reports

 2018 AFP
IPKat is here with your weekly update of IP news and events! We begin this week with an update on the pemetrexed (Alimta) Italian patent case between Fresenius Kabi and Eli Lilly.





Pemetrexed disodium at the Court of Milan





Last year, IPKat blogged about the Court of Milan's decision in the pemetrexed (Alimta) patent case (Court of Milan, 12 September 2017, urgent proceedings between Fresenius Kabi and Eli Lilly).





That decision has now been fully reversed by a panel of three judges of the same Court of Milan, after having heard the appeal filed by Eli Lilly against the first instance decision. On 15 October 2018, the Court of Milan found that Lilly's patent EP1313508 is infringed by equivalence by Fresenius Kabi's product containing pemetrexed diacid and tromethamine and issued a preliminary injunction against the latter.

Milan

In short: the decision contains an in-depth legal assessment, from an Italian perspective, of when prosecution history should (or should not) play a role in the court's assessment of equivalence. The decision was rendered in urgent proceedings (second instance). However, it has a special weight as it was drafted by the President of the IP Division of the Court of Milan, who acted both as President of the panel and as Judge Rapporteur in this case.





On the facts, the Court held that the amendments made by Lilly did not restrict the interpretation of the patents scope of protection in such a manner as to exclude compounds that are equivalent to pemetrexed disodium. The Court then agreed with the independent panel of experts that the skilled person would treat the disodium as a non-essential part of the invention since the invention was aimed at solving the clinical issue of toxicity by administering vitamin B12 with the pemetrexed anion. The skilled person would understand that the active moiety is the pemetrexed anion and the counterion has no therapeutic or toxic effect. The Court agreed that it would therefore have been obvious to the skilled person to replace pemetrexed disodium with pemetrexed diacid (with tromethamine as in Fresenius Kabi's product) and that Fresenius Kabi's products infringed Lilly's patent by equivalence.





Have you tried Espacenet beta yet?





The EPO has launched a trial version of its online patent application and patent database Espacenet: " Espacenet beta ". The EPO welcomes user feedback.





Events



is an association of companies from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Romania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom) and Turkey, for the protection and development of Trademarks, Trade & Business names. This year's ESIMET congress will be held in Thessaloniki on 1 December 2018, and will be on the topic of "The Violation of the Industrial and Intellectual Property on the Internet and in E-Commerce". Further details here. The online registration form can be found ESIMET is an association of companies from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Romania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom) and Turkey, for the protection and development of Trademarks, Trade & Business names. This year's ESIMET congress will be held in Thessaloniki on, and will be on the topic of "The Violation of the Industrial and Intellectual Property on the Internet and in E-Commerce". Further detailsThe online registration form can be found here





Howard is looking forward to all the IP events!

The

Christmas dinner meeting will be held on

at the Royal Overseas League.

of

will be speaking. Eminent barrister, mediator and occasional

, Guy will provide an insight into some important soft IP disputes from the last 12 months, and has hinted that he may also perform some topical magic. Full details and tickets can be obtained

.

Don't miss the book launch of "Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image" by Dr Elena Cooper (CREATe, University of Glasgow), to be held at the Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, University of London on 5 December 2018. RSVP to elena.cooper@glasgow.ac.uk.





Celebrate EUIPO British Day on 6 December 2018 with an event organised by EUIPO, UKIPO and CITMA. Full details

.

The Court of Turin is hosting a Seminar plus Mock Trial on

on the topic of Trade Secrets. The Seminar and the Mock Trial will involve Judges from Turin, Milan, Genoa and Naples together with attorneys and patent agents.





INTA 2018 Middle East and Africa Conference: Innovation, Investment, and IP conference will be held on 10-11 December 2018 at Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights Hotel, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. See the full program here. Theconference will be held onat Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights Hotel, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. See the full program









23 January 2019 and will cover the topic of Client Interviewing. Register The University of Notre Dame Law School in London is launching a new lecture series on Intellectual Property Law, open to UK IP practitioners. The first lecture in the series will be held onand will cover the topic of Client Interviewing. Register here





28 January 2019. The conference aims to provide insights and best practice for cost-effectively managing trademark portfolios. For further details and registration, see The Managing Trademark Assets Europe 2019 conference will be held in London on. The conference aims to provide insights and best practice for cost-effectively managing trademark portfolios. For further details and registration, see here





2 April 2019. The full speaker program can be seen The CILIP Copyright Conference 2019 will held on. The full speaker program can be seen here . Details for registration can be found here





Icepops: International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars, a one-day event to be held on 26 June 2019 at the South Hall Complex, University of Edinburgh. Booking opens in February 2019. Further details to be found Save the date for, a one-day event to be held onat the South Hall Complex, University of Edinburgh. Booking opens in. Further details to be found here





Job opportunity





Nominet , the official registry for UK domain names, is currently seeking new independent experts for their Dispute Resolution Service (DRS). This is a role that takes a relatively small amount of time each year, deciding disputes remotely and based on the DRS Policy and each parties submissions. Ideally panellists will have a deep understanding of IP and the Internet, and can objectively and professionally provide reasoned binding decisions on parties in dispute over a web address. See here for further details and to apply.





conjurerThe UK IPO and EPO are joining forces to host a series of workshops onabout the EPO's online services. Learn about the EPO's online filing system and the second phase of the DOCX filing pilot. Register here
Producing an OLED in a laboratory at the University of Bayreuth. Credit: Norbert Achtelik, Bayreuth.

Another major success for the University of Bayreuth: over the next four years, the university will be coordinating an intercontinental research network that has 3.9 million euros in funding. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this network will enable international doctoral students to study and carry out interdisciplinary research in the field of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). It seeks to boost the efficiency and durability of the diodes, which are crucial for television and smartphone screens, and to foster innovations such as curved or foldable displays.

This EU project is known as a Marie Sodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN). The core of the network consists of universities and research institutes as well as companies in Europe (companies account for one third of the network). Together, the project partners are seeking to expand and optimize the technological potential of organic light-emitting diodes. For this purpose, 15 positions are being advertised for doctoral researchers. Research work will range from basic and applied research to innovative developments. OLEDs are made from carbon-containing semiconductors which, as components of displays, can emit light with high colour contrast and ensure that the screens have very wide viewing angles.

"Our project has a strong international and interdisciplinary profile," said Professor Anna Kohler, an expert in the optoelectronics of soft matter at the University of Bayreuth and coordinator of the new EU research network. "We are particularly pleased that, in addition to our European partners, renowned universities and research institutions in the USA, Japan, Korea, and India are also participating in our network. They will offer our doctoral students research opportunities and frequent scientific contact. This ensures that the latest findings in the field of OLEDs are incorporated into the work of our early-career scholars. Worldwide technology transfer and exchange of experience are trademarks of the new ITN," Prof. Kohler explained.

International exchange is complemented by a structured training programme. This includes interdisciplinary workshops on specific research aspects and the targeted development of soft skills, and it also aims to foster personal development in general. In addition, doctoral students will have the opportunity to actively work at companies in the electronics industry during their doctoral studies, enabling them to set the course for their future careers at an early stage. "We intend to provide our young scientists with a great deal of international and interdisciplinary experience. Graduates of our EU network will thus have excellent opportunities on the globalized job market," said Peter Strohriegl, Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, who has been advancing research on organic light-emitting diodes here for many decades.

The light emission from light-emitting diodes investigated in the new EU project is based on a process known as "thermally activated delayed fluorescence" (TADF). This research approach utilizes heat to convert excited states that do not emit light into emitting excited states, thereby increasing the luminance and efficiency of OLEDs  and thus the quality of future displays. However, before such highly efficient OLEDs can find their way into industrial products, their lifetime must also be improved. The research work within the network coordinated in Bayreuth is also expected to make a sustainable contribution in this area. Therefore, this new network is named "TADFlife."

Explore further Researchers discover a way to control the colour of OLEDs
The transfer of a pilot group of 10 West African giraffes to a wildlife reserve will test whether the others will follow

Part of a group of a rare giraffes that has become a Niger tourist attraction is to be moved to a reserve 600 kilometres (400 miles) away owing to encroaching desert, farmland and increasing instances of them being struck by vehicles, officials said Wednesday.

"It's to give the species better protection," Environment Minister Almoustapha Garba told a media conference.

He explained that initially seven females and three males would be taken from a herd living in the southwest Koure region south of the capital Niamey and relocated in the Gadabedji Reserve in the centre of Niger, on the edge of the Sahara Desert.

The animals, known by the classification Giraffa camelopardalis peralta or more commonly the West African giraffe or Niger giraffe, has light-coloured spots and the herd in Niger is the last self-producing tower left in the world.

Under the supervision of animal protection associations, the number of West African giraffes in Koure grew from 50 in 1996 to an estimated 612 in 2017, according to environment ministry figures.

The animals are regularly seen crossing roads in the Koure region, to the delight of tourists but at a cost of some becoming roadkill when struck by trucks or buses.

Their shrinking habitat has forced them to venture hundreds of kilometres (miles) to forage, Omer Dovi of the Niger Giraffes Rescue Association. "Some giraffes have gone as far as the border with Mali where they have been killed by poachers," he said.

The relocation programme is to be carried out jointly by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, the Sahara Conservation Fund and the UN Development Programme. The cost of the operation was not given.

Experts were to monitor how the first 10 West African giraffes adapt to their new surroundings before deciding whether to transfer the rest of the group. The pilot herd were to be fitted with microchips to help geolocate them.

Explore further Niger rare giraffe population makes a comeback

 2018 AFP
A new approach to housing is needed, say experts, after the town of Paradise was engulfed in the Camp Fire

With the embers still raining from blackened skies choked by California's massive wildfires, the effort turns to rebuilding Paradisea town of almost 30,000 that was wiped off the map.

But experts warn that with megafires the new normal in a warming global climate, housing in the western United States is going to need a revolutionary rethink along the lines of villages dotting Europe's wooded slopes.

"I think people are thinking about if there is a way we can design the new Paradise that can look like more of a European village or a ski town, and not have houses out in the forests," said Bill Stewart, co-director of the Center for Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley.

Stewart suggests the approach seen in the Pyrenees mountains straddling France and Spainvillages surrounded by pastures with the forest further beyondmay be the model for California's future.

"It would be a lot safer if we didn't have people basically living in the fuel," he told AFP.

The death toll in and around Paradisein the tinder-dry northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountainsstands at 81, with hundreds still missing and more than 12,600 homes destroyed since the giant Camp Fire broke out on November 8.

Climate change, poor management of forests by the US government and sharp increases in housing in the woods have all made such megafires more likely and more deadly, said Stewart.

More than 12,000 homes were destroyed by fire in Paradise

'The new abnormal'

European countries such as France, Portugal and Spain lose a higher percentage of their forests to fire each year.

But they rarely suffer the destruction and death seen regularly in California and its neighboring states, says Stewart, because "people don't live in the forests."

From the wealthy enclaves of southern California to the rural grandeur of Yosemite National Park, this year California has seen an unprecedented four megafiresdefined by emergency services as infernos that burn more than 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares).

Among them, the Camp Fire has scorched an area larger than Chicago, while another two infernos that burned more than 96,000 acres were just short of the megafire category.

"This is a faster increase than even the most pessimistic researcher had a decade ago. It's even shocking to most grizzled observers," Stewart told AFP.

"There are things to do, but even if we did those we might only have four megafires a year instead of eight."

California Governor Jerry Brown made the point even more starkly in an address to the media as the Camp Fire was at its peak, warning: "This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal.

A home is overshadowed by towering smoke plumes in Paradise, which was wiped off the map by the Camp Fire

"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, they're going to intensify... Things like this will be a part of our future."

Mediterranean climate

Matt Dias, executive officer of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the state has allocated about $1 billion over the next five years for fire prevention.

Much of the cash will go on education and suppression activities such as clearing grasses and other vegetation.

"The patterns we're experiencing seem to indicate these megafires are likely to keep occurring, but there are ways of pushing back," he said.

"Suppression plays a key role in the fire prevention program."

But many experts are calling for more restrictions on housing being built in forests as means of eliminating danger before the blazes even break out.

A recent study found that one third of all US houses now are located in what researchers refer to as the wildland-urban interface, where houses and forest vegetation intermingle.

"We folks who live in California need to understand we live in a Mediterranean climate," said Dias.

"Fire is a natural part of our forest lands. As we move forward in time, it seems issues associated with climatic challenges will persist, so these issues with large fires will likely continue."

Explore further Fast-moving fire scorches northern California

 2018 AFP
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Social workers who use broad categorizations to define populations may impede their own ability to adequately assess complex oppressive social relationships, specifically among transgender women, according to faculty in Georgia State's School of Social Work.

Differences in experience, outlook and perceptionparticularly those shaped by gendercontribute to the "apparatus of social reproduction," the process by which research adds to oppressive conditions for those being researched, according to instructor William Lane (M.S.W. '17) and assistant professor Kristie Seelman.

The co-authors encourage their social work colleagues to consider the role they play in this dynamic, and to carefully approach social categorization, in a research article published earlier this year.

"Over the past few years, policies that affect transgender peoplefrom healthcare to identification laws and school guidelineshave been discussed and implemented on a national scale," said Lane. "Yet even in these conversations, the experiences of transgender peoplewomen in particularhave been obscured, fueled by an overall misunderstanding."

Their database search of article abstracts found transgender women largely absent or misrepresented in social work literature.

"For example, transgender women disproportionately rely on sex work for survival. The fact that we found no references to this in a significant database, Social Work Abstracts, highlights a gap in the field," he said.

Lane and Seelman further explored the theoretical relationship between the categories used in research on transgender women and oppressive conditions. The theoretical lens they present, the apparatus of social reproduction, aims to disentangle this relationship and help social work researchers better assess their methods and practices.

"As a social worker, the primary questions I seek to answer are: who controls resources, who has access to resources, and who doesn't have access? In the case of transgender women, I am concerned with how they survive and get their basic needs met, and how the field of social work can help or hinder that," said Lane.

He encourages social workers to reconsider the use of broad social categorizations of transgender women and conduct research unique to their experience.

"We should invite transgender women to read, critique and contribute to the discourse to get a full and accurate depiction of the world they live in," he said. "The communities we study should have their voices included in the research we conduct."

Explore further Recommendations to reduce recidivism in transgender women

More information: William A. Lane et al. The Apparatus of Social Reproduction, Affilia (2018). William A. Lane et al. The Apparatus of Social Reproduction,(2018). DOI: 10.1177/0886109917747614
a, Doublet emission following photo- and electrical excitation. The illustration on the right indicates the electron spin vector representation for doublets. b, Chemical structures of TTM, TTM-3NCz and TTM-3PCz. Credit: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0695-9

Scientists have discovered that semiconducting molecules with unpaired electrons, termed 'radicals' can be used to fabricate very efficient organic-light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), exploiting their quantum mechanical 'spin' property to overcome efficiency limitations for traditional, non-radical materials.

Radicals are usually noted for their high chemical reactivity and often detrimental effects, from human health to the ozone layer. Now radical-based OLEDs could form the basis for next-generation displays and lighting technologies.

Writing in Nature, the team from the University of Cambridge and Jilin University describe how stabilised radicals form electronic states known as 'doublets', on account of the spin character being either 'up' or 'down.'

Running electricity through these radical-based OLEDs leads to the formation of bright-doublet excited states which emit deep-red light with near-100% efficiency. For traditional compounds (i.e. non-radicals without an unpaired electron), quantum-mechanical-spin considerations dictate that charge injection forms 25% bright-'singlet' and 75% dark-'triplet' states in OLED operation. Radicals pose an elegant solution to this fundamental spin problem which has troubled researchers ever since the development of OLEDs from the 1980s.

Dr. Emrys Evans, a lead co-author who works in Professor Sir Richard Friend's group at the Cavendish Laboratory, said "On the face of it, radicals in OLEDs shouldn't really work, which makes our results so surprising. The radicals themselves are unusually emissive, and they operate in the OLEDs with unusual physics."

When isolated in a host matrix and excited with a laser, the radicals, atypically, have close to unity efficiency for light emission. The highly emissive behaviour was translated to highly emissive LEDs, but with another twist: in the devices, the electrical current injects electrons into the unpaired electron energy level of the radical, and pulls electrons out of a lower-lying level, and another portion of the molecule, to form bright-doublet excited states.

In future, efficient blue- and green-light radical-based diodes could appear with further materials innovation. The researchers are working on exploiting radicals beyond lighting applications, and expect radicals to impact other branches of organic electronics research.

Professor Feng Li from Jilin University is a visitor at the Cavendish Laboratory and corresponding author for the work. He said: "The collaboration between the universities and research groups has been instrumental to the success of this work. In future, I hope that we can demonstrate more radical-based solutions for organic electronics."

Explore further Catching radical molecules before they disappear

More information: Efficient radical-based light-emitting diodes with doublet emission, Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0695-9 , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0695-9 Journal information: Nature Efficient radical-based light-emitting diodes with doublet emission,
Technology developed by two German institutes set a new record efficiency for solar cells of 26.1%. Image credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin. Credit: Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.

Sandwiching an oxygen-rich layer of silicon between a solar cell and its metal contact has allowed researchers in Europe to break performance records for the efficiency with which silicon solar cells convert sunlight into electricity. But the challenge now is how to make these so-called passivating contacts suitable for mass production.

"There is currently a lot of excitement about passivating contacts among the solar cell community," said Dr. Byungsul Min at the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (ISFH), Germany. This year, the technology allowed his laboratory to set a new record efficiency of 26.1% for the kind of solar cells the kind that dominates the photovoltaics market. Commercial solar panels currently operate with an efficiency of around 20%.

Passivating contacts consist of two thin layers of oxidised and crystallised silicon sandwiched between a solar cell and its metal contact. Speaking to a packed hall this September at the European Photovoltaics Solar Energy Conference in Brussels, Belgium, Dr. Min said that the layers work by healing broken atomic bonds on the silicon surface and reducing the risk of electric charges getting trapped as they flow out of the solar cell.

The design was developed in 2013 by ISFH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany. In recent years, it has driven the energy conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics above 25% - a ceiling that had limited the efficiency that researchers could achieve in the lab for over a decade.

Mass fabrication

Still, Dr. Min says that few manufacturers have so far adopted passivating contacts in industry. As part of a project called DISC, he is now coordinating work with research institutes and equipment manufacturers across Europe to streamline their design for mass fabrication.

Making record-setting solar cells with passivating contacts has so far required costly materials and complex laboratory techniques that Dr. Min says cannot be adopted in factory assembly lines. However, by getting rid of these sophisticated approaches and substituting them with tools that are already common in the solar cell industry, the DISC consortium expects to bring down manufacturing costs for the technology.

ISFH has notably replaced an expensive and highly conductive indium-containing layer that is deposited on the cell surface to better collect electrical charges out of the passivating contact. By fine-tuning pressure and temperature conditions during production, Dr. Min can now form a zinc-containing layer that presents comparable physical properties while using abundant materials.

Dutch equipment provider Meco is swapping complex lithography steps with plating techniques that can metallise the electrical contacts of passivating contact solar cells in throughputs high enough for factory assembly lines.

Over the past year, DISC samples have shuttled across France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands as partners play their part in an international supply line. Each laboratory adds a layer of silicon or other materials in which it specialises, gradually building up the stack of semiconductors into a functioning solar cell.

"This August, we completed our first industry-sized solar cells," said Dr. Min. "They have already reached energy conversion efficiencies above 21%." This falls within the range of solar cells on the market today.

Over the coming year, Dr. Min expects that fine-tuning the layers in these factory-friendly devices will help edge their performance above that of the competition. In an industry where a difference of just half a percentage can make or break companies, a technology with a proven potential of over 25% efficiency in the laboratory offers enticing prospects for manufacturers.

"We have to go to higher solar cell efficiencies," agreed Dr. Martin Hermle, one of the pioneers of passivating contacts at Fraunhofer ISE. His research group is now developing industrial deposition methods for the solar cells produced in DISC, and developing ways of further boosting their energy conversion efficiency in another project called Nano-Tandem.

"The cost of solar panels is largely dictated by their surface area. If you can make cells with 30% efficiency instead of 20% or 15%, that really helps reduce the overall cost of solar energy."

33% efficiency

Earlier this year, Fraunhofer ISE produced a solar cell that reached a staggering 33% efficiency. Researchers stacked a silicon solar cell that incorporated passivating contacts with two additional solar cells made of more exotic materials, based on elements in the third and fifth group of the periodic table.

"These top cells are good at absorbing blue shades of light, but they are made of comparatively rare elements, like gallium or indium, that are also slower to assemble than conventional silicon solar cells," said Dr. Hermle. "If you want to compete on the mass market, you have to bring the cost of the material deposition down by about two orders of magnitude."

One solution Nano-Tandem is exploring is to use less of them. Fraunhofer ISE has shipped silicon solar cells with passivating contacts to IBM Research Zurich, where project partners are placing solar cells on top of them not as solid layers, but as carpets of wires barely 1000 atoms wide. Startup Sol Voltaics and Lund University in Sweden are developing a potentially cheaper way of manufacturing the nanowires, assembling them from gas molecules as they fly through a tube furnace.

Nano-Tandem coordinator Professor Lars Samuelson at Lund University says that the raw materials used are expensive, but that photonic effects in them could turn their economics around. He says that, assembled wisely, manufacturers could in principle use 90% less material without much impact on the efficiency or light absorption of their solar cells.

This is the kind of innovative edge that Dr. Hermle describes as crucial in keeping European research institutes at the head of solar cell technology. As the market for solar cells skyrockets into 11-digit annual figures, Asian competition is increasingly muscling European manufacturers out of business.

Dr. Hermle says that passivating contacts offer an example of how European industry can remain relevant in the face of global competition. "This is a technology that really came from Europe to the solar cell market," he said.

Explore further Fully screen-printed monoPoly silicon solar cell technology
Wallace Rockhole, NT. Credit: Nina Hall, Author provided

Many people in Australia do not have access to safe drinking water. It's particularly difficult in Indigenous communities because they are small, remote and challenged by additional issues to secure essential power and water services. To make sure everyone has access to safe drinking water, we'll have to get smarter about the way we treat it.

Drinking water contamination can come from naturally occurring chemicals, such arsenic, cadmium, nitrates, uranium and barium. It can also come from microbes from sewage and animal wastes.

There are also chemicals in farming areas from pesticides, and from mining areas, and also in defence areas that have leached fire-fighting foam into the groundwater ("PFAS" chemicals).

In our research and conversations with residents and water operators in remote Indigenous communities, we have been told that their water is not safe to drink, and that they have no reasonable or practical alternatives and no help.

Hearing from the locals

One Indigenous custodian from Katherine, NT, told us that the levels of PFAS from fire-extinguisher foam were high in their soil and water. Worried locals stopped picking berries or fishing from the river. Despite their protests for action, they said they felt ignored.

Their fears were based on the 2017 testing of water bores around Katherine's RAAF base with raised PFAS levels. Defence provided bottled water to 50 homes.

Over in the Kimberley, WA, an traditional owner said, "our water is contaminated with nitrates  They say the level is  too high for babies under three months and pregnant women  now the whole community (150 people) cart water from this one tap for drinking and cooking.  We feel fear and we don't know how much damage is being done to us."

Data reflects the scope and seriousness of the problem. For example, a WA Auditor-General's report in 2015 found that many communities had unsafe levels of the chemical contaminants nitrates and uranium in the two-year reporting period.

In Borroloola, NT, situated neat a zinc mine, the community were told by the mining company that the ground (bore) water on the McArthur River was contaminated with lead and manganese. Community representatives told us, "[We were told] we should not drink it, and then they said it was safe and that the high lead had come from our pipes and not the mine  a monitoring group said that our fish are toxic with lead from the mine, so we stopped fishing and started worrying  We can't live with this contamination anymore. We need the water to be clean."

The McArthur River Mining Pty Ltd's own Environmental Impact Statement reflects that values "exceed" the trigger value for further investigation in sulfate, zinc and lead. Recent statements in the media from the company indicate the levels are safe.

Safe water for all

Treating drinking water can be different and difficult in remote locations compared to cities.

There are different types of drinking water treatments depending on the type of water (freshwater vs saltwater), the cleanliness of the water (lots of sediment vs dissolved chemicals), and the cost of the treatment (remote communities often only use basic chlorine treatment as they are too small to justify the investment for reverse osmosis). Then there are extreme weather events, such as cyclones and flooding, and the "people factor", including the skills of the water plant operators.

Only now are government agencies and water utilities starting to realise that there are no "one size fits all" or simple technological fixes for treating water in remote areas. Instead, they are beginning to seek water treatment technology specifically designed for these regions. Sometimes the simplest technologies are going to be longest-serving as they can be fixed, will not be damaged in cyclones, and can be operated by one person.

For example, Queensland Health ran a successful pilot project in the outer Torres Strait Islands to reduce microbial contamination of water. They focused on the "people factor" by building the skills of local staff. They addressed the "governance facto" by ensuring that all relevant government agencies collaborated. And they addressed the "technology factor" by upgrading the technology for water disinfection.

Chemicals in water can also be removed with simple technologies that are locally-appropriate. For instance, Indigenous teenager and Science Teachers' Association WA's Young Scientist of the Year Uriah Daisybell, from the Christian Aboriginal Parent-directed School in Coolgardie, WA invented a water treatment system by burning shells and combining with magnets to create a charcoal filter. Testing of the filtered water found that heavy metals were reduced to safe levels.

Australia is a vast country, with naturally-occurring chemicals in water and high risk of man-made contamination. Innovation and attention is required to achieve the United Nations' Resolution to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all  especially in our remote communities.

We are bringing together a Safe Water Summit this month in Brisbane, with representatives from Indigenous and farming communities.

Explore further Better boil ya billywhen Australian water goes bad

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Many investors worry about the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance after Carlos Ghosn's arrest

When Carlos Ghosn began laying the groundwork nearly two decades ago for a partnership between Renault and Nissan, he was careful not to call it a merger, hoping to avoid any resentment over rescuing one of Japan's storied carmakers.

Yet analysts say Ghosn has effectively built the world's biggest carmakerand warn that trying to take it apart could prove damaging for all involved.

"It would be like a couple divorcing after 20 yearsit would be complicated, very expensive and not easy to do," said Gaetan Toulemonde, an analyst at Deutsche Bank.

"Honestly, I don't know if it's even possible," he said.

After integrating production and purchasing and streamlining management to a degree never seen in the industry, the alliance of Renault, Nissan and since 2016 Mitsubishi has flourished, selling 10.6 million cars last year, more than any of its rivals.

Yet questions are swirling over whether the alliance can survive without its tough-minded architect, now that Ghosn has been arrested in Tokyo on charges of under-reporting his Nissan pay and other misconduct.

The shocking turn of events for arguably the world's most powerful auto chief comes as Ghosn was trying to render the partnership "irreversible," analysts say.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Ghosn was working on a full-blown merger of Renault and Nissan, the core firms in the alliance which also includes Russia's Avtovaz and China's Dongfeng.

Nissan executives were hostile, according to the report, not least because Nissan has become the dominant player in an alliance whose two key members have headquarters nearly 10,000 kilometres apart.

Nissan boasted sales of 12 trillion yen ($106 billion) last year compared with Renault's 59 billion euros ($67 billion).

'Shift the balance'

"Nissan is pushing to shift the balance of power," said Elie Cohen, an economist at the CNRS institute who has long studied the French government's shareholdings, including its 15-percent stake in Renault.

Many in Japan bristle that Renault owns 43 percent of Nissan, while Nissan in turn owns just a 15 percent stake in its French partner which confers no voting rights.

Turbulence in the alliance could pose a threat to Renault's workforce of 181,00047,000 in France alonesince Renault factories often produce huge numbers of Nissan vehicles as well.

Renault's Kadjar, for example, shares many of the same components and production lines as Nissan's Qashqai, one of the most popular midsize SUVs in Europe.

French officials are clearly on edge, not least because Renault, where Ghosn remains CEO for now, appeared totally unaware that Nissan had been carrying out a months-long internal inquiry against him.

In a statement after an emergency board meeting Tuesday to name a deputy CEO, Renault admitted it had no idea what evidence Nissan's directors had, asking them to share "all information in their possession".

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told journalists Wednesday that he would meet his Japanese counterpart Hiroshige Seko on Thursday to discuss the alliance's "extension".

So far Nissan executives haven't tipped their hand beyond announcing a board meeting Thursday where Ghosn is expected to be ousted as chairman.

"The coming meetings between top executives of Nissan and Renault are surely going to be explosive," French financial daily Les Echos wrote in an editorial Wednesday.

"Even if tensions ease, trust between the companies has been at least partially broken."

Yet analysts say no matter Ghosn's fate, and despite the bad blood likely to linger between the two companies, dismantling the alliance would be in nobody's interest.

Neither company on its own would have the financial might to maintain the heavy investments Ghosn has made in electric vehicles, which many consider the industry's future.

"Renault and Nissan are very tightly joined," said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of Germany's Centre for Automotive Research.

"So I think their cooperation isn't threatened and will continue under Ghosn's successor."

Explore further Nissan chief Ghosn arrested over financial misconduct: reports

 2018 AFP
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new study led by ANU has investigated the nature of a cosmic phenomenon that slows down star formation, which helps to ensure the universe is a place where life can emerge.

Lead researcher Dr. Roland Crocker from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics said the research team studied a particular way stars provide a counter-pressure to gravity that slows down the star-formation process.

"If star formation happened rapidly, all stars would be bound together in massive clusters, where the intense radiation and supernova explosions would likely sterilise all the planetary systems, preventing the emergence of life," he said.

"The conditions in these massive star clusters would possibly even prevent planets from forming in the first place."

The study found that ultraviolet and optical light from young and massive stars spreads out into the gas from which the stars have recently formed and hits cosmic dust, which then scatters infrared light that acts effectively as a kind of pressure that pushes against gravity.

"The phenomenon we studied occurs in galaxies and star clusters where there's a lot of dusty gas that is forming heaps of stars relatively quickly," Dr. Crocker said.

"In galaxies forming stars more slowlysuch as the Milky Wayother processes are slowing things down. The Milky Way forms two new stars every year, on average."

Other galaxies in our vicinity and elsewhere in the universe continuously form new stars at a relatively slow and steady rate.

Dr. Crocker said the study's mathematical findings indicated the phenomenon set an upper limit on how quickly stars can form in a galaxy or giant gas cloud.

"This and other forms of feedback help to keep the universe alive and vibrant," he said.

"We are investigating other ways stars might feed back into their environment to slow down the overall rate of star formation."

Professor Mark Krumholz and Dr Dougal Mackey from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Professor Todd Thompson from Ohio State University in the United States and Associate Professor Holger Baumgardt at the University of Queensland contributed to the study, which was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Explore further Old star clusters could have been the birthplace of supermassive stars

More information: Roland M Crocker et al. Radiation pressure limits on the star formation efficiency and surface density of compact stellar systems, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2018). Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Roland M Crocker et al. Radiation pressure limits on the star formation efficiency and surface density of compact stellar systems,(2018). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2659
Bank vole (Myodes glareolus). Credit: University of Jyvaskyla

Rodent mothers produce more offspring after smelling odors produced by frightened males. This is reported by a team of biologists from Finland and the Netherlands and bring new information the proximate and ultimate explanations of small mammal behavioral responses.

Fear of being eaten has the power to shape populations and drive evolution. The effect the authors report is large: exposed mothers produce litters with about fifty percent more pups compared to unexposed control mothers.

"What is most striking about this study is that the cause of the change in numerical reproduction was indirect," says postdoctoral researcher Marko Haapakoski from the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. "Second-hand information about predators was sufficient to increase the number of offspring," he continues.

Chemical messages

Predation involves more than just predators consuming prey.

"Predators can also scare the living daylights out of the animals they target. Our study demonstrates that the resulting fear changes how these prey animals behave and reproduce," explains Dr. Kevin Matson from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

The study shows that a frightening experience can be communicated to neighboring individuals in the population, even when the neighbors do not see, smell, or hear an actual predator themselves.

"When a separate group of male voles were exposed to a weasel, they produced chemical messages that could be read by the voles in our study," explains Alwin Hardenbol, who conducted this research as part of his master's thesis at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Vole mothers might produce more offspring when they sense their chances of being eaten soon are high and that their next litter may be their last. Simple physiological mechanisms could allow mothers to adjust litter size. For example, previous research has shown that females can produce more pups simply by mating with more males.

Implications of the findings

Danielle Lee of the Southern Illinois University (USA), an ecologist specializing in rodent behavior and who is unaffiliated with this research project, described the significance of this research.

"This innovative experimental study bridges the proximate and ultimate explanations of small mammal behavioral responses. It's been long hypothesized that small, highly fecund (so called "r-selected") species like voles might respond to heavy predation via reproductive compensation. This field study shows how these responses are mediated via chemo-olfactory cues," she says. "The work demonstrates once again the importance of this modality for intraspecific communication, population regulation, and trophic interactions."

Explore further Stress protein could be used to prevent childhood obesity in males

More information: M. Haapakoski et al. Exposure to Chemical Cues from Predator-Exposed Conspecifics Increases Reproduction in a Wild Rodent, Scientific Reports (2018). Journal information: Scientific Reports M. Haapakoski et al. Exposure to Chemical Cues from Predator-Exposed Conspecifics Increases Reproduction in a Wild Rodent,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-35568-0

Provided by University of Jyvaskyla
Plants cannot migrate or move, and therefore must react with the environment accordingly. This makes them good models to study the effect of reproductive competition. Credit: Kyoto University/Kobayashi Lab

What factors sustain the diversity of life on our planet? This is the main question surrounding the study of biodiversity, but in spite of significant gains in our understanding of the field, many of the key factors defining it remain obscure.

In a report published in the Journal of Ecology, Kyoto University research has revealed a new mechanism sustaining coexistence between competitive species, referred to as "sexual conflict" or "harassment". In the context of the life sciences, this is defined as when one sex of an organismusually maleattempts to increase its fertilization success rate at the expense of the fertility of mating partners.

Author Kazuya Kobayashi, from KyotoU's Field Science Education and Research Center, explains that stable coexistence among competitive species typically persists because of two factors: niche partitioning and natural enemies. His findings now show that a new, third factorattributable to sexual conflictalso contributes.

When there is a high population density of the same species, strong competition for successful matingfertilizationoccurs, leading to the evolution of selfish males who attempt to mate even with unwilling females. As a result, the number of possible offspring is reduced due to the stress and pressure of such conflict. In contrast, with low density populations, both males and females have few candidates for mating, so more cooperation exists and the number of offspring increases.

Kobayashi constructed a simulation model incorporating the effect of this conflict on fecundity. The model demonstrates that hundreds of competitive species without differentiation in resource usage can stably coexist over 10,000 generations, indicating that an innate conflict in fertility plays a role in sustaining a population.

This research reveals the important role of intraspecific conflict in sustaining a complex ecosystem over a broad range of environments, and can be applied to efforts to rescue endangered species or to prevent overgrowth of invasive ones.

Explore further Harassing females lowers reproduction rates and reduces population size

More information: Kazuya Kobayashi et al. Sexual harassment sustains biodiversity via producing negative density-dependent population growth, Journal of Ecology (2018). Journal information: Journal of Ecology Kazuya Kobayashi et al. Sexual harassment sustains biodiversity via producing negative density-dependent population growth,(2018). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13088
The Spanish senate approved a law which aims to make Spanish law comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation

The Spanish senate approved Wednesday a controversial online data protection law which critics say will allow political parties to target voters with ads based on their internet browsing history.

The law was approved in Spain's upper house of parliament with 220 votes in favour and 21 against.

It aims to make Spanish law comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came into force in May.

Among other things, the GDPR boosts people's right to be forgotten and guarantee free, easy access to personal data.

It also requires businesses to inform people about data breaches that could negatively impact them.

But the Spanish law included an amendment which allows political parties to "use personal data obtained from web pages and other publicly accessible sources to carry out political activities" during election campaign periods.

The law stipulates that people who do not wish to receive targeted adverts from parties should be provided with a "simple and free way to exercise their opposition".

Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, the collection of data regarding people's political opinions could be authorised as long as the appropriate guarantees are given.

The Spanish law was already approved last month by Spain's lower house of parliament and passage in the senate was the final step before it could come into effect.

Spain's Platform for the Defence of Freedom of Information said the law paves the way for parties to create "ideological profiles".

"It will allow parties to carry out practices like those of Cambridge Analytica", it said in a statement in a reference to a now defunct British data consultancy which is accused of having harvested the data of millions of Facebook users without their permission.

That data was then allegedly used to direct political advertising at US voters during the 2016 presidential election, as well as to British voters during the referendum that year on Britain's membership in the EU.

Spanish consumer group FACUA and far-left party Unidos Podemos both said in separate statements that they would challenge the law in Spain's Constitutional Court.

Explore further UK regulator calls for tougher rules on personal data use

 2018 AFP
On 21 November 2018, Vega flight VV13 lifted off from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana to deliver the Earth observation satelliteMohammed VI-B into orbit for the Kingdom of Morocco. Credit: European Space Agency

Arianespace has launched a Vega rocket to deliver an Earth observation satellite into orbit for the Kingdom of Morocco.

Liftoff of Vega's 13th mission from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana came at 01:42 GMT on 21 November (02:42 CET; 22:42 local time on 20 November).

With a mass at liftoff of 1108 kg, Mohammed VI-B was manoeuvred into its target Sun-synchronous orbit about 55 minutes into the mission after two burns of Vega's upper stage.

Complying with debris regulations to help keep space clean, Vega's upper stage fired a final time to ensure direct reentry and burn up high in the atmosphere over the ocean.

Vega is a 30 m-high, four-stage vehicle designed to accommodate small scientific and Earth observation payloads of 3002500 kg, depending on the orbit.

Explore further Image: Vega launches Earth observation satellite for Morocco
Killing You Softly with Words-

Judge Approves Seattle Gun Storage Law

By Rob Morse. November 17th, 2018

Original Source

A judge in Washington State wants us to lock up our guns. That sounds like it could be a good idea, but facts matter when it comes to self-defense. Most of these untested gun-safety ideas actually make things worse rather than better. The goal is to save lives, and it isnt easy.

One of the reasons were blind to the risks of gun-control is that we forget that guns save so many lives every day. Armed criminals and firearms accidents make headlines. In contrast, the armed woman who stopped a sexual assault barely makes it into the back of the newspaper. Unless you look for those examples, it is easy to miss that guns save lives.

Ill give you an example with real numbers before we dive deeper into the judges decision. We have about 74 children younger than 14 killed in gun accidents each year. You hate that as much as I do. One gun safety proposal could be to scoop up half the guns in the USA. That should save half of the 74 children and give us 37 lives saved. That certainly sounds good.

We also have to consider how many lives the half-confiscation will cost. Honest citizens used a firearm to stop a lethal threat by killing their attacker over 1500 times a year. As a low estimate, we also have at least a half-million times where law abiding gun owners used their gun in self-defense but did not kill the criminal attacking them. Honest citizens used a gun to stop sexual assaults more than 38 thousand times a year.

In the case of the half-confiscation, we would have had thousands more innocent victims dead and raped..while we might have saved 37 children from firearms accidents. Even if were wildly conservative, we see that gun confiscation costs lives rather than saves them. That is true if we scoop up 1 percent of the guns or 99 percent of them. We want to save children from gun accidents, but we dont want to leave them at risk from violent criminals either.

Now we have to look at the Washington judges opinion in depth. Seattle Washington said a gun has to be locked up when the gun is not in the owners hands. We know that safe storage will save lives in some cases. Im a firearms instructor. I lock up my guns. Ive bought small gun safes for family, friends, and students, but that isnt the whole story. How many people will die or be injured because of safe storage laws?

In some cases, a stalking victim cant afford to buy both a gun and a gun safe when shes threatened. Will the Seattle provide free guns safes for anyone who asks? Perhaps a victim of domestic violence cant move her large gun safe with her on the day she flees to a safe house. That leaves her disarmed if she follows the law.

By obeying a well intentioned safe storage law, weve disarmed these innocent citizens when they most need a gun for self-defense.

Even if these safe storage laws work as intended, there will be cases when the delay in getting a firearm costs lives. Some of the million examples of armed self-defense will turn into assault and battery as the robber attacks the unarmed victim. Some of those 1500 cases where the robber was killed will end with the defender and the defenders family being injured or killed. Arent there other ways to stop firearms accidents?

Unfortunately, we dont see a clear decrease in firearms accidents in states that have strict gun control. The reason is that many accidents happen when criminals hide their guns where children can get them. Gangs stuff their guns under the steps. Criminals hide their gun under the couch cushion or under the bed. That is where children find them and then hurt themselves or others. I teach firearms safety, but we wont end firearms accidents even if every honest gun owner locks up his guns. It is a sad truth that criminals dont obey gun-storage laws any more than they obey the laws prohibiting violent crime. We live in an imperfect world.

We have to do more than read the headlines in order to craft good laws. We live in a country where there are over a million violent crimes every year. Honest citizens use a firearm to defend themselves and their family.

One of the reasons it is so hard to write good gun-safety laws..

is that guns in the hands of honest citizens save so many lives.

It is hard to write a law that will reduce crime and accidents without also restricting the ordinary people who use a gun to defend themselves every day. Without study, it is hard to know if a gun-safety proposal makes us safer or leaves us in greater danger. Fortunately, there is a simple test we can use.

Look at where the law applies. Almost every gun control law has carve-outs, exceptions and exclusions. Is there is an exemption in the law for politicians, for law enforcement, or for judges? Is there an exception for police stations, for government buildings, or for courthouses? If there is an exception in the law for government employees, then it is a bad law for all of us.

How strange that judges know a law is bad if it applies to them, yet they are willing to apply it to us.

Sources=

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/seattle-gun-storage-law......

https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html

https://www.wyff4.com/article/how-often-are-guns ......

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides.....

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.....

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Most of today's fonts contain thousands of characters, many more than you can access from the keyboard. PopChar makes it easy to explore these fonts, search for characters by their names, find fonts that contain certain characters, collect your favorite characters, insert characters and HTML symbols, and more. PopChar's "Shape Finder" even allows you to simply draw the shape of a character on the screen to tell PopChar what you are looking for. With PopChar, you can also take a look at fonts from a designer's perspective: see a font preview, check out what a given text fragment looks like in a certain font, and print beautiful font sheets. PopChar is available for macOS and Windows.



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Ergonis Software develops ergonomic and intuitive software that boosts the productivity of Mac and PC users. Ergonis Software, a privately held company founded in 2002, is headquartered in Perg, Austria. Copyright 2002-2018 Ergonis Software Gmbh. All Rights Reserved. Ergonis products are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Ergonis Software GmbH. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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For those living with disabilities, navigating Kathmandu is nightmare

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Theres no need for a preamble, lets just cut to the chase and say it: the crypto market stinks right now.

The market has become a shell of its former self after crashing more than 80 percent from its January peak. Bitcoin has dropped like a rock and breached the $6,000 unofficial floor, and nobody seems sure if it has a floor anymore.

A lot of investors have been badly burnt, and can probably relate with Charlie Mungers sentiments that bitcoin and crypto are little more than worthless artificial gold.

Maybe a reversion to pragmatism was inevitable after the euphoric run of late 2017, though few punters predicted the bloodbath we are witnessing.

But, maybe theres a method to the madness

Bitcoin 1-year price action

(Click to enlarge)

Source: Safehaven

The latest fallout seems to have largely been triggered by increased regulatory pressures as the SEC, CFTC and DoJ increasingly clamp down on the feisty industry.

Price Manipulation

A lot of crypto investors have been eagerly waiting for the SEC to approve at least a few proposed bitcoin ETFs in the belief that it would help open up the industry. But so far, the SEC does not seem willing to play after rejecting a multitude of proposed ETFs in August. In fact, it appears that the trade watchdog is much more interested in policing the space because:

in particular the requirement that a national securities exchanges rules be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. Related: SEC Crackdown On ICOs Leads To New Lawsuits

A couple of days ago, the SEC demonstrated that it can flex its considerable muscle in cryptoland, too.

For the first time ever, the SEC slapped fines on ICO startups for breaching some of its recently enacted crypto regulations. The securities regulator contended that CarrierEQ Inc., also known as Airfox, and Paragon Coin Inc., failed to register their ICOs as securities, despite the fact that neither qualified for registration exemptions.

The two startups had managed to raise $15 million and $12 million, respectively, through ICOs in 2017. The young companies were forced to settle with the SEC using a raft of hefty remediations including registering their tokens as ICOs, paying $250,000 apiece in penalties, refunding investors and agreeing to periodically file SEC reports.

And that might have been a mere preview of what the regulatory authorities might soon do.

Hundreds of ICOs are reportedly being investigated by the SEC in its biggest crackdown on the industry, so far.

Further, The U.S. Justice of Department says that its investigating long-running allegations that the huge bitcoin rally of late 2017 that precipitated this years spectacular crash was the result of price manipulation. Specifically, the SEC is examining whether a dollar-backed cryptocurrency known as tether was used to artificially prop up bitcoin prices, as per CNBC.

The CFTC has already subpoenaed tether and Bitfinex executives over allegations of spoofing (i.e. manipulating the market by placing fake orders then pulling them before they are filled).

A paper published in June titled 'Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered? provided compelling evidence that bitcoin prices had indeed been rigged in what the media christened the mother of all crypto scams.

Related: Whats Behind Chinas Tightening Grip On Global Gold Markets?

The study by University of Texas finance professor John Griffin examined millions of bitcoin transactions before arriving at the conclusion that tether was used to systematically manipulate the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Regulatory Pressure Spooking Market

Perhaps another reason for the latest capitulation is the recent messy Bitcoin Cash fork. However, the crypto market has successfully weathered forks in the past without too much fuss--not to mention that Bitcoin Cash has always been dodgy and dysfunctional.

In an earlier article, we had argued that regulatory pressures were spooking the market. That seems to be the best reason that explains why the markets are acting so skittishly.

By Alex Kimani for Safehaven.com

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Looking for the Wild  2018 Best in Festival Award Winner

Discounted passes

The NTFF Epic Pass, normally $400 is $320 through Dec. 1, includes: All films with immediate entry (up to 15 min. before show time), priority seating to panel discussions (up to 15 min. before), admission to opening and closing receptions, ticket to Spotlight Dinner, access to VIP Lounge, swag bag, 2 bottles of NTFF wine - available for pick up at NTFF Hospitality Headquarters. Pass is non-transferable, non-refundable and non-replaceable.

Discounted passes for the 2019 NatureTrack Film Festival can be purchased at www.naturetrackfilmfestival.org through December 1st. Regular pricing applies thereafter.
Hello Kathmandu, where are the complaints?

Hello Mahanagar, a hotline service 1180 established by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) to address the problems faced by its citizens has been defunct for more than four months Only two complaints from the public were found to have been registered when the Post checked with the Metropolis Public Liaison Office at Teku on Monday.
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" " Named plaintiff Kelsey Julia speaks during a press conference outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on the landmark case Juliana v. United States while many of the other plaintiffs stand alongside her. Robin Loznak/Our Children's Trust

Alex Loznak has been hanging around lawyers since he was a teenager in Oregon. That's when he first agreed to join a lawsuit that has changed his life and, possibly, could change all Americans'. He is one of 21 young plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States, a high-profile case that accuses the federal government of knowingly wrecking the planet, thereby violating U.S. Constitutional rights.

It's a high-profile case that could have far-reaching implications  if it ever goes to trial. Juliana v. United States has been churning around the legal system  several levels of it, in fact  for more than four years now with the help of attorneys at Our Children's Trust, while government lawyers battle to keep Uncle Sam out of court.

All of it has made for a dizzying, maddening, sometimes frustrating ride for Loznak, who was in high school thinking about his SATs when the case began and just recently graduated from Columbia University in June. Still, with everything he's put in so far and everything that lies ahead, Loznak remains all in.

"This is a case that is so complicated that some lawyers don't understand it. Lawyers will sometimes ask me how this case works," Loznak says. "It's so bizarre, it's so novel, there are some lawyers within my family that don't even understand what's going on."

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The Case

To back up for a second: Juliana v. United States, in its most basic form, is a demand on the U.S. government to take action to mitigate climate change. It alleges that government officials (including former President Barack Obama), by creating a "national energy system" that spews out climate-killing levels of carbon dioxide, "have acted with deliberate indifference to the peril they knowingly created. As a result, Defendants have infringed on Plaintiffs' fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property."

Whether those arguments will fly in court, whether the "climate kids" (as some have dubbed the plaintiffs) will get the relief they seek, is something that is being closely watched by climate activists the world over.

But to watch this case is to get overtaken by a tsunami of legal maneuverings. Industry groups  the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute among them  threw their weight behind the government, only to later withdraw. Countless motions have been filed by both sides. Stays have been issued. Dismissals have been considered. At one time, the case was being played out on three levels of federal courts  including the Supreme Court  at once, the first time (according to one of Lozak's lawyers) that ever has happened. President Donald Trump has taken Obama's place as a defendant.

To add to the legal morass, the case centers around something that is not uncomplicated in its own right. By now, even governmental organizations concede that overwhelming scientific consensus holds that climate change is real, is dangerous and is being caused by humans. Still, when someone like the president hedges on the topic, climate change can seem ... confusing.

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Where Things Stand Today

"You have to really understand the science in order to understand why [climate change] is actually a constitutional issue," Lozak says, before reciting carbon dioxide levels throughout history and what the threat of rising levels of CO2 means to the planet. "The potential impacts of climate change are so severe that they really do constitute an existential threat to civilization. So it's not hard to make the next step that it's violating citizens' constitutional rights."

The science on the effects of climate change has been abundantly clear for many years. One of the goals of Juliana is to get that science into a courtroom and have the legal system rule on it. Then, backed by law, activists hope that action by the government to cut back on CO2 levels will come swiftly. It's happened elsewhere. (See the sidebar below.)

"The trial is really going to flesh out the science and the implications of the science in a very clear way," Lozak says.

The case, as it sits today in mid-September 2019, still is on track for trial, but it's been slow-going. It was granted the go-ahead in early November 2018 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a few days later, though, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put the trial on hold again while it considered another request for dismissal levied by the Trump administration.

Since then it's been a back and forth in the courts. On Jan. 27, 2019, a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request from the plaintiffs to fast-track the appeal. Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel of Our Children's Trust and co-counsel for the plaintiffs, argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 22 that the trial should be allowed to go on.

"These young people deserve the chance to present their full case against their government who is harming them and let the light of justice fall where it may," Olson said in a press statement. "We will keep shining light on our fundamental constitutional rights until we obtain justice for our children and put an end to U.S.-sanctioned climate change."

The court agreed and the case went before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on June 4, 2019. Both sides were allowed 20 minutes for oral arguments. Olson again argued on behalf of the plaintiffs.

As of now, there is no ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. "There is no set time frame, but we would anticipate a ruling early fall [2019] given that the Court has expedited the appeal in response to our request to do so given the urgency and building dangers of climate change," Olson says via email.

If Olson and the plaintiffs win, they will get the green light to go to trial. "The Defendants would likely try one last time to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the youth from having the trial they have worked four years for, but the Supreme Court has twice before denied those attempts," she says. "We are continuing to prepare this case for trial and bring world class climate evidence into court through our experts, alongside the young plaintiffs' testimony on the ways they continue to be harmed by this growing crisis. We will be ready."

" " Youth plaintiff Alex Loznak, right, fist bumps climate scientist Dr. James Hansen while they wait for the start of a hearing in the landmark climate change lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Alex will be speaking at the Climate Strike in Portland on Friday, Sept. 20. Robin Loznak/Our Children's Trust

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Fighting the Good Fight

Loznak, who grew up on his family's farm outside of Roseburg, Oregon, graduated in June 2019 from Columbia University and is back in Oregon. His thesis delved into the politics of climate change, something that at this point may not engender much optimism, even from someone so young.

Yet Loznak sees change coming, pushed along by young activists like himself. Maybe not right away. But he sees it.

"If you actually look at public opinion polls, the public overwhelmingly supports the kinds of policies that we are advocating for," Loznak says. "I am not terribly optimistic about this administration, but I am optimistic about what the public actually wants. The issue is you just have to give the government a little kick in the rear to kind of get it to come around."

Loznak figures to be around to do some of the kicking. On Sept. 20, he and many of his fellow plaintiffs will join the Global Climate Strike launched by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to demand climate action. Loznak will be speaking at the event in Oregon.

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING A similar case in Europe pitted almost 900 Dutch citizens and the Urgenda Foundation against their government. (Urgenda is a group calling for a quick turn toward a sustainable society; the title is short for Urgent Agenda.) In October 2018, the Hague Court of Appeals upheld a 2015 ruling that the Netherlands government must take more action to reduce emissions that cause climate change. "The Court of Appeal's decision puts all governments on notice. They must act now, or they will be held to account," Urgenda director Marjan Minnesma said after the verdict.
 "Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States" | Main | Investigation of BOP treatment of mental health issues highlights challenge of reforming federal prisons 

The Washington Post has this interesting new piece about the current Acting US Attorney General's sentencing record as a chief federal prosecutor in Iowa. The lengthy piece is headlined, "As U.S. attorney, Whitaker imposed longer-than-usual drug sentences," and merits a full read. Here are snippets:

Raeanna Woodys crimes hardly seemed like they would add up to a life sentence in prison. She had two nonviolent drug convictions, for possessing marijuana and delivering 12 grams of methamphetamine. But when she was arrested in a third drug case, she said, the office of U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker decided to make an example of her.

Under Whitaker, who is now acting attorney general, Woody was given a choice: spend the rest of her life in jail, or accept a plea bargain sentence of 21 to 27 years, according to court records. She took the deal.

Federal Judge Robert W. Pratt in the Southern District of Iowa later accused prosecutors of having misused their authority in her nonviolent case. He urged President Barack Obama to commute her sentence  and Obama did shorten her term , after she had served 11 years.

Woodys case highlights one of the most controversial if little-known aspects of Whitakers career: his efforts to obtain unusually stiff sentences for people accused of drug crimes. Whitaker spent nearly five years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. His office was more likely than all but one other district in the United States to use its authority to impose the harshest sentences on drug offenders, according to a finding by a different Iowa federal judge, Mark W. Bennett, who it called a deeply troubling disparity.

If the president can look at my case and he can see that what I had done wasnt severe enough to warrant that many years, then why was I given that many years to begin with, why was that much of my life taken from me? Woody, a 57-year-old mother of five, said in an interview. I blame Whitakers office and everybody underneath him....

The rate at which Whitakers office and another one in Iowa imposed the harshest possible sentence was a jaw-dropping and deeply troubling disparity compared to the vast majority of federal courts in the nation, Bennett said in a statement to The Washington Post. Whitaker never appeared before him, and he declined to comment about Whitakers term as U.S. attorney.

Whitakers Southern District of Iowa used enhanced sentences in 84 percent of relevant cases, compared with 26 percent nationwide, Bennetts finding said. Bennett concluded that a defendant in the Northern District of Iowa  which had a rate of filings similar to Whitakers district  was 2,532 percent more likely to be subjected to an enhanced sentence compared with someone convicted of a similar offense in a Nebraska district. I found their harshness in filing 851 notices inexplicable, Bennett said....

In Raeanna Woodys case, the filing was used as leverage by Whitakers office. Woody, whose last name at the time was Paxton, appeared before Judge Pratt in the Southern District on July 10, 2008. Her previous drug convictions resulted in little or no jail time. Her third offense occurred when authorities determined that she drove a car in which another individual was pursuing a drug deal.

Woody said a prosecutor from Whitakers office, Jason T. Griess, had informed her that, as a third-time offender, her sentence could be enhanced to mandatory life in prison under an 851 filing. She said she had no choice but to make a plea bargain that resulted in the sentence of 21 to 27 years. I remember them saying through Jason that he wouldnt budge, and me and my office are going to make an example out of you. ...

Pratt [later] then wrote a letter to Obamas pardon attorney expressing his displeasure with how the case had been handled by Whitakers office. Pratt wrote in the May 13, 2016, letter that he was forced to impose a sentence that was entirely disproportionate to her crime.

The most compelling reason that the president should grant clemency, Pratt wrote, was that Whitakers office misused its power by threatening Woody with a life sentence by using the 851 filing, effectively removing my discretion to give Woody a fair sentence. Pratt stressed that Woody was and is a nonviolent offender. She was not a significant player in the overall conspiracy in this case. . . . This was not a conspiracy that involved drug kingpins. It was a situation where methamphetamine-addicted individuals resorted to selling the drug to support their own addictions.
Geoff Jiang, Ant Financials VP, GM of Technology and Business Innovation Group at Alipay-NUS Enterprise Social Innovation Challenge. Photo: Ant Financial

Ant Financial, the Chinese online payment firm formerly known as Alipay, plans to open a fintech research centre in Singapore by the end of March.

It will be the first so-called Damo research centre in Asia outside of China, the US and Israel, Geoff Jiang, vice president and general manager of Technology and Business Innovation Group at Ant Financial, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Singapore in Singapore.

Jiang was in town to launch the Alipay-NUS Enterprise Social Innovation Challenge, which took place in Singapore last Friday. Ant Financial, an affiliate company of e-commerce giant Alibaba, was rebranded from Alipay in 2014.

The Singapore research centre is part of Alibaba Groups pledge in 2017 to invest $15 billion over the three years into research and development including the creation of DAMO Academy, which stands for the Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook. The research areas will cover data intelligence, the Internet of Things, fintech, quantum computing and human-machine interaction.

Jiang said the initiative is also in line with the programme by Ant Financial and International Financial Corporation announced last month by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma to provide training to 1,000 tech experts in emerging markets from the public and private sectors over the next 10 years.

Ant Financial plans to increase its workforce in Singapore as part of its expansion plans to boost its presence in South-east Asia, Jiang said. There are over 100 people in the Singapore office currently, and about half are software engineers. The company is looking for new office space to accommodate the staff expansion and data centre, he said.

We probably need 100-200 more engineers in Singapore to expand the business, Jiang said. Singapore and the neighbouring countries have some very good people but the issue is with the numbers, especially when we are building up the business, he added.

Unlike China, there arent enough software engineers who can build financial-grade systems and applications in Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and there is strong competition for such talent in the tech industry, Jiang said.

Story continues

Southeast Asia has the fastest growing internet economy in the world, valued at US$72 billion this year and may be worth US$240 billion by 2025, according to a report based on research conducted by Google and Temasek. The report estimated the number of jobs for skilled professionals in the internet economy would double to 200,000 by 2025.

Jiang said Ant Financial employs 10,000 people globally, of which 63 per cent are software engineers, data scientists and technology researchers.

Jiang lauded the annual Fintech Festival organised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a way to attract talent development and foster development of the fintech ecosystem in the region.

Strategic Investors

Source: Ant Financial

We see ourselves very much as a technology company and we offer our partners our technology and are supporting them to integrate into the eco-system, Jiang said. He declined to comment on how much Ant Financial has invested in the region so far. Brands under Ant Financial include Alipay, Ant Fortune, Zhima Credit, MYbank and Ant Financial Cloud.

The company works with over 250 overseas financial institutions and payment solution providers to enable cross-border payments for Chinese travelling overseas, and overseas customers who purchase products from Chinese e-commerce sites.

In September, the Hangzhou-based company announced it would open up a full suite of technology products and services under a new brand, Ant Financial Technology, to support the growth of financial institutions.

Ant Financial has been sharing its capabilities with global strategic partners to serve local users in those markets, Jiang said. The company works with e-wallet partners such as TrueMoney in Thailand, DANA in Indonesia, GCash in Philippines and Touch n Go in Malaysia.

It has acquired stakes in several Asia-based financial institutions, such as Bangladeshs fund-transfer service kBash, and Pakistans Telenor Microfinance Bank, and formed a mobile wallet joint venture with billionaire Li Ka-shings CK Hutchison Holding in Hong Kong.

In April 2017, it bought Singapore-based payment service helloPay Group, the payment affiliate of Lazada Group, which Alibaba Group acquired in 2016. Ant Financial and Alibaba together hold a majority stake in One97 Communication, parent of Indias Paytm.

Earlier this January, the company withdrew its bid to acquire US money transfer company MoneyGram for S$1.2 billion after the American authorities blocked the deal citing national security concerns.

In June, Singapores Temasek Holdings and GIC were among a group investors who injected about US$14 billion (S$ 19 billion) in Ant Financial, giving the Chinese company a valuation of over US$150 billion (S$207 billion) and making it the most valuable fintech company in the world. The other investors included Khazanah Nasional, Warburg Pincus and Silver Lake Partners.

Reuters earlier reported Ant Financials initial public offering in Hong Kong and China is expected as early as next year.

Ant Financial CEO Eric Jing told CNBC in a 13 November interview that the company doesnt have a timetable for an IPO, adding that the planned listing is not an ultimate goal.

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Tencents WeChat testing money market fund and score system in bid to catch up with Alipay
SINGAPORE (Nov 21): China Jinjiang Environment has secured a concession to build a waste-to-energy (WTE) facility in Leting County, Hebei Province, China, with an estimated investment cost of RM330.1 million ($65.5 million).

Construction is expected to be completed by 2020.

The upcoming facility has a total designed waste treatment capacity of 450 tons per day for municipal solid waste, 100 tons per day for other types of solid waste and 60 tons per day for sewage.

Under the concession, the group will be able to construct, own and operate the facility for the concession period of 30 years from construction, including an operation period of 28 years from commencement.

In a filing on Tuesday, the China Jinjiang says it will fund its new investment through a combination of bank borrowings and internal resources.

It does not expect the project to have a material impact on its current financial year ending Dec 31.

Year to date, shares in China Jinjiang Environment have fallen by nearly half to 45 cents.
Justice is overdue

Twelve years have passed since the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the government and Maoist rebels on November 6, 2006.
SINGAPORE (Nov 21): Despite its reputation as one of the most connected countries globally, Singapores listed companies are among the least exposed to cyber threats, according to findings from Cyber Intelligence Houses latest Cyber Exposure Index (CEI).

The proprietary global scoring system evaluates exposure of listed companies according to signs of disclosure of sensitive information, leaked credentials, and hacker-group activity.

This is done by aggregating data on more than 6,000 listed companies collected from publicly available sources and from data breaches  and ranking them according to the number of findings and the risk that such findings represent, divided by the companies total number of employees.

The CEIs latest results found that 70% of Singapore-listed companies have little or no exposure to cyber threats, which is significantly higher than the global average of 45% across the stock market indices of 11 other countries around the world.

Within the city state, 481 out of 677 listed companies showed no identified exposure risks between Oct 2017 and Oct 2018.

Only 28 companies or 4% were deemed to be in the high-risk category, making Singapore among the top three countries with the lowest average exposure score after Hong Kong and Indonesia, ranked second and first, respectively.

On the other hand, the US was found to have the highest average exposure score, followed by the UK and Finland.

Going forward, Cyber Intelligence House says it expects to see a dramatic increase in the exposure levels across most companies across most industries, given the accelerating pace of digital transformation across the world.

The growing interconnectivity of companies and complex dependency networks is creating expanded attack surfaces and endless virtual entry points that not only increases the threats of data breaches exponentially, but also the magnitude of the impact, says Mikko Niemela, CEO of Cyber Intelligence House.

It is therefore imperative for companies to know how cyber exposed they are Mitigating data breaches begins with understanding where the critical information is stored, from where is it leaking and how it is exposed, he adds.
Australia has officially rejected a bid of more than US$9 billion from Hong Kong giant CK Group for the country's biggest gas pipeline company, saying it would be against its "national interest". The decision by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is the latest in a series of steps by Canberra curbing Chinese involvement in key infrastructure projects amid concerns over Beijing's growing influence across the Pacific region. "The consortium led by CK Asset Holdings Limited (CK Group) has been advised of my final decision that its current proposed acquisition of APA Group would be contrary to the national interest," Frydenberg said in a statement issued late Tuesday. "I have formed this view on the basis that it would result in a single foreign company group having sole ownership and control over Australias most significant gas transmission business," he said. The announcement formalised a preliminary decision two weeks ago to block the deal, which would have seen CK Group pay Aus$13 billion (US$9.4 billion) for APA -- owner of 15,000 kilometres (9,300 miles) of pipelines representing 56 percent of Australia's total gas transmission system. Frydenberg sought to soften the blow by insisting his decision was "not an adverse reflection on CK Group or the individual companies". "The Australian government welcomes CK Groups investments in Australia and its broader contribution to the Australian economy," he added. But the decision is likely to further increase tensions between Canberra and Beijing, which already reacted angrily when Australia in August barred Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE from participating in the rollout of the country's 5G network, citing security concerns. Competition between the two nations over influence in the Pacific region was further highlighted during regional summits last week in Singapore and Papua New Guinea, with Australia announcing a series of infrastructure and defence initiatives clearly seen as trying to counter Chinese influence. And a report published Tuesday said China had sharply escalated cyberattacks on Australian companies this year in a "constant, significant effort" to steal intellectual property. The Chinese foreign ministry dismissed the report as "unprofessional" and "irresponsible".
Australian Muslim leaders said Wednesday they would boycott a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison after he said they needed to do more to halt terror attacks in the country. Morrison singled out Muslim community leaders as having a "special responsibility" to counter "the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam" following a terror attack in Melbourne earlier this month that left two dead. "They must be proactive, they must be alert and they must call this out," Morrison said, adding that he would hold a roundtable meeting with Muslim leaders this week to discuss the problem. But Australian Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed and a group of other senior Muslim figures rejected the invitation in an open letter to Morrison Wednesday. The men said they were "deeply concerned and disappointed" with comments by Morrison and other ministers "which infer that the community is collectively culpable for the criminal actions of individuals and should be doing more to prevent such acts of violence". "These statements have achieved nothing to address underlying issues, but rather, have alienated large segments of the Muslim community," they said in the letter, which was published by Australian media. The letter prompted a tweetstorm from Morrison, who accused those behind the boycott of "continuing down a path of denial" and making their communities "less safe and more vulnerable". "We all have responsibilities to make Australia safe, and that means making sure Muslim communities do not become infiltrated with this dangerous ideology," he tweeted. In the November 9 attack in Melbourne, a Somali-born man who police said was inspired by the so-called Islamic State, stabbed and killed one man and wounded two others before being fatally shot by police. And this week police arrested three more men in Melbourne for allegedly plotting another IS-inspired attack on the city -- the 15th terror attack authorities say they have thwarted since 2014. The terror threat has fuelled calls from some conservatives for a further toughening of Australia's already tight immigration laws, raising concerns among the Muslim community. In their letter the Islamic leaders, who head community groups in several Australian states, said they would attend a later meeting with Morrison if their "views and concerns will be genuinely respected".
Police killed five men yesterday in a jewelry store heist gone awry at a Jalan Kuchai Lama supermarket.

Shoppers stood back in terror, with some recording the action, as police fired shots at the gang standing at the front of the shop. Four were killed there, while a fifth was shot dead as he was trying to flee in the getaway car. An officer was also injured in the 4pm incident, and is recovering in a nearby hospital, in stable condition. He received a wound to one of his legs.

One witness reported that 20 gunshots were exchanged during the ordeal, and he feared for his life, though he went back inside to see if he could record any of the action.

Local media outlet New Straits Times, reports that police from the Selangor unit were deployed to the scene after the alert of an in-progress robbery. Upon reaching the entrance, city police chief Mazlan Lazim told media that two of the suspects had pistols and fired at officers. At that point, authorities returned fire, killing four of the suspects. After the fifth individual tried to give using one of the groups car, a Mercedes Benz, police caught up after 400 meters, and killed the suspect.

Inside, all of the stolen items were recovered, as well as two guns, an axe and a parang (machete). Another getaway car, a Perodua Myvi, was also seized.

Identities of the men have yet to be released. All suspects wore motorcycle helmets throughout the heist, and were reported to be wearing police-style reflective vests.

This article, Authorities shoot dead five suspects in jewelry store heist, public records most of it, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. For more Coconuts stories, you can download our app, sign up for our newsletters, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
(Photo: Bernard Photojournals)

Singapores beloved and friendly Bishan otter family decided that they would make themselves witnesses to a British couples marriage proposal  and the adorable scene has been immortalised in a photograph.

Tourists and otter fans Jordan Doyle and Mary Lister had come to Singapore for a spot of otter watching, and Doyle decided to pop the question on Tuesday (20 November) while the celebrated critters frolicked nearby.

According to the BBC, the couple had contacted local wildlife photographer Bernard Seah and asked him to show them where they could see Singapores famous otters in action.

Seah and a group of photographers therefore brought the duo to Marina Reservoir to see the Bishan otters (they moved there from their original home in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park).

Id had the ring with me for a while and Mary is a huge fan of otters, so I thought to myself, right, this is the time to propose, Doyle, 28, told the BBC.

The serendipitous photo opportunity almost did not happen. Seah told Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore that he had to persuade the couple to take a posed photo after Doyle first proposed to Lister privately without witnesses.

He did a quiet proposal and when I found out, I said that they had to have a photo taken and that there would be opportunities for otters to be in the background or maybe foreground, said the 49-year-old photographer.

The curious animals approached the pair when they were reenacting the proposal for a photo. Seah said it was a priceless moment.

Seah later posted a photo on Facebook of Doyle on one knee offering Lister a ring, as a group of otters gaze at their tender moment.

In case youre wondering  Lister said yes to Doyle.

Its a perfect shot for the wedding photo book, but not one that other otter-loving lovebirds can easily replicate!

Follow Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore on Facebook.

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Otter chaos as Bishan and Marina otter families clash at Kallang Basin

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(Refiles to fix spelling of Bain in para 4)

BEIJING, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Germany's BMW plans to launch ride-hailing services in China in December, the first global automaker to obtain such a licence in the fast-growing market.

BMW Mobility Service Ltd, a fully-owned subsidiary of the BMW Group, obtained its ride-hailing licence in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China's southwest, BMW said.

BMW Group said in October it would increase its stake in its Chinese joint venture with partner Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd to 75 percent from 50 percent.

China's ride-hailing market is worth $23 billion, more than all other ride-hailing markets combined, with China's Didi Chuxing dominating with 90 percent of all bookings, consulting firm Bain & Co said.

Germany's Daimler said in October it was setting up a ride-hailing venture in China with Geely Group, in a sign the Chinese firm was making progress in its drive for closer relations with the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars. (Reporting by Sun Yilei in Beijing and Adam Jourdan in Shanghai Writing by Lee Chyen Yee Editing by Edmund Blair)
Relations between China and the Philippines might never have been better, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the former president of the Southeast Asian country, said on Wednesday, reinforcing her long-time positive stance on Beijing.

The all-round cooperation between China and the Philippines over the past two years has been very good indeed, perhaps as good as it has ever been, she told Chinese President Xi Jinping on the final day of his visit to Manila.

President for more than nine years until 2010, Arroyo, who is now speaker of the House of Representatives, said she supported and applauded the strategic and comprehensive relationship her successor Rodrigo Duterte was taking with China.

It is similar  to the approach to China that I took when I was president, she told Xi, whom she last met before he became Chinas leader.

Xi said he appreciated Arroyos contribution to the friendship between the two countries, praising her as an old and good friend of the Chinese people.

I hope the [Philippine] congress and the Senate can play a bigger role in promoting the relationship, he said, using a colloquial term for the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, Duterte and Xi witnessed the signing of 29 contracts, including a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on oil and gas development in the South China Sea.

While no details of the deal have been made public, its agreement sparked an outcry in Manila, as the two countries have for decades been locked in a territorial dispute over maritime boundaries and the rights to the seas rich resources.

In 2016, an international arbitration court ruled in favour of the Philippines in its dispute with China, and disregarded the nine-dash line Beijing uses to lay claim to almost all of the South China Sea.

Under Duterte, however, Manila has favoured building bridges with Beijing rather than continuing their quarrel over the troubled waters.

Story continues

The latest cooperation deal is not the first time the two nations have worked together to exploit the riches of the South China Sea, however. In 2004, under Arroyo and then Chinese president Hu Jintao, Manila and Beijing signed a US$15 million deal  known as the Joint Maritime Seismic Undertaking  to jointly conduct seismic prospecting for oil in the sea.

Although the agreement was joined the following year by Vietnam, it faced strong opposition in the Philippines and protesters there filed a case against it with the Supreme Court on the grounds it violated the constitution.

Beside those allegations, the cooperation deal was the subject of multiple disputes over resource development between the parties involved and was wound up in 2008.

Arroyo first travelled to China in the 1970s when her father was president, and made nine visits as president, including one to the site of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Her administration signed more than 65 bilateral agreements with Beijing.

As well as her legislative role in Manila she is member of the board of the Boao Forum for Asia.

This article China-Philippine relations never been better, says ex-president Gloria Arroyo first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Long wait for justice

The transitional justice process needs immediate review because it is taking forever
Chinese actor Jiang Jinfu has admitted domestic violence against his girlfriend, the Japanese model Haruka Nakaura, after she posted photographs of her bruises on social media.

The star of television series Xuan-Yuan Sword: Scar of Sky and Scarlet Heart 2 wrote on Weibo, Chinas equivalent of Twitter, that he had spent the past month in regret and should not have hit you, addressing Nakaura.

Mondays post on Instagram by Nakaura  known in China as Zhongpu Youhua  had included photos of bruises to her face and body, and a message written in Chinese and Japanese. She suggested that Jiangs recent low profile was related to her.

She wrote: Recently, I have caused everyone who cares about to me worry. I am still here. Jiang Jinfus recent disappearance is related to me. At my lawyers and investigators request, Im sorry that I cant say any more.

Her account has since been deleted, but screenshots of her post have been widely shared on Chinese social media.

Jiang posted a statement on Weibo on Tuesday that read: I spent the past month in regret. My impulsive behaviour has hurt you and your family, and I should not have hit you no matter the reason.

Chinas #MeToo censorship bypassed through netizens creative use of language

The 27-year-old added that he was willing to take responsibility for his actions and accept any punishment.

Social media users have reacted angrily to posts about the actor. How much hate is there to beat a girl up like this? Its terrifying, wrote one Weibo user. I cant imagine what the girl must have gone through, wrote another.

Is Hong Kong losing the fight against domestic violence?

About 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner, according to the United Nations.

One in four Japanese women have experienced violence from their partners, a 2015 survey by the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office found, but only 2.2 per cent reported their case to the police. Across Asia, UN statistics suggest that only 20 per cent of victims seek help for domestic violence.

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In China, about a quarter of women have reported experiencing some form of domestic violence, according to government statistics. The country introduced a domestic violence law only in 2016.

This article Chinese actor Jiang Jinfu admits domestic violence against Japanese model Haruka Nakaura first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Croatian tycoon Ivica Todoric, being investigated over fraud allegations, was released from a Zagreb prison on Tuesday after posting a million-euro ($1.1-million) bail. Todoric, 67, had been detained since he was extradited from Britain earlier this month. "Todoric is not allowed to leave the Zagreb area without a court approval and had to hand over his passport," a Zagreb court spokesman Kresmir Devcic told reporters. Todoric's lawyer Jadranka Slokovic said the bail money was provided by "friends". Todoric was arrested in London a year ago on a European arrest warrant for allegedly falsifying accounts to hide huge debts at food and retail giant Agrokor, which he founded in 1976. Todoric and 14 other people, including his two sons and other former top company executives, are under investigation for alleged abuse of trust, forging of official documents and failure to keep proper business records. Agrokor is the biggest employer in the Balkans, with 60,000 workers and a large network of suppliers providing tens of thousands more jobs. The Zagreb-based company was saved from bankruptcy earlier this year after creditors backed a multi-billion euro debt deal. Russian state-owned Sberbank, Agrokor's biggest creditor, became its largest single stakeholder with a nearly 40 percent stake. Sberbank and another Russian bank, VTB, between them acquired more than 46 percent of the company. Agrokor was weighed down by debts of 58 billion kunas ($8.9 billion, 7.8 billion euros) accumulated through aggressive expansion and expensive borrowing. Todoric has repeatedly said the allegations against him are politically motivated and accused senior members of the Croatian government of orchestrating the takeover of Agrokor. The issue has posed the most serious challenge to the government of conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic since it took power in 2016. Deputy prime minister Martina Dalic, who played a key role in Agrokor's restructuring, was forced to resign in May amid allegations of a conflict of interest.
(L-R) A copy of the King James Bible, referred to by Masons as a Volume of Sacred Law for the purposes of their meetings; The corresponding stone, the Rough Ashlar, represents a Freemason at his initiation, rough and unpolished. The system of pulleys suggest the use of his intellect in raising the great weights of such stones to fix them in their proper places; The ubiquitous Square and Compasses, a Freemason symbol; A stained glass relief at Freemasons Hall at Coleman Street, depicting the Eye of Providence. PHOTO: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo News Singapore

Mention the Freemasons, the worlds oldest fraternal order, and one thing comes to mind: conspiracy theories.

From Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code (Freemasons conspired to hide Jesus Christs marriage) to the Nicolas Cage-starring National Treasure (Freemasons helped hide a secret treasure in the United States), outlandish conspiracy theories about the Freemasons have become ubiquitous in popular culture.

This has also been fuelled by the prominence of past Freemasons who were typically rich or powerful men: the first United States president George Washington, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the composer Wolfgang Mozart and even founder of Singapore Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Many roads in Singapore are also named after Freemasons, such as the former Attorney-General Thomas Braddell.

For the 650 Freemasons of Singapore, who were first organised as a society here in 1845, wild speculation about their order is something they have gotten used to, along with eyebrow-raising rumours of devil worship.

What of the oft-repeated notion that Freemasons are in league with the Jewish people for world domination? We have trouble even organising dinner, let alone taking over the world, said banker Tony Raza, 50, with a chuckle.

The American and Singapore permanent resident, who has been a Freemason for a decade, told Yahoo News Singapore that exotic depictions of the Masons in popular culture do bring an increased interest in the order.

We see the inaccuracies pretty clearlybut I dont think theres anything wrong with bringing up these interesting historical stories, and maybe glamourising a little bit. If it brings some interest from the outside world, then maybe thats not so bad.

Now, for only the third time in its 139-year history, the Freemasons Hall at Coleman Street is opening up to the public.

The Centenary Lodge Christmas Market charity event takes place this Saturday (24 November). The event will include a discussion of Masonic history, a rare demonstration of a Freemason ritual and of course, conspiracy theories. Ticket fees will go to Kidz Horizon, a charity devoted to helping children and women with chronic illnesses.

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Changing with the times

(Video by Nurul Amirah Haris)

It is all part of a worldwide effort by the Freemasons to adapt to the modern world, and better explain itself to outsiders. Heavy on symbolism, rituals and hierarchy, complete with secret handshakes and grand titles, the Freemasons can give off the vibe of a boys club.

When Yahoo News Singapore visited Freemasons Hall last Tuesday, it was the first interviews that the Singapore branch of the order had done in more than a decade.

Historically, weve been guilty of being overly secretive in going about what we do, admitted New Zealander John Matheson, a business and management consultant.

The 60-year-old added, But in the modern worldall of our rituals are now public knowledge. The only thing that we keep secret are those special handshakes and passwordswhich are frankly a lot of fun, but they are really more of ceremonial importance than anything.

Historically, their secretive nature has helped lead to persecution  Freemasonry has been banned at different times by numerous countries, while thousands of its adherents were imprisoned or killed by the Nazis. In Singapore, some 250 Masons were also imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II.

But the order has certainly become a lot more open  streaming service Netflix is even airing the documentary series Inside the Freemasons, made to commemorate the United Grand Lodge of Englands 300th anniversary.

Freemasonry was first organised as a society in England in 1717. Organised into units called Lodges, it also has a deep history in the Asia-Pacific, with the first Lodge in Asia established in 1765 in Bencoolen, Sumatra. Since then, Lodges have been founded in Malaysia, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Japan and elsewhere.

The head of a Lodge is called a Worshipful Master. The 53 Lodges of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are grouped under the District Grand Lodge of the Eastern Archipelago, which is led by a District Grand Master. Globally, the man who holds the highest position in Freemasonry is Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent.

Freemasonry is not a religious order, but belief in a God is a prerequisite to join. In this regard, the Singapore Lodges include Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.

We use terms that dont mention God specifically, because every religion has a different name. So we speak of the Great Architect of the Universe, explained Matheson. But at the same time, we have a rule that you cant discuss religion and you cant discuss politics in the Lodge.

Truth, fellowship and charity

A stained glass relief at Freemasons Hall of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Singapores most famous Freemason. PHOTO: Nicholas Yong/Yahoo News Singapore

Nevertheless, Freemasonry has many of the trappings of a religion. For example, Yahoo News Singapores interviews were carried out in a courtroom-like venue at Freemasons Hall called the Second Temple, while a larger hall is called the First Temple.

These halls are meant to evoke the Temple built by the great Israelite King Solomon, and have a similar layout. Solomons Temple is a central symbol in Freemasonry. Sacred texts such as the King James Bible or the Quran are typically on display during Masonic meetings and are referred to as a Volume of Sacred Law.

The order is founded on three grand principles: truth, fellowship and charity. Matheson explained that Lodge meetings typically consist of two parts: firstly, administrative matters and discussions of charitable works, and secondly, elaborate rituals such as initiation rites, complete with regalia.

Then there is what is called passing to the second degree and raising to the third degree, or in laymans terms, rising in the ranks. These are very ancient rituals that have changed little over the past two or three hundred years, said Matheson, who added that it is part of the learning process of how Freemasonry works.

The second degree is about the learning. Every degree has its own theme. And so the hidden mysteries of nature and science are at the foundation of the second degree. Every degree has its own intrigue. When an initiate goes through the ceremony, often they remember very little of it, because theres so much being thrown at them.

How does one become a Freemason?

Freemasons Hall at 23A Coleman Street in Singapore will be opening to the public on 24 November 2018 for a charity event. PHOTO: Nurul Amirah Haris/Yahoo News Singapore

For all the talk of symbolic rituals and conspiracies, the process of joining the Freemasons is surprisingly mundane: one simply applies directly to the organisation. In Singapore, only men above the age of 21 with no criminal records may apply. They must then undergo a vetting process that can take up to a year.

While there is a bias towards professionals, Matheson stressed, We certainly dont go looking for the rich and famous, thats not our selection criteria. We strive for balance. We dont want a Lodge of lawyers or a Lodge of bankers. We want a cross-section of Singapore society.

Asked if membership is for life, he replied drily, Its one of those great myths. Its not the Hotel California. You are able to resign at any time.

Depending on the size of the Lodge and its geographical location, yearly membership fees range from about $400 to $800. These go toward maintenance of the building, regalia, administrative costs, and charity efforts.

Singaporean Ellery Ngiam, 39, has been a Freemason for three and a half years. Drawn by curiosity and an appetite for esoteric knowledge, he is grateful for the opportunity to do charity work and make new friends.

(Before I joined), my perception was always coloured more on the sensational side, because thats whats available on the Internet. (But) I wanted to find out for myself (and) I have no regrets.

Like Ngiam and Raza, Matheson welcomes the orders efforts to be more open. I think its a very welcome initiative tobreak away from that historical secrecy. It has no logical foundation.

Its just that we inherited a system where, my father and grandfather (were) Freemasons, we never spoke about Freemasonry in our house, which is very strange. But these days, its a far more open fraternity.

More information on the Centenary Lodge Christmas Market can be found here.

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The world-famous Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York might now be under the control of the Chinese government  it announced in February that it had seized control of Anbang Insurance Group, which owns the hotel  but Chinas ambition is to set up a home-grown hotel brand that will have outlets around the world.

Spearheading the drive is the state-owned Beijing Tourism Group (BTG), which boasts over 100 hospitality, dining, fashion, transport and other industry brands.

BTG set up NUO Hotel in the city centre of Beijing in 2015 as part of its restructuring to help make Chinese brands go global. The hotels general manager Adrian Rudin says 15 to 20 hotels under the NUO brand will be opened in 10 to 15 years in cities including Rome, Moscow, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Paris, London, New York and Dubai.

We will start off in a few key Chinese cities first, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, says Rudin. Then the brand will go overseas.

The goal is to have a hotel in each major city around the world so that Chinese national leaders can be put up in home-grown hotels on their overseas trips, says Cindy Zhu, NUOs director of marketing communications.

BTGs move follows the trend of Chinese low-budget hotels expanding overseas. The hotel brand 7 Days Inn, for example, which has over 2,000 hotels in China, opened outlets in the Austrian cities Linz and Salzburg in 2016. Another budget hotel chain, GreenTree Inns, has been establishing branches in the US, Thailand and Vietnam since 2015.

The NUO Hotel is managed by Key International Hotels Management Company, a joint venture between BTG and Kempinski Hotels, Europes oldest luxury hotel group, and is a showcase for classical and modern Chinese opulence.

Kettles in the guest rooms are made from delicate blue-and-white porcelain. The oils and fragrances used in the hotels spa treatments are inspired by classical Chinese herbology tome The Compendium of Materia Medica, written by the famed Ming dynasty doctor Li Shizhen. Chinese luxury car firm Hongqi provides the limousines for the airport pickups.

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Zhu says that the NUO brand was set up because reforming an old brand is difficult. It includes NUO Travel, a high-end, tailor-made travel agency, which launched in 2013 and has a shop in the hotel. The company designs trips for clients to destinations including Cuba and the North and South poles.

The hotel also serves as a research and development centre for some of the groups own products, including porcelain, tea and baijiu  a Chinese liquor. We have our own tea plantations to produce tea leaves for hotel guests, Zhu says. We are waiting for the opportune moment to launch such products under the NUO brand.

While the Ming dynasty serves as the theme for NUO Hotel in Beijing, other hotels under the brand will have different themes, says Rudin, who had managerial roles at Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and The Peninsula Hotels group before joining NUO in 2013.

We are working on another hotel themed on the Qing dynasty which I cannot name, Rudin says. For the one in Italy, we will create the hotel brand revolving around Silk Road trading and Marco Polo. The one in Shanghai will be about its rich art deco heritage. The one in Xian will be about terracotta warriors.

Why not bring the Chinese culture to hotels outside China so Chinese travellers can also have their own breakfast, congee and tea when overseas?

Adrian Rudin

Rudin is from Switzerland, a country renowned for its hotel management. He says the successful Swiss model combines wellness, spectacular geography and high-end hospitality  all features that China also boasts.

There are cool hotels in Switzerland which have hot tubs and different kinds of treatments for people to relax and become healthy again. Then similar high-end hotels spread to England and Europe and came to China too. They brought their culture, breakfasts and croissants so foreigners can eat their own breakfast when they travel overseas. With over a hundred years of history, they are well established, he says.

Now China has many outbound travellers which increase by 10 to 15 per cent every year. There are about 120 million Chinese travellers going abroad every year. Why not bring the Chinese culture to hotels outside China so Chinese travellers can also have their own breakfast, congee and tea when overseas?

Beijing-based warehouse manager Patrick Yang says it is high time that China follows Japans example of setting up high-end hotels under a home-grown brand  which is does through JAL Hotels  so travellers can enjoy a home away from home.

On my overseas travels, I often miss quality Chinese cuisine like Peking roast duck, or soybean milk and deep-fried dough sticks for breakfast, says Yang. The quality of overseas Chinatown fare is usually not as good.

Yang adds that having a home-grown hotel chain around the world like Japans JAL is also a manifestation of national power.

Japanese people are proud of their culture, like sushi. They reserve the best foodstuffs for their own consumption and export the lesser fare. Overseas Japanese can enjoy this special treatment in JAL hotels too. China should do the same.

Western hotel brands are also striving to be China-friendly in their quest to attract big-pocketed Chinese visitors.

Crowne Plaza Suites in Houston, Texas offers Chinese language newspapers, Qingdao beer and celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival and Lunar New Year with decorations.

Spanish firm Chinese Friendly International offers an endorsement scheme for hotels in Europe, and advice on how to make their hotels feel like home for Chinese people. There should always be hot drinking water available, for example, as well as menus and information in Mandarin, and Mandarin-speaking staff  who should accept credit cards with two hands, and always address the oldest person in the party first.

Meanwhile, NUO Hotel has collaborated with Lausanne Hospitality Consulting from Switzerland and set up an academy to train its staff in areas of talent development, executive education, branding and hotel management. The hotel sends two students to Switzerland for training every year, and has developed a certification system for its employees.

The academy is based in the NUO Hotel, says Rudin. The academy has brought in pastry chefs to help our staff make better bread and pastries. We are also forming our sommelier team and have sent them to competitions. We want to go from being a good to a great hotel  to compete internationally.

Also planning a major expansion drive is Qiu Guo Hotel, a mid-range Chinese chain started in 2016 with six outlets in Beijing. The chain adopts a minimalist, but elegant, theme, and has separate floors for women to enhance their safety.

Its founder Liu Wei, who served in the Shenyang air force, says they will open 30 more outlets next year, with the goal to have 300 hotels in China in three years. He says the Chinese governments crackdown on extravagance means their new clientele are Chinese civil servants and state-owned companies employees who used to stay in high-end hotels in the past.

The rising affluence of the Chinese also makes many want to upgrade from low-end to mid-range hotels, he says.

For now, the expansion plans of NUO and Qiu Guo focus on cosmopolitan hotels in urban settings, but Rudin says that in the future they will explore expanding to countryside settings in China which have amazing geographical formations  not least because China is going to host the Winter Olympics in 2022.

But Liu has even bigger ambitions. To attain the hotel-to-population ratio of the US, the number of hotels in China should be eight times the current number. China has 1.3 billion people. Just Beijing has several tens of millions of people. The ceiling for Chinas market expansion is very high.

This article Home-grown Chinese hotel brand NUO wants to take over the world 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:
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
The first member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang was released from prison Wednesday after serving 13 years, in a case that caused a huge diplomatic rift between Indonesia and Australia. Renae Lawrence, 41, the only female member of the group, was arrested in 2005 when authorities caught her 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. She was initially handed a life term, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further cut due to good behaviour. Surrounded by immigration officials and a swarm of media who jostled to get a picture of her, Lawrence left Bali's Bangli prison shortly after 5:00 pm (0900 GMT) and got into a waiting car. Lawrence is set to fly to Brisbane on Wednesday evening, according to an intelligence source, who asked not to be named. "We'll put her on a blacklist which bans her for life from ever coming back to Indonesia," said Agato Simamora, head of Bali's immigration department. Earlier Wednesday, Bangli prison chief Made Suwendra told AFP that Lawrence was healthy and ready to leave prison. "She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous," Suwendra said. - Firing squad - The Australian Police Commissioner for the state of New South Wales, Mick Fuller, told The Australian newspaper there were two outstanding arrest warrants for Lawrence and that they will speak to her when she returns to the country. Reports in Australian media said Lawrence could face arrest once she is back home over a high-speed chase involving a stolen vehicle dating back to just before she was arrested in Indonesia. Of the nine in the original group, 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. Another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died in prison in June 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. Dozens of foreigners are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drugs offences, with executions carried out by firing squad. Among them are a cocaine-smuggling British grandmother, an American caught with crystal methamphetamine, and several west African inmates sentenced to death for drug crimes. 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. Foreigners are routinely arrested for drug crimes in Indonesia, including a Frenchman busted in October with nearly four kilogrammes (8.8 pounds) of narcotics including cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, while an Australian was arrested in August for allegedly dealing cocaine to Bali holidaymakers. This summer, a Frenchman detained for 18 years after trying to smuggle hashish into Bali was allowed to leave Indonesia after serving several years of parole in the country.
The first member of the "Bali Nine" heroin-trafficking gang to be released from prison is expected to leave jail on Wednesday after serving 13 years, in a case that caused a huge diplomatic rift between Indonesia and Australia. Renae Lawrence, 41, the only female member of the group, was arrested in 2005 when authorities caught her with 2.6 kilogrammes (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. She was initially handed a life term, but her sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then further cut due to good behaviour. It was not immediately clear what time she would be released from Bali's Bangli prison, but officials said she may be freed around midday (0400 GMT). "Renae Lawrence is in a healthy condition. She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous," head of Bangli prison Made Suwendra told AFP. It is likely that Lawrence will be deported shortly after her release. The Australian Police Commissioner for the state of New South Wales, Mick Fuller, told The Australian newspaper there were two outstanding arrest warrants for Lawrence and that they will speak to her when she returns to the country. Reports in Australian media said Lawrence could face arrest once she is back home over a high-speed chase involving a stolen vehicle dating back to just before she was arrested in Indonesia. Of the nine in the original group, 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. Another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died in prison in June 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.
By Humphrey Malalo and George Obulutsa

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer and wounded five people in Kenya in an attack that has brought fears of an upsurge in activity by militant Islamists.

Police and residents said men armed with AK-47 rifles seized the 23-year-old from a guesthouse in Chakama, a small town south of the border with Somalia and near the coast, late on Tuesday.

Police said no group had claimed responsibility.

The Italian charity the woman was working for, Africa Milele, posted a message on its website saying: "There are no words to comment on what is happening. Silvia, we are all with you." The group says it helps orphaned children.

Tourism is vital for Kenya's economy but it suffered in the early part of the decade after a series of abductions and attacks blamed on Somali militant group al Shabaab that culminated in a raid on a shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013 in which more than 60 people were killed.

The industry has since recovered and authorities say they have taken steps to thwart attacks.

The Ministry of Tourism said security had been stepped up for both residents and tourists.

"This is an isolated incident that occurred well away from any popular tourist areas," the ministry said in a statement.

Two witnesses told Reuters they heard the gunmen speaking Somali. "There were three attackers and they targeted the Italian lady," said Chad Joshua Kazungu.

Ronald Kazungu, who helped the Italian volunteer by documenting her work through photography, said the gunmen made clear she was their target.

Six of them followed her to her room at a guesthouse where she was staying and Kazungu said he failed in his attempt to protect her after one gunman, who was holding the volunteer by her throat, hit him with a club when he tried to intervene.

The attackers opened fire as they left, hitting two children, two teenagers and a man. A 10-year-old boy was shot in the eye and a 12-year-old was hit in the thigh, police said.

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On Wednesday a police helicopter circled over the green and yellow guesthouse.

"SMALL SHAKE-UP"

Tour operators said the attack would have only a limited impact on the sector.

"The European market might have a small shake-up but Malindi is 500 km (300 miles) from Nairobi so I don't expect the safari industry to be affected," said Robert Katithi, sales director from Go Kenya Tours and Safaris.

Chakama in Kilifi region is 60 km inland from the coastal resort of Malindi. In 2011 and 2012 there were a series of abductions by al Shabaab, a group linked to al Qaeda, closer to the border with Somalia.

Gunmen grabbed a wheelchair-bound French woman from her home on the northern island of Manda in 2011 weeks after pirates killed a British man and kidnapped his wife from another resort island. The French woman died, while the English woman was released after a ransom was paid.

At the time, the government blamed al Shabaab, which has launched attacks inside Kenya in retaliation for its military interventions in Somalia. The militants denied responsibility.

Armed men kidnapped four aid workers and killed a driver at Kenyas Dadaab refugee camp in 2012.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said it was looking into reports of the attack.

(Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri, Hereward Holland, David Lewis, John Ndiso and Baz Ratner in Nairobi and Giulia Segreti in Rome; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Janet Lawrence)
Lawyers confirmed today that Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown, along with two others, have been named in a defamation suit filed by the Terengganu Sultanah Nur Zahira over a passage in the journalists book about the 1MDB financial scandal.

Representing the Sultanah, lawyer Mohd Hazziq Pillay Abdullah, told media that his client was suing not only Ms. Rewcastle-Brown, but also her publisher Gerakbudaya Enterprise, as well as the books printer, Vinlin Press Sdn Bhd.

Mohd Hazziq confirmed with Malay Mail that the suit was filed at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, adding that the trio did not comply with previous demands to retract the comment, and cease circulating the book. Declining to confirm the amount of money being sought, previous warning carried an RM100 million (US$25 million) compensation demand, with any money won going to charity.

The defendant was reportedly left distressed by a particular passage on page three of The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose, which her lawyer has said caused distress, embarrassment and injury to her reputation. Previous statements highlighted that the page in the book read as though the Sultanah both knew of corruption and had close ties with fugitive financier Jho Low. The plaintiff also alleged that they were never involved with the establishment of 1MDBs predecessor, the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA).

Earlier this year, the Sultanah had given the three named in the suit eight days to apologize, retract their statements, and cease selling the book. While the online portal published an apology of sorts, expressing regret that the Sultanah misread the passage, they maintained that they never suggested anything of the sort, and that careful reading would make that clear.

In other words, not really sorry then.

This article, Lawyer confirms Terengganu Sultanah is suing Sarawak Report editor over passage in book, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. For more Coconuts stories, you can download our app, sign up for our newsletters, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The head of a Buddhist youth organisation in Taiwan has been expelled from his temple after becoming embroiled in a sex and drugs scandal, according to local media.

Video footage of Kai Hong, secretary general of the Chinese Young Buddhist Association in the self-ruled island, romping naked on a bed with another man and smoking amphetamines, was published online by Taiwans Mirror Media.

The report did not say where or when the film was shot but quoted an unnamed source as saying Kai was a long-time drug user who held sex parties with other Buddhists at Tongshan Temple, where he was based.

Authorities at the temple, in the Gongguan township on Taiwans northwest coast, said the 29-year-old was expelled on November 13 for religious discipline problems.

Two months before the expulsion, Kai had relocated to the Miaoli Chongfo Temple in nearby Miaoli county with dozens of believers, the report said.

Considered a rising star in Buddhism in Taiwan, Kai was an influential figure among younger devotees and frequently gave lectures at summer camps.

Despite the video footage, Kai has denied any wrongdoing and said the footage was released as part of a smear campaign led by Tongshan Temple, with which he is involved in a property dispute. Local police are investigating the incident.

The online report said the film was leaked by a spurned former lover of Kai who was also a monk at Tongshan Temple. The man claimed to have downloaded 200 gigabytes of video footage from the computer of another of Kais lovers, and forwarded three sex clips to the temple authorities.

In some sections of the footage, Kai speaks directly to the camera, apparently while under the influence of drugs, while in others he appears to be recording the action himself.

Meanwhile, the head of the governing body for Buddhism in Taiwan has sought to distance himself from the scandal, the official Central News Agency reported on Tuesday.

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The Venerable Jing Yao, chairman of the Buddhist Association of China in Taiwan, confirmed in a statement that Kai had been disciplined, but added that his behaviour was in no way linked to himself, the temple or the governing body.

I deeply regret that the unlawful conduct of Kai Hong has caused a negative backlash against the Buddhist world, Jing said in the statement released by Cifa Temple in New Taipei City. I also feel deeply ashamed that I did not inspect his behaviour as a fellow Buddhist monk.

He said also that he had sought legal advice after being accused by a local newspaper of turning a blind eye to Kais activities, who was once his student.

The scandal is not the first involving the Buddhist Association of China this year. In August, the organisations then chairman, the Venerable Xuecheng, was accused of sexually assaulting female monks at Longquan Temple in Beijing.

Xuecheng, Chinas highest-ranking Buddhist, was forced to resign as head abbot of the temple and investigated by police, in what was seen as a victory for Chinas #MeToo movement.

This article Leader of Taiwanese Buddhist youth group expelled over sex and drugs scandal first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Nepal-China power line plan hits funding snags

China is unlikely to fund the construction of the much-hyped trans-Himalayan electric transmission line which the government had hoped to build with its help due to viability issues.
Masterchef Sashi Chelilah. (Photo: Katie Ferguson)

Singapore-born Sashi Chelilah, a former prison officer is excited to be home this weekend. For his homecoming, habitat by honestbee is gearing up some activities including a cooking demo so he could share his tips and experiences up-close with fans. We ask the chef on some of his favourite local foods and the response to his first pop-up restaurant, Gaja by Sashi in Melbourne.

First up, has the excitement of winning settled in already?

Pretty much I would say, its been almost four months now and the excitement is still there, as I cant believe I won the competition (laughs). Ive had such amazing support from fans and foodies around Australia, where the competition was held.

Some of your contenders had only nice things to say about you: friendly, team player  are you an all-round Mr. Nice Guy?

(laughs) For me, Ive been the same since day one till the last day of the competition; that is something I feel I am clear about, and I dont want to be somebody who Im not. At the end of the day, it was a competition, and I am a very competitive person and we have to be fair. Competition aside, we are still very good friends.

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50 of the worlds most unusual hotels

Do you still keep in touch with your fellow contenders, who and why?

Not everyone has we all come from different states. Currently Im living in Melbourne now, and I happen to bump into Jess (Liemantara), Khanh (Ong), Ben (Borsht), Loki (Madireddi), Jo (Kendray)  those common few. I still keep in touch with Ben over calls and texts; Masterchef as a whole is a very big family, from judges to production crew, we are all still very close.

Masterchef Sashi serving guests at his pop-up restaurant, Gaja by Sashi

Your pop-up restaurant Gaja by Sashi  tell us the inspiration behind the name Gaja, and how was the response?

Gaja means elephant and the word is the same in Sanskrit, Tamil and Malay. Since I was born and raised in Singapore, Im still close to my heritage and background. Being a Hindu, I respect Lord Ganesha, who is an Indian God, who encompasses values like loyalty and prosperity  all that reflects on how I approach Gaja by Sashi.

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What were some of the learnings youve applied from the competition to entering the F&B business?

Flavours are very important and that is something I understood from the competition. Regardless of how your food looks, I think flavour is the most important aspect that customers look for. If your flavours are good, people will come back for more, and they will travel from around the world to eat your food.

What are your plans in further expanding Asian cuisine to the globe? How do you intend to do that?

Its always about working in two cultures into one  that has always been something Ive been doing. Im very focused on Southeast Asia cuisine, as well as others like European cuisine  whichever flavours that go along well like Vietnamese, Thai which have robust flavours  Id love to use them and recreate something altogether that is unique.

habitat by honestbee

Now that youre back in Singapore, what will you be doing?

For my homecoming, Ill be conducting a few cooking demos over at habitat by honestbee, and Im interested to check out what they have to offer in terms of grocery shopping and dining experience.

Will you consider opening Gaja by Sashi in Singapore?

If any good offers or opportunities come about, I am open to interesting ventures.

Share with us some of your fave restaurants/cafes in Singapore that you would recommend to your visiting friends?

Theres so many in Singapore! My go-to place is this uncle at Margaret Drive who does amazing char kuey teow, but Im hoping hes still there! Indian food, I like apam, a fermented rice flour with coconut cream  in Little India, there is a restaurant called Madras New Woodlands that Id go to. Nasi padang is also another favourite food of mine, and I used to go to Marseling near the checkpoint, but things change so quickly in Singapore, Im not even sure if they are there anymore!

Pop by habitat by honestbee, 34 Boon Leat Terrace to spend your afternoon getting to know Masterchef Sashi Chelilah on 24 and 25 November, 2pm  3.30pm and 5pm  6.30pm (two sessions each day).

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50 of the worlds most unusual hotels
No fears about China navy build-up  even after near miss, USS Ronald Reagan commander says

The commander of a US Navy aircraft strike group said he was not worried about Chinas naval build-up, despite an aggressive near miss between vessels from the two countries in the South China Sea two months ago.

Rear Admiral Karl Thomas made the comments aboard the USS Ronald Reagan after it sailed into Hong Kong at the head of a strike group on Wednesday, following training exercises in the contested waters.

Certainly Im aware that other nations are also building their navies, he said. The good thing is that navies are able to operate around one another, it doesnt really matter what is going on around the world, so [Im] not worried.

Peace and that prosperity for this region, its really built on freedom of the seas, its really built on the ability to have open trade.

The US Navys port call comes as tensions between China and the United States are on the rise and after the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp was denied entry into Hong Kong waters in September.

Analysts said the approval for the port call this week showed Beijing was trying to ease tensions before a high-stakes meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump at the G20 summit at the end of the month.

Thomas said a near miss between US and Chinese warships during US freedom of navigation exercises in September was a rare occurrence.

In that particular case, the ship made some aggressive, continuing aggressive manoeuvres, and our ship warned them and had to manoeuvre to prevent a collision, he said.

It was unfortunate, Id like to see that not happen again. And I think in general, we are professional mariners and we know how to operate around one another.

Military analysts said the port visit and the US Navys invitation to a senior Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) commander to board the aircraft carrier showed Washingtons desire to maintain military ties, despite the ongoing trade war and broader strategic tensions.

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Lieutenant General Tan Benhong, the commander of the PLA garrison in Hong Kong, and other officers were invited to watch the US Navys Super Hornet fighter jets perform a take-off and landing exercise on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan while it sailed towards Hong Kong on Tuesday.

I had a chance to show [Tan] flight operations, so he had a chance to see the young professional navy sailors and how we conduct flight operations day in and day out on this carrier, Thomas said. I think he gained a healthy respect for the capability of this ship.

The port call came just days after the United States flew two B-52 bombers for a routine training mission near the South China Sea on Monday, despite Beijings sensitivity about military activities in the waters it claims.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at Washingtons Centre for Strategic and International Studies, also said on Wednesday that China had installed a new platform which could be used for military purposes on a remote part of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea .

The centre, citing satellite images, said there was a modest new structure on Bombay Reef, topped by solar panels and a dome to protect radar equipment.

The reef is directly adjacent to the major shipping lanes that run between the Paracels and the Spratly Islands to the south, making it an attractive location for a sensor array to extend Chinese radar or signals intelligence collection over that important sea lane, the group said.

Beijing-based naval analyst Li Jie said it was a very rare opportunity for a senior PLA official to see how the nuclear-powered vessel could launch four of the fighters simultaneously on steam-driven catapults and arresting gear systems.

The port call approval and the US Navys invitation to General Tan ... indicate that both the US and Chinese leaderships realise there might continue to be conflicts in the China-US relationship but they dont want a total breakdown, Li said, adding that Tans visit to the carrier showed the two militaries had political trust.

High-level military-to-military exchanges can only be maintained if there is stable political and diplomatic relations.

Its also possible that the US Navy wanted to use this opportunity to show the Americans military might, telling the senior PLA officials that its still quite difficult for China to catch up to the US in carrier technology.

Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said the port call also served as a reminder for the PLA that they were incapable of showing the kind of military muscle that the US Navy could flex.

This article No fears about China navy build-up  even after near miss, USS Ronald Reagan commander says first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
Nepal completes nearly 80 percent of pipe laying works

Nearly 80 percent of pipe-laying works of the cross-border petroleum pipeline have been completed on Nepals side in the last nine months. The pipeline project started on March 9.
By Fabian Cambero and Dave Sherwood

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The top government official in the restive Araucania region of Chile resigned late on Tuesday amid mounting political fallout after a controversial police raid last week ended in the shooting of an indigenous Mapuche man.

Luis Mayol, the local intendent, or governor, of the Araucania region and a member of conservative President Sebastian Pinera's ruling coalition, resigned amid criticism of his handling of the incident.

His exit comes one week after Camilo Catrillanca, the grandson of a local indigenous leader, was shot in the head during a police operation in a rural community near the town of Ercilla, 480 miles south of Santiago. [L2N1XQ0XM]

The incident sparked fury among opposition parties and human rights activists, and triggered widespread protests throughout Chile. [L2N1XU01U]

Mayol has been criticized for linking Catrillanca to recent car thefts by opposition lawmakers. He has since stood by his handling of the controversy.

"I regret the pettiness and political smallness of [the opposition]...I leave my post knowing that I did nothing wrong," he told reporters late on Tuesday.

Chilean police initially said it was unclear who shot Catrillanca because none of the members of the special forces unit that handled the raid had worn body cameras.

But one of the policemen involved was later spotted in media footage wearing a camera. The policeman told investigators he had removed the camera's memory card following the raid and destroyed it with scissors.

Local prosecutors launched an investigation earlier this week at the behest of the Pinera administration to determine who shot Catrillanca, and why.

The shooting and revelations that followed have heightened tensions in the Araucania, a lush, rural region of rolling hills and snow-capped volcanoes that is also Chile's least developed province.

The region's Mapuche indigenous residents accuse the state and private companies of taking their ancestral land, draining its natural resources, and using undue violence against them. Their communities are among the poorest in Chile.

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President Pinera announced a $24 billion action plan in September to bring an end to the conflict by boosting infrastructure investment and support for local entrepreneurs and tourism, but fallout from the controversial raid threatens to slow progress.

In an interview with Reuters, Chile's Minister of Social Development Alfredo Moreno, who oversees the program, said the administration's plans would proceed.

"I don't think they will be delayed. What we do need to do is work to rebuild dialogue in the region," he said.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A powerful party in Ethiopia's government accused authorities of arresting members of its ethnic group in a politically-driven crackdown - an unprecedented public charge exposing deep rifts at the heart of the ruling elite.

The accusation marked growing tensions between elements in the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) - a movement that has dominated Ethiopia for decades - and new reformist prime minister Abiy Ahmed who has upended politics with a string of radical reforms.

At least 79 security officers, officials, businessmen and women, many of them Tigrayan, have been arrested since last week - under what the government said was a clamp-down on corruption and mistreatment of prisoners.

Amenty International and other rights grops have welcomed the arrests. But TPLF chair Debretsion Gebremichael said on Monday the arrests ordered under "the pretext of corruption and human rights are being used to attack Tigrayans".

The prime ministers office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Debretsions remarks.

Abiy's rise - as Ethiopia's first leader from the majority Oromo group - had transformed decades-old hierarchies in the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition that was founded by the TPLF and came to power in 1991.

Soon after Abiy was inaugurated in April, he made peace with long-time foe Eritrea and started pushing reforms he said were meant to rein in the military and security services and limit their involvement in the economy - changes that have been largely welcomed by Western powers.

The TPLF's Debretsion did not spell out who he thought was behind the arrests, that were announced by the government's attorney general. "There is a foreign involvement in the process. Thus, it is unacceptable," he said, without giving further details.

Debretsion picked out last week's arrest of Kinfe Dagnew, a Tigrayan major general in the army and former chief executive of the METEC military-led conglomerate.

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"While Kinfe was arrested peacefully, they tied him handcuffs. This is a political attack," Debretsion told a news conference.

"While they should have gone after an individual, they went after an ethnic group and a party," he said in comments aired by Dimtsi Woyane TV.

Kinfe and others appeared in court but have not been charged or entered any pleas. There have been no statements from them or lawyers representing them.

(Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
On a frigid night, the roar of heavy machinery chipping away at rock echoes through Canada's boreal forest: in the far north of Quebec province, four massive hydroelectric dams that will produce "clean energy" for the northeastern United States are nearing completion. Flowing more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) through the wilderness, the Romaine River in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec is about to hit a literal wall at 51 degrees north latitude with the erection of the fourth and last power station. Once completed, the construction project -- which started in 2009 -- will see the cold, clear waters of one of Canada's longest untamed rivers flood surrounding lands claimed by indigenous tribes. From a distance, the bright lights at the site where more than 800 heavy dump trucks, drills and giant backhoe loaders are in use look like reflections of stars in the night sky. The teams from Hydro-Quebec are working on two fronts. They are razing a mountain to make room for the power station. They are also erecting a dike 500 meters (1,640 feet) long and 90 meters high that will hold back the water to be used to generate electricity. Quebec has a power surplus, so the government is hoping to sell the power produced here to its American neighbors to the south -- and in turn do its bit to help alleviate global warming. - Dangers of dam building - The construction site extends over several kilometers: there is a full cement factory, an infirmary for workers, offices, a quarry and a dynamite depot. "This is a major project -- there are many different stakeholders, many simultaneous activities, and many dangers to manage daily," including inquisitive wolves and bears, says Christian Guimond, who is in charge of the dam's construction. Already four workers have died, which forced the public utility Hydro-Quebec to suspend construction in 2017 while it reviewed its workplace safety practices. There's now a greater awareness of the risks for workers, said Guimond. From atop a nearby mountain peak, he points to a kilometer-long tunnel and a ditch built to divert the raging river in order to start construction of the dam itself on the dry riverbed. The dam is to be completed in 2019. Costing more than Can$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), it is among the top 10 largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Canada, ranking behind two nuclear plant refurbishments, three other hydroelectric projects and a new Toronto subway line. For residents of the region, the hydroelectric project has been a mixed blessing, creating jobs in a remote and economically-depressed region but flooding the local indigenous people's traditional hunting grounds. "I didn't want it at first, but I needed work... when I got my first paycheck, I changed my mind about it," said Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman and member of the Innus of Mingan. His father, who is also chief of the small tribe that lives on a reserve on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, is a fierce opponent of the project. The chief has the backing of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which have decried huge hydroelectric dams as "ecologically devastating." "It pains me, makes me sad what we're doing to nature," said Patricia Bacon, a 24-year-old Innu who came here to work at the cafeteria in order to pay for her university studies. "But times have changed -- every house must have electricity now." - Export to US - Once fully operational in 2021, the four power plants on the river will cumulatively generate 1,550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city or an estimated 1.5 million homes. Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs. The new Quebec provincial government of Francois Legault, with the backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has pledged to build even more dams once the Romaine project is completed. The aim is to export as much power as possible to the United States, saying it would be "the biggest contribution that Quebec could make to the planet." Other provinces also have big hydroelectric projects on the go, such as Newfoundland's Muskrat Falls, Manitoba's Keeyask and British Columbia's Site C. Neighboring Ontario, meanwhile, is spending Can$25 billion to refurbish two aging nuclear power plants. Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC university in Montreal, expressed doubt after visiting the Romaine project about the need for more power plants, pointing to Quebec's current surplus energy. "In the northeastern United States, there is a great desire to decarbonize electricity production in New England or New York state, so there is a real opportunity for Quebec," he told AFP. "La Romaine could provide this renewable energy." However, more transmission lines connecting the power stations to US buyers still need to be approved and built.
Pedro Sanchez on Thursday kicks off the first official visit by a Spanish leader to Cuba in 32 years, as Havana seeks closer ties with the European Union faced with a hardline United States. Sanchez's Socialist government said his two-day trip will end the "anomaly" that no Spanish leader has paid an official visit to the communist island since 1986, despite Spain being Cuba's second biggest trading partner after Venezuela. Other world leaders have visited Cuba in recent years, including US president Barack Obama's historic 2016 trip as he sought to thaw relations with Havana. But relations between the two countries have declined under President Donald Trump. The US has maintained its decades-long economic blockade of Cuba, citing repression of political opponents and curbs on freedom of expression. It has also accused Cuba of being behind mysterious sonic "attacks" on US diplomats in the country who have suffered symptoms consistent with mild brain trauma -- including, in some cases, disorientation and hearing loss. Cuba has rejected those accusations. As relations with Washington have soured, Havana has sought new allies in the EU. Sanchez's visit comes just days after EU and Cuban officials met as part of a landmark cooperation deal that took effect in November 2017. Sanchez is due to meet with Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel but is not expected to hold talks with Raul Castro, who stepped down as president in April but still leads the ruling Communist Party. Sanchez will host a breakfast gathering with Spanish business leaders and a forum for which some 200 companies from both countries have registered, including telecoms giant Telefonica or the airline Iberia. Spain is the main foreign investor in several sectors of the Cuban economy, including tourism and financial services. It hopes to increase its presence in tourism, renewable energy and infrastructure as the island opens up, the Spanish government said. Cuba is also keen for foreign investment as its economy suffers from a crisis in Venezuela, its biggest trading partner and oil provider. Sanchez will also broach the thorny issue of recent unpaid debt from Cuba to Spain, which is blocking loan concessions. He is not expected to meet with dissidents, according to the Spanish government, but will hold talks with members of Cuba's civil society, including Cuban writer Leonardo Padura and designer Idania del Rio.
Our Tampines Hub Hawker Centre. (PHOTO: Facebook)

Hawkers operating at Our Tampines Hub Hawker Centre (OTH) will no longer need to operate round the clock from 1 January next year.

The hawker centre  which is run by OTMH, the social enterprise arm of food court giant Kopitiam  was the only one among 114 hawker centres in Singapore that operates 24 hours daily.

However, stallholders have complained in recent months of low footfall during the wee hours while still having to open their stalls under their contractual agreement, which stipulates 24-hour operation based on residents feedback before it opened in November 2016.

Recalibration of arrangement

On Monday (19 November), Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor said in Parliament that the hawkers and centre operator will recalibrate their arrangement, in reply to parliamentary questions.

At OTH, the community had initially asked for a 24-hour hawker centre. But as the demand from patrons has not materialised, both hawkers and the operator will recalibrate the arrangement, she said. With the changes made to operating hours, hawkers who do not wish to continue with the 24-hour operations which they had previously signed up for, can do so now.

Of the 42 hawker stalls at OTH, 29 had already ceased 24-hour operations. The other 13 stalls have already taken up the offer from the operator to stop their round-the-clock operations from 1 January.

A spokesman from Kopitiam told The Straits Times that the company held a feedback dialogue two weeks ago with stallholders, and none of them opted for 24-hour operations.

Andrew Hwang, a hawker in his 30s who runs a fish soup stall at OTH and opted out of 24-hour operations, told The Straits Times that he would be able to save about $3,000 per month on operating costs, as he would not have to hire an assistant to cover 12-hour shifts.

Tweaks to Social Enterprises Hawker Model

The change is part of a series of tweaks that the National Environment Agency (NEA) is making to hawkers contractual terms under the Social Enterprises Hawker Centre (SEHC) model. These tweaks will also take effect from 1 January.

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For instance, stallholders are not obliged to work more than five days a week. Operators will also offer them options on their operating hours and off-days. Furthermore, if stallholders wish to terminate their tenancy contract and serve sufficient notice, operators will not forfeit the security deposit nor require the stallholders to pay rent of more than two months or until a replacement is found.

The OTH is among seven hawker centres under the model, which has come under flak recently over what the NEA described as onerous contract terms for dishwashing, rental costs and working hours.

Despite the recent flak, Khor said, We will continue to make adjustments and recalibrate the SEHC model to ensure that it continues to achieve the key social outcomes of our hawker centres: provide affordable food in a clean environment; allow hawkers to make a decent living; and build communities.

We will seek and listen to feedback from hawkers and patrons, and continue with our stocktake to further improve the model.

Related stories:

NEA, SEHCs agree on changes to hawker-operator contract terms from 1 January

Jurong West Hawker Centre to change controversial tray-return scheme

NEA wont hesitate to take action against errant hawker centre operators: Amy Khor

Strong public views on social enterprise hawker centres will lead to change: Makansutras K F Seetoh
Nepal now self-sufficient in iron, steel materials

Nepal has become self-sufficient in iron and steel materials due to increased production from old players who have been expanding capacity and new players joining the business, domestic iron and steel manufacturers have claimed.
The Indonesian unicorn is said to raise new US$1 billion worth of funding from SoftBank and other existing backers

Indonesias online marketplace Tokopedia set a new record after reportedly raising US$1 billion worth of investment from its current investors, which include major names like SoftBank. Bloomberg first reported that now the company is valued at about US$7 billion after the round, according to a private source.

It isnt clear yet if the funding comes from SoftBank Group Corp. or its Vision Fund, the Tokyo-based company which is the newest Tokopedias backer.

Tokopedia found success by capitalizing on the smartphone vast adoption Indonesia has experienced and the online shopping reliability.

Also Read: Sendhelper secures US$444k seed funding led by Captii Ventures

Co-founded by William Tanuwijaya in 2009, Tokopedia put itself on the map as top competitors of Alibaba Groups Lazada and Bukalapak with the latter recently being funded by Singapores Sea Ltd.

Until now, Softbank and Tokopedia still declined to comment on the news.

Tokopedia has been sitting on number 1 in the third quarter this year, followed by Bukalapak, Shopee, and Lazada, according to market researcher iPrice Groups data.

The sentimental connection between Tokopedias Tanuwijaya made the news when the co-founder shared about his first meeting with SoftBanks billionaire founder Masayoshi Son as a turning point for the company in 2014 just right after Tanuwijaya failed 11 pitches to get funding for his idea.

Masayoshi Son was there, asking me what I thought of the future. He didnt care about my past, said Tanuwijaya.

Also Read: [Updated] Tokopedia, OVO team up to offer the payment service on the e-commerce platform

Tokopedia facilitates a platform where customers can buy from existing merchants instead of brick-and-mortar transaction. It offers electronics, clothing, and health-care items, selling train tickets and giving customers convenience for data top up, and now also has its own e-wallet deal with Ovo.



Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

The post Tokopedia reportedly raises fresh US$1 billion funding appeared first on e27.
The United States and South Korea have scaled down an annual joint military exercise scheduled for the spring of 2019 to facilitate nuclear talks with North Korea, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday. "Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy," Mattis said, adding that it would be "reduced in scope." Foal Eagle is the biggest of the regular joint exercises held by the allies, and has always infuriated Pyongyang, which condemned it as preparations for invasion. But the drill -- one of the world's largest field exercises involving 200,000 South Korean and some 30,000 US soldiers -- was delayed and scaled down last year as diplomatic detente took hold on the peninsula. And following a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump announced that the US would stop holding joint exercises with the South, calling them expensive and "very provocative". Since then the two allies have suspended most of their major joint exercises including the Ulchi Freedom Guardian in August and Vigilant Ace, slated for next month. But more recently progress in talks with the North has stalled, with the US pushing to maintain sanctions against it until its "final, fully verified denuclearization" and Pyongyang condemning US demands as "gangster-like." Washington stations 28,500 troops in the South to defend it from its nuclear-armed neighbor, which invaded in 1950. - 'Fait accompli' - But differences are beginning to emerge between Seoul and Washington. The South's dovish president Moon Jae-in has long favored engagement with the North, which is subject to multiple UN Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. He has dangled large investment and joint cross-border projects as incentives for steps towards denuclearization, while the US has been adamant pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it fully dismantles its weapons programs. Seoul's defence ministry said Mattis' comments were in line with their shared view on the need to back diplomacy -- but a spokeswoman added that the question of whether the exercises will take place at all was "still under discussion." Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the South's state-run Korea National Diplomatic Academy, said reducing the exercise was largely expected. "The Trump administration claims Pyongyang's suspension of nuclear and missile tests as the key achievement of its North Korea policy and the joint drills have been postponed as a kind of corresponding measure," Kim told AFP. "As long as talks continue, postponing or reducing major US-South Korea joint exercises has become a fait accompli," he said. - 'No rush' - Earlier this month Pyongyang threatened to "seriously" consider returning to its weapons drive if Washington did not end its tough economic sanctions. And last month, the North's state media carried a near 1,700-word commentary accusing the US of playing a "double game", implicitly criticizing Trump for comments aimed at barring Seoul from lifting sanctions against Pyongyang. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday defended Washington's strategy on the peninsula, noting that North Korea had halted missile launches and had not conducted a nuclear test in over a year. "And I do hope there'll be a summit between the two leaders early in 2019," he said in an interview with KCMO radio. Pyongyang has declared its nuclear and missile development complete, saying it has no further need for testing. Trump has also said he hopes to have a second meeting with Kim early next year, but talks between Pompeo and a top North Korean official, partly to prepare for the meeting, were cancelled. The US said the North axed the talks because they weren't ready, and Trump insisted he was in "no rush."
Woman who tortured Indonesian domestic helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih released from prison despite serving less than two-thirds of her sentence

A Hong Kong employer who made global headlines for torturing Indonesian domestic worker Erwiana Sulistyaningsih has been released early from prison, a court heard on Wednesday.

Yvonne Cheung, a lawyer from the justice department that is pursuing Law Wan-tung for HK$200,000 over another failed legal action, told the High Court they had not been able to ascertain her whereabouts.

Law was jailed for six years and fined HK$15,000 in February 2015 after being found guilty of assaulting Erwiana and another Indonesian helper, Tutik Lestari Ningsih, while they were in her employment.

Prison inmates can earn a one-third deduction on their sentence through good behaviour, but it remains unclear why Law served less than four years behind bars.

She was released a few months ago, Cheung said, adding the department had found out when they called the Lo Wu Correctional Institution, where Law had been jailed.

A source close to the matter said Law was let out under an early release scheme, six months before the end of her sentence. She would be subject to a supervision order until her jail term expired.

A Correctional Services Departments spokesman said it would not comment on the case.

To protect individual privacy, we cannot disclose personal data of person in custody, she said.

The abuse that took place from 2013 to 2014 made world news and Erwianas bedridden pictures, featuring her swollen face, put the working conditions of foreign helpers in Hong Kong under the spotlight.

Soon after she was jailed in 2015, Law lodged a judicial review against the Legal Aid Department, after it refused to grant her financial aid to appeal against her convictions.

After her judicial review failed, Law was ordered by the High Court to pay the Department of Justices HK$200,000 in legal costs, with a further order she should pay using her property and other assets after she claimed her bank balances were in the red.

On Wednesday, Laws lawyer Ching Ming-yu said she would appeal against the second court order and had sought an adjournment, a move vehemently opposed by the Department of Justices lawyer.

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Madam Justice Bebe Chu Pui-ying rejected Chings request, saying Law had been given sufficient time to prepare for her appeal, yet she had not acted since June.

If she was released a few months ago, she would have sufficient time to contact her lawyer, Chu said, quashing her appeal.

During the earlier trial, the District Court heard Law had punched Erwiana so hard her incisor teeth were fractured. Law also stripped her in the bathroom of her Tseung Kwan O flat and splashed her with cold water while pointing a fan at her.

On another occasion, Law twisted a metal tube from a vacuum cleaner inside her mouth, causing cuts to her lips.

For the injuries, Erwiana was awarded HK$809,430 in damages last year to be paid by Law. Tutik Lestari Ningsih was to be paid HK$170,000, another court ruled in February.

Erwiana told the Post Law had yet to pay her even though the order was made in December last year.

This article Woman who tortured Indonesian domestic helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih released from prison despite serving less than two-thirds of her sentence first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.
The Guardian

This is a rare climbdown from the prime minister. But the space for dissent is still diminishing under his government Students celebrate the withdrawal of Indias farm laws, Kolkata, 19 November 2021. Photograph: Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock It is not often that Narendra Modi gives a televised address to the nation and it is met with relief, not disarray. The Indian prime ministers previous frightening acts of decisiveness have included announcing a complete lockdown with just
A decision by New Zealand's largest gay pride parade to ban police officers in uniform from marching at the event has seen sponsors and participants withdraw in protest. While uniformed police have taken part in previous years, Auckland Pride organisers said they were not welcome at the next parade in February 2019 because some members of the gay community felt unsafe around them. The decision, announced this week, has sparked heated debate, with New Zealand Defence Force members withdrawing from the march in support of their police colleagues. Corporate sponsors have also dumped the event, with Westpac bank, Vodafone and the Bank of New Zealand among the companies distancing themselves from the anti-police stance. "It's simply the right thing to do to stand with the police in this instance, as we would with any excluded group, and insist on inclusion for all," Vodafone New Zealand said in a statement. The decision has also caused deep divisions within the gay community, drawing condemnation from the Rainbow New Zealand Charitable Trust. "(It) appears to be driven by a small and vociferous minority in the community, and is contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the rainbow community," the trust said in a statement announcing it was withdrawing sponsorship. New Zealand legalised gay marriage in 2013 and last year moved to quash historical convictions against homosexuals for engaging in gay sex. Even British actor Rupert Everett, a long-time gay rights advocate, weighed into the police debate, saying "we can't just pretend" gay police officers don't exist. "It feels to me that not making them wear their uniforms, is in denial," he told the stuff.co.nz news website. "There's so much violence towards us brewing up in places that we need to be friends with police as much as we can." The Auckland Pride Board would not back down, saying it was committed "to creating a space for our rainbow communities to feel safe celebrating their gender and sexual identity". "If members from our community are highlighting concerns around discrimination by those institutions, we expect them to work to address them," chairwoman Cissy Rock said. "That may include making compromises regarding their participation at the Pride parade." The Pride board will reportedly face a vote of no confidence in early December.
Nayak Paudel is a crime reporter for The Kathmandu Post. Since joining the Post in 2018, he has also written on health issues.
Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade.
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In this Thanksgiving bonus episode, Working takes a detour from MOMA to visit one of New York Citys biggest emergency food programs, Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen. Jordan talks to Michael Ottley, the director of operations of the program about tracking down turkeys for Thanksgiving, feeding 1,000 people a day, and how he had to convince Yelp to take down a rave review that was sending hordes of tourists to their kitchen for free meals.

You can email us at working@slate.com.

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli.
Its strange to see Lin-Manuel Miranda in costume as Alexander Hamilton after more than two years away from the role. Its even stranger to hear him singing, in character, in the style of a classic Broadway show tune instead of Hamiltons usual hip-hop. For Novembers #Hamildrop bonus release, Miranda released a brand new song, Cheering for Me Now. It was composed by John Kander, half of the songwriting duo Kander & Ebb, who gave us Cabaret, Chicago, and New York, New York.

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Theres an homage to the latter in Cheering for Me Now, which sees Hamilton marvel at a parade held in 1788 to celebrate his home states ratification of the U.S. constitution.

Chronologically, it goes right in the middle of Nonstop, after the Federalist Papers, when NY adopts the constitution. Which is why it could never be in the show. It's an alternate timeline Act One closer.  Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) November 20, 2018

Because the music video uses shots of modern New York City, the song also reads as Hamilton taking in his status as a pop culture phenomenon far into the future: Today its my city/ Tomorrow who knows/ Today were a country/ Lets see how it goes. Mostly, though, its an appreciation of Mirandas hometown, with sentiments as true in 2018 as they would have been in the 18th century.
It starts with a kidnapping. A little girl playing outside in the wintry cold is brought to a warm, cheerful home where shes fed and doted upon. The adults worry about the 5-year-olds undernourished frame and obvious signs of physical and emotional abuse. A slightly older boy makes sure the girl gets her favorite ingredient in the single noodle pot the multigenerational family crowds around for dinner. Where does tiny Yuri (Sasaki Miyu) belong, and where would she thrive? Have the adults who technically abducted herbut quickly treat like one of the familysaved her, as they believe? Or have they grown so used to their chronic pilferingarguably out of economic necessity, though were never quite sure of thatthat taking a child from her parents hardly registers as such?

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Hirokazu Kore-edas Palme dOrwinning Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku) is built on such uncertainties. Delicate yet gravid, these ambiguities are rooted in human complexities and moral quandaries. Kore-eda is entirely disinterested in judgmentand likely expects his audiences to be, too. Far more fascinating, in any case, is how the six-person band of thieves (Yuri soon to be among them) came to form a family without any blood ties and to what extent they genuinely trust and care for one another. The drama has something in common with more sentimental American shows like Pose and even Friends, which pay tribute to newer configurations of chosen kinship among queer individuals and urban professionals, respectively. But for all its gentle groundedness, a quality that suffuses much of Kore-edas work, Shoplifters strenuously resists romanticizing its main characters. Its compassion is more convincing for it. So is its brilliance.

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Initially, Yuris appearance in the Shibata familys old, cramped house isnt entirely welcome.

Its elderly proprietress, Hatsue (Kiki Kirin), whos afraid of dying alone, immediately approves of the little girl, as does Osamu (Lily Franky), a factory worker who got tired of seeing the child starving and left on her own. On the other hand, Osamus wife, waitress Nobuyo (Ando Sakura), sees the situationand its legal implicationsmore clearly than most. Shota (Jyo Kairi), the elfin, elementary schoolage boy Osamu hopes will one day call him Dad, begins a one-sided sibling rivalry with Yuri. More or less indifferent to the girl is young sex worker Aki (Matsuoka Mayu), whos devoted to the grandmotherly Hatsue. Nobuyo wonders if the extra mouth that Yuri represents will create additional financial strain, especially as none of the familys working adults enjoy job stability. But the little girls arrival exposes instead what a fragile balance the family had been dependent on to sustain their makeshift lifestyle.

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Shoplifters strenuously resists romanticizing its main characters. Its compassion is more convincing for it.

If this plot summary seems pretty vague, consider it a necessity. Shoplifters reveals the actual relationships between the characters as deliberately as a flower blooming in sunrise: The joy lies in the steady unfurling. Theres more love, and more lies, among the Shibatas than the authorities can see when they finally catch up to what they can only view as a gang of miscreants. And while the children are undeniably adored and cared for by their new family, the grown-ups have no idea how to prepare them for anything other than hardscrabble, marginal lives like their own. Yuri isnt with them for too long before shes forced to regularly take on several new names. When an injury befalls Shota, the shock isnt the familys decision to leave the boy behind at the hospital but the assumption that hell understand their brutal practicality.

Shoplifters question of whether this family counts as a real one does occasionally feel belabored. But its exploration of the layers, and limits, within this unlikely clan is so moving and observant that one can easily overlook that foible. Like nearly every mystery in the film, it isnt meant to be resolved anyway. To spend time with the Shibatas is to make peace with a lack of answers. In so doing, Shoplifters achieves that ultimate goal of art as expressed by the artist Robert Filliou: Its art that makes life more interesting than art.
Donald Trumps ability to steal the spotlight away from his administrations attempts at actual policy is not healthy for our democracy. But at least its fascinating to watch Stephen Colbert find new ways to filter the presidents daily deluge of Twitter idiocy into Late Show bits. On Monday night, Colbert used Trumps misspelling of California Congressman Adam Schiffs name to use a particular word while avoiding FCC fines. In a run of the mill Trump insult tweet, the president called Schiff little Adam Schitt, and news sources cant be sure whether this misnomer was a mistake or an insult:

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Whats certain is that Colbert wasnt going to let pass an opportunity to use a word that sounds like, well, Schitt un-bleeped. According to this networks rules I am only allowed to say that word when the presidents tweet appears on screen like so, at which point I can totally say it, explained Colbert, Am I going to take advantage of that opportunity? Is Adam Schitt in the woods?

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Trumps fourth grade bully-style take down of the congressman came after Schiff condemned his decision to appoint acting attorney general Matt Whitaker without Senate approval. Along with giving him a nickname lewd enough to violate FCC regulations, Trump accused Schiff of hypocrisy by stating that special counsel Robert Mueller wasnt approved by the Senate. Theres just one small problem with this argument: unlike the attorney general position, the special counsel doesnt require Senate approval. You cant just use Senate confirmation to discredit anyone youve decided you want to get rid of, said Colbert, launching into his drawling, pointer finger-aloft Trump impression, Look, Im sorry, Melania. You were never confirmed by the Senate. Your appointment is null and void. My new wife is Tom Brady.

Its hard to know how to process the level of discourse that Trump has normalized, but Colbert may have found a single facial expression that represents everything the country is feeling right now. It came as a reaction to Chris Wallaces decision to ask Trump how he would hypothetically feel about amending the Constitution to allow himself to seek a third term. Go right to 4:25 below to see what I mean.
On Wednesday evening, Slate published a piece titled Dont Toss Your Romaine Lettuce. Cook It. The original post suggested that cooking romaine lettuce at a high enough heat could be sufficient to kill E.coli bacteria that might be present. However, there is evidence that the strain of E.coli found in this weeks outbreak may be heat resistant. Further, cooking with tainted romaine might contaminate kitchen surfaces or utensils. We have retracted the post and suggest that you follow the Centers for Disease Control recommendation to throw away any purchased romaine. For more information, please see the CDC guide.
Listen to Outward by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

Get More Outward Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Outward Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.

Listen to Outward via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

This month on Outward, hosts Christina Cauterucci, Bryan Lowder, and New Americas Brandon Tensley explore the meaning of family. How do gay people form their own families and create spaces from those bonds of kinship? First they play a game with Slates June Thomas and decide whether fictional characters are members of the queer clan; then they each discuss the types of families theyve created. They get a call from Lillian Faderman and her wife, Phyllis Irwin, about the legal journey of their relationship since the 1980s, and Slates Mark Joseph Stern joins the hosts to talk about the different legal options LGBTQ people have to build families together.

Items discussed on the show:

 Colette

 Come On Everyone: Its Fine to Post Skimpy Selfies With I Voted Stickers, by Heather Schwedel in Slate

 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

 The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

 Bring It On

 Mulan

 Paradise Lost

 The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

 American Horror Story: Apocalypse

 Surpassing the Love of Men by Lillian Faderman

Gay Agenda items:

Bryan: BPM

Christina: Valencia by Michelle Tea

Brandon: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

This podcast was produced by Daniel Schroeder.

Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com.
The first Friday in November was an important day for Starbucks. It was the first of the companys annual holiday season, anticipated by the Starbucks loyal each year and marked by the launch of Peppermint Mochas and seasonal red cups, among other festive offerings. But this year, on that fateful day, something went wrong. The Starbucks app wasnt working.

When the Starbucks app is down and you have to actually go into a store and say your ridiculous order out loud pic.twitter.com/ToMoAjXVEe  a balanced breakfast (@yourfaveAsh22) November 2, 2018

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Apps go down all the time; such is life with smartphones. But this outage, and the furious tweets that went with it, was enough of a news event to rate coverage from CNBC, Bloomberg, the Associated Press, and more. Starbucks heads, it seems, do not like to be without their app. And thats by design.

In May, an eMarketer report revealed that the Starbucks app is the top mobile-payment app in the U.S., more popular than Apple Pay or Google Pay. This sounds like it cant be right: How can Starbucks money be more popular than regular money? But mobile payments havent been universally adopted yet, and Starbucks was early to the market: It launched the first version of its app in the nowrelatively ancient year 2009. It also helps that the brand is ubiquitous, with about 28,000 stores worldwide. In October, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson told Bloomberg that roughly 40 percent of the stores sales in North America are part of the companys loyalty program, the vast majority of which are paid for via the app. The apps mobile-order tool alone accounts for 13 percent of transactions.

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Most used mobile payment apps in U.S. in 2018*:



Starbucks app: 23.4 million users

Apple Pay: 22.0 million users

Google Pay: 11.1 million users

Samsung Pay: 9.9 million users



*in-store payments



(Source: eMarketer) pic.twitter.com/cvlWFAXfYt  Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) October 18, 2018

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What is it about this Starbucks app? Users I talked to called it life-changing and addictive. If you dont spend much time at Starbucks, you may be wondering why the coffee chain needs an app at all. But if you have been in a Starbucks lately, maybe youve noticed other people using the app, skipping the lines and walking off with their drinks a little smuglyor maybe youve discovered its apparently seductive pull yourself. The app is now a sizable part of Starbucks strategy, and because of its early-adoption advantage, eMarketer projects that it will remain the top mobile-payment app through 2022. And one thing is clear: The people who love the Starbucks app really love the Starbucks appand sometimes, before they know it, they find themselves reorienting their lives around it.

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I find myself constantly checking the app, said Melody Overton, who has maintained a Starbucks fan blog since 2009. Ive literally reloaded my card while standing in line waiting to pay for things.

The app allows users to scan and pay with it at checkout (or order in advance and skip checkout), but it also integrates the Starbucks Rewards program, a loyalty system through which users earn stars for every dollar spent. Hitting a certain number of stars earns them a free item. (When the star system was overhauled in 2016, it caused quite a bit of consternation among Starbucks fans: It switched its reward trigger from number of purchases to dollars spent. The previous system was the Senate; the new system is the House, is how one co-worker and app user put it to me, explaining that, as a casual user, she was previously overrepresented because she could get more stars with fewer and less-expensive purchases.)

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Ive definitely noticed more people paying with the app than I used to, and more people using mobile order and pay than I used to, a Starbucks aficionado named Winterthats his full nametold me, and he should know. In 1997, he set out to visit every Starbucks in the world. Hes made it to 14,706 of them so far, and hes still at it, when hes not working as a consultant in upstate New York.

Skipping the line is what reeled in Jessie Spielvogel, a 29-year-old who works in communications in D.C. If Im on my way into the office, Im usually either walking or taking a bus, so as soon as Im 10 minutes out, I place my mobile order, and then all I do is swing by a Starbucks, pick up my order, and then walk into my office, she said.

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Collin Evans, a 20-year-old in Mountain Home, Idaho, likened his use of the Starbucks app to using another app that helps him find the cheapest gas in the area. Since moving to Idaho, he isnt able to go to Starbucks as much as he used tothe closest one is an hour away, he saidbut he still makes it there about once a week, and he tracks his stars on the app obsessively: I have currently 73 of 125 stars and 62 [until] my next reward.

Other users said the app also cuts down on another nuisance: mistakes in orders. I have a Southern accent, said Sharon Williams Lovoy, a 65-year-old consultant and frequent Starbucks customer based in Birmingham, Alabama, who travels frequently for her work. When youre trying to get a drink [from] a harried barista whos got coffee grinding in the back and all that sort of thing, youre sometimes hard for them to understand. With mobile ordering, though, Lovoy never has a problem getting her decaf venti skinny mocha latte (with nine pumps of skinny).

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The app has some tricks to ensure users remain loyaland they do

Spielvogel noted theres another coffee place closer to her officeand that one, too, has a mobile appbut shes firmly on team Starbucks. The app has some tricks to ensure that remains true. What they do with it in terms of gamifying how you spend your money on coffee, I think its really a neat way that theyve decided to bring in more people, she said. Every time I get a notification like, Hurry, bingos starting at 3 p.m. or whatever, Im like, Yes, I want to go buy a latte right now. 

These notifications are known as Star Dasheschallenges the Starbucks app sets up to allow users to earn extra stars. A typical Star Dash might ask users to try several different breakfast items over a certain span of days or to make purchases at a store during a designated less-crowded hour of day several times within a week. Spielvogel acknowledged the tactic works on her: There are so many times I wouldnt go get a coffee, Im like, I dont need a coffee, but Im gonna get double points for this, so Im gonna go spend the extra money,  she said.

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Lovoy, the Alabama consultant, is also a slave to Star Dashes. She so loves them that she carries an iPad where she can access her husbands account (which he has on his smartphone) so that she can do his Star Dashes for him as well as her own. Hes not gonna do all that. But I will, she said.

Lovoys biggest coup in the stars-earning department may have come during Christmas, when she banded together with other Starbucks lovers she knew through Starbucks fan Facebook groupsdefinitely a thing, I learnedto organize a massive buying-and-trading ring for holiday ornaments. Each year, the company makes a Christmas ornament for each state, and some Starbucks superfans collect them. The ornaments used to be available for sale online, but now they can only be purchased at stores in their respective statesand you can buy them and get credit for it through the app. Lovoy bought dozens and dozens for her fellow fanatics. It was a lot of work shipping those stupid things, she said. She ultimately bought and mailed out 86 ornaments, she said. The best part about that was I got all the stars from that.

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This is, obviously, the point of the app: to get people to go to Starbucks more and spend more money than they normally would at Starbucks. But Lovoy insisted that she avoids this trap for the most part: Im really careful to only buy things that I normally consume anyway, she said. That does not seem to be the case for many fans: A friend told me she was using the app for a while but forced herself to quit because she thought she was getting too into it.

Spending to save isnt the only downside of using the app. In September, Mashable pointed to a more insidious potential effect: It encourages users to only buy from one source, which could stifle competition and give them fewer options down the line.

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Starbucks-app users, for the most part, would rather focus on something more fun: like how to spend their rewards. I always save the rewards for the most expensive beverage I could ever want, Spielvogel said. But rewards can also be used more strategically: I like to save up my rewards and then have them for special occasions, to treat friends or treat somebody if youre going out to Starbucks, Overton said. Ive seen people say that they stockpile a bunch of rewards so that later on they can have a whole month free of Starbucks, or they have them when they feel like they dont have a lot of money. Another option Overton mentioned is trying to save up rewards to use at Starbucks in airports, which tend to be pricier than other stores. Lovoy, for her part, is hoarding 31 rewards at the moment, but she is careful to never let them lapse.

Are the occasional free lattes worth the effort? Who can say? One thing theyve accomplished for certain is to help transform Spielvogel, for one, into a brand evangelist: Im that embarrassing person where if someones in line in front of me and I see them paying with a debit card or a credit card, Im like, No, you need to get the app. You could be getting free Starbucks every time you spend so much money. I should get a commission.
This year, Im spending Thanksgiving alone. Ive enjoyed countless permutations of the holiday, from traditional family gatherings when my parents were alive, to intimate gatherings with friends, to feasts with many new faces, to traveling to a special place. Yet at age 65, as a lifelong singleton, I have never had Thanksgiving with a husband or children of my own. If you are tempted to pity me, please dontI am proud of the decision I made decades ago to veer from lifes conventional road map, and I have no regrets about it. I cherish being alone.

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In my 20s and 30s, I had a deep knowledge that I loved being single. Still, I spent those years wondering whether I might change my mind about not wanting to marry. I do regret that, and I hope to help others avoid that fate. You may think, as many do, that I came around to settle for the life I have. But I had seen the best that coupling could offer, and it did not tempt me. My parents raised four kids and stayed together for 42 years, until the day my dad died. Ive attended my fair share of weddings, but Ive never wished that my turn was next. I tried dating in high school and college and have fond memories of all those partners. When each relationship ended, I was delighted to return to the life that I loved: my single life.

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As I waited for a change of heart that never arrived, I lived my life in buts. Im not married, but I have friends and relatives. Im not a parent, but I have ties to the next generation. In thinking this way, I had unwittingly accepted the premise that a spouse and children should be at the center of adult life and tried to cast my own life as a reasonable approximation to that ideal. I was not completely free of the road map I had rejectedand casting my life in buts ran contrary to the way I felt inside about my life.

When new acquaintances learned I was single with no children, they assumed my life had a hole that needed filling.

I had found engaging work as a tenured professor at the University of Virginia, teaching and studying the psychology of lying and detecting lies. I was profoundly involved in others lives as a teacher, a mentor, an aunt, and a presence in the lives of my friends children. I became the proud owner of a bright, open, airy home that I cherished. I traversed Charlottesvilles nature trails. Several times a week, I met friends for dinner at the downtown mall. I hosted get-togethers to watch bad TV, and I joined a cooking club. For years, I was the sole single person around tables of couples.

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When I was 47, I headed to the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara for what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical. I basked in the sunshine, the spectacular beauty, the progressive politics, the brilliant intellectuals, and my newfound friends.

I found my life deeply rewarding. At the same time, I was fascinated with the question of why my adult life as a single person was not as valued by the people around me or by society. When new acquaintances learned I was single with no children, they assumed my life had a hole that needed filling. One married mother even told me, I have the perfect thing for you! My daughters Girl Scout troop needs a new leader!

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I wondered: Was it just me, or were other single people viewed the same way? I had been pondering questions like this about singles place in society for several years. With my background in research and academia, I seized the opportunity to study this systematically. At once, I decided to sell my home, give up my tenured job and salary, (mostly) leave behind my previous area of study, and stay in Santa Barbara even though there was no professorship available for me. Making this huge, financially risky series of life changes without consulting a soul was thrilling.

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I threw myself into research on single people. I teamed up with my colleague, Wendy Morris, and she and I launched a series of studies investigating how people characterize single and married people. We used a variety of approaches, including asking people outright how they perceive singles vs. marrieds as well as creating pairs of biographical sketches that were identical, except that one sketch profiled someone single, and the other profiled someone married. Regardless of how we asked our questions, single people were judged more harshly than married ones. They were derided as less mature, less happy, lonelier, less secure, more self-centered, and more enviousthough they were seen as more independent.

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Were single people unfairly stereotyped, or was this true? Maybe I, as a happy single person, was a lone exception. I started to read research reports on how marriage affected well-being, and I was stunned: The very best studies that followed the same people over the course of their adult lives found that single people, on average, were happy and healthy. If they got married, they typically became no happier and no healthier than they were when they were single. Contrary to characterizations of single people as isolated and lonely, research shows that single people typically have more friends than married people do. They also do more to help, support, and stay in touch with their siblings, parents, friends, and neighbors.

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Making this huge, financially risky series of life changes without consulting a soul was thrilling.

Ive lived my life in cheerful, unapologetic defiance of the get married, have kids road map that was supposed to define it. But the marital imperative is deeply ingrained in our society, and even for those like me who have never wavered in our decision, it can be difficult to break completely free of the marriage-plus-children ideal. These studies help eliminate the stigma. And the record numbers of single people validate the lifestyle as wellaccording to a Pew research report, when todays young adults reach the age of 50, about 1 in 4 will have been single all their lives. Unlike when I was growing up, single people with few single friends or relatives nearby only need search online to find camaraderie. They can also read more and more books and essays that offer positive accounts of the single life.

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The research and the books, though, are not enough. We all need to think about life more open-mindedly. Instead of asking whether you do or dont want to marry or have kids, ask: What will make your life meaningful and fulfilling? When you think about it that way, the possibilities are limitless.

For me, my work on single people has been more meaningful than I could have imagined. My fulfillment also comes from the people in my life and the place I liveso reliably sunny, I can walk along the bluffs of the Pacific Ocean all year round.

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And I am deeply fulfilled by being alonean aspect of my life that is (and was) supposed to scare me out of being single. When I say alone, I dont mean that I dont have friends or relatives who matter to meI do. I mean that I live alone. In a place all my own, I find peace. I hope that I will continue to grow old alone and even die alone.

This Thanksgiving, on my own, I will turn off my computer, mute my phone, and head to a nearby town to stroll the new boardwalk along the beach. Back home, Ill prepare my familys Italian version of Thanksgiving dinnerthe usual turkey and trimmings, plus ravioli as a first course. Ill dip into my collection of favorite books and Netflix offerings that I save up for special days like this.

Or if I wake up and feel like doing something else entirely, Ill do that.
Stop politicising Belt & Road, says finance minister

Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada on Tuesday expressed his discontent over the slow progress of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and stressed it is time for action and to stop politicising the plan that aims regional economic development.
Minnesota police are investigating reports that a white man flashed a gun at a group of black teenagers at a McDonalds on Monday night after making a racist comment, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

In video taken by one of the teenagers and posted to Twitter, a group of Somali-American teenagers can be seen confronting the man, who is leaving the store at that point. All at once the group flinches and turns to run away from the man, and one of the teenager yells, he has a gun. The gun cannot be seen in the video.

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Seconds later, a manager confronts the teenagers and tells them leave the McDonalds. When they try to explain to her that a man had threatened them with a gun, she responds, I dont give a fuck, get out of my store now.

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A bystander then intervenes. Dont send them off there when a dude just pulled a fucking gun on them, he says. Youve got to call the fucking cops is what youve got to do. The manager still insists the teenagers leave the storesomething they told the Star Tribune they did not do, instead choosing to wait for the police to arrive.

@McDonalds is this what you stand for? We were just trying to order when this man said racist remarks, claimed to be touched (when really he pushed a kid as seen on video) pulled a gun out on kids and you still kick us out knowing were in danger? 1/2 pic.twitter.com/3vKXsxhuwH  faridaaaa (@faridaosmann) November 20, 2018

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In another video, another McDonalds employee tells the teenagers that they are causing a disruption and that he pulled out a gun for a reason.

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Seventeen-year-old Jihan Abdullahi told the Star Tribune that she and a friend had been trying to pay for an order with Apple Pay at the McDonalds when the man became angry, voicing frustration at them for holding up the line. She said she and the friend struggled with the app and finally gave up, canceling the order. Then, as they were walking away, the man said under his breath that it hadnt worked because they were paying with electronic benefit transfer, which allows those with government-funded food assistance to make purchases with a card. She said she asked the man, Just because Im black, you think my friends and I live under EBT? The man responded, Yes.

Their friends joined Abdullahi in confronting the man, and according to Abdullahi, he then waved his handgun toward them and ran off.

Police in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where the incident occurred, said they were investigating the incident.
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts issued an exceedingly rare statement Wednesday reaffirming the independence of the American judiciary in response to President Trumps withering criticism of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.* A 9th Circuit judge in Northern California issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday halting the new Trump administration policy that prohibits migrants that enter the country illegally from seeking asylum.

Its a disgrace when every case gets filed in the 9th Circuit, Trump said in a lengthy rant against the courts decision. Thats not law. Every case in the 9th Circuit we get beaten and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court like the travel ban and we won. Every case, no matter where it is, they file is practically, for all intents and purposes, they file it in whats called the 9th Circuit. This was an Obama judge. Ill tell you what, its not going to happen like this anymore.

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Trumps outburst is the latest in a series of corrosive presidential attacks on the judiciary over the past nearly two years. As president, Trump has railed against his opponents preference for filing lawsuits against his policies in the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; during Obamas presidency many of the Obama administrations policies were challenged by the right in the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit is the largest federal appellate court in the country, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. There are currently more than twice as many judges appointed by Democratic presidents than Republican ones on the 9th Circuit, 16 judges to 7, but Trump has the opportunity to remake the composition of the court with five nominees to the 9th Circuit with one more vacancy to fill.

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Roberts comments Wednesday, coming from the Chief Justice, amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of the presidents rhetoric degrading the courts. Trumps deriding the justice who heard the asylum case as an Obama judge seemed to particularly Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, the most. We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges, Roberts said. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

Trump took the opportunity to double back on the low road, shooting back:

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary, but if it is why......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

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.....are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018
The Associated Press declared Democrat Ben McAdams the winner by less than 700 votes in his race against two-term Republican Rep. Mia Love, narrowly flipping Utahs 4th Congressional District. The win makes McAdams, the former mayor of Salt Lake County, the only Democrat in Utahs congressional delegation and knocks from office the first and only black Republican woman in Congress.

McAdams narrowest of wins was particularly impressive given that fewer than 15 percent of the voters in Utahs 4th district are registered Democrats; Love had coasted to reelection in 2016 by 13 points. But despite being a Republican stronghold, Donald Trumps style and substance is not popular in the state whose politics is shaped by the Mormon Church and even more unpopular in the 4th district. McAdams was well-known to voters from his term as mayor of Salt Lake County, which makes up 85 percent of the congressional district.

McAdams 0.258 percent margin of victory50.129 percent to 49.871 percentwas razor thin, but just outside the .25 percent threshold that would have enabled Love to call for a recount. State election officials are expected to certify the results next Monday.
We have just witnessed what can nowafter the accounting of several races that went uncalled on election nightbe described as an all-out shellacking for Trump and Trumpism. The people who knocked on doors and texted voters and drove people to the polls leading up to the midterms may be wondering whats to be done between now and the 2020 election. The answer is simple: protect the courts.

This doesnt just mean fighting for the integrity, scope, and independence of the Robert Mueller investigation, which is now under existential threat from a president who openly wants his new acting attorney general to blow the thing up altogether. As we wait for Muellers next move, its tempting to assume that whatever he may have is already enough to place the president in immediate and serious legal jeopardy. Maybe. In many ways even that result will depend on a robust and independent judicial branchsomething this president has been tearing down since the 2016 campaign.

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Between the impending conclusion of the Mueller probe and the promise of oversight from various Democratic-controlled House committees come January, its clear that the president is starting to panic. And its easy to see whygiven his tax returns, financial dealings, Russian investments, and other wrongdoing being surfaced in litigation, he has a good deal to worry about.

But that brings us once more to the greatest and least appreciated place at which President Donald Trump is proving to be the losing-est loser of all: the courts. Because they happen so frequently, its almost impossible to keep track of all the massive and consequential rulings against this president and his administration that are logged every week and rarely viewed in the aggregate. But lets try: Late Monday night, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the presidents Nov. 9 rule that barred migrants from applying for asylum unless they made the request at a legal checkpoint. The judges order applies nationally. Last Fridays decisionby a Trump-appointed judgeto side with CNN against the White House in a dispute about revoked press credentials is only the most recent iteration of a near-constant drip-drip of legal losses. Even with a bench now containing almost 1 in 6 Trump appointed judges (and these are not your President Bushedition conservative judges), Trump mainly loses, and then loses some more.

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Its almost impossible to keep track of all the massive and consequential rulings against this president and his administration that are logged every week.

Heres another set: On Nov. 9, a federal judge in Montana temporarily blocked construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, ruling that the Trump administration had failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires reasoned explanations for government decisions and reversals. (The president immediately decried the ruling as political and a disgrace.) Indeed, this is just the most recent in a line of environmental cases Trump keeps losing in the federal courts. One recent tally shows the Trump administration has actually lost in all but one of the legal challenges its brought in its efforts to undo Obama-era regulations. The government has either lost or ditched its position in 18 others. As a recent Brookings roundup notes, this 5 percent win rate is far below the normal agency win rate, which averages 69 percent across eleven studies.

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But theres so much more. Also in November, a federal judge allowed the massive emoluments lawsuit filed against Trump in Maryland and D.C. to proceed over the Justice Departments objections. In August, a federal judge struck down the bulk of three separate executive orders seeking to hobble unions that Trump had signed in an attempt to make it easier to fire federal employees. While we were all looking for solace to the great media blackout that is the Mueller investigation, federal courts halted the Trump effort to ban transgender members of the military, stopped the effort to kill DACA, assisted in terminating the presidents circus-level vote fraud commission, and stymied efforts to defund sanctuary cities. In August, a Trump-appointed judge batted away a challenge to Robert Muellers appointment. Courts have acted swiftly and decisively to end Trumps irresponsible and cruel immigration policies. In many of these cases there are three and four separate losses logged in different courts. As Fred Barbash noted a few weeks ago in the Washington Post, by a very rough count, 40 to 50 federal judges have weighed in against the Trump administration in cases.

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This is not, as Barbash observes, because these are all a bunch of demented judicial activists, as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions once attempted to argue. Nor are they the judges of the Resistancea phrase that obscures more than it illuminates. A good many of these jurists were appointed by Republican presidents and in some cases Trump himself. No, the Trump administration is still managing to lose a tremendous amount of its lawsuits despite the fact that the judicial branch has changed dramatically in the past two years and the Supreme Court itself now tilts to the political right.

Regardless of inclination or ideology, most judges still prefer facts to alternative facts, and reasoned discourse to free-flowing policy by hissy fit.

As Barbash further clarifies, Trump loses so much at least partially because his administration must often contort itself into absurd postures to justify policies enacted by random tweet (as was the trans ban) or by vengeful tantrum (as was the sanctuary cities policy) or without proper procedures (the asylum changes). When agencies make abrupt and ill-considered policy changes, then send lawyers into courts to defend them, even the most conservative judge is apt to be frustrated. Trump also loses whenever courts take his tweeting or offhand comments into account, because they often undermine or even contradict stated legal arguments. As we saw last week in the CNN litigation, Trump loses when pretextual claims about Jim Acosta assaulting a White House intern are exposed as the pretextualthat means falseclaims they are. Judges tend to find all this less amusing than you might think.

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Regardless of inclination or ideology, most judges still prefer facts to alternative facts, and reasoned discourse to free-flowing policy by hissy fit. And regardless of inclination or ideology, most judges still dont like lies or liars. And regardless of inclination or ideology, most judges favor sobriety, stability, and the integrity of the judicial branch to nihilist attacks on everyone and everything that is fact-based. Indeed, its entirely possible that judges are as totally exhausted by the lurches and feints of the first Honey Boo Boo presidency as the rest of us.

Is everything perfect? No. As long as Mitch McConnell draws breath, more and more unsuitable Trump judges will be mashed through the Senate and confirmed, regardless of qualifications. And the Supreme Court, we must recall, ended up reversing the lower court rulings on the travel ban, deciding it was in no position to question the presidents integrity or motivations. The Supreme Court could stymie many of the important legal reversals noted above as well, but its worth remembering that it only hears about 70 cases a year. It doesnt want to be in the business of rubber-stamping every crazy idea Trump bleats out, not if it cares about its own public approval and that of all the courts below. Even the Supreme Court, even this Supreme Court, doesnt want to go all in on all of it. And the losses are adding up.

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Its easy to miss the way this administration is getting trounced in the courts in part because it happens so often that we are almost inured to it, or because the courts are in fact behaving as they have largely done: as a quiet, meticulous check on that which is persistently unlawful and overreaching. It would be more newsworthy if courts behaved like rubber stamps every time the administration produced another ill-conceived rule change. David Cole, the national legal director of the ACLU, who wrote about this last year, puts it this way in an email:

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The courts have ruled against the Trump administration consistently and appropriately. They have ruled against the administration on family separation, the revocation of DACA, punishing sanctuary cities, arbitrarily detaining asylum-seekers, barring young women in federal custody from obtaining abortion, expelling Jim Acosta from the White House press briefing, holding a US citizen as an enemy combatant without chargers or access to a lawyer, and banning transgender individuals from the military. We told Donald Trump well see you in court, and we have, and for the most part, the courts have stood up for the rule of law against an administration that seems not to understand what it means.

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To be sure, there is still a great deal to be worried about. Competent partisan hack Jeff Sessions is soon to be replaced by less competent partisan hack Matt Whitaker. If Whitakerwhose appointment as acting attorney general may not be legalopts to deploy the DOJs astonishing power to do harm to civil liberties and basic freedoms, a lot of damage can be done in the coming months. That appointment is itself now subject to multiple legal challenges, which means that the man tasked with defending the Trump administration against the raft of legal challenges is himself the subject of a raft of legal challenges.

People who knocked on doors last month to protect democracy could continue that same work by expressing their support for Mueller and demanding a qualified attorney general. And the same reasoning can apply to the need to stand up for the judicial branch every time the president threatens, dismisses, or insults a judge or ruling. Its also worth keeping in mind that all of these institutions depend on public support, and few of them punch back when the president attacks them. We need to support an independent judiciary for all the same reasons we have often failed to notice how effectively it has held Trumpism at bay. Because, despite being smacked around like a tetherball for two years, the courts have, to a large degree, acted soberly and with restraint. Thats not because judges have all, en masse, joined the Resistance. Its because we still have a judiciary that resists that which is apparently still unlawful.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, after a bad day of press for Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosis office sent out a news release that it would be restoring the House Administration Committees Elections Subcommittee. Its new chairwoman would be none other than Marcia Fudge, a relentless advocate for the right of every citizen to vote, and for all votes to be counted as cast.

It would be difficult to serve as both chairwoman of this critical new subcommittee and speaker of the Housea position for which Fudge, a vocal member of House Democrats anti-Pelosi faction, had been considering going after. So around the same time, Fudges office issued its own press release dropping the other shoe.

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Leader Pelosi has granted me the opportunity to create the record necessary to satisfy the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder, so that the protections of the Voting Rights Act will be reinstated and improved, Fudges statement read. She has also assured me that the most loyal voting bloc in the Democratic party, Black women, will have a seat at the decision-making table.

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I am now confident that we will move forward together and that the 116th Congress will be a Congress of which we can all be proud, the release continued. I now join my colleagues in support of the leadership team of Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn.

Fudge threw in the towel at the end of a workday in which she learned how difficult launching a speakers bid against Pelosi, with all the scrutiny it attracts, would have been. The news broke earlier in the day that Fudge had once written a request for leniency on behalf of Lance Mason, the Cleveland ex-judge who had been found guilty for beating his then-wife. He has since been arrested over suspicions of involvement in his now ex-wifes death.

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Yeah, time to take the subcommittee.

This isnt over. Pelosi still has a math problem on her hands ahead of the January floor vote for speaker. Sixteen House Democrats released a letter Monday saying they were committed to voting for new leadership, and several others who arent letter-signing types have also pledged to do so. (Fudge, notably, wasnt on the letter.) Under the latest projections, Democrats are looking at a 16-vote margin in the House.

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But even though the fights not dead, this is a huge momentum-killer for Pelosis opponents within the caucus. Though theyve been cautious not to put up a direct challenger to Pelosi, hoping instead that a leadership race could flourish once she recognized she couldnt get the votes, Fudge stood as a well-liked alternative within the caucus who, helpfully, countered the argument that it was just white guys who were taking Pelosi on. The vote in caucus, which Pelosi is expected to win, will be held the week after Thanksgiving, and then Pelosi will have another five weeks to pick off however many of the remaining dissenters she needs. Dont be surprised if the rest start scurrying for the lifeboats soon.
Listen to Standoff:

Join Slate Plus to Get More Standoff Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to Standoff Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.

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In the third episode of Standoff, our narrative miniseries on the story of Ruby Ridge, host Ruth Graham describes what happens for the bulk of the 11-day siege on the Weaver family property. As the surviving Weavers stayed holed up inside their cabin, their story attracted droves of supporters and rabble-rousers to rural Idaho.

Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Standoff every week. This week, Graham goes more in-depth about the standoff, what happened to Bo Gritz, and the letter that the Weaver family wrote while inside their cabin. Then, she speaks with Greg Sprungl, who was a deputy sheriff at the time and worked on the investigation afterward.

Standoff is produced by Nina Earnest and Ruth Graham, with production help from Andrew Parsons. The Plus episodes are produced by Chau Tu.
Retrograde but futuristic: At first glance, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasas time-vortexed television adaptations of Riverdale and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may seem like classic 50s idealization. But both shows bring a lot of attention to the decades problems, Elizabeth Skoski writes, and how those issues are still visible in our past, present, and future: The longing for a romanticized past ignores the eras segregation, sexism, and homophobia (or maybe it longs for those things, too, but never out loud).

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This is what you helped cause: Alfonso Cuarons film Roma features a dark moment in Mexican history, the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre, at a central point in the plot. Isabel Torrealba recalls the history behind the attackincluding the United States complicity.

Dont single me out: Bella DePaulo has never spent Thanksgiving with a husband or children, and thats just how she likes it. In a thoughtful essay, DePaulo explains why she enjoys spending her life alone, analyzes societal stigmas against singledom, and debunks misconceptions about the happiness of single people.

Turkey trotting: Ruth Graham and Justin Peters take on Thanksgiving cuisine, Jordan Weissmann interviews one of New Yorks busiest soup kitchens, the Outward podcast discusses family in all its forms, and Aaron Mak rounds up some Black Friday deals on Amazon. Weve got a lot of Thanksgiving reading ahead.

For fun: Jamelle Bouie takes over Dear Prudence.

Hoping nothing happens until next week,

Dawnthea

The Angle will return on Monday, Nov. 26!
Not surprisingly, on Tuesday, media observers, human right groups, and members of Congress all quickly condemned Donald Trumps defense of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, which posits that journalist Jamal Khashoggis killingwhether or not Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was involved in itis less important than building a coalition to combat Iranian influence and the profits from arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But theres been some pushback to all the outrage as well.

As Politicos Nahal Toosi tweets, One way to think about this whole Trump-Saudi thing is that hes talking out loud about an approach that past presidents, D or R, would have quietly implemented anyway. Or as Vices Joshua Hersh puts it, using Ben Rhodes preferred epithet for the D.C. foreign policy establishment, A lot of people in the Blob are upset today about what is effectively just an explicit (and I guess extra grotesque) articulation of longstanding US policy toward Saudi Arabia.

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This is a fair point. Previous presidents may have paid lip service to human rights concerns, but since the modern U.S.-Saudi relationship began with a meeting between Franklin Roosevelt and Ibn Saud about the Suez Canal in 1945, every U.S. administration has prioritized the energy and security partnership with the kingdom over human rights concerns. But I think it goes too far to shrug at this statement and dismiss the reaction to it as hypocritical pearl-clutching.

For one thing, rhetoric clearly does matter to this this Saudi government, which has more or less lost its mind over relatively measured criticism from countries including Canada, Germany, and Sweden in recent months. The crown prince, known as MBS, has sought to cultivate a global image as a modernizing reformer and foreign governments can choose whether to affirm that image.

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Human rights concerns aside, Trumps blanket defense of the Saudis and suggestion that we cant afford to upset its leaders is also a remarkably servile posture for the America first president. From supporting the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 to signing the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the U.S. has done plenty of things the Saudi government hasnt liked. It has also used its leverage to constrain Saudi actions, such as providing heavy weaponry to Syrian rebels for fear they could fall into the hands of extremist groups. While it was far too little too late, the Obama administration did decide to block the sale of precision munitions kits to Saudi Arabia in 2016, over concerns about civilian casualties in Yemen. There are degrees of action between completely blowing up the U.S.-Saudi relationship and complete acquiescence to whatever Saudi Arabia wants to do in its region.

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Under MBS, Saudi activities abroad have also become more reckless and disruptive than in previous years, including the ill-advised blockade of Qatar, the apparent temporary kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon, the killing of Khashoggi, and the brutal, unrelenting, and strategically dubious war in Yemen. U.S. and foreign officials have been expressing concerns since last year that the unquestioning support of Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is personally close to the crown prince, have helped motivate Riyadh to overplay its hand. Its hard to say that Trumps public backing of Saudi Arabias blockade of Qatar in the summer of 2017 was simply a more honest expression of longstanding U.S. foreign policy given that his own secretary of state contradicted it.

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Other countries will also watch Trumps rhetoric. Authoritarian governments around the world have nodded to Trumps rhetorical attacks on the media and migrants to justify their own crackdowns. The case made in Trumps statement, that the killing of a U.S. resident and journalist is regrettable but acceptable depending on a countrys strategic importance, will be noted by Cairo, Manila, and Brasilia.*

At a time when the conversation around the U.S.-Saudi relationship does seem to be belatedly shifting, we shouldnt fall pretty to easy cynicism. Trumps statement is also important in that it suggests the weakness of his position. Less than two months ago, he praised Saudi Arabia in front of the U.N. General Assembly for its bold new reforms, singling it out as part of a beautiful constellation of nations along with India, Israel, and Poland.

Today, he still defends Saudi Arabia but on purely transactional grounds: They buy a lot of weapons, they can keep oil prices low, Iran is more important. That doesnt sound like someone whos winning the argument.
This piece was originally published on Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. national security law and policy.

On Election Day, I was privileged to serve as an adviser to NBC News as part of the team from the Open Source Election Technology Institute. We provided election-technology monitoring, problem analysis, and related subject-matter expertise on the air and off air. My role was to serve as a senior election-policy analyst, helping analyze voter-submitted reports of issues on Election Day by leveraging my experience as a cybersecurity staffer in Congress and my training as a Ph.D. cognitive engineer specializing in the design of complex human-technology systems. And issues there were. The OSET Institute logged more than 900 individual reports of voting issues, according to the TrustTheVote Projects first PollWatch campaign. But the problems werent the anticipated cyberattacks.

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Voters in several states experienced a chaotic array of vote-casting problems: reports in Ohio that electronic pollbooks mistakenly showed voters as having already voted by absentee ballot; aging touch-screen voting machines in South Carolina mismarking ballotsthat is, switching voters selections to other candidates; and voting tabulators in North Carolina rejecting legitimate but oversize ballots swollen by moisture from the humidity of unseasonably wet weather. Toss in a few trending stories showing how it can be literal childs play to manipulate voter registration on state election websites, and sprinkle with high-profile candidates claiming their states registration information was hacked by the opposing party, and you have a recipe for no one trusting election results.

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In their preliminary review of Election Day, officials from the Department of Homeland Security reported vote-casting problems in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. But they said they did not detect an outright hack of voting systems. Good news, of course. Yet our antiquated election infrastructure remains, on the whole, so unusable that even if voting machines were more secure, voters would still be acutely vulnerable to misinformation. This failure of usability means voters arent in a position to properly detect irregularities on the front lines, a role that security specialists depend on from their end users.

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Instead of the anticipated foreign cyberattacks, what we witnessed on Election Day was an American-made failure of usability.

There is, of course, plenty of reason to worry about the cyber insecurity of our voting systems. In the months before the 2016 election, Russian operatives targeted 39 state voter-registration databases and software systems. As a result, Congress provided an infusion of money$380 millionfor states to update and enhance the security of state and local voting infrastructure. Moreover, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September authorizing sanctions against those found interfering in U.S. elections.

But are we sure that this years voting experiencelate polling-place openings, long lines, and malfunctioning machinesare the typical problems voters see in any election anyway, or are the Russians just using new tactics, techniques, and procedures?

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And if Russian operatives were not active this Election Day, then what might explain the embarrassment of glitches that seemed to make it substantially more difficult for people to vote?

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As it turns out, the focus on rigged, tampered, and hacked elections is incomplete. Instead of the anticipated foreign cyberattacks, what we witnessed on Election Day was an American-made failure of usability. Usability is a technical term for ease of use or user-friendliness and measures the extent to which users can achieve their goals effectively, efficiently, and with satisfaction. Despite usabilitys prominent place in the U.S. Election Assistance Commissions Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, the experience of too many Americans with electronic voting systems this year failed those tests.

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Throughout Election Day, reporters would contact the OSET Institute team with the latest news of rejected or mismarked ballots and ask whether that represented evidence of security issues. Time and again, our election-technology experts would quickly diagnose the root cause and, more often than not, conclude that the problem most likely was not a security issue but a technical one. The OSET Institute team had seen these frustratingly unresolved issues over and over again during the life cycle of these aging machinesthis year, elections officials in 41 states reported machines over a decade old. However, to voters now used to far more responsive technology in their smartphones, these usability flaws are becoming increasingly egregious.

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Take, for example, the well-known calibration issue afflicting touch-screen voting machines, the kind of problem that horrified Stephanie Grubert, a voter in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, when she tried multiple times to carefully select the name of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Lou Barletta but the machine repeatedly highlighted the name of his opponent, Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Caseyan instance of vote flipping. It turns out the problem was a typical one of miscalibration.

Voting machines can become miscalibrated when they are moved, or jostled, or simply used for long periods without being recalibrated. This is not a new problem; documented calibration issues stretch as far back as the 2006 and 2008 federal elections, and the majority of our voting machines date to the same time frame. Calibration issues were inherent in these first-generation touch-screen voting machines that dominate the election landscape, and designers did not account for the problem at the time. Now, despite worsening usability, with the machines perilously close to the end of their life span, they still have not been replaced, the problems having been seen more as an inconvenience than a serious security issue.

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Similarly, the high-profile U.S. Senate race in Texas between Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto ORourke was cast into doubt by poorly designed software, compounded by public suspicion, as voters shared images of machines switching their votes from ORourke to Cruz.

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In this case, the vote flipping occurred when Texans used the straight ballot option to attempt to cast their votes for a single party on the Hart InterCivic eSlate voting machine. According to the Texas secretary of states election advisory, if voters used the keyboard while the page was loading their straight ticket selection, the Senate candidate they selected would switch to the other party. Some experts attributed vote flipping to a software bug, but the Texas Civil Rights Project described it more accurately as an issue caused by the confusing and antiquated way the voting machine operatesnot a conspiracy to change votes.

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And the explanation from the election-machine vendor and election officials who procured these machines? User error.

The same story has happened in multiple elections, Steven Sockwell, Hart InterCivics vice president of marketing, told NBC News. There was no flipping then, and theres not any now, because the issue is due to user error not a design error. The Texas secretary of states office backed up Hart InterCivic. The Hart eSlate machines are not malfunctioning, the office said to NBC News. The problems being reported are a result of user errorusually voters hitting a button or using the selection wheel before the screen is finished rendering.

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From a cognitive engineers point of view, user error and human error are excuses that vendors and election officials use when theyve ignored how people will actually use technology and the technology, unsurprisingly, fails. The real source of human error is the voting-machine vendors who fail to conduct rigorous usability testing by actual voters, under various conditions, during the product design and development stages. The fact is that the American electorate is extremely diverse in its usability and accessibility needs due to a host of factors including age, literacy, and disability, and to not account for that diversity is to reject reality.

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Moreover, most voters, regardless of their specific needs, are apt to ignore detailed or arcane instructions about a machine they use (at most) for a few minutes once every two years. Voters are especially unlikely to patiently read through the instructions after waiting for hours, as was the case in many electoral jurisdictions. Those same voters are just as unlikely to check their voting paper record (if they receive one at all) as any shopper would be to check their paper receipt after waiting for hours in a cashiers linethey just want to leave.

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When voters have a bad usability experience, like vote flipping, they dont know who is responsiblemalicious cyberattackers, voting-machine manufacturers, or election administrators. And candidly, they should not have to care. Voters should only have to care that their ballot is counted as castwhat should be a foregone conclusion in America.

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With the specter of foreign malicious interference in the 2016 general election all too fresh in the minds of voters, the ubiquitous machine malfunctions in the 2018 midterm elections were viewed unsurprisingly by many people as more than a glitch. It is cold comfort, if not an insult, to hear vendors and election officials claim publicly the equivalent of the machines were not hacked; you, the voters, just didnt use them correctly.

There is no need for this insult against voters; security and usability can, and should, go hand in hand. Election officials should want to assure voters of the ease and efficiency of voting, how to select and correct their voting choices, and how to confirm their ballots were cast as intended. In fact, it is already well-accepted in security best practices, that when systems are user-friendly so that users have correct expectations of how their systems should (and should not) be operating, they can become security assets, a front line for detecting true irregularities.

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To achieve the requisite usability for security, designers should be following the EAC guidelines, which explicitly require a high level of usability for voters. However, from the embarrassment of voting issues experienced this election, maybe there needs to be a clearer standard for designers.

I propose that voting-machine usability should be on par with smartphones. After all, smartphones are the default touch screen in most peoples lives, they are designed to be usable by the same broad electorate, and they are what most voters are expecting when they see a touch-screen voting machine.

Mobile-interface design methods like optimizing screen real estate with a responsive design are part of a vast and growing discipline, so here are two simple usability remedies for the type of vote flipping experienced in Pennsylvania and Texas:

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1. Design finger-friendly tap targets. Just like the apps on your phones home screen, keep the selection boxes for voting options far enough apart that voters fingers cannot mistakenly select an option they arent intending to select. Furthermore, keep the boxes far enough apart to account for the typical amount of miscalibration throughout a voting day (though as a matter of design and engineering, if voting technology for ballot marking actually utilized current state-of-the-art touch-screen technology, the calibration issue would all but disappear). Voters still having trouble with selecting options would then be potential evidence of something beyond miscalibration.

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2. Request confirmation when selections change. Users should be constantly aware of the status of their ballot selections and any changes from prior choices should require direct interaction. When the system records that the voter intends to switch selections, the standard are-you-sure confirmation dialog should be displayed. For example, Are you sure you want to switch your Senate candidate selection from Beto ORourke (Democrat) to Ted Cruz (Republican)? Any switched selections in the final submission screen would then be potential evidence of deeper issues.

When discussing the future of voting in the United States, it is absolutely right to call for verifiable, accurate, secure, and transparent voting systems. But in a world where hacked, tampered, and rigged are on the lips of many voters, we must provide the most important election stakeholdersthe voterswith an easy, convenient, and intuitive voting experience. To voters, any usability failure of voting machines is indistinguishable from hackingthey simply cant tell.
On Monday, Donald Trump appeared to end his effort to bar Jim Acosta from the White House grounds. The presidents staff informed Acosta by letter that a final decision had been made to restore the CNN reporters press pass. Immediately after the White House announcement, CNN stated that its pending lawsuit against Trump and some White House staff to vindicate Acostas (and the broadcasters) First Amendment rights was no longer necessary, and would be dismissed.

The White Houses action followed last weeks order by District Court Judge Timothy Kelly compelling to the White House to return Acostas pass, which it had revoked after a Nov. 7 press conference during which Acosta angered the president with persistent questioning about topics Trump wanted to avoid, including his mendacious claim ahead of the midterm elections that a group of refugees hundreds of miles from the U.S. border were about to invade the United States.

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The White Houses final decision also followed its issuance Saturday of another letter to Acosta, this one announcing a preliminary decision to permanently strip Acosta of his pass, a decision the White House apparently later concluded could not survive judicial scrutiny.

Yet the apparent end to this bizarre saga may, in fact, only be the beginning of a campaign by the president and his staffto police the reporting and questioning of journalists by placing disfavored reporters like Acosta at permanent risk of losing their constitutional right to access the White House grounds.

In the same letter announcing its final decision to restore Acostas pass, the White House Communications Office issued a patent threat to Acosta, together with every other member of the White House press corps.

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The letter included a set of purported rules governing the conduct of reporters during White House press conferences and briefings. Principal among those rules is a mandate that a journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question, and then  yield the floor. The rules go on to state that a follow-up question or questions may be permitted only at the discretion of the president or government official answering the press questions.

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The White Houses announcement of the new rules might be of little moment, were it not for the penalty that Trump proposes to impose upon violators. The fourth and final rule states that failure to abide by any [of the foregoing] rules  may result in suspension or revocation of [a] journalists hard pass to the White House. Lest the import of this threat be lost on Acosta, the White House letter closes with this warning: Should you refuse to follow these rules in the future, we will take action in accordance with the rules set forth above. The president is aware of this decision and concurs.

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Trumps message to the journalists who cover him could not be clearer: If a reporter chooses to persistently question the president about a topic he finds unpleasant or wishes to avoidas Acosta, April Ryan, Sam Donaldson, and other leading journalists have long soughtshe can expect to be expelled from the White House.

The presidents staff contends that its new rules simply codify long-standing widely understood practices. That is not true. As the White House Correspondents Association stated following the announcement: For as long as there have been White House press conferences, reporters have asked follow-up questions. Chuck Todd offered a more pointed critique that regulating follow ups is a form of censorship. Indeed, the most effective questioning of Trump White House officials has invariably come in the form of follow-up questions.

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Trumps rules are not only new, they are also very likely unconstitutional, as indicated by the fact that the White House was ordered to return Acostas press pass last week. Trumps surrogates have attempted to minimize the significance of his courtroom loss, asserting, as Corey Lewandowski did, that Acostas case was not an issue of the First Amendment. That is not true.

In its 1977 decision in Sherrill v. Knight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recognized that journalists have a constitutional right of access to the White House press facilities and ruled that the first amendment guarantee of freedom of the press  requires that this access not be denied, except in extraordinary circumstances. In the lexicon of contemporary constitutional law, the court concluded that the White House press facilities constitute a limited public forum.

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Trumps message to the journalists who cover him could not be clearer.

Its true that Kelly did not squarely reach the question of whether Donald Trump unconstitutionally penalized Acosta for the content of his reporting, but that was only because the judge did not need to do so in order to grant CNNs demand for the immediate return of his press pass.

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As the judge explained, apart from allegedly unconstitutionally punishing Acosta for the content of his reporting, the White House also failed to satisfy the Fifth Amendments due process requirements for denying the journalist his constitutionally protected right of access to the White House. In light of the violation of Mr. Acostas due process rights and the resulting impact on his First Amendment interests, the court ruled that the pass had to be returned immediately.

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As the White Houses letter to Acosta makes plain, however, the president and his staff are simply unwilling to recognize that journalists have a First Amendment right to access the White House. Instead, Trump and his staff believe they have the ability to kick journalists out for asking questions as long as the rules surrounding such expulsions are written down.

The presidents position is at odds with Sherrill, which states that the First Amendment permits the expulsion of journalists only for non-arbitrary and compelling reasons. And it is hard to conceive of how persistent, or even modestly indecorous, conduct in a briefing room could ever amount to a compelling reason to kick a journalist out of the White House.

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Indeed, the presidents contention that barring purportedly rude and stupid journalists from White House grounds is necessary to police professional norms in press conferences makes little logical sense: As the appellate court stated in Sherill, journalists do not have the right to be called upon in news conferences. The president and his staff are free to ignore reporters they deem to be insufficiently respectful, regardless of whether they have access to the White House press facilities.

In light of that, it is difficult to avoid concluding that the purpose of these new rules is not to police manners in the briefing room, but rather to employ the in terrorem threat of denying journalists their constitutional right of access to the White House as a means of keeping reporters from asking unwelcome questions of the president and his staff. That is a classic form of viewpoint (or content) discrimination that amounts to a virtual per se violation of the First Amendment.

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Unfortunately, it appears the presidents scheme to discourage unwelcome journalistic persistence through the use of a permanent threat of expulsion may not face immediate challenge. CNNs chief White House correspondent just received a clear written threat that Trump intends to kick him out of the White House grounds the next time he has the temerity to ask a follow-up question the president does not like. Nonetheless, CNN made the probably judicious decision to discontinue its lawsuit, presumably in the hope that the president and his staff will not actually make good on their threats and that things in the White House press room will return to something approaching normality.

Other White House journalists who are also within the ambit of the presidents expulsion threat probably have the right to bring an immediate (or facial) challenge to the probably unconstitutional White House rules. Yet they may choose to wait to bring a challengeboth because of the costs, as well as the reputational and other risks, involved.

It is, however, crucial that journalists covering Trumps White House adhere to their long-standing practice of respectfully but persistently holding the nations leaders to account, regardless of the risk of retribution. If doing so ends up forcing reporters back into court in a yet another lawsuit against a president who doggedly refuses to accept the mandates of the First Amendment, so be it.
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
This piece was originally published on Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. national security law and policy.

On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump issued a statement on the death of Jamal Khashoggi, suggesting that, among other things, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. Trump also claimed that Iran was responsible for the bloody proxy war in Yemen.

This is, at best, ill-informed rhetoric from a disengaged president. No one has clean hands in Yemen. Not Iran, not Saudi Arabia, not the United Arab Emirates, not the Houthis, not Yemens (mostly) exiled government. Not even the U.S. and the U.K. are innocent bystanders. When it comes to the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, there is plenty of blame to go around.

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But what exactly is Irans role in Yemen? Is it the evil puppet master Trump suggests, controlling the Houthis as a proxy force, or is something else going on? To get at the truth of what is happening on the ground in Yemen, it is helpful to look back at recent history and trace Irans evolving relationship with the Houthis.

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Trump is not the first president to label the Houthis an Iranian proxy. As far back as June 2004, thenYemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh did the same thing. At the time, Saleh was attempting to link his own domestic problems to larger international concerns, hoping to play on U.S. and Saudi fears of Iranian action in the Arabian Peninsula. The only problem for Saleh was that no one believed himand rightfully so. The Houthis were a local group with local grievances. Even in 2009, after five separate Houthi wars in Yemen, the U.S. Embassy said there was little evidence to support Salehs claim. The Saudis were similarly skeptical, telling one local Yemeni sheikh, We know Saleh is lying about Iran, but theres nothing we can do about it now.

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But 2009 was also the year that things started to change. Saudi Arabia got sucked into the Houthi war in Yemen, and Iran spotted an opportunity to damage its regional rival. Over the past nine years, Irans relationship with the Houthis has moved from attraction to alliance, as Saudi fears of Iranian influence in Yemen have turned into a quintessential self-fulfilling prophecy. The more Saudi Arabia has attempted to combat Iran in Yemen, the deeper Iran has become involved in Yemen, and the Houthis have been pulled into Tehrans orbit.

The Houthis are an Iranian ally, not an Iranian proxy.

What follows is a sketch of the history of that evolving relationship and how the Houthi and Iranian alliance came about. Only with a true understanding of these dynamics can policymakers and the public begin to find the best way forward in Yemen and in U.S.-Saudi relations.

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In November 2009, in the midst of the sixth local Houthi war in Yemen, a group of Houthi fighters crossed into Saudi Arabia. Their purpose was to take control of some elevated ground inside Saudi Arabia, which they said the Yemeni army was using to outflank them. But as the fighters crossed the border, they encountered a Saudi patrol, and in the ensuing gun battle, one Saudi guard was killed and another was wounded and later died.

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That small clash, which was quickly followed by several more, represented the beginning of the internationalization of the Houthi conflict. Over the next several weeks, Saudi Arabia got more involved in the war, and, more than 1,000 miles away, Iran took notice. There is little evidence to suggest Iran was supporting or supplying the Houthis prior to 2009, but after Saudi Arabia became involved in the fighting, Iran started laying the groundwork for future cooperation with the Houthis. Among the steps it took, according to a recent article by Michael Knights, was positioning an Iranian intelligence-gathering ship in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen.

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But it was only in the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests of 2011, when Saudi Arabia sided with the regime in Egypt and sent troops to Bahrain, that Iran began providing aid and assistance to the Houthis. It started small and, according to a New York Times report, came with no strings attached. In September 2011 and again in January 2012, Iran flew several Yemeni activists, including southerners and other non-Houthis, to Tehran for a conference where participants received funding and encouragement to keep protesting.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down a month after the second conference, in February 2012, in exchange for immunity, and the Houthis slowly slipped back to their home governorate of Sadah. Yemens new government was weak and disorganized, and the Houthis had little trouble setting up their own ministate in Sadah. And thats when the Iranian weapons started to appear. At first it was mostly small arms and explosives. But in January 2013, a joint Yemeni-U.S. operation boarded a 130-foot wooden ship called Jihan 1. On board were more small arms and explosives but also Iranian-made night vision goggles and surface-to-air missiles.

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A year later, as Yemens government collapsed, the Houthis started pressing for more. They moved out of Sadah, overrunning a military base in the neighboring governorate of Amran that summer, and by late September they had taken Yemens capital of Sanaa. The Houthis eventually placed Yemens president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, under house arrest in what amounted to a coup. Hadi later escaped, made his way to Saudi Arabia, and asked for outside military assistance to help him retake Sanaa.

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Saudi Arabia answered Hadis call on March 26, 2015, launching Operation Decisive Storm, which has been backed by U.S., British, and French armaments and significant U.S. logistical support. But the deeper that Saudi Arabia, with its coalition of African and Middle Eastern countries, got into the war in Yemen, the more Iran responded, smuggling increasingly sophisticated weapons to the Houthis. In November 2016, a shipment of drones was seized in the central Yemeni governorate of Marib. Conflict Armament Research, which examined the drones, said they were most likely of Iranian manufacture. A few months later it was a drone boat, which also appeared to be of Iranian origin. Then, in the summer of 2017, it was the ballistic missiles, which had been cut up, smuggled into Yemen, rewelded, and then fired into Saudi Arabia.

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Iran does not now and never has had command and control over the Houthis. The Houthis are an Iranian ally, not an Iranian proxy. What started as Iranian interest in the Houthis has grown into a full-fledged alliance based on shared goals and a common enemy. And it is this fact that makes the war in Yemen more difficult to resolve. Unlike in years past, Iran now has a vested interest in the Houthis political survival as well as in their ability to project power throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

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There is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen. The U.N. Security Councils Panel of Experts on Yemen has said as much, as have the U.S. State and Defense departments. President Trumps statement on Tuesday makes finding a political compromise that much more difficult. By painting the war in Yemen as black and whiteinnocents and offendershe is providing cover for continued fighting. Yemen has had enough of that, and what it needs now is sustained and coordinated international pressure on all sides to make the difficult compromises for peace.

More From Just Security:

Americans Have a Right to Know if the U.S. Failed to Warn Khashoggia New Lawsuit May Get Answers

The Votes Are There for a Congressional Reckoning on Yemen
Greetings, Future Tensers,

Once upon a time, back in 2016, the Federal Communications Commission passed thoughtful, forward-thinking rules aimed at protecting customers against unknown and unexpected uses of their private information by their broadband providers. (Think Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon Fios, Cox, and others, and all the detailed info they have on each subscribers browsing habitsand how much that info might be worth to third parties.) Though the public supported the rules, Congress soon overturned them. But, as Eric Null writes, that doesnt mean the fight for consumer broadband privacy is over. He explains how states and localitiesincluding, most recently, New York Cityhave been stepping in to introduce their version of these consumer protections, and how broadband providers have been trying to pre-empt them.

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Elsewhere on Future Tense, weve been writing about other issues related to digital privacy and cybersecurity. Jennifer Kang covers the recent revelation that Japans new cybersecurity head (who also oversees the 2020 Tokyo Olympics) has never used a computer. Mia Armstrong examines how China is exporting high-tech tools to help other authoritarian countries monitor citizens. And Justin Sherman examines how easy it is for malicious actors, including states like Russia and China, to exploit security weaknesses and effectively hijack the internet.

Other things we read between watching climate change in real time:

Smoke em if youve got em: The FDA recently announced sweeping new regulations on e-cigarettes, flavored cigars, and menthol cigarettes. Jacob Grier argues the agency seems to be overreacting to a teen vaping epidemic that doesnt really exist.

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Alexa, call 911: Can Alexa serve as a witness in a murder trial? Thats the hope of some law enforcement officials. But as Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explains, Amazon and other tech companies are pushing back against requests for their smart devices digital info.

Mapping the past: Erica X Eisen explains a new project that has historians using facial recognition software to help give names to the millions of unidentified faces in Civil Warera photographs.

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Unnatural selection: Advancements in cloning technology may allow us to resurrect extinct species, such as the Northern White Rhino. Torill Kornfeldt asks: Should we?

The peoples court: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced plans to create an independent body to weigh in on appeals about what speech is acceptable on the platform. Thomas Kadri explains how the idea might prove to be a quasi-constitutional moment for the companydepending on how much power the Supreme Courtlike idea gets.

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User error: Marc Canellas looks back on the flurry of Election Day voting machine woes and finds many of the problems stemmed not from cyberattacks or foreign intrusion, but from aging and confusing voting infrastructure.

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Events:

Join Future Tense in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Dec. 4 for a conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter and Tim Wu, author of the new book The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, about the dangers corporate concentration pose for democracy. You can RSVP here.

Then, that evening, join us for a screening of Peoples Republic of Desire, the 2018 SXSW Grand Jury Awardwinning documentary that shows viewers the darker side of Chinas booming live-streaming culture. After the movie, well be hosting a conversation with director and Future Tense fellow Hao Wu. RSVP to attend here.

To our future nanotech clothing,

Anthony Nguyen

For Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
Listen to If Then by clicking the arrow on the audio player below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Get More If Then Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to If Then Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.

On todays show, host Will Oremus will discuss the fallout from last weeks New York Times expose, Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebooks Leaders Leaned Out in Crisis, about Facebook with the companys former security chief Alex Stamos.

Stamos has been at the center of this story both as a critic and an advocate. The story has revolved partly around reports that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg stifled or downplayed his revelations that their platform was still not free from Russian meddling months after the 2016 election. Well get his side of the story, as well as his perspective on Facebooks missteps, and what he thinks the public and the media get wrong about the company. Well also talk about what some solutions to its problems might look like, including, potentially, government regulations.

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2:15 - Interview with Alex Stamos

37:53 - Dont Close My Tabs

Stories discussed on the show:

The New York Times: Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebooks Leaders Fought Through Crisis.

The Washington Post: Yes, Facebook Made Mistakes in 2016. But We Werent the Only Ones.

Slate: Facebooks Response to the Damning New York Times Story Only Proved the Times Point

Facebook: A Blueprint for Content Governance and Enforcement

Dont Close My Tabs:

Slate: Trapped in the Fire Zone

The New York Times: Are You Sitting Down? Standing Desks Are Overrated.

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

You can get updates about whats coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.

If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.
This story was originally published by High Country News and has been republished here with permission from Climate Desk.

After a slew of climate-friendly ballot initiatives went down in flames on Election Day in Arizona, Colorado, and Washington, greens needed something to cheer them up. Days later, the good news came in the form of a possibly deal-killing setback to a controversial oil pipeline: A federal judge sent the Keystone XL proposal back to the drawing board because it failed to comply with federal environmental regulations.

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First proposed in 2008, the 1,200-mile pipeline would carry as much as 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day from Alberta oil sands to Steele City, Nebraska, en route to Gulf Coast refineries. In 2015, President Barack Obama denied a permit for the pipeline, citing climate concerns, but in 2017, President Donald Trump reversed the denial, allowing the project to move forward.

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The Indigenous Environmental Network then sued the Trump administration, claiming that it erred by relying on an outdated analysis of the pipelines environmental impacts. On Nov. 8, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on several issues, vacated the 2017 approval decision, and ordered the State Department to supplement the environmental impact statement, completed in 2014. That additional analysis must include a hard look at the effects of current oil prices, potential increases in greenhouse gas emissions, possible damage to cultural resources, and new data on oil spills.

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A major sticking point in the 2014 impact statement is its prediction for how the pipeline would contribute to climate change. In short, the analysis concludes that although burning the oil carried by the pipeline would emit about 168 million tons of carbon each year, constructing the pipeline would result in no new greenhouse gas emissions.

Even when reversing a policy after an election, an agency may not simply discard prior factual findings without a reasoned explanation.  Judge Brian Morris

The conclusion assumes that even without the pipeline, the same amount of oil would get to market by some other means. Thats because as long as oil prices remain at or above $100 per barrel, oil producers are willing to spend the extra cash to ship their bitumenthe waxy crude that comes from oil sandsvia rail. When the analysis was completed, the price of oil was closing in on $150 per barrel.

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But oil prices did not stay high. Just months after the impact statement was published, global prices crashed, falling below $40 per barrel and plunging most oil-sands-mining operations into the red. That radically altered the climate impact calculus of the pipeline. When oil sinks below $75 per barrel or so, it no longer makes economic sense to pay to move it by train, meaning production will fall. The Keystone XL, however, would decrease shipping costs, helping to keep the oil sands viable. That would lead to an increase in production and a concurrent rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

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Furthermore, independent analyses have found that Keystone XL could also increase emissions by displacing other, less carbon-intensive forms of crude and by adding enough oil to the global market to lower prices, thereby boosting consumptionand emissions. Both scenarios were discounted in the original impact statement.

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It was during the price slump that Obama put the kibosh on the pipeline. Today, domestic prices have bounced back up to about $60 per barrel, still far below the level at which the pipeline would result in no net increase of greenhouse gas emissions.

Also missing from the 2014 analysis is a full accounting of potential impacts to cultural resources along the pipelines route. The analysis identified hundreds of cultural sites but also said that over 1,000 acres remained unsurveyed. Apparently, the surveys had not been completed when the 2017 approval was made.

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And then there are the potential oil spills. The 2014 analysis predicted that the new pipeline would not spill more than once every 10 years. Data from federal pipeline regulators, however, suggest this is a lowball estimate. The Dakota Access Pipeline and its southern counterpart, ETCO, for example, have experienced 11 spills since they went into operation in 2017. Furthermore, the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 published a study finding that spilled bitumen starts to turn into a heavy, viscous, sediment-laden residue that cannot easily be recovered using traditional response techniques.

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All of this information must be taken into account and addressed before the project can be permitted, Judge Morris said in his recent ruling. That could take years. The Trump administration has indicated that it will appeal the ruling.

Morris directed his harshest scolding toward the Trump administration for reversing its predecessors policy and dismissing the environmental concerns without adequate reasoning. In so doing, he could have been referring to any number of Trumps regulatory rollbacks. Even when reversing a policy after an election, an agency may not simply discard prior factual findings without a reasoned explanation, Morris wrote. An agency cannot simply disregard contrary or inconvenient factual determinations that it made in the past, any more than it can ignore inconvenient facts when it writes on a blank slate.
Its been a bad year for Facebook, but not the kind that involves ugly earnings reports. Its been bad because the company has been accused of contributing to genocide in Myanmar, and bad because its executives have been hauled before Congress to explain how they let tens of millions of users personal information get harvested and exploited by Cambridge Analytica. They were hit by a data breach in which the profile information of some 29 million users was stolen by unknown parties. And then, just last week, came a New York Times investigation that painted the companys leaders as more concerned with their public image than with owning up to the scope of Facebooks problems.

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Along the way, several key executives have departed the company, citing differences with leadership. Those include Alex Stamos, who was the chief security officer for Facebook from 2015 until this August. According to the Times, Stamos clashed with Facebooks top brass over his investigation into the Russian misinformation campaign on Facebook in 2016. After the Times story came out, Stamos told his version of what happened in an op-ed in the Washington Post titled. Yes, Facebook Made Mistakes In 2016, But We Werent The Only Ones. He expanded on those reflectionsand discussed the many challenges with user privacy, misinformation, and content moderation that the social network facesin an interview with Slates tech podcast If Then this week. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Read or listen to our conversation below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Will Oremus: I wanted to dive right into the New York Times piece which, of course, is the subject of controversy at the moment. The crux of the story, to me, was this: Facebook has, over the past couple years, presented itself as this idealistic, mission-driven company thats been blindsided by the ways in which bad actors have abused its platform. Its trying earnestly to confront those problems as they come up. They always say theyre taking it seriously. Theyve acknowledged that theyve been too slow to respond in some cases. The Times piece painted a little bit of a different picture. It suggested that leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were not just slow to grapple with the consequences of some of these problems but actually wanted to sort of downplay them, and when you brought them up, they got upset and were concerned about how it would look, not only to the public, but maybe to Republicans on Capitol Hill.

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I wanted to get your take on this. Which vision of Facebook leadership resonates with you? Are they earnest idealists who have just been blindsided, or have they been calculating and more concerned, maybe, with their image or with looking bad than with really tackling the problems?

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Alex Stamos: Thats an interesting question. I think, from the outside, people are kind of confused about whats going on, and that dichotomy you described is the challenge. Whats going on at Facebook is theres a lot of people who care a lot about the abuse of the platform and stopping it. There are also people whose job it is to look out for the company from a communications and a legal and a policy perspective. I think what youre seeing from the outside is, sometimes, the groups that work on safety and security are able to get their message out, are able to drive change internally, and youll see a burst of activityand sometimes the people who are really worried about the way that the company is seen are winning that battle, and so you end up with this kind of inconsistent view of whats going on.

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For the most part, I think thats actually unfortunate for the company, because the truth is that a lot more was happening, especially in the late 2016/early 2017 time period, than is publicly known, and because of these concerns about not centering itself in the controversy after the election of Donald Trump, I think Facebook missed this huge opportunity to demonstrate that the company is part of the solution, not part of the problem. Because of that missed opportunity, now everything else that comes out is seen through the lens of the idea that Facebook doesnt care, which is not accurate, at least for the people that I worked with.

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The New York Times story opens with the scene of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg seething because you had brought up, to the Facebook board of directors, the problems that you saw with suspicious Russia-linked activity on the platform, and she felt blindsided by that and said, You threw us under the bus, according to the story. Since the story came out, you have sought to clarify what really happened there. I think a lot of people took away the idea that she was dissuading you from investigating. Youve said no, she wasnt dissuading you from investigating, but it did make it look like she was more concerned with the companys image than with sharing what could have been critical information about what had transpired.

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I have both compliments for the Times authors and I have some frustration. For the things that, personally, I saw, I have no factual objections to what the Times wrote. I dont remember her saying something like threw you under the bus but, certainly, that argument happened, and it was  I was not expecting to relive one of the more difficult professional moments of my life on the front page of the New York Times, but thats fine.

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One of the challenges I have with the Times reporting is that it mixes up the timelines a bit. One of the things youve got to understand is that this was not just a rolling disclosure externally, but Facebook has learned, in various waves, about what happened in 2016. During the election of 2016, we saw activity that we attributed to GRU, the main intelligence directorate of the Russian military. That activity was reconnaissance activity that ended up expressing itself as them breaking into email accounts that did not belong or controlled by Facebook, but often what Facebook will see is recon activity where intelligence agencies are looking into potential targets.

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"I was not expecting to relive one of the more difficult professional moments of my life on the front page of the New York Times."

That information was reported to the FBI, and that was kind of the model under which we operated back in that daycompanies would give information to the FBI, especially if the targets were American citizens, and it was up to the government to try to figure out how to do both victim disclosure and, possibly, public disclosure. There was no public announcement of that during the 2016 election.

Then, immediately after the election, there was a big look into the fake news crisis and kind of an analysis of what was driving what people were calling fake news which  I really dont like the term fake news because, one, obviously its been co-opted by the president to mean real news that he dislikes, but also because, even when it was being used at that time, it was incorrect in that most of the propaganda thats being pushed is not falsifiable information. It is expressions of very aggressive political positions meant to drive divisive narratives.

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One of the problems is weve had this rolling discovery and, therefore, rolling disclosures externally. At each of those moments, I think we missed the opportunity for Facebook to come out and say, This is everything we know. Were not done yet. Were going to keep on going, and because of that, people started to push back.

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Now, as for the Sheryl situation exactly, at that point, Sheryl knew about, obviously, all the stuff we had found. We had put together a plan to announce it in September of 2017, and I had gone to the board, as was my responsibility as CSO, and briefed them on what was going on. In that briefing, I told them that I didnt think this was over yet, that there was no way for us to determine what percentage of Russian activity we possibly could have found, and since we werent getting help from anybody  so the government wasnt helping us. The other tech companies, we would send them information. Wed get, pretty much, nothing back from them. We really had no external indications of whether we had caught 90 percent or 5 percent of Russian activity at that point.

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I expressed that to the board, and what Sheryl was angry about the next day was that she felt that that message of, This is not over yet, was not something that she really understood I was going to say, which is reasonable. I did not enjoy getting chewed out, but the truth is this was a incredibly tough situation. These are a lot of people under a huge amount of stress. Sometimes, when youre in the NFL, you got to take a hit, and thats what happened here. She later came to me and kind of apologized, and we worked it out, and we had a good working relationship from then on, but itI think people are over-reading the Times piece into that moment being about covering thing up, and its more about kind of the internal expectations of management and who was informed and in the loop. I think its easy to kind of overpivot on that specific anecdote, to come up with an assumption about what was going on thats not true.

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OK, fair enough. Let me ask you about a different aspect of that Times story. This was the aspect where it said that, on multiple occasions and in multiple different ways, Facebook downplayed problems like misinformation, hate speech, Russian election interference out of concern for how it would look politically and, in particular, out of concern for riling up Republicans or getting the Republican majority on Capitol Hill angry at Facebook. Some of that was attributed to Joel Kaplan, who is the director of policy. How did that play out for you? Were there circumstances in which you were aware that political considerations were part of the calculations here as opposed to just considerations about whats best for users or whats the right thing to do?

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The people who, often, we had to negotiate with to put details in these reports or the blog posts that we did was the policy team, and they did sometimes push back on that. Nobody ever expressed to me, Were doing this because of the Republicans. I do think, before the election, the public discussion of the overall fake news problem was probably mooted by that fact that the company did not want to be seen putting its finger on the scale.

When I look at all of the activity in 2016, it feels like there is a bunch of very powerful institutions, including Facebook, but also including the mass media and including the FBI and the White House, who were all assuming Hillary was going to win. All of those groups have a significant portion of people who wanted her to win, and there was a lot of decisionmaking based upon the theory of, We can take care of this later after Hillary is president and everythings right. Thats what you had from the FBI not coming out and disclosing all of the Russia investigations going on. Thats what you see in the media kind of really amplifying anti-Hillary messages including anti-Hillary messages planted by the GRU themselves. Thats what you see at Facebook of trying to kind of quietly take care of this problem and not come out and make a statement that might be interpreted as saying support for Trump is a fake news phenomena.

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Basically, Hillary lost, and the world changed, and a lot of people have looked back at those decisions of that perhaps they were trying to overpivot toward a neutrality that meant that they werent being neutral and that, if the situation was reversed, that certainly this information would have been disclosed. I think thats something that the company is going to have to continue to deal with in these situations. No matter what you think the political impact is going to be, Facebook and the other tech companies are going to have to have, This is the standard by which we will decide whether we disclose something when we figure it out, because, clearly, trying to do the, Were going to hold our information so that we dont put our thumbs on the scale, even if you were in the right place making that decision at the time, that is always going to look like a cover-up later no matter what the outcome is.

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Youre talking about, for instance, there was that moment in the New York Times story back in 2015 when there was a post by Donald Trump that was flagged as potential hate speech, and there had to be a decision made as to whether to allow that on the platform. From the report, it said that Zuckerberg himself got involved in that decision and looking at whether Facebook was going to remove that as hate speech or let it stand.

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Then there was also  I think youve alluded to, throughout 2016, the question of: As you started to see these problems of misinformation, of coordinated propaganda activities, did Facebook take an active role in trying to address those or eliminate those, or did it sort of sit back and let it happen for fear of being accused of taking a political stand?

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Yeah, thats right. I think the taking-Trumps-post-down situation, thats one of those situations that I think we all got to think very hard about what kind of power do we want these tech companies to have. I mean, personally, I found pretty much everything Trump wrote during the campaign to be personally insulting and disgusting, and I think you could make a strong argument that a lot of those things, if said by somebody else, would have been taken down by Facebook. I dont think Facebook should make the argument that they judged Trumps post just like any random person, but the flipside is weve got to think about do we want these tech companieswhat level does something have to go to before they censor a political candidate from a major party in a democratic election, right?

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If you take a real step back: Heres a company that controls a platform that around that time almost 2 billion people used, hundreds of millions of Americans are using Facebook products, and the executive ranks of this company, the vast majority of them, are most likely Hillary supporters if not massive donors to the Democratic party. If that company made that decision of, We are going to silence somebody from the other party, youve got to have a really, really, really good reason, right? Theres a little bit of a banana republic kind of feel to having the platform itself  just like if, in older times, the radio station that is influenced by the government or the phone network making a decision to put their thumb on the scale.

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I think, again, looking back, in a situation where everybody is reading the FiveThirtyEight forecast and is feeling like Hillary has it in the bag, creating a situation that Donald Trump loses, and part of his argument is he lost because the tech industry conspired to silence him, I think thats the kind of thing that they were afraid of and, perhaps, for good reason. I think, if youre going to get involved like that, youve got to have a really, really high reason, and a lot of the Trump material, while, again, I think it would have been taken down from somebody else, was right there on the line. If youre going to make that call, I think the tie goes to the runner if the runner is a candidate in a major election.

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Yeah, I get that, but I also can imagine it must be a little bit frustrating in your position, as someone whose mandate is to enforce policies in a consistent way, to see what youve described, which is that the policy team, and the political considerations, and the considerations about the optics, and how will this look, and how will this play in the media and Capitol Hill, that that comes in and sways those decisions as to how to enforce Facebooks policies.

To be absolutely clear, it is not my job to decide whether Donald Trumps posts stay up, right? My job as chief security officer was, first, to build systems to protect the company and the platform from attack and then to understand adversarial abuse of the platform.

It was not hate speech or content policy, thats a dedicated team, but youre right that that is a problem.

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I think what it indicates to me is that the companies cannot make these decisions in a completely black-box manner. Whats happened now is that all of the tech platformsFacebook, Google, YouTube, to a much lesser extent Apple, but Apple is starting to get into this with their podcast appthey have now demonstrated that you can work the refs, and you can either get them to believe that they are being too tough against you, in which case they will not enforce their policies, or you can get them to take down content from the other side.

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The fact that they make these decisions in a black box without really explainingtheres always a little explanation, but theres not a real explanation of, This is how we are applying our rules and the precedent that has been set before to make this decisionmeans that everybody believes that the best answer is just to turn up the volume of criticism on the companies. Thats what youve seen from both sides, that everybody wants to turn up the volume of, We believe the content decisions youre making are unfair. Everybody believes that their side is the victim.

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"When you make all these decisions in a vacuum, in a black box, then nobody has any confidence that the fairness that has been shown to the other side will ever be applied to them."

One of the only ways out of this is that companies are going to have to, A) be much more transparent about these decisions and, B) probably move to a model where the decisions are being made outside of the companies themself. In the United States, we cant generally have the government make that because all of the speech that were talking about is First Amendment-protected speech. None of it is illegal under U.S. law, but I do believe there needs to be total transparency in this because, if a decision like, Were not going to take Donald Trump down, is made, then it needs to be made in a way that sets a precedent so that the other side that agrees can at least think to themself, Well, this is going to, one day, break our way. When you make all these decisions in a vacuum, in a black box, then nobody has any confidence that the fairness that has been shown to the other side will ever be applied to them.

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Right, so in an ideal world, you might have these very clear policies that govern everything, and then the platform could just enforce them with total objectivity, and you wouldnt have these debates, but the reality is that a lot of these questions, as youve pointed out, are hard questions. I mean there is no clear objective standard for whether a Donald Trump post counts as hate speech or not, right? There can a blurry line between propaganda and fake news. This is stuff that requires human judgment.

Youve suggested that you would be interested in seeing some of that human judgment move outside the realm of the company itself. I know that Mark Zuckerberg proposed, in the wake of this New York Times story, to set up a sort of appeals body, an independent appeals board for, if you feel that your content was taken down from Facebook unfairly, you can get a hearing elsewhere. Is that the kind of model that you have in mind?

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Yeah, I think so. The devils in the details here. This is going to be incredibly difficult, right? Youre never going to be able to provide the same kind of due process on content decisions thats provided by the legal system. Facebook has tens of billions of pieces of content per day that could possibly be moderated, and they make millions of moderation decisions. Back of the envelope, you could probably argue that, every day, Facebook is making more decisions than the entire U.S. legal system does all year, right?

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Clearly, youre not going to have a trained judge sit there and come up with some super-reasoned decision for every single takedown, but I think what you can get to is that these big decisionslike, are you going to take Donald Trump down or not, or are you going to take down this fake news site, or the Alex Jones decisionthose kinds of decisions could be made in a much more public forum, perhaps by people who area mixture of employees of the company and external experts, and done in a way that creates precedent that then can be enforced at scale by the community operations folks, which are effectively the call center people at Facebook, the people who make these decisions millions of times per day and then, eventually, to be enforced by the machines, by A.I.

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I think its going to be really important, as we move forward, for those precedents that get set to be transparent. Even if its unrealistic that, every time somebody has something taken down for hate speech, that they dont get to go through a massive appellate process. Thats just impractical and would chew up the entire system.

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In your op-ed for the Washington Post, you said that we need more clarity on how these companies make decisions and what powers we want to reserve to our duly-elected government. What do you have in mind there? I mean is that a way of calling for more regulation, or what role did you have in mind for the government in these types of decisions?

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I do think we need more regulation. When you look at regulation, one of the other problems here too is that people are smashing both of the platforms together into one, but theyre also not teasing out the fact that any one tech platform actually has four or five different components that are of different interest from a disinformation perspective.

If you look at Facebook, it has a peer-to-peer messaging service. Thats Messenger. It has a way for you to have a personal persona. It has pseudo-anonymous personas, so those are the pages for like corporations. Thats a specific tool that was misused by the Internet Research Agency and other Russian groups. It has recommendation engines, although theyre not as important as people make them out to be. Theyre much more important in sites like YouTube. Then theres the advertising platform.

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That order, I was thinking of that going from bottom up. At the top of that, you have the parts of the platform that have the most ability to both amplify messages and then to put messages in front of people who did not explicitly choose to see them. I think thats where you have the least kind of free-expression issues and you have to focus the most on getting rid of the amplification.

I think, for regulation, Congress should start around online advertising. One of the challenges, going to 2016, is the companies were all still interpreting the Nixon-era laws around online advertising, which were written, really, for TV and print advertising. The tools that are available to advertisers online were never expected by Congress and have not been regulated, and so I do think we need to regulate, first, to have transparency, but we also probably  Whats going on right now is the companies themselves are taking it on to decide who is allowed to advertise within the United States in what is considered an issue ad. That is probably a decision that they should not be making by themselves. I think that is a decision that needs to be made democratically.

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The process of saying, This person is a legitimate PAC and is allowed to advertise, and these people are not legitimate, that is probably a decision that should be made by the government. I think theres ways you can create lightweight processes by which political advertisers can register, probably with the FEC, can go get tokens that allow them to take them to the advertising platforms and to run ads, and basic definitions of what is a political issue ad that can be then enforced by the companies but where the interpretation of what that is is made in a democratic manner because thats a really powerful tool.

That makes a lot of sense. Another area in which regulation often comes up with respect to the big tech platforms is data collection, and privacy, and data use. Youve worked at two companies now, Yahoo and Facebook, that collect and store tons of sensitive personal information on their users. You had the extremely difficult task, at both of those companies, of keeping all of that data secure. You announced that you would be stepping down around the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal at Facebook, which revolved around the information that Facebook just sort of allowed developers to have on its users as a matter of policy. I think that that dated to before your time at Facebook.

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Shortly after you left the company, there was another data breach, and this was a breach in the more classic sense where hackers got in and exploited some loopholes in the system to steal the profile information of 29 million users. I think that came as a surprise to a lot of people who followed Facebook closely because you guys did have a reputation for doing a good job of protecting the information and defending the platform against hacks. Did it surprise you to see that that breach happened? Then, I guess my follow-up question is is that kind of thing inevitable? I mean when you just collect so much sensitive data on so many people, is it even possible to keep it safe indefinitely?

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I do think breaches are inevitable, and one of the ways you can reduce the impact of a breach is reducing the data that you have that could be stolen.

The problem, in Facebooks casefirst off, I was surprised to hear of that specific flaw. Its interesting because that flaw was in a privacy component. It was in a part of the platform that was built to increase peoples privacybut it was doing something very, very dangerous, which is impersonating, allowing you to impersonate somebody else, and thats just technically a very difficult thing to do securely. One of the problems for Facebook here is that would not be an easy kind of problem to solve via a better privacy policy just because, for the most part, the information that was stolen was information that Facebook collected because it needed it to operate, right?

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When I think of the privacy issues, people kind of smash them all together, but theres really the information that you give these products because they need them to operate, and then theres the information they need but they keep too long, and then theres information they collect that they shouldnt have at all. I do think we need federal privacy regulation for multiple reasons, partially because the lack of competent privacy regulation in the United States means that the states and the EU are stepping in to fill that gap. I think we can learn from, especially the mistakes of GDPR, and do a better job in the United States of having a consistent privacy policy.

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When we do that, weve got to think about mostly is trying to strike down on companies collecting data that people are surprised they have, whereas if I upload my photos to Google Photos, which I do, I am not shocked that Google has my photos. That is how that product is supposed to work. If Google has my GPS location from every single place that I took a photo, that might be somewhat surprising to a nontechnical user. If they have my GPS location from all the time, then thats a real problem, and thats the kind of thing that needs to be cracked down on.

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I do think we need privacy regulation, but we first got to think about what it is that theyre going to have. To the extent that youre building platforms that allow people to communicate, anything you upload to that platform that other people can see, that company has. I think thats also why its really important for us to continue to put pressure on the companies, in situations where its possible, to create end-to-end encrypted models where this information is encrypted in a way that, even if there is a breach, that data cant be stolen.

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There is a trade-off here. WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted. Facebook allowed the founders of WhatsApp to put all of this information beyond the reach of the company, which probably, honestly, cost Facebook billions of dollars a year, but the trade-off in that is it makes it a lot harder to fight a bunch of different kinds of abuses on WhatsApp. From where I sit right now, I think it is better to make the trade-off toward privacy, but it turns out to not be an incredibly simple trade-off. Federal privacy regulation should probably encourage those trade-offs going in the right direction, but theyre going to also have to be tempered by the concern for the way that these products are being used right now to cause harm.

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Was that part of your decision to leave Facebook, that tension you felt where youre trying to keep everybodys data safe, but youre working within the constraints of a company whose business depends on collecting more and more and more of it?

I left for personal reasons as well as the fact that there had been organizational changes that meant that I was no longer able to impact these issues as much as I wanted to, and I just wasnt interested in sticking around and having kind of public responsibility for these things where I couldnt fix them. I mean there is a tension, right, if youre trying to keep things secure and youre collecting lots of data, but again, the stuff that was stolen out of that breach was stuff that people intentionally gave to Facebook and knew it had. Theres not a model in which you have a social network that allows people to, for example, look up your email addresses where those email addresses dont exist.

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I think you can create some models where end-to-end encryption keeps that secure, but in the actual Facebook model of I have a profile and I share that profile with hundreds or thousands of people, youre not going to be able to have that data encrypted in a way that its always out of scope, and so, unfortunately, if youre going to have platforms where people have one-to-many communication like that, there is always going to be the possibility of a breach and that information being taken.

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Sure, and that makes sense. I just wanted to quickly point out that some of the people who were affected by the breach did have information taken that they had not shared with others, stuff like the last 10 places they had logged in from, but your point, overall, is well taken.

Again, thats one of those hard trade-offs, if knowing the last 10 places youve logged into is a critical part of both you being able to look and see whether or not somebody has taken over your account and for Facebook to know whether account takeovers are happening.

One of the interesting things that people overlook is that the truth is that, every single day, there is a huge amount of data theft online, mostly because of the reuse of passwords. When I was at Facebook, the systems that catch this, that catch somebody coming in with the right username and password that they think is a bad guy, caught between half a million to a million accounts that were taken over per day, right? Thats a great example of one of those difficult things. If you want to catch that, then you have to create a history of what networks have you logged into, what browsers have you logged into, what IP addresses, what GPS locations in some cases. If you throw that data away, you cant do that kind of detection, and thats one of the hard trade-offs.

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I think were going to see that in Europe now with GDPR, especially with one of the articles that allows for the right to be forgotten, for people to say, I want you to forget everything about me, where that law is probably going to be used adversarially by people who want to clean up their history. If we go back to the investigation into what happened in 2016, that would have been impossible if Facebook was only keeping logs of some of this identifying information for 30 days or 60 days, and so its not a clean trade-off, and thats one of the difficult things were going to have to wrestle with over the next year or so as we consider what the laws are going to be in the U.S.

Facebook has obviously taken a lot of steps since 2016 to try to address these problemsmisinformation, foreign propaganda campaigns. Is Facebook better prepared today than it was before, and do you think that the 2020 election is one where well see fewer problems of this sort than we did in 2016, or about the same, or could it be worse somehow?

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Its hard to know whats going to happen. First, I dont think were going to have to wait until 2020. If you look at the last sets of accounts Facebook took down, one, theyre starting to trend toward Instagram, which is going to be a more difficult platform for Facebook to protect because Instagram, like some other platforms like Twitter, does not require your account to be tied to your real identity. One of the policy tools that was available to Facebook was people lying, being in St. Petersburg and saying theyre from Wyoming. Theres no real equivalent to that on Instagram, so theres just  From a kind of product design and policy design standpoint, Instagrams going to be a more difficult situation.

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The other thing you can learn from that is that Instagram is a much younger population, probably a much more liberal population than on the Facebook product, and so, as a result, you might want to read into that that the Russians are aiming left. That would make sense if their goal is to drive division in the United States. Then, one of the things they would like to see, Im sure, is the most radical possible candidate make it out of the Democratic primary. For most people in 2020, theyll look at the choices that they have between Trump and whomever from the Democratic side and to throw up their hands in exasperation, and so I dont think we have to wait until 2020. I think theyre going to get engaged really soon on trying to push candidates towards a radical position away from the middle on the Democratic side.

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Right, so I guess the remaining part of the question is this has been described by Mark Zuckerberg and others as sort of an arms race between the platforms and bad actors who would exploit them. Whos winning that arms race right now, do you think?

The companies are never going to just win, right? As long as we live in a free society, people are going to be able to inject misinformation or disinformation in that society. We havent really talked about it, but that is also going to be via the media. Probably the most effective component of the Russian campaign in 2016 was their ability to drive stories about Hillary that was laser-focused on keeping Bernie voters home. As long as we have a free press, and no official secrets act, and that were not requiring people to have IDs to create social media accounts, as a society, we will always be vulnerable, to a certain extent, for foreign interference. I think thats just going to have to become a reality we become used to.

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What the companies can shoot for is not to eliminate all of it. Its to increase the cost to these adversaries for them to build personas with large audiences to increase the chance that any single one is being caught and then thrown away and to reduce the spread of the disinformation to a point at which it disappears kind of in the noise of all the other stuff thats going on. I do think that is possible, but I think its going to require a real coordinated effort.

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I think, again, that were going to need legislation from Congress around online ads. Google and Facebook have taken steps here. There are a thousand other companies in the ad ecosystem, and theyve done nothing because theyre not legally required to. Were going to need to kind of standardize those rules, and the companies are going to have to continue to work with federal law enforcement to look at people trying to break them. Were going to see more fake IDs. Youre going to see people trying to smuggle ads through actual American groups. You might see direct financing of radical groups in the United States.

I dont think things are going to get better. I think, if youre the Russians and you look at 2016, it seems like a success, you have not been punished, and so they might be back into it, and you might have other U.S. adversaries seeing this as a low-cost way to influence the United States and to neutralize some of the asymmetries in traditional military and cyber power. I think 2020 might be pretty crazy because we, quite possibly, will have multiple different countries involved, all of whom will have different geo-strategic interests and might be using totally different types of disinformation.
The ruling Smer still does not have its candidate. They want the foreign affairs minister, but do not have his backing on the migration pact.

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The Grassalkovich Palace is the residence of the president of Slovakia. (Source: Gabriel Kuchta, Sme)

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With the municipal elections over, there is no other vote in the way so Slovaks can focus on the presidential race in the spring 2019.

After President Andrej Kiska announced that he would not run for re-election, presidential candidates came out all over the country and across the political spectrum. The strongest party, Smer, has been postponing the announcement of its candidate.

Smer seems to be unable to find a candidate who would be not just willing to go to battle but also have a high chance of winning, Pavol Babos, political analyst from the political science school of Comenius University in Bratislava, told The Slovak Spectator.

Observers agree that Smer, as the dominant player on the scene, cannot put forward someone who would end up fourth or fifth in the race, for reputational reasons.

At the same time, Smer needs to have its own candidate, Babos explains. As the most popular political party in history - which is the way Smer markets itself - it should have its own candidate.

Having its own candidate is also important for the party members at all levels. If the popularity of a party decreases, insecurity spreads among its members. Smer leader Robert Fico thus needs to show Smer members that their party is strong enough to field its own candidate.

Lajcak for president

Smer has been trying to persuade Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak to run as their candidate in the presidential election. Even though Lajcak has repeatedly said he is not going to run, Smer has not given up on him.

The most recent poll by the Focus polling agency for the Markiza private television broadcaster has shown that he would have no serious competitor in the race.
The support of the common currency is also high in other eurozone countries, the Eurobarometer survey showed.

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Nearly 70 percent of Slovaks consider the euro good for the country, the Eurobarometer survey has revealed.

The support for the common EU currency is not high only in Slovakia, but also in other eurozone currency countries. Moreover, its popularity is the highest for the second time in a row, the TASR newswire reported.

The highest support for the euro was in Ireland (85 percent), Luxembourg (80 percent), and Austria (76 percent). On the other hand, France, Belgium, Italy, and Cyprus favour the common currency the least, TASR reported.

The Eurobarometer survey on the euro's popularity was carried out in 19 eurozone countries on 17,500 respondents between October 15 and 16.

Respondents would scrap the coins of the lowest value

In Slovakia, 79 percent of respondents said the euro is good for the EU, while 69 percent said it is good for their country.

However, only 27 percent of the citizens from the eurozone members (which is very similar to the number of Slovak respondents) said the common currency makes them feel more European than ever before, TASR reported. On the other hand, 79 percent of the respondents believed the euro as a whole is a good thing for the EU, and 69 percent said that the adoption of the euro was an advantage for their countries.

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Nearly 70 percent agreed that the coordination of economic policies of eurozone countries should be stronger. In Slovakia, 53 percent have shared the view, TASR wrote.

At the same time, up to 64 percent of respondents would scrap the one cent and two cent coins. In Slovakia, the idea was supported by 73 percent of respondents.
Michaela Musilova will be at the helm of simulated missions on Mars and the Moon.

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Slovakia will take part in simulated missions to space, organised by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Michaela Musilova, Slovak astrobiologist, was initially chosen to be the leader of the crew, which would participate in simulated missions on Mars, in a global tender. However, NASA decided not to continue the missions this year.

Despite this, she has been offered to lead a team within simulated missions on the Moon and Mars, starting this month. Both types of missions are planned by the ESA.

More Slovaks involved in the mission

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Read also: Simulated Mars mission stopped Read more

The owner of the simulated space station in Hawaii decided to enable the research on missions to the Moon, or Mars, after NASA made a decision not to continue in its missions this year.

I plan to continue linking my activities and my research with Slovakia, said Musilova, as quoted in the press release.

On the sixth, cancelled NASA mission, a rover constructed by the Slovak RoboTech Vision company was to travel with Musilova on the mission. The construction is to help the space crew analyse space terrain and collect samples.

Although the mission has been cancelled, the rover will be used in the ESA mission next year. It will be, at first, tested this month at the ESA centre in the Netherlands, Musilova said in the press release.

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Read also: A Slovak rover will cruise simulated Mars territory Read more

Musilova also wants the data collected to be at the disposal of the Slovak students she is working with as a guest professor at Slovak University of Technical University in Bratislava (STU).

Furthermore, the best five teams of high school students, who will reach the final of the Mission Mars 2 competition held at Energoland in Mochovce, will present their experiments to the jury, Musilova said. The winning Slovak team could carry out their experiment for the ESA mission.
The parliamentary foreign affairs committee recommended Slovakia does not attend the conference in Marrakesh.

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The UN global compact for migration discussed in the session of the Foreign Affairs Committee. (Source: TASR)

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The government should not agree with the UN Global Compact for Migration, as stems from the resolution adopted by the parliamentary foreign affairs committee. It also says that Slovakia should not be present in Marrakesh when the UN votes on the migration pact, the TASR newswire reported.

The MPs should discuss the resolution at the upcoming session and vote on it. The resolution does not ban Slovakia from attending the conference in Marrakesh since it is only a recommendation.

However, Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak (Smer nominee) proposed to MPs that Slovakia should participate in the conference and issue a statement that it understands the migration compact, TASR wrote.

Slovakia should be at the table

In Lajcaks opinion, it makes no sense talking about reservations from home.

If you are not sitting at the table, you are on the menu, he said, as quoted by TASR.

If present at the conference, Slovakia could explain how it understands the pact, he continued.

Slovakia has always reserved and still reserves the right to define its legislation concerning migration, Lajcak said, as quoted by TASR, adding that Slovakia has an opportunity to stress at Marrakesh it sees the pact as a list of proposals, which may or may not be implemented.

The proposal was only supported by Katarina Csefalvayova, MP for Most-Hid.

Committee: Lajcak did not communicate the pact

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The countries, which are final destinations for migrants, distance themselves from the pact, said Jaroslav Paska from the Slovak National Party (SNS) during the foreign affairs committees session. This indicates that something is wrong, he added.

The MPs for far-right Peoples Party  Our Slovakia (LSNS), Smer, and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) agreed with Paska.

They also blamed Lajcak for not communicating the pact with them.

If you invite me just today, do not blame me for coming in so late, Lajcak responded, as quoted by TASR, adding that the draft pact was available online, and MPs could have downloaded it anytime.

Pact will be adopted anyway

MPs have asked the government to take all measures that can prevent Slovakia from accepting the pact at Marrakesh.

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Lajcak explained to MPs this will not be possible as the document is to be adopted at the inter-governmental conference.

The document will be adopted without the vote, thus by consensus, Lajcak said, as quoted by TASR, adding that the delegations attending the conference will not sign anything.

As many countries support the pact, it will be adopted either way, the minister told MPs.

In 2016, 193 countries within the UN agreed on adoption of the migration pact to help manage migration better. The document underlines countries are free to create their own migration policies.
Dover Downs hosted the second round of the DSBF Three-Year-Old Filly Pace on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

On a chilly moonlit night the girls went to post with the first division being won gate to wire in 1:56.2 by The Lady Sheriff. The daughter of Southwind Lynx is trained by Clyde Francis and was handily driven by part owner Montrell Teague for his father, George, and the Fry brothers of Houston. The place filly, Anneke is trained and owned by Montrells Aunt Brenda and steered tonight by Jim Morand.

The second division ended up with only three fillies going to the gate because of sick scratches. Vistamista, a daughter f Powerful Mist, repeated last weeks performance for driver Victor Kirby with a mile victory in 1:56. Trained by Wayne Givens and owned by Legacy Racing of DE, Inc. and Sharon White of Smyrna this was the tenth lifetime start and pushed her earnings over $65K. Winner from last week, Roddys At It Again earned the place spot.

The final will be contested on Thursday, Nov. 29 in conjunction with the Dover Signature event: the Hap Hansen Progress Pace, named for the late Brandywine Raceway President. The top eight point getters advance to the DSBF final. The pacing filly division will be the only division to field a consolation of $15,000 which will be contested on Wednesday, Nov. 28.

(with files from DSBF)
In its latest report, The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the number of children killed in Syria since the start of the war writes The Syrian Observer.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the deaths of at least 28,226 children in Syria since the revolution broke out in 2011, most of them at the hands of the regime and Russia, and including 196 children who were killed with chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, the Network issued a report, to coincide with World Childrens Day, which said that the violations to which children had been subjected in Syria over the course of the last eight years did not just have risks in terms of physical and psychological health, or education and medical care, but went further, digging deep into their memories and shaping and distorting their characters.

The report said that the regime had killed 22,444 children, including 394 who had been killed in attacks that used cluster munitions or as a result of unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions, while 301 children had died as a result of a lack of food and medicine in a number of areas under siege since March 2011.

At least 3,155 children were still detained or had been forcibly disappeared in regime detention centers since 2011 up to Nov. 20, 2018.

The report said that Russian forces had killed 1,872 children since their intervention in Syria on Sep. 30, 2015, including 46 children who were killed in 232 attacks that used cluster munitions. It also said that attacks by Russian forces had damaged at least 173 schools, as well as displacing tens of thousands of children.

The report also reviewed violations by Kurdish militias in areas under their control, such as illegal killings and forcible conscription. The report said that 167 children had died at the hands of these forces since January 2014, and that 588 children were still under arrest or forcibly disappeared in their detention centers.

The report said that 837 children had died at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) since it was founded in April 2013, as a result of indiscriminate bombardment, clashes, explosions, executions, and mines they planted before withdrawing from areas under their control.

It said that ISIS had also committed abuses of a different type, by conscripting children into the so-called cubs camps and that sexual violence against children was a widespread. It started with harassment and escalated all the way up to sexual slavery. ISIS still has at least 396 children in detention or forcibly disappeared.

It said that the Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham also had camps that trained children to carry weapons in the same model as those established by ISIS and had given them different names including the cubs of tawheed and others. They had also established military schools in which they had imposed curriculums with military uniforms for children, and had worked to conscript children by exploiting their material needs and their poverty by giving them small amounts of money.

According to the report, International Coalition forces had killed 886 children since their intervention in Syria on Sep. 23, 2014, while also striking at least 24 schools in their attacks.

It recorded the killing of 975 children by rebel groups, most of them killed by indiscriminate bombardment carried out against regime-controlled areas, especially mortar attacks.

There were also 309 children still in detention or forcibly disappeared in the rebel detention centers. Their attacks damaged 24 schools and kindergartens from March 2011 to November 2018.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Syrian Observer.
Four women in the Aleppo countryside are competing against 31 men for a place on the local council reports Alsouria Net.

In an unfamiliar scene, signs bearing the names of four female nominees for local elections have appeared in the streets of the town of Ainjarah in the western Aleppo countryside. With hopes of victory, female candidates are entering into elections, aiming to serve local communities.

Amoun Rizouk, Kenana Rizouk, Ayat Mustafa, and Banan Rustam are all trying to active womens roles in the community by running for local elections.

Each candidate is developing aims they will try to achieve in the event that they are able to win in the elections, in which 35 candidates are competing31 of them men. The towns people will vote to select just 15 candidates to occupy the seats of the new council, and the elections will be run by collecting the votes of the towns residents and then announcing the result for each candidate.

In a statement to Alsouria Net, the candidate Kenana Rizouk said: I decided to enter because its new for women, and in order to prove that women are able to participate and to confirm their role in society. This is my main aim.

The candidate Banan Rustam told Alsouria Net that for four years she worked as a teacher in a school. She spoke about the hardships faced by students, and said that the most important thing for her was to support the educational process which has declined in recent years.

She added that she was trying to contribute to securing school needs in the town and said that the shortages occurring now will not be addressed except through education.

The current Deputy President of the Ainjarah Council and the Head of the Human Resources Office, Mohamed Hazem, said that they had invited women to nominate themselves and participate in building the community, and to explain womens requirements which had been somewhat absent. He added that: We are trying to preserve the role of women and their rights, as they are half of society.

The most competitive positions are council president, deputy president, and the services and finance offices, as well as the human resources and aid office and other offices such as the education and statistics office.

The first local council was formed in Ainjarah in 2012 and had five successive sessions. The council includes representatives from neighboring villages, including al-Saloum and al-Qasimiyeh and Maklbees. Ainjarah has about 30,000 residents as well as displaced people who number about 4,000.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
In an effort to present a unified front, the Syrian Turkmen convened a meeting to pick a new flag that will represent them at political and social forums writes Enab Baladi.

At a conference titled The Turkmen Flag, in the city of al-Raie in the northern Aleppo countryside, Syrian Turkmen chose a united flag composed of three colors.

The council was held on, Nov. 18, 2018, under the supervision of the Syrian-Turkmen Council, attended by members of the Turkmen Movement and Turkmen military groups and civil society organizations.

The Turkmen council said through its official channels on Monday that, Following the total recognition and approval of the flag of the Syrian revolution, Syrian Turkmen have chosen their own banner that will represent them in all political and social forums as a basic component of the Syrian people under the roof of the national project.

The new Turkmen flag is composed of three colors: Blue, white and red.

The council added that, The celestial color which has accompanied the Turkmen throughout history takes its place on the Syrian-Turkmen banner along with the color white as a symbol of peace and humanitarianism, along with the crescent and the star, saturated with the blood of martyrs from the Syrian nation.

In Ottoman times, the Turks in Syria were recorded as Aleppo Turkmen and had a special place with the authorities and were considered to be under special protection, which made things relatively easier for them at the time.

During their presence in Syria, they have mainly been found in Damascus and Aleppo, but also in Lattakia, Homs, Hama, Raqqa, Daraa and the Golan, according to the Turkmen writer and journalist Ahmed Hamish in a previous interview with Enab Baladi.

According to the Turkmen Movement, all Turkmen parties and civil society groups attended the conference, alongside Turkmen military groups, including the al-Hamza Division, the al-Sultan Murad Division, the Mohamed al-Fatih Division, and the al-Muntassar Billah Division.

It said, The parties that participated in the conference stressed the need for a political distinction between the Turkmen flag, which symbolizes Syrian Turkmen as a component of the Syrian people, and the flag adopted by the Syrian revolution which brings together the whole social spectrum.

The party said through its official channels that, The Syrian Turkmen are eager to continuing pursuing the collective means and methods that are best for the Syrian Turkmen class.

The book :The Struggle for Power in Syria by Nikolaos van Dam, which is one of the most important books addressing the Turkmen population in the region, said that the proportion of Syrian Turkmen was about three percent of the total population.

They numbered about 484,000 out of a total of more than 16 million, according to 1997 statistics, while some references say that the Turkmen including those who know their origins and those who dont, number between three and three and a half million.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Turkey, which has hosted the largest number of Syrian refugees, is now working to return them to their homeland writes Anadolu Agency.

On Tuesday, hundreds of Syrians left Turkey for terror-free regions of Syria as part of a ongoing voluntary return program.

Taking refuge in Turkey due to civil war in Syria, 400 Syrians  including women and children  from different parts of Turkey were voluntarily repatriated from southern Kilis province to areas in Syria cleared of terrorists.

Turkeys Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in northwestern Syria, liberated the region from YPG/PKK and Islamic State terrorists, making the return of Syrian civilians possible.

Jafar Muhammad, a Syrian returnee, told Anadolu Agency that he simultaneously felt joy and sorrow, as he was leaving Turkey after four years.

Expressing his love for Turkey, Muhammed said he was happy to return to Syria.

May Allah bless all people here. They gave us foods, drinks and clothes. But, now, we want to go back home. I hope all of our friends here will return to Syria soon.

Since January, over 17,000 Syrians have returned to Syria as part of the voluntary return program, according to local sources.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Syrias Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, has warned other countries not to interfere with Syrian internal affairs reports SANA.

Syrias Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari, stressed that the constitution and all related issues are Syrian ones and are to be decided exclusively by the Syrian people.

During the UN Security Council Briefing on the situation in the Middle East on Monday, Jaafari said that it is not possible to accept any idea that may lead to interference in Syrian internal affairs.

The constitution and all related details are a purely sovereign issue, which only Syrians can decide and therefore, any idea that leads to interference in Syrian internal affairs is unacceptable, Jaafari made it clear.

He reiterated that only the Syrian people have the right to decide the future of their country, without foreign interference and that the political process should be led by the Syrians themselves.

The Permanent Representative emphasized that mission of the UN Special Envoy is as a facilitator of the work of the committee in charge of discussing the current constitution, so he cannot consider himself as a third party.

The Syrian-Syrian national dialogue conference held in Sochi posed an opportunity for dialogue between the Syrians without foreign interference, Jaafari said, adding that the participants reflected the various segments of Syrian society.

He said that Syria is considering and dealing positively with the outcomes of the conference, represented by establishing a committee to discuss the current constitution and they are keen to witness the birth of this committee as soon as possible.

Syria was the first to hand over a list of members supported by the Syrian state and therefore no one can doubt its support for this process or its commitment to the outcomes of Sochi Conference,

He renewed the importantance of the role played by Russia and Iran as the guarantors of the Astana track, especially given that the idea of forming a committee to discuss the constitution was based on the Syrians agreement at the Sochi Conference, which was proposed by the guarantor countries and in the context of the understandings of the Astana track.

He stressed that the Syrian government has been an essential part of the Astana track, so no can ignore its role or the role of Moscow and Tehran.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
President Assad has thanked Jordan for its support and has called for increased partnership in parliamentary and economic fields writes SANA.

On Monday, President Bashar al-Assad received a Jordanian parliamentary delegation comprised of a number of heads of committees from the Jordanian Parliament and headed by MP Abdul Karim al Doghmi.

Discussions during the meeting dealt with the importance of activating bilateral relations between Syria and Jordan in all fields in a way that serves the interests of the two brotherly peoples.

The members of the delegation affirmed that the pulse of the Jordanian street has always been with the Syrian people as they face the war against terrorism and that Syria is the first line of defense for the entire Arab region and that victory in this war will be a victory for all the Arab countries in the face of Western projects aimed at destabilizing and fragmenting these countries in service of Israels security.

They said that the Syrian people have managed to foil external conspiracies through their solidarity with the leadership and army in order to keep Syria the voice of the Arabs and the beating heart of Arabism.

President Assad said that the importance of the parliamentary delegations visits stems from the fact that they are the real reflection of popular positions and the compass for the bilateral relations between countries, which must always be driven by the interests of the people and their aspirations.

President Assad referred to the great role of parliamentarians in educating the Arab people about the reality of the battle facing our Arab region, which is not only related to Syria. Rather, the President explained, it is a long battle whose essence is to strike at the belonging of the Arab people, so that all foreign projects become easy to implement.

President Assad affirmed that the adherence of the Syrian people and army to their national sense of belonging has been one of the basic factors which contributed to their steadfastness despite all the attempts that targeted this belonging.

In the same context, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Muallem met the Jordanian delegation and discussed the deep brotherly relations binding the SyrianJordanian people and the desire to enhance them at all levels, especially at the parliamentary level, in addition to developing bilateral cooperation between the two countries to serve the common interests of the two peoples.

The two sides affirmed the importance of re-opening the Nasib Border Crossing between Syria and Jordan due to its positive impact on goods exchange and the movement of people, with the aim of strengthening popular and economic cooperation.

The two sides also discussed the latest political and field developments in Syria and the region which led to changes in regional and international arenas.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
By Moses Kyeyune.

Former Executive Director for Commercial Banks at the Bank of Uganda, Justine Bagyenda has made a surprising appearance at parliament, three months after she disappeared from the public.

Bagyenda is appearing before parliaments Committee on commissions statutory authorities and state enterprises, to answer queries relating to the ongoing probe of the central bank.

The embattled former executive director has been reported to be out of the country, and has not made any public appearance even when she was meant to be vetted to the Board of Directors for the Financial Intelligence Authority.

The committee chaired by Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu summoned her on Monday to answer matters pertaining the closure of seven commercial banks.
By Ritah Kemigisa.

The opposition Democratic Party has disapproved the 14 people who have been appointed to the comprehensive constitutional review.

Addressing journalists at the party headquarters, the party president Nobert Mao accused the appointees for being partisan and lack integrity.

Some of those appointed on the review team include; the former Yumbe MP Nusura Tiperu, the former Attorney general Prof Khiddu Makubya and the chairperson of the Uganda National youth council Lillian Aber.

Now according to Mao, the team requires people who are independent minded and who care about the future of Uganda without Museveni.

He however commends government for the idea of coming up with this constitutional review saying it is timely.
By Damali Mukhaye.

The vice chancellor of Kampala international university Dr. Mouhammad Mpeza Mihingo has dismissed reports of the national council for higher education saying that they are teaching courses which are not accredited.

Speaking to kfm, Mpeza Mihingo says that there been confusion between re-accreditation and accreditation asserting that their courses were accredited but just expired after five years.

He says that all programs are re-accredited after five years after the university reviewing their relevancy.

He says that the university is in the process of reviewing those courses that expired and will present them to national council for accreditation.
Richarlison scores winning bullet header for Brazil

Wednesday, 21 November, 2018



Richarlison came on as an early sub for Neymar and powered home a brilliant bullet header against Cameroon just before the break that would win this one for Brazil.

Neymar suffered an adductor muscle injury while taking a shot and was replaced by Richarlison.

And the Everton forward proved to be the match-winner, powering home a header on the stroke of half-time.

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Mountain Shadows in Wayanad is just the place for a dreamy vacation
By Ruth Anderah.

Hearing of a case in which Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago accuses the Executive Director KCCA Jennifer Musisi of failure to remit his salary has been pushed to January 9th 2019.

This matter was meant to come up for ruling today before High court judge Andrew Bashaija but this has not been possible due to the absence of the trial judge who is attending to other official duties outside the country.

Lukwagohas expressed disappointment with the rate at which this case has been handled but quickly adds that he is ready to follow the matter to its logical conclusion.

Among the issues which court is expected to pronounce its self on is whether KCCAs failure to pay Lukwago salary from the month of December 2013 was lawful.

In 2017 Lukwago dragged to court the KCCA Executive Director, Minster for Kampala Betty Kamya, the Attorney General and KCCA for failing to pay his salary arrears amounting to 536 million shillings.
Ho Chi Minh City-based micro-fund 500 Startups Vietnam has received US$14 million for investment in Vietnam-headquartered startups or companies catering to the Vietnamese market, according to TechCrunch.

The investment was raised through its parent, 500 Startups, a Silicon Valley startup accelerator and venture capital fund, from GS Shop, Humax, NCORE, and many other investors in Asia, the U.S., and Europe.

500 Startups Vietnam was launched in March 2016 with a $10 million target to back a new group of Internet-era startups after the U.S.-based startup incubator paid attention to Vietnam, which is transforming into one of the most rapidly-expanding tech ecosystems in Southeast Asia.

The fund is managed by venture partners Eddie Thai and Binh Tran, who joined 500 Startups in 2015 to lead the firms Vietnam efforts.

Eddie Thai is a Vietnam-based businessman having degrees from Harvard and Yale and more than six years of experience in strategy and finance for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 corporations across tech, media, telecommunications, and others.

He was recognized in the Forbes Vietnam 30 Under 30 List in 2015 and invited to the World Economic Forums Davos conference in 2016.

Binh Tran is a San Francisco-based technologist with more than 20 years of experience.

His most recent win was Klout, which pioneered influencer marketing and was acquired in 2014 at a $200 million valuation.

He was ranked in Business Insiders Silicon Valley 100 list in 2013 and 26 Up-and-Coming Tech Entrepreneurs You Need to Watch in 2012.

The partners plan to capitalize up to 64 more companies, writing checks between $100,000 and $250,000.

Prior to the $14-million funding, 500 Startups Vietnam earmarked a total of $3 million in 36 companies across industries, including e-commerce, edtech and blockchain.

The deal is also the latest instance that investment in Southeast Asia has picked up significantly in 2018.

Companies based in the region raked in more than quadruple capital over the same period last year, according to the financial data and software company PitchBook.

Vietnam, in particular, has become an attractive destination for venture capitalists.

Several new funds have emerged in the country, namely ESP Capital, VinaCapital Ventures, Startup Viet Partners and Zone Startups Vietnam, helping to accelerate investment.

Growth in Vietnam is showing no signs of slowing.

The nations digital economy is expected to triple in size, accumulating a value of some $33 billion by 2025, according to the e-Conomy SEA report by Google and Singapore-headquartered investment company Temasek.

In Vietnam, the Internet economy is akin to a dragon being unleashed, the report stated.

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Vietnamese carmaker VinFast unveiled the prices of its first made-in-Vietnam cars at a public launch ceremony in Hanoi on Tuesday afternoon.

VinFast is the carmaking arm of Vietnams leading property developer Vingroup.

The real estate giant, together with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), held a ceremony to introduce VinFasts sedan, SUV, and electric cars to the public for the first time, as well as launching the campaign Vietnamese products conquer Vietnamese people.

According to VinFast, its cars will be offered to consumers with a three-zero policy: zero depreciation expenses, zero financial expenses, which include interest, plant construction cost, working capital, and zero profits.

In particular, the LUX A2.0 sedan is priced at VND1.818 billion (US$78,174), LUX SA2.0 SUV at VND1.366 billion ($58,738), and the Fadil city car at VND423 million ($18,189).

For the time being, the three models will be sold at VND1.136 billion ($48,848), VND800 million ($34,400) and VND336 million ($14,448), respectively, according to Nguyen Viet Quang, Vingroups vice-president and general director.

Both the LUX A2.0 sedan and LUX SA2.0 SUV were presented with the prestigious new star award of the worlds automotive industry at the Paris Motor Show in France in October, while the Fadil car was developed from Karl Rocks by Opel, one of Germany's oldest auto makers, under a technology franchise agreement with General Motors (GM).

The products are designed to suit the Vietnamese people as well as climate and traffic in Vietnam, Quang asserted.

The LUX SA2.0 sedan is seen at the ceremony in Hanoi on November 20, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

VinFast plans to deliver Fadil cars in mid-2019 and the LUX models by the end of the same year, according to the companys president Le Thi Thu Thuy.

The launch ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

At the event, the premier officially kick-started the campaign Vietnamese products conquer Vietnamese consumers, in order to raise the responsibility of local enterprises to continue producing quality products with high competitiveness, low cost, and professional after-sales service, meeting consumers needs.

I laud Vingroup for creating such a value chain of Vietnamese cars and electric motorcycles in such a short time, through thorough research and serious investment in products meeting international standards, Prime Minister Phuc said.

A VinFast production complex was inaugurated in Dinh Vu Industrial Park in the northern Vietnamese city of Hai Phong in September 2017, at a cost of $1-1.5 billion in the first phase.

It is the largest and most modern project of its kind in the region, producing both quality gasoline cars and electric motorcycles and having its intellectual property protected in Europe, according to the executive Quang of Vingroup.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and other delegates watch the LUX SA2.0 SUV. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A visitor tries riding a VinFast electric motorcycle. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The Fadil city car is seen at the ceremony in Hanoi on November 20, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The LUX SA2.0 sedan is seen at the ceremony in Hanoi on November 20, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The LUX A2.0 sedan is seen at the ceremony in Hanoi on November 20, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and other delegates watch a VinFast motorcycle. Photo: Tuoi Tre

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Vietnams Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong and Indian President Ram Nath Kovind have consented to further boost the two nations relationship and elevate bilateral trade turnover to US$15 billion in the near future.

President Kovind joined talks with the Vietnamese leader in Hanoi on Tuesday as part of his first state visit to the Southeast Asian country from November 18 to 20.

According to Vietnams Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both sides stressed the significance of deepening the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership in all sectors.

The heads of state agreed to establish practical policies and measures to elevate two-way trade value from the current $12.8 billion to $15 billion in the coming time.

They suggested boosting ties in trade and investment, renewable energies, and high-quality agriculture, while encouraging the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India to actively explore oil and gas in Vietnam, as well as seeking cooperation models with a third country.

Both sides highlighted the importance of promoting connectivity and accelerating procedures to help low-cost Vietnamese carrier Vietjet soon launch its direct flights between Ho Chi Minh City and New Delhi.

The Indian president pledged to continue providing scholarships for Vietnamese students.

The leaders praised the effective defense and security cooperation between the two nations, agreeing to step up collaboration in human resources development and strengthen the affiliation between the two nations armed services.

They applauded the implementation of a $100 million credit package to build high-speed patrol vessels for Vietnams border guards and agreed to soon organize the first marine security dialogue.

Efforts will also be exerted to continue close coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums, particularly the United Nations.

Vietnam is a pillar in Indias Act East policy, as well as a key partner in Southeast Asia, President Kovind stated.

Regarding the situation in the East Vietnam Sea, President Trong welcomed Indias stance on the issue over the years, hoping that India will continue their support in the future.

Following the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of numerous important documents.

The Indian president also met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan on the last day of his state visit.

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Astronomers have gleaned some of the best data yet on the composition of a planet known as HR 8799c -- a young giant gas planet about 7 times the mass of Jupiter that orbits its star every 200 years.

The team used state-of-the art instrumentation at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii to confirm the existence of water in the planet's atmosphere, as well as a lack of methane.

While other researchers had previously made similar measurements of this planet, these new, more robust data demonstrate the power of combining high-resolution spectroscopy with a technique known as adaptive optics, which corrects for the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere.

"This type of technology is exactly what we want to use in the future to look for signs of life on an Earth-like planet. We aren't there yet but we are marching ahead," says Dimitri Mawet, an associate professor of astronomy at Caltech and a research scientist at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.

Mawet is co-author of a new paper on the findings published today in The Astronomical Journal.

The lead author is Ji Wang, formerly a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and now an assistant professor at Ohio State University.

Taking pictures of planets that orbit other stars -- exoplanets -- is a formidable task. Light from the host stars far outshines the planets, making them difficult to see.

More than a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged so far, including HR 8799c and three of its planetary companions. In fact, HR 8799 is the only multiple-planet system to have its picture taken. Discovered using adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope, the direct images of HR8799 are the first-ever of a planetary system orbiting a star other than our Sun.

Once an image is obtained, astronomers can use instruments, called spectrometers, to break apart the planet's light, like a prism turning sunlight into a rainbow, thereby revealing the fingerprints of chemicals. So far, this strategy has been used to learn about the atmospheres of several giant exoplanets.

The next step is to do the same thing only for smaller planets that are closer to their stars (the closer a planet is to its star and the smaller its size, the harder is it to see).

The ultimate goal is to look for chemicals in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets that orbit in the star's "habitable zone" -- including any biosignatures that might indicate life, such as water, oxygen, and methane.

Mawet's group hopes to do just this with an instrument on the upcoming Thirty Meter Telescope, a giant telescope being planned for the late 2020s by several national and international partners, including Caltech.

But for now, the scientists are perfecting their technique using Keck Observatory -- and, in the process, learning about the compositions and dynamics of giant planets.

"Right now, with Keck, we can already learn about the physics and dynamics of these giant exotic planets, which are nothing like our own solar system planets," says Wang.

In the new study, the researchers used an instrument on the Keck II telescope called NIRSPEC (near-infrared cryogenic echelle spectrograph), a high-resolution spectrometer that works in infrared light.

They coupled the instrument with Keck Observatory's powerful adaptive optics, a method for creating crisper pictures using a guide star in the sky as a means to measure and correct the blurring turbulence of Earth's atmosphere.

This is the first time the technique has been demonstrated on directly imaged planets using what's known as the L-band, a type of infrared light with a wavelength of around 3.5 micrometers, and a region of the spectrum with many detailed chemical fingerprints.

"The L-band has gone largely overlooked before because the sky is brighter at this wavelength," says Mawet. "If you were an alien with eyes tuned to the L-band, you'd see an extremely bright sky. It's hard to see exoplanets through this veil."

The researchers say that the addition of adaptive optics made the L-band more accessible for the study of the planet HR 8799c. In their study, they made the most precise measurements yet of the atmospheric constituents of the planet, confirming it has water and lacks methane as previously thought.

"We are now more certain about the lack of methane in this planet," says Wang. "This may be due to mixing in the planet's atmosphere. The methane, which we would expect to be there on the surface, could be diluted if the process of convection is bringing up deeper layers of the planet that don't have methane."

The L-band is also good for making measurements of a planet's carbon-to-oxygen ratio -- a tracer of where and how a planet forms. Planets form out of swirling disks of material around stars, specifically from a mix of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon-rich molecules, such as water, carbon monoxide, and methane.

These molecules freeze out of the planet-forming disks at different distances from the star -- at boundaries called snowlines. By measuring a planet's carbon-to-oxygen ratio, astronomers can thus learn about its origins.

Mawet's team is now gearing up to turn on their newest instrument at Keck Observatory, called the Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC). It will also use adaptive optics-aided high-resolution spectroscopy but can see planets that are fainter than HR 8799c and closer to their stars.

"KPIC is a springboard to our future Thirty Meter Telescope instrument," says Mawet. "For now, we are learning a great deal about the myriad ways in which planets in our universe form."

Reference:

"Detecting Water in the Atmosphere of HR 8799 c with L-band High Dispersion Spectroscopy Aided By Adaptive Optics," Ji Wang et al., 2018 Nov. 20, Astronomical Journal [http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aae47b, preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.09080]. The study was funded by Caltech.

About NIRSPEC:

The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) is a unique, cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph that captures spectra of objects over a large range of infrared wavelengths at high spectral resolution. Built at the UCLA Infrared Laboratory by a team led by Prof. Ian McLean, the instrument is used for radial velocity studies of cool stars, abundance measurements of stars and their environs, planetary science, and many other scientific programs. A second mode provides low spectral resolution but high sensitivity and is popular for studies of distant galaxies and very cool low-mass stars. NIRSPEC can also be used with Keck II's adaptive optics (AO)system to combine the powers of the high spatial resolution of AO with the high spectral resolution of NIRSPEC. Support for this project was provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation. Learn more at http://www.heisingsimons.org.

About Adaptive Optics:

W. M. Keck Observatory is a distinguished leader in the field of adaptive optics (AO), a breakthrough technology that removes the distortions caused by the turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Keck Observatory pioneered the astronomical use of both natural guide star (NGS) and laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) on large telescopes and current systems now deliver images three to four times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Keck AO has imaged the four massive planets orbiting the star HR8799, measured the mass of the giant black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, discovered new supernovae in distant galaxies, and identified the specific stars that were their progenitors. Support for this technology was generously provided by the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation, Change Happens Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation, NASA, NSF, and W. M. Keck Foundation.

About W. M. Keck Observatory:

The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are among the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two, 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes atop Maunakea on the Island of Hawaii feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems. The data presented herein were obtained at Keck Observatory, which is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the Native Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain.

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Politics

-- Vietnam and India on Tuesday issued a joint statement highlighting the time-honored friendship between the two countries as Indian President Ram Nath Kovind wrapped up his three-day state visit to Vietnam at the invitation of Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong.

-- Two more officers from Vietnams defense ministry on Tuesday departed for their assigned duty at the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

-- Vietnamese Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich chaired a welcome ceremony on Tuesday for a delegation from the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, led by Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe, as part of the fifth Vietnam-China border defense friendship exchange.

Society

-- Thousands of metric tons of solid industrial waste from a paper mill in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang has been transported to Ho Chi Minh City and used in land reclamation without proper treatment, posing serious health and pollution hazards.

-- A revised law on corruption prevention was passed by Vietnams lawmaking National Assembly on Tuesday without any articles on the handling of officials unexplained wealth, although the issue had been heatedly discussed over the last three plenums of the legislature.

-- A tropical depression that formed off the Philippines on Sunday is now 80 kilometers east of Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands in the East Vietnam Sea, heading toward southern Vietnam and packing winds of up to 90 kilometers per hour.

-- Twenty-five elementary school students in Ho Chi Minh City were hurt when scaffolding in the schoolyard collapsed onto a crowd of people attending a Teachers Day ceremony on Tuesday morning.

-- An inmate who was serving a life sentence at a prison in Thanh Hoa Province in north-central Vietnam for murder broke out of his cell on Sunday, police confirmed on Tuesday and said efforts are being put into searching for the man.

-- The transport department of Ho Chi Minh City has requested approval from the municipal administration to rent 100 CCTV cameras in an attempt to expand surveillance coverage in the southern metropolis for better management of traffic problems.

-- A new cruise ship transporting tourists from Ho Chi Minh City to Con Dao Islands off neighboring Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province is expected to be launched in 2019, with fares costing between VND800,000 (US$34) and VND1.2 million ($51).

Business

-- Vietnamese carmaker VinFast commercially launched its first three car models at an event in Hanoi on Tuesday, with pre-tax prices ranging from VND336 million ($14,300) to VND1.8 billion ($76,700), and announced that the first shipments of the automobiles will be made in 2019.

-- Vietnamese commercial banks have slightly raised savings interest rates to a maximum of 8.35 percent yearly to mobilize capital in preparation for the upcoming year-end shopping season, when demand for consumer loans is expected to increase.
Thousands of metric tons of solid industrial waste from a paper mill in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang has been illegally used as fill material for land reclamation without proper treatment, posing serious health and pollution hazards.

A company contracted by the Hong Kong-invested Lee & Man paper mill has been secretly sending the hazardous material to land reclamation sites in Ho Chi Minh City and the southern city of Can Tho, an exclusive investigation by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper has found.

At the Lee & Man facility in Hau Giang, trucks frequent its waste reception area every day to receive waste from the factorys production.

The trucks belong to the Bac Nam Environment and Engineering Co. Ltd., which is contracted by Lee & Man to transport its waste to treatment centers in the southern provinces of Ba Ria  Vung Tau and Dong Nai.

Bac Nam Company is paid VND900 (US$0.04) per kilogram of solid waste and VND1,150 ($0.05) per kilogram of sludge it takes from the paper mill, according to a contract signed between both parties in May 2018.

The company, in turn, has to pay the treatment centers around 30-50 percent of the money it receives from Lee & Man upon dropping the waste off for treatment.

In reality, however, Bac Nam Company has avoided paying the treatment cost by secretly transporting a part of the waste to Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho, where the hazardous material is sold to any real estate developer that needs cheap fill dirt to reclaim land for their construction projects.

According to figures provided by Lee & Man, around 4,000 metric tons of its factory waste has vanished without any trace after being handed over to Bac Nam Company between October 2017 and August 2018.

The material was in fact used in numerous land reclamation projects.

Factory waste from the Lee & Man paper mill in Hau Giang Province in southern Vietnam is loaded onto a truck. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Where does the waste go?

Industrial waste from the Lee & Man paper mill that is not taken to treatment centers is either collected at a landfill in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City or brought to Cai Cui Port in Can Tho.

At the Cai Cui Port, around six to seven trucks arrive every day to dump waste onto an open field for a land reclamation project.

Much busier activities are reported at a 10,000-square-meter landfill along Nguyen Huu Tho Street in Binh Chanh District, where mountains of industrial waste from the Lee & Man paper mill are collected before they are transported to different construction sites in the city to be used as fill dirt.

Plastic bags, broken glasses, scrap metals and paper pulps pile up into massive dunes of garbage towering up to ten meters high.

Industrial waste piles up at an illegal landfill in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

In the period of nearly one year when Tuoi Tre journalists kept track of activities at the landfill, there was no sight of authorities inspecting the place.

According to Dr. Vu Ngoc Long, chairman of the scientific council of the Southern Institute of Ecology, the burial of solid industrial waste in residential areas without any treatment poses serious health and pollution hazards.

Such material takes centuries to decompose, while without any preventive measures leakage from the waste can easily penetrate the groundwater system, poisoning a crucial source of water for household use in the city.

Chemicals such as lead, arsenic, mercury and phosphorus in factory waste cannot be naturally excreted from the human body and can lead to skin infections, cancer and sepsis, Dr. Long said.

Industrial waste is dumped at the Cai Cui Port in Can Tho City in southern Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre

A truck dumps industrial waste at an illegal landfill in Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

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Major maternity and pediatric hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City are becoming overloaded with newborn babies, prompting managers of the infirmaries to seek for an urgent and effective solution to the issue.

According to the observation of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters, the situation can be noticed at major maternity hospitals such as Hung Vuong and Tu Du and at the Children's Hospitals 1 and 2.

Tu Du, one of the oldest maternity hospitals in the metropolis, received and treated about 7,440 newborns in the first nine months of this year.

The infirmarys neonatal unit is designed to have a capacity of 192 beds. However, about 250, sometimes up to 300, babies have been recorded at the facility at a time.

The same situation also happens at the Children's Hospital 1, located in District 10, whose 210-bed neonatal special care unit always has to serve about 250 to 300 newborns at a time.

The overload can be attributed to the fact that these infirmaries have been receiving patients not only from Ho Chi Minh City but also from other provinces in southern Vietnam.

It is much safer to have your baby delivered at a major hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Thi Nguyet, a 62-year-old resident from the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, said as she was waiting for her five-day-old grandchild to be vaccinated at Tu Du Hospital.

At the Children's Hospital 1, most newborn patients also come from other localities rather than from Ho Chi Minh City.

A doctor examines an infant at the Children's Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Solutions

Tang Chi Thuong, deputy director of the municipal Department of Health, has recently warned of the situation, urging relevant agencies to deal with the problem to ensure service quality for all patients.

A representative from Tu Du Hospital stated its managers have been applying certain measures to shorten the time needed for each newborn to stay at the facility.

They have also supported programs to train and improve the skills of doctors in neighboring provinces.

Hung Vuong, another major maternity hospital in the southern hub, has been trying to minimize the number of infants treated at its neonatal special care unit.

According to Ngo Ngoc Quang Minh, deputy director of the Children's Hospital 1, the infirmary has been improving its services to reduce the treatment time for each patient.

Doctors have been assisting their co-workers at hospitals in other provinces in patient diagnosis and consultation via telephone and the Internet, Minh continued.

Thanks to this approach, parents would rest assured their children are in good hands and no longer need to seek treatment for their kids in Ho Chi Minh City if their conditions are not serious, he added.

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The transport department in Ho Chi Minh City has floated a proposal to install an additional 100 cameras over the streets next year in a bid to monitor traffic flow better.

Around VND2.5 billion (US$107,500) is required for the devices installation and maintenance, according to the suggestion.

They would be placed at major junctions as a priority.

Data from the cameras can be used to offer drivers advice on the best roads to take so that street overcrowding can be reduced.

Vehicles throng a frequently overcrowded road with few traffic cameras in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The number of traffic cameras in the metropolis is not sufficiently high and this has slowed police response to road incidents like congestion and crashes, according to Vo Khanh Hung, the departments director.

While the city is dotted with around 1,400 intersections, it only has 700 traffic cameras, 591 of which are connected live to the municipal traffic monitoring center.

The citys ratio of total road length to traffic cameras is 6,843 meters per camera, which is much lower than Moscows 865 and Seouls 1,066.

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A group of nearly 50 people reportedly stormed into a house in an outlying district of Ho Chi Minh City before damaging and opening fire on the residence, causing one person to be injured.

Police in Binh Chanh District confirmed on Tuesday they were investigating the case following a report of the victims.

According to preliminary information, Tran Ngoc Chau and Tran Trung Hieu, both 61, were having a conversation at the front of Chaus house at around 7:30 pm on November 18 when a group of unidentified people raided the place.

A hole caused by a bullet at the scene. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Some members of the gang shut down the power source of the house before the others started vandalizing the residence with their machetes, bricks, and guns.

The group then left following the attack.

Chau managed to turn on the power source and discovered that one of the bullets had hit Hieus left ankle.

As the victim was bleeding, Chau took him to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The victims blood could be spotted on the floor of the house. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Officers later arrived at the house to examine the scene and collect statements.

During an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, N.T.Th., the houses maid, said she and three young children were also inside the home at the time of the incident.

After the attackers left, Th. had to take the kids to a local hotel for their own safety.

Chau and his family run a small diner and coffee shop at their house.

N.T.Th. recalls the incident during an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. Photo: Tuoi Tre

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Police are searching for a life-sentence inmate who escaped from a prison in Thanh Hoa Province, located in north-central Vietnam, on Sunday.

Vu Manh Hau, 23, was serving a life sentence at the prison for murder when he sneaked past guards and fled while doing labor work on Sunday, a corrections officer told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday.

The prison, located in Thanh Hoas Yen Dinh District, is run by Vietnams Ministry of Public Security.

Corrections officer Le Van Cuu said the prison break was reported at around 4:00 pm, when inmates were allowed outside of their cells to perform labor work as part of their prison term.

Hau, who is about 165 centimeters tall, was a resident in Phu Xuyen District, Hanoi before being put in prison for murder, according to a police statement.

Citizens are authorized to capture Hau on the spot or report to relevant authorities upon sightings of the prisoner, an announcement issued by the prison reads.

An announcement on Vu Manh Haus prison break.

In September 2017, two death-row prisoners broke free from a police-run jailhouse in Hanoi and were on the run for nearly a week before they were captured by police officers.

The high-profile prison break led to a probe into correctional officers at the detention center, who were found to have lacked responsibility while overseeing the inmates and charged with dereliction of duty.

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Nine Perth will screen a locally documentary, Perth  Our Life and Times produced, directed, filmed and edited by postgraduate broadcast students from Edith Cowan University.

Step back in time and travel to Katanning, where the crumbling, 127-year-old Katanning Flour Mill is now a multi-million-dollar refurbishment which offers unique accommodation for visitors to the Great Southern region.

At the time of the flour mill sale it was seen as the best dollar ever spent in the protection of WAs architectural and industrial heritage. But that is not quite how owner Nigel Oakley, chief executive of the Dome cafe group, saw it. I bought a multi-million-dollar liability for one dollar, he jokes.

Today the three-storey, electrically powered mill built in 1891 remains the heart and soul of Katanning, but as a derelict building it only survived because the money could not be raised to cover the costs of demolition.

The Perth Girls School, built in 1934 and opened in 1936 with 502 students, has a fascinating place in WA education. A study of the schools history revealed a trend for formalising domestic studies for young ladies  how to cook, sew, iron and starch clothes. Once the school closed in 1962 it was taken over by the WA Police, with the Traffic Branch not moving out until 2015.

The program also visits Perths iconic Bell Tower, where 100,000 people come each year to see and hear the 300-year-old bells ring, and Fremantle Harbour, where the pilots oversee shipping movements in a port that is quite unique. It is used by a wide range of vessels, from small fishing boats and superyachts to container ships and car carriers. The stats are remarkable: $3 million worth of cargo per hour comes through Fremantle Ports.

4:30pm Sunday on Nine (Perth).
Prime Media Group Chairman John Hartigan has announced his departure from the regional broadcaster in the new year.

The former News Corp boss told The Australian he is looking forward to spending more time with family.

I just want to have some me time, interspersed with some work that will keep me out of trouble, he said.

I just want to enjoy my life and my friends. Ive got a property in the Hunter Valley that I dont get to often enough, and I just want to mix [making] a contribution, which I think I do, and the leisure that comes with being a senior citizen.

Hartigan joined Prime Media Group in May 2014 having been chairman and chief executive of News Limited.
Industry rumours are swirling that US drama Preacher is to shoot its next season in Melbourne, with Playmaker partnering with producers.

The AMC series, which stars Dominic Cooper as West Texas preacher Jesse Custer has screened three seasons but yet to be renewed for a fourth.

It has previously filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Sources suggest an announcement will be made after the Victorian election, due this Saturday.

Preacher airs in Australia through Stan.
Here are the highlights for both SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand in 2019 (and a few in 2018).

SBS VICELAND

The Orville Season 2

TX: December 2018 on SBS VICELAND

From Emmy Award-winning executive producer and creator Seth MacFarlane, The Orville is a live-action, one-hour space adventure series set 400 years in the future that follows The U.S.S. Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. The ships mixed human and alien crew face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the problems of everyday life. The ensemble series stars MacFarlane as the ships Captain, Ed Mercer, and Adrianne Palicki as his ex-wife, whos assigned as his First Officer. Now, the Orville is back with more missions and more action.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 6

TX: January 2019 on SBS VICELAND

After its shock cancellation in May, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is back by popular demand following fan outcry. Theres a feeling of change in the bullpen, but that wont stop recently married Jake Peralta and the detectives of the Nine-Nine from taking on New Yorks criminal underbelly once again under the stern guidance of Captain Ray Holt  or is it soon to be Commissioner Holt?

Dopesick Nation

TX: January 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Recovering addicts Frankie and Allie take on the heroin epidemic in South Florida, making it their mission to save as many addicts as possible. With their help, some will win the fight while others, and despite their best effort, some will fall.

Youre The Worst Season 5

TX: January 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Youre The Worst is a modern look at love and happiness told through the eyes of two people who havent been very successful with either. Its the story of Gretchen and Jimmy, fear, heartbreak, romance, sex, food, Los Angeles, Sunday Funday, friendship, and the fact that sometimes the worst people make the best partners.

Munchies Guide

TX: February 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Your global guide to eating in some of the best destinations around the world. From Welsh lamb, to tacos in Oaxaca, and reindeer meat in Sweden, come eat with us!

The Girlfriend Experience Season 2

TX: Early 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Set against the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Season 2 tracks a complex relationship between Erica Myles, a finance director, and Anna Garner, a GFE provider.

Homeland Season 8

TX: Mid 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Season 8 is the final season of Homeland, and it takes off from the conclusion of Season 7 and its eerily accurate reflection of the worlds current political and national security landscape. Carrie Mathison (Danes) worked to expose a vast international conspiracy determined to bring down the Keane Administration. Carrie, along with the administrations new National Security Advisor Saul Berenson (Patinkin) are thrown into a labyrinth of double agents, social media bots, fake news charlatans and Russian active measures  all designed to wreak havoc on Americas democratic institutions.

Wellington Paranormal Season 2

TX: Mid 2019 on SBS VICELAND

Officers Minogue and OLeary of the Wellington Polices fledgling Paranormal Unit battle the sinister and the supernatural in this strange lovechild of the X-Files and Highway Patrol. The show is a perfect mix of understated Kiwi Comedy and found footage horror. Wellington Paranormal is directed, produced and edited by comedy legend Jemaine Clement, with the help of director Jackie Van Beek and executive producer Taika Waititi.

Dark Side of the Ring

TX: 2019 on SBS VICELAND

From the tragic death of Bruiser Brody to the legacy of Fabulous Moolah, the oldest female wrestler to win a title, Dark Side of the Ring is a documentary series that pieces together the untold history of professional wrestling and examines the blurred lines between real-life people and the characters they portray.

SBSs award-winning news and current affairs program The Feed returns to SBS VICELAND, bringing young Australians a unique mix of news, satire, live interviews and in-depth investigative reporting every night at 7.30pm. The channel will continue its run of 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, and Richard Ayoade is back with another season of Travel Man.

SBS On Demand

Das Boot

TX: December 2018 on SBS On Demand

It is Autumn 1942, and 40 men are heading towards their first ever mission in an increasingly brutal war, all cramped within a metal vessel. Personalities clash and loyalties shatter as they are tried by the unspeakable horrors of war. Will they live to make it back ashore? Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Simone Strassers world is quickly spinning out of control. Deep into an impossible love affair that has her torn between the two sides. Das Boot stars Lizzy Caplan, James DArcy, Tom Wlaschiha, and Vicky Krieps.

Berlin Station Season 3

TX: December 2018 on SBS On Demand

Season 3 takes place over the course of 11 days in Eastern and Central Europe as Chief of Station Valerie Edwards (Michelle Forbes) guides her team through the high-stakes relationship between Russia, the United States and its vulnerable NATO allies. Is the Kremlin involved in any foul play that could upend a thinly-held World Order?

Pagan Peak

TX: Early 2019 on SBS On Demand

When a gruesomely staged body is found, propped up on a mountain pass in the Alps close to the German- Austrian border, two detectives are sent to investigate. For German detective Ellie, this is the first real challenge of her career. Her Austrian counterpart Gedeon seems to have lost any ambitions in his job. Very soon, they discover more crime scenes with symbolically posed victims, reminiscent of pagan rituals. It all seems to be part of a bigger, sinister plan.

Project Blue Book

TX: Early 2019 on SBS On Demand

A dramatic series from Academy Award Winner, Robert Zemeckis, chronicling the true, top secret United States Air Force investigations into UFO-related phenomena in the 1950s and 60s known as Project Blue Book. The series follows Dr. J. Allen Hynek (Aiden Gillen), a brilliant college professor recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead this clandestine operation that researched thousands of cases, many of which were never solved. Each episode will draw from the actual files, blending UFO theories with authentic historical events from one of the most mysterious eras in United States history.

Trapped Season 2

TX: Early 2019 on SBS On Demand

In Season 2 of Baltasar Kormakurs Icelandic thriller, we follow Police Inspector Andri and his new partner Hinrika, who has been promoted since the events of the first season. Andri is working in his old job in Reykjavik when he is entrusted with a controversial and highly political case  an impoverished sheep farmer from the Icelandic Highlands has set himself on fire in front of the capitals government headquarters, trying to kill the Minister of Economic Affairs. Initial research leads Andri to a remote valley in the north of the island. The picturesque mountainous landscape turns out to be a place of bitter conflict  the local farmers are fighting against the interests of international business sharks, driving the expansion of a state-of-the-art geothermal centre.

Robbie Hood

TX: 2019 on SBS On Demand

Robbie Hood is a mischievous 6 x 10 minute online comedy series exclusively for SBS On Demand. Its the heart-warming story of three friends who are rectifying injustices they see in their community. While they may have the best of intentions, they dont always go about it in the right way. The Alice Springs based cast features some exciting new talent, who will all be seen for the very first time on Australian screens. The series is directed by Dylan River, and is a Ludo Studio and Since1788 production for SBS. Principal production investment from Screen Australia in association with SBS. Financed with support from Screen Territory with Screen Queensland.

Zero Zero Zero

TX: 2019 on SBS On Demand

Starring Gabriel Byrne, Dane Dehaan, Harold Torres, and Andrea Riseborough, Zero Zero Zero takes you deep into the dark mysteries of the world cocaine trade, from its production, to its final delivery. It is a trip inside a complex system tainted by violence but also by dexterity and imagination. From the jungle to the skyscrapers, from Mexico to Paris, passing through equatorial Africa, the Maghreb and Calabria, the dangerous journey is seen from multiple yet interconnected perspectives.
DAYTON, Ohio  The University of Dayton will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the University's human rights studies program and 70th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a pair of free, public events Thursday, Dec. 6, featuring a current U.S. State Department official and the editor-in-chief of top academic human rights journal Human Rights Quarterly.

A panel of UD human rights studies alumni will discuss "Human Rights Practice and Profession: From the Classroom to the Field" from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Panelists include Anamaria T. Karrels, a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State; Kata Lucas, a researcher with the non-governmental organization Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, who focuses on topics of gender-sensitive transitional justice in post-conflict settings; labor attorney McLean Johnson; Laura Getz, a bilingual community support specialist for the Center for Work, Education and Employment; and Mike Schulz, executive director of Mission of Mary Cooperative.

"The University of Dayton has a rich history in human rights education, starting one of the nation's first undergraduate human rights program in 1998 and one of the nation's first bachelor's degrees in human rights studies in 2008," said Natalie Hudson, director of the University of Dayton's human rights studies program. "We're happy our alumni can help celebrate and offer advice to our future human rights practitioners."

Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Mendez and Bert Lockwood, distinguished professor of law and director of the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights at the University of Cincinnati, will be panelists discussing "Educating Future Generations in Human Rights During Challenging Times" from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

"For 70 years, the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been the guiding document for our field," said Shelley Inglis, executive director of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center who most recently spent 15 years with the United Nations. "We are fortunate to have such an esteemed panel who will offer our students a glimpse of what they'll face in their careers."

Both events, as well as a free, public reception between the events, also are supported by the Dayton Council on World Affairs and the Dayton International Peace Museum. They will be in the Auditorium at Daniel J. Curran Place located at 1700 S. Patterson Blvd. RSVP for the events at go.udayton.edu/hrc.

The University of Dayton human rights studies program and Human Rights Center have organized local, national and international conferences and developed partnerships to perform research and advocate for the rights of the vulnerable and exploited  children, women, migrants, refugees and trafficked persons.

Highlights include:

In 2008, the human rights studies program and the Center for Victims of Torture organized an event to advocate for a presidential executive order on prisoner treatment, torture and cruelty. University of Dayton President Daniel J. Curran signed a declaration supporting the executive order, which President Obama signed in 2009.

Since 2013, the Social Practice of Human Rights conference has convened biennially, attracting an average of more than 100 experts from 15 countries who include current and former representatives from the United Nations, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United States Human Rights Network, Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, Global Fund for Women, Doctors Without Borders, Ford Foundation, World Peace Foundation, USAID, and the NAACP, among others. The 2019 conference is set for Oct. 8-11, 2019.

In 2000, the University established the Romero Human Rights award, which commemorates the ministry and martyrdom of the slain Salvadoran Archbishop and honors an individual or organization whose work has contributed significantly to the alleviation of human suffering and injustice.

At the request of local and state law enforcement agencies and social service organizations, the human rights studies program took a leadership role in the creation of a regional anti-trafficking coalition  Abolition Ohio  currently supported by the Human Rights Center, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Campaign to Rescue and Restore Victims of Human Trafficking.

Human rights studies faculty and students were instrumental in advocating for enactment of Ohio Senate Bill 235, which made human trafficking a criminal offense in Ohio. Abolition Ohio also worked with Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWines Human Trafficking Commission to provide Ohio schools, youth counselors, after-school programs and anti-human trafficking organizations with a free online manual for developing anti-human trafficking education for children.

The Center sponsors an applied research practicum in Malawi to train undergraduate students as future human rights advocates and professionals. Working closely with Determined to Develop, a grassroots NGO founded and directed by the alumnus Matt Maroon '06, students spend nine weeks living and conducting research with local community leaders in northern Malawi on a critical human rights or development issue.

The Human Rights Center partnered with PROOF: Media for Social Justice, an organization specializing in visual storytelling for human rights and peacebuilding, on Ferguson Voices, an oral history project capturing stories of people who participated in and were affected by the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of Michael Brown. The goal was to document people who, despite adversity and risk, "chose to activate their moral courage," according to Joel Pruce, assistant professor of human rights studies who oversaw the project for the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. Pruce also led a similar group to El Paso, Texas, this spring to examine immigration issues at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In 2016, the University received a fair trade university designation from national grassroots movement Fair Trade Campaigns. Fair Trade Campaigns recognizes towns, colleges, universities, schools and congregations nationwide for embedding fair trade practices and principles into policy. "Fair trade" refers to an economic system of equitable trading partnerships for farmers, artisans and workers. It is evidence to consumers that products they purchase were grown, harvested, crafted and traded in ways that improve lives and protect the environment.

For more information about the University of Dayton Human Rights Center and human rights studies program, visit go.udayton.edu/hrc and go.udayton.edu/humanrights.

For more information or interviews, contact Shawn Robinson, University of Dayton associate director of news and communications, at 937-229-3391 or srobinson1@udayton.edu.
Around two years after a major controversy raised its head over the fact that Hillary Clinton had used a private email server to send government-related emails, another person is in hot water for the same reason. Ivanka Trump has reportedly been caught out using a personal email address for sending White House administration emails.

In the past, the words "Lock her up!" reverberated from US President Donald Trump's mouth and Twitter account. It will be interesting to see his reaction now his daughter has been caught doing virtually the same thing as "crooked Hillary."

As noted by the Huffington Post, Twitter being Twitter, users couldn't keep their fingers and thumbs off their keyboards and phones once the news broke of Trump's actions, with some hilarious results. The hashtags #IvankaTrump, #ButHerEmails and #LockHerUp are definitely doing the rounds.

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Job losses in Northern Ireland come after Bombardier said in November that it would cut 5,000 jobs globally. Pic: Reuters

Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier has announced that it will cut 490 jobs from its operations in Northern Ireland.

The move, which will see its 4,000-strong workforce in Northern Ireland shrink by more than 10%, comes after the company announced earlier in November that it would be cutting up to 5,000 jobs globally as part of efforts to streamline its operations.

We need to continue to cut costs and improve the efficiency of our operations to ensure our long-term competitiveness, Bombardier said in a statement on Wednesday.

We acknowledge the impact this will have on our workforce and their families and we continue to explore opportunities to help mitigate the number of compulsory redundancies, it said.

Unite, a trade union that represents workers at the company, said the losses likely arose as a result of outsourcing and a reduction of agency and contract workers. Representatives from the union said they would be seeking an urgent meeting with global management at the company.

Criticising the move, Unite said the losses came despite mounting profits at the firm. In a statement, Unites regional secretary for Ireland, Jackie Pollock, said that the cuts were a heavy blow for the local economy.

Unite has feared for some time that Bombardier might be bringing forward large-scale redundancies but this news exceeds our worst fears, she said.

Susan Fitzgerald, a regional co-ordinating officer with the union, said the move was more about satisfying the insatiable demands of the financial sector than about securing the skills base of its workforce.

The company, which has factories in 28 countries, employs workers in four locations in Northern Ireland, including at a unit in Belfast, where wings for Airbus A220 aircraft are manufactured.

In addition to the 5,000 job cuts, which Bombardier said would result in annual savings of about $250m (190m) by 2021, the company announced earlier this month that it had agreed to sell its turboprop-aircraft programme for around $300m, as well as its pilot-training division. The company has about 70,000 worldwide employees.

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The company has been under pressure from shareholders in recent years, after its attempt to compete with market-leading aircraft from Boeing and Airbus ran into difficulties.

Though global sales at Bombardier declined by 5%, to $3.6bn, in the third quarter of 2018, pre-tax profits doubled to about $267m compared to the same period in 2017. It forecast that its 2019 revenue would jump by 10% to at least $18bn.

Bombardiers Northern Ireland subsidiary lost $53m in 2017, however, in large part because of $16.2m in costs associated with 375 redundancies. It made a $56.4m profit in 2016.
For all the debate, uproar and resignations over the draft Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and EU, its worth remembering that the future EU-UK trade deal has not yet been decided. This will only be negotiated in detail after the UK leaves the EU on March 29 2019. What it will look like is very much still up for discussion and Theresa May could yet keep the promises she made in her Brexit white paper back in February 2017. This includes leaving the single market and customs union, signing a trade deal that ends free movement of people and remove the UK from the European Court of Justices jurisdiction.

Ever since Brexit was on the cards, comparisons have been made between the UK and a number of countries that have a close working relationship with the EU. Norway, Switzerland, Canada or a hard, WTO rules-only Brexit have been the options most commonly put forward for the UK to follow. But there is one option that has largely been absent from discussion: Ukraine.

A country that conjures images of its ongoing conflict with Russia, Ukraine might not sound like somewhere that the UK wants to copy. Yet the style of Ukraines relationship with the EU is one that aligns with the prime ministers objectives, as outlined in her white paper. While many of these did not make their way into the Withdrawal Agreement, they could still form part of the future trade agreement that the UK is yet to work out with the EU.

According to our research, a Ukraine-plus agreement is feasible and could achieve:

* An end to EU law applying in the UK

* No free movement of people

* Access to the EU single market

* The ability to make its own trade agreements with third countries

* Collaboration with the EU on security and defence policy

Ukraines deal

Ukraine, like Canada, has a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU (DCFTA). This gives it preferential access to the EUs 500m strong consumer market. The Ukraine-EU agreement eliminates more than 98% of trade duties for both parties.

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The DCFTA is complemented by a process of legal adjustments in the number of laws that regulate financial services, telecommunications services, postal and courier services, and international maritime services. If the UK had something similar, this would smooth over the key barrier to trade for Britains all-important service sector.

The provision on free movement of capital in the DCFTA also includes standard safeguards to ensure the stability of both sides financial systems. Moreover, dispute settlement and mediation mechanisms are in place and a panel can make recommendations to the Association Council, a body created to govern EU-Ukraine affairs, in case of dispute or any further proposals for cooperation. Plus, the EU supports Ukraine through a financial and technical assistance programme that helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular.

There is visa-free travel between Ukraine and most EU member states but no right of free movement of people, which limits migration from Ukrainian citizens. They are allowed to travel for up to 90 days in a 180-day period for tourism, business purposes and to visit friends and relatives. Something similar would help the UK to achieve one of its main objectives of controlling its borders.

A Ukraine-plus agreement for the UK could also have security elements, as well as maintaining cross-border crime and terrorist collaboration. The EU-Ukraine agreement provides defence, military and political stability considerations that can provide a good example for a EU-UK agreement. The UKs strength in security and defence are both features the EU will want to keep close links to. Maintaining political stability on the island of Ireland will, of course, need special considerations in the case of a UK-EU agreement.

The DCFTA is much more than a classic free trade agreement. It opens markets through the progressive removal of customs duties and restrictions on services and public procurement. It also ensures fair competition between EU and Ukrainian firms by safeguarding workers rights and environmental standards, as well as respecting intellectual property rights and competition law.

When it comes to laws, the DCFTA lays the groundwork for the gradual alignment of Ukrainian norms and standards on food safety and technical regulations with the EU. Seeing as the UK is already aligned on these but wants to reduce EU influence over its laws, this can likely be open for negotiations in a Ukraine-plus deal.

A Ukraine-plus arrangement could therefore be the deal that May is looking for  no European Court of Justice oversight, a trade deal that does not include free movement of people, room for third country agreements and security and defence collaborations. This could achieve most of Mays white paper objectives and appeal to the different factions in her party.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

---Watch the latest videos from Yahoo---
By Yuddy Cahya Budiman

BANGLI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Australian heroin courier Renae Lawrence was released from an Indonesian prison on Wednesday, the first of the so-called Bali Nine drug smuggling ring to gain freedom after the execution of the two ring leaders strained ties between the countries.

Lawrence, 41, left Bali's Bangli prison through a doorway where prison officers had laid Hindu offerings. A large media scrum surrounded Lawrence as she was ushered into a black SUV.

A police convoy escorted the vehicle as it headed to Denpasar airport, where Lawrence was to be held in a temporary detention centre while waiting for an overnight flight to Sydney.

She will not be allowed to return to Indonesia, said Maryoto Sumadi, the chief of Bali's Justice Office.

Lawrence was arrested at Denpasar airport in 2005 with 2.7 kilos of heroin strapped to her body. She was initially sentenced to life in prison.

With the support of prosecutors, the sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal, largely because Lawrence co-operated with investigators and disclosed the roles of other Bali Nine members. Remissions cut her prison time by a further seven years.

Indonesia has harsh laws against drugs and the other eight members of the Bali Nine received the death penalty or life sentences.

The two ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed by firing squad in 2015, causing a diplomatic rupture between Australia and Indonesia. Australia recalled its ambassador in protest.

Chan and Sukumaran, who apologised for their crimes, helped scores of Indonesian prisoners through language and training programmes they set up inside Bali's Kerobokan prison.

Another member of the Bali Nine, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died of kidney cancer in May.

The other five are all serving life jail terms. They have failed in repeated attempts to get their sentences reduced.

In Australia, Lawrence faces two outstanding warrants, reportedly relating to a high speed chase with police in a stolen car before her fateful trip to the Indonesian holiday island.

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She has been asked to report to police in Gosford, north of Sydney, when she returns, her father Bob Lawrence told Australian broadcaster Nine News.

A spokeswoman for police in the Australian state of New South Wales told Reuters the two warrants related to traffic offences, but declined to elaborate.

Police would be in touch with Lawrence's legal team about the warrants in a "timely manner", she said.

(Reporting by Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Tom Allard. Writing by Tom Allard. Editing by Nick Macfie)
FILE PHOTO - Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon listens to Plaid Cymru's leader Adam Price speak at the Scottish National Party's party's conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, October 8, 2018. REUTERSRussell Cheyne

(Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May told Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday that the Brexit deal she has negotiated with the EU will work for all parts of the United Kingdom and deliver on the results of the 2016 referendum.

A majority of Scots voted to remain in the European Union in the referendum and Sturgeon's Scottish National Party, which runs a devolved administration in Edinburgh, has said it will vote against May's Brexit deal.

Defending the deal reached with the EU, May's office said after her meeting with Sturgeon: "(It) will give Scottish businesses the clarity and certainty they need to protect jobs and living standards and see us take back control of our waters, improving the fortunes of our fishermen."

Earlier, Sturgeon said she wanted to form a "coalition of opposition" to May's Brexit plan with the main opposition Labour and other parties.

She told the BBC she had held exploratory talks with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and, in a separate meeting, with other opposition party leaders.

She had agreed with Corbyn that May's deal was a bad one, and that "no deal" should not be the only alternative.

"The next stages of all of this have to be to look at what we can coalesce around in terms of alternatives," Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon has already said her 35 Scottish National Party (SNP) lawmakers at the Westminster British parliament will vote against the deal when it comes before the House of Commons. Labour has said it will not countenance a no-deal Brexit.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Andrew Roche)
A sperm whale carcass was washed ashore at a beach in Wakatobi National Park in Indonesias Southeast Sulawesi province, with 35 pounds of plastic in its stomach, researchers and activists said on Monday, November 19.

Local villagers found the 10-foot dead whale on Sunday. The following day, a team of researchers, officials and activists arrived to inspect the carcass and discovered assorted plastic waste in its stomach, including 8 kg of plastic rope, 115 plastic cups, 25 pieces of plastic bags and two pairs of flip-flops.

The cause of death was still unknown, according to WWF Indonesia and the Wakatobi Marine and Fisheries Community Academy (AKKP Wakatobi). The AKKP Wakatobi researchers took DNA samples and the skeleton for research and further study.

The remaining carcass was buried on Tuesday, the academy said in a press statement sent to Storyful. Credit: La Ode M. Saleh Hanan via Storyful
A man has been killed on the runway at Moscow's largest airport after being hit by a plane as it was taking off.

Armenian Albert Yepremyan, 25, had earlier been deported from Spain, according to sources quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency.

But he had started a fight during the flight to Moscow and police had been called to detain him at Sheremetyevo airport.

He had been due to board a flight to Yerevan on Tuesday night but at around 8pm he headed for the runway instead of boarding the bus waiting to take passengers to the plane.

He ended up in the path of an Aeroflot flight heading to Athens.

The man was hit by the jet's landing gear which caused "deadly injuries", investigators said.

His remains were discovered when the plane landed in Greece, along with remnants of his clothing.

Interfax quoted a source as saying that "holes" were found in the plane's fuselage after it arrived.

The source added: "It was decided not to return the aircraft to the airport of departure because the systems did not signal damage."

Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency is investigating the incident.
Around eight gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer along Kenyas coast and wounded several people, including three children.

Five people were injured by the attackers, who shot indiscriminately at around 8pm on Tuesday in the Chakama trading centre in the county of Kilifi, said Kenyas police chief, Joseph Boinnet.

The gunmen abducted Silvia Costanza Romano, 23, an Italian woman working for Africa Milele Onlus, according to Mr Boinnet and Italys foreign ministry. The motive for the abduction is not clear and the identity of the attackers is not yet known, he said.

The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town. 1/6  National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018

The gunmen came looking for a white woman, said Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, who said he witnessed Ms Romanos violent kidnapping.

He heard gunfire which prompted all the shops in the area to close and many people in the trading centre to hide.

At around 7.30pm six men, some armed with guns and others with machetes and clubs stormed into the Milele offices and demanded to know where is the mgeni (Swahili for visitor).

Sylvia Constanza Romano, left, with local resident Ronald Kazungu Ngala (AP Photo)

I told them she had left to go and get a power bank, but they didnt believe me and surged into the room where they found her, Mr Ngala said.

He said he followed them and heard one gunman ask the other if she is the one and when he was answered in the affirmative, he proceeded to slap her very hard until she fell.

Ronald please, please! Ronald, please help, Ms Romano said, according to Mr Ngala. I tried to push away a man who was smothering her while holding her down for her hands to be tied behind her back, but someone hit me in the head with a club and I got dizzy.

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She told me to help myself and I ran for the man at the door with a club and pushed him away and escaped.

He said two of the gunmen who were outside the room shot at onlookers.

Villagers gather outside a small house where they claimed the suspected kidnappers of an Italian woman had been staying in recently, in the village of Chakama (AP Photo)

Mr Ngala said the gunmen took Ms Romano across the Galana River. He said the gunmen looked and spoke like members of a local herding community known as Orma.

Many herding communities in Kenya that live near the border areas are armed to protect themselves against rivals, who may come across the border to steal their livestock.

In one of her latest postings on Twitter, Ms Romano said she was grateful to the kids she was working with for showing her how to live without material things.

These children, these people have taught me to live with no material things but with love, Joy, gratitude, smiles, sincere eyes  and be happy in such simple way. Thank you Kenya, thank you Chakama. This has been the deepest experience of my Life, she said.

Somali-based Islamic extremists have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenyas coast. Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.
The widow of poisoned dissident Alexander Litvinenko has warned that critics of Vladimir Putin in the UK will not feel safe if a Russian candidate becomes the president of Interpol.

Marina Litvinenko warned that Alexander Prokopchuk would not be an independent figure and could instead act in a politically-motivated manner.

The UK and US governments are opposed to Mr Prokopchuk becoming the new president of the international police organisation but he is expected to win widespread support in a vote in Dubai on Wednesday.

"I can't believe this person would be independent"  Marina Litvinenko on the Interpol president nominee, Alexander Prokopchuk, adding that anyone who has sought political asylum in the UK would no longer feel safe#newsnight | @maitlis pic.twitter.com/0FnOXe56az  BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 20, 2018

Mrs Litvinenkos ex-spy husband was killed in 2006 with radioactive polonium-210 in London in an attack blamed on a Russian intelligence operation.

She told BBCs Newsnight that having a Russian as president of Interpol would lead to abuse of the red notice system for arresting people wanted for extradition.

Everybody who is asking for political asylum here in the UK now will not feel safe at all, she said.

Tory MP Bob Seely, an expert in Russian affairs, told the programme: Putting  a general, a senior representative of one of the most criminalised governments on earth in charge of Interpol makes a mockery of the organisation in principle.

It looks dreadful and it is only going to increase the likelihood of Russia to abuse the red notice system still further.

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Mr Prokopchuk, a general who is currently an Interpol vice-president, is reportedly the forerunner of two nominees that the agencys delegates will select from on Wednesday.

Mr Seely criticised the UK Government for failing to take action to stop his candidacy at an earlier stage.

We have been blindsided by this, he said. The Home Office wasnt talking to the Foreign Office.

In the Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Harriett Baldwin said the UK supported the rival candidate, South Koreas Kim Jong Yang.

Russia heading @INTERPOL_HQ would be absurd. Putins regime has corrupted so much already this is like putting Al Capone in charge of the Chicago Police. pic.twitter.com/9y8oau8Uhh  Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) November 20, 2018

Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat told MPs: This is really quite an extraordinary situation: to find ourselves with the possibility of not just a fox in charge of a hen coop, but the assassin in charge of the murder investigation.

US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis also backed the South Korean candidate and said the Russian government abuses Interpols processes to harass its political opponents.

The United States strongly endorses Kim Jong Yang, a South Korean member of the INTERPOL Executive Committee who is serving as Acting President. As recent events show, the Russian government abuses INTERPOLs processes to harass its political opponents. (1/2)  Garrett Marquis (@GMarquis45) November 20, 2018

Interpols charter states its neutrality but its use of red notices has at times been criticised as politically-motivated.

Concerns were also raised when the previous Interpol president, Meng Hongwei, was elected, because he was a senior official in the Chinese government, which has also been accused of misusing the system.

The latest election was sparked after Mr Meng was arrested in China during a purge against allegedly disloyal or corrupt officials.
May says to return to Brussels on Saturday in bid to seal Brexit deal

By Gabriela Baczynska and Elizabeth Piper

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said she would be returning to Brussels on Saturday to hammer out an outline of Britain's future ties with the European Union after her meeting with the head of the bloc's executive on Wednesday failed to bridge the gaps.

May met European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker for about an hour and a half to try to win commitments aimed at helping her appease rebels at home opposed to her draft Brexit treaty.

"There were some remaining issues which we have discussed," May said afterwards. "I will be returning on Saturday for further meetings, including again with President Juncker to discuss how we can ensure that we can conclude this process."

With just over four months before Britain's departure, May is trying to finalise an outline of future relations before a summit of EU leaders on Sunday due to endorse the Brexit accord.

Raising the stakes, EU diplomats said they had been told that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not willing to come on Sunday for any more talks, meaning a text must be ready beforehand.

Spain's prime minister, meanwhile, insisted he would vote against the draft deal unless he wins assurances over the disputed peninsula of Gibraltar.

May said negotiators from both sides would continue working on the text. "I believe we have been able to give sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues," she said.

A spokesman for the European Commission said "very good progress" was made at May's meeting with Juncker: "Work is continuing."

Diplomats in Brussels said EU states' concerns over fishing rights and future trade ties had largely been addressed in the political declaration on the EU-UK future ties that would form a package with the legally binding divorce deal, meaning Spain's concerns were the final issue to be settled.

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"The only thing really outstanding is Gibraltar," said one EU diplomat.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez demanded assurances that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks with Madrid.

"If this is not solved by Sunday, Spain, a pro-European government, will unfortunately have to vote 'No'," he said at an evening news conference in Valladolid with his Portuguese counterpart.

Many in Brussels thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a Dec. 2 local election in the southern Andalusia region. They said the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk.

As an olive branch to Brexit campaigners in Britain, May was seeking to include their proposed technological solutions to keep the border open on the island of Ireland. The EU has previously dismissed these ideas as unrealistic at this stage.

May's finance minister, Philip Hammond, said Britain's parliament needed to back her deal or risk either seriously damaging the economy or jeopardising Brexit altogether.

"A smooth exit from the European Union - doing this in an orderly fashion - is worth tens of billions of pounds to our economy," he told broadcaster ITV.

"If the deal is not approved by parliament, we will have a politically chaotic situation ... In that chaos that would ensue, there may be no Brexit," he added.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The British and European parliaments must ratify the tentative deal to end more than 40 years of partnership before Brexit day on March 29, 2019, or Britain would be set to crash out of the EU with no treaty.

The publication last week of a draft exit treaty sparked the biggest crisis of May's premiership, with two cabinet ministers quitting and dozens of Conservative members of parliament calling on her to step down. They accuse May of making too many concessions to the EU, while others oppose Brexit altogether.

May hopes the blueprint on future relations -- a political document of about 20 pages meant to be agreed side-by-side with the legally binding 600-page exit treaty -- will help win back enough support at home for her approach to pass in parliament.

The Northern Ireland party that props up May's government said it does not plan to withdraw its support yet despite opposition to her withdrawal deal.

"The confidence and supply agreement ... is very much still in existence," Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster told the BBC broadcaster.

Asked when the party might consider pulling the plug on support for May, Foster said: "We're not there yet."

Despite the political turmoil around her, May has shown no sign in public of any doubt that she can bring home a deal.

The draft treaty envisages Britain staying in a customs union with the bloc, which many Brexit supporters see as a compromise too far.

The EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the draft treaty, while also seeking to assuage concerns expressed by some of the remaining 27 member states. While unanimity among the 27 is not legally required to endorse the deal now, the bloc seeks a unified stance.

DEMANDS

Both sides have also been advancing contingency plans for the worst case scenario -- a no-deal Brexit.

Diplomats in Brussels said Britain was also seeking an easy flow of goods after Brexit, a position which was too close to the privileges allowed only for countries that sign up to EU single market rules, including free flow of people and services.

"The UK wants free movement of goods, which they won't get because that's back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we don't do," another diplomat said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britain's fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under its control after Brexit.

Most in the EU are determined to get the deal over the line, with a third EU diplomat saying: "There is plenty of negotiating time left to achieve that."

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Jan Strupczewski, Robin Emmott in Brussels and Ingrid Melander in Madrid, Editing by Richard Balmforth and Hugh Lawson)
By Arshad Mohammed and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has moved to disrupt an Iranian-Russian network that it said had sent millions of barrels of oil to Syria and hundreds of millions of dollars to indirectly fund militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The complicated arrangement, described by the U.S. Treasury in a statement on Tuesday, involved a Syrian citizen allegedly using his Russia-based company to ship Iranian oil to Syria with the aid of a Russian state-owned company.

Syria then helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to Hezbollah, which functions as a political party that is part of the Lebanese government and as a militia, as well as to Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. Treasury Department alleged that since 2014, vessels carrying Iranian oil have switched off transponders to conceal deliveries to Syria.

The Treasury, the State Department and the U.S. Coast Guard have issued an advisory to the maritime community about the sanctions risks of shipping oil to Syria's government.

Russia will continue supplying oil to Syria in line with its agreement with Damascus despite pressure from the United States, RIA news agency quoted Oleg Morozov, a member of the Russian Federation Council, as saying late on Tuesday.

"The political defeat in Syria apparently prompts the United States to return to the idea of regime change in Damascus. Therefore, economic pressure through oil supply shutdown becomes a tool of the new economic war with (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad and indirectly with Moscow and Iran," he said.

Morozov said Russia acts and will act "absolutely legally".

"We have an agreement with Syria and therefore it's up to us to decide what we supply and to whom. This will be our answer, (it is) much more effective than counter-sanctions," he added.

The Russian Energy Ministry declined immediate comment.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman called the sanctions "fruitless, illogical and inefficient".

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Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA on Wednesday: "Those who designed and implemented these sanctions will understand sooner or later that they will not achieve their goals."

The alleged arrangement shows how Russia has sought to undercut U.S. policy toward Syria, where Washington and Moscow back opposite sides of a civil war that began in 2011, as well as toward Iran, which the United States wants to curb its nuclear and missile programs and support for militant proxies.

"Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity," U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement announcing sanctions on those it said were tied to the network.

"Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system," he added.

TARGETS

Richard Nephew, a sanctions expert at Columbia University, said: "The arrangement exposes Russia's efforts to support Assad for their own interests, which has the function of thwarting the U.S. desire to no longer have Assad in power."

Those targeted include Syrian Mohammad Amer Alchwiki and his Russia-based company Global Vision Group, which were central to the delivery of Iranian oil to Syria and the transfer of funds to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force's "lethal proxies", the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Other targets include Syrian national Hajji Abd Al-Nasir, Lebanese national Muhammad Qasim Al-Bazzal and Russian national Andrey Dogaev, as well as Iranian nationals Rasoul Sajjad and Hossein Yaghoubi Miab, the statement said.

Sajjad and Yaghoubi, Central Bank of Iran officials, worked to facilitate Alchwiki's transfers, it said.

Others sanctioned include state-owned Russian company Promsyrioimport, a subsidiary of the Russian Energy Ministry, which the U.S. Treasury alleges had facilitated shipments of Iranian oil to Syria, as well as Mir Business Bank and Iran-based Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company.

The Treasury's "designation" of the individuals and entities effectively cuts them off from the global financial system by blocking any of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and in effect warning non-U.S. institutions against dealing with them.

The United States is at odds with Britain, France and Germany as well as with Russia and China over U.S. President Donald Trump's May 8 decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, negotiated with the other world powers during Democratic President Barack Obama's administration.

That agreement removed many U.S. and other economic sanctions from Iran in return for Tehran's commitment to curtail its nuclear program.

Trump restored U.S. sanctions on Nov. 5 and has threatened more action to stop its "outlaw" policies.

Iran, in turn, called Trump's actions economic warfare and vowed to defy the sanctions. European powers that continue to back the nuclear deal said they opposed the reapplication of sanctions.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert and Mohammad Zargham and Polina Devitt, Oksana Kobzeva and Olesya Astakhova in Moscow, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, James Dalgleish, Louise Heavens and Dale Hudson)
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - An independent Romanian watchdog objected on Monday to a government attempt to sack prosecutor general Augustin Lazar, the last major figure in an anti-corruption drive still in office.

Members of the CSM judicial watchdog's prosecutors' section voted 5-1 to reject an application by Justice Minister Tudorel Toader to dismiss Lazar, the body said on its website.

CSM did not immediately give reasons for its opinion but while influential, it is only advisory and the final decision rests with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

Toader demanded Lazar's dismissal last month, accusing him of exceeding his authority in a move seen as heightening concerns in Brussels about democratic values in some of the European Union's eastern member states.

The anti-corruption drive won the European Commission's praise for exposing high-level crime in one of the bloc's most graft-prone members.

However, another prominent member, chief anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi, was sacked in August in a similar procedure. In its annual monitoring report on Romania last week, the Commision asked the Social Democrat government to freeze all attempts to sack or replace chief prosecutors.

Lazar, who has condemned the Social Democrats' attempt to oust him, oversees thousands of prosecutors, including the anti-organized crime unit DIICOT and anti-corruption unit DNA.

Prosecutors have investigated lawmakers, ministers, mayors, magistrates and businessmen in recent years, exposing conflicts of interest, abuse of power, fraud and the award of state contracts in exchange for bribes.

Iohannis, a centrist, has said he supports Lazar but the president is able to assess only the legality of the procedure when making a ruling in the case.

Transparency International ranks Romania as one of the EU's most corrupt states and Brussels has kept its justice system under special monitoring since it joined the bloc in 2007.

Story continues

(Reporting by Radu Marinas; editing by David Stamp)

See Also:
Unibet Open Dublin is Only One Week Away

November 21 2018 Matthew Pitt

Unibet Open returns to the Emerald Isle next week, after a seven-year hiatus, for the six-day Unibet Open Dublin festival.

The last time Unibet Open Dublin took place a field of 260 players turned out for the 1,650 buy-in Main Event, creating a 390,000 prize pool as they did so. British star Paul Vas Nunes was the last player standing in the Dublin Main Event and got his hands on 105,300 after defeating Denmarks Emil Pedersen heads-up for the title.

This latest edition of Unibet Open Dublin may have a lower buy-in of 1,100 yet it could still produce a similar sized prize pool as the tour has been going from strength-to-strength of late.

There are some excellent side events scheduled before and after the 1,100 Unibet Open Main Event. These side events have a wide variety of buy-ins, meaning there is likely to be a tournament for everyone regardless of the size of their bankroll.

One of the eagerly anticipated side events is the two-day 2,200 buy-in High Roller. Some of the best players from Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond will battle it out for a chunky top prize. Those of you who dont want to part with 2,200 can try and win your seat via the 330 buy-in satellites.

2018 Unibet Open Dublin Schedule

Date Time Tournament Tue 20 Nov 7:30 p.m. 165 Satellite to Main Event Wed 21 Nov 12:00 p.m. No Limit Holdem Tag Team Invitational 2:00 p.m. 330 No Limit Holdem DSO Cup 5:00 p.m. 330 Satellite to High Roller 6:00 p.m. Unibet eSports Battle Royale 7:30 p.m. 165 Satellite to Main Event 8:00 p.m. 2,200 No Limit Holdem High Roller Thu 22 Nov 12:00 p.m. 1,100 No Limit Holdem Main Event Day 1A 12:00 p.m. 2,200 High Roller Final Day 1:00 p.m. 330 DSO Cup Final Day 4:00 p.m. 220 No Limit Holdem Freezeout 8:00 p.m. 165 Satellite to Main Event Fri 23 Nov 12:00 p.m. 1,100 No Limit Holdem Main Event Day 1B 4:00 p.m. 165 Satellite to Main Event 8:00 p.m. 50 No Limit Holdem Flipout 9:00 p.m. 1,100 No Limit Holdem Main Event Day 1C 10:00 p.m. 165 No Limit Holdem Hyper Turbo Sat 24 Nov 12:00 p.m. 1,100 No Limit Holdem Main Event Day 2 1:00 p.m. 165 Pot Limit Omaha 1:00 p.m. 90 No Limit Holdem Queens Rules Ladies Event 3:00 p.m. 330 No Limit Holdem SuperStack 6:00 p.m. Unibet Community Freeroll 8:00 p.m. 110 Irish Poker Sun 25 Nov 12:00 p.m. 1,100 No Limit Holdem Main Event Final Day 12:00 p.m. 330 No Limit Holdem SuperStack Final Day 4:00 p.m. 110 No Limit Holdem Hyper Turbo

Unibet Open Dublin will be a special event for three of Unibet Pokers ambassadors. Both David Lappin and Dara OKearney are proud Irishmen and would love to win a major live title on home soil. Ian Simpson has fond memories of Dublin having won the 2013 Irish Open for 265,000 there before proposing to his girlfriend in the aftermath of his victory.

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The bonus releases into your account balance when you hit the rake milestones below, and you have 60-days from the date you activate your account in order to release as much bonus as you possibly can.

Level Rake Required Cash reward 1 2 1 2 10 4 3 50 15 4 150 40 5 550 140 6 1,638 400
[November 20, 2018]

Vonage to Present at the 46th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

HOLMDEL, N.J., Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG), a business cloud communications leader, today announced that management is scheduled to present at the 46th Annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York. The presentation will begin at 10:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday, December 4, 2018.

A live webcast of the event will be available on Vonage's Investor Relations website. A replay will be available shortly after the live webcast.

About Vonage

Vonage (NYSE:VG) is redefining business communications. True to our roots as a tehnology disruptor, we've embraced technology to transform how companies communicate to create better business outcomes. Our unique cloud communications platform brings together a robust unified communications solution with the agility of embedded communications APIs. This powerful combination enables businesses to collaborate more productively and engage their customers more effectively across messaging, chat, social media, video and voice.







The Company also provides a robust suite of feature-rich residential communication solutions.

Vonage Holdings Corp. is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey, with offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Israel. Vonage is a registered trademark of Vonage Marketing LLC, owned by Vonage America Inc. For more information, visit www.vonage.com.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vonage-to-present-at-the-46th-annual-ubs-global-media-and-communications-conference-300753927.html

SOURCE Vonage
Almarosa Tenorio, 52, was allegedly strangled by her male partner aboard the Royal Princess ship during a Caribbean getaway. The man, described by the Daily Mail (UK) as muscular, was reportedly hauled off the luxury vessel by investigators in Aruba on November 13.

The couple was on a round-trip cruise that was destined to Travel around the Caribbean after leaving Florida only days earlier on November 9. News about the woman's death is still unfolding. There are conflicting reports about whether the man removed from the ship was actually married to Tenorio and whether he is suspected of foul play.

Tragedy dubbed an 'incident'

According to news reports, including the Sun-Sentinel, the ship left from Fort Lauderdale. The incident, as some media agencies have dubbed the womans death, was reported the FBI, as well as to authorities in Aruba, according to KTLA. The FBI is actively investigating the womans death.

Altercation started in ships casino

According to the Daily Mail, the man and woman reportedly started fighting at roughly 10:30 PM while in the casino located on the Lido deck, which is the 16th floor. The couples altercation allegedly led to the man choking the woman to death and tossing her over the balcony. Her leg was reportedly torn off.

American man arrested in Aruba after 'choking woman and throwing her off top deck of Royal Princess' during Caribbean vacation https://t.co/m8H4S3H2wL  Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) November 15, 2018

She plummeted to a lifeboat on deck 7 at approximately 4:00 AM, the Daily Mail relayed.

During the early stages after news broke that an incident happened on the Royal Princess, CBS News reported that the police in Aruba relayed on Facebook that the womans death was probably not a natural death. Tenorio, of Spanish Fort, Alabama, was identified. WFLA reported on November 19 that Tenorios family verified that she died aboard the cruise vessel.

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The 52-year-old American woman who plunged to her death last week from an upper deck of a Princess Cruises ship has been identified as Almarosa Tenorio of Alabama https://t.co/qY9aynGbwZ pic.twitter.com/B1s7SCS0wK  Hamilton Spectator (@TheSpec) November 20, 2018

Princess Cruises, which is headquartered in Santa Clarita, California, released a statement that the company is deeply saddened by the incident, plus extended condolences to the womans family and those affected.

Mom who died on Princess cruise to Aruba was nervous about trip, children say https://t.co/plaLDZGHlw pic.twitter.com/8Zx8rnizFy  WPTV (@WPTV) November 20, 2018

Passenger posted cryptic message to cruise community website

A passenger also aboard the luxury ship was initially puzzled, the Miami Herald reported.

As a result of the confusion, a reportedly cryptic post was shared on a cruise community website. The passenger noted, Last night something serious happened on Royal Princess. The message further indicated that there was an announcement at 4:30 AM that was broadcast directly into the cabins. The ships security personnel was summoned to deck 7, which is where the womans body landed, according to the post and the Herald.

Ships guests horrified by gruesome scene

One passenger on the cruise told the Daily Mail that blood and broken glass were visible inside the lifeboat from the vantage point of the passengers cabin. Another person stated that 10 police officers boarded the ship, announcing that there was a criminal investigation underway and that passengers would need to be given clearance.

Authorities are trying to determine whether a woman found dead during a Caribbean cruise met with foul play. https://t.co/M93lYWfXFR  HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 15, 2018

Also in recent news, police in London have suggested a security check-list for busy stores during the holiday season to better ensure shoppers' safety. The 60-second list is for a more expedient response in light of past terrorist attacks. Too, a volcano erupted in Guatemala, with authorities compelling residents to evacuate to safety. Be sure to follow Blasting News for updates and for the latest information.
Amazon recently announced that it would be splitting up its new headquarters between the states of New York and Virginia, despite the fact that D.C. government officials lobbied the company with more than $1 billion in offered incentives to base the new investment in the nations capital.

The culmination of a political battle over access to public records has revealed that D.C. was willing to pony up more than $1 billion for the alluring new corporate headquarters, and even offered flash permits in an effort to secure the deal.

In what was almost certainly the largest sum ever offered to a private company in an effort to win local jobs, D.C.

was willing to provide the equivalent of some $1.053 billion through discounted property and taxes to Amazon. The lofty figure still fell short of the colossal sums offered to Amazon by other localities vying for the headline-grabbing investment, however.

Bids from many cities

The state of Maryland was prepared to offer nearly $9 billion to Amazon in an effort to secure the new headquarters, for instance. According to the Baltimore Sun, billions in infrastructure agreements still wasnt enough to lure in Jeff Bezos mammoth internet empire, which is rapidly becoming one of the most well-recognized companies in the world.

The citys broad incentive package to lure in Amazon workers included a tax credit for every new employee that Amazon would have hired.

Not all of the information behind the deal is yet publicly available, and now that Amazon has decided to opt elsewhere D.C.s true lobbying efforts may never be fully understood.

Four locations shortlisted

The vast majority of those bidding for Amazons new headquarters did so discreetly and privately, as reporting from WAMU notes, in an effort to remain competitive.

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The citys effort to lure in Amazon was eventually branded SEO Washington, with more than four proposed locations having been offered to Amazon for its additional headquarters.

The tax incentives Amazon would have enjoyed in D.C. would have been spread out over the course of the next two decades, with the company potential reaping up to $1.053 billion through 2034.

Amazons ultimate decision to split its new headquarters between Virginia and New York was predominately driven by the desire to have access to a well-educated workforce and the geographic proximity to political power that those two cities enjoy, claims the editorial board of USA Today.
The carcass of a dead sperm whale washed ashore on a beach in Indonesia. It was a massive animal nearly 31-foot in length and there were plastic products in its stomach. These included hundreds of plastics, and most were of one-time use and throw-away types. Wakatobi National Park chief Heri Santoso has said that the carcass was in a rotting condition.

Daily Mail UK reports that in the opinion of a marine expert at WWF Indonesia, it will be difficult to establish what caused the death of the sperm whale but the plastic waste in its body is significant.

Agencies all over the world are trying to raise awareness about the evils of Plastic Pollution, especially related to marine animals. It is possible that the massive animal died due to ingesting 13lbs of plastic products.

Dead sperm whale found in Indonesia had ingested '6kg of plastic'. Items found included 115 drinking cups, 4 plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags & 2 flip-flops. https://t.co/7CVTiL4ujQ @BBCNews #plasticpollution #litter #marinelitter pic.twitter.com/GwKl7VVKD4  Animal Watch (@Animal_Watch) November 20, 2018

Indonesia wants to reduce the use of plastics

Indonesia is believed to be the second-largest plastic polluter in the world after China. A study published in the journal Science, in January reveals this.

The country produces millions of tons of plastic waste a year, and a large portion of it finds its way into the ocean. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, a minister of Indonesia, says the discovery of the dead sperm whale should act as an eye-opener. People must curtail the use of plastic and the government must introduce suitable measures to protect the ocean.

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He had recently campaigned for the cause and describes plastic as a common enemy.

The government of Indonesia is trying out different methods to uproot this evil. One of these is to urge shops to do away with the practice of providing plastic bags for customers. The message has also gone to the schools and they will make all-out efforts to reduce the use of plastic by 70 percent by 2025.

Environmentalists are worried

According to the BBC, the discovery of the dead sperm whale on a beach in Indonesia has raised concerns among environmentalists. It is difficult to establish whether the plastic waste in its stomach had any role to play. WWF Indonesia has given a breakdown of the items and most are what we use every day and fall in the category of throwaway or single-use plastic.

This is a problem in many countries and the incident of the sperm whale in Indonesia is not a stray case. There are innumerable instances of marine life getting entangled in plastics and dying. A pilot whale died in Thailand in June last after ingesting 80 plastic bags. In Spain, a sperm whale died after ingesting plastic.

Removal of the waste from the oceans is a herculean task and deserves treatment on a priority basis by the whole world. The UN has indicated that an average of 10m tonnes of plastic waste accumulates in the oceans every year.
Brazilian architects Aleph Zero and Rosenbaum's Children Village, a new school complex on the edge of the rainforest in northern Brazil, has been awarded the 2018 RIBA International Prize.

Crowned as the world's best new building, the project was praised for "creating the idea of architecture as a tool for social transformation", by the international jury panel chaired by renowned architect Elizabeth Diller of DS+R.

Regarding to the aesthetic of the building, the jury also praised the building for "combining a contemporary aesthetic with traditional techniques" and "reinventing Brazilian vernacular."

Image  Leonardo Finotti

"We are thrilled to have been awarded the RIBA International Prize 2018. It has been a joy to see the children making the building their own and adapting the space to fit their needs. Kids will make their own play and have imagination to burn," said Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes, directors of Aleph Zero.

"We wanted to be prescriptive without being overbearing, to be supportive without being patronising, and to encourage growth and development without cosseting it."

Image  Leonardo Finotti

"We are deeply honoured to have been offered the RIBA International Prize. This award strengthens our understanding of architecture as a tool for social transformation, a tool that transcends construction and creates a deep connection between young people and their ancestors and knowledge," said Marcelo Rosenbaum and Adriana Benguela, directors of Rosenbaum.

"The space facilitates the interaction between public and private, and socialising between the collective, nature and the individual, reconnecting children and young people to their origins and with their surrounding ecosystem."

Image  Leonardo Finotti

The RIBA International Prize 2018 is awarded every two years to a building that exemplifies design excellence and architectural ambition, and delivers meaningful social impact. The prize is one of the worlds most rigorously judged architecture awards, with every longlisted building visited by a group of international experts.

Image  Leonardo Finotti

The RIBA International Prize 2018 jury was comprised of architects Elizabeth Diller (DS+R), Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA), Joshua Bolchover (Rural Urban Framework), Gloria Cabral (Gabinete de Arquitectura) and Peter Clegg (Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio).

Image  Leonardo Finotti

Children Village provides accommodation for 540 children aged 13 to 18 attending the Canuana School. Pupils come from remote areas of the country, some travelling many hours by boat. Funded by the Bradesco Foundation, Children Village is one of forty schools run by the foundation providing education for children in rural communities across Brazil.

The architects, Gustavo Utrabo and Petro Duschenes from Aleph Zero, designed Children Village in collaboration with Marcelo Rosenbaum and Adriana Benguela from architecture and design studio, Rosenbaum.

Image  Leonardo Finotti

"In the design process, the architects worked closely with the children to identity their needs and desires for their school. They wanted to create an environment that could be a home away from home, where children could develop a strong sense of both individuality and belonging," stated RIBA.

Image  Cristobal Palma / Estudio Palma

The architects replaced dormitories for 40 students with the new rooms for six children in a more intimate environment. As well as private spaces, public spaces were designed to give ample space for pupils to study, play and relax.

Covering a 25,000-square-metre area, Children Village is organised into two identical complexes: one for girls and one for boys. Residences are centered around three large, open and well-shaded courtyards at ground level, where the dormitory accommodation is located.

Image  Cristobal Palma / Estudio Palma

On the first floor, the building includes a number of flexible communal spaces, ranging from reading spaces and television rooms, to balconies and hammocks, where the children can relax and play.

"The tropical climate, with summertime temperature in the mid-40 degrees, was one of the major challenges cleverly addressed by the architects. The large canopy roof, the structure of which is made up of cross-laminated timber beams and columns, provides shading," added RIBA.

"The overhanging canopy design has created an intermediary space, between inside and out, giving the effect of a large veranda overlooking the surrounding landscape and creating a comfortable environment with no need for air conditioning."

Image  Cristobal Palma / Estudio Palma

The building was constructed with local resources and based on local techniques. The architects used handmade earth blocks on site to construct the walls and latticework, choice for their thermal, technical and aesthetic properties.

As well as being cost effective and environmentally sustainable, this approach created a building with strong connections to its surroundings and with the community that it serves.

Image  Cristobal Palma / Estudio Palma

"I am delighted that Aleph Zero and Rosenbaum have been recognised for their impressive work. Aleph Zero are philosophical and thoughtful architects and Rosenbaum is known for their work with local communities. Children Village provides an exceptional environment designed to improve the lives and wellbeing of the schools children, and illustrates the immeasurable value of good educational design," said RIBA President Ben Derbyshire.

In 2016, the inaugural RIBA International Prize was awarded to Grafton Architects for their outstanding university building, UTEC in Lima, Peru.

Children Village was selected as the winner of the 2018 RIBA International Prize from the outstanding shortlisted entries, including Central European University (Phase 1), Budapest, by ODonnell + Tuomey, Toho Gakuen School of Music, Tokyo, by Nikken Sekkei and Il Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest), Milan, by Boeri Studio.

Top image  Leonardo Finotti

> via RIBA
Heidi Ledford in Nature:

The stunning failure of a once-promising cancer drug has got some researchers arguing that the field has moved too fast in its embrace of therapies that unleash the immune system. The drug, epacadostat, blocks a protein called IDO that hobbles immune cells if left unchecked. Early trials suggested that the drug could be a powerful weapon against some advanced cancers when paired with existing therapies that bolster the bodys immune response to tumours. But a large, controlled study of epacadostat was halted in April after the drug failed to show benefits. Now, a researcher who helped to conduct some of the first trials of the drug says that it was pushed into large clinical studies too soon  and that the same could be true of other cancer immunotherapies in development. People ask me right now, What are you excited about? says Jason Luke, an oncologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois who aired his concerns last week at a meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer in Washington DC. And I say, Unfortunately, little to nothing, because almost none of this is done properly.

Early data from small trials of epacadostat, which is made by Incyte of Wilmington, Delaware, excited researchers. Luke recalls one trial participant with advanced cancer who was so weak that it was difficult for him to travel to the clinic. From the first dose, the man showed improvement. But Luke now attributes those gains to the treatment given alongside epacadostat in the trial: an approved immunotherapy called pembrolizumab, made by Merck of Kenilworth, New Jersey.

After Incyte and Merck reported in April that a larger trial of epacadostat and pembrolizumab had failed, other companies announced that they were halting their own programmes to develop cancer drugs that block the IDO protein. The field has completely evaporated, says Luke, who notes that more than 1,000 participants were once enrolled across various studies of IDO-inhibiting drugs. This failure should be a wake-up call for other cancer researchers, says Felipe Campesato, a cancer immunologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. We can take that challenge as an opportunity for improvement, and maybe a turning point in the field.

More here.
Hardeep Singh in Quillette:

Among the string of resignations triggered by the draft Brexit agreement with the European Union (EU), one stood out. In a double whammy for an embattled Prime Minister, Rehman Chishti the MP for Gillingham and Rainham resigned as both Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party as well as the PMs Trade Envoy to Pakistan. Aside from citing Theresa Mays shambolic handling of Brexit negotiations, Chishti said the British governments failure to give Asia Bibi asylum had been a motivating factor in his decision.

Bibis case is a cause celebre. She is a Christian who had been languishing on death row for nine years in Pakistan for blasphemy charges. To Christians worldwide, Bibi is a symbol of fortitude, faith, and unflinching commitment. After all, a conversion to Islam would have exonerated her, but she refused to recant her faith. She was imprisoned after fetching drinking water for fellow berry pickers on a Punjab farm in Pakistan in 2009. Her Muslim co-workers accused her of contaminating the water, because she was Christian. Following a verbal dispute, a complaint was lodged with a local Imam, alleging that Bibi had blasphemed against the Propheta capital offense under sections 295B/295C of the Pakistan Penal Code, introduced under the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her of the charges and said the accusations levelled against her were concoction incarnate.

Regardless of the Supreme Court decision, Muslim extremists believe Bibi must still be executed. They staged mass protests in major cities like Islamabad and Karachi threatening to kill the judges who acquitted her.

More here.
One of our favorite restaurants has a new location, just in time for the holidays.

Seekers of the best burgers in San Francisco are already regulars at Marlowe, the classy-slash-approachable SoMa mainstay from restaurateur-about-town Anna Weinberg and chef Jennifer Puccio. Now, the team is answering our secret prayers with a more weekend-friendly sophomore outpost in Cow Hollow. Cheekily dubbed Cow Marlowe, the restaurant takes over the old location of Eastside West, in a part of town typically packed with rowdy 20-somethings, and feels poised to change the identity of the neighborhood.

Warm hues and leather banquettes make Cow Marlowe a low-key-sexy spot for date night. (Sarah Chorey)

With yet another powerfully elegant design from Ken Fulk's team, the interior here, by senior designer Tiffany Krame, plays on contrasts: dark and light, bold and soft, and always with a bit of humor. You'll find plush leather booths that invite you to sink in and martini up; geometric white tiled walls; countertops made of sodalite, a rare blue stone; and some choice bovine art. All in all, it's a place we can easily relax into for a leisurely night of wining and dining.



Puccio and pastry chef Emily Luchetti have devised a slight variation on the restaurant's well-loved menu, with a mashup of the old favorites (deviled eggs, Brussels sprout chips, and of course that famous burger) alongside a smattering of new bites that feel winter-readythink poutine with braised beef short ribs, cracklings, aioli, and parmesan cheese; and grilled furikake green beans with smoked egg yolk, caviar, and truffle aioli. Rich? Hell yes.

Perhaps the biggest change at Marlowe 2.0 is the super-focus on cocktails. Mike Anders, of both Marianne's and Leo's Oyster Bar, has pulled out all his tricks for three sections of drinks: Marlowe classics, Cow Marlowe house cocktails, and Marina Girls & Boys, featuring the brilliantly named Lululemon Drop and a Brad & Chad.

We think this neighborhood could definitely go for a drink or two.

(Sarah Chorey) A Marlowe classic: the warm deviled egg topped with aged provolone, a slice of pickled jalapeno, and bacon.

// Cow Marlowe, 3154 Fillmore St. (Cow Hollow), marlowesf.com
Just in time for the gift-giving season, the world's comfiest sneakers have arrived in on-trend high-top form.

Plus, the San Francisco Ballet teams with Athleta for a pretty new capsule collection, Parachute Home opens on Hayes Street, and Juice Beauty pops up on Black Friday. Have a stylish week!

Allbirds continues to soar with another brand-new style. Can you say high-top? All hail the Tree Topper. The first high-top sneaker from the Jackson Square biz is poised to woo a fleet of new feetthose seeking sustainable comfort and ankle coverage. Allbirds fifth style is groundbreaking in another respect, too: It's the first to feature all three of the brand's natural materials: Tree fabric (eucalyptus tree fiber), a touch of superfine merino wool from New Zealand, and SweatFoam soles (powered by Brazilian sugarcane). Available for men and women, they retail for $115, and come in charcoal and kauri jo, as well as two limited-edition hues, fiddle leaf and zin. Sounds like our kind of bird. // 57 Hotaling Pl. (Jackson Square), allbirds.com

Because you need a killer pair of jeans to wear with the greatest hoodie ever made American Giant just launched its first pair of women's jeans: the 218 Skinny, a classic silhouette in a dark wash (tres flattering), available in sizes 25 to 33. The SF brand spent much time getting the fabric just right, eventually landing on a light-as-a-feather, tough-as-nails cotton blend with plenty of stretch. As for the fit? American Giant focused on the "hook," a.k.a. the backsidemaking sure ladies' derrieres look good from every angle. (Check out a pair and let us know what your booty thinks.) The L.A.-made denim retails for $148. // Available online and at the flagship store, 165 Natoma St. (FiDi), american-giant.com.

Why things just got a whole lot cozier in Hayes Valley? Parachute. (Courtesy of Parachute) A few days ago, the latest wunderkind in the no-fuss, luxe bedding world opened a gorgeous boutique on Hayes Street. Parachute's presence is comforting for plenty of reasonsmainly, you can get your paws on the super-soft sheets in the real world. ICYMI, the e-darling makes minimalist (reasonably priced) bedding by top craftspeople around the globe. It's also lauded for dreamy towels and other bath essentials, kitchen and tabletop items, candles, baby stuff, and more. Kudos to the Venice Beach brand for incorporating such SF locals as Heath Ceramics and artist Ethan Caflisch into the store design. We're also grateful Parachute decided to keep the back door entrance into the Clare V. store on Linden St.guess it's officially time to get over the Steven Alan closing. // 445 Hayes St. (Hayes Valley), parachutehome.com

Start Black Friday with a Juice Beauty fix at Hotel Zetta. There's nothing like a good pop-up to get you out of your turkey-stuffing-and-pie coma, we always say. Precisely why you'll find us in the lobby of SF's Hotel Zetta on Friday, November 23rd when a month-long pop-up from Juice Beauty debuts. You'll find an array of the Marin company's organic, plant-based skincare and makeup including plenty of gift-y things. We'll be making a beeline for the Colors of California Liquid Lip Set, which stars vibrant shades with celeb-y names including Gwyneth, Cameron, Drew, Blythe, and Cameron. Makeup and skincare consultations, and a special gift with purchase, are also part of the fun. // Noon to 8pm Wednesday through Sunday, through Dec. 21; 55 5th St. (SoMa) ), hotelzetta.com




By Lee Kyung-min







The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) said Wednesday it donated 240 million won ($212,000) to the Korea Central Council of Social Enterprise (KCCSE).







Of the total, half, or 120 million won, will be provided for six social enterprises as facilities or operating funds.







The remaining half will be used to pay salaries and training costs for 20 underprivileged people including North Korean defectors and marriage migrants.







The six firms were chosen after the council, a nonprofit advocacy group for corporate social responsibility, conducted an on-site inspection earlier this year between August and September.







Of the three firms located in Seoul, two are in Eunpyeong-gu, northwestern Seoul, and the other is in Seongbuk-gu, northeastern Seoul. The three others are in Ulsan, Bucheon in Gyeonggi Province and Yeosu in South Jeolla Province.







Three firms were granted financial support for hiring people with multicultural backgrounds, and the remaining three in Seoul for fair trade practices.







The bank said it will continue to play an exemplary role in full awareness of its responsibility as a state enterprise.







"We will continue to expand the program to help social minorities to stand on their own feet," the bank said in a statement.







"Multiculturalism is a growing part of Korean society. We hope our program will encourage them to have a positive attitude toward Korea and to better integrate as members of society."







The donation is the latest activity in the group's social responsibility initiative following overseas infrastructure construction in Cambodia as well as a student exchange program with Asian University for Women in Bangladesh.


DemKota's new Army partnership to help military personnel find jobs

The partnership was made official at a signing ceremony on Nov. 10.
SANTA FE  The state Board of Finance narrowly agreed this week to loosen some of the restrictions it imposed on a developer that requested creation of a new tax district on Albuquerques West Side.

The approval came even after the boards attorney expressed concern about the changes and called the request problematic.

Two top legislators  Rep. Patricia Lundstrom and Sen. John Arthur Smith, both Democrats  also objected to amending the deal, arguing that the changes required more analysis.

At issue is creation of a tax district that would allow about $51 million in future tax revenue to be diverted and used to reimburse Western Albuquerque Land Holdings, which would front the cost of roadway improvements around Interstate 40, near 98th and 118th streets.

Earlier this summer, the Board of Finance authorized the tax district, but with a series of conditions before the developer could be reimbursed, including construction of a $250 million medical center by Presbyterian.

The board on Tuesday voted 3-2 to reduce the required medical investment to $100 million. The board also loosened the criteria for what kinds of costs can count toward the $100 million.

Representatives for Western Albuquerque Land Holdings said they expect the medical center to be built in phases. The company, they said, shouldnt have to wait until the construction hits $250 million before reimbursement is allowed, and the deal wouldnt go forward without the reduction, they said.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services, meanwhile, told the Board of Finance that it doesnt plan to invest $250 million, but that $100 million is a reasonable expectation. Presbyterian, in a letter, gave no indication that it expects phases beyond that.

Albuquerque City Council President Ken Sanchez, who spoke in support of the request, said the city had based its own tax incentives for the project on the $100 million level. The tax district, he said, is essential for bringing much-needed jobs and medical services to neighborhoods west of the Rio Grande.

Albuquerques West Side is in dire need of medical facilities, he said.

But Assistant Attorney General Sally Malave, who serves as the boards legal counsel, questioned the changes. She told board members that the state economists who examined the deal had based their analysis on the developers projection that a $300 million medical center would be built.

And even at that level, she said, the economists had recommended rejecting the deal.

Malave said the board was approaching the limits of its legal discretion by disregarding the economic analysis provided by state economists and relying on the assertions by the applicant.

Youre just taking things at their word, she said, and I think its problematic.

The majority of the board wasnt convinced. Gov. Susana Martinez, a former prosecutor, suggested Malaves point went to the merits of a decision the board itself had to make, rather than representing legal advice.

And Martinez said the board routinely takes action after weighing materials submitted by applicants.

She joined board members Robert Aragon and Michael Brasher in favor.

Voting no were board members John Kormanik and Adelmo Del Archuleta.
In a crowded sentencing hearing Tuesday, friends and family lamented the loss of a 24-year-old Army veteran who made it through a deployment to Afghanistan only to be shot to death in his hometown.

Tyler Lackey was killed in February 2016 after an attempted robbery at an ATM on Gibson Boulevard in southeast Albuquerque, and last month, jurors convicted Matthew Chavez, 28, in his death. State District Judge Cristina Jaramillo sentenced Chavez to the maximum 23 years in prison for second-degree murder and lesser charges, which he must serve after he completes his sentence in an unrelated robbery case.

Prosecutors said at trial that Lackey was withdrawing cash to cover a tip at a nearby restaurant when Chavez, who had a bandanna tied over his face, approached him. Lackey, who had a concealed-carry permit, drew his gun and pointed it at Chavez, who retreated to the stolen Pontiac in which hed arrived.

Witnesses described hearing multiple gunshots, and Lackey was shot repeatedly as the Pontiac fled. Chavezs attorneys contended Lackey was the first to fire.

Prosecutor David Waymire said Tuesday that after Chavez left Albuquerque, he went on to rob businesses in Texas and Oklahoma before being arrested at a casino.

The defendant had killed Mr. Lackey in this case, and instead of just being in shock, in remorse, even if he would flee, I kind of understand that, Waymire said. But to flee and then commit at least 13 additional robberies where other people could have gotten hurt  to me is very frightening and shocking behavior.

Chavezs attorney said that the defense would not make a presentation during the hearing in order to avoid interfering with a possible appeal.

Lackey had plans to become a nurse and had stepped in to help raise his young sister after their grandmother fell ill and was no longer able to, his mother, Liz Frank, said. She said the sentence didnt bring her a sense of justice, but she felt it protected others.

The rest of the community doesnt need to go through this. Its horrible, she said. There are no words for what its like to take flowers to your sons grave instead of watching him deep fry a turkey on Thanksgiving.

A longtime neighbor told the court that she and Lackey had sparked a friendship over chess games. Theyd stayed close even as she went to college out of state and he joined the Army.

When he exited the military and came home, I was living here too, she said. I was so relieved to have him home and safe and with us again. I never imagined that I should have been more afraid of him being here.
scholarship, news and new ideas in legal history
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

A vice president from the Chinese manufacturer of the 60-foot, all-electric buses rejected by the city for the sidelined Albuquerque Rapid Transit project has told an Indianapolis television station that ABQ Ride bus drivers were to blame for reported braking problems.

During an on-air interview with WRTV, the ABC-affiliated television station in Indianapolis, Build Your Dreams America Vice President Michael Austin said the buses were inspected three times before they were sent to Albuquerque, and the technology is safe.

We have 36,000 buses deployed, Austin said. We have not seen those issues. We know what the issues are, and they were more driver errors misreported to the media as safety issues.

Build Your Dreams is the worlds largest electric bus manufacturer, but had only started to build the longer 60-foot buses in recent years.

IndyGo, which manages and operates the Indiana capital citys public bus transit system, has purchased 13 60-foot electric buses from BYD in an effort to replace its mass-transit systems older diesel fleet. The city of Indianapolis contracted to pay more than $1.2 million each for the buses that will run along a 14-mile route, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The first bus was delivered to IndyGo in September.

IndyGo officials told WRTV they are looking into all of the issues that ABQ Ride has experienced while they test out the bus themselves.

However, IndyGo also told the television station it is not seeing the same problems on the test bus, in part because the bus now uses different battery technology.

According to BYD, the ART buses use iron-phosphate batteries that are fire-safe, nontoxic and environmentally friendly. The IndyGo buses will use liquid-cooled batteries, according to Indianapolis Business Journal.

Albuquerque officials have said the battery life is much shorter than promised, and that the batteries overheat and can be in danger of exploding

Austin, who was in Indianapolis on Monday to take the media on a test ride of the bus, told WRTV a lack of driver training was part of ABQ Rides problems.

Albuquerque city officials are standing by their previous comments on the buses.

Weve laid out the facts since the beginning, and these buses are not safe for the road, said Alicia Manzano, spokeswoman for Mayor Tim Kellers office, in an email.  We refuse to jeopardize the safety of our residents and want BYD to hold up their end of the deal.

The company is still waiting for final federal government testing and approval for the 60-foot buses, manufactured at its North American subsidiary in Lancaster, Calif.

Under terms of the contract with BYD, Albuquerque has yet to pay any money to BYD. Last month, Keller said that due to numerous problems with the buses, the city was ready to send the buses back and look for other options.

Problems elsewhere

Problems with BYD buses are not isolated to Albuquerque.

According to a Los Angeles Times story published in May, the first five buses BYD sent to Los Angeles Metro in 2015 were pulled off the road after less than five months of service.

Internal emails and other agency records showed agency staff called the 40-foot buses unsuitable, poorly made and unreliable for more than 100 miles.

BYD officials rebutted reports of poor performance and recurring mechanical problems, blaming those issues on outside forces, including drivers braking too hard, a negative publicity campaign by labor activists pushing to unionize BYD employees and transit managers they say were insufficiently committed to switching to electric, according to the Times.

The Times story also indicated that numerous factors can affect the buses charging range, including hot weather, cold weather and drivers braking techniques.

The BYD buses returned by Los Angeles went to Columbia, Mo., where transit logs show the mechanical problems continued and extended to new buses from BYD, the Times reported.

Despite the issues with the first buses, LA Metros board in 2017 approved a contract to purchase 60 40-foot buses from BYD. According to the Times, those buses have not been delivered.

The agencys board at that time also approved a contract to purchase 65 60-foot compressed natural gas buses from Canadian-based New Flyer to go into service between 2018 and 2022.
Tai Chan, a former Santa Fe County sheriffs deputy accused of fatally shooting a fellow deputy in Las Cruces in 2014 after a night of drinking, was ordered to be released from custody Tuesday.

District Judge Conrad Perea ruled Chan be released on a $25,000 unsecured appearance bond with standard conditions of release, meaning he cannot leave the state or contact witnesses and he must stay in touch with his attorneys. He was ordered to be released Tuesday evening.

Chan turned himself in late Friday, the same day an arrest warrant and criminal complaint for a voluntary manslaughter charge was filed by Las Cruces Police. On Monday, an attorney from Dona Ana County District Attorneys Office filed a motion for pretrial detention.

This charge is the latest effort at prosecuting Chan for Martins death. Martin, 29, was killed at the Hotel Encanto in Las Cruces, where the two were staying on the way back from delivering a prisoner to Arizona. Two trials for murder ended in a hung juries.

The night of Martins death, the two argued and drank heavily at a bar, and then returned to their hotel room. Martin died after being shot five times in the back and arm. Ten shots were fired from Chans duty weapon. Who shot the gun first and who was the aggressor were disputed during his trials.
I welcome the recent UNM discussion about the quality of its products/students on the pages of the Albuquerque Journal. A UNM Board of Regent (BOR) member dared tell UNM its product is not good. Emperors dont like to be told they have no clothes on. But no matter how hard the UNM administration and its BOR try to rebut this frank statement, it is nevertheless the naked truth.

In fact, it is not only the UNM product that is faulty. It is also the strategy, structure and delivery of its educational services that are disappointing. Even more disappointing, this grave situation characterizes most of the states 31 higher education institutions, except for the practice-driven schools like business, engineering, law and medicine, whose products are satisfactory.

I know. I was in the trenches of higher education in New Mexico as professor at UNMs Anderson School of Management; in Texas as dean of a college of business; in New York as director of the Ph.D. program at CCNY. I am breaking the code of silence because I care about New Mexico and its future.

It is the job of the BOR to help provide direction for its institution and make sure the following are relevant to our state and effective in the marketplace:

 Mission  who are we?

 Strategy  what is our game plan?

 Structure  how do we organize to carry out our strategy?

 Products  student skills.

But most members of BORs of N.M. institutions of higher education are not experienced in the field, or related fields, they direct. They are political appointees by the governor and rarely risk rocking the boat.

Managers of state-supported N.M. colleges and universities dislike change because they can rely on public money to fund them. Innovators are often punished; years ago when I conceived and implemented an economic development program at UNM, my dean punished me because we dont do this here.

While this opinion is solely mine, similar opinions had been expressed by many, including university professors and administrators like Dr. Garrey Carruthers.

I call upon Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham to examine the size, mission, strategy and structure of N.M. higher education and streamline its operations. The result could not only be a better product, but also lower cost and a better economy in the long run. I am confident that Carruthers and others like me can show her how this can be done without losing political capital.

Or she could ignore the whole thing and be fine as long as the oil and gas money continues to flow into the state coffers.
UNM Regent Tom Clifford is free to offer his personal opinion about UNM graduates, as reported Nov. 16 by (Albuquerque Journal reporter) Jessica Dyer  but he speaks for himself and himself only.

I do not share Cliffords view of UNM graduates. UNM has done, and is doing, a remarkable job educating both our undergraduates and graduates. Provost (Richard) Wood was accurate in responding that UNM is performing way above the bar. Woods response was accurate, timely and mercifully brief. He could have said much more.

Clifford has never expressed this view to me, and to the best of my knowledge not to the Board of Regents. His view about UNM graduates exposes an indifference to the facts of higher education in New Mexico and specifically at UNM. As far as I know, he has not inquired about what UNM is doing to improve quality of education or what the regents can do to help. His comments after the interview advocating better academic programming and student support suggest he has not noticed whats been happening at UNM in recent years. And if further improvement is needed, isnt that ] issue for the regents?

Clifford is quoted saying those who do not graduate get nothing of value they can show. Completely wrong, in my view. The view that a graduation certificate is what matters ignores what students take with them from all their UNM experiences, classroom and others, whether they graduate or not.

I may be out of date, but a few decades ago, Oxford University did not provide a graduation document of any kind. The individual reveals the education, as it does with UNM students.

I regret that my hearing challenges mean I did not comprehend Cliffords statement when he made it during our board meeting last Thursday in order to respond. I also regret that none of my fellow regents spoke up at the time.

Brad Hosmer previously served as the superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy and president of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
So now Michelle Obama finally tells her truth.

There has always been about her a sense that she did, indeed, have a truth of her own and that it was, if not at odds with the one her husband expressed with high-flown eloquence, more real and more rooted, as befits a girl from the South Side of Chicago. You wait till Barack gets out of office, some of us said, Michelles going to tell it like it is.

Now that moment arrives. Obama calls her memoir Becoming, and the title deserves a moment of contemplation. Not just because its elegant and simple, but also because its a tacit acknowledgment that making oneself a fully human being, forming a more perfect person, as it were, is a process with no finish line. We are all, always, becoming.

Here, then, is the former first ladys report on where that process stands with her, 54 years after she was born to Fraser and Marian Robinson, who raised her in a cramped apartment on Euclid Avenue. It is a story of a fathers slow decline from MS and his stubborn refusal to submit, of going to Harvard, of landing the prestigious job, of meeting the brilliant law student who was always late to everything, of winding up with a backstage pass to the presidency.

And yes, it is the story of how white Republicans, unable to countenance the idea of a black family in the White House, yet unable to say that forthrightly, dubbed her angry, called her a man, called her a terrorist, remarked on her backside. She recalls a chyron on Fox News that referred to her as Obamas Baby Mama  implying an otherness that put me outside even my own marriage.

It hurt, she admits. It angered and exhausted her, too. But for those who were frustrated with her husbands willful diffidence, his refusal to fight back as Republicans unloaded upon him and her every bit of racial code in their arsenal, Michelle has a reminder. I felt emotions that perhaps Barack couldnt afford to feel.

Shes probably right, though that does little to ease the frustration of having watched the man repeatedly smile and reach out to people who had just spat on him. One thinks of Jackie Robinson. Inwardly, he seethed over the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create. Outwardly, he played ball.

We dont know  probably never will  if Barack Obama did the same, seething on the inside, dutifully playing ball on the outside. So the first ladys truth will have to suffice. Which is that, yes, she saw what they were doing. Then she did what she had to do, advocating for kids in forgotten places, pushing food makers for healthier choices, representing her country on state visits and smiling for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still want a framed keepsake for their mantel.

On election night, when it began to look like America would choose hate and misogyny to replace hope and change, she went to bed early because she wanted to not know that fact for as long as I possibly could.

Bear with me here, she writes, as if in apology for the inability to provide a happy ending, because this doesnt necessarily get easier. It would be one thing if America were a simple place with a simple story. If I could narrate my part in it only through the lens of what was orderly and sweet. If there were no steps backward. And if every sadness, when it came, turned out at least to be redemptive in the end.

But thats not America, and its not me, either. Im not going to try to bend this into any kind of perfect shape. So we make do with the imperfect shape instead. Because its not just that Michelle Obama is still becoming.

America is, too.

E-mail lpitts@miamiherald.com. (c) 2018 The Miami Herald distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Within the past 20 months, both Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque unilaterally raised consumers gross receipts tax rates, saying the resources they had werent sufficient to meet their obligations. And now the Albuquerque Public Schools district is jumping on the bandwagon, asking voters to hike the property taxes it receives for capital projects by a staggering 19.4 percent.

For the owner of a $220,000 home, the increase would amount to $146.67 a year, raising the APS portion of property tax from $766 to about $913 and putting APS at the top of the list of taxing authorities. If approved, homeowners in the district would see an overall property tax increase around 4.7 percent.

If theres a silver lining here, its that this tax increase cant be rammed down the publics throat like the county and city tax hikes. Voters will have final say on the proposed APS tax increase, and while school elections historically draw a low turnout, this one could be a very different story. Ballots for the February election are scheduled to be mailed to all registered voters in the APS district. Given the reality this election will not be decided by a dedicated few who cast ballots in person, APS officials will need to make a solid case for the increase.

So far theyre not doing a very good job.

Among those pushing the increase is APS Chief Operations Officer Scott Elder, who says APS has not asked for a tax increase since 2006. We have ridden out the recession and ridden out construction costs for a long time.

Yes, construction costs have skyrocketed, and weve endured a long recession. But those are the same challenges Albuquerque families and businesses have been dealing with, only they dont have the luxury of raising their neighbors taxes to pay for the kitchen remodels they need or the building expansions theyd like to undertake. They live within their means because thats the fiscally responsible thing to do.

Its also worth noting that even though the APS tax rate hasnt changed in more than a decade, the district has enjoyed a steady increase in its property tax revenue  year after year after year. Thats because property values can go up 3 percent annually, automatically resulting in more tax revenue for taxing authorities, including the states largest school district.

APS says it needs more money for building projects and maintenance, but district officials have yet to say which project(s) would have to be shelved if voters reject the proposed increase. Officials do point to a priority list of capital projects  including 11 new, 23 ongoing as well as maintenance, security and technology work  that would be paid for with the $1.12 billion to be collected over six years through the proposed mill levy and school bond. But they offer no clue as to which projects the district would have to do without if the measures fail at the ballot box.

Or what the district has done with the hundreds of millions it has received for capital projects in previous years (beyond a cursory 14-item list of projects without dollar figures on its website).

Or why this increase is needed in spite of declining enrollment  from a high of 86,867 students in 2012 to 83,019 this school year.

Meanwhile, many residents are asking: If theres such a need for improvements at schools throughout the city, then why is APS spending millions of dollars for a sprawling teacher training center at the southwest corner of Louisiana and Comanche? The Berna Facio Professional Development Facility is slated to be a training and teaching center for teachers and staff, and of course great teachers need and deserve great training. But as one Journal reader asked more than a year ago, Did they consider using any of the many existing meeting/event facilities in the city?

APS is asking for a significant property tax increase, and that increase may very well be necessary. But if the district is going to ask voters to pony up even more of their hard-earned money for APS projects, then Albuquerque school officials first need to show categorically that (1) they have been responsible with the funding they have already received and (2) what they, their staff and students will have to do without should the bond and mill increase fail.

And they havent done that yet.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a broad alert in response to a new outbreak of illnesses caused by a particularly dangerous type of E. coli contamination.

The CDC told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, no matter where or when the lettuce was grown.

It doesnt matter if it is chopped, whole head or part of a mix. All romaine should be avoided, according to the CDC.

Word of the outbreak was slowly getting out at grocery stores and restaurants in Albuquerque.

We are aware of the alerts, said Charles Archuleta, store manager at Lowes Market on Lomas. Weve pulled everything with romaine off the shelves.

David Inman, store manager at the Albertsons on Montgomery, said his store had not received official word.

But we have been instructed to pull our romaine lettuce off the shelves, he said.

Stuart Erenberg, the produce manager at Smiths Food and Drug Store on Wyoming, said he had not received word.

But Kroger (Smiths parent company) is usually good at keeping up with alerts, he said.

David Morgan, the public information officer for the southwest region of the New Mexico Department of Health, said he was aware of the CDC alert but was not aware of anything New Mexico-related.

The CDC alert, issued just two days before Americans sit down for their Thanksgiving dinners, said that 32 people in 11 states have become sick from eating contaminated romaine.

Of those, 13 have been hospitalized, with one patient suffering from a form of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.

The origin of the outbreak is unknown and remains under investigation. The CDC did not limit the warning to romaine from any particular agricultural area.

A common strain of E.coli was detected in six of the sickened people and appears to match the bacterial strain found in an outbreak of illnesses from contaminated leafy greens late last year that affected people in both the U.S. and Canada. That outbreak was declared over in January.

Five people died in the most recent major outbreak from contaminated romaine, which lasted from March to June of this year and led to 210 cases in 36 states.

That outbreak was traced to the Yuma, Ariz., growing region, but investigators never conclusively determined the precise source.

All three outbreaks  the current one, the one from Yuma and the one from last year  are caused by contamination by the deadly strain called E. coli O157:H7. It produces a Shiga toxin that can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure.

Until the 1990s, most E. coli cases in humans came from eating contaminated hamburger. In more recent years, after reforms in the livestock industry, the outbreaks have been most often associated with leafy greens.
SANTA FE  Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said Tuesday she will support legislation in the upcoming 60-day session that would make New Mexico the 19th state to implement same-day voter registration, saying it would increase voter participation in a state that has earned low ratings for political engagement.

Two of New Mexicos neighboring states  Utah and Colorado  already allow same-day registration, which permits eligible residents to sign up to vote and cast their ballot on the same day.

Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, who easily won re-election this month to a new four-year term, said recent technological advances would make it relatively easy for New Mexico to adopt the practice, though she acknowledged such a move could require more training and resources for county clerks statewide.

Theres no technological reason we couldnt safely engage in same-day voter registration, Toulouse Oliver told reporters during a wide-ranging discussion.

She also said the states current law, which sets the deadline to register to vote at 28 days before an election, often leads to voters showing up to vote but being unable to cast a ballot due to registration glitches.

When you look at the number of provisional ballots that get cast and then not counted  same-day voter registration could capture a lot of those voters, Toulouse Oliver said.

Some critics of same-day voter registration have argued the practice can open the door to voter fraud, but the secretary of state said Tuesday any new voters registering on Election Day would have to provide a drivers license number or similar documentation.

While election results wont be certified until next week, this years general election saw record-breaking early vote totals for a nonpresidential election year. In all, 698,976 registered voters cast ballots, The statewide turnout rate was 55.4 percent, according to unofficial results.

We had a very active and engaged electorate in New Mexico this election cycle and thats a positive, Toulouse Oliver said.

Meanwhile, the secretary of state said its unlikely New Mexico would move in the near future to adopt ranked-choice voting,also known as instant runoff, in which voters can rank candidates in order of choice.

The push for ranked-choice voting has so far been focused on cities, as Santa Fe used ranked-choice voting in its March municipal election and the Las Cruces city council also voted to adopt the method in June.

I dont know that there is a strong groundswell to do that (statewide) at this point, Toulouse Oliver said.

Maine became the first state this year to elect a congressman using ranked-choice voting.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

The competition to land police officers in New Mexicos largest city is heating up.

Seven Rio Rancho police officers earlier this month announced their resignations and all are expected to join the Albuquerque Police Department.

Rio Rancho police administrators met after the resignations to see if any scheduling changes will be needed after the departures, Capt. Andrew Rodriguez told the Journal.

Including the seven officers who recently resigned, 11 Rio Rancho officers already have left or plan to leave the department and join the ranks of Albuquerque police. Eight of those officers have either graduated or are currently seated in an Albuquerque police academy.

Were asking that the community not be concerned at this point, Rodriguez said. Were doing the best we can to ensure we can respond to every call that we normally do.

The Rio Rancho Police Department is authorized for 135 officers and there are currently 11 vacancies, Rodriguez said. He said those vacancies dont include the officers who recently announced their resignations because many are still working for the department.

Their resignations, Rodriguez said, are likely due to money. Rio Rancho officers start at about $20.30 an hour. Albuquerque police officers starting pay is $29 an hour.

APD is in the middle of an aggressive recruiting push to grow the size of the department, and the city has increased salary and bonus pay for officers.

Albuquerque has struggled to staff its police department in recent years. APD is authorized for more than 1,000 officers, but their numbers have dwindled to around 850 in recent months.

The department is projecting that it will have about 980 officers by next summer. It is growing the ranks by bringing in both new cadets and lateral hires from other departments.

Last month, Albuquerque police graduated a lateral academy with 29 officers. Another lateral academy with about 30 officers is expecting to graduate in December, Gilbert Gallegos, a police spokesman, said in a prepared statement. In the current lateral academy class, six officers are from Rio Rancho and six are from Santa Fe police, among other agencies.

Rio Rancho appears to be one of the first departments to feel the hit of Albuquerques efforts to grow the force.

Mayor Tim Keller said last month that while he has heard some concerns from nearby local governments about Albuquerque taking officers from other departments, fixing Albuquerques crime problem is his main priority. He said in the future he may consider capping the number of officers Albuquerque can hire from any one department.

As Albuquerque has struggled to staff its police department, the city has seen its crime rates increase. In 2017, Albuquerque had some of the highest crimes rates in the country for its size.

Our top priority at APD is to do everything possible to keep our communities safe. Unfortunately, we inherited a department that was chronically understaffed, which forced us to invest resources in rebuilding the department. We developed a comprehensive plan to train new cadets, recruit qualified officers from other agencies, and retain our most experienced officers, Gallegos said in a statement.

He also pointed out that Albuquerque worked with Central New Mexico Community College to create a satellite academy that will train officers, which in time will help other agencies grow.

Rio Rancho, meanwhile, is also trying to recruit additional officers. The city last month announced that officers from other departments can get credit for up to 10 years of experience they have had with other law enforcement agencies. In the past, lateral hires got credit for only half of their previous work experience.

That work experience positively affects an officers pay.

Rio Rancho is an outstanding city to work in and its police officers are supported by community members, Police Chief Stewart Steele said in a prepared statement announcing the policy change. We are hopeful that with policy changes and additional incentives, more officers will call Rio Ranchos Police Department home and work alongside us to help keep Rio Rancho one of the best and safest cities.
Police say a man called 911 Wednesday morning to report his girlfriend had stopped breathing and later confessed to beating and strangling her to death at a northeast Albuquerque apartment.

Albuquerque police spokesman Simon Drobik said Francisco Montoya, 39, admitted to detectives that he killed Nicole Robbins at the Alta Vista Apartments, at 4200 Spanish Bit NE.

He said Montoya is charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence.

Drobik said officers responded to the apartments around 8:30 a.m. after Montoya called police to report that Robbins was not breathing.

He said rescue crews pronounced Robbins dead at the scene and officers noticed trauma on her face and neck.

Detectives arrived on scene and spoke to neighbors and Mr. Montoya, he said. Mr. Montoya confessed strangling and beating Nicole Robbins to death.

A resident at the complex said he heard screams coming from an apartment south of him around 10:30 the night before.

Just two, just screams like Oh my god, that kind of thing, said Victor Sargeant. I was watching something on TV and it was loud enough to get me to go outdoors.

He said he didnt see anything when he went outside and got no response when he yelled into the darkness asking if anyone needed help.

Sargeant said the next morning a neighbor told him a young woman living nearby had been killed.
PHOENIX  An Arizona jury on Wednesday acquitted a U.S. Border Patrol agent of manslaughter in the shooting of a Mexican teen through a border fence, sparking a protest in downtown Tucson following the second loss for federal prosecutors in the second trial over the 2012 killing.

Jurors in Tucson found Lonnie Swartz not guilty of involuntary manslaughter but didnt come to a decision on voluntary manslaughter. The verdict comes months after Swartz was acquitted of second-degree murder by another jury that had deadlocked on manslaughter charges, allowing prosecutors to pursue the case again.

My client is very relieved. He has had to live with the burden of this case hanging over his head for years. He is glad that it is finally over, Swartzs attorney, Sean Chapman, said in an email to The Associated Press.

Outside the courthouse, a small group of activists protested the verdict, and one man was detained, media outlets reported.

The protest grew later in the day as scores of demonstrators shut down an intersection, snarling traffic in downtown and prompting authorities to briefly close several freeway ramps.

One sign protesters carried said, Abolish Border Patrol, while another read, No justice, no peace in both English and Spanish.

We fully respect the jurys decision, and we thank every member of the jury for the time and attention given to this trial, Elizabeth A. Strange, first assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, said in a statement. This was a difficult case, and I commend the trial team and law enforcement officers who assisted in the prosecution.

Border Patrol agents are rarely criminally charged for using force. But the killing of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez sparked outrage on both sides of the border and came at a time when the agency was increasingly scrutinized for its use of force.

Prosecutors said Swartz was frustrated over repeated encounters with people on the Mexico side of the border fence who throw rocks at agents to distract them from smugglers. They say he lost his cool and fatally shot Elena Rodriguez. Swartz fired about 16 rounds, and the boy was hit at least 10 times in the back and head.

Swartz has said he was following his training and defending himself and other law enforcement officers from rocks, which he said could be deadly.

Prosecutors acknowledge that Elena Rodriguez was throwing rocks at agents while two smugglers made their way back to Mexico, but they said that wasnt justification for taking his life.

Chapman said Elena Rodriguez endangered the lives of the agents and a police officer who was on scene.

The verdict comes as President Donald Trump has deployed troops to the border to support U.S. authorities in response to a migrant caravan from Central America. The troops have been given authority to protect Border Patrol agents and other personnel, even though there have been no instances of violence against U.S. authorities.

Swartz still faces a civil rights lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the teens mother.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorneys office said prosecutors havent decided whether to try Swartz again on the voluntary manslaughter charge.
LAKE CHARLES, La.  A leader and a member of a prison-based whites only gang have been sentenced for being accessories-after-the-fact to a murder.

U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph, in a news release, says 38-year-old David Wayne Williams, of Sulphur, was sentenced Tuesday to 157 months in prison, while 47-year-old Richard Alan Smith, of Little Rock, Arkansas, got 150 months.

Williams pleaded guilty to accessory-after-the fact to racketeering murder of Clifton Hallmark, another Aryan Circle member, drug trafficking and weapons possession. Smith pleaded guilty in July to the accessory charge.

Prosecutors say both men were at a meeting where Hallmark was shot after a fight broke out in Turkey Creek, Louisiana, in 2016.

Authorities say the Aryan Circle began in the Texas prison system and spread throughout rural and suburban Texas, Louisiana and Missouri.
UPDATE 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018 - The Chico Police Department has identified the victim who died from a gunshot wound as 28-year-old Christopher Qualls.

This is still an active investigation and the Chico Police Department is asking anyone who has information to call the department at (530) 897-4911.

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CHICO, Calif. - Chico police responded to a shooting that followed an alleged robbery in Chico on Saturday night.

On Nov. 17, around 4:56 p.m., officers responded to the 1100 block of W. 2nd Street after there was a report of a man suffering a gunshot wound.

Upon arrival, officers located the man in the parking lot and medics quickly started treating the subject for the gunshot wound. He was transported to Enloe Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.

After interviewing one of the tenants at the apartment complex, Police learned of a disturbance inside one of the apartments which involved an alleged robbery. It was reported that one of the residents shot the suspect and that a second unknown male suspect fled the scene after the shooting.

The investigation is sitll ongoing. The identities of the involved parties have not been released.
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Action News Now is compiling a list of organizations and groups providing Thanksgiving meals and resources for those in need.

Chico

#ThanksgivingTogether - When: Thursday, November 22, 2018

Seating Times: 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

 Bell Memorial Union Auditorium at Chico State (West Second and Chestnut streets, Chico)

 Sutter Dining Hall at Chico State (Warner Street and Legion Avenue, Chico)

 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (1075 East 20th Street, Chico)

Freese's Exhaust - 2306 Park Avenue, Chico

The muffler shop is giving away 24 cooked turkeys on Thanksgiving for Camp Fire evacuees and those in need.

When: Starting at 1 p.m. on Nov. 22



Jesus Center - 1297 Park Ave, Chico

The church is hosting a Thanksgiving meal for all those in need.

When: Thursday, Nov. 21, from 12 - 4 p.m.

Salvation Army Distribution Center - 110 Marauder Street, Chico

This free Thanksgiving dinner is being served at the Salvation Army's Distribution Center in Chico. They are accepting donations as well and looking for volunteers.

When: 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 22

27th Annual Thanksgiving Basket Brigade - Azad's Martial Arts Center (313 Walnut St #150, Chico)

Evacuees of the Camp Fire staying at the center will be putting together baskets and delivering them to people's homes around 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Mom's Restaurant - 209 Salem Street, Chico

This free Thanksgiving dinner is put on by Napa Valley BFF and Copia out of San Francisco and is open to all victims and evacuees of the Camp Fire.

When: 12 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

Morning Thunder Cafe - 352 Vallombrosa Avenue, Chico

This free Thanksgiving dinner is put on by Napa Valley BFF and Copia out of San Francisco and is open to all victims and evacuees of the Camp Fire.

When: 12 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

Evangelic Church of Chico - 1193 Filbert Avenue, Chico

This free Thanksgiving dinner is put on by Napa Valley BFF and Copia out of San Francisco and is open to all victims and evacuees of the Camp Fire.

When: 12 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

Oroville

El Mendio Fire Department - 3515 Myers St, Oroville

They are providing a community-wide Thanksgiving dinner banquet hosted by the Oroville Rescue Mission. They are accepting evacuees, volunteers and anybody in need.

When: 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

Southside Community Resource Center - 2959 Lower Wyandotte Rd, Oroville

They are providing a Thanksgiving meal and also looking for volunteers.

When: Starting at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 22

Oroville Municipal Auditorium - 1200 Meyer Street Oroville

This free Thanksgiving dinner is put on by Napa Valley BFF and Copia out of San Francisco and is open to all victims and evacuees of the Camp Fire.

When: 12 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

The Waffle Shop - 2107 Feather River Boulevard, Oroville

This free Thanksgiving dinner is put on by Napa Valley BFF and Copia out of San Francisco and is open to all victims and evacuees of the Camp Fire.

When: 12 - 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 21

Orland

Orland Grange #432 - 210 Walker Street, Orland

Offering a free Thanksgiving meal for everyone including evacuees, first responders, and more. Volunteers are also welcomed.

When: 2 - 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 22

Donations are available at this location.

Gridley

Veterans Memorial Hall - 267 Sycamore St, Gridley

Thanksgiving event open to anyone from 10 a.m. -3 p.m. on Nov. 22 (might go longer)

Durham

Durham Memorial Hall - 9319 Midway, Durham

Offering a free Thanksgiving meal for evacuees affected by the Camp Fire.

When: 2 - 4 p.m. and 6 - 8 p.m.
Diwali, the festival of lights, is a celebration of enlightenment, happiness, and hope  and Adani Groups powerful campaign, #JugnooZindagiKa, successfully stood true to its meaning in order to illuminate peoples lives.

Conceptualized in collaboration with RepIndia, Adani Groups digital partners, #JugnooKaZindagi has emerged as one of the most thought-provoking Diwali campaigns in recent years. Its powerful messaging has resonated well with over 15 million people the campaign reached out to, thus creating a positive sentiment around the brand while also highlighting their energy vertical.

The premise of the campaign stems from the Adani Groups role as not just a nation-building organization catering to Indias growing energy requirements, but also as a #JugnooZindagiKa enlightening the lives of people and communities in every nook and corner of the country.

In essence, the campaign offered a simple yet much-needed solution to some of Mumbais darkest streets, thus highlighting their motto of Growth with Goodness. The campaign was launched with a brand film that communicated the simple idea of lighting up dark streets and, in doing so, illuminating lives across villages and cities  not just on the occasion of Diwali but forever. The film is on YouTube and has already been viewed close to a million times.

This was followed by engaging audiences on social media and asking them to share their challenges to help Adani Group light up the streets and celebrate the true meaning of light.

Finally, through an integrated online-offline campaign, Adani Group installed 111 streets lights at some of Mumbais darkest vicinities, thus lighting up the lives of Mumbaikars on Diwali with well-lit, safer roads at night.

With its messaging and solution striking a chord with the audiences, #JugnooZindagiKa proved to be an outstanding success. The Adani Group achieved the following numbers from their campaign:

15 Million people reached across platforms

80 Million impressions

5.6 Million views

2300+ shares and 800+ comments

50.5% average view rate on YouTube

10,000+ tweets on #JugnooZindagiKa

Trended nationwide for over 5 hours on Twitter

Speaking on the success of #JugnooZindagiKa, Paresh Chaudhry, Group President - Corporate Brand Custodian, Adani Group, said, At the Adani Group, giving back to the society and the people is a culture  hence the motto of Growth with Goodness. This Diwali, we realized that there are many places in India that struggle without street lights which are quite a problem for the residents. So, with this campaign, we decided to address this issue across five important locations in Mumbai and give them the gift of illumination. I am extremely proud of this effort and humbled by the support we have received for the campaign  something which goes on to show that people have faith in Adani being an entity that makes a difference to their world at every step of the way!

Ayesha Chenoy, CEO and Co-Founder, RepIndia, also shared her thoughts on the successful campaign, "A particularly proud moment where a digital campaign actioned a change in people's lives by lighting up streets in Mumbai, which is the true meaning of Diwali - lighting up lives.

Ashish Manchanda, Associate Vice President, RepIndia, remarked, The impact Adani Group has created on Diwali with the campaign is inspirational, and I am extremely proud to be associated with it. I believe that #JugnooZindagiKa has set the benchmark this year when it comes to leveraging the spirit of festivity and turning it into a powerful, thought-provoking campaign that goes beyond simple metrics of likes and shares.

By successfully exploring the meaning of the word Jugnoo across various touch-points of the campaign, the Adani Group have been able to stand true to their philosophy of nation-building. The #JugnooZindagiKa has featured in over 20 leading national and regional publications such as ToI, Hindu, Social Samosa, and Campaign India so far.
My FM, the radio division of Indias largest print media company DB Corp, put up a strong show in its Q2 FY2019 results. According to the company, My FM is the largest player in Rest of Maharashtra and continues to be No. 1 in Chandigarh/ Haryana/ Punjab/ Rajasthan/ Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. MY FM today has presence in 7 states and 30 cities.

My FM reported a 47 per cent growth in its Profit After Tax (PAT) to Rs 58 million from Rs 40 million in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal. My FM expanded its advertising revenues by 8.4 per cent YOY to Rs 377 million in Q2 FY2019, against Rs 348 million in Q2 of last fiscal.

Backed by strong growth in listenership across its key markets, including Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Indore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Raipur, Surat, Nashik, Aurangabad and Rajkot, earlier this month, My FM announced a 15 per cent hike in its ad rates across key markets. The hike came into effect from November 15, 2018.

Owing to its strong local connect and various product enhancement initiatives, the network has seen considerable growth and traction over the last few months. My FM has been able to consolidate its leadership position across all key markets, which has widened the gap with the No. 2 player in each market. The hike has been initiated in line with My FMs constant endeavour to bring the best of content and listening experience for its audience.

Leading My FMs charge is Business Head Rahul Namjoshi. In an email interaction with Adgully, Namjoshi speaks about My FMs focus on Tier 2 and 3 markets, viability of radio in a digital era, channel loyalty in radio and more. Excerpts:

We hear My FM has had a good festive seasonyour first after taking charge. How good was it?

I cant share the numbers, but yes, this festive season went well as expected. The teams bounced back really well and made the most of the festive season opportunity.

Do you think My FMs strategy of having a footprint in Tier 2 and 3 cities is paying off?

Yes of course, it is a clearly thought out strategy. There is no other radio brand with so much focus in the Tier 2 and 3 markets. For us, these markets are the P1 markets, unlike other national players who have metro markets as P1 markets.

What would you say helps you cut through the clutter as far as radio programming goes?

We understand the pulse of these markets and the people here. Our programming line-up has a perfect mix for each age group, the music is well researched and mood mapped. So, all in all it is a superior product experience.

My FM, as per the claims, is a market leader in retail advertising in the cities that it has a presence. What attracts retailers to My FM?

Our teams are trained to provide solutions to clients; we understand the clients business needs and then suggest solutions. It can be just vanilla advertising to 360-degree solutions or an on-ground activation. The solution depends on what the client challenge is.

Any new shows in the pipeline?

We recently launched Mahabharata across our network. There are a few more announcements lined up in the coming future, however I wont be able to divulge details right now, but yes, we will live up to our promise of bringing cutting edge content for our listeners.

It has been a tough year for media so far, do you see H2 delivering better?

Definitely, the market sentiments are better and we have our IP properties lined up in H2, which will see a lot of traction from the advertisers.

In this rapidly digitising landscape, what, according to you, is the key to keeping radio viable?

All the media vehicles will co-exist. I dont see any threat from any other medium. In fact, Radio is the only medium which connects till the last mile across the length and breadth of the country. Today, radio is not just limited to songs, but provides local city info, which is very useful for the listeners. It provides instant updates faster than any other medium.

How do you see radio competing with streaming devices? Do you believe ad spots need to be reduced or managed better?

Radio is free to air, while streaming devices are subscription based. So, I dont see any competition in the future.

Having said that, as an industry we need to better manage our inventories and this has to happen now.

Is there anything like channel loyalty in radio? How can it be won?

Yes, definitely channel loyalty exists, and it depends on just one thing  if your product is superior, people are bound to listen and become a loyalist.
CEAT Tyres has launched a new TVC on how Old Tyres saves Nair of which the objective is to communicate the message of everlasting grip of the Gripp X3 range of tyres. To pass on a message that emphasizes on the safety aspect of the Gripp X3 range of tyres.

Brief to the agency is that it is led by strong consumer insight- that a motorcycle rider rides confidently on a tyre that is new, but when the tyre becomes old their confidence goes down. The everlasting grip of the Gripp X3 range allows the consumer to ride as confidently as he would ride on a new tyre irrespective of the condition of the tyre and the theme of communication had to incorporate this particular insight while telling the story of superiority of the Gripp X3 range tyres.

Its execution plan aims to drive maximum engagement, the commercial was divided into two parts, the teaser and the reveal. A day-to- day incident that could propel to be a potentially dangerous situation is set as the basic premise for the TVC.

In the teaser, Mr. Nair played by Kunal Roy Kapoor is a regular commuter to work on his motorcycle. The character is based on the insight and can be seen wearing new clothes but he has old tyres on his motorcycle. The story telling happens through a quirky jingle which helps in setting up the humour in the TVC. However, the tides in his perfect day turn, as he suddenly encounters a huge pothole filled with rocks. The teaser manages to keep the viewers guessing with a cliffhanger ending where we see Mr. Nair in a rather uncomfortable position, trying to escape the pothole. Urging the question Will tyre save Nair?

The reveal which arrives after a long wait finally resolves Mr. Nairs troubling situation. It show cases Mr. Nair escaping the pothole without a scratch thanks to the Dual Compound Technology of the Gripp X3 tyres. The commercial then goes on to explain how the Dual Compound Technology of the tyres helps in maintaining maintain the same grip whether the tyre is new, partially worn out or old. The TVC features strong visuals to bring out the core proposition of the product in full glory with a tinge of humor that has been a hallmark of CEAT TVCs.

Media: Television, Digital, OOH etc.

Nitish Bajaj, Senior VP, Marketing, CEAT Ltd says, Our Gripp X3 brand campaign has been created to generate consumer awareness and promote the benefits of a tyre that has an Everlasting grip. This campaign brings alive the key benefits of our Gripp X3 tyres developed on a consumer insight that consumers become less confident while driving with old tyres. The campaign highlights the Gripp X3 tyre with dual compound technology that provides a grip as good as a new tyre even when the tyres become old, thereby allowing the rider to ride tension free. Furthermore, this launch of CEAT Gripp X3 delivers on our vision of Making Mobility Safer and Smarter, Everyday.

Rohit Dubey, Group Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather says, Consumers involvement with bike tyres is extremely low. Most riders only think about their tyres once in approximately two years when it is time to replace them. In this scenario, we built involvement with the product by making engagement, central to our creative thought of landing the benefit of Gripp X3, a tyre that maintains its standard of performance over time. This also allowed us to leverage multiple executions across digital and social media, to increase salience.

Credits:
Quaker India has launched an exciting new web-series with Michelin Starred Chef Vikas Khanna. The new show, titled Kitchen, Khanna & Konversations, features Chef Vikas Khanna cooking up a storm with rising Bollywood star Nushrat Bharucha, leading Tamil actor Vishnuu Vishal, and popular social media personalities Kusha Kapila and Dolly Singh. The show focuses on how our favourite recipes can be made nutritious by adding Quaker Oats, while featuring interesting banter between Chef Khanna and the young stars.

The 3-part series highlights the versatility of oats as Nushrat, Vishnuu, Kusha and Dolly all team up with Chef Vikas Khanna to try their hand at cooking their favorite breakfast recipes. Chef Khanna demonstrates how easily one can add a bit of nutrition to any dish with Quaker oats, especially for the youth who love diverse food choices but are hard pressed for time given their fast-paced lives.

In the episode with Nushrat Bharucha, viewers are given a glimpse of how an otherwise humble pumpkin soup is made in a simple and healthy way with the addition of Quaker oats. On her experience of cooking this dish, the celebrity-star Nushrat said, Cooking with Vikas has been an exciting experience. I have not had anyone teach me cooking like he did. I hate pumpkin myself and never thought pumpkin soup could be made as tasty as it turned out and healthy too with Quaker Oats. I regularly have Quaker oats, especially when I have long shoot days and even late nights, as it gives me the energy to keep going. Through the series, I really want to urge millennials to pay attention to the most important meal of the day and make a healthy start! From pumpkin soup to pancakes to parathas, the web-series features a variety of recipes made with Quaker Oats to help increase the nutrition quotient of each dish without changing its taste.

Speaking on the video series Chef Vikas Khanna said, Breakfast is an important part of the day for me. It decides how my day will shape-up. Shooting with Nushrat, Vishnuu, Kusha and Dolly was truly fun. It was interesting to know that the young generation is conscious of their health, but they are uncertain of ways to adopt nutrition in their rushed lives. I am happy that through the web-series with Quaker we will not only showcase the versatility of Quaker oats, but also show the youth how easy it can be to make their breakfast healthy, yet tasty. I am a big fan of oats and given that Quaker Oats are a source of protein, rich source of fibre and nutritious energy, a fistful of oats added to any dish can make it a perfect way to start the day.

Nobel Dhingra, Associate Director  Marketing (Quaker), PepsiCo India, added: Oats are extremely versatile and can easily become a part of any meal of the day. We constantly receive insights from our young consumers as to how they want to eat healthier and yet dont want to compromise on taste. Also, given the fast-paced lives they lead, they have more control over what they eat at breakfast versus the other meals of the day when they have less control over when, where and what they eat. This led us to conceptualize our first-ever web-series, Kitchen, Khanna & Konversations with the objective of helping young people understand how easily they can choose to increase the nutrition quotient of their favourite dishes by adding Quaker Oats. The wholegrain advantage of Quaker oats makes it best suited as the breakfast choice for everyone who wants nutritious edge to do more with their day. Chef Vikas Khanna as our Nutrition ambassador brings authenticity to the series, along with his own brand of charm that makes the series immensely watchable as he interacts with the young celebrities.
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Page: 1 2 Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474390

11-21-2018 03:21 AM











Post: #1 Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

Advertisement

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control' LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 472863

11-21-2018 03:23 AM











Post: #2 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

I bet he thinks he is being gangstalked too. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474390

11-21-2018 03:40 AM











Post: #3 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:23 AM) I bet he thinks he is being gangstalked too.

Spoken by a true Clown News Network Channel brainwashed viewer..dumb as they come. Have you read the UN document Agenda 2030, you human failure? Spoken by a true Clown News Network Channel brainwashed viewer..dumb as they come. Have you read the UN document Agenda 2030, you human failure? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 449367

11-21-2018 04:41 AM











Post: #4 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

whilst i believe the agenda was a money grab and little else... what they will not talk about is perpetual growth and insane consumption matrix.











: they're dredging ocean sand from the ocean floor to continue this moronic perpetual growth thing. so big gosh darn dredge pulls up just out of our visible range, sucks up a few million cubic metres from the floor, wrecks an ocean habitat, and some scumbag gets to build a new building.



anyone who thinks this behavior can continue indefinitely... should be thrown off a cliff. today. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474374

11-21-2018 04:48 AM











Post: #5 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:21 AM) This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA

The UN wants power to lay and collect taxes directly. Climate scam is their mode of becoming a taxing authority.



Traitors like Al Gore help them and become billionaires in the process. The UN wants power to lay and collect taxes directly. Climate scam is their mode of becoming a taxing authority.Traitors like Al Gore help them and become billionaires in the process. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474377

11-21-2018 04:56 AM











Post: #6 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:21 AM) This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA

Hes right



[quote='LoP Guest' pid='1493672' dateline='1542765971']







Direct ebergy weapons

Eye witness to October cali fires and texas floods 2017

Buildings were untouched that housed Laser targetting systems developed by local company santa rosa



They the armies of the beast claim to have Trillion watt lasers Hes right[quote='LoP Guest' pid='1493672' dateline='1542765971']Direct ebergy weaponsEye witness to October cali fires and texas floods 2017Buildings were untouched that housed Laser targetting systems developed by local company santa rosaThey the armies of the beast claim to have Trillion watt lasers LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 408638

11-21-2018 05:50 AM











Post: #7 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

seems to benefit Chinese the most Natura Naturans

Registered User

User ID: 473784

11-21-2018 06:07 AM



Posts: 13,155









Post: #8 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

Climate change fraud is like 911. Everyone in the know knows and the rest are suckered by the government and mass media. Since the UN first started pushing global warming by CO2 real scientists had doubts. Never in the long history of Earth has temperature change followed CO2 change, it is the other way around, CO2 degasses from the oceans and land when temperatures rise. So the smart people of the world knew it was a fraud from the getgo. But the UN pushed it hard and unscrupulous climate scientists sold their souls to it for vast lucrative grants and jobs pushing the fraud. We are in the endgame now since climate is refusing to cooperate with the alarmists and with a little more cooling the fraud will be dead for good. The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474390

11-21-2018 06:27 AM











Post: #9 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

Natura Naturans Wrote: (11-21-2018 06:07 AM) Climate change fraud is like 911. Everyone in the know knows and the rest are suckered by the government and mass media. Since the UN first started pushing global warming by CO2 real scientists had doubts. Never in the long history of Earth has temperature change followed CO2 change, it is the other way around, CO2 degasses from the oceans and land when temperatures rise. So the smart people of the world knew it was a fraud from the getgo. But the UN pushed it hard and unscrupulous climate scientists sold their souls to it for vast lucrative grants and jobs pushing the fraud. We are in the endgame now since climate is refusing to cooperate with the alarmists and with a little more cooling the fraud will be dead for good.

thats only after they squeeze every last carbon penny off of the brainwashed idiots, they will be screaming for them to take more thats only after they squeeze every last carbon penny off of the brainwashed idiots, they will be screaming for them to take more TimeZoned

Banned

User ID: 448218

11-21-2018 06:38 AM



Posts: 691









Post: #10 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:21 AM) This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA

That was 2015 , pretty sure he is still living. That was 2015 , pretty sure he is still living. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474458

11-21-2018 07:19 AM











Post: #11 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:23 AM) I bet he thinks he is being gangstalked too.

you need to be gosh darn piece of sh*t you need to be gosh darn piece of sh*t LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 453356

11-21-2018 07:20 AM











Post: #12 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:21 AM) This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA

Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australias prime minister, has warned.



At one time a UN OFFICIAL made the same statement, back in the early 90's. At one time a UN OFFICIAL made the same statement, back in the early 90's. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 474456

11-21-2018 07:59 AM











Post: #13 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 07:20 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 03:21 AM) This dude will be suicided: Tony Abbott's business adviser says global warming a fallacy supported by United Nations to 'create a new authoritarian world order under its control'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne...sGnR9p1MaA

Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australias prime minister, has warned.



At one time a UN OFFICIAL made the same statement, back in the early 90's.

I think most people don't understand why or how the global Climate Change Hoax is being used to replace National Laws with Fascist Globalist Corporate international Laws. Look no further than than the un-elected Fascist EU Corporate State, and more recently France's Corporate Sun King, Macron's, explanation for why He and the French Court slapped another Corporate Feudal fuel Tax on his french Serfs while global oil prices tank (for renewable energy research - not joking). The Globalist Corporate Climate Change scam will require a Global Central 'Regulating' Authority of Commerce and Industry/Human endeavor, like we see with the EU Inc. So it's basically a sneaky Corporate back-door to F-over the little Serfs national laws/constitutions in favour of a Global 'Regulating' Authority/Global Governance to protect us against Industrial/Human 'excess'. A parallel would be how the US 2nd Amendment around Gun Laws is being used by the Globalist Corporate Lobby as a back door to alter the US Constitution and set in motion "Mission Creep". One Constitutional Law is altered and the rest follow. Add to this the Growing Globalist Green Party In the world and we are on our way to 1984. I think most people don't understand why or how the global Climate Change Hoax is being used to replace National Laws with Fascist Globalist Corporate international Laws. Look no further than than the un-elected Fascist EU Corporate State, and more recently France's Corporate Sun King, Macron's, explanation for why He and the French Court slapped another Corporate Feudal fuel Tax on his french Serfs while global oil prices tank (for renewable energy research - not joking). The Globalist Corporate Climate Change scam will require a Global Central 'Regulating' Authority of Commerce and Industry/Human endeavor, like we see with the EU Inc. So it's basically a sneaky Corporate back-door to F-over the little Serfs national laws/constitutions in favour of a Global 'Regulating' Authority/Global Governance to protect us against Industrial/Human 'excess'. A parallel would be how the US 2nd Amendment around Gun Laws is being used by the Globalist Corporate Lobby as a back door to alter the US Constitution and set in motion "Mission Creep". One Constitutional Law is altered and the rest follow. Add to this the Growing Globalist Green Party In the world and we are on our way to 1984. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 453356

11-21-2018 08:43 AM











Post: #14 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o

LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 07:59 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (11-21-2018 07:20 AM) Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australias prime minister, has warned.



At one time a UN OFFICIAL made the same statement, back in the early 90's.

I think most people don't understand why or how the global Climate Change Hoax is being used to replace National Laws with Fascist Globalist Corporate international Laws. Look no further than than the un-elected Fascist EU Corporate State, and more recently France's Corporate Sun King, Macron's, explanation for why He and the French Court slapped another Corporate Feudal fuel Tax on his french Serfs while global oil prices tank (for renewable energy research - not joking). The Globalist Corporate Climate Change scam will require a Global Central 'Regulating' Authority of Commerce and Industry/Human endeavor, like we see with the EU Inc. So it's basically a sneaky Corporate back-door to F-over the little Serfs national laws/constitutions in favour of a Global 'Regulating' Authority/Global Governance to protect us against Industrial/Human 'excess'. A parallel would be how the US 2nd Amendment around Gun Laws is being used by the Globalist Corporate Lobby as a back door to alter the US Constitution and set in motion "Mission Creep". One Constitutional Law is altered and the rest follow. Add to this the Growing Globalist Green Party In the world and we are on our way to 1984.

GREAT POST!!! GREAT POST!!! Tank Think Bureau Ink

lop guest

User ID: 446955

11-21-2018 08:51 AM











Post: #15 RE: Australia PM adviser says climate change is 'UN-led ruse to establish new world o



Was granted by M.turnbills

To promote ocean warming propaganda



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https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-g...ion-2018-8 Half a billionWas granted by M.turnbillsTo promote ocean warming propagandaRead all about itFree money to change public opinion Advertisement



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For over a hundred years the Tata Steel brand has not just been synonymous with steel, but also for making a positive impact on society. This has been reinforced by the Companys messaging and campaigns over the years. Tata Steel has now embarked on a corporate brand campaign that is in line with its collective outlook and aspirations. The campaign celebrates the brand as the catalyst for ushering in a new era in the journey of the organisation.

It is also an effort to reposition Tata Steel within the steel sector and beyond, as it leads the industry with innovative thinking; creating products and solutions for the future. Highlighting how smart steel has impacted our lives positively, the campaign showcases the work the Company has done under the umbrella of Innovation, Technology and Sustainability.

The brief to the agency was to create a campaign that brings about a perceptual change by highlighting technology and innovation at Tata Steel and demonstrating how that is impacting lives today and how that will shape the future. The campaign presents the Company as pioneering, exciting, innovative and agile, thereby engaging with various stakeholders esp. the younger audience.

Link:

The campaign is driven by a mix of TV, print, OOH and digital. The campaign line #WeAlsoMakeTomorrow, which recalls the iconic line We Also Make Steel, emerged from the fact that the future is being shaped by imagination and imagination needs steel to become a reality. Tata Steel makes the steel which makes the future. Which is why, Tata Steel is a maker of steel and also tomorrow.

#WeAlsoMakeTomorrow underlines the Companys focus on the future, positioning Tata Steel as an enterprise that is technologically advanced and innovative. The TVC that drives the campaign celebrates the power of imagination and the role of steel. It features children of diverse ethnicity - makers of tomorrow - who give free rein to their imagination as they envision the world of the future.

The campaign tells the world how Tata Steel is creating innovative products and solutions that make tomorrow better and brighter for the human race. It aims to reignite interest in steel as a category and position Tata Steel as a future shaper.

Commenting on the brief, Bindu Sethi, Chief Strategy Officer, J. Walter Thompson said; We were required to reimagine the role of Tata Steel in todays world. The continuing importance of a company like Tata Steel in shaping the future of our world. The brief to creative was: imagination and ideas would remain in the mind and on paper unless Tata Steel makes them a reality. That is the power of steel. Tata Steels technology and innovation gives life to imagination that shapes our future.

Commenting on the creative concept, Senthil Kumar, Chief Creative Officer, J Walter Thompson said; The Tatas wanted to build a steel plant in 1907 and chose Sakchi, a village in the jungle by the banks of two rivers. They ended up building the shining city of Jamshedpur that is exemplary in so many ways. This pioneering culture of innovation in the company led the epic campaign created by JWT in the late eighties we also make steel. It is an honour for JWT to have worked on the past, present and the future of this legendary company, building a bridge of steel from yesterday to tomorrow. While working on this campaign we met thousands of Tata Steel employees, team leaders and business heads. We rediscovered a company that is shaping the future, with steel at its core and the pioneering culture of innovation as the collective soul for over a hundred years. But what drives innovation is pure childlike imagination. And that is the leap we took to deliver the new line - We also Make Tomorrow.

Vijay Jacob Parakkal, Senior VP & Managing Partner, J. Walter Thompson said, J Walter Thompson had created the first Tata Steel corporate campaign around 3 decades back. It was really special for us to partner with Tata Steel again for the #WeAlsoMakeTomorrow campaign. For this campaign, we had some of our best people across various JWT offices in the country coming together and working as one team to deliver. A shining example of making geography history as we brought together the best of our talent across offices to address our Clients requirements.

A steel company with a warm heart - thats what Tata Steel has always stood for. We wanted to add another dimension to this warmth  the power of steel in shaping the future. And thats where imagination came in. Einstein famously said, Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. Its something we all share, yes, and something we find in abundance with children, who arent yet anchored with experience. Imagination is the weightless substance that is the foundation of inspiration. That we sometimes even call instinct, when we let something other than logic alone guide us. But more importantly, it is what lets us see beyond what is manifest in front of us. A whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In that sense, steel is no more a commodity than the grains of celluloid that form your favourite film, or the pixels that take shape as a photograph of your kid on her first day of school. Because with imagination, they are all one thing and one thing alone. Possibility. Thats what our film is about. It shows us a side of Tata Steel we havent seen. Or rather it helps us better understand the role Tata Steel truly plays in our world - not just as a maker of steel but as a maker of possibilities. All told in a moving story that speaks to our audience in the language of life we all relate to., added Sambit Mohanty, National Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson.
First-graders at East Aiken School of the Arts know the meaning of Thanksgiving to a T  and an A, M and P.

One by one, the students walked on to the stage Friday and spelled out the words associated with fall's biggest holiday during an arts integration program, "The ABCs of Thanksgiving, in front of family and friends who packed the school's cafeteria.

T was for turkey, of course and A for America, M for Mayflower and P for pilgrim. Each letter of the alphabet represented a different word. All together, the students told the story of the first Thanksgiving from A to Z.

+50 A first grade thanksgiving at East Aiken Elementary East Aiken School of the Arts first grade students present the ABC's of Thanksgiving.

Under the Aiken County Public Schools' new redistricting plan, East Aiken has a lot of new students this year, Principal Lisa Fallaw said. Many of them had never sung, danced, acted or spoken in pubic before.

All of our grade levels are required to do an arts integrated performance, Fallaw said. This was their first big performance, and it was adorable.

But the performance was more than cute. The children also learn valuable communication skills, such as speaking in public, at an early age, Fallaw said.

This was the first time they had ever been on stage, so the courage it takes to get up there to speak and sing and perform is awesome, she said. It's very different than when they're performing or singing with a group. They have to get up there and articulate and say that line by themselves. That really, really shows the hard work the students and their teachers have put into the performance  and they learned a lot about Thanksgiving.

At East Aiken, beginning with children as young as 4K, the arts  visual arts, music, drama and dance  are woven into the curriculum to teach reading, math, science and social studies.

You might walk into a classroom on any given day, and students might be singing about math or dancing to the water cycle, Fallaw said. They could be doing a chant to remember the regions or South Carolina. It's all intertwined, and it makes learning stick with them. We always like to say at East Aiken the arts is the glue that sticks it all together.
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The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce is wading into the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility fiasco, according to an email obtained by the Aiken Standard.

The department will hold "rapid reemployment" information sessions at 8 a.m., 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 at Aiken Technical College, according to the email, which was written and sent by Mark Hendrick, the department's director of governmental affairs.

The reemployment sessions coincide with a MOX worker job fair hosted by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the Savannah River Site management and operations contractor.

That job fair  not open to the public and featuring several SRS contractors  will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Dec. 5 at the USC Aiken Convocation Center, 2049 Champion Way, Graniteville.

On Oct. 10, the National Nuclear Security Administration terminated the MOX contract in full, sinking the incomplete project.

MOX, located at SRS, was designed to turn weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear reactors. The facility is more than a decade in the making.

Since the termination issuance, more than 600 MOX workers have been served layoff notifications. Hendrick's email acknowledges the mass layoffs.

"We are still in communication with MOX to find avenues to serve these individuals," Hendrick wrote.

A newsletter published by state Sen. Tom Young, R-Aiken, on Tuesday morning mentions the rapid reemployment effort. Young leads the Aiken County Legislative Delegation.

The MOX project employs about 1,700 people in total.

The first round of layoff notices at the MOX project was issued Nov. 8. The second round of layoffs is scheduled for the week of Dec. 3, and the third and final round is scheduled for the week of Jan. 28, according to an internal project memo obtained by the Aiken Standard.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Polestar, Volvo Cars-owned electric performance car brand, showcased the Polestar 1 at the Auto Guangzhou 2018 kicking off on November 16. The automaker revealed that its first production base will be located in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province in southwest China.

As the automaker's first model positioned as a high-performance GT (grand tourer), the polestar 1 is driven by a hybrid power system that pumps out 600PS (around 441kW) and 1000Nm of peak torque and boasts a 150-km range in EV-only mode.

Since the presale of the Polestar 1 started from March, the orders received have already gotten beyond the annual capacity of 500 units. Momentum in the development of the Polestar 1 has increased with the production of the first series of road-going verification prototype (VP) cars in Sweden. Besides, Polestar has undertaken the first series of crash tests, which represented the first time that the Volvo Car Group has assessed the strength of a carbon fiber reinforced polymer body in a real crash situation.

The automaker has completed the major structure construction of its new production base in Chengdu and is debugging facilities. The Polestar 1 will be put into mass production in the middle of 2019 at the Chengdu base, which is going to have a brand experience center and a circuit for testing vehicles.

Moreover, the automaker plans to build 20 Polestar Spaces in China by 2020 as part of Polestar's effort to build a global network that will include around 60 Spaces by mid-2020. Customers are allowed to interact with product experts, view cars and have test-drive on spot.
Investments are always welcomed in the Philippines as long as they are done aboveboard and transparent. But if they are concealed and manipulative to the detriment of another shareholder, the investment is a fraud and plainly illegal. The Securities and Exchange Commission in a recent ruling found out that corporate laws were violated in the ongoing boardroom row at The Medical City. A group of investors identified with a Singaporean conglomerate, according to the corporate watchdog, committed violations of the Securities Regulation Code that resulted in a hostile takeover of the hospital facility. The SEC resolution highlighted the method of a Singaporean investor claiming to have acquired a majority stake in Medical City, in partnership with entities identified with the erstwhile treasurer of the beleaguered institution. The SEC has found the Singaporean investment firm Viva Holdings Inc. and its local partner,and his firms, in violation of at least three major provisions of the Securities Regulation Code. The schemes used by the Singaporean firm and Gonzales, says the SEC, were concealed from the board of directors and shareholders of Medical City. Through such concealment, the respondents misrepresented their independence from one another to acquire the majority stake. The SEC noted that the act prejudiced the unsuspecting shareholders whose share value and voting power have declined as a result of the scheme. The SEC said the Viva-Gonzales group violated provisions of the Code which expressly prohibited fraudulent, deceptive or manipulative act or practices in connection with any tender offer. At the heart of the SEC probe of the The Medical City mess are two agreements signed by Viva Holdings and Gonzales local firms. These are the shareholder covenant that ties the two groups tightly together, and a questionable $38-million loan agreement, the proceeds of which were supposedly used by the Gonzales group to acquire majority shares of Professional Services Inc., which owns and operates The Medical City. The SEC is currently looking into the terms of the loan to determine if Viva Holdings is actually the so-called ultimate beneficial owner of the shares. The agency in particular is reviewing if laws established by the Securities Regulation Code to protect minority shareholders were violated in the acquisition of a majority stake of corporation. Were fraudulent, deceptive and manipulative acts indeed used by the Viva and Gonzales partnership,as concluded by the SEC, in their bid to gain control of a revered institution like the Medical City? The SEC gave the Viva-Gonzales group a deadline to answer why they should not be held liable for the violations they committed. The group said it would in time prove the SEC wrong.The SECs role has become crucial at this time when the countrys hospital industry is looking for major growth and expansion. Huge capital investments are needed to modernize the countrys hospital sector. Philippine private hospitals are moving fast to help the national government cope with the demand for more hospital beds. The World Health Organization is calling for an infrastructure in health services that provides two hospital beds for every 1,000 population. The current ratio in the Philippines is 0.8 hospital bed for every 1,000 Filipinos. Meeting the WHO standards is not being shouldered by the government alone. If that were so, it will take 30 years more before the Philippines can get any closer to the ideal ratio. But local and foreign investors have started bridging the deficit in the healthcare sector. Singapores sovereign wealth fund GIC, formerly known as the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore, is one aggressive investor in the healthcare sector with over $100 billion in investible funds. GIC poured in some $84 million of those funds into the countrys hospital industry through Metro Pacific Investment Corp.s healthcare unit, Neptuna Stroika Holdings Inc. The investment led to the expansion of well-known top hospital brands, including Makati Medical Center and Asian Hospital and Medical Center. The two hospitals join Medical City and St. Lukes hospitals in an exclusive list of medical institutions accredited by JCI, an international rating organization, with the highest standards of excellence. GICs entry is evidence that investors that come into the country with good intentions and in accordance with established rules can contribute well to the growth of the hospital industry.
The families of three murdered Army Green Berets are suing Jordan under a recently passed law championed by relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who are seeking damages from Saudi Arabia.

Filed Friday in federal court in Washington, DC, the lawsuit accuses Jordan of aiding a terrorist cover-up and seeks damages from Amman under an expansive interpretation of the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) that could open the door for more such actions against sovereign governments.

Army Staff Sgts. Matthew Lewellen, Kevin McEnroe and James Moriarty were killed by a lone gunman in November 2016 at King Faisal Air Base as they returned from a covert CIA mission training forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The effort to stand up Syrian opposition forces to fight Assad has since been canceled by the Donald Trump administration.

The lawsuit alleges that Jordan aided and abetted Sgt. Abu Tayeh, a Jordanian gate guard at the base, by seeking to silence the families and initially stating that Tayeh acted properly when he opened fire in response to a supposed loud noise. Tayeh was initially promoted and decorated, but has since been sentenced to life in prison for the shootings after an outraged reaction from the US government.

The victims families are also calling for the United States to re-examine its $1.5 billion annual aid package for Amman and are asking for an official apology from Jordan.

King Abdullah II of Jordan has never apologized for the murder of our sons. Not once, Brian McEnroe, the father of one of the murdered US Army special forces officers, said at a press conference on Friday. The Kingdom of Jordan and its leader King Abdullah have depended on the US for military and financial aid, to the tune of over a billion dollars each year. I believe its past time to re-evaluate the relationship.

In a statement, the Embassy of Jordan in Washington did not directly address the suit, but said it deeply regrets the tragedy, and has done its best to achieve justice.

The lawsuit is particularly noteworthy for its wide interpretation of JASTA, which the Barack Obama administration warned could be used to target US allies and the United States itself when it vetoed the bill. The House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to override that veto in September 2016.

Some lawyers question JASTAs applicability in the Jordan suit since the law is narrowly written to allow American citizens to sue foreign governments in connection to terrorist attacks in the homeland.

They never explain how it applies here, Curtis Bradley, a Duke University law professor, told Al-Monitor in an email. I dont see how it could apply given that the terrorist attack occurred outside the United States.

In the 2016 incident, Tayeh allegedly exited his guard post and fired into the cab of a vehicle carrying Lewellen and McEnroe, while Moriarty and another US soldier sought cover by concrete barriers. Tayeh then shot Moriarty, who had yelled in English and Arabic that the US troops posed no threat, at close range.

The suit argues that the slain US soldiers should be afforded the same legal protection as American diplomats in light of the 1996 Status of Forces agreement between the United States and Jordan. Some experts view that argument as overly broad.

The complaint is very clearly trying to paint legal authorities in the most favorable light to squeeze into these JASTA [laws], said Scott Anderson, a former State Department lawyer during the Obama administration. Its a real stretch.

Another Washington lawyer familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the litigation had long odds of success, it could open the door for more US citizens seeking damages against foreign governments.

The suit comes as Congress and US plaintiffs are seeking new legal avenues to sue for damages in terror cases. Many of those efforts are being pursued on behalf of the families of American service members.

In 2017, US service members sued five drug companies doing business with Iraqs Ministry of Health  once controlled by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr  for allegedly abetting terrorism. The suit claims drugs were sold at a profit on the war-torn countrys black market.

Social media companies Google, Facebook and Twitter have defeated recent suits claiming that permissive rules on their platforms allowed militants to plot attacks. The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in October, requires foreign entities to consent to the jurisdiction of US federal courts as a condition for receiving foreign aid, potentially jeopardizing US assistance to Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, the Palestinians and others.
GAZA CITY, Gaza strip  Qatars ambassador to the Palestinian territories, Mohammed al-Emadi, visited Nov. 9 al-Awda refugee camp in the Gaza Strip during Great Return March activities for the first time since the Friday marches began in March.

Emadi had arrived in Gaza a day earlier through the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing, bringing suitcases stuffed with cash  $15 million  as part of a Qatari grant to help alleviate the dire economic situation facing residents. This grant aims to pay the wages of civil servants in the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, as well as to develop employment projects for college graduates. It is just one of many grants planned. More aid is being provided for energy-related projects. Qatari fuel arrived Nov. 10 to the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company as part of efforts to resolve the power crisis plaguing Gaza.

Israel allowed Qatar to deliver the funds to the Gaza Strip after several discussions among Arab and regional parties. The Higher National Commission for the Great Return March and Breaking the Siege stated Nov. 9 that return marches are ongoing thanks to the Qatari grant. Israel, however, believes the money is supposed to help ease tensions with Gaza.

The Great Return March protests began March 30 near the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and aim to end the siege Israel has imposed since 2007 and fulfill the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their pre-1948 homeland. These marches have resulted in violence and a tense political situation between Palestinians and Israelis.

Emadi said during his visit that his country will continue to pay the salaries of Gazas civil employees for six months, giving monthly payments to poor families from the $15 million grant, in addition to $10 million for fuel. He also confirmed ongoing talks with Israel in regard to the electricity problem, the 161-kilovolt transmission line project to be established from Israel to Gaza and the maritime route to be created between Gaza and Cyprus.

Some angry demonstrators pelted stones at Emadi's convoy during his stop at the camp, objecting to his presence in the Gaza Strip. Some consider the money he provided as a payoff to deter the resistance. The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank opposed the payment, saying the money will just allow Hamas to consolidate control over the area.

An Egyptian security delegation had visited the return camps Nov. 2 to encourage protesters to conduct peaceful marches rather than resorting to popular resistance methods used in past months, such as burning tires, launching incendiary kites and cutting through the barbed wire installed by Israel at the border.

Meanwhile, talks between the Egyptian delegation and Hamas continue, aiming to reach a long-term truce with Israel that includes easing the siege on the Gaza Strip in return for halting the Palestinian demonstrations near the border fence.

Unrelated to the weekly marches, a ferocious and deadly battle arose Nov. 12 between Israel and Hamas. On Nov. 13, a cease-fire was reached under Egyptian and international mediation.

However, on Nov. 15, the Great Return March commission called on Gazans to participate in a mass protest under the slogan Normalization Is Betrayal" to show support for the Palestinian resistance, which believes it emerged victorious from the Nov. 12-13 battle.

Commission member Talal Abu Zarifa told Al-Monitor that the visits of Emadi and the Egyptian delegation to the camp sent a powerful message of solidarity with the demonstrators. According to him, the visits will help support the peaceful nature of the return marches and disprove any Israeli claims of the continued use of popular resistance methods by demonstrators. He said the Egyptian delegation conveyed a positive image to the Israeli side about the marches and the demonstrators there.

Abu Zarifa also stressed that the political efforts led by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations will help calm the violence and lift the siege. He pointed out, however, that the marches will not stop before achieving their goals, namely lifting the siege completely and affirming the right of refugees to return to their lands. He noted that Israel has responded to Palestinian demands only because of the pressure of the Great Return March protests.

Ibrahim al-Madhoun, an expert on Palestinian affairs and director of the Youth Media Center, Hamas media wing, told Al-Monitor that Emadis visit aimed to examine the situation on the ground and monitor the marches, in light of the agreements between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides under the auspices of the UN and Egypt and with Qatari efforts. He noted that Qatar is trying to strengthen its role in the Palestinian cause, saying, Emadis visit may have been linked to his long-term political ambition, in addition to his desire to thank the Palestinian people.

Madhoun expects a noticeable breakthrough for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip if current diplomatic efforts continue and a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel is reached. He added that people have already started feeling this positive change thanks to the Qatari grant.

All sectors are yearning for projects to boost the economy in Gaza," he said. Like Abu Zarifa, Madhoun expects the return marches to continue over the next two months but at a reduced level, to give way to the cease-fire reached Nov. 13. He pointed out that any violation from either side  Hamas or Israel  will be directly reflected in march activities.

Hamza Abu Shanab, a political analyst close to Hamas, denied in an interview with Al-Monitor any political significance to Emadi's visit to the return camp. Any decision to stop or continue the marches will come from the high commission  in other words, from Palestinians, not Qataris. He further stressed that the visit aimed to assess the situation on the ground.

When asked about the frequency of future marches, he answered, The marches were peaceful when they started out, but they evolved into violent ones with the use of popular resistance methods when the Palestinian demands were ignored. I expect them to return to their initial peaceful form, thanks to the understandings reached.

He added, The marches will continue to be a means of pressure on Israel and one of the tools of the Palestinian struggle, but will not preserve the same momentum and mobilization that existed previously, as they may turn into folklore and be held monthly or annually.

Abu Shanab said solving Gazas economic situation is not only linked to the Qatari funds and fuel; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should also lift the punitive measures he started imposing on Gaza in April 2017, mainly slashing the salaries of PA employees in Gaza. He should also refrain from imposing new sanctions, as he has threatened to do if Israel agrees to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip.

When talking about the next phase for Palestinians, Abu Shanab said that at the domestic level, there will be no actual developments in the effort to reconcile the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories because Abbas is sticking to his program  a policy opposed by all factions of the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. As for the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, he said, Efforts and understandings will continue to achieve a long-term truce between the two sides.
Frustrated with President Donald Trumps muted response to Saudi Arabias murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Congress has triggered a federal probe into Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans alleged involvement. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and top Democrat Bob Menendez, D-N.J., used a 2016 human rights law to launch the investigation on Tuesday after Trump released a lengthy statement ardently defending Saudi Arabia.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, Menendez tweeted. Now Pres. Trump must SPECIFICALLY determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

The Global Magnitsky Act probe requires the Trump administration to officially report to Congress on intelligence agencies conclusions regarding bin Salman's alleged role in ordering Khashoggis killing. However, the administration can opt not to pursue sanctions even if it concludes the crown prince was involved.

Why it matters: The probe reflects a strong bipartisan backlash against Trumps efforts to shield the prince from accountability despite reports that the CIA believes he ordered Khashoggis assassination. Trumps statement directly challenged Congress and accused lawmakers of taking a hard line on Saudi Arabia for political or other reasons.

I never thought Id see the day a White house would moonlight as a public relations firm for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Corker tweeted in response.

Second probe: This will be the second time Congress has triggered a federal probe into the Khashoggi murder. Last month Corker and Menendez teamed up with a bipartisan group of 20 other senators to launch the first investigation. As a result, the Trump administration sanctioned 17 Saudi officials last week for their involvement in the murder. But Riyadh had already arrested all 17 men while denying bin Salman's involvement.

Whats next? The Trump administration now has four months to complete the investigation and determine whether it should sanction the crown prince. In the meantime, a bipartisan group of six senators has introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act. The bill would sanction Saudi royals involved in the Khashoggi murder and end certain arms sales to Riyadh through 2020 while ensuring that the United States does not resume midair refueling support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Next week, the Senate will once again vote on a resolution to fully end US support for the Yemen war. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is favored to become House speaker when Democrats take control of the lower chamber in January, co-sponsored the same resolution on Tuesday.

Know more: Congressional correspondent Bryant Harris has the lowdown on what exactly the bipartisan Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act entails. And be sure to read his story about Democrat-led efforts to fully terminate US support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen.

-Bryant Harris
Successive Iranian administrations have in past decades, to various degrees, shown a tendency toward populist policies. This has often meant losing sight of underlying issues that are only addressed after transforming into fully fledged crises. The state of pension funds in Iran, which is becoming increasingly dire, is a prime example of the latter.

Experts and observers have for years been warning that Iranian pension funds are on a steep, declining trajectory. Now, it appears that politicians are following suit: First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Oct. 23 became the highest-ranking government official to sound the alarm on the funds, signaling the seriousness of the issue. Addressing a regional conference on aging societies no less, he referred to pension funds as one of the "major challenges" facing Iran. President Hassan Rouhani's second-in-command also reported some startling facts: Almost all of the expenditures of the Armed Forces Pension Fund and about 80% of the required financial resources of the Civil Servants Pension Fund (CSPF)  the country's oldest pension fund  which is currently run by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare  are directly provided by the government.

"In the coming years, with the increased number of [members of the] workforce who will reach the age of retirement, their expenses must be provided through these funds," Jahangiri said.

Available data suggest that achieving such a goal is easier said than done. According to Iran's top business daily, Donya-e-Eqtesad, the Iranian treasury has paid an average of 25 trillion rials ($595 million) per month to the CSPF during the current Iranian year (which began last March). Considering that the government's total current expenditures based on the budget law amount to about 2.94 quadrillion rials ($70 billion), the paper said, if the current trend of payouts continues, payments to the CSPF alone will be equivalent to just under 10% of government current expenditures by spring 2019.

All of the 18 main pension funds in Iran  including that of the Social Security Organization (SSO), which covers some 14 million Iranians  are facing a liquidity deficit. That deficit has widened in recent years to regularly overshadow the entirety of the government's infrastructure spending since 2016, according to a recent study by the Monetary and Banking Research Institute (MBRI), which is affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran.

The study also predicts that if the current trend of an aging society coupled with recession and rampant unemployment continues  Iran's gross domestic product (GDP) is predicted by the International Monetary Fund to contract by 1.5% and 3.6% in 2018 and 2019 respectively, while unemployment has increased to 12.2%, according to the latest figures of the Statistical Center of Iran  the deficits of pension funds will only grow larger. This is all occurring while around two-thirds of Iranian pensioners go into retirement sooner than the official retirement age  which is 60 for men and 55 for women  with Iran's average retirement age standing at 51 and some even retiring younger than age 45.

As the MBRI study notes, Iranian pension funds will soon have few options to stay afloat except for a government bailout or smarter investment decisions. This accentuates their role in the country's overall financial stability. But in light of managerial deficiencies and the conditions of the fledgling capital market, this outsized role could prove more of a liability than an asset.

For instance, pension funds have had a track record of pressuring firms in which major stakes are held into borrowing from banks to gain liquidity in the short term. This leads to imbalanced corporate finances and damaged future revenues. Furthermore, since Iran's capital market still has plenty of room to grow, sudden sell-offs by pension funds may lead to turbulence and losses for many investors.

According to the MBRI study, all major Iranian pension funds are facing a financial crisis as evidenced by their support ratios  namely the number of people paying into the funds in relation to beneficiaries. A healthy pension fund has a support ratio of 6-7, while 3 is the danger threshold, the study reported. In Iran, the SSOs pension fund has a support ratio of about 4.5, while almost all others  including the CSPF  are below 1. Given these dire conditions, the SSOs fund and the CSPF  the two major funds considered "too big to fail"  will likely continue to burden the governments coffer absent a sustainable solution. MBRI data show that combined, the money paid to the pensioners of the SSOs fund and the CSPF was the equivalent of 27.47% of the total government budget and 4.1% of the GDP in the Iranian fiscal year running March 2015-March 2016. In the Iranian fiscal year running March 2005-2006, these numbers stood at 8.92% and 2.06% respectively.

Last year, management consulting firm McKinsey worked with the CSPF to devise more long-term solutions for Iran's embattled pensions funds. The two sides came up with four emergency solutions and a number of long-term reforms. The first short-term solution, they said, would be to delay retirement in exchange for a number of incentives  a method that has been tried and tested successfully in countries such as Finland. The Iranian government was also advised to devise new taxes as previously done in North America. A third solution would be for the pension funds to effectively identify and sell their stagnant and low-return assets to generate much-needed liquidity. Lastly, allowing the funds to issue bonds with some of their assets as collateral was proposed as a solution. In this vein, it was projected that issuing 30 trillion rials ($715 million) worth of bonds with 19% return rates would cover 10% of the funds' current deficits in the span of four years. Indeed, the Rouhani administration has already turned to bond issues in recent years, but an overdependence on them can, on the other hand, create the grounds for future crises.

Should the Iranian government abide by the short-term proposals, it will have few incentives to pursue broader reforms that are more difficult, such as structural and governance changes in pension funds. These types of reforms usually trigger harsh reactions, as French President Emanuel Macron found last year when his labor and social security reforms were challenged by nation-wide protests. Already reeling from the effects of US sanctions and mismanagement of the economy, the Rouhani administration can be expected to exercise caution about pursuing any trigger for potential unrest.
"A certain government kills a journalist in a certain country, and while condemning that killing the president of another country brands us terrorists, that's bizarre, isnt it?" tweeted an Iranian in response to remarks by US President Donald Trump following his Nov. 20 statement on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"They are a terrorist nation right now," Trump told reporters upon his departure to Florida Nov. 20, only hours after he issued a statement meant to address the CIA findings on the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of the dissident journalist. Trump started off that statement by lambasting Iran's involvement in the Yemen conflict, only briefly touching upon whether the young prince had ordered the killing: "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

A Nov. 21 article on IRNA  the official news agency reflecting the views of President Hassan Rouhani's government  interpreted the statement as a blatant expression of support for a criminal. "Trump's efforts to help the Saudi government come clean from the Khashoggi affair and  mislead the world public opinion are desperate and only doomed to failure for both the culprit and its supporter," the news agency wrote.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was among the first to respond. "Perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests  just like the Finns do?" he wrote on Twitter. But Zarif focused on Trump's official statement and not the interview in which he named Iran a terrorist nation. This interview has reignited flames of anger among ordinary Iranians.

"The person accusing us of terrorism has been throwing his full weight behind the world's top terrorist states, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, [while] we continue to remain victims of terror," wrote an Iranian user on Twitter, supported by another who reposted a picture of Mohammad Taha, a 4-year-old boy killed during a Sept. 22 terror attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz. "Was he a terrorist, too?" read the post under a #ShameOnYou hashtag.

Some considered the domestic political implications of the interview, since President Rouhani has championed negotiations with the West. Trump's latest attack, according to one tweet, was just another signal that "there is no way Iran would sit down at a negotiating table as long this man is in office.  Even bullies bigger than Trump have not succeeded in humiliating or defeating the Iranian nation throughout the entire human history."

Others questioned how Trump was only considering economic interests in his defense of Saudi Arabia. One Iranian noted that the Trump statement only exposed his hatred toward Iranians, which is rooted in his "racist" agenda that has already targeted "America's black community and immigrants."

In a sarcastic reaction, top Reformist figure Mostafa Tajzade said, "Trump's statement in a nutshell was: Viva bin Salman and let's move forward with further sanctions on a 'terrorist nation' which deserves peace, freedom and welfare," referencing US government statements that Washington is seeking to improve the livelihood of ordinary Iranians.

Officials in close touch with everyday affairs of ordinary Iranians, however, refuse to buy those claims. "With its hostile approach and multiple sanctions on food and medicines, the United States is targeting the Iranian people," said the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society during a speech in the central city of Semnan Nov. 20.

Part of the debate sparked by Trump's latest statement on Iran also rested on whether he was clear about the literal meaning of the word "nation." Last October, he again called Iran a "terrorist nation," leaving many with little doubt now that it was "just a slip of tongue. He was [rather] speaking up his personal beliefs from the bottom of his heart and he targeted Iranians from every walk of life," tweeted one Iranian.

The latest name-calling has revived a sense of patriotism among many Iranians and rallied them behind the flag, a sentiment that the Islamic Republic might need to counter mounting US pressure and alleviate public anger at economic hardships.

"Many of us are critics, opponents or even enemies of the Islamic Republic," wrote an infuriated Iranian. "Trump either doesnt know what nation means or has underestimated us too much.  This dirty businessman has to hear the sound of our fury."
Iraqi President Barham Salih met with Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Nov. 17 in Tehran, where Khamenei underlined that Iraq must retain its Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). Khamenei stated that the PMU were among Iraqs major achievements in the past few years.

Khamenei has reiterated this stance in previous meetings with Iraqi officials, including former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, which shows how important this matter is for Iran.

Meanwhile, the Donald Trump administration has insisted on the disarmament and disbanding of pro-Iran military factions in Iraq as part of the 12 conditions that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proposed to sign a new agreement with Iran instead of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which the United States exited this year. The seventh condition calls for respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilization and reintegration of [Shiite] militias.

Khamenei underlined the importance of widening the scope of relations between the two countries, saying, Iranian officials have a strong will to develop their cooperation with Iraq. I strongly believe this.

Salih also met with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, and reiterated the need to develop their ties. Rouhani called for expanding economic exchange between the two countries, and he said that Iran and Iraq can increase their annual bilateral trade exchange from $12 billion to $20 billion.

During Salihs meeting with Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Shamkhani, the latter said, The many plots that the United States and some regressive countries in the region [meaning Saudi Arabia] are weaving to ruin the friendly ties between our people will fail.

Although Salih responded positively to the Iranian demands and thanked Irans efforts in the Iraqi war against the Islamic State (IS), the Iraqi delegation did not take any serious steps to sign trade and economic contracts and did not even bring up the topic. Also, the Iraqi delegation did not include ministers and figures focused on developing ties between the two countries. However, Salihs visit to Jordan Nov. 15 was different, as several ministers accompanied him.

Salih left Tehran Nov. 18 for Riyadh  Irans biggest regional rival  and was accompanied by Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Al-Hakim and Minister of Industry Saleh Abdullah, along with other high-ranking officials.

The United States is trying to pressure Iraq on all levels to distance itself from Iran and curb Iranian influence in the country. It also gave Iraq 45 days to stop importing gas and electricity from Iran. Iraqi officials revealed to Reuters that Iraq plans on submitting a proposal to the United States to continue importing gas and energy supplies in exchange for medication and foodstuff.

In line with US pressure and sanctions, Iraqi Minister of Oil Thaer al-Ghadban asserted during his first press conference that Iraq will put its national interest first in regards to sanctions on Iran. He said Iraq will stop exporting oil from Kirkuk fields to Iran, estimated at less than 30,000 barrels a day.

Iraq is also gradually looking to Turkey to bridge the gap stemming from reducing its dealings with Iran.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Oil Asem Jihad announced that oil exporting from Kirkuk had resumed to the Turkish Jihan Port Nov. 16 through Iraqi Kurdistan pipelines at a rate of 50,000 to 100,000 barrels a day.

In the past, Iraq exported around 300,000 barrels of Kirkuk oil per day through the Iraqi Kurdistan Region in 2017, before the region held its independence referendum in September 2017. As a result of the referendum, Baghdad seized control of Kirkuk and halted oil exports from the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to Turkey.

Reports have been circulating about Irans reduced influence and popularity in Iraq. According to a study that Alustakilla research group conducted and The Washington Post published Nov. 16 that involved 2,500 to 3,500 national interviews, Iraqi Shiites favoring Iran dropped from 88% in 2015 to 47% in the fall of 2018. During that same period, the percentage of Shiites who do not favor Iran rose from 6% to 51%.

The percentage of Shiites who believe Iran is a reliable partner of Iraq plunged from 76% to 43% during the same period. Those who believe Iran is not a reliable partner increased from 24% to 55%. More Iraqi Shiites now see Iran as a real threat to Iraqs sovereignty, with a rise from 25% in 2016 to 58% in 2018.

Iran is worried about losing its Iraqi market. Manager of the Iraqi Chamber at the Iranian Ministry of Commerce and former Iranian trade adviser in Iraq Ibrahim Mohammad Reza warned on Nov. 17 that Iran would lose its market in Iraq to its competitors unless it takes serious steps to maintain it. He said Iran occupies 13% of the Iraqi market  the United Arab Emirates has a share of 25%, Turkey has 18% and China has 17%. Irans national economy significantly depends on its exports to Iraq, as they account for 21% of its total exports to the world.

The above indications show that Irans influence in Iraq is declining gradually as nationalist voices in the country rise and foreign pressures increase on the Iraqi government to distance itself from Iran.
Laguna Technopark Inc., a joint venture between Prime Orion Philippines Inc. and Mitsubishi Corp., has earmarked P1 billion to build a logistics and warehouse facility in Binan City, Laguna province. POPI in a disclosure to the stock exchange LTI launched its latest standard building facility aimed at accommodating small and medium businesses, as well as clients with growing warehousing and storage needs. The new facility will have 40 units measuring 1,200 to 1,500 square meters each, and a total leasable area of 60,000 sqm when completed by October 2020. Located within the 11-hectare Laguna Technopark, the facility will be LTIs biggest investment so far. It will also be dedicated to serving non-Peza (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) locators. The building will be available for lease to interested parties in May 2019. LTI is a prime developer of industrial parks in the Philippines. It owns and manages the 460-hectare Laguna Technopark, which spans portions of the cities of Santa Rosa and Binan in the province and the 118-hectare Cavite Technopark in the municipality of Naic, Cavite.Located in the Calabarzon area, LTIs industrial parks have served as preferred locations of local and foreign manufacturing, processing logistics and distribution companies in the Philippines. To boost the logistics business, POPI maximized the value of its 14-hectare Lepanto property in Calamba, Laguna by shifting Lepanto Ceramics focus from tile manufacturing to real estate warehouse operations. The company upgraded the common areas of its Lepanto Industrial Complex, initiated a phased rehabilitation program, and converted formerly non-leasable areas into leasable spaces. POPI also plans to launch a 100-hectare industrial park in Cagayan de Oro and acquire at least another 100-hectare property in Central Luzon to be developed as an industrial park. Share price of POPI on Wednesday closed declined 3.7 percent to P2.36.
CAIRO  The high demand for Islamic cultural centers in the conservative northern Sinai Peninsula prompted the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) to open more centers to teach moderate Islam in this volatile governorate, a high-level ministry official told Al-Monitor.

Gaber Taye, head of the religion sector in the Ministry of Religious Endowments, told Al-Monitor that the opening of three Islamic cultural centers at the beginning of the school year was an unprecedented step in North Sinai, a governorate where the Egyptian army and security forces struggle to purge the area of the Islamic State and its affiliates.

It is also the first time that three Islamic cultural centers open in a single governorate. The centers are located in the cities of el-Arish, Bir al-Abed and Hasna, Taye said, adding that the ministry had planned for 30 students for each center. But we have had [a total of ] 300 requests for enrollment in the governorate, he added.

Northern Sinai is seen as a hub of violent religious extremist groups, which prompted the Ministry of Religious Endowments to open the Islamic cultural centers  also known as Awqaf centers  to offer a curriculum based on moderate Islamic teachings. The centers opened on Sept. 22, at the beginning of the school year. The opening of the three cultural centers  and promise of new ones  when there is only one center in each governorate shows the governments intensified efforts to counter radicalism in northern Sinai. Classes at the centers are free of charge and admission is easier compared to the cultural centers in other governorates. The move comes at the same time as major development projects in the region and an intensified military operation.against terrorism.

Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa confirmed that the centers for Islamic culture in northern Sinai are in demand, underlining that this demonstrates the locals' rejection of religious extremism. In an Oct. 23 press statement, Gomaa said, There has been a high turnout of people for the cultural centers since day one, which is further proof that life is returning back to normal in Sinai and that the residents renounce extremism, violence and terrorism. Scholars and imams from the ministry will instruct the students on the teachings of Islam.

Taye noted, Admission to the centers usually requires high academic credentials but we make an exception in northern Sinai where applicants with average grades are admitted. The students attendance of classes should not be less than 60%. Unlike centers in other governorates, people in northern Sinai are exempted from tuition fees.

He said that the teachers are graduates from Al-Azhar University, the renowned seat of Islamic education. They were selected among many applicants after taking different tests, he noted.

Taye added that the centers are local alternatives to Al-Azhar University, since there are no branches of the university in northern Sinai. It is a great opportunity for citizens to learn the basics of Sharia, Islamic jurisprudence and study the Al-Azhar curricula, he said.

After two years of study, the centers students  both male and female  will obtain a certificate, which would allow them to work as a religious leader in a mosque. Alternatively, according to Taye, they could use their acquired knowledge to educate family, friends and the younger generation.

Taye also stressed the role of the cultural centers in combating extremism, creating an open dialogue between students and teachers on Islam and reject radicalization of Islamic principles. He noted, This [teaching of moderate Islam] is done through the curricula and direct contact with moderate Al-Azhar scholars, as well as through intellectual discussions that help refute terrorists ideas [that make use of Islam for their own means] and extremist rhetoric that does not accept pluralism.

The idea of opening Islamic cultural centers was first introduced in 1989, with a large cultural center in Cairo and affiliated centers all over Egypt. The goal was to raise a new generation of imams and religious leaders who would address the public on the principles of Islam and provide guidance on daily issues.

There are presently 28 Islamic cultural centers in Egypt. The latest one opened Nov. 8 in Hurghada in the Red Sea governorate. Unlike the others, the center in Hurghada also admits foreigners who would like to learn the Islamic teachings, with courses taught in English, French and German.

Layla Mohammed, a second-year student at the Islamic cultural center in Giza governorate, told Al-Monitor that she is satisfied with the education and that the teachers are excellent. She said, It is the first time I study Islamic studies. Mohammed wants to work as a religious leader in the center, which has a section for female preachers.

Fatima al-Zahraa, who graduated from the center in Cairo, told Al-Monitor that she enrolled in classes because of her passion for the fundamentals of religion. However, she believes that two years is not enough for her to become a good preacher. She said that she does not want to preach, but instead would try to educate and influence her family and friends.

The Ministry of Religious Endowments has recently launched several other initiatives to combat radicalism. On Nov. 9, Messenger of Humanity was launched with the aim to spread the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad through sermons and lessons via satellite TV channels, public forums, workshops and book clubs. The project also aims to establish an international academy for training imams and preachers from different countries.

Another initiative, launched Oct 28, aims to create working groups with adherents and representatives of different religions in Egypt, who would discuss ways to combat prejudices and teach tolerance in their respective communities.

The ministry's "Homeland Without Addiction campaign launched Oct. 6, which, according to Gomaa, aims to fight drug addiction and shed light on the link between the agriculture of substances used for drugs, terrorism and the recruitment of the youth.

Georges Fahmi, an Egyptian researcher at the European University Institute in Italy, praised the Ministry of Endowments efforts in combating extremism. But, speaking to Al-Monitor, he also underlined that the best way is not to wait for citizens to join such centers. Direct communication with the people must be ongoing, he said, stressing the need to use local networks, in cooperation with imams, preachers, educational institutions and tribal leaders.

He added, This is why it is very important to train scholars and preachers in every area in the country, given the mindset and tribal composition in the country."
So far, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a point of not attacking former Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, whether directly or indirectly. He has stuck with it while Gantz began to rise in the polls over the last few months, and even though he is taking a bite out of the bloc of less committed Likud supporters. Hes good for us, people close to Netanyahu told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity when asked about Gantz rise. They explained, As long as he runs alone, he just ends up splitting the left. Even if he does win seats from the Likud, it will not change the bigger picture.

So far, Netanyahu himself has been behind this policy of ignoring Gantz. But all that finally came to an end this week when a Channel 10 poll showed Gantz winning about 15 seats. Another poll, this one by Hadashot, made matters worse, asking, "Who would you like to see as defense minister?" It gave Gantz a significant edge over Netanyahu (28% to just 7%) on the very day that the prime minister officially took over as defense minister, following Yisrael Beitenu head Avigdor Libermans resignation.

Gantz has not yet officially announced that he will launch a new party. He has remained silent about his plans, leaving the feeling that all options are open to him, including the possibility of joining one of the existing center-left parties. On the other hand, the more flattering the polls are to him, the greater his appetite will become. In other words, the chances of him joining an existing party before the next election are dwindling.

Netanyahu knows how to read between the lines. He has a deep understanding of trends in the polls, regardless of whether the results are made public or if they are gleaned from privately ordered surveys. He certainly knows that his image as Mr. Security suffered a devastating blow as a result of recent events in Gaza. The trouble came to a climax last week, when Netanyahu came under a barrage of criticism from the leaders of the other right-wing parties. Liberman resigned and while Education Minister Naftali Bennett (HaBayit HaYehudi) may have remained in the government, he thinks that Netanyahu failed.

As a former IDF chief of staff, Gantz is no less a security expert than Netanyahu. On the other hand, he is not tainted by corruption and is regarded by the public as a suitable candidate. Even when Netanyahu was at his lowest point in the polls, there was no one who could challenge his high levels of public support or question his suitability as prime minister or Mr. Security. Gantz can.

When Gantz broke his long silence, he completed the image that the public was seeing at home that night. His comments on responsible leadership were quoted extensively on the evening news. Among other things, he called on the countrys leaders to avoid taking advantage of this just and essential war of defense for personal or political gain," and said, "It is important to engage in a firm and clear-headed policy that bolsters the State of Israels strength. He went on to talk about a cohesive society and a government that serves the people, about equality and hope. It set off all the alarms in the prime ministers office that a new threat was emerging right before his eyes.

Then came the morning after, when Culture Minister Miri Regev gave a television interview. Her offensive and toxic comments about Gantz could hardly be attributed to chance.

Viewers were dumbfounded when Regev responded to a question about the former chief of staff and how he was soaring in the polls. She accused Gantz of being indirectly responsible for the death of a child in August 2014, during the final days of Operation Protective Edge, when a mortar shell hit his home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. We all remember Gantz as chief of staff, she said. The final chord of his tenure as chief of staff was when he told Israelis 'go out to pick anemones' and Daniel Tragerman was killed. The only ones who can lead the security policy are the Likud Party and Netanyahu," she concluded.

Regev was referring to Gantz comments after a cease-fire has been reached with Hamas. In remarks later known as the Anemone Speech, he called on the residents of the south to return to their homes: The fields will turn green and the south will be awash in red  in the positive sense of the word  in anemones, flowers and stability, which will be here for many years to come.

Even if Regevs comments werent coordinated with Netanyahu word for word, they reflected the new mood coming straight from prime ministers office: As of this week, Gantz is the enemy. That was why Regev refused to take back her remarks, saying instead on Facebook Nov. 21, To all those with a short memory who try to keep this delicate new fruit all wrapped up in cotton balls, I am here to remind you of what you are trying to forget.

There can be no doubt that Regev is the songbird whose chirping announces open warfare against Gantz as long as the polls perceive him as a real threat, the countrys best hope or the next Mr. Security.

Tthis is only the beginning of Gantz worries. So far, he has not aligned himself with any existing party. If he continues along this path, he is bound to face many rivals, including from members of his own center-left camp.

Furthermore, if Gantz runs as the head of his own party, he would effectively lay waste to Yesh Atid, which would only win some 12 seats (polls now give it 18-20 seats), while the Zionist Camp would drop to just 10 seats. He would also take seats from Finance Minister Moshe Kahlons Kulanu, which would hover on the electoral threshold with just four seats.

Neither Lapid nor Zionist Camp head Avi Gabbay will sit twiddling their thumbs once Gantz announces he plans to run. They will accuse him of tearing the center-left apart and claim that Netanyahu will win the election all because of him. In that sense, Regev's vitriol is just the beginning.

Over the last year, Lapid invested enormous efforts into courting Gantz to fill the number-two slot on his partys list. He failed. He also has no plans to evacuate his seat and his partys number-one slot for Gantz. Meanwhile, senior members of the Zionist Camp have attempted to go over Gabbays head and recruit Gantz to replace him as party leader. Their efforts were similarly futile. Gabbay will not surrender his position so easily. So far, all of this seething on the ground is causing Gantz to distance himself from the existing parties and consider running independently.

When a senior member of Yesh Atid ran into Gantz two weeks ago, he told the former chief of staff that he is making the mistake of his life by not the joining the party as Lapids number-two man. Why would I? Gantz supposedly answered. I havent said a word, and Im still climbing in the polls. He was met with the response, Youll see soon enough. Once they dig your Anemone Speech out of the archives and start playing it on a loop, you wont be able to stay quiet much longer. What the Yesh Atid member didnt realize was that it all would happen so soon.
The global property rental giant Airbnb announced Nov. 19 it was removing some 200 listings in Israeli settlements located in the West Bank. We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, according to the companys press release headlined Listings in Disputed Territories. The company went on to describe the process that led to its decision, including discussion of whether companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced. It concluded by expressing hope that someday sooner rather than late  there will be a resolution to this historic conflict.

Airbnb had been mulling the issue for some time. PLO Executive Council head Saeb Erekat demanded in 2016 that the company remove from its listings houses in West Bank settlements, arguing that they had been built illegally on Palestinian lands in violation of international law. This week, he welcomed Airbnbs decision as an initial positive step.

Israeli peace organizations were also pleased. The anti-settlement Peace Now movement said that even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett cannot see the Green Line  Israels internationally recognized eastern borderline  the rest of the world distinguishes between sovereign Israel and the occupied territories. The Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, had an interesting reaction. It simply accused the Airbnb management of anti-Semitism or capitulation to terrorism, or both. The settlement leaders added, A company that has no trouble renting apartments in dictatorships around the world and in places where there is no semblance of human rights picks on the State of Israel.

Airbnbs decision touched the most sensitive points of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reactions by the settlers, the peace organizations and certainly the Palestinians were therefore expected. So was the Nov. 21 statement by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked that she was considering legal steps against the company for its "discriminatory" policy.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin took a different tack. He condemned the shameful decision by Airbnb, but also said he had instructed his office to take immediate steps to curb its operations throughout Israel. Levin also instructed the ministry to formulate a plan promoting tourism and vacation rentals in the West Bank.

Levins announcement is strange for two reasons. First, does Levins office really intend to market the settlements of Efrat, Tekoa, Sussiya and Beit El around the world and encourage tourists to go visit settlements located far from Israeli urban centers in regions at high risk of violence? Promoting tourism to the West Bank does not require a special campaign, especially not one at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer. The government and its affiliated bodies funnel huge amounts of money via every possible channel to the local councils there and to the various settler organizations. They can market the settlements themselves to a dedicated target audience, generally visitors who go there to make a supportive political statement rather than to vacation. Second, Levins decision will harm foreign tourism to Israel just so he can defend the settlement enterprise if he fraudulently presents a visit to Tekoa, Beit El or Amona as no different from a vacation in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Haifa. Is his office not in charge of increasing the number of tourists to Israel?

The Tourism Ministry conducts regular campaigns around the world at a cost of millions of dollars to encourage visits to the Holy Land. It offers tours of historic sites and to places holy to the three Abrahamic religions, along with medical and spa tourism to the Dead Sea, unending sunshine in the Red Sea port of Eilat and the exciting night life in Tel Aviv, emphasizing the citys openness to the LGBT community.

Government figures show that tourism to Israel hit a record high of over 3.5 million last year. The ministry says every 100,000 tourists contribute 600 million shekels ($162 million) to the Israeli economy and add 4,000 direct new jobs.

At the same time, the head of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, Yossi Fatal, is warning that the greater the number of tourists, the greater the dissatisfaction with their experience due to a severe shortage of tourist accommodations, among other reasons. Fatal warned Nov. 6 against a crisis of confidence by global tourism markets in the Israeli tourism product. Nonetheless, the tourism minister thinks it makes sense to clash with the worlds biggest vacation rental agency and try to force it to toe the right-wing government policy on the disputed settlements.

Airbnb is very active in Israel. In November 2017, the municipality published a poll among tourists to the city indicating that Tel Aviv had set a world record in the number of tourists renting Airbnb accommodations. According to the poll, 51% of visitors to the city rented on Airbnb compared with only 30% who opted for a hotel (9,700 Airbnb vacation rentals are available in Tel Aviv, compared to 8,000 hotel rooms). The reason is obvious: Hotel prices in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, are high to prohibitive. Were it not for the Airbnb options, tourist numbers would certainly have declined and the ministry would have been unable to boast of record-high tourism.

Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan is willing to sacrifice Israeli tourism in the name of defending the settlements. He formed a special unit to deal with the anti-settlement boycott movement, and it backfired. Erdan essentially set up a thought police that bars anyone suspected of supporting the boycott in the past or present from entering Israel. In doing so, he turned the movement into a greater threat than it was. Levin is also willing to sacrifice Israeli tourism to stand alongside Erdan and shout for the world to know that a visit to the settlements is the same as anywhere else in Israel.
A delegation from Russia headed by President Vladimir Putin visited Turkey on Nov. 19, when a ceremony marking the completion of TurkStream gas pipelines offshore section took place. The event was mostly symbolic, as the pipeline can be used no earlier than the end of 2019. Nevertheless, both sides marked the importance of the work done.

President Putin said that the event testifies to the effectiveness of both countries partner-like cooperation in accomplishing the most difficult and ambitious projects.

"Today, barely two years after the start of this large-scale venture, we have completed its most difficult part. It was really a very serious and challenging job to build the deep-water part of the new gas pipeline," said Putin.

He added that "extracting and transporting gas is not as easy a job as some may think. It is not simply drilling a hole in the ground and then pumping. This is difficult work involving high technology, both for extraction and transport. Let me remind you that this is the most environment-friendly and the most popular type of primary energy in the world today," Putin stressed.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that TurkStream has many benefits, both for Turkish people and their neighbors.

In cooperation with our Russian friends, we have reliably carried out a very technically demanding project that meets high security standards. We also raised its already high resilience standards to an even higher level, Erdogan noted.

TurkStream is a huge energy project, the so-called megaproject that envisages the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia across the Black Sea to Turkeys European part and further on to the border with EU countries. The project includes two pipelines. The first thread is meant for gas supplies from Russia to western Turkey. The second thread will be used to supply gas to Southern and Southeastern Europe by transit. Each thread will have a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas a year. The seabed section is 910 kilometers long, and the land section will run 180 kilometers into Turkey.

The pipeline will be fed by natural gas extracted from Novy Urengoy in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region in Russias Siberia. The field, operated by the Russian energy giant Gazprom, is the second largest in the world after Irans Southern Pars field. The ground part of TurkStream construction is planned to be launched by the end of 2019.

Erdogan stressed the importance of Russia as a key energy partner.

Russia is an old and reliable friend as well as an important supplier of natural gas, as these projects demonstrate. Turkey has already purchased 387 billion cubic meters of natural gas since 1987. This is a very significant number. It shows our relations in the sphere of energy and other cooperation areas and proves that our relations have already been through all kinds of tests. The friendship between Russia and Turkey has grown stronger over the years, resulting in various mutually beneficial projects, said Erdogan.

Russia is a top supplier of natural gas to Turkey. Ankara bought nearly 29 billion cubic meters last year. More than half of all the Russian gas purchased for the Turkish markets goes through the Blue Stream gas pipeline  the first trans-Black Sea gas pipeline  which directly connected Russia and eastern Turkey.

In Russia, the media paid a lot of attention to the recent ceremony. The state-run First Channel called it one of the most important events" in contemporary Russian-Turkish relations. State-run NTV Channel characterized the event as awesome. Tsargrad TV, a conservative internet TV channel, had the most generous praise for the event, saying that Putin and Erdogan made history. Most of both Russian and Turkish media sources stressed that the TurkStream project shows that both Moscow and Ankara have independent positions and that their relations have never been dependent on pressure from third countries.

The TurkStream project was announced in December 2014 as an alternative to South Stream, a pipeline project that was intended to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia, further to Austria. Moscow canceled South Stream due to a number of obstacles from Bulgaria, which came under pressure from EU authorities to shut down construction.

Turkey not only supported the project but also refused to join US and EU sanctions against Russia, which were imposed on Moscow following the Crimea crisis and the war in East Ukraine. Thus, some experts see TurkStream exclusively as a political project. Mikhail Krutihin, partner at the RusEnergy Consulting Agency, believes that the cost of the project outweighs its economic benefits. He said the project will never pay off.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denies the political nature of the project. He mentioned that TurkStream, as well as other big projects, is not directed against anyones interests.

These projects are solely constructive. They aim to expand relations between states, to create stable conditions for economic development and to improve the well-being of our countries citizens in this way, Putin insisted in Istanbul.

According to Putin, the implementation of the project is an outstanding and positive example of the ability to defend ones national interests because TurkStream completely meets the national economic interests of Turkey itself.

"I would like to thank President of the Republic of Turkey Mr. Erdogan for displaying political will and courage. Why? Because it is impossible to implement projects like this in conditions of growing competition without these traits. The trust, mentioned by my Turkish colleague five minutes ago, hinges on this. And again, projects like this cannot be carried out without such trust, Putin explained.

The mood of the evening was so joyful that no one wanted to mention Idlib  another issue the two presidents were expected to discuss at the Istanbul encounter  and instead kicked it down the road to the 11th Astana meeting due to take place Nov. 27-28.

Economic relations between Russia and Turkey are rapidly developing. TurkStream is not the only megaproject implemented by the two countries. In April, during Putins visit to Turkey, both leaders launched the construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Turkeys Mersin Province  the first nuclear power plant in Turkey, which is supposed to be ready by 2023, when Turkey will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its republic. Russia seeks to commemorate it with the present of the nuclear power plant.
ANKARA, Turkey  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the opposition Wednesday for condemning his arrest of 14 academics in what was seen as a crackdown on liberal civil society, in particular the group run by the respected businessman-philanthropist Osman Kavala.

Without naming Kavala, Erdogan accused him of financing the Gezi Park protests of 2013, and added: Who is behind him? The famous Hungarian Jew George Soros.

The leader of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, had attacked the government for its predawn detention of 14 academics who allegedly had ties to Anadolu Kultur (Anatolian Culture), a nonprofit organization founded by Kavala that uses cultural and artistic exchanges to promote harmony among Turkeys ethnic and religious groups.

Kilicdaroglu said the aim of the arrests was to find evidence against Kavala, who has been in detention for 13 months without any charge being filed.

Klcdaroglu told his party legislators, There is no justice in a country where first you put innocent people in jail and then you ask Where is the evidence?

He said, They are trying to take revenge for the Gezi events, referring to the demonstrations of May and June 2013 that constituted the biggest challenge to Erdogans rule. As many as 30,000 people marched through Istanbul chanting for Erdogans resignation.

Erdogan accused Kilicdaroglu of talking some nonsense that praised the Gezi Park protests and accused the protesters of being terrorists.

"The person who financed the terrorists during the Gezi incidents is currently in prison, Erdogan said in a reference to Kavala. And who is behind him? The famous Hungarian Jew George Soros. This is a man who was assigned to divide nations and shatter them. He has so much money and he is spending it in these ways."

Yasemin Acar, an assistant professor of political psychology at Ozyegin University in Istanbul, told Al-Monitor that the president appeared to fear a new eruption of popular protest.

Right now were in a condition that is very ripe for collection action, Acar said. She referred to the state of the economy and opposition to Erdogans policies.

Earlier this month Moodys rating agency said the Turkish economy had likely entered recession and would contract by 2% next year. The respected polling company Metropoll has found that while 40% of people say Erdogan is doing his job well, 46% do not approve.

In his speech, Erdogan said, Those who support Gezi, secretly or openly, also support the PKK and FETO. The PKK is the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, and FETO is a pejorative term Turkish officials use to describe followers of Fetullah Gulen, the Islamic cleric blamed for the coup attempt of 2016.

Acar saw the comment as an attempt to discredit anybody who would contemplate taking part in mass protests again.

There is tension that is building, and in order to prevent that tension from reaching anything, you have to cut it off at the knees, Acar said. You have to reframe it so its no longer a peaceful opposition, and the way to do that is to associate it with the PKK and FETO.

But there was something else about Erdogans harking back to the Gezi Park protests, which began as a small protest against the uprooting of trees in a much-loved park to build a shopping center. On Wednesday, the president repeated a claim he made back in 2013: There is no government in Turkish history that has planted more trees than we did.

It seemed odd that Erdogan, who has won two presidential elections and a referendum since Gezi, has a need to return to the minutiae of events that are more than five years old.

Its something that has stuck with him, Acar said.

On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu holds talks with the EUs foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and the commissioner responsible for EU enlargement, Johannes Hahn, in Ankara. It will be the first such encounter for 18 months as Turkeys bid to join the EU had almost ground to a halt. Hahn has proposed that Turkey abandon its quest for full membership in favor of a special relationship with Europe, but his view is not shared by the EU executive.

Thursdays agenda will include the detention of the academics, almost all of whom have been released, an EU official told the Hurriyet Daily News.

Acar said the detention of the academics had sent a frisson of fear through Istanbuls universities. Some of the people arrested were not very politically active; they were not very well-known. There was a sense of randomness (about) who could be targeted.

Kavala has worked with the Open Society Foundation, the network founded by Soros that gives money to civil society groups around the world. Open Society has a branch in Turkey. And it seems that Erdogan used that connection to launch his attack on Kavala and Soros.

Asked about Erdogans gratuitous reference to Soros religion, Acar replied, No comment.

Later Wednesday, Erdogan met the leader of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, to discuss the possibility of forging an alliance for the local elections in March 2019.

Last month Bahceli had ruled out continuing the alliance that the parties forged for last years referendum and maintained through the presidential and legislative elections of June. He was disappointed that Erdogan had rebuffed his call for granting amnesty to a number of criminals, including well-known gangsters.

But pessimistic forecasts appear to have brought the two right-of-center leaders together. Columnist Deniz Zeyrek of the Sozcu newspaper said Erdogan had invited Bahceli to his palace in Ankara because surveys by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) found that it could lose the two biggest cities in the country, Istanbul and Ankara, to the opposition.

Erdogan would like to strike a deal with Bahceli under which the MHP would not field candidates in Istanbul and Ankara and, in return, the AKP would not field candidates in cities where the MHP is strong, such as Adana, Mersin and Manisa, Zeyrek reported.

The Erdogan-Bahceli talks ended without such an agreement, but AKP spokesman Omer Celik said the two leaders would continue to negotiate.

Meanwhile, legislators of the opposition Iyi Party and the CHP met Wednesday to continue negotiations toward an electoral alliance.
The struggle of international actors for influence in Libya continues to hamper moves to end the divisions in the country. Libya is still a scene for competition between Italy and France on the one hand and between the Turkey-Qatar-Sudan and Egypt-Saudi Arabia-UAE blocs on the other. The Egypt-Saudi-UAE bloc supports the Tobruk-based House of Representatives and military strongman Khalifa Hifter, the Libyan National Army commander who opposes the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. Hifter, also supported by France, doesnt conceal his enmity for Qatar and Turkey, countries he accuses of financing the Islamists. Russia, which enabled international intervention in 2011 but now regrets that decision, wants to find itself a place in Libya and is also supporting Hifter.

Turkey, which maintains silence when it comes to French and Italian initiatives that backed the efforts of UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame, was aiming at finding a place for itself at the Palermo conference held in Sicily.

The Libya conference convened under the slogan of With Libya for Libya. Hifter first announced that he would boycott the conference to avoid sitting at the same table with Turkey, Qatar and other Islamist rivals, but then surprisingly showed up in Palermo the night of Nov. 12 to attend a limited attendance meeting with Fayez al-Serraj, the leader of the Libya Presidency Council and prime minister of the Government of National Accord. Turkey and Qatar were excluded from the unofficial gathering, which was attended by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, European Council President Donald Tusk and Salame.

The veto against Turkey's and Qatars participation may also be interpreted as maneuvering by Sisi, who persuaded Hifter to come to Palermo.

Reacting to its exclusion, Turkey withdrew from the conference.

A very wrong and damaging attitude. Turkey is leaving the conference with deep disappointment. Any meeting that excludes Turkey will have a negative effect on finding a solution, said Turkeys Vice President Fuat Oktay, who led the Turkish delegation.

Turkeys special Libya representative, Emrullah Isler, also said the decision to withdraw came under instructions from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ankara interpreted the unofficial meeting on the sideline of the conference as a move to legitimize Hifters position. The meeting further excluded Turkey from the Libyan process at a time when Ankara had already lost most of its influence over the past couple of years.

The roles of Qatar and Turkey first became controversial when Libya was divided between two parliaments, two governments and numerous armed groups. Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, refused to recognize the House of Representatives.

Secular minded deputies under the tutelage of Hifter had moved the assembly to Tobruk to set up a new government. On the other hand, their rivals  supported by Turkey and Qatar  established the National Salvation Government as a continuation of the General National Congress based in Tripoli. But Tobruk-based forces, which could not control Tripoli, began accusing Turkey and Qatar of dividing Libya.

Within the framework of the Libya Political Accord that was decided on at an international conference held in Moroccos seaside town of Skhirat in 2015, the Government of National Accord was established. The National Salvation Government was disbanded and the General National Congress was transformed into the High Council of State. But the divisions continued when the House of Representatives did not recognize the Government of National Accord approved by the United Nations.

Tobruk-based Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni in January 2015 accused Turkey of sending weapons to Islamist organizations. In January 2013, weapons loaded loaded from Turkey were found in a freighter that was caught in a storm and anchored on the Greek coast. In December 2014, weapons were found in a ship stopped by Egypt; Turkey was named the culprit. In August 2014, Hifter made news when he gave orders to hit a ship going to Derna, Libya, from Turkey. In November 2014, Greek officials discovered 20,000 AK-47 rifles in a ship that had sailed from Ukraine. In December 2014 weapons found on a Korean freighter that had come to the Libyan port of Misrata were said to have loaded from Turkey. Qatar and Turkey continued to be accused of sending weapons to Libya via Sudan. In September 2015, Libya seized a ship that had loaded on ammunition at Turkeys Iskenderun port.

Turkey in general dismissed these claims as part of a propaganda campaign, but Ankara nevertheless lowered its profile because of the reports of weapons seizures. In addition, Turkey was busy with two elections, the 2016 coup attempt and the presidential referendum. Moreover, Turkeys focus was on two military operations in Syria.

While Turkey lowered its profile, Salame in September 2017 produced an action plan that called for revision of the Government of National Accord to organize a national reconciliation conference, draft a new constitution, submit it to referendum and then organize national elections. Naturally this optimistic plan didnt work out. In May 2018 France convened the parties in Paris. Serraj, Tobruk House of Representatives Chairman Aguila Saleh Issa, Tripoli-based High Council of State chairman Khalid el-Meshri and Hifter agreed to hold elections Dec. 10. But Italy said conditions were not ripe for elections and tried to dilute the French moves. Before Palermo, Salame had submitted a new plan to the UN Security Council to hold a national reconciliation conference in the first weeks of 2019 and then go to elections in the spring. The Palermo conference ended with approval of this road map.

Egypt is developing a plan to set up a national army under Hifter. This would involve moves to accommodate Qatar and Turkey, which have strong ties with forces in Tripoli and Misrata.

This is when Turkey launched new initiatives. Just before the Palermo conference, on Nov. 5-6, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, chief of General Staff Yasar Guler and Isler held meetings in Tripoli that included Serraj, Meshri and Interior Minister Fathi Ali Bashaga. Meshri is among the leaders of the Justice and Reconstruction Party attached to the Muslim Brotherhood. Bashaga is linked to Misrata outfits that have a blood feud with Hifter. During the visit the parties discussed Turkeys contribution to the formation of a Libyan army, including its training and unification of rival military forces. Visa exemptions also were discussed.

The emerging role of the Turkish military signals an effort to balance Cairos moves to set up a national army. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram said Turkey has begun training militia forces by sending units of the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade to Turkey for advanced training.

On Nov. 9, Serraj, Government of National Accord Foreign Minister Mohamed Siala, central bank president Sadik el-Kabir and a deputy health minister went to Istanbul. The delegation was hosted by Erdogan. They discussed the agenda of the Palermo conference, reconstruction of the country and the return of Turkish contractors to Libya. Turkey partially agreed with a Libyan request for visa exemptions, abolishing visa requirements for Libyans younger than 12 and older than 65. To counter the busy Tripoli-Istanbul traffic, on Nov. 7 Hifter traveled to Moscow to seek Russian support and met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

Just as the competition was heating up, Turkeys sudden withdrawal from Palermo appears to be a step backward. Will this affect Turkeys decision to find a place in the Libya equation? Italy's efforts will not go beyond expressing support for the UN road map just as Turkeys walkout will not change the course of events. Turkeys position will actually be determined by the reconciliation attitudes of the Libyan parties. As long as the Egypt-Saudi-UAE bloc continues to rely on Hifter, the other side will continue with shuttles between Tripoli and Istanbul with no immediate likelihood of a settlement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently seemingly scored foreign policy achievements one after the other that gave an impression that normalization with the Western world is in progress. His hosting of the quadripartite Syria summit in Istanbul brought in French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then Erdogan paid a visit to Paris to participate in ceremonies marking the end of World War I.

All these high-level contacts with major Western leaders came after his official visit to Germany, where he was greeted with a red-carpet reception at his insistence.

In the eyes of many in Turkey, the transactional relationship with the West ultimately had been maintained as a result of the interests of both sides. The relationship would be the best choice for Erdogan as it would relieve him from Western pressures on Turkeys human rights violations and deficits.

The West, and in particular the Europeans, seem to believe they are getting a profitable deal on Turkeys actions to stem the Syrian refugee flow. Yet the Europeans are indefinitely postponing Turkeys bid for membership in the EU.

The Financial Times in late October reported on the visit of an 80-strong delegation led by German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier, a key Merkel ally, and quoted him as saying Germany would not let its concerns about human rights overshadow the pursuit of better economic ties.

However, perhaps even for the sake of lip service, the Western leaders still brought to Erdogan's attention some cases of Turkish wrongdoing in curtailing fundamental freedoms. The case of Osman Kavala, the leading philanthropist of Turkey and a prominent activist of civil society who has been in jail for more than a year without any indictment, was brought up in Steinmeiers and Macrons conversations with Erdogan.

Erdogan is very well known by his obsession about the Gezi protests that took place in May and June of 2013 and spread across Turkey. He sees Gezi as the first serious Western  that is, German  attempt to remove him from power, and Kavala as the main Turkish culprit behind it. Although it was never substantiated, Erdogan believes Kavala financed the event and all the government-controlled media dubbed Kavala as the Red Soros, implying his leftist ideological tendencies.

Kavala, thanks to his leading role in many civil society associations that he founded or took part in, enjoys an extensive international network. It was not surprising that his long imprisonment without indictment would be brought up by the Western leaders in their encounters with the Turkish president on the eve of the normalization of once-soured relations.

Erdogan burst out in a fury. He angrily told them that Kavala is a terrorist and has evidence about it. When I learned this from a very reliable source who is privy to Erdogans talks with his German and French counterparts, my reaction was to fear that all this could be counterproductive.

My fear was confirmed when the people of Turkey awoke the morning of Nov. 16 with a new wave of detentions. At 6 a.m., the homes of 13 people in Istanbul were raided and they were taken into custody. They are accused of being associated with Kavala. Every one of them was related to associations such as the Open Society Institute and Anatolian Culture, which Kavala either founded or took a leading role in.

Among the detained is professor Turgut Tarhanli, the most-renowned academician in Turkey on human rights law and the dean of the Faculty of Law of Istanbul Bilgi University; professor Betul Tanbay, the head of the Mathematics Department of Bosphorus University in Istanbul who was a member of the delegation during the Gezi protests in 2013 that negotiated with then-Prime Minister Erdogan; and many other prominent human rights defenders. The Istanbul Police Department issued a statement that sounded like a verdict, accusing all of being related to Kavala hierarchically to overthrow the legitimate government.

The absurdity of the accusations prompted quick reactions from international circles. The secretary-general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, immediately criticized the development as worrying. For the Europeans, the new wave of repression was especially disturbing because on Nov. 22, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn, commissioner for European neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations, would be visiting Turkey.

That would signify the highest level of contact between the EU and Turkey after a long interval. The wave of detentions became too embarrassing for the Europeans who had been inclined to balance their principles regarding human rights with the imperatives of realpolitik that dictated normalization with the Erdogan regime.

Surprisingly, in less than 36 hours, all but one detainee was released, although they have to report to police weekly and are restricted from traveling abroad.

Under Turkeys current conditions, that those detained were deprived from traveling abroad while possibly facing trial for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government received praise of sorts, as this means the accused do not have to go behind bars or be kept in jail indefinitely without indictment  as has been the case with Kavala. The trauma of the last wave of repression was so heavy on public opinion that social media was full of sentiments that Turkey had been pushed into inexplicable darkness. Therefore, the release of 12 civil rights defenders renowned for pacifism and nonviolent action was met with relief.

But 48 hours later, these feelings of relief gave way to grave concerns. On Nov. 20 Erdogan angrily reacted to the Western world, criticizing some Western circles for statements expressing discomfort because of the measures taken against the civil rights defenders. He once again accused Kavala of financing the 2013 Gezi events.

However, the most significant development Nov. 20 was the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights involving pro-Kurdish jailed leader Selahattin Demirtas. The court in Strasbourg, France, not only issued a ruling that Demirtas, the former chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party and a lawmaker who has been in jail for more than two years, should be released immediately, it also for the first time decided that Turkey had violated Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court found that it had been established beyond reasonable doubt that the extensions of Demirtas detention, especially during two crucial campaigns of the referendum and the presidential election, had pursued the predominant ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate, which was at the very core of the concept of a democratic society, the ruling said.

The court had a bombshell effect in Turkey. Erdogan was quick to respond. It does not bind us (Turkey), he said. However, it does. Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution stipulates it does. The authoritative voices on public law and constitutional law also were quick to explain that the ruling is binding and that Turkey is obliged to implement it according to the Turkish Constitution. A former Turkish judge on the European court emphasized that if Turkey does not the follow the ruling, it could lead to Turkey's expulsion from the Council of Europe.

The two successive developments, the repression of civil rights defenders on Nov. 16 and the European Court of Human Rights' ruling on Demirtas, will have inevitable bearings on the relations of Turkey with the West. The area of maneuver for the Europeans to disregard the violations of human rights by the Erdogan regime in Turkey for the sake of geopolitics and trade is narrower than ever.

The transactional relationship and normalization also have their limits. November 2018 may serve as a turning point in European-Turkish relations. Europe may find itself at the crossroads on how to engage with a country without a rule of law, that places itself outside the provisions of international law and that has no respect for international treaties it has signed.
Is there really a war on Christmas? I dont think so.

Last year I said Merry Christmas to a clerk at the mall make-up counter, and she said the same thing back to me. Another clerk wished me a happy holiday, but this didnt wound me or cause me injury. No loss of blood. Nothing.

And today, when I dropped into Starbucks, I didnt have to dodge a single bullet. There was no war, even though some conservative news anchors and radio hosts warned there would be, just as they did last year and the year before that.

People stood in straight lines and ordered their lattes, mochas, and dark roasts, then settled into their chairs to enjoy a hot cup of coffee on a cold winter day. The cups, the subject of controversy last year, feature snowflakes and snowmen, candy canes and holly berries. Maybe they tried to Christmas things up a bit, under pressure.

Gone are last years cups, the plain red ones, that caused some politicians to accuse Starbucks of ignoring the Christmas season and offering customers secular cups, as if the giant retail coffee shop were a regular business, just out to make money, which, of course, it is. So are most enterprises.

Even the president wondered if customers should boycott the place. It didnt happen. People need their Starbucks fix, and just in Alabama alone, there are 85 places to get it. Apparently, customers dont care what kind of cup their coffee comes in, as long as its steaming and tasty.

Im waiting for someone to complain that the cups should have angels and manger scenes or wise men. Im waiting for someone to start a skirmish in this war.

If we just look around, there are actual wars going on. Aside from military battles around the world, there is the failed war on poverty and the failed war on drugs. There are homeless veteransa phrase which ought to be an oxymoron sleeping in city parks. There are people who need mental health care but end up in prisons instead, because of underfunding.

Were about to enter the holiday season, and there are those among us who struggle to buy groceries and pay the rent. They may wish they could afford the luxury of a Peppermint Mocha or a Chestnut Praline Latte with a warm scone on the side. Our state is a poor one, just ahead of Mississippi, that first cousin were always grateful for. The only place many Alabamians will see a perfect Hallmark Christmaswith plenty of food and giftsis on a television special.

For the love of God (and in my philosophy, thats deeper than a coffee cup), lets worry about real things and stop inventing problems that dont exist. Lets be thankful, not resentful. There are actual battles to fight, and they have nothing to do with a plastic cup containing hot liquid, no matter what the cup looks like. If you can afford Starbucks, your cup is already full.
A man already sentenced to life in prison claims he was involved in about 90 killings nationwide, including the death of an Alabama woman.

Samuel Little confessed to killing Nancy Stevens, an Alabama woman who was found dead on the side of a Mississippi county road in 2005, according to local law enforcement. Stevens was from Decatur.

Little confessed to killing victim Nancy Stevens, giving detailed information only the suspect would know, said Jim H. Johnson, the sheriff in the Lee County, Mississippi.

Little, 78, is already convicted of three California murders and suspected in more. Earlier this fall, he was transported to Texas, where law enforcement from several states have traveled to speak with him. Little has been indicted in a 1994 Texas murder.

Little provided lawmen details in about 90 deaths that date back to about 1970. While investigations are ongoing, a third of the confessions have been corroborated as of this past week, the Associated Press reported.

Little also has confessed to killing Brenda Alexander, a woman from Columbus, Georgia, according to the Ledger Enquirer newspaper. Alexanders nude body was discovered off of a dirt road in Phenix City, Ala.

If the number of killings Little claims to have committed proves true, it could make him the deadliest known killer in U.S. history. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides from about 1974 to 1978. John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33 boys and young men in the 1970s, AP reported.

Little told investigators he and Stevens were traveling in his RV when he killed her in the parking lot of a Walmart store in Tupelo. Little told investigators he dumped the womans body on the side of County Road 41. Tupelo is more than 100 miles west of Decatur, Ala.

FULL PRESS RELEASE on 2005 cold case Homicide solved. On 08-08-2005 the Lee County Sheriff's Department responded to... Posted by Lee County Sheriff's Department, Mississippi on Tuesday, November 20, 2018

At the time, the Mississippi Medical Examiners Office confirmed Stevens identity through fingerprints. Sheriff Johnson said despite numerous leads in the case, it eventually went cold.

That changed when investigators got a call from Texas Rangers this year. The Rangers said Little had admitted to killing a woman named Nancy, possibly in the Tupelo area.

The case will be presented to a Lee County grand jury in January, the sheriff said. The grand jury will decide which, if any, criminal charges Little should face.

Little has a lengthy criminal history, the sheriff said, starting at an early age. The crimes escalated from burglaries, assaults, and robbery to murder. He has served time in numerous correctional facilities throughout the country and spent 30 days in the Tupelo City jail for theft in 1995, the sheriff said.

Updated at 4:49 p.m. to add information about a second Alabama-connected murder to which Little has confessed.
Cutbacks at two major banks, the exit of a utility company from the Magic City, and stagnant job growth in the area are expected to create more than 1.1 million square feet of empty office space in downtown Birmingham by the end of next year.

We are in a reduce, reuse, recycle phase in the office market, said Emily Byrd, a commercial broker with Corporate Realty Associates. Due to the changing landscape of downtown and the evolution of how companies use space, we have a number of buildings that are either in need of updating or not being utilized for their highest and best use.

The Central Business District of downtown Birmingham - the largest office submarket in the metro area - has 6 million square feet of office space. A big chunk of that is in the citys high-rise buildings.

At the end of this years third quarter, 12.3 percent of office space in the Central Business District was vacant. This is about 740,000 square feet of office sitting empty, according to Cushman & Wakefield / EGS Commercial Real Estate.

Cutting back

Regions and Wells Fargo banks are reducing their presence in the downtown core.

About 200,000 square feet of space was vacated by Regions in the Regions-Harbert Plaza. They moved into renovated offices at Regions headquarters on Fifth Avenue North.

Wells Fargo is cutting about 100,000 square feet of space in downtown next year, brokers said.

Energen will vacate its 130,000-square-foot headquarters in the downtown core after its acquisition by Texas-based Diamondback Energy is finalized later this month.

Julie Ryland, vice president of investor relations for Energen, confirmed the company is relocating to Midland, Texas. Post transition there wont be an Energen presence in Birmingham, she said.

She said she didnt know when the companys 150 employees would vacant the downtown building.

Energen Plaza will be vacant sometime in 2019 after the company is acquired by Texas-based Diamondback Energy.

Few new white-collar jobs

Downtown Birmingham will likely see more than a 1 million square feet of empty office space because of stagnant job growth, said Brad Jones, senior vice president of Cushman & Wakefield / EGS Commercial Real Estate.

We keep seeing jobs going to other cities, he said.

The Birmingham-Hoover metro has only seen 1 percent job growth over the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We would be able to do more deals if we could figure out how to increase the number of jobs in the city, Jones said.

Joseph Sedita, associate broker at Southpace Properties, said Birmingham needs regional cooperation to attract white-collar jobs and corporate and regional headquarters to the metro.

If Homewood, Vestavia, Hoover (and other municipalities), continue to compete against each other and the city of Birmingham, we wont be able to accomplish this, he said. Municipalities will continue to poach office users from their neighbors with tax breaks instead of working together to actually bring new jobs to the region.

Companies, in general, dont need as much office space as they did a decade ago.

Formerly, companies would lease 350 square feet per employee. Now, due to open-concept offices they need as little as 180 square feet per employee, said William Ledbetter, a broker with Cushman & Wakefield / EGS Commercial Real Estate.

Also, office space in the downtown core is aging, brokers said.

Downtown Birmingham hasnt had new, multi-tenant/spec office construction since 1989 (with the construction of the Regions-Harbert Plaza), Sedita said. Office rents in our market dont support the cost of new construction and until they do, we will be limited to redevelopments (of smaller office buildings) like The Iron Age Building and The Frank.

The former AT&T City Center building in downtown Birmingham sold for $31 million.

Heres the good news

The former AT&T City Center high-rise in the heart of downtown sold this month to an out-of-state group for $31 million. The group, VCP City Center, which is managed by Varden Capital Properties and Tellus Multifamily, plans to redevelop the vacant office building into a mixed-used concept that will include residential, restaurant and office space.

The nearly 700,000 square foot, 30-story building has been vacant since AT&T employees moved out in February. The property sits at the corner 19th Street North and 6th Avenue North and features an adjacent six-story parking deck.

Jones said the deal is a big success for Birmingham and will continue the redevelopment trend in downtown thats been largely restricted to historic buildings.

This summer Shipt announced plans to keep its headquarters in downtown Birmingham and add 881 new jobs. The app-based delivery service, which was acquired by Target Corp. last year for $550 million, received incentives from the city, county and state to stay put.

They are one company that is adding a considerable number of jobs, Jones said. Their commitment to stay in the CBD is real. They are going to add 50,000 to 60,000 square feet of additional space.

Shipt declined to comment further to AL.com.

Several historic office buildings downtown are currently being turned into hotel, condo and restaurant space.

Birmingham-based Rhaglan Hospitality is in the process of renovating a former office building -- known as the commerce center or former Protective Life Building -- and the two-story attached Morris Avenue Building into a new 96-Tapestry Hilton Hotel.

Ascent Hospitality is expected to redevelop the vacant Brown Marx office building into a hotel next year.

Birmingham-based Orchestra Partners purchased The Frank Nelson Building on 20th Street North with plans to modernize the historic buildings nearly 100,000 square feet of office space.

In an interview with CoStar, a provider of commercial real estate data, Orchestra Partners co-founder John Boone said there is a demand for updated office space despite downtowns high vacancy rate.

"The issue is that people arent building what tenants actually want," Boone told CoStar. "The big trend right now is open, collaborative office spaces [The Frank] is our attempt to deliver some really cool office space right in the heart of downtown."

Sedita said Orchestra Partners is bringing new life and a new vision to Birmingham. If lease prices are right, he said the company will continue to see success with a younger generation of office users.

Jones said hes optimistic the downtown revitalization will eventually lead to more employees relocating there.

Its going to attract more companies to downtown Birmingham, he said. There is no question. The question is how much. How much can the city attract from the suburbs?

As of right now, though, the trend in office space is historic bricks and beams, which isnt present in the downtown cores office towers, Jones said.

Thats the reason Birminghams Parkside District, adjacent to the CBD, is thriving, Jones said.

Price per square foot is higher (there) than any other place in Birmingham, he said.

The district is riddled with adaptive reuse projects, including former industrial space near Railroad Park and Regions Field being transformed into residential, restaurant and office space.

The vacant Denham Building at 1143 First Avenue South is currently being converted into mixed-use space that will include 81,000 square feet of office, retail and restaurant space, along with 59 urban-loft units.

A former Merita Baker at the corner of 1st Avenue South and 14th Street South was redeveloped into collaborative office space two years ago. Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, KPS Group, Under Armour and Corporate Realty have offices there.

People want bricks and beams, Jones said. Those older buildings offer that. The high-rise office buildings arent going to give you the historic bricks and beams.
Apo Cement Corp., a subsidiary of Cemex Philippines, said Wednesday it is shutting down its Davao cement terminal and suspending indefinitely the operation of one of its two kilns in Cebu province, following the suspension of its quarrying operations. The closure would also force the company to lay off 30 percent of its workforce and cut the services of 40 percent of its contractors. The cement company, controlled by Mexicos Cemex Holdings, earlier complained of high production expenses and escalating cost of raw materials that impacted on its operations despite the implementation of additional measures to look for new sources of raw materials. Company officials said the continued suspension of the quarry operations of Apo Land & Quarry Corp., a principal raw material provider of Apo Cement, was the deciding factor for the closure of the facilities. The Environment Department earlier suspended quarrying activities in Central Visayas after dozens of people died from a landslide in September in Naga City, Cebu where Apo Land had mining rights. For a cement company, the kiln is the heart of cement manufacturing process because it is the main equipment used to produce clinker, the primary component for cement. The Davao terminal holds and dispatches 25,000 bags on a daily basis. Apo Cement said that while it was committed to support the governments massive infrastructure program, it had no choice but to also indefinitely suspend the operation of one of its kilns in Cebu. It said it was also constrained to engage with its suppliers in Cebu and neighboring provinces and is required to take actions in order to further reduce cost and extend payment terms.Apo Cement said with the anticipated depressed output of the plant, it would implement a reduced workweek to decrease its fixed costs and expenses. This is in addition to the temporary suspensions earlier announced, affecting at least 30 percent of its workforce and reducing around 40 percent of its contractors. Apo Cement said that to partially recover the increase in its production costs, it would implement a price increase of its cement products by P20/bag. The company acknowledged the need to take remedial measures to reduce the adverse impact of the current situation in this period of uncertainty brought about by the disruption in Apo Cements source of raw materials and to pursue the best interest of the organizations various stakeholders. Technical experts from the Environment Department said in an official report on Oct. 22 that the Sept. 20 landslide in Naga, Cebu was due to natural causes and not due to quarrying. This was the same conclusion by private geology experts from the US, Mexico, and the Philippines.
A man described in some news reports as a missionary originally from Alabama was shot to death with arrows when he landed on a remote island forbidden to tourists and inhabited by a tribe that has protected status.

John Allen Chau, 27, was killed by tribesmen, according to fishermen who took him to the island, news reports said. Chau landed on the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, inhabited by the Sentinelese Tribe. The tribe resists contact with outsiders. Contact with them is illegal under a Protection of Aboriginal Tribes law enacted in 1956 to protect them from disease and to preserve their way of life.

Records show Chau as a resident of Vancouver, Washington, where he graduated from high school, and a graduate of Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. He describes himself in his Instagram account as a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician. He did a 2014 interview with The Outbound Collective in which he describes his wilderness adventures and expressed his desire to return to the forbidden islands. He described some of his travels in his outdoor adventure blog.

Its not clear what his connection to Alabama was, if any.

The British newspaper the London Daily Mail said that Chau went to convert the natives to Christianity.

Neil MacLeod, of Stornaway, Scotland, told the Daily Mail he met Chau on a flight from London to Phoenix in October 2015.

I saw him reading some Christian literature and Im a Christian and we started talking, MacLeod said.

MacLeod said Chau told him he had recently returned from India and was trying to figure out how to travel to the remote North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.

According to a statement by the Andaman police Chau was taken to the area by local fishermen last week, then paddled himself ashore in a canoe or kayak. The fishermen told authorities Chau was killed immediately after landing on the island and walking onto the beach.

Jatin Narwal, Superintendent of Police at Port Blair, told The News Minute that Chau was last seen alive on Nov. 16.

"He lived in Alabama, Narwal said. He is some kind of paramedic. He was on a misplaced adventure in prohibited area to meet uncontacted persons.

"People thought he is a missionary because he had mentioned his position on God and that he was a believer on social media or somewhere online.

But in a strict sense, he was not a missionary. He was an adventurer. His intention was to meet the aborigines.

The Andaman Islands are an Indian archipelago made up of about 300 islands in the Bay of Bengal with mangroves, palm trees and tropical rainforests, to the west of Bangkok, Thailand.

For evangelical Christians, the story of Chaus death is reminiscent of the story of Jim Elliot, a U.S. missionary from Portland who was shot to death with arrows in 1956 as he tried to evangelize the Huaorani tribe of Ecuador in South America.
A new study shows younger LGBT Southerners are more likely to report being aware of their sexual orientation earlier in life than older LGBT Southerners.

The Center for Human Rights LGBTQ Institute partnered with Georgia State University to research the LGBT experience by surveying more than 6,000 individuals across 14 Southern states. The study centers around education and employment, public health and criminal justice and safety and gives a glimpse into the lives of LGBT Southerners, highlighting the experiences of an often marginalized community.

When it comes to identity at a young age, younger respondents reported being more aware of their sexual orientation while in high school than did older respondents. Hispanic respondents were more likely to be out about their sexual orientation in high school than white respondents.

According to the survey, hispanic, Black/African, or other people of color were significantly more likely to be out about their transgender identity than non-Hispanic white respondents.

The study also found disparities in educational levels. Of the people surveyed most reported having some level of secondary education. Ryan Roemerman, executive director of LGBTQ Institute said this could have been due to the surveys access online.

While 93.2 percent of LGBT Southerners surveyed reported having at least some college experience, people of color and transgender people were less likely to have completed four-year degrees or advanced degrees than white people and cisgender people.

Young, Black/African American, Hispanic and transgender Southerners reported poorer health and lower rates of insurance and access to care. Latinx transgender people reported experiencing 25.5 percent more rates of healthcare provider discrimination than other respondents.

The study consisted of 6,502 LGBTQ residents from 14 states, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Georgia State University disseminated the survey online for seven months.

"The goal of this research is to amplify the voices of LGBTQ southerners and highlight the issues affecting our lives, in order to create a more safe and welcoming South, Tracee McDaniel, an Advisory Board member for the LGBTQ Institute, said in a news release.

According to UCLAs Williams Institute, Alabama is home to 104,000 LGBT adults. Ryan Roemerman, executive director of the Center for Human Rights LGBTQ Institute, said they are hoping to have Alabama-specific survey results within the year.
A homicide investigation is underway in Jackson County, where skeletal remains were discovered in a wooded area on Tuesday afternoon.

Chief Deputy Rocky Harnen said cadaver dogs today will search the scene, which is just off Jackson County Road 120 between Section and Powell. The sheriffs office was called to the scene after people walking in the area saw a skull.

Sheriff Chuck Phillips said the bones appear to have been in the woods for years. An autopsy will be performed at the Department of Forensic Sciences. While authorities dont yet have the identity of the remains, the sheriff said the body might be that of a man who went missing from a local assisted living home years ago.

Unless and until all foul play has been ruled out, the case is being investigated as a homicide.

The skeletal remains were found just two days after another unidentified body was discovered in the county. On Sunday, a person saw a badly decomposed body on the edge of Robinson Creek. That scene was off of County Road 33, north of Hollywood. Harnen said investigators hope to have autopsy results from that case later today.
President Trump will likely easily win the Republican nomination in this 2020 presidential race, a new poll shows.

A Hill.TV American Barometer survey of 1,001 registered Republican voters showed Trump would handily defeat a slate of potential GOP contenders in the vote was held today. The closest to him would be Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who only managed to poll 20 percent to Trumps 65 percent in a head-to-head match up.

Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee in 2012 who recently won a Senate seat from Utah, polled at 19 percent to Trumps 69 percent.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who challenged Trump in 2016, was the choice of 14 percent compared to Trumps 67. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake managed only 9 percent to the presidents 70 percent among those who identified as Republican.

The numbers bode well for an easy path for Trumps re-nomination, according to Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX, the company that conducted the survey.

"Frankly, it's his party," Nesho told The Hill. "By a factor of two-to-one, almost half of Republicans associate with Trump over the party."

Other head-to-head matchups showed:

Texas Senator and former Trump challenger Ted Cruz, 17 percent to Trumps 66 percent

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, 13 percent to Trumps 69 percent

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse 8 percent to Trumps 70 percent

The poll was conducted Nov. 16-17, just after the midterm elections saw Democrats take back the House but Republicans strengthen their hold on the Senate.
A man and woman are dead, and two police officers were injured in predawn shootings outside the Talladega Walmart early Wednesday.

It all began about 4:30 a.m. when the Talladega Police Department 911 center received a call for assistance on a possible kidnapping at a Chevron across the street from Walmart on Haynes Street. Talladega police officers were nearby and quickly made contact with a man believed to be involved in the reported abduction of a woman.

That man, said State Bureau of Investigation Lt. Jon Riley, fired on officers. The officers returned fire and the suspect was struck and killed.

One officer was shot and airlifted to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center. He is expected to be OK.

A second officer, Riley said, was injured in the incident but not by gunfire. He was taken to a local hospital and also is expected to recover.

The suspect was pronounced dead on the scene. The reported kidnapping victim was found dead in the suspects vehicle. Riley said at this point they dont know if the man and the woman knew each other or if it was a random kidnapping attempt.

Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the scene. SBI is leading the probe.

This story will be updated as more information is released.
An investigation is underway after a woman was shot Tuesday afternoon at a Center Point apartment complex.

Just before 3:30 p.m., Jefferson County sheriffs deputies responded to a shooting complaint at Magnolia Trace Apartments in the 300 block of 20th Ave NE. The apartments are also known as Highland Park.

Chief Deputy Randy Christian said it was reported that a woman had been shot and the suspects had fled the area in a black car. Deputies arrived to find the woman suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the hip or abdomen area

Her condition is not known at this time.

A shooting investigation is underway at a Center Point apartment complex. The female victim was taken to the hospital.

A description of the suspect vehicle was broadcast to deputies in the area. A car matching the description was stopped at Center Point Parkway and Houston Road. All three occupants have been detained and will be questioned by detectives.

Initial reports indicate the possible suspects - believed to be juveniles - got into some type of altercation. The victim came out to intercede and thats when she was shot. Christian has not confirmed that account.

The investigation is ongoing. Updates will be provided as they become available.
At the first meeting of the council's public works investigative committee, council members formally met special counsel Patrick Sims and discussed his marching orders for the process. Sims is a former U.S. magistrate who served in that capacity in the Southern District of Alabama in 1981-86.

The council voted to approve an investigation after months of hearing employees and employee advocates allege there were serious problems with the work environment in the Public Works unit responsible for picking up residential lawn trash. Allegations included insufficient staffing, abusive supervisors and retribution against employees who complained.

Sims said he pictured three steps to his process: interviewing employees to clearly define their complaints and supervisors to get their side; identifying the people responsible for any mistreatment; and trying to determine the basis for it. "I don't envision it's up to me to suggest anything beyond that," he said, meaning that it would be up to the council to decide what action might be called for.

City Attorney Ricardo Woods said the city would provide Sims with whatever documents or access to employees he needed. "You can talk to them on-shift or off-shift, it's your choice," said Woods.

Council members urged Sims to attempt to interview all the unit's employees plus any relevant supervisors, meaning a total of at least 30 people. He said that made the proposed deadline of Dec. 15 "tough," but said he thought he could produce a report by the end of the year.

Councilman Fred Richardson favored a somewhat broader approach. Understaffing was as much a concern as active abuse, he said. He also questioned the impact of a decision by the administration of Mayor Sandy Stimpson not to implement a raise recommended by the council.

When it passed a budget in late September, the council had called for a raise instead of the incentive program. Stimpson recently announced he was moving forward with an incentive plan for Public Works.

"We have heard for a while now a wild array of allegations and issues," said Council Vice President Levon Manzie. He told Sims the council was looking forward to a report from an unbiased source to help them determine what substance might be behind the allegations.

Richardson said he was struck by the fact that employee complaints continued even after the council approved a raise. "Still those people were so frustrated that they cut the trucks off  to come down here [and appear before the council] knowing it was possible they would lose their job and 10 of them did."

I dont know whats going on, he said. Something is going on. We dont know what it is, and we hope you can find out what it is.
This is an opinion column.

This Thanksgiving, Im thankful for Franklin Haney.

If youve read some of my past columns about the Chattanooga billionaire and real estate mogul, maybe you think Im being facetious. Im not.

You see, Franklin Haney is speaking out, and you need to hear what hes saying.

Because it might cost Alabama $1 billion.

In interviews with the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, Haney says it was President Donald Trump who introduced him to a Qatari official who had an interest in Haneys pet project  the privatization and completion of TVAs Bellefonte nuclear power plant in northeast Alabama.

Somehow subsequent to that introduction at Mar-a-Lago, Haney hired Trumps personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to help. Haney was hazy on the details, except he now calls Cohen a conman  a conman he paid $200,000 before the deal, potentially worth $10 million to Cohen, and details of his arrangement spilled on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Now Haney is mixed up in a criminal investigation  again  and he wants to clear the air of this whole mess so he can go about his business.

But its not the first time Haneys gotten his feet tangled in these sorts of briars.

The profile of Haney in the Daily Memphian, published by the Institute for Public Service Reporting, omits a crucial thread from Haneys biography  his career-long dependence on political connections for his success as the governments landlord.

Almost everywhere Haney has gone, hes brought his generous campaign donations with him. Before giving $1 million to Trumps inauguration, he gave $2 million to President Barack Obamas campaign and $1 million to Mitch McConnells Senate Majority PAC.

In 1998, he was indicted for breaking federal campaign finance laws, but he won an acquittal at trial.

And in a civil deposition earlier this year, former Gov. Robert Bentley revealed that Haney had contributed to his dark money group, ACEGOV, which Bentley later used to pay his senior political advisor and love interest, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

When we had asked Haney about ACEGOV in 2016, he said he couldnt remember whether he had contributed to it.

Last year a state grand jury investigated that political relationship between Haney and Bentley but did not return any charges.

All of this is to say, there are many things Donald Trump deserves blame for, but perhaps Haneys troubles arent among them, or at most, the latest in many brushes with meddlesome authorities.

While federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York work through what did and didnt happen, we have a chance to sort through what we now know.

And we have Haney to thank for that. No, really.

To the Daily Memphian, Haney laid out his plans for the Bellefonte plant, including an important new detail Alabamians need to know.

If it works, nearly all of it will be financed with other peoples money, including $4.7 billion in federal loans, $2.3 billion in federal tax credits, $1 billion from other investors, and most crucially to you and me, $1 billion in incentives from the State of Alabama.

Once completed, Haney wants to sell Bellefontes electricity to the municipal electric utility in Memphis, Tenn., which hasnt yet agreed to buy it.

There are plenty of folks who call Haneys plan a scheme, and you count me among his many critics.

But Id like to thank him for one thing: Finally telling the truth about his plans.

Because heres the thing 

Of our former governor and our current governor, from our congressional delegation to our super-secret business glad-handers at the Department of Commerce  among all of them, somebody knew.

Somebody knew Haney wanted Alabama to kick in another billion for this thing. Maybe all of them.

And they werent going to tell us.

At least not until it was too late for anyone in Alabama to have any say in the matter.

Thank you, Mr. Haney. Truly, thank you.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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The prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder in the US would have grave consequences for press freedom across the world.

Last week it became clear that what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his lawyers have been warning for seven years has already happened: He has been charged in a criminal case in the United States. The fear of being extradited and tried in the US has forced him to seek refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012.

This news hardly came as a surprise to those of us who have been following his case or have been convinced that Assanges fate is of profound and historical importance and could define the future of the freedom of the press.

What happens if Assange is tried in US

There are some in the West who are fully convinced that Assange deserves to be tried and thrown in jail for threatening US national security and undermining its democratic processes. Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden have called him a terrorist, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then the director of the CIA, has described WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence service and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said prosecuting Assange is a priority for him.

Many have also come to see him as a political player who purposefully sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential elections, while others consider him a stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin, although no evidence for this was ever found. It is more likely that Assanges indictment is coming not as part of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias role in the 2016 US election, but in response to WikiLeaks publishing the biggest leak in the history of the CIA called #Vault7.

Whatever Assanges political leanings or views, his case is not about whether you like him or not, but about freedom of the press. As Edward Snowden rightly said: You can despise WikiLeaks and everything it stands for. You can think Assange is an evil spirit reanimated by Putin himself, but you cannot support the prosecution of a publisher for publishing without narrowing the basic rights every newspaper relies on.

If Assange is eventually arrested, extradited to the US and stands trial there, he is almost certainly going to be found guilty  just as Chelsea Manning was  and he would probably end up in a Guantanamo-like prison. His prosecution and jailing would have global repercussions for whistle-blowers, publishers and journalists.

According to US lawyer and civil liberties advocate Ben Wizner at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): Any prosecution of Mr Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations.

In other words, a lawsuit that tries to make it illegal or a form of espionage to publish documents would set a dangerous precedent for publishers and journalists who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the publics interest. It would endanger the very foundation of free press.

Why this is important for all of us

We already live in a world in which politics and distribution of information are being profoundly transformed. Not only do dangerous populists and authoritarian leaders come to power by manufacturing consent, backed by the use of perception management methods by tech companies or organised fake news campaigns, but they also come to power by openly spreading misinformation and concealing information of public interest.

While it became natural for politicians to employ such questionable methods to reach power, it is the job of journalists, the media and whistle-blowers to keep such behaviour in check. Punishing them for doing their job  uncovering uncomfortable truths that those in power would like to keep away from the public  means removing one of the most important checks on executive political power.

How would we know today of the wiretapping of the Democratic Party headquarters if it hadnt been for the hard work of American investigative reporters uncovering information the Nixon administration wanted to hide? How would we know about all the offshore accounts and money laundering activities of politicians across the world if a whistle-blower hadnt leaked the Panama papers? How would we know how many Reuters journalists were killed by the US army in Iraq, as revealed by the Collateral Murder video leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks? And how would we know how the Democratic Party treats some of its most progressive members, such as Bernie Sanders, if WikiLeaks hadnt released the files from the hacked Democratic National Committee email server?

Assange had in his hands information of immoral political behaviour by a party and he published it. One can argue about timing and political consequences, but it is hard to deny that it was in the interest of the American public to know these facts. The information was not fake or fabricated; it was the truth.

A criminal trial for Assange in the US would be another blow to journalists, the media and publishers who are already suffering from increasing pressure across the world. So far this year, 45 journalists have been killed across the world.

In March, Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee were shot in their home. In April, nine Afghan journalists were killed in a bombing in Kabul: Abadullah Hananzai, Ali Saleemi, Ghazi Rasooli, Maharram Durrani, Nowroz Ali Rajabi, Sabawoon Kakar, Saleem Talash, Shah Marai and Yar Mohammad Tokhi. In July, three Russian journalists were shot dead in the Central African Republic while investigating the presence of Russian mercenaries: Aleksandr Rastorguyev, Orkhan Dzhemal and Kirill Radchenko. And just over a month ago, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the consulate of his own country in Istanbul.

Clear signals are being sent to media professionals across the world that doing their jobs could cost them their freedom or their lives. Feeding this hostile environment instead of standing up to it could be dangerous not only for journalists and whistle-blowers but also for all of us.

Walter Lippmann, the father of modern journalism who coined the phrase manufacturing consent (which Noam Chomsky made famous in his 1988 book) wrote back in 1919 in a thin volume called Liberty and the News that there can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.

Fighting the extradition of Assange to the US is not just about protecting his individual rights, but it is also about protecting the very means by which we are able to detect lies. It is about protecting freedom of the press and our ability to keep checks on political power.

Whatever you might think of WikiLeaks, it is a fact that as a publisher who protects its sources it has always been detecting and revealing lies.

And as Lippman wrote in Liberty and the News 100 years ago: Not what somebody says or somebody wishes to be true, but what is so beyond all opinions, constitutes, the touchstone of our sanity.

Without WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, without the courageous whistle-blowers and journalists who are revealing the dirty secrets and immoral acts of powerful regimes, who are opposing or criticising authority, truth would quickly lose value. And it would be then that we would also lose the touchstone of our sanity.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
PXP Energy Corp. chairman Manuel Pangilinan said Wednesday the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Philippines and China on cooperation on oil and gas development will boost the local oil and liquefied natural gas industries. The signing of MOU with China is a small but significant step, [in terms of the] the impact [it will] have on the LNG sector and our goal of achieving energy security from domestic resources in the country today, Pangilinan said in a speech during the Meralco Technology and Innovation Summit. The Philippines and China agreed to cooperate on oil and gas development during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the MOU was crafted to find ways for the country to benefit from the resource-filled waters in the West Philippine Sea. Xi said that they would continue to manage contentious issues and promote maritime cooperation through friendly consultation in the disputed waterways. I do hope that this could lead to some positive steps that we can take in respect of the work program that the group presented to the previous government in respect of the exploration and development work, Pangilinan said. PXP Energy, which through 79-percent controlled Forum Energy Ltd., controls Service Contract 72 (Recto Bank) and SC 75 (Northwest Palawan). Both service contracts are under force majeure because of the territorial dispute with China. The impact on downstream activities, on the planned gas terminal, possibly LNG gas plants and Meralco [Manila Electric Co.] itself, I think in the medium term, is quite significant. I congratulate the president and [Foreign Affairs] Secretary Ted Locsin for the small but significant step, Pangilinan said. Pangilinan said he was hoping that a bilateral agreement between the Philippines and China would be signed soon and pave the way for oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea. I do hope that something is concluded soon so that purely from the point of view of PXP Energy, so that we could start talking to CNOOC [China National Offshore Oil Corp.] and start our work program for SC 72, Pangilinan said.He said the moratorium would likely be lifted after the bilateral agreement was signed. Because you know Malampaya is rumored to be soon to be depletedThe sooner we start work [on SC 72], the better because it takes a while to develop a gas field, he said. He said that if SC 72 was proven to contain commercial quantities of gas, PXP Energy could sell the gas to the LNG joint venture of CNOOC and Phoenix Petroleum Philippines. PXP Energy will acquire up to a 49-percent interest in the planned liquefied natural gas project of Phoenix as part of the subscription agreement with Dennison Holdings Corp. Phoenix and Dennison are companies owned by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy. Phoenix has teamed up with CNOOC to put up the countrys first LNG hub. If SC 72 is eventually proven to contain gas, we could supply gas to the gas terminal and to his gas plant, thats the only motivation, Pangilinan said. Pangilinan said PXP Energy decided to team up with Phoenix because of Uys connections with CNOOC. Given that Dennis has signified an intention and desire to be part of PXP Energy in respect with SC 72, this would be a logical step for us to co-invest with him on the gas terminal and gas plant but there is no commitment at this stage, he said. It is basically an option for us to take 49 percent of what he might own eventually of the terminal or gas plant, Pangilinan said.
We have to take to the streets of Hamburg on July 7 with a clear idea of what we want our world to be.
The brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and the spectacular mismanagement of the crisis that ensued show how reckless and ill-advised the kingdoms foreign policy has become under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

This is the latest in a series of foreign policy blunders Saudi Arabia has suffered under the watch of the 33-year-old crown prince. Other prominent examples include the failed blockade of Qatar, the house arrest of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, the diplomatic row with Canada over human rights issues and the disastrous war in Yemen.

One could argue that Prince Mohammed, also known as MBS, has had to pursue a more assertive foreign policy because of the rise of Iranian influence in the Middle East, which threatens the security and stability of Saudi Arabia. Yet, there is a clear distinction to be made between assertive and reckless. With his grave foreign policy miscalculations, MBS has not only moved away from the House of Sauds traditional tactical diplomacy, but has also effectively pushed his country towards the precipice of political instability.

Backseat diplomacy

In the first decades of the Cold War, a revolutionary wave swept through the Middle East. In 1952, King Farouk of Egypt, the last monarch of Mohammad Alis dynasty which had ruled Egypt since 1805, was overthrown. In 1958, the Hashemite family was brought down by leftist and nationalist forces in Iraq. In 1962, army officers removed Zaydi Imam Mohammad al-Badr, plunging Yemen into a seven-year civil war which ended with the establishment of the republic. And in 1979, the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled and replaced by an Islamic republic led by Shia clerics.

Amid this upheaval, the Saudi monarchy managed to survive, mainly because of its calculative approach to foreign affairs, employing a quiet but remarkably effective diplomacy in dealing with external threats and challenges.

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At the beginning of the Cold War, Riyadh took a backseat in most regional conflicts, leaving the rowdy revolutionaries of the Arab world (Egypt, Iraq and Syria) to take the lead. On Palestine, for example, the Saudis decided to keep a low profile. Although Riyadh backed the war efforts of the so-called ring states  the Arab countries surrounding Israel  it always refrained from getting involved in a direct military confrontation with the Zionist state. When it decided to get involved  for example by leading the 1973 oil embargo  it always did so through soft or economic power.

Even when it was forced to fight against regional rivals, Saudi Arabia avoided direct conflict and opted for proxy wars. In the 1960s, it drew the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, an archenemy for the Saudi ruling family, into a proxy conflict in Yemen. Abdel Nasser sent a large chunk of his army to support the revolutionary effort against Imam Mohammad al-Badr, who was backed by Saudi Arabia. But in doing so, the Egyptian president weakened his army which contributed to its defeat in the 1967 war against Israel and his subsequent political demise. The Egyptian leader died along with his pan-Arab dream three years later.

Using more or less the same tactics, the House of Saud achieved exactly the same results with another revolutionary leader that threatened its rule: Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Riyadh avoided direct confrontation with Tehran, which was seeking to export the revolution and depose the conservative Arab Gulf regimes, and instead, encouraged and supported Iraq in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). This effectively contained the Iranian revolution and the idea of exporting it to the rest of the Middle East withered away with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.

Throughout the Cold War, Saudi Arabia also played a quiet albeit important role in the international arena, contributing to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, it joined Pakistan and the United States in their efforts to support armed groups resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, funding most of the CIA programmes to arm and train the Mujahideen. The House of Saud also helped plunge oil prices in the second half of the 1980s, bringing the oil-dependent Soviet economy to its knees.

And when the threat came to its borders in August 1990 with Saddam Husseins decision to invade Kuwait, then also Riyadh opted for a circumvent solution. It requested the help of the US which promptly dispatched a coalition force to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait and prevent an invasion of Saudi Arabia.

Resurgent Iran

Thus throughout the second half of the 20th century, Saudi Arabia won most of its battles without having to fire a shot. But the situation over the past few years changed dramatically in the Middle East. The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 eliminated two of Irans key regional foes, resuscitating its ambitions for regional hegemony.

The breakout of the Arab Spring in 2011 brought down and undermined a number of dictatorial regimes which Saudi Arabia viewed as the pillars of stability in the region. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February of that year, which sent shockwaves across the Middle East. To try to avoid the same fate, Bashar al-Assad unleashed a violent wave of repression onto the Syrian population, eventually plunging the country into a bloody civil war.

For the first time in its recent history, Saudi Arabia found itself completely exposed, with no one to fall back on but itself. To add insult to injury, the Obama administration showed little sensitivity towards Saudi concerns as it sought rapprochement with Iran, leaving Riyadh deeply worried about its security. As the feeling of insecurity in the House of Saud grew, backseat diplomacy gave way to a more assertive foreign policy; the tactics, however, remained more or less the same: confrontation by proxy.

Anxious to prevent Iran from taking advantage of this fluid situation, Saudi Arabia  along with the United Arab Emirates  decided to fill in the power vacuum left by a retreating US and the collapse of the Arab heavyweights.

In March 2011, Saudi troops were sent to Bahrain to quash the protest movement. In June 2013, Riyadh supported the military coup in Egypt that overthrew the government of the Muslim Brotherhood. It funnelled billions of dollars in support of Egypts military junta as it mercilessly cracked down on the Islamist movement.

In Syria, Saudi Arabia put a lot of effort into undermining the regime of Bashar al-Assad, both militarily and diplomatically. Riyadh financed the purchase of infantry weapons and funnelled millions of dollars to anti-regime fighters in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that had allowed Assad to cling to power.

Yet, it was the Houthis takeover of the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September 2014, that shook Saudi Arabia to the core. The death of King Abdullah and the ascendance to the throne of King Salman paved the way for the young and ambitious MBS to lead his country into its first direct military conflict with another country.

Initially, the decision to go to war in Yemen was hailed as a brave and timely intervention to prevent the Houthis from taking complete control of Yemen and hence contributing to Irans rising regional influence. However, as the war dragged on with thousands of civilians getting killed, and hospitals and schools getting bombed, it became another foreign policy fiasco for Saudi Arabia.

A reckless leader

MBS did not stop with the invasion of Yemen. His arrogance and belief that money can buy everything, and his utter ignorance of regional and international realities got Saudi Arabia into deep trouble with each of his aggressive foreign policy decisions.

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Instead of trying to build a unified front against the Saudi archenemy, Iran, and direct Saudi resources to that end, MBS found himself fighting on almost every possible front. Right now, he is in conflict with Turkey and its Sunni allies, including Qatar; and with Iran, and its Shia allies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

Not only has MBS created more enemies than he can handle, but he has also chosen the wrong allies. He has embarked on a dangerous path of normalisation with Israel, believing that it would pay back in the long run. But with this decision, he risks losing the hearts and minds of the Arab people to Turkey and Iran, both of which have positioned themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause.

More importantly, he risks losing support in his own country and contributing to the rise of more radical forces, as some Saudis come to see their country fighting the wrong enemies and allying with the wrong friends.

If Mohammed bin Salman continues down this path, he is likely to bring about not only his own political demise, but that of the House of Saud as well.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Migrants and refugees continue long wait in Tijuana as US defence chief given extra authority to use military at border.

Tijuana, Mexico  Miriam* reported the death threats to the Honduran police. Twice. And she took her nephew to the medical examiner after gang members attacked him.

I was taking care of one of my nephews and the gang wanted me to hand him over. They wanted to recruit him, Miriam says.

I refused, and that is when they wanted to harm us. You dont refuse them anything they ask, because they will kill you. I went to file reports with the police and it was useless, she tells Al Jazeera.

The Honduran police did nothing and a representative from the governmental human rights commission told her the family should flee for safety, Miriam says. She called her sister, who came home immediately. The sisters, Miriams husband, her three children and 14-year-old nephew all left La Ceiba on the same day in September.

Her sister and nephew fled their home in northern Honduras to Europe and Mariam and her family fled to Mexico.

Their first stop was in Tapachula, where Mariams family applied for humanitarian visas. When a caravan of several thousand migrants and refugees, who undertook a collective month-long journey north through Guatemala and Mexico, passed through the city, they wanted to join but decided to stay behind in order to ensure they would receive the visas.

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But this week, 30-year-old Mariam and her family caught up with the collective exodus in Tijuana where they are now staying until they can apply for asylum.

The wait could be weeks, however, as the Trump administration continues to try to put restrictions on the group and the thousands more that follow behind.

Rights groups challenge asylum rules

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump declared that asylum claims would only be processed if those making them crossed into the US at official ports of entry.

A district court in California struck down the measure on Monday, issuing a temporary injunction to put an immediate halt to its implementation pending a December 19 hearing.

The lawsuit that may affect Miriam and her family the most, however, is a complaint challenging former Attorney General Jeff Sessionss June guidance, which makes it harder for individuals fleeing gang violence and domestic abuse to apply for asylum.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies in August. Court proceedings are ongoing.

In this file photo taken on November 1, 2018 migrants and refugees heading to the US, walk along the road from La Ventosa to Matias Romero, Oaxaca State, Mexico [Guillermo Arias/AFP]

Along with poverty and unemployment, violence is the most common factor driving the exodus.

Mariam continues to hold copies of the medical examiners report and the papers she filed with police to show why her family fled. Al Jazeera has interviewed several other individuals and families fleeing gang violence in Honduras and El Salvador.

The Trump administration says the new rules are needed to protect the US and its border. On Tuesday, Kirstjen Nielsen, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, said, without providing evidence, that the US had identified hundreds of criminals, including known gang members, travelling with the caravan.

Expanded military powers

In Tijuana, however, migrants and refugees are more concerned about the potentially armed and dangerous forces north of the border.

Separately on Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reportedly signed a memo authorising military personnel to perform activities deemed reasonably necessary to protect US border agents, including a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention, and cursory search.

I now have the authority to do more, Department of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on Wednesday.

If I change the mission then something like that could happen, he said, adding there is no intention to do so now but that the situation depends on directives from Nielsen.

United States Marines fortify concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana [Adrees Latif/Reuters]

More than 5,000 active duty troops are deployed in border areas. Military officials declared they will be home in time for the December holidays, but Mattis is not ruling out an extension or new missions, he said.

Around that same time, the Central American migrants and refugees will likely only be beginning to cross from Mexico into the United States. US officials have drastically limited the number of asylum claims processed a day at ports of entry this year, and there is a long waiting list at the San Ysidro crossing in Tijuana.

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Miriam and her family put their names down on the waiting list as soon as they arrived in Tijuana last week. She was told to return in three weeks to check and see if their numbers would be coming up soon, but several asylum seekers who arrived before the Central American exodus told Al Jazeera they had already been waiting for three to four weeks and their numbers were still a ways off.

Miriam is not concerned. She and her family waited more than six weeks in Tapachula before receiving their humanitarian visas, and they are prepared to wait their turn to continue north and request asylum in the US, where she and her husband both have relatives. Still, it is not the future they had ever envisioned, she says.

We had never dreamed of leaving Honduras, she says. We were forced to make the decision.

*Al Jazeera has changed the individuals name to protect her identity at her request.
PM Scott Morrison says signing pact would undermine Australias immigration policies and is not in countrys interest.

Australias conservative government said on Wednesday it would not sign a UN pact on migration because the agreement would undermine its existing immigration policies.

The UN Global Compact for Migration was agreed on in July following more than a year of negotiations and is supposed to help open up legal migration and better manage the movement of people around the world.

It is due to be adopted next month although the United States and a handful of European countries have already rejected it.

We believe the Compact is inconsistent with our well-established policies and not in Australias interest, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement posted on his website.

Australias immigration policy already promotes safe, orderly and regular migration, the statement continued. Adopting the pact would risk encouraging illegal entry to Australia and reverse  hard-won successes in combating the people-smuggling trade.





Profoundly disappointing

David Manne, Executive Director at Refugee Legal, told Al Jazeera the Australian governments decision was profoundly disappointing and fundamentally flawed and that the Compact posed no threat to the countrys ability to manage its borders.

In an era where migration, including forced migration, is one of the worlds great challenges, moves like this can only undermine what is a global challenge requiring global solutions, Manne said on the phone from Melbourne.

Morrison, who became prime minister in an internal party battle in August, was one of the architects of Australias harsh immigration policy, which arrests asylum-seekers who try to reach the country by boat and sends them to remote Pacific islands.

While the policy has led to a decline in people-smuggling, hundreds of people are now being held in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Some have been there for years.

The United Nations and human rights groups at home and abroad have criticised the approach and the government has been under pressure over the deteriorating health of the people, many of them children, imprisoned on the islands.

The US has already rejected the UN Compact, and a number of populist governments in Europe, including Poland and Hungary, have also said they will not sign it.

Morrisons government is focussing on immigration ahead of elections due to take place in May next year.

Opinion polls show the opposition Labor Party well ahead of Morrisons Liberals.

Earlier this week, Morrison announced he would also seek to slash legal migration into Australia, from the current official cap of 190,000 people a year to about 160,000.

He said the cut was needed to counter worsening congestion in the nations main cities.
In an open letter, the Muslim community says they are being held collectively culpable for individual criminal acts.

Muslim leaders in Australia have boycotted a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison after the latter asked the community to be proactive in dealing with deadly attacks.

Morrison had proposed a roundtable meeting with Muslim leaders in the wake of a fatal attack in Melbourne. He had singled out Muslim community leaders as having a special responsibility to counter the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam.

Australias Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed and a group of other senior Muslim figures rejected the invitation in an open letter to Morrison on Wednesday.

Many in the Muslim community including the undersigned are deeply concerned and disappointed with statements made by senior government ministers and the prime minister in the recent past which infer that the community is collectively culpable for the criminal actions of individuals and should be doing more to prevent such acts of violence, the statement said.

These statements have achieved nothing to address underlying issues, but rather, have alienated large segments of the Muslim community, they said in the letter published by Australian media.

They said they would meet Morrison at a later date if their views and concerns will be genuinely respected.

Scott Morrison now accusing the Islamic community of turning a blind eye to terrorism. Whipping up a hate frenzy. Dont forget, its the same guy who said in 2012 the Liberal Party should exploit the Muslim issue for political purposes. #auspol #FauxMo  Eddy Jokovich (@EddyJokovich) November 21, 2018

The letter prompted a series of comments on Twitter from Morrison, who accused those behind the boycott of continuing down a path of denial and making their communities less safe and more vulnerable.

We all have responsibilities to make Australia safe, and that means making sure Muslim communities do not become infiltrated with this dangerous ideology, he tweeted.

In the November 9 attack in Melbourne, a Somali-born man who police said was inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant armed group (ISIL, also known as ISIS), stabbed and killed one man and wounded two others before being fatally shot by police.

This week, police arrested three more men in Melbourne for allegedly plotting another attack on the city  the 15th authorities say they have thwarted since 2014.
Suicide attack at religious gathering killed at least 55 people with the government being blamed for lack of security.

The death toll in the suicide attack inside a Kabul banquet hall hosting a gathering of religious scholars has gone up to 55, with authorities saying another 94 were wounded.

Tuesdays attack at the Uranus Wedding Palace, where people gathered to celebrate Prophet Mohammads birthday, was one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year.

It drew widespread condemnation in the country and abroad, with the United Nations describing it as an atrocity.

On Wednesday morning, cleaners worked in the cavernous room where the massacre happened, clearing bloodied turbans, sandals, overturned chairs and broken glass that still littered the floor.

It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh, Ahmed Fareed, 40, told AFP news agency as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries.

My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving.

Scattered around Fareed were the bloodied bodies of men who had taken the full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life.

President Ashraf Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack, which he described as an unforgivable crime.

Organisers of the event told Al Jazeera that two religious events were taking place on different floors inside the hall, adding that around 2,000 people were present when the blast happened.

There was shock and horror across Afghanistan in the aftermath as it was revealed that most of the victims were young students who had gathered from across the country.

Citizens and senior officials also criticised the government for failing to provide adequate security.

This time they targeted our religious figures. It is so brutal and barbaric Ali Mashal, Afghan student

The government is responsible for securing these gatherings and ensuring the publics safety, former governor of the Balkh province, Atta Muhammad Noor, said in a statement.

Unfortunately, the governments weaknesses take more victims from us each passing day.

According to a survivor, Obaidullah, security at the wedding hall included a body search by an armed guard followed by physical checks by several religious students, AFP reported.

We see attacks on students, mosques, sport clubs and other civilian places, said Ali Mashal, an Afghan student told Al Jazeera. This time they targeted our religious figures. It is so brutal and barbaric.

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Afghanistans Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah pointed the finger of blame at the Taliban.

Whether they deny it or they dont, they have created that sort of an environment, they are responsible for the violence, Abdullah told AFP in an interview in Paris.

The Taliban condemned the attack in a WhatsApp message.

With additional reporting by Freshta Farhang in Kabul
Northern California residents left homeless by the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in state history braced for a new bout of misery on Wednesday from showers expected to plunge encampments of evacuees into rain-soaked fields of mud.

As much as 20cm of rain is forecast to fall by Friday in areas around the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people about 280km northeast of San Francisco that was largely incinerated by the blaze, known as the Camp Fire.

The Northern California sheriff said two more people had been confirmed dead in the fire, bringing the death toll to 83 with more than 560 still missing.

The storm will help firefighters still battling the fire, but will add to the suffering of the residents left homeless by the disaster. Some of them, whose numbers have not been determined, are camping out rather than staying in emergency shelters.

The toll in the deadliest wildfires in recent California history climbed to 81 [Josh Edelson/AFP]

Kelly Boyer, who lost his home in Paradise, has been sharing a tent with a friend outside a Walmart store in nearby Chico, where overnight low temperatures have fallen to just above freezing.

Boyer has received wooden pallets and plastic tarps donated by local residents to keep his tent off the ground and dry, but he said the rain would still make a mess.

Its going to be mud city, he told Reuters news agency.

Scared theyll be washed away

Theres also fear the rains may wash away the remains of those who have not yet been identified.

Im scared, Paradise resident Deborah Laughlin told the Los Angeles Times.

The 63-year-old lost her home and is still searching for her son and his pregnant wife. She last heard from them when the couple evacuated earlier this month, the LA Times reported.

Im scared theyll be washed away and peoples remains will never be found, she said.

Forecasters said the rain, which in some areas is likely to be accompanied by strong winds, might also cause rivers of mud and debris to slide down flame-scorched slopes stripped of vegetation.

A search and rescue dog searches for human remains after the Camp Fire [John Locher/AP Photo]

The fire has burned across 61,000 hectares of the Sierra foothills.

Mass evacuations since the fire erupted on November 8 have, however, removed most people from any debris flow, according to National Weather Service (NWS) hydrologist Cindy Matthews.

She said the volcanic soil and relatively shallow slopes in the fire zone also mean the ground is unlikely to become saturated enough for hillsides to give way to landslides.

Ryan Spainhower and his wife, Kimberly, weep after finding a coin they had made during their honeymoon amidst the ashes of their home in Paradise [Josh Edelson/AFP]

However, authorities in Southern California warned residents in areas burned by wildfires in the foothills and mountains northwest of Los Angeles of mud-flow hazards from rain this week. One of those blazes, the Woolsey Fire, killed three people.

Evacuees also face increasingly chilly weather.

Its real cold at night, evacuee Mark Kempton told KRCR TV. He said he was going to sleep in his car instead of a tent to stay warm.

Anna and William Goodnight, of Paradise, sit outside their tent at a makeshift evacuation centre for displaced people [Terray Sylvester/Reuters]

Smoke from the fires has drifted across the country to the East Coast, where it left a brownish-orange haze that was credited with causing unusually vibrant sunsets on Monday.

The cause of the Camp and Woolsey fires is under investigation, but electric utilities reported equipment problems around the time both blazes broke out.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushes back against Trump, saying there are no Obama judges or Trump judges.

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back on Wednesday against Donald Trumps description of a judge who ruled against the presidents new asylum policy as an Obama judge.

Its the first time that the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.

Responding to a query made by the Associated Press, Roberts said, We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.

Roberts added that on the day before Thanksgiving that an independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

The White House had no immediate comment on Robertss remarks.

A halt to new asylum rules

The ruling Trump criticised that prompted Robertss rebuke came from US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco on Monday.

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Tigar temporarily blocked the Trump administration from denying asylum to individuals who cross the USs border between official ports of entry.

In his ruling, Tigar issued a temporary nationwide restraining order prohibiting the enforcement of the policy. The order will last until until at least December 19 when the judge scheduled a hearing to consider a more long-lasting injunction.

Whatever the scope of the presidents authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden, Tigar wrote.

After Tigars ruling, Trump critcised the judge, calling him an Obama judge and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals itself a disgrace.

Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won, Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

But the initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by US District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W Bush. Roberts also was appointed by Bush.

It was unclear what Trump meant when he said things would change. The 9th Circuit is by far the largest of the federal appellate courts, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Some Republicans in 9th Circuit states have proposed splitting the circuit in two, but legislation has not advanced.

The court has long had a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents, with the current breakdown at 16-7. But Trump has the opportunity to narrow that edge significantly because there are six vacancies, and he already has nominated candidates for five of them.

List of critcisms

The presidents latest remarks come as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats. Roberts is widely seen as the justice closest to the middle and likely to determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.

Trumps remarks are part of a long list of criticisms from the president directed a judges and courts.

Trump last year referred to a jurist who ruled against him on his travel ban as a so-called judge. Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016 said a judge in a case involving Trump University was biased against him because of the jurists Mexican-American heritage.

The US Constitution established the federal judiciary as a co-equal branch of government with the executive and legislative branches as part of a system of checks and balances on power.
Facial recognition and AI are growing businesses for Chinese tech companies with nowhere to hide for civilian targets.

Shenzhen, China  The video screen shows a constant procession of Chinese citizens moving past a camera at what appears to be a public festival, park or central city plaza.

Their faces are bracketed by yellow squares with various numbers hovering below, including each persons estimated age and gender. If the person is known to the system, their name appears too.

The facial recognition technology was just one of dozens of such systems at the China Hi-Tech Fair in the southern city of Shenzhen this month.

But while other companies tried to bring some levity to the dystopian feel by making cute dog heads appear on the faces of passers-by, others had no qualms about showcasing the Orwellian nature of their products.

Shenzhen-based Kuang-Chi, which stresses the benefits of civil-military integration of its technologies, claims its super-intelligent tracking system leaves nowhere to hide for those it targets.

It can find a person in a crowd of up to 8,000 people, a Kuang-Chi representative explains at the firms prominent display at the entrance to the fair. It is being used already by police in Chongqing and Shanghai and is 95 to 98 percent accurate.

For now, many Chinese appear to accept these new surveillance technologies as a way to make communities safer by tracking and identifying criminals, child abductors, and terrorists.





Techno-dystopian

But outside the country questions are being asked about the more nefarious uses of such technologies, and the authorities deployment of such systems to tighten control over their citizens and crack down on dissent, most notably in the far-western region of Xinjiang.

Last week, US legislators introduced bills that, if passed, would call on the commerce secretary to look into restrictions on technology sales to companies that are involved in providing surveillance technology in Xinjiang.

Chinese companies too might find themselves at risk of sanctions and restrictions.

That risk is certainly appearing to be on the rise as the US government seems very determined to act against this repression, and to hold related companies responsible, said Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the European School of Culture & Theology, who has been following the Xinjiang situation closely.

During conversations with State Department officials in September, I certainly got that very same impression, and I am not surprised that the government is moving towards specific actions and possible sanctions, Zenz told Al Jazeera.

The action proposed by Congress would authorise annual release reports on surveillance, detection, and control methods in Xinjiang, and create a list of leaders involved in hi-tech policing in the region including Party Secretary Chen Quanguo who could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, according to a draft.

I believe were at the very early stages of the matter, and will likely see this gain further prominence in the months ahead, said Adrian Shahbaz, research director of technology and democracy at Freedom House.

Taking swift action to condemn the draconian surveillance state rapidly developing in Xinjiang is fundamental not only to protecting the human rights of millions of persecuted inhabitants there, but also to ensure the Chinese government is not given carte blanche to expand its techno-dystopian model to other parts of the country, Shahbaz added.

Customer and funder

Whether companies in China involved in developing surveillance systems that the government is using for policing in places such as Xinjiang are concerned depends on whether they are targetting the domestic market or harbour ambitions of expanding beyond China, analysts say.

I think a lot of the companies that support surveillance tech are domestic companies and dont have a lot of international trade links, said Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights Watch who has been studying the use of technology in the Xinjiang crackdown.

Even trying to figure out the funding and where they are selling is just coming to the surface, and a lot of these smaller companies exist beneath the surface, Wang said.

Facial recognition, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technology that can be utilised for surveillance is a huge and growing business in China.

SenseTime, which describes itself as the worlds most valuable artificial intelligence unicorn and is worth more than $4.5bn, is a major player in facial recognition systems.

But it is also Chinas biggest provider of AI algorithms and is involved in projects from the development of intelligent cities to autonomous cars and education.

Technology monitoring streets and people is a growing business in China [Michael Standaert/Al Jazeera]

In September, Chinas ministry of science and technology signed a deal with SenseTime to establish a fifth national open innovation platform for next-generation AI, joining Tencent and Baidu.

At the Shenzhen fair, SenseTime was playing up the more benign applications of its technology from fixing blemishes to adding heart-shaped cat noses and whiskers to photos.

For these firms, it is China and its government that is their biggest market, and the latter is often their biggest source of funds too.

Its not that the tech community [in China] is amoral or anything, said Elliott Zaagman, who co-hosts the China Tech Investor podcast.

You either play their game and have your company, your products, and your money, or dont and lose it all, or worse, Zaagman said. Absolutely they have concerns about [a Western] backlash, but there isnt much that they can do. They need to comply at home.
School in the southern Guangxi region planned to confiscate and review all student and staff electronic devices.

A Chinese universitys plan to conduct a blanket search of student and staffs electronic devices has come under fire, illustrating the limits of the populations tolerance for surveillance.

The proposal drew condemnation after raising the prospect that tactics used on Muslim minorities in China may be creeping into the rest of the country.

The Guilin University of Electronic Technology is reconsidering a search of mobile phones, computers, external hard disks, and USB drives after a copy of the order leaked online and triggered such an intense backlash that it drew rare criticism in state-run newspapers.

Searches of electronics are common in Xinjiang in Chinas far west, a heavily Muslim region that has been turned into a virtual police state to tamp down unrest. They are unheard of in most other areas, including where the school is located in the southern Guangxi region, a popular tourist destination known for spectacular scenery, not violence or terrorism.

Thats why the planned checks worry some.

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Xinjiang has emerged as Chinas surveillance laboratory, said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic politics and national identity at La Trobe University in Australia. It is unsurprising that some of the methods first pioneered in Chinas west are now being rolled out in other regions.

Mentally harmful

Under President Xi Jinping, the government has in recent years tried to tighten controls over what the public sees online and stepped up political oversight of universities. Sometimes, these measures have run into a new generation of Chinese accustomed to greater freedoms, sparking public outcry and occasionally government retreat.

The leaked notice in Guilin warned hostile domestic groups and foreign powers are wantonly spreading illicit and illegal videos through the internet. It said the search for violent, terrorist, reactionary and obscene content, which was to be conducted this month, was necessary to resist and combat recordings that it called mentally harmful.

The order triggered a public uproar last week.

Posts on Chinas Weibo microblogging site with hashtags on schools checking electronic devices were viewed nearly 80 million times. Users voiced privacy concerns, comparing the measure to computer chips inserted in brains and the George Orwell novel 1984.

Then came critical editorials in state-run publications saying the notice could violate Chinese constitutional protection of the right to communicate freely and have those communications remain confidential.

If colleges and universities check the phones, computers, and hard disks of teachers and students, theyre suspected of infringing on communication freedom and privacy, said an editorial in the Beijing Youth Daily. Those responsible at the school should be held accountable, as they had a great negative impact on the schools image.

Administrators told another state-owned publication The Paper that the search had not yet been carried out, and they were considering reducing its scope. University and local education ministry officials referred questions to a media office, which did not answer repeated phone calls.

Weibo, while not a government body, ran into hot water in April when it said it would censor content related to gay issues on its microblog. The company backpedalled under intense criticism, including from state-run publications.

Going too far

Its unclear what prompted the Guilin universitys planned search. It could have been a trial run to see how the public would react or an overzealous local administrator, said Christopher Colley, a National Defense College of the United Arab Emirates assistant professor who has lectured at Chinese universities.

Either way, he said, the backlash shows though online censorship is common in China, physical searches of phones and laptops is an extreme measure that many will not accept.

Most people in China are willing to tolerate Big Brother as long as it contributes to social stability, but for many, this is going too far, Colley said.

China has rolled out one of the worlds most aggressive surveillance and policing programmes both in Xinjiang and neighbouring Tibet.

Uighurs are regularly singled out and stopped at checkpoints to have their smartphones scanned for religious content.

They risk being arrested and sent to internment camps if police find songs or videos they deem suspicious, or apps that are commonly used to contact people outside China, such as WhatsApp.

Xinjiang today appears to be the leading-edge of a highly intrusive and coercive surveillance society that the [Communist Party] is intent on constructing across China, Leibold said.
The Metro Manila Development Authority on Wednesday asked the public not to worry about the safety and the structural integrity of the controversial footbridge in Quezon City following the arrest of four construction workers of the bridge in a police anti-drug operation. Nothing to worry about the safety of the bridge despite reports that the workers involved [in the construction] were [drug] addicts. We have final inspection prior to acceptance at all government projects, said MMDA assistant secretary and spokesperson Celine Pialago. Arrested at the construction site barracks of the bridge were Jan Jan Rasonable, 26; Joseph Baldia, 27; Lolito Lacang, 38, and Jonard Jagon, 23. They are now detained at the Central Police District- Station 10 pending the filing of criminal charges against them before the Quezon City prosecutors office. Authorities caught the suspects while having drug pot session at their barracks and recovered sachets of metamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as shabu, and drug paraphernalia. The arrest was made after residents tipped off the police that some construction workers of the bridge were drug dependents and suspected to be engaged in shabu trafficking. The MMDA was supposed to formally open the steel bridge last Nov. 15 but it came up with a decision to postpone it and redesign or modify the P10-million structure following series of criticism from newspaper columnists and netizens. Based on the new design, the MMDA will add another landing platform on the footbridge so that pedestrians will not find it too steep. Our target opening is Nov. 27 and just in case (sic), before this year ends, said Pialago. The 10-meter high structure goes over the Metro Railway Transit Line 3 rails along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, near GMA-Kamuning station. The cost for the P10-million bridge would have ballooned if it were a tunnel-type structure, Pialago said.Pictures of the foorbridge dubbed by netizens as stairway to heaven also went viral on social media, with some Facebook and Twitter users commenting that the structure could be inaccessible to those pregnant, the elderly and persons with disabilities. MMDA officials said the footbridge was placed at that height because there has to be at least 3-4 meters of space between the footbridge and the MRT-3 structure so it doesnt touch the electrical lines. They added the footbridge was built three months ago due to pedestrian-related accidents in the area. The MMDA keeps asking the public to use footbridges instead of risking their lives crossing major thoroughfares. At least 110 footbridges had been built around Metro Manila. More than half were constructed by the MMDA, while the rest were built by the local government units. Despite the huge amount of taxpayers money that had gone into the construction of footbridges, people continued to cross busy streets and dangerous portions of the roads where they are not supposed to. The agency cited that road accident is one of the major causes of monstrous traffic in the metropolis. In 2014, members of the Metro Manila Council, the MMDAs policy-making body, approved the proposal of the agency to increase the penalty against jaywalking from P200 to P500 following reports that the numbers of jaywalking incidents are increasing despite numerous government efforts to educate undisciplined pedestrians. READ: Stairway to heaven opens on Dec. 15
Griffiths, whose peace efforts failed in September, will try to get Houthis and government to sit down for talks again.

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, has arrived in the capital city of Sanaa for his renewed push to get Yemens warring parties around the negotiating table.

Griffiths, whose efforts to launch peace talks collapsed in September, will try to get the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the government, supported by Saudi Arabia, to sit down for talks again.

The envoy had said on November 16 that Yemens parties have given firm assurances they are committed to attending peace talks he hopes to convene in Sweden before the end of the year to agree on a framework for peace under a transitional government.

Earlier in the week, intense fighting broke out in Yemens port city of Hodeidah, now a focus of the war, shattering a lull in violence that had raised hopes of a ceasefire between the two sides.

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The Saudi-UAE coalition warplanes reportedly conducted air attacks on Houthi positions in Hodeidah recently.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city.

The Houthi group had announced on Monday it was halting drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their Yemeni allies, in one of its biggest concessions since it quit the southern port city of Aden in 2015. The group also said that it was ready for a broader ceasefire.

Hodeidah is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory in the densely populated highlands, and some 80 percent of commercial food imports and all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through its docks.

Millions at risk of starvation

Western allies, including the United States, have called for a ceasefire before peace efforts to end the nearly four-year-old war that has killed more than 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, and caused the worlds most urgent humanitarian crisis.

UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port of Hodeidah is closed by fighting or damage.

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Aid group Save the Children reported on Wednesday that as many as 85,000 children may have starved to death in the past three years during its brutal war.

Using data compiled by the UN, Save the Children evaluated mortality rates for untreated cases of severe malnutrition in children under five years old.

Western countries have provided arms and intelligence to the Arab states in the alliance, but have shown increasing reservations about the war since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last month.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemens war in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government that was removed from the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in 2014. The conflict is seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran.
Rome, Italy  The European Commission has taken the first steps in fining Italy over its national budget, saying it deviates from the EUs fiscal rules and commitments made by the previous government.

The move comes as Italy, which received a European Commission request to adjust its 2019 budget to meet EU parameters, refused to make any substantial changes.

Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Wednesday: With what the Italian government has put on the table, we see a risk of the country sleepwalking into instability.

The Commission said formal proceedings that could bring financial sanctions were warranted.

In its report, the executive of the European Union said: The opening of a procedure for excessive deficit based on the debt is therefore justified.

Italys far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini reacted to the news with customary defiance.

Has the letter from Brussels arrived? Im waiting for one from Father Christmas too, Salvini said. We will politely talk as we have always done. We will have dialogue. Im going to keep going.

Italys debt

Italys 2019 budget includes tax cuts that will benefit middle-income, self-employed workers  partially fulfilling an electoral promise made to Salvinis right-wing voters  a basic income for the unemployed called for by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement led by labour minister Luigi di Maio and the lowering of pension age, revising an unpopular reform made during Europes financial crisis.

The next steps will be taken on December 3 and 4, when European finance ministers will meet to decide whether to act against Italy for violating a debt reduction rule, considering that Italys debt is over 130 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), second only to that of ailing Greece in the EU.

Wednesdays report confirms a previous opinion expressed by the Commission, which considers the Italian budget based on an overly optimistic growth forecast.

The actual procedure is unlikely to be launched before the Italian Parliament approves the budget by December 31.

It could eventually see the EU apply fines against Italy of up to 0.5 percent of its GDP.

This process could take up to six months, in which Italy will be given time to make revisions, coming close to the EU election in May 2019.

In the end, it doesnt mean for sure that there will be a sanction, explains Gregory Claeys, an economist at the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel.

There are countries that have been in an excessive deficit procedure for years, like France or Spain, without adding a sanction. I think the main difference between those cases and the Italian case is that the financial markets are already a bit nervous about Italy because the debt is much higher than in other Eurozone countries, Claeys said, adding that the EUs opinion will send a bad signal to the financial markets.

Could lead to a spiral

This could have serious consequences on the Italian economy, as Italy would end up paying a much higher interest on its debt.

We have already seen that the markets reactions in the past few days have not been positive, Arianna Giovannini, a senior lecturer at De Montfort University and chair of the Italian politics specialist group at the UK-based Political Studies Association, told Al Jazeera. This could lead to a spiral at the economic level, and the beginning of an actual crisis, a recession in Italy which, in my opinion, the country cannot afford, she added.

According to recent polls, the Italian government has about 60 percent of voters consensus, with the League, the far-right party led by Salvini, nearly doubling it since the government was installed last June.

According to Giovannini, at the Italian political level, the standoff between Italy and the EU could play in favour of the League, which has been able to draw much consensus by touting a hard line on migration.

Should the Italian government open to a compromise with the EU eventually, it is the Five Star Movement that stands to lose in the equation, Giovannini argued. The League has other arguments that seem to have much appeal on the electorate. On the other hand, if the Five Star Movement is not able to pursue the policies it has promised, the decline we have seen could broaden.

For the European Commission, which has to confront the rise of populist movements not only in Italy but in other European countries as well, its a lose-lose situation.

If they do something, they will be used as a scapegoat in the European election in Italy. If they dont do anything, they will be bashed by populist movements in other European countries like the Netherlands or Germany. In all cases, they will favour eurosceptic movements in some countries of the EU, Claeys told Al Jazeera.

It's a cold shower for populists that shows objective obstacles in building this European populist bloc. Carlo Ruzza, sociology professor at the University of Trento

Populists are on the rise, while there is a counter-movement that is trying to understand what to do. But it understands it little and badly, Carlo Ruzza, sociology professor at the University of Trento who writes on populist movements, told Al Jazeera. The anti-populist bloc is led by Macron in a moment in which Macron himself is weak.

Ruzza suggests that Italys action has exposed underlying tensions between northern and southern Europe, exemplified by Austrian and Dutch foreign ministers expressing concern last week over Italys decision to go ahead without heeding the European Commissions requests.

Its a cold shower for populists that shows objective obstacles in building this European populist bloc, Ruzza said. By definition, radical right-wing populism is nationalist, and Salvini [and his will to build a European populist bloc] is limited, while Italys ways give the impression of jeopardising the economic interests of European countries.
Jittery over a grand alliance bid to form government, the BJP-backed governor dissolves the state assembly.

Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir  The legislative assembly in India-administered Kashmir has been dissolved, a move likely to lead to fresh elections in the troubled state that has seen violence escalate in the last few years.

Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the assembly on Wednesday, shortly after former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form the government by forming a grand alliance with two rival parties.

Mufti, whose Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 29 legislators in the 87-member assembly, claimed she had the support of the National Conference (NC), which had 15, and 12 from the Congress.

Oddly enough our pleas fell on deaf ears. But who would have thought that the very idea of a grand coalition would give such jitters. 3/4  Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) November 21, 2018

Minutes later, Sajad Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC), posted on Twitter a letter he said he had sent to Malik, claiming he had the support of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form his government.

But Governor Malik, in a statement, said there is the impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with opposing political ideologies.

The best course of action is to dissolve the assembly so as to provide stability and security to the state and hold elections at an appropriate time so that a government with a clear mandate is duly formed, the statement said.

Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has passed an order dissolving the state Legislative Assembly. pic.twitter.com/TirFfZfTCs  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

Until June this year, the Jammu and Kashmir state was ruled by a coalition of the Hindu nationalist BJP and the PDP formed in 2015.

The alliance, touted as the coming together of the north and south poles, was fraught with friction between the two partners on how to deal with the issues facing the region.

In June, the BJP withdrew its support for the PDP, forcing Mufti to resign in protest against the muscular policy in Kashmir, which referred to the hard line tactics adopted by the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As a result, the governors rule was imposed in the state, effectively giving Modis government direct control over the troubled state.

On Wednesday, the BJP hit out at the grand alliance parties, calling them terror-friendly.

Jammu and Kashmir needs a firm administration to deal with terrorism and not a combination of terror-friendly parties, the party posted.

The best option in such a scenario is to go for fresh elections at the earliest. This assembly cannot produce a stable government.

The best option in such a scenario is to go in for a fresh election at the earliest. This assembly cannot produce a stable government.  BJP (@BJP4India) November 21, 2018

Political uncertainty

It seems the BJP wanted a long spell of governors rule. The three rival parties, by their stake to form a grand alliance, tried to evade it, Dr Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a Kashmir-based academic, told Al Jazeera.

Hussain said if a party or alliance claims to form the government, it must be given a chance to prove its majority on the floor of the assembly.

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There has always been political uncertainty in Kashmir, but the current situation is different because of the adverse security situation, he said.

The local residents, however, alleged the BJP wants to create a split in Kashmir.

To us, it does not matter who rules the state, because things hardly change for people. It is ultimately ruled by New Delhi, the local government is always insignificant in big matters, said 45-year-old Mushtaq Ahmad.

But the way the BJP is now behaving, they are brazen in their hostility towards Kashmir, he said.

Meanwhile, the situation in the disputed territory continues to remain violent.

For the past two years, the region has witnessed a spike in gun battles between the security forces and the rebels, who either want freedom or a merger with Muslim-majority Pakistan.

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of sheltering anti-India rebels, a charge repeatedly denied by Islamabad.

Both India and Pakistan claim the whole of Kashmir territory and have fought two of their three wars over it.
Former acting president Kim Jong-yang elected as leader of Interpol, in blow to Moscows efforts at pushing for Russian.

Interpol has elected Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as its new president, according to the international police body.

Jong-yang, who had been serving as acting president, was elected for a two-year term at the bodys annual congress in Dubai on Wednesday, finishing the four-year term of his predecessor who was arrested in China this year.

Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety, Jong-yang told Interpols general assembly, according to the agencys Twitter handle.

To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.

Jong-yang, 57, worked in the South Korean police for more than 20 years before retiring in 2015.

South Koreas President Moon Jae-in congratulated Jong-yang on becoming the first South Korean to head the organisation.

Were very proud. I, together with our people, am sending congratulations, Jae-in wrote on Twitter.

#BREAKING: Kim Jong Yang of the Republic of #Korea has been elected President of INTERPOL (2-yr term). #INTERPOLGA pic.twitter.com/6I9HIyUWrf  INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 21, 2018

The South Koreans election is a blow to Moscows efforts to reserve the position for a Russian candidate, Alexander Prokopchuk.

The United States, Britain and other European nations rejected Prokopchuks candidature saying his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Following the vote on Wednesday, the Kremlin said that clear outside pressure had been exerted on the election, but that it did not see any factors that would render the process illegitimate, Russias Interfax news agency reported.

Prokopchuk is a former major general in Russias interior ministry [Russian Interior Ministry/Reuters]

Interpol is best known for issuing red notices that identify a suspect pursued by a country, effectively putting him or her on the worlds most-wanted list.

William Browder, a British fund manager critical of the Kremlin who has been arrested repeatedly at Russias behest before being released again, told BBC radio in London: [Prokopchuk] has been responsible for trying to chase me down and have Interpol arrest me seven times.

Jong-yang s predecessor

The election of Jong-yang comes following former Interpol chief Meng Hongweis resignation after he was arrested in China in September on bribery and corruption charges.

Meng had disappeared in China for 13 days before his arrest was made public in October.

Chinas Ministry of Public Security said that Mengs suspected corruption and violation of laws gravely jeopardised the ruling party and the police, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

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Authorities also said Meng was in this situation due to his own willfulness and for bringing trouble upon himself.

France, which hosts Interpols headquarters in Lyon, received Mengs resignation as president of Interpol with immediate effect.

Mengs wife Grace said her husband sent her an image of a knife before he disappeared during a trip to their native China.

Making her first public comments on the issue, Grace told reporters in Lyon that she thought the knife was her husbands way of trying to tell her he was in danger.

She said she has had no further contact with him since the message that was sent on September 25. Grace also said four minutes before Meng shared the image, he had sent a message saying: Wait for my call.

She read a statement during her press conference in Lyon, but would not allow reporters to show her face, saying she feared for her own safety and that of her two children.
Trumps recent statement on Saudi Arabia opened with a litany of complaints against Iran, prompting Tehrans mockery.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has mocked United States President Donald Trumps announcement that he would stick by Saudi Arabia despite the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of, Zarif wrote on Twitter late on Tuesday.

Trumps statement on Saudi Arabia did indeed open with a litany of complaints against Iran, which he used to justify his continued backing of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests  just like the Finns do? Zarif added.

Visiting the scene of Californias devastating Camp Fire on Saturday, Trump had said Finland had managed to avoid such fires by spending a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things to clear forest floors.

Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests just like the Finns do?  Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 20, 2018

Trump has resisted mounting evidence of Saudi governments involvement in the Khashoggi killing, including from his own intelligence services.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! he wrote.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals and have supported opposing sides in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen and different political factions in Iraq and Lebanon.

Trump has adopted a hardline stance on Iran since taking office, withdrawing from the landmark 2015 nuclear accord and imposing tough sanctions against the country.

The White House views Saudi Arabia as a key partner in confronting Iran.
Ministers response comes after Airbnb said it would remove 200 listings in Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank.

An Israeli cabinet minister has called for a boycott of Airbnb and promoted one of its rivals, escalating the governments response to the home-rental companys decision to delist Israels settlements in the occupied West Bank.

On Monday, Airbnb said it would remove 200 listings from the website  which allows home-owners to rent out their rooms, apartments and houses to people  prompting a response from the Israelis.

I call today on all those who support Israel and oppose discriminatory boycotts. They should cease using Airbnb and turn to other services, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said at a conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

By the way, Booking.com is a great service, added Erdan, the main person in Israeli government efforts to combat pro-Palestinian boycotts.

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Airbnb said the move was based on an internal framework used to judge how it handles listings in occupied territories around the world.

We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, a statement on the Airbnb website said.

The company will remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank but this does not include occupied East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.

Human Rights Watchs director for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Omar Shakir, said Airbnbs decision was a welcome step.

Airbnb has sent an important message to the rest of the business community, Shakir told Al Jazeera.

It is impossible to do business [in the occupied West Bank] without contributing to serious violation of international humanitarian law and the human rights of the Palestinians.

It was acquiescing to a policy in which Palestinian ID holders are not allowed to enter settlements solely because of who they are  and it appears to be the only case in the world, for which Airbnb hosts are mandated by law to discriminate based on national origin, he added.

Airbnb stops brokering rentals on West Bank land stolen from Palestinians who are barred from staying there. @bookingcom, all eyes now on youdelisting only way to meet your human rights responsibilities under UN Guiding Principles https://t.co/3JO2APIvKy pic.twitter.com/94CAbNnl6q  Omar Shakir (@OmarSShakir) November 21, 2018

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, addressing another conference on Wednesday, backed Erdans call to boycott Airbnb and suggested Israel also deploy its own anti-discrimination laws.

Israel has said it would turn to the Trump administration and could back lawsuits against Airbnb within US states that have legislated against anti-Israel boycotts.

In a statement emailed to Al Jazeera, Airbnbs global head of policy and communications, Chris Lehane, said: Israel is a special place and our over 22,000 hosts are special people who have welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to Israel. We understand that this is a hard and complicated issue and we appreciate everyones perspective.

Israeli settlements

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

The Airbnb listings in the West Bank have long been criticised by the Palestinian community and human rights activists.

In a 2016 report, Human Rights Watch said companies that operate within or in coordination with Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories benefit from and contribute to an unlawful system that violates the rights of Palestinians.

According to Peace Now, settlement plans in the West Bank have increased since the beginning of 2017, when President Donald Trump, a key ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was inaugurated as president of the United States.

According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers now live on 196 settlements (built with Israeli government approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without its approval) across the occupied West Bank.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlements on the land to be illegal. They are also viewed as major obstacles in peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians want for their future state.
Gunmen have kidnapped an Italian voluntary worker and wounded five others, including young children, as they opened fire in Kenyas southeast coastal region of Kilifi, police said.

The unidentified attackers, armed with assault rifles, fired indiscriminately at residents at about 8pm (17:00 GMT) on Tuesday in the Chakama trading centre in Kilifi county, about 80km west of Malindi town, the National Police Service said on Twitter.

The gang  abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer with Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area, it posted on Wednesday.

The wounded included a 10-year-old who was shot in the eye and a 12-year-old who was hit in the thigh, police said. They were all taken to a hospital, with one in serious condition.

The kidnapped woman has been identified as Sylvia Constanza Romano, who was working for the small Italian charity, according to her organisation and Kenyas police chief, Joseph Boinnet.

The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town. 1/6  National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018

The motive for the attack is not yet clear, police said, as officers were pursuing the attackers.

We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim, the National Police Service said.

Two witnesses told Reuters news agency they heard the gunmen speaking Somali.

Slap her very hard

The attackers came looking for a white woman, according to Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, who said he witnessed Romanos violent kidnapping.

Ngalas high school education is being sponsored by Africa Milele Onlus and he had gone to the NGOs offices to present his grade 10 end-of-year report card to Romano, he told the Associated Press news agency.

He first heard gunfire, which made all the shops close and people in the trading centre hide.

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At about 7:30pm, six men, some armed with guns and others with machetes and clubs, stormed into the charity offices and demanded to know where the mgeni (Swahili for visitor) was.

I told them she had left to go and get a power bank but they didnt believe me and surged into the room where they found her, he said.

Ngala said he followed them and heard one gunman ask the other if she is the one and when he was answered in the affirmative, he proceeded to slap her very hard until she fell.

Ngala said the gunmen took Romano across the Galana River.

Italian NGO Africa Milele Onlus said there are no words to comment on what is happening.

Sylvia, we are all with you, it wrote on its website.

Suspected members of al-Shabab, an armed group based in neighbouring Somalia, have launched several attacks in recent months in which Kenyan soldiers have been killed. But all those attacks have taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia.

We cannot rule out their [al-Shabab] involvement, but we are investigating, a senior police officer told Kenyas Capital FM News.

The armed group was also responsible for the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in which nearly 70 people were killed.

Somalia-based fighters have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenyas coast.

Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab after the kidnappings of four foreigners.

One of the foreigners, a cancer-stricken quadriplegic Frenchwoman kidnapped off a Kenyan resort island, died in captivity in Somalia.

Al-Shabab has since carried out numerous attacks in Kenya, saying it is vengeance for the countrys troop presence in Somalia.
Riaz was one of Pakistans best known progressive writers who authored over a dozen books.

Pakistani poet, human-rights activist and feminist, Fahmida Riaz, has passed away at the age of 72.

Pakistans newspapers and websites on Wednesday reported Riazs passing away following a prolonged illness in the city of Lahore.

Riaz, a formidable figure of Pakistani literature, authored over a dozen books on poetry and fiction, and ran a publishing company.

She translated the writings of Albanian writer Ismail Kadare and the Sufi poetry of Rumi into Urdu. Pakistans Dawn newspaper called her a pioneer in feminist literature.

Heartbreaking news about the death of Fahmida Riaz. What a transformative force she was, in her poetry and her life. One of the brightest of lights in the dark days of Zia-ul-Haq, and beyond. #fahmidariaz  Kamila Shamsie (@kamilashamsie) November 21, 2018

The themes prevalent in her verse were, until then, were considered taboo for women writers, said the Dawn.

When Badan Dareeda, her second collection of verse, appeared, she was accused of using erotic and sensual expressions in her poetry.

Sad to lose another very lovely Khala the dynamic @fahmidaRiaz she was brave, daring and a great person  rest in peace Khala you will be missed in a land where people can no longer disagree and still live  Ayesha Siddiqa (@iamthedrifter) November 21, 2018

She was also forced to live in exile for over six years in India when former military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq ruled over Pakistan.

Riaz faced various challenges due to her political writings. More than 10 cases were filed against her during Ziaul Haqs dictatorship, reported The News.

Renowned Pakistani Poet Fahmida Riaz passes away in Lahore. She had fled General Zia-ul Haq's tyranny, sought refuge & spent 7 years in exile in India. Her warning to Indians on religious fundamentalists remains and will keep ringing forever.https://t.co/6Qd09X7OG2 pic.twitter.com/4ZOmT513s3  Vijoo Krishnan (@VijooKrishnan) November 21, 2018

Senior journalist Raza Rumi called her the finest of our poets, writer, translator, activist on Twitter.

Noted Pakistani author Ayesha Siddiqa, said: Sad to lose another very lovely Khala the dynamic @fahmidaRiaz she was brave, daring and a great person  rest in peace Khala you will be missed in a land where people can no longer disagree and still live.
Reversal of an earlier policy by the ruling party could significantly ease a standoff with the EU.

Polands ruling party has passed a legislation in the parliament that will pave the way for the reinstatement of Supreme Court judges recently forced into retirement by legal reforms.

The amendment introduced on Wednesday morning, and passed on the same day, by the Law and Justice party (PiS) MPs came after a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last month calling for Poland to put an end to what critics called an attempt to take over the countrys highest court.

The amendment rolls back a provision implemented earlier this year that lowered the retirement age from 70 to 65, prematurely ending the terms of more than two dozen judges.

The proposed amendment stated that the move was an effort to comply with the European courts ruling despite the ruling party leaders repeatedly defending the reforms during ECJ proceedings.

The changes to will now go to the Senate for debate though no timeline has been established.

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A good plan is not one where someone wins, but one where nobody thinks theyve lost. Im convinced that this is a good plan and Poland will benefit from it, PiS deputy leader Lukasz Schreiber said while presenting the legislation.

While the measure was welcomed by the opposition, it was also widely criticised for not going far enough to restoring judicial independence to Poland.

If the PiS really wanted to show goodwill, it would adopt a law repealing all changes restricting the independence of the Supreme Court, tweeted Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a member of parliament for the opposition Modern party.

Gdyby PiS rzeczywiscie chcia pokazac dobra wole to przyjaby ustawe uchylajaca wszystkie zmiany ograniczajace niezaleznosc Sadu Najwyzszego.  Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz (@Gasiuk_Pihowicz) November 21, 2018

The countrys nationalist government was criticised for laying waste to the independence of the Constitutional Tribunal, fast-tracking appointments of party-affiliated judges and using state funds to run billboard smear campaigns against judges.

When the new law came into effect this July, it sparked nationwide protests with thousands gathering in front of the Supreme Court in Warsaw.

Last month, the ECJ ordered a temporary suspension of the retirement law, saying it threatened judicial independence.

In reality, the amendment just confirmed this injunction, said Maia Mazurkiewicz, a communications manager, European Front, a coalition of pro-European NGOs.

There are still many more changes to be made to restore the rule of law in Poland.

Polands chief justice Malgorzata Gersdorf requested 23 judges aged 65 years or above, including herself, to return to work a few days after the ECJs decision.

Barbora Cernusakova, Poland researcher for Amnesty International, said the amendment presented on Wednesday addresses just a fraction of the concerns, adding that not only was the wording vague, it did not wholly consider the ECJs concerns.

The draft law also does not guarantee they [the judges] will be restored in their old positions, said Cernusakova.

In addition, the amendment also does not eliminate the so-called recruitment measures that the government is accused of using in order to replace existing judges with ones of their choosing.

PiS emerged as the most popular party in the local elections last month despite losing in mayoral races in the cities including Warsaw.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh too traumatised to go back home

The traumatic tale of a Rohingya refugee still haunted by her agonising past.
Authorities arrested Wednesday at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport a Taiwanese tourist who tried to smuggle out 254 pieces of smuggled soft and hard live corals reportedly worth more than P700,000 to Taipei. NAIA- Customs port collector Carmelita Talusan said her men found the 39 kilos of various live corals inside the two luggages containing the personal belongings of the Taiwanese passenger she did not identify. During interrogation, the foreigner admitted he purchased the corals for $15,000 or P788,250. Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources officials said the live corals is (sic) subject to further verification and appraisal. Talusan said exportation of corals without necessary permits violated provisions of Republic Act 10863 or Customs Modernization and Tariff Act in relation to RA 10654 or Ban on Coral Exploitation and Exportation. She added the exploitation endangered the Philippine endemic species of corals or precious and semi-precious corals that only exist in the Philippine marine waters.Punishment for violators is 10 to 20 years imprisonment and a fine and forfeiture of the subject coral. The Taiwanese arrived in Manila with two pieces of luggage but without any personal belongings inside them, except his passports and some cash. The tourist was under surveillance for 15 days. Officers of the Office for Transportation Security at the NAIA terminal 3 questioned him about the contents of his luggage where he was later endorsed to the Customs examiners and found out that he was trying to ship out the corals to Taiwan.
South Sudan seeks to revive oil production

Every barrel produced is vital to Africas youngest nation wracked by civil war, as oil provides nearly all of its GDP.
Syrian prisoners on hunger strike to protest death sentence

Human rights groups say capital punishment is unjustified and appeal for these political prisoners release.
Vessels carrying Iranian oil have switched off transponders to conceal deliveries to Syria, Treasury Department says.

The United States has targeted an Iranian-Russian network that sent millions of barrels of oil to Syria and hundreds of millions of dollars to indirectly fund the groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The complicated arrangement, described by the US Treasury in a statement on Tuesday, involved a Syrian citizen using his Russia-based company to ship Iranian oil to Syria with the aid of a Russian state-owned company.

Syria then helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to Hezbollah, which functions as a political party that is part of the Lebanese government and as a militia, as well as to Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Since 2014, vessels carrying Iranian oil have switched off transponders to conceal deliveries to Syria, the Treasury Department said, adding that the State Department, and the US coastguard had issued an advisory to the maritime community about the sanctions risks of shipping oil to Syrias government.

The alleged arrangement shows how Russia has sought to undercut US policy towards Syria, where Washington and Moscow backed opposite sides of a civil war that began in 2011, as well as towards Iran, where the United States wants to curb its nuclear and missile programmes and support for armed proxies.

Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement, announcing sanctions on those it said were tied to the network.

Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, he added.

Thwarting the US

Richard Nephew, a sanctions expert at Columbia University, said the arrangement exposes Russias efforts to support Assad for their own interests, which has the function of thwarting the US desire to no longer have Assad in power.

Those targeted include Syrian Mohammad Amer Alchwiki and his Russia-based company, Global Vision Group, which were central to the delivery of Iranian oil to Syria and the transfer of funds to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Forces lethal proxies, the Treasury Department said.

Other targets include: Syrian national Hajji Abd Al-Nasir, Lebanon national Muhammad Qasim Al-Bazzal, and Russian national Andrey Dogaev as well as Iranian nationals Rasoul Sajjad and Hossein Yaghoubi Miab, the statement said.

Sajjad and Yaghoobi, Central Bank of Iran officials, worked to facilitate Alchwikis transfers, it said.

Others sanctioned include state-owned Russian company Promsyrioimport, a subsidiary of the Russian Ministry of Energy, which the US Treasury said had facilitated shipments of Iranian oil to Syria, as well as Mir Business Bank and Iran-based Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company.

The Treasurys designation of the individuals and entities effectively cuts them off from the global financial system by blocking any of their assets under US jurisdiction and in effect warning non-US institutions against dealing with them.



Iran nuclear deal

The US is at odds with Britain, France and Germany as well as with Russia and China over US President Donald Trumps May 8 decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, negotiated with the other world powers during former President Barack Obamas administration.

That agreement removed many US and other economic sanctions from Iran in return for Tehrans commitment to curtail its nuclear programme.

Trump restored US sanctions on November 5 and has threatened more action to stop its outlaw policies.

Iran, in turn, called Trumps actions economic warfare and vowed to defy the sanctions. European powers that continue to back the nuclear deal said they opposed the reapplication of sanctions.
Turkey condemns comical Trump statement supporting Saudi Arabia

The deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party has accused the US of turning a blind eye to murder.
List of suspects includes Fethullah Gulen himself, who Ankara blames for the 2016 failed coup against President Erdogan.

Turkey has renewed its call for the United States to extradite Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gulen, and 83 alleged members of his movement, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

The Turkish government blames Gulen for the July 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but previous calls for his extradition have so far been ignored by the US.

Cavusoglu said on Tuesday he did not receive assurances on the extradition issue after meeting with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo and US national security adviser John Bolton during a visit to Washington.

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But we have given this list of the people that we request the US to extradite, Cavusoglu said.

US President Donald Trump asked Erdogan to send that list and I gave that list to both Pompeo and ambassador Bolton, he said.

NBC News reported last week that the White House was seeking ways to extradite Gulen in a bid to reduce Turkish pressure on Saudi Arabia over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul.

Following Khashoggis disappearance on October 2, Turkish officials kept up a steady stream of leaks on the gory details of the writers killing, even as Saudi Arabia initially denied involvement. The kingdom eventually branded the murder a rogue operation.

No plans for extradition

Trump said on Saturday that he had no plans to extradite Gulen, who denies any involvement in the coup attempt.

Its not under consideration, Trump told reporters, while also saying that Erdogan is a friend of mine. Hes a strong man, a tough man and a smart man, so whatever we can do, well do but at this point? No.

US-Turkish relations have recently been strained as a result of the Gulen issue as well as the US support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, among other matters.

However, they warmed up after Ankaras release in October of US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was imprisoned on terrorism charges.

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The fate of Gulen remains a central point of tension between the countries.

Turkey has designated Gulens network, which runs charities, schools and businesses across the world, as a terrorist organisation and has launched a widespread crackdown on suspected members since the coup bid.

It formally asked the US to arrest and extradite Gulen in August 2016, the month following the failed coup.

After the failed coup, thousands of Turkish officials, law enforcement officers, soldiers, human rights activists and others were arrested or sacked for alleged links to Gulen and his network.
New Delhi, India  Women journalists and activists in India have hit back after Twitter apologised for a photo of its top official holding a placard that criticised the patriarchy propped up by Indias caste system.

The placard that read smash Brahminical patriarchy referred to the highest Hindu caste and its alleged sanction for patriarchal oppression of women.

Many Twitter users branded Twitter CEO Jack Dorseys holding the sign as hate-mongering.

The controversial photograph was taken during Dorseys recent India trip when Twitter hosted a closed-door discussion with a group of women journalists and activists.

The poster was handed to Dorsey by Sanghapali Aruna, a Dalit activist. Dalits fall at the bottom of Indias complex, and often brutal, caste hierarchy.

On Monday, Vijaya Gadde, a top Twitter official, apologised on behalf of the company following a massive backlash from mostly upper caste Indians, who were incensed by what they read as hate speech against Brahmins.

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I'm very sorry for this. It's not relective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us  we should have been more thoughtful. Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India  Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) November 19, 2018

On Wednesday, a group of journalists and activists who were at the meeting with Dorsey accused Twitter of misrepresentation and half-truths.

A statement issued by a group of women journalists and activists said the apology came as a disappointment to all of us dealing with abuse, harassment and legal threats.

This is also in sharp contrast to Twitters strong stand in favour of women and marginalised communities in other countries, it said.

We call on Twitter to step up and not capitulate to bigotry, disinformation and bullying and to address in serious terms the problem of trolls threatening the life and liberty of scores of women and marginalised communities online, the statement added.

Divided over a placard

Frequent instances of so-called honour killings, where young inter-caste couples are killed, most often by irate upper caste families, are a reflection of just how tightly caste holds India in its grip.

A recent Reuters poll said India is the worlds most dangerous country for women while Dalits have suffered thousands of years of exclusion and extreme poverty.

Traditionally, Brahmins have had power and privilege over others and had control over knowledge, resources and womens sexuality. That power hierarchy is still intact, Aruna, founder of rights group Project Mukti and who gave the placard to Dorsey, told Al Jazeera.

Lower-caste women and those from minority communities are vulnerable to injustice and oppression from upper caste men in positions of authority, she said.

On the other hand, Indians sympathetic to Hindu nationalists, like journalist Chitra Subramaniam, said the Twitter CEOs photo with the placard was an incitement to violence.

Woke up Tuesday morning to see Brahmin names floating around on my TL. If Smashing Brahminical Patriarchy is not an incitement to violence, what is? An influential platform like @twitter must be responsible. @TwitterIndia  Chitra Subramaniam (@chitraSD) November 20, 2018

A government official said the placard was a fit case for registration of a criminal case for attempt to destabilise the nation.

Do you realise that this picture has potential of causing communal riots at a time when several States are going to Assembly Elections in India. Even now an apology is not offered. Actually its a fit case for registration of a criminal case for attempt to destablise the nation.  Dr. Sandeep Mittal, IPS (@smittal_ips) November 20, 2018

T V Mohandas Pai, former finance chief at software company Infosys, accused Dorsey of hate-mongering against Brahmins.

Religion and caste often clash violently with womens rights in India.

In recent weeks, conservative Hindu groups have prevented women from entering an ancient Hindu temple in southern India, defying a Supreme Court order that lifted a centuries-old ban on women devotees.

Social media and far-right groups

Twitters apology has sparked outrage over the perceived inability of social media giants to stand-up to far-right bullying in India.





Jack wasnt advocating any campaign. The poster wasnt trying to create animosity between groups. Twitter had no reason to apologise, except they feared a backlash from the right-wing and the government, Tejas Harad, editor at the Economic and Political Weekly, told Al Jazeera from Mumbai.

Dorsey had also met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, during his India trip.

Thank you Prime Minister @narendramodi for having us today. I enjoyed our conversation about the importance of global conversation. Also: thanks for the ideas for Twitter! pic.twitter.com/aelfOEZ65v  jack (@jack) November 13, 2018

The poster upset many because upper castes in India dont like to publicly acknowledge the caste system. It embarrasses them, said Harad.

Meanwhile, Twitter said it is committed to remaining apolitical.

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We are proud of the fact that Twitter is a platform where marginalised voices can be seen and heard, but we also have a public commitment to being apolitical. We realize that the photo may not accurately represent that commitment and we apologise for any offence caused, a Twitter spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

Hate online

But Twitters apology and its distancing itself from the anti-caste placard, has left many disappointed.

Twitter wimps out. Pathetic. They ought to be ashamed https://t.co/dUIvE80yNf  Mihir Sharma (@mihirssharma) November 20, 2018

These platforms back movements against oppressive structures if it benefits them. Take the case of feminism. Twitter had introduced special emojis for the #metoo hashtag. Is the feminist movement not political? asked Harad.

Analysts point out that social media channels have given its users a platform to be heard and a role in catalysing democratic voices in many parts of the world.

Twitters apology itself is a political stand, said Aruna.

Our communities need to be protected from any kind of hate speech and bullying that can translate into physical violence, including lynching. We dont want India to be the next Rakhine state.

Earlier this year in the US, Twitter faced criticism for verifying and handing out blue ticks to several hate groups and white supremacists.

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Twitter, like other social media platforms, is struggling to curb online hate in countries like India, home to its fastest-growing user base.

According to networking giant Cisco, Indias internet market will exceed 800 million by 2021.

Meanwhile, online hate against critics of the government or right-wing groups has reached unprecedented levels in the past few years.

Twitter accounts which repeatedly spew hate, post death threats  no action is taken against them. So many anti-Muslim, anti-Dalit messages go unpunished. Criticise upper-caste oppressive systems, and you are swiftly apologising for it. This is worrying, said Harad.
Matthew Hedges, 31, sentenced to life for spying and supplying sensitive information to external actors, family says.

A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in prison after he was convicted of spying and supplying sensitive security information to external actors.

Abu Dhabis Federal Court of Appeal handed down the verdict on Wednesday, a move described as deeply disappointing by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

We can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison. The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present, Hedges family spokesperson told AFP news agency.

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Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student at Durham University, was arrested on May 5 at Dubai airport after a two-week research visit.

He was researching the UAEs foreign and internal security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 when he was detained.

Hedges was formally charged in October with spying on the Gulf state, where he has been held in solitary confinement for the past six months.

I am in complete shock and I dont know what to do. Matthew is innocent, said Hedges wife, Daniela Tejada, who was present in the courtroom.

The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice, she said in a statement, adding that her husband was shaking when he heard the verdict.

I am very scared for Matt. I dont know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse.

Deeply disappointed

Hiba Zayadin, a researcher with Human Rights Watchs Middle East division, said the trial was marred with such due process violations that theres no way it could have been seen as a fair trial.

Zayadin pointed to the fact that Hedges confession, which was a document in Arabic he was made to sign during the first six weeks of his detention as one of the few pieces of evidence used against the academic, as concerning.

We dont know what the evidence is, said Zayadin.

The charges against #Hedges were, in large part, based on his confession. His confession? A document in Arabic he was made to sign during the first six weeks of his detention, his wife says, when he was being kept in an undisclosed location without access to a lawyer. #UAE  Hiba Zayadin (@HZayadin) November 21, 2018

We already know the UAE is dangerous  for critics of any sort, said Zayadin, before adding the world knows its dangerous for academics as well.

Earlier, PM May told the British parliament she was deeply disappointed and concerned at todays verdict.

We are raising it with the Emirati authorities at the highest level, said May.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was deeply shocked and disappointed, adding that Wednesdays sentencing was not what London expected from an ally.

Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances, Hunt said in a statement.

The handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust.

I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider.

Professor Stuart Corbridge, vice-chancellor of Durham University, said he was devastated to learn that Hedges has been sentenced to life.

This judgement has been delivered in the absence of anything resembling due process or a fair trial, he said in a statement.

A life sentence for a non-Emirati entails a maximum of 25 years in jail and is followed by deportation, according to The National.

The court ruled that his devices and research would be confiscated, the newspaper reported.

Emirati authorities could not be immediately reached for comment.
French rights group says Prince Mohammed bin Zayed is complicit in torture and inhumane treatment.

A French rights group has sued Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan for his alleged involvement in the war in Yemen.

The Alliance for the Defence of Rights and Freedoms (AIDL) accused Al-Nahyan of war crimes, complicity in torture and inhumane treatment in Yemen.

Its in this capacity that he has ordered bombings on Yemeni territory, the complaint filed by French lawyer Joseph Breham said on Wednesday, according to Reuters news agency.

The lawsuit was filed in a Paris court during Al-Nahyans visit to France.

The complaint against Abu Dhabis crown prince cites a report by United Nations experts that said coalition attacks may have constituted war crimes and that torture was carried out in two centres controlled by Emirati forces.

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the coalition countries heavily involved in the war in Yemen, where it regularly takes part in bombing raids.

One of the cases referred to in the lawsuit is the bombing of a building in the Yemeni city of Sanaa in 2016 when a wake was taking place for the father of the Houthi administrations interior minister.

The complaint is similar to one filed in April against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to France.

French prosecutors are currently looking at that lawsuit in a legal process that is expected to last a year.

France is a close ally of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which heads a coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels who control most of northern Yemen and the capital Sanaa.

Over the last couple of weeks, however, pressure has grown on President Emmanuel Macron over French arms sales to the two Gulf countries.

France also has a military base in Abu Dhabi, which it opened in 2009.

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Western countries have provided arms and intelligence to the Arab states in the alliance, but have shown increasing reservations about the war since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last month.

In recent weeks, several Western countries have called for a ceasefire to end the nearly four-year-old war that has killed more than 10,000 people and caused the worlds most urgent humanitarian crisis.

UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port of Hodeidah is closed by fighting or damage.
Over 60 percent of the CARs population is already in need of aid and protection, with violence affecting millions.

Famine will hit the Central African Republic if nothing is done to reverse the humanitarian situation in the country, which is deteriorating at an alarming rate, the United Nations has warned.

The growing unrest in the country of 4.5m people is forcing many to flee their homes and abandon their fields, causing spiralling food insecurity, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country, Najat Rochdi, told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday.

If the situation remains the same and people do not return to their fields, it means that in very few years, well have a famine in the Central African Republic, said Rochdi.

We are not talking about 10 people. We are talking about hundreds of thousands at risk, added Rochdi, pointing out that several regions have already reached level 4 in terms of food insecurity.

Thousands have been killed while a quarter of the population has fled during violence that followed President Francois Bozizes overthrow in 2013 by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, triggering Christian militia revenge attacks.

A blind eye

Earlier this month, the UNs World Food Programme warned that the CAR was facing the worst situation of food insecurity in four years, with nearly two million people in urgent need of food aid.

Data from the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, on Wednesday showed that 2.9 million people  63 percent of the population  require aid and protection.

The world cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in CAR. We are back to square one, said Rochdi, deploring despicable attacks which are taking a huge toll on the lives of innocent men, women, boys and girls.

The world cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in CAR Najat Rochdi, UN humanitarian coordinator in CAR

In the past three weeks, more than 50,000 people were impacted by violence in the northern town of Batangafo and in the central town of Alindao.

Two sites hosting displaced people in those areas were also torched, OCHA said.

As humanitarians, we continue to scale up emergency response assistance, but in these two towns we have to do it from scratch as our achievements have been lost.

One of the worlds poorest nations despite a rich supply of diamonds and uranium, the CAR has struggled to recover from the 2013 civil war that erupted when Bozize was overthrown.

Rochdi called for a halt to the violence and for the government, armed groups and the international community to help avoid a catastrophic scenario.

I am raising the alarm not to say famine will arrive tomorrow, but to say that every possible measure must be taken to ensure that it doesnt, she said.
Aid group Save the Children analysed UN data and found tens of thousands of kids under 5 perished from severe hunger.

As many as 85,000 children in Yemen may have starved to death in the past three years during its brutal war, an aid group reported on Wednesday.

Using data compiled by the United Nations, Save the Children evaluated mortality rates for untreated cases of severe malnutrition in children under five years old.

The humanitarian agency found some 84,701 children may have starved to death between April 2015 and October 2018 because of a lack of food.

We are horrified that some 85,000 children in Yemen may have died because of extreme hunger since the war began, said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Childrens director in Yemen, in a statement.

Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop  Parents are having to witness their children wasting away, unable to do anything about it.

Since the Saudi-Emirati military intervention in March 2015 in Yemen, commercial imports of food through the vital Hodeidah port have been reduced by more than 55,000 tonnes a month, enough to meet the needs of 4.4 million people, including 2.2 million children, the group said.

The World Food Programme says up to 14 million Yemenis are now at risk of starvation as fighting rages in Hodeidah.

Any further decline in imports could likely lead directly to famine, it warned.





Battles rage

The report comes as fighting continues for control of Hodeidah between Houthi rebels and Saudi-Emirati backed forces loyal to Yemens President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people  mostly civilians  have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-Emirati intervention in March 2015, but rights groups believe the death toll may be five times higher.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have announced they would each give $250m in aid to the war-ravaged country to support more than 10 million people.

In Hodeidah, fighting was also under way on Tuesday in the main Khamsin Street in the city centre and in al-Saleh district, officials and witnesses said.

Rebel-run Al Masirah TV said the rebels attacked government forces on a main road linking the capital, Sanaa, and Hodeidah. Government forces captured the road in September.

UN envoy Martin Griffiths is expected to meet Houthi officials in Sanaa on Wednesday.

Both sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy and his mission to hold talks in Sweden, but that was thrown in jeopardy after fierce clashes flared in Hodeidah late on Tuesday.

Just hours before Griffiths planned visit, residents in the east of Hodeidah told AFP news agency by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

Multiple past attempts to hold negotiations between the government alliance and Houthis have failed.

Griffiths said Monday he hoped the rivals would meet in Sweden within the next few weeks. No date has been set.
A notorious leader of a private armed group and five of his cohorts were killed in a clash with police who intercepted them minutes after robbing traders along the national highway in Cagayan Valley Tuesday. Cagayan regional police director Chief Supt Jose Mario Espino identified the slain gang leader as Gener Dunag, leader of the Gener Group and five of his unidentified henchmen involved in highway robbery and guns-for-hire operating in the region. During the clash, one gang member managed to escape but was eventually arrested in a police dragnet in Brgy. Bangag in Lallo, the site of the bloody encounter. Espino said that prior to the shootout, the Gener Group had just pulled off a series of highway robberies near Brgy. Bicud along Maharlika Highway among tradersthree trucks hauling grains and lumber products from whom they looted P296,000 cash, jewelry, and mobile phones. As the robbery was progressing, a passer-by notified officials of Brgy. Logac in Lallo who reported the matter to the Allacapan and Lallo Police Stations. Espino said one of the victims, a certain Ambot Rabago, was shot in the leg by the suspects before fleeing the scene. Espino, quoting the victims account and identifying the vehicle used by the suspects, said responding policemen from the 203rd Company of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion set up a checkpoint in Brgy. Bangag where the armed group were heading.The suspects were on board a white van bearing license plate RCK 364. Espino said the suspects, instead of stopping, ignored policemen manning the checkpoint and fired several shots, prompting authorities to retaliate. Police records showed the Gener Group was involved in the series of robbery incidents in Pamplona, Cagayan. The latest victim of the group was Gloria Bautista, a businesswoman from Brgy. Capalilauan. She was robbed of P70,000 cash last Oct. 26. The other victims were Ronnie Garcia from Nicolas Agatep, Lasam town, driver of rice trucking; Agustin Inay of Tuquitoc, Sanchez Mira, a coconut trader; and Ambot Rabago, driver of trailer truck loaded with rice and corn owned by Gregory Tallog. Recovered from the suspects were one KG99 fully automatic machine pistol, three caliber 45 pistols, and a 9mm pistol.
John Allen Chau died after visiting North Sentinel island in an attempt to convert tribe to Christianity, say reports.

An American missionary has been killed by members of an endangered Indian Ocean tribe after he visited their restricted island in an attempt to convert them, according to media reports.

John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old Christian missionary, was killed last week on North Sentinel Island, home to the Sentinelese people, where he had gone to proselytise, police said on Wednesday.

Visits to the island, which is part of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, are heavily restricted by the government and seven fishermen were arrested for facilitating Chaus trip there, according to Dependera Pathak, director-general of Andaman and Nicobar islands.

It was a case of misdirected adventure, Pathak said.

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Chau was apparently shot and killed by arrows, but the cause of death can not be confirmed until his body is recovered, Pathak told The Associated Press news agency.

Pathak, the police chief, said Chau had made two or three other trips to the island from November 15, making contact with the tribe, but always returning to his boat.

He told the fisherman on November 16 that he would not come back from the island and instructed them to return home and pass some handwritten notes he had made to a friend.

The next morning the fisherman saw his body being dragged across a beach and buried in the sand, Pathak said.

God, I dont want to die

The Washington Post, citing Chaus journal which was shared with the paper by his mother, said the missionary went to the island to convert the tribespeople to Christianity.

Writing about his first visit there, Chau said: I hollered, My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.'

One of the tribespeople then shot at him with an arrow, the Post reported, which pierced his waterproof Bible.

You guys might think Im crazy in all this but I think its worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people, he wrote in his last note. God, I dont want to die, he added.

In an Instagram post, Chaus family said it was mourning him as a beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend to us.

He loved God, life, helping those in need, and he had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people, the family said, adding they forgave Chaus killers.

The US consulate in Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu state, said it was aware of the reports concerning a US citizen in the islands, but spokesperson Kathleen Hosie declined to comment further citing privacy considerations.

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Police surveyed the island by air on Tuesday, and a team of police and forest department officials used a coast guard boat to travel there on Wednesday and another trip was planned on Thursday.

Police officer Vijay Singh said on Thursday morning that police were exploring their options since they cannot go directly to the restricted area.

Fear of outsiders

Survival International, an organisation that works for the rights of tribal people, said the killing of the American should prompt Indian authorities to properly protect the lands of the Sentinelese.

The British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survives. So the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is very understandable, Stephen Corry, the groups director, said in a statement.

This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen, he said, adding that Chau had not only put himself in danger but also the welfare of the tribe, which has had very limited contact with the outside world.

Its not impossible that the Sentinelese have just been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe, Corry said.

Shiv Viswanathan, a social scientist and a professor at Jindal Global Law School, said North Sentinel Island was a protected area and not open to tourists. The exact population of the tribe is not known, but it is declining.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a group of islands at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. In addition to the protected tribes, the islands also host a large presence of the Indian Navy with sensitive installations.

The tribe made headlines after a tsunami devastated the region in 2004. Members of the tribe shot arrows at navy helicopters that went to check on their wellbeing.

Poachers are known to fish illegally in the waters around the island, catching turtles and diving for lobsters and sea cucumbers. Tribespeople killed two Indian fishermen in 2006 when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore.
The Department of Labor and Employment will implement stricter measures in the issuance of Alien Employment Permit or AEP following reports on the rising number of foreign workers in the Philippines. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said that the granting of employment permits to foreign nationals should not be done in haste as it depends only on the skills on demand. Meanwhile, various labor groups called on both Senate and the House of Representatives to conduct a probe and come up with measures to curb the rising number of foreigners working in the country without government permits because this has adverse implications on local industries and in the employment situation of Filipinos. Under the law, foreigners seeking employment in the Philippines are required to apply for an AEP, Bello said. The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said the growing number of foreign workers in the country undermines the job security of Filipino workers as they compete with the already limited jobs generated for the Filipinos. Silvestre said the department will also conduct inspections at workplace levels to check on the foreign workers and to validate the issuance of work permits to foreign workers.Other agencies that issue working permit to foreign workers include the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for geoscience and mining industry; the Professional Regulation Commission for the practice of regulated professions; the Department of Justice for nationalized or partially nationalized industries; and the Bureau of Immigration, for the pre-arranged employment visa or 9G. The BI also issues Special Working Permit, allowing foreigners to work for three months and can be extended for another three months or more. The bureau did not release records on the number of SWPs issued for 2018, raising suspicion that the agency was responsible for the rise in number of foreign workers in the country. Based on the latest data of the Bureau of Local Employment, there are 115,652 foreign nationals that were issued with AEP, of which 51,980 are Chinese, while 12,177 Japanese and 11,780 Korean for a three-year period from 2015 to 2017.
After World War II ended, a group of individuals met under the auspices of the United World Federalists (UWF) in Montreux, Switzerland to draft a comprehensive plan for a world government. They stated unequivocally that they considered the United Nations "powerless ... to stop the drift of war." They believed that the establishment of a world federal government would be the only way to bring peace to our world. And many of that number believed that eventually, their six principles could and would be incorporated into the United Nations, which could morph into such a government. The UWF specifically determined to mobilize the peoples of the world "to transform the United Nations Organization into world federal government by increasing its authority and resources, and by amending its Charter."

The UWF projected a three-branch government, the same as that proposed by Charles-Louis de Montesquieu in the 18th century  legislative, judicial, and executive  the same as implemented by the USA in its constitution. However, their three branches would be supranational and would be over the three branches of the USA, just as our federal government in various areas is over the three branches found in our states. The Montreux statement affirmed the "limitation of national sovereignty."

Too much goes unsaid in the Montreux statement. For example, it states that that its drafters have an executive branch, but they do not state how their "executive" is elected. There is no mention of a worldwide electoral college. Nor, at the other end of the spectrum, do they state that they hope to induct a dictator into that office. Likewise, there is no format suggested for electing the legislative branch. The world federalism principle supersedes the national self-government principle, but the three branches are retained as a sop to America. It's the "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" gambit. Thus, our world government accepts you at the same time as it dominates you.

Principle 4 of the drafters' vision is truly radical. Under this principle, a worldwide armed force would be established "guaranteeing the security of the world federal government and of its member states." The weasel word is "guaranteeing." The militaries of the member-nations would be eliminated, and they would be able to meet only "the level of their internal policing requirements." What then would prevent "guaranteeing" from morphing into "oppressing," "suppressing," or "enslaving"? A world monopoly of force would produce a worldwide Leviathan that would make even Thomas Hobbes tremble. It might be a power greater than that of the Roman Imperium or of the vaunted dictatorships of the proletariat implemented by Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Principle 6 shows clearly that a world government must have the ability to raise revenue to meet its expenses, and those revenues must be independent of the revenues raised by individual nation-states governed. This principle gives "power to raise ... revenues" to this world government entity. The student of history will immediately associate the assumption of this "power" with the exclusive military power depicted in Principle 4.

In the U.S. Supreme Court case of McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, the unanimous (7-0) decision stated that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." The power to tax member-state nations would inherently imply the power to destroy those nation-states if there were resistance to that taxation. Thus, we have a formula for a double-whammy of oppression of the nations: the linked threat of military oppression and financial oppression of the peoples of the world. Like Hobbes, they are driven by an image of humankind with no appeal to a holy God and to God-given moral principles, but as a "war of all against all," that can be ameliorated only by a vast increase in worldwide centralized power, both militarily and financially.

Let us fast-forward 68 years to 2015. The U.N. published a document of almost 15,000 words entitled "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." This document is a stream of consciousness of pious platitudes about meeting 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), and thereby meeting the most pressing needs of humanity. Worldwide rights are briefly mentioned in Article 19 of this 91-article agenda, but rights have been supplanted with needs to which men and women, rich and poor, and Western, African, Asian, European, and Latin American nations can subscribe. Classical divisions between haves and have-nots are pushed aside as inherently limiting. Five of the seventeen goals are about the environment, and environmental issues take center stage because the environment affects all  rich as well as poor, highly developed industrial cultures as well as subsistence, village, agricultural cultures.

Using a stream of repetitive platitudes (the repetitive language and lack of concrete examples are part of the siren song of the document), the language of the document attempts to project a unified world vision for governance. The 17 categories of needs provide "goals for cities, for women, for the poor, and even for life under the water. Absolutely no sphere of human activity is exempt from control by the UN." Stressing needs, one can see the Marxist influence upon the document and can recall his axiom: "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

This writer suggests that this is indeed an agenda for a new world government by 2030. It is a shrewd alternative to the Montreux document of 1947. Lacking a full-fledged taxation system and lacking a standing military, it might seem to fall short of the United World Federalist concept. However, I suggest that this is the "soft" first stage of government being enacted. Although its focus is on needs rather than "natural rights" and "upholding the moral law within a Christian context," nonetheless, its loose character reminds one of the government of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation. The states  formerly the 13 colonies  did not have a standing army or navy and did not have federal taxation. The Executive Branch was purposely weak, and the Articles could be amended only by a unanimous vote, and a two-thirds vote of the states  not a simple majority  was required to pass a national law. The states remained the epicenters of authority in the new nation.

The Articles were the first constitution of these United States from 1777 to 1789. We were held together by being against the Crown and by our sovereign authority as a people to define our own destiny economically and politically ("no taxation without representation"). The 2030 agenda of the U.N. is a parallel document. It is written with an understanding of the fear that would be engendered were it to conceptualize an exclusive military or direct taxation by a world body that the 1947 Montreux document endorsed. Yet its goal is clearly to provide an alternative to the nation-state ideal that holds sway throughout the world, to legitimize an alternative plan, and to implement that new government in its soft form. Once the soft form is accepted as progressive and helpful, the idea will be to move to arrangements more consistent with the Montreux statement.

Image: sanjitbakshi via Flickr.
The unholy war against the State of Israel never stops. Most nations in the world in discussing Israel suffer from mental disorder or discomfort, from cognitive dissonance, trying to hold two or more contradictory beliefs, both condemnation of Israel and tolerance or support of Palestinian violence, along with calls for a peaceful settlement.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the activities and personnel of the United Nations, the world's major international organization, which has been hijacked for purposes contradictory to its declared objectives of promoting and securing international cooperation and maintaining international order.

The exhibition on display in the visitor's lobby in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City presents images of seventy years of the struggle for Palestinian human rights, lost in the nakba, catastrophe, the creation of Israel. In addition, the UN General Assembly on November 29, 2018, will commemorate, as it has done since 1978, the Annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, pursuant to the Resolution of December 2, 1977, A/RES/32/40, marking the adoption of the UNGA Resolution 181 (11) of November 29, 1947, which called for partition of the disputed territory, with Jerusalem having special status. The fundamental irony in all this that the Arabs refused, while Israel accepted, that 1947 Resolution to create a Palestinian state at that time.

In recent days, international attention has been focused on political problems and crises in Israel as a result of differences within the country over government action, and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire after terrorists in Gaza fired 460 rockets and mortar shells into Israel to which Israel responded with airstrikes. The government also allowed $15 million from Qatar to go to Gaza to fund salaries of Hamas personnel and ease tensions.

Government uncertainty in Israel remains, caused by a number of factors: popular anger, especially in those areas such as Sderot affected by Hamas rockets; the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, which he withdrew with five seats from the governing coalition; the refusal of the prime minister to appoint Naftali Bennett , education minister and leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home Party, with eight seats, but to appoint himself to the vacant position. In the multiparty Knesset, the result of the proportional representation system, Netanyahu now has a coalition majority of one, with 61 out of the 120 members. New elections are likely within a year or so, but are not immediate.

However, little attention has been paid in the international media to the continuing political and diplomatic attacks by international organizations, including the misnamed UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO on Israel. The issue goes back to the creation of Israel in May 1948, and the animosity has never relented. On November 22, 1974, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX) affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, independence, and sovereignty. A year later, the UN set up the UNGA Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a body which in fact is composed of all 193 UN member states. Since then this issue has been the subject of numerous Resolutions by the UN and its various organs.

On November 17, 2018, the committee met, with Saudi Arabian Abdullah al Mouallini as vice-chair, to approve eight resolutions on Palestinians and a ninth on the Golan Heights. No resolutions, of course, were directed against any of the other 192 UN member states, none of whom apparently committed any violations of anything. The committee voted in favor of four resolutions related to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, and four others critical of Israeli authorities actions in the Occupied Territories.

The committee was also given a briefing by Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, about the poor economic conditions in the territory. The lack of neutrality on Israel by UN personnel is manifestly shown by this Canadian professor of law who, among other things, urged BDS economic and travel sanctions against Israel, to force withdrawal from the West Bank, supported Israel Apartheid Week at his university, Western U in London, Ontario, and suggested Israel should have UN membership suspended over violations of international law.

The resolutions call for assistance to and assertion of human rights of Palestinian refugees, concern for the properties and revenues of those refugees, support for UNRWA, condemnation of Israeli settlements," condemnation of Israeli practices affecting the Palestinian people, and application of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 regarding protection of civilian persons in time of war in the territories.

For the U.S., the most significant was the nonbinding resolution condemning Israeli control over the Golan Heights, which passed 15-2 (the U.S. and Israel) and 14 abstentions. Before 1967, Syria shelled Israeli communities from Golan. Israel now controls two-thirds of the area, and in 1981 applied Israeli civil law to the territory. The resolution calls on Israel to desist from changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the Occupied Syrian Golan (OSG), and to desist from establishment of settlements. It states that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel that alter the character and legal status of OSG are null and void and constitute a flagrant violation of international law. It calls on Israel to desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on Syrian citizens in OSG, and "from its repressive measures against the population of the OSG."

It is also worth noting that in the committee meeting the Syrian ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, declared that Syria will regain the Golan by "peace or by war." He said nothing of the 22,000 Druze in the Golan Heights, who speak Arabic and have families in Syria, let alone the demilitarized buffer zone or the Israeli wineries in the area.

What is important about this resolution are two factors. The U.S. did not abstain, as it has customarily done on similar resolutions, but voted against it, and said it will continue to vote against them. Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke strongly of the anti-Israeli bias in the committee and in the UN organizations. She indicated the militarization by Syria of the Golan border, the lack of fitness of Syria, responsible for killing half a million of its own people, and the killing or expulsion of more than 3,000 Palestinian Arabs, to govern anyone.

She was also critical of a number of other factors: Russia for delivering a S-300 antiaircraft system to Syria; Iran establishing a permanent presence on the Syrian side of the border; the terror tunnels still being built by Hamas; and the Hamas rocket fire and violent activities against Israel. The 155 countries voting for the UN resolutions appear myopic: they cannot recall that Hamas has already launched three wars against Israel, and that its charter calls for control of all the territory.

The Palestinian Permanent Observer to the UN said the international community stands behind and supports the Palestinian cause despite U.S. efforts to change this. The community also defies reality in supporting UNRWA, which claims that the number of Palestinian refugees that began in 1948 is now five million. John Bolton, presently U.S. National Security Adviser, stated that the UNRWA aid program is the only one in history based on the assumption that refugee status is hereditary.

The second factor is an interesting display of cognitive dissonance. The resolution reaffirms that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible under international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. In the resolution, sponsored by Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, Israel's presence in Golan is described as illegal, but no resolution says anything about Russia/Crimea, or other issues.

Israel faces internal and external problems, with its fragile government coalition, Iran's increasing military influence in Syria and Lebanon, and possible another war with Hamas. The UN members might note that the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahta Sinwar, said in future it will target Israel's major towns, including Tel Aviv. There may, at present, be no good solutions to issues in Gaza or Syria. But the beginning of wisdom is that the international community should refrain from one-sided denunciations of Israel and concentrate on Israeli plans for infrastructure projects in the Negev desert, and other projects such as solar power, sewage treatment, clean water, increases in jobs, improved public health, desalination plants, gas pipelines, and the electricity grid.
Now that the Democrats have won control of the House of Representatives (barely) it appears a near-certainty that President Trump will be unable to get anything done in Congress on immigration  no congressional funding for the wall, no statute ending chain migration or the visa lottery, no bill for him to sign adjusting downward the current, one million-per year-plus rate of legal immigration  in the next two years.

Of course, he wasnt able to get any of that in the last two years, either, even though Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. The Republicans in Name Only (RINOs)  almost all of whom were defeated by Democrats Tuesday  blocked everything as surely as the Democrats will. They also kept trying to lead Trump into very bad compromises on immigration, reforms that essentially would have made the status quo  super-high immigration levels  never-ending. No doubt, the RINOs would have kept trying to do the same in the next two years, had they held on.

At least, now, Trump can blame inaction on Democrats. He and congressional candidates across the country can run in two years on immigration, which Trump knows is a winning issue for him, and if all goes well sweep into power with a mandate for reform the American people actually want.

A breather, a pause in mass migration  at the very least.

But in the meantime, he doesnt need Congress to achieve just that result. And losing half of Congress should bring that remarkable legal fact into focus.

Remember the travel cases? At issue was whether Trump had the power to issue his Proclamation suspending the entry of aliens from several Muslim-majority countries. The Supreme Court held that he did have that power  a federal law clearly gave him authority to suspend the entry of any class of aliens, or even all aliens, into the country if he deemed doing so in the national interest. At most, Trump would need a rational basis for his restrictions  but the Court didnt even find (as opposed to assume for the sake of argument) that he needed that.

In other words, the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Hawaii, crowned Donald Trump the immigration-restriction czar. And in doing so, it was only upholding the sweeping terms of the statute.

Sit quietly for a while and let that sink in. All by himself, Trump can bar any group of aliens he wants from entering the country, as long as he rationally believes that doing so is in the national interest. He can bar all those who lack a certain level of skills, or education, to protect the jobs and wages of the most vulnerable Americans. He can bar all those who do not have a job lined up in this country that cannot be filled by an American. He can bar all those likely to receive public assistance (in fact, he is already doing that, not by proclamation, but by regulation).

He can also build the wall  not by issuing a proclamation as immigration-restriction czar, but by declaring the border in a state of emergency (as he has done) and bringing in the U.S. Army to build it.

He can also, by regulation, end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens and birth tourists, and perhaps also aliens here on temporary work or student visas. This step alone, which Trump has already said he will take, would end a huge incentive for illegal immigration.

He can, in short, over the next two years, pause mass immigration, both legal and illegal  all by himself, with no congressional approval needed.

Then  provided his measures are upheld by the Supreme Court, and that seems likely  he can say to the voters in two years: I kept my promises. I built the wall. And in fact, now I am the wall  because of all those orders and proclamations Ive issued making our immigration system serve the interests of the American people rather than special interests. Elect my opponent, and all that will vanish  the cheap-labor floodgates will open again.

If Trump and enough like-minded Republicans won on that platform, then maybe they could, finally, enact a sensible, popular immigration agenda in the form of laws passed by Congress  laws that, like the current ones, would be very hard to undo.

Christopher J. Hajec is director of litigation at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Image credit: Fox News screengrab
John Edwards once spoke of two Americas, one for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. One is reminded of this by New York City mayor Bill De Blasios full-throated shouting of socialism for all from the rooftops of buildings whose height his politburo would determine and whose rents and occupants his commissars would control.

Mayor Bill de Blasio cited his "socialistic impulse" in describing an ideal world where New York City government has control over all land and buildings in his city. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be, de Blasio said in a wide-ranging interview with New York Magazine. I think theres a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs.

To each according to their needs -- gee, where have we heard that before? One would be willing to believe De Blasios socialistic impulses arises out of genuine, if wrongheaded, concern for the working poor and the middle class, the people the Democrat party of compassion is allegedly the champion of, if it were not for De Blasios support for what some would call corporate welfare, welcoming cash-rich and taxpayer-subsidized Amazons new HQ to New York City while closing its borders to a Walmart invasion.

A listener asked just what the difference was between the two retail giants during the mayors weekly guest spot on WNYC radio:

Amazon is part of the American economy, he continued. I would ask every good progressive, every listener out there who has a concern about Amazon: How many are using Amazon as part of their daily lives? Whatever you like or dislike about Amazon, Walmart is an entirely different universe in terms of the efforts theyve undertaken to not only undermine labor, small business, the environment and obviously the politics of [Walmarts owners] the Walton family to add to it, referring to the Waltons track record of funneling megabucks to conservative causes.

Funny that De Blasio has no objection to the likes of billionaires Tom Steyer, Oprah Winfrey, and George Soros funneling big bucks to liberal candidates and causes. One of the takeaways from the 2018 midterms was the morphing of the Democrats to the party of the rich as those stinky Walmart shoppers lined up at Trump rallies. The GOP is now the party of the working class, or the deplorable bitter-clingers of Hillary Clintons and Barack Hussein Obamas disdain. As deep state coup architect Peter Strzok infamously said in a text message to fellow agent Lisa Page:

Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.

Who wants Walmart greeters and cashiers moving to New York when you can have the high-rollers who work for Amazon? Amazon promises to deliver 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000, which is a lot more than the average Walmart greeter or cashier makes.

Wal-Mart gave people what they want at a price they can afford. Those mom-and-pop stores De Blasio champions were often inefficient, opportunistic price-gougers. Walmart believed a fair wage was and is one agreed upon between employee and employer. No one was forced to work or shop there. It was efficient, innovative, successful, and non-union, and that is why it was and is hated for all these reasons. It is the poster child for roll-up-your-sleeves capitalism.

Founded as a single five-and-dime store in a small Arkansas town, its success story mirrors Americas. It is a poster child for capitalism and the American dream. It is ironic that Wal-Mart critics, who have long complained its employees live paycheck to paycheck, forget that many of its customers also live paycheck to paycheck, and seek quality merchandise at decent prices. They opposed low wages for Wal-Mart employees while in effect supporting higher prices for Wal-Mart customers.

That the Democrat Party is now the party of the rich is increasingly seen in its candidates. Forget the occasional Ocasio-Cortez. A Democrat candidate is more likely to be someone like Illinois new governor, J.B. Pritzer, who promises to complete Illinois financial collapse with single-payer insurance and a progressive income tax, promising to persist until he runs out of other peoples money:

This month saw the election of Jay Robert "J.B." Pritzker as governor of Illinois. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, is worth an estimated $3.2 billion, and spent $171.5 million to get himself elected, according to Money magazine. Another winner was Edward M. "Ned" Lamont Jr., in the Connecticut governor's race. Lamont, an heir to the J.P. Morgan banking fortune of his great-grandfather Thomas Lamont, estimated his assets in 2006 at between $90 million and $300 million, and showed reporters tax returns last month with income totaling $18 million over 5 years. The winner of the election for governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, filed financial disclosure forms as a member of the House of Representatives indicating estimated wealth of more than $300 million. Pritzker, Lamont, and Polis are all Democrats Somehow, the wealth of Pritzker, Lamont, and Polis has gotten less attention, perhaps because it doesn't so easily fit the country-club Republican stereotype. Instead of writing about the limousine liberals who are so rich they make the Trump cabinet look like a bunch of paupers, the press has been obsessing about how a newly elected congresswoman from the Bronx, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, can't afford to rent a place in Washington until she starts collecting her congressional salary.

The socialism of the coastal elites of which De Blasio is a leader is akin to the old Soviet politburo who lived very well as they dictated what could be built and where, what people would make and where and how they would live. Everyone was equal but some were more equal than others.

I reject the Democrat Party of the rich in favor of the GOP party of the working poor and the middle class, the deplorable bitter clingers. God, how I love the smell of Walmart in the morning.

Daniel John Sobieski is a free lance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
European women are to blame for being raped by Muslim men. Such is the latest position  the latest apologia  being offered by those dedicated to exonerating undesirable Muslim behavior, particularly in the context of accepting more Muslim migrants into the West.

On October 14, seven Muslim migrants raped a teenage German girl in a park, after drugging her at a disco in Freiburg. (At least she survived; in a similar case that occurred a week earlier in Italy, the drugged rape victim was left murdered.) Bernhard Rotzinger, the police chief of Freiburg, responded by saying, "We cannot offer citizens an all-risk insurance [against crime], but I can advise this: Don't make yourself vulnerable by using alcohol or drugs."

Similarly, after mobs of Muslim migrants sexually assaulted as many as one thousand women on New Year's Eve 2016 in Cologne, Germany, the city's mayor, Henriette Reker, called on the women, the victims  not their male rapists  to make changes: "The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don't happen again. This means they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up. For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves."

Such advice against alcohol, drugs, and reckless behavior would be more respectable had it not been made under duress. As it is, it is a cop-out. Or, as a November 8 report discussing the aforementioned rape in Freiburg puts it, "[t]he focus on prevention is a good thing, but also shows how German authorities and media barely hold the migrant crisis responsible for the disaster that is unfolding in Germany. Political correctness has caused officials to put the blame for the criminal acts on the women instead of Merkel's guests."

These are hardly the first times officials "put the blame for the criminal acts [of Muslim men] on the women." Nor is this phenomenon limited to Germany. For instance, after a 20-year-old Austrian woman waiting at a bus stop in Vienna was attacked, beaten, and robbed by four Muslim men  including one who "started [by] putting his hands through my hair and made it clear that in his cultural background there were hardly any blonde women"  police responded by telling the victim to dye her hair:

At first I was scared, but now I'm more angry than anything. After the attack they told me that women shouldn't be alone on the streets after 8pm. And they also gave me other advice, telling me I should dye my hair dark and also not dress in such a provocative way. Indirectly that means I was partly to blame for what happened to me. That is a massive insult.

Likewise, Unni Wikan, a female professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo in Norway, insists that "'Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes,' because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative. The professor's conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: 'Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.'"

So much for the feminist claim that women are free to dress and behave as promiscuously and provocatively as they want  and woe to any man who dares cite this as justifying his sexual aggression. Apparently, this feminist refrain does not apply to Muslim men.

But perhaps the greater irony of all these excuses is that, from the very start of Islam 14 centuries ago, European women  even chaste nuns  have always been portrayed by Muslims as sexually promiscuous by nature.

This is easily discerned by examining medieval Muslim perceptions  and subsequent treatment  of European women, as documented throughout Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (see American Thinker review here). Consider Muslim views concerning neighboring Byzantine women, who came to represent all European or Christian women to Islam.

As one Western academic of Muslim origin (rather euphemistically) explains:

The Byzantines as a people were considered fine examples of physical beauty, and youthful slaves and slave-girls of Byzantine origins were highly valued. ... The Arabs' appreciation of the Byzantine female has a long history indeed. For the Islamic period, the earliest literary evidence we have is a hadith (saying of the Prophet). Muhammad is said to have addressed a newly converted Arab: "Would you like the girls of Banu al-Asfar [the yellow (haired?) or pale people]?"

Muhammad's question was meant to entice the man to join the Tabuk campaign against the Romans and reap its rewards  in this case, the sexual enslavement of attractive women. In other words, as "white-complexioned blondes, with straight hair and blue eyes," to quote another academic, Byzantine women were not so much "appreciated" or "highly valued" as they were lusted after. (All quotes in this article are sourced from and documented in Sword and Scimitar.)

Any sense of compliment ends there. Muslims habitually portrayed Europe's Christian women, as contemptible and corrupt infidels, beginning with those they first encountered in neighboring Byzantium, as sexually promiscuous by nature  perhaps simply to support the fantasy that they were eager to be sexually enslaved. Thus, for Abu Uthman al-Jahiz (b. 776), a prolific court scholar, the females of Constantinople were the "most shameless women in the whole world"; "they find sex more enjoyable" and "are prone to adultery." Abd al-Jabbar (b. 935), another prominent scholar, claimed that "adultery is commonplace in the cities and markets of Byzantium"  so much so that even "the nuns from the convents went out to the fortresses to offer themselves to monks."

For all these reasons and more, European women, typified by neighboring Eastern Roman women, became Islam's "beautiful femme fatale who makes men lose their self-control," as Nadia Maria el-Cheikh, author of Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, explains:

Our [Arab-Muslim] sources show not Byzantine women but writers' images of these women, who served as symbols of the eternal female  constantly a potential threat, particularly due to blatant exaggerations of their sexual promiscuity. In our texts, Byzantine women are strongly associated with sexual immorality[.] ... While the one quality that our [Muslim] sources never deny is the beauty of Byzantine women, the image that they create in describing these women is anything but beautiful. Their depictions are, occasionally, excessive, virtually caricatures, overwhelmingly negative.

Such fevered fantasies  which "are clearly far from Byzantine reality"  existed only in the minds of Muslim men and "must be recognized for what they are: attempts to denigrate and defame a rival culture. ... In fact, in Byzantium, women were expected to be retiring, shy, modest, and devoted to their families and religious observances. ... The behavior of most women in Byzantium was a far cry from the depictions that appear in Arabic sources."

Clearly, little has changed some 1,400 years after the founding of Islam: European women continue to be seen as naturally promiscuous and thus provoking Muslim men into raping them.

Thus, in the United Kingdom, a Muslim man explained to a British woman why he was raping her: "you white women are good at it." Another Muslim man called a 13-year-old virgin "a little white slag"  British slang for "loose, promiscuous woman"  before raping her.

In Germany, a group of Muslim "refugees" stalked a 25-year-old woman, hurled "filthy" insults at her, and taunted her for sex. They too explained their logic to her  "German girls are just there for sex"  before reaching into her blouse and groping her. A Muslim man who almost killed his 25-year-old German victim while raping her  and shouting "Allah!"  asked afterward if she enjoyed it.

In Austria, an "Arabic-looking man" approached a 27-year-old woman at a bus stop, pulled down his pants, and "all he could say was sex, sex, sex," prompting the woman to scream and flee.

In Australia, a Muslim cabbie groped and insulted his female passengers, including by saying, "All Australian women are sluts and deserve to be raped."

In short, the ancient Islamic motif concerning the alleged promiscuity of European women is alive and well  irrespective of the latter's behavior  and continues justifying the Muslim rape of Western women.

Yet, even in this, Islam can turn to those "progressive," godless elements that dominate Western society for cover. For, just as "the Left" has worked long and hard to portray Islamic intolerance, violence, and terrorism as the West's fault  because of the crusades, because of colonialism, because of cartoons, because of Israel, because of freedom of speech  it now adds "because of Western promiscuity" to the list of reasons that "provoke" Muslims to behave like Muslims.

(For many more examples of Muslims sexually objectifying Western women throughout history, see the author's new book, Sword and Scimitar.)
A federal judge has determined that a law banning the cultural practice of femal genital mutilation is unconstitutional.

FGM is a crime against women, a crime against humanity, and a crime against civilization. But one federal judge believes it's legal in the United States.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, made the ruling in a case involving several Michigan doctors who had mutilated the genitals of at least 9 little girls. The doctors were charged with conspiracy and obstruction, as well as violating the FGM statutue.

Detroit Free Press:

The opinion by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman comes two weeks after defense lawyers mounted the first challenge to a 22-year-old genital mutilation law that went unused until April 2017. That's when Dr. Jumana Nagarwala of Northville was arrested and accused of heading a conspiracy that lasted 12 years, involved seven other people and led to mutilating the genitalia of nine girls as part of a religious procedure practiced by some members of the Dawoodi Bohra, a Muslim sect from India that has a small community in Metro Detroit. Friedman delivered a significant, but not fatal, blow to a novel criminal prosecution because the judge left intact conspiracy and obstruction charges that could send Nagarwala and three others to federal prison for decades. The case is being closely followed by members of the sect and international human-rights groups opposed to female genital mutilation and has raised awareness in the U.S. of a controversial procedure and prompted Michigan to enact new state laws criminalizing female genital mutilation. Friedman removed four defendants from the case  including three mothers accused of subjecting their daughters to female genital mutilation  while concluding Congress had no authority to enact a law criminalizing female genital mutilation, known as FGM. There is nothing commercial or economic about FGM, Friedman wrote in a 28-page opinion. (Female genital mutilation) is not part of a larger market and it has no demonstrated effect on interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause does not permit Congress to regulate a crime of this nature.

"No demonstrated effect on interstate commerce..." FGM is torture. There's no effect on commerce when you torture someone, so I guess that makes it legal.

The judge ignored the argument of the prosecution:

Prosecutors countered, arguing the crime does involve interstate commerce. Christian Levesque, a trial attorney with the Justice Department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions section, noted the procedure involves parents using cellphones to arrange the procedure and transport children across state lines who undergo surgeries utilizing medical tools in state-licensed clinics.

It sounds reasonable enough that just about any judge would accept the argument in order to make a statement about what we, as a society, should allow.

As outrageous as the judge's decision to drop charges against the doctors, the judge also dismissed cases against 3 mothers who forced their own children to endure the torture. Couldn't prosecutors charge the mothers with child abuse? Why didn't they?

The judge may be technically correct in his ruling. But the law should be about more than legal points. There is a moral underpinning to our system of laws and this abominable practice that condemns little girls to a life devoid of the god-given gift of sexual pleasure violates every moral principle we hold dear.

But, in the US, it is apparently legal.
Glamour magazine has decided to end its print version, heading to a web-only format, according to its parent company, Conde Nast.

In a story from Variety:

After nearly 80 years, the monthly print edition of Conde Nasts Glamour womens magazine is ending. Glamours last regularly published print edition, the January 2019 issue, is scheduled to hit newsstands next week, the company announced Tuesday. Its another move by Conde Nast away from declining print businesses to pivot to a mostly digital future, a trend that has cut across the entire publishing biz. Glamour has a print circulation of about 2 million, but the brand reaches an audience of around 20 million online, according to the company.

Which is kind of the story of a lot of print media, with all its good and bad reasons. The magazine can't be doing well, deny it as they try to suggest in their statement to Variety.

But the lack of wellness of the magazine is hardly confined to the tech revolution's advances, or the preferences of the Millennials - have you taken a look at what Glamour is like these days?

It's actually pretty hideous. I did with the last issue, viewing it in the doctor's office, and boy did I put that one back on the stack instead of sneak it out in my purse. In the past, the magazine, formerly known as 'Glamour of Hollywood' was a great go-to place for stories about models, makeup, fashion, boyfriends and good girly stuff. One of my mother's favorite photos of me at age 7 was of how I used to lap up her copy of Glamour magazine, seated like a kid with my feet on the couch reading it like a kid reads a storybook.

Today, it's decided that Hollywood for Ugly People is better than actual glamour.

Seriously, it seems to be focused now on female politicians of the strictly Democratic stripe, the kind who wear pantsuits and congratulate themselves with awards. They're the Democrat-left establishment. They're the Planned Parenthood-approved sisterhood. The actresses the magazine focuses on are there solely based on their leftwing activism - Alyssa Milano and the #MeToo types, not people who've actually done something interesting in the acting trade. There was just one clothing spread and boy was it boring. In short, the magazine has degenerated into Democratic establishment politics, which is a stupid thing given that it advertises itself as about fashion and presumably, the cutting edge. Yes, Democratic women have some appeal to Millennials and leftists, and I have no doubt that women's magazines such as Glamour, Teen Vogue, and regular Vogue are stoking it, but in taking that route, I have a sense that Glamour is just a pathetic creature of this boring establishment scene.

They may gussy up assorted female pols in monocolored pantsuits with makeup and talk the wonders of Planned Parenthood, but such packaging it doesn't make these people truly glamorous. All it does is put lipstick on pigs.

No wonder the magazine is going downhill. It's turned itself into the quasi-glamorous propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, and cripes, is there anything less glamourous? After embracing Democrats, the magazine has failed to live up to its name.

Image credit: Screengrab from Glamour's Twitter site
Over the last year, I've met several Venezuelans who are living in the Dallas area. All of them are under some asylum timeline and waiting for a judge to confirm or deny their case. They are generally well educated and connected to the anti-Chavez opposition. They fear for their lives or personal safety, and I understand that. Last, but not least, they obeyed the law.

They also complain about internet connections to Venezuela. They will often go days without making contact with their families.

Today, I saw this post by Sabrina Martin about internet connectivity:

Venezuela, one of the countries with the least amount of freedom in the world, now enjoys yet another dubious distinction: it is among the three nations with the worst internet connection in the entire world. According to the Speedtest Global Index, the country, governed by Nicolas Maduro, was ranked 128th out of 130 countries, ahead of only Algeria (129) and Yemen (130). The study also reveals that Venezuela is the country with the worst internet connection in Latin America.

Algeria and Yemen? Not good company, to say the least.

With all due respect to anyone from Algeria and Yemen, Venezuela was a middle-class country with a developed TV and radio market. Until recently, it also had a very good internet situation.

So what's going on? The Maduro government borrowed a page from the Castro regime.

Over the years, the Castro regime played the "lights out" game whenever it wanted to stop Cubans from listening to Miami radio or Radio Marti. Most Cubans don't have battery-operated radios, so "no lights, no Miami Radio."

In Venezuela, they are using the connectivity excuse to keep the opposition from talking to each other or doing interviews with foreign media.

I've had to reschedule many podcasts because we can't get an internet connection. We try phone lines, and the contact goes off often.

This is censorship, not poverty or anything like that. The Maduro government does not want Venezuelans talking with their relatives in Dallas or elsewhere.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
The trial of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is on, and whose name do you suppose comes up, as the witnesses are brought out?

Yup, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the socialist who's poised to take Mexico's presidency in a couple weeks. He ran for presidency arguing that he wasn't corrupt, and well, now there's this.

Here's what's out now from the Los Angeles Times:

One of the most important cooperating witnesses in the prosecution of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman appeared poised to implicate Mexicos president-elect in corruption on Tuesday while recounting payoffs to high-level politicians  until he was stopped by the judge. Defense attorney William Purpura led former Guzman deputy Jesus El Rey Zambada Garcia through a tightly choreographed dance around allegations about which the court had limited testimony during a lengthy sidebar before jurors were brought in Tuesday morning. After an extended back-and-forth about bribes that the witness said he paid Mexicos former top cop, Genaro Garcia Luna, on behalf of his brother, Sinaloa cartel boss Ismael El Mayo Zambada, Purpura asked about a man named Regino, whom Zambada Garcia identified as a deputy to then-Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. And what if any relationship did Regino have to Lopez Obrador? Purpura asked, before Judge Brian Cogan sustained an objection from federal prosecutors, preventing him from giving an answer. Instead, the defense lawyer pressed the witness over exactly how much money Regino had received at their meeting in 2005. Im not sure, but it was a few million dollars, Zambada Garcia replied. It was paid to him because it was said he was going to be the next secretary of security, and if so it would be for our protection.

O.K., let's bear in mind that accused drug kingpins who use John Gotti's lawyer to lead their defense, are probably going to try anything, including having witnesses make wild claims to keep themselves out of the Supermax.

We definitely saw some wild claims from drug lords and their buddies back in Colombia when President Alvaro Uribe was at the helm, claiming he took drug lord money, which was hard to believe based on the fact that Uribe was absolute hell on drug dealers, every one of them.

So don't think it's not reasonable to be skeptical.

That said, the story is pretty specific, and it does ring of big-city politics, the kind you might actually see in some place like Mexico City. AMLO at the time was its mayor. Yet he had a pretty good reputation for clean government, and he hired Rudy Giuliani to help fix the crime situation as well. So there might be nothing to it.

In this Mexico News Daily story here, we learn that Chapo's defense has accused two other Mexican presidents, sitting centrist president Enrique Pena-Nieto, and past conservative president, Felipe Calderon of taking bribes from one kingpin to keep him out of jail while going after El Chapo, something that's obviously a ploy to say Chapo wasn't so bad, just that other guys bribed bigger and thus didn't get busted. The two leaders there are denying it.

And yeah, sure. Calderon's record in particular belies that story, given the political flak he took for confronting drug dealers. Could he have taken bribes from one in order to have ample resources to take out others. Oh, maybe. Same with Uribe - these men were fighting multiple enemies at once. But I don't think so, not considering Uribe's fierce determination and Calderon's record of confrontation.

But AMLO is a leftist, and not particularly loud or hard in his opposition to drug dealers. Knowing how leftists cheat here in the states, and how the illegal immigration racket they all defend is actually a money-maker for the cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel which Chapo ran, one wonders if some of these charges could be true. And, if the judge ought to just let more of the facts keep rolling out.

If so, what a tough time President Trump is going to have getting a grip on the border and getting cooperation from the Mexicans. Things have started out well between Trump and AMLO but who knows what might be next.

What this U.S. trial of Chapo is showing is a microscope on Mexico. The U.S. judge is seeking to keep politics out of it, so as to get a clean conviction it seems. But the political aspect is more than a little important for the rest of us to understand what we are dealing with when the new government comes to power. Caveat emptor.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires has filed charges of violation of Section 36 of the Ombudsman Act and corruption of public officials against lawyer Edna Batacan before the Quezon City Prosecutors Office. Batacan earned the ire of Martires when she accused the Office of the Ombudsman of accepting a parking fee in exchange for the delayed action of a pending case during the administration of then Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. In his complaint-affidavit, Martires said he summoned Batacan to appear before him, shed light into the issue and identify any Ombudsman personnel behind the alleged extortion activity, to no avail. Under Art. 212 of the Revised Penal Code, Attorney Batacan should be held liable even if the money was demanded by the officials of the Office of the Ombudsman and Attorney Batacans offer was not made voluntarily prior to the demand by the officials, the complaint read. Batacan, however, wrote Martires, telling him such remarks were part of a Judicial and Bar Council interview last June 20 when she was then applying for the Ombudsman position, and that the Ombudsman did not have any jurisdiction over her.She maintained she would stand by her claim of corruption within the Ombudsman. The deliberate refusal of Attorney Batacan to cooperate with, and provide sufficient details to this Office impedes the proper exercise of its function to investigate the corruption committed by the officials and employees of the Office of the Ombudsman as she revealed during her JBC interview, he said. During the JBC interview, Batacan, a former lawyer of President Rodrigo Duterte when he was then the Davao City mayor, tagged the Office of the Ombudsman as graft-ridden office, and that she was asked to give P50,000 thrice to delay the progress of a case. Martires, a former Supreme Court associate justice; Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Efren dela Cruz; Special Prosecutor Edilberto Sandoval; Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III; Batacan; lawyers Rex Rico, Rey Ifurung, Felito Ramirez and Rainier Madrid, and Judge Carlos Espero II vied for the Ombudsman position to replace Carpio-Morales, who retired on July 26.
Nate Cohn of the New York Times is a very smart numbers cruncher who calls it straight, much like Nate Silver. His personal politics may lean left (I am guessing) but he is worth reading. He does not see 2020 as a lost cause for Republicans despite the 2018 loss of 39 House seats, 7 governorships, 300 state legislative seats.

Democrats had a great showing in the 2018 midterm elections. But even in such a strong year, they sometimes struggled to match their traditional support in electorally significant areas  with serious implications for 2020. Their triumph was a somewhat narrow one, concentrated in well-educated, affluent communities. Over all, the distribution of Democratic and Republican support was reminiscent of the 2016 election (snip) The most straightforward alternative for Democrats goes through Florida, which probably gave Republicans their most promising results last week. Florida was probably the biggest disappointment for Democrats last week, and Miami-Dade County the biggest single cause for it. (snip) The overall picture is fairly clear: The states that voted for Mr. Obama and switched to Mr. Trump are still winnable for Democrats, but the party will find it hard to return to its prior levels in the communities that swung most to the current president.

My own view is that the GOP should focus on protecting the Senate rather than winning back the House in 2020 , though they would only need to win a net 17 seats to take back the House.

Predicting the Presidential election is beyond speculative at this point, without knowing the Democratic nominee. In any case, there is certainly the possibility for Trump to again thread the needle and win an Electoral College majority without winning he popular vote.

One piece of advice: make sure the Republicans select faithful electors for the electoral college in 2020. A few faithless electors could change the outcome in 2020, if Trump were to win some but not all of the Middle West states he picked up in 2016.

I am waiting for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortes to call for making the Electoral College free, just like all other colleges and universities.
After an intense lobbying campaign by the US against a Vladimir Putin crony, Interpol has chosen South Korean Kim Jong Yang to be the next president of the international law enforcement agency Interpol.

Russian Maj. Gen. Alexander Prokopchuk of the interior ministry had been the leading candidate to replace Meng Hongwei of China, who is currently missing and presumed arrested by the Chinese government on corruption charges. But there were questions about Prokopchuk's close ties to Putin and the possible abuse of the "red notice" system that the Russian would use to go after political opponents rather than criminals.

NBCNews:

Prokopchuk was defeated by South Korea's Kim Jong Yang, who secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at the organizations annual congress in Dubai. Kim had been acting president since Mengs detention and was backed by the White House. More than a dozen American senators wrote an open letter opposing Prokopchuks bid, accusing Russia of exploiting the global body to settle scores and harass dissidents. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it was akin to putting a fox in charge of a henhouse. Before the vote, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged delegates from the 194 member states to choose a leader with credibility and integrity that reflects one of the world's most critical law enforcement bodies. He added: We believe Mr. Kim will be just that." Britain and other European nations were also opposed to the longtime veteran of Russia's security services getting the role.

With recent events suggesting that Vladimir Putin will violate international norms by going after political opponents on foreign soil, it's not surprising that most member states would deny Putin the opportunity to track his foes thanks to Interpol's considerable reach. The international agency's network of local and national police forces allows it to centralize information. They don't arrest anyone, but are an invaluable resource to police and law enforcement around the world.

Were fears of Putin's control over the agency justified? The Russian president has shown he will go to great lengths to rid himself of his political enemies. It's possible he would have used Interpol's resources improperly. The agency has rules against involving itself in domestic political fights and the bottom line is that Putin could not be trusted to keep his hands off.
It's often been said that nations have no friends or enemies, only interests. That;s why it's hardly surprising that Donald Trump would issue a statement backing the Saudi Arabian government despite evidence that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was ordered at the highest levels.

The president's statement set off a firestorm in Washington as politicians from both parties vied to see who could be the most outraged. In truth, Trump, as president, had very little choice.

After bringing up the threat to the region and American interests posed by Iran and Saudi efforts to confront that threat, the president gave a reasoned, nuanced response to those who think the US should throw the book at the Saudis:

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world! I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!

Trump did not go into the Saudis problematic and half hearted assistance in combatting radical Islam, but he didn't have to. He stated all the reasons why backing the Saudis despite the probable guilt of Crown Prince Salman in ordering the hit on Khashoggi, is necessary. And the bottom line is so simple, even a liberal could understand it.

It is in the national interest of the United States.

We don't elect a president to represent the interests of other nations. We elect them to support and promote the interests of the United States. When our interests dovetail with those of other nations, it's a happy circumstance and we are always glad to cooperate. But punishing a nation for being oppressive, or violating human rights is a luxury we can only afford when our interests would not be severely damaged by doing so.

To those who would punish the Saudis for their actions by sanctioning them, or cancelling arms deals, or boycotting oil, or any other idea that has been put forth, you have to justify that position by explaining why it would be in the national interest. Simply saying that killing Khashoggi was an illegal act and a gross violation of human rights isn't enough. I have yet to hear much condemnation on the left of President Maduro of Venezuela for doing far worse. And of course, the murderous thug Fidel Castro and his brother are heroes on the left. There are many who advocate for lifting sanctions on Maduro and Cuba despite their nauseating human rights record.

I don't generally agree with the president on much, but he's hit the mark here. The national interest is best served by basically giving Saudi Arabia a pass. And given that they are on the front lines in battling Iranian hegemony in the region, it becomes vitally necessary to give them all the support that the US can muster.
Mark Meadows, the lame duck chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee, is losing his ability to subpoena soon, the majority, but not before he attempts to inform the public about the state of the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. The Hill reports:

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said Tuesday that House Republicans plan to hear testimony on Dec. 5 from the prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to probe alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation. Meadows, who is chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, told Hill.TVs Rising that its time to circle back to U.S. Attorney General [sic] John Hubers investigation with the Justice Department into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged any improper activities. Mr. [John] Huber with the Department of Justice and the FBI has been having an investigation  at least part of his task was to look at the Clinton Foundation and what may or may not have happened as it relates to improper activity with that charitable foundation, so weve set a hearing date for December the 5th, he told Hill.TV during an interview on Wednesday.

Readers may recall that Huber, a sitting United States Attorney [not attorney general as The Hill stated] was appointed by AG Jeff Sessions last year to investigate the Clinton Foundation. His investigation has been kept secret, as is the custom for federal investigations. It is unknown if a grand jury has been empaneled to hear evidence in preparation for indictments.

It is not clear to me if Huber feels ready to go public, or if he will have to resort to testifying that in accord with DOJ policy, he cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. If the latter possibility is the case, it will be a frustrating day, and a warning to the public. It does look like Meadows is attempting to pressure Huber:

Meadows said the committee thinks its time Huber gives an update to Congress about his findings, and expects him to be one of the witnesses at the hearing. Meadows also added that his committee is also trying to secure testimonies from whistleblowers who could have more information about potential improprieties surrounding the Clinton Foundation. Were just now starting to work with a couple of whistleblowers that would indicate that there is a great probability, a significant improper activity thats happening in and around the Clinton Foundation, he said. The Foundation meanwhile has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

We may get a sense of where this is going when Charles Ortel  who has pored over all the public filings of the Clinton Foundation and identified numerous criminal violations  is doing a special edition of his YouTube show, Sunday with Charles, at 5 PM Eastern Standard Time today. Charles is more deeply immersed in Clinton Foundation data than anyone outside of federal law enforcement.
The Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean were once natural stopovers for 18-century whalers, who were drawn to the remote islands by fresh water and a variety of food sources. These whalers would spend months and sometimes years on the job, hunting whales and processing them for the oil and would return only when the ships hold was full with barrels of whale oil, which at that time was a valuable commodity widely used in oil lamps and making soaps. Islands like the Galapagos provided sailors an escape from the monotony of sea-life and from the relentless heaving of the rough seas, and also an opportunity to bring a variety of exotic meat to their plates, such as that of the Galapagos giant tortoises.

The mail box in a barrel in Floreana Island. Photo credit: Mark Anthony Ray/Shutterstock.com

Floreana Island, then known as Charles Island, was one such pit-stop. Back then, homesick seamen devised a clever method to deliver letters to their families. They erected a wooden barrel and left their mails there in the hope that the next seamen who come along might be headed in the direction of their letters destinations, and thus pick them up and deliver them on their way. More than a century letter, this unusual honor-based postal service is still in operation.

Everyday, boatloads of tourists land on Floreana Islands Post Office Bay, and after walking a few dozen yards through the sandy beach, arrive at the wooden barrel crammed with postcards and notes left by past visitors. They sift through the letters looking for addresses that are within delivery distance of their homes and pick those up. The letters doesnt have any stamps so they need to be hand-delivered, although occasionally, those who pick up the letters would put a stamp and mail them instead. These travelling postmen also drop their own messages for others to pick up.

Photo credit: NH53/Flickr

But there is more to Floreana Island than just the mailbox.

The Sinking of The Essex

In 1820, an American whaling ship named Essex landed on Floreana Island for repairs and to restock their food supplies. They captured about 60 giant tortoises to supplement the already 300 on hold, which they had captured on another island in the Galapagos. One day while others went looking for tortoises to catch, one of the sailors set fire to an underbrush as a prank. It was the height of the dry season and the fire soon burned out of control, surrounding the tortoise hunters and forcing them to run through the flames. By the time the men returned to Essex, almost the entire island was burning.

Many years later, when one of the sailorsa young cabin boy at that time, named Thomas Nickerson, who later published an account of the Essexs sinkingreturned to Floreana Island, he found a blackened wasteland where neither trees, shrubbery, nor grass have since appeared.

There can be no estimate of the destruction caused by this fire to the animal creation. he wrote. There must have been thousands upon thousands of terrapin, birds, lizards, and snakes destroyed and it probably burned until the rainy season again set in.

When Charles Darwin visited the island fifteen years later, life had sprung back on the island but there was no sign of the giant native tortoise because whalers and pirates had hunted it to extinction. By then the island had been annexed by Ecuador and had been turned into a penal colony, which further devastated life on the island.

Meanwhile, the Essex, after leaving the smoldering Floreana Island, went in search of new hunting ground in the South Pacific, where an enormous sperm whale delivered poetic justiceit rammed the vessel repeatedly until it broke to pieces and sank. The surviving crew drifted around the open ocean for a month, and landed on an uninhabited island, where they gorged themselves on every available birds, crabs, eggs, and peppergrass. When the islands resources were exhausted, the shipwrecked sailors set sail again. Only three decided to stay behind.

An illustration by Rockwell Kent that appeared on a special edition of "Moby-Dick" published in 1930.

For months, seventeen sailors drifted helplessly in lifeboats. The food they had stockpiled before leaving had long been exhausted, and one by one the men began to die. Eventually, they began to consume the bodies of their dead mates in order to stay alive. When that too was gone, the men resorted to drawing straws to determine who became food for the rest. Then they drew straws again to decided who would kill that person.

Of the original twenty men, only eight survived the ordeal, including the three that chose to stay behind on the island. When they were rescued three months later, seven sailors had been consumed. Herman Melvilles legendary novel, Moby-Dick, is partially inspired by the story of Essexs encounter with the killer whale.

The Galapagos Affair

More than a century later, in 1929, a German doctor named Frederick Ritter and his lover Dore Strauch arrived at Floreana Island to settle just like early European pioneers did in North America and elsewhere. Their story was widely covered in the press encouraging many others to follow. In 1932 Heinz and Margret Wittmer arrived with their son Harry, and shortly afterwards their son Rolf was born there, becoming the first citizen of the Galapagos. Later the same year, the self-described "Baroness" Eloise von Wagner Bosquet arrived. She brought along with her, her two lovers, Robert Philippson and Rudolf Lorenz, and an Ecuadorian servant. She announced her plan to build a luxury hotel which horrified the doctor and the Wittmers, both of who were enjoying the reclusive lifestyle.

Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch at their home in Floreana Island.

The Baroness was an attention seeker, who trotted about the island wearing a skimpy outfit and greeted every passing ship with elaborate tall tales. She carried a whip and a pistol which she liked to point at anyone who displeased her. She bad-mouthed the other settlers, and sometimes even stole their things. But visitors seemed to like hershe was an attractive woman, after alland yachts went out of their way to meet her.

Then one day in 1934, the Baroness and Philippson disappeared. The Wittmers and Lorenz claimed the Baroness and Philippson went away to Tahiti with her friends. But the story didnt hold water as the Baroness had left behind most of her possessions, and neither Frederick Ritter nor Dore Strauch reported seeing any visiting yacht that could have taken them away.

Shortly after, Lorenze, who had for some time fallen out of favor of the Baroness and had frequently quarreled with Philippson, became suspiciously eager to go back to Germany. He hastily departed to the island of San Cristobal, but his boat disappeared. His mummified remains were discovered months later washed ashore along with his boat on Marchena Island.

The Baroness and her two lovers.

The strange happenings didnt end there. In November of the same year, Dr. Ritter died, apparently of food poisoning due to eating some poorly-preserved chicken. This is odd because Ritter was a vegetarian. According to Margret Wittmer, before dying Ritter told that Strauch had poisoned him, although Strauch denied the accusation. She returned back to Germany leaving the Wittmers sole residents of Floreana Island.

The Wittmers lived on the island for many years and became wealthy years later when tourism on the Galapagos boomed, even opening up a hotel. Their descendants still own valuable land and business there.

Both Dore Strauch and Margret Wittmer wrote books describing their experiences and the hardship as early settlers, as well as their own interpretation of the mysterious deaths and disappearances on this remote tropical island. The sordid tales of the Galapagos affair has also been told and retold countless number of times by historians and there is at least one documentary on the subject.

Today, Floreana Island has a permanent population of about one hundred who live on the islands only town of Puerto Velasco Ibarra on the northwest side of the island. The Wittmer familys hotel is located here.

Dore Strauch and Friedrich Ritter.

Heinz Wittmer, baby Rolf, son Harry, and wife Margaret Wittmer.

The Baroness Eloise von Wagner Bosquet.

Rudolph Lorenz near the barrel post box at Post Office Bay, prior to the Baroness' disappearance. Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives
THE HANDSHAKE. Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo meets up Wednesday with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping where the former lauded China and recalled her presidency, which saw Manila forge closer ties with Beijing.

Former President and now Speakertold visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday that she sees infrastructure buildup.Infrastructure will be very important for the Philippines in the coming years and there is no country in the world that matches Chinas recent track record and capability in this area, Arroyo said during a courtesy call on Xi at his hotel Wednesday. Arroyo told Xi that the Philippines really can learn much from Chinas impressive growth during the last 40 years. She said China has shown the world that rapid economic growth and modernization is possible through a combination of vision, political will, and open and responsible relations with other nations. READ: Philippine, China deepen ties China has done in 40 years what other countries might take 200 years to do, so we congratulate you for that. It is good for China, it is good for the Philippines, it is good for the world, Arroyo said. Arroyo recalled that when she was president, theand signed a joint exploration agreement on the West Philippine Sea. The constitutionality of the agreement, however, was challenged before the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on issue.Arroyo led a delegation of lawmakers that included Senate President Vicente Sotto III on her courtesy call on Xi on the last day of his visit. Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. cited the bonanza secured by the Philippines, ranging from concessional financing for the Duterte administrations Build, Build, Build program to joint oil and gas exploration plusin education and agriculture with China. Villafuerte made the statement following Xis two-day state visit to Manila, saying the agreements reinforce the revitalized bilateral partnership between the Philippines and China. President Duterte and President Xi witnessed in Malacanang the exchange of 29 agreements last Nov. 20. These were a mix of bilateral accords, letters and commercial contracts, including nine on infrastructure development, one on joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea, and another on the follow-up float of the countrys Panda or renminbi-denominated bonds in China. The long list also included memoranda of understanding (MOUs) on Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), cooperation on industrial parks development, infrastructure cooperation, and feasibility study support for major projects; protocol for the export of fresh young coconuts from the Philippines to China; MOU on strengthening agricultural cooperatives; commercial contracts on the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project and the first phase of the Safe Philippines Project; and a cultural exchange agreement, cooperation on basic education and on information technology.
The Galaxy S10s front panels have surfaced online, both for the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ it seems. These images were shared by a well-known tipster called Ice universe, and they got shared via Twitter, even though at least some of them have been originally found on Weibo (Chinese social network), notes the source. Now, two different sets of images leaked, the very first image in the gallery shows the Galaxy S10 and S10+ front panels, while the other four seem to be showing the Galaxy S10s front panel, but its different than the one in the first image. You will notice that the Galaxy S10s and S10+s front panels in the first image sport a cutout at the top for the earpiece, while that same cutout is not visible in the other four images that are available in the gallery down below. Furthermore, the shape of these front panels seem to be slightly different, and the bezels seem to be thinner on the second set of images, so not all of these images are legit, if any of them.

That being said, you will notice that neither of these images sport a hole in the display for the camera, even though the Galaxy S10 handsets are rumored to sport such design. Now, the two panels in the first image do seem to be a bit curved on the sides, but not to the extent of the panel shown in the other four images. Based on the Galaxy S series previous designs, the second set of images may be more accurate in this regard, even though Samsung did adjust that curve with the Galaxy S9 to make the display a bit less curved than on the Galaxy S8.

Background: The Galaxy S10 information has been leaking for quite some time now, and weve actually seen a lot of conflicting info, so its not exactly easy to predict what to expect at this point. Initially, rumors suggested that the company plans to release more than two Galaxy S10 units, as the Galaxy S10 and S10+ were expected to be joined by a more compact S10 unit, and a budget variant. Some of those phones were rumored to sport two rear-facing cameras, while others three, but according to a new piece of info that surfaced yesterday, Samsung is actually planning to launch an additional Galaxy S10 variant, and include four cameras on the back of it, and two cameras on its front side. That report also suggested that the phone is called Beyond X internally, and that it will ship with 5G support, while it is not expected to launch with the other three variants of the Galaxy S10 in February, which suggests that the company is planning to launch four Galaxy S10 phones after all.

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Those three variants of the Galaxy S10 that are expected to arrive in February are allegedly codenamed Beyond 0, Beyond 1, and Beyond two. Now, if rumors are to be believed, the budget Galaxy S10 model will sport a 5.8-inch flat display, and it will also ship with 4GB of RAM, while the other Galaxy S10 units which are expected to arrive in February are said to sport 6GB of RAM. The Exynos 9820 is expected to fuel all the Galaxy S10 units, rumors say, while the same can be said for the upcoming Snapdragon 8150, or whatever Qualcomm opts to call it, as Samsung is expected to introduce two SoC variants of its flagship smartphones once again. The Snapdragon 8150 will fuel the Galaxy S10 units in the US and China, while the Exynos 9820 will do the same in Europe.

The other two Galaxy S10 models are said to ship with curved displays, and at least one of them is expected to sport a 6.4-inch display, quite probably a QHD+ Super AMOLED panel. Those two phones are expected to include 6GB and 8GB of RAM, though if the fourth model will arrive later on with four rear-facing cameras, Samsung may include 8GB of RAM in that variant, and keep the others at 6GB of RAM. The premium Galaxy S10 variant with four cameras on the back is rumored to cost $1,770, which is an extremely high price point, and quite frankly a bit hard to believe, so it will be interesting to see how accurate are these rumors.

Impact: Samsungs Galaxy S10 series is expected to sport a different design compared to the Galaxy S8 and S9 series, as Samsung tends to spice things up when it comes to design every two years. In addition to that, the Galaxy S10 series basically represents the 10th anniversary of Samsungs flagship Android smartphones, so the company will probably want to differentiate it from its previous offerings. The Galaxy S10 units will probably be made out of metal and glass, though, just like the Galaxy S8 and S9, but the bezels on the Galaxy S10 are expected to be considerably thinner. At least one Galaxy S10 model is expected to support 5G, and Samsung is expected to become one of the first smartphone manufacturers to offer a smartphone which supports 5G connectivity, even though 5G will not become available until H2 2019, and it will not become a standard anytime soon. In addition to the Galaxy S10 series smartphones, Samsung is also planning to announce its first-ever foldable smartphone in early 2019. The company still did not confirm when is the phone coming exactly, but Samsung did show off a demo unit of that smartphone during its developers conference, and the companys CEO did hint a while back that the phone will arrive in early 2019. Samsung will probably host separate launches for the Galaxy S10 and its foldable smartphone, as the company doesnt want one to steal attention from the other. The Galaxy S10 will likely arrive during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, in February, while the companys foldable phone may actually arrive sooner than that, at least if rumors are to be believed, as LG is rumored to announce its foldable handset in January, during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
B&H Photo is discounting the price of the Samsung 860 EVO Internal SSD with 500GB of storage. It is dropping the price about $30 to just $72.99. That puts it at its lowest price all-time. Samsung direct is not even discounting the 860 EVO 500GB this much. Which makes this a really great deal for those looking to add a new SSD into their desktop or laptop computer. This price will be good through Black Friday, ending on November 24.

This is an internal solid state drive from Samsung, with the SATA III 6Gb/s interface, and it comes in a 2.5-inch form factor which will fit in most modern computers. Samsung also notes that it has about 550MB/s read and write speed, making it one of the faster SSDs currently on the market. The 860 EVO is also the latest SSD from Samsung, and definitely worth picking up. It also supports AES 256-bit encryption, so if youre looking to make sure your data will be safe, the 860 EVO can help out with that as well. The Samsung 860 EVO 500GB Internal SSD wont be this low for long, so youre going to want to pick it up before its gone. You can pick up this internal SSD from B&H Photo using the link below.
Samsung may be developing a new line of devices to release under the Galaxy G branding, based on a fairly cryptic tweet from a known insider that was recently spotted by Android Headlines. Specifically, the tweet only includes the term Galaxy G, providing no further illumination on the matter whatsoever. That seems to indicate that a new line of devices is forthcoming but details about a Galaxy G handset or tablet are virtually nonexistent elsewhere on the web. Furthermore, no Galaxy G hardware appears to have shown up in rumors or leaks either and, for the time being, there actually arent any Samsung devices that have been released under the Galaxy G moniker.

Background: It isnt out of the question that the Galaxy G-series could be referring to handsets released under the long-running Galaxy Grand branding. Recent reports have suggested that the company is already working to consolidate its other Galaxy-branded offerings under more clearly defined marketing. The change would result in the Galaxy J, C, and Galaxy ON devices being sold under the Galaxy M designation. As a result, nearly all budget-friendly handsets would be brought together under a single branding while the mid-range Galaxy A handsets would continue to be marketed under that brand. Samsung Galaxy Grand devices could fall into that same budget categorization but havent historically been sold under any letter-specific branding. Instead, those have been sold as under more difficult to quantify model names like the Galaxy Grand Prime or Galaxy Grand Prime Pro.

The most recently speculated device in that family is the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Plus (2018). Thats been expected to launch since mid-July. Based on leaks about that budget smartphone, that new take on the series will feature a 5.5-inch 540 x 960 display and be powered by a Samsung-built Exynos 7870 chipset. Thats an octa-core SoC powered by Cortex A53 64-bit CPUs and backed by a Mali-T830 GPU. For cameras, the new Galaxy Grand Prime Plus will reportedly include a Samsung built 5-megapixel sensor with iris-scanning capabilities on the front and a 16-megapixel primary snapper with 4K and 240fps slow-motion capabilities. Power will be provided by a 3,630mAh battery that charges via USB Type-C.

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Impact: Whether or not the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Plus (2018) or some other model will kick off a new Galaxy G naming convention isnt immediately clear. Samsung may intend to go a completely different direction with the branding but the change would seem to make the most sense for the Galaxy Grand series. For clarity, it isnt difficult to discern which handset is likely better  or at least newer  by looking at years that have been assigned to a model designation. The challenge arises from the use of names such as Galaxy Grand Prime or Galaxy Grand Duos, with additional descriptive words frequently being included to differentiate the gadgets. Releasing those handsets under easier to read model names like Galaxy G30 or Galaxy G40 more clearly shows a hierarchy for that smartphone family.
Amazon has dropped the price of the Sony XAV-AX5000 Android Auto car receiver right now, dropping it down to just $348. That is good for about $82 off of its regular price, and it is also a new all-time low for the XAV-AX5000. This receiver is great for your car, as it does boast both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support here.

The Sony XAV-AX5000 is a good option for those that are looking to add some Android Auto love into their car, but arent ready to get a new car yet. You will need to have this installed (unless you do know what you are doing). It has a 6.95-inch display, and it does also have its own software built-in. So if you are wanting some Bluetooth or satellite radio, this will work for that as well. But the main purpose is for Android Auto, which looks good on this display. It will give you plenty of space for navigation with Google Maps or Waze, as well as streaming music and so forth. The Sony XAV-AX5000 Android Auto Receiver is available now from Amazon through the link below, it wont be available for long at this price, so youll want to grab it before its gone.
Security-minded people have a bit of work to do with their new Android device to make it as secure as it possibly can be. The open nature of Android allows unique customization options for consumers and manufacturers, but that comes with a few severe caveats.

Want to make sure your Android device is as secure as possible? Take a look at our ultimate security checklist for Android phones.

1. Limit Googles activity collection.

Android is an open source operating system distributed by Google. To use the Google Play Store to download new apps, youll need to create a Google account and sign-in. Google monitors every action you perform on your phone, including app launches and searches.

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You can limit what data Google collects in this manner by visiting your personal Google activity profile. Clicking on Activity Controls lets you turn off monitoring of your web & app activity as well as your location history. Keep in mind that Google Maps may not work as well if the location history option is turned off.

2. Keep your device locked down.

Most modern smartphones come with a fingerprint reader and the ability to set up a PIN. You should always set up the security features on your phone as a primary form of protection. A fingerprint reader, iris reader, and even just a basic four-number PIN can deter identity theft if your device is lost or stolen.

You can access your phones security settings by going to Settings > Security > Screen Lock.

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3. Make sure your device is encrypted.

You will need to set up a PIN for your device before you can encrypt it, but every single Android device can be encrypted. Tap Settings > Security > Encrypt phone to get started.

4. Use a VPN for your WiFi connections.

Connecting to a sketchy public WiFi service can be a great way to give a local hacker plenty of information about your device. Some unscrupulous individuals set up free WiFi service attached to packet sniffing devices that allow them access to your accounts by spoofing a security token.

To prevent attacks like this from happening, Android users should use a VPN when connecting to an unknown WiFi source. Virtual private networks act as a firewall between your device and the outside internet, masking your web presence from the outside.

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The most secure VPN providers offer an SSL-secured network with 256-bit encryption. Most VPNs are available for a small monthly fee. You should make sure the service you use keeps no records from its users and has servers in your country to make the connection painless.

5. Make sure your software is up-to-date.

Every month Google releases a new series of security patches for Android that is designed to address vulnerabilities discovered by bug bounty hunters. The recent addition of Project Treble to the Android SDK is supposed to make it easier for manufacturers to update phones with these security patches. However, very few manufacturers maintain a consistent schedule.

Googles Pixel devices always receive the latest security updates each month for up to 24 months. OnePlus and Nokia have a pretty good track record of offering updates promptly. Larger manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Motorola have been less than reliable in releasing these monthly updates.

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Security conscious individuals who plan on purchasing a new Android device should keep the manufacturers update track record in mind.

6. Do not install apps from unknown sources.

Every Android device can install any .apk file if one option is enabled. If the checkbox for Settings > Security > Unknown Sources is enabled, then any .apk file can be run on the phone. Malicious apps take advantage of this vulnerability by injecting code that will download an .apk from an unknown server and ask the user to install it.

Most users tap install without thinking about it, and suddenly their phone is infected with malware. Do not install apps from unknown sources unless you explicitly trust the source. If you have an app that must be installed this way, enable the option, install the app, and then disable it again.

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7. Hide private notifications.

If you have a sensitive app installed on your phone that you dont want to display notification contents, you can disable this feature on a per-app basis.

Head to Settings > Sound & Notifications and then select what happens when the device is locked. You can show notifications in their entirety, hide the contents of the notification but show the app, or not show notifications for that app at all.

8. Review your location sharing information.

Plenty of the apps that are installed on your device rely on location information to serve you relevant details. But its also a dead giveaway in your broader data picture. In fact, fitness apps like Strava have given away top-secret U.S. Army bases with their location monitoring.

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Start by tapping on Settings > Personal > Location to review which apps on your phone are using location services data. You can turn this off on a per-app basis, which should reduce the amount of tracking third-party apps can do. Keep in mind that turning off location services will limit location-based offers from apps like Google Opinion Rewards.

9. Use a private browser, email client, and messenger.

Most Android phones ship with the Chrome browser installed, but Google uses this to track how you move across the web. You can prevent tracking by using a privacy-minded browser like Firefox Focus or DuckDuckGos recently introduced browser.

Gmail is another way that your privacy can be invaded. Google combs all of your emails from companies to suggest ads that youre most likely to click. If you would prefer not to have your email indexed in this way, youll need to turn to an encrypted service like ProtonMail.

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Messaging privacy is a significant concern for Android devices. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are two of the most popular communication apps, but Facebook owns both of them. Private messaging services that offer end-to-end encryption exist, but it can be hard to get friends and family to convert with you. Apps like Telegram and Signal work well for this purpose.
Posted on: November 21, 2018 5:41 PM

The outgoing chair of governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome has been awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop Stephen Platten received the award in recognition of his three decades of service to the Centre and to the wider ecumenical movement. The Centre is home to the Archbishops personal representative to the Holy See.

Bishop Stephen has been chair of governors there for 15 years. He steps down at the end of 2018. His successor is Bishop Michael Burrows  the Bishop of Cashel, Ferns and Ossory in the Church of Ireland.

In its citation, Lambeth Palace said: Bishop Stephen Platten has been involved at a deep level with ecumenical relations during his long ministry alongside his significant and important ministry within the Church of England.

The Archbishop of Canterbury concluded: there can be no doubt that Stephen Platten is a worthy recipient of this award.

Bishop Stephen spoke of his surprise at the decision.

I was absolutely delighted and honoured to receive the award, he said. I have been committed to the unity of our churches throughout my life and I am utterly committed to the work of the Centre. I am very grateful for the honour and my hope is that it might further raise the profile of the Centre as it develops and prospers in the future.

The Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism is awarded for outstanding contributions to ecumenical work in support of the Church of England. Bishop Stephen, a former Bishop of Wakefield in northern England, has worked as the Archbishop of Canterburys Secretary for Ecumenical Affairs as well as the Co-Secretary of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.

Bishop Stephen was also presented with a gift by the ACRs Director, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi  a print of an illustration from the Codex Amiatinus, the earlier complete Bible, which was written and illustrated in north-east England before AD 716. The illustration depicts the Scribe Ezra writing a manuscript sat in front of a bookcase.

Bishop Michael said he was honoured to be invited to become the next chair of governors.

For many years I have admired its vital and fruitful work and I have been personally enriched by through participation in courses and events there, he said.

The Centre is renowned as a place of learning, hospitality and presence  a veritable embassy for Anglicanism in the heart of Rome. It will be a privilege to make a contribution to its governance and to follow in the footsteps of Bishop Stephen Platten whose total commitment has ensured the wellbeing and high profile of the ACR over very many years.
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LaredoPete Saenz, the mayor of the southwestern Texan city of Laredo, looks at the military fencing that now hems his bustling border town and is uneasy with what he sees. Its a surprise to some of us, a shock frankly. Were not used to concertina wire, the mayor tells AFP. Laredo, whose population of about 260,000 is more than 95 percent Latino, is one of the areas being hardened by the US military under orders from President Donald Trump. As part of the contentious mission that has seen about 5,900 active-duty troops sent to the border, the Army has strung a shiny metal fence made of barbed and concertina wire along Laredos grassy riverbanks. Locals are starting to worry of economic consequences for a city that relies heavily on cross-border trade. In an interview at his City Hall office this week, where the Mexican tricolor stands alongside the Texas flag, the black-mustached Saenz says he understands the federal governments desire to protect the border. But he is concerned the military presence might cause a drop in legal foot traffic between Laredo and its sister city of Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande River in Mexico. Aesthetically, it doesnt look good. Obviously, if we could have our way as a city, I think we would object to the concertina wire, Saenz says, noting the city has had some initial discussions about challenging the federal governments fence. Mexican shoppers account for about 40-50 percent of Laredos retail trade, much of which is centered on a vast outlet mall that provides better prices and selections than anything in Nuevo Laredo. Mexican residents of Nuevo Laredo are allowed into Laredo to shop and work, provided they have special permits, and some 17,000 people shuffle daily back and forth across a busy bridge. Even a small drop in foot traffic could have a big impact on the local economy, and similar concerns are being echoed up and down the border. In Nogales, Arizona, for instance, foot traffic from Mexico has slowed dramatically and retailers are feeling the pinch with several stores at riskI dont see it [as] good that [Trump is] putting in the fences. The people from Mexico, they go in and shop around, they leave their money over there, says Sandra Chavez, an American woman speaking in Nuevo Laredo. They are not doing nothing wrong. Worries are especially acute at this time of year, during the usually frenetic Thanksgiving and Christmas retail seasons. Saenz says it is too soon to know if legal border crossings are slowing, but anecdotally at least some observers have noticed changes. Compared to two years ago, there seems to be more shops that have closed, it seems to be more of a ghost town, Laura Pole, a British tourist who has visited Laredo three times in recent years, says in the picturesque town center.But away from the historic square, which is flanked by an ornate Catholic cathedral and hacienda-style buildings, workers in larger shops say they have not seen any changes so far. Laredo is inextricably linked to Mexico, and Spanish is by far the dominant language. The city changed hands multiple times during the 19th century and was once part of Mexico. I usually say were tied [at] the hip, Saenz says. Foot traffic goes both ways, with US citizens heading into Mexico, often to search for cheaper pharmaceuticals and property. Sometimes, families are split between the two sides of the border. The Army being deployed here is ridiculous, huffs Angela Torres, an American whose husband was deported and now lives in Nuevo Laredo, while she also keeps a home on the US side and crosses daily. Critics have decried Trumps order to toughen the border as a costly political stunt, coming as it did just before the November 6 midterm elections. A Customs and Border Patrol agent not authorized to give his name welcomed the military assistance as each day, hundreds of migrants attempt to cross the approximately 30-mile (50-kilometer) stretch of border he patrols. The entire border operation will cost an estimated $72 million, according to the Pentagon. The mission is supposed to run through December 15. Retail dollars aside, Saenz says Laredo is the biggest land port for goods coming into the United States, rivaled in size only by the maritime port of Long Beach in California. Some $214 billion of trade crosses annually through the port of Laredo, according to Saenz, and just outside the city center a non-stop stream of massive trucks hauls cargo both ways across a bridge. This is what drives our city -- trade, logistics, warehousing, distribution -- and so this is why our relationship with Mexico is so sensitive, Saenz says. The mayor adds that, going forward, he hopes the federal and state governments pay greater attention to the needs of border communities. You know its easy to govern from Washington or from (state capital) Austin sometimes without knowing the impact on the border itself, he says. We live it, we sense it, we feel it, we take it in. And economically we depend on it.
International arrivals grew just 1% in the period January 18th October 18th, compared with the equivalent period last year. The news emerged from the annual Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) conference taking place in Beirut.

The decidedly uninspiring growth was caused mostly by a slowdown in travel to Saudi Arabia and the ongoing blockade of Qatari airspace by its neighbours. Arrivals from the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe grew by 5.6%, 3.0% and 2.6% respectively but they fell 2.5% from Africa and the Middle East. Within the Middle East, the UAE is the most important destination by far, attracting nearly half of all air traffic. It was up 2% but the next two most important destinations, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were down 2% and 7% respectively. Looking at the blockade of Qatar in more detail reveals that the country has suffered particularly badly from a 34.8% drop in arrivals from other Middle Eastern countries, but it has made up for this to some extent with an 8% growth in arrivals from the rest of the world.

Dubai, the worlds busiest airport has continued to grow its share of the transfer market, to the detriment of Abu Dhabi as well as Qatar, and it has been successful in continuing to attract visitors who stay overnight in the destination too. The airport which competes with Dubai most successfully is Istanbul. By visitor arrivals, it is around two thirds the size of Dubai but it has seen a 31% surge in visitors staying overnight, as concerns about security, dating back to an attack on the airport in 2016, have receded.

Looking in to the future, bookings for the Middle East in the next two months (18thNov  10thJan) are 2.4% behind where they were at the same point last year. The cause of this slowdown is bookings from Asia Pacific, which are 11.1% behind where they were at the equivalent point last year. By contrast, forward bookings from the Americas, Europe and Africa & the Middle East are all ahead, by 3.1%, 1.0% and 4.3% respectively.The Asia Pacific setback is due particularly to Pakistan, from where bookings are 35.4% behind. Bookings from Australia are 19.1% behind and from Indonesia, 11.8% behind. From mid-April to the end of May next year, Dubai will close one of its runways for upgrade work. This has prompted airlines to cut their seat capacity by 22% during the period. By contrast airlines are planning to increase capacity to Doha and Istanbul but decrease it to Abu Dhabi. Olivier Jager, CEO, ForwardKeys, concluded: The most striking feature of travel to the Middle East is the blue-chip nature of Dubai as a hub airport. It is the largest airport in the region by a long way and, despite the slowdown, it just keeps on growing.
DubaiInterpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations. The US-backed Kim, acting president of the global police body, was picked at a meeting of delegates from member nations in Dubai to replace Meng Hongwei, who went missing in his native China in September. Beijing later said Meng resigned after being charged with accepting bribes. There had been growing calls within Western nations for Interpol to reject Russian candidate Alexander Prokopchuka Russian interior ministry official and current Interpol vice president over fears Moscow could abuse the role to target political opponents. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw his weight behind Kim, who will serve out Mengs term until 2020. We encourage all nations and organiations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that, Pompeo told reporters. Critics have raised concerns over Russias previous applications for Interpol Red Notices, or international arrest warrants, to target those who have fallen foul of the Kremlin. Interpols president heads its General Assembly while day-to-day operations are handled by the organizations Secretary general Juergen Stock. In an open letter this week, a bipartisan group of US senators said choosing Prokopchuk would be like putting a fox in charge of a henhouse. Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists, they wrote. Harriett Baldwin, a minister of state at the British foreign office, told parliament on Tuesday that London would support Kims bid. Anti-Kremlin figures had also raised concerns, including Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has been repeatedly jailed by authorities. Our team has suffered from abuse of Interpol for political persecution by Russia, Navalny wrote on Twitter. I dont think that a president from Russia will help to reduce such violations. US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis echoed the endorsement for Kim. As recent events show, the Russian government abuses INTERPOLs processes to harass its political opponents, he said on Twitter.The controversy also comes amid security concerns over accusations of Russian agents attempting to poison an ex-spy in Britain and trying to hack the network of the global chemical weapons watchdog. Ukraine, deeply at odds with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists, threatened to pull out of Interpol if Prokopchuk prevailed. Lithuania also said it would consider withdrawing from the network. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the US senators letter as a vivid example of an attempt to interfere in the vote. Moscows interior ministry denounced a foreign media campaign aimed at discrediting Russias candidate. But two foes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have been targeted by international arrest warrants sought by Moscow, also said Tuesday they were launching a bid to get Russia suspended from Interpol for abusing the agency. The legal challenge was announced by financier Bill Browder, named in multiple Interpol warrants, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- a former oil baron who spent 10 years in a Russian jail and now lives in exile in London. The Interpol constitution has very specific rules which forbid countries who are serial abusers from using the system, Browder told reporters. Briefly arrested in Spain this year under a Moscow-issued Red Notice, Browder said the Russian candidacy was an attempt by Putin to expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe. He fought for -- and in 2012 secured -- US sanctions against Russian officials believed to be involved in the death of his tax consultant, Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of a $230-million tax fraud. Russia has rejected the claims and this week announced it was opening a new probe into Browder on suspicion of running a transnational criminal gang, even suggesting he was behind Magnitskys death. Russian prosecutors said he would be put on an international wanted list in the near future. Multilingual Prokopchuk worked in tax enforcement before starting as a Russian representative at Interpol in 2006, according to the interior ministry.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The United States has imposed new sanctions on the Syrian, Iranian and Russian companies, this time for helping to provide Iranian oil supplies to Damascus by the assistance of the Russian side, RIA Novosti reports.

According to the US, Tehran uses these sums to finance the guards of the Islamic revolution and terrorist groups.

The US administration representatives said all those who will continue supporting the Syrian government will appear under sanctions.

The Russian parliamentarians already announced that Moscow will continue fulfilling its commitments with Syria and expressed confidence that the new US sanctions will have no impact on the Russian economy.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The fact that Armenia has announced and carries out fight against corruption is also appreciated by the world, President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian said at a meeting with businessmen in Yerevan, reports Armenpress.

This fight is noticed both in the US, Russia and Europe. Its a very positive phenomenon. The talk is not only about the fight against corruption, but also the steps on improving the judicial system. We want to have a court we dream of, because the business cannot develop, there will be no investments in the country if people do not trust the courts. If we look carefully, we will see that the countries with the largest investment volumes in the world have the best judicial system, the President said, adding that he would like very much for Armenia to develop the culture of arbitral court.

According to the President, the stability of banking and financial-economic system in the country is a good precondition for making investments, running a business in Armenia. I say in all occasions that a revolution took place in Armenia, but our dram and banking system remained unchanged. This is a great advantage in the peoples consciousness that Armenia has a stable economic system, and if the currency and banking system in Armenia remain stable during dramatic changes, one can trust the country, he said.

Armen Sarkissian said the April events this year raised Armenia to the highest level since in todays instable world the human, beautiful processes are becoming invaluable. Today Armenia is a unique country in some sense, where a major change occurred, a historic change, a revolution occurred, but in a very simple and human way. And we are unique in some sense because there is a place in the instable world where a revolution was carried out with its means. In other words, this is the highest level in the peoples consciousness in business circles that Armenia is different, unique, therefore there is a different attitude towards Armenia, the President noted.

He considered the recent La Francophonie Summit in Yerevan as a positive affect for Armenias image. Armen Sarkissian thanked all the diplomats for their efforts aimed at holding this event in Armenia at a high level, as well as the government for great contribution to the organization of the event. He informed that he has signed a decree on awarding a group of individuals for their contribution to organizing and holding the Summit at a high level.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The Eurasian Economic Commission will carry out a number of discussions with participants of the market and state bodies of EEU member states on creating a Eurasian Jewelry Brand, Chairman of the Board of the commission Tigran Sargsyan said.

The idea was first introduced at the Eurasian Week Forum, and businesses have endorsed the initiative.

The project is expected to be realized through public sector-private sector partnership.

The commission plans to set up a specialized bureau where industrial representatives from EEU countries will be represented.

The Eurasian Economic Commission has developed a roadmap which will be confirmed after works with representatives of businesses and state bodies, Sargsyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Otokar, leading supplier of the Turkish military and security forces for wheeled tactical vehicles, promotes its Arma 8x8 modular wheeled armored vehicle in Bahrain. Otokar, a Koc Group Company recently participated in Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS).



Otokar's arma 8x8 demonstrated in Bahrain (Picture source: Otokar)

Highlighting Otokars success in export markets, General Manager Serdar Gorguc, said, "Otokar continues to strengthen its position in the international defense industry with its extensive capabilities and wide product range. Apart from being the leading supplier of the Turkish military and security forces for wheeled tactical vehicles, our vehicles serve almost 55 different end-users in 32 countries. Today over 30,000 Otokar military vehicles are in service around the world with an outstanding performance. Among those countries, Bahrain is particularly important for Otokar where many different vehicle types of wide Otokar wheeled military range are already serving successfully to the requirements of the esteemed Kingdom of Bahrain in different forces since 2002. We therefore are honored to be in BIAS again.

Underlining Otokar's strong existence especially in the Gulf region, Gorguc added; "We have been serving in GCC countries in an extensive manner since early 2000s. Due to our broad activities in the United Arab Emirates, our establishment of Otokar Land Systems in the country two years ago helps us a lot in our relations with all countries in the region. Through this company we became much closer to our customers and even more strengthen our existing relations. Through our recent activities, Otokar is no longer playing only a simple vehicle manufacturer and supplier role in GCC but also enjoys its local MRO activities and even transferring its engineering and manufacturing capabilities".

The Arma 8x8 is a new-generation, modular multi-wheel armoured vehicle.Thanks to the modularity and highly protected armoured monocoque hull design, Arma 8x8 is a multipurpose platform allowing the integration of various types of mission equipment or weapon systems which can meet the current needs of the modern armies in real battlefield and peacemaking operations. The vehicle development program started in 2007. Concept design, detailed design and engineering studies were completed in 2008. The first prototypes were produced at the beginning of 2009 and validation tests regarding trials, durability, driveline durability, reliability, hot and cold climate tests were successfully completed. Furthermore, a mine blast mock-up was produced simultaneously and explosion tests were performed successfully in 2010. The Otokar 8X8 was initially unveiled at IDEF Istanbul in May 2011.
WashingtonPresident Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to stick by ally Saudi Arabia even while admitting that de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have been behind the brutal murder of a dissident journalist. It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didnt! Trump said in a statement. We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he said. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner. The gruesome murder of Khashoggi, who vanished after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, has hugely embarrassed Washington. The killing torpedoed a PR campaign led by the crown prince to show that the conservative Islamic state has embarked on a new reformist path. It also threw into question the White House strategy to make MBS, as the royal is widely known, its main partner in the tinderbox region. Trump has for weeks resisted accepting mounting evidence of Saudi government involvement in the Khashoggi killing -- and accusations that MBS ordered the hit. However, with The New York Times reporting that the CIA has definitively concluded that Prince Mohammed was involved, the focus turned to whether Trump would punish his Saudi partner or find a way to let it slide. In his statement, released by the White House press office, Trump took the latter option, saying that the US-Saudi relationship was more important than the possible involvement of Crown Prince Mohammed in the crime. He noted that Saudi King Salman and the crown prince vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia, he said, provides crucial help in the US struggle to contain Iranian ambitions, as well as having committed to $450 billion in US weapons contracts and other investments. In addition, the Saudis have helped in keeping oil prices low, Trump said. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region, the president added. Trump acknowledged a push in Congress for the United States to sanction MBS and take other action against the Saudi leadership. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America, he said. The Washington Post responded that Trump had placed personal relationships and commercial interests above American interests in his desire to continue to do business as usual. Trump is correct in saying the world is a very dangerous place. His surrender to this state-ordered murder will only make it more so, the Posts publisher and CEO Fred Ryan said in a statement.Trumps statement caps a steady campaign to delay judgment on the Saudis over the fate of Khashoggi, a US resident who was sometimes critical of MBS and wrote for the Post. Long after Turkish sources and others had provided strong evidence that Khashoggi was murdered in the Istanbul consulate, the White House insisted that it was too early to tell. After Saudi Arabia accepted responsibility and said that 21 people were in custody, with death penalties sought against five men, attention turned to whether MBS would be found culpable. Again, Washington slow-pedaled, but the CIA report forced Trump into making a definitive statement. While Trump told journalists that the CIA had found nothing definitive, US media reports described the intelligence agencys analysis as concluding with high confidence that the crown prince ordered the murder. Critics of the no-questions-asked relationship immediately attacked Trump. Since Mr Trump excels in dishonesty, it is now up to the members of Congress to obtain & declassify the CIA findings on Jamal Khashoggis death, tweeted John Brennan, a former CIA director and fierce Trump critic. No one in Saudi Arabiamost especially the Crown Princeshould escape accountability for such a heinous act. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said the White House maneuver demonstrated President Trumps habit of siding with murderous foreign dictators over American intelligence professionals, calling the approach a stain on our democracy. There was a chorus of disapproval from senior figures on his own side too, with Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senates powerful Committee on Foreign Relations, accusing the White House of moonlighting as a public relations firm for the crown prince. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Trump, indicating that Washingtons relationship with the Saudis is bigger than the horrific murder. Its a mean, nasty world out there, the Middle East in particular, he told journalists. It is the presidents obligation, indeed the state departments duty as well, to ensure that we adopt policies that further Americas national security. So as the president said today, the United States will continue to have a relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Theyre an important partner of ours. However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters after meeting Pompeo that his country was pushing for whoever gave the instruction for Khashoggis murder to be brought to justice. We dont see this issue as a bilateral issue -- it is a criminal and judicial case and it has to be dealt like that, he added. There are still questions that are unanswered and were trying to find the answers.
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.


Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)

Copyright 2018 The Deseret News Publishing Co.

SALT LAKE CITY  For a few hours on Monday, the Utah Jazz opened up their home court to thousands in need.

Lines of people covered the Vivint Smart Home Arena concourse Monday morning for the annual We Care  We Share Thanksgiving Meal hosted by the Utah Jazz and Larry H. Miller Group of Companies.

Inside the building, Jazz and Miller employees served more than 3,000 full Thanksgiving meals donated by Utah Food Services to homeless and low-income individuals.

"I really like to be able to interact one-on-one as they come through," Gail Miller said before joining the serving line. "Giving them a warm place to have a good meal and feel loved and cared for and part of a community ... that's important to me."

Salt Lake City Mission distributed winter clothing and shoes inside the arena as well. The Rev. Joe Vazquez said the mission has partnered with the Jazz organization for years on the annual event.

"Whatever their issues are, people should not be hungry when we're all enjoying hot, traditional meals at home," the Rev. Vazquez said.

The mission will also host a "Thanksgiving food box giveaway" today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1151 S. Redwood Road, and a "Great Thanksgiving Banquet" Thursday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Christian Life Center of Utah, 1055 N. Redwood Road. The mission will distribute winter clothing again at both events, the Rev. Vazquez said.

Rudy Fryer and Heather Hertig, a couple who stay at the Road Home shelter, had their first Thanksgiving together eight years ago at the same event, and attended Monday for the first time since.

"They did a fantastic job in there. They showed everybody respect," Hertig said.

She was impressed by the workers and volunteers helping those who were disabled  carrying their plates, helping them find tables and getting them all set up. "That's what made me happy and proud, that people like that are willing to help."

Dustin Dehlin, who has worked for the Jazz 16 years, said it's always a bittersweet experience  seeing how many people are in need, but being able to help them and see the smiles on their faces.

"Brand new shoes, the food's really nice ... It gives them something to feel good about," Dehlin said.

Email: sburt@deseretnews.com

Twitter: SpencerABurt

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"The rival networks should get together and reach agreement on a common audience measurement system." "The rival networks should get together and reach agreement on a common audience measurement system."

ABS-CBN and GMA Network Inc. have for decades fiercely fought one another for the right to be called the Philippines No. 1 television network. The Filipino people have become used to reading press releases declaring that during a certain period GMA or ABS-CBNthe Kapuso and Kapamilya networks, respectivelycaptured a higher percentage of the nations television viewership than the rival network. One recent press release had ABS-CBN garnering a higher percentagesomewhere in the vicinity of 41 percentof total national TV viewership than GMA, and a subsequent press release proclaimed that GMA had convincingly beaten ABS-CBN in the viewership ratings. How are these periodic rival claimsmischievous observers call the survey reports praise releasesreceived by the television-viewing public? Is the public impressed? Do TV viewers regard the survey reports as Gospel truth? The soundings that I have conducted about the viewership surveys indicates that Filipino TV viewers are not prepared to accept the survey results at face value. More to the point, they are skeptical about the survey findings. They are not ready to believe that during one period GMA had a higher viewership than ABS-CBN and that during another period ABS-CBN left GMA trailing far behind in the viewership tally. The reason for this skepticism is not hard to find. Indeed, it is a no-brainer. The reason is that the present rating system for Philippine television viewership lends itself to the charge of being self-serving. Each of the two networks has its own rating arrangement. ABS-CBN viewership rating is undertaken by Kantar Media; GMA has Nielsen TV Audience Measurement, which measures that networks audience share with its NUTAM (National Urban Television Audience Measurement) system. It goes without saying that both Nielsen and Kantar are adamant that its system is far betterfar more accuratethan the rival system.With this situation, with GMA and ABS-CBN each commissioning its own audience measurement entity, how can the Filipino public avoid thinking that the contractor-client relationship produces a not-entirely-objective result? Has Kantar or Nielsen ever released results showing its client losing out in the viewership derby? And if either survey organization found that its client was indeed losing out, would that finding be released? No way. The competition between ABS-CBN and GMA is so fierce that such possibilities are unthinkable. Yet, the televiewing public in this country has an interest in knowingmaybe even a right to knowwhich of the two networks is achieving a higher viewership in Metro Manila, Urban Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. And it is interested to know which of the two networks offerings are scoring higher viewership percentages. TV viewership measurements must become credible and skepticism-free. The networks have an interest in such a change; after all, what is the point of their paying Kantar and Nielsen so much money if the televiewing pubic is not going to accept their audience measurement figures at face value? I suggest that GMA and ABS-CBN of their own accordwithout prodding from the regulatory authorities get together and reach agreement on a common audience measurement system, one whose findings will be received by all parties without question. I find it difficult to accept that there is no research organization in this country that enjoys universal trust and respect. Needless to say, such industry change will require a large measure of statesmanship on the managements of ABS-CBN and GMA. Until such a change comes about, the Filipino televiewing public will have to continue periodically receiving, from both networks, audience measurement data that it neither minds nor believes.
Weaver, who is an Australian-registered foreign lawyer whos qualified in England and Wales, said that the firm is delighted to assist Sydney Metro in reaching the milestone.

The line-wide works package has a number of unique characteristics due to the varied nature of the works which will cover integral elements of the project such as track systems and the expansion of existing train maintenance facilities. Ashurst is looking forward to continuing our relationship with Sydney Metro to ensure the delivery of this significant project, he said.

The package includes the design, construction and commissioning of 31kms of underground railway track to be laid in the twin railway tunnels from Chatswood to Sydenham; 31kms of overhead power equipment and 11 new substations to power the metro from Chatswood to Bankstown; and the installation of over 350km of high voltage, low voltage and tunnel service cabling.

Under the contract, Systems Connect will also connect the railway tracks from the end of Sydney Metro at Chatswood to the new tracks into the city, expand the Sydney Metro Trains Facility at Rouse Hill to accommodate 37 new trains for Sydney Metro City & Southwest, and construct the Sydney Metro Trains Facility - South at Marrickville. Works are expected to commence this year and conclude in 2024.
Law firm clients in Mainland Europe are weighing the current raft of economic uncertainties and the changing political landscape and selecting law firms that most closely match their demands.

The inaugural Mainland Europe Brand Index from Acritas finds that global firms are taking the lead, but local firms and the Big Four services brands are also making progress.

Given such levels of change and uncertainty, it is perhaps unsurprising that our research shows that both domestic and international legal spend by clients based in this region is set to grow, says director Jo Summers. This means international firms that have had the strategic foresight to build a powerful capability in the Mainland Europe have a higher chance of securing that growth opportunity.
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) helped a private equity giant with another investment in a global healthcare business.

The top firm advised KKR on its acquisition of a 20% stake in GenesisCare. The company has agreed to invest $400m for the stake, with the possibility that it will invest $250m more.

KKR previously owned a 45% stake in GenesisCare that it bought for about $380m in 2012. It sold the stake to China Resources Group and Macquarie Capital in 2016 for an undisclosed sum. The consortium, as well as doctor and management shareholders, have sold down their stakes for the latest deal.


(By Leroy Harvey/Shutterstock.com) (By Leroy Harvey/Shutterstock.com)

International students and backpackers know they are being underpaid when they work in Australia but few do anything about it, according to a hard hitting new report.The study by the University of New South Wales and the University of Technology Sydney found that less than 10% recover their unpaid wages and much of this is due to a 'broken' system that makes it hard for them to do so.The report draws on the first large scale national survey of temporary migrant workers, with 4,322 respondents from 107 countries working across all Australian states and territories and found that unpaid wages amount to over a billion dollars.Previous work done by Bassina Farbenblum, a senior law lecturer at UNSW and Laurie Berg, a senior law lecturer at UTS found that most international students and backpackers are underpaid, with one in three earning about half the legal minimum wage.The new report paints a bleak picture for the few who try to recover their unpaid wages. The study reported that for every 100 underpaid migrant workers, only three went to the Fair Work Ombudsman. Of those, well over half recovered nothing.The authors conclude that for most migrant workers it is neither possible nor rational to try to claim their unpaid wages through the forums that currently exist. 'The system is broken. It is rational for most migrant workers to stay silent. The effort and risks of taking action aren't worth it, given the slim chance they'll get their wages back,' said Berg.'There is a culture of impunity for wage theft in Australia. Unscrupulous employers continue to exploit migrant workers because they know they won't complain,' said Farbenblum.The study dispels the popular assumption that few overseas workers would consider coming forward. In fact, though few had actually taken action, some 54% were open to trying to claim unpaid wages.The study identified that not knowing what to do was the key barrier that prevented them from coming forward while more than a quarter were too frightened to speak up in case this affected their visa.'The findings are deeply troubling but give cause for optimism, because they reveal a path forward. The study indicates that some of the most significant barriers to wage recovery can be practically addressed,' Berg pointed out.The report concludes that if processes and support services are improved, and immigration safeguards strengthened, more migrant workers would report and seek redress for wage theft in the future.The authors also pointed out that if Australia is to position itself as the destination of choice for international students and backpackers, reforms must be urgently implemented to prevent wage theft and enable migrant workers to report and recover unpaid wages.They are urging the Australian Government, the education sector and businesses to act swiftly to implement change, including setting up a specialised forum for wage recovery, increase the services that give advice to overseas workers and introduce stronger punishment for those who repeatedly underpay overseas workers.
Hello Supporter,



Greetings for the day!



I am new to the Form.



I am give you a short brief of my Visa condition, I have applied for Business Sponsored 457 Visa on 2nd Dec 2017 through a lawyer and I got the reply from the immigrations to submit the below mentioned documents such as



NZ Criminal Conviction report

India PCC

Medical Examination

I have submitted all these details to the agent and she has uploaded all the details to immigration - This is my Visa History.



I got married on 18th Nov 2017 and we have registered.



My wife is presently on Visitor Visa and I would like to apply for partner visa and attach to my Business Sponsored 457 Visa, so please guide us if we are on right track and if so what would be the required set of documents that are needed to lodge the partner visa.



Let us know which type of Partner visa will be best suited and relevant documents need for lodging the visa.



Can I lodge the partner visa application personally or should I need to take help from the lawyers.



Thanks & Regards



Raj
HP

Some of the camouflage covering the model has just been stripped away, and to our surprise, the Clio is beginning to look like its old self. To be more precise, the all-new generation has similar rear shoulders and glass.Of course, it's not uncommon in this budget-minded segment for brand new models to be derived from older ones. Obvious examples include the Ford Fiesta and Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, although that Skoda Fabia you see at the end of the photo gallery is a Polo spinoff as well.While a few elements might stay the same, Renault is doing everything it can to make the new Clio stand out in a crowd. This includes a brand new, much sportier front end with narrow headlights that seem to have Megane-like "monkey tail" LED signatures. Meanwhile, the taillights have a 3D effect.As for the interior, it seems that a digital dashboard will be installed. However, Renault is still lagging behind the Germans in the infotainment and connectivity departments.The French supermini should come out with all-new engines as well. The Clio GT should make an interesting comeback with a 1.3-liter turbo pushing around 150 horsepower. Meanwhile, the 0.9 should be replaced by a 1.0-liter 3-cylinder turbo like basically, every other company has.The 1.5 dCi will have an increasingly small role, as cities like Paris should ban diesel completely within the next car generation. However, with AdBlue, the 1.5-liter will still be relevant and compliant.As for the Clio RS, it's still a couple of years off, but our gut feeling is that a 1.8 turbo with around 225will take the place of the 1.6.
The Pursuit Intervention Technique (or PIT) maneuver is when police force the driver of a fleeing car to lose control of the vehicle by hitting it from the back or the side. The driver then loses control and the chase ends  for better or for worse for the suspect.In this particular case, the driver, who was trying to escape police in a truck packed with home appliances, crashed into the median, which sent the truck flying through the air before it came to a stop on its side. Luckily for the driver, he wasnt hurt  or, at least, he wasnt hurt so badly as to impede him from running on foot.The pursuit apparently began in the Long Beach area, before the driver of the truck ended up in Buena Park, and California Highway Patrol took over the chase, KTLA says.The truck had large items in the back as the suspect was driving on the wrong side of the road in Westminster, aerial video showed. The driver was driving erratically through intersections, weaving in and out of traffic, the report notes.After the crash, the driver emerged and tried to escape on foot. Apparently, he was as bad a runner as he was a driver, because he was caught by police in the parking lot of a nearby supermarket, where he was subdued with a stunt gun. The report adds that another suspect was placed into police custody after the chase.Police are still working on the charges that will be brought against both, so they remain in custody. No one else was hurt in the car chase
Naturally, the next step in the evolution of the automobile market, the electric car, is the main focus of attention for Audi in China. The recently unveiled e-tron SUV is already planned to be making its way there next year, with local production expected to begin in 2020.But theres another electric car in the works from Audi, one that is not based on the upcoming MEB platform supplied by parent Volkswagen. Using an Audi Q2 L (long wheelbase) as a starting point, the four-ringed brand will be developing its first electric car purpose-made for the Chinese market.According to Audi executives, who were present at the FAW plant in Changchun on Monday to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Audi-FAW marriage, the Q2 L e-tron will be ready to hit the roads next year. It is to be the first of ten new joint car models that will be launched by Audi in the country in the first two years of the next decade.We will use our experience to locally develop and produce even more models specifically for China in the future, said at the event Alexander Seitz, Audis executive in charge with compliance and integrity.We will continue our shared success story with the latest technologies, digital services that focus on market needs, and models like the Audi Q8 and Audi e-tron.At the moment, Audi manufactures six cars locally. At Changchun, it assembles the long-wheelbase versions of the A4 and the A6 as well as the Q3 . At Foshan the A3 Sedan, A3 Sportback and Q2 L are being assembled.
According to Interfax , the 737 belonged to the Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot and was en route to Athens, Greece. The pilot reported back that it had hit an animal during the takeoff on the runway, but didnt ask to return to the airport since the systems didnt record any damage.Airport security were sent on the runway to investigate and they found human remains. It was later established that they belonged to Albert Yepremyan, 25, who had been deported from Madrid, Spain. He was on a stopover in Moscow, before boarding a plane to Yerevan, Armenia. On the flight from Madrid, he had attacked a cabin crew member and hed been escorted by the police inside the Russian airport.The man went through the airport gate during boarding for a Moscow-Yerevan flight, went to the platform bus, but quickly headed toward the runway instead of getting in, an official for the Sheremetyevo airport tells Interfax.On [his] flight from Madrid, Mr. Yepremyan had started a fight. After landing [in Moscow], police were called on board the plane to detain [him], the official adds.For some reason, the officers allowed him to travel to the bus that would take him to his flight towards Athens alone. Instead of getting on the bus, he turned and headed to the runway, where he was eventually mowed down and killed.Interfax notes that the 737 was grounded temporarily in Athens, after security found parts of fuselage and traces of human remains inside, on the landing gear.An investigation is now underway. Because of the accident, authorities had to close one runway at the Sheremetyevo airport, which caused some delays to other flights.
"The regulatory body should not be dragged into fights such as this one." "The regulatory body should not be dragged into fights such as this one."

Is the Securities and Exchange Commission being used by certain unscrupulous parties to get back at their enemies? The concern has been expressed in business circles recently in the wake of news items that a Mindanao-based Church group is allegedly being harassed by certain powerful personalities. It appears the head pastor of the said religious organization has offended these influential persons who have access to key government agencies. The said church group is called Kapa-Community Ministry International, apparently with roots from Sarangani province. It is headed by a certain Pastor Joel Apolinario, a low-key but influential spiritual leader in that part of the country. The church groups woes would not have caught attention if the SEC were not brought into a reported conflict between the religious leader and influential figures in Mindanao. Based on accounts from media and our own sources, the groups woes began when Apolinario became the object of extortion attempts. The perpetrators were supposed to have been caught in the act by operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation. The spiritual leader has also reportedly caught the ire of a politician from the south who did not relish the growing influence and following of the church group. It is interesting, observers note, that in the aftermath of these skirmishes with these powerful parties, news items came out citing an SEC advisory against the Kapa-Community. In the SEC advisory, the regulatory body raised concerns that the church group may be soliciting supposed investments from the public and enticing them with promises of high returns. The church group is now reeling under the negative effects of the said advisory. There are now worries that the SEC may have been fed misleading information. The spokesperson of the church group has belied the accusations. It was pointed out that what was conveyed to the SEC as soliciting investments may have actually been the church groups ongoing efforts to raise funds for its mission, upkeep and support for its needy members. The church group deserves the benefit of the doubt since even the biggest religious organizations in the country ask for donations. It is no secret that these giant church groups obtain donations in the hundreds of millions, tax-free. One particular global church may have even channeled such donations to the purchase of stakes in several blue chip companies and hospitals in the country.Why the SEC should pick on the fund-raising efforts of a grassroots-based Filipino church group baffles us. We can only surmise that the whole story behind may have been misrepresented before the SEC. It may not be far-fetched that the misrepresented story could have come from powerful parties whose interests have been adversely affected by the presence and mission of Apolinarios small-town church. The public would not have cared for the plight of the Kapa-Community. After all, not everyone is a fan of Billy Graham-type bible-quoting, fiery preachers which Apolinario appears to be. However, what worries us is that the SEC may have become the unwitting tool in some peoples bid to get back at the pastor. We would not have worried about this quarrel if not for the fact that an important and respected national agency like the SEC were dragged into it. There are two things we hope would happen here. First, that the SEC would immediately get down to the bottom of the issue hounding this small-town church group, and that it would give the said group its proverbial day in court. It deserves due process and a fair hearing. Second, that the SEC would be careful not to allow itself to be used by shadowy but influential quarters in the latters bid to neutralize perceived enemies. According to media reports, the KAPA head said the church group has already explained to the SEC that the allegations that it has been soliciting investments with promises of high yield from the public are misleading and have no basis in fact. The group has expressed its confidence that the SEC will appreciate the truth and resolve the issues facing the group with fairness and impartiality. Apolinario said the SEC has also been informed that there are certain persons determined to prevent KAPA from fulfilling its religious mission and calling. He said the KMCI is confident that the SEC will not allow itself to be a tool of those who oppose our mission. The SEC has an important role in the country. Its job is too vital and its time too precious for it to be dragged into fights like this one.
Not surprisingly, Mini did not reveal any details about the production model JCW GP aside from confirming its launch. Going back to the concept car however, we see that it wears a very aggressive body kit. For starters, there's a revised front bumper with larger air intakes coupled with a large splitter. The fenders have been widened to improve the vehicle width. At the back, there is a large spoiler coupled with a more aggressive rear bumper. Carbon fiber bits also help in shedding some weight off of the Mini JCW GP concept.

Remember last year when Mini introduced the John Cooper Works (JCW) GP concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show ? Well we have some good news for you. The British marque has announced that the JCW GP concept is headed for production and will be launched as a production model in 2020.

On the production model, it is likely Mini will be toning down the aero design of the JCW GP to make it more street legal. Under the hood, the automaker never really mentioned the powertrain of the JCW GP even in concept form. Going by the most powerful JCW models however, it will likely produce more than 230 PS from a turbocharged inline-four.

The GP model often signals the end of a product generation. This can be seen when Mini revealed special edition GP models back in 2006 and in 2012. That said, it is likely that a new Mini model could be making its debut soon after the launch of the 2020 JCW GP.

While we wait for the 2020 JCW GP, Mini has announced that they will be bringing a different John Cooper Works model to the Los Angeles Auto Show. Called the JCW Knights Edition (pictured above), it is based on a standard Mini JCW hardtop but features a unique black-silver-red color scheme. It also comes with a JCW exhaust and flap system as standard. Other special edition Minis will also be on display at LA Auto Show.
Image: Lockheed Martin

NASA now has an official development timeline for its Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) X-plane that, according to the administration, will lead to the X-59s first flight in the next three years. NASA committed to the timeline after a Key Decision Point-C (KDP-C) review confirming funding and achievability of the project. The administration says the KDP-C commits NASA to the full X-59 development effort through flight-testing in 2021.

This is a monumental milestone for the project, said NASA associate administrator for aeronautics Jaiwon Shin. Im extremely proud of the team for its hard work getting to this point, and we all look forward to watching this aircraft take shape and then take flight.

QueSST is part of NASAs Low-Boom Flight Demonstration project. The X-59 is designed to travel at supersonic speeds while remaining quiet enough to overfly populated areas. A subscale model has been undergoing low-speed wind tunnel testing at NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Once built, the X-59 will be NASAs first piloted, full-size X-plane in more than 30 years. It is being built by Lockheed Martin.
Image: Morton County Sheriffs Office

A Cessna 441 crashed near Bismarck, North Dakota, late Sunday night, killing all three people on board. The aircraft, which was owned by Bismarck Air Medical and used as an air ambulance, was en route from Bismarck to Williston, North Dakota, to pick up a patient. The victims have been identified as Todd Lasky, 48, Bonnie Cook, 63, and Chris Iverson, 47. Lasky was a pilot with Bismarck Air Medical and Iverson worked as a paramedic with the same company. Cook was a nurse at CHI St. Alexius Health medical center.

According to the Morton County Sheriffs Office, the aircraft was reported missing at approximately 11 p.m., about 30 minutes after it departed from Bismarck Airport. The Sheriffs Office also reported that the Civil Air Patrol and an Air Force rescue team were able to track the aircrafts location using cellphone forensics and radar analysis. No emergency communications were received.

The wreckage was discovered about 20 miles northwest of Mandan, North Dakota. Early reports have suggested an inflight breakup. The NTSB and FAA are investigating.
President Trump delivered to Robert Mueller written answers about pre-election dimensions of the Russia probe but did not answer questions about his behavior as president, including allegations of obstruction of justice  and will resist doing so in the future  his lawyer Rudy Giuliani tells Axios.

The big picture: It is possible that Mueller will subpoena Trump regarding his activities as president. But Giuliani said he has reason to suspect he wont: "I think that he would not win a legal battle if he did that, and I think it would consume months." If Mueller does, the presidents view is clear: He will refuse to cooperate.

The high-stakes exchange with Mueller included no questions or answers about obstruction of justice. But Giuliani said, "I can't tell you he's given up on obstruction."

"I don't think he has any way to compel testimony on obstruction because the argument of executive privilege would be very, very strong. It all relates to a period of time after he was president."

he has any way to compel testimony on obstruction because the argument of executive privilege would be very, very strong. It all relates to a period of time after he was president." "[A]ny question he has on obstruction, ... [t]he president has given [the answers] in interviews, tweets. Other witnesses have given it to him."

he has on obstruction, ... [t]he president has given [the answers] in interviews, tweets. Other witnesses have given it to him." "And the law definitely requires that if you're going to subpoena a president, you have to show that you can't get the information any place else."

Giuliani expressed breezy confidence about Trump's legal position: "I don't think they have any evidence of collusion of any kind. I think their obstruction case, as a legal matter, doesn't exist."

And Giuliani suggested that he doubts Don Jr. will be indicted in connection with the Trump Tower meeting.

"I don't see what for," Giuliani said. "The meeting turned out to be a big bust. ... It's a very unattractive crime [for a prosecutor] when somebody meets with you and then you don't do anything."

If Donald Trump were an "ordinary client," it would've taken "four, five, six hours" and two meetings to answer Mueller's questions, Giuliani told me. But the process dragged out for almost a year.

The Mueller questionnaire "looked like a law school exam ... one big long group of questions, that were multi-part questions," Giuliani said.

"looked like a law school exam ... one big long group of questions, that were multi-part questions," Giuliani said. Giuliani said that he and fellow Trump lawyers Jay Sekulow and Jane Raskin sat with Trump whenever they could grab him, in the Oval Office and in the president's private dining room adjoining the Oval.

that he and fellow Trump lawyers Jay Sekulow and Jane Raskin sat with Trump whenever they could grab him, in the Oval Office and in the president's private dining room adjoining the Oval. They didn't tape  the lawyers took handwritten notes of Trump's answers before having them typed up.

Giuliani wouldn't tell us what questions Mueller asked. But when pressed, he conceded Mueller asked about two subjects:

Mueller asked whether Trump knew at the time about his son, Don Jr., meeting with Russians in Trump Tower. Mueller asked about the Russian hacks during the campaign that immediately followed Trump's July 27, 2016, press conference in Florida, when Trump said: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing."

Before submitting their answers, Giuliani and the Trump team met "not much" with Mueller himself. Giuliani said they've had "numerous telephone conferences" with the Mueller team.

"They're all very circumspect," Giuliani said. He said they've never given him a timeline or a sense of when the investigation would end.

Giuliani said. He said they've never given him a timeline or a sense of when the investigation would end. I asked Giuliani whether his personal interactions with the Mueller team ever got awkward given he's been trashing them, almost daily at times, in the press. Have they ever confronted him about his attacks on their character and motives? "Hasn't come up," Giuliani said.

Go deeper:
Two countervailing forces that will influence looming OPEC's decisions were on prominent display Tuesday: President Trump and fallling prices.

What's happening: Trump caused a stir yesterday when he issued a statement signaling clear U.S. backing for Saudi Arabia despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He stayed in realpolitik mode, later telling reporters that the Saudis have helped keep oil prices down. And he tweeted this morning, "Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!"

The big question: How Trump's posture toward the Saudis could affect the early December OPEC meeting.

The cartel and allied producers  notably Russia  will weigh production cuts to tighten the market back up.

But Trump's soft treatment of the Saudis and push for even lower prices could influence the outcome, though some level of output cuts appears likely.

Meanwhile, the 6-week drop in oil prices accelerated Tuesday when Brent and WTI both fell by well over 6% (although they're ticking up somewhat this morning). Overall, both benchmarks have dropped by over a quarter since early October.

What they're saying: Rice University energy and geopolitics expert Jim Krane tells Axios in an email exchange...

"The big plunge in oil prices has been painful for the Saudis and a big win for Trump, who had been haranguing OPEC over Twitter. But at the end of the day, if Trump's support turns out to be the crucial act that allows [Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS] to hang onto power, the crown prince will certainly reciprocate."

"Tweaking oil prices is the quickest way MBS can show his appreciation. The Saudis may still cut production, but we should look for a lower target price than might have otherwise been the case. (Closer to $70 than $80)."

The bottom line: Over at S&P Global Platts, Herman Wang sums things up this way: "Saudi Arabia's desire to placate Trump in the fallout from the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi may box in the kingdom, despite [Saudi energy minister Khalid al-] Falih's warnings of a potential oil supply glut in the months ahead that could crash prices further."

The intrigue: Saudi expert Ellen Wald, in a new Forbes piece, argues that Trump's statement actually shows far less than full-throated support for MBS. She also notes Trump's willingness to consider ideas from Congress, where some members are pushing for a harder line.

As for what all this means at the OPEC meeting, she tells Axios in email: "The Saudis would push for production cuts regardless of Trump's rhetoric." She also writes...

"Remember, the low oil prices are most important to Saudi Arabia and Russia because it helps them convince and pressure other OPEC and OPEC+ countries to support production cuts and to adhere to them."

"The low oil prices are an advantage to Saudi Arabia going into OPEC, regardless of what it feels about the President."

What's next: The ride could be bumpy for a while. "[W]e expect oil prices to trade in a wide and volatile range until the OPEC meeting, with the lack of certainty on a possible cut weighing on prices currently," Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note.

Go deeper:
Republican and Democratic members of Congress are denouncing President Trump's Tuesday statement saying the U.S. will stand by Saudi Arabia, despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the CIA's reported conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the assassination.

The bottom line ... Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump's most reliable Senate supporters, rebuked his response, comparing him to former President Obama: "One thing I learned during the Obama years is that when you look the other way regarding problems in the Middle East, it seldom works out. ... Likewise, it is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal #Khashoggi ... I fully realize we have to deal with bad actors and imperfect situations on the international stage. However, when we lose our moral voice, we lose our strongest asset."

What they're saying:

Republicans:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.): " I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia." Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.): "' Great allies' dont plot the murder of journalists, Mr. President. 'Great allies' dont lure their own citizens into a trap, then kill them."

Great allies' dont plot the murder of journalists, Mr. President. 'Great allies' dont lure their own citizens into a trap, then kill them." Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): " Our foreign policy must be about promoting our national interests. It is in our natl interest to defend human rights. HR violations lead to mass migration, help extremism flourish & often result in new governments hostile towards the U.S. because we supported their oppressors."

Our foreign policy must be about promoting our national interests. It is in our natl interest to defend human rights. HR violations lead to mass migration, help extremism flourish & often result in new governments hostile towards the U.S. because we supported their oppressors." Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.): "This is an utterly absurd, irresponsible, and repugnant statement from @POTUS. No amount of money justifies the betrayal of our principles and values as Americans."

Democrats:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.): "Im shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. ... I plan to vote against any future arms sales and appropriation to Saudi Arabia. I also believe that the United States should consider sanctions against the crown prince and that the Saudi ambassador to the United States should not be allowed to continue in that role."

"Im shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. ... I plan to vote against any future arms sales and appropriation to Saudi Arabia. I also believe that the United States should consider sanctions against the crown prince and that the Saudi ambassador to the United States should not be allowed to continue in that role." Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.): "Its hard to imagine that the Saudis would have taken this action under a Reagan, Bush, Clinton or Obama Administration without facing serious repercussions.

"Its hard to imagine that the Saudis would have taken this action under a Reagan, Bush, Clinton or Obama Administration without facing serious repercussions. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.): "To say 'maybe he did and maybe he didnt,' or that we are incapable of finding out the truth, or that knowing the truth our silence can be bought with arms sales, undermines the Presidency, credibility of our intelligence professionals, and our role as a champion of human rights."

Others:
I asked Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani whether he thinks he knows what the Trump Organization's chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg gave federal prosecutors in his immunity deal with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

What he's saying: "Yes. And I'm not worried about it," Giuliani said. How could he be so sure? Has he spoken to Weisselberg? Giuliani later conceded he hadn't spoken to Weisselberg. "I guess I don't know for sure," he said. "Somebody could've misled me, something new could've come up. Maybe say 'reasonably confident'. That would be a better way of phrasing it."

Why this matters: Trump told the N.Y. Times last year that Mueller would cross a red line if he started prying into his business affairs. But that's what key people in Trump's orbit worry is happening, tangentially, with the Southern District's investigation of Michael Cohen and his illegal activities while working at the Trump Organization.

These people have told us they're far more worried about the Cohen investigation in New York than they are about whatever Mueller comes up with.

they're far more worried about the Cohen investigation in New York than they are about whatever Mueller comes up with. Their concern: When these federal prosecutors struck an immunity deal with Weisselberg  the man who knows more about Trump's business affairs than anyone  it suddenly raised the specter of a deep investigative dive into the financial affairs of Trump's business.

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Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, urged President Trump to visit U.S. troops in combat zones in a statement on Wednesday.

The big picture: Trump has said visiting troops isn't "overly necessary," despite the fact his predecessors made a number of trips to combat zones, like Afghanistan and Iraq. Reed said in his statement that "every prior President found time to visit our troops in active combat theaters," and that Trump has "a duty to let them know that America is grateful for their service." Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that he's advised Trump against visiting "places ... I don't want him to go at certain times."

It would be good for President Trump and the nation if he started leading by example and doing more to honor our veterans and troops serving in harms way. The President has many scheduling demands, but every prior President found time to visit our troops in active combat theaters. Many regularly went to Dover Air Force Base to honor the return of fallen warriors. Its time for President Trump to step up and recognize that our troops put their lives on the line every day with unrelenting devotion to our country.

I encourage President Trump to talk to the men and women serving on the frontlines, look them in the eye, and listen to what they have to say. As Commander-in-Chief, President Trump has committed these brave men and women to combat, and they are sacrificing and doing their best every day to carry out the mission.

Our troops look like America and represent the very best of our country. They come from every community, every race and religion, and have diverse views. But what unites them all is a sense of patriotism and professionalism. President Trump has a duty to let them know that America is grateful for their service.

I strongly urge President Trump to start showing our troops the respect they deserve. They chose to serve and he must choose to lead.
The global economic and tech system appears to be breaking in two, one led by the U.S. and the other by China, in an unfolding new world resembling the competing geopolitical spheres of the Cold War.

The big picture: One of the eeriest features of this apparent future will be new virtual and legal "borders," a formalization of attempts already afoot by the U.S. and China to bar the other from the sphere they themselves control.

"We will reborder" to keep unwanted Chinese companies out of U.S.-led parts of the world, Janice Gross Stein, political science professor at the University of Toronto, tells Axios.

"China is already rebordering," walling off its people from the global internet, Stein said on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Conference, a gathering of military and security officials from the world's democracies.

Driving the news: Lying behind this coming world of new borders is, from the U.S. side, a more palpable realization that China's rise means a sharp diminution of U.S. power and possibly living standards.

President Trump has declared a trade war and demanded that Beijing stop trying to be No. 1. But China is pushing back, a dynamic made most recently clear in Papua, New Guinea, over the weekend, where the U.S. and China bickered publicly in a way not seen between great powers since the actual Cold War three decades ago.

and demanded that Beijing stop trying to be No. 1. But China is pushing back, a dynamic made most recently clear in Papua, New Guinea, over the weekend, where the U.S. and China bickered publicly in a way not seen between great powers since the actual Cold War three decades ago. The main battleground for the future is tech  the race to dominate artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, green energy, electric cars, and so on. With the trillions of dollars and military power to be gained through these and other technologies, China is out to build itself up and preserve its closed political system; the U.S. objective is to maintain the global dominance it has enjoyed since World War II.

In the West, the rebordering, as Stein calls it, will take the form of regulation of technology companies  not to protect consumer privacy, but for national security. Stein sees a change in public and government perception in which advanced technology is seen much more clearly as having dual use  for both consumers and armies.

Weve seen this in the government crackdown on foreign investments and in the Commerce Departments move yesterday toward imposing new export controls on emerging technologies, including AI and robotics.

With the shift in attitudes, regulation will come "in a way that would have been inconceivable five years ago," Stein said.

"The regulatory state is coming back."

 Janice Stein, University of Toronto

Some say that Congress itself may not have the mettle to crack down so hard:

Nicholas Burns, a former senior U.S. diplomat and now a professor at Harvard, tells Axios that there is a "trust-busting spirit coming out of Europe," but that he is not certain it will spread to the U.S.

senior U.S. diplomat and now a professor at Harvard, tells Axios that there is a "trust-busting spirit coming out of Europe," but that he is not certain it will spread to the U.S. And Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said Congress will talk about regulation, but ultimately may not approve anything. "We will haul [the tech executives] in front of us and yell a lot," he told the conference.

But, just on privacy grounds, the ground seems to be already fertile for regulation:

In a poll yesterday by SurveyMonkey for "Axios on HBO," 57% of American adults agreed that social media giants are hurting democracy and free speech. And 55% want the government to regulate them.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, speaking to "Axios on HBO," called regulation of Big Tech "inevitable" because "the free market is not working."

What's next: Notwithstanding Cook's remarks, expect tech executives to fight. As of now, they say they are only superficially monopolistic  that they fiercely compete among each other for ad dollars, and for the future of AI. Sooner than many people presume, they say, there will be even more savage, direct commercial competition with Chinese big tech companies. But that is the same dynamic that thinkers like Stein think will bring the sharp new tech divide, separated into U.S. and Chinese zones.

Go deeper:
"Sovereignty issues aside, the government says Mislatel will be required to toe the line when it comes to cybersecurity." "Sovereignty issues aside, the government says Mislatel will be required to toe the line when it comes to cybersecurity."

The National Telecommunications Commission last Monday confirmed Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company (Mislatel) as the third telco provider in the country, to compete against firmly entrenched local companies Globe Telecom and Smart Communications. Globe and Smart are said to have a minimum of 40 percent of the market share each, according to an NTC memorandum on the matter. Their customers have complained of slow internet speeds, dropped calls, hidden fees, and other service issues. Soon after he took office, President Rodrigo Duterte invited the entry of other companies that could put Philippine telecommunications services on par with those of the best in the region. Mislatel was adjudged to have complied with NTC bidding requirements, while rivals Sear Telecom of politician Chavit Singson and Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T) were disqualified for incomplete documents. Mislatels win in the bidding is accompanied by controversy. The company is a consortium comprising China Telecommunications Corp. and Davao-based businessman Dennis Uys Udenna Corp. and Chelsea Logistics Holdings. Uy, a close friend of Dutertes, is alleged to have contributed P35 million to Dutertes presidential campaign. Sources say, however, that Mislatel has fully complied with government requirements and promises to provide internet speeds of 27 mbps on its first year of operations and 55 mbps on its second year, on par with that of Singapore. Should it fail to deliver, the company risks a loss of P24 billion in its investments. Now that it has its confirmation order from the government, Mislatel has 90 days to submit to the NTC more documents and perform acts of compliance such as registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The consortium also needs to obtain approval from Philippine Competition Commission, National Economic and Development Authority, and National Security Adviser for background check on the consortium members. They will also have to submit their rollout plan, said acting Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio. Critics of the scheme see security issues with Mislatel. China Telecom is owned by the state and is the third-largest mobile provider in China and the ninth-biggest telecom company in the world. China has established bases in the West Philippine Sea, declared unsubstantiated rights to certain Philippine marine resources, bullied fishermen in Philippine waters, and otherwise been flexing its muscles with regard to the Philippines.Sovereignty issues aside, the government asserts that Mislatel will be required to toe the line when it comes to cybersecurity. The NTC Memorandum Circular on the matter says that part of the required roll-out plan is a detailed description showing that the new major telco players networks and facilities will not compromise national security and shall abide with the National Cybersecurity Plan formulated by the Department of Information and Communications Technology. Under Republic Act No. 10844, the DICT is mandated to ensure and protect the rights and welfare of consumers and business users to privacy, security, and confidentiality in matters relating to ICT, in coordination with agencies concerned, the private sector, and relevant international bodies. DICT also has the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) as its attached agency. CICC was created upon the approval of Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 to suppress real-time commission of cybercrime offenses, among others. In any case, both Globe and Smart are already using Chinese telco technology. In January this year, Smarts parent company PLDT, Inc. announced Smarts partnership with Chinas Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. The 15-month, $28-million (P1.4 billion) deal is for the improvement of Smarts online charging and electronic loading for prepaid subscribers, said PLDT Group chief corporate services officer Ray Espinosa. In November 2015, Globe signed a five-year partnership with Huawei for the planning and design of a mobile broadband network and the creation of a mobile innovation center. Globe said the partnership will enhance and expand the [telcos] mobile network to elevate the state of Philippine Internet. The mobile broadband network will use the latest state of the art technology trends while the mobile innovation center will house its innovative products and solutions that would ensure Globe maintains its competitive edge. This matter is still developing and time will tell if Mislatel will indeed establish and operate its business and deliver on its pledges. Despite receiving government confirmation of its bid, Mislatel will not have a smooth path. At a press conference last Nov. 14, citing national security and privacy concerns, House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez (Quezon) said I will go to court and invoke national security to stop China Telecom from participating in the telecoms industry. Similarly, Ako Bikol party-list Rep. Alfredo Garbin said Mislatel will have to be disqualified for possible violation of the legislative franchise granted by Congress. We have to determine who has controlling interest over the firm, how much was actually transferred of the interest. A congressional inquiry may be forthcoming, he said. Dr. Ortuoste, a writer and researcher, has a PhD in Communication. FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO
Former President Serzh Sarkisians Republican Party (HHK) of Armenia has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of illegally using his government levers to campaign for the December 9 parliamentary elections.

In a statement released late on Tuesday, the HHKs election campaign headquarters pointed to Pashinians visit on Monday to the Gegharkunik province during which he discussed the conduct of the elections with local government officials and held a rally in a regional town.

The HHK statement denounced that as a blatant abuse of administrative resources. It claimed that the prime ministers engagements in Gegharkunik ran counter to election-related guidelines set by the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Nikol Pashinian conducted a pre-election campaign during his work hours and within the framework of a working visit that was part of his official duties, using all institutional resources, said the statement. We call on the prime minister to strictly observe the rules set by international documents, ensure equal opportunities for all sides and do so with concrete actions, not words.

A senior HHK figure, Armen Ashotian, argued on Monday that Pashinians trip to Gegharkunik took place a week before the official start of campaigning for the polls.

Nikol Pashinian is  blatantly violating the Electoral Code right from the beginning, and this is not the only violation, Ashotian insisted on Wednesday.

The Gegharkunik rally was also criticized by Aram Sarkisian, a former Pashinian ally and the co-leader of the Menk (We) alliance also running for the parliament. Tert.am quoted him as saying that the authorities are creating unequal conditions for election contenders.

Pashinian dismissed the criticism at a news conference on Tuesday. He insisted that he is performing his prime-ministerial duties, rather than campaigning for the polls which his My Step bloc is tipped to win.

The premier held more such rallies when he visited another Armenian province, Aragatsotn, on Wednesday. We believe that Armenia will be one of most powerful and prosperous countries in the world, he told supporters in the provincial capital Ashtarak.

The HHK itself was accused of heavily relying on and abusing government resources during Serzh Sarkisians decade-long rule. Many public and even private sector employees were reportedly pressured to vote for HHK candidates in presidential, parliamentary and local elections.

Pashinian has promised that the upcoming vote will be the most democratic in Armenias history.

Under a timetable approved by the Central Election Commission last week, the election campaign is supposed to get underway on November 26.
By Narmina Mammadova

Small and Medium Business plays an important role in development of the country's economy.

Azerbaijan pays special attention to the development of SMEs and this is a priority area of activity.

The public hearings on the improvement of legislation in the field of entrepreneurship development were held in Azerbaijans parliament on November 20.

Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) , Orhan Mammadov, said that adoption of the Law on Small and Medium Entrepreneurship (SME) in Azerbaijan, along with the definition of an advanced framework document, will contribute to enhancing the role of SMEs in the country's economy and strengthening legal support for entrepreneurship.

We, as an agency, using this platform effectively, are interested in actively involving business circles and entrepreneurs in the process of preparing legislation. Especially in the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, in the process of modernization of legislation, we need the proposals of entrepreneurs and look forward to their assessment. As an element of the country's economic policy, the sustainable development of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan is always a priority, he said.

The Agency for Development of SMEs created at the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev, will serve to adapt the management system of enterprises to modern requirements, as well as to increase the role of small and medium businesses in the economy.

"The decree of President Ilham Aliyev dated June 26 to ensure the activities of the Agency contributes to a fundamental change in the development of small and medium businesses," he said.

The head of the agency noted that according to the decree, Small and Medium Business Houses, created at the agency, Small and Medium Business Development Centers, Small and Medium-Sized Business Development Funds, Center for the Development of State-Entrepreneurial Partnership, and created by the agency in all cities and districts of the Friends of Small and Medium Business network promote the use of a number of new and innovative mechanisms.

Our main goal is to achieve entrepreneurssatisfaction and to carry out our activities in accordance with the principles of transparency and efficiency, he stressed.

Orhan Mammadov said that the agencys task is to ensure the close participation of entrepreneurs in the discussions of legislative acts in this direction, taking measures to strengthen mutual trust between the business community and government bodies in the economic reforms carried out in the country, as well as conducting an examination of economic and other aspects of legislative acts affecting the activities of entrepreneurs.

Based on these responsibilities, as well as the assignment given by the relevant presidential decree Ilham Aliyev, the agency actively participated in the preparation of the law on the development of small and medium business, Orhan Mammadov added.

In addition, he said, the creation of a unified register of small and medium-sized businesses, the provision of public services through unified electronic information systems, the creation of favorable conditions for the participation of small and medium-sized businesses in public procurement, the creation of infrastructure to support entrepreneurship, are new mechanisms provided for by the draft law.

The Agency for Small and Medium Business Development of Azerbaijan was established on the basis of the decree on improvement of management in the field of small and medium-sized businesses signed by President Ilham Aliyev in December 2017.

The task of the Agency is to ensure the consistency of reforms, as well as the improvement of the business regulation system and the application of effective coordination, enhancing the role and competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses in the country's economy, and the compliance of the management system of this sphere with modern requirements.

As a single structure with special powers, through the Houses of SMEs, the Agency will organize, coordinate, evaluate and regulate the services rendered by state agencies and organizations in this area.

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By Narmina Mammadova

Automative sector is currently developing fast in Azerbaijan, as more plants engaged in the production of cars are being launched across the country.

Mechanical engineering occupies one of the most important places among the industrial sectors of the country.The origin of the mechanical engineering industry in Azerbaijan is associated with the start of oil production in 1848 and it specialized in the field of petroleum engineering until recently.

In recent years, Azerbaijan has developed newer industries in addition to petroleum engineering. The country has achieved certain success in the development of transport engineering, namely the automotive sector.

Presently, Iran Khodro, the largest Iranian carmaker, is expanding its cooperation with Azerbaijan.

The company has begun production of its Samand model in Azerbaijan, Report.az informed.

Khazar Automobile Company is already producing a Dena sedan. According to IKCO Press, production of the new Samand model has started this weekend.

Earlier, IKCO established a joint venture with the Azerbaijani automobile company AzerMash OJSC Khazar Automobile Company in the Neftchala Industrial Park on August 6, 2016. The total cost of the project is estimated at 24 million manats ($14.12 million). The Azerbaijani side has invested 75 percent, while the Iranian side  only 25 percent.

All vehicles manufactured at the plant comply with Euro-5 standards. The plant plans to start exporting cars next year.

The Khazar plant was opened during a two-day visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Azerbaijan. The annual capacity of the plant is about 10,000 cars. These cars are expected to be delivered not only to Russia, but also to Ukraine and Central Asian countries in the future.

The plant produces Khazar LD and Khazar SD models. The assemblage of a number of Peugeot and Renault models will be carried out in the future. They will cost 18,000-21,000 manats ($10,600-12,300). The cost of cars presently produced at the plant is 14,000-16,000 manats ($8,200-$9,400).

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By Leman Mammadova

The Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO) CJSC is studying the possibility of transition to the standards of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which will be introduced starting from 2020, the company told Trend.

Beginning from January 1, 2020, the sulfur content in heavy fuel used on ships sailing in international waters should not exceed 0.5 percent.

In order for ships to meet these requirements, there are two ways - to replace heavy fuels with light ones or to install a special exhaust gas cleaning system (EGCS), the company noted.

Today, 14 ASCO ships are sailing in international waters [in the Azov, Black and Mediterranean seas], and the company intends to choose one of the two above-mentioned solutions.

"We are conducting research in this area, and after receiving the results, we will choose one of the two options," the company noted.

As for the ships of the company that are sailing in the Caspian Sea, the company said that the vast majority of them use diesel fuel, to which the new standards do not apply. The sulfur content in the heavy fuel used by the remaining vessels does not exceed 0.1 percent.

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO) has been established with the aim of continuing fundamental structural reforms in the economy, enhancing local and international shipping in the maritime sector, strengthening the country's competitiveness and transit potential.

Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company provides transport services related to offshore oil and gas operations within Trans-Caspian as well as the transshipment of cargoes and passengers.

The company includes specialized fleet, shipyards as well as transport fleet.

The International Maritime Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations, which is responsible for the protection, safety of the maritime environment and the international maritime shipping.

Azerbaijan has been a member of the International Maritime Organization since 1995. Since that time, Azerbaijan has joined more than 20 international conventions and protocols in maritime transport such as conventions on Safety of Life at Sea, Prevention of Pollution from Ships, Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

As of 2000, the Azerbaijan State Maritime Academy has been included in the maritime training institutions catalog of the International Maritime Organization.

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By Leman Mammadova

In addition to many other areas, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also cooperates with Azerbaijan to strengthen the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the country's economy, to increase their specific weight and competitiveness.

The bank will provide technical assistance to the Azerbaijani Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), said head of ADB office in Azerbaijan Nariman Mannapbekov.

He noted that ADB will assist Agency for Development of SMEs to attract three experts.

One expert will prepare an instruction to evaluate the impact of laws and regulations on SMEs. Mannapbekov underlined that ADB strongly supports legislative discussion in this direction.

The second expert will be a lawyer, legal advisor who works in this area and who knows where and how improve the legislation. Mannapbekov noted that such an expert will receive ADB's grant support in the near future.

ADB believes that the private sector is the main driver of economic growth, sustainable and stable economic growth can be achieved through private investments.

The main objective of the Asian Development Bank is to support the economic development of member countries and to help alleviate poverty and improve the living standards of the population. Azerbaijan joined ADB in 1999. ADB has approved a $ 4.61 billion loan, guarantee, grant and technical assistance for the country since then. In 2004, the Bank's local representative office was opened in our country. Azerbaijan hosted the 48th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Bank in 2015.

The Asian Development Bank will allocate $ 815 million from its credit resources to Azerbaijan in 2019-2021. This is stated in the bank's three-year business plan. Thus, in 2019, the bank will allocate $ 250 million to the country, $ 265 million in 2020, and $ 300 million in 2021.

These loans, which will be allocated by the bank for three years, will focus on projects in the energy sector, ensuring macroeconomic stability and improving the efficiency of public administration.

So far, ADB provided the development projects in Azerbaijan such as Second Road Network Development Program, Water Supply and Sanitation Investment Program, Power Distribution Enhancement Investment Program, Southern Gas Corridor project, Railroad sector development program and etc.

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By Trend

The Agency for Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Azerbaijan is interested in cooperation with scientific and educational centers, Chairman of the agencys board Orkhan Mammadov said.

He made the remarks Nov. 21 during the ceremony of signing a memorandum between the agency and the Azerbaijan State University of Economics.

He noted that the memorandum will define specific areas and forms of this cooperation and will create a broad platform for action.

The agency is developing models and mechanisms designed to support SMEs in fulfilling the tasks set by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, said Mammadov.

Another important area of cooperation includes supporting innovative initiatives, he noted.

Mammadov stressed that the integration of scientific innovations into business is of particular importance from the point of view of organizing and increasing the competitiveness of business entities at the level of modern requirements, and also noted that the memorandum provides for joint efforts aimed at achieving specific practical results in this direction.

One more important area of cooperation includes promotion of volunteering, he said.

I am confident that our joint efforts in these areas will make significant contribution to the course of economic reforms, having ensured sustainable development of entrepreneurship, he added.

The Agency for the Development of SMEs of Azerbaijan was established on the basis of the decree on improvement of management in the field of SMEs signed by President Ilham Aliyev in December 2017.

The task of the agency is to ensure the consistency of reforms, as well as the improvement of the business regulation system and the application of effective coordination, enhancing the role and competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses in the countrys economy, and the compliance of the management system of this sphere with modern requirements.

As a single structure with special powers, through the Houses of SMEs, the agency will organize, coordinate, evaluate and regulate the services rendered by state agencies and organizations in this area.

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By Laman Ismayilova

Co-organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and the National Carpet Museum, "Seven Beauties" exhibition solemnly opened at the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum on November 21.

The exhibition promotes the great Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavis legacy, Trend reported.

Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony.

Addressing the ceremony, Leyla Aliyeva highlighted the concept of the exhibition which is based on the poem of the Azerbaijani poet of the 12th century Nizami Ganjavi "Seven Beauties" and the ballet of the same name by the world-renowned Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev.

"The concept of this exhibition is based on the poem of the great 12th century Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi and the ballet of the world famous composer Gara Garayev. Today you can see miniatures, carpets and jewelry. This exposition is also enriched with classical national music, classical dance and elements of modern art," said Leyla Aliyeva.

"The poem "Seven beauties" - one of the best examples of oriental poetry. The whole depth, the philosophical world of this work is transmitted through carpets, projections of book miniatures, objects of decorative and applied art and installations. Archival materials on the ballet "Seven Beauties" are the most valuable historical references, which are now also available to viewers. Today, you can also get information from vintage posters, ballet programs and photos. The opening of the exhibition "Seven Beauties" is very important, because the works of the great Nizami are a whole epoch in Azerbaijani literature," she added.

Leyla Aliyeva thanked director of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum Elena Titova and those who contributed to the organization of the exhibition.

In her remarks, director of the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum Elena Titova hailed very good relations with their Azerbaijani counterparts, as well the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum. She thanked the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for the organization of the exhibition.

"Most of the halls are dedicated to the works of the brilliant composer Gara Garayev. His ballet "Seven Beauties" is a unique work. But the exhibition is not only about the ballet. Its concept is wider, the exposition refers to the great Azerbaijani epic, the poem of the 12th century poet and philosopher Nizami Ganjavi," she said.

She also thanked the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for the organization of the exhibition.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglu pointed out that a number of significant events dedicated to Azerbaijan has been recently held in Moscow. He noted that all of them were organized with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and thanked Vice-President Leyla Aliyeva for her active involvement and assistance in the organization of these events.

The project comprehensively presents Azerbaijani culture in the synthesis of carpet, jewelry, miniature, national classical music, classical dance and contemporary art.

The exhibition space immerses the viewer into the legend of the seven beauties and Shah Bahram. The philosophical world of this important literary work for Azerbaijani culture will be recreated through the carpets, projections of book miniatures, objects of decorative and applied art, installations.

The exhibition includes scenes from the ballet "Seven beauties" by Gara Garayev, written on the basis of the poem by Nizami Ganjavi, and archival materials on this staging.

The exhibition "Seven beauties" will run until February 3, 2019.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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Leman Mammadova

Car production has increased in Azerbaijan.

In Azerbaijan, the production of machinery and equipment, cars, trailers and semi-trailers reached 241.1 million manat ($ 141.86 million), the State Statistics Committee said in a statement on 20 November.

Compared to the same period of the previous year, the production of cars increased by 26.5 times, machinery and equipment - by 17.7 percent and other vehicles - by 65.6 percent. As many as 1,220 tractors, 610 cars were produced.

Azerbaijan is eager to eliminate dependence on imported cars and at the same time to create opportunities for exports. The country imported 16,382 vehicles in January-September 2018, which is by 9,739 units or 2.5 times more than the indicator of the same period of last year.

Azerbaijan, which is currently working to develop its car industry and encouraging interior purchases, is developing its own automobile manufacturing market.

As of March 2018, AzerMash OJSC - Iran Khodro Joint Venture Khazar car plant, one of the largest enterprises in the Neftchala Industrial District, has launched production of locally-manufactured cars.

The enterprise planned for 10,000 cars annually. In the first stage, it will produce 6,000 cars, such as Runna, Samand, Soren, Dena, Pejo, Reno, by the end of 2019. These cars will be sold mainly on the local market.

The Azerbaijan-Iran joint car plant Khazar plans to start exporting cars to Russia and other CIS countries next year.

A major Iranian automaker Iran Khodro and Azerbaijani company Azeurocar (subsidiary of AzerMash) signed an agreement on August 6, 2016 to establish a joint automobile plant in the Neftchala Industrial Zone.

Total investment in the plant is about $ 15 million. Azerbaijan holds 75 percent share while 25 percent belongs to Iran. Regarding the quality, brand received a quality certificate of "Euro 5". It should be noted that, there are also car factories in Ganja and Nakhchivan cities of Azerbaijan.

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A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on November 21.

The new edition includes articles Trade turnover with Georgia hits $450 million, apital hosts international environmental exhibition Caspian ecology 2018, Azerbaijani-Belarusian tractors to be assembled in Turkey, WB proposes solutions for agriculture development etc.

AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
By Abdul Kerimkhanov

A feature-documentary film The Last Session, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), was demonstrated in Antalya, Turkey.

The general producer of the film, shot with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and sponsored by BP Azerbaijan, is president of the Baku Media Center Arzu Aliyeva.

The film was screened with the organizational support of the Public Association "Young Reformers" and the Serik Municipality.

The presentation of the film was attended by social and political figures, representatives of the intelligence, deputies of both countries, youth activists of Antalya, chairman of the municipality of Serik, representatives of the public and the media.

Speakers noted that the idea of nationwide leader Heydar Aliyev One nation, two states existed in all periods of history, told about the historical struggle of the Azerbaijani state for independence.

Chairman of the Young Reformers Public Association Farid Shahbazly called the film "The Last Session" a successful screen work, perfectly reflecting all aspects of the 23 months of the existence of the ADR. Shahbazly said that today's modern and strong Azerbaijan is a worthy heir to the ADR. He declared that after gaining independence for the second time, Azerbaijan, thanks to the far-sighted policy of great leader Heydar Aliyev, has become an authoritative country on a global scale.

Shahbazly drew attention to the friendly and fraternal ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey, and particularly noted that the film reflects Turkeys support for Azerbaijan on a difficult path leading to independence.

Professor Ramazan Chalyk, chairman of the Serik municipality, said that showing this historical past of Azerbaijan to brotherly Turkey, which declared independence for the first time in the East 100 years ago, is very important. The chairman of the municipality spoke about the fraternal ties between the two countries, which are becoming ever stronger in recent years, and added that, despite the difficulties, this unity is eternal and unbreakable. Chalyk also said that the rapid development of modern Azerbaijan is closely watched throughout the world.

Deputy of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) of Azerbaijan Nagif Hamzayev in his speech told about the history of the ADR and said that after its fall, fraternal Turkey sheltered Azerbaijani figures - the heroes of this struggle.

The audience met with great interest the film, which reflects the activities of the ADR, the problems it faced, the reasons for the fall of the ADR, as well as important historical moments of the restoration of independence.

Then there was an acquaintance with photos reflecting the history of the ADR.

In the performance of young talents under the leadership of the honored artist of Azerbaijan Aybeniz Gashimova sounded the song "The Black Sea was raging" and other compositions on a patriotic theme.

Feature-documentary film The Last Meeting, the general producer of which is Arzu Aliyeva, was shot by the Baku Media Center in order to tell about this glorious history of Azerbaijan. The film sheds light on the last days of the difficult history of the ADR.

The image of Mammad Emin Rasulzade in the ADR period was embodied by actor Elnur Huseynov, and in the period of his old age - his grandson Rais Rasulzade. The film script is written on the basis of archival documents that have not been studied and classified before. The screen work reflects the unequal, but an irreversible and decisive struggle of the founders of the ADR both with the invading army and with the internal patrons of this army. Despite the fact that this struggle ended tragically, it is emphasized that it has become a glorious history of the independence of Azerbaijan.

Despite tough bans during the Soviet period, the ADR flag began to be used in the late 1980s during the national liberation movement. The tricolor flag was approved on November 17, 1990 as the national flag of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic at the session of the Supreme Majlis of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, which was initiated and chaired by Heydar Aliyev. All these historical moments reflect interesting and original shots at the end of the film.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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"There must be transparency in all the deals our government entered into."

Its still too early to make an assessment of the two-day state visit of Chinas president, Xi Jinpingwhether it was mutually beneficial for both countries, or only for China. But definitely, Xi came, saw and conquered. I think at this point there is need for the Duterte administration to be transparent insofar as the deals we supposedly got from China. Are we being lured into a debt trap? Still, President Duterte must realize that many Filipinos have little trust in China, and many condemn our governments inaction on territorial disputes on the West Philippine Sea. The most significant issue, to my mind, that became a done deal is the joint agreement on the exploration of oil, gas and other mineral resources. Here, the government needs to be really transparent. For one thing, does this agreement on the joint exploration mean co-ownership or something else? If its co-ownership, which I recall President Duterte had called it at one time, then that is an abdication of sovereigntyunacceptable in any condition. Its surrendering our sovereignty to China. Its outright treason! This could be unconstitutional and will certainly be contested before the Supreme Court. This is why there needs to be transparency on the 29 deals signed by Chinese and Filipino officials. * * * Mislatel, the Mindanao-based consortium of Davao Citys multi-billionaire Dennis Uy, has been promising a lot of things after the government has accepted itprovisionallyas the third telecommunication player to break the duopoly of Globe and Smart. It promises fast Internet and better services. All I can say is that it remains to be seen. Breaking the duopoly is easier said than done. There had been others that tried, but they soon were absorbed by one or the other. The question is, will the subscribers of Smart and Globe now go for Mislatel on the strength of its promises? Im just thinking, given the survey that Filipinos have low trust of the Chinese, Mislatel may have a difficult time. * * *One of the biggest factors preventing any president from getting rid of corruption in government is the fact that even a well-intentioned official could be helpless when he finds there are many corrupt people around him. Then he becomes a team player. Or, if he tries to resist, the corrupt people begin a smear campaign against him. This is exactly what happened when a Duterte appointee tried to clean up the mess in a government agency. This appointee discovered that some lawyers assigned to government-owned and -controlled corporations were getting excessive allowances in violation of the law. The rules say the allowances should not exceed 50 percent of annual salaries. Thus, when the Commission on Audit flagged these excessive allowances, the head of agency considered them bribes. When the appointee refused to participate in this scheme, those lawyers started a whispering campaign against him. That campaign reached the President who told the official that he was not a team player and that he was critical of the administration when he was just expressing his honest opinion. Soon enough, the appointee was sacked. The President made things worse when he made all those allowance-receiving lawyers head the agency. Eradicate corruption in government? Forget it. * * * With so many being arrested in the name of the campaign against illegal drugs, I wonder where they are detained. If they are kept in city or municipal jails, I can imagine the deplorable conditions they are in. There are reportedly over a million of these individuals, mostly coming from poor communities. This is the reason I want the President to visit jails in Metro Manila. And then he would see how miserable they are with a food budget of P50 a day, and taking turns sleeping on the floor. There were plans to relocate the National Bilibid Prison to Laur, Nueva Ecija in that 500-hectare area now occupied by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. There were already three bidders who had pre-qualified, Somehow, though, former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II scuttled it. Why? * * * Another 365 Club regular is gone. I refer to former Ifugao Governor and Congressman Bert Lumauig. His remains were flown to Ifugao and will be returned to Manila this Sunday.
By Trend

Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov is holding a meeting in Baku with chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Vladimer Chachibaia.

At the meeting, the sides are discussing issues of developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, including ensuring the security of projects being implemented in the region, and a number of other issues.

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By Trend

The trilateral meeting of defense officials of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia is a vivid example of strategic cooperation, Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov said at the meeting of the trilateral format with chiefs of the general staffs of the Georgian and Turkish armed forces.

The minister reminded that this meeting is being held for the third time.

The main goal of the meeting is to contribute to restoring peace and stability in the region, ensuring security of strategic economic projects being implemented by three neighboring states and deepening cooperation between the armed forces of the three states, Hasanov said. I am confident that the meeting will be held at a high level.

Zakir Hasanov is holding a meeting in Baku with chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Vladimer Chachibaia.

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By Trend

The ties of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have a long history, chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia said in Baku Nov. 21.

He was speaking at the meeting with Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov and chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler.

Chachibaia noted that all three countries are strategic partners in the region.

Military cooperation within this partnership is also very important, he said. Cooperation in ensuring security of economic projects in the region continues successfully. We understand that todays meeting is very important.

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By Trend

Head of Azerbaijans State Border Service, Colonel-General Elchin Guliyev received a delegation led by chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler, the State Border Service said in a message Nov. 21.

At the meeting, the sides highly appreciated the state of bilateral relations between Azerbaijans State Border Service and the Turkish Armed Forces, and exchanged views on prospects for cooperation.

Guliyev particularly noted the exceptional merits of national leader Heydar Aliyev in building friendship and strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Guliyev stressed that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attaches great importance to the development of these relations, adding that mutual relations are at the highest level.

During the conversation, the parties raised the issue related to the operational situation on the state border of Azerbaijan, threats to border security, including continuation of the occupation by Armenia of 20 percent of the territory and a part of the state borders of Azerbaijan, as well as the use of these territories for illegal purposes.

Information was provided on measures to combat illegal migration, smuggling, drug trafficking, strengthening the border security system, etc.

The sides exchanged views on strengthening border security, exchanging experience and information, organizing joint exercises, expanding mutual cooperation and other issues of mutual interest.

The meeting was attended by Ambassador of Turkey to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral.

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By Trend

Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia are successfully expanding military ties, chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Yashar Guler said in Baku Nov. 21.

He was speaking at the meeting with Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov and chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia.

Guler noted that the military ties of the three states have reached a strategic level.

We will continue to make every effort to expand them, said Guler.

As representatives of the power structures of the three fraternal and friendly countries, we gathered in Baku today for an important meeting, he noted. This is our third meeting. After holding meetings in bilateral and trilateral formats, we will discuss the situation in the region. The military ties are developing successfully. I believe that very important results will be achieved at todays meeting.

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By Trend

The next trilateral meeting of the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia will be held in 2019 in Turkey, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said.

Hasanov made the remarks in Baku on Nov. 21 at a press conference held after his meeting with Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, Army General Yasar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Major General Vladimer Chachibaia.

The minister added that the date of the meeting will be clarified after the invitation of the Turkish side.

Developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, ensuring the security of projects being implemented in the region, and a number of other issues were discussed at the Nov. 21 meeting.

The meeting testifies that the cooperation of the three fraternal countries is at a strategic level, he said. The meeting was aimed at ensuring the security of strategic, economic projects being implemented in the region, as well as rendering support for the peace and stability in the region.

"The high level of cooperation of the countries' armies in a trilateral format was confirmed at the meeting, he added. The cooperation in the military, military-medical and other spheres is planned to be further strengthened.

"Presently, tripartite command and staff exercises are being held in Turkey, Hasanov said. The military personnel of the three countries have been involved in the exercises since 2018."

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By Trend

Representatives of the power structures of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia signed a protocol on the results of a trilateral meeting in Baku.

The meeting of Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov, Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Major-General Vladimir Chachibaia was held in Baku.

The meeting discussed issues of developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, ensuring the security of projects implemented in the region, etc.

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By Trend

Belarus visit is another success of the foreign policy by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Deputy Chairperson of the Azerbaijani parliament Bahar Muradova told reporters in Baku Nov. 21.

She reminded that Azerbaijan and Belarus are strategic partners and noted that the two countries carry out mutually beneficial cooperation on many important issues.

We have the same opinions on many issues, she said. During this visit, it was said that both states, without discussions, will protect each others interests.

She noted that this visit attracted the attention by the issues discussed, the signed documents and the spirit of the statements made by both presidents.

The emphasis on the importance of settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as similar conflicts, on the principles of international law, within the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states shows that more countries in the world support this position, she said. At the same time, we have witnessed that the strong friendship between the heads of state, our peoples and the close cooperation of the relevant state agencies positively affect bilateral relations.

On Nov. 18-19, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was on an official visit to Belarus, and nine Azerbaijani-Belarusian documents were signed there.

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By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which is the largest component of the Southern Gas Corridor, has been connected to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on the banks of the Merich River on the Turkish-Greek border, Turkish media outlets reported.

A connection of two gas pipelines was an important step towards the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project, as reported by the TANAP and TAP consortia.

Azerbaijani gas from the second stage of development of the Shah Deniz field will be pumped to Europe, according to TAP.

The welding of TANAP and TAP pipes was supervised by representatives of two consortia.

The total length of TANAP is 1,850 kilometers. TANAP originates in the village of Turkgozu in the province of Ardahan, in the border zone between Turkey and Georgia, crosses 20 Turkish provinces and 67 settlements and stretches to Ipsala in the province of Edirne, where it is connected to TAP.

The initial capacity of the TANAP pipeline is expected to be 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year. About six billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to Turkey, and the rest to Europe. The project's shareholders are Southern Gas Corridor CJSC (51 percent), STEAS (7 percent), BOTAS (30 percent), BP (12 percent).

TANAP, also called the Energy Silk Road, was a historic step towards turning Turkey into an energy hub.

TANAP and TAP are the parts of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is intended to deliver gas from the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz to Europe.

On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project, and on June 12, the opening ceremony of TANAP pipeline was held in the Turkish province of Eskisehir with the participation of the presidents of Azerbaijan - Ilham Aliyev, Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine - Petro Poroshenko and Serbia - Alexander Vucic.

TANAP shareholders are Southern Gas Corridor CJSC (51 percent), STEAS (7 percent), BOTAS (30 percent), BP (12 percent).

TAP, along with TANAP, is a part of Southern Gas Corridor project. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz-2 gas field to Greece and southern Italy across the Adriatic Sea through Greece and Albania, and involves designing, construction and operation of the natural gas pipeline.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on the TAP project was signed by Albania, Italy and Greece in February 2013. The cost of the project is 4.5 billion euros.

The TAP project is one of the strategic objectives of the EU in the energy security and diversification of energy sources, chosen as the shortest and direct way to export natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European markets.

Construction of nearly 74.6 percent of the 878 km pipeline has been completed, of which 550 kilometers will pass through the northern part of Greece, 215 kilometers - Albania, 105 kilometers - the Adriatic Sea and 8 kilometers - Italy. The TAP pipeline is expected to be commissioned in 2020. The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of doubling it.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Kazakhs auto concern "Saryarka" will send to Russia a consignment of Ravon cars produced in Kostanay, Uzbek media reports.

Saryarka launched a large-unit assembly of the Ravon Nexia R3 sedan in Kostanay in 2017. Capacity assembly - about 3,000 cars a year, with the possible increase in production of up to 7,000 cars. In the first six months of 2018, about 400 Ravon were released.

Sirpi Seneibiyev, director of the Saryarka auto industrial enterprise during the first Forum of Interregional Cooperation of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan said that joint production of Ravon R3 cars has become popular in Kazakhstan. Thanks to the production in Kazakhstan, this model has become even more popular. This is a joint project with Uzbek partners under the certificate of Kazakhstan assembly. This gives the opportunity to fall under large state support programs, the director declared.

Seneibiyev said that in the near future the enterprise will complete the production of a batch of 130 cars for the domestic market and about 170 more cars have already been prepared for export to Russia.

Under the Long-term Cooperation Agreement, Uzavtosanoat and Saryarka are implementing a joint project to export products to foreign markets, including the EAEU market. The document also provides for further deepening of localization of production and mastering the production of new models.

GM Uzbekistan sold about 5,100 cars in Russia in 2018. At the same time, the last sales of the Uzbek Ravon assembly were registered in May, when 508 cars were sold.

In the structure of Kazakhstans trade turnover with the countries of the EAEU, more than 90 percent fall for Russia. Since in Russia there is a tendency for import substitution and reorientation to export supplies to Southeast Asia, Kazakhstan can play its own role, corresponding to the scale of the economy.

By the end of 2017, Kazakh companies sent more than $600 million to the Russian economy. The growth compared to 2016 was more than 60 percent. In particular, Kazakh companies are actively investing in construction and agriculture.

For the seven months of 2018, Russian exports to Kazakhstan grew by about 8 percent, and Kazakhstan's to Russia - by more than 12 percent.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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Irate citizens took to social media to express their frustration and anger at the road rerouting done in connection with the two-day state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. While the Metro Manila Development Authority made a prior advisory on which roads would be closed and when, it appeared there were many unannounced changes that caused traffic mayhem and which led those headed for the airport, for instance, to walk the rest of the way so they would not miss their flights.

Then again, we Filipinos are used to bending over backwards when there are visiting dignitaries. We endure the inconveniencesperhaps even cursing at the visitor like no less than President Duterte did when Pope Francis was here three years agoand console ourselves with the thought that such hassles are temporary anyway, and we could go back to our routine the following day. Such is the Filipinos good and hospitable nature. Unfortunately, the road closures are just a minor test. One of the highlights of Xis visit was the supposed signing of a memorandum of understanding for a joint PH-China exploration of oil, gas and minerals in the West Philippine Sea. The problem, of course, is that this is contested territory, and Chinas not-so-subtle incursions into it have angered many Filipinos. Mr. Dutertes apparent subservience to the Chinese anger many, even more.Even some Cabinet officials are feeling the heat. Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin was livid when he learned that the draft agreement had not been prepared by the Philippines but by China, and that Malacanang spokesman Salvador Panelo said the author of the agreement was irrelevant because it would be scrutinized anyway. Locsin himself took to Twitter to express his disgust. Palace Com doesnt care if it is a Chinese draft? I fu*k*n* care! he said Wednesday morning. A framework or architecture for gas and oil in our part of the sea demands that draft be MINE... MIO... FILIPINO. The issue was worsened by the revelation that neither the Foreign Affairs Department nor the Energy Department had with them signed copies of the agreement. Lawmakers are correct in demanding transparency, because the issue transcends mere economics. It strikes at the heart of our assertion of sovereignty, given that there seems to be no effort on the administrations part to even capitalize on the victory weve had from the Permanent Court of Arbitration two years ago. It is good to relations with our giant neighbor, show goodwill and even enter into partnerships for a mutual good. But how is mutuality defined? Does it cover an agreement that will have benefits to both parties but is skewed toward one more than the other? When we elected our leaders into office, we conveyed that we trusted them to champion our interests, no one elses, at all costs. Certainly we did not give them the blanket authority to pervert the virtue of hospitality that Filipinos are known for.
By Trend

Russias agricultural firm KRiMM and the German breeding company NORIKA tried to grow the Tyumen seed potatoes in Uzbekistan in 2007, but the project was unsuccessful, Director General of KRiMM Gennady Ryazanov told Trend.

According to him, the Russian company currently does not plan to grow seed potatoes outside the Tyumen region of Russia, but is going to supply seeds for growing potato crop instead.

Ryazanov noted that the company will supply potato seeds to Uzbekistan, and plans to receive an early potato harvest in May-June.

Every day, up to 400 tons of potatoes and other vegetables are shipped through the terminals of KRiMM. As of today, 3,000 tons of potatoes have been delivered to Uzbekistan.

"There is an opportunity to establish a full-fledged cooperation with Uzbekistan. During the visit to this country of the delegation of the Tyumen region, headed by the governor, we suggested that our trading partners buy KRiMMs potato seeds and grow them. It will be possible to arrange supply of fresh products back to us in May or even earlier, around the time when a certain deficit is usually observed," Ryazanov noted earlier.

To develop further cooperation, the parties agreed to improve the supply logistics.

"There are lots of nuances in the supply of potatoes, which lead to delays. We need to consider this and remove extra barriers. It is also a good idea to load wagons, returning from Uzbekistan, with cherries, dried fruits, fresh onions, garlic and apples. That will certainly look like a full-fledged trade cooperation. Such proposals are already being discussed," Ryazanov added.

Russia is the second largest trade partner of Uzbekistan. In January-September 2018, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Russia amounted to $4.18 billion, of which $1.53 billion account for exports from Uzbekistan and $2.65 billion for imports from Russia.

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By Trend

German companies have expressed willingness to take part in the seawater desalination projects, according to Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper.

A business forum is scheduled to be held in Berlin in February 2019. The management of the board of the Eastern Committee of the German economy is expected to visit Turkmenistan in March.

During the recent visit of the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to Hamburg and Berlin, several meetings were held.

The meeting was held with Chairman of the Board of the Eastern Committee of the German economy Wolfgang Buchele. The prospects for cooperation in such areas as energy, gas and chemical industry, transport and communications, the banking sector were discussed during the meeting.

German companies make a significant contribution to the implementation of long-term projects in Turkmenistan. Among them are such companies as Siemens, Daimler, Claas, Rohde & Schwarz, Dresser-Rand.

As of 2016, 167 investment projects and contracts with German capital worth $540 million and about 555 million euros were registered in Turkmenistan.

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By Trend

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on Nov. 20 to discuss the state of affairs in the oil and gas industry and its further development, the press service of the head of state said.

It is planned to implement 30 investment projects worth $36.5 billion in geological exploration, production and deep processing of hydrocarbons for the further development of the oil and gas sector until 2030.

It was noted at the meeting that if specific measures are not taken to increase hydrocarbon reserves, the existing reserves will shrink in half over the next 10-15 years. In this regard, the management of Uzbekneftegaz was instructed to expand the scale of geological exploration and increase production, modernize existing and open new fields, deeply process oil and gas resources, and expand investment attraction.

The president also noted that most of the gas pipelines and the gas distribution system was built in the last century and is in need of repair. In the future, in order to guarantee the supply of natural gas to consumers, a project worth $1.6 billion will be implemented to modernize the trunk gas transmission system and control gas flows (SCADA).

In January-October 2018, Uzbekistan reduced oil production to 624,300 tons, which is 9.2 percent less compared to the same period in 2017.

At the same time, natural gas production amounted to about 49.46 billion cubic meters, which is 6.8 percent more compared to the same period of 2017.

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By Trend

The European Union (EU) supports Irans accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), said director for international affairs in the European Commission's DG Agriculture John Clarke.

He made the remarks on the second day of the seminar dedicated to the development of agricultural cooperation between Iran and EU, standards, food products and agricultural products in Tehran, Mehr news agency reported.

Although the US hinders Irans joining the WTO, the EU is making efforts for ensuring Irans membership in this organization.

Rules are always changing in Europe and consumers always demand high standards for food products. Iran and EU face problems in financial exchange and indeed, such meetings are first steps towards improving the relations, said Clarke.

Iran's Working Party for accession to WTO was established on May 26, 2005. The Working Party has not yet met.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the worlds trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.

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By Trend

The 6th meeting of Secretaries of Security Councils of the CIS member states is underway in Moscow Nov. 21.cc

Azerbaijan is represented at the meeting by Head of the countrys Presidential Administration Ramiz Mehdiyev and President`s Assistant for Work with Law Enforcement Bodies and Military Issues, department head Fuad Alasgarov.

The secretaries of Security Councils of the CIS member states are discussing areas of joint work to curb the financing of terrorist activities, including countering the legalization of proceeds from crime.

Other relevant issues of ensuring regional security in the CIS space, international cooperation through security councils are also on the agenda of the meeting.

Opening the meeting, Secretary of Russias Security Council Nikolai Patrushev noted that the agenda of the meeting contains problems on common threats and challenges for the CIS member states.

Patrushev stressed that since holding such a meeting in 2017, the CIS member states have organized an exchange of analytical information about the situation around the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and their affiliated structures in the Afghan-Pakistan border area and the Middle East.

Meetings of the CIS foreign ministers were held at the UN Security Council site to discuss topics related to building regional partnership in Central Asia, he said.

During command-staff and practical antiterrorist exercises, joint measures were worked out to curb the activities of members of international terrorist groups, he noted.

Military-technical cooperation has received additional development, he said.

Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev, acting Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Valery Semerikov, representatives of the Security Councils, ministries, departments and scientific organizations of the CIS member states are taking part in the meeting.

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By Trend

An OSCE delegation led by High Commissioner on National Minorities Lamberto Zannier is expected to visit Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 21-24, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

Meetings of the OSCE delegation are planned to be held in the Turkmen parliament, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Education during the visit.

Zannier is also expected to address lecturers and students of the International University for Humanities and Development and the Institute of International Relations of the Turkmen Foreign Ministry.

The OSCE high commissioner also intends to visit Turkmenistans Dashoguz region during the visit.

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By Laman Ismayilova

With natural and man-made landmarks that mesmerize everyone who has a chance to see them, the Gakh region has much to offers visitors.

From beautiful waterfalls to emerald green forests, it is spectacular whichever way you look at it.

The region is home to some of the most charming villages in the world.

Each of them has its own unique charm, attractive heritage and rich history.

Nestled in the heart of Gakh region, the charming village of Ilisu is known throughout the country for its picturesque valleys, majestic waterfalls and historical sites.

Ilisu, located along the banks of the Kurmuk and Hamamchay rivers 12 kilometers from the administrative center of the region and 1,400 meters above the sea level, is one of the most ancient settlements in Azerbaijan.

The area around the village has many historic monuments, including ancient Albanian Christian churches of the 4th-5th centuries.

Walking around the village you can see ancient Sumuk fortress.

Sumuk Gala (or Sumu fortress) in the village of Ilisu has long been considered one of the symbols of Gakh region. But historians believe that the fortress lost its ancient original appearance after the restoration work carried out here.

There are still a lot of legends about this ancient fortress.

Not much was known about the ancient fortress. It is only known that it belongs to the 17-18th centuries.

Azerbaijan historian Mejid Mekhrani told Sputnik Azerbaijan that according to one of the legends, the fortress was built by a soldier named Sumu.

The local population often calls strong structures "sumuk" which means bone (Azerb.)

The residents of Ilisu pronounce the word as Sumuk, so the fortress remained in history as Sumuk Gala.

The historian thinks that the fortress may have been intended to protect one family, one clan. And it was built not by a soldier, but a feudal lord.

As a rule, such fortresses were built near houses, settlements for defense.

Another legend says that the fortress was built by the ruler of Ilisu named Sumu Khan.

But there wasn't even a mention of him in historical sources. There is only reference to Mohammed Khan, who ruled the sultanate for a certain period of time and was given the title Usmi.

The territory where the fortress is located is constantly exposed to the collapse of stones and rocks, its first floor remained almost completely under the rubble, but despite this, the building retained its strength.

The higher you go, the narrower the inner space becomes. There are two windows on the upper floors.

Recently, the historical monument was restored. This ancient fortress is probably one of the reasons why tourists cant get enough of it and keep returning to Ilisu year after year.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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Contact The Californians Robert Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@bakersfield.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz. His column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays; the views expressed are his own.
Turkey late Tuesday said it could call for a formal United Nations probe into the killing of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi as it complains about Saudi Arabias cooperation in efforts to shed light on the crime that drew global attention on the Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MbS) suspected for being the mastermind of the assassination.

Turkish top diplomat Mevlut Cavusoglu on a visit to Washington said following a meeting with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo that Ankara is not satisfied about the level of cooperation by Riyadh to investigate Kashoggis death in the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

We do not see Khashoggis murder as a bilateral matter between Turkey and Saudi Arabia; it is a humanitarian issue, Cavusoglu said.

The truth has to come out on who gave the instructions regarding his killing, he added.

Relatedly, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is demanding a definitive determination from President Donald Trump about whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

In a letter to Trump, the panels chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and ranking member, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), specifically asked on Tuesday whether the administration believed that bin Salman was involved in the murder of Khashoggi and was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last month.

Trump gave no ruling on bin Salmans involvement in a statement earlier Tuesday that largely sided with Saudi Arabia, declaring that maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

But under the Magnitsky Act, Trump can be required to make a determination about human rights violations by global leaders. The law requires the president to do so within 120 days of the committees request, as well as apply any sanctions.

Khashoggi disappeared on Oct. 02 after entering the consulate for some paperwork. Turkish authorities investigated the consulate and the Saudi Consuls house and established that the Saudi critic who wrote for The Washington Post was murdered and butchered by a hit-man squad that arrived from Riyadh with instructions from the highest levels of the Saudi government.

Ankara also obtained tapes of the killing that it said it shared with the US, France, Germany and UK and those who wanted to listen to them.

Saudi authorities after weeks of denying the murder have admitted that the 59-year old journalist who has fled the kingdom since September last year and had been in self-imposed exile in the US died in a brawl. Last week, however, under international pressure, they confessed the MbSs critic had been killed and his body dismembered when negotiations to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed.

The Saudi public prosecutor indicted 18 people believed linked to the killing. Five among them have been put on the death row.

Ankara has sought to judge the 18 in Turkey but Saudi authorities rejected the call noting that the men will face justice at home.
Editor's note: This article first appeared in the January 2017 issue of VIP magazine.

Local lore is that Officer Kolin Burmaster is the meanest, roughest, toughest, shrewdest cop in the Beaumont Police Department. People say he never lets anyone out of a speeding ticket, and he never smiles. In fact, there are rumors he is so mean, he even gave his own mom a speeding ticket.

The 64-year-old Marine veteran and 34-year Beaumont police officer, currently a motorcycle cop working traffic, agreed to talk about his notoriety.

(Actually, Burmaster agreed to talk about his love for his work and his admiration for his coworkers. However, once eyeball to eyeball with the black-leathered John Wayne of Beaumont's roadways, the temptation to explore the psyche of a man who has written speeding tickets to every known friend and foe was too great, plus the whole "mom story" had to be explored.)

Come to find out Burmaster is a likable, empathetic fella. He had a rough childhood, has been to jail, lets people out of tickets for the right reasons, has compassion and works as a police officer "to help people."

"I'm trying to help. It (getting a speeding ticket) makes you stop and think about your driving habits and hits your pocketbook; it's an important aspect, a necessity."

RELATED: Motorcycle wreck sidelines well-known BPD officer

So why is it that Burmaster is perceived as such an ornery character? He thinks he knows.

"Yes, I know what people think, that I'm a perfect circle with a dot in the center, but they don't have a clue," said Burmaster, who has been named officer of the year twice in his career and recognized on numerous occasions for his service to BPD.

"They just assume because I work south, north and east end, and the freeway, that I'm mean, a jerk. They don't know the people I let go."

Since watching the school crossing guard help people across the street when he was a child, Burmaster, a native Houstonian, has wanted to help people, and life events led him to pursue a career in law enforcement so he could.

When Burmaster was 5 years old, his dad was killed by a drunk driver, leaving his mom to raise three young children. Burmaster was the oldest.

"Mother was young, and it was tough times. My grandparents were instrumental. We were pretty poor; mother would cook okra with beans and bologna. Bologna was a staple. Now we laugh about it.

Three years later, mother married my step dad, a great step dad, but he was Hispanic, and it was the '50s so it was a rough ride."

School was also challenging. Burmaster was a poor student because he just didn't "like school." He did love television, and Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne and war flicks were a huge influence. "A Marine was always there. I knew I wanted to be a Marine, and the sheriffs were the good guys. I thought I could be a sheriff."

He learned as a teenager he wanted to be in with the good guys because he had a glimpse of life as a bad guy. As a 16-year-old Burmaster was issued a citation because the exhaust on his car was too loud. He ignored the ticket and a year later was pulled over for speeding and arrested for the outstanding ticket.

"I was locked up in the car  that was a rude awakening. They took me in a patrol car to a substation off North Shepherd where they put me in a paddy wagon with other prisons who were nasty individuals. Then we went to downtown Houston where we were thrown in jail, and they came in with a water hose and squirted us down.

I was clinging to the bars and holding on. I knew then I never ever, ever wanted to go to jail."

After graduating from LaPorte High School, Burmaster enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he spent 24 years  six years on active duty and 18 years in the Reserve. He was discharged in August 1975 and went to work in the oilfields until a downturn in the oil business in the early 1980s. That's when he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement and applied to several police departments in and around Houston including Beaumont. Beaumont called, and he got the job.

Burmaster moved to Beaumont in 1983 becoming a basic patrolman, and to this day he loves his job. "Every day brings something new. This is the greatest show on Earth, and we police officers have the best seat in the house. I've made great friends and horrible enemies, but to me it brings something fresh every day."

In his career Burmaster has stopped someone driving 121 mph on Interstate 10 and a teenager going 96 down West Lucas. He has made more than 100 contacts (that's cop talk for the number of tickets given) in a 15-hour day, and he has let some people off.

"I've never lied, never made a decision I wasn't 100 percent sure of even related to traffic violations. If I'm not 100 percent, I just cut them loose."

He has let a few violators go for other reasons  medical, obvious emotional distress and even creativity. "I look at the body language and can tell something is going on. You'd be surprised at some of the stories you hear that just can't be made up, and I think 'Would it be right to add more to them, another burden?'"

The most creative story to date that won freedom for a Burmaster customer was that of a biker traveling more than 60 mph near College and I-10. When he pulled the speeder over and asked if he knew how fast he was going, the driver admitted his speedometer didn't work, but he had a way of calculating his speed.

"He said he was watching the second hand on his watch while counting the strips in the road and knew the time between strips so he could calculate the speed. I thought that was really creative, so I let him go for originality."

But what about his mom?

"It wasn't my mom; it was my ex-wife, wife at the time. She was speeding, and I pulled her over. She deserved it."

Burmaster says "a bad day on a motorcycle beats a good day in a car," but he has had a "wagon load" of bad days.

On April 22, 1988, Paul Hulsey, an officer Burmaster had ridden with and had a locker across from, was killed in the line of duty. He recalls that day as one of his saddest as well as days others were killed serving the department including Conrad Gernale, Mike Lane, Lisa Beaulieu and Bryan Hebert.

"They say it's a brotherhood, and it is, for better or worse. Personally, just getting to be with the BPD, getting to ride motors, having the freedom and getting to work for great people, I've never met a person I didn't like on the force."

Another sad day for Burmaster was more recently when he removed himself from the Honor Guard, an elite group of officers Burmaster joined when the group formed in 1986. The officers attend the services of officers killed in the line of duty not only in the state of Texas but across the U.S. as representatives of BPD.

"I was in a class making comments to young officers that some of them will not live to see retirement, and I started getting misty eyed. You can't have these young officers see you do that. You can't let it affect you personally. I took myself off."

Burmaster will also remove himself from the BPD in the new few years. He has plans to retire and travel across Europe on his motorcycle, of course. He and his brother are going to see the world on their bikes.

"I'm a bit of history buff, so we're going cruise through Europe and stop and see historic places and sites."

Until then, Burmaster is here to help.

"I like helping people; it may sound idiotic, but that's what I like to do."

IN HIS OWN WORDS

Officer Kolin Burmaster on recent incidences of violence against police officers:

I grew up and people put out the flag, and you were respectful to veterans and people in authority; you never questioned those in authority. I worry about if we will have a United States. But nothing is normal, especially in the last three years because you just never know. You watch the news, and well I'm a lot more cautious than I used to be. I don't take people at face value, even my own family. You don't want to be that way, but you have to be careful.

On fear on the job:

I don't worry about dying; I know where I'm going. Afraid of getting shot? It's all in God's hands...just do the best you can.

I'm not worried about dying but I do look over my shoulder, check the rearview mirror and think about escape routes that I used to not think about. I want to believe in the good of mankind, but there are some pretty bad people out there, and they are just warped.

On regret:

I'd change some things in my personal life  marriage (pause). I had a great life and look forward to retirement and doing a few things but wouldn't change anything in the police department even with ups and downs.

On receiving awards:

I'm just doing my job so I don't look at it that way. They want eight hours, you give them 10. They want 10, you give them 12. I've never assumed my positions, never assumed I've tackled that position. Traffic is an at-will unit. At any point, they can come in, so still I make sure work ethic is never questioned. I'm flattered but don't think awards for doing my job are really awards.

Advice to speeders:

A lot of people can say a lot of stupid things and come off wrong, and the officer is going to react to their state of being.
Getty Images(COLLEGE PARK, Md.) -- As most college freshmen prepare to head home for Thanksgiving break -- often their first trip back since beginning school -- a family in Maryland is instead dealing with unspeakable tragedy.



University of Maryland freshman Olivia Paregol, 18, died Sunday from complications of adenovirus, a group of viruses that can cause sore throat, bronchitis and pneumonia. It has proven deadly in cases of those with compromised immune systems.



Paregol was being treated for Crohns disease, a inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, when she contracted adenovirus, her father told Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate WJLA.



Her father, Ian, said his daughter was only tested for the disease after learning others had been diagnosed and no information was sent out by the school. He criticized the university for not informing students sooner.



"I was told there were two students with the virus when I called to figure out what my daughter had, which means they knew it before my daughter," Ian Paregol told WJLA in a phone interview. "It is the worst nightmare that a family or certainly a parent can have to endure."



The University of Maryland said on Tuesday five other students have tested positive for the disease.



"I am sad to share that a University of Maryland student recently passed away from Adenovirus associated illness," the school said in its statement. "We offer our condolences during this difficult time.



"While we are normally prohibited from sharing medical information publicly, we have been authorized by a family member to share this news and urge others to take seriously this strain of a common virus," it continued.



The statement from David McBride, director of the University Health Center, said it first learned of "an isolated case" of adenovirus in a student on Nov. 1. The school said it has been testing students who come to the health center and one sample on Nov. 19 came back positive for adenovirus 7, a more potent strain of the disease.



Olivia Paregol was diagnosed with pneumonia on Nov. 9 and her condition continued to get worse, according to the Baltimore Sun. She was admitted to the intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital on Nov. 12.



"She definitely appeared to be getting sicker and sicker," Ian Paregol told WJLA.



Eleven children died at a medical facility in New Jersey beginning last month due to an outbreak of adenovirus. Officials said 34 children at Waneque Rehab Center in Haskell, New Jersey, were infected and 11 had died, the most recent over the weekend. The facility, which first announced the infections on Oct. 9, treated children who had weakened immune systems.



About 30,000 undergraduates attend the University of Maryland, with its main campus in College Park.







Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The US Treasury Tuesday put a group of Iranian, Russian and Syrian companies and individuals on its international blacklist over their network for allegedly shipping barrels of oil to the Bashar al-Assad regime and for funneling the returns of the oil sale to Irans powerful Revolutionary Guard, Lebanon-based Shia movement Hezbollah and Gaza ruler Hamas.

Today we are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, and in this case even used a company whose name suggests a trade in humanitarian goods as a tool to facilitate financial transfers supporting this oil scheme.

Mnuchin described Syrian national Mohammad Amer Alchwiki, and his Russia-based company, Global Vision Group, as the main suspect in the scheme, which also involved a subsidiary of the Russian Energy Ministry.

The network led by Alchwiki according to the Treasury Department shipped oil to the Assad regime and channeled the proceeds estimated at millions to the Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and Hamas that the US views as terror entities.

Using the Central Bank of Syria, Alchwiki coordinates the transfers with Hezbollah official Muhammad Qasir, who heads the Hezbollah unit responsible for facilitating the transfer of weapons, technology, and other support from Syria to Lebanon, a statement from the Department added.

The US administration did not provide evidence how the dividends from the oil shipments were secretly passed to Hamas.

Iran is already under US sanctions, which have targeted its oil industry. The sanctions were issued early this month as new punitive measure by the Trump administration to squeeze Tehran and to force it to negotiate a new nuclear deal after Trump tore into pieces the 2015 multinational nuclear accord over claims that the deal endorsed by the UN Security Council was full of flaws.
Six abandoned buildings in downtown Port Arthur will be razed as federal funds from Hurricane Ike roll in a decade later.

The buildings have been vacant for years. City officials hope their removal will attract growth to the largely dormant business district.

Its a good thing for Port Arthur, said Floyd Batiste, CEO of the Port Arthur Economic Development Corp. He called them blights on downtown.

Built by W.T. Grant Co. in 1938, the 701 Procter St. building was once a general store that trumpeted air-conditioning and 44-cent goods, according to online University of North Texas archives.

Construction workers hoisted by crane to the fourth floor of the structure steadily drilled away at layers of old brick on Tuesday afternoon, knocking out window by window into the belly of the abandoned site.

The neighboring Art Foundry building at 733 Procter will also be torn down as part of an approximately $650,000 federal grant administered by the General Land Office.

Assistant City Manager Ron Burton said all six flagged structures, which are privately owned, are uninhabitable.

The buildings dusty glass windows, if there are any windows at all, peek into piles of rubbish and debris from who knows how long, some of them definitely before Ike, Burton said.

Other sites slated for demolition include a white brick building at 535-49 E. Rev Ransom Howard; an abandoned car shop at 1048 Procter; an overgrown duplex at 2002 Procter; and a forgotten blue building at 1101 Procter.

Google Maps records show that most of the roofs are caving in.

Burton said he hopes the demolitions, which started last week, will be complete by years end.

The six property owners were approached by city officials and it was determined the structures were not structurally sound and couldnt be salvaged, Burton said.

He said property owners could have chosen to reinvest in the buildings to bring them up to code, which could cost at least $5 million. But all decided not to or didnt respond to the citys inquiries.

Burton said it provides another opportunity for reinvestment in our downtown area.

phoebe.suy@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/phoebesuy
Usually, we see AI algorithms that can detect a brain hemorrhage or a wrist fracture  a very narrow scope for single-use cases, said Matthew Lungren, MD, MPH, assistant professor of radiology. But here were talking about 14 different pathologies analyzed simultaneously, and its all through one algorithm.

The goal, Lungren said, is to eventually leverage these algorithms to reliably and quickly scan a wide range of image-based medical exams for signs of disease without the backup of professional radiologists. And while that may sound disconcerting, the technology could eventually serve as high-quality digital consultations to resource-deprived regions of the world that wouldnt otherwise have access to a radiologists expertise. Likewise, theres an important role for AI in fully developed health care systems too, Lungren added. Algorithms like CheXNeXt could one day expedite care, empowering primary care doctors to make informed decisions about X-ray diagnostics faster, without having to wait for a radiologist.

Were seeking opportunities to get our algorithm trained and validated in a variety of settings to explore both its strengths and blind spots, said graduate student Pranav Rajpurkar. The algorithm has evaluated over 100,000 X-rays so far, but now we want to know how well it would do if we showed it a million X-rays  and not just from one hospital, but from hospitals around the world.

A paper detailing the findings of the study was published online Nov. 20 in PLOS Medicine. Lungren and Andrew Ng, PhD, adjunct professor of computer science at Stanford, share senior authorship. Rajpurkar and fellow graduate student Jeremy Irvin are the lead authors.

Practice makes perfect

Lungren and Ngs diagnostic algorithm has been in development for more than a year. It builds on their work on a previous iteration of the technology that could outperform radiologists when diagnosing pneumonia from a chest X-ray. Now, theyve boosted the abilities of the algorithm to flag 14 ailments, including masses, enlarged hearts and collapsed lungs. For 11 of the 14 pathologies, the algorithm made diagnoses with the accuracy of radiologists or better.

Back in the summer of 2017, the National Institutes of Health released a set of hundreds of thousands of X-rays. Since then, theres been a mad dash for computer scientists and radiologists working in artificial intelligence to deliver the best possible algorithm for chest X-ray diagnostics.

We need to be thinking about how far we can push these AI models to improve the lives of patients anywhere in the world.

The scientists used about 112,000 X-rays to train the algorithm. A panel of three radiologists then reviewed a different set of 420 X-rays, one by one, for the 14 pathologies. Their conclusions served as a ground truth a diagnosis that experts agree is the most accurate assessment  for each scan. This set would eventually be used to test how well the algorithm had learned the telltale signs of disease in an X-ray. It also allowed the team of researchers to see how well the algorithm performed compared to the radiologists.

We treated the algorithm like it was a student; the NIH data set was the material we used to teach the student, and the 420 images were like the final exam, Lungren said. To further evaluate the performance of the algorithm compared with human experts, the scientists asked an additional nine radiologists from multiple institutions to also take the same final exam.

Thats another factor that elevates this research, Lungren said. We werent just comparing this against other algorithms out there; we were comparing this model against practicing radiologists.

Whats more, to read all 420 X-rays, the radiologists took about three hours on average, while the algorithm scanned the X-rays and diagnosed all pathologies in about 90 seconds.

Next stop: the clinic

Now, Lungren said, his team is working on a subsequent version of CheXNeXt that will bring the researchers even closer to in-clinic testing. The algorithm isnt ready for that just yet, but Lungren hopes that it will eventually help expedite the X-ray-reading process for doctors diagnosing urgent care or emergency patients who come in with a cough.

I could see this working in a few ways. The algorithm could triage the X-rays, sorting them into prioritized categories for doctors to review, like normal, abnormal or emergent, Lungren said. Or the algorithm could sit bedside with primary care doctors for on-demand consultation, he said. In this case, Lungren said, the algorithm could step in to help confirm or cast doubt on a diagnosis. For example, if a patients physical exam and lab results were consistent with pneumonia, and the algorithm diagnosed pneumonia on the patients X-ray, then thats a pretty high-confidence diagnosis and the physician could provide care right away for the condition. Importantly, in this scenario, there would be no need to wait for a radiologist. But if the algorithm came up with a different diagnosis, the primary care doctor could take a closer look at the X-ray or consult with a radiologist to make the final call.

We should be building AI algorithms to be as good or better than the gold standard of human, expert physicians. Now, Im not expecting AI to replace radiologists any time soon, but we are not truly pushing the limits of this technology if were just aiming to enhance existing radiologist workflows, Lungren said. Instead, we need to be thinking about how far we can push these AI models to improve the lives of patients anywhere in the world.

Other Stanford authors of the study are biostatistician Robyn Ball, PhD; undergraduate student Kaylie Zhu; former research assistant Brandon Yang; data scientist Hershel Mehta; research assistants Tony Duan and Daisy Ding; former research assistant Aarti Bagul; professor of radiology and of medicine Curtis Langlotz, PhD; assistant professor of radiology Bhavik Patel, MD; associate professor of radiology Kristen Yeom, MD; research associate Katie Shpanskaya; associate professor of radiology Francis Blackenberg, MD; clinical assistant professor of radiology Jayne Seekins, MD; clinical associate professor of radiology Safwan Halabi, MD; and clinical assistant professor of radiology Evan Zucker, MD.

Researchers from Duke University and from the University of Colorado also contributed to the study.

Lungren is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Child Health Research Institute and the Stanford Cancer Institute.

Stanfords departments of Radiology and of Computer Science along with the Stanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging supported the work.
Warning: The following content may be graphic for some audiences.

"All of us have lived through seven days that none of us will ever forget," newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson told Americans on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1963.

A week earlier, John F. Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas while campaigning.

While Nov. 22 is mainly marked by Kennedy's death, the 24-hour period following his assassination may be equally important to history.

Less than an hour and a half after the president's death, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn into office aboard Air Force One. Attending the short ceremony was a widowed Jacqueline Kennedy, whom Johnson insisted be present to establish his legitimacy as president.

EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY: Only a few people remain from the motorcade in which JFK was assassinated 54 years ago

Around the same time, police were arresting Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of the president. Two days later, Oswald would be shot and killed while being relocated to a more secure county jail.

The same day as Kennedy's death, his body was moved from the White House to the Capitol Rotunda, drawn by six grey horses and a riderless black horse. From there, hundreds of thousands of Americans would visit Kennedy's body, which lay at the rotunda for roughly 21 hours until it would be moved to its final resting place.

Above: See rare photos of the hours leading up to and following the death of JFK.

Fernando Ramirez is a reporter for Chron.com and the Houston Chronicle. You can read more of his stories here and follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93.
Elections on Wednesday

By Levan Khutsishvili

Former deputy secretary of the Security Council, International Law Specialist Levan Botzashvili initiated to determine the election date by the constitution.According to Botzashvili, election date in many countries is determined by the legislation and not by political officials."For example, election dates in the United States and many other countries is predetermined. For 25 years it has never been possible for the officials to set an election date. This should be written in the constitution. For example, according to the US constitution, this date is the first Tuesday of November. Political subjects always know in advance when the next election will be. In Georgia, the norm related to the second round could be defined by the law or another legal method, but since it has not been done yet, we now have nothing else to do but obey the decision of Central Election commission, whether we like it or not, "said Levan Botzashvili.The second round of the presidential election was scheduled for November 28, Wednesday. According to the CEC decision, Georgian citizens living abroad will be able to make their choice for the second round of the 2018 presidential election until 12:00 pm. The decision is based on the fact that the second round of the elections is being held on a working day, which may be a hindrance for Georgian citizens living abroad.According to the law, Central Election Commission had a month after the first round to set the second tour. Levan Botzashvili says that it could be a hindrance for immigrants and the problem could have been avoided."Setting elections on a Wednesday might cause problems to Georgian citizens living abroad; it may be difficult for them to participate in the elections. In order to deal with these problems either for this election or in the future, my initiative was youth blockchain system for elections, people would vote without leaving the house and their votes would be protected, "  said Levan Botzashvili.Some believe the date was set on purpose in order to cause a low activity. There is a high chance that Salome Zurabishvili will lose this round as well, as most of the opposition parties are supporting Grigol Vashadze. The results from the foreign countries show that Salome Zurabishvili lost the first round with Grigol Vashadze, with Vashadze 52,27% and Salome Zurabishvili 22,49%. It may seem that Georgian Dream does not want citizens of Georgia living abroad to go to elections, as the possibility to lose again is high.As long as the government is in power to set an election date, the right can be used as a tool against its political opponents.
Stillwater, Minn.-based Lakeview Health hired a construction crew to start clearing debris at the potential future site of a Lakeview Hospital campus in Stillwater, according to Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

Here are four things to know:



1. A hospital spokeswoman said the construction crew was hired to do routine cleanup and maintenance of the 68-acre plot of land.



2. In June 2017, Lakeview Health presented a concept plan to the Stillwater City Council for a new hospital campus at the site.



3. The plan includes a 96-bed, three-story hospital with an ASC, medical office building and senior housing, according to the report.



4. Lakeview Health signed a purchase agreement in May 2017 for the land.



More articles on new ASC development:

Johns Hopkins Health System plans to open ASC pavilion  And it's seeking an administrator

EmergeOrtho's Brunswick Surgery Center underway, on schedule: 3 insights

Lawrence Memorial Hospital faces challenge from city council on ASC approval: 4 details
Police said a 69-year-old man crashed his car into the bay windows of Somerset (Pa.) Hospital's emergency room, according to a WJAC TV news report.

The man was driving himself to the hospital for chest pains and shortness of breath. When the man approached the hospital's ambulance bay, he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the first set of doors.

No one was standing near the doors when the crash occurred and there were no reports of injuries.

While the doors suffered significant damage, there was no cost estimate available.
Access Health CT, Connecticut's ACA exchange, is expressing objection to the Trump administration's proposed changes to billing for abortion coverage, according to The Connecticut Mirror.

Five things to know:

1. The proposed changes would apply to health plans in ACA exchanges.

2. Under the proposed changes, insurers would be required to send patients a separate bill if they purchase insurance that covers abortion, according to the report.

3. The $1 cost of abortion coverage, as determined by insurers, has shown up on premium bills, The Connecticut Mirror reported. However, the proposed changes require separate billing for that $1 cost.

4. CMS says the proposed changes will help ensure that people who receive federal subsidies to pay for coverage purchased in ACA exchanges are complying with the Hyde Amendment, according to the report. The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or if the woman's life is in danger.

5. Access Health CT says separate billing for abortion services would burden insurers since it would require separate billing for about 100,000 Connecticut individuals and families who purchase plans through the state exchange, according to the report. Connecticut's ACA exchange said it would also submit public comment protesting the proposed regulations. A public comment period is required before the federal government issues a final rule.

Access The Connecticut Mirror's full report here.

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Medicare prepayment reviews could save billions lost to billing errors, advocacy group says

RCM tip of the day: Use online estimators for price transparency

Texas Health Resources' net income drops 45% in first nine months of 2018
Cost accounting in healthcare is complicated because service costs are highly variable. Healthcare can bring in cost-accounting models from other industries to streamline the process.

At Becker's Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago, Nov. 12-14, Infor Healthcare Solutions Senior Vice President Mark Weber and Financial Strategy Director Chuck Whinney discussed the industry's challenges and opportunities when it comes to cost accounting.

Mr. Weber highlighted the importance of factoring in the cost of patient procedures and coordinated care. "Determine what your cost-of-care variation is," he said. "We looked at cost per surgeon. Some surgeons were always more expensive than others because some always used a more expensive gizmo than others. Drill into that variation  determine what level of variation matters and what doesn't. Identify the areas that bend the curve."

This information should be used to help clients with their payer negotiations, according to Mr. Weber.

He also said the following process manufacturing-based cost model applies to healthcare:

Supply, labor, equipment, facility and process costs + unutilized capacity, general overhead and exclusions = Reconciled general ledger account-level expenses

At the end of the day, we need to get our physicians and clinicians engaged in this information  historically, we as an industry haven't done a great job with that," said Mr. Whinney.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., released plans for 2019 legislation to lower prescription drug prices.

Here are five quick takeaways:

1. The plan would direct the HHS secretary to ensure prices are on par with median prices in Canada, the U.K., France, Germany and Japan.

2. This would reduce median drug prices by about 43 percent across the board, with some brand-name drug prices dropping even more.

3. If drug companies do not comply, the law would authorize the government to override patents and market exclusivities to approve cheaper generic drugs.

4. The proposal could garner support from the Trump administration, as it is similar to a Trump proposal released earlier this year for Medicare Part B covered drugs, according to The Washington Post.

5. Mr. Sanders' proposal, however, is more sweeping than that of President Donald Trump, and would also apply to Americans with employer-sponsored insurance and uninsured patients.

More articles on leadership and management:

CMS reapproves Kentucky Medicaid work requirements after judge blocks order

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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a new 'shadow' adviser  Here's what that means
As the U.S. becomes increasingly diverse, healthcare organizations must evolve to best serve the needs of their patients and the next generation of leadership.

At Becker's Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in Chicago, Nov. 12-14, experts discussed how healthcare leaders can rise to the challenge. Panelists included:

J. Bryan Bennett, executive director of San Diego-based Healthcare Center of Excellence

Ava Lias-Booker, JD, partner and head of litigation at McGuireWoods

Carlton Abner, RN, DNP, associate vice president at B.E. Smith

Soyini Coke, principal of Annona Enterprises and host of "CEO Exclusive Radio"

Here are three takeaways from the discussion:

1. Minorities aren't proportionately represented.

According to Ms. Coke, 20 percent of healthcare CEOs are female, and 18 percent are non-white. Only three hospital CEOs are black women and only two are black men.

"This is the state of diversity and inclusion today," she said. "It's distorted  it's not representative of the population."

Ms. Lias-Booker said there's also a lack of representation in law. "As a legal profession, we've struggled across the board with diversity. There's a renewed urgency and focus  we're seeing the demographics of the nation change, and change very quickly, and we need to adapt. Diverse teams create better products and services, and as law firms, we are trying to bring that to bear in the services we provide."

2. There's a distinction between diversity and inclusion.

Dr. Abner said patients will be more comfortable in healthcare facilities if they see employees who look like them, and pointed out the importance of inclusion.,"Diversity is more of a compliance mindset," he said."Inclusion is what you put into practice. Diversity is being asked to party. Inclusion is being asked to dance."

Mr. Bennett elaborated by defining inclusion not just in terms of hiring diverse candidates, but also developing and promoting them.

3. Inclusion requires an organizational shift.

"The thing that separates a well-run organization from average or poorly run organizations is leadership, and it starts at the top," said Mr. Bennett. "As a leader, you have to model inclusive behavior for the people below you, you have to respect and listen to what they have to say."
After a shooting at Chicago-based Mercy Hospital & Medical Center, hospital staff and medical professionals across the country shared their condolences and emotional messages about the victims.

Four people were killed during a shooting at Mercy Hospital Nov. 19, including the alleged gunman, 32-year-old Juan Lopez. Police said the shooting, which took place around 3:30 p.m., was spurred by a domestic altercation.

Two Mercy Hospital employees  emergency room physician 38-year-old Tamara O'Neal, MD, and 25-year-old Dayna Less, PharmD  were killed in the shooting.

Adele Cobbs, MD, who worked with Dr. O'Neal at Mercy Hospital, told ABC 7 News her colleague's death will change how she interacts with colleagues and how she practices medicine.

"Just being aware that, you know, people aren't always telling us what's going on behind the scenes. And we need to be sensitive and inquire," Dr. Cobbs said. "And especially with black women, you know, people think we are strong and resilient but there are things that are happening behind the scenes that we don't often speak on, and Tamara is a testament to that. And I think we just need to be more supportive and aware."

John Purakal, MD, a professor of emergency medicine at University of Illinois at Chicago, tweeted Nov. 19 he trained with Dr. O'Neal during their time at the UIC and was present at the school's affiliated hospital, where Dr. O'Neal was treated after the shooting.

"I knew her, trained with her, saved lives with her and tonight, tried to save her life. Tonight, I broke down in front of my coworkers when we lost her, and tonight I held hands with her mother in prayer. Tonight, we lost a beautiful, resilient, passionate doc. Keep singing, TO," Dr. Purakal wrote.

Dr. Less earned her pharmacy degree from the West Lafayette, Ind.-based Purdue University College of Pharmacy and began working at the hospital earlier this year. Purdue University College of Pharmacy Dean Eric Barker, PhD, said in a statement obtained by NBC 5 News the shooting represented "an unimaginable tragedy."

"Today, we've remembered Dayna Less as a kind, compassionate, beautiful soul that had dedicated her life to helping others. It's so tragic that a young person with her life in front of her has had her life ended in this senseless manner. The Purdue pharmacy family along with the Purdue community grieve together alongside her family and friends in this most difficult time," he said.
Several large-scale hospitals and health systems have announced plans to expand services or operations overseas in 2018.

Here are seven hospitals that have revealed plans to branch out of the U.S. in 2018:

1. Steward Health Care finalizes partnership to provide healthcare services in Malta

Boston-based Steward Health Care, the largest hospital operator in the U.S., finalized a public-private partnership to assume control of several public medical facilities in Malta in February.

2. Cleveland Clinic makes foray into China

In July, Cleveland Clinic formed a strategic collaboration with a hospital in China through its international affiliation program.

3. UHS significantly expands UK presence: 3 things to know

King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services acquired the Danshell Group, which owns 25 facilities that provide disability and autism services in the U.K., in August.

4. UPMC opens 2nd cancer center in Italy

UPMC opened a radiotherapy center in southern Italy in October that will become part of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, one of the largest integrated cancer networks in the U.S.

5. ProMedica CEO visits China to draw genetics firm to Toledo

ProMedica President and CEO Randy Oostra said in October the health system has been in talks with a Chinese genomic and genetic-testing company to open an operation in Toledo.

6. Penn Medicine expands into UK

The University of Pennsylvania Health System revealed plans in November to expand into the U.K. with the opening of a facility in London.

7. Mount Sinai expands into China

Mount Sinai Health System signed an agreement in November to provide clinical, educational and training programs to a hospital Nanjing, China.
Indiana (Pa.) Regional Medical Center nurses have scheduled a one-day strike for Nov. 26. However, hospital leaders said striking nurses won't be able to return to work for the rest of that week if a walkout occurs, according to The Tribune-Democrat.

Hospital leaders asked nurses to cancel the strike by noon Nov. 21 due to costs that would result from the action. But if the strike isn't canceled, the hospital said it must hire temporary replacement workers for at least five days, and nurses who don't cross the picket lines the first day would not be allowed to return to work until the temporary staffing commitment ends, according to the report.

The hospital estimates the temporary staffing costs would be more than $1.5 million and said the cost would be taken out of the nurses' contract.

The Indiana Registered Nurses Association, which represents the nurses, took issue with how the medical center has handled the strike plans.

"Since we put in [the strike] notice, IRMC has used every scare tactic in the book to try and turn nurses against the union," union President Kathy Wolfe said after talks broke down Nov. 19, according to the report. "But we are unified in the belief that our patients deserve better, and the hospital can do better."

Hospital spokesperson Mark Richards told The Tribune-Democrat the union, which is part of Pennsylvania State Education Association, is not representing how local nurses feel about the strike issue.

"We already know that many of our nurses do not want to strike and are ready to vote on a new agreement," he said. "We are disappointed that the IRNA/PSEA decided to trigger a strike notice to have nurses strike before our next two scheduled negotiating sessions at the end of November."

The Indiana Registered Nurses Association and medical center have been negotiating a new contract for about 380 union members.

Health insurance costs and wages reportedly have been key sticking points in the negotiations.

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Maryland lawmakers are weighing a proposal to establish a state individual mandate to buy health insurance, The Baltimore Sun reports.

The plan aims to replace the ACA's federal mandate, which will no longer be enforced in 2019. Unlike the federal mandate, Maryland's proposal would allow uninsured residents to put the penalty toward buying insurance. The penalty, which would cost $700 or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater, would be enforced on state tax returns, according to the report. The proposal has mixed support so far.

The advocacy group Families USA created the proposal and is also promoting it in other states. Massachusetts and New Jersey have already implemented their own insurance mandates, according to the report.

Read the full story here.

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The partnership between Humana and Walgreens Boots Alliance could expand to include investment stakes, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

The two companies are in early talks about taking equity stakes in each other, and they're also discussing a wide range of ventures, including one that expands their partnership focused on serving seniors. However, there is no guarantee the companies will reach a deal, according to the report.

Walgreens and Humana are looking for ways to escalate their partnership and diversify as Amazon pushes into the industry and CVS Health prepares to close its $69 billion deal to buy Aetna.

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More than 120 people fleeing the California Camp Fire have been taken to hospitals with vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms similar to norovirus, according to The Washington Post.

"People keep using the word 'unprecedented,' and I keep looking for a different word, but I can't find one because it works so well," Casey Hatcher, Butte County spokesperson, told The Washington Post. "We have an entire community that is displaced."

Ms. Hatcher also indicated both state and local authorities continue to address the grand-scale displacement. Tens of thousands of Californians face months without permanent housing in one of the most expensive regions in the U.S.

Initial norovirus cases appeared Nov. 18 and were contained to the Chico, Calif.-based Neighborhood Church. The report does not indicate if other emergency facilities confirmed norovirus cases or if the virus is linked to one common source.

Emergency officials confirmed 79 deaths attributed to the Camp Fire. About 700 people are missing, though people may have found relatives since the list was reported, and the list may also contain duplicates. About 12,000 homes have been destroyed, and about 1,314 families are eligible for some form of FEMA funding.

The California Camp Fire is 60 percent contained.

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Norfolk-based Va. Sentara Norfolk General is using temperature-controlled containers to deliver donated hearts, according to 13 ABC News.

The system Sentara Norfolk General uses is call the Paragonix SherpaPak. The first patient to receive a heart carried in the new container was said to have recovered sooner than other patients receiving transplants.

The typical heart transplant patient takes over a month and a half to recuperate. Hearts that are chilled with SherpPak heal faster, and patients can leave the hospital in little as a week, according to 13 ABC News.

Keeping the heart preserved through temperature regulation is a major issue and "most people getting the hearts dont understand this is a problem," said Jonathan Philpott, MD, transplant surgeon at Sentara Norfolk General.

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The sister of a deceased patient admitted to Memphis, Tenn.-based Methodist University Hospital claims the health system buried her sister without the family's consent, according to Fox 13.

Rowena Burton was admitted in August for a scheduled surgery on her foot. The surgeon performing the procedure allegedly hit an artery, causing Ms. Burton to bleed excessively. Ms. Burton suffered a stroke and was admitted to Methodist University Hospital. She died on Aug. 29.

Eartha Duncan, the patient's sister, was notified Nov. 16 that Ms. Burton was buried in October without the family's permission.

"My sister had a family. She had a mother, and you just dispose of her like she garbage," Ms. Duncan told Fox 13.

Ms. Duncan indicated her mother requested an autopsy report and the family did not receive a copy until weeks after the request. They also did not receive a copy of the death certificate.

The hospital eventually told Ms. Burton's family her remains were taken to Shelby County Cemetery in Bartlett, Tenn on Oct. 31. The owner of the cemetery told Fox 13 that he was told by the hospital to pick the remains up by the end of October.

Ms. Duncan showed Fox 13 that she had gone through all the proper steps to bury her sister.

Fox 13 contacted the health department, which did not have Ms. Burton on record.

Methodist University Hospital issued the following statement:

"We understand that it is extremely hard to lose a loved one, and that's why we follow specific procedures to help us honor patients' and their families' wishes. This includes reaching out to the family contact listed on a patient's medical chart to confirm their wishes. After multiple attempts to make contact, if we are unable to reach the designated family member, we notify Shelby County for burial."

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Sacramento, Calif.-based UC Davis Medical Center treated 12 burn patients from the California Camp Fire at once on Nov. 8, according to Fox 40.

"We kind of got overwhelmed at the university, so we actually asked Shriners [Hospitals for Children] to take a couple of the adults just to decompress us for a while," said David Greenhalgh, MD, a physician at UC Davis Medical Center.

Dr. Greenhalgh indicated the patients came to the hospital Nov. 8. There were 12 adults, including one firefighter, seeking burn treatment. Dr. Greenhalgh told Fox 40 that he expected to treat more burn victims. The Camp Fire has killed 79 people and displaced tens of thousands of people. More than 700 people have been reported missing.

One burn victim had about half of his body burned. It will take months for him to recover.

"People tend to forget that the recovery from a big burn takes up to a year and sometimes even longer to go through the whole changes in their skin and their scars. So its a long, hard process," Dr. Greenhalgh told Fox 40.

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ORTHOReBIRTH USA and Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System Sunbelt Healthcare Corp. entered into a product agreement.

ORTHOReBIRTH USA markets ReBOSSIS, the only biosynthetic scaffold with electrospun microfiber construction designed to support cell activation, retention and proliferation. The orthobiologics company recently signed a letter of intent to develop new biologics products with neurosurgeon Loubert S. Suddaby, MD.

Adventist Health System is a faith-based healthcare system comprised of 48 hospital campuses with more than 80,000 employees.
Jeffrey Cantor, MD, founder and medical director of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Cantor Spine Institute, is passionate about minimally invasive spine surgery and advancing motion-preserving techniques to improve patient care.

Dr. Cantor has built his practice on pioneering new procedures and conducting outcomes analyses to prove the benefit of his solutions. Here, Dr. Cantor discusses the big challenges and opportunities in spine today, as well as where his practice is headed in the future.

Question: How has your role as a spine department leader evolved over the past two to three years? How have your responsibilities changed?

Dr. Jeffrey Cantor: Spinal surgery has been functioning under the same paradigm for many years. Clearly definable differences in value, for patients and insurance providers, is distinctly absent in most markets. For that reason, over the past three years, the healthcare system is moving toward cheap and less focused on quality. Since 2016, in-network operating costs have dramatically increased and RVU (relative value units) rates have plummeted. In the south Florida region, average reimbursement rates have dropped below Medicare. Reimbursement rates are below operating costs for less invasive operations forcing providers to do more extensive surgeries and overutilize in order to cover overhead costs. In the long run, this method of practice is not good for patients and will not be good for our healthcare system.

Therefore, to be successful and develop a spine center of excellence, my role over the past three years [has been] to create clearly definable value for our patients and insurance carriers. Value, as we define it, is higher quality spine care, integrally married to better management of cost. It must be a win for our patients and their insurance companies.

Q: What do you consider your No. 1 priority to ensure departmental success?

JC: Our practice is committed to the development of a process, and the adoption of new technology, particularly the use of ultrasonic surgery, to decrease the magnitude and consequence of spinal surgery. Using these new systems, we can reduce predictable complications. anatomical structures and have dramatically reduced the need for fusions and instrumentation. Patient satisfaction scores and outcome data has clearly shown that this type of surgery is better. The most profound difference is an enormous reduction in cost throughout all phases of the patient interaction. This new and better process of spinal surgery is a real paradigm change, and the adoption of this change is complicated.

Our No. 1 priority moving forward is to create patient awareness and develop a market for these alternatives to traditional spinal surgery. Concurrently, we are packaging these data for presentation to insurance carriers, self-insured companies, in order to negotiate fair in-network reimbursement.



Q: What is the biggest challenge you are facing as head of the department and how are you overcoming that?

JC: In a rapidly growing practice, I realize that operating out-of-network is not sustainable. Our lesser invasive approach to complicated spine problems is fantastic for patient outcomes, hospitals and insurance companies, but with current reimbursement rates, these procedures do not cover our overhead. Financially, it is not an optimal system for our doctors. We are combatting that problem with cost, measurable outcome and patient satisfaction data. We are confident that we can show that this new approach can be, and needs to be, a big win for all parties.

Q: What are the department's goals for 2019 and what is your vision moving forward?

JC: Our plan for 2019 is to continue to develop and adopt enabling and advanced technologies for safer and better spinal care. We will refine our processes and protocols to create better and cost-effective solutions for our patients, doctors and insurance companies. In 2019, Cantor Spine Institute will create value and safer procedures for our patients.
Edith Harkness, grandmother of author Claire McElhinney, was one of the nurses from the Ulster Volunteer Medical and Nursing Corps

The remarkable story of a Co Tyrone nurse who tended wounded soldiers in France during the First World War, after setting up a hospital in defiance of British military chiefs, is finally set to be told by her proud granddaughter.

Genealogy and local history enthusiast Claire McElhinney (65) was inspired to put pen to paper after stumbling upon the extraordinary accomplishments of her late grandmother Edith Harkness.

"I spent five years researching my father's genealogy and when I exhausted that I started exploring my mother's family tree," said Claire, who lives in Omagh with her husband Jack. "I came across the most extraordinary things."

Edith was among the many medics who trained with the Ulster Volunteer Medical and Nursing Corps in preparation for possible civil war in Ireland, as a result of political crisis after the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912.

But when war broke out two years later, her offer to volunteer for active service was rejected by British military chiefs who didn't see a need for extra nurses.

Edith and other determined women chose instead to serve with the French and went on to found the Ulster Volunteer Hospital in south-western city of Pau. Edith was only 19 when she left her home in Plumbridge to nurse wounded allies.

The revelation led to her granddaughter Claire chronicling the discoveries she gleaned from public records and family heirlooms in the hope of rescuing the women from obscurity.

"I felt that she had been forgotten - I feel like that about all the women who nursed the war wounded," Claire said. "They all just returned home and faded back into society. Their story has never been told because nobody knows about what they did."

The team of dedicated medics set up a 50-bed ward in the Villa Beaupre. "The hospital moved to Lyon in 1916 where they had room for more than 80 beds and eventually closed within a year of the war ending due to lack of funding," Claire explained.

"My grandmother was moved to a large military hospital in Yorkshire where she served for another two years after the war - she came home, married and had eight children before she died in 1954.

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"Her obituary never even mentioned the fact that she spent six years caring for injured and dying soldiers."

Mrs McElhinney believes the shock of her grandmother's sudden death from a brain haemorrhage may have prevented family members from talking about her. "She was only 61 when that happened," the mother-of-two said.

Tell Them of Us was produced in partnership with the Ulster-Scots Agency and is the latest in a series of projects focusing on Ulster and the Great War.

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The agency's chief executive Ian Crozier expressed his pride in being able to help shine a light on the women who did "extraordinary things in extraordinary times".
The body which represents Northern Ireland's pubs and drink trade has said a poll among its members showed 74% expressing support for the draft EU withdrawal agreement.

Hospitality Ulster polled 650 people involved in the local drinks trade over the weekend, with 181 responding to the SMS-based survey.

The question asked: "Based on your current understanding of the implications for your business, do you support acceptance of the current proposed agreement to leave the EU?"

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A total of 134 businesses responded 'yes' (74%) with 47 responding 'no' (26%).

The hospitality body, led by Colin Neill, has already put on record its regret that the deal doesn't appear to open the door to its long-term goals of lowering VAT for tourism and abolishing Air Passenger Duty (APD) in Northern Ireland.

In a statement yesterday, Hospitality Ulster said: "We believe the current draft agreement is commercially better than a no-deal scenario and will support the wider domestic economy on which our members depend."

Business figures also responded yesterday to comments from DUP MP Sammy Wilson, who accused organisations voicing support for the draft deal of being "puppets of the Northern Ireland Office".

The director of the Quarry Products Association in Northern Ireland, Gordon Best said: "We think for ourselves, we are certainly not puppets for others, we evaluate and risk assess any threats to our industry and economy."

Mr Wilson's comments came as more firms aired their support for the draft text. Bombardier, W&R Barnett and Brett Martin yesterday joined the list of business and farming groups supporting the deal.

Yesterday the Ulster Farmers Union issued a joint statement with its counterparts in England, Scotland and Wales, which said: "The draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, while not perfect, will ensure that there are no hard barriers on the day we leave the European Union, and will allow trade in agricultural goods and UK food & drink to continue throughout the transition period largely as before. This opportunity needs to be taken."

Danske Bank, which has topped the Belfast Telegraph's list of NI's top 100 businesses for the past four years, has also endorsed the deal, stating: "A no-deal scenario must be avoided and the proposed deal represents a positive step forward on the journey to a binding solution."
The owners of George Best Belfast City Airport are set to spend millions of pounds over the next two winters, with a new multi-storey car park on the cards following a 15m investment in its terminal.

The new-look terminal building includes upgrades to the departures lounge, new retail outlets and refurbished bars and restaurants.

The airport has said its new security area will also reduce the average queuing time to just six minutes.

Speaking yesterday, the airport's chief executive Brian Ambrose confirmed that just two years after its takeover, 3i Investments is preparing to invest millions more over the next year.

A 1m spend on the airport's car parking has already been signed off for this winter, with a multi-million investment planned for next year.

"By the end of this winter, the car parking that is loose stone will all be hard surface and completely re-marked, with covered walkways installed. It will greatly improve passenger flow," he said.

"We've also brought in a new premium product, which is the closest car park to the terminal. That'll roll out over the winter, then we'll be gearing up for a major investment in the car park the following winter.

"We're debating whether to go multi-storey or single-deck. We have exhausted the surface space, so we have to start going up - which has the added advantage of covered car parking and in our climate it's important to be dry."

Mr Ambrose said the new owners had backed the airport's long-term vision.

"You have a shareholder who has taken a long-term view. I think this is a massive step in the right direction. Genuinely, I think we are up there with any regional airport now," he said.

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In a week that has seen Belfast International Airport endure more criticism over the length of queues for its security checks, the City Airport chief executive said: "What's happening at this airport is really what I am interested in. What's going right with us is that any business is only as good as its people."

Mr Ambrose said the new upgrades to the City Airport's security, including new loading bays, had made the experience even quicker for passengers.

"The queues have just disappeared," he said. "What we're doing right is putting modern infrastructure in, looking after our staff, trying to make sure that customers have a choice, and if they have a good experience coming through this airport they're likely to come back."

The new-look terminal includes more seating and the expansion of retail outlets including World Duty Free, WH Smith and Born and Bred, an off-shoot of city centre gift shop Studio Souk.

Global food and beverage operator HMSHost has upgraded its units. It runs the Artisan bar and restaurant, Starbucks outlet and St George's Market store.

Jan-Willem Hilbron, senior vice president for development at the company, said it was interested in spreading its presence in Northern Ireland.

"We are predominantly in airports, but we are in train stations as well and outlet shopping malls," he added. "We have to wait until there is an available space or a tender coming up but, yes, we are interested and we are hoping to invest more in this region and grow our business."
Dublin-based aircraft leasing giant SMBC Aviation Capital is set to receive a US$1bn (0.78bn) capital boost from its Japanese owners within the next couple of weeks.

SMBC signalled recently that it was set for the $1bn injection before March next year.

But chief executive Peter Barrett said the capital should be received shortly and while there's no "specific intent" for the cash, it would leave the group in a position to pursue opportunities.

SMBC is owned by firms in Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui banking group.

"We're in a good position at the moment," said Mr Barrett. "Our shareholders have been very supportive of us.

"They like what we deliver to them. We thought it was timely to strengthen the balance sheet and position ourselves for opportunities that might come along."

He said that "potentially", future opportunities could include asset acquisitions from some of the relatively fledgling entrants to the leasing sector, especially in China.
A number of Irish celebrities have said they've lost thousands of euros after high-end kitchens firm Hayburn Wood Products in Co Antrim went out of business.

Former model Pippa O'Connor and her TV presenter husband Brian Ormond were among those who contacted the Joe Duffy Show on RTE Radio One to say they had lost out after signing up to buy a kitchen from the firm.

The celebrity couple said they were left 3,000 (2,674) out of pocket by the closure of the Ahoghill company, which has also left between 40 and 60 people out of work.

Celebrity make-up artist Michelle Regazzoli-Stone from Co Meath also told the radio show that she had spent 12,000 on her "dream kitchen"at Hayburn & Co.

The businesswoman behind the Irish Mrs Makeup brand, told the programme how she had driven to Ahoghill last week to find the premises empty.

"I'm absolutely gutted. We have two kids. It's six weeks from Christmas," she said.

Newry-based business advisory firm PKF-FPM, which has been appointed to advise Hayburns, said: "Due to difficult trading conditions, the business has ceased trading with immediate effect.

"All known creditors, including those customers who have fully paid or paid in part for goods, are being contacted by post."

A creditors' meeting is due to take place at the Belfast offices of PKF-FPM, where it's planned to put the company into a creditors voluntary liquidation.

A large number of the company's creditors are expected to attend the meeting.

Speaking last week, North Antrim MLA and TUV leader Jim Allister said the closure was a "significant blow to the area".

He said: "Of course my thoughts are first and foremost with the staff who have lost their jobs in the run-up to Christmas.

"It is also important to recognise that this will have a significant knock-on impact on the local economy."

Camden Group, another Co Antrim business which makes windows and doors, has said it's also consulting on up to 80 redundancies.
The managing director of collapsed bakery firm McErlain's has stepped down from the business following its sale, it has emerged.

The business is continuing to trade after its sale in August. But the departure of Brian McErlain from McErlain's in Magherafelt breaks the last remaining link between the business, and the six brothers who were formerly the public face of the company.

McErlain's Bakery (Magherafelt) Ltd, which manufactured buns, breads and other products for supermarket chains like Tesco and Marks & Spencer, went into administration with debts of 4.3m after soaring costs put pressure on the business.

The company also made its own range of products under the Genesis Crafty brand - a name which is still being used by the business's new owners. However, the McErlain's name is no longer in use.

Around 260 jobs were saved after Tayto Group chief executive Paul Allen bought over the business for 1.85m as part of a new company, Hatch Bros.

Brian McErlain had stayed on as managing director of the company in the early months of the deal. But he has now followed his five brothers in leaving the business. A spokeswoman for the new owner confirmed he had left.

It's understood the company has recruited around 50 new staff as production ramps up before Christmas, with efforts now to fill around 12 management positions. It's expected that a search for a new managing director will also begin.

Speaking in August when the sale was announced, Mr McErlain said: "This is obviously a time of mixed emotions; sadness that it is now a different family who own the business but hope for the future and the growth of the Genesis Crafty brand."

His parents Joe and Roberta had set up the business in 1969.

Creditors of the company voted in favour of a deal for repayment of part of their debts at a creditors' meeting in Toomebridge last month.

The biggest creditors include dairy co-op Dale Farm, which was owed 641,052.
Queen's University Belfast contributes almost 2bn to the UK economy, new independent analysis by London Economics has suggested.

The research, which focused on the university's performance during the 2015-16 academic year, found that its 1.9bn annual contribution represented an economic benefit to cost ratio of six-to-one.

As well as employing 3,700 staff, it found that Queen's supports a further 2,570 jobs across the UK.

The economic impact report suggested that the public purse benefits to the tune of 101,000 on average every year for each of the university's full-time graduating students.

According to London Economics, every eight international undergraduates at the university creates 1m of an economic impact, while every 1m invested in research activity generates an additional 3.9m across the economy in the United Kingdom.

It surmised that Queen's University's teaching and learning generates over 400m in tax income for the Exchequer while 400m in earnings is generated by the university's graduates.

Commenting on the report yesterday, Queen's vice-chancellor Professor Ian Greer said it was "a timely reminder of the increasing economic, social and cultural impact of universities".

He said: "Queen's is an economic powerhouse of innovation and has a vital role to play in generating the knowledge and skills needed to fuel our economy."
Shell said that it had made good progress (Anna Gowthorpe/PA)

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has revealed that women at the company earn almost a fifth less than their male counterparts.

The FTSE 100 listed company said that Shell UK has an average gender pay gap of 18.6% in 2018, an improvement on 22.2% last year.

Shell attributed the gap to a lack of women in senior management positions and specialist and trading roles that have higher pay, as well as over many years, relatively fewer women studying engineering at university.

In each of the Shell companies in the UK and across Shell UK, 67% of its employees are male and 33% are female.

Sinead Lynch, Shell UK country chairman, said: Everyone should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Improving the gender balance is fundamental to the continued success of our businessSinead Lynch, Shell

Improving the gender balance is fundamental to the continued success of our business.

We need to attract the best minds and build a culture where every voice can speak up and every voice is heard.

The gender pay gap report comes after new Government rules were introduced requiring all UK companies and public sector organisations with 250 or more employees to publicly report their gender pay gap.

Shell said that it has made good progress, but there is more to do to address the gender balance.

The company aims that 35% of its senior leaders are women by 2025 and in the past 13 years the number of female senior leaders in the UK has jumped from 12% to 28.1%.

The number of female experienced appointees in the UK reached 42.1% in the year to April, up from 35.1% in 2005 and more than 44% of Shells graduate roles are currently held by women.
TUV leader Jim Allister has written to the head of the Ulster Farmers' Union to express his "dismay" over its support for Theresa May's Brexit deal.

The North Antrim MLA slammed union officials for embracing what he described as a "disastrous" plan, which he said will "break-up the UK single market" on which farmers depend.

But the UFU hit back in a joint statement with the other major UK farming unions, saying leaving without a deal would "decimate our industry".

And the body representing Northern Ireland's hospitality industry has revealed the results of a poll of business owners, who have overwhelmingly backed Mrs May's deal.

In his letter to UFU president Ivor Ferguson, Mr Allister said the UFU's position "is beyond my powers of rationalisation".

He said: "Urging MPs to vote for an Irish Sea regulatory border is madness. Have you forgotten the business supply chain is a two way process and therefore, rushing to impede GB/NI trade is as dangerous as it is absurd?"

However, the bosses of the UK's four major farming unions show no sign of backing down. A joint statement on behalf of the UFU, NFU Scotland, NFU England and NFU Cymru, said: "We have argued for free and frictionless trade with the EU to continue, with no tariffs or non-tariff barriers.

"The default of trading with the EU under WTO rules alone is unacceptable and would decimate our industry.

"The draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, while not perfect, will ensure that there are no hard barriers on the day we leave the European Union, and will allow trade in agricultural goods and UK food & drink to continue throughout the transition period largely as before. This opportunity needs to be taken."

Yesterday, Hospitality Ulster published a poll indicating that three quarters of businesses it asked here in a survey supported the May deal. The industry body said: "The current draft agreement to exit the EU is far from perfect, and still causes some concern, but when faced with a no deal scenario, 74% of respondents to our industry poll support its acceptance, whilst recognising that further clarification on a number of issues is still required.

"We believe the current draft agreement is commercially better than a no deal scenario and will support the wider domestic economy on which our members depend, providing a framework for unfettered access to goods and services and visa free access for EU visitors to support the growing tourism market."
The DUP has warned Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley she faces a rude awakening over the draft Brexit deal (Parliament/PA)

The DUP has warned the Government it faces a rude awakening over its draft EU withdrawal deal.

Prime Minister Theresa May is on Thursday expected to meet business leaders from Northern Ireland who back the proposed accord.

But her Government faces calls from her erstwhile Democratic Unionist allies to take into account contrary opinions in the region.

The right thing to do is to accept the deal and to get the future relationship and make sure we never go into the backstop in any wayKaren Bradley

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley fielded stiff criticism from DUP members of her scrutiny committee at Westminster on Wednesday.

Strangford MP Jim Shannon told her: If you dont cast your net wider and seek opinions of other people and stop seeking the one blinkered opinion, which it is clear to me that some people are pursuing, then you are going to get a very rude awakening.

The withdrawal deal was agreed in principle by Mrs May and the EU last week.

It includes a 39 billion divorce bill and the customs backstop which keeps the UK in the EU customs union to prevent the return of a hard Irish border with checkpoints on the frontier.

Expand Close The draft withdrawal deal includes a customs backstop to prevent the return of a hard Irish border (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The draft withdrawal deal includes a customs backstop to prevent the return of a hard Irish border (Niall Carson/PA)

Ms Bradley acknowledged a difference of opinion with Mr Shannon but said government is about taking decisions and providing leadership.

She said: The safeguards put in place, the reassurances given, the way that the EU dislike the backstop, means as a legal construct, not as a person or country, there is no way that there will be a situation where we can be bound into the backstop indefinitely.

The right thing to do is to accept the deal and to get the future relationship and make sure we never go into the backstop in any way.
Civil partners Grainne Close (left) and Shannon Sickles with Christopher Patrick Flanagan and Henry Edmond Kane (right)

Judgment was reserved today in a renewed legal challenge to the ban on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

Two couples are attempting to overturn a previous ruling that the prohibition does not breach their human rights.

But Attorney General John Larkin QC argued they lack standing to bring the case because they were not victims of an unlawful act.

The Court of Appeal is expected to come to a decision early next year.

Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland has not legalised same-sex weddings.

But Grainne Close and her partner Shannon Sickles, along with Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kane, claim they are being subjected to discrimination based on their sexuality.

In 2005 they became the first couples in the UK to enter civil partnerships - cementing their relationships in ceremonies at Belfast City Hall.

Last year, a High Court judge dismissed the case after finding that it was a matter for legislators rather than the judiciary.

Lawyers for Ms Close, Ms Sickles and the Flanagan Kanes are appealing the verdict, insisting that the state's failure to include the people of Northern Ireland in same-sex marriage legislation breaches their human rights.

Before the collapse of devolution, MLAs held five votes on the issue - with a narrow majority in favour of the move back on the last occasion in November 2015.

However, the Democratic Unionist Party deployed a petition of concern mechanism to block the motion.

Counsel for the Department of Finance told appeal judges that the legitimate aim around the current position is to preserve and promote the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.

However, the two couples' legal representatives claimed gays and lesbians have been wrongly excluded from legislation which allows those in the rest of the UK to wed.

Maintaining the ban on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland should not be used as a "veil for homophobia", they said.

Part of their case includes a bid to secure a declaration that the current regime is incompatible with their right to marry.

According to the Attorney General, however, this point was never dealt with in the High Court and therefore should not be raised on appeal.

"It's not open to a party for the first time to introduce a new cause of action," he said.

Mr Larkin also argued that no unlawful act featured because the couples did not try to get married - a point disputed by their lawyers.

Following closing submissions, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, sitting with Lord Justices Stephens and Treacy, reserved judgment.
The man required over 60 stitches to wounds on his face after the dog leapt at him while he was collecting bins in the Bogside area of Londonderry last January

A refuse collector who was mauled by a Japanese Akita dog has said he was horrified to find out the animal had previously been aggressive to two children.

The man required over 60 stitches to wounds on his face after the dog leapt at him while he was collecting bins in the Bogside area of Londonderry last January.

The Derry City and Strabane Council employee has since returned to work, but said he has been left with mental as well as physical scars.

A report into the attack, which was brought to a council meeting last week, revealed the dog was destroyed after the incident and its owner prosecuted.

However, it also revealed that no action was taken when the same dog previously was involved in an incident involving two children.

The exact detail of the incident was not contained in the report, but it is understood neither child was bitten.

At the time a number of conditions were imposed on the owner, including that the dog must be kept on a lead and kept in a secure area, which he was adhering to, the report noted.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, the council worker, who did not wish to be identified, said he was shocked to discover he was not the first person the dog had approached.

"I was told this dog had never attacked anybody else but now it turns out it attacked two children," he said.

"I don't know if the dog bit anybody before or not, but that is irrelevant as far as I am concerned - that dog attacked two children before it bit me.

"The next person might not be as lucky as me.

"I am back at work again but I am very nervous when I see stray dogs or dogs not on leads."

He continued: "Mentally I went through a bad time, I had to get therapy to help me get over what happened to me which has helped, but I am still very anxious if I see a dog that isn't on a lead.

"I came out the other side of this attack but I was bitten very close to my jugular vein and the paramedics told me I wouldn't be here if it had been there, so in a way I was lucky."

He warned, however, that the public could be still be at risk from other dogs.

"There are too many dogs running around this city that have no one taking responsibility for them, and maybe the next person might not be a lucky as me," he said.

"I have the scars, not just the physical scars which are there for the rest of my life but also the mental scars."

Meanwhile, DUP councillor Graham Warke said that the report to council raised serious issues about aggressive dogs which need to be addressed.

"I was very alarmed to find out the dog that attacked this council worker had a history of attacks, even if these were not as serious," he said.

"I have serious questions about how many other dogs the council is aware of that have showed signs of aggression, which I intend to bring to the next full council meeting," he added.
Teachers at St Patrick's Primary School in north Belfast held the second of six planned days of strike action yesterday.

Four more days of action by NASUWT union members are planned before the end of November as they continue their dispute over management practices at the school.

Union official Justin McCamphill said: "This action is as a result of the failure of the employer to respond to the deep concerns of teachers at the school about the culture in which they are expected to work, which is having an adverse impact on their health and wellbeing."

Ahead of the strike action, Board of Governors chairperson Tony Fahy told parents that the board believed the issues could be resolved "through the use of agreed procedures that are already in place for school leaders and teachers... but which have not yet been used".
DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has quizzed the Prime Minister on what happened to a proposal to give the Stormont Assembly a say on the final Brexit withdrawal agreement.

In December 2017 the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom published a joint report on the status of Brexit negotiations.

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The report said that no new regulatory barriers would be allowed between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK without the permission of Stormont.

The proposal was not mentioned in Mrs May's draft withdrawal agreement, unveiled last week.

Stormont collapsed in January 2017 following the resignation of deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness over the RHI Scandal and equality issues.

Subsequent attempts at reestablishing the institutions have proved unsuccesful.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday Mr Dodds asked why the provision was not included in the draft withdrawal agreement.

"Why has the Prime Minister deleted all reference to that in the withdrawal agreement, did she push the delete button?," the North Belfast MP said.

The Prime Minister said that Mr Dodds was "absolutely right" about the December agreement.

"The issue of what the processes would be within the UK to look at this issue of regulations is a matter that will be a matter for this United Kingdom to determine. To determine both our parliamentary rules and our parliamentary decisions on that and indeed the Stormont lock which was expressed in the December joint report," Mrs May replied.

Expand Close Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons (PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons (PA)

"Of course, as the Rt Hon gentleman (Mr Dodds) will also know, the lock that was in the December joint report referred to a decision being taken by the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly, which sadly we do not have in place today."

Brexit dominated the discussion on Wednesday as the Prime Minister prepares to head to Brussels for talks with the EU on her draft withdrawal deal.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the withdrawal agreement did not cover the cost of extending the transition under the Northern Ireland backstop.

"In February, the Prime Minister said that creating a customs and regulatory down the Irish Sea is something that 'no UK Prime Minister could ever agree to', can the Prime Minister explain why the backstop agreement would create exactly that border," Mr Corbyn said.

Mrs May argued that she had secured concessions from the EU in her deal.

"It would not create exactly that, from February until the last few weeks the EU said that the only answer was a Northern Ireland customs territory, we argued and we resisted and we made clear that we would not accept the position of the EU and a few weeks ago they agreed with our position, they conceded to the UK so that there will not be a customs border down the Irish Sea," the PM said.

Mrs May accused the Labour leader of not reading or understanding the withdrawal agreement after he admitted at the weekend he hadn't read it all.

"There is an entire protocol in the withdrawal agreement setting out regulations that apply only to Northern Ireland, she clearly didn't discuss this draft agreement with the DUP, because their Brexit spokesperson (Sammy Wilson) said 'we are clear, we will not be voting for this humiliation," the Labour leader fired back.

"It fails the Prime Minister's red lines, fails Labour's six tests, and it fails to impress the new Northern Ireland minister (John Penrose), who just hours before he was appointed said the deal is 'dead'."
Leo Varadkar said the Brexit withdrawal agreement should not be seen as a threat by unionists (Daniel Leal-Olivas)

Irelands premier has said the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) puts the integrity of the precious union ahead of everything else, even if it leads to a lesser world.

Leo Varadkar said the DUP did not want the best of both worlds when it came to a Brexit deal.

Mr Varadkar made the comments ahead of a vote in the Dail asking parliamentarians to approve the draft Brexit deal. The symbolic vote was passed after a four-hour debate.

He told the Irish parliament: Its not the best of both worlds that the DUP wants. The DUP holds very firm to this view that the most important thing is the integrity of the UK, the integrity of the precious union, and, if that means a lesser world, thats acceptable provided that the integrity of the union is upheld.

It shouldnt be seen as a threat to the United Kingdom. It shouldnt be seen as any effort to separate Northern Ireland from Great BritainLeo Varadkar

The Taoiseach added that the draft agreement reached on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU should not be seen by unionists as a threat to the union.

It shouldnt be seen as a threat to the United Kingdom. It shouldnt be seen as any effort to separate Northern Ireland from Great Britain, he said.

Mr Varadkar added that it was a real shame that the Northern Ireland institutions were not functioning during what he called this very significant time.

He described the DUP as a hard-line unionist party, adding they were not well disposed to taking advice from Irish governments.

Asked to clarify comments he made last week that in a no-deal scenario it would be difficult to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, Mr Varadkar said nobody knows for sure what would happen in a no-deal scenario where the UK crashed out of the European Union without a deal.

In such an event, Mr Varadkar said negotiating teams would have to try to come up with some agreement around regulations and customs to avoid a hard border.

If we had a no deal wed find ourselves having to find a deal very quickly, so why put our countries and people through that when we have a deal on the table? he asked.
Queen's University's environmental research and teaching centre joined forces with Aberdeen University today in a 5million collaboration that will create 100 places for PhD students.

The funding, provided by the Natural Environment Research Council, is to boost the students' skills and understanding needed to lead environmental research.

Dr Jennifer McKinley, from the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queens University Belfast, said: Queens University is delighted to work in partnership with the University of Aberdeen and NERC to deliver this unique PhD opportunity for 100 students here in Belfast and Aberdeen.

"We are well placed to embrace and champion the sustainable development goals embedded in NERC throughout research objectives, training and partnerships both within the UK and internationally.

Professor Mark Emmerson, from the School of Biological Sciences at Queens University, added: Managing sustainability is one of the most challenging and rapidly growing areas in both the public and private sectors.

This initiative with Aberdeen and NERC will improve both interdisciplinary academic training and research to enable the next generation of scientists to work with industry and policy makers to drive towards positive environmental change.

Professor Graeme Paton, head of Aberdeen University's school of biological sciences, said: It is no longer the case that the majority of PhD candidates go on to pursue a career in academia, and QUADRAT has been developed to address this  we will ensure that our PhD candidates are equipped for a broad range of career paths."

He told the Press and Journal: By bringing together our world class expertise, this partnership will offer candidates the opportunity to carry out studies which fit into several themes  Environmental Management, Biodiversity and Earth Systems.
A 23-year-old man was arrested in Belfast on Wednesday on suspicion of possessing and supplying controlled drugs.

The arrest took place in the Tigers Bay area of north Belfast around 9am and the man remains in custody at this time.

As a result of the arrest, detectives seized quantities of suspected class A, B and C controlled drugs and a number of items suspected to be equipment related to a drug supply operation.

Our officers will continue to protect communities from the harm of illegal drugs. This seizure has stopped these drugs being sold on our streets and we have stopped the profits from lining the pockets of organised criminals," Detective Inspector Thornton said.

I would urge the public to come forward with information about drug dealing in north Belfast and all areas so police can take positive action like this.

Information can be provided on the non-emergency number 101 or to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.
Russia has signed contracts with India on the construction of four project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy, Russias Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said.

Russia has signed contracts with India on the construction of four project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy, Russias Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said.

Three project 11356 frigates (Talwar-class) of the Indian Navy - from left to right: F 51 Trikand, F 44 Tabar and F 45 Teg (c) Indian Navy

"Contracts were signed for the construction of project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy. This is yet another important event in developing Russian-Indian military and technical cooperation," the Federal Service said.

India is to buy four Russian frigates that would be built in the 2+2 format: two would be constructed at Russias Yantar Shipyard on the Baltic coast and the other two at Indias Goa Shipyard.

A source in the Indian defense industry told TASS technology transfer is envisaged in frigate construction according to the national Make in India program. "We need technologies," he said. The India-built frigates have to be ready in 2027.

Project 11356 frigates are designed to deliver strikes against adversary surface ships and submarines both in brown and green waters and fight air targets. The warships are armed with A-190 100mm artillery guns, strike missile and air defense systems, including Kalibr and Shtil complexes and torpedoes. The displacement is 3620 tons. The frigates are 124.8 meters long, develop a speed of 30 knots and have an operating range of 4850 miles.

 Copyright 2018 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Jennifer Dornan was found stabbed to death in her burning house in Hazel View in the Lagmore area of west Belfast

A man was remanded in custody on Wednesday after being extradited over the killing of a mother-of-three in west Belfast.

Raymond O'Neill, 40, is facing charges of murder and arson endangering life in connection with Jennifer Dornan's death in August 2015.

Ms Dornan, 30, was found stabbed inside her burning home at Hazel View in the Lagmore area of the city.

O'Neill, with a previous address at Amcomri Street in Belfast, is also to be separately charged with the rape of another woman back in 2003.

He was detained in the Irish Republic under European Arrest Warrants in 2016.

Despite a series of legal challenges, an order was made for his extradition to Northern Ireland.

As O'Neill appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court in a wheelchair due to medical issues, prosecutors confirmed the charges of murder, arson and rape against him.

A preliminary enquiry hearing has been listed for next month, a judge was told.

Defence solicitor Paul Farrell acknowledged it was "an emotive case".

He said: "It was a traumatic event and the allegations against him (O'Neill) are very serious."

But seeking bail, the lawyer claimed the accused is not forensically connected to the murder.

Instead, he contended, only clothing and hairstyle evidence links O'Neill to having allegedly entered Ms Dornan's home.

Mr Farrell, of McIvor Farrell Solicitors, also raised concerns over the separate allegations of rape now being made against O'Neill.

The court heard an initial decision was taken not to prosecute in 2005, before a review more than a decade later.

"It appears to my eye there was no additional evidence," the solicitor said.

He set out how extradition was fought due to potential issues over the validity of the warrants following Brexit.

But refusing bail, District Judge Paul Copeland cited the potential for flight.

He added: "I'm also satisfied from what has been asserted on the complaints to inform the warrants, and what has been articulated in court, that there's more than adequate evidence here to justify the charges at this particular juncture."

Remanding O'Neill in custody, Mr Copeland said: "I direct his production for preliminary enquiry on December 4 here at Laganside Courts in Belfast."
Court heard Paul Martin Stow tried to take cash from a safe at University Street hotel

A man allegedly tried to rob a Belfast hotel armed with a hammer, a court has heard.

Paul Martin Stow (43) is accused of mounting a bid to take cash from a safe at the Holiday Inn Express on University Street last Sunday.

Police also claimed he damaged CCTV camera equipment installed near his own home in the south of the city.

Stow, with an address at Lavinia Square, appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court on Wednesday charged with attempted robbery of the hotel, possessing an offensive weapon in public and three counts of criminal damage.

Opposing bail, a detective constable claimed there was a risk of interference with witnesses in the case.

"One of them is a housing officer for Clanmil Housing, where the damage took place and where the defendant lives," he said.

"The other being the security manager at the Holiday Inn where the (attempted) robbery took place."

The court heard efforts are now being made to have Stow legally removed from the accommodation.

Defence counsel John O'Connor argued that his client has lived there for seven years.

But District Judge Fiona Bagnall insisted Stow would not be allowed to go back there.

She was told the allegations against the accused are based on CCTV identification.

"He didn't make any admissions," Mr O'Connor said.

The barrister said Stow, a father-of-two, was drunk when arrested and has been dealing with mental health difficulties.

"Last year he broke his leg and suffered from septicemia - he almost died and was in hospital for three months," he added.

Bail was granted to an address to be approved by police.

Imposing a curfew, alcohol ban and exclusion zone, Mrs Bagnall said: "I expect that to include Clanmil Housing and also the Holiday Inn Express."
Mairia Cahill believes she was shown no respect by Mary Lou McDonald after finally meeting the Sinn Fein leader face-to-face to discuss a Police Ombudsman report into her alleged abuse by an IRA man.

After the hour-long meeting in Dublin's Leinster House, Ms Cahill branded it "a waste of time".

"We started the meeting with a handshake, but there wasn't one at the end," Ms Cahill told the Belfast Telegraph last night.

Earlier this year, a Police Ombudsman's report revealed how RUC intelligence had found out that Ms Cahill's alleged abuser, Martin Morris, had been suspended from Sinn Fein because he was "suspected of abusing certain children".

Mr Morris, who denied all wrongdoing, was acquitted of rape and IRA membership when the case against him collapsed in 2014 after Ms Cahill withdrew her evidence.

Ms Cahill, aged 16 at the time of the abuse, also said she was subjected to an IRA interrogation about her claims and has accused Sinn Fein of engaging in a cover-up.

"As far I'm concerned Mary Lou McDonald has now abdicated her responsibility," Ms Cahill said.

Ms McDonald previously insisted Sinn Fein had co-operated with the police investigation into Ms Cahill's case and said it was "unfair" of Ms Cahill to "cast a slur" that the party covered up abuse.

She recently "unreservedly apologised" to Ms Cahill and said she "deeply regrets" that Sinn Fein did not have mandatory reporting procedures in place at the time of Ms Cahill's ordeal.

But she also said she had "no regrets" over her handling of Ms Cahill's case.

Ms Cahill, now an SDLP councillor, said: "It was distressing to listen to the nonsense from Ms McDonald. I told her to her face she was talking 'bulls***'.

"Ms McDonald said she believed I was raped because two other victims had come forward. She would not comment on whether the IRA investigated the rapes, but if she believes the first part about other victims, they also said there were IRA investigations. If you believe one, you surely must believe the other?

"If there is one positive for me, this has made me more determined to get the truth out there.

"Come the end of this she will look stupid. She would not admit there was a 'cover-up' of the abuse by her party

"Ms McDonald clearly hadn't read the Ombudsman's report. Her grasp of detail was poor and an apology that isn't really an apology doesn't do anything for me. It's a serious lack of judgment on her behalf.

"This is far from over."

In a statement after the meeting, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said she had "a lengthy and candid conversation" with Ms Cahill.

"I listened carefully to what she had to say and I reiterated my unreserved apology and deep regret that procedures for the mandatory reporting of abuse allegations were not in place at the time of Mairia's disclosure.

"I acknowledged the hurt and pain that Mairia has been through and I stressed to her that robust procedures for the handling of abuse allegations are now in place within Sinn Fein.

"I reiterated that allegations of a criminal nature must be dealt with by the statutory authorities with responsibility for doing so.

"I want to wish Mairia the very best for the future."
Northern Ireland is the riskiest area of the UK when it comes to how people approach cybersecurity, new research published yesterday has claimed.

Cybersecurity firm ESET found that almost a third of people (29%) in Northern Ireland have had a social media or email account hacked, the highest number in any part of the UK.

ESET's research into online security habits also suggests that more than half of UK internet users (51%) have clicked on a link in a spam email.

Jake Moore, cybersecurity expert at ESET UK, said internet users still needed to be more aware of how they interacted with emails and the information they share online.

"Never click on or download anything from someone who you aren't expecting something from and always look at the sender's email address," Mr Moore said.

The research also found that people in East Anglia and the South West of England were the least likely to have ever changed their email password, with 44% nationally admitting they never or rarely change it.

Northern Ireland users were also named as the most likely to use their bank PIN or birth date as the code to unlock their phone.

The research comes as the PSNI issued a fresh warning to the public on Monday to remain vigilant due to the numerous reports of scamming.

Chief Superintendent Simon Walls said in many cases people had been phoned to say they owed tax to HMRC, or were due rebates.

"HMRC will never contact members of the public by telephone for either of these reasons so if you receive a call of this nature hang up.

"If you have any suspicions at all about a call you receive, hang up and phone the organisation the person is claiming to represent to check their authenticity."

He urged anyone affected by a scam to contact police on 101.
Arlene Foster has said she has spoken to a businessman with 300 employees who opposes the draft Brexit withdrawal deal (PA)

Arlene Foster has said she has spoken to a businessman with 300 employees who opposes the draft Brexit withdrawal deal.

The DUP leader made the remark while being questioned about the apparent growing schism between business groups in Northern Ireland and her party over differing view on the proposed agreement.

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Business groups, including national business group CBI, small business group the FSB, and the Ulster Farmers' Union have given their backing to Theresa May's draft Brexit deal - something which has drawn the ire of the DUP.

DUP East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson told the News Letter the groups were being used as "puppets".

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday evening Mrs Foster said: "First of all a section of the business community has come out in favour of this deal, and there are many in the business community who are not in favour of this deal.

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"I have met with those people today. I have met with a gentleman who runs a business with 300 people employed, 70m of turnover, and he's absolutely outraged by the suggestion this deal should come in."

Mrs Foster said it was a bad deal as it will put "more cost" and "more regulation" on businesses in Northern Ireland.

Pushed on whether the business man would be speaking publicly, Mrs Foster said the press will "hear from him and you will hear from many others as well".

She added it was important to listen to "a wide range of businesses and not just those businesses who find time to go along with the CBI and FSB".

"There are many businesses in Northern Ireland who dont have time to engage in those activities but who have a very clear view of this withdrawal agreement," she said.

Mrs Foster confirmed the confidence-and-supply agreement with the Conservative Government was still in place and that the agreement is "not just about money, its about making sure the union is secure".

Theresa May is set to meet with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss the political declaration on the future EU-UK relations, with attempts to remove her from office by hard Brexiters having abated.
Almost 600m from the confidence and supply deal struck between the Conservatives and DUP has still to be allocated to Northern Ireland.

The figures emerged at a time when the DUP's relationship with Prime Minister Theresa May has become increasingly strained over the draft Brexit deal.

A parliamentary research paper has revealed how nearly half of the 1bn package has been spent. The money is supposed to be spent over five years, with 430m approved so far by Parliament.

This consists of 200m for infrastructure and the rest on day-to-day spending on health and education. A total of 570m is still to be released.

The political stalemate at Stormont has also prevented civil servants from spending in certain areas like upgrading Northern Ireland's broadband infrastructure.

Independent research from the House of Commons Library, an information service which provides impartial briefings to MPs, has now broken down the spending in detail.

In 2017-18, 20m was released which Northern Ireland's top civil servant David Sterling said was spent on education and alleviating pressures on health. For 2018-19, a further 410m was approved, with more than 200m set aside for infrastructure investment and the rest for day-to-day spending.

The breakdown of this everyday spending will be:

80m for immediate health and education, of which 36.5m is expected to be given to the Department of Education;

30m to address mental health and severe deprivation;

100m for transformation of health.

Valerie Watts, the chief executive of the Health and Social Care Board, recently explained to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee where the 100m for health transformation would go.

Nearly a third (30m) will be used to stabilise the system by targeting waiting times for diagnostic and elective care.

The same amount will go on reforming hospital and community services, including the establishment of new elective care centres. Another 15m will be spent on primary care (the first point of care for most patients, usually GPs) with the same amount for workforce development across the health and social care system. 10m is for building capacity in communities and for improvement initiatives.

Last month, Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley clarified the powers of civil servants. The report, however, says it "remains to be tested" if this will enable effective decision making and spending in Northern Ireland.

NI Civil Service head David Sterling has said the political impasse is still tying his hands in some areas like improving broadband across the country.

"We will need a ministerial steer on how that money is to be used," he told the NI Affairs Committee in January.

"Should we focus on superfast or ultrafast? Should we have a preference for supporting business or domestic, and how should the balance of spend be allocated? What about the rural-urban split?

"There are quite significant issues where it would be improper for civil servants to be deciding on the allocation of that resource. There are policy issues which only ministers can determine."

Scotland and Wales have received no extra funding, with both governments arguing they should be included, as the DUP's 1bn was intended for areas of devolved policy.
Snow and ice could cause problems

The road has been closed.

Follow the latest updates from our travel feed below

The Dobbin Road in Armagh has been reopend folowing an earlier crash.

Diversions are in place and traffic is being diverted onto the Vicarage Road, delays are expected.

Our live updates from across Northern Ireland are compiled by @TrafficwatchNI, @BBCNITravel and @PSNITraffic.
A review of historic cases of alleged child abuse in Scouting Ireland has found evidence of 71 alleged abusers and 108 victims.

Children Minister Katherine Zappone revealed the shocking figures at an Oireachtas committee on Wednesday morning.

The alleged cases relate to a period between the 1960s and 1980s.

Ms Zappone said that none of the alleged abusers are still working with Scouting Ireland.

She said reports have been made to Tusla, the Child and Family Agency and the Gardai in relation to all of the alleged abusers who are still living.

Ms Zappone described the revelations as "deeply upsetting".

Safeguarding expert Ian Elliott has been reviewing historic cases. Mr Elliot told TDs and Senators that he doesnt believe the final figures have been uncovered. He said the numbers are expected to increase.

He said that 14 of the alleged abusers had multiple victims.

Mr Elliot said the majority of the suspected abusers are deceased.

Those who are alive have been reported to the jurisdiction they are in, including Northern Ireland and overseas.

He said he does not know what all of the living individuals are currently doing, but they are not involved in scouting and have been reported to the authorities.

Scouting Ireland's new chairperson Aisling Kelly said she is "very distressed" to learn of the alleged abuse.

She told the committee: "It is apparent from the ongoing review of past practice, being carried out by Mr Elliott at the behest of the Board, that there is evidence of past abuse emerging from the former organisations that merged to form Scouting Ireland some sixteen years ago.

"Unfortunately, this is so as with so many other organisations in this countrys history.

"Scouting Ireland is working hard to establish the full extent of the knowledge that exists in relation to that abuse; a process that deserves time and space in order to gather an accurate picture.

"No adult volunteer wants to hear that of their organisation which forms more than a hobby for them, but rather a way of life."

Ms Kelly said: "Personally, as a mother of two very young children, this fills me with deep sadness.

"I want to say categorically that Scouting Ireland is committed to providing support and help to all victims of past abuse within Scouting and is looking to include this in our policy framework.

"The Committee should be assured that this new Board of oversight will meet this situation with integrity, compassion and dedication," she added.

The revelations came at the Committee on Children and Youth Affairs.

Its chairman, Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell, said the alleged abuse cases are deeply disturbing and underscore the urgent need for reform within the voluntary organisation.

He said committee members have unanimously expressed their "dismay and shock" that independent safeguarding official Mr Elliot had uncovered the historic cases.

Mr Farrell said the information broadens and deepens the context for the need for "root and branch" reform within Scouting Ireland.

He said: "To be told that these previously undisclosed cases within Scouting Ireland files date from the 1960s to 1980s, and do not involve current staff or volunteers, provides cold comfort".

He noted that Mr Elliot expects the number of cases to rise considerably as he continues to audit Scouting Ireland files.

Mr Farrell said: "The Committee will carefully weigh todays [Wednesday] assurances from Scouting Ireland leaders that all is being done now to build strong child safeguarding policies within their institution."

Scouting Ireland released a statement this afternoon where its chairperson apologised for the hurt that has been caused by the actions of some past members and the organisations that preceded it.

Aisling Kelly said the board of the organisation is committed to a new era of openness, integrity, transparency and accountability.

She said it's clear from Mr Elliot's work that there is evidence of past abuse within the former organisations that merged to form Scouting Ireland 16 years ago.

She added: "Neither the offenders nor the victims were always dealt with appropriately by either organisation.

"We are working hard to establish the full extent of the knowledge that exists in relation to that abuse but as of today, we have identified 108 alleged victims of abuse which was perpetrated by 71 alleged offenders.

"These cases go back to the 1940s with the majority occurring between the 1960s and 1980s.

"The appropriate statutory agencies have been fully informed of alleged perpetrators still living."

Ms Kelly said: We are deeply sorry for the hurt that has been caused by the actions of some past members of Scouting Ireland and its legacy organisations.

"We are taking a victim led approach to this work and we are determined to ensure a comprehensive and compassionate response to those that were so badly wronged in the past. "

She said many of the cases were identified by victims coming forward to Scouting Ireland with their stories.

According to Ms Kelly: "We now have a process where victims are being listened to and many feel that for the first time their voice is being heard."

She said the organisation is committed to providing support and help to all victims of past abuse within our organisation.

"You will be listened to, you will be supported, she said.

Ms Kelly added that a new policy for supporting victims of abuse has been developed and will be considered for approval by the Board at its next meeting.

She also said Scouting Ireland is increasing its professional Safeguarding resources, including recruiting a full-time Safeguarding Manager.

She said that, as recommended in a report by former senator Jillian Van Turnhout Report, safeguarding is now a standing item on the Boards agenda.

Ms Kelly said: "Safeguarding of children and adults is our number one priority.

"We cannot change the past, but we can make sure that this organisation is a safe environment for all our members now and into the future."
Transport chiefs are being urged to conduct a safety review at a busy south Belfast junction after three teenagers were knocked down yesterday.

The three Wellington College pupils were involved in a rush hour collision at around 8am close to Rosetta Park on the Ormeau Road.

A rapid response paramedic as well as four paramedic officers and three emergency ambulance crews were called to the scene.

The year nine pupils were taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital with minor injuries and later discharged.

The accident happened at a pedestrian crossing where the Ormeau Road meets St Johns Avenue, near a filling station.

It has been the scene of a number of near misses due to the huge volume of commuter traffic.

An estimated 5,000 children from up to eight local schools use the route five days a week.

Among them are the twin daughters of Lisa Fagan who lives close to the scene. She said it has been an accident waiting to happen for many years.

"This is the nearest main junction to Wellington College, Forge Primary, Forge Nursery and Rosetta Primary which have a combined enrolment of more than 1,500 pupils," she said.

"The junction is also used by children attending St Michael's Primary, St Bernard's Primary, Aquinas Grammar and St Patrick's Knock, among others.

"There are three traffic rules in the area which are violated daily, endangering the lives of pedestrians, most of whom are children.

"I've lost count of the number of traffic violations I've witnessed and there have been several road rage incidents between pedestrians and motorists. It's time for cameras and proper enforcement at this junction."

SDLP MLA for South Belfast Claire Hanna called on the Department for Infrastructure to introduce a number of measures to reassure families in the area that it is safe to travel to school.

"This is a problematic junction on one of the busiest routes into the city, with frequent reports of vehicles breaching the lights and near misses," she said.

"I had previously requested that the traffic lights at St Johns be made more visible and have forcefully made that request again to the department.

"We need to make this area safer in the immediate term and in the long term reduce the speed and volume of commuter traffic on that road.

"This was a very frightening collision for the students concerned which could have been much worse.

"While we are all under no illusions about the financial pressures, these are relatively low costs and extremely high priority interventions that can be made to ensure that thousands of children in these neighbourhoods can get to school safely."

Wellington College principal David Castles expressed his "great relief" that none of the young people affected suffered serious injuries and thanked the members of the emergency services who attended the scene.
An artists impression of how the bridge could look

An SDLP MLA has hit out at Ian Paisley for "obsessing" over a possible bridge link between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The party's infrastructure spokeswoman Sinead Bradley was responding after Mr Paisley made a request for a feasibility study to be carried out on the project to Secretary of State Karen Bradley.

The SDLP's Ms Bradley argued money would be better spent on the province's existing infrastructure.

Chronic underfunding of our infrastructure here in Northern Ireland has led to an out-dated and too often dangerous road network. For decades this has held back our economy and created deeper disparity between east-west investment," said Ms Bradley.

Appearing before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Mr Paisley asked the Secretary of State if she would consider a feasibility study into a bridge between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain.

"We've seen ingenuity in engineering skills with the 90 mile bridge being built between one part of mainland China and one of the islands off China," said Mr Paisley, noting a link between Northern Ireland and Scotland covers a stretch of 13 miles.

"I think anyone who visits the Causeway coast will always be struck by just how close Scotland is to Northern Ireland," responded Mrs Bradley, noting there are issues around the sea bed and current on the proposed site of the bridge link

Mrs Bradley said she was open to holding a meeting with representatives from Northern Ireland about the bridge.

Branding Mr Paisley's request the "political not the practical", the SDLP's Sinead Bradley said: People are literally dying on our roads, yet the DUP in their wisdom are obsessing over a bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland.

"It beggars belief that we cannot build a 200m bridge from Warrenpoint to Omeath, but yet the Secretary of State has agreed to discuss a feasibility study for a bridge to Scotland.

As political deadlock continues and our chronic infrastructure systems moves from bad to worse, it is bordering on offensive that the DUP would continue to push a pipe dream based on political aspirations rather than serve the people of Northern Ireland.

DUP leader Arlene Foster and MP Sammy Wilson have both previously voiced their support for the project.

The catalyst for the bridge idea originally came from a speech made by former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in January 2018, in which he floated the idea of a 22-mile bridge across the English Channel to France - something he said would improve transport links after Brexit.

Professor Alan Dunlop, one of the UK's leading architects, was asked by newspaper in Scotland to produce plans for a potential bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

He laid out two proposals for the route - one from Larne and Portpatrick (potentially costing around 20bn) or a crossing between the Mull of Kintyrne and Torr Head (potentially costing between 12bn and 15bn).

An artist's impression of the bridge was released in September.
Emorys 2018 International Awards were presented Nov. 15. From left to right, Provost Dwight A. McBride poses with winners Uriel Kitron, Mark Butt and Do Mai Hoa, as well as Philip Wainwright, vice provost of global strategy and initiatives. Emory Photo/Video.

Emory Universitys global impact is best viewed through the work of individual faculty, alumni and staff. Their innovation and enthusiasm for work with international scope brings to life the vast network that connects Emory to countless places, people and projects around the world.

Emorys global footprint is carved by the contributions of faculty, students, alumni and staff who help realize the vision of One Emory on campus and abroad, says Dwight A. McBride, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. Together, we advance research and impact on a global scale.

In recognition of the people who stretch Emorys international reach, the Office of Global Strategy and Initiatives annually honors three members of the Emory community  a faculty member, an international alumnus, and a staff member  to recognize their work and global impact.

The 2018 International Award recipients are:

Uriel Kitron, Marion V. Creekmore Award for Internationalization

Do Mai Hoa, Sheth Distinguished International Alumni Award

Mark Butt, International Outreach Award

This years award winners achievements change our lives at Emory and have impact around the world, says Philip Wainwright, vice provost of global strategy and initiatives. They are internationalizing our campus in Atlanta while also elevating Emorys reputation on the world stage. They show that Emory is both a destination and a launching pad for global scholarship.

Creekmore Award for Internationalization

Uriel Kitron, Goodrich C. White Professor of Environmental Sciences, has been named the winner of the 2018 Marion V. Creekmore Award for Internationalization. This award recognizes an Emory faculty member who excels in advancing the universitys commitment to internationalization.

Kitron studies ecology and spatial epidemiology of infectious diseases with an emphasis on mosquito-borne diseases. His research focuses on international issues ranging from genetically modified mosquitoes to Zika virus to the disease risks of holding the Olympics in Brazil.

Kitrons nomination letter for the Creekmore Award was co-signed by 17 faculty from a variety of disciplines who acknowledged that the large number of endorsements from all over campus underscores [that] Uriel has long exemplified excellence, passion and leadership in his global research and has truly excelled in the advancement of the universitys commitment to internationalization.

His contributions are not only to his field and to Emorys global reputation; he is also committed to mentoring and training students and researchers worldwide. His lab has hosted international PhD students and post-doctoral researchers from a variety of countries including Brazil, Italy, Columbia and Kenya.

Sheth Distinguished Alumni Award

Do Mai Hoa is the winner of the 2018 Sheth Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes international alumni who are highly distinguished in their field and have made outstanding contributions to humanity, science, art or human welfare.

In 2002, Hoa earned a master of public health degree from Emorys Rollins School of Public Health after attending a six-week course through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Emory, Management for International Public Health. During her time at Emory, she became an AIDS International Training and Research Program fellow, an opportunity that contributed to her focus on HIV/AIDS programs.

Hoa is now the project coordinator for the Residency Education Reform Project at the Partnership for Health Advancement in Vietnam, a Harvard University affiliated organization that aims to strengthen health care worker capacity by providing technical assistance, medical education and help with strengthening health policies in Vietnam.

Do Mai Hoa is an exemplary Emory international alumna who, through many years of hard work and dedication, has made a significant contribution to improving public health management capacity in Vietnam, says Michael Malison, adjunct professor in Rollins School of Public Health. Her efforts have inspired others and led to improved evidence-based decision making among HIV program personnel in Vietnams decentralized health system.

Hoas experience and enthusiasm has inspired other faculty and colleagues to attend the training-for-trainers MIPH course, and she has been instrumental in garnering grant funding to support public health and management capacity development.

International Outreach Award

The 2018 International Outreach Award winner is Mark Butt, director of undergraduate selection in the Office of Undergraduate Admission at Emory College of Arts and Sciences. The award recognizes professional Emory staff who have made significant contributions to Emorys internationalization through the programs, schools and units in which they serve.

In his role, Butt has partnered with high schools and programs from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He has worked to establish a process in collaboration with the Office of Financial Aid to ensure international students can be considered for need-based financial aid.

William Segura, associate dean of admission in Emory College, describes Butt as the kind of person you want as a friend and colleague. He is ethical, caring, hardworking and is always focused on doing what is right. Emory is lucky to have him.

In 2016, Butt initiated and helped establish the Emory University and United World College partnership as a part of the Davis Foundation, and Emory has welcomed its second cohort of UWC-Davis Scholars this academic year.

Butts exceptional work to establish partnerships in his regions of focus has ensured that the best and brightest students are applying for admission to Emory University and to the Emory Scholars program.
Ulster University's Students' Union has approved plans to include the Irish language on all union signage.

The proposal was given the go-ahead at a meeting of Ulster University's Students' Council on Tuesday.

The Ulster University has four campuses, one in Belfast, Coleraine, Jordanstown and Londonderry.

Each location has their own students' union.

Sinn Fein Senator Niall O Donnghaile said that he wanted to commend the union for their decision.

This is a positive step forward and reflective of the growing interest in and demand from Irish speakers to carry out their daily routines through the Irish language," he said.

Its important that we continue to promote and increase the visibility of the Irish language; linguistic diversity, representing and reflecting languages, not least indigenous languages, are positive economic and social drivers."

Former Lord Mayor of Belfast O Donnghaile said that the move would benefit Irish speakers at the university.

Irish speaking students are entitled to the same language rights as enjoyed by citizens who live their daily lives through the medium of English and should benefit from the universal advantages that will no doubt flow from this progressive move by the Students Union Council," he said.

Sinn Fein will continue to support the campaign for Acht Na Gaeilge which includes rights and legal protections for Irish speakers in the north, just as exists elsewhere on these islands.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has told the Dail that the DUP believes the integrity of the United Kingdom is of utmost importance, even if it means a "lesser world".

The Fine Gael leader was addressing TDs on Wednesday as the DUP continue to express grave concerns over Prime Minister Theresa May's draft Brexit withdrawal deal.

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The DUP is unhappy that the deal will see Northern Ireland aligned with EU rules and remain part of the single market with checks on some goods coming in from the UK to Northern Ireland, if the Brexit backstop is implemented.

Senior DUP figures have expressed concern that Mrs May's Brexit plan could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom.

Mr Varadkar told the Dail that the DUP would prioritise the union over the greater good.

"The DUP holds very firm to this view that the most important thing is the integrity of the UK, the integrity of the precious union, and, if that means a lesser world, that's acceptable provided that the integrity of the union is upheld," the Taoiseach.

He added that the draft agreement reached on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU should not be seen by unionists as a threat to the union.

Mr Varadkar said it was a "real shame" that the Northern Ireland institutions were not functioning during what he called "this very significant time".

He said the DUP was a hard-line unionist party, adding that they would not object to being described as such, and said that they were "not well disposed" to taking advice from Irish governments.

The Taoiseach said "nobody knows for sure" what would happen in a no-deal Brexit scenario.

"Nobody knows for sure what would happen in a no-deal scenario where the UK crashed out of the European Union without a deal," he said.

In such a scenario Mr Varadkar said negotiating teams would have to try to agree an arrangement to avoid a hard border.

"Nobody knows how long that no deal would last," he said.

"It's my view that if we did end up in a no-deal situation, we would find ourselves having to negotiate a no-deal deal quite soon thereafter, so it might happen for a few weeks."

The Taoiseach said that he agreed with other parliamentarians that it would be a "disaster".
Poet and author Benjamin Zephaniah has said he suffered racial abuse during Brexit campaigning but that he understands the Leave cause.

He does not believe either Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn can deliver what either camp wants from the current political situation.

The writer and activist said he had the worst motivations of some Brexit supporters shouted at him, but that he in fact sympathises with the urge to leave the European Union.

Zephaniah said that his radical left-wing leanings would incline him wanting an exit from the political bloc, even if political realities make him want to remain.

The dub poet rejected the idea that Leave was motivated solely by a racist agenda, although he claims he witnessed this element first-hand.

He said: There was a lot of racism, I felt it, I heard it, I had it shouted at me. But thats not to say that all Leave people are racist, Ive got lots who are personal friends who are not racist.

The Life and Rhymes and the vital signs of Benjamin Zephaniah.https://t.co/MNgOHamTwr pic.twitter.com/6opsAVbfZ7  Professor Benjamin Zephaniah (@BZephaniah) July 30, 2018

My whole take on Brexit was a very unusual one. From my left-wing leaning, Id want to leave, but actually, for dealing with politics the way we have been, the reality, Id want to stay.

Its a very confusing, mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world.

Zephaniah, speaking to the Press Association at the National Book Awards in London, said that debate in the UK had devolved into supporting entrenched views which did not allow for political complexities.

He does not believe that, given these complexities, a black-and-white solution is possible under the leadership of either major party.

He said: I find that the debates are just so divisive, not just within parties but within families, amongst friends. I find it very difficult getting involved in debates now, because it doesnt matter what you say some people are going to hate you and some people are going to love you.

I think a lot of people saw their little issue and went for that. For some people it was race, for some people it was the economy, for some people it was our borders.

Thats why I believe Theresa May will never be able to have the perfect Brexit. You will never be able to have the perfect Leave, well never have the perfect Remain, well never have the perfect anything because the world is complex.

I wouldnt like to be the one that has to do it. But somebody, Theresa May because shes there at the moment, has to compromise. Thats what shes doing and shes getting it in the neck.

If it was Jeremy Corbyn, hed have the same problem. A different side of the fence but hed have the same problem. Its just the way it is.

Zephaniah was nominated for autobiography of the year at the National Book Awards for his work, The Life And Rhymes Of Benjamin Zephaniah. He lost out to Dolly Aldertons Everything I Know About Love.
Nicola Sturgeon has held talks in London with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn (Jane Barlow/PA)

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described the latest draft of Theresa Mays Brexit agreement as a document which will ask people to take a blindfold leap off a cliff.

After holding talks with the Prime Minister in London, Ms Sturgeon said they had a full, frank and calm exchange of views.

The SNP leader said Mrs May had shown her the latest draft of her plan but claimed it was a vague, aspirational document.

She said: Ive seen today the current draft  its not binding, it doesnt have legal effect and effectively it amounts to the House of Commons being asked to vote to exit the EU without knowing what comes next.

Perhaps if there had been more willingness to listen to different voices over the past couple of years we would be in a better position nowNicola Sturgeon

Thats asking people to take a blindfold leap off a cliff edge and I have said all along I just dont think thats a reasonable or acceptable thing to do.

Perhaps if there had been more willingness to listen to different voices over the past couple of years we would be in a better position now.

Theres an argument that says were getting a little late in the day for that meaningful engagement but as long as the possibility is there I will take it.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said Prime Minister Theresa May had told Ms Sturgeon the deal on the table is the best deal that could have been negotiated.

She said: The Prime Minister made clear that we are negotiating a deal with the EU that works for all parts of the United Kingdom  Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland  and delivers on the result of the referendum.

The deal will give Scottish businesses the clarity and certainty they need to protect jobs and living standards, and see us take back control of our waters, improving the fortunes of our fishermen.

Our leader @Adamprice and leader in Westminster @LSRPlaid today met with Scotlands First Minister @NicolaSturgeon along with @theSNP Westminster leader @IanBlackfordMP to discuss a way out of Westminsters #Brexit chaos.  pic.twitter.com/rtMwammLhe  Plaid Cymru  (@Plaid_Cymru) November 20, 2018

The Prime Minister also emphasised her firm belief that the withdrawal agreement is the best deal that could have been negotiated and is in the interests of the entire of the United Kingdom.

A No 10 source added: The PM urged the FM to listen to Scottish employers and to back the agreement reached with the EU. The truth is that SNP plans just make a no deal Brexit more likely.

Ms Sturgeon also admitted she has not yet found common ground with Labour over an alternative Brexit deal after meeting UK party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The First Minister held talks with Mr Corbyn in Westminster to try to coalesce around another way forward but said were not there yet.

The SNP leader said she had met all opposition leaders and they were united in planning to vote down Mrs Mays deal, but claimed the next step was to agree on an alternative, citing a Peoples Vote, single market membership and a customs union as options.

She said: What we talked about was our unity of purpose in thinking the prime ministers deal is a bad deal and voting that down, unity of purpose in not allowing this to be presented as a bad deal or no deal.

No deal is not an option and theres no majority for no deal.

What I wouldnt say is we got to the stage today where theres an agreement that can be coalesced around one of those but, to be frank, thats the responsibility of the opposition.

Jeremy Corbyn cannot continue to court both sides of this debate  it is time to decideSir Vince Cable

Ms Sturgeon did not hold back from criticising Mr Corbyn over a lack of leadership and expressed frustration Labour had stopped short of prioritising a second vote that could stop Brexit.

However, she also said she could get behind Labours position on a pushing for a vote of no confidence and a general election instead of wringing my hands.

She said: I dont think his position on Brexit has shown a lot of leadership even until very recent days but weve got to look ahead now.

Im not saying I can sit here and tell you I can guarantee I can get to a position where me and Jeremy Corbyn are on the same page, but I feel a responsibility to have a go at that.

I would relish a general election  this is the most incompetent shambolic government in my lifetime, so I would relish that.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said opposition parties must now step up momentum for a Peoples Vote, labelling Labour missing in action.

They claim to want a general election before a Peoples Vote, but are making no moves to get one, he said.

Jeremy Corbyn cannot continue to court both sides of this debate  it is time to decide.

Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said it was only Labour that seemed intent on not pursuing a reversal of Brexit.

He said: The Labour leadership must now come to its senses and work with Plaid Cymru and the SNP to find a way out of this Brexit madness.

A Labour Party spokesman said the meeting between Ms Sturgeon and Mr Corbyn was constructive.

He said: They discussed their common opposition to Theresa Mays botched Brexit deal and determination to work across Parliament to prevent a disastrous no deal outcome.
The Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex during their separate engagements in London on Wednesday (Chris Jackson/Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

Meghan and Kate were pictured wearing the same shade of burgundy as they attended two separate engagements in London.

The Duchess of Sussex visited the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by her first charity cookbook, Together: Our Community Cookbook, were being put into action on Wednesday.

Expand Close Meghan told cooks at a community kitchen of her pride in their work (Chris Jackson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Meghan told cooks at a community kitchen of her pride in their work (Chris Jackson/PA)

Just hours later, the Duchess of Cambridge visited a developmental neuroscience lab at University College London.

Meghan was pictured getting stuck into the cooking, with the sleeves of her Sallyet dress from Club Monaco rolled up and a black apron round her waist. The duchess arrived at the event wearing a long purple overcoat by the same brand.

Expand Close Kate showed an extraordinary interest in psychology during the visit (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kate showed an extraordinary interest in psychology during the visit (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

Later, Kate sported a skirt and jacket combo from the brand Paule Ka, paired with a black turtle neck and tights, in a very similar shade for her visit to the UCLs division of psychology and language science in central London.
A majority of businesses in Edinburgh support the introduction of a tourist tax, according to a study.

Research carried out by the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce indicates 69% of nearly 200 businesses and organisations across the city would back a Transient Visitor Levy (TVL).

The survey was conducted among businesses in a range of sectors, including hospitality, financial services, creative industries and transport.

Respondents said they would most favour a per person, per night charge  a form of levy currently employed by several European countries, including Spain and France.

The potential introduction of a TVL in Edinburgh is one of the most significant issues being discussedLiz McAreavey, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce

Results were more split in the hospitality and tourism sector, with only half of the 28 businesses which responded indicating support for a TVL.

Edinburgh attracts more than four million visitors each year, contributing more than 1.4 billion to the local economy.

The number is expected to grow, generating an additional 485 million for the city by 2020.

Proposals to introduce a TVL in Edinburgh have long been discussed at local government and national level.

The City of Edinburgh Council has previously called for the Scottish Government to introduce such a measure.

Edinburghs consultation on our Transient Visitor Levy is now live.

This is your chance to have your say. Show your support for it. Help shape it. & help us deliver it for our Capital! #TouristTax https://t.co/t3zpcQIlh8 pic.twitter.com/aytvlt1Q1G  Cllr Adam McVey (@adamrmcvey) October 17, 2018

Earlier this year, ministers announced a national consultation on the issue.

Liz McAreavey, chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: The potential introduction of a TVL in Edinburgh is one of the most significant issues being discussed in our city and it is only right that business has its say.

After an extensive consultation with our members, we have found broad support for the principle of a levy, which increases further if funds were dedicated to improving the citys infrastructure.

We look forward to seeing the City of Edinburgh Councils proposals for the use of funds raised by a TVL and we remain committed to improving the environment for the businesses that serve as the backbone of our local economy.

We will be submitting to the Scottish Governments consultation, articulating our own position and that of Edinburghs business community, in due course.

Scottish Green MSP Andy Wightman said: These are encouraging findings, which support the Scottish Greens case for renewed local democracy, with our cities and communities having greater control of the funds they raise.

What level is charged is a local matter; the principle of devolving this power is what the Scottish Government must decide on.

Its an obvious solution to boosting the funding of local infrastructure and services and is the least SNP Ministers could do if they expect Greens to enter into discussions over the coming years budget. Local discretion over a visitor levy would bring Scotland into line with other normal European democracies.

City of Edinburgh Council Leader, Adam McVey, said: These findings give yet more weight to our current plans and consultation, which is giving everyone the chance to have their say.

With an increasing volume of visitors to the city, which brings substantial benefits, not least economic growth, there also comes a greater requirement for the city to invest in managing the impacts of that success for businesses, visitors and residents.

Were determined to co-produce a scheme that works best for the whole city, including our local hospitality industry, in order to create a TVL proposal which is fair, simple and workable.
The boss of no-frills airline easyJet has said he is confident flights will not be grounded in a no-deal Brexit scenario after recent assurances from Brussels.(Gareth Fuller/PA)

The boss of no-frills airline easyJet has said he is confident flights will not be grounded in a no-deal Brexit scenario after recent assurances from Brussels.

EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren told the Press Association that no-deal plans released last week by the European Commission meant flights would be able to continue uninterrupted after Brexit, even if the UK crashes out with no agreement in place.

He welcomed the measures, which give some long-awaited clarity over flying rights for UK planes over and into the EU amid fears a no-deal scenario could see flights grind to a halt after March 29.

Expand Close Chief executive Johan Lundgren said easyJet is well prepared for any Brexit outcome (easyJet/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Chief executive Johan Lundgren said easyJet is well prepared for any Brexit outcome (easyJet/PA)

Mr Lundgren said: The European Commission has said that in the case of a no deal, they would propose measures to protect [flying] rights, which the UK has reciprocated.

Im confident there would be no disruption, he said.

He said the bare bones agreement comes after easyJet and fellow airlines have had regular close contact with the Government over the issue, and had been pushing for clarity on no-deal flying plans.

He also assured that easyJet had spent two years making Brexit contingency plans, setting up a Vienna-based arm called EasyJet Europe, which will enable it to continue operating flights across the EU and domestically within EU countries regardless of the Brexit outcome.

In its full-year results, also out on Tuesday, easyJet insisted Brexit had not dented holidaymaker demand for flights next summer  with bookings slightly ahead on 2018.

The group notched up a 41% jump in annual profits to 578 million for the year to September 30 despite strike woes and surging costs.

But easyJet warned that cost pressures will continue into its new financial year, with a hit of up to 100 million expected from rising fuel prices.

It also said revenues per seat will fall in the first half, due to factors including the timing of Easter.

Full-year results showed the group flew a record number of passengers, up 10.2% at 88.5 million, with total revenues up 16.8% to 5.9 billion.

Reported pre-tax profits rose to 445 million from 385 million the previous year.

EasyJet also booked a 112 million underlying loss from its operations at Berlin Tegel Airport in Germany.

But it admitted disruption has been a major factor for the group, with cancellations up significantly to 6,814 from 2,502 the previous year.

The airline industry was rocked by strike chaos over the summer as a result of air traffic control industrial action in France and Italy.

The financial hit of the disruption contributed to an increase in costs over 2017-18 of around 70 million.

Mr Lundgren said he has been urging the EU and relevant authorities to take action to address the industrial action and ineffective use of airspace across Europe.

Everybody understands this is not sustainable and is not acceptable, he said.

EasyJet is working on plans to mitigate the impact of similar strike action in the future, using plane data, standby aircraft and better crew deployment among other measures.

On speculation over easyJets interest in bidding for troubled regional rival Flybe, Mr Lundgren declined to comment but said the group would play a role in consolidation where it makes sense.
Foo Fighters will return to Scotland after a four-year hiatus (Ben Birchall/PA)

Foo Fighters are to play at a festival in Scotland next year.

The band are the second headliners to be unveiled for Glasgow Summer Sessions 2019.

They join The Cure, who are making a return to Scotland after 27 years.

With their outstanding back catalogue, this is bound to be an unmissable showGeoff Ellis

Geoff Ellis, chief executive of organisers DF Concerts, said: To welcome Foo Fighters to Bellahouston Park for the first time is so exciting for music fans all over Scotland, as they are, to this day, one of the best festival headliners in the world.

With their outstanding back catalogue, this is bound to be an unmissable show.

This announcement, as well as the previous reveal that legendary band The Cure will make their return to Scottish soil after 27 years on Friday August 16, truly cements Glasgow Summer Sessions as an integral part of the Scottish live music calendar for 2019.

With more to come, fans should stay tuned for the full line-up.

Foo Fighters will be ending a four-year absence from Scotlands live scene when they take to the festivals stage on Saturday August 17.

Glasgow Summer Sessions, now in its seventh year, is part of the Summer Sessions series which this year added the new Edinburgh Summer Sessions festival.

It saw artists including Sir Tom Jones, Kasabian, Paloma Faith and more perform against the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle.

Tickets go on sale on Friday.
Jeremy Corbyn has led well-wishers after it emerged the Second World War veteran and political activist Harry Leslie Smith is seriously ill in hospital.

The 95-year-old was not in a good way and had been taken into A&E, his son, John, said.

The Daily Mirror said Mr Smith was understood to have fallen ill in Canada, where he was visiting his son.

It is after midnight here but I think he will see the morning and then we will go from there.  John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) November 21, 2018

I have to thank all of Harry's followers, who have shown so much love for him tonight, I know it has helped his health. It also has made these hours less barren for me. Now, I am going to sleep for a bit and be back soon. If anything changes I will let you know. #IStandWithHarry  John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) November 21, 2018

Born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Mr Smith served with the RAF in Germany and in recent years campaigned on behalf of the NHS.

On Wednesday morning, #IStandWithHarry was trending on Twitter as messages of support flooded in.

Mr Corbyn said: Very sorry to hear this. Please pass on my best to Harry. We need him to get well soon as the National Health Service, and our movement, needs him.

Shadow transport minister Karl Turner added: Very much hope Harry makes a full recovery. We need him.

A tweet posted on @Harryslaststand on Wednesday morning said: It is after midnight here but I think he will see the morning and then we will go from there.
A judge at the Court of Session has rejected a challenge to the Scottish Governments decision to to stage a public inquiry into undercover policing (Jane Barlow/PA)

A judge has rejected calls for an inquiry into the activities of undercover police officers operating in Scotland.

Tilly Gifford, an environmental activist who claims she was spied upon by such officers, had gone to the Court of Session in Edinburgh to challenge the Scottish Governments decision not to set up a public inquiry into the matter.

She said afterwards the result was massively disappointing.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay, who has repeatedly raised the issue in Holyrood, said he too was deeply disappointed with the ruling from Lady Carmichael.

With an inquiry into undercover policing taking place in England and Wales, he added: How can it be fair that victims of unethical and illegal undercover policing in England and Wales will get access to an inquiry but Scottish Victims wont?

This is unjust and wrong.

Our evidence is clear and sound  there has been undercover policing in Scotland, and it needs to be investigatedTilly Gifford

Ms Gifford also challenged the decision by the UK Government not to extend its inquiry to include the activities of undercover police in Scotland, arguing the decision breached her right to private and family life, as set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

But Lady Carmichael said she had not demonstrated either government acted incompatibly with her Convention rights on this basis.

Ms Gifford had also argued the decision taken by former justice secretary Michael Matheson not to set up a separate Scottish inquiry was were irrational, and, separately, disproportionate, and therefore unlawful.

I am deeply disappointed that Tilly Giffords judicial review has been rejected. How can it be fair that victims of unethical and illegal undercover policing in the rest of the UK get access to an inquiry but Scottish victims wont. This is unjust and wrong.  Neil Findlay (@Neilsocialist) November 21, 2018

But the judge ruled: The decision is one which in my view falls within the range of responses reasonably open to the second respondents, and cannot be categorised as irrational.

At the time Mr Matheson concluded a separate inquiry into the use of covert police officers in Scotland was not necessary or justified.

He made that decision after a review by Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) had found the use of such officers can not be considered to be widespread north of the border  although it stated the Metropolitan Polices controversial Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) had both deployed officers to Scotland.

The report by HMICS also deemed the use of undercover officers to be a legitimate policing tactic.

It stated: Operational activity has primarily focused on drug-related offences, child sexual abuse and exploitation, human trafficking and exploitation and serious organised crime.

There was no evidence that undercover officers from Police Scotland had infiltrated social justice campaigns or that officers had operated outwith the parameters of the authorisation.

After the legal opinion was published Ms Gifford said: This is a massively disappointing decision by the Court.

Our evidence is clear and sound  there has been undercover policing in Scotland, and it needs to be investigated by an independent transparent public inquiry, not just for my sake but for the blacklisted builders, the campaigns, political parties and organisations striving for social justice who have been spied upon.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: Ministers welcome Lady Carmichaels opinion in this case, where the Court has dismissed the petition on all counts.

The Scottish Governments decision was reached after full and detailed consideration of this issue and that is reflected in the Courts judgement.
The Duchess of Cambridge showed an extraordinary interest in psychology as she visited researchers looking at the way in which children develop socially and emotionally.

Kate chatted to students about her studies in psychology at university as she visited UCLs Division of Psychology and Language Science in London on Wednesday.

Professor Eamon McCrory, co-director of the developmental risk and resilience unit, said: Her level of interest is extraordinary.

She has a genuine interest and understanding. Its highly encouraging and hugely supportive. It helps to raise awareness.

Expand Close Kate showed a genuine interest in psychology during the visit (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Earlier this year Kate organised practitioners and academics to discuss what can be done to make a positive difference in the lives of children, focusing on their earliest stage of life, from pre-birth to infancy.

The team of researchers at UCL are working to examine the effect of mental and physical trauma on children.

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During the visit, Kate was shown the units MRI scanning facility to learn about their research on how early experience shapes brain function.

Children participating in the research play games while their brains are scanned. The magnets inside can detect subtle changes in the brain relating to traumatic experiences.

Its been great to see behind the scenes, Kate said. Whats really interesting is that its all so new.

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Kate arrived for the visit wearing a burgundy skirt and Paule Ka jacket with a black turtle neck jumper, just hours after the Duchess of Sussex wore a Club Monaco burgundy coat and matching dress as she made a return visit to the west London kitchen which inspired her collaborative work on a Grenfell charity cookbook.

The duchess, who studied psychology during her first year at the University of St Andrews, also heard from members of Prof McCrorys neuroscience research team about how they work closely with children and families to shed new light on resilience following early adversity.

Kate also spoke to social workers from Camden and Islington, and praised their partnership with UCL and their work in the community.

I hope this is the beginning of an increase in awareness of the critical importance of early years development, Prof McCrory said.

Science is one part of rethinking our approach, but its a much wider challenge. The duchesss interest and breadth of her commitment will shine a light on an important issue.
The mother of Jason Isaacs, who died after being stabbed, says police need more support (PA)

The grieving mother of a teenager fatally stabbed on a night out has hit out at critics who try and tie the hands of the police in their ability to fight crime.

Sharon Kendall suggested campaigners resisting an increase in officers being able to use stop-and-search powers should look at all the murdered teenagers faces.

Her son Jason Isaacs was attacked in a residential street in Northolt, west London, on the evening of November 18 last year and died in hospital three days later.

Expand Close Jason Isaacs, 18, died three days after being stabbed in Northolt a year ago (Met Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

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The 18-year-old apprentice carpenter was described as amazing and wonderful by Ms Kendall, who said his murder had plunged her into every mothers nightmare.

In an impassioned statement released by the Metropolitan Police, she said: I am not going to remain silent, nor will we become a statistic.

There are too many families suffering at the hands of others. The second you decide to carry a knife, there is a very strong possibility that you will ruin a familys life, and your own.

We need to get knife crime under control. For those who try and tie the hands of the police in making their job more difficult, I ask you to stop and look at all the murdered teenagers faces.

If we collectively gave a little more support to the police using stop-and-search and enforcement, things would change.

Ms Kendall said the loudest voice in the debate must be the parents who have lost a loved one to knife crime.

Mr Isaacss family will release balloons when they return to the scene of his murder on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of his death.

The tragic commemoration comes as London counts the grim cost of its struggle with violent crime that has seen 120 homicides so far this year.

The figure has already surpassed the total for 2017, when there were 118 in London, excluding the 13 victims of the terrorist attacks at Westminster Bridge, London Bridge and Finsbury Park.

Home Office figures released in October showed that in the first three months of 2018, police conducted 282,248 stop and searches  a fall of 7% on the previous 12 months and the lowest number since current data collection started in the year to March 2002.

While use of the tactic had fallen, the proportion of stop and searches leading to an arrest, 17%, was the highest since the statistical series started.

The causes of crime are complex, and years in the making.



Our new Violence Reduction Unit brings together experts from councils, charities & community groups across London to build on our public health approach to tackling serious violence. pic.twitter.com/R7RdmhvnRw  Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) November 18, 2018

However separate analysis by the Stopwatch coalition showed that while police use of stop-and-search powers has fallen significantly, there has been an increase in racial disparities in the policing and prosecution of drug offences.

It said forces that cannot use stop-and-search fairly and effectively should have the powers taken away from them until they can show that they can be trusted to use these powers appropriately.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has said he will make sure police have the right powers, including stop-and-search.

I want officers to feel confident, trusted and supported in using stop-and-search, and I will be looking at ways to reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency in the use of this power, he said in October.

On Monday, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced 13 million of funding to tackle serious youth violence in the capital.

With many knife crime victims of school age, Ms Kendall also called on parents to ensure their children are not getting caught up in potentially-catastrophic criminality.

She said: It goes well beyond the police. Parents have a good idea of what their kids are up to and if you dont, I would urge you to be proactive. Know who their friends are, go through their phones. You have a chance to intervene when the issue is a dripping tap. Your parenting may save a life.

Two men have been charged with Mr Isaacss murder, although detectives believe two more suspects are still at large and a 20,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Ms Kendall said: Whilst we cannot bring Jason back, you can make a difference by helping the police identify who the two outstanding males are.

Anyone with information is asked to call the incident room on 0208 785 8099, or to call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
The Duchess of Sussex told cooks at a community kitchen of her pride in their work, as they lovingly told her that her baby will be considered their grandchild.

Meghan made a return visit to the west London kitchen which inspired her collaborative work on a Grenfell charity cookbook.

It was her first official trip to the Hubb Community Kitchen, not far from the site of the deadly tower block blaze in west London.

She had previously paid a number of secret visits before the cookbook was published in September.

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Whatsapp Meghan cradles her bump during her to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen (Chris Jackson/PA)

It was the first time many of the women had seen the expectant mother since her pregnancy was announced, and they were quick to congratulate her on the happy news.

Ahlam Saeid, whose family recipe of rainbow roasted vegetables Meghan helped prepare at the kitchen, told of her of her joy.

The Duchess has made regular private visits to the kitchen since January, which was set up by women from the community affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. Through the power of cooking, the women have been able to connect, heal and look forward. #CookTogether pic.twitter.com/l1BKghndB1  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) November 21, 2018

After meeting Meghan the 61-year-old grandmother, who is originally from Iraq, said: I told her this is our grandchild, we are so happy. The whole community. And she is so happy.

Meghan, who spent about 45 minutes at the kitchen, was also given a traditional Ugandan cloth to wrap around her stomach in the months after she gives birth.

Munira Mahmud said she explained briefly to Meghan what the navy blue fabric was before she left the kitchen.

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She said: Much of what we are doing is based on tradition. I thought what could be better to get her than the wrap. She was over the moon, she was really happy.

The mother-of-two, 34, is one of the women motivated by the growing kitchen project to start up a new scheme, providing new mothers with healthy, fresh and nutritious meals.

She said: I told her I cant wait to cook for you after you have the baby. One of my projects is cooking good food for mothers after they have their babies.

 The inclusive ethos of Together has resonated all over the world, and inspired people not just to buy the book, but to cook, eat and gather in their own communities. #CookTogether pic.twitter.com/vmgH6q9XGU  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) November 21, 2018

She added that Meghan said she would be happy to enjoy her meals.

During the visit, to see first hand the progress made since the Together cookbook went on sale, Meghan was keen to lend a helping hand.

She took off her Club Monaco burgundy coat and rolled up the sleeves of her matching dress, put on an apron and a pair of gloves and began mixing vegetables with her hands.

Bumper sales of the cookbook, which features more than 50 recipes from women whose community was affected by the fire, have allowed a total makeover of the kitchen as well as longer opening hours.

Meghan, who suggested the idea of a fundraising cookbook when she first met the women, has previously described it as a tremendous labour of love.

The book took the number one spot on Amazon within hours of being unveiled two months ago and has since sold nearly 40,000 copies in the UK alone, raising 210,000.

Expand Close Meghan visited to see how the funds raised are making a difference (Chris Jackson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Meghan visited to see how the funds raised are making a difference (Chris Jackson/PA)

The kitchen, redesigned with the womens input to capture its spirit as a place for the community to come together over meals, now opens seven days a week, up from just two when it began last year.

Those involved have also been able to obtain food hygiene qualifications and been empowered to start their own projects for the benefit of the wider community.

Projects, supported by the social entrepreneur foundation UnLtd, include a group for women affected by domestic violence and a project to produce healthy treats for children.

Expand Close The Duchess of Sussex said the project was exciting (Chris Jackson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Sipping ginger tea as she listened to some of the womens plans for the future Meghan said: Im so proud of you. Its really exciting.

On Wednesday 200 meals being prepared in the kitchen were destined for local groups, including elderly peoples homes, homeless shelters and womens refuges.

The dishes included Egyptian lamb fattah, Persian chicken and barberry rice, and Meghan helped box and label slices of chocolate cake as well as the mixed vegetables.

She also introduced chef Clare Smyth, a friend, to the volunteers in the kitchen.

The Co Antrim-born chef, who now lives in London and has a restaurant near the community facility, described the people involved in the kitchen as incredible.

She said: If everyone took care of their community like this there would be no issues in the world.

Ms Smith said Meghan had spoken with passion about the kitchen.

Shes really into food, shes a real foodie.

Ms Mahmud said she hoped Meghan would continue to be involved in the project.

She said: She makes you feel you are part of her. She is so down to earth.
Labour MP Ann Coffey said rape myths and stereotypes were dominant in society (Clara Molden/PA)

A veteran Labour MP claims society is reluctant to convict young men of date rape and has called for a major review of the jury system for rape cases.

Ann Coffey said rape myths and stereotypes were dominant in society, including views that women invite rape by what they wear or real rapes are done by strangers in alleyways.

She said juries took these views into court and also lacked understanding about consent in date or acquaintance rape cases, leading to falling conviction rates.

Ministers need to take strong action, including I believe a fundamental review of the whole systemAnn Coffey, MP

A perfect storm was brewing as a result, Ms Coffey said, in which prosecutors were reluctant to pursue cases and police were reluctant to lay charges.

The result of this is that victims will stop coming forward and justice in the criminal justice system will be denied to young women, she said in a House of Commons motion on Wednesday.

The danger is we will be thrown back to the dark days, where victims of abuse were silenced and dared not speak out.

Ms Coffey, the Member for Stockport since 1992, called for an urgent independent inquiry into the use of juries in rape cases in the UK in a bid to forge a better public understanding of rape myths.

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She said the inquiry should consider judge-alone trial options, jury vetting, specialist rape courts and a review of the rules around the disclosure of a complainants sexual history and mobile phone data.

Ministers need to take strong action, including I believe a fundamental review of the whole system, she said.

Myths existed around the way rape victims were expected to behave after an assault, while some believe flirting on a date indicates consent, Ms Coffey said.

Juries take these attitudes into the courtroom with them, and defence lawyers play up these myths in an attempt to rubbish the witness, she said.

Ms Coffeys motion came after she made a request for statistics from the Crown Prosecution Service regarding rape cases.

She said the number of men charged with rape in England and Wales had fallen to its lowest level in a decade, but police reports had risen in recent years.

Less than a third (32%) of prosecutions brought against men aged 18 to 24 in England and Wales resulted in a conviction in 2017/18, the figures showed.

By comparison, successful prosecutions against men aged 25 to 59 were significantly higher at 46%.

Ms Coffey noted the German and French court systems had a collaborative model for rape cases, with judges deciding cases with citizens.

In reply Lucy Frazer, Under-Secretary of State for Justice, thanked Ms Coffey for her motion, saying she was right to ask the questions she asked.

She said: This debate is an important one, because we need to look into these issues to ensure that when reports of rape are made they are taken seriously.

As jurors are picked from society as a whole, it is quite possible that rape myths do sometimes have an impact on jury decision making.

But more research is needed to firmly establish this link. For that reason I ask for the Houses patience.
Campaign groups and politicians have called for the gender deficit to be addressed (Mark Duffy/UK Parliament)

A cross-party group of MPs has called for political parties to publish the number of women they put forward for election to end the diversity deficit in Parliament.

Several senior politicians signed a letter urging the UK Government to enact Section 106 of the Equality Act (2010) that would ensure parties reported their gender gap among election candidates.

The call comes in the week marking 100 years since women first gained the right to stand for election to the House of Commons.

Since then, there have only been 491 female MPs  just 50 more than the number of men currently sitting in Parliament.

On this day 100 years ago in 1918, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act was passed which allowed women to become MPs for the first time. Allowing them to sit and vote in the @HouseofCommons #Vote100 pic.twitter.com/Oa3SdBet6p  UK Parliament (@UKParliament) November 21, 2018

Conservative MP Nicky Morgan, Shadow Equalities Minister Dawn Butler, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and SNP MP Hannah Bardell were among the politicians to add their name to the letter.

Organisations and individuals including Dr Helen Pankhurst, Centenary Action Group, the Fawcett Society, Womens Aid and the Electoral Reform Society have all campaigned for Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt to implement Section 106.

In a piece for The Times newspaper on Wednesday, Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP wrote: It appears in the economic sphere we might finally be on the long-road to achieving fair pay.

But for this to last  and to reduce discrimination in all walks of life  there must be political progress too.

It would be a fitting way to make the centenary year of some womens right to vote for this simple change to be made. In fact, it is the least we could do.

Hannah Bardell MP said: The SNP are working hard to make politics an attractive destination for women, but we are far from complacent and will continue to support women interested in elected office.

The SNP are making positive strides in equality amongst elected members in Parliament, with women making up 43% of SNP MSPs.

More than a third of our MPs are female and Scotlands first female First Minister is our party leader, Nicola Sturgeon.

Ms Bardell highlighted the 500,000 funding announced by the Scottish Government earlier this year to encourage more women to become involved in politics.

The fund was established to help provide grants for local initiatives across the country.

Ms Bardell added: We are committed to real change in the political makeup of Parliaments across the UK.
Theresa May was flying to the Belgian capital for tea-time talks with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Theresa May and senior Government ministers have warned that Britain may not leave the European Union if MPs vote down the Prime Ministers Brexit deal.

The warnings came amid suggestions from Brussels that a summit to sign off on the draft withdrawal agreement on Sunday could be called off unless progress is made on finalising a political declaration on future relations, with one senior official saying: Were not there yet.

Reports suggested that Germanys ambassador to the EU had said the document must be finalised by Thursday or Chancellor Angela Merkel would not attend.

Asked whether the UK expected the summit to go ahead, the PMs official spokesman said only: A summit has been called, an agenda has been published and we look forward to attending.

Mrs May was flying to the Belgian capital for tea-time talks with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, at which she will seek progress on the framework for future relations in areas like trade and security.

Spain has raised concerns about the treatment of Gibraltar in the proposed text, while France is understood to be pushing for better rights of access to UK fishing waters.

And Mrs Merkel set her face against Tory backbench demands for Britain to have the unilateral power to tear up a proposed backstop arrangement for the Irish border.

Chancellor Merkel told the Germany Parliament: We have placed value, and I think this is right, on the fact that Britain cannot decide unilaterally when it ends the state of the customs union, but that Britain must decide this together with the EU.

Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said that for Sundays summit to go ahead, we will need to have agreed beforehand the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet.

He added: Sherpas are due to meet on Friday. They will need to see a final text before then, and the Commission stands ready to consider the text and take any action at any time.

Since unveiling her draft agreement last week, the PM has repeatedly warned MPs that failure to approve it would risk a no-deal Brexit, or no Brexit at all.

But answering questions in the Commons on Wednesday, she told MPs that the alternative to her deal will either be more uncertainty, more division, or it could risk no Brexit at all.

And Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal.

There isnt a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.

The minister, a former Remain campaigner who replaced Leave-backing Esther McVey in the Cabinet following her resignation last week, said she expected MPs to back Mrs Mays plan after peering into the abyss and pulling back.

But she added: If it doesnt get through, anything could happen.

The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss told BBC Radio 5 Live: If my colleagues in Parliament dont vote for this then were in grave danger of not leaving at all.

Expand Close Esther McVey, who quit the Cabinet last week, challenged the Prime Minister over Brexit in the Commons (PA Wire/PA Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Esther McVey, who quit the Cabinet last week, challenged the Prime Minister over Brexit in the Commons (PA Wire/PA Images)

Mrs May was challenged by Ms McVey at Prime Ministers Questions to confirm that Brexit will happen come what may.

The PM replied: I can give her the assurance that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union on March 29 2019.

The PMs official spokesman said that she remained determined to deliver Brexit next March as planned and was confident of doing so, and still believed that a failure by MPs to support her deal risked either no deal or no Brexit.

Amber Rudd exposes the falsity of the PMs tactics - it is not a choice between her bad deal or no deal. There are better alternatives. https://t.co/fjpuKHxTN7  Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) November 21, 2018

But the ministers comments were seized upon by Labour, whose shadow chancellor John McDonnell told an event at Reuters in London that there was an overwhelming majority opposing anything that smacks of being no-deal.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said that if Mrs Mays deal falls in the vote expected early next month, Parliament will take back control.

Sir Keir said: After these comments from Amber Rudd, its time for the Government to drop the false choice between a bad deal and no deal, and to come forward with a plan that can command the majority support of Parliament.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: Amber Rudd exposes the falsity of the PMs tactics  it is not a choice between her bad deal or no deal. There are better alternatives.

The Peoples Vote campaign for a second referendum said Ms Rudd had torpedoed the PMs threat of no deal.

(PA Graphics)Mrs May came under pressure at Prime Ministers Questions from Conservative backbenchers who fear her draft agreement will leave the UK trapped in a customs union with no way of leaving without the EUs consent.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the half-baked agreement was a failure which would be rejected by MPs.

And the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Nigel Dodds, told the PM that protections for Northern Ireland agreed last December had been deleted from the deal.

Downing Street sources insisted that the arrangement under which the DUPs 10 MPs prop up Mrs Mays minority administration in the Commons remains in force, despite the smaller partys decision not to vote with the Government on Tuesday.

The move, which forced the Government to cave in to a series of Labour and SNP amendments to its Finance Bill, has put huge strain on the agreement reached in the wake of last years inconclusive General Election.
A 90 year-old man who was sheltered as a child refugee by Clement Attlee after fleeing the Nazis in the run-up to the Second World War said it was an overwhelming experience as he met the former prime ministers granddaughter for the first time.

Paul Willer said that he and Mr Attlees granddaughter Jo Roundell Greene hugged many times.

They met at a private tea hosted by Mrs Roundell Greenes cousin Earl John Attlee in the House of Lords. Just a few other members of both families attended the small event.

It came ahead of an event in the Houses of Parliament, organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport which saved thousands of children who were escaping from the Nazis.

Mr Willer, who was ten when he was taken in by the then opposition leader in 1939, said: The whole day has been emotional.

A beaming Mrs Roundell Greene added: We are both absolutely delighted to have met each other. It has been a very special day.

Mr Willer recalled feeling immediately welcomed by Mr Attlee and his family.

Expand Close Paul Willer (left) said meeting Jo Roundell Greene was overwhelming (Yui Mok/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Paul Willer (left) said meeting Jo Roundell Greene was overwhelming (Yui Mok/PA)

Mr Attlee had sponsored a Jewish mother and her two children so they could move to the UK from Germany in 1939. Mr Willer stayed at Mr Attlees home in Stanmore, north-west London, for four months.

Mr Attlee did not try to make any political gain from sheltering the child and did not go public with what he had done.

Mr Willer, who now lives in Gloucestershire, arrived on Easter Sunday and felt loved by Mr Attlee, his wife Violet and their four children.

Recalling his fond memories of Mr Attlee, he said: He was a very gentle fatherly figure who exuded goodwill to all us children all the time.

Mrs Roundell Greene, of Somerset, said: There was a young boy who needed somewhere to stay. They had a big house and lots of children, and one more was something they wanted to do.

They made him welcome. He had to take cold baths but it was just normal family life. They welcomed him and he said they loved him.

Her mother Felicity helped Mr Willer, who could not speak English, communicate with the rest of the family, as they both had learned some Latin at school.

Expand Close Clement Attlee with his granddaughter Jo Roundell Greene, aged 5 (Family handout/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

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Mrs Roundell Greene said: He said he was very fond of my mother Felicity. I feel a great warmth towards him and I had not met him before today.

Mr Willer was raised with his younger brother by his Jewish mother, Franziska, in the Bavarian town of Wurzburg. Their father, Johannes, a Christian, left their mother in 1933, began a new relationship and declared himself to be a Nazi sympathiser, according to The Guardian.

Mr Willers mother struggled to find work in her profession as a doctor so she could look after her children. She decided she had to leave Germany after seeing the anti-Semitic violence of Kristallnact  night of broken glass  on November 9 1938.

Contact with a rector in Stanmore eventually led to the link being made with the Attlees.

Mr Willer was sent to school in Northern Ireland. He later went on to work as a textiles company sales director, married and had three children.

AJR chief executive Michael Newman said: The AJR was thrilled to facilitate the deeply emotional meeting of Paul Willer and Jo Roundell Greene, the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who opened his home to offer sanctuary to Paul as a ten-year old child fleeing Nazi oppression.

Excerpts from a letter by Prime Minister Theresa May were read at the AJR event in which she praised the Kindertransport as the best of humanity coming to the fore in the face of the very worst.

Lord Dubs, who came to Britain as a six-year-old child during the Kindertransport, hoped that modern-day refugees coming to Britain would get the same warm welcome and support.

A raft of MPs from different parties also read out parts of the debate which led to the Kindertransports creation.

The Kindertransport brought some 10,000 children aged between three and 17 years to safety from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland in the lead up to the Second World War. Most were Jewish and more than half the children never saw their parents again.

The first transport, from an orphanage in Berlin, arrived into London Liverpool Street station on 2 December 1938. Most of the children arrived at Liverpool Street station while some came by boat into Southampton.

The first transport from Vienna left on 11 December 1938.
Holyrood is set to ban mechanical harvesting of kelp in Scottish waters (Andy Jackson/Subsea TV/PA)

The Scottish Parliament is expected to ban mechanical harvesting of kelp during a vote later.

The proposal is part of the Scottish Crown Estate Bill, which is likely to become law following a final debate at Holyrood on Wednesday afternoon.

Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham announced on Tuesday the Scottish Government would back a prohibition of kelp dredging.

The ban was first proposed by the Scottish Greens after more than 10,000 people signed a petition calling for the practice to be outlawed.

The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee voted in favour of an amendment to the Bill from the partys environment spokesman Mark Ruskell last month.

Ms Cunningham told MSPs: We recognise that kelp is an important part of our marine biodiversity and, having considered amendments to the Crown Estate Bill, we intend to support Mark Ruskells amendment, although there are some clarifications and qualifications that require to be made.

It is our view that commercial use should not extend to power stations or commercial ports or other, similar public infrastructure being prevented from removing kelp species for maintenance or for other public interest reasons and nor should it prevent appropriate research and development.

Removals shouldnt be prevented where the activity is hand-cutting, which SNH have advised is sustainable, and I can say that I will consider the need for guidance or directions to managers on these issues.

She said she would be announcing a review of the regulations underpinning kelp harvesting, including farming of the seaweed.

Some very happy young conservationists here hearing the news of the support to ban mechanical kelp dredging in Scottish waters. A HUGE thanks to @savekelp @AilsaMcL USS & all others who worked hard for this. A wee minding for us that we need to appreciate all sea life more.  pic.twitter.com/XQeIWFHPgm  Sunnyside Primary (@SunnysidePri) November 20, 2018

Mr Ruskell said kelp forests are hugely important to Scotlands marine environment and he is delighted to have secured the governments backing.

He said: They dampen waves, protecting coastal communities from flooding and erosion, act as a habitat for hundreds of species, and store more carbon dioxide than the rainforest.

Industry bosses earlier this week warned legislation banning the practice in Scotlands waters could hit the economy by as much as 300 million.

Tom Shields, chairman of industry body Chemical Sciences Scotland, said the country risked no longer being seen as a competitive place for science-based businesses.
Telecoms group TalkTalk has confirmed plans to shift its headquarters from London to Manchester in a move impacting hundreds of staff (PA)

Telecoms group TalkTalk has confirmed plans to shift its headquarters from London to Salford in a move impacting hundreds of staff.

The firm said it would shift several hundred employees from its existing HQ to the new office in Manchester next year, while also creating new posts, including graduate and apprentice positions.

Around 500 staff work in the London HQ and all will be given the opportunity to relocate, although TalkTalk will be retaining a small satellite office in London with fewer than 100 staff.

It comes after TalkTalk opened a large, state-of-the-art office in Salford in 2017 to house its technology and business teams, which had previously been based in Warrington and Irlam.

Chief executive Tristia Harrison said: Weve always had a base in the North West, but we want to build on that heritage and create a world-class campus for the whole business.

As with any change, we are committed to supporting all of our colleagues during this transition period.

TalkTalk relocating their headquarters and executive team here and creating hundreds of new, high quality, technical, digital jobs speaks volumes for the success of our investment in a digital futureSalford City Mayor Paul Dennett

In half-year results also announced on Wednesday, TalkTalk reported pre-tax losses narrowing to 4 million in the six months to September 30 from 95 million a year earlier.

Interim underlying earnings rose to 101 million from 75 million a year ago.

It saw a slowdown in growth in broadband customers, with its overall broadband base increasing by 24,000 in the second quarter against 80,000 in the previous three months.

But it said it saw fibre customer additions on a net basis  those joining less those leaving  rise to 125,000 in the second quarter, up from 67,000 in the previous three months.

Its rate of so-called churn  customers quitting the group  fell to its lowest ever level of 1.1% in the second quarter as it continues to move on from the major cyber attack in 2015, which saw the personal data of nearly 160,000 people accessed by hackers.

It has since been restructuring and saving costs across the group.

On the HQ move, Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett said: Salford is already home to the second largest cluster of digital businesses outside London and the city is working hard to grow the digital skills and talent for the future.

TalkTalk relocating their headquarters and executive team here and creating hundreds of new, high quality, technical, digital jobs speaks volumes for the success of our investment in a digital future.
Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons (PA)

Theresa May faced Tory demands to renegotiate her Brexit deal at Prime Ministers Questions, as Jeremy Corbyn also warned the agreement was dead.

Brexiteer Andrew Rosindell told the Prime Minister he was deeply unhappy with the withdrawal agreement and urged her to lead the country in a new direction by completely cutting away the tentacles of the EU.

Neil Parish, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, also warned the Irish border backstop threatens the integrity of the UK and advised Mrs May to listen to concerns raised by MPs.

The pointed remarks came during PMQs as Mr Corbyn pushed Mrs May over the detail of her plans although the PM countered by claiming the Labour leader had not read the draft Brexit deal, adding: Never mind a second referendum, he hasnt got a first clue.

At #pmqs, @jeremycorbyn picks up on @AmberRuddHR's claim that Parliament will not permit a no deal #Brexit  Andrew Woodcock (@AndyWoodcock) November 21, 2018

Opening PMQs, Mr Rosindell said: I agree with the people of Romford who are deeply unhappy by the proposed EU deal, which they believe does not represent the Brexit they voted for.

Will she now, even at this late stage, please think again and instead lead our country in a new direction completely cutting away the tentacles of the EU over our cherished island nation once and for all?

Mrs May responded by saying her deal delivered on the promises of Brexit and ensured a continued close trading relationship with the EU.

Mr Corbyn began by referencing comments from Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd that no-deal could be prevented by Parliament.

.@jeremycorbyn at #pmqs: "Parliament will reject this bad deal and if the Government can't negotiate an alternative they should make way for those who can" #Brexit  Andrew Woodcock (@AndyWoodcock) November 21, 2018

He said: A number of Government ministers have confirmed this morning that leaving the EU with no-deal is not an option, does the Prime Minister agree there are no circumstances under which Britain would leave with no-deal?

Mrs May responded: The point that has been made by a number of my colleagues in relation to the vote that will come before this House on a meaningful vote on a deal from the European Union is very simple.

If you look at the alternative to having that deal with the European Union it will either be more uncertainty, more division or it could risk no Brexit at all.

Mr Corbyn argued the PM did not answer the question before saying Mrs Mays idea of taking back control of our money is to hand the EU a blank cheque and added the UK would have no rebate after 2020.

The Prime Minister hit back by claiming Mr Corbyn hasnt even read the draft Brexit deal and also criticised his interpretation of it.

Mr Corbyn said the Government had got Britain into this shambles before repeating Labour has not ruled out all options.

Concluding his remarks, Mr Corbyn labelled the deal a failure and told the Commons: It fails the Prime Ministers red lines, fails Labours six tests, and it fails to impress the new Northern Ireland minister (John Penrose), who just hours before he was appointed said the deal is dead.

Instead of giving confidence to the millions of people who voted both Leave and Remain, this half-baked deal fails to give any hope that it can bring the country together again.

Isnt it the case that Parliament will rightly reject this bad deal, and if the Government cant negotiate an alternative then it should make way for those who can and will.

Mrs May replied: He is opposing a deal he hasnt read, hes promising a deal he cant negotiate, hes telling Leave voters one thing and Remain voters another  whatever (Mr Corbyn) will do, I will act in the national interest.

Tory Mr Parish later told the PM: I am a great supporter of yours and I accept what a difficult and tough job you have.

The Northern Irish backstop threatens the integrity of the UK and weakens our negotiating position and my farming instincts tell me you do not hand over 39 billion before you get a deal.

Please can I ask you to listen to these concerns and renegotiate the deal before you put it onto the floor of this House?

DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds later accused the Prime Minister of deleting previous assurances over the Irish border issue.

He said: In the December joint report agreed between the European Union and the United Kingdom it was agreed that Northern Ireland would have the final say on whether or not it diverged from the UK single market and was subjected to single market European rules with no say, why has the Prime Minister deleted all reference to that in the withdrawal agreement.

Did she push the delete button?

Mrs May responded saying he was absolutely right about the December report, but added: The December joint report referred to a decision being taken by the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly which sadly we do not have in place today.
Renae Lawrence, centre, is escorted as she leaves Bangli prison in Bali (AP Photo/Dana Pradana)

Indonesia said an Australian woman freed after serving nearly 14 years in prison for smuggling heroin to the tourist island of Bali will be deported and banned from the country for life.

Renae Lawrence was the only woman among nine Australians who were arrested in 2005 for smuggling 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Australia to Bali.

Lawrence, 41, wearing black sunglasses and a black t-shirt, was escorted through a crowd of reporters outside Bangli prison on Bali into a waiting car.

FREE. Renae Lawrence rushed out of Bangli Prison, more than 13 years after being jailed for her role in the Bali Nine drug scandal. She made no comment. Amazing pic by @a_mibali @smh @theage pic.twitter.com/7iYQQaZlMX  James Massola (@jamesmassola) November 21, 2018

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Balis justice and human rights office, said Lawrence will be deported to Australia within hours and is banned from re-entering Indonesia.

She may be the only member of the group dubbed the Bali Nine by Australian media to walk free from prison.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders, were executed by a firing squad in 2015, causing a diplomatic furore between Indonesia and Australia.

Five others had their sentences increased to life on appeal and another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died from cancer in May.

Lawrence, who customs caught with 2.2 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 1 billion rupiah (53,000).

She did not appeal and almost every year her sentence was reduced during holiday remissions that are customary in Indonesia for inmates with good behaviour, except those on death row or sentenced to life.

Lawrences sentence was completed in May but was extended by six months because she could not afford to pay the fine, said Bangli prison chief Made Suwendra.

Another convicted Australian drug smuggler, Schapelle Corby returned home last year.

Corby was arrested in 2004 at the age of 27 with more than 4 kilograms of marijuana inside a bag, sparking a media frenzy in Australia.

Corbys insistence that the drugs were planted by baggage handlers was dismissed as a lie by Balinese prosecutors. A court sentenced her to 20 years in prison, though that was later reduced.
South Koreas Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols next president, edging out a veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the US, Britain and other European nations.

The White House and its European partners had lobbied against Alexander Prokopchuks attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation, saying his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents.

Mr Prokopchuk is a general in the Russian Interior Ministry and serves as an Interpol vice president.

Mr Kims win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpols general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday.

#BREAKING: Kim Jong Yang of the Republic of #Korea has been elected President of INTERPOL (2-yr term). #INTERPOLGA pic.twitter.com/6I9HIyUWrf  INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 21, 2018

He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China.

Mr Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Mr Meng was held in a wide anti-corruption sweep in China.

Most of Interpols 194 member countries attended the annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast.

Based in the French city of Lyon, Interpol is best known for issuing red notices that identify a suspect pursued by another country, effectively putting them on the worlds most-wanted list.

Human rights groups raised the alarm two years ago when Interpols general assembly approved Mr Meng as president. Amnesty International criticised Chinas long-standing practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad.

Expand Close Alexander Prokopchuk (Russian Interior Ministry/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Two prominent Kremlin critics warned on Tuesday that electing Mr Prokopchuk  who has ties to President Vladimir Putin  would have undermined the international law enforcement agency and politicised police co-operation across borders.

Moscow accused critics of running a campaign to discredit Mr Prokopchuk, calling him a respected professional.

The White House came out on Tuesday against Mr Prokopchuk, with National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis saying: The Russian government abuses Interpols processes to harass its political opponents. He said the US strongly endorses Mr Kim.
Donald Trump has become embroiled in a row over comments he made about a judge (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Donald Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts have become involved in a war of words after the US president branded a judge who ruled against his migrant asylum order as an Obama judge.

It is the first time the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Mr Trump, who had previously criticised other federal judges who ruled against him.

In a brief but pointed statement, Mr Roberts strongly defended the independence of the federal judiciary and rejected the notion that judges are loyal to the presidents who appointed them.

The independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful forChief Justice John Roberts

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them, Mr Roberts said in a statement that was released by the Supreme Court after a query by The Associated Press.

On the day before Thanksgiving, he concluded: The independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

Mr Trump hit back from his resort home in Florida, bluntly questioning the independence of federal judges appointed by his predecessor and others, and confirmed by the US Senate. He especially criticised those on Californias 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country, the president tweeted.

If the 9th Circuit judges are independent, he said, why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned.  these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

Before Mr Trump, it had been highly unusual for presidents to single out judges for personal criticism while a chief justices challenge to a presidents comments is unprecedented in modern times.

In the aftermath of Mr Trumps appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed merely as a political institution divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats.

Mr Roberts is widely seen as the justice closest to the middle and likely to determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.

Mr Trump has shown no reticence about criticising the judiciary.

Last year, the president scorned the so-called judge who made the first federal ruling against his travel ban. During the presidential campaign, he criticised Mr Roberts himself for the chief justices decisive vote in 2012 to preserve President Barack Obamas healthcare overhaul.

The president also referred to an Indiana-born judge of Mexican descent who was presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University as a Mexican who would be unable to rule fairly because of Trumps proposal to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

Mr Trumps latest remarks were made on Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to a ruling by US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco that put the administrations asylum policy on hold.

Under that new policy, Mr Trump declared no-one could apply for asylum except at an official border entry point. That tends to back migrants up for weeks, if not months.

Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won, Mr Trump said.

In fact, the initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by US District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W Bush in Washington state. Mr Roberts, too, was appointed by Mr Bush.
Ivanka Trump is said to have sent emails about White House business from a personal account (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

New revelations about the extent of Ivanka Trumps personal email use in the White House will be getting a hard look from House Democrats when they take power in January.

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee began looking into private email use last year after reports by Politico revealed Ms Trumps husband, Jared Kushner, and other White House officials had been using private email for government purposes in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act and other federal record-keeping laws.

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the likely incoming chairman of the Oversight panel, said on Tuesday that he will resume that bipartisan investigation, which was dropped by Republicans.

He will pressure President Donald Trumps administration to turn over records about the use of private email for public business by Ms Trump, Mr Kushner and other senior officials.

They aren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton. What Ivanka did, it's all in the presidential records. Everything is there.Donald Trump

My goal is to prevent this from happening again  not to turn this into a spectacle the way Republicans went after Hillary Clinton, Mr Cummings said. My main priority as chairman will be to focus on the issues that impact Americans in their everyday lives.

The issue resurfaced this week when The Washington Post reported that the presidents daughter, while a top White House adviser, sent hundreds of emails about government business from a personal email account last year.

The emails were sent to White House aides, Cabinet members and Ms Trumps assistants, many in violation of public records rules, according to The Post.

In comments to reporters, the president, who has spent years railing against Mrs Clintons use of private email for public business while secretary of state, sought to downplay  and differentiate  his daughters email use from his former opponents.

They arent classified like Hillary Clinton. They werent deleted like Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump said, adding: What Ivanka did, its all in the presidential records. Everything is there.

A spokesman for Ms Trumps lawyer, Abbe Lowell, did not dispute the Post report.

The spokesman, Peter Mirijanian, said no classified information was transmitted in the messages, no emails were deleted and the emails have since been retained in conformity with records laws.

He also said Ms Trump did not set up a private server for the account, which he said was never transferred or housed at Trump Organisation.

Mr Mirijanian said that while transitioning into the government, Ms Trump sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.

When concerns were raised in the press 14 months ago, Ms Trump reviewed and verified her email use with White House Counsel and explained the issue to congressional leaders, he said. He did not say which congressional leaders were briefed.

Republican representative Mark Meadows, of North Carolina, a fierce defender of the president as the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, also downplayed the matter.

There are over 30,000 BleachBit reasons why the Hillary Clinton email scandal isnt even close to the Ivanka email issue, Mr Meadows tweeted, referring to a computer program used to delete emails from her server.

The House Oversight investigation into private email used by Trump White House officials was launched in early 2017.
Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols president (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis via AP)

South Koreas Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols president ahead of the controversial Russian candidate.

Mr Kim edged out Alexander Prokopchuk, a long-time veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the US, UK and other European nations.

The surprise election result was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied up until the final hours before the vote against Mr Prokopchuks attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation.

Very strong letter from 12 US Senators including @SenatorDurbin @SenatorCardin @SenFeinstein @SenWhitehouse @SenBlumenthal and others arguing against Russia taking over Interpol and using their persecution of me as the example. pic.twitter.com/Rum6a6TpEh  Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) November 21, 2018

The US and others expressed concern that if Russias candidate had been elected, that would have led to further Kremlin abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Russia accused its critics of running a campaign to discredit its candidate, calling Mr Prokopchuk a respected professional.

Expand Close Alexander Prokopchuk was the favourite to win (Russian Interior Ministry/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Groups campaigning to clean up Interpol celebrated the win, as did South Korea. South Koreas police and Foreign Ministry issued a joint statement saying Mr Kims election is a national triumph that could elevate South Koreas international standing.

Mr Kims win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpols general assembly in Dubai. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Mr Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Mengs departure from the post and was senior vice president at Interpol.

Kim Jong Yang, INTERPOL President: Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety. To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.#INTERPOLGA pic.twitter.com/D4n7m61fy9  INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 21, 2018

Russias Interior Ministry said after the vote that Mr Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position.

Spokeswoman Irina Volk told the Interfax news agency that Mr Prokopchuk will focus on advancing the stature of Interpol in the international police community and making its work more effective.

Most of Interpols 194 member countries attended the organisations annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast.

Interpol was facing a pivotal moment in its history as delegates decided whether to hand its presidency to Mr Prokopchuk or Mr Kim, who were the only two candidates vying for the post.

Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for issuing red notices that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on the worlds most-wanted list.

Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists, even though its rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons.
President Donald Trump has said the US will not punish Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the time being nor cut arms sales to Saudi Arabia for the killing of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr Trump called the killing of Mr Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, a horrible crime that the US does not condone, but said Saudi Arabia is a great ally and cancelling billions in arms sales would only benefit China and Russia, which would be glad to step in and make the sales.

His decision, announced in a statement released just before he left for the long Thanksgiving weekend in Florida, will disappoint and anger critics who have called for a much firmer rebuke to the kingdom and especially Mr bin Salman.

US intelligence officials have concluded that Mr bin Salman, the kingdoms de factor leader, ordered the October 2 killing, according to a US official familiar with the assessment.

Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!Donald Trump

Others familiar with the case caution that while it is likely that the crown prince had a role in the death, there continue to be questions about the degree to which he was involved.

The US earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions.

Mr Trump said in his statement on Tuesday that the king of Saudi Arabia and the crown prince vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr Khashoggi.

Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! Trump said.

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.

Expand Close Writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed last month in the Saudi Arabia consulate, in Istanbul (Emrah Gurel/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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He said the US intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of the country. America First! he wrote.

The president said oil prices would skyrocket if the US made a terrible mistake to break with Saudi Arabia. Mr Trump said he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia, adding that the US needs Riyadh as a counterbalance to Iran.

Mr Trump said he knows some members of Congress will disagree with his decision. He said he would listen to their ideas, but only if they are focused on US national security.

Late last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that calls for suspending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia; sanctions on people who block humanitarian access in Yemen or support the Houthi rebels, and mandatory sanctions on those responsible for Mr Khashoggis death.

Some foreign policy experts have not only recommended tougher punitive measures against Saudi Arabia, but have advocated for a complete reset on relations with Riyadh.

The Washington Post denounced Mr Trumps decision to refrain from further punishing Saudi Arabia for the death of Mr Khashoggi, who wrote columns for the newspaper critical of the royal family.

In a statement published on Twitter, Post publisher Fred Ryan accused Mr Trump of putting personal relationships and commercial interests above American values of respect for human rights to continue to do business as usual with the Saudi crown prince.

Mr Ryan further stated that the CIA had concluded with high confidence that the crown prince directed the October 2 killing. He added that if there is reason to doubt these findings, Mr Trump should immediately make that evidence public.
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Senators have written to President Donald Trump demanding that his administration make a determination about whether the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Senators Bob Corker and Bob Menendez wrote a letter to Mr Trump on Tuesday, asking for an investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The act requires the president to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation of internationally recognised human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression.

On Tuesday, the president condemned the killing of Mr Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a horrible crime  that our country does not condone.

Under the law, the president is now required to determine whether MbS is responsible and report to our committee with a determination and a decision on the imposition of sanctions. Read our letter: pic.twitter.com/G9xFGyw4TH  Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) November 21, 2018

But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that the crown prince must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, the president said. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticised the royal family.

The US earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the October 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. @SenBobCorker & I are triggering Magnitsky Act AGAIN to defend human rights & free press. Now Pres. Trump must SPECIFICALLY determine if Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman himself is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi pic.twitter.com/b1MbAJhA6O  Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) November 20, 2018

Mr Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, he responded, No, Im not saying that at all.

He then switched the subject to the terrorist nation of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.

The US needs a counterbalance to Iran, and Israel needs help, too, he said. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake.

But Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky contended the administration has blinders on in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

It's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi ArabiaRand Paul

Its a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia, Mr Paul said in an interview. Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you dont support either side.

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Mr Trump, also disagreed with the presidents statement, saying America must not lose its moral voice on the international stage.

It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi, Mr Graham said.

I fully realize we have to deal with bad actors and imperfect situations on the international stage.



However, when we lose our moral voice, we lose our strongest asset.  Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 20, 2018

Likewise, Representative Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said that to suggest that US silence can be bought with arms sales undermines respect for the office of the presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and Americas standing as a champion of human rights.

Mr Trump told reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would skyrocket if the US broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.

Asked about any personal financial involvement, he said: Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me. What does have to do with me is putting America first.

Mr Trump said that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed both vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the killing.

He also said the CIA has not made a conclusive determination about whether the crown prince ordered it.

We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi, Mr Trump said.

In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.

Saudi prosecutors say a 15-man team sent to Istanbul exceeded its authority when the lead negotiator in the team decided to kill Mr Khashoggi for refusing orders to return. The Saudis say the agents dismembered his body, which has not been found.
So farcical has Brexit become that it brings to mind the comic novel of the late master of comedy, Spike Milligan, Puckoon. In that brilliant book, Milligan parodies the absurdity and madness of the task of the Irish Boundary Commission attempting to meaningfully establish the meandering boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

Due to the idiocy of the commission, the new border partitions into two parts the imaginary village of Puckoon, leaving most of the village in the Free State and the rest in Northern Ireland.

If readers want some light relief from the mind-numbing detail of Brexit, then Puckoon is surely a humorous distraction. But the serious lesson put forward by Milligan in Puckoon is the innate absurdity of the border, which underlines the consequential damage that will befall all of us in the scary eventuality of a hard border arising out of a bad deal, or a no-deal, between the British Government and Brussels.

To the general surprise and relief of most right-minded people, Theresa May has produced a deal with Brussels. Most informed experts agree that it is an imperfect deal, but one that is liveable with. There is a danger in all of this of seeking a perfect deal and rejecting what is, in effect, not a bad deal.

In essence, Theresa May has made a very significant compromise by agreeing to keep the whole of the UK, including Northern Ireland, within the customs union. Although we will not be formally treated differently from the rest of the UK, we will be subject to EU rules and conditions as far as the single market is concerned, thus allowing free trade between north and south and with the rest of the EU.

At the same time, this region will be able to trade freely with the rest of the UK, though there will be some regulatory differentiation between here and Britain. In other words, NI Inc will enjoy the best of both worlds.

Leading entrepreneur and Belfast Telegraph Property Awards winner Bill Wolsey, the owner of the highly successful Merchant Hotel, described May's plan as an "opportunity to be grasped".

He went on to say: "Arlene Foster's party has scored a spectacular own-goal over its opposition to the deal between London and Brussels."

He also urged businesspeople to speak out: "We need to encourage our politicians to grasp that opportunity. This is no longer a time to keep our head down."

This is sensational stuff from the Belfast businessman. And his speech was clearly supported, given the rapturous applause by the 600 businesspeople present at the awards.

Mr Wolsey added: "Unfortunately, we are represented by politicians, some of whom have the political vision of Blind Bart, and some who are weighed down heavily by prejudice from the past."

Mr Wolsey's speech chimes with the near-universal opinion of all the major business interest groups, from the CBI to the NI Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and, significantly, even the Ulster Farmers' Union, which is seen as being traditionally more sympathetic to the DUP.

But the DUP claim to know better than our business community. Arlene Foster says that they have got it wrong and has chided businesspeople, saying that they were in danger of being exploited for political reasons.

She was annoyed by the current Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, for daring to brief the Chamber of Commerce in Belfast about the Brexit plan. Surely Mrs Bradley has not just got a right, but a duty to brief those business people directly affected by Brexit?

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was particularly insulting to the business sector, claiming on television that they had not read the document. This is ironic, when his own leader, Mrs Foster, admitted that, when she was Economy Minister, she failed to read important official documents relating to the RHI scandal.

Unlike his current party leader, these business groups have taken the time and effort and have used their highly talented, professional staff to read and analyse the draft plan in depth. They are no fools and certainly do not willingly want to be embroiled in divisive party political disputes. But such is the crucial nature of the Brexit plan, they feel obliged to speak out.

The DUP have made a huge mistake in prematurely rejecting May's Brexit deal. The use of the term 'border in the Irish Sea' is unnecessarily frightening, because there is no diminution of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as a result of this plan.

By now, the use of the fear factor by the DUP should be long past its sell-by date. On this occasion, businesspeople are not buying it.
The DUP are in an odd place at the moment. They can't, in fairness, be entirely surprised to find themselves in that place, because they have been warned for some time that "arrangements" between "Ulster" unionism and the Conservative Party rarely end well.

I think they must have known that this latest crisis was coming; indeed, they have been firing their own shots over Theresa May's bow for almost a year. And yet she still faced them down and let them down.

Their immediate reaction was to lash out. What else could they do? Not only had they been "done over" by the Prime Minister (which isn't unusual, of course; Heath, Thatcher and Major have done the same sort of thing), they had been "done over" by a Prime Minister they have propped up for almost 18 months.

This was a Prime Minister who knew that "doing over" the DUP risked her own career and the stability of her Government. She did it anyway.

A year ago, Arlene Foster boasted that the "Union was secure". Today, she believes that same Union is in jeopardy.

Is she right? In November 1985, all of unionism believed that the Anglo-Irish Agreement was "a gross betrayal - the beginning of the end of the Union as we have known it". In 1998, the DUP described the Good Friday Agreement as "a one-way ticket to Irish unity".

But 33 years on from the Anglo-Irish Agreement and 20 since the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland is still an integral part of the United Kingdom. The "constitutional guarantee" - that Northern Ireland will remain a part of the UK until a majority decides otherwise - remains in place.

And it's worth bearing in mind that the DUP have insisted, for a long time now, that, irrespective of Brexit, unionism has nothing to fear from a border poll. Yet, it now looks as if the DUP fear that they are facing the "hardest" Brexit of all: a deal which avoids a hard border, but threatens the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

I noted last week that there was no immediate, or inevitable, threat to the Union. That remains my view. But treating Northern Ireland differently - and leaving open the possibility that its particular relationship with the EU would continue to be different to that of the rest of the UK for a long, unspecified period - will, at some point, raise very difficult questions about the precise nature of the relationship between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Put bluntly, it raises the question of whether or not Northern Ireland's formal link to the UK would be compromised; or, worse still, damaged irreparably.

The answer to that question isn't contained in the wording of the Withdrawal Agreement. That's why the DUP and broader unionism are concerned.

There clearly isn't the same sense of fear and abandonment that I remember from November 1985; but the Conservative Party, Mrs May, her Cabinet and the entire House of Commons must not assume the lack of fear and lack of on-the-street protest means unionism doesn't need reassurances and guarantees.

I have never had a problem with a final deal that recognises what Brussels, London and Dublin describe as the "special circumstances of Northern Ireland"; but that deal and those "special circumstances" must also embrace the constitutional rights and identity of "Ulster" unionism.

One very senior Conservative MP told me that Mrs May had finally decided to "stand up to the DUP". But given the nature of unionism here, it means that the other unionist parties will rally round the DUP if they genuinely believe there is a substantial threat to the Union.

Even those parties who blame the DUP for "getting it so wrong" with the Conservatives, and who mock them over the RHI revelations, will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them in the name of the Union.

They will jointly attack May and the Irish government. And if - and I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility - a deal which includes the present "solution" to the Irish/Northern Ireland problem is passed in the Commons, then I would expect to see the sort of coming together of unionism that we haven't seen since Sunningdale and the United Ulster Unionist Coalition.

I also think the same coming-together is likely in the event of a "no deal".

All of this raises an old question, one I have asked many, many times down the years: why do unionists seem to be on the "losing" side so often? There is no point blaming the Irish government for stirring the pot, or planning a land-grab. They are doing exactly what the UK Government would do if the roles were reversed; prioritising, protecting and promoting their own interests.

And, in fairness, Brexit is not a problem of their making; nor is it a problem they ever wanted landed with.

Also, they're not after Irish unity anytime soon. Who in their right mind would push for unity when there is so much uncertainty and, potentially, so many angry unionists?

If you thought the Brexit debate is complicated and fractious, just imagine a full-blown Irish unity debate.

As I noted above, May is doing what Heath, Thatcher, Major and Blair have done: which was once described to me as "being far too impartial on the issue of the integrity of the Union when it comes to Northern Ireland". In other words, they were prepared to face down "Ulster" unionism for the sake of a deal which they believe to be in the UK's national interest.

And when they have chosen that course of action, there hasn't been a backbench rebellion in favour of "Ulster" unionism.

It's worth bearing in mind that a majority of May's Cabinet supported the Withdrawal Agreement; and if that agreement goes to a vote in the Commons, it's likely that a considerable majority of Conservative MPs would support it, along with the provisions for Northern Ireland.

That lack of support is an ongoing problem for "Ulster" unionist parties.

The DUP - who were scathing about the UUP/Conservative UCUNF project a few years ago - may have believed that Mrs May's reliance on them for her own survival would have prevented her from "betraying" them. It didn't.

She must have been aware of the inevitable scale, nature and consequences of their anger; yet she went ahead.

Her "precious" Union and unionism doesn't seem to embrace the equally "precious" Union and unionism of the DUP and broader unionism across Northern Ireland.

That fact, that reality, should probably worry the DUP more than anything else which has happened over recent days.
Relatives and friends of slain separatist leader Hafizullah Mir pray during his funeral in Badru-Akingam, his home village in Indian Kashmirs Anantnag district, Nov. 20, 2018.

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a leading separatist in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday while four suspected militants were killed in a gunbattle with security forces elsewhere in the disputed Himalayan region, police said.

Two men armed with pistols barged into the house of Hafizullah Mir, 55, who was president of the separatist group Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) in Anantnag district, and shot him execution-style, a senior police official said.

After identifying him, the gunmen told Mir they wanted to talk to him and then they fired a volley of bullets from point-blank range, Altaf Khan, senior superintendent of police in Anantang, told BenarNews. Mir was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Mirs wife, Wazira Akhter, 44, was wounded in the shooting that killed her husband, investigators said.

Mir was released from jail last month after serving two years for his alleged role in provoking anti-India protests in south Kashmir.

A preliminary investigation suggested that another gunman stood watch outside the house, Khan said, adding a manhunt was under way to track down the suspects.

Shortly after the shooting, demonstrators clashed with security forces in Shopian, a district in south Kashmir.

At least eight anti-India protesters were injured, police said. Witnesses said authorities used tear gas and pellets to disperse the protesters.

Separatist leaders, religious groups and Syed Salah-u-Din, the chief of the Pakistan-based militant group Hizbul Mujihideen, condemned Mirs killing and blamed it on Indian agencies.

Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), an alliance of top-ranked leaders that advocates the separation of Kashmir from India, called on business owners to impose a shutdown on Thursday to protest Mirs killing.

Indian rulers used their agencies to eliminate a highly educated, sensible and visionary pro-freedom leader, JRL said in a statement. His sincerity and sacrifices have earned him a distinguished status in the states political circles, especially in south Kashmir.

Election largely peaceful

Mirs killing took place as residents in several districts of Jammu and Kashmir state cast their votes in the local village administration polls, police said.

On Tuesday, polling for the second phase of village administration election remained largely peaceful amid a shutdown, officials said.

The Kupwara district drew the highest turnout among voters  at nearly 70 percent  compared with only 1 percent of voters who went to the polls in Anantnag, Shaleen Kabra, the states chief electoral officer, told reporters.

During the first phase of polling on Nov. 17, about 64.5 percent of more than 537,000 registered voters cast their ballots in the region grappling with a separatist insurgency. About 52 percent cast their votes during the second phase on Tuesday, officials said.

Both India and arch rival Pakistan have territorial claims on Kashmir and have fought wars over it. More than 70,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed during the insurgency since the late 1980s.

The voting will take place over nine phases, with the third one scheduled for Saturday.

Separatists and militant groups have called for a boycott of the polls, describing the elections as a ploy by India to mislead the world community about the Kashmir situation.

Political analysts said the government should create more jobs to address the desperation and sense of alienation among Kashmiri youths, as a security measure against the violence.

With more local youths feeling alienated and turning to the vicious cycle of militancy, the governments catch-and-kill policy with regard to local youth turning to militants has started to backfire, Noor Baba, a Srinagar-based political analyst, told BenarNews. It is a typical case of violence begets violence, which the government must realize.
Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (seated, left), President Joko Jokowi Widodo (to his left), and their running mates share a laugh at the Central Election Building in Jakarta, Sept. 21, 2018.

Indonesias opposition presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto said Wednesday he planned to seek close relationships with both the United States and China if elected, praising the two world powers for cultural influences and economic progress.

Prabowo, a former Army special forces commander, will face incumbent Joko Jokowi Widodo in the election scheduled for April 17, 2019.

We want to be friends with both the United States and China. We have to respect both powers, Prabowo said, speaking at the annual Indonesian Economic Forum in Jakarta.

The candidate said he believed that the United States had been a benevolent world power.

There are instances of mistakes. Every imperial power experienced what we call over-extension, but let us be very objective, he said.

To be frank, most of us like Burger King, most of us wear jeans, we like rock and roll. This is the soft power of the United States, he said.

Prabowo paid tribute to Chinas influence on Indonesian culture and praised the country for its success in lifting millions of its people out of poverty.

Despite the tribute, Prabowos aides last month said that Indonesia might review China-backed infrastructure projects if elected.

Some projects may be evaluated for necessity, but not necessarily be cancelled, said Andre Rosiade, a spokesman for Prabowos Gerindra Party, responding to questions from BenarNews.

Jokowis stance

Jokowi has embraced Chinas ambitious One Belt, One Road initiative and made upgrading the countrys infrastructure a priority during his first term in office.

Last year, Jokowi attended a two-day One Belt, One Road forum where Beijing laid out its plans to invest more than U.S. $1 trillion to build a network of ports, roads, railways and other logistics-related projects stretching through Southeast Asia, South Asia and beyond.

The president also sought closer economic relations with the United States.

A year after taking office in 2014, Jokowi made his first U.S. visit in an effort to formally raise bilateral ties to a strategic partnership.

Big-push strategy

In Wednesdays speech, Prabowo painted a bleak picture of Indonesias economy, likening it to an underfed person.

He said Indonesia must overcome significant challenges including a rising cost of living, rising government debt, stagnant growth at about 5 percent and rampant corruption. Politicians across the country, he added, had been caught red-handed accepting bribes.

Prabowo said his big-push strategy was aimed at turning Indonesia into a prosperous nation that was self-sufficient in providing food, energy and water to its people.

He cited indicators to show that Indonesia was lagging behind its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Indonesias tax revenue to gross domestic product ratio is 10.3 percent, much lower than neighboring countries Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, he said.

Prabowo said he was open to foreign investment.

To achieve food and energy self-sufficiency, we need science and technology from foreign countries, he said.

Maintaining close ties with China and the United States would be in Indonesias interest because the two countries are global economic powers, according to Lana Soelistianingsih, an economist at the University of Indonesia.

China dominates global trade and 30 percent of the worlds GDP comes from the United States. Whoever is elected president, I am sure he will maintain good relations, she told BenarNews.

Lana said Indonesia should take advantage of a potential trade war between China and the United States to export products to both countries.

For example, if China refuses a certain product from the United States, this is an opportunity for Indonesia to enter the Chinese market, she said. We must be creative in tapping this opportunity.
Hari Budiawan (white shirt) listens during his sentencing in the Banyuwangi District Court in Indonesias East Java province, Jan. 23, 2018.

Indonesias Supreme Court upheld the conviction and increased the prison term for an environmentalist found guilty of spreading communism during an anti-mining protest last year, his defense attorney said Tuesday.



The Banyuwangi District Court in East Java province in January convicted Hari Budiawan (alias Budi Pego) of spreading the outlawed teachings of Marxism and Leninism by waving a hammer-and-sickle flag during an anti-mining protest in April 2017.

Budi, 38, has maintained there were no pro-Communist banners at the protest.

The East Java high court upheld Budis 10-month sentence in March, but the Supreme Court increased the prison term to four years in an Oct. 16 decision that was not made public at the time. Budi was notified of the Supreme Courts verdict by mail on Nov. 16, defense lawyer Hari Kurniawan said.

We regret the decision, Hari told BenarNews, adding that he likely would seek a case review for Budi, who is not in jail.

Supreme Court spokesman Suhadi told BenarNews the judges reached the decision independently.

The public has the right to judge its fairness. But the judges decision must be respected, Suhadi said.

Communism has been outlawed in the nation since the mid-1960s, after a failed coup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) led to nationwide killings that targeted suspected PKI members in 1965 and 1966.

Protest

Budi and other residents protested against a gold mine operated by PT Bumi Suksesindo, saying it caused mudflows that polluted the coastal area.

He has described the charges against him as fabricated.

The police and members of the TNI (Indonesian National Army) were aware of all our banners, because they were there when we made and installed them, he said at the time of his arrest. They even photographed every banner we wrote.

Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation activist Asfinawati, who uses one name, expressed concerns about the decision.

This is a real threat to the protection of human rights in Indonesia, especially for people who want to participate in the protection of the environment, she told BenarNews.

It was not the first time the Supreme Court has increased a prison term or overturned a not-guilty verdict following an appeal.

In a recent case that has sparked public outrage, the court sentenced to six months a teacher who made public a recording of her schools principal engaging in a lewd conversation with her.

The top court overturned a lower court ruling that cleared the teacher, Baiq Nuril, of defamation charges and ordered her to pay a fine of 500 million rupiah (U.S. $34,000), or spend an additional three months in jail.

Nuril was found guilty of distributing or transmitting content that violates morality as stipulated in the Information and Electronic Transaction Law.
Chinese President Xi Jinping uses an umbrella as he boards his plane to depart Manilas International Airport, at the end of a two-day visit to the Philippines, Nov. 21, 2018.

Chinese President Xi Jinping ended a state visit to the Philippines on Wednesday as Filipino lawmakers pressed their government for full disclosure about a raft of new bilateral deals, including for oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte feted Xi at a dinner on Tuesday, shortly after they witnessed the signing of 29 vaguely worded documents. These included deals on cooperation in culture, industrial park development, agriculture, sanitation protocols and coconut importation.

Xi and Duterte also oversaw the signing of three economic agreements on infrastructure projects on southern Mindanao island in conjunction with Dutertes ambitious build, build, build initiative, according to the presidential palace in Manila. It did not release details, but a memorandum of understanding on cooperation over oil and gas development in the disputed sea caught the eye of many people.

The people need to scrutinize all these documents. We need to know whether or not these agreements are compatible with our sovereign and territorial interests and in full compliance with our international obligations, particularly the arbitral tribunal ruling on the West Philippine Sea, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros said, using the Philippine name for the South China Sea.

The Senate must lead this initiative given that it has material interest in ensuring that the foreign policy adopted by the Executive is in the best interest of Filipino citizens, she said.

Complete details of the MoU on oil and gas exploration were not released, but BenarNews saw a copy. It states both countries agreed on a sharing deal, under which the Philippines would get a 60 percent stake in resources extracted from the Reed Bank and China would get the remaining 40 percent.

The Reed Bank, however, lies within the Philippines exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

The Philippines lost big in this agreement. If the leaked copy of the agreement is proven authentic, President Duterte signed a document that did not assert our Constitution and sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea against Chinas discredited nine-dash line, which lays claim to every shoal, reef and islet in the region, according to Hontiveros, who said she had read portions of the agreement.

The senator said a confidentiality clause was also attached to the deal, with both sides agreeing to keep any data about the joint exploration work confidential.

Sen. Chiz Escudero, an erstwhile political ally of Duterte, agreed. He said the government must be transparent, especially in agreements involving the countrys resources.

I am asking on behalf of the nation that the government let the public know details of the exploration deal between the Philippines and China, Escudero said.

He recalled that former president Gloria Arroyo, who is now speaker of the House of Representatives, at one time oversaw the signing of an agreement with China and Vietnam to explore for oil near the disputed sea region. That agreement caused a public uproar and was never pursued.

Escudero also stressed that any agreement on joint exploration should be between two private firms, and not directly state controlled. It should not be between the governments of the Philippines and China because that could have future implication in the arbitral ruling, he said.

While the government cannot enforce the ruling of the international court that granted the Philippines ownership over territories in the disputed sea, the least the government can do is to assert its claim in the policy speeches and declarations because this is what the Filipino people are expecting, he said.

In 2016, an international arbitration court in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines and threw out Chinas expansive claims to the sea region, which it says it owns almost in its entirety based on historical grounds. Beijing snubbed the ruling, which was welcomed by the international community as a win for the Philippines.

But Duterte acted swiftly, and appeased China by saying he would not enforce the ruling. He had also said that the Philippines was realigning its foreign policy towards China and Russia, away from a traditional ally, the United States.

When pressed on Wednesday to release details of the agreement, Salvador Panelo, Dutertes spokesman, said the foreign office was still preoccupied with Xis state visit and would release it in its entirety soon.

We assure everyone that the government would release all pertinent information for public consumption once President Xis visit has culminated, and as soon as the complete, proper and correct documents become certified and available, he said in a statement.

Report: Beijing upgrades reef in South China Sea

Meanwhile, satellite imagery had revealed a new platform built by the Chinese in Bombay Reef in the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, a Washington think tank said in a report published on Tuesday.

The development is interesting given Bombay Reefs strategic location, and the possibility that the structures rapid deployment could be repeated in other parts of the South China Sea, according to the report by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The new installation first showed up in satellite imagery of the reef taken in early July, but was not present in pictures taken in April, the report noted.

The reef is directly adjacent to the major shipping lanes that run between the Paracels and the Spratly Islands to the south, making it an attractive location for a sensor array to extend Chinese radar or signals intelligence collection over that important sea lane, the report said.

The Spratlys are also claimed by the Philippines.
A soldier stands beside a bullet-riddled gate of a home near where government troops battled pro-Islamic State militants in the southern Philippine city of Marawi, June 15, 2018.

A Philippine court sentenced a pro-Islamic State militant Wednesday to 40 years in prison for terrorism connected to last years siege by Islamic State-linked fighters in the southern city of Marawi that provoked a battle with government forces and left more than a thousand people dead.

Acting Presiding Judge Felix Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 70 in the suburban Taguig city in Manila convicted Nur Supian of the crime of terrorism in connection with the months-long siege.

Supian had trained fresh militants recruited to the Maute group in the south, prosecutors said. In his ruling, Reyes said prosecutors were able to prove that Supian was responsible for putting up Camp Javal Nur or Tiger Base in remote Kalingalan Caluang town on Jolo island, where local armed men underwent military trainings.

After proving the established plan of accused Supian, there is no doubt that his acts sowed and created a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to unlawful demand. Supian is guilty of the crime of terrorism under Anti-Terrorism Law, the decision stated.

Two of Supians men, identified as Araji Samindih and Umad Harun, were found guilty of rebellion and given a sentence of up to 14 years in prison each.

The court cleared three others, identified as Marvin Ahmad, Salip Ismael Abdulla and Issa Ukkang. It said the prosecution failed to prove their involvement in the attack.

Witnesses have positively identified Samindih and Harun as among hundreds members of the militant Maute group that took part in sacking Marawi, which was once a scenic Muslim trading hub that had been transformed into a wasteland after five months of gunbattles.

The courts decision was quickly hailed by Marawi residents.

Thats good news, Drieza Lininding, a Muslim religious leader in the city, told BenarNews. Those found guilty should pay for what they did.

In May 2017, Maute gang members joined Islamic State local leader Isnilon Hapilon when his group ransacked Marawi. They destroyed the Catholic church, killed Christians and held dozens of hostages, including women and children.

They were aided by fighters from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, forcing the Philippine military to seek assistance from the United States and Australia, which provided vital aerial intelligence data that contributed to the militants defeat.

Hapilon and the top leaders of the Maute gang were killed in October, but President Rodrigo Duterte said dozens of extremists were believed to have escaped and fanned out into remote areas to recruit new fighters. At least 1,200 people were killed in the battle, most of them militants.

Richel V. Umel from Iligan City contributed to this report.
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First University of Birmingham-SMRT rail students complete studies in Singapore.

Students and tutors celebrate the completion of studies for the first cohort on the BCRRE and SMRT Postgraduate Certificate in Urban Railway Engineering (Singapore).

The first students have completed their studies as part of a unique railway education partnership between the University of Birmingham and Singapores public transport services provider SMRT.

Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) and SMRT students celebrated in an official ceremony to mark their completion of a Postgraduate Certificate in Urban Railway Engineering (Singapore).

The partnership is the first of its kind in the world  resulting from an agreement to form an educational partnership signed in 2016 between BCRRE and SMRT Institute Pte Ltd, a multi modal transport operator in Singapore.

The unique course provides students with perspectives from an institute of higher education for railway education as well as real-world operator experience.

Professor Jon Binner, Deputy Head of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Birmingham and Mr Neo Kian Hong, Group CEO for SMRT Corporation Ltd, hosted the awards presentation ceremony at NTU@one-north Singapore.

The ceremony was jointly organised by SMRT Institute and BCRRE and was attended by 43 students and their supervisors in celebration of their achievements. The ceremony was then followed by a drinks reception.

Professor Clive Roberts, Director of BCRRE said: We are delighted to be congratulating to our SMRT-UoB graduates as the very first cohort of our Postgraduate Certificate in Urban Railway Engineering (Singapore). We are proud of their achievements and have every confidence that they will be equipped with skills to excel in railway engineering in the future.

Our relationship with SMRT Corporation is an example of how we are working across the globe to enhance the future success of railways as a safe, fast, high capacity and environmentally and customer friendly transport mode.

Mr Neo Kian Hong, Group CEO, SMRT Corporation Ltd said: SMRT and the University of Birmingham launched the programme in Urban Railway Engineering (Singapore) two years ago in October 2016. The partnership between a rail operator and a university is a first of its kind globally. SMRTs impetus for this partnership was to level up our engineering training, expedite the learning of our engineers by putting through an accredited programme to deepen their expertise and domain knowledge, and raise their technical capabilities.

The intellectual framework provided by the University of Birmingham complemented the lessons learnt by SMRT based on our 30 years of experience in running heavy and light rail systems. The provision of a strong academic foundation for course participants, coupled with knowledge of how classroom concepts are applied in the real-world setting creates a powerful proposition to accelerate the development of our rapidly growing railway engineering workforce.

The UoB programme gives our rail engineers a thorough appreciation of urban railway engineering and operations, together with Project Management, Asset Management and modules specific to their work specialisation. The immediate relevance and application was enriched with the contribution of Birmingham faculty members, its individual lecturers and SMRT doyens.

ENDS

For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0) 121 414 8254 or +44 (0)782 783 2312. Out-of-hours enquiries: +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

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PR Newswire

VANCOUVER, Nov. 20, 2018

VANCOUVER, Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Mason Resources Corp. (TSX:MNR; OTCQB: MSSNF  "Mason" or the "Company") announces that the Company has today filed and mailed the materials for its special meeting (the "Meeting") of holders ("Company Shareholders") of common shares (the "Shares") of the Company to consider the previously announced plan of arrangement with Hudbay Minerals Inc. ("Hudbay") under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the "Arrangement"). Pursuant to the Arrangement, Hudbay will acquire all the outstanding Shares of the Company not already owned by Hudbay and its affiliates for C$0.40 per Share (the "Consideration"). The Notice of Special Meeting, Management Information Circular and other Meeting materials (the "Meeting Materials") are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.MasonResources.com.

Special Meeting of Mason Shareholders

The Meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. (Vancouver time) on December 17, 2018 at the offices of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP located at 1200 Waterfront Centre, 200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia. The record date for determining the Company Shareholders that will be entitled to receive notice of and vote at the Meeting has been fixed as the close of business on November 16, 2018 (the "Record Date").

Board Recommendation

After a thorough and careful review and consideration of the best interests of the Company, the terms of the Arrangement and its impact on Company Shareholders excluding Hudbay and its affiliates (the "Public Shareholders") and the Company's other stakeholders, a special committee (the "Special Committee") comprised solely of independent directors of the Company, has unanimously concluded that the Consideration to be received by the Public Shareholders pursuant to the Arrangement is fair to such Public Shareholders and that the Arrangement is in the best interest of the Company.

ON THE UNANIMOUS RECOMMENDATION OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE, THE COMPANY BOARD UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS THAT PUBLIC SHAREHOLDERS VOTE FOR THE ARRANGEMENT RESOLUTION.

Required Approvals

To be effective, the Arrangement must be approved by a special resolution passed by (i) at least two-thirds of the votes cast by Company Shareholders (including Hudbay) who are present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting; and (ii) a majority of the votes cast by Public Shareholders, in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions who are present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting. In addition, the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court") must approve the Arrangement as a condition to its effectiveness. Among other things, the Court's final order will include a finding on the fairness of the terms and conditions of the Arrangement to Public Shareholders participating in the Arrangement.

In connection with the Arrangement, all of the directors and senior officers of Mason as well as Mantos Copper (Bermuda) Limited (the "Supporting Shareholders") entered into customary support agreements with Hudbay pursuant to which they have agreed to vote their Shares, representing 19.8% of the issued and outstanding Shares, in favour of the Arrangement. Together with Hudbay, the Supporting Shareholders hold 33.7% of the issued and outstanding Shares.

Your vote is important. The Meeting Materials provide a description of the Arrangement and include certain additional information to assist Public Shareholders in considering how to vote on the Arrangement. You are urged to read this information carefully and, if you require assistance, to consult your tax, financial, legal or other professional advisors.

Included in the Meeting Materials are several documents requiring your attention.

If you are a registered shareholder and are unable to attend the Meeting in person, please date and execute the form of proxy included in the Meeting Materials and deposit it with Computershare Investor Services Inc., Attention: Proxy Department, 100 University Avenue, 8th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5J 2Y1 before 10:30 a.m. (Vancouver time) on Thursday, December 13, 2018, or not less than 48 hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays) before any adjournment of the Meeting.

If you are a non-registered shareholder and receive the Meeting Materials through your broker or through another intermediary, please complete and return the materials in accordance with the instructions provided to you by your broker or such other intermediary. If you are a non-registered shareholder and do not complete and return the materials in accordance with such instructions, you may lose the right to vote at the Meeting.

If you have any questions about the procedures to be followed to vote at the Meeting or about obtaining and depositing the required form of proxy or voting instruction form, you should contact Laurel Hill Advisory Group by telephone (toll-free for callers in North America) at 1-877-452-7184 or 1-416-304-0211 (for collect calls outside North America) or by e-mail at [email protected]

The Arrangement is expected to close in December 2018, subject to obtaining all required approvals and consents, as well as satisfying all required conditions.

About Mason Resources Corp.Mason's key asset is its 100% owned Ann Mason project  an extensive, prospective land package located in the Yerington District of Nevada. The Ann Mason project hosts two copper-molybdenum porphyry deposits, Ann Mason and Blue Hill, as well as numerous earlier-stage or untested priority targets. The Ann Mason deposit is currently at a PEA level and is among the largest undeveloped copper porphyry resources in Canada/U.S.A. The excellent infrastructure, year-round access, strong community support and clear permitting process are all factors that contribute to making Yerington, Nevada one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world. Mason also holds a 100% interest in the Lordsburg property, an exciting earlier-stage copper-gold porphyry project, located within an historic mining district in New Mexico.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to corporate strategies and plans of Mason; the timing of the Arrangement and the receipt of necessary approvals and conditions for completion.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of the Company's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions and the environment in which Mason will operate in the future, including the price of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum. Uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, the risk that the Arrangement does not close on a timely basis or at all or that some or all of the anticipated benefits thereof are not achieved; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral resources and metallurgical recoveries; the size, grade and continuity of deposits not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by government authorities; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the Company's most recently filed MD&A and in the Company's Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2017, dated March 16, 2018 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mason-resources-mails-and-files-materials-for-arrangement-with-hudbay-minerals-shareholder-meeting-set-for-december-17-2018-300754059.html

SOURCE Mason Resources
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/11/2018 (1098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Laura Crookshanks, Allison McCulloch and Xavier McCulloch attend the Trans Day of Remembrance candlelight vigil at Knox United Church Tuesday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

Hosting a day of celebration mixed with melancholy, Knox United Church held a Trans Day of Remembrance afternoon service and evening candlelight vigil Tuesday.

Taking the time to remember transgender, two-spirited and non-conforming members of the community, the service served to provide a visible support for transgender people in the community while honouring those killed as a result of anti-transgender violence.

Event organizer Isaiah Lamontagne hopes that guests of the event were able to understand the issues facing the transgender community, and that there are ways to work together to combat stereotypes, stigmas and discrimination transgender people face every day.

"Its really nice to come with us and celebrate our siblings lives, because these are people that while we may not have known them, their stories are similar to ours," Lamontagne said.

While more then 40 guests attended the service, the event drew a smaller crowd than years past.

Guests remember victims of transgender violence at the Trans Day of Remembrance candlelight vigil at Knox United Church Tuesday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

Those in attendance were implored to committed to protect, support and take action on behalf of LGBTQ community members who often face discrimination and violence in their day-to-day lives.

The Trans Day of Remembrance was first held in San Francisco in 1999, and has grown to encompass the globe.

Offering a moment to reflect and remember those who have suffered for their gender non-conformity the event serves to honour those killed and others who have survived as transgender members of the community, said J Fiedler, SERC LGBT2SQ+ program facilitator and event organizer.

During the service and vigil, the names of those killed around the world each year are read to honour their memory. More than 300 names were read this year, including many killed whose names remain unknown.

"The number is very gradually going up," Lamontagne said. Although, with the advent of the internet this may be due to a better recognition of members of the transgender community and the referral to their preferred name after their deaths.

Calling it a "doubled-edged sword," Fiedler said it was difficult to tell if there were more murders, or if the world as a whole was more cognizant of transgender violence.

Isaiah Lamontagne prepares the Trans Day of Remembrance banner for the candlelight vigil at Knox United Church Tuesday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

"With more dedicated reporting and more awareness, the numbers are going up," Lamontagne said.

The conversation surrounding the transgender experience is growing and changing, said Lamontagne, who is unsure if these changes are for better or worse.

Of note at this years service were concerns raised over the perceived "radical agenda" of the transgender community, and concerns that this could incite violence against the vulnerable.

Fiedler sees this backlash to the community as a sign it is growing and that the disenfranchised community is slowly gaining power.

Finding the conversation and coverage to be a mixed bag, especially in light of a recent Ontario Tory resolution to remove gender identity from the provinces curriculum, and United States President Donald Trumps continued attacks on the transgender community, Lamontagne said there can be light in the darkness.

Citing British Columbias recent commitment to offer gender-affirming lower surgeries to trans individuals along with blossoming celebrations of trans celebrities and Pride parades, Lamontagne is hopeful for the future.

"Were here and theres nothing wrong with us being here. Theres good and theres bad with the extension of the conversation," Lamontagne said.

The idea of gender diversity is not new, Fiedler said, and while society has gotten better, it still has a long way to go in terms of discussions surrounding transgender people.

Capt. Terra Pettigrew from CFB Shilo was on hand at the event as the main speaker, talking about how difficult it can be to explain the experience of gender dysmorphia to cisgendered individuals.

Pettigrew is in the midst of gender transitioning and a proud military member. Anxious about the rising focus on the "radical agenda" of the transgender community, Pettigrew called for those in attendance to appreciate the stories shared, even if it is with sadness, and hope for a better and safer future as an ally.

Simple steps like respecting someones preferred gender pronouns are one of the ways people can support the transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming community as an ally, Lamontagne said.

"If you have an issue with dropping a letter with how you refer to me, the issue is with you, not with me," Lamontagne said, "Its not my preferred pronouns, its my pronouns."

 ckemp@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp
Brandonites will get their second retail cannabis store today when Tokyo Smoke opens its 18th Street storefront in partnership with B.O.B Headquarters.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/11/2018 (1098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Tokyo Smoke community manager Molly Karp stands next to the different products the store offers. (Drew May/The Brandon Sun)

Brandonites will get their second retail cannabis store today when Tokyo Smoke opens its 18th Street storefront in partnership with B.O.B Headquarters.

Molly Karp, community manager for Tokyo Smoke, said the store differs from other cannabis retail outlets because of its focus on education. She said customers will have their ID checked at the door and then speak with a cannabis educator who can help people decide on a particular strain.

"We figure out the reason behind their consumption of cannabis and with that the staff is able to recommend a variety or a strain that kind of conforms to whatever it is their intention," Karp said.

Once customers decide on a product, they write it down on a shopping list and get it filled. Beyond smelling the cannabis in special containers, customers dont have any interaction with the actual product while in the store.

Tokyo Smoke sells cannabis flowers, pre-rolled joints, oil, capsules and cannabis spray, as well as accessories. (Drew May/The Brandon Sun)

Karp said the intention is to make cannabis consumption more mindful.

"I think cannabis is something that a lot of people have consumed for a long time, but I think that for a lot of people their consumption might not have been intention based," she said. "I think for them to be able to be informed about what the market has to offer, how cannabis can affect you, it is really just the most empowering thing we can do."

She said social responsibility is also a big part of the business and the company is committing to efforts to support local charities. One such group is Westman Families of Addicts, which will receive a portion of proceeds from the sale of cannabis.

Danielle Lalonde, founder of Westman Families of Addicts, said she is waiting to work out the details, but the money will be "huge" toward helping her organization.

"All the non-profits are looking for funds and looking for resources," Lalonde said. "Right now, with the state of what our city is in and that Westman is in, any education that we can get going for our issues and the trauma that drugs have brought to our community is going to be very important."

The 18th Street store is Brandons second private cannabis store after Tweed opened on Victoria Avenue on Nov. 8. Tokyo Smoke also has three other Manitoba stores in Winnipeg.

Robert Ritchot, founder of the local store B.O.B Headquarters, declined to comment on Tokyo Smokes opening in Brandon. A February 2018 release from the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba says that Tokyo Smoke partnered with B.O.B Headquarters to open the store in Brandon and get a licence to sell cannabis.

"Due to our relationships with other stores across the country we would prefer not to comment," Ritchot said.

Karp said the Brandon-based B.O.B Headquarters is a "business partner" with Tokyo Smoke in Brandon and the reason the company was approved to sell the drug by the province.

"They were a part of our application process and they helped us. They were the ones locally that helped us fill out that application for the Manitoba (request for proposal) process and essentially operate as a business partner."

Tokyo Smoke opens today at 10 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m.

 dmay@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @DrewMay_
Police in Kenya said the volunteer is a 23-year-old Italian national working for non-governmental organisation (NGO) Africa Milele Onlus.

Five Kenyans were wounded in the attack in the coastal region of Chakama in the Kilifi.

Police said they were investigating if the attackers are members of the Al Shabaab terror group.

When the Italian woman - who volunteered at the home - confronted the gang saying there was no money, the gang kidnapped her.

The men, reportedly armed with rifles, "fired indiscriminately" before taking the 23-year-old volunteer from a trading centre in Kilifi County.

"We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim", the National Police Service said.

An eyewitness told Kenyan TV: "The European lady got out of her room, instead of lying on the ground, to inquire what was going on".



Kenya Red Cross officials in a previous rescue operation

The attackers spoke Somali and opened fire on people fleeing the scene, witness Chad Joshua Kazungu told Reuters by phone.

"The lady could be heard calling for help as they took her across the river", the source who witnessed the attack said.

"We can not rule out their (Al Shabaab) involvement", another senior police officer told Capital FM News on telephone, "but we are investigating".

Five years after Al Shabaab militants burst into a luxury shopping mall in Kenya's capital Nairobi, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege that left 67 people dead, analysts say the Somalia-based extremist group has been pushed down Africa's east coast as far as Mozambique as its regional threat expands.

Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al Shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.

In 2013, al Shabaab militants attacked a shopping centre in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, killing nearly 70.
If youre covering a criminal trial and theres horrible, horrible details about a sexual assault, would you call that gratuitous or would you call that necessary to understanding the crime? We should not be turning our backs in open court because we think people might be upset by it.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/11/2018 (1098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If youre covering a criminal trial and theres horrible, horrible details about a sexual assault, would you call that gratuitous or would you call that necessary to understanding the crime? We should not be turning our backs in open court because we think people might be upset by it.

 Kathy English, Toronto Star public editor

The Brandon Sun's crime and court reporter covered a four-day trial in Brandon Court of Queen's Bench earlier this month in which a 28-year-old man faced multiple charges including assault, assault causing bodily harm, sexual assault using a weapon and voyeurism.

As reported, the man's charges stemmed from an approximate five-year relationship with his ex-girlfriend, who testified that the man had sexually abused her numerous times in spite of her telling him to stop. She also stated that the man threatened the couple's young daughter, and physically abused her on a few occasions.

The man, whose name has been protected due to a publication ban put in place to protect the victims, has pleaded not guilty. At the end of four days of testimony, the judge reserved his decision and was expected to set a decision date in December.

Unfortunately, this is certainly not the first case of sexual assault that has come before the courts, nor will it be the last.

In fact, we have covered several sexual assault incidents this year, including a case just a few weeks ago where a 61-year-old man was found guilty of sexually abusing his stepdaughter and granddaughter, with the offences stemming back to the late 1980s. The judge's sentencing decision in this case, too, has been reserved.

What's different about the most recent four-day trial between the woman and her ex-boyfriend has been the response from at least a few in the public who believed that our coverage was far too gratuitous for their taste in news reporting.

I understand that you are interested in reporting the news and want to show that the abuser is a monster, however you also re-victimized the victim. I know that no names were released, however the intense details were not needed to get your point across, in my opinion, wrote one reader, who was concerned that other women would read our accounts of the trial and decide they didn't want the details of their own experiences splashed across social media and the pages of the paper  and thus decide not to go to police.

The recent coverage of alleged sexual abuse between a man and woman in the city has occupied prime space in recent papers, wrote another. It is difficult to understand why the public needs such intimate and disturbing details of this very personal situation. Is there nothing of interest to occupy these prime reporting areas in our paper? Such a private matter should remain private. Disappointing!

They are not alone, of course. There is a view among critics of sexual assault reporting that recounting the graphic details of sexual assault in an effort to educate the public is unnecessary, and merely forces the victim to relive the events. Surely we already know sexual assaults are harmful. So why provide details?

To my mind, as news media we have an obligation to report the facts as they come out in court  not out of some preposterous need to demonize the defendant, or the complainant for that matter. We report such facts for the same reason that we report on the details of a homicide investigation, an arson or a robbery. These kinds of cases have victims too, and sometimes the details can be equally horrific.

We did, in truth, report some very graphic details that came out during witness testimonies and cross-examination. There can be no doubt of that.

What we did not do, however, is sensationalize the story. We did not use slang or overtly colourful language to describe the details or the people involved. There were no screaming headlines demanding readers' attention to any particularly salacious details. In fact, we did the opposite, warning readers at the start of the story not to go any further if they found such reporting too difficult to read.

The Brandon Sun is not a tabloid. The details in our series of stories were necessary so the public could grasp the magnitude of the charges.

A few years ago, Dalhousie University sociology professor Christopher Murphy gave an interview to the writer of a story that appeared in the publication King's Journalism Review, discussing journalism ethics and sexual assault reporting.

Murphy stated that both domestic abuse and sexual assault were often perceived as private problems until feminist groups forced the issue into the public sphere in the 1970s and 1980s.

Various studies during this period also revealed the staggering extent of sexual assault in Canada, the article reads. This time period also saw a significant increase in the number of sexual assault articles, as well as an increase in the number of graphic depictions of sexual assault. There was also a significant increase in the number of articles that address sexual assault as a social problem. These changing attitudes led to changes in Canadas rape laws in 1983. These new laws had various effects, such as shifting the burden of proof away from the victim and making it illegal for a man to rape his wife.

I agree that we need to be cognizant of victims of sexual assault, and the impacts that media can have upon them and their families, both positive and negative. But censoring factual information will only make for an uninformed populace.

There can be no understanding if we, as news media, withhold information from the public. And to my mind we do a disservice to the cause of justice  for all parties involved  when the public is ignorant of the facts.

 Matt Goerzen
My hiring experience as a submarine sonar operator in the Norwegian Navy

As some of you know I spent a year on a submarine. This is the story about how that came about.

Norway has compulsory military service, and I wanted to make the best of it. At my assessment & induction meeting I picked the Navy for three main reasons:

I thought I'd be able to sleep in a dry bed every night, instead of a wet sleeping bag. (This assumption was almost correct.)

correct.) I had heard submariners had the longest expected lifespan if deployed in a hostile situation.

Thirdly I had seen the film The Hunt for Red October and for some reason the role of sonar operator on a submarine seemed really glamorous to me.

Everyone that enters the Norwegian Navy starts with six weeks basic training on the same base. We received training, a fitness regime, and lots of tests. I remember scoring 2/7 on my hearing test, and thought my chance of becoming a sonar operator was now over.

At the end of my basic training I could finally apply to a specific branch of the Navy. As I had expected, sonar operators on submarines required hearing score of 7/7. But, what I hadn't expected was that every branch of the Navy required at least 3/7. I didn't qualify for anything! Yet, I was told I had to pick something, and I thought I might as well shoot for the stars. I applied to become a sonar operator, and was accepted. I spent the next six weeks on a more specific submarine training course.

All submariners had to learn to escape from a submerged submarine through an airlock. We practised this in a 20-metre deep swimming pool at the base.

We also had to memorise the location of all the valves on pipes penetrating the hull, so we could close these in an emergency.

Sonar operators additionally have to learn to classify ships by the sound their propellers make. Is it a fishing boat, merchant-, or warship? And are they likely to be friend or foe?

We also did more physical tests, including another hearing test which confirmed the result of the previous: my hearing was pretty bad. However, it was a bit more specific in how it was bad.

At the end of the six weeks we got to choose which submarine we wanted to serve with. I had the highest score in the sonar operator test and normally this meant I would get first pick. But, the officer in charge seemed a bit hesitant and asked me: "wasn't there something wrong with your hearing?" I didn't want to lie. But I also didn't want to disqualify myself. I took a slight gamble and answered him with a question: would I have managed to get the best score on the sonar operator test if there was?

I guess that satisfied him, because instead of freezing my bottom off in Norway the following winter I was on the first Norwegian submarine to ever attend a NATO exercise in the Mediterranean.

When I wrote up this story I realised it confirmed a lesson relevant to hiring: sometimes people will disqualify themselves from applying to your job because they don't fulfil all the requirements in your job ad. If I had qualified for any of the other options available at the end of my basic training I would have applied to that instead.

So, I nearly didn't apply to become a sonar operator since I failed the proxy requirement "has perfect score on generic hearing test". However, the real requirement was "can learn to classify boats by their sound under water", and it turns out I was pretty good at that!

By putting unrealistic or inaccurate proxy requirements in your job ad you are likely to get miss out on good candidates. You will be more successful at hiring if you make sure what you put under the Requirements heading in your job ad are actual requirements, and leave anything negotiable under the "nice to have" section.

Let's finish off with an example. If you're hiring a driver it might make sense to require candidates have a valid driver's licence. Throw in a line about advanced driving qualifications too, if you're hiring a getaway driver. That candidates must be martial artists and have a passing likeness to Jason Statham is heavily in "nice to have" territory though, unless you are the casting director for the next instalment of The Transporter franchise.
Dublin based firm, the Irish Fairy Door Company has signed a game-changer global animation deal that will bring characters from fairy stories to our screens next year.

The firm has signed the deal with Canadian firm, DHX Media. Its subsidiary, the WildBrain network already features other third party toy brands including Fireman Sam, Curious George, Shopkins and Ben 10.

WildBrains network has 50 million subscribers and the Irish Fairy Door is now being added to that portfolio. Under the agreement, WildBrain will manage The Irish Fairy Door Companys YouTube channel on its network.

The miniature fairy doors that are the flagship product of the brand are enjoyed by children in almost 1 million households worldwide and have had an endorsement in the past from Kourtney Kardashian.

Niamh Barry, director of Irish Fairy Door Company, said: The DHX deal is a complete game-changer, completely and utterly, and has the potential of making us a global brand. It has been a long time in the making and something that everyone has worked very hard on. We are absolutely over the moon that the deal is now done and the production can now begin.

The sky is the limit when it comes to job creation, revenues and profits. All you have to do is walk into any toy store in the world and you will see aisles and aisles of merchandise all based on animations for all ages.

"The market is enormous which we know will lead to massive sales in the coming years.

WildBrain will now produce short-form content designed to engage and inspire children with the magic of The Irish Fairy Door Companys brand, including an original animation series and live action videos that bring the fairy world to life.

Ms Barry said that the live action part of the series will be out by February 2019 and the animation is due out July 2019.

The animation itself in is the very early stages of development but it will be character based - maybe 3-4 central characters - with all different abilities and strengths."

Ms Barry said that the animation will stay very true to the concept that has been created already adding the firm is excited to have the expertise of the script writers and story tellers in DHX and WildBrain.

Between July 2017 and June 2018, Wildbrain generated over 129 billion minutes of watch time across 25 billion views. Its managing director, Jon Grisby, said: The Irish Fairy Door Company team has achieved a remarkable feat already, by building a consumer products business around a smart toy idea that has captured the imaginations of a generation of children in Ireland and beyond."

The Irish Fairy Door firm was formed in Ireland in 2013 by Niamh Barry and Aoife Lawler with their husbands Oisin and Gavin.
Nissans investigation into alleged misconduct by chairman, Carlos Ghosn, is expanding to include Renault-Nissan finances, sources told Reuters, in a further sign that Nissan may seek to loosen its French parents hold on their global carmaking alliance.

Earlier this week, Nissan told Renaults board it had evidence of potential wrongdoing at Renault-Nissan, the venture overseeing alliance operations under Renaults ultimate control, according to sources.

The Japanese carmaker, 43.4% owned by Renault, has announced that an investigation uncovered misconduct involving Mr Ghosn, including under-reporting of his compensation and personal use of company assets.

Nissan chief executive, Hiroto Saikawa, once Mr Ghosns protege, also disclosed plans to strip Mr Ghosn of his chairmanship, after the 64-year-old industry veteran was arrested in Tokyo, along with fellow director, Greg Kelly, an American.

Neither of the detained men has had the opportunity to comment publicly on the allegations against them.

The 19-year history of the Renault-Nissan alliance, enlarged in 2016 to include Mitsubishi Motors, has been marked by tensions among the carmakers and the French government, Renaults main shareholder, with 15%.

Under government pressure, Mr Ghosn, who is also Renault chairman and CEO, had agreed, this year, to explore a closer tie-up that would tap deeper synergies, safeguard French industrial interests, and make the alliance irreversible. The plan raised hackles in Tokyo.

Nissan, while almost 60% bigger than Renault by sales, remains the junior partner in their shareholding hierarchy, with a smaller, reciprocal, 15% non-voting stake in Renault.

Renault chief operating officer, Thierry Bollore, has won the backing of the French government to become interim chief executive officer, following Mr Ghosns arrest in Japan, sources say.

The French state is also expected to support lead board director, Philippe Lagayette, as non-executive chairman to fill Mr Ghosns other role.

The move would elevate Mr Bollore, who has been seen as Mr Ghosns heir apparent since February, when he was promoted to chief operating officer, and allow him to take over the day-to-day running of Renault.

The French government has distanced itself from Mr Ghosn, with finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, saying he was not in a position to run the group.

Renault shares have tumbled since news of Ghosns arrest. They fell 4.8% yesterday, after an 8.4% drop the day before. Nisan shares fell a further 5%.

Reuters and Bloomberg
A sell-off in retail shares ahead of the start of the US holidays added to Wall Streets woes as technology shares, including Apple, continued their global slide.

Yet another day of hard selling has taken hold throughout Europe and the US, said IG market analyst Joshua Mahony, adding that all the major technology indices have now dropped into the red this year.

Tech has been a major focus for short sellers of late, with high valuations ensuring that they become a target given their apparently bloated share-prices.

Mr Mahony said that fears over a peak in iPhone sales had contributed to the tech sell-off.

Apple shares fell further to stand at their lowest level since early May. They are sharply down on their record high of October 3.

Goldman Sachs trimmed its price target on Apple for the second time in just over a week, saying the balance of price and features in the new iPhone XR may not have been well received by users outside of the US.

A slump in the price of oil to its lowest level this year also undermined oil company shares.

Brent oil dropped $3.45 to $63.34 a barrel in London.

On Brexit, Bank of England governor Mark Carney told a parliamentary committee he believed Britain wouldnt drop out of the EU in March without a deal.

That helped sterling rise against the euro, to 88.87p.

The DUP is an additional concern for the pound, with tensions growing on a daily basis between Theresa May and the party upon whom she relies to hold up her government, said Fiona Cincotta, a senior market analyst at City Index.

The growing tensions dont bode well for the Brexit vote in parliament.

Additional reporting Reuters
The chaos that defines the UKs Brexit process brings into sharp relief the relative stability on offer to investors and employers in Ireland.

While political turmoil hits confidence in Britain, current policies in the Republic favour investors. Maintaining that advantage will also mean facing down challenges from the rest of Europe.

Investment in the UK has to take into account two big issues.

A business thinking of investing in the UK to tap the British market must worry about the implications of further turmoil in the political system and the risks of higher taxes under a new British government. A business investing in the UK to access the vast EU market must calculate the risks to their goods and services of getting from the UK into the rest of Europe. The risks are high, in both cases.

In contrast, Ireland, and areas outside Dublin, in particular, have an enormous appeal. In many regions of the UK, commercial and residential rents are materially below the levels in Dublin.

If an international investor is considering setting up a new business in the UK which does not need a London base, it will focus hard on the costs of living for its employees.

And it is the cities and towns outside Dublin that offer good value, when compared with London costs.

There are other significant factors that determine whether or not to invest in Ireland, including market access, the tax regime, the availability of skilled labour, and quality transport.

This is where the Irish political system comes into play. That a significant majority of parties in the Dail broadly support current policies contrasts starkly with the fissures in Westminster.

Take, for example, a large technology company on the US West Coast, which currently has no base in Europe. Ireland has scored well in attracting such companies in recent years.

In choosing a European base, it will seek a reliable, English-speaking staff.

Building a European base requires large amounts of money and time and involves taking risks.

Doing all that against the backdrop of uncertainty about market access and tax, as is the case in Britain, is a big risk.

But investing in a place where, year after year, a government sticks to its commitments to employers and does not deviate from pro-business policies, ticks a large box in investment decisions.

This is why we are witnessing a persistent run of announcements about new companies establishing in Ireland.

The news flow from the UK can only help.

Joe Gill is director of corporate broking with Goodbody Stockbrokers. His views are personal.
A video shared from the BBC archive of beloved Cork writer Frank O'Connor speaking about the city of his birth in 1961 has been a huge hit online.

The clip from the BBC arts magazine programme 'Monitor' shows the author talking to presenter Huw Wheldon about his upbringing in Cork's 'slums' and who it led to his development as a writer.

#OnThisDay 1961: "You don't have to sell Cork to me, Huw. To me it's the most important city in the world" Frank O'Connor returned to his native Cork, on Monitor. pic.twitter.com/9Os88vlfHQ  BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) November 19, 2018

O'Connor was born Michael Francis O'Donovan in Cork city in 1903. He penned over 150 works and is best remembered known for his short stories and memoirs.

In the BBC clip, he described Cork city as a provincial city, where creative people are moulded before they leave for bigger things.

"[I left Cork] 10 years too late, I'm still trying to make up for lost time," O'Connor told Wheldon.

Standing atop a building which appears to be the Metropole Hotel today, O'Connor highlighted the struggles and successes he faced in his hometown.

"You don't have to sell Cork to me, Huw. After all, to me it's the most important city in the world," he said, looking out over the city.

"It doesn't have the spectacular Georgian beauty of Dublin, but it has a quiet regence, charm of its own. You always feel that Dublin is going to get up and address you as if you were at a public meeting, but in Cork, you get the impression that at any moment you may meet one of Jane Austen's old ladies among the bow-fronted houses.

"And I suppose it is good to see pretty things before you're old enough to appreciate them, to have the feeling of beauty before you get the idea of it. But for me, the beautiful houses are just places where mother worked as a charwoman and where I went to pick her up at 6 o'clock. The Mardyke, it's a bit of a mess nowadays I'm afraid, is where I used to dream of taking a girl one night after dark, and never did because I was afraid she'd notice the patch in my trousers.

Beauty you've lived with after the age of 16 isn't in your head. Actually, I'm the last to notice it. But it's there inside you alright, like your blood and bones.

O'Connor describes the age at which someone leaves the city as that city's 'mental age'. He described Cork's 'mental age' as 18-and-a-half.

"All the same, though the outside looks fine, it's a different matter when you have to live here. There's that business of mental age, for instance," O'Connor said.

"I don't know exactly how you judge the mental age of a town but one way is certainly by its bookshops and libraries, art galleries and theatres and concerts. And if you judge Cork by these, you'll see that 18-and-a-half isn't an unfair estimate. Of course, that's largely the influence of a Church, which is provincial to the core."

O'Connor criticised Ireland's then-restrictive censorship laws, which saw a number of his works banned across the country.

"I know that Bonne University in Germany was recently searching for the complete work of Liam O'Flaherty, a fine writer by any standard, and all the libraries in Ireland put together couldn't produce a set. I'm quite certain they couldn't produce a set of mine. Four, or is it five, of my books are banned by law. You may say that my books are bad but surely you'd expect a city like this to have a complete set of the works of even its worst writer.

That's what I call provincialism. To be provincial is to be deprived.

He said people deprived of cultural outlets become bitter and jealous.

"I suppose the mark of provincialism is the fact that there's no intellectual atmosphere in which a man can grow up, in which he can develop himself fully after the age of 18 or 20 or even 25. There's something that happens after that. I think he tends to become bitter, to be disappointed, to resent other people's achievement and to belittle it.

"In a town like Cork, you'd be astonished at the dirtiness of people's tongues, merely because they haven't themselves achieved all that was in them to achieve. I think that's the secret of provincial humour, which is nearly always malicious and always belittling."

A busy Christmas scene in St. Patrick's Street, Cork, December 1961. Photo: Irish Examiner archive.

Despite the struggles he faced in Cork, he acknowledged that the poverty he experienced in his childhood shaped the writer he would become.

"It's in the provinces, it's in a city like this, that character is shaped and, up to a certain point, character is all that matters. After that, individuality has to take over and somehow or other the man's full individuality has to be expressed," he said.

"[If I hadn't left Cork] I'm quite certain that I wouldn't have been the writer I am, whatever that may be, but I think there's a strong possibility that if I hadn't been brought up in Cork I wouldn't have been a writer at all.

"As a boy here I learned certain things about life that a lot of people don't know. The real values, the values of poverty, servile poverty. There was poverty here in those days and there still is. Behind all the gracious houses there are the lanes of little country cabins, each of them with its two rooms and the loft overhead. And not a few dozen of them either but scores, hundreds perhaps of them.

"They may not look so squalid now but believe me, they were hell to live in. I spent the first six years of my life in 251 Blarney Lane, my mother and father and myself sleeping in the one tiny room. And mind you, we were aristocrats compared with the families of eight and ten who lived and died in them. Oh yes, they died in them too rather than go to the infernal workhouse.

"I was only a baby when my mother one day put me down on a chair in one of these cabins and I saw her through the bedroom door saying the last prayers over a young fellow who was dying of a tubercular haemorrhage: 'Out of the depths have I cried to thee, oh Lord, Lord hear my prayer'. Out of the depths alright. It was no wonder if the men cleared out to the pub and the women became slovenly and hopeless."

Many men from Cork left to fight in World War One, but O'Connor describes this difficult time as "the happiest period of my life".

"The place is poor enough now, you know, but up to 1914 the average domestic income there was about 12 shillings. Even up to 1939 it was scarcely more than a pound. Of course, in wartime it mounted to something like 30 shillings so there was nothing else for the men to do but enlist in the British Army and, naturally from the women's point of view, it was a real blessing to have one exacting adult out of the house.

"1914 to 1918 was in some ways the happiest period of my life. But there was more than that to it. Those old sweats who went off to die saw that their wives could have the separation money. The women who used it to bring up large families in two rooms had heroic stuff in them.

Old soldiers become an almost secret society. They know what war is really like. And we who came out of the slums are a secret society too. We know what that poverty was like and we allow no outsider to criticise one of us.

"That sense of community is something that belongs to the provincial town. It has a set of moral standards all its own and the standards are so forthright that they give the individuals the chance of breaking them as a responsible moral agent."

Since being shared, the archive footage has been viewed on social media by over 60,000 people.

Many people shared their reaction to the video, highlighting people they knew and the places they recognised.
A then 13-year-old boy has been accused of taking part in a vicious mugging in Dublin which left a woman with a fractured skull.

The boy, now aged 14, was charged with robbery at the North Circular Road on April 4 last.

Detective Garda Ruairi O'Connor told the Dublin Children's Court the woman had been walking home when she was set on and knocked to the ground.

Her handbag, laptop and mobile phone were taken and she was punched a number of times, Judge John O'Connor was told.

The court heard she was taken to the Mater Hospital and suffered a fractured skull.

Judge O'Connor acceded to request from defence counsel Alison Fynes to adjourn the case until a date in December when a co-accused will be before the court.

There has already been disclosure of CCTV evidence to her instructing solicitor, she said.

A hearing has to take place to determine whether the case should remain in the Children's Court or instead be sent forward to the Circuit Court which has tougher sentencing powers.

The juvenile court has the discretion to accept jurisdiction for cases involving serious charges by taking into account issues relating to the age and maturity of the defendant.
A Carlow man who held up a shop to clear his son's drug debt months has been jailed for another four years.

David Murphy (39) had been released from a seven-year jail term just four months earlier.

He told gardai that he had planned to rob the shop in Dublin city centre because someone I know is in a bit of trouble and needs money.

Garda Jack McGovern agreed with Keith Spencer BL, defending, that he had since learned that Murphy was planning to assist his 21-year-old son who had a drug debt.

Murphy, of Dereen Heights, Tullow Road, Carlow town, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the attempted robbery of Centra on Camden Street, Dublin on December 28, 2017.

He has 64 previous convictions including burglary and robbery.

He received a seven-year sentence in 2012, with the final five suspended, for robberies. The suspended portion of his sentence was on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for five years.

Today Judge Melanie Greally reactivated three years of those five previously suspended. She said the fact he committed the fresh offence for his son was not a mitigating factor.

She noted that Murphy had been drug-free at the time of the recent offence and should have been able to restrain himself from committing crime having been released from jail.

She imposed a new five-year sentence for this offence but suspended the final four years, taking into account Murphy's genuine remorse, his desire to deal with his drug issues and his guilty plea. This sentence is consecutive to the three reactivated years.

Gda McGovern told Gerardine Small BL, prosecuting, that Marco Moniz was working in the shop just after 6pm when Murphy walked in. His face was covered with a scarf and he was armed with a scissors.

He threatened Mr Moniz, saying, give me the money or I'll stab you. Mr Moniz replied, are you for real? before he tackled Murphy to the ground and held on to him.

Mr Moniz's colleague, Hyeon Seok Kim, called the gardai. Murphy was sitting on the ground in the shop, being watched by the staff, when officers arrived on the scene.

Mr Moniz stated in a victim impact report that he was so terrified by the incident that he no longer works in retail. He said he was afraid he would be stabbed and now works long hours in construction doing manual labour.

Murphy made admissions in his garda interview and described his actions as stupid. He said he was sorry for what he had done and had been remanded in custody since the attempted raid.

Gda McGovern agreed with Mr Spencer that his client said in interview that he didn't want to injure anyone so he didn't put up a fight when he was tackled. He agreed that Murphy was immediately overpowered and didn't try and resist that.

Mr Spencer said his client was the youngest of four siblings, none of whom had ever been involved in any kind of criminality.

All of his family are doing really well. He is very regretful and remorseful to bring this kind of offence to their door, Mr Spencer said.

Counsel said Murphy was a recovering drug addict and was good-natured, caring and compassionate when not on drugs.

Mr Spencer said Murphy's raid was foiled by the bravery of the staff and added it had been his client's intention of going straight after his release from prison.
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Trump made the statement while visiting an area destroyed by the Camp Fire, which has killed more than 70 people in California.

Just when you think he's said or done the single dumbest thing in the history of the American presidency, he comes over the top with something even more mind-bogglingly stupid, nearly like he's going for the high score. "We're going to have that, and we're going to have forests that are very safe".

How to make California's vast drought-stricken forests "safe" after the Camp Fire grew to the size of Chicago this month, killing dozens if not hundreds of people and burning an entire town to the ground?

Federal agencies overseen by the Trump administration own and manage about 19 million acres of that total. He recalled telling Trump that Finland takes care of its forests, but added that raking didn't come up.

Trump on Saturday called for the state of California, where the largest fight in the history of forest fires.

The day before, the U.S. president said: "I was with the President of Finland - he called it a forest nation - and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem", as CNN noted.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto later disputed this.

"I told him that Finland is a land covered by forests, but we also have a good control system and network", Niinisto said.

Maybe it wasn't Niinisto who gave Trump the raking idea.

One Finnish woman posted a photo pretending to vaccuum the forest floor.

"That should have been all raked out", he concluded.

He was accompanied by the state's outgoing and incoming governors, both Democrats, who have traded barbs with the Republican administration - often on climate change.

Twitter erupted this weekend with mockery of the president after he claimed, during a visit to a scorched California town, that the leader of Finland had told him the Northern European country prevented wildfires in part by raking their forests.

Finnish people used #Haravointi to describe "raking".

Trump also told Fox News' Chris Wallace during an interview last week that aired on "Fox News Sunday" that he saw firemen raking brush near the wildfires, and that doing so earlier could have prevented the fires. We've never seen anything like this in California.
Chief Justice Frank Clarke has warned that extradition of people between Ireland and the UK will become more complex in the wake of Brexit.

Newly established arrangements to extradite criminal suspects are likely to be needed between the two states and those new arrangements could be easier to challenge legally, Justice Clarke warned.

Speaking to reporters after delivering an address at the Institute for International and European Affairs (IIEA), the Chief Justice said he would be very surprised if arrangements were not found to replace the European arrest warrant.

But it is worth saying that the European arrest warrant is easier than traditional extradition, he said.

Most countries would say it takes a lot longer and uses up a lot more court time to go through old-fashioned extradition, he said.

There were also more grounds for opposing an extradition being conducted with a non-EU member state. It was certainly possible this would result in some suspects avoiding extradition from the UK to Ireland or vice versa.

The thing about the European arrest warrant is that its a worked-out system; its harder to find holes in.

"But if you have some new system (it would be tested by lawyers) and it would be a while before that settles down, Justice Clarke said.

In his address, he said he felt additional pressures will be placed on Irish judges when the Republic became the only common law country in the EU after Brexit.

This will result in the need for more judges and cited mounting pressures on Supreme Court judges to sit on European committees.

The theme of his IIEA address was the potential opportunities for Ireland in dispute resolution once the UK leaves the EU.

He said the UK, as a common law country, is and has been a popular destination of dispute resolution, including within international companies with assets and activities across many jurisdictions.

However, after Brexit, he said it was unlikely that rulings from the British courts would be able to apply across Europe as they do at present.

Hence, he said this presented Ireland with a potential opportunity to pitch to take a large portion of the estimated 1 billion annual conflict resolution business in the UK.

He said once corporations had clauses in place providing for Ireland to be used as a location to resolve any conflict, then they could come here for that purpose.

Judge Clarke did warn however that Ireland is not the only country seeking to bid for this work, citing the development of Paris' commercial court now accepting appeals in the English language, which traditionally would have been unheard of.

He said Ireland does have a number of distinct advantages. Firstly, like the UK, Ireland is a common law country, we are within the EU, we have considerable experience in this area and we are English speaking. The common law legal system was much more expensive. And processes, including bringing legal challenges before the courts, could be so much more expensive in Ireland or the UK compared to elsewhere in Europe.
Two hundred people attended a public meeting in Wicklow Town last night to express their concerns about a hundred asylum seekers arriving in the town.

The Department of Justice confirmed that the Grand Hotel will be used as a Direct Provision centre.

The owner of the hotel says that 24 asylum seekers have already moved into 13 rooms.

Some people at last night's meeting said they are against the plan.

One woman said: "There's a children's disco just across the street from where they intend to put a Direct Provision centre, and young girls, if you came down here on a disco night, you would see they are scantily-enough dressed. People are just going to be worried about those girls."

LISTEN - Wicklow Town says 'No' to asylum seekers



Locals in Wicklow Town expressed their fears about 100 asylum seekers being accommodated in the towns only hotel, I was there...

@NewstalkFM @BreakfastNThttps://t.co/5drDrmFxQ2 via @NewstalkFM  Barry Whyte (@BarryWhyte85) November 21, 2018

A man at the meeting said: "I have a 27-year-old son, he goes out at the weekend with his friends, he has a few drinks around town, he can't get a taxi, so he walks home. Say he's walking past the Grand Hotel some night and next thing these people are there and they try to take his wallet off him or try to attack him. Maybe he could get knifed."

- Digital Desk
By Olivia Kelleher

The mother of a toddler who suffers from intractable seizures is pleading with the "invisible decision makers" in the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), to legalise medicinal cannabis as a matter of urgency.

Mother of one, Noreen O'Neill, who lives in Wilton in Cork has a two-year-old son, Michael, who she says has gone from "death's door" to riding a horse since he started taking CBD oil the legal less potent form of medicinal cannabis. However, it is anticipated that he will require the THC form of medicinal cannabis which is not legal in this country.

Noreen says prior to giving Michael medicinal cannabis he had lost his ability to sit up, reach, roll, smile, or lift his arms, legs or head. The toddler was unable to swallow and was fed through his nose after nine pharmaceutical treatments had failed him.

Ms O'Neill said that Michael had such a violent reaction to one pharma drug that he went in to respiratory distress on a flight home from New York last year.

She said: "The United Airlines flight on which we were travelling had to be diverted to Newfoundland, Canada, as Michael went into respiratory distress half an hour into the flight. While Michaels seizures had been very good on this drug, he had been silently aspirating his milk, as the muscles in his swallow phase were limp due to the drug and he was unable to close off his airway."

Noreen said the life of her son was saved because by divine intervention the plane was like a "flying hospital."

"A GP from Limerick, Dr Marina OMalley, her husband Paddy, a surgeon, an American paediatric nurse, and an American intensive care doctor along with his colleagues were sitting in a ring around us, and directly behind my seat, an asthmatic man, whose inhaler they used along with a plastic bag as a makeshift mask, to open Michaels airway."

"I dont remember much of the detail other than retching at what was happening, screaming at the cabin crew to release the medical bag and land the plane. We landed in a town called Gander, I didnt even know

what country we were in until we were sworn in to Canada on the steps of the plane.

"Paramedics whipped Michael off the plane, and my sister and I were escorted by the highway patrol police after the ambulance to the local hospital. It was chaos."

Michael was admitted to hospital on January 3, 2018, to begin anti-convulsant number ten. He was averaging up to 15 seizures a day. Noreen decided to personally administer CBD oil to him January 5 and he was seizure free three days later.

She said: "I told Minister Harris I believed CBD would lead him to have this tube removed before his second birthday on August 31st, and on August 23rd last, he was officially extubated. He has not had a single acute

hospital admission since his first dose. While this, along with the removal of his feeding tube, has saved the HSE multiple thousands, the financial cost to me as his sole-carer, has been colossal.

"Thousands of euros to date I have dispensed on private therapy to retrieve what that year cost him developmentally, not to mention the cost of meeting his ever-increasing dose of CBD oil, as he grows. This currently stands at approximately 400 per month. "

Noreen says several families who contacted her after she highlighted Michael's experience of CBD oil are now living life without seizures.

She said: "These were children who had been blue-lighted multiple times to hospitals and spent months in hospital beds, enduring ferocious and unrelenting seizures and drug-induced side-effects.

"We demand country-wide access to medicinal cannabis through our doctors on the Long-Term Illness Scheme and General Medical Services Scheme. We demand that no further delay be allowed by logistical negotiations between the HPRA and potential pharmaceutical distributors here."

She maintains that standard anti-convulsant medications and standard anti-emetic regimens should be removed from any and all qualifying requirements for access to medicinal cannabis and that such decisions be taken between doctor and patient, not state officials.

She said: "I have said in previous correspondence to Minister Harris, and now I say it to each official of the HPRA; there will be no let-up in our efforts to secure this life-changing medicine for our children. Our

backs are to the wall.

"We have tried and failed every other option. We cannot and will not stop pursuing every avenue to obtain what our children need to stay alive."

Ms O'Neill said that Michael is at risk of developmental delays unless they are granted a licence for THC to treat his condition which is called bilateral frontal polymicrogyric. It involves him having too many folds on the frontal lobes of his brain.

Noreen has taken leave from her job as a teacher in Kerry in order to care full time for her son. She and Michael moved to Kerry so that they could be closer to CUH in the event of an emergency.

She has set up a petition seeking the legalisation of medicinal cannabis.

The Department of Health has previously said that the decision to prescribe or not prescribe any treatment, including cannabis treatment, for an individual patient is strictly a decision for the treating clinician, in consultation with their patient and that Minister for Health has no role in this clinical decision-making process.
The Dail has given near universal backing the crucial EU-UK backstop agreement despite ongoing hard border concerns and fears Ireland is failing to prepare for a doomsday deal collapse.

The clear Irish support for the deal came as British prime minister Theresa May said she will hold further talks with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker on Saturday after not resolving issues in Brussels on Wednesday.

Speaking before a crunch EU summit on Sunday to ratify the deal which German and Spanish officials claimed on Wednesday will be scrapped unless key issues are resolved by Friday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar stressed the deal must go ahead.

At the start of a four-hour Dail debate in which he insisted Ireland will not back down on the backstop, the Taoiseach said:

Many predicted that in the final moment our European partners would turn on us. That didn't happen... No matter anything else Ireland will remain a committed member of the EU. It's a home we've built together, and where we will stay.

The Taoiseach's comments were repeated by Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who called for a "clear message" to be sent from the Dail and urged Sinn Fein to take up its Westminster seats.

However, despite backing the calls, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin warned "we are nowhere near Brexit ready" and compared Ireland's planned hiring of 400 new customs officials to the "1,000 trained customs staff" already appointed in the Netherlands.

He was followed by Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, who backed the deal but tabled an amendment to ensure citizens in Northern Ireland have the same EU rights post-Brexit.

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said while he was backing the deal he wanted an amendment to allow for a border poll.

However, both amendments were subsequently shot down by TDs in late night Dail votes.

The Government motion to support the EU-UK Brexit deal was walked through on Wednesday night after the debate due to Dail rules which stipulate no vote is needed if less than 10 TDs oppose the move.

Despite noting the clear need for a deal, nine opposed the move on Wednesday night, namely:

Paul Murphy, Mick Barry and Ruth Coppinger (Solidarity)

Mick Wallace and Clare Daly (Independents4Change)

Mattie McGrath, Maureen O'Sullivan, Thomas Pringle and Michael Collins (Independents)

During the debate the nine TDs said they were opposed to the existing deal for various reasons, including concerns the deal is a "neo-liberal" and "Tory Brexit" that will still damage the working class, risks exacerbating sectarianism in Northern Ireland and could impact negatively on rural Ireland's tourism economy.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, greets British Prime Minister Theresa May on arrival at EU headquarters in Brussels, today. Photo: AP/Olivier Matthys.

Independent TD and member of the Workers and Unemployed Action Group abstained on the vote, saying he wants to withhold his support until the Government, Britain or the EU publishes a secret doomsday dossier on Brexit's impact on Northern Ireland - the existence of which was confirmed by EU ombudsman Emily O'Reilly on Monday.

The Dail move came as British prime minister Theresa May confirmed she will hold further talks with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker on Saturday.

Ms May announced the last-ditch talks, which will occur 24 hours before Sunday's crunch EU summit, sparking fresh claims the deal may still be under threat.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also suggested last night she may not attend Sunday's summit unless all issues are resolved, with officials saying they want the withdrawal deal and non-binding future relationship political agreement "rubber stamped" before the weekend.

However, while this is still expected by Friday evening, Spanish demands to clarify the Gibraltar situation have led to concerns over the summit timeline.
The Seanad was suspended amid chaotic scenes after a senator was accused of making misogynistic comments in the chamber.

The Upper House was suspended for 15 minutes yesterday after a row broke out over remarks made by Cork Senator Jerry Buttimer.

During discussions on the business of the week, Mr Buttimer claimed that fellow senator and deputy leader of the Fianna Fail group in the Seanad, Lorraine Clifford Lee was "trying" to assert herself.

When Ms Clifford-Lee interjected in the debate, Mr Buttimer said: "I know Senator Clifford-Lee is trying to assert herself here but it is important to listen as well."

Senator Maire Devine took exception to this saying it was "not good language" while Ms Clifford-Lee described it as "gendered language".

She added: "I take exception to misogynistic language. I will continue to call out misogynistic language. Would the Leader have said it if it was a man who was sitting where I am?"

The discussion then descended into shouting and heckling with Senator David Norris claiming Ms Clifford-Lee's remarks were "rubbish" and "absolute tripe".

Mr Buttimer said: "If Senator Clifford-Lee wants to throw things at me that is fair enough, but one thing she cannot accuse me of is that. "

The House was then suspended for 15 minutes. However, when members returned Mr Buttimer refused to apologise. Instead he said he had been hurt by Ms Clifford-Lee's reaction.

I am very upset. I enjoy the rough and tumble of politics but I have never in my 12 years in the Oireachtas been personal or made personal charges against people.

"I make a political charge and the Members of the House will vouch for that. I am disappointed at the remarks by Senator Clifford-Lee. I am definitely not misogynistic and I ask her to withdraw the remark."

Responding she said she would not be withdrawing any of her comments and said she too was disappointed by the remarks tabled against her.

She was backed by Senator Terry Leyden who said the fault was not on the side of Ms Clifford-Lee but with Mr Buttimer.

"He should withdraw his comments and I recommend strongly that he do so," Mr Leydon said.

Later FG Senator Gabrielle McFadden took to twitter where she accused Ms Clifford-Lee of "doing a huge disservice to women" by "throwing the term misogynist at any man who disagrees with her".

Ms McFadden added: "Women are all too often mistreated or dismissed - she is undermining our struggle by duplicitously accusing others just to get attention for herself."
A scientist has told the trial of a man accused of murdering his partner that she found blood stains on the accuseds clothing which, she concluded, was more likely due from a "strike" than from administering CPR.

Renars Veigulis (32) of Old Bridge Street in Freshford, Co Kilkenny has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to murdering Rita Apine (29) at their home on or about May 14, 2017.

Mr Veigulis told ambulance staff that his partner fell down the stairs, while prosecuting lawyers have told the jury they will hear evidence that her injuries were inconsistent with a fall.

Detective Sergeant James O'Brien, from Kilkenny Garda station, gave evidence today to Vincent Heneghan SC, for the prosecution, that he arrived at Old Bridge Street shortly after Ms Apine had been removed from the scene.

He said he looked in through the front door of the apartment at Old Bridge Street and could see a large amount of blood on the tiled floor.

Det Sgt O'Brien said he asked Mr Veigulis to accompany him back to Kilkenny Garda station to give a witness statement.

Det Sgt O'Brien said he explained to Mr Veigulis that he wasn't arresting him and he'd be free to come and go. Mr Veigulis was "very forthcoming", the detective said.

He said he was aware his superior, Superintendent Derek Hughes, had designated the apartment as a crime scene. It did not mean, at that time, that a crime had allegedly been committed but that the location was of interest.

Det Sgt OBrien said he subsequently got a call from Supt Hughes in which he learned that Ms Apine had passed away.

As a result of that, the detective said he changed his mind and Mr Veigulis was no longer being treated as a witness.

The detective said he informed Mr Veigulis that he was arresting him on suspicion of murder at 5.35pm. He said he placed his hand on Mr Veigulis shoulder and informed him why he was arresting him. An interpreter was present to provide translation.

In reply, Mr Veigulis said: yes, so shes dead?, according to the detective.

Sandra McGrath, from the DNA section of Forensic Science Ireland, also gave evidence to Mr Heneghan today that she received a large number of items to examine, including a white hooded top belonging to Mr Veigulis.

Ms McGrath said there was a large amount of contact-blood staining on the sleeves of the top and the back of the hoodie. It was blood that had been transferred from a blood-stained surface to a non-blood-stained surface.

On the sleeve also was a spatter pattern. It results from a force being applied to wet blood. She said the forces could be made by a strike into wet blood or airflow from the body.

Ms McGrath said she had to consider the two alternatives, whether it was force from a strike or from administering CPR.

She said she concluded that the blood spatter patterns were more likely due to a strike rather than CPR or expiration from the body.

Under cross-examination from Michael Bowman SC, for the defence, Ms McGrath accepted that contact staining could be made by cradling somebody in one's arms.

She also accepted that a "strike" was the application of force to wet blood. Mr Bowman said he didn't want the jury getting a picture of "striking somebody.

The trial continues tomorrow before a jury of seven men and five women with Ms Justice Tara Burns presiding.

On Tuesday, Dr Stephen Doak, from Forensic Science Ireland, told the jury:

There was more to the event than someone just landing at the bottom of the stairs. These blood-staining marks are significant and I felt there was a forceful event that occurred at the time.

Dr Doak gave evidence that he observed a large area of blood-staining on the wall beside the first step of the stairs and there was contact blood-staining on top of the baby-gate, which was located at the bottom of the stairs. Dr Doak said he also found hair swipe blood patterns on the wall of the stairs.

He said he returned to the house at Old Bridge Street on May 17 and used a chemical based substance known as luminol which lights up blood in a darkened room as he had previously formed the opinion that something was not quite right, namely that there were missing areas of blood.

He said he sprayed the chemical onto the wall of the stairs and believed there had been a washing up incident of the blood-staining.

The person who wiped this wall had a blood-stained sponge or cloth and left this marking which was not visible to the naked eye but was visible to the chemical eye, said Dr Doak.

In conclusion, Dr Doak said that after he had used luminol he was of the opinion that there had been an active attempt to wipe out blood-stained patterns on the interior walls behind the front door.

Opening the trial last week, Mr Heneghan, for the DPP, said the accused and the deceased were from both Latvia. Mr Veigulis came to Ireland about five years ago, followed six months later by Ms Apine, and in 2016 they moved to Freshford, about 20 miles from Kilkenny City.

On Wednesday, the jury also heard the contents of Mr Veigulis' witness statement, made before he was arrested. In it, he said he was a restaurant assistant in the Kilkenny Design Centre while Ms Apine had been a professional poker dealer for Ladbrokes in Latvia. She stopped working shortly after moving to Ireland when she got pregnant.

Mr Veigulis said he worked the previous day from 2pm to 12.30am and, when he got home, Ms Apine and their daughter were asleep. He said his daughter woke him up at around 7.30am and they went downstairs to play some games.

He said Ms Apine woke up at around 10am. She came downstairs to make coffee and Mr Veigulis went to the shop twice to buy items like milk, bread and cigarettes.

Mr Veigulis said his partner had gone upstairs to put on makeup. When he was downstairs playing with his daughter, he heard "boom, boom, boom and found her at the bottom of the stairs, the jury heard.

The jury has heard the audio of Mr Veigulis 999 call.

Speaking to an emergency call-taker with the National Ambulance Service, the jury heard Mr Veigulis say: Hello can I talk with Kilkenny ambulance. Please, my wife has fallen down the stairs.

The emergency-call taker accepted, under cross-examination from Michael Bowman SC, for the defence, that Mr Veigulis was clearly distressed and anxious. The jury could hear he was breathing heavily.

Please, please very fast. All blood on the floor, please, the defendant was heard telling the emergency call-taker.
By Gordon Deegan

A university has been ordered to pay 35,000 to a 55-year old lecturer after it was found to have discriminated against her on the basis of her age when not selecting her for a Dean of Learning and Teaching post.

In the case, the academic took the discrimination case against the un-named university after claiming that a less qualified female colleague 15 years younger than her was chosen for the post.

In her ruling, WRC Adjudication Officer, Marie Mulcahy found that the lecturers claim of age discrimination was well founded and has ordered the college to pay her 35,000 - or six months salary - for the distress suffered as a result of this discriminatory act.

Ms Mulcahy based her ruling in part on the proximity of the complainants qualifications and experience to the Deanship as compared with the relative remoteness of the successful candidates experience from the post.

The complainant in the case - who obtained her PhD in 2003 - attained a number of awards before applying for the post and they included eight academic awards between 1999 and 2014.

The lecturers representatives told the WRC that the probability of promotion decreases with age in the University.

They pointed out that the University Executive has 11 members, four of whom are female with three female deans all in their 40s.

They also stated that the lecturer was 55 years of age when she applied for the post.

The submission stated: Therefore, the complainant was in the category least likely to be promoted. a large number of female academics remain at the lowest permanent lecturer grade into their 50s or until retirement at age 65.

A former President of the University gave evidence at the WRC hearing and stated that he saw an injustice in the failure of the university to appoint the complainant to the position of Dean.

The former President stated that he couldnt accept that the successful candidate had equivalent leadership experience or responsibilities as the complainant.

The former college President stated that he considered the complainants academic achievements to be remarkable, her scholarships to be remarkable pointing out that she completed her PhD in three years.

A second witness for the complainant, a professor, travelled back from the US to give evidence as she had strong views on the complainants suitability for the post.

She had sat on the selection committee for the post that the complainant missed out on.

The successful candidate got the job by majority decision and the professor disagreed with the decision.

She stated that the complainant had fulfilled the role of Dean of Teaching and Learning while it had been vacant since 2011 even though she didnt have the title of Dean.

The complainant in a supplemental submission stated that all appointments of female Deans made by the current president have been women in their 40s.

In its submission, the university denied that the complainant was discriminated on grounds of age by reason of her non-appointment to the position of Dean of Teaching and Learning.

It stated that a fair selection process resulted in the appointment of the most suitable candidate.

The university stated that the successful candidate scored a higher score in two of the three categories evaluated.

The university stated that the successful candidate was found to have a strong vision, leadership and governance experience and had experience as acting head of an academic department.

The university also pointed out that the successful candidate was found by the selection panel to demonstrate the ability to offer and deliver a strong strategic academic vision for change.

It stated that the age of candidates is not disclosed during the application and selection process.

The college stated that contention of the complainant that the successful candidate was less qualified and has not been involved in university wide teaching and learning initiatives and is junior to her ignores the totality of the skill-set and criteria for the position.
Amazon has revealed a technical error has caused customer names and email addresses to be disclosed on its website.

The e-commerce giant said it has emailed affected customers, with the incident coming during one of the busiest shopping weeks of the year as Black Friday approaches.

The online shopping event predominately takes place in the US around the Thanksgiving holiday but retailers in Ireland and elsewhere now also take part in what has become a multi-billion euro shopping day.

The firm said the issue was not a breach of its website or any of its systems, but a technical issue that inadvertently posted customer names and email addresses to its website.

In a statement, Amazon said: "We have fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted."

It did not disclose how many users had been involved in the incident but confirmed it had emailed all affected customers out of caution.

Turns out that weird data breach notification email from Amazon *is* real....



Amazing lack of detail, and plenty of reasons why people felt it could be dodgy.



The Register has more information: https://t.co/prb3777TW0 pic.twitter.com/CZgv1LKLLQ  Graham Cluley (@gcluley) November 21, 2018

Richard Walters, chief technical officer of cybersecurity firm CensorNet, said those affected should consider changing their passwords.

"If the reports are correct, the information leaked - names and email addresses - is less significant than some of these other breaches, which saw card details leaked. However, it would be wrong to assume that this makes the breach inconsequential," he said.

Cyber-criminals can do a lot of damage with a large database of names and emails. The greatest risk is of brute force attacks - where criminals use a leaked email address and common password combinations to try and break into other personal accounts.

"A large majority of people still use predictable passwords, and thanks to previous high-profile breaches many people's passwords are also readily available on the dark web. For cyber-criminals, it then just becomes an exercise in joining the dots.

"If you've been affected, make sure you change your passwords quickly on all services you use, both work and private."

- PA
The countries already on the list are Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Republican lawmakers led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio have pushed for the designation, citing Venezuela's alleged ties to the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other groups.

The administration will have a hard time finding proof to tie the Venezuelan government to terrorism, according to another anonymous source, this one a USA official.

President Trump is considering designating Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism, in an effort to push the socialist government to the brink of capitulation, a report said. On Nov. 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed a disrupting Venezuela's gold exports.

Venezuela is suffering from political and economic crisis amid a global slump in oil prices, triggered by sanctions imposed by the United States. It is noted that the decision to include Venezuela in the list was finally accepted, but in recent days, the state Department asked the reaction to this potential step in various government agencies.

Reuters quoted a spokesperson for the State Department as saying the department "consistently and on an ongoing basis reviews available information and intelligence, from many sources, on possible state-level involvement in terrorism, evaluating all credible, verified, and corroborated information in its entirety".

The White House declined to comment.

Another senior U.S. official told Reuters that the administration believes Nicolas Maduro's in Venezuela presidency to be "illegitimate", despite his victory in the May elections.

"The regime really understands that the world is getting smaller for them. The sanctions are having an effect", the official said.
Theresa May will hold Brexit talks in Brussels on Saturday, just hours before a special summit is scheduled to sign off on the EU withdrawal agreement.

The Prime Minister announced the surprise move after a meeting with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Belgium.

Mrs May said: "We have had a very good meeting this evening.

We have made further progress. And, as a result we have given sufficient direction to our negotiators, I hope, for them to be able to resolve the remaining issues.

"And that work will start immediately.

"I now plan to return for further meetings, including with President Juncker on Saturday to discuss how we can bring to a conclusion this process and bring it to a conclusion in the interests of all our people."

"Progress has been made" but "there are some further issues that need resolution" - Prime Minister Theresa May to return to Brussels on Saturday for more #Brexit talks https://t.co/Yp4autZ5h5 pic.twitter.com/0eDwiaIVuX  BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) November 21, 2018

The remarks came after suggestions from Brussels that the summit set to approve the draft withdrawal agreement on Sunday could be called off unless progress is made on finalising a political declaration on future relations, with one senior official saying: "We're not there yet."

Reports suggested that Germany's ambassador to the EU had said the document must be finalised by Thursday or Chancellor Angela Merkel would not attend.

Asked whether the UK expected the summit to go ahead, the PM's official spokesman said only: "A summit has been called, an agenda has been published and we look forward to attending."

Earlier, Mrs May and senior Government ministers warned that Britain may not leave the European Union if MPs vote down the Prime Minister's Brexit deal.

Spain has raised concerns about the treatment of Gibraltar in the proposed text, while France is understood to be pushing for better rights of access to UK fishing waters.

And Mrs Merkel set her face against Tory backbench demands for Britain to have the unilateral power to tear up a proposed "backstop" arrangement for the Irish border.

Mrs Merkel told the German Parliament: "We have placed value, and I think this is right, on the fact that Britain cannot decide unilaterally when it ends the state of the customs union, but that Britain must decide this together with the EU."

Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said that for Sunday's summit to go ahead, "we will need to have agreed beforehand the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet".

He added:

Sherpas are due to meet on Friday. They will need to see a final text before then, and the Commission stands ready to consider the text and take any action at any time.

Since unveiling her draft agreement last week, the PM has repeatedly warned MPs that failure to approve it would risk a no-deal Brexit, or no Brexit at all.

But answering questions in the Commons on Wednesday, she told MPs that the alternative to her deal "will either be more uncertainty, more division, or it could risk no Brexit at all".

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal.

"There isn't a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place."

The minister, a former Remain campaigner who replaced Leave-backing Esther McVey in the Cabinet following her resignation last week, said she expected MPs to back Mrs May's plan after peering into the "abyss" and pulling back.

But she added: "If it doesn't get through, anything could happen.

The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

Meanwhile, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss told BBC Radio 5 Live: "If my colleagues in Parliament don't vote for this then we're in grave danger of not leaving at all."
Only six out of 10 Westpac financial advice files passed a recent compliance audit as the bank struggles to find all of the clients who are owed money after it failed to provide the promised services.

As Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer faced a royal commission grilling on Wednesday, it was revealed that much of the bank's advice is failing to meet the corporate watchdog's expectations regarding a duty to act in clients' best interest, and keep proper records.

Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer. Credit:Louise Kennerley

After a wave of scandals in financial advice that has caused the other major banks to sell much of their wealth management businesses, Mr Hartzer also admitted the economics of the advice industry were getting "very difficult."

Senior counsel assisting the commission, Michael Hodge QC, took Mr Hartzer to an internal memo from late October, which revealed poor pass rates in a recent audit of its advice files. The bank last year boosted its standards to reflect "higher expectations" from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), it said.
Williams and Barson's wife, Linda, were both previously cleared by police in the June 9, 2017 crash that fatally injured Barson.

According to TMZ, who obtained court documents filed in Palm Beach County, the 78-year-old victim's estate and Serena Williams' sister reached a financial agreement last week.

Barson received significant injuries, including a cracked sternum and broken wrist, while her husband Jerome, who was in the passenger seat, died 13 days later from injuries suffered in the crash. Ms Williams, 38, was not hurt.

Later they decided not to charge her because video surveillance showed she entered the intersection lawfully and a auto not involved in the collision forced her to stop in the intersection, where Williams' vehicle was struck by the Barsons'.

When the vehicle cleared her path, Williams began moving forward in her 2010 Toyota Sequoia, but that put her in the path of the Barsons, who now had the green light.

When the light turns green, the white vehicle turns left onto a six-lane, heavily traveled boulevard, but Williams heads straight.

As she started to cross, a dark sedan cut her off, forcing her to stop.

The accident, in which the other driver's Hyundai Accent crashed into Williams' Toyota Sequoia, resulted in the death of Jerome Barson two weeks later.

Mr Dowling said the law required Williams to exit the intersection and that Mrs Barson, 68, was obligated to make sure the intersection was clear - even though she had a green light.

"I was caught in the middle".
One of the largest military manoeuvres in the world will happen in Sydney next October.

But rather than weapons, these soldiers will come bearing a different type of arms - specifically, pipes and drums.

Hot off the back of the annual summer season at the Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, 1200 performers from around the world will make their way to Sydney for The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Tattoos originally served as a drum- or trumpet-led signal to instruct innkeepers to stop serving beer and for soldiers to return to their barracks, however in the 1900s they became a form of entertainment in military and garrison towns.
Melburnians are seeing the West Gate Bridge in a new light this week, as the centrepiece of the Art and Industry Festival illuminates its rich history.

The main event in The Bridge Projects is a theatrical revival of Vicki Reynolds The Bridge, a piece of verbatim theatre that echoes with the disaster of October 15, 1970, when a section of the bridge collapsed during construction, killing 35 workers.

Originally written and performed for the 20th anniversary of the tragedy in 1990, the play draws from interviews with workers, emergency relief personnel and affected members of the community, creating social realist theatre that spans both oral history and a living memorial to the lost.

It also serves as a bridge between artists and working people. The original ensemble featured actors and non-actors performing together, as will the revival.

One bridge worker in the play says: "We went to 17 funerals in one day. Geez it was hard. But you want to do the right thing, show people you care, give them your support."
A Canberra man who police say has HIV allegedly shared needles with underage girls while injecting drugs, a court has heard.

Robert Glen Sirl, who denies he has HIV, is also alleged to have had unprotected sex with two vulnerable 15-year-old girls and a woman.

Mr Sirl, 47, is facing charges of sexual intercourse without consent, sexual intercourse with a child, and recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm in relation to the alleged rape of a woman and unprotected sex with a teenage girl.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday heard police are preparing to lay further charges of sex with a second 15-year-old girl against the defendant.
NSW Police has launched an internal investigation after it emerged the man accused of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl at a Kogarah dance studio was on parole for a serious sexual assault at the time, and had been identified as the source of "harassing" phone calls made to women prior to the alleged attack on the child.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Jeff Loy said on Wednesday he had informed the family of the girl that police were investigating the handling of a complaint made against 54-year-old Anthony Sampieri "several weeks" before the November 15 assault.

"Since the 15th of November the investigators have detailed a number of allegations against the offender, in particular some phone calls, and harassing phone calls, to a number of female people," Deputy Commissioner Loy told reporters.

"One of those phone calls was to a woman several weeks ago, and that lady did make a complaint to the Kogarah police station. That complaint is now part of an internal investigation."
Brisbane City Councils city planning chairman is under scrutiny for not turning up to council meetings due to his roles with the Local Government Association of Queensland and LGIA Super.

Councillor Matthew Bourke is paid more than $113,000, on top of his $217,000 council salary, for his roles with the LGAQ.

Cr Bourke became chairman of Brisbane City Councils city planning committee when previous chairman Julian Simmonds stood down to stand as a candidate at the next federal election.

Brisbane councillor Matthew Bourke has some lucrative LGAQ roles. Credit:Tony Moore

Cr Bourke was not at Tuesdays round of committee meetings or the main council meeting, due to his LGIA Super commitments.
Loading So what was responsible for the sudden surge in crime in 2015/16? There was a big increase in car thefts, items being stolen from cars, residential burglaries and people resisting arrest. These are some of the most widespread and commonly-reported crimes throughout the state, so these increases caused the uptick shown in the graph. The big drop in crime over the past year has been because of a downturn in these exact same offences  car thefts, non-aggravated burglaries and thefts from motor vehicles are happening at their lowest rate in a decade. But this graph includes all crimes. It does not adjust for the seriousness of particular offences. For example, there could be 10 times more homicides than normal one year, but it wouldnt cause a ripple in the chart since it is something that happens so infrequently and is dwarfed by the sheer number of items getting stolen from cars. This is what the data shows for some of the crimes that most preoccupied Victorians in the past few years.

Aggravated burglaries An aggravated burglary is where a home is broken into when a resident is present at the time but it doesnt necessarily mean the victim came into contact with the crook. As you can see, the rate of this crime increased significantly in 2015/16, and there was a downturn last year, but these types of break-ins are still happening at a higher rate than they were.



Loading The figures also show that aggravated burglaries are making up a larger proportion of residential burglaries than they once did. In 2008/09, 5 per cent of home burglaries were aggravated; now the proportion is 10.9 per cent. Its not possible, unfortunately, to gauge the rate of home invasions, which are brazen aggravated burglaries carried out by multiple offenders. These offences only started being counted separately in December 2016, so there has not been enough time to chart with any accuracy whether the crime is rising or falling.

Non-aggravated burglaries Last year there were 28,337 residential burglaries in Victoria, or about three every hour on average. But on a per capita rate and in real terms, they are at their lowest in the past decade.



Assaults Last year there were 38,560 assaults in Victoria, 14,253 more than there were a decade ago. Assaults have been going up and up.

That graph looks pretty bad, but theres more to it than meets the eye.

The increased rate is partly because there has been a surge in family violence incidents over the past decade, something which rarely used to be reported to police. There were three times as many family-violence-related assaults reported to police in the past year than there were a decade ago. Family violence used to make up a quarter of assaults, now it makes up half.

But family violence rates are difficult to analyse, since it is hard to determine whether were seeing improved reporting, a higher incidence of the crime or a combination of the two.

The increased rate of family violence doesnt just affect this chart of assaults. Family violence made up about 14 per cent of criminal incidents reported to police last year, and is one of the reasons why the total crime rate is higher than it used to be. Once family violence assaults are removed, the data has a different shape:

This assault rate was heading down until 2014/15 but has undeniably started rising again in the past few years.

These graphs show what has happened to crime rates but not how Victorians feel about crime. If you want to find out more about who you should vote for based on what you think of the parties' policies, including crime and justice, try our policy interactive. You won't know whose policies you are picking until the end.
A dumped Victorian Liberal candidate will still have her name associated with the party on election ballot papers following a court ruling.

Labor lost a Supreme Court bid on Wednesday to remove the Liberal Party's association with disendorsed Yan Yean candidate Meralyn Klein from ballot papers in Saturday's state election.

Meralyn Klein, second from right, during the 2016 Nillumbik Council elections. Credit:Joe Armao

Justice Melinda Richards said Labor's application "must be dismissed".

"I hope to publish these reasons more fully by the end of the week," she said, noting the candidate was endorsed when the papers were authorised.
Muslim leaders are refusing to meet Scott Morrison after "strongly" taking offence to the Prime Minister's suggestion that they should do more to combat extremism.

However, Mr Morrison says the private meeting will still go ahead with those who want to seriously deal with the issue "rather than look the other way".

The group of leaders, including Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, signed a letter on Tuesday night telling Mr Morrison they wouldn't attend the meeting.

The letter said "statements made by senior government ministers and the Prime Minister in the recent past" had "achieved nothing to address underlying issues, but rather, have alienated large "segments of the Muslim community."
A Liberal candidate running in the marginal seat of Frankston has been caught in a trainwreck interview after he was quizzed on the party's plans to build a power station in Victoria.

Michael Lamb, a policeman for three decades who is running to unseat Labor MP Paul Edbrooke, took part in a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday afternoon with Sky News journalist David Speers.

Labor holds the seat by a margin of 0.5 per cent.

When asked how the Liberal party planned to build a new power station, Mr Lamb told the program that it would be built by the private sector.
A Mount Lawley tradesman must pay almost $10,000 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to nine charges brought by the Building Commissioner in relation to projects at three Perth properties.

Phillip Davies-Morgan, of MDM Industries Pty Ltd, trading as Perth Ceiling Fixers, provided renovation work at homes in South Lake, Dianella and Morley in 2015 and 2016.

The man pleaded guilty to nine offences. Credit:Glen Hunt

At a hearing last month, Perth Magistrates Court heard that the company, now in liquidation, was not registered as a building contractor or painting contractor as required for the type of work contracted and carried out at the properties.

The court was also told the company requested and received a 50 per cent deposit from the Morley home owner, in breach of WAs home building contract legislation.
The Coalition government has vowed to pull all its public services online in seven years and make queues history in a plan mapping an ambitious path to IT reform that follows years of bungled projects.

Tech upgrades would accelerate and tasks such as registering births and deaths, or applying for welfare, would become simpler in a bid to make Australia a world leader in online government services promised by the minister overseeing IT, Michael Keenan.

A cornerstone of these changes, digital ID, will be rolled out after trials and Mr Keenan has vowed it won't become another version of the "Australia Card" creating an identity document for Australians or pooling their personal information. He promised the government's roadmap for reform would protect privacy.

Mr Keenan's announcement at the National Press Club on Wednesday follows a series of failed technology projects across government departments that have frayed public trust in the bureaucracy's handling of IT reform.

It also resembles a Coalition promise shortly before it won government in 2013 that it would put all major services online by 2017.
The peak legal body has warned Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton an attempt to deport alleged foreign criminals before trial would endanger national security and undermine natural justice.

The push by the Home Affairs department to allow unlawful non-citizens facing criminal charges to leave the country without facing court has also angered public prosecutors and attorneys-general.

The peak legal body has voiced its concerns directly to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Credit:Dan Peled / AAP

Late last month, all eight directors of public prosecutions - in every state and territory - took the rare step of jointly writing to Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo urging him to immediately reconsider his position.

Currently, prosecutors can issue a "stay certificate" to keep non-citizens in Australia while they face criminal charges. If convicted, offenders are usually deported after their sentence.
The nations biggest states are starting to slow their population growth ahead of a crucial meeting next month to negotiate Australias permanent migration intake, according to a new analysis that reveals key ways to cut the intake.

Population growth has fallen in Victoria and NSW over the past year and is on track to fall again, but the two states would have to scale back their incentives for overseas students to make deep cuts.

NSW and Victoria heavily promote their universities to overseas markets. Credit:Louise Kennerley

State governments have poured resources into promoting international education in Melbourne and Sydney, helping to increase the number of overseas students in Australia to more than 500,000 last year.

While NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has called for a halving of migrant arrivals to her state, her own government has asked for at least 6000 skilled worker visas in previous negotiations with the federal government.
People found guilty of manslaughter of a child will face longer behind bars, Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath says.

It comes after a report by the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council found sentences for the manslaughter of a child were inadequate and did not adequately reflect the unique and significant vulnerabilities of children.

Queensland Attorney General Yvette D'Ath announced the government would widen the definition of murder, of adults or children. Credit:AAP

Following a 12-month review, QSAC has recommended a new aggravating factor be applied by Queensland courts when victims of manslaughter are under 12 years of age, which would increase the lengths of sentences.

Courts would have to treat the defencelessness of the victim and their vulnerability as an aggravating factor.
It was the debate, sorry, Leaders' Forum, that Andrews didn't want to have, unwilling to help raise his opponent's profile by appearing with Guy on prime time free-to-air TV.

Sure, it was only the Opposition Leader's first name, and it was uttered on Sky News at half-eight at night, so not many people saw it, but a small victory for Guy nonetheless with just two days left in the campaign.

So the Premier agreed to the next best thing: going on Sky after dark in Frankston on Wednesday, to share a stage with Guy for the first time in this contest and break his policy of not saying the Liberal leader's name.

Guy mostly looked his best on his favoured law-and order territory. He managed to have the Premier a little flustered over the bail status of Bourke Street terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali and under attack over the controversial decision to not build the East West Link road.

The Opposition Leader had a shaky moment or two of his own, not least when Sky host David Speers, who had earlier char-grilled Guy's local candidate Michael Lamb in an interview, wanted evidence that Guy's tough law-and-order policies would actually work.

"I'm not going to rely on evidence when people are getting hurt," Matthew blurted out.

Andrews had considerable trouble swatting off a lady who really doesn't like the Safe Schools anti-bullying program. (Nobody seems to feel neutral about this.)
Within its first month a Coalition government would start work on building a large new power station for Victoria, draft new laws introducing mandatory minimum jail time for violent crimes and those who breach bail.

The opposition has detailed its priorities for its first 100 days in office, should it win Saturday's election.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has laid out the Coalition's plans for its first 100 days, if elected. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

The list includes revoking Labor's renewable energy targets, beginning work on the removal of 55 congested intersections and appointing Jennifer Buckingham, research fellow with the libertarian Centre for Independent Studies, to review the school curriculum.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said he would arrange a pre-Christmas parliamentary sitting to get started on some of the Coalitions most urgent policies.
Premier Daniel Andrews has denied Melbourne is a "terror central" and defended his handling of recent attacks in Victoria while facing a grilling on radio and TV on Wednesday morning.

As his government faces growing scrutiny, Mr Andrews promised to "stay the course" on fighting terror and said police had received increased resources resulting in terror plots being foiled.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews at the Bourke Street terror attack media conference on November 9. Credit:Joe Armao

Asked on ABC whether there was a suggestion Victoria was a dangerous place, the Premier said terrorism was a nationwide threat.
Port Blair: An American visiting one of the islands in India's remote cluster of Andaman and Nicobar has been killed by a group of hunter-gatherers who live there isolated from the outside world, two police officials said on Wednesday.

The North Sentinel Island is out of bounds for visitors, and is home to the Sentinelese community, who allegedly killed the man, identified as John Allen Chau, after he was illegally ferried there by fishermen, the officials added.

A file photo of a lone Sentinelese tribesman aiming his bow at an Indian coast guard helicopter. Credit:AP

"A murder case has been registered," one of the officials told Reuters. Both officials sought anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

In a statement late on Tuesday, Deepak Yadav, a senior police officer, said authorities in the island chain in the Bay of Bengal had launched an investigation.
Renae Lawrence has spent the first precious hours of her life outside jail with her close family, including mother Beverley Waterman and step-brother Allan Waterman.

The convicted Bali Nine drug mule walked free from Bangli prison on Wednesday after more than 13 years behind bars for her role in the plan to smuggle more than eight kilograms of heroin from Indonesia to Australia.

In a quiet room in Balis Ngurah Rai international airport  hours before she was scheduled to board flights back to Brisbane, then on to Newcastle  the family gathered to spend precious moments with her.

Nursing a cigarette and speaking softly, the just-released former jailbird looked shocked at her new-found freedom.
New York: A former drug cartel operations chief has testified that he personally paid multimillion dollar bribes to one of Mexico's top law-enforcement officials and to an underling of the man who is now the president-elect of Mexico.

The testimony came from Jesus Zambada Garcia, a key lieutenant of the Sinaloa drug cartel, run by Joaquin Guzman Loera, the drug lord known as "El Chapo", who is currently on trial in the United States.

Jesus Zambada, a key lieutenant of the drug lord known as El Chapo, who is now giving evidence against him. Credit:AP

Zambada said he paid a multi-million dollar bribe to Genaro Garcia Luna, an architect of the militarised crackdown on drug cartels that led to thousands of deaths under former Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

Zambada said he met Garcia Luna twice in a restaurant, each time delivering a briefcase stuffed with at least $US3 million ($A4.15 million) in cash.
Washington: President Donald Trump told the White House counsel last year that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Don McGahn, rebuffed the President, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting Attorney-General.

It is unclear whether Trump read McGahn's memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the President has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Clinton and Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the FBI director, Christopher Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.
Buenos Aires: Argentina has vowed to crack down on any anarchists and anti-capitalist protesters who try to disrupt next week's Group of 20 gathering in Buenos Aires, saying it was working with foreign governments to identify and block entry to potential troublemakers.

A young woman takes a picture of a burning barricade during a protest against the G20 in Hamburg, Germany, in July. Credit:AP

Argentina's government, which faces near daily, occasionally violent protests over its economic austerity program, does not want a repeat of the havoc that overshadowed last year's summit of leaders from key industrialised and developing nations in Hamburg, Germany. Protesters set cars on fire and blocked streets and bridges leading to the summit venue.

This year's G20 summit will be held in the Argentinian capital on November 30 and December 1. Local leftist groups are planning marches against the gathering and have invited activists from around the world to join them.

"We will not permit illegal acts. Those who want to cross the line will have to face the legal consequences," Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told reporters.
Latest News Buyers Choice bought out by MoneyQuest in major acquisition Group CEO promises brokers more choice and more value after big purchase

Investors and rentvestors given new tool to buy property sight unseen New platform has mapped every address in Australia with vital stats for investors

Broker groups are hitting back at the royal commission after the Commonwealth Banks CEO discussed remuneration at a hearing.

CEO Matt Comyn was the first to appear in the latest round of Royal Commission hearings, where counsel assisting Rowena Orr QC grilled the bank boss on the banks misconduct.

The hearing on Monday (19 November) spent a considerable amount of time discussing the way mortgage brokers were paid.

Comyn revealed he had wanted to end broker commissions back in April 2017 but feared that making the first move would be a disadvantage.

He confirmed to Orr that he would prefer brokers be paid a fee for service and hoped for regulatory change over trail commission.

Mortgage groups have hit out not only at Comyns responses, but also at the Royal Commission for focusing on the topic.

MoneyQuest group has said the Royal Commission should be called out for dropping its guard in not doing what it was established to do.

In a letter to MoneyQuest brokers it said the commission was supposed to investigate misconduct, rather than the perceived remuneration conflicts.

The group said the most alarming thing was the soft tone between Orr and Comyn and the absence of appropriate questioning.

The letter listed 13 issues discussed during the hearing in which they thought there should have been better questioning.

It also said, The afternoon resembled more of a convivial discussion on the merits of CBAs proposed strategic intent to change the way it remunerates mortgage brokers.

Fashioned by CBA under the guise of improving consumer outcomes, theres been no evidence tendered to date that the current commissions structure has in some way not delivered good consumer outcomes.

One of the 13 points MoneyQuest believed should have been expanded on, was: When questioned as to whether brokers do any work for clients during the life of their loan to earn their trail commission, CBA replied that brokers do very close to none.

This view appeared supported by the RC which in itself appeared uncomfortably close to CBA with its general banter and lack of appropriate questioning.
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84th Precinct

Brooklyn HeightsDUMBOBoerum HillDowntown

Cigarette grab

Police arrested a man who allegedly stole a pack of cigarettes from a newsstand on Jay Street on Nov. 12 and assaulted an employee, causing a deep flesh wound.

The newsstand employee allegedly saw the suspect take the pack from the stand near Fulton Street at 12:25 pm and he began to chase him, when the suspect took out a wooden stick, striking the victim in the face, and injured him, according to police.

Taser robbery

Two nogoodniks used a Taser on a man and robbed him, causing minor lacerations to his face, on Gallatin Place on Nov. 12.

The victim told police the bandits approached him from behind, Tased him on the side of his body, and stole his LG black phone, saddle bag, and other items, near Livingston Street at 9:48 pm.

Bond bandit

A dirtbag robbed a man holding a baby on Bond Street on Nov. 13.

The man was holding his baby near Schermerhorn Street at 11:30 am when the pillager approached and threatened him with a gun, demanding cash, according to police.

Cops say the victim, fearing for his childs life, gave the man his wallet and the bandit fled toward State Street.

Broken ribs

A brute broke a mans ribs in a housing complex building on Sands Street on Sept. 30.

The savage forced his way into the victims apartment near Navy Street at 6 pm and assaulted him, breaking his ribs and causing substantial pain, according to cops.

Police say the victim knows his attacker, who lives in the building.

Generator goon

A looter stole a Honda generator from a construction site on Livingston Street on Nov. 12.

The thief cut the fenced gate at the site near Smith Street at 3 pm and stole the generator, according to police.

Uninvited guest

Police arrested a man who allegedly broke and entered into a Jay Street clothing store on Nov. 15.

The suspect was allegedly seen on video footage at the store near John Street at 12:16 am without permission, according to cops.

Toilet paper prowler

A prowler stole two boxes of toilet paper and sneakers from a Wyckoff Street apartment on Nov. 17.

Police say the bandit used a credit card to open the metal gate and two doors and steal the materials from the hallway of the building near Hoyt Street at 2:55 am.

 Julianne Cuba
Popular messaging app on Wednesday named Abhijit Bose as its India Head, meeting one of the key demands made by the Indian government.

Bose, who will join the messaging platform early next year, will build WhatsApp's first full country team outside of California and will be based in Gurugram, said in a statement.

Bose and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small, connect with their customers, it added.

" is deeply committed to India and we are excited to keep building products that help people connect and support India's fast-growing digital economy," Matt Idema, Chief Operating Officer of WhatsApp, said.

As a successful entrepreneur himself, Bose knows what it takes to build meaningful partnerships that can serve businesses across India, he added.

He joins WhatsApp from Ezetap where he has served as co-founder and CEO. Founded in 2011, Ezetap is an electronic payments company backed by top-tier Venture Capitalists.

The appointment comes at a time when the Facebook-owned company has been under tremendous pressure to put in place a mechanism to curb fake messages on its platform, that incited mob fury.

The government has been pressing WhatsApp to develop tools to combat fake or false messages, and also identify message originators.

Apart from the traceability request, the government had asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate presence and appoint a grievance officer to address complaints. Whatsapp has recently appointed a grievance officer for India.

Following multiple incidents of mob-lynching across the country, the government had slapped WhatsApp with two notices, with the second one warning that it will treat the messaging platform as an abettor of rumour propagation and legal consequences will follow if adequate checks are not put in place.
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Chinese is the most searched food category in Bengal, while ice creams top the list in Madhya Pradesh. And in Haryana, it is Thai food which is the favourite. Believe it or not, searches on Google for food vary from state to state based on data shared by the US company in the India Consumer Forum organised by Kotak Institutional Equities this month.

Googles data throws numerous interesting consumer insights. Share of metros in Google searches has come down to 36 per cent from 45 per cent prior to the entry of Reliance Jio. This is clearly a reflection of the proliferation ...
For the India-Australia series that began Wednesday, November 21 Sony Pictures Network (SPN) has signed up 11 brands for TV and 15 for the digital broadcast on its app SonyLiv. However big consumer goods and cola brands have opted to stay away so far, preferring to wait and watch for audience interest in the series, before they jump on board.

And while the network is quiet on total inventory sold so far, experts say that the ad rates are nowhere near their previous mark; some estimate that the rates are nearly one-third that previous seasons have garnered. The bilateral tie is ...
Country's second largest IT services firm Infosys on Wednesday said it would open three innovation hubs in Australia and create 1,200 jobs by 2020 in the region as the IT firm looks to increase digital offerings for its clients apart from bridging the digital skill gap in the country.

The company also said that it would absorb graduates from the Australian university to fill around 40 per cent of the 1,200 jobs that it will create in the next two years. "As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are proud to announce our commitment to accelerating digital ...
Everything we needed to know about Facebook was right in front of our faces, on the big screen, in 2010. Come with me on this journey back in time, to the AMC Mountainside 10, on Route 22 in New Jersey, where I first saw The Social Network. At the time, I was rooting for the young Mark Zuckerberg to get the better of the people trying to hold him back. He was an unusual movie protagonist, introverted and inconsiderate, but wasnt it time for the geeks to take the power from the old guard? For the underdogs to beat the establishment? When I streamed the ...
U.S. representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images

There is an almost refreshing honesty in the rights treatment of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Rather than conjuring a fake migrant-caravan threat to scare voters or lying about protecting health-care access while gutting it, conservative politicians and their media counterparts have made their disdain for the representative-elect abundantly clear. Their main method has been ridicule  particularly regarding her status as a self-identified socialist and, relatedly, that she is too well-off to be working class, too dishonest for Congress, or too ignorant to describe accurately the structure of American government. But beneath their scorn is a deeper antipathy toward leftist governance and Latinos that is not new, but has found in the Puerto Rican Bronx native a tailor-made boogeyman.

Observers have pointed out, correctly, that these jabs are largely about belonging. Only by delegitimizing Ocasio-Cortez and mining her every act for hypocrisy can they make sense of her presence on Capitol Hill as a 29-year-old, working-class woman of color. When she discusses her background  that her mother scrubbed toilets for a living, and that she will likely have trouble affording rent without a salary for the rest of 2018  they claim she is richer than she says and laugh through television segments about her rent struggles. Fox News has spent seemingly constant airtime discussing and mocking her and mispronouncing her name. When on Sunday she described the presidency, the Senate, and the House as all three chambers of government, conservative pundits, journalists, and politicians piled on, ridiculing her. The Daily Caller and Townhall both ran stories about the gaffe.

But her incongruity in American politics stems from being a socialist and a Latina  both groups with which the U.S. has a tense and often brutal history, especially in combination. This is clear in some of the other attacks she has faced. Newsmax host John Cardillo and the Daily Mail have both challenged stories about Ocasio-Cortezs working-class background by pointing out that she grew up largely in Westchester County  a far cry from the Bronx hood upbringing shes selling. The term hood is Cardillos phrasing, not Ocasio-Cortezs, and has an unsubtle racial connotation. Douglas Wrights argument in the Virginia conservative publication Bearing Drift makes the connection to her ethnicity more explicit, painting the 29-year-old as a harbinger of Latin Americanstyle socialism. In the United States, socialism is not entering through revolution in the streets but quietly as leaders and activists on the left use the cover of ignorance to chip away at [our] liberties, he wrote in July of Ocasio-Cortezs primary win. Socialism is leading to blood and Russian tanks in the streets of Nicaragua, but American leftists will never criticize murder in places like Nicaragua. Similarly, the Republican National Committee in August called Ocasio-Cortez a mini-[Nicolas] Maduro, referring to the Venezuelan president. Kurt Schlichter claimed over the summer that she wants to turn America into Venezuela. Seeking to explain why conservatives dislike Ocasio-Cortez so much, Vox wrote in August that blasting Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose name and image Republicans have used to try to terrify voters for more than seven years, just isnt getting the job done.

It is no accident that they point to countries like Venezuela  and to a lesser extent, Cuba and Nicaragua  as Americans inevitable destiny should socialism be implemented here, rather than, say, pointing to Finland. The spread of socialism across Latin America during the mid-to-late 20th century posed a much more proximate existential threat to American capitalism. The U.S. government helped overthrow the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954, partly because they feared communism in their backyard. Indeed, nuclear warheads in Cuba had a shorter trip to U.S. soil than missiles in Russia, creating the panic that fueled the missile crisis of 1962. After revolution erupted across Central America in the late 1970s, the Reagan administration made the region a U.S. foreign-policy hot spot for much of the following decade, sending weapons and billions of dollars to help repressive military dictatorships in Nicaragua and El Salvador quell socialist uprisings. American-backed wars in Latin America have since created the conditions for immigration patterns that conservatives use to demonize Latin American migrants today. There is no migrant caravan for Republicans to stoke fear around or unaccompanied-minors crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border without the violence and instability caused by U.S. interference in Central America  almost always in the name of anti-communism.

Pair this with already-rampant bigotry against Hispanics, including a continued resistance to accepting that Puerto Ricans are Americans, and Ocasio-Cortez was perhaps destined to face outsize hostility from the right. Their warnings about socialism and the coming transformation of the U.S. into Venezuela are logical nexuses of American racism and American postCold War anti-communism. That challenge is embodied here most visibly by people like Ocasio-Cortez  whose race, gender, age, and political leanings combine to form a sort of conservative antithesis. It is difficult to discern which element most drives the rights disdain. Some conservatives, namely Latinos, might take issue with her politics in particular. Others may focus on her youth, gender, or race to paint her, alternately, as ignorant, dishonest, or sinister. Considering the tenor of their attacks  and how overtly they target her personally despite the prominence of white self-identified socialists, like Bernie Sanders  it is unlikely that none of those elements are involved. More likely, many combine to form a kind of intersectional disdain. But they are often the same qualities that permitted her to triumph in New Yorks 14th Congressional District in the first place, upsetting ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in June, and capturing 78 percent of the vote in November. Whether conservatives like her or not  and clearly, they do not  her district certainly does.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday denied relief to Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit in the 2008 blasts case and refused to stay trial court proceedings.

The court has adjourned the case for the next two weeks.

The on Monday had asked the Bombay High Court to hear Lieutenant Colonel Purohit's plea challenging the validity of the prosecution sanction for his trial under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

A Special NIA Court had earlier commenced a trial against Lieutenant Colonel Purohit and six other accused in the case. On September 29, 2008, a bomb placed in a tiffin box tied to a motorcycle near a mosque in exploded killing six people and injuring many.

On October 30, the court had framed charges against Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Major Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Sudhakar Chaturvedi, accusing them of a terror conspiracy, murder and other related offences.

Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, an Army officer, was arrested the same year for allegedly masterminding the blasts.
Demanding compensation for drought and the transfer of forest rights to tribals, thousands of farmers and tribals began a two-day march from to on Wednesday, eight months after a similar protest that started from Nashik.

Magsaysay award winner Dr Rajendra Singh, also known as Waterman of India, is among the marchers. They started walking Wednesday afternoon and will reach the Somaiyya Ground in Mumbai's Sion area where they will halt for the night.

They will reach Azad Maidan in south early on Thursday and will try to hold a demonstration near Vidhan Bhawan, where the state legislature session is underway, a leader of the march said.

The participants are mostly from Thane, Bhusawal and Marathwada regions, he said.

The farmers are demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report, which suggested that farmers must have assured access and control over resources such as land and water. They are also demanding an increase in the Minimum Support Price and a judicial system to ensure its implementation.

The farmers, struggling to cope with the agrarian crisis, are demanding proper implementation of the package announced by the BJP-led government in the state last year, land rights for farmers and compensation for farm labourers.

"We have been consistently asking the state government to fulfil our long-standing demands but the response has been lukewarm. We are forced to launch this agitation," said Pratibha Shinde, general secretary of Lok Sangharsh Morcha, which is organising the protest.

"We are taking maximum care to ensure that citizens are not inconvenienced," Shinde said.

In March, thousands of farmers, led by the Left-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha, took out a 180 km long march from Nashik to Mumbai in March to press for their demands.

That protest saw a sea of red, formed by farmers in red caps, converge in Mumbai from across Maharashtra.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday targeted the rift between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Modi government, adding the relationship between the central bank and the Finance Ministry has hit a low.

Addressing a press conference ahead of the November 28 Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, the former Union finance minister underlined the need for coordination" between the two organisations.

"The relationship between the RBI and Finance Ministry has hit a low," he said. Harmony and coordination between both were essential for the country, he added.

"The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate relationship. Both have to work together. Although the job of running the country rests with the government, (a) specific responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act. There is a need to recognise the interdependence of the two entities and work in harmony," he said.

"I am happy with the efforts being made to bring reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other," he said.

On his comments that Modi as prime minister would be a "disaster" for India, Singh said he did not want to comment on his earlier remarks.

"I used harsh words which I should not have. Now people will make the decision," he said.

Singh accused Modi of misusing the Prime Minister's post. "It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents," he said, adding Modi was using "unparliamentary words" against the opposition.

He also denied Modi's claim that the UPA government led by him was a "remote-controlled" one. "The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion," he said.
Richard Ojeda at his first presidential campaign rally. Photo: John Sommers II/Getty Images

In the two weeks since the midterm election, Cory Booker has been making calls to Iowa, and Beto ORourke has turned Medium into his LiveJournal. Kamala Harris has aligned herself with top fundraising staff, and Julian Castro has begun meeting with donors. Elizabeth Warren has said its too early to look at a 2020 run, and Bernie Sanders said his team is very much looking at a 2020 run.

Theyre all moving slower than Richard Ojeda, the fiery West Virginia Democrat who held his 2020 campaign launch Monday night at a union hall in Louisville, Kentucky. He summed up his candidacy with an oath. I will never sell you out, he told a crowd of teachers, union members, and curious Democrats in a city chosen, an aide said, because Ojeda wanted to channel the fighting spirit of Louisville native Muhammad Ali.

I will not take corporate money. I dont want it, Ojeda said. I will do everything in my power to make sure that Americans who are sick not only have access to health care as a basic human right, but that every American who has found themselves struggling with addiction will finally get access to the help they deserve. I will strengthen our unions and our middle-class families so that no longer will they be pushed around by employers, but will finally have a seat at the table.

The launch of Ojedas presidential campaign comes only 13 days after he lost a bid for Congress, finishing 12 points behind this Republican opponent in a district that Donald Trump won by 49 points. But the former Army paratrooper, who told local news that he took a quick nap after the last race, is not much for licking his wounds, and with the number of obstacles between him and the White House, it doesnt hurt to get an early start.

The most obvious of those obstacles  that the vast majority of Americans dont know his name, and even those that do might not be saying it right (its oh-JEH-duh)  wasnt a problem for the 150 or so supporters in the room Monday. It helped that a couple busloads came down from West Virginia.

Among those who made the more-than-200-mile ride were Laura Snyder, a kindergarten teacher from Webster County, and her 9-year-old daughter Ava, both in Teachers for Ojeda shirts. Snyder said she became a fan of Ojedas after she and Ava met him during the West Virginia teachers strike earlier this year. He was just so kind and treated her like she was an equal to everyone else, Snyder said. Ava says she supports Ojeda because during the strike all of my friends were missing each other and he helped us get back to school.

Laura and Ava Snyder traveled from West Virginia for the first Ojeda 2020 event. Photo: Adam K. Raymond

Ojedas support for West Virginias teachers, who demanded and eventually won pay raises in March, and his savvy use of Facebook Live helped turn him into a minor cult figure in the state. That support helped him easily win the Democratic primary in the race to fill the seat left open by former representative Evan Jenkins. But it wasnt enough to overcome the D next to his name on Election Day earlier this month.

Still, as Ojedas communications director Madalin Sammons points out, he turned more Trump voters to voting for a Democrat than anyone in the country. Its Ojedas ability to win 44 percent of the vote in a district where Hillary Clinton only got 23 percent that makes her think hes got a shot on the national stage.

People are excited about someone who speaks like them, someone who understands their issues on the ground, says Sammons, who was working at Family Dollar before she joined the Ojeda campaign two years ago. He can really speak to people in Middle America. He can speak to people in Appalachia and these are people who are generally forgotten.

Ojedas platform, which he quickly ran through in a speech Monday night, is largely unchanged from three weeks ago. He wants to protect and grow labor unions, implement Medicare for All, and make marijuana legal. He talks with feeling about the opioid crisis and the unrepentant pharmaceutical giants that used his home state as a pain-pill dumping ground. He seethes about attacks on working people and the advantages of being wealthy. And with an eye toward the swamp, he proposed Monday to make the work of lobbyists more transparent by forcing them to wear body cameras.

His policy positions are largely within the mainstream of his party, but Sammons says even if Democrats have 20 people vying for the nomination, Ojedas voice will stand out. A lot of the people who are speculated to run come from similar backgrounds, she says. I think theres a need for a voice like Richards in 2020. There is nobody as fiercely pro-labor as what Richard Ojeda is. And if were committed to restoring our middle class, its going to be through a massive pro-labor movement.

But Ojeda will stand out among any other Democrat who runs in another, more dubious way. Hell be the only one whos on the record as having voted for Trump. During his congressional campaign, he got used to explaining it away. He supported Bernie Sanders, he says, but in the general election gravitated toward the guy who seemed to be talking to people like him for the first time. The guy who, unlike Clinton, promised to save the coal industry.

Ojeda says he quickly turned on Trump. But choosing a Republican sex pest over the first woman with a real shot at the White House is unlikely to play well with Democratic primary voters.

But Mary Stanton is not one to cast aspersions. I know that he was against Hillary and so thats another thing that draws us to him, she said. A Democrat, Stanton couldnt bring herself to vote for either Trump or Clinton in 2016, calling it a choice between two evils. But Ojeda, she says, gives her an opportunity to vote for someone I actually like who is in the Democratic Party.
Yes Bank has announced that its Board of Directors will meet on December 13, to discuss the induction of a successor to its chief executive and the appointment of a Chairman and independent directors, among other issues.

Yes Bank is currently searching for someone to replace Rana Kapoor, managing director and chief executive officer of the bank, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) did not grant an extension to his current term beyond January 2019. The bank's outlook and governance record has been marred, say experts, after the resignation of three board members over the last ...
President frequently credits himself with accomplishing more for the military and veterans than any other president in recent memory. But he has yet to embark on what has long been a traditional presidential pilgrimage important to the military: a visit to troops deployed in a war zone.

As he departed Tuesday for Florida to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday at his private club in Palm Beach, Trump said he'd soon correct the oversight.

"I'm going to a war zone," he said in response to a reporter's question about his support for the troops.

He did not say when he would be making the trip or to which conflict area he would be going. An official said a White House team recently returned from beginning to plan for a visit.

The omission is one of a long list of norm-breaking moves that underscore the Republican president's increasingly fraught relationship with the military, which has celebrated Trump's investments in defense spending but cringed at what some see as efforts to politicize their service.

Just this week, Trump levelled criticism against the storied commander of the 2011 mission that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, retired Adm. William McRaven.

"Wouldn't it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn't it have been nice?" Trump said.

The latest controversy followed a pattern of concerns raised by former senior military officers about Trump's grasp of the military's role, and it comes as White House aides and defense officials have raised alarm about what they view as the president's disinterest in briefings about troop deployments overseas.

Shortly after taking office, Trump appeared to try to deflect responsibility for the death of a service member, William "Ryan" Owens, in a failed operation in Yemen, saying planning for the mission began under his predecessor and was backed by senior military commanders.

"They explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected," he told "Fox & Friends" at the time. "And they lost Ryan."



Trump won the White House on a platform of ending US military commitments abroad, but he's been bedeviled by many of the same challenges as his predecessors. More American troops are now deployed in conflict zones than when he took office.

Aides have suggested that Trump is wary of travelling to conflict zones where he doesn't fully support the mission. Trump begrudgingly backed a surge of troops in Afghanistan last year and boosted US deployments in Iraq, Syria and Africa to counter the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

Trump said last week in a "Fox News Sunday" interview that he was "very much opposed to the war in Iraq. I think it was a tremendous mistake, should have never happened."



Trump, in fact, offered lukewarm support for the invasion at the time but began offering public doubts about the mission after the conflict began in March 2003.

At home, some assert that Trump's decision to send thousands of active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm elections was a political stunt.

And Defense Department officials said they rejected requests by the Department of Homeland Security and backed by the White House for armed active-duty troops to bolster Border Patrol agents, saying it ran afoul of federal law.

Trump also drew criticism for his decision not to visit Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day, following his trip to Europe. He said later he "should have" visited the cemetery but was too busy with official business. His public schedule that day listed no events.

In the "Fox News Sunday" interview, Trump was asked why he hadn't visited the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in the two years he's served as commander in chief.

"Well, I think you will see that happen," he said. "There are things that are being planned." He also touted his support for the men and women in uniform.

"I don't think anybody's been more with the military than I have, as a president," Trump said. "In terms of funding, in terms of all of the things I've been able to get them, including the vets, I don't think anybody's done more than me."



Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, four for education and one for a diagnosis of bone spurs though he later told The New York Times he could not remember which foot was affected by the malady or how long it lasted.

Trump told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he doesn't think visiting troops in a war zone is "overly necessary."



"I've been very busy with everything that's taking place here," he added.
US President Donald Trump defied the nations intelligence agencies and a growing body of evidence to declare his unswerving loyalty to Saudi Arabia, asserting that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans culpability for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi might never be known. In a remarkable statement, the president said, It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump added. In ...
Its not just about powering growth. Its also about national security and self-sufficiency. China wants to build homegrown champions in cutting-edge industries that rival Western giants like Apple and Qualcomm. While China has a long way to go, the Communist Party is bringing the full financial weight of the state and forcing other countries to play defense. In doing so, China is staking out a new manufacturing model. Economic textbooks lay out a common trajectory for developing nations. First they make shoes, then steel. Next they move into cars, computers and ...
Illustration: Konstantin Sergeyev/Intelligencer; Getty Images (laptop)

Over the last few months, a number of tech elites have suggested that Silicon Valley is a very liberal place. Testifying before Congress earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg called the tech industry a very left-leaning place. Similarly, Jack Dorsey told CNN, We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is more left-leaning.

"We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology," @Jack told me. But he knows some people do not believe him. "I think we need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning," he says... pic.twitter.com/1i8jJunhfz  Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 18, 2018

The idea that Silicon Valley is a liberal utopia might confirm the suspicions of conservatives who believe (baselessly) that theyre being suppressed on social-media platforms, but a new academic study provides strong evidence that the politics of Silicon Valley elites are less liberal than elite.

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence From Technology Entrepreneurs, a new paper by Stanford researchers David E. Broockman and Neil Malhotra and independent scholar Gregory Ferenstein, suggests that tech elites share many of the same political beliefs and presuppositions among themselves  but that those beliefs dont fall neatly into liberal or conservative categories as considered by most people. The paper, released in the American Journal of Political Science, suggests that while tech elites by and large associate themselves with Democrats on cultural and social issues, when it comes to government regulations, they are more conservative than the average Republican donor. Whats more, researchers found tech elites hated the thought of regulation more even than non-tech millionaires.

Broockman and his fellow researchers surveyed nearly 700 wealthy tech leaders in what amounts to the most extensive academic survey of this group to date. The researchers used Crunchbase, an open database run by TechCrunch, to find influential tech players  most of whom were themselves millionaires  and individually emailed each and asked them to fill out a survey.

The survey asked the tech entrepreneurs questions about their general political policy preferences as well as their predispositions  the underlying and enduring beliefs that shape how these people see the world. On social and cultural issues, tech elites overwhelming aligned themselves with liberal positions: Ninety-six percent surveyed supported gay marriage, 82 percent favored increased gun control, and 67 percent opposed the death penalty. When asked about government regulation and unions, however, the tech elites could not be further from the left. The research found nearly all tech entrepreneurs surveyed think that It is too difficult to fire workers, while 74 percent of them said they support weakening labor unions.

Research found that the tech elites responded with the same anti-regulatory zeal when questioned about other industries as well, as in a question about whether florists should be able to raise prices on flowers during holiday seasons. Its not just when you say, should tech be regulated, that they dont like regulation, Broockman, the papers lead author, said in a phone call with Intelligencer. I dont think the average technology entrepreneur sees themselves in the same category as a florist, but they still side with them. On the other hand, the entrepreneurs overwhelmingly favored increased taxes on the rich  that is, themselves  and further redistribution of wealth to poor communities.

According to Broockman, the Silicon Valley titans may be their own political entity, wielding certain political predispositions that dont easily map onto U.S. party politics. To support this point, the researchers ran a second experiment, this time on Stanford students. College-age tech students poised to enter the Silicon Valley ranks overwhelmingly responded like their millionaire idols: liberal on social issues, staunchly conservative on regulation.

Long before these people get involved in the tech industry and found their own companies, they already have these predispositions that are leading them to be more skeptical of regulation, yet are liberal otherwise, Broockman said. In other words, the findings suggest those who eventually work in tech may share some common values and experiences with each other that lead them into the profession.

This is not necessarily a new idea: The classic essay 1995 essay The Californian Ideology laid out the libertarian foundations of the tech industry, and Steven Johnson coined a term in Wired article this summer for the liberal-not-liberal tech-elite attitude, Liberaltarianism. Now we have some empirical evidence that this loose political affiliation extends to more than just the loudest and most prominent voices in tech. Broockman compared the political power of emerging tech elites to that of 19th-century railroad barons. Its no secret that the tech industry is immensely growing on all dimensions that would give them political power, he said. When you think about everything a politician is looking to in terms of where they are getting their voters, where they are getting their campaign donations, technology companies and those who found them and run them are in a position to exert a lot of power in politics.

For Broockman, the challenge this poses isnt to the Republicans complaining about supposed liberal bias, but the Democrats who are forced to choose between different belief systems. I think what the stage is set for is Democratic officeholders will really be pushed within the party and really be torn between interests from unions and more classic consitutientices on the one hand and what these technology entrepreneurs want them to do on the other.
Theresa May is heading to Brussels for Brexit talks, trapped between her colleagues who want her to re-write the deal and European leaders who say theyll walk away if she does. The prime minister will travel to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday evening in an effort to make progress on an outline of the future trade deal the two sides want to strike.

She wants European Union leaders to sign off on the 585-page exit agreement as well as the future partnership paper at a special summit in Brussels on Sunday. But euroskeptics in her Tory ...
A US aircraft carrier docked in Hong Kong on Wednesday, days after a pair of American B-52 bombers flew over the disputed

The arrival of the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group in the Asian financial hub comes after China rejected a similar request by another US Navy ship amid a spike in tensions between the countries' militaries.

The Reagan's visit is being seen as a friendly gesture ahead of a planned meeting later this month between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that will mark the first time they've sat down together since the start of a bitter trade war.

China has demanded the US cease military activity of all kind near its island claims that it has been rapidly fortifying.

The US says it takes no stance on sovereignty claims, but will continue to sail and operate wherever law permits.

In late September, a Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in the in what the US Navy called an "unsafe and unprofessional maneuver.

The Navy said in a statement that during the Reagan's visit, interactions will take place with Hong Kong citizens through sports, community relations projects and tours of the carrier.

More than 4,400 men and women are usually aboard the ship.

"The abundant growth and prosperity that surrounds us in Hong Kong is what the United States Seventh Fleet seeks to preserve for all nations in this important region," Rear Adm. Karl O. Thomas, commander of Carrier Strike Group 5, said in the statement.

In comments Tuesday to Hong Kong television, Thomas said the US and Chinese militaries are able to maintain a professional relationship, despite tensions.

"When we're out at sea, we have a mission to do, and we come out and operate around each other and we do it professionally," Thomas said.

Meanwhile, US Pacific Air Forces said two B-52 bombers flew over the South China Sea on Monday, calling it a "routine training mission."



The B-52H Stratofortress bombers departed Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as part of the US Indo-Pacific Command's Continuous Bomber Presence operations that began in 2004, Pacific Air Forces said in a statement Wednesday.

"This recent mission is consistent with law and United States' long-standing commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," the statement said.

Also this week, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Studies, or CSIS, reported that China had installed a new platform on Bombay Reef, a remote undeveloped feature in the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam and Taiwan also claim the reef.

The platform appears to be topped with a radome and solar panels, and its strategic location makes it likely it is intended to extend China's radar or signals intelligence collection in the area, the report said.

Bombay Reef already has a lighthouse to serve as an aid to navigation.

Unlike China's large man-made islands created by piling sand on top of coral reefs, installing the modestly sized Bombay Reef platform did not require inflicting major environmental damage, CSIS said.

However, that illustrates how easily China could expand its footprint to other features such as Scarborough Shoal, which it seized from the Philippines in 2012, it added.

Compared to dredging and reclamation, the installation of a modest platform would be "harder to prevent at the time and more difficult to rally international condemnation against after the fact," the report said.
The agreed Wednesday to hear complaints from a range of countries over new US steel and aluminium tariffs, as well as complaints from Washington over retaliatory duties.

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) agreed to establish panels to review US President Donald Trump's decision to hit a long line of countries with of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.

The DSB will create separate panels for the complaints by the European Union, China, Canada, Mexico, Norway and Russia, after the US said it would not agree to a single panel to hear all of them.

A seventh request from Turkey for a panel will be discussed during a meeting later Wednesday.

The DSB agreed Wednesday to Washington's request for three panels to rule on the legality of retaliatory imposed by Canada, China and the European Union.

It also agreed to a US call for a panel to be created to review "certain Chinese measures pertaining to the protection of intellectual property rights."



Marking a departure from a decades-long US-led drive for free trade, Trump has justified the steep with claims that massive flows of imports to the United States threaten national security.

The tariff spat has escalated into an all-out trade war between the US and China and growing trade tensions between Washington and many of its traditional allies.

The decision to establish the panels follows rounds of failed consultations between the parties and mark an escalation in an ongoing showdown at the WTO around Trump's controversial trade policies.

The first requests to establish the panels were rejected last month, prompting the sides to file second requests.

Under WTO regulations, parties in a dispute can block a first request for the creation of an arbitration panel, but if the parties make a second request, it is all but guaranteed to go through.

The creation of a DSB panel usually triggers a long and often costly legal battle that sometimes takes years to resolve.
A 27-year-old man, who was recently acquitted by the Himachal Pradesh High Court in an alleged rape case, has released a monthly magazine named 'Competition Companion' for those preparing for competitive examinations.

Vikram Singh Khimta, a resident of Mandhol village in Shimla district served two years in jail in an alleged rape case. Khimta said that the case against him was fabricated.

"I was hopeful for justice from the Indian judicial system. On November 3, I was acquitted by the High Court of Himachal Pradesh. I was punished by session court under certain circumstances on September 30, 2016, for a crime which I never did. We appealed in the High Court and on November 3, 2018, I was acquitted as I was never involved in the crime for which I was jailed for two years," he said.

Khimta, was also preparing for civil services exams in jail, further said that during his jail term the prison authorities helped him write the magazine.

Thanking Director-General of Prison of Himachal Pradesh Somesh Goyal and other officials for encouraging him, he said, "I am thankful to the DG Prison Somesh Goyal and other officials who had given me chance to launch this magazine. I am thankful to them."

Talking about his future plans, Khimta said he will continue his civil services preparations. Khimta further said that he also wants to curb drug menace.

"I have started this with an objective to give chance to those preparing for competitive exams. Now, I will prepare for my civil services. I also want to work to end the drug menace in the state. I have observed that the main reason of crime is involvement of youth in drugs.. I would continue with this monthly magazine and would also try to release it on a half-yearly basis," Khimta said.

The Director-General of Prison said the jail authorities have been trying to provide a conducive atmosphere to the prisoners in the jails.

Goyal said, "We have been trying to provide a conducive atmosphere, several facilities and opportunities to the jails inmates. When Khimta was in jail, we tried to give him all possible opportunities. We had provided him newspapers, magazines and many other things for his magazine. We are happy for him. His magazine would be helpful for those preparing for competitive examination. If he is planning any kind of anti-drug campaign, we will help him at every front.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An American tourist was killed by unidentified assailants in North Sentinel Island, Andaman. Police have held seven people in this connection so far.

The deceased has been identified as John Allen Chau. A case was registered at the Humfrigunj police station of South Andaman. Investigation in the incident is on.

On Nov 19, an e-mail was received from the US Consulate General, Chennai wherein it stated that they had received a communication from John Allen Chau's mother about her son's visit to North Sentinel Island where he was allegedly attacked.

"We are aware of reports concerning a US Citizen in the Andaman &Nicobar Islands. The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State. When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment," said spokesperson of the US Consulate here on Wednesday.

The North Sentinel Island is home to the Sentinelese, a native tribe that irately spurns external contacts. The hunter-gatherer society solely survives on hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants. They are considered to be one of the uncontacted tribes and the population is estimated at 40 to 500.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Forgetting to practice what is preached, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan raised eyebrows on Tuesday when he reached Malaysia in a VIP aircraft for his official visit.

"PM Imran Khan reached Malaysia on an official trip - he took a scheduled commercial flight flying club class as promised when he took his oath of office," Omar R. Quraishi, a journalist who has previously worked for Dawn, tweeted just a few moments after Khan landed in Malaysia.

Tall promises to practice austerity unlike previous Prime Ministers of the nation were made by Khan during his August 19 address to the nation, where he said that he would avoid living a life of luxury, unlike his predecessors. Towards this, an austerity drive was launched to usher in 'Naya' Pakistan, starting with the auction of the Prime Minister's cars and a claim to convert the Prime Minister's House into a university.

"I want you to understand that the money we lavish on ourselves could be spent on those who our state has left behind. Naya Pakistan also requires a 'nayi soch'. We have to think about those who we have left behind," Khan had said during his public address on August 19, according to Dawn.

"The prime [minister and chief] ministers all have helicopters and airplanes to fly them," Pakistan's Prime Minister had further said while making other promises to cut down expenses.

He has previously come under the scanner for using a helicopter to travel between the PM house and his residence in Banigala, just a few days after his August 19 address.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Union (EU) has expressed confidence that the upcoming general elections in Bangladesh will be "genuine, credible and transparent."

Rensje Teerink, the EU Ambassador to Bangladesh, recently commented: "I have always been told that when Bangladesh gears up for elections, there will be political turmoil and mass demonstrations on the streets. But so far, I must say, it has been quite calm."

In an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW), the ambassador said: "We are confident and hopeful that it will be a genuine, credible, transparent and inclusive election."

General elections are scheduled to be held in Bangladesh on December 30 to elect members of the Jatiya Sangsad, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League hoping to remain in power for a third consecutive term.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Hasina's arch-rival Khaleda Zia, who has been in jail since February over a graft case, boycotted the 2014 elections. The party has been demanding polls under a non-party government.

The EU is, however, optimist that the country of 170 million is strong enough to hold the Parliamentary elections democratically.

"Bangladesh has good local observers, who probably are going to do an excellent job monitoring the elections," Teerink told DW.

She added that the South Asian country has performed "exceedingly well when it comes to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Its economic expansion over the past decade has been impressive."

"We would like to see the country develop into a stable and prosperous place for all Bangladeshis," added the EU envoy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) here on Wednesday by calling the saffron outfit majoritarian and authoritarian. "TRS is its proxy," he said.

"BJP is seen as majoritarian and authoritarian. Many sections of the people, especially Dalit, minorities, Scheduled Tribes, women and children live in fear The BJP is trying its utmost to divide India on the line of religion, caste, and is capturing institutions," said Chidambaram. He added that TRS and its leaders have not stood up or opposed the BJP and this stance puts them squarely in the column of the BJP.

Addressing a press conference here, Chidambaram claimed, "The silence and neutrality of the TRS just only mean that TRS supports the misrule of the BJP in order to sustain their own misrule in Telangana."

On the TRS' performance in the state, Chidambaram, while reminding the promises made by TRS in 2013, said that the TRS has 'grossly overpromised' and 'grossly underperformed.' He backed his allegation by saying that in nearly five years of rule of TRS, Telangana has a debt of Rs 2,20,000 crore.

While talking about the ensuing polls, the Congress leader said, "The battle line in Telangana has been drawn with the ruling TRS on one side, and the formidable alliance of Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Jana Samithi and Communist Party of India, on the other."

Targeting the Centre, Chidambaram said the demonetisation and flawed Good and Service Tax have derailed the growth. He further charged the government with dressing up the growth rate at seven per cent but it is, in reality, limping around five per cent.

Lauding the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, he said that the 'clear' and 'farsightedness' of Sonia Gandhi enabled the UPA government to form the state of Telangana, which was bifurcated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

The Assembly elections in the state are scheduled to be held on December 7 to elect members from 119 constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on December 11. The Telangana Assembly was dissolved prematurely in September on the recommendation of the ruling TRS government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Illustration: Nicolas Ortega

Mark Zuckerberg isnt the first person in human history to draw inspiration from Augustus Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire, but hes one of a very few for whom the lessons of Augustuss reign have a concrete urgency. Both men, after all, built international empires before the age of 33. Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established 200 years of world peace, Zuckerberg explained to a New Yorker reporter earlier this year. What are the trade-offs in that? Augustus, Zuckerberg explained, had to do certain things to ensure the stability of his empire. So too, apparently, does Facebook.

A 6,000-word report published in the New York Times last week disclosed in humiliating detail the lengths to which Facebook has gone to protect its dominance and attack its critics. As various interlocking crises concerning hate speech, misinformation, and data privacy widened, top executives ignored, and then kept secret, evidence that the platform had become a vector for misinformation campaigns by government-backed Russian trolls. The company mounted a shockingly aggressive lobbying and public-relations campaign, which included creating and circulating pro-Facebook blog posts that were functionally indistinguishable from the coordinated inauthentic content (that is, fake news) Facebook had pledged to eliminate from its platform. In one particularly galling example, the company hired a political consultancy that spread a conspiracy theory accusing George Soros of funding anti-Facebook protests. Zuckerberg, it seems, had taken the really harsh approach to establishing digital hegemony.

Augustus, at least, was a charismatic leader and confident ruler. No one at Facebook comes across in the Times piece as a similarly bold visionary. Not Joel Kaplan, Facebooks top lobbyist, who encouraged the company to suppress and hold back findings of Russian influence campaigns for fear of alienating Republicans. Not Chuck Schumer, who confronted one of the Senates top Facebook critics and told him to figure out how to work with the company. (Schumers daughter works for Facebook.) Not Sheryl Sandberg, the adult-in-the-room COO who presided over the entire suspicious and hostile crisis response. And certainly not Zuckerberg, who seems to have been consistently absent  or plainly uninterested  during key meetings about Facebooks handling of hate speech and misinformation. Its hard to be a historical visionary hailed for brokering stability by making morally complex decisions if you cant even be bothered to show up to the Morally Complex Decisions meetings.

Demands for the CEO to abdicate, or to at least step down from his role as chairman of the board, have increased, but Zuckerberg  who controls 60 percent of Facebooks voting shares  is no more likely to resign than Augustus would have been. As the Wall Street Journal reports, he told company executives earlier this year that Facebook is at war. The trouble is that the war may have already been lost. Beset by stagnant growth, low employee morale, plummeting stock, public outrage, and a bipartisan group of enemies in government, the old Facebook, the ever-expanding, government-ignoring, world-conquering company of only a year or two ago, is gone.

Its own internal surveys bear this out: Facebook was once legendary for the cultish dedication of its employees  reporting on the company was nearly impossible because workers refused to leak  but employee confidence in Facebooks future, as judged by internal surveys reported on by the Journal, is down 32 percentage points over the past year, to 52 percent. Around the same number of Facebook employees think the company is making the world a better place, down 19 points from this time last year, and employees report that they plan to leave Facebook for new jobs earlier than they had in the past. Scarier even for Facebook is the possibility, for which there is some anecdotal evidence, that its no longer a sought-after employer for top computer-science and engineering graduates.

Theres already ample evidence that Facebook is losing its hold on users. In the markets where Facebook is most profitable, its user base is either stagnant, as in North America, or actually shrinking, as in Europe. The company might be able to reassure itself that Instagram  which it wholly owns  is still expanding impressively, but the success of Instagram hasnt stopped Facebook from getting punished on the stock market.

Facebook blames its attenuating European-user figures not on its faltering public image but on the European Unions aggressive new privacy law, GDPR. But this raises a more troubling possibility for Facebook: that its continued success is dependent on a soft regulatory touch it can no longer expect from governments. What makes the Times revelations particularly dangerous to Zuckerbergs empire is that they arrive at a moment when there is actually the political will to challenge its dominance. The fall of Facebook may not come after a long decline but through outside action  slapped with major fines and expensive investigations, chastened and disempowered by a new regulatory regime. Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself, Rhode Island representative David Cicilline  who will likely run the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust issues  tweeted last week.

In the Senate, skepticism regarding tech giants is enough of a bipartisan issue that there appears to be room for an agreement on data protection and user privacy. Im not looking to regulate [Zuckerberg] half to death, Republican senator John Kennedy said earlier this year, but I can tell you this: The issue isnt going away. Its true that some Republican critics seem less concerned about Facebooks overwhelming power than about the spurious claims of conservatives that their views are being suppressed on the platform, but there is genuine Republican interest in reining in Facebook. Action against big tech companies is a beloved topic of Steve Bannon and his wing of the GOP, and Trump himself, of course, has no particular affection for the company.

Trumps Department of Justice, in fact, might represent Facebooks biggest threat. The head of the Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, has been singing the praises of the famous DOJ Microsoft antitrust lawsuit. As Tim Wu, a former FTC adviser and the author of The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the Gilded Age, puts it, whoever leads the case to break up Facebook will have the political winds and the public at his back. A new Axios poll supports this assessment. Americans have reversed their opinions about social media over the past year, and a majority of Americans across the political spectrum now believe that social media hurts democracy and that the government isnt doing enough to regulate it.

Its the public outrage that should be most worrying to Facebook. Other tech giants have managed to escape the opprobrium directed at Facebook because they have obviously useful services. Amazon delivers things to your house. Google helps you find things online. Apple sells actual objects. Facebook  helps you get into fights? Delivers your old classmates political opinions to your brain?

Over the past year, Ive spent time trying to wean myself off tech mega-platforms, generally with little success. Googles search, for all my complaints, is still the best way for me to navigate the internet; Amazon is still so unbelievably convenient that the thought of quitting it exhausts me. But I logged out of Facebook more than a year ago and have logged back in fewer than a dozen times since. Checking Facebook had been a daily habit, but it also hadnt improved my life or made itself necessary. Not many Roman plebes would have said that about the Pax Romana. Some empires fall because theyre invaded from the outside or rot from within. Zuckerbergs could be the first in history to collapse simply because its citizens logged out.

*This article appears in the November 26, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
The Congress party has dubbed the Telangana Rastra Samiti (TRS) an anti-women party while alleging that Telangana caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) is benefitting his family members rather than common people of the state.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) official spokesperson Kushbu Sundar while addressing the media said, "TRS is an anti-women party. Chandrashekar Rao talks about women empowerment in the state, while there is no woman in his cabinet. K. Kavitha, daughter of Chandrashekar Rao is the only woman Member of Parliament (MP) from the TRS, while the Congress has given 11 seats to women."

She further said that atrocities against women in Telangana have gone up during the TRS regime.

Continuing her tirade against KCR government in Telangana, she said, "The TRS government has failed to set up the medical centres in rural areas. Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao has become a commission man benefitting his family members rather than common people of Telangana."

She further accused the state government of working only for the rich and providing benefits only to the private medical sector.

The Assembly elections in the state are scheduled to be held on December 7 to elect members from 119 constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on December 11.

The Telangana Assembly was dissolved prematurely in September on the recommendation of the ruling TRS government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
European Union's (EU) Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski on Wednesday said that data protection - a sensitive issue -- is of great concern to the world including the European Union.

Speaking to ANI, Kozlowski said that India is working on its new data protection law in which the EU has also contributed and shared its considerations, adding that with the approval of the new law, privacy would be much more secured for Indian citizens.

With reference to the Iran nuclear deal, Kozlowski said the EU is in full support of the implementation of the agreement. "We think that it (nuclear deal) has given the international community and West Asia to deal with other issues without having an agenda of building a nuclear armament in Iran. That is why despite the fact that some countries decided to withdraw from the agreement, we are fully committed to the implementation of the agreement and we regret the decision of the United States (to withdraw from the deal)."

Acknowledging the threat posed by air pollution, Kozlowski said: "Air pollution is a challenge for many Indian cities and European cities; this is a global challenge. We launched the EU-India project to bring experts and decision makers from both sides to find a solution to ease the situation.

(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, on Wednesday issued a statement clarifying his decision of dissolving the state assembly.

According to an official statement, he took the decision due to "the impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with opposing political ideologies including some which have been demanding the dissolution of the Assembly."

He also pointed out that the experience of the past few years reflects that "with the fractured mandate which is currently in the Assembly, it is impossible to form a stable government comprising like-minded parties."

Malik dissolved the assembly shortly after Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti wrote a letter to him staking claim to form the government in the state in alliance with the Conference (NC) and the Congress party. However, Mehbooba said that she failed to get through the governor via fax and hence shared a copy of the letter on Twitter. BJP ally Sajid Lone of the People's Conference also made claim to form the government.

Malik said that "the coming together of such parties in a grouping is nothing but an attempt to gain power rather than to form a responsive government."

He further stated that the dissolving of the assembly was important amid the reports of extensive horse trading and possible exchange of money in order to secure the support of legislators belonging to widely diverging political ideologies just to be able to form a government."Such activities are not healthy for democracy and vitiate the political process," he added.

Citing Jammu and Kashmir's security scenario, Malik stated that there is a need to have a stable and supportive environment for security forces which are engaged in extensive anti-militancy operations and are gradually gaining control over the security situation.

"The Governor came to the conclusion that, in this background, he has satisfied himself that the best course of action is to dissolve the assembly so as to provide stability and security to the state and hold elections at an appropriate time so that a government with a clear mandate is duly formed," the statement read.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Writer-producer Vinta Nanda's lawyer Dhruti Kapadia has confirmed that the police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against actor Alok Nath who allegedly raped her.

Nanda had lodged a complaint in October against the actor who allegedly raped and sexually harassed her in 1990s. The FIR against Nath has been booked under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Kapadia told ANI, "Vinta Nanda had registered a case against Nath after the latter filed a civil defamation suit against her. Pursuing that, she was called for investigations, queries, etc. She gave her final statement yesterday, and by the virtue of which the police felt that this is a fit case for an FIR."

When asked if the case holds any water since it is two decades old, Kapadia said: "If there is substance today, I wouldn't say that the case is old. The hurt of a person who is raped is still continued in nature in and out."

Declining to speak about Nath, Kapadia said: "All I can talk is about my client. We are pursuing it (the case) and are getting good support from public as well as women who have suffered in the industry and even the police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Merino Restroom Solutions, one of the pioneers in restroom cubicle solutions in India participated in The World Toilet Summit, 2018.

The Summit, this year has come to India for the third time, with the theme 'Can the world be ODF by 2030', in support to the Government's Swachh Bharat Mission.

The Summit was supported by Government of Maharashtra, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, who shared his thoughts through a video message.

In his address, Fadnavis said: "It gives me immense pleasure to share that now Maharashtra has become 100 per cent open defecation free (ODF), 55 per cent of which has been covered since 2014. After becoming ODF, we have given plans of sustainability to every Village Panchayat, encouraging them by presenting awards every year, even kids engaged themselves in awareness drive. We also did a lot of work on clean water and all this lead to the creation of jobs, economic development. Now, rural area is witnessing major transformation with this and many other initiatives."

"I am happy to see the efforts by World Toilet Organisation and their partners in taking necessary steps to achieve ODF status. I am sure with the given pace; we will make ODF India by 2019, as planned by Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi," he added.

Speaking on the "Sanitation and Evolving needs of Urban Public Toilets" Madhusudan Lohia, Director, Merino Restrooms said: "The government's Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission, launched in October 2014, increased the country's sanitation coverage from 39 percent to 65 percent by November 2017. In this period, 52 million household toilets were built in rural India. According to the Economic Survey 2017-18, sanitation coverage in rural India has increased substantially from 39 per cent in 2014 to 76 per cent in January 2018. The number of persons defecating in the open in rural areas, which were 55 crores in October 2014, has declined to 25 crores by January 2018.

Also, 296 districts and 3,07,349 villages all over India have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) so far. Eight states and two Union Territories, which include Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, and Chandigarh, have been declared ODF completely."

Jack Sim, Founder, World Toilet Organisation, while sharing his thoughts said: "The problem of open defecation is not only restricted to India. Not only it has taken the lives of many, but it has also impacted the honour as well. Hence, it is important for everyone to work unanimously and contribute to achieving the 100 per cent open defecation free. We believe in the necessity of a comprehensive behavioural change strategy to focus on bringing the change in the mindset of people and also provide a sustainable solution for easy access. We are certain that the summit successfully conveyed a strong message to address current sanitation challenges in India and the world."

This Summit attracted over 300 International and and global experts from water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) sector, including delegates from leading corporate houses, government agencies, ULB's, NGOs and social business delegates. It comprised of interactive sessions with keynote speakers, panel discussions, awards, and exhibitors. This summit proposed to create a base for the establishment of multi-sectoral partnerships, leveraging on local as well as international movements which will be supportive to the Swachh Bharat Mission.

India, the world's second-largest country by population, has the highest number of people (732 million) without access to toilets, according to a new report. The report by Water Aid, titled 'Out of Order: The State of the World's Toilets 2017' further stated that 355 million women and girls lack access to a toilet.

Speaking at the event, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar said: "I am pleased to see more and more people joining the movement that our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, started four years ago. We have seen a major transformation taking place in India owing to the Swachh Bharat Mission. I am proud to associate with this mission in spreading the message of cleanliness and sanitation across the country. But we still have a long road ahead of us and I urge everyone to contribute at their individual level to sensitise people about the consequences of open defecation and the importance of clean toilets."

Merino Restrooms aims to provide clean and elegant urban restroom solutions which are thoughtfully designed based on intrinsic needs and challenges of various user demographics. Merino Restrooms carries the legacy of the parent group which is built on the steady pillars of a globally relevant mission, a far-reaching vision of attaining Economy and Excellence based on Ethics. Merino Restroom solutions have been installed at various iconic places in India like newly erected Statue of Unity, Supreme Court, Chattarpati Shivaji International Airport, ITC Greens, Wipro, Microsoft, Flipkart, and DLF Mall of India to count a few. (NewsVoir)

Bikaner-East (Rajasthan) [India] Nov. 21 (ANI): Around 3,295 candidates have filed nomination papers for all 200 seats for the upcoming assembly polls in Rajasthan. Surprisingly, this time, Swaroop Chand Ghelot (55) and his spouse Manjulata Ghelot (52) would give a tough fight to each other as they have filed nominations as independent candidates from the same constituency, Bikaner - East.

"We are a happily married couple for 35 years. I have been contesting elections since 1988, however, whenever I leave for a campaign my wife becomes bored at home as all our three daughters are married now. In order to spend time with each other, we have decided that this year, she would also contest too," said Ghelot.

The pair will focus on key issues revolving around development as well as women empowerment. According to the duo, they would also address farmers' apathy as they have been overlooked by the political parties and the state government.

Meanwhile, Manjulata stated, "We have been supportive to each other. It doesn't matter who wins as we both will stand by each other. Also, we were quite confident that one of us will definitely win."

Further, Manjulata said she is aiming for women's vote whereas her husband is seeking men's vote.

Rajasthan will go to polls in a single phase on December 7, and results will be announced on December 11.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian Minister of Defence Nirmala Sitharaman and her Singaporean counterpart Dr. Ng Eng Hen co-chaired the 3rd Defence Ministers' Dialogue (DMD) between India and Singapore on Tuesday.

The DMD commenced after both countries signed the revised Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) in 2015 to further strengthen the long-standing defence relationship between the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and the Indian Armed Forces.

Earlier in the day, Dr. Ng attended the final sea phase of the 25th edition of the Singapore-India Maritime Bilateral Exercise - SIMBEX on board INS Shakti.

The multidimensional exercise witnessed participation of ships, submarines a well as aircraft from both sides and live firings at sea.

Both Ministers complimented all personnel participating in the milestone event and for making it a success which is a testament of the long-standing ties between the armed forces of the two countries.

They also commended the conclusion of the Navy Implementing Arrangement Concerning Mutual Coordination, Logistics and Services Support in June 2018, which, together with the Navy Bilateral Agreement, concluded in November 2017, have expanded and deepened bilateral naval cooperation.

Dr Ng expressed appreciation for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's keynote address at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue, wherein PM Modi articulated India's vision for the Indo-Pacific region. In this regard, Singapore strongly supports India's deep engagement with ASEAN member states participating in patrols along the Straits of Malacca with Singapore and looks forward to a inaugural conduct of the trilateral maritime exercise with Thailand in the Andaman Sea.

Sitharaman affirmed India's belief that disputes should be resolved through peaceful means, and in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law. Both Ministers agreed on the importance of international cooperation in tackling transnational security threats and in particular measures to collectively tackle the threat of terrorism.

They also commended the progress in defence technology collaboration under the auspices of the lndia-Singapore Defence Technology Steering Committee and the India-Singapore Defence Industry Working Group. These joint R&D collaborations included areas such as Combat Care and Vehicle Armour.

The Ministers expressed satisfaction at the deepening defence ties between India and Singapore and reaffirmed their commitment to support further initiatives that would promote stability to the region.

The 4th edition of DMD is likely to held in Singapore next year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India voted in favour of the Russian-Chinese proposal regarding Syria at the 23rd session of the Conference of State Parties (CSP) to the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which concluded here on Tuesday.

The Russian-Chinese proposal sought to establish a working group to consider various proposals relating to the implementation of the decision on an Attribution Mechanism on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

At the same time, India abstained from voting on the overall budget proposal of OPCW for 2019.

The Permanent Representative of India to OPCW Venu Rajamony made two separate Explanations of Vote (EOV).

India had previously voted against the decision to set up an Attribution Mechanism at the 4th Special Session of the Conference of States Parties.

"India believes the decision on the Attribution Mechanism has adversely impacted this finely crafted balance in the Convention by endowing unprecedented powers to the Technical Secretariat headed by the Director-General, in place of primacy and oversight of the Executive Council and the Conference of States Parties," an official statement said.

Therefore, Rajamony stated that India supported the Russian-Chinese proposal as it could "help rebuild the consensus amongst States Parties and overcome the divisions over the Attribution Mechanism".

Regarding abstaining from voting on the Budget proposal, the Permanent Representative stated that India had supported the amendments proposed by Iran to the Budget proposal.

India stated that despite the absence of consensus on the Attribution Mechanism, the country made the decision to abstain and not vote against because of its "abiding support" for the OPCW.

The Russian-Chinese proposal was rejected by the CSP with a vote of 82 against and 30 in favour out of 112 State Parties present at voting while the Program and Budget for the OPCW were adopted with a vote of 99 in favour and 27 against out of a total of 126 State Parties present at voting.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo stated that the United States had "made clear" to South Korea that denuclearisation of North Korea should not be outpaced by increasing inter-Korean ties as the US saw both developments in tandem- "as moving forward together".

"We view them as important parallel processes, and that working group is designed to make sure they continue to remain that way," Pompeo stated while talking about a US-South Korea working group in which the US is represented by Stephen Biegun, who is the special US envoy to North Korea.

"We now have a working group that formalises those processes so that we can be sure that we don't talk past each other, that we don't take an action or the South Koreans don't take an action that the other is unaware of or hasn't had a chance to comment on or provide their thoughts. And that's the purpose of the working group that's being led on our side by Stephen Biegun," he underscored while referring to coordinated efforts between the US and South Korea in the Korean peninsula.

It is during the same presser that Pompeo announced US sanctions on an Iran-Russia-Syria network which sold oil to Syria's Assad regime and generated funds for "terrorist outfits like Hizballah and Hamas", according to an official statement.

The press statement also outlined Pompeo's meeting with Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on November 20.

"I welcomed the positive momentum in our relationship following the release of Pastor Brunson and urged reopening additional channels to address issues of mutual concern. We are still greatly concerned about Turkey's continued unjust detention of U.S. locally employed staff and citizens, including NASA scientist Serkan Golge. We also discussed the Khashoggi case and the need to work together to de-escalate conflict in Syria, support the reinvigoration of the UN-led peace process, and achieve a peaceful, lasting solution to the Syrian conflict," he stated.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Intuit Inc. announced the launch of its newest program to enable entrepreneurial success through financial literacy and developer partnership for startups across the country called Intuit Circles.

Intuit will work towards strengthening the Indian startup ecosystem by leveraging the power of various stakeholders like investors, co-working spaces, incubators, accountants etc. for the prosperity of entrepreneurs.

India has the second largest startup ecosystem in the world and is expected to witness a year on year growth of 10 to 12 per cent. Today, there are 40,000 startups in the country; USD 34 billion was invested in India since 2014 with 50 per cent of the funds invested in 2017 and Q1 of 2018 alone. Intuit has a long history of working with small businesses and startups globally. Over the years of working with startups, it has been found that one in five startups fail in the first three years because of poor financial management. Lack of financial literacy results in small businesses struggling to manage their cash flow and also get access to capital.

The Intuit Circles program aims to create an ecosystem that is a trusted friend to start-ups throughout their journey, powering their prosperity through innovative products and allows them to develop solutions for Intuit customers by integrating their technology with QuickBooks Online. The program has two key goals:Help startups in their financial management journey by being their preferred software partner of choice. And, leverage the unique innovation that such startups have built that solve our customer problems by partnering with them - solutions which complement and strengthen our QuickBooks Online ecosystem.

Through live events and training session, selected participants will learn where they stand, how to track their day-to-day and get immediate financial insights and how to leverage this data to plan for the future. Intuit will offer the startups that fit the profile, a nine months free subscription of QuickBooks Online, an accounting software for small businesses. They will also get a 50 per cent discount on the subscription of QuickBooks Online for the next one year.

Additionally, the program provides an introduction to QuickBooks ProAdvisors - accountants who have worked with a large number of start-ups in India. If a startup is looking for an accountant, Intuit will make a connect with one of the many thousands of accountants using QuickBooks Online in India. The startup will then have the choice to procure for a fee the services of these accountants. The accountants will work with these startups, enabling them to be on top of their and financial management. The participants also get an opportunity to network and be mentored by Intuit leaders.

Intuit will also look partner with startups to leverage their unique innovations to solve customer problems which complement its products and strengthen its ecosystem. Intuit has the world's leading small Apps Store (apps.com) and offer the best in-class developer tools.

The Intuit Developer Group is a trusted open platform of choice for developers worldwide to build apps that help small businesses and accountants succeed. Developers are armed with the right tools to create powerful apps that are integrated with the QuickBooks Online platform and help them market their apps and give them access to over 3.6 million QuickBooks Online customers worldwide. Today, there are more than 5000 apps on the platform, of which 600 are published in the app store.

"We are delighted to announce 'Intuit Circles' for the startup ecosystem in India," said Sanket Atal, Managing Director, Intuit India. "Financial literacy skills are integral to entrepreneurial success and without proper guidance or support, startups may find it challenging to make the right decisions to fuel their own success. To alleviate this, we are pleased to collaborate with various stakeholders in the ecosystem to bring us one step further in our efforts to make a positive impact on the Indian startup community."

The rise of the startup ecosystem opens up numerous ways to work with entrepreneurs who can drive the next growth opportunity for India. Intuit wants to be the champion of small businesses by powering their prosperity and enabling them to leverage its platform to create solutions that will have real impact.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lakme Academy, powered by Aptech, one of the leading beauty training institutes of India, has launched Glamour Rush 2018, an exclusive platform by Lakme Academy that brings an array of activities for the beauty and wellness industry aspirants.

Glamour Quotient is one of the first and foremost activities of Glamour Rush 2018. It is an online assessment exam that tests the skills and aptitude of students in different areas of beauty and wellness.

The exam also rewards them with up to 40% scholarship on the most sought-after beauty courses like cosmetology, makeup, hair care, and skin care.

The Glamour Quotient Test is open for students across the country. The goal of the program is not only to provide national level scholarship on Lakme Academy courses but also to promote awareness about job opportunities and the future of beauty and wellness industry in India and abroad.

Commenting on the scholarship program, Pravir Arora, Group Head of Marketing, Aptech Ltd. said, "The aptitude test enables prospective students to understand their core strength and areas to improve. The beauty and wellness industry is growing at a rapid pace owing to the rising disposable income, changing lifestyles and changing consumer preferences. We at Lakme Academy powered by Aptech are perfectly poised to bridge the skilled manpower gap in the fashion and glamour industry."

To take the examination, students have to visit https://bit.ly/2zSNslV or Lakme Academy's social media pages. Post submission, Lakme Academy experts will verify the responses and share the exam score & scholarship percentage with students via email. Career counsellors get in touch with them at all levels and provide assistance in pursuing a course of their choice.

On receiving scholarships, students will not only get an opportunity to join Lakme Academy but also get certified by leading certifying bodies like CIBTAC & B&WSSC for the courses they pursue. Lakme Academy believes in creating talented beauticians who have the skills to provide world-class beauty and wellness services to people from all walks of life.

By using the latest range of beauty products and equipment, employing industry experts, and by providing practical training, Lakme Academy ensures that students get an opportunity to style their future. The course has integrated soft skills development into the technical curriculum to ensure that students get all the requisite training required for the job.

The top-performing students are assisted with placements through the Lakme Salon Network while aspiring entrepreneurs are provided with the vocational skills needed to own and sustain a Lakme Academy franchise. Students are also assisted with placements across Industries like Film & TV, Backstage, Salon and Spas etc.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

At the second presidential debate, Donald Trump pointed at Hillary Clinton and issued a chilling threat. If I win, he warned, I am going to instruct my Attorney General to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it, and were going to have a special prosecutor.

Trump has repeated variations of this threat many times. Like Build the wall, Lock her up is a core foundation of Trumps platform. It has been treated differently, though  less literally, and more metaphorically, like a generalized mantra reminding MAGA-world that Trumps enemies are evil and deserve to be banished. But a series of recent reports has made it clear that Trump intends this threat in the most literal sense.

Last night, the New York Times reported that Trump repeatedly directed his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to order the Department of Justice to investigate Clinton along with James Comey. The story presented the request as a dead end, put off by McGahns strategy of delay and trying to talk Trump out of a dangerous escalation. Yet it makes clear that McGahn never really extinguished Trumps desire.

A later version of the story adds a significant new tidbit. Trump repeatedly pressed Justice Department officials about the status of Clinton-related investigations, including [Matt] Whitaker when he was the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations.

This fact changes the cast of the story quite significantly. It suggests that McGahn didnt really stop Trumps impulse to sic the Department of Justice on Clinton at all. Instead, Trump simply stopped bringing the request to McGahn after he realized that McGahn wasnt giving him the answer he wanted. Instead, he began working through Matt Whitaker.

As disturbing as Whitakers appointment appeared when it first broke, the picture has grown even darker since. The Washington Post reported last night that, from 2014 through 2017, Whitaker was paid $1.2 million by a right-wing nonprofit to advance pro-Republican legal theories. During the campaign, he frequently attacked Clinton, and after, began attacking Robert Mueller. David Corn has unearthed more details of Whitakers interviews during this period, which included calls for prosecuting Clinton.

These views helped propel Whitakers meteoric rise, from lawyer for a scam patent firm to chief of staff to the Attorney General (and the White Houses eyes and ears in the department) to, finally, Acting Attorney General. And in his position working as chief of staff to Sessions, Whitaker had not only repeated contact with Trump, but  as Murray Waas reported in a little-noticed scoop two weeks ago  advised Trump on how to pressure the department into submitting to his demands that it prosecute Clinton. CNN reports that Trump raised this with Whitaker (and his then-superior, Rod Rosenstein) several times.

All of these communications ought to constitute impeachable offenses. (Indeed, the FBIs former general counsel points out that President Nixon did similar things, and this was cited in his impeachment referral.) But Nixons efforts to corrupt the department appear to be both less extensive and far less successful than Trumps. After all, Trump has managed not only to open a back channel to the inner workings of a department that is supposed to operate with total independence; he has installed his stooge  a man he has suspiciously denied even knowing, even though they have met more than a dozen times  to run it. What plans have they laid?
After facing flak last year from Anushka Sharma's wedding photographer for not crediting images, ace designer Sabyasachi Mukherji has been called out yet again- this time, for falsely claiming ownership of actor Deepika Padukone's Konkani wedding attire.

Sabyasachi clarified on Wednesday that Deepika's wedding saree for the Konkani ceremony was not designed by him but bought from a local Bengaluru store by the bride's mother, Ujjala Padukone, and then given to Sabyasachi for matching the jewelry.

Taking to his Instagram, Sabyasachi wrote: "As per Konkani tradition, the bride's saree is gifted to her by the mother for the wedding. Deepika's wedding saree was given to us by her mother Mrs Ujjala Padukone. We have just received information that the saree was bought from Angadi Galleria, Bengaluru and we would like to them due to credit for the same."

Earlier, in his description of the dress, the designer wrote, "Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) and Ranveer Singh (@ranveersingh) head-to-toe in Sabyasachi for their wedding in Lake Como, Italy. All of us at Sabyasachi wish the lovely couple our very best for a wonderful and happy married life."

Deepika and Ranveer took off for their destination wedding on November 3. They tied the knot at Lake Como, Italy in a traditional Konkani ceremony on November 14, while a Sindhi wedding was organised on November 15, both of which were attended by close-knit relatives of the two actors.

The newly-weds, today, will host a wedding reception in Bengaluru, while another wedding reception will be held in Mumbai at The Grand Hyatt on November 28.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Merino Restroom Solutions, one of the pioneers in restroom cubicle solutions in India participated in The World Toilet Summit, 2018.

The Summit, this year has come to India for the third time, with the theme 'Can the world be ODF by 2030', in support to the Government's Swachh Bharat Mission.

The Summit was supported by Government of Maharashtra, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, who shared his thoughts through a video message.

In his address, Fadnavis said: "It gives me immense pleasure to share that now Maharashtra has become 100 per cent open defecation free (ODF), 55 per cent of which has been covered since 2014. After becoming ODF, we have given plans of sustainability to every Village Panchayat, encouraging them by presenting awards every year, even kids engaged themselves in awareness drive. We also did a lot of work on clean water and all this lead to the creation of jobs, economic development. Now, rural area is witnessing major transformation with this and many other initiatives."

"I am happy to see the efforts by World Toilet Organisation and their partners in taking necessary steps to achieve ODF status. I am sure with the given pace; we will make ODF India by 2019, as planned by Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi," he added.

Speaking on the "Sanitation and Evolving needs of Urban Public Toilets" Madhusudan Lohia, Director, Merino Restrooms said: "The government's Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission, launched in October 2014, increased the country's sanitation coverage from 39 percent to 65 percent by November 2017. In this period, 52 million household toilets were built in rural India. According to the Economic Survey 2017-18, sanitation coverage in rural India has increased substantially from 39 per cent in 2014 to 76 per cent in January 2018. The number of persons defecating in the open in rural areas, which were 55 crores in October 2014, has declined to 25 crores by January 2018.

Also, 296 districts and 3,07,349 villages all over India have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) so far. Eight states and two Union Territories, which include Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, and Chandigarh, have been declared ODF completely."

Jack Sim, Founder, World Toilet Organisation, while sharing his thoughts said: "The problem of open defecation is not only restricted to India. Not only it has taken the lives of many, but it has also impacted the honour as well. Hence, it is important for everyone to work unanimously and contribute to achieving the 100 per cent open defecation free. We believe in the necessity of a comprehensive behavioural change strategy to focus on bringing the change in the mindset of people and also provide a sustainable solution for easy access. We are certain that the summit successfully conveyed a strong message to address current sanitation challenges in India and the world."

This Summit attracted over 300 International and National and global experts from water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) sector, including delegates from leading corporate houses, government agencies, ULB's, NGOs and social delegates. It comprised of interactive sessions with keynote speakers, panel discussions, awards, and exhibitors. This summit proposed to create a base for the establishment of multi-sectoral partnerships, leveraging on local as well as international movements which will be supportive to the Swachh Bharat Mission.

India, the world's second-largest country by population, has the highest number of people (732 million) without access to toilets, according to a new report. The report by Water Aid, titled 'Out of Order: The State of the World's Toilets 2017' further stated that 355 million women and girls lack access to a toilet.

Speaking at the event, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar said: "I am pleased to see more and more people joining the movement that our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, started four years ago. We have seen a major transformation taking place in India owing to the Swachh Bharat Mission. I am proud to associate with this mission in spreading the message of cleanliness and sanitation across the country. But we still have a long road ahead of us and I urge everyone to contribute at their individual level to sensitise people about the consequences of open defecation and the importance of clean toilets."

Merino Restrooms aims to provide clean and elegant urban restroom solutions which are thoughtfully designed based on intrinsic needs and challenges of various user demographics. Merino Restrooms carries the legacy of the parent group which is built on the steady pillars of a globally relevant mission, a far-reaching vision of attaining Economy and Excellence based on Ethics. Merino Restroom solutions have been installed at various iconic places in India like newly erected Statue of Unity, Supreme Court, Chattarpati Shivaji International Airport, ITC Greens, Wipro, Microsoft, Flipkart, and DLF Mall of India to count a few.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day after Arvind Kejriwal was allegedly attacked in the Delhi Secretariat, the Delhi Chief Minister said that other parties are trying to get him killed as they fear that public would soon start asking them why they failed at achieving the kind of development the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has achieved in the capital.

"I had been attacked four times in the last two years which is not a small thing. I think that in the history of India, such a thing has never happened. It is obvious that these attacks are being planned. These people want to get me killed because the way in which development has taken place under my government, no government has been able to do that. They are scared as the public has started questioning and comparing other states with the Aam Aadmi Party government," he told reporters here on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, workers and leaders of the AAP took to the streets to protest against the attack and alleged that the Delhi Police in coordination with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not taking responsibility of the Chief Minister's safety.

AAP Leader Atishi Marlena, who was also a part of the protest said, "Delhi Police, under the BJP ruled Centre, is responsible for the safety of the Chief Minister. This is the second incident in a gap of a few weeks in which the Chief Minister has been attacked and this time inside the secretariat. This clearly points at the BJP. "

Spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said, "In the last four years since Kejriwal became the Chief Minister, he has been attacked four times. One should know that the police has not filed a charge sheet in any of the cases so far. The Delhi Police is giving a clear message to encourage attacks on the Chief Minister. Delhi Police is acting like a political tool."

40-year-old Anil Sharma was arrested by the Delhi Police on Tuesday for allegedly attacking the Chief Minister with chilli powder.

The police informed that during the investigation, Sharma was found to be "unstable and incoherent".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua on Tuesday summoned United States Charge d'Affaires (CdA) Ambassador Paul Jones to protest against the recent statement made by US President Donald Trump against Islamabad.

Terming the allegation "unwarranted and unsubstantiated", Januja conveyed Pakistan's disappointment on the recent tweets and comments made by the US President, reported Dawn.

Janjua further rejected the claims about Osama bin Laden made by Trump and pointed out that it was Pakistan's intelligence cooperation that provided the "initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of bin Laden".

Earlier on Sunday, Trump in an interview with Fox News said that Pakistan doesn't do "a damn thing for us," and defended his administration's decision to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the country. Trump also alleged that the Pakistan government helped wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden to hide in their country.

Trump continued his tirade against Pakistan through his Twitter handle on Monday, saying, "Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools! We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That's ENDING!"

Responding to Trump's remarks, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday hit back at the US President and clarified that Islamabad had no role in the September 2001 attack on New York's Trade Centre. He also asked the US to assess their failure in tackling terrorism instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Polish government's press service department has informed that Poland will not support the UN Global pact on migration.

The government while explaining its expulsion said that the global pact documents do not define and guarantee the country's right to decide whom to accept on its territory.

According to Sputnik, the Polish government further said that the document does not give a clear distinction between legal and illegal migration.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration will formally be adopted at the UN conference in Marrakesh, Morocco on December 10-11.

The pact came after Europe faced migration crisis in 2015. It aims to organize and secure the increasing tide of international migration.

Apart from this, Israel refused to brace the migration pact earlier in the day. The United States and Hungary were the first nations to announce their support for the agreement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The first ever visit by an Indian President to Australia from November 21 to 23 is expected to bolster business ties between the two countries.

On the second day of his three-day visit to Australia on Thursday, President Ram Nath Kovind will participate in the Australian Financial review business summit following which he will head to the Australia-India business council meet.

President Kovind's participation at both these events is a signal to business leaders of both countries that the Indian government is looking to forge new partnerships and open up bottlenecks to increase trade and commerce between the two countries. India is Australia's 5th largest trading partner, with bilateral trade in goods and services at approximately USD 20 billion while Australia's investment in India stands at USD 10.4 billion.

Former Australian diplomat Peter Varghese recently released a report on how Australia could forge closer economic and security ties with India. The report sets targets for Australian exports and outward investment to India, to triple and increase tenfold by 2035. This report is certain to come up for discussion at the two business events that the Indian president will be attending on Thursday.

Varghese identified 10 sectors and 10 key Indian states that Australia should focus on in the next two decades. The sectors are education, agriculture, energy, resources, tourism, healthcare, financial services, infrastructure, science and innovation, and sport.

Australia and India are discussing a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) which is expected to provide greater market access to exporters. In the year 2015-16 the total value of trade between Australia and India was AUD19.4 billion, a significant increase over the preceding decade, yet not optimum levels say business leaders.

During his recent visit to India, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed that CECA was on the agenda and both countries remain committed to delivering on it. However, there has been no movement towards a free trade agreement between Australia and India despite several high profile visits by leaders of both countries and strategic cooperation in defence and security matters.

With Australia now having a new Prime Minister in charge, it remains to be seen whether he walks the same path as Turnbull on being buoyant on India. Just last week on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Prime Minister Modi to rein in the Indian government's sugar subsidies or be reported to the Trade Organisation.

Many business leaders and community stalwarts participating in Thursday's events are hoping that Prime Minister Morrison's aggressive stance is just a one-off thing and that his government would encourage more participation and investment linkages.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With a view to recognise and applaud the sterling contributions made towards skill development in the rubber value chain including plantation and manufacturing segments, Rubber Skill Development Council (RSDC), the sector skill council in rubber celebrated the 3rd award ceremony at New Delhi.

As one of the prominent gatherings in the rubber sector, the award ceremony brought together policymakers, research organisations, top corporates, management consultants and a large number of stakeholders from all the parts of the country.

Industry veteran and leading thought leader R. C. Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki Ltd., and management expert R. Gopalakrishnan, ex-executive Director, Tata Sons, and an acclaimed author, graced the occasion as Guests of Honour.

Welcoming the guests, Chairman of RSDC, Vinod Simon said: "RSDC has come to a long distance in the last six years of its existence. National Occupation Standards (NOS) have been developed for the entire sector including manufacturing and plantation segments. Training to nearly one lakh people have been imparted so far. The skill gap analysis has been undertaken in 20 states of the country. According to Mr. Simon, RSDC has already tied up with 13 State Missions besides 11 universities and was the first to start B.Vocational in rubber technology. RSDC has on its board 550 certified trainers, 350 assessors, and around 150 training partners."

"R. Gopalakrishnan in his remarks linked the very evolution of society to skill building. According to him for any leader or organisation to make a difference, three characteristics were required - domain capability, planning capability, and execution capability. According to him, RSDC has done well by bringing on board people with different domain capabilities including rubber growers, tyre industry, rubber products manufacturers, academia, government etc. With so many industries working together, RSDC can truly be called as Mahagathtbandhan (largest group) of rubber sector," he said.

"R. C. Bhargava presented a keynote on rubber and its importance for auto OEMs. Skill development is very important to improve the competitiveness of the industry. RSDC is one of the few organisations which have been proactively developing the skill for all segments of the industry," he added.

"Rubber industry is particularly important because the industry provides inputs which to a large extent determine the performance of other industries. So rubber industry needs to become really competitive. Rubber industry and the OEMs need to work together because the future of both will move in the same direction. And OEMs can't grow without suppliers including rubber industry growing in equal measure," Bhargava said.

A special attraction at RSDC awards was the unveiling of a Mobile Tyre Fitting Skill Van, which will move across different auto clusters. Mobile van, fitted with necessary equipment and manned by skilled personnel, will train tyre fitters, assess them on skills acquired and also certify them.

"Tyre mechanics which dot the length and breadth of Indian highways play an important role in making road transport safer. Fitting of tyres especially commercial tyres is a skilled job requiring formal training. Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) is collaborating with RSDC for upskilling tyre fitters. The training will be provided under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Type 1. Formal certification is known to be aspirational and raises the confidence levels of trainees," said Rajiv Budhraja, DG, ATMA.

Recognising RSDC's considerable work under the RPL scheme, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has given an ambitious target to assess, up skill and certify 10 lakh trainees under the scheme. A logo of the project code-named SAAMRATH - empowering a million lives in Rubber was released on the occasion. "As an ally of the government, we are committed to working with all the sincerity for achieving the target. We will be counting on the support and cooperation by the Rubber Board and the industry in achieving the same," said Meghna Mishra, CEO RSDC.

Skill India Mission has led to transforming of lives allowing the youth to acquire a skill of their choice and make available skilled manpower for the industry. A film was released under the theme #farkdikhrahahai with success stories of marginalised people benefitting from skilling in rubber.

RSDC Best Training Partner award went to Rubber Board of India and was received by Sudha P., Director Training, Rubber Board of India. T.P. Radhakrishnan from Rubber Board Karnataka office was adjudged as the Best Trainer. Prabhuraju, Director, Cindrel Technologies, received the award as Best Assessment Agency. Vikash, employed at Relxo Footwear, was conferred the best trainee award in manufacturing, whereas in plantation Best Trainee award was given to Rajesh Ponnu Muthu.

Under the special category awards, Best University Award went to B.S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai. Another Special Category for honouring the Best Government Skill Project was bagged by the Directorate of Skill Development Tripura.

The industry is at the heart of all skilling drives across the country. This year, RSDC introduced a special category of award for an industry partner who has extended outstanding support towards nation building activity through Skill Development in the Rubber sector. The award was conferred on Metro Tyres and was received by Rummy Chhabra, Managing Director.

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The United States of America condemned the Kabul suicide bombing which killed as many as 50 people and injured several others who were part of a large gathering assembled to mark Prophet Mohammad's birth anniversary.

The US also extended condolences to the families of the victims. "We send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims. This shameless act comes as the Afghan people attempt to celebrate Milad-un-Nabi in peace, and reveals the cowardice and cruelty of those who perpetuate violence in Afghanistan," read the press release from US Department of State.

The statement further asserted that the US is committed to peace and stability in Afghanistan, and stands by the people of Kabul country who "want peace and a future free from these horrific acts of violence".

Kabul suicide bombing was the second act of violence in the war-torn country in a week. Earlier on November 12, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police checkpoint killing at least 10 people.

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The United States has imposed sanctions on an international network through which Iran and Russia provide millions of barrels of oil to Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, in exchange for the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, and an onward transfer of resources to the terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hizballah.

The US State Department in a release issued on November 20, mentioned that the sanctions directly target the Iranian regime's exploitation of the international financial system to hide revenue streams it uses to fund terrorist activities and provide support to sectarian militias responsible for abuses against the civilian population in the Middle East and destabilize the region.

The Iranian-commanded forces inside Syria along with other proxy terrorist groups continue to foment instability to extend their malign influence. These actions by the Iranian and Assad regimes undermine the legitimate processes to resolve the conflict in Syria.

These sanctions, further in conjunction with the economic, diplomatic, and other strategic initiatives, are part of the US government's long-term maximum pressure campaign to counter the Iranian regime's influence and its destabilising regional activities, to deny it the funds it uses to bankroll terrorist and militant proxies, and to secure the removal of all Iranian forces from Syria, reads the statement further. These sanctions deny the funds by Iran to bankroll terrorist and militant proxies and to secure the removal of all Iranian forces from Syria, it adds.

"They are also a part of the United States' efforts to bear the necessary pressure on the Syrian regime that would enable a political resolution of the Syrian conflict. Disrupting the illicit network that we have designated today is a crucial element of a broader effort to disrupt the material ties between the Assad regime and its IRGC patrons. This effort will continue in the months to come," the US Department said in its statement.

"We are committed to imposing a financial toll on the Iranian regime, Russia, and others who prop up the Assad regime and enable its abuses, as well as to disrupt the Iranian regime's funding of terrorist organizations. The United States will use every available tool to combat the Iranian regime's destabilizing and destructive influence in Syria and throughout the region," the statement further read.

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Photo: Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Kingdom Council via Getty Images

Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them, said Donald Trump as a candidate for office in 2015. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.

Today, the Trump administration released an official presidential statement on Saudi Arabia and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Written in Trumps authentic dialect, and featuring no fewer than eight exclamation points  or approximately eight more than the number of exclamation points normally found in a diplomatic statement about a murder  there is no doubt that this statement was written, or at least dictated, by the president himself. Its reasoning more or less tracks his reasoning from three years before, only now applied to the entire country rather than Trumps own bank account.

The first two sentences  America First! The world is a dangerous place!  set the basic predicate for his argument. People get murdered, dismembered, dissolved in acid, all the time, and we need to look out for our interests.

Trump points out that Iran has also done many bad things in the world, though of course nobody is proposing a geopolitical alliance with that country. He then transitions to pointing out that the Saudis agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States, which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. These figures are in fact ludicrously inflated.

From there, the statement becomes increasingly deranged. The Saudis have tried to smear Khashoggi as a secret radical Islamist, and Trump repeats this smear only to casually mention that he has not taken it into account: Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that. People are saying!

Trump then asserts that the question of responsibility for Khashoggis death is unknown and unknowable. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! he writes. That being said, we may never know all of the facts. In fact, U.S. intelligence has resolved this question. The CIA concludes that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder.

Having embraced radical uncertainty, like the science of global warming, Trump pivots to his real point: In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, he notes, have have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels.

One might assume that Saudi Arabias decisions both to sell oil to the West and to import weapons from the United States represent business transactions carried out in its self-interest. Youd especially think the famously cynical nationalist Donald Trump, who habitually complains that every country in the world is taking advantage of the United States, would see the deals in these terms.

Instead, he presents both transactions as favors from the Saudis to the United States. When the Saudis agree to buy our weapons, or when they agree to sell us their oil, they are doing us favors. We must show them proper gratitude.

Nowhere in his statement does Trump reiterate the point he made in 2015  he personally has business with the Kingdom, including $270,000 in spending in Trumps Washington hotel alone, just last year.
A US-Republic of Korea working group has discussed complete denuclearization and lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula as well as the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions and inter-Korean cooperation.

The group was co-chaired by US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun and Republic of Korea Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lee Do-hoon in Washington on November 20.

The Special Representative of both the countries reaffirmed the US--Republic of Korea Alliance as the linchpin of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.

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Taiwanese star Jay Chou has been tapped to star in the fourth installment of 'xXx'.

Chou, who made his Hollywood film debut with Seth Rogen-starrer 'The Green Hornet', is joining Vin Diesel in the project, reports Variety.

D J Caruso is directing the film that will see Diesel return as Xander Cage. Apart from him and Chou, Chinese actors Zoe Zhang and Roy Wang are also part of the project.

Meanwhile, Deepika Padukone, who made her Hollywood foray with 'xXx: Return of Xander Cage, will also return to the franchise for its fourth installment, according to Caruso.

Earlier in September, Caruso announced the same on Twitter after welcoming Wang to the 'xXx' family.

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Fred Ryan, CEO and publisher at the Washington Post has trashed President Trump's response to Jamal Khashoggi's murder, calling it a betrayal of long-established American values of respect for human rights.

Ryan, in a statement, accused the US President saying "Trump is placing personal relationships and commercial interests above American interests in his desire to continue to do business as usual with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

Adding further to the statement, the Washington Post CEO insisted that if there is any reason to doubt the findings of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) revealing the hands of Saudi Crown Prince behind Khashoggi's death then President Trump should immediately make that evidence public, Washington Post reported on November 20.

"An innocent man, brutally slain, deserves better, as does the cause of truth and justice and human rights," Ryan added.

Trump on Tuesday had claimed that the US will not tarnish relations with critical ally and will stand behind Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ignoring the CIA's conclusion of him ordering the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

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Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, the Vice President of India, today called upon the people to re-dedicate themselves to the task of nation building by focusing attention on the uplift of the poor, illiterate and the victims of caste and religion-based discrimination. Real growth and development will happen when the focus is turned on the plight of the farmers, weavers and craftsmen, he said while speaking at the 150th Birth Anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi, organised by FICCI and the FICCI- Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence.

Mr Naidu said, "Share and Care' is the core of Indian philosophy and it was incumbent on all to make everyone partners to partake of the fruits of development".

The Vice President lauded the Aditya Birla Group for adopting the values of trusteeship in the conduct of its business.

This event was under the aegis of a specially constituted Steering Committee chaired by Ms Rajashree Birla to blaze forth the message of the Mahatma. The overarching objective is to create various business platforms over the year based on Gandhiji's narratives, his vision and philosophy of embedding the ethos of ethics in business with the philosophy of trusteeship at its core, finally leading up to a grand culmination event later next year.

The Vice President of India also handed over a cheque of Rs. 32 Lakh for sponsoring 202 'Charkhas' to Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) Chairman, Dr. Vinai Kumar Saxena, on behalf of Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives &Rural Development.

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The European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy today adopted a Joint Communication that sets out the EU's vision for a strategy to strengthen cooperation and the partnership with India. This Joint Communication replaces the last Commission Communication on India of 2004, recognising that India has emerged as the fastest-growing large economy and has acquired an important geopolitical role.

The Communication aims to strengthen the EU-India Strategic Partnership by focusing on sustainable modernisation and on common responses to global and regional issues. It also seeks to reinforce the effectiveness of the EU's external action and is coherent with the implementation of the Global Strategy.

As an emerging global power, India plays a key role in the current multipolar world. To maintain the rules-based global order, therefore, it is vital that the EU and India implement effective multilateralism and global economic governance. The EU will seek to consolidate dialogue on multilateral issues, and to coordinate positions with India. Cooperation in the framework of the United Nations, the WTO and the G20 will be of priority.

The EU and India share common values and promote international peace and stability. The EU will work to engage India to promote common global agendas on human rights and democracy, data protection, gender equality and women's empowerment and the inclusion of young people. Enhancing humanitarian coordination and developing joint actions on food security and disaster relief, would also bring clear added value.

The EU will seek regular exchanges and coordination with India on major foreign policy issues. Cooperation on security and defence policies will be enhanced in order to address together inter alia terrorism, cyber security, hybrid threats and maritime security. Crisis management ties, including military-to-military relations, will also be developed.

The EU is a natural partner in supporting India's sustainable growth. The EU's expertise and technology in sustainable infrastructure development, transport regulatory frameworks, circular economy, environmental protection and in digitalisation will further support India's ongoing transition to a resource efficient economy and increase global connectivity. Enterprises will benefit from new business and investment opportunities.

The EU will continue to work with India towards comprehensive and balanced agreements on trade and investment and support a rules-based global trade regime. The EU will use all available channels and fora to ensure fair market access and predictable investment conditions in order to enhance trade and investment and unlock the potential of the two economies. The EU's blending facilities will incentivise investment with a sustainable impact.

Talent and innovation will also be one of the priorities of the EU's action. The EU will cooperate with India in order to foster the reciprocal mobility of students and researchers, and to consolidate networks of innovators and start-ups. Furthermore, the EU will move towards mutual recognition of qualifications and support exchanges between the respective cultural sectors. The EU will engage India on the issues of both legal and irregular migration, by using the existing tools to their full potential.

The EU will seek more coordination between its initiatives and those of its Member States towards India. The EU and its Member States will work together to provide a better understanding of the EU in India. They will also work to make the EU's public diplomacy more effective. The EU will promote a strategic use of its funding instruments. Programmes for Indian diplomats and experts' exchanges and dialogues will be multiplied in order to foster mutual understanding.

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Infosys launched an initiative to accelerate digital leadership for its clients in Australia and shrink the digital skills gap in the region with the creation of 1200 jobs and the opening of three Innovation Hubs by 2020.

The initiatives will form an education ecosystem through which Infosys would enable continuous learning opportunities.

They include:

The creation of 1200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020, of which around 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from a range of fields including Computer Science and Design

The development of three Innovation Hubs across Australia

Strengthening Infosys' academic partnerships to attract top graduate talent and accelerate digital skill building in Australia

The new Innovation Hubs will serve as a platform to enable Infosys to co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and government to accelerate innovation and upskilling of talent in emerging technologies and solutions.

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Speedy implementation of NDCP will help bridge the existing digital divide between rural Bharat and urban India and we can transform lives of all 1.3 billion citizens of India by delivering a Digital Future to All, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications, Mr Manoj Sinha said at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi.

He said that the Telecom sector is the pivotal force driving India's digital transformation. Surge in data consumption and the rapid adoption of new technologies continue to re-define connectivity and digital engagement dynamics in India. As the largest data consumer and the second largest smartphone market, India is carving a new digital identity globally, said Mr Sinha.

Government led initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which is the world's largest financial inclusion programme, the recently launched Ayushman Bharat scheme, which is the largest social health insurance scheme in the world, Smart Cities Mission, National Skill Development Mission, Digital India, Make In India, etc. are today catering to the needs of all the sections of our society. It is now critical to maintain the developmental momentum by strengthening the telecom sector, a core enabler for the socio economic progress of the country, said Mr.

Sinha.

Smt. Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Communications, DoT, and Chairperson, Telecom Commission said, The newly announced National Digital Communications Policy 2018 (the Policy) seeks to propel India to digital leadership and support India's transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling the information and communication needs of citizens and enterprises by establishing a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure that will help India become a trillion-dollar economy. The Policy seeks to attract US$100 billion in investments over the next four years and to create four million additional jobs, enhancing the contribution of the digital communications sector to 8% of India's GDP and propel India to the Top 50 Nations in the ITU ICT Development Index.

Given the critical role of the policy and its execution, we are happy to engage with industry stakeholders to drive the policy objectives and its speedy execution, added Ms. Sundararajan.

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Held on 20 November 2018

The Board of Rajputana Investment & Finance at its meeting held on 20 November 2018 transacted the following -

Approved starting an e-commerce website for the purpose of purchase and sale of vehicles and consumer durables subject to necessary statutory approvals from competent authorities, as the case may be.

Approved purchase and sale of Non-Convertible Debentures (NCD) and other securities to retail investors subject to necessary statutory approvals from competent authorities, as the case may be.

Approved for the company to act as sourcing agent for business loan to be provided by any NBFC, subject to necessary statutory approvals from competent authorities.

The Board decided to postpone the business item relating to change of registered office address of the Company to any of the ensuing Board meeting.

The Board decided to make suitable changes in the object clause of Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Company to accommodate the matter discussed in point 1 above, subject to provisions of the Companies Act 2013.

The Board decided to apply for change of name of the Company from "Rajptitana Investment & Finance Ltd" to "BRO Ventures Limited" or such other name as may be approved by the competent authority and subject to provisions of the Companies Act 2013.

The Board decided to open a Current Account with Axis Bank, Kunnamkulam Branch.

The Board decided to open a demat account with Sharewealth Securities Limited, Thrissur for dematerialization of securities.

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Nearly 50 percent of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) may be shut down by March 2019 due to unviability of operations, hitting hard both urban and rural population, and dealing a blow to the digitization policy, the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) warned on Wednesday.

Currently, India has approximately 238,000 ATMs installed, of which around 113,000 ATMs, including 100,000 off-site and more than 15,000 white label ATMs, are expected to down shutters, said CATMi Director V. Balasubramanian.

"This would severely impact millions of beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana who withdraw subsidies in form of cash through ATMs, besides urban centres, resulting in snaky queues and chaos akin to post-demonetisation," Balasubramanian told IANS.

He said the CATMi step is forced on account of recent regulatory guidelines for ATMs hardware and software upgrades, recent mandates on cash management standards and the Cassette Swap method of loading cash, entailing huge investments by the industry.

Balasubramanian said to implement the Cassette Swap alone would need an additional outlay of Rs 3,500 crore for CATMi.

In April this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed stringent guidelines for ATMs service providers or their contractors followed by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs issuing similar directives vide gazette notification to be implemented by February 9.

These include a minimum net worth requirement of Rs 100 crore, minimum fleet size of 300 fully-equipped cash vans, two custodians and two armed guards plus a driver, GPS-CCTV, and later in June came the diktat for upgradation of the software from WindowXP to Window10.

"To implement all these security, software-hardware directive would entail an additional cost of minimum Rs 150,000 per ATM per month. This works out to astronomical figures for all the 238,000 ATMs in the country," Balasubramanian pointed out.

"However, the RBI-MHA directives are to be implemented by the banks which must bear the costs, but they are not willing to discuss the issue, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Accordingly, from January onwards, we shall progressively start shutting down the ATMs," he said.

Of the approximately 238,000 ATMs in the country, an average 10 percent are non-functional at any given point of time for various reasons.

However, to adequately cater to the entire country's population, the need is almost three-four times more, or around a million ATMs, says CATMi.

Of these (238,000 ATMs), nearly 80 percent are located in urban or semi-urban areas and the rest in rural areas.

Major industry players say that barring the metros and urban centres, people in states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and others have to travel 40 km or more to access an ATM.

"Moreover, as per official data, barely 30 per cent of bank account holders in the country regularly use their ATM cards... the others prefer cash transactions. There are problems of infrastructure and connectivity which hamper growth of ATMs network," Balasubramanian said.

India has among the lowest ATM penetration globally, averaging 8.9 ATMs per 100,000 population, compared to Brazil's 119.6, Thailand's 78, South Africa's 60 and Malaysia's 56.4.

China has a staggering one million ATMs, which will touch 1.5 million by 2020.

--IANS

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An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from acute malnutrition in three years of war in Yemen, a leading charity has said.

They suffered immensely as their vital organ functions slowed down and eventually stopped. Their immune systems were so weak they were more prone to infections with some too frail to even cry, Save the Children's Yemen Director Tamer Kirolos said.

"For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and it's entirely preventable. Parents witness their children waste away, unable to do anything," the BBC quoted Kirolos as saying.

He warned that an estimated 150,000 children's lives were endangered in Hudaydah with "a dramatic increase" in air strikes over the city in the last few weeks.

Save the Children said it based its figures on mortality rates for untreated cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition in under-fives from data compiled by the UN.

According to conservative estimates, it calculated that around 84,700 children may have died between April 2015 and October 2018, the BBC reported.

The charity said that based on historical studies, if acute malnutrition was left untreated, around 20-30 per cent of children would die each year.

Rising food prices and the falling value of the country's currency as a result of a civil war are putting more families at risk of food insecurity, the UK-based charity said.

It also blamed a Saudi-led coalition's imposed blockade for putting an increasing number at risk of famine, with continued heavy fighting around the principal lifeline port of Hudaydah further exacerbating the situation.

It is difficult to get an exact number of deaths, as many go unreported, aid workers in Yemen said. Only half of the country's health facilities are functioning and many people are too poor to access the ones that remain open.

Trying to revive talks to end the three-year war which has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis, the UN warned in October that up to 14 million Yemenis are on the brink of famine, the BBC report added.

The fighting that escalated in 2015 after the Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign against the Houthi rebel movement had forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee abroad.

At least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the war, according to the UN, while 22 million people have been left in need of humanitarian aid, as it created the largest ever food security emergency leading to a cholera outbreak that affected 1.2 million people.

--IANS

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So much to be thankful for. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The government of Saudi Arabia is deliberately starving the Middle Easts poorest country. One recent estimate suggests that 85,000 children under 5 years old have died from malnutrition as a result of Riyahs intervention in Yemens civil war. If the Saudis bombing and blockade continues, Yemen is poised to collapse into the worst famine humanity has seen in 100 years, according to the U.N.

The United States bears much of the responsibility for all of this: Our nations steadfast commitment to an alliance with the Saudis has led America to support Riyadhs monstrous campaign by supplying it with weapons, logistical support, and midair refueling services for Saudi fighter planes. The U.S. has no real interest in the outcome of Yemens civil war  whether that impoverished country is ruled by Shia rebels or a Saudi client is of a little consequence to a global superpower based in the Western hemisphere. On the other hand, allowing the Saudis to drop American-made bombs on school buses  and to commit other crimes against humanity with our visible assistance  significantly increases the risk of terroristic blowback against the U.S.

Meanwhile, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia ordered the murder and dismemberment of a U.S. resident last month, according to the CIA. To state the obvious: The United States has no national interest in helping Islamist theocracies murder journalists who live here. On the other hand, abetting such a crime diminishes Americas (already profoundly suspect) moral authority on the world stage, and gives a green light to authoritarian rulers the world over to crack down on dissent within their borders.

And yet, this Thanksgiving, Donald Trump is thankful for the House of Saud.

Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Many commentators have criticized the vulgar materialism that runs through Trumps defenses of the Saudis  his insistence that the pursuit of cheap oil and lucrative arms deals are more important than, say, preventing 85,000 Yemeni children dying in protracted agony. But, in addition to being hideously amoral, the implicit argument of the presidents tweet is also incoherent. The recent decline in oil prices is not a display of Saudi magnanimity, but of declining investor confidence in the prospects for medium-term economic growth. Granted, Riyadh could, theoretically, engineer a spike in global oil prices by cutting off supply. But economic self-interest prohibits it from doing so.

Alas, such self-interest also, ostensibly, prohibits Trump from acknowledging these facts.
Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar appeared before the special investigation team (SIT) of the Punjab Police on Wednesday in connection with an alleged deal mediated by him between controversial godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Police sources said that the questioning began around 10 a.m. and is being video recorded.

Akshay, who landed at the Chandigarh international airport earlier on Wednesday, drove straight to the high-security Punjab Police headquarters in Sector 9 here to appear before the SIT.

The Punjab Police had earlier this month summoned Kumar as a witness.

Akshay had on Tuesday moved a request that he be allowed to meet the SIT officials in Chandigarh instead of Amritsar, where he had been originally summoned.

The SIT is investigating incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib and the subsequent firing on protesters in 2015.

Akshay was questioned regarding his alleged role in brokering a Rs 100-crore deal between the controversial godman, who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and Sukhbir Badal in Mumbai in 2015 just days before the release of a film of the godman.

The 51-year-old has denied that he arranged any such meeting or had any role in brokering the deal. He had termed the allegations as "rumours and false statements" about his involvement with Ram Rahim Singh.

"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 had tweeted recently after he was summoned by the Punjab Police.

On his part, Sukhbir Badal said on Tuesday that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab. "I have never met Akshay Kumar outside Punjab," Badal said.

Sukhbir Badal was questioned by the SIT here at the Punjab Police headquarters on Monday. He termed the questioning as a sham and alleged that the Congress government in Punjab led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was indulging in political vendetta.

Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was on November 16 questioned by the SIT headed by additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Pramod Kumar and Inspector General Kunwar Vijay Pratap.

The senior Badal said that he told the SIT that he had not ordered firing on Sikh protesters agitating against the sacrilege incidents in October 2015.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said earlier that his government had no role in the summoning of the Badals and the actor by the SIT.

The SIT was set up by the Amarinder government in September this year to probe cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the firing ordered on those protesting against the sacrilege cases in October 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal was in power in the state.

Two persons were killed in the police firing in Behbal Kalan village near Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.

--IANS

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Paying homage to the soldiers of the Indian Army, who sacrificed their lives during World War-I, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday underlined the need to sensitize the youth about the significant role played by the soldiers in the Great War.

The Chief Minister, who honoured 15 out of a total of 152 descendants of martyrs of World War-I at a commemoration ceremony in Ludhiana on Wednesday, stressed the need to preserve the rich legacy of the Indian Army, which played a commendable role along with the French and British forces in the War.

Amarinder, who is himself a war historian and defence writer, said: "It is high time to sensitize the younger generation about the exemplary courage and indomitable spirit of the martyrs so that the undying war stories scripted by them could be keep alive."

The Chief Minister said he had visited war museums in France and Belgium a few years back, and recently in Turkey where he paid tributes to soldiers of the Commonwealth nations who attained martyrdom in the Great War.

"The history of the wars and the Indian armed forces should be preserved with a high spirit so that our younger generation could be cognizant about the glorious past of the Indian soldiers," he added.

Recalling the valour shown by Indian platoons in various war theatres in Europe, Amarinder said the indomitable courage of martyrs could never be forgotten.

--IANS

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Within 72 hours of the terror incident, the Punjab Police has arrested one person in connection with Sunday's grenade attack on the Nirankari Satsang Bhawan that killed three persons, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said here on Wednesday.

Amarinder blamed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and the Pakistan-based masterminds of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) for the terror attack.

The arrested person has been identified as Bikramjit Singh, 26, a resident of Dhariwal village near Rajasansi area of Amritsar. he said. He was arrested early on Wednesday from near Loharka village in Amritsar district.

The second person involved in the attack, identified as Avtar Singh, is still absconding.

It was Avtar who threw the grenade at the Nirankari prayer meeting on Sunday, leaving three people dead and 15 others injured. Bikramjit had stood at the gate of the Nirankari bhawan premises, holding the gate attendants at gun-point.

The Chief Minister said the grenade used in the blast was Pakistan made, and added that the motorcycle used in the crime has also been recovered.

Amarinder said it was a "terror incident" and there was no religious link to it.

"Bikram, a KLF operative, has given significant information indicating that the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan," Amarinder said.

"Happy is suspected to be the Pakistan-based KLF chief...Harmeet Singh Happy @ Ph.D, who had earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out targeted killings of RSS/ Shiv Sena/ DSS leaders and workers (and a Christian Pastor) in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017, in active collaboration with Pakistani establishment and the ISI," he added.

The Chief Minister categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack and described Sunday's attack on Nirankari Bhawan as "yet another attempt by Pakistan's ISI and the Pakistan establishment to carry out terrorist actions in Punjab to disturb the peace in the state".

"It was in ISI's interest to keep the border disturbed to ensure internal peace in Pakistan," Amarinder told media here.

"Attempts by Pak ISI and Pak establishment to forge linkages between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups is a matter of serious security concern for Punjab," the Chief Minister said, adding that the Punjab Police was working closely with central agencies to check the spread of such forces.

Amarinder said that his government was committed to ensuring that nobody was allowed to disturb the state's hard-earned peace and harmony.

The Chief Minister pointed out that there had been only two terror attacks in the state in 2018, including the Maqsudan Police Station attack and Sunday's incident near Amritsar.

"Both were successfully solved by the police, who had also cracked all the cases of targeted killings. The sacrilege cases that had taken place in the last 18 months were also solved," he said.

Giving details, the Chief Minister said that preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikram, who has identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa (32 years) of village Chak Mishri Khan, Lopoke (Ajnala) in Amritsar district.

Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora said Bikramjit was riding a TVS motorbike (PB-18-M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikramjit's black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF-9488), which he used in the attack, has also been recovered.

"Bikramjit Singh has disclosed that Avtar Singh called him up late on November 3 and asked him to be ready for an assignment the next morning. Around 4.30 a.m that day, Avtar reached Bikram's house and both set out on Bikram's Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle to retrieve the hand grenade from an orchard located at a distance of about 1 km on Majitha-Hariyan link road. They retrieved the HE 84 hand grenade, which had been buried in a half feet deep pit under a Shisham tree," Arora pointed out.

"According to Bikramjit's initial questioning, the recee of Nirankari Satsang Bhawan was carried out on the morning of November 13 when no one was present on the premises. During the recee, the two conspirators especially checked out the locations of CCTV cameras en route, the layout plan of the Bhawan and the distance from the main gate on the boundary wall of the Bhawan to the Satsang Bhawan building," Arora said.

Bikramjit has further said that as decided, on November 16 Bikram reached the house of Avtar Singh at Chak Mishri Khan village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle at about 9 a.m, where they removed the number plate of the motorcycle. They started for village Adliwal at about 9.30 a.m and covered their faces on the way, near village Manawala. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at the Satsang Bhawan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time, he added.

Bikram told the police that Avtar entered the Satsang Bhawan complex through the open gate, along with the other followers while he himself managed to subdue and take control, at gunpoint, of the two "sewadars" (volunteers) who had been deployed at the two gate-posts of the Bhawan complex.

"After hurling the grenade, both fled on Bikramjit's mobike and reached Avtar's village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the pistol from Bikramjit. After changing his clothes and appearance, Bikramjit drove back to his village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle," the DGP said.

According to Bikramjit, Avtar was in touch with one Happy in Pakistan, who had got the hand grenade dumped near the orchard near Majitha through some of his other associates.

Bikramjit has revealed that the geo-location details as well as pictures of the dump location were sent to Avtar on his mobile to facilitate the retrieval of the hand grenade.

"Harmeet Singh Happy had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand grenade (Arges Type HG-84) of the same specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh, r/o Samana (Patiala), a self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police (Patiala) on October 31, 2018," the DGP said.

The Punjab Police had earlier recovered five such hand grenades, as part of a huge consignment comprising AK-47 rifle, MP-9 rifle and seven pistols, which had been sent by terror outfit Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and ISYF (International Sikh Youth Federation) (Rode faction) across the Indo-Pak border and recovered from the terrorist module of Sher Singh and Mann Singh on May 21, 2017.

"It has been learnt that HG 84 hand grenade is produced by Arges of Austria, and also manufactured in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) of Pakistan (as "84-P2A1"). Such grenades are commonly used by the armies of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Austria. HG 84 is a destructive type of grenade, which causes fragmentation after the explosion and has an effective range of 30-meter radius. These are mainly used to attack and kill a gathering of persons. Such grenades have been used in Jammu and Kashmir in the past," a Punjab Police spokesman said.

Amarinder said that since March 2017, the Punjab Police has busted 17 terror modules and arrested 81 militants, thereby preventing a large number of terrorist actions in the state.

"The Punjab Police has seized 77 weapons from these terrorists, including very sophisticated automatic weapons, RDX and other explosives, as well as 12 hand grenades," he added.

"Since March 2017, at least 3 arms consignments, pushed into Punjab by Pak ISI in collaboration with chiefs of different Pak-based Sikh militant outfits, such as ISYF, Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) and KLF, have been recovered by the Punjab Police. These consignments consisted of AK-47 Rifles (5), MP 9 Rifle (1), Pistols (10) and hand grenades (11)," he added.

Bikramjit and Avtar have been booked for murder, attempt to murder and under other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

--IANS

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An American tourist has been killed by the pre-neolithic and isolated Sentinelese tribe in Andaman and Nicobar Islands while trying to reach out to them, Andaman Police sources said.

John Allen Chau is believed to have died around November 14. Police officials were trying to recover his body around the restricted and unguarded North Sentinel Island home to Sentinelese tribes, government sources told IANS.

Seven locals including some fishermen, who facilitated Chau's visit, have been arrested. They confirmed seeing Chau being shot down by arrows fired by Sentinelese.

This is not the first time when Sentinelese have attacked and killed trespassers. In 2006, two fishermen went near the island and were killed. The tribals also shot arrows at the helicopter that went to retrieve the bodies.

According to an Andaman journalist, Chau was keen to visit Sentinelese. His mother contacted the American Consulate in Chennai after he could not be reached for over a week.

"Chau's mother contacted the US Consulate, which in turn reached out to Andaman Police. The police investigated and arrested the seven people who facilitated his visit," Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle, told IANS.

Chau first went to Port Blair and then took a boat.

Giles and green activists held the recent government decision to exclude 29 Andaman islands, including North Sentinel Island, from Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime to promote tourism responsible for the killing.

Earlier this month, the Indian government removed the islands from RAP, allowing tourists to visit the islands after obtaining permission from the local administration.

"Sentinelese are the only isolated tribe of the world. They have never been contacted by outside world for thousands of years. Their hostility towards outsiders is open. What was the point in opening their area?" Giles asked.

The officials who spoke to IANS said they believed that the American did not take the mandatory permission to visit the island.

The government had declared about five kilometres of the surrounding waters of the North Sentinel island as a buffer and thus a prohibited zone. While the restrictions still apply, one can now easily acquire a permit and visit the island.

"This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen. A few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe's island from foreign tourists which sent the wrong message and may have contributed to this terrible event," Stephen Corry, Director Survival International, said in a statement.

The organisation now fears that Sentinelese might have been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity.

One of the most isolated tribes of the world, Sentinelese are estimated to number 50 to 100. Spread over 27 sq miles, North Sentinel Island is situated 58 km from Port Blair.

In January 1991, the tribe established its first friendly contact with the outside world for 23 minutes. A 13-member team lead by anthropologist S.A. Awradhi interacted with the tribes through gestures.

"The contact was made after years of safe distance observations and sending gifts," said an official on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier, a team of scientists protected by security forces stepped on the island in 1967 but could not establish friendly contact, officials said.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are home to six tribes -- Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa, Sentinelese, Nicobarese and Shompen.

There are about 300 Jarawas, 100 Onges and 300 Shompens left. Another tribe called Jangil or Rutland Jarawa became extinct around 1920 due to epidemic.

--IANS

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Army commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh on Wednesday visited the Siachen warriors protecting the frontiers of the country at the World's highest battle field.

"Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, General Officer Commanding in Chief Northern Command today visited and interacted with the troops deployed on the highest battlefield in the world," Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said here today.

He was accompanied by Lieutenant General Y.K. Joshi, General Officer Commanding, Fire and Fury Corps, he said.

"The Army Commander appreciated the high level of operational preparedness being maintained by the troops deployed in Siachen Glacier despite the extreme harsh weather conditions where temperatures are dipping below minus 30 degrees."

Earlier, the Army Commander also reviewed the operational preparedness of mechanised and aviation units deployed in the Ladakh sector.

"He urged all ranks to continue to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and dedication to duty against all odds".

--IANS

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With due pomp and honour, the Armed Forces Day commemorating the martyrdom of military personnel in Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War was observed on Wednesday.

President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid glowing tributes to the Liberation War martyrs who laid down their lives for the country's independence from Pakistan in 1971, reports Xinhua news agency.

Hamid laid wreaths at the altar of Shikha Anirban (eternal flame) in the morning and stood in solemn silence for a while to pay respect to the martyrs.

Hasina placed a floral wreath before the flame for honouring the nation's martyrs.

A contingent of the Army, Navy and Air Force presented a salute on the occasion.

Chief of Army Staff General Aziz Ahmed, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nizamuddin Ahmed and Air Chief Marshal Masihuzzaman Serniabat paid tribute as well.

--IANS

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Megastar Amitabh Bachchan will be donating 50 machines to aid sewer workers and stop them from entering the pit that dehumanises their existence.

He wants to make their lives safer and provide them with social dignity that they deserve.

"Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling in any manner, human excreta from dry latrines and sewers," Amitabh wrote in his blog after several deaths of these workers were reported lately.

It often involves using the most basic of tools such as buckets, brooms and baskets.

"They (workers) go down the manholes of the city, to clean, in the most inhuman conditions without any proper equipment of safety care. Many perish inside the pits due to asphyxiation and deadly fumes discriminated against..."

"I came across this information during the cleanathon of 15 hours recently and I am buying 50 machines for these workers so they do not have to enter the pits but are able to clean the manholes and sewers from outside with these machines, saving the indignity they suffer from the public."

The 76-year-old thespian also gave details about the machinery he was planning to buy and present to the civic body in a few days.

"The machines are fairly large, a bit cumbersome to operate, but do the job...," he said, adding that the ones he would get were of smaller size and could be personally owned by the worker.

"There is the larger version too, that cannot be moved about other than on a truck .. this shall be presented by me to the Municipal Corporation .. in a day or two," he added.

Amitabh wrote that "manual scavenging" is a term used mainly in "India for a caste-based occupation involving the manual removal of untreated human excreta from bucket toilets or pit latrines by hand with buckets and shovels".

"It has been officially prohibited by law in 1993 due to it being regarded as a dehumanising practice but if they can be given some basic facilities through engaging machinery, it would make their lives a lot safer and give them the social dignity that they deserve," Big B added.

--IANS

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Jailed prime accused in Bihars topper scam, Bachcha Rai, has threatened a jail official and a doctor leading to a case being registered against him, police on Wednesday said.

Rai, who is lodged in Beur Central Jail here, threatened to murder Jailer Ashok Kumar Singh and jail doctor Lalan Prasad on Tuesday after they refused to shift him to Patna Medical College and Hospital. The doctor rejected his plea saying he was not sick.

The topper scam had rocked the state in 2016 and hit national headlines after it was revealed that undue favours were provided to under-deserving candidates by giving them high marks and making them state toppers in the intermediate examinations of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB).

Ashok Kumar Singh has lodged an FIR in Beur police station against Bachcha Rai for abusing, misbehaving and threatening to eliminate him, Officer in-charge Ranjan Kumar said.

Rai was arrested almost two years back after Ruby Rai a 2016 Class 12 topper in humanities landed into trouble during a sting operation. She gave "ludicrous answers to elementary questions related to her subjects".

Class 12 science stream topper Saurabh Shreshtha was also caught on camera giving wrong answers to basic science questions.

The sting suggested the "toppers" might have used fraud means to achieve their ranks.

--IANS

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Hours after a video viral about Congress leader Kamal Nath asking Muslim workers to ensure "90 per cent polling" in the community-dominated booths, the BJP on Wednesday asked the Election Commission to act against Nath for inciting religious sentiments by appealing to a particular community.

A BJP delegation comprising Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, party MPs S.S. Ahluwalia, Meenakshi Lekhi and Anil Baluni submitted their complaint to the Commission amid election campaign in Madhya Pradesh for November 28 polls.

In its complaint, the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged: "Nath in an address to a gathering appealed exclusively to Muslim voters to mobilise 90 per cent votes for the Congress in Muslim booths. It is tragic that Nath chose to even divide the booths along religious lines."

"Nath is clearly appealing to voters on the basis of religious denomination, which agitates against the spirit of free and fair elections," it said.

"Criminal action should be initiated against Nath and his accomplice for committing electoral and other offences and for seeking to divide the voters along communal lines and communalizing the elections," the party said in its complaint.

The BJP's complaint came after a video went viral which purportedly showed Nath asking workers to take out the figures from last elections and do a "postmortem" as to why the polling percentage was only 50-60 per cent in the Muslim majority booths.

"Resolve today that you would ensure 80-90 per cent polling in your booths. If we don't get 90 per cent votes of the Muslim community, we may suffer a big loss," Nath, the MP Congress President, is seen telling the workers.

"...You (Muslim Congress workers) will have to take care of your own society, not just for the Congress but for the whole state," Nath said.

The meeting where the video was shot apparently took place in October.

The party also accused a Hindi News Channel of publishing the opinion poll on November 18 at the behest of Congress.

"The said electronic publishing of opinion polls is a clear case of paid news and is punishable under the provision of electoral laws," it said.

The party demanded EC take legal action against the news channel for publishing the paid news.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Karnataka protested against the state government's alleged betrayal of farmers here on Wednesday.

"BJP legislators and leaders, led by state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, staged a protest demonstration against the Chief Minister's (H.D. Kumaraswamy) attitude of insulting the farmers and not supporting their demands," the party's spokesman S. Shantaram said in a statement.

Several party cadres and legislators gathered in the city centre holding placards asking the state government to resolve farmers' issues at the earliest.

About 5,000 farmers from across Karnataka staged protests here on Monday seeking loan waiver, higher price for sugarcane and relief aid for crop loss due to drought in 17 districts across the state.

Though the Kumaraswamy-led coalition government announced farm loan waiver in June, the banks have not written off any loans even after five months, farmers said, demanding immediate waiver of loans.

The opposition BJP will also hold protests along with farmers on December 10 in Belagavi where the winter session of the state legislature will be held, its party leaders said.

Kumaraswamy on Tuesday convened a six-hour-long meeting with sugar cane farmers after hundreds of them, including their women folk, protested against the state government failing to provide minimum support price (MSP) for cane.

"The state government will ensure a higher MSP than earlier to cane farmers and make sure they don't face any issues going ahead," the Chief Minister had said.

--IANS

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The saturnine Mitch McConnell and the sinister Tom Cotton are standing in the way of a modest bipartisan measure. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Last week Donald Trump signaled that after more than two years of quiet and not-so-quiet obstruction of the most modest, bipartisan legislation relaxing War on Drugs prison and sentencing policies, hed back legislation his own son-in-law Jared Kushner helped craft and broker between Republican and Senate lawmakers.

The bill (dubbed the First Step Act) combined a set of back-end policies aimed at encouraging post-incarceration opportunities for former federal prisoners, which passed the House earlier this year with a few front-end sentencing-reform provisions taken from a more ambitious Senate bill that Mitch McConnell had repeatedly blocked as too divisive. Despite Kushners advocacy and long-standing conservative support (ranging from semi-libertarian Republicans like Mike Lee and Rand Paul to conservative religious figures to the Koch brothers), Trumps law-and-order rhetoric in 2016, and his appointment of a bitter opponent of criminal-justice reform, Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General, had blocked any legislation from making it to the Senate floor.

The compromise Kushner put together did nothing to change the opposition of hard-core incarceration fans led by Senator Tom Cotton. But when Trump himself announced support, it was assumed McConnell would make sure a Senate vote happened during the lame-duck session, before the composition and leadership of the House changes, unraveling the earlier deals.

But no:

Senator Mitch McConnell told President Trump in a private meeting on Thursday that there is not likely to be enough time to bring a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote this year, regardless of the support it has in the Senate and the White House, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The real issue for McConnell doesnt seem to be floor time, but the unwillingness to roll over conservative opponents:

At the Senate Republicans weekly caucus luncheon at the Capitol, Mr. McConnell acknowledged that the changes had influential supporters who had worked hard on the issue, but also invited two of its chief critics, Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and John Kennedy of Louisiana, to deliver remarks, two Republican congressional officials said.

Mr. Cotton, who has been perhaps the loudest critic of the bills sentencing changes in the Senate, urged colleagues to slow down the process, saying that the bills impact and implications were too expansive to push through without hearings, according to another official familiar with his remarks.

Cottons prescription, of course, would mean the compromise bill would die with the expiration of the current Congress, leading to a whole new set of negotiations, including the new Democratic managers of the House. For Cotton, the problem isnt the need for hearings; its positioning the traditional party favoring a lock-em-all-up attitude toward those people with what the grim Arkansan calls a jailbreak.

Intraparty tensions over the latest initiative broke out yesterday in a very long Twitter debate between Senators Lee and Cotton, with the latter demanding hearings to deal with what he claimed was permissive treatment of violent drug dealers and the former suggesting Cotton deal with his issues on the floor with amendments. Meanwhile, outgoing Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, a long-standing supporter of the original sentencing-reform bill that went farther than Kushners compromise, has reportedly gone to the mats with McConnell:

I have been there for you, Mr. Grassley told Mr. McConnell, the man standing in the way of a quick vote on the measure. And I would hope this is something that you would help me make happen, he said, according to three people familiar with the call who were not authorized to publicly discuss the conversation.

The direct lobbying by Mr. Grassley was just part of a pressure campaign aimed squarely at Mr. McConnell this week as an unusual coalition of senators, conservative advocacy groups and White House officials press to change the nations sentencing and prison laws. With President Trump supportive of the effort and Speaker Paul D. Ryan pledging to move it through the House, they increasingly view the Senate majority leader as the lone obstacle to unwinding some of the federal tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and 1990s.

The simple truth is that a blunt phone call from Donald Trump to McConnell insisting on a vote for the bill  and maybe additional calls to Cotton and Kennedy and other opponents, asking them to back off  would almost certainly do the trick. You have to figure that McConnell is protecting POTUS from something happening that hes half-hearted about to begin with  as his reluctance to do anything about this legislation for the first two years of his presidency suggests.

Meanwhile, supporters of criminal-justice measures that are a lot more serious than this First Step legislation, including the Democrats who are about to take over the House, are probably feeling ambivalent about the enactment of a compromise that could kill momentum toward real reform.

At this point, its all in Trumps hands, unless he chooses to pretend its in McConnells.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday slammed the for demanding Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's resignation, saying that India's first Prime Minister was ill too in his last years in office.

"Our late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in the last three years of his tenure, was ill. He was suffering from paralysis and could not function as a Prime Minister ought to. At that time, our leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, or the Jan Sangh did not take out a morcha to his house and demand his resignation, as we saw in Goa," state BJP President Vinay Tendulkar said at a press conference in Panaji.

The on Tuesday organised a march to Parrikar's private residence, demanding that he resign as Chief Minister within 48 hours.



Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer, and has not been seen in public for several months now.

When Nationalist Party leader Sharad Pawar was serving as Agriculture Minister in the erstwhile Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, neither the Congress nor the BJP demanded his resignation, despite the fact that the Maharashtra politician was abroad for cancer treatment.

"Sharad Pawar was suffering from cancer and was being treated abroad, but the BJP did not make it an issue and the Congress did not drop him from the Union Cabinet either," Tendulkar said.



ALSO READ: Manohar Parrikar chairs cabinet meeting after a gap of three months

Parrikar is suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer and has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and Delhi for nearly nine months. He returned from New Delhi's All-India Institute of Medical Sciences on October 14 and has not moved out of his private residence for any official event since.

Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) President Deepak Dhavalikar also joined the opposition chorus demanding that the Chief Minister give up the chair immediately.

The MGP is a part of the ruling alliance led by the BJP.

(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.)
BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday said the battle for the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, voting for which is due on December 7, would be against casteism and dynasty in which the youth's role would be significant.

Participating in a party programme 'Yuva ri baat, Amit Shah re Saath' at Tagore Vidyalaya Auditorium in the state capital, Shah said the BJP has been successful in removing the curse of casteism and dynasty that "grew under the 50-year Congress rule."

Quoting a recent incident in Bikaner where a Congress worker was forced to raise slogans praising Sonia Gandhi while being prevented from chanting 'Bharat Mata ki jai', he said: "What other example can be quoted in the context of dynasty politics," he asked.

Shah lauded the Vasundhara Raje-led government saying the state's economic growth has been phenomenal. "The government has managed to increase the groundwater level in the arid zone for which she should be congratulated," he added.

He asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to "stop talking on issues of love and harmony". "The Congress President should remember how the party treated former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and senior leader Sitaram Kesari. The stories of their insult is known to all," he said.

--IANS

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Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Wednesday alleged the chilli powder attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was stage-managed.

Tiwari said the incident was meant to divert attention from the attack on him by AAP Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan during the inauguration of Signature Bridge on November 4.

Though he said he condemned the attack on Kejriwal, "within hours, AAP leaders blamed the BJP for it," he said.

"This is an old method for getting sympathy. Whenever Lok Sabha or assembly elections approach, such incidents take place," he said. Tiwari recounted several such attacks on Kejriwal.

The BJP leader said that it was necessary to know the "story" of the person who threw chilli powder at the Chief Minister.

"The question is how the attacker entered in the secretariat. Even journalists get passes for entering the secretariat, but Anil Kumar got the pass to meet the Chief Minister at 12.41 p.m," he said, adding the pass was issued after a "phone call from the Chief Minister's Office".

"Exactly at 2.10 pm the person (Anil Kumar) bows to touch Kejriwal's feet and then throws chilli powder at him. It shows this was scripted," he said.

He slammed Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia for blaming the BJP for the attack. "Sisodia in his press conference has alleged that the attacker is a BJP supporter, but he remained silent on the insult to a woman journalist by AAP MLA Somnath Bharti during a live debate show on a news channel."

Tiwari was referring to the remarks of Bharti who used vulgur words for the TV anchor. He demanded the Chief Minister take legal action against Bharti.

Tiwari also expressed surprise over the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal's silence on the issue.

"Maliwal is not in a position to issue any statement against the criminal act of the MLA," he said, adding the BJP will complain to the DCW and Press Council of India (PCI) against Bharti.

--IANS

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More than half a dozen people were injured in Kanpur on Wednesday as two religious groups clashed with each other during a procession on the occasion of Prophet Muhammad's birth anniversary, police said.

After the police failed to rein in the unruly mob, the provincial armed constabulary (PAC) was called in to restore order.

Senior officials, including District Magistrate Vijay Vishwas Pant and Senior Superintendent of Police Anant Deo rushed to the scene to defuse tension and are still camping there.

Officials said the violence broke out when the a particular community tried to take out the procession via a new route, which was not allowed by the district administration.

Locals objected to the procession, and said that the route sanctioned by the administration should be followed.

The verbal spat between the two communities soon turned ugly, and they began pelting stones.

Police had to use force to disperse the mob.

The situation has been brought under control, and additional security deployment made to prevent a flare-up.

--IANS

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Citing the controversial Rafale fighter jets deal, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday alleged that corruption has peaked under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the country was passing through "extremely challenging times" with farmers suffering distress, youth facing acute joblessness and the common man suffering from rising prices and tax terrorism.

Addressing a press conference here in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, he attacked Modi over demonetisation, describing it as a "monumental failure of epic proportions" and said the junking of high currency notes in 2016 "was only a dubious scheme to convert black money to white".

Singh said people should fight against the "onslaught on institutions" by the Modi government or else history "will not forgive us."

"In the last few months, we have witnessed how the credibility of our institutions has been systematically denigrated. A careful, well-thought out and a calibrated effort is being made by the powers that be to weaken them. Democracy and rule of law are under attack. We have to fight this onslaught on our institutions, otherwise history shall never forgive us."

He said the Modi government came to power on the promise to usher in transparency and fight against corruption and only a few months are left for its term to end.

"But we have only witnessed corruption peaking under PM Modi. The acts of omission and commission in Rafale deal need thorough investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)," he said.

Seeking a change in the state in the November 28 Assembly polls, Singh also made several attacks on the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government saying that Madhya Pradesh witnesses a farmer suicide every five hours and the state has seen the maximum number of suicides due to unemployment.

Attacking the Modi government, he said "national security is imperilled, women were unsafe and marginalised and weaker sections were facing persecution".

"Our nation is going through extremely challenging times since the last four and a half years. Farmers' distress is all pervading and the youth are suffering from acute joblessness. The common man is suffering from rising prices, notably prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas," he said.

The Congress leader said "unwitting and ill-conceived decisions of demonetisation and a "flawed GST, coupled with tax terrorism, have dealt a body blow to both organised and unorganised sectors"

He said small, medium and micro enterprises were reeling under the adverse and painful effects of the double whammy of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax.

He accused the Modi government of building "a false narrative a day to justify the demonetisation disaster".

"The plain truth and stark reality is that demonetisation is a monumental failure of epic proportions. None of the stated objectives of demonetisation has been achieved. Neither was the three lakh crore rupees of black money confiscated as claimed before the Supreme Court on November 10, 2016 nor was fake currency checked. Stated objectives of ending terrorism and Naxalism have totally floundered," he said.

Singh said demonetisation "was a deliberate and designed attack" on the savings of small and medium businesses, farmers and housewives even as over 120 poor people lost their lives in the bank queues and a parallel market to convert old notes into new notes flourished under the watch of the Modi Government.

He said Modi had failed to fulfil his promises on black money, depositing Rs 15 lakh in the account of every Indian and creating two crore jobs per annum.

Singh said Labour Bureau data shows that only a few thousand jobs were created or added every quarter and the promise of "achhe din" had proved hollow.

"Why has the Labour Bureau Survey for October-December 2017 not been released?" he asked.

He said that 2,81,000 youth with MBA/LLB/BE/PhD degrees applied for 738 peon posts in February this year in Madhya Pradesh and the state could create only about 17,600 jobs every year.

"Maximum number of people in India, who ended their life due to unemployment, belong to BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. Between 2005 and 2015, there has been a 2000 per cent increase in suicide cases in Madhya Pradesh due to unemployment."

He also attacked the Chouhan government over the "Vyapam scam, e-tender scam, onion purchase scam, dal purchase scam, agriculture pump subsidy scam' and said proper investigation and accountability are the first casualties in Madhya Pradesh.

Singh said farmers were in great pain all over India, including Madhya Pradesh, "which has a very high incidence of farmer suicides."

"Between 2004 and 2016, Madhya Pradesh saw nearly 17,000 farmer suicides," he said adding that AK-47 was used against farmers in Raisen.

Singh said the promise of minimum support price was another "jumla".

Singh said the number of farmers covered by crop insurance has gone up only by 0.42 percent but premiums paid to insurance companies have increased by 350 percent.

"Of the nearly 69 lakh farmers enrolled with PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) in the state, only 16 lakh benefitted."

-IANS

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The people of Chennai prefer to give an Indian twist to Thai food as compared to those in Mumbai and Delhi, said a senior chef at The Lotus restaurant in The Park, Chennai.

Hailing from Thailand, the Thai cuisine restaurant's Chef de Cuisine Satit Chaimano, 59, had earlier worked in Thai restaurant's in Delhi and Mumbai.

"Here there should be no or less sweet in the food. The main course should have spicy thick gravy while the dessert should be very sweet. Though people may say they would like to have authentic Thai food, they prefer an Indian twist to the Thai food," Chaimano, who is anchoring the Loy Krathong food festival at The Lotus told IANS.

Serving the colourful coolers - rosella/wild hibiscus juice, bael juice and butterfly pea flower refresher and sugar syrup separately - he said Loy Krathong is one of Thailand's most significant festivals which takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar.

One should try the coolers without the sugar syrup first to taste their natural flavour and if needed, add the sweetener.

Loy Krathong translates to "to float a basket," and comes from the tradition of making krathong or buoyant, decorative baskets which are floated in water bodies or otherwise lanterns used in some parts of the country are floating into the sky.

The significance of floating 'Krathongs' in water bodies is associated with the people of Thailand who have a close connection with water, being an agricultural country.

The rivers and water bodies are known to be like the blood in their veins, and hence to pay respect to the goddess of the river 'Pra Mae Khongkha', the people of Thailand float Krathongs to ask for forgiveness, wave away misfortune, wash away sins and wish luck for the New Year.

Though no special dishes are made as part of the one-day Loy Krathong festival in Thailand, The Lotus offers a special dinner menu to mark the celebration, Chaimano said.

"The festival menu card is elaborate (38 dishes - non-vegetarian and vegetarian) akin to that of a standalone restaurant. It was Chaimano's decision," Executive Chef Ashutosh Nerleker told IANS.

"We call Chaimano our Santa Claus chef as he gets ingredients that are otherwise difficult to get," Nerleker added.

By this time, the tom som pla tu soup (ginger and tamarind soup with mackerel) and the pickled cabbage broth arrived at the table.

The tamarind gives out a gentle sweetish taste while the ginger sort of moderates that. The fishy soup with the soft mackerel is flavour-full.

The cabbage broth, with a good garlic flavour, was also gentle and tasty.

Both the soups were not thick nor were they very thin and were a great way to start the meal.

For those who avoid crab as it involves removing the shell, the crispy soft-shell crab with mango salad is a must try. One can take a bite of crab and the mango salad and savour the taste and flavour. Eaten separately or together, the taste is good.

The vegetarian option is the Thai herb bites with lotus petals instead of the usual betel leaves.

Both the salads - quail eggs and fruits/vegetables - tasted good and are must try items.

For the main course, chef Chaimano served stir fried prawns with asparagus and mushrooms and rice and rice noodles with chicken stew.

Both are flavourful and non-spicy, "as they are made in Thailand", said Chaimano. It is suggested to take the noodles along with chicken.

On the other hand, the turmeric rice with massaman curry tasted good, without a tinge of turmeric taste. The stir fried glass noodles, vegetables, black fungus was also good.

The sweet tooth should surely go for the cantaloupe and tapioca pearls in coconut milk to complete the dinner in a grand manner. There is also the jasmine flavoured milk jelly with fruits.

FAQs:

What: Loy Krathong Food Festival

Where: The Park, Chennai

When: November 16-25; 7 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.

Cost for two: About Rs. 3,000 plus taxes

(Venkatachari Jagannathan visisted The Lotus restaurant at its invitation. He can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, on Tuesday adopted a Joint Communication that sets out the EU's vision for a strategy to strengthen cooperation and the partnership with India.

This Joint Communication replaces the last Commission Communication on India of 2004, recognising that India has emerged as the fastest-growing large economy and has acquired an important geopolitical role.

The Communication aims to strengthen the EU-India Strategic Partnership by focusing on sustainable modernisation and on common responses to global and regional issues.

"India is a key player in our interconnected world", said Mogherini.

"We want to further reinforce our political, economic and people-to-people ties with India in order to address together global challenges, to promote together economic growth and to expand together business opportunities," she said,

"The EU and India are committed to seize opportunities to support and promote effective multilateralism and solutions whenever peace and stability are in danger" added the EU foreign policy chief.

As an emerging global power, India plays a key role in the current multipolar world. To maintain the rules-based global order, therefore, it is vital that the EU and India implementAeffective multilateralismAandAglobal economic governance.

The EU will seek to consolidate dialogue on multilateral issues, and to coordinate positions with India. Cooperation in the framework of the UN, the WTO and the G20 will be of priority.

The EU will seek more coordination between its initiatives and those of its Member States towards India. The EU and its Member States will work together to provide a better understanding of the EU in India. They will also work to make the EU's public diplomacy more effective.

Finally, the Joint Communication proposes that the EU considers the possibility to negotiate with India a Strategic Partnership Agreement, in order to update the 1994 EU-India Cooperation Agreement.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday launched the Institution's Innovation Cell (IIC) here at the All India Council of Technical (AICTE) to foster an attitude of research among students.

So far, more than 1,000 higher institutes have already established IICs on their campuses to "promote innovation", the Ministry said.

"This is a big achievement... After Independence we established research centres separately from the universities. This was a historical mismatch. In all developed countries universities act as research centres. And it can happen only there.

"Therefore, academia and research councils need to work together. Unfortunately, we separate them from each other and each has to work in isolation," Javadekar addressed the gathering at the launch through a video message.

With this establishing of IIC, the country will have a good rank in the global innovation rankings in 2-3 years, he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Despite mounting pressure from investors to step down as chairman as the social media firm faces intense scrutiny on data scandals, has said he has no plans to retire.

In an interview with CNN late on Tuesday, he said this was not the time for him to quit as shares ended at $132.43 -- down 40 per cent from its peak in July.

"That's not the plan. I'm not going to be doing this forever, but I'm not currently thinking that makes sense," said the CEO.

The interview came after the New York Times reported how Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg "ignored warning signs" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm to "dig up dirt" on competitors.

"I do run the company. I am responsible for everything that happens here. I don't think this point was about a specific PR firm; it's about how we act," Zuckerberg said during the interview.

The Times report also suggested that Facebook knew about Russian influence activities on its platform as early as spring 2016.

Facebook hired a firm called Definers Public Affairs to retaliate against or spread inflammatory information about its critics.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook's outgoing Head of Public Policy, has reportedly taken the blame for hiring the Definers.

According to a memo with TechCrunch, Schrage admitted having the company push negative narratives about competitors but denies asking or paying Definers to publish fake news.

Facebook didn't confirm the memo.

In the interview, Zuckerberg said there's no doubt that "we missed something really important" when it came to the Russian interference during the 2016 US election.

"It was not something we were expecting. I wish we understood it before 2016, before the Russians tried to do these information operations in the first place," he added.

Last week, Facebook investors increased pressure on Zuckerberg to step down as Chairman.

According to a report in The Guardian, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which owns a substantial stake in Facebook, "called on Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report".

"Facebook is behaving like it's a special snowflake. It's not. It is a company and need to have a separation of chair and CEO," Kron was quoted as saying.

Another Facebook investor Natasha Lamb from Arjuna Capital said the combined role of chairman and chief executive means that "Facebook can avoid properly fixing problems inside the company.
India and China will discuss their vexed boundary dispute and try to sort out major issues at the 21st round of two-day border talks beginning on Friday in the Chinese city of Chengdu, Beijing said on Wednesday.

The two countries, which fought a war in 1962 and have had several skirmishes since then along their largely undefined 3,488-km border, were locked in a 73-day military stand-off at Doklam, a contested region between China and Bhutan close India's arterial highway where the Chinese were building a road.

The face-off plunged the already testy India-China ties to a new low. The two Asian giants are in a recovery mode and have seemingly made progress in their relationship, especially after the informal summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in April this year.

India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will hold the talks with China's top diplomat and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Beijing's new Special Representative on the boundary dispute.

"... Issue of the border talks, under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have maintained sound growth with ever deepening exchanges and cooperation in all areas," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said here.

He was replying to a question about scepticism about the deliverable of the border talks mechanism.

"Two sides attach great importance to it. The two Special Representatives will have an in-depth exchange of views on border related issues.

"At the same time, will promptly manage differences and uphold the peace and tranquillity of the border areas. The two sides will also exchange views on the major issues in bilateral ties and the international and regional issues of mutual interest," he added.

Geng said the two sides will talk to keep the border peaceful as agreed between Modi and Xi at Wuhan.

"Under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have maintained sound growth with ever deepening exchanges and cooperation in all areas.

"The two sides have maintained close communication and correlation in border related affairs. We have promptly managed differences through dialogue and consultation. The border areas have on the whole maintained stability," the spokesperson added.

Doval and Wang will also discuss other key irritants in bilateral ties.

India is likely to raise its trade deficit with China even if Beijing has promised to give more access to Indian companies to its market.

Beijing's opposition to India's attempt to have the Pakistani terror outfit chief Masood Azhar declared international terrorist at the UN and its "no" to New Delhi's entry into the Nuclear Supplier Group are other issues.

India opposes China's Belt and Road project as one of the routes of its key component - the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - is planned through the Kashmir claimed by Delhi and held by Islamabad.

Despite India's protest, Pakistan and China launched a bus service along the CPEC route this month.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India tops the external agenda priorities of the European Union (EU), Tomasz Kozlowski, EU Ambassador to India, said on Wednesday after the bloc adopted a Joint Communication that sets out its vision for strengthening ties with New Delhi.

"India is on top of our priorities in terms of external agenda," Kozlowski said while addressing the media here.

"Now, we have a clarity on our common interests," he said. "We are proposing to reinforce the EU-India Strategic Partnership."

The European Commission in Brussels, the executive body of the EU and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini on Tuesday adopted a Joint Communication that sets out the EU's vision for a strategy to strengthen cooperation and the partnership with India.

This Joint Communication replaces the last Commission Communication on India of 2004, recognising that India has emerged as the fastest-growing large economy and has acquired an important geopolitical role.

The Communication aims to strengthen the EU-India Strategic Partnership by focusing on sustainable modernization and on common responses to global and regional issues.

"India is a key player in our interconnected world", said Mogherini.

"We want to further reinforce our political, economic and people-to-people ties with India in order to address together global challenges, to promote together economic growth and to expand together business opportunities," she said.

"The EU and India are committed to seize opportunities to support and promote effective multilateralism and solutions whenever peace and stability are in danger," added the EU foreign policy chief.

As an emerging global power, India plays a key role in the current multipolar world. To maintain the rules-based global order, therefore, it is vital that the EU and India implement "effective multilateralism and global economic governance".

The EU will seek to consolidate dialogue on multilateral issues and coordinate positions with India. Cooperation in the framework of the UN, the WTO and the G20 will be of priority.

The EU will seek more coordination between its initiatives and those of its member states towards India. The EU and its member states will work together to provide a better understanding of the EU in India. They will also work to make the EU's public more effective.

Finally, the Joint Communication proposes that the EU considers the possibility to negotiate with India a Strategic Partnership Agreement, in order to update the 1994 EU-India Cooperation Agreement.

In Wednesday's media briefing, Ambassador Kozlowski said the new Joint Communication takes into account India's modernisation priorities.

Describing India as an important international player, he said that in the last few years, both sides have tried to transform their shared values into "clearly identifiable interests".

"We all agree that there is a huge untapped potential in our bilateral relationship," he said.

"Together we have two billion people. We can offer each other a lot."

Kozlowski said that both the EU and India are on the same side of global politics and believe in a multilateral and rules-based international order.

He also said that the EU is committed to working on a comprehensive, balanced and meaningful free trade agreement with India.

Negotiations for a Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) started in 2007 but were put on hold in 2015.

Those in the know say that after India renounced its bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with all countries, investments from European nations are now not protected.

India has terminated all BITs following a new BIT model New Delhi released in December 2015.

The 28 EU member states have now passed on the responsibility of investment protection negotiations to the EU.

Stating that the EU is looking for the most conducive investment conditions, Kozlowski said: "Our assessment of the business environment and ease of doing business in India has improved considerably."

He said that there has also been cooperation through the European Investment Bank (EIB) with 30 different projects being implemented.

"Around 2.5 billion euros have been invested by the EIB in different climate-related projects," the envoy said.

Given the ongoing high concerns over the air quality in Delhi and other Indian cities, he said that air pollution is a challenge for Indian as well as European cities.

"We launched an EU-India project to bring experts and decision-makers from both sides to ease the situation," Kozlowski said.

He also said that both the EU and India are discussing cooperation in maritime security and counter-terrorism efforts.

"For years, we have been able to deploy our naval forces through Operation Atalanta in the Indian Ocean for counter-piracy operations," he said.

"We have surveillance operations in the Indian Ocean and we have offered to share these with India."

Kozlowski also said that both the EU and India are working together on listing of terrorists and terror organisations, particularly through the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) route.

Founded in 1989 to develop policies to combat money-laundering, the FATF's mandate was expanded in 2001 to curb terrorism financing.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Indian mobile manufacturing industry needs a competitive direct tax regime to grow and pose a tough competition to other mobile manufacturing countries, said Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman of the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA).

Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, Mohindroo said the industry body has also given recommendations to the government on the National Policy on Electronics 2018 (NPE) and sought for a competitive direct tax rates, along with a proactive Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime.

"We will have to configure a competitive direct tax regime since we are also benchmarked with China and Vietnam which also offer an extremely competitive direct tax regime," said the letter dated November 16 to the Secretary, Electronics and IT Ministry.

Mohindroo said that there are many countries which want to grow their mobile and electronic equipment industry such as Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa and so on, which can be major competitors for the Indian industry.

Although he acknowledged that the Indian mobile industry is going through difficult times, he noted that globally too the situation is grim with many companies shutting down over the last few years.

The ICEA Chairman further said that the industry body has a vision to create over 50 lakh jobs and 1,800 new factories over the next six to seven years years.

Currently, the number of factories producing mobile handset and accessories stands at 268 and the industry employs 6.7 lakh people, he said quoting a survey by the ICEA.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Software major Infosys on Wednesday said it would create 1,200 jobs and open three innovation hubs in Australia by 2020 to reduce digital skills gap.

"We are creating 1,200 new skilled jobs for graduates and professionals and opening three innovation hubs by 2020 to accelerate digital leadership for our clients in Australia," said the city-based IT behemoth in a statement here.

To meet Australia's growing demand for digital expertise, the $11-billion Indian firm formed an education ecosystem for providing learning opportunities.

"Of the 1,200 jobs, 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from computer science and design. Academic partnerships will be strengthened to attract top graduate talent and ramp up skill building in the country," said the statement.

The hubs will also serve as a platform to enable the company co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and the local governments to speed up innovation and upskilling of talent in emerging technologies and solutions.

"The approach provides us with a foundation to meet rising demand for expertise in areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), user experience, cyber security, digital platforms, big data and cloud," said the statement.

Company's Vice-President for Australia and New Zealand Andrew Groth announced the initiatives to meet the growing demand for digital expertise in the presence of Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews at the company's office in Sydney.

"The announcement is a milestone in our 20 year journey in Australia. As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are committed to accelerating digital skills in the region through skilled jobs, development of hubs and partnerships with academia," said Infosys Chief Operating Officer U.B. Pravin Rao.

The outsourcing firm has recruited 75 graduates so far, with half of them completing induction training for placement on strategic client projects.

"The expansion of our Australian team with innovation hubs are important to help our clients navigate in their digital journey by renewing their core business systems and building new solutions to realise growth," said Groth on the occasion.

In the company's novel initiative, graduates start their learning journey in its Sydney and Melbourne training centres. They can choose from high demand areas including artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, cyber security, cloud and big data.

"Infosys' decision to create 1,200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020 is vote of confidence in our economy and the coalition government's commitment to jobs of the future that a company of Infosys' global standing would make this kind of investment here," said Andrews in the statement.

As education is a collective effort, Groth said the company would work with the government, academia and local communities to help build and shape its next-generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

"As part of our culture of learning and development, we have the world's largest corporate university to provide our people access to on-demand online learning platforms," Groth added.

The announcement of hiring 1,200 techies Down Under came after the company began constructing its US Education Centre on November 16 at Indianapolis in mid-west Indiana state for its employees at a cost of $35 million (Rs 252 crore).

The company committed on May 2, 2017 to hire about 10,000 American techies to bridge the IT skills gap in the US and set up six technology-cum-innovation hubs across North America by 2022-23.

Global clients across the US account for about 60 per cent of the company's software export revenue annually.

--IANS

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The Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) here hosted the semi final round of "ISCEA Ptak Global Case Competition" which recognises supply chain excellence, the university said.

Out of the seven teams that were selected for participation in the final phase of the India round, the team from Xavier School of Management (XLRI) emerged as winner, JGU said in a statement this week.

The final round of the competition in which the regional winners from around the world will participate is scheduled to take place on December 8 in Las Vegas, US.

The International Supply Chain Alliance (ISCEA) awards the Ptak Prize for Supply Chain Excellence.

On the occasion of the India round of the competition at the Jindal Global Business School (JGBS), the institute also hosted a roundtable panel discussion on "Leveraging Blockchain and India's Preparedness" in which Carol Ptak, after who the the Ptak Prize Global Case Competition is named, was introduced by Professor Saroj Koul, Executive Director, Centre for Supply Chain and Logistics Management, JGBS.

"The benefits of Blockchain are huge. We have the potential and opportunity to make the most of it, irrespective of the industry we work in," Professor Rajesh Chakrabarti Dean, JGBS, said while addressing the gathering.

The discussion focused on India's preparedness for faster business growth and in ensuring transparency and cost-effectiveness for consumers.

"How many of us understand PPT - People Process Technology? The scope of Blockchain in payment systems is huge across industries," said Ajay Kapoor, Vice President - Procurement, HSBC Group.

'We all know what Blockchain is. But do we know what Blockchain is not? Blockchain is not bitcoin. We are all lagging behind in terms of technology and the expertise required to understand Blockchain. Let's remember Blockchain is disruptive and adaptation in India will be slow," said Anuj Garg, Director, DIY Blockchain Pvt. Ltd.

The Ptak Prize Global Case Competition is a global contest where top business schools in the world compete.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a video which went viral on social media on Wednesday, Madhya Pradesh state Congress President Kamal Nath is seen asking Muslim workers of his party to ensure "90 per cent polling" in the community-dominated booths to "save" the party from a "big loss".

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was quick to give a communal colour to the video and terms the video as "disgusting and divisive".

The video purportedly shows Nath asking workers to take out the figures from last elections and do a "postmortem" as to why the polling percentage was only 50-60 per cent in the Muslim majority booths.

"Resolve today that you would ensure 80-90 per cent polling in your booths. If we don't get 90 per cent votes of the Muslim community, we may suffer a big loss," he is seen telling the workers.

"...You (Muslim Congress workers) will have to take care of your own society, not just for the Congress but for the whole state," he said.

The meeting where the video was shot apparently took place in October.

Reacting to the video, BJP Spokesman Sambit Patra accused the Congress of indulging in " of appeasement".

"It is absolutely disgusting and divisive. What Kamal Nath is saying is just an extrapolation of what his party President Rahul Gandhi has said during a meeting with Muslim intellectuals that Congress is indeed a party of the Muslims," Patra said in Indore.

Madhya Pradesh will vote on November 28 in a single phase to elect a new Assembly.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a video which went viral on social media on Wednesday, Madhya Pradesh state Congress President Kamal Nath is seen asking Muslim workers of his party to ensure "90 per cent polling" in the community-dominated booths to "save" the Congress from a "big loss" in the upcoming Assembly polls.

He is also seen asking them to take out the last election's figures and do a "postmortem" as to why the polling percentage was 50-60 per cent and not 90 per cent in the Muslim majority booths.

"Resolve today that you would ensure 80-90 per cent polling in your booths. If we don't get 90 per cent votes of the Muslim community, we may suffer a big loss," he is seen telling the workers.

"...You (Muslim Congress workers) will have to take care of your own society, not just for the Congress but for the whole state," he said.

The meeting where the video was shot apparently took place in October.

Madhya Pradesh will vote on November 28 in a single phase to elect a new Assembly.

---IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has told his new cabinet that the Maldives will be a part of the Commonwealth of Nations again after it pulled out in 2016, the President's Office said on Wednesday.

The Ministers were told about the advantages of being a Commonwealth member and that it would open up several opportunities to the Maldivian people, especially for the youth, Xinhua news agency quoted the President's Office as saying.

Following the President's decision, the respective authorities were in the process of setting things in motion for the Maldives to rejoin the Commonwealth, a statement from the President's Office said.

The Maldives first became a member of the Commonwealth in 1982 and left it in 2016.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Mumbai Police have booked film actor Alok Nath on the charge of rape following a complaint lodged by a woman writer-producer over a month ago, an official said here on Wednesday.

The victim had lodged the complaint with Oshiwara Police on October 17 after Nath hit back by filing a defamation case against her in a Mumbai Magistrate Court.

Among other things, the woman named Vinta Nanda had accused Nath of allegedly raping her nearly 19 years ago when they worked together.

Nath had denied all the allegations levelled by the victim and lodged the defamation case demanding Re.1 as damages and a written apology from her.

Earlier this month, the powerful Cine & TV Artistes Association had expelled him after the rape charges came to the fore.

--IANS

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The Swedish government is examining a proposal on tax cuts for foreign film production houses shooting in Sweden, which once approved could open the doors for Bollywood films to be shot in the Nordic country in a big way, Swedish Consul General in Mumbai Ulrika Sundberg said on Wednesday.

Sundberg was in Goa to participate in a special programme, as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman on the sidelines of the ongoing International Film Festival of India.

"There are a lot of opportunities around this... One of the issues is that my tax authorities have not been willing to give them tax cuts for production, but now we have a proposal on the table. I need the new government to take a decision on changing the rules, in which case we will be willing to give tax cuts. That will put us on par with other countries," Sundberg told IANS.

She said that there is a lot of scope to host Indian film production houses in Sweden, known for its stunning locales, and that the synergy is not being tapped currently to the possible extent.

Sundberg further said that there has been a spike in the interest of Indian tourists in Sweden.

"I see the interest is there. I have seen major increase in the years that I have been here. We have seen 30 per cent increase in Indian tourists travelling to Sweden. They are all fascinated by the Northern Lights. They all want to go to the Ice Hotel, they want to see our indigenous people with their reindeers. So the interest is there. Now how you get the Ice Hotel into a Bollywood film, I leave it to Bollywood to decide," she said.

The diplomat also described Bergman as one of the major ambassadors of her country to the world, a man who not only put Sweden on the international film map with his vision but also created a lot of jobs in that country.

"Bergman opened the doors and subsequent producers have capitalised on the platform that he gave them. I think...he gave us the key to understanding that some of the existential questions which he was raising were also relevant for a Japanese person or someone living in the US. That humanity is struggling with the same questions one way or the other...at different times in life," she said.

The film industry, whose leading star was Bergman at that time, was responsible for employment of around 100,000 people in Sweden, she added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday hit out at the Odisha government, saying it has land for beer factory but not for a Paika rebellion memorial.

Pradhan said the Centre has repeatedly requested the state to make available 50 acre land for the construction of memorial at Barunei foothills.

"The state government failed to provide 50 acres of land for the memorial despite repeated requests from the Union government. But, you (the Chief Minister) provided 600 acres for a beer factory for which thousands of trees were cut down in Dhenkanal," said Pradhan.

The Minister was addressing the 119th birth anniversary of former Chief Minister Harekrushna Mahatab here.

Paik rebellion, also known as Paika Bidroha, was an armed rebellion against the British East India Company's rule in Odisha in 1817.

The Centre and state are commemorating 200 years of the rebellion with a series of events.

Pradhan also criticized the state government for not giving permission to install a statue of Harekrushna Mahatab at his village in Agarpada of Bhadrak district.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Niranjan Patnaik also came down heavily on the state government on the Mahatab issue.

"It's really unfortunate that Odisha government is indulging in political vendetta and insulting the great freedom fighter and first Chief Minister of Odisha, Utkal Keshari Harekrushna Mahatab, by taking away the land allotted for his statue. If land is not reallocated by November 27, we will launch a protest against the of malice and vendetta," said the OPCC chief.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 14-month-old child from Pakistan who was born with an unusual heart disease successfully underwent a surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here, authorities said on Wednesday.

According to medical experts from the hospital, the patient's blood receiving chamber on the left side of the heart (left atrium) was hugely dilated and was four times larger than the expected size (called Giant Left Atrium or GLA), which was pressing on the nearby airway structures in the chest.

Giant Left Atrium (GLA) is a rare condition in paediatric population but carries a significant mortality risk. When left atrium increases in size, it causes complications by compressing adjacent structures such as food pipe, spine, pulmonary vessels. These complications are resolved after surgery.

"Also, there was a large hole between the lower chambers of heart (called ventricular septal defect) and the left-sided valve was leaking," said Neeraj Aggarwal, Paediatric Cardiologist at the hospital.

When the patient was brought to the hospital, she weighed only 6.5 kg and faced troubles in feeding properly. The child was having recurrent chest infections and every crawling movement was interrupted due to breathlessness.

"It was a complex and challenging surgery because very few cases of GLA have been reported in children below two years. We operated the child in single stage open heart surgery where the hole was closed, valve was repaired and the GLA was reduced in size," Raja Joshi, Chairman, Paediatric Cardiac Surgery (PCS) said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After getting separated from socialite and reality TV star Paris Hilton, Chris Zylka wants the $2 million engagement ring back.

Zylka proposed to Hilton with the diamond ring in Aspen in January this year, but now as they both have called off their relationship, he wants the ring the back from her possession, reports tmz.com.

According to tmz.com, under Californian law, if she calls off the engagement, he gets the ring back.

"And he wants it back," said some sources.

On Monday, Hilton quoted Marilyn Monroe as she took to Instagram to address her split with her fiance.

She wrote: "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu here on Tuesday to discuss Turkey's detention of US citizens and bilateral ties, said the US State Department.

Pompeo restated his concerns regarding Turkey's "detention of US citizens and locally employed staff," according to a statement released by the department.

The two also agreed on the need to work together to de-escalate the conflict in Syria, said the statement, Xinhua news agency reported.

The US-Turkey ties are undergoing a recovery process after a dispute over Turkey's detention and trial on terrorism charges of US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was released by Turkey last month.

Ankara and Washington also simultaneously announced the decision to remove sanctions on each other's ministers earlier this month, two weeks following Brunson's release.

Pompeo's meeting with Cavusoglu also took place amid ongoing investigation of the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was killed last month at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Punjab Police has arrested one person in connection with Sunday's grenade attack on the Nirankari Satsang Bhawan that left three persons dead, Chief Minister said here on Wednesday.

The arrested person has been identified as Bikramjit Singh, he said.



The second person involved in the attack, identified as Avtar Singh, is still absconding.

The Chief Minister said that the grenade used in the blast was Pakistan made.

According to him, the motorcycle used in the crime has also been recovered.



ALSO READ: Grenade attack on Nirankari religious congregation in Amritsar kills 3

Amarinder said it was a "terror incident" and there was no religious link to it.
Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao has completed shooting of Mikhil Musale's "Made in China".

Announcing the schedule wrap, Rajkummar on Wednesday took to Twitter and wrote: "Schedule wrap for 'Made in China'. What a fun shoot, can't wait to share it with you guys on the big screen."

Along with the tweet, the "Stree" actor also shared an image with his team.

The film is hilarious take on a struggling Gujarati businessman (Rajkummar) and the bizarre journey he undertakes to become a successful entrepreneur.

Actress Mouni Roy is set to play Rajkummar's wife in the movie, which is produced by Dinesh Vijan of Maddock Films.

Also featuring actor Boman Irani, "Made in China" is scheduled to release in August next year.

--IANS

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French automobile group Renault decided to appoint two interim heads of the company to replace Carlos Ghosn, who remains as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer but is "temporarily incapacitated," the company announced in a statement.

During an urgent meeting on Tuesday evening, Renault's Board of Directors resolved that the lead independent director Philippe Lagayette will preside over its meetings on an interim basis and that the Deputy CEO Thierry Bollore will "therefore lead the management team of the Group, having the same powers as Mr. Carlos Ghosn," who was arrested in Japan for alleged embezzlement.

"Mr. Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains Chairman and Chief Executive Officer," said Renault's Board of Directors, adding "the Board is unable to comment on the evidence seemingly gathered against Mr. Ghosn by Nissan and the Japanese judicial authorities." Efe reported.

The Board recalled that the measures adopted are "provisional" and aim to "preserve the interests of the group and ensure the continuity of the operational activities."

Renault's directors asked Nissan on "principles of transparency, trust and mutual respect set forth in the Alliance Charter" to provide "all information in their possession arising from the internal investigations related to Mr. Ghosn."

During this period, the Board will "meet regularly" under Lafayette's presidency to "ensure" the continuity of the alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi, something that had been called into questioned by the outbreak of the scandal.

"The Board endorsed the support expressed by the Nissan management to the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance, which remains the priority of the Group," the memo said.

The solution adopted by Renault comes close to the one demanded earlier on Tuesday by the French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, who considered that Ghosn "is no longer in a position" to continue as the head of the group, but that he has the right to the presumption of innocence.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Superstar Akshay Kumar was questioned by a Punjab Police Special Investigation Team on Wednesday in an alleged deal mediated by him between jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, police sources said.

Inspector General (IG) Kunwar Vijay Pratap, who questioned the actor at the Punjab Police headquarters for nearly 35 minutes along with other SIT members, told media that the SIT was "satisfied" with the Akshay's answers.

"We asked him many questions. He was summoned as there was a chain of events that led to the sacrilege cases and the firing incidents in 2015. We wanted to ask him about those events. He gave answers to all our questions. We are satisfied with his answers," the IG told a news channel.

The questioning of the actor was video-recorded.

Akshay, who landed at the Chandigarh international airport on a chartered flight from Mumbai earlier in the day, drove to the high-security state police headquarters in Sector 9 in Chandigarh and appeared for questioning.

He remained inside the headquarters for almost two hours. When the questioning ended, Akshay was taken away in his vehicle through a side gate of the police premises to help him avoid the waiting media.

The SIT grilled Akshay about the alleged deal, his relationship with the sect leader and Badal. He was also asked if the Dera leader lived in the same locality (society) in Mumbai as his, police sources said.

The actor termed the linking of his name to the entire controversy around the sacrilege cases and the subsequent firing incidents as unwarranted. He maintained that the allegations against him were baseless.

Akshay apparently challenged the SIT officials to show evidence of the allegations against him and not go only by hearsay, an officer told IANS.

Dismissing the allegations, the 51-year-old actor said he had great regard for the Sikh religion and would never do anything to dishonour or hurt it.

Lawyer S.P.S. Sidhu, who accompanied the actor (but not during the SIT questioning) said Akshay was feeling hurt that his name was involved in the entire controversy.

"He has already stated that he did not arrange any meeting nor was he linked to anyone. He was wondering why he had been summoned in the first place," Sidhu told a regional news channel.

Earlier, while coming out of the Chandigarh airport, a visibly happy Akshay told the media in Punjabi: "Tussi vi aao, naal challo" (You too, come along)

The Punjab Police SIT, which is probing sacrilege of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, and subsequent firing on protesters in 2015, had earlier in November summoned the 'Gold' actor as a witness.

Akshay had on Tuesday requested that he be allowed to meet the SIT officials in Chandigarh instead of Amritsar, where he had been originally asked to appear.

He was questioned about his alleged role in brokering a Rs 100-crore deal between the Dera chief, who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Badal in Mumbai in 2015 days before the release of a film of Gurmeet Ram Rahim.

Akshay has denied the allegations, terming them to be "rumours and false statements". "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 path," Akshay had tweeted after he was summoned by the Punjab Police.

On his part, Sukhbir Badal said earlier: "I have never met Akshay Kumar outside Punjab." Badal was questioned by the SIT at the police headquarters on Monday. He termed the questioning as a sham and alleged that the Congress government led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was indulging in "political vendetta".

Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was on November 16 questioned by the SIT headed by Additional Director General of Police Pramod Kumar and IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap.

The senior Badal said he told the SIT that he had not ordered firing on Sikh protesters agitating against the sacrilege incidents in October 2015.

Amarinder Singh had earlier said his government had no role in the summoning of the Badals and the actor by the SIT.

The SIT was set up by the Amarinder government in September to probe the sacrilege cases and the firing ordered on those protesting the sacrilege in October 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal was in power in the state.

Two persons were killed in the police firing in Behbal Kalan village near Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.

--IANS

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A person from West Bengal's West Midnapore district allegedly hacked his mother to death following an altercation on Wednesday, police said.

"Gorachand Murmu, a resident of West Midnapore district's Goaltore allegedly killed his mother Hiramoni Murmu (55) by repeatedly striking her with an axe on Wednesday morning. He has been arrested," an officer from Goaltore police station said.

According to the neighbours, Murmu attacked his mother following a heated exchange of words and later locked himself up inside a room along with the dead body.

"The neighbours heard some loud noise and broke into the house to find the woman's body in a pool of blood. They caught Murmu and informed the police," the officer said.

"The body has been sent for autopsy. The accused will be produced in court on Thursday," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There will soon be direct flight connectivity between Israel's Tel Aviv and India's tourist hub Goa as a step to forge stronger ties between both nations, which completed 25 years of diplomatic relations in 2017.

Ya'akov Finkelstein, Israel's Consul General in Mumbai, made the announcement at the opening ceremony of the 49th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), where Israel is the country of focus.

"Shalom and Namaskar. It's a great honour and pleasure that Israel is the country of focus at IFFI. Israelis love India, specifically Israelis love Goa. That is why Israel Airlines (El Al) will be opening a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Panjim (Goa) very soon so that all the Israelis can come straight to the lovely beaches of Goa and enjoy them," Finkelstein said.

He hoped the tourist flow happened both ways.

"We hope and encourage that these planes will come back to Tel Aviv full with Indian tourists to see our scenes."

In January this year, India-Israel relations got a fillip with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to India. Multiple agreements were signed to boost cooperation.

'Shalom Bollywood' was hosted to take a look at possibilities of collaborations and to invite Indian cinema makers to shoot in the picturesque country.

Finkelstein said: "We love India, we love Goa, we love Indian cinema, which is why when our PM Netanyahu visited Mumbai in January, we made a special event 'Shalom Bollywood' where all top stars, producers and members of Bollywood joined Netanyahu for a lovely evening.

"We invited them to make cinema in Israel. Karan Johar's Dharma Productions shot a part of their film 'Drive' on the beaches of Tel Aviv. We hope this will give a drive to other Indian cinema makers to come and shoot in our lovely country."

He lauded the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's effort in curating a package of 10 Israeli movies for its 'Country in Focus' segment and for inviting a special delegation, including veteran filmmaker Dan Wolman who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at IFFI on Tuesday.

"We have some lovely films and it's a great way to be exposed to our culture," Finkelstein said of the line-up, which will open with "The Other Story" on Wednesday.

Other known films are Academy Award candidates "Footnote" and "Waltz with Bashir" and internationally acclaimed "The Bubble".

Newer films that will be screened are "Unorthodox", "Red Cow", "Working Woman", "Longing", "Redemption" and "Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema".

Lastly, Finkelstein reiterated the hope Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan expressed during Netanyahu's visit: "May cinema further fortify the strength of ties between India and Israel."

(Radhika Bhirani is in Goa on an invitation by IFFI organisers. She can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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Telangana Member of Parliament K. Vishweshwar Reddy who quit the states ruling TRS will be joining the Congress, party sources said on Wednesday.

Reddy on Wednesday met Congress President Rahul Gandhi in the national capital and informed him that he wanted to join the party.

Party sources said Reddy, who represented Lok Sabha from Chevella constituency, will "soon be formally inducted into the Congress".

Dealing a huge blow to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) ahead of the next month's Assembly elections, Reddy on Tuesday announced his resignation from the party as well as Parliament.

In a letter to Chief Minister and party President K. Chandrasekhar Rao, he said that "he was compelled to take the decision".

A grandson of former Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Konda Venkata Ranga Reddy, he had joined TRS on the eve of the 2014 elections and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Chevella in Rangareddy district.

--IANS

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US President Donald on Tuesday said that the CIA had not reached a "definitive" conclusion about who ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite press reports saying that the agency has determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the hit.

The CIA has "nothing definitive" on the crown prince's involvement in the killing, said in a statement released Tuesday, adding that "It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event -- maybe he did and maybe he didn't! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi,"

clearly suggested in his statement that Saudi oil production was a key factor in his decision not to acknowledge the CIA's analysis, noting that after the US, " is the largest oil producing nation in the world." Efe reported.

"They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels -- so important for the world," he said.

The president also said that his decision was made in the "absolute security and safety of America," emphasising that Riyadh is very important to Washington in the "fight against Iran" and maintaining the kingdom as a partner is vital to "our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!"

"Very simply it is called America First!" the statement reads in closing.

Khashoggi, who was a columnist for The Washington Post, died October 2 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to obtain documents enabling him to marry his Turkish fiancee.

Weeks later, the Saudi government acknowledged that he was killed inside the consulate and last Thursday the kingdom's attorney general announced he would seek the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects charged in connection with the journalist's death.

In a press conference in Riyadh, Saud al-Mojeb insisted that the crown prince had not had any prior knowledge of the operation, whose original aim was to bring back to Riyadh.

Trump awaited a CIA report on Tuesday about Khashoggi's murder, which, according to media accounts, contains the conclusion that MbS, as the crown prince is known, had ordered Khashoggi's assassination.

Long a member of the Saudi establishment, became estranged from the government as a result of his criticism of the crown prince and had been living in self-imposed exile in the US since 2017.

In his statement, Trump made light of the CIA's conclusion and even seemed to contest it when he said of the crown prince that "maybe he didn't" have any knowledge of the tragic event, and made it clear he was not planning any punitive measures against related to the case.

"The US intends to remain a steadfast partner of to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said.

"I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction -- and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," he said.

The statement, apparently dictated by Trump and full of exclamation points, begins with his "America First" slogan, followed by a warning that "The world is a very dangerous place!" and a tirade against Iran's activities in the Middle East.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump over her use of personal email for official business, while Democrats in the US House of Representatives announced plans to investigate the matter.

"You're talking about a whole different -- you're talking about all fake news," the president told reporters outside the White House a day after The Washington Post revealed Ivanka's use of the private account for some official business, Efe reported.

"There was no deletion, there was no nothing. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 emails. She had a server in the basement. That's the real story," Trump said, referring to the former secretary of state and his opponent in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's remarks come after media reports on Tuesday that Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to investigate Ivanka Trump's case.

"We launched a bipartisan investigation last year into White House officials' use of private email accounts for official business, but the White House never gave us the information we requested," Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

"We need those documents to ensure that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner (Ivanka's husband and also a White House adviser) and other officials are complying with federal records laws and there is a complete record of the activities of this Administration," Cummings said.

The case is similar to that of Clinton, whose use of personal email led to an FBI investigation and harsh criticism by Trump during the election campaign, and the mogul even proposed jail time for his opponent during the race.

But on Tuesday the president focused on the differences between the actions of Clinton and his daughter.

"They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton," Trump said. "She wasn't doing that to hide her emails."

--IANS

vc

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UN Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, arrived here on Wednesday and headed along with his delegation to downtown in capital Sanaa.

But he made no statements to reporters upon his arrival, Xinhua news agency reported.

On Friday, Griffiths told the UN Security Council that he planned to visit the embattled port city of Hodeidah. He urged the Council to adopt a humanitarian truce before holding peace talks in Sweden within weeks.

A round of talks in Geneva collapsed in September after the Houthi delegation did not attend.

Yemen has been in civil war in the past three years, pitting Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the government of Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition to support the Hadi government.

Houthi rebels have announced an halt to launching missiles at Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

--IANS

mr/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US President has termed CIA's conclusion in the Jamal Khashoggi murder as "not definitive", prompting a Senate Committee to ask Donald Trump for a fresh probe to determine within four months whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had any role in the killing.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday sent a letter demanding a second investigation after Trump earlier in the day said the CIA had not reached a "definitive" conclusion.

Trump defended US ties with Saudi Arabia saying it was clear who ordered the murder, despite press reports saying the agency has determined that Salman ordered the hit as international condemnation of the brutal killing continued.

Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez issued a statement asking for a second probe by the Trump administration after the US President stated earlier in the day that the CIA had not made a "100%" determination on the killing.

Trump acknowledged that the crown prince "could very well" have known about Khashoggi's brutal murder, adding: "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

Khashoggi was killed on October 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Following the President's comments, the Senate Committee called on Trump to focus on a fresh probe specifically on the crown prince so as to "determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation" of human rights.

The senate's request, issued under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, requires a response within 120 days.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Khashoggi's death on rogue agents but denied claims that the crown prince had knowledge of the operation. The US media have reported that the CIA believes Salman ordered the murder.

In an interview on Sunday, Trump told Fox News that he had refused to listen to a recording of Khashoggi's murder provided by Turkey and called it "a suffering tape".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday played down the importance of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman's possible implication in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and said the episode will not affect the steadfast alliance of Washington and Riyadh.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didn't! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Trump said in a statement.

Khashoggi, who was a columnist for The Washington Post, died on October 2 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to obtain documents enabling him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Efe reported.

Weeks later, the Saudi government acknowledged that he was killed inside the consulate and last Thursday the kingdom's attorney general announced he would seek the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects charged in connection with the journalist's death.

In a press conference in Riyadh, Saud al-Mojeb insisted that the crown prince had not had any prior knowledge of the operation, whose original aim was to bring Khashoggi back to Riyadh.

Trump awaited a CIA report on Tuesday about Khashoggi's murder, which, according to media accounts, contains the conclusion that MbS, as the crown prince is known, had ordered Khashoggi's assassination.

Long a member of the Saudi establishment, Khashoggi became estranged from the government as a result of his criticism of the crown prince and had been living in self-imposed exile in the US since 2017.

In his statement, Trump made light of the CIA's conclusion and even seemed to contest it when he said of the crown prince that "maybe he didn't" have any knowledge of the tragic event, and made it clear he was not planning any punitive measures against Saudi Arabia related to the case.

"The US intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said.

"I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction - and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," he said.

The statement, apparently dictated by Trump and full of exclamation points, begins with his "America First" slogan, followed by a warning that "The world is a very dangerous place!" and a tirade against Iran's activities in the Middle East.

--IANS

vc

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan, who is busy shooting multi-starrer period drama "Kalank", got battle scars on his back during one of the action sequences on Wednesday.

The actor shared a picture with scars in his Twitter handle.

The "Student of the Year" actor has been shooting for the film, along with some of the top actors of the industry including Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit, Sonakshi Sinha, Alia Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur for the last few months.

Directed by Abhishek Verman produced by Karan Johar, "Kalank" is slated to release on April 19 next year.

--IANS

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The Ro-Pax ferry service operating between south Gujarat's Dahej and Ghogha in Saurashtra had to be halted on Wednesday afternoon after it developed technical snags and the ship carrying 461 passengers and 91 vehicles had to be tugged away to safety to Ghogha port.

The Ro-Pax ferry, South Korea made "Voyage Symphony", had travelled over three nautical miles from Ghogha when a high-temperature alarm forced the captain to stop the engine.

The captain immediately conveyed the issue to the control office in Ghogha, which sent two tug boats to pull the ship back to the port.

An Ro-Pax vessel is built for freight vehicle transport along with passenger accommodation, whereas Ro-Ro (roll-on/roll-off) ships are vessels designed to carry only wheeled cargo, such as cars, trucks, etc.

According to ferry's Chief Executive Officer Devendra, the 461 passengers aboard the ship were safe and the 91 vehicles on it were in good condition.

"The air-conditioning and similar facilities are fine," he added.

Devendra said things were under control and there was no reason to panic. It could also be a false temperature alarm and this was being checked, he added.

Gujarat Maritime Board CEO and Vice Chairman Mukesh Kumar said: "We are going to use Ro-Ro ferry for the evening service while the Ro-Pax ship is being examined."

Ro-Ro ferry operator DG Seaconnect informed the media that Ro-Pax services have been terminated for Wednesday and Thursday, while only-passenger Indigo One is operational.

The operator said full refund would be paid for the service cancellation.

--IANS

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Accusing the Congress of practising dynasty politics, BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday said a party which has no internal democracy cannot save democracy in the country.

Interacting with youth workers here, he also dismissed Congress' efforts to forge a grand alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and claimed that BJP would again form a government at the Centre with a better majority than it got in 2014.

"What could be the worst example of dynasty that when a Congress worker shouts 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' he was stopped by a Congress candidate. After a few seconds he starts shouting 'Sonia Gandhi Ki Jai'. Those who hesitate in saying 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' have no right to eat the food of the country," Shah said.

He was referring to a purported video that had surfaced in social media in which a Congress worker was seen stopped from raising "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" slogan during the filing of nomination papers by one of the Congress candidates in Rajasthan Assembly polls.

Shah said that as long as dynasty was there in country, youth with potentials can never get an opportunity.

"But in BJP the situation is different where a tea seller can become Prime Minister and a small worker like me can become President of the party. Will it be ever possible in Congress. Unless you belong to a family, you cannot move ahead. Talent and potential do not matter. The party which has no internal democracy, how can it save democracy in the country," he said amidst chants of "Bharat Mata Ki Jai".

Shah claimed that casteism, dynasty and appeasement were almost eliminated from in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but the three cancers were again coming to the fore in Indian politics.

"The election of 2018 and 2019 are against these three which can't be won without support of the youth power," he said.

He said the efforts to forge a grand alliance was "nothing but a deception".

"Even if there is a Mahagathbandhan against us, we will form the government in 2019 with a better majority than in 2014," he claimed.

Taking a jibe at Congress President Rahul Gandhi, he said that these days the opposition party leader was talking about love and affection.

"Some NGO has given Rahul Baba the sentence that he believes in love. Go though the history of Congress. They did not allow former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao's body to enter the Congress headquarters. His family members were forced to perform the last rites in Hyderabad.

"Former Congress President Sitaram Kesri was thrown out of Congress headquarters to pave the way for Sonia Gandhi. On the other side, when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee died, the entire BJP paid him highest regard. This is called 'sanskaar'. Those who took all steps to insult their senior leaders, the word love does not sound good from their mouths," Shah said.

Referring to terrorism, he said that the Modi government has adopted "zero tolerance" policy against terrorism and due to which country's internal security has been strengthened. "The BJP does not practise appeasement politics unlike Congress," he said.

Responding to a query about problems being faced by business and small industries due to hasty implementation of GST, Shah acknowledged that there were initial troubles but the decision was taken in the country's interest.

--IANS

bns/vsc/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day after Chief Minister was attacked with chilli powder at the Delhi Secretariat, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday pointed fingers at the alleging there was a "conspiracy" to eliminate the chief.

Without taking names, Kejriwal said the repeated attacks on him were "planned" and "they want to kill" him.

"It is obvious that the attacks are planned. We are an obstacle in their path. They want to kill me. They are attacking us repeatedly. I feel, in the history of India, there is not even one case where a Chief Minister was attacked four times in two years," he told the media in Sonipat in Haryana.

He added that the attacks were a result of his party doing a "good job" in Delhi.

"They feel if the continues to be in power, people will start questioning them and their credentials," said Kejriwal in an apparent reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Earlier, addressing the media in the capital, his Deputy alleged that the top leadership "planned" the whole attack to "kill" Kejriwal.

Sisodia said since the failed to stop the government from working for the people of Delhi, "it is now trying to kill Kejriwal".

He also said that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who also heads Delhi Police, called up Kejriwal asking him to file a complaint.

"The Chief Minister of Delhi was attacked in the presence of police and he advises us to file a complaint? This insensitive attitude suggests that even Rajnath Singh knew of the plan to attack Kejriwal," Sisodia said.

He also targeted Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal, the in-charge of law and order in Delhi, for not even "bothering about the attack". "He did not even tweet about the attack."

On Tuesday afternoon, Kejriwal was attacked by 40-year-old Anil Kumar Sharma with chilli powder when he stepped out of his office after a meeting at the Delhi Secretariat. Sharma was detained by the immediately after the attack.

Sisodia claimed that Sharma was a BJP worker and had a history of hurling abuses on Kejriwal through his Facebook posts.

"It is written on his Facebook page that he is a member of the BJP Business and according to his identity card he lives near BJP leader Karan Singh Tanwar's house. He hurls abuses on Kejriwal on Facebook and says BJP 'zindabad' in the same post," he said.

"All this proves that Sharma is directly connected to the BJP," said Sisodia, also accusing the of working at the behest of the BJP.

Sisodia said the was giving a clear message that if a person attacked Kejriwal, "he/she will be treated like a VIP and be served tea".
Discussion about wargaming and military history, primarily WWII in North Africa. Also discussion about AFV's and artillery.
Twelve Indians were rescued from a sinking vessel in the Persian Gulf by a French Navy ship on Tuesday, the French embassy said in a statement here.

Those recused were crew members of the Durban Queen bearing a Saint Kitts and Nevis flag. Despite some minor injuries, they are safe and in good health, it said.

The French Navy Cassard-class anti-aircraft frigate, part of Task Force (TF) 55 in the Persian Gulf, was on a patrolling mission and was preparing for replenishment at sea with the USS Kanawha when it intercepted a distress signal from Durban Queen.

The sender indicated that his ship was sinking, the statement said.

"The listing ship was soon spotted at seven nautical miles. Under the operational control of the French Joint Forces Commander in the Indian Ocean (ALINDIEN), the Cassard-class frigate dispatched its aircraft, a Panther from the 36F Flotilla, which had just landed on the helipad after finishing a maritime surveillance sortie," the statement said.

When the helicopter reached the spot, the vessel had capsized minutes ago, forcing its Indian crew to cling to the overturned hull. Moments later, it began sinking.

The chopper with two pilots, a diver and a helihoisting operator began lifting the shipwrecked crew.

"In the first run, four sailors were transported to the nearest vessel, a merchant ship. In the second and the third runs, four people, including the injured, were brought aboard the Cassard and attended to by its medical team," the statement added.

Eight of the crew members, assisted by the Cassard, were sent to the Sea Princess, a cruise ship.

This is the Cassard's second rescue mission in less than seven days in the Indian Ocean maritime zone, the statement added.

In September, a French vessel had rescued injured Indian Navy Commander Abhilash Tomy, whose sailing vessel 'Turiya' was dismasted in South Indian Ocean.

ALINDIEN controls the French forces present in its zone of permanent responsibility, which comprises 14 countries for the terrestrial part, and from the South of the Suez Canal to the western limits of the waters of Myanmar, Indonesia and Australia for the maritime part (CZM).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A significant proportion of suicidal teens treated in a psychiatric emergency department said that watching the popular web-series "13 Reasons Why" had increased their suicide risk, a US study has found.

The hit drama, which centres around a 17-year-old student who recorded cassettes that detail 13 reasons why she took her own life, is widely popular among teens.

The show has raised concerns among mental health experts about its potentially negative impact on vulnerable youths.

Researchers from University of Michigan in the US asked suicidal adolescents whether the show had contributed to suicide-related symptoms.

The findings, published in the journal Psychiatric Services, add to the body of literature about how at-risk teens may be reacting to the programme.

Of the 87 youths who participated in the survey between 2017 and 2018, half had watched at least one episode of the show, mostly teens ages 13 to 17. Among the 43 who had watched it, about half (21) said it heightened their suicide risk.

"Our study doesn't confirm that the show is increasing suicide risk, but it confirms that we should definitely be concerned about its impact on impressionable and vulnerable youth," said Victor Hong, medical director of psychiatric emergency services at Michigan Medicine.

"Few believe this type of media exposure will take kids who are not depressed and make them suicidal. The concern is about how this may negatively impact youth who are already teetering on the edge," Hong said.

The idea for the study stemmed from anecdotal narratives shared among colleagues at different children's hospitals, said Hong, noting that providers were hearing more teens being treated for suicidal symptoms talk about "13 Reasons Why."



The study also found that the majority of surveyed youth who had seen the show viewed it alone and were more likely to discuss their reactions with peers (81 per cent) than with a parent (35 per cent).

Last year, a study showed that the internet searches for 'how to commit suicide' spiked right after the release of the series.

A second season of "13 Reasons Why," which debuted in May, opens with a disclaimer urging young viewers to watch the show with a trusted adult -- and the importance of seeking help.

Still, very few parents in the study sample had watched the series themselves; some were unaware that their child had watched it.

The findings clash with a previous Netflix-commissioned report that found 71 per cent of youths in a U.S. community sample talked to a parent about the series, researchers said.

Hong said this possibly indicates some differences in the ability or desire of youths at high risk of suicide to have such discussions with their parents.

"The data from our sample of teens demonstrated that kids who were at high risk of suicide did not reach out to adults," he adds. "They mostly watched the show alone or talked to friends, but they weren't talking to parents, teachers or school counsellors.

Of the teen viewers who said they believed the series increased their suicide risk, the majority strongly identified with the lead female character, Hannah Baker.

Further research is needed to accurately gauge how media content that focuses on youth suicide can influence the mental health and suicide risk of its viewers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two persons have been arrested for allegedly duping people through a fake logistics company, police said Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Rajesh alias Nihal Singh and Rajkumar, had also fraudulently got their company listed on online search portal JustDial, they said.

The two were arrested on Tuesday, days after a software engineer, who recently relocated to Pune from Noida, approached the police alleging fraud and blackmail by Rose Packers and Movers.

"The complainant was told by the packers and movers that his household items worth over Rs 10 lakh would be delivered in Pune on October 28, four days after the pick up. But even after 20 days, they did not deliver it," a police official said.

The complainant also claimed that when he contacted the driver of the truck in which his items were being transported, he demanded extra money and threatened to destroy the items if he did not pay up.

Rajesh and Rajkumar have been booked under section 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code, the police said.

"The accused used their links in JustDial to get their phone number listed on the portal. They also used the cover of another popular packers and movers service to appear as a professional service provider. After collecting the items, they would blackmail people to cough up more money," the official said.

The duo has been remanded in judicial custody, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three children were killed when an old mortar shell they were playing with exploded in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region on Wednesday, police said.

The incident occurred in Matta Tehsil of Swat valley - once the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban militants.

The children were playing with the mortar shell in a field, unaware of it being a bomb, when it went off injuring five of them, police said.

While three of the injured succumbed to their injuries in a hospital, two others are receiving treatment, police added.

The police said they have launched an investigation after collecting evidence from the site of the blast.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: Three people including a vice-principal of a private college here were arrested on Wednesday in connection with alleged illegal sale of cloned fingerprints of faculty of various educational institutions for faking biometric attendance reports, police said.

Ramakrishna, pursuing regular PhD and simultaneously working as an associate professor in a college in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, along with his associate Sriram Prasad and the vice-principal Sudarshan Reddy were nabbed after police busted the gang involved in fingerprint cloning, they said.

The accused produced the false online biometric attendance to the officials of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad and cheated them, a release from Hyderabad Police said.

A total of 80 cloned fingerprints of faculty members of the private educational institute were recovered from the accused, it said.

In a bid to ensure attendance of faculty, a biometric online attendance system was launched by JNTU and the Telangana government.

Subsequently, it was linked to the JNTU server.

The accused collected the original fingerprint impressions of faculty members and prepared the cloned fingerprints using different chemicals for which they charged Rs 4,000.

Further investigation is on.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A powerful blast at a mosque in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province's Chaman area on Wednesday injured at least seven people, including the prayer leader, according to police.

The blast occurred at the time of evening prayers in the mosque, which is located on Taj Road in Chaman, bordering Afghanistan.

At least seven people, including the mosque's prayer leader, have been injured as a result of the blast, which rocked the entire neighbourhood, Dawn reported.

The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where a state of emergency has been declared.

A video shared on Twitter appears to show the damage caused by the explosion in the mosque.

Authorities have cordoned off the site of the explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.

Chaman is considered a sensitive town in Balochistan as it shares a border with Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province.

Security was tightened on Wednesday across the country to avert any tragedy on the occasion of the Eid Milad-un Nabi, marking the birth anniversary of the Prophet.

Mobile phone services were shut down in major cities to prevent terror attacks during the celebrations, in the wake of a suicide attack in neighbouring Afghanistan on Tuesday that killed over 50 people, mostly clerics.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Aam Aadmi Party staged a protest near the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters here on Wednesday against the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and termed the Delhi Police a "biased force" which was protecting "lunatics and anti-social elements".

Party volunteers raised slogans against the BJP and its leaders marched from the AAP office, but were stopped at a barricade near the BJP office.

On Tuesday, a man flung chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his office at the Delhi Secretariat. The chief minister's spectacles broke, but he was not injured in the attack.

At the protest, AAP national secretary Pankaj Gupta alleged that the attacks on the party would intensify in coming days since the BJP was baffled, which, he added, was evident by deletion of 15 lakh voters' names in Delhi.

MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj called the Delhi Police a "biased force", which was protecting "lunatics and anti-social elements", making the chief minister and his ministers vulnerable.

Party leader Raghav Chadha said the attack on Kejriwal was an attack on every Delhi citizen. "The Delhi Police is useless as it failed to protect Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. How will the police protect the people when it cannot protect their chief minister?" he asked.

Other leaders like Dilip Pandey, Atishi, and Rituraj also slammed the BJP and the Delhi Police over the attack.

Pandey said the people of Delhi would teach the BJP a lesson in the 2019 election for its "arrogance".

Earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the BJP wanted Kejriwal to be eliminated to stop him from working for people of Delhi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UAE will host the second edition of India-UAE Strategic Conclave on November 27 that will initiate dialogues to widen the scope of bilateral investments between the two countries.

The day-long conference to be held in Abu Dhabi will be inaugurated by the Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Suri.

Key business leaders and senior government officials will come together to lay the blueprint for greater economic cooperation between the two countries, a statement released here said.

It will explore the possibilities of economic gains through boosting both the countries' status as major trade hubs and key gateways to regional and international markets, the statement said.

The conclave aims to boost the connection between the business communities of the two countries.

"We are glad to conduct the second edition of India-UAE Strategic Conclave in Abu Dhabi this year. This will further enhance the insights from the inaugural edition by identifying key areas for more investment flows between the two nations," Deepak Lamba, President, Times Strategic Solutions Limited, said.

This conference will enhance the connection between the governments and business communities of both countries to forge new partnerships and explore the possibilities of deeper cooperation in sectors of mutual interest, Lamba said.

Since India and UAE are two of the world's largest and fastest growing emerging markets, the conclave will provide a platform to highlight investment potential in India and the UAE by creating awareness among investors about exciting opportunities, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
People of Afghanistan must have a say in creating sustainable peace in the war-torn country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

This was the message conveyed to the leaders of Afghanistan, and other stakeholders during the recent visit of the Special US Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad to Afghanistan, the UAE, and Qatar.

Pompeo said that the US will continue to work with all the interested parties to support and facilitate an inclusive peace process for Afghanistan.

"In every one of his meetings, Ambassador Khalilzad stressed that all Afghans must have a say in creating a sustainable peace for Afghanistan. We will continue to work with all interested parties to support and facilitate an inclusive peace process," Pompeo said.

Khalilzad's first and last stop was Kabul, where he met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah, and other Afghan stake holders to facilitate a peace process between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, he said.

Pompeo said that during that the visit to Kabul, Ambassador Khalilzad met with men and women active in Afghan civil society and peace efforts, members of the media, and other governmental and non governmental organisations.

In a separate statement, the State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert "strongly condemned" the attack in Kabul at a religious gathering that killed at least 40 and wounded over 60 civilians.

"We send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims. This shameless act comes as the Afghan people attempt to celebrate Milad-un-Nabi in peace, and reveals the cowardice and cruelty of those who perpetuate violence in Afghanistan," she said.

She said that the US remains committed to peace and stability in Afghanistan.

"The United States remains committed to peace and stability in Afghanistan, and stands by the people of Afghanistan who want peace and a future free from these horrific acts of violence," Nauert said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar appeared Wednesday before a special investigation team, dismissing allegations that he arranged a meeting between former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and controversial godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

The five-member SIT formed by the Punjab government is probing police firing at Faridkot's Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura on people protesting over the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib.

Two people had died in the police firing in 2015.

The self-styled godman's supporters were alleged to be involved in cases of desecration, after pages of the religious text were found torn and scattered.

Akshay Kumar's counsel later told reporters that the actor denied having ever met the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in two rape cases.

The SIT questioned the actor as his name figured in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on the sacrilege incidents, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August.

It was alleged that the actor brought together Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and the then deputy chief minister to ensure the release in Punjab of MSG-2, a controversial movie made by the sect chief.

The actor was quizzed for about two hours at the Punjab police headquarters in sector-9 here.

He told the SIT that he never met Dera Sacha Sauda chief in his entire life. So the question about any meeting does not arise, the actor's counsel Sant Pal Singh Sidhu told reporters.

He said the claim by former MLA Harbans Jalal before the Ranjit Singh Commission about the meeting are concocted.

Even the Commission report has not placed any reliance on these claims saying these are based on 'hearsay', the counsel said.

Akshay Kumar has not been asked to appear again before the SIT, Sidhu said.

The counsel said the actor told the SIT members that he respected all the religions, particularly the Sikh religion.

The counsel was not present with Akshay Kumar when he was quizzed.

Even before his SIT appearance, the actor had denied mediating between the Shiromani Akali Dal president and the sect chief.

The former MLA wrote to the Ranjit Singh Commission on October 9, 2017, claiming that a meeting took place between Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of MSG-2.

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, in a 2007 blasphemy case.

After arriving at Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab police headquarters, reaching there at about 9.30 am.

He refused to talk to the media waiting at the airport on his arrival and before his departure.

Heavy security was in place outside the Punjab police headquarters, officials said.

The police had earlier asked the actor to appear before the probe team in Amritsar, but later gave him to the option to come to Chandigarh.

The SIT has already questioned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

On Monday, Sukhbir Singh Badal also told the SIT that he had never met Akshay Kumar outside Punjab.

The actor had also issued a denial on November 12 over the alleged meeting.

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, the actor had tweeted.

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, he said.

He had then dared anyone to prove it otherwise.

The SIT was set up by the state government in September, soon after it issued a notification taking over some of the desecration-related cases from the Central Bureau of Investigation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


The Centre has told the that all allegations of violation of the foreign contribution regulation law were being probed without any bias and even Union Transport Minister was being investigated for alleged contravention of

The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao by the (MHA) in response to a PIL which has sought setting up of a body or tribunal, independent from government influence, for enforcement of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 2010.

The petition was filed by NGO, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), which in its plea has mentioned that one of its members had made a complaint of violation against Gadkari and no action had been taken.

In its affidavit filed in response to the plea, the MHA has said,"In the case of complaint against Nitin Gadkari, the same is under investigation and the petitioner (ADR) has also been requested to provide substantial evidence, if any."



"The present system of administering FCRA, 2010 is efficient, just and fair and there is no need for establishing any independent body or tribunal for enforcing it," it has said.

The MHA has also said that setting up a panel or tribunal for enforcement of FCRA, 2010, would require an amendment of the statute, which was in the domain of the legislature and not the judiciary.

It further said that the NGO was seeking setting up of an independent body or tribunal as it apprehends abuse of by the government, but it has not mentioned any instances of abuse of the foreign contribution regulation law.

The ministry, in its affidavit, has sought dismissal of the PIL by claiming that the plea was a "motivated petition" on behalf of NGOs whose FCRA registrations have been denied for renewal or cancelled due to violation of provisions



The government said that so far it has cancelled the FCRA registration of 18,867 NGOs for violating various provisions of FCRA 2010 and the rules made under it.

The NGO has sought creation of an independent body to implement the FCRA on grounds that conflict of interest hampered implementation of its provisions by the government, as political parties which allegedly violate this law, were part of the ruling establishments sometime or the other.
An American national was killed by members of a protected and reclusive tribe in the Andamans, possibly with arrows, when he tried to enter the North Sentinel Island, police said Wednesday.

John Allen Chau, 27 was killed by the Sentinelese Tribes on November 17, they said.

"His body was most probably buried in the sands last week," SP (Headquarters) and PRO of Andaman and Nicobar Police, Jatin Narwal, told PTI.

"His death was caused by traditional weapons but we cannot specifically say whether he was killed by arrows or spears. The details will come out in course of detail investigation," he said.

When the US Embassy here was reached for a response, its spokesperson said, "We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State."



"When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment," the spokesperson said in the email response.

The Sentinelese people are among the tribes that survived the tsunami of 2004 without any help from the outside world. For the 2011 Census, enumerators could locate only 15 Sentinelese people - 12 men and three women. However, their numbers could be anything between 40 and 400, according to experts.

P C Joshi, professor of Department of Anthropology at Delhi University, said the tribe has remained completely isolated from the outside world and despite efforts of the Anthropological Society of India which has tried to contact them indirectly by leaving bananas, coconuts for them, they have failed to make contact.

"We have tried but the tribe has not shown any interest. They are the most private of the tribes in the Andamans. They are aggressive and are known to attack outsiders with arrows and stones. I do not know what made this American visit the island, but this tribe has stayed in isolation for so long that I do not blame them for what they saw as an intrusion and a threat," said the professor.

In 2006, two Indian fishermen, who had moored their boat near North Sentinel to sleep after poaching in the waters around the island, were killed when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore.

While the timeline leading to Chau's death is still not clear, the fishermen who took him near the island have told the police that he had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands five times earlier. He had expressed a desire to meet the Sentinelese Tribe, whose name is derived from that of the island they inhabit, Sentinel, which is at a distance of 102 km from Port Blair.

Chau had hired a fishing dinghy from the Chidiyatapu area and reached close to the island on November 16, from where he travelled in his own canoe. He had made a failed attempt to reach the island on November 14 as well, they said.

His absence was first red flagged by the fishermen who took him near the island. They informed Chau's friend about his trip who in turn informed the US Consulate.

Two FIRs have been registered with Humfrigunj police station under IPC sections 302 and 304 and seven fishermen who took the American to the island have been arrested, police said.

Joshi said it was a cause of concern that this island, where the Sentinelese have lived for hundreds of years with no outside contact was recently opened for visitors.

"These people are not specimens for tourists to see. They are extremely vulnerable to diseases and any contact might lead to their extinction. We cannot expose them for a few dollars. We need to respect their choice," said Joshi.

In a major step earlier this year, the government excluded this island and 28 others in the Union Territory from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime till December 31, 2022.

The lifting of RAP meant that foreigners could be allowed to visit these islands without permission from the government.

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Automobile major Tata Motors Ltd and a Chhattisgarh-based dealer of the company have been directed by the apex consumer commission to pay over Rs 41,000 to a customer for refusing to repair a vehicle which was under warranty.

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) said that as per practice, the dealer repairs the vehicle under warranty but the manufacturer was also "equally responsible" for it.

The NCDRC, while modifying the state commission's order which had exonerated Tata Motors from paying any compensation, asked the manufacturer and its dealer to pay Rs 41,568 jointly and severally to Chhattisgarh-resident Neeraj Tiwari within a month.

"I agree with the point raised by the petitioners (dealer) that the warranty has been issued by the Tata Motors and they are responsible for allowing repairs under the warranty," NCDRC's presiding member Prem Narain said in his order.

Tiwari had purchased a truck from an authorised dealer of Tata Motors.

Though the vehicle was under warranty, the dealer refused to repair certain defects that had occurred in the truck following which Tiwari had approached the district consumer disputes redressal forum.

After the district forum dismissed his complaint, he had moved the state commission which had allowed the appeal and had asked only the dealer to pay the compensation.

The state commission had further said since there was no manufacturing defect in the vehicle, there was no deficiency on the part of the manufacturer.

The dealer had then approached the apex consumer commission contending that if there was any responsibility for repairing under the warranty, it will be on the manufacturer and they should be liable to bear its expenses.

Tata Motors had contended before the apex commission that due to negligence of the customer in maintaining the vehicle properly, the warranty already stood revoked.

It had said that when there was no manufacturing defect, the manufacturer is not responsible for repair under warranty.

To this, the apex commission said that the state commission had "erred" in totally exonerating Tata Motors of its liability under warranty.

"Clearly, the dismissal of the complaint against the manufacturer is justified only to the extent that the State Commission has not found any manufacturing defect in the vehicle. However, so far as the warranty is concerned, Tata Motors is equally responsible as the petitioner (dealer)," it said.

The commission added that in practice, it is the dealer who repairs the vehicle under the warranty and then settles claim with the manufacturer under terms of their agreement.

"In this case, the petitioners (dealer and manufacturer) refused to repair the vehicle under the warranty and therefore, they are equally liable for dishonouring the warranty," it said.

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The BJP alleged Wednesday the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was "scripted" by his Aam Aadmi Party and that it was its "modus operandi" before every election to gain "sympathy".

Addressing a conference here, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari listed the attacks on the AAP chief in the run-up to the 2013 Delhi Assembly election and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

On Tuesday, a man flung chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his office at the Delhi Secretariat. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) described it as "politically motivated".

"The attack on the CM was scripted by the AAP. Before the incident, the man who attacked Kejriwal was in touch with the CM's office. He gained entry into the Delhi Secretariat after the CM's office asked for it...It is the AAP's modus operandi before every election to seek people's sympathy," Tiwari told reporters.

The BJP leader termed the incident as another "drama" ahead of the Lok Sabha election to be held early next year.

The Delhi Police registered a case against Anil Kumar Sharma at the IP Estate police station, a senior police officer said.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged the BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Kejriwal and that the opposition party wants the AAP chief eliminated to stop him from working for the people.

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The Polyglot Theatre of Australia has brought their 'Ants' show on the grounds of the Victoria Memorial Hall grounds here.

'Ants' is an interactive performance which has giant ants bringing children together in a gentle and intriguing landscaping project.

Polyglot Theatre, Australia's leading creator of experiential, interactive and installation theatre for children performed the show on the sprawling ground of the Victoria Memorial on the evenings of Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Ants creates an imaginative world that needs cooperation and kindness to exist. It is exciting to think of this work going to India...in another culture, in a large city, with children who might not have experienced participatory theatre before, where ways of being and expectations will differ," Polyglot Theatre's artistic Director Sue Giles said.

In a statement, Australia's High Commissioner to India, Harinder Sidhu, said "Polyglot Theatre is encouraging kids to turn the simplest things into extraordinary creations. We are thrilled to present this unique performance, which will delight people of all ages."



Polyglot's tour to India is supported by the Australian government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Victorian Government.

'Ants' will now travel to Chennai for performances there on November 23 and 24.

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Award-winning Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam was released from prison Tuesday after more than 100 days behind bars, in a closely watched freedom of speech case.

The 63-year-old Alam was arrested on August 5 for making "false" and "provocative" statements on Al Jazeera television and Facebook during student protests.

He was freed from Dhaka's main jail Tuesday after being granted bail last week.

Alam told AFP he hoped his release would "signal freedom for many others" also detained during the massive student demonstrations.

"It is a fantastic feeling to be free in a free country, breathing free air. But I hope for freedom for everyone else," he said.

He was held under controversial internet laws which critics say have been wielded by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to stifle dissent and harass journalists.

Alam spoke briefly to reporters after he came out of prison to describe conditions inside jail, Alam's close associate Rezaur Rahman told AFP.

The photographer had previously said he was badly beaten while in custody.

Although Alam was granted bail on Thursday last week, he had to wait another five days to be set free as the prosecution moved to appeal against the bail order.

He had earlier applied unsuccessfully for bail four times.

Alam, whose work has appeared widely in global media and who founded the renowned Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, faces a maximum 14 years in jail if convicted.

His lawyers have argued that Alam's detention was "a clear violation" of his fundamental rights under Bangladesh's constitution.

The photographer's arrest triggered international protests -- with rights groups, Nobel laureates and academics calling for his release -- and followed a series of mass rallies this summer after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus.

The massive protests evolved into broader demonstrations against Hasina, who will seek a third consecutive term next month, and her Awami League party.

Alam told Al Jazeera at the time that the protests were the result of pent-up anger at corruption and an "unelected government... clinging on by brute force".

He was arrested the same day, with many other protesters held on similar charges as authorities cracked down on demonstrators.

In reaction to Alam's release, Amnesty International said Tuesday Bangladesh authorities must immediately drop charges against him and "uphold its international commitments to protect the right to freedom of expression".

"Shahidul Alam is a bold representation of Bangladesh through his lens. He should not have been detained at the first place," said Saad Hammadi, Amnesty International's Regional Campaigner for South Asia.

Human Rights Watch accused Bangladesh of targeting activists and journalists in the wake of the protests instead of prosecuting those who attacked students with fists and rods.

Michelle Bachelet used her first statement as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to raise the issue of attacks on journalists in Bangladesh. In recent weeks, Hasina has been accused of stifling dissent further by ratifying a controversial new digital-security law.

And a prominent critic of the government was arrested for defamation last month, days after he helped form an opposition coalition.

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Ingmar Bergman was a master craftsman in every sense of the term and journalist-critic Jannike Ahlund Wednesday said the legendary Swedish filmmaker was always ready to organise an act if need be, even when it came to his personal life.

This year the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is celebrating the legacy Bergman through 'Wild at Heart Master in His Craft: Retrospective section of Ingmar Bergman' as 2018 marks the 100-year anniversary of the iconic filmmaker's birth.

The In-Conversation session was moderated by Sunit Tandon and featured Ahlund and Ulrika Sundberg, Consul General, General Consulate of Sweden in Mumbai.

At the event, Sundberg recalled Bergman's trip to India and the mutual respect he and Satyajit Ray had for each other.

"There is also an Indian connection that comes to mind. First, that he came to India in 1947 for his film 'A Ship Bound for India" and second is his relationship with Indian auteur Satyajit Ray.

"The professional respect and friendship between these two legends is widely known and spoken of. In 1964, Ray presented him with the Selznick Golden Laurel Award for his film 'Winter Light'," she added.

Bergman, famous for his films on themes of existential problems of the human race, wrote two autobiographical works: "Laterna Magica" and "Images: My Life in Film", which were more interesting than his films, said Ahlund.

"It's extremely boring when you put the film opposite to the person's autobiography. There are many quotation marks Is this true? Is this his life? When you study Bergman, when you interpret his films, if you use his own writing, his own description and views, he is the most untrustworthy source of information you can have. He does what his forte is all the time - as an artiste, she said.

Ahlund even goes on to call Bergman's three lies in one of the autobiographies, adding these books should be called novels as they make for a fascinating read.

It's a great read. Fascinating but in the first sentence there are three lies,



which are - His mother delivered him after she had the Spanish flu, she did not. That he was baptised acutely fearing that he would die - he was not and there was something else, she said as the audience erupted with laughter.

Bergman was obsessed with his films and that was his life, Tandon said.

Ahlund added to it, saying the director-writer could be called a workaholic, who regularly paid its price in his turbulent personal life.

He checked himself into a private hospital in Stockholm. He had really worked himself to exhaustion, she recalled.

The filmmaker married five times to - Else Fisher, Ellen Lundstrm, Gun Grut, Kbi Laretei, Ingrid von Rosen -- and had nine children from these marriages.

Tandon pointed out how when Bergman once morosely said to one of his children that I was never much a father to you, the child's reply was: You were never a father at all!



He managed somehow to stay friendly with the wives, the fiancees, but the children did not see much of him, Ahlund said.

"His youngest son Daniel - who also directed a feature from one of Bergman's scripts called Sunday's Children' was drawn into the cinema world... Daniel has said that This was the only way I could ever meet my father'. So, children were not a preoccupation for Bergman.

Sundberg said Bergman is more of a giant in international cinema context than at back home in Sweden.

In his centennial year, now it has really been brought into focus at home base in Sweden that how much of a giant he was in the international context.

Most of the issues, the themes he raises in films are really timeless. So we will all always be interested in the lack of human relationships and communication, which really is his number one overall theme. - whether it appears between parents and children or married couple... or individuals and God or absent God as it were, she said.

The retrospective on Bergman was opened by his film "Wild Strawberries" and other six films will also be screened eight-day IFFI.

A documentary on Bergman titled "Bergman Island", which presents the master behind the camera, is one of the movies being screened at the festival, which runs till November 28.

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BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday reiterated that his party was committed to building a Ram temple in Ayodhya and it would not change its stand.

He also exuded confidence of forming next government at the Centre in 2019 with a majority higher than that of the present one despite the Congress' bid to forge a grand alliance.

Shah made the remarks while interacting with youths at a function here. He targeted the Congress and asked youths and party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the state for its unhindered progress.

"The BJP is committed to building the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Shah said, adding there was no question of diluting or changing the party's stand.

The BJP president, however, said the matter was in the Supreme Court and the party wanted a 'nyayik samadhan' (judicial resolution) of the dispute.

Shah accused the Congress of talking of forging 'mahagathbandhan' to confuse the voters and urged the BJP workers and supporters not to be swayed by the Congress' propaganda.

During his interaction with the youths at Jaipur's Tagore School auditorium, the BJP president fielded questions from participants present there as well at six other locations in Bharatpur, Ajmer, Kota, Jodhpur and Udaipur.

Shah also highlighted the work of the state and the Union governments and the BJP's vision for the youths and development.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the party's state unit president Madan Lal Saini and other leaders were also present in the programme.

Later during the day, Shah held a roadshow in Bikaner in support of the party candidates. Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present in the roadshow from Jassusar Gate to Jungarh Fort.

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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Wednesday accused the BJP-led NDA government of converting the Central Bureau of Investigation into a "collection bureau" and damaging the independence of the Reserve Bank of India.

The state government had recently withdrawn the "general consent" accorded to the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct raids and carry out investigations in the state.

"An official of the CBI himself revealed the Prime Ministers Office's interference in the agency's functioning. The official filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on the interference of (National Security Adviser) Ajit Doval and the Union Law secretary," the CM said, referring to CBI DIG Manish Kumar Sinha's petition in the apex court levelling allegations against various top functionaries in the Alok Verma case.

A Telugu Desam Party release said Naidu made these remarks during a teleconference with party leaders Wednesday.

Hitting out at the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, the TDP supremo accused it of converting the CBI into a 'collection bureau' and damaging the independence of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

"Rafale is the country's biggest defence scandal. The BJP is pushing the country's security into peril. There is not one great programme that the Modi government has initiated in the 54 months of its rule," he said.

He alleged that the Centre failed in controlling prices of petrol and diesel while the value of rupee depreciated tremendously.

"All this has left the country's economy in shambles while common people are forced to bear undue (financial) burden, leading to a decline in their purchasing capacity," Naidu said.

Naidu, who is striving to bring the opposition parties on a single platform to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, asked the TDP rank and file not to claim that he would become the prime minister.

"I have made AP number one in every aspect. My capabilities should be useful for the state only as I want it to become number one in the world," he said.

The state government withdrew the "general consent" accorded to the CBI to conduct raids and carry out investigations in the state due to the recent allegations against the top officials of the country's premier investigation agency, state Deputy Chief Minister (Home) N China Rajappa recently said.

BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao had alleged that the Chandrababu Naidu government's decision was a "clear malafide exercise of power" to ensure that its "corruption" was not exposed.

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Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday alleged that the BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the opposition party wants the latter eliminated to stop him from working for the people.

On Tuesday, a man flung chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat. The chief minister's spectacles broke but he was not injured in the attack.

The attacker, identified as Anil Kumar Sharma, has been arrested.

"(Union) Home Minister Rajnath Singh called Kejriwal and asked him to file a complaint in the attack on him. Is this the way an attack on a chief minister should be probed?" Sisodia asked at a press conference.

Sharma's Facebook profile shows that he is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said.

The BJP had termed the incident as "drama" by Kejriwal, with its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari demanding a high-level probe into it.

"After failing to stop Kejriwal from working for the people of Delhi, now the BJP wants him eliminated. The entire series of events indicate that top BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Kejriwal," Sisodia claimed.

The deputy chief minister also lashed out at the Delhi Police, alleging it was acting on the behest of the BJP and trying to save the culprit.

Even 24 hours after the attack, Delhi's Lt Governor has not reacted on it. This means that he also knew about it, Sisodia alleged.

Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has said it will hold a protest at the BJP's national headquarters on Wednesday against the attack on Kejriwal.

Later on Tuesday, the Delhi Police registered a case against Sharma at the IP Estate police station.

However, no formal complaint was received from the secretariat, a senior police official had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday alleged that the BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the opposition party wants the AAP leader "eliminated".

On Tuesday, a man flung chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat. The chief minister's spectacles broke but he was not injured in the attack.

The attacker, identified as Anil Kumar Sharma, has been arrested.

"(Union) Home Minister Rajnath Singh called Kejriwal and asked him to file a complaint in the attack on him. Is this the way an attack on a chief minister should be probed?" Sisodia asked at a press conference.

Sharma's Facebook profile shows that he is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said.

"The Facebook profile of the accused and his comments after being apprehended yesterday makes it amply clear that he is an member of the BJP.

"His profile photo is of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his entire social media presence is filled with vitriolic hate against Arvind Kejriwal," Sisodia said in a statement.

A purported video of Sharma's interrogation was shown during the press conference.

"The bonhomie between the accused and the interrogators can be seen," Sisodia said lashing out at the Delhi Police, which the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has termed a "biased force".

In the past four years, four attacks have been made on the chief minister and the Delhi Police has not even filed a charge sheet in the first case, the deputy chief minister alleged.

The Aadhaar card of the accused also revealed that he lived next to the BJP leader and former MLA Karan Singh Tanwar, according to the statement.

Sisodia demanded a probe into allegations that the BJP leader was present at the secretariat when the attack on Kejriwal took place.

The BJP had termed the attack as a "drama" by Kejriwal, with its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari demanding a high-level probe into it.

However, Sisodia said, "After failing to stop Kejriwal from working for the people of Delhi, now the BJP wants him eliminated. The entire series of events indicate that top BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Kejriwal."



The deputy chief minister also lashed out at the Delhi Police, alleging it was acting on the behest of the BJP and trying to save the culprit.

Even 24 hours after the attack, Delhi's Lieutenant Governor has not reacted on it. This means that he also knew about it, Sisodia alleged.

Delhi's ruling AAP has said it will hold a protest at the BJP's national headquarters on Wednesday against the attack on Kejriwal.

Later on Tuesday, the Delhi Police registered a case against Sharma at the IP Estate police station.

However, no formal complaint was received from the secretariat, a senior police official had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
British Prime Minister Theresa May told skeptical lawmakers on Wednesday that rejecting her divorce deal with the European Union would mean uncertainty and division, before a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to help finalize the Brexit agreement.

The UK and the European Union agreed last week on a 585-page document sealing the terms of Britain's departure, but are still working to nail down agreement on future relations before EU leaders meet in Brussels on Sunday to rubber-stamp the package.

But May is under intense pressure from pro-Brexit and pro-EU British lawmakers, with large numbers on both sides of the debate opposing the divorce deal.

Brexiteers think it will leave the UK tied too closely to EU rules, while pro-Europeans say it will erect new barriers between Britain and the bloc, its neighbour and biggest trading partner.

May fended off a barrage of criticism from both opposition and government legislators Wednesday during her weekly Commons question-and-answer session dominated by Brexit.

One lawmaker, Andrew Rosindell, urged her to ditch the plan and remove "the tentacles of the EU over our cherished island nation." May replied that "we want to ensure we continue to have a close trading relationship with the European union" after Brexit.

She said the alternative to the agreement was either "more uncertainty, more division or it could risk no Brexit at all."



As May flew to meet Juncker, some aspects of the future relationship agreement remained unresolved. Spain has said it will vote against if Gibraltar's future isn't considered a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday that his government "cannot accept that what will happen to Gibraltar in the future depends on negotiations between the UK and the EU."



But May reassured British lawmakers that "we will not exclude Gibraltar from our negotiations on the future relationship."German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that she hoped Spanish reservations could be overcome before Sunday's summit.

But, she added, "I can't say how we will solve this issue."



European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said Wednesday that the political declaration on future relations was "not there yet."



He said diplomats would meet Friday to prepare Sunday's summit, and "they will need to see a final text before then." The deal also needs to be approved by the European and British Parliaments a tough task for May, whose Conservatives lack a majority in the House of Commons.

May won a reprieve from some of her Conservative Party foes after pro-Brexit rebels acknowledged that a bid to trigger a no-confidence vote in May had failed, for now.

But Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party whose 10 lawmakers prop up May's minority has begun abstaining on votes in the House of Commons as a sign of their displeasure at the deal.

The DUP opposes plans for keeping the border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland open after Brexit, saying it weakens the ties binding the UK by creating separate trade rules for Northern Ireland.

The prospect of Parliament rejecting the deal when it comes up for a vote likely next month has increased fears among businesses that Britain could crash out of the bloc without a plan to keep trade running smoothly.

Conservative lawmakers loyal to May also warned that defeating the agreement could mean that Brexit never happens, because Parliament would



halt Britain's departure rather than accept a chaotic "no-deal" Brexit.

"I think people will take a careful look over the abyss ... and consider whether they think it is in the best interests of the whole country," Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said.

"The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit," she added.

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The Election Commission has decided to hold polling for Bru refugees in Mizoram's Mamit district, even as the leaders of the tribal community maintained that they fear for their safety in their home state.

The place of voting for 11,232 Bru voters, who are residing in neighbouring Tripura, has been a bone of contention, leading to the replacement of the then chief electoral officer, S B Shashank, less than two weeks ahead of the election to the 40-member House.

Shashank had been accused of facilitating voting by Bru voters in the relief camps of Tripura.

"We have been informed by the Election Commission that the polling for the Brus must be arranged at Kanhmun village inside Mizoram territory. We have started our preparations for that," an official in the CEO office told PTI.

Kanhmun is an interstate border village between Mizoram and Tripura.

A written order to this effect is likely to be received by Mizoram CEO Ashish Kundra in a day or two, the official said.

"In the last three years, there was no revision of electoral rolls. This time we did it. The Bru refugees are registered in nine Assembly seats and we'll place different voting machines accordingly at the special booth in the village," he said.

Kundra had on Tuesday visited Naisingpara -- the largest Bru camp in Tripura -- to meet the refugees and inform them about the EC's decision.

An election official, who accompanied the CEO to Tripura, said the Bru leaders claimed that the voter turnout from the community might be zero if the EC did not change its decision to hold polling in Kahnmun.

"Kundra tried explaining to them that the decision was taken by the Election Commission, but the Bru refugees said they fear for their lives in Mizoram. They also cited various reasons, including bad-road condition, to justify their demand for polling-booth arrangement in the relief camps," he added.

The six camps of the Bru refugees are located between 2-10 km from the interstate border between Tripura and Mizoram.

The highest number of Brus has been registered in Mamit district, which has Hachhek, Dampa and Mamit seats, with 14 per cent of the total voters being refugees.

It is followed by Kolasib district, with 3.5 per cent of its total voters being Brus. The district has Tuirial, Kolasib and Serlui Assembly seats. In Lunglei district, less than one per cent of the total voters are Bru refugees.

Earlier this month, the Election Commission had removed Shashank as the state chief electoral officer, accepting the demands of civil society groups, NGOs, student organisations and political parties



The agitators organised dharnas in front of the CEO's office against Shashank's reported move to facilitate voting by Bru voters in the relief camps of Tripura.

They demanded that the Brus, who had fled Mizoram following ethnic clashes in 1997, would have to come to the state to cast their votes as committed by the ECI in 2014.

Meanwhile, the NGO Coordination Committee -- an apex body of civil societies and students' organisations -- has urged the political parties to refrain from arranging transport for Bru voters on the polling day on November 28.

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Brussels officially rejected Italy's big-spending budget on Wednesday, clearing the path for unprecedented sanctions and deepening a bitter row with Rome's populist government.

The conclusion by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, was harsh but expected, coming just weeks after it had sent back Italy's 2019 budget, in a historic first for the bloc.

Italy refused to back down after the Brussels ultimatum, setting the stage for Wednesday's final opinion that deplored "a marked backtracking" by Rome on past reforms.

"With what the Italian government has put on the table, we see a risk of the country sleepwalking into instability," Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a press conference in Brussels.

"We conclude that the opening of a debt-based excessive deficit procedure is... warranted," he added, referring to the EU's official process to punish member states for over-spending.

The coalition government, made up of Salvini's League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), insists the budget will help kickstart growth in the eurozone's third largest economy and reduce debt.

But the EU says the Italian budget abandons belt-tightening for a spending spree that includes a basic monthly income for the unemployed and a pension boost.

With its opinion, EU member states now have two weeks to decide whether to allow the commission to trigger the excessive deficit procedure, a months-long process that could lead to fines.

Once activated, the process allows Rome the opportunity to negotiate and correct its ways before Brussels can inflict a sanction of up to 0.2 percent of Italy's GDP.

Few in Europe expect that Italy's populist coalition will concede on the matter, at least until European elections next May, where the government hopes to ride a wave of anti-EU sentiment.

"Has the EU letter arrived? I am also waiting for Santa Claus," said the far-right deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, adding: "We will respond to the EU in an educated way."



All eyes now are on the markets, which could raise the pressure on Rome to kowtow to Brussels,and even split the ruling coalition in Italy.

"While the government's stance may be tenable in the short and medium-term, it will only be sustainable if market conditions don't deteriorate significantly," said Mujtaba Rahman, a political analyst at Eurasia Group.

The closely-watched "spread" -- the difference between yields on 10-year Italian government debt compared with those in benchmark Germany -- reached 316 basis points Wednesday, down from 326 late on Tuesday.

It has more than doubled since May when negotiations to form the coalition government in Rome began, but is lower than the roughly 400 mark that Italy argues is the danger zone.

In its budget, Italy intends to run a public deficit of 2.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019 -- three times the target of the government's centre-left predecessor -- and one of 2.1 per cent in 2020.

Brussels forecasts Italy's deficit will reach 2.9 per cent of GDP in 2019 and hit 3.1 per cent in 2020 -- breaching the EU's 3.0 per cent limit.

But Italy's big spending boost received a vouch of support from the OECD, the Paris-based organisation of developed countries.

"Does (the draft budget) question the sustainability of debt today? We don't think so. It is stabilising at its level," OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said.

"Obviously, there should not be a shock to growth, but for the time being (the debt) is stabilising.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pete Saenz, the mayor of the southwestern Texan city of Laredo, looks at the military fencing that now hems his bustling border town and is uneasy with what he sees.

"It's a surprise to some of us, a shock frankly. We're not used to concertina wire," Saenz told AFP.

Laredo, whose population of about 260,000 is more than 95 percent Latino, is one of the areas being "hardened" by the US military under orders from President Donald Trump.

As part of the contentious mission, that has seen about 5,800 active-duty troops sent to the border, the Army has strung a shiny metal fence made of barbed and concertina wire along Laredo's grassy riverbanks.

Locals are starting to worry of economic consequences for a city that relies heavily on cross-border trade.

In an interview at his City Hall office this week, where the Mexican tricolour stands alongside the Texas flag, Saenz said he understands the federal government's desire to protect the border.

But he is concerned the military presence might cause a drop in legal foot traffic between Laredo and its sister city of Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande river in Mexico.

"Aesthetically it doesn't look good. Obviously, if we could have our way as a city, I think we would object to the concertina wire," Saenz said, noting the city has had some initial discussions about challenging the federal government's emplacement of the fence.

Mexican shoppers account for about 40-50 percent of Laredo's retail trade, much of which is centered on a vast "outlet mall" that provides better prices and selections than anything in Nuevo Laredo.

Mexican residents of Nuevo Laredo are allowed into Laredo to shop and work, provided they have special permits, and some 17,000 people shuffle daily back and forth across a busy bridge.

Even a small drop in foot traffic could have a big impact on the local economy, and similar concerns are being echoed up and down the border.

In Nogales, Arizona, for instance, foot traffic from Mexico has slowed dramatically and retailers are feeling the pinch with several stores at risk.

"I don't see it (as) good that (Trump's) putting in the fences. The people from Mexico, they go in and shop around, they leave their money over there," said Sandra Chavez, an American woman who spoke to AFP in Nuevo Laredo.

"They are not doing nothing wrong." Worries are especially acute at this time of year, during the usually frenetic Thanksgiving and Christmas retail seasons. Saenz believes it is too soon to know if legal border crossings are slowing, but anecdotally at least some observers have noticed changes.

Compared to two years ago, "there seems to be more shops that have closed, it seems to be more of a ghost town," Laura Pole, a British tourist who has visited Laredo three times in recent years, told AFP from the picturesque town centre.

Away from the historic square, which is flanked by an ornate Catholic cathedral and hacienda-style buildings, workers in larger shops said they had not seen any changes so far.

Laredo is inextricably linked to Mexico, and Spanish is by far the dominant language.

The city changed hands multiple times during the 19th century and was once part of Mexico.

"I usually say we're tied (at) the hip," Saenz says.

Foot traffic goes both ways, with US citizens heading into Mexico to search for cheaper pharmaceuticals and property.

Sometimes, families split their existence between the two sides of the border.

"The Army being deployed here is ridiculous," huffs Angela Torres, an American whose husband was deported and now lives in Nuevo Laredo, while she also keeps a home on the US side and crosses daily.

Critics have decried Trump's order to toughen the border as a costly political stunt, coming as it did just before the November 6 midterm elections.

A Customs and Border Patrol agent, who was not authorized to give his name, said he was glad of the military assistance as each day, hundreds of migrants attempt to cross the approximately 30-mile (50 kilometer) stretch of border he patrols.

The Pentagon has still not released a cost estimate for the entire border operation, though a figure of $220 million has been widely reported.

The mission is supposed to run through December 15.

Retail dollars aside, Laredo is the biggest land port for goods coming into the United States, with only the maritime port of Long Beach in California bigger in size.

Some $214 billion of trade crosses annually through the port of Laredo, Saenz says, and just outside the city center a non-stop stream of massive trucks can be seen hauling cargo both ways across a bridge.

"This is what drives our city. Trade, logistics, warehousing, distribution, and so this is why our relationship with Mexico is so sensitive," Saenz says.

The mayor adds that, going forward, he hopes the federal and state governments pay greater attention to the needs of border communities.

"You know it's easy to govern from Washington or from (state capital) Austin sometimes without knowing the impact on the border itself," he says.

"We live it, we sense it, we feel it, we take it in. And economically we depend on it.

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China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable and market-distorting trade practices, the US said Tuesday, ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Argentina on November 30 and December 1.

China and the US are currently locked in an ongoing trade war as each country has introduced tariffs on goods traded between each other.

Trump has promised to fix China's "longtime abuse of the broken international system and unfair practices".

Ahead of the G-20 meeting, the Office of the United States Trade Representative released a report, updating information on its Section 301 investigation of China's acts, policies and practices relating to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation.

"We completed this update as part of this administration's strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort," US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said.

"This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation," he said.

Running into nearly 50 pages, the report said that the evidence gathered in this update demonstrates China fundamentally has not altered its acts, policies and practices relating to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation, and "indeed appears" to have taken further unreasonable actions in recent months.

The report reiterates that China uses foreign ownership restrictions, such as joint venture requirements and foreign equity limitations, and various administrative reviews and licensing processes to require or pressure technology transfer from US companies.

Further, China's regime of technology regulations forces US companies seeking to license technologies to Chinese entities to do so on non-market based terms that favour Chinese recipients, it alleged.

The report said that instead of accepting the USTR request for consultations on its 30-1 investigation, China expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the US and decried the investigation as "irresponsible" and "not objective".

The USTR said China shows no signs of ceasing its policy and practice of conducting and supporting cyber enabled theft and intrusions into the commercial networks of US companies.

This illicit conduct provides the Chinese government with unauthorised access to intellectual property, trade secrets, confidential business information, technical data, negotiating positions and sensitive and proprietary internal business communications, it said.

In recent months, the Department of Justice has indicted a dozen individuals and corporate entities directed by the Chinese government to obtain commercial secrets from 15 companies, predominantly in aerospace and high-technology sectors.

The facts alleged in these indictments reflect China's ongoing determination to obtain trade secrets and other valuable commercial information in support of China's industrial policy, it added.

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Members of two communities clashed in Mirzapur town of Uttar Pradesh when a flag pole being carried in a VHP procession broke an overhead light on Tuesday, police said.

When the procession reached Mukeri Bazar area near Gurhatti Chauraha, the saffron flag broke a tubelight, leading to heated arguments that were followed by stone-pelting, injuring two persons, the police said Wednesday.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was taking out the procession on Tuesday evening, making an appeal to the people to attend the "Dharma Sabha", which they are organising on Sunday in Ayodhya, the police said.

Police personnel have been deployed in the area, and the situation is normal and under control, said Superintendent of Police (SP) Shalini, adding that the clash had taken place over a minor issue.

The lights were installed for Wednesday's Milad-un-Nabi celebration.

The SP has suspended the inspector of Katra Kotwali police station and two police personnel posted at Mukeri Bazar police booth.

Meanwhile, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar activists sat on a protest on Tuesday night, demanding action against those involved in the incident.

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Natural carbon sinks such as oceans and forests -- that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere -- may soon start emitting the greenhouse gas instead, if climate change remains unchecked, scientists warn.

Ecosystems that host a carbon-dioxide rich type of soil called peat, known as peatlands, are the most efficient natural carbon sink on the planet.

When undisturbed, they store more carbon dioxide than all other vegetation types on Earth combined.

However, when they are drained and deforested, they can release nearly six per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions each year. Climate researchers are worried that many of the peatlands soaking up carbon now will soon be doing the opposite.

"Global peatlands cover only about three per cent of global land area, but hold around 30 per cent of the earth's soil organic carbon," said Qianlai Zhuang, a professor at Purdue University in the US.

Researchers looked to peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon to understand whether a large amount of peat carbon would be released under a warmer climate.

According to an earth systems model spanning from 12,000 years ago to 2100 AD, this relatively small basin could lose up to 500 million tonnes of carbon by the end of this century.

That is about five per cent of current global annual fossil fuel carbon emissions, or 10 per cent of US emissions, being spit back out into the atmosphere.

By most estimates, South America will become both warmer and wetter by the end of the century.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that higher temperatures lead to more peat carbon loss, while increased precipitation slightly enhances the build-up of peat carbon over long timescales.

Together, this is likely to increase carbon loss from peatlands to the atmosphere.

"If the area we looked at could represent the whole Amazonia or tropical peatlands, the loss of peat carbon to the atmosphere under future climate scenarios should be of great concern to our society," Zhuang said.

"Agricultural intensification and increasing land-use disturbances, such as forest fires, threaten the persistence of peat carbon stocks," he said.

"These peatland ecosystems may turn into carbon sources instead of sinks unless necessary actions are taken," he added.

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Sri Lanka's Parliament Speaker Karu Jayasuriya said on Wednesday that he was committed to protect democracy despite personal abuse and slander thrown at him by the government led by disputed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In a statement, Jayasuriya said the baseless allegations are levelled against him "through regular press conferences by political parties that failed to show their majority in parliament in the proper manner and through political protests organised with the participation of their party members can be observed."



Jayasuriya also filed a complaint with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over a fake letter circulating on social media claiming it was sent by him to the Chief Justice, the Colombo Gazette reported.

The letter quoted Jayasuriya as requesting the opinion of the Chief Justice on if President Maithripapala Sirisena was in a situation where he could not exercise, perform and discharge the powers, duties and functions of his office, the paper said.

Jayasuriya said he had never sent such a letter and has requested the CID to investigate the fake letter.

Sri Lanka is witnessing a political crisis since President Sirisena abruptly sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and installed ex-strongman Rajapaksa in his place on October 26.

Sirisena later dissolved Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end, and ordered snap election. The Supreme Court overturned Sirisena's decision to dissolve Parliament and halted the preparations for snap polls.

Speaker Jayasuriya then ordered a floor test in the 225-member assembly to end the ongoing political crisis, a move which invited the wrath of the government of Rajapaksa.

Both Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa claim to be the prime ministers.

Sirisena's action to suspend parliament so that Rajapaksa can engineer defections to manage 113 seats for a simple majority was also defied by Jayasuriya. He summoned parliament against Sirisena's wishes and declared that he would not recognise Rajapaksa as the lawful prime minister until he proved his majority in the House.

Jayasuriya conducted the assembly proceedings amidst violence by the purported government MPs who threw furniture and chili powder at both Jayasuriya and the police summoned by the speaker to conduct the House proceedings.

On Wednesday, Wickremesinghe's United National Party handed Parliament another motion demanding suspension of funds of all ministry secretaries whom they claim had been illegally appointed since October 26.

The party has warned officials that carrying out "illegal orders" from an "illegal" government could spell trouble for them.

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The has criticised Jai Ram Thakur-led government in for its decision of restoring prime land near Sadhupul in Solan district to guru Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust.

The government in its cabinet meeting here Tuesday decided to lease out 28 acres land to the Trust at Rs 23.9 million as one-time concessional lease money for 99 years, according to a state revenue official.

Talking to Wednesday, senior Kaul Singh Thakur, who was revenue minister in previous Virbhadra Singh-led government which cancelled the lease in 2013 initially executed by P K Dhumal government in 2011-12, accused the state government of providing "undue" benefit to

"The Thakur government is providing undue benefit to for its open support to the BJP in the last general elections by leasing out the valuable land to his Trust at a meagre lease money," Kaul Singh Thakur said.

The former minister alleged that the Thakur government was "selling out" state's interests by leasing out the valuable land at a "throwaway price".

Thakur government's decision of leasing out the prime land at a meagre amount will incur a huge loss to state exchequer, he added.

A government spokesperson said the state cabinet approved the lease amount of Patanjali Yog Peeth as per lease rules.

Kaul Singh Thakur said that instead of deciding to restore the prime land to Ramdev's Trust, BJP government should have cancelled the lease as the Trust failed to deposit the revised lease amount despite repeated reminders by Solan district administration.

Meanwhile, Solan Deputy Commissioner Vinod Kumar told that he had sent several notices to the Trust to deposit initial lease money of Rs 1.17 crore and sign the new lease agreement.

However, instead of depositing the amount, the Trust preferred to write to state government to provide the land at concessional rate, the revenue official said.

Earlier, cancelling in 2013 the initial lease executed by the Dhumal government at Rs 1.7 million per year in 2011-12, then CM Virbhadra Singh alleged that the state cabinet had approved a different land but in reality the prime land at Sadhupul was transferred.

A case was also registered against Ramdev's close aide Bal Krishan, who had signed the lease on behalf of the Trust.

However, taking a U-turn in February 2017, the Virbhadra Singh government allegedly decided to restore the land to the Trust on the condition that a writ petition filed by the Trust should be withdrawn.

"Our government restored the land to the Trust considering the market value at that time," Kaul Singh Thakur said.

As per the proposal, Patanjali Trust wants to set-up a herbal medicine farm-cum-Ayurveda medical research centre.

Following a fresh representation by the Trust, the Thakur government decided to return the land to the Trust at Rs 2.39 crore one-time lease, the revenue official said.

The cabinet restored the land with a discount of 20 per cent under section 8 (D) of the HP Lease Rules. The Trust has been told to deposit Rs 2.22 crore as one time concessional lease money as it had already deposited Rs 17 lakh under earlier decision of the cabinet, the official added.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Wednesday said since the Congress did not work in the interest of farmers, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi.

In a veiled reference to veteran Congressman Digvijay Singh, he said a Congress leader's name had cropped up in a Naxal-related case.

"The Congress has not worked in the interest of the farmers. Therefore, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi. This is your responsibility," Adityanath said, while addressing a gathering at Narsinghar in this district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

"A big Congress leader's name has cropped up in a case connected to Naxals. Terrorism and Naxalism are a threat to the nation and the Congress's sympathy for them is condemnable," he added.

The Pune police had earlier said a letter seized in connection with the Elgar Parishad probe referred to a mobile number purportedly belonging to Singh.

Two days ago, Singh had dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take action against him in the Elgar Parishad case.

Adityanath claimed that Naxalism started emerging in Madhya Pradesh 15 years ago.

"Madhya Pradesh was then known for potholed roads, unemployment, but after the BJP came to power, it turned the state into a developed one," he said.

Adityanath expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win the elections in all the five states where they are being held, including Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Justifying the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj, he said it was because of the confluence of the holy rivers of Saraswati, Yamuna and Ganga, and added that the old name was not right.

The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11.

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Senior Congress leader M I Shanavas died early Wednesday at a private hospital in Chennai, Tamil Nadu after a prolonged illness.

He was 67 and leaves his wife, son and daughter, family sources said.

The Member of Parliament, who represented the Wayanad constituency twice-- 2009, 2014, in the Lok Sabha, breathed his last at around 1 am.

He had undergone a liver transplant on November 2.

His mortal remains were brought to Kochi in the afternoon and kept for public homage.

The funeral will be held Thursday at Kochi.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi described Shanavas as a "much loved and respected member" of the Congress family.

In a tweet, he said "With the passing of Shri M.I. Shanavas, two term Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad, Kerala, the Congress family has lost a much loved and respected member.

My thoughts & prayers are with his family & friends in this time of grief."



Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with senior congress leader and former chief minister Oommen Chandy and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala condoled the death.

Former Defence minister, A K Antony, KPCC President, Mullapally Ramachanrdan, Chennithala and former KPCC president V M Sudheeran, were among the hundreds of party workers and leaders who paid homage as the body was brought to the state.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu Congress president Su.Thirunavukkarasar paid homage as the mortal remains were brought to Chennai Airport en route to Kochi.

Shanavas, who began his political career as a Kerala Students Union (KSU) member, was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 when he registered a record win from Wayanad, defeating his rival by a margin of over 1.53 lakh votes.

In the 2014 elections, he retained the seat.

He thus wiped out the ignominy of three defeats he had to face in the 1987, 1991 and 1996 elections to the state assembly and two to the Lok Sabha in 1999 and 2004.

Shanavas, a softspoken person and popular in television debates, was busy with rebuilding initiatives in post-flood Wayanad, when he died.

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New revelations about the extent of Ivanka Trump's personal email use in the White House will be getting a hard look from House Democrats when they take power in January.

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee began looking into private email use last year after reports by Politico revealed that Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner, and other White House officials had been using private email for government purposes in possible violation of the Presidential Records Act and other federal record-keeping laws.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the likely incoming chairman of the Oversight panel, said Tuesday that he will resume that bipartisan investigation, which was dropped by Republicans.

And he will pressure President Donald Trump's administration to turn over records about the use of private email for public business by Ivanka Trump, Kushner and other senior officials.

"My goal is to prevent this from happening again not to turn this into a spectacle the way Republicans went after Hillary Clinton," Cummings said.

"My main priority as Chairman will be to focus on the issues that impact Americans in their everyday lives."



The issue resurfaced this week when The Washington Post reported that the president's daughter, while a top White House adviser, sent hundreds of emails about government business from a personal email account last year.

The emails were sent to White House aides, Cabinet members and Ivanka Trump's assistants, many in violation of public records rules, according to The Post.

In comments to reporters, the president, who has spent years railing against Clinton's use of private email for public business while secretary of state, sought to downplay and differentiate his daughter's email use from his former opponent's.

"They aren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton," Trump said, adding: "What Ivanka did, it's all in the presidential records. Everything is there."



A spokesman for Ivanka Trump's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, didn't dispute the Post report.

The spokesman, Peter Mirijanian, said no classified information was transmitted in the messages, no emails were deleted and the emails have since been "retained" in conformity with records laws.

He also said Ivanka Trump did not set up a private server for the account, which he said was "never transferred or housed at Trump Organization."



Mirijanian said that while transitioning into the government, Ivanka Trump "sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family."



"When concerns were raised in the press 14 months ago, Ms. Trump reviewed and verified her email use with White House Counsel and explained the issue to congressional leaders," he said.

He did not say which congressional leaders were briefed.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a fierce defender of the president as the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, also downplayed the matter.

"There are over 30,000 BleachBit reasons why the Hillary Clinton email scandal isn't even close to the Ivanka email issue," Meadows tweeted, referring to a computer program used to delete emails from her server.

The House Oversight investigation into private email used by Trump White House officials was launched in early 2017 with the support of then-Republican chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

After Chaffetz retired from Congress, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina joined with Cummings in demanding that the White House provide the identities of staff members who had used their personal emails to conduct official business.

In October 2017, the White House dispatched counsel's office lawyers Stefan Passantino, Uttam Dhillon and Daniel Epstein to brief bipartisan committee staff, but the attorneys refused to identify any officials who had used private email for official business.

The lawyers only said that several White House employees had "confessed" to failing to following the Presidential Records Act, according to a letter summarizing the briefing released by Cummings earlier this year.

The White House lawyers said they couldn't provide additional information on specific employees while an internal review was under way, according to the letter.

But the White House lawyers said they would share the findings of the internal review with the committee once it concluded, according to a separate letter sent to the White House by Gowdy.

Cummings has said the committee never received that information, and Democrats have said Gowdy dropped the issue and never followed up.

The discovery of the extent of Ivanka Trump's email use was prompted by public records requests from the liberal watchdog group American Oversight.

The group's executive director, Austin Evers, said in a statement: "The president's family is not above the law," and he called on Congress to investigate.

"For more than two years, President Trump and senior leaders in Congress have made it very clear that they view the use of personal email servers for government business to be a serious offense that demands investigation and even prosecution, and we expect the same standard will be applied in this case," he said.

The emails the group uncovered include correspondence between Ivanka Trump and Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

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Cyber crime is posing a big challenge for police in Maharashtra with the state witnessing a rise in such cases this year as compared to 2017, according to official figures.

A total of 2,945 cases of cyber crimes were registered till September this year as against 2,645 till October 2017, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the Home portfolio, said in a written reply in the state Assembly on Tuesday.

He said the maximum number of cyber crime cases were reported in Mumbai, though the figures were not specified in the written reply.

So far, 43 cyber labs have been declared as cyber police stations. Of these, 36 cyber police stations are functioning and the remaining seven will be operational soon, he said.

The cyber police stations have been provided with modern software and hardware technology tools, he said, adding that since 2016, 198 police officials have been imparted training on how to deal with cyber crimes.

In September this year, principal secretary of the co-operation department held a meeting with senior officials of the police and information technology departments, and representatives of various banks in connection with the cyber crime cases, he said.

Fadnavis referred to a cyber crime case where hackers had managed to siphon off over Rs 94 crore through a malware attack on the server of Pune-based Cosmos Bank and cloning thousands of the bank's debit cards over a period of two days in August this year.

A process was on to set up a 'knowledge hub' to provide information to banks about debit card cloning and cyber attacks, the chief minister said, adding that the Pune district urban banks' association was handling the project.

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The US business immigration law and investor visa firm serving India Davies & Associates, LLC Wednesday announced the appointment of Stuti Murarka as associate India Practice.

"A licensed attorney in India and Illinois, Stuti will be instrumental in furthering and lending support to Davies & Associates efforts in India. With over 7 years of diversified experience, Stuti has worked with well-known legal firms such as Crawford Bayley & Co. and AZB & Partners prior to joining Davies & Associates, LLC at their Chicago office," the company said in a statement.

"Stuti has the perfect background we seek to expand our operations in India. Her experience in dealing with law in both India and the US makes her the perfect fit to enhance our on-ground capacity in the US, with regard to our team of experts dedicated to Indian EB-5 matters," Mark Davies, Global Chairman of the company said.

Davies & Associates, LLC is a full service US immigration law firm headquartered in New York City, USA with offices across the globe.

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Two Delhi-based assailants shot dead a woman in the city Wednesday morning and later wounded a police officer at the Pune railway station while trying to escape from the city, police said.

While one of the assailants was nabbed on the railway station premises, the other boarded a train but was held at Daund station by Railway Protection Force (RPF), police said.

Deputy commissioner of police Shirish Sardeshpande said that Ekta Brijesh Bhati (37), resident of Indrayani Society in Chandannagar area, was shot from close range by two men on the staircase of her building in the morning.

"She was rushed to hospital by her husband and neighbours but she succumbed to her injuries," the DCP said.

Inspector Gajanan Pawar of Unit III of Crime Branch got information that the assailants were from Delhi and had a monetary dispute with Bhati and husband, he said.

"Pawar and other officials got a tip-off that the accused were about to board a Delhi-bound train in the evening. Police team spotted the accused on platform number three, and when they tried to nab the duo, one of them shot Pawar," DCP Sardeshpande said.

The accused who opened fire ran but was caught outside the railway station, while his accomplice escaped on a train.

The RPF nabbed a suspect at Daund, and police were verifying if it was the same person, the DCP said.

Pawar was hit in the cheek and lungs and underwent surgery at a private hospital, the DCP said. His condition was stated to be stable.

The Bhatis, who hail from Delhi, had reportedly taken a loan from the accused but had not repaid it, he said, adding that further probe was on.

Police did not reveal identity of the two accused.

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Delhi's air quality remained in the "very poor" category Wednesday, with four areas recording "severe" pollution levels even as the Cental Pollution Control Board (CPCB) directed agencies to join social media to help citizens lodge complaints directly.

Pollution watchdog CPCB also noted that actions of the public and enforcement bodies have been "inadequate" in curbing pollution.

With no clarity on undertaking of cloud seeding to induce artificial rain in the national capital, scientists at IIT Kanpur said they had made all preparations, including procurement of aircraft from the ISRO, to conduct the same.

According to CPCB data, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the city was recorded at 373, which falls in the "very poor" category. Anand Vihar, Nehru Nagar, Mundka and Wazirpur recorded "severe" air quality, while 30 areas recorded "very poor" air quality, it said.

At 392, the overall air quality of Greater Noida was the worst in the National Capital Region (NCR), just points below the "severe" category. Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad too recorded "very poor" overall air quality.

On Wednesday, the PM2.5 level (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometre level) was recorded at 240, while the PM10 level was recorded at 389, the CPCB data said.

According to the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR), air quality in the national capital is expected to remain in the "very poor" category in the next two to three days.

"At present, winds are unfavourable for dispersion which allows pollutants to accumulate. Humidity is still high which is unfavourable," the SAFAR said in its report, adding that fire counts from stubble burning has declined and will have a marginal impact.

Meanwhile, the CPCB directed public and enforcement agencies to immediately join social media platforms on which citizens can lodge their complaints on pollution directly, noting that actions of these bodies have been "inadequate".

The directions have been made to the NDMC, SDMC, EDMC, DMRC, CPWD, DDA and the state pollution control boards of Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, among other public bodies.

In a meeting with public agencies and state pollution control boards, CPCB Member Secretary Prashant Gargava asked the agencies to join social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to facilitate citizens lodging complaints of air polluting activities.

"It has been observed that most of the agencies are yet to join social media platforms and take action in respect of complaints concerning them," the CPCB was quoted as saying in the minutes of the meeting that took place last week.

The CPCB said the complaints reported were forwarded to the agencies concerned for action, however "it is observed that most of the agencies are yet to join and also action taken on complaints are inadequate".

"It was reiterated that agencies must immediately create Facebook page and Twitter handle to join CPCB social media platform to address complaints," it said, adding that the action taken in response must also be posted on the same platform through which complaints are received.

Gargava directed representatives of agencies to ensure effective corrective action in all cases of air polluting activities being reported through social media and the Sameer app that has been developed by the CPCB.

The move comes in the wake of Delhi battling alarming levels of pollution for over a month due to regional factors like stubble burning and localised factors like pollution from vehicles, firecrackers and construction activities, among others.

On Monday, the Supreme Court-appointed Pollution Control Authority Chairperson Bhure Lal also lashed out at enforcement agencies, alleging that Delhi's civic and urban bodies are "not properly implementing" the directions issued to curb pollution.

Scientists at IIT Kanpur however said despite their preparations, they were not certain about when the cloud seeding could be done as they are waiting for meteorological conditions to fall into place.

"We have made all the preparations and have also got the aircraft from ISRO which will be needed to induce the artificial rain. The technique has been tested before in Maharashtra as well as parts of Lucknow. However, this is the first time in India that artificial rain would be created over a big land mass to counter the damage done by air pollutants," Manindra Agarwal, Deputy Director of IIT Kanpur, said.

Cloud seeding is the process of combining different kinds of chemical agents, including silver iodide, dry ice and even common salt, with existing clouds in an effort to thicken them and increase the chances of rainfall.

While IIT Kanpur is supporting the plan of the CPCB to induce artificial rain by providing the salt mix and other logistical support, a group of students at IIT Delhi are also helping the weathermen in monitoring conditions to become favourable for creating artificial rain.

In 2016, the government tried to explore the possibility of cloud seeding for artificial rain but the plan never worked out. China has been using cloud seeding to create rains for many years. The US, Israel, South Africa and Germany have also used the technology.

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Dharamshala Mayor Devinder Singh Jaggi Wednesday complained of the city municipal corporation being under-staffed and rued that the state government was doing noting to appoint more officials despite repeated requests.

Dharmshala Municipal Corporation is the second one in Himachal Pradesh after Shimla. It was established in 2015.

"Shimla has 34 wards while Dharamshala has 17. Keeping this in mind, Dharamshala Municipal Corporation (DMC) must have half the numbers of officials Shimla has," he said.

But, we are being forced to run the DMC since its establishment on a very small strength of employees, he rued.

"Shimla Municipal Corporation has 2,100 officials, while DMC has just 121. The SMC has 29 junior engineers, while the DMC has just four," he added.

Talking to PTI, Dharamshala Mayor said he has written thrice to the Himachal government, seeking urgent sanctioning of 32 posts for different officials but nothing has been done so far.

Even Manali Municipal Council has double the number of junior engineers that DMC has, Jaggi lamented.

Shimla Municipal Corporation has a separate wing for passing construction work maps while it is done by burdened engineers here," he added.

The mayor, however, said the Dharamshala Municipal Corporation, despite being under-staffed, is working with full spirit.

"The DMC has issued work tenders worth Rs 27 crore in the last 10 months. Works on many projects are in progress, said Jaggi, adding that even payments worth Rs 7 crore too have been made so far by the municipal body.

The civic body has planned to provide street parking for various colonies having large number of vehicles, he said, adding that in some of the wards, even the work for it has been started.

To ease the traffic flow in areas like Bagsunag, Mecleodganj and Kotwali, the civic body is building one-way roads, he said, adding parks for senior-citizens, women and children too would be built in various wards.

The sites for the same have already been identified, he said.

The mayor said the civic body would start door-to-door garbage collection from January at a nominal cost of Rs 50 per month for each house.

The shops and other establishments, however, will have to pay a little more, he added.

Jaggi said the civic body has also reached an agreement with two NGOs for the sterilization of stray dogs in the city and the work will start soon on this project.

He said the civic body has also floated tenders worth Rs 2,700 crores for various projects to turn Dharamshala into a smart city.

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A documentary film highlighting critical linkage needed among tigers, forests, river systems and humans to advance ecological balance was launched here Wednesday, officials said.

The film, 'Tiger Matters' portrays the intricate and interwoven actions required to secure the future of tiger habitats and local communities.

"Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the conservation documentary film 'Tiger Matters' at the India Habitat Centre," WCT said in a statement.

The project highlights critical linkage needed among tigers, forests, river systems and humans to advance ecological and economic security, it said.

"The film details the intricate and interwoven actions required to secure the future of tiger habitats and local communities. It is also available on YouTube," the WCT said.

The project is part of a joint program by WCT and USAID, executed in close cooperation with the forest departments of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. This program aims to strengthen protection efforts within and outside the boundaries of tiger reserves through a holistic 360-degree approach to conservation, it said.

"The tiger is a keystone species and its survival is crucial to the ecological as well as the economic security of India. Over 600 rivers originate or are fed by the tiger-bearing forests of our country, which in turn ensures the sustainability of millions of Indians. Tiger conservation is nothing but conservation of healthy ecosystems and free flowing rivers," said Anish Andheria, president, Wildlife Conservation Trust.

An estimated 3,500 wild tigers remain worldwide and India is home to approximately 65 per cent of them, the statement said.

The all-important Central Indian Landscape, which is the focus of 'Tiger Matters' programme, is home to 31 per cent of India's tigers. Research, under the programme, showed strong evidence from motion sensor cameras that there is a robust tiger population outside the boundaries of protected areas in need of protection, it said.

"Tigers are the golden thread of biodiversity in the fabric of all our lives. The journey in conservation is a long one and we are committed to walk every step of this journey with the aim to ensure that generations after us have a healthy environment," said Mary Melnyk, Environmental Security and Resilience Team Leader at USAID.

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A former cartel operative told the US trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Tuesday that he bribed a former Mexican cabinet minister with millions of dollars stuffed into two suitcases and hand delivered in a restaurant.

Jesus Zambada, a government informant held in US custody since 2008, said the bribes were delivered in person to Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico's former public security minister, in 2005-2006.

Zambada said the Sinaloa cartel also bribed Gabriel Regino, at the time a senior police official under Mexico's now president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador when the latter was mayor of Mexico City. The sum? A "few million dollars" in 2005.

Zambada said Regino was bribed to secure the cartel's "protection." Regino swiftly denied on Twitter ever receiving a bribe from Zambada.

Garcia Luna dismissed the testimony as "lies, defamation and perjury."



The witness alleged that at the time of the first bribe, a suitcase stuffed with USD 3 million, Garcia Luna was a senior official in the attorney general's Office, a position he held from 2001 to 2006.

At the time of the second installment of USD 3-5 million in 2006, he was in the federal cabinet under then president Felipe Calderon as public security minister, which meant that he presided over Mexican federal police.

Zambada made the revelations under cross examination from Guzman's defence lawyer William Purpura on his fourth and final day of testimony.

In his opening statements at trial, the defence charged that the Sinaloa cartel had bribed Mexico's outgoing president and his predecessor.

Guzman, considered the world's largest drug trafficker since the death of Colombia's Pablo Escobar, is on trial in a federal court in Brooklyn under draconian security arrangements after twice escaping from prison in Mexico.

His trial is now into a second week. On Monday, Zambada testified how Guzman ordered at least six deaths, including of a rival who refused to shake his hand, and the rival's wife.

US prosecutors also admitted into evidence the diamond-encrusted pistol emblazoned with Guzman's initials.

The alleged Sinaloa co-founder faces 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges that will likely see him incarcerated for the rest of his life in a maximum security US prison if he is convicted.

Accused of smuggling more than 155 tons of cocaine into the United States over 25 years, he was extradited to the United States in January 2017.

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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu Wednesday appealed to industry and corporate sectors to promote scientific efforts in the country in a "big way" by creating an exclusive corpus, and encouraging innovative research and development projects and technologies to address problems faced by people.

Addressing a gathering at the NASI Scopus Young Scientist Awards 2018 at the Vigyan Bhawan here, he also emphasised that Indian science fraternity should play a "pivotal role" in making India a top nation in the world in the field of science and technology.

"India was once known as 'vishwa guru' and we have a rich heritage of knowledge and ancient scholastic systems. Unfortunately, during the colonial era, we lost our conscience and our focus... After Independence, from first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the current prime minister, all are giving importance to science, and it needs to be given further importance," Naidu said.

The vice president reiterated that India was the youngest nation in the world with over 65 per cent of its population below 35 years, and that it was the "most opportune time" for the country to leverage the skills and talent of the young minds.

"At a time when the world has become a global village and boundaries of different disciplines are blurring, the role of science and technology becomes far more important than ever before," Naidu said.

Alluding to "disruptive technologies" an Industry 4.0, he also urged the industries and the corporate sectors to pitch in a big way to promote scientific research.

"We have just entered the era of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), and machine learning, robotics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data will change the way we are going to live. These areas need to be fully exploited," he said.

"I would also appeal to the corporate bodies and industries to promote scientific research in the country in a big way by creating an exclusive corpus, by encouraging innovative R&D projects and technologies that would provide a long-lasting answers to problems faced by the people," Naidu said.

He also pitched for "enhancing" investment in science and technology to support innovation, which would address issues related to agriculture, environment, health, housing, clean drinking water and security, besides other issues.

He also extolled the contributions of Indian scholars and mathematicians in ancient time, from invention of the numeral 'zero' to decimal system and ancient treatise 'Sushruta Samhita' and 'Charaka Samhita' on ancient surgery and medicine system.

"The urban settlements of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were so advanced, and even had drainage system, and now we are struggling with drainage system. So, we should pick up from our ancient knowledge," he said.

India also gave Yoga and Ayurveda, Naidu said, while reiterating that "Yoga has nothing to do with religion, and only some people, unnecessarily try to give it a religious colour, making it look controversial".

"Even after Independence, 20 per cent of the people are still below poverty line 20-21 per cent are still illiterate, and many still face gender discrimination and social discrimination. Unless growth is not inclusive, it is not real development. And, science and technology must play a role in improving the quality of life of people," he said.

The Scopus Young Scientist Awards, first launched by Amsterdam-based global publisher Elsevier in 2006, is part of an Elsevier's global initiative to support early career researchers in their quest to advance the frontiers of science across a broad range of disciplines.

In 2009, India officially adopted the program within its scientific community through Elsevier's collaboration with the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI).

This year NASI Scopus Awards has introduced five multi-disciplinary categories that are aligned with national missions of Make in India, Digital India, Healthy India and Clean India.

The categories are -- agriculture, plant sciences and rural development; women in science; environmentally sound sustainable development; biomedical research and healthcare; and innovation in engineering and physical sciences.

The prize include a citation, a trophy and Rs 75,000. The five winners were selected from a pool of about 800 candidates, organisers said.

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The European Union Wednesday unveiled a policy document, outlining the broad contours of significantly scaling up ties with India in a plethora of areas like trade, investment, infrastructure, defence, security and counter-terrorism, and proposed a military-to-military cooperation in the Indian Ocean.

Releasing the document, the European Union's Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said it lays the foundation to take the relationship to the next level, besides seeking to work together for a rules-based international order as well as to jointly deal with pressing regional and global challenges.

The strategy paper, which replaces a similar document issued in 2004, said the EU has an "interest" in strengthening its political, economic and defence cooperation with India as a strong partnership with New Delhi was key for a balanced EU policy towards Asia as a whole.

"The strategy illustrates a very important fact that India is on the top of our agenda in the field of external relations. We think that we are ready for a joint leap now," Kozlowski told reporters.

The document identified a range of areas including trade, investment, infrastructure, defence and security, blue economy and environment for scaling up cooperation.

On the long-pending India-EU free trade agreement, he said the grouping is committed to negotiate a comprehensive, balanced and economically meaningful agreement on trade and investment, adding both sides are engaged on it.

When asked about the contentious issue of data protection, Kozlowski said it is a very sensitive matter for the EU and that three delegations from Europe have apprised the Indian government as well as Indian industries about the EU's new data protection regulation.

"We are happy that India is working on its privacy laws. We are impressed by the Supreme Court's ruling recognising privacy as a fundamental right. India is now working on privacy law. The EU will provide our contribution to public consultation on it," he said.

The EU is known to have some reservations over India's move to localise data.

The envoy said the EU was ready to explore "all options" for starting negotiations with India on data protection and related issues.

The document said, as a leading world economy and the world's largest democracy, India's endorsement of a high level of data protection would constitute a critical example at a moment where there is an increasing demand for international standards on privacy.

On maritime cooperation with India, he said, "we are proposing to the Indian side to establish military-to military cooperation."



"The scope for cooperation, especially in the Indian Ocean, is very large. The EU and India have cooperated in anti-piracy efforts in the Indian Ocean and the EU would like to see India joining on efforts to escort World Food Programme shipments off the coast of Somalia," the envoy said.

He said the EU and India should join forces to promote the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as the basis of ocean governance and work more closely in the field of maritime surveillance.

"The EU aims to enhance overall cooperation with Asian partners, and with India in particular. To this end, the EU will seek to establish military-to-military contacts with Indian counterparts in order to explore concrete opportunities for cooperation," he said.

Kozlowski, however, made it clear that it was not going to be a military alliance.

Without mentioning China's military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, he said both India and EU were strong promoters of the respect for international law, in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Asked about India joining the US, Australia and Japan in forming a quadrilateral coalition for the Indo-Pacific, he said it was New Delhi's decision and that EU's approach to manage international relations is based on multilateralism.

On EU's position on grey listing of Pakistan by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), he did not give a direct reply, but said the EU favours putting certain countries under such restrictions.

FATF, the global financial watchdog had placed Pakistan in its grey list for failing to check terror financing in the country.

The policy paper said countering radicalisation, including terrorist financing and preventing violent extremism were of priority for both partners.

It said both sides should cooperate to pursue common objectives in international and regional organisations, including at the UN, G20, the FATF and the Global Counter-terrorism Forum, notably on terrorist financing and terrorist designation listing.

About regional situation, the document said the stability and security of Asia was increasingly important for European interests and that EU and India should step-up engagement to support the resilience of states, and to address root causes of conflicts through joint approaches and preventive diplomacy.

On connectivity projects, it said the EU and India share the view that their approaches to connectivity should be sustainable, comprehensive and rules based.

The document recognised that India has emerged as the fastest-growing large economy and favoured deepening of trade and investment ties between the two sides.

In 2017, the EU was India's largest trading partner, while India was the EU's ninth largest trading partner, amounting to a total of Euro 86 billion worth of trade in goods and Euro 29 billion trade in services.

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The European Union Wednesday unveiled a 'strategy paper' outlining the broad roadmap for stepping up cooperation with India in a range of key sectors, including trade, investment, defence and security, innovation, and on dealing with various global challenges.

Releasing the paper, European Union's Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said the two sides are also going to have military cooperation in the Indian Ocean region.

He said India and the EU are significantly deepening their counter-cooperation to effectively deal with the challenge of terrorism in the region.

"India is on the top of the agenda of the EU in the field of external relations," Kozlowski told reporters.

On the stalled negotiations for the India-EU free trade agreement, he said both sides are actively engaged on the issue.

The strategy paper provides a broad overview of the EU's plan to expand ties with India in several key sectors for the next two decades.

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A major Ethiopian broadcaster says Facebook has shut 20 pages that falsely used its name.

Fana Broadcasting Corporate's announcement comes as Ethiopians complain that fake reports in recent months have contributed to mass violence and deaths in some parts of the country.

"Based on our request, Facebook has shut down 13 fake pages in the past week alone. In recent weeks, a total of 20 fake Fana pages that were spreading fake were shut down," Mekoya Hailemariam, head editor of Fana's online publications, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"The pages were using our official logo and mixing our authentic items with fake ones to intentionally spread misinformation. Some of these fake pages used to have as high as 45,000 followers."



Ethiopia has one of the lowest internet penetrations in the world with about 15 per cent of its citizens having access to the net, according to Internet World Stats.

The number of people using Facebook in Ethiopia, is estimated to be about 4.5 million of its 100 million inhabitants.

"There are only a few independent and free media outlets in Ethiopia," said Befkadu Hailu, a prominent blogger in Ethiopia.

"Hence, people are exposed to rumors, fake news and conspiracy theories. As such, they are exploited in many ways."



Ethiopia's reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in April, has relaxed the government's control of the media, freeing journalists and bloggers who were in jail and unlocking several dozen online media outlets.

But Abiy has warned on several occasions that fabricated stories are jeopardizing the public's peace and security.

"Youths should refrain from taking measures based on misinformation and fake news," Abiy said in August.

"This will only hamper our reform efforts and lead us to failure ultimately."



The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Fitsum Arega, also tweeted in August urging the public to "disregard falsehoods" and stay away from "fabricated stories."



In recent months, Ethiopians were exposed to fake news reports that sometimes led to violent and deadly events. One video that circulated four months ago purported to show ethnic Oromos throwing dead bodies of ethnic Somalis into a grave.

The video was blamed for instigating a violent confrontation.

In another example, fake news reports last week accused the country's running great, Haile Gebrselassie, of renting the ground floor of one of his buildings in the capital Addis Ababa to security agencies that were torturing people inside.

He later dismissed it as an "utter lie."



This East African nation has cut off internet in several occasions to curb the flow of information, notably during its two recent emergency rules.

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami will brief Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday about the devastation caused by the cyclonic storm 'Gaja' and seek a comprehensive central assistance package to tide over the situation.

The Tamil Nadu government, meanwhile, released Rs 1,000 crore from the State Disaster Response Fund to the cyclone affected districts to carry out relief and rehabilitation measures which includes solatium to the kin of dead, damage for crops, trees and houses.

Palaniswami left for Delhi this evening and is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister on Thursday at 9.45 am tentatively at his residence, sources said.

A day after touring the affected Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts, Palaniswami will brief Modi about the extensive damage caused by the cyclone and the huge monetary losses suffered by various sections of people, mainly the farmers.

Coconut trees and banana plantations spread across several lakhs of acres in districts including Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam were uprooted pushing farmers into a crisis.

Palaniswami after touring the affected districts had said the government will certainly take steps to get central funds and submit details of the damage with proof.

Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit meanwhile visited affected areas including Vedaranyam and Pushpavanam in Nagapattinam district and distributed assistance to people.

He also inspected food preparations at the relief centres and interacted with doctors at a medical camp.

Speaking to reporters, the Governor said, "As far as food is concerned it is being supplied everywhere, rice is available and administration is doing whatever is possible. I appreciate their zeal, dedication and work."



On the questions posed to him by the affected people, he said, "they wanted tarpaulins and some money."



Purohit said he had told the people to be patient for a few days and that the administration would fulfil their requirements.

Meanwhile, DMK treasurer Duraimurugan handed over a cheque of Rs one crore towards cyclone relief to the chief minister.

Senior AIADMK leader and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai hit out at DMK for playing politics over cyclone relief.

Initially, the main opposition party had lauded the preparatory works by the government and later on resorted to politicising the matter, he said.

"Money lies with the Centre, the key to the chest is with the central government," he said.

State Ministers continued to stay put in Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Pudukottai districts to monitor relief operations like dispatch of essential commodities to the affected people and fixing new electricity poles in lieu of uprooted ones.

Electricity Minister P Thangamani told reporters at Nagapattinam that electricity supply would be fully restored to Nagapattinam town soon.

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Goa Mining People's Front (GMPF) Wednesday said "frustration" is rising among the people affected by the closure of mining in the coastal state who might "resort to violence".

GMPF is an umbrella organisation of the people affected by the supreme court ban on mining activity.

Mining in the coastal state came to a halt since March this year after the apex court quashed the second renewal of 88 mining leases.

Addressing reporters, GMPF president Puti Gaonkar cited media reports that the Centre was averse to amend Mining Act, to underline the "concern and frustration" among the mining dependents.

He said the mining dependents will hold a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on December 11, 12 and 13 coinciding with the winter session of Parliament.

"Frustration is rising among the mining-dependent people in Goa. The mining dependents have already started showing signs of uneasiness. They have been holding protests before their local MLAs and MPs. They might resort to violence to give vent to their frustration," said Gaonkar.

He said leaders of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised to amend the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act for resumption of mining in Goa.

Home and Mining portfolios are being held by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who has been absent from office owing to failing health.

When contacted, Goa BJP unit president Vinay Tendulkar said the party is making all possible efforts to resume mining.

"The solution to the issue is expected in the next 15 days. There is no need for mining dependents to become panicky," he said.

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Police have registered 37 First Information Reports (FIRs) over illegal drawing of water from Narmada canals in various parts of Gujarat, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said Wednesday.

Police and the administration are taking strict action against those who draw water illegally from Narmada canals which take water of Sardar Sarovar Dam to various parts of the state, he said in a statement here.

As many as 37 FIRs have been lodged in this regard in the recent weeks, he added.

In a relief to farmers who plan to sow Rabi crops, 19,920 cusecs of water is being released in Narmada canals since November 12 from Sardar Sarovar Dam, the minister said.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani chaired a cabinet meeting where issues related to water scarcity in the wake of a weak monsoon were discussed.

Gujarat received only 76.72 per cent rainfall this season.

Revenue minister Kaushik Patel told the media after the meeting in Gandhinagar that the government will provide seven crore kg of fodder in scarcity-hit areas.

The government has already declared 51 taulks (tehsils) as 'scarcity-hit' while a special package has been declared for another 45 taluks which received scanty rains, he said.

A team led by Minister of State for Backward Class Welfare Vasan Ahir will visit Punjab Thursday to examine the possibility to importing wheat crop stubble from that state to be used as cattle fodder, he said.

"It was also decided that in view of poor rains, the government will provide 150 days of employment, instead of the usual 100 days, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in affected areas," Patel said.

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Changes in regulatory landscape are making it unviable to operate ATMs, and may lead to the closure of half of the 2.38 lakh machines in the country by March 2019, the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) warned Wednesday.

Closure of the ATMs will impact thousands of jobs and also the the financial inclusion efforts of the government, the industry body said in a statement.

"Service providers may be forced to close down almost 1.13 lakh ATMs across the country by March 2019. These numbers include approximately one lakh off-site ATMs and a little over 15,000 white label ATMs," it said.

The industry has reached a "tipping point", the body added.

A majority of the ATMs which can be shut down will be in the non-urban areas, it said, underlining that this can impact the financial inclusion efforts as beneficiaries use the machines to withdraw government subsidies.

The industry body said that recent regulatory changes, including those on hardware and software upgrades, coupled with mandates on cash management standards and the cassette swap method of loading cash, will make ATM operations unviable, resulting in the closure.

The new cash logistics and cassette swap method will alone result in costs of Rs 3,000 crore for the industry, it estimated.

It added that the ATM industry, including managed service providers, brown-label ATM deployers and white label ATM operators (WLAO), is still reeling under the shock of demonetisation.

"The situation has further deteriorated now due to the additional compliance requirements that call for a huge cost outlay. The service providers do not have the financial means to meet such massive costs and may be forced to shut down these ATMs," it said.

The only way to salvage the situation for the industry, according to the body, is if banks "step in to bear the load of the additional cost of compliances".

"Unless ATM deployers are compensated by banks for making these investments, there is likely to be a scenario where contracts are surrendered, leading to large scale closure of ATMs," it said.

Revenues for providing ATMs as a service are not growing at all due to very low ATM interchange charges and ever-increasing costs, it said, adding that such changes in the landscape were not anticipated while signing contracts with the banks.

The WLAOs have accumulated losses and the compliance costs can result in over 15,000 machines run by them shutting down, the industry body added.

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The Bombay High Court on Wednesday extended the relief by a day from arrest granted to civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, professor Anand Teltumbde and priest Stan Swamy in a case against them over the Koregaon-Bhima violence and alleged links with Maoists.

A bench of Justices B P Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal will hear on Thursday the petitions filed by the three activists, challenging the FIR registered against them by Pune Police on January 1 in connection with the Elgar Parishad event held on December 31, 2017.

The police had alleged that Maoists supported the Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune, which led to the violence.

At the event, held a day before the January 1 caste clashes at Koregaon Bhima village near Pune, the activists had made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements that contributed to the Koregaon Bhima violence, police said.

Several activists were named in the FIR. Some of them, including Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj, P Varavara Rao, and Gautam Navlakha, were initially put under house arrest on directions of the Supreme Court.

However, all of them except Navlakha were re-arrested and taken into custody by police recently.

Navlakha was released by the Delhi High Court, after which he moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIR against him.

Teltumbde and Swamy are yet to be arrested in the case.

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"Narcos" is not the first show to explore the world of drugs and it certainly won't be the last but Michael Pena, one of the stars of its new season, believes the show stands apart with the way it presents the story.

Pena, who joined the fourth season of the Netflix show, titled "Narcos: Mexico", as DEA agent Kiki Camarena, did not become a binge watcher until he was approached for the role.

The new show revolves around the rise and eventual fall of Guadalajara Cartel in Mexico while the first three seasons focused on Colombian drug players such as Medellin and Cali Cartels.

"I was excited when Eric (Newman, showrunner) approached me but I had not watched any of it and did not know much about it. After meeting him, I thought 'this sounded really cool' so I watched two episodes and I was blown away.

"They did a really good job with the show. I binge watched the two seasons and the third one before going to Mexico for the shooting. I like the way they tell the story. There are other shows about Narcos but the way they put it together, it goes by very fast," he told PTI in an interview.

The "Ant-Man" star, one of the most prominent Latin American actors in Hollywood, had a better understanding about what motivated Kiki to put his life in danger after he spoke to the slain agent's wife, Mika.

He realised that Kiki was someone who could not stand injustice and had a strong sense of right and wrong.

Kiki, who was tortured and killed on the orders of drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, is considered a hero in America as someone who sacrificed his life for a drug free world.

"What happened with Kiki was that there was a lot of injustice that was happening around him. It is like somebody is getting run over and you are like 'Dude, what is happening here' and people say, 'Ah, don't worry about it. Don't pay attention to it'. Why not pay attention?



"Finally, he says enough is enough. I am going to do something and make a difference. It can make anybody mad when you are not believed and you see people getting killed and bodies piling up," he said.

On his part, Pena does not believe in judging a character because "there is a reason for everything".

"This guy (Gallardo) grew up in a very poor area and you stay poor despite the best you can do. So some of them choose different paths like drugs. They do horrible stuff to make money."



The fast-paced story, the often gory murder sequences and the unusual narrative has earned the show a dedicated audience, who do not mind that the series has more Spanish than English.

The show is often presented as a template to its Hollywood counterparts for more inclusivity, diversity and authenticity at a time when there is a lot of debate around the issue of whitewashing but Pena has a slightly different outlook.

"I understand that it needs to be specific. If I am playing an important Latin guy like (Hugo) Chavez, it should be a Latin actor. But if it is something that does not have anything to say and the character just happens to be a Latin guy, like a fireman and there is no real weight or context to it, choose the best guy, I think.

"If it is great story, it does not matter whether the character is white, African-American or Latino... Who cares? Unless it is specific, it is fair play," he said.

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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
Hero Cycles Wednesday said it has entered into a strategic alliance with Japan's Yamaha Motor Co Ltd and Mitsui & Co for technology, manufacturing and marketing of electric bicycles.

The first product for India to roll out from this alliance would be a high-end electric-mountain bike (E-MTB) under the Hero brand, the company said in a statement.

"The partnership has been formed with a forward looking plan which includes development of new e-mobility products jointly by Hero and Yamaha, with go-to-market sales, distribution and marketing support by Mitsui & Co.Ltd," Hero Motors Company (HMC) Chairman Pankaj M Munjal said.

Hero Cycles, the flagship company of the HMC group, had recently announced its 'Cycle Valley' project proposed to be set up in Ludhiana and serve as a hub for end-to-end supply chain of the bicycle industry.

The project is to be led by Hero Cycles as anchor investor with an aim to create an ecosystem of suppliers in joint ventures with global bicycle component makers.

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The Himachal Pradesh government will organise first global investors meet at Dharamshala in June next year to present the state as model industrial hub before investors, Industries Minister Bikram Singh said.

The minister was speaking as chief guest during cultural evening organised Wednesday at Indian International Trade Fair-2018 on the occasion of Himachal State Day in New Delhi.

Himachal Pradesh has various advantages like easy access to the government, transparent functioning, better law and order situation, and uninterrupted power supply, which make the state as favourite destination for investment, he added.

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Hundreds of people bid a tearful adieu to Army commando Vijay Kumar, killed in an encounter with militants in Jammu and Kashmir, whose mortal remains were consigned to flames in Haryana's Bhiwani district on Wednesday.

Four Hizbul Mujahideen militants and the commando belonging to an elite para unit were killed on Tuesday in an encounter that took place in Shopian district.

The mortal remains of the martyr were consigned to flames with full military honours at his native Sangwan village. Kumar's teenage son lit the funeral pyre.

Kumar (37) is survived by his parents, wife and three children, including two daughters.

A large number of villagers had gathered to pay their last respects to the valiant soldier.

Haryana's Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma was also present at the martyr's funeral.

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Locked in a pitched electoral battle against Madhya Pradesh's three-time Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Congress candidate Arun Yadav has said he is fighting a "devil" in Budhni and accused him of cheating people of his constituency and of the entire state by perpetrating "maximum atrocities".

Yadav, the former state president of his party, said there was no second thought that the Congress is fighting a big battle in the state to regain power after sitting out for 15 long years, but he has full faith in winning against Chouhan.

The ruling BJP leaders have dismissed the claims made by Congress leaders that there have not been enough development in Budhni, known as the chief minister's bastion.

The saffron party have countered the Congress's allegations by saying that the state has seen maximum development during the last 15 years, as against what was done during the Congress rule before that. BJP leaders have said that Yadav has been made a 'sacrificial lamb'.

Earlier, Chouhan had also taken a dig at the Congress for fielding Yadav against him, saying the grand-old party has done "injustice" to his "friend" -- first by removing him from the post of state unit president and then by giving him ticket from Budhni.

Yadav, however, said it was a privilege for him that he was chosen by his party for this contest against someone who is the face of the BJP's entire campaign for the November 28 elections for 230 assembly seats.

"This was a call from my boss Rahul Gandhi (Congress President). And I think the objective of my coming here is to give a sense to the electorate in Budhni that we can fight this," Yadav told PTI in an interview during his campaign tour in a constituency that has come to be known as Chouhan's pocket borough for repeatedly electing him.

"I call him (Chouhan) a devil. My party pitched me against him and I think it's a privilege for me. People are responding and that is the best part," the 44-year-old Congress leader and son of the state's former deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav said.

Asked further about his description of the chief minister as a "devil", Yadav said he has reasons to say so.

"Madhya Pradesh is the only state in India where women are not safe, where the number of suicides of farmers is highest and in Sehore (Budhni district headquarters) it is the highest. During the last 15 years, there has been no employment for the youth. The biggest scam that was ever in MP is Vyapam, while there is illegal sand mining and other corruption," Yadav alleged.

Yadav, who has also served in the Union cabinet in the past, stressed it was important for the Congress to come back to power in these elections.

"I firmly believe this...it is for each and every worker and leader to go together and fight the battle out and make sure we are in power this time," he said, while hoping that the Congress will win about 155 seats to get a comfortable majority.

The two-time MP from Khandwa-Khargone seat further alleged Chouhan talks about infrastructure and industries and every year holds an industry meet, but there was no industry or employment.

"The state is totally bankrupt now and has a loan burden of Rs 1,70000 crore. He (Chouhan) calls himself 'mama' but under his rule there is maximum 'duraachar' and 'atyachaar'," Yadav alleged.

Chouhan is popularly known as 'mama' (maternal uncle) among his supporters, a moniker he says he got for work done for welfare of women and girls of the state.

Asked how would be counter this image of Chouhan, Yadav described himself as the real 'Narmada Putra' from this constituency and a son of the soil.

"I don't believe in killing people or firing at farmers (referring to Mandsaur incident). For me, each and every voter is important. For me love and affection which has been given by people of Budhni's people to me is very important. If he is real 'mama' after being a chief minister, then why are people committing suicide and why are women unsafe?," he argued.

Yadav alleged even basic amenities are missing in the area after 15 years of rule by the BJP.

"There are no roads, water and there is huge corruption here. People say that this constituency has been given to few people on contract. The chief minister talks about Narmada river, but in his own constituency the biggest scam is illegal sand mining which was being perpetrated by his own people and family," he said.

On being tagged by the BJP leaders as an "outsider" in Budhni, Yadav said it was a "propaganda" by the saffron party and he has not come across anyone from the area calling him an outsider as he was working in the area.

He also ruled himself out of the race for the position of chief minister, saying he was "just a normal worker" and it was for the party high-command to decide who would get the charge of the state after elections.

He also promised to serve the constituency and fight for the people here even if he fails to get electoral success.

Chouhan had won the last elections in 2013 with a margin of about 84,000 votes from Budhni and this time the BJP has given a slogan of 'Abki baar 1 lakh paar' (this time the victory margin should be over 1 lakh).

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The Indian Medical Association (IMA) Wednesday urged all private doctors to notify every tuberculosis patient in order to achieve India's goal to 'End TB' by 2025.

The annual number of TB cases notified by private providers needs to increase ten-fold, from 0.2 to 2 million annually by 2020, IMA national president Ravi Wankhedkar said at an event in Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

"India has the largest burden of tuberculosis in the world. Notification of every TB patient is the single most important intervention to meet the government's vision of a TB-free India.

"The state branch of IMA will address this and encourage all private doctors to notify every TB patient in order to achieve goal of 'End TB' in Madhya Pradesh. If patients are detected early and accurately, it gives an opportunity to treat them early and prevent infection further," Wankhedkar said.

The IMA highlighted various efforts to achieve the 'End TB' vision as part of a joint collaboration with the government to reach out to every private doctor and through them to every TB patient in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

As per the latest available data, the number of TB patients notified in MP during 2017 was 1,34,333, with 1,870 drug resistant TB cases being diagnosed. Out of this, 12 per cent TB patients were notified from private sector, an IMA statement said.

IMA will galvanise private doctors to increase notification and work toward the cause of ending TB by optimal utilisation of the government's notification system, NIKSHAY, the statement stated.

The IMA will inform and encourage private doctors to take advantage of the various facilities made available by the Government under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) for the benefit of patients seeking care from the private sector, including free diagnosis, drugs and NIKSHAY Poshan Yojana under which every TB patient gets Rs 500 per month towards nutrition support till completion of treatment.

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The 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health will be held in Hyderabad next year, a global organisation working in this field announced Wednesday.

The conference 'Ending the Emergency: Science, Leadership, Action' which will be held from October 30 to November 2 next year, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease said.

It will focus on what is needed to ensure commitments become action and targets are met, the organisation also called The Union said.

Tuberculosis (TB), a preventable and curable disease, now kills more people than HIV/AIDS and is the world's largest infectious disease killer, it said.

India has the highest TB burden in the world with one in four people ill with tuberculosis globally residing in the country, Prabodh Bhambal, Deputy Executive Director at The Union, said.

The scale of the TB global health emergency was acknowledged by the United Nations (UN) and it held the inaugural High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis in New York in September.

The meeting culminated in a political declaration signed by world leaders committed to ending tuberculosis by 2030. The Indian government has committed to eliminate TB in India by 2025.

"It's time to end the global TB emergency and that will mean holding governments accountable to the Political Declaration they signed at the UN meeting, Jos Luis Castro, Executive Director at The Union, said.

"In Hyderabad we need to be seeing signs that we are seeing real leadership that is translating into both investment in diagnostic tools, new drugs and a vaccine and action on the ground," he said.

The 50th Union World Conference is expected to be attended by around 6,000 researchers, policy makers, health practitioners, political leaders, and UN and community representatives.

The latest research into prevention, cure and vaccines will be presented at the conference.

The Union has its South-East Asia Office in Delhi employing and implements the Call to Action for a TB-Free India with support from the USAID's Challenge TB project.

The Union's Project Axshya, launched in 2010, engages all sectors to strengthen TB care and control in 128 districts across 14 states, Bhambal said.

Financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and partnering with local organisations across India, since 2015, Axysha has reached over 48 million people, identified and tested 643,000 people and placed 70,000 TB patients on treatment and prevented countless cases of infection, he said.

The conference's theme resonates with TB, but it will also raises awareness on all threats to lung health, including air pollution and tobacco abuse, The Union said.

Dr Vedant Kabra, Head of the Department of Surgical Oncology, Manipal Hospitals Groups, said an estimated seven million people across the globe die each year from exposure to ambient and household air pollution according to the WHO.

India accounts for 1.6 million deaths annually, he said.

On an average, Indian citizens are exposed to PM2.5 concentrations between 15 and 32 times the air quality guidelines set forth by the WHO.

Dr Raj Kumar, Director, Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, Delhi, emphasised that implementing stricter emissions standards in India could save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

"We stand at a crossroads for lung health, and I can think of no better or more important place than India to be the backdrop to the urgent conversations that are needed to save millions of lives.

"This conference is the platform where we bring science, communications and advocacy together only by uniting will we make sure we push forward on the right road," Bhambal said.

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Iran's foreign ministry denounced the latest US Treasury sanctions as "fruitless and senseless" in a statement issued on Wednesday.

"These fruitless, senseless and ineffective sanctions... will undoubtedly never achieve the desired outcome of their designers and enforcers," it said.

"Sooner or later they will become aware of the futility of their schemes."



Washington slapped fresh sanctions on Tehran Tuesday, accusing it of creating a complex web of Russian cut-out companies and Syrian intermediaries to ship oil to Damascus, which in turn bankrolled Hezbollah and Hamas.

The US considers both Hezbollah, a heavily armed Lebanese militia, and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, to be terrorist organisations.

The US Treasury said in a statement that Tehran, "working with Russian companies, provides millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian government" of President Bashar al-Assad.

"The Assad regime, in turn, facilitates the movement of hundreds of millions of US dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Qods Force for onward transfer to Hamas and Hezbollah," it said, referring to Iran's main foreign military operations unit.

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Number of tankers being used in drought-hit areas in Maharashtra has risen which is indicative of the "failure" of the state government's flagship 'Jalyukt Shivar' scheme, the Congress alleged Wednesday.

The Maharashtra government on October 31 declared drought in 151 talukas across 26 of total 36 districts in the state.

The opposition party said 17,715 tankers were supplying drinking water till November this year.

The opposition party attributed the figure of tankers to the state Water Supply department.

"Maharashtra received 74.3 per cent rainfall and according to water supply department, 17,715 tankers were supplying drinking water till November this year," party spokesman Sachin Sawant said in a statement.

"Maharashtra had received 70.2 per cent rainfall in 2014. Only 71 tankers were in service till November 17 that year. In 2015, the state had received only 59.4 per cent rainfall and 693 tankers were supplying drinking water," he said.

Sawant further said Rs 7789 crore were spent on the Jalyukt Shivar works. "Where is that money gone?" he questionned.

The Jalyukta Shivar project involves deepening and widening of streams, construction of cement and earthen stop dams, work on nullahs and digging of farm ponds. The aim of the scheme is to make Maharashtra a drought-free state by 2019.

"Despite spending crores on the scheme, the state government is still unable to tackle drought situation," Sawant said.

Seeking a judicial enquiry into "alleged scam", Sawant demanded resignation of Water Conservation Minister Ram Shinde.

Meanwhile, state BJP spokesman Keshav Upadhayay has accused the Congress of "maligning" the state government and misleading the people over quantum of tankers in service to tackle drought.

"If Sawant had provided the number of tankers in the month of May when the drinking water scarcity is at its peak, he would have known that 'Jalyukt Shivar' scheme was a success," he said.

Upadhyay said the number of tankers came down during the BJP rule due to the Jalyukta Shivar scheme.

"I appeal to the Congress to check the water tanker status for every May since 2013. In 2013, 2322 tankers were supplying water despite 109 per cent rainfall. In 2014, 2358 tankers were in service when the rainfall was 70 per cent.

In 2015, when the state received 59 per cent rainfall, 5423 tankers were supplying water. The 'Jalyukt Shivar' works gained momentum that year, due to which 1343 tankers supplied water. In May 2016, 1343 tankers supplied water despite 95 per cent rainfall.

"In 2017, 1047 tankers supplied water when the state had received 84 per cent rainfall. During the Congress rule, 2322 tankers were used despite 109 per cent rainfall whereas 1047 tankers were used in the BJP rule when rainfall was 84 per cent," Upadhyay said.

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Actor Joey King has called out a fellow passenger who rudely behaved with her on a flight.

The 19-year-old actor, who is sporting a bald look for a new series, recalled the horrific incident on Twitter, saying the man sitting next to her clicked her photo without her consent.

"Y'all I'm on a plane and this man next to me literally turned to me with his phone in my face and took a photo of me as if I wouldn't notice and texted his wife that he's sitting next to a girl who has cancer (just cuz I'm bald) and that he's scared to 'catch it'," she tweeted.

In another tweet, the "Kissing Booth" star said, "I read his text over his shoulder it said 'Some bald chick next to me with Fckn cancer coughed and I don't wanna catch it'... Um ya jokin?".

King has shaved her head in order to play real-life Munchausen victim-turned-murderer named Gypsy Rose Blanchard in Hulu's upcoming true crime series "The Act".

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Delhi chief minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday visited Sonipat in Haryana and handed over anex-gratia cheque of Rs 1 crore to the family of martyred BSF jawan Narender Singh.

Pakistani troops had slit the throat of the Border Security Force (BSF) jawan after fatally shooting him along the international border (IB) near Jammu on September 18.

Accompanied by AAP's Haryana unit president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal arrived in the afternoon and met the martyr's family in their native village Thana Kalan.

Kejriwal had also visited the village on September 21.

The Aam Aadmi Party government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the kin of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the national capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering at the village on Wednesday, Kejriwal said, "We are all proud of his sacrifice."



He questioned why successive governments do not give befitting reply to Pakistan.

"For how long valiant soldiers such as Narender Singh ji will keep giving sacrifices, for how long will families will lose their near and dear ones. When the country needs such sacrifices, definitely these will be given, but our country is not so weak that we cannot give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

"People of our country and the Army can give befitting reply and as was said here today that there should be no on this issue.

"I think all parties are one on this, then why governments are weak. Why successive governments don't give a befitting reply to Pakistan. Every government, every party says they will give befitting reply to Pakistan, but they forget later on," Kejriwal said.

He said though no amount of money can compensate the loss, but families of martyrs need to know "that we stand behind them."



He said the AAP government in Delhi took the decision to give the ex-gratia or "Samman Rashi", which he felt the previous governments at the Centre should have done 70 years back.

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The Kerala High Court on Wednesday slammed the police for its alleged excesses on devotees going to and sought all records relating to prohibitory orders clamped in the temple complex and nearby areas.

Criticising the Inspector General of Police in-charge of and Superintendent of Police for the alleged action against pilgrims at and Nilackal recently, the court asked whether these officials were having any criminal antecedents.

The court also observed that experienced officials should be put in charge.

A division bench comprising justices P R Ramachandra Menon and N Anil Kumar directed the Pathanamthitta district magistrate to produce all files and records which led to the declaration of Section 144 banning assembly of four or more people in Sabarimala 'Sannidhanam' and surrounding areas.

ALSO READ: Sabarimala board says ready to discuss with anybody to resolve standoff

Considering a batch of petitions on Sabarimala, the court sought to know whether the prohibitory orders were issued in good faith and whether the fundamental rights of the genuine devotees were violated.

Flaying the police for the alleged excesses on pilgrims at Sannidhanam, the temple complex, the court said there was no bar for devotees to go in a group to Sabarimala.

It also directed police not to obstruct Ayyappa devotees chanting Ayyappa mantra at Sannidhanam.

The court also pulled up the government for not abiding by its directives to the police issued two days ago and directed the government to file a counter affidavit during the hearing next week.

On Monday, in a strong reprimand, the court had expressed its displeasure over the manner in which Ayyappa devotees were dealt with by the police at the "Sannidhanam".

The bench had questioned the alleged police excesses and asked under what authority did the police prevent the devotees from entering the temple complex.

The court had warned that stringent action would be taken against police officials if such incidents were repeated.

Sixty-nine protesters were arrested after they held a "nama japam" (chanting Lord Ayyappa mantras) inside the temple complex late on Sunday, defying prohibitory orders.

Restrictions have been imposed at the temple following protests by devotees and activists of the BJP and RSS over the state government's decision to implement the September 28 order allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the shrine.
The police have arrested an alleged operative of the Khalistan Liberation Force for the grenade attack on a religious congregation in Amritsar, an act blamed on ISI-backed militants by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday.

We are on to the second person and it is a matter of time before we get him, the chief minister said here while announcing the arrest.

Bikramjit Singh, a resident of Dhariwal village in Rajasansi police station area was arrested early Wednesday morning near Loharka village in Amritsar, he said.

He is alleged to be one of the two motorcycle-borne men involved in the attack last Sunday at Nirankari Bhavan in Adliwal village on the outskirts of Amritsar.

Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora said the motorcycle has been recovered.

The second man, who threw the grenade that killed three people and injured about 20 others, has been identified as 32-year-old Avtar Singh Khalsa.

Bikramjit Singh indicated to the police that the grenade was provided by Harmeet Singh Happy, also known as 'PhD' and suspected to be the Pakistan-based KLF chief.

Ruling out any communal motive, the chief minister described the attack as a "pure act of terror."



"It was an attempt by Pakistan's ISI to carry out terrorist actions in Punjab to disturb peace in the state," he said.

CCTV footage of the attack helped arrest Bikramjit Singh, who then identified Khalsa, a resident of village Chak Mishri Khan in Amritsar, as his accomplice.

The duo retrieved the HG 84 hand grenade, made at the Pakistan Ordinance Factories, from an orchard near Majitha where it was buried for them, DGP Suresh Arora said.

They also did a recce of the Nirankari Satsang Bhavan on November 13 morning when no one was present there, he said.

During his interrogation, Bikramjit Singh revealed that while Avtar Singh Khalsa slipped into the Bhavan complex along with the devotees, he subdued the two 'sewadars' deployed at the gate.

After hurling the grenade, the two fled on Bikramjit Singh's motorcycle to Khalsa's village, Arora said.

Happy had earlier come to notice of the police for supplying a hand grenade of the same Arges Type HG-84 specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh, the self-styled chief of Khalistan Gadar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police in October, the DGP said.

Such grenades have been used in Jammu and Kashmir in the past, he said.

Earlier in 2016-17, Happy had masterminded a conspiracy to target RSS and Shiv Sena leaders in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in collaboration with Pakistani establishment and its Inter-Services Intelligence, Amarinder Singh said.

He said attempts by the ISI and the Pakistan establishment to forge linkages between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups is a matter of serious security concern for the state.

He added the state police was working closely with central agencies to check the spread of such forces.

His government was committed to ensuring that nobody disturbs the state's hard-earned peace and harmony, the CM said.

Amarinder Singh said since March 2017, the state police have busted 17 terror modules and arrested 81 militants, preventing a large number of terrorist strikes.

They have seized 77 weapons and explosives from these terrorists. These include 12 hand grenades, he said.

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A day after Lok Sabha member Konda Vishweshwar Reddy quit the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) citing 'disppointment' at various levels, AICC in-charge of Telangana, R C Khuntia Wednesday said he would join the Congress.

Reddy met Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi today and expressed his desire to join the party, Khuntia told PTI.

Reddy would formally join the party on November 23 at a Congress campaign rally at Medchal in the presence of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he said.

The TRS Lok Sabha member from Karimnagar, B Vinod Kumar said, "It's unfortunate that Vishveshwar took that decision (to quit TRS).

"I don't think so," Kumar, the deputy floor leader of TRS in Lok Sabha, told PTI when asked if Reddy's decision would have an impact on TRS prospects in the December seven Assembly elections in Telangana.

In a setback to the TRS ahead of the Assembly polls, Reddy had quit the party Tuesday.

In a letter to the TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Reddy said he was disappointed with the ruling party at various levels.

He was forced into a position of contemplating leaving the party despite the fact that today TRS enjoys significant goodwill in the "social circles that we are in," Reddy had said in his letter.

Reddy listed disappointments at five levels -- personal, injustice to karyakarthas (those) who worked for Telangana statehood, constituency, state and party -- in the letter.

He said he would resign from the Lok Sabha.

The Telangana assembly elections are scheduled to be held on December 7.

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A Twitter war erupted Wednesday between RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav, serving sentences in fodder scam cases and lodged in a Ranchi hospital, and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

The spat was triggered by a post on Yadav's official Twitter handle, which is handled by his trusted aides, wherein the RJD supremo had shared an article that appeared in a Hindi portal with the title "Why is the BJP so scared of Lalu".

The article was shared with the remark: "Because I am not scared of the smear campaign, enticements, vindictiveness, harassments and blackmails (of the BJP). Because I am the most vocal opponent of their venomous politics based on whipping up hatred along the lines of religion and caste, which cares neither for the Constitution nor for humanity. Because I cannot compromise on principles, even if I am hanged."



Irked over the remarks, Modi came out with the riposte : "For 30 years, Lalu has been involved in a false propaganda against BJP and Sangh Parivar. He has been using this strategy to get the votes of the minorities. So full of greed he is that his name figures in scam after scam, from fodder to hotel."



"Which principles does he talk about. Hundreds lost their lives in retributive violence that marked his rule and Bihar was witness to kidnapping for ransom becoming an industry. He did not feel like hanging himself before reneging on the principles of JP and Lohia and making compromises for the sake of his own vested interests," the deputy CM added.

Interestingly, Modi and Yadav had together taken part in the "JP Movement" of the 70s when the deputy CM was the general secretary of Patna University Students Union and Yadav was its president. However, in mainstream politics both have remained staunchly opposed to each other.

Meanwhile, RJD spokesman and MLA Bhai Virendra accused the Nitish Kumar government of capitulating before the BJPs communal agenda by allowing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to tour the state.

However, JD(U) spokesman and MLC Neeraj Kumar hit back quoting from a reported statement by Yadav in 1989, when the Janata Dal was sharing power with the BJP, alleging that the RSS was being wrongly blamed for the Bhagalpur communal riots.

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A lawyer has petitioned the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court seeking police probe into the "suspicious and untimely" death of CBI judge B H Loya.

Judge Loya, who was presiding over the trial in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh alleged fake encounter case against senior IPS officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan police, died of a heart attack in Nagpur in 2014.

Advocate Satish Uke filed the petition on Monday, seeking a direction to police authorities concerned to probe Loya's death and to safeguard documents from the guest house in Nagpur where Loya was staying when he died.

The petition is yet to be taken up for hearing by the high court.

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The Madras High Court has acquitted a man, who was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by a lower court in a case of sexual assault in Tiruvannamalai district in 2007, terming the police probe as "faulty".

The court also directed the Tamil Nadu DGP to peruse the judgement given by the trial court and the high court and arrange for training classes to all investigation officers to sensitise them to the manner in which a probe should be conducted in a case of sexual offence.

Allowing the appeal by the accused V Venkatesan Tuesday, Justice MV Muralidharan said, "It is seen from records that the investigation conducted by an inspector of police is the root cause for the collapse of the case of the prosecution."



In the case on hand, the judge said the investigating officer, without taking due care, conducted the probe in a casual manner and was not aware of the manner to investigate into the offence.

"The faulty investigation and the conduct of the victim soon after the occurrence of the incident have not inspired confidence in the case of the prosecution," he said.

The matter relates to the sexual assault of a woman by Venkatesan on October 13, 2007 at her residence in Arani.

Venkatesan was handed down the sentence on August 23, 2013 by a lower court for the offence under sections 450 (house trespass), 376 (punishment for sexual assault) of IPC.

Aggrieved over the conviction and sentence passed by the court, Venkatesan preferred the instant appeal in the High Court.

Noting that the accused was arrested after a lapse of 11 months of the incident, the judge said the complaint was lodged by the victim on October 19, 2007 and her medical examination done on October 31, which is a faulty investigation.

The judge then acquitted Venkatesan of all charges.

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A 300-page, magisterial probe report on the Amritsar train accident in which about 60 people died last month was submitted to the Punjab Home Secretary Wednesday.

Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner B Purushartha, who was appointed special executive magistrate by the government to probe the October 19 accident, said the report was submitted to Punjab Home Secretary N S Kalsi.

The report had statements of over 150 people. They included railway officials and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who was the chief guest at the Dussehra event, held close to the railway tracks in Amritsar.

The report would now be examined by the Home Department, a senior official said.

Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had questioned the Railways for giving a clean chit to the train driver, too had submitted his statement in writing.

Opposition Akali Dal had rejected the institution of a magisterial probe and sought registration of a criminal case against Navjot Kaur Sidhu and the event organisers.

About sixty people were mowed down by a train that hurtled through a crowd, which had spilled onto the railways tracks while watching the burning of a Ravana effigy on Dussehra this year.

The railways had initially refused to order a probe, saying it was a case of trespassing and not of negligence by its officials or the loco-pilot.

But two weeks after the accident, it said the chief commissioner of Railway safety would probe the tragedy.

Additional Director General of Police (Railways) Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota is separately conducting an inquiry into the Amritsar train accident to fix responsibility.

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The Maharashtra government waived a rent of Rs 59 lakh due from BJP leaders Eknath Khadse and Vijaykumar Gavit for overstaying in their official residences, a reply under the Right to Information (RTI) has said.

Khadse was revenue minister in the BJP-led government until 2016 when he resigned over charges of corruption. Gavit was a minister in the earlier Congress-NCP regime.

As per the reply to a query filed by RTI activist Anil Galgali, Khadse owed a rent of Rs 15.49 lakh while Gavit owed Rs 43.84 lakh to the Public Works Department.

Galgali had sought information from the PWD about whether they paid off the dues.

The PWD's reply said the rent was waived as a "special case" upon orders of the General Administration Department.

PWD had sought Rs 15,49,974 from Khadse for overstaying at 'Ramtek', an official bungalow, beyond the permissible period after he resigned.

Khadse resigned on June 4, 2016 but vacated the bungalow on November 19 that year.

The senior BJP leader had applied to the government on March 26, 2018 seeking waiver of the rent, the reply said.

Gavit had been allotted a 3,330 sq ft flat in government-owned Suruchi building in south Mumbai when he was a minister.

Gavit resigned on March 20, 2014 and later joined the BJP. But he vacated the flat only on July 29, 2016, as per the PWD which manages these properties.

He was liable to pay Rs 43,84,500, but he applied for a waiver and it was granted as a special case on October 22 this year, the RTI reply said.

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Six persons of a family, including two women and as many children, were Wednesday killed when their car collided with a truck on Manmad--Yeola road in Nashik district of Maharashtra, police said.

The car in which the family was travelling was reduced to pulp due to the impact of the collision, a Yeola taluka police station official said.

The car was headed towards Yeola, around 85 kms away from here, when the truck rammed into it at Visapur phata (diversion) around 4:30 AM, he said, adding that the accident disrupted vehicular traffic for several hours.

The truck driver fled the spot after the accident, the official said.

The deceased are identified as Balasaheb Aanad (60), his wife Indubai (55), car driver Shrinath Aanad (25), Mohini Khandave, Hari khandave (5) and Bhimabai Rohakale(70).

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Embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya on Wednesday faced a setback in his battle to save his posh London home from foreclosure by Swiss bank UBS after the UK High Court rejected many of the arguments relied on by his legal team.

The bank has sought repossession of the property at Cornwall Terrace, overlooking Regent's Park in central London, over the non-payment of a 20.4-million pounds mortgage loan.

The property was referred to in the UK High Court as a "high-class home for Dr Vijay Mallya and his family members and United Breweries Group corporate guests".

While a trial in the case has been set for May next year, the High Court on Wednesday ruled on the UBS' application to strike out parts of the defence and found substantially in favour of the bank.

"UBS is pleased with the decision. Given that proceedings are ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further," UBS said in a statement.

In his judgment following a two-day hearing last month, Judge Chief Master Marsh concluded that he can see no basis upon which the defendants should be given an opportunity to amend their defence.

"They have had an ample opportunity to explain their case in answers to UBS' request for information. The case they put forward is not curable by simple amendments," he said.

"The language of the contractual terms, in this case, could not be starker. The loan was made on an uncommitted basis and repayable on demand," the judgment notes.

The judge also expressed his displeasure at the way Mallya's defence team had conducted itself during the case, which meant avoidable delays for the court.

There was a breakdown in the relationship between Mallya's previous law firm, Blake Morgan LLP, "including in relation to fees", which was one of the factors flagged by the court.

"I accept that the change of solicitors put the defendants' legal team under considerable pressure. However, I am not satisfied that the defendants (Mallya) have shown a good reason for seeking an adjournment. It seems to me that the defendants are largely the authors of their current misfortune," the judgment reads.

The case relates to a mortgage taken out by Rose Capital Ventures, one of Mallya's companies, with the 62-year-old businessman, his mother Lalitha and son Sidhartha, listed as having the right of occupancy on the property.

While Mallya's team claims the bank had called in the loan ahead of an agreed period, the bank has claimed that it is within its rights to call in the mortgage for non-payment.

The application relating to the judgment this week was filed by the bank to strike out claims that any rights to remain in the property by the defendants take priority over the mortgage before a full trial in May 2019.

Meanwhile, Mallya remains on bail on an extradition warrant executed by Scotland Yard last year on fraud and money laundering charges brought by the Indian government, amounting to nearly Rs 9,000 crore.

A ruling in his extradition case is expected at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London next month.

The extradition trial, which opened at the London court on December 4 last year, is aimed at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya and establishing there are no bars to him being extradited to face Indian courts over the allegations relating to loans made out to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

In separate legal proceedings, the businessman had also lost his appeal in the UK's Court of Appeal against a High Court order in favour of 13 Indian banks to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds.

The High Court order, earlier this year, in favour of the State Bank of India (SBI) led consortium had reinforced a worldwide freezing order against Mallya's assets.
A 20-year-old man was arrested on November 20 from Satara in western Maharashtra for allegedly beheading a 19-year-old waiter from Mumbai in Nallasopara in Palghar district, the police said Wednesday.

According to police, the accused Vikas Varak allegedly killed Vikas Bhavdhane whom he perceived as his rival in his love affair with a girl.

Tulinj police in Palghar had found the head of the victim wrapped in a plastic and his body in a nullah on November 19.

A senior police official said Varak allegedly called Bhavdhane to an isolated spot near Valaipada on the night of November 18 under some pretext and attacked him with a sharp-edged weapon.

Police have registered a case of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

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A 25-year-old man was killed Wednesday and another injured after their motorcycles collided in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district, police said.

The deceased, identified as Mohan Singh Rajput, a resident of Jaswantpura village, while the other motorcyclist, who was seriously injuried was identified as Rahul Meghwal of Negadiya village, they said.

Both were rushed to a local hospital from where they were referred to the SRG hospital in Jhalawar, where Rajput was declared brought dead, police said, adding that Meghwal is undergoing treatment.

The body was handed over to the family after postmortem Wednesday afternoon, police said.

A case under Section 279 (negligent driving) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registerd against the injured man, they said.

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The BJP Wednesday rejected former prime minister Manmohan Singh's charge that the Modi government was weakening democracy, saying its dispensation draws views from all stake-holders and has given bodies like the RBI independence to express their opinions.

Hitting back at Singh, the BJP said his government in its 10-year rule had always put pressure on institutions like the CBI, while the dispensation led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi "respects" institutions and does not interfere in their functioning.

At a press conference in Indore, Singh had said that the credibility of institutions has been systematically denigrated under the current government which, he claimed, is making a "careful, well-thought-out calibrated effort" to weaken democracy.

"Nobody is harming or weakening any institution. It is our government that is giving them independence to express their views and in economic policy, Singh should know that there are always difference of opinions and there are multiple options in research allocation," BJP spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal said.

In an apparent reference to the recent row involving the RBI and the Finance Ministry over policy issues, he said any institution that says only its opinion will prevail is not asking for autonomy but supremacy.

The accountability of an elected government is higher as it it has to look after all the stake holders and factors of economy, he said, adding that the government has given them leverage of giving their opinion and does not dictate to them.

Targeting the Congress, he alleged the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had "created a situation" that the then RBI governor had to resign.

"Our government discusses, respects and resolves (differences)," Agarwal said.

The impasse in the CBI was due to a clash between its two top officers and the government without taking any sides opted for an investigation by the CVC, he added.

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Surrendered Naxals and many tribals who dropped out of schools here in Maharashtra are now realising the importance of in life and resuming their studies to build a better future.

Lack of proper facilities in this tribal- dominated district in Vidarbha region led many youths to join the Naxal movement. But, some of them realised its futility and surrendered to police to join the national mainstream.

A study centre of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) at Kurkheda taluka here has given these people an opportunity to pursue higher through its distance learning programme.

Around 468 students, including Naxals who surrendered, girls, boys, married women and even mothers, are pursuing various diploma and degree courses from IGNOU's study centres in Gadchiroli, a senior official of the university said.

IGNOU has been running some study centres in the district since 2013 and the one at Kurkheda was set up about a year ago, he said.

A 35-year-old man, who dropped out of Class 12 in the nearby Korshi taluka and joined the Naxal movement at the age of 19, is now pursuing the Bachelor Preparatory Programme after enrolling at the study centre in Kurkheda.

The man, who did not wish to be identified, said he surrendered before police in 2014 and now wants to take up social work.

"I had joined the Naxal movement because of the poor financial condition of my family. This is a cause of distress among many tribals. There should be equal opportunities of education and employment for all," he said.

Jayshree Madavi, 43, a resident of Kurkheda, had also discontinued her studies after Class 11. But, her daughter motivated her to study.

Madavi resumed her studies a couple of years back and cleared the Class 12 exam along with her daughter.

Both Madavi and her daughter are now pursuing the Bachelor Of Arts (BA) degree course after enrolling at the IGNOU's study centre.

Another local resident Priyanka Zade is also pursuing the BA course along with her sister, while their mother has taken up the Bachelor Preparatory Programme.

IGNOU's local coordinator Gauri Uikey said she has travelled to over 150 villages in Kurkheda, Korshi and Dhanora talukas to motivate young boys and girls as well as adults to pursue higher education.

She is also a member of a self-help group which tries to reach out to women in villages and make them aware about educational opportunities for them.

Once women enrol for the courses, IGNOU provides them quality study material, Uikey said.

"There are several school dropouts in these villages who could not pursue higher education due to lack of adequate education facilities and other domestic reasons. IGNOU has given them an opportunity to pursue their dream of higher education," she said.

She claimed that around 85 students who pursued courses from the IGNOU's study centres in Gadchiroli were working in different fields across Maharashtra.

Besides, 68 students took up the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) degree course to work in their villages and serve the society, Uikey said.

P Sivaswaroop, director of the IGNOU's Nagpur regional centre, which monitors the functioning of its study centres in Gadchiroli, said he was happy that tribal women were showing a keen interest in pursuing higher education.

Kurkheda was adopted by the IGNOU's regional centre in Nagpur under the government's 'Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan', he said, adding that they also hold special admission camps for tribals and organise talks on nutrition-related issues.

'Unnat Bharat Abhiyan' is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development to involve higher education institutions in the indigenous development of self-sufficient and sustainable village clusters.

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Nearly 400 paramilitary personnel were killed due to firing from across the Indo-Pak border, and terrorist and insurgency violence in the country in the last three years, officials said Wednesday.

The highest number of personnel killed in action were from the Border Security Force (BSF).

The force lost 167 personnel between 2015 and 2017, and a majority of them were killed while guarding the highly sensitive border.

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has lost 103 personnel in the last three years, mostly while fighting Naxals and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, a Home Ministry official said.

While the BSF lost 62 personnel in action in 2015, 58 in 2016 and 47 in 2017, the CRPF lost nine personnel in action in 2015, 42 in 2016 and 52 in 2017.

As many as 48 personnel of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were killed in action in the last three years of whom 16 were killed in 2015, 15 in 2016 and 17 in 2017, the official said.

The SSB guards the Indo-Bhutan and Indo-Nepal border. The troops of the force is also deployed in internal security duties.

A total of 40 personnel belonging to the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which guards the Sino-Indian border, were killed in action between 2015 and 2017. Among them, 15 personnel were killed in 2015, 10 in 2016 and 15 in 2017.

Altogether 35 personnel of the Assam Rifles, which guards the Indo-Myanmar border and fights militants in the northeast, were killed in action in the last three years.

Eighteen personnel of the Assam Rifles were killed in 2015, nine in 2016 and eight in 2017.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has lost two personnel in action in the last three years -- one each in 2016 and 2017.

There were no casualties in 2015 from the CISF, which guards, airports, nuclear installations, metro services and other sensitive locations, another official said.

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It is a story of an Indian island facing an alarming situation of depleting level of "very scarce" ground water with its villagers knocking on the doors of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for its urgent intervention to protect their land and future generations.

The NGT, after perusing the 'SOS' letter written by the villagers of Dweep panchayat of Kavaratti in Union Territory of Lakshadweep, swung into action and directed the district collector there and Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) to submit their reports on the issues.

A three-member bench of the NGT, headed by Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore, also appointed advocate Sumeer Sodhi as an amicus curiae to assist it in the matter.

In their reports, the authorities conceded that the fragile fresh water resources may be lost forever if immediate efforts to regulate their use and conserve rainwater are not taken.

The Union Territory of Lakshadweep is spread across 32 square kilometer area in the Arabian Sea and consists of 10 inhabited islands, 17 uninhabited islands, three reefs and six submerged sand banks having a population of 64,473 as per the 2011 census. The coral islands are located about 400 km from the southern tip of the Indian peninsula.

It has a population density of 2,013 persons per square kilometer as per the census.

Following the NGT's directive, the district collector of Lakshadweep has submitted a status report before the green panel and has said that all steps would be taken by the administration for preservation and management of precious ground water in the islands.

He has said that the Ministry of Water Resources has asked the Union Territory for adoption of Modal Groundwater (Sustainable Management) Act 2016 and the UT administration has submitted its comments to the ministry of water resources.

"In Lakshadweep islands, fresh water occurs as lenses floating over saline water. If proper regulatory measures are not adopted, the fragile resources may be lost forever," the report said and suggested some measures like discouraging high capacity electric motors, adoption of rainwater harvesting and avoiding wastage of water.

Similarly, the Central Ground Water Authority has also given its report on the status of ground water level there.

"Rain water harvesting and desalinization of sea water are the best alternatives of fresh water. Ground water is the only fresh water resource available in the islands and it is also very scarce. Hence, all this resource has to be reserved for domestic use only," the authority has said.

In their letter addressed to NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, the villagers have said that their islands have a delicate ecosystem with very limited fresh potable water resources.

"In the circumstances, we humbly request to chairman of National Green Tribunal kindly take immediate action to protect our land and water and also preserve it for our future generations," it said.

The villagers said though the islands receive high rainfall, the lack of surface storage capacity and the limited ground water storage capacity make fresh water a precious commodity.

The letter, written on July 24, also said that there were no surface water bodies such as streams and rivers in Lakshadweep and a limited quantity of ground water was available for utilisation of local people.

It said that the water requirements for drinking and domestic uses was on the rise due to increase in population.

"Southwest monsoon is the rainy season. The average rainfall is 1640 mm and the rainfall infiltrates into the ground and small portion goes to recharge the ground water and the major portion is lost as subsurface run off and as potential evaporation losses," it said.

The letter said that the depth from the surface to the ground water table is generally just a few metres. Based on this - Kavaratti, Agathi, Amini, Androth and Kilthan islands have been categorized as 'semi-critical' whereas the remaining islands have been categorised 'safe'," it said.

Noting that the biggest misuse of water in the island is the excessive pumping of ground water, the villagers said that in recent years use of high power pumps mostly of 1HP capacity has become common.

"The pumping of ground water should be regulated and more attention should be given towards researching our ground water pumping because the ground water pumping is not scientific method in many places at Kavaratti islands. Here pumping more water from the ground then the sustainable (more than is being refilled by nature)," the letter further said.

The villagers said that though an RO plant is also running here but the disadvantage of the RO plant is that they remove most of the minerals from the water which are essential to the human body and cause mineral deficiency in the human body.

"Approximately much more water compared to filtered out water is flushed down as waste water and also RO plant water purifier consumes much more electricity," they said.

The letter said that the availability of fresh water in the islands is limited and if the wastage goes on, then there will be no water to grow food and the ground water sources will dry up.

The case is now listed for December 11.

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Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh visited the Siachen glacier, the highest battle field in the world, Wednesday and interacted with troops deployed there.

The Army commander was accompanied by General Officer Commanding, Fire & Fury Corps, Lieutenant General Y K Joshi, a defence spokesperson said here.

"Lt Gen Singh visited Siachen and interacted with the troops deployed at the highest battlefield in the world," he said.

"The Army Commander appreciated the high level of operational preparedness being maintained by the troops deployed in Siachen glacier despite the extremely harsh weather conditions where temperatures are dipping below -30 degrees Celsius," the official said.

Lt Gen Singh also reviewed the operational preparedness of the mechanised and the aviation units deployed in Ladakh sector, he said.

The Army commander urged all ranks to continue to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and dedication to duty against all odds, he added.

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Finance Minister Wednesday said there was nothing new in youngsters from the state joining the proscribed ULFA-Independent and sought to underplay the outfit's "commander-in-chief" Paresh Baruah's nephew joining it.

He attacked former chief minister for saying that many youngsters from had joined the ULFA-I during the present BJP government's rule in the state and wondered whether those arrested for being members of the outfit during the regime were "fake".

"There is nothing new in youngsters joining the ULFA-I. Every year, 150-200 youngsters join the outfit. If a joins the insurgent group, it can be considered as a new information," Sarma said on the sidelines of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) meeting in reply to reporters' queries on youngsters leaving the state to join the underground group.

On the issue of Baruah's nephew Munna joining the outfit, he said, "There is nothing surprising about ULFA-I chief Paresh Baruah's nephew joining the outfit. If he (Munna) does not join the ULFA-I, then who will? Is that "



Sarma hit out at Gogoi for his statement that many youngsters had joined the outfit during the BJP rule in the north-eastern state and said, "Was there no ULFA-I during his 15-year tenure? Were those arrested as ULFA-I members during his rule fake militants? If they were fake, then an FIR should be lodged immediately."



Taking a swipe at the Congress, to which Gogoi belongs, Sarma, who is also the convenor of the North East Democratic Alliance consisting of the BJP and regional parties, said, "Like the Congress, the aging Paresh Baruah too chose his own blood as his heir to take forward his mission."Continuing his argument, the senior BJP leader said, "Because I am in the BJP, if my brother joins the BJP, that is not Why are you (journalists) speaking like spokespersons of the ULFA-I?"Accusing the various organisations protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 of "deviating from the main issue", Sarma said, "Right now, all of us must focus on the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) or else, a number of illegal foreigners will become bona fide citizens."Assam, which had faced an influx of people from since the early 20th century, is the only state to have an NRC, which was first prepared in 1951.

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The Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) presented the first interim dividend cheque of Rs 49.95 crore for the current financial year to the Assam government on Wednesday.

The cheque was handed over to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal by NRL Managing Director S K Barua in the presence of senior officials of the refinery here, a company release said.

The interim dividend, against the government's equity holding of 12.35 per cent, has been worked out based on the performance of the company during the first six months of the current financial year.

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Michelle Obama's "Becoming" has become a massive hit.

Crown Publishing told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the former first lady's memoir has sold more than 1.4 million copies in print and digital formats in the US and Canada in the seven days since it was released November 13.

Based on demand from retailers across all channels, the publisher has printed 3 million hardcover copies in North America. On its first day, the book sold more than 725,000 copies, making it one of the year's biggest debuts.

Crown also said that "Becoming" is currently the No. 1 adult nonfiction title in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Denmark and Finland. In Germany, some 200,000 copies have been sold, prompting a second printing of 100,000 copies.

In the United Kingdom, "Becoming" is published by Viking and it has had five press runs with a total of 575,000 copies in print. In Holland, the Dutch-language edition is the best-selling book in the Netherlands, with the English-language edition ranked second.

"Becoming" is well exceeding the pace of previous memoirs by first ladies. In 2003, Hillary Clinton's "Living History" had first week sales of around 600,000 copies.

Reviews of the book, which traces Obama's journey from Chicago's South Side to the White House, have been positive, with The Washington Post praising its "impressive balance in telling the truth of her challenges while repeatedly acknowledging her lucky life.
Altogether 10 persons were killed in Tuesday's bus accident in Odisha's Cuttack district, and not 12 as has been reported earlier, an official of state-run SCB Medical College and Hospital said Wednesday.

The hospital had actually received 10 bodies, including those of three women, and 42 injured persons, the hospital's Emergency Officer Dr B N Moharana said.

Moharana on Tuesday said 12 bodies were brought to the hospital along with 49 injured people.

However, he did not elaborate on the change in the number of casualties.

Seven critically injured persons are in the ICU and they are being treated by a team of doctors drawn from 10 departments, Moharana said.

The private bus, on its way to Cuttack from Talcher, crashed into the railing of the bridge near Jagatpur and plunged 30 feet down into the dry riverbed of the Mahanadi.

According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the bus lost control when a buffalo came in front of it. The driver swerved the bus to save the animal and thus the accident happened, a police officer said.

Meanwhile, the transport department has ordered an enquiry to ascertain the cause of the accident, official sources said.

The police also registered a criminal case against the driver of the bus, who is among the injured.

State Governor Ganeshi Lal, Health Minister Pratap Jena and Transport Minister Nrushingha Sahu and others visited the hospital and hailed the hospital employees for saving the lives of the injured.

"We cannot bring back those who have left us but we will not allow anyone of the remaining to leave us," the Governor said.

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One person has been arrested in connection with the grenade attack in Amritsar that left three people dead and over 20 injured on Sunday, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday.

"One Bikramjit Singh has been arrested and search for another accused, Avtar Singh, is on," Amarinder told the media here.

The chief minister also showed pictures of the two accused and assured that the second person would be nabbed soon.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is quite active in fomenting trouble in Punjab and the grenade attack in Amritsar was a pure act of terrorism, Singh said.

Three people including a preacher were killed and over 20 injured when two-motorcycle borne men threw a grenade on a religious congregation on the outskirts of Amritsar on Sunday, an incident which police are treating as a terrorist act.

The incident had taken place insidethe Nirankari Bhawan's prayer hall at Adliwal village near Amritsar's Rajasansi.

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One person was killed and seven others were injured when two buses collided on the Lucknow-Gorakhpur highway here due to dense fog, police said Wednesday.

The accident took place at about 2 am in the Khorbar area due to dense fog. A bus hit the rear side of another, they said.

Most of the passengers were sleeping at the time of the accident. Villagers rushed to the accident spot after hearing a loud noise and informed police.

Police rushed the injured people to a hospital and sent the body of a driver of one of the buses for postmortem.

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A man was killed and six of his family members injured when a car carrying them hit a stationary truck in Odisha's Balasore district on Wednesday, a police officer said.

All seven of them, residents of Liluah in West Bengal, were on their way home after a short visit to Raipur in Chhattisgarh and the temple town of Puri in Odisha, he said.

Around 5 am, their vehicle rammed into the truck, parked along National Highway 60, near Haldipada in the district, the officer said.

While one person died on the spot, six injured were taken to a district headquarters hospital here, he said, adding that the deceased has been identified as 45-year-old Neera Bora.

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Over 3,000 Sikh pilgrims from India arrived in this Pakistani city on Wednesday to take part in festivities ahead of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

On their arrival in Lahore, the Sikh pilgrims left for Gurudwara Janamesthan in Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, where the main function will be held on Friday on the occasion of Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Minorities Senator Anwar Lal, Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) chairman Tahir Ehsan and secretary Tariq Wazir, and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Tara Singh were among the Pakistani officials who greeted the Sikh 'yatris' at the Wagah Railway station.

"As many as 3,080 Sikh pilgrims arrived here today on two special trains. The third train is expected to arrive here to bring another 700 or so yatris," ETPB spokesman Amir Hashmi told PTI. He said the Pakistan government had issued 3,800 visas to Indian Sikhs.

Sikh group leader Amerjeet Singh congratulated Pakistanis on the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad on Eid Milad-un Nabi.

He said Sikh pilgrims get love from Pakistanis and urged the Pakistan government to issue at least 10,000 visas for Sikhs for next year's 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

He thanked the Pakistan government for the proposed opening of the Gurudwara Kartarpur in Narowal for pilgrims.

He hoped there would be no hurdles in its opening for Indian Sikhs.

ETPB chairman Ehsan said the Pakistan government has made foolproof security arrangements for the pilgrims.

Rangers and elite force personnel have been deployed along with police for the security of the visiting pilgrims.

He said the board has better boarding arrangements at the gurudwaras where the pilgrims would stay during their visit.

During their 10-day stay, the pilgrims will also visit some other gurudwaras in Punjab province. They will leave for India on November 30.

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Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday said his troops are combat-hardened and ready to defend the country as he asked India to place its "stock in peace and progress" through dialogue.

Gen Bajwa, who visited the Line of Control (LoC) and interacted with troops for the second time within a month, said that "lately there has been increase in Indian cease fire violations and rhetoric of provocative statements by their military leadership", according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the army.

"We are a professional and combat-hardened Army ready to defend our motherland. It would be better if they realise this and place their stock in peace & progress through dialogue," Gen Bajwa said.

He was also briefed about the situation along LoC, the ceasefire violations and response by Pakistan Army.

On October 25, Gen Bajwa visited Sarpir and Pandu Sectors at the Line of Control where he interacted with the Pakistani troops.

The ties between India and Pakistan remains strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

After assuming power in August, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September.

India accepted the proposal but, within hours of its acceptance, terrorists killed three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, prompting New Delhi to cancel the foreign ministers' meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA.

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Voicing concern over inadequate resources available for implementing peacekeeping mandates, India has warned that asking peacekeepers to "do more with less" is a strategy that is "setting us all up for a tragedy".

A day after an Indian peacekeeper deployed with the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) was wounded in an attack, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin highlighted during a Security Council debate that peacekeeping missions in Africa are operating in vast environments.

Drawing the attention of the Council to what MONUSCO peacekeepers are facing while deployed in sensitive areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Akbaruddin said the central sector of the country constitutes more than 500,000 sq kms of a total area of 2.34 million sq kms, with more than 11 million people of a total population of 81.5 million.

For this vast area, four battalions of UN peacekeeping operations, totalling only about 3,000-odd troops, are responsible for the area of operations. This comes to one soldier per 158 sq km, he said.

"If in such a scenario, we task the troops deployed to enforce protection of civilians, without even providing enabling air assets for rapid reinforcement operations, it is obvious that the size and scale of UN deployment are insufficient for the tasks entrusted. The strategy of peacekeepers, needing to do more with less, is setting us all up for a tragedy," he said Tuesday at the debate on 'Strengthening Peacekeeping Operations in Africa'.

According to the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO), a member of the Indian Formed Police Unit was "lightly wounded" in an attack launched Friday evening by suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) elements in the area of Boikene, close to Beni in North Kivu Province.

In the attack, a civilian was reportedly wounded, and two homes and a civilian vehicle were destroyed. The injured peacekeeper was a Border Security Force personnel and is "out of danger". Peacekeepers from Tanzania and Malawi were killed last week while serving the peacekeeping in MONUSCO.

Akbaruddin further said that given the multi-dimensional peacekeeping mandates, the UN needs to resist the temptation of adding disproportionate mandate components and aim at prioritisation of mandates. This would help in judicious allocation of meagre resources available for implementing the mandates, he said.

Predictable and sustainable financing is also a pre-requisite for all peacekeeping operations to succeed, he said adding that India supports the UN secretary-general's recommendation that African peacekeeping operations, authorised by the Security Council, should be considered for assessed contribution.

He also pointed out that troop contributing countries are working out arrangements for deployment with the most number of caveats when deploying in Africa.

"This results in unfair work distribution among various troops on the ground and thereby affecting the missions' performance. It is time we do away with such practices," he said.

With Africa collectively contributing the largest number of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, Akbaruddin said it is time to look at how UN member states can support this through mechanisms of soft coordination.

He added that India's partnership with Africa is based on building instruments of empowerment that would enable Africa to find solutions to its problems.

"We urge that the UN also look at longer-term efforts for expanding African capacities and enhancing collective cooperation. India is ready to walk along this path of political and diplomatic engagement of partnering African states and entities, in line with their own articulation of needs and requirements of a continent in the throes of change," he said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a public rally in Alwar district in poll-bound Rajasthan on Sunday, party officials said.

The rally in Alwar, which has 11 Assembly constituencies, will be the first major poll-related meeting in the state after the declaration of the names of candidates for the December 7 elections.

"Preparations for the PM's proposed rally on November 25 are in full swing. People from all constituencies will participate in the meeting," Sanjay Singh, BJP district president, said on Wednesday.

The PM's visit is seen as the saffron party's move to strengthen its position in Alwar, where the party had faced defeat in the Lok Sabha bypolls earlier this year.

Apart from Alwar, the party had also lost the Ajmer Lok Sabha seat in the bypolls, and Modi's last meeting in the poll-bound state was in Ajmer on October 6, just before the code of conduct came into force.

In the 2013 Assembly elections, the BJP had won nine out of 11 seats in Alwar but one of its sitting MLAs, Dharmpal Chaudhary, died in April this year and the party has given a ticket to his son, Manjit Chaudhary, from the Mundawar seat.

Of the eight seats, the party retained one MLA, Ramhet Yadav (Kishangarh bas), and dropped seven that included minister Hem Singh Bhadana and Hindu hardliner MLAs Gyan Dev Ahuja, Banwari Lal Singhal and Maman Singh Yadav.

Located in the eastern part of the desert state, Alwar shares a border with Haryana and forms a part of the Mewat region having a sizable population of the Mev (Muslim) community people.

It also touches Jaipur, Bharatpur and Dausa districts. Alwar's Ramgarh, a constituency represented by Gyan Dev Ahuja, who has been dropped by the BJP this time, was in bad light following the mob lynching of Akbar Khan on suspicions of cow smuggling in July this year.

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged Wednesday his political rivals were conspiring to get him eliminated, a day after a man flung chilli powder at the AAP supremo outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat.

The chief minister's spectacles broke but he was not injured in Tuesday's attack.

Kejriwal claimed he was attacked four times in the past two years.

He said this during his visit to Sonipat in Haryana where he handed over anex-gratia cheque of Rs 1 crore to the family of martyred BSF jawan Narender Singh.

"During the past two years, there have been four attacks on me. This is not a minor issue. I think in India's history, there must not be a single example when a chief minister faced attacks on four occasions in two years. So, it is clear that such attacks are not taking place, but they are being carried out," Kejriwal told reporters here.

He was asked who would he blame for Tuesday's attack.

The chief minister claimed that the AAP government in Delhi has carried out lot of development in a short span of three years, including in schools and hospitals in the capital, which governments of other parties "failed" to do in the last 70 years.

He said the AAP and development works done by the party has become an eyesore to the rivals, who were conspiring to get him "eliminated".

"We have become an eyesore for them and they are conspiring to get me killed.They are repeatedly carrying out such attacks on us. Because the way development works are being carried out in Delhi, be it bringing improvements in its schools and hospitals in a span of three years we have done so much work, these parties have not been able to do so in 70 years," he said.

"Now, everywhere they (these parties) are being asked (by public) why they are not able to do this. People are asking if Kejriwal can give Rs 1 crore (to families of the martyrs), why they cannot give the same amount. They (these parties) feel that if this (AAP) party exists for some more time, then people will raise questions and people will make their life miserable," Kejriwal said.

The chief minister said people in Haryana have already started raising "such questions" and elsewhere too, the parties are being asked "if AAP can bring improvement in schools, hospitals ... good compensation to farmers, why cannot they?"



They are conspiring to get me killed, Kejriwal alleged.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the opposition party wants the latter eliminated to stop him from working for the people.

On its part, the BJP termed the incident as "drama" by Kejriwal, with its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari demanding a high-level probe into it.

In Sonipat, Kejriwal handed over the ex-gratia cheque to the family of BSF jawan Narender Singh, who was brutally killed by Pakistani troops along the international border (IB) near Jammu on September 18.

Accompanied by AAP's Haryana unit president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal arrived in the afternoon and met the martyr's family in their native village Thana Kalan.

Kejriwal had also visited the village on September 21.

The Aam Aadmi Party government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the kin of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the national capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering in the village, Kejriwal said, "We are all proud of his sacrifice."



The chief minister sought to know "why successive governments do not give befitting reply to Pakistan".

"For how long valiant soldiers such as Narender Singh ji will keep giving sacrifices, for how long will families will lose their near and dear ones. When the country needs such sacrifices, definitely these will be given, but our country is not so weak that we cannot give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

"People of our country and the Army can give befitting reply and as was said here today that there should be no on this issue," Kejriwal said.

"I think all parties are one on this, then why governments are weak. Why successive governments don't give a befitting reply to Pakistan. Every government, every party says they will give befitting reply to Pakistan, but they forget later on," he added.

The chief minister said though no amount of money can compensate the loss, but families of martyrs need to know "that we stand behind them."



He said the AAP government in Delhi took the decision to give the ex-gratia or "Samman Rashi", which he felt the previous governments at the Centre should have done 70 years ago.

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President arrived in Australia on Wednesday on a three-day visit, becoming the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country.

Kovind, who landed in Sydney from Vietnam along with his wife Savita Kovind on their second leg of two nation visit, will hold talks with Australian Prime Minister and discuss bilateral issues.

He received a warm welcome on his arrival at Sydney, Kovind's official Twitter handle said in a tweet.

Kovind is the first-ever to pay a state visit to Australia, it said in another tweet.

During his three-day visit, he will attend the unveiling ceremony of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Sydney's Parramatta suburb on Thursday to mark his 150th birth anniversary.

He will also address the Indian diaspora and business community.

In Melbourne on Friday, he will meet Victoria's governor Linda Dessau and leader of the opposition Bill Shorten.

Kovind is also expected to oversee the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Austrade and Invest India, apart from a mining research agreement and two university collaborations, according media reports.

On Tuesday, India's High Commissioner to Australia Ajay Gondane told Australian Financia Review newspaper that the President's visit shows that the relationship between two countries was on an upward trajectory and it was likely to give it a positive momentum.

"Every relationship needs a boost from time to time," he said, adding that it was important for Australia to realise while China was a dragon, India was no longer an elephant and more like a deer.

"We are running and soon we will be galloping. India's economy has been expanding at a rate of 6 to 7 per cent and even 8 per cent. With this expansion of the Indian economy, we hope that Australians will now catch on and be a willing partner," Gondane said.

The relationship was progressing and the two sides have held bilateral military exercises and the multilateral co-operation would increase over time," he said.

"The exchanges between the two countries have been at a very high level," the envoy said.

On export and investment targets, Gondane said it was achievable and that he expected Australia to achieve its India export and investment growth targets, set out in the recently launched Indian economic strategy report before 2035.

"It is achievable. By 2025, you will see a lot of Australian investments. Trade will increase. Once it is realised in Australia that you can invest in India and take a lot of profit, that will accelerate," Gondane said.

Gondane also hoped that investments by Indian companies in Australia will expand, stating that projects like the Adani Carmichael mine would be a test case.

"The company has invested so much of its money in the project. Let's hope this comes to fruition so that it sends a very good signal," he said.

Recently, Australia announced that it was formally referring India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over its sugar subsidies.

Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham said Australia would engage in formal discussions with India and other WTO members regarding this issue at the upcoming WTO Committee of Agriculture meeting later this month.

"Despite our concerns on sugar subsidies, our relationship with India is far stronger than this one particular issue and I'm confident that Australia and India will build on their already vibrant economic and strategic relationship well into the future," Birmingham said.
A public petition has been sent to the President and the Prime Minister seeking to rectify the "deletion and distortions" of the Assamese script by the Unicode Consortium, a US based organisation that standardises scripts for use in modern softwares globally.

In Unicode, Assamese script has been mentioned as Bengali though there are differences in certain letters, and the petitioners were unhappy that the central government allegedly has not done anything to rectify the error.

The petition signed by 500 people have been sent last month to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging them to take steps to encode the Assamese script in ISO:10646 Standard, an international coding standard for scripts in electronic basis.

A copy of the petition was also submitted to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

"The Assamese people are aggrieved by the deletion and distortion of the Assamese script by the US based Unicode Consortium in the international standards when the Indian national encoding ISCII has Assamese as one of the Indian scripts," said Dr Satyakam Phukan, a surgeon by profession who has done extensive research on Assamese script.

The Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) was adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to have a common standard for coding Indian scripts for use in computers.

The petition asked, "Who gave Unicode Consortium the right to distort the Assamese letters "Ra" and "Waba" as Bengali letters in the ISO: 10646 Standard. Why has the Government of India not taken any action against the deletion and distortion (of Assamese script)?"



Stating that the Unicode Consortium comprises officials from the Ministry of Union Electronics & Information Technology (MEITY), it alleged that they did not do anything to undo the wrong done to the Assamese people.

At a press conference here on Tuesday, Phukan said Assam Government had proposed separate encoding for the Assamese script in 2012 to MEITY which was not accepted.

But a similar proposal was submitted in 2016 to the BIS which accepted it and forwarded to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), said Phukan, one of those who have initiated the movement.

The ISO functions in close coordination with the Unicode Consortium in standardising scripts.

The ISO technical committee "summarily rejected the Assam Government's proposal without stating proper reason", said Phukan.

Litterateur and academic Dr Dayananda Pathak said, "It is being made out that the Assamese language is independent but its script is a Bengali one. It is unacceptable."



"The Assamese script is ancient with a 2000 year history. There problems of software and the ISO. That is why this issue has arisen", academician Dr Ramesh Pathak said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with Riyadh and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of the US and the world, a stand criticised as a "betrayal of American values."



The murder of Khashoggi, a one-time insider-turned critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a resident of the US, in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and dismembering of his body has spurred a wave of international anger against Saudi Arabia and its rulers.

The US last week imposed sanctions on 17 individuals of Saudi Arabia for serious human rights abuse resulting from their roles in the killing of 59-year-old Khashoggi at the kingdom's Consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Khashoggi's death on rogue agents but denied claims that the crown prince had knowledge of the operation.

Trump essentially argued that although the murder of Khashoggi was "terrible" and could not be condoned, it did not merit the disruption of a strategic relationship he has elevated to extraordinary levels.

"We're not going to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in orders and let Russia and China have them ... it's a very simple equation for me. I'm about make America great again," Trump told reporters.

"King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Khashoggi.

"Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump earlier said in a statement that immediately drew sharp criticism from his political opponents and the media.

Reacting to the president's comments, Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez issued a statement on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The two called on Trump to focus a second investigation specifically on the crown prince so as to "determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation" of human rights.

The Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a contributor, said President Trump's latest statement on the dissident journalist was a "betrayal of American values."



"President Trump on Tuesday confirmed what his administration has been signalling all along: It will stand behind Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even if he ordered the brutal murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi," the Editorial Board of the Post said in a stinging editorial.

"Mr. Trump has betrayed American values in service to what already was a bad bet on the 33-year-old prince," it said while terming his statement as "crude".

Responding to questions from reporters at the White House before leaving for Florida to spend his Thanksgiving holidays, Trump said his decision was all about America first.

"We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders and let Russia, China and everybody else have them. It's all about -- for me -- very simple, it's America first," he said.

"Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down. Right now, we have low oil prices, or relatively I'd like to see it go down even lower.

"But I think that it's a very simple equation for me. I'm about making America great again and I'm about America first," Trump argued.

He denied the allegations that this was at the expense of human rights.

"At some point, things very positive, frankly, could happen with Iran, but we also need a counterbalance. And Israel needs help also.If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake," Trump warned.

The President refuted The Post's allegations that by taking such a decision, he was putting his personal and commercial interests ahead of national interests.

"Well, I have nothing to do with Saudi -- just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia.I don't have money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less," he said.

"I will tell you and as most of you know, being President has cost me a fortune and that's okay with me," he said.

"All I do is focus on this country and making great deals for this country. I don't focus on making on great deals for myself because I don't care anymore," Trump said.

Saudi Arabia, Trump said, is buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of things from the US.

"If I say we don't want to take your business, if I say we're going to cut it off, they will get the equipment -- military equipment and other things -- from Russia and China," he said, adding that in that case the two countries would be "very, very happy" because right now the US is doing "very well" against China.

"We're doing very well against everybody including Russia. I'm going to keep it that way. I'm not going to tell a country that is spending hundreds of billions of dollars and has helped me do one thing very importantly -- keep oil prices down so that they're not going to USD 100 and USD 150 dollars a barrel," he said.

Noting that the oil prices right now are in a great shape, Trump insisted that he is not going to destroy the world economy.

"I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," the US president added.

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The multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter aircraft deal was a clear case of corruption, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged Wednesday.

Reacting to a media report on 'benchmark' price for negotiating the Rafale deal which was increased from 5.2 billion Euro to 8.2 billion Euro, the CPI (M) leader questioned why PM Modi "directly intervened" to increase the price to be paid via the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security).

"3 billion Euro. Why was Modi via CCS directly intervening to increase the price to be paid? If there was ever a clear money line of corruption, this is it. #RafaleScam", tweeted Yechury.

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 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 Congress has also alleged a scam in the deal signed in 2016 while the government denied any irregularity.

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Former prime minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday expressed concern over the rift between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Modi government, adding the relationship between the central bank and the Finance Ministry is "very delicate".

Addressing a press conference ahead of the November 28 Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, the former Union finance minister said the two should work in "coordination and harmony."



"The relationship between the RBI and Finance Ministry is very delicate," he said. Harmony and coordination between both was essential for the country, he added.

"The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate relationship. Both have to work together. Although the job of running the country rests with the government, (a) specific responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act. There is a need to recognise inter dependence of the two entities and work in harmony," he said.

"I am happy with the efforts being made to bring reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other," he said.

On his comments that Modi as prime minister would be a "disaster" for India, Singh said he did not want to comment on his earlier remarks.

"I used harsh words which I should not have. Now people will make the decision," he said.

Singh accused Modi of misusing the Prime Minister's post. "It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents," he said, adding Modi was using "unparliamentary words" against the opposition.

He also denied Modi's claim that the UPA government led by him was a "remote-controlled" one. "The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion," he said.

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Actor-politician and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan Wednesday claimed regional players were losing ground in national and sought a "strong southern political movement."



The actor-politician, who was in the city as part of his first attempt to knit an alliance of regional players, demanded creation of a second capital in the southern part of India.

"A strong southern political movement is needed, else it would be difficult to face the north Indian leadership in the years to come," he told reporters here, urging south Indians to unite.

"...Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the ones who are going to decide the Indian political system. They are the ones who are going to decide what our future is going to be. Somehow this has to be stopped. Somewhere we need to have a major say," he said.

Pawan, who had supported the BJP during the 2014 general elections, said he was disappointed with the saffron party.

Asked if he would be part of Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu's anti-BJP alliance which involves Congress, he said it was "dangerous to travel with Naidu."



"Because you never know when he will become your friend or foe," he said, adding that his party would go it alone for 2019 general elections.

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A right-wing group said Wednesday it would will file a defamation case against Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for allegedly "hurting sentiments" of the Brahmin community.

Advocate Hastimal Saraswat will file a case in the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur against Dorsey on Thursday, Sushil Ojha, the founder of Vipra Foundation, said in a statement.

Dorsey was trolled for holding a placard that read 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy', following which the company issued an apology.

Ojha alleged that propagating such views by the Twitter CEO had "hurt the sentiments of crores of people" and were highly condemnable.

The clarification of Twitter's legal experts was insufficient and objectionable, he claimed.

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Opposition RJD workers here on Wednesday went on a rampage, vandalising buses and cars and tearing down posters of the ruling JD(U) ahead of Chief Minister Nitish Kumars scheduled visit, police said.

The RJD workers were staging a demonstration in Lohianagar locality of the town in protest against alleged reneging by the chief minister on his promise of setting up an AIIMS-like hospital.

They also exchanged blows with workers of the JD(U) who protested when the opposition party workers damaged their posters and banners, police said.

Police made lathi charge to disperse the mob and clear the way for the cavalcade of the chief minister, who reached the venue for addressing a meeting of party workers belonging to the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs).

At the conference, Kumar expressed satisfaction over the "awareness" that he saw among the newly-empowered EBCs and underscored the measures taken by his government to bring about womens emancipation, which included ban on alcohol, campaigns against dowry and child marriage and also schemes aimed at promoting girls education.

Meanwhile, in Patna JD(U) state president Vashishth Narayan Singh deplored the behaviour of RJD workers saying "it did not send a good message for democracy" and accused leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav of having made a fuss over "a non-issue like installation of CCTV camera."



Yadav had last week accused the chief minister of "snooping" on him by getting the CCTV installed at a boundary wall that separates the residences of the two. Officials had, however, claimed that the CCTV camera was put up at the spot "on a trial basis" and after its performance was not found up to the mark, it was removed earlier this week.

Singh, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, declined to answer queries about discordant notes sounded by RLSP chief and Union minister Upendra Kushwaha who has sought a "respectable" seat-sharing arrangement be finalised by November 30 while accusing Kumar, of trying to "poach" his MLAs and MPs.

"Other leaders within the NDA have already spoken a lot about him. I do not wish to add anything," Singh said.

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The Ro-Ro ferry vessel, which started transporting people and vehicles between Ghogha in Saurashtra and Dahej in south Gujarat last month, came to a standstill mid sea due to engine trouble on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

The vessel, which was carrying over 400 passengers and over 100 vehicles at the time of the incident, was safely towed to Ghogha port by tugboats, a government official said.

"The Korean-made ship called 'Voyage Symphony' remained stationed in the Gulf of Cambay for around one hour before it was towed to Ghogha port by tugboats," said chairman-managing director of Indigo Seaways Pvt Ltd (ISPL), Chetan Contractor.

ISPL, a Surat-based ferry operator, and the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) had entered into an agreement to run the Roll On-Roll Off (Ro-Ro) ferry service on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

This ferry service is also called as Ro-Pax (Roll On-Roll Off Passenger), as the ship carries both vehicles as well as passengers.

"While coming to Ghogha from Dahej, the captain of the ship noticed that the engine got overheated. For the safety of the passengers, the captain had decided to stop the engine when the ship was around 3 nautical miles (5.5 km) away from Ghogha port," Contractor told PTI.

"The ship remained stationed in the sea for around one hour. Then it was towed to the Ghogha port by tugboats, which were sent from the port. Our technicians are now carrying out an inspection of the engine to find out the cause of the problem," he added.

According to a senior official of the GMB, the ship was carrying 461 passengers and 114 vehicles.

"We have been told by the operator that the engine of the ship got overheated. Along with the company, the GMB will also carry out an inspection of the ship before giving a green signal to resume the operations," a senior GMB official said.

Meanwhile, ISPL has cancelled the two remaining trips for the day.

"We used to run four trips daily, two from Ghogha and two from Dahej. We are now informing the passengers, who have already done bookings, that the two remaining trips stand cancelled for today," a booking official at ISPL's Surat office said.

On October 27, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had launched this Ro-Pax ferry service, which cuts the distance between Ghogha and Dahej via sea route to just 30 kilometers when compared to 300 kilometers by road.

A "passengers only" Ro-Ro ferry service on the same route was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls.

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Arms giant Rostec is seeing strong demand for its advanced anti-missile systems despite international sanctions against the Russian defence sector, chief executive Sergei Chemezov told AFP in an interview.

Chemezov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, is nonetheless also charting a course to increase sales of Rostec's non-military products.

Since Russia's intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the world's second-largest arms exporter after the United States has been hit by several rounds of sanctions by Washington and the European Union (EU).

Rostec and Chemezov himself have been specifically targeted.

"The sanctions are beneficial to US companies competing with us," the chief executive noted in an interview conducted via e-mail.

"At the same time, we are well aware of the negative attitude of many foreign companies, of our traditional foreign partners, to the sanctions."



An economist by training, Chemezov built a career in the import-export trade and met Putin when both were in Dresden, Eastern Germany, in the 1980s.

Chemezov worked for an industrial group, Putin for the KGB.

Now the head of the country's state-owned arms giant, Chemezov points to the S-400 air defence systems as an example of foreign demand for Rostec products despite the sanctions.

In late October, India agreed to a deal for multiple batteries worth more than USD 5 billion despite warnings from Washington.

"Currently, S-400 contracts are being implemented with Turkey and China," Chemezov added.

"We cannot yet tell about future plans, however, despite the active propaganda of the United States against Russian armaments, there is demand for the S-400, and it is big."



According to Bloomberg, an S-400 battery costs between USD 475-USD 625 million, compared with USD 550-USD 700 million for a US-made Patriot system, and boasts greater range and interception capabilities, and a faster set-up time.

The Rostec chief said the group was doing all it could to minimise the sanction's impact and argued that they were also detrimental to the US and EU.

Rosoboronexport, the Rostec unit charged with selling arms abroad, has outstanding orders worth more than USD 50 billion, he said.

Rostec was created in 2007 to transform the arms industry inherited from the Soviet Union.

It comprised more than 400 businesses, many of which were in ruins, and was saddled with 630 billion rubles in debt, roughly equivalent to USD 9.6 billion today.

The group now oversees more than 700 businesses, from arms manufacturers to camera and plane makers.

Total sales in 2017 were 1.6 trillion rubles, or a little more than USD 22.8 billion.

While Rostec is modernising its military production, it also aims to make civilian products account for 50 per cent of total output by 2025, compared with 28 per cent at present.

"If we want to continue our sustainable development and remain adequately competitive, we must focus on civilian products," Chemezov said.

"We are well aware that supplies of arms have boundaries and limits."



The group has also successfully opened some subsidiaries to private investors and presents Kalashnikov, maker of the renowned AK-47 assault rifle, as an example.

Now 75-per cent controlled by private investors, once-ailing Kalashnikov has rebounded and recently announced 1,700 new hires to manage increased exports.

"The concern nowadays is a manufacturer of not only small arms, but also unmanned aerial vehicles, fast boats, electric motorcycles, other hi-tech civilian products," Chemezov noted.

Rostec might now allow investors to buy into the optical-electronic systems group Shvabe as well.

Shvabe recently attracted attention with it would reboot manufacturing of the iconic Soviet camera Zenit in partnership with the German firm Leica.

In aviation, Rostec is taking over UAC, which groups leading Russian manufacturers of military and civilian aircraft, including Antonov, Tupolev and Sukhoi.

"We are ready to compete with Boeing and Airbus for the global aviation market," Chemezov said.

The group's efforts should propel Rostec among the world's 10 biggest industrial corporations in terms of revenue, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hitting out at the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan Wednesday said its "masterplan" was to "harass" the devotees and not allow them to go to the Ayyappa temple.

"What is their Masterplan? To harass the devotees...Not to allow the devotees to go to Sabarimala," he told reporters.

Asked about his opinion on the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to offer prayers at the shrine, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said, "I do not want to go into that.... My concern is about the devotees. Do not harass the devotees."



Radhakrishnan, who arrived here this morning en route to the hilltop shrine, was upset that private vehicles were not being allowed to ply from Nilackal, the base camp for the Sabarimala pilgrimage, to Pamba, which he said was causing a lot of hardships to the pilgrims coming from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry.

The minister asked Superintendent of Police (SP) Yatish Chandra as to why only Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses were being allowed to Pamba and said the devotees were being inconvenienced due to this decision taken by the state government.

The SP explained that the infrastructure was damaged in the recent floods and that it would be difficult to provide parking facilities to private vehicles.

He told the minister that there would be traffic snarls if all the private vehicles were allowed to ply to Pamba and asked him if he was prepared to take the responsibility for the same.

Radhakrishnan said he had been coming to Sabarimala since he was six years of age and that he had visited the shrine at least 30 times.

"I have never seen such a situation at Sabarimala," he said, before leaving for Pamba by a KSRTC bus.

BJP state general secretary A N Radhakrishnan, who was accompanying the Union minister, alleged that the IPS officer spoke "arrogantly" and "misbehaved" with the latter, adding that the matter would be taken up with the Centre.

Another Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam had visited the Sabarimala complex Monday and attacked the Pinarayi Vijayan government for turning the temple complex into a "war zone" and treating the pilgrims like "dacoits".

"They have imposed section 144 (prohibitory orders). The pilgrims are being treated like dacoits. Where is the basic infrastructure...this is pathetic," he had told reporters.

Intensifying their attack, BJP president Amit Shah had said the state government's handling of the situation at Sabarimala was "disappointing" and alleged that the pilgrims were being treated as "Gulag inmates" and made to spend the nights next to "pig droppings".

The main opposition in Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), which has also stepped up its agitation on the temple issue, had defied the prohibitory orders Tuesday.

The UDF had sent a delegation of its leaders, including Ramesh Chennithala and Oommen chandy, to Pamba and Nilackal.

Meanwhile, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president A Padmakumar said their aim was to have a peaceful atmosphere at the hill shrine and the board was prepared to hold talks with anyone on the matter.

As the shrine opened Wednesday, the 18 holy steps, which normally see a heavy crowd, wore a deserted look most of the time.

An elderly woman said she had no problem with the new regulations and was happy that she could offer prayers to Lord Ayyappa.

"I have never had such a good opportunity to see the lord," the beaming woman said.

Another devotee said he had been coming to the shrine for the last 12 years without fail.

"This year's was the most satisfying darshan," he said.

Meanwhile, a court in Pathanamthitta district Wednesday granted conditional bail to 72 people, including state BJP general secretary K Surendran, who were arrested in connection with the Sabarimala issue.

Though 54 days have passed since the top court delivered its historic verdict allowing women of all ages to offer prayers at the Sabarimala temple, no women in the age group of 10-50 years has so far made it to the temple.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had Tuesday said the Sangh Parivar's agenda was to create trouble by sending "karsevaks" to take control of the Sabarimala temple and make the pilgrims "scapegoats".

Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had earlier likened the Sangh Parivar workers in Sabarimala to the "Khalistan extremists" who had laid siege to the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

The Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala was opened on November 16 for the over-two-month-long pilgrimage season amidst tension.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP kept the pot boiling on the Sabarimala issue Wednesday with Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan lashing out at the left government, saying its "master plan" was to "harass" pilgrims, as the Kerala High Court slammed the police for its alleged excesses on devotees.

As the stand-off on entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine continued, A Padmakumar, president of the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the shrine, said their aim was to have peaceful atmosphere in the temple and the TDB was prepared to hold talks with anyone on the matter.

In the midst of the tense situation, there was no rush of devotees and the 18 holy steps, which normally sees a heavy crowd, wore a deserted look.

Criticising the Inspector General of Police in-charge of Sabarimala and Superintendent of Police for the alleged action against pilgrims at Sabarimala and Nilackal recently, the court asked whether these officials were having any criminal antecedents.

The court also observed that experienced officials should be put in charge.

A division bench, comprising Justices P R Ramachandra Menon and N Anil Kumar, directed the Pathanamthitta district magistrate to produce all files and records which led to declaration of Section 144 banning assembly of four or more people in Sabarimala 'Sannidhanam' and surrounding areas.

Hitting out at the CPI(M)-led LDF government, Radhakrishnan said its "masterplan" was to "harass" the devotees and not allow them to go to the Ayyappa temple.

The union minister, who offered prayers at the hill shrine this evening carrying his "irrumudikettu" (holy bundle with offering to Lord Ayyappa) was displeased with the manner in which Superintendent of Police Yatish Chandra had behaved with him at Nilackal, a base camp.

When the minister wanted to know why private vehicles of devotees were not being allowed to Pamba from Nilackal, while Kerala state transport corporation buses were plying, the officer explained that post floods the facilities at Pamba were meagre.

The senior police official explained to the union minister about the features of Pamba, an environmental fragile area. He also said if the union minister gives him in writing to allow private vehicles to Pamba, he was prepared to allow all vehicles.

"He asked me whether I will take responsibility.Can the SP ask the same question to a state minister of Kerala?. Will they allow him to ask this query?" Radhakrishanan asked reporters after offering prayers.

The minister declined to answer a question on the September 28 Supreme court verdict allowing women of all ages to offer worship at the shrine, saying "I do not want to go into that.. My concern is with devotees. Do not harass the devotees."



State BJP general secretary, A N Radhakrishnan, who was accompanying the minister, alleged that the IPS officer spoke "arrogantly" and "misbehaved" with the union minister and said the matter would be brought to the Centre's notice.

Meanwhile, a court in Pathanamthitta district Wednesday granted conditional bail to 72 people, including K Surendran, BJP general secretary, who were arrested in connection with Sabarimala temple row.

Surendran along with two others had been arrested on November 18 from Nilackal as he tried to proceed to the Ayyappa Temple despite being advised by police personnel against visiting Sabarimala due to law and order issues.

The 69 others were arrested after they held a "nama japam" (chanting Lord Ayyappa mantras) inside the shrine complex late on Sunday, defying prohibitory orders.

Though it is 55 days since the Supreme Court delivered its verdict, no women in the traditionally barred age group of 10-50 years has made it to the temple.

Some devotees Wednesday said they had no problem with the restrictions imposed by authorities.

An elderly woman said she was happy that she could offer prayers to Lord Ayyappa.

"I have never had such a good opportunity to see the Lord," the beaming woman said.

Another devotee said he had been coming to the shrine for the past 12 years. "This year's was the most satisfying darshan," he said.

Both the BJP and Congress-led UDF have intensified their attack on the left government on the Sabarimala issue.

Opposition leader in the state assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, submitted a memorandum to Governor P Sathasivam, seeking his immediate intervention to withdraw the prohibitory orders in Sabarimala and surrounding areas and restore peace in the hill shrine.

Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam, who visited the Sabarimala complex Monday, attacked the state government for turning the temple complex into a "war zone" and treating the pilgrims like "dacoits".

BJP chief Amit Shah has said the government's handling of the situation at Sabarimala was "disappointing" and alleged that the pilgrims were being treated as "Gulag inmates" and made to spend the nights next to "pig droppings".

A delegation of the United Democratic Front (UDF), comprising congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and Oommen Chandy, had defied the prohibitory orders Tuesday at the base camps at Pamba and Nilackal.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has alleged that the sangh parivar's agenda was to create trouble by sending 'kar sevaks" to take control of the sabarimala temple and make pilgrims "scapegoats".

The Ayyappa temple was opened on November 16 for the over-two-month-long pilgrimage season amid tension.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce Thursday its order on contempt proceedings against Delhi BJP chief and Lok Sabha MP Manoj Tiwari for allegedly breaking the seal of a premises here.

The property was sealed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC).

A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur had on October 30 reserved its order after hearing arguments in the matter during which Tiwari had accused the court-mandated monitoring committee on sealing of "terrorising" people of Delhi.

The panel, however, had claimed that he was trying to make the court a "political battleground".

An FIR was also lodged against Tiwari by the EDMC for allegedly breaking the seal of the premises in Gokalpuri area in north-east Delhi on September 16.

The apex court had on September 19 issued contempt notice against Tiwari, a Member of Parliament (MP) from the north-east Delhi constituency, after taking note of a report filed by the monitoring committee which had alleged that the BJP leader had broken the seal of the premises.

Tiwari had claimed before the top court that monitoring committee has exceeded its jurisdiction and conducted sealing drive in unauthorised colonies here that were protected under the law.

Senior counsel Vikas Singh, appearing for the BJP leader, had claimed before the bench that "monitoring committee want to terrorise the people of Delhi. This is only for publicity".

Countering his arguments, advocate A D N Rao, appearing for the committee, had said the panel does not need any "publicity" and its members were "only performing their jobs entrusted to them by the Supreme Court".

Tiwari's counsel had said a mob of around 1,500 people had gathered at the spot and if Tiwari would not have broken the seal in "token protest", any untoward incident could have happened there.

He had also argued that there was no violation of the top court order in the matter, as projected by the committee.

The top court had earlier ordered restoration of its 2006 monitoring committee to identify and seal unauthorised structures in Delhi.

The monitoring committee, comprising K J Rao, former advisor to the Election Commissioner, Bhure Lal, chairman of Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, and Major General (Retd) Som Jhingan, was set up on March 24, 2006, by the top court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken on Wednesday exuded confidence that his party would placate the leaders disappointed with the ticket distribution in Rajasthan.

"The Congress has several capable candidates on each Assembly constituency and the high command searched for a winning combination. The decision on ticket distribution is taken by the party's central election committee in consultation with workers and senior leaders," Maken said at a press conference.

The senior Congress leaders are in the state to placate the disappointed leaders and situation for the party will improve in the coming days, Maken said.

Asserting that the party would come to power in the state with a huge margin, the Congress leader accused the BJP-led government of failing to address the issues of farmers, youths, employment and women security.

Maken said more than 100 farmers had committed suicide in the state. "The BJP government did not develop a permanent system for minimum support price, which it had promised five years ago. The government implemented the quota-and-token system in crop procurement, which led to huge corruption."



He said farmers standing in queues to take urea were cane-charged. "The chairman of the state seed corporation has accepted that poor-quality seeds were distributed to farmers in Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's constituency. The condition of unemployment and women security in the state are worst in the country," Maken said.

Pointing out that the unemployment rate in the state was more than double the national average, Maken alleged that the state government could provide only 2.62 lakh jobs to youths during its tenure, against the promise of providing 15 lakh jobs.

Thirteen per cent of the total rape cases in the country are registered in Rajasthan. The dropout rate of girls, between 12-15 years, was highest after Uttar Pradesh, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader M I Shanavas, passed away early Wednesday at a private hospital in Chennai, Tamil Nadu after a prolonged illness.

He was 67.

The Member of Parliament who represented the Wayanad constituency twice in the Lok Sabha breathed his last at around 1 am. He had undergone a liver transplant on Nov 2.

His mortal remains are expected to be brought to Kochi in the afternoon.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with senior Congress leader and former chief minister Oommen Chandy and opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, expressed their condolences over Shanavas' demise.

The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working president is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Training its guns on the Congress, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal Wednesday demanded the Special Investigation Team probing the1984 anti-Sikh riots case calls former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and conducts her 'narco test'.

He alleged that planning of the attacks on Sikhs, after former prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated, was done at Rajiv Gandhi's residence and so Sonia Gandhi was an "important witness" in the case.

He also demanded that Congress president Rahul Gandhi should also be called by the SIT.

However, there was no immediate reaction from the Congress, though the party had on Tuesday welcomed the court order saying it was "proud" that the legal process was being allowed to work out its course.

Addressing a press conference at his residence here, Badal said, "The1984 anti-Sikh riots was planned at the residence of Rajiv Gandhi, who headed the Congress at the time, and his wife Sonia Gandhi knows everything about it."



Badal said due to a fresh probe by the SIT, the first conviction in the riots case came where one person was given a death sentence and another a life term by a Delhi court on Tuesday.

"All the accused Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler and others were given directions by Rajiv Gandhi and the planning was done at his residence...Sonia Gandhi is a very important witness, because the planning was done at her residence. She has to be called by the SIT. Her 'narco test' should also be conducted," he told reporters.

Badal said this is not just the killing of one or two persons, but is a "massacre" of thousands of people.

"There is no example of such a massacre in the world," he said.

"For justice, Sonia Gandhi should be called by the SIT.The truth will come out only if a narco test (lie detector test) is conducted.

"If Sonia Gandhi refuses a narco test, it means she knows everyone and she is protecting her people," Badal alleged.

The SAD chief said what the SIT did in one year was not done in 34 years during the Congress rule.

He claimed that the SIT not only fast-tracked the case, but also helped in the speedy delivery of the verdict.

Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal was also present at the press meet and said no justice came for 34 years as the Congress "threatened the witnesses, wiped out evidence and did everything to save their leaders who were involved".

Both, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Harsimrat Kaur demanded that all the cases related to the 1984 riots should be clubbed together and a special tribunal be set up for disposing cases within six months.

The SAD chief said 34 years later most of the witnesses are turning of fragile age and might die of natural death and it seems that the Congress was waiting for this.

He said the case was registered as late as 1993, but when our present government formed an SIT in 2015 to reopen all the cases, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee legal cell got the case reopened and it was filed before the concerned court.

He said after witnesses deposed and cross-examined, the DSGMC legal cell helped work pro-actively to punish the guilty and the accused persons were convicted and the court passed the sentence on Tuesday.

Badal also said that the case against JP (Jai Pal Singh), who was leading the mob, would also be reopened and the Shiromani Akali Dal and the DSGMC are working together to reopen each and every case before the SIT.

"We appeal to all 1984 victims to please come to legal cell of DSGMC and approach Jaswinder Singh for reopening the cases all once again. Whatever expenditure, logistics, whatever is incurred that will be paid by DSGMC.

"We also appeal to all victims who are living abroad to send their deposition to DSGMC and we will get their deposition submitted to the SIT by way of video-conferencing through the concerned embassy," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated Manipur's annual Sangai tourism festival on Wednesday.

The 10-day festival, the biggest of the state, will see various cultural troupes from different parts of the country, including Assam, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh; and countries like Thailand and South Korea, the organisers said.

Named after the state animal, Sangai, the brow-antlered deer found only in Manipur, the festival started in 2010 and it has grown into a big platform for the state to showcase its rich tradition and culture.

Speaking after inaugurating the festival at the Hapta Kangjeibung ground here, Sitharaman praised the landscapes, natural resources, richness in dance and costumes of the state. She appreciated the people for preserving forests and wild life.

The minister lauded the role of the Manipuri woman for achieving things through hard work and not by sympathy, and assured all possible assistance from her side to usher peace and development in the border state.

Governor Najma Heptulla said the Sangai festival was now recognised as a national event and has brought the state's cultural flavour to the centre stage, as well as promote handloom and handicraft products.

Heptulla announced that under the Act East Policy, there had been a steady increase in the tourism infrastructure like hotels, roads and transport.

Chief Minister N Biren Singh said sumo wrestlers from Japan would perform during the festival.

The princess of Thailand is expected to attend the function for a day as well.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Special kiosks will be set up at the departure points at all international airports in the country to assist emigrants who want to clear their last minute problems including about their employers abroad before boarding the flight, a top MEA official said here Wednesday.

As a first step such kiosks--a last chance for the emigrants to clear doubts their employers and matters including their contract--would be first opened at Mumbai and New Delhi international airports, Dnyaneshwar M Mulay, Secretary, Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV division), in the External Affairs Ministry, told reporters here.

"We have plans in the near future to open kiosks at international airports for providing guidance and consultations to the potential emigrants," he said.

"If they have any last minute problems, last minute advise that they wanted to seek that will also be available to them right before their departure at the departure point," Mulay added.

He said some times it was seen that emigrants at a confused state before boarding their flight.

The kiosks to be opened at the international airports would be a kind of guidance, resource and assistance centre, he added.

The emigrants will get guidance from the kiosks on any doubts they might have, including about their employer and validity of their contract, he said.

Mulay, who is also secretary Overseas Indian Affairs (OIA), was in Kochi to inaugurate the Attestation/Apostille Services at the Regional Passport Office.

He said the government is in the process of framing a new emigration policy to replace the Emigration Act, 1983, saying it has become "outdated in many ways" because since 1983, global emigration pattern has changed.

"There are large number of people other than blue colour workers are also going to abroad. So the idea here in the new immigration bill is to see where we lack in terms of taking care our Indian citizens abroad," Mulay said.

He said consultations were held Tuesday in New Delhi with recruiting agents, academicians, and various UN agencies like UN women, international organisation for migration and International Labour Organisation as part of preparing the draft bill to replace the existing law.

"Next week, we will be having the consultation with the state government representatives," he said, adding that the idea of the bill in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision that India should become the capital of quality manpower.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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More than 90 percent of startups fail, but with an increasing number of professionals shunning off their cushy jobs and taking a plunge in uncertain waters of entrepreneurship, these numbers have only increased over time. SRKay, a Private Equity, and acceleration firm based in Pune had embarked on a journey to decode every possible factor that can be managed to improve the success probability of startups. In a recent study presented at the United Nations, Geneva, SRKay unveiled its new research 'Startup Success Index - Improving Startup Success and Sustainability by understanding Human Only Factors,' that has highlighted few critical success factors for a Startup's Success, beyond a Founder's mindset. The study was a result of a joint research conducted by the research teams at SRKay and SCIKEY, an Indo-Finnish Talent Solutions Venture. This study on startup success factors has opened up a fascinating aspect of the whole story that has been largely ignored in the investment world.

Even though the most significant factor in any startup success always remains the mindset of the founding team and their employees, and the study points out the importance of the government support ecosystem and the social mindset in which the founders operate play a critical role in the quantum of success.

The research conducted in thirteen countries by SRKay research team showcases the impact of collective social mindset on the success of startups. Social mindset remains the second most influencing factor after the founder mindset, as per the study.

The study states, government support ecosystem, as another minor factor that plays a long-term role in creating the right startup environment. Social mindset plays a significant role in promoting gender equality in entrepreneurship and overshadows the government support ecosystem to promote women entrepreneurs, in terms of impact. A critical insight from one of the statistics on gender equality in entrepreneurship within the report, states the relative score of a woman entrepreneur in India to be around -0.4, compared to that of a woman entrepreneur in the United Kingdom to be around +0.1, based on data about perceived opportunities.

Another study presented at the United Nations Geneva in May 2018 by Alok Kumar, Managing Partner SRKay, based on SRKay's Joint Research with SCIKEY, found that Founder's mindset contributed the most in a startup's success. SCIKEY's proprietary MindMatch algorithm has analysed thousands of startup founders globally. Using a blend of AI & Psychology, SCIKEY's MindMatch algorithm has given the power to gauge an Individual's mindset, thereby helping SRKay find the right founders and employees for SRKay's own funded ventures that see far better success.

About SRKay:



SRKay Consulting Group invests and accelerates innovative, high-potential and early-stage opportunities and businesses, alongside offering premium business advisory services to startups as well as established organizations. The area of focus is on long-term investments in futuristic ideas that aim to make the world a happier and a better place. The Group's investment interests include businesses that seek to differentiate themselves through the use of cutting-edge technology.

For more information about SRKay, visit: http://www.srkay.com/



For more information about SCIKEY, visit: https://www.scikey.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will pay a two-day visit to Laos from November 22 where she will co-chair the 9th Meeting of India-Laos Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation with her counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith, a statement said.

The two sides will review the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation covering areas of defence, development partnership, agriculture, trade and investment, education and culture, science and IT, energy and mining, transport and natural resources and environment.

Swaraj will also meet Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. Her other engagements would include an interaction with the representatives of the Indian community in the Southeast Asian country, the statement said.

The joint commission meeting and other engagements of the external affairs minister will further enhance the cooperation between the two countries in various areas, the statement added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Suspicious signals in coded languages in an around Kolkata for the past few weeks have been intercepted by amateur Ham radio operators, prompting authorities to deploy round-the-clock monitoring of radio signals.

The first such incident came into light a few weeks ago just ahead of Diwali, after an amateur Ham radio operator picked up suspicious radio signals and unauthorised radio communication in coded languages from areas in Sodepur in North 24 Parganas district.

Since then, such signals were picked up from Chuchura in Hoogly district and Sealdah in Kolkata at a specific time in the night.

Areas where these signals were received are within 25-30 km radius of Kolkata.

Alarmed over the suspicious signals, the radio operators informed police officials, central agencies and the ministry of communication about this.

"For past few weeks especially after midnight we have been hearing such coded conversations. The whole thing is highly suspicious because whenever we tried to converse with them, there was no response. And when we asked them about their identity, there was total radio silence," said Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of Bengal Amateur Radio Club.

"Those who were communicating on the radio frequencies alluded to Pashto accent but we couldn't identify the language. I was first alerted by a fellow HAM radio club member who overheard such conversations," he told PTI.

Pashto is a language widely spoken in Afghanistan.

Biswas said after the incident came into light, they had written to the Union Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, highlighting the strange signals and the suspicious mode of coded communications.

"We submitted details of our findings to International Wireless Monitoring station, police and central agencies. We were asked to continue monitoring and try to locate the source of the communications," he said.

The International Wireless Monitoring Station of Eastern region was pressed into service to track the signals.

When contacted ADG (Telecommunication) of West Bengal Police, Debasish Roy, said he is aware of the issue about suspicious signals in the coded language.

"We are aware of it and looking into the issue. We have sent the details to the Directorate of Coordination Police Wireless (DCPW) in New Delhi for necessary steps," he said.

DCPW is a wing under Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

A Kolkata-based senior official of International Wireless Monitoring Station said they have initiated a monitoring of the radio signals and the frequencies in which the conversation took place and will keep a tab on these for some time.

Intelligence Bureau officials here, however, didn't rule out terror outfits using such frequencies to communicate among themselves, as mobile networks can come under surveillance.

"It is not unnatural for extremists groups to communicate through these Ham radio frequencies as this mode is quite unconventional, unlike mobile networks or emails, which can come under surveillance. We will look into it," said a senior IB official, adding such kind of unverified communication in radio frequencies are often heard along the Indo-Bangla border.

In 2016, Ham Radio operators had picked up suspicious signals in coded Bengali and Urdu languages along the India-Bangladesh border in Basirhat and Sunderbans region.

HAM radio uses radio frequency spectrum to exchange messages with other radio operators. Each one of them are assigned a call sign for identity. The HAM or amateur radio operators are licensed to conduct such communications under specific radio frequencies by the Union Ministry of Communications and IT.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Press Council of India (PCI) has urged the Jharkhand government to take remedial steps so that journalists are allowed to carry out their professional obligations without any impediments, according to a statement.

The PCI said it has noted with concern the reports of the alleged lathi-charge on journalists in Ranchi during the coverage of a function on Jharkhand Foundation Day on November 15.

"It urges the state government to take such remedial steps as deem necessary so that journalists are allowed to carry out their professional obligations without any impediments," the statement said.

The PCI has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and a report on facts of the case is being sought from the Jharkhand government.

"Simultaneously, a Fact Finding Team constituted to look into the death of a journalist at Chattra, Jharkhand will also meet the victim journalists and concerned authorities," it added.

The team is being asked to submit its report preferably within six weeks.

The journalist working with a Hindi newspaper in Jharkhand was beaten to death in October.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Under the impetus of the GIFEN - French Nuclear Suppliers Association and Business France, the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, and with the support of EDF, 19 French suppliers to the nuclear industry will attend Indo-French nuclear business meetings from November 26th to December 1st. A 'French Nuclear Night' will also be held, as a part of this event, which will gather the Indo-French Nuclear ecosystem to provide a networking platform.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/651714/Business_France_Logo.jpg )



The French delegation will attend 2 main events:A technical seminar and B2B meetings to strengthen Indo-French relationships (Mumbai, November 26th and 27th) A 4-day roadshow to meet stakeholders, CTOs and their staff from the main Indian NPPs and representatives from renowned companies involved in nuclear industry (Mumbai on November 28, Kanyakumari on November 29, Chennai on November 30 and Karwar on December 1st). France has chosen for many years to incorporate nuclear electricity in its energy mix. France has developed technologies with the highest safety standards and adopted strict rules, controlled by an independent authority. Therefore, France is covering the entire nuclear energy cycle from fuel manufacturing up to decommissioning of nuclear power plants and waste management.

Today, France has across the world a variety of projects in which French nuclear SMEs are involved and working with foreign companies:



1. New projects and construction of power plants



4 EPR reactors under construction in 3 countries (France, Finland, UK) and 2 EPR units are being commissioned in China 4 already authorized ATMEA1 units in Turkey under the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and Japan Participation to different reactor designs: PHWR, VVER, AP1000, CAP1000, HPR100, ESBWR, BWR The Jaitapur project for 6 NPPs, in which the French Nuclear Industry wishes that the collaboration with Indian companies will lead to a significant Indo-French achievement 2. Operation and maintenance of reactors in operation



French companies have supplied around the world more than 350 nuclear reactors (AREVA experience) and built more than 130 reactors in 12 countries 73 reactors in operation in France and in the United Kingdom An area where France and India could jointly execute large projects for safe, reliable and efficient operations can be for the Indian reactors France has been supporting countries in the nuclear energy field for years. They expect that nuclear cooperation between France and India will become increasingly strong and continue as part of a long-term partnership.

France is ready to leverage key success factors for the development of sustainable nuclear energy in India by:



Sharing knowledge and skills with local industry Cooperating in education and training development Supporting industrial development and establishing strong linkages between both industries The French delegation comprises of the following firms:



APAVE, ASSYSTEM, BAUMERT, EDF, EGIS, EKIUM, EMERSON, FAYAT METAL, FREYSSINET, I2EN, JST TRANSFORMATEURS, KEMICA COATINGS, NUVIA, OAKRIDGE, ONET, REEL, SPX FLOW, TRACTEBEL, VELAN.

Key relevant figures of the French nuclear industry:



France possesses 58 reactors and its expertise is globally acknowledged in the nuclear sector. This expertise is the fruit of the constant commitment and investment of French industrial groups and SMEs for the past 60 years in the nuclear field.

The French Nuclear Industry represents a total of 50 billion in turnover per year, of which 20% is generated from cooperation in international projects. France today accounts for half of the European nuclear industry



It is composed of 2,600 companies with 115000 highly qualified people



1.8 billion are invested in R&D programs each year



About Business France:



Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France. It promotes France's companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and runs the V.I.E international internship program. Business France has 1,500 personnel, both in France and in 70 countries throughout the world, who work with a network of public- and private-sector partners. For further information, please visit: http://www.businessfrance.fr and youbuyfrance.com.in.

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Police arrested three persons on Wednesday for the alleged rape and abduction of a ten-year-old girl in a village in Odisha's Ganjam district three weeks ago.

Two motor-cycles used in the crime and some gold ornaments and other articles looted by the accused from the girl's house were also seized from the trio, Ganjam Superintendent of Police Brijesh Rai said.

The accused are aged between 19 and 20 years of age and hail from the same district, he said.

They had broken into the girl's house at Dhoyakana village on October 31 night to commit burglary when the family members were sleeping.

After committing burglary, they had allegedly abducted the minor daughter of the house owner and one of them raped her in a nearby area, while other two assisted him, the SP said.

They had also threatened the girl with a sharp weapon when she tried to cry out for help, the police said.

Her family members had rescued the traumatised girl, a student of Class IV, and got her admitted at MKCG Medical College and Hospital here, the police added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp reported a sharp fall in annual profits Wednesday after months of boardroom turmoil and a cartel probe, as it prepares to tackle a massive restructuring.

The group reported net profit of 60 million euros ($68.4 million) for its 2017-18 financial year to September, down 78 percent after taking into account the sell-off of its Americas steel business.

Sales at Thyssenkrupp, which makes products from steel to submarines, elevators and car parts, rose 3.0 percent to 42.7 billion euros.

"This will be a year of rebuilding for Thyssenkrupp, so welcome to our big building site," chief executive Guido Kerkhoff said as he opened a press conference at its Essen headquarters.

"Every construction project begins with taking stock of the situation and ours is extremely complex," he added.

With German authorities investigating possible collusion between firms on prices for certain types of steel, Thyssenkrupp said it had set aside "a provision for antitrust risks" that impacted on its bottom line.

It did not reveal the amount, but said there was a "more than 50 percent" chance it would be slapped with a fine.

Meanwhile on the operational side, the industrial plant making division suffered from higher-than-expected costs on some contracts and made a 255-million-euro operating loss.

Higher raw materials costs also weighed on the annual result as the low level of the Rhine river following a hot and dry summer in Germany slowed deliveries.

Meanwhile, the group finally agreed in September to a split into two separate groups -- "Industry" and "Materials" -- long demanded by activist shareholders who in summer drove out both the chairman and chief executive.

While the initial division will entail costs of more than 500 million euros, executives expect a payoff in the shape of "a positive impact on equity and the balance sheet" once the move is completed by late next year.

Additionally, the merger of Thyssenkrupp's European steel business with India's Tata is expected to help the group stem the challenge from a flood of cheap Chinese steel.

The European Commission is carrying out an in-depth probe into the tie-up, while US authorities have already given their green light. Looking ahead, executives expect net profits "significantly higher" in 2018-19 than the previous financial year.

Investors appeared unconvinced by the plans, with Thyssenkrupp shares shedding 1.4 percent to trade at 15.54 euros by 10:45 am in Frankfurt (0945 GMT) -- making it the worst performer on the DAX index of blue-chip German companies.

Bosses offered no detail on the impact of the planned split on the firm's 159,000 employees worldwide, although unions fear the restructuring could bring job losses.

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A two decade-old pending demand for a railway line is the key poll issue for voters in Rajasthan's Tonk, which has become one of the most keenly watched assembly constituency in the state with Congress leader Sachin Pilot pitted against BJP state Minister Yoonus Khan.

Tonk, which shares boundary with Jaipur, Ajmer and Sawaimahopur, has been waiting for a direct rail line for many years with leaders promising to put the constituency on the railway map every election.

Both Pilot and Khan are outsiders for the Muslim-dominated constituency and are leaving no stone unturned to ensure their victory.

After Congress announced Pilot's name in Tonk against sitting BJP MLA Ajit Singh Mehta, the BJP changed its strategy and fielded Khan, terming it a masterstroke against Congress's move to field veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh in Jhalrapatan, from where Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is contesting.

Situated on NH-12 at a distance of 102 km from the state capital, Tonk is not connected with a rail line and people of the city want Tonk to be on the rail map in order to get better connectivity and economic boost.

Rail line is the major issue in Tonk and I have assured people that the Congress government will take up the matter on a serious note. When I represented Ajmer as Member of Parliament, the Kishangarh airport project was started and Ajmer was connected with many new trains and people understand this and hope that Tonk will soon be connected with rail line when Congress comes to power, Pilot told PTI.

I have travelled more than 5 lakh km by road across the state ever since I was given the responsibility of PCC chief in 2014 and have assessed that the government did not work to improve infrastructure. After filing nomination papers, I visited more than 10 gram panchats on Tuesday and condition of roads in Tonk is really very bad. Besides, Tonk lacks water, both for irrigation and drinking, and Congress will take up works in Tonk on priority after formation of government, he said.

The Congress has this time fielded a Hindu candidate in Tonk, where Muslim voters are estimated to be 70,000 out of the total 2.22 lakh.

The party decided to field Pilot, who is seen as the party's chief ministerial candidate, from Tonk with an eye to influence assembly seats in nearby districts in eastern parts of the state.

Tonkis a good seat for me to contest which touches Ajmer and Dausa. There were requests from 13-14 districts and the party decidedTonk. We will win significant number of seats in entire Rajasthan and particularly in the eastern parts, 41-year old Pilot, who has represented Dausa and Ajmer Lok sabha seat, said.

On his contest with BJP candidate and minster Khan, who BJP's only Muslim candidate, Pilot said it was a fight of ideologies and not that of candidates.

The contest is between ideologies and parties. Candidates are just a medium, he said.

Khan, a two-time MLA, was keen to contest from his present Deedwana constituency but his name was not announced in four lists till November 18.

When the Congress announced Pilot's name on November 15, the BJP changed its strategy and asked Khan to contest from Tonk and declared his candidature on November 19, on the last day of filing nominations.

I wanted to contest from Deedwana but I am a solider of the party and the party sent me to Tonk in a change of strategy. I have talked to party workers, people here and everyone is excited and committed to BJP's victory here, he said.

Khan said the fight in Tonk was that between 'Sewak' and 'Swami', while referring to himself as 'Sewak' (servant of BJP) and Pilot as 'swami' of Rajasthan Congress.

I can give an assurance that Pilot's plane will not land in Tonk. He will only be in the air, he said.

Akbar Khan, president of the Rail Laao Sangharh Samiti Dalit Sena, said people of Tonk have been demanding a rail line for over two decades and every political party makes promise but no concrete development happens.

He said a survey for 165-km rail line between Chauth Ka Barwara (Sawaimadhopur) to Ajmer, which proposes to pass from Tonk, has been conducted and a decision on land acquisition is pending with the state government.

The state government took no decision for the land acquisition and no further progress took place. Economic development will get a boost and connectivity will improve if the rail line is laid in Tonk. At present, there is no major industry and economic growth is also very less, Khan said.

Tonk district has four constituencies - Tonk, Malpura, Niwai and Deoli-Uniara. All four seats are with BJP.

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A trainer aircraft crashed in an agriculture field in Mokila area near here Wednesday resulting in minor injury to the trainee pilot, police said.

The aircraft belonged to the city-based Rajiv Gandhi Aviation Academy, they said adding the accident occurred at around 11.30 am.

"As per preliminary information, the aircraft crashed due to some technical problem... the trainee pilot is safe," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shamshabad Zone) N Prakash Reddy told PTI.

The pilothas been hospitalised, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Worried about spiralling air fare in the Kolkata-Agartala route, Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has asked Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu to impose a cap on maximum airfare on any route within "reasonable limits."



In a letter to Prabhu the chief minister on Tuesday said withdrawal of flight by some airlines has put people of Tripura into serious inconveniences.

"There is a sharp increase in airfares. The airfare from Agartala to Kolkata used to be around Rs 2,000 earlier, which has now shot up to Rs 13,000 to Rs 15,000. In fact, on many occasions, tickets were not available at any price. As a result, even serious patients are not able to move out of Tripura...," Deb told Prabhu.

A copy of the letter was with PTI.

In the letter, he mentioned that the airfare has risen as some airlines have reduced their service under mandatory obligation of 10 per cent operation in the north eastern states to six per cent.

Deb in his letter also requested the Union minister to make sure that the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issues "appropriate directions" for capping the maximum airfare on any route in within "reasonable limits", so that common people are not exploited by the airlines.

After SpiceJet withdrew their flights from Agartala in September, now only IndiGo and Air India operate flights from Tripura capital on a daily basis, Agartala airport sources said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United States has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive in this regard early this year, the Pentagon has said.

"$1.66 billion of security assistance to is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defense for Afghanistan, and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January of this year is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours Sedney told PTI.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of

He was a part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a daring raid by US commandoes in Abbottabad.

Over the last few days Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of bin Laden.

"On Osama bin Laden, I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book, 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Osama Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sydney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremists groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, he added.

"What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, against Lashkhar-e-Taiba, and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbors," he said.

"But, we still see the moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan, and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sydney alleged.

We see leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence, he said.

"If Pakistan would take some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to quickly," he argued.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the

Both and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.

"Similarly, if Pakistan would take strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney said.
In our reflections on the story of the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, we encounter a range of emphases across religious, cultural, and political divides.

For some, its a tale that points us to the power and importance of religious and political liberty. For others, it offers a compelling argument for boldly taking in the immigrant and the refugeethe persecuted, the impoverished, and afflicted. For others still, it represents a repudiation of socialistic theories and a demonstration of the glories of economic freedom and property rights, orienting our gratitude and sacrifice beyond human designs.

And rightly so!

The story of the pilgrims, simple though it may appear, is a unique case study in human history, offering a compact but comprehensive view into the multiple aspects of the liberty and conditions that are needed to establish and maintain a free and virtuous society.

The Pilgrims were the first people to not merely verbalize but actually realize, to demonstrate over a span of decades, in their own lives as individuals and as a whole community, the unique American identity as an exceptionally free, orderly, and essentially devout people, writes Charles H. Wolfe, president of the Plymouth Rock Foundation.

While Jamestown continued to struggle, the Pilgrim experiment took a different sequence altogether. From 1600 to 1636 and beyond, Wolfe explains, we see the pilgrims move from a pursuit of spiritual liberty to, decades later, constitutional libertymoving between five distinct aspects of freedom. They had to live out step by step the various aspects of the principle of Christian self-government that allowed them to experience, in an orderly, logical sequence the basic constituents of a comprehensive, genuine human freedom, Wolfe explains.

To demonstrate Wolfes argument, Ive provided key excerpts from each of the five stages he mentions. Each holds significant lessons for our current context, whether in illuminating all that we take for granted or in highlighting what we might be missing. (You can read the full essay here.)

1. Spiritual Liberty (1600)

Encouraged and inspired by the gifted Reformed pastors Richard Clyfton and John Robinson, to get and read their own Bibles (then against the law of England) and to receive Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Saviour (then no part of the teaching of the Church of England), the Pilgrims experienced a considerable degree of spiritual liberty (a measure of freedom from bondage to sin) and thus learned how to practice Christian self-government.

2. Religious Liberty (1603-1607)

Soon they were arrested by the Church police for worshipping apart from the Church of England. Apprehended and jailed, tried and found guilty, and finally released, they saw it was no longer feasible for them to live in their beloved England. With great difficulty (still pursued by the police, who insisted they stay in England) they escaped to Holland, where they found plenty of freedom. But it was freedom to do your own thing, freedom run wild, and after a decade they found this materialistic, anti-Christian freedom was corrupting their children, and they decided they had to make a fresh start in the New World.

3. Political Liberty (1620)

While still aboard the Mayflower, anchored in Provincetown harbor, before they ever went ashore, the Pilgrims took their Biblical type covenant which they had framed for their church self-government in England and transmuted it into the Mayflower Compact, the worlds first written charter for local civil self-government. It was democracy with a spiritual undergirding, acknowledging the sovereignty of God and the primacy of His laws. As political scientists Willmoore Kendall and George Carey observe, the colony is being planted first, for the glory of God, second for the Advancement of the Christian faith, third for the honor of King and country, and fourth, for our better ordering,  that is, not just to form a free society, but an orderly, just and good society.

4. Economic Liberty (1623)

The first year under communal agriculture, the Pilgrims planted just 26 acres and nearly starved to death. As Governor Bradford reported, they gathered in the small harvest that they had. They shared what they could with the Indians, and the Indians shared the deer they had slain for the occasion with the Pilgrims, but it was no huge Thanksgiving feast, and they soon were acutely hungry. The second year, knowing they had to go all out, but still under the obligation to practice communal agriculture, they doubled their first years production, and planted 60 acres. But that was no by means enough, they still were near starvation. And so the third year, they switched to private agriculture, assigned each family its own property, made each responsible for itself. They planted 184 acres, tripled their best previous effort, and never went hungry again. William Bradford wrote: Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.

5. Constitutional Liberty (1636)

The Mayflower Compact was an inspired document, but not a specific constitution, defining the form of their government, its functions and basic laws. Thus in 1636, not working only from theory, no matter how sound, but drawing also on some fifteen years of experience in self-government in the new world, the Pilgrims held a kind of mini-constitutional convention, which framed the Laws of the Pilgrims, also known as The Laws of Plymouth, a basic constitution that was revised from time to time but never abandoned. The preamble to the 1671 version, introduced with grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ, began: It was the great privilege of Israel of old, and so acknowledged by them (Nehemiah 9:13) that God gave them right judgments and true laws, which are so far good and wholesome as by how much they are derived from and agreeable to, the ancient platform of Gods law.

Together, each of these stages didnt just pave the way for success in the lives of the pilgrims. They paved the way for the future of American republicanism and democracyboth culturally and politicallysowing the seeds of principles that would later be enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

As we give thanks around our tables, reflecting on the story of the pilgrims, we have the pleasure of nodding yes and saying amen to the host of themes that are sure to emerge across perspectives and personal priorities. We can express gratitude for a heritage not of narrow special interests, but of full-dimensional freedom.

Image: Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1899
: Two and three-wheeler maker TVS Motor has contributed Rs two crore to the Tamil Nadu government to take up relief work in cyclone affected districts of the State.

The company's Chairman and Managing Director Venu Srinivasan handed over the cheque to Chief Minister K Palaniswami at his residence, a press release said.

Srinivasan Services Trust, the company's corporate social responsibility division also sent relief materials worth Rs one crore to Nagapattinam, one of the worst affected districts of the State in the cyclone.

Palaniswami had visited the districts hit by cyclone Gaja Tuesday and distributed relief materials to the affected people and indicated he would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to seek central assistance.

The cyclone crossed the coast on November 16 near Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam district, about 350 km from Chennai, with a speed of up to 120 kmph, claiming 46 lives and leaving a trail of destruction in over 10 districts in Tamil Nadu.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council have strongly condemned the terrorist attack targeting a religious gathering in Afghan capital Kabul.

The UN chief said deliberate targeting of civilians is a "clear violation of international humanitarian law".

In a statement issued by his spokesperson, the secretary-general said "every effort" should be made to bring the perpetrators of Tuesday's attack to justice.

Guterres also extended his deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to those injured.

The attack is said to be one of the deadliest in recent months as at least 55 people were killed and over 80 wounded in the blast that targeted a gathering of about 1,000 people, including religious scholars, celebrating the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has deployed human rights investigation teams to establish facts and gather more information.

A press statement issued by Security Council President and China's Ambassador to the UN, Ma Zhaoxu, said members of the Council condemned in the strongest terms the "heinous and cowardly" terrorist attack.

"The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security," it said.

The 15-nation Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice. The members reiterated that any act of terrorism is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation.

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A US government report ahead of a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping accuses China of stepping up hacking aimed at stealing American technology as a tariff dispute escalated.

Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer's report reflects US skepticism and a possible source of new acrimony ahead of the meeting in Buenos Aires aimed at defusing the dispute companies worry will chill global economic growth.

The two sides have raised import duties on billions of dollars of each other's goods in the fight over US complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology.

Chinese hacking efforts aimed at stealing American technology and trade secrets have "increased in frequency and sophistication" this year, said Lighthizer's report, issued Tuesday in Washington.

Asked about the report, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said US-Chinese trade relations were "mutually beneficial" and it was "natural to have trade frictions." "The key is to engage in dialogue and consultation on the issue based on mutual respect, equality and good faith," Geng said at a regular briefing.

Trump is pressing Beijing to roll back industry plans its trading partners say violate its market-opening obligations that Chinese leaders see as a path to prosperity and global influence.

Those include "Made in China 2025," which calls for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics and other fields.

American and Chinese officials have been talking in preparation for the Trump-Xi meeting and reports say Bejiing has sent written proposals but no details have been released.

Beijing has tried without success to recruit France, Germany, Japan and other governments as allies against Trump. They dislike his tactics but echo US complaints.

The European Union filed a challenge in the World Trade Organisation in June to Chinese policies it said improperly limit the ability of foreign companies to control and profit from their technology.

"China fundamentally has not altered" its technology policy "and indeed appears to have taken further unreasonable actions," Lighthizer's report said.

Attacks by possible "Chinese state-sponsored entities" against companies in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies increased since mid-2017, according to Lighthizer.

That include a "sharp rise" in hacking against manufacturers in the three months up to September "a type of attack that has been frequently tied to Chinese economic espionage," Lighthizer said.

China is, along with the US and Russia, regarded as a leading power in military cyber spying.

Xi agreed with Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, during a visit to the US in 2015 to refrain from using military resources to steal commercial secrets. American officials have accused China of reneging on that agreement.

An indictment unsealed last month charges a Chinese intelligence officer with trying to steal technology from US and European aerospace companies.

Lighthizer said China also has pressed ahead with improperly trying to acquire US technology by covertly purchasing companies and other tactics.

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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday condoled the demise of senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member M I Shanavas, remembering his efforts towards community service.

Shanavas passed away early Wednesday at a private hospital in Chennai after a prolonged illness.

The 67-year-old, who represented the Wayanad constituency twice in the Lok Sabha, had undergone a liver transplant on November 2.

In a tweet, Naidu described him as a good parliamentarian and great human being.

Modi said Shanavas' numerous efforts towards community service and for the development of Kerala will be remembered.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has been selected among the winners of the Asia Enforcement Awards for its work in combating trans-boundary environmental crime, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said Wednesday.

The minister said this is the second time in a row that the awards are being given by UN to India.

"The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, @moefcc has been selected among the winners of the Asia Environmental Enforcement Awards, recognising its excellent work in combating trans boundary environmental crime.The award was decided upon by a selection panel set up by the @UNEnvironment.

"The #AsiaEnvironmentalEnforcementAwards recognize and celebrate excellence in enforcement by Government officials and institutions /teams combating trans boundary environmental crime in Asia. This is the 2nd time in a row the awards are being given by @UNEnvironment to India," he tweeted.

WCCB is a statutory multi-disciplinary body established by the government under the Environment Ministry to combat organized wildlife crime in the country.

The body is mandated to collect and collate intelligence related to organized wildlife crime activities and to disseminate it to the state and other enforcement agencies for immediate action and establish a centralized wildlife crime data bank among many others.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday greeted people on Milad-un-Nabi, saying the spirit of love and service to humanity, as preached by Prophet Mohammad, should fill "our lives with joy and happiness".

Milan-in-Nabi commemorates the birthday of Prophet Muhammad which is observed in the third month of the Islamic calendar.

"My best wishes and heartiest greetings to all on the occasion of Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of the Holy Prophet. May the spirit of love and service to humanity, tolerance and universal brotherhood, which the Holy Prophet preached, kindle our lives with joy and happiness, Banerjee wrote on her Twitter handle this morning.

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TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao Wednesday alleged that both the Congress and BJP tried to wield control on states by usurping their rights and said he would make efforts to see that a non-Congress, non-BJP government was formed at the Centre.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief was addressing a campaign rally for the December 7 state assembly polls.

"BJP and Congress are brothers. One is saffron flag and another is tricolour flag. There is no other difference. By converting states into municipalities, by usurping state's rights, they are wielding control in a such a way that justice is not done to people in the states," he said.

"If that situation is to be changed, regional parties' influence will have to increase on Centre.

Definitely, nobody can stop even if they come in the way. Let us make an effort after this elections to get a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the Centre," he said.

Such an effort would not only help the state but also benefit the entire country, he said.

Influencing national did not mean that he would shift to Delhi, he said.

He also criticised the BJP-led NDA government for allegedly not agreeing to the state's demand to increase reservation for STs.

"We are a new state. The population of our tribals increased, I am asking what is the problem for Narendra Modi, to give our reservation. Is it a disease?" he said.

Rao, who addressed several campaign meetings Wednesday, stepped up attack on Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for allegedly trying to hurt Telangana's interests.

"Voting for Naidu (TDP) amounts to stalling Palamuru lift irrigation project in Telangana. It is the Congress leaders who are bringing Naidu on their shoulders," he claimed.

The TDP is part of the "grand alliance" which also includes the Congress, CPI and TJS for the Assembly polls.

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy dismissed Rao's attack on Naidu.

"Did Naidu come in the way of implementing TRS' election promises like three acres of land to Dalits, construction of double bedroom houses for poor, increasing reservation for Muslims and tribals?" Reddy asked.

"Why is Rao, who had earlier asked why should he be concerned about the alliances of others, is now worried about alliances of other parties?" the Congress leader said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman passenger, aged around 50, sustained minor injuries at the airport here Wednesday after a footpath caved in.

The passenger was coming out of the airport complex when the incident took place, officials said.

It may be noted that several passengers have reportedly got injured in the past owing to alleged shoddy maintenance of the airport.

Two years ago, the National Human Rights Commission had issued notice to the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India based on a complaint that the airport, despite being modernised in 2012, had in recent times witnessed 61 incidents of glass falling and endangering the safety of travellers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A hardcore woman Naxal, who was



carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on her head, was gunned down by security forces in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, police said.

The skirmish took place in the evening in a forest near Chitalnar and Dondipadar villages under Pushpal police station limits in which Military Platoon Commander Jyothi Muriyami was killed, state's Deputy Inspector General (anti-naxal operations) Sundarraj P told PTI.

"A team of state's District Reserve Guard (DRG) that was out on an anti-Naxal operation, reached the forest of Chitalnar and Dondipadar, located around 500 km away from the capital Raipur, when it came under heavy fire from a group of ultras that led to a gun-battle," he said.

After the exchange of fire ended, the body of the woman Naxal cadre was recovered from the spot, the DIG said.

Muriyami was active as a commander of Peoples' Liberation Guerrilla Army platoon no. 31 of Maoists and was carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on her head, he added.

"She was a hardcore cadre in Kanger Valley area along the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border area and has been instrumental in executing several deadly incidents," he said.

Further details are awaited as the search operation was still underway in the region, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion aid to Pakistan will remain suspended till the country does not act against militant safe heavens inside its territory.

"I want Pakistan to help us. We're no longer paying USD 1.3 billion to Pakistan. We're paying them nothing because that's what they've done to help us. Nothing," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday before leaving for his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Over the last few days, Trump has accused Pakistan of not helping it in its fight against terrorism.

In an interview to Fox over the weekend, Trump said that people in Pakistan knew that Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda leader, was living in a mansion near their garrison city of Abbottabad, but they did not tell the US and kept on accepting billions of dollars in aid.

"And I cut those payments off a long time ago. We're not paying Pakistan any money because they're not helping us at all and we'll see where it all goes," Trump said.

Early this year, Trump had announced to stop all security assistance to Pakistan.

"I hope to have a good relationship with Pakistan," said Trump indicating that the relationship between the two countries can come back on track, if Pakistan takes action against terrorist groups and their safe havens.

"But right now, we're paying Pakistan nothing. I cut them off. They were getting USD1.3 billion a year. They're not getting anything now," Trump asserted.

However, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, said Trump might be incorrect in saying that Pakistan has not done anything for the US.

Over the decades, Pakistan has helped the United States with some of its policy objectives, he said.

"He is right in noting that Pakistan has offered tactical cooperation in return for aid while at the same time undermined strategic US objectives, Haqqani told PTI.

Pakistani leaders, he said are being disingenuous in describing the US as "ungrateful".

Americans have provided over USD 43 billion in military and economic assistance since 1954, helped build Pakistan's conventional military capability, and bailed Pakistan out of both economic and political crises on several occasions, he said.

Haqqani, who is the director for South and Central Asia at the prestigious Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, said Islamabad would continue to be tempted to go back to old transactional patterns, but not Washington.

"It is the Americans who are likely to be less interested in returning to what I describe in my book on the subject as 'Magnificent Delusions.' Not only do Pakistan's ambitions in Afghanistan conflict with US plans but the two countries strongly disagree about China's expanding influence in Asia," Haqqani told PTI.

Observing that only a strategic rethink on the part of Pakistan can lead to a reset in US-Pakistan ties, Haqqani said until then, occasional twitter spats and "we paid a heavy price for being your ally" statements will continue to characterise the unusual relationship.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The work for construction of a tunnel through Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh to cut down the distance to China border will start in January next year, a top Border Roads Organisation (BRO) officer said Wednesday.

The bhoomi puja for starting the work of construction of Sela tunnel in Tawang district will be held in January next year, Director General Border Roads (DGBR) Lt Gen Harpal Singh said here.

The BRO will construct the tunnel through Sela Pass, which would cut down the distance to China border through Tawang by 10 km. The tunnel would also cut down by at least an hour of travel time between the Army's 4 Corps headquarters at Tezpur in Assam and Tawang.

Moreover, the tunnel would ensure that National Highway 13 and especially the 171-km stretch between Bomdila and Tawang, remains accessible in all weather conditions.

For the work, tenders have been floated and administration from Tawang and West Kameng districts has ratified joint surveys, the DG informed during a meeting with Chief Minister Pema Khandu here.

The BRO has sought support of the state government for statutory clearances to which the chief minister assured all his support, a CMO release said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his 2018-19 budget, had announced the government's plan to build a tunnel through Sela Pass located at an elevation of 13,700 ft which will ensure faster movement of troops in Tawang, a strategically-located district bordering China.

Khandu requested the BRO to expedite work on improving the road from PTSO lake to Bumla pass in Tawang district and appreciated the BROs dedication in working in extremely remote area exhorting them to continue the good work and ensure timely completion of the task with highest quality, the release said.

The chief minister assured the DG BRO full support of the state government in expediting works on all borders roads in the state, it added.

The DG also discussed on the 317-km Balipara-Charduar- Tawang (BCT) road, which is the lifeline of West Kameng and Tawang districts and informed that significant achievement has been made on improving the road to two-lane road.

The meeting also discussed the status of Dirang bypass and Jung bypass included under the BCT road, the release said.

The DGBR informed about the progress of works of operationally critical roads in the Area of Responsibility of Project Arunank near India-China border in Upper Subansiri district.

The DG informed that he had inspected the roads recently while travelling by road from Tama Chung Chung (TCC) to Taksing and TCC to Bidak.

Singh informed that civil vehicles are now running up to Tama Chung Chung from Nacho.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Tim HepherPARIS (Reuters) - Airbus on Wednesday named new financial and operations chiefs as part of a complete leadership overhaul as it emerges from months of internal strife caused by legal problems and delays in meeting record output goals.The European planemaker appointed Dominik Asam, finance director of German chipmaker Infineon Technologies, as its next chief financial officer to replace fellow German Harald Wilhelm.Airbus is in the midst of a two-year management overhaul driven by a combination of high-level retirements and concerns over the impact of ongoing bribery ...
By Tom MilesGENEVA (Reuters) - The United States and China clashed on Wednesday at a World Trade Organization meeting with a U.S. envoy accusing Beijing of using the WTO to pursue "non-market" policies and a Chinese official saying it was Washington that was flouting the rulebook.U.S. President Donald Trump has outraged U.S. trading partners by erecting a tariff wall against imports of steel and aluminium - justified by U.S. national security concerns - and has hit Chinese goods with huge tariffs over accusations of stealing U.S. intellectual property.At the meeting on Wednesday, where a slew ...
By Meng Meng and Dominique PattonBEIJING (Reuters) - Industrial gas demand in North China is showing signs of a sharp slowdown as small manufacturers shut their doors or buy less gas, unable to cope with a drop-off in export orders and costs related to Beijing's pollution control and reform measures. With spot orders from these users drying up, many dealers are trying to negotiate for lower volumes on existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts with top supplier China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), several sources told Reuters. The contract talks come only six months after the ...
By Jacob Gronholt-PedersenBRUSSELS (Reuters) - British company structures which hide the identity of their beneficiaries are a "disgrace", the whistleblower who brought to light an alleged 200 billion euro ($228 billion) money laundering scandal involving Danske Bank said.Howard Wilkinson, who headed Danske Bank's Baltics trading unit from 2007-2014, highlighted the use of British limited liability partnerships (LLPs) to hide the beneficiaries of the payments in the alleged money laundering."The role of the United Kingdom is an absolute disgrace. Limited liability partnerships and Scottish ...
By Jan StrupczewskiBRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission will on Wednesday take the first step towards disciplining Italy over its draft 2019 budget, backed by euro zone governments worried that Rome's borrow-and-spend plans could trigger another debt crisis that would hurt them all.As the guardian of EU laws, the Commission checks that draft budgets comply with EU limits on deficit and debt before they are voted on by parliaments.Around noon (1100 GMT), it will publish its opinions on the drafts of all the 19 countries sharing the euro, including that of Italy's eurosceptic ...
By Lawrence Delevingne and Koh Gui QingMINNEAPOLIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - On the night of Aug. 30, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student said she was in a chauffeured black car, trying to keep billionaire JD.com Inc Chief Executive Richard Liu from pulling off her clothes."I just begged him, 'Don't do that. You have wife and you have kids,'" the Chinese woman told police in a recorded interview days after that was reviewed by Reuters. "He did not listen to me."At around 3 a.m., Minneapolis police responded to an "assault in progress" involving Liu at the woman's luxury apartment, a ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Group of 20 industrialized nations is drafting a communique that will exclude an explicit pledge to fight protectionism, which could help avoid a repetition of friction between U.S. President Donald Trump and world leaders at last year's summit, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.The draft communique obtained by the FT calls for countries to keep markets open, preserve multilateral trade, and ensure a level playing field, the newspaper reported. The document could change before the 2018 summit begins in Buenos Aires on Nov. 30, it said.However, there is no ...
BERLIN (Reuters) - The Trump administration has invited the heads of Volkswagen , BMW and Daimler to the White House to discuss U.S. tariffs on carmakers, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Wednesday.Citing industry and diplomatic sources, the paper said the meeting could possibly take place as soon as next week, depending on circumstances. Handelsblatt said it was not known whether U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the meeting.A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to confirm or deny whether the carmaker had received an invitation. Sources close to VW said it had not received an ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday forecast world sugar production will fall about 9 million tonnes in 2018/19 to 185.9 million tonnes, while global consumption swells to new records. In its biannual report https://bit.ly/2rwtFEb, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said the decline in global production was primarily due to Brazil, where yields have been lower and where an increasing share of sugarcane is being diverted to ethanol production.Brazilian output was expected to decline 8.3 million tonnes to 30.1 million tonnes, according to the report. Indian production, ...
By Aaron Sheldrick and Osamu TsukimoriTOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese government is threatening to cut existing solar power project subsidies angering the power producers and investors that say the cuts will undermine their profitability and violate earlier agreements. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) last month proposed that companies granted permits for solar projects between the fiscal years of 2012 to 2014 under so-called Feed-In-Tariffs that guarantee minimum power prices submit applications by March 2019 to connect to the grid.Companies that miss the deadline will see ...
By James DaveyLONDON (Reuters) - Kingfisher, Europe's second largest home improvement retailer, reported weak quarterly sales in France and said it would pull out of Russia, Spain and Portugal, sending its shares lower and raising questions over its plan to increase profit. The group, which across Europe trails France's Groupe Adeo, is in the third year of five-year programme to raise annual profit by 500 million pounds ($640 million) from 2021. However, profits are forecast to go backwards in its 2018-19 year.Kingfisher's shares fell as much as 5.8 percent on Wednesday, taking losses for the ...
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's AirAsia X Bhd reported a sharply wider third-quarter net loss on Wednesday, the airline's second consecutive quarter in the red due to higher fuel prices.Volatile fuel costs have been a significant pressure on the long-haul budget offshoot of AirAsia Group Bhd, and analysts expect that will continue to be a challenge for the airline's expansion plans.The average cost of fuel in the quarter was 40 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier, the airline said.The airline said in a bourse filing it was working to mitigate the increase by boosting ...
By Devika Krishna KumarNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices tumbled more than 6 percent on Tuesday in heavy trading volume, with U.S. crude diving to its lowest level in more than a year, caught in a broader Wall Street selloff fed by mounting concerns about a slowdown in global economic growth.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures ended the session down $3.77, or 6.6 percent, at $53.43 per barrel. The contract fell as much as 7.7 percent during the session to touch $52.77 a barrel, the lowest since October 2017. More than 946,000 front-month WTI contracts changed hands, exceeding the ...
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Deputy Oil Minister Fayadh al-Nema said on Wednesday that OPEC will work to stabilise oil markets, crude prices and supplies at its next meeting."OPEC and non-OPEC producers will work together to restore balance to oil prices and supplies to make sure prices stay stable," he told journalists at an oil exploration conference in Baghdad. (Reporting by John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Jan Harvey)(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Laurence Frost and Chang-Ran KimPARIS/TOKYO (Reuters) - French carmaker Renault tapped its chief operating officer and a senior board member to fill in for embattled boss Carlos Ghosn, after an investigation by alliance partner Nissan led to his arrest on suspicion of financial misconduct.Thierry Bollore, Ghosn's operational second-in-command, will become deputy chief executive, while lead independent director Philippe Lagayette assumes the function of interim chairman, Renault said after a board meeting late on Tuesday.But the board refrained from firing Ghosn while awaiting more detail ...
By Kylie MacLellanLONDON (Reuters) - As Prime Minister Theresa May battled to save her draft Brexit deal in the face of resignations from her team and threats of a leadership coup, many believed one man could deal the fatal blow. But he didn't.Michael Gove, her environment minister and the most prominent Brexit campaigner in the British cabinet, took two days to weigh up his options. During that time he declined May's offer to be Brexit minister, because she refused to let him renegotiate the deal.Yet he decided not to resign, at least for now, apparently concluding that his political future ...
By Patrick Rucker and Imani MoiseWASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co is fighting to shut some customers out of a sweeping plan to compensate around 600,000 drivers it pushed into car insurance they did not need, according to court documents and a source familiar with the effort. U.S. regulators fined Wells Fargo $1 billion in April over the insurance program and told the bank to compensate drivers who were harmed. Those drivers are also suing Wells Fargo in a federal court in California for more compensation that the bank is willing to pay.The faulty insurance program ran from ...
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States and opponents of President Donald Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs both confirmed their wish to litigate on Wednesday, triggering the procedure for World Trade Organization dispute hearings, a Geneva trade official said.China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Norway, and Russia all confirmed they would escalate their disputes by starting adjudication proceedings, while the United States confirmed its wish for dispute panels against Canada, China and the EU."The United States cannot abide this level of hypocrisy," a U.S. official told the meeting in ...
The market testing that helped give us the Google search we know today is being emulated by industries from hospitality to manufacturing to help better focus their products and services and meet customer needs. So what did Google do? If you travel back through internet time via the Internet Archive, you can see what Google looked like soon after it first launched, more than 20 years ago.

An early version of Google. Internet Archive While the logo is familiar, the look and feel of the website used to be quite different to what it is now. How did Google evolve into the ...
A college dropout, who began his business venture with a single hotel in Gurgaon, decided to foray into China last November when his startup was well on its way to becoming India's biggest hotel brand by room numbers. Today, Ritesh Agarwal's hospitality company OYO Hotels & Homes is reportedly bigger in our neighbouring country than it is in its home market.

The 24-year-old founder and CEO of OYO told The Economic Times that the company currently manages 180,000 rooms in 4,000 leased and franchised properties spread across 265 cities in China. That's a near 107 per cent jump from the 87,000 rooms under management that the company had reported just two months back. The achievement is all the more impressive when you plot this growth against the 149,000 rooms the six-year-old company manages in India and South Asia.

Although the company was incorporated in 2012 as Oravel Stays, initially it was a platform for listing budget accommodations. In 2013, Agarwal pivoted from being just a discovery marketplace to a managed marketplace. A year on, he had expanded 40 hotels in Gurgaon and then began to conquer other Indian cities. OYO now boasts a footprint in over 500 cities across seven countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, UAE and the UK.

Also Read : Ritesh Agarwal's OYO forays into long-term housing rentals with OYO Living

"India and China are our home markets," Agarwal told the daily. "In just one year, we are now among the top-10 hotel chains in the latter. Our assets there have been seeing an average occupancy jump, ranging from 25 per cent to 60 per cent -70 per cent, after the hotels lease or franchise the properties to us."

The experts have read the writing on the wall for quite a few months now. According to media reports, in the first quarter of this fiscal, OYO had added a total of 47,000 rooms in China against 34,000 in India, signalling a higher growth rate in the new market. "It's probably the first successful Indian internet company that's gone to the lion's den, and scaled to this size," Ankur Pahwa, national leader, e-commerce and consumer internet, EY, told the daily, adding that "one must take into account the whole size and dynamics of that market, which is simply mind-boggling".

Indeed, the Chinese market is regarded as notoriously difficult for international companies to crack, including some of the world's largest technology and consumer internet players like Google, Amazon and Uber. The latter exited the world's second-largest economy after selling its China operations to local rival Didi Chuxing in 2016.

So how did Agarwal manage to conquer China? The daily previously quoted the founder saying his go-to-market strategy for China was to "think like a company in China that was trying to emulate OYO", and not as an Indian company launching operations in another country. This, he claims helped OYO take a more local approach and avoid some of the mistakes a foreign company would commit.

"Most foreign companies look at recruiting bilingual management teams in a different country. We didn't make that criteria because a local company wouldn't have that constraint and if we would have that constraint, we would narrow our talent pool," Agarwal told the daily on the sidelines of Extreme Entrepreneurs 2018, a training series for startups organised by OYO investor Lightspeed India Partners.

Furthermore, by going into the country with zero preconceived notions, Agarwal said the company was able to gather significant insights that helped it to grow business. For instance, while customers in India reportedly expect full-blown service even at economy hotels, Chinese customers' expectations tilt more towards having better infrastructure at economy hotels. Building on such insights, OYO was reportedly able to quickly scale up occupancy rates in the country from 20-25 per cent to 60-65 per cent by early September.

That's before OYO raised $800 million from Japanese telecom major Softbank through Softbank Vision Fund - along with an additional commitment of $200 million - and joined India's unicorn club. In a statement, the company had said that the bulk of the funds raised would go into "strengthening its position in China".

According to the founder, OYO now boasts 600 supply chain partners and over 100 warehouses in China, which allows it to keep "infrastructure availability very easy" and "provide this quality of product at 20-30 per cent lower price" compared to the market. He added that close to 70 per cent of OYO's China business is through organic channels, including its app and walk-ins. The rest of the traffic comes in from digital platforms such as Alibaba-backed Fliggy, Qunar and Meituan, China's largest service booking app.

Moreover, deep pockets aren't the only thing going for Agarwal - he is equally focussed on the human resources angle. OYO China currently employs about 5,500 people in China as full-time employees, and a further 60,000 on a contractual basis.

Significantly, the company is looking to build a strong local leadership team in China to continue to expand operations there. OYO has reportedly poached a number of senior executives from some of the largest consumer technology companies. For instance, Wilson Li has come aboard as its chief financial officer for its Chinese operations. Prior to joining OYO, Li used to be the finance and operations head at car rental major Car Inc.

Last month, OYO also hired Google and Uber executive Jia Zou as its technology head and Tony Liang, formerly with Wanda, SF Express and Dianping, as its chief human resources officer. However, as some of the CXO-level hires are yet to be finalised.

Last week, the company appointed former IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh as its chief executive officer for India and South Asia, with effect from December 1. "As we grow our business, we feel it is essential to continue to invest in building one of the most influential leadership teams and bringing in professionals with an entrepreneurial mindset and from diverse backgrounds, that can help lead the next wave of growth at Oyo Hotels," Agarwal said in a statement announcing the appointment.

Experts say OYO's HR strategy is paying off. "They've had a "distributed leadership" form of management that empowers a lot of folks, which is probably what's needed for the company, given its focus on China and expansion into other overseas markets. The businesses require top management to have their feet on the ground," said Pahwa.

With OYO going great guns, the buzz is that Agarwal may soon be joining the Forbes India billionaires list. The 24-year-old has already been named the 'youngest self-made entrepreneur' in the Barclays Hurun India Rich List 2018 release.

(Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal)

Also Read: Oyo appoints former IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh as new CEO for India, South Asia

Also Read: How India's Oyo, Flipkart have made Japan's Softbank richer
US President Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy. Ever since the start of his presidency, the White House and a majority of the US press are at loggerheads. The Washington Post, one of the most influential news dailies in the US, has now come up with a 'fact check report', which has analysed all the misleading comments and falsehood Trump has spread since he became the president. As per the report, Trump has spread falsehood claims as many as 6,420 times from January 20, 2017, till October 30, 2018 - that becomes 9 false claims every single day in total 640 days.

During the first nine months of his presidency, he made 1,318 misleading claims, an average of five per day, reported the Washington Post earlier this month. However, during the past nine months before the midterm elections in the US, he made 1,419 misleading comments during various rallies for the Republican candidates. This is around 30 false statements per day. During his political rallies during midterm, he gave 35-40 false claims, said the report, adding even when he is countered by local media and White House press corps, he repeats the same false claims again and again.

"So that adds up to 84 claims on Oct. 1, when he held a rally in Johnson City, Tenn.; 83 claims on Oct. 22, when he held a rally in Houston; and 78 claims on Oct. 19, when he held a rally in Mesa, Ariz," said the report.

Month-wise, he said maximum 1,104 false and misleading claims in October (excluding October 31), and as many as 509 in the previous month. Among the most twisted claims made by Trump, he said 'biggest tax cut in history' 120 times; 'the US economy today is the best in history' (80 times); and 'the border wall along Mexico is already being built' (74 times), though not enough funding for the project has been provided so far.

His other prominent misleading claims include "we don't have tariffs anywhere", US Supreme Court's Brett Kavanaugh being "number 1 in his class at Yale University", etc.

The report also accused him of making inaccurate and rhetorical claims to get electoral gains. For example, he said, during one of his poll rallies in Wisconsin: "They want to erase our gains and plunge our country into a nightmare of gridlock, poverty, chaos and, frankly, crime, because that's what comes with it," he said on Oct. 4, said the report.

Edited by Manoj Sharma
The US has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. The Pentagon's statement came days after President Trump said that Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

"$1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday.No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration."But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney told PTI.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistan's Abbottabad. Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden.

"I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sedney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

"What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbours," he said.

"But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence.

If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.

"Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney added.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled $300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.
The YES Bank stock closed higher in trade today after the private lender said the resignation of three board members -Ashok Chawla, Vasant Gujarathi and Rentala Chandrashekhar- would have no effect on the new MD and CEO selection process.

"The new MD and CEO selection process is on track, as per committed timelines. The Search & Selection Committee and the Nomination and Remuneration Committee is scheduled to convene on December 12, 2018 to discuss the final shortlist for new MD and CEO appointment," the bank said in a filing to the stock exchanges.

The YES Bank stock has been hit by a spate of resignations of board members in last one week and has fallen 11% during the period.

The stock closed 2.83% higher to Rs 198 level compared to the previous close of 192.55 level on the BSE. It was the top Sensex gainer today. It touched an intra day high of Rs 200.75 in trade today.

The stock has lost 37.15% since the beginning of this year and fallen 36.54% during the last one year.

30 of 49 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or 'outperform', 13 "hold", four "underperform" and two "sell", according to analysts' recommendations tracked by Reuters.

Reports of YES Bank's managing director and chief executive Rana Kapoor holding talks with co-promoter Madhu Kapur to reach a truce also improved sentiments around the stock.

"...efforts are underway for mutual resolution with Madhu Kapur and family, the Co-promoter of the Bank. This is intended to ensure better support and coordination by the two promoter groups with the Board of Directors of the Bank," the bank said.

It can be noted that following the RBI orders curtailing Kapoor's term, there were reports saying he is trying to reach a truce with Kapur, which can give the promoter group owning over 20 per cent of the bank collectively a better control in affairs of the bank.

Kapoor and Kapur have an acrimonious past and have also battled in the Bombay High Court.

The statement was issued jointly by Kapoor and Brahm Dutt, one of the seven remaining directors on the board, following a spate of resignations lately.
21 Nov 2018, 1:46 PM

Jet Airways in talks with many investors to secure funds, says CEO Vinay Dube

Jet Airways has said it was in active discussion with various investors to secure sustainable financing. "We are in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing to navigate through the current headwinds and create long-term growth. There is interest in our strong brand and confidence in our business turnaround efforts," Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube said in a letter to its passengers. Dube told customers airline has reviewed its network and was deploying aircraft on more profitable, productive and economically efficient routes.

Railways' big plan to stop trespassing! To build walls along 3,300-km tracks by next year

The Railways has set a target of erecting 3,300 km of walls by December 2019 to fence off its tracks along the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals in a bid to check encroachment and trespassing.The entire process will cost the national transporter around Rs 3,000 crore. It will also enable railways to run trains at a speed of 160 kmph on these tracks once they are fenced, which is a must for such speeds. Walls will be erected along a 967-kilometer stretch between Delhi and Mumbai Central stations, the Delhi-Howrah section and a 901-km route on the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals. It also includes a 43-km stretch in the Delhi-NCR region

SC warns Amrapali Group over repeated hood-winking of court order

The top court has asked the realty firm Amrapali Group to reveal by December 3 the details of all its properties in the name of directors, their family members, relatives, Chief Financial Officers and statutory auditors in India and abroad. It gave one last opportunity to Amrapali Group and its directors and promoters to comply with each and every direction passed by the court since May last year. The court has seized a batch of petitions filed by home buyers who are seeking possession of around 42,000 flats booked in projects of the Amrapali Group.

Another blow for Imran Khan's Pakistan! US suspends $1.6 billion security aid

The US has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. The Pentagon's statement came days after President Trump said that Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

Google to expand 'Neighbourly' app pan-India

Tech giant Google is rolling out its 'Neighbourly' app, which aims to help people source local information from their neighbours, across India starting today. In May, Google had launched the beta version of the app in Mumbai and later expanded to Jaipur. In September, it expanded the availability of the app to five more Indian cities, including Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and Mysore.

With over 1.5 million downloads and half a million people on the waitlist, Google is rolling out Neighbourly nationally starting with Bengaluru and Delhi on Wednesday as these cities topped the waitlist.

India slips two places to 53rd position on global talent ranking; Switzerland on top

India has slipped two places to rank 53rd on a global annual talent ranking released by IMD Business School Switzerland on Tuesday, while the top slot has been retained by the Alpine nation itself. Within Asia, Singapore has topped the charts with a global 13th place on the list that ranks 63 countries in developing, attracting and retaining talent. China is ranked lower at 39th. The rankings are based on three factors: Investment and Development, Appeal, and Readiness. Switzerland is followed by Denmark, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands in the top-five

Facebook access hit by unspecified problems

Facebook said Tuesday users were having trouble accessing the social network and its other applications such as Instagram, but did not explain the cause of the outages. It was the second instance in the past two weeks in which technical issues appeared to affect access to Facebook.The hashtag #FacebookDown was trending on Twitter. Facebook gave no reason for the problems or details.

Why cloud seeding to create artificial rain has been delayed in Delhi

While Delhi has been considering using cloud seeding to create artificial rain to fight the smog in the capital for two weeks now, things are yet to kick-off. Scientists have been waiting for the right meteorological conditions, namely plenty of clouds and correct humidity levels. Wind speed plays a vital role, too. While it's obviously difficult to predict exactly when atmospheric conditions will fall into place, the buzz is that the operation will take place this week. The idea is to use the artificial rain to clear the toxic air in the capital and provide Delhiites with a much-needed respite.
New Delhi, Nov 20 (PTI) Chief of Army Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat will embark on a four-day visit to Vietnam on Thursday with an aim to bolster defence cooperation between the two strategic partners, officials said.They said Gen. Rawat will hold talks with the top brass of the military establishment of Vietnam including Defence Minister General Ngo Xuan Lich. He will also visit a number of key military formations and establishments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh."The visit will be yet another milestone in giving impetus to the strategic partnership between India and Vietnam and taking forward the military-to-military cooperation to the next level," said an Army spokesperson.Gen. Rawat's visit to Vietnam comes two days after President Ram Nath Kovind paid a three- day visit to that country.Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Vietnam in 2016 during which the relationship was upgraded to comprehensive strategic partnership. Defence cooperation between the two countries has increased "exponentially" over the last few years through exchange programmes, training assistance and cooperation on various service specific issues, said the Army Spokesperson. PTI MPB GVS
(Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PR Newswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.) NEW DELHI, November 21, 2018/PRNewswire/ --Under the impetus of the GIFEN - French Nuclear Suppliers Association and Business France, the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, and with the support of EDF, 19 French suppliers to the nuclear industry will attend Indo-French nuclear business meetings from November 26th to December 1st. A 'French Nuclear Night' will also be held, as a part of this event, which will gather the Indo-French Nuclear ecosystem to provide a networking platform. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/651714/Business_France_Logo.jpg )The French delegation will attend 2 main events:A technical seminar and B2B meetings to strengthen Indo-French relationships (Mumbai, November 26th and 27th)A 4-day roadshow to meet stakeholders, CTOs and their staff from the main Indian NPPs and representatives from renowned companies involved in nuclear industry (Mumbai on November 28, Kanyakumari on November 29, Chennai on November 30 and Karwar on December 1st).France has chosen for many years to incorporate nuclear electricity in its energy mix. France has developed technologies with the highest safety standards and adopted strict rules, controlled by an independent authority. Therefore, France is covering the entire nuclear energy cycle from fuel manufacturing up to decommissioning of nuclear power plants and waste management.Today, France has across the world a variety of projects in which French nuclear SMEs are involved and working with foreign companies:1. New projects and construction of power plants4 EPR reactors under construction in 3 countries (France, Finland, UK) and 2 EPR units are being commissioned in China4 already authorized ATMEA1 units in Turkey under the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and JapanParticipation to different reactor designs: PHWR, VVER, AP1000, CAP1000, HPR100, ESBWR, BWRThe Jaitapur project for 6 NPPs, in which the French Nuclear Industry wishes that the collaboration with Indian companies will lead to a significant Indo-French achievement2. Operation and maintenance of reactors in operationFrench companies have supplied around the world more than 350 nuclear reactors (AREVA experience) and built more than 130 reactors in 12 countries73 reactors in operation in France and in the United KingdomAn area where France and India could jointly execute large projects for safe, reliable and efficient operations can be for the Indian reactorsFrance has been supporting countries in the nuclear energy field for years. They expect that nuclear cooperation between France and India will become increasingly strong and continue as part of a long-term partnership.France is ready to leverage key success factors for the development of sustainable nuclear energy in India by:Sharing knowledge and skills with local industryCooperating in education and training developmentSupporting industrial development and establishing strong linkages between both industriesThe French delegation comprises of the following firms:APAVE, ASSYSTEM, BAUMERT, EDF, EGIS, EKIUM, EMERSON, FAYAT METAL, FREYSSINET, I2EN, JST TRANSFORMATEURS, KEMICA COATINGS, NUVIA, OAKRIDGE, ONET, REEL, SPX FLOW, TRACTEBEL, VELAN.Key relevant figures of the French nuclear industry:France possesses 58 reactors and its expertise is globally acknowledged in the nuclear sector. This expertise is the fruit of the constant commitment and investment of French industrial groups and SMEs for the past 60 years in the nuclear field. The French Nuclear Industry represents a total of 50 billion in turnover per year, of which 20% is generated from cooperation in international projects. France today accounts for half of the European nuclear industry It is composed of 2,600 companies with 115000 highly qualified people 1.8 billion are invested in R&D programs each yearAbout Business France:Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France. It promotes France's companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and runs the V.I.E international internship program. Business France has 1,500 personnel, both in France and in 70 countries throughout the world, who work with a network of public- and private-sector partners. For further information, please visit: http://www.businessfrance.fr and youbuyfrance.com.in. Source: Business France PWRPWR
Hanoi, Nov 19 (AP) The prime ministers of Vietnam and Russia agreed Monday to nearly triple their countries' two-way trade to USD 10 billion by 2020 from USD 3.55 billion last year.Speaking to reporters after talks in Hanoi, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the countries will expand their cooperation in the oil and gas industries and transportation."We emphasised that energy companies from Russia and Vietnam have had successful cooperation and we wish that cooperation will continue to be consolidated," Medvedev said through a translator.Russia currently invests in over a hundred projects in Vietnam worth USD 990 million, many in oil and gas exploration and exploitation, according to Vietnam's Foreign Ministry.Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said cooperation in defence and security and other areas has seen positive results.Russia is Vietnam's main weapons supplier.Phuc said the two countries will be able to cooperate more effectively through the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union trade deal which took effect in 2016, and will boost bilateral trade to USD 10 billion by 2020.Medvedev was scheduled to meet with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan later Monday before concluding his visit. (AP) RUPRUP
Call it opportunistic volume gain at better margins or seeking new growth options under adverse market conditions. Either way, some of the leading Indian pharma companies are pitching in to cater to the markets that some of the big global pharma companies are vacating as part of their product optimisation strategies.

They are also pitching in to fill in for the temporary shortages that some of the companies have caused due to issues such as regulatory challenges their plants face. Agile companies that can meet this gap and in turn expand their market share see this as an opportunity.

One such company is Hyderabad-based Aurobindo Pharma, which has even given it a name 'New Business Opportunity'. The move, apparently, is yielding results. Aurobindo has received an opportunity to supply an incremental volume worth $90 million to $100 million over a span of 12 to 15 months starting second quarter of FY18. In fact, the company has also been building capacities so that it is ready to meet the demand.

Analysts believe companies such as Lupin, Torrent Pharma, Alembic Pharma, and others are also capable of leveraging their strengths to gain market share because of these developments in the US market.

This is crucial for Indian pharma that has been largely hurt by pricing pressures in the US, a key market, coupled with regulatory challenges some of their plants face in India. However, over the past three to six months, the pricing pressure is apparently showing some signs of relief with temporary opportunistic market gain potential in the US.

Analysts, in fact, talk of some 20 to 25 products, where industry has seen better pricing in the US over the last three months thanks to this trend. Some of the leading companies, they say, note that the price erosion has stopped in their base business and volume gains are coming in. This may come in as a relief for Indian pharma players.

Most of the Indian pharma companies have seen extreme pricing pressure in the US over the last two to three years because of channel consolidation (buyer consolidation) and faster approvals for ANDAs, leading to more competition.

While those challenges still persist, there is also some consolidation happening at the manufacturers' side. For instance, pharma majors such as Teva, Mylan and even Sun Pharma, the biggest Indian pharma company, have decided, as part of their product portfolio optimisation, to move out of the products that do not make commercial viability for them.
A 16-year-old South Sudanese girl was reportedly auctioned on social networking giant Facebook Inc as a 'virgin bride'. By the time Facebook intervened and pulled down the post, the damage had already been done. Around five people participated in the auction, and the highest bidder paid 500 cows, three luxury cars and $10,000 (Rs 7.1 lakh) as dowry. The picture of the girl with the bidder was posted on the social network after their marriage. The incident has yet again exposed loopholes in Facebook's monitoring practices.

The Facebook post inviting bids appeared sometime in October and the child bride was married to a wealthy businessman on November 3. A CNN report confirmed that the girls' family organised the auction through the social media platform to seek the highest dowry in return for their child.

Facebook confirmed the auction took place on its platform, and that it removed the post on November 9. The account of the person who put up the post was also permanently disabled. Reports quoted officials from the war-torn nation saying the girl has gone on missing in the country's capital city Juba after the incident.

South Sudan is a poor country in East-Central Africa. The country is embroiled in an intense civil war, which has decimated its economy and resulted in deaths of over 3.8 lakh people since 2013. The use of Facebook to auction the underage girl shows the darker side of the technology. Many activists have said this could spark a chain reaction, with more people putting up girls for auction on the social network in the poor country.

"That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world's biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief," George Otim, the Country Director of Plan International, an independent development and humanitarian organisation, in South Sudan, said, reported CNN.

Facebook has issued an apology, saying the company has in recent times doubled its security team to keep a check on such activities. "Any form of human trafficking - whether posts, pages, ads or groups are not allowed on Facebook. We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

"We're always improving the methods we use to identify content that breaks our policies, including doubling our safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology," added the company.

Many other organisations have also come forward, urging Facebook and the South Sudanese government to take stringent action against such people.

As per the United Nations children's agency UNICEF, over 50 per cent of South Sudanese girls are wed before their 18th birthday. The legal age of marriage is 18-years-old in the country. Due to poor education, many people in the country think child marriage could protect their girls from indulging in pre-marital sex.

Raising alarm bell, child rights activists have said it is high time that Facebook takes precautionary measures against such practices and protect the rights of women.

Edited by Manoj Sharma
Google's Next Billion Users (NBU) team has announced the national roll-out of its Neighbourly app which helps people by sourcing local information from their neighbors. The app was in beta for months and has been in testing for the Mumbai users. It is now ready for a countrywide rollout and Google will launch the app in Delhi and Bangalore today. More Indian cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Kolkata would be covered in the next few weeks.

Over 15 lakh people already use the Neighbourly app and another 15 lakh have been waitlisted. Dubbed as the India inspired social network, the app is the last ditch effort of Google to take back the market share from Facebook and WhatsApp.

Google's NBU team developed the Neighbourly app after extensively studying the Indian market. It found that Indians generally shop, hangout or work within 1-2 kilometers from their home. It also found out that the rapid pace of urbanization has led to the movement of people from one city to another. This migration is having a social impact as people are being pushed into newer and unfamiliar neighborhoods. The app aims to fill these social gaps and help people and build trust among the local communities.

"Right now when you need some information, you knock on your neighbor's door or send a text message to your colleague. What we want to do is to make it easier for people to share information they have and get the information they need about their neighbourhood in a way that's easy," said Ben Fohner, senior product manager in Google's NBU team.

Google has also taken care of the privacy concerns that people might have. Neighbourly is very different from the social networking app like Facebook. There are no user profiles, no personal information is ever displayed, no contact details are shared an there are no user profile pictures for others to identify you. However, Google has said that it will block any inappropriate content or user from the platform. The Neighbourly team has trained individuals who review content in multiple languages. The app also cannot be used to spread fake news as it doesn't allow users to air messages.

Lastly, Google doesn't plan to launch Neighbourly in any other country at the moment. "Looking beyond [India] obviously this need exists everywhere and our hope is that we can take what we've learned from building 'Neighbourly' here and expand that to other countries as well. [But] it is not something we are doing immediately," said Fohner.
US President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with the kingdom and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of America.

The death of Khashoggi, a onetime insider turned critic of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and a resident of the US, has spurred a wave of international anger against Saudi Arabia and its rulers.

The US last week imposed sanctions on 17 individuals of Saudi Arabia for serious human rights abuse resulting from their roles in the killing of Khashoggi at the kingdom's Consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

"Because it's America first to me," Trump told reporters, adding that despite Khashoggi's murder, the US will remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia to ensure its interests as well as those of Israel and all other partners in the region.

"It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!" he said in a statement that immediately drew sharp criticism from his political opponents.

"I'm shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said as she and several other lawmakers announced their plan to bring in legislations to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Responding to questions from reporters at the White House before leaving for Florida to spend his Thanksgiving holidays, Trump said his decision was all about America first.

"We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders and let Russia, China and everybody else have them. It's all about - for me - very simple, it's America first," he said.

"Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down. Right now, we have low oil prices, or relatively I'd like to see it go down even lower.

"But I think that it's a very simple equation for me. I'm about making America great again and I'm about America first," Trump argued.

He denied the allegations that this was at the expense of human rights.

"No, I'm not saying that at all. If you look at Iran.. and you look at what they're doing, they are a terrorist nation right now. Although I must tell you, they're a lot better right now than they were when I took office. When I took office, they were heading in a very, very bad direction.

"At some point, things very positive, frankly, could happen with Iran, but we also need a counterbalance. And Israel needs help also. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake," Trump warned.

The President refuted The Washington Post's allegations that by taking such a decision, he was putting his personal and commercial interests ahead of national interests.

"Well, I have nothing to do with Saudi, just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less," he said.

"I will tell you and as most of you know, being President has cost me a fortune and that's okay with me," he said.

"All I do is focus on this country and making great deals for this country. I don't focus on making on great deals for myself because I don't care anymore," Trump said.

Saudi Arabia, Trump said, is buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of things from the US.

"If I say we don't want to take your business, if I say we're going to cut it off, they will get the equipment - military equipment and other things - from Russia and China," he said, adding that in that case the two countries would be "very, very happy" because right now the US is doing "very well" against China.

Also Read: Erdogan adviser said Khashoggi's body was dismembered and dissolved: Newspaper
A new survey of the Irish workforce by IrishJobs.ie reveals that nearly half (49%) of working parents have missed up to five days of work in the past twelve months due to a lack of available childcare supports.



The IrishJobs.ie survey found that childcare arrangements most frequently lie with grandparents or another family member (37%). This is followed by Montessori or creches (30%), childminders (21%), and after-school clubs (12%).



The research shows that despite the reliance on extended family for regular childcare duties, 37% of respondents have no back-up childcare arrangements in place in the eventuality of their child being sick. Only 6% are in a position to take paid time off to care for their sick child.



When respondents were asked what supports they would like to see put in place by their employer, 97% said they would avail of onsite childcare, 95% said they would avail of subsidised childcare, and 92% were in favour of the option of job-sharing.

Other suggestions included employee assistance programmes, which provide services to ease the burden on busy parents (90%), the option to work from home (76%), and flexible working hours (57%).



Research shows that employee absenteeism costs 490 million a year to the Irish economy. IrishJobs.ie say that aside from the financial impact, it can also have a negative effect on the overall productivity of the business.



Commenting on the results, IrishJobs.ie General Manager, Orla Moran said, "In Ireland, as in most of Western Europe, it is now entirely normal for both parents to work full-time. This places a huge strain on families and poses a weekly juggling act for working parents. Employers need to understand that if they are to retain good employees and keep absenteeism low, they will need to provide adequate supports for every step of lifes journey."

She added, "While there is clear room for improvement, many employers are getting things right. A surprisingly high percentage of those surveyed are quite positive about their employers efforts to support working parents."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Google is today urging nonprofits, social enterprises and educators across Dublin city to submit their entries to the Google.org Dublin Impact Challenge before the closing date on Thursday 6th December.

The Google.org Dublin Impact Challenge is a new 1million fund to support organisations whose innovative ideas for change are making an impact locally. It is Googles biggest-ever initiative to support local communities throughout Dublin.

The winning projects will be working in areas such as community, employment, healthcare, education and the environment. Fifteen winning projects will each receive 50,000 in grant funding and training. From these fifteen projects, five will be selected to receive an extra 50,000 of grant funding, four of these projects will be selected by an independent panel of judges and the fifth chosen by a public vote.

The panel of judges overseeing the additional grants includes:

Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Nial Ring;

Senator Lynn Ruane

Mary Rose Burke(CEO of Dublin Chamber)

Bernard Brogan (Dublin GAA legend)

Sinead Burke (Academic, writer & advocate)

Roisin Ingle (Irish Times journalist )

Tomas Sercovich (Business In The Community CEO)

Fionnuala Meehan (Head of Google in Ireland)

Commenting on the initiative, Vice President and head of Google in Ireland, Fionnuala Meehan said, "Were looking to fund projects that are tackling some of the biggest social challenges in our communities across Dublin. Weve seen great social action on our own doorstep in Ringsend and Irishtown and this is an opportunity for us to partner with community groups and social entrepreneurs across the city in order to improve our city for all its citizens."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
British Prime Minister Theresa May arrives in Brussels on Wednesday to try to agree a blueprint on post-Brexit ties with the European Union, which the bloc's diplomats said was being held up by disagreements over Gibraltar, fisheries and trade.

All EU leaders are due to meet on Sunday to rubber-stamp their Brexit deal, consisting of Britain's withdrawal agreement and an outline of the two sides' new relationship after Britain exits the EU.

The fate of the withdrawal accord is uncertain. British lawmakers are stepping up a fight over the terms of departure, with some trying to open the way for the country to change course.

While the EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the nearly 600 pages of dense legal text that forms the agreement, some of the remaining 27 member states also have issues with it.

Attempting to address those issues in ongoing talks that will outline future ties, national EU envoys of the 27 states met on Brussels in Tuesday.

"Still some work is needed on three aspects: fish, goods and Gibraltar," one diplomat said of the meeting, held before May meets with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU's executive. "Juncker and May will try to sort it out tomorrow."

"Spain does have a very real problem on Gibraltar," said another diplomat.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday threatened to vote against the overall Brexit accord on Sunday unless it makes clear that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks between Madrid and London.

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell insisted on Wednesday that Madrid wanted assurances on the peninsula from the withdrawal agreement, which was published last week, and the political declaration, which has not yet been distributed.

"We will not give our agreement until we have seen both and we are assured that they make clear that the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union will not include Gibraltar, that this would be a separate negotiation which Spain would need to agree on," Borrell told lawmakers.

Many in Brussels said they thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a looming domestic election. They said the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to push so far as to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk.

"We are following the latest developments with growing concern," said a third EU diplomat after Madrid said it would want changes to the already-negotiated divorce deal. "No one wants to reopen the withdrawal agreement."

Within the EU, a withdrawal treaty is adopted by qualified majority and not unanimity, so a single state like Spain cannot block it. However, EU leaders are seeking unanimity on the deal.

With the fate of the tentative Brexit agreement still far from clear, both sides have also been advancing contingency plans for the worst case -- Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement.

Another diplomat who took part in Tuesday's meeting said Britain was seeking an easy flow of goods after Brexit that was too close to that enjoyed by EU members only.

"The UK wants free movement of goods, which they won't get because that's back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we don't do," the diplomat said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britain's fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under control after Brexit.

EU members with pending issues to be resolved are seeking to address them either through the blueprint now being negotiated or through separate EU statements that would not formally be part of the deal with Britain.

France has backed such extra declarations, while Germany opposed them, saying the focus should be on completing the outline of the future EU-UK relations.

Following May's meeting with Juncker, EU envoys will meet to discuss the approximately 20-page blueprint on Thursday. The leaders' negotiators will then look at it again at a meeting scheduled on Friday, two days before the summit. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
By Ke Dawei / Nov 21, 2018 03:39 PM / World

China signed 29 memoranda of understanding (MOU) with the Philippines during President Xi Jinpings first state visit to the country Tuesday  but one is more controversial than the others.

The deal, an agreement to jointly explore oil and gas, is sparking fears that it will involve exploration within disputed areas of the South China Sea (SCS).

Tensions over ownership of large swaths of the SCS mounted during the 2010-2016 presidency of Benigno Aquino III, which culminated in an UNCLOS ruling fully backing the Philippines claims. But rather than press the point, the then-incoming new president Rodrigo Duterte said he would instead work with China to jointly develop some 4 trillion cubic feet of untapped gas reserves believed to lie within Philippine territory.

The MOU signed on Tuesday lacks detail and only mentions joint gas and oil development, not the territories in question. However, Philippine Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi later said that the deal would cover SCS development.

The move is likely to spark strong opposition among Philippine lawmakers, who fear that Duterte is surrendering the countrys claims over the territories to China. It follows a turbulent APEC summit in Papua New Guinea that saw China and the U.S. exchange barbs on trade and market policy and several Asian-Pacific nations seemingly take sides.
A statue of former Communist Party of China leader Hu Yaobang is unveiled in Liuyang, Hunan province, on Sunday. Photo: VCG

Local government officials in Hunan province recently unveiled a statue of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of his birth.

The news was initially reported only by local TV and newspapers. But the new monument in Hus hometown, the central Chinese city of Liuyang, has attracted national attention, as Hu has lately been recognized as one of the most important reformists in the partys history, after he had to resign in 1987 from his top position as party secretary.

Wu Lan, vice party chief of Hunan province; Hu Henghua, party chief of Hunans capital city of Changsha; and Hu Yaobangs family members and former colleagues participated in the unveiling ceremony on Sunday, the provinces official newspaper, Hunan Daily, reported.

The construction of the 6-meter-tall (20-foot-tall) sculpture, which stands in a hillside square, was approved by the central party and government authorities, the report said.

Hu Deping, Hu Yaobangs oldest son and a former vice chief of the United Front Work Department of the partys Central Committee, unveiled the statue at the ceremony.

Hu Yaobang is remembered for his work to rehabilitate party and government officials wrongly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). He is also known for initiating public discussion in 1977 over ending the blind worship of Peoples Republic of China founder Mao Zedong. In the 1980s, when he served as party secretary, Hu spearheaded the countrys reform toward a market economy.

Hu died in April 1989. There was not much official commemoration of him after that year, during which the country experienced major political turmoil. But in 2005, the central party leadership held a meeting to mark the 90th anniversary of his birth.

Commemorations of Hu reached the highest level of government in 2015, when President Xi Jinping touted his efforts during the Cultural Revolution and praised his efforts to push forward the countrys economic reforms.

Contact reporter Wu Gang (gangwu@caixin.com)
Sukhbir Badal asks Kejriwal to tell if he had implemented a single promise he was making in Punjab and Delhi

Observe historic days of great personalities in schools to make children aware of their lives: Pargat Singh

Randeep Nabha demands 5 lakh metric tonne urea till December 15 from Union Government
CAMEROUN :: Cameroon: Three in court on November 23 for trafficking thousands of wildlife products

Three traffickers shall again take to the standsat the Bonanjo court of first instance on November 23 to answer to charges of illegal possession and circulation of thousands of wildlife products. They were arrested with 158 ivory tusks, over 1000kg of pangolin scales 124 parrot heads and over 1300 parrot feathers a year ago as they were loading the contraband on board a truck that was heading to Nigeria.

The operation was carried out at the Bois de Singes neighbourhood in Douala by the police mobile intervention unit (GMI) following snvestigations that provided enough evidence of the activities of the three according to a source close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity. The debates had been going on in the case that shall be heard for the 10th time and a wildlife law enforcement body LAGA is technically assisting wildlife officials in the follow-up of the matter. Witnesses shall to take the stands during the hearing to testify in the case that may soon draw to an end.

According to the wildlife law, anyone found in possession of part or whole of a protected wildfire species is considered to have killed or captured the animal and could face an imprisonment term of up to 3 years.The destination of the products and the quantities involved point to a very organized business that use Douala as a collection centre for products sourced from different parts of the country.

The variety of products, in such huge quantities is equally very unusual because when dealing in bulks, traffickers generally have a single product, according to wildlife law enforcement experts, who say there is a probable link between ivory and pangolin scales trafficking. Ivory traffickers are taking advantage of their long-groomed skills in handling big consignments to engaging in pangolin scales trafficking that warrants load management skills. The expertise needed in concealing and transporting ivory is clearly adapted to handling of pangolin scales.

Surges in prices of pangolin scales in Asian markets is attracting ivory traffickers into the scales business. Some ivory traffickers have shifted into pangolin scales trafficking or simply included scales trafficking to their portfolio. This can only be extremely bad news for law enforcement agencies because ivory traffickers are among the most sophisticated in the business and very difficult to investigate and arrest.
comment

Tony Walker's excellent article on immigration (November 19) missed an extremely important matter. Most other commentators also miss it. I suspect that for political reasons statisticians have deliberately missed it. Tony stated "Net overseas migration accounts for about 60 per cent of the country's population growth". In fact, it accounts for about 100 per cent. An extremely simplified example can explain the error. Assume that this year (year 0) 10,000 young single adults migrate to Australia, form a community separate from the main Australian community, and marry to create 5000 couples. By year 10 they will have 10,000 children, and by year 40 they will have 10,000 grandchildren. By then, the increase to Australia's population stemming from the original migration will not be 10,000 but 30,000. Such activity has been occurring for years. Thus, this year the population growth due to net overseas migration will equal not just this year's net immigration, but also this year's births of descendants of people who migrated to Australia over the past two generations. The population growth due to the rest of the Australian population (ie the real 'natural increase') is about zero. The term 'natural increase' is being used inappropriately in population statistics. Because immigration rates have recently skyrocketed, future population growth due to past immigration is about to skyrocket. Even if immigration ceased today, Australia's population growth will be much higher than that of most comparable countries for another two generations. To avoid worsening population growth problems, immigration to Australia should almost cease until the population growth falls to about zero. R. Salmond , Melba Athol Morris (Letters, November 19), like John Howard, is horrified that another country  in this case Indonesia  would try to influence our foreign policy. What exactly to they think diplomats are employed to do? No doubt, for consistency, they will also be calling for the removal of sanctions against Iran. Morris is untiring in his attempts to influence Australia's foreign policy in what he perceives to be Israel's interests. Howard's most important foreign policy decision aptly led to his being described as a US deputy sheriff, a badge he wore with pride. Hypocrisy abounds. John McMahon, Griffith Scott Morrison's frat-boy attempt at titillation, in reply to Pamela Anderson's appeal to him over the government's ongoing abrogation of its duties towards the Australian citizen Julian Assange, tragically proves that the only hat that fits him is indeed the one branded Porky's, already of meat-pie-devouring fame. Most prime ministers, upon public election, feel elevated to claim to "govern for all people". Evidently the unelected Morrison feels free to do as he pleases, play acting just for yobbos or  worse  assuming that's all Australians are. Alex Mattea, Sydney, NSW In the interests of reducing the amount of packaging used on new appliances, how difficult would it be to make the manufacturer responsible for the disposal of the packaging as well as the actual item when it ceases to function. This could work well on electricals, as so many of them now have a short life. One year and one month after purchase the "built-in obsolescence" kicks in. It might encourage producers to market items that perhaps last longer, like they used to. With China no longer accepting our rubbish, why don't we step up our demands for better quality products? Alayne Richardson, Narrabundah As a chemistry scientist I wish to discuss the real as against the grossly misunderstood meaning of common terms in the food industry, such as organic food, and chemicals. First, let it be known that calories weigh absolutely nil. They are energy, not mass units. Per se, calories do not increase your weight! Chemicals: By definition, virtually everything is a chemical. There are organic chemicals, carbon-containing by definition. Truly organic compounds, and mixtures of them, invariably involve chemical combinations with elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur and many others, and they abound in living systems. There can be no life here without carbon. Our food is mostly the dead materials derived from living systems. Thus the expressions organic food, and chemical free, are clearly meaningless from a chemist's perspective. But organic food has come to mean food derived from plants not treated with insecticides, or animals not subject to nasty fertilisers used on grasses and grazing soils. On "low or fat free", one should be aware of cis and trans fats, the latter regarded as nasty; some argue the former can be as well, depending upon the degree of unsaturation. On "no added sugar", or "sugar free", one should know that there are numerous and very different sugars, well more than 20. For example, glucose and fructose, not healthy when in excess, are chemically quite different to table sugar (sucrose), but the latter slowly converts to the two others in vivo. (As an interesting aside, lactulose, a disaccharide sugar like sucrose, is superb for constipation!) Sugar content of foods labelled without "added sugar" is often very high, and the same is true of salt, nasty in excess, that is frequently found in a larger amounts in foods you would never expect, (e.g. ice cream). Read labels carefully! Greg Jackson, Kambah Mario Stivala's letter justifying shoot-to-kill training was right in the instances he wrote about. It was formalised by the FBI at the time of the Dillinger-type criminals. The rule was that if you had to draw your gun, aim at the chest and kill the target. In some cases it made good sense. In Melbourne a decade ago a 15-year-old, high on drugs, who had fallen out with his girlfriend and wanted to end it all found a sunken area in a local park. He wandered back and forth in the area carrying two carving knives he had shoplifted from a supermarket. The police arrived and negotiated and then called the dog squad. The sergeant in charge lost patience and before the dog squad arrived ordered the other three officers to draw their weapons and arranged for all to shoot to kill at exactly the same time. Doing that no one officer could be held accountable for the killing. The moral of the story is that what is understandable in some circumstances is bloody wrong in others. Howard Carew, Isaacs Scott Morrison attended the APEC Leaders Forum in Port Moresby hopelessly under-prepared. He apparently swallowed the line that a "significant push-back" to China's ambitions in the Pacific was a useful outcome of the meeting - but many people question that. I don't agree with all that China does, but I watched President Xi Jinping's address to APEC on the ABC and found it comprehensive and thought-provoking. The US-Australian-PNG response  a proposed revival of a naval base on Manus Island  scarcely compares. And the after-thought, to help PNG improve electricity supply, not only confirms the Chinese criticism that we've been under-investing there, but also begs the question of the Coalition's track-record in that field. China is our biggest trading partner and, with an unpredictable administration in the US, we need agile politicians who can make decisions in our interest. There is an ominous sense we are being sucked into an unnecessary confrontation, and Morrison failed to counter it. If Pence was simply following instructions from Donald Trump, a very firm no would seem a better response than flat-footed complicity. Far more effective than any statements from China, it would have bought time to prepare a more measured APEC outcome and clearly signalled that Australia and PNG shouldn't be taken for granted as "allies" in any trade war the US tries to mount. Brian Cooke, Waramanga Albert White's criticism (Letters, November 20) of the narrowly framed economic benefits of household drone deliveries promoted in the study done for Wing is on the money. Why do so many politicians automatically assume that money and the economy must be considered as more important than the community's quality of life? Bonython residents have already demonstrated in numbers that drone deliveries are a major attack on this front. People's well-being and health is being ignored in favour of dubiously constructed economic arguments. Murray May, Cook The saying used to be "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" although maybe this should be changed to 'What's good for the goose is good for the daughter'  basically everyone should be treated the same. When Hillary Clinton used a private email server, Donald Trump said "If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation". This was seen in many circles to be a reasonable idea as her email usage was considered inappropriate. The situation has become more complex now as his daughter Ivanka Trump has sent hundreds of emails relating to government business from a non-government and potentially less secure email account. This is effectively the same as the situation that Hillary was attacked for. Bring on the equality of the legal system. Ivanka Trump should also face investigation. Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne John McKerral in his letter (Letters, November 20) claimed you cannot generate energy and supported coal fired power plants. Firstly, during nuclear fission and fusion some residual matter is turned into energy according to e=mc squared. Albert Einstein seemed to believe that energy can be created. The World Coal Association has stated that the average efficiency of coal fired plants is 33 per cent, and 40 per cent at best. They are also inflexible and take a very long time to start up. In contrast, a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) is 60 per cent efficient and can achieve full power in less than half an hour. CCGTs can also be used to complement variable power sources and are being installed around the world, including nuclear power rich France. Of course, since the Australian government permits most of our gas to be exported, we cannot fully utilise the CCGT technology. We will just have to "chug along" with the "clunky" coal-fired plants. John Simsons, Holt Today's editorial ("PM's fix for congestion no solution", November 21, p14) calls for more attention to be paid to urban infrastructure, with which I agree wholeheartedly. The editorial also mentions Christopher Pyne's view that this country could accommodate "many more than" its present population of about 25 million, a view with which I certainly do not agree. This country, which has relatively little land capable of supporting human life, cannot cope with indefinite population growth, as Mr Pyne's comments imply. Furthermore, as climate change  which the Morrison government chooses to ignore  progresses, the population-carrying capacity of Australia is bound to decrease rather than increase as required by Mr Pyne's policy. Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin Australia's latest Liberal Prime Minister says he has just discovered that the roads are clogged, the trains are full, and schools are taking no more enrolments  in Sydney and Melbourne, anyway. He blames this situation on the migrants, and says we have to slow down our intake. Scott Morrison might like to shoot the blame home to where it belongs. When Peter Costello was treasurer, he smugly told the world he had a budget surplus so big that he didn't know what to do with it. Back then, not one road, train system or school could attract his attention. Costello did know about the numbers of migrants coming into the country at that time, and how many more were expected in the years leading up to now. He simply never thought that something should be done to make it ready for them. So he just gave all the money away. And lest we forget: Liberal prime minister John Howard did nothing to stop Costello's nonsense. In fact, he encouraged it. Scott Morrison would do best to admit that a lack of planning by Liberals in the past is what has produced the problems of today. Such a change from the usual Liberal smoke-screen would be so refreshing that a huge number of people could be surprised into voting Liberal next year. G.T.W. Agnew, Coopers Plains ISLAM TARNISHED For any Muslim who understands their faith, incidents of terrorism cause great sorrow and despair. Tarnishing the name of Islam, which teaches peace, justice and safety for all individuals, regardless of faith, will not achieve anything. The acts of these individuals have nothing to do with Islam. Just like we shouldn't criticise other faiths for the indecent, inhumane acts of certain individuals, we can not blame Islam for the act of one individual. Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by the incident in Melbourne. B Nasir, Toowoomba, Qld LIFE'S CONSEQUENCES We won't forgive, we won't forget, the mantra of the terrorist, after Australia's invasion of Iraq, based on American lies. Was Australia's invasion of Iraq a war crime? Imagine some nation invading Australia for regime change, and using the excuse of looking for weapons of mass destruction. Richard Ryan, Summerland Point, NSW THOUGHT-PROVOKING Bravo Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah for your thought-provoking article (The Canberra Times, November 18) offering your perspective on the terrorism debate following the recent Bourke Street attack. Having now only discovered your web page and publications list I must certainly read more of what you have written. Jeff Hart, Kingston KNOWING IT ALL Nick Georgalis ("'Mr Geocon': Nick Georgalis on the property empire and Canberra's future", www.thecanberratimes.com.au, November 18) clearly thinks he knows what's best for Canberra (including, incidentally, advertising demeaning to women). What ordinary Canberrans want for our city is of no consequence. Patricia Saunders, Chapman FAIR GO ON FETE FINES Whoever made the decision to target school fetes for revenue-raising parking fines is a disgusting individual. If the Labor government is so desperate for revenue then it should cancel stage two of light rail. We cannot afford it. Phil Nicolls, Monash HERE'S A CHALLENGE It sounds like Matt Golding has given up on the Donald judging by his comment "Donald Trump tweeting overnight ... but with Trump it's getting harder and harder ... how do you make a clown look funny, how do you send up someone who seems to send himself up without trying ("Picture imperfect: cartoonists shine in eventful year", November 17, p16). Your challenge Matt, should you chose to accept it, is to come up with a Letters 'toon portraying Donald tweeting a response to your assessment of him! Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook NSW THIS IS A SURPRISE The Hanson-Latham tandem has lasted longer than I expected. M.F. Horton, Adelaide, SA Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message eld, not as an attached le. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).

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There's a new warning about wasp nests as the temperature rises with summer. Residents of Canberra are urged to report any sightings either to a hotline or on an online app. Officials are worried about potential infestations by European wasps - a breed of wasps brought to Australia by settlers. European wasp nests are often hidden, the most common nesting sites in wall cavities, a hole in the ground, roofs and even in conifer trees, said Jim Bariesheff, a pest officer with CoreEnviro Solutions which is contracted by the ACT government to deal with the problem. He said that last summer more than a thousand nests were dealt with in Canberra. Some of them were several metres long. There were 131 wasp stinging incidents reported, of which 99 were eWasps [non-indigenous European wasps]. With another dry and warm winter now over, we may experience another busy wasp season, the wasp expert said. The tell-tale sign of a nest in a hole in the wall or roof is a steady stream of wasps emerging and returning as the day warms up. "If a nest is disturbed, they can become aggressive in protecting the nest and may sting," Mr Bariesheff said. "To report a eWasp queen or nest, please contact the European Wasp Hotline on 6258 5551, or use the eWasp app. Once a report is submitted, it is sent to the eWasp team to action. More information can be found at www.ewasp.com.au." The advice is to treat individual wasps with insecticide but to call in the experts with a nest. If stung, a cold pack may be used to relieve the pain. If there is evidence of a more severe reaction or the victim is known to be allergic to wasp and bee venom, medical attention should be sought immediately," Mr Bariesheff said.

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Published On Nov 20, 2018 05:29 PM By Dhruv for Toyota Corolla Altis

The new Corolla sedan will also be available with a hybrid powertrain and should come to India by late-2019 or early-2020

Toyota revealed the 12th generation Corolla sedan in China and the US simultaneously

The new Corolla is built on Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform

The new Corolla is expected to come to India by late-2019 or early-2020

Toyota is yet to announce a diesel engine for the new Corolla

Toyota recently revealed the 12th generation Corolla sedan in China and the US. Both the sedans look different, and it is the China-spec car which will most likely replace the Corolla Altis in India. This change is expected to happen by end of 2019 or early 2020. The current Corolla Altis sold in India is a facelift of the eleventh gen sedan which was launched back in May 2014. Lets have a look at how the Corolla Altis sold in India differs from the new Corolla sedan shown at the 2018 Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition.

Dimensions

Measurements Current Generation Corolla Altis New Corolla shown in China Difference Length, 4620mm 4640mm +20mm Width 1775mm 1780mm +5mm Height 1475mm 1435mm -40mm Wheelbase 2700mm 2700mm 0mm

The new generation Corolla shown in China is longer and wider than the current generation Corolla Altis sold in India. Although the roof has been lowered by 40mm, the wheelbase stays identical. Taking into account the marginal increase in dimensions and no increase in wheelbase, we expect the cabin of the new Corolla to be just as spacious as the current version.

Design

Toyota sharpened the Corolla Altis frontal appearance when it introduced the facelift in March 2017. The Corolla facelift tried hard to look sporty predominantly on the basis of trimmed headlamps. In comparison, sportiness in design is more natural in the latest version. The headlamps look slimmer than before, and individual elements like the large C-shaped element around the fog lamps along with the bigger front grille add some aggressiveness to the design.

Compared to the front, the rear gets a more comprehensive design overhaul. It looks sharper and the design has been tightened with excess bulk in places like the headlamps, bonnet, bumpers and tail lamps being trimmed to look lean and mean. The new design should attract a younger audience for sure.

Interiors

If sharper can be the one word to describe the Corollas exterior, the word minimalist should fit well for its interior. The current generation Corolla Altis has a dual-tone (black and beige) interior in India, but the new version features an all-black interior in China. The all-black interior compliments the sporty exterior design of the sedan.

The steering wheel is again a three-spoke unit, but it looks slimmer than the existing one. The dashboard design is also clutter-free. Theres a free-standing touchscreen infotainment system on top, air-con vents below it and air-con controls further below. The centre tunnel that extends from the dashboard and the front two seats doesnt appear to be too wide, like in most modern premium cars. The gear lever for the automatic transmission has a straight up and down motion and not a slotted motion like in the current version.

Powertrain

The Corolla Altis in India is currently offered with a 1.8-litre petrol engine that produces 140PS of max power and 173Nm of peak torque. The diesel engine is a smaller 1.4-litre unit that is turbocharged and dishes out 88PS of max power and 205Nm of torque. While the petrol and diesel engine are offered with a 6-speed manual transmission as standard, the petrol variant can also be had with an automatic (CVT) transmission. Toyota has not confirmed the new Corolla for India yet and it remains to be seen which engines would come to India. Toyota is yet to marry the TNGA architecture with a diesel engine anywhere, so its unlikely that the new Corolla will get a diesel engine in India when it is launched. What we expect, though, is a hybrid powertrain.

Overall, the new Corolla looks sportier than the existing version inside-out. While theres a completely new platform sitting underneath the new Corolla, the exterior design only appears to be an evolution of the current version. The dimensions havent changed much, so the new Corolla should be just as big to look at as the current version. Let us know how you find the design of the new Corolla in the comments section below.

Read More on : Toyota Corolla Altis diesel
Airline Allied Services Limited, Air India has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Co-Pilot. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 2,11,000 per month. The last date to apply for this government job is 30 November 2018.

SBI Recruitment 2018 For 38 Specialist Cadre Officers: Apply Before Dec 6

AASL, Air India Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Airline Allied Services Limited, Air India Organisation Co-Pilot Educational Qualification Class 12 passout with a valid CPL Experience Desirable Skills Required Driving skills Job Location Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam and Jaipur Salary Scale INR 2,11,000 per month Industry Airline Application Start Date November 20, 2018 Application End Date November 30, 2018

Maximum Age Limit: 45 years

Also Read: RRC WCR Recruitment 2018 For Group C And D Posts

How To Apply For AASL, Air India Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for AASL, Air India Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1: Log on to the AASL, Air India official website.

Step 2: Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click the Careers link.

Step 3: The list of openings will be displayed on the screen.

Step 4: Click on the advertisement link under Recruitment for Co-Pilot (P2).

Step 5: The detailed advertisement will open. Read the details carefully.

Step 6: Scroll down to find the application form.

Step 7: Save it to your computer and take a printout of it.

Step 8: Fill your details and send it to AASL.

AASL, Air India Recruitment 2018 Application Format And Mailing Address

Superscribe on the envelope, "Application for the post of Co-Pilot" and send it to:

Alliance Air

Personnel Department (Alliance Bhawan)

Domestic Terminal - 1, IGI Airport

New Delhi - 110037.

Follow the link - http://www.airindia.in/writereaddata/Portal/career/651_1_Co-Pilot_ATR_72-600_Advertisment_2018.pdf to read the detailed official notification.
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Contract Engineer. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here.

The contract period is for one year. Engineers will be hired in disciplines such as electronics, computer science, mechanical, electrical and civil.

Selected candidates can earn up to INR 26,500 per month. The last date to apply for this government job is 12 December 2018.

WAPCOS Limited Recruitment 2018 For 100 Civil Engineers

BEL Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Contract Engineer Organisation Bharat Electronics Limited Educational Qualification Graduate degree in engineering in relevant discipline Experience Desirable Skills Required Engineering skills Job Location Chennai (Tamil Nadu) Salary Scale INR 23,000 to INR 26,500 per month Industry Electronics Application Start Date November 22, 2018 Application End Date December 12, 2018

Maximum Age Limit: 25 years

Also Read: VSSC ISRO Recruitment 2018 For 173 Graduate Apprentices

How To Apply For BEL Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for BEL Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1: Log on to the BEL official website.

Step 2: Hover over the Careers tab.

Step 3: Select Recruitment - Advertisements.

Step 4: The list of notifications will be displayed on the screen.

Step 5: Click on the link that reads, Click here to Apply against the relevant post.

Step 6: The applicatoin form will open. Enter your details in the fields provided.

Step 7: Submit the details and complete the application process.

Follow the link - http://bel-india.in/Documentviews.aspx?fileName=CE-Web-ad-English-201118.pdf to read the detailed official notification.
Canara Bank has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Internal Ombudsman on contract basis for three years. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 85000 per month. The last date to apply for this government job is 3 December 2018.

Canara Bank Recruitment 2018 For 31 Security Managers

Canara Bank Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Internal Ombudsman Organisation Canara Bank Educational Qualification Graduate degree in any field Experience 7 years Skills Required Banking skills Job Location Bangalore Salary Scale INR 85000 per month Industry Banking Application Start Date November 7, 2018 Application End Date December 3, 2018

Maximum Age Limit: 70 years

Also Read: Head Various Departments At IDBI Bank: Experienced Professionals Apply

How To Apply For Canara Bank Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for Canara Bank Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1: Log on to the Canara Bank official website.

Step 2: Click the Careers tab on the home page.

Step 3: Select Recruitment.

Step 4: The list of vacancies will open.

Step 5: Click on the link that reads, Recruitment Project -3/2018-Internal Ombudsman on Contract.

Step 6: Click the application form link.

Step 7: The application form will open.

Step 8: Save it to your computer and take a printout of it.

Step 9: Complete the application form and send it to Canara Bank.

Canara Bank Recruitment 2018 Application Format And Mailing Address

Superscribe on the envelope, "Application for the post of Internal Ombudsman" and send it to:

The Manager, Canara Bank Recruitment Cell, H R Wing Head Office, 112, J C Road Bengaluru 560 002.

Follow the link - http://www.canarabank.com/media/8367/rp-3-2018-internal-ombudsman-on-contract-web-publ-english.pdf to read the detailed official notification.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Canada Post says Canadians can expect delays of parcel and mail delivery into 2019 as a result of rotating strikes by its employees.

And it says the worst delays will likely be in southern and southwestern Ontario because of a backlog of hundreds of transport trailers sitting idle at its main Toronto sorting facility.

The Crown corporation has told its commercial customers that it cannot honour its delivery standards for any product because of the prolonged strikes.

The walkouts have created massive backlogs of mail and parcels just days before an expected rush of millions more parcels from Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today repeated his call for both sides in the dispute to resolve their differences soon. But he gave no indications that his government is prepared to force postal workers back to their jobs yet, saying only that he wants a deal, and that the government is considering what it can do to put an end to the labour dispute.

"We are, of course, very preoccupied with the fact that Christmas is coming, important shopping days are coming and we need to see a resolution to that," Trudeau said as he arrived in Ottawa for a meeting with his cabinet. "As I've said many times, all options are on the table," he added when asked whether he was prepared to table back-to-work legislation.

Canada Post is dealing with a fifth week of rotating strikes by its unionized workers as both sides remain apart on contract negotiations.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers yesterday turned down an offer for a holiday cooling-off period and a possible $1,000 bonus for its 50,000 members.

The rotating strikes moved today into several Ontario communities including Woodstock, St. Thomas, Chatham and three locations in Scarborough, and continued in Kelowna.

In a statement issued late Monday, Canada Post apologized to its customers for the continued delays resulting from the labour dispute, and warned that the exact length of delivery delays will be unpredictable.

"This is likely to be the situation for the foreseeable future, meaning the next several weeks, including the peak holiday season and through January 2019," the company said.
Photo: VPD Vancouver Police have arrested a 34-year-old Vancouver man in relation to an assault in an apartment building.

Vancouver Police have arrested a 34-year-old Vancouver man in relation to an assault in an apartment building in the West End on Saturday morning. The suspect will remain in custody while the investigation continues.

Just before 3 a.m. on Nov. 17, a woman reported a man followed her into an apartment building on Bute near Pendrell and then attacked her.

Tips from the public were crucial in helping to identify the suspect. The suspects identity cannot be released until charges have been approved by Crown counsel. Investigators are anticipating charges for sexual assault and robbery, said Const. Jason Robilla
Photo: The Canadian Press Injured men receive treatment at a hospital after a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 20, 2018. Afghan officials said the suicide bomber targeted a gathering of Muslim religious scholars.

A suicide bomber targeted a gathering of hundreds of Islamic scholars in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people as Muslims marked the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Another 83 people were wounded in the attack, with 20 of them in critical condition and the toll likely to rise, Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh said.

The suicide bomber was able to sneak into a wedding hall in Kabul where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the holiday. No one immediately claimed the attack, but both the Taliban and a local Islamic State affiliate have targeted religious scholars aligned with the government in the past.

"The victims of the attack unfortunately are all religious scholars who gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad," said Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief. He said police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security.

Mohammad Muzamil, a waiter at the wedding hall, said he had gone into the back to fetch water for the guests when he heard the explosion.

"Everything was covered with smoke and dust," he said. "There were dead bodies all around on the chairs, in large numbers."

Police sealed off roads leading to the scene. Hundreds of family members and relatives gathered at hospitals, looking at lists of those killed and wounded that were posted outside.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing, calling it "an attack on Islamic values and followers of the Prophet Muhammad," and declaring Wednesday a day of mourning.

"It is an attack on humanity," Ghani said.

The U.N. Security Council also condemned the attack and expressed sympathy to the families of the victims.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned the bombing and expressed condolences to the victims. Afghanistan and the United States have long accused Pakistan of harbouring the Taliban, whose leadership is based there. Pakistan denies the allegations, and says it uses its limited influence over the group to encourage peace efforts.

The Islamic State group claimed a suicide bombing in June that killed at least seven people and wounded 20 at a meeting of top clerics in the capital. The body of religious leaders, known as the Afghan Ulema Council, had issued a decree against suicide attacks and called for peace talks. IS said it had targeted "tyrant clerics" who were siding with the U.S.-backed government.

The Taliban denied involvement in the June attack but they also denounced the gathering.

Both militant groups want to overthrow the U.S.-backed government and impose a harsh form of Islamic rule, but they are bitterly divided over leadership and ideology, and have clashed on a number of occasions.

Afghan security forces have struggled to combat the twin insurgencies since the U.S. and NATO formally ended their combat mission in 2014, shifting to a support and counterterrorism role. President Donald Trump's decision last year to send in additional U.S. forces has had little if any impact on the ground.

The Taliban carry out near-daily attacks targeting security forces and government officials across the country, while the IS affiliate has bombed gatherings of minority Shiites, killing hundreds of civilians.
Photo: Contributed This photo shows Italian volunteer Sylvia Constanza Romano, left, with local resident Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, in August 2018 in the village of Chakama, in coastal Kilifi county, Kenya.

Around eight gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer along Kenya's coast and wounded several people, including three children, police and a witness said Wednesday.

Five people were wounded by the attackers, who shot indiscriminately at around 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Chakama trading centre in the county of Kilifi, said Kenya's police chief, Joseph Boinnet.

The gunmen abducted Sylvia Constanza Romano, 23, an Italian woman working for Africa Milele Onlus, according to Boinnet and her organization. The motive for the attack isn't clear and the identity of the attackers is not yet known, he said.

The gunmen came looking for a white woman, said Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, who said he witnessed Romano's violent kidnapping. Ngala's high school education is being sponsored by Africa Milele Onlus and he had gone to the NGO's offices to present his grade 10 end of year report card to Romano, he said.

He heard gunfire which prompted all the shops in the area to close and many people in the trading centre to hide.

At around 7.30 p.m. six men, some armed with guns and others with machetes and clubs stormed into the Milele offices and demanded to know where is the "mgeni" (Swahili for visitor).

"I told them she had left to go and get a power bank, but they didn't believe me and surged into the room where they found her," he said.

Ngala said he followed them and heard one gunman ask the other if she is the one and when he was answered in the affirmative, he proceeded to "slap her very hard until she fell."

"Ronald please, please! Ronald, please help," Romano said, according to Ngala. "I tried to push away a man who was smothering her while holding her down for her hands to be tied behind her back, but someone hit me in the head with a club and I got dizzy. She told me to help myself and I ran for the man at the door with a club and pushed him away and escaped." He said two of the gunmen who were outside the room shot at onlookers.

Ngala said the gunmen took Romano across the Galana River. He said the gunmen looked and spoke like members of a local herding community known as Orma.

Many herding communities in Kenya that live near the border areas are armed to protect themselves against rivals, who may come across the border to steal their livestock.

In one of her latest postings on Twitter, Romano said she was grateful to the kids she was working with for showing her how to live without material things.

Somali-based Islamic extremists have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenya's coast. Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.

One of the foreigners, a cancer-stricken quadriplegic Frenchwoman kidnapped off a Kenyan resort island, died in captivity in Somalia.
Photo: The Canadian Press A statue of a girl representing thousands of Korean women enslaved for sex by Japan's imperial forces before and during World War II, is seen as participants hold signs reading "Reconciliation and Healing Foundation" during a weekly rally against Japanese government near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018.

South Korea said Wednesday it will dissolve a foundation funded by Japan to compensate South Korean women who were forced to work in Japan's World War II military brothels.

The widely expected decision, if carried out, would effectively kill a controversial 2015 agreement to settle a decades-long impasse over the sexual slavery issue and threatens to aggravate a bitter diplomatic feud between the Asian U.S. allies over history. Many in South Korea believed the Seoul government settled for far too less in the sex slave deal and that Japan still hasn't acknowledged legal responsibility for atrocities during its colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono sharply criticized South Korea's decision to shut down the foundation, saying that Seoul would violate the "most basic rule to live in the international society" by walking back on the deal. Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Akiba summoned South Korean Ambassador to Japan Lee Su-hoon to the ministry to lodge a protest.

"The announcement is problematic and unacceptable," said Kono, urging Seoul to stick with the agreement signed under its previous government. South Korea's Foreign Ministry couldn't immediately confirm Kono's comments that Ambassador Lee told Japanese officials Seoul doesn't plan to scrap or renegotiate the agreement.

Seoul's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it will take legal steps to dissolve the foundation, a process ministry officials said could take months. Lee Nam-hoon, an official from the gender equality ministry, said Seoul's Foreign Ministry plans to consult with Tokyo on what to do with the 1 billion yen ($8.8 million) Japan funded to the foundation that was formally launched in July 2016.

"After considering diverse opinions over the 'Reconciliation and Healing Foundation' based on victim-centric principles, we have decided to push for the dissolution of the foundation," Gender Equality Minister Jin Sun Mee said in a statement. She said the ministry will continue to push policies to "restore the honour and dignity" of the sexual slavery victims.

The decision was welcomed by hundreds of protesters gathered in Seoul for a weekly rally denouncing sexual slavery by Japan's wartime military. Organizers played a recorded message by a hospitalized 92-year-old victim, Kim Bok-dong, who said she was happy that the foundation was getting dissolved but also demanded a proper apology and compensation from Tokyo.
Photo: The Canadian Press Michelle Wolf arrives at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump is suggesting he might attend next year's White House Correspondents Dinner now that the event is no longer featuring a comedian.

Trump tweeted Tuesday night: "So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?"

The White House Correspondents' Association announced Monday that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow would address its annual dinner next year following the pushback over Wolf's sharply anti-Trump performance last time.

Presidents traditionally attend the dinner, but Trump has skipped it for two straight years.
Spains cement producers to be included in power support plan

ICR Newsroom By 21 November 2018

Spanish cement producers will be included in plans to support the power-intensive industry, which is facing rising electricity bills, according to the countrys Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto.



With this measure, the government plans to avoid new cases such as that of Cemex, which announced the closure of two of its seven cement works in the country. Cemex attributed the closure to the increase in operating costs, mainly of fuels and electricity, the change in European CO 2 regulations and the loss of competitiveness in international markets.



The minister explained that the government is already working on a draft of a statute of the power-intensive consumer in which it recognises the peculiarities in accordance with Community relations.



In addition, she said that the department is also working and looking for solutions to maintain industrial activities in the areas where Cemex closed plants (Gador, Almeria, and Lloseta, Balearic Islands).

Published under
Gansu Hengya Cement is the investor behind Samarkand plant

21 November 2018

Gansu Hengya Cement Company of China is entering the Uzbekistan cement market. It plans to build a 2.4Mta cement plant in Samarkand, Kattakurgan district.

The plant will cost US$420m and the project will be implemented in two stages. The first 1.2Mta kiln line will be erected between 2018-20 at a cost of a US$220m. The second 1.2Mta line will be cosntructed between 2020-23.



The works will produce cement types M-400, M-500, white and grey, plus M-600.

Published under
Tomorrow, Americans celebrate a national holiday set aside to give thanks for the blessings of the preceding year. But there is more to Thanksgiving than you may realize. Here are five facts you should know about the holiday:

1. The Pilgrims who traveled on the Mayflower and landed on Cape Cod were not the first Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving. The Feast of the First Thanksgiving was held near El Paso, Texas in 1598  twenty-three years before the Pilgrims festival. And at the Berkeley Plantation on the James River in Virginia, settlers celebrated Thanksgiving on December 4th, 1619  two years before the Pilgrims festival. As historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, author of The First Thanksgiving, notes, the early Plymouth settlers celebrated in 1621 could more accurately be called the First American Protestant Christian Thanksgiving North of Virginia and South of Maine.

2. The first Thanksgiving at Plymouth was a secular event that was not repeated. (A Calvinist Thanksgiving occurred in 1623 and did not involve sharing food with the Native Americans.) 52 Pilgrims and approximately 50 Native Americans attended that celebration. According to participant Edward Winslow, the feast consisted of corn, barley, fowl (including wild turkeys), and venison.

3. Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor and the author of the classic nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb, is the person most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Prior to 1863, the holiday was largely a celebration held in New England and unknown in the Southern states. Hale proposed that it be a national holiday in 1846 and advocated it for 17 years before convincing Abraham Lincoln to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.

4. For 75 years after Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation, succeeding presidents honored the tradition and annually issued their own Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November as the day of Thanksgiving. However, in 1939 the last Thursday of November was going to be November 30. Retailers complained to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that this only left 24 shopping days to Christmas and convinced him to move Thanksgiving up one week earlier. Since it was believed most people do their Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, retailers thought having an extra week of shopping would encourage Americans to spend more.

5. Each year the President officially declares a day of National Thanksgiving and every president Since Harry Truman has pardoned a turkey for Thanksgiving.
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Guwahati : Bangladesh Military Delegation team which had arrived India on November 14, returned back to Bangladesh, after a successful completion of their visit to Trishakti Corps.





The delegation during their visit, witnessed various training activities at training institutions like Striking Lion Integrated Training Node, Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling and other professional facilities.





On November 17, the delegation visited Headquarters Trishakti Corps. Maj Gen AHS Hasan and the delegation members interacted with Lt Gen CP Mohanty, Corps Commander and shared their experiences.








Guwahati: A global tribal rights body, which appealed to the international community for boycotting the world famous Kaziranga National Park in central Assam alleging that atrocities by rangers were going on inside the forest reserve against the locals, reiterated its stand that wrongdoings continues in the abode of precious one-horned rhinoceros.





Notably, the issue was raised by a BBC report, which was aired last year, narrating that dozens of people were even murdered by the Kaziranga rangers on mere suspects inside the forest reserve. BBCs Asia correspondent Justin Rowlatt reported that the Kaziranga protection forces had shot dead 106 people in 20 years and wounded many others, including a minor (Akash Orang) who was maimed for life.





The report eventually caused a storm of controversy across the country. The government retaliated by banning the BBC's Natural History Unit from filming in all Indian national parks and tiger reserves for five years. However, since the report was broadcast

exposing the facts internationally the number of killings in Kaziranga has dropped dramatically.





Lately the concerned BBC unit wrote to the Indian National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) expressing regret for the 'adverse impact' of the report titled Killing for Conservation. Earlier the NTCA complained that the report should have been submitted for obligatory previewing at the countrys foreign ministry in order to remove any deviations.





"Contrary to reports in the Indian media, the BBC letter has not cast any doubt whatsoever on the accuracy or truthfulness of the investigation, said Survival International. In a media statement issued by its director Stephen Corry, the tribal rights body asserted that the BBC has not actually admitted its Kaziranga shoot on sight

expose was wrong.





Corry also alleged that the BBC authority was trying to row back and had apologized just so it could start filming in Indian tiger reserves again. But by doing so it's putting in the firing line the local people who bravely helped it expose the incredibly high number of

unlawful killings in Kaziranga, added Corry asserting that it has not said any of the report was wrong.





Survival International also quoted local activist Pranab Doley saying that it was simply a cowardly act by the Indian government and its agency NTCA. But by giving into the diktats of the NTCA, the BBC authority has not only taken an anti-people stand but also failed to uphold the basic values of human rights and media ethics of righteous journalism, added Doley.








WASHINGTON, Nov 22: President Donald Trump has declared he will not further punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi  making clear in an exclamation-filled statement that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing.





The president condemned the brutal slaying of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a horrible crime ... that our country does not condone. But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.





It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, the president said Tuesday. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!





In many ways, the statement captured Trumps view of the world and foreign policy, grounded in economic necessity. It began with the words America First! followed by The world is a very dangerous place!





It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the royal family.





The U.S. earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the Oct. 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including canceling arms sales.





Trump said foolishly canceling these contracts worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons. Critics denounced Trumps statement saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.





Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, he responded, No, Im not saying that at all. But then he switched the subject to the terrorist nation of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.





The U.S. needs a counterbalance to Iran, and Israel needs help, too, he said. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake.





The mistake was Trumps, said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, contending the administration has blinders on in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.





Its a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia, Paul said in an interview. Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you dont support either side.





Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Trump, also disagreed with the presidents statement, saying America must not lose its moral voice on the international stage.





It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, Graham said.





Likewise, Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said that to suggest that U.S. silence can be bought with arms sales undermines respect for the office of the presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and Americas standing as a champion of human rights.





Trumps statement, issued just before he pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey at the White House and left for the long holiday weekend in Florida, underscored his world view of putting U.S. interests  both financial and geopolitical  above all else.





He told reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would skyrocket if the U.S. broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.





Asked about any personal financial involvement, he said: Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me. What does have to do with me is putting America first.





Trump said that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed both vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the killing. He also said the CIA has not made a conclusive determination about whether the crown prince ordered it.





A U.S. official familiar with the case told The Associated Press last week that intelligence officials had concluded that the crown prince, the kingdoms de facto leader, did order the killing. Others familiar with the case, however, have cautioned that while its likely the crown prince had a role there continue to be questions about the degree.





We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, Trump said. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.





Saudi prosecutors say a 15-man team sent to Istanbul exceeded its authority when the lead negotiator in the team decided to kill Khashoggi for refusing orders to return. The Saudis say the agents dismembered his body, which has not been found.





Democrats on Capitol Hill called on the CIA and other top intelligence agencies to publicly report what it has learned about the killing.





The CIA had no comment on the presidents statement. However, former Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic, tweeted: Since Mr. Trump excels in dishonesty, it is now up to members of Congress to obtain & declassify the CIA findings on Jamal Khashoggis death. No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince should escape accountability for such a heinous act.





Trump said he knew some members of Congress would disagree with his decision. He said he would listen to their ideas, but only if they were focused on U.S. national security.





Late last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that calls for suspending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, for sanctions on people who block humanitarian access in Yemen or support the Houthi rebels, and mandatory sanctions on those responsible for Khashoggis death.





Democrats harshly criticized Trumps decision Tuesday and called on Congress to cut off arm sales to Saudi Arabia and end support for Saudi Arabias war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, which is facing a humanitarian crisis.





Standing with Saudi Arabia is not America First! said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia where Khashoggi lived. President Trump has sided with a murderous regime over patriotic American intelligence officials.





Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said Khashoggi was killed by agents of the Saudi government in a premeditated murder, plain and simple, and she said she would introduce legislation requiring intelligence agencies to release an unclassified public assessment.





Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Trumps decision, saying, We are determined to ensure that we continue to make sure that we take care of the American people in all of the strategic decisions we make about with whom we work with around the world.




The Salvation Army has identified more than 500 low-income seniors who would not otherwise have a Thanksgiving meal and are homebound.

"As a result of our generous community, these seniors will enjoy a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, potatoes, green beans, dressing, cranberry sauce, a roll and pie. The Salvation Army will also serve federal inmates and their families. We expect to serve more than 500 meals on Thanksgiving," officials said.



Packing and delivery of these meals will take place at The Salvation Army, 800 McCallie Ave. at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.



The Salvation Army of Cleveland will be hosting a community-wide Thanksgiving meal to be served at The Salvation Army, 437 Inman St. West. They will begin at noon and serving until 2 p.m. They are expecting to serve 250-300 individuals.



Volunteer opportunities can be found at www.csarmy.org or by calling The Salvation Army at 423-756-1023.



Monetary donations are also needed to assist with this years increase in Christmas need. Donations can be made by visiting www.csarmy.org, by calling 1-800-Sal-Army or mailed to: The Salvation Army, 822 McCallie Ave., Chattanooga, TN, 37403.
The Houston Museum of Decorative Arts hosts a to the holiday season in its annual Holiday Tea on High Street, Sunday, Dec. 2 ,at the museum.

Served in both parlors of the Victorian home that houses the Houston Museum, this traditional English tea features authentic English treats such as scones with lemon curd or clotted cream, finger sandwiches, trifle, savories and sweets. Admission includes a guided tour of the Victorian home that houses the museums unique collection of antique glass.

"People tend to dress up or wear their favorite hat when they come to our holiday tea," said Museum Executive Director Amy Autenreith. "Children feel like grownups and grownups feel like kids playing dress-up. Bring your mothers, daughters, friends and spouses. Its a great way to begin the holidays.

There are two seatings at 12:20 p.m. and 2:404 p.m., but reservations are strongly recommended for this holiday favorite. For reservations, call 267-7176 or email houstonmuseumchattanooga@gmail.com.

Admission is $25 for adults, $20 for seniors (65+), and $5 for children (4-12). Parking is free. All proceeds benefit the Houston Museum of Decorative Arts.
Shooting suspect Robert Eric Ownbey, 45, wanted in Tuesday's shooting involving two Walker County Sheriff's deputies, has been located and is in custody.

Ownbey was found at 1310 E. Sherry Dr., Rossville, at 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday, where he surrendered without incident. He was found to be suffering from a gunshot wound to the leg, according to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson.

The Walker County Sheriff's Office said Owenby emptied his gun at two deputies after a traffic stop off Wilson Road in Rossville on Tuesday, but they were not hurt.

The deputies returned fire, and it was believed that the shooter was hit twice.

A warrant was issued for Owenby for two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer.

The Sheriff's Office first said the shooter was Robert Dean Root, and a passenger who got out prior to the shooting was John Ambers Ross III. Sheriff Steve Wilson on Tuesday night said that did not turn out to be the case.

He said that was based on information given by a woman who said her car was taken by the pair. Sheriff Wilson said detectives are now re-interviewing the woman.

Root has a lengthy record in both Catoosa and Walker counties. He was previously charged with drug possession, obstruction of an officer, eluding police, and possession of a firearm by convicted felon. He was sentenced two months ago to five years in state prison. It was believed that he recently escaped from Lee State Prison in south Georgia. However, it was found that he is still in the Lee prison.

Sheriff Wilson said it is now not believed that Ross was the passenger, who jumped out on W. Sherry Drive. The shooting happened after the car went into a private drive off Raydine Lane. Ross is in jail, but on probation violation charges.

Sheriff Wilson said the deputy was trying to stop the driver to give a warning about tinted windows and a non-working turn signal.

Owenby ran off into some nearby woods. Officers followed a blood trail and used dogs, but did not locate anyone.
In a letter to President Donald Trump, U.S. Senators Bob Corker and Bob Menendez, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday demanded the administration make a determination specifically addressing whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, by triggering a second Global Magnitsky investigation.

Senator Corker also said, "I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

Text of the letter is included below.

Dear Mr. President:

The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the President, upon receipt of a request from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression, and report to the Committee within 120 days with a determination and a decision on the imposition of sanctions on that foreign person or persons.

On October 10, we sent a letter requesting that you make a determination on the imposition of sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act with respect to any foreign person responsible for Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggis murder. In light of recent developments, including the Saudi governments acknowledgement that Saudi officials killed Mr. Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, we request that your determination specifically address whether Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for Mr. Khashoggis murder. We expect to receive your determination within 120 days of our original request.

In a letter to President Trump last month, Senators Corker, Menendez, and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, triggered an investigation and Global Magnitsky sanctions determination regarding the disappearance of Khashoggi. The first letter did not specifically name the Crown Prince.



Under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, the president, upon receipt of a letter from the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, must make a determination and is authorized to impose sanctions with respect to a foreign person responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights violations against individuals who seek to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote human rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression.
David Ingram, longtime owner of Modern Way Printing at Ooltewah, has now semi-retired after helping with a transition after his firm was sold to College Press at Collegedale.

Rob Howell, co-owner of College Press with Brad Fisher, said Mr. Ingram will still work on special projects. He worked for three decades in the printing business.

College Press is remaining at its current site after the acquisition.

College Press is a commercial printing company and has been in Collegedale for just over 101 years. In addition to all forms of printing services, College Press has related offerings for mailing, fulfillment, promotional items and apparel.

Mr. Howell said, "In December of 2017 College Press purchased Modern Way Printing of Ooltewah, and moved their operation into the College Press building in Collegedale. The acquisition fit well into the College Press operations due to Modern Ways emphasis on digital printing.

"College Press has a long history of offset printing, and the addition of the Modern Way equipment and experienced personnel meant that there was minimal overlap in the two companies. With customers all over the Chattanooga valley to states as far away as Washington, the impact from the change has benefited College Press and Modern Way customers alike.

"Both offset and digital printing customers benefit from having these operations under one roof and from one provider. Speed, efficiency, and cost reductions are some of the benefits."

College Press has 28 full-time employees and five part-time.
In 2013 the Chattanoogan posted an article about an illegal immigrant that had been arrested for his 3rd DUI offense. At the time, I though how could an illegal immigrant even be in this country after a first DUI arrest, let alone a second, and then a third?

This disturbed me to the point that I wrote to Rep. Chuck Fleischmann and Senator Bob Corker to ask the question of how this was even possible and what is being done so that illegals that have proven to pose a threat to our citizens are being removed from this country. The response I received was exactly what you would expect from a politician, lip service.

In the 2013 article, Prosecutor Bates Bryan pointed to a new Tennessee law that would allow for the deportation of Prisilian Roblero Solis (the illegal immigrant). Judge Poole sentenced Mr. Solis to serve a minimum of 120 days of a workhouse term of 11 months and 29 days. It was assumed that Mr. Solis would then be deported back to Mexico.

So here we are, some five years later, and I decided to do a little follow up on the original article. I wanted to know if Mr. Solis was actually deported, as Prosecutor Bryan stated. I don't have access to deportation records so I don't actually know if Mr. Solis was deported or not. I'm making the assumption that he was since he is currently serving an 18 month sentence for illegal re-entry but not before he was again arrested in 2014 for domestic violence, then again in 2017 for his fourth DUI.

This isn't something that is happening in liberal California or some other "sanctuary" city. This is just one example of what is happening right here in Chattanooga and putting my family and yours at completely unnecessary risk.

Enough is enough. Get these criminal illegals out of our country and secure the border to keep them out.

John Hodge
A Knoxville woman has been charged with violations related to stealing a bear hunting dog during a hunt in Blount County.

In the incident on Nov. 2, Sandra Lucille Inman allegedly interfered with a lawful bear hunt by catching and stealing a bear hunting dog from a Maryville hunter during an active bear hunt.

Ms. Inman has been charged with theft of property TCA 39-14-103, violation of the Hunter Protection Act TCA 70-4-302, and removal of a transmitting collar TCA 39-14-213.

Ms. Inman has not yet been assigned a court date.

TWRA officials said, "The use of dogs to hunt bears is a traditional hunting method in Tennessee and throughout much of North America. Wildlife officers have fielded reports of theft of hunting dogs for many years and it is usually difficult to get a resolution for the hunter. Fortunately, wildlife officers were able to quickly return the dog to the hunter and identify and charge the person responsible for stealing the dog.

"TWRA Wildlife Officers would like to thank the Blount County Sheriffs Office for their assistance in the case. The public is reminded that if you see hunting dogs in the area, to leave them alone and never remove a GPS transmitting collar.

"If you have an illegal hunting issue or concern in East Tennessee, contact the TWRA Region 4 dispatcher at 1-800-831-1174."
Election Administrator Kerry Steelman told members of the Election Commission on Tuesday that the midterm vote in Hamilton County dwarfed prior showings.

He said the final tally in the early November voting in the county was 134,494. That compares to just 83,193 in the 2014 midterms and 87,810 in 2010.

"The turnout was unprecedented," Mr. Steelman said.

He said at the time of the May voting there were 192,662 registered voters in the county. That was down from 219,708 four years ago. However, by November the total was up to 206,945.

Mr. Steelman said his office ordered a large supply of extra ballots, which contributed to a rise in election costs. The total election expense was $345,114.

He noted that pay has gone up for election day officials and workers.

Also, a lawsuit brought by state Democrats in the House District 26 race has cost the county almost $16,000.

The administrator said early voting totals continue to rise. For the first time, more county residents voted early than on election day. The margin was 50.55 percent. Almost 68,000 county voters cast early ballots. That is up from around 27,000 in 2014 and 2010.

Mr. Steelman said the office dealt with many more provisional ballots than before - 462. Just 133 were found to be valid. He said some groups were telling residents to cast a provisional ballot even if they were not registered to vote. Those were thrown out.

Quinton Howard, who long has conducted the audit of county voting, said the stack of provisional ballots was a heavy burden on office workers to check.
Judge Curtis Collier has issued an order keeping former Pilot Travel Centers president Mark Hazelwood under home confinement during the appeal of his fraud conviction.

Now that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear the appeal, attorneys for Hazelwood ask that he no longer be confined to his Knoxville home.

They also asked that in the alternative he be allowed to go free between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day.

Prosecutors opposed the request, saying Hazelwood was given a 12 and one-half year sentence and remains a flight risk.

Hazelwood was convicted following a lengthy jury trial in connection with Pilot defrauding multiple trucking companies out of millions of dollars of promised rebates.

Judge Collier said, "The Court ORDERS that the other terms and conditions of Defendants release shall remain in effect. The Court found following his conviction that Defendant is a flight risk, but that the conditions the Court then imposed, including home confinement, would reasonably assure Defendants future appearance.1 In addition, since the present conditions were set, Defendant has been sentenced. During Defendants sentencing hearing, the Court observed that there was a need for Defendants sentence to protect the public, because the Court concluded there was a risk Defendant would reoffend, that is, commit further white-collar crimes. Relaxing the current conditions of release would therefore not be in the interest of justice."

The judge, however, agreed to a request that Hazelwood be allowed to take steps to sell his airplane and boat.

The order says, "The United States does not object to allowing Defendant to sell his airplane and boat under the supervision of the Probation Office, but does object to any other change to the current conditions of Defendants release.

"The Court ORDERS that Defendants pilot may, on specific terms to be set by the Probation Office, render Defendants plane operable; fly the plane to Greenville, South Carolina, for the required inspection; fly the plane to Wichita, Kansas, for the required upgrade; and fly the plane to a facility outside the state of Tennessee for an arms length sale, where the plane may remain operable for testing and due diligence by potential buyers.

"The Court further ORDERS that, on specific terms to be set by the Probation Office, Defendants boat may be relocated to a location outside the state of Tennessee, listed for sale with a broker, and rendered operable for testing and due diligence by potential buyers."
Lee Universitys musical ensemble Advent Now! will present a benefit concert on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Pangle Hall. All donations from this event will go toward the ensembles musical missions trip to Japan.

Advent Now! is a specially-formed chamber ensemble that will travel to Japan Dec. 6-24, giving a total of 20 concerts throughout its tour. It is composed of a group of Lee students and faculty, including a vocal quintet, a string quintet, and a rhythm section.

The concerts program will include a variety of musical styles, ranging from classical to jazz to gospel.

According to Dr. Austin Patty, director of the Advent Now! ensemble, many people in Japan love Christmas music and are interested in American Christmas traditions, but they often do not understand the origins of the celebration.

Japan is one of the largest of the least-reached people groups in the world. Less than one percent of the Japanese call themselves Christian, Dr. Patty said. The vast majority have no understanding of who Jesus is and why He came into this world as a human being. Music provides a great way for them to come and hear why He cameto hear the gospel message.

In addition to music students and faculty, Dr. Arden Jensen, a professor of English at Lee whose specialty area includes Japanese language and culture, will accompany the group and speak alongside the students, who frequently share their testimonies.

I am very excited about our group, Dr. Patty said. These students are very talented and hardworking. They are putting in many hours of preparation, even though it is not part of their course work.

This concert is free and open to the public, but donations are welcome. Donations may be made at the door or online for their December trip. To donate online or for more information, visit https://adventnowmusic.wixsite.com/2018.




The Tennessee Department of Health is offering flu vaccines at no charge to the community during a special FightFluTN vaccination event Dec. 5.

"Getting a flu vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your family and others from the flu and help keep our community healthy, said Southeast Regional Director Glenn Czarnecki. The flu can make you very sick, keep you away from work, school and other activities, put you in the hospital or even take your life. We urge everyone in Tennessee who has not received a flu shot yet to get one now, and this event is a great time to do it.



The following health departments will provide flu shots Dec. 5 at no cost to anyone who

wishes to receive one at:

Bledsoe County  Bledsoe County Rescue Squad  8:30-11:30 a.m. Central

Bradley County  Cleveland Family YMCA  9 a.m.-12 p.m. and 4-7 p.m. Eastern

Franklin County  Franklin County Health Department  3:30-6:30 p.m. Central

Grundy County  Grundy County High School  3:30-6:30 p.m. Central

Marion County  Marion County Health Department  8:30-11:3 a.m. and 1-4 p.m.

Central

McMinn County  McMinn County Health Department  9 a.m.-12 p.m. Eastern

Meigs County  Piggly Wiggly  9 a.m.-12 p.m. Eastern

Polk County  Polk County Health Department (Benton)  9 a.m.-12 p.m. Eastern; Senior

Center (Copper Hill)  9 a.m.-12 p.m. Eastern

Rhea County  Deli-Mart  8:30-11:3 a.m. Eastern

Sequatchie County  Sequatchie County High School  3:45-6:45 p.m. Central

Seasonal influenza activity is spreading across Tennessee and is expected to continue for months, so its important for anyone over six months of age who hasnt had a flu shot this flu season to get one now, said officials. The flu vaccine is especially important for infants, young children, pregnant women, adults over age 50 and those with chronic medical conditions. The flu shot remains the best protection against influenza. For more information about the flu and getting a flu vaccine, visit

www.tn.gov/health/cedep/immunization-program/ip/flu-in-tennessee/influenza-

immunization.html.
Anne Graham Lotz on finding strength in 1 Samuel 16:7 amid 'humiliating trauma' of losing hair to chemo Christian Post Contributor | 20 November, 2018 by Stoyan Zaimov

Evangelist Anne Graham Lotz has shared images of her shaved head after losing her hair due to chemotherapy treatments, and expressed her thankfulness that God values other things above outward appearance.

On Monday, Lotz posted an update on her battle against breast cancer, revealing that she has drawn inspiration from 1 Samuel 16:7 in the Bible, which reads: "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

"I have been reminded of this in a very fresh, personal way as a result of hair loss due to chemotherapy. When my hair began to fall out in large amounts, I went to my beloved Christian brother and hairstylist extraordinaire, Doug David, owner of The Douglas Carroll Salon," Lotz revealed.

"Looking on were his wife, my daughters, and two of my granddaughters who helped to turn a dreaded event into something that was actually fun. Under their watchful eyes and with their affirming comments, he shaved my head," she added.

"For those of you who have been through this, you know that it is also a humiliating trauma. I was almost shocked to hear the familiar sound of my own voice coming from the face under the shorn head I saw reflected in the salon mirror! My immediate reaction was to quote God's words...that God looks on the heart, not the outward appearance. I am so thankful!"

The Christian speaker and author said that David also cut and styled a wig for her, one that matches the length and color of her own hair.

"What about you? If your outward appearance has been scarred, altered, deformed...or if your outward appearance is flawlessly spectacular...remember. God looks on the heart. The real treasure is on the inside," she said.

In September, following surgery, Lotz admitted that there had been complications with her cancer treatment which were not what she "prayed for."

"Yesterday I had my one-week checkup after breast cancer surgery. While there are some issues to be expected, the doctor believes that all seem to be healing nicely, for which I praise God. The surgeon then revealed, with compassion in her eyes, that she had the pathology report," Lotz revealed back then.

"As she went over the numbers, it became evident that the results were not what I had prayed they would be. A trace of cancer was found in the lymph nodes which alters the follow-up treatment significantly," she added.

Read more about Anne Graham Lotz on The Christian Post.
Craig Groeschel on why Hell exists, says most Americans believe Satan's lies about afterlife Christian Post Contributor | 21 November, 2018 by Leah MarieAnn Klett

Life.Church Senior Pastor Craig Groeschel recently discussed the harsh realities of Hell and argued that one of the most dangerous lies Satan tells humans is that such a place does not exist.

In a sermon titled "The Horrors of Hell," Groeschel contended that it's important to discuss the afterlife from the pulpit because "what you believe about eternity determines how you live today.

"If you believe that you're an accident, that you're going nowhere, then why not just live for now, live for yourself?" he asked. "If you were created by a good God, for His glory, and believe that you'll live somewhere forever, it will change the way you live today."

Groeschel cited statistics revealing that while 74 percent of Americans believe in Heaven, just 1 in 4 believe that those who do not know Christ will spend eternity in a place called Hell.

"Most people, if they do believe in Hell, believe it's for the really, really, bad people, like the murderers and rapists, terrorists and such, but probably not me," he said.

But Jesus said "something that might imply otherwise," the pastor argued, citing Matthew 7:13-14: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

Groeschel said that if he were the devil, he would try to convince humans that there is no Hell. But if it is real, "let's not take it seriously and let's believe that most people would not be going there."

"If I could convince you of that, then you would probably live however you want," he explained. "You would justify your sin, you would reject Christ, you would live with no real fear of God."

"If you are a follower of Christ and I can convince you that Hell is not real or not that important, you would live ridiculously self-centered lives," he continued. "You would very likely idolize comfort and fall in love with this world, you would reject sacrifice, you would avoid persecution, you would love now, and you would not likely share your faith with very many people and have no real sense of spiritual urgency."

Unfortunately, this is the way "so many of us" live today, the pastor lamented.

If God is loving, why does Hell exist? First, Hell exists for God to deal righteously with Satan, Groeschel said.

"Many of us, when we think of Satan, we tend to think of some harmless dude in a red suit with a pitchfork and horns," the pastor said. But Scripture tells us the devil is the "embodiment of all evil."

"Behind every addiction is our spiritual enemy, every bit of fear or pain or shame, it comes from the prince of darkness," he said. "He's the destroyer, the deceiver, the dragon, the dark angel. He's called your adversary, the tempter, your enemy, the wicked one, the thief, the father of lies, the prince of darkness, he is the angel of the abyss, he is the thief that comes to steal your joy."

The second reason Hell exists is for God to deal righteously with unbelievers. While this may not seem "fair," the pastor pointed out that it is impossible for God to be holy without being just.

"God will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus," he said. "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord."

"This is no fun to talk about," he added. "I'm sure it's no fun to hear about, but if we don't accept the reality of Hell, we will never appreciate the glory of the Gospel and the goodness of Jesus."

Some people joke about Hell as if it's a "party," the pastor said. But according to Scripture, Hell will be a "horrible" place of isolation and hopelessness where people are eternally separated from Christ.

"[Those in Hell] will drink the wine of God's fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of His wrath," he said. "They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of holy angels and of the lamb and the smoke of their torment will rise forever."

"Hell," he added, "is a nonstop eternal fire with torture or suffering and unending pain." While so many people have a problem with the idea of a good God sending "good people" to hell, it's important to understand that no one is "good."

"If you, for a moment, stood in front of the holiness of God, you would recognize the depth of your wickedness," he said. "By nature, we're sinful. We've all sinned. We have to recognize this about God. He is holy and He is just. He cannot be holy without being just, and because He is just, He must punish wrongdoing."

But God is also love, the pastor emphasized, and demonstrated His love by sending Christ to die for humanity "while we were still sinners, while we still rejected him, while we didn't know Him, while we were spitting in His face."

Read more about hell on The Christian Post.
The Arizona Supreme Court Tuesday agreed to hear a case involving two Christian artists who could face fines and jail time if they dont create artwork celebrating same-sex weddings.

Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski own Brush & Nib Studio and create custom artwork using painting, calligraphy and handlettering for weddings and other events. But because of their Christian faith, they wont make custom artwork celebrating same-sex weddings.

Under a Phoenix ordinance, Duka and Koski could be jailed for up to six months and/or fined $2,500 each day they are in violation if they refuse to design artwork for a same-sex couple who requests wedding announcements or invitations.

They sued in state court seeking to overturn the ordinance, but lost at the court of appeals. They then appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the couple.

Joanna and Breanna gladly serve everyone, said ADFs petition to the Arizona Supreme Court. They will happily sell their pre-made works to anyone . for any event.

But for same-sex weddings, the two women will not design custom-made art celebrating the ceremony.

Their Christian beliefs forbid them from creating custom artwork that conveys messages condoning, supporting, or participating in activities or ideas that violate their religious beliefs, the petition said. For example, they cannot create artwork expressing messages that contradict biblical truth, demean others, endorse racism, [or] incite violence.

ADF asserts that the ordinance violates the Arizona Constitution and Arizonas Free Exercise of Religion Act.

The government must allow artists to make their own decisions about which messages they will promote, said ADF senior counsel Jonathan Scruggs. Joanna and Breanna are happy to design custom art for anyone; they simply object to being forced to pour their heart, soul, imagination, and talent into creating messages that violate their conscience.

Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com

Photo credit: Unsplash
A Canadian woman who is in a same-sex relationship turned to Facebook and the media after her church informed her that she was no longer welcome as a member. The church pushed her to repent of homosexuality on multiple occasions, but she refused.

Kimberley Mills explained to The Star that she had spent four years as a member of Cavalry Baptish Church, and even served as a youth leader. Despite belonging to the church for years, she was hesitant to come out to the church community after hearing a sermon in which homosexuality was denounced.

She did, however, tell a few women in her Bible study group that she had been with another woman for a number of years. She later revealed the same information to others over a roundtable discussion.

According to ChristianNews.net, various church leaders and members encouraged Mills to quit her sinful lifestyle so she could be reconciled with the Lord.

Mills received a letter from Deacon Chairman Tim Wagner on October 30th, in which he informed her that the church would nullify her membership until she chose to abandon her sinful ways and repent.

It was brought to our attention that you have chosen to live in disobedience to the Scriptures, specifically disregarding the warning of 1 Corinthians 6:9, in spite of repeated efforts by other believers in your life, including other Calvary leadership and finally our pastoral staff, the letter stated.

Kim, we are exercising our responsibilities to follow the biblical instructions toward the goal of your repentance and full restoration to your walk with Christ and His Church fellowship (1 Corinthians 5:4-5), it added. 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.

We pray that your heart will respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit that comes with our obedience to this Scripture, and that you will repent and be restored to your church family who love you deeply. Kim, please know that this was not entered into lightly and we pray for your full restoration, it said, suggesting that the pastor would be open to speaking with her should she desire to do so.

Mills mentioned that she wishes this message would have been shared with her in person rather than in a letter, and expressed her dissatisfaction that she isnt accepted as she is.

Its clear that something needs to change. I feel that God designed me the way I am, and Hes going to love me the way I am, she stated. It never felt right being judged for being gay. It didnt feel right.

Community member Mac Moreau has made an effort to ask that the Canada Revenue Agency review and potentially abrogate the generous status of Cavalry Baptist Church for being hateful.

One community member, Mac Moreau, has now launched an effort requesting that the Canada Revenue Agency review and possibly revoke the generous status of Calvary Baptist Church for being hateful.

The church has allowed its resources to be used for activities that promote hate and intolerance, Moreau informed The Star. If you are going to promote hate and intolerance, you shouldnt receive benefits from the Canadian government that all Canadians contribute to.

Photo courtesy: Facebook
A little girl recently who lost everything in the recent California Fire made the selfless decision to hold a toy drive for children in need.

Seven-year-old Sophia Novotny and her family suddenly lost their Agoura Hills home after the lesser-known Woolsey Fire destroyed the area located just north of LA. Sophias mother, April Novotny, told ABC-7, very quickly she realized their things were gone. Although the family was devastated by the catastrophic event, the extraordinary seven-year-old began to make plans to help other children that were impacted by the disaster.

The day that we lost the house, she said, Lets get some toys for the other kids who have lost their house,' April mentioned. On Sunday, the second-grader held the Sophias Wishes toy drive in Thousand Oaks. The event proved to be a great success, and hundreds of toys were delivered to children from the area who, like Sophia, lost everything in the fire. The toy drive, which was made laid on in partnership with a local business, RadNet, brought in hundreds of guests who were excited to help out.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas quickly approaching, Sophia revealed that her only goal in creating the toy drive was to help other kids.

I know how it feels to lost [sic] your things, she noted.

April took to Facebook to share her appreciation for those who took part in the toy drive:

Thank you to everyone who took Sophias idea and ran with it!!! So many people came out to support, donate, and hug each other. These children want to help, and want to feel in control of something in this whirlwind we call life. She feels a little more in confident of her place in the world today.

Sophia also caught the attention of the Ventura County Fire Department, who shared a Facebook post praising the young girl for her strength and kindness:

Sophia Novotny is a 7 year old who lost everything in the recent #Woolseyfire She was devastated but instead of crying she organized a toy drive for the other other children who lost everything. Her event not only got toys to 4 families but also generated 1,000s of toys for the spark of love toy drive. She is such an amazing young lady and we are proud to have been apart of something so special.

Photo courtesy: Unsplash




President Trump pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey yesterday, continuing a long and surprising tradition.

Such clemency apparently began with President Lincoln in 1863. Two years later, a White House reporter noted that a live turkey had been brought home for the Christmas dinner. However, Lincolns son Tad interceded in behalf of its life . . . [his] plea was admitted and the turkeys life spared.

A century later, President Kennedy was presented with a Thanksgiving turkey and responded, Lets keep him going, sparing his life. Presidents since have offered mercy to Thanksgiving turkeys in various ways, leading to the formalizing of the process by President George H. W. Bush in 1989.

This years presidential turkeys are named Peas and Carrots. (President Trump officially pardoned Peas, but Carrots will join him in retirement.) Theyre not just any turkeys.

The National Turkey Federation tells us that turkeys selected for the so-called Presidential Flock are acclimated from an early age to the unique experiences of the ceremony: television lights and crowded noises. Peas and Carrots spent Monday evening at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, before their big day on the national stage.

When President Obama issued his Thanksgiving turkey pardon in 2013, he stated: The office of the presidency is the most powerful position in the world [and] brings with it many awesome and solemn responsibilities. Then he added humorously, This is not one of them.

Unless youre the turkey.

All of God there is, is in this moment

We discussed yesterday the biblical command to give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

This requirement is not in Scripture for Gods benefit, but for ours. As we noted, one reason our Father calls us to express ongoing thanksgiving is that such gratitude reminds us that we are creatures in need of our Creators provision.

A second reason we should give thanks in all circumstances is that such thankfulness enables us to see Gods hand in all circumstances. No matter how challenging or encouraging our day might be, our Father is present in it.

All of God there is, is in this moment.

Learning theology from trees

In light of our text, Ive been looking for reasons for thanksgiving in the events and circumstances I encounter. For instance, I was on Chris Brookss terrific radio show yesterday. As our media coordinator was working with his team to set up the necessary technology, I thanked God for their remarkable expertise and the honor of being on air with one of my favorite ministers and cultural apologists.

I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see his hand throughout my day so that I might express my gratitude for his gifts. And he abundantly answered my prayerI recognized his grace in the privilege of working with close friends and his provision in the food I ate and the clothes I wore (cf. Matthew 6:31-32).

I focused on the trees outside my office window, each of which is a marvel of botanical engineering. I became grateful for the professionals who designed and built the roads on which I drive and the buildings in which I live and work.

When we look intentionally for ways God is active in our lives, we are then moved to recognize attributes of our Father we might not have recognized. He understands technology even more than the technology professionals who made my radio interview possible. The worlds most brilliant physicians can ask the Great Physician for wisdom beyond their own. The most powerful CEOs around the globe can seek the help of the Almighty King.

But theres a catch.

Every common bush afire with God

The more we recognize the remarkable ways God works in our lives, the more we recognize our finitude and his magnificence.

Your next breath comes from your Fathers providence (Isaiah 42:5). Your life is his gift ( Job 33:4 ). The first law of thermodynamics conveys theological truth when it states that humans can neither create nor destroy matter.

It can be discouraging to discover our insignificance in the world. But this is true only if our significance is found in the world. If our sense of personal worth comes from God, the more we realize our finitude, the more we recognize the depth of our Fathers passion for us. And the more we rejoice that we can do nothing to earn or lose his unconditional love.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, lets reject our cultures insistence that we evolved through random chance and that this world is all there is. Lets choose to be thankful for the small things of life that reveal to us our small place in the universe and our high value to God.

And lets take time to look for our Fathers hand and heart of grace. Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Earths crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.

I would change her third line to read: But only he who takes off his shoes sees.

Will you unshoe your soul today?

For more from the Denison Forum, please visit www.denisonforum.org.

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Publication Date: November 21, 2018

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In 2020, we were the church on our heels. A global pandemic shut down much of our world. But the church has been on the move since it was birthed; it will continue to be on the move until God makes all things new.
Around Thanksgiving tables this week, Americans will offer thanks for whats most important to them. For the bulk of US adults, family will top the list.

In a Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday, twice as many Americans said that family was the most meaningful aspect of their lives (40%), compared to the second most popular choice, faith (20%).

Among Christians, many obviously rely on their religious beliefs and community for a sense of meaning. More than half say their faith provides a great deal of meaning, and 29 percent identified religion as their most important source of meaning.

Christians were also slightly more likely than Americans overall to list family in the top spot (42%).

The research puts numbers around a recurring tension within the American church: how to champion biblical teachings on marriage, children, adoption, and family unity without letting family become a source of meaning and identity above Christ. In short, how can Christians keep from making family an idol?

This notion of idolizing family recently came up when pastor and Reformed Theological Seminary professor Kevin DeYoung tweeted last week, One of the acceptable idolatries among evangelical Christians is the idolatry of the family.

More than 1,600 people liked the tweet, and hundreds more responded. Many were frustrated with the suggestion that the church could care too much about family and spoke out in defense of Christian family values. But some agreed, echoing growing concerns that familial expectations in certain church settings isolate singles, widows, and childless couples.

Focus on the Family shared DeYoungs tweet, saying, [God] cant be second. So, if family is first in our hearts, then family has become an idol. When any one of us makes family an idol, we begin slowly but surely pushing God out of our life.

Citing faith as most meaningfulplacing it above familyis a minority position, even among believers.

The only two religious traditions to rank religion as their top source of meaning in the Pew survey were evangelical Protestants and historically black Protestants. (Mainline Protestants and Catholics were less likely than Americans overalland half to a third as likely as evangelicals and black Protestantsto say religion was most important to them.)

Researchers found that 45 percent of evangelicals put faith first, while 31 percent put family first. Among black Protestants, 38 percent prioritized faith, and 37 percent responded family.

Christian discussions around idolizing family often bring up popular lines from pastor Tim Keller, who describes idolatry as turning a good thing into an ultimate thing (or turning a good thing into a God thing).

The human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things, he wrote in his 2011 book Counterfeit Gods. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.

DeYoung, who is married and expecting his eighth child, clarified his statement in a Gospel Coalition post on Tuesday, saying a commitment to family must not come before a commitment to God and according to the Bible, the family is good, necessary, and foundational, but not ultimate.

He cited Mark 3:3135, when Jesus declared, Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does Gods will is my brother and sister and mother.

Writer Lore Ferguson Wilbert referenced the same text when encouraging Christians to consider bonds beyond blood relatives when celebrating the holidays. Although the nuclear family was then and still is an essential part of a flourishing society, nonetheless, Christ calls us to expand our loyalties to the larger family of God and extend hospitality to those around us, she said.

When asked open-ended questions about where they find meaning, a solid majority of Americans (69%) mentioned family, while only 20 percent mentioned their faith, Pew found. Religion came up less than career (34%) and finances (23%), and it barely beat out friends (19%) and hobbies (19%).

For Christians, even with the popularity of family as a source of meaning, such findings could indicate the need for society to focus more on a gospel-centered approach to family life.

We believe the bigger problem in our cultureeven Christian cultureis not that we idolize family, its that we dont value Gods aims for family enough. Family is our first ministry. We seek to live out the image of God in our family life, and the family carries out the message of Christ to a lost and dying world, Geremy Keeton, senior director of counseling services at Focus on the Family, told CT in response to the Pew results.

If Christians were to create a ranking system of relationships, God clearly comes before family members. That being said, a ranking system falls short. The commitments to God and family are intertwined when family life is lived out as a reflection of the Lords nature and work.
'Baptism of Godlessness tearing up America': Megachurch Pastor Carter Conlon in 'It's Time to Pray'

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Megachurch Pastor Carter Conlon of Times Square Church in New York City is warning that a "baptism of godlessness" is tearing apart America.

With drug use, violence and hopelessness increasing in the nation as Jesus Christ is driven out of the public space, he told The Christian Post in a phone interview on Tuesday that prayer to God is the only thing that can save the nation.

Conlon, who pastors the interdenominational Times Square Church in New York, which sees over 10,000 people in attendance of over 100 different nationalities, is a best-selling author and preacher that has led hundreds of thousands to the Gospel message around the world.

His latest book, It's Time To Pray: God's Power Changes Everything, released last week, describes the many different areas that people need to pray to God for, and serves in part as an autobiography of his spiritual journey.

He told CP that the book is being released now because America has reached a dangerous level of divisiveness that only prayer can solve.

"The founding fathers of this nation believed in God. Much of the Constitution and the laws of the country were based on a Judeo-Christian worldview," he said.

He argued that while America has often faced divisive times, today "we are seeing an absolute baptism of godlessness."

"It's terrifying because it's tearing apart the very fabric of our society. Our only hope to not end up in a division that can't be healed, is a returning to and an understanding that we are, and were, a nation under God. That's our hope," he added.

He said that such a godlessness is "happening in all of our institutions, it's happening in our schools, it's happening in our government, our homes. There seems to be a concentrated effort in the last generation in particular to drive the knowledge of Christ out of the public market place, out of our grade schools, high schools, colleges, the conscience of the public."

"It's a distressing moment, because we are seeing the end result: opium addiction in our major cities, it's getting into a critical level. A break down of law and order; an incivility in our political arena; and we're seeing the country divided on racial lines, sociological viewpoints," he continued.

"It's getting to a point where it's turning violent. This is where a nation that knew God, but rejected Him, tends to always go. This is the moment we are now in, and it is a fearful moment for the nation if we don't turn back to God."

Conlon explained that he wrote It's Time To Pray because he wanted people to understand how God works.

"It starts with the early beginnings of coming to Christ when I was 24, the mistakes I made, from the vantage point of having almost nothing to offer the kingdom of God, to heading into Africa and preaching to half a million people, and seeing thousands come to Christ," he highlighted some of the key developments in his life that are described in the book.

"It has been an incredible journey, and I am hoping that as people read it, every person, no matter where they are in life, will close each chapter and think: 'God, if you can do that for that man, if you're still doing those things in our day, then I'm going to begin to pray and ask you [to come] into my life.'"

It's Time To Pray offers advice for how people can pray for some of the most important things in this world, such as for salvation.

Conlon said that he came to Christ by reading the Bible and understanding that Jesus "died in my place so that I can be forgiven."

He said that he understood other important things as well, however.

"To come to Christ means a new lifestyle, it means turning away from an old way of living, old practices which the Bible calls sin, and turning to the way of God," the author noted, adding that it also means giving God the rights to one's entire life and future.

Conlon warned that his concern is that people in America "are coming to what they think is salvation, but there's no repentance. There's no understanding that an old way of living has to be put away, there's no real yearning for the way and the will of God, there's no real understanding of taking up one's personal cross and following Christ."

He argued that too many people are only concerned about their own happiness and pursuit of joy, and are not really living for the benefit of others.

"Which is of course the essence of the Christian life, it is living for the sake of other people," he pointed out.

The Times Square Church leader positioned that in the last 30 years or so, a theological shift in American churches has focused on following the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, echoing the Declaration of Independence.

He said that while that persuit may be a good thing for a nation, the problem is when it gets mixed into the theology of a professing church, turning the concept of coming to Christ into "about my life, my liberty, and the pursuit of my happiness."

Such a focus often replaces things such as sacrifice, suffering for others, going to the missions field, and obedience to God, he warned.

"We have ended up with an extremely weak Christian testimony in a very militant nation that is moving in a direction away from God," Conlon said.

Obedience to God includes loving one's neighbor, even when people have been hurt and it is hard to do so, he pointed out. The pastor explained that Christians, as ambassadors of the Kingdom of Forgiveness, need to be able to forgive.

"Jesus Himself said, 'If you think you love God but hate your brother, you are a liar. The truth is not in you.' If that doesn't shake an unforgiving person to the core, I'm not sure what would," he said.

Unforgiveness leaves many Christians in a place of torment, lacking peace, he observed.

"If we won't forgive, what kind of ambassador are we?" he asked.

As It's Time To Pray declares, prayer can also achieve impossible dreams and feats.

For Conlon, that impossible dream when he was a young man at 24 with no public speaking ability and no ministry training, was to lead thousands into following Christ.

He remembers praying, "God, I want to win over 100,000 people before I die," and not just people who raise their hands for a question, but those who genuinely want to serve God in their lives.

"It seemed an impossible prayer, yet I felt God whispering it to my heart, and I agreed with Him, and I asked Him to do for me what I could never do for myself."

That prayer was to be fulfilled in Africa, when Conlon was speaking to a crowd of half a million people caught up in civil war.

The pastor remembers telling those present at the massive service:

"If you have no intention of forgiving your brother, if you have no intention of stopping the killing, if you have no intention of living a virtuous Christian life, and turning from what is wrong  don't deceive yourself, don't disgrace the name of God by raising your hand."

He continued back then: "But if you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, if you want your sins forgiven, know that you have eternal life in Heaven when you die, and live the life that God has for you while you're here on Earth  I'm asking you to raise your hand to receive Christ as your savior."

Conlon said that while it was difficult to get a precise number, organizers at the event counted at least 100,000 hands that went up, asking to receive Christ in their lives, and asking for peace.

Speaking of It's Time To Pray, Conlon insisted that the project "is not just a book" to him.

"It is deeper than that, I wouldn't bother with just writing a book  I am 65, and I don't need this anymore. I don't even take royalties from it. Everything that comes in from the book goes into a missions fund. This is about people praying again," he said.

"I believe we are living in the last days. There is a promise in Scripture about an end times harvest. For that to happen, God's people are going to need to pray again. This is the cry of my heart, this is what I am standing for and believing in now."

Going back to the main problems facing the country, he said that society has become "bankrupt."

"We are seeing a confusion in children, a deep anger, which is why we have such problems with violence in our schools now," he said, in reference to the many school shootings and other large-scale shootings that have plagued the country.

Conlon said that Americans remain "bitterly divided."

"We are in trouble socially, politically, spiritually, economically. There is almost no more trouble that you can bring into the nation. Our homes are being fractured, our children are being captivated," he warned, admitting that things could still get worse.

"I think God would hope, as I do, that we will have the sense to pray. If we don't, He will allow into this country what needs to happen, so that we will pray for a higher good, and that people will turn back to Him again."
Ohio church collects 100,000 Thanksgiving meals for needy, 60,000 pounds of food for South Africa

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A church in Ohio has gathered more than 100,000 meals for the needy for the local area and also about 60,000 pounds of food for people in South Africa.

This was the 22nd year that the multisite Crossroads Church collected food on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

The food is being distributed to local partners this week, said Joseph Jones, director of Events at Crossroads. He explained that there will be two shipping containers that will head to our South African partners for arrival in the next couple of months.

While the event has been fairly consistent through the years, Jones told CP that this year Crossroads made a more concerted effort to include food pantries.

We have targeted local food pantries a bit more aggressively than in years past, he explained. Aside from the 100,000-plus meals and 60,000 pounds of food we'll send to partners in South Africa, we did collect and distribute 16,302 food items to local pantries specifically to feed students.

Launched in 1996 as Crossroads Community Church of Hyde Park, Crossroads has since grown to include several campuses in Ohio and Kentucky.

So where is Crossroads going? Only God really knows. But our short history has shown us that it's a journey of creating something that hasn't yet been seen, saying things that aren't being said and trusting God to do something truly meaningful in and through a bunch of imperfect people, states their website.

Crossroads Church is by no means the only church doing charity work around the time of Thanksgiving. A group of churches in Texas are planning to observe an annual charitable cause known as Bless Friday.

Were here to help connect individuals, groups and churches to the service opportunities that can transform our communities and our hearts, notes its website.

If you dont find an activity on our website in which you can participate, please allow the Spirit to lead you and your family and friends to a need in your community.
Down syndrome children apply to be on international 'endangered species' list

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Individuals with Down syndrome are applying to be on the international endangered species list in light of their communities particular vulnerabilities and declining population.

A video called "Endangered Syndrome" from the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, which was released on YouTube earlier this month and features several young men, women, and children explaining why they are applying to be the first group for human beings to be on the list along with vulnerable animals.

The children, who appear dressed up in costumes of animals who are endangered, say in the video that jobs for individuals with Down syndrome are scarce and that their community is shrinking.

"We have to fight for education," they explain.

"We need support like all these animals do. They make the world a more beautiful place. And so do we," the children continue, directing viewers to sign their petition at EndangeredSyndrome.com.

In light of the shrinking global population of persons with the condition  in countries where abortion is legal many of them are aborted as advanced medical testing allows early detection  the group states that their goals are to ensure their right to work and be self-sufficient, live independently with more housing facilities and decreased wait times, and provide more support and services to bolster more inclusion in their communities. CDS also seeks to remove barriers in education to guarantee better support for students with Down syndrome and raise awareness, challenging stigmas and misperceptions.

"The visual of children with Down syndrome dressed up as endangered species is an inconvenient image of abortion, probably because the parallel rings so true," Daily Signal journalist Kelsey Harkness noted Thursday.

"If we can so easily sympathize with endangered species, shouldn't we be able to empathize with endangered humans, too?"

More than 65 percent of people with Down syndrome are out of the workforce, according to the group's website, and animal welfare organizations have 90 percent more resources and funding than Down syndrome groups in North America.

In their application letter to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Species Programme, CDS argues people with the condition should be included on the "red list," that is, it meets the criteria to be considered endangered, because of significant population declines in several countries.

In Iceland, for example, almost all pregnancies where a Down syndrome test is performed via amniocentesis or through other methods and found positive, end in abortion. Only one to three babies with the condition have been born in the subarctic island nation each year from 2004-2013, the CDS letter notes.

Absolute Down syndrome births  the number babies born with the condition  have fallen so significantly across North America, Europe, and Asia, people with Down syndrome should thus be classified as "critically endangered," they maintain.

Down syndrome is caused by a genetic abnormality where a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21 appears on the of the 23 pairs of chromosomes present in the nucleus  where genetic material is stored  of every cell.

Approximately 6,000 babies with Down syndrome are born in the United States every year, the National Down Syndrome Society notes on its website. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around one in every 700 babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome, making it the most common chromosomal condition.
What was the capital of Israel in the Old Testament?

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While Jerusalem is most often talked about as the "eternal" capital of Israel, a claim at the center of bitterly contested modern geopolitics, the history is much more complicated.

"Everywhere you put a shovel in the ground in Jerusalem, you will find Jewish roots and connecting to Bible stories," Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat told NPR in a December 2017 interview.

For Jews the importance of Jerusalem dates back to around 1050 B.C. when King David conquered the city and his son, Solomon, would build upon what he started, raising the Temple on the Mount, a project that Roman client King Herod would finish many years later. That temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and what's left of the ruins is the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, and is the holiest site in Judaism.

Today, the Temple Mount and surrounding area is arguably the most disputed piece of real estate on Earth. Presently, the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, sits atop the Mount.

Yet according to biblical history, Shechem was the first capital in the Kingdom of Israel, followed by Tirzah.

Several key events in the Great Story of Scripture occurred in Shechem.

Shechem, which means "shoulder" in Hebrew, first appears in Genesis 12 where it is recounted that Abram, before he became Abraham, arrived at the "oak of Moreh" at Shechem and built an altar; it was here where God promised him and his descendants the land of Canaan.

Following the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan after they were liberated from enslavement in Egypt, Shechem was also where Joshua gathered the Israelites and asked them to choose between serving the God who had delivered them from Egyptian bondage, or the pagan deities their ancestors had worshiped.

The Israelites chose to serve the God of the Bible, a choice Joshua recorded in the Book of the Law of God, and he then erected a memorial stone "under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord," as is described in Joshua 21.

After King Solomon's death, "all Israel" came to Shechem for the installation of Solomon's son Rehoboam. But when Rehoboam refused to ease the burden of forced labor his father had imposed on the northern tribes, the meeting ended as the ten northern tribes seceded. Shechem was ultimately established as the capital under the new breakaway Kingdom of Israel.

"Although Jeroboam had been appointed to be king of Israel by the prophet Ahijah, the biblical writers indicate that he lost his blessing when he decided not to encourage pilgrimages to Jerusalem's temple, but instead established rival centers of worship at Bethel and Dan," the New World Encyclopedia notes.

The kings of Israel soon moved the capital farther north to Tirzah.

Shechem would eventually become an important Samaritan city and is the location of Jacob's Well, which, as is described in the Gospel of John, Jesus famously met and interacted with a Samaritan woman, something that was forbidden in that culture.
Where to go right now: Christmas in York, the postcard-perfect city in England

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Yorks rich history, charming cityscape and festive atmosphere makes this city in the north of England the perfect destination for a Christmas getaway.

I experienced York at Christmastime last week, when the lord mayor illuminated the official Christmas tree in St. Helens Square as several hundred cheerful onlookers celebrated the occasion.

St. Nicholas Fair along Parliament Street is the citys main holiday market. Here you will find around 100 purveyors housed in charming wooden chalets selling everything from local crafts, knitwear and Yorkshire fayre to deliciously good mulled wine and hot cider.

Surrounding the market are streets with countless shops, both local and big British retailers. Most of them are open late on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings through December 23.

If you go

Start your journey at the iconic York Minster. If you are lucky your visit is around the two upcoming Christmas carol concerts on the nights of December 13 and 14.

Not only is the minster one of the great Gothic cathedrals in all of Christendom, but it purportedly stands on the site where Constantine the Great, who declared Christianity the official religion of the Rome, was proclaimed emperor in the year 306.

If you like churches then you picked the right city, as many of Yorks 45 historic churches survive. One of the best is Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, a so-called redundant church. While no longer an active house of worship, it has a magnificent interior that includes box pews and fine examples of stained glass.

A stroll through the Shambles takes one back through time as the cobblestone street  little more than a narrow lane  weaves through timer-framed buildings that have changed little since the medieval era. There are also several even narrower streets and alleys, known locally as snickelways, to explore. And for the best views of the cityscape walk the old walls, which have existed in some form or another since Yorks founding by the Romans in the year 71.

I stayed at the Mount Royale Hotel & Spa, which is located about 15 minutes, by foot, from the minster. The 3-star hotel has friendly staff and clean rooms. Oxos, the hotel restaurant, is surprisingly good and the menu includes both nightly specials and a comprehensive wine list.

I left the restaurant at the Dean Court Hotel very disappointed in the lunch I ordered. It just wasnt worth the price. The Ivy, located in St. Helens Square only feet from the Christmas tree, was a much better experience, despite being a chain.

Getting to York from London is easy if you fly into Heathrow. Just take one of Grand Central Railways frequent train services from Kings Cross Station to York. The journey takes about two hours.

Alternatively, you can fly to nearby Leeds Bradford Airport from major U.S. airports on Delta and its partner airline KLM via a connection in Amsterdam.

Spires and Crosses, a travel column exclusive to The Christian Post, is published every week. Follow @dennislennox on Twitter and Instagram.
Arizona Supreme Court to hear Christian artists' lawsuit against law forcing them to work gay weddings

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Arizonas highest court has agreed to hear the appeal of two Christian artists who filed a lawsuit to strike down a city ordinance that would require them to provide services for same-sex weddings despite their religious objections.

The Arizona Supreme Court announced Tuesday that they would hear arguments in the case of Brush & Nib Studio et al v. City of Phoenix.

At issue is whether Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, should be forced to create wedding invitations for same-sex marriages, which they're morally opposed to.

The high court hasn't yet set a date for when it will hear oral arguments in the case, but it will likely be sometime next year, according to The Arizona Republic.

In 2013, the city of Phoenix added a new ordinance titled "Discrimination in public accommodations," which bans discrimination "in places of public accommodation against any person because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or disability."

Also known as City Code Section  18.4(B), the ordinance provided an exemption for religious organizations, but did not include businesses in that category. Someone found guilty of violating the law could face up to six months in prison.

In May 2016, Duka and Koski filed a lawsuit against the ordinance. However, in September of that year, Arizona Superior Court Judge Karen A. Mullins rejected a request to block enforcement of the law.

"It is absurd to think that the fabricator of a wedding invitation for a same-sex couple has endorsed same-sex marriage merely by creating or printing that invitation," wrote Mullins.

"Moreover, there is nothing about the creative process itself, such as a flower or vine or the choice of a particular font or color, that conveys any pledge, endorsement, celebration, or other substantive mandated message by plaintiffs in regard to same-sex marriage."

Last October, Mullins again ruled against the artists, prompting them to appeal to the Court of Appeals. In June, a three-judge panel of that court ruled unanimously against them.

"Appellants have failed to prove that Section 18-4(B) substantially burdens their religious beliefs by requiring that they provide equal goods and services to same-sex couples. Appellants are not penalized for expressing their belief that their religion only recognizes the marriage of opposite-sex couples," read the panel's opinion.

"Nor are appellants penalized for refusing to create wedding-related merchandise as long as they equally refuse similar services to opposite-sex couples."

In July, Brush & Nib Studio sent an appeal to the state Supreme Court. They are being represented by the Scottsdale, Arizona-based law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.

Jonathan Scruggs, senior counsel with the ADF, said in a statement released earlier this year that he believed the "government must allow artists to make their own decisions about which messages they will promote."

"Artists shouldn't be forced to create artwork contrary to their core convictions, and certainly not under threat of criminal fines and jail time," stated Scruggs.

"Breanna and Joanna are happy to design custom art for all people; they simply object to being forced to pour their heart, soul, imagination, and talent into creating messages that violate their conscience."
Church member rebuked for dressing like woman claims pastor never told him about dress code

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A 16-year-old student who was publicly rebuked for dressing like a woman during church services at Power House International Ministries in Chicago, Illinois, has claimed that the pastor never warned him that his attire was against church rules.

A 16-year-old who was publicly rebuked for dressing like a woman during church services at Power House International Ministries has claimed that the pastor never warned him that his effeminate attire was against church rules.

No, [not] at all  me and that man never talked [before the rebuke], Antwan Haywood said on the "Larry Reid Live" show on Monday, in response to Pastor Antonio Rocquemore's public rebuke.

Earlier this month, Rocquemore was captured in a now viral video telling Haywood to leave his church and not come back without man clothes.

"Can you leave my church and go put on man clothes?" Rocquemore asked firmly.

"And don't come here like that no more," he continued, as someone can be heard in the video declaring "thank you Jesus!"

"I hold a standard in here. Whatever you do on the outside is your business, but I will not let drag queens come in here. And if you're gonna come in here you're gonna come in here dressed like a man. ... If you're a man, dress like a man. If you're a woman, dress like a woman. I'm not going to allow it. My salvation is more important and God is holding me accountable," he added. "... you will not be wearing weaves and heels and fooling people up in here."

Rocquemore also noted in response to the viral video that he had warned Haywood about his churchs rules and told him he couldn't "dress like a female" during services. He said Haywood verbally agreed to follow the church's rules but he still continued dressing like a woman, forcing the public rebuke.

"He challenged me publicly and I challenged him back publicly. I asked the young man to leave. There was no security taking him out. ... Sir, can you please change clothes," he said.

Haywood, who appeared to be speaking in tongues and praising God during a telephone conversation with Reid about his rebuke by Rocquemore, denied being a drag queen.

He explained that he was wearing a green checkered shirt, jeans and heels with blonde hair on the day he was asked to leave the church.

They never told me I couldnt dress that way (feminine). He (pastor) never told me I had to come to church [dressed] a certain way, Haywood continued.

He added that a female church elder once approached him about his clothing and told him he wasnt going to be a girl in their church. He said he was wearing blue jeans and pink gym shoes along with a handbag during that incident.

I think he (pastor) has something against me, Haywood asserted.

The teenager was among about 10 people who protested outside Powerhouse International Ministries by holding signs against hate speech last Sunday, according to ABC.

Despite Haywoods denial that he was warned in private before his viral rebuke, a recent statement from Power House International Ministries insists that he was warned privately multiple times before the open rebuke.

"During these private sessions, the pastor utilize[d] love, compassion and thoughtfulness in articulating the church policy. The young man agreed to abide by the policy, but would continuously disregard the pastor's appeal," the statement said.

At the protest on Sunday Haywood told ABC: "I felt like that was discrimination  he was judging me, and I felt like the members were judging me too."
Former SBC president Ronnie Floyds Cross Church gives away 2,250 Thanksgiving meals to families in need

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The church headed by former Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd has gathered over 2,000 Thanksgiving meals for local families who cannot afford to provide them.

Cross Church, a multisite megachurch based in Springdale, Arkansas, gathered 2,250 meals, known as Blessing Baskets, for their annual charity drive last weekend.

Floyd, senior pastor of Cross Church, said in a statement emailed to The Christian Post earlier this week that the Blessing Baskets event, which has occurred annually at the church since 1992, represents a primary calling for his congregation.

Our first and highest calling as a local church is to love our neighbors, and that is what our Blessing Baskets ministry is all about, said Floyd.

Our entire Cross Church family loves our Blessing Baskets ministry. They love loving on people and meeting their physical and spiritual needs.

Doug Sarver, minister of global missions at Cross Church, told CP that the Blessing Baskets annual charity event came about as a response to the significant hunger need in our community.

We discovered there were hardly any others doing anything during Thanksgiving. I pitched the idea to Pastor Ronnie Floyd of blessing families who might not be able to afford a Thanksgiving meal with a basket of food, and thats where it all began, Sarver recalled.

Blessing Baskets is our way to simply show that Cross Church loves Northwest Arkansas. Large membership churches can be misunderstood, and this kind of ministry helps connect our church with the local community, showing the kind and compassionate side of the church.

One Blessing Basket includes a Thanksgiving meal, plus enough food for two or three additional meals. Specific items include beans, cereal, chili, corn, at least one large hen, peanut butter, rice, beans, tuna, yams, chili, fruit, bread and a dozen eggs.

People come to one of the Weekend services where we distribute the Blessing Baskets and are welcomed warmly by volunteers. We provide free child care for families with small children, explained Sarver.

Then we have a brief celebration service with one song and a message of hope and the Gospel. We always extend an invitation to trust in Christ as our Savior and even offer for those who were saved to follow in baptism. Over the years we have many incredible stories of families and individuals being saved and getting their lives back on track.

Since it first began in 1992, the annual Blessing Baskets event has fed over 52,000 families and brought more than 11,000 people to belief in Christ, according to Sarver.

So many of our church members look forward to this day to serve with their families. It really fosters a spirit of servanthood and Thanksgiving, said Sarver.

The Blessing Baskets has become part of our DNA as a church. This ministry has connected us more deeply with our local community, and helped us reach more people with the Gospel.
Indiana Church Hosting Sixth Annual Turkey Giveaway for Thanksgiving Season

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A church in Indiana will distribute hundreds of turkeys for the less fortunate as part of an annual event held during the Thanksgiving season.

Advancing Christ's Kingdom Ministries of Michigan City will hold its sixth annual turkey giveaway event on Wednesday, with at least 400 turkeys expected to be handed out.

Amy J. Penrod, board member at Advancing Christ's Kingdom Ministries, told The Christian Post that the giveaway was part of a weeklong charitable drive.

"The turkey giveaway is held in conjunction with our food bank's annual food drive, entitled 'Feeding The Multitudes,'" explained Penrod.

"While the food drive collects supplies for our food bank to hand out throughout the year, the turkey giveaway is a way of giving back to the community, a way of reaching out to God's people in a tangible way and blessing them with something they would normally buy, want or need at this time of year."

Advancing Christ's Kingdom receives donations for the giveaway from various private donors, ranging from members of the congregation to two corporate sponsors.

The number of turkeys donated to give away has steadily increased each year, according to Penrod, who already expects 2018 to be an even bigger year for the annual charity.

"This is an absolute must, especially given fact that in 2016, over 14 percent of Indiana's residents lived below the poverty line, with even higher poverty rates within Northwest Indiana, where Advancing Christ's Kingdom Ministries-Michigan City is located," said Penrod.

Pastor Dierre Glenn, who heads Advancing Christ's Kingdom along with his wife Patricia, said in a statement provided to CP that he hopes people are inspired by his church's actions.

"Romans 13:16 reminds us that sharing with others pleases God, but people don't know you care until you show them," stated Glenn.

"It's our prayer that people see that God loves them and that HE will supply all their needs according to HIS riches in glory."
Students ask Supreme Court to overturn school district's transgender bathroom policy

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A group of Pennsylvania students has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect their bodily privacy in school by overturning their school districts transgender-inclusive bathroom and locker room policy.

Represented by the conservative nonprofit legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, the group of anonymous students filed an appeal with the nations highest court on Monday, asking it to overturn a ruling from the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals favoring the Boyertown Area School District.

The students sued the school district after it decided in the 2016-2017 school year to change its policy to allow students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

The school districts policy change came after the Obama administration sent out a guidance in 2016 (that has since been rescinded by the Trump administration) to public school districts nationwide, urging them to allow boys who identify as girls to use the girls' bathrooms, locker rooms and showers, and vice versa.

According to ADF, the BASD changed its policy without informing parents or students, which led some students to find out about the policy while they were getting undressed in front of other students of the opposite sex who were in the same locker room.

Embarrassed and confused, petitioner Joel Doe went to school officials, and the officials said to try and act natural, the lawsuit explains. Joel Doe was marked down in gym class for failing to change his clothes, and he eventually felt forced to leave the school entirely.

In June, a three-judge panel on the Third Circuit ruled that a U.S. District Court correctly concluded that the students claims for privacy rights were not likely to succeed on the merits.

Furthermore, the Third Circuit panel asserted that the school had adopted a very thoughtful and carefully tailored policy to address some very real issues while faithfully discharging its obligation to maintain a safe and respectful environment in which everyone can both learn and thrive.



In the appeal to the Supreme Court, ADF argued that the Third Circuits decision is faulty because the Supreme Court has long recognized the need for separating male and female students in locker rooms, restrooms, and showers.



The appeal also states that the Third Circuit decided that a male who identifies as a female is, in fact, female, and vice versa. As well, ADF asserts that the the court criticized Petitioners for declining to embrace the view that their right not to be viewed undressed by members of the opposite sex depends entirely on what another person believes about their own gender.

Forcing a teenager to share a locker room or restroom with a member of the opposite sex can cause embarrassment and distress, particularly for students who have been victims of

sexual assault, the appeal states. Recognizing this reality does not diminish

concern for students who believe they are of the opposite sex.

ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy, John Bursch, said in a statement that there are sound reasons for why schools have separated male and female teenagers in showers, restrooms and locker rooms.

No students recognized right to bodily privacy should be made contingent on what other students believe about their own gender, Bursch said. The Third Circuits decision made a mess of bodily privacy and Title IX principles, and the decision deserves review and reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court.

BASD lawyer Michael Levin told The Morning Call that the district plans to file a response to the Supreme Court reflecting that the district believes the lower court decisions were well-reasoned and will be able to be defended.

Also listed as defendants in the case is the statewide pro-LGBT advocacy organization Pennsylvania Youth Congress, which intervened in the case on behalf of an transgender student. According to The Morning Call, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has joined the case on behalf of the PYC.

Their claim that transgender students are a threat to others is offensive and not supported by the evidence in Boyertown or schools around the country, ACLU attorney Ria Tabacco Mar argued.

The ADF is aided in this case by Independence Law Center.

Schools should not expect students to accept that the differences between females and males dont matter in the very places set apart for privacy from the opposite sex, ILC Chief Counsel Randall Wenger said in a statement.

Other circuit courts have also ruled that trans-identified students have the right to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Last year, the Seventh Circuit ruled in that the Kenosha Unified School District in Wisconsin violated the rights of a trans-identified student by requiring that students use facilities consistent with their biological sex.

Last year, the Supreme Court sent a similar appeal filed by a Virginia school district back to a lower court for review after the Fourth Circuit ruled that a trans-identified student had the right to access facilities according to their gender identity.
Trump taps pro-life neuroscientist for National Science Board post

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President Trump has nominated a pro-life neurobiology professor who has spoken out in defense of the unborn to serve on the National Science Board.

Maureen Condic, who is an associate professor at the University of Utah and is known for her work on spinal cord repair, was chosen earlier this month to fill one of the 25 spots on the NSB, LifeNews reported. She will serve a six-year term.

Im just thrilled that its an opportunity to serve my country and the greater scientific community, she told the Salt Lake City Tribune.

In May 2013, Condic, who is Catholic, testified before the Judiciary Committee in support of a bill that would have restricted abortions after the 20-week mark, telling lawmakers that human fetuses can feel pain at eight weeks.

She explained then that the "neural circuitry responsible for the most primitive response to pain, the spinal reflex, is in place by eight weeks of development, the earliest point at which a human fetus can experience pain.

Imposing pain on any pain-capable living creature is cruelty, the neuroscientist stressed.

And ignoring the pain experienced by another human individual for any reason is barbaric. We dont need to know if a human fetus is self-reflective or even self-aware to afford it the same consideration we currently afford other pain-capable species. We simply have to decide whether we will choose to ignore the pain of the fetus or not.

Her advocacy for life has caused professional setbacks, Intermountain Catholic noted in 2015, but did not specify what they were.

Shes really been an advocate for a pro-life message and she has done this at great personal sacrifice, then-Rev. John C. Wester, a former Catholic bishop in Salt Lake City, told the Catholic outlet at the time.

It has not always been easy for her; she has suffered in her profession because of the very strong stance she has taken in defending life, and yet she has not wavered. She has been very consistent in promoting the sanctity of human life as a gift of God.

Condic earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been published in several peer-reviewed journals. She is listed an associate scholar of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the pro-life political action group the Susan B. Anthony List.

In November 2014, she was nominated and approved for a five-year term as corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a group of physicians, scientists, and theologians from around the world whose mission it is to study questions and issues regarding the promotion and defense of human life from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The National Science Board is the policymaking body of the National Science Foundation and advises Congress and the administration on issues in science and engineering.
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Mexican journalist Alex Backman has released a stunning exposeon the caravan from Central America. He says the migrants are robbing and stealing in Mexico. They carjack cars containing just one occupant. There are even accounts of rapes. Many of the migrants will not let people film them. If they see someone filming them through a car window, they stop the car and demand the phone. Backman suspects the reason they dont want to be filmed is because they have criminal histories.

He said the Mexican president hasnt done anything to stop it. The Mexican government is instead providing them with necessities including medical aid. This despite the fact that 48 percent of Mexicans disapproveof the caravan. Almost 2,700 Central Americans have appliedfor asylum in Mexico since the caravan started. However, the Mexican government says it does not have the resources to house all the caravan members for six months.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez toldVice President Mike Pence that the caravan was organized by leftist organizations. Left-wing organizations are providing assistance. They include the coalition CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, which stands for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. At least three of the groups are fundedby George Soros Open Society Foundation.

Of course, exposing this is risky, because the left is fond of denying that Soros funds its ventures, labeling anyone who points out the connection as a conspiracy theorist. Kelly Johnston, a vice president at Campbell Soup, was fired after he tweeted about Soros funding the caravan.

Backman says the rocks being thrown by caravan members are not just little rocks, but large ones that can kill people. Mexican law enforcement vehicles have iron mesh over all of their windows due to the rock throwing. Unfortunately, law enforcement is armed with guns that are little more than paint guns.

The rock throwing escalated in recent days as the caravan reached Tijuana. The migrants are clashingwith the locals, who are marching in the streets demanding that they leave public spaces and report to shelters. The locals yell Go home. We dont want you here! Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum referredto the arrivals as bums. Human rights should be reserved for righteous humans, he said. At least three journalists were injuredin fistfights and other violence. Some of the migrants refuse to stay in the shelters, comparing them to jails. According to The New York Times, the caravan is already threatening a potential crisis for Tijuana and the surrounding state of Baja California.

Instead of trying to illegally cross the border into California, the caravan members are waiting at the border to apply for asylum. But they dont qualify for asylum under international law, Backman observes. Theres no war going on in Honduras. At least 1,400 have applied for asylum in the U.S. It will be weeks before their turn to present their case comes. Meanwhile, they are remaining in Tijuana near the border, where locals and churches are providing them with food and clothes.

The U.S. Border Patrol is out in force along the Tijuana-California border. American workers rushed to complete the border wall there. President Trump is sending the military to the border merely as assistance to the National Guard  hes not militarizing the border. But the Mexican media is warning that Trump is going to use force on the border. They are also falsely attempting to portray the caravan as primarily women and children.

President Trump tweeted about the caravan, Isnt it ironic that large caravans of people are marching to our border wanting U.S.A. asylum because they are fearful of being in their country  yet they are proudly waving their countrys flag, he wrote. Can this be possible? Yes, because it is all a BIG CON, and the American taxpayer is paying for it. Trump refers to the caravan as an invasion.

It is no way near over. A man within the Mexican government told Backman there are more caravans coming from three other countries; Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela. Officials in Baja California saythere are currently 9,000 migrants moving through Mexico in caravans.
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The magnitude of the recent California forest fires tragedy is staggering. As of this writing, the confirmed number of dead is more than 80 and the number still missing almost 700.

That means at least 80 people were burned alive in the blazing inferno. Wrap your mind around that for a moment, if you can.

And its possible that number could double. Or triple. Or quadruple. Or more. Much more.

Young and old wiped out in a moment of time. Families torn apart forever in this world. Your very worst nightmare replayed over and over again.

What a terrible, terrible tragedy. What an unspeakable disaster.

And along with the loss of life, there is the loss of property, with thousands of homes totally destroyed.

Where was God during this season of devastation and loss?

While we grieve with the survivors and their families, how do we explain such calamities?

I humbly suggest that this is not the time for cheap answers or frivolous speculation. Do you agree?

There are some devout people of faith (including Jews, Christians, and Muslims) who believe that everything that happens is ordained by God for a purpose, however mysterious that purpose might be. Nothing that happens is random, and even acts of human evil have some level of divine rationale, since God does not, in fact, stop the acts.

While this is not my own perspective, I do respect this as a posture of serious faith, echoing the plaintive words of Abraham, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (See Genesis 18:25.)

If you are a religious Jew, the first thing you say upon hearing of a death is, Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, the righteous Judge.

You acknowledge that only God gives life and takes life, hence your first response is one of worship.

Similarly, Calvinist Christians would readily echo the words of Job. He responded to the loss of all his possessions, and, infinitely more importantly, the loss of all his 10 children, with these words: Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD (Job 1:21).

Committed Muslims as well would acknowledge that whatever happens is Allahs will, be it a forest fire or a glorious sunset.

Again, I respect this faith perspective, and I understand the scriptural arguments behind it. Im just not ready to say that these terrible forest fires happened simply because God decreed they would happen.

After all, there was a terrible storm one day when Jesus was in the boat with His disciples, but He rebuked the wind and the waves, saying, Peace be still! Did Jesus rebuke what His Father willed? That makes very little sense. (See Mark 4:35-40.)

Some Christians see all natural disasters as acts of divine judgment, quickly pointing the finger at the sin of California.

If that is your personal view, may I ask if youd feel the same if your church-going grandparents were among the dead? Would you be so quick to pronounce judgment if your best friend was killed?

I fully accept that God does send judgment into the earth, right until this day. And I recognize that, when a nation sins, the innocent will suffer as well. And surely our sins, as a nation, are great.

I simply urge you to think twice (or, perhaps twenty or thirty times) before deciding that you know the will of the Lord in this situation. Sometimes silence really is golden.

Others believe that it is the devil alone who kills and destroys, pointing to his murderous acts in Job 1 and 2 (although with divine permission), saying that he is the one behind tragedies like this (see John 8:44, which speaks of his evil nature).

But it is an odd theology which believes that Satan has this kind of power and yet depicts the all-powerful God as merely sitting idly by. Is this the God of the Bible?

And that brings us full circle to our fundamental question: What was the Lord doing when California burned?

Some would say this is a human issue, not a divine issue, since the Lord has given us free will and our choices have serious consequences.

Accordingly, some on the left would blame the right for not paying attention to manmade climate change, pointing to the negative effect this is having on the environment. As one story claims, As the world warms, we can expect more wildfires.

Conversely, some on the right would blame extreme environmentalists for blocking the proper treatment of the forests, leading directly to the tragedy. In the words of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, I will lay this on the foot of those environmental radicals that have prevented us from managing the forests for years and, you know what, this is on them.

So, is this a manmade disaster rather than a God-ordained (or Satan-inspired) disaster?

Barring definitive information on the ground or divine revelation (including indisputable scriptural insight) from above, I recommend putting our hand over our mouths and praying. The losses are just too great and the agony too acute to sit in the comfort of our homes and speculate.

But that doesnt mean that we have nothing to say, and it is Jesus Himself who shows us the way to move forward.

We read in John 9 that, when Jesus disciples saw a man born blind, they asked Him who sinned, the man or his parents. (In some ancient Jewish teaching, it was believed that you could sin in the womb, explaining how the disciples thought that, perhaps, the man was responsible for his own blindness.)

How did the Lord reply?

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus answered. This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. (John 9:3-5; see also John 11:1-4 for a parallel perspective.)

Do you grasp the significance of His words?

While Jesus does say that neither the man nor his parents were responsible for his blindness, He does not give a clear explanation of why the man was born blind. Instead, He states that this happened so that God's works might be displayed in him.

The blindness was an opportunity for the Lord to be glorified. Sickness, whatever its cause, was an opportunity for divine healing to be displayed. The darkness of human pain only highlighted the light of Gods grace.

And so, we can look into the eyes of the suffering and grieving and say, I cant tell you why this happened, but I can tell you that, in the midst of the agony and devastation, God can be glorified. Lets work together with Him to bring light out of darkness, life out of death, and hope out of despair.

As impossible as it seems, as acute as the pain may be, and recognizing that nothing will bring back those who have perished, with the Lord greater good can come out of these tragic fires. Let us pursue that greater good with Him.

(For a radio show devoted to this topic, go here.)
Asia Bibi: Police warn Christians that terrorists are set to attack; churches in 'critical moment'

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Pakistani police have warned the leaders of Christian groups that terrorists are planning attacks against believers over the fallout of the Asia Bibi case.

The Lahore Police Inspectorate has urged Christian institutions to "pay attention to vigilance, outlining that terror groups such as "Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan" and "Jamaat-ul-Ahrar" have made plans for attacks, Agenzia Fides reported.

The police vowed that security measures have been put in place at Christian places and churches, but danger remains high as Islamic extremists seek to punish believers for their support of Bibi.

The Christian mother of five was acquitted of blasphemy in October after spending eight years on death row for insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, something which she has continuously denied.

Persecution watchdog groups and her supporters celebrated the Supreme Courts decision to overturn her conviction and sentence, but Bibi and her family are believed to still be in Pakistan, hiding in fear for their lives.

In the weeks following her acquittal, Christians have been attacked as hardliners took to the streets to protest. Peter Jacob, the executive director for the Center for Social Justice in Lahore, said earlier in November that Christians were "taken out of their cars and beaten up," among other forms of violence.

Bishop Humphrey Peters, an Anglican pastor at the head of the "Church of Pakistan" in Peshawar, responded to the latest police letter by admitting that Christians are in a critical moment.

Christians in Pakistani have trust in the security forces. We will continue to carry out our role in society, in full cooperation with law enforcement and government, Peters told Fides.

Catholic layman Adeel Patras Chaudhry of "Jesus Life TV" commented, "Christians will pay close attention and act with caution in the organization of gatherings and celebrations at Christmas time. We pray for the protection of the faithful and also of the security forces, committed to our protection. We are aware of the delicate situation and collaborate with the police and with the Government.

Fr. Qaisar Feroz, executive secretary of the Commission for Social Communications in the Catholic Episcopal Conference, insisted that despite the violent fallout, the judicial system did the right thing in freeing Bibi.

"The decision of the Supreme Court has restored justice and truth to this case, in which an innocent was in jail. We hope that the woman can lead a happy life. All citizens must see, in all this, the good for Pakistan: a nation where legality and law are still respected. This is our idea of Pakistan, Feroz argued.

Several Western governments, including Canada and Italy, have said that they are reaching out to help Bibi and her family, but they are still awaiting asylum.

U.S. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told CNN last week that he has spoken to President Donald Trump about granting Bibi asylum, noting that there are fears she might be killed or imprisoned again if she remains there.

"They will probably convict her again, Paul warned. And if she goes through all of that  she has already spent eight years in prison on death row, which has to be a horrific experience  I'm worried that she won't survive.

Paul said he can't speak for the president, but has hopes that the U.S. will be able to help as well.
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 52F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 52F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Canadian hospital advertises euthanasia in hospital waiting room

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Canada is increasingly more open about its embrace of euthanasia and assisted suicide, even advertising it in hospital waiting rooms.

Writing on the blog of National Review last week, The Discovery Institute's Wesley Smith shared a photo a source sent him from a Canadian hospital system where "medical aid in dying" (MAiD)  referring to physician-assisted suicide  is pushed on patients via an on-screen advertisement in the hospital urgent care waiting room.

"MAiD is a medical service in Canada, whereby physicians and nurse practitioners help eligible patients fulfill their wish to end their suffering," the ad reads, along with a toll-free phone number for interested persons.

"The ad makes no mention of palliative care or other means to reduce or eliminate suffering without killing. It does not describe that counseling can help people regain the desire to live. There is no hint that suicide prevention services might be available. And it obscures the fact that MAiD is a euphemism for homicide by lethal injection," Smith reported.

The practice was only legalized in the North American nation three years ago via its Supreme Court.

The ad is particularly alarming, Smith went onto explain, because not only is it legal but it is now being presented as a "positive right."

"And, they are telling dissenting physicians in Ontario that they either must kill qualified patients, find a doctor willing to do the dirty deed (known as an 'effective referral') or get out of medicine."

He added: "And considering that Canada has a single payer socialized healthcare system, what better way to save on costs than by gently persuading those with the most expensive conditions to choose death over fighting to stay alive? Indeed, there is already at least one case in which a disabled patient was offered euthanasia after being denied the independent living services he says he needs to maintain the desire to carry on."

The failure to mention any life-affirming options reveals that euthanasia is not only being presented as normal by Canadian medical institutions, but is set to become the preferred treatment for those with debilitating illnesses, he concluded.

Such overt promotion of assisted suicide comes amid reports last month that doctors from a Toronto children's hospital had articulated policies on physician-assisted suicide for minors, revealing that in some cases, parents would not be notified until after the child has died.

"Usually, the family is intimately involved in this (end-of-life) decision-making process. If, however, a capable patient explicitly indicates that they do not want their family members involved in their decision-making, although health care providers may encourage the patient to reconsider and involve their family, ultimately the wishes of capable patients with respect to confidentiality must be respected," the pediatric doctors at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, administrators and ethicists wrote in a September British Medical Journal article.

A 2017 survey of 1,050 Canadian doctors found that 33 percent of them believe assisted suicide should be illegal for minors, while around half think "mature" minors should have the option to request it if they so desire.

Bioethicists are worried that protections for those who object to the practice are quickly disappearing.

"I think that conscientious objection in Canada, unfortunately, hangs by a thread," Deacon Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, told Catholic News earlier this month.
Catholic priest burned to death, over 40 killed in Central African Republic carnage

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Two priests, one of whom was burned to death, and dozens of Christians were slaughtered during clashes last week in the Central African Republic.

One of the attacks happened on Thursday at a Catholic mission in Alindao, with over 20,000 refugees that were being sheltered being forced to flee, according to Reuters.

We have counted 42 bodies so far, but we are still searching for others. The camp has been burnt to the ground and people fled into the bush and to other IDP (internally displaced person) camps in the city, Alindao lawmaker Etienne Godenaha said.

AFP reported that one of the casualties was a priest who was burned to death, though his name was not immediately provided. Father Mathieu Bondobo, the vicar-general of the main cathedral in the capital Bangui, confirmed, "We found his charred body."

The violence, according to AFP, was sparked by Christian militiamen killing Muslims on Thursday, which prompted revenge attacks, including a church being burned.

The U.N., whose base was also attacked, said that the armed group carrying out the attacks is called Siriri, which was apparently created by Fulani cattle herders, many of whom are Muslim.

The Vatican confirmed that at least two priests were killed in the clashes, according to comments by Pope Francis on Sunday.

With sorrow I learned of the massacre that took place two days ago in a camp for displaced people in the Central African Republic, in which two priests were also killed, Francis said on Sunday St. Peters Square during the Angelus Prayer.

Let us pray for the dead and for the wounded and let us pray that the violence will cease in that beloved country that is in great need of peace."

Najat Rochdi, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the CAR, condemned the violence in Alindao, which is seen as a stronghold for Muslim militia. At least two U.N. soldiers and a humanitarian aid worker were killed in recent months.

"This vicious cycle of repeated attacks against civilians is unacceptable. Civilians want security, peace and a future," Rochdi said.

CAR has seen such cycles of violence repeat themselves since a 2013 civil war erupted when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian.

In July, Father Firmin Gbagoua, the vicar general of Bambari Diocese, was shot dead while he was eating dinner. Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need noted at the time that the clergyman was killed at close range by militia calling themselves the Union for Peace in the CAR.

"We strongly call on the government and MINUSCA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic) to coordinate their efforts so that those responsible for these murders will be arrested and brought to justice," sated the Central African Bishops' Conference then.

"Who does all this violence against the Catholic Church of Central Africa benefit?" they asked.
Islamic extremist who killed 82-Y-O Christian doctor sentenced to death in Egypt

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An ISIS sympathizer charged in the fatal stabbing of an 82-year-old Christian doctor in Cairo, Egypt, has been sentenced to death as the government seeks to crack down on Islamic extremism in the country.

According to reports, the killing took place in September 2017, when the 40-year-old man posed as a patient seeking the services of the 82-year-old Christian doctor. The unidentified man then stabbed the doctor to death as soon as he entered the examination room. The man also stabbed the doctors assistant when she attempted to stop the attack. She survived.

Prosecutors said that the attacker had embraced the ideology of the Islamic State, which has carried out a slew of attacks on Egypts Coptic Christian community. The local affiliate of the group has reportedly targeted Coptic Christians in retaliation for its support of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has cracked down on Muslim groups in recent years.

Still, the government has faced criticism for failing to protect Copts, who make up the majority of the countrys roughly 9 million Christians, from escalating violence. Amnesty International notes that instead of prosecuting those behind such violent attacks, authorities have continued to rely on state-sponsored reconciliation agreements, which have led to the forcible eviction of Coptic Christians from areas where they are under threat.

Ive seen a lot of Christians from different classes become disillusioned with the government and with Sisi, Timothy E. Kaldas, an analyst with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told The New York Times. Life has gotten more difficult, and security has not been delivered.

Earlier this month, the militant group claimed responsibility for an ambush on two buses which left at least seven Coptic Christians dead and 16 others wounded. The two buses were carrying pilgrims to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor, 85 miles south of Cairo, in Egypts Western Desert.

Amid widespread outrage, Egypt said its forces killed 19 militants responsible for the attack.

Also in November, a man forced his way into a church and attacked two Christians with a sharp tool while shouting Islamic slogans. While police claimed the man carried out the violent attack because of mental health problems and drug use, local believers called the explanation a clear attempt to hide the Islamic extremism prevalent across Egypt.

In December 2017, a gunman killed 11 people in an attack on St. Menas Church in Helwan, just weeks after the Coptic community had marked the anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 29 and injured 47 at St. Peter and St. Pauls Church.

Egypt is ranked 17th on Open Doors' 2018 World Watch List of countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian. In a country where 90 percent of the population is Muslim, Egyptian Christians have been treated as second-class citizens since the advent of Islam in the region, says Open Doors. The rise of radical Islamist groups has only exacerbated Egyptian Christian persecution, affecting believers in their villages, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
American 'missionary' killed on remote Indian island

An American described as a missionary has been murdered on one of the islands in India's remote cluster of Andaman and Nicobar.

John Allen Chau, 27, described by one police source as an 'adventurer', was killed by a group of hunter-gatherers who live on North Sentinel Island isolated from the outside world.

The island is out of bounds for visitors, but Chau was lllegally ferried there by fishermen.

A police source told Reuters he had visited the island cluster in the past. Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island, the source added.

However, Jatin Narwal, Superintendent of Police at Port Blair, capital of the island chain, told TNM: 'He lived in Alabama, US. He is some kind of paramedic. He was on a misplaced adventure in prohibited area to meet uncontacted persons.

'People thought he is a missionary because he had mentioned his position on god and that he was a believer on social media or somewhere online.

'But in a strict sense, he was not a missionary. He was an adventurer. His intention was to meet the aborigines.'

One police source told Reuters Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on November 16 before transferring to a canoe.

His body, spotted the following day by the fishermen on their return, has not yet been retrieved, the official said, adding that the fishermen who took him there had been arrested.

An official source told the AFP agency: 'He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body.

'They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the sea shore.'

A murder case has been registered by police.

The inhabitants of North Sentinel Island are believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world and repel all intruders. In 2006, two fishermen, whose boat strayed onto the 60-sq-km (23-square-mile) island, were killed and their bodies never recovered. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community.

Tourists are banned from approaching closer than three miles to the island. The Sentinelise have no resistence to modern diseases like measles and influenza, and risk death if they are in contact with outsiders.

Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, said: 'This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen.

'The Indian authorities should have been enforcing the protection of the Sentinelese and their island for the safety of both the tribe and outsiders.

'Instead, a few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe's island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event.

'It's not impossible that the Sentinelese have just been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe.'
Christian mother accuses school of forcing child to participate in gay pride event

A Christian mother has claimed that a London school forced her son to take part in a gay pride event.

Izoduwa Adhedo says Heavers Farm Primary School in South East London did not give her the option of withdrawing her son from the event despite her complaints.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the school hosted a 'Proud to Be Me' event in which children were encouraged to march with banners telling other pupils what they were proud of about themselves. The school denies that it was a gay pride event.

Mrs Adhedo, who is being supported by The Christian Legal Centre, the legal arm of campaign group Christian Concern, was meeting representatives of the school on Tuesday to voice her complaints.

In a statement, she said she opposed her son's participation in the event because she felt it contradicted her Christian beliefs.

She says that her complaints were dismissed by the school and that it did not take her safeguarding concerns seriously.

She further alleges that the school became 'antagonistic' towards her and that other parents who shared her views were 'afraid to speak up because of how the school has treated me'.

'I wasn't even trying to stop the Pride event,' she said. 'I just wanted my child to receive an education, rather than indoctrination.'

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, accused the school of a 'chilling' breach of parental rights and of treating the parents with 'hostility'.

'In another example of 'totalitolerance', those who preach tolerance and diversity the loudest do not appear to be interested in practising it,' she said.

She added, 'A particular agenda is being forced onto children inside the school gates and parents are being given no means to ensure that their children are being taught in line with their religious and philosophical beliefs.'

Susan Papas, the headteacher, has denied any wrongdoing and defended the school's actions in comments to the Guardian: 'Equality is a thread that goes through our curriculum. We've done projects on black history month, disability and women's history.

'At the end of the year we decided to do something on anti-homophobia as part of Pride month, taking the idea that people and families can be different but everyone can be proud. There were some objections but they were outweighed by support.'
Israel seeks US backing against Airbnb over removal of listings in West Bank settlements

Israel plans to consult with the US government over a decision by home-renting company Airbnb to remove listings in Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

Palestinians who want to establish an independent state in territory including the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war welcomed the San Francisco-based firm's move, announced on Monday and taking effect in the coming days. Israel called it a 'wretched capitulation' to boycotters.

'We will approach the US government because 25 US states have sanctions against American companies that boycott Israel,' strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan said on Israeli Army Radio.

'In this respect, there is no distinction between this part or that part of the State of Israel,' he said, asserting that the West Bank, which Israel has never annexed, should also fall under the anti-boycott protection.

Palestine Legal, a Palestinian rights group that monitors US anti-boycott legislation, said on its website that some of the laws enacted at US state level apply both to Israel and 'territories controlled by Israel', an allusion to areas such as the West Bank.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called Airbnb's decision an 'initial positive step'.

Israeli settlements in occupied territory are considered illegal by most world powers. Palestinians deem the settlements to be obstacles to their goal of establishing an independent state. Israel disputes this.

On its own website, Airbnb said 'many in the global community have stated that companies should not be doing business here [in the occupied territories] because they believe companies should not profit on lands where people have been displaced'.

Subsequently, it concluded it should remove the approximately 200 'listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians'.

Those listings would not include settlements in East Jerusalem, territory Israel annexed in a move not recognised abroad and which the Palestinians want for a future capital, or the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Airbnb said it has developed a framework for evaluating how it should treat listings in occupied territories around the world.

'Israel is a special place and our over 22,000 hosts are special people who have welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to Israel. We understand that this is a hard and complicated issue and we appreciate everyone's perspective,' Airbnb's global head of policy and communications Chris Lehane said in an emailed statement.

Erdan said Airbnb 'will have to explain why it is taking this discriminatory and racist line here in particular and not in other conflict zones in the world'.

Erdan, pointman in Israel's campaign against the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that wants to isolate it over occupation of land Palestinians seek for a state, offered government legal advice to any hosts who want to sue Airbnb.

Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, urged the UN Human Rights Council to release a database of companies 'profiting from the Israeli colonial occupation'.

Oded Revivi, mayor of the West Bank settlement of Efrat, said Airbnb had violated its own stated mission 'to bring people together in as many places as possible around the world'.

Israel's Tourism Ministry said it was looking at options, including new taxation, for restricting Airbnb activities throughout Israel.

Airbnb's move came on the eve of the publication of a report by Human Rights Watch on tourist rental listings in Israeli settlements. The New York-based group hailed Airbnb's 'important recognition that such listings can't square with its human rights responsibilities'.

Airbnb is considering an IPO next year after announcing in February that it would not make a public debut this year.
Pastors in peril: Can power rewire their brains?

There's a fascinating article in the The Atlantic from last year that for some reason is popping up on social media feeds again. It is Power Causes Brain Damage by Jerry Useem, subtitled 'How leaders lose mental capacities  most notably for reading other people  that were essential to their rise'.

The essence of its argument, drawn from studies by Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, is that powerful people 'acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury  becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people's point of view'. Keltner studies behaviour, but Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University, found corroborating evidence when he studied the brain activity of powerful and not-so-powerful people. Power 'impairs a specific neural process, "mirroring," that may be a cornerstone of empathy', as Useem puts it.

So powerful people stop being able to empathise with others because their brains actually change. They are worse at identifying what someone in a picture is feeling, or guessing what a colleague might feel.

The result is 'executive hubris', of which there are a myriad examples. Powerful people can't understand why others find their behaviour reprehensible. They lose the ability to see themselves as others see them. Useem cites examples from Churchill through to Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, all of whom were capable of bad behaviour for just this reason. The article does not mention Donald Trump, which might be down to heroic self-restraint by its author.

What seems to help is when powerful people recall a time when they were not powerful. An experience of powerlessness provides some protection against this loss of empathy.

In an age when the church has uncritically adopted corporate values around 'leadership', equating it with 'ministry' in a way that is often deeply unhelpful, are there lessons for those in the church who find themselves in positions of power? After all, there's no shortage of bishops, pastors and parachurch executives who find themselves exposed when their empires come crashing down. In the US, it might be megachurch pastors like Mark Driscoll or Bill Hybels, elevated by their congregations to an unchallengeable height. In the UK, it's more likely to be those in ecclesiastical heirarchies who lose the ability to see themselves for what they have become, making terrible decisions about what we now call safeguarding because they can't empathise with victims. The notion that their very brain patterns have been affected by their eminence might seem uncharitable, but it seems to fit.

We don't have to go to the very top of church command chains to see this, though. Any minister is vulnerable to the power trap. He or she  usually he  is, if not nowadays elevated six feet above contradiction in a Victorian pulpit, usually given a platform denied the congregation. Ministers are deferred to, they make decisions and 'cast visions', and they tend to be the point around which the church revolves, especially if they have been there a good while. All this is heady stuff  almost literally brain-turning, as our article shows.

All the more reason for ministers to resist. They can do it in a most Christian way, by  as Keltner says  recalling their own experiences of powerlessness, perhaps most vividly at a communion service. But they can also challenge the whole idea of ministerial power, so much part of the fabric of church life. Leadership can still be effective even when it's diffused; power can be devolved. It's not easy, because congregations rather like having someone else to take responsibility (and blame). But the notion of the pastor as the all-knowing chief executive has very little scriptural support  and it turns out it's not very good for us, either.

Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
Scotland considers opt out organ donation plans dubbed a 'placebo' by Christians

The Scottish Government is considering proposals to introduce opt out consent for organ donation.

Under the current law, individuals must affirm their consent by opting in to the organ donor register, but that would change if the Human Tissue (Authorisation) (Scotland) Bill is approved.

The Bill proposes changing the law so that individual consent to organ donation would be automatically assumed unless the person had taken the action of removing themselves from the organ donor register prior to their death.

The opt-out system has already been operating in Wales since December 2015. Health bosses from Wales are among those giving evidence about the impact of the change to the Scottish Government.

Westminster is considering similar proposals in the form of the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill that passed through the House of Commons last month.

The measures are being proposed as one way to address the shortage of organ donors, but Christians north and south of the border claim that the plans do not reflect the evidence.

CARE Scotland said opt-out organ donation is 'just a placebo' that will not actually increase the rates of organ donation.

The Christian advocacy group's parliamentary officer Dr Gordon Macdonald said that although it was right to seek ways to increase the number of organ donors, switching to an opt-out system has not been proven to work.

He said the plan 'does not make any sense' in Scotland because the Scottish Government has already made 'significant progress' in increasing the rates of organ transplants.

Instead of spending millions of pounds on introducing presumed consent, he said the Scottish Government should instead invest the money in increasing the number of nurses who are specially trained in discussing organ donation with families.

'Scotland has been much more successful than other parts of the UK in encouraging people to opt-in to donate their organs,' he said.

He added: 'We are calling on the Government to instead recruit more specialist nurses because we believe this is one measure that is proven to help increase the number of organ donations.'

A Welsh Government report found that the number of organ donors fell in the first two years after the opt-out system was introduced, leading to concerns about its effectiveness.

Bishop Paul Mason, the Catholic Church in England and Wales' spokesman on healthcare, has previously said that automatically assuming consent 'crosses the line of what constitutes a reasonable action by the state towards individuals in a free society'.

'When consent is 'deemed' to have been given, organ donation is no longer a gift,' he said.

'The Government's plans to introduce 'opt-out' consent for organ and tissue donation in England undermine the concept of donation as a gift.
The greatest threat to today's church? Lack of imagination

It's almost six years to the day since I was commissioned as executive leader of Church Mission Society in a moving service at St Aldate's Church in Oxford. And in just a few short weeks I embark on a new phase of ministry as Bishop of Truro, overseeing the Anglican Church's mission and ministry across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (not forgetting our two parishes in Devon). So it's a good time to take stock.

It's been a wonderful privilege to lead CMS over these years. I will go to Truro still as a member of the CMS Community, taking with me much of what I have learnt here. But what are those key lessons? They could probably take up a book or two  but let me here highlight three crucial lessons I feel I've learnt.

First, mission is always a creative act. I have a background in youth ministry and anyone who's been involved in ministry with young people knows that creativity is absolutely essential. But it's true of all mission and ministry. In my time in CMS I've seen countless examples of creativity, whether that's people setting up projects to help petrol-heads talk about cars and Jesus, farmers in rural Uganda discovering new ways of making the land productive, facilitating outreach and evangelism on housing estates, or the establishment of training hubs in London and Chelmsford to train mission pioneers.

If there is one significant threat to the church in the West, I think it's probably its lack of imagination. We are very used to doing things in the same old way. We are much less good at finding new ways of being church and making the good news known. But we need to. In the words of the recently canonised Oscar Romero, 'We are prophets of a future not our own.' But are we, actually? Our God is creative, and creativity is one of his greatest gifts to us. By his grace, may we rediscover it, and in the process find fresh hope for the future.

Second, I have learnt that from start the finish the Bible is a book about mission. There used to be an apologetic about the Bible that described it as 'the maker's instruction book', telling us what to do. Well I don't deny that it does tell us what to do  but above all it tells us what God has done, and is doing. Indeed I would say that the overriding theme of the Scriptures is 'the going-forth of God'. From start to finish the grand narrative of the Bible is about God going forth, reaching out to his world, in creation and in redemption. In other words it's all about the mission of God. And if we are truly to be shaped by the Bible then we need to let it shape us for mission above all.

My third lesson follows straight from that: mission is the heartbeat of God. Indeed I think you can argue that it is what he lives for. And it is indeed what Jesus died for. If the grand narrative of Scripture is all about the going-forth of God, we have to say too that above all it is about the going-forth of God in love.

Now that has so many implications it's difficult to know where to begin. But let me pull one out. When God came to us in love in Jesus, he accommodated himself to us. He came to us in a shape and a form we can understand. He came to us and became one of us. And that has to be our model in mission, to take context and culture, language and identity, so seriously. But I'm not sure we always do in the Church. Too often, I fear, we invite people to come to us and be like us. But if our mission is truly loving it will not be like that. Instead of inviting people to accommodate themselves to us we will go the extra mile and accommodate ourselves to them.

And it follows that above all mission must be about love  and if it's not about love, it's not mission. Mission is about love above all, much more than technique or text: doing and saying 'the right things'.

I was in Bolivia a couple of years ago when the world news was full of stories about the building of walls and hostility towards refugees and migrants. By contrast the projects I visited there, whether with street kids, children with HIV and AIDS or people struggling with addiction, all seemed to have so much love at their heart. In other words they expressed the loving, mission of heart of God: that love to which the Scriptures bear witness, demonstrated in so many different, creative ways.

And wherever God may call each of us in the future, may those always be the hallmarks of our mission too.

Rev Philip Mounstephen is the outgoing executive leader of Church Mission Society and Bishop-elect of Truro.
10 jewels that made history  and changed the market

On 30 June 2020, a spectacular D colour diamond ring became the most expensive jewel to sell in an online-only auction, joining a stellar cast of other landmark gems previously sold at Christies

1

La Peregrina A natural pearl jewel with a star-studded provenance Few jewels have a history dating back 500 years, or one that have seen them passing through the hands of royals, empresses and Hollywood stars. La Peregrina, which was found off the coast of Panama in 1576, is one such jewel. This perfectly pear-shaped pearl weighing 202.24 grains was bought by Philip II of Spain in 1582 and soon became one of the countrys most important crown jewels. It passed through the hands of eight kings of Spain over a 200-year period before falling into the hands of Joseph-Napoleon Bonaparte, the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who became King of Naples and Sicily.

In 1969, Richard Burton paid $37,000 for La Peregrina at auction in New York, before presenting it to his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, on her 37th birthday. It was remounted on a necklace created by Cartier, and the actress often wore it to events and during films. La Peregrina most recently came up for auction in December 2011 at Christies New York. It sold for $11,842,500, more than five times its low estimate, making it at the time the most expensive natural pearl jewel ever sold at auction. Elizabeth Taylors collection produced the most successful single-owner jewellery auction in history.

2

The Hancock Red A record-breaking wonder of nature In April 1987 Christies offered a very small diamond, weighing 0.95 carats, as its top lot in New York. What made this diamond special was its colour: Fancy Purple-Red. Only one in 100,000 diamonds qualifies as a Fancy colour. These odds lengthen exponentially for red diamonds, which are so rare that experienced diamond dealers would consider themselves extremely lucky to handle more than three in the course of a lifetime.

The Hancock Red diamond. Sold for $880,000 in April 1987 at Christies in New York

This 0.95 carat (only 0.19 grams) wonder of nature was part of the collection of Mr Hancock, a farmer from Montana, who was rumoured to have purchased the diamond for $13,500 in 1956. The Hancock Red was offered for sale in 1987 with an estimate of $100,000-150,000. It sold for a remarkable $880,000, or $926,000 per carat, and broke all records in the process.

3

A spectacular D colour diamond ring The highest-value jewel ever sold online at Christies

This spectacular Type IIa D colour diamond ring weighs 28.86 carats. On 30 June 2020 it sold at Christies for $2,115,000, setting a world record for the most expensive jewel sold in any online auction.





A spectacular diamond ring of 28.86 carats, D colour, VVS1 clarity, Type IIA. Sold for $2,115,000 in Jewels Online, 16-30 June 2020

Type IIa diamonds account for less than two per cent of all gem diamonds, and they are the most chemically pure, with no measurable trace of colour-altering nitrogen. As a consequence, they often have exceptional optical transparency. Well-known examples of Type IIa diamonds include the 530.20 carat Cullinan 1, the largest clear cut diamond in the world, and the 105.6 carat Koh-i-Noor, which is part of the British Crown Jewels.

4

The Oppenheimer Blue The most expensive blue diamond in auction history On 18 May 2016, the Oppenheimer Blue, lot 242 in Christies Magnificent Jewels auction in Geneva, was bought for CHF 56,837,000 ($57,973,000), making it, at the time, the most expensive jewel in auction history. That season, it was also the most expensive work of art sold at auction.

The Oppenheimer Blue: a sensational coloured diamond ring. Sold for CHF 56,837,000 on 18 May 2016 at Christies in Geneva

The diamond was named in honour of its previous owner, the connoisseur Sir Philip Oppenheimer. The Oppenheimers have been leaders in the diamond industry for generations and Sir Philip had the pick of any diamond he wanted. He chose this one for its perfect hue, impeccable proportions and fabulous rectangular shape. In recent years blue diamonds have gained a wider following, not only because they are stunning, but because there are so few of them available. The Oppenheimer Blue is classified as Fancy Vivid Blue by the Gemological Institute of America, the highest colour grade and colour intensity for blue diamonds. At 14.62 carats, it is the largest Fancy Vivid Blue diamond to have ever appeared at auction. The Oppenheimer Blue can only be described as one of the rarest gems in the world, said Francois Curiel, who has experienced many superlative jewels being offered during his long service at Christies. 'It is the gem of gems.

5

The Blue Belle of Asia One of the largest blue sapphires in history Although sapphires of more than 100 carats are very rare, records of them do exist in important gem collections around the world. The list of sapphires weighing more than 350 carats, however, is a very short one indeed. The Blue Belle of Asia, weighing 392.52 carats, is the fourth-largest recorded blue sapphire in history. Only the Blue Giant of the Orient (486.52 carats), the Queen of Romania sapphire (478.68 carats) and the Logan sapphire (422.99 carats) are bigger.

A report dated 11 September 2014 from the Gubelin Gemlab Institute stated that the sapphire is of Ceylon origin, with no indications of heating, stating that the sapphire is one of the largest faceted sapphires the Gubelin gem lab has seen to date and possesses a combination of outstanding characteristics

This legendary stone was discovered in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), known as the Island of Gems, in 1926. It was recorded as weighing approximately 400 carats, and valued at 50,000 before being acquired by the famous gem and jewellery dealer Macan Markar in Colombo. In 1937, the sapphire was purchased by British motor magnate Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors Limited.

A spectacular sapphire and diamond necklace. Sold for CHF 16,965,000 on 11 November 2014 at Christies in Geneva

It was reported that the sapphire was to be presented to Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, on her coronation day in May 1937. Instead, the Blue Belle of Asia disappeared into private hands, its location remaining a mystery for decades. On 1 November 2014, the Blue Belle of Asia reappeared, presented for the first time at auction by Christies in Geneva as The Property of a Private Collector. It was bought for CHF 16,965,000  around $17,300,000  becoming the most expensive sapphire and the most expensive coloured stone sold at auction.

6

The Graff Ruby A landmark moment for coloured gemstones In late 2005, Senior International Jewellery Specialist Jean-Marc Lunel received a phone call from the Christies office in Monaco. He was told about a client who wanted a valuation of some jewels that were being held in a bank safe. The collection comprised nine jewels  signed jewellery by Faraone, Van Cleef & Arpels, and three magnificent rings by Bulgari. The first ring was mounted with a sapphire from Burma, the second with a D-colour diamond, and the third with a Burmese ruby weighing 8.62 carats that showed no indications of treatment.

A magnificent and rare ruby ring, by Bulgari. Sold for CHF 4,724,000 on 15 February 2006 at Christies in St. Moritz, Palace Hotel

Burmese rubies of this size, and that have not been treated, are incredibly rare. Encountering one with a crystal of incredible purity, showing hardly any inclusions, and with a beautiful red hue, is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. The nine pieces were offered by Christies in February 2006 in Saint Moritz, and the ruby was the talk of the town well before the auction viewing opened. Originally purchased at Bulgari in Italy in the 1960s, the ruby was estimated at $400,000-600,000. In the saleroom it sparked a 20-minute bidding battle before finally being purchased for $3,637,480, at the time the highest price per carat ($421,981) ever achieved for a ruby. After the sale, the buyers identity was revealed and the ruby was renamed The Graff Ruby. The auction proved to be a landmark for coloured stones, underlining their value, importance and rarity.

7

The Rockefeller Emerald Size, provenance, rarity and desirability From the age of Cleopatra  who is said to have commissioned an emerald carved with her image as a gift for Julius Caesar  through to the Romanov tsars, the Mughals and British royalty, no jewellery collection has been considered to be complete without a selection of impressive emeralds. In June 2017, Christies offered a gem-quality emerald of 18.04 carats that belonged to the Rockefeller family. Gifted to David Rockefeller by his father upon the death of his mother, the stone was set in a beautiful diamond ring designed by Raymond C. Yard in 1948.

Described by the American Gemological Laboratory as exceptional and possessing an unusual combination of size, provenance, absence of treatment and quality factors that contribute favourably to its rarity and desirability, the Rockefeller Emerald was purchased for $5,511,500. At $305,516 per carat, it broke the price-per-carat world record previously held by a Bulgari emerald brooch from The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor.

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The day after the auction, a representative for Harry Winston announced that the firm was immensely proud to own the finest emerald in the world, which once belonged to one of Americas most important dynasties.

8

The jadeite bead necklace The beginning of the boom in the jade market The value of jadeite is based on three important criteria: colour, translucency and texture. Colour is by far the most important factor, and takes into account saturation, brilliance, evenness and purity. Jadeite can be found in lavender, yellow, russet-brown and black, but it is the green stone containing chromium that is the most coveted by serious collectors.

A magnificent jadeite bead and star ruby necklace. Sold for HK$56,660,000 on 1 June 2010 at Christies in Hong Kong

The nature of how jadeite forms in thin seams makes it highly difficult to cut and polish matching sets of beads. As a result, fine-quality jadeite bead necklaces have always been highly sought after. On 1 June 2010, Christies in Hong Kong offered a magnificent jadeite jade bead and star ruby necklace as its top lot. It comprised 51 jadeite beads of homogeneous vivid emerald green colour, measuring from 11.18 to 9.80 mm each. All the beads were evenly and strongly saturated, free from flaws, internally luminous and clear. The necklace was purchased by a prominent Asian collector for HK$56,660,000 (around $7,275,000)  the first time a necklace with small beads had fetched over HK$50 million at auction.

9

The Winston Pink Legacy An extraordinary 18.96-carat Fancy Vivid Pink diamond To find a diamond of this size with this colour is pretty much unreal, said Rahul Kadakia, International Head of Jewellery at Christies, before the sale of the Pink Legacy in Geneva in November 2018. You may see this colour in a pink diamond of less than one carat. But this is almost 19 carats and its as pink as can be. Its unbelievable.
Addressing a celebration held at the school, Prime Minister Phuc recalled memories of the days he studied at the school.



From the bottom of my heart, I am always proud of the beloved Da Phuc school, and grateful for the teachers who have dedicated themselves to nurturing the personality, aspirations and morality for generations of students, including me, he said

The PM emphasized that Da Phuc school has nurtured the dreams and talents of not only young generations in Soc Son district, but also many children who moved from southern provinces to the north after the signing of the Geneva agreement.

On behalf of such children, PM Phuc expressed gratitude to people in the north and teachers and friends who had created all favourable conditions and given support to southern children.

He expressed joy at the achievements made by Da Phuc school, which is the top school in Soc Son district.

The Government leader stressed that the world is changing fast, and in the digital area, knowledge and innovation are the key factors that decide each nations strength, competitiveness and position.

In the context, Vietnam is striving to carry out comprehensive reform of education, he said, urging Da Phuc school, together with all schools nationwide, to work unceasingly to improve teaching and learning quality.

Students should be put at the centre of education, PM Phuc said, asking the school to adopt modern teaching and learning methods, and build a friendly, safe and healthy educational environment for students.

He also advised the students to cultivate their patriotism and national pride, while striving to study well so that they can be successful in life and contribute to national development.

Vietnamnews
10 things to know about poet and painter Chu Teh-Chun

A guide to the Chinese artist who was a peer and friend of Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki, and is widely celebrated for his elegiac paintings that reconfigured Western abstraction

1. Chu Teh-Chuns unique form of Oriental abstraction Wu Guanzhong, who studied alongside Chu Teh-Chun (1920-2014), described his friends art as appearing like Western paintings when looking from afar, but when examined closely, they look like Chinese paintings. The colour blocks and geometrical lines of Chus work do indeed recall Abstract Expressionism, but the monumental mountains and rivers evoke the style of the Chinese Northern Song dynasty. The artist absorbs what he sees in nature and refines it in his mind, said Chu, and it is the power of the artists imagination, his sensibility, and his inner character that are revealed on the canvas. This is where the concepts behind Chinese painting and abstract painting very neatly come together.

2. Chu Teh-Chuns paintings evoke the rugged landscape of his childhood Chu Teh-Chun grew up in Xiao County in the eastern province of Anhui, a region stretching hundreds of miles north of the Yangtze River, and home to the famous Yellow Mountain. Its conifers clinging to jagged, near vertical cliffs and cloudy peaks were the subject of many classical paintings and poems.

His grandfather collected art and poetry, and it was through the familys extensive art collection that Chu educated himself in the history of traditional calligraphy and ink painting.

3. Chu reconciled traditional Chinese art with Western Modernism Recognising his talent for painting, Chus father persuaded him out of becoming a gymnast and towards studying at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. The schools principle was Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), a visionary artist with an expansionist Pan-Asian aesthetic who wanted to reconcile Chinese traditional art with Western Modernism. It was here that Chu also met the artists Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki, and together they would advance Lins desire for a Chinese modernism.

Chu Teh-Chun photographed in his Paris in 2010. In 2001 the artist was made Chevalier de la Legion dHonneur  Jerome Huffer/Paris Match

4. Chus formative training in calligraphy inspired his later move to abstraction As a teenager Chu Teh-Chun studied with the modern ink master Pan Tianshou (1897-1971), learning to perfect the exacting craft of caoshu, a form of calligraphy in which the characters are written in one uninterrupted stroke. In later years he likened the controlled spontaneity of the medium to Abstract Expressionism.

5. His posters and murals protested against the Japanese invasion In 1937, with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, the Academy was forced to relocate to Nanjing, where Chu became active in the countrys resistance movement, designing propaganda posters and murals protesting against the Japanese invasion. He became professor of Architecture at the National Central University in Nanjing in 1945 before resigning his post three years later. In 1949, he began teaching architecture at the National China Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan.

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6. After moving to Paris, he painted the Mona Lisa of the East Since listening to his teacher Lin Fengmian describing his student days in Paris, Chu had wanted to study in the French capital. In 1955, after several years as a successful figurative artist in Taipei, he got his wish. He did not take long to make his mark: in 1956, Chu was awarded the silver medal in the Spring Salon for a painting of his wife, Chu Ching-Chao. The picture was nicknamed the Mona Lisa of the East.

7. He saw links between Abstract Expressionism and calligraphy After seeing a 1956 retrospective of the Abstract painter Nicolas de Stael at the Musee National dArt Moderne in Paris, Chu made the extraordinary decision to reject figurative painting and start all over again.

Formative abstracts such as Untitled (1963), sought to reflect the natural world. To Chu, Abstract Expressionism represented freedom, and it echoed some of the techniques of Chinese calligraphy, which had to be executed quickly and in the moment. Paper allows for no mistakes, he once said.

8. The elemental forces of nature inspired Chus greatest works In the 1980s, after witnessing a snowstorm from his train window when crossing the Swiss Alps, Chu created a series of emotive paintings  including Evocation Hivernale A (1988)  which reflected the exhilarating, yet terrifying might of the natural world. It was around this time that the poet and art critic Jean-Clarence Lambert likened him to one of the great cosmic dreamers in ancient Greece.

9. Poetry remained his first love I love Chinese poetry, Chu said. It blends naturally into my painting. It is not a coincidence that Western art critics see my work as poetically inspired abstractions. The convergence of landscape painting and poetry began in China as early as the Wei and Jin dynasties (from 220 AD). Wang Weis groundbreaking landscape poetry and ink paintings during the Tang dynasty (618-907) deepened the tradition, which reached its peak during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when Su Shi and Mi Fu advocated a union of poetry and painting. From this point on it became a part of Chinas intellectual heritage. Chu Teh-Chun believed poetry and painting followed the same rules and rhythms, and throughout his life continued to practice calligraphy, illustrating the works of many famous Chinese poets, in particular those who evoked the pain of exile.
5 minutes with A 1926 bottle of The Macallan whisky

Christies International Director of Wine Tim Triptree MW enthuses over a hand-painted bottle of The Macallan that spent six decades in an ex-sherry oak cask, and which sold for 1.2 million  a new world auction record  in London

In 1926 John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television; Route 66 was established between Chicago and Los Angeles; and Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared for 11 days. Meanwhile, the whisky-makers at The Macallan Distillery on Speyside in Scotland filled cask no. 263  which had begun its life in Jerez de la Frontera in Spain  with clear, new make spirit from one of its famous Curiously Small Stills. Then they left it, and they waited for the Spanish oak  which had been seasoned with Oloroso sherry  to work its magic. Those whisky-makers may no longer be with us but, 92 years later, the spirit remains. In 1986, after six decades of maturation, The Macallans master distiller decided that this particular elixir had reached its zenith, and it was bottled, with appropriate reverence, into 40 bottles. One of those bottles  uniquely hand-painted by the Irish artist MichaelDillon  sold for a world auction record price of 1.2 million in Christies Finest & Rarest Wines & Spirits sale on 29 November in London.

Of the original 40 bottles, 12 had labels designed by Peter Blake, who is best known for designing the cover of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper album, and a further 12 individually numbered bottles were designed by the Italian painter Valerio Adami. These bottles are much better known among whisky collectors, explains Tim Triptree MW, Christies International Director of Wine. A few of them have come up for sale previously, and actually, in May this year, a 1926 Macallan with a Valerio Adami label sold for $1.1 million  an auction record. The bottles with labels designed by Peter Blake were released in 1989, and the Valerio Adami bottles in 1993. The remaining bottles joined The Macallans Fine & Rare Collection.

In the past 11 years its value has increased 14-fold, which shows the strength of the whisky market, and how collectable these bottles have become  Tim Triptree

The Macallan were unsure that this bottle still existed  it was last seen at Fortnum & Mason in London in 1999  and it is quite excited that the buyer has kept hold of it, says Triptree. These whiskies rarely come up for sale. Prior to this year, the previous auction of a Macallan 60-year-old with an Adami label was in 2007. That sold for $75,000. In the 11 years since its value has increased 14-fold, which shows the strength of the whisky market, and how collectable these bottles have become. the new owner of this bottle  beautifully illustrated with Dillons depiction of The Macallans historic home, Easter Elchies House, built in 1700  will therefore have a tough decision to make: bank on it as an investment or drink it.

Of the 40 bottles released by The Macallan, only one was hand-painted by the Irish artist Michael Dillon Additional details from Dillons painting, which depicts The Macallans historic home, Easter Elchies House, built in 1700

The Macallan produces just exceptional, really flavourful whiskies that last and last and last, says Triptree. Their attention to detail is incredible, and they are obsessed with quality. They even go into the Spanish forests to select particular oak trees for felling, in order to get the very best for their casks. Because ultimately, the whisky could be in these casks for up to 60 years or even longer, and they are vital to the highly concentrated, rich, full-bodied flavours that are characteristic of The Macallan. How then might this single malt, first created almost a century ago, taste? Its going to be incredibly complex, ventures Triptree. The flavours are going to be so concentrated, and its going to have so many aromas, that each time you get to the glass Im sure you would be smelling and tasting something different. Obviously, after spending 60 years in cask its going to be quite dark in colour  amber, a bit of mahogany in there. And then youll get some of the spices from the wood, little hints of vanilla, potentially some nutty characteristics, cinnamon, Christmas cake. All sorts of different flavours. And then the length  how long the flavours persist in the mouth  is going to be exceptional, and just reinforce all the aromas that youre smelling.

This prized bottle of aged single malt comes in a one-of-a-kind presentation box with a letter from The Macallans whisky maker The bottle is beautifully illustrated with Dillons depiction of The Macallans historic home, Easter Elchies House
A thousand years of the Chinese literati aesthetic

View highlights from a special sale in Hong Kong that takes us on an artistic journey from the time of Su Shi through a millennium of Chinese history

On 26 November in Hong Kong, Christies presents Beyond Compare: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic, a special sale that showcases works spanning over a millennium of Chinese history, told through the lens of the enduring spirit of the Song literati. The auction is led by Wood and Rock by Su Shi, a monumental and singular masterpiece by one of the greatest cultural figures of the ancient world, whose work epitomises the creative intensity of the Song dynasty (960-1279), and inspired so much of what followed.

Su Shi (1037-1101), Wood and Rock. Painting: 26.3 x 50 cm (10 x 19 in); painting and colophons: 26.3 x 185.5 cm (10 3/8 x 73 in). Sold for HK$463,600,000 on 26 November 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong

Through this sale, explains Jonathan Stone, Deputy Chairman of Christies Asia, we trace the journey of the literati tradition both chronologically and through visual juxtapositions, highlighting the relevance of this ethos not only through history, but also for artists in the contemporary world. Beginning with Wood and Rock, a dialogue is established between the historic and the contemporary, illuminating the enduring legacy of Su Shi.

An important lacquered phoenix-style qin, Song dynasty (960-1279). Thickness: 1 in (4.4 cm).

Forming an integral part of the daily lives of scholars like Su Shi, the Chinese ceramics and works of art offered in the sale are the physical embodiment of the literati traditions. Highlights include an important laquered qin. The ancient Chinese considered the qin to be superior to all other instruments, a vehicle for self-improvement through which one could achieve harmony with nature. Su Shi was an accomplished player and composed numerous poems and a treatise about the qin, which have inspired subsequent generations of players.

Although seductively restrained in form and colour, pieces like the extremely rare ru ware bowl and the important Longquan celadon kinuta vase are representative of the objects that Su Shi and his contemporaries would have interacted with on a daily basis. Fewer than 100 pieces of ru ware survive intact today, making it some of the most coveted celadon ware for collectors and museums. The ru ware bowl in the sale appeared in The Beauty of Song Ceramics exhibition at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics in Osaka in 2016. The Chinese paintings in the auction offer an insight into how artists across the centuries have drawn inspiration from the past, while also infusing tradition with their own interpretations and styles.

Jin Nong (1687-1763), Seeking inspiration amongst plum blossoms. 32.5 x 131.5 cm (12 51 in). Sold for HK$16,900,000 on 26 November 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong

Created nearest to the lifetime of Su Shi is a work by another Song master, Zhang Jizhi (1186-1263), who was a native of Hezhou (present day Anhui province) and, like Su Shi, held an official position  in his case, in the Ministry of Agriculture. With its disciplined structure and forceful brush strokes, Zhang Jizhis calligraphy is rooted in the styles of the Tang-dynasty masters. Later works by Bada Shanren (1626-1705) and Jin Nong (1687-1763) reveal the continuity of the aesthetic tradition of the Song literati, and the longevity of their moral and ascetic philosophy. The 20th-century artist Wu Hufan (1894-1968) was a collector, authenticator, painter, calligrapher, poet, and writer who hailed from a family with a long history of scholar-officials, and the work offered in the sale is his tribute to Su Shi in the form of a replica of Wood and Rock, created in 1965. Moving into the 21st century, Liu Dan (b. 1953) depicts the spirit of the meditative scholars rocks, which were so admired and contemplated by Su Shi and his peers.

Liu Dan (b. 1953), Jiuhua rock. 53 x 136 cm (20 x 53 in). Sold for HK$3,220,000 on 26 November 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong

The intaglio characters Jiu Hua, which are inscribed in seal script on the smooth surface of the rock in Liu Dans work, refer to the mysterious rock Su Shi encountered and immortalised in a poem titled Mount Jiuhua in a Vessel. Lius fine calligraphy balances the composition, in which he moves seamlessly from the story of the fabled Jiuhua Rock and the poems dedicated to it to reflections on Su Shis aesthetic discourses.

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Expressing individual character and soul in art was one of Su Shis central beliefs, and these qualities are seen clearly in Zhou Chunyas Tree Series (1993), in which a tree, rendered in bold strokes like Su Shis, reaches upwards like a plume of smoke.

Zhou Chunya (b. 1955), Tree Series, painted in 1993. 195 x 130 cm (76 x 51 in). Sold for HK$30,100,000 on November 26 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong

Chunya returned to China from Germany in 1989, and engaged in an intensive study of works by Chinese literati, or scholar-painters, and the free, impressionistic style they employed.

The legacy of the Song dynasty can also be seen in the monumental landscape works of Zao Wou-Ki, where the play of light and shadow, the sense of mass and emptiness, create an effect that invokes towering mountains and enveloping mist.

Yu Chengyao (1898-1993), Magnificent Landscape. 58 x 1241 cm (23 x 488 in). Sold for HK$9,700,000 on 26 November 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong

Taiwanese artists such as Ran In-Ting and Yu Chengyao were inspired in a more direct manner, creating works that evoke traditional Song-dynasty painting formats while taking decidedly contemporary approaches to depicting landscapes.

Zhan Wang (b. 1962), Artificial Rock No. 94, executed in 2006. Sculpture: 105 x 51 x 33 cm (41 x 20 x 13 in). Stand: 16 x 29 x 28 cm (6 x 11 x 11 in). Sold for HK$1,750,000 on November 26 2018 at Christies in Hong Kong
Houston federal immigration agents have deported five undocumented fugitives including four MS-13 gang members wanted for serious crimes in El Salvador including murder and kidnapping, the agency confirmed.

The five were flown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's removal operations Friday on a charter flight from George Bush Intercontinental Airport to El Salvador, according to a press release from ICE.
As the holiday eating season is upon us, many adventurous amateur chefs will be trying their hand at deep frying their own turkeys at home.

This week Chron.com visited General Manager Zach West in the kitchen of Razoo's Cajun Cafe in Pasadena to get some tips on how to deep fry the bird without deep frying yourself.

Check out the video below to learn more about frying a bird at home...

West and his kitchen team have already prepared 40 fried turkeys marinated with a Cajun rub for guests this season, fried in soy bean oil, all ready to be picked up and reheated at home. He did have some rules of thumb for those who are looking to deep fry it home.

JUST SAY NO: People in US, Canada warned to not eat romaine lettuce

"For one, have a fire extinguisher handy," he told Chron.com on Tuesday. "Also wear gloves and protective eye gear. You don't want to get hot oil in your eyes. It's not a good thing."

As West explains in the video it's best to always make sure the bird is entirely thawed out before placing it in the fryer. Excess moisture should also be patted off the turkey. Water interacting with the hot oil is a recipe for trouble. There is no preferred oil to use.

"The oil doesn't impact the taste," West said. "Most people use canola or peanut oil."

The fryer, he adds, should be in a well-ventilated outdoor setting with a fire extinguisher nearby in case of an accident. Low-hanging obstacles can also cause trouble. Keeping kids and pets away from the process is ideal as there is a risk of injury for small creatures near blazing hot oil.

ASTROS WONDERLAND: Houston Astros host their own Nutcracker Market-inspired holiday event

West also noted that the turkey will not fry correctly if there is stuffing inside it. It would complicate the frying process and with potentially some hungry people at your house waiting for their tryptophan fix, there is no room for delays.

Julie Takahashi

It typically takes under an hour to completely fry the bird, West said. In the Razoo's kitchen he showed as how his team fries their birds which is a little different than what many people use at home.

THE BEST PART OF THE HOLIDAYS: Three recipes to try with leftover Thanksgiving turkey

Why are we so enamored with fried turkeys?

"They just taste better," West said. "The complaint about turkeys baked in the oven is that they are so dry. And let's be honest, frying makes everything better."

He's not wrong.

As for the oil that is left over, West said that folks at home should give it a few hours to cool down before being disposed of properly.

"Don't pour down a drain or in your grass," he warned.

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
A data study by moving company locator Movinga identified Houston as one of the top 10 cities to find a job.



Houston was ranked 10th in a list that included Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Washington. Houston was the only city in the South listed.



READ MORE: Looking for a job in Texas? Stay in Houston, suggests new study



Movinga analyzed member countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, focusing on the nations it determined had growing job opportunities.



"Economic strength for startups and established businesses, standard of living including disposable income and healthcare benefits, and the inclusion of women, youth and expats in the workforce" were listed factored into the analysis.



READ MORE: Houston's Top Workplaces give employees sense of meaning, even when the pay isn't great



Scores for each of these categories were determined by analyzing 14 "micro factors" that included health care costs, rates of immigration and gender-based wage gaps.






Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras has awarded a contract to Houston-based McDermott International Inc. to build the final leg of an offshore natural gas pipeline near Rio de Janiero.

McDermott said Tuesday that the oil field service company won an engineering, procurement, construction and installation for the final section of a natural gas pipeline supporting Petrobras' Rota 3 offshore project.
The map lays out OPECs nightmare in graphic form.

An infestation of dots, thousands of them, represent oil wells in the Permian basin of West Texas and a slice of New Mexico. In less than a decade, U.S. companies have drilled 114,000. Many of them would turn a profit even with crude prices as low as $30 a barrel.

OPECs bad dream only deepens next year, when Permian producers expect to iron out distribution snags that will add three pipelines and as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day.

The Permian will continue to grow and OPEC needs to learn to live with it, said Mike Loya, the top executive in the Americas for Vitol Group, the worlds largest independent oil-trading house.

From HoustonChronicle.com: Refiners investing to capitalize on flood of Permian crude

The U.S. energy surge presents OPEC with one of the biggest challenges of its 60-year history. If Saudi Arabia and its allies cut production to keep prices higher, shale will thrive, robbing them of market share. But because the Saudis need higher crude prices to make money than U.S. producers, OPEC cant afford to let prices fall.

Cartel Squeezed

So the cartel finds itself squeezed between the-skys-the-limit U.S. output and softer demand growth. The 15 members, and allies including Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan, will discuss the possibility of their second retreat from booming American production in three years when they gather Dec. 6 in Vienna.

OPEC helped create the monster that haunts its sleep. After it flooded the market in 2014, oil prices crashed, forcing surviving U.S. shale producers to get leaner so they could thrive even with lower oil prices. As prices recovered, so did drilling.

Now growth is speeding up. In Houston, the U.S. oil capital, shale executives are trying out different superlatives to describe whats coming. Tsunami, they call it. A flooding of Biblical proportions and onslaught of supply are phrases that get tossed around. Take the hyperbolic industry talk with a pinch of salt, but certainly the American oil industry, particularly in the Permian, has raised a buzz loud enough to keep OPEC awake.

Price Tumble

Youve got an awful lot of production that can come in very economically, said Patricia Yarrington, Chevron Corp.s chief financial officer. If you think back four or five years ago, when we didnt really understand what shale could do, the marginal barrel was priced much higher than what we think the marginal barrel is priced today.

RELATED: Permian shale companies pledge $100M to West Texas, New Mexico

That shift makes shale resilient to a price tumble. After touching a four-year high in October, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, has fallen by more than 20 percent.

Only a few months ago, the consensus was that the Permian and U.S. oil production more widely was going to hit a plateau this past summer. It would flat-line through the rest of this year and 2019 due to pipeline constraints, only to start growing again -- perhaps -- in early 2020.

If that had happened, Saudi Arabia wouldve had an easier job, most likely avoiding output cuts next year because production losses in Venezuela and sanctions on Iran would have done the trick.

Instead, August saw the largest annual increase in U.S. oil production in 98 years, according to government data. The American energy industry added, in crude and other oil liquids, nearly 3 million barrels, roughly the equivalent of what Kuwait pumps, than it did in the same month last year. Total output of 15.9 million barrels a day was more than Russia or Saudi Arabia.

Rail Cars

The growth was possible because oil traders decided not to be stymied by the dearth of pipelines. They used rail cars and even trucks to ship barrels out of the region. But pipeline companies unexpectedly increased capacity, in part because they added chemicals known as drag reduction agents to increase flow. A new pipeline came online earlier than anticipated, and with three more expected between August and December next year, production is poised to skyrocket.

The narrative has shifted significantly, said John Coleman, a Houston-based oil consultant at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Six months ago, the market expected the bottleneck to ease in the first quarter of 2020. Now, it expects it in the second to third quarter of 2019.Knowing that more transportation would be available next year, Permian companies are drilling wells but, for now, arent fracking many of them. Those wells are becoming a reservoir of ready-to-tap production once the new pipelines -- Gray Oak, Cactus II and Epic -- come online.

From HoustonChronicle.com: Wolfcamp play has been key driver in Permian's growing oil, gas production

Were going to see a re-acceleration of well completions in the Permian in the second half of 2019, said Corey Prologo, head of oil trading in Houston at commodity merchant Trafigura Group Ltd. The pipelines are going to fill up very quickly.

The only obstacle for another surge is export capacity, as most of the incremental output will need to ship overseas. With terminals nearly full, Permian barrels could end piling up in the ports of Corpus Christi and Houston.

Transportation Bottlenecks

Even so, few in Houston, or in Midland, Texas, the hub of the Permian region, believe that growth will be anything but gangbusters next year because of the clearing of transportation bottlenecks.

It will be a series of events throughout 2019 that occur, said Jeff Miller, chief executive officer of Halliburton Co., the worlds biggest provider of fracking services. But itd be easy to see, as we finish the year, things being perfectly normal.

By the end of 2019, total U.S. oil production -- including so-called natural gas liquids used in the petrochemical industry -- is expected to rise to 17.4 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. At that level, American net imports of petroleum will fall in December 2019 to 320,000 barrels a day, the lowest since 1949, when Harry Truman was in the White House. In the oil-trading community, the expectation is that, perhaps for just a single week, the U.S. will become a net oil exporter, something that hasnt happened for nearly 75 years.

Saudis Concede

Saudi officials concede that the tsunami is coming. OPEC estimates that to balance the market and avoid an increase in oil inventories, it needs to pump about 31.5 million barrels a day next year, or about 1.4 million barrels a day less than what it did in October.

Global oil demand has so far absorbed the extra U.S. crude barrels, limiting the impact on prices. The loss of output from Venezuela and to a lesser extent, Iran, even allowed Saudi Arabia, Russia and a few others to boost production. But for the cartel, U.S. shale remains as intractable as in the past.

In early 2017, Khalid Al-Falih, the Saudi oil minister, told an industry forum that Riyadh has learned the lesson that cutting production in response to structural shifts is largely ineffective. The kingdom would only make one-time supply adjustments to react to short-term aberrations, he said, and otherwise allow the free market to work.

Nearly two years later, Al-Falih has lost enough proverbial sleep. Hes about to make a U-turn. Hell battle what increasingly looks like a structural problem: booming U.S. production.

--With assistance from Kevin Crowley, Catherine Ngai and Dave Merrill.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Saudi Arabian oil production surged to a record near 11 million barrels a day this month after the kingdom received stronger-than-usual demand from clients preparing for a disruption in Iranian supplies, according to industry executives who track Saudi output.

Riyadh has been pumping about 10.8 million to 10.9 million barrels a day of crude, the same executives said, asking not to be identified to protect their commercial relations with the kingdom. On some days, more than 11 million barrels a day were supplied to the market by drawing down domestic and overseas stockpiles.

Saudi Arabian oil officials declined to comment. The International Oil Daily, a trade publication, reported Saudi production numbers earlier today.

RELATED: Texas is about to create OPEC's worst nightmare

Its unclear if Riyadh plans to sustain its elevated production and supply rates for the whole month, or output will taper off in the second half of November, lowering the monthly average.

The November surge will come into the spotlight when OPEC meets on December 6 in Vienna to discuss its 2019 production strategy. Riyadh has already indicated it supports a deep output cut and as a first step will reduce its shipments by 500,000 barrels a day in December from November.

Saudi Arabia told OPEC that it produced about 10.65 million barrels a day in October. The countrys oil minister, Khalid Al-Falih, said earlier this month that the kingdom would be producing more in November than October, but declined to provide an estimate.

INFRASTRUCTURE: Permian shale companies pledge $100M to West Texas, New Mexico

"We have been increasing production in response to demand," Al-Falih said in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 11.

Riyadh plans its production level about four to five weeks before the start of any given month as it receives requests from clients -- "nominations" in the industry jargon. When the nominations for November were submitted, in the first week of October, the market was grappling with concerns of a large reduction in Iranian supplies, prompting buyers to request unusually large volumes.

At that point, the White House had threatened to cut the Islamic Republics oil exports to zero. A few weeks later the U.S. granted surprise waivers to buyers of Iranian crude including China, India, Japan and South Korea, easing supply fears.

The International Energy Agency said earlier this month that loadings of Saudi crude "in the early part of November appear to be higher still" than in the same period of October.

From HoustonChronicle.com: Refiners investing to capitalize on flood of Permian crude

Saudi Arabia set an oil production record of 10.72 million barrels a day in November 2016 just before the kingdom led a group of OPEC and non-OPEC countries in cutting output. After the agreement, Riyadh slashed production dramatically over the next two months, with output dropping to 9.8 million barrels a day by January 2017.

The surge in Saudi output in early November means that the worlds top three oil producers -- the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia itself -- are now pumping at, or near, record levels. The leaders of the three nations will meet in Buenos Aires at the end of the month for the annual G20 summit, giving Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman an opportunity to discuss energy markets a few days ahead of the OPEC meeting in Vienna.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.
The Party leader was addressing members of the press in Hanoi to announce the outcome of his talks with visiting Indian President Ram Nath Kovind.



Besides discussing regional and global issues of mutual interest, both leaders stressed the necessity to deepen their comprehensive strategic partnership in all sectors, and agreed to maintain co-operative mechanisms and implement agreements signed by the two sides.

They described defence-security as one of the important pillars in their bilateral ties and said both sides should work on removing bottlenecks to elevate two-way trade to US$15 billion.

They also agreed to step up investment promotions in the fields of Indias strengths and Vietnams development priorities. Both leaders welcomed the co-operation between the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India in oil exploration and exploitation in Vietnam, saying that more effective co-operative models should be put in place.

In addition, they agreed to bolster collaboration in culture, tourism, aviation, people-to-people exchange and education-training, among others.

The two leaders affirmed close co-ordination and support for each other at multilateral forums, especially the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement.

Vietnam welcomed Indias Act East policy, and spoke highly of Indias backing of ASEANs central role in the forming of the regional structure in East Asia. As a co-ordinator, Vietnam had made significant contributions to fostering the ASEAN-India relations, Trong said.

The two leaders stressed the importance of building Indo-Asia-Pacific into a peaceful and prosperous region based on respect of sovereignty, international law and freedom of aviation and navigation.

Vietnam attached importance to Indias stance on the East Sea issue, and thanked the Southern Asian country for continuing to support Vietnams viewpoint on this issue.

President Kovind thanked Party General Secretary, President Trong for giving him and the Indian delegation a warm welcome. Vietnam was a strategic pillar of India in its Act East policy and an important dialogue partner in ASEAN.

As comprehensive strategic partners, Vietnam and India were enjoying thriving relations based on mutual trust and understanding, and close co-operation at multilateral forums.

He expressed his delight over the robust economic ties between the two nations, with two-way trade reaching $12.8 billion in 2017. He said he hoped that with concerted efforts made by the two countries, they would realise the goal of increasing trade revenue to $15 billion in 2020.

The Indian President also underlined that similarities in culture have served as a catalyst to strengthening bonds between the two countries.

Following their talks, both leaders witnessed the signing of several co-operation deals, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, an MoU between the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications and Indian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, an MoU between the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry, and an MoU between the President of the Indian Business Chamber in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs local departments.
A banner with the names of students who died in school shootings hung in the Earl Elliott Room at the Barbara Bush Library on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

A few feet away, guests wrote notes that would be sent to the loved ones of victims of the Santa Fe High School shooting, which occurred on May 18.

The event was organized by four Klein Cain High School students who took it upon themselves to spread awareness about school shootings to the northwest Houston community.

The students, members of the Health Occupations Students of America career organization, hosted the poster presentation event, showcasing several statistics on school shootings and ways to prevent school shootings.

Klein Cain junior and presenter Hannah Hughes said the presentation is a part of a yearly HOSA competition and that her group decided to cover a topic close to home.

SMALL BUT MIGHTY: Dayton twins donate $2,000 to Santa Fe victims

This year we decided we could do it on school shootings so we're going around doing different events to spread awareness about it, Hughes said.

The banner with the names of victims of school shootings, along with another banner signed by event guests, will be featured during the United Against School Shootings Walk at Klein Cain High School, which the group plans to host on Dec. 8.

We knew we wanted to do Santa Fe, because that's what our walk promotes too, Hughes said. All of the proceeds from the walk will go to Santa Fe Strong.

Throughout the event Hughes, along with fellow HOSA team members Eisha Ahmed, Maxine Agulto and Sarah Pham, educated guests on ways to prevent school shootings and provided statistics for recent school shootings, including statistics connecting mental health to school shootings. Agulto said some problems may stem from the poor treatment of others.

A lot of these people are motivated to do what they do because they were shown the only way to gain respect is by treating people badly, Hughes said. We often disregard how we treat other people and how it affects the other person. That could be detrimental to their mental health. They dont think about if it festers and then they do something bad.

PARENTS SPEAK OUT: Santa Fe parents blast school board for subpar safety, academic standards

During the event, guests watched a TEDxBoulder talk from Aaron Stark about almost being a school shooter. The students also spoke about the danger of media coverage of school shootings, explaining that sensationalizing school shooting events may incentivize emotionally disturbed individuals to carry out a school shooting because they misconstrue media attention as respect.

Ahmed spoke with attendees about signs of a possible school shooter and how to approach the situation, including making sure that all students feel comfortable to speak about issues and are made to feel like they belong. She said the group decided to send messages to the families of victims of the Santa Fe shooting messages as a symbol of support and belonging.

It was very close to us, she said. We just thought about things that we would want to say to them.

chevall.pryce@chron.com
Is Houston getting a new Astroworld? The success of Missouri City native Travis Scott's latest album and first local music festival, both inspired by and named after Houston's defunct AstroWorld amusement park, has sparked a renewed interest in the idea.

A generation of Houstonians were thrilled by Astroworld's roller coasters and rides, including Mayor Sylvester Turner who, on Sunday, honored Scott by declaring November 18 "Astroworld Day" at a ceremony at City Hall.

While speaking about Astroworld Festival at the event, Mayor Turner lamented about the loss of the former Houston theme park (see video below).

Astroworld Fest: This is Travis Scott's world and we're just raging in it

"It's just has brought back so many memories. I'm just even more committed. We've got to have some sort of theme park in the city of Houston that's uniquely Houston," he said.

This isn't the first time Mayor Turner has made his desire for a new amusement park known.

In 2016, CultureMap reported that at an informal lunch with members of the media, Mayor Turner touched on the topic.

"If we want to be that destination city in terms of conferences and tourism, we have to have that component in this city. It's one thing to have the rodeo, that's once a year for three weeks. The Super Bowl will be here and gone. The America Cup COPA, came, gone. NCAA (Final Four), come and gone," said Turner.

"We need a major amusement center in this city, especially to focus on our families and young population that's every day in this city," added the Mayor.

During the same lunch with media members, Mayor Turner went on to say that a new amusement park would have to be located in Houston and not in a suburb.

"I'm not talking about in Katy or Tomball or Spring or Pearland. I'm talking about within the 640 square miles of the city of Houston," he said.

Currently, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR) owns the 102-acres near Interstate 610 and Kirby where Astroworld once stood, ruling it out as a possible location for a future amusement park.

Astroworld land update: Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo says AstroWorld land could eventually be redeveloped

According to Hilton College at the University of Houston associate professor Jason Draper, a location inside the 610 Loop is seemingly farfetched.

"I think it's going to have to be outside of the city limits. Finding land and locking in private sector funding are big challenges in attracting theme parks," Draper told KHOU.

On Monday, a spokesperson for Mayor Turner said that there are currently no plans for a theme park but added that any project would be privately funded, and City Council would approve any incentives, KHOU reported.

Astroworld opened in 1968 and was acquired by Six Flags in 1975. It closed in 2005.

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
It was not Jeremy Brown's idea to film his epic Titanic wedding proposal, but he's happy someone did.

The Facebook Live video taken nearly two weeks ago by the Titanic Museum Attraction has earned 12 million views and been shared over 120,000 times. Brown said now that he's given his fiance the perfect proposal he wants to make his wedding even more magical, by asking the A list stars featured in the American epic romance to attend.

"I would love it if Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio acknowledged us," said Brown, who is originally from Angleton, which is just south of Houston."We want to extend our wedding invitation to them."

Brown said he and his fiance Mori Madrid are huge Titanic fans and that getting the chance to meet even one of the stars would be the "ultimate topping" for them both.

Brown's carefully-crafted proposal took six months of planning and was put on with the help of the staff at the Titanic Museum Attraction in Tennessee. He said he arranged for the proposal to feel like the last scene in the film where Rose and Jack are reunited in an alternate happy ending.

SAY I DO: An Emmys wedding proposal upstages the stars

"I choreographed everything to make sure it was just like the movie," Brown said. "I wanted to make this as real as possible."

In the video, Madrid is led to the top of the grand staircase (replicated from the film) where she meets Brown who gifts her with a replica heart of the ocean necklace made from real Swarovski crystals. After placing the necklace, he gets down on one knee, proposes, and the entire room of onlookers cheers.



After the epic proposal, the two enjoyed a steak dinner, tour of the museum and a limousine ride. Brown said the entire thing went off better than he had expected.

"All I wanted was for her to be happy and for her to have the proposal of her dreams. I made her wait long enough...we've been together 6 years," Brown said. "But it was also my dream to do it this way, too."

Brown, also known as the Batman of Houston, often dresses like the DC Comics character for children's birthday parties, toy drives and to visit children with special needs. He said Madrid sometimes dresses as The Real Wonder Woman and goes on visits with him.

"Mori is the real Wonder Woman of Houston," Brown said. "She is my best friend."

CORREA'S SURPRISE: Inside the World Series wedding proposal

Brown and Madrid are set to wed Dec. 22 in Aruba.

Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | rebecca.hennes@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message


Galveston County Sheriff's Office officials are asking for the public's help in identifying the person who allegedly tied up a horse to the back of a truck and dragged it down a road in San Leon.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said video of the horse was sent directly to him by a concerned citizen. The video shows the horse obviously struggling to keep up with the truck as it is dragged down a road. Authorities do not know how long the animal was dragged, where the animal is now or if the animal is safe.

"I forwarded it to my animal control office and we started the investigation at that point," Trochesset said of the video, which ABC13 shared earlier this week.

Trochesset said the person who reportedly took the video first posted it to Snapchat and then a concerned citizen, who authorities believe could be related to the person who took the video, re-posted it on another social media platform and shared it with officials.

MASSIVE CASE: Texas woman accused of animal cruelty toward hundreds of dogs, mini horses

"At this time, we don't know who may have been driving the truck," Trochesset said. "We know the horse was tethered and we know the horse was dragged. Locating everyone involved is what we are looking to do now."

Trochesset said the horse could have sustained serious injuries to its hooves and been choked by the rope it was dragged by. Galveston County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Michael Roy said it was a juvenile who initially posted the video to Snapchat.

"The person that we talked to that posted it on Facebook doesn't know the whereabouts of the person that posted it on Snapchat," Roy said. "We do have the name of the person that may have videotaped it, though."

Roy said a warrant is out for the juvenile's arrest in regards to a different incident. He said police might issue another warrant for his arrest in relation to the horse incident but only if the investigation produces enough findings.

HUNDREDS RESCUED: Spring couple at center of cat seizure plan to appeal court decision

"We will take our findings to the DA [District Attorney] and if they want to pursue we will put out a warrant for his arrest if we are unable to find him," Roy said.

Anyone with information regarding the incident is encouraged to contact Galveston Sheriff's Office at 409-766-2322 ext. 2 or Crime Stoppers at 409-763-8477 (TIPS).

Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | rebecca.hennes@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message


Tired of those reckless drivers speeding through your neighborhood? Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls has just the solution.

Nehls took to Twitter to announce his latest awareness campaign when he shared photos of cardboard cutout signs of himself that he hopes will encourage drivers to slow down in residential areas. The life-like signs show Nehls with a child and dog and read: SLOW DOWN CHILDREN AND PETS AT PLAY.

"Deputies can't be everywhere, but my signs can be," Nehls wrote in a tweet shared Tuesday.

Smaller "slow down" signs are common throughout residential areas in Houston, but Nehls' cutout signs attract more attention. He said he hopes the signs will spread awareness to drivers that recklessly speed through residential areas.

"The number one complaint we get from our residents are traffic related matters, stop sign violations and speeding," Nehls said. "I thought this would be one way to try and send a message to watch your speed while you are driving through some neighborhoods."

NEW REPORT: 7 Houston suburbs make 2018 list of 50 safest cities in Texas

The county is not installing the signs throughout the Houston area, but Nehls said if a resident would like one to put in their yard he is happy to make sure they receive one. As of Tuesday afternoon he said the department received several calls about the signs and that people are requesting them.

"I am going to hand out as many as I possibly can to those that want them," Nehls said.

Each sign costs about $100 and Nehls said his campaign is footing the bill. He only made a dozen or so since last week, but after announcing the signs on social media Tuesday he said he is not sure if he will need to make more.

"It depends how many more people call for them, I may have to, but I do have a limited budget," Nehls said. "It's just trying to bring some more awareness...just monitor your speed, just drive responsibly."

Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | rebecca.hennes@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message


The Montgomery County Sheriffs Office is urging residents to be vigilant during the shopping season and is offering some tips to keep shoppers safe.

Topping the list for law enforcement officials is ensuring packages delivered to homes are not left unattended on porches.

Packages on the porch is a big deal and something we need people to be aware of, said MCSO Lt. Scott Spencer. Thieves are out there looking for those easy targets.

Spencer suggested packages be delivered to neighbors who are home or delivered to a work location.

According to thepackageguard.com, 11 million homeowners had packages stolen from their porch in 2016. A whopping 74 percent of packages stolen were taken while homeowners were at work.

While shopping, Spencer said be aware of your surroundings.

Most of the time people are so busy trying to get from one store to another and not paying attention, he said.

If you have numerous gifts, Spencer said taking those home and then going back out to shop is a good idea. Many thieves he said watch people put items in their vehicles and go back into stores. That, he added, is when they break into cars.

People could be watching, he said. Be very aware. Dont leave anything in the front seats. We see it all the time, purses, laptops  .

Additionally, if traveling avoid posting your vacation and time-away-from-home plans on social media. When posting you are out of town on social media it makes it easy for criminals to track your every move, Spencer cautioned.

Residents can sign up for Vacation Watch with MCSO to have deputies check homes while they are out of town.

Also, when it comes to online shopping, use only trusted sites that will encrypt important personal information. While online shopping is convenient it sadly can provide a window into your life, making you an easy target for identity theft, Spencer said.

Other safety tips:

 Avoid driving at night or shopping alone. Take a friend or family members with you.

 Keep car doors locked and set your car alarm.

 Look for other cars or people, and back out slowly.

 Save your receipts and monitor your credit card activity.

 Don't argue or fight over an item.

 If shopping with children, select a central location to meet in case you are separated. Teach kids

how to ask a security guard or employee for help if they're lost.

 Make sure you have sufficient water and snacks with you! Running around stores can make you

dehydrated, and if you hop on an early morning line, you dont want to miss out on breakfast.

 If shopping at night, park in well-lit areas and make sure you know where you parked.

 DO NOT leave packages or valuables on the seat of your car or in view of the public. Lock in the

trunk or out of sight if you cannot take them back to the house.

 Be sure to locate your keys prior to going to your car.

Keep a secure hold of your purse, handbag or shopping bags. Do not set them down unless someone

you are with is watching them.

 When approaching your vehicle, do not be on your phone. Pay attention to your surroundings.

 Do not carry large amounts of currency. Use credit cards preferably - one if possible.

 Do not buy more than you can carry.

 Ask store security to escort you to your vehicle if you feel uneasy.

 On your way home pay attention to suspicious vehicles. If followed, drive to a busy location and

contact law enforcement immediately.

 Report ANY suspicious activity immediately.

More information about Vacation Watch can be found here http://mctxsheriff.org/divisions/executive_division/going_on_vacation.php.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
The city of Conroe will host its traditional Tree Lighting Ceremony in downtown Conroe at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Its our kick off to the Christmas season, Event Coordinator Elizabeth West said.

The annual family-friendly event is free and held at Heritage Place Park, located at 500 Metcalf St. It will feature childrens choir performances, horse-drawn carriage rides, holiday characters, Christmas carols, hot cocoa, and more.

Mayor Toby Powell will give a speech and introduce a designated person who will have the honor of flipping the switch to light up the Christmas tree. In 2014, the city moved the tree from the corner of Texas 105 and Frazier Street, where it had been since 2010, to Heritage Place Park and added 4 feet to the structure.

Christmas on Main Street

Following the tree-lighting ceremony, West encourages the community to jingle all the way over to the second annual Christmas on Main Street where the fun will continue with more activities at the Founders Plaza and the businesses on Main Street.

Through the collaboration between the City of Conroe and the Conroe Downtown Area Association, Christmas on Main Street aims to bring a family fun event to residents to kick off the most wonderful time of the year.

The community will have a chance to visit with Santa at Mimis on Main and also write letters to Santa on Simonton by Edward Jones. The Conroe Art League will have their doors open on Simonton at the Madeley Building with surprises, costumed characters will be at the Owen Theatre with wassail and Christmas treats. Reindeer food will be available at the Conroe Central Market where an inflatable will be set up out front on Thompson Street and on Main Street in front of the Montgomery County Courthouse.

Hot chocolate will be at Edward Jones, Brownlees, Pixie on Main. The community can also visit Branding Iron Custom Goods, Conroe Coffee and Carleys Mercantile on Main, which will also have surprises. Food vendors will be at the parking lot across the street from the Owen Theatre, including Carmelitas Tamales and Divine Dogs. Theres a chance to see Mr. and Mrs. Snowman or an Elf strolling through the streets.

Information tables equipped with maps of designated activities and participating venues will be available.

Our goal is to have a free family event like what you may see on a Hallmark movie, stated Event Coordinator Margie Taylor who also shared that planning began even earlier this year.

The streets will be closed off throughout Simonton, Main, and Metcalf in Downtown, with limited mobility on San Jacinto and Thompson streets. Hay rides and carriage rides will board individuals on San Jacinto Street by Heritage Park for a round trip or one-way trip to Founders Plaza Park on San Jacinto Street. Founders Park will be the site of the Jazz Connection and Montgomery County Choral Society with Christmas selections beginning promptly at 7 p.m.

Christmas carolers, Mr. and Mrs. Snowman, costumed characters will encourage participants at the park to stroll the two blocks down Simonton or Metcalf towards the festivities at the downtown shops and at Founders Plaza Park. The information booths at Heritage Park entrance, the corner of Main/Simonton, and Main/Metcalf will have wooden tokens to vote on window displays from participating merchants. Participants will be able to choose their favorite window by dropping a wooden coin into the decorated gift box outside their favorite window display, according to event coordinators.

Tickets will also be available to enter a drawing at 8:15 p.m. for two bicycles and a few other prizes. All tickets must be taken to Founders Plaza Park to be included in the drawing and you must be present to win.
Napkins sat directly on the floor. Ants crawled behind a counter. Employees ignored gloves.

Those were just some of the violations Houston health inspectors logged from Nov. 12 to Nov. 19, which also included the typical findings of roaches and rodent droppings at some restaurants.

THE PREVIOUS WEEK: 28 live cockroaches found in Houston restaurant during health inspections from Nov. 5 to Nov. 12

Each week, inspectors distribute violations that carry a weight between 1 and 25, increasing in severity. The term "demerit" is used by city health inspectors to describe the weighted value assigned to each violation.

The Houston Chronicle obtained the results of routine health inspections throughout the city and tallied each restaurant's demerits for a comprehensive list of violations.

To view inspection reports online or learn more about food inspections, visit the health department website.

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
The Tomball city council approved two rezoning requests for a private school and an electric generating substation on Monday.

DFlex Power, LLC is seeking to build a natural gas substation that would generate power on demand while the Great Oak School is looking to expand its campus.

Generator substation

DFlex Power CEO Tim Hertel told the council that having a reliable source of power in northwest Harris County is important for residents.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, an agency that manages the states electric grid would need additional power to the grid to continue to provide steady service, he said.

Power is critical. Water, Internet, food and power are most of the necessities of modern life. ERCOT is in big trouble in 2021 with the amount of power thats available. This would provide a local source of energy that Tomball can use on demand if called upon by ERCOT, Hertel said.

The substation is expected to be located on a 3-acre property on South Pitchford Road near Lizzie Lane.

The council approved a request to rezone the property as light industrial instead of agricultural.

The station will be unmanned and is expected to be used on-demand as needed when the grid is not producing enough power, Hertel said.

The natural gas engines are anticipated to run between 500 to 1,000 hours a year and produce up to 18.7 megawatts.

The substation is expected to be built in mid-2019 and the connection lines will be provided by Centerpoint Energy.

Itll take 12 months to build, but we expect to be online in May of 2020, Hertel said.

Private school campus expansion

The council also approved a request by Great Oak School by granting it a conditional use permit so that it can build its new campus in an undeveloped lot on 23730 Lovett St.

The school currently has about 100 students enrolled from pre-kindergarten to seventh grade and will teach eighth grade students next year, said JR Batek, a member of the Great Oak Schools board of trustees.

Our preschool is full, with a waiting list. Our parent-child class is full with a waiting list and our kindergarten is full. Were growing. Were excited about our future, but we just need a little bit more space, he said.

The Great Oak School will gradually begin teaching up to 12th grade and have up to 350 students on the new campus.

The private, nonprofit school is currently located at 713 Carrell St. and has been leasing the property from the Good Shepherd Episcopal church for about a decade.

The location of the new school will be about a quarter of a mile away so that families dont leave.

We read studies where you lose up to a third of your student body, your families if you move more than five miles away from your current location. We want to keep them in our community, keep them in our family. Theyre very important to us, Batek said.

mayra.cruz@chron.com
MOBILE, Ala. - The Alabama School of the Arts at University of Mobile will host an art exhibit and art talk featuring Kentucky artist Randy Simmons on Dec. 6 in Martin Hall Art Gallery on campus.

The artist talk will begin at 11 a.m., with a reception to follow. Works by Simmons will be on display through Dec 6 and exhibit hours are Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The campus is located at 5735 College Pkwy, Mobile, Alabama 36613.

Simmons teaches drawing classes at Paducah School of Art & Design in West Kentucky.

"My work is mostly autobiographical with much inspiration coming from my two teenage boys," Simmons said. He said he works "with social/political themes, relationship themes as well as being inspired by my own childhood."

Simmons graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1988 from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. He went out to earn a Master of Arts in drawing at Murry State in 1991, then a Master of Fine Arts in drawing at University of Cincinnati in 1995.

University of Mobile offers a Bachelor of Arts in art, Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio design, and Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design. For information about academic programs or upcoming art exhibits, contact Associate Professor of Art Phillip Counselman, chair of the art department, at 251.442.2283 or pcounselman@umobile.edu.

About University of Mobile

University of Mobile is a Christ-centered liberal arts and sciences institution with a vision of higher education for a higher purpose, founded to honor God by equipping students for their future professions through rigorous academic preparation and spiritual transformation. Core values are: Christ-Centered, Academically-Focused, Student-Devoted and Distinctively-Driven. The university offers on-campus and online bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs in over 90 areas of study. Founded in 1961, University of Mobile is affiliated with the Alabama Baptist State Convention and is located 10 miles north of Mobile, Alabama on a campus of over 880 acres.

For more information about University of Mobile, visit the website at www.umobile.edu or call Enrollment Services at 1.800.WIN.RAMS or 251.442.2222.
[November 20, 2018] European Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market Report 2018 DUBLIN, Nov 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "European Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market, Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The European hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) market continues on a strong growth trajectory that is creating value for businesses and growth opportunities for service providers. Continued Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) decommissioning is creating opportunities to move businesses to Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications solutions, including line-side voice over IP (VoIP) access, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking, cloud private branch exchange (PBX) and UCaaS. Other factors driving hosted services adoption in Europe include the following: Expanding choices due to proliferation of service offerings by domestic and international providers

Improved service functionality and reliability, as well as better user and admin experiences

Compelling solution packaging and pricing (including bundling with mobile voice and data plans) Most European markets remain less fragmented than the US market. Many national telecom carriers hold leading positions in their domestic hosted IP telephony and UCaaS markets. However, competition is intensifying in most European countries due to the influx of market participants responding to rising demand for next-generation cloud communications solutions.



To better compete in a growing and gradually maturing space, service providers are enhancing their UCaaS solutions and broader portfolios, as well as engaging in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) often involving international (primarily US-based) service providers looking for access to European channels and customers. M&A activity is also sometimes driven by the need to enhance overall service provider market positions, expand geographic footprints or gain technological synergies.



Price pressures will help boost adoption, but will restrain revenue growth rates. Despite price declines providers will continue to experience double-digit revenue growth rates over the next seven years. Other factors that will negatively affect market growth rates include the following: Continued customer concerns over the reliability and security of cloud communications

Large investments in premises-based solutions that still deliver value

Decision-maker confusion about vendor technology roadmaps and strategies Research Scope



This study discusses important customer, competitive andtechnology trends in the European hosted IP telephony and UCaaS market. It identifies key growth opportunities and service provider success strategies. It also provides a market size estimate, as well as installed base and provider revenue forecasts. Furthermore, this study includes a provider market share and competitive position analysis.





Market participants - platform vendors, service providers, channel partners and IT/telecom decision makers - can leverage this study to develop sustainable business strategies and gain share in the European hosted IP telephony and UCaaS market. They can benchmark their solutions portfolios and market approaches against customer requirements and competitor achievements. They can also receive valuable insights on opportunities to differentiate and enhance customer value. Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary Key Findings

Market Engineering Measurements

CEO's Perspective 2. Market Overview Market Definitions

Key Questions This Research Service Will Answer

Market Readiness

Market Overview-Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Ecosystem

Market Overview-Distribution Channels

Market Distribution Channels Discussion

Channel SWOT Analysis 3. External Challenges: Drivers and Restraints-Total Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market Market Drivers

Top IT Challenges Faced by European Businesses in 2017

Top Drivers for IT Investment Among European Businesses from 2018-2019

Top Cloud Benefits for IT and Communications Solutions Perceived By European Businesses

Market Restraints

Top Risks of Using the Cloud for IT & Communications Solutions Perceived by European Businesses 4. Forecasts and Trends-Total Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market Forecast Assumptions

Installed Base and Revenue Forecast

Installed Users and Revenue Forecast Discussion

Pricing Trends and Forecast

Pricing Trends and Forecast Discussion

Demand Analysis

Demand Analysis Discussion

Plans for Moving Applications to the Cloud 5. Market Share and Competitive Analysis-Total Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market Market Share

Competitive Environment

Select Service Providers and Platform Vendors

Competitive Factors and Assessment

Decision-Making Factors When Selecting a Cloud Provider 6. Growth Opportunities and Companies to Action Market Disruption

Growth Opportunity 1-Cloud Contact Center

Growth Opportunity 2-Mobile-first Strategy

Growth Opportunity 3-Advanced Collaboration

Growth Opportunity 5-Mid-Market and Large Enterprise

Growth Opportunity 6-Micro-Businesses

Growth Opportunity 7-Channel Development

Growth Opportunity 8-Outsource Technology Expertise

Growth Opportunity 9-Optimize Internal Processes

Growth Opportunity 10-User Adoption Services

Growth Opportunity 11-International Expansion

Growth Opportunity 12-Analytics Tools

Growth Opportunity 13-Customer Portal

Growth Opportunity 14-Tailored Packaging & Pricing

Growth Opportunity 15-Improved Customer Retention

Growth Opportunity 16-Hybrid Architectures

Growth Opportunity 17-Adjacencies/Up-sell/Cross-Sell

Growth Opportunity 18-AI Boosts User and Customer Value

Growth Opportunity 19-The New UC

Growth Opportunity 20-Digital Customer Engagement

Growth Opportunity 21-Vertical Strategies

Growth Opportunity 22-Cloud Migration Flexibility and Incentives

Growth Opportunity 23-Freemium Offers and Free Trials

Growth Opportunity 24-A Transformation Partner

Growth Opportunity 25-Services Localization 7. Country and Sub-region Analysis-Total Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market Installed Users by Region

Germany , France and the UK

, and the UK Italy and Spain

and Belgium , Netherlands and Luxembourg

, and The Nordics

The Rest of Western Europe

Central and Eastern Europe

Legal Disclaimer 8. Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rxzwwx/european_hosted?w=5



Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/european-hosted-ip-telephony-and-ucaas-market-report-2018-300753681.html SOURCE Research and Markets

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A homebuilder seeks to have one of its properties annexed by Tomball, and Tomball ISD will move forward on constructing an agriculture barn, after city council approved support for both on Monday.

Support for annexation

The council approved a resolution of support for homebuilder Trendmaker Homes, which is seeking to release a 119-acre property from the city of Houstons extraterritorial jurisdiction.

Once released, the property  located southwest of FM 2920 and Telge Road  can then be accepted into Tomballs ETJ.

Tomball city manager Robert Hauck said if Trendmaker Homes doesnt ultimately seek annexation by Tomball, the agreement can be reversed.

What the city of Houston, what they are going to do, and we totally agree with the staff, is theyre going to build in a reversion agreement. If they (Trendmaker Homes) do not follow through with annexation, they will be reverted back to the city of Houstons ETJ, he said.

Hauck said the city has previously encountered a business refusal to follow through with seeking annexation into Tomballs ETJ. The reversion agreement would help prevent this from happening again.

Tomball ISD ag barn

The council approved an ordinance that would allow Tomball ISD to move forward on building an agriculture barn at Tomball High School.

The barn is one of the projects the district plans to build as part of its $275 million bond approved by voters in 2017.

The barn is expected to cost $7.1 million.

Currently, only Tomball Memorial High School has an agriculture barn where livestock raised by the students are housed.

The districts board of trustees recently allowed superintendent Martha Salazar-Zamora to complete contract negotiations for $1.5 million in renovations to Tomball Intermediate School as well as $48.2 million in additions and a $15 million natatorium at Tomball Memorial High School.

mayra.cruz@chron.com
The Woodlands community officially kicked off the holiday season with the annual Lighting of the Doves ceremony Nov. 17. Thousands showed up to play in the snow area, listen to Santa read and, of course, watch as the LED doves were lit to signify the start of the holiday season in the community.

While official numbers have not yet been released, Nick Wolda, director of Community Relations for The Woodlands Township, said this years crowd at Lighting of the Doves was the most its been in recent years.

We had a perfect scenario of weather leading up to the event and during the event, Wolda said. It made for a magical arrival of Santa Claus via his sleigh boat and tremendous fireworks show. We appreciate our performers and community participants in making this years Lighting of the Doves successful.

The Woodlands Township has a slate of festive activities scheduled for the month of December.

Were pleased to offer many holiday activities for our residents, Wolda said. Holidays are a magical time in The Woodlands, from all the great events to the festive decor of the doves and lights in trees throughout the town.

Holiday events sold out quickly in 2017, so residents are encouraged to register as soon as possible. Below are just a few of the dozens of ways residents can share in the holiday spirit and cheer.

Flashlight Candy Cane Hunt

The Woodlands Township Parks and Recreation Department will host a Flashlight Candy Cane Hunt from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 14, and Thursday, Dec. 20, at Terramont Park, 8500 Terramont Drive. Hot cocoa and cookies will be served at the event. Entrance fee is $10 for residents and $15 for non-resident. There is a $5 discount price for siblings.

The Parks and Recreation Department also will host a Flashlight Candy Cane Hunt from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 15, at The Lodge at Rob Fleming Park and Saturday, Dec. 22, at The Recreation Center at Rob Fleming Park.

This event is for ages 5 through 15 years old. Participants in Flashlight Candy Cane Hunts must register online at https://bit.ly/2PBt8QO and bring their own flashlight.

Ugly Sweater Making

Got a holiday party coming up that needs a particular look? Bring a sweater to The Recreation Center at Rob Fleming Park and staff members will help make it ugly for your ugly sweater party. Enjoy crafting while drinking hot cocoa from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 16. All supplies are provided except the sweater. A prize will be awarded to the ugliest sweater made. This event is for ages 9 and older. The fee is $20 for residents and $25 for non-residents.

Feliz Navi Dog

Residents are invited to bring their fur baby out to Bear Branch Dog Park for a treat hunt and holiday pooch pageant from 3 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 16. Pet owners can enjoy hot cocoa while the dogs socialize. Pets can participate in two out of the five categories: best behaved, best trick, smallest, largest, and best costume. Bear Branch Park is located at 5310 Research Forest Drive.

For a list of holiday events hosted by The Woodlands Township, see the calendar at http://thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/calendar.aspx. To register for events go to www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/signupforfun or call 281-516-7348.

Holiday Lighting and Decorating Contest

The Woodlands Township invites residents to join in the fun of the annual Holiday Lighting and Decorating Contest this December. Each village association coordinates their own contest, including dates and publicity, with support from The Woodlands Township and The Woodlands Fire Department.

There are two categories of awards: Best Home in the village and Best Neighborhood in the village. A neighborhood is broadly defined as a few homes located in close proximity, or an entire cul-de-sac or subdivision. Best Home prizes include a yard sign and plaque. A yard sign and passes to The Ice Rink will be awarded to Best Neighborhood.

During decorating, keep in mind the following notes from the Residential Development Standards: 

Seasonal displays must be limited in scope and not become a nuisance or annoyance to the neighborhood. 

Winter holiday decorations and lights must be taken down by Jan. 15.

Members of each village association serve as contest judges. The selection of winners is left to the sole discretion of the judges. Check each village associations website for more details.

Information in this article was compiled from press releases and The Woodlands Township website.
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.
Eleanor Montague, a Houston radiation oncologist who helped pioneer breast-conserving cancer therapy at a time when women were mostly only offered radical mastectomy, died earlier this month. She was 92.

Montague, a rare woman in cancer care in the 1960s, was an advocate of patient participation in treatment as well as an early proponent for the combined use of surgery and radiation in the treatment of tumors of the breast, an approach she implemented at MD Anderson Cancer Center before it later became standard care everywhere.

She was a pioneer in two ways, said James Olson, a Sam Houston State University history professor and the author of Making Cancer History: Disease & Discovery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She pioneered combination therapy and she paved the way for women to enter and thrive in cancer care.

She was inducted to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

Montague was also instrumental in MD Andersons leading role in the general use of combination therapy, including chemotherapy, in the 70s and 80s, said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, former chairman of the centers department of breast medical oncology. He cited Montagues moderating influence when other disciplines resistance to chemotherapys then new role in treatment made for heated discussions.

Hortobagyi said Montagues great quality was to provide the 30,000-feet view in the middle of discussions in which she didnt have any particular interest.

She was so calm and even keeled, said Hortobagyi, who describes Montague as one of his mentors. Shed have a way of suggesting something was worth trying, reminding us we were there to progress for the sake of patients, that defused arguments.

Hortobagyi said Montague doesnt get enough credit for ushering in the era in which breast cancer no longer had to be treated by radical mastectomy. He said the practice-changing 70s randomized studies that showed partial mastectomy and radiation is just as effective as radical mastectomys disfiguring total removal of the breast and chest muscle were influenced and informed by earlier studies Montague conducted, based on treatment at MD Anderson.

Montague never made the front page of newspapers, but one moment of fame occurred in 1985, when she mixed it up with one of of the leading proponents of radical mastectomy on Nightline. Describing her uncharacteristic no-holds-barred performance on the show, daughter Melanie Trent Montague says her mother kicked his posterior, in slightly more colloquial language.

Montague flew to Taiwan to treat Madame Chiang Kai-shek in the late 1970s. The younger Montague said that because the family wouldnt let her use ink to mark the treatment areas, her mother thought shed done a terrible job and wasnt proud of her work. Melanie said she must not have done too badly because her patient lived to be 105.

Olson said Montague remains a hero to female oncologists, who saw a future in the cancer care because of her example. He noted how she earned great respect at an institution and in a field so dominated by men when she arrived at MD Anderson in 1959 and throughout the 60s and 70s.

Montague was born Eleanor Dino on Feb. 11, 1926 in Genoa, Italy, and grew up in Pennsylvania. She got a bachelors degree in biology from the University of Alabama and her M.D. from the Womans Medical College of Pennsylvania. During her residency at Kings County Hospital, she was one of only two women, both forced to house in a former dormitory for nurses about to be torn down. Melanie said her mother described the other trainee as the real pioneer because she was black and a woman.

Montague met her husband, Dr. Meredith Montague III, while working at the hospitals ER. She overheard him say he would never marry a woman doctor. They married a few years later.

The couple worked in Japan for two years while he was stationed at a MASH unit there before coming to Houston. He went into private practice and she went to work for MD Anderson.

Among Montagues many awards were the American Radium Societys Janeway Medal, the Radiological Society of Americas Gold Medal and the American Society for Radiation Oncologys Gold Medal for Distinguished and Extraordinary Service. She was also the American Association for Women Radiologists Marie Curie Recipient.

Montague is survived by four children and seven grandchildren. Meredith Montague died in 2002.

todd.ackerman@chron.com

twitter.com/chronmed
As a Houston family buried their son  slain Lamar High School student DeLindsey Mack  police reports revealed that his mother warned police at least twice that a gang was threatening him.

One of those threats was believed to be from the 103 Boys street gang in the Third Ward, where 18-year-old DeLindsey used to attend Yates High School. The December 2016 complaint was the first of at least two lodged by the mother, according to police reports obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

In the 2016 report, when DeLindsey was just 16, his mother told an officer that at least one person affiliated with the gang was harassing her son. The officer classified the incident as a gang crime.

The gang identified in the police report emerged in Houston Chronicle reports in 2016 but does not appear on a public list of Houston area gangs managed by federal and local law enforcement.

ALERT: 'There's a gang war going on right now in Houston,' says police chief.

DeLindseys mother dialed police again nearly two years later, according to the second report. On April 24 of this year, a document shows two suspects associated with a 2002 Lincoln-Continental threatened her sons life. The report was not listed as gang-related.

The nature of each threat was not elaborated in either of the police reports. During both calls, the mother alerted authorities to the threats from their Meyerland home along Brays Bayou.

DeLindsey was homeschooled for two years and then transferred to Lamars River Oaks campus. He was gunned down last week a block from the school as a family friend waited to pick him up. The assailant fired about a dozen shots and continued to shoot the teen as he lay dying on the pavement.

Houston police Executive Assistant Chief Troy Finner said the fatal shooting was possibly gang-related and that DeLindsey was likely targeted. No arrests in the case have been reported.

A police helicopter on Tuesday morning hovered over the Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church as DeLindseys funeral took place with more than a thousand mourners. He was buried at a cemetery in Pearland.

The teens family declined to speak to members of the press after the service, while a spokesman for the Macks, Pastor D.Z. Cofield, could not be reached to discuss the police reports.

During a news conference Monday, DeLindseys father, Dwight Mack, told reporters his son was by no means a gang member even though private messages and images he posted to Instagram portrayed him as such. In one photo, DeLindsey brandished a handgun and a wad of cash.

The elder Mack said he and the teens mother were unaware of their sons social media activity until they began combing through his accounts after his death.

Cofield said DeLindsey was a big talker, but not the gang member he made himself out to be. He participated in youth ministry at his Good Hope church.

Anybody who knew him, knew he was not, Cofield said Monday.

nicole.hensley@chron.com

st.john.smith@chron.com

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Three suspects evaded police after breaking into a food store in east Houston on Wednesday morning, according to Metro Video.

The Houston Police Department responded to a burglary at the Sunny Food Store on Centerwood at Dawnwood at 3:30 a.m.
AUSTIN  Special prosecutors assigned to build a case against Attorney General Ken Paxton can't be paid the $300 an hour they were promised, the state's top criminal court ruled Wednesday, leaving Paxtons personal legal case involving charges of securities fraud in limbo.

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled a trial court in Collin County exceeded its authority when agreeing to pay special prosecutors more than a county-approved fee schedule to represent the state in its criminal case against the attorney general. The appeals court told a trial court judge in Harris County to issue a new order dictating how much to pay the special prosecutors.

Ultimately, what amounts to good or bad policy is not up to this Court to decide, read the ruling from Judge David Newell. If the application of the statute at issue seems too harsh in this case, it is up to our Legislature to decide if and how to address it.

According to court records, Collin County limits pay to attorneys to a fixed fee of $1,000 for first-degree felony pleas, $500 for third-degree pleas, $1,000 for pretrial preparation and $500 for each half-day of trial. Special prosecutors billed the county about $200,000 in 2017. The appeals court said it didnt have to be paid.

The special prosecutors have hinted they would quit representing the state in the case if not paid. Such a decision would derail or delay Paxtons criminal trial as the court searches for replacements who will agree to the limited pay schedule.

Special prosecutors have not returned calls seeking comment but wrote in an e-mailed statement they are considering their next steps.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Attorney General Ken Paxton beats out Justin Nelson in close race

While we are disappointed with the majority's ruling and are exploring all legal options available to us, it does not alter the fact that Ken Paxton remains charged with three serious felony offenses, read the statement.

Paxton was indicted in 2015 in Collin County, his home county north of Dallas. The charges stem from claims, before he was elected attorney general in 2014, that he persuaded friends and colleagues to invest in a North Texas tech company without disclosing he would make a commission. He is charged with two counts of first-degree felony securities fraud and a third-degree felony for failing to register with the state as an investment advisor. He narrowly won re-election in November.

While this was a lawsuit brought by Collin County, Attorney General Paxton is extremely grateful for the courts decision, said Jordan Berry, Paxtons spokesman. The rule of law must always prevail.

A trio of special prosecutors was appointed to build a case against Paxton after the Collin County district attorney recused himself because he had a personal relationship with Paxton. A trial judge agreed to pay Houston lawyers Brian Wice, Kent Schaffer and Nichole DeBorde $300 an hour to handle the case, a fee the lawyers argue is reasonable for the unusual circumstances of a complex case.

Paxton and his allies in Collin County brought lawsuits to stop paying the special prosecutors, arguing the fee exceeded local limits.

The court declined to determined whether the $300 per hour fee was reasonable, but found that state law bars trial courts from busting caps on locally approved fee schedules. The fee for the team of lawyers should be the same amount as an attorney providing indigent defense, the court ruled.

Wice, one of the special prosecutors who appealed the issue, said last year that denying their payment would have a chilling effect on trial judges ability to appoint qualified lawyers to complex cases.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Gov. Abbott pours $350,000 into Attorney General Ken Paxtons campaign

The outcome of a criminal case should not depend upon how much money a defendant has. But that is not the application of the statute we are dealing with here, read the ruling, with Newell adding, any possible constitutional concerns present in an indigent defense case are not present in this case.

Three judges disagreed with the ruling, writing dissenting opinions. A fourth judge wrote an opinion both concurring and dissenting.

The Courts decision today will likely affect an overwhelming number of criminal cases in Texas and will possibly result in even more claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for indigent defendants, wrote Judge Elsa Alcala in her 29-page dissent.

The Collin County Commissioners Court, which paid the special prosecutors $242,000 in 2016, will likely consider whether to fight to get some of the money back in light of the ruling, said Judge Keith Self, who oversees the commissioners court.

If the appeals court had basically said that something was not legal, what choice do we have but to try to do whats right by our taxpayers, said Self. Under the ruling, he said, the special prosecutors will be capped at the locally approved fees.

Paxton was supposed to go to trial in December 2017, but the appeal put his case on hold. Manny Garcia, executive director for the Texas Democratic Party, argued the delay is part of an orchestrated effort to benefit Paxton.

The Republican Court of Criminal Appeals just shut down resources for the investigation of the Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton who is indicted on felony fraud and out on bond. This comes after Republican state lawmakers told Republican Collin County Commissioners to stop paying for the investigation. In the dictionary, this sort of behavior from government is called corruption and obstruction of justice, Garcia said.
I had a medical marijuana card for nearly two years before I worked up the nerve to buy legal weed. Living in laid-back Vermont, I had access to a friend's homegrown herb, which my husband used to make me cannabis-infused coconut butter in the family Crock-Pot.

Applying the butter topically soothed my chronic pelvic pain and relieved symptoms of the debilitating bladder syndrome that had plagued me for a decade and warranted the card. Occasionally, I ingested a tiny lick of butter during a flare-up - an imprecise home remedy. I savored the full-body relaxation that followed but loathed the disorienting mental side effects.

I'd been a cannabis skeptic from the start: I never much liked getting high for fun, tending to feel nervous and paranoid rather than happy and chill. I also carried childhood shame about catching my mom smoking a little pipe in secret - the strange pungent smell, her altered state, her mortified reaction when I walked in on her. And I worried that using more cannabis would alter me in turn, distance me from my children and prevent good parenting.

How wrong I was.

It turns out the costs of living with chronic pain and depression are far greater than the risks of using medical marijuana to help those conditions. This past summer, although I was physically pain-free, a sudden depression knocked me to the ground. Crippled by anxiety and insomnia, I struggled to get out of bed and function for my two daughters, ages 10 and 12, who had both experienced some depression themselves. I'd read in Scientific American that mood disorders are passed genetically from mother to daughter, and I feared what my girls would learn from watching me break down in tears or lash out in rage. Even in the fog of despair, I knew taking care of myself was essential to my ability to take care of them.

When my therapist-husband gave me Victoria Costello's memoir, "A Lethal Inheritance: A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Generations of Mental Illness," I took its message to heart: One of the best things a depressed parent can do to help a child prone to mental illness is to treat her own depression.

So I went to my doctor, but all he could offer was a prescription for Ativan, an anti-anxiety med, and an increase in my antidepressant dosage. I was already going to therapy, practicing yoga and exercising regularly. Rather than become dependent on benzodiazepines or suffer more pharmaceutical side effects, I got out my green card and made an appointment at the local dispensary.

The modest office felt like a hippie health spa, with green-and-white decor and posters displaying different plant strains. My consultant, Mike, quickly put me at ease with his cheerful brown eyes and gentle manner. Clad in jeans and plaid flannel, Mike told me that cannabis had been his "exit drug" from opiates, then listened carefully to my history of chronic pain and depressed mood. He explained the healing properties of endocannabinoids and cited a recent study in which cannabis significantly reduced reports of stress, anxiety and depression, especially in women.

Because I didn't like to smoke and wanted minimal psychoactive effects, Mike recommended I try microdosing - taking small amounts of cannabis to reap the therapeutic benefits without getting stoned. I took home a tin of indica-dominant butter-mints, some salted caramel gummies and a high-CBD oral tincture. (Indica strains of cannabis tend to be more sedating and relaxing; CBD, or cannabidiol, is a non-psychoactive cannabis compound with anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties.) The sativa-strain gummies were strangely activating and made me irritable, but even one tiny buttermint allowed me a blissful night's sleep. And the oral tincture proved the holy grail - one dropper-full to relieve anxiety and sustain a mellow relaxation for hours. Within a week, I felt my depression lighten, and for the first time all summer, I could laugh with my family.

Stigmas and false stereotypes have surrounded marijuana use since the 1930s, when it was classified a federal Schedule 1 substance, like heroin. Maybe because of this disrepute, I never expected the gifts of cannabis to go beyond symptom relief. But I've discovered that the plant slows me down and tunes me in, softens my competitive edges. When I microdose, I experience a heightened sense of gratitude and patience, as well as lighthearted humor. Joining the kids on the couch for a lovefest with the dog or playing a family game of cards, I feel more present, more grounded in my body, free from mental agitation.

Other mothers have told me they enjoy these benefits, too. Jane Lanza, a yoga teacher certified in cannabis science and medicine through the University of Vermont's Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine, says she sees cannabis as a healthier alternative to the socially accepted "wine mom" culture, especially when taken in small amounts.

"The cannabis medicine we use is the feminized version of the plant," Lanza told me at a canna-wellness retreat I attended with my husband, adding that cannabis growers cull the male plants and use the flowering female plants for the cannabinoids they produce.

"The spirit of healing I receive from medical cannabis is nurturing and supportive," Lanza said. "It amplifies positive feelings for me, so I experience greater love, patience and compassion when it comes to my kids."

I hope that, by speaking honestly about my own use, more women will come out of the cannabis closet, a crucial step toward ending the stigma. While I'm grateful for my medical card, I recognize how my white privilege and economic advantages play into my access to cannabis. Marijuana prohibition has racist origins, and the criminalization of cannabis continues to disproportionally affect people of color. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, black people are 3.7 times as likely as whites to be arrested for marijuana. It's ironic and unjust that many mothers of color are in prison for using the same plant that has benefited me.

Meanwhile, the tide of legalization keeps rising. Although federal law still classifies marijuana as an illegal drug, 10 states plus the District have legalized recreational cannabis, while 33 states and the District now allow adult medical use. To our north, Canada just became the first major industrialized nation to fully legalize cannabis.

Clearly, we're starting to dispel the shame and secrecy around cannabis. This means I don't have to hide in a backroom with a secret pipe, like my mother did. My daughters see the green, zipped lock-bag where I keep my tinctures and edibles. They know I take the medicine to help with pain, depression and anxiety, and I've talked to them about microdosing for symptom relief - using the substance consciously, rather than as a form of escapism. "It's a healing plant for grown-ups, and for kids with epilepsy," I say. "But it has negative effects on adolescent brains, so please wait to try it."

Lanza told me that for cannabis to work therapeutically, it takes an "alchemy of all the right factors" - the right time in your life, plus the right strain, method of ingestion, environment and time of day. All these factors have come together for me in my 40s, and I'm a better mother because of it. Still, I don't relate to the stoner stereotype. I've never been a "wine mom," and I don't feel like a "weed mom," either. I'm ready to embrace a new kind of cannabis culture, free from stigma and judgment, where the plant's healing benefits are studied and shared, and the medicine is available to all in need.

Whitney, poetry critic for the San Franciso Chronicle, is the author of "Wanting It," which won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. A yoga teacher, she recently finished a memoir about generational patterns of female silence.
Last Friday afternoon I went to the Belgian restaurant Brasserie Beck, a few blocks down the street from The Washington Post. It was the place I had my last lunch with my friend and Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. I couldn't hold back the tears.

That evening, The Post reported that the CIA had concluded with "high confidence" that Jamal's Oct. 2 murder by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

There has been mounting evidence of the crown prince's culpability. U.S. intelligence officials have said MBS, as the crown prince is called, plotted to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia back to Saudi Arabia to detain him. Close advisers to the crown prince, including the notorious Saud al-Qahtani, have been directly implicated in the murder. Analysts and officials from around the world have said that such an extensive operation could not have happened without the crown prince's knowledge. A State Department official said it is "blindingly obvious" that MBS ordered Khashoggi's killing. Despite all of this, President Donald Trump has repeated that MBS has denied the killing. Over the weekend, he called the CIA report "premature." Trump refuses to personally listen to the audio tape of Khashoggi's killing, but admits that the tape is vicious.

In a juvenile, clumsy White House statement on Tuesday full of falsehoods, Trump repeated the Saudi lie that Jamal was an "enemy of a state" and that the "United States would stand steadfastly by Saudi Arabia," even though its regime lured, killed and dismembered a peaceful Post op-ed writer who lived in Virginia.

In effect, Trump is doing his best to help the Saudi regime get away with the murder of a U.S. resident and one of the Arab world's most prominent writers. If the administration continues down this path, it will further destroy whatever is left of America's moral credibility on global human rights and freedom of expression. It puts truth-seekers and journalists who dare challenge the Saudi regime and other intolerant governments in grave danger, no matter where they live. Trump's refusal to act gives a symbolic green light to the young, power-drunk Mohammed bin Salman so he can continue his reckless exploits in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world, for possibly the next 40 to 50 years, and face zero consequences.

"If we allow a murderer to get away because we think we can make some deals with him, we are just reinforcing the idea that money can silence everybody", says Abdullah Alaoudh, a senior scholar at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. "And this is the dangerous message that created Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi. We can better protect the good relationship with Saudi Arabia in the long run through building a relationship with the Saudi people, institutions and even the majority of the royal family. Or we can risk losing all that by protecting one powerful individual who has been implicated in a horrible crime."

The Saudi regime has scrambled to spin Jamal's killing, changing its story multiple times. The Saudi regime has undermined itself, proving to the world that it would rather hide behind lies, rather than correct its mistakes and choose a more tolerant, peaceful path. Pro-Saudi-regime voices, including the president's son Eric Trump, have argued that the death of one journalist should not destroy the U.S.-Saudi relationship. But voices are failing to frame the issue properly.

As an oil exporter, U.S.-Saudi relationship will continue; rather it is the United States' open praise and support for the crown prince that must come to an end. Jamal's death, while heinous and personally painful for his colleagues, family and friends, is just the latest alarming symptom of MBS's political recklessness. In the past two years, under the crown prince's rapid ascent to power, scores of peaceful reformers and human rights campaigners (including elderly women) have been jailed. Many have been tortured; Amnesty International reported that imprisoned female activists have faced sexual harassment. The kingdom tried to blockade Qatar. It kidnapped Lebanon's prime minister and broke off diplomatic relations with Canada over tweets.

The darkly ironic argument that the United States should allow MBS to get away with murder just so it can continue to sell military equipment to Saudi Arabia is as morally craven as it is foolish policy. The Saudi-led coalition along with the United Arab Emirates has orchestrated a disastrous war in Yemen, triggering the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. Militarily, the war has been a failure. Despite U.S. training of Saudi forces and their use of American weapons, the Saudi forces have not made any significant headway against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The most newsworthy target that the Saudis managed to hit in recent months with U.S. weaponry wasn't a Houthi stronghold: It was a school bus full of Yemeni children.

There are those who argue that MBS should stay in the interests of "stability." But we have seen this movie before. From Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo to Augusto Pinochet in Chile, dictators supported by elites in Western capitals have terrorized their citizens and destabilized their regions. The peoples of these countries are told by these same governments to grin and bear their own repression, because the alternative is supposedly worse. In the case of Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi dared to declare in his work that Saudi Arabia's citizens deserved better than Mohammed bin Salman's repression. He was killed for it, because he was right.

From Trump's failure to condemn white supremacist violence in Charlotesville to mocking a sexual assault victim, there have been many low points of this presidency. But turning a blind eye to the butchering of a U.S.-based journalist just may be one of the lowest. It is time for Congress to act and impose consequences for Saudi Arabia's dangerous behavior, from Yemen to its bloody repression of peaceful critics. For if we do not, Khashoggi's death will be a blood stain on America's moral conscience that neither time, nor Saudi hush money, will ever erase.

Attiah is The Washington Post's Global Opinions editor. She writes on international affairs and social issues. Previously, she reported from Curacao, Ghana and Nigeria.
On Nov. 1, approximately 1,500 Google employees collectively protested inadequate handling of sexual misconduct claims related to two executives. At 11:10 a.m. local time, at more than two dozen Google offices worldwide, employees walked away from their desks, leaving behind a flyer that read:

Hi. Im not at my desk because Im walking out in solidarity with other Googlers and contractors to protest sexual harassment, misconduct, lack of transparency, and a workplace culture thats not working for everyone. Ill be back at my desk later. I walked out for real change.

The protest was sparked by a New York Times report detailing how Alphabet CEO Larry Page asked Android co-founder Andy Rubin to resign following sexual assault allegations  and awarded him a $90 million exit package and a supportive statement from Page. The flames were fueled when the same New York Times story revealed that former senior vice president of search, Amit Singhal, received a similarly large severance and that Google X director Rich DeVaul was allowed to remain in his job after sexual misconduct claims, though he resigned immediately after the NYT story published.

Google (which recently removed Dont be evil from its code of conduct) didnt deny the allegations in the NYT report; instead, CEO Sundar Pichai and Vice President of People Operations Eileen Naughton responded by saying the company has fired 48 people for sexual harassment and none of those received exit packages.

Employees request changes to Google's company policy

Protest organizers asked for five concrete changes to Googles company policy:

End forced arbitration in harassment and discrimination cases. Commit to ending pay and opportunity inequity. A publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report. A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct anonymously. Change the executive hierarchy so that Googles chief diversity officer (CDO) reports directly to the CEO, and enable the CDO to make recommendations directly to the board of directors. In addition, appoint an employee representative to Googles board.

Googles response to these sexual misconduct allegations is just the latest in a number of questionable decisions by the company in the past few years. As the NYT reports, Workers have pushed back this year against the companys artificial intelligence work with the Pentagon, saying their work shouldnt be used for warfare. Google eventually decided not to renew its contract with the Pentagon. Employees also rebuked Mr. Pichai and other executives for developing a search engine for China that would censor results. Since then, Google has not moved forward on a search product for China.

And, of course, who can forget The Memo? Google workers said other incidents had raised questions about the companys attitude toward women. Last year, one engineer, James Damore, argued in an internal document that women were biologically less adept at engineering and that personality differences explained the shortage of female leaders at the company. After an outcry, Google executives rejected the memo and fired Mr. Damore, the NYT article reported.

At a 2017 staff meeting, founders Page and Sergey Brin themselves publicly struggled to name any female role models, according to two employees who watched the staff meeting via a video feed.

Mr. Brin tried to recall the name of a woman he had recently met at a company event who had impressed him, the people said. Mr. Page eventually reminded Mr. Brin that the womans name was Gloria Steinem, the feminist writer. Mr. Page said his hero was Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of Google and Alphabet, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly, the article says.

Did I mention that Google removed Dont be evil from its corporate mission and values statement?

While in the short term, the protests seem to have achieved at least one of the desired aims  this week, Google announced it would end forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases  it remains to be seen if the company will deliver on the others.
International aid charity Cafod has announced today that Christine Allen will be its new director.

Allen, who is currently director of policy and public affairs at Christian Aid, will take over from current director Chris Bain in the spring. Bain, who has announced his retirement, will remain in post until Allen takes over.

Allen has been at Christian Aid since 2012. Before that she was executive director of international aid charity Progressio. She has spent a career working in the sector, including a period as campaigns coordinator at Cafod in 1989.

Allen said: Im honoured and delighted to be appointed to this role at Cafod. It feels like coming home. Working for Cafod as a young campaigner, I discovered Catholic social teaching and was hugely inspired and influenced by a church that took action for peace and justice.

"The need for global solidarity today is as great as ever. Cafod, and its thousands of supporters, stands as a powerful witness of love in a world of greed and selfishness, as we seek to end the injustices of poverty, inequality and environmental exploitation. I am immensely proud of Cafod, its work and its role in the global Catholic family and I feel humbled to lead such an important agency of the church.



Bishop John Arnold, chair of Cafod, said, I welcome Christine back to Cafod with great joy. She is a strategic leader whose vision, energy, and deep-rooted faith and commitment to Catholic values, make her specially placed to lead Cafod's journey in the coming years.
Owen Jones at the 2016 Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, speaking at a fringe meeting organised by Labourlist - credit Rwendland

Modern socialists believe that charities are very much needed but their very existence serves to highlight that the current social order has failed, Owen Jones told an audience of charity leaders last night.

The Guardian columnist and political activist used a speech in front of charity leaders to criticise government funding cuts, the Lobbying Act and philanthropy. He also warned against allowing volunteering to take the place of paid work and said public services should be mainly delivered in-house by the state.

Jones was delivering the Hinton Lecture, which is organised annually by NCVO in memory of its former director Nicholas Hinton, on the topic of how charities and volunteering should fit in to the Labour Partys approach.

Existence of charities is a failing

We understand the need for charity in the here and now to exist, he said, but its existence is a failing of our current social order.

He said it is a lack of willpower that means a country as wealthy as the UK still has people in poverty.

A socialist in 2018 believes that the existing social order is so rotten, broken and bankrupt, that it cant be tinkered with, it has to be replaced altogether, he said.

Jones said that many charities do great work and are a lifeline to people, but things like foodbanks should not need to exist.

He urged the sector to work for a society where charity is no longer necessary, though when questioned he said there would always be a role for the sector to campaign, hold government to account and innovate. He said: I am not espousing a totalitarian society.

Charities decimated by funding cuts

Jones criticised the governments austerity programme and Big Society project, saying they had cut off vital funding for many charities over the last decade.

Rather than heralding a new era of charity, many charities dependent on funding from local and central government were decimated across the country, he said.

He particularly highlighted cuts to LGBTQ charities and womens refuges, saying: The devastation inflicted on these charities will inflict misery and pain on people who desperately need support.

Jones also criticised the Lobbying Act and anti-advocacy clauses as measures which prevent charities speaking out, and said a Labour government should get rid of them.

Public services must be delivered in house

Jones called for an end to the outsourcing of public services.

Public services must be delivered in-house by workers with decent salaries, pensions and terms and condition, he said.

He said the state should work with charities, but warned against volunteers being used to replace paid workers.

People's idealism and compassion should be encouraged, but not exploited, he said.

Philanthropy makes the rich look good

Jones criticised corporate and individual philanthropy as ways for the powerful to continue to exert influence as well as minimise their tax burden.

He said: Accountancy firms help deprive the exchequer of billions of pounds which would otherwise go to services, to housing, to combatting poverty and hardship. And yet they can make themselves look compassionate and caring by spending far, far less on charitable projects.

Jones also criticised U2 and Bono of high-profile campaigning while moving the bands tax affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands.

Philanthropy makes the rich look good, but far more money is hidden away from the tax authorities through tax avoidance, he said.

He added: Progressive taxation also ensures that how money is allocated and spent is democratically accountable, rather than dependent on the personal whims and interests of the philanthropist.




When I first learned that there had been a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, two questions immediately came to mind: Is my friends family okay? And how are we, at the Jewish Week, going to cover this event?

Later that day, I learned that my friends father, who is the rabbi of New Light Congregation, one of three congregations housed in the Tree of Life building, had survived the attack. The next day, I boarded a plane to Pittsburgh to report.

My connection to the shooting was not particularly unusual for a Jewish reporter. The Jewish community is small, with everyone connected to one another by fewer degrees of separation than it takes to get to Kevin Bacon. In fact, my proximity was emblematic of the intimacy with which the attack in Pittsburgh affected Jewish communities across the country.

While other reporters went through the motions of reporting on a shootingstories on the details of the shooting, the type of gun used, and speculation as to how this incident would affect the national conversation about gun controlI found myself performing an altogether different role. I, along with reporters from other Jewish publications did the job of ethnic media: we were there as an extension of the national Jewish community, offering comfort to our readers and to our subjects, simply by doing our jobs.

At its best, ethnic media is about bringing out the fullness and the richness of a particular community with cultural competency and knowledge, Yair Rosenberg, a senior writer at Tablet, told me after returning to New York. Ethnic media is designed for this, this is what they do.

MORE FROM CJR: The past and future of Americas black press

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The week was rife with Jewish symbolism that the average reporter might have missed. There was a public recitation of the kaddish, the prayer usually recited by mourners following the passing of a close family member, by an entire crowd assembled at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall on Sunday night. I heard familiar psalms recited in contexts I had never encountered before. The words of psalms 121 and 130, traditionally recited in times of trouble or for healing, instantly connected this tragedy to past Jewish tragedies and to the long history of anti-Semitism. The songs at the protest the day of President Trumps visit ranged from those sung around the campfire at Jewish summer camps to a more recent composition by a rabbi written expressly for Jewish protests such as this. I gave these songs, heard at funerals, prayer services, vigils, and protests, a prominent place in my reporting.

So much of the Jewish communitys response was in the routine acts, the return of the children to the synagogue preschool, now under the watch of an armed guard, the rabbis trying to divine some inspiration to share with their congregants for their weekly sermon on the first Shabbat after the attack. The task of transmitting the feeling of abnormality in the midst of routine, of the ordinary and the extraordinary mixed together, fell to the reporters who were most familiar with that routine, the reporters from Jewish publications.

Ron Kampeas, Washington bureau chief for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, went to a vigil at sundown on the day of the attack. He noticed that the organizers began with havdala, the ceremony marking the transition from Shabbat to the rest of the week. They chose to do a havdala ceremony at the vigil and I wrote about that in my story, he said. I dont know how many people writing about the vigil described havdala or what it meant.

Aiden Pink, deputy news editor at the Forward, made a point of going to services at a local synagogue on Sunday morning, the day after the attack. Being able to talk to the people there, knowing the structure of the service, knowing what was going on, having a shared vocabulary made it easier, said Pink. I work for a place that wants to know what a minyan [prayer quorum] the morning after looks like and would be able to understand the nuances of that.

Armin Rosen, a contributing writer for Tablet who reported from Pittsburgh for over a week, said his stories were meant to convey what it was actually like, minute to minute and hour to hour.

I think what we were able to capture was both the horrific attack but also what this community looked like the day before, Stephanie Butnick, deputy editor of Tablet, told me after returning to New York. What we wanted to show was both the tragedy and the context.

And the community seemed to extend a special generosity to reporters for Jewish publications. I think people liked talking to Jewish publications, said Butnick. In addition to the mainstream media that sort of descended on Pittsburgh, these were voices committed to telling not just the story of another shooting, but what it actually looks like when a Jewish community gets targeted and how terrifying it is for them.

Of course, that familiarity with which reporters for Jewish publications approached the story also posed a challenge. The people I met in Pittsburgh would ask me how I was doing with the understanding that I didnt have the emotional distance of an outsider. It wasnt hard to imagine something like this happening in my own synagogue, or as Rosen put it, there was nothing abstract about this.

When you go in as a reporter, you have your notebook, you have your recorder, you have these things that keep you on the other side of the story, said Butnick. When you put the notebook down, it was an awful thing to see and, though it was important to bear witness as a journalist, it was also really, really hard.

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Shira Hanau is a staff writer at the New York Jewish Week. She spent five days reporting from Pittsburgh in the week after the shooting.
Since reports first emerged in early October that Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident and a columnist for The Washington Post, had been killed inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul by unknown agents of the Saudi government, those outraged by his brutal murder have been waiting for some kind of definitive statement from President Trump about how his government plans to respond to the crime. On Tuesday, they got a statement, but its not likely to appease anyone, except the Saudi Arabian government.

In a nutshell, the Trump administration says it has already done everything it plans to do to punish those responsible for Khashoggis death, by issuing sanctions against 17 Saudi citizens who were reportedly involved in killing the Post columnist and allegedly dismembering his body. And what about a CIA document that reportedly says Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the murder? The statement from the president dismisses this with a metaphorical wave of the hand, saying US intelligence agencies continue to assess all information about the killing, so maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

For the Trump White House, the most important thing about Saudi Arabia is not that its rulers appear to have ordered the extra-judicial killing of a journalist, or that it is arguably guilty of serious crimes against the people of Yemen (and against its own people). The most important fact is that the country is a close partner with the US in trying to keep a lid on Iran and Syria, and also that Trump says it has promised to invest $450 billion in the US economy, including $110 billion worth of spending on military equipment. The country has been a great ally, the Trump statement says. It goes on to say: I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America.

RELATED: Saudi crown prince attracts fresh scrutiny, if not sanction

The statement was too much for Karen Attiah, the Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post and Khashoggis editor at the paper. In a blistering response, Attiah wrote that the president was doing his best to help the Saudi regime get away with the murder of a US resident and one of the Arab worlds most prominent writers. If the Trump administration continues down this path, she said, it will further destroy what is left of Americas moral credibility on global human rights and freedom of expression. It puts truth-seekers and journalists who dare to challenge the Saudi regime and other intolerant governments in grave danger, no matter where they live.

The Trump governments response was also attacked by Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan, who said in a statement that it was a betrayal of long-established American values of respect for human rights, and the expectation of trust and honesty in our strategic relationships. An innocent man, brutally slain, deserves better. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the suggestion that our silence can be bought with arms sales undermines the Presidency, the credibility of our intelligence professionals, and our role as a champion of human rights. And Senator Dick Durbin said the statement adds to [Trumps] track record of ignoring his own intelligence agencies, and undermining American values at home and abroad, by giving Saudi Arabia a pass for the brutal and premeditated murder of a US resident and journalist.

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Heres more on the Khashoggi murder and the fallout from it:

The annotated Trump : Washington Post political reporter Aaron Blake has annotated the Trump statement using the online service Genius.com, adding notes to the text that explain some of the rationale behind Trumps statements and also some of the mistakes he makes in the process.

: political reporter Aaron Blake has annotated the Trump statement using the online service Genius.com, adding notes to the text that explain some of the rationale behind Trumps statements and also some of the mistakes he makes in the process. Fictional money : Fact-checker Glenn Kessler has taken a look at Trumps repeated statements about how many billions the Saudis plan to invest in the US and spend on military equipment, and found that they are mostly smoke and mirrors.

: Fact-checker Glenn Kessler has taken a look at Trumps repeated statements about how many billions the Saudis plan to invest in the US and spend on military equipment, and found that they are mostly smoke and mirrors. A baseless slur : Tamara Wittes, a Middle East policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, looks at the whisper campaign against Khashoggi that tries to paint him as a radical member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and finds there is little or no truth to it.

: Tamara Wittes, a Middle East policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, looks at the whisper campaign against Khashoggi that tries to paint him as a radical member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and finds there is little or no truth to it. The Pompeo strategy: According to a report from Middle East Eye, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally handed Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman a document that laid out how to avoid repercussions from the Khashoggi murder, including a plan to pin the killing on another member of the al-Saud family.

Other notable stories:

The Media Policy Project at the London School of Economics has released a report looking at the problem of misinformation on digital platforms and makes a number of recommendations, including the creation of an independent monitoring agency that would be funded by a tax on social media and digital advertising revenue.

Emily Bell, who runs the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, writes for CJR about how Facebook is suffering from the innovators dilemma, in that it has spent so much time trying to grow that it has failed to change and adapt to new expectations around things like misinformation and hate speech.

Tom Kent says a coalition of journalistic organizations wants to get the United Nations to adopt legal measures protecting press freedom, but that such an attempt could have unanticipated negative consequences, since one of the things it would have to do is define who qualifies as a journalist.

Glamour magazine has joined the ranks of former print publications that are now digital only. Samantha Barry, editor in chief of the Conde Nast title, said that while the magazines print subscriber base is stable at about 2 million, digital is where our audiences are, and where the growth is.

magazine has joined the ranks of former print publications that are now digital only. Samantha Barry, editor in chief of the Conde Nast title, said that while the magazines print subscriber base is stable at about 2 million, digital is where our audiences are, and where the growth is. The Washington Post looked at the cable coverage of four hurricanesHarvey, Irma and Maria in 2017 and Michael this yearand compared that to coverage of several major forest fires, and found that there has been dramatically less coverage of the fires.

looked at the cable coverage of four hurricanesHarvey, Irma and Maria in 2017 and Michael this yearand compared that to coverage of several major forest fires, and found that there has been dramatically less coverage of the fires. Media analyst Frederic Filloux writes about a link tax proposal that could become law in the European Union, and how it could backfire badly on the publishers who say they want Google and other platforms to compensate them for their content.

Research by Arizona State Universitys Cronkite School and The Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin shows that those who are already suspicious of or dont trust the media are more likely to be fooled by a fake news story.

Correction: A previous version of this post said the Khashoggi murder took place in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, but it actually occurred in the Saudi consulate.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
Navigators Stockholders Approve Merger with The Hartford

The Navigators Group, Inc., announced at a special meeting of stockholders that stockholders approved the adoption of the previously announced merger agreement relating to the proposed transaction between Navigators and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., whereby Navigators will become a wholly owned subsidiary of The Hartford.

Subject to the terms and conditions of the merger agreement, at the effective time of the merger, each eligible share of Navigators common stock will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive $70.00 in cash. The merger remains subject to various closing conditions, including receipt of various regulatory approvals, and is expected to close during the first half of 2019.

Travelers Expands Its Amazon Smart Home Solutions to 11 Additional States

The Travelers Companies announced 11 new states where eligible customers can access discounts on smart home kits through the insurance industrys first digital storefront on Amazon: Amazon.com/Travelers.

The additional states are Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Home insurance customers in these states can also receive a free Amazon Echo Dot from Travelers  even without the purchase of a kit  subject to program terms.

The discounts and free Amazon Echo Dot were initially available to Travelers home insurance customers in California and Travelers Quantum Home 2.0 customers in Colorado, Missouri and Wisconsin.

The smart home kits are designed to help protect homeowners from some of the most common causes of loss. The smart home kits include:

Security cameras.

Water sensors.

Motion detectors with multi-sensor capabilities.

A smart home hub that wirelessly connects a wide range of smart devices and enables them to work together.

An Amazon Echo Dot.

Eligible Travelers home insurance customers can receive a discount on their policy with the purchase of a smart home kit. Discounted kit installation through Amazon Smart Home Services is also offered where available.

Travelers also recently introduced new Alexa skills: the Travelers skill, which assists the companys home insurance policyholders with questions regarding billing and payments; and the Travelers Home Central skill, which enables all consumers to access property maintenance and home safety tips. For example, Alexa, ask Travelers when is my bill due, or Alexa, ask Home Central for a fall home maintenance tip. The company plans to add to its Alexa skills over time.

For more information, visit the Travelers digital storefront at Amazon.com/Travelers.

Engle Martin & Associates Partners With vrs Adjusters to Expand International Reach

Engle Martin & Associates, a national independent loss adjusting and claims management provider, has elected to join vrs Adjusters, a global organization of loss adjusting companies operating in over 140 countries around the world.

The vrs Adjusters organization offers loss adjusting and claims management services to global risk management and insurance markets, with over 300 offices in more than 140 countries. vrs Adjusters members are independent claims service providers with a long-standing tradition of excellence in their home territories and leaders in their respective claims handling markets. Each of the professional companies have a deep understanding of their local territories and of the finer cultural nuances that make all the difference to achieving a well-resolved claim. Experienced loss adjusters and technical staff provide client-focused, local claims services across all lines of the insurance business, managing hundreds of major global corporate programs and thousands of single territory corporate programs around the world.

For additional information, visit www.vrsadjusters.com.
Fires and flooding on the West Coast, record cold and gusty winds on the East Coast. Brace yourself for Thanksgiving week, 2018.

Northern California could get as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain, according to forecasters. The good news is that the downpour could help tamp down a deadly fire thats consumed more than 151,000 acres in the region, and help clear the smoke thats been poisoning the air.

But theres bad news, as well. The fire, which has killed at least 79, has left an oily residue behind that could combine with the rain to cause dangerous flooding, and send debris, ash and unstable dirt and rocks tumbling down hillsides cleared of vegetation.

The burn scars are impermeable to water, said David Roth, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, in a telephone interview The more recent the fires the worse it is, but these burn scars linger for five years.

While the rains fall on California, the Northeast will see temperatures drop as much as 35 degrees Fahrenheit below normal for the coldest Thanksgiving since 1996, Roth said.

Boston will likely set a record for both the day and the holiday with a high of just 21 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 Celsius). New York will reach 27 degrees, just short of a record for that city, and Washington should get to 35. Gusty, balloon-juggling winds, will make it feel even colder, Roth said.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
First, it was the turkey. Now, its the salad.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told American consumers Tuesday to avoid romaine lettuce because it might be contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli bacteria.

Even if you have some in your refrigerator that didnt sicken you, the agency is saying, throw the rest away and wash and sanitize the shelves or drawers where it was stored. Retailers and restaurants shouldnt serve it either. So far there are 32 reported cases, including 13 hospitalizations.

This comes in the midst of a turkey-related salmonella outbreak. As of Nov. 5, 164 people had been sickened by a strain of salmonella known as salmonella Reading, according to the CDC.

Our food supply is coming unglued, said Bill Marler, an attorney with decades of litigation experience focused on foodborne illness claims. The number of outbreaks in 2018 far surpasses what has been seen earlier.

Most concerning about this romaine outbreak, he said, is that the bacteria has the same DNA fingerprint as the E. coli strain that began in December 2017. (It is not, however, the same as the romaine-related outbreak in April, traced to Yuma, Arizona.)

Shocking and Significant

That is pretty shocking and significant, he said in an interview. Likely that means it was grown in the same area, contaminated by the same vector.

Romaine sales in the U.S. totaled $47 million in the four weeks that ended Nov. 3, according to Nielsen. That was down almost 12 percent from a year earlier.

Still, Marler says that the turkey represents the bigger threat this holiday. While families can substitute other greens for their salads, a turkey will be on a majority of Thanksgiving tables. He advises not washing the turkey, as that could spread the bacteria around the kitchen, and cooking it to 165 degrees. He also says people should wash their hands frequently, as well as cooking utensils, counters, and anything that comes into contact with the raw turkey.

Take the fact that your turkey is likely contaminated with salmonella seriously.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- OVI, I-271: At 3:05 a.m. Nov. 14, police stopped a car driven by a man who committed multiple traffic violations.

It was subsequently learned that the man, 66, of Bedford, was intoxicated and was in possession of a loaded handgun.

Police charged the man with OVI, improper handling of a firearm, not driving within marked lanes, not signaling before turning, having an open container of alcohol in a motor vehicle, and refusing to take a breath test with a prior OVI conviction on his record.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 7:45 p.m. Nov. 14, police arrested a Shaker Heights man, 29, for stealing items valued at $180 from Dillard's at Beachwood Place mall, 26300 Cedar Road.

OVI, Richmond Road: At 5:35 p.m. Nov. 15, police stopped a car driven by a Cleveland woman, 24 due to an improperly displayed license plate. It was subsequently learned that the woman was intoxicated.

She was charged with OVI, for prohibited blood-alcohol content, and for the license plate violation.

Receiving stolen property, Cedar Road: At 7:15 p.m. Nov. 15, two women were arrested at Beachwood Place for receiving stolen property and criminal damaging, while one of the women was also cited for possession of criminal tools.

Arrested were a 39-year-old from East Cleveland, and a Euclid woman, 38.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 7:40 p.m. Nov. 15, a Cleveland man, 18, was arrested for stealing merchandise worth $290 from Dillard's.

The man was also found with $110 worth of merchandise stolen from another store and was additionally charged with receiving stolen property.

OVI, I-271: At 2:05 a.m. Nov. 16, an officer stopped a car that was being driven erratically on northbound I-271. The driver, a Euclid man, 34, was found to be intoxicated.

Police charged the man with OVI, driving with a suspended license, not driving within marked lanes, and prohibited blood-alcohol content.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 5:15 p.m. Nov. 16, a Cleveland woman, 31, was arrested for stealing merchandise worth $1,181 from Nordstrom at Beachwood Place.

DUS, Cedar Road: At 10:50 a.m. Nov. 17, police stopped a car that was being driven without working brake lights. It was then found that the driver, a Cleveland woman, 26, was driving with a suspended license.

In addition to the DUS and brake light charges, the woman was cited for failing to yield to a public safety vehicle after she did not immediately stop her car for the arresting officer.

OVI, Village Lane: Just after midnight Nov. 18, an officer stopped a car for failing to maintain its lane of travel.

The driver, a Beachwood woman, 65, was found to be intoxicated. She was charged with OVI, for the lane violation, and for prohibited blood-alcohol content.

OVI, Cedar Road: At 2:35 a.m. Nov. 18, police stopped car for speeding, marked lanes and turn signal violations.

The driver, a Cleveland woman, 34, was found to be intoxicated. She was charged with OVI, for the traffic violations, and for possession of marijuana.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Disgraced former Cuyahoga County Judge Lance Mason has been released from the hospital and is being held in jail without bond, police said.

Mason, 51, had been hospitalized since Saturday, when he crashed his SUV into a Shaker Heights police cruiser following his estranged wifes stabbing death. He was released from the hospital Tuesday and taken to the Solon jail, which houses Shaker Heights prisoners, police said.

He was formally charged Monday with felonious assault in the crash. He has not been charged in connection with the fatal stabbing of Aisha Fraser Mason, a sixth-grade teacher at Shaker Heights Woodbury Elementary School.

Masons first appearance in Shaker Heights Municipal Court has not yet been scheduled, police said.

Shaker Heights Municipal Judge K.J. Montgomery noted in court records that she would set a first court appearance after learning more about his physical and mental health.

Court filings say Mason was fleeing the scene of a homicide Saturday when he hit an officers cruiser. Shaker Heights police said previously that Mason was arrested in connection with the death.

Mason killed Fraser Mason about 9:30 a.m. Saturday at his home on Chagrin Boulevard near Normandy Road, according to police and three sources.

Fraser Mason, 45, was found dead in the driveway, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office said. She died of multiple stab and incised wounds, and death has been ruled a homicide, the medical examiners office said.

Shaker Heights police officer Adam Flynt, who also suffered leg and rib injuries in the crash, is doing well and is expected to be released from the hospital soon, police said earlier this week.

Flynn drove to the home and used his cruiser to block the center of the road. He was standing outside his cruiser but had one knee on the drivers seat when Mason sped away from a driveway and rammed his black 2015 Audi SUV into the cruiser, court records say.

The crash pinned Flynt between the two vehicles. Mason got out of his SUV and ran back into the home, where he was arrested, court records say.

Mason served nine months of a two-year prison sentence for a 2014 attack on his wife that left her with a broke orbital bone that required reconstructive surgery. The attack happened in front of their two daughters, court records say.

Part of his petition for early release included a letter to Fraser Mason in which he apologized, asked for her forgiveness and said he deeply regretted what happened.

Dozens of people, including four sitting judges, prominent Cleveland attorneys and a U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, wrote gushing letters of support for Mason between the time of his 2014 arrest and when his disciplinary case came before the Ohio Supreme Court in 2017.

The disciplinary arm the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Masons law license indefinitely last year. It made clear in court filings that Mason did little to assure them he no longer posed a threat to his Fraser Mason.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jacksons administration hired Mason after his release from prison to work as a minority business development director, a $45,000-per-year job. Jackson fired Mason after his arrest on Saturday.

To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comments page.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland police are investigating after a man was found shot to death Wednesday morning inside a vehicle that was shot up on the citys East Side.

A 25-year-old man was found dead inside a vehicle on the 15300 block of Alonzo Avenue in Clevelands Lee-Miles neighborhood, police said.

The incident appears to be a suicide, police said.

To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comment section.
MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A Mayfield Heights mother was strangled and stabbed with an unspecified object prior to a house fire that killed her 8-year-old daughter Tuesday morning, authorities said.

Rebecca Pletnewski, 41, died of cervical compression with sharp force injuries at the home on Longwood Road near Mayfield Road, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office said. Her death has been ruled a homicide.

Her daughter Olivia Schneider, 8, died of smoke inhalation after she was taken to Hillcrest Hospital, the medical examiners office said. Her death has also been ruled a homicide.

Investigators suspect arson in the fire because a K-9 officer detected an unidentified accelerant in the house, Mayfield Heights Fire Chief Bruce Elliott said Tuesday. Samples pulled from the home are being sent to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for testing.

Investigators are still trying to determine how the fire started, Elliott said. The Hillcrest Fire Investigation Unit, State Fire Marshals Office, and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are assisting in the investigation.

A person of interest was questioned in connection with the fire, but was not arrested, Elliott said previously.

A passerby called 911 about 1 a.m. to report flames coming from the home. Firefighters arrived and quickly extinguished the blaze, Elliott said.

They found Pletnewski dead on the first floor, Elliott said. Her daughter was found on the second floor.

The home sustained heavy fire damage just inside the door on the first floor, Elliott said. It also had heavy fire damage on the second floor.

Pletnewski has owned the home since December 2016, according to Cuyahoga County property records. She was an ICU nurse at University Hospitals' Cleveland Medical Center, a spokeswoman for the health system said.

Pletnewskis co-workers released a statement about her death on Wednesday afternoon:

Rebecca was so much to so many. She touched many patients and families lives who passed through our ICU but to us she was family," the statement says. "We shared laughs, we shared tears, and we shared stories. She had such a unique in depth personal relationship with each of us. She could relate to and befriend anyone and everyone, and she did.

Everyone in every part of this hospital knew, loved, and respected her as a nurse, mother, and a friend, the statement continued. "She was someone who lit up the room when she walked in. Her smile, her laugh, so contagious. Rebeccas legacy will live on in every nurse and doctor that she mentored, gave advice to, or lent a helping hand to during her 14 years in the MICU. We are all better for knowing her. We are a family and will get through this difficult time, but we will never be the same.

Olivia was a third-grade student at Lander Elementary School, the Mayfield Heights City Schools said.

To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comments page.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Falafel Cafe is leaving the University Circle location it has called home since 2000, but it isnt moving far.

Mae and Hani Elassal have closed the restaurant but are planning to open in March in the space previously occupied by Crop Kitchen. They signed the lease Monday, Nov. 19.

The Crop Kitchen Uptown neighborhood restaurant closed in 2016 after being opened for about two years.

The Elassals opened Falafel Cafe in 1997 in Beachwood. In 2000, they expanded to University Circle. The husband-and-wife team closed the Beachwood location in 2004 and focused on their restaurant in University Circle.

They didnt raise the rent, they didnt say they need the extra money, Mae Elassal said, referring to University Circle Inc. In January they said we should tell them if we want to renew the lease. Every three years they came to us. They said they sent us a letter; I didnt receive any letter.

University Circle Incorporated (UCI) is a community-service corporation that develops and promotes the busy and diverse neighborhood that counts Case Western Reserve University, Severance Hall and Little Italy within its borders.

In February, Elassal said, a rep for UCI asked the couple: How come you didnt renew your lease?

Tuesday, University Circle Inc. Director of Communications David Razum characterized the restaurant leaving simply as a result that the lease was up.

Their lease ended, he said. We actually worked with them on an extension through October 2018. I would not call it a dispute. We worked with Mae.

Elassal said she subsequently received a certified letter telling the owners they had six months before having to leave.

Weve been in the area for 18 years. We have our own customers, said Elassal, who added that more than 1,500 people even signed a petition in support of the restaurant remaining.

The Elassals closed their restaurant at the end of October. The building that Falafel Cafe was in is owned by the non-profit developers The Community Builders, or TCB, Razum said. UCIs role is, in effect, that of an operating landlord.

Razum said University Circle Inc. wishes the restaurants owners well.

I dont think we would speak ill of any tenants in University Circle, he said. Were very supportive of all the retailers in the neighborhoods.

Razum added that we have someone lined up to fill the space previously occupied by Falafel Cafe but did not offer details since the deal is not signed.

Elassal is looking to the future. The name will remain, and the new location is a bit bigger with a kitchen in the middle and another one in the back. Cooking will be up front. The menu covers vegetarian dishes, burgers and Middle Eastern fare from tabouleh to kabobs, stuffed grape leaves, pitas and of course, falafel, the fried chick-pea concoction. The owners will continue to make bread and other items from scratch.

Same product, same recipe, she said. Everything is going to be the same.

Just with a new address. Falafel Cafe was located at Euclid Avenue and Ford Drive. The new location  the former Crop Kitchen  is around the corner at 11460 Uptown Ave.

You know what? It was our home, Elassal said of the restaurant she and her husband had operated for 18 years. We lived down there.
LYNDHURST, Ohio -- Grand theft, Cedar Road: At 5:30 p.m. Nov. 13, an employee of Dick's Sporting Goods reported that two women had shoplifted and then left the premises in a SUV bearing temporary tags.

Police located the SUV and conducted a traffic stop. Inside the vehicle were three suspects who were all arrested. The suspects included women, 30 and 42, and a man, 24, all from Toledo.

The suspects stole merchandise worth $2,924.

Theft, Cedar Road:

At 7 p.m. Nov. 17, security at L.A. Fitness, 25145 Cedar Road, reported that two patrons had their vehicles broken into in the business's lot.

The customers' keys were stolen from the locker room and then left inside their cars. Various items were stolen, including a birth certificate, debit cards and a total of $180 cash. No one was apprehended in connection with the crime.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 7:40 p.m. Nov. 17, police were called to Dick's Sporting Goods, 24545 Cedar Road, where a female shoplifter was behaving in a combative manner with staff members.

The Cleveland woman, 47, was arrested for stealing coats and other merchandise totaling $2,941.

Suspicion, Richmond Road: At 11 a.m. Nov. 15, a man reported that, earlier in the day, he was waiting in his car to make a left turn onto Cedar Road when he noticed the car in front of his rocking back and forth.

Next, the driver in the rocking car got out, yelled that the man's car had struck his car, took a photo of the man's license plate, then got back into his car and drove away. The complainant told police that his car did not touch the other driver's car.

Assault, Mayfield Road: At 8:25 a.m. Nov. 14, a woman called police screaming for help regarding a possible vehicle crash. The call then disconnected.

Police went to the scene and the woman who called police stated that the driver of the other car, also a woman, hit her car. The other woman, 24, of Lyndhurst, then got out of her car and approached the complainant. A physical altercation ensued.

Police found that no car crash had taken place. It was determined to be a case of road rage.

An officer followed the complainant, 41, to her Lyndhurst home to learn what had happened.

In the end, police heard conflicting statements and had no witnesses. The matter was forwarded to the prosecutor's office where it will be determined if any charges will be filed.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 7:20 p.m. Nov. 13, loss prevention at Giant Eagle, 25105 Cedar Road, reported that a woman stole health and beauty products totaling $49.

The woman, 41, of South Euclid, was cited for misdemeanor theft and released.

Fleeing and eluding, Cedar Road:

At 11:40 a.m. Nov. 13, a caller reported that at least two males and a female were attempting to open the doors of parked cars outside of Nordstrom Rack, 25149 Cedar Road at Legacy Village.

As police arrived, the suspects got into a car which was driven from the site. Police followed, but were unable to stop the car or get its license plate number.

Reported stolen was miscellaneous change, a trench coat, a wrench, engine oil and an oil filter.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  The FBI launched a criminal investigation into the use-of-force by a corrections officer on an inmate at the Cuyahoga County Jail, according to an un-redacted copy of a report by the U.S. Marshals Service obtained by cleveland.com.

The officer is suspected of using illegal force against the inmate as punishment, the report says.

Cuyahoga County officials handed out redacted copies of the report to reporters on Wednesday, saying the redactions were for security and infrastructure concerns. One of the sections redacted by the county mentions the FBI investigation and had nothing to do with security or infrastructure.

The marshals report does not address the specifics of the incident. George Taylor, the countys interim jail director, acknowledged a criminal investigation into a use-of-force incident in a meeting with cleveland.com reporters and editors, but did not say it was under FBI investigation.

A public records request was made with the county for information regarding the incident. A county spokesperson said she would provide that information later on Wednesday.

The U.S. Marshals Service found several other issues with corrections officers use-of-force, including that they do not use de-escalation techniques, that they dont investigate all uses-of-force, do not take videos of the incidents into evidence and dont require written reports from the officers, inmates, witnesses or medical staff involved.

The FBI has also asked questions about possible civil rights violations at the jail, cleveland.com has previously reported. FBI agents that investigate civil rights violations and economic fraud were also part of the U.S. Marshals team that produced the report on the county jail.

FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson said its the FBIs policy to not confirm nor deny on-going investigations.
(CNN) Here's a look at Thanksgiving Day, celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. In 2018, Thanksgiving is on November 22.

Facts:

AAA forecasts 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving in 2018.

According to the USDA, 245 million turkeys were projected to be raised in the United States in 2017.

9.05 million barrels of cranberries were projected to be produced in the United States in 2017.

The president traditionally receives a turkey in a ceremony at the White House a few days before Thanksgiving Day. President Harry S. Truman started the tradition and President George H. W. Bush was the first to pardon the bird and not eat it.

Timeline:

Fall 1621 - The first Thanksgiving is observed in Plymouth. A good harvest leads Massachusetts Governor William Bradford to plan a festival to give thanks. Around 90 Native Americans attend.

1789 - President George Washington issues a proclamation naming November 26 a day of national thanksgiving.

There was no national Thanksgiving Day for several years, but many states had Thanksgiving holidays.

October 3, 1863 - President Abraham Lincoln proclaims the last Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving.

1939 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt moves Thanksgiving Day one week earlier to boost the Christmas shopping season.

1941 - Congress rules that the fourth Thursday in November will be observed as Thanksgiving Day and a federal legal holiday.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Case Western Reserve University officials want to switch a tenure-track African-American history professorship to a two-year visiting position, despite the schools insistence that diversity and inclusion efforts are top priorities.

CWRUs student population is majority white; 3 percent of faculty and 6 percent of students are black. The university launched a push to attract a more diverse student body and improve campus life for those students. The universitys leader for diversity and inclusion is leaving, and the school has a nationwide search to replace her.

The decision to downgrade a professorship in this climate is unacceptable, argue some students and professors.

The administration wants to hire a second-class citizen of the university with no job security to teach and research in an area of study that is not only vital for college students but that requires a certain amount of intellectual risk-taking, something that is unlikely to happen if the faculty member is not at least offered a tenure line," writes Ted Steinberg, a CWRU history professor, in an opinion piece for cleveland.com.

The question is whether a two-year visiting professor would have the academic freedom to shape the research in African American history and speak up on difficult decisions.

Leaders claim the change is a temporary fix while the financially struggling College of Arts and Sciences gets back on track. The college, which houses history, math, English, languages and music departments, is in a significant financial deficit. Officials have tried for years to balance the budget.

The history department wanted to continue searching for a new full-time African-American history professor to replace Rhonda Williams, who left for Vanderbilt in 2017. A search last year was unsuccessful.

After receiving 30 search requests, the dean of the college prioritized five other positions above the African-American history tenure-track role, according to the university. University leaders offered the two-year visiting position as a compromise.

Provost Ben Vinson III said even if the university approved a search, it would take a year to fill the role. This way, the university avoids leaving the position open.

The request for a tenure-track African American history professor is still standing. The department declined the offer to begin a search for a two-year visiting professor, instead requesting approval to recruit a post-doctoral scholar of African-American history, according to the university.

Post-doctoral scholars are typically continuing their research and have fewer teaching and service expectations than faculty members.

Funding to begin the search for a post-doctoral scholar was approved last week. Since a post-doctoral scholar still receives formal faculty mentoring, Vinson has agreed to serve as that persons advisor.

The dean has indicated that he expects that a funding request to approve a search to fill the tenure-track professor position will be the top priority for the fall of 2019.

Andrew Thompson, a senior studying political science, wrote an open letter to university officials asking for them to reconsider.

Thompsons letter drew nearly 50 signatures, including from the universitys undergraduate student government and from its Social Justice Institute. He hopes theres enough outcry that the decision might change.

Cases attitude toward diversity (tends to be) we need diversity because it helps the learning experience and not we need diversity because everybody has a right to an education, Thompson, a Pell Grant student, said.

The Undergraduate Diversity Council intends to continue looking into the matter by speaking with members of the history department.

We dont want to cause an uproar if there doesnt need to be one, council president Arik Stewart said. " Were fine with it as long as its literally the only (solution)."

This article has been updated to clarify the status of funding requests. A previous version of this article stated the history department had not yet accepted the offer of a two-year visiting professor. CRWU provided information that the department declined the offer to begin a search for a two-year visiting professor, instead requesting approval to recruit a post-doctoral scholar of African-American history.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Ohio Auditor Dave Yost raised alarms Tuesday about potential tampering with files and missing data related to the Ohio Department of Educations illegal omission in 2015 of online charter school grades from key charter school oversight evaluations.

Yosts office found in a special audit that to and from information was missing from many emails, with the main figure in those manipulated evaluations being former state school choice chief David Hansen. Those headers  normally included in all emails  could potentially show whether top officials like former State Superintendent Richard Ross or staff of Gov. John Kasich knew Hansen planned to leave F grades of e-schools out of the evaluations.

Hansen told auditors that he had told Ross twice about his plans, despite Ross repeated insistence in 2015 that Hansen had acted alone and that he was unaware.

Hansen states he informed Dr. Ross on at least two occasions of his intention to exclude eschools and then phase them in over time, an assertion Dr. Ross denies, the audit states.

Yost also found that a state official removed some data from Hansens computer in the days after Hansen admitted his deliberate omission to the state school board.

But while Yost suggested several improvements the Ohio Department of Education should make with its data policies, he issued no findings of blame of criminal activity.

Charter school critics, including the Ohio Democratic Party, say the findings raise enough questions to merit further investigation, possibly by a grand jury. A press release from the party bashed Yost for not issuing findings sooner on a three-year-old scandal.

The party called the findings disturbing new revelations that need to be independently investigated.

Yosts staff said they released the audit as soon as it was ready.

Ohios charter school sponsor reviews were supposed to be a way for the state to encourage improvement of its poor-performing charter schools, though in a roundabout fashion. Charter school sponsors  school districts or non-profits that help create and then oversee charters  were to be graded so that they would better monitor their schools.

Since the test scores of schools make up a third of a sponsors rating and low ratings could shut down a sponsor, the F grades of low-scoring online schools posed a real threat.

Hansen simply left online school F grades out of the first evaluations, despite those schools failing to educate thousands of students and collecting million in tax dollars.

After The Plain Dealer reported that omission, Hansen admitted it to the state school board and resigned days later.

Though the Ohio Department of Education repeatedly portrayed Hansen as acting alone, emails shared with The Plain Dealer and other Ohio reporters showed other employees participating in the planning. Other emails led right up to Ross, but did not directly implicate him.

Ross retired late that year and several of the department officials involved have since left, some now working for charter schools or sponsors.

Based on an exhaustive review of ODE records and numerous interviews, Hansens intent in improperly excluding eschools is unclear, Yosts new audit states. Additionally, while it is apparent that ODE administration members who were organizationally above Hansen had knowledge of his plan to omit eschools from the academic component of the sponsor performance evaluations in 2015, the timing and degree of detail of the knowledge Dr. Ross had is unclear.

Yosts audit comes just before he leaves the auditors office to become Ohios new attorney general. It officially covers Ohios application for a federal charter school expansion grant, in which ODE provided faulty information on charter schools and the sponsor evaluations, which were tossed out and re-done.

The audit contains a few interesting details, while making few major findings. These include:

- ODE officials scrambled after Hansens omission became public to find who knew what about it and when, but staff could not give auditors a clear picture of who led that search and whether it was a real investigation. State school board member James Sheppard, ODEs chief of staff at the time and a former Kasich aide, was unable to say if he was in charge or not.

- ODE administrators had Matt Williams of another state department, the Department of Administrative Services, copy memory of Hansens ODE computer and phone and search it for mentions of e-schools.

It is unclear why some of the Sent emails ODE provided to Auditor of State as part of this audit did not include the To and From headers normally contained in emails and why Williams removed memory from Hansens laptop while in his possession at ODE, the audit finds.

It later adds that Williams removed memory from the laptop in order to supplement memory on another computer he was using unrelated to the internal investigation. These activities compromise the integrity of a potential external investigation of the assets.

- And Hansen told auditors that fear of backlash from ECOT  the giant online school that had to close last early this year after having to return $80 million in state tax funding for students who didnt participate in classes  was partly why he did not include the e-school F grades. Hansen was worried that if grades of schools were weighted by enrollment  so that 15,000-student ECOT would count much more than a 300-student school  ECOT would fight it.

We were taking a very bold step against a pretty powerful, politically connected entity and an industry at that time because this would have involved others with political clout, Hansen told auditors. So I said we needed a way to get this to happen, efficiently, effectively, certainly but also without making it happen overnight. Because they would have one more excuse to undermine this if we were all of the sudden turn this over and multiply by 15,000 if you will or 1,500 at least, the impact of a single school. 

His prediction was accurate. When sponsor evaluations were re-done, ECOT campaigned to avoid having its large enrollment  and large state funding  count more than smaller schools. Legislators did not agree.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Kent State University now has money from the state to buy a robotic drill and a 3-D printer. Cleveland State University will add occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech pathology training equipment. Lorain County Community College will buy neonatal simulation equipment.

Colleges across Ohio applied for a share of $5.3 million to improve workforce development. What schools applied for depended heavily on the region. Lengthy proposals, often submitted with collaboration between universities, give insight into what officials see as some of the emerging industries in the state.

Colleges were allowed to apply for money to support projects in information technology, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, additive manufacturing, cloud manufacturing, smart business automation and cybersecurity.

Northwest Ohio colleges focused largely on additive manufacturing, the industry that includes 3-D printing. Northeast Ohio schools, including Kent State University and University of Akron, also applied for additive manufacturing equipment. Northeast Ohio universities, like Cleveland State and Cuyahoga Community College, also wanted more resources in healthcare.

For southwestern schools, including the University of Cincinnati, Miami University and Cincinnati State, the priority was cloud manufacturing and smart building automation. Cloud manufacturing uses technology to coordinate and improve production in scattered locations. Smart building automation refers to using devices to improve buildings' energy consumption or environmental impact.

The money will pay for a 1,500-square-foot Building Energy System Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati where students will learn about basic building science, energy systems, and fundamental HVAC systems, according to the proposal.

A request from a collaborative formed by Belmont College, Eastern Gateway Community College, Washington State Community College and Zane State College, all located in southeast Ohio, wants to be able to train students in oil and gas. The proposal cites a probable multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant which would be located in Belmont County.

Here is the full list of colleges, the amount each received and the field where officials will use the money. The majority will focus on additive or advanced manufacturing.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Theres no clear path for the legislature to change the states report cards for schools and districts by the end of this year, though some still hold out hope for a vote.

There has been a push all year by many legislators and members of the state school board to re-work how the state reports results of state tests to parents and the public and how it rates each school and district.

The biggest block: Gov. John Kasichs support of grading schools and districts on an A-F scale, which is a main target of those seeking change.

For now, legislation to change the cards may have a hearing soon with the Ohio House Education committee. But Chairman Andrew Brenner is hesitant to move forward and run into a block from Kasich.

Brenner also says that other legislators are not sure exactly what changes they want, or even if they want change.

I think this is something thats probably going to have to be kicked into next year, Brenner said, while leaving the door open for small adjustments.

But State Rep. Mike Duffey, a Worthington Republican who introduced House Bill 591 earlier this year to make changes, still hopes for a vote, even if Kasich might veto them.

We need to have a sense for where the legislature is on changing report cards, Duffey said. Going to a vote would force serious debate, he said, while showing how much support he has. A vote would force Kasich to veto changes and the legislature might be able to override the veto, he added.

The state school board is also hopeful for a change. The board voted last week to recommend that the legislature overhaul the report cards with several changes, including dropping the A-F grades in favor of ratings like 'Exceeds Standards', 'Meets Standards', 'Approaching Standards' and 'Does Not Meet Standards.'

The changes were all recommended this summer by a workgroup set up by the board and the Ohio Department of Education.

Time matters, said board member Lisa Woods of Medina County. The sense of urgency has been lacking.

If the legislature does not pass changes this year, new people will be part of the debate. Duffey leaves office at the end of the year, some state board members could be replaced by new Gov. Mike DeWine and it is unclear who will head the House Education Committee.

Brenner just won election to a state Senate seat and is leaving the house. Some have suggested State Rep. Robert Cupp as a replacement, but the Lima Republican said last week he does not want the position and does not know who might fill it.

Duffey said several other legislators have said they will reintroduce similar changes in the next general assembly if they do not pass now.

DeWine backed making changes to report cards during the campaign, promising on his campaign website to develop a school report card that parents can understand. Confusion over interpreting some graded report card measures that arent intuitive - like Value-Added, K-3 Literacy and Gap closing - have been major complaints.

DeWine has also pledged to reduce state tests and provide more meaningful and timely results, but has not addressed the controversial A-F grades. A spokesman could not provide any update Monday.
REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio  People who farm and live in Northwest Ohio spoke out Tuesday morning against all or part of a plan spelling out how agricultural operations should limit manure and fertilizer from flowing into Lake Erie.

Most of the people who testified at the Department of Agriculture in this Columbus suburb were from Grand Lake St. Marys, Ohios largest inland lake and formerly a bellwether of Lake Eries algae blooms. The Grand Lake St. Marys watershed is currently the only distressed Ohio watershed, having been given the designation -- and rules for controlling manure and fertilizer -- in 2011.

Farmers in the area made changes, such as hauling excess manure to storage tanks, to keep it out of the water.

Some of those protocols would change if an executive order from Gov. John Kasich, and accompanying rules by the Ohio Department of Agriculture, went into effect. In addition to Grand Lake St. Marys, eight other watersheds would also be considered distressed and would fall under new rules.

The problem

Manure and fertilizer contain phosphorus, which are necessary to grow crops, but also feed algae in Lake Erie.

Millions of Ohioans depend on Lake Erie for drinking water. Algae levels were so toxic in 2014 that Toledo residents were advised not to drink or use the water.

For the past four years, farmers said theyve tried to control manure and fertilizer on their own, without state mandates.

But Kasich wanted more action. In July, he signed an executive order adding eight Lake Erie watersheds to the distressed list. The order authorized the Ohio Department of Agriculture to create rules to protect the lake -- the very rules discussed Tuesday.

However, the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commissions approval is necessary for the executive order to take effect, and the panel decided Nov. 1 to work on the rules with the agriculture communitys input, which administration officials called a stall tactic.

Hearing

During Tuesdays hourlong hearing, all except one person testified against the rules.

The Ohio Farm Bureau Federations Tony Seegers objected in part because he believes the rules would give the Department of Agriculture more authority to regulate commercial fertilizers. The rules expand the definition of a commercial fertilizer, he said.

He said its the job of the Ohio General Assembly to define the term.

The General Assembly, which counts many farmers and rural lawmakers in its ranks, tends to be more friendly to agriculture than Kasich.

Many of the objections were technical, such as concerns about when during the winter manure can be spread.

Celina resident Deb Simon-Heinfeld, who lives near Grand Lake St. Marys, said data is showing that the lake is improving.

Weve really made some great strides, she said. The current plans are working, theyre really, really working, and substantial research has been done on this.

Matt Fisher of the Lake Erie Foundation was the only supporter of the draft rules. He offered a compromise: that only two new watersheds be classified as distressed, to make sure there are enough resources for compliance.

We need some aggressive practices now, he said.

Next steps

The Department of Agriculture will study the comments and decide whether to alter the rules, which go before the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review on Dec. 10.

The board, made up of state lawmakers, will decide whether the agency is allowed to proceed with them. Then the rules would go back to the Soil and Water Conservation Commission, which will meet in January and decide whether to OK them.

However, the January meeting hasnt yet been scheduled. Kasichs term ends Jan. 14. Its unclear how Gov.-elect Mike DeWine will handle Lake Erie.

The Governor-Elect wants to be confident in the science and data behind the executive order," his spokesman Josh Eck said in a statement. "This is an important issue and we need to get it right. He believes that there needs to be more action to eliminate runoff, both agricultural and otherwise. The Governor-Elects commitment is that he will bring people together from all sides of the issue to make sure we chart a path forward that can gain as much consensus as possible.
Rotunda Rumblings

Voter purges return: After a moratorium of several months, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has directed elections officials to immediately resume the controversial policy of purging voting rolls of inactive voters. Cleveland.coms Jeremy Pelzer has more.

Fudge backs Pelosi: Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge of Warrensville Heights has decided to back Rep. Nancy Pelosi instead of challenging her, cleveland.coms Seth Richardson reports. Fudge said Pelosi has pledged to fight to restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act and has also assured me that the most loyal voting bloc in the Democratic party, Black women, will have a seat at the decision-making table."

For the record: Fudge was among dozens of prominent people who wrote letters of support for former state lawmaker and judge Lance Mason after he brutally assaulted his wife in 2014, reports cleveland.coms Cory Shaffer. None could believe Mason was capable of carrying out such violence once, let alone twice, Shaffer writes. Mason is now suspected of fatally stabbing his wife last weekend.

Fallout? Fudges past support of Mason was publicized by national media Tuesday and could have made it more difficult for her to challenge Pelosi. Fudge this week issued a statement saying, The person who committed these crimes is not the Lance Mason familiar to me. They were horrific crimes, and I condemn them.

Lake effect: Farmers and Northwest Ohio residents said they oppose the Ohio Department of Agricultures proposed rules to limit runoff, cleveland.coms Laura Hancock reports. The administration believes the rules are necessary to keep phosphorus, which causes algae blooms, at bay.

Iowa watch: A new Associated Press report detailing Democratic 2020 contenders efforts to staff up in Iowa ties a former Ohio Democratic Party staffer to Sen. Sherrod Browns potential presidential campaign. Thomas Beaumont reports that Joe OHern, an Iowa native who ran the coordinated campaign for the Ohio Democratic Party for the 2018 midterms, would be considered a likely pick to run Browns Iowa operation if Brown ends up running.

Tech wishlist: Colleges across the state received portions of $5.4 million to buy equipment to train workers  such as Lorain County Community College getting money for neonatal simulation equipment. Most of it was high tech and manufacturing- or healthcare- focused,writes cleveland.coms Emily Bamforth.

Steps forward and back: John Born, the head of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, prepares to retire when Gov. John Kasich leaves office. He reflects with the Associated Press on Ohios lower rates of fatal crashes and violent crime, but increases in arrests for weapons violations and drugs.

Friends in high places: Gov.-elect and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine will sign onto a friend-of-court brief in an Arkansas case, hoped to get in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, on whether states can regulate the middle-man industry known as pharmacy benefit managers, the DIspatchs Marty Schaden writes.

Trash talking: CVSHealths lobbyist Erik Woehrmann dismissed Columbus Dispatch investigative reporting in a Nov. 9 letter to Ohio General Assembly members as skewed and unbalanced. Never mind that CVS, in addition to being a retail pharmacy company, has a pharmacy benefit manager entity involved in most prescriptions filled in Ohio Medicaid. Medicaid is requiring more transparency from PBMs beginning Jan. 1, in part as a result of the Dispatchs journalism.

See you next week! Capitol Letter wishes you a happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday weekend. Well be back in your inbox on Tuesday.

Five Questions

State Rep. Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat, just won re-election to House District 34. Shes the minority whip in the Democratic House caucus.

1. You have a law degree and a masters in public health. But your undergraduate is in psychology. Do you use your psychology degree in the General Assembly?

It does help you understand how people view the world and why they react to the world in a certain kind of way. In that way, yes, I have found some of the things Ive learned from the greats tend to be true hundreds of years later.

2. You had previously said you were not looking forward to lame duck, or the final weeks of the legislative session. What concerns you?

This is the time of year when peoples rights are at stake.  It doesnt serve anyone well to rush legislation. Weve been here two years, weve taken two summers off, and then we push 50-60 bills.

3. What are your priorities for next session?

Im going to spend a lot of time working on maternal health. Weve spent a lot of time discussing infant mortality, which I think is very important. One of the things Ive noticed is maternal health was completely divorced from infant health, which is completely preposterous. You cant talk about one without the other.

4. You serve on the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee, which is overseeing the recent transition in behavioral health in which managed care companies are paying addiction and mental health providers directly. Do you think its been successful?

Time will tell.

5. What do you do for fun?

I like to watch TV. Its my guilty pleasure. Its my way to rewind and relax, I like to be at home. It checks several boxes.

On the Move

Ex-legislator and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Connie Pillich has resigned as co-chair of the Hamilton County Democratic Party and moved to Washington, D.C. to become the executive director of the National Association of Women Judges, according to the Cincinnati Enquirers Scott Wartman.

Birthdays

Thursday: State Reps. Nick Celebrezze and Kristina Roegner

Friday: William Dennison Jr., Ohios 24th governor (1815-1882) Saturday: Allen Trimble, Ohios 8th and 10th governor (1783-1870)

Sunday: State Rep. Marlene Anielski, Myers Y. Cooper, Ohios 51st governor (1873-1958); Rob Richardson, 2018 Democratic nominee for state treasurer

Monday: Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, ex-state Rep. Heather Bishoff

Straight from the Source

Canned cranberry blob is a @SenSherrodBrown thing, too, and he should have told me that way before we said, I do. Some things a woman needs to know early.

-Journalist Connie Schultz, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Browns wife, coming down on the homemade side of the canned-versus-fresh cranberry sauce debate, on Twitter on Tuesday.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.
CLEVELAND -- While President Donald Trump is seeking to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants  citizenship rights codified in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution passed to protect black people after the Civil War  Case Western Reserve University is slashing funding for African-American history. At issue is a currently vacant faculty position in that field, a position that has been in existence at the university for 26 years.

In the wake of the recent massacre of 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the president of CWRU, Barbara Snyder, issued a statement condemning the murders as well as other hate crimes such as the slaughter of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015. History, she writes, is replete with examples of people who perished because of one aspect of their humanity. And yet, the study of African-American history is precisely what her administration is bent on cutting.

Ted Steinberg is the Davee Professor of History and professor of law at Case Western Reserve University.

It is unthinkable for a research university of CWRUs stature to operate without an African-American historian, and for good reason. It is impossible to fully comprehend the American past without instruction in slavery, Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and mass incarceration. The stakes involved are high: First, because, according to the universitys own fact sheet from fall 2017, CWRU has a faculty that is only 3 percent African-American. Second, because this is taking place in Cleveland, a city that is 50.8 percent African-American. And, third, because this cut is occurring at a time when white nationalism is on the rise.

The CWRU administration is arguing that budgetary constraints are driving the decision. It proposes to fund just a temporary faculty member who could stay up to two years. In other words, the administration wants to hire a second-class citizen of the university with no job security to teach and research in an area of study that is not only vital for college students but that requires a certain amount of intellectual risk-taking, something that is unlikely to happen if the faculty member is not at least offered a tenure line.

What is happening at CWRU is part of an alarming national trend by universities to save on labor costs by increasing the number of contingent faculty off the tenure track. A recent analysis by the American Association of University Professors reveals that a whopping 73 percent of the instruction at American universities is now being conducted by non-tenure-track faculty members. Meanwhile, the number of university administrators has ballooned. And many of these administrators are extravagantly paid.

According to the universitys most recent IRS Form 990, President Snyder received compensation and nontaxable benefits amounting to more than $1.8 million. With all that money has come enormous power, including, now, the power to sign off on all new faculty hires.

The university claims it is in the middle of a financial crisis, but the reality is that it is creating a moral crisis that will affect whether students can truly appreciate why President Trumps racially charged rhetoric resonates so strongly in American political culture. Or, for that matter, whether they will understand the institutional racism that explains why prosecutors are so often allowed, as the Equal Justice Initiative notes in a 2010 study, to exclude people of color from juries for transparently bogus reasons, undermining the credibility of the criminal justice system.

Some CWRU students, however, are demanding that the administration change course. The Radical Student Union has criticized the administrations decision to deprioritize African-American history in an open letter to the university administration, calling it reprehensible. The Undergraduate Student Government, two fraternities, one sorority, and the universitys Social Justice Institute have all endorsed the letter.

Recently a reporter from the student newspaper asked me about the significance of the administrations decision on faculty diversity. The impact would be minimal, even were the administration to reverse course and approve the hiring of an underrepresented minority. The real impact of the administrations decision is on the ability of students to understand how race structures life in America today. And that will make it harder for them to comprehend, say, racial profiling  a problem in police departments nationwide, including here in Cleveland.

CWRUs tagline is Think Beyond the Possible. Now is the time for the administration to find the funding to do exactly that.

Ted Steinberg is the Adeline Barry Davee Distinguished Professor of History and Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University. His most recent book is Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater New York.

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(CNN) Brenda Snipes has submitted her resignation as the supervisor of elections for Broward County, Florida, after the completion of a recount that brought renewed scrutiny of her tenure.

"Although I have enjoyed this work tremendously over these many election cycles, both large and small, I am ready to pass the torch," Snipes wrote Sunday in her resignation letter to Gov. Rick Scott, which was obtained by CNN. She requested in the letter that her resignation be effective January 4, 2019.

The Sun-Sentinel first reported the news of Snipes' resignation.

Snipes, a Democrat, was the subject of widespread condemnation from Republicans during Florida's statewide recount.

Republicans used Snipes, who oversaw the at times hapless vote counting effort in Broward County, as a foil during the recount, seizing on mistakes made in her office to suggest that fraud was being committed, although no evidence of fraud was ever produced. Snipes dismissed the criticism as politically motivated, and expressed her frustration during the recount.

"I can't wait for this to be over," she told CNN last week.

Florida's recount ended on Sunday, when all of the state's 67 counties -- including Broward -- submitted their final vote totals to the secretary of state.

During the recount, Snipes publicly toyed with the idea of stepping down.

"It is time to move on, to let someone else (do the job)," Snipes said. When a reporter asked whether she would resign, the election official backed off slightly.

"Well, I haven't finalized that. I'll just check with my family. They'll tell me what I'm doing," she said.

It now appears that Snipes has finalized her decision.

One reason the accusations of Republicans stuck is because Snipes has a history of legal issues during her time as the head of elections for the county.

A Florida judge ruled that Snipes violated state and federal laws when she destroyed ballots too soon after the 2016 election, despite one of the Democratic candidates in a primary race taking her to court to preserve the ballots and a federal requirement that mandates ballots be kept for 22 months after an election.

She was also party to a lawsuit in 2016 over a medical marijuana amendment that was missing from some absentee ballots and another suit decided in 2018 regarding when and how her staff could open absentee ballots.

The lawsuits were the backbone of attacks against Snipes, whom Republicans cast as a scandal-plagued liberal who was trying to tip the election in the favor of Democrats.

Snipes was appointed to her position in 2003 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, after he removed her predecessor, Miriam Oliphant, for a series of missteps. Snipes went on to win re-election four times, most recently in 2016.

Democrats tried to use Snipes' appointment by Bush as a defense against Republican criticism, but it did little to blunt the attacks.

Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican Senate candidate, put Snipes squarely at the center of his recount effort, suing her shortly before the recount began, and calling her out by name -- along with Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher -- during a televised statement on the steps of the governor's mansion.

And during the recount, Bush called for Snipes to be removed from office once the tallying was completed.

"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," Bush wrote on Twitter Monday. "Supervisor Snipes should be removed from her office following the recounts."
U.S. Marines place concertina wire at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in California on Nov. 11, 2018.

WASHINGTON  The Pentagon estimates that the cost of the 5,900 troops deployed to the southwest border will total $72 million, spokesman U.S. Army Col. Rob Manning said in a statement Monday.

The cost estimate from the Pentagon comes two weeks after CNBC learned that the deployment was shaping up to have a price tag of $220 million and that the caravan did not pose a threat to the United States, according to sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence assessment.

Last month, Defense Secretary James Mattis approved the deployment of thousands of active-duty troops from across the United States to help "harden" the southwestern border in response to a caravan of migrants from Central America.

In mid-October, a caravan of at least 3,500 Central American migrants seeking asylum left Honduras for the United States border.

President Donald Trump made the caravan of Central American migrants one of his prime targets ahead of midterm elections. The president has referred to the caravan as an "invasion" while claiming that Democrats want open borders, which Democrats deny.

The movement of thousands of active-duty troops to the border has been criticized as a political stunt designed to back Trump's campaign promise of securing U.S. ports of entry.

Mattis downplayed that criticism last month saying that Pentagon is providing "practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police."

"We don't do stunts in this department," he added at the time.

The Department of Defense originally estimated that more than 7,000 troops would take positions in California, Arizona and Texas in support of the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. In which case, the border mission, will have a larger U.S. military footprint than the combined efforts in Iraq and Syria.

WATCH: Here are the businesses profiting from immigration enforcement
President Donald Trump said he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute his former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The Times, citing two people familiar with the conversation, reported that Trump made the remark in the spring to former White House counsel Don McGahn, who told the president that he had no authority to order such action by the DOJ.

To impress his point upon Trump, McGahn had White House lawyers draft a memo outlining the consequences of merely asking the DOJ to investigate his political rivals  including impeachment, the newspaper reported.

"Mr. McGahn will not comment on his legal advice to the president," said McGahn's lawyer, William Burck. "Like any client, the president is entitled to confidentiality. Mr. McGahn would point out, though, that the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey."
Mark Zuckerberg said he will keep his role as chairman of Facebook's board.

He made his comments in a CNN interview that aired Tuesday night.

The New York Times reported last week how Facebook made attempts to deflect the controversies plaguing the company, ranging from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to how Russia attempted to use Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Since the report, many have questioned Zuckerberg's leadership.

During the CNN interview, Zuckerberg was asked whether he would step down as chairman of Facebook's board. Zuckerberg has voting control over the board, meaning he could not be ousted.

"I'm not currently thinking that that makes sense," Zuckerberg told CNN.
President Donald Trump is heaping praise on crude oil's massive sell-off.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump said lower oil prices were a "big tax cut for America and the world" and encouraged Saudi Arabia to pull on its supply-demand levers to push prices even lower.

Don't expect these levels to last for too long, says Tom Kloza, co-founder of the Oil Price Information Service.

"I believe that we are seeing an 'oversold' chapter for oil," Kloza told CNBC's "Futures Now" in an email on Wednesday.

West Texas Intermediate crude hit the year's peak of $79.90 a barrel in early October. Since then, it has plummeted nearly 31 percent.

On Tuesday, prices plunged more than 6 percent after Trump defended Saudi Arabia against their alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Markets perceived Trump's friendliness with the kingdom as potentially helpful in pushing them to raise oil production.

While Kloza says temporary weakness could take crude down to $50 a barrel, it won't take long for prices to spring back.

"Oil can be stabilized in December and will be helped by the higher demand as U.S. refiners ramp up to over 18-million barrels a day of crude use. A cold northern hemisphere winter juices up demand as well," said Kloza.

Into next year, the Trump administration's policies will still act as a wild card, but generally Kloza expects higher prices in the intermediate-term.

"Anything can happen and no one can really program Donald Trump and his strategy (or whimsy) into any of the typical models," Kloza said. But, "throw in an occasional problem from Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Venezuela, etc. and you can make a case for the higher numbers in the first half or three-quarters of 2019."

Beyond that, the forecasts grow murky, says Kloza.

"It gets tougher since we'll see the U.S. production climb by another million barrels per day, provided that there is no price collapse," he said.

U.S. crude production climbed to 11.3 million barrels a day in August this year, the first time it has ever crossed the 11 million-barrel mark, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams will unseat Republican incumbent Rep. Mia Love in the tight race for Utah's 4th District, flipping yet another GOP-held seat for Democrats, The Associated Press projects.

If confirmed, his victory would bring Democrats' net gains to 39 Republican-held districts, comfortably past the 23 they needed to win a majority in the next Congress that starts in January. NBC News eventually named McAdams the apparent winner.

Democrats would hold a 234-201 seat advantage in the House when the next Congress convenes in January. In another race called weeks after Election Day, NBC named Republican Rob Woodall the apparent winner in the race for Georgia's 7th District.

McAdams declared victory Tuesday night. The latest returns showed him with a fewer than 700-vote lead over Love, only about 20 votes away from the margin where she could request a recount, according to NBC News. The Republican lawmaker has not yet conceded.

The outcome would mark another triumph for Democrats in a red-leaning area. It would deal another late blow to House Republicans, who were wiped out in a string of races called after Election Day in California's traditionally red Orange County.

McAdams sold himself as a moderate willing to work with Republicans, including President Donald Trump, in his campaign to win over the GOP-dominated district. In his victory speech Tuesday, he said his "priorities are to begin immediately reaching out to the Republicans, independents and Democrats in this district, to reach out and address the touch challenges we face as a state and a country," according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Love, the lone black woman elected to Congress as a Republican, had distanced herself from the president ahead of Election Day. Trump carried the district by about 7 percentage points in 2016, versus an approximately 20-point margin over Hillary Clinton in the state as a whole.

McAdams started to make waves even before the race was called. He and 15 other incumbent and incoming freshman Democrats signed a letter of opposition to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as the next House speaker.

Pelosi, 78, has dared other Democrats to challenge her. She and her allies have noted that her opponents lack a clear alternative. One potential challenger, Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio, endorsed the longtime House Democratic leader on Tuesday.

House Democrats face a challenge in entering a divided government in January, with the Senate and White House still in Republican hands. They have to balance a desire to work with the GOP on issues such as drug prices and infrastructure with demands from their base to use the House majority's investigative powers to hold the Trump administration accountable.

This story was updated to include NBC News' calls in the Utah and Georgia races.
In an unusual break with typical Supreme Court practice, Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday delivered a mild rebuke of President Donald Trump for calling a federal judge in California an "Obama judge."

Roberts said that America does not have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges."

"What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them," Roberts said in a statement responding to an inquiry from the Associated Press. "That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for."

Trump on Tuesday lashed out against Jon Tigar, a district court judge in California, who issued a forceful ruling Monday night blocking the president's attempt to bar entry to the U.S. to migrants who arrive between ports of entry.

"This was an Obama judge," Trump told reporters. "And I'll tell you what, it's not going to happen like this anymore."

Trump also repeated his attacks on the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has dealt his administration a number of legal setbacks.

"The 9th Circuit is really something we have to take a look at because it's  because it's not fair," Trump said. A spokesperson for the 9th Circuit did not respond to a request for comment about the president's remarks.

In a post on Twitter Wednesday, the president reasserted his attacks.

"Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges,' and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country," the president wrote.

Trump Tweet

Trump Tweet 2

Trump was criticized last year for calling a federal judge who ruled against a version of his administration's travel ban a "so-called judge."

The nine justices on the court typically avoid making statements to the public that can be perceived as partisan.

That effort has been on display in recent weeks as the court's liberals have sought to demonstrate public harmony in the wake of the contentious confirmation hearings for the most recent addition to the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. On Saturday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama nominee to the court, told CNN that Kavanaugh is now part of the Supreme Court "family."

There are occasionally divergences from the norm. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disparaged Trump during his campaign for president, calling him a "faker" and jokingly suggesting it was time to move to New Zealand. But before the election was over, Ginsburg apologized for her remarks and said she regretted making them.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who is an expert on the federal courts, said that Roberts has been extremely guarded in his public remarks, limiting any discussion of the other branches to the occasional gentle chiding of Congress in his year-end report.

Wednesday's statement, Tobias said, shows that Roberts is "very concerned about the judicial independence of the judges who the president continues to attack, sometimes very personally."

"If Roberts believes in anything, it's his own coequal branch being independent of the other branches," Tobias said.
China allegedly directed an increase in cyber attacks on Australian companies this year that breached a bilateral agreement between the two countries pledging not to steal each other's commercial secrets, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday.

An investigation by Australian broadcaster Nine News and Fairfax Media  which owns the Sydney Morning Herald  found that China's Ministry of State Security was responsible for the so-called "Operation Cloud Hopper." It was a wave of attacks that were detected by Australia and its partners in the "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing alliance  which is made up of the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and Canada.

A senior Australian government source told the Sydney Morning Herald that China's activity was a "constant, significant effort" to steal intellectual property. Others said local companies and universities were not doing enough to tighten their cybersecurity against such attacks, the newspaper reported.

Cybersecurity experts also told the newspaper they had noticed "a significant increase in attacks in the first six months of this year" and that the activity was "mainly from China."

Relevant contact details for China's Ministry of State Security were not immediately available.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang addressed the report during his regular press conference on Tuesday and said that cyber attacks are a common challenge faced by all countries.

"Relevant reports and accusations are fabricated without facts but with hidden motives," he said. "They are unprofessional and irresponsible. They will only heighten tension and rivalry, instead of helping to protect the common security of cyberspace."

The Sydney Morning Herald's report came after recent remarks from U.S. Vice President , who accused Beijing of intellectual property theft during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

Western countries have long accused China of stealing intellectual property as well as commercial and military secrets, which Beijing has denied. In recent years, China has stepped up efforts to create sophisticated home-grown technologies as it aims to catch up with other high-tech countries like the U.S. and Germany.
The 2018 midterm election included a wave of victories for female candidates and major upsets across the country. Now, four prominent female Democrats are all but openly running for president. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, considered a top contender for 2020, confirmed that she will "take a serious look at" an election bid. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York called the midterm election a pivotal moment for women, and told late-night show host Stephen Colbert in November that she would give a presidential bid a "long, hard thought of consideration." Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in September that she would take a "hard look" at running, and called for Americans to elect a female president. There is also growing buzz that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is considering a bid. It would be unprecedented for a group of high-profile women to spar in a party presidential primary in the same year. "The presidential election will demonstrate that the electoral power of women is strong in the Democratic party," Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics, tells CNBC Make It. "For men who are running in 2020, particularly on the Democratic side, there will be increased accountability in terms of their perception and actions towards gender equity. They will have to answer to it more, through concrete policies and engagement with female voters." Here's a round-up of the women who could compete to challenge President Trump in 2020:

Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.)

The California senator spent a lot of time traveling to key battleground states before the November election, and is widely expected to announce a presidential bid. Harris gained national attention during her rapid-fire questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings in September. But experts say her biggest obstacle as a presidential contender would be name recognition: Voters outside California, they say, know little about her. As a woman of color, she could appeal to African-American voters, which her advisers say would help her win early primary contests that see high black turnout. "Frankly, a woman of color is going to have an opening if she decides to pursue the presidential bid, and Harris can craft a credible argument that would broaden her base beyond just demographics and her biography," Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, tells CNBC Make It. Harris endorsed several Democratic women and candidates of color prior to the midterm elections, and said the country is at an "inflection moment," including on matters of gender and sexual assault.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Getty Images

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.)

After winning re-election for her second full term in November, Gillibrand confirmed that she is considering running for president. She spent minimally on her re-election campaign, and now has over $10.6 million dollars to jump-start a 2020 bid, according to public filings. Gillibrand has pointed out that the political energy among Democratic women this year is unprecedented, even compared to the energy when Hillary Clinton ran to be the first women president. She told Colbert right after her re-election that she would give a presidential bid a "hard thought." "I've seen the hatred and the division that President Trump has put out into our country, and it has called me to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore the moral compass of this country," she told Colbert.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) speaks during a news conference December 6, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.)

Warren has some advantages as a potential front runner: A nationally known name, a giant fundraising base and a demonstrated liberal record. Many wanted her to run in the Democratic primary in 2016 on the left of Hillary Clinton, but she didn't, and the spot went to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. For some, Warren's run became obvious after she released results of a DNA test in October to prove that she has Native American ancestry. She's also traveled the country extensively in recent months in states she'd need to win in 2020. Warren has urged Americans to elect a female president, and her bid would likely align with the wave of feminist messaging in the Trump era, along with a solid message of economic populism. "It's time for women to go to Washington and fix our broken government, and that includes a woman at the top," she said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (M.N.)

Klobuchar easily secured a third term as Minnesota's senior Senator in November, and her victory stoked even more 2020 speculation. Klobuchar has a lower profile and less financial backing than the women she'd likely challenge. She's known for bipartisan efforts and a focus on less divisive issues, which could make it challenging for Klobuchar to attract Democratic voters in 2020, who will likely flock to anti-Trump candidates further to the left. "She's remarkably gifted, but no one is going to walk over red hot coals for her like they will for more progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The political brand she is offering is unlikely to attract excitement and fired up supporters," Jacobs said.
Goldman Sachs's stock won't see meaningful gains until the Malaysian government investment fund scandal is resolved, according to Morgan Stanley, which downgraded its rival investment bank on Wednesday.

"It is unclear how long the issue will take to resolve, what the fines and penalties could be, and what costs Goldman Sachs will subsequently incur to satisfy any demands from regulators," wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck. "These risks, coupled with potential headline risks in the coming months (additional lawsuits, additional regulatory probes, internal reviews), drive our Equal-weight rating."

Shares of Goldman Sachs rose slightly Wednesday morning.

The company's shares are down more than 14 percent since it was first reported that a former Goldman partner pleaded guilty and another former employee was charged with helping to steal money from a Malaysian government investment fund known as 1MDB.

Most of the decline in the stock, however, came after it was reported that then-CEO Lloyd Blankfein attended a 2009 introductory meeting with the Malaysian financier later accused of plundering billions from the fund. The U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment earlier this month accusing Low Taek Jho with laundering and embezzlement.

Known as "Jho Low," the financier attend the 2009 meeting between Blankfein and then-recently elected Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak.

The bank arranged three bond deals in 2012 and 2013 to fund 1MDB, raising $6.5 billion to supposedly attract foreign investments. However, U.S. authorities accused Low of siphoning billions of dollars from the fund and leveraging the cash to pay bribes.

Though former Goldman banker Tim Leissner has pleaded guilty, the bank has said that Leissner and others duped the firm and sidestepped internal protocols. The Malaysian government is seeking the return of the entire $600 million in fees Goldman generated in helping set up the debt offerings.

"There is a wide range of outcomes on what the fines and penalties could be for Goldman Sachs," Morgan Stanley's Graseck said. "The ultimate outcome is far from certain. Goldman Sachs could obtain a reduction in penalties based on cooperation and the strength of its compliance program, or face additional fines and penalties for potential violations of other provisions of the FCPA or potential violations of other statutes, including antimoney laundering laws."

Morgan Stanley has a $226 price target on shares of Goldman Sachs, representing 18 percent upside from Tuesday's close.

 CNBC's Hugh Son contributed reporting.
President Donald Trump (L) gives a thumbs up to the media as he is greeted by Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau during the G7 official welcome at Le Manoir Richelieu on day one of the G7 meeting on June 8, 2018 in Quebec City, Canada.

A dozen Senate Republicans are calling on President Donald Trump to get the newly renegotiated NAFTA, now called the USMCA ratified this year, before House Democrats take control and make passage "significantly more difficult."

In a letter to the president, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., along with 10 other GOP lawmakers said, "we stand ready to assist in helping you secure a pathway to Congressional consideration" in the lame-duck Congress.

Democrats have suggested that they will seek changes. Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., who is expected to chair the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade in the next Congress said, "The jury is still out as to whether this deal meets my standard for a better deal for American workers." He is concerned about the ability to enforce labor and environmental provisions in the agreement.

The presumptive incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has also expressed skepticism that wage provisions in the deal, which call for 40 to 45 percent of an automobile to be made by workers who earn at least $16 per hour, can be enforced.

Republican Sen. Toomey called the USMCA a "mixed bag of trade-enhancing and trade-restricting changes."

"I would be willing to vote for the agreement if the President takes steps to strengthen it in the coming weeks through pro-trade modifications in the implementation legislation," said Toomey in a statement.

To be considered in the lame-duck session, the administration would have to submit a final legal text of the agreement before the end of the month. It would also need to submit a draft statement of administrative action that lays out necessary changes to U.S. law needed to implement the deal.

The agreement has yet to be formally agreed to by the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The plan is for the three countries to sign the agreement in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit next week. But that plan has yet to be formalized. Disagreements over the U.S. imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs have been the hang up.

"It's the expectation that by the time of the signing there will be either a solution or a very clear track that gives enough certainty to all parties that a solution is coming," said Mexican Ambassador to the United States Geronimo Gutierrez.

In addition to Toomey, the letter was signed by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Steve Daines, R-Mont., Deb Fischer, R-Neb., Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., James Lankford, R-Okla., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Other items on the must-do list for Republicans include funding the departments of Agriculture and Homeland Security, which will set up battles over the farm bill and immigration. Trump has threatened a government shutdown to secure funding for the border wall.

WATCH: Twelve US execs explain how Trump's trade war affects their bottom lines
Losing cellphone service is inconvenient. But in some cases, it also might mean you're getting hacked.

San Francisco resident Robert Ross, a father of two, noticed his phone suddenly lose its signal on Oct. 26. Confused, he went to a nearby Apple store and later contacted his service provider, AT&T. But he wasn't quick enough to stop a hacker from draining $500,000 from two separate accounts he had at Coinbase and Gemini, according to Santa Clara officials.

Nicholas Truglia, 21, lifted the $1 million from Ross' two cryptocurrency accounts, according to a felony complaint filed this month in California state court. Prosecutors say Truglia also hacked the phones of multiple Silicon Valley executives but was not able to rob their accounts.

"It's a whole new wave of crime," said Erin West, the deputy district attorney of Santa Clara County. "It's a new way of stealing of money: They target people that they believe to have cryptocurrency," she told CNBC.

Truglia has been charged with 21 counts, which include identity theft, fraud, embezzlement, crimes that "involve a pattern of related felony conduct," and attempted grand theft in Ross' case, according to court documents.

West said Ross had been saving that money for his daughters' college funds, and stored it in U.S. dollars on the crypto exchanges. Truglia later converted that money to cryptocurrency and moved it to his own accounts before Ross was able to regain control of his phone number.

Officials obtained a warrant and searched Truglia's 42nd Street high-rise in Manhattan last week, they told CNBC. They were able to recover $300,000 from a computer hard drive. But the rest of the missing money may be tough to track down.

Cryptocurrency fans have said it is more trustworthy because transactions are recorded on a public ledger, known as blockchain. Transactions can be seen by anyone, but the identity of the sender and receiver are anonymous.

"In some ways, it's helpful because we can see where the money is going  that's the beauty of the blockchain," West told CNBC. "It's public, but what we still can't see is who holds those accounts."

Cryptocurrency trading became especially popular last year, attracting floods of retail investors as bitcoin rose to nearly $20,000. But with that popularity came hacks. The total in cryptocurrency lost by individuals hit $1.6 billion at the end of June, according to CoinDesk's 2018 State of Blockchain Report. Bitcoin itself is now down more than 75 percent since those December highs, and was trading near $4,400 Wednesday.

Other victims that were hacked and named in the court papers include Saswata Basu, the CEO of blockchain storage service 0Chain; Myles Danielson, a hedge-fund executive, and Gabrielle Katsnelson, co-founder of start-up SMBX.

Truglia has agreed to extradition, and Santa Clara officials expect to pick him up in December. After that, a court date will be set, officials said.
When Sarah Guinn and her family walked into terminal three at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on Wednesday morning, she was pleasantly surprised.

"It is pretty calm," said Guinn, who was flying to Denver for Thanksgiving. "We got here earlier than we needed to I think. You don't want to get stuck, we got stuck once so we don't want that to happen again."

A relatively calm holiday weekend without any major storms or technical glitches that canceled or delayed scores of flights is welcome news for the airlines and their investors.

This year has been a bust for most airline stocks. American Airlines' stock is down 30 percent so far this year. Southwest is down 20 percent and JetBlue is down 19 percent. Higher jet fuel prices earlier in the year cut into profit margins while many carriers struggled to raise airfares enough to offset the extra costs.

But the recent drop in jet fuel prices combined with strong demand has set the airlines up for a solid holiday season.

"We are looking as a very healthy fall season and it is certainly rolling right into a very healthy holiday season," said Susan Donofrio, airline analyst at Macquarie Capital.

Thanksgiving has always been big for the airlines, but this year the number of people flying is expected to hit a record high. Airlines for America, an industry trade group, estimates 30.6 million people will take a flight during the 12-day stretch that wraps around Thanksgiving. The busiest day is expected to be Sunday when just more than 3 million people are scheduled to board flights.

Demand is strong thanks to the robust economy, low unemployment and high consumer confidence.

"The consumer has continued to show up to travel and we are looking at very healthy revenue trends going forward," said Donofrio.

It also helps that airfares remain relatively low. The website Hopper.com, which tracks airfares, says the average domestic round-trip ticket is currently $222.

Perhaps the only glitch to the start of Thanksgiving weekend for travelers came Wednesday morning when the American Airlines mobile app went down for about 15 minutes. The company's check-in kiosks at O'Hare Airport also went down due to a connectivity issue, which meant passengers had to stand in a long line to check their bags. American says flight operations were never impacted.



"We are grateful for our team members in our airports who acted quickly to help our customers check in for their flights at our ticket counters to get them on their way for their Thanksgiving travels," the company said in a statement it issued shortly after the issue was resolved.

 CNBC's Meghan Reeder contributed to this report.

 By CNBC's Phil LeBeau; Follow him on Twitter: @Lebeaucarnews
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini speaks during a statement after a bilateral meeting prior to the European Union member states' interior and justice ministers conference on July 11, 2018 in Innsbruck, Austria.

Italy's populist government is standing firm on its new budget proposals, but it could now pay the price for doing so with the EU launching disciplinary measures against the country.

The European Commission  the EU's executive arm  said that Italy's 2019 draft budget does not comply with the EU's requirement that member states work to reduce their debt piles. As such, the Commission will now launch what's known as an "Excessive Deficit Procedure" that could lead to Italy being fined.

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini remained defiant after the news, saying he will talk to the Commission "politely, as always, but will carry on."

He said Italy would explain its structural reforms and investment plans to the EU. He said he hoped EU sanctions would be avoided and that if not, these would be "disrespectful" to Italians, Reuters reported.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who is largely seen as a technocratic leader under Salvini and his co-Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, said the government is convinced over its budget. He said he will discuss the matter with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Sunday.

For its part, the EU's Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, Valdis Dombrovskis, said Italy is of common concern and that all euro zone countries are "on the same team and should play by the same rules." He also said that Italy's budget plans could harm the country's growth prospects and could mean more austerity at a later date.
"What really matters is that the U.S. has withdrawn from pressuring countries more generally over human rights."

On Tuesday, Trump was explicit about wanting to protect the American diplomatic and economic relationship with the oil producer, saying: "They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world."

Whether the CIA's full report leads to any schism in political and economic relations between the West and Saudi Arabia is now looking even more doubtful, given Trump's comments. So far, the U.S. and Europe have only issued sanctions targeted at individuals alleged to have had a role in the murder.

But of course, the murder or mistreatment of journalists hasn't bothered some Western governments that much before.

There are numerous examples of journalists being assaulted or imprisoned, missing or murdered all over the world. While many journalists' deaths occur in times of civil unrest and conflict during the dangerous process of reporting, others take place in nominally peaceful and prosperous times.

The common denominator in journalists' murders is that they tend to come after a reporter has investigated and exposed wrongdoing or has criticized those in positions of power and influence. And just as we've seen in the investigation into Khashoggi's murder, there is often uncomfortable evidence to link top officials to these deaths.

In India, Russia and China  top trading partners of the West  being a journalist is one of the most dangerous vocations you can pursue.

In Russia, 38 journalists have been murdered between 1992 and 2018, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In India, 34 journalists have been murdered in the same time period. These murders are invariably linked to the investigative or critical work of the journalist. In China, more than 50 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in "conditions that pose a threat to their lives," according to Reporters Without Borders.

And in Myanmar just two months ago, the government handed down seven-year sentences to two Reuters journalists who were investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys by security forces. Myanmar's leader once celebrated leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, claims the journalists were jailed for handling official secrets.
Shopping centers could find ways to draw consumers out of the house and into retail stores by offering "seamless and frictionless" experiences such as curbside pickup, mall developer Nathan Forbes told CNBC on Wednesday.

The president and managing partner of The Forbes Company, which runs luxury shopping centers in Michigan and Florida, said curbside pickup doesn't deter shoppers from going into the mall. Instead, the service compliments shopping, he said.

"They'll come to the mall. They'll buy their stuff. We'll have it picked up," Forbes explained on "Power Lunch."

Runners would be dispatched to each store to gather the items that customers have bought.

"We'll aggregate it together and we'll have it available for you at the valet outside the shopping center at the curb when you're ready to leave the shopping center," he said.

It's one strategy Forbes said retail centers can leverage to tap into the uptick in consumer spending, which could produce $1 trillion in sales this holiday season. Deloitte predicts that online sales could spike as much as 22 percent this year.

Meanwhile, shopping malls are facing more threats of empty storefronts as department store operators such as Sears see mass closures and brands such as Gap Inc. threaten to turn out some lights, too.

But Forbes is not worried about online competition during the all-important holiday shopping season because consumers have "become agnostic as to how they shop," he said. Appealing services and environments make "experiential" and brick-and-mortar shopping worthwhile, he argued.

"When you look at the total gross numbers, retail sales this holiday selling season could [top] $1 trillion during the holiday selling period," he said. "And still, with all the online shopping, 87.5 percent of that $1 trillion will be done in brick-and-mortar business."
When she's not starring on Netflix's "Stranger Things," Emmy award-nominated actress Millie Bobby Brown takes time to promote causes she's passionate about  and during this year's World Children's Day, she was recognized for doing just that.

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) welcomed Brown, 14, as the latest Goodwill Ambassador for the non-profit on Tuesday, making her the youngest person ever to step into the position.

"Given UNICEF's global role as the world's leading voice for children and young people, to be the youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF is more than an honor. It's a powerful privilege," the actress said during a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York.

As a globally-recognized actor, with millions of social media followers, Brown plans on using her platform to highlight issues affecting younger people, such as poverty, violence and lack of education or shelter.

"I will speak out for the millions of children and young people whose voices have been silenced for far too long," she said.

"I will shine a light on the issues that vulnerable children and young people have suffered around the world, including representing them at places where they haven't yet had a seat at the table."

"Most of all, I will make sure children and young people know their rights and I will do everything I can to empower them, to be the change they want to see in the world."

During her speech, the actress said that she was looking forward to meeting and helping as many children as possible  and in doing so, she hopes her fans will be motivated to raise their own voices.

Brown has supported UNICEF's work since 2016, having hosted the non-profit's 70th anniversary celebrations that year. In addition to highlighting UNICEF's work on her platforms, she draws attention to a whole host of other topics, including gender equality and gun violence.

As a Goodwill Ambassador for the non-profit, Brown will be joining the ranks of many others who've taken on this role, including Orlando Bloom, Shakira, David Beckham and Priyanka Chopra.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at the Asia Society in New York on Sept. 21, 2016. Ted Kemp | CNBC

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi led her political party to a landslide victory three years ago, ending decades of military-backed rule and raising hopes for democracy. Today, the dominance of her ruling party  the National League for Democracy  is gradually eroding ahead of the country's next election in 2020. Suu Kyi, who is officially barred from the presidency but still rules as State Counselor through trusted proxies, has experienced a stunning fall from grace over her mishandling of minority and indigenous groups. Myanmar is dominated by Buddhist-majority Bamars who have long clashed with smaller factions such as the Kachin people, who are mostly Christian, and the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim community. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been accused of turning a blind eye to the military's violent persecution against the Rohingya in the state of Rakhine that escalated in August 2017. The state's brutal crackdown has displaced thousands, triggering a mass exodus of Rohingya refugees to neighboring Bangladesh.

Minority voters souring on the NLD

More citizens are realizing that Suu Kyi does not support Myanmar's various religious and ethnic minorities that are targeted by the ever-powerful military, experts said. Last year, widespread protests erupted after statues of Suu Kyi's father, General Aung San  widely considered a Bamar hero  were erected in states home to minorities. The NLD's waning popularity among ethnic minorities, who make up roughly 30 percent of Myanmar's population, could hurt the governing party's performance in the next election. While many still anticipate an NLD victory in 2020, it will be one "with a much lesser margin of victory," said Hunter Marston, an independent Myanmar analyst based in Washington, DC.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party the main opposition party supported by the military  and coalitions of ethnic political parties "could certainly chip away at the NLD's electoral dominance and parliamentary majority in 2020," Marston noted. During by-elections earlier this month, the NLD retained its overall parliamentary majority but lost several seats previously held in minority-dominant areas. Low voter turnout in Yangon, the NLD's base, was particularly troubling, Marston pointed out.

The government has done little to improve the Myanmar economy, offering relatively incoherent economic plans and presiding over continuing severe inequality. Joshua Kurlantzick Council on Foreign Relations

But even before those elections, Suu Kyi's government already faced stumbling blocks. In March, the sudden resignation of former President Htin Kyaw was interpreted as a worrying sign for the political leadership. It's no surprise that minority voters are souring on the NLD, political watchers say. "Under the Suu Kyi government, the military has actually expanded its battles against many ethnic minority insurgent groups, and peace deals that would affect ethnic minority areas in the north and northeast have gained little traction," Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent note.

Rebuke from world leaders

The United Nations has accused Myanmar's troops of mass Rohingya killings, gang rapes and the burning of entire villages in Rakhine, calling for army officials to face genocide charges. But Suu Kyi, who was recently stripped of her honorary Canadian citizenship, has said the military was operating according to the "rule of law." She has denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and defended the arrest of Reuters journalists who were reporting on the state's role in Rohingya killings. Her inaction on the matter has drawn sharp criticism from world leaders. At a summit in Singapore last week, U.S. President Mike Pence told Suu Kyi that the persecution of Rohingya was inexcusable. Washington, in August, imposed sanctions on some military and police commanders in Myanmar over the humanitarian crisis.
Drug giant Pfizer on Wednesday became the sixth big company to request a refund of its campaign contribution to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in light of the Mississippi Republican's controversial "joke" comments about attending a hanging and favoring voter suppression.

But ex-Facebook President Sean Parker is not asking for the return of his money backing the election of Hyde-Smith to a full term over Democratic challenger Mike Espy, even as Parker condemned her comments.

"We condemn racism and bigotry in all its forms," Pfizer told CNBC. "We are withdrawing our support and have requested a full refund of our contributions."

Pfizer had contributed a total of $5,000 to Hyde-Smith in two donations, one in June, the other in September.

Pfizer joins Walmart, AT&T, Boston Scientific, Union Pacific, and Leidos in asking for campaign contributions to be returned.

Later Wednesday, California-based biotechnology company Amgen told CNBC that it is also requesting a refund of its campaign contributions to Hyde-Smith. The company had donated at least $2,000 to Hyde-Smith's Senate campaign, according to a Nov. 1 Federal Election Commission filing.

"Amgen is committed to a culture of diversity and inclusion. We believe that an environment of diversity and inclusion fosters innovation, which drives our ability to serve patients," an Amgen spokeswoman said in an email to CNBC.

Amgen's request brought the total number of companies seeking refunds from Hyde-Smith to seven.

The corporate moves came just days after the news site Popular Information highlighted Hyde-Smith's corporate support.

Hyde-Smith faces a runoff election against Espy, a former Mississippi congressman and U.S. Agriculture secretary, who is looking to become the first black senator from the state since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.

As a rule, a Republican such as Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in March to replace ailing Sen. Thad Cochran, would be expected to skate to election in Mississippi.

But this year, Hyde-Smith's comments  and Facebook feed  have made the race closer to a toss-up. Both have been seen by many people as echoes of Mississippi's past as a bastion of slavery and of repression of black voting rights.

Earlier this month it was revealed that she quipped to a political supporter at an event that "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

On Tuesday night, in a debate with Espy, Hyde-Smith said, "This comment was twisted, was turned into a weapon to be used against me."

She said that if anyone was offended by the remark, "I certainly apologize."

Espy told her: "No one twisted your comments."

""They came out of your mouth. I don't know what's in your heart  but we all know what came out of your mouth. ... It's caused our state harm. It's given our state another black eye that we don't need," Espy said.

Last week, another video surfaced in which Hyde-Smith was heard saying it might be "a great idea" to make it more difficult for some people to vote. She had mentioned "liberals" right before making that comment, which her spokeswoman claimed was done in jest.
Amazon bought PillPack, an internet pharmacy start-up, earlier this year, leading to speculation that the e-retailer will soon start selling prescription drugs on its marketplace.

Before that happens, Amazon may be preparing to provide the service to its own employees.

PillPack recently applied for a string of new pharmacy licenses, primarily to ship drugs to customers from its Phoenix facility. The licenses in Washington, New Mexico and Indiana were spotted this week by analysts at financial services firm Jefferies.

In a report to clients on Monday, the analysts said it appears that the licenses would allow PillPack to ship to those states from Phoenix. Previously, Jefferies noted that PillPack's facility in Phoenix was only licensed to ship to Arizona and New Hampshire, where it's headquartered. The company has been applying for more licenses in the past few months.

Customers in every U.S. state except Hawaii can already receive PillPack shipments, but they only get delivered from a handful of facilities. With more licenses in Phoenix, the company potentially gets faster access to people in Western states.

It's particularly notable that PillPack is targeting Washington, because that would mean gaining access to employees at Amazon's Seattle headquarters. Amazon has used a similar company-first strategy in other areas, including through its health joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase, where it's first focusing on its own workers.

"This move wouldn't be unusual for AMZN as the company often pilots new product offerings (Amazon Locker, Amazon Go cashier-less stores) for its own employees and/or in geographies with higher employee concentrations like Seattle prior to a national rollout," the Jefferies analysts wrote.

Amazon offers a very large testing ground. The company has hundreds of thousands of employees and has plans to add a combined 50,000 jobs at its two new headquarters offices, in New York City and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media in the briefing room at the Department of State, on November 20, 2018 in Washington, DC.

The United States has told its ally South Korea it should not improve ties with North Korea faster than Pyongyang takes steps to give up its nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.

Speaking as a working group with South Korea to coordinate North Korean policy held an inaugural meeting in Washington, Pompeo indicated that Washington had been concerned that Seoul had moved too quickly with Pyongyang.

"We have made clear to the Republic of Korea that we do want to make sure that peace on the peninsula and the denuclearization of North Korea aren't lagging behind the increase in the amount of inter-relationship between the two Koreas," he told a news briefing.

"We view them as tandem, as moving forward together," Pompeo added. "We view them as important parallel processes, and that working group is designed to make sure they continue to remain that way."

The working group is headed by South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, Lee Do-hoon, and Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea.

Pompeo said he believed there was "complete agreement" on how to proceed.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a statement from Seoul's Foreign Ministry as saying the two sides in the meeting agreed to continue close coordination and cooperation on an "increasingly systemic and regular basis."

Last month, in a rare sign of discord between Seoul and Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Pompeo had expressed "discontent" at an inter-Korean military pact reached during a summit in September.

The Koreas also agreed in October to begin reconnecting rail and road links despite U.S. concerns that the rapid North-South thaw could undermine efforts to press Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

At an unprecedented summit in June, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to work toward denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula and establish new relations.

But negotiations have since made little headway, with Pyongyang upset by Washington's insistence that international sanctions must remain until it gives up its nuclear weapons.

Last week, South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said in Washington it was important to provide North Korea with motivation to denuclearize but that sanctions would stay in place "until we see actual progress on denuclearization."
Riot Blockchain, the cryptocurrency company whose stock skyrocketed after changing its name, revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena and investigation are "still ongoing," according to its most recent quarterly filing.

The company had previously disclosed that the subpoena received on April 9 was "pursuant to a formal order of investigation," according to its May quarterly filing.

Last month, Riot announced in a press release that the SEC had terminated its Section 8(e) examination of certain registration statements. According to an SEC press release unrelated to Riot Blockchain, this type of examination could have led to an order blocking share sales, but it did not in this case. Riot withdrew one registration statement and its amended version in question and terminated the other, according to the latest quarterly filing. Riot said it is "fully cooperating" with the SEC, according to the latest filing.

"We continue to work with the SEC and other regulators among all our business lines to make sure we are operating within the frame they would like us to work," said Chris Ensey, Riot Blockchain's interim CEO, in a phone interview. "We don't have any additional comments on that at this time."

Riot has continued to engage in conversations with SEC staff after receiving several comments letters which the company previously disclosed. "The comments raise matters related to, among other things, the unsettled nature of accounting treatment for the Company's cryptocurrency mining and the fair value method selected by the Company," according to the latest quarterly filing.

"Recent disclosure shows that a cloud still hangs over this company so long as the SEC investigation continues," said Jake Zamansky, of the securities law firm Zamansky LLC, in a phone interview. "The fact that the division of enforcement remains involved and a registration statement was withdrawn are ominous events for Riot Blockchain."

The SEC is really worried about companies trying to adopt new ways to represent themselves to create a better picture for investors, according to Peter Henning, a professor of law at Wayne State University in Detroit. Henning was a senior attorney in the division of enforcement at the SEC.

The SEC declined to comment.

Riot released its third-quarter earnings on Monday, after filing on Nov. 14 that they would be delayed.

The company had approximately $2.3 million in cryptocurrency mining revenue in the quarter and a net loss of approximately $6.2 million, according to a press release. In the previous quarter, Riot had approximately $2.8 million in revenue and a net loss of approximately $24.4 million. Year-over-year comparisons are unhelpful since the company only entered the cryptocurrency business in October 2017.

In the third quarter, Riot had a positive growth margin even with the decline in the price of bitcoin, according to Ensey.

The company produced 319 bitcoins and 1,182 litecoins in the latest quarter, according to its press release. In the previous quarter, the first time all of the company's cryptocurrency mining machines were set up, Riot produced 348 bitcoins and 318 litecoins.

"We are pleased with the results of the [mining] team," Ensey said in the phone interview.

According to Monday's press release, part of the loss was from legal fees. In addition to the SEC matters, the company is also facing various lawsuits. On Nov. 6, U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey, ordered a lead plaintiff and lead counsel for a class action against Riot.

The company had $1.6 million cash on hand, down from $1.7 million as of the end of the second quarter of 2018, $5.3 million in cash at the end of the first quarter of 2018, and $41.7 million in December 2017, according to recent quarterly filings.

Riot currently has $1.7 million worth of cryptocurrency on hand, down from $4.9 million last quarter. The company sold nearly $7.4 million worth of cryptocurrency in the last nine months, according to recent filings.

"We look at it as we're always looking at efforts to improve our operations and overhead cost," Ensey said in the interview. "We continue to receive and evaluate various opportunities including those related to additional capital."

Over the past nine months, Riot spent $20.3 million on purchasing property and equipment and used nearly $16 million for operating activities, according to its latest quarterly filing.

Riot is trying to start its own cryptocurrency exchange, RiotX. The company announced Wednesday that it had entered an agreement with Shift Markets to provide RiotX with its crypto exchange platform. Shift Markets provides cryptocurrency exchange services for clients.

"The Company expects to continue to incur losses from operations for the near-term and these losses could be significant," the latest filing said. "The Company believes that in order for the Company to meet its obligations arising from normal business operations for the next twelve months, the Company requires additional capital either in the form of equity or debt. Without additional capital, the Company's ability to continue to operate will be limited."

This was the first quarterly filing since CEO John O'Rourke resigned in the wake of unrelated allegation by the SEC against him for what an SEC press release called "lucrative market manipulation schemes." He was succeeded by Ensey as interim CEO. Ensey told CNBC that coming in as the new CEO has been extremely exciting and positive, and that Riot's opportunity is significant.
Saudi Arabia was presumed to be guilty over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi without people knowing the facts or waiting for investigations to be completed, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNBC on Wednesday. "Saudi Arabia was declared guilty without people seeing evidence, without people knowing the facts," Al-Jubeir said, speaking to CNBC's Hadley Gamble in Riyadh. "This has continued since. We have seen leaks in the media, out of Turkey and out of Qatari-owned news entities that are disparaging of the kingdom and we see a lot of accusations thrown at the Kingdom of Saudi (Arabia), but they are not true." Al-Jubeir repeated comments he has made previously, saying the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 was "an unfortunate accident," and those who committed it "will be brought to justice." "We have made it very clear that Saudi Arabia's government is not involved in this and the crown prince is not involved in this, at all," he said. These comments came after a weekend report from The Washington Post that said the CIA had determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi.

Al-Jubeir added that Saudi Arabia's investigation is ongoing and that the kingdom would like to see more cooperation from Turkey. "We've asked Turkey to provide us with evidence, and we're still waiting for some of that evidence," he said. "Every Saudi is shocked and outraged by this crime. ... This was not authorized, this was an abuse of authority, and every Saudi wants to see justice served," he said. The kingdom was reviewing procedures to make sure a similar event can never happen again, he added. He said the world should judge only after Saudi Arabia had published the results of its own investigation. "Wait until the investigation is complete, wait until you see the legal steps that are taken against those who committed this crime, and the procedures we're putting in place to prevent it from happening again, then judge us. ... If you think our trials and our investigation is a Mickey Mouse one, criticize us, but wait until it's done," he said.

Trump statement

A day before Al-Jubeir's interview, President Donald Trump affirmed his support for the kingdom and its leadership despite an international furor over the killing of Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi who wrote for The Washington Post. Trump said Saudi Arabia was an important political and economic ally, and he appeared to dismiss media reports that the CIA could conclude, in its own report on the death, that the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's killing. "It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," Trump said in the statement, though he added: "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't."
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding he address whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The letter, sent Tuesday evening, came hours after Trump declared in a statement filled with exclamation points that the U.S. would stand with Saudi Arabia as a crucial economic and national security ally, despite the kingdom's admission that Khashoggi had been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. "In light of recent developments," Corker and Menendez wrote in the letter, "we request that your determination specifically address whether Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's murder." While multiple outlets reported that the CIA concluded with high confidence that the crown prince was directly involved in the decision to kill Khashoggi, Trump himself cast doubt in his statement: "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Sending the letter itself triggers an investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which was signed into law during the Obama administration in 2012. Corker and Menendez note in the letter that if the president receives the request, he is required to "determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture, or other gross violation of internationally recognized human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression" within 120 days. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) (L), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, shares a moment with ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) (R) prior to a committee meeting April 23, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Alex Wong | Getty Images

Corker, the committee chairman, and ranking member Menendez had already sparked a Magnitsky investigation on Oct. 10 regarding the death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi royal family. That letter required Trump to decide on sanctions with "respect to any foreign person responsible" for Khashoggi's then-disappearance. A bipartisan group of senators, including South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Florida Republican Marco Rubio, co-signed the letter. The Trump administration last week did announce sanctions on 17 people allegedly involved in Khashoggi's slaying, including the overseer of the Saudi consulate where Khashoggi was tortured, killed and dismembered, according to reports citing Turkish officials. Saudi prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty for five individuals allegedly involved in the killing. But Trump released a bellicose statement Tuesday asserting that while the world "may never know all of the facts surrounding" Khashoggi's murder, "our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." The statement asserted that an "America First" worldview required the preservation of the strong U.S.-Saudi alliance cultivated during the Trump administration. He highlighted Saudi Arabia's role as an ally in Washington's increasingly hostile stance toward Iran, and as a partner in the fight against global terrorism. Trump has been even more vocally supportive of the kingdom in the wake of his decision on Khashoggi. In a tweet Wednesday morning, he thanked Saudi Arabia for recent declines in oil prices, adding "Let's go lower!" Trump tweet

Congress knocks Trump
European stocks closed higher Wednesday, clawing their way back from sharp losses sustained in the previous session.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 finished provisionally up 1.2 percent during the day's deals, with all sectors and major bourses in positive territory.

Europe's banking index was among the top performers Wednesday morning, up almost 2 percent amid support from Italy's notoriously fragile lenders. Banco BPM, Ubi Banca and Intesa Sanpaolo all surged higher amid reports the country's Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, could be prepared to review the government's 2019 budget.

However, the European Union has since announced it will look to sanction Italy with a fine if the country continues to refused to submit a budget proposal that abides by its rules.

Looking at individual stocks, hospital chain NMC Health rose towards the top of the European benchmark during mid-morning deals. It comes after J.P. Morgan raised its stock recommendation to "overweight" from "neutral." Shares of the London-listed firm rose 8.4 percent.

Meanwhile, British defense contractor Babcock took a one-off charge of 120 million ($153.7 million) on Wednesday. The charge comes as the company plans to reshape its business, while it also warned revenue from its nuclear decommissioning division would likely fall more than anticipated next year. Shares slipped 4.8 percent.

Markets around the globe have been under pressure this week, with stocks in Asia dipping into negative territory overnight after Wall Street finished Tuesday's session deep in red.

U.S. stocks bounced back in the Wednesday session and by the European close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was higher by more than 150 points. The U.S. markets will be closed Thursday because of Thanksgiving Day.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks with Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince and minister of defense, left, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 14, 2017.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday doubled down on his defense of Saudi Arabia, thanking the kingdom for helping to keep a lid on oil prices, amid bipartisan criticism for his statement on the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday, Trump declared he would stand by Saudi Arabia, even though the CIA has reportedly concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's killing. After releasing the statement, Trump repeatedly linked his position to his desire to boost arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the kingdom's role in preventing an oil price spike.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to promote the recent sharp pullback in oil prices and to praise Saudi Arabia.

"Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!," Trump tweeted, giving an inaccurate account of the drop in oil prices.

@realDonaldTrump: Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!

Trump's tweet underscored a message that is drawing fire from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill: The administration will overlook human rights abuses  even the murder of a U.S. resident like Khashoggi  if making a stand imperils the president's pursuit of economic growth.

On Tuesday, Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the White House is now moonlighting "as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia."

Trump's statement prompted Corker, who is about to retire, and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez to send a Global Magnitsky Act letter to the White House, requiring the president to determine whether Crown Prince Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's slaying.
The regional government of Andalusia has granted U.K.-firm Solarcentury permission to build four solar parks in the Spanish town of Alcala de Guadaira.

In an announcement Tuesday, Solarcentury said that the projects would have an output of around 50 megawatts each and would generate enough electricity to power 105,000 homes. Construction is set to begin in April 2019 and is expected to last 12 months.



Founded in 1998, Solarcentury has a presence in Europe, Latin America and Africa. The business has developed and built over 1 gigawatts (GW) of solar to date, with a further 2.4 GW in the pipeline.



"We see these projects as a real win-win for the region," Jose Miguel Ferrer, Solarcentury's managing director for Iberia, said in a statement. "Not only generating clean renewable power for thousands of homes, they will have been built with no public subsidies, be a net generator of employment and environmentally friendly," he added.



Around the world, the size of solar power facilities can range from smaller-sized projects such as Solarcentury's to vast developments like China's Tengger Desert Solar Park, which has a capacity of more than 1,500 MW.



Solarcentury's projects represent the latest solar energy developments in the Spanish solar sector. In September, for instance, Enel Green Power Espana (EGPE) commenced construction of an 84.7-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility in Murcia, Spain. The Totona project will be made up of 248,000 photovoltaic modules and is set to begin operation in the third quarter of 2019, EGPE said.
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is looking to cement its status as India's leading smartphone provider by opening thousands of stores before the end of 2019.



The company announced in a press release Tuesday that it would increase its presence in India from 500 retail stores to 5,000 by 2020.



"It's been over a year since we started offering our products through offline retail and we have seen strong growth there," Manu Jain, Xiaomi vice president and managing director for India, said in the release.

"Offline retail is a huge segment in our country with nearly 40 percent of the offline market focused in rural regions, and all of this should increase our offline sales and account for 50 percent of the company's revenue by the end of next year."

In a Twitter post, the smartphone maker invited people to apply to run one of the franchised stores, which will be based on its Mi retail model.



"Mi store is the 'new retail' model for rural India that gives flagship store experience to our rural customers," Xiaomi said on Twitter, adding that the new stores would generate more than 15,000 jobs.
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November 21, 2018

AFP Headline Casts Palestinian Assailant as Victim

Agence France Presse yesterday published a throwback headline, bringing us back to the period almost two years ago in which media outlets serially produced headlines which depicted Palestinian attackers as the victims.

The wire agency's grossly misleading English-language headline yesterday was:

Palestinian in Jerusalem police station attack dies of wounds

As the article itself states, the Palestinian was actually the assailant -- basic information that should have been made clear in the headline. The article begins:





A Palestinian teenager shot last week after attacking Israeli officers at a police station in annexed east Jerusalem died of his wounds on Tuesday, a hospital said. "The terrorist from the incident in the Armon Hanatziv police station has died," the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem said in a statement.

AFP's French headline, in contrast, clearly identifies the Palestinian as the perpetrator of the Jerusalem police station attack. It states: "Jerusalem: a Palestinian assailant succumbs to his wounds (hospital)." (Translation by InfoEquitable.) The original French headline is:

Jerusalem: un assaillant palestinien succombe a ses blessures (hopital)

Posted by TS at November 21, 2018 07:19 AM

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West Virginia officials say a mobile voting app based on blockchain technology successfully allowed absentee military members and their families living overseas to participate in this year's mid-term elections using only their smartphones.

The West Virginia Secretary of State's office estimated that 144 West Virginia absentee voters living in 30 different countries cast ballots using an application on approved mobile devices that records the ballots anonymously using blockchain.

The state used the app, which was developed by Boston start-up Voatz, to allow absentee voting by military members deployed overseas. The absentee voters would otherwise have had to submit paper absentee ballots via mail or vote over a land line telephone.

The state now plans to conduct an audit of the results that it expects to take two to three months; it then plans to publish the results of the audit.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner told State Scoop the mobile voting app is not a trend but the "wave of the future."

Voatz / blackdovfx / Getty Images

"For the first time in our nation's history, military and overseas citizens were able to cast ballots in a federal election using a mobile device. If this technology were not available, many of those soldiers and citizens would not have had the opportunity to participate in our democracy," Warner said in a statement.

"If our expectations hold true," he said, "the application's biometric safeguards, coupled with blockchain technology and a voter-verified digital trail of their ballot, will prove to be a secure alternative to the burdensome absentee voting processes traditionally available to the men and women protecting our freedom."

After he took office in January 2017, Warner tasked IT staffers to investigate mobile voting options for 8,000 West Virginian military members overseas. Warner, a retired U.S. Army officer with four children who are also all current or former Army officers, cited his own inability to vote when deployed in Afghanistan as one reason for his efforts.

Just 6.9% of eligible military personnel and overseas citizens cast a ballot in the 2016 presidential election, according to a 2018 report by the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

"With his personal experience in mind and stats that proved the problem is vast, one of Secretary Warner's first challenges to his Elections Division was to eliminate the hurdles in overseas voting that contributed to the very low voter participation rate for our deployed military and overseas citizens," Warner's office said in a statement.

"Having conducted two pilots with this technology, all the facts point to one common solution to the specific problem of absentee voting for military and overseas citizens: technology," the statement said. "Secretary Warner plans to continue improving the voting experience for our military and overseas citizens. As other states follow West Virginia's lead, we can expect to see technology evolve for the betterment of our democracy without sacrificing the integrity of our election processes or results."

Mike Queen, Warner's deputy chief of staff, said the state has no plans to expand the use of the Voatz mobile app beyond military absentee voters.

"We have done a ton of due diligence on this process and we've seriously considered every complaint and concern about blockchain," Queen said in an earlier interview. "Not only does blockchain make it secure, but Voatz has a really unique biometric safeguard system in place as well that involves facial recognition and thumb prints."

West Virginia conducted two pilots of the mobile voting app prior to the general election. In May, a pilot was conducted in two West Virginia counties: Harrison and Monongalia. In that limited pilot, 13 voters from six different countries cast a ballot using the technology. In a follow-on, several independent post-election audits were conducted by multiple security companies, the Secretary of State's office said.

Following those audits, the Secretary of State's Office Information Technology Division reviewed the reports and deemed the pilots a success. After that, a second company hired to review the audit results concluded that "the application, votes, blockchain and overall system were secure and no nefarious activity compromised the integrity of the ballots cast or voters' personal information."

How the technology works

The Voatz application uses a permissioned blockchain based on the HyperLedger framework first created by IBM and now supported by the Linux foundation. In the general election, eight verified validating nodes will be used, split evenly between AWS and Microsoft Azure, each of which are geographically distributed, according to Voatz.

Military personnel and their families who used the Voatz app only needed an Apple or Android smartphone and a state or federal ID.

Voatz Voatz iPhone mobile voting application.

On the Voatz app, authentication is a three-step process that uses the smartphone's camera and its biometric feature (either fingerprint or facial recognition). First, the voter scans their state driver's license or passport; then they take a live facial snapshot (a video "selfie"), and finally they touch the fingerprint reader on the smartphone, which ties the device to the specific voter.

Once a voter is authenticated, the app matches the voter's "selfie" to the facial picture on their passport or driver's license and confirms eligibility to vote by checking the state's voter registration database.

Voatz said it has conducted more than 30 successful pilots of its technology that range from state party conventions to student government elections. In the largest election, more than 15,000 votes were cast, the company said in a blog post.

Security concerns

Michela Menting, digital security research director at UK-based ABI Research, said mobile voting applications have shortcomings involving both ease-of-use concerns and security fears. For one, not everyone has a top-of-the-line smartphone.

"Also, that hardware piece would need to securely store a hash of your biometric information in order to use the biometric modalities on the phone to verify your identity," Menting said via email.

On the back end, the company processing the biometric information must ensure it's done securely and can't be stolen for unauthorized use. "So, a company like Voatz would have to ensure that it is applying the highest security standards to the security and management of that data," she said.

That said, Menting believes absentee voting is a good use case for blockchain, which is a distributed ledger technology that creates an immutable record of any data entry. The pre-verified user behind any data entered on a blockchain is hidden by a hash key, so the identity remains anonymous except for the administrator of the distributed ledger.

"It provides a more transparent method for voters and also better security from voter fraud," Menting said.

In time, similar blockchain applications could be used for other purposes, such as setting up a government identity, getting a driver's license, paying taxes or for credit ratings, Menting added.

"There are many potential use cases where these could be tied in together to the benefit of the individual who remains in control of their data and gains visibility into what and how that data can be used," Menting said.
Singapore and India reaffirm strong and long-standing defence ties

Singapore's Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen and Indian Minister of Defence Nirmala Sitharaman reaffirmed the strong and long-standing bilateral defence relationship on Tuesday, November 20.

They had co-chaired the third India-Singapore Defence Ministers Dialogue (DMD) in Visakhapatnam, India, according to a press release by Mindef.

During the DMD, both Ministers also discussed ways to strengthen defence cooperation. They discussed regional security developments and reaffirmed the good progress made in cooperation across the Armies, Navies, and Air Forces.

Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen (fourth from left) with Indian Minister of Defence Nirmala Sitharaman (third from right) at the third India-Singapore Defence Ministers' Dialogue in Visakhapatnam, India. Photo courtesy: Mindef

A Joint Statement released by Dr Ng and Ms Sitharaman after the DMD stressed both countries commitment to enhance bilateral and multilateral defence cooperation.

Dr Ng welcomed Indias continued engagement of the region and its active role in the regional security architecture. Both Ministers also looked forward to the inaugural conduct of the India-Singapore-Thailand maritime exercise in the Andaman Sea in 2019.

Dr Ng and Ms Sitharaman witnessing the exchange of the renewed Army Bilateral Agreement between Singapore's Commander 2nd Peoples Defence Force/Island Defence Task Force, Brigadier-General Dinesh Vasu Dash (right) and India's Chief of Staff, Army Southern Command, Lieutenant General Manoj Pande (left). Photo courtesy: Mindef

Emphasising the long history of defence cooperation between Singapore and India, Dr Ng Singapore and Indias defence agreements, interactions, and exercises across the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Singapore is very supportive of Indias vital security of the Indo-Pacific region," he said. "We share common security interests geographically that is the Strait of Malacca, and the Andaman Sea which is really a continuous body of water that is a critical Sea Lines of Communication.

Following the DMD, Dr Ng and Ms Sitharaman witnessed the exchange of the renewed Army Bilateral Agreement.

The renewed Bilateral Agreement will enable the Singapore Armys artillery and armour training in India, and facilitates increased interactions between both armies.
Three publications banned in Singapore for extremist religious content

The Minister for Communications and Information has gazetted three publications as prohibited publications under the Undesirable Publications Act.

The three titles are:

1. Things that Nullify Ones Islaam, by Shaykh al-Islaam Muhammad ibn Abdil-Wahhaab, explained by Shaykh Saalih al- Fowzaan.

2. What Islam Is All About (Student Textbook), by Yahiya Emerick.

3. The Wisdom of Jihad, by Abuhuraira Abdurrahman.

In a press statement on Wednesday, November 21, MCI said all three publications contain exclusivist or extremist religious views that promote enmity among different religious communities. Two of the publications also purvey divisive views against other groups within the same religion.

Photo courtesy: Screenshots from Amazon

MCI stressed that such teachings and ideologies are detrimental to Singapores inter and intra racial and religious harmony and relations. The Singapore government will not tolerate any individuals or publications which aim to incite hostility or violence among different religious groups.

Distributing any of the prohibited publications is an offence, in addition to possessing, or coming into possession of any of the publications, but fail to deliver the copy to the Police.

Those convicted of an offence could be liable to a fine, imprisonment or both.

The ban on the three publications will take effect from Wednesday, November 21. Members of the public who are in possession of these materials should hand them to the Police.
May heads to Brussels to try to finalise political declaration

She will meet Juncker today  Daily Telegraph

For tea  Daily Mail

Smith tells her to get concessions  Daily Express

Meanwhile, Carney backs her deal  Guardian

Poll shows people warming to May again  The Times

Rudd says parliament wont allow no deal  FT

And could Spain sabotage the deal, over Gibraltar?  Daily Telegraph

Theresa May will meet Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday to try to finalise the political declaration covering future UK-European Union relations after attempts by hard Brexiters to remove her ended in humiliation. The prime minister meets the European commission president in the late afternoon in her strongest position since the first part of the Brexit deal was published last week after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Tory rebels, conceded that it might take time to call a no-confidence vote. No 10 said it was not prepared to forecast when the final part of the Brexit deal would emerge, although Brussels insiders expect a draft to start circulating on Thursday among a restricted group of officials after the one-on-one meeting.  Guardian

Comment:

How come France and Spain can renegotiate?  Asa Bennett, Daily Telegraph

History is repeating itself  Ben Wright, The Times

Editorial:

Corbyn should learn from May  Daily Express

She tells the cabinet that technology could solve the border issue, after listening to Brexiteers

Theresa May has told the cabinet that the country could still avoid a controversial Irish backstop after Brexit. The prime minister said she was open to exploring a technological solution to the Irish border issue because the wording of the draft deal held open this possibility. A technological plan proposed by Brexiteers would negate the need for a UK-wide customs arrangement, the present backstop proposal for avoiding a hard border. Mrs May promised Leave figures including Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson that she would consider their proposals in a meeting on Monday.  The Times

The idea is back on the table  FT

>Today: David Shiels in Comment: Technological solutions. A greater role for the Assembly. How May could yet win over the DUP.

Rees-Mogg, like Mainwaring, speaks of struggling to corral the Dads Army troops

He calls on his colleagues to seize their chance to remove May  Guardian

They turn on each other amidst failure to oust her  The Times

They tell her to hold back money  Daily Express

What next for the Brexiteers?  Daily Telegraph

Could they sue Brady?  The Sun

McVeys angry messages  The Sun

Jacob Rees-Mogg has likened Tory Brexiteers to Dads Army over the way they have struggled to submit enough letters of no confidence in the Prime Minister. So far 25 Tory MPs have publicly said they have submitted letters of no confidence in Theresa May  far short of the necessary 48 letters to trigger a vote of no confidence. Asked if there were a Dads Army feel to all this, Mr Rees-Mogg replied: Ive always admired Captain Mainwaring. Capt Mainwaring is a fictional bank manager and Home Guard platoon commander portrayed by the late Arthur Lowe in the BBC television sitcom Dads Army. According to Wikipedia Mainwaring is a pompous, blustering figure  Daily Telegraph

>Today: ToryDiary: need to be able to count

Finkelstein: All this letters stuff is so tiresome. The ERG is clueless. And cant count

Has there ever been anything more tiresome than all that stuff about the letters? For months they have been saying that almost 48 members of parliament have sent a letter to the chairman of the 1922 committee requesting a vote of confidence in Theresa May. The threshold was about to be reached. One day they would claim to have 44; next weekend they would say the number had risen to, erm, 40. Its now obvious they have never been anywhere near these figures. We all feel pretty clueless about what will happen with Brexit, but it seems some are more clueless than others.  The Times

They dont have the 48  John Crace, Guardian

Theyre heroically untrendy  Quentin Letts, Daily Mail

Raab: We need to stand up to the EU bullies. And show that we can walk away

Brexit has already hit business  Aditya Chakrabortty, Guardian

The BBC is biased  Peter Lilley, The Sun

Last week, I resigned as Brexit Secretary because I could not in good conscience support the proposed deal between the UK and the EU. There is still time to stand up to the bullying tactics from Brussels. But we must change course, or the flame of optimism and opportunity that sparked Brexit will be snuffed out. When I accepted the post in July, I knew we would need to compromise, as we strived to marry principle with pragmatism. I wanted to help deliver a good deal with our EU partners, while grasping the opportunities of Brexit  to take back control of our money, laws and borders, and champion free trade abroad.  Daily Telegraph

>Yesterday: Peter Lilley in Comment: Fears about leaving the Customs Union are a mix of imaginary and exaggerated

DUP continues protest by abstaining on Finance Bill again

DUP MPs have heaped further pressure on Theresa May by once again refusing to back the government in a series of votes on the Budget. For the second day in a row, the party abstained from voting on amendments to the Finance Bill, in protest at the prime ministers draft Brexit withdrawal deal. DUP MP Sammy Wilson said the move was intended to spell out to the PM the consequences of not honouring her promises to Northern Ireland. The move throws into doubt Mrs Mays ability to maintain her governing majority in parliament.  Belfast News Letter

The party told its MPs to ignore pact with Conservatives  Daily Telegraph

And will vote against the deal  FT

Sturgeon shows interest in Boles soft Brexit

Scottish foreign minister predicts end of union over Brexit  Daily Telegraph

May tries to convince Sturgeon about her deal  Daily Telegraph

And Northern Ireland  Daily Express

Will the CJEU say Article 50 can be overturned?

The SNP should work with Conservative MPs to secure a soft Brexit deal that can get through the Commons, Nicola Sturgeon said yesterday. The Scottish first minister indicated that she was actively interested in a plan being drawn up by Nick Boles, a former Tory minister who has been holding discussions with MPs from all parties. His proposal would keep the UK in the single market and customs union possibly indefinitely if Mrs Mays blueprint fails to win the necessary support in the Commons next month. The plan would retain almost all of Mrs Mays deal but would keep the UK inside existing structures, which Mr Boles hopes would make it easy to negotiate.  The Times

This is the question the UK Government does not want answered and has been spending vast amounts of public money trying to block.  Next week, despite the best efforts of the governments top lawyers, their legal challenge will finally reach Europes highest court.  The case was raised in Scotlands highest court, the Court of Session, earlier this year and the request to take it to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was initially denied after the government argued it was a hypothetical and academic question. However, this decision was later overturned by Scotlands top judges.The Government has since tried to appeal this decision twice, with the most recent application rejected by the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday.  Herald

Mordaunt to announce new focus on championing women in low-paid jobs

Glen says more men should mentor  Daily Telegraph

Middle-class womens issues such as the gender pay gap and corporate glass ceiling are to be downgraded by the government in favour of championing those in low-paid, low-status roles. Women in poorly paid jobs, with limited qualifications or who care for elderly relatives or disabled children will become the priority in Whitehall in a shift of policy to be announced today. Instead of focusing on professional women returning to work, attention will switch to those who work as carers, cleaners and in customer service roles. Ethnic minority groups such as Bangladeshi women will be targeted because their employment rate is three times lower than that of white women.  The Times

Comment:

In politics, theres some way to go on all this  Nicky Morgan, The Times

Burnham says Javid wants Home Counties to take more asylum seekers

The Home Secretary has paved the way for hundreds more asylum seekers to be housed in the Home Counties, it was claimed yesterday. Sajid Javids move comes after councils across the north of England threatened to pull out of the current so-called dispersal programme. The Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester  Andy Burnham  yesterday revealed that Mr Javid has told him he wants to see more areas which currently take no refugees stepping up to the plate. In a letter, the Home Secretary promised a reduction in the proportion of dispersal to authorities who already take large numbers. And he vowed a commensurate increase in those who take lower numbers or none at all.  The Sun

Hunt meets Zaghari-Ratcliffes daughter

Jeremy Hunt has met the four-year-old daughter of jailed British mum Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he continues his push to free her. The Foreign Secretary spent time with little Gabriella in Tehran during his visit to Iran. He brought the youngster a touching gift from his own daughter  who is also four years old. Nazanins family praised Mr Hunt for working to try and secure her release from prison after two and a half years. The minister lobbied Iranian ministers to pardon Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed on spurious charges of spying. The 39-year-old mum, a dual citizen of Iran and the UK, has been separated from Gabriella since she was locked up in April 2016.  The Sun

More from the Commons

Gauke says ex-prisoners could take place of cheap EU labour  Daily Mail

Cooper and Tugendhat speak out against Russian candidate for Interpol job  Daily Telegraph

Rudd gets a response from Alston  Guardian

Onasanya blames her brother  The Times

News in Brief
Ben Roback is Head of Trade and International Policy at Cicero Group and a member of the US Embassys Young Leaders UK programme.

In our midterm election preview on October 24th, we looked ahead to the midterms, wary of making predictions that were too bold or that got too carried away in the narratives of blue waves or red resurgences. Two weeks after the midterm elections and with only a small handful of results left to call, what do we now know?

The races that were too close to call

With just a few of races in the House of Representatives still to be decided, the Democrats have a net gain of 37 seats. The overall balance of power has therefore comfortably shifted towards the Democrats, who have 232 seats compared to the Republicans 200 as it stands. In the House, the Democrats have recorded their biggest gain since 1974. In the Senate, President Trump cheered as Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana all flipped from Democrat to Republican, whilst Governor Rick Scott (R) was declared the winner in Floridas Senate contest after a recount. With the Mississippi recount that is due to take place shortly expected to go in the Republicans favour, the GOP majority in the Senate is expected to grow further from the current 52-47.

Of our four key states to watch, an even split between Republicans and Democrats

Nevada  The only gain in our list of four for the Democrats. Dean Heller, the incumbent senator, was the sole Republican incumbent running for re-election in a state that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Hellers position on President Trump has always been uncertain, a problem amongst a Republican base that has proven their loyalty to the president. Having initially said he was 99 per cent against Trump, Heller fully embraced him during his campaign for re-election. Instead, the state fell to Democrat Jacky Rosen, who campaigned heavily on local issues and healthcare.

West Virginia  Senator Joe Manchin supported Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination, an early sign that he was preparing to find a balance between progressive Democrats and registered Republicans in an often-conservative state. Manchin defeated Patrick Morrisey, the Republican West Virginia Attorney General, to return to Congress for a second term. Putting Manchins defence into context, West Virginia last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2000, but in 2016 Donald Trump won the state by 42 points.

North Dakota  Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D) was extremely vulnerable going into this election, after the state voted for President Trump by 36 points in 2016. Re-election in 2018 was a step too far and North Dakota became a Republican gain for Kevin Cramer.

Texas  At the height of the blue wave dreams in the minds of Democrats was defeating Senator Ted Cruz in Texas. A perennially polarising figure, Cruz displayed his political flexibility by going from opponent to keen backer of President Trump and his policy agenda. He held off a campaign led by Beto ORourke that could become a dry run for the 2020 general election. Despite the narrow loss, ORourke gave Democrats their best performance in a Texas state-wide election since 1990.

The three house districts that could have gone either way

Minnesota 8  Republican Pete Stauber defeated Joe Radinovich in a seat that was held by Democrat Rick Nolan. Ranked a Republican lean by the Cook Political Report, the district was something of a bellwether, in that it has shown recent support for both Democrats and Republicans. The district voted for Trump by 15 points in 2016, but Clinton won the state of Minnesota by 1.5 points.

New Mexico 2  New Mexicos second congressional district was so close to call that it still could go either way. With the outcome currently unconfirmed, it remains to be seen if Democrat Xochitl Torres Small has defeated incumbent Republican Yvette Herrell. Hillary Clinton won New Mexico in the 2016 presidential contest.

Florida 27  Democrat Donna Shalala defeated Republican Maria Elvira Salazar in the race for Floridas 27th Congressional District, vacated by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R). Like MN-08 (above), the district has a mixed record at the national level having voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 19 points, while President Trump won Florida by one point.

Two out of two gubernatorial races go blue

New Mexico  In a midterm election cycle of firsts, Michelle Lujan Grisham made history by becoming the first Democratic Latina governor in the United States. Her win flipped the New Mexico governors mansion to the Democrats for the first time since 2002. As a member of Congress, she became one of the leading critics of Trumps immigration agenda, whereas her gubernatorial opponent was a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Connecticut  Governor Dan Malloy wisely opted not to run for re-election, after his approval rating fell below 30 per cent. Ned Lamont retained the governors mansion for Democrats, defeating Republican opponent Bob Stefanowski. On the campaign, Lamont pledged to be a firewall between Trumps policies and Connecticut values.

An extended election that had something for everyone

If you look at the House, it was a great night for Democrats. If you cast your eye on the Senate, it was just as good for the Republicans. The governors mansions are a closer split and next year Republicans will control 27 governorships to Democrats 23. So it was an election that had something for everyone  from progressives like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez in New York to newfound Trump loyalists like Cruz in Texas.

Democrats can look ahead to the lame duck period in between the midterms and next presidential election knowing they have real oversight powers to subpoena the president and his associates. Republicans know that there is still no frontrunner to launch a credible campaign against Trump in 2020. Americans are set for two more tumultuous years of divided politics, as both parties seek to build on the anger in both their bases that drove such high turnout in the midterms.
Stephen Greenhalgh was the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and has also served as Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

This week we heard that the three water cannon bought by Boris Johnson in 2014 were sold for scrap, raising a paltry 11,000 for the Mayors 72 youth projects to tackle the root causes of violent crime. Mayor Sadiq Khan wasted no time in lambasting Boris Johnson for an appalling botched deal and for wasting taxpayers money on another vanity project. I want to set the record straight. Helpfully, the documentation relating to this Mayoral decision is still on the City Hall website.

Johnsons decision to purchase the water cannon was to support the Commissioners desire to prevent disorder on the streets. Johnson agreed to support the call by the Metropolitan Police, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and the College of Policing to purchase water cannon to help enhance their response to riots or other serious and exceptional public disorder. A briefing from Chief Constable Shaw sets out the operational requirement for water cannon as a national public order asset.

The deal to purchase the water cannon was a carefully planned interim solution rather than an appalling botched deal. The September 2013 letter from Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley, made clear that the Policing Minister, Damian Green, agreed that an interim solution could be considered which would look at the viability of hiring or purchasing second-hand water cannon as two years on from 2011 riots the police still did not have this tactic available to them. The letter also outlined that ACPO would seek funding for the purchase of three water cannon for deployment within the UK, as a national asset, but based within the Metropolitan Police area. The letter outlined that if the Home Office refused to fund, the Commissioner would probably approach me (as Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime) with a capital bid.

In his 6th January 2014 letter to Theresa May, then Home Secretary, Johnson set out that he would make funds in February available to the Met for purchasing the interim water cannon solution as a national asset subject to a public engagement process for the most economical interim solution that allows the Commissioner to meet his desire to prevent disorder on the streets. Boris also secured a commitment from the Commissioner that these water cannon would not be routinely deployed but would be rarely seen and rarely used.

The response from May on 23rd January gave absolutely no indication that the Home Secretary was minded not to grant a licence for the use of water cannon. In fact, she noted that both the Commissioner and Chief Constable David Shaw, national policing lead for conflict management, advised her that there are circumstances in which water cannon  alongside other public order tactics  may be of use in the future. The response goes on to state: Like you, I am keen to ensure that forces have the tools and powers they need to maintain order on our streets.

I think that it is fair to say that Johnson, as Mayor, was candid and upfront with May about his intentions and had no prior indication at all that she would refuse to licence the water cannon.

The interim solution to purchase these water cannon provided great value for money to the taxpayer. The cost of the latest models deployed in countries throughout Europe was around 900,000 each (2.7million for three) back in 2013 as set out in Rowleys letter. They are built to order with a lead-in time of around two years, including the procurement process. The decision to purchase the second-hand water cannon for 75,000 and refurbish them for a total of around 250,000 so that the police could fill the gap in their public order toolkit sooner represented exceptional value for money. The remaining costs relate to annual storage and maintenance. In contrast, Khans decision to sell them for scrap represents the worst kind of gesture politics and is a botched deal if ever I saw one.

There continues to be broad public support in London for the use of water cannon in limited circumstances. Polling after the 2011 riots showed that the majority of the public were supportive of the police being able to use water cannon in the event of extreme violence and widespread destruction of property. Boris only approved the purchase after extensive consultation and a further survey. This was the largest and most detailed poll of Londoners ever undertaken on this issue and found that every ethnic group was favourable to the use of water cannon, as was every age group across all areas of the capital. Over two thirds of respondents (68 per cent) were supportive of the use of water cannon in limited circumstances. In addition, over half of the respondents (52 per cent) expressed that they would have greater confidence in the Met Polices ability to respond to serious public disorder if water cannon were available. In fact, more than a third of Londoners thought that the police already had water cannon.

The use of water cannon does not represent a restriction of the right to protest. Water cannon are tools for responding to serious public disorder and are not for policing protests. Since the riots of 2011, the police have identified on a number of occasions that there is a gap in their current response to serious outbreaks of extreme or violent public disorder which, they think, water cannon would be a useful tool to fill. The strict criteria for use would only be in those situations where there is a significant risk of widespread destruction of property or the loss of life. Water cannon is neither a toy for the cops to bring out as a show of strength nor a tool to deploy at normal protest or public events. The Met polices over 1,500 public order events every year, with the vast majority passing off peacefully. However, if and when legitimate protest is hijacked and turns into violent disorder, the public rightly expect the police to have the necessary tools to restore order and safeguard life.

Water cannon are not about an escalation of force. They are civilian vehicles, rather than armoured military machines. They are less harmful than a metal baton at close range, far less dangerous then firing baton rounds, and more discriminating than horses charging into a crowd of people  all tactics that the police can lawfully use now.

The use of water cannon would not undermine confidence in the police. Clearly the improper use of police powers can undermine public confidence, but it is the absence of a proper police response that does the most damage. When the police lose the streets, they lose the confidence of the public. Londoners confidence in the Met plummeted by 11 points after the 2011 riots. And those who indulge in violence and wanton criminality  such as those who attacked Millbank Tower in 2010  undermine the majority exercising their lawful right to peaceful protest.

Finally, we should contrast the Mayoral record of Johnson and Khan on policing and crime. Ensuring the public safety of Londoners is the first duty of the Mayor. Under Boris the murder rate fell by 50 per cent, knife crime dropped by a third and victim-based neighbourhood crime dropped by nearly 20%. We had to make tough choices in putting Bobbies before buildings so that we could keep police officer numbers at around 32,000. Today murder and violent crime in London is at a 10 year high and knife crime are at an all-time high with police officer numbers in London at a 20 year low. This Mayor prefers to waste the 250 million profit that we made on the sale of the old New Scotland Yard on buying the Empress State Building  an ageing 1960s tower block that the Met already occupied.

All this buck passing, virtue signalling, and gesture politics by Khan does nothing to keep London safe.
Penny Mordaunt, the Minister for Women and Equalities, gave the following speech this morning to the Bright Blues Women in Work event.

Today is the centenary of womens suffrage.

This is the moment when women finally gained a foothold in political life.

There are some that say: So what? Theyre the sort of people that have never felt injustice.

When our Prime Minister made her first statement in her new role, she chose to focus on burning injustices that still existed in our country.

She was right to do so. And she gave some examples.

Here are some more.

If youre in the UK and disabled, youre 70 per cent more likely to be unemployed.

According to experts, LGBT people are more likely to be at risk of being homeless or rough sleeping.

11 per cent of all rough sleepers in London have been in care, and the majority have mental health needs.

30 per cent of women who were in low paid jobs in 2006 were stuck in low pay a decade later.

And people from Black African, Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic groups are still most likely to live in poverty and deprivation and, given the damaging effects of poverty on education, work and health, families can become locked into disadvantage for generations.

To fight injustice, we need a strong economy.

Thats why Im proud of our track record economically. It was also clear to me that if we were to deliver her agenda we needed to enable Whitehall to better focus on these complex issues.

And problems that needed to be tackled by multiple departments.

For the long term  not dependent on Government, but enabled by it.

Issues, which as a nation we had not yet gripped:

layered disadvantage;

ignored potential.

How do we remove multiple barriers, enabling more resource than government has, and help it to be levered in?

It was clear that business as usual wasnt going to cut it.

If were going to deliver on this agenda. We needed to start by joining things up. We need to work smarter. We needed to make sure we are applying the best ideas and solutions, whether they are from within government or outside. We need to get moving  literally.

Last week I announced that the Prime Minister had approved some machinery of government changes, as Sir Humphrey would say.

Let me translate.

I want to give the Government Equalities Office not just a new home, but a permanent home, and most importantly at the centre of government.

Thats why Im delighted that itll be in the Cabinet Office, from April, alongside the Race Disparity Unit. From there it will become an equalities hub, and provide some much-needed clout behind those working to ensure all our citizens have what they need to thrive.

A hub for all parts of Whitehall and beyond.

Its no good having a central government strategy to tackle injustice if local government and communities cant deliver it, too.

So, critically, such a hub will help us better articulate and co-ordinate a national mission to enable everyone to help fight injustice.

It will help join up our communications with key stakeholders.

One of the early things I asked for in my role as Women and Equalities Minister was a look across all the equalities asks were making of business.

An audit showed were making lots of similar requests depending on which government department is asking.

Were asking large employers to report gender pay data.

BEIS are asking them to report CEO pay ratios, and are consulting on ethnicity pay regulations

Government wants business to sign up to a range of schemes like:

The Race at Work Charter;

Disability Confident;

Sector charters for gender equality;

and the See Potential campaign.

All of these issues are important and they all require energy and commitment in their own specific areas. But theyre not joined up or co-ordinated.

We need to think how that looks to an HR director or chief executive. How are we helping them to see the bigger picture or helping them to become an inclusive employer?

How irritating is it to have extra burdens placed on you or be lectured about workplace etiquette by a bunch of legislators whose own Houses are far from in order?

We owe it to our businesses to make sure these processes work with each other and reference each other, so that we are setting them up for success, not failure. I want to thank Greg Clark and David Lidington for supporting me in this.

I want us to get better at understanding of the asks we make on businesses and developing policy which supports them to do better on diversity and inclusion. The processes are only the means. Its the end  the creation of dynamic, diverse, high performing business and organisations  that really matters.

It will help ensure that what we are doing as a government, but also together as a nation, really is greater than the sum of the parts.

My vision for GEO is that were the catalysts across government, amplifying and lending weight to the excellent work already underway in so many departments, and also across the country, too.

And while were not changing any reporting lines of Minister of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries who are doing work focused on tackling inequality, we will support them from the GEO in getting their ambitions met.

Work by people like:

Rory Stewart at the MOJ, trying to tackle the issues of drugs, violence and high rates of self-harm and suicide in prison;

People Like Jackie Doyle-Price, who is doing great work on womens health inequalities;

Or Sarah Newton who is not only working on the disability employment gap, but also on empowering the disabled consumer;

Or Chloe Smith at Cabinet Office, who is leading work to engage young people in democracy;

Or Kelly Tolhurst, whos putting into practice the governments commitment to flexible working;

Or Heather Wheeler at Housing, Communities and Local Government, addressing the issues facing some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

I know they and other colleagues have huge ambitions and passion in tackling injustice and giving people what they need to build their future.

I know how hard it can be as a Junior Minister to join things up across Whitehall, and move at the pace that potential partners need us to. And the GEO can be of huge help to them in getting the things that we know need doing, done.

This machinery of government change is important, but more is needed too.

Across the public sector, we must ensure equality impact assessments are effective and remain core and integral to our policy development, with proper consideration of equalities knitted into our organisational cultures and decision-making.

And that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is as effective as it can be and delivers on the recommendations made by the Tailored Review which was published earlier this week. I know David is committed in doing that.

When I took over this brief I know questions were asked about its fit with my other, international facing, department.

Much of my focus at DFID is on the sustainable development goals and more recently on the Human Capital Index  what were investing in our people, what we could invest and what outcomes are we getting for that investment.

Im a Human Capital Champion for the World Bank, and thats a good fit with my domestic brief.

Im pleased that the Index already disaggregates the data by gender  something the UK Government pushed hard for. But I would like to see it do the same, for example, by disability. The UK should be leading the way on this, building on the strong commitment to transparency which we have already demonstrated through the Race Disparity Audit and Gender Pay Gap reporting.

My work with other nations is about their journey  so that every one of their citizens can reach their full potential.

And that is the same measure we should judge ourselves on too, that no one should be left behind.

And that is at the heart of the Prime Ministers mission she articulated on the steps of Downing Street.

To deliver that, we will not just need a shift of gear, but a broadening out of what the GEO has been focused on and an increase in our ambitions in this respect.

Whitehall tends to focus on what it knows can be done. What can be easily measured. Its strategy tends to focus pretty much only on what it can effect directly and control.

When it tackles thornier and more complex issues, its usually in the shape of discovering best practice, or chipping away at an issue.

And that is what we have tended to do at GEO.

Understandably, and rightly, it has historically had huge focus on women in work.

GEO has successfully shifted the dial on a number of issues including:

launching a 1.5 million grant fund to encourage action in the private sector, and launching programmes in the public sector for health professionals, teachers and prospective Civil Servants, all of which are helping returners across the country get back into work;

supporting the Hampton-Alexander Review to make progress against their ambitious targets for getting more women at the top of business, seeing the number of all-male boards in the FTSE 350 fall from 152 to 5 since 2011;

working with BEIS on a Shared Parental Leave campaign to raise awareness and uptake of Shared Parental Leave, helping more families to share caring.

Theres a lot of focus on women in boardrooms. Of course, that is emblematic of the progress women are making. But, in truth, this is not the place where business is being re-imagined. Often poor treatment and the perception of being undervalued in the workplace is the main driver for female entrepreneurs.

But if we want every woman to thrive, to be as financially secure and resilient as they can be, and to reach their full potential we need to broaden out our work beyond, the FTSE 350, beyond London, beyond executives, women on boards and big business.

We need a focus on small businesses, part time work, women from all parts of the UK, low paid women, women with multiple barriers to reaching their full potential, older women, financially fragile women, women who arent easy to reach, or measure, or sometimes even to see.

The invisible women who keep our families our public services and our nation going.

Women to who we owe a great deal.

And women who really need our support.

And we need to focus on women at every stage of their lives.

And let me just briefly add some reassurance to the Times newspaper or anyone else who sees the fact that we want to support women who are cleaning offices, as well as the occupants of those offices, and see that as some sort of downgrading of middle class issues  dont panic  womens ministers can multitask.

The work done on gender pay gap reporting has been hugely helpful in focusing larger companies on the issue. It encourages them to understand the various drivers and the action that can be taken by them and others to address it.

Our work has inspired other nations to follow suit, and our metrics have now been adopted by the Bloomberg equality index.

But what does it tell us?

Lets take a look at the data.

There is a gender pay gap from the beginning of working life, indicating structural inequalities.

The gap rises steeply as women begin to have children and take time out of the labour market to care for them.

It continues to increase as women approach 50, showing the impact of many women taking several years out of work or working part-time, often to enable them to care for children.

And it is highest for those aged 50-59.

The peak age for being an unpaid carer is 55-64 years old  women often do the caring for both children and elderly relatives.

Towards the end of a womans working life it continues to rise and then turns into a pensions pay gap. With men projected to have around a 25 per cent higher income on average than women in their first year of retirement.

As we all live longer, this pensions gap will affect people long into their old age, leading to real inequalities in the standard of living people can afford.

Its important to me that we recognise women are individuals and we are not all identical. A range of factors affects their personal experiences, which we need to do more to understand.

The gender pay gap data and the wealth of research GEO has done over the past year have helped us understand some of the challenges women face around work:

caring responsibilities is a huge issue;

women are more likely to be low paid than men and far more likely to get stuck in low pay;

just over 2 million people are inactive due to caring and 90 per cent of those people are women;

1 in 10 working age women belong to the sandwich generation  providing care as well as having dependent children;

this rises to 1 in 7 for women in their early 40s, those who are most likely to be in this position.

Older women of the sandwich generation are more likely than men to have given up work as a result of their greater caring responsibilities. This disparity is particularly acute for older women on low incomes.

Women on legacy benefits can be trapped into limiting their hours or income by Tax Credit rules  that is why Universal Credit, which removes the cliff edge between unemployment and work, has to work.

We need to help women and men to have a better understanding of the negative impact of choices they have, may have drifted or been forced into.

The financial impact of these choices tends to be borne by women, so we need to address the reasons for that, find new solutions and create more choice so that those who want to, can share those burdens more equally.

It used to be said that behind every great man, was a great woman.

These days great men are ones that get behind women.

And we need to make it easier for them to do so.

Too often work, schools, childcare and health services are designed assuming that one parent will be in work and one parent is the primary carer.

Todays families want to share caring more flexibly, and we need work and wider social support to reflect that.

This Government has a strong record on childcare and parental leave: by 2019-20 well be spending around 6 billion on childcare support, more than any previous government.

In 2015, we introduced Shared Parental Leave & Pay to help parents share the care in their childs first year.

This Autumn, we announced plans to require large employers to publish their policies on parental leave and pay; and to ensure ALL jobs are advertised as flexible. But just as the nature of work is changing, and families expectations evolve, we must ensure that we continue to look at how we support parents to balance work and care more effectively.

For example, self-employed fathers are not eligible for Shared Parental Leave, and self-employed parents can find it impossible to navigate the complex system as to what theyre entitled to.

The Industrial Strategy points to workplace flexibility as a driver of productivity, but many people still cant find jobs that offer them the right flexibility.

We recently published the Carers Action Plan and set up the Flexible Working Taskforce to promote best practice for flexible working.

And we also know that getting local and central government to work better together, is absolutely necessary in really making a difference.

There are some great examples  governments partnerships with local authorities in Integration Areas across England, combine the weight of central government with the on-the-ground expertise only local government can provide.

But we know sometimes that is the exception rather than the rule  and if local and central government arent pushing in the same direction this leads to confusion for people trying to access local services, or incorrect assumption being made about a persons costs of living, for example making assumptions about a persons income, but giving no weight to devolved decisions which affect it, such as council tax discounts.

So, as well as what we can learn from gender pay gap data what else do we need to think about.

How can we give better support to the 4.2 million women who are also disabled, or those from an ethnic minority?

White women have an employment rate of 73.3 per cent, while women of Bangladeshi ethnicity have an employment rate of just 32.8 per cent.

In the 2011 census, there were 464,000 women in the UK who could not speak English well or at all.

Or what about those with complex backgrounds often involving domestic abuse  1.2 million female victims last year.

Women who are financially or digitally illiterate.

An OECD study, found that men were over a third more likely to reach a minimum standard of financial knowledge than women.

And out of the 4.3 million adults who have no basic digital skills at all, over 60 per cent are women.

But ALL of these women want to find opportunities to realise their talent and we must help all of them.

It should be the GEO mission to ensure that every woman in the UK has as much freedom and choice and capacity and resilience, and support and protection to do whatever she wants to do.

So, you will see a broadening in our work, as well as a new address.

And Today I am announcing that the next phase of our returners programme  500,000 of funding to support people to return to work when they are ready to do so, will be focusing on those with additional barriers to participating in the labour market  including people who speak little English, people with disabilities, and those who are homeless or have been victims of domestic abuse.

I am also announcing a further 100,000 to start some more bespoke support for very marginalised women some of who have little or no work history in particular parts of the country.

There is so much more to do.

We already have some great organisations out there helping us get this right. The Womens Business Council helps us reach business leaders, and has done some brilliant work since it was established in 2012.

In Parliament, the Women and Equalities Select Committee engages with a range of organisations to inform parliament and governments thinking.

And there are some great forums and campaign groups out there.

But I want to make sure we hear from women in every community, so we are undertaking a piece of work to ensure female voices are better heard by policy makers.

Every woman in the UK should feel able to raise the issues which concern them, and know that we are taking them seriously and are responding to those issues. And to find the right solutions to the complex policy challenges we face, we need to be drawing on everyones expertise  no one has a better insight into tricky gender equality issues than the women who are dealing with them every day.

Our message to women is this: you will set our agenda.

The Prime Minister set out her mission.

But it is all of ours, too.

And in these turbulent and divided times I can think of no better mission to bring us together.

Thank you.
Dr David Shiels is a Policy Analyst at Open Europe and also works on contemporary political history.

It is not a happy time for the relationship between the Conservative Party and the DUP. The latters decision to abstain on a number of amendments to the Finance Bill and to vote for one Labour amendment on Monday was intended to send a political message to the Government. The DUP has stopped short of formally withdrawing from the Confidence and Supply arrangement, but has arguably broken it. The partys MPs make no secret of their desire to see a change in the Governments direction  hence the declaration that the agreement is between parties, rather than between leaders. At a time when many Conservative MPs are in a rebellious mood, DUP MPs may feel that they have some leeway in terms of their commitments under that agreement anyway.

While the DUPs opposition to the existing Withdrawal Agreement at Westminster is steadfast, the party is coming under increasing criticism for its attitude towards Brexit in Northern Ireland. Business leaders there have taken the almost unprecedented step of coming out against the party on a major policy issue, indicating their support for the Withdrawal Agreement. Importantly, the Ulster Farmers Union has also come out in support of the Agreement, whereas it had stopped short of taking a Remain position during the referendum in 2016. This is particularly significant, given the perception that many Unionist farmers privately supported Brexit.

After many months of saying as little as possible about specific arrangements for Northern Ireland, the Government also seems to have found its voice. Karen Bradleys speech in Belfast on Monday  her first major intervention on Brexit  was a robust defence of the Agreement, and a signal that the Government is prepared to bypass the DUP and appeal directly to public opinion. If anything, the DUP is likely to harden its opposition to the Agreement in the coming weeks, but there is a growing sense that the party has been caught on the back foot over the issue. The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Robin Swann, has accused the DUP of being asleep at the wheel, and has suggested that the party has failed in their primary duty to protect the integrity of the Union and its people.

Meanwhile, the pro-Remain parties in Northern Ireland have put forward a convincing case in favour of special treatment for the region. Although Sinn Fein MPs do not take their seats at Westminster, the party has claimed that they are standing up for their constituents where it matters  in Dublin and in Brussels. The Governments preparedness to breach the DUPs red lines over the backstop helps Sinn Fein to make their point, which is that Northern Irelands MPs have little influence anyway.

At the same time, there are many other voices in academia, the media and business who argue that the DUP has been inconsistent in its opposition to special treatment for Northern Ireland  pointing to different rules on abortion, same sex marriage and a range of other issues. The argument that Northern Ireland is different anyway is persuasive. By seeking to make any GB-NI checks as unobtrusive as possible, the EU has persuaded many that it has gone some way to meeting Unionist concerns. The view that the backstop offers Northern Ireland the best of both worlds is widely held and, according to reported comments by the Prime Minister, the EU is concerned that the arrangements would give Northern Ireland a competitive advantage.

The Irish Government also insists that it is not seeking to open up the question of Northern Irelands status as part of the United Kingdom  even though Unionists believe the backstop threatens to undermine Northern Irelands relationship with Great Britain within the United Kingdom. The latters objections to the backstop also revolve around the democratic and constitutional implications of Northern Ireland potentially being subject to EU rules in the longer-term, without the ability to amend or refuse them. This point has been hard to get across to audiences in Great Britain and there is a feeling that the party had taken for granted that its objections to the backstop would be understood.

There remains, of course, a possibility that the DUPs opposition will see off the backstop, either now by helping to defeat the Withdrawal Agreement in Parliament or at a later date, during the negotiations on the future relationship. Although the party is unhappy with things as they stand, its persistence has at least ensured that some of the more objectionable aspects of the EUs February proposal have been removed. There may yet be some way that the Government can secure further assurances for Northern Ireland, either in terms of beefed-up commitments to find a technological solution for the border, or by securing a role for the Northern Ireland Assembly as a democratic lock on the backstop. For the DUP, there remains the nuclear option of triggering a confidence vote in the Government, or coming as near as they can to doing so in order to persuade Conservative MPs to change their leader.

It may be that the DUP will be proven right in the end  that influence at Westminster does matter and that Unionist objections to the backstop cannot be overridden. At the same time, it seems unlikely that Theresa May or any other Prime Minister could secure any fundamental changes to the backstop. Rather than going over the heads of the DUP and the other Unionist parties, the Government needs to find a way to address their concerns and bring them along as far as possible. This is necessary not just to deliver the Agreement through Parliament, but also because any deal that is seen as a defeat for Unionism will make it harder to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland. At this stage, too, DUP MPs need to think about what sort of arrangements they can live with, rather than re-opening the whole negotiation. They have grounds for complaint against the backstop as it stands, which remains objectionable from a Unionist point of view. But the alternative of No Deal would be extremely hard to defend in Northern Ireland, given the short-term consequences of such an outcome.
Nick Gibb is Minister of State at the Department for Education, and is MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.

The Governments education reforms have been steeped in controversy. We have had to fight all the way against resistance from the education establishment  the teaching unions (although teachers themselves have largely embraced the new freedoms and are successfully delivering the more rigorous curriculum), university education faculties and self-proclaimed experts  but there is now increasing evidence that the reforms are working.

In 2016, primary school pupils in England took the new SATs that tested how well schools had been teaching the more demanding curriculum that Michael Gove and I developed in the years after the coalition government came into office in 2010.

The majority of schools responded well to a maths curriculum that required the division of fractions, that expected pupils to know their multiplication tables to 12 times 12 by year 4 rather than year 6. Schools were teaching the new spelling list that required pupils to know how to spell nuisance and mischievous. And for the first time in generations pupils were being taught sophisticated grammar, including the subjunctive.

But in 2016 ,when around 591,000 pupils sat down to take their tests, there were howls of criticism that the SATs were too difficult; reports of pupils crying and not being able to finish in the time allowed. Commentators queried the need for fronted adverbials in the grammar test. When the results showed just 53 per cent of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading writing and maths we were accused of failing half of all children. Schools that hadnt prepared for the new curriculum were shockingly exposed with even lower scores.

But over the next two years as schools became accustomed to the new curriculum and assessments, that 53 per cent figure rose to 64 per cent; and 75 per cent of pupils are now achieving the more demanding standards in reading.

England achieved its highest ever score in reading in 2016, moving from joint 10th to joint 8th in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) rankings. This follows a greater focus on reading in the primary curriculum, and a particular focus on phonics.

It has always been our aim for state schools to be as good or better than the best independent schools. Last weeks Sunday Times ranked the top private and state primary schools and, of the schools included in the tables, 250 state schools scored higher than all but 21 of the independent schools, with six state schools in the top ten.

Thomas Jones Primary School serves a disadvantaged part of west London and is ranked third state school, scoring higher than all but four of the independent schools in the Sunday Times list. I have visited the school a number of times because of its quiet focus on standards, particularly in reading where 10-year-olds are routinely reading secondary school level literature. The head, David Sellens, has high expectations of every pupil regardless of that childs background or ability. Its an approach and attitude we want to see replicated in every school in the country.

As a Government we are ambitious for more schools to be achieving ever higher results in their SATs. Next year, we are introducing a multiplication tables check to ensure every 9-year-old knows their tables. Whilst there is more to do, what is clear is that our reforms to primary education are beginning to work. In many parts of the country parents can be increasingly confident that their local primary school is a good school delivering higher standards of education for their children. Its not yet true everywhere, which is why we are determined not to let up on our relentless focus on standards or abandon the free school and academies programme. Every parent deserves to send their children to an excellent school. We are determined that this is what our reforms will achieve.
Gerry Stimson is Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. This is a sponsored post by Knowledge-Action-Change.

First, the critique. Kicking the policy can down the road is often expedient, but never wise. Not least when every day 200 people die from failure. That is where we are on UK tobacco policy. It is an important-but-never-urgent issue starved of the political attention it merits.

Our health ministers rarely cover themselves in glory: Edwina Currie succeeded in banning the smoking substitute snus  a product responsible for the astonishing collapse of smoking in Scandinavia. For her part, Anna Soubry attempted to get all e-cigarettes banned by only allowing medicinal ones. Five years later these remain hypothetical products. The UKs three million vapers should thank the European Parliament for stopping her.

Its also good to see the Westminster Parliament flexing its muscles. The Science and Technology Select Committee and the APPGs covering e-cigarettes and smoking have been investigating how current regulations manage to be both petty and ineffective. The red tape makes vaping less attractive but not safer. Thats because the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is not required to test e-liquids.

The other thing exercising MPs is the public perception of the relative safety of smoking and vaping. Public Health England despairs about how the scientific consensus that e-cigarettes are far less risky is increasingly rejected by smokers.

The cause of that distrust is the relentless stream of click-bait scare stories in papers like the Daily Mail and the Telegraph. If we want better public understanding of the science we could either ban bad journalism or end the ban on e-cigarette advertising. The latter is realistic and would stimulate debate.

So you see that I have a dim view of government and journalists. Yet, never one for giving up, I am working on the judges instead. I have intervened in a legal action before the European Court of Justice appealing for it to overturn the EU ban on snus. Tomorrow we will see the result of that. Many encourage me to restrain my optimism.

But yet. There is much that makes me extremely cheerful. That is because when elites fail, citizens ignore them. Nicotine users are increasingly making their own choices. The result is that smoking levels are plunging at a speed that life-long public health experts like myself can scarcely believe.

In Norway, the penchant for stuffing tea bags of pasteurised tobacco under their lip is knocking the stuffing out of cigarette sales  just one per cent of young women now smoke. That has collapsed from 30 per cent in 2000. Cigarette sales are also in free-fall in South Korea and Japan as smokers switch to hybrid heat-not-burn products. In Western Europe it is e-cigarettes which are the instrument of the consumer-led revolution.

This all shows that allowing competition to old-fashioned cigarettes accelerates the end of smoking. And this by free choice.

By contrast smoking is actually going up in countries which have banned vaping. There are 39 of them and they are listed in a report I commissioned this year  No Fire, No Smoke: The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction.

Which leads me to the invitation: the Parliamentary launch of the report takes place on Tuesday 18th December. If you would like to come, get in touch with suely@kachange.eu  its drinks and canapes for those who desire anti-smoking policy to be truly effective. I promise not to lecture you on cirrhosis!

The report No Fire, No Smoke: The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction can be downloaded here: It was commissioned by Knowledge-Action-Change which is a private sector public health agency. The report was funded by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.
Andrew Gimsons PMQs sketch: Dodds looks as if he wants to push the delete button on May

Steve Barclay, the new Brexit Secretary, seemed a bit self-conscious as he sat waiting on the front bench for the first PMQs since his promotion to the Cabinet. Philip Hammond appeared to be explaining something to him at inordinate length, and all Barclay could do was to listen with respect, whether or not he agreed with a word the Chancellor was saying.

Jeremy Corbyn wondered if the post of Brexit Secretary is now an entirely ceremonial one. If so, perhaps one of his most onerous duties is to listen with respect to the Chancellor.

For most of PMQs, the Prime Minister looked quite at ease. She has seen off the rebels on her own benches, at least for how.

And she knows she has a far stronger grasp of the details of her Brexit detail than Corbyn has acquired, or is capable of acquiring, and this superiority she missed no opportunity to emphasise.

When she declared, in a triumphant tone, He hasnt even read it  he doesnt know whats in it, she sounded faintly reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher..

In words plainly aimed at her own backbenchers, the Prime Minister told the Leader of the Opposition that voting down her deal could risk no Brexit at all.

Nor did she seem particularly disturbed when Andrew Rosindell (Con, Romford) told her the people of Romford are deeply unhappy with the Brexit deal and called on her to please think again and find a way of cutting away the tentacles of the EU over our cherished island nation once and for all.

Neil Parish (Con, Tiverton) did not appear to render her unduly downcast when he said the deal is not good enough as it standsmy farming instincts tell me you do not hand over 39 billion before you get the deal.

Mays demeanour was still that of someone who thinks she can sell her deal to most of her own backbenchers, by persuading them that anything else would be worse.

George Freeman (Con, Mid Norfolk) asked about the Northern Ireland backstop: Can the Prime Minister reassure me and seek reassurance in Brussels today that this draft doesnt contain a trap that, if we dare to diverge [from single market regulations], we undermine our Union?

The Prime Minister explained at some length that we can ensure the backstop is temporary, and again, she sounded as if she had at least satisfied herself that the deal is fine, and that she can win others to that view.

But at almost the end of PMQs, Nigel Dodds, parliamentary leader of the DUP, rose and said:

In the December joint report agreed between the European Union and the United Kingdom it was agreed that Northern Ireland would have the final say on whether or not it diverged from the UK single market and was subjected to single market European rules with no say. Why has the Prime Minister deleted all reference to that in the withdrawal agreement? Did she push the delete button?

For the first time, Mrs May sounded rattled. She said he was absolutely right about the December report, but went on: The December joint report referred to a decision being taken by the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly which sadly we do not have in place today.

This. she knew, was an answer which could not possibly satisfy Dodds. He shook his head and raised his hands in a What can you do? gesture.

Unlike the anxious Tory backbenchers, most of whom would like if they possibly can to allow themselves to be talked round by the Prime Minister, Dodds looks and sounds as if he intends to push the delete button on her.
Taking away time pressures can help consumers get more done

A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Otago explored one potential reason why many consumers may feel compelled to procrastinate on certain tasks. Their findings showed that getting rid of deadlines -- or keeping them short -- may help beat procrastination.

We interpret this as evidence that specifying a longer deadline, as opposed to a short deadline or no deadline at all, removes the urgency to act, which is often perceived by people when asked ...
We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds..
Can we ask Amul to organize the tribals around the statue in say 100-200 villages to begin with and later up to 1,000 villages at least? All the vending, services, food joints, craft goods, organic food, forest produce, value-added products based on minor- forest products etc., will be owned by tribals and only tribals.

Bandh in tribal area when Statue of Unity was inaugurated on Oct 31



Can we transform the region and its destiny through this statue? Will we be forgiven if we did not do it? Will we fail in respecting the spirit of Sardar who united the whole country, gave us the civil service structure and practiced extreme frugality. His children or grandchildren did not benefit from any thing he did. Can we rise to the occasion and the speed with which we built the magnificent statue, we can build the road to prosperity for lakhs of tribals in the region. Amul will guide them, build their capacity and other NGOs like Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Argumentation Networks ( GIAN ), Gandhi Ashram, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Self-Employed Womens Association (SEWA), etc., will work together with Gujarat government, tribal, tourism, culture, forest, food, agriculture, Industry and other related departments to create an agro-industrial revolution in the region. Goal is to remove complete poverty in five years through mobilization of tourism and other related interventions around the Statue of Unity.Can we transform the region and its destiny through this statue? Will we be forgiven if we did not do it? Will we fail in respecting the spirit of Sardar who united the whole country, gave us the civil service structure and practiced extreme frugality. His children or grandchildren did not benefit from any thing he did. Can we rise to the occasion and the speed with which we built the magnificent statue, we can build the road to prosperity for lakhs of tribals in the region.

Can these visitors create opportunities for the tribal by just spending their money judiciously and he government facilitating the process? Amul dairy is owned by farmers but run so ably by the dedicated managers with great integrity and service orientation.There will also be stay homes and trekking routes for those who wish to stay longer, understand local socio-ecological and cultural systems and contribute thus to their own learning but also to the local economy. Cooperatives of tribal will own the structures, shops, services, and entire system of management.
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.




Norwegian Cruise Line today announced the addition of free and reduced airfare to its long-standing Free at Sea program, which has helped drive earnings and bookings for the brand.

Not only are we known for offering guests the freedom and flexibility to cruise how and when they want, but we are also recognized as one of the most inclusive vacation experiences available, said Andy Stuart, president and chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line. With the addition of free and reduced airfare to Free at Sea, we continue to give guests even more reasons to vacation with us.

With over 200 airports across the U.S., Canada and Europe included, guests can take advantage of free or reduced roundtrip airfare for up to two guests when flying to homeports including Barcelona, Honolulu, Miami and Seattle, the company said.

In addition to airfare, guests can select beverage packages, shore excursion credits, specialty dining packages, internet packages and Norwegians Friends & Family Sail Free initiative, which enables the third and fourth guests in a stateroom to sail complimentary, Norwegian said, in a statement.

With Norwegians Free at Sea program, cruisers who book a studio or inside stateroom will receive one free option; those who book an ocean view, balcony or mini-suite stateroom will receive three free options; and guests in Concierge class and The Haven by Norwegian will receive all six options.
Predictions are tough, but even moreso in the chaotic world of cyber security. The threat landscape is huge, offensive and defensive technologies are evolving rapidly, and nation-state attacks are increasing in terms of scope and sophistication.

This cyber fog of war makes it hard to see or assess every trend. Last year, for example, CSOs predictions for 2018 did not anticipate the rapid rise of cryptomining. In hindsight, this relatively easy to execute, lower risk way for cyber criminals to monetize their efforts should have been an obvious choice.

Still, we got a few things right: more automation of threat-detection processes, significant rise in attacks using compromised IoT devices, and the decline of trust in the face of rising cyber crime, to name a few.

This year, we asked CSO staff and contributors to tell us the biggest events or trends they anticipate for the next 12 months. Here are their top 9.

1. Ransomware tapers off, but still wreaks havoc

Ransomware will taper off as criminals shift to other ways to generate revenue. While ransomware will still be a problem, it will be more of a focused, targeted attack, says Steve Ragan, CSOs senior staff writer. He cites the declining number of ransomware attacks. According to Kaspersky, the number of users who encountered ransomware in 2017 and 2018 fell by nearly 30 percent over the 2016 to 2017 time period.

The randoms went down, and the targeted ones were big news, says Ragan. For example, the ransomware group responsible for SamSam is now focusing primarily on a relatively few U.S. companies, mainly municipal and healthcare organizations, according to Symantec.

The reason for the decline is that criminals are finding cryptojacking and other schemes are more effective money-makers. The number and quality of ready-made cryptomining tools means that criminals dont need to be technically skilled. Thats reflected in the 44.5 percent rise in number of users that have experienced a cryptomining attack in the past year, according to Kaspersky. Hidden coinminers continue to proliferate in 2019, and malware authors are taking advantage of them to disrupt your business, says CSO contributor David Strom. Cryptomining will continue to be a threat as long as attackers can make quick cash from the infections.

2. Regulation and public sentiment on privacy will drive data protection policies

Last year, CSO predicted that the European Union (EU) would quickly punish a few companies in violation of its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to make an example of them. That didnt happen. The threat of penalties over compromised personal information will still have a huge effect on security operations in 2019 nonetheless.

Those penalties are likely coming. The EU will break some fingers with the GDPR, says CSO Senior Writer J.M. Porup. Enforcement is going to be harsh beginning in the first half of 2019. Companies engaged in surveillance capitalism, like Google and Facebook, are in for a rough few years. Hundreds of complaints have been filed, including some against Google and Facebook.

In 2019, well see how the EU will react to those complaints. That will provide some much-needed clarity regarding the risk that GDPR and other privacy regulations present. If the GDPR doesnt react, then thats telling, too. It sends the message not to take the regulation seriously.

Rising concern over how companies use and protect personal information will encourage many Americans to hold those companies more accountable. The reaction by consumers to constant security breaches and other unethical information disclosures (e.g., Facebook) leads U.S. consumers to demand more default privacy and control over their own information, says CSO contributor Roger Grimes.

Grimes expects to see an effort to enact privacy laws similar to GDPR nationally in 2019. The California Consumer Privacy Act has already passed into law and goes into effect in 2020. On November 1, Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill titled the Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA), which has stiff penalties, including jail time, for privacy violations.

Given the federal governments current state of effectiveness, that bill is unlikely to gain much traction. In the meantime, most organizations that handle consumer data in the U.S. will look to other regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA for guidance. California and New York will continue to drive the conversation around consumer data privacy, while Washington drags its heels, says Porup.

Companies will  start seriously thinking about a privacy-first approach to data, especially as these laws expand to more jurisdictions, and to narrowly targeted verticals, such as banking, medical and payments, says CSO contributor Maria Korolov. That will require some major changes in how companies collect, use, and share data.

3. Expect more nation-state attacks on and surveillance of individuals

State-conducted or sponsored targeted cyberattacks on journalists, dissidents and politicians will continue to grow. Like-minded governments will turn a blind eye to such attacks on their own soil.

The worst possible outcome of a nation surveilling its own citizens played out in the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Israeli newspaper The Haaretz reported that the Saudi government used Israeli cyberweapons to track Khashoggi while he was in Canada.

The Israeli government appears to be a major exporter of technology that other governments can use to spy on its citizens. Another Haaretz story reports that multiple countries are using Israeli software to target dissidents and homosexuals.

4. Microsoft will move Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to all its mainstream products

Windows 10 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is a service that allows anyone with an E5 license to see under the hood and review what an attacker did to a system. It relies on telemetry that is enabled when the computer is linked to the ATP service.

The software giant will move to fortify its continuing efforts to build a security-focused brand image by making ATP standard with all Windows versions. This will be a key selling point in choosing Windows products over IBM's Red Hat in the coming year, says CSO contributor and Windows expert Susan Bradley.

5. We will determine that voter fraud occurred in the mid-term elections

The confirmation of voter fraud will spur calls to better protect and enroll people in online voter processes. The conflict between those who want to make voting as accessible as possible and those who want to protect the integrity of the process will remain, however.

We have a need to ensure that everyone can register and vote online, but we will need to take major steps to ensure we can do so safely and properly, says Bradley.

6. Multi-factor authentication will become the standard for all online transactions

Though far from a perfect solution, most websites and online services will abandon password-only access and offer additional required or optional authentication methods. For a while, the different forms of multi-factor authentication will likely confuse and frustrate users.

Only using a password to authenticate is increasingly leaving us open to phishing and other attacks, says Bradley. But the fact that all the vendors are implementing different systems to authenticate means I'm being driven slightly crazy with all of the two-factor authentications I'm having to manage. It won't be better until a more standardized process is settled on.

Those standards, at least on the vendor side, are on the way. With FIDO2 browser enhancements and the Duo/Cisco acquisition, it could tip the scales. Expect to see more innovation here in the coming year that makes it easier and more compelling to use MFA than not to, says Strom.

7. Spear phishing becomes even more targeted

Attackers know that the more information they have about you, the better they can craft a successful phishing campaign against you. Some are using tactics that are a bit creepy. One of the trending changes in spear phishing are phishing campaigns where the hacker breaks into an email system, lurks and learns, says Grimes. Then they use the information they have learned, as well as taking advantage of the relationships and trust built between people who regularly communicate with each other.

One area where Grimes sees this happening more is mortgage wire fraud, where home buyers are tricked into wiring closing fees to a rogue party by an email arriving from a trusted mortgage agent. The hacker breaks into the mortgage lenders (or title agents) computer and takes note of all the upcoming pending deals and their closing dates, he says. Then the day before the mortgage agent would normally send out an email telling the client where to send the closing money, the phisher uses the mortgage agents computer to beat them to the punch. The unsuspecting client wires the money, which is rarely recovered, and ends up losing the house (unless they can come up with another substantial closing payment, which most cant do).

8. Nations will make an effort to establish cyberwarfare rules

Even in physical warfare, most nations have agreed upon a basic set of rules, such as no torture, no poison gasses, or no slaughtering of civilians. The rules set boundaries that could align much of the world against nations that cross them.

No such rules exist for cyberwarfare, and some nations seem to believe they can do almost anything with near impunity. North Korea hacks Sony Pictures. Russia hacks industrial critical control systems and tries to influence the elections of other nations. China steals intellectual property. And the U.S. and Israel use malware to destroy nuclear equipment, says Grimes. Digital boundaries are being tested, and some nation states are starting to push back. Expect there to be a Geneva Convention for digital warfare coming soon.

Rules or no rules, some nations will continue to push boundaries when it comes to cyber warfare. Cyber attackers will continue to have a safe haven in Russia and China and North Korea, says Korolov. They will have more resources at their disposal than ever, either from their government backers or from the financial windfalls of this year's ransomware and cryptojacking attacks. They will use these resources to find new attack vectors and to improve the resilience and adaptability of their malware. The situation will continue to get worse until something very major changes in global geopolitics, which won't be until the next U.S. presidential election, at the earliest.

9. More organizations will require masters degrees in cybersecurity for CSOs/CISOs

Cybersecurity training will continue to mature, and certificates alone will no longer be enough to take the next step in a security professional's career, Porup predicts. The hodge-podge system of security certifications has failed to provide the right kind of education and training, says Porup.

"Cybersecurity training will continue to mature, and certificates alone will no longer be enough to take the next step in a security professional's career," Porup continues. "Masters degrees in cybersecurity are popping up all over the place, including at prestigious universities like UC Berkeley and NYU, and more and more companies will be looking to hire CSOs/CISOs with the cross-disciplinary skills acquired from a masters degree."
What's a better gift than the future? These are the innovative gadgets and services we've tried and loved over the past year.

Oculus: Go Virtual Reality Headset

The Oculus Go is the first virtual reality gadget you might actually gift. It has no cables and requires no additional hardware. And it's good for more than just games. It's a self-contained portal to 360-degree experiences, from concerts to meditation experiences. Curl up and watch TV virtually with a faraway friend. Or on a long flight, you can use one as your private movie theater. Price: $199

Hulu: No-ads Subscription

For the TV lover, what's better than the gift of no commercials? Hulu streams the current season of shows from NBC, CBS, ABC and other networks, as well as beloved back-catalogue hits. For a bit more money, the often-overlooked commercial-free subscription lets you squeeze even more TV into your life. Price: $11.99 per month

Sony: Aibo

Sure, nobody needs a robot dog. But you'll want one after meeting Aibo, the rebirth of Sony's iconic robot companion from 1999. Aibo's new litter comes with remarkably lifelike mechanical movement, its own cellular connection and artificial intelligence that learns faces and grows with you. Also: You'll never have to take it for a walk - though it can still simulate taking a tinkle. Price: $2,899.99

iRobot: Roomba i7

The next-generation robot vacuum cleaner from iRobot has gained remarkable skills. Like a self-driving car, it creates its own map of your house to clean more efficiently - and so it can take commands to vacuum just one particular room. Even better: The i7 has a docking station that empties its own dustbin. Watch out, Rosie from "The Jetsons." Price: $949.99

Sonos: Beam Smart TV Soundbar

The best upgrade you can make to your TV is better sound. This compact soundbar attaches to a TV and packs in a lot of great sound - but also has a few other tricks. With Amazon's Alexa built in, it can take voice commands to play music or even control the TV. And it can wirelessly sync up with other Sonos speakers to give you music all over the house. Price: $399

Surface Go With Type Cover

Want the full capabilities of a PC in a package you can stick in a purse or knapsack? The Surface Go is a 10-inch tablet that weighs 1.15 pounds but comes with a keyboard cover and stand that transform it into a Windows 10 laptop. The smaller keys take a little getting used to, but this tablet is serious about business. Price: $626.95

TCL: 6-Series Roku TV

You might not be familiar with the TCL brand, but don't let that turn you away from this amazing value. The 6-series TV boasts picture tech that rivals what you can get from bestseller Samsung - and costs half as much. It's not only 4K, it supports high dynamic range (HDR) content. Price: $649.97

Sphero: Bolt App-Enabled Robot

What's more fun than a ball? A waterproof robot ball you drive from an app with a rainbow LED screen inside. Even better, the Bolt teaches kids the basics of coding through its Sphero Edu app with drawing, using Scratch blocks or writing JavaScript. Price: $149.99

Apple: Watch Series 4

If you've been on the fence about a smartwatch, this one is finally worth considering. The Series 4 has a larger screen, faster processor and - for $100 extra - comes with its own independent cellular connection to take calls and receive messages while you're away from your iPhone. This model also acts more like a medical device, with abilities to measure your heart and call for help after a hard fall. Price: From $399

Moment: Wide Lens for Smartphones

Help your favorite Instagrammers take their photo game to the next level with this detachable lens for the iPhone and Samsung and Google Pixel phones. This wide lens provides the most dramatic new view, but there are also telephoto, macro and fisheye lenses available. Cases that make it easy to twist on and off the lenses sold separately. Price: $117.99

Byrd & Belle: Laptop, Tablet and Phone Felt Cases

This is really a gift for laptops, tablets and cellphones. They'll get to spend downtime encased in a luxurious, thick, protective felt - in one of 10 beautiful colors. Makers Byrd & Belle believe in simple, yet functional designs with quality construction. Price: $19 and up

Amazon: Fire HD 8 Kids Edition Tablet

Kids love tablets. But for parents, providing safe, age-appropriate experiences - that aren't just rotting Junior's brain - can be a lot of work. Amazon's kids edition tablet goes further than iPads to give parents tools to reward learning time. It comes with a year's subscription to FreeTime Unlimited, which provides access to over 20,000 popular apps and games, videos and books. Price: $99.99

Apple: AirPods

Sure, these totally wireless ear buds looked goofy when they first came out. But now they're everywhere and with good reason: The AirPods work and sound great. An included case keeps them charged and from getting lost. The biggest downside is Apple's one-size-fits-all design, so you should try on a pair and give your head a good shake before buying. Price: $159
This article was first published on NerdWallet.com.

NerdWallet is here to help you win Black Friday, while leaving your budget intact. We spend the time, you save the money. Visit regularly for tips and announcements about the best holiday deals from your favorite retailers. Black Friday is Nov. 23.

Costco Black Friday deals 2018

The 2018 Costco Black Friday ad has arrived! While stores are closed on Thanksgiving, the wholesale club will offer exclusive savings online throughout the day. The Black Friday sale lasts from Nov. 23 to Nov. 26, but some online deals are available as early as Nov. 22. It mainly features electronics but also includes food, clothing and furniture. See store hours and example deals below.

Hours: Opens at 9 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 23.

Check out some highlights from the eight-page ad:

$50 off the Fitbit Versa.

$100 off the Xbox One S Minecraft Creators bundle.

40-inch Vizio Class 1080p LED LCD TV for $199.99.

$30 off the Google Home Mini three pack ($69.99).

Up to $620 off a Whirlpool washer-dryer set.

$100 off the Nikon D3500 DSLR camera 2-lens bundle ($499.99).

$300 off the HP Pavilion 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen Windows 10 professional laptop ($799.99).

$35 off the Instant Pot Nova Plus 6-quart 9-in-1 pressure cooker.

Visit NerdWallet to view the full Costco Black Friday ad

Weve got another 13 pages of Costco savings, all available between Nov. 16 and Nov. 26. Make sure to read the fine print, as some deals are offered only in stores or only online. Here are some of our favorites:

43-inch Samsung class 4K UHD LED LCD TV for $279.99 (in store only).

Get a $300 Costco Cash Card via online redemption with purchase of the Samsung Galaxy Note9, S9 or S9 Plus (in store only).

HP Envy x360 15.6-inch 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop for $699.99 (regularly $899.99, online only).

$200 off Microsoft Surface Pro bundles.

$100 of the Casper king-size memory foam mattress (online only).

Costco Black Friday deals 2017

Costcos 2017 Black Friday sale started on Thanksgiving online and at 9 a.m. Black Friday in stores. The deals featured discounts on a range of home electronics.

Heres a quick look back:

$50 off the Google Home Voice-Activated Speaker.

$100 off the DJI Mavic Pro Aerial Drone Camera Bundle.

$80 off the Xbox One S Bundle.

$100 off the Playstation 4.

Check out our list of 2018 ad leaks for up-to-date deal news from a wide range of retailers.

Lauren Schwahn is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: lschwahn@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauren_schwahn.

The article Costco Black Friday 2018 Ad, Deals and Store Hours originally appeared on NerdWallet.
Foxwoods on Tap, craft beer-tasting event at the largest casino on the East Coast, comes during a window of time for beer calories  after the Thanksgiving feast and before Christmas cookies.

I think its really the timing, said organizer Emily Inzana of its popularity. Its in December when its cold out and people... just want to stay in... Were trying to help bring them out of the cold and be like, Hey, heres a fun, craft beer event where you can try different beers and see what you like... and just have a fun time with your friends and after that, you can just stay and enjoy Foxwoods casino.

Greenwich-based Townsquare Media Live Events arranges the third-year event for Foxwoods, lining up the brewers via a handful of distributors for the 150-plus craft brews and other beverages available in the facilitys Premier Ballroom.

Inzana, a producer for Townsquare, said there are two new elements to Foxwoods on Tap: A portion of all proceeds will be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Eastern Connecticut. And 80 percent of the beer servers will be brewery reps instead of Foxwoods servers, an improvement for patrons who want to know more about how and where a brew is made.

The event features the work of 70 different breweries, with a solid representation of Connecticut, regional and national brands  from Two Roads in Stratford to Long Trail in Vermont to Ballast Point based in California.

Obviously Stony Creek (Brewery) is the one thats pretty big, said Inzana of the local brand that now has brewpub at Foxwoods, but also Honor Brewing; theyre pretty cool. A lot of their proceeds go back to veterans. Theyll actually have a table with merch(andise) ... too. Funk Brewing (of Pennsylvania) is also another good one that we bring in.

There are hard ciders, Hoop Tea and the occasional spiked seltzer, too. But beer is king.

We do two styles from each of the breweries, Inzana said. The first one is usually one of the popular ones that everyone likes, and then the second one... well do like a seasonal. So youll see a lot of winter beers coming out; some of them have like cinnamon ones, vanilla cream, stuff like that.

Like most of these beer festivals dotting the landscape, Foxwoods on Tap includes games such as cornhole beanbag toss, beer pong and live music, this time by winners of the 2018 Foxwoods Battle of the Bands, Auguste & Alden.

Food options (for purchase, from Foxwoods food providers) include pretzels, chicken tenders and party-food options such as cheesy fries and buffalo chicken, Inzana said. There will also be some other vendors of T-shirts and other items.

Foxwoods doesnt offer free water bottles like Mohegans fests do for hydration, alas, but it does have occasional water stations, where you can rinse out a glass and have a little water, Inzana said.

jamarante@nhregister.com; @Joeammo on Twitter
BRIDGEPORT  He has been sworn in as police chief, but Armando Perez has one final hurdle to face as he settles in to the $145,428 job after being acting top cop for almost three years.

The City Council has to approve Perezs five-year contract. Members voted at their regular meeting Monday night to forward the four-page document to its contracts subcommittee for review.

That review gives Perezs critics one final chance to voice their objections to his mayoral appointment, though, contract or not, he has the position. But one of the most vocal of those critics  Councilman Kyle Langan  said he is prepared to accept Mayor Joe Ganims choice of Perez.

Its done, said Langan. I raised my voice. The community raised our voice. ... But I dont think it benefits me or the people I represent to continue to grind that ax. That battle is lost.

Langan added, I told the chief (following last weeks swearing-in ceremony) that while I have been critical of the process, I wish him success, because it means success for our community.

Perez joined Bridgeports Finest in 1983 and got to know Ganim when he was the mayors driver in the 1990s. After Perez helped Ganim make a political comeback in 2015, the returned mayor promoted the then-police captain to acting chief.

Perez had publicly stated he wanted to be made permanent top cop with a contract. But in order to do that, under the charter, Ganim had to launch a search. That process began with 17 candidates and resulted in three names  Perez, Bridgeport Police Captain Roderick Porter and New Haven Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova  being forwarded to Ganim by a panel of law enforcement and human resources professionals.

Perez has admitted that the panel ranked the trio of finalists, and that he came in second and Casanova was the top recommendation.

Critics of the search believe it was always destined to end with Perezs appointment, given his closeness to Ganim.

Langan and others wanted fresh leadership, in light of the many controversies under Perezs watch, from the shooting death of a 15-year-old by a rookie cop to slow implementation of uniform cameras, to the retirement of a close aide to the chief who was accused of sending racist private messages over Facebook.

But Perez has also been praised as a caring, accessible leader with deep ties to the community.

Councilwoman Maria Zambrano Viggiano had, with Langan and others, tried to pressure the Ganim administration into hosting a public forum for Perez, Porter and Casanova to field residents questions. Instead, City Hall held an invitation-only meet-and-greet.

But Viggiano said she personally has been impressed with Perez and supports him.

Whenever Ive had a constituent come to me and say, Im having this issue, hes been on top of it, met with me, just really been very responsive, Viggiano said. So I really appreciate that. Ive only been on the council a year, but I dont think I expected a police chief to be as responsive as he has been.

There is nothing that seems immediately controversial about Perezs contract. His salary remains the same and his health insurance and other benefits reflect those offered similar, non-union, politically appointed executive positions.

Like many other veteran municipal workers from the mayor on down, Perez will receive so-called annual longevity bonuses of $75 per year on the job.

Unlike many other employees, however, Perez does get a take-home car.

Councilman Ernie Newton said he plans to raise an objection over where Perez calls home. The chief, like his immediate predecessor, Joseph Gaudett, does not live in Bridgeport.

Ive been pushing this residency thing. People in top mayoral-appointed positions ought to live in the city, Newton said, noting Hartfords decades-old, though controversial, residency rule. The high-paying people that work here should live here.
After recreational marijuana became legal for purchase in Massachusetts on Tuesday, Connecticut State Police reminded residents that the drug is still not legal in Connecticut.

An adult at the age of 21 or older is able to cross the state line into Massachusetts to legally purchase recreational marijuana. But, state police said, there are repercussions for bringing it back into Connecticut after purchasing it.
Linda Robak was taken aback while shopping Tuesday at an area grocery store. In the produce section, the Bridgeport resident saw romaine lettuce for sale.

It unsettled her, since she knew romaine had been linked to an E.coli outbreak that had sickened 32 people in the United States (including one in Connecticut) and sent 13 people to hospitals. She had seen news stories and social media posts stating that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised people to stop eating romaine lettuce and implored retailers to pull it from shelves.

I wasnt even at the store to buy romaine lettuce, but I saw the romaine lettuce and I had just seen warnings telling people not to buy it, Robak said.

The store has since pulled the lettuce, but Robak said that when she initially told staff about her concerns, she was told the lettuce being sold there wasnt contaminated.

In fact, the FDA and CDC have said that the exact source of the contamination is still unknown, which is why they caution people not to eat any romaine. However, the agencies havent specifically recalled the lettuce, because the issue is still under investigation.

Getting the message

Currently, the FDA does not have enough traceback information to identify the source of the contamination that would allow us to request a targeted recall from specific suppliers, reads a statement on the FDA web site. At this stage in the investigation, the most efficient way to ensure that contaminated romaine is off the market would be for (the) industry to voluntarily withdraw product from the market and to withhold distribution of romaine until public health authorities can ensure the outbreak is over and/or until FDA can identify a specific source of contamination.

In Connecticut, the states Department of Consumer Protection has been asking stores to pull romaine from their shelves, and they seem to be complying, said department spokesperson Lora Rae Anderson.

If someone goes to their store and sees it on the shelf, they should let us know and well contact the store, she said in an email.

Despite Robaks experience, most stores seem to have heeded the call. After the FDA and CDC announcement went out Tuesday, chain grocers and independent retailers throughout the state began removing romaine, said Wayne Pesce, president of the Connecticut Food Association, which represents retailers, wholesalers, distributors and food service providers.

I spoke to one of our largest members today and they had already instituted what they call a class 1 recall for romaine, Pesce said Wednesday in an email. That means the product is removed from the shelf, not utilized in the deli or allowed to scan at the register. This is a serious matter with potential health risks to our customers. Grocery retailers are taking this very seriously to insure public safety.

Alternative greens

Many retailers contacted for comment didnt immediately respond, but one local grocer confirmed that romaine had been removed from that store. Connecticut-based grocer Stew Leonards, which has six locations including those in Norwalk and Danbury, announced it was pulling the lettuce.

Stew Leonards has removed all romaine lettuce from our shelves, read a statement on the chains website. However, you can still enjoy Thanksgiving and enjoy lettuce! The post then goes on to describe other types of lettuce available through the stores, including spinach and iceberg.

New Jersey-based grocery chain ShopRite also announced that its stores had removed all romaine and salad blends containing it.

Bridgeport Health Director Maritza Bond also issued a statement Wednesday afternoon about the romaine flap.

To be proactive we are urging Bridgeport residents, retail and restaurants not to consume or sell romaine lettuce and to take precautionary measures and advising that any open packages of romaine lettuce be discarded, and not to consume any romaine lettuce until further notice, Bond said. As residents prepare for this upcoming holiday, it is imperative to also practice food safety measures and eliminate any cross contamination of meat and other vegetables. We want everyone to enjoy a happy and healthy holiday.

Shoppers who see romaine at an area retailer are asked to contact the state Department of Consumer Protections Food and Standards Division at 860-713-6160 or dcp.foodandstandards@ct.gov.
BRIDGEPORT  The state office of School Construction Grants authorized the city to proceed with a brand new Bassick High School but not at the 78.9 percent reimbursement rate the school board was told would be chipped in.

Kosta Diamantis, director of the office, said this week that the reimbursement rate on a brand new Bassick would be roughly 69 percent, requiring the city to bond for the rest.

The difference could mean the city must bond $36 million rather than $24 million on the projected $115 million project.

Even so, Diamantis said the city stands to break even or do better on the project price tag in the long run because there would be less costly environmental clean up and maintenance moving forward.

There would be more things reimbursable in a brand new school than in a renovation, Diamantis said. The difference in maintaining a new school versus a school that is old would more than make up that 10 percent.

Diamantis said he was sold on a new versus renovated or a blend of old and new, after meeting with project architects and city building officials.

The state official said he also plans to visit the school on Monday to set his mind at ease about the historic nature of the 1929 portion of Bassick.

Board member Maria Pereira has said she has no problem replacing a 1968 addition built in front of the 1929 wing, but wants the older portion preserved. It was designed by architect Ernest G. Southey as a junior high school with a Georgian column facade and ornate auditorium.

Bassisk is not on any national register, but the Bassick family and the architect both hold historical significance, Pereira said. Set back from Fairfield and Clinton avenues, that significance is obscured by its addition.

Pereira has started an online petition that appears to have gotten nearly 200 signatures as of Thursday. She also contacted the state after Larry Schilling, a city program manager for the construction project, told the board repeatedly last week that the state would pay the 79 percent reimbursement rate for a brand new building.

They said they would support new construction with 78.93 percent, Schilling said of the state when asked during a presentation to the school board last week. Hybrid would also get the 78 percent.

Schilling subsequently said it was a misunderstanding on his part and other attendees at the meeting on what the rate would be for the new construction option.

Schilling also told the board it was the state, that decides on the option they will financially support.

City Finance Director Ken Flatto said there would need to be local school board approval of the educational specification as well as citys school building committee approval. The building committee canceled its last meeting because of the Thursday snow storm.

The state changed the reimbursement rate a couple of years ago, contributing more to renovation projects than brand new buildings. The percentage of the original building saved also plays a factor.

At the end of the day the rate is not going to be 79 percent either way, Flatto said. I havent seen a project yet where we got a full 79 percent. There are always ineligibles.

The city building committee, Flatto added, wants a building that works for the kids.

Diamantis said when he was presented with the options, he was told there was nothing of historical significance in the older part of Bassick. He said he was told about the auditoriums flat floor  most modern auditoriums have a sloped floor  and need for accessibility upgrades and how the 90-year-old boilers heat both buildings.

The team was clearly pleased with the idea of a new school similar to what was done with Harding, Diamantis said, who agreed more would be eligible for reimbursement with a new school.

During its presentation to the board, architects from Perkins Eastman of Stamford said that a renovated or only partially new school would be a challenge and also less efficient than one that was completely new.

The architects said that the cost of removing hazardous materials from a building being renovated would likely be more costly than simply eliminating the hazard and starting from scratch.

Diamantis said a firmer price tag wont be available until there is a firm design. A firm design is waiting on an enrollment study the state will accept. The district has a 1050 enrollment forecast but needs more precise count based on demographics, building permits and birth rates.

All agree that the current Bassick footprint is too large, by at least 30,000 square feet.
The acceptance of marijuana, both as a safe recreational drug and as a substance with medicinal value, has grown across the United States. Currently, 31 states and the District of Columbia have legalized this substance at some level. In addition, nearly every state has decriminalized the possession of small amounts of pot, and the federal government is considering removing hemp from the controlled substances list.

Related: 9 Business Ideas for People Looking to Cash in on the Marijuana Boom

This is great news for entrepreneurs considering a cannabis-based startup, and there are many profitable options beyond the highly regulated growing and dispensing businesses. Here are five great opportunities that offer lower risks along with great returns.

Produce CBD products.

Cannabidiol, or CBD, is the extract from cannabis that provides significant and proven medicinal benefits and comes in a variety of forms. Unlike recreational marijuana, which contains elevated levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD does not alter the user's mood or give him or her a high. What's important instead are the healthcare applications that have made CBDs acceptable to many states that ban marijuana for recreational use.

CBD consumer sales, in fact, are predicted to grow to $2.1 billion by 2021, but the experts at Medterra believe that the market will actually reach nearly $3 billion. This expectation is based on the fact that 15 states allow the sale of CBD products only -- in addition to the 31 states that allow for the sale of marijuana and CBD products.

This financial reality, combined with the fact that CBD is subject to fewer regulations than marijuana, means that manufacturing, marketing and distributing CBD products is a great business opportunity.

Consult with cannabis businesses.

While many people want to start a legal marijuana business, the many rules and regulations can make it difficult to remain on the right side of the law. Providing expert startup advice to others allows you to ride the wave of marijuana growth without risking the legal pitfalls. Currently, there are between 20,000 and 28,000 cannabis businesses in the United States, Statista reports, and this number is expected to rise sharply as state and federal laws change.

Soon, there will be thousands of people looking for practical information on starting a cannabis business, and many will pay for it. Investment, venture capital and merger and acquisition support will also be needed. In addition to how to run a startup in the cannabis industry, consulting opportunities are out there to lend assistance to companies seeking to better market and brand their products.

Related: New Accelerator Looks to Boost Cannabis Opportunities for Women

Whether your specialty is startups, financing, marketing or branding, you can customize your expertise to fit the right cannabis niche and build a great business.

Manufacture and/or sell cannabis accessories.

Currently, 21 percent of U.S. citizens live in a state with legalized marijuana, according to Arcview Market Research, and many of these citizens will need supplies to enjoy their legal high. Unlike the sale of marijuana or other cannabis products, you dont need a special license to sell the accessories to those who want to partake. Given the increase in legalized marijuana, the sales of products, from bongs to vaporizers, have shifted from head shops to online stores and brick-and-mortar boutiques.

The cannabis accessory industry is expected to grow by 20 percent according to Greenlane. This increase has created a demand for higher-quality, better-looking products. Users are willing to pay for something that is durable and sophisticated, personalized or otherwise unique. This stylized demand is a great business opportunity for entrepreneurs with a creative bent.

Produce edibles.

Marijuana edibles are in high demand because they are discrete and come in a variety of doses, which can appeal to newbies who want to try a low-dose product. In Washington State, sales of pot-infused edibles grew 121 percent last year, according to Headset analytics. The same study found that edible sales n Colorado tripled from 2014 to 2016 and reached $53 million.

Edibles can take a variety of forms from such familiar forms as brownies, cakes and cookies to more exotic pies, chocolate bars and peanut butter. The key with edibles is to follow the rules within the state where you produce and sell them and know your target audience. Find a favorite food and try to create an edible from it or serve a niche market, such as gluten-free, sugar-free and vegan.

Support PR and event planning.

As cannabis goes mainstream, more networking events, trade shows, and PR demands will emerge, but at this point, few people specialize in this niche market. According to the digital media outlet Merry Jane, thousands of product and branding events are held around the country each year. Each event must comply with local laws, of course, and in California, the organizer must be licensed, but despite their serious side, these events are also a lot of fun.

Many gatherings include after parties and offer edibles and other products or activities that are not traditional with a typical trade show. For entrepreneurs who are organized and love to entertain on a large scale, cannabis PR and event planning could be the right business choice.

Related: 4 Cannabis Business Ideas from the Frontier of the Legal Weed Industry

Bottom line

Cannabis has become a mainstream product in several states and is no longer a business run on the sly but one offered by corporations led by MBAs. This gentrification has created many legal and financially sound business opportunities for entrepreneurs with strong business skills who want to help take this industry to the next level.

Related:

Marijuana in Maine: Slow Motion Crawl Toward Adult-Use Sales

5 Opportunities for Entrepreneurs to Capitalize on America's New Relationship with Cannabis

Adults In Massachusetts Can Legally Buy Marijuana Starting Today



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
A federal judge struck down a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks, one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, ruling Tuesday that the ban "unequivocally" infringes on the due process rights of women.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, in Jackson, wrote a sharply worded rebuke of the law, calling it a deliberate attempt by the state to ask the newly conservative majority Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a woman's legal right to abortion.

At one point, he said the Mississippi legislature's "professed interest in 'women's health' is pure gaslighting."

"The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade," Reeves wrote in his ruling. "With the recent changes in the membership of the Supreme Court, it may be that the State believes divine providence covered the Capitol when it passed this legislation. Time will tell."

The state attorney general's office has not issued any statements in response to the ruling. But Knox Graham, a spokesman for Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, said in a statement Wednesday that the governor "fully supports the defense of this law moving forward."

"Gov. Bryant has been committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child since taking office and is disappointed in Tuesday's ruling against a law that protects both mother and child," the statement read.

The state enacted the ban in March, prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks except for in the case of a medical emergency or "a severe fetal abnormality."

In response, Mississippi's sole abortion provider, Jackson Women's Health Organization, immediately sued the state, asking for a temporary restraining order against the ban. The clinic would generally provide at least one abortion per week after 14 weeks and six days, according to the ruling. Reeves temporarily halted enforcement of the ban in March, and issued a permanent injunction Tuesday.

The federal judge said the case hinged on the question of whether the 15-week mark of a pregnancy is before or after viability. He cited medical consensus that viability typically begins between 23 and 24 weeks, and said there is "no legitimate state interest strong enough, before viability, to justify a ban on abortions."

Mississippi is one of several states across the country that already has a "trigger law" in place that would ban abortions if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. Reeves expressed frustration that the state pursued the law after seeing numerous other states unsuccessfully litigate similar bans in court. The state, Reeves added, "is aware that this type of litigation costs the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money."

In his conclusion, Reeves wrote about how he, as a man, could not imagine "the anxiety and turmoil" a woman might endure when deciding whether to get an abortion.

"The fact that men, myself included, are determining how women may choose to manage their reproductive health is a sad irony not lost on the Court," Reeves wrote.

The judge's ruling also blocks a similar 15-week ban passed in Louisiana this year contingent on the outcome of the Mississippi law. The Louisiana law would have only taken effect if the federal court would have upheld the Mississippi ban. The two laws would have marked the earliest abortion bans in the country.

When Bryant signed the bill into law in March, he proudly stated that the state would be "saving more of the unborn than any state in America."

In a news conference last week, Bryant stood alongside Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, currently in a run-off election against Democrat Mike Espy, and defended her amid widespread criticism over a joke she made about "public hanging." Bryant began the news conference by suggesting that black women were participating in "the genocide of 20 million African American children" through legal abortions.

Supporters of abortion rights, such as the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued on behalf of the Mississippi abortion clinic, celebrated Tuesday's ruling as a victory for women in the state.

"Today's decision should be a wake-up call for state lawmakers who are continuously trying to chip away at abortion access," Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. "Such bans will not stand in a court of law."
WEST HAVEN  West Haven High School Assistant Principal Dana Paredes has been named the Connecticut Association of Schools 2019 High School Assistant Principal of the Year, the association announced this week in a letter circulated by local school officials.

On behalf of the Connecticut Association of Schools, I would like to congratulate you on being selected as our states 2019 High School Assistant Principal of the Year! wrote Donna Hayward, chairwoman of the Associations Awards and Recognition Committee, in a letter to Paredes.

It is a fitting tribute to a woman who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and an unrivaled commitment to her students, school and community, Hayward wrote. You were chosen from a pool of gifted administrators, thus giving testimony to your prodigious success as an instructional leader and building manager.

Paredes is West Haven Highs acting principal following the death late last month of former Principal Pamela Bellmore Gardner  and she acted in that capacity when Gardner was unable to do so during her 18-month battle with cancer.

Reached at school Wednesday, Paredes said, Im really, really excited. Its something that Pam really encouraged me to apply for. I wish she were here to see it, but Im really excited...

So many former students reached out to me, and I think that was the nicest part  the amount of former students who reached out to me, Paredes said.

Paredes was nominated for the award by Melanie Deninger, chairwoman of the high schools English Department.

Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro and Board of Education Chairwoman Rosemary Russo both said they were thrilled to see Paredes get the honor. Both also said she has their support to be the high schools permanent principal.

More News West Haven High School Principal Pamela Bellmore Gardner dies after long battle with cancer

I dont think that they could have picked a better person, said Russo. Shes well-deserved of the honor and hard working ... and I congratulate her for her determination.

Cavallaro was proud of the choice.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to be interviewed and I was happy to do that because I thought she was a worthy candidate, especially the way she handled the last 15 months during Pams illness, he said. She definitely took charge of the high school while at the same time always keeping in mind that Pam was still the principal.

Paredes has been doing Gardners job when Gardner was unable to, as well as her own job and her role overseeing the districts Power School student datebase system, Cavallaro said.

Shes the go-to person in this school district, he said.

Shes going to be my recommendation for the next principal at West Haven High School. ... I think its just a matter of timing, Cavallaro said.

Paredes said Cavallaro has shared with me that I am his recommendation ... and I would be very excited in that role.

Paredes will be honored along with assistant principals of the year at the elementary and middle school levels, at a recognition dinner at Saint Clements Castle in Portland in October 2019, the letter said.

She also will be honored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals at its conference in Boston July 18-20, 2019.
A toothless United Nations document is stirring up political trouble throughout Europe, nearly toppling one government. The overreaction to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration shows how immigration politics have decoupled from the reality of people moving across borders.

In July, the text of the Compact was approved by all 193 UN member states - except the U.S., which had pulled out of the talks earlier.

Member states are supposed to sign it formally at a special conference in Morocco next month. There's nothing in the document to stop them from doing so; it's a non-binding, good-natured declaration of intent to collect data on migration, adopt data-supported policies, not to violate migrants' human rights and to make honest attempts to integrate immigrants.

And yet it has proved politically explosive. Enter Donald Trump. By withdrawing the U.S. from the Compact, he set an example for other anti-immigrant politicians: not signing the pact has become a matter of sovereignty.

"Our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone," Nikki Haley, then the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said in December, adding that a global approach to the issue was "simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty."

The text of the agreement specifically takes care of that objection. The Compact "reaffirms the sovereign right of states to determine their national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction."

That hasn't prevented Hungary from following Trump's lead. At a press conference with Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto branded the pact as "the betrayal of Europe." Strache agreed, and Austria won't sign.

The line to the exit has lengthened. Australia has pulled out, while Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Bulgaria have indicated they won't either. In Estonia, discussions about the Compact almost triggered the collapse of the government. Pro Patria, one of the junior partners in the ruling coalition, has agitated against the cabinet's decision to approve the pact. If the Baltic state's lawmakers now vote it down, Estonia won't sign.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has suggested the renegades simply weren't that familiar with the document. "Had they read it," he said, "they would have remained inside."

Except, they have read it all right. The pact's opponents have nothing against discussing the text.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn, a candidate to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, wants to debate the document at the party's conference in December - and perhaps put off signing it until a public discussion has been held. The nationalist Alternative for Germany party has slammed the Compact, based on a pretty one-sided but substantive analysis of the text. The AfD claims the UN document "only names the rights of 'migrants' and the duties of destination country citizens" and calls the it a "hidden resettlement program for economic migrants fleeing poverty."

Importantly, the Compact doesn't hold that some reasons for migration, like wars, may be more valid than others, such as poverty. That has angered nationalist politicians: The distinction between humanitarian and economic migration allows them to call for limits on immigration while avoiding accusations of inhumanity.

The UN document also avoids applying the terms "legal" and "illegal" to migration - as much of a red line for Strache's Freedom Party as for Republicans in the U.S.

As for the pact's non-binding character, at least some of its opponents appear to view it with mistrust. It would still be binding morally and politically, and could leave governments open to legal challenges, commentator Adam Forisek wrote on a pro-government Hungarian website.

In reality, the wording of the Compact will change nothing about migration patterns, integration policies, labor market demands, security arrangements or deportation practices. The poor, the downtrodden and the victims of violence will keep seeking a better life away from home, and wealthy nations will treat them according to which party is in power.

A coordinated multinational effort to resolve the thorniest migration issues and work out optimal integration policies doesn't require a non-binding pact signed by every country. A smaller group of governments willing and able to work on solutions could make binding agreements, which could include some common funding and multinational pilot projects.

Today, the world lacks a crop of leaders capable of such momentous deals. As a result, immigration politics have turned into an exercise in providing verbal clues to tell identity voters whom to support. The debate is about buzzwords like "sovereignty" and "border security" rather than immigration itself.

---

Bershidsky is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European politics and business. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.
MILFORD - A 28-year-old Virginia woman was arrested and charged with risk of injury to a minor after police said she shoplifted items from Whole Foods in the company of her child.

The incident happened around 8 p.m. Sunday at the Boston Post Road market.
In a sit-down interview with Rep. Rosa DeLauro last week, the topics ranged from her pending chairmanship of an important House Appropriations subcommittee to her ardent support of Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker.

But I also asked the question long on the minds of close DeLauro watchers: Whats with the purple streaks in your hair?

I wanted to do it, I love it and its fun, DeLauro responded, not missing a beat.

DeLauro, 75, insisted it is not some latent 60s thing, a release of her inner flower child.

You are who you are; its your personality, she said. Im always of the point of view that you have to be who you are.

DeLauro has color-streaked her hair for a decade or more. Im hardly a fashion critic but it certainly complements her colorful outfits and abundant rings.

The onrush of the mid-term election season prevented DeLauro from a refresher at the hair stylist. But once the election passed, the purple re-appeared  arguably a fitting metaphor to the mixed results that included enough flips to give back the House to DeLauros Democrats.

Among others, her granddaughter was ecstatic. Bubby, I love the purple, I love the purple! DeLauro quoted her as saying.

Bubby, of course, is the traditional Jewish-Yiddish term for grandmother. DeLauro is a proud Italian-American  dont get her started on New Haven pizza.

But as the wife of pollster Stan Greenberg, she forsook the Italian Nonna for the Jewish Bubby. And, yes, Stan is Zayde (pronounced like Zay-dee).

Fully on board

The U.S. Navy must have laced Sen. Chris Murphys drinking water with Kool-Aid back in 2016 when he hitched a ride aboard the USS Hartford attack submarine for an underwater ride to the Arctic Circle.

Murphy has been a Senate Appropriations Committee stalwart for larger and larger submarine construction budgets, all to the good of Electric Boat and the U.S. Navy sub base along the Thames River in the Groton-New London area.

So I have to admit to a slight eye-roll when I saw a Murphy press release calling for a stepped-up maintenance schedule for submarines  at Electric Boat in Groton.

Of course, Murphy is only doing what any senator would do. Support of a major home-state defense contractor is Capitol Hill bread-and-butter, Democrat or Republican.

In this case, there was an underlying Government Accountability Report that sparked Murphys call. The report detailed extra-long waits for repairs and routine maintenance, with some submarines tied up at wharves for up to two years.

Since 2008, the Navy has spent $1.5 billion on attack submarines essentially waiting in line, the GAO report found.

Some of the work is done at Navy-owned shipyards but the report said it could be expanded at private shipyards as well.

Enter Murphy. The men and women who work at Electric Boat are the best at what they do, he said in the release. Trained workers like those at Electric Boat can help address the backlog of maintenance work.

So despite all the unnecessary bridges to nowhere, government spending priorities and bringing home the bacon actually do sometimes meet in perfect harmony.

This may or may not be such a case. But I can say this: I wouldnt want to take my car in for an oil change only to be told itll take two years.

dan@hearstdc.com
Credit unions give back to their communities in a variety of ways every single day. But when we come together and aggregate our impact  it sends a powerful message to our employees, members, communities and lawmakers.

On Monday, October 8, 49 Minnesota credit unions and partners participated in a statewide day of kindness. Across the state, the day was dedicated to community service projects and volunteer work impacting over 335,000 people.

I am proud that the Minnesota Credit Union Network coordinates CU Forward Day, held annually on the federal holiday the second Monday in October. This year, Minnesota credit union employees participated in events ranging from building for Habitat for Humanity; preparing meals for homeless youth; outdoor clean up events; free document shred days; hosting a childrens book drive; packing food for Feed My Starving Children; and providing random acts of kindness for community members. In addition to staff time, credit unions donated an estimated $100,000 to community programs and initiatives.

In 2013, Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union hosted their first organization-wide Plus It Forward Day. Initially focused on Affinity Plus employees dedicating eight hours to volunteerism, the event grew every year. CEO Dave Larson invited other credit unions to join in their effort, and by 2016, Plus It Forward included 25 participating credit unions. In a response to the growing cooperative nature of the event, and the desire of Affinity Plus to perpetuate the idea, in 2017 the Minnesota Credit Union Network began coordinating credit union participation, tracking, and media efforts under the umbrella name CU Forward Day.

Since taking on the program, participation has almost doubled, to 49 participating credit unions and partners in 2018. All participating credit unions are invited to select the giveback opportunity that means the most to their staff and community and brand the day as they see fit. All told, over 1,500 employees volunteered 6,900 hours in one day.

Impact has grown as well. We saw 14 million media impressions as a result of our story pitches and social sharing. Earned media included TV stories, radio interviews, newspaper coverage, and social engagement. One single act of kindness between a credit union employee and a woman in Cambridge, Minnesota, resulted in a Facebook Live post viewed by over 9,200 people. The awareness for credit unions is awesome  but whats more awe inspiring is how a credit union employee touched this one individuals life.

The cooperative impact of credit unions is larger than each individual credit union. As not-for-profit financial institutions, credit unions work to improve the financial lives of individuals and communities. CU Forward Day is an opportunity to show our people helping people philosophy in action.

I am aware many leagues and credit unions support similar giveback day initiatives. As our own grows, my vision for the future would be a national coordinated effort, spearheaded by the league system, to impact all Americans with the credit union difference.
Kam Wong pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Monday to embezzling nearly $10 million from the $2.8 billion Municipal Credit Union where he was president/CEO.

From 2013 through January 2018, the 62-year-old Wong ran a multi-faceted embezzlement scheme and took steps to conceal that he stole $9,890,375, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman in New York said. However, what Berman revealed publicly for the first time is that Wong obtained drugs from a former credit union supervisory committee member.

Berman did not reveal the supervisory committee members identity. In June, about a month after Wong had been arrested on a criminal complaint, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Wong to undergo drug testing and treatment as part of his $1 million bail secured by his home at Long Islands Valley Stream.

In exchange for pleading guilty to one count of embezzlement, federal prosecutors dropped three felony charges of bank fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identify theft. Initially, Wong pleaded not guilty to all charges in October.
STORY LINK GBP/AUD Outlook: Pound Slips vs Aussie Dollar as Brexit Tensions and Public Borrowing Figures Leave Sterling Weakened

Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) Exchange Rate Hit after Public Borrowing Figures Highest in Three Years

GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Volatile as May Faces Friction from Spain during Todays UK-EU Negotiations

Australian Dollar Pound (AUD/GBP) Claws Back Some Ground despite US-China Trade Tension Flare-Up

Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) Exchange Rate Steady ahead of Sundays Brexit Summit Judgement as UK Faces Crucial EU Deal Breaker

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The Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate took a hit today after worse-than-expected UK public sector borrowing figures were published by the Office for National Statistics.Today UK Prime Minister Theresa May is due to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss the Brexit deal ahead of Sundays important EU summit, which will determine the outcome of the UK-EU deal.Meanwhile the Australian Dollar (AUD) remains victim to skittish investors, as US-China trade tensions once again flared up, sending the risk-averse Aussie into a slump.The Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate slumped this morning with news from the ONS that public sector borrowing in October had reached 8.8bn, 1.6bn more than October 2017 hitting a three-year high.Samuel Tombs, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, commented:Hefty public borrowing in October has brought the run of good news on the public finances to an abrupt end, though its too soon to conclude that the Chancellor [Philip Hammond] is set to miss the forecasts laid out in last months Budget.However, amidst increasing Brexit tensions  domestically as well as in Europe  Theresa May found some support from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who said I can say for Germany that we will agree to this exit agreement.This came after concerns from Spain, Ireland and Cyprus took issue with the Brexit deal, with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez airing his concerns over Gibraltar and saying that Spain will vote no on Brexit.As the Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate remains sensitive to Brexit issues, any votes of no-confidence are likely to cause more Sterling volatility.The Australian Dollar Pound (AUD/GBP) exchange rate mad up some lost ground despite renewed trade tensions worrying Aussie investors.Comments from US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer yesterday reignited the US-China trade spat by saying that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices.Investors had further reason to be anxious over the Aussie, as Lighthizers comments were on the back of recent investigations into Beijings intellectual property and technology transfer practices, while a top Chinese diplomat hit back with a veiled threat against Washington, commenting on US protectionism thwarting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation consensus.In the absence of any significant Australian data, the Aussie is likely to be dictated by market risk appetite with the AUD/GBP exchange rate affected by any further trade tension flare-ups.The Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate could see some strong movement following Sunday summit, where European and UK leaders will meet to seal the Brexit deal.The Pound (GBP) is likely to see marked movement depending on the outcome of the summit, affecting GBP/AUD significantly if a deal agreed upon  or not.Looking ahead, the Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate could have a quiet rest of the week, with any movement likely to be driven by political and trade considerations rather than data releases, of which there is nothing significant on the calendar.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

TAGS: Pound Australian Dollar Forecasts
Stuxnet 2.0 - Iran Says Israel Has Launched New Cyber Attacks

Irans chief of civil defense recently claimed that the Iranian government had fought off Israeli attempts to infect computer systems with what he described as a new version of Stuxnet.

The malware reportedly developed jointly by the US and Israel that targeted Irans uranium-enrichment program. Gholamreza Jalali, chief of the National Passive Defense Organisation (NPDO), told Iran's IRNA news service, Recently, we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts... and was trying to enter our systems.

On November 5, Iran Telecommunications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi accused Israel of being behind the attack, and he said that the malware was intended to harm the countrys communication infrastructures.

Jahromi praised technical teams for shutting down the attack, saying that the attackers returned empty-handed. A report from Irans Tasnim news agency quoted Deputy Telecommunications Minister Hamid Fattahi as stating that more details of the cyber-attacks would be made public soon.

Jahromi said that Iran would sue Israel over the attack through the International Court of Justice. The Iranian government has also said it would sue the US in the ICJ over the reinstatement of sanctions. Israel has remained silent regarding the accusations.

The claims come a week after the NPDOs Jalali announced that President Hassan Rouhanis (pictured) cell phone had been "tapped" and was being replaced with a new, more secure device. This led to a statement by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exhorting Irans security apparatus to confront infiltration through scientific, accurate, and up-to-date action.

While Iran protests the alleged attacks, about which the Israeli government has been silent, Iranian hackers have continued to conduct their own cyber-attacks.

A recent report from security tools company Carbon Black based on data from the company's incident-response partners found that Iran had been a significant source of attacks in the third quarter of this year, with one incident-response professional noting, Weve seen a lot of destructive actions from Iran and North Korea lately, where theyve effectively wiped machines they suspect of being forensically analysed.

Ars Technica:

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What Is Stuxnet And Who Created It?
For Subscribers Meet the Daily American Somerset County All-24 Football All-Stars

The inaugural Daily American Somerset County All-24 Football Team is announced. Offensive and defensive MVP's chosen as well as the top performers.
Astronauts venturing deep into space could receive medical treatments using 3D-printed skin, bone and - one day - entire organs, according to a leading group of 3D bioprinting experts who gathered at ESA's technical heart

The Apollo astronauts on approximately 12-day trips to the Moon took a small medical bag whose contents included bandages, antibiotics and aspirin. Future space travellers isolated for months or years away from Earth will require much greater and more flexible medical support.

An ESA-led project is investigating the use of 3D bioprinting to support medical treatment of long-duration space expeditions and planetary settlements. Leading experts from the field met at ESA's ESTEC centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands for a two-day workshop.

In the same way as standard 3D printers use plastics or metals to construct three-dimensional objects, 3D bioprinters use 'bio-inks' based on human cells, and the nutrients and materials needed to regrow body tissue such as skin, bone and cartilage. Temporary 'scaffolds' can be printed at the same time to provide stability and the optimum physical conditions to promote reconstruction.

Printing entire organs is a next-decade goal, but involves the precise combination of multiple cell and tissue types to work together as one.

Workshop participants discussed the current status of 3D bioprinting, and the work still to be done to advance the practice from lab research to the point where it can help both terrestrial and astronaut patients - which include regulatory as well as medical and technological challenges.

"For the first time in Europe, all the relevant experts have come together to discuss applying 3D bioprinting and regenerative medicine for space," said Tommaso Ghidini, head of ESA's Structures, Mechanisms and Materials Division, overseeing the project.

"We're asking what astronauts would need in the short, medium and long term, and what steps are needed to mature 3D bioprinting to a level where it can be useful in space. We're defining a development roadmap and timeline, with the aim that this group becomes a scientific working group in future, pushing progress on."

Astronauts at risk from flying farther

"Compared to today's low-Earth-orbiting crews, long distance missions to far away destinations will face very different challenges, remarked Sandra Podhajsky from OHB System's Life Sciences Group, who is managing this project.

"In the event of a medical emergency a rapid return home will not be feasible. Instead, patients will have to be treated on the spot. Thus we are evaluating the feasibility and added value of implementing different 3D printing technologies and bioprinted tissues into future exploration missions."

In addition, a broad range of medical issues needs to be considered - the 3D bioprinting experts have been guided by a previous ESA 'HUMEX' study.

The weakened bones and muscles current astronauts contend with in weightlessness - tackled in part through exercise and medical countermeasures - might be made more serious still by spending years rather than months in orbit. Life in the partial gravity of other planets might be little better, increasing the risk of bone and joint damage as well as skin injuries from slips and accidents. And simply venturing beyond Earth's protection magnetic shield involves higher radiation exposure, and consequent cancer risk.

Preparing for all eventualities is simply not possible aboard a cramped spacecraft. Instead, a 3D bioprinting capability would allow a more flexible, versatile response to emergencies.

Today, for instance, serious burn injuries are typically treated using skin grafts from elsewhere on a patient's body. This involves a secondary injury to the transplanted area, far from ideal when research shows that the orbital environment makes wounds harder to heal. Instead, new skin could be grown and bioprinted from the patient's own cells, then transplanted directly.

Or, in the case of cancer, the option of printing replacement tissue in a customised shape to directly replace a cancer-affected part of the body - be it skin, bone or an internal organ - is opening up treatment options not only for space exploration but also back on Earth.

Making it happen

"Another unknown is how bioprinted constructs will mature after printing and how their implementation in the human body will be affected by the altered conditions of space," said Prof. Michael Gelinsky, Head of the Center for Translational Bone, Joint and Soft Tissue Research at the University Hospital of Dresden Technical University.

"The surgery required to transplant printed tissues also requires a rethink. The sterile environment, equipment and trained personnel of a terrestrial operating theatre may not be available, as well as the single-use surgical items employed casually on the ground."

Robot surgeons could help fill any skills gap, operating autonomously through artificial intelligence rather than remote control by Earth surgeons - the communications delay involved in deep space missions makes direct telemedicine unworkable.

Beyond the technological hurdles, participants stressed the legal and regulatory issues involved. Transplanting bioprinted tissues and organs into human patients would have to be cleared in advance not only by space-related regulatory boards, but first health regulatory boards on the ground.

The 3D Printing of Living Tissue for Space Exploration project is supported through ESA Basic Activites within the Discovery and Preparation element, and led by OHB System in Germany in cooperation with Dresden University of Technology in Germany.

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Daily Emerald Alumni and current journalists got together for a virtual reunion to celebrate the independence and excellence of student journalism at the Emerald Media Group.
By Alyssa Murral, BEAT reporter

Brunswick Rotary Jingle Bell Gala

200 guests, 80 sponsors and donors, thirty-one club members, one community. The Rotary Club of Brunswick hosted their second annual Jingle Bell Gala fundraiser on Thursday, November 15th at the Weymouth Country Club. Don Kammer, Rotarian of 25 years, said that this event was an opportunity for people to "eat, drink, and be giving" to support the community as a whole.

This year, the proceeds gathered from the silent auction baskets will go towards purchasing a new thermal imager for the Brunswick Fire Department. The AEDs purchased last year for the Police Department have already saved lives, and Gala attendees hope this device will too.

Brunswick Rotary Jingle Bell Gala

Similarly, Marsha Pappalardo -- who was the chairman for this event -- said she hopes the Rotary will want to keep holding the Gala. She came to her club members with the idea two years ago when another group she was a part of decided to stop having a holiday fundraiser.

After finishing logistics paperwork and contacting local businesses for donations, last year was such a success the club agreed to hold this event again. They are even planning on making the Gala their main fundraiser for the year. Thankfully, Pappalardo said, "I already have something in mind for next year."

First-time guest, Carol Lawler, is also already looking forward to next year. She came because she thinks "this event is for a good cause and is just a lot of fun." Donna Swan, another first-time attendee, agrees that the event is well-organized and "everyone is super friendly." She adds that she would like to know more about the Rotary and will consider attending a meeting.

According to Chip Rogers, Rotary Foundation President, meetings are held at 7:15 am on Thursdays in the Community Room of Danbury Senior Living, and anyone who is interested in the club is invited. At these meetings, members and guests alike discuss ongoing projects such as providing dictionaries to all third graders in the district, hosting the Four Way Test speech for high school students, and the clock tower at Brunswick Square. Some holiday specific projects anyone can support are sending shoeboxes to Nicaragua, providing Thanksgiving baskets to families in need, as well as delivering holiday dinners to seniors.

Although members of the club are adults, Jim Horn, Chairman for the Dictionary Project, says he encourages everyone to get "involved in a service organization to make the community a better place." This doesn't exclude young people. Beverly Ghent-Skrzynski, the current District Governor, states that she values middle school, high school, and college students because "they are the future of America. They keep us inspired and energized." Some opportunities for youth to learn leadership skills and how to run fundraisers are offered through the Rotary, such as two programs called Interact and Rotaract.

Even if you are not a student or interested in joining the Rotary, Horn would like to thank the community for supporting the Gala and other fundraisers, so that they can give back accordingly. He states, "[We] want to expand fundraising to expand reach." This goal can't be met without even more community support, so as you enjoy your holidays, remember to "eat, drink, and be giving."

Alyssa Murral, a sophomore at Brunswick High School, is one of over sixty student "backpack journalists" (grades 6-12) in the award-winning BEAT Video Program. The program is sponsored by Scene75 (www.scene75.com), RPM, Plum Creek Assisted Living Community, Baskets Galore, Danbury Senior Living, Brunswick Eagles 3505, 100+ Women Who Care Medina, and the Brunswick Rotary Club. Go to www.thebeat22.com to learn more about the Program, or visit https://thebeat.viebit.com to view videos produced by the students.
WEST CHESTER-Jury selection has been completed for the trial next week of a reputed gang member who allegedly gunned down a military veteran who had been hospitalized at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in a street disturbance.

Sheron Jaeln Ryda Purnell is facing charges of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and weapons offenses for the October 2016 death of Kevin Paul Jalbert in Coatesville. Witnesses reportedly told police they saw Purnell shoot Jalbert as many as eight times.

Purnell, 24, of Coatesville is reportedly a member of a local street gang in the city known as The Belmont Boys because of their shared upbringing on Belmont Street, a block-long residential area just south of the citys Main Street. The shooting occurred near the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Belmont.

The jury of seven women and five men will begin hearing opening statements and testimony in Judge David Bortners court on Monday. The trial is expected to last a week.

One hundred prospective jurors were called to the Chester County Justice Center to choose the jury from. The large number was necessary not only because of the type of case  although not a death penalty case it remains among the most serious of charges in the courthouse  but because of a possibility that many could have travel problems because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Jury selection lasted nearly all day Tuesday, ending around 6 p.m.

The murder took place about 6:30 p.m. Oct. 3, 2016. Upon arrival, police found Jalbert lying on the grass outside a home there, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Children were among those in the proximity of the shooting, authorities said at the time.

Jalbert, 36, of South Carolina, was pronounced dead later that night. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force who had been stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before his discharge, Jalbert was a native of Connecticut who been treated at the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Caln.

Authorities released the following information about the shooting at the time based on witness accounts and video recordings:

Jalbert had been walking near Olive Street when he came into contact with a group of children who he reportedly yelled at. The children walked away, but Purnell, who apparently lived on Belmont, arrived and reportedly engaged in a verbal confrontation with Jalbert. They both walked up White Alley, where police said the confrontation reportedly became physical.

Purnell reportedly pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and allegedly shot Jalbert several times, according to witnesses and police. Several adults and kids who witnessed it then scattered from the scene. Jalbert was unarmed.

Police said they recovered eight .25 caliber shell casings. Four eyewitnesses eventually identified Purnell as the alleged shooter. He was charged several days after the shooting.

The prosecution is being led by Assistant District Attorneys Christopher Miller, Caitlin Rice, and Emily Provencher. Purnell is represented by Assistant Public Defender Stephen Delano.
Many people use the word 'sociopath' flippantly to describe people they dislike, but few understand what the term really means.

In actual fact, most 'sociopaths' have a form of antisocial personality disorder (APD) and as a result have zero disregard for what is right and wrong and rarely care about the feelings of others.

Research has found that one in every 25 people has the traits of a sociopath so it's entirely possible that you could be dating one and have no idea - especially as they are often charming and highly charismatic.

Australian psychologist Dr Marny Lishman recently spoke to FEMAIL about the tell-tale signs of a sociopath and what you should know if you're dating someone with APD.

According Harvard psychologist Martha Stout sociopaths aren't all that uncommon with one in every 25 having this type of personality disorder (stock image)

Anti-social personality descriptions: * Exploits others * Uses charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or for sheer personal pleasure * Intense egocentrism, sense of superiority and exhibitionism * Repeatedly violating the rights of others by the use of intimidation dishonesty and misrepresentation * Lack of empathy for others Source: Psychology Today via Mayo Clinic Advertisement

Charm and gregariousness are their top traits

According to Dr Lishman, a sociopath is a person who may be diagnosed with an anti-social personality disorder and is someone who can harm others unconsciously - often with no remorse.

'They do appear functional and are often charming and successful, but deep down they are unconsciously driven by shame and guilt,' she said.

Incessant flattery and compliments tend to be among their arsenal of skills and they will often know just what to say in order to get a person to like them.

They have little regard for your feelings

A sociopath may be quite charming at the beginning of a relationship and those that have high empathy are often attracted to them, Dr Lishman explained.

However, when they don't get what they want, they will unconsciously manipulate and behave in ways that are cruel.

'They lack morals and are uncaring and ruthless when it comes to getting what they want. This can be very confusing for those on the receiving end.'

Australian psychologist Dr Marny Lishman (pictured) explains some of the traits you may observe in a sociopath

Sociopaths are skilled liars

Manipulation and control tend to loom large as character traits of a sociopath.

While this can take the form of blatant, outrageous lies, on a lesser scale this may appear as a tendency to be untruthful or insincere.

'They can lie as a way to protect themselves,' Dr Lishman said, 'as well as pick on the faults of others and become defensive of themselves if someone calls them out on something.'

They can find it difficult to hold down a job

Because sociopaths have antisocial elements to their personality, this can cause a range of problems in the workplace.

'They may often be quite ruthless with staff, show a blatant disregard for team members, lack empathy as well as be hard to connect with,' Dr LIshman advised.

'Sociopaths can also show up as a person striving for individualistic gain, they may blame others when things don't go right, push boundaries or break the rules.'

What can you do if you or someone you know has APD? It is difficult to treat this disorder because people with ASPD rarely seek treatment, as they do not think that there is anything wrong with the way they behave. When treatment is given, it is usually when individuals have entered the Corrective Services System and are forced to participate in treatment. No medication is known to be helpful in the treatment of this disorder. However, some medication might be useful in order to manage some of the symptoms. Talk therapy could be helpful for people with ASPD. It may include anger and violence management, substance abuse treatment and treatment for other mental health conditions. Source: Way Ahead Advertisement

Is there a difference in behaviour between the sexes?

Dr Lishman said while some of the underlying traits are the same in the sexes, they express themselves differently.

'Females may be able to express more emotions (although not feel it), and come across as nurturing or attentive or flirty, but are more manipulative.

'They also may have trouble regulating their emotions, similar to those with borderline personality disorder.

'Males tend to be more physically aggressive, overtly manipulative and seemingly unemotional.'

Manipulation and control tend to loom large as character traits of a sociopath (stock image)

Common character traits of a sociopath: * Charming at the beginning * Successful and intelligent * Hard to connect with * Low empathy * Cruel * Don't like negative feedback * Lack Morals / break rules * Lack of remorse and doesnt learn lessons from consequences * Manipulative (gas lighting behaviour) * Ruthlessness and bullying * Self serving and denies responsibility * Blaming * Lies Advertisement

Can a sociopath destroy you?

Dating someone who displays anti-social behaviour can be problematic for a number of reasons, the psychologist revealed.

'If they don't get what they want, and their ego isn't being fed, they can inflict a considerable amount of damage.'

Depending on the level of the sociopath (there are those who are low or high-functioning) the damage can range from sexual promiscuity, physical, emotional or financial damange to longer-term plans that allow the aggrieved person to exact revenge.

'Sociopaths do have a mental health disorder and need help too. But they rarely do get it as they feel that they dont need it,' Dr Lishman said.

'It's a very sad situation. If people do feel they have these signs, seeing a psychologist would help greatly.'

If you are concerned that someone you know is showing signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder, it is important to seek help from a skilled mental health professional.
The Duchess of York spoke of the struggles her daughters faced at school as she launched a new charity education initiative.

Sarah Ferguson, 59, told how Princess Beatrice, 30, needed extra support in the classroom because of her dyslexia.

The mother-of-two explained that while Beatrice and Eugenie, 28, were able to thrive at school, not all children are given the same opportunity.

Opening up: The Duchess of York spoke of the struggles her daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie faced at school as she launched a new charity education initiative

Childhood days: Sarah with daughters Eugenie and Beatrice on Eugenie's first day at Upton House School in Windsor in September 1994

'Eugenie, as you now know, is disabled with 12in metal rods down her back,' the Duchess of York said in a new interview.

'Beatrice is dyslexic with special needs at school. And yet they had an education, so why isn't any other child allowed that same luxury? And why is it a luxury?'

Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie both attended Upton House School in Windsor before moving onto Coworth Park School to finish their primary education.

Both girls later attended St George's School, Ascot, with Eugenie later boarding at Malborough College in Wiltshire.

The Duchess of York spoke as she launched a fundraising campaign for her charity Street Child, of which Beatrice and Eugenie are both global ambassadors.

Street Child was among the charities represented at the wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle last month.

Taking a stand: The Duchess of York spoke as she launched a fundraising campaign for her charity Street Child, of which Beatrice and Eugenie are both global ambassadors

Hands-on approach: The Duchess of York on the ground in Janakpur, Nepal. She shared this photo on announcing she had merged her charity Children in Crisis with Street Child in July

The Count Me In appeal will use funds to buy school uniforms, train teachers and build classrooms for disadvantaged youngsters in 10 countries from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan.

The duchess said: 'There are 121 million children who don't go to school. They not only don't go to school but they don't have the opportunity to go to school ... and that statistic has to change.'

The charity explained a 15 donation is enough to cover a child's school fees, while 300 is enough to pay for the training of one teacher.

The UK Government has pledged to match all public donations to the Street Child Count Me In campaign made before 21 February 2019.

All Government funds will be put towards the organisation's efforts in Sierra Leone.

Fundraising: The Duchess of York shared this image as she launched a fundraising appeal for the victims of the Indonesian earthquake last month

Street Child was formed by a merger of an organisation of the same name founded by Tom Dannatt, son of former British Army head Lord Dannatt, and Sarah's Children in Crisis organisation.

Sarah recently travelled to Nepal where Street Child works to learn about the challenges children face in the country.

The duchess, Street Child's founder patron, said: 'What I saw was in fact massive hope from the children because someone was listening and yet they had nothing.'

She described how she met a young girl called Ruby who wanted a school for her community so she could be educated and one day become a teacher.

Sarah added: 'If we don't build a school for Ruby in two years' time she will have to get married at the age of 12 in order to sustain herself in the local area because of tribe rules.

'If we can get a school so she can get her dream to be a teacher, imagine that story.

'Those children were fantastic, all they wanted was a chance and surely Street Child can give them that chance.'
Dior has come under fire for having Jennifer Lawrence star in a fashion campaign that aims to celebrate Mexican culture.

Critics have accused both the brand and actress of cultural appropriation in response to the campaign featuring the Dior Cruise 2019 collection, which was influenced by escaramuzas, Mexican horsewomen who perform in a rodeo-like sport called charreada.

'One of the main inspirations for this collection is the traditional women riders of Mexico, so I am really excited that this collection is looking at and celebrating these women's heritage through such a modern lens,' Jennifer, 28, says in a behind-the-scenes interview.

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Face of the brand: Jennifer Lawrence, 28, stars is the new Dior Cruise 2019 campaign

Inspiration: The collection was influenced by escaramuzas, Mexican horsewomen who perform in a rodeo-like sport called charreada

Say what? Critics are outraged that a white actress stars in the campaign meant to celebrate Mexican heritage

Although Jennifer has been the face of the brand since 2012, many were outraged that Dior cast a white woman in a campaign meant to honor Mexican heritage.

'In the latest installment of white women and dusty a** fashion houses making poor choices: Dior's new collection was inspired by Mexican riders so they got Jennifer Lawrence as the model because of course they did,' one person tweeted.

'The @Dior campaign with Jennifer Lawrence is a great example of how idiotic marketing teams can turn great social movements into bad marketing,' someone else added.

'Get a Mexican model. This is so far off the mark its crazy and I cant believe more people arent discussing it. This is Pepsi bad.'

During her interview, Jennifer also reveals that the campaign was shot in California  not Mexico.

Awkward: In a behind-the-scenes interview, Jennifer says she is excited that the collection is 'celebrating these women's heritage through such a modern lens'

Outrage: Phoebe Robinson, a comedian and host of the 2 Dope Queens podcast, took to Instagram to slam the brand for failing to cast a Mexican model

'We've been shooting in a beautiful ranch in California with rolling hills, and I can't think of a better landscape to highlight this collection,' she gushes, leaving critics baffles by her thoughtless comments.

'Well this is super f****d up! This collection was inspired by "women riders in Mexico" but is faced by Jennifer Lawrence and the shoot took place in California.....for real @Dior???' Margot Wall tweeted.

Phoebe Robinson, a comedian and host of the 2 Dope Queens podcast, took to Instagram to slam the brand for failing to cast a Mexican model and shooting the campaign in California.

'Sooooooooo, #Dior & #JenniferLawrencewanna celebrate traditional Mexican women riders thru a "modern lens"...by having a rich white woman named Jennifer be the face of this campaign?' she wrote.

Strike two: The campaign shoot took place in California  not Mexico

'Get a Mexican model': People have been taking to social media to criticize Dior for casting Jennifer, with some accusing the brand of cultural appropriation

'And like they couldnt think of a better landscape to shoot than in California?! Hmm, I dunno, maybe...like...shoot...in...Mexico...with...a...Mexican...actress like Salma Hayek, Karla Souza, Jessica Alba, Selena Gomez, Eva Longoria, or many others,' she added.

'But I guess they were all unavailable, so you had to go with Jennifer Lawrence. The audacity to call this s**t modern because its worn by a white woman is ignorant and gross, but unfortunately, not surprising.'

Despite the backlash, some fans praised Dior for celebrating another culture, while others pointed out that Jennifer has been working with the label for six years.

One Jennifer Lawrence fan account was among those to note that black model Selena Forrest also stars in the campaign.

Defending Jennifer: One Jennifer Lawrence fan account was among those to note that black model Selena Forrest also stars in the campaign

Question: One person asked why people are only upset about Jennifer modeling the clothes

Respect: When Dior unveiled the collection in May, the brand flew in eight women from Mexico to wear the designs and ride horses in unison while models walked the runway (pictured)

Popular design: Both Michelle Obama (left) and Solange Knowles (right) have modeled the same corset from the collection on their respective magazines covers in recent months

Homage: The brand revealed on Sunday that the latest issue of Dior Magazine features exclusive stories shot in Mexico by Mexican female photographers

Vision: Tania Franco Klein (center) was one of photographers chosen to interpret the Dior Cruise 2019 collection

'Is this only about Jennifer Lawrence being in the ads?' someone else asked. 'If this was really about cultural appropriation that would be the clothes, and nobody is even talking about them. There are shots of an African-Am model in the same clothes. Is she also a problem?'

When Diors creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri unveiled the collection in May, the brand flew in eight women from Mexico to wear the designs and ride horses in unison while models walked down the runway.

Both Michelle Obama and Solange Knowles have modeled the same corset from the collection on their respective magazines covers in recent months.

Dior has yet to address the controversy, but the brand revealed on Sunday that the latest issue of Dior Magazine features exclusive stories shot in Mexico by Mexican female photographers, including Maya Goded, Paola Vivas, Christina De Middel, and Tania Franco Klein.

DailyMail.com has reached out Dior for comment.
How an army of Torrance-area pet lovers came together to find Mr. Pickles, the wayward cat
A shocked wife has revealed the unusual method her husband has chosen to engage in an extra marital affair.

Instead of sneaking behind his wife's back, the woman's husband, 39, asked permission to commit adultery.

The shocking admission was revealed on an anonymous Reddit thread where the 38-year-old woman opened up about the state of her decade-long marriage.

'Last week my husband asked if he could talk about something serious. I said "yes, of course", we are always very open and honest with each other,' the woman wrote.

A desperate mother has detailed her marital woes - and revealed the lengths her husband has gone to to engage in extra marital affairs (stock image)

Poll Should the woman leave her husband? Yes No Should the woman leave her husband? Yes 610 votes

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'He tells me that he has been very distracted lately looking at other women and he hopes it hasn't bothered me too much.

'I have noticed him staring at younger women lately which isn't normal for him but I figured there is no harm in looking.'

'It's not a problem for me if he isn't obvious about it and I tell him so. He asks me to tell him if I notice it again so he can stop. I say that's not my job and tell him he can stop on his own.

'We keep talking until he blurts out that he is thinking a lot about what it might be like to have sex with someone else.'

However, despite their seemingly open channels of communication, the woman is convinced her marriage is doomed to end in divorce, despite her husband's insistence he wants a 'fling'.

'How is that fair to me or her. He offers to have a one night stand or hire an escort if it makes me more comfortable,' she asked.

The woman also revealed that her husband, who had not even kissed a woman before the pair met, had requested they legally separate for several months before later 'reconnecting' with one another (stock image)

'How the f*** is that more comfortable. I'm crying constantly and I keep thinking this has to end in divorce.'

She also revealed that her husband, who had not even kissed a woman before the pair met, had requested they legally separate for several months before later 'reconnecting' with one another.

'He promises he will get therapy and learn to accept he is a one woman man until he dies,' she wrote following the admission.

'I'm crushed when he says this. I feel so petty. He assures me he can be fine again and asks me to just not worry about it.'

But despite the pain his honesty has caused the man's wife, his frankness was lauded by some others on the website.

'He communicated how he was feeling and the issue to you, instead of cheating. He has done nothing except hurt your feelings, by being honest and truthful,' said one very understanding user.

'I'd rather my feelings hurt a hundred times over than be cheated on ever again.'
When it comes to wardrobe staples, many of the leading royals have something they turn to repeatedly in order to look stylish without too much thought.

Kate Middleton has her trusted nude LK Bennett nude pumps, Meghan Markle her Givenchy separates and Crown Princess Mary her tweed jacket and black trousers.

The stunning mother-of-four opted for another incarnation of this tried-and-tested outfit when she attended a conference entitled 'Logograf 2018' in Copenhagen.

Princess Mary was a speaker at the event, before she later attended another event with UNICEF Denmark for Children's Day at the UN on the same day.

Crown Princess Mary's tried-and-tested outfit combination is a tweed jacket and black pants (pictured); the Danish royal turned to this look for a conference in Copenhagen this week

The 45-year-old (pictured) wore her Sonia Rykiel cropped tweed jacket, her Gianvito Rossi bag, a Dolce and Gabbana tote bag and a Katerina Pitzner Infinity necklace

For the occasion, the 45-year-old wore her Sonia Rykiel cropped tweed jacket, her Gianvito Rossi bag, a Dolce and Gabbana tote bag and a Katerina Pitzner Infinity necklace.

She completed the outfit with black flared trousers, gloves and her Cartier Love bracelet.

The Crown Princess was given a prize for speechwriting along with other professional speechwriters at the event.

This follows after she gave a raucous speech at Prince Frederik's 50th birthday celebrations earlier this year.

The Crown Princess (pictured) was given a prize for speechwriting, which follows after she gave a raucous speech at Prince Frederik's 50th birthday celebrations

The princess wore nearly the exact same outfit just over a year ago, when she attended the premiere of 'Watermusic' in Randers Harbour last September (pictured in 2017)

Last year, Mary wore a vibrant tweed blazer over a charcoal grey polo neck and wide-legged flares during her visit to the Skrbkvrket (Skrbk Power Station) in Frederica

The princess wore nearly the exact same outfit just over a year ago, when she attended the premiere of 'Watermusic' in Randers Harbour last September.

Once again then, Princess Mary paired the Sonia Rykiel jacket with a black top and pants, but this time adding an Orit Elhanati Abyss necklace and Dulong Fine Jewellery Piccolo necklace.

This isn't the only tweed jacket the Danish has in her collection, either.

Last year, Mary wore a vibrant tweed blazer over a charcoal grey polo neck and wide-legged flares when she donned a high-vis vest and plastic goggles during her visit to the Skrbkvrket (Skrbk Power Station) in Frederica.

She has also worn an Isabel Marant Fall 2009 collection tweed jacket, and has other varieties in orange, blue and a host of colours.

She has also worn an Isabel Marant Fall 2009 collection tweed jacket, and has other varieties in orange, blue and a host of colours (pictured in 2014)

The Princess has been keeping busy in recent weeks, after she joined royals from the likes of Denmark, Norway, Spain and Monaco for Prince Charles's 70th birthday celebrations in Buckingham Palace.

She has also attended a series of events in Denmark, including this week's conference with the Minister of Development Cooperation, Ulla Trns, and others.

The conference focused on 'Children in the World Goals'.
She's settled into her new public role in the royal family with incredible ease, and now insiders have revealed how Meghan has gone above and beyond in her work behind the scenes.

In an ABC News special Meghans New Life: The Real Princess Diaries, which airs Thursday royal experts reveal how the Duchess took the unusual step of preparing her own speeches during the recent royal tour.

Royal editor Omid Scobie, who was following the couple, noticed that ahead of a speech she gave in Fiji, Meghan was carrying notes with 'handwritten scribbles' all over them.

'I asked a palace aide, "has she written this herself?", as that's quite unusual for the royals, there's usually other people,' he recalled. 'This was all her, she's been up for days working on this speech.'

And it's not just the preparation that's unusual, but also the subject matter Meghan chose to tackle in Fiji and later in an another speech in Wellington where she spoke about women's empowerment.

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The Duchess of Sussex spent days preparing for a speech on women's education in Fiji last month and wrote it herself, in an unusual step for a royal

The Duchess arrived in Sydney last month clutching a folder of notes, hinting that she was going to be busy studying for the visit

Watch "Meghan's New Life: The Real Princess Diaries" "Meghan Markle is the feminist princess of our dreams..." Watch 'Meghan's New Life: The Real Princess Diaries' airing on Thursday at 9pm ET on ABC Television Network! Posted by Good Morning America on Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Vanity Fair's Michelle Ruiz told the documentary: 'In these times and for this family it is pushing the envelope to give speeches on feminism.

'It's certainly something the Queen doesn't do, nor does Kate Middleton do. Meghan is the feminist princess of our dreams.'

The Duchess of Sussex, 37, gave her second speech as a member of the royal family while visiting the University of the South Pacific in Suva.

Addressing students, she explained how earnings from a job she had on campus at Northwestern University went 'directly towards my tuition'.

Government House, Wellington, New Zealand, October 28: The Duchess spoke on one of the topics she's most passionate about, women's equality, in an address at Government House in honour of the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand

Meghan went on to speak about the importance for girls to be able to access education around the world, explaining: 'Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to receive the education they want, but more importantly the education they have the right to receive.

'And for women and girls in developing countries, this is vital. Providing them with access to education is the key to economic and social development.

'Because when girls are given the right tools to succeed, they can create incredible futures, not only for themselves but also for those around them.'

Australian Geographic Society Awards, Sydney, October 26th: Meghan briefly took to the stage at the Shangri-La Hotel to present Sophia Skarparis with the Young Conservationist of the Year Award

It was only her second speech as a member of the royal family, after addressing guests at the launch of her charity cookbook at Kensington Palace the previous month.

The former actress previously spoke about gender equality at a UN Conference in 2015, before her relationship with Prince Harry.

In Sydney, Meghan took to the stage briefly to present the Young Conservationist of the Year Award to 15-year-old Sophia Skarparis, who started a petition this year to ban plastic bags in New South Wales, which led to a meeting with the state premier and her petition being debated in the NSW Parliament.

Invictus Games, Sydney, October 27: Robin Kermode praised Meghan's 'totally authentic' delivery as she described the importance of support for veterans on stage at the Invictus Games Closing Ceremony

And at Government House in Wellington the Duchess spoke on one of the topics she's most passionate about, women's equality, in an address at Government House in honour of the 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand

'Women's suffrage is not simply about the right to vote for women but also about what that represents,' she saidl

'The basic and fundamental human right of all people - including members of society who have been marginalised - whether for reasons of race, gender, ethnicity or orientation - to be able to participate in the choices for their future and their community.'
Fergie has revealed that her unusual choice of hat at daughter Princess Eugenie's wedding was an 'Argentine style' in honour of her mother.

The Duchess of York's wore a wide-brimmed hat by Jess Collett, featuring two straw 'wings' coming out of the side - leading to comparisons with the golden snitch from Harry Potter.

Fergie, 59, said she didn't mind the jokes as she 'loves the golden snitch' when questioned about her eye-catching headgear, but admitted she 'hadn't realised' the resemblance at the time.

Prince Andrew's ex-wife said that she had wanted the 'Argentine look' to pay tribute to her mother Susan Barrantes.

Fergie revealed on GMB today (above) that her unusual choice of hat at daughter Princess Eugenie's wedding was an 'Argentine style' in honour of her mother

Susan had caused a stir after eloping to Argentina with a professional polo player when Fergie was a child. She later died in a car accident in Buenos Aires at the age of 61.

Speaking on GMB, Fergie said: 'We love the golden snitch. I actually hadn't realised that until afterwards.

'There's always something I do. I sort wanted that Spanish style for mum again, that Argentine look.'

Following her appearance at Eugenie's wedding last months, Fergie's attracted a flood of comments on social media - with many comparing it to a 'golden snitch' from Harry Potter - a winged, flying ball used in the wizard game of quidditch.

The Duchess of York's wore a wide-brimmed hat, by Jess Collett, featuring two straw 'wings' coming out of the side - leading to comparisons with the golden snitch from Harry Potter

Fergie (pictured outside St George's Chapel with Beatrice last month) explained how she used the same vintage Manolo Blahnik bag that her mother carried at her and Prince Andrew's wedding in 1986

One posted on Twitter: 'Yes, Fergie is wearing Harry Potters Golden Snitch on her hat. This is going to get me through the day.'

Another added: 'Fergie has just arrived, secret Harry Potter fan? Andrew catch that snitch.'

On GMB this morning, the Duchess also explained how she chose a green dress, by Emma Louise Design, in another tribute to her mother.

She decided to use the same vintage Manolo Blahnik bag that her mother carried at her and Prince Andrew's wedding in 1986, discovering that the green admission tickets to the big day were still inside.

Fergie said she decided to match the colour of the tickets by choosing to wear green to watch her daughter Eugenie marry.
His famous mother can spark a fashion frenzy by stepping out in a designer frock, but it seems Prince Louis is already becoming a style icon too at the tender age of seven months.

The Spanish designer behind the blue and white stitched romper suit he wore for a family photoshoot to mark his grandfather Prince Charles' 70th birthday has revealed how the cute outfit sold out within hours of the pictures being released last week.

Celia Munoz told PEOPLE magazine: 'It sold out immediately  it's amazing the effect it has on a small brand like us. It was a total surprise but really wonderful, and I am very proud.

'These outfits never go out of fashion, they are so timeless. I think it was a lucky coincidence.'

The 72 fetching ivory blue La Coqueta Carlina Boy Ceremony Set with hand stitched detailing was made in Spain in a family-run workshop, and Celia said the makers were also 'incredibly thrilled'.

Her brand is now taking pre-orders for the next drop of stock, after receiving orders from as far afield as South Africa, Australia and South Korea.

Mini fashion icon! The 72 fetching ivory blue La Coqueta Carlina Boy Ceremony Set with hand stitched detailing Prince Louis wore for Prince Charles' 70th birthday family photo sold out immediately, according to the London-based designer behind the brand

The brand sold out of the one-piece immediately after receiving orders for Prince Louis' outfit from all over the world

The outfit Louis wore for the shoot also paid homage to his father William's in a similar snap taken in 1983, where he was dressed in a blue and white smocked romper suit.

Doting mother Kate, 36, can be seen smiling ear to ear in the touching portrait that echoes Diana holding her eldest son in Kensington Palace some 35 years ago.

The Duchess of Cambridge has been known to dress her eldest, five, in hand-me-downs and replicas from William's early age wardrobe.

Meanwhile Princess Charlotte shined in a blue floral dress with peter pan collar which appeared to be the same number he wore on the palace balcony during the Trooping The Colour this year.

The youngest royal was photographed debuting a fetching ivory blue La Coqueta Carlina Boy Ceremony Set with hand stitched detailing costing 72. The six-month-old tot has been likened to his father William in a similar snap taken in 1983

Princess Charlotte shined in a blue floral dress with peter pan collar which appeared to be the same number he wore on the palace balcony during the Trooping The Colour this year

Charlotte, three, sported a sheepish grin as she sat next to the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla, 71, who took centre stage in the family photo arrangement.

Eldest of the brood, Prince George cut an adorable figure in Amaia while sat on Charles's knee. Wearing a long-sleeved stripped white shirt, the prince looked every inch the royal with his mop of blonde hair swept to the side.

Eagle-eyed fashion fans will also recognise his dapper black shoes worn on his first day at 3,000-a-term Thomas's Battersea school in London.

Eldest of the brood, Prince George cut an adorable figure sat on Charles's - known as Grandpa Wales - knee. Wearing a long-sleeved stripped white shirt, the prince looked every inch the royal with his mop of blonde hair swept to the side

Royal watchers tracked down George's stylish footwear - believed to be a 38.95 moccasin style shoe from Spanish retailer Pisamonas.

Royal fashion blog What Kate's Kids Wore contacted the brand on social media to ask if they were the makers behind the future king's footwear.

Pisamonas UK replied: 'Based on recent orders, we think it may be the case, yes.'

The 38.95 leather pair come in black and blue colourways and are described by Pisamonas as 'classic and elegant moccasins, premium quality and easy to combine'.

Doting mother Kate, 36, can be seen smiling ear to ear in the touching portrait that echoes Diana holding her eldest son in Kensington Palace some 35 years ago

Charles is pictured formally in a pin-striped suit, sky-blue tie and loafers, yet looks at home with his family around him.

The Duchess of Cambridge, 36, in a 1,750 polka dot midi dress by London designer Alessandra Rich, is holding Prince Louis who offers an adorable chubby-cheeked smile.

The Duchess of Cornwall, 71, sitting hip-to-hip with her husband, is wearing a cream crepe day dress by Fiona Clare, adorned with two Van Cleef & Arpels' Libellule dragonfly brooches, one with diamonds and the other sapphires, which Charles bought her as a gift.

The Duchess of Sussex, 37, wearing a cream sleeveless Givenchy dress, would have been barely eight weeks' pregnant.
She's in the second trimester of her first pregnancy, but the Duchess of Sussex isn't ready to ditch her favourite labels for maternity wear just yet.

Meghan, 37, looked radiant this morning in a 282 burgundy dress with a velvet collar from her favourite Canadian brand Club Monaco as she arrived at the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London.

The mother-to-be's above-the-knee dress was a rather more daring length than we're used to seeing on the Duchess who usually favours midi skirts and dresses ending at the mid-calf.

However, she sensibly wore black tights to keep the chill away and covered up in a festive dark berry coat, also from Club Monaco.

Both items worn by Meghan, who is expecting her first child with Prince Harry in the Spring, are from the brands main clothing line and are not maternity wear.

The Duchess is following in the footsteps of her sister-in-law Kate who managed to keep wearing non-maternity clothing from her favourite labels well in to her third pregnancy with Prince Louis.

Meghan, 37, looked radiant this morning in a burgundy dress with a velvet collar from her favourite Candian brand Club Monaco, teamed with a coat in a similar shade from the same brand

Meghan, pictured visiting with Zaheera Sufyaan at the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London, switched up her usual style by wearing a subtle berry lipstick to complement her outfit

The Duchess finished off the outfit with a pair of 770 black pointed ankle boots by her wedding dress designer, Givenchy.

She wore her brunette blocks swept back in a neat ponytail with a centre parting and kept her make-up glowing and natural.

Despite previously professing to dislike colourful lipstick, Meghan switched up her usual look and wore a subtle berry shade to complement her outfit.

Club Monaco is a firm favourite with Meghan who previously lived in Toronto when she was filming Suits.

Pregnant Meghan wore a coat and dress from Club Monaco's main fashion line, showing she's not ready to embrace maternity fashion just yet

The Duchess, who usually prefers midi length skirts and dresses, changed up her look in an above-the-knee shift from Canadian brand Club Monaco

It's known for its smart staples and prices that are at the top end of the high street, without veering into designer territory.

Despite embracing a new life in the UK, the royal is still fiercely loyal to brands from Canada and the US - with many recommended by her unofficial stylist Jessica Mulroney who lives in Toronto.

Earlier this year Meghan, 37, collaborated with the women from the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London on Together: Our Community Cookbook.

It featured more than 50 recipes from women whose community was affected by the Grenfell Tower fire in June last year, which left 72 people dead.

Meghan speaks to the chefs as she visits the community kitchen today to see how funds raised are making a difference

Today the pregnant duchess is seeing how the funds raised by the book - which shot to the top of the literary charts - are already making a difference.

Together has sold more than 40,000 copies in the UK and raised 210,000 so far in the seven weeks since it went on sale.

They set out to raise 250,000 to renovate the kitchen and open it seven days a week and expect to easily surpass that, especially with Christmas coming up.

Supported by The Royal Foundation and published by Penguin Random House companies, Together has raised enough funds for the kitchen to be completely redesigned and re-fitted, with the women's input, to capture what has been described as their 'joyful spirit'.
Viewers tuning into the latest episode of MasterChef: The Professionals might have expected the usual serving of culinary alchemy...but they were greeted instead with the humble sandwich.

Judge Marcus Wareing left many watching at home exasperated as the Michelin-starred chef chose the lunchtime staple to challenge the professional contestants in his skills test.

After making his own, admittedly delicious-looking, version of a chicken and bacon sandwich, with fried chicken breast, coppa bacon and home-made mayo, he watched as three out of four of the professional chefs struggled to replicate it.

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A Michelin-starred sandwich! Marcus Wareing made his version of a chicken and bacon sandwich on ciabatta with home-made mayo and coppa bacon

When a sandwich goes wrong: under the intimidating gaze of the three MasterChef: The Professionals judges, from left Monica Galetti, Gregg Wallace and Marcus Wareing, three of the four chefs undertaking the skills challenge came unstuck

John, a chef patron working in Bristol, was first to feel the pressure after he chose to fry up the thigh of a chicken...but watched as it failed to cook quickly and had to be returned to the pan before he could serve up his sandwich

Bread fail: John's chopped up chicken thigh, pressed between a tomato with the core left in didn't impress the panel

On Twitter, the task garnered plenty of attention as judges Wareing, Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace tucked in to the nation's favourite snack - with some tasting better than others.

@posiekins wrote: 'Not saying #mastercheftheprofessionals is dumbing down, but they are currently making a chicken sandwich...'

@scottmac32 chimed in: 'Am I really watching them make a chicken and bacon sandwich on #mastercheftheprofessionals ffs I might send of an application for next series.'

However simple the skills test seemed, most of the chefs came unstuck as they tried to craft a perfect sarnie under the intimidating eye of the judges.

Pressure! A defeated-looking John listens to the feedback, with Marcus telling him 'Your bread is incredibly thick, you've left the core in the tomato and you've just chopped up all the chicken thigh - it's not great skill'

John also left the remainder of the chicken piled up instead of neatly arranged, something which Marcus Wareing criticised him for

First to falter was 31-year-old John, a chef patron working in Bristol. Choosing to use the thigh of the chicken, he struggled to get the meat to cook in the short window of time.

He also left his butchered chicken in a pile, something which didn't go down well with Wareing, who expected an ordered carcass for further dishes.

After presenting the sandwich, John was told by Wareing: 'Your bread is incredibly thick, you've left the core in the tomato and you've just chopped up all the chicken thigh - it's not great skill'

And William, a 25-year-old sous chef from London, also felt the wrath of the judges after his version of the quick meal was deemed 'soggy'.

William, a 25-year-old sous chef from London, also felt the wrath of the judges after his version was deemed 'soggy'

William's effort was criticised for not being a 'world class sandwich', with Marcus Wareing describing it as the kind of sandwich you'd make at home

Disappointment: The judges look dispirited after the very simple skills challenge exposed three of the contestants

Meanwhile, 30-year-old Luke faced a mid-test drama when his mayonnaise split after he added oil too quickly.

On social media, others were left aghast at how the seemingly simple challenge had defeated the highly-skilled professionals, with only Maxim, a 31-year-old sous chef from London satisfying the judges.

@sanders1_doug agreed, adding: '#mastercheftheprofessionals Why can professional chefs not make a chicken and bacon sandwich? Cutting up a whole chicken is really not difficult. Rest seems common sense.'

@Snowripper1106 added: '"Make a sandwich"' 80% of the contestants struggled worrying'

@captspeedy added: 'I dont think Ive laughed so much at a skills test than the chicken/bacon sandwich #itsseemssimple @MasterChefUK #mastercheftheprofessionals'.
A single mother who has spent the last 21 years trying to perfect the ultimate 'Barbie' image has revealed her plans to triple the size of her already surgically enhanced 32I breasts.

Sindy Starlet, 36, from Oslo, describes herself as the 'Norwegian Bimbo Doll', and is now aiming to take the crown of having the country's biggest breasts, after being bullied in school for her 34A chest.

The business woman, who runs a salon, has already spent an estimated 8,755 Norwegian Krone (8,000) on cosmetic procedures including 700cc breast implants, and before the end of the year, she plans on further boosting her breasts with 3,000cc of silicone.

Sindy, who shares saucy snaps with her 125,000 followers on Instagram, said her 14-year-old son, Leo, 'laughs away' her antics.

Sindy Starlet, 36, a single mother from Norway, has spent the last 21 years trying to perfect the ultimate 'Barbie' image after being bullied for her 'flat chest' at school (seen before her surgeries)

After spending 8000 on various surgeries including breast enhancement, she is now set to triple the size of her 700cc breasts to take home the crown of Norway's largest breasts

Sindy, who lives in Oslo, told Barcroft TV: 'I am the Barbie of Norway. If I die, I'm going to be buried in a pink coffin, with pink lipstick.

'My characteristics are my height, my long blonde hair, big lips, blue eyes, tanned skin and of course big boobs. I am the queen of bling.'

Sindy admits she usually spends around two hours getting ready to leave the house every day.

But when it comes to those Barbie-perfect selfies on social media, it can take her up to two days to prepare.

The business woman, who runs a salon, has already spent 8000 on cosmetic procedures and, before the end of the year, she plans on taking her breast size to 3,000cc

Sindy said: 'I spend about two hours to get ready before I go outside. When I get ready for an Instagram picture, it all depends on my mood.

'Sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes it takes two days.

'I love to take pictures and sell pictures. There are a lot of men out there that like extra large boobs.'

Sindy first wanted to look like a Barbie when she was a teenager  after she endured bullying in school for having 'small boobs'.

She is now targeting the crown of having the country's biggest breasts, after being bullied in school for her 34A chest

Away from the glitzy lifestyle that Sindy shares with her 125,000 Instagram fans, Sindy is also a single-mother to her 14-year-old son, Leo (seen when he was newborn)

She came from a loving family, but things began to change when Sindy's mother passed away when she was just eight years old.

'I have much more self confidence now that I have had plastic surgeries,' Sindy said.

'I have wanted to look the way I do now since I was 15. My boobs were really small before  I think they were around a 34A.

'But now, my boobs are 700cc silicone. I feel more like a woman, I get more attention. I feel more sexy.

'I am happy with who I am. I don't think I'm ugly and I'm not embarrassed to walk down the street.

'I get compliments all the time, but I want to go all the way to make myself look perfect.'

Sindy first wanted to look like a Barbie when she was a teenager  after she endured bullying in school for having 'small boobs'

She came from a loving family, but things began to change when Sindy's mother passed away when she was just eight years old

Sindy's dramatic transformation is still very much a work in progress.

She has booked herself in for a breast consultation in Brussels later this year and plans to triple her current size.

Sindy said: 'We are going to discuss the possibility for me to get expanders, rather than silicone.

'Expanders basically means that I can decide the size myself, they will fill them with saline and then I can add and add and add until I get my desired size.'

She explained: 'The main reason I want to take my boobs to 3,000cc is because I want to live off them.

'Bigger boobs would look really really good for me.'

Another major part of Sindy's life is her son, Leo, who she gave birth to when she was just 22, before raising him by herself- and he doesn't mind her image

Speaking of the reaction she gets when she goes outside, she added: 'When I walk down the street in Oslo, I get a mixed reaction.

Sindy started her Instagram page back in March this year  and she has already amassed an impressive following.

'I get my boobs out! That's the trick,' Sindy said.

'I get a lot of nice comments. It's really only nice comments I get all the time. It's a real hallelujah moment in my comment section.

'They worship me, love me, and think I am pretty and amazing.

'But time will show how many real fans I have when I open my own fan page. You know, how many of them will be willing to pay to see my new boobs?'

But when it comes to those Barbie-perfect selfies on social media, it can take her up to two days to take the perfect one

Sindy started her Instagram page back in March this year  and she has already amassed an impressive 125,000 following

Speaking of the reaction she gets when she goes outside, she added: 'When I walk down the street in Oslo, I get a mixed reaction. Some laugh, some point, some whisper and talk. Some look at me in admiration.

'But I don't really care either way. I want to look the way I look and no-one can tell me otherwise. I am following my dreams and my heart. My Barbie heart.'

Another major part of Sindy's life is her son, Leo, who she gave birth to when she was just 22, before raising him by herself.

She said: 'It has obviously been challenging. But I've taken one day at a time.

'I think that clothes or make-up do not matter as much when it comes to how you are as a mother. It doesn't make any difference.

Sindy admits she usually spends around two hours getting ready to leave the house every day

She has booked herself in for a breast consultation in Brussels later this year and plans to triple her current size

'I've told my son what I do and what I plan on doing. I've told him my name, Sindy Starlet, and that I regularly post boob pictures.

'He just laughs it off. I think he sees me for who I am and loves me no matter what. As long as it doesn't hurt him in any way, it's fine.

'It has been an amazing journey and I think it's really great to be a mother.'

And Leo was quick to add: 'My mother is always nice and kind. She's cool.

'She is very interesting. She does a lot of stuff most mothers do not do. When we're out in public, people do look at her a bit differently.

'I have seen her Instagram account. But that's only when she's shown it to me, I don't search for it myself.

'But nose, teeth, butt and boobs. My main goal for my life is to be rich and famous,' Sindy has said of her transformation

'The fact that my mother is changing herself with surgery doesn't really matter to me. She's my mother no matter what.'

While Sindy says she is not dating at the minute, she is quick to point out that 'every Barbie has a Ken'.

But for now, Sindy is looking forward to increasing the size of her breasts and showing them off to her fans around the world.

She said: 'I have big plans for Sindy Starlet. My main goal is to increase my breast size and I want to have nose surgery.

'I've also considered putting fat into my butt, but I have to think about that because I've heard you can get scars.

'But nose, teeth, butt and boobs. My main goal for my life is to be rich and famous.'

While Sindy says she is not dating at the minute, she is quick to point out that 'every Barbie has a Ken'
Queen Maxima opted for a bold plum ensemble as she and husband King Willem-Alexander welcomed the Singaporean President to the Netherlands today.

Maxima, 47, looked chic in a cocoon coat and oversized fedora hat as she met President Halimah Yacob in Amsterdam.

She wore a printed ruffled skirt underneath, along with deep purple heels, accessorising her look with a co-ordinating scarf and burgundy gloves.

Wearing her blonde locks up in a side bun, the mother-of-three finished off the stylish look with a pair of chandelier-style earrings.

Maxima and Willem-Alexander were meeting with President Yacob as part of her five-day state visit to the country.

Queen Maxima opted for a bold plum ensemble as she and husband King Willem-Alexander welcomed Singaporean President Halimah Yacob far left) in Amsterdam today

Maxima, 47, wore an oversized purple hat and chandelier earrings for the engagement in Amsterdam today

Yacob, who wore a smart double breasted coat and turquoise head scarf for the meeting, will join the couple at a state banquet at the Royal Palace this evening.

She will also visit three other cities during her trip, including The Hague, Rotterdam and Eindhoven.

Yacob is the first Singaporean president to enjoy a state visit to the Netherlands, after being invited by Willem-Alexander.

Maxima has returned to her regular schedule after being forced to cancel a string of engagements earlier this month due to a suspected 'intestinal infection'.

Maxima wrapped up warm in a cocoon coat, finishing off her look with a ruffled skirt and co-ordinating heels

The Dutch Queen looked in high spirits as she and Willem-Alexander met President Halimah Yacob in Amsterdam

Last week, the Dutch Queen welcomed the Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen and his wife Doris Schmidauer to the Netherlands.

She opted for another autumnal ensemble for the engagement, opting for as striking plum coat and matching dress.

Maxima and Willem-Alexander enjoyed a state visit to the UK last month, where they attended a state banquet hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

However, the couple did not join a host of other European royals in attending Prince Charles' 70th birthday dinner at Buckingham Palace last week.

Maxima opted for a typically bold ensemble for the engagement today, wearing shades of pinks and purples

The Dutch Queen joined Willem-Alexander for the engagement, ahead of a state banquet at the Royal Palace tonight

President Yacob (far left) s the first Singaporean president to enjoy a state visit to the Netherlands, after being invited by Willem-Alexander
A British couple enjoying a romantic proposal at a wildlife park in Singapore found themselves interrupted by the local inhabitants.

Jordan Doyle was down on bended knee to girlfriend Mary Lister when a gang of local otters arrived on cue, much to the delight of the couple.

The pair were soon surrounded by the bishan otters, native to Singapore, and a wildlife photographer captured the moment Mary said 'I do'.

Scroll down for video

'Like a Disney movie': Jordan Doyle gets down on one knee to propose to girlfriend Mary Lister at the Marina Reservoir in Singapore...and the couple soon find themselves surrounded by local bishan otters

The photo has since gone viral on social media, with otter fans everywhere appreciating the moment; one Twitter user branded the snap 'like a Disney movie'.

Doyle told the BBC that the moment was spontaneous but he knew his wife-to-be loved otters...although he hadn't planned on the animals being quite so interested in the special moment.

He said: 'I didn't plan it and it turned out completely special.'

On Twitter, people swooned over the image, with love and cute animals in one frame too much for many.

The photograph, which has now gone viral, was taken by wildlife snapper Bernard Seah, who said he wasn't surprised the otters acted the way they did.

He explained: 'The curious nature of otters will make them want to check out 'new additions' to their surroundings.

'So if you were sitting in the middle of their route, they might run by, sniff your shoe and proceed on.'

On Twitter, the otter puns and memes came thick and fast.

@VAKnightStick quipped: 'They cant say they didnt have witnesses.'

@AllyK4 threw in: 'They are clearly made for each otter.'

@Scuba_Cusano wrote: 'If she says no, she otter her mind.'

Seah said that the otters don't usually get too close to their human counterparts but will happily live side-by-side with them.
Debbie Grokes bitterly regrets the day youthful insecurity led her to the door of a cosmetic clinic.

Looking back on it, it was so silly. I just wasnt confident about how I looked, she says. I was 25. I thought I would feel better about myself if I had breast implants.

That impulsive decision led to a nightmare health scare that threatened to deprive her two young sons of their mother as she endured cancer, repeated surgery and chemotherapy.

I could have died, she says. It has been a horrible experience, and I want other women who have had breast implants to know about this danger.

Well before the cancer was found in 2017, Debbie, now 38, an office manager from Billericay, Essex, had already suffered the trauma of discovering that the 3,000 breast implants shed had put in back in 2005 were the infamous PIP brand, found to be made of industrial-grade mattress silicone instead of a formula approved for human use.

Debbie Grokes, 38, (pictured) who had breast implants at age 25 underwent chemotherapy and surgery. She shared the cancer risks surrounding cosmetic surgery

When news broke in 2011 that Edwige Ligoneche, a 53-year-old French woman from Marseille, had died from anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a sinister rare type of cancer associated with the PIP implants, doctors began to investigate what the implants were made of.

Studies quickly showed they were manufactured from an unapproved type of silicone. The French tragedy was followed by the death in June 2012 of a British woman, Susan Grieve, a 40-year-old legal secretary from Musselburgh, East Lothian.

In total, 50,000 other British women who had received PIP implants were warned they could also be at risk of developing cancer as a result of having breast implants.

Many, including Debbie, were offered free replacements by the private cosmetic surgeons who had unwittingly supplied the dangerous PIP devices. She underwent surgery thinking she would no longer be in danger.

Yet it has become clear that other brands among the 240 types of implant approved for cosmetic use can also trigger ALCL, which is not breast cancer. It is a cancer in the immune cells which can be triggered by a breast implant.

When detected early, it can be cured by removing the implant and capsule of scar tissue that forms around it. Some women have needed chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Three British women have died and a further 54 have had to undergo additional surgery and cancer treatment for breast-implant associated ALCL, according to new data from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), a body which monitors the safety of medical devices.

Debbie, who has two sons  Alfie, ten, and Charlie, seven  and lives with her husband, Billy, 36, an electrician, thought that was the last she would have to worry about ALCL.

Susan Grieve (pictured) from Musselburgh died of implant-related cancer at age 40

I was told the replacement implants were made by a company called Allergan, she says. The new, courser-textured implants were put in in May 2012 and the PIP ones were removed.

At first, everything was fine. Then, in the summer of 2016, my left breast started to swell when we were on holiday in Ibiza.

I tried to contact the company which had put the implants in, but they were always on voicemail.

Eventually, in September, I went to another private hospital, where they aspirated the fluid and removed 310ml. They tested me for infection, but not ALCL.

Almost a year of anxiety followed as Debbie suffered the unspoken prejudice of a National Health Service programmed to deflect unhappy cosmetic surgery victims.

My breast repeatedly swelled, she says.

How common are boob jobs in Britain? More than 8,000 British women had a boob job last year  up 7 per cent on the previous year Advertisement

I went to my GP and was referred to an NHS breast consultant at Basildon Hospital. I was told it was an infection and that the affected implant would have to be removed, but that it would have to be done privately.

I went back twice more to have the fluid drained off. Each time it cost 280. As fast as they were draining the fluid, it was coming back and each time there was more.

By this point, Debbie just wanted to have her implants removed but she couldnt afford to pay for the operation.

I went to another private clinic in Chelmsford, she says. My breast was very swollen and I was told I needed a scan, but it was May Bank Holiday weekend, so it was put off.

When the private breast consultant did the scans the following week, he said he wouldnt take me on because I was very high risk. He said I probably had ALCL and should go to A&E at an NHS hospital.

So I went to A&E at Basildon and was immediately referred to a breast specialist, who said he would do more tests but it would take two weeks to get the results back.

Susan Grieve (pictured in the Oncology unit at Weston General Hospital) died a year after Edwige Ligoneche, 53, from Marseille

Results of the tests were inconclusive. He told me I needed more tests and to come back to see him in three or four weeks, Debbie says.

When I went back in July, he said he was very sorry, but the results of the tests were positive  I did have ALCL.

The next day I was referred for a scan to see if it had spread, which it hadnt, but I couldnt wait to get the implants out. Im married, Ive got children  my life was at risk.

I had the implants removed in August last year. In the end, my uncle offered to pay for the 4,700 operation so it could be speeded up, because the waiting times for the NHS were very long. After the surgery, I was offered chemotherapy to prevent the cancer coming back, and that finished in mid-November last year.

Im clear of the cancer and well now, and Im fine about how I look. I dont care about the size of my breasts  Im happy without implants and I wouldnt want them anyway.

I just couldnt wait to get the implants out. Im married, Ive got children  and I felt my life was at risk

I dont think women know about this risk. If they did, why would anyone want implants?

Compared with 36-year-old Vicky Cattell, another PIP survivor, from Kidderminster in Worcestershire, Debbie has been incredibly lucky.

Vickys hopes of motherhood have been dashed and she has been left with painful nerve damage to her legs as a result of the chemotherapy she needed after she developed ALCL.

Like Debbie, she had had replacement implants.

I went to have the PIP implants replaced for free in 2012 after the high rupture risk was reported, and I had the new, course-textured ones put in, she says.

I was fine for the next few years, but in 2015 I started getting symptoms like a dust allergy. My nose and eyes just kept running.

Then I started to feel quite unwell, and I was tired and depressed. I didnt know what was the matter with me.

Vicky Cattell, 36, had her PIP implants replaced for free in 2012, however a blood cancer specialist diagnosed her with life-threatening stage four lymphoma in 2017 (file image)

By February 2016, she had developed neck and shoulder pain and couldnt sleep.

I had to wear my arm in a sling because of it, she says. It was like nerve pain in my back. I thought I had hurt my arms exercising, she says

Within six months, the pain had changed, it was like something was crushing my chest.

That went away, and then a month later I found a lump in my neck. Blood tests showed I had inflammatory markers. They said it was an infection caused by a cold.

The inflammatory markers stayed raised for the next six weeks. I asked if it was cancer, but the doctor said no.

The lumps came and went, and I developed more in my neck. One was under my ear and was pea-sized.

I went back to my GP and he referred me to hospital, but by the time I went to see the specialist it had gone down.

Then I woke up one Saturday morning and couldnt move my head. I went to A&E, and was told to see my GP but by the time I did I seemed all right.

It was hard to take when I was told I couldnt have children, but Im just glad to be alive - Vicky Cattell

Vicky was referred for scans and ultrasound investigations. In February 2017, a blood cancer specialist finally diagnosed that she had life-threatening stage four lymphoma, but he didnt know what type it was or what could have caused it.

It was pretty devastating, she says. I had six cycles of a chemotherapy drug called brentuximab over four to five months. At the end of my treatment, they said there was a 2cm lump left and they wanted to do a stem cell transplant.

But they still didnt know what kind of lymphoma it was.

Vicky, who works as an accounts director and has lived with her partner for the past ten years, was not prepared to accept such a vague diagnosis.

I started reading up online about breast-implant associated ALCL and I emailed the haematologist about it, she says.

Doctors began investigating what PIP implants were made of after the death of Edwige Ligoneche, 53, (pictured)

He referred me to another haematologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, who [confirmed] it was related to the implants.

It was another five months before the cancer was sufficiently under control for the breast implants to be removed.

They were finally taken out only in February 2018, Vicky says. I had seven more cycles of brentuximab, which has caused terrible neuropathy [nerve damage] in my legs.

A cancer drug cycle involves the patient taking a dose of the toxic chemotherapy drug which usually kills normal cells alongside the cancerous ones and makes patients feel sick and ill.

Each cycle involves several weeks recovery time before a new dose is given.

In Vickys case, it caused major toxic side-effects: I had to crawl upstairs on my knees because I couldnt walk, she says. I stopped treatment in June, but although its getting better I have lost the feeling in my legs.

The final blow was the loss of Vickys chances of starting a family. We had been planning to have children, but they said the chemo would probably affect my fertility and now I would be too scared to have a baby anyway, she says.

It was hard to take when I was told I couldnt have children, but Im just glad to be alive.

Debbie Grokes (pictured) recalls experiencing prejudice from the NHS when she began experiencing problems with her replacement implants

Mark Marmur, spokesman for Allergan, acknowledged the risk of breast implant-associated ALCL which he said is an uncommon occurrence in the population of patients with textured breast implants.

He added: Allergan is and has been fully committed to investing in and supporting work to further understanding and awareness of breast implant-associated ALCL. Patients considering breast implants are encouraged to have a comprehensive conversation with their surgeon about all potential risks and benefits, allowing for a fully informed decision.

A study from the University of Maastricht in Holland estimated that 3 per cent of women aged between 20 and 70 in developed countries now have breast implants of one type or another.

This would mean around 500,000 in Britain.

The precise number is not known because a voluntary register set up after the PIP scandal began collecting names only in October 2016, and has just 20,095 so far.

In the meantime, in the U.S. the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said the lymphoma is more likely to occur in women with implants that have a coarse-textured surface  designed to prevent implants moving around after insertion.

Although the cancer can occur in other circumstances, it was previously very rare.

It is not clear whether PIP women and those having more than one set of implants are at an increased risk, or if the risk stems from the increased surface area of the rough implant causing a bacterial inflammation that develops into cancer.

Debbie (pictured) who is now clear of cancer says her uncle paid 4,700 for the operation as the wait time on the NHS was quite long

What is known is that the average time between implant insertion and a diagnosis of cancer being made is seven to ten years.

It is scandalous that, unlike the tight regulations surrounding drug ingredients, manufacturers of implanted medical devices are not required to reveal what materials they use.

Dr Suzanne Turner, a Cambridge University expert in cancer tumour biology, says there is an urgent need to find out what breast implants are actually made of. She believes ALCL is caused by an interaction between the bodys immune system, bacteria in the body and specific toxins on the implants.

I think lots of women have their implants removed without anyone ever realising they had this cancer, she says.

Because they dont disclose whats in the implants, we just dont know what ingredient could be causing this effect.

The saddest thing is that many of these women have implants because they have lost a breast to cancer. They have these things put in, and then they get a second type of cancer. She says women will recover if they are diagnosed early and their implants are rapidly removed, but she has seen other cases like Vickys, where aggressive anti-cancer treatment with life-long side-effects has been needed.

Im not sure surgeons are ever doing the right thing by offering women cosmetic breast implants - Jim Frame

People need to be aware of the symptoms for the disease to be caught early, she says.

I have struggled to get funding for this work. One manufacturer was going to fund me but they have withdrawn.

Im dragging bits of money together. At the moment I have one PhD student funded by Cancer Research UK and Wellcome Trust.

Some breast specialists are demanding that use of all coarse-textured implants is suspended pending more research.

Im not sure surgeons are ever doing the right thing by offering women cosmetic breast implants, says Jim Frame, professor of aesthetic plastic surgery at Anglia Ruskin Universitys Postgraduate Medical Institute.

I think the use of coarse- textured implants should be reconsidered with a view to stopping their use until it can be proved they dont cause an increased incidence of breast implant-associated ALCL.

Debbie believes everyone should be warned about ALCL and says she wouldn't have had implants if she had known about the risk (file image)

Other experts are demanding implant patients are monitored to ensure there are no signs of developing ALCL. We think all breast implant patients should have annual check-ups, says professor Anand Deva, head of cosmetic plastic and reconstructive surgery at Macquarie University, Sydney.

We think some types of breast implant may cause ALCL to develop in as many as one in 1,000 patients.

There have been at least 16 reported breast implant deaths worldwide, but I think many more are being missed or covered up because of fear of litigation.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agencys spokesman said: Patient safety is our highest priority and we are actively investigating this issue. While we understand the concern, breast implant-associated ALCL remains very rare.

He said breast implant patients who notice lumps, swellings or distortions in their breasts, necks or armpits, should speak to their surgeon or GP.

He added: Clinicians are reminded of the importance of reporting cases to us. This will help us to build a more accurate picture of the occurrence of this rare disease in association with breast implants.

Debbie is not convinced that this is enough.

I was told there was no knowledge of this disease, but I think they knew about it as long ago as 2005 when I had my first implants put in, and its only textured implants that cause it, she says.

Ive been told some women have been so damaged they have had to have complete mastectomies.

Maybe these implants should be taken off the market, but certainly everyone should be warned about ALCL so they can go in with their eyes open.

I would never have had them if I had known about the risk.

Do you fear breast implants have made you seriously unwell? Tell us your story by emailing: femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk
Tess Holliday trolled her own trolls on Tuesday with an Instagram post in which she refers to herself as a fat pig.

The 33-year-old model took to social media to post a photo of herself sitting with a cute baby pit snuggling in her lap.

Just two fat pigs hangin out being cute, she captioned the image, adding emoji of a pig snout and pink hearts.

Witty: Tess Holliday posted a picture of herself with a rescued pig this week

Take that! Just two fat pigs hangin out being cute, she captioned the image, adding emoji of a pig snout and pink hearts

Cute! The pig was rescued by comedian Whitney Cummings. Tess has initially shared this snap of them together

Ew: One commenter left a rude quip about her weight, prompting a response from Tess' partner Nick  and a new image and caption from Tess herself

In the picture, Tess appears to be sitting on the couch with a blue blanket in her lap.

Her hair is up and she wears a black tank top, and a small pig sits in her lap.

As she explained in the caption of another picture - a similar snap in which comedian Whitney Cummings sits with her and the pig - the animal is actually staying with Whitney.

She wrote that the sweet 4 week old piggy was rescued from the fires in Southern California, and Whitney is 'fostering him until he is ready to go to his forever home'.

'She was gracious enough to let me go over last night and cuddle the sweet guy & give him thousands of nose touches!' she went on.

'Also special shout-out to you Whitney, youve not only rescued so many animals during the fires the past week (& reunited some with their owners!), but helped so many families & youre a special human being!'

Most of the commenters left effusive compliments on the post, though as always with Tess, there were a few critics who insulted her weight.

Idk the pig is kinda ugly, whats in the blanket? wrote one.

Feelin' good! Tess is comfortable with her body and happily shows it off online

The girls: This week she shared a few busty photos in her Insta Stories

Whatever: She didn't seem to be letting the trolls get her down

That nasty comment earned a response from Tess partner Nick, who replied: This is such a poorly constructed joke when it was SO EASY to get it right. If youre going to be rude, at least be witty.

Nicks snarky reply seems to have inspired Tess own joke about fat pigs on her subsequent post.

Tess also posed several sexy, barely-dressed images and videos in her Insta Stories on Tuesday, in which she showed off her ample cleavage.

Earlier this month, the model appeared on Busy Philipps' new talk show, Busy Tonight, where she the host asked about her social media presence and how she is unafraid to express her sexuality.

To that, Tess responded: 'I think it is important to tell people that fat folks have bomb sex.'

She continued: 'I want to feel sexy. I want to be sexy, whether I am having sex or not... The world just wants to cover up marginalized bodies, and I'm not here for it.'

The model previously spoke about her sex life with her husband, Nick Holliday, in an interview with Cosmopolitan.

Chit-chat: Tess appeared on Busy Tonight with Busy Philipps earlier this month

Advocate: She spoke with Busy about her social media platform and how she expresses her sexuality

Exciting! Tess thanked Busy for helping her to meet Tina Fey

Sex, to me, is a way for me to connect with my partner and for me to feel empowered and good,' she said.

'You know, I've had a lot of bad sex my whole life, so it's nice to have good sex now. And if you're doing sex right, then it should be messy.'

Couple: Tess Holliday pictured with her partner Nick Holliday

On Busy's show, Tess explained why social media has become important to spreading her message.

'I use my social media to tell people to stop hiding, stop listening to society... Just be yourself and own it,' she said.

While appearing on the show, Tess also had the opportunity to meet Tina Fey, of whom she is a big fan. She shares a selfie the pair had posed for together.

'There arent many celebrities that mean a lot to me, (bc they are normal folks like all of us... I know Im a celeb but we fangirl too ok?!) BUT Ive always admired Tina Fey for many reasons & hoped to one day cross paths with her & hope to not shit myself from nervousness (& happy to report, I didnt!),' she wrote.

'She is just as nice, humble & authentic as you would hope. Plus Im pretty sure Im Liz Lemon IRL. Thanks to my friend @busyphilipps for making this happen & for having me as a guest on @busytonighttv!'
A purple-flowered herb little known in the West, despite centuries of use in Indian and Chinese traditional medicine, could offer hope for women in search of the perfect face cream.

A study has found an ingredient in the Indian plant, or babchi, can reduce the severity of wrinkles by 20 per cent after three months.

The bakuchiol ingredient found in its edible seeds works as well as retinol  a form of vitamin A used in skin creams and usually produced in a lab. But bakuchiol is less likely to cause the itching and burning which some people suffer from high street anti-wrinkle products.

Psoralea Corylifolia, pictured, known as Babchi, has been used to reduce wrinkles according to researchers at the University of California

Dematologist Dr Raja Sivamani said many people value natural products from plant species

Researchers at the University of California recruited 44 people and asked half to try a face cream containing bakuchiol. It lightened age spots and made wrinkles less deep, although there was little change in facial redness.

Dermatologist Dr Raja Sivamani, who led the study, said: For consumers who value natural products, bakuchiol provides appeal due to its origin in several plant species.

The ingredient is believed to trigger genes that produce proteins which keep the skin tight and protect it from ageing.

It may also disrupt melanin - the pigment which darkens the skin to cause age spots.
Artificial intelligence may determine which hospital patients need emergency care.

That's according to research from the University of Oxford's George Institute for Global Health, which suggests scanning electronic health records could accurately flag-up priority cases.

The data surveyed 4.6 million patients from 1985 to 2015 via the UK's Clinical Practice Research Datalink.

Their findings, published in the PLOS Medicine journal, mean health officials could effectively monitor a patient's need and avoid unplanned admissions, which are a major source of healthcare spending.

Artificial intelligence: Scanning e-records may determine which hospital patients need emergency care - and which do not, saving the NHS huge sums of money

'Our findings show that with large datasets which contain rich information about individuals, machine learning models outperform one of the best conventional statistical models,' said Fatemeh Rahimian, former data scientist at The George Institute UK, who led the research.

'We think this is because machine learning models automatically capture and "learn" from interactions between the data that we were not previously aware of.'

A wide range of factors was taken into account for each scan, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family history, lifestyle factors, diseases, medication and marital status, as well as the time since first diagnosis, last use of the health system and latest laboratory tests.

By using more variables combined with information about their timing, the machine learning models were found to provide a more robust prediction of the risk of emergency hospital admission than any models used previously.

'There were over 5.9 million recorded emergency hospital admissions in the UK in 2017, and a large proportion of them were avoidable,' Rahimian said.

'We wanted to provide a tool that would enable healthcare workers to accurately monitor the risks faced by their patients, and as a result make better decisions around patient screening and proactive care that could help reduce the burden of emergency admissions.'

Over 200 million is spent treating patients for unplanned admissions owing to diabetes emergencies with an average cost per patient of 4,477, say Medical Technology Group

The study comes just weeks after an NHS hospital trust became the first to use AI robots as secretaries in an effort to cut costs.

Ipswich Hospital, run by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Trust, has 'employed' three virtual workers to free up staff from 'mundane and repetitive tasks', such as submitting scans and blood test results.

This is thought to allow real medical secretaries more time to focus on patient care, with the system being eight times more productive than human staff, the trust claims.

The system, which is run by a computer, has been in place since July and has saved more than 500 hours of work, according to the trust's deputy director of ICT Darren Atkins.

Built by the automation technology company Thoughtonomy, the software monitors incoming referrals from GPs throughout the day.

It deciphers the reason for referral and supporting information, such as blood test results.

The robots then put all this information in a single document, which is flagged to the lead consultant for review.
As teenagers have flocked to trendy e-cigarettes, public health officials have been in a near panic that they will move on to traditional, combustible cigarettes.

But a new study from Georgetown University Comprehensive Cancer Center offers some reassurance that this may not be the case.

E-cigarettes - especially the USB-like Juul - have become more popular than regular cigarettes or any other drugs among teenagers.

Typically, the devices contain nicotine 'juices' that get heated and vaporized. Often, a single pod or canister is as potent as a pack of cigarettes - and teenagers don't realize how much nicotine they're inhaling.

Nicotine is highly-addictive, so the concern is that vaping will be a gateway to smoking, and raising risks of heart disease, lung cancer and early death from an early age.

Public health officials are deeply concerned that teens that vape will take up smoking - but a new study suggests we're past the 'tipping' point and e-cigs aren't driving up smoking

But the authors of the new study insist that if more teens were going to adopt regular cigarettes, it would have happened at the 2014 'tipping point' - rather than teenage smoking declining even more rapidly, as it has thus far.

E-cigarettes are immensely popular among teenagers - and have only become more so with time.

In 2013, cigarettes were were almost three times more popular for high school students than vaping was.

By 2015, those statistsics had been flipped on their heads.

By then, 2.39 teenagers had vaped and just 1.37 million had smoked combustible cigarettes in the past year.

It seemed, briefly, that e-cigarettes of unknown dangers were doing a public service by drawing high school students away from regular cigarettes that we knew for fact were highly dangerous.

But that glowing impression of the little battery powered vaporizers didn't last.

Just a year later, in 2016, 1.7 million high school-age Americans admitted that they vaped regularly, puffing on Juuls or other devices at least in the month before they were surveyed.

And by earlier this year, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was condemning vaping as an 'epidemic' endangering young impressionable minds and bodies.

His announcement - practically a declaration of war on the devices - cited a host of research indicating that e-cigs might work as cessation tools for current smokers, but for teenagers, naive to cigarettes and nicotine in general, they were just a gateway to the real deal.

Perhaps the most widely cited study was headed up by Dr Adam Levanthal, a University of Southern California, who found that Los Angeles high school students who vaped using high nicotine-content e-cigs were far more likely to take up smoking cigarettes regularly six months later.

The FDA has since cracked down on ad campaigns and flavors that are particularly appealing to teenagers (mainly targeting the makers and distributors of the blockbuster vape, Juul).

But the latest research suggests that the tipping point for teen vapers to transition to the harder (combustible) stuff - and smoking has just continued to fall faster and faster out of fashion among American youth.

The researchers looked at data on how much 15- to 25-year-olds vaped or smoked between 2004 and 2017.

Among all of the young age groups that the Georgetown University researchers assessed, fewer and fewer people have been smoking cigarettes before and while vaping

Vaping still didn't have a huge following in 2013, but its popularity surged in 2014, according to self-reported data on young peoples' usage.

E-cig sales doubled around the same time, too, suggesting to the research team that this was the critical adoption period, which they dubbed the tipping point.

Cigarettes have long been losing popularity in the US in general and among teenagers in particular - but their decline really kicked into high gear in 2013, which, as the researchers point out, coincides with the e-cig surge for 18- to 21-year-olds.

The researchers assert that if e-cigs were being so widely adopted and so significantly pushed young Americans toward cigarettes, we already would have seen cigarette smoking take an upward turn, or at lest for its decline to slow.

'While caution is warranted in interpreting our findings, they paint a consistent picture of accelerated reductions in youth and young adult smoking prevalence as vaping became more widespread,' the researchers wrote.

They conceded that their research isn't causal, and e-cigs may still act as a gateway substance for some, 'but the aggregate effect of this relationship at the population level may be small enough that its effects are swamped by other factors that influence smoking behavior,' the authors wrote.

Overarchingly, though they said that 'if our primary concern is population level trends in youth and young adult smoking, which we believe is appropriate, then vaping has not shown to be a serious cause for concern ... and may be playing a contributing role to the recent steep declines in youth and young adult smoking.'

But Dr Michael Ong, a University of California, Los Angeles professor who specializes in tobacco and behavior, said it's still too soon to tell - much less to let our guard against a new nicotine product down.

'I think we are all worried about a potential increase in cigarette use rather than the decrease we have seen,' he told Daily Mail Online.

'That increase may not be apparent for some time due to the survey approaches we use (for example, among adults, instead of the youth/young adult users). Similarly, we are actively working to try to prevent the transition of youth/young adults transitioning from vaping to regular cigarette use.'
A mother has been able to save her two-year-old's life by donating one of her kidneys.

Jace Josephson, from Minnesota, was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition which means the left side of the heart does not develop correctly.

After two major surgeries and a heart transplant, which involved being on life support for almost half a year, Jace's kidneys failed.

Mother Akasha Josephson, 23, was overjoyed to find she was a suitable match to donate a kidney, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Akasha Josephson, 23, from Minnesota, was able to donate her left kidney to her two-year-old son Jace Josephson

Jace was born was a heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which means he is unable to pump oxygen properly

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a form of congenital heart disease, means Jace is unable to pump oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.

About 960 babies are born in the US every year with this defect, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and around 200 in the UK.

Before Jace was seven months old, he had two major heart operations to insert shunts to help balance the blood flow.

But Jace went into cardiac arrest ahead of his third surgery in August 2017 and doctors determined he would need a heart transplant to survive.

He waited 146 days whilst on life support, until he was given a donor heart on January 27.

But three weeks after his transplant, things began to go wrong.

After Jace's heart transplant, which he waited for on life support for 146 days, his kidneys failed

The family, including Jace's sister Lilliona, four, and father Timothy Josephson, hope to spend Christmas together this year, but Jace will be in hospital for Thanksgiving

Mrs Josephson, who is also mother to Liliiona, four, and married to husband Timothy Josephson, said: 'His large intestine died and broke open.'

WHAT IS HYPOPLASTIC LEFT HEART SYNDROME? Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a birth defect, affecting normal blood through the heart and thus the rest of the body. It occurs while the baby is developing during pregnancy, when the left side of the heart doesn't form correctly. HLHS is a congenital heart defect, meaning it's present at birth. Normally, the right side of the heart pumps oxygen-poor blood to the lungs, and the left side pumps oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. When someone doesn't have a left side, the right side has to do both jobs. The CDC estimates each year less than 1,000 babies are born in the United States with HLHS. Around 200 are made in the UK. Figures suggest 30 per cent of infants who survive a heart transplant will die before they turn five. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advertisement

Because of this, and the medication needed for his heart, his kidneys were unable to cope and failed.

In heart transplantation, altered kidney function is not uncommon immediately after.

Many patients have temporary dialysis - the process of remove waste products and liquids from kidneys that aren't functioning - and gradually recover normal kidney function.

Yet others have chronic kidney failure and require help clearing their blood indefinitely.

After almost ten months of dialysis, Mrs Josephson was told she could donate her kidney to her son.

The criminal justice student and Jace underwent the surgery on November 19, just in time for Thanksgiving.

She said: 'I feel so relieved that I was able to do this for him.

'He is an amazing, positive little boy and he never stops smiling. I'm a little sore but it was only keyhole surgery.

'They put it into Jace and the kidney made urine straight away which is amazing.

'He's been through so much, it's so hard for any toddler to be in hospital but he has an incredible spirit.'

Jace's surgeries have weakened his lungs and the two-year-old lives with a tracheostomy tube to help him breathe.

His doctors at the Mayo Clinic Hospital, Saint Mary's Campus in Minnesota, believe it won't be a permanent fixture in his life.

Although he will remain on immunosuppressants for the remainder of his life to prevent his organs rejecting, doctors believe he will lead a full and happy life.

Mrs Josephson will be discharged on Wednesday but it is likely her son will remain in hospital over the holidays.

She said: 'I'm not sure what Jace wants from Santa but I'm sure he'll figure it out.

'I'm just looking forward to a Christmas at home with my family. Jace was in hospital last year awaiting his transplant.

'It will be nice to have my kids together and my husband.'
A reality TV star plagued by a rare condition paid 64,000 to have his leg amputated - 18 years after his other limb was also removed.

James Bertrand, 20 - who appeared on Channel 4's First Dates - lived with constant pain due to blood clots caused by twin-to-twin transfusion disorder.

Having exhausted all medical options in the UK, he travelled to Australia where a surgeon eventually agreed to operate.

Bizarrely, Mr Bertrand was inspired to pursue osseointegration surgery - which involved hollowing out the bone and fitting it a prosthetic limb - by an episode of Supervet in which a dog had the same procedure.

Brother beyond: James Bertrand (right) photographed with twin brother Tom in July 2018. Mr Bertrand paid 64,000 to have his leg amputated - 18 years after his other limb was removed

Reality TV: James Bertrand (right) pictured on Channel 4's popular romance show First Dates

Beyond surgery: Mr Bertrand, pictured at the gym in September 2018, following his surgery

'If I hadnt have watched the show then I would never have thought to ask about it,' says Mr Bertrand, from Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire.

'I didnt think much of it [the episode] at first. It was actually my mum who asked the question and thats when it became a possibility.

'We asked my doctors in Dorset about it and they said its already being done on humans. Its funny how it happened really.'

Born prematurely at 28 weeks with his twin brother, Tom, his condition means he developed blood clots in both his legs, so his left leg had to be amputated when he was 18-months-old, and he wore a traditional socket prosthetic.

His remaining right leg was also severely damaged with no main artery, which meant his foot couldnt move, he had no muscle in that leg, and he was in constant pain.

'My right leg got worse as I grew up and I couldnt walk on hard surfaces without shoes on. My leg was just so sensitive. It was causing me more problems that my left. I went to see a consultant and he told me that my right leg had to go.

Boy power: The siblings were born prematurely at 28 weeks due to their rare blood disorder

'He basically said its a stick and wasnt functional. I burst into tears. I couldnt imagine not having any legs.

'Deep down I knew it was the right thing to do but I struggled to come to terms with it straight away,' he added. 'It was causing me pain but it was still my leg. I started to think about the things I wouldnt be able to do anymore.

'Id never be able to feel the ground when I stand up again.'

But, determined to be pain-free, he raised 60,000 to finance the surgery, which took place in May.

Now he is almost pain free and it has 'transformed' the way he walks.

Loyal: James and Tom photographed in May 2018 as he completed a 5K run before the surgery

Determined: Keen to be pain-free, he raised 60,000 to finance the Australia-based surgery

He took his first steps without crutches in August and has gained five inches in height due to the new longer limb.

His new leg also allowed James to stand up in the shower for the first time, and has increased his mobility and given him a new lease of life.

'I can never stub my toe or stand on a plug socket, which is great. But I can do anything that I want to.

'Its early days but it will be life changing for me,' he says.

'At first I did regret it because the recovery was so hard. It was mentally draining.

'Im hoping to go travelling to Thailand, Indonesia and Bali some time soon. Im a positive person and just had to stay strong.'

Staying positive: 'Im hoping to go travelling to Thailand, Indonesia and Bali some time soon. Im a positive person and just had to stay strong,' Mr Bertrand says

Inspired: James (right) hopes to inspire others into being brave by talking about his life

Family affair: The brothers pictured with their father Graham (left), sister Kitty (second from left), Sophie (fourth from left) and mother Carolyn (right), who travelled with him down-under

WHAT IS TWIN-TWIN TRANSFUSION SYNDROME? Twin-twin transfusion syndrome is a rare but serious condition that can occur in identical pregnancies when twins share a placenta. Abnormal blood vessel connections form in the placenta and prevent blood from flowing evenly between the babies. One twin then becomes dehydrated, which affects its growth. The other develops high blood pressure and produces too much urine. This leads to an enlarged bladder and excessive amounts of amniotic fluid, which can put a strain on the twin's heart, leading to heart failure. Without treatment, TTTS can be fatal for both twins. The condition occurs in about around 15 per cent of identical twins who share a placenta, according to the charity Tamba. Around 300 twins die from the condition every year in the UK, while 6,000 babies are affected annually in the US. Draining excess amniotic fluid can help to improve blood flow. If this is not enough, laser surgery is used to seal shut abnormal blood vessels and permanently disconnect them. The surgeon then drains excess fluid. Even when treated successfully, most TTTS babies are born premature. However, the majority go on to have long, healthy lives. Source: Cincinnati Children's hospital Advertisement




A freshman college student at University of Maryland has died of adenovirus, the virus that has killed 11 immunocompromised children at one New Jersey care facility.

Olivia Paregol, 18, suffered from Crohn's disease and was diagnosed with pneumonia on November 9.

She developed the respiratory infection as a complication of a particularly severe strain of adenovirus, a common illness from which most people recover on their own, but that can prove deadly for those with weakened immune systems.

After nearly a week fighting for her life in an intensive care unit, Olivia died on Sunday.

Though she'd been seriously ill, Olivia was not tested for adenovirus until another student was diagnosed with the virus, and her father, Ian, told WJLA that the school did not announce cases to families or the student body.

As her family and the University of Maryland grieve the loss of the young woman, they warn that five others have been diagnosed with adenovirus, and that illnesses should be taken seriously.

Olivia Paregol, 18, contracted adenovirus while attending University of Maryland and undergoing treatment for Crohn's disease. The college freshman died of the virus on Sunday

Adenovirus comes in more than 100 different strains.

Like most viruses, some types can infect humans, while others cannot, some will cause nothing more than a common cold, while others can be pernicious.

The worst strains of a respiratory adenovirus infection can masquerade as the flu and its symptoms - sore throat runny nose, fatigue, fever, chest congestion and cough - may be every it as miserable.

But even then, the illness is rarely life-threatening. It typically only endangers very young children and the elderly.

A compromised immune system, however, can change everything.

Olivia was thriving in her first year at University of Maryland, but all the while she was fighting Crohn's disease.

Crohn's is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to make misguided attacks on its own healthy bacteria and tissues. The result is chronic inflammation of the digestive tract.

The condition cannot be cured, but may be managed with steroids or drugs to suppress the immune system.

It is unclear if Olivia was receiving either of these treatments, though ABC reported that she was being treated for Crohn's.

The University of Maryland (pictured) announced Tuesday that five other adenovirus cases have been diagnosed. Olivia's father alleges the school knew Olivia's diagnosis before she did

Courtesy of WJLA

She apparently contracted adenovirus while being treated, and her father told WJLA that his daughter had had continuous problems with mold in her dorm room.

'She definitely appeared to be getting sicker and sicker,' Ian told WJLA.

In its Tuesday announcement of an adenovirus death to the University of Maryland community, the school said it was first aware of an 'isolated case' of the viral infection, though it isn't clear if that referred to Olivia.

At least one of the infections was discovered to be from strain 7 of the virus, one of the most savage and dangerous forms.

University of Maryland said it had been 'closely monitoring' the school for infections and coordinating with area health systems and officials.

But Ian did not feel adequately in the loop about the outbreak or his daughter's condition.

'I was told there were two students with the virus when I called to figure out what my daughter had, which means they knew it before my daughter,' he said.

'It was the worst nightmare that a family or certainly a parent can have to endure.'
TV actor Richard Mylan has thanked doctors for saving his wife's life after she battled cancer.

Mr Mylan, who plays deputy head teacher Simon Lowsley in Waterloo Road, has announced his wife Tammie, 31, has been given the all-clear after enduring surgery and eight months of chemo.

The 45-year-old Welsh actor stayed off social media for seven months while he supported Tammie as she received specialist treatment in London and Cardiff.

But, in a Twitter post put out yesterday, Mr Mylan said that after 'a year of extremes with many twists and turns', his wife is finally disease-free.

TV actor Richard Mylan has thanked doctors for saving his wife Tammie's life after she battled cancer. The pair are pictured on their wedding day in 2016, before the make-up artist fell ill

Mr Mylan took a hiatus from Twitter for seven months while she battled the disease but announced the happy news yesterday. He signed the post (pictured) off as being from himself, Tammie and his son Jaco. The actor has won two Welsh Baftas for a show about his son's autism

Tammie endured surgery and eight months of chemo while she fought the disease

Tammie took to Facebook yesterday to express her gratitude to the NHS

The post read: 'Since early March this year my wife Tammie has been in treatment for cancer. Its been a year of extremes with many twists and turns along the way.

'Tammie's resilience thru the darkest and toughest of times is just 1 of the many reasons why I'm incredibly proud 2 call her my wife.

'Today she received the all clear from Charing Cross Hospital.

'ThankU to the incredible oncology team at Charing Cross, the medical staff at the Heath Cardiff and of course, everyone at Velindre. ThankU for saving my wife.

'Life/work has been on hold and today we are incredibly grateful 2look forward 2Christmas, the new year and beyond. Richard, Tammie & Jaco.'

Mr Mylan met Tammie, who is a make-up artist, on the set of Waterloo Road and the pair married in 2016. It is unclear what type of cancer she had.

Speaking of her health battle, Tammie said: 'After surgery, eight months of chemotherapy and many hurdles along the way, I finally received the all-clear of cancer.

'So grateful to the wonderful NHS for saving my life. Dr Sarwar and his oncology team in Charing Cross Hospital were superb from start to finish. So grateful.'

Mr Mylan praised Tammie for her 'resilience' throughout the 'dark' and 'tough' time

After 'a year of extremes with many twists and turns', she is finally disease free, he said

The pair met while Tammie was working as a make-up artist on the set of Waterloo Road

Speaking at the time of their wedding, Mr Mylan said: 'We met on the set of Waterloo Road, we were both single and we often found ourselves at stupid o'clock in the morning together and we got together really quickly.

'We really just hit it off straight away. In fact, I pretty much knew as soon as I met her I wanted to marry her.

'I proposed to her on a bench that we used to sit on a lot overlooking the River Clyde.

'Waterloo Road had finished filming and I was returning to Cardiff and she was going home to Dundee and I set up my camera and said we should take some photos of our special place.

'I think she wondered what on earth I was doing because I kept setting it up for different poses and then I went down on one knee!'

Richard won two Welsh Baftas for a documentary he made with his son Jaco documenting his life with autism.

Tammie (pictured on her wedding day in 2016) called the staff who treated her at Charing Cross Hospital as 'superb from start to finish' and added that she is 'so grateful'

It is unclear what type of cancer Tammie suffered from but she was ill for several months

Mr Mylan said the pair 'hit it off straight away' and he instantly knew he wanted to marry her

After both finding themselves single, Mr Mylan said they 'got together pretty quickly'




English language tests for foreign nurses will be made easier in order beat staff shortages in the NHS.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) said it plans to change the requirements for overseas health workers after some were 'just missing out' on the current standard.

Officials say lowering the required level of written English will mean more potential NHS workers can pass the threshold.

The regulator said changes would 'increase the flexibility' for workers to come to Britain, where the NHS workforce is under 'significant pressure'.

Regulators are proposing that English language tests are easier to allow more foreign nurses and midwives into the NHS to cope with the 'significant pressure'

Nurses and midwives are not permitted to practise in the UK without being on the NMC's register.

The NMC is proposing changes to the International English Language Test System (IELTS), which currently requires all employees to achieve level 7 in four areas.

Under the proposal, nurses and midwives will be required to continue achieving a minimum overall level of 7 in the English test but, in future, a level 6.5 in writing will be accepted alongside a level 7 in reading, listening and speaking.

There are other tests nurses and midwives can take to prove their English language capabilities.

HOW BAD IS THE NURSING CRISIS? The shortage of NHS staff in England is continuing to worsen, official figures show. Figures published by the regulator, NHS Improvement, for the April to June period showed that 11.8% of nurse posts were not filled - a shortage of nearly 42,000. According to Health Education England, around 33,000 of these positions are filled temporarily by agency staff  an unwelcome extra expense for local NHS trusts. As well as this, 9.3% of doctor posts were vacant - a shortage of 11,500. Overall, 9.2% of all posts were not filled - a shortage of nearly 108,000. A report by three leading health sector think-tanks estimates that if demand rises as predicted, the NHS will need 250,000 additional staff by 2030. But if skilled workers cannot be attracted from abroad the shortage could reach 350,000  roughly a quarter of the 1.2million workforce. The report says a ten-year long-term plan for the NHS, which is due out next month, must include a funded, credible strategy to tackle the problem. Experts say low pay and long hours are two of the main factors which make finding nursing staff difficult. This, paired with student debt, makes the profession unappealing for young people. Of those quitting, more than half are under 40, with many citing stress and rising workloads for being behind their decision to leave. Advertisement

'Nurses and midwives from outside the UK are a vital part of our workforce, without them the health and care system as we know it simply wouldn't exist,' said Emma Broadbent, director of registration and revalidation at the NMC, said.

'We absolutely recognise that good communication is essential to safer, better care and people can be assured that only those who can communicate to a high standard in English will be able to join our register.

'We also recognise the current workforce is under significant pressure and the number of vacancies are well documented.

'The change proposed would increase flexibility for highly skilled professionals coming to the UK without compromising safety.'

This isn't the first time the NMC has relaxed its language tests.

The number of nurses arriving to the UK from outside the EU increased by 80 per cent after adjustments were made in November 2017.

The move applied to nurses from both within the EU and the rest of the world, with Australians even struggling to pass.

Figures showed an average of 440 non-EU nurses joined the register each month between April and June, compared with an average of 237 a month in the previous nine months.

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said: 'Good communication between nurses, midwives and patients is of paramount importance to the safety and care of patients.

'We are really pleased that the NMC continues to carefully progress reforms to the system of language testing, and believe these recommendations balance the need to protect the public with improved access for much-needed nursing talent.'

Professor Lisa Bayliss-Pratt, chief nurse at Health Education England, added: 'HEE welcomes this announcement and will continue to support the NMC in ensuring the highest possible standards are achieved by the NHS workforce.'

Pressure is growing on the nursing profession and figures from NHS Improvement suggest that in England alone there are almost 42,000 job vacancies.

The nursing vacancy rates are up 17 per cent since the previous quarter, and 9 per cent from the same point last year.

The NHS recruitment crisis has become so bad that some parts of the country are only hiring one nurse for every 400 jobs advertised, NHS Digital statistics revealed in January.

It was also reported that 33,000 nurses quit in one year - an increase of 20 per cent since 2012 to 2013.

Tom Sandford, of the Royal College of Nursing, said the NHS Digital statistics painted a 'bleak picture'.

'The government must immediately investigate this sudden spike', he said.

The NMC's council will consider the proposals at a meeting on November 28.
Food recalls have become more and more common, reaching an all-time high in 2018.

So it's only fitting that the FDA and CDC marked Thanksgiving with a few more just days before Americans settle down to the feast of the year.

Many of the items are standard fare on the holiday dinner table - but they are avoidable.

For those that were considering a Caesar salad, some ready-made cake, or (for whatever reason) something made from ground turkey: listen up.

Just ahead of Thanksgiving, health officials issued warnings about many foods

1. ROMAINE LETTUCE

In an unusually stern warning this Tuesday, the CDC said no romaine can be considered E. coli-free.

Thirty-two people in 11 states have been struck down by lettuce-linked E. coli - 13 of whom are receiving hospital treatment.

Most people infected with E. coli develop diarrhea and vomiting. More severe infections can lead to kidney failure.

The cases in the current outbreak started emerging on October 8.

Thus far, cases have been identified in California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

It is not the first outbreak this year: one traced to Yuma, Arizona, resulted in five deaths.

This is a different strain to the Yuma strain; it's the same as one in 2017 from Canada, which sickened dozens of Americans and Canadians.

The CDC still hasn't identified the source but they aren't taking chances: anyone with romaine at home should throw it away - even if you're not sure it's romaine but suspect it might be.

WHAT TO EAT INSTEAD:

Your best bets are kale or arugula. Spinach has had its fair share of problems with E. coli.

2. DUNCAN HINES CAKE MIX

The recall affected Classic White, Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow varieties of cake mix, per Conagra Brands, Duncan Hines' parent company

Duncan Hines recalled 2.4 million boxes of cake mix because of a link to salmonella in the first week of November.

The recall affects Classic White, Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow varieties of cake mix, according to Conagra Brands, Duncan Hines' parent company.

The affected boxes have expiration dates between March 7-13, 2019.

Most of the boxes were distributed in the US but some were shipped internationally. Chicago-based Conagra said it is still determining what other countries may be impacted.

It comes at a tough time as all cake mix sales continue to decline, following a years-long trend.

Duncan Hines, founded by a traveling salesman and restaurant guide author in the early 20th century, is America's second most popular cake mix brand behind Betty Crocker.

However, while the cake mix market is still a hefty one, with a value of nearly $4 billion, it has been sinking since the economic crash of 2008.

In the midst of this downturn, the holiday period tends to provide a boost.

WHAT TO EAT INSTEAD:

Pie! Or, if your heart is set on a cake-mix cake: Betty Crocker. Alternatively, make your own cake.

3. TURKEY

There is nothing in the US regulations that requires turkeys be free of salmonella.

As such, it is up to consumers to protect themselves.

Unfortunately, according to health officials, that is a tall order when it comes to turkey.

Last week, experts warned salmonella is 'widespread' in the turkey industry, as regulators issued a recall of more than 91,000lbs of raw turkey.

It is the second year in a row that the industry has been hit with a salmonella scandal.

This time, only ground turkey has been recalled (and likely not many Americans were planning on using ground stuff as their centerpiece).

However, doctors and regulators alike warn that salmonella risk is very high this holiday, so consumers need to be aware.

Don't buy Jennie-O ground turkey from Walmart and Target: 91,000lbs of it was recalled

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF:

When it comes to Thanksgiving, many do secondary or alternative meats, but it's not realistic to recommend dropping turkey altogether. It's too ubiquitous.

First, don't buy Jennie-O ground turkey from Walmart and Target.

Second, when cooking your whole turkey, follow these rules:

Don't wash the whole bird (it will just splash bacteria everywhere)

Use a meat thermometer to check that it's cooked through

Cook it at 160F

Keep washing your hands thoroughly throughout the process (for 20 seconds at a time with plenty of soap)

4. GROUND BEEF

Millions of pounds of ground beef meat were pulled from shelves nationwide in late October across the US.

At least 57 were sickened by salmonella in ground beef packaged in Arizona and distributed nationwide.

Scrambling to control the outbreaks, health officials recalled more than 6.5 million pounds of the Arizona-made ground beef.

Unlike listeria, which can take weeks or months to cause an infection, salmonella typically has its effect within 48 hours.

The salmonella outbreak linked to ground beef first came to light in early September.

People were falling sick with salmonella in 16 states across the US throughout August.

Eventually, they found a link: eight patients in distinct hospitals had receipts showing they'd all bought beef produced by JBS Tolleson, Inc.

WHAT TO EAT INSTEAD:

If you're making a beef-based casserole or stew, use other brands of beef. Alternatively, try other meats, like chicken or lamb, or try slow-cooking brisket.

5. DELI MEAT

One death and three illnesses were caused by listeria in late October, traced back to ready-to-eat deli ham produced in North Carolina and shipped across the East Coast.

The deli meat was sold in eight-pound 'loaves' produced by Johnston County Hams Inc.

They were plastic wrapped and shipped from the factory in Smithfield, North Carolina, to elsewhere in the state as well as New York, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina between April and October.

The four cases tied to Johnston's deli meat (one death and three illnesses) were reported between July 8 and August 11.

But officials from the USDA FSIS (United States Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service) say their investigation is still ongoing and urge customers to watch out for the products, which may still be in stores.

Listeria is one of the most common bacterium that causes food poisoning in America, but contrary to other bacterium, its effects can take a while to take hold.

It causes listeriosis, which is characterized by diarrhea and fever, within one to four weeks of infection, though the USDA FSIS says some people can take up to 70 days to show symptoms.

The meat in question was sold under various different names: Johnston County Hams Inc. Country Style Fully Cooked Boneless Deli Ham, Goodnight Brothers Country Ham Boneless Fully Cooked, and Padow's Hams & Deli, Inc. Fully Cooked Country Ham Boneless Glazed with Brown Sugar.

WHAT TO EAT INSTEAD:

Try a cheese plate.
Should banks be allowed to offer you credit if you have never asked for it?

We all know how easy it is to be tempted by an enticing advert for something we don't really need.

But there is a big difference between waving a new pair of trainers under someone's nose and encouraging them to saddle themselves with thousands of pounds of debt.

After all, taking out a personal loan is something that requires some serious thought, so you know you can afford the repayments should your circumstances suddenly change.

Irresponsible: Banks should have to be far more explicit when seeking permission to send out offers for loans or credit cards

It is not something you should apply for on a whim. Yet, as we reveal here, some lenders are casually enticing customers into taking out loans larger than their annual salaries.

Banks insist that they only market loans to customers who have opted in to receiving correspondence from the firm.

But this is disingenuous. It's far more likely that they ticked a box on a form when they opened their current account and never realised a torrent of seductive advertising would follow.

Banks should have to be far more explicit when seeking permission to send out offers for loans or credit cards  particularly given that the rates they are offering are typically not even close to the best on the market.

In many cases, customers aren't even guaranteed to get the rate advertised, as a marketing loophole means banks are obliged to offer this to only 51 per cent of successful applicants.

Britain has a well-documented debt problem. So as we head into the spendthrift festive season, lenders should be encouraging responsible borrowing  not handing out expensive credit like it's chocolate money.

Vigilant NatWest

After months of reporting horror stories about the way banks treat fraud victims, it was reassuring to get this note in praise of NatWest from Money Mail reader Ivan in Wiltshire.

He says that after transferring two significant sums of cash to savings accounts with other banks, he received a prompt call from NatWest's anti-fraud team checking he had not been coerced into doing so.

Ivan says: 'The payments had been flagged up on their system and blocked until their integrity had been checked with me.

'All praise to NatWest for preventing what could have been a fraud and protecting my money.'

It shows just how swiftly banks can move when they want to.

Fighting fraud

While we're on the topic of fraud, a quick update.

A consultation on new rules spelling out what banks must do to prevent customers falling victim to fraud closed last week.

We submitted a response on behalf of every reader who has raised concerns about Britain's growing fraud epidemic.

In it, we called for banks to refund victims until an official compensation scheme can be agreed, tougher checks to stop fraudsters opening accounts, and a better balance between the speed and safety of payments.

We attached dozens of your letters and emails (without any personal details included) to hammer home how devastating fraud can be.

It is now down to the steering group of bank and consumer group representatives to agree on a final code of conduct. Please, please ensure it goes far enough.

Shameless Virgin

EE and Virgin were fined 6.3 million and 7 million respectively last week after overcharging thousands of customers when they left their contracts early.

Yet while EE graciously paid up, Virgin threw its toys out the pram and vowed to appeal.

If I were Virgin, I'd be keeping my head down. Ofcom has just dropped its investigation into the firm's policy of charging customers hefty exit fees when they move to an area it does not supply.

Given that Virgin provides a service for only half the country, it's incredibly disappointing Ofcom has chosen to let it off the hook.

v.bischoff@dailymail.co.uk
Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn is the subject of no less than half-a-dozen books

Soon to be deposed Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn's tumble from grace is an embarrassment for the legions of scribblers who've fawned over him down the years.

Ghosn is the subject of no less than half-a-dozen books, each page doused in treacle.

There will be consternation too in Ghosn's adopted homeland Lebanon, where his bushy-browed visage was last year placed on its postage stamps in celebration of his lofty international status.

Prime minister Saad Hariri sent him a message of congratulations upon their release, describing him as 'a true Lebanese'.

Re Ghosn, Renault's board are currently discussing temporarily replacing him while he's detained in Japan.

I wonder what the board's redoutable British emissaire, Cherie Blair, a director since 2015, has to say on the matter?

Her husband Tony got to know Ghosn well during his time in Number 10. Nissan's Sunderland plant lay on the border of his Sedgefield constituency.

Goldman Sachs announced yesterday it was flying the transgender flag over its offices to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance, whatever that may be.

Last week, London chief Richard Gnodde informed staff the bank would pay for any of them wishing to have sex changes.

Suspicious types might suggest Goldman is providing a welcome distraction from the 1MDB embezzlement scandal currently engulfing them, but surely that's unnecessarily cynical.

The Bank of England governor Mark Carney was mistakenly addressed as 'Chancellor' by Labour's Rushanara Ali during yesterday's Treasury Select Committee hearing.

'Cut taxes, benefits for everyone!' cried the governor jokily in response. At least I assume he was joking. He and Eeyore-ish Chancellor Philip Hammond are far from economic soul mates by the way.

Standard Chartered is upping the stakes in its attempts to persuade around 200 of its London-based bankers to relocate to Frankfurt.

According to Financial News, the bank is offering two years free housing, paid school fees and German lessons as part of their relocation package.

Are proud Frankfurters mildy offended City institutions are effectively having to bribe people to move there? It's hardly Luton.
You wouldn't know it to listen to much of the negative debate about Britain's prospects, but the UK's science-based pharma and bio-technology sector is one of its crowning glories.

Located on a golden triangle of research-based universities in Cambridge, Oxford and London, it is a world-beater, outpacing anything in Europe and second only to the Boston/Cambridge area in Massachusetts.

Mainstays of the sector are the drug giants Glaxosmithkline and Astrazeneca.

Sir Greg Winter of Cambridge recently carried off the 2018 Nobel prize for medicine and has several joint ventures with AZ.

The UK's science-based pharma and bio-technology sector is one of Britain's crowning glories

Indeed, Astra is working in collaboration with some 300 different bio-tech and research groups in the effort to discover new medicines.

Against this terrific background, it is hugely disappointing to see so much of the intellectual property created in Britain, at universities largely funded by taxpayers, carried off overseas through foreign takeovers.

Just at the point in history when the UK should be girding itself for a future based upon scientific prowess and a highly skilled workforce, there is a danger we could denude commercial capacity.

The 3.3billion swoop by Boston Scientific for BTG is a case in point.

BTG may have been a serial under-performer on the stock market, but it is much more than the company which makes the serum to combat rattlesnake bites.

Among other things BTG makes polymer beads for treating cancer, and in the last year boosted sales growth by 10 per cent. The shares have seriously under-performed, as demonstrated by the 34 per cent jump in Tuesday trading following a bid from Boston Scientific.

The predator's boss Michael Mahoney was quick to hail BTG's therapies as contributing towards advancing patient care.

One can understand, in these uncertain times, why long-term investors in BTG, including Invesco, Novo Holdings and Woodford Investment Management, holding 32.8 per cent of the stock, have been quick to take the money and run.

But this is not the spirit which saw overseas marauder Pfizer off the field of battle when it came after the much bigger and more diverse prize of AZ.

BTG has a deep history in British research, tracing its origins back to the Atlee government's National Research & Development Council in 1948.

It was created in 1981 out of the merger of the former with the National Enterprise Board, and represents the best efforts of past governments to unleash the white heat of British technology.

In waving goodbye to BTG, the UK is in effect conceding patents and intellectual property to its greatest rival in the US.

This is the fifth company in Britain's healthcare sector to be sold to an overseas buyer in the last 18 months, including the nation's third largest drugs company Shire, that is heading to Japan's Takeda.

All of this may put some zip into some sagging investment fund performances.

But it is short-termism at its most damaging. Here is a great opportunity for Business Secretary Greg Clark to back his own industrial strategy and draw a line in the sand.

Growth spurt

Among the global economic forecasters, the Paris-based OECD has been the most negative on the impact of Brexit on the British economy.

There can be no doubt that uncertainty over the outcome of the UK-EU negotiations is taking its toll on investment. But not enough to knock output off course.

Politicians of the Left, and some Remain supporters, speak with great glee of how the UK has fallen to the bottom of the output league table.

Hang on a moment, Lord Copper.

Data just released by the OECD shows that in the third quarter of the year Britain was the second-fastest growing nation among the G7 richest countries at 1.5 per cent  only behind the jet-fuelled Trump economy. A flash in the pan? Not necessarily.

The CBI's industrial survey shows manufacturing had a significant rebound in November. Fancy that.

Flying high

EasyJet was a big beneficiary of the ills of the rest of the airline sector in 2018 with profits soaring by 42 per cent to 578million.

It expects revenue to come off the boil in the first half of next year, but continues to impress with its marketing skills promising a reward programme which will pay out in hotel upgrades to loyal flyers and a more efficient brand new fleet.

No-frills with thrills.
Brexit is beginning to feel like the reality show no one wants to watch as politicians flounce in and out of Downing Street.

If the Government were to collapse and Brexit talks fail, there would be serious implications for investors.

Will we get the soft Brexit Theresa May wants and remain tied closely to the EU? Or will both she and her solution be ejected, throwing the whole process into chaos?

At this crucial stage, I asked four investment experts if there is anything private investors can do to prepare for what may lie ahead.

Uncertain future: Will we get the soft Brexit Theresa May wants and remain tied closely to the EU? Or will both she and her solution be ejected, throwing the whole process into chaos?

All four broadly share a view that, generally, the UK stock market looks cheap and a well-organised Brexit should result in a surge. The consequences of no deal could be very nasty, though.

Ben Yearsley, director of Shore Financial Planning, says: 'I wouldn't bet the ranch either way. A good soft Brexit will lead, in my view, to strengthening currency and a stock market bounce  led by domestically-focused stocks.

'A hard Brexit will lead to a falling currency and stock market.'

For a soft Brexit, several Invesco Perpetual funds, including the Income and High Income funds and the investment trust Perpetual Income & Growth, are well set up.

'The manager has more than 30 per cent in UK domestic value stocks, many of which look cheap,' Mr Yearsley says. 'He also has overseas earners and defensive stocks, however, so it's a decent all-round portfolio.'

But if you expect tears before Brexit, he recommends investors go global 'to take advantage of falling sterling'.

First State Global Listed Infrastructure has only 6 per cent in the UK while Blue Whale Growth holds about 10 per cent UK, he says.

Richard Troue, head of investment analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, warns: 'To tilt a portfolio significantly in one direction is a big risk. I'd suggest a balanced approach with a slight tilt, depending on your view.

'Brexit aside, the UK is an unloved and undervalued market and I think there's the opportunity to invest now for the long term at a depressed level.' He says Woodford Equity Income 'could benefit if the outlook for the UK improves'.

He adds: 'Neil Woodford thinks the UK economy will continue to grow to the extent that it will end 2018 as one of the world's fastest-growing major economies.

He's invested in companies likely to benefit from this, house builders being a prime example.' Another option is low-cost trackers. Legal & General UK Index provides exposure to the whole market, while the HSBC FTSE 250 Index covers medium-sized companies.

'These tend to be a bit more domestically-focused, so could see a bigger boost in the event of a favourable deal,' Troue says.

If a deal isn't forthcoming, or is thought unfavourable for the UK, then Legal & General International Index Trust is an option.

It follows more than 2,000 companies  more than half of which are based in the U.S., including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and with a good sprinkling from Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

Jason Hollands of financial planner Tilney says: 'It is important not to confuse the UK stock market with the domestic economy.

'The London Stock Exchange is very international and around 75 per cent of the earnings of FTSE 100 companies is made outside of the UK, primarily in U.S. dollars.'

Medium-sized and smaller companies, such as house builders and property firms, as well as domestically-focused banks like Lloyds (which was share hammered last week) could all benefit from a good deal.

Funds which have significant exposure to medium and smaller firms include AXA Framlington UK Mid Cap and JO Hambro UK Dynamic, Mr Hollands says.

He adds that 'in the event of a collapse of the Brexit process and another steep slide in sterling, big FTSE 100 companies would prove a relative haven'.

He suggests trackers such as Fidelity Index UK as a low cost option. Or Evenlode Income, holding a great deal of large and medium-sized companies that make most earnings worldwide, is a managed alternative.

Adrian Lowcock of Willis Owen says you should avoid big bets and 'focus on long-term goals, invest in good quality companies because these can navigate any scenario better than badly-managed businesses'.

He suggests diversifying across both UK and global markets.

Funds for a soft Brexit include Merian UK Alpha, where the manager buys unloved stocks and waits for the market to change its view. He also mentioned Woodford Equity Income.

For a hard Brexit, he suggests FundSmith Equity as 'one of the strongest options for investors seeking exposure to high-quality global equities.'

Prepare for a rough ride. I'm hedging my bets with plenty in worldwide funds, such as Lindsell Train Global Equity and Newton Global Income, but also holding onto UK-based ones such as HSBC 250 tracker and JO Hambro UK Equity Income even though these stocks are so unloved.

t.hazell@dailymail.co.uk
A British company founded on technology breakthroughs from the Second World War is set to be snapped up by an American rival for 3.3billion.

Healthcare firm BTG, which was formerly state-owned British Technology Group, has urged shareholders to back a cash offer from Boston Scientific which could see it absorbed by the middle of next year.

The company said it already had the support of BTG's top three shareholders, Invesco, Novo and Neil Woodford's investment vehicle, who hold a combined 37.2 per cent of the firm.

Takeover: Healthcare firm BTG, which was formerly state-owned British Technology Group, has urged shareholders to back a cash offer from Boston Scientific

Between them they stand to make more than 1.2billion from the deal. Shares jumped 34 per cent, or 209.5p, to 824.5p yesterday, but remained shy of Boston's 840p per share offer.

If the takeover is approved, it would make BTG the latest pioneering UK company to fall prey to a foreign rival in recent years.

Others have included software giant ARM Holdings, payments firm Worldpay and travel website Skyscanner.

Analysts said BTG was also the eighth UK healthcare firm to be taken over in just 18 months. It has prompted concerns about an outflow of British-held intellectual property abroad.

However, Dame Louise Makin, BTG's boss since 2004, yesterday gave her backing to the takeover and said it would allow the firm to continue expanding its innovative interventionist medicines arm, which aims to cut the time patients spend in hospital.

Michael Mahoney, chairman and chief executive of Boston Scientific, said acquiring BTG's interventional medicines arm would give his firm an edge in treatments for cancer and blocked blood vessels.

But Nico Macdonald, an expert on science and innovation at London South Bank University, said: 'We have a world-beating healthcare industry in this country, so it is a cause for concern to see this level of takeovers.'

BTG was founded in 1948 as the National Research Development Corporation to commercialise technology breakthroughs made by the state during the Second World War.

It held rights to drugs and technology behind hovercrafts and MRI scanners.

The corporation was merged with the National Enterprise Board in 1981 and became British Technology Group, before it was privatised in 1992.
The future of the UK's biggest car factory is in jeopardy after the shamed boss who fought for the plant looks likely to be ousted.

Carlos Ghosn's role as the chairman and chief executive of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance hangs in the balance after he was arrested amid claims he raided company funds and concealed bonuses to dodge tax.

His arrest has sent shockwaves through the global car industry  and raised fears over the future of the Nissan plant in Sunderland where a 7,000-strong workforce build the Qashqai.

Carlos Ghosn's role as the chairman and chief executive of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance hangs in the balance following his arrest

Ghosn, 64, doggedly sought assurances from Theresa May in the wake of the EU referendum in 2016 that Nissan would be able to trade on the same conditions after Brexit.

The French-Brazilian then committed to make Nissan's Qashqai SUV and X-Trail model at the company's Sunderland plant after receiving a written assurance from the Prime Minister in October 2016.

Nissan indicated losing the Qashqai could mean the company would eventually have to close the facility, as well as its other UK sites, including a design centre in Paddington, London, and a technical centre in Bedfordshire.

The Sunderland car plant makes around half a million cars a year and Nissan's UK operations support suppliers with 30,000 workers across Britain.

It is feared that without Ghosn at the helm, Nissan's commitment could waver.

'A new leader might take a different approach [to the Sunderland plant],' said Anna-Marie Baisden, head of autos research at advisory firm Fitch Solutions.

In a sign of concern among the workforce, a spokesman for Unite, which represents staff at the plant, said union officials were 'in dialogue with the company and are monitoring the situation very closely'.

As the global car industry reeled after Ghosn's arrest, Nissan shares fell more than 5pc, Renault was down more than 2 per cent and Mitsubishi tumbled nearly 7 per cent.

Last night it was reported that Ghosn was plotting a full-blown merger between Nissan and Renault in the run-up to his arrest.

Nissan's board was bitterly opposed to the plan and had allegedly been looking for ways to block it.

Renault was expected to appoint an interim chief executive and chairman at a board meeting last night following Ghosn's arrest in Japan.

Nissan has said he will be fired from his post as Nissan chairman on Thursday, while Mitsubishi said on Monday it will propose removing the executive from its board of directors.

Ghosn is being held in police custody after an internal investigation, prompted by a whistleblower, found he under-reported his salary to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in company filings over five years to 2015.

Another board member, representative director Greg Kelly, has also been arrested.

Nissan claimed that Ghosn and Kelly conspired to say his income was around half the 69m he earned in that time.

Ghosn has not yet been formally charged and it is not known where he is being held.

If found guilty he could face up to ten years in prison, a 69,000 fine, or both.

He became Nissan chief executive in 2001 and is credited with rescuing the car maker from near bankruptcy.

He later became chief executive of Renault in 2005, chairman of Nissan in 2008 and chairman of Renault in 2009.

Mitsubishi Motors chief executive Osamu Masuko told reporters in Tokyo that it might be hard to manage the car alliance without Ghosn.

'I don't think there is anyone else on earth like Ghosn who could run Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi,' he said.
More than 700million was wiped off the value of addiction treatment company Indivior after a court ruling left investors feeling down in the dumps.

Shares in the firm, which manufactures treatments for heroin and other opioid abuse, plunged 46.7 per cent, or 96.45p, to 109.95p as a US court allowed a competitor to sell a copycat drug.

The decision overturned an injunction from a lower court, which had banned the sale of the cheaper generic alternative to Indivior's Suboxone Film created by Indian competitor Dr Reddy's Laboratories.

In a statement, Indivior said: 'Indivior will continue to vigorously pursue ongoing infringement cases against Dr Reddy's to protect its Suboxone Sublingual Film patent portfolio.'

Shares in Indivior, which manufactures treatments for heroin and other opioid abuse, plunged 46.7 per cent, or 96.45p, to 109.95p as a US court allowed a competitor to sell a copycat drug

It said it would issue a statement on the implications for the company after it had interpreted the ruling.

When Indivior first announced that Dr Reddy's had begun selling its copycat product into the US market in June, its shares slumped by 27.1 per cent in one day.

Since then Indivior had been pursuing the Indian firm for stealing its intellectual property, and an injunction was originally granted on July 13.

But in the few weeks that Dr Reddy's was selling its product in the US, Indivior estimated that it lost between 9million and 14million in revenues.

The firm already sells an injectable version of its opioid treatment, although health practitioners in the US have been slow to increase their use of this, and Perseris, an injection which treats schizophrenia.

Stock Watch - Kcom Hull-focused telecoms company Kcom has slumped after warning investors that revenue would be lower than expected for the year. The firm, which provides broadband and phone services, said orders had been disappointingly low and revenue would be flat. But its Hull and East Yorkshire segment, which contributes the most to earnings, was continuing to perform well. It slashed its dividend from 6p to no less than 3p. Shares fell 29.7 per cent, or 27.3p, to 64.5p.

But the full promotional launch of Perseris, scheduled for February 2019, was dependent on the Suboxone injunction being upheld.

Having lost the court battle, the timing for the Perseris launch may be under threat.

On the FTSE 250, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group took yet another hit from mis-sold PPI.

The lender revealed that in the year to September 30 it had shelled out an extra 352million in compensation for customers who had bought toxic payment protection insurance  more than wiping out its profits, which dragged it to a 164million loss.

The results took the shine off CYBG's 1.7billion takeover of rival Virgin Money last month and sent investors running for the hills.

Even a hike in the final dividend from 1p to 3.1p per share failed to calm nerves, and shares dropped 16.9 per cent, or 42p, to 206.4p.

Chief executive David Duffy nonetheless struck an upbeat tone, saying he hoped this would be the final PPI payout before a deadline for compensation claims next year.

The scandal has now cost CYBG 2.6billion, and stung the banking industry for 32.9billion so far.

Britain's blue-chip index, the FTSE 100, continued its downwards slide, shedding 0.8 per cent, or 52.97 points, to end the day at 6947.92 points.

Back on the FTSE 250, Spectris, which creates tools used to test machines from Volkswagen cars to crisp-cookers, climbed 12.5 per cent, or 262p, to 2365p.

Its like-for-like sales were up 8 per cent, and the firm said it was slashing costs.

But Aveva, which produces software to help architects, engineers and constructors create buildings, dipped 6 per cent, or 162p, to 2522p  even as its profit soared 54.3 per cent to 60.5million.

Investors may have been nervous that the firm, which acquired Schneider Electric last year, might not be able to sustain the growth.

On London's junior stock market AIM, law firm Knights also saw its shares pushed down 6.7 per cent, or 14.5p, to 202.97p despite its chief executive David Beech saying the firm was making 'excellent progress' in expanding.
Your future healthcare needs: Why it is so important to plan your finances - and how to go about it
Telecoms giant TalkTalk is shifting its headquarters from London to Salford, with hundreds of staff being relocated to the existing northern site.

The group said transferring its main office out of London was 'part of its strategy to simplify its operations.'

The firm added it would start hiring for new posts in Salford next year, including graduate and apprenticeship roles.

New home: Telecoms giant TalkTalk is shifting its headquarters from London to Salford, pictured

Around 500 staff work in the London headquarters and all will be given the opportunity to relocate, although TalkTalk will be retaining a small satellite office in London with around 50 staff.

Tristia Harrison, Chief Executive of TalkTalk said: 'We're excited to be moving our headquarters to Salford. We've always had a base in the north west, but we want to build on that heritage and create a world-class campus for the whole business.

'As with any change, we are committed to supporting all of our colleagues during this transition period.

'Bringing all of our teams together will make us a simpler business, where it's easier for teams to work together and deliver the very best service for customers.'

Salford City Mayor Paul Dennett said: 'TalkTalk relocating their headquarters and executive team here and creating hundreds of new, high quality, technical, digital jobs speaks volumes for the success of our investment in a digital future.'

The Salford site replaced previous offices in the North West of England in Warrington and Irlam.

Rebecca Long Bailey, MP for Salford and Eccles added: 'Following the success stories of leading businesses moving to Salford, it's great to hear the news that TalkTalk will be doing the same in moving their headquarters to the city from London. By linking up with the company's technology and business office which opened in Salford in 2017, I hope the move will open up opportunities for Salford residents.

'This announcement provides further evidence that businesses can find success and growth outside of London, provide investment to the area, and job opportunities for people here in Salford.'

The FTSE 250 firm's share price is down 3.6 per cent or 4.35p to 116.35p.

Share price: The FTSE 250 firm's share price is down 3.60 per cent or 4.35p to 116.35p

TalkTalk also posted its half-year results today and reported pre-tax losses narrowing to 4million in the six months to 30 September, down from 95million a year earlier.

Interim underlying earnings rose to 101million, up from 75million a year ago. The group saw a slowdown in growth in broadband customers, with its overall broadband base increasing by 24,000 in the second quarter against 80,000 in the previous three months.

Fibre customer additions on a net basis  those joining less those leaving  rise to 125,000 in the second quarter, up from 67,000 in the previous three months.

The group's first half dividend was 'in line with existing policy at 1.00p', compared to 2.50p a share at the same point a year earlier.
DIY giant Kingfisher, the firm behind B&Q and Screwfix, has informed markets today of plans to dispose of its operations in Russia, Spain and Portugal.

The move impacts approximately 51 of the group's 1,300 stores and nearly 5,300 of its 64,000 employees. Any exit costs are yet to be revealed.

Kingfisher said that exiting these geographies will help it stem the decay at its larger core markets - the UK and France - where sales continue to fall.

Kingfisher is overhauling its DIY chains by unifying stock and upgrading its digital systems

In the last three months, like-for-like sales at B&Q fell 2.9 per cent amid a well-documented difficult retail market in which consumers are tightening their belts and fewer people are moving home.

There was even a concerning slowdown in growth at Screwfix - the trade-focused chain that is typically seen at the jewel in Kingfisher's crown.

Meanwhile in France, where weak footfall is a problem, sales at its Castorama business plummeted 7.6 per cent.

Kingfisher said its Castorama chain in France in where its main challenge lies

Boss Veronique Laury, who is steering a five year overhaul of the group, said there is 'no quick fix' to the problems and reasserted her commitment to her ONE Kingfisher plan.

She added: 'Transformation on this scale is tough, and we are operating in a difficult retail environment. We face challenges and we are addressing them.'

In the UK, B&Q's turnaround has seen Kingfisher slash about 3,000 jobs over the last two and a half years. The group has also been shaking up its ranges,ramping up its digital offer and investing in a simpler pricing strategy.

Laury said: 'We have accelerated our move to an everyday low-price strategy and have launched a new marketing campaign to make it visible to our customers, however there is no quick fix.'

Kingfisher chief executive Veronique Laury remains committed to her turnaround plan

Laury sounds like a 'broken record', said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.

'She again reiterated that the ONE transformation plan is working when there is evidence that it's falling short,' he argued, pointing to 'slow progress'.

He said the disposals 'highlight the fact that the joint sourcing economies of scale that the ONE plan envisages doesn't quite work across multiple countries where so many products vary significantly.'

The update has fuelled speculation that Kingfisher, which is valued at around 5billion, may look to split off either its troubled French business or its darling Screwfix.

Screwfix, which is popular with tradesmen, is seen as the jewel in Kingfisher's crown

Wilson said: 'The major weakness here remains the French business and we must again question whether the smarter move is to divest the French business and/or Screwfix. With activists circling, the French business could be hived off, as consistently argued in the past.'

Shares in Kingfisher have been in decline for over two years. They are down by 19 per cent over the last year and slid 5 per cent in early trading today to 2.32.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: 'The company remains in a difficult place and the update is confirmation of a long road ahead.

'In the meantime, investors are to an extent being paid to wait, with a dividend yield of 4.4 per cent offering a return which is comfortably in line with the FTSE 100 average.'
Ofcom fined Virgin Media 7 million for overcharging almost 82,000 customers who ended their contract early

Virgin Media customers who move house mid-contract will continue to face hefty exit fees.

Last week watchdog Ofcom fined the company 7million for overcharging almost 82,000 customers who ended their contract early.

But a separate investigation into its policy of charging customers exit fees if they move to an area it does not supply has been dropped.

Instead, Virgin agreed to make it clearer on its website and during phone calls that it only provides a service to around half the UK, and customers would be charged for moving outside the network.

It is the only major provider to penalise customers in this way. Earlier this month, Money Mail revealed how Martin Eldridge, a loyal customer of 13 years, was hit with a 240 exit fee when he moved to Dorset, and was forced to cancel his contract early because the firm did not supply his new postcode.

Virgin Media has since reduced exit charges by an average of 30 per cent for anyone leaving early.

It is also offering an unspecified reduction to exit fees for anyone moving inside or outside its network. The firm is appealing Ofcom's fine.

s.partington@dailymail.co.uk
Silvia Beevers, 87, was signed up to a 59.99-a-year Motor Club when she doesn't have a car

From gadgets that promise to help you cook the perfect eggs to a self-cleaning toilet brush, the Easylife catalogue boasts a wide range of cheap solutions to every day household problems.

It is often included as a free supplement in magazines or newspapers and you can buy items online, by phone or post.

But Money Mail has discovered that, after making a payment, shoppers are routinely signed up for expensive memberships they never asked for or wanted.

Many customers say that the first they knew about the membership was when they received a letter stating that if they failed to call and cancel within 14 days, up to 69.99 would be taken from their credit or debit card every year.

One 87-year-old customer was signed up to a 59.99-a-year Motor Club that offers discounts on car maintenance when she doesn't even have a car.

Another 76-year-old shopper says 69.99 was taken from her card without permission after she was bombarded with calls pressuring her into joining its Supercard service, offering High Street store discounts.

Shoppers are adamant they have never agreed to pay for these memberships. It means they have either forgotten to untick a box at some point that gave the firm consent to charge them or are being signed up without their permission.

In the small print of the firm's privacy policy, it says it may 'telephone you offering services like our Motor Club, Rewards Club, Supercard, Health Club and other leisure services that we very carefully select'.

The retailer, based in Camden, North London, then requires customers to tick a box to opt out of hearing about other offers.

Scores of customers have taken to online review websites such as Trustpilot to complain about the firm.

Last month, one user said her 80-year-old mother had been signed up to its 59.99 Motor Club despite being unable to drive. She said: 'It seems they are targeting elderly people and conning them.'

When Silvia Beevers, 87, spotted a 9.99 gizmo that can expand the waistband of trousers, she thought she'd give it go.

But a week after buying the item over the phone, she received a letter claiming she had been signed up for a service called the Easylife Motor Club even though she doesn't own a car or drive.

Unless she cancelled in 14 days, 59.99 would be taken from her account. However, the charge was only mentioned halfway down the second page of terms and conditions.

The retired nurse says she specifically requested for her details not to be shared or used for any reason other than her original purchase.

Silvia, of Hendon, North London, says she was targeted 'simply because I ordered a catalogue item.'

Barbara Lee, 76, ordered a extendable sponge to help her clean the bathroom without stretching.

She says she was then asked if she wanted to sign up for its 'Supercard' service, which offers High Street discounts.

As a sweetener, she would get a 10 shopping voucher. Barbara, a former homecare worker, said no, but Easylife kept calling. Finally, she agreed if she could return the voucher without charge.

But after sending it back, Easylife took 69.99 from her credit card, plus a further 2.99 fee for setting up the membership.

When Barbara called to complain the firm denied receiving the voucher or her letter of cancellation. She wrote to its head office but never heard back.

Barbara, who lives with husband Norman, 80, in Croft, Liverpool, says: 'They pestered and pestered, but I never authorised this payment.'

Adam French, of lobby group Which?, says: 'The regulations say you cannot be charged for something you did not actively choose to buy.'

Trading Standards in Camden, where the firm is based, urges anyone who thinks they have been unfairly charged to come forward.

Only after Money Mail intervened did Easylife agree to refund Silvia and Barbara the fees charged for setting up unwanted memberships.

In Barbara's case, M&S Bank also agreed to reverse the 69.99 fee using what are known as chargeback rules  which allow banks to claw back disputed payments.

Easylife denies using pressure tactics or signing up customers for paid-for memberships without their authorisation.

It says it adheres to regulations and has a data protection officer to maintain standards.

A spokesman says: 'Customers are of paramount importance to us and we will always refund fully and cancel a membership if they so desire.'

Easylife also takes issue with the claim that they deliberately target the elderly.

A spokesman told Money Mail 'when Easylife offers customers memberships the company has no advance knowledge of their age.

'Customers are of paramount importance to us and we will always refund fully and cancel a membership if they so desire.'

a.murray@dailymail.co.uk
A polyamorous trio have spoken exclusively to DailyMailTV about their 'traditionally non-traditional' lives and insist that their unconventional relationship is far from a 'sex cult.'

Eddie Colon, 34, and his wife, Kayla, 27, have been in a sexual 'triad' relationship with 23-year-old Princess Birdsall after they met on dating app OkCupid earlier this year.

The three, who are all Navy veterans, now share a home in San Tan Valley, Arizona with their four young children.

Eddie told DailyMailTV: 'We're not a sex cult and it's not about sex. Our bedroom looks like everyone else's - we don't have toys and swing sets in there.

'It takes a lot of selflessness and being able to deal with other people.'

Kayla added: 'Our bedroom is full of laundry baskets of clothes that we refuse to fold like any other household.'

Kayla and Eddie both refer to Princess as their 'wife' and share their bedroom and Californian king-size bed with her. Kayla and Princess both identify as bisexual whereas Eddie is straight.

Happy threesome: Eddie Colon, 34, and his wife, Kayla (far right) 27, have been in a sexual 'triad' relationship with 23-year-old Princess Birdsall (middle) after they met on dating app OkCupid in June

Unconventional family: The self-described 'throuple' now share a home in San Tan Valley, Arizona with their four young children

The trio say they have overcome jealousy with 'a lot of communication.' Although they regularly have threesomes, the trio also have sex privately in pairs when one or the other is not around

In their sex life, Princess reveals, 'We are a closed triad, we do everything together. I do things with her, with him, we do things with each other.

'Kayla is a little [person] and she likes to cuddle.'

Although they regularly have threesomes, the trio also have sex privately in pairs when one or the other is not around.

Princess said: 'We also do it with each other alone because we have individual relationships. It will be Kayla and Eddie, just me and Kayla, or me and Eddie having sex.'

'But there is never one of us watching when we are altogether  it's always all three of us involved in the sex.'

'We have four kids, so it's hard to make fun time. When they are home alone or I'm home alone [with one of them], we do it.'

Eddie said: 'You need stamina. It takes a lot of work. We have a nice king-size bed, then the kids come in in the morning and they creep in on the end.'

The throuple say that they overcome jealousy 'with a lot of communication'.

Eddie said: 'A lot of our family don't understand. I've been told that I'm disrespecting the sanctity of marriage, that my lifestyle is wrong and some people have warned me that I'll end up feeling jealous.

'They act as though we are having a big orgy in front of our kids.

'It's just a bunch of negative stigma. These people don't understand that someone can fall in love with two different people.'

Princess said: 'I'm not the primary. I'm not the wife or the husband, I'm the girlfriend.

'When I feel like I'm not getting attention that I need, I voice that. I can't play petty games. You can't do that in this relationship. We have to have really good communication.'

Kayla and Eddie met on deployment in the Middle East and married in 2011. After six years of marriage, they decided to bring a 'third' into their relationship - a term in polyamorous lingo meaning a partner willing to join a couple in a romantic relationship.

All three romantic partners previously served in the Navy. It was Kayla (far right) a payroll administrator, who suggested to her husband that they invite another woman into their marriage

Eddie advises that the participant must be 'actually bisexual' not just curious, in order for the relationship to function

It was Kayla, a payroll administrator, who suggested to her husband that they invite another woman into their marriage.

Eddie, who is at college earning his accountancy degree, said: 'I've always known that my wife was bisexual and she gave me the ok. This was her idea, not my idea.

'I went on OkCupid, made a profile with a picture of my wife and I saying that we were a married couple looking for a third for a polyamorous relationship. I came across this lady right here. I sent her a couple of messages and she finally answered me back.'

Princess, a health insurance administrator, told DailyMailTV that she had no relationship with the father of her three-year-old daughter Presley and had become used to being a single mom.

'This is my first relationship. I've always been bisexual,' she said.

The couple invited Princess to their home for a date on June 29 and while they enjoyed drinks around the swimming pool, they hit it off.

The trio believe that their experience of serving in the military quickly solidified their bond.

Eddie spent five years as an electrician in the Navy while Kayla was an aviation boatswain's mate for five years and Princess served as a medical assistant for four years.

Kayla said: 'Princess is very beautiful and I loved her personality. We really clicked because she was a veteran and our kids went to school together.'

Princess said: 'Kayla had long blonde hair at the time and she is really pretty. She is 5'1'' and when we met, she had on these five-inch heels and skin-tight jeans. I was like, oh my goodness.

'The sexual relationship started on that first night between the three of us. We didn't have any awkwardness, any tension. It just blossomed and we were like, woah.'

Kayla and Eddie had tried polyamory once before, in January 2018, but it only lasted three months. Eddie said that the relationship failed because the woman involved was not truly bisexual.

Their children have adjusted well to the new relationship, they say. Eddie and Kayla have three children Jessica (in red) six, Tatiana (in pink) three, and one-year-old Vincent (not pictured). Princess has one daughter Presley (pictured rightwith Tatiana)

Kayla says 'all we do is hang out with our kids' and they are not worried about their children being bullied

He said: 'You have to find a willing participant who is actually bisexual. We are all sleeping in the same bed, we are each a part of the triangle.

'If the person is just curious and not bisexual, they become jealous.'

Meeting Princess was the first time they found someone whose values aligned with their own.

Kayla and Eddie have three children: Jessica, six, Tatiana, three and one-year-old Vincent.

Kayla said: 'For us, we want the family aspect of it. We want to be able to come home together, cook dinner and spend time with our kids.

'We want to be able to enjoy the same activities. It takes somebody really intricate to be able to come into a relationship of eight years.'

When Princess picked up her daughter from school that afternoon, they returned home with the Colons.

Princess said: 'I felt comfortable that it would feel like a sleepover for her because she went to school with them. Then the days rolled into nights, then weeks.'

Kayla said: 'We all went to some trampoline festival that weekend. All we do is hang out with our kids.'

Presley soon settled in with Eddie and Kayla's three children to form one big happy family.

The lovers defended their relationship from strangers who assume the arrangement is primarily about sex.

Eddie said: 'My wife and I both have very big hearts, we love hard and strong and that's why our relationship with Princess works.

'If people find out I'm in a poly relationship, the first thing they think of is threesomes - but that's not what it's all about.'

Kayla said: 'Anyone who knew me wasn't surprised when I told them that Eddie and I were dating. They just took it in their stride.'

Princess has even been called a 'homewrecker' by people who do not understand her polyamorous relationship.

She said: 'I've been called a homewrecker and a mistress. It's hard for them to understand the relationship I share with Eddie and Kayla.

'But then other people can't believe that a couple would be so open and honest. People have open relationships all the time. This works so much better than having one-off flings.'

The three pointed out the benefits of having three people in a relationship  including the sharing of domestic duties

They say the key to their successful polyamorous relationship is 'a lot of selflessness and being able to deal with other people'

Once Princess entered the relationship, Kayla felt more fulfilled and said it improved the family dynamic.

She said: 'I wanted someone to be my companion and friend.

'I like the idea of having someone there with Eddie when I'm not around and I like having someone to hang out with when Eddie is not around. I'm definitely more fulfilled. I love the way our family is now.'

Their children have adjusted well to the new relationship, they say.

Eddie said: 'I don't worry about my kids getting bullied. They want a big family, so they are happy. Now Presley and Tatiana are so close that we call them 'the twins'. It's worked out perfectly.'

Kayla said: 'Jessica is the oldest and she just understands that we all love each other and we're all here together. She sees us cooking dinner together, washing cars, doing laundry. So it's just a normal family to her and they don't really know anything else.'

Eddie said: 'Jessica already knows Princess as mommy.'

The self-described 'throuple' are quick to point out the benefits of having three people in a relationship  including the sharing of domestic duties.

Kayla said: 'Eddie cooks and he's daddy day-care. I do a lot of the cleaning and Princess is always helping with laundry. It's really just all hands on deck every night.

Princess said: 'We have a strict routine because we're all military. I'm up at 4am and then it's boom, boom, boom. All the kids are in bed by 8 o'clock.'

Eddie said: 'We have to do laundry four times a week in this house to stay caught up on everything because the little kids go through stuff like crazy.'

With three parents, four kids and two pets  a Scottish terrier named Chaos and a cat called Cardi C  it can be hard to find personal space.

Eddie said: 'The house has four bedrooms and an office, so if anyone needs to escape they go down there and take a moment.'

When it comes to closet space, with two female partners, Eddie concedes that he has lost that battle.

'In boot camp, I learned a long time ago that a happy wife equals a happy life,' he quipped.

Kayla said: 'We have to confront our emotions and take accountability for what we brought to the table.

'Obviously, we're writing our own playbook here, so every day is a new day for us. We're just working through all of our kinks that we ran into and honestly it hasn't been so many kinks. It actually just really fell into place, the stars just aligned.'

Princess added: 'It was hard for me because I was a single mom, used to doing things on my own and I was joining an established couple.

'I suddenly went from having one child to four children. I had to learn how to become a better mother and how to juggle things.

Kayla and Eddie met on deployment in the Middle East and married in 2011. After six years of marriage, they decided to bring a 'third' into their relationship

'But it was awesome. Not only do I have another set of hands, I have two sets of hands. I never have to worry about pick up or drop off from school.

'I really see this as a forever thing. I always thought I'd have one person, but now I have two.

'The building blocks are trust and commitment, the same as in a monogamous relationship. You have to be brutally honest, any little lie can tumble out of control in a polyamorous relationship.

'That's always going to be hard for me but if I keep those communications open and show that I'm here for the long term, there's no reason it shouldn't work.'

The trio are comfortable with each other disciplining the other kids.

Kayla said: 'If we expect this to work, we have to all be able to have something to say when it comes to the kids.

'How I handle the kids depends on the situation, Princess is soft and Eddie is more of the disciplinarian. We all have our equal parts that we bring and honestly it brings a really healthy balance.'

Their parents and friends have had some issues with the polyamorous lifestyle but most have come around to their arrangement.

Eddie said: '[My parents] are open-minded. They are the type that as long as I'm happy, the kids are safe and taken care of, they're happy.'

Princess said: 'My family was good with it. They obviously wanted to know who was around Presley and they loved Eddie and Kayla when they met them.

Kayla said: 'My parents have always known that I am bisexual and they know that I sometimes do things that they have no idea it's even out there.

'My mom actually researched polyamorous relationships on Google. She loves Princess, so does my dad and we go over there for barbecues.'

The trio have shared details of their lifestyle on social media but are careful about who they communicate with.

Kayla said: 'We know one couple locally and we are pretty good friends.

'We pick and choose who we follow depending on how they represent the relationship. We represent it a certain way - family and kids. So we want it to be in a good light.'

Aside from their sex lives, this trio says they're no different than any other blended family.

Kayla said: 'We're very traditional. Our kids go to school, we pack lunches, every night we cook dinner, and we cook breakfast. Every meal comes from our house. We buy organic stuff, we shop.

'People would never think that this is what's actually happening. The one thing that's different is what happens in our bedroom.'

The triad even plan on making things official with a ceremony to bless their relationship.

Eddie said: 'We're going to be a family forever, until one of us croaks. We want to find someone to perform a blessing and a promise ceremony.'

Kayla said: 'It's something we have really thought about and we think would be totally cool for our family.'

For the newly-blended family being together is simply about love.

Eddie said: 'I don't want to get attached to somebody just to let them go, especially the kids, they're attached, I couldn't rip them away like that at all. I can't see myself waking up without these two in bed, with both of them snoring as they do.'
A former undocumented immigrant who has won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University has criticized President Trump's 'harmful agenda'.

Harvard University senior Jin Park is the first Rhodes scholar to be covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation.

Park, 22, from the New York City borough of Queens, arrived from South Korea with his parents when he was 7. His mother worked in nail salons, while his father worked up to 12 hours a day in Korean restaurants.

He said it is important to tell the true stories of the undocumented immigrants 'at a time when the president of the United States is weaponizing immigrant narratives for an incredibly harmful agenda.'

Jin Park, 22 is awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for 2019 - the first recipient covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation. He is pictured in the Smith Campus Center at Harvard University

Park went on to study molecular and cellular biology at Harvard and founded a nonprofit to help undocumented students apply to college. He now hopes to become an immigrant advocate, and says it's important for him to use the opportunity to better others, not just himself.

'When you grow up as an undocumented immigrant in America, that understanding that your talents don't really belong to you in the traditional sense, that you have to share the fruits of your labor with others, that's just something you learn,' Park said.

He told HuffPost that at first he couldn't believe he had won the prestigious accolade.

'Then the stillness gave way to a wave of gratitude, thankfulness and love for my parents, my community, the city of New York and my country,' he said.

Park also offered some advice to other undocumented immigrants who want to study but are being marginalised and demonised by the Trump administration.

Park also emphasized the importance of telling the true stories of the undocumented immigrants 'at a time when the president of the United States is weaponizing immigrant narratives for an incredibly harmful agenda'

'Keep going. And understand that your story is beautiful and powerful,' he told HuffPost.

'When things become difficult, think of your community  your family, friends, mentors and partners.'

The latest class of 32 Rhodes scholars has more women than any other single crop, and almost half of this year's recipients are either immigrants or first-generation Americans, the Rhodes Trust announced Sunday.

Alaleh Azhir, a 21-year old senior at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, is among the latest crop of American Rhodes scholars, which has more women than any other single class. The New York City resident who emigrated from Iran when she was 14 years old, hopes to eventually become a doctor and will be studying women's and reproductive health at Oxford

Alaleh Azhir, a 21-year old senior at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, emigrated from Iran when she was 14.

She is one of 21 female scholars named Sunday from the list, which is two-thirds female.

The New York City resident hopes eventually to become a doctor and will study women's and reproductive health at Oxford.

'I'm just a passionate advocate for women in general and that's mostly because of my background,' she said. 'I thought that the way I could advocate for women could be by advocating for their health.'

Vidal Arroyo, 21, a first-generation Latino student at Chapman University in California plans to study engineering science at Oxford

At Chapman University in Southern California, Vidal Arroyo, 21, reflected on his difficult path to becoming his school's first Rhodes Scholar.

'As a Latino, a first-generation college student, and a train commuter to college, winning this scholarship means so much to me because it sheds hope for students from backgrounds like my own who have to overcome multiple barriers in pursuit of a higher education and a better future,' said Arroyo, who plans to study engineering science at Oxford.

Eren Orbey, a 23-year-old senior at Yale University in Connecticut, whose family emigrated from Turkey, hopes studying at Oxford will bring greater 'context and clarity' to his writing.

Eren Orbey, a 23-year-old senior at Yale University in Connecticut, writes for the New Yorker addressing a range of subjects including gender equality and bicultural identity. His family came to the U.S from Turkey after his father was killed in Ankara when he was just 3 years old

He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine and is working on a book about his father, who was slain in Ankara when he was just 3, and the killer.

'I'm interested in studying the ethics of revenge and forgiveness,' Orbey said Sunday by email. 'I think that our culture and media coverage often condescend to immigrants and survivors of trauma. In my writing, I hope to recast tragedy and strife as occasions for growth and heroism.'

The U.S. Rhodes scholars join a separate, international group of scholars representing more than 60 countries.

Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for at least two years of study at Oxford. They were created in 1902 in the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British imperialist businessman and Oxford alum who governed the Cape Colony in present-day South Africa between 1890 and 1896.

The recipients of the Rhodes scholarship will get all expenses paid for at least two years of study at Oxford University in England (pictured)

Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for at least two years of study at Oxford. They were created in 1902 in the will of Cecil Rhodes
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From sunrise to sunset, tribeswomen trek for miles and dig for water with their bare hands as the worst drought in decades shows no sign of abating in desolate northwestern Kenya.

It's supposed to be the rainy season but the once wide and flowing river beds are dried up and thousands of animals have died. All that remains are the sturdiest of camels, goats and donkeys.

The Turkana tribe, who live in this remote and inhospitable land, see it is a woman's job to provide water. Four years since the last substantial rainfall, that role has become deadly.

MailOnline visited a struggling community - living roughly 100 miles from the tourist hotspot of Lake Turkana - and heard how a woman was recently killed when a 14-foot water hole she dug collapsed and trapped her.

Turkana culture does not permit a dead body to be moved because it's considered cursed so the woman was still buried at the bottom of the pit that was supposed to be her family's lifeline.

The drought-ravaged Turkana region in northwestern Kenya is in a state of emergency after more than four years without substantial rain. Rivers have dried up, people have lost their lives searching for water and thousands of animals have perished

In a desperate bid to provide their families and animals with water, the Turkana tribe are digging dangerous 12-feet holes. Thirsty camels and goats take it in turns to be supplied with water by their owners who depend on the animals for everything, including food and help transporting their manyatta huts

A young girl, wearing traditional neck beads and showing signs of malnutrition, carries a plastic yellow water carton above her head as she walks across the parched land

Siblings use their donkeys and a handwoven basket to carry their water bottles across the barren landscape to a deep water hole dug by the village's women in Labei, located around 50 miles southeast of a flowing river in the town of Lodwar

Here women, including those that are pregnant, walk around 12 miles each day in an unimaginable quest to find water in one of the driest places on earth. If successful, they carry 20-litre cartons atop of their heads back to their children, husbands and animals. A family has an average of 10 children.

In the village of Labei, we encountered young women, adorned with beautiful colourful neck beads and their trademark mohawk-style haircut, carry out the exhausting work of lifting water up to the surface from a 12-foot hole they had dug with their hands and a small spade.

They estimated the newly formed waterhole, named Sasak Echoke, contained enough brown liquid to last them just a few days.

At the top of the hole, men and children poured buckets of the pungent water into makeshift troughs for the camels, goats and donkeys to drink from. These animals are the nomadic tribe's livelihood.

In their polygamous society, camels are used as dowry when a man wants to make a woman his wife. Men take as many wives as they can afford and girls are believed to be ready for marriage as soon as they hit puberty, despite Kenyan law stating both men and women must be 18 before they can wed.

A mother-of-eight named Nakunyuko Lomaritoi told how she had recently lost her daughter (right) for two days while she was out searching for water. Thankfully she was found alive

A woman was recently killed when one of the pits collapsed on her and her body remains buried at the site

The woman scooped brown dirty water from the hole which locals estimated would last them just a few more days. Conflicts have broken out between different villages fighting for water

The Turkana tribe, which is the second largest pastoralist community in Kenya after the Maasais, live in one of the harshest and most inhospitable places on Earth

Meanwhile, goats - and their blood - are a main food source for the tribe.

The animals can also be sold for weapons, which are now much needed to protect the tribe from livestock raids by other groups. Men in the village, which is more than 50 miles southeast of a flowing river in the town of Lodwar, are having to trek as far as the Ugandan border to graze their animals and conflicts have occurred.

We spoke to a mother-of-eight named Nakunyuko Lomaritoi, with the help of the local government chief Simon Moya acting as a translator, who told us how she had recently lost her daughter for two days while she was out searching for water.

'I have 46 donkeys and drive them for three miles to get water,' she explained. Remarkably in this arid landscape, the child was found alive and the pair were reunited.

Another family's story had no such happy ending. One father told us how his son died when they were out grazing their goats away from home and ran out of water.

Turkana women all wear similar hairstyles and only shave their head completely when their husband dies. They adorn themselves with colourful beads made from glass, seeds, cowry shells or iron and don't remove their necklaces unless they are ill or mourning a relative. Married women will also wear a plain metal ring around the neck, acting as a wedding ring

Camels are one of only three types of animals that have survived the drought. All the tribe's sheep have died. Boys and men are in charge of herding the livestock and taking them to graze, a job that in this climate can take days to complete

Children in the community are involved in collecting water which means they dont get any schooling

Young boys involved in caring for animals are seen holding canes as they take their livestock to graze and find water

The village dug their water hole in the area after noticing this thriving tree, which indicated to them that there was water underground

Donkey parents and their babies catch some shade away from the midday sun. Temperatures in this part of Turkana in November often reach 36 degrees

Turkana people are polygamous, meaning men often have more than one wife. Camels are used as a dowry, with some brides being 'sold' for as many as 200 of the animals

Hardy goats survive despite the desolate landscape. Locals cook them, drink their blood and sell them for weapons

Women in Labei described the extreme difficulties they are facing as they try to find water for their children. They are forced to leave them alone from sunrise to sunset as they go out searching. The children appeared malnourished and lethargic

Mothers carry 20 litre cartons of water atop of their heads and children have invented ways to help out by kicking and rolling bottles

While driving through bone-rattling desert, we found a group of men starting to dig a new hole with a small spade. Turkana men carry small seats carved out of wood which double up as pillows when they sleep

Incidents of male suicides have also been reported, along with thousands of animal deaths. Many of the tribe are unaware of the concept of climate change and still believe that there is a curse and a sacrifice is needed to cure the drought.

During MailOnline's meeting with this community, we saw the striking effect dehydration was having on the tribe's children. They appeared listless and laid under the tree in the shade, too lethargic to even swat away flies.

'Children have cooked blood from camels and goats for their daily meal,' Chief Simon said. 'Morning to sunset people are fighting for water,' he added.

The current average life expectancy in the region is around 50 years old.

In stark contrast to the desperate scenes in Labei, the following day we visited a project that has offered hope to some Turkana people as the rains show no sign of returning.

British charity the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA), which helps working animals around the world and the communities that rely on them, have stepped in to help by providing a 45,000 solar-powered borehole.

Located a bone-rattling two and a half hour drive from the small town of Lodwar, the community fortunate enough to receive the lifeline are rarely visited by aid groups because of their extremely remote location.

Overjoyed tribeswomen greeted us with dancing and singing as we arrived at a new solar-powered borehole paid for by British charity the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) and implemented by their local partner Practical Action

These women now live close to their borehole and no longer have to spend all day going to find water. 'We are so happy with the donors who thought of our suffering. Thank you, thank you,' one mother said

The tribe live in small dwellings called manyattas made from palm leaves, wood, and animal skins. Mothers and their children live in a separate hut to the husband, who sleeps in his own one which is suitable for conjugal visits

A married woman rests inside her manyatta with a small relative, surrounded by tradition animal skin water carriers

A young girl carries a baby and a tub of water away from the borehole as goats and camels take their turn to drink

The 110-metre borehole is deep enough to reach the water table and is providing fresh, clean water for 4,200 people and 9,000 animals. This is thousands more than first estimated.

As we pulled up to the borehole, women surrounded our cars dancing, singing and ululating in a loud and colourful welcome. Inquisitive children stared, pointed at our cameras and giggled as we showed them their photos. Even the men, holding their traditional canes and the small wooden stools they use as seats and pillows, broke out into a performance of thanks.

'This water has improved their lives,' said Chief Simon. 'The kids used to stay here alone along the dry river until the evening when their mothers came back with water - now they can stay together,' he explained.

The women dressed in colourful robes, including married ladies marked out by the silver rings around their necks, described how they can now wash again and take pride in their appearance.

The tribe sleep in huts, called manyattas, made from leaves and adorned with animal hides. Women reside in a hut with their children, while a husband has his own hut for women to visit him.

Camels formed an orderly line to drink from their new trough. Water is pumped from the solar-powered borehole into troughs for animals - big and small - after just two hours of bright sunshine. 'The effect of this project is quite clear, its absolutely amazing,' said SPANA Chief Executive Geoffrey Dennis

Children living in the village by the borehole were brimming with energy. Some of them may now be able to attend school and there are hopes to build a medical centre nearby

Community chief Simon Moya (pictured, rear) said: 'This water has improved their lives. The kids used to stay here alone along the dry river until the evening when their mothers came back with water - now they can stay together'

The 45,000 solar-powered borehole was sponsored by SPANA and built with the help of Practical Action. Pictured left: Practical Action regional director Farida Bulhan-Aliwa and SPANA chief executive Geoffrey Dennis check out the taps that are now providing clean drinking water for 4,200 people. Pictured right: Turkana woman Awesit Naukay who is on the water committee

Women arrive with their containers to gather clean water from the new borehole. The solar-powered technology provides water from 110 metres underground

One mother sparked laughter among the whole group as she told us: 'Men used to be tired when they came home without water but now the family unit is happier husbands used to disappear but now they come home.'

A water committee, made up of five local men and four women, has been formed to manage the borehole and they have agreed to a yearly fee of 500 Kenyan shillings (3.80) per household to maintain it. The solar-powered technology is not just environmentally sustainable but also low maintenance.

One woman on the committee, Awesit Naukay, said: 'Now we share water with our neighbours when we used to fight with them, they used to raid our livestock and take them away.

'Young boys and girls are now healthy and none have died since we got water. We are so happy with the donors who thought of our suffering. Thank you, thank you.'

'We are going to bring a school and health facility here because of this water,' added Chief Simon.

Not only are the people healthier but the tribe's animals are also thriving and wild fruits have begun to grow once more. One village elder said he hopes to start rearing sheep again after they all died in the drought.

Because the tribe's basic need for water has now been met thanks to the borehole, the women are starting to think of business ideas and options for sending their children to school.

Mother-of-six Atir Acheme summed up the mood of the village as she told us: 'I'm happy because no one is thirsty here, even our livestock. Our children are lively and playing. We have no problems like before'

Atir Acheme is part of a water committee formed by the tribe to manage the running of the borehole. They have agreed to a yearly fee of 500 Kenyan shillings (3.80) per household to maintain it

Smiling children listened in as their parents described how the borehole has changed their lives and given them hope for the future

Chief Executive of SPANA, Geoffrey Dennis, who travelled with MailOnline to visit the project, said: 'We need to think about the long-term because clearly, this is so successful that you're actually getting different villages coming into this area for water.

'In time we may need to think about other similar projects in surrounding areas because it's going to attract many people. There have been conflicts in the past and we need to be aware that this could happen in the future.'

SPANA receives no government funding but Mr Dennis believes the UK government 'should do more'.

'If this area continues with very few rains for the next few years, which it probably will, there will be a lot of people who start drifting towards Nairobi and people will think "let's move to Europe" or wherever, so I very strongly encourage people to support people in the communities and keep them there.'

'I hope we can have more projects similar to this, the people are amazing they are really friendly people, I have high hopes that we will develop happy communities that actually have a good livelihood and that's exactly what we saw here,' he added.

One striking mother-of-six, named Atir Acheme, summed up the mood of the village as she told us: 'I'm happy because no one is thirsty here, even our livestock.

'Our children are lively and playing. We have no problems like before.'

Pointing to her beautiful patterned blue dress, she added: 'I used to not dress like this, look at me now.'
President Donald Trump is defending a Republican senator from Mississippi who praised one of her own supporters by saying she would attend a 'public hanging' if the supporter invited her - a remark that has stirred strong emotions in a state with a history of racially motivated lynchings.

Trump said at the White House on Tuesday that Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is 'a tremendous woman' who loves the people of Mississippi and the U.S.

The Mississippi recount Senate race is taking a nasty turn as President Trump prepares to campaign in the state with dirty stories dropping about both candidates - Hyde-Smith and Democratic rival Mike Espy.

Trump, who will hold two rallies for Hyde-Smith on Monday, the day before voters go to the polls in the runoff election, defended her as a 'spectacular senator.'

President Donald Trump defended Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith as he prepares to campaign for her in her run off election

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has come under fire for a 2014 Facebook post that shows her wearing a Confederate Army hat

Walmart is asking back its contributions to her campaign

'She made a statement which I know that she feels very badly about it. And it was just sort of said in jest,' the president told reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday.

'It's a shame that she has to go through this. I think she's going to do very well. I really believe she's going to do very well,' he added.

Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in April to fill Thad Cochran's seat when he stepped down for health reasons, is in a run off election with Espy after neither received over 50 percent of the vote on Election Day.

A video published Nov. 11 shows Hyde-Smith praising a supporter at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: 'If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row.'

She said in a statement that the expression was an 'exaggerated expression of regard' and said it is 'ridiculous' to read any negative connotation into it, but she has refused to answer questions about it.

Hyde-Smith is expected to face more questions Tuesday night as she faces Espy in their only debate.

Espy, a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the state's first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

Walmart asked Hyde-Smith to return a $2,000 campaign contribution because of the hanging remark.

Mike Espy campaigning in Mississippi on Friday

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smit talks to Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes at a meeting; she is under fire for a comment she made about saying she would attend a public hanging

Democrats are sending in the big guns, like Sen. Kamala Harris (right), to campaign with Espy

Hyde-Smith's campaign did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about whether it would refund Walmart's contribution.

Campaign spokeswoman Melissa Scallan said the senator was focusing on debate preparation.

The campaign also did not immediately respond to questions about a 2014 post on Hyde-Smith's personal Facebook page about her visit to Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi, the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Hyde-Smith was the elected state agriculture commissioner at the time.

The post was labeled 'Mississippi history at its best' and had four photos, including one of Hyde-Smith holding a rifle and wearing a Confederate military cap.

'I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi,' she wrote on the post.

Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins said Tuesday that the company donated to Hyde-Smith Nov. 8.

That was two days after Hyde-Smith and Espy advanced from a field of four candidates to go to a Nov. 27 special election runoff, but three days before release of the video with the 'public hanging' remark.

'Sen. Hyde-Smith's recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates,' Jenkins said in a statement. 'As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations.'

Senate races rarely gain national attention in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state. But this matchup - the last major race of 2018 midterms - has drawn scrutiny after Hyde-Smith's remarks.

Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41 percent of the vote when four candidates were on the ballot Nov. 6.

If she wins the Nov. 27 runoff, Hyde-Smith would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate.

Espy, who served in former President Barack Obama's administration, has his own star power come campaign for him.

Vice President Biden endorsed him and Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have been in Mississippi to tout his candidacy.

Democrats are hoping to repeat the success they had in a December special election in Alabama, when a surge of African-American turnout led to Democrat Doug Jones defeat of Republican Roy Moore, who had been accused of improper behavior with teenage girls.

But Espy is struggling with bad news of his own.

He accepted $750,000 in lobbying fees on behalf of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo - an African despot currently on trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, Fox News reported.

Espy told The Hill newspaper he dropped his three-month contract with the country just a little more than a month on the job and collected just $400,000 of the $750,000.

Yet according to a FARA Supplemental Statement filed with the Department of Justice in 2011, Espy collected the full $750,000 figure and dropped the contract just 15 days before it was supposed to end.

'Secretary Espy worked on agricultural issues for international clients,' Danny Blaton, the Espy campaign communications director, told Fox News. 'Over the course of that work, he realized one of those clients didn't pass the smell test, so he terminated the contract, and then reported what he knew to the U.S. government.'

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith appeared at a news conference at the state Republican Party headquarters in Jackson, Miss., last week

Sen. Cory Booker speaks on Espy's behalf on Monday

The contest has intensified since the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted a video clip Nov. 11 on social media, showing Hyde-Smith's 'public hanging' comment.

The same Louisiana-based publisher, Lamar White Jr. of The Bayou Brief, posted another video clip Nov. 15, showing Hyde-Smith at a Nov. 3 event in Starkville talking about 'liberal folks' and making it 'just a little more difficult' for them to vote. Her campaign has said she was joking about hurdles to voting.

Mississippi has a history of lynchings and violent suppression of black voting rights, and critics denounced her remarks as ignorant at best and racist at worst.

Bishop Ronnie Crudup, senior pastor of predominantly black New Horizon Church International in Jackson, said Hyde-Smith's hanging remark was 'highly offensive.'

'That statement has historical context to it, and it shows that she doesn't really know black people,' said Crudup, who is supporting Espy. 'This is something that has everybody in an uproar because, in 2018, you want to think that we're beyond this. And probably for most of my folks, too, what makes it worse is not to apologize about it.'

Merle Flowers, a white former colleague of Hyde-Smith's in the Mississippi Senate, said she is being unfairly criticized for the 'public hanging' comment.

'She's a fine Christian woman and she meant no ill will in what she said. I believe the national media has blown it out of proportion,' said Flowers, a Republican who is treasurer of Mississippi Victory Fund, a super PAC that has spent nearly $790,000 to help Hyde-Smith in the special election.

Trump carried Mississippi by 18 points in the 2016 election.
British auction house Bonhams has been heavily criticised by conservation groups for holding an upcoming sale of a collection of rhino horn carvings.

Bidding for the 21-lot collection, titled 'Exceptional Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Carvings from the Angela Chua Collection', is scheduled for next Tuesday in Hong Kong and is expected to fetch up to 3 million.

The auction comes just weeks after China's reversal of a 25-year ban on rhino horn and tiger bones. Domestic trade and use of the animal products would be allowed under 'special circumstances'.

The Chinese authorities decided last week to postpone the lifting of the ban following an outcry from environmentalists around the world, some of whom called it a 'death warrant' for the animals.

One of the carved rhino horn libation cups in the collection is expected to fetch 800,000. British auction house Bonhams has been heavily criticised for holding the upcoming sale

The 'Romance of the Western Chamber' libation cup is worth up to 300,000

The Chinese authorities decided last week to postpone the lifting of the rhino horn and tiger ban following an outcry from environmentalists around the world

The antiques up for sale are mostly libation cups - communal drinking vessels used on important ceremonial occasions - made out of rhinoceros horns and are from a single collector who purchased the items from various places.

Animal protection and conservation charity Humane Society International on Tuesday called on Bonhams to cancel the upcoming sale, slamming the auctioneers as 'tone deaf' to global efforts to stop rhino poaching.

'The high price tag for these carved horns risks incentivising poachers and traffickers who are killing rhinos at an alarming rate, and is at complete odds with international efforts to reduce demand for rhino horn,' said Iris Ho, senior specialist for Wildlife Program and Policy at the organisation.

Auctions like this essentially put a target on the rhino's head, she added, and the auction demonstrates the need for a complete and permanent ban on rhino horns following the Chinese government's controversial decision.

A black rhino at Dvur Kralove Zoo to have its horns removed to save it from poachers. Rhino horn is made primary from keratin - a protein found in fingernails and hair - and is said to help treat everything from cancer to hangovers when consumed

Rhino horn is made from keratin - a protein found in fingernails and hair - and the product is said to help treat everything from cancer to gout when consumed in its powder form

Bidding for the 21-lot collection, titled 'Exceptional Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Carvings from the Angela Chua Collection', is scheduled for next Tuesday in Hong Kong

'The last thing the rhinos need is for this disastrous action to go ahead and reminding the world - and the criminal underworld - how valuable their horns are in China and elsewhere,' she said.

Bonhams' Chinese Works of Art department says carvings made from rhinoceros horn are part and parcel of China's cultural history, according to South China Morning Post.

'The carvings were particularly admired during the Ming and Qing dynasties from the 16th to the 19th century, a time when rhinoceros were not deemed to be endangered. Such carvings were made for the imperial court as well as to the literati and therefore form an integral part of China's cultural heritage,' it says.

Bonhams says all the rhinoceros horn carvings it offers are antique, carry the necessary CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) licenses and adhere to strict laws and regulations, according to the report.

MailOnline has reached out to Bonhams for further comment.

Auction comes weeks after China's reversal of a 25-year ban on rhino horn and tiger bones

Ivory tusks, rhino horns and leopard skins seized by Hong Kong customs officials displayed during a press conference in 2013. China last month revised a law on the ban of rhino horn and tiger bone products that would now allow domestic trade of the products in 'special cases

Despite auctions houses coming under pressure to stop sales of rhino horn items, the animal product remains highly popular with collectors in China where there is a market for fake or counterfeit antique rhino horn.

It is legal in Hong Kong to sell pre-CITES rhino horn, horns that pre-date the appendix listing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Rhinoceros poaching is still at crisis levels in South Africa. A total of 1,028 rhinos were poached in the country last year, meaning three of the endangered animals were killed every day, according to international conservation charity Save the Rhino.

Rhino horn is made primary from keratin - a protein found in fingernails and hair - and is said to help treat everything from cancer to hangovers when consumed.

However, there are no proven medicinal benefits in humans from the product.
Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke cast blame for the deadliest wildfires in California history on environmentalists who have sought to stop forest management practices, such as forest thinning.

In a teleconference on Tuesday Zinke said 'radical environmental groups that would rather burn down the entire forest than cut a single tree or thin the forest' have brought 'lawsuit after lawsuit' to stop forest management.

'Yes, I do lay it on the feet,' of environmentalists, he said just after remarking: 'It's not time to finger point.'

Zinke also noted other factors, such as hotter temperatures, historic drought conditions, and a number of dead and dying trees were also to blame.

Remains of 79 victims have so far been recovered since the Camp Fire erupted on November 8 and largely obliterated the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people.

Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke (above) blamed the California wildfires on 'radical environmentalist groups' who've sued the federal government over forest management

As Interior Secretary Zinke oversees the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service - putting him in charge of the vast majority of federally-owned land in the US.

He shares land management duties with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who has made similar remarks about the misguided efforts of 'well-meaning environmentalists'.

One of the groups that has sued the government over forest practices is the Center for Biological Diversity.

The group's lands director Randi Spivak said there have been just 38 lawsuits over the federal government's 576 forest management decisions involving California from 2009 to 2017.

'When Zinke says it is due to extreme environmentalists he has no basis in fact,' Spivak said.

She said climate change and increased development of forest zones prone to wildfires caused the destruction.

At least 79 people were killed after fires broke out across the state earlier this month

Zinke is seen center during a visit to the devastated town of Paradise in Northern California

Zinke first blamed environmentalists in an interview on Breitbart News after visiting communities hit by the California wildfires.

Another environmentalist said blaming green groups was easier than curbing emissions linked to higher temperatures and droughts.

'The only radicals here are Trump administration officials who are exploiting a climate tragedy to try to benefit their friends in the timber industry,' said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice.

Over the weekend when President Donald Trump visited California he said Finland's President Sauli Niinisto had recently told him the country rarely has wildfires because 'they spend a lot of time raking and cleaning and doing things' to clear the forest floor.

Niinisto has said raking did not come up in his conversation with Trump.

Perdue said forest management practices need to be sped up, and he hoped that US agencies could get more authority to do so under a farm bill being debated.

'There are things we can do, we need the authority to do that,' he said.

The Department of Agriculture's Forest Service would like to expand the so-called 'good neighbor authority' it has with US states to Native American tribes, counties and other partnerships to protect homes and lives through cooperative agreements or contracts, Perdue said.

The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service would also like to expand categorical exclusions that allow forest thinning in areas damaged by insects or diseases to prevent fires, he added.

But Perdue said it could take years for authorities to catch up on forest management, such as thinning out the fuel of dead trees and dry underbrush, and improving emergency roads.
Families are being urged to give their DNA in a bid to help authorities identify the scores of people killed by a wildfire that ripped through Northern California.

A rapid testing system can analyze DNA from bone fragments or other remains, then match it to genetic material provided by relatives of the missing to produce results in just two hours

But the technology depends on people coming forward to give a DNA sample via a cheek swab, and so far, there are not nearly as many volunteers as authorities had hoped for.

As of Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the inferno devastated the town of Paradise and surrounding areas, the number of confirmed dead stood at 81 - and the sheriff's list of those unaccounted for had about 700 names.

But only about 60 people had provided samples to pop-up labs at the Butte County Sheriff's office in Oroville and an old Sears building in Chico, where the Federal Emergency Management Agency set up a disaster relief center.

'We need hundreds,' said Annette Mattern, a spokeswoman for ANDE, the Longmont, Colorado, company that is donating the technology.

'We need a big enough sample for us to make a positive ID on these and to also give a better idea of how many losses there actually are.'

Stephen Meer, chief information officer from ANDE, demonstrates his company's Rapid DNA analysis system, which is being used to try to ID victims of the Northern California wildfire

A sheriff deputy photographs a tray of human remains that were recovered from a home that was destroyed by the Camp Fire

Volunteer rescue workers search for human remains in the rubble of burned homes in Paradise

Confusion and conflicting information, the inability of relatives to travel to Northern California and mistrust of the government may be contributing to the low number.

Tara Quinones hadn't heard anything from her uncle, David Marbury, for eight days before she drove north from the San Francisco Bay Area to give a sample Friday.

A worker used a small tool to scrape her cheek, took three swabs of skin and asked her detailed questions about who she was looking for and their relationship.

The uncle's landlord confirmed his house burned down with his vehicle still in the garage, but Quinones had no idea if any remains were found. Marbury's name keeps going on and off the ever-changing list of the missing.

'I did it just to be proactive,' Quinones said Monday. 'This is the one way I could contribute to helping find my uncle.'

Some of those who have given DNA came forward, like Quinones, after learning about the identification effort in their desperate search for a loved one.

Others came after the sheriff's office called to say that remains that probably belonged to a family member had been found.

The technology depends on people coming forward to give a DNA sample via a cheek swab

Mattern declined to say on Tuesday how many victims ANDE's technology has helped identify. Sheriff Kory Honea's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The fire was 75 percent contained on Tuesday. Rain in the forecast for Wednesday through Thanksgiving weekend could aid in fighting the fire but could also bring flash floods and complicate efforts to recover remains.

Once DNA is extracted from the remains, it is placed in a vial that goes into a black machine that looks like a bulky computer printer.

It takes just two hours to process the material and get a DNA profile; traditional methods can take days or weeks. If a relative's DNA is already in the system, a match will pop up right away.

Volunteer members of an El Dorado County rescue team search the ruins of a home, looking for human remains, in Paradise, California, on Sunday

Mattern said it has been surprisingly easy to get DNA from remains, despite the devastating damage done by the flames.

'We went in with pretty measured expectations, we didn't know what we were walking into,' she said.

'We have a tremendous database now of the victims of the fire.'

Ruth Dickover, director of the forensic science graduate program at the University of California-Davis, said that scientists have long been able to extract DNA from bone - a process that involves pulverizing the bone - but things can become more complicated if the remains of multiple people are mixed together.

'What's left may not give you a nice beautiful profile,' she said.

Investigators recover human remains at a home burned in the Camp Fire in Magalia, California

ANDE won a contract in 2009 to do research and development for federal agencies, and the company's technology has been used in pilot programs for several years.

Over the summer, it won FBI approval for use in accredited labs. Law enforcement agencies in Utah, New York and Miami have used the technology, as has the military.

This is the first time ANDE has helped identify victims after a natural disaster. The company has donated seven machines and about a dozen workers to the effort.

Sarah Warren drove an hour and a half from Redding on Monday to report her uncle, Devan Ruel, as missing.

The sheriff's office gave her a number to call about missing people, and when she called, she was told authorities would contact her if they needed her DNA, she said.

She said no one told her about the collection desk at the old Sears, so she returned home without providing one.

'I could have done that so easily, just to be safe,' she said.

Warren hadn't talked to Ruel in about eight years and said the family did not have an address for him.

'He was just an off-the-grid type of guy,' she said. 'If he did perish that way it would be horrific. It deeply, deeply saddens me to even consider that being a possibility.'

Mattern said the sheriff's office is looking for a way to make it easier for families who don't live in Northern California to provide samples.

And in hopes of easing fears that the DNA will be misused, the sheriff's office and the company gave assurances it will be deleted once it is no longer needed.
Permanent terror defences for Sydney's $2.1 billion inner-city light rail won't be in place for a year after the tram line opens because the council wants artists to design heritage-worthy bollards.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore's council has sought artists to design 'inclusive' pedestrian protection barriers, documents obtained by New Corp Australia reveal.

The South East Light Rail, connecting the city with Kensington and Randwick, has already been plagued with delays, and won't be launching until 2020.

Terror defences for Sydney's $2.1 billion light rail (artist's impression pictured) won't be in place for a year after it opens because the council wants heritage-worthy bollards

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore's council has sought artists to design 'inclusive' pedestrian protection barriers (bollards covered by an artist in Melbourne pictured)

City of Sydney council's planned artwork for anti-terror barriers that acknowledge the 'heritage fabric and significance of adjacent spaces and buildings' are not expected to be completed until mid-2021.

For a year after the 12km tram line opens in May 2020, ugly temporary concrete barriers will be in place.

The widening of footpaths along George Street in the city outside key 19th century landmarks, including Town Hall and the Queen Victoria Building, would also present a terror threat, with a car able to mow down pedestrians if there are no barriers in place.

Independent councillor Angela Vithoulkas, whose 17-year-old city cafe business was killed off by the tram construction works, said Lord Mayor Clover Moore's fixation with artistic bollards disregarded the practical needs of the city.

The widening of footpaths along George Street in the city outside key 19th century landmarks, including Town Hall (artist's impression pictured), would also present a terror threat

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore didn't raise the need for anti-terror bollards until early 2017, when James Gargasoulas drove a Holden Commodore (pictured) into a Melbourne crowd

'It's a captain's call. This is strictly a Clover Moore decision,' she told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.

'Councillors are not consulted on these issues.

'There's been a waste of time. The public should be consulted.'

Spanish consortium Acciona, which was awarded the contract in 2014, is already 14 months behind the original March 2019 finish date and costs have doubled to $1.8 billion.

New South Wales government planning began in 2013 with construction on George Street beginning in late 2015.

Independent councillor Angela Vithoulkas, whose 17-year-old city cafe business was killed off by the tram construction works, said the artistic bollards are an unacceptable delay

Clover Moore, however, didn't publicly raise the need for anti-terror bollards until early 2017, when James Gargasoulas, now 28, mowed down pedestrians in Melbourne's Bourke Street mall, killing six people and injuring another 33 bystanders.

Ugly concrete bollards were then installed at Sydney's Martin Place.

Councillor Vithoulkas, who has launched a class action against the light rail project for killing off her Vivo cafe on George Street, wondered why artistic bollards would not be in place until 2021.

'Frankly, I'm disappointed and disgusted that we are so wrapped up in design, which we should be, but it should coincide with projects,' she said.

'There is no reason for the people of the city to face delays in something that is vital to complementing the city and keeping us safe. It's disregard for the timing.'

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore (pictured) has been accused of making a 'captain's call' on artistic bollards without consulting fellow councillors

A City of Sydney council spokeswoman said the local government would not have control of the light rail route, along George and Alfred streets, until Transport for NSW had signed off on the completed project.

She added counter terrorism barriers and temporary concrete blocks were already in place along sections of George Street and would stay there until the council had a permanent solution.

'These will remain in place and be reviewed and upgraded until the City's long-term security measures are installed,' she said in a statement.

'We all agree public safety is our number one priority.

'Businesses on George Street who are spending more than $5 billion on the redevelopment of their businesses have asked us to ensure security measures are appropriate for the main street of a global city.'
The Broward Sheriff's Office announced that Capt. Jan Jordan resigned

The Florida sheriff's captain who oversaw the initial response to February's Parkland high school massacre resigned Tuesday and the first sergeant to arrive at the scene has been suspended over what other law enforcement officials saw as their inaction during the initial minutes after the first shots were fired.

The Broward Sheriff's Office announced that Capt. Jan Jordan resigned and Sgt. Brian Miller was placed on paid suspension pending an internal investigation.

He was ordered to surrender his gun, badge and car and not to perform any law enforcement duties.

Jordan oversaw the city of Parkland on Feb. 14 when a gunman killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Law enforcement officers told investigators she appeared to be in a trancelike state and overwhelmed as she tried to direct the initial response to the attack.

Miller arrived at the school during the shooting but video shows he stayed outside the parking lot until long after the massacre ended, even as other law enforcement officers entered the building.

At the request of a state commission investigating the massacre, the sheriff's office had not immediately conducted its own inquiry into its deputies' actions.

An investigator for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission gave a report last week that was heavily critical of both Jordan and Miller.

Jordan never ordered deputies into the three-story freshman building where the shootings happened, the report said.

Jordan oversaw the city of Parkland on Feb. 14 when a gunman killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Although her radio frequently failed because the system was overloaded, her first transmission ordered a perimeter to be formed around the school.

She arrived at Stoneman Douglas about 10 minutes after the shooting began.

'Jan Jordan was overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed,' Gregory Lees, deputy chief of the nearby Coconut Creek Police Department, told investigators.

He arrived at the command post shortly after the shooting.

'I could see it. I tried to help her.'

Jordan was removed as Parkland's commander in June.

Shots were still being fired when Miller arrived at the school and parked on a road a few hundred feet from the freshman building, video shows.

Commissioners said Miller should have taken command as ranking deputy on the scene, but he instead took a position behind his patrol car and never made a radio call.

He then stood by as officers from neighboring Coral Springs and later arriving deputies ran past him into the building.

'He heard gunshots and he didn't move,' said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission's chairman.

Sheriff Scott Israel had no comment on Jordan's resignation but said after reviewing the commission's report he felt it 'prudent' to relieve Miller of duty.

Israel has also been heavily criticized by the parents of some slain students, who have called on Gov. Rick Scott to suspend him from office.

The shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, is seen above in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom on April 27

Scott has refused.

Phone numbers for Jordan and Miller could not be located.

The Broward Deputies Association, which represents patrol officers like Miller, did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

Commission member Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina died in the shooting, said Tuesday that in light of the commission's findings, 'it was the honorable thing for Capt. Jordan' to resign.

He said Israel promised the commission last week he would take swift action against deputies who failed to perform during the shooting, so he was glad to see Miller suspended.

Now, he said, Israel should 'follow Capt. Jordan's example' and resign.

Another Broward deputy, Scot Peterson, was the longtime resource officer at Stoneman Douglas.

He retired in February after video showed that he got to the building about a minute after the first shots were fired but drew his gun and took cover.

Petty said he is still waiting for Broward school Superintendent Robert Runcie to follow through on the swift discipline he promised last week against any Stoneman Douglas administrator found to have not taken appropriate action against shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz when he attended the school.

A commission investigator testified last week that two students said they reported Cruz to an administrator in December 2016 after one of them said Cruz threatened to shoot up the school.

They disagreed on whether they spoke to Principal Ty Thompson or Assistant Principal Jeff Morford, but agreed the administrator dismissed their concerns and blamed Cruz's behavior on his autism.

They said the administrator told them Cruz would be out of the school soon. Cruz was removed from the school three months later.

A mother of one of the teens said she spoke to Thompson the next day, upset with her son's treatment.

She told investigators Thompson said that if she didn't like how the school was run, she should remove her son.

Thompson and Morford told investigators the meetings never happened, but Gualtieri said other than the disagreement on which administrator they contacted, the boys' and mother's stories corroborated each other.

Cruz, 20, is charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder and faces a possible death sentence.

His attorneys have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
A 69-year-old man who posted a newspaper advert in a desperate bid to find his son has been revealed to be a retired Sydney millionaire.

Patrick Murnan placed the cryptic ad in a Sydney paper on Saturday asking for a man named Jaime who grew up in Victoria to get in touch.

The advert contained sparse details and the name of a lawyer to contact should a reader have any information.

It has now emerged the father's health is failing and he wants to ensure he can leave his estate to his biological children.

Patrick Murnan, 69, placed a cryptic ad in a Sydney paper on Saturday asking for information on his long-lost son (stock image)

'If you are called JAMIE and were born in Casino about 1967 and moved to Grafton and have lived in Victoria and your mother's name was Robyn and stepfather's name was Arthur, please get in touch with Malcolm Carr of Metro Lawyers,' the classified ad read.

Mr Murnan grew up on a farm at Fairy Hill near Casino, where his son was later born.

'Jamie' is one of three sons Mr Murnan has tried to track down in recent years.

Mr Murnan has not laid eyes on his son since he was a toddler, following a relationship breakdown with the boy's mother who he says 'ran off with a mate of mine'.

He has spoken to him, however.

'I rang his mother in the 1980s and Jamie answered the phone. But I didn't tell him I was his father,' Mr Murnan told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Murnan said that was the last time he contacted Jamie or his mother.

The millionaire has successfully located his other two sons - from a different relationship - who also reside in Sydney.

Mr Murnan has three sons - two of which he recently located. The millionaire says he wants to hand down his property in Sutherland Shire (stock image) to the trio

Mr Murnan told the publication he made 'millions' when he moved to the city by buying up and reselling failing businesses.

The 68-year-old suffered a stroke 10 years ago and says he plans on handing down his Sutherland Shire property to his three biological children.

'I'm not getting any younger and my health is not the best and I thought why don't I get in touch with my son,' he said.

'I've never forgotten the boys, they were always on my mind,' he said.

'Whatever I've got left has to go to them.'
A teacher has been slammed for vowing on Facebook to 'ensure the next generation of voters in my classroom don't vote Liberal' on the eve of strike action.

Regina Wilson, 58, from South Australia's Woodville High School in north-west Adelaide, deleted her controversial post after being contacted by media.

Wilson, a union delegate, commented on the Australian Education Union Facebook page that she would teach students to question 'those who seek to keep the status quo for the rich, upper classes and refuse to acknowledge the rest of us'.

Teacher Regina Wilson was slammed in South Australia's Parliament for saying in a FaceBook comment she would try to make sure her students never voted Liberal. Ms Wilson said she would never actually try to influence her students politically, and was just venting to friends

Wilson told The Australian that she was not allowed to politically influence her students and that she had never attempted to do so in the classroom.

'I just made a comment to my (Facebook) friends because I didn't think it would go public. I would never, ever do that and I have never, ever done that,' she was quoted as saying.

'Even when students have asked me how I was going to vote, I've never, ever done it; I've always behaved professionally.'

Ms Wilson, a union delegate, came under fire in South Australia's Parliament for her Facebook comments as the Australian Education Union South Australia votes on whether to strike

The post was made on the Australian Education Union South Australia branch Facebook page on October 26, a day of teacher protest in South Australia.

The Australian Education Union is at loggerheads with South Australia's new Liberal government which was elected in March under Premier Steven Marshall.

South Australian teachers will vote this week on whether to strike for the first time in 10 years, with November 29 the most likely date for the walk-off.

South Australia's Woodville High School, where Regina Wilson teaches, has become the subject of debate over political interference and influence in the classroom

The teachers' union is angry that the Marshall Government has rejected almost all of their demands during enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations.

The union wants class sizes to be reduced and more incentives for teachers to work in the country, along with resources for special-needs children.

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas, who is the minister responsible for enterprise bargaining, slammed the teacher's Facebook post as 'outrageous and unacceptable' in Parliament on November 8.

'They are clearly an indication of a deliberate decision to introduce partisan political politics into that particular teacher's classroom,' he said.

The Australian Education Union post supporting the Labor Party's election promise. Controversy has arisen over the potential for unions to interfere with neutrality in classrooms

The Australian Education Union's national AEU Facebook page has posts asking for asylum seekers on Nauru be brought to Australia, and promotes Labor Party policies.

A post on October 10 welcomed Labor's election promise of $14.1 billion funding for public schools.

Comments on the chain included: 'Those who wouldn't vote for levels of funding like this make my skin curl, I mean crawl.'

Daily Mail Australia asked for teacher guidelines on political neutrality from the federal Department of Education and Training, and was told it was the responsibility of state and territory education authorities.

Daily Mail Australia contacted the Australian Education Union for comment, but they were unable to reply by time of publication.

Daily Mail Australia also tried but was unable to contact Regina Wilson through the South Australian branch.
Adam McKay, a former writer for Saturday Night Live, wrote and directed Vice, the new biopic about Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney is being portrayed as a man hell-bent on war who began plotting invasions during the 9/11 attacks and cynically sold out his lesbian daughter so that his other daughter could advance her political career, according to a profile about the new film Vice.

The films writer and director, Adam McKay, reveals that he is anticipating a sharp political backlash, particularly since he has come out in support of liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Not only does he expect conservatives to fiercely blast the film, but establishment Washington types are also likely to disapprove, McKay told The Hollywood Reporter.

George W. Bush is really going to hate this movie, McKay says of the film, which is due to open in theaters nationwide on Christmas Day.

I think there's going to be a backlash from the Bob Woodwards of the world, who went the opposite direction with the narrative.

Their idea was, Bush is smarter than you think. He actually did a lot.

I did a lot of research on that. And boy, do I strongly disagree.

I couldn't find any evidence that Bush was surprisingly competent. I just didn't see it.

Cheney is portrayed in the film by actor Christian Bale (above), who gained weight and did meticulous research for the role

Bale was so obsessive in his research that he reached out repeatedly to Cheney for a face-to-face sit down - only to be told by lawyers that he was to never try to contact the former Vice President. Bale is seen left as an older Cheney and right as a younger Cheney

Amy Adams, 44, plays Lynne Cheney, the ambitious and supportive wife

'I like that she wasn't afraid to be ambitious at a time when ambition in women wasn't as encouraged,' the actress explained

McKay is a former write for Saturday Night Live who has gone on to successful filmmaking ventures such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and its sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues; Talladega Night: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; and The Big Short, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

His work has evolved from Will Ferrell-starring comedies to films that take on more serious subjects.

Vice, which cost $60million to make, stars Christian Bale as the former Vice President; five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney; Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell as President George W. Bush; Steve Carell as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; and Tyler Perry as Secretary of State Colin Powell.

McKay says that he felt compelled to make a movie about the Bush-Cheney years in order to better understand the circumstances which he says laid the groundwork for Donald Trump.

Sam Rockwell, an Oscar-winning actor, portrays President George W. Bush in the film

Bush's Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is played by Steve Carell (above)

Secretary of State Colin Powell is played by Tyler Perry (above)

Highly anticipated: The upcoming Dick Cheney biopic Vice is garnering plenty of awards season buzz. McKay, Bale, and Adams are seen on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter's latest issue

After Trumps 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, McKays says he had second thoughts about whether to go through with the film.

I had this moment, Should we go ahead with this? and then we discussed it and said, It's actually more relevant. This is the story of how we got here, he says.

In the filming and the editing of it, it was eerie how much it kept lining up with the [present] world.

McKay says he would choose Trump over Bush and Cheney because Cheney was the safe-cracker, the professional you brought in who knew all the ins and outs of our government. He was the ultimate gamesman.

With Trump, the front door to the White House is wide open. There's deer and dogs and hyenas running around. And this guy is like an orangutan just throwing shit around.

But Cheney was the grand master who finished the deal. Donald Trump has no belief system.

So I would take the hyenas, the random wild animals running through the White House over Cheney any day of the week.

McKay says he believes that if Cheney were still in office, they would have invaded Iran.

Bale told THR that he meticulously prepared for the role of Cheney, up to and including making numerous attempts to sit down with the former Vice President.

But lawyers intervened and told Bale that under no circumstances should he try to contact Cheney.

He wrote 100 pages of notes about Cheney, even researching the names of his golden retrievers.

I would greatly have liked to have met with him, if only to have him insult me and kick me out of his house. To me, that's honorable, Bale says.

I spoke with some [of Cheney's] friends who would say, Let's get Dick on the phone, and they would call.

And the phone would be ringing and I would be thinking, I'm about to speak with Dick Cheney, and then it would go to voicemail.

And then, unfortunately as is the case with everything, lawyers ruined it.

McKay says he had lawyers and journalists thoroughly vet the film for historical and factual accuracy.

The film, which McKay says was vetted by journalists and lawyers for accuracy, claims Cheney encouraged daughter Liz's anti-gay stance even though his other daughter, Mary, is married to a woman. From left: Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney, Mary Cheney, and Liz Cheney in August 2000

Dick Cheney is also depicted in the film as so hell-bent on war that he began planning invasions even before all four hijacked airplanes crashed on September 11, 2001. The World Trade Center (above) is seen after two planes fly into each of the Twin Towers on that day

In March 2003, Cheney and Bush sent U.S. forces to invade Iraq after claiming that Saddam Hussein, the country's then-ruler, had weapons of mass destruction. U.S. Marines pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad on April 9, 2003 as Iraqis look on

The movie will likely attract attention for a number of reasons, the most controversial of which is the claim that Cheney was already planning to invade foreign countries before all four hijacked planes crashed on September 11, 2001.

The film also depicts Cheney as encouraging daughter Lizs tough stance against gay marriage at the expense of his other daughter, Mary, who is married to a woman.

In real life, Cheney, 77, now lives in suburban Washington, D.C. Observers are eager to see if the Cheney family emerges to question aspects of the films accuracy.

In the end, he makes me sad. He almost makes me tear up, McKay says.

I see a guy who gave it all away. And his story is kind of America's story.

I feel the same way about our country now. Cheney had it. America had it.

Like we were rolling into the '70s, and poverty was at an all-time low.

Income inequality was like at an all-time low. I went to Temple University, a city school.

I owed $3,800 in student debt when I left.

The country was working, and unions were strong. You just feel we gave it away.
A man has been charged with rape after allegedly attacking a woman in a McDonald's bathroom.

Townsville detectives charged the 22-year-old following investigations into the sexual assault of a 37-year-old woman at a restaurant in Rasmussen on Sunday.

Officers were called to the Riverway Drive business about 4.45pm after a woman was allegedly attacked in the bathroom.

She was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

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The 37-year-old customer was in the bathrooms at the fast food chain's restaurant in Rasmussen, south west of Townsville, when she was attacked

Officers were called to the Riverway Drive business around 4.45pm after a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in the bathroom by an unknown man

Police were initially searching for an Aboriginal man believed to be about 165cm tall. He was wearing a black shirt and was thought to be between 30-40 years old.

Following the public appeal, officers arrested a man at an address in North Ward at about 2pm on Wednesday.

The man, from Kelso, was charged with 10 offences in total, including five counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault and common assault.

Detective Inspector Chris Lawson, from Queensland Police, told the Townsville Bulletin it was a 'horrendous attack'

He is due to appear in Townsville Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Detective Inspector Chris Lawson, from Queensland Police, told the Townsville Bulletin it was a 'horrendous attack'.

'It was the sort of attack you don't want to see in our community, and it's the sort of attack we are not prepared to accept within our community,' he said.

If you have information for police, contact Policelink on 131 444 or provide information using the online form 24hrs per day.
Using thousands of military troops to help secure the Southwest border will cost an estimated $210million under current plans, the Pentagon told Congress on Tuesday, even as questions arose about the scope and duration of the controversial mission.

The total includes $72million for approximately 5,900 active-duty troops providing support to Customs and Border Protection, plus $138million so far for 2,100 National Guard troops who have been performing a separate border mission since April, according to a report sent to Congress on Tuesday but not released by the Pentagon.

A copy of the report was obtained by The Associated Press.

After the AP published its story the Pentagon released a statement confirming the active-duty portion of the deployments is estimated at $72million.

It did not mention the $138million in National Guard costs.

The total would grow beyond the current combined estimate of $210million if the active-duty mission is extended beyond the current completion date of Dec. 15.

United States Marines fortify concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana, Mexico on Tuesday

Officials said an extension appeared likely but had not yet been agreed upon.

The Pentagon also was working on a potential adjustment to the mission that would give the active-duty troops who are operating in Texas, Arizona and California the authority to defend Customs and Border Protection personnel if necessary.

The troops, who include military police, are currently authorized to defend themselves.

About 2,800 of the active-duty troops are in South Texas, far from the main migrant caravan in Tijuana, Mexico, south of California.

The movement of the Central American migrants into Mexico in October was the stated reason that President Donald Trump ordered the military to provide support for Customs and Border Protection.

Trump, who called the migrant caravan an 'invasion,' has been accused by critics, including some retired military officers, of using the military deployment as a political tool in the run-up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said Tuesday the Pentagon's cost report shows the mission was a 'charade.'

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said Tuesday the Pentagon's cost report shows the mission was a 'charade'

'These soldiers spent weeks away from home and the Pentagon wasted millions of taxpayer dollars so President Trump could stoke fears of asylum seekers and try to influence election results,' she said.

'Using our military men and women as political pawns to support an anti-immigrant agenda is a low point, even for this president.'

On Tuesday, Trump said he was sure the troops are happy to be on the border mission, even though it means being away from home over Thanksgiving.

'Don't worry about the Thanksgiving. These are tough people,' Trump told reporters before flying to Florida for the holiday.

'They know what they're doing and they're great and they've done a great job. You're so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them. They are so proud to be representing our country on the border where if you look at what's happening, Mexico, the people from Tijuana are saying, wow these are tough people. They're fighting us.'

If, as expected, the mission is extended beyond Dec. 14, at least some of the troops are likely also to be away for Christmas.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has declined to publicly discuss cost estimates for the border mission, saying as recently as last week that he had little confidence in the accuracy of figures he had seen thus far.

'We can estimate costs all we want, I'd prefer to give you real costs. Right now, I can't give that to you,' Mattis told reporters last Wednesday when he flew to Texas to see the military's work.

About 2,800 of the active-duty troops are in South Texas, far from the main migrant caravan in Tijuana, Mexico, south of California. The image above shows part of the migrant caravan in the northern Mexico city of Mexicali, near Tijuana, on Tuesday

'It's the cost of deploying them, it's the cost of transferring their equipment to the border, it's fuel costs, it's all those kinds of costs. So, I just don't want to get into something I can't give you what I believe confidently is accurate.'

In its report to Congress on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it expects the deployment of 5,900 active-duty troops through Dec. 15 to cost $72million, while adding that the mission, which is now three weeks old, is still being refined.

The cost includes $19million for personnel, $20million for transportation of personnel, equipment and supplies, $28million in operating expenses and $5million for concertina wire and other border barrier materials.

'The total cost of the operation has yet to be determined and will depend on the total size, duration and scope,' the report said.

It said that as of Nov. 14, about $14 million in actual payments for expenses such as travel, supplies and transportation had been reported by the units involved.

The National Guard's border mission, which is being conducted by troops for numerous states, has cost an estimated $138million as of Tuesday, the Pentagon report said.

That mission, involving about 2,100 troops, began in April.
President Donald Trump took a shot at Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer by noting his daughter landed a job at Facebook  just hours after Schumer called for a probe of the new Trump-appointed acting attorney general.

Trump brought up Alison Schumer, who got married Saturday and has been revealed to bank a $160,000 salary as an executive for tech giant Facebook, as he left the White House for a trip to Mar-a-Lago.

'Schumer's daughter works for Facebook, I just found out today, if you look at what Facebook has been doing, they have explaining to do,' said Trump, on a day when the stock tumbled and the firm remained under fire for its failure to stem Russian election interference during the campaign.

'They are Democratic -- Schumer's daughter worked for Facebook, nobody knew that until now,' Trump said.

President Donald Trump took a shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., by noting that his daughter works for Facebook. Executives of the tech firm have also donated to Schumer's campaign

The president's comment came as several reporters were pinging him with questions on multiple topics simultaneously.

Alison Schumer's gig was the topic of a Fox News report on Tuesday, as well as a New York Post story. Both are favorite outlets of the president.

The senator's youngest daughter wedded Elizabeth Weiland in Brooklyn on Sunday, according to the Post.

The 29-year old's position is as a product marketing manager. She first got a job at the firm out of college, then left and returned.

The New York Times reported that Schumer applied pressure to Democratic Sen. Mark Warner to back off an investigation into Facebook.

The attack came on a day when Schumer called for a probe of the communications of Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general, regarding special counsel Robert Mueller

President Trump made the comment to reporters Tuesday

But it was another investigation that could have gained President Trump's attention.

On Tuesday, Schumer called on the Justice Department's inspector general to probe the communications of the Trump-designated Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker.

Schumer wants the IG to probe whether he had access to confidential information about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Trump named Whitaker, a loyalist who had criticized the probe, when he ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Facebook employees have given a total of $50,000 to Schumer's campaign.

Before he was president, Trump himself was previously a financial contributor to Schumer's campaigns.

Sen. Schumer's office didn't respond to a request for comment.
Federal MP's are required to declare items worth more than $750

An investigation has revealed the extensive perks members of Parliament receive, including concert tickets, free Foxtel subscriptions and frequent flight upgrades.

More than 30 federal MP's have not declared a series of generous donations stretching back to 2016, raising questions about possible conflicts of interest, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Under parliamentary requirements, each MP must register their investments, assets, directorships, any 'substantial sources of income' and gifts valued at more than $750 from officials and $300 from others.

Any sponsored travel or hospitality worth more than $300 must be recorded.

MPs have been handed tickets to see U.S. pop star Taylor Swift and British songstress Adele in concert, as well as seats for the NRL and AFL deciders, according to the publication.

Tickets to Taylor Swift (pictured) were quickly snapped up by Federal MP's in Australia

When global music star Adele (pictured) was in Australia, federal MP's didn't hesitate to put their hands out for free tickets

Other perks for the MP's include TV subscriptions, international and regional tours, complimentary memberships to the elite Qantas Chairman's Lounge and regular hotel upgrades.

Almost 200 bottles of wine and 21 cases of beer from the Queensland and Australian Hotels Associations (AHA) were passed onto Queensland Senator James McGrath, the former assistant minister to the Prime Minister, within the past six months.

A spokesman said the alcohol was donated as 'in-kind support for functions hosted by the senator'.

Senator Bridget McKenzie, the Minister for Regional Services and Sport, declared more than 50 gifts and travel upgrades - but didn't reveal any actual sources until she was contacted by Fairfax Media.

'The requirement to list the sources for gifts and hospitality items is an administrative oversight and will be rectified for all items at the next required update,' a spokesman for the Victorian National senator said.

Craig Kelly, the Liberal MP for Hughes, has not formally recorded any gifts or hospitality expenses since September 2016 - despite going two overseas trips, one of which were funded by a foreign government, according to the SMH.

In April, the Sydney MP travelled to Azerbaijan to observe their presidential election.

He then flew to Japan in July on an all expenses trip paid by the Mineral Council of Australia's COAL21 fund.

Mr Kelly blamed the mix-up on miscommunication within his office.

'The only updates to my register of interests that are required are the trips to Baku and Japan,' he told the publication.

Craig Hughes (pictured), the Liberal MP for Hughes, travelled to Azerbaijan and Japan this year

George Rennie, a lecturer in politics and lobbying at the University of Melbourne, said the 'gravy train' must eventually come to an end.

'Time after time, politicians are caught breaking the rules. They are caught because of a vigilant press, not by those responsible for 'overseeing' the register,' he said.

'When they are caught, they seem to react with a shrug, a 'whoops', and they amend their statement with little further consequence.'

Jason Clare, the Labor MP for Blaxland, has left nothing to chance.

He declared more than 80 items, including a $5 pineapple.
An unsuspecting cafe has lost thousands of dollars after a cunning card switch performed by a tradesman and his mate at the store's cash register.

On Saturday, the men visited family business Caffe Republic at Southport on the Gold Coast, where they left staff out of pocket to the tune of $2,250.

Footage of the tradesmen carrying out the trick was captured on the store's CCTV, which showed one of the men switching bank cards mid-transaction.

On Saturday, the brazen bandits targeted family business Caffe Republic at Southport on the Gold Coast, where they swindled staff out of $2,250

Cafe owner Peter Dufty told Daily Mail Australia the tradesman was extremely convincing playing the role of the 'wronged customer' - even speaking to his wife on the phone to reassure her everything was going to be OK.

Mr Dufty claimed the tradesman changed the amount of his coffee and cake order while entering his PIN - changing the $25 order $2,250 - which he charged to a card he had earlier stolen.

HOW THE SCAM WORKS The conman asks to buy something, but insists he hold the EFTPOS. They then insert a stolen card and change the charge so they stolen card pays over the odds for the goods. The scammer pretends they were accidentally charged the large amount asks for a refund. They quickly slip in their own card and are refunded the large sum to their own account. Advertisement

He then asked for a refund, but charged the refund to another card, allowing him to walk away with the $2,250 in his account.

The cafe owner said the man 'insisted' on holding the EFTPOS machine for security reasons.

'He managed to quickly remove the card, redo the transaction as if we were entering it from a phone call ...and then hands it back to us,' he said

Mr Dufty said when the cashier realised the man had been incorrectly charged and told him, he allegedly 'loses it and acts surprised and demands a refund'.

'The guys contact me for the merchant PIN required to process the refund. As per usual in the industry we do everything to keep the customer happy,' he said.

'Once I confirmed the PIN, the staff refunded the amount to what turned out to be a different card and then he went and withdrew the cash from an ATM.'

An unsuspecting small business has been scammed out of thousands of dollars by two dodgy tradesmen who used a stolen card trick at the cash register

Cafe owner Peter Dufty (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia the tradesman played the role of the wronged customer extremely well

Mr Dufty said it was only when the bank called two hours later and spoke to his wife that they realised they had been swindled by the crooks.

The small business owner said, in a matter of seconds, the tradesman scammers robbed the cafe out of weeks' worth of profits.

Queensland Police Senior Sergent Laurie Shevlin has urged people to take caution, saying it is 'quite a unique crime' that hasn't been seen before on the Gold Coast.

'If you are aware or become a victim or witness to any offence similar to this, please contact Crime Stoppers,' Mr Shevlin said.

Mr Dufty said while they are yet to be reimbursed for the theft, the ordeal has taught them to avoid refunding customers more than $20.
Young part-time workers, students and low income earners are at risk of being trapped in financial debt through buy now pay later schemes like Afterpay.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) highlighted its concerns into the growing popularity of schemes such as Afterpay in a submission to the federal Senate Inquiry into credit and financial services targeted at Australians at risk of financial hardship.

Up to 25 per cent of customers who use Afterpay are experiencing financial stress, according to a recent Mozo nationwide survey of 1000 customers who use Australia's most popular buy now pay later provider.

Now available at many major Australian retailers, buy now pay later schemes allow consumers to pay for a purchase by instalments without incurring upfront charges.

There are downsides to popular buy now pay later schemes such as Afterpay (pictured)

The schemes are not regulated by the National Credit Act, which means providers don't need to consider the income and existing debts of customers.

Around two million consumers have used a buy now pay later arrangement in the last 12 months, according to ASIC data.

'There is a significant level of use of buy now pay later loans by younger consumers who are either students or only part-time employed,' its submission states.

'Some merchants use aggressive sales strategies to target low-income consumers, which can result in sales of goods and services to consumers that they do not need or would have trouble affording.'

One of the biggest risks to consumers is they can be trapped into 'significant' debts of up to $30,000 through these schemes and struggle to pay for more important expenses such as rent, groceries and utilities.

'Because these arrangements can be obtained quickly and can be promoted in a way that focuses consumer attention on relatively small repayment instalments rather than the total purchase price, consumers can be at a higher risk of proceeding with a buy now pay later purchase without carefully considering the total debt that they would incur,' the submission states.

ASIC currently has restricted jurisdiction to address potential risks to consumers using these schemes and has called for more regulation.

Consumers can easily rack up financial debts through the increasingly popular buy now pay later schemes (stock image)

'We consider that ASICs proposed product intervention power should include all credit regulated under the ASIC Act, so that we can act quickly to address any significant consumer detriment to consumers from these arrangements,' the submission states.

'It would minimise regulatory cost and it would therefore foster consumer trust and confidence in buy now pay later arrangements, especially during this period of substantial growth.'

The ASIC report acknowledged Afterpay's support to extend proposed product intervention powers in its submission to the Senate inquiry.

Afterpay chief executive Nick Mollar (pictured) welcomed a proposed extension of Australian Securities and Investment Commission's powers in a submission to the Senate inquiry

'Afterpay supports extending ASICs intervention powers as it will further increase public confidence in our product and ensure additional consumer protection is provided in the case that our product is used in an unintended manner,' the Afterpay submission states.

ASIC will complete and release its own report into buy now, pay later industry later this year.

The Senate inquiry is expected to be released by late February 2019.
Schoolies filmed drinking from beer bongs

School leavers celebrating the end of an era at Schoolies festivities on the Gold Coast have been filmed dangling over balconies to drink from beer bongs.

In shocking footage obtained by Daily Mail Australia, dozens of teenagers from multiple different apartments within one complex can be seen hanging over the edge of their balconies cheering on their mates.

One teenager is seen angling a long beer bong down a friend's throat, encouraging a group on the balcony of the floor above them to pour the beer down the pipe.

The troubling act was greeted by cheers from surrounding Schoolies.

The Queensland government has released guidelines for safety reminding people that failure to comply could lead to eviction from buildings or police arrests.

The advice specifically warns against 'leaning over, sitting on, climbing or hanging off balconies.'

But that hasn't stopped Schoolies posting for selfies on the edge of hotel balconies.

School leavers celebrating the end of an era at Schoolies festivities on the Gold Coast have been filmed dangling over balconies to drink from beer bongs

The first tip issued by the Queensland government was to avoid 'leaning over, sitting on, climbing or hanging off balconies'

BALCONY SAFETY DURING SCHOOLIES Dangerous behaviour on balconies can lead to eviction and even police arrests. The Queensland Government issued tips on balcony safety. Dont sit on, lean over, climb or hang off the side of balconies. Accidents happen  you could slip and fall Never room hop from balcony to balcony. One wrong move could prove fatal Avoid overcrowding. Take it inside or head down to the beach party Dont throw objects  Schoolies is a very busy time and there may be people walking below. Objects thrown or dropped from a height can become dangerous projectiles when they reach the ground Source: QLD Government Advertisement

The warnings were implemented in response to an alarming amount of balcony hopping activities in recent years.

Isabelle Colman, 17, died after falling from a 26th floor balcony at the Chevron Renaissance towers in 2012 while celebrating Schoolies.

In 2016, another 17-year-old was injured falling from a balcony as he leaned over to reach for something he dropped.

Another four Schoolies in the same year were fined for balcony hopping.

The latest craze of draping beer bongs over balconies comes only a day after footage surfaced of a party-goer willingly getting bashed over the head with a glass.

The teen is seen doubling over in pain after his friend whacks him with what appears to be a champagne flute on their balcony.

Shirtless and dangerously close to the edge, the party-goer stumbles, having to grab onto the railing for support to steady himself.

His mates are then heard laughing in the background, before asking him to 'go again'.

Dozens of teenagers from multiple different apartments within the one complex can be seen hanging over the edge of their balconies cheering on the activity

Schoolies have been urged to take care and be sensible while hanging out on balconies

Two more teenagers showed disregard for their lives after standing close to the edge of a high-rise apartment.

A young man could be seen opening a window in the footage before teetering on what appeared to be the window sill of the multi-storey balcony.

He was accompanied by a girl with her arms stretched wide trying to get him to come back inside.

Over 20,000 school-leavers will flock to the Gold Coast over the two-week festivities to celebrate the end of their final exams.

Three female revellers are seen standing on their balcony during this year's Schoolies on a Gold Coast high-rise apartment
Many private schools are more diverse than their top state counterparts because they admit more poor pupils, leading heads say.

The Girls Schools Association said some have up to a fifth of pupils from deprived backgrounds.

This is thanks to full bursaries funded by donors, endowment funds and the fees paid by well-off families.

According to the Sutton Trust, only 3 per cent of pupils in state grammars are eligible for free school meals  the standard measure for disadvantage.

Leading headteachers have said that many private schools are more diverse than their top state counterparts because they admit more poor pupils

Wealthy parents are prepared to pay extra for properties next to top schools and, if necessary, pay for tuition to help their children pass entrance exams.

Sue Hincks, the GSAs president-elect for 2019 and head of Bolton School Girls Division, said: In a school like ours which offers one in five bursaries, of which the majority are going to children on free school meals, we know we have a very socially diverse population in front of us.

Those children are selected on ability, but they also come because we are offering them a funded place, including a free school meal.

That is a percentage that compares very favourably with what would be happening in local state grammar schools, where many of the children are there because they are able but they are also in the catchment area.

And the catchment area has house prices which are such that you would have to have a relatively good income in order to be able to go to the school.

Sally-Anne Huang, head of James Allens Girls School in South London, said 16 per cent of her pupils were on bursaries

The GSA said the same pattern was seen in a number of its schools.

Sally-Anne Huang, head of James Allens Girls School in South London, said 16 per cent of her pupils were on bursaries.

She added: Fee-paying parents, who can easily afford our fees, will tell me that theyve chosen us over other independent day schools in London because of that.

They think it indicates the moral compass of the school and also they prefer for their daughters to be educated in a socially diverse community.

The heads were talking at the annual conference of the GSA in Marble Arch, central London, yesterday.

The charitable status of private schools, which gives them generous tax breaks, is in the spotlight.

The Government wants them to prove their worth as charitable institutions to keep the privilege.

The GSA said its schools were already helping disadvantaged children, including partnering with state schools to share teachers and facilities.

Figures from 192.com show that school catchment houses cost up to 70,000 more.

Some parents even rent or buy a second property near their chosen school to ensure their child gets a place.
A father-of-two has broken his silence about the terrifying moment the Bourke Street terrorist slashed him across the face, cutting an artery and four layers of muscle.

Rodd Patterson, 58, from Tasmania, was struck by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali on November 9 as the 30-year-old unleashed a brutal attack in Melbourne's CBD.

The former businessman and retired firefighter told The Mercury he believed he was going to die and said his final goodbyes to his wife as he lay bleeding on the side of the street.

The 58-year-old had rushed to Ali's ute after he drove it into a shopfront, causing it to burst into flames.

Mr Patterson said he was concerned someone was trapped inside, but instead, found the driver's side door open.

'I took a couple of steps back to see if they'd been thrown out of the vehicle and that's when I saw this person coming at me out of the corner of my left eye,' he told the publication.

Rodd Patterson (pictured, right), 58, has relived the moment he said his final goodbyes to his wife Maree (pictured, left) as he lay bleeding from the head following the Bourke St attack

The father-of-two rushed to the attacker's ute to see if he needed help (pictured left with his wife)

Ali struck Mr Patterson with a knife, knocking him to the ground, before continuing his rampage.

'That's when he went to the footpath and stabbed Sisto, I saw that, he was 10 metres away,' he said in an interview with 7news.

Restaurant owner Sisto Malaspina, 74, tragically died of his injuries.

'I was in the middle of Bourke St screaming out for help  it felt like half an hour but it was just seconds,' he said.

Ali hit Mr Patterson with the knife, knocking him to the ground, before continuing his rampage

His wife of 37 years, Maree, had been shopping in a nearby JB Hi-fi, but luckily managed to escape the crowds and reach her husband.

Mr Patterson remembers hearing his wife urge him to just 'keep breathing'.

'I knew I wasn't in a good way, and we probably said our last goodbyes,' he said.

Mr Patterson received a 10cm gash to his face, from his ear to his eye.

He received more than 120 internal and external stitches at The Alfred Hospital, but said the emotional trauma will take the longest to heal.

Despite the trauma of the event, Mr Patterson said he feels 'extremely lucky' and has nothing but praise for the police officers who responded to the attack

'The police involved, both during the incident and afterwards, were heroes  when everyone else was rushing out, they rushed in,' Mr Patterson said

'People will see this on my head, but people won't see the damage to my heart,' he said.

Despite the trauma of the event, Mr Patterson said he feels 'extremely lucky' and has nothing but praise for the police officers who responded to the attack.

'The police involved, both during the incident and afterwards, were heroes  when everyone else was rushing out, they rushed in,' he said.
Liberal Party members are pushing to expel Malcolm Turnbull from the party in an extraordinary move sparked by his support of a campaign to force Tony Abbott out of parliament.

The Roseville branch of the Liberal Party, on Sydney's north shore, on Tuesday night passed a motion to remove the ousted prime minister from the party by a vote of 16 to two, The Australian reported.

Sources told the paper the move was brought about after Mr Turnbull and his family followed Instagram account - 'Vote Tony Out' - which is pushing to defeat Mr Abbott in his Warringah electorate on Sydney's northern beaches.

In passing the motion, branch sources also cited Mr Turnbull's failure to support the party during the Wentworth by-election in his old seat, as well as his knifing of Mr Abbott and Brendan Nelson during his time in parliament.

The branch is in the Bradfield electorate of a key former Turnbull backer, Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher, from the party's moderate faction.

Liberal Party members have moved to expel former Prime Minsiter Malcolm Turnbull from the party

The move was sparked by Mr Turnbull's support of a campaign to force Tony Abbott out of parliament

The Vote Tony Out Instagram page was followed by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday

The motion will now go before the Liberal Party's Federal Electorate Conference - and if successful - will move to the party's state council.

It would be a humiliation for Mr Turnbull, who first joined the Liberal Party in 1973 when he was 19.

Mr Turnbull, who knifed Tony Abbott as PM in September 2015, had followed the 'Vote Tony Out' page supporting a possible independent challenger.

The former prime minister, his wife Lucy and son Alex were among the first of 10,000 people to follow the page.

'Warringah and its citizens, why we don't like Tony Abbott, one story at a time,' the page reads.

On its website, the campaign urges its followers to wear 'Time's Up Tony' t-shirts and vows: 'It's time to build our Tribe.'

'Wearing a "Time's Up Tony" T-Shirt is such a positive experience. Share your thoughts with others and see the magic happen,' the website reads.

'You will find that you aren't alone in your thoughts. There are many of us out there. Wear the T-Shirt and build the Tribe.'

Mr Turnbull's social media activity comes after he named Mr Abbott among the nine 'insurgents' he claimed conspired to depose him in August's leadership spill.

The former prime minister, his wife Lucy and son Alex were among the first of the 10,000 people to follow the 'Vote Tony Out' page

He isn't the first former Liberal prime minister to fall out with the party, with John Gorton resigning in 1975 as Malcolm Fraser's Opposition plotted to block supply in the Senate when Gough Whitlam was Labor PM.

Malcolm Fraser also quit the Liberal Party in his final years of life, in protest at the treatment of asylum seekers.

Another former Liberal leader John Hewson, who never became PM, has also become an outspoken critic of the party's climate change policies and last month urged Wentworth voters in Sydney's east to back independent Kerryn Phelps.

The Roseville branch of the Liberal Party last year hosted Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi, even though he had quit their party to form his own.

The right-wing branch has also previously hosted former federal Labor leader Mark Latham, who has since joined One Nation.
Prescriptions for antidepressants rose after the Brexit referendum, researchers have found.

They compared prescriptions for antidepressants, as well as iron and anti-gout drugs  chosen because they were unlikely to be linked to depression, across England in the month of July for every year between 2011 and 2016.

Prescriptions for each drug rose every year, which would be expected due to the ageing and growing population and rise in obesity.

Researchers looked at antidepressants and iron and anti-gout drug prescriptions. Stock picture of anti-depressant, Prozac

But for antidepressants, when compared with the other drugs, there was a spike in July 2016  the month after the referendum on June 23, the experts from Kings College London and Harvard University in the US found. They said antidepressant prescriptions rose 13 per cent higher than the other drugs.

The researchers believe this increase was at least partially caused by increased uncertainty for some parts of the population.

Writing in the BMJ Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the authors said the way the campaign was conducted may have contributed to this. They said: There was much at stake in the run-up to the referendum  leaving the EU was expected to greatly affect the British economy and society.

But they said not everyone reacted the same way, adding that increased uncertainty for certain parts of the population... does not rule out an improvement in mo
The homeless father of a baby found dead on a Gold Coast beach had recently been charged with high-range drink driving and having an unrestrained child in the car.

The man, 48, is expected to be charged this week over the death of his nine-month-old daughter who was found on a Surfers Paradise beach early on Monday.

Police will allege the girl was thrown into the water at Jack Evans Harbour at Tweed Heads, in New South Wales, and an empty pram was left nearby.

Her body is then believed to have floated 30 kilometres north before being found by a passerby as it lay in the shallows of a beach at Surfers Paradise, Queensland.

It comes as Daily Mail Australia can reveal the girl's father was allegedly caught last month driving in New South Wales and charged with multiple offences.

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The father (pictured) of a baby found dead on a Gold Coast beach this week had recently been charged with high-range drink driving and having an unrestrained child in the car

The nine-month-old girl was found dead by the water in the early hours of Monday. Paramedics desperately tried to revive the little girl but she was pronounced dead at the scene (pictured)

Police believe the girl died at Jack Evans boat harbour in NSW, but are yet to determine how her body ended up some 30 kilometres north in Queensland

The father is due to face both Byron Bay and Tweed Heads local courts over the driving offences.

On November 26 he is due to face Tweed Heads Local Court before also being listed to front Byron Bay Local Court on December 6.

The man is charged with two counts of driving with a person from six-months to four years old not restrained, driving without a licence and driving with a passenger in a part of the vehicle not permitted.

In a separate matter he is again charged with driving without a licence and also high-range drink driving.

NSW police took control of the investigation into the baby girl's death on Tuesday as it was revealed the infant is believed to have died at a separate location to where she was found.

Police believe the young girl died at Tweed Heads in NSW, before being found across the border in the shallows of a Queensland beach.

At the hearing in Southport Local Court on Wednesday, approval is expected for the man to be extradited to NSW.

It comes after the horrific living conditions of the baby girl's family were revealed on Tuesday as locals told how they reported the family to authorities.

The sad living conditions of the family of a nine-month-girl found dead on a Surfers Paradise beach on Monday morning have been revealed (pictured)

Nappies and an empty bucket of KFC (pictured) lie on the ground just metres from the shelter made from sticks and twigs

The girl's father faced Southport Magistrates Court (pictured) on Wednesday where approval for his extradition to NSW was expected to be granted

Prior to her death the young girl had lived with her dad and mum, 23, in a 'humpy' - a small shack made from sticks - hidden in the sand dunes of the popular surf beach.

Local residents left shocked by the death of the girl have told how they reported the young family's living conditions to authorities, yet nothing seemed to be done about it.

'It was winter and the dunes were freezing every time the sun went down. I didn't think that was good for a baby or toddler,' a woman wrote on Facebook.

'I reported it straight away and monitored the following week. And if authorities did the job correctly this little girl would still be here!'

Reverend Jon Brooks, head of a local housing crisis centre, told Daily Mail Australia the family lived 'as rough as it gets'.

'Anybody who does it homeless does it poorly, but if it is the family I believe it might be, they were in the worst position you could find yourself in,' Rev Brooks said.

The tragic reality of the infant's life has been revealed - a far cry from the glitz and glamour that is normally associated with Surfers Paradise (pictured)

Strangers left balloons and children's toys near the scene of the infant's death on Monday

Touching tributes were left at the scene on Tuesday, little more than 24 hours after the tragedy unfolded

'I wasn't aware they'd been living in a humpy - the last I knew they were moving from toilet blocks, to parks, to even under bridges.'

'They moved up here from down south and we gave them assistance with a different organisation that houses homeless people up here. We also provided them meals at lunch time.'

Emergency services were called to Staghorn Avenue about 12am on Monday after a member of the public reported an unresponsive infant on the sand.

Paramedics desperately tried to revive the little girl but she was pronounced dead at the scene, with police now treating the death as 'unnatural'.

An investigation is underway to officially determine her cause of death but there are reports she had been in the water at some point prior to being found on the sand.

Police believe the girl died at Jack Evans boat harbour in NSW, but are yet to determine how her body ended up some 30 kilometres north in Queensland.
President Donald Trump slammed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as a 'disgrace' hours after a federal judge there barred his administration from refusing asylum to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally.

'It's a disgrace and I'm going to put in a major complaint. Because you cannot win,' the president ranted on Tuesday as he left the White House on his way to Mar-a-Lago for the Thanksgiving holiday.

'We get beaten and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court. Like the travel ban that we won. The Ninth Circuit we are going to have to look at that,' he vowed without elaborating on what kind of actions the White House would take.

President Trump slammed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as a 'disgrace'

His fury came hours after a federal judge there barred his administration from refusing asylum to illegal immigrants

Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 9 that said anyone who crossed the southern border between official ports of entry would be ineligible for asylum.

As the first of several caravans of migrants have started arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump said an asylum ban was necessary to stop what he's attacked as a national security threat.

But in his ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of the ninth circuit agreed with legal groups that immediately sued, arguing that U.S. immigration law clearly allows someone to seek asylum even if they enter the country between official ports of entry.

'Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,' said Tigar, a nominee of former President Barack Obama.

'This was an Obama judge and I'll tell you what, this is not going to happen anymore,' Trump vowed on Tuesday. 'Everybody that wants to sue the U.S. - almost --they file their case in the Ninth Circuit, and it means an automatic loss. No matter what you do, no matter how good your case is. And the Ninth Circuit is really something we have to take a look at, because it's not fair. ... People should not be allowed to immediately run to this very friendly circuit and file their case.'

His fiery rhetoric was backed up by a salvo from his press secretary.

'At this very moment, massive numbers of aliens are arriving at our southern border, threatening to incapacitate our already overwhelmed immigration system,' Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.

'Yet now, a single district judge has issued a nationwide temporary restraining order preventing the executive branch from performing its Constitutional duty to enforce our borders and control entry into the United States. This decision will open the floodgates, inviting countless illegal aliens to pour into our country on the American taxpayer's dime,' she said.

Sanders added: 'This temporary injunction is yet another example of activist judges imposing their open borders policy preferences, which are rejected by the overwhelming majority of the American people, and interfering with the executive branch's authority to administer the immigration system in a manner that ensures the Nation's safety, security, and the rule of law. We will take all necessary action to defend the executive branch's lawful response to the crisis at our southern border.'

Trump has tangled with the ninth court before - and won.

In December, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals - all of whom were appointed by President Bill Clinton - ruled Trump's travel ban policy should be partially blocked because the president appears to have exceeded his authority in issuing the directive.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld a water-downed version of Trump's travel ban.

The administration pointed this out after the ninth circuit ruled against Trump's asylum ban.

'As the Supreme Court affirmed this summer, Congress has given the President broad authority to limit or even stop the entry of aliens into this country,' the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement. 'We look forward to continuing to defend the Executive Branch's legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border.'

In issuing the asylum ban, Trump used the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban that was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

Central American migrants continue their journey bound for the Tijuana border

Central American migrants leave from Mexicali in their way to Tijuana , Mexico on Tuesday

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco sided with suing immigrant-rights groups who said Congress was explicit when it wrote asylum laws to encompass everyone

If enforced, the ban would potentially make it harder for thousands of people to avoid deportation. DHS estimates around 70,000 people a year claim asylum between official ports of entry. But Tigar's ruling notes that federal law says someone may seek asylum if they have arrived in the United States, 'whether or not at a designated port of arrival.'

'Individuals are entitled to asylum if they cross between ports of entry,' said Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued the government alongside the American Civil Liberties Union. 'It couldn't be clearer.'

Around 3,000 people from the first of the caravans have arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it closed off northbound traffic for several hours at the San Ysidro crossing.

It has also installed movable, wire-topped barriers, apparently to stop a potential mass rush of people.

As of Monday, 107 people detained between official crossings have sought asylum since Trump's order went into effect, according to DHS, which oversees Customs and Border Protection.
Democrat Ben McAdams has flipped a U.S. House seat in deep-red Utah, defeating Republican U.S. Rep. Mia Love by fewer than 700 votes in a race that took two weeks to settle.

McAdams defeated Love, the first black Republican woman elected to Congress, by a margin just over what would have been needed to require a recount, according to final results posted Tuesday.

McAdams' victory adds to the Democratic majority in a year when they have flipped more than three dozen Republican-held seats across the country to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The race had been too close to call for The Associated Press until the final votes were tallied.

Democrat Ben McAdams has flipped a U.S. House seat in deep-red Utah, defeating Republican U.S. Rep. Mia Love by fewer than 700 votes in a race that took two weeks to settle

State election officials will certify the results next Monday.

McAdams declared victory Monday night after a release of ballots gave him a margin his campaign believed was insurmountable.

'This race was about connecting with Utah,' he said.

'This race was about who was best positioned to serve Utah and working to not get it caught up in a national, partisan election.'

Love was seeking a third term.

She said in a statement that she planned to call McAdams but didn't say if she would concede or congratulate him.

She said she's traveling with family for Thanksgiving and won't speak about the race until Monday.

'Regardless of how you voted, I want to express my sincere appreciation to you for engaging in the process,' Love said.

'It is one of many reasons this is the greatest country on earth.'

Love finished about 20 votes short of being able to request a recount in a race where about 269,000 votes were cast.

This is the second time she has lost a bid for Congress by a razor-thin margin.

In her first run in 2012, Love lost to incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson by 768 votes.

She went on to defeat Democrat Doug Owens in 2014 and again in 2016.

For McAdams, it's a victory that validates his reputation as an emerging political force in Utah.

McAdams defeated Love, the first black Republican woman elected to Congress, by a margin just over what would have been needed to require a recount, according to final results posted Tuesday

He pitched himself as a solid moderate, and not a typical Democrat, while calling Love a partisan who almost always votes with President Donald Trump.

The strategy was aimed at independent voters who account for nearly four in 10 voters in the largely suburban Salt Lake City district and designed to overcome his built-in disadvantage in a district where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 3-to-1.

He is an attorney who graduated from Columbia Law School and practiced in New York before returning to his home state of Utah.

He has been a political figure in the state for a decade.

He was elected as one of the few Democrats in the GOP-dominated state Legislature in 2008 and successfully ran for the Salt Lake County mayor's seat four years later.

He became known for working with the state's Republican leaders on issues like homelessness, where he backed a narrow Medicaid expansion to cover treatment and once went undercover as a homeless person when the issue became a crisis downtown.

Though solidly conservative, Utah voters have long been uncomfortable with Trump's brash style and his comments about women and immigrants.

That anxiety is especially pronounced in the suburbs of blue-leaning Salt Lake City, and McAdams' mayor position gave him solid name recognition with voters.

McAdams said during the campaign that he would not support California Rep. Nancy Pelosi as House speaker and insisting he'd be able to work with the president.

He has already signed a letter, along with 15 other Democrats, vowing to oppose Pelosi.

He sharply criticized Love's support for the GOP-backed tax overhaul and said she had not been available enough to her constituents at town halls.

Love pushed back hard, saying the tax overhaul has been good for people in Utah and defending her approach of meeting with voters in smaller groups, on the phone or online.

She highlighted the times she's stood up to the president, like when Trump used an expletive to describe her parents' home country of Haiti.

President Donald Trump (above) didn't appreciate Love's approach, calling her out by name in a news conference the morning after Election Day, where he also bashed other Republicans who he said lost because they didn't fully embrace him

She tried to separate herself from Trump on trade and immigration.

Trump didn't appreciate her approach, calling her out by name in a news conference the morning after Election Day, where he also bashed other Republicans who he said lost because they didn't fully embrace him.

Love seemed to struggle to find the right balance among conservative voters as she tried to keep her distance but stopped short of disparaging the president, said Damon Cann, a political science professor at Utah State University.

'It became very difficult to satisfy everyone,' Cann said.

Voter turnout among registered voters was the highest for any midterm election in Utah since 1962 at about 74 percent, according to Justin Lee, state elections director.

McAdams was an excellent candidate and also probably benefited from displeasure with Trump and the Republican Party, Cann said.

'The winds were all at McAdams back,' Cann said.
Justice Secretary David Gauke last night called for former prisoners to take the place of cheap European labour after Brexit.

He insisted changes to the pattern of migration after we leave the EU will mean employers will be forced to employ ex-offenders. It will see more criminals working in catering, construction and agriculture.

Mr Gauke said he wanted to see a large increase in the number of prisoners released on temporary licence to allow more inmates to go out and work. He stressed: There was a time when employers would be nervous about being seen to employ ex-offenders. Now there are some high-profile employers who have really grasped the nettle  Timpsons are the one everyone mentions  almost to the point where employers are embarrassed if they are not employing ex-offenders.

Justice Secretary David Gauke has said ex-prisoners could replace EU nationals in low-paid jobs after Brexit claiming many employers are 'embarrassed' if they don't employ ex-offenders

Mr Gauke said employing ex-prisoners rather than EU migrants will help as 'other options are not available in the way that they were'

That is a very welcome shift and those changing attitudes offer an opportunity, especially at a time when there are skill shortages and employment is very high.

And we may well be seeing changes to the pattern of migration that mean other options are not available in the way that they were.

Labour MP Virendra Sharma, a supporter of the Best for Britain group, said: We have ended up in the ludicrous position that post Brexit we will have to rely on ex-prisoners to do jobs rather than skilled EU nationals.

We dont just have a skill shortage but a potential Brexit shortage. The Tories were supposed to be the party tough on crime and now we have a Brexit rehabilitation scheme.

Just 17 per cent of ex-offenders are in paid work a year after coming out of jail. Polls show only half of companies would consider employing a former prisoner.
A young father who became critically ill while holidaying in Fiji had his last wish granted before his passing, to be reunited with his daughter.

Jarred Thompson, from Napier, New Zealand, was medically evacuated from his holiday in Fiji last Tuesday after suffering from pressure on his brain.

The hospitals in Fiji only recommended palliative care for the 27 year old.

A young father who became critically ill while holidaying in Fiji had his last wish granted before his passing, to be reunited with his daughter

On Wednesday, it was announced that Mr Thompson (pictured) had passed away surrounded by family and friends

A 'Give a Little' fundraiser was organised and kind strangers raised $36,000 to evacuate Mr Thompson from Fiji to a hospital in Auckland to be with his daughter.

Mr Thomspon had been in remission after going through cancer treatment the past year, but suddenly fell ill while on holiday.

Once he arrived to Auckland hospital, he was only able to hear, but not respond.

'He constantly kicks and taps to let us know hes still here,' close friend Thomas Brook wrote last week.

On Wednesday, Mr Brook announced that his friend had passed away surrounded by family and friends.

The fundraiser will continue for anyone who would like to support Mr Thompson's mother and daughter

'To friends, friends of friends, family, supporters and those who have yet been touched by this young mans life,' the post began.

'Our brother, father, son, cousin, relative and dearly loved friend Jarred Cole Thompson made his transition from this life, into the next in the early hours of Wednesday morning the 21st of November 2018.

'Jarred was in the comfort of his family home in Taupo since Saturday, surrounded by his loving family and dearest friends till the end,' he wrote on Facebook.

'I would like to take this moment to thank each and everyone of you who was touched by not only this man's life, but touched by his story.

'We came together in unity to give a little and achieved something beautiful.

'Because of your love, we got Jarred home and from the core of my heart, thank you.

The fundraiser will continue for anyone who would like to support Mr Thompson's mother and daughter.
Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rubbished a plan to remove the gender of babies from birth certificates as 'ridiculous' and called for it to be 'outlawed'.

Morrison took to Twitter to slam the Tasmanian opposition's plan, which would require new parents to fill out a separate form in order to have their baby's gender printed on the birth certificate.

Daily Mail Australia contacted the Prime Minister's office for further comment but was advised he would not be commenting further.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Wednesday morning tweet slamming changes to Tasmanian laws which would mean gender is not recorded on birth certificates unless new parents ask

The plan is part of a transgender rights package passed by Tasmania's House of Assembly on Tuesday after one Liberal MP, Speaker Sue Hickey, joined Labor and the Greens to vote for the changes.

The package contains several legislative amendments and is awaiting Legislative Council approval before it becomes law.

If passed by the upper house, the package will enable people to change their gender after the age of 16 simply by filling out a statutory declaration.

Anti-discrimination laws were also amended to include 'gender expression', making it compulsory to use correct names and titles for transgender people.

Parliamentarians who supported the legislation were pleased the package passed the lower house on Tuesday after Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey crossed the floor to pass the changes

Tasmanian Labor's justice spokeswoman, Ella Haddad, who voted for the legislation, said it was a great outcome that won't diminish the rights of others.

Gay rights activists took to social media to congratulate all those who supported the changes after the Bill passed the lower house.

Rodney Croome, former national director of Australian Marriage Equality, called the package 'Australia's best trans and gender diverse law reform.'

He called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to defend the law reforms on Wednesday in the wake of the Prime Minister's attack.

If the changes pass the upper house, new parents in Tasmania will have to fill out a form to put the gender of their child on their birth certificate as it will not automatically be recorded

'Bill Shorten should step up and defend the Tasmania Parliament's right to reform the law for the good of all Tasmanians,' he tweeted.

Tasmania was the last Australian jurisdiction to remove anti-gay criminal laws in 1997, when after decades of campaigning by the gay community, it decriminalised sex between adult men in private.

Rodney Croome was one of the last men arrested under the laws in 1997.

Last year, 20 years after the reforms, the Tasmanian government officially apologised for the pain suffered by the state's LGBTI community.

Gay rights activist Rodney Croome (right) celebrated the changes calling the Tasmanian law reforms 'Australia's best' and congratulated all those who supported it in the Parliament

Candace Harrington, who supports the changes, explained the difficulties her transgender son faces when applying for jobs.

Her son is too young to drive, so he must produce his birth certificate for identification - but because it marks his gender as female it causes great anxiety.

'He wasn't sure if or how to explain his situation because his birth certificate says he is female, but he appears to be male. He felt that if he explained his situation he wouldn't get the job,' she wrote in The Mercury.
President Donald Trump smirked at a question on Tuesday about Michael Avenatti's domestic violence arrest as he left the White House for his Thanksgiving break in Paklm Beach, Florida.

Avenatti, the attorney who represents pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against the president, was booked for felony domestic assault after he allegedly struck girlfriend Mareli Miniutti last Tuesday.

He has been a consistent Trump antagonist, and is leveraging his notoriety to position himself to run against the president in 2020.

Trump told DailyMail.com before he boarded Marine One: 'I wish him the best of luck.'

Arms wide and grinning broadly, he said it again with more gusto: 'I wish him the best of luck!'

President Donald Trump seemed to mock lawyer Michael Avenatti on Tuesday as he left the White House, snarking that he wishes him 'the best of luck' fighting a domestic violence charge

Avenatti was arrested last Tuesday; his live-in girlfriend claims he dragged her across a floor and called her 'an 'ungrateful f***ing b***h'

Trump resisted the temptation to gloat but snarked a bit at Avenatti's expense

Miniutti submitted photos to a California court, revealing injuries she claims Avenatti caused by hitting her in the face with pillows and dragging her across the floor of his apartment in her underwear.

She also claims he called her an 'ungrateful f***ing b***h.'

The Estonian actress has been dating the lawyer since last October. In documents submitted Monday and first obtained by The Blast, she claims he assaulted her after an argument about money turned physical.

The altercation left her with scratches on the side of her leg, she said, and 'red marks' on her left side.

She also claims the November 13 incident was not the first time Avenatti, 47, has been violent with her.

According to the three-page declaration, the two had been arguing in the master bedroom that evening when Avenatti began to 'berate' her.

In this September 2018 photo, attorney Michael Avenatti, right, poses with Mareli Miniutti for a photo at a party in New York

Michael Avenatti's accuser was revealed as Mareli Miniutti, an Estonian actress in her 20s who has appeared in the likes of Ocean's 8 and Chuck

Miniutti has submitted photos to the court showing her injuries after Michael Avenatti allegedly hit her in the face with pillows and dragged her across the floor

Miniutti says the altercation left her with scratches on the side of her leg and 'red marks' on her left side

Miniutti claims Avenatti yanked her by the wrist to pull her out of bed before dragging her across the floor

Miniutti says she then exited the room and went to the guest room to sleep alone, but he eventually followed her, 'calling her names' before forcefully hitting her in the face with pillows.

She claims Avenatti said, 'Do not disrespect me. You don't get to sleep in my house tonight,' before reaching for her wrist in an attempt to pull her out of bed.

Avenatti, however, slipped and lost his grip and she used the opportunity to send texts to a friend, according the documents.

'After a few moments, [he] yelled at me, and grabbed the phone out of my hand and screamed, 'this is my phone!' and put it in his pocket.'

Miniutti says Avenatti remained close to her 'at all times' and she became 'afraid' for her safety and screamed for help towards a window.

Avenatti is mainly known for representing Stephanie Clifford, who makes pornographic movies under the name Stormy Daniels; she claims to have bedded President Trump in 2006 and is suing him to invalidate a 2016 nondisclosure agreement for which she was paid $130,000

That's when Avenatti allegedly tried to pull her out of bed again, this time succeeding and dragging her on the floor of the apartment and out to the hallway while she was only in her underwear and a t-shirt.

Miniutti says she tried to get help by ringing a neighbor's doorbell but Avenatti allegedly pulled back her inside and blocked the door with his body to prevent her from leaving.

'I screamed and asked [him] to return my phone. [He] refused to return my phone,' the declaration states.

She then ran back to the guest bedroom to put pants on, but he quickly followed, giving her no time to put on shoes, she claims.

Miniutti eventually managed to bypass Avenatti, exited the apartment, and made a run for the elevator as he chased after her.

Mareli Miniutti's apparently estranged husband Michael Miniutti (right) told DailyMail.com 'No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman. Period.' Avenatti called the claims 'bogus' after her identity was revealed Monday

A family confirmed to Dailymail.com that Michael Miniutti was married to Mareli but he was unclear on their current status

While the two were in the elevator, he allegedly began to beg, 'Don't do this Mareli, don't involve them.'

Avenatti finally returned her phone when she approached front desk personnel, who called security.

Miniutti, who had been living with Avenatti since January, also alleges that he assaulted her during another incident in February this year.

'At that time, I was living with [Avenatti] in a different apartment in the same building. [He] had been drinking, and he became angry at me. [He] pushed me out of the apartment into the public hallway, where I hit my head against a door across the hallway,' she claims.

Avenatti, she says, then threw her shoes at her, hitting her in the leg.

She claims Avenatti has 'a history of being very verbally abusive and financially controlling' towards her and has 'vehemently opposed' her wish to earn a living outside of Hollywood.

'[He] has made promises to 'take care of me' financially and sometimes fails to follow through,' she says in papers.

Miniutti filed for a domestic violence restraining order in Los Angeles on Monday and a hearing has been set for December 10.

A judge granted the temporary restraining order against Avenatti based on Miniutti's allegations in the filing.

Michael Miniutti, her husband, told DailyMail.com: 'No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman. Period.'

Asked if he was still married to the actress, he responded, 'No comment.'

Laywer Michael Avenatti claims he will be 'fully exonerated' by a now-deleted Instagram post (above) his accuser, Mareli Miniutti shared in the hours after he allegedly assaulted her

'There is nothing more powerful than video evidence. NOTHING! I will be fully exonerated,' Avenatti tweeted in the early hours of Tuesday

He later added that posts that could quash her claims had been shared on her Instagram account that was made private after her restraining order filed at Santa Monica Court House

Avenatti again called the claims 'bogus' after her identity was revealed Monday

Avenatti hit back against the allegations on Tuesday and said he was innocent.

'I did not do what I have been accused of doing,' he tweeted. 'I look forward to ALL of the facts and evidence coming to light. I will be vindicated.'

He then went on to list what he said were 'many of the false 'facts' TMZ reported' in the initial story.

Avenatti noted that TMZ initially  and incorrectly  stated that he abused his estranged wife Lisa.

'Completely false and also a violation of California law to report at DV victim's name,' he wrote.

The lawyer then claimed that TMZ had seen video that many of its allegations regarding the incident were false.

Avenatti hit back against the allegations on Tuesday and reiterated that he was innocent

He then went on to list what he said were 'many of the false 'facts' TMZ reported' in the initial story about the allegations

'TMZ is a disgrace  they have no journalistic standards,' he wrote.

On Monday Avenatti said he would be vindicated by video evidence.

He claimed his accuser had posted something on Instagram in the hours after the incident that showed her claims were 'bogus.'

Avenatti appears to be referring to videos posted on Minuitti's Instagram account, shared in the hours after Avenatti was taken into custody last Wednesday, according to Hill Reporter.

They show a carefree Miniutti laughing and apparently bruise-free  although she may have concealed her injuries with make-up.

'There is nothing more powerful than video evidence. NOTHING! I will be fully exonerated,' Avenatti tweeted in the early hours of Tuesday.

He tweeted again hours later, revealing he has authorized the release of security camera footage relevant to the incident saying, 'I want the truth to be known  all of it.'
The man accused of molesting a child at a dance studio still hasn't faced charges over the alleged attack and is being treated for cancer.

Anthony Sampieri, 54, allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in the bathroom of a dance school in Kogarah, south Sydney, last week.

Sampieri is seriously ill with liver cancer, which may be the cause of his extended stay in the hospital, the Daily Telegraph reported.

He remains in St George Hospital under police guard after he was attacked by two men who came to the rescue of the child.

Anthony Sampieri, 54, who was on parole when he allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-own girl in Sydney's south (pictured) was previously caught with a 'rape kit', court documents reveal

He allegedly stabbed a father who tried to intervene, before a dentist who worked nearby heard the commotion and punched him in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Sampieri is a known sex offender and was on parole for the rape of a woman when the alleged attack on the seven-year-old took place.

The woman, who was raped at his unit in Woolongong, said she had hoped Sampieri would never be released from jail, and was terrified when she received notice of his impending release in 2017.

Sampieri allegedly stabbed a father who tried to intervene, before a dentist who worked nearby heard the commotion and punched the convicted rapist in the head

'I was told  he'd been refused parole once because he wouldn't toe the line,' she said.

He was denied parole in 2016 for failing to complete a sex offender rehabilitation course, but was released in September 2017.

The woman, who is based in the Illawarra region, said if Sampieri is found guilty of attacking the young girl police should 'lock him away for good'.

'No little girl should have to go through that,' she said.

The woman's demand comes as New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed to find out why Sampieri was released on parole.

The woman's demand comes as New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed to find out why Sampieri was released on parole

Anthony Sampieri, 54, allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in the bathroom of a dance school (pictured) in Kogarah, south Sydney, last week

NSW Opposition leader Michael Daley also chimed in on the prisoner's early release, saying he hoped it had nothing to do with lack of funding.

New allegations suggest the parole board was never informed that Sampieri was being investigated by police in relation to lewd phone calls he had allegedly made since his release.

If parole officers were made aware, the publication alleges he may have breached conditions of his parole and been returned to prison before the attack on the little girl could have taken place.

When Sampieri was arrested for the 2012 assault, police discovered a 'rape kit' at his home, court documents reveal.

The 'rape kit', which was discovered in a bedroom, included gaffer tape, cable ties, nylon rope and a roll of wire.

Officers also found pornographic DVDs and magazines.

A list of names of women aged between 23 and 83 was discovered at the home.

Next to the women's names were comments such as 'very young' and 'older', it was reported at the time.

The convicted sex offender was arrested for raping a 60-year-old woman in the Illawarra region, New South Wales, in 2012 (pictured: toilet where seven-year-old was allegedly assaulted)

On October 6, 2012, Sampieri rang one woman at about 8.30pm and told her how he would assault her.

Another woman heard 'grunting and groaning' when she answered a phone call from Sampieri.

Court documents reveal Sampieri rang several women in the lead-up to the aggravated sexual assault on October 22, 2012, during an alleged 'ice-binge'.

At the District Court in 2013, Sampieri pleaded guilty to raping the woman at his Wollongong home.

Court documents revealed Sampieri had been ringing women in the lead up to the aggravated sexual assault on October 22, 2012, amid an 'ice-binge' (pictured: Dance studio where alleged attack on a seven-year-old girl occurred)

He lured her to his home before ordering her to strip, wielding a knife and telling her: 'Now we'll have some fun.'

Sampieri spent five years incarcerated for the 2012 rape and was granted parole in September 2017.

The State Parole Authority revoked his parole within hours of Thursday's arrest, launching calls for a review of NSW's early release program.

Reports indicate evidence from Wollongong police has been passed onto detectives investigating the Kogarah dance studio assault.
Hundreds of asylum seekers could be sent to live in the South East rather than the North after the Home Secretary agreed to reform the way they are shared out when they arrive in Britain.

Sajid Javid took action after councils in the North threatened to pull out of the dispersal programme due to mounting chaos.

It could mean dozens of leafy towns in the Home Counties are forced to take in asylum seekers for the first time  including the Prime Ministers own local authority of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Sajid Javid took action after councils in the North threatened to pull out of the dispersal programme due to mounting chaos

Only 120 authorities have stepped forward to rehome refugees, while 180 have taken none.

The Government acted after Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, threatened earlier this month to refuse to take in any more asylum seekers.

He said there was mounting chaos in the Governments dispersal system which was facing catastrophic failure.

He claimed it was unfair that, under the current system, the North West hosts 25 per cent of the national population of asylum applicants who require housing and support, with Greater Manchester housing 70 per cent of that number.

But in a letter to Mr Burnham, Mr Javid said he wanted to see more areas stepping up to the plate.

He promised a reduction in the proportion of dispersal to authorities that take large numbers, and a commensurate increase for those that take lower numbers or none at all.

The Government acted after Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, threatened earlier this month to refuse to take in any more asylum seekers

Latest figures show there are currently 6,681 supported asylum seekers in Greater Manchester  a 102 per cent increase since 2003.

Mr Burnham revealed the Home Offices stance during a meeting of the Commons home affairs select committee last night.

He added: Greater Manchester has a long tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution. We are the largest dispersal area in England by some margin.

We have to have fairness from the Home Office when it comes to the arrangements that are being made. If we dont have that, we would have to seriously consider our position. We need to see a much fairer distribution across the country.

Last night a Home office spokesman said: We are working with a wide range of local authorities to increase the number of areas that accommodate and support people seeking protection  every local authority is encouraged to contribute.
A police chief yesterday joined calls for the public to help and not hinder frontline officers.

The comments by Lancashire Chief Constable Andy Rhodes came after officers condemned the walk on by culture in which members of the public film attacks on their phones instead of stopping them.

Mr Rhodes said: We are not saying to the public that we expect you to get involved in physical violence on the streets.

Lancashire Chief Constable Andy Rhodes yesterday joined calls for the public to help and not hinder frontline officers

What we are saying is there are ways and means of helping us and some of the things that we are seeing are hindering us. This isnt a green light for have-a-go heroes.

The Mail yesterday revealed how footage of a London woman police officer being kicked into the path of a bus was shared online.

It prompted Ken Marsh, chairman of the Met Police Federation, which represents almost 30,000 junior officers, to warn that officers may let thugs go if the public fails to back them up.

However speaking to the BBCs Victoria Derbyshire, Mr Rhodes said: We are trained to deal with violent incidents.

Footage was recently released showing a London female police officer being kicked into the path of a bus

If our officers feel they are not in a position to make a safe arrest without being harmed they will back up and wait for more support to come.

Responding to the footage of the London policewoman being kicked, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said: I was shocked, I thought it was sickening to see the violence that my officers were subjected to.

I was honestly appalled that somebody should be filming that and laughing about it.

When asked if the public should intervene, she said: It depends on the circumstances.

'It depends on who you are, how fit and able you feel and what is in fact unfolding in front of your eyes.
Muslim leaders are boycotting Prime Minister Scott Morrison's proposed round table with Islamic leaders after he demanded they give him more information on terror suspects.

The Australian National Imams Council and Australian Federation of Islamic Councils have issued a joint statement declaring they would refuse to meet with the PM, who floated the idea of discussing ways to stop extremist violence.

The statement, co-signed by the Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed and ANIC president Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, slammed his demand last week for Muslim leaders to be aware of extremists in their mosques.

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Muslim leaders (Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman pictured) are boycotting Prime Minister Scott Morrison's proposed round table with Islamic leaders to discuss Islamic extremism

The statement, co-signed by the Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed (pictured) slammed his demand last week for Muslim leaders to be aware of extremists in their mosques

The Islamic councils of Victoria and Queensland and the Board of Imams Victoria also backed the statement.

'Many in the Muslim community including the undersigned are deeply concerned and disappointed with statements made by senior government ministers and the Prime Minister in the recent past which infer that the community is collectively culpable for the criminal actions of individuals and should be doing more to prevent such acts of violence,' it said.

Last week, the Prime Minister visited Melbourne's Pellegrini's Expresso Bar, near where cafe owner Sisto Malaspina was stabbed to death by Somali-born terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali.

The Prime Minister told journalists Muslim leaders needed to be aware of who prayed at their mosques and ensured 'they don't allow these wolves in'.

In their statement, the Sunni Muslim leaders accused Mr Morrison of marginalising Muslims.

'These statements have achieved nothing to address underlying issues, but rather, have alienated large segments of the Muslim community,' they said.

'In order to have a meaningful meeting that will result in positive outcomes, attendees must be confident that their views and concerns will be genuinely respected and that such a forum will not be used to emphasise the very sentiments that the Muslim community consider to be invalid and divisive.'

The nine Muslim signatories of the statement, who were all men, demanded the Prime Minister 're-schedule' the proposed round table to 'allow for a concrete agenda and mutually-acceptable objectives'.

The Prime Minister visited Melbourne's Pellegrini's Express Bar, near where cafe owner Sisto Malaspina was stabbed to death by Somali-born terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured)

The Prime Minister (pictured) told journalists in Melbourne Muslim leaders needed to be aware of who prayed at their mosques and ensured 'they don't allow these wolves in'
Authorities in Oregon will not prosecute an African American delivery driver who fatally punched a man who was shouting racial slurs on the street in Portland, it was announced on Monday.

Prosecutors in Multnomah County said that there is no indication that Timothy Warren, a FedEx driver, intended to kill Joseph Magnuson during a September 26 altercation near the corner of Northeast Hoyt Street and Northeast 29th Avenue.

Magnuson, who witnesses say initiated the confrontation by hurling the N-word at Warren as well as other aggressive and abusive phrases', was later determined by medical examiners to be in extremely poor health, according to The Oregonian.

According to witnesses, Warren was driving his FedEx truck slowly after turning onto Hoyt.

At that point, Magnuson began yelling very aggressively for Warren to slow down, according to authorities.

Warren then stopped the truck and tried to speak to Magnuson, who kept escalating hostilities.

Prosecutors in Multnomah County said that there is no indication that Timothy Warren, a FedEx driver, intended to kill Joseph Magnuson during a September 26 altercation near the corner of Northeast Hoyt Street and Northeast 29th Ave. A FedEx truck is seen in the above stock image

Both men were seen yelling at each when Magnuson threw a drink at Warren, witnesses said.

Other witnesses reported seeing Magnuson hurl a bag of food at Warren, but others said Warren knocked the bag out of Magnusons hand.

Magnuson is then alleged to have thrown a punch at Warren that did not connect.

Warren then hit Magnuson, striking him in the face. Magnuson collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness.

Warren then remained at the scene until police arrived and cooperated with the investigation, according to prosecutors.

After being targeted with racial slurs, Warren stopped his truck and tried to speak with Magnuson, according to a memo written by Senior Deputy District Attorney Adam Gibbs.

Though Magnuson likely would still be alive if Warren ignored him, the decision by Mr. Warren, who is black, to not let the racist vitriol to which he was being subjected go unanswered is not of legal significance, according to Gibbs.

Oregon law contains no duty to retreat and Mr. Warren was within his right to exit his vehicle and verbally challenge the manner in which Mr. Magnuson was addressing him, the memo said.

Mr. Magnuson was the initial verbal aggressor; Mr. Warren responded in kind.

Mr. Magnuson then escalated and became the initial physical aggressor; Mr. Warren again responded in kind.

Gibbs wrote that Magnusons toxicology results are not of significance to the legal analysis.
Masseur Pei Tian (pictured) allegedly touched his client, Ronnie Arnau, inappropriately during a spa session in September

A New Jersey man is suing a five-star Manhattan male spa where a masseur allegedly touched him inappropriately between his buttocks and penis during a regular massage and facial session.

Ronnie Arnau and his new husband, Joey, paid a visit to the Living Fresh Mens Spa in Chelsea back in early September for what was intended to be a relaxing couple's day.

The alleged abuse began roughly ten minutes into the massage when masseur Pei Tian took a liking to Arnau's backside.

Tian began to focus 'exclusively on Arnau's buttocks for an inordinate amount of time, making Arnau very uncomfortable,' according to court documents obtained by the New York Post.

'As Arnau became more and more uncomfortable with Tian's focus on his buttocks, Tian moved his fingers below Arnau's buttocks and began caressing' his genitals.

At that point, Arnau 'completely froze' in discomfort over the alleged touching, which he did not consent to.

Tian allegedly removed his client's towel and asked him to lay on his back afterward, according to the suit.

Arnau then stood up and demanded Tian leave the room before he called police. Tian was arrested.

Arnau and his husband, Joey, paid a visit to the Living Fresh Mens Spa in Chelsea (pictured) for what was intended to be a relaxing couple's day in September

Arnau is now suing the spa where Tian allegedly caressed his genitals during a massage and facial session

Tian has been charged with forcible touching and sexual abuse.

Arnau's attorney, Carrie Goldberg, told the Post Living Fresh dismissed Arnau's report about the alleged abuse.

'The spa - through their silence and inaction - condones the idea that gay men at gay spas are consenting to unwanted touching from staff,' Goldberg told the local newspaper.

'While people may laugh about the sexualization of spas - happy endings or locker room orgies - the vast majority of people go to spas for healing and relaxation  not sex.'

Tian, who has been employed with the company for a decade, was not terminated from his position.

An unidentified employee claimed in a statement to the Post that there were no previous reports of sexual abuse against the masseur during his time working at the spa.

Living Fresh Mens Spa could not be reached for comment by DailyMail.com late Tuesday.

A social media request for comment to Arnau was also not immediately returned.
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It seems too ideal to be true, but this spectacular photograph of a gothic Victorian castle ringed by a perfect rainbow was the result of patience... and luck.

Jon Clark was waiting for the sun to start setting after a grey and rainy summers day when the clouds finally parted.

Mr Clark launched his remote-controlled drone and was rewarded with this image of Riber Castle above Matlock in Derbyshire.

The photograph has been shortlisted in the drone category of the British Photography Awards, with the winner to be announced in January.

I had almost given up on getting any good light, Mr Clark said. I felt very lucky.

Jon Clark launched his remote-controlled drone and was rewarded with this image of Riber Castle above Matlock in Derbyshire
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.
Residents in council housing who are three-times more likely to smoke than owner-occupiers should be given access to vaping kits to help them quit, a new report has claimed.

Researchers found 35 per cent of residents in social housing smoked, compared with 25 per cent in private rented accommodation and just 11 per cent of home owners.

The report, published between Action Smoking Health and two All Party Parliamentary Groups, urges action to tackle the number of people continuing to smoke at home.

Some 35 per cent of people in council accommodation smoke compared with only 11 per cent of those who own their own home

Researchers found that council tenants were very receptive to receiving free e-cigarette kits

According to the authors, the aim is to help protect children and non-smokers from secondhand smoke.

Researchers found that people living in social housing are twice as likely to smoke as other people and also find it more difficult to quit.

According to the report: 'High levels of smoking in poorer communities reduces the likelihood that smokers living in those communities will successfully quit, increases the likelihood that children will be exposed to smoke in the home and that they will take up smoking themselves.

'As a result, smoking-related illness is much more common among both adults and children in these communities.'

Researchers did not recommend an outright ban on smoking in the home, but said housing and health professionals should provide advice and support to smokers to assist them to quit.

Co-chair of the report Lee Sugden of Salix Homes said: 'People living in social housing are twice as likely to smoke as anyone else, so as a social landlord, we have an important role to play in supporting our tenants to lead a healthier lifestyle, whether that be initiatives like providing vaping starter kits, or signposting them to the right support services.

'This is not about a ban on smoking in homes; this is about raising awareness of the significant health inequalities of those living in some communities and recognising how we as landlords can help and support people to quit the habit.'

Mr Sugden said Salix Homes have provided tenants with access to free e-cigarette starter kits and additional support to assist them to stop smoking.

Researchers claimed that 63 per cent of those helped during the pilot project had stopped smoking.

Ruth Tennant, Public Health Director at Leicester City Council said: 'Despite falls in smoking prevalence, smoking is the leading cause of premature death. Continued progress, particularly in our most deprived communities, depends on finding new partnerships and innovative policies. This report is a fresh way to look at old challenges and I look forward to working with my colleagues in housing to make it a local reality.'

Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH added: 'This report does not call for a blanket ban on smoking in the home. It is focused on increasing the support to smokers where they live and raising awareness around the role many more professionals could play in tackling entrenched and high rates of smoking in some of our poorest communities.'
Women working for the Church of England are paid on average over 10,000 a year less than men, the CofE acknowledged yesterday.

It said that the average pay of a woman working in the Churchs managing institutions is 32,711 a year, compared to an average of 43,316 for men employed in the same offices.

The figures, which include the pay of officials and staff working directly for the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, show that the central organisations of the Church operate a gender pay gap of 24 per cent.

Archbishop Justin Welbys targets have included the gender pay gap, which he has condemned as unjust.

The Church of England acknowledged yesterday that women working for the Church of England are paid on average over 10,000 a year less than men

In September, launching an economic report by a left-leaning think tank, Archbishop Welby said: The large gender and race pay gaps which characterise our economy, and the discrimination and exclusion widely experienced by women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and others, are evidence of structural injustice.

Yesterdays CofE figures show that the gender pay gap in the Churchs major institutions, assessed in April, is nearly three times greater than the 8.6 per cent gap found in the economy as a whole.

The Church breakdown applies to staff employed in its national institutions, and not to clergy or workers employed locally by dioceses.

The organisations involved include the CofEs Cabinet, the Archbishops Council; the offices of Archbishop Welby at Lambeth Palace; those of the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu; and the Churchs financial wing, the Church Commissioners.

Three more minor bodies were also included in the assessment of the pay of 491 staff.

The figures show that the central organisations of the Church operate a gender pay gap of 24 per cent

Average pay - counted as the median, the level midway between the highest and lowest-paid workers - showed a gender gap of 10,605 a year, a level which means women are paid just over three quarters of salaries paid to men.

Church officials said the gap had narrowed since last year.

Although last year the CofE said the median gender pay gap in its national institutions was 41 per cent, officials said yesterday that this had been a mistake and last years median gap was in fact 28 per cent.

They added that the gap is wide because many women working for the CofE are in lower-paid jobs. We continue to see a large proportion of females in the lower and mid-lower quartiles compared to the UK average, this subsequently impacts on the average pay for females being lower than males, a spokesman said.

Carole Harden, Interim Director of People and Change for the National Church Institutions said: This years results are encouraging as we continue to review pay structures, addressing any imbalances and barriers to females and opportunities for advancement within the NCIs.

We are committed to improving this further as we focus on reducing the difference in pay between men and women in more highly paid roles, and improving the ratio of men to women in the most senior and most junior roles.

Archbishop Welby has suffered a series of reverses to his attempts to criticise banks, companies and economic practices which pursue exploitative policies.

In September he accused Amazon of failing to pay its workers a living wage and leaching off the taxpayer by paying minimal taxes.

However shortly afterwards the Daily Mail disclosed that the Church holds shares in Amazon thought to be worth 25 million.

Five years ago the Archbishop told payday lender Wonga that were trying to compete you out of existence, and pledged that the CofE would use its 16,000 churches to give a foothold to consumer-friendly credit unions.

However, earlier this month new figures showed that fewer than one in ten churches have any involvement at all in social projects concerning money, or even try to offer advice on how to deal with debt.
An Adelaide teacher who admitted having a sexual relationship with one of her students has broken down while apologising to his parents in court.

Private school English teacher Sonia Mackay faced the South Australian District Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to the persistent sexual exploitation of a 17-year-old boy.

Reading a letter of apology, the 43-year-old said she was 'deeply sorry' for her actions and knows what she did was wrong.

Private school English teacher Sonia Mackay (right) faced the South Australian District Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to the persistent sexual exploitation of a 17-year-old boy

'I am deeply regretful of my actions,' Mackay said.

'Through my indecent actions I have brought great distress to (the victim) and his family.'

In a victim impact statement, the boy's mother told the court Mackay had called her and asked for his phone number under the guise of helping him with his school work.

She said she became worried when her son stopped coming home for days at a time.

Reading a letter of apology, the 43-year-old said she was 'deeply sorry' for her actions and knows what she did was wrong

'I had no idea where he was sleeping, who he was with, was he safe or worse,' she said.

'When he attempted to come home she bought him expensive underwear and gifts so he had no excuse but to stay with her.'

The boy's mother recounted one incident when he did come home and Mackay called him and threatened self harm.

'I saw my son terrified... he believed it was his fault for leaving her alone.'

The case, before Judge Liesl Chapman, will return to court in December.
A Thai prisoner awaiting trial tricked a police officer into his jail cell by faking a snake attack, before sneaking out and locking the door.

Anan Komolwanich, 23, was being detained at a police station in Ayutthaya, Thailand, on suspicion of drug trafficking.

Senior Sgt. Maj. Ratchada Supawong entered Komolwanich's cell four times after he loudly complained of a snake entering the cell via a drain.

On his fourth visit, footage shows Sgt. Supawong enter the cell and look around, without securing the door behind him.

Seconds after he walked into the cell, Komolwanich slips out from behind the bars and slams the door shut - locking the officer inside.

A scuffle breaks out between the pair as the officer attempts to open the door, but Komolwanich eventually succeeds and runs away.

This is the moment Anan Komolwanich, 23, an inmate in a Thai jail, tricked a police officer into his cell by faking a snake attack, before sneaking out and locking the door

Shortly after Senior Sgt. Maj. Ratchada Supawong enters the cell, Komolwanich seizes his opportunity and slips out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind him

'The officer only went in to appease the inmate who kept yelling and caused a nuisance. He didn't actually believe there was a snake,' Ayutthaya police officer Wasupthep Kongklom said.

'But of course, we have to be more careful next time. It was an error in judgement.'

Komolwanich didn't enjoy his freedom for long, however, as he was picked up by police just five hours later following a tip-off from a local.

Officials found him a kilometre from the station in a forest, the Bangkok Post reports.

Komolwanich was originally arrested for possessing large amounts of methamphetamine, but is now facing additional charges.
A young Manhattan man allegedly stole $1million from a Silicon Valley executive by hacking into his phone and stealing his cryptocurrency.

Nicholas Truglia, 27, faces 21 felony counts after he allegedly went on a hacking spree that targeted six victims.

Authorities said Truglia successfully hacked into six victims' phones, but was only able to steal money from Robert Ross.

Nicholas Truglia, 21, (pictured holding champagne bottle) faces 21 felony counts after he allegedly hacked the phones of six Silicon Valley executives, stealing $1million from one victim

Truglia allegedly stole $1million from San Francisco executive Robert Ross, who lost his entire life savings and his daughters' college funds

Truglia allegedly stole $500,000 each from Ross' Coinbase and Gemini accounts on October 26.

Coinbase and Gemini are digital currency companies that broker exchanges of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The money was Ross' two daughters' college funds and his entire life savings, Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Erin West told the New York Post.

Authorities said Truglia managed to steal the money via SIM swap fraud, a new kind of identity theft that is becoming increasingly common.

Authorities said Truglia managed to steal the money via SIM swap fraud, a new kind of identity theft that is becoming increasingly common

With a SIM swap fraud, a scammer calls their intended target's cell phone provider and claims that their SIM card has been lost or damaged.

Truglia's charges include grand theft, altering or damaging computer data with the intent to defraud, and using personal information without authorization

They ask the customer service representative to activate a new SIM card or number.

The customer service representative will then ask a number of security questions, but the scammer has likely already accumulated this information via social media or even phishing emails.

After they get access into the phone, the scammers are then able to get into their victims' bank accounts.

'You're sitting in your home, your phone is in front of you, and you suddenly become aware there is no service because the bad guy has taken control of your phone number,' West said.

'It's a new way of doing an old crime. It's a pervasive problem, and it involves millions of dollars.'

After he allegedly hacked Ross, Truglia moved the $1million into his own bank account.

Authorities said Truglia also targeted tech CEO Saswata Basu, hedge fund manager Myles Danielsen, startup co-founder Gabrielle Katsnelson, and the vice president of a NY investment company.

Authorities said Truglia successfully hacked into six victims' phones, including start-up co-founder Gabrielle Katsnelson (left ) and 0Chain founder Saswata Basu (right)

Truglia was arrested at his luxury Manhattan apartment by the Santa Clara REACT task force, which investigates SIM swap fraud across the country, on November 14.

Investigators recovered a 'hardware wallet, a device almost like a thumb drive' as well as $300,000 in stolen funds, according to West.

Truglia's charges include grand theft, altering or damaging computer data with the intent to defraud, and using personal information without authorization.

He will be extradited to Santa Clara, California to face the charges.

'The takeaway here to the hackers is, we don't care where you're located, we are a task force based in Silicon Valley and our reach is nationwide,' said West.

Truglia's arrest comes just two months after he accused four friends of trying to steal a thumb drive he said was linked to $1.2million in bitcoin.

Truglia was arrested at his luxury Manhattan apartment (pictured) by the Santa Clara REACT task force, which investigate SIM swap fraud across the country, on November 14

He claimed that Stephen Orso, 25, Steven Dorn, 29, Chris David, 25, and David Leica, 19, had escorted him home after a night of drinking.

Truglia said Orso then allegedly held his head underwater in the bathtub and demanded he 'provide him login information for his cryptocurrency accounts', according to the New York Post.

He alleged that Orso also punched him in the stomach and threw hot wax on him before the boys stole a laptop, two mobile phones, and the thumb drive with the cryptocurrency information.

Stacey Richman, the attorney representing Truglia's friends, said he made up the story to cover up his own stealing.

Richman said she has since provided audio to the District's Attorney's Office in which Truglia admits the allegations are false.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has declared he has 'no sympathy' for convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence.

Lawrence, 41, will fly home to Australia on Wednesday night after spending 13 years behind bars in Indonesia.

She was arrested at Bali's main airport in April 2005 with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body as part of a failed bid to smuggle a total of eight kilograms of the drug into Australia with a number of other mules - later dubbed the Bali Nine.

Renae Lawrence (pictured) a week after her arrest in 2005 - she will fly home from Bali on Wednesday night - but has outstanding criminal offences awaiting her arrival in Australia

Renae Lawrence (pictured) days after her arrest in Bali on April 17, 2005 - she will released from jail before flying home on Wednesday

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005.

One warrant alleges she was involved in a high-speed chase in a stolen car with fellow Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.

Mr Dutton said he believes Lawrence should pay the price for her back-dated criminal behaviour.

'If you commit that kind of offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia,' he told Sky News.

But NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has indicated a deal with Lawrence's lawyers was more likely than a fresh set of handcuffs on the tarmac.

Daily Mail Australia understands Lawrence will be given a few days to 'settle in' at her Newcastle home before she responds to the outstanding police charges from over a decade ago.

A court date is likely to be set for December in Gosford, on the NSW central coast.

Renae Lawrence (pictured) was said to be a model prisoner in the Bangli jail - she will return to Australia on Wednesday night

Renae Lawrence (pictured) will finally leave Bali on Wednesday night following her drug arrest in 2005 - upon her return to Australia, she will face outstanding charges from 2005

The former panel beater has been held in three different Bali prisons since 2005, with the most recent Bangli Prison, in mountainous eastern Bali.

Prison Governor Made Suwendra described Lawrence as a 'co-operative and quiet inmate.'

Bev Waterman, Lawrence's mother, will accompany her daughter on the flight home.
Zholia Alemi was found to be a fake psychiatrist who claimed she had a primary medical qualification when she first registered in the UK in 1995

Worried patients have contacted the General Medical Council amid fears they were treated by a fake NHS psychiatrist, it emerged last night.

The patient safety watchdog said 27 calls have been made to its helpline about Zholia Alemi, with at least one alleging she had prescribed inappropriate and potentially harmful drugs.

On Monday the Mail revealed that 55-year-old Alemi, who is serving a five-year sentence for fraud, worked as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS for 22 years  despite having no medical qualifications.

She was allowed to register as a doctor using a fake degree from the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, in 1995 because the GMC failed to check that her documents were genuine.

The conwoman exploited a loophole in legislation which allowed medics from Commonwealth countries to work in the UK by simply presenting their papers, without sitting an exam.

Now the GMC is urgently trying to establish exactly where Alemi, who is known to have also worked for private clinics in Devon, Cumbria, West Yorkshire, Dundee and the Scottish Highlands, was employed and how many patients she treated and may have harmed.

Their findings will be handed to Cumbria police, who are expected to launch an investigation into more allegations of fraud.

Labour MP Sue Hayman, who represents Workington, in Cumbria, where Alemi was known to have most recently worked with dementia patients, told the Mail at least one constituent had been in touch to express her fears.

She said the constituent was worried that a family member could have been prescribed the wrong drugs.

Zholia Alemi was sentenced to five years in jail after trying to defraud her former NHS dementia patient Gillian Belham

It is understood the constituent has lodged a formal complaint with Workington Community Hospital and the GMC.

Mrs Hayman yesterday said she was gravely concerned about the Alemi case and confirmed she had written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to seek assurances that a thorough review was taking place.

She said: This is not just about fraudulent qualifications, it is about whether someone has been abusing their position. Was she deliberately mistreating people?

Have patients been prescribed medication unsuitable for their condition or suffered harm? These are all questions that need answers.

The GMC insists regulations were tightened in 2003 and no doctors who entered the country from abroad after that date are affected.

It is now reviewing the backgrounds of all 3,000 doctors who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries before 2003 to check if their degrees are genuine.

Last month Carlisle Crown Court was told Alemi tried to forge an elderly dementia patients will to inherit her 1.3million estate.
Chinese police have busted a criminal gang selling 500,000 boxes of counterfeit condoms worth an estimated 5.5million.

Officers arrested 17 suspected gang members across Henan, Hebei and Zhejiang provinces in eastern China.

Officials claimed the poorly-made condoms, which even included recycled rubber, presented a risk to public health.

Chinese police raided this factory which was producing 500,000 counterfeit condoms

The factory was producing counterfeit condoms using the names of well-known manufacturers such as Durex

The brands included fake boxes of Durex condoms which were sold through supermarkets, hotels and vending machines across the region.

Local police chief Zheng Xidan told the South China Morning Post: 'We found the workshops where the suspects made those condoms in rural areas in Henan and Hebei. They were very simple and crude.

'The hygienic conditions in those villages were very bad. We saw the condoms they were making  they blended the condoms with silicone oil in a bucket. It was totally below official manufacturing standards.'

Chinese condom maker Chen He said the conditions in the counterfeit factory were very poor as they failed to test for bacteria, fungi levels or the presence of holes.

He added: 'Some of those cheap condoms are even recycled from used ones.'

Earlier this year, police raided one illegal operation which had produced two million fake condoms.

Chinese authorities have jailed previous gangs for up to four years.
God should not be referred to using a gender because 'our father' was not male or female, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Most Rev Justin Welby has warned human language is inadequate to describe the Christian deity and that despite the use of words such as 'king' and 'lord'  he is not male in the human sense.

Other church leaders have called for Christians to avoid labelling God as a 'he'.

Some campaigns have pointed out in the Bible there are passages where God provides solace 'as a mother comforts her child' and have begun referring to God as a 'her'.

When asked his opinion, the Archbishop told an audience at St Martin-in-theFields in Trafalgar Square that no gender word would be appropriate.

He said: 'All human language about God is inadequate and to some degree metaphorical.

The Most Rev Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was asked in London whether God was male or female and how he should be referred to

'God is not a father in exactly the same way as a human being is a father. God is not male or female. God is not definable.

'It is extraordinarily important as Christians that we remember that the definitive revelation of who God is was not in words, but in the word of God who we call Jesus Christ. We can't pin God down.'

A YouGov survey found 41 per cent of British Christians agreed God 'does not have a human gender'  but most refer to God as male.

Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor of Christian history told The Times: 'The conventional unthinking image of God as male has been around since Christianity first emerged

Justin Welby said God is not a male or a female in the human sense of the word and human language is 'inadequate' to describe him

'But God is beyond such things. The reason God has been seen as male is simply the patriarchal assumptions of those societies . . . They reached for male terms as the people with power in that Greco-Roman world were male, so we use words like lord and king.

'The world is now different and we have to show that our view of God is wider than that and not get stuck with archaic terms.'

The Church of England's guiding 'articles of religion' state that God is 'without body, parts or passions'. The official teaching from the catechism of the Catholic church states: 'He is neither man nor woman: he is God.'
A 'foreign' man was shot dead in an upmarket area of the Costa del Sol popular with British expatriates.

The shooting took place at around 8.30pm local time last night in a residential area of Marbella known as Nagueles, where many Brits live in large mansions and gated estates.

Well-placed sources said they believed the latest victim in the upsurge of violence affecting the popular British holiday destination was 'foreign', although there was no immediate confirmation of his nationality.

The gunman fled on a motorbike after shooting his victim several times as he reached the garage where he normally parks.

A National Police spokesman said: 'We can confirm that we are investigating an incident with a firearm which has result in the death of a man who was shot in a residential area of Marbella.

A man has been shot dead in an upmarket area of the Costa del Sol (stock image, Marbella)

'The incident happened around 8.30pm.'

The hunt for the killer is ongoing.

A police patrol car was parked across the entrance to the quiet residential street where the victim was gunned down.

Officers were expected to spend much of the night working at the property he is understood to have lived at - a large detached house on the corner of the street which serves as a cut-through from the nearby motorway to residential estates in the hills above Marbella.

National Police officers from Marbella Police Station as well as a specialist unit tackling drugs and violent crime were called to the scene.

Recent months have seen the Costa del Sol rocked by gangland-style incidents.

On October 27 a Dutch gangster was shot dead in a sushi restaurant in Benalmadena.

It happened less than three weeks after two bomb blasts, linked to an ongoing gang war.

One went off outside a house on a gated estate in the Costa del Sol town of Benhavis, which is popular with British expats and holidaymakers.

The second exploded at almost the same time outside a car wash firm on an industrial estate in nearby San Pedro de Alcantara close to the resort of Marbella which is owned by the man whose home was targeted.

The gunman fled on a motorbike after shooting his victim several times as he reached the garage where he normally parks (stock image, Marbella)

No-one was injured in the blasts, although several cars were destroyed.

Police said at the time they were linking the two October 10 incidents, which followed the discovery of another home-made bomb on a residential area called Alto de los Monteros east of Marbella.

Bomb squad officers carried out a controlled explosion to make the device safe after being alerted on September 11.

A Dutch national linked to organised crime - the man later shot dead in the Benalmadena sushi restaurant called Tiki - was later arrested.

On September 19 a 24-year-old Brit was stabbed twice in the legs by an assailant who attacked him in the street without warning in the popular resort of Puerto Banus.

National Police officers from Marbella Police Station as well as a specialist unit tackling drugs and violent crime were called to the scene (stock image, Costa del Sol)

The violent crime occurred ten days after a 35-year-old Brit was shot, stabbed, beaten and given a Glasgow Smile close to the same area after being abducted by a gang of criminals over a drug deal.

The torture victim was later identified as Craig Moran, jailed for 13 years for his part in a September 2003 armed raid on a jeweller's in Nottingham in which shop owner Marian Bates was killed.

The resort of Estepona, a 20-minute drive west of Marbella, was the scene of a shocking kidnap earlier this month when criminals kidnapped a Spanish man on the street in front of tourists and locals.

The 29-year-old, who was known to police and said to be linked to drugs trafficking, was later found stabbed to death in a car in the Spanish port city of Algeciras.
ABC NewsAs Tekashi 6ix9ine faces a possible life prison sentence after being arrested on federal racketeering, firearms and robbery charges, Fat Joe says he tried to warn the rapper to watch his back.

Joe interviewed Tekashi nine months ago for a podcast, and at that time, he told him that he suspected that the feds were after the younger rapper. Joe was speaking from personal experience, having served two months in prison in 2013 for tax evasion.

I was just trying to school him 'cause I been through that, the Lean Back rapper tells TMZ. Its my job because none of the OGs when I came into the rap game schooled me. They could have stopped me from a lot of trouble.

When Tekashi was arrested Sunday in New York City, Joe realized his suspicions had become reality.

Unfortunately I was right, he says. I prayed for him last night because I actually really like the kid. Unfortunately he got a serious situation on his hands, and I tried to warn him.

The Terror Squad leader says he was with Tekashi two weeks ago in Dubai, and the young rapper told Joe that he felt he was about to be arrested.

He had some shows. I had some shows. We actually had breakfast every day, Joe recalls. He was like, Yo. I think Im catching this case I think, and he was telling me everything I told him on the interview."

Tekashis birth name is Daniel Hernandez. His attorney, Lance Lazzaro, said Wednesday in a statement to Rolling Stone, "Daniel Hernandez is completely innocent of all charges being brought against him. An entertainer who portrays a gangster image to promote his music does not make him a member of an enterprise.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Ocean Springs aldermen voted unanimously Tuesday night to replace longtime Municipal Court Judge Matthew Mestayer with criminal defense attorney Calvin Taylor.

Mestayer had served in the post since 1999 and had applied for reappointment, along with two challengers, including Taylor.

"The board spoke," said Mayor Shea Dobson. "It was a tough call. I want to thank Judge Mestayer for his years of service to Ocean Springs. He did a great job. I'm excited to see Calvin take the reigns and I'm sure he's going to do a great job as well."

Aldermen were reluctant to discuss their reasons for making the change, but one -- who asked to not be identified by name -- said there seemed to be more support for a change this time around than during past reappointments, which happen annually.

"There were so many calls, texts and emails supporting Calvin this time," the alderman said. "I got no calls for Mestayer. I didn't even get a call from Mestayer himself. Last time around, it was the complete opposite. We were all getting bombarded with calls for Matthew."

For his part, Mestayer was appreciative of the opportunity to have served.

"I feel honored that I was allowed to serve the City of Ocean Springs for as long as I have," he told The Mississippi Press Wednesday morning. "I appreciate the support I've had on the board and in the community at large. I really enjoyed my time as a judge and I'm grateful to everyone who was a part of helping me enjoy the process."

In addition to serving as Ocean Springs' city judge, Mestayer is a principal in the Biloxi-based law firm of Reeves & Mestayer and a regular participant in the local television show "Law Call," where viewers can call in with legal questions.

Taylor, like Mestayer an Ocean Springs resident, is the owner of his own law firm in Pascagoula, which he founded in 1993. He is a graduate of Pascagoula High School and the University of Mississippi. A message left for him Wednesday morning had not been returned in time to meet early holiday deadlines.

Aldermen reappointed City Prosecutor Monte Tynes, who was the only applicant for the position.
An unsuspecting construction worker has says he won't be returning to work after he won $10 million in last night's Oz Lotto draw.

The young Melbourne man in his 20s, who wished to remain anonymous, held the only division one winning entry nationally in Oz Lotto draw 1292 on Tuesday.

The thrilled winner took home a total of $10,000,039.55 after winning division six and division seven on top of his division one prize.

An unsuspecting construction worker in his 20s has won $10 million in last night's Oz Lotto draw

The construction worker was oblivious to his good fortune until a Lotto official contacted him during a work break - or smoko as it's known in Australia.

'I don't know how to feel. I don't feel like myself!' the man said in disbelief.

'My heart is beating and I am shaking.

'I don't think my family will believe me when I tell them. I am a bit of a jokester so i'll have to try and convince them,' he said.

The man who had become a millionaire overnight had said his smoko break was about to become permanent.

'I'll be buying houses for sure!' he said.

'But for today I'm walking out of here. I won't be going back to work after smoko.

The oblivious man had gone on a smoke break until a Lotto official contacted him about his good fortune

'I think everyone will come with me for a celebratory drink!'

The man purchased his 50-game QuickPick entry online at thelott.com.

The winning lotto numbers for 1292 draw on Tuesday were 39, 28, 24, 13, 2, 22 and 19.

The supplementary numbers were 5 and 1.
The Kremlin has expressed anger that the Russian candidate for Interpol president was beaten today and blamed the UK and US for 'unprecedented interference' in the election.

Putin's spokesperson said this morning that it was clear outside pressure had been exerted on the vote, but admitted that the Kremlin did not see any factors that would render the election illegitimate.

'The election took place in the atmosphere of unprecedented pressure and interference in these elections,' Dmitry Peskov told reporters after the Russian candidate Alexander Prokopchuk was defeated by South Korea's Kim Jong Yang.

The potential appointment of Alexander Prokopchuk had increased concerns that Russia had been using the international policing agency to target political opponents. Former Interpol President Meng Hongwei (right) is still missing after he was detained by Chinese authorities

Prokopchuk, a longtime veteran of Russia's security services and the perceived frontrunner, was strongly opposed by the US and Britain. He is a general in the Russian Interior Ministry and serves as a vice president of the Interpol.

The White House and its European partners had lobbied against Prokopchuk's attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation.

They said his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpol's red notice system to go after political opponents.

South Korea's Kim Jong Yang (pictured) has been elected as Interpol's next president, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the US, Britain and other European nations

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the vote's 'excellent' outcome.

'Very important news for rule of law internationally and encouraging that in a secret ballot this was so widely recognised,' he wrote on Twitter.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw his weight behind Kim, saying: 'We encourage all nations and organisations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that.'

British financier Bill Browder said yesterday the move to get Prokopchuk elected was a bid by Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured) to 'expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe'

Kim has been the acting president since his predecessor Meng Hongwei was detained in his native China in September.

His win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday.

South Korea's president Moon Jae-in said he was 'very proud' of Kim becoming the first from the nation to be chosen for the top Interpol post.

Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of Hongwei.

'Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety,' Kim told Interpol's general assembly in Dubai, according to the agency's Twitter account.

'To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.'

Kim, 57, worked in the South Korean police for more than 20 years before retiring in 2015.

Prokopchuk had been named as the likely successor to Meng, who was arrested by Chinese authorities over alleged corruption.

According to The Times, a prominent Ukrainian MP has accused Mr Prokopchuk of being a foreign intelligence agent who has served in the KGB.

Yesterday senior UK politicians and human rights groups decried his candidacy and called for him to be stopped from getting the top job.

Chief of the Russian Interior Ministry's National Central Bureau of Interpol, Major General Alexander Prokopchuk, had been named the likely successor of Hongwei Meng as head of the policing agency

Russia's use of Interpol 'red notices' has been questioned after US businessman and Vladimir Putin critic, Bill Browder (left) and Chechen exiled envoy Akhmed Zakayev (right) have been detained under the controversial warrants

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable warned Interpol risked becoming a 'branch of the Russian mafia' if he was elected. And the Foreign Office threw its weight behind South Korean candidate Kim Jong-yang.

Four US senators said his appointment would be akin to 'putting a fox in charge of a henhouse' as they and a former FBI deputy director joined the opposition.

All Interpol's 194 member states had a vote in the secret ballot held in Dubai.

In the Commons, Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable called on the Government to campaign against Mr Prokopchuk. He said even the possibility of his election demonstrated that the police organisation was 'potentially corrupt.'

He said: 'If this Russian gentleman were to become head of Interpol it would be an absolute insult to the victims of the Salisbury attack.'

He added it would also be 'a massive propaganda victory for the Putin regime' and 'amount to accepting that Interpol has become a branch of the Russian mafia'.

The Government confirmed it would not support the frontrunner's promotion from his role as vice president. Foreign Office minister Harriet Baldwin said Britain supported South Korea's Kim.

Concerns have long been raised over Russia's applications for Interpol Red Notices, or arrest warrants, for critics of the Kremlin.

British financier Bill Browder said yesterday the move was a bid by Russian president Vladimir Putin to 'expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe'.

Mr Browder, who was arrested in Spain this year under a Moscow-issued Red Notice, secured US sanctions against the Russians linked to the death of his tax consultant.

Similar notices have also been issued under a British request for the Russian agents accused of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury - Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga.

Browder, who claims Russia has used Interpol six times to abuse him, compared the appointment to Nazi Germany's control of the agency in the 1930s.

This morning, the Kremlin critic said common sense had prevailed with Interpol's decision.

Kim Jong-yang of South Korea (right), the new president of International police body Interpol attends the 87th General Assembly in Dubai, UAE, November 21, 2018

He told The Associated Press on Wednesday that 'common sense has prevailed in a dark world. This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it.'

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian interior minister called the appointment a victory for his country.

Ukraine, along with Western nations and Russian opposition figures, staunchly opposed Prokopchuk. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov tweeted Wednesday from the conference room where the vote was held, saying 'The Russian candidate has been rejected. This battle is won!'

Officials in Ukraine and Lithuania had earlier said they would consider withdrawing from Interpol if Prokopchuk was elected.

The meeting was Interpol's largest to date with 180 member states present, its secretary general Jurgen Stock said.

Describing the agency as 'neutral and independent', he said a breakdown of the secret ballot would not be made public.

Kim's election was 'democratic, transparent, free and clear,' Stock said at a Dubai press conference.

Kim's election was 'democratic, transparent, free and clear,' Interpol secretary general Jurgen Stock (pictured) said at a Dubai press conference

The former president, China's Meng Hongwei was missing for several days last month before the Chinese authorities confirmed he had been detained over bribery allegations.

A letter of resignation, purporting to come from Meng, was later sent to Interpol informing it of his decision to step down as president.

His wife, Grace, who is in hiding in France, revealed he sent her a text message with a knife emoji on the day he went missing and she remains 'extremely' concerned about his safety.

Her husband, whose whereabouts are still unknown, is the latest high-profile target to be ensnared in China's sweeping anti-corruption campaign as Interpol was accused of colluding with Russia over his detention.
The case of a perpetually angry loner accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a jogger in Queens has been declared a mistrial.

On the last day of the emotional trial Tuesday, prosecutors said the 22-year-old had no girlfriend, no friends, no job and was 'angry all the time' when he decided to vent that anger on 30-year-old Karina Vetrano, killing her in an otherwise random attack in August 2016.

'On this day he took his anger out on a pretty young woman, a girl in a halter top', District Attorney Brad Leventhal said.

A mistrial was declared Tuesday evening after just a day and a half of deliberation when jurors reported that they were split and did not believe they'd be able to come to a unanimous decision.

Lewis attorney then moved for a mistrial and Judge Michael Aloise granted it, saying 'Im inclined to agree even though its only been a day and a half. There were extensive deliberations. They covered issues central to the debate.'

One of Vetrano's family members was heard exclaiming 'Oh my God' in the courtroom after the mistrial was declared.

Prosecutors have said they will move to retry Lewis, who is due back in court on January 22 and will remain in custody.

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A mistrial was declared in the murder trial of 22-year-old Chanel Lewis on Tuesday. Lewis is accused of sexually assaulting and killing jogger Karina Vetrano in Queens in 2016

Vetrano was hit in the back of the head, dragged off a path, sexually assaulted and then strangled to death as she fought for her life

The victim's parents, Phil and Cathy Vetrano, are seen leaving Queens Supreme Court after the mistrial was declared on Tuesday evening

Lawyers for Lewis argued that DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene, including some found under his fingernails, is not reliable.

Attorney Robert Moeller said the crime scene had been corrupted by various people, including Vetrano's father, and therefore couldn't be trusted.

When Lewis appeared to be confessing the crime to police along with details of the grisly murder, he was actually just repeating information he learned from the news, Moeller added.

Lewis faces faces life in prison if convicted of murdering Vetrano, who was killed while jogging in Spring Creek Park not far from her home in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens.

Lewis had no job, no friends and no girlfriend when he decided to vent his anger on Vetrano as the pair crossed paths in an otherwise random attack, prosecutors claimed

Karina Vetrano's parents Phil and Cathy Vetrano are seen in court on the final day of summations

Lewis' mother Veta leaves Queens Supreme Court after hearing evidence in her son's trial

Vetrano was punched in the face, thrown to the ground, violently sexually assaulted and then strangled in a marsh, about a block away from her house.

Father Philip Vetrano would later find her body there.

Authorities said that the victim fought for her life until the very end, biting her attacker so hard that her teeth cracked.

Vetrano's mother and father have been present in court throughout the trial, stoically bearing witness as the prosecution laid out its evidence for the jury.

On Tuesday, prosecutors introduced evidence taken from Lewis' black ZTE cell phone, which they found at his Brooklyn home, according to the New York Daily News.

Josue Rivera, a detective with the NYPD's Computer Crimes Squad, testified in Queens Supreme Court that investigators recovered the device from Lewis' dresser in his bedroom.

The phone contained two photos of the victim, Vetrano, 30, as well as a photo of the crime scene, Rivera testified.

Philip Vetrano (left), the victim's father, later found her body in the woods. He has been present every day throughout the trial alongside the victim's mother Cathy (right)

Lawyers for Lewis say DNA evidence linking him to the crime is untrustworthy and that during an apparent police confession, he was actually repeating evidence he heard from the news

The pictures were taken from online news articles about the crime.

Prosecutors said that the phone contained a search history of 137 searches, among them the Wikipedia page for the Catholic Sacrament of Penance.

It is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church in which adherents obtain absolution for sins committed against others.

Lewis is also alleged to have searched a news article titled 'After a Crime, the Price of a Second Chance,' as well as 'Miranda warning,' 'arraignment,' and 'what happens after a felony conviction?'

Rivera was asked by Lewis' defense attorney, Julia Burke, whether the name 'Karina Vetrano' was ever searched by Lewis on his cell phone.

'You can't testify that the name Karina Vetrano was ever search by the user, is that correct?' she asked.

'That is correct,' the detective said.

Despite making a videotaped confession, in which he admitted to killing Vetrano, saying he spotted her at random and snapped, Lewis pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and aggravated sex abuse.

His lawyers have argued that the confession was coerced by keeping Lewis isolated during his six-hour interrogation.

Lewis reportedly refused to speak with white detectives and only confessed when a black detective was brought in.

His remarks to detectives that he didn't like people 'over there', referring to the largely Italian-American Howard Beach neighborhood, led to speculation that the attack may have been racially motivated.

In February, a judge decided to let DNA evidence and the videotaped confession be used at trial.

Lewis' attorneys previously questioned the validity of his DNA sample from a consensual cheek swab, which was compared to DNA evidence recovered from under the victim's fingernails, and the manner in which his confession was gained.
Daniel Andrews has insisted Melbourne isn't the 'terror central' of Australia, despite a string of horrific attacks in the city.

The Victorian Premier admitted there was 'no getting around' the devastation caused by extremist Islamic terrorists, but insisted 'evil is everywhere'.

'As Peter Dutton, Home Affairs Minister and the national government said, this evil manifests itself in lots of different places across our nation,' Mr Andrews told Channel Nine's Today.

'We know this is a very real issue. Very serious threats.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said there is 'no getting around' the evil which is occurring in several different places across the nation

Somali immigrant Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured left) during the Bourke St attack which occurred on November 9

'That's why we created the counter terrorism command with 150 to 200 dedicated analysts and experts and officers who do the very difficult work.

Today host Karl Stefanovic asked Mr Andrews if there had been any failures on his part as Premier.

Mr Andrew insisted the hard work was paying off.

'Every support and every resource and steely resolve that we stay the course on this,' Mr Andrews said.

'We have de-radicalisation programs and have community engagement, and at the same time we have best intelligence and law enforcement that we can possibly have.'

Mr Andrews told Stefanovic that the state had already been successful in stopping many attacks that threatened the city's way of life.

'We saw a terribly evil incident in Bourke Street just a couple of weeks ago.

'Yesterday we had a marvellous tribute to a very beautiful man. It was a celebration of his life on Bourke street.'

Samed Eriklioglu (left), who has been charged with one count of preparing or planning for a terrorist act. Hanifi Halis (right) was the third man charged by police with one count of preparing or planning for a terrorist act

His comments come a day after three 'ISIS-inspired' men were charged with terrorism crimes after allegedly plotting a massacre on the streets of Melbourne.

The three men, arrested in the city's north-west on Tuesday after four raids, are of Turkish background and were allegedly trying to get hold of a semi-automatic rifle.

Police claim the trio, who may have attended the same Islamic centre as the Bourke Street attacker, wanted to 'kill a maximum amount of people as possible' in a crowded place.

The men arrested were Hanifi Halis, 21, from Greenvale, Ertunc Eriklioglu, 30, from Dallas and Samed Eriklioglu, 26, from Campbellfield.
A woman who was stranded in the Outback with her dog and cat for six days has revealed the desperate measures she took to survive.

Brooke Phillips, 40, was travelling to the remote town of Blackstone near the Western Australian, Northern Territory and South Australian borders last month when she took a wrong turn and her car became bogged in the middle of nowhere.

Pasta sauce, coconut cream, a tin of tomatoes, lemon juice and red cordial kept her going for several days as temperatures soared into the mid 30s.

Brooke Phillips (middle) was relieved to be rescued after she was stranded in the Western Australian outback for six days after her car got bogged. Her cat and dog also survived

In an extraordinary tale of survival, she was then forced to drink windscreen wiper water from her car and her own urine to remain hydrated before she was eventually found and reunited with her teenager daughter who was part of the police search.

Her pets also survived the ordeal.

'I was sitting in the car and I thought 'if I have to do one more day I just don't know if I'm going to make it',' Ms Phillips, from Mount Gambier, South Australia, told the ABC.

'I was hyperventilating and I thought 'nothing is going right, no-one will find me', but luckily someone did.'

Concerned family members contacted WA Police after they had no contact with Ms Phillips for several days, which sparked a public appeal and a land and air search involving officers and community members.

Blackstone, or Papulankutja as it's traditionally known, is a large Aboriginal community in Western Australia's Goldfields-Esperance region 1,700 kilometres north-east of Perth.

WA Police released this pics of Brooke Phillips after she went missing last month

WA Police Inspector Craig Davis told the ABC Ms Phillips was very lucky to survive in the wake of the recent deaths of three men in the state's outback.

Lawyer Kismatul Muzahid collapsed and died of suspected dehydration during a hike in a national park in the Kalbarri National Park, north of Perth last month.

Motorcyclist Daniel Price recently died from heat exposure in the remote Kimberley region earlier this month, while the body of elderly prospector Ronald Potter was found in bushland near Coolgardie last week.

Ms Phillips was heading towards the remote town of Blackstone near the Western Australian, Northern Territory and South Australian borders last month when she took a wrong turn and became bogged. It took six days for help to arrive

WA Police urge motorists and hikers travelling through the outback to carry at least three days' worth of water for all people on the journey and take a personal locator beacon or satellite phone with them.

Ms Phillips now keeps 20 litres of water in her car, regardless of where she's going.
A smoker has been found guilty of manslaughter after he fatally punched a surgeon outside a Melbourne hospital.

Joseph Esmaili was found guilty of the manslaughter of Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann on Wednesday after a four-week trial.

Esmaili, 24, attacked the 41-year-old Mr Pritzwald-Stegmann at Box Hill Hospital in May 2017 after the surgeon told him to stop smoking outside a hospital building.

Joseph Esmaili (pictured) was found guilty of the manslaughter of Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann on Wednesday after a four-week trial

Mr Pritzwald-Stegmann (pictured) had approached a group including Esmaili and asked them to stop smoking near the hospital entrance

Mr Pritzwald-Stegmann had approached a group including Esmaili and asked them to stop smoking near the hospital entrance.

The men argued and witnesses recounted subsequently hearing a 'huge thud' as the surgeon hit the ground.

'I saw and heard the noise of a ten-pin bowling ball hitting the floor,' one man told the jury.

Esmaili fled the scene while staff from the hospital rushed to help their colleague Mr Pritzwald-Stegmann.

A Supreme Court jury returned a guilty verdict on Wednesday after two-and-a-half days of deliberations.

More to come
An Australian man left paralysed with a broken neck after a car crash at a drifting festival in Japan faces $80,000 medical flight bills before he can get home.

Danny Westwood, 25, from Perth in Western Australia, was on a practice lap ahead of the Ebisu Drift Matsuri when his car spun out of control and rolled, injuring him.

Drifting is where a driver intentionally oversteers their car on a corner so that the tyres lose traction on the tarmac.

The scene of the crash at Ebisu, a famous drifting track on the side of a mountain in Fukushima, three and a half hours north of Tokyo. Danny Westwood survived the horror roll

Danny Westwood with girlfriend Shay Nepia who is keeping his spirits up in hospital in Japan

The challenge is to maintain control of the car as it 'drifts' through the corner so as to drive safely through it, and competitions are held around the world.

Mr Westwood was a highly experienced and passionate drifter who traveled three times a year to Japan to take part in events.

He was warming up at Ebisu, on the side of a mountain in Fukushima, three and a half hours north of Tokyo, when the accident happened on November 7.

His car spun out of control on the track, flipped and rolled, trapping him inside.

The young Australian was crushed and his neck broke, damaging his spinal cord.

His hands were initially frozen in the same position they were in at the time his neck snapped.

Mr Westwood was taken to Fukushima University Hospital where doctors say he will most likely never walk again.

Danny with his girlfriend Shay Nepia before the crash. Danny loved drifting and would travel to Japan three times a year to take part in festivals

Danny is remaining positive, determined to recover to the best possible potential he can

'He is paralysed from below the rib cage down and his arms are paralysed but his shoulders aren't,' his mother, Karen Triffett, told 9News.

'His hands are actually locked in the position that they were in when his neck broke which is like he is holding a steering wheel.

'The prognosis that they gave me was that they don't expect that he will ever walk again and they are not sure if he will get any improvement in his arms.'

Ms Triffett said her son had remained positive despite the devastating medical assessment, saying he would never give up hope.

Danny Westwood with his mum, Karen Triffett. Karen said her son is actually helping her cope with the ordeal, and that his positivity has always been her rock of support.

Mr Westwood's father, Peter, is at his hospital bedside in Japan, along with girlfriend Shay Nepia who is keeping his spirits up.

Mr Westwood needs a medically assisted flight home which could cost as much as $80,000, and while he had travel insurance, it did not cover motor car accidents.

Friend Georgia Cottnam, a biomedical student and pharmacy dispensary assistant, started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Danny's mother to bring him home.

It has raised more than $30,000 in under 10 days, but is still shy of the $50,000 target.

'He was living every young guy's Tokyo drift fantasy and it is a shame that an unforeseeable scenario has led to this accident,' Ms Cottnam wrote on the fundraising page.

'While doctors currently do not believe he will regain use of his legs anyone who knows Danny knows that this prognosis won't stop him from working his absolute hardest to make a full recovery.'

'Danny remains in Japan until the full funds to cover his medical bills and transfer home can be raised so we appreciate all efforts to get Danny's story out there as we want him home as soon as possible.'

Funds raised go directly to Danny's mother, Karen Triffett, to pay for his repatriation.
A man who has been jogging in the the nude for the past several months has been arrested and charged after he sprinted naked past a police car.

The 52-year-old Melton West man has allegedly streaked throughout the streets of Melbourne multiple times but was only arrested off King Street on Tuesday.

Police said they received several reports of a naked jogger in the Melbourne CBD and West Melbourne in recent months, but they didn't spot him until yesterday.

A man who has been jogging in the the nude for the past several months has been arrested and charged after he sprinted naked past a police car (stock image)

The 52-year-old Melton West man has allegedly streaked throughout the streets of Melbourne multiple times but was only arrested off King Street on Tuesday

Melbourne Crime Investigation Unit detectives spotted him as he sprinted past them in the buff on Rosamond Street and he was nabbed by police on King Street.

Westgate Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team detectives then took the jogger into custody and charged him.

The 52-year-old is facing a total of 12 charges, including wilful and obscene exposure in public and sexual activity directed at another person.

The man has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 7.
The founder of the buy-one-give-one-away shoe brand TOMS has announced a $5million donation to groups calling for stricter gun laws.

Blake Mycoskie announced the largest corporate gift to the cause of ending gun violence during an appearance on NBCs Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday.

He told Fallon that he was motivated to launch the campaign after the November 7 shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California.

TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday

He grew emotional as he talked about his efforts to help end gun violence in America

Mycoskie announced the largest corporate gift to the cause of ending gun violence - $5million - which will be split among several organizations

Twelve people were killed in the shooting.

He told Fallon: My wife called me, and she was scared, and she said, I'm not taking our son to school today. This happened two weeks ago in a synagogue, and a yoga studio, and someone has to do something about it.

Mycoskie was referring to the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue on October 27, which left 11 people dead.

On November 2, a man walked into a yoga studio in Tallahassee and killed two women before turning the gun on himself.

Mycoskie said the impetus for the gift was the spate of recent shootings, including the mass shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California on November 7. Thirteen people, including the gunman, were killed

Mycoskie said that after he got off the phone with his wife, he thought to himself: You know what? Dammit, we're going to do something about it.

Mycoskie will donate $5million which will be shared among organizations including Giffords, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, March for Our Lives, and others.

He says these groups are the most amazing organizations who are working hard on the ground every day to end gun violence.

The TOMS website even has a feature where anyone can sign up online and have a physical postcard sent to their representatives in Congress demanding legislation to curb gun violence.

The postcards urge representatives to pass universal background checks for prospective gun owners.

TOMS is a Los Angeles-based company which Mycoskie founded in 2006.

It sells canvas slip-on shoes that are commonly worn in Argentina.

He was motivated to found the company after he traveled to the South American country and noticed many children did not have shoes.

TOMS's business model is such that for every pair of shoe it sells, it gives a new pair to a needy child.

So far, Mycoskie says his company has handed out 86 million pairs of shoes.
The troubles between Vikki Campion's father and Barnaby Joyce appear to be over.

Retired firefighter Peter Campion delivered an extraordinary message to the former deputy prime minister earlier this year, suggesting he punch himself in the face.

The message came amid highly-publicised affair between Ms Campion and Mr Joyce.

But the birth of baby Sebastian in April has seen the family reconcile.

Barnaby Joyce appears to have mended his rocky relationship with partner Vikki Campion's father Peter Campion (pictured Barnaby Joyce, Vikki Campion and baby Sebastian)

Mr Campion released the controversial statement to the Cairns Post in February after hearing of his daughter's relationship with Mr Joyce from media reports

Mr Campion released the controversial statement to the Cairns Post in February after hearing of his daughter's relationship with Mr Joyce from media reports.

'Politics sure does make for strange bedfellows. We just never imagined our daughter would hop into one with a former Kiwi.

'Our future son-in-law should give himself an uppercut for failing to give one to the PM,' the statement read.

The pair settled their differences in September when Mr Campion was introduced to his newest grandson when Mr Joyce travelled to north Queensland to meet the entire family.

Mr Campion told the Northern Daily Leader this week he had been misquoted and their rift was not as bad as the media made it seem.

The father of Barnaby Joyce's former staffer, now partner, Vikki Campion (pictured) delivered an extraordinary message to the Deputy Prime Minister earlier this year

'Vikki's mother and I think that with Baaa-naby [sic] as dad the kid will probably be a perfect little lamb,' Mr Campion said in a statement (pictured is Mr Joyce on Wednesday)

'I was only p***ed with Barnaby in a very mild way because I'd made the effort when my wife was estranged from her father to go and sort that out, but he hadn't. But to be fair, he was busy. These things happen.'

Mr Campion had a strained relationship with his daughter at the time, which began before Mr Joyce was in the picture.

Mr Campion had earlier said he had not spoken to his daughter, a former journalist and Mr Joyce's media adviser, for years.

The highly-publicised affair between Mr Joyce and his then media adviser tore his family apart, but that seems to be on the mend as well.

Mr Joyce was spotted with two of his daughters in September. It was the first time they had been seen together since news of the affair broke.
A daunting dust storm blanketing Australia's outback this week is headed right for Sydney.

Footage of the storm, filmed from inside the White Cliffs Hotel, far west NSW, shows the swirling dust turn everything in sight a husky red colour.

The storm is expected to hit Sydney and Canberra on Thursday - but it is unknown if it will rival 2009's 'red dawn'.

White Cliffs Hotel Manager Olivia Probyn told Daily Mail Australia the storm had a 'mad max/apocalyptic' feel to it.

'Just blew the town red, bright red! And although it was bright it was that thick I couldn't see across the road to the general store!' she said.

The storm left dust piles everywhere and the clean up was quite the task, she added.

'Just blew the town red!' White Cliffs Hotel Manager Olivia Probyn told Daily Mail Australia the storm had a 'mad max/apocalyptic' feel to it

The storm is expected to hit Sydney and Canberra on Thursday - but it is unknown if it will rival 2009's 'red dawn' (pictured are children playing in Balmain in 2009)

'[It's] still gritty but what can you do, we love [it] out in the bush,' she said.

'That was today...next couple of days will be interesting!'

Forecasters are closely monitoring a system headed toward NSW and associated high winds that could pick up masses of loose dust caused by drought conditions.

'The strong winds associated with this dry soil, with a lack of vegetation, are the perfect conditions to pick up the dust, lift it up into the atmosphere and bring it east with the winds,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Anita Pyne said.

'If it does happen it could have big impact. Dust storms can affect transport and even stop planes from landing.'

Sydneysiders have been told to brace for a dust storm (pictured is 2009's 'red dawn')

A surfer walks up the sand in a dust storm at Bondi Beach in Sydney during 2009's dust storm

An Airservices Australia spokesperson said Sydney airport has advanced procedures to allow for landing and taking off in low visibility conditions.

However, if conditions were to worsen there is potential for flight delays.

Parts of the state have already experienced dust storms this week, with Griffith in southwest NSW covered by dust on Tuesday.

Strong winds will cause severe fire danger on Thursday for the Greater Hunter region and increase the danger in the Sydney and Illawarra area.

The conditions bear a strikingly similar resemblance to 2009's 'red dawn' - one of the worst dust storms in Australia's history.

'Red dawn' was one of the worst dust storms in Australia's history

Bureau of Meteorology weather services manager Jane Golding said while NSW and the ACT could be at risk, the dust storm's reach would depend on the strength of the winds

The Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were barely visible and flights in and out of the city were cancelled.

Bureau of Meteorology weather services manager Jane Golding said its computer model suggested this week's event could be comparable.

'A frontal system generates some really strong westerly winds, and that frontal system ends up producing a low pressure system to the south of the country which picks up even more vigorous winds,' Ms Golding told the ABC.

She said while the entire state and the ACT could be at risk, the dust storm's reach would depend on the strength of the winds.

A number of dust storms have already hit western parts of New South Wales in recent weeks, with White Cliffs Hotel also hit earlier this month

'If the winds are gale force it might make it all the way to the coast. If they are down in the fresh range, so maybe only around 40 kilometres an hour the dust might not even make it to Canberra,' she said.

'At the moment the guidance is pointing to some pretty strong winds, but we'll just have to see how the front and the low pressure system develop.'

A number of dust storms have already hit western parts of New South Wales in recent weeks, with one raging through the town of White Cliffs earlier this month

There were similar scenes 231.5 kilometres away in Milpanika, while in October, the skies above Broken Hill were turned a deep red as a dust stormed engulfed the rural city.

The skies above Broken Hill were turned a deep red as a dust stormed engulfed the rural city in October
Just a day before he gunned down his ex-fiancee in front of the hospital where she worked, Juan Lopez stood by her side in church.

Lopez attended church services on Sunday with Dr Tamara O'Neal and her family in Indiana, where she was originally from.

Barely 24 hours later, O'Neal would be Lopez's first victim in a hospital rampage that would also take the lives of a 28-year-old rookie cop and a 25-year-old pharmacy resident.

Lopez's rampage only came to an end after a SWAT team officer's bullet struck him in the abdomen and killed him.

Just a day before he gunned down his ex-fiancee Dr Tamara O'Neal in front of the hospital where she worked, Juan Lopez stood by her side in church

Barely 24 hours later, O'Neal would be Lopez's first victim in a hospital rampage that would also take the lives of a 28-year-old rookie cop and a 25-year-old pharmacy resident

O'Neal and Lopez were engaged until late September, when the ER doctor decided to call off their October wedding.

Tom O'Neal, her father, told CNN that Lopez 'couldn't accept' that the relationship was over.

O'Neal, a Christian, was very involved with her church. Tom said she and Lopez were 'not united in their faith'.

'I just thank God for the 38 years we had with her,' he said. 'I was thinking we'd have a lot longer. We were expecting being grandparents, spoiling the grandchildren.'

Details of Lopez's troubled past are emerging in the aftermath of the shooting.

On Monday it was revealed that Lopez was kicked out of the Chicago Fire Department Academy in May 2014.

Lopez made threats to a female fire cadet and was told he was going to be disciplined, according to department spokesman Larry Merritt.

Glenda O'Neal shows a photo of her daughter and their family at their home in LaPorte, Indiana. Lopez had gone to church with O'Neal and her family in Indiana on Sunday

O'Neal and Lopez were due to marry on October 27, but she called the wedding off in September. O'Neal is pictured here with Lopez's mother, who caption the photo 'my future daughter-in-law'

Lopez also killed Chicago police officer Samuel Jimenez, 28, (pictured). Jimenez had only just completed his probationary period. He was a father of three

Dayna Less, 25, (pictured) was also killed in the shooting. She was a first-year pharmacy resident at Mercy Hospital who was engaged to be married

Sources told the Chicago Tribune that he then threatened to shoot up the fire academy.

Merritt did not have any details of the past threats but said they were made the same year a woman sought an order of protection against Lopez because he was incessantly texting her.

Police said they have not determined if the woman was granted an order of protection and Lopez was not criminally charged.

Lopez disappeared from duty during the 'discipline process' and did not report back to the academy. He was fired less than two months after he was hired.

Monday's rampage began when Lopez left his job at the Chicago Housing Authority to confront O'Neal in the parking lot about an engagement ring, witnesses said.

Lopez also shot at a second police officer, but the bullet struck his holster and embedded into the gun (pictured). He was not injured

After shooting the doctor six times, he then ran into the hospital and continued firing.

The gunshots killed Chicago police officer Samuel Jimenez, 28, and 25-year-old pharmacy resident Dayna Less.

He shot at a second police officer who escaped injury when the bullet lodged in the barrel of his handgun while it was holstered on his belt.

Lopez had a permit to possess a concealed firearm, but it was unclear if officials knew about the 2014 complaint when the permit was granted, Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

Lopez had legally purchased four guns in the last five years, Guglielmi added.

Witnesses said the shooting began around 3.30pm when Lopez confronted Dr O'Neal in the parking lot.

Witnesses said Lopez shot O'Neal in the hospital parking lot before rushing inside and opening fire at others

Dr O'Neal, an ER doctor at the hospital, was reporting for work when she was confronted by Lopez just before 3.30pm

Lopez shot Less (pictured) just as she was getting off an elevator as his rampage continued inside the hospital

She was wearing her medical scrubs and was about to start her shift at the hospital.

A witness who was sitting in a van with nursing home patients in the parking lot said O'Neal had run to them for help.

'She got on the phone and she was trying to call the police,' the witness told WGN. 'She asked us not to leave her alone because he is going to kill her.'

The witness said Lopez then approached O'Neal and demanded that she give him a ring. O'Neal told him that she didn't have it. Then, he pulled out a gun.

James Gray saw Lopez and O'Neal talking to one another in the parking lot when he suddenly pulled out the gun.

Officers did a 'methodical search' of the hospital (pictured is a SWAT team inside the hospital)

Lopez, 32, died inside the hospital after he was reportedly shot by a SWAT team officer

'The gentleman turned around and shot three times in the chest,' Gray told WLS.

'Once she fell to the ground, he turned around and shot her three more times'.

Lopez then made his way into the hospital and shot Less multiple times just as she was getting off an elevator.

'That poor woman got off an elevator,' Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said during a press conference. 'She had nothing to do with nothing, and he shot her. Why?'

Lopez then fatally shot Jimenez in the neck. The rookie cop was a married father-of-three who had only just completed his probationary period.

Ziff Sistrunk, of Crosses for the Losses, places crosses outside of Mercy Hospital for the victims of Lopez's hospital rampage

Chicago Police Officer Anthony Jahns bows his head during a moment of silence for Jimenez

Johnson paid tribute to the slain officer late Monday, calling him and the other responding officers 'heroes'.

'They saved a lot of lives because we just don't know how much damage he was prepared to do,' he said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, fighting back tears, said the victims were 'all going about their day, all doing what they loved.'

'This just tears at the soul of our city,' he added. 'It is the face and a consequence of evil.'

Tears roll down the face of a police officer at the Wentworth District police station as the district mourns the death of Jimenez
A man angered commuters on Wednesday morning by standing directly in the path of an oncoming tram during peak hour.

A large group of commuters watched on as the man stepped in front of the tram at Flinders St station, in Melbourne's CBD, and refused to move.

At this stage, it remains unclear what the man's reasoning was.

A man angered commuters on Wednesday morning by standing directly in the path of an oncoming tram during peak hour (pictured)

A large group of commuters angrily watched on as the man stepped in front of the tram at Flinders St station, in Melbourne's CBD, and refused to move (pictured)

Video footage of the incident was uploaded to Reddit.

The man can be seen arguing with a worker wearing a high-visibility work attire who tried to remove him from the tracks.

After several minutes, the aggrieved man, who was initially determined to argue his point, eventually moved away from the stationary tram, allowing commuters to board before it terminated at St Kilda Beach.

A Reddit user joked that the man's actions were a 'great way to get lynched by a mob of angry white-collar workers'.
Dry weather is predicted across the majority of the US on the busiest travel day of the year Wednesday as an estimated 54 million Americans hit the road for the Thanksgiving holiday.

No major storm systems are expected to affect travel to the east of the Rocky Mountains through the weekend, though parts of the West Coast may face rain and mountain snow.

The Thanksgiving travel rush was off to a smooth start on Tuesday as there was no particularly notable road congestion and fewer than 100 flights were cancelled around the country.

On Wednesday an arctic cold front is expected to sweep through the Great Lakes and New England, bringing with it some light pockets of snow in the north and leaving areas toward the south dry.

In the central region of the US the greatest likelihood of rain is predicted near the Texas Gulf coast, with dry weather predicted in the north-central states and some minor snow showers in the northern Great Lakes.

On the West Coast wet and wintry weather could extend from Southern California to the Great Basin by Wednesday evening, meteorologists warn.

Dry weather is predicted across the majority of the US on the busiest travel day of the year Wednesday as an estimated 54 million Americans hit the road for the Thanksgiving holiday

Wet and wintry weather conditions could crop up on the West Coast through the week's end

The American Automobile Association and analytics company INRIX have predicted the worst times to hit the road for Thanksgiving festivities this week in America's most congested cities

As Thanksgiving Day nears, a strong area of high pressure from the Arctic Circle is expected to descend southward across Canada and into the Northeast, sending temperatures plummeting toward levels more common on New Year's Day.

Blustery winds and high temperatures in the teens could make the holiday one of the coldest on record in New England.

However, the bitter cold will be accompanied by dry conditions, which is good news for roadtrippers.

Floridians have been warned that showers may hit Wednesday or Thursday.

The Central US is expected to dry out by Thursday as warmer than average temperatures are predicted in the Plains, with a small possibility of thunder storms in Texas.

In the west, the possibility of rain and snow will remain the same through Thursday and Friday.

Nationwide weather forecasts for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are pictured above

The Thanksgiving air-travel rush got off to a relatively smooth start Tuesday thanks to mild weather conditions throughout the US, with just 100 flights canceled by the afternoon

In the Midwest, wintry-cold temperatures flowing across the Great Lakes are expected to generate snow for some of the areas off Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario through Wednesday.

Light snowfall is in the forecast for Northeast Ohio; Erie, and western Upstate New York into late Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Thanksgiving should be dry for much, if not all, of the Midwest. High temperatures Thursday are in the 20s and 30s.

In the West, the National Weather Service is advising drivers to plan extra time into their trips as a storm off the coast of California will delay travel starting Wednesday.

After weeks of dry conditions under strong high pressure, a significant pattern shift will occur by Wednesday as weak to moderately strong weather system moves into the region,' the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada wrote on Monday.

This means that [Monday] and Tuesday will be the best days for those with travel plans this week'.

Snowy and windy conditions are likely over the Sierra passes above 7,500 feet starting Wednesday morning. The combination of snow and wind could reduce visibility significantly at high elevations.

Rain is also possible in parts of Texas on Tuesday, the regions busiest Thanksgiving travel day, according to AAA.

Houstons travelers tend to hit the road today between 2pm and 4pm and in Dallas, most air travel is scheduled Monday between 5pm and 7pm.

The chart above shows anticipated traffic en route to America's busiest airports this week

The American Automobile Association predicts that 54.3 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home between Wednesday and Sunday, the highest number since 2005 and about a 5 percent increase over last year.

AA says 48 million will drive and 4.7 million will fly.

Looking at a longer, 12-day period, the airline industry trade group Airlines for America predicts that a record 30.6 million people will fly on US carriers, up from 29 million last year. That's more than 2.5 million per day.

MOST POPULAR HOLIDAY DESTINATIONS 2018 Orlando, Florida New York, New York Anaheim, California Punta Cana, Dominican Republic Las Vegas, Nevada Cancun, Mexico Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas Honolulu, Hawaii Washington, DC Miami, Florida Advertisement

Travelers should prepare for long lines at airport checkpoints. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen about 25 million people, an increase of 5 percent over last year.

TSA says the holiday rush starts the Friday before Thanksgiving - earlier than before. The Sunday following Thanksgiving is expected to be one of TSA's 10 busiest days ever. TSA expects most returning passengers to fly home Sunday or Monday.

According to INRIX, this year's travelers paid an average ticket price of $478 round trip, with prices peaking at more than $500 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The most popular holiday destinations this year are Orlando, New York City and Anaheim, while Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Miami and the Dallas/Fort Worth area all gained popularity over last year.

In a press release chock full of information ahead of the holidays, AAA Travel senior vice president Bill Sutherland said: 'Consumers have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season: higher wages, more disposable income and rising levels of household wealth.

'This is translating into more travelers kicking off the holiday season with a Thanksgiving getaway, building on a positive year for the travel industry.'

Travelers wait for their train at Amtrak's Baltimore Penn Station on Tuesday afternoon
Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith apologized for her infamous 'public hanging' comment at a debate Tuesday night against Democrat Mike Espy  but then accused her African-American opponent of using the controversy as a 'weapon.'

Smith's apology was a new tack since her videotaped remark blew up last week, drawing criticism from inside and outside the state. It followed the emergence of photos of Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to the seat of ailing former Sen. Thad Cochran, posing in confederate garb at a museum.

She apologized hours after President Trump, who heads to the state Monday to try to boost her campaign, said the comment was 'just sort of said in jest,' and that it was a 'shame that she has to go through this.'

Hyde-Smith's remark was caught on video that was released last week, and drew condemnation coming from Mississippi, a state with a dark history of lynchings and discrimination.

Appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Democrat Mike Espy greet each other before their televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, Pool)

'For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statement,' Hyde-Smith said Tuesday during the televised debate.

The apology was a new tack for Hyde-Smith, who repeatedly refused to answer questions about the hanging comment at a news conference Nov. 12, the day after the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted the video on Facebook and Twitter.

The clip shows Hyde-Smith praising a cattle rancher at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: 'If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row.' Shortly after the video's release, she said in a statement that the expression was an 'exaggerated expression of regard' and said it is 'ridiculous' to read any negative connotation into it.

'There has never been anything, not one thing, in my background to ever indicate I had ill will toward anyone,' Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner, said Tuesday night. 'I've never been hurtful to anyone. I've always tried to help everyone.'

Appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., answers a question during a televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate with Democrat Mike Espy in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, Pool)

Democrat Mike Espy responds to a statement from his opponent, appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., during a televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018

Then she went after her opponent: 'I also recognize that this comment was twisted and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me, a political weapon used for nothing but personal and political gain by my opponent. That's the type of politics Mississippians are sick and tired of,' she said.

Espy responded during the debate: 'No one's twisted your comments because your comments were live, you know, it came out of your mouth. I don't know what's in your heart but I know what came out of your mouth. It went viral in the first three minutes around the world. And so it's caused our state harm. It's given our state another black eye that we don't need. It's just rejuvenated those stereotypes that we don't need anymore.'

Hyde-Smith is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress. Espy is a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the state's first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

At other points in the debate, Hyde-Smith embraced Trump, calling for construction of a border wall and other elements of his agenda. Trump, who will hold two rallies for Hyde-Smith on Monday, the day before voters go to the polls in the runoff election, defended her as a 'spectacular senator' Tuesday.

Democrat Mike Espy answers a question during a televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate with his opponent appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday

Appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., answers a question while Democrat Mike Espy, left, listens during their televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, Pool)

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has come under fire for a 2014 Facebook post that shows her wearing a Confederate Army hat

Walmart is asking back its contributions to her campaign

During the debate, Hyde-Smith questioned a $750,000 lobbying contract Espy had in 2011 with the Cocoa and Coffee Board of the Ivory Coast. She noted that the country's ex-president, Laurent Gbagbo, is being tried in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including, Hyde-Smith said, 'murder, rape and unspeakable things against young girls.'

'I don't know how many Mississippians can really relate to an income that can command a $750,000 check from one person for a lobbying job,' said Hyde-Smith, who is a cattle rancher.

Espy, who is an attorney, said: 'I found out later that this guy, the president, was a really bad guy. I resigned the contract.'

President Donald Trump defended Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith as he prepares to campaign for her in her run off election

Federal registration papers show Espy terminated the contract two weeks before its scheduled end.

Hours before Tuesday's debate, President Donald Trump defended Hyde-Smith's 'public hanging' remark, saying at the White House that she loves the people of Mississippi and the U.S.

'It was just sort of said in jest,' Trump said. 'She's a tremendous woman and it's a shame that she has to go through this.'

Walmart asked Hyde-Smith to return a $2,000 campaign contribution because of the hanging remark. Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins said Tuesday that the company donated to Hyde-Smith Nov. 8, three days before the release of the video with the 'public hanging' remark.

Democrats are sending in the big guns, like Sen. Kamala Harris (right), to campaign with Espy

'Sen. Hyde-Smith's recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates,' Jenkins said in a statement. 'As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations.'

Hyde-Smith's campaign did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about whether it would refund Walmart's contribution.

Senate races rarely gain national attention in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state. But this matchup - the last major race of the 2018 midterms - has drawn scrutiny after Hyde-Smith's remarks.

Trump is traveling to Mississippi for two Hyde-Smith rallies Monday on the eve of the election. Former Vice President Joe Biden has endorsed Espy.

Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate to temporarily succeed longtime Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April amid health concerns. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41 percent of the vote when four candidates were on the ballot Nov. 6. If she wins the Nov. 27 runoff, Hyde-Smith would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

Democrat Mike Espy responds to a statement from his opponent, appointed U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., during a televised Mississippi U.S. Senate debate in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, POOL)
Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence has been released from prison in Indonesia and banned from re-entering the country.

Lawrence, 41, is expected to be on a 9.50pm fight home to Australia after spending 13 years behind bars for her involvement in a trafficking syndicate.

She was arrested at Bali's main airport in April 2005 with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body as part of a failed bid to smuggle a total of eight kilograms of the drug into Australia with a number of other mules - later dubbed the Bali Nine.

Lawrence will make the 90 minute journey from Bangli Prison to Denpasar Airport where she will be processed by the immigration department.

Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence (pictured, centre) has been released from prison in Indonesia

Lawrence, 41, is expected to be on a 9.50pm fight home to Australia after spending 13 years behind bars for her involvement in a trafficking syndicate

Lawrence will make the 90 minute journey from Bangli Prison to Denpasar Airport

Issues with paperwork were blamed for Lawrence's delayed release on Wednesday afternoon but it's understood all immigration and release papers have now been completed.

About 50 heavily armed police officers poured out of Bangli Prison where they were briefed for her imminent release, Nine News reported.

Just before 5pm local time officials addressed the media about Lawrence but she was no where to be seen.

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'.

Mr Sumadi said Lawrence would be deported and banned from re-entering Indonesia for life.

Justice Department officials conducted a health check and said Lawrence was found to be in good health.

At the conclusion of the conference, guards and media flooded the prison door in anticipation for the release of Lawrence.

Issues with paperwork were blamed for Lawrence's delayed release on Wednesday afternoon but it's understood all immigration and release papers have now been completed

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'

There was originally speculation Lawrence would speak at a media conference

Lawrence eventually walked from the doors, covered by a heavily armed mobile brigade police.

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows.

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her.

There was originally speculation Lawrence would speak at the media conference.

Lawrence will reportedly be issued a new Australian passport to allow her to leave Indonesia.

She should touch down in Australia at 5am on Thursday morning.

Just before 5pm local time officials addressed the media about Lawrence but she was no where to be seen

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'

Lawrence appeared after the the conference concluded, flooded by guards and wearing sunglasses (pictured in car on the way to the airport)

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005.

One warrant alleges she was involved in a high-speed chase in a stolen car with fellow Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for the ex panel-beater, and suggested she face the full extent of the law.

'If you commit that kind of offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia,' he told Sky News.

But NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller suggested a deal with Lawrence's lawyers was more likely than a fresh set of handcuffs on the tarmac.

Lawrence was originally sentenced to life in prison but her sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

She served almost 14 years after numerous reductions for good behaviour.

Lawrence was reportedly prescribed anti-depressants by a local doctor to deal with anxiety before the long-awaited release.

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005

Police patrolled Bangli Prison ahead of Lawrence's release on Wednesday afternoon (pictured)

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawrence (centre), and suggested she face the full extent of the law

Prison governor Made Suwendra praised Lawrence for contributing to prison life in Bangli and being a co-operative inmate.

Mr Suwendra hoped Lawrence would be helped to integrate back into life in Australia.

'Renae Lawrence is in a healthy condition. She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous,' Mr Suwendra told AFP.

Daily Mail Australia understands Lawrence will be given a few days to 'settle in' at her Newcastle home before she responds to the outstanding police charges from over a decade ago.

A court date will likely be set for December in Gosford, on the NSW central coast.

Renae Lawrence (pictured) days after her arrest in Bali on April 17, 2005 - she was released from jail on Wednesday

Renae Lawrence (pictured) a week after her arrest in 2005 - she will fly home from Bali on Wednesday night - but has outstanding criminal offences awaiting her arrival in Australia

Lawrence is the only Bali Nine member to be released.

Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in 2015 and Tan Duc Thahn Nguyen died of stomach cancer in May earlier this year.

Martin Stephens, 42, Michael Czugaj, 32, Scott Rush, 33, and Si Yi Chen, 33, remain in prison where they are serving life sentences, with little chance of release.
Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has been placed in general population at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.

The prison is known for being filled with 'extremely dangerous, violent, or escape-prone' inmates, according to the US Justice Department.

6ix9ine, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was indicted on racketeering and firearm charges in Manhattan federal court on Monday.

Federal prosecutors alleged the 22-year-old rapper was involved in the violent New York City-based gang Nine Trey, a 'violent sect of the Bloods', for several years.

Lance Lazarro, the rapper's lawyer, told TMZ that 6ix9ine was placed in general population instead of a segregated part of the prison due to his celebrity status.

Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has been placed in the 'extremely dangerous' general population at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center

6ix9ine, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was indicted on racketeering and firearm charges in Manhattan federal court on Monday. He is pictured in court in October

Prosecutor Michael Longyear acknowledged on Monday that 6ix9ine was a target and that members of his crew 'wanted to super violate him' - meaning inflict harm or shoot him.

Longyear said 6ix9ine, who was denied bail on Monday, was taken in after prosecutors discovered he was planning a trip to a Connecticut casino.

They feared that a hit could be placed on the rapper and put innocent lives at risk.

6ix9ine's bail hearing was scheduled for Tuesday but has been pushed to Wednesday because the judge was unavailable.

The Brooklyn-based rapper was arrested on Sunday and arraigned on Monday alongside five other men affiliated with Nine Trey.

Federal prosecutors alleged the 22-year-old rapper was involved in the violent New York City -based gang Nine Trey, a 'violent sect of the Bloods', for several years

This April 3, 2018 still image from a surveillance video was released by federal prosecutors to document alleged involvement by the rapper in several violent incidents

This April 21, 2018 still image from a surveillance video shows a shooting at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which prosecutors claim the rapper and Nine Trey were involved in

Hs ex-manager Kifano Jordan, aka Shotti, was charged.

Faheem Walter, aka Crippy, Jamel Jones, aka Mel Murda, Jensel Butler, aka Ish, and Fuguan Lovick, aka Fu Banga, were also indicted.

According to the press release, Nine Trey is a 'criminal enterprise involved in committing numerous acts of violence, including shootings, robberies, and assaults in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn'.

'Members and associates of Nine Trey engaged in violence to retaliate against rival gangs, to promote the standing and reputation of Nine Trey, and to protect the gang's narcotics business,' the press release continues.

The group 'enriched themselves by committing robberies and selling drugs, such as heroin, fentanyl, furanly fentanyl, MDMA, dibutylone, and marijuana.'

Nine Trey was established in the early 90s at Rikers and operates in other areas of the country, including California.

6ix9ine's former manager Kifano Jordan (pictured November 7 in Manhattan court) has also been charged in the gang-related crimes

6ix9ine is currently facing 25 years to life in prison on six counts of the gang-related crimes.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said the gang has been involved in multiple acts of violence and has wreaked havoc on New York City.

'Showing reckless indifference to others' safety, members of the gang were allegedly involved in robberies and shootings, including a shooting inside the crowded Barclay's Center, and a shooting in which an innocent bystander was hit,' Berman said.

'Thanks to the extraordinary work of HSI, ATF, and the NYPD, the defendants will now face justice in federal court.'

6ix9ine was arrested by ATF agents in New York on Sunday night after a joint investigation was done by the ATF, NYPD, and Homeland Security.

The rapper, whose debut album Day69 is among the most downloaded on iTunes, has been among the most ascendant and controversial names in hip-hop in recent months.

6ix9ine was denied bail on Monday. He now faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted

In 2015 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to one felony count of using a child in a sexual performance.

Authorities said the rapper had sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl when he was 18 and distributed videos of the incident online.

6ix9ine recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Brooklyn Criminal Court in connection with a May traffic stop.

Last week the rapper revealed in an Instagram clip that he had dismissed his entire staff, including his manager and booker.

'I fired everybody on my team,' the Gummo artist said in the clip, imploring his fans that he was not going to be performing live in the near future, even in cases where he might be advertised.

'I don't got no manager, I got no booking agent, no PR, no publicist, I don't got nobody on my team - it's just me.'
Starting in a small corner of the country's far west region, China has been building a vision of 'ethnic unity' and shared prosperity between the Uighur Muslim minority and Han Chinese.

The Hotan Unity New Village is a Communist Party showcase for its efforts to tame Xinjiang province, the heartland of the often restive Uighurs and an unforgiving terrain.

Free or low-cost houses are assigned alternately to Uighurs and Han Chinese, who work side-by-side in greenhouses and send their children to school together.

It is the future the party envisions for Xinjiang after a massive security crackdown that has sent by some estimates more than a million Muslims to internment camps, and many of their children to orphanages. But a closer look reveals elements missing from what the party calls 'ethnic unity'.

An Uighur child plays alone in the courtyard of a home at the Unity New Village in Hotan, China's Xinjiang. The settlement is a Communist Party showcase for its efforts to tame Xinjiang

A mural showing Uighur and Han Chinese men and women carrying the national flag of China on the wall of a home at the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region

Pictures of the village show rows of identical white concrete houses with red metal roofs rise abruptly above the sand dunes of the harsh Taklamakan Desert. The city says there are 534 households in the compound, but most of the houses are empty

Pictures of the village show rows of identical white concrete houses with red metal roofs rise abruptly above the sand dunes of the harsh Taklamakan Desert. A Chinese flag flutters above the settlement, and a billboard at the entrance says, 'Welcome to the Hotan Unity New Village.'

However, mosques for Muslim worshippers, or traditional Uighur brick homes, often adorned with pointed arches and carved decorations are nowhere to be seen. In their place are colourful murals of what authorities consider to be scenes of unity, such as a Uighur man and his family holding a Chinese flag.

In the village's new public square, Uighur children banter with Han Chinese children in fluent Mandarin, the language of the Han majority, rather than in their native tongue. Young Uighur women wear Western clothing without the headscarves that are part of traditional Muslim dress.

While these are voluntary settlements with economic benefits, experts and Uighur activists believe they are part of an aggressive government campaign to erode the identities of the Central Asian groups who called the region home long before waves of Han migrants arrived in recent decades.

Muzitohtahon, centre, a Uighur farmer in his early seventies who moved to the village three years ago, said he is no longer a Muslim, stands outside a convenience store at the village

An Uighur woman uses an electric-powered scooter to fetch school children as they ride past a picture showing China's President Xi Jinping joining hands with a group of Uighur elders

'Ethnic unity' is a euphemism for taming, breaking the Uighur people,' says Joanne Smith Finley, an expert in Uighur identity at Newcastle University in the UK. 'This is putting flowery bright wallpaper over a damp wall, a rotting wall.'

Construction of the village began in 2014 with a planned investment of 1.7 billion yuan (191 million). The goal was to build 5,000 homes and 10,000 greenhouses, according to local reports, to turn a large swath of desert into farmland and create a shared prosperity among Uighurs and Han Chinese.

Around the same time, the Communist Party came forth with a new strategy focused on ethnic mingling. Subsequently, at least one county offered financial incentives for Uighur-Han intermarriages, while others have launched programs encouraging Uighur families to move into Han Chinese residential areas.

China is building several such mixed settlements in Xinjiang. A similar village is under construction as a tourist attraction near Kuqa, around 600 kilometres (372 miles) from Hotan. A concrete yurt known as the 'solidarity farmhouse' already has been completed, and a giant sculpture of a pomegranate is prominently placed at the centre of the village to symbolise unity.

In Hotan, there are signs that the government's experiment is making inroads. Uighur farmers toil alongside Han Chinese to farm crops in what was once barren desert land, and both groups live in modern houses equipped with gas, electricity and water. A billboard displays a picture of President Xi Jinping and a group of Uighur elders joining hands and, according to the caption, 'linking hearts.'

A drawing of China's President Xi Jinping is seen on the wall of a house in the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region. China is building several such mixed settlements

Uighur children play while their relatives rest outside their house, decorated with Chinese lanterns and barbed wire at the Unity New Village in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region

Elderly Uighur men chat outside shophouses in Hotan, in western China's Xinjiang region

Yet there are also signs of enduring mistrust. As elsewhere in Xinjiang, high walls around homes are topped with barbed wire, and police officers stand guard from behind fences at the entrance of the village. Adults don't mix socially - at night, a group of Han Chinese dance in the square while the Uighur residents chat among themselves on the sidelines.

A Uighur farmer who moved to the village last September says authorities provided him with free housing and utilities, two greenhouses, a small orchard with grapevines and a barn with sheep, chickens, and pigeons.

But the crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang has made it risky for ordinary Muslims to discuss their religious practices, and when speaking to reporters in front of government observers, he insists he was never a Muslim. Another Uighur farmer in his early seventies, Muzitohtahon, says he is no longer a Muslim.

Uighur and Han villagers do seem united by at least one factor - their desire to escape poverty. Rural areas in Xinjiang, including Hotan, rank among the poorest in China, with many families lacking even the most basic utilities and food. The financial incentives are also a key draw for Han Chinese from other impoverished regions of China.

A Uighur woman prepares food at her store at the Unity New Village in Hotan

An Uighur man, centre, watches Han Chinese dance in front of restaurants and shophouses operated by Uighur people at the Unity New Village in Hotan

Last May, 58-year-old Xiao Erying, who is Han Chinese, moved to this village from her hometown in the southern province of Hunan, over 4,000 kilometres away.

'It is better than our hometown,' she says, as she rakes sheep, chicken and cow manure inside her greenhouse.

For 60,000 yuan (6,700), her family bought a two-bedroom home with a small orchard and two greenhouses. The two grandchildren she lives with are given free tuition, school lunches, and even a free set of clothes. Xiao admits she doesn't speak Uighur and cannot communicate with her Uighur neighbors, but she says the layout encourages interaction.

In a greenhouse a few dozen meters away, Uighur Abudu Mijiti has just begun planting chilli with his wife. He moved to the village three years ago to make a more stable living. Two of his three children go to the local school and are fluent in Chinese, he says, as a government minder looks on.

'For us, it's good, it helps learning our national language,' he says. 'And because our next-door neighbour is Chinese, as we go in and out, it helps improve ethnic unity.'

On the surface, the picture presented at the Hotan Unity New Village reflects the government's vision of an 'idealised place,' says David O'Brien, an expert at the University of Nottingham.

While thousands of Uighur Muslims across China's Xinjiang region are forced into re-education camps, China's fledgling vision for ethnic unity is taking shape in a village where Han Chinese work and live alongside Uighur minorities

Drivers have their vehicles checked at a police check point in Hotan

Uighur women use carts to transport cement for home renovations at the Village in Hotan

A Han Chinese woman tends to her crops at the Unity New Village in Hotan

'Every single part of it is the official narrative,' O'Brien says. 'The narrative is, water will flow to the desert. The narrative is, if you come here great opportunity awaits you. The narrative that people will be secular, they will learn Mandarin.'

Yet the settlement remains only partly inhabited. The city says there are 534 households in the compound, but most of the houses are empty. A drive through reveals rows of empty greenhouses and house after house with a sign that says 'sealed off' patched onto padlocked or chained gates.

Under the sweltering desert sun, one Han Chinese farmer tending to her plot of Chinese chives complains that water is scarce and her previous batch of chives had to be thrown out. Even when the crops work out, the chives sell for less than one yuan (11p) per kilogram.

'Not even enough for food,' she grumbles. 'You cannot feed yourself just working on greenhouses.'

In the absence of government minders, the woman goes on.

'Ordinary people are not able to eat meat. The officials can, but not the ordinary people,' says the woman, who declines to give her name out of fear of retaliation.

As dusk approaches and temperatures fall, residents slowly make their way out onto the streets to enjoy the evening breeze. On the Uighur side of the street, a young Uighur woman rests on an electric bike after a day's work, looking at her cell phone.

Asked what she thinks of unity, she looks up.

'Unity?' she asks. Silently and slowly, she shakes her head, and returns to her phone.
All four members of the wealthy New Jersey family who were found dead as their mansion went up in flames were murdered, it has been revealed.

Authorities are investigating a quadruple homicide in the deaths of tech company CEO Keith Caneiro, 50, his wife Jennifer, 45, and their two young children whose ages have not been confirmed.

Caneiro was found dead in front of the Colts Neck home with a gunshot wound on Tuesday afternoon, while Jennifer and her children's bodies were discovered 'severely burned' inside the $1.5million mansion.

It has since been revealed that the gunshot wound was not self-inflicted. The fire is being investigated as an arson.

Seven hours before his house went up in flames, another fire was reported at his brother Paul Caneiro's home 20 miles away.

Paul and his family escaped with their lives and neighbors said they told them the fire had been caused by a gas leak.

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Keith Caneiro, 50, his wife Jennifer Caneiro, 45, (pictured) were found dead as their $1.5million two-story Colts Neck home went up in flames on Tuesday

The couple's young son and daughter were also found dead in the horrific blaze on Tuesday

Caneiro's body was found in front of the home (pictured) with a gunshot wound. Jennifer and her children's bodies were found inside the home 'severely burned'

Video showed smoke pouring from the roof while the mansion was ablaze. A sheet, seemingly covering Caneiro's body, could also be seen in the middle of the yard next to the house

Twenty miles away, in Ocean Township, another fire happened at Keith Caneiro's brother Paul's home (pictured). They escaped with their lives and the home was largely unharmed but neighbors said the family was 'devastated'. It happened at 5am - seven hours before the bigger blaze was reported at Keith Caneiro's house

The road which leads to Paul's house was blocked off on Wednesday as authorities continued working at the scene

Authorities have not yet released the names of the victims, but law enforcement sources confirmed their identities to NJ.com.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said there was no threat to the public but has released no information about potential suspects.

Prosecutors would also not reveal whether a weapon was found at the scene.

Firefighters responded to the fire around 12.45pm on Tuesday.

Video showed smoke pouring from the roof while the mansion was ablaze.

Caneiro was listed as the founder, CEO, and chief technology officer of the technology consulting firm Square One in Asbury Park

A sheet, seemingly covering Caneiro's body, could also be seen in the middle of the yard next to the house with police tape cordoning off the area.

ONE DAY, TWO FIRES 5am: A fire is reported at the Ocean Township home of Paul Caneiro, Keith Caneiro's brother 12pm: A neighbor said Paul and his wife Susan remained at the home until around noon and were 'devastated' 12.30pm: A blaze is reported at Keith Caneiro's home in Colts Neck, 10 miles away 2pm: Firefighters were still working to control the blaze at Keith Caneiro's home hours later 4pm: Police reveal at a press conference they are investigating the second blaze as an arson Advertisement

Adding to the mystery surrounding the mansion blaze is the fact that Caneiro's brother's home caught on fire just hours beforehand.

A blaze was reported at the home of Paul Caneiro and his wife Susan Caneiro around 5am on Tuesday morning.

A neighbor said they saw Paul and Susan at their home shortly after the fire broke out.

They said Paul 'appeared to be upset and left a short time after'.

'He said it must have been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated,' the neighbor said.

'He said, "I'm in complete shock, I can't believe this is happening to me.

'They were here until about noon."'

Authorities are now investigating the horrific scene as a quadruple murder after it was revealed Caneiro's gunshot wound was not self-inflicted

Firefighters were still working to control the blaze at Keith Caneiro's home hours after it was first reported around 12.30pm

Adding to the mystery surrounding the mansion blaze is the fact that Caneiro's brother's home caught on fire just hours beforehand. Caneiro and Jennifer are both pictured here

Caneiro's brother's home is located in Ocean Township, just about 10 miles away. A fire was reported at Paul Caneiro's house at 5.30am

The was no visible damage at the front of the home, but the flames damaged the back of the residence as well as the attic.

Investigators said gas cans were found at the back of the Ocean Township home. They would not confirm if the two fires were linked.

'That remains to be seen but that is an angle we continue to pursue,' said Gramiccioni.

Caneiro and Paul were partners in Square One, a tech consulting firm based in Asbury Park.

Keith was the founder, CEO, and chief technology officer while his brother was the vice president.

Firefighters carry a stretcher to the scene of a fatal fire at the mansion on Tuesday afternoon

The brothers were also partners in a pest control company they operated from the same office.

Colts Neck is a well-to-do community about 50 miles south of New York City and is home to horse farms.

The area is home to Bruce Springsteen, as well as comedian and former The Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

Typical homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at about $750,000.
When asked who should be named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2018, Donald Trump had a relatively unsurprising suggestion: himself.

The president addressed reporters on the White House lawn Tuesday and was asked who he thought should snag second place for Time's Man of the Year, at which point he presumed that he would be number one.

'It's called Person of the Year, right? It's no longer Man of the Year, right? I don't know,' Trump said.

'That's up to Time magazine. I've been there before. I can't imagine anybody else other than Trump. Can you imagine anybody other than Trump?'

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President Donald Trump suggested he's the most obvious choice for Time magazine's 2018 Person of the Year distinction when speaking with reporters on the White House lawn Tuesday

TRUMP closes by saying this about Time Person of the Year: "I can't imagine anybody else other than Trump. Can you imagine anybody else other than Trump? Have a good time, everybody. Thank you." pic.twitter.com/M8XVyZO4LI  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 20, 2018

Time released the results of its reader poll for Person of the Year earlier on Tuesday, in which Trump had finished tied for 13th with two percent of the vote.

He shared the 13th slot with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and special counsel Robert Mueller.

The magazine typically announces its editors' choice for the title in December.

Trump was named Person of the Year in 2016 shortly after he won the presidential election.

At the time he told reporters that the title 'means a lot' and was a 'very, very great honor.

The following year Trump claimed that he was 'probably' going to earn the distinction again.

He said that he opted out - while Time insisted that his account was untrue.
Elizabeth Parrish is the features writer for The Facts. She can be reached at 979-237-0149.
Mark Zuckerberg today said that he will not resign over revelations that Facebook knew about Russian election interference despite denying it and used lobby firms to smear critics.

It was revealed last week that Facebook deliberately misled the public about what it knew about the Kremlin's 2016 election tampering.

The tech giant also employed a 'research firm' to smear protesters by linking them to George Soros and a lobby firm to brand critics anti-Semites.

When asked today if would consider stepping down as chairman Zuckerberg told CNN Business 'That's not the plan.'

He was critical of the use of lobby and research firms to attack opponents.

'I wasn't particularly happy about that piece of it. And that's certainly a lot of what made me want to look into this more deeply,' he said.

'The intention was never to attack an individual but there are lobbying groups out there who are out to attack, its fine to push back on them.'

He criticized the decision to link critics to George Soros.

'George Soros has been the target of a lot of really horrendous attacks and I think that that is terrible and I certainly wouldnt want anyone who is associated with our company to be a part of that,' he said.

'A lot of the critique that folks have had about our company, I read and I think a lot of it is fair and we need to do better and learn from but at the same time I dont think all of it is fair.'

Embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he has no plans to resign, sounding defiant after a rough year for the social platform

He also defended Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has drawn criticism over her handling of the social media giant's recent crises

He also defended Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has drawn criticism over her aggressive denial and distract strategy.

Sandberg, formerly of the Clinton administration and Google, has come out of the New York Times' report as an unscrupulous marketing tactician.

In 2016, Zuckerberg described the notion of Russian interference as 'crazy.'

As Zuckerberg toured the world with a meek apology spiel, titled 'We Get It' in internal memos, Sandberg carried out a belligerent damage limitation effort.

Sandberg used her contacts in Washington to fight for her and wooed others who had been convinced it was a politically left-wing outfit.

Facebook has stumbled from one mess to another this year as it grappled with continuing fallout from Russia's use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.

In late September they disclosed a massive data breach which affected 50 million users - including those of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

That bombshell came after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which user data was harnessed in a bid to help Donald Trump during his Presidential election.



'Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts for a lot of the biggest issues we have,' said Zuckerberg.

'She's been an important partner to me for 10 years. I'm really proud of the work we've done together and I hope that we work together for decades more to come.'

Zuckerberg also defended his company against the broader wave of flak it has taken this year.

Sandberg, formerly of the Clinton administration and Google, was savaged in the Times article which accused her of cinical lobbying of politicians from both sides of the House

Stocks in big tech plummeted yesterday, with a bad week for Facebook made worse, as nervousness spread through the markets

'A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us,' he said.

'There are big issues, and I'm not trying to say that there aren't... But I do think that sometimes, you can get the flavor from some of the coverage that that's all there is, and I don't think that that's right either.'

He said Facebook's use around politics remained important because it gave more people a voice.

The Facebook boss said the company was keen to work with 'governments, other companies and non-profits' to address issues linked with the site - such as misinformation and election interference - because it would not be able to fix these problems by itself.

He said that with support from 'governments, partnerships and with a ton of investment' the site could stay ahead of the 'sophisticated threats' posed by nation states and other organisations looking to interfere in elections.

Tech companies bottomed out on the stock market yesterday and the Dow is still struggling to recover as nervousness spreads throughout the market.

The price of Facebook's stock has taken a battering this year as a result of a series of crushing failings.
South Australia Police will plead guilty to criminal charges over the death of an employee who froze to death in a kitchen freezer.

Debra Summers, who worked part-time as a cook and cleaner at Echunga Police Training Reserve in Adelaide Hills, South Australia, was found dead inside a commercial freezer on October 4.

The 54-year-old died from hypothermia after being locked inside the freezer for several hours,9 News reported.

Safework SA have accused SA police and the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure of failing to comply with occupational health and safety procedures.

Debra Summers, 54, (pictured) worked part-time as a cook and cleaner at Echunga Police Training Reserve in Adelaide Hills, South Australia and was found dead inside a commercial freezer on October 4

Charges were later laid to both organisations as they were responsible for maintaining the site regularly, the last was meant to be scheduled for September.

In September, Safework executive director Martyn Campbell said the two departments had 'shown conduct that constituted a criminal offence under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012', The Advertiser reported.

He confirmed that the lock on the walk-in freezer 'wasn't working effectively'.

In the SA Employment Tribunal on Wednesday the lawyer for SA Police and the DPTI, Frances Nelson said that she had received confirmation to enter a guilty plea on behalf of the police.

'As far as SA Police is concerned, the instructions from the Commissioner are that we are to enter a plea of guilty at the earliest opportunity,' Ms Nelson told the tribunal.

In regards to the DPTI, she reports there are 'still issues to work out'.

SA Police will formally enter the guilty plea before Christmas.

They are both facing fines of up $1.5 million.

Ms Nelson asked the case be adjourned until December.
A cannibal who butchered his lover, roasted and ate her brain then drank her blood and tried to summon the devil has been jailed for 19 years in Russia.

Dmitry Luchin brutally killed his older lover Olga Budunova, 45, smashing a wine bottle repeatedly over her head before dismembering her body with a meat cleaver.

The 23-year-old 'roasted' her brain, ate it while 'drinking her blood' and tore out her insides, a court in Novgorod was told. Luchin also daubed swear words, including the word 'whore' on her body in blood and purple-coloured nail polish.

He was found guilty of murder committed with special cruelty and will serve his sentence in a harsh regime penal colony.

Dmitry Luchin (left) who butchered his lover, Olga Budunova (right) roasted and ate her brain then drank her blood and tried to summon the devil has been jailed for 19 years in Russia

Dmitry Luchin brutally killed his older lover Olga Budunova, 45, smashing a wine bottle repeatedly over her head before dismembering her body with a meat cleaver

Luchin - who had been declared mentally fit to stand trial - read a bizarre poem to the court in which he denied he was a 'maniac, murderer, (and) cannibal'.

He had carefully planned the 'ritualistic cannibalistic murder' after becoming obsessed with reading about serial killers on the web, alleged prosecutors during his trial.

The maniac admitted to police that he got sexual pleasure from the attack, although he later retracted his confession of guilt, after a crime scene reenactment in which he showed police how he killed and dismembered the woman.

Budunova was killed after her 'toy boy lover' went to her flat in Valdai for 'romantic' drinks to mark International Women's Day, a major public holiday in Russia, the court heard.

Alexandra Dedova, 21, a neighbour who witnessed the grotesque crime scene soon after the murder, was present at Luchin's initial police interrogation.

After killing Budunova, he used her blood to daub 'a sign of the devil' on a door, testified Dedova.

After killing Budunova (pictured), Luchin used her blood to daub 'a sign of the devil' on a door, the court heard

Luchin (left) was found guilty of murder committed with special cruelty and will serve his sentence in a harsh regime penal colony. His victim Olga Budunova is pictured, right

Luchin - who had been declared mentally fit to stand trial - read a bizarre poem to the court in which he denied he was a 'maniac, murderer, (and) cannibal'

'He wanted to summon the devil,' she said. 'He waited for five minutes but the devil did not appear.'

'Next he took the meat cleaver and smashed her skull to the brain. He cut pieces out of her brain. He roasted and ate them. He liked it. He ate another piece, he said.

'Then poured a glass of her blood and drank.'

Dedova said: 'Next he cut out her stomach, and chopped off her ears. One he put into her mouth, the other into the cat's bowl.'

Luchin told police: 'I liked the taste of her brain. I decided to give it another try.

'Then I drained some of her blood into a glass.'

Prosecutor Olga Bondarenko said Luchin 'copied the actions of a ritual murder carried out by a serial killer' which he had read about online.

Budunova (left) was killed after her 'toy boy lover' Luchin (right) went to her flat in Valdai for 'romantic' drinks to mark International Women's Day, a major public holiday in Russia, the court heard

Luchin (right) had carefully planned the 'ritualistic cannibalistic murder' after becoming obsessed with reading about serial killers on the web, alleged prosecutors during his trial

Luchin subscribed to an online site called 'World of maniacs and serial killers', say prosecutors

Luchin (pictured) was 'especially obsessed' with American Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, known as the Milwaukee Cannibal

This 'turned him into a killer and cannibal'.

He was 'especially obsessed' with American Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, known as the Milwaukee Cannibal.

Dahner raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

Luchin subscribed to an online site called 'World of maniacs and serial killers', say prosecutors.

From an iron court cage he recited a poem begging to be acquitted.

He told judge Alexey Stanovsky: 'Think who is in front of you? A maniac, murderer, cannibal? No way. I'll explain briefly. A student, a sportsman, a poet. The rest is nonsense.

'Finally, Your Honour, I say to you  consider fairly, wisely. I ask you to acquit me.

'An innocent man should not go to jail.'

The judge halted his remarks when he began to talk about Soviet-era serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, known as the Butcher of Rostov.
The father of a baby whose naked body washed ashore on a Gold Coast beach will be extradited to NSW to be charged with her murder.

It's alleged the baby girl was thrown into the Jack Evans Boat Harbour at Tweed Heads in NSW and her empty pram left alongside the waterway.

The girl's body is believed to have drifted 30km in the current for two days before washing up at Surfers Paradise beach where she was found by passers-by early on Monday.

The father of a baby whose naked body washed ashore on a Gold Coast beach will be extradited to NSW to be charged with her murder

It's alleged the baby girl was thrown into the Jack Evans Boat Harbour at Tweed Heads in NSW and her empty pram left alongside the waterway

Seven News Sydney reported that authorities believe the body was in the water for as long as 36 hours before it washed back up on shore.

Her body was found naked with her nappy nearby.

'This is an extremely complex investigation as it crosses jurisdictional boundaries, time zones,' Tweed Police Detective Inspector Brendan Cullen told reporters.

The girl, her father, mother and two-year-old sibling were tracked on CCTV travelling from the Gold Coast to Tweed Heads on Saturday, sources familiar with the case told AAP on Wednesday.

Queensland police captured later images of the parents and the two-year-old catching a bus at Coolangatta and returning to Queensland.

The family had been living rough. News reports say Queensland Police made several formal notifications to the Department of Child Safety. At times, the family was placed into emergency accommodation, but the parents chose to leave.

The baby's 48-year-old homeless father appeared in Southport Court on Wednesday.

Wearing a white hospital gown, he did not address the court during an extradition hearing before Magistrate John Costanzo.

The hearing was briefly delayed because the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced a number of charges that had to be dealt with before the extradition could proceed.

The court was told he was a violent schizophrenic who had previously tried to attack a Gold Coast City Council officer who was warning him not to camp in the sand dunes with his family.

He had hurled abuse at the officer, calling him a 'c***', and threatened him with an 1.5 metre stick. The enraged man had also thrown bottles at the terrified council worker.

Defence lawyer Sunil Dutt told the court the father was trying to protect his family and that he had a history of alcoholism, drug addiction and violence.

Mr Dutt went on to make clear his client was also on a disability pension.

The girl's body is believed to have drifted 30km in the current for two days before washing up at Surfers Paradise beach where she was found by passers-by early on Monday

The court was told the father was a violent schizophrenic who had previously tried to attack a Gold Coast City Council officer who was warning him not to camp in the sand dunes with his family

Mr Costanzo sentenced the man to 12 months' jail after he pleaded guilty to public nuisance.

The man was eventually released into the custody of NSW detectives and will appear in a Tweed Heads court on Thursday.

It is understood the girl's mother, a 23-year-old transient, has been released from police custody without charge and may be treated as a witness.

She is now under the care of Queensland mental health services. Her eldest child is also in state care.

Queensland detectives have been 'deeply distressed' by the circumstance of the child's death, the sources said.
The wife of a man accused of plotting a massacre on the streets of Melbourne claims he is innocent.

Habiba Ba, 26, who is married to Ertunc Eriklioglu, 30, said she is confident he's not guilty and that he didn't deserve to get arrested.

She has also blasted police who searched her Dallas home during a dawn raid when multiple Korans, computer items and scripture CDs were seized.

'He's not guilty. I'm not going to believe it. How am I going to live without my husband?' she told the Herald Sun.

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Habiba Ba, the 26-year-old wife of accused Ertunc Eriklioglu (believed to be pictured here outside their Dallas home as it was being raided) has said she is confident her husband is innocent

Mrs Ba said she did not understand why her husband was arrested during the raid on their home where multiple qurans, computer items and scripture CDs were seized

Mrs Ba said she did not understand why her husband was arrested on Tuesday morning.

She was awoken in the early hours of Tuesday to the sounds of breaking glass and men with guns shouting.

'When they raided the house, they came from nowhere. We were sleeping in bed. I have small children who were in the house. Also my sister's boy is only two weeks and my daughter is two months and my husband has his little daughter as well,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'We were all scared. It was terrifying. They had a gun and everything and they pushed my husband. He cut (his face) when they broke the windows and my husband was just screaming. They were screaming and he screamed back.' she said.

Mrs Ba said her husband's face was cut when police pushed him to the ground, which was covered in broken glass.

'They were very rough and they didn't even care the kids were here.'

The mother to a two-month-old and three-year-old daughters said she regularly used her husband's phone and never saw any contact with extremist groups or any weapon research.

She added that she believed he wouldn't have a clue where to buy a gun or how to use it and didn't even carry a licence.

Ertunc Eriklioglu, 30, (pictured) was arrested in relation to a terror plot that police claim he as well as two others, wanted to 'kill a maximum amount of people as possible' in a crowded place.

The Dallas home, where Eriklioglu and Ba live with their two children, which was part of a four-home raid on Tuesday morning

Mrs Ba lashed out at the raid which saw police seize multiple items and smash two windows

'They haven't done nothing wrong. If you look at their history, they haven't done nothing. No criminal history. Nothing. They have done nothing. I can't believe this. There is no truth to it,' she said.

'I wasn't expecting it at all. Our family is good. We go to the park, we go to picnics, we have barbecues. We weren't expecting something like this - three men in a terror attack. It's not true.'

The claims came after Ba revealed she had spoken to Eriklioglu over the phone from police custody just hours after the raid on their home.

Assuring her everything was going to be fine, he told her to 'not worry, be patient'.

Contemplating her husband serving a life sentence behind bars, Mrs Ba said she could not bear think about it.

She added that she couldn't eat or drink and that hasn't stopped crying since his arrest.

Eriklioglu, his brother Samed Eriklioglu, 26, of Campbellfield and Hanifi Halis, 21, of Greenvale have been charged with one count each of an act in preparation for, or planning of terrorist acts.

Samed Eriklioglu, 26, (right) of Campbellfield and Hanifi Halis, 21, of Greenvale (right) have also been charged with terrorism crimes after allegedly plotting a massacre on the streets of Melbourne

Armagan Eriklioglu - the father of Samed and Ertunc - has denied his sons have any association with terrorist organisations.

After supplying Daily Mail Australia with photographs of the family, he denied one of them, which appeared to show himself and his son displaying a distinctive one-finger hand gesture, is the salute of ISIS.

'No no. That's not an ISIS salute. It means one creator. Everyone does that. We don't know anything about a ISIS salute. Nothing at all. Not us. No way,' he said.

He continued that the gesture was commonly used by Muslims long before it was hijacked by the terrorist organisation.

'All we know is from hadith, prophet Muhammed done that 1 finger,' he later clarified via text.

'You can read hadiths about it. So ISIS has been around few years. That flag finger don't belong to those idiots. We have been around more than 1440 years. Whoever made ISIS, they're showing Islam bad.'

The gesture was widely adopted by the Islamic militants as a propganda symbol for their cause.

After supplying Daily Mail Australia with photographs of the family, he denied one of them, which appeared to show himself (middle) and his son (right) displaying a distinctive one-finger hand gesture, (pictured) features the salute of ISIS

The photo was among a bundle of family happy snaps provided to Daily Mail Australia by Mr Eriklioglu during a visit to his Campbellfield home on Wednesday

The three men, arrested in the city's north-west on Tuesday after four raids, are of Turkish descent and were allegedly trying to get hold of a semi-automatic rifle.

Police claim the trio wanted to 'kill a maximum amount of people as possible' in a crowded place.

All three were hours later charged with one count each of act in preparation for, or planning of terrorist acts and will face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, the AFP said.

The arrests come just 11 days after ISIS-inspired knifeman Hassan Khalif Shire Ali stabbed three, killing one, on Melbourne's Bourke Street.
An internal investigation will be launched to determine why the parole board was not notified about harassing phone calls made by a man in the weeks prior to him allegedly sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl.

Anthony Peter Sampieri was jailed for seven years after he lured a 60-year-old woman into his home in Wollongong, New South Wales on October 22, 2012.

He was out on parole when he allegedly assaulted the young girl at a dance studio in Kogarah on Thursday evening.

In a New South Wales police conference on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner Metropolitan Field Operations Jeff Loy told reporters an internal investigation would be launched to find the 'point of truth'.

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Sampieri who was allegedly caught raping a seven-year-old girl in the toilets of a dance hall while on parole allegedly made offensive phone calls to a woman earlier this year

'Since the 15th of November, the investigators have detailed a number of allegations against the offender, in particular some harassing phone calls to a number of female people,' he said.

'In particular one of those was to a woman several weeks ago and that lady did make a complaint to the Kogarah police station.'

Dept. Comm. Loy said he understood the offender was interviewed by police but the parole board was not notified about the harassment.

'That investigation, is now part of the internal investigation, as I want to know the point of truth as to what the police action was, how the person was identified and what action was taken,' he said.

'Nobody can predict the future or the future actions of any person,' he said.

'But what a police officer has the responsibility to do is to take the risk factors in hand, the information of the offender, what the victims desires and victim care is required and make some diligent decisions in relation to that.'

Sampieri was out on parole when he allegedly assaulted the young girl at a dance studio in Kogarah on Thursday evening

In a New South Wales police conference on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner Metropolitan Field Operations Jeff Loy told reporters an internal investigation would be launched to find the 'point of truth'

Several other victims have been identified of alleged harassing phone calls amid the current investigation.

Dept. Comm. Loy described the alleged molester as 'a danger to the public' and told the media conference that the family of the young girl had been notified about the revelations.

'The family of the young girl are very brave people,' he said.

'I've had contact with the mother yesterday afternoon and her father late last evening.

'They want to get their lives back in order and back to normal, but I felt obliged to speak to them in particular about this development.'

NSW Corrective Services Minister David Elliott has called for an 'urgent' briefing on how the offender received early parole.

'I am deeply troubled by the events under investigation at the Kogarah dance studio,' he said in a statement to Daily Mail Australia.

'This offender was on parole and was subject to a number of strict conditions.

'As community safety is paramount, I have asked for an urgent brief on all the circumstances which led to the offender being granted parole.'

The Kogarah dance studio bathroom where the assault allegedly occurred

Sampieri's non-parole sentence expired just over two years before he allegedly snatched the young girl from her dance class about 8pm on Thursday.

His alleged attack was thwarted by a parent, 46, from the class at St George Dance Centre, who heard a commotion and ran to help.

Sampieri allegedly lashed out with a surgical scalpel, with a man stabbed in the abdomen and neck.

Shadow police minister Guy Zangari said there needs to be a review of the parole system to stop further incidents from occurring.

'The government needs to explain how this alleged offender was being monitored. The community expects the government to be monitoring someone on parole to the best of their ability,' Mr Zangari told the Daily Telegraph.

Kogarah MP Chris Minns said authorities must explain why the alleged offender was granted parole, claiming the community was 'very shook up'.



The seven-year-old was allegedly attacked at the St George Dance Centre in Kogarah, south of Sydney, about 8pm on Thursday (pictured)

Sampieri, 54, was convicted of aggravated sexual assault in July 2013 and ordered to serve at least four years behind bars, backdated to the day of the crime.

Wollongong District Court heard Sampieri was drunk and high on prescription drugs when he invited the 60-year-old woman into his home in Fairy Meadows in 2012.

The woman thought she was going to inspect two second-hand tables he had for sale, but was lured into his room after seeing the first one.

He pulled out a 25cm knife and told her 'now we're going to have some fun' before forcing her to strip and repeatedly raping her, the Illawarra Mercury reported in July 2013.

Police later raided his unit and found duct tape and a role of wire on his bed and cable ties and nylon rope under his pillow.

The judge at the time noted Sampieri showed remorse for his crimes.
Members of the migrant caravan have taken part in a mass LGBTQ wedding just a few miles away from their new life in America.

Pedro Pastor, from Guatemala, and Erick Alexander Duran, from Honduras, were joyous after celebrating their wedding with other couples in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the border with California.

But, while Amnesty says there is 'vicious discrimination' against the LGBTQ community in Central America, Donald Trump has pledged to keep the 3,000-strong caravan out of his country.

Before the election Trump called such caravans an 'invasion.'

Gay couple, Pedro Pastor (left), from Guatemala, and Erick Alexander Duran(right), from Honduras, smile after after celebrating their symbolic wedding in Tijuana, Mexico

The happy couple were joined by at least seven others as they were married on their way to build new lives in the USA

In a video obtained by The Telegraph, Duran said: 'We came with them because there is lots of violence, lots of discrimination, lots of poverty.'

Pedro said: 'This is a dream come true because in our countries you don't see this and it's something we have always wanted and today we had the opportunity and are very happy.'

There are a number of states in Mexico where same-sex marriage is legal and those unions must be honoured in every state.

But for most in Central America the possibility for such marriages is out of the question.

While they make their hopeful applications for asylum, thousands of American troops have been deployed at the border.

Around 3,000 people from the first of the caravans have arrived in Tijuana across the border from San Diego, hoping to live the American Dream.

The troops will be hoping to cut off large swathes of vulnerable ground with new defences and direct the inflow to official customs entry points.

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters on his way to Florida: 'Don't worry about the Thanksgiving. These are tough people.

'They know what they're doing and they're great and they've done a great job. You're so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them.

'They are so proud to be representing our country on the border where if you look at what's happening, Mexico, the people from Tijuana are saying, wow these are tough people. They're fighting us.'

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has declined to publicly discuss cost estimates for the border mission, saying as recently as last week that he had little confidence in the accuracy of figures he had seen.

Members of the caravan pose on the fence at the border in Tijuana; Trump has called migrant caravans an 'invasion' and is spending millions on bolstering defences at his southern border

Members of the LGBTQ community, Barbara Ramirez, 18, (middle) and Alison Marisela, 19, (right) from Honduras, pose for a photo after their wedding in Tijuana, Mexico

In its report to Congress, the Pentagon said they would be spending $19 million for personnel, $20 million for transportation of personnel, equipment and supplies, $28 in operating expenses and $5 million for concertina wire and other border barrier materials.

The locals of Tijuana have been protesting the presence of the migrants on their streets, accusing them of living in squalor and causing crime.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has called the migrants' arrival an 'avalanche' that the city is ill-prepared to handle, calculating that they will be in Tijuana for at least six months as they wait to file asylum claims.
Neo-Nazis are organising paramilitary operations on a new social media site and have uploaded documents on 'improvised warfare.'

They have expanded from sites like Gab and 4chan, which are known for having a far-right cohort, to create their own platform called 'The Base.'

Shocking images obtained by Vice, show that on the members-only website their violent rhetoric is coupled with a genuine desire to wreak havoc.

Members of the website uploaded a picture in which they appear to pose wearing camouflage, balaclavas and skull masks

This picture uploaded to 'The Base' purports to have been taken in Finland, the website seeks to unite like-minded people around the world

The founder Norman Spear posts his deeply troubling thoughts on his commitment to taking action

A user's profile on the social media platform Gab.ai, the site has been criticised for allowing far-right users to spread hate

A user called Poilu on Gab.ai regularly posts hateful propaganda and remembrances of Nazi soldiers

They report that the site was founded by Norman Spear, who claims to be a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he seeks to recruit not just dedicated fascists but those with prior military training.

In one post a user called Rimbaud says, 'I'm all about violence but I want to gather with people and plan something out.'

A user called Arcturus, replies, 'Like I'm not shouting disavowal from the rooftops but we have to be smart.'

And Rimbaud replies, 'Maybe some form of bombing, or something more destructive.'

Screenshots taken by reporters at Vice show that 'The Base' hosts a trove of documents, filed into categories such as, 'Gunsmithing Literature,' 'Masculinity,' 'Field Manuals' and 'Guerrilla.'

In the folder titled 'Weapons' there are PDFs which provide details on 'Scientific Principles of Improvised Warfare and Home Defense,' and 'Incendiaries: The science of using fire as a weapon.'

The website, which surfaced earlier this year, features an application system where hopefuls must fill in a form to asses their eligibility.

It is more sinister than other internet cesspits, as it seeks to put local users in touch with one and other to form paramilitary terror cells.

In another post obtained by Vice, Spear writes: 'For now we need non-attributable actions but that will send a message and/or add to acceleration as much as possible.

'And be less concerned with legalities and more concerned with not getting caught.'

In this post on Gab.ai 'The Base' account posts a picture two out in the field saying, 'Members of The Base network on a recent day hike'

A user called Poilu discusses his appreciation of violence with another called Rimbaud in private messages

A post by 'Regular Guy' discusses The Base's account being removed from Gab earlier today

Spear is well aware of the need for secrecy as he and his fellow users plot violence in hate filled posts.

The website has been promoted by prominent far-right figures on Gab and Twitter in an attempt to rally as many users as possible.

However, since gaining publicity 'The Base' account on Gab has disappeared, with one user today blaming the website.

A post written by Regular Guy says: 'After the Vice hit piece, @Gab f**ing nuked The Base's account #TheBase #Censorship.'
Australia has 80 tonnes of gold reserves worth $4.4 billion according to the Reserve Bank  but it's not in the country - and some think it's been sold to China.

Gold has long been used as a safe haven, protected from unpredictable stock and currency markets, and most central banks around the world keep a portion of their national assets in physical gold.

What is sending some conspiracy theorists into meltdown, however, is the claim that the likes of China and India are acquiring massive amounts of gold  more than can be explained by mining production.

Australia has 80 tonnes of gold reserves worth $4.4 billion according to the Reserve Bank  but it's not in the country - and some think it's been sold to China

In 2012 it was revealed almost all of Australia gold reserves were held by the Bank of England while the remaining 0.1 per cent is held in the Reserve Bank head office in Sydney.

Of the almost 80 tonnes of gold Australia owns, 11 tonnes is used to bring in interest while the remaining 69 tonnes is thought to be sitting safely in a vault in London.

But the question remains, how are China and India getting their gold?

Swiss gold trader Egon von Greyerz is among those backing a conspiracy theory that western central banks are 'covertly disposing' of their gold by 'leasing' it to eastern countries.

Mr Von Greyerz wrote recently that since 2008 China and India had accumulated about 26,000 tonnes of gold - equivalent to the total mine production for that period.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has said that it conducts regular audits of Australia's gold, however, that doesn't sound good enough for economist John Adams, according to news.com.au.

'I think we have a spreadsheet full of serial numbers and we're checking with BoE to ensure they match. It does not mean you're checking the physical gold,' he said.

ABC Bullion chief economist Jordan Eliseo (left) says he agrees with the RBA that London is a good place to store Australia's gold as it has been a hub for trading the commodity

'The RBA can't say why it's prudent we have our gold not physically in the country. The gold may be missing or the gold may be there but, even if it is, there are a lot of Australians who say just bring the gold back,' he said.

ABC Bullion chief economist Jordan Eliseo says he agrees with the RBA that London is a good place to store Australia's gold as it has been a hub for trading the commodity.

However, he does also agree the world's gold storage has moved from west to east over the last two decades.

'The primary endpoint for a lot of the world's gold is China and India and it's not coming back for many years,' he said.
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Theresa May announced last night she would return to Brussels on Saturday for last ditch talks on saving her Brexit deal after failing to make a breakthrough with Jean-Claude Juncker.

The emergency meeting on Saturday has been scheduled despite German chancellor Angela Merkel threatening to cancel the summit if there is no deal finalised by negotiators tomorrow.

The EU insisted 'good progress' was being made as the two sides try and close a deal in time for a crunch summit on Sunday - but bickering over Gibraltar, trade and fishing rights threaten to derail the talks.

It comes after Jeremy Hunt said Theresa May's Brexit proposals could put Britain in a 'Turkey trap' with the EU for years to come.

The Foreign Secretary told last weeks crucial Cabinet meeting that Turkey had been negotiating with the EU for 31 years  and Britain risked the same. He said the backstop that will keep Britain in a customs union with the EU could become a front stop.

He also called for incentives to avoid the status of a satellite of the EU.

But following her meeting in Brussels, Mrs May said: 'We have made further progress and as a result, we have given sufficient direction to our negotiators.

'I hope for them to be able to resolve the remaining issues and that work will start immediately.

'I now plan to return for further meetings, including with President Juncker, on Saturday to discuss how we can bring to a conclusion this process and bring it to a conclusion in the interests for all our people.'

Mrs May refused to spell out the issues that still need to be resolved in order for the two sides to close a deal as the talks go down to the wire.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said Brexit would be thrown into chaos if Parliament voted down Mrs May's plans next month, saying: 'If this deal is rejected, we're in unknown territory. It could be no deal, but it could be no Brexit.

'I can't put a number on it but it's clear that if the deal is not approved by Parliament we will have a politically chaotic situation and we don't know what the outcome of that will be.

'For those who are passionately committed to ensuring that we leave the EU on the 29th of March 2019 one of the things that they are going to have to bear in mind is that in the chaos that would ensue there would be no Brexit.'

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker sat down for talks on the final part of the Brexit negotiation (pictured) as both sides try to seal a deal before Sunday's special summit

Chancellor Philip Hammond, pictured speaking to ITV's Robert Peston, warned that Brexit would be thrown into chaos and might not happen altogether if Parliament votes her deal down next month

Asked about Brexiteer fears that the Irish backstop could keep Britain in the customs union indefinitely, he said: 'The first choice is to get the future partnership deal done in time that we can move straight into that from the implementation period. It's challenging, but let's try.

'[The EU] don't like the backstop either. This is an insurance policy arrangement that nobody wants to see put into operation.'

Mr Hammond also rejected the claim it was 'embarrassing' to publish an economic comparison between the Brexit deal and staying in the EU, which could show Mrs May's plans leaving Britain worse off.

He said: 'This isn't only about economics. I'm the Chancellor so I look at the economic aspects of Brexit as being of very high importance. But I accept that there are also political and constitutional questions that people want to pursue in this debate.'

Asked about preparations for no deal he said: 'All governments regularly spend money planning for contingencies that may never happen, and that's what prudent governments do.

'When we look at the economy and the operation of the economy, getting a smooth exit from the European Union, doing this in an orderly fashion, is worth tens of billions of pounds to our economy.'

Earlier, Mr Juncker's deputy Valdis Dombrovskis warned that Sunday's summit would not definitely go ahead. 'For that we will need to have agreed beforehand on the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet,' he said.

Asked if Mrs May was still going, her spokesman said this afternoon: 'A summit has been called, an agenda has been published and we look forward to attending.'

Following talks an EU spokesman said: 'Very good progress was made in the meeting between President Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May. Work is continuing.'

As she flew to Brussels, Mrs May left behind a row raging about the prospect of no deal after Work and Pensions Secretary said it would be stopped by Parliament - prompting anger from Brexiteers the mission to quit the EU could be derailed.

Mrs May (pictured being greeted by Mr Juncker) has made a dash to Brussels to try and thrash out the sticking points with the EU commission president amid bitter wrangling over issues including fishing, trade terms, and the status of Gibraltar

Mrs May has managed to quell a Cabinet mutiny over the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement - albeit at the cost of two big resignations.

What are the sticking points left in the deal? Theresa May is scrambling to finish her Brexit deal within hours - but the final days have thrown up sticking points. Gibraltar: Spain has threatened to torpedo the agreement unless Gibraltar is dealt with separately and kept out of the final trade deal. Fishing: France is complaining about access to UK waters for European fishing vessels Trade: Germany is adamant that the trade terms cannot allow Britain to cherry pick the best parts of EU membership. Advertisement

A backbench coup attempt led by Jacob Rees-Mogg has also embarrassingly flopped.

But she has been warned by ministers that she must get concessions alongside the text to avoid a catastrophic defeat in Parliament.

One Brexiteer Cabinet minister suggested that rather than re-drafting the deal, appendices or explanatory notes could be added to make it more palatable.

'There are lots of ways of changing something without changing something,' they said.

'You can do a lot with addenda.'

However, Spain has threatened to torpedo the agreement unless Gibraltar is dealt with separately - while other countries are also pushing hard on elements of the future trade package.

The outstanding elements include access to UK waters for European fishing vessels - while Germany is adamant that the trade terms cannot allow Britain to cherry pick the best parts of EU membership.

Theresa May faced pressure from Conservative MPs and Labour as she took PMQs in the Commons today (pictured)

As Westminster is plunged into turmoil over Brexit and the future of Theresa May as PM, a no deal Brexit and a second EU referendum are both looking more likely

The assault from the EU came as domestic pressure on Mrs May reached new heights.

With the number of Tory MPs pledging to vote against the package continuing to rise alarmingly, chief whip Julian Smith has privately told the PM she is set to lose unless there are significant tweaks.

The scale of the threat facing Mrs May was underlined last night when the DUP again abstained on Budget legislation - humiliatingly forcing the government to accept Opposition amendments.

Has 'Max Fac' been put back on the table? Downing Street has hinted that a technological solution could yet solve the Irish border problem The PM appeared to buy off some senior Brexiteers, including Iain Duncan Smith Smith and Owen Paterson, earlier this week by offering to look at their proposals on the Northern Ireland border. They have been urging the government to push technological solutions to avoiding a hard border, and Mrs May has seemingly promised to raise their latest ideas with Brussels. However, the EU has previously dismissed the so-called 'Max Fac' solution as 'magical thinking'. There is no sign either Mrs May or the commission is considering abandoning the 'backstop' proposal. The PM's official spokesman said of technological solutions to the border 'there are things that have been looked at'. He pointed to the withdrawal agreement draft which says 'alternative arrangements' could be used to bring the backstop plan to an end. The spokesman said: 'The aim of all parties is to ensure there is no hard border.' Advertisement

Mrs May is pushing for a draft 'political statement' on the UK's future relationship with Europe to be fleshed out this week to make it clear that Britain will get a good deal in return for the 39billion divorce payment.

Some allies of the Prime Minister believe that the fear of no deal will ultimately persuade MPs to reluctantly back her Brexit proposals when Parliament holds a 'meaningful vote' next month.

But Mr Smith is said to be concerned that opposition to the deal is hardening.

Some 56 Eurosceptic MPs have now signed up to the 'Stand up for Brexit' campaign which commits them to voting down any deal based on Mrs May's Chequers proposals.

Worryingly for Mrs May, high-profile Tory Remainers are also promising them to vote against, with the latest names including Culture Committee chair Damian Collins.

New Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd insisted today that she still expects Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement to make it through Parliament - warning that if MPs vote it down Brexit may not happen.

Asked whether it is not clear that the deal will not get through the Commons, Ms Rudd told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I don't accept that at all.'

She called on MPs considering voting against the deal to take a fresh look at it after Mrs May returns from Brussels and to draw back from the 'abyss' of a no-deal departure.

'If it doesn't get through, anything could happen,' said Ms Rudd, who was promoted to the Cabinet last week following the resignation of Leave supporter Esther McVey.

'The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

'It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal. There isn't a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.'

But she added: 'I don't think we are looking at another referendum. I think people will take a careful look over the abyss - MPs of all parties - and consider whether they think it is in the best interests of the whole country.

'I think the likelihood is, despite what people say, that the Withdrawal Agreement will get through.'

The deal is due to be signed off by EU leaders at a crunch Brussels summit on Sunday.

The source said the document was expected to run to about 20 pages. 'Juncker and May will sort it out,' the insider added.

France demanding access to fish in Britain's waters even after Brexit and want the UK to agree to sign up to the bloc's tough environmental standards - including changes made in the future after Brexit.

While Spain has threatened to bock the Brexit divorce deal in a row about Gibraltar - a British overseas territory which the Spanish try to lay claim to.

The PM tried to calm Brexiteer jitters by reviving plans for a technological solution to the Irish border problem during an extended Cabinet discussion.

The so-called 'Max Fac' plan was dumped at Chequers in July, but Downing Street said the deal with Brussels could allow for future technology to remove the need for border checks.

The suggestion was said to have been welcomed 'positively' by some senior Eurosceptics.

However, others pointed out that the Irish border 'backstop' would still be in the divorce deal - meaning that is the default position.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney threw his weight behind the PM's Brexit deal and warned of disruption if the agreement collapses.

France demanded further concessions on fishing, saying the EU had to make it clear that Brexit would have 'consequences' for the UK.

What happens if the EU signs off on the Brexit deal - and what happens if they don't Theresa May (pictured at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Monday) has struck a Brexit deal with Brussels - but now has to sell it to her Cabinet and then Parliament Emergency EU Summit, Brussels, November 25 What will happen? The EU has scheduled a summit to sign off the Brexit deal covering the withdrawal and future trade - although there are fears that last minute wrangling over issues such as fishing rights and Gibraltar could derail the event altogether. If it is cancelled the negotiating teams will keep working until they are in position to put an overall agreement to leaders - or they conclude the situation is hopeless. The next routine EU summit is due to happen on December 13-14. However, by that point time will be on the verge of running out - as both sides need to ratify the deal before March. German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) is still a crucial figure in the Brexit drama The so-called 'meaningful vote' in the UK Parliament, December 2019 What will happen: Assuming a deal is reached, a debate, probably over more than one day, will be held in the House of Commons on terms of the deal. It will end with a vote on whether or not MPs accept the deal. More than one vote might happen if MPs are allowed to table amendments. The vote is only happening after MPs forced the Government to accept a 'meaningful vote' in Parliament on the terms of the deal. What happens if May wins? If the meaningful vote is passed, there will be a series of further votes as the withdrawal treaty is written into British law. It will be a huge political victory for the Prime Minister and probably secure her version of Brexit. What happens if she loses? This is possibly the most dangerous stage of all. The Prime Minister will have to stake her political credibility on winning a vote and losing it would be politically devastating. Brexiteers do not want to sign off the divorce bill without a satisfactory trade deal and Remainers are reluctant to vote for a blind Brexit. She could go back to Brussels to ask for new concessions before a second vote but many think she would have to resign quickly. The Prime Minister (pictured at the EU Council in June) has made clear the UK will leave without a deal if MPs reject her package Ratification in the EU, February 2019 What will happen? After the meaningful vote in the UK, the EU will have to ratify the agreement. The European Parliament must also vote in favour of the deal. It has a representative in the talks, Guy Verhofstadt, who has repeatedly warned the deal must serve the EU's interests. Will it be agreed? In practice, once the leaders of the 27 member states have agreed a deal, ratification on the EU side should be assured. If the deal has passed the Commons and she is still in office, this should not be dangerous for the Prime Minister. Exit day, March 29, 2019 At 11pm on March 29, 2019, Britain will cease to be a member of the European Union, two years after triggering Article 50 and almost three years after the referendum. Exit happens at 11pm because it must happen on EU time. If the transition deal is in place, little will change immediately - people will travel in the same way as today and goods will cross the border normally. But Britain's MEPs will no longer sit in the European Parliament and British ministers will no longer take part in EU meetings. Negotiations will continue to turn the political agreement on the future partnership into legal text that will eventually become a second treaty. Both sides will build new customs and immigration controls in line with what this says. Transition ends, December 2020 The UK's position will undergo a more dramatic change at the end of December 2020, when the 'standstill' transition is due to finish. If the negotiations on a future trade deal are complete, that could come into force. But if they are still not complete the Irish border 'backstop' plan could be triggered. Under current thinking, that means the UK staying in the EU customs union and more regulatory checks between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. Eurosceptics fear this arrangement will prevent the country striking trade deals elsewhere, and could effectively last for ever, as Brussels will have no incentive to negotiate a replacement deal. Advertisement
Economic Secretary and City minister John Glen (pictured) has called for more to be done to crack down on 'macho' culture in the workplace in Britain

Bosses need to do more to end 'macho Mad Men' culture and 'backwards attitudes' towards women in the workplace, according to a Treasury minister.

The Government launched its Women in Finance charter in 2016 to get more women in senior roles in in the industry.

Yesterday it was announced 300 companies have now signed up to the scheme, but Economic Secretary and City minister John Glen insists there is still more to be done.

Speaking to business leaders yesterday Glen called for companies to appoint 'male diversity champions'.

They would promote diversity, become allies to women in the office and encourage men to take shared parental leave, while 'backwards attitudes' towards female members of staff at finance firms still exist, reports The Telegraph.

He told business leaders: 'Words alone will not buck decades of indifference.

'We need deeds and I am calling on men working in financial services today to help confront this problem.

'It is 2018 - corporate attitudes have to change and you must embrace gender equality.'

His warnings come after five men fired from one of the UK's top advertising agencies claimed they were dismissed because of a 'new kind of racism' against white, straight men.

The group of former JWT London employees are lodging claims of racism and sexism against their old bosses.

They were told to leave their roles following the appointment of a new creative director Jo Wallace.

It comes after five former employees of advertising agency JWT London are lodging claims of racism and sexism after they were fired as part of a diversity drive launched by Jo Wallace (pictured), its new creative director

Introducing herself as a gay woman at an introductory conference, she vowed to 'obliterate' JWT's 'Mad Men' reputation of being almost solely made up of straight, white men.

Ms Wallace is known 'as a fearless champion of female success' and follows her crusade of 'changing the white, privileged, male status quo of the creative industries', according to JWT's website.

Former employees warned The Times last week that bosses risked 'swapping one form of racism for another' in the process of creating diversity in the workplace.'

One source said: 'If someone had stood up on the stage and said it's our ambition to purge JWT of young black lesbians, we'd be on the front page of the papers, and rightly so.

'Swapping one kind of discrimination for another as some sort of silver bullet is shocking.'

Progress has been in improving conditions and pay for senior women in the finance industry since the Treasury introduced its charter two years ago.

Companies that provide almost half of the country's finance servivces are now signed up.

And today Women and Equalities minister Penny Mordaunt will pledge 600,000 to helping vulnerable women return to work after spending time as a carer.
Hundreds of motorists diverted during filming for a Hollywood movie were hit with 60 penalty notices  because someone forgot to remove a sign.

Glasgow City Council rakes in more than 1million a year from the bus gate at Nelson Mandela Place in the city centre.

But last month, the restriction on cars and vans was suspended to allow streets to be shut off for the filming of Hobbs and Shaw, starring Idris Elba and Jason Statham.

However, when the restrictions were reinstated, someone forgot to move a sign.

A sign in Glasgow told drivers a bus lane was suspended during the filming of a Hollywood action film - but the camera remained in operation, sending out hundreds of fines

The film is a spin-off of the Fast and Furious series and features Elba, Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson, best known as The Rock

The camera was active  and 817 demands for 60 started dropping onto door mats. The fine can rise to 90 if it goes unpaid after a month.

One motorist had his fine ripped up by the council after he submitted an appeal. He said: 'I just wonder how many people just paid up and didn't appeal?

'I was puzzled when it came in because I clearly remembered the signage saying the bus lane was suspended.

'This is not the way to run a road system, when you're firing out fines that weren't meant to be issued.

'At the end of the day, we pay enough in terms of parking fees in Glasgow without having rogue fines issued just because someone didn't do their job properly. It's a shambles.'

Idris Elba was seen on set in Glasgow during the filming

The council shut off a series of streets around George Square last month while the movie was being shot.

The Universal Pictures film stars Statham, Elba and Dwayne Johnson in a spin-off from the Fast and The Furious franchise.

The council believes the mix-up happened when one of the production crew wrongly changed a street notice, on one day of filming, diverting motorists into Nelson Mandela Place.

A spokesman said: 'A total of 817 notices were issued in that bus lane in West George Street and Nelson Mandela Place on October 28. All have been cancelled and we have contacted those affected to apologise.'

The Mail has previously told how the city-centre camera snares a driver every five minutes and has raked in up to 4.5million since the restrictions were imposed.

Almost 80,000 motorists have been caught in Nelson Mandela Place, despite warning signs and road markings alerting drivers to the restrictions.

Motorists say the signs are confusing and the timing of the restriction makes it difficult as the bus gate is in operation only from 7am until 7pm.

A stunt double for Idris Elba on a street in Glasgow during the filming of Hobbs and Shaw. Changes in road restrictions during the shoot led to 800 drivers getting sent fines

Drivers are fined 60, halved if they pay within two weeks. One in five penalty notices has been contested and 1,272 appeals have been successful.

Glasgow City Council has imposed 78,156 fines since the camera was installed.

The authority has been keen to develop its status as one of the most popular urban film sets in the country, advertising a free liaison service to movie producers.

The fact that streets in the city centre are laid out in a 'grid' system mean it has doubled as Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco and London for a host of Hollywood blockbusters.

Last month's shoot is expected to have given the city's hospitality industry a seven-figure shot in the arm.

Hundreds of drivers have been fined for driving through this notorious bus lane in Glasgow following blunders following the shooting of a Hollywood film

At the time, Glasgow City Council deputy leader David McDonald said: 'It is great to see another major film production coming to Glasgow, another example of the confidence the industry has in the city's ability to host shoots of this size.

'The council's Glasgow Film Office has been working closely with the production to identify locations and making sure the shoot goes as smoothly as possible, while minimising the impact on the daily life of the city.

'Major productions such as this bring a great boost to the local economy.

'Glasgow loves cinema and it is good to know that we will see the streets of the city shown all over the world when this film is released.'
An American missionary believed he had been 'called' to convert the protected tribe who shot him dead with arrows when he arrived on their remote Indian island.

John Allen Chau, 27, paid local fishermen to help him get to North Sentinel Island, one of the world's most isolated regions in India's Andaman islands, last week.

Chau took a boat ride with the fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to where the indigenous people live cut off completely from the outside world, authorities said.

As soon as he set foot on the island, which is off-limits to visitors, Chau found himself facing a flurry of arrows - but he kept walking.

The tribe then tied a rope around his neck and dragging his body away, according to the fishermen who helped him get there.

Indian police said a murder case had been registered against 'unknown tribesmen' and seven people - the fishermen who took him to the island - have been arrested in connection with the death.

But the Sentinelese who killed Chau can't be prosecuted as contact with them and several tribes on the islands is illegal in a bid to protect their indigenous way of life and shield them from diseases.

Now, a friend has revealed to DailyMail.com that Chau was 'committed' to travelling to the remote island, deep in the Indian Ocean, to preach Christianity to the tribesmen and had been planning the trip for at least three years.

John Allen Chau (pictured) was killed by arrows shot by protected tribesmen living on a remote Indian island after he arrived there in a bid to convert them to Christianity

Chau took a boat ride with the fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to North Sentinel Island (pictured, a file photo shows tribesmen on the island)

The Sentinelese attracted international attention in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, when a member of the tribe was photographed on a beach, firing arrows at a helicopter (pictured)

Neil MacLeod, of Stornaway, Scotland, said he met Chau on a flight from London to Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2015.

'I saw him reading some Christian literature and I'm a Christian and we started talking,' he said.

MacLeod, 47, said Chau told him he had recently returned from India and was trying to figure out how to travel to the remote North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.

'He mentioned that he wanted to go to these islands, the islands where he has now died,' MacLeod said.

'I had heard of these islands and I know how dangerous they are, so I was surprised by that.'

He added: 'He recognized the dangers of travelling there, but I think he had a sense of call.

'This was something he was working on for three years. He was committed to going there. In his view, he was trying to help these people.

'There are islands that are nearby and he was making relationships and connections to help him get to the islands.'

Since the flight, MacLeod said he had emailed back and forth with Chau, who he described as 'magnetic' and 'charming.'

Chau was a preacher who had visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past, a police source said

Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on November 16, before transferring to a canoe (pictured, a canoe he used in October)

Chau's last Instagram post featured a picture of a waterfall (above) thought to be in the Andaman islands

'Adventure awaits. So do leeches,' Chau wrote in the caption for his final Instagram album on November 2

'He was a lovely character and wanted to help people. The thing that came across was what a delight it was to be in his company.

'He was such a warm and engaging and friendly kind of fellow. You might have an idea of what a missionary might be like, he was a million miles from that.

'I think he's a real loss. I'm just very sorry about what has happened.'

MacLeod said Chau was based in Portland, Washington, and working as an EMT at the time. He said he had helped during major incidents, including in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

'He was a free wheel so he would go to incidents, like major incidents around the world and look to help,' he added.

'He had worked with FEMA when he went down to Katrina. He was working there. He's worked in some pretty rough places.'

He also paid tribute to Chau on Twitter, writing: 'He readily spoke of his calling to serve the Sentinelese. His calling came from a higher authority.

'He died a servant of the Lord. Saddened by his loss. He was a lovely guy,' he wrote.

Others flocked to Chau's Instagram to pay tribute, with one friend writing: 'You were a real explorer out to understand the boundaries of terrestrial human travels.

'Those boundaries are seemingly electric at first touch... and you were the first to touch.'

Another added: 'So proud of you John. You are a true hero and it was such an honor to know you. Thank you for your obedience and passion, it's inspiring.'

A police source told Reuters that Chau was a preacher who had visited the nearby Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past.

Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island, the source added.

Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island

The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150

Chau was a Christian missionary who wanted to interact with members of the Sentinelese tribe, according to International Christian Concern.

William Stark, ICC's regional manager, paid tribute to Chau and condemned his killing.

'We here at International Christian Concern are extremely concerned by the reports of an American missionary being murdered in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to both John's family and friends.

'A full investigation must be launched in this this murder and those responsible must be brought to justice.'

He added: 'India must take steps to counter the growing wave of intolerance and violence.'

Authorities say Chau had made several trips to the Andaman islands recently before finally managing to make it to the remote stretch by offering money to local fishermen.

Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on November 16, before transferring to a canoe, the official said.

His body, spotted the following day by the fishermen on their return, has not yet been retrieved, the official added.

Chau tried to reach the island on November 14 but couldn't make it, police sources said

He returned two days later better prepared. He left a dinghy midway and took a canoe to the island alone

The investigation began after police were contacted by the US consulate in the southern city of Chennai, which has been in touch with Chau's mother.

Police have launched an investigation, Deepak Yadav, a police official in the island chain in the Bay of Bengal, confirmed in a statement late on Tuesday.

The investigation began after police were contacted by the US consulate in the southern city of Chennai, which has been in touch with Chau's mother.

'He tried to reach the Sentinel island on November 14 but could not make it,' police sources said.

'Two days later he went well prepared. He left the dingy midway and took a canoe all by himself to the island.

John Allen Chau (pictured) was killed by arrows shot by protected tribesmen living on a remote Indian island

'He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body.

'They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the sea shore.'

Dependra Pathak, the Andaman Director General of Police, told The News Minute that Chau's body hasn't yet been retrieved.

'His body has not yet been retrieved because we have to strategize keeping in mind the nuances and sensitivity of other cultures,' he said.

'We are working on that, and are in contact with anthropologists and tribal welfare experts. We will figure out some strategy.'

A spokeswoman for the US consulate in Chennai said: 'We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

'When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,' she added, but declined to provide further details over privacy concerns.

Chau's Instagram shows he spent much of his time travelling and he documented his exploits on a blog called The Rugged Trail.

His last post on Instagram was shared on November 2. Alongside a series of pictures taken in the jungle, he wrote: 'Adventure awaits. So do leeches.'

Chau also spoke about his passion for travel in an interview with The Outbound Collective in 2014.

When asked where was on his 'must-do adventure list,' he said: 'Going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India is on the top - there's so much to see and do there!'

He also revealed his personal motto was: 'Make the most of every good opportunity today because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow!'

Speaking about his inspirations, he said: 'Adventurers like John Muir, Bruce Olson, and David Livingston inspire me to go travel and explore, and I definitely get my inspiration for life from Jesus.'

The Sentinelese tribe are an indigenous tribe who live on North Sentinal Island, lies around 450 miles from the coast of Thailand and more than 745 miles from mainland India

The Sentinelese tribe has attacked almost everyone who has entered their territory. Pictured, the tribes people are seen wielding arrows on the island

A Sentinelese man aims with his bow and arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter as it flies over the island for a survey of the damage caused by the tsunami in 2004

Meanwhile, Survival International, a London-based organization that has been campaigning to protect the indigenous tribes living in the Andamans, called Chau's death a 'tragedy' that should 'never have been allowed to happen.'

The group's international director, Stephen Corry, said: 'This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen. The Indian authorities should have been enforcing the protection of the Sentinelese and their island for the safety of both the tribe, and outsiders.

'Instead, a few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe's island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event.'

He added: 'It's not impossible that the Sentinelese have just been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe.

'The Sentinelese have shown again and again that they want to be left alone, and their wishes should be respected.'

The world's most isolated tribe: Who are the Sentinelese and why are they hostile to outsiders? The Sentinelese tribe has attacked almost everyone who has entered their territory and their continued hostility to outsiders may lie in its history. An armed British expedition led by 20-year-old Maurice Vidal Portman  the British Officer in Charge of the Andamanese  landed on North Sentinel Island in January 1880 searching for natives. They found recently abandoned villages and paths, but the Sentinelese were nowhere to be seen  they had disappeared into the forest. After days of searching, they found six of them: an elderly couple and four children. They were transported to Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 'in the interest of science,' according to Survival International, an organization that campaigns for the rights of tribal people. Portman noted that the six 'sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents.' The tribe (pictured) shun all contact with the outside world and are known to be hostile to any encroachers According to Survival, it is likely that the children would have passed on their diseases and the results would have been devastating. But how many Sentinelese became ill as a result of this 'science' is not known. But because of their rejection of the outside world, little is known about them - including what they call themselves. What is known has been gleaned from viewing them from boats moored far enough away from the tribesmen, who carry spears, bows and arrows, or from the few times the tribe allowed authorities to come close enough to hand over coconuts. But they were also observed engaging in group sex on a beach on March 29, 1970, according to Indian anthropologist, Triloknath Pandit. He wrote of the scene: 'They all began shouting some incomprehensible words. We shouted back and gestured to indicate that we wanted to be friends. The tension did not ease. 'At this moment, a strange thing happened  a woman paired off with a warrior and sat on the sand in a passionate embrace. This act was being repeated by other women, each claiming a warrior for herself, a sort of community mating, as it were. 'Thus did the militant group diminish. This continued for quite some time and when the tempo of this frenzied dance of desire abated, the couples retired into the shade of the jungle.' But the common thread in most encounters is that the Sentinelese have always been hostile to any encroachers and attacked many of them. They stabbed to death an escaped Indian convict who washed up on their shore in 1896. A film crew were greeted with a hail of arrows in 1974. The Sentinelese attracted international attention in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, when a member of the tribe was photographed on a beach, firing arrows at a helicopter that was checking on their welfare. In 2006, two Indian fishermen, who had moored their boat near North Sentinel to sleep after poaching in the waters around the island, were killed when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore. An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community. Today, the island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150. Campaigns by non-profit and local organizations have led the Indian government to abandon plans to contact the Sentinelese. Survival International works to ensure that no further attempts are made to contact the tribe. They say the Sentinelese have thrived on the small forested island, which is approximately the size of Manhattan, for up to 55,000 years. The women wear fibre strings tied around their waists, necks and heads. The men also wear necklaces and headbands, but with a thicker waist belt. From a distance, they appear healthy and thriving and observers have noted many children and pregnant women at times. The Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters by make narrow outrigger canoes (pictured) According to Survival, the Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters by make narrow outrigger canoes, which can only be used in shallow waters as they are steered and propelled with a pole like a punt. Indian authorities made a few trips to the island a bid to befriend the tribe in the 1970s. On one trip, two pigs and a doll were left on the beach. The animals were speared by the tribe and buried along with the doll. More regular visits occurred in the 1980s which saw teams try to land and leave gifts of coconuts, bananas and bits of iron. Sometimes, the Sentinelese appeared to make friendly gestures but other times, they would take the gifts into the forest and then fire arrows at the outsiders. But in 1991, there appeared to be a breakthrough. When officials landed on the island, the tribe gestured for them to bring their gifts and for the first time, approached without weapons. However, they resumed their hostility again once they attacked a wooden boat with their adzes, a stone axe for cutting wood. The gift-giving missions stopped in 1996, but periodic checks are made from boats anchored at a safe distance from the shore to ensure that the Sentinelese appear well and have not chosen to seek contact. Officials made two checks following the 2004 tsunami and then declared that no further attempts would be made to contact the tribe. It is now illegal to have any contact with the tribe and last year, the Indian government said even taking photographs or making videos of aboriginal Andaman tribes would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years. Advertisement

Corry said the British colonial occupation of the Andaman Islands 'decimated the tribes living there, wiping out thousands of tribespeople, and only a fraction of the original population now survive.'

'So the Sentinelese fear of outsiders is very understandable,' he said.

'Uncontacted tribes must have their lands properly protected. They're the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Whole populations are being wiped out by violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases like the flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

'Tribes like the Sentinelese face catastrophe unless their land is protected. I hope this tragedy acts as a wake up call to the Indian authorities to avert another disaster and properly protect the lands of both the Sentinelese, and the other Andaman tribes, from further invaders.'

An aerial shot taken by NASA shows North Sentinel Island, which is approximately the size of Manhattan, where the Sentinelese tribe has thrived for up to 55,000 years

Both endangered aboriginal Andaman tribes - the Jarawa and the Sentinelese - are hunter-gatherers and any contact with outsiders puts them at risk of contracting disease.

Tourists often bribe local authorities to spend a day out with members of the 400-strong Jarawa tribe.

But in contrast, the Sentinelese tribe shuns all contact with the outside world and are known to be hostile to any encroachers.

The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150.

The Sentinelese attracted international attention in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, when a member of the tribe was photographed on a beach, firing arrows at a helicopter that was checking on their welfare.

In 2006, two fishermen, whose boat strayed onto the 60-sq-km (23-square-mile) island, were killed and their bodies never recovered.

An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community, believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world.
Former prison warder Lauren Joyce, 24, from Adlington, Lancashire, left Preston Crown Court a free woman this morning despite the judge warning her actions in messaging inmate Mark Smith had been 'very very stupid'

A rookie prison warder who was 'taken in by the charms' of a convicted robber has escaped a jail sentence over an illicit relationship with the prisoner which included 50 hours of phone calls in five months.

Lauren Joyce, 24, swapped almost 500 messages with 30-year old drug dealer Michael Smith after he began showering her with attention shortly after a painful split from her boyfriend, a court heard.

Over a five month period in 2017 Joyce spent a total of 50 hours chatting on the phone to Smith after he acquired two mobile telephones on the black market while serving a four year stretch at Thorn Cross jail near Warrington, Cheshire.

They also swapped messages on Facebook and Instagram before their forbidden relationship emerged and his phones were found when Smith's cell was raided after a tip off.

Officers found the two phones, plus SIM cards, two chargers and paper work containing Joyce's mobile and landline number plus her address. Police raided her home in Adlington, near Chorley in Lancashire and found a birthday card sent to her by Smith.

At Preston Crown Court, Joyce wept as she admitted misconduct in a public office but she walked free with a 12 month jail term suspended for two years after she insisted the pair had not had 'a physical relationship.'

There was also no suggestion she had supplied Smith with the contraband phone equipment.

Smith, from Netherton, Liverpool who admitted possessing prohibited items in jail was given a six month jail sentence suspended for two years.

The court heard the pair met in 2016 when Joyce was working as a probationer at Category C prison at Wymott jail near Preston.

Smith was initially sent to Wymott after being convicted of supplying heroin and ended up on the same wing Joyce worked on. He later intensified his friendship with her when he was moved to Category D Thorn Cross jail in July 2017.

Prosecuting, Emma Kehoe, said: 'On December 3, the prison were receiving information that there was contact being made between the defendants - which was, of course, prohibited. This was through social media, phone calls and text messages.

'As a result of the information they received, they arranged his cell be searched and prison officers went to his cell in the early hours and he was asked to leave. He did not only leave his cell, but he actually walked out of the prison.

'Various items were found in the search including two phones, SIM cards, two chargers and some paper work with phone numbers attributed to Lauren Joyce. She was arrested on December 7 and her home was searched and a birthday card made out to her by Michael Smith was found.'

Joyce later told police she had been in regular contact with Smith who began communicating with her on Facebook and Instagram.

Miss Kehoe added: 'When he contacted her, she didn't report him but she asked her friend to tell him to stop contacting her. He ignored that request and continued contacting her.

Michael Smith, 30, who has 14 previous convictions including drug dealing and robbery, spent more than 50 hours on the phone to prison warder Lauren Joyce, 24, while he was behind bars and should have had no access to a mobile phone

'He requested that she contact him, which she eventually did. This continued through social media, text messages and phone calls. She denies supplying him with the items in the cell and the Crown cannot prove this.

'She was subsequently suspended from the prison service and an investigation was conducted. Across the three phones they contacted each other 490 times, and the calls added up to a total of 50 hours. This happened between July 29 and December 3 last year and it was stopped by the search of Michael Smith's cell.'

'There's no evidence to suggest that there was direct, sexual contact between the two.'

Smith has 14 previous convictions including a 2012 robbery charge. He was given an additional four month sentence over his escape from Thorn Cross but was released earlier this year.

Mitigating for Joyce, defence lawyer William Donnelly said: 'On a day in July last year, Lauren Joyce made a choice when she knew that Michael Smith had a phone in custody when she knew he shouldn't have.

'She had an opportunity to tell the authorities that a crime was being committed, but she didn't and the reason she is here today is a direct result of that foolish decision.

'She was a dedicated, hard working young woman. It's very likely that his conviction will follow her into the future when she wants to resume her working career, and it's very likely that it will have an adverse affect.'

Mr Donnelly added: 'She made admissions as soon as she could - there's no suggestion that she imported these items into prison, there's no suggestion of any financial gain on her part and there's no suggestion of a physical relationship between the two.'

'She is extremely remorseful, she is at low risk of reoffending and she is of previous good character, and I think there is good reason to suspend a sentence. This is a young woman who is unlikely to ever darken the corridors of the criminal justice system again.'

Sentencing Judge Mark Brown said: 'What she did was stupid, very very stupid. No prison officers should conduct themselves in that manner. There is a suggestion of some kind of relationship though.

Warder Lauren Jones, 24, (left) received a birthday card from inmate Michael Smith, 30, (right), during their five-month illicit relationship

'My impression is that she was a bit out of her depth and it came at a time when her boyfriend had just broken up with her after seven years and got together with a new woman - which must've been hard for her.

'I find it very difficult to accept that someone who was reluctant to communicate with him would then engage in 50 hours of phone conversations. I take the view that she let her heart rule her head and when he contacted her she was, perhaps, flattered by him.

'Your best point is that she was naive, she was vulnerable and she was taken in by his charm.'

He added: 'Lauren Joyce you completed training as a prison officer at HMP Wymott and Michael Smith, were sent to that prison and you met Lauren Joyce while she was working there.

'On July 19, 2017, you Michael Smith were transferred to a Category D prison - Thorn Cross and the connection between you two seems to end then. But, in a relatively short amount of time, it's clear that the pair of you were in communication with each other again.

'It started on social media, but then moved onto texts and phone calls. You, Lauren Joyce, knew that this should not have taken place and must have realised that he was using a mobile phone which, in itself, is prohibited.

'Over a period of about four to five months from July 29 to December 3 2017, there was some 490 text messages and phone calls and the phone calls lasted 50 hours. So, I don't accept that you were a reluctant participant in this relationship, Lauren Joyce.

'It seems clear to me that he started the contact, but there's no doubt in my mind that you were a willing participant. You are a young woman with a decent home background but you were out of your depth and it was also at a time when your boyfriend broke up with you and started a new relationship with another woman.

'So, for those reasons, I accept that you were vulnerable and you then fell into this situation which was out of character for you. This is a serious case.'

Joyce was also ordered to complete 120 hours unpaid work.

After the case Deputy Governor of HMP Wymott, Mike Baines, said: 'The overwhelming majority of prison officers and staff do a fantastic job to very high standards, in what can be very demanding and difficult circumstances.

'Occasionally, they are let down by a colleague, who, through their corrupt actions allow prisoners to continue their criminal activity from within the establishment. This type of behaviour puts staff and the public at risk and will not be tolerated.'

Det Sgt John Davies, from the Prison Anti-Corruption Unit said: 'Regardless of the circumstances leading to the pair starting a relationship, Lauren Joyce knew that Smith had been in possession of a number of mobile telephones and failed to report this to security.

'It is widely accepted that mobile phones are used by serving inmates to continue criminality and can be used to spread unrest inside the prisons themselves.

'The fact that Joyce chose to ignore this put her colleagues and other inmates inside the prison at risk. The dangers of allowing the continued use of a mobile phone in prison cannot be underestimated.'
Attenborough is releasing an album comprised of recordings made earlier in his career

Sir David Attenborough is releasing an album of 'field recordings' he made travelling around South America.

The 92-year-old broadcaster could be in for a Christmas Number One with audio he took from locations he visited before finding Blue Planet and Dynasties fame.

My Field Recordings from Across the Planet is released on Friday and features audio from the 50s and 60s.

Fans have scrambled to get the first single from the collection to the number one slot this festive season, The Sun reports.

The recording - La Llegada - is of indigenous musicians in Paraguay and will be played on Jo Wiley and Simon Mayo's Radio 2 Drive Time today.

It is a celebratory track played by Eladio Martinez and his Orchestra, made up of three harps and four guitars.

Sir David recorded it on a portable cassette recorder, which he took on travels to Tonga and Madagascar to document the sounds made by local musicians.

Wrasse, the record label releasing the album and single, said the firm is starting a campaign called 'David Attenborough for Christmas Number 1'.

Left, David Attenborough in 1962 and, right, the presenter in West Africa for Zoo Quest in Colour, which aired from 1954 to 1963

Sir Tom Jones is the oldest person to hold a Christmas number one single. He topped the charts at the age of 68 with Comic Relief track (Barry) Islands in the Stream.

News of Sir David's bid comes just days after it was revealed that Brits are already searching for songs to kick off the festive season.

Attenborough's current show - Dynasties - showed the harsh realities penguins face during the winter on Sunday

The presenter's latest show, Dynasties, explored the co-operation exhibited by penguins as they struggle to survive the winter

Google data suggested as early as November 8 that people are already getting in the Christmas spirit, with searches for festive songs spiking sharply since Halloween.

The search giant said it had already seen the start of the annual spike in interest for the term 'Christmas songs', and said Jingle Bells topped the list for searches in the United Kingdom.

Last Christmas a nine-year statistical analysis, taking in charts and streaming, revealed the most popular seasonal song among UK listeners was Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is You'.

The top five included Wizzards 'I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day', Slades 'Merry Xmas Everybody' and 'Last Christmas' by Wham!, the Daily Mail reported.

Each song had at least one appearance in the Top 20 over the decade leading up to 2017 and cracked the Top 40 more than 10 times.
A man was mowed down and killed by a Boeing 737 as it took off at a major Russian airport.

Albert Yepremyan, 25, had been deported from Madrid to his native Armenia when he fled the terminal during a stopover in Moscow, say reports.

The pilot of a Moscow to Athens flight reported hitting an 'animal' on the runway at Sheremetyevo airport shortly before takeoff.

A man was hit and killed by a Boeing 737 after fleeing from his flight in Moscow to avoid deportation back to Armenia. He has been named as Albert Yepremyan, 25 (pictured)

No damage to the 737 was reported and it was decided not to abort the flight because the systems of the plane did not register any damage.

A runway inspection last night found a dead body and the man's possessions.

A video released by the Russian Investigative Committee shows the macabre torchlight search on the runway.

Interfax news agency said the man had been deported from Madrid yesterday.

He was due to take an onward flight from Moscow to Armenian capital Yerevan.

Police had been called to the Madrid flight when it landed because the crew had reported the passenger had caused trouble on the aircraft.

According to one account, he had attacked a male member of the cabin crew.

A pilot reported hitting an 'animal' while taking off and a runway inspection last night found a dead body and the man's possessions

'But as soon as the man left the plane in Moscow, his fate was unknown,' said an airport source.

'He did not cross the border into Russia.'

Another report said the man - who had been living in Barcelona - was put on a terminal bus to the Yerevan plane, but then escaped.

The Boeing 737 was later said to have been grounded following its Athens flight after 'biological material' was found 'on its wheels'.

The Russian Investigative Committee released a video of their torchlight search of the runway

Fuselage damage was also reported to the plane which was flown by a Russian airline.

No further details were given.

A source told Interfax: 'The crew of the passenger plane on the way to Athens has reported to air traffic control that they supposedly hit an animal on the runway during take off.

'It was decided not to return the plane back to Moscow because the systems did not indicate any damage.

The man had reportedly been removed from his Madrid flight after it landed because he had 'attacked a member of cabin crew'

'Still it was decided to send the aviation security team to inspect the runway.

'Having arrived to the scene, they reported that human remains were found'.

Anna Zakharenkova, spokeswoman for the airport: 'At 8.10 pm a message was received from the crew that the plane had hit an unknown object.'

Russian news agencies quoted sources as saying the man was on a stopover in Moscow and had earlier picked a fight on board his flight from Spain.

Investigators said in a video posted on Twitter that they found parts from the man's coat and a shoelace on the runway

The 25-year-old somehow ended up on the runway where 'a Boeing 737 plane inflicted deadly injuries on him during takeoff,' the Russian Investigative Committee said on Twitter.

The head of Russia's aviation watchdog Alexander Neradko told Russian agencies that the plane was operated by Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot.

Investigators said in a video posted on Twitter that they found parts from the man's coat and a shoelace among the fragments scattered on the runway. No official criminal probe has been launched yet.

Sheremetyevo Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russian news agencies said the man had been escorted by police in Sheremetyevo to the boarding gate for his connecting flight, but then walked away instead of boarding a bus to the plane.

The 25-year-old somehow ended up on the runway where 'a Boeing 737 plane inflicted deadly injuries on him during takeoff,' the Russian Investigative Committee said

Sources quoted by Russian agencies said the man had been due to fly on to Armenia.

Interfax news agencies also quoted a source as saying that airport services and police inspected the plane when it landed in Athens and found 'holes' in the fuselage.

Aeroflot, which flies from Sheremetyevo, said on its website Wednesday that a number of flights have been rescheduled as one of the three runways was closed.
An American woman suffering from post-natal depression allegedly threw her newborn baby from a moving car in Bali and then tried to kill herself by jumping from the vehicle.

Nicole Stasio, 32, jumped out of the car without warning at an intersection in Denpasar on Tuesday evening, a driver and tour guide who were with her told police.

Police said they were initially unaware of what had happened to the baby.

But villagers found the infant with severe injuries less than a mile from where Stasio leapt out of the vehicle.

The baby died about seven hours later at the same hospital, Bali Mandara, where Stasio is being treated.

Nicole Stasio (pictured) jumped out of the car without warning at an intersection in Denpasar on Tuesday evening, police said

Villagers found the baby with severe injuries less than a mile from where Stasio leapt out of the vehicle. Pictured, Stasio during her pregnancy

South Denpasar police chief Nyoman Wiarajaya told a news conference that officers haven't been able to question Stasio because she is hospitalized in a severe state of depression.

Wiarajaya said the woman, who was born in California, traveled to Bali with her parents in July.

The parents stayed in Bali for about 10 days and Stasio gave birth on the island in September after her parents had left.

Police said a driver and guide said they had taken Stasio (pictured) and her daughter to Bali's international airport on Tuesday evening but she changed her mind about leaving

Police said the woman, who was born in California, traveled to Bali with her parents in July

'She refused to answer when they (the parents) asked about her baby's father,' Wiarajaya said, quoting information from the driver and tour guide who had accompanied the family since they arrived.

'But she gave the impression that she was unmarried and her family preferred that she give birth to a child abroad, like wanting to avoid something,' he said.

Friends on Facebook said Stasio was suffering from post-partum depression.

The baby died at the same hospital, Bali Mandara (pictured), where Stasio is being treated

The driver, Wayan Siaja, and the guide, Made Arimbawa, told police they had taken Stasio and her daughter to Bali's international airport on Tuesday evening.

But Stasio changed her mind about returning to the US and told them to take her back to Ubud, a town popular with tourists for its traditional crafts and culture.

They said she sat silently in the car before the tragic events unfolded, according to Wiarajaya.
The furious DUP went on strike for a second day in a row last night amid growing signs their deal to prop Theresa May up in No10 could be torn up.

The Government was forced to accept a slew of amendments to the Budget after the Northern Irish party refused to back them in a row about her Brexit deal.

It was the second night in a row that the party refused to back the Tories and a humiliating blow for Mrs May, who was accused of being 'in office but not in power'.

It was breach of the DUP's confidence and supply deal with the Tories, which sees the party's 10 MPs back the PM in return for an extra 1billion for Northern Ireland.

Boris Johnson and Chancellor Philip Hammond are both speaking at the DUP's conference in Belfast this weekend as they both try to woo the party.

The DUP is furious as the Brexit plan, which they have slammed as unacceptable because the backstop plan would mean extra regulatory checks in Northern Ireland.

DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly today warned the PM they will not prop her up to 'rip apart the United Kingdom' and warned they could tear up the confidence and supply deal if she does not back down.

They say this is a clear breach of their 'blood red line' that the province is treated the same as the rest of the UK.

Mrs May is jetting to Brussels today for crunch talks EU President Jean-Claude Juncker where she will urge him to sweeten the deal to help her sell it at home.

Before she left, DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds piled more pressure on the PM by accusing her of abandoning promises made to Northern Ireland last year.

The party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds (left with leader Arlene Foster) said the Prime Minister had to 'look beyond' her draft Brexit deal because it is opposed on all sides of the House

Theresa May (pictured left this week) will plead with the EU to sweeten her Brexit deal today as she holds talks with Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured right)

She has been told by her chief whip Julian Smith no to come back empty handed, warning her deal risks being voted down unless major new concessions are won.

If the DUP permanently pull support for the PM, then they would strip Mrs May of her wafer-thin working majority and could send her government crashing down.

Rather than suffer the humiliation of being defeated on the Finance Bill - which enacts the Budget - ministers last night were forced to accept Labour and SNP amendments.

Downing Street denied the climbdowns were fuelled by the DUP strike and a spokesman said today: 'Where votes have taken place the Government has won. It is our position that it is still in effect.'

The concessions included demands for areview of the public health effect of gambling and a review of the effectiveness of the Government's new tax avoidance measures.

PM to hold crunch talks with Juncker as she tries to sweeten her Brexit deal Theresa May will plead with the EU to sweeten her Brexit deal today as she holds talks with Jean-Claude Juncker. Amid furious opposition from Tory MPs, the Prime Minister will deliver a stark message to the commission president that she needs something to help her sell the package at home. The teatime talks in Brussels are the last chance to shore up the plan before an EU summit that is due to formalise them on Sunday. Mrs May has managed to quell a Cabinet mutiny over the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement - albeit at the cost of two big resignations. A backbench coup attempt led by Jacob Rees-Mogg has also embarrassingly flopped. But she has been warned by ministers that she must get concessions alongside the text to avoid a catastrophic defeat in Parliament. One Brexiteer Cabinet ministers suggested that rather than re-drafting the deal, appendices or explanatory notes could be added to make it more palatable. 'There are lots of ways of changing something without changing something,' they said. 'You can do a lot with addenda.' Advertisement

And they must now draw up a report on the cross-border tax arrangements under different Brexit scenarios.

The DUP pulled their support on Monday night - voting with Labour on one amendment and abstaining five times.

Ms Pengelly today told the BBC's Politics Live show that the PM must listen to her.

She said: 'The Prime Minister needs to listen to us, and there are a wide range of options available and we will be examining all of those options including the relationship within the confidence and supply.'

The DUP MP said that they have repeatedly told the PM they have 'one red line - to respect the integrity of the United Kingdom'.

She added: 'We have looked at this Withdrawal Agreement  it doesn't do that.

'A confidence and supply agreement must be about working together, and if our positions are not going to be respected then if our positions are not going to be listened to then we can't expect to have the cooperation we had before.'

She added: 'We are not prepared to be the party that places this government in a position of power to rip apart the United Kingdom. That is completely unacceptable to us.

'We are simply sending a very clear message to the Government  there is still time to take a look at this deal.she needs to do that, and she needs to do that urgently.

'We have got one red line the Prime Minister needs to start listening to that.

The party's leader in Westminster, Nigel Dodds, last night said: 'The Confidence and Supply Agreement was based on shared objectives for strengthening and enhancing the Union and an exit from the European Union that benefits all parts of the United Kingdom.

'We have kept to our word in relation to the Confidence and Supply Agreement, but even Cabinet members have found themselves having to resign because this deal does not represent those shared objectives in relation to the Union.

'The Government will require DUP support to deliver its domestic agenda. We will continue to use our influence for the good of everyone across the United Kingdom.'

Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell swooped on the disarray in No10 to take aim at the Government.

He said: 'It's absolutely staggering that the Government has accepted all Labour amendments to the Finance Bill because it couldn't rely upon the DUP's support.

Has 'Max Fac' been put back on the Brexit negotiating table? Downing Street has hinted that a technological solution could yet solve the Irish border problem The PM appeared to buy off some senior Brexiteers, including Iain Duncan Smith Smith and Owen Paterson, earlier this week by offering to look at their proposals on the Northern Ireland border. They have been urging the government to push technological solutions to avoiding a hard border, and Mrs May has seemingly promised to raise their latest ideas with Brussels. However, the EU has previously dismissed the so-called 'Max Fac' solution as 'magical thinking'. There is no sign either Mrs May or the commission is considering abandoning the 'backstop' proposal. The PM's spokesman said of technological solutions to the border there are things that have been looked at. He pointed to the withdrawal agreement draft which says alternative arrangements could be used to bring the backstop plan to an end. Advertisement

'The Tories are in office but not in power. We're watching a government falling apart in front of us.'

A senior Tory MP told MailOnline said the votes were a signal the government might not last long even if Theresa May somehow managed to force her Brexit deal through Parliament.

They said: 'Without the DUP we are toast.'

DUP Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said Mrs May's deal with Brussels breached a 'fundamental' assurance that Northern Ireland would not be separated constitutionally or economically from the rest of the UK.

After the votes in the Commons last night, he told Newsnight: 'We had to do something to show our displeasure.'

'She has broken all of those promises - to the people of the United Kingdom, to her own party and to the people of Northern Ireland.'

The major row comes as Mrs May is preparing to travel to Brussels this afternoon where she will plead with Mr Juncker to sweeten her Brexit deal.

The Prime Minister will deliver a stark message to the commission president that she needs something to help her sell the package at home.

The teatime talks in Brussels are the last chance to shore up the plan before an EU summit that is due to formalise them on Sunday.

Mrs May has managed to quell a Cabinet mutiny over the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement - albeit at the cost of two big resignations. A backbench coup attempt led by Jacob Rees-Mogg has also embarrassingly flopped.

But she has been warned by ministers that she must get concessions alongside the text to avoid a catastrophic defeat in Parliament.

One Brexiteer Cabinet ministers suggested that rather than re-drafting the deal, appendices or explanatory notes could be added to make it more palatable.

'There are lots of ways of changing something without changing something,' they said. 'You can do a lot with addenda.'

As the number of Tory MPs pledging to vote against the package continued to rise alarmingly, chief whip Julian Smith has privately told the PM she is set to lose unless there are significant tweaks.
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The pregnant Duchess of Sussex today made an emotional return visit to a community kitchen which inspired her collaborative work on a Grenfell Tower charity cookbook, telling the women: 'I'm so proud of you.'

Meghan went to the Hubb Community Kitchen, not far from the site of the deadly tower block blaze in West London, to see first hand the progress made since the Together cookbook went on sale in September.

The mother-to-be was greeted warmly by kitchen co-ordinator Zaheera Sufyaan - whom she gave a big hug - and Abdurahman Sayed, chief executive of the Al Manaar Muslim Cultural Centre in North Kensington.

Meghan, who has been making private visits to the kitchen since January, quickly abandoned any formality when she got inside. She threw her arms around each of the women and kissed them, chattering excitedly about what they had been up to since she last saw them. 'Hi, how are you? Wow, it's so quiet in here,' she said, giggling.

Wearing a burgundy dress and coat by Club Monaco, a Canadian company now owned by US fashion giant Polo Ralph Lauren, Meghan soon put on an apron, rolled up her sleeves and got stuck into helping prepare food.

She said to a group of women: 'It starts from one idea and from this one idea starts so much. I'm so proud of you.'

The book - full title Together: Our Community Cookbook - took the number one spot on Amazon within hours of being unveiled two months ago and has since sold nearly 40,000 copies in the UK, raising 210,000.

Meghan hugs Zaheera Sufyaan, who is part of the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London as she visits the centre today

Meghan warmly hugs Ms Sufyaan, the kitchen coordinator and one of her collaborators on the book

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex poses for a group photo with members of the Hubb Community Kitchen in London this morning

The cookbook featured more than 50 recipes from women whose community was affected by the Grenfell Tower fire

Meghan, whose first baby with Prince Harry is due in the spring, holds her bump today as she talks to the chefs

Meghan speaks with chef Clare Smyth (right) as they visit the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London this morning

Wearing a burgundy dress and coat by Club Monaco, Meghan got involved in helping prepare the food this morning

Kitchen co-ordinator Ms Sufyaan waves to the cameras as she and Meghan enter the community kitchen in London today

Bumper sales of the cookbook, which features more than 50 recipes from women whose community was affected by the fire, have allowed a total makeover of the kitchen as well as longer opening hours.

Meghan, who suggested the idea of a fundraising cookbook when she first met the women, has previously described it as a 'tremendous labour of love'.

The kitchen, redesigned with the women's input to capture its spirit as a place for the community to come together over meals, now opens seven days a week, up from just two when it began last year.

Those involved have also been able to obtain food hygiene qualifications and been empowered to start their own projects for the benefit of the wider community.

Projects, supported by the social entrepreneur foundation UnLtd, include a group for women affected by domestic violence, a scheme to deliver freshly cooked meals for women on maternity wards, and a project to produce healthy treats for children.

Today, 200 meals being prepared in the kitchen were destined for local groups, including elderly people's homes, homeless shelters and women's refuges. The dishes include Egyptian lamb fattah, Persian chicken and barberry rice.

The meals she helped prepare today included rainbow roasted vegetables, a recipe in the book from Ahlam Saeid, an Iraqi chemist, who stood chatting to the Duchess as she mixed the vegetables.

Meghan drank ginger tea as she spoke to some of the women who have been motivated to go on and develop further projects including making healthy snacks for children, and preparing food for the homeless.

The Duchess of Sussex wears a ring with a heart-shaped detail as she visits the Hubb Community Kitchen this morning

The Duchess of Sussex arrives at the Hubb Community Kitchen in North Kensington this morning

The women were preparing 200 meals in just one day, to be delivered to local groups, including elderly people's homes

Together has sold more than 40,000 copies in the UK and raised 210,000 so far in the seven weeks since it went on sale

The new facilities provide a safe and professional space for the women to cook, gather and run activities in their community

Previously the kitchen was only able to open two days a week due to funding - but now this has gone up to seven days

Meghan helped prepare the food as she introduced chef Clare Smyth (far left), a friend of hers, to volunteers in the kitchen

The Duchess of Sussex has a drink as she visits the Hubb Community Kitchen in West Loidon this morning

The duchess smiled as she met the women as they prepared fresh meals for the community in the newly renovated kitchen

Together has appeared in the Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller lists, selling tens of thousands of copies

She also introduced chef Clare Smyth, a friend of hers, to the volunteers in the kitchen. Smiling, Meghan said: 'I'm so proud of you. It's really exciting.'

The people involved in the kitchen are 'incredible', said Ms Smyth, who visited the kitchen for the first time with Meghan.

Meghan drank ginger tea as she spoke to some of the women who have been motivated to go on and develop further projects including making healthy snacks for children, and preparing food for the homeless.

The Co Antrim-born chef, who now lives in London and has a restaurant near the community facility, said: 'If everyone took care of their community like this there would be no issues in the world.'

Ms Smith said Meghan had spoken with passion about the kitchen. 'She's really into food, she's a real foodie.'

The Duchess told the group: 'It hasn't been a year yet. From that standpoint, what you have achieved in that short space of time... it's really exciting.'

Community kitchens around Britain, including ones in Brixton in South London, Barnet in North London and Scotland, as well as a US group, have been in touch, asking to meet or swap ideas.

Other projects that they are now working on include a group for women affected by domestic violence, a scheme to deliver freshly cooked meals for women on maternity wards, and a project to produce healthy food for children.

The women have been empowered to start their own projects, which will help others in their community benefit

Meghan bids farewell to kitchen co-ordinator Ms Sufyaan following her visit to the kitchen in North Kensington today

The Duchess of Sussex and her friend, chef Clare Smyth (left), visit the Hubb Community Kitchen this morning

The Duchess of Sussex speaks to the women at the Hubb Community Kitchen as she finds out how funds are being used

Those involved have also been able to obtain food hygiene qualifications and been empowered to start their own projects

The dishes prepared by the kitchen today include Egyptian lamb fattah, Persian chicken and barberry rice

Meghan suggested the idea of a fundraising cookbook when she first met the women in North Kensington

Meghan has previously described the book - Together: Our Community Cookbook - as a 'tremendous labour of love'

Meghan arrived at the kitchen to see first hand the progress made since the Together cookbook went on sale

The book went number one on Amazon within hours of being unveiled and has since sold nearly 40,000 copies in the UK

Professional chefs will be brought into the centre to give cooking masterclasses to the women. Today Meghan invited Ms Smyth, the British chef who cooked for guests and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's evening wedding reception in May, to come along to see what the women had achieved.

Northern Ireland-born Ms Smyth, who became the first British female chef to hold and retain three Michelin stars, runs a restaurant, Core by Clare Smyth, in nearby Notting Hill and pledged to come into the centre to work with the women.

'Every community needs something like this. If we could all do something together, we could solve the world's problems,' the chef said. She praised their culinary skills, adding: 'They definitely don't need my help but if there is anything I can do to help them, I will.'

The meals being prepared in the redesigned kitchen today, as Aretha Franklin music was piped out in the background, were for local groups, including elderly people's homes, homeless shelters and women's refuges.

The dishes include Egyptian lamb fattah, Persian chicken and barberry rice.

Los Angeles-born Meghan enthused about the idea of food and meals as a means of bringing families and communities together. 'It's Thanksgiving tomorrow so it's the same thing about sharing,' she said.

One woman, Faiza Hayani, whose signature dishes in the cookbook include Algerian couscous, Algerian sweet lamb, and plum cake, told the Duchess that she has just been given the go-ahead to start a project teaching French, English and computer skills to local immigrant women.

Meghan, who lived in Canada for several years, told her: 'I've been trying to get better at my French. I've been trying to practise quite a bit.'

The kitchen has been redesigned with the women's input to capture its spirit as a place for the community to come together

The kitchen has become a place where people come together over meals and now opens seven days a week, up from just two

Meghan soon put on an apron, rolled up her sleeves and got stuck into helping prepare food this morning

Meghan speaks to the chefs as she visits the community kitchen today to see how funds raised are making a difference

Meghan, wearing a coat and dress by Club Monaco, was greeted by Abdurahman Sayed, from the Al Manaar Mosque

Together has sold more than 40,000 copies in the UK and raised 210,000 so far in the seven weeks since it went on sale

The Duchess arrives at the Hubb Community Kitchen today to see how the funds raised by the book are making a difference

The team set out to raise 250,000 to renovate the kitchen and open it seven days a week and expect to easily surpass that

Meghan arrived at the Hubb Community Kitchen, not far from the site of the deadly tower block blaze in West London

Before she left, the Duchess kissed and hugged all of the women and even thanked the British media for attending. 'Bye guys. Thank you for coming,' she said.

Afterwards Ms Saied said: 'It was so nice. We are so happy. She has helped us a lot. She changed things in the kitchen and the community.

'Not all of the community knew this centre was here. Now they all do. The kitchen was open only two days a week, now it is seven days a week. She did lots to help us in a short amount of time.'

A royal aide said Meghan would continue to work with the women but declined to say whether this might be the start of a wider, nationwide project. 'It's too early to say yet but she will continue to visit here. This project will always have a special place in her heart,' she said.

The team set out to raise 250,000 to renovate the kitchen and open it seven days a week and expect to easily surpass that, especially with Christmas coming up.

Supported by The Royal Foundation and published by Penguin Random House companies, Together has raised enough funds for the kitchen to be completely redesigned and re-fitted, with the women's input, to capture what has been described as their 'joyful spirit'.

Over the summer last year, a group of women gathered in a communal kitchen at the Al Manaar community centre, where they could prepare fresh food for their families, friends and neighbours affected by the disaster.

As they cooked together and shared recipes, as a community they began to connect, heal and look forward. Word spread and more women joined in  and this was the start of the Hubb kitchen.

The Duchess wanted to see first hand the progress made since the Together cookbook went on sale in September

Wearing a burgundy dress and coat by Club Monaco, Meghan hugged Ms Sufyaan as she arrived at the kitchen today

The mother-to-be was greeted by Mr Sayed, chief executive of the Al Manaar Muslim Cultural Centre in North Kensington

The Duchess of Sussex returned to the kitchen which inspired her collaborative work on a Grenfell charity cookbook

Meghan heard how the women in the kitchen hope to use future proceeds to reach out to more people in their community

The Duchess of Sussex smiled brightly as she arrived at the Al Manaar Muslim cultural centre in North Kensington today

Projects supported by the social entrepreneur foundation UnLtd include a group for women affected by domestic violence

There are schemes to deliver freshly cooked meals for women on maternity wards, and to produce healthy treats for children

Kensington Palace said that since the book was published, the 'inclusive ethos of Together has resonated all over the world'

Together: Our Community Cookbook reached number one on Amazon.co.uk book chart within hours of being announced

The new facilities provide a safe and professional space for the women to cook, gather and run activities within their community. Previously the kitchen was only able to open two days a week due to funding.

But the women are now able to use the kitchen seven days a week, and have been trained to gain food hygiene qualifications and empowered to start their own projects, which will help others in their community benefit.

The duchess, who has made regular private visits to the kitchen since January, met the women as they prepared fresh meals for the local community in the newly renovated kitchen.

The women were preparing 200 meals in just one day, to be delivered to local groups, including elderly people's homes, homeless shelters and women's refuges.

They are also now working on their own projects including a group for women affected by domestic violence, a scheme to deliver nutritious, freshly cooked meals for women on maternity wards, and a project to produce healthy treats for children.

Meghan, whose first baby with her husband, Prince Harry, is due in the spring, also heard about the women's long-term vision for the kitchen, and how they hope to use future proceeds to reach out to more people in their community.

Kensington Palace said today that since the book was published in September, the 'inclusive ethos of Together has resonated all over the world, and inspired people not just to buy the book, but to cook, eat and gather in their own communities'.

Together reached number one on Amazon.co.uk book chart within hours of being announced, and has appeared in the Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller lists, selling tens of thousands of copies since its release.

How Meghan's secret visits to a community mosque after the Grenfell Tower fire prompted her to help launch a community cookbook

The charity recipe book the Duchess of Sussex threw her support behind came after a series of secret trips she made to a community mosque to cook with people affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy

Meghan put her name to a book of recipes created by the women of the Hubb Community Kitchen, an initiative based close to the tower in North Kensington, West London.

Meghan wrote the foreword to Together: Our Community Cookbook, which came out for 9.99 in September and knocked JK Rowling off the number one spot on Amazon's bestseller list even before it was released.

Meghan worked with women from the kitchen on a community cookbook. A publicity photo from its release is pictured

The Duchess, who donned an apron to muck in with fellow volunteers on her visits, said she 'immediately felt connected' to the kitchen, which she described as a 'place for women to laugh, cry, grieve and cook together'.

The recipe book bumped Lethal White, written by Robert Galbraith - Harry Potter author Rowling's male pseudonym - Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt, and Jamie Oliver's Italy down the charts to take the top spot.

Demand ahead of its release meant the charity book had already been outselling efforts from heavyweight chefs and foodies on the website - including recipe books from the Body Coach Joe Wicks and Deliciously Ella.

Kensington Palace released photographs of the Duchess - who also appears on the front cover of the book - chatting, laughing and cooking with fellow volunteers in the kitchen at the Al Manaar Cultural Centre.

The Hubb Community Kitchen - hubb means love in Arabic - has arisen out of the devastating Grenfell tragedy in 2017. It caused the deaths of 72 people when fire broke out in the 24 storey block of flats on June 14 last year.

The palace said the women behind the project had decided to gather and prepare fresh food for their families and neighbours, as a way of helping the community to connect, heal and look forward - and to 'convene through food'.

Meghan poses for a picture previously with the Hubb Community Kitchen team for Together: Our Community Cookbook

Following the blaze - Britain's deadliest fire on domestic premises since the Second World War - the group of friends approached the Al Manaar centre to ask if they could use the kitchen.

In the book supported by Meghan, some of the recipes are family favourites and all have been created by the cooks who support not only residents affected by the Grenfell fire but others in the community.

In the introduction, the women of the Hubb Community Kitchen wrote: 'Our kitchen has always been a place of good food, love, support and friendship.

'We cook the recipes we've grown up with; there's no stress, and the recipes always work because they have been made so many times  it's proper comfort food.

'Swapping family recipes and moments of laughter gave us a sense of normality and home. We named ourselves the Hubb Community Kitchen to celebrate the thing that we all feel every time we meet  hubb means love in Arabic.'

Meghan helped put the group in touch with a publisher and her Royal Foundation provided assistance with legal and admin issues. Prince Harry and Meghans mother Doria Ragland helped launch it at a reception at the palace.

Two months after the book was released, it has since sold nearly 40,000 copies in the UK, raising 210,000.
British tourists travelling to Finland to visit Santa Claus' 'official' home are facing disappointment due to a lack of snow.

Despite the Santa Claus Village's location above the Arctic Circle, in the far north of the Scandinavian country, snow has yet to fall in the area this season.

Several British holiday companies have been forced to cancel upcoming trips to northern Finland as a result of the weather.

Still dreaming of a white Christmas: This recent photo taken outside the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland shows the ground bare with no snow in sight

Holiday company TUI has been forced to cancel two day trips to the Snow Village in Kittila, some 93 miles north of Rovaniemi, as it has not been cold enough for the resort to be built.

'We have taken the difficult decision to cancel the 1st and 2nd December day trips to the Snow Village and have directly contacted any affected customers with alternative options,' TUI said in a statement.

'We would like to reassure anyone heading to Kittila for three or four nights at the beginning of December or later, or to anyone due to visit any of our other Lapland resorts over this period or at a later point in the season, that we are confident we'll be able to offer them the full experience as planned.'

British tour operator Transun has cancelled two trips to Finnish Lapland this week and offered alternative dates or a full refund.

'We have cancelled the trips as it has been unseasonably warm in Lapland recently and there has been limited snowfall,' said spokesperson for Transun, which offers tours to an area some 155 miles north of Rovaniemi, adding that they have put contingency plans in place if the warm weather continues.

Tourists booked in to visit Santa's Village, which opened for the winter season on Saturday, have taken to social media to express their fears their trip may be snowless.

The official Facebook pages of Visit Rovaniemi and the Santa Claus Holiday Village have been inundated with worried tourists asking if there is any chance of snow in the next few days.

How it's 'meant' to look: Visitors expect to see Santa's Village in Rovaniemi in Finland covered in snow as they visit in the run-up to Christmas

The Finnish Meteorological Institute's five day forecast offers some hope to tourists, with snow predicted to fall on Friday and Monday.

A ten-day forecast by the Finnish government's weather agency promises temperatures below zero from Friday and at least three days of snow before December commences.

Sanna Karkkainen, Managing Director at Visit Rovaniemi told MailOnline they are not worried about the weather - revealing that they are working on programmes to preserve pre-season snow in case none appears naturally.

'It looks promising in terms of temperature, but for sure, we wait for snow.

'The weather varies a lot in the beginning of the season and for many years we have been able started the winter activities in October/November.

'Nowadays the weather seems to be more unpredictable and we need to get prepared for that, for example storing and conserving snow over summer for the early start of winter activities.'

Far north: Despite being located in northern Finland above the Arctic Circle

Rovaniemi and Santa's Village is a popular destination among Britons in the run-up to Christmas.

In November and December last year, 25,000 British tourists stayed overnight in Rovaniemi - and were the most common nationality among foreign visitors in December.

Many Britons also visit for the day and fly home in the evening on trips such as Thomas Cook's Sleigh Day, however it is not known if the lack of snow will effect upcoming trips.

A Thomas Cook spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Our trips to Lapland start later this month. We're continuing to watch the forecast and are working on contingency plans should they be required. We will update customers on any changes if necessary.'
Family GP Hendrik Beerstecher has been suspended for posting videos of inspectors online amid claims reports were 'biased'

A disgruntled doctor who made secret films of government inspectors then posted them online because he thought reports were 'biased' has been suspended.

Family GP Hendrik Beerstecher, who runs a surgery in Sittingborne, Kent, was angry after the Care Quality Commission gave his practice 'inadequate' ratings in some categories in 2016.

The 55-year-old doctor posted videos of inspectors on YouTube under headings including 'orchestrated smear'. He insisted he wanted 'to allow people to judge for themselves' whether the regulator was up to scratch.

But his actions landed him in hot water when the videos were seen by officials and he was hauled before Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, which has now suspended him for two months.

He avoided any more serious punishment after he was described as a 'caring doctor who was highly regarded by his patents'.

A report in 2001 found Dr Beerstecher had developed 'an above-average patient satisfaction rating' with 86% saying their experience of the surgery was 'good overall and would recommend it to others'.

But in a report in 2016, the CQC gave the practice 'inadequate' ratings for the 'safety' and 'well-led' categories and said it required improvement in the 'effective' and 'responsive' categories.

It warned the surgery must improve within six months to avoid it possibly being shut down.

He insisted people should be able to judge for themselves how good the health regulator is, but a tribunal found his actions were 'unprofessional'

The tribunal heard Dr Beerstecher, who is originally from Leiden in the Netherlands, posted sarcastic comments online after inspectors questioned the lack of female doctors at his single-doctor surgery.

He wrote: 'To resolve the problem, Dr Beerstecher was going to undergo gender reassignment so that he could be female on Tuesdays and Thursdays and male on the other days to offer a choice of female GP. Our nurse could become white British on four of the five weekdays.'

He also secretly filmed inspectors, something he described as 'sad necessity after numerous bad experiences with various NHS authorities'.

After seeing his footage online, the CQC ordered it was taken down, saying it 'led colleagues to feel a sense of intrusion and distress'.

He will not be able to treat patients at his Sittingbourne surgery for two months

At the tribunal this week, the doctor's lawyer insisted: 'He was entitled to raise concerns and that the intention of good medical practice is not to stifle free speech. There is no evidence of any ongoing upset caused to the inspectors.

'Dr Beerstecher is providing a clinical service to patients which is at a good and safe level. He is held in high regard by his patients.'

The tribunal found the comments posted were 'inflammatory' and showed 'a level of unprofessionalism' and 'apparent contempt for the CQC' and suspended him from practising as a doctor for two months.

Tribunal chairman Kim Parsons said: 'The Tribunal is mindful that Dr Beerstcher is a caring doctor and noted that no patients have come to harm but suspension would send a message to him, the profession and to the public that the misconduct was serious.'
Theresa May today faced demands to guarantee that Britain will leave the EU in March - after she warned Brexit could be cancelled if MPs vote down her deal.

At a highly-charged PMQs, a series of Tories berated Mrs May over the package she has thrashed out with Brussels.

Pressed on whether she agreed with Amber Rudd's comments this morning that 'no deal' Brexit cannot happen because the Commons will block it, Mrs May appeared to dodge saying that crashing out was still an option.

'You look at the alternatives to having that deal with the EU, it will either be more uncertainty, more division, or it could risk no Brexit at all,' she said.

Esther McVey - who dramatically quit Cabinet in protest last week - then urged the premier to give an assurance that the UK will leave the bloc in March.

Mrs May replied that Britain will be departing on that date - although that guarantee appears to be based on the Commons accepting her plan.

The clashes came as tensions with Eurosceptics over the package reach boiling point.

Theresa May faced pressure from Conservative MPs and Labour as she took PMQs in the Commons today

Esther McVey - who dramatically quit Cabinet in protest last week - urged the premier to give an assurance that the UK will leave the bloc in March

New Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd (pictured) effectively wrote off the option of Britain leaving without any agreement, saying Parliament 'will not allow that to take place'

The comments infuriated Brexiteers who said no-deal is the default position and had already been authorised by Parliament

During the PMQs session, Brexiteer Andrew Rosindell told the Prime Minster that he was 'deeply unhappy' with the withdrawal agreement, adding: 'Will she now even at this late stage, please think again and instead lead our country in a new direction completely cutting away the tentacles of the EU over our cherished island nation once and for all?'

Mrs May responded saying her deal delivered on the promises of Brexit and ensured a continued close trading relationship with the EU.

Neil Parish, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, also warned the Irish border backstop 'threatens the integrity of the UK' and advised Mrs May to listen to concerns raised by MPs.

Pushed by Jeremy Corbyn over new Work and Pensions Secretary Ms Rudd's view that no deal cannot happen, Mrs May said: 'The point that has been made by a number of my colleagues in relation to the vote that will come before this House on a meaningful vote on a deal from the European Union is very simple.

'If you look at the alternative to having that vote with the European Union it will either be more uncertainty, more division or it could risk no Brexit at all.'

Earlier, Ms Rudd effectively wrote off the option of Britain leaving without any agreement, saying Parliament will not 'allow that to take place'.

The comments marked a shift from Mrs May's previous insistence that the UK will leave the bloc in March whatever the outcome of negotiations.

They were immediately seized on by Remainers who said she had exposed the PM's 'bluff'.

But furious Brexiteers insisted no-deal is the default position and had already been authorised by Parliament.

What have Cabinet ministers said about holding a second Brexit referendum? Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary Before she returned to Cabinet last week, Amber Rudd said holding another referendum would be better than a no deal Brexit. And today she reiterated her view that another vote is on the table. She said: 'The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit. 'It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal. There isn't a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.' Michael Gove, Environment Secretary A leading Brexiteer, Michael Gove is a crucial player in the Cabinet and his support for Theresa May and her Brexit deal has been key. He has repeatedly opposed a second Brexit referendum, saying it would be 'hugely disruptive and disrespectful'. Liz Truss, Treasury Minister Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has never backed a second referendum - but she has suggested another one could be held if MPs vote down the PM's deal. She said: 'If my colleagues in Parliament don't vote for this then we're in grave danger of not leaving at all. 'I am very very worried about what the alternative looks like, because I'm a democrat. I believe that people voted in good faith to leave the EU and we need to deliver that.' Esther McVey, ex Work and Pensions Secretary: Esther McVey, a Brexiteer, quit the Cabinet in fury at the Brexit plan - and has vowed to fight from the backbenches to 'stand up for the UK'. She used a question in the first PMQs since she quit to press the issue . She asked Mrs May: 'Can the Prime Minister assure the House today, as she has done on many other occasions, that the UK will be leaving the EU on 29 March 2019come what may?' Penny Mordaunt, Aid Secretary A leading Brexiteer, she is determined for Britain to leave the EU and does not want another EU referendum. Liam Fox, International Trade Secretary An ardent Brexiteer, Liam Fox has remained loyal to Theresa May and her Brexit deal. But he would be dead-set against another vote on Brexit having campaigned so strongly to leave in 2016. Advertisement

The row erupted as Ms Rudd defended Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement amid mounting criticism from all sides.

Asked whether it is not clear that the package will not get through the Commons, Ms Rudd told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I don't accept that at all.'

But Ms Rudd - who returned to the Cabinet last week following the resignation of Esther McVey - said that if the agreement did fail 'anything could happen'.

'The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit,' she said.

'It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal. There isn't a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.'

But she added: 'I don't think we are looking at another referendum. I think people will take a careful look over the abyss - MPs of all parties - and consider whether they think it is in the best interests of the whole country.

'I think the likelihood is, despite what people say, that the Withdrawal Agreement will get through.'

Ms Rudd reiterated her view in other broadcast interviews later - making clear she had not misspoken.

Treasury minister Liz Truss also came close to repeating the warning, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: 'If my colleagues don't sign up to this in Parliament, we're in grave danger of not leaving at all.'

Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer said: 'Amber Rudd seems to have ignored Number 10's spin by admitting that parliament would stop a no deal Brexit.

If the prime minister's deal is rejected then MPs will not sit back and allow us to crash out of the EU without an agreement. Parliament will take back control.

'After these comments from Amber Rudd, it's time for the government to drop the false choice between a bad deal and no deal, and to come forward with a plan that can command the majority support of parliament.'

But Veteran Tory Eurosceptic Edward Leigh complained that Ms Rudd's comments were in 'direct contradiction' to the PM.

'Amber Rudd claims that if this deal is voted down then #Brexit will be stopped by Parliament,' he said.

'She is in direct contradiction to the PM who has confirmed to me twice in the Commons that deal or no deal Brexit will be delivered on 29 March 2018.'

He added: 'Amber is also wrong procedurally. Under the Act, Brexit can now only be stopped by primary legislation. Is she suggesting that if the PM lost the deal she would go back on her pledge? How is that helpful?'

Mrs May will plead with the EU to sweeten her Brexit deal later today as she holds talks with Jean-Claude Juncker.

Amid furious opposition from Tory MPs, the Prime Minister will deliver a stark message to the commission president that she needs something to help her sell the package at home.

The teatime talks in Brussels are the last chance to shore up the plan before an EU summit that is due to formalise them on Sunday.

Mrs May has managed to quell a Cabinet mutiny over the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement - albeit at the cost of two big resignations. A backbench coup attempt led by Jacob Rees-Mogg has also embarrassingly flopped.

The comments fly in the face of Mrs May's insistence that the UK will leave the bloc in March whatever the outcome of negotiations

As Westminster is plunged into turmoil over Brexit and the future of Theresa May as PM, a no deal Brexit and a second EU referendum are both looking more likely

But she has been warned by ministers that she must get concessions alongside the text to avoid a catastrophic defeat in Parliament.

One Brexiteer Cabinet ministers suggested that rather than re-drafting the deal, appendices or explanatory notes could be added to make it more palatable.

'There are lots of ways of changing something without changing something,' they said. 'You can do a lot with addenda.'

As the number of Tory MPs pledging to vote against the package continued to rise alarmingly, chief whip Julian Smith has privately told the PM she is set to lose unless there are significant tweaks.

The scale of the threat facing Mrs May was underlined last night when the DUP again abstained on Budget legislation - humiliatingly forcing the government to accept Opposition amendments.

What happens if the EU signs off on the Brexit deal - and what happens if they don't Theresa May (pictured at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Monday) has struck a Brexit deal with Brussels - but now has to sell it to her Cabinet and then Parliament Emergency EU Summit, Brussels, November 25 What will happen? The EU has scheduled a summit to sign off the Brexit deal covering the withdrawal and future trade - although there are fears that last minute wrangling over issues such as fishing rights and Gibraltar could derail the event altogether. If it is cancelled the negotiating teams will keep working until they are in position to put an overall agreement to leaders - or they conclude the situation is hopeless. The next routine EU summit is due to happen on December 13-14. However, by that point time will be on the verge of running out - as both sides need to ratify the deal before March. German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) is still a crucial figure in the Brexit drama The so-called 'meaningful vote' in the UK Parliament, December 2019 What will happen: Assuming a deal is reached, a debate, probably over more than one day, will be held in the House of Commons on terms of the deal. It will end with a vote on whether or not MPs accept the deal. More than one vote might happen if MPs are allowed to table amendments. The vote is only happening after MPs forced the Government to accept a 'meaningful vote' in Parliament on the terms of the deal. What happens if May wins? If the meaningful vote is passed, there will be a series of further votes as the withdrawal treaty is written into British law. It will be a huge political victory for the Prime Minister and probably secure her version of Brexit. What happens if she loses? This is possibly the most dangerous stage of all. The Prime Minister will have to stake her political credibility on winning a vote and losing it would be politically devastating. Brexiteers do not want to sign off the divorce bill without a satisfactory trade deal and Remainers are reluctant to vote for a blind Brexit. She could go back to Brussels to ask for new concessions before a second vote but many think she would have to resign quickly. The Prime Minister (pictured at the EU Council in June) has made clear the UK will leave without a deal if MPs reject her package Ratification in the EU, February 2019 What will happen? After the meaningful vote in the UK, the EU will have to ratify the agreement. The European Parliament must also vote in favour of the deal. It has a representative in the talks, Guy Verhofstadt, who has repeatedly warned the deal must serve the EU's interests. Will it be agreed? In practice, once the leaders of the 27 member states have agreed a deal, ratification on the EU side should be assured. If the deal has passed the Commons and she is still in office, this should not be dangerous for the Prime Minister. Exit day, March 29, 2019 At 11pm on March 29, 2019, Britain will cease to be a member of the European Union, two years after triggering Article 50 and almost three years after the referendum. Exit happens at 11pm because it must happen on EU time. If the transition deal is in place, little will change immediately - people will travel in the same way as today and goods will cross the border normally. But Britain's MEPs will no longer sit in the European Parliament and British ministers will no longer take part in EU meetings. Negotiations will continue to turn the political agreement on the future partnership into legal text that will eventually become a second treaty. Both sides will build new customs and immigration controls in line with what this says. Transition ends, December 2020 The UK's position will undergo a more dramatic change at the end of December 2020, when the 'standstill' transition is due to finish. If the negotiations on a future trade deal are complete, that could come into force. But if they are still not complete the Irish border 'backstop' plan could be triggered. Under current thinking, that means the UK staying in the EU customs union and more regulatory checks between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. Eurosceptics fear this arrangement will prevent the country striking trade deals elsewhere, and could effectively last for ever, as Brussels will have no incentive to negotiate a replacement deal. Advertisement

What might happen if May loses her meaningful vote on the deal? Having finalised her Brexit deal, Theresa May now has to put it to the Commons - a vote almost everyone thinks she will lose. What happens next on the road to Brexit is very hard to forecast - but amid the chaos there are a series of routes which politicians could take. These are six scenarios for how Brexit might play out: May renegotiates with Brussels and wins a second meaningful vote This appears to be the Government's current strategy. After MPs vote down the deal, the markets react with horror and Mrs May flies to Brussels to ask for help. She either gets some new concessions or the EU says there really is nothing else. Either way, Mrs May come back to the Commons and asks MPs to vote again - and wins as rebels back down in the face of no deal chaos and plunging markets. May renegotiates with Brussels but loses a second vote - triggering a confidence vote and a new Tory PM who orders a second referendum Mrs May's deal is defeated a second time in the Commons and Labour immediately calls a vote of confidence in the Government - which is lost. Mrs May resigns as Prime Minister and is replaced in a quickfire Tory leadership contest. The winner is installed in No 10 but warned by the DUP the deal is still unacceptable. Admitting there is no way to win a confidence vote and no renegotiation with Brussels, the new PM orders a second referendum on the deal or Brexit with no deal at all. This would probably require the Prime Minister to delay Brexit by extending the Article 50 process. May's Brexit deal is rejected a second time in the House of Commons - she resigns and the new Prime Minister calls for a General Election to break the impasse Mrs May resigns immediately after her deal is rejected by the House of Commons for a second time. She stays on long enough in No 10 for a Tory leadership contest. The new Prime Minister declares they want a mandate for their own version of Brexit and says they want a majority in the House of Commons to deliver it. Labour seizes on the chance to go to the polls and Tory MPs reluctantly vote in the Commons for a snap election in late January or early February. The Government is re-elected with a majority and passes its version of the deal. May switches to support for a No Deal Brexit after MPs reject her plan - but Labour wins a vote demanding a new referendum with support from Tory Remain rebels After Mrs May's deal is rejected by MPs, the Prime Minister insists the will of the Commons is clear and Brexit must be pursued without a deal. She wins a confidence vote among all MPs and is able to cling to power while she drives the country toward exit day without a deal. Labour demands an election but ignored by the PM, takes its earliest opportunity to table a motion in the Commons which condemns a no deal Brexit and calls for a new referendum on Brexit. The motion passes - while it has no effect in law it changes the political mood dramatically. The Prime Minister says she cannot ignore the clear will of Parliament and starts the process of a new referendum. May is replaced by a new Tory Prime Minister who immediately calls an election - but Labour wins with a promise for a referendum After losing her deal in the Commons, Mrs May is replaced in a rapid leadership election. The new Tory Prime Minister immediately calls an election. In the belief it can win by switching against Brexit, Labour changes its policy and puts a new referendum in its manifesto. Polling day comes in late January and Mr Corbyn is returned as Prime Minister. He immediately goes to Brussels, gets a six month extension to Article 50 and starts the process of calling a new referendum on a Remain or Leave with a new deal question. The deal is defeated and after a no confidence vote, Remain MPs break party lines to back a new PM to form a national government that calls a referendum Mrs May resigns amid chaos following a confidence vote - starting two weeks of limbo before a new election must be called in the absence of a Government. In the vacuum, an MP calls on people across the Commons to break party lines and form a national government. The group forces a motion onto the floor of the House, possibly via the backbench business committee. In a surprise result, the motion not only carries but has support of more than half of MPs - shifting the politics and prompting the new leader to be invited to form their national government. The new Prime Minister calls a referendum with Remain, No Deal or May's deal on the ballot paper - with a second round run off to decide the final settlement. Advertisement
A Jewish child refugee saved from the Nazis by Clement Attlee in 1939 today thanked him for his 'remarkable kindness' as he prepares to meet the former prime minister's granddaughter for the first time later.

Paul Willer, now 90, was helped into the UK by Mr Attlee after he fled Hitler's Germany with his mother and younger brother on the eve of the Second World War.

He told MailOnline today that the then leader of the Labour opposition was a 'gentleman and a gentle man' when he lived in his mansion Heywood in Stanmore, north-west London, for three months.

He said: 'He was simply head of the family, I didn't know anything about his politics. He and his family were very kind to me. It was a remarkable kindness'.

Mr Willer, from Cirencester, will later embrace Mr Attlee's granddaughter Jo Roundell Greene at Parliament celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 mainly Jewish children to Britain from Germany in 1938 and 1939 to save their lives.

Mrs Roundell Greene is excited and emotional about meeting the former refugee at a Westminster function tonight - but only found out about him a 'few months ago'.

The Lib Dem councillor from Somerset said: 'I think I may well cry when I meet Mr Willer. It's moving that he has had such a long life and my grandparents have played a very small part in that  I hope he'll tell me that he has had a happy life'.

Paul Willer (right) pictured with his mother Franziska and younger brother who were all brought to the UK in 1939 and he was taken in by Clement Attlee and his family in Stanmore, who he has thanked for his 'remarkable kindness'

The former PM (pictured left in 1961) was remembered as a 'gentle man' by the refugee he took into his home and Mr Willer will meet Jo Roundell Greene, Clement's granddaughter, today, who told MailOnline she may be reduced to tears

Mr Willer, pictured today at his home in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, arrived in England without being able to speak English and used Latin to communicate with the Attlee family

Mr Willer's desperate mother, who had been abandoned by her non-Jewish Nazi-sympathising husband in 1933, was warned that because Paul and his brother were 'half Aryan' they may not qualify for Kindertransport.

Franziska Willer, a doctor, wrote to her brother Otto in London and said: 'I am in such despair and so despondent that I cant see a way out'.

The Rector of Stanmore was alerted and Mr Attlee, a regular churchgoer, vouched for Paul and took him in at his mansion, Heywood, on Easter Sunday 1939.

His brother and mother were taken in by another churchgoing family in the area, MailOnline understands, before being moved together to Northern Ireland at the outbreak of war.

Mr Attlee never sought political gain from taking the little boy into his own home in Stanmore and the former PM's living family were only told about the act of kindness earlier this year.

Mrs Roundell Greene first learned about it after receiving an email from the Association of Jewish Refugees a 'few months ago' - and they will meet tonight.

Asked if she was surprised that Mr Attlee took him in she said: 'No not at all. He was a great person. Throughout his life he gave love and support to people who needed help  and so did my grandmother'.

She added: 'I remember my mother saying something about having a refugee to stay. He must have been 10 and she was around 13 It was her who spoke Latin to him'.

Mr Willer, who has confirmed he communicated to Mr Attlee via his daughter Felicity is also excited and moved by their meeting tonight.

Labour Party leader Clement Attlee (1883 - 1967) on holiday at Nevin in Wales, with his wife Violet and their daughters, Janet and Felicity, 2nd September 1938. Felicity's daughter says her mother told her about the time they took in a refugee

Mr Willer, pictured left in Germany before being forced to flee for his life, and told MailOnline today (right) Mr Attlee was a 'gentleman and a gentle man'

The 90-year-old has described Clement Attlee as a 'gentleman and a gentle man.'

He told MailOnline today: 'He was simply head of the family, I didn't know anything about his politics.

'He and his family were very kind to me - I stayed with them at their large house called Heywood in Stanmore for about three months.

'I was a 10-year-old German boy so I had no way of comparing life with the Attlees against any other British family.

Mr Attlee (pictured) never sought political gain from taking Mr Willer into his own home in Stanmore, north-west London

'The Attlees were a very pleasant family with four children about my age.'

Widower Mr Willer said his Jewishness was never brought up by the wartime Labour Prime Minister during his stay in April 1939.

He said: 'It was never part of any conversation or action, it simply didn't arise.

'I never was that Jewish and I have been Church of England ever since coming here.

'At that time it was unfashionable, in the days of Hitler, to want to be Jewish so I was quite happy to be unjewish.

'Before we left Germany my mother had to fill in a form asking: 'Are you Aryan?'

'She put down that I was half Jewish, I can remember feeling quite ashamed about it.'

Mr Willer has told how he lived in the Attlee home for four months, aged ten, after his family first arrived from the Bavarian town of Wurzburg.

His mother was a doctor but was unable to find work and outbreaks of antisemitic violence, including the Kristallnacht - the violent 'night of broken glass' - on November 9 1938, had terrified her.

The two Willer brothers and their mother Franziska had been abandoned by their Christian Nazi sympathiser father, Johannes, five years before, in 1933.

After a stark warning from a friend over the rising antisemitism in Germany Mrs Willer began to plan her escape - but her children were unlikely to qualify for Kindertransport because they were 'half Aryan'.

Mrs Willer turned to the church in Germany and Rev William Hewett, the rector at Stanmore arranged for the Attlee family to take in a boy at their Heywood residence, confirming the offer with two letters.

The letters of guarantee were enough to allow the mother to slip into the Netherlands and onwards to Britain where Clement Attlee, already leader of the Labour Party for four years, was 56-years-old.

Mr Willer's place on the Kindertransport scheme to Britain in 1939 was initially in doubt because of his non-Jewish father, which meant he was classed as 'half Aryan', but Mr Attlee then stepped in

Paul, then ten, remembers fleeing over the border.

He told the Guardian: 'I was proud of my watch, it was a present with luminous hands. One of the German guards on the Dutch border saw it after he boarded our train.

'The guard said to me, 'I am sure you would like to hand it over as a gift to the Fuhrer. If you give it me, I will make sure he gets it'.

'So I had to hand it over. After they left, my mother told me that we were safe, safe from the Nazis.'

Mr Willer learned to speak English in just six weeks with the help of the Attlee's four children who were about his age. He enrolled at a local primary school in Stanmore.

His now deceased brother Peter was placed with a family called Preston who lived nearby.

But the two boys and their mother Franziska moved to Northern Ireland at the outbreak of WWII in September 1939.

Mr Willer became a toolmaker, designer and seller of zip fasteners, spending his working life in the South Wales valleys.

He married his wife Vivienne in 1956 and the couple had three daughters Joanna, Judith and Jacqueline

Speaking about the Labour politician, Mr Willer told the Guardian: 'He was very good with the children and affectionate. At breakfast, we would gather around the table and he played this game where he held out a coin and asked whose monarch's head was on it. Whoever gave the correct answer was allowed to keep the coin.'

During young Paul's stay Mr Attlee was formulating Labour's policy to oppose Hitler's advances towards the Sudetenland, as he stood against Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Four months later, Paul left the Attlees in September 1939 and attended school in Northern Ireland.

His mother wrote her memoirs 1965, a year after his father killed himself in 1964. Mrs Willer died in 2008 but her notes are being kept in the Wiener library in central London.

Before retiring, Paul started a family and lived in Hertfordshire, working as a sales manager.

In 1945, Attlee defeated Winston Churchill in a landslide victory.

Clement Attlee's government enlarged and improved social services and the public sector in post-war Britain, creating the National Health Service and nationalising major industries and public utilities. Attlee's government also presided over the decolonisation of India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon and Jordan, and saw the creation of the state of Israel upon Britain's withdrawal from Palestine. He died in 1967.

This week, at the event arranged by the Association of Jewish Refugees , the late prime minister's granddaughter Jo Roundell Greene, a Lib Dem councillor from Somerset, will meet Mr Willer.
Two underground abattoirs in eastern China are under investigation for pumping up to 120 litres of water over a 12-hour period into each cow to inflate their slaughter weight, state media reported today.

Images and videos taken by an undercover reporter at one of the slaughterhouses in Quanjiao, Anhui province shows water being pumped into cattle through tubes inserted into their nostrils before they were carved up and sold at a market in nearby Nanjing, a provincial state-controlled TV broadcaster reported.

Police in Nanjing have detained 29 suspects involved in the operations. The incidents have provoked outrage on social media over the cruelty inflicted on the animals as their ghastly ordeal emerged.

Images and videos taken by an undercover reporter at one of the abattoirs in Quanjiao, Anhui province shows water being pumped into cattle through tubes inserted into their nostrils

Workers whom the reporter spoke with said the process was cruel, though the foreman of the abattoir in Quanjiao, Anhui province said the process was 'painless'. 29 people were detained

Stills from the video released by Jiangsu Television showed a swollen cattle on its knees with tears in its eyes at the slaughterhouse in Quanjiao county. Another is seen collapsed on the ground.

Workers whom the reporter spoke with said the process was cruel, though the foreman of the abattoir said the process was 'painless'. The operation is repeated every day from 7pm till dawn.

'This is to make the cow heavier?' the reporter asked.

'Yes,' the employee said.

One of the cattle at the slaughterhouse was so swollen it collapsed onto the ground

Stills from the video clip released by Jiangsu Television showed a swollen cattle on its knees with tears in its eyes at the slaughterhouse in Quanjiao county

Water is pumped into the cattle before they are carved up and sold at a market in Nanjing

The case was reported to the Nanjing Municipal Public Security Bureau Food and Drug Environmental Crime Investigation Department, which immediately launched a snap investigation at both abattoirs.

When confronted by officers and reporters, a worker at an abattoir in Lai'an County said they were instructed by their employer to pump water into the cattle.

'He told us to remove the tubes if anyone knocks or tries to come in,' the worker admitted.

A number of social media users said the abattoir foreman should be pumped full of water instead.

A number of net users said the abattoir foreman should be pumped full of water instead

When confronted by officers and reporters, a worker at an abattoir in Lai'an County said they were instructed by their boss to pump water into the cattle

The case was reported to the Nanjing Municipal Public Security Bureau Food and Drug Environmental Crime Investigation Department, which immediately launched a snap investigation at both abattoirs, including one in Lai'an County (pictured)

'Cattle deserve to be treated with dignity too. Think about it, we should be grateful for their selflessness, which has helped fill our bellies,' one social media user wrote on Twitter-like Weibo.

Beef from the slaughterhouse had been popular due to its prices, which averaged 30 yuan (3.38) a kg, about 10 per cent cheaper than its competitors, according to the broadcaster.

Consumption of beef in China is growing faster than for other meats. But with limited land to produce big herds to meet rising beef demand, China has been stepping up imports. Last year, China shipped in almost 700,000 tonnes of the red meat worth about 2.6 billion.
Two Good Samaritans who stopped to help a driver out of an overturned car were run over and killed when they were hit by another vehicle.

The men, aged 25 and 54, were helping a motorist out of his silver Vauxhall Astra when a Mercedes smashed into them on the A20 at Swanley Kent.

A total of seven vehicles were involved in the horrific pile up at 11am yesterday which left six other people injured.

Officers from Kent Police's Serious Collision Investigation Unit have launched an investigation into the incident on the London bound carriageway.

Traffic queues on the A20 yesterday after the seven car pile up on the London bound carriageway

Emergency crews were working at the scene of the crash in which two Good Samaritans died when they were hit by a car as they tried to help a motorist out of his overturned Vauxhall Astra

Police are appealing for anyone with information following the crash to come forward.

A Kent Police spokesman said: 'Two men were assisting the driver of an overturned silver Vauxhall Astra when they were in collision with a silver Mercedes. The men, aged 25 and 54-years-old were fatally injured.'

The road was closed for 12-hours to allow officers from the Serious Collision Investigation Unit to investigate.

Officers are keen to hear from anyone who may have witnessed the incident, or has any dashcam footage that may help them with their enquiries.
The botched Tory Brexiteer coup against Theresa May appears to have backfired - as her poll rating soared to its highest since last year's election disaster.

The YouGov survey found that some 46 per cent of voters want Mrs May to stay as leader - a massive leap on the 33 per cent who backed her a week ago.

While the number who want her ousted as PM has slumped from 47 per cent a week ago to 34 per cent, the poll in today's Times newspaper found.

The numbers are a major boost for Mrs May and comes amid growing signs that the Tory Brexiteer revolt against her is crumbling.

The figures were revealed before the PM flew to Brussels for crunch talks with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker where she will plead for more concessions.

Ahead of the trip she was warned by her chief whip Julian Smith that she must come back with major additions to the deal for it to stand any chance of being passed by MPs.

Jacob Rees-Mogg declared all out war on the PM last week as he announced he had sent in his letter of no confidence as her Government was rocked by a series of Cabinet resignations.

The YouGov survey found that some 46 per cent of voters want Mrs May to stay as leader - a massive leap on the 33 per cent who backed her a week ago

The numbers are a major boost for Theresa May (pictured leaving No10 today) and comes amid growing signs that the Tory Brexiteer revolt against her is crumbling

Tory Brexiteers led by Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured centre yesterday at a press conference in London) have tried to oust Theresa May by sending in their letters of no confidence, but the coup appears to have flopped as just 26 Tory MPs have publicly said they have sent letters of no confidence in - far short of the 48 needed to trigger the vote

Mutinous Brexiteers predicted that she could be toppled within days as they urged their colleagues to get their letters in.

But the putsch appears to have flopped as just 26 Tory MP have publicly declared they have sent their letters in - far short of the 48 needed to trigger the crunch vote.

Who has sent letters of no confidence in May? Letters of no confidence in Theresa May are confidential - but some of her strongest critics have gone public. If 48 letters are sent a vote is called. This is who has definitely sent a letter: Jacob Rees-Mogg , North East Somerset, Jacob.reesmogg.mp@parliament.uk Steve Baker , Wycombe, steve.baker.mp@parliament.uk Sheryll Murray , South East Cornwall, sheryll.murray.mp@parliament.uk Anne-Marie Morris , Newton Abbott, annemarie.morris.mp@parliament.uk Lee Rowley , North East Derbyshire, lee.rowley.mp@parliament.uk Henry Smith , Crawley, henry.smith.mp@parliament.uk Simon Clarke , Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, simon.clarke.mp@parliament.uk Peter Bone , Wellingborough, bonep@parliament.uk James Duddridge , Rochford and Southend East, james@jamesduddridge.com Philip Davies , Shipley, daviesp@parliament.uk Andrea Jenkyns , Morley and Outwood, andrea.jenkyns.mp@parliament.uk Andrew Bridgen , North West Leicestershire, andrew.bridgen.mp@parliament.uk Nadine Dorries , Mid Bedfordshire, dorriesn@parliament.uk Laurence Robertson , Tewkesbury, robertsonl@parliament.uk Martin Vickers , Cleethorpes, martin.vickers.mp@parliament.uk Ben Bradley , Mansfield, ben.bradley.mp@parliament.uk Adam Holloway , Gravesham, hollowaya@parliament.uk John Whittingdale , Maldon, john.whittingdale.mp@parliament.uk Maria Caulfield , Lewes, maria.caulfield.mp@parliament.uk Mark Francois , Rayleigh and Wickford, mark.francois.mp@parliament.uk David Jones , Clwyd West, david.jones@parliament.uk Marcus Fysh , Yeovil, marcus.fysh.mp@parliament.uk Chris Green , Bolton West, chris.green.mp@parliament.uk Zac Goldsmith , Richmond Park, zac@zacgoldsmith.com Bill Cash , Stone, cashw@parliament.uk Philip Hollobone , Kettering, philip.hollobone.mp@parliament.uk Andrew Lewer, Northampton South, andrew.lewer.mp@parliament.uk Crispin Blunt , Reigate, crispinbluntmp@parliament.uk Owen Paterson , Shropshire Patersono@parliament.uk Advertisement

Mr Rees-Mogg was mocked yesterday after he admitted his coup bid had gone a bit 'Dad's Army' - but still urged Tory MPs to oust her.

The leading Tory MP and Brexiteer said the Conservatives will be stuck with Mrs May as leader at the next election, expected in 2022, unless they ditch her now.

Asked if his mutiny had been exposed as a 'Dad's Army' operation, Mr Rees-Mogg compared himself to the show's hapless lead character.

'I've always admired Captain Mainwaring,' he joked.

But while the poll finds that support has swung in behind Mrs May, the Tory party have slipped slightly in the poll.

The Tories are still in the lead on 39 points, but this is a drop of two points.

While Labour are on 36 points, a drop of one, the Lib Dems are unchanged on 8 points and Ukip have gone up two points to six, the survey found.

One Tory MP mocked the failed revolt, saying: Ive heard a rumour that the ERG thought they were going to get 350 million letters a week going in' - a reference to the pledge for NHS cash during the EU referendum campaign.

Another senior Tory MP said: 'Who knows how far they are away. But they are not there yet, and that is very embarrassing. Its now a week since they said it would happen.

Jacob was told he would be the 48th, and that hed triumphantly lead the troops over the top.

Now Steve Baker is running round saying he feels humiliated and cannot trust colleagues. He is trying to organise a coup against the PM, and he is actually complaining that he cant trust people.

He is taking the p***.

But Mr Rees-Mogg has hit back at his critics - insisting that those declaring the attempt to oust the PM should 'wait and see'.

He said that more letters could come flooding in after the crunch in the Commons next month where Mrs May's Brexit deal looks likely to be voted down.

The poll of 1,647 adults was taken on Monday and Tuesday - after Mrs May gave a rare live TV interview to launch a defiant defence of her Brexit plan.

The PM will jet to Brussels later today to plead with the EU to sweeten her Brexit deal as she holds talks with Mr Juncker later this afternoon.

The Prime Minister will deliver a stark message to the commission president that she needs something to help her sell the package at home.

The teatime talks in Brussels are the last chance to shore up the plan before an EU summit that is due to formalise them on Sunday.

Theresa May is meeting with EU President Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured together in Brussels last month) today in Brussels as she pleads with the EU to give her further concessions on the agreement so that she can stand a better chance of getting it through a massively hostile Parliament

But she has been warned by ministers that she must get concessions alongside the text to avoid a catastrophic defeat in Parliament.

One Brexiteer Cabinet ministers suggested that rather than re-drafting the deal, appendices or explanatory notes could be added to make it more palatable.

'There are lots of ways of changing something without changing something,' they said. 'You can do a lot with addenda.'

As the number of Tory MPs pledging to vote against the package continued to rise alarmingly, chief whip Julian Smith has privately told the PM she is set to lose unless there are significant tweaks.

Mrs May has launched a PR blitz as she desperately tries to drum up support for her deal maid a barrage of attacks from Brexiteers and REmainers.

Eurosceptics are seething at the backstop plans and demanding changes which would let the UK pull out of the EU customs union without the permission of Brussels.

Some are pushing for a change which would instead mean that rather than the whole of the EU, just the Republic of Ireland would have a role in this decision.
More than one in four Europeans now vote for a populist party, a number which has nearly tripled past two decades.

In 1998, just seven per cent of voters in Europe cast their ballot for a populist party, compared to 27.1 per cent in 2018, according to a major study carried out by The Guardian.

The study also found a rise of populism in power, with eleven nations in Europe, including Italy, Hungary and Poland, currently run by government cabinets where one or several ministers are populists.

Changing nations: This map shows the vote share of populist parties - on the right, left and centre - across Europe

The Guardian studied national elections across 31 European countries  all EU member states plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland  between 1998 and 2018, and identified populist parties across the political scale.

It found that 5.9 per cent of Europeans currently vote for a far-left populist party, 7.4 vote for a centrist populist party and a shocking 13.8 per cent vote for a far-right populist political party.

Populism can be found on both the left and the right, and is defined as the fight for the more or less defined 'ordinary people' against a perceived 'elite'.

During the Brexit campaign, 'the elite' was Brussels and the EU, during Emmanuel Macron's road to becoming President of France it was the traditional and established political parties, and in the case of Donald Trump it was the Democrats and the 'Washington DC swamp'.

Support for many populist parties on the far right has been buoyed by the 2015 migrant crisis which saw hundreds of thousands arrive in Europe, searching for peace and a better life.

In particular, countries like Germany and Sweden opened its borders to refugees, as well as economic migrants, mainly from Africa and the Middle-East.

Right-wing in power: Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's League party increased their vote share from 4.1 per cent in 2013 to 17.4 per cent in 2018 and are now in government

Hungary's strongman: Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party has nearly 50 per cent of the votes in Hungary

Italy is currently governed by a populist coalition which was formed after months of uncertainty in Europe's fourth-largest economy.

It is led by an independent Prime Minister - law professor Giuseppe Conte - and comprises two populist parties: anti-establishment Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle) and right-wing nationalist League (Lega).

The rise of the League and its leader Matteo Salvini - now Interior Minister and deputy Prime Minister - in recent years has been steep, from a 4.1 per cent election result in 2013 to 17.4 per cent in 2018.

In Berlin, Alternative for Germany (Alternative fur Deutschland) - which was only founded five years ago - now claims 94 seats in Parliament.

The anti-immigrant party narrowly missed the 5 per cent threshold in its first general election in 2013, but four years later, it became the third-largest in Germany with 12.6 per cent of the vote.

The Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz) and far-right anti-immigrant leader Viktor Orban has had the nation's seat of power firmly in its grip since 2010.

After serving as Prime Minister of a coalition from 1998 to 2002, Orban and Fidesz won more than 52 per cent of the votes in 2010, and 49.3 per cent in April's general election.

Orban has centralized power, tried to silence the free press and has spoken highly of the governments of 'strongmen authoritarian leaders', such as China, Russia and Turkey.

Another European nation with a populist government is Poland, which has been in a standoff with the EU for three years over attempts by the ruling populist Law and Justice party to impose control over the court system.

Sweden Democrats members celebrate with drinks and balloons after an improved vote share in the general election in September

One clear example of the rise in far-right populism in Europe is Sweden, for decades a bastion of social-democracy where the Sweden Democrats (SD) won 17.6 per cent of the vote in September's general election.

The increased voter-share of the Sweden Democrats has brought political instability to the Scandinavian nation, which has been governed by coalitions since 2006.

Two months after the elections, neither the right not the left have been able to form a coalition, as all other seven parties try their best to keep the far-right out of government.

The Sweden Democrats was formed in 1988 by a motley crew of ex-members of national-socialist and 'keep Sweden Swedish'-organisations, and has been forced to expel several senior representatives caught up in racist scandals in recent years.

But despite Nazi roots and evidence of deep-rooted racism, misogyny and anti-semitism in the party today, they have been on the ascent for over a decade.

In the autumn of 2008, SD were polled at around four per cent, and in the 2010 general election they won their first seats in parliament with 5.7 per cent of the vote.

The 2014 election result was a cold shower for the seven mainstream parties, as SD got nearly 13 per cent of the votes, equal to 49 MPs.

Polls before the 2018 elections even suggested that SD would become the second biggest party with more than 20 per cent of votes, but even 17.6 per cent is a noticeable increase.
A 14-year-old Indian girl was killed in a cyclone after her family forced her to sleep in a hut near their home because she was on her period.

The girl, named S Vijayalakshmi, was trapped in a hut near the village of Anaikudi in Tamil Nadu, India, when devastating Cyclone Gaja hit.

A coconut tree fell on the hut, stopping villagers and family members from reaching the trapped teenager on November 16.

Many women in rural India are forced to sleep apart from their families when they are menstruating as they are considered 'impure'.

Cyclone Gaja has ravaged the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one 14-year-old girl was killed after being forced to sleep outside while menstruating. Pictured: destruction caused by the cyclone

Villagers in Anaikudi reacted with shock at the teenager's death, with some even saying that it could be a wake-up call to attitudes towards periods.

The girl's grandmother, S Visalakshi, said the fallen coconut tree made it impossible for the family to save her.

She told the BBC that the teenager's parents had intended to move her when they realised the storm was coming but they had no place to move her to as they lived in a coconut grove.

The teenager was forced to sleep outside because she was on her period and considered 'impure'. Her family all survived the cyclone

With the practice of segregating women on their period, the girl wasn't able to return to her house.

Her family, who stayed in the house, all survived the deadly cyclone which has claimed at least 46 lives in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Her grandmother later said: 'I told them to take her to a different place. But within hours, the cyclone had struck and we couldn't move anywhere.

'We are shattered. When we saw the tree, we lost hope. We waited for villagers to help us remove the tree and pull her out of the hut.'

The girl was later rushed to hospital only for doctors to confirm that she had died hours before.

Homes, crops and more than 80,000 hectares of farm land across 12 different districts has been utterly destroyed by the cyclone

The deadly cyclone has claimed at least 46 lives in the state of Tamil Nadu - although the exact death toll isn't known

In India, both rich and poor families can follow the tradition of forcing girls to sleep separately when they are on their period.

The state of Tamil Nadu has been ravaged by the deadly Cyclone Gaja.

Homes in villages have been destroyed alongside crops and fishing boats.

More than 80,000 hectares of farm land across 12 different districts has also been utterly destroyed.

Some homes have also been flooded with angry villagers claiming that the government isn't doing enough to help them.
Victims who were harassed by an alleged child sex offender have revealed the sickening details from phone calls with the man.

Anthony Sampieri, 54, was allegedly found with his pants down in the bathroom of a dance studio in Kogarah, south Sydney, on Thursday night with a seven-year-old.

Amid the horrific allegations, it was revealed Sampieri was on parole for the violent rape of a 60-year-old woman in the Illwarra region in 2012.

Court documents revealed Sampieri had been ringing women in the lead-up to the aggravated sexual assault on October 22, 2012, during an alleged 'ice-binge'.

Anthony Sampieri, 54, who was on parole when he allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-own girl in Sydney's south (pictured) previously harassed women on the phone

In one call, the convicted sex offender allegedly said: Can I stick my tongue in your *******?'

Sampieri allegedly went by the name 'Ron' when he called two female victims and suggested sex acts, news.com.au reported.

One victim, an advertising saleswoman, said she was called 15 days before he raped the 60-year-old woman at knife point.

The woman said it started on October 7 when she received the 'dirty' phone call while driving at night.

'When I got to work the next day and told (my colleagues) another one had got a phone call, but it was worse than mine,' she said.

The calls escalated and he allegedly called another saleswoman, then 23, at her grandmother's house.

Court documents revealed Sampieri had been ringing women in the lead-up to the aggravated sexual assault on October 22, 2012, during an alleged 'ice-binge'

When he was told the 23-year-old was not at home he harassed the grandmother with a dirty phone call.

Another victim, 40 at the time, said she received a brief but offensive call from Sampieri.

The journalist who worked at a newspaper in NSW said her photograph featured alongside her articles.

Sampieri allegedly graphically described the sex act he wished to perform on her.

The woman hung up on him immediately and made a statement to Wollongong police as she was worried the harassment would escalate.

The constable said he didn't believe the man was a threat and they wouldn't do anything because they didn't have the budget.

'Then he did the rape and police found the newspaper clippings with our photos with duct tape and cable ties in his bedroom,' she said.

The advertising saleswoman told news.com.au she felt dreadful that Sampieri went onto rape the woman two weeks later.

The sickening details come amid revelations a woman made a complaint to Kogarah police station about a phone call in the weeks prior to the dance studio assault.

In a New South Wales police conference on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner Metropolitan Field Operations Jeff Loy told reporters an internal investigation would be launched to find the 'point of truth'.

'Since the 15th of November, the investigators have detailed a number of allegations against the offender, in particular some harassing phone calls to a number of female people,' he said.

'In particular one of those was to a woman several weeks ago and that lady did make a complaint to the Kogarah police station.'

Dept. Comm. Loy said he understood the offender was interviewed by police but the parole board was not notified about the harassment.

'That investigation, is now part of the internal investigation, as I want to know the point of truth as to what the police action was, how the person was identified and what action was taken,' he said.

In one call, the convicted sex offender allegedly said: Can I stick my tongue in your *******?' (pictured: The dance studio where the alleged attack on the seven-year-old girl occurred)

Police investigating the 2012 rape searched Sampieri's home, where they found a list of names of women aged between 23 and 83.

Next to the women's names were comments such as 'very young' and 'older', the Daily Telegraph reported.

On October 6, 2012, Sampieri rang one woman at about 8.30pm and told her how he would assault her.

Another woman heard 'grunting and groaning' when she answered a phone call from him.

Police also found a 'rape kit' in the bedroom which included gaffer tape, cable ties, nylon rope and a roll of wire.

Officers also found pornographic DVDs and magazines.

Reports indicate the evidence was passed from Wollongong police to detectives investigating the Kogarah dance studio assault.

The convicted sex offender was arrested for raping a 60-year-old woman in the Illawarra region, New South Wales, in 2012 (pictured: toilet where the seven-year-old girl was allegedly assaulted)

At the District Court in 2013, Sampieri pleaded guilty to raping the woman at his Wollongong home.

He lured her to his home before ordering her to strip, wielding a knife and saying: 'Now we'll have some fun.'

Sampieri remains in hospital under police guard and is yet to be charged.

Sampieri had spent three years incarcerated for the 2012 rape and was granted parole in September 2017.

The State Parole Authority revoked the parole within hours of Thursday's arrest, launching calls for a review of the NSW early release program.
Saudi Arabian school textbooks are teaching hatred of Jews, Christians and gay men - despite the kingdom boasting it is 'modernising', a report has claimed.

The country's curriculum also contains a passage saying that beating women is 'permitted when necessary', according to the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

It comes despite Saudi Arabia's pledge to modernise under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, with radical changes including lifting a ban on women driving and allowing them to watch sport in national stadiums.

Saudi Arabian school textbooks are teaching hatred of Jews, Christians and gay men - despite the kingdom boasting it is 'modernising', a report has claimed. It comes despite Saudi Arabia's pledge to modernise under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (pictured), with radical changes including lifting a ban on women driving

The ADL says it has reviewed Saudi government-published textbooks for the academic year 2018-2019.

Researchers at the Jewish non-governmental organisation, say they found that they 'promote incitement to hatred or violence against Jews, Christians, women, and homosexual men'.

The school textbooks it has analysed have a 'significant international footprint' and have been used in countries in Africa, Europe, and other parts of Asia, they said.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said: 'The United States must hold its ally Saudi Arabia to a higher standard.

'The US cannot look the other way while Saudi Arabia features anti-Semitic hate speech year after year in the educational material it gives to its children.'

The findings were published in a report called 'Teaching Hate and Violence: Problematic Passages from Saudi State Textbooks for the 201819 School Year'.

David Andrew Weinberg, ADL's Washington Director for International Affairs and the author of the report, added: 'Saudi Arabia has made some undeniably significant social and religious reforms in recent years, but such steps have yet to address the hate-filled invective against Jews, Christians and others that is being taught to the next generation of Saudis.'
An SS guard's murder trial has revealed how Nazi soldiers were given horrifying books on how to shoot prisoners in the back if they tried to escape from concentration camps.

The book full of drawings was revealed at the trial of Johann Rehbogen, a 94-year-old former SS guard accused of complicity in mass murder at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk, in Poland.

He claims to have never seen the book which is a sick guide to maintaining control at concentration camps and was designed to help overcome language barriers between Nazi soldiers.

Johann Rehbogen (pictured in court) stands accused of complicity in the murders of several hundred Stutthof camp prisoners between 1942 and 1944

On the fourth day of the trial, Rehbogen answered questions about his time at the concentration camp, as well as the book.

He denied even knowing the book and also refused to discuss prisoners arriving at the camp.

Rehbogen comes from today's Romania and also insisted that he didn't know anything about horrific gas chamber executions or about neck-blowing facilities.

He was slammed for his repeated denials, with Christoph Heubner, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, criticising Rehbogen for using naivety as a defence.

This book was revealed at the trial of former SS guard Rehbogen and reveals how Nazi concentration camp guards were encouraged to shoot fleeing prisoners

The sickening book details how guards were expected to behave at concentration camps and says that it was 'right' for them to shoot fleeing prisoners in the back as they tried to run away.

Professor Johannes Tuchel, head of the German Resistance Memorial Center, told Bild: 'Many of the conscripted ethnic Germans, especially those from south-eastern Europe, had little knowledge of German.

'The language problems of the sentries should be overcome by means of drawings.'

The former Nazi concentration camp guard had earlier voiced his shame at having been part of the SS but told the German court he was unaware of the systematic killings there.

Speaking in Muenster state court earlier, Rehbogen said he knew the conditions of the Stutthof camp were 'miserable', and that he had attributed the deaths primarily to 'diseases and epidemics.'

In the statement read by his attorney, the 94-year-old said he didn't know much about the 'structure inside the camp,' the dpa news agency reported.

Johann Rehbogen sits in a wheelchair for the beginning of the third day of his trial at the regional court in Muenster on Tuesday

He says 'they told me which post to take and I obeyed.'

Speaking earlier this week, he said he had been forced into joining the Schutzstaffel troops, as 'there would have been reprisals against my family if I hadn't gone'.

'When I saw the detainees I knew that the SS was wrong, but I didn't have a choice,' said Rehbogen, who served as a watchman from June 1942 to September 1944 at Stutthof.

He denied knowledge of the gruesome crimes at the camp.

'I knew nothing of the systematic killings, I knew nothing of the gas chambers as well as the crematoria,' he told the court.

'I will only say that I am not a Nazi, I never have been one, and never will be.'

Plaintiffs voiced dismay at Rehbogen's statement.

'I am disappointed but not surprised to hear the defendant is denying that he took part in the killings at Stutthof,' said Benjamin Cohen, who represented his grandmother Judy Meisel at the hearing.

'My grandmother's account of her time in the camp and the murder of her mother tells a very clear story about the role of these guards.'

More than 60,000 people were killed at Stutthof and prosecutors argue that as a guard, Rehbogen, pictured arriving in court, was an accessory to at least hundreds of those deaths

Manuel Mayer, a lawyer of a former detainee, said: 'His statement was absurd. I don't believe him.'

Rehbogen, a German man from the western district of Borken, North Rhine-Westphalia state, is a retired landscape architect and divorced father-of-three, according to German media.

His statement marks a rare occasion for victims and their relatives to hear directly from the accused on the alleged crimes committed seven decades ago.

At the trial opening, the defendant shed tears as he heard written testimony from Holocaust survivors who now live in the United States or Israel.

He is charged with being an accessory to the murders of several hundred camp prisoners.

Murdered: The crematorium at the former German Nazi concentration camp Stutthof in Sztutowo, northern Poland, where prisoners were gassed, shot, starved and killed with an injection of gasoline to the heart

These included more than 100 Polish prisoners gassed in June 1944 and 'probably several hundred' Jews killed from August to December 1944 as part of the Nazis' so-called 'Final Solution'.

Aged 18 to 20 at the time, and therefore now being tried under juvenile law, Rehbogen is 'accused in his capacity as a guard of participating in the killing operations,' Dortmund prosecutor Andreas Brendel told AFP.

If found guilty, he faces a sentence of up to 15 years in prison - even though, given his age and the possibility of an appeal, he is considered unlikely to serve any time behind bars.

Christoph Ruecken, a lawyer representing an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who now lives in the United States, said: 'It would be an important sign for us if (Rehbogen) stood there to confirm the reality.'

'An apology would be good.'

Although the trial is late in coming, Ruecken said it 'eases the suffering of my client'.

'A punishment would be symbolic for such an old man but that's important in times like now when nationalism and anti-Semitism are returning,' he said.

Fight for justice: Many of the 20 survivors of Stutthof, pictured, will be attending the trial, as will relatives of some of the 60,000 people murdered in the death camp

'It's important to show that the rule of law says you will face the court if you do these things.'

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which helped locate some 20 Stutthof survivors for the case to serve as possible witnesses, emphasized that such trials are important, even more than 70 years after the end of World War II.

'The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of Holocaust perpetrators and old age should not afford protection to those who committed such heinous crimes,' said the center's head Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff.

Many survivors, along with relatives of victims, are also joining the trial as co-plaintiffs as allowed under German law.

Germany has been racing to put on trial surviving SS personnel, after the legal basis for prosecuting former Nazis changed in 2011 with the landmark conviction of former death camp guard John Demjanjuk.

He was sentenced not for any atrocities he committed, but on the basis that he served as a cog in the Nazi killing machine at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland.

German courts subsequently convicted Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at the same camp, for mass murder.

However both men, convicted at age 94, died before they could be imprisoned.

At his trial in 2015, Groening apologised and sought forgiveness. He also admitted 'moral guilt' although he denied any legal culpability.

Like Groening, Hanning told his victims he was sorry.

He admitted to being 'silent all my life' about the atrocities because he felt deep shame, not having spoken about it even to his wife, children or grandchildren.

Another trial against a 96-year-old former medical orderly at the Auschwitz death camp collapsed in 2017 because he suffers from dementia.

Wheelchair-bound Hubert Zafke had faced 3,681 counts of being an accessory to murder at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, but his trial ended in disarray.

Death camp: A picture shows some of the beds used at Stutthof in Sztutowo, northern Poland

Even though the number of suspects is dwindling, the special federal prosecutor's office in Ludwigsburg that investigates Nazi war crimes still has multiple cases ongoing.

In addition to looking at camps like Stutthof, Buchenwald, Ravensbrueck, Mauthausen and Flossenbuerg, it is also investigating former members of the mobile killing squads known as the 'Einsatzgruppen.'

The Stutthof case is the first time a prosecution is going to trial using this line of reasoning for a concentration camp guard instead of a death camp guard.

But prosecutors have expressed confidence it can be applied, since tens of thousands of people were killed in Stutthof even though its sole purpose was not murder.

Stutthof was established in 1939 and underwent several iterations, initially being used as the main collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from the nearby city of Danzig on the Baltic Sea coast.

From about 1940 onward, it was used as a so-called 'work education camp' where forced laborers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens who had run afoul of their Nazi oppressors, were sent to serve sentences and often died. Others incarcerated there included criminals, political prisoners, homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses.

From mid-1944, it was filled with tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos being cleared by the Nazis in the Baltics as well as from Auschwitz, which was overflowing, and thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising.
James Davies, pictured outside Warwick Crown Court before he was sentenced

A pensioner who killed two of his passengers in a horror crash after he parked his car on the fast lane of a motorway to ask for directions has been jailed.

James Davies, 71, was giving his partner Christine Evans, 53, and her friend Barbara Jones, 63, a lift to the airport when he got lost.

He was driving on the northbound carriageway of the M42 towards Birmingham Airport at 3am on January 5 when he came across a diversion.

Davies parked on the fast lane between junctions 9 and 10 near Kingsbury, Warwickshire, after spotting a workmen on the opposite carriageway which was closed for maintenance.

He put on his hazard lights and clambered over the barriers on the central reservation to speak to Highways Agency worker Jake Ashmore who was in his car.

Three drivers managed to swerve past Davies' Vauxhall Meriva before a white Mercedes Sprinter ploughed into it.

His partner of 12 years Ms Evans and her friend, pub landlady Ms Jones, who were in the back seat, were killed instantly.

Ms Jones' partner Gareth Isaac, who was also in the car, escaped with minor injuries.

Davies, of Welshpool, Powys, admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and was yesterday jailed for two years and four months at Warwick Crown Court.

Davies' partner of 12 years Christine Evans (left) and her friend, pub landlady Barbara Jones, who were both in the back seat, were killed instantly

The court heard Highways Agency worker Mr Ashman watched in horror as Davies clambered over the central barrier and knocked on his window.

Prosecutor Simon Davis said: 'Highways Agency employee Jake Ashmore was parked in his vehicle on the southbound carriageway, which was closed that night for maintenance work, with its orange warning lights flashing, when there was a tap on his window.

'It was Davies, who began asking him for directions, and Mr Ashmore looked across and saw the defendant's vehicle parked in the outside lane of the northbound carriageway.

'Mr Ashmore was immediately concerned, and ushered Mr Davies to the other side of the road, back towards his car, as quickly as he could.

Emergency crews at the scene of the incident that happened at 3am on January 5 on the M42

Davies parked on the fast lane between junctions 9 and 10 near Kingsbury, Warwickshire, (pictured, the road at junction 10) after spotting a workmen on the opposite carriageway which was closed for maintenance

'It was obvious the defendant had parked in the fast lane of the northbound carriageway and crossed the central reservation and the closed southbound carriageway to the Highways vehicle.

'Mr Ashmore, recognising the danger, ordered the defendant to move his car.

'He got out of his vehicle and took two to three steps towards the car with the defendant.

'But within two to three seconds he saw a white van collide with the rear of the defendant's vehicle.'

The court heard Davies had been parked for no less than a minute and 15 seconds before it was hit by a Mercedes Sprinter van.

Davies admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and was yesterday jailed for two years four months

Mr Davis said: 'Three drivers managed to go past it on the inside, but the Mercedes Sprinter van, despite attempts by its driver to take evasive action, hit the car which was projected forward and went into the air and rotated twice before coming to rest.'

The court heard that while Davies was slapped with an interim driving ban he was caught behind the wheel teaching someone to drive.

Judge Anthony Potter said: 'The sad fact is that nothing I can do can reflect the loss of Mr Isaac's partner Barbara Jones, or the loss to her family, and of your partner Christine Evans.

'This was rightly described as a terrible tragedy, and it will affect all of those people, including you, for many years.

'You set off from you home to drive your friend of many years, Mrs Jones, and her long-term partner to Birmingham airport; and Mrs Jones had persuaded her friend Mrs Evans to accompany you on the drive there and, more importantly, the drive back.

'Although you had driven to Birmingham airport in the past, you were not particularly familiar with the M42, and when you encountered a diversion you became disorientated and you were heading north.

'The southbound carriageway had been closed for some work to be done, and for reasons that are hard to fathom, having become lost, you decided to stop, not on the hard shoulder, but on the outside carriageway of the motorway.

'You parked there and got out of your car and set off in the direction of Mr Ashman in order, apparently, to seek some directions.

'The hazard warning lights were wholly inadequate warning to the danger your car presented.

'Leaving a stationary vehicle in the fast lane of a motorway is dangerous enough, but to leave it with three people inside it, whose lives were in your hands, is even worse.

'There is one significant aggravating feature, and that is the fact that your driving caused the death of not one, but two people.

'The mitigation is the close personal relationship you had, not only with your partner, but also with Mrs Jones.

'I have read the letter from Christine Evans's family, written by Susan Evans, and it is to their credit that they bear you no animosity.'

Jemma Gordon, defending, said: 'Mr Davies finds himself before the court for the first time in his life in the most tragic of circumstances.

'A momentary decision affects those around us, and sometimes those effects are catastrophic.'
Casey Anthony - the mom famously acquitted of murdering her toddler daughter - was seen on a date in a Florida bar with a new man who says he is unconcerned by her past.

Antony Karagiannis, 38, was spotted on a date with Anthony in Bru's Room in West Palm Beach. Anthony was found not guilty of murdering two-year-old Caylee in 2011 after a highly publicized trial that shocked America.

Karagiannis, a bar worker, has said that the accusations of murder and the fact that she was found guilty on four other counts including lying to law enforcement are 'none of my business'.

Casey Anthony, 32, who was famously acquitted of murdering her two-year-old daughter in 2011, is reportedly dating Antony Karagiannis, 38 (pictured together)

'I don't know anything about it,' Karagiannis told Radar. 'She's very friendly. When I first met her, I knew the name, but I never really read into it. I don't really care!'

One reason why Karagiannis, who has a young daughter, is so unperturbed by Anthony's past is that he has been involved in a number of misdemeanors himself.

In 2005 he was arrested on suspicion of a battery offence involving his roommate, a Del Ray Police Department clerk told Radar, but files related to the incident were destroyed in a chlorine leak.

Then, according to a 2014 police report obtained by Radar, Karagiannis posed as a law enforcement officer multiple times to park in the best spot outside his ex-girlfriend's apartment complex in West Palm Beach.

Casey Anthony listens to testimony about forensic evidence during her murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse on Friday, June 10, 2011

Casey was acquitted of murder on July 5, 2011. She is pictured two weeks later with lawyer Jose Baez

'Each time he [was] confronted about the parking issue he advises security that he is a Miami Dade Police Officer and his weapon is in the vehicle,' police said according to the report. Charges were never filed however.

Anthony's daughter Caylee went missing on July 15, 2008. The two-year-old's remains were discovered on December 11 only a few blocks from away from Anthony's home in Orlando, Florida

Anthony's father George confirmed that his daughter had been 'seeing someone', and the couple were pictured together in the Florida bar last month, although Karagiannis has claimed he is 'not dating' her officially.

Anthony was branded the most hated mom in America during her high-profile six-week trial in 2011.

Her daughter Caylee went missing on July 15, 2008 and had not been seen by her mother for a month when she was eventually reported missing by her grandmother, Cindy.

Initially Anthony claimed she had been kidnapped by a nanny.

However the child's skull was discovered in a wooded area only a few blocks from away from Anthony's home in Orlando, Florida on December 11 2008.

Anthony changed her story several times before her trial. Her defense team would ultimately claim that Caylee drowned in the pool and her grandfather George buried her nearby.

As well as implicating him in Caylee's death, Anthony also claimed her father George molested her as a child. George Anthony vehemently denies having any involvement in his granddaughter's death and ferociously disputes the sexual assault allegations.

He believes she killed Caylee accidentally with chloroform, traces of which were found in Anthony's abandoned car during police investigations.

But Anthony has always said she has no idea how the toddler died and does not 'give a s***' what people think of her, since she 'sleeps pretty good at night'.

Casey Anthony peared comfortable holding the child as others enjoyed sangria and beer

Although she was acquitted in 2011 of first-degree murder, she was convicted of four counts relating to providing false information a police officer.

She has since admitted this, but described herself as 'one of the unfortunate idiots who admitted they lied'.

She has been spotted multiple times at Florida bars and in February was pictured holding a friend's baby at a restaurant,eight years after Caylee's death.

Casey's father George believes she killed her daughter with chloroform. He is pictured above with his wife Cindy in 2009

Casey Anthony poses for a portrait next to a photo of her daughter, Caylee, in her West Palm Beach, Florida, bedroom

The 32-year-old was pictured holding the infant on her lap at a restaurant in Clearwater, Florida, at lunchtime, looking relaxed surrounded by glasses of beer and sangria jugs.

The following month Anthony said she would be open to having another child.

George has said he will never speak to his daughter again, and after hearing that she was ready to settle down and perhaps start a family again, he said: 'Knowing now that she could be a mom again, I hope she does better this time around than she did last time.'
This is the remarkable moment a sneaky thief uses a jacket draped over his shoulder to steal a 'substantial' amount of cash from an elderly pensioner in a pub.

The cunning crook stands in the bar with his back to a seated drinker, pretending to engage in conversation with an accomplice.

Using a jacket draped over his shoulder to disguise his actions, the thief manages to feel his way into the victim's jacket and pilfer his wallet, containing a 'substantial' amount of cash.

The alleged thief is seen positioning a jacket over his right shoulder (left) so other diners will not see him stealing the wallet. He then moves his right hand down the jacket (right) and into pocket of a jacket belonging to the unsuspecting pensioner

The incident was caught on CCTV at the Drum and Monkey pub on Glasgow on Sunday afternoon. Bosses have released the footage in a bid to help catch the crooks.

The video begins with the two men walking into shot and stopping behind the unaware punter sitting down at a table.

The man in the blue shirt, who is standing directly behind the victim, pulls his dark blue jacket around his right shoulder to help hide what he is doing.

Whilst facing towards the camera, he can then be seen reaching down and trying to access the man's jacket pocket.

The clip shows him clearly trying to open the man's pocket for at least 30 seconds before eventually getting the wallet and walking away with his accomplice.

Both men carry on talking, as the alleged thief rifles through the wallet of the elderly pensioner (pictured). He is said to have taken a 'substantial' amount of cash from the wallet

The alleged thief has to glance down at the wallet to see what is inside, as he does so the other man continues talking. Eventually the money is removed from the wallet and returned to the pocket of the pensioner

The Drum and Monkey said: 'Unfortunately one of our guests was pickpocketed while enjoying lunch. A substantial amount of money was removed from his wallet and the wallet replaced in his jacket.

'This is an unusual occurrence for us but goes to highlight the importance of being vigilant at all times.

'Please share far and wide to hopefully identify these two let's face it thieving scumbags.'

Martin Connelly, who was sitting with the victim, wrote online: 'The victim was an elderly retired colleague living on a pension and it's sad to think there's people out there that would do something like this.

'I think it's worth reminding people to be aware of anyone they see acting suspicious even if they are very well presented/dressed.'

Sybil Brown said: 'Rotten people.'

The Drum and Monkey pub in Glasgow posted CCTV footage of the incident on Facebook (pictured) in a bid to catch those responsible for the theft. The video has been shared thousands of times and viewed on more than 120,000 occasions

Martin Connolly was dining with the pensioner when the money was stolen. He warned people to be aware of anyone acting suspicious, even if they appear well-presented / dressed

Maureen Herriot Donohoe commented: 'That was so hard to watch, they are disgusting.'

Mhairi McKinnon said: 'These are professionals and most people don't realise until they've left the premises that they've been robbed.

'Well done to the Drum and Monkey for showing this, the majority of premises try to deny if they've bad any criminal activity take place. I hope they get names soon.'

Michelle Montogomery said: 'The thing is they're well dressed, no one would look twice yet someone who's had a little rough time of late would be watched like a hawk.'

Police confirmed they were investigating the matter.

A spokeswoman said: 'Police were called to a pub on Saint Vincent Street in Glasgow after money was stolen from a customer. Enquiries are ongoing.'
Relatives of a German First World War solider who returned a dying Brit's family photo after he perished clutching it in his hands has spoken of their pride 101 years on.

Gefreiter (Corporal) Josef Wilczek found a black and white picture in Private Percy Buck's hand after coming across his lifeless body on the Western Front in 1917.

He prised it from his grasp to find it had a note attached to it asking for it to be posted to the people in it - his wife Bertha and young son Cyril - in the event of his death.

In a remarkable act of humanity, Wilczek sent the pictured to the Red Cross along with a message, which said: 'I, wishing to fulfill the last will of the dead comrade, send it to you. May he rest in peace.'

More than 100 years after Private Buck's death at the age of 26 in Ypres, British historian Dan Hill has tracked down Wilczek's family.

His granddaughter Ewa Pikulinska, 43, was surprised to find out what her grandfather did but says she is very proud.

Private Percy Buck (pictured far left) with his Hertfordshire Regiment comrades in Flanders before his death at the age of 26 in Ypres, Belgium in 1917

Private Buck (pictured left) died clutching a picture of his wife Bertha and their young son Cyril (pictured right)

She said: 'My grandfather passed away when I was just eight or nine-years-old but within the family we know that he rarely spoke about the war or his experiences.

'He was a retiring man and not very talkative.

German soldier Gefreiter (Corporal) Josef Wilczek (pictured in later life after the war) found the picture and sent it back to his family in England

'Apart from knowing he was captured and held as a prisoner of the British, we know very little.

'To hear of what my grandfather did was a real surprise and we are very proud to have learned a little more about his war and the kindness he showed to the family of a fallen comrade.'

Two months after Private Buck's death Wilczek was shot in the buttocks and captured by the British.

He spent the rest of the war in a Prisoner of War camp in Scotland before returning home to the German town of Mokashau, which is now part of Poland.

He went on to have three children and died in 1983 aged 86.

In his research Mr Hill found that Private Buck's family wrote to Wilczek to thank him for his kindness.

Mr Hill, of Herts at War, a Lottery-funded project to reveal untold stories from the First World War, said: 'Finding Josef took the combined teamwork of historians and researchers in Poland, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

'The story of these two men, whose paths crossed for just a moment in the battlefields of Flanders, and the humanity that Josef showed to his enemy that day is breathtaking.

'To be able to finally tell that story in its entirety is truly special.'

The enlarged picture Private Buck was holding showed his brother Ted and Bertha's mother Mrs Stevens with her and their young son alongside two other unknown men

Private Buck is pictured far right with his Hertfordshire Regiment soldiers before his death

Private Buck, who married Bertha in 1912, served in the Hertfordshire Regiment and was sent to the Western Front in December 1916.

In July 1917 the men took part in a major dawn offensive in the Third Battle of Ypres, otherwise known as Passchendaele.

His battalion was at St Julien at Flanders and came under heavy machine gun fire which caused them to conduct a fighting withdrawal.

He was shot in the side and fell into the shell hole where he died from his wounds.

During his research Mr Hill uncovered a letter a Private Ramsell wrote to the military authorities at the time asking after his missing colleague.

Pictured is Josef Wilczek's message to the Red Cross (original left and translation right) honouring Private Buck's last wishes to have the photo he died holding return to his family

The death notice to inform Bertha her husband Percy had died in the war in 1917

He wrote: 'His wife wrote to the Captain to say that the photo had been returned to her from Germany. Could you kindly let me know if it is true?

'If it is true it must evidently have been picked up by a German.'

Christine Reynolds, Private Buck's granddaughter, found the photo in a family archive in 2014, prompting Mr Hill's research.

Mrs Reynolds, 62, from Hitchen, Hertfordshire, said: 'This German soldier didn't have to take the time out and maybe risk punishment to fulfil my grandfather's wishes.

'It was very kind of him to do what he did.'

A picture of Josef Wilczek's grave in his home town in Poland
A car thief jumped back into a stolen car and drove off while his arresting officers waited for a recovery vehicle.

West Midlands Police officers arrested a male at 4pm yesterday in Birmingham after spotting the missing black car.

They were waiting for a recovery vehicle to come and pick up the vehicle when the suspect saw an opporunity.

West Midlands Police Force Response Tweeted about the incident after the thief jumped back into the car that is pictured and drove away from the arresting officers

He jumped back in the black car and raced away from the police, Birmingham Live reports.

Luckily the car had a tracking device so once the officers realised he was gone, they located him within 10 minutes.

After the suspect was re-arrested, West Midlands Police Force Response took to Twitter to mock the officers involved.

'Some of our colleagues who will go unnamed were sat awaiting recovery of this stolen car when the offender jumped in and re-stole the vehicle,' they Tweeted. 'Tracker contacted and vehicle re-located within ten minutes.'

West Midlands Police (pictured, the force's headquarters in Birmingham) drew criticism from some as others joked about the incident

But the force drew criticism on social media as they joked about the officers receiving a 'cake fine', a term referring to emergency services giving their colleagues sweet treats as payment for bungling a basic task.

A user called Police Inspector Forum wrote: 'I really do struggle with this type of post. Its not funny and the consequences could have been quite serious. Needless to say its a performance issue.'

Another branded the incident 'embarrassing' and asked: 'Should such incompetence really be advertised?'

One Tweeted: It's funny but there's a danger in advertising your mistakes. You take away that level of 'authority' that the police should have. Perhaps this is why officers are spat at, punched and kicked etc.'

Others simply suggested the type of food that should be used to pay the so-called cake fine.

The Cake Legislator - an emergency services joke profile - recommended Krispy Kremes.
The wife of a British academic jailed for life for 'spying' in the United Arab Emirates has said she is 'in complete shock' - and insists he is innocent.

Matthew Hedges, a specialist in Middle Eastern studies at Durham University, appeared in court in Abu Dhabi today for a hearing 'lasting less than five minutes' - six months after his arrest in Dubai Airport.

His wife, Daniela Tejada, who attended the hearing today said their 'nightmare has gotten even worse' and she is 'very scared for Matt'.

He insists he was researching the UAE's security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 when he was detained in 2011 - but prosecutors accused him of 'spying for a foreign country'.

Ms Tejada said she saw her 31-year-old husband 'shaking when he heard the verdict'. Just weeks ago, Mr Hedges, who is from Exeter, said being held in solitary confinement had left him suicidal.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this morning he was 'deeply shocked' by the life sentence, which carries a maximum term of 25 years, and warned of 'repercussions'. Prime Minister Theresa May vowed to raise them matter with authorities at the 'highest level'.

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A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced British academic Matthew Hedges (pictured with his wife Daniela Tejada) to life in prison after he was accused of spying

Matthew Hedges (pictured with wife Daniela Tejada), a specialist in Middle Eastern studies at Durham University, appeared in court in Abu Dhabi today - six months after his arrest in Dubai Airport

Yesterday, Mr Hedges' wife, Daniela Tejada, who attended the hearing posted on Twitter: 'Tomorrow, Nov 21, Matt will be appearing in court in Abu Dhabi. Hoping that justic will prevail and my husband will be granted his rightful freedom.'

It is not yet clear where Mr Hedges will be held, but Abu Dhabi's biggest jail, the notorious Al Wathba prison, is just 40 minutes' drive from the court room where he was sentenced.

Ms Tejada, a 27-year-old multilingual publicist based in London, called on the British government to 'take a stand' adding: 'I am in complete shock and I don't know what to do.

'Matthew is innocent. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them.

'This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthew's case seriously.

'The British Government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens. They say that the UAE is an ally, but the overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matt's case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price.

'This has been the worst six months of my life, let alone for Matt who was shaking when he heard the verdict. The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice.

'I am very scared for Matt. I don't know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse.'

The pair met at Exeter University in eight years ago as Ms Tejada, originally from Bogota, Colombia, was about to start her BA, and he was due to move to the UAE.

They have spent much of their relationship as a long-distance couple. They were married in January last year.

Yesterday, still hopeful her husband would be released without charge, she wrote on Twitter: 'Tomorrow, Nov 21, Matt will be appearing in court in Abu Dhabi. Hoping that justice will prevail and my husband will be granted his rightful freedom.'

Mr Hedges' life sentence was confirmed by a family spokesperson, who said: 'The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present.'

A Reuters journalist was reportedly barred from entering the court session, which was closed to the public.

According to The National, Mr Hedges was arrested after an Emirati man told police he had been asking for sensitive information and confessed to the charges during questioning.

UAE attorney general Hamad al-Shamsi said earlier this month that Hedges was accused of 'spying for a foreign country, jeopardising the military, political and economic security of the state'.

Mr Hedges, was convicted by the Federal Appeals Court for attempting to procure sensitive information during a trip to the Emirates earlier this year, local media reported

Mr Hedges' wife, Daniela, of Exeter, said in October that he is tired and 'shocked by everything', but in a good mood and 'glad to be breathing fresh air' after his release

Abu Dhabi's 'hellhole' prison It is not yet clear where Mr Hedges will be held, but Abu Dhabi's biggest jail, the notorious Al Wathba prison, is just 40 minutes' drive from the court room where he was sentenced. Some have described horrific conditions in the UAE lock-up - with one Briton likening it to 'Dante's Inferno'. Ex soldier John Murphy spent six weeks in the jail while awaiting a court hearing this year and called it the 'most terrifying experience I have ever had'. Mr Murphy was facing a three year sentence over an altercation with two hotel security guards. Abu Dhabi's Al Wathba prison (pictured) is just 30 minutes' drive from the court room where Mr Hedges was sentenced He attended court and protested his innocence only to be told the judge was ready to sentence him. Rather than protract his time in the country he agreed to pay a fine of 4,000 and was spared jail. But describing his time spent in the prison, he said: 'There was incessant noise, I felt my life was in danger and I honestly didn't expect to get out alive. It was baking hot all the time, the food was rotting garbage, and the place was so overcrowded that people had to take it in turns to sleep. 'It smelled powerfully of sweat, faeces and sewage. The sanitary conditions were shocking and people were always sick. The slightest cut would quickly lead to infection and there was no chance of any medical attention. 'I finally got bail six weeks later, and I believe I'm still suffering from PTSD. I can't sleep, and have the most awful flashbacks.' Al Wathba was built 35 years ago and is the biggest and oldest of the emirate's five prisons. Irish construction boss John White spent five years in the jail after being left 1million short by clients and unable to pay the 500,000 he owed creditors. His sister Eileen told the Mirror in 2017: 'It was as horrendous [in prison] as you can imagine, 50 degrees, but they had air-con on 24/7 so he always had a cold or the flu. 'It would break down and be off for days and days and he said that water would be running down the walls and he'd be just drenched, he couldn't sleep or anything. 'He could be moved to another room on a minute's notice and be lying on the floor with no mattress. 'He lost an awful lot of weight and got older looking, it definitely took its toll on him. I was shocked when I saw the picture of him.' Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper, however, described the jail as being 'closer to a residential detention centre, with living quarters, a clean and well-kept kitchen, a library, a theatre and a workshop.' Advertisement

In the UAE, life includes up to 25 years in jail followed by deportation. Mr Hedges, who was also ordered to pay legal fees, has the right to appeal the sentence within 30 days.

This morning, Jeremy Hunt said he was 'deeply shocked and disappointed'.

'Today's verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances,' he said.

He warned the UAE that 'the handling of this case... will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust.

'I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider'.

Mr Hunt said he had personally raised the case at the highest levels of the UAE government, including during a visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12.

Prime Minister Theresa May told MPs today: 'We are deeply disappointed and concerned at today's verdict. ... We are raising it with the Emirati authorities at the highest level.'

According to The National, a full statement from the court hearing today, translated from Arabic said: 'The Federal Appeals Court of Abu Dhabi sentenced Matthew Hedges, 31, to life imprisonment after being convicted of spying on the UAE and providing sensitive security and intelligence information to third parties.

'The court also ruled that he would be deported from the country after the execution of the sentence and would be charged the costs of the legal case.

'The court ordered the confiscation of all his equipment, devices, research and studies. The convicted person has the right to challenge the ruling with the State Security Department of the Federal Supreme Court within a maximum period of 30 days.'

Mr Hedges went to the UAE to research his PhD thesis, where he was accused of spying for the British Government and arrested.

At Mr Hedge's last hearing on October 24, his court-appointed lawyer maintained that he is innocent.

On October 29, Mr Hedges was released on bail after five months in solitary confinement and he has since been staying in Dubai with an ankle bracelet monitoring his movements.

At the time, he said he had expressed suicidal thoughts because jail conditions have caused him severe anxiety and panic attacks.

He said he had not had his passport returned to him and was being made to wear an ankle bracelet.

Ms Tejada said in October that he was tired and 'shocked by everything', but in a good mood and 'glad to be breathing fresh air' after his release.

She also spoke of her hope for 'justice'.

In an interview weeks earlier, she reiterated her belief that her husband was innocent.

'I feel like, above all things, I want everyone to know that Matt was just doing research, and that he should not have faced any of what he's facing for just having a sense of inquiry, and academic curiosity.'

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this morning he was 'deeply shocked' by the life sentence, which carries a maximum term of 25 years, and warned of 'repercussions'. He is pictured meeting Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, last week

Mr Hunt said he had personally raised the case at the highest levels of the UAE government, including during a visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12

She added: 'He's just a good person, and a good student, and he has an untouchable record wherever you look at it.

'I feel like the fair and just thing for the UAE to do would be to admit that they've made a mistake and to release him, because he deserve it.'

At the time, Ms Tejada said she was worried about her husband being 'heavily medicated' with anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills and sleeping pills.

She said he had been vomiting every day for the past three months or so, and was initially only allowed a shower once a fortnight.

Ms Tejada said he had recently been given a mattress, but had been sleeping on the floor until then.

'The conditions in which he's being kept are appalling,' she said.

'The fact that after such a prolonged time of being mistreated, every little gesture becomes so meaningful to him that I wouldn't be surprised if he's developing some sort of Stockholm syndrome, and is thus more easy to manipulate,' she said.

She said at the time that she had only seen her husband once since he was detained, and described the 45-minute visit as 'distressing'.

Ms Tejada said he described the interrogation period as 'very intense', adding that he kept asking her if anyone had approached her, making her think he had been threatened with his family.

She revealed that the couple had been allowed weekly phone calls, monitored and lasting a maximum of five minutes, but had been forbidden from discussing the case.

Earlier this year, the family said that during the first six weeks of his detention, Mr Hedges was interrogated without a lawyer or consular access available.

They said he was made to sign a document in Arabic which it transpired was a confession. The family said at the time: 'Matthew does not speak or read Arabic'.

The life sentence was confirmed by family spokesperson, who said: 'The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present.' Pictured: A Federal Supreme Court building in Abu Dhabi

According to Durham University's website, Hedges is a doctoral student in the School of Government and International Affairs whose research interests include civil-military relations, political economy and tribalism.

More than 120 academics from around the world have issued a petition urging UAE authorities to release him.

Durham released a joint statement with Exeter University, where Hedges completed his Master's degree, expressing concern over his welfare and attesting that he had conducted his research in accordance with its policies.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has previously said there are limits to what it can say publicly about the case because of the legal proceedings.

It said it was monitoring developments closely and staff were in close contact with Mr Hedges' wife Daniela, offering her support.

Radha Stirling, CEO of human rights NGO Detained in Dubai, said after today's sentencing: 'I fully expect that Matthew Hedges will launch an appeal but we must remember that he will be facing a judicial system that is known for corruption, unfair trials, forced confessions and discrimination.

'The UK courts have repeatedly denied all extradition requests to the country on this basis and, in Matthew's case, the ultimate determination of his matter will come down to the ruling party, not to the legal system,' said Stirling, whose team of lawyers help those in difficulty with the Dubai judiciary.

Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK's Director, added: 'This is terrible news  our worst fears come true. We've always had the gravest concerns about this case  from the long period that Matthew was in detention without access to a lawyer, the supposed confession in detention, and now the ludicrously short trial hearing today.

'The UK should demand that the Emirati authorities fully explain how this case can ever be justified. Meanwhile, the UK should make it absolutely clear that jailing Matthew for life will have serious consequences for the UK's future relationship with the UAE.'

In October it was reported that Mr Hedges (pictured with his wife) had expressed suicidal thoughts because jail conditions had caused him severe anxiety and panic attacks.

The UAE is a tourism and trade hub for the Middle East, but tolerates little public criticism of its ruling families or policies.

Professor Steve Smith, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, where Matt Hedges studied, said: 'We are all deeply saddened, shocked and concerned by the life sentence given to Matt Hedges today, following his detention and trial in the United Arab Emirates.

'The health and welfare of Matt and his family and friends now, through the forthcoming appeals process, and beyond is our paramount concern, and we are committed to offering and providing every level of support, help and assistance we can through this inconceivably distressing and traumatic time for them.

'Matt was in the UAE to carry out legitimate academic research, and has an undoubted passion and concern for the Arab Gulf and its people. It is absolutely vital that academics the world over are free to conduct research without fear of interference or arrest.

'Exeter will continue to do whatever it can to ensure Matt and his family can return home as soon as possible, and calls upon the authorities to work actively towards securing his return.'
Furious villagers have hit out at the conversion of an historic barn labelling it a 'pink tinged monstrosity' which is 'nothing short of criminal.'

Snowdrop Barn in the 12th Century hamlet Maulds Meaburn, in Cumbria, was granted permission to be converted into a home in 2016.

But it has now been served with an enforcement notice after 'making a mockery' of regulators by flouting planning regulations and ignoring the concerns of locals in the surrounding national park.

Before: Snowdrop Barn at Maulds Meaburn was once a sturdy stone building which blended into the rolling landscape of the Yorkshire Dales

After: The barn was sandblasted, stripping back the aged stone exterior to a vivid sandy colour

The land around the property in the Yorkshire Dales National Park has been given 'scheduled monument' status because it is considered 'an excellent example of a shrunken medieval village.'

Snowdrop Barn was an unassuming sturdy stone building which blended into the rolling landscape of the Yorkshire Dales.

Planning permission was granted in 2016 to convert the large, detached barn into a home.

But it has now been transformed into a 'pink-tinged monstrosity' according to locals, after it was sandblasted, stripping back the aged stone exterior to a vivid sandy colour then repainted in a pink mortar.

The developer has been accused of ignoring conditions relating to archaeology and protected species, as well as surface water and landscaping,

Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority planning committee have now agreed to serve an enforcement notice to the owners.

The Authority's Champion for Cultural Heritage, Julie Martin, told a meeting last week: 'I think it's fair to describe the way in which this development has taken place as a truly shocking act of vandalism.'

Member Yvonne Peacock said: 'It makes a mockery of the Planning Committee. We've got to make sure that everybody realises that this is wrong, absolutely out of order.'

Maulds Meaburn dates back to the 12th century when Henry II gave part of the land of Meaburn to Sir Hugh de Morville, one of the knights who assassinated Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170

Maulds Meaburn: The ancient hamlet which was torn apart after knight assassinated archbishop The manor of Meaburn is divided into two separate villages  Kings Meaburn and Maulds Meaburn. Maulds Meaburn dates back to the 12th century when Henry II gave part of the land of Meaburn to Sir Hugh de Morville, one of the knights who assassinated Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170. The remainder of the land at Meaburn went to Sir Hugh's sister, Maud de Veteripont. Sir Hugh eventually fell out of favour with the King and his land was reclaimed by the Crown, becoming known as Kings Meaburn. The land that belonged to Maud remained as Maulds Meaburn. Advertisement

The applicant did not attend the meeting.

John Blackie added: 'The applicant has totally ignored our concerns. Frankly what they've done to that building is nothing short of criminal.

'It does seem a very, very dramatic breach of planning regulations.'

In a report a planning officer for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority said it was, 'disappointing to learn that the intrusive groundworks appear to have been completed without the benefit of the conditioned archaeological investigation.'

The report adds: 'It is also disappointing to see that the building has been sandblasted  I don't recall seeing this as a proposal within the application.

'Whilst making the building appear new again, and changing it's character within the conservation area, the sandblasting will have removed the protective lichenous coating from much the stonework, making it more likely to deteriorate in coming years.'

One local said: 'No one imagined it was going to look like that.

'The barn's been there for longer than anyone can remember and suddenly it's been turned into a pink-tinged monstrosity.

'It's at odd with everyone around it and it looks awful.'
A mischievous Lithuanian couple replaced every single display picture in their local IKEA with photos of themselves.

Erikas Malisauskas and his girlfriend spent five hours calmly removing stock images from their frames at the homeware giant's outlet in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

They had visited the store in advance to count the number of pictures they would need - and found there were 100 on display.

After a trip to a photo printing shop, they returned with a selection of their holiday snaps, selfies and pictures of drunken nights out - and inserted them into frames around the store.

Erikas said: 'We relaxed and made ourselves at home. We hope that people will like our faces!'

It's me! Erikas Malisauskas's partner poses next to the framed photos of themselves at Ikea

New faces: Mr Malisauskas is seen as he hangs up one of the frames on the wall with a photo from a romantic trip to Paris

On show: The pair had been to the Ikea on a reconnaissance mission beforehand and counted the frames on display

Big pile: The pair headed to a photo printing store where they had the 100 images printed, a selection taken from various holiday trips, drunken nights out or selfie sessions

It took the couple five hours to replace all the stock images in the frames at the Vilnius Ikea

Secret in the open: At first, the couple went to a bathroom section to hide from staff and shoppers while they replaced the photos

No hiding: After a while, they said, they realised that no one cared what they were doing and so made themselves at home

Welcome to my crib: Erikas Malisauskas relaxes in a sofa underneath their photos in Ikea

The couple even included baby pictures of themselves to put in some of the photo frames

The couple took the frames which are normally places in the showhomes in Ikea

They then replaced the images already in there with photos of themselves

The photos had been taken throghout their relationship and showed a number of selfies

Here the couple's images adorn a wall above one of Ikea's showhome bedrooms

Mr Malisauskas said 'we hope people will like our faces' which can now be seen in Ikea

Going beyond: Here, they have put their own snaps in some smaller frames in a cupboard

All kinds of scenes: Mr Malisauskas said the photograph seen on the right in this trio shows him very drunk one evening

Hiding in plain sight: Mr Malisauskas said no one seemed to mind their little stunt

It is not known how Ikea and their staff feel about the photos, nor if they remain

They had visited the store in advance to count the number of pictures they would need

The fact that their tally reached 100 did not deter the couple, who printed dozens of photos

This photograph from one of thew couple's travels has been placed in a showroom bedroom

Big project: Mr Malisauskascan be seen sat on a sofa in Ikea and replacing photos

This time it's personal: Some of the dozens of photos the couple brought with them

Holidays are here: The couple infiltrated a Christmas display at the warehouse

Artsy: To the uninitiated, the photos may be hard to differentiate from the normal stock images

In all the photos: Mr Malisauskas said: 'It was quite a task to find that many photos of ourselves'
Footage has emerged of the moment a police officer shot a kangaroo multiple times on a high school oval as people watched on in horror.

In the footage a South Australian Police officer is seen at the Stuart High School oval in Whyalla Stuart, South Australia, 82km south of Port Augusta on Wednesday as he draws his firearm.

A spokesman for South Australia Police told Daily Mail Australia the officer was called to the oval by school staff and wildlife rescue crews after the kangaroo was found with a severely broken front right leg.

The confronting footage shows the police officer shoot the kangaroo, which barely flinches, before he lines up and shoots the animal again.

By the third shot it looks as though the officer is shooting over the kangaroo but South Australia police confirmed the officer had to shoot the animal a number of times.

'A number of attempts were made by the officer to destroy the kangaroo but each situation is different with some animals more resilient than others - even to bullets fired at close range,' the spokesman said.

'The kangaroo was destroyed by the officer. When any police officer uses their firearm a mandatory report must be submitted and the actions assessed. A final assessment has yet be completed on this incident.'

Footage has emerged of the moment a police officer was forced to shoot a kangaroo multiple times on a high school oval as people watched on and filmed

The video was shared to Facebook by Ganster Wannabe and has already been viewed 4,000 times.

The 90 second video prompted a number of social media users to comment on the incident with some outraged and others understanding to the situation.

'Omg, the kangaroo was doing nothing wrong,' one user wrote.

'Would have done better with the butt of the gun another added.

A spokesman for South Australia Police said the officer was called to the oval by school staff and wildlife rescue crews after the kangaroo was found with a severely broken front right leg

Some people were hopeful the officer was only trying to frighten animal away from the public school.

The South Australia Police spokesman said the incident was one of the many responsibilities of the police force.

'Police have the authority for the lawful destruction of birds or animals in circumstances where it is believed the bird or animal is in distress due to injury,' the spokesman said.

'In this situation this was the belief of the police officer after SAPOL were contacted by a wildlife rescue group that the kangaroo had a broken leg.'

The video ends before the kangaroo is killed.
Amber Rudd (pictured in Downing Street yesterday) insisted Universal Credit was a 'force for good' today and insisted tweaks would ensure it gets 'cash into people's hands' more quickly

Amber Rudd insisted Universal Credit was a 'force for good' today and insisted tweaks would ensure it gets 'cash into people's hands' more quickly.

The new work and pensions secretary said the Government's motives were 'compassionate' as it pushed through a controversial overhaul of benefits.

A United Nations inquiry has condemned the reform - which merges a series of benefits and pays them out differently - for inflicting 'great misery' with 'punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous' austerity policies.

But in her first radio interview since returning to the Cabinet, Ms Rudd insisted that overall Universal Credit was 'a tremendous force for good in this country'.

She accepted that there has been a rise in food bank use, including in her own Hastings constituency, during the introduction of Universal Credit, and said she wants to make sure people do not have to resort to food handouts.

Ms Rudd said there had been 'teething problems' with Universal Credit following numerous delays since its introduction by her predecessor Iain Duncan Smith.

She said the Department for Work and Pensions had to do 'a better job' in making claimants aware of the upfront loans available to those who struggle with the five-week delay in receiving their first payment.

The benefit is due to be rolled out to all welfare claimants by the end of 2023.

'I'm looking at what we can do to get cash into people's hands earlier,' she told the Today programme.

'That's where I acknowledge that there is a problem.

Philip Alston (file), UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, published a damning report on the UK's attitude towards poverty on Friday

'But the main message I want to give is that Universal Credit is a tremendous force for good in this country.

'I acknowledge there are problems which I am going to look at and see if we can fix.'

Ms Rudd said she would examine the findings of UN special rapporteur Philip Alston, but insisted that he had been 'very political' in his suggestion that the Government was deliberately using welfare as a social engineering tool.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'What I resent about his approach is the motives he attributes to us.

'Our motives are to be constructive, to be helpful, to be efficient and to be compassionate.'

Ms Rudd took over as DWP secretary from Esther McVey who quit last week over Theresa May's Brexit plan (she is pictured arriving at her new department on Friday night)

Mr Alston, who published his findings on Friday after a 12-day tour of the UK, accused ministers of being 'in a state of denial' over the extent of poverty in the Britain.

He wrote: 'The UK Government's policies and drastic cuts to social support are entrenching high levels of poverty and inflicting unnecessary misery in one of the richest countries in the world.

'Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so.'

In the Commons yesterday, SNP work and pension spokesman Neil Gray urged Ms Rudd: 'This new Secretary of State wields significant power, more than any of her five predecessors have done in the last three years by virtue of the fact of the Prime Minister's precarious position.

'Will she use that power now to listen to those expert charities halt Universal Credit until its fixed?'

Ms Rudd responded: 'I wouldn't want to overstate what the gentleman calls my power but I am certainly going to be listening very carefully.

'Part of the benefit of the Universal Credit roll-out is going to be making sure that we get the expert guidance from the people who have been working in this field for many years and we will certainly be doing that.'
A major police search is underway for a national newspaper arts writer who has been missing for three days.

Florence Waters, 33, who is a freelance contributor to the Daily Telegraph and lives in Oxford, has not been seen since Monday.

Ms Waters, who is understood to have been living with a man in a 723,000 home owned by her parents, was reported missing three days ago.

She is a regular visitor to the upmarket Oxford district of Jericho and lives in the Botley area of the city which is close to the River Thames.

Florence Waters, 33, who is a freelance contributor to the Daily Telegraph has not been seen since Monday

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said they are 'growing concerned' for her welfare.

Ms Waters had never gone missing before and they appealed for her to contact police.

Florence's 723,000 terraced home, which is next to the peaceful artisan pub The Punter, stood silent today. The house overlooks the River Thames and is in the upmarket area Jericho and Osney in Oxford city centre.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said that he had seen two people dining at Florence's house on Monday.

'The last I saw was on Monday - there were two people at the table having supper but I don't know if one of them was her. I could see two people through the curtains.'

Ms Waters writes for the Daily Telegraph under her own name. She confirmed on social media that she has been an arts correspondent since 2012.

She was previously the Daily Telegraph's Online Arts Editor. She is also a keen artist and has art of sale in the US.

She is white, has shoulder-length hair, is around 5ft 8ins tall and wears glasses. When she was last seen she was dressed in a long green coat.

Another neighbour, who would only give his name as Rob, described Florence as a quiet woman who recently moved into the property with a male tenant.

He added: 'She was having Sunday lunch with her mum and dad in The Punter pub on Sunday, at around 1 o'clock. She never speaks - she keeps herself to herself.

'She is fairly new around here. Her mum and dad bought the house about four years ago and rented it to a couple from New Zealand. Florence moved in at the beginning of the summer with a guy, but they never speak to the neighbours.

'She drives a blue Volkswagen Golf - but I haven't seen it parked here for a few days,' he added.

Ms Waters writes for the Daily Telegraph under her own name. She confirmed on social media that she has been an arts correspondent since 2012

Investigating officer, Inspector Mark Brock, of Oxford police station, said: 'We are growing concerned for Florence's welfare as she has not been seen since 9am on Monday.

'If you see someone you believe to be Florence then please get in touch with police straight away. Florence, if you see this appeal then please get in touch with us as we are concerned for your safety.'

The police spokesman said that any potential sightings must be reported to police immediately by calling 101.
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A stunning boarding school on the edge of the Amazon that caters to the children of rural farm workers in Brazil has been named the best new building in the world.

The Children Village was designed by Brazilian architects Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum and is based near huge rice fields in the Tocantins province, around 370 miles north east of Brasilia.

The slick new school is largely made from locally-sourced timber and natural resources surrounding the site in a bid to promote both economic and environmental sustainability.

And it has had a huge impact, winning the prestigious RIBA International Prize 2018 despite competing against 199 other locations from 16 countries all over the world.

This year's new building of the year is the Children Village (pictured), in Brazil which was designed by Brazilian architects Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum

The prestigious prize is awarded every two years and rewards the most inspirational and significant new structures from across the globe.

From dormitories and reading spaces to balconies and hammocks, parts of the stylish Children Village were designed in collaboration with the students, to make them feel part of the project.

Technically, the buildings are a pair of boarding house but they are mirror images of each other, meaning they both get the award.

Aleph Zero is a young Brazilian practice led by Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes.

They worked in collaboration on the interiors of the buildings, with Marcelo Rosenbaum, a Brazilian designer and television host.

The stunning and stylish building is a boarding school on the edge of the Amazon that caters to the children of rural farm workers in Brazil

From dormitories and reading spaces to balconies and hammocks, parts of the stylish Children Village were designed in collaboration with the students

The students at the school live in vast, stylish dormitories that are clustered in nine groups of five brick buildings that are based around beautiful, leafy large courtyards filled with vegetation and trees

The architects worked with local people, students, administrators and teachers to design the buildings and to make them feel part of the project

Elizabeth Diller, chair of the 2018 RIBA International Prize jury, told CNN: 'The best new building in the world needs to wake us out of our everyday stupor to something challenging that teaches us why architecture is still relevant.'

The Children Village perfectly meets the criteria and caters for up to 540 students in its dormitories.

In its drive to open up to the land surrounding it, the school has no air conditioning or glazing and educated children that are local to area.

It also allows students who live on distant settlements and ranches to study there.

The beautiful and stylish school won the prize despite competing against 199 other locations from 16 countries all over the world

The school is committed to working with the local community and in its drive to open up to the land surrounding it, the school has no air conditioning or glazing

Technically, the buildings are a pair of boarding houses but they are mirror images of each other, meaning they both get the award

The Children Village was designed by Brazilian architects Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum and is based near huge rice fields in the Tocantins province, around 370 miles north east of Brasilia

The stylish dormitories house six children, aged between 13 to 18, giving each one plenty of space to enjoy relax in comfort

They live in vast, stylish dormitories that are clustered in nine groups of five brick buildings that are based around beautiful, leafy large courtyards filled with vegetation and trees.

The dormitories house six children, aged between 13 to 18, giving each one plenty of space to enjoy relax in comfort.

Each dorm has storage space, laundry room, showers and toilets with stairs also leading to play areas, reading rooms and TV areas that are out in the open but protected from the weather by timber screens.

There are also hammocks for students to relax in and raised walkways that give you beautiful views of the leafy school campus.

Another RIBA judge, Gloria Cabral, also praised the buildings, describing them as 'really pertinent, appropriate for this place, for this culture, for this weather, these landscapes and at the same time an example for all the world.'

UK judge Peter Clegg added that the building is an example of a 'really beautiful building where everything is well considered, and it's very low cost, very low carbon, very creative and a beautiful set of living spaces for these very lucky children.'

Aleph Zero is a young Brazilian practice led by Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes. They worked in collaboration on the interiors of the buildings, with Marcelo Rosenbaum, a Brazilian designer and television host

Each dorm has storage space, laundry room, showers and toilets with stairs also leading to play areas, reading rooms and TV areas. Timber screens protect the TVs from the weather

There are also hammocks for students to relax in and raised walkways that give students breathtaking views of the leafy school campus

RIBA judge Gloria Cabral praised the buildings, describing them as 'really pertinent, appropriate for this place, for this culture, for this weather

Judge Peter Clegg, from the UK, said that the building is an example of a 'really beautiful building where everything is well considered, and it's very low cost, very low carbon, very creative
The Victorian opposition leader has opened up about his son's premature birth during a heated debate ahead of the state election.

Matthew Guy, the state leader of the Liberal Party, shared rare personal insight as he discussed the availability of neonatal intensive care beds in debate with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday evening.

Mr Guy told the Sky News audience at Frankston, a marginal seat in Melbourne's outer suburbs, about the birth of his first son who was premature after an emotional first question.

Matthew Guy (pictured), the state leader of the Liberal Party, shared rare personal insight as he discussed the availability of neonatal intensive care beds in debate with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday evening

Mr Guy (pictured with family) told the Sky News audience at Frankston, a marginal seat in Melbourne's outer suburbs, about the birth of his first son after the first question was asked

'It's an incredibly personal question to start,' Mr Guy began.

'My wife's waters broke at 27-and-a-bit weeks, with our first (baby), we were interstate,' he told the audience of undecided voters.

'We were brand new parents. We didn't know what would be with our son, would he suffer any issues, would there be problems with his growth.'

Mr Guy said he flew to Queensland for the birth and hospital staff showed him to an incubator bed.

'They showed it to us and said your son will come here. This is where your son will be born, and it is a deeply personal issue,' he said.

After the personal insight, Mr Guy directed conversation to proposed updates for Frankston hospital and hospitals all around the state.

'My wife's waters broke at 27-and-a-bit weeks, with our first (baby), we were interstate,' Mr Guy (pictured, right) told the audience of undecided voters

The debate moved to other prominent topics including policing resources, bail laws, hospital services, and religious freedoms in schools.

The head-to-head debate also focused on the long-running issue of the defunct East West Link toll road

The road cost the state more than $1 billion when Labor came to power and cancelled the roads contracts.

Mr Andrews said pushing ahead with the project would have cost close to $20 billion.

'I was pretty angry myself the morning after the election to be told that the contract had essentially been rigged, the money had been paid out and there was no way that we could recoup that,' Mr Andrews said.

Mr Guy said the premier had promised the cancellation would not cost voters.

The audience poll awarded the debate to Victorian Premier and Labor leader, Andrews, with 49 votes ahead of Saturday's state election

The debate moved to other prominent topics including policing resources, bail laws, hospital services, and religious freedoms in schools

'Think of all the hospitals, schools, teachers everything that could have been paid for with that amount of money,' he said.

'When a politician uses words like rigged and contracts, it is a way of explaining away something that you don't want to admit.'

Mr Guy said he would consider a royal commission into mental health - the only topic the pair seemed to agree on in the debate.

The pair will debate again on ABC radio on Thursday morning.

The audience poll awarded the debate to Andrews with 49 votes ahead of Saturday's state election.

Mr Guy received 33 votes and 18 people were undecided.
Mrs Higman (pictured) says the bank did not act quickly enough after money was stolen from her account

A fraudster stole more than 4,300 from a Royal Bank of Scotland customer despite giving the wrong answer to a security question.

Charlotte Higman lost thousands when a caller contacted to bank and managed to get into her account.

Then for more than a year afterward, RBS claimed she knew about the transaction and refused to give her the money back.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) even backed the bank following her initial complaint, BBC Watchdog Live found.

Mrs Higman from Totnes, Devon, says RBS failed repeatedly to pick up on warnings raised during its security steps.

Audio of the fraudulent phone call reveals a woman gave the wrong answer when asked what Ms Higman's job is.

But she still manages to get 4,318 approved. A warning is only raised on the account when the caller is unable to answer another question during a request for a second transaction.

Records held by RBS show that the January 2017 call was marked as a 'potential account takeover'.

How did the fraudster target RBS customer? Fraudster posed as Charlotte to ask for her account to be reset for security reasons. Staff follow protocol and call Charlotte's landline, which has been diverted to a mobile phone. Security reset processes despite incorrect answer to security question. Bank then allows cash transfer of 4,300. Second request in the same call is denied but the bank does not recall original transfer. RBS maintains that because it called home phone number it was clearly Mrs Higman making the transfer. Advertisement

They also show that the caller failed voice recognition tests but was still able to proceed with the first transaction.

When Mrs Higman reported the incident to police, they told her that her phone line had been diverted, leading RBS to think they were speaking to her from home.

'I just feel really angry that someone's been able to do it that easily,' she said. 'The bank said that the person was in the home, they did the transactions from the home and they passed all the security questions correctly - and that's why they believed that I'd done it.'

The fraudster called the bank before a voluntary code of conduct was introduced to protect against such scams.

The new standard says that if banks or customers fail to heed warnings they are liable for losses.

If this fraudulent call had occurred after the code's introduction, RBS would have had to fork out.

Facility takeover fraud - which is when a fraudster uses personal data to hijack an account - rose seven per cent last year to more than 24,000 cases, fraud prevention service Cifas says.

Bank accounts are the most frequently targeted product and more than 100,000 cases were reported in the UK last year.

The FOS warned banks in recent months that customers should not automatically be blamed for money lost to scams.

The bank maintained that Mrs Higman must have known about the transaction as the fraud had diverted calls from her home phone number

It warned that ever-more sophisticated scammers should show it is wrong to put losses down to carelessness.

More than 2million people contacted the FOS last year to report issues relating to financial services.

A FOS spokesperson said victims of scams who feel their bank has not done enough to help should contact the group.

An RBS spokesperson told Watchdog Live: 'We would like to apologise to Mrs Higman that the service provided fell short of the high standards we expect.

'On review of Mrs Higman's case, and in light of new information provided to us, we have refunded Mrs Higman in full for her loss.'
The mother whose boyfriend is accused of murdering their baby had a middle-class upbringing and attended private school, it emerged on Thursday.

The woman, 23, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attended the fee-paying Clonard College, in Geelong.

She went on to study for a Bachelor of Psychology Services at Deakin University in Victoria, where she was a sports captain.

A former teacher from Clonard College described the star pupil in glowing terms, according to The Australian.

'She was a gorgeous kid. As far as I can remember, there were certainly no family issues when she was at school.'

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The woman, 23, who cannot be named for legal reasons, studied for a Bachelor of Psychology Services at Deakin University in Victoria

The fresh insight into the woman comes as her partner, 48, has been extradited to NSW to face murder charges after his baby daughter was found dead on a Queensland beach

It is known the family lived rough and used a rundown black van

When they weren't using the van, they were camping out in makeshift shelters

The fresh insight comes as the woman's partner, 48, was extradited to NSW to face murder charges.

Emergency services were called to Staghorn Avenue and the Esplanade at Surfers Paradise in Queensland at 12.30am on Monday.

A the naked body of a nine-month-old girl had been found washed ashore with her nappy nearby.

Police spoke to the 48-year-old father and 23-year-old mother and arrested the man on Tuesday.

Strike force detectives applied for the man's extradition and it was granted on Wednesday at Southport Magistrates Court. He is expected to face court charged with murder on Thursday.

Police escorted the man to Tweed Heads Police Station, arriving just after 10pm.

He will appear in a Tweed Heads Court on Thursday.

It's alleged the baby girl was thrown into the Jack Evans Boat Harbour at Tweed Heads in NSW and her empty pram left alongside the waterway.

The girl's body is believed to have drifted 30km in the current for two days before being washed up at a Surfers Paradise beach.

Authorities believe the body was in the water for as long as 36 hours before it washed back up on shore, Seven News Sydney reported.

'This is an extremely complex investigation as it crosses jurisdictional boundaries, time zones,' Tweed Police Detective Inspector Brendan Cullen told reporters.

The little girl was found dead in the water (pictured) by a passerby in the early hours of Monday morning Paramedics desperately tried to revive her but she was pronounced dead at the scene

The girl's body is believed to have drifted 30km in the current for two days before washing up at Surfers Paradise beach where she was found by passers-by early on Monday

The girl, her father, mother and two-year-old sibling were tracked on CCTV travelling from the Gold Coast to Tweed Heads on Saturday, sources familiar with the case told AAP on Wednesday.

Queensland Police later captured images of the parents and the two-year-old catching a bus at Coolangatta and returning to Queensland.

Queensland Police Service launched an investigation with NSW Police Force detectives assisting.

The matter was handed over to NSW Police Force once it was deemed the death happened in that state.

Homicide Squad and Tweed/Byron Police District detectives now lead the investigation under Strike Force Palua.

The discovery of the nine-month-old baby at the Surfers Paradise beach has sent shockwaves across the country and left a pair of local women in mourning

Tributes have been laid out for the nine-month-old girl who was found dead on Monday morning

Queensland Police made several formal notifications to the Department of Child Safety about the baby, who was living rough.

The family had been placed into emergency accommodation, but the parents chose to leave.

At an extradition hearing on Wednesday the baby's father faced the court wearing just a white hospital gown.

The hearing was briefly delayed because the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced a number of charges that had to be dealt first.

Southport Magistrates Court was told he was a violent schizophrenic who had previously tried to attack a Gold Coast City Council officer who was warning him not to camp in the sand dunes with his family.

Police established a crime scene at the Surfers Paradise beach (right), a far cry from the glitz and glamour that is normally associated with Surfers Paradise (left)

He had hurled abuse at the officer, calling him a 'c***', and threatened him with an 1.5 metre stick. The enraged man had also thrown bottles at the terrified council worker.

Defence lawyer Sunil Dutt told the court the father was trying to protect his family and that he had a history of alcoholism, drug addiction and violence.

Mr Dutt went on to make clear his client was also on a disability pension.

Mr Costanzo sentenced the man to 12 months' jail after he pleaded guilty to public nuisance.

It is understood the girl's mother, a 23-year-old transient, has been released from police custody without charge and may be treated as a witness.

She is now under the care of Queensland mental health services. Her eldest child is also in state care.

Queensland detectives have been 'deeply distressed' by the circumstance of the child's death, the sources said.
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California is bracing for what meteorologists are calling a 'parade' of wet weather storms that could cause dangerous mudslides in the areas which were torched by the wildfires.

On Wednesday afternoon, the first of the storms will rush across the state, bringing up to four inches of rain in Paradise, the town which was entirely razed by the Camp fire earlier this month.

It will finally bring fire season to an end and will play a part in extinguishing the last of the fire which, as of Tuesday night, was 75 per cent contained.

It will also pose fresh danger to the area by triggering mudslides that could be like a 'flood on steroids' because there is so much debris in the area.

The number of people confirmed dead rose in Paradise to 81 on Tuesday as emergency teams recovered two more bodies.

It brings the death toll across the entire state to 84 people. The number of people missing also rose again on Tuesday night to 899 remain missing as detectives in Paradise were able to work through a backlog of voicemails from the worried relatives of people who remain unaccounted for.

The rain will slow down search efforts in Paradise and will also wreak havoc on evacuees who are living in shelters and in their cars.

Rescue teams work through the debris in Paradise looking for victims of the wildfire last week. Two more bodies were found on Tuesday, bringing the total wildfires death toll across California to 84

The fire also creates a hard, waxy surface that tends to repel rather than absorb water.

It's like a flood on steroids... they move faster than you can run Jason Kean, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, describing the likely debris slides

The result can be heavy runoff of rainwater mixed with mud, boulders, trees and other debris that flows downhill with tremendous force, said Jason Kean, a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

'Those debris flows have the consistency of wet concrete and move faster than you can run,' he said.

'It's like a flood on steroids ... and a big one can take out two-story buildings.'

Butte County Sheriff Kery Honea, who said he is 'overwhelmed' with the situation on Monday, said he knew the list - which is 'incomplete and raw' - was not perfect but that he wanted to get information out to the public.

As much as six inches of rain is forecast in the torched areas of Paradise and Chico between Wednesday and Saturday

'We put the list out. It will fluctuate. It will go up. It will go down because this is in a state of flux.

'My view on this has been that I would prefer to get the information out and start working to find who is unaccounted for and who is not. I would put progress over perfection,' he said.

The Woolsey fire is now 96 percent contained and firefighters expect it to be completely extinguished by November 22.

The Camp fire is 60 percent contained. On Monday, experts said they predicted it will burn for another 10 days before being entirely put out.

'It is overwhelming, I don't have any word to describe it.

'This is unprecedented. No one has had to deal with this magnitude that caused so much destruction and regrettably so much death,' Butte County Sheriff Butte Kory Honea said on Monday.

The rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday will bring relief to the areas with the worst air pollution and where the fires are still burning but they will pose other problems.

As much as four inches of rain is forecast in Chico, were Paradise evacuees are sheltering, and in the town itself between Wednesday and Sunday.

'Once you get the first real rain, the fire season comes to an end. The fire threat falls significantly.

'But it is a double-edged sword,' AccuWeather senior meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski told USA Today.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, founder of the California-based consulting company Identifinders International, said rain would turn the site into a 'muddy, mushy mess', slick with wet ash.

Rescue teams search a torched site in Paradise, California, on Monday in a race against the weather

Pathologists from the University of Nevada, Reno worked through the weekend as firefighters peeled back debris, collecting bits of burned bones and photographing everything that might help identify victims.

The risk of mudslides could also increase the misery of the evacuees, some of whom are living in tents or camping out of their cars.

Residents who only recently were permitted back in homes that survived the fire may be ordered to evacuate again if they live downslope from badly burned areas.

Intense fire over the slopes of canyons, hills and mountains makes them more prone to landslides, by burning away vegetation and organic material that normally holds soil in place.

The number of residents needing temporary shelter was unclear, but as many as 52,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the firestorm last week.

Nearly 500 miles south of Paradise near Malibu, west of Los Angeles, at least two inches of rain are expected to fall on a second fire, the Woolsey, which has killed three people.

The cause of both fires is under investigation, but electric utilities reported localized equipment problems around the time they broke out.

PG&E Corp has said it could face liability that exceeds its insurance coverage if its equipment were found to have caused the Camp Fire.

A policeman surveys the site of a home in Paradise, California, which has been completely destroyed by the fires

Wildfire evacuees search for clothes at a donation drop off site in Chico, California, earlier this week

Thousands of people are living out of tents and in shelters across other areas of California as they wait for news of their loved ones.

Christina Taft is still looking for her mother, Victoria, who refused to evacuate her Paradise home.

'They said they found remains, they didn't say her remains. They won't confirm it to me the whole time,' she said of the police.

More than a dozen people are marked as 'unknowns,' without first or last names. In some cases, names are listed twice or more times under different spellings.

Others are confirmed dead, and their names simply haven't been taken off yet.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said it is 'way too early' to estimate the damage done by the wildfire.

But for perspective, he said the Northern California fires that gutted 6,800 homes last year resulted in $12.6 billion in insured losses.

'It's going to be a long and painful process,' he said.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attacked Donald Trump for his tweet praising Saudi Arabia after the CIA report which found the country's crown prince was behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Democratic Rep. Gabbard, a National Guard veteran who did two tours in the Middle East, branded the president 'Saudi Arabia's b**ch' after he announced the U.S. would stand by the nation.

'Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not '"America First,'" Gabbard tweeted.

Gabbard insulted the president after Trump insisted he was right not to condemn Saudi Arabian leaders for Khashoggi's murder on Wednesday morning, following his claims that the crown prince may have been in the dark about the attack.

'Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!' Trump claimed on Tuesday.

Hawaii Rep Tulsi Gabbard (pictured) has attacked Donald Trump for his tweet praising Saudi Arabia after the CIA report which found the country's crown prince was behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

'That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. ... The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.'

Trump held the declining price of oil, of which Saudi Arabia is the top exporter, as a reason for maintaining a positive relationship with the kingdom.

'Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82,' he said. 'Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!'

Saudis have seized upon Trump's refusal to condemn Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as evidence that the CIA's point connecting him with the murder is incorrect.

'What we've heard is the president say that the CIA report is not what people say it is and so we have to go by this,' Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir told CBS News.

'If you have any evidence, or any government has any evidence that it would like to make available to the Saudi courts, I'm sure the courts would be pleased to receive it.'

Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi embassy on October 2. Saudi officials initially denied his death was murder.

They later conceded he'd been killed but called it a 'rogue operation' without the knowledge of Mohammed bin Salman.

'We looked at how this issue came about and how the operation was launched, and the people who were part of the operation and what they did,' Al Jubeir said. 'It has nothing to do with the crown prince.'

Meanwhile, Gabbard has called for the US to end its 'complicity in Saudi Arabia's atrocities.'

'We must end all U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's genocidal war in Yemen now,' he added last week.

America first: Trump defiantly said he would not blame Mohammed bin Salman for Jamal Khashoggi's murder because he did not want to 'break with Saudi Arabia.'

Donald Trump insisted he was right not to condemn Saudi Arabian leaders for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder on Wednesday morning after harsh criticism of his pronouncement the day before that the crown prince may have been in the dark

Trump held the declining price of oil, of which Saudi Arabia is the top exporter, as a reason for maintaining a positive relationship with the kingdom

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he had nothing to do with with the death, but the CIA has confidentially assessed that couldn't plausibly be the case

The president had argued the afternoon prior that Saudi Arabia could jack up the price of oil and drive up consumer costs while defending a much-maligned announcement that he would take no action at this time against the nation for Khashoggi's assassination.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he had nothing to do with with the death, but the CIA has confidentially assessed that couldn't plausibly be the case. It's unlikely that the de facto ruler of the kingdom was unaware of what was happening inside the consulate where Khashoggi was tortured and then murdered.

Speaking before he boarded Marine One for the first leg of a trip to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving, President Trump refused to retreat from a claim he had made in a written statement that there was no certainty bin Salman ordered the brutal killing of the dissident Washington Post columnist.

He claimed that Russia and China would sweep in and take Saudi investments for themselves if America introduced tough new sanctions on the oil-rich nation.

The president also denied he had any personal business interest in the Saudi economy, claiming that being president had cost him 'a fortune like you have never seen.'

Trump spoke after the White House issued an exclamation point-littered statement on Khashoggi's killing that went against a reported CIA assessment that it was high probable bin Salman ordered the journalist's murder.

His position entirely ignored the CIA's findings and prompted an immediate backlash from prominent senators.

'I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,' Sen. Bob Corker tweeted.

On the White House's South Lawn Trump explained: 'It is all about America first - it is America first.

'We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars of orders and let Russia, China, everybody else have them,' he said.

Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday evening tweeting 'America First'

That's all folks: Trump spoke before he got on Marine One to begin his journey to Mar-a-Lago

Trump suggested that among the deals which would be at stake were investment in military equipment made by Saudi Arabia, which he claimed was part of a $400 billion investment by Saudi in the U.S.

'They're paying us 400 billion plus,' he claimed. 'That's probably the biggest amount ever paid to the United States. This is over a long period of time.'

In the past, the president has claimed a $110 billion investment from the Saudis in defense equipment that would disappear if the U.S. sanctioned the nation's military sector.

'If you think I'm going to let Russia have that money or those things, if you think I'm going to let China make the military equipment  hey, China and Russia would love to make a hundred billion dollars worth of military equipment from Saudi Arabia. We have the contracts. They wanted those contracts,' he said on Tuesday.

'That would be a big fat beautiful gift to Russia and China. They are not going to get that gift.'

He also said that he believed Saudis would send up global oil prices, which he took personal credit for keeping low.

'Saudi Arabia, if we break with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof,' he said. 'I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down.'

If he were to act against the kingdom, Trump suggested there would be a global economic meltdown.

'Right now we have oil prices in great shape. I'm not going to destroy the world economy, and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.'

He added, 'I think the statement was pretty obvious what I said. It's about America First.'

Trump also denied that he had any personal financial interest in Saudi Arabia, saying: 'Well I have nothing to do with Saudi  just so you understand.

'I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less,' he insisted. 'As most of you know, being president has cost me a fortune, and that's okay with me. I knew that a long time ago.'

He said the presidency has cost him more than he's profited, although he refused to say how much.

'Being president has cost me a fortune. A tremendous fortune like you've never seen before. But some day I'll tell you what that is.'

His claims came in response to the critical reception that a lengthy written statement defending Saudi Arabia had received.

Before he pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, Trump indicated that he wasn't convinced by the CIA's version of the events leading to Khashoggi's death.

'Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!' the president said.

The CIA has determined that Mohammed bin Salman not only knew about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, but that he ordered it. But Trump, in a lengthy statement just before he pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, said he wasn't convinced

Trump's intervention serves to prop up MBS, who is a close ally of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, at a time when the top of the wider Saudi royal family is no longer united in backing him.

One of his uncles is being suggested as the next king by other family members, leaving MBS more politically exposed than he had been before the furor over the murder.

The president's was warned by two Republican senators who he sees as key allies, Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, that he was wrong not to sanction Saudi Arabia and MBS, even though he left the option open to Congess.

Graham said it is not in U.S. national security interests to 'look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder' of Khashoggi.

The South Carolina senator said he thinks there will be strong bipartisan support in Congress for serious sanctions against Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family.

Paul also said it was a 'mistake' for Trump to continue supporting arms sales to the Saudis, saying 'it's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia.'

The Kentucky senator has been trying to convince Trump to halt the $100 billion in arms sales that Trump says Saudi Arabia already committed to. Paul said Trump's position signals that Saudi Arabia can 'just behead anybody that protests against the kingdom.'

He also said selling arms is not a 'jobs program,' and the U.S. should not reward Saudi Arabia's 'bad behavior.' He claimed he has the votes in the Senate to block it.

Trump's stunning statement came hours before the president was due to depart the White House for a family holiday at Mar-a-Lago.

And it was just days after the president admitted he had not listened to an audio tape provided by the Turkish government of Khashoggi's murder, because it was too gruesome.

'It was very violent, very vicious and terrible,' Trump told told Fox News on Friday.

Turmp said then that he didn't know if MBS was lying to him when he told him that he had no knowledge of the murder.

In the interview for Fox News Sunday the president replied: 'Well, will anybody really know? All right, will anybody really know? But he did have certainly people that were reasonably close to him and close to him that were probably involved.

'You saw we put on very heavy sanctions, massive sanctions on a large group of people from Saudi Arabia. But at the same time we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good,' he explained.

The president on Tuesday said that he was still open to sanctions that could be imposed by Congress in the lame duck session but would only support them if they were in the United States' national security interests.

He insisted, 'The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone.'

Yet, the U.S. president said he would take no further action because the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia is too valuable.

'That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,' he again asserted.

His statement, sent early Tuesday afternoon, claimed, 'They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.'

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif fired back on Twitter.

'Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we're also responsible for the California fires, because we didn't help rake the forests - just like the Finns do?'

The comment was a jab at Trump's claim in an interview that wildfires could be prevented by better raking of weeds and underneath trees.

MBS pal Jared Kushner is pictured with his family at the president's turkey pardoning minutes after the statement went out on Tuesday

TRUMP'S EXCLAMATION POINT LITTERED STATEMENT ON WHY HE WON'T BLAME SAUDI ARABIA FOR MURDER OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq's fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' Iran is considered 'the world's leading sponsor of terror.' On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States! The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body. Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world! I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First! Advertisement

In addition to invoking Iran, Trump had contended the United States has already taken 'strong action' against the alleged perpetrators of the crime that MBS says he wasn't aware of.

'After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body,' he said.

Members of Congress, including expected House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, were incredulous at Trump's statement on Tuesday.

'It is true that our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not just its Crown Prince, and that must factor into our response. But to suggest 'maybe he did and maybe he didn't' or that we are incapable of finding out the truth, or that knowing the truth our silence can be bought with arms sales, undermines respect for the Office of the Presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and America's standing as a champion of human rights,' Schiff responded.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another California Democrat, said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, 'I'm shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.'

'I plan to vote against any future arms sales and appropriation to Saudi Arabia. I also believe that the United States should consider sanctions against the crown prince and that the Saudi ambassador to the United States should not be allowed to continue in that role,' she insisted.

Trump in a rebuttal to the complaints had said in his comments that he understands if Congress wants to pursue a different course of action than he did.

'I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction - and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America,' he argued.

He specifically noted that Saudi Arabia is a large producer of oil.

'They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world,' he said. 'As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!'

JAMAL KHASHOGGI'S PUBLISHER VENTS FURY AT TRUMP'S 'BETRAYAL' OF VALUES Washington Post Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan said: President Trump's response to the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a betrayal of long-established American values of respect for human rights and the expectation of trust and honesty in our strategic relationships. He is placing personal relationships and commercial interests above American interests in his desire to continue to do business as usual with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The Central Intelligence Agency has thoroughly investigated the murder of this innocent journalist and concluded with high confidence that it was directed by the Crown Prince. If there is reason to doubt the findings of the CIA, President Trump should immediately make that evidence public. President Trump is correct in saying the world is a very dangerous place. His surrender to this state-oriented murder will only make it more so. An innocent man, brutally slain, deserves better, as does the cause of truth and justice and human rights. In this failure of leadership from President Trump, it now falls to Congress to stand up for America's true values and lasting interests. Advertisement

At the White House on Monday, the president's counselor, Kellyanne Conway had insisted that sanctions were not permanently off the table after launching a passionate defense of the president's actions so far.

She said that Trump would make a decision after reading an intelligence community report.

Vice President Mike Pence had told reporters while he was in Australia that the U.S would hold 'all of those who are responsible' for the murder accountable.

'The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was an atrocity. It was also an affront to a free and independent press and the United States is determined to hold all of those accountable who are responsible for that murder,' Pence told reporters traveling with him on Saturday.

Trump then released a puzzling statement defending the Saudis and the crown prince.

'King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi,' he again pointed out.

It was more love than MBS was getting from inside the royal family.

Sources close to the royal court told Reuters that princes and cousins from inside the Al Saud family are asking for a change in the line of succession. They acknowledged that the 82-year-old king is unlikely to ditch his son, however.

A Washington Post report over the weekend said the U.S. had high confidence in a CIA assessment that MBS would have been knowledgeable about events happening in the kingdom he effectively rules.

The CIA's confidence level was lifted, CNN reported, after receiving an audio tape provided to the U.S. by the Turkish government earlier this month.

Khashoggi can be heard ordering his killers to release him in the audio recording of his murder, before one of the killers shouts: 'Traitor! You will be brought to account,' according to Turkish media.

The audio allegedly also includes a conversation between members of the 'hit squad' during which one of them complains about having to wear Khashoggi's clothing to act as a decoy after his murder.

Shortly after entering the consulate in Istanbul, according to Haberturk, the journalist can also be heard saying, 'Release my arm! What do you think you are doing?'

The exchange is followed by 'a verbal quarrel, noises of a physical fight and then beating and torture', the newspaper reported.

More than an hour after Khashoggi enters the consulate, a male voice can allegedly be heard saying 'it is spooky to wear the clothes of a man whom we killed 20 minutes ago.'

The 59-year-old Washington Post journalist was last seen entering the building on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee.

According to Turkish officials, the audio recording proves that Khashoggi was strangled to death and dismembered soon after entering the consulate.

At the State Department, the nation's chief diplomat, Mike Pompeo, echoed the president at a press briefing, telling reporters, 'As the president said today, the United States will continue to have a relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.'

'This is a long, historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to Americans' national security,' he said.

In Saudi Arabia, the Khashoggi murder has opened an opportunity to seize power from the Crown Prince.

Members of the House of Saud are seeking to find an alternative successor to the throne and prevent MBS from becoming king, sources close to the royal court said.

Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 76, younger full brother of King Salman and uncle to the crown prince is the preferred candidate for the throne, according to sources within the Suadi court

A preferred candidate is Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 76, younger full brother of King Salman and uncle to the crown prince.

King Salman's only surviving brother flirted with power in London in October as he appeared to distance himself from the king and crown prince over the Khashoggi murder.

Prince Ahmed was one of only three people on the Allegiance Council, made up of the ruling family's senior members, who opposed MBS becoming crown prince in 2017, two Saudi sources said at the time.

Unlike European monarchies the House of Saud is made up of hundreds of princes, with the power of succession drawn across tribal lines, rather than automatically going to the eldest son.

Each branch of the dynasty is consulted before a new king succeeds.

King Salman, 82, made a speech in Riyadh on Monday where he backed his son and made no direct reference to Khashoggi's murder, except to praise the Saudi prosecutor
An Arctic blast moving in on the Northeast has millions bracing for the coldest Thanksgiving in a century with possible snow and icy winds set to cause travel chaos for the 54 million Americans trying to get home.

New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. are bracing for a bitterly cold Thanksgiving with temperatures falling 15 to 30 degrees below average - likely making it the coldest morning in almost 100 years.

Subzero wind chills are also expected to blast the area.

Snow has also been forecast across some parts of Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine on Wednesday ahead of Thanksgiving.

The National Weather Service is warning that a 'dangerous' snow squall around Buffalo, New York could have a 'life-threatening' impact on those trying to travel on Wednesday.

An Arctic blast moving in on the Northeast has millions bracing for the coldest Thanksgiving in a century with possible snow and icy winds set to cause travel chaos. Pictured above is a car forced off the road in Eerie, Pennsylvania on Wednesday

Snow has also been forecast across some parts of the Northeast, including Eerie, Pennsylvania where a car had to be towed from the highway due to icy conditions

Snow was falling in Rochester, New York on Wednesday as parts of the Northeast brace for their coldest Thanksgiving in more than a century. Photo courtesy of WHEC

People wait in line to board an Amtrak train at Pennsylvania Station in New York on Wednesday as possible snow and icy winds predicted to cause travel chaos for the 54 million Americans trying to get home

Those trying to travel home ahead of the holiday are also facing difficulties in New England with the remnants of a recent snowstorm leaving messy road conditions across much of the region.

The additional forecast snow for Wednesday followed by blustery winds is expected to make it even more difficult for those drivers.

Flight delays were already piling up on Wednesday morning across the country with more than 1,700 delays and 78 cancellations.

By the end of Tuesday, 180 flights were cancelled and 3,500 flights delayed, according to tracking service FlightAware.

Meanwhile heavy rain is expected to slow traffic on Wednesday in much of California, Oregon and Washington.

The US Department of Transportation was urging travelers to check conditions and road closures before they set off on their journey.

Traffic in Los Angeles on Tuesday night was already heavily congested on highway leading out of the city.

Flight delays were also already piling up on Wednesday morning across the country with more than 690 delays and 66 cancellations

An Arctic blast moving in on the Northeast has millions bracing for the coldest Thanksgiving in two decades with possible snow and icy winds set to cause travel chaos

Snow is not expected to continue across the Northeast on Thanksgiving and Black Friday due to dry air conditions.

Temperatures in New York on Thanksgiving will drop to the teens and wind gusts could reach 35 mph. The winds could potentially ground some balloons from the Thanksgiving Day parade.

Boston temperatures on Thursday will also not hit a high of 20 degrees.

Temperatures haven't been this low on Thanksgiving in New York and Boston since 1901.

In the central region of the US the greatest likelihood of rain is predicted near the Texas Gulf coast, with dry weather predicted in the north-central states.

Floridians have been warned that showers may hit Wednesday or Thursday.

Travelers wait in line to go through a security checkpoint at Orlando International Airport on Wednesday

Flight delays were already piling up on Wednesday morning across the country. Pictured above is the crowd at New York's JFK airport

Long queues were forming at O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday in Chicago ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday

Roads were congested in Chicago on Tuesday as millions hit the road before Thanksgiving

Traffic in Los Angeles on Tuesday night was already heavily congested on highway leading out of the city. The US Department of Transportation was urging travelers to check conditions and road closures before they set off on their journey

In the Midwest, wintry-cold temperatures flowing across the Great Lakes are expected to generate snow for some of the areas off Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario through Wednesday.

Light snowfall is in the forecast for Northeast Ohio; Erie, and western Upstate New York into late Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Meanwhile, rain falling on Wednesday in some areas of Northern California is expected to help aid crews fighting a deadly wildfire but also raises the risk of flash floods, which could complicate efforts to recover the remains of those killed.

Heavier rain was expected later in the day in the Paradise burn area, where a monstrous wildfire has killed at least 81 people and destroyed more than 13,000 homes.
Former crime boss Terry Adams (pictured in 2014) has been ordered to tell a court how much money he makes

Former gangster Terry Adams has been ordered to come to court and tell a judge how much money he makes following a 15-year legal battle.

The one-time head of the notorious Adams family crime gang was jailed for seven years in 2007 for money-laundering after a 10m police surveillance operation.

He was described at his trial 'as one of the country's most feared and revered organised criminals'.

Adams, 63, finally paid back more than 720,000 of his criminal earnings last year to avoid being sent back to jail.

But authorities now want 46,258 in costs from his original trial at the Old Bailey.

Adams was excused from attending court today as his lawyer Stephen Gilchrist told Westminster Magistrates' Court proceedings should be thrown out.

Mr Gilchrist said: 'It started with an investigation in 1997. Mr Adams was charged in April 2003. That is 15 and a half years ago.

'He was sentenced, and this order made in 2007. So he has been the subject of litigation under this matter for 15 years. My application to this court is to remit the costs. '

But District Judge Gary Lucie ordered that Adams attend Hendon Magistrates' for a hearing to determine his income and wealth.

Adams has been fighting a long-running legal battle with authorities over paying court costs

Judge Lucie added: 'He will need to provide bank statements and come to court.

'They will access his financial situation, if this court accepts that he is broke, that will lead to this court exercising its discretion, though of course I cannot speak for another judge.

'The defendant [is] to serve a full services of means including full documentation by 10 December.'

His brother Patrick Adams was jailed in 2016 for shooting a man he thought was a 'grass'

Adams, from Finchley, north London, helped run the 'Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate' with brothers Patsy and Tommy.

Patsy Adams was jailed for nine years in 2016 for attacking Paul Tiernan, whom he had accused of being a 'grass'.

Tommy Adams was jailed for seven years in 2017 for money laundering.

Earlier this year Michael 'Micky' Adams, 52, was jailed for 38 months for cheating his way out of about 300,000 in tax.

The organisation, known as the Adams Family, A-team or the 'Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate', became one of the most powerful crime gangs in London.
One person has died after three cars caught on fire in a crash on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City today.

Five other people suffered minor injuries in the crash on Wednesday morning just after 7am. The FDNY said that the fire had been extinguished about an hour later.

Up to six cars were involved in the crash, but only three caught on fire.

Police say all traffic lanes have been closed in both directions.

One person died after three cars caught on fire in a crash on the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday

The fire prompted a massive emergency response and shut down all bridge traffic

The crash occurred on the Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge shortly after 7am

Video courtesy of Pix11

The closure was not expected to affect the trial of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman.

Guzman is reportedly being held in Brooklyn during the week for the duration of the trial, and only transported back to the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan during the weekend.

His transport back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge has caused massive security lockdowns in the lead up to the trial.

The crash occurred on the Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge shortly after 7am Wednesday.

All traffic on the bridge was shut down as firefighters battled the blaze

The FDNY said that the fire had been extinguished about an hour later

A six car accident on the Brooklyn Bridge left one person dead during the morning commute

The bridge connects Manhattan and Brooklyn and spans the East River.

Bright orange-red flames engulfed the vehicles and black smoke billowed high into the air.

Photos of the crash show that it involved two pickup trucks and one sedan or small SUV.
The Marion County Sheriff's Office was called to the scene of Highway 315 and Highway 40, where they found 23-year-old Kayla Morgan

Florida law enforcement released a video showing a woman dropping her infant son on his head while she ran into traffic on Monday.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office was called to the scene of Highway 315 and Highway 40, where they found 23-year-old Kayla Morgan.

Shocking footage was captured on a deputy's body cam.

As deputies approached the woman, Morgan was said to have run out into the street and purposefully dropped her baby on his head, according to WFLA.

The baby suffered a fractured skull as a result of the incident.

Witnesses at the scene said that the woman appeared to be on drugs because she kept barking at people, WFTV reports.

An arrest report says that the Leesburg woman held her baby 'as if she (were carrying a jacket draped over her right arm, allowing the victim to flail.'

Morgan was shocked with a Taser twice and arrested. She was said to have made a variety of disturbing grunts and sounds.

As deputies approached the woman, Morgan was said to have ran out into the street and purposefully dropped her baby on his head

When asked for her name, the woman was said to have told authorities that it was 'B***h.'

Morgan told authorities that she believed that a monster was trying to suck her blood, according to a deputy's report.

She also admitted to being on Molly for the past three days.

The baby suffered a fractured skull as a result of the incident

Morgan was charged with aggravated child abuse and resisting an officer without violence

According to a worker at the apartment complex where the woman lives, Morgan moved into the complex two months ago and the child is said to be just six weeks old.

Morgan was charged with aggravated child abuse and resisting an officer without violence.

The Florida Department of Chidlren and Families is investigating the case.
B-list comedian Michelle Wolf fired back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday night after he said he might attend the next White House Correspondents Dinner because historian Ron Chernow will be the headliner after she 'bombed so badly.'

Wolf's withering attacks on Trump and his two most senior female aides rankled the White House and drew so much outrage that the White House Correspondents' Association was forced to distance itself from her afterward.

'So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian,' Trump tweeted Tuesday night. 'Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?'

Ninety minutes later Wolf tweeted a jab at the president: 'I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest.'

Comedian Michelle Wolf slammed President Donald Trump for saying her insult act at the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner was so bad that the organizers were forced to invite a historian to headline their next event

The president said in a tweet that he might come to the 2019 event after skipping the first two of his presidency, saying, 'I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist'

The 'journalist' jab was a reference to Jamal Khashoggi, the occasional Washington Post columnist who was murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, and whose death has been tied to a Saudi crown prince that Trump has refused to abandon

Trump has refused to concede that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (right) ordered the murder of the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (left)

That barb was a reference to a lengthy afternoon statement in which Trump said he would do nothing to interrupt America's trading relationship with Saudi Arabia, even though evidence links the nation's crown prince with a plot to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi, an occasional Washington Post columnist, was killed last month after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

'[I]t could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt!' the president wrote.

Trump said Tuesday that the Saudis' hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment purchases would go to China and Russia if he didn't stand his ground despite evidence of human rights violations.

He said Wednesday morning on Twitter that $54 per barrel oil prices, largely fueled by the Saudis' bending to Trump's wishes, are 'Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World.'

The president's tweet about the correspondents dinner 'doesn't necessarily mean' he will attend in April, a White House official said Wednesday morning.

Wolf mocked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during her April 2018 act, saying she 'burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye'

Wolf roasted counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway by saying her last name was 'perfect' for her job

The White House Correspondents Association announced this week that Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow will speak at its annual dinner on April 27, 2019

Trump has skipped the first two of his presidency, holding competing rallies in Pennsylvania and Michigan on the same nights to overshadow the media attention they would otherwise have received.

But he shouldn't expect an apolitical lecture next year from Chernow, the author whose Alexander Hamilton biography was the inspiration for Lin Manuel-Miranda's hip-hop musical about America's first treasury secretary.

A week before the Republican National Convention in 2016, Chernow made a scolding, videotaped statement pleading for Americans not to elect Trump, and submitted it to a Facebook page created by filmmaker Ken Burns and author David McCullough.

'For the first time in my life I'm actually afraid that we Americans can forget who we are as a people, and succumb to historical amnesia. And make no mistake about it: When the past is scrubbed clean and American history becomes a blank slate, Donald Trump or any other demagogue can come along and write upon it whatever the hell he wants,' he warned.

'And that disturbs me most of all. Please, please, please folks, don't let it happen here.'

Chernow will likely deliver his criticism at a far lower temperature than Wolf, who likened White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to a villain from 'The Handmaid's Tale' while she was seated a few yards away, stone-faced.

'I have to say I'm a little starstruck, I loved you as Aunt Lydia,' Wolf told Sanders during the April 28 event.

'I like Sarah,' she added minutes later, 'I think she's really resourceful. She burns facts and uses the ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies.'

Donald Trump was holding a political rally in Michigan when Wolf's jokes created Washington-wide the discomfort that resulted in a new approach this year

Wolf also jabbed Sanders as a disappointment to white women like her.

'I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders,' she began. 'Is it Sarah Sanders? Is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it Aunt Huckabee Sanders?'

'What's "Uncle Tom," but for white women who disappoint other white women?'

Wolf slammed the White House Correspondents Association on Monday for choosing Chernow instead of another comic in her own mold.

'The @whca are cowards. The media is complicit. And I couldn't be prouder,' she tweeted.

In her routine, Wolf also took a shot at presidential counselor Kelyanne Conway's name  emphasizing the 'con.'

'Man, she has the perfect name for what she does. Conway,' Wolf said. 'It's like if my last name was tells-jokes-frizzy-hair-small-t*ts.'
Boris Johnson is set to go head to head with 'team May' as they both try to woo the DUP at the party's conference this weekend.

The Ex Foreign Secretary is due to give a rabble-rousing speech in which he is expected to launch a vehement defence of the union of the United Kingdom.

He is also expected to lash the PM's Brexit plan and make the case for Britain to sever more ties with the EU when the country quits the bloc next year.

But with her confidence and supply deal with the DUP hanging by a thread, Theresa May is also deploying one of her trusted lieutenant's to try to schmooze the party.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has been given the Friday night slot where he will address the DUP party faithful at their conference in Belfast.

Mr Hammond - whose rather dry demeanour has won him the nickname 'spreadsheet Phil' - is not known for his tub-thumping speeches.

Boris Johnson (pictured left) is set to go head to head with Philip Hammond (pictured right) as they both try to woo the DUP at the party's conference this weekend

But with her confidence and supply deal with the DUP hanging by a thread, Theresa May (pictured in the Commons today) is desperate to try to win back the support of the DUP

But the decision by Number Ten to send him to the conference shows just how desperate they are to regain the support of the party.

The DUP - whose 10 MPs have been propping Mrs May up in No10 - have plunged her Government into crisis after going on strike and withdrawing their support for her.

In the past two days they have refused to back the Government in a series of votes on the Finance Bill - which enacts the Budget - forcing ministers to accepts a series of humiliating amendments form Labour and the SNP.

And they have warned Mrs May they could withdraw their support for her altogether if she refuses to change her Brexit plan.

They are furious at her divorce deal, which includes a stipulation in the backstop which would mean more checks will be carried out on goods in Northern Ireland.

The furious DUP have lashed the plan - saying it breaches their 'blood red line' that Northern Ireland must be treated in the exact same way as the rest of the UK.

The party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds (left with leader Arlene Foster) has lashed the PM's Brexit plan saying it breaches their 'blood red line'

DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly today warned the PM they will not prop her up to 'rip apart the United Kingdom' and warned they could tear up the confidence and supply deal if she does not back down.

Ms Pengelly today told the BBC's Politics Live show that the PM must listen to her.

She said: 'The Prime Minister needs to listen to us, and there are a wide range of options available and we will be examining all of those options including the relationship within the confidence and supply.'

DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds later accused the Prime Minister of 'deleting' previous assurances over the Irish border issue.
Bali Nine's Renae Lawrence has arrived back in Australia after spending 13 years locked-up in an Indonesian prison.

The convicted drug smuggler, 41, was released from Bangli Prison, Bali, on Wednesday evening after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'.

She flew out of Indonesia on a Virgin Australia flight which touched down at Brisbane Airport on Thursday morning.

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, did not answer questions from journalists after exiting the airport's international terminal.

She boarded a bus to the domestic terminal, where she is expected to catch a transfer flight to her hometown Newcastle, New South Wales.

She was arrested at Bali's main airport in April 2005 with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body as part of a failed bid to smuggle a total of eight kilograms of the drug into Australia with a number of other mules - later dubbed the Bali Nine.

Renae Lawrence has spent her first moments of her uncertain future with her mother and step-brother after spending over 13 years locked up in prison

Lawrence touched down at Brisbane Airport about 5am local time on Thursday on a Virgin Australia flight from Bali

The convicted drug smuggler, 41, was released from Bangli Prison, Bali, on Wednesday evening after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'

The taste of freedom could be short lived as NSW Police have two arrest warrants for Lawrence which have been outstanding since 2005.

One warrant alleges she was involved in a high-speed chase in a stolen car with fellow Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman, step-brother Allan Waterman and unknown relative in a quiet room at the international airport.

The former prisoner apologised to Fairfax Media when they asked her to speak on her time in jail - claiming she was not ready to share the story.

'I'm sure, I'm positive,' she said when asked if she was sure she did not want to be interviewed.

Her mother added to this that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'.

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman (right), step-brother Allan Waterman (left) and unknown relative in a quiet room at the international airport

Mrs Waterman (right) told Fairfax Media that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, hopped on a flight to Brisbane from Bali's Ngurah Rai international airport at about 9pm local time (midnight AEST)

The third family member, understood to be a cousin, asked that reporters respect the limited amount of time the group have together before flying into an inevitable media storm.

Ngurah Rai Immigration chief Amran Aris said Lawrence had to be deported the moment she had served her time, due to her drug offences.

She was issued a travel document for her travel back to Australia, not a passport.

'Because of her case, the narcotics, she has been given a life ban,' he told Fairfax Media.

Lawrence was released at about 5pm on Wednesday evening after officials held a press conference at the prison doors.

Maryoto Sumadi, Justice Ministry chief, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'.

Mr Sumadi said Lawrence would be deported and banned from re-entering Indonesia for life.

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005

Lawrence, 41, spent 13 years and seven months behind bars for her involvement in a trafficking syndicate

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'

'We have also conducted a hand over between Bangli and the immigration office in Denpasar,' he said.

'Because she is a foreigner, therefore, the person is deemed to be in Indonesia without permission, therefore she needs to be released from prison and into immigration office custody.'

Justice Department officials conducted a health check and said Lawrence was found to be in good health.

At the conclusion of the conference, guards and media flooded the prison door in anticipation for the release of Lawrence.

Lawrence eventually walked from the doors, covered by a heavily armed mobile brigade police.

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows.

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her.

Just before 5pm local time officials addressed the media about Lawrence but she was no where to be seen

Lawrence appeared after the the conference concluded, flooded by guards and wearing sunglasses

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her

There was speculation Lawrence would speak at the media conference, ahead of her release.

Bangli jail governor Made Suwendra said Lawrence thanked the staff at the prison as she prepared to leave, the Daily Telegraph reported.

'She said thank you as she has already been treated well during her time in prison. And also said sorry for any mistake she's done,' Mr Suwendra said.

Lawrence had an emotional and teary goodbye as she farewelled her inmates.

'All the women prisoners took her out from the women's block and they were hugging and crying,' Mr Suwendra said.

'Some of her friends were also crying.'

She hugged her girlfriend Erna and other female prisoners before heading out to freedom.

Police patrolled Bangli Prison ahead of Lawrence's release on Wednesday afternoon (pictured)

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows

There was originally speculation Lawrence would speak at a media conference

In a tense video, Lawrence met Bali's justice ministry chief, Mr Sumadi, moments before her release.

The 41-year-old appeared shaken and nervous while she conversed with the chief before the pair shook hands.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawerence, and suggested she face the full extent of the law.

'If you commit that kind of offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia,' he told Sky News.

But NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller suggested a deal with Lawrence's lawyers was more likely than a fresh set of handcuffs on the tarmac.

Lawrence was originally sentenced to life in prison but her sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

Lawrence was reportedly prescribed anti-depressants by a local doctor to deal with anxiety before the long-awaited release (pictured in car on the way to the airport)

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawrence (centre), and suggested she face the full extent of the law

She served 13 years and seven months after numerous reductions for good behaviour.

Lawrence was reportedly prescribed anti-depressants by a local doctor to deal with anxiety before the long-awaited release.

Mr Suwendra praised Lawrence for contributing to prison life in Bangli and being a co-operative inmate.

He hoped Lawrence would be helped to integrate back into life in Australia.

'Renae Lawrence is in a healthy condition. She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous,' Mr Suwendra told AFP.

Renae Lawrence (pictured) a week after her arrest in 2005 - she will fly home from Bali on Wednesday night - but has outstanding criminal offences awaiting her arrival in Australia

Renae Lawrence (pictured) days after her arrest in Bali on April 17, 2005 - she was released from jail on Wednesday

Daily Mail Australia understands Lawrence will be given a few days to 'settle in' at her Newcastle home before she responds to the outstanding police charges from over a decade ago.

A court date will likely be set for December in Gosford, on the NSW central coast.

Lawrence is the only Bali Nine member to be released.

Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in 2015 and Tan Duc Thahn Nguyen died of stomach cancer in May earlier this year.

Martin Stephens, 42, Michael Czugaj, 32, Scott Rush, 33, and Si Yi Chen, 33, remain in prison where they are serving life sentences, with little chance of release.
The number of children admitted to hospital with stab wounds has risen by more than 80 per cent in the last three years, shocking statistics reveal.

In the year up to September this year, 813 people aged 18 and under received treatment for knife attacks in England, NHS figures show.

That is a rise of more than 80 per cent on the 451 admitted to hospital in the year up to September 2015.

The statistics come as police forces battle a year of violence around the country, with the number of murders in London soaring past 120 earlier this month.

A knife at the scene of a stabbing in north London earlier this month. Statistics show the number of children admitted to hospital with stab wounds has rocketed in recent years

NHS statistics reveal the number of 16 to 18 year olds treated for stab wounds has rocketted

The number of under-16s treated for stab wounds also increased dramatically, from 95 in 2013 to 163 this year.

The figures show knife assault injuries among all ages have increased from a total of 3,643 in 2015 to 5,053 this year.

Meanwhile, the number of stabbed women has increased dramatically, up from 340 in 2014 to 385 this year.

The figures emerged as the grieving mother of a teenager fatally stabbed on a night out called for police to get greater powers to tackle the epidemic.

Sharon Kendall's 18-year-old son Jason Isaacs died after he was attacked in Northolt, west London, in November last year.

Police at the scene of the latest stabbing in Edmonton, north London over the weekend

The number of under-16s with knife wounds has also risen, to 163 in the last year

In an impassioned statement released by the Metropolitan Police today, Ms Kendall said: 'I am not going to remain silent, nor will we become a statistic.

'There are too many families suffering at the hands of others. The second you decide to carry a knife, there is a very strong possibility that you will ruin a family's life, and your own.

'We need to get knife crime under control. For those who try and tie the hands of the police in making their job more difficult, I ask you to stop and look at all the murdered teenagers' faces.

'If we collectively gave a little more support to the police using stop-and-search and enforcement, things would change.'

The mother of Jason Isaacs, who was stabbed to death in London last year, today called for police to be given more powers to death with the epidemic

Two men have been charged with Mr Isaacs's murder, although detectives believe two more suspects are still at large and a 20,000 reward remains on offer for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Ms Kendall's plea came after a spate of knifings earlier this month.

On Halloween 'adored' father Rocky Djelal, 38, was fatally stabbed in broad daylight in Southwark Park in Rotherhithe.

The following day, 15-year-old Jay Hughes was killed in Bellingham, South-East London.

A single stab wound to the heart was inflicted by a large knife wielded by a hooded figure who looked little older than Jay.

The victim was standing outside a chicken shop. All this was caught on CCTV.

The next day the slaughter continued. Malcolm Mide-Madariola, 17, was fatally knifed outside Clapham South Tube station.

Then a respite  two days before Ayodeji Habeeb Azeez, 22, was stabbed in Samos Road, Anerley, also in South London.

The following day John Ogunjobi, aged 16, was killed in Tulse Hill around midnight.

John's death was another milestone. The 250th stabbing death in Britain in 2018, demonstrating the knife-crime epidemic is not London's alone.
A mother is in a race against time to sell her house so that she can afford medical bills to treat her brain tumour.

Rachel Hayden, 39, was diagnosed with a rare pineal tumour in 2016 and the only surgeon willing to operate is Dr Charlie Teo from Syndey.

The mother-of-five, from Perth, will not know if the tumour is cancerous until the operation takes place and needs to raise $100,000 to cover living costs and medical bills.

The local community has rallied around the Hayden family and as Ms Hayden lay in bed on Wednesday her real estate agent took to the airwaves on her behalf.

Rachel Hayden, 39, (pictured) was diagnosed with a rare pineal tumor that is slowly debilitating her

After hospitals telling the pair there was nothing they could do, Andrew Hayden (pictured right) researched and a found a Sydney doctor that could operate on his wife - only it would cost them over $100,000

Speaking to Radio 6PR's Gareth Parker, Sara Muir, told how more than 25 people had donated their time and expertise to make over the Hayden's home so they can put it on the market.

'We need to get this house sold, and we need to get Rachel and the family to Sydney,' Ms Muir said.

'I was thinking, when Melbourne managed to raise over $140,000 in two days for the Trolley Man, I wanted to put it out there to the people of Perth. Can we not raise the same sort of money to get Rachel across to New South Wales for this operation?'

Ms Hayden's husband Andrew has also taken to social media in a last ditch effort to save his ailing wife.

Mr Hayden, has set up a GoFundMe page to encourage people to donate to their cause.

The couple, who live in Byford, on the southern-edge of Perth, have five children together.

They have already put their house on the market, are selling all their possessions.

They plan to live in a disused bus to help pay for the surgery.

After years of appointments and endless treatments, Mrs Hayden was told by the hospital nothing more could be done even though she still suffered from blackouts, seizures, blurred vision, nerve spasms, slurred speech and severe body pain.

Her memory loss became so bad that she thought her own daughter was an intruder.

'I asked her, who was she and to get out of my house, because I didn't recognise her. It's just heartbreaking' Mrs Hayden told 7 News.

Mrs Hayden (pictured) is the mother of five children

Mr Hayden closed his business to be a full time carer for his wife and the pair began researching on their own.

They found just a handful of doctors in the world that would perform surgery on her usually 'inoperable' tumor.

Rachel was accepted to a consultation by Dr Charlie Teo from Sydney who has since agreed to operate on Mrs Hayden - but has quoted the couple anywhere from $60,000 up to $150,000.

The pineal tumor, (pictured here in scan of Mrs Hayden's brain) located in the centre of the brain, causes Mrs Hayden blackouts, seizures, blurred vision, nerve spasms, slurred speech and severe body pain

The pineal tumor causes severe bruising on her face and body (pictured)

'I'm hoping this finds people well and you can reach deep to help us out! My wifes life and my kids mothers life is riding on the generosity of the Australian people.' Mr Hayden wrote on Facebook.

The pair have raised over $30,000 so far collectively on their pages, with many locals and friends dipping in their pockets to help out.

Once their home is sold, the Hayden's plan to live in a disused 1973 Leyland bus that they plan to turn into a mobile home.

'This bus will be our future home as we will still owe the bank money even after the sale of our home,' Mr Hayden said.

'The plan is to drive it to Sydney and use it for our cheap residence while Rachel has surgery and including post surgery.'

The family hope to travel around Australia in the bus once Ms Hayden has her surgery.

The family's 'dream home' in Byford, Perth (pictured) is now up for sale in hopes it will elevate some of the debt the Hayden's have and help to pay for Mrs Hayden's life saving surgery
The threat of high winds could force police to lower or even remove the famed character balloons from this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The NYPD will deploy seven anemometers measuring wind speed along the parade route in Manhattan on Thursday, and says that the balloons will be lowered in wind gusts of 23mph and grounded at 34mph.

Current forecasts predict wind gusts of up to 30mph, as well as frigid temperatures in the low 20s.

'If we have to call an audible on the day of, and make an adjustment, we'll do so,' Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison said at a Wednesday press conference. 'Thirty-four mile per hour wind gusts is when we say, 'OK, we gotta bring it all the way down to the ground.''

Police are closely monitoring wind speeds to determine whether to ground balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Olaf from Frozen (above last year) is returning this year

New balloon Little Cloud by Friendswithyou is seen in a test flight earlier this month. Every balloon has a matrix that determines how high it can fly in a given wind speed

Another new balloon for 2018, Sunny the Snowpal, is seen during testing. Police supervisors will be monitoring the wind speeds at seven points along the parade route

Other new balloons this year include Fleck, Bjorn, JoJo and Hugg, four elves from the Netflix film The Christmas Chronicles. They are see above during testing

Harrison explained that each balloon has a matrix that determines how high it can fly depending on the wind speed.

A police supervisor assigned to each balloon will determine if it needs to be lowered.

If winds gust high enough, some or all of the balloons might be removed from the route.

The parade, a nationally televised annual tradition, is slated to feature 16 large character balloons this year, winds permitting.

The 2018 parade will also include 26 floats and 8,000 marchers, police said.

The parade has been held annually since 1924, and has featured large balloons since 1931.

Early versions of the character balloons are seen at the 1934 parade. The parade has been held annually since 1924, and has featured large balloons since 1931

Spectators are seen at the 1971 parade, widely considered to be the worst ever after high winds forced organizers to remove all the balloons from the festivities

High winds have forced the balloons to be removed from the route just once, in 1971, when winds gusted up to 45 miles per hour.

History of wind issues in Macy's parade 1956: High winds cause Mighty Mouse balloon to crash and deflate in Columbus Circle 1971: All balloons are removed from the parade due to high winds gusting at 45mph 1993: Sonic the Hedgehog balloon crashes into a lamp post at Columbus Circle in wind gusts, injuring a child and an off-duty police officer 1997: Cat In The Hat balloon goes out of control, hitting a street lamp and putting a woman in a coma. Police also had to ground and deflate several other balloons that went wild 2005: M&M float swings out of control in Times Square, hitting a street light and inflicting minor injuries on two young girls Advertisement

In 1997, high winds forced the character balloons to be carried very close to the ground, limiting the view of spectators.

Even still, disaster struck. The winds pushed the Cat In The Hat balloon into a lamp post at 36th Street.

Falling debris fractured a woman's skull, leaving her in a coma for a month.

Elsewhere on the 1997 parade route, Barney The Purple Dinosaur went rogue, weaving erratically over the crowd and striking a lamp post, ripping a hole in the balloon.

Police rushed in and helped handlers bring the half-inflated and out of control balloon down to the pavement.

As thousands of horrified children looked on, officers wielding box cutters grimly dispatched the Barney balloon.

Rules changes eliminated larger balloons from subsequent parades after the 1997 fiasco.

Injuries also occurred at the parade in 1993 and 2005, both times when balloons struck lamp posts or street lights.

In 1997, handlers struggled with a balloon in high winds while passing through New York's Times Square during the Macy's 71st Thanksgiving Day Parade

High winds in 1997 forced handlers to fly the Barney balloon just a few feet above the ground. But the precautions were not enough to avoid disaster

This year's parade will begin at 9am at Central Park West and 77th Street, and end at noon with the arrival of Santa Clause at the Macy's flagship store on 34th street.

New balloons being introduced this year include Fleck, Bjorn, JoJo and Hugg, four elves from the Netflix film The Christmas Chronicles.

Goku from Dragon Ball will also debut this year.

The parade will be televised nationally on NBC.

Police warn spectators who plan to attend that no large backpacks, lawn chairs, umbrellas, large coolers or alcoholic beverages will be allowed.

Security measures will be extremely tight, and spectators along the parade route will have to pass through checkpoints with metal detector wands.
The PM called Peppa Pig World 'my kind of place' and it has since emerged that his bodyguards queued up for the Johnsons but the PM did pay for his family's 85 ticket after a series of controversial freebie holidays this year. Speaking to MailOnline today, Neville Astley (left), one of the show's creators, said: 'We don't get involved in politics. Peppa is apolitical. The only politics she knows is that within her family, mainly Grandpa Pig and Daddy Pig, over a broken lawnmower or something. I'm quite proud that he called us geniuses though. It means I can go down the pub later and wear a badge that says 'genius' on it.' The Tory leader was photographed with young Wilf at the wheel of a bright blue toy car on Sunday afternoon (right). Boris, his new wife and their son were also pictured having fun on a water ride. But others also there for the day admitted most failed to recognise him. George Bell, who was there with his family, said that in order to keep a low profile at Grampy Rabbit's Sailing Club, the PM's security queued up for them with 'seven jotted around and spaced out' wearing ear pieces before the Johnsons jumped in. Another woman told MailOnline that later a 'rather scruffy' Mr Johnson was seen browsing toys and games in the gift shop.
British tourists visiting the famous Barcelona Sagrada Familia monument were warned by police this morning that their safety could not be guaranteed.

The shock message was printed on leaflets handed out by officers as part of their demand for more police to serve the city and wider region of Catalonia.

The warning had been translated into seven languages including English, French and Italian.

Another leaflet handed out to visitors offered advice about how to avoid becoming victims of crime, urging tourists to be careful with their belongings and use their door key to make sure their accommodation was properly closed when they left.

This leaflet was handed out to tourists by police officers in Barcelona who were protesting against a shortage of officers

The warnings were distributed as part of an ongoing campaign organised by protest group MosS.O.S which is backed by unions serving those working as regional Mossos d'Esquadra police officers.

The Mossos force has around 16,500 officers at present, with another 500 currently going through a police academy - nearly 2,000 short of the figure the unions say are necessary.

Officers wearing reflective yellow jackets and holding up banners started to inform tourists of their fears for their safety just after 10am, handing out around 3,000 leaflets.

Inma Viudes, MosS.O.S spokesman, described the problem of the lack of officers as 'very serious.'

Figures released last month by police showed Barcelona had seen a sharp rise in theft.

Police officers stood outside the famous Barcelona Sagrada Familia monument to pass out the warnings to tourists

The number of petty theft incidents for the first eight months of the year totalled 86,834 - a rise of 19 per cent on the previous year.

On the tube and in shops, they stood at 360 a day.

The number of thefts involving violence or intimidation also went up by 19 per cent in the same period, rising to 4,396 cases in the first eight months of this year from 3,694 cases in the same period last year.

Opposition parties blamed left-wing Barcelona mayor Ada Colau for being soft on crime.

This second leaflet was handed out to visitors offering them advice about how to avoid becoming victims of crime

Tourists have been affected by the rise in crime but locals have also suffered.

A survey from Barcelona City Hall presented last month revealed more than a quarter (25.6 per cent) of Barcelona residents had been the victim of one of more crimes in the past year.

The Antoni Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia temple, a large Roman Catholic church, is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The unfinished church, one of Spain's most famous tourist sites, attracts almost three million visitors per year.
A career criminal squealed for help and begged for someone to call the cops after he was caught stealing from a governor's home in the Dominican Republic.

The unidentified male suspect was cornered by Juan Antigua Javier, an axe-carrying governor in the northern province of Duarte, and his security staff at a gas station.

The thief had broken into the home on several occasions.

According to El Nacional, on Saturday morning, the man once again showed up and entered Governor Antigua Javier's residence in the municipality of San Pedro de Macoris, this time stealing an orchid plant from the property.

Juan Antigua Javier [pictured with axe], governor of the Dominican province of Duarte, thought about hitting a thief [left] who was chased into a gas station on Saturday after stealing an orchid plant

A bodyguard [center] raised his machete and threatened to hit a career criminal in the Dominican Republic, who in the past had stolen several items from a governor's home located in the northern part of the Caribbean island

The thief led the governor and his security detail on a foot chase before he was corralled with nowhere to escape.

A viral video recorded on a cell phone shows Governor Antigua Javier pacing in the background as he clutches a huge axe.

The recording also captures the moment a governor staff member orders the suspect to sit down on the ground before he hits with a machete.

The scared criminal criee for help and refused orders to sit down.

The criminal stood on top of concrete stand next to the fuel dispenser and tried to charge at the guard with the machete.

But he was forced back towards the fuel dispenser before crying, 'call the cops, the son of the general'. while the governor stepped closer to the him, preparing to strike with his axe.

On Wednesday morning, the governor wished he could have hit the thief but recognized he had to respect the criminal's rights, who in the past stole a washing machine and six water pumps from his home in the neighborhood of La Javiela.

The governor of Duarte, a province in the Dominican Republic, says the thief who was caught stealing a plant from his home on Saturday had also stolen six water pumps and a washing machine in the past

A thief [right] tries to break free a from a governor's bodyguard after he was caught stealing from the politician's home recently

A resident approached him recently to complain about the thief's release hours after he had been accused of committing a similar criminal act.

'I can't buy a chair, because he takes it. I can't put a piece of furniture in the yard because he takes it it,' Antigua Javier said according to El Nacional.

'He has me as a slave and I can't continue working for that man.'
Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani says Special Counsel Robert Mueller's written questions to Donald Trump included nothing about obstruction of justice, and didn't touch on his activities since he took office in January 2017.

And that's a good thing, Giuliani told Axios, because Trump would refuse to cooperate if Mueller demanded answers along those lines.

'We answered every question they asked that was legitimately pre-election and focussed on Russia,' Giuliani told Reuters in an interview. 'Nothing post-election. And weve told them were not going to do that.'

Trump sent Mueller answers on Tuesday to his questions about Democrats' white-whale 'collusion' claim  the unproven allegation that aides to his 2016 campaign partnered with Russian agents to tilt the election in his favor.

As he left the White House for his Thanksgiving break Tuesday afternoon, the president said he had handed his lawyers 'the written answers to the witch hunt that's been going on forever. No collusion. No nothing.'

Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, says Donald Trump will resist any attempt by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to subpoena him over questions of whether he obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey last year

President Trump has turned in written ansewrs to Mueller's questions, but Giuliani says they were all focused on matters from before the 2016 election; Giuliani says Mueller has no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian agents to tilt the 2016 election

Trump made no mention of the parallel investigation Mueller has reportedly pursued, one focused on whether Trump obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017.

Mueller's questions, according to Giuliani, showed no indication that he's engaged on that front.

Mueller is thought to be winding down his probe, which has gone farther afield than just focusing on Russia questions

While it's still possible Mueller would send the White House a subpoena for Trump's testimony about his activities in office, Giuliani said, the president would refuse.

'I think that he [Mueller] would not win a legal battle if he did that, and I think it would consume months,' he said.

Giuliani believes an assertion of executive privilege would be enough to parry Mueller's inquiries.

But executive privilege is a muscle usually flexed to fend off demands from Congress or the federal courts. Mueller works for the Department of Justice, an executive branch that Trump technically controls.

Giuliani added, however, that an obstruction-of-justice subpoena from Mueller could only cover information that he has no other way of obtaining.

And just as other witnesses have already spoken with Mueller, Trump himself has put his views on the record 'in interviews [and] tweets,' he added.

'I think their obstruction case, as a legal matter, doesn't exist,' he declared.

And he added that he doesn't believe 'they have any evidence of collusion of any kind.'

President Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House that he had handed his lawyers 'the written answers to the witch hunt that's been going on forever. No collusion. No nothing'

Trump, first lady Melania, and young son Barron (right) arrived in Palm beach, Florida on Tuesday night for the Thanksgiving holiday

Giuliani disclosed that Mueller's questions included some that focused on whether Trump knew ahead of time about a Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. convened with a group that included a Kremlin-tied Russian lawyer.

The president has insisted in the past that he didn't know at the time about the meeting, which was initially expected to be about opposition research related to Hillary Clinton.

Mueller also asked about Russia-inspired hacks that followed a joking barb Trump offered during a July 2016 press conference in Florida, saying: 'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.'

At the time Trump made that remark, the computer server where Clinton's emails resided had been offline for a year, according to the FBI.
A Christian mother is threatening to sue a primary school after it hosted an equality event she claims promoted LGBT lifestyles.

Izoduwa Adhedo says her son was forced to attend the 'Proud to be Me' day at Heavers Farm School in South Norwood, London, which she described as 'against our religious beliefs'.

The school rejected her claim they organised a 'gay pride parade' and said support for the anti-homophobia event vastly outweighed any criticism.

Izoduwa Adhedo says her son was forced to attend the 'Proud to be Me' day at Heavers Farm School in South Norwood, London. Pictured: An undated photo of the school

Mrs Adhedo told The Guardian: 'I wasn't even trying to stop the Pride event. I just wanted my child to receive an education, rather than indoctrination.'

She is due to meet the school's governors today with backing from Christian Concern, which regularly takes up legal cases from people claiming religious discrimination.

The organisation alleges Mrs Adhedo withdrew her son from the school last month after he was put in detention for three hours. The school denied this and said the maximum detention time is one hour.

Its headteacher, Susan Papas said: 'At the end of the year we decided to do something on anti-homophobia as part of Pride month, taking the idea that people and families can be different but everyone can be proud. There were some objections but they were outweighed by support.'

She did not comment directly on Mr Adhedo's complaint over the June event, during which pupils walked with banners about what made them proud to be themselves.

Another parent, Izzy Montague, also raised concerns about the event, and is quoted on the Christian Concern website.

The organisation says Mrs Montague went to the school to discuss the issue with Ms Papas.

It claims she was met by the headteacher's daughter wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan, 'Why be racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic, when you could just be quiet?'

The pressure group's chief executive, Andrea Williams, said this was an example of 'totitolerance' - a mash-up of tolerance and totalitarianism.

Christian Concern is linked to the Christian Legal Centre, which provided representation to the parents of terminally-ill toddler Alfie Evans when doctors ordered him to be taken off life support.
A critically ill baby abandoned by his parents at three days old has been saved by a monk in China.

The boy was born prematurely with a serious defect in the bowel and was deserted in front of a Buddhist temple in rural Hunan Province. The disorder could be deadly if left untreated.

When the child was found, his abdomen was swollen, his skin had turned yellow and he had difficulties breathing, said Abbot Shi Zhenran. The 46-year-old monk rushed the boy to the hospital by overnight train.

The premature baby was found abandoned in front of the Lianhua Monastery in Huaihua, China

The boy was born with intestinal atresia, a defect that causes a blockage in the small intestine

The baby has undergone emergency surgery and is currently under intensive care. Doctors said he would need a second or even third operation in order to be treated.

Abbot Shi is currently looking for a family to adopt the baby and help him continue with the expensive treatment.

The baby was discovered in front of the Lianhua Monastery outside Huaihua city at around 8pm on Sunday. He weighed 2.9 kilograms (6.4 pounds) and was found by Abbot Shi together with a group of monks from the temple.

The baby's face was extremely pale, his lips were blue and he appeared to be dying, the abbot told China Youth Net.

The abbot said he feared the boy's condition could worsen anytime, therefore he decided to take him to the hospital right away.

Accompanied by two volunteers at the temple who happened to be doctors, Abbot Shi boarded an overnight train bound for Changsha, the provincial capital some 400 kilometres (248 miles) away.

Abbot Shi Zhenran (right) took the baby to the hospital accompanied by two temple volunteers

The baby was brought to the People's Hospital of Hunan Province in Changsha at midnight

The baby was brought to the People's Hospital of Hunan Province at midnight. He was found to have several serious disorders, including intestinal atresia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis and multiple organ failure.

His main condition is intestinal atresia, also known as bowel obstruction or small bowel atresia. It is a birth defect that causes a blockage in the small intestine and prevents the babies from being fed. It can be repaired using open surgery.

An emergency operation was immediately arranged for the baby, which lasted into the next morning.

Doctors arranged emergency surgery for the baby which lasted until the next morning

The baby's condition has stablished but he is under intensive care and needs further operation

The abbot said the baby's condition had stablished, but he was still under intensive care.

Dr Zhang Aimin, a paediatrician from the hospital, told Beijing News: 'The child's general condition has improved a lot. But after all, we only gave him emergency treatment, there needs to be a second or third operation.

'Right now, the condition is not very common, it can be under control through treatment, but it will be expensive.'

Abbot Shi said the boy was being looked after by two volunteers working at the temple, and the boy's parents had not shown up.

The abbot also said the boy's medical bills were paid for by the temple at present, and nearly 40 people had contacted him to express their wish of adopting the boy.
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The brother of a New Jersey millionaire who was found murdered along with his family in their burning mansion on Tuesday has been charged with setting a fire at his own house - while his wife and two daughters were inside - hours before the killings.

Paul Caneiro, 51, was charged with aggravated arson for the fire that was reported at his own home in Ocean Township, New Jersey, on Tuesday at 5am.

Prosecutors say he doused part of his home with gasoline from cans then set it on fire.

He has not been charged for the murders of his brother and business partner Keith, 50, or those of Keith's wife Jennifer, 45, and their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, eight.

They were found dead at their home in Colts Neck, 12 miles from Paul's home, after a fire was reported there at 12.38pm.

Keith was shot at least twice in the back and head and his wife and children, eight-year-old Sophia and 11-year-old Jesse, had been stabbed, according to NBC.

Paul was charged with second degree aggravated arson which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.

He has not been granted bail and is awaiting his first court appearance which will take place on Wednesday.

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Victims: Paul's brother Keith was found dead inside his home with his wife Jennifer and their two children, Jesse and Sophia, on Tuesday, 12 miles away at their home in Colts Neck. Keith, 50, had also been shot. Jennifer, Jesse and Sophia were all stabbed

All of the bodies were badly burned and prosecutors say they were the victims of 'homicidal violence'.

Keith was found outside the home and Jennifer and the two children were found inside the house.

There are no other suspects and prosecutors say the family was 'targeted'. The investigation is ongoing but it has been slowed down by the fire.

It took fire fighters several hours to put out the blaze at the family's house. It is still unsafe and investigators have not yet been able to survey it yet in full.

Once they do, they expect further developments. There are no other suspects.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said: 'We can't charge people unless we have evidence. We can't even send largely our investigators in there.'

It remains unclear if the family was murdered before the fire was reported at Paul's house or afterwards. The fire at Paul's $670,000, four-bedroom home was reported at 5.01am.

Hes a big fish in a little pond. His brother can afford a Colts Neck place on a piece of land. [Paul]s a big shot in an upper-middle class neighborhood

It is unknown who called 911, but he and his wife Susan escaped unharmed along with their two adult daughters.

Afterwards, he sat in his car with his wife and two daughters.

Neighbors told DailyMail.com on Wednesday they were shocked that he had been arrested and described him as a houseproud homeowner.

Keith used to visit him often, they said, but had not been to his home for a while.

One man, who did not wish to be named, said he believed it was unlikely that Paul would set his own house on fire because he had worked so hard on it.

He also said the family seemed genuinely devastated by the fire and were 'grieving' over the house but that Paul made a remark about being blamed for it which surprised him.

'He said, They make it seem like its your fault. I was like, huh? Why the hell would you say that? If Id been him, Id be thinking, my house is burned, how do I fix it?

Thats what I would have been thinking - not that they made me feel like I did it.

'And even if they did make me feel that way, Id still be thinking of the financial impact that it would have me.

PAUL'S HOUSE: The fire at Paul's home (shown) was reported at 5am in Ocean Township, NJ. Only part of the house was damaged and no one was hurt

KEITH'S MANSION: Keith and his family were found dead inside their $1.5million home in Colts Neck (above) as it burned. Keith had been shot and his wife and children had been stabbed

The two houses are 12 miles apart. There were just over seven hours between the two fires

'The daughters, the wife, they were all grieving, the way you would grieve over a child, because they were so proud of that house.

'We went over to see what happened. He was sitting in his car with his wife and girls. The first thing he said to us was, Im in shock. He was visibly shaken. If it was fake, youd have to be a pretty damned good actor. It was shaking, nervous,' he said.

Neighbors said Paul was 'enamored' with money

'His house is loaded with surveillance cameras. He also has infrared on both floors, scanning the whole house. Hes nuts with technology, everything over the top.

'He told me he spent $140,000 building his deck. Its stainless steel screws, its so over-the-top for this neighborhood.

'Thats why I keep saying theres no way he lit fire to his own house. Hes so passionate about it. Its his baby. So to torch it? If it turns out that thats the truth, Ill be totally surprised,' the man added.

He also remarked on how he was ambitious but did not have the same level of success as his younger brother.

Hes a guy who was enamored with financial success. He liked the good stuff.

'Hes got his girls Porches for their first cars.

'That doesnt fit the profile of a person who lives in this neighborhood.

'I mean the Porsche dealer comes and brings cars by, and tries to sell him cars at his house. Ive seen it happen. He likes to be the big shot. Hes a big fish in a little pond.

'His brother can afford a Colts Neck place on a piece of land. [Paul]s a big shot in an upper-middle class neighborhood,' he said.

Less than an hour later, at 12.38pm, the fire at his brother's home was reported 12 miles away.

Prosecutors say Paul (right after a car accident which gave him a limp) set fire to his home using gasoline while his wife Susan, (center left) and daughters Marissa, 23, (second from right) and Katelyn, 26, (left) were inside the home

Neighbors told DailyMail.com Paul was house proud and had boasted about spending $140,000 on his deck. They said he was a 'big fish in a small pond' who lavished his daughters with Porsches but who never lived up to his younger brother's financial success. Paul is pictured with his oldest daughter

It remains unclear what motivated the killings. After the fire at his house, Paul and his wife Susan stood outside for around seven hours, according to his neighbors.

'He said it must have been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated,' one neighbor, who did not want to be named, told NJ.com.

'He said, "I'm in complete shock, I can't believe this is happening to me."

'They were here until about noon. '

The couple has two adult daughters. It is not clear if they were in the home at the time.

After the fire at Keith's house was reported, emergency crews and news cameras flocked to the scene.

Videos showed smoke pouring out of the home as the fire teams worked to get the blaze under control.

The burned out mansion in Colts Neck is still not fully accessible to law enforcement because of the damage caused by the blaze. There is no indication yet how it was started

The mansion in Colts Neck was torched by the fire. There were dozens of police there on Wednesday. The area is affluent and considered a safe haven for wealthy families

Jennifer and Keith paid off their mortgage two years ago. Their home is in an exclusive neighborhood and sits on nine acres of land

Firefighters carry a stretcher to the scene of a fatal fire at the mansion on Tuesday afternoon

Neighbors said Jennifer Caneiro, 45, was 'so nice' and 'beautiful'. She and her husband paid off their mortgage two years ago

A sheet, seemingly covering Keith's body, could be seen in the middle of the yard next to the housewith police tape cordoning off the area.

The official cause of death is yet to be released but a law enforcement source yesterday said that he had suffered a gunshot wound which did not appear to be self-inflicted.

The brothers were partners in a tech consulting firm where Keith was the CEO and founder and Paul was the vice president.

They both grew up in Brooklyn with a younger brother, Corey, who does not appear to be involved in the fires or murders.

Both Paul and Keith married women from Staten Island.

At Paul's wedding in 1991, Keith acted as the best man.

After the fire at his house (pictured), Paul stood in the street with 'tears in his eyes' and told neighbors a gas leak had caused it. He left the area at noon, 40 minutes before the fire was reported at his brother's home 12 miles away

There was some damage to the house's attic but it was nowhere near as burned as his brother's home

A police officer is shown outside the home of Paul and Susan Caneiro on Wednesday after he was taken into custody on arson charges

Forensics teams were seen entering Paul Caneiro's home on Wednesday afternoon as he remained in custody

They were also partners in a pest control company they operated from the same office.

Colts Neck, where Keith lived, is a well-to-do community about 50 miles south of New York City and is home to horse farms.

One woman, who owns a horse farm near Keith's home, told The Asbury Park Press that Jennifer often brought the children by to feed the horses.

She said she was 'so nice' and 'beautiful'.

Typical homes in Colts Neck are valued at about $750,000.

According to records obtained by NJ.com, Jennifer and Keith paid off their $1.8million mortgage two years ago.
Darcie Wagner who made sexual misconduct claims against her boss was convicted of stealing $27,000 from his company

An Illinois woman who made sexual misconduct claims against her ex-boss has been convicted of stealing more than $27,000 from his company.

Darcie Wagner, 57, was found guilty of theft on Monday after prosecutors said she used three credits cards belonging to Walter Alarm Services.

Authorities said Wagner was an administrative assistant for the Crystal Lake company between 2014 and 2017 when she used the cards for personal use, totaling $27,753.

Wagner had been making purchases at Sally Beauty Supply, Ross, and liquor stores.

In October, Wagner testified that she didn't believe she did anything wrong because she thought she was allowed to use the cards, according to Chicago Tribune.

She also claimed that the company never told her to stop using the cards.

But prosecutors found evidence, including an apology letter Wagner wrote to her boss shortly after resigning, that contradicted her claims.

According to the North West Herald, Wagner gave her boss a letter in which she apologized for being a 'bad person' and promised to use her future paychecks to pay back a $600 loan he had given her in cash.

Her boss told her any debts were forgiven upon her resignation, but he was reportedly unaware of how much she had actually spent.

Wagner's attorney, Robert Deters, said her employer never questioned the charges.

Wagner, 57, was found guilty of theft on Monday after prosecutors said she used three credits cards belonging to Walter Alarm Service (pictured). Wagner worked for the company for three years and racked up $27,753 on three of the company's credit cards

Wagner had been making purchases at Sally Beauty Supply (file image), Ross, and liquor stores

Deters claims that his Wagner's boss pressed charges against her because he was afraid a sexual misconduct claim that Wagner filed against him would come to light.

In October, Wagner claimed that she quit her job because her boss 'was getting more friendly grabbing me and putting me on his lap, kissing me,' according to the Tribune.

But her former employer denied those claims during her trial.

However, he did admit to allowing Wagner to use the cards for small personal purchases such as cigarettes.

Wagner will be sentenced in January.
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A Northern California Walmart has ordered more than 100 wildfire evacuees who are camped out in its parking lot to leave amid fears heavy rain will cause rivers of mud and debris.

The survivors of the deadliest wildfire in the state's history were initially asked to leave the parking lot of the Walmart in Chico, California, by 1pm on Sunday.

But the evacuees of the tent city dubbed, Wallywood, have refused to move. It's unclear if a new deadline has been set for the evacuees, but donation bins and portable bathrooms that were set up for the residents will soon start to disappear.

'I just want to be safe and happy and in a home,' said DeAnn Miller, 57, one of the residents of Wallywood.

Evacuee, Carol Whiteburn, said that she doesn't know 'what we are going to do'.

'What do you tell people who are sleeping in a parking lot and still have to wait 5-7 days to even get an answer from FEMA?' Whiteburn said.

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A Northern California Walmart has ordered more than 100 wildfire evacuees (pictured) who are camped out in its parking lot to leave amid fears heavy rain will cause rivers of mud and debris

The survivors of the deadliest wildfire in the state's history were initially asked to leave the the parking lot of a Walmart in Chico, California, by 1pm on Sunday. But the more than 100 evacuees of the tent city have refused to move

Walmart spokeswoman Delia Garcia said Walmart is 'concerned about the health, safety and well-being of the individuals remaining on our property'

The company said they have also been working with other organizations to help create temporary housing options. Walmart has also donated more than $500,000 to relief organizations

An estimated 50,000 people have been evacuated from Paradise - with 1,000 of those currently living in six shelters

Walmart spokeswoman Delia Garcia told The Sacramento Bee that Walmart is 'concerned about the health, safety and well-being of the individuals remaining on our property'.

The company said they have also been working with other organizations to help create temporary housing options. Walmart has also donated more than $500,000 to relief organizations.

And to add insult to injury, heavy rains are expected to begin on Wednesday.

Garcia said the forecast has heightened their existing concerns and 'increased the urgency to find a more sustainable solution'.

'We are asking the remaining individuals to evacuate the property and transition to more appropriate shelter,' she added.

As much as nearly eight inches of rain is forecast to fall by Friday in areas around the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people 175 miles northeast of San Francisco that was largely incinerated by the Camp Fire.

The blaze killed at least 84 people and left hundreds missing.

The storm will help firefighters still battling the fire but create more suffering for many residents left homeless by the disaster.

Some of the homeless, whose numbers have not been determined, are camping out in parking lots rather than staying in emergency shelters.

Officials in Butte County are struggling to come up with housing solutions for the hundreds of Paradise residents made homeless by the devastating wildfires.

Some of the homeless, whose numbers have not been determined, are camping out in parking lots rather than staying in emergency shelters

Officials in Butte County are struggling to come up with housing solutions for the hundreds of Paradise residents made homeless by the devastating wildfires

Jackie Wineland, 74, is one of the thousands of Camp Fire victims now homeless. She is seen using her oxygen tank at Walmart

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has opened a disaster recovery center, but no arrangements for temporary housing have been made

An estimated 50,000 people have been evacuated from Paradise - with 1,000 of those currently living in six shelters.

In three facilities, Novovirus has broken out, requiring officials to erect special isolation tents in hopes of containing the virus.

Even before the wildfires, Butte County was facing a severe housing shortage. Now it must rely on state and federal authorities to help with solutions in relocating those displaced by the fire.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has opened a disaster recovery center, but no arrangements for temporary housing have been made.

It is expected to take days to process requests for emergency housing.

Kelly Boyer, who lost his home in Paradise, has been sharing a tent with a friend at an encampment outside the Walmart, where overnight low temperatures have fallen to just above freezing.

Boyer has received wooden pallets and plastic tarps donated by local residents to keep his tent off the ground and dry, but he said the rain would still make a mess.

'It's going to be mud city,' he said on Wednesday.

And to add insult to injury, heavy rains (pictured on this map) are expected to begin on Wednesday. As much as nearly eight inches of rain is forecast to fall by Friday in areas around the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people 175 miles northeast of San Francisco that was largely incinerated by the Camp Fire

Forecasters said the rains, which in some areas are likely to be accompanied by winds of up to 45mph, might also cause rivers of mud and debris to slide down flame-scorched slopes stripped of vegetation

A weather front bringing rain moves in behind Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco on Wednesday

Forecasters said the rains, which in some areas are likely to be accompanied by winds of up to 45 miles per hour, might also cause rivers of mud and debris to slide down flame-scorched slopes stripped of vegetation.

The Camp Fire has burned across 153,000 acres of the Sierra foothills since it erupted on November 8.

Mass evacuations have removed most people from harm's way of any debris flow, according to National Weather Service (NWS) hydrologist Cindy Matthews.

She also said the volcanic soil and relatively shallow slopes in the fire zone mean the ground is unlikely to become saturated enough for hillsides to give way to landslides.

Authorities in Southern California, however, warned residents in areas burned by wildfires in the foothills and mountains northwest of Los Angeles of mud-flow hazards from rain this week.

One of those blazes, the Woolsey Fire, killed three people.

Evacuees also face increasingly chilly weather.

Authorities in Butte County have been gradually allowing residents evacuated during the fire back to see what is left of their homes.

Lisa Knight has been allowed to return to her home in Butte Creek Canyon, east of Chico, but found only ash and rubble in its place.

'I had acceptance when I left that day and I knew that I might not ever see my house again,' Knight told KRCR TV. 'I mourn for everybody. It's not just one personal loss, it's the loss of my neighbors and my community.'

The remains of more victims were found in Paradise on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 84. The Butte County Sheriff's Office has tentatively identified 56 of the victims

The Camp Fire has burned across 153,000 acres of the Sierra foothills since it erupted on November 8. Pictured is a neighborhood in Paradise that was completely leveled by the wildfire

The remains of more victims were found in Paradise on Tuesday, raising the death toll to 84. The Butte County Sheriff's Office has tentatively identified 56 of the victims.

A missing-persons list compiled by the sheriff's office grew again to 899 names Tuesday night after detectives got through a backlog of voicemail messages, the office said.

The number has fluctuated widely over the past week, from some 1,200 people over the weekend to fewer than 700 on Monday, as more individuals were reported missing and some initially unaccounted for either turning up alive or being confirmed dead.

The number of residents needing temporary shelter was unclear, but as many as 52,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the firestorm last week.

The Camp Fire incinerated some 12,600 homes in and around Paradise, mostly during the first night of the blaze.

Gale-force winds drove flames through the town with little warning, forcing residents to flee for their lives.

Buffer lines have been carved around 80 per cent of the fire's perimeter and full containment is expected by the end of the month.

Smoke from the fires has drifted across the country to the East Coast, where it left a brownish-orange haze that was credited for unusually vibrant sunsets on Monday.

The cause of the Camp and Woolsey fires is under investigation, but electric utilities reported equipment problems around the time both blazes broke out.
A rare white lion who faced being auctioned off and shot by hunters may have been saved by a mystery donor.

Mufasa, three, was confiscated by police in South Africa as a cub and handed to a wildlife rehabilitation centre to be cared for along with another young lion called Soraya.

The rare big cat is infertile and so faced being put up for auction with activists and staff at the sanctuary fearing that he would be bought by hunters.

However, a lawyer for the sanctuary has revealed that he is now in negotiations to buy Mufasa, together with Soraya, on behalf of a mystery donor who wants to move them both to a safe haven.

Mufasa, three, was handed to a wildlife rehabilitation centre to be cared for along with another young lion called Soraya (pictured together)

Mufasa was taken to the Rustenburg Wildlife Rehabilitation Center as a cub after being taken from his owner who kept him as a pet without a permit.

He is set to be auctioned off, a practice that is common with confiscated animals.

However, there are fears that he will be bought by a hunting group who will force him to take part in a 'canned hunt'.

There were fears that Mufasa could be bought and killed by hunters but it now appears that a mystery donor will buy the lion, together with his companion

A canned hunt sees an animal trapped in a confined space and then shot by hunters.

Carel Zietsman, the lawyer for Mufasa's sanctuary, told ABC News on Tuesday that he is in negotiations to buy the lion and Soraya too.

He added that the two lions have emotionally bonded and that Soraya wasn't eating before she met Mufasa. Staff fear that separating the lions could lead Soraya to starving herself.

There were fears that Mufasa would be bought by a hunting group who will force him to take part in a 'canned hunt' - where he will be shot

He said: 'I cannot give you too much detail at this stage as the negotiations are in a sensitive stage but we're hopeful that we'll be able to buy Mufasa and Soraya and relocate them somewhere safe.

'[Soraya's] extremely close to Mufasa and we worry that, should the pair be separated from each other, she would stop eating again and starve. Our concern is for both of these lions and we're doing everything in our power to keep them together.'

Activists want the three-year-old lion to be moved to a sanctuary and more than 230,000 have signed a petition amid a huge worldwide campaign to save him.

Mufasa and Soraya have emotionally bonded according to the sancutary's lawyer. He says that Soraya could starve herself if Mufasa is taken away

But because the animal is infertile, he would be of no interest to a breeder and campaigners fear the only value he would have is to be bought by a hunting company. South African authorities are said to have agreed to put the animal up for auction.

There are understood to be fewer than 300 white lions in the world - and only 13 left in the wild, according to a letter accompanying the petition.

'Nature conservation officials refused permission for Mufasa to be relocated to a sanctuary, who offered to care for both Mufasa and Suraya for their natural lives, free of charge,' said the letter to South Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs.

A desperate appeal has been launched to save a white lion called Mufasa (pictured) which is set to be auctioned off to be shot by trophy hunters

The rare big cat, named Mufasa (pictured), was confiscated by police in South Africa as a cub and handed to a wildlife rehabilitation centre to be cared for along with another young lion called Soraya

'Instead, the rehab centre was told telephonically that Mufasa will be auctioned to raise funds for the department.

'We ask you to sign our petition, asking for both Mufasa and Suraya to be donated to a sanctuary chosen by the people who took care of them for the past three years, to prevent them from being exploited.'

The letter continues: 'Mufasa has had a vasectomy and is no longer able to breed and is therefore of no interest to a breeder. The only commercial value he has, is to be hunted in a put and chase hunt, otherwise known as a canned hunt.'

According to the Mirror, the Wild for Life sanctuary has cared for Mufasa for the last three years and has already raised more than 6,000 for a court battle to block the auction.

Among those taking up Mufasa's cause is comedian Ricky Gervais, who retweeted a comment about the lion

It wrote: 'In the last few weeks we have seen and read extensively about what happens to lions in the industry.

'Mufasa has had a vasectomy and cannot be bred with. This means there is only one of two options left.

'The number of lion hunters are down and lions have been killed in high numbers for their bones to be exported to the East.'

Among those taking up Mufasa's cause is comedian Ricky Gervais, who retweeted a comment about the lion.

He wrote: 'Shame on the pathetic sadist who pays the money to shoot this animal, and shame on the snivelling coward who accepts the money too. Both worthless.'
An 18-year-old German man lost his driver's licence less than one hour after passing his test.

The teenager was caught driving 60mph on a 30mph road in the town of Hemer in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

The unnamed 18-year-old has been banned from any form of driving for a month, and will have to pay a 200 fine before re-training for another driver's licence test.

The 18-year-old was caught driving 60mph on a 30mph road in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, less than one hour after he got his licence

Local police were monitoring the road with a laser speed gun and found that the teenager hit 95km/h (60mph) - nearly twice the 50km/h (30mhp) limit - driving through Hemer.

Upon stopping the car, they were informed that the driver has passed his test just 49 minutes earlier.

The teenager had four friends with him in the car, and local media speculated that he may have been showing off to them.

He will now have to undergo 'expensive retraining' before he is allowed to take his test once more, Der Westen reports.

If he passes his test, his new licence will already have two points on it, and his probationary period has been doubled, from two years to four.

'Some things last forever - others not for an hour,' the local police force wrote on their Facebook page after the teenager was caught.
A retired Swedish racing car driver is being taken to court by his estranged wife after she was left with 'almost nothing' of the 11.4million family fortune.

Former IndyCar champion, Kenny Brack, 52, got his bride-to-be to sign a pre-nup when they were 'lying in bed, relaxing' on a romantic weekend to Niagara Falls ahead of their marriage in December 2000.

Anita Brack, 51, claimed she was made to sign two more pre-nups in different countries as her husband's career took the pair around the world.

Kenny Brack (pictured leaving London's Appeal Court today) wants his estranged wife's (right) bid for half the fortune dismissed

She was left with just 500,000 while the 52-year-old businessman took more than 10million in the Family Division of the London court.

She is now demanding that half the family money should be heard after the couple divorced after two children and 15 years of marriage.

A divorce judge has rejected her claim for an equal share of the money due to her signing the agreement in full knowledge of what they meant.

The verdict came after Mr Brack told the judge he was 'not bothered' about marrying her and would have refused to had she not signed the pre-nups.

She is challenging the ruling which saw her left with 'almost nothing'.

London's Appeal Court heard the Swedish couple married in December 29, 2000, after Mr Brack made her sign pre-nups in Canada, Sweden and the USA. They had been living together for six years prior to the marriage.

Mr Brack was an Indycar star in America at the time and had featured in the Hollywood film 'Driven', alongside Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds.

A serious crash during a race in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2003 nearly killed him but he since resumed to driving. He had been a chief test driver for McClaren since May this year.

This is the 3million former matrimonial home of the estranged husband and wife in Berkshire

The pair raised their children at a 3million, five-bedroom property with a swimming pool in Cookham, Berkshire.

Mr and Mrs Brack both filed for divorce - the husband in Sweden and wife in the UK - in February 2015 and separated a month later.

A hearing about splitting the family money came before Mr Justice Francis in the Family Court in December 2016.

He said: 'I do not believe it to be fair, after a marriage of this length and with these contributions and these children, for the wife to be left with almost nothing and for the husband to be left with almost everything.

'The overwhelming majority of the assets were generated during the marriage,' he added.

But he went on to rule that the pre-nups must bite on the wife, as she knew what she was signing.

'I have found that the wife did understand that she was signing a pre-nuptial agreement that would govern the financial consequences of the marriage if it ended,' he said.

'The court should accord respect to the decision of a married couple as to the manner in which their financial affairs should be regulated,' he added.

He pointed to a diary entry made by the wife after signing the first pre-nup on the romantic break in Niagara whilst they were engaged.

It read: 'Vacation. Cosied up in the morning. Went to Niagara Falls. Back to the hotel and had a massage and pedicure! Went for a walk and ate at a worthless Italian restaurant. Was at hotel and watched a video. Signed the marriage papers.'

'These did not appear to be the musings of a person who was shocked by the request that she sign a pre-nuptial agreement after so many years together,' the judge commented.

He went on to say: 'I found the husband to be rather cold and matter of fact...I find his current approach towards the wife and the knock-on effect it would have on the children to be both mean-spirited and mean.'

'I find the husband to be financially mean...I accept as probably correct that he told the wife he would not marry her if she did not sign a pre-nuptial agreement.

'I find that the husband was far less bothered about the prospect of marrying than the wife. He was happy to carry on being unmarried.

'I reject the wife's assertion that the husband was guilty of serious misrepresentation in relation to the pre-nuptial agreements.

'It is important to bear in mind, at least in relation to the American agreement, the wife had independent legal advice and elected to ignore that advice.

'I cannot accept that the wife, on three separate occasions, signed a pre-nuptial agreement imagining it to be irrelevant,' the judge concluded.

The 3million family home was sold on order of the judge, with Mrs Brack getting half of the 2million equity as it was in both their names.

Yet after she had to pay back debts, including money owed to her husband, she was left with 560,000 compared to more than 10million of her husband.

Anita Brack (pictured) was awarded just 500,000 of the 11million but says that agreements she reached with her husband were unfair

He also ordered the husband to provide a 2m housing fund for his ex and the children on top of that, to be repaid to him when the kids grow up.

He was also told to pay 95,000-a-year for child maintenance and a carers allowance to his wife for looking after them.

Patrick Chamberlayne QC, for the wife, today challenged the judge's ruling, claiming he 'made crucial errors of law' when he rejected an equal division of the family wealth.

'He misunderstood the law relating to pre-nuptial agreements and as a result misdirected himself to the effect that, despite having found the pre-nuptial agreements to be unfair, he was precluded form making an award on a sharing basis, whether 50/50 or at all,' the barrister said.

Mr Chamberlayne also said the judge 'misread' clauses relating to an agreement that a needs-based award for maintenance must be dealt with in Sweden.

And he told Lords Justice Lewison, King and Peter Jackson that new email evidence has emerged since the Family Court hearing which proves that Mrs Brack didn't understand what she was signing.

'The emails make clear that the wife was telling the truth at trial when she said that, at the time she signed the agreements, the husband had told her that they would not govern the actual financial provision he would make for her.

'At trial, the husband had denied giving any such promise to the wife. The judge accepted his evidence. Had he seen the emails he would not have done so,' the barrister argued.

Martin Pointer QC, for Mr Brack, argued that Mr Justice Francis's ruling was correct. The Appeal Court hearing continues.
An American heir of renowned Dutch Jewish art dealers who sold paintings to Nazi officials during World War II has filed a federal lawsuit against the Dutch government, seeking to reclaim more than 140 masterpieces worth tens of millions of dollars by arguing that their sales were forced.

Attorneys representing Bruce Berg, the grandson of the late art dealer Benjamin Katz, of the long-defunct Dieren gallery Firma D. Katz, on Monday filed a civil complaint in South Carolina demanding a jury trial.

In the 59-page lawsuit, Berg's lawyers with Berg & Androphy and E. Paul Gibson P.C law firms argue that the government of the Netherlands must return the 143 paintings, including Old Masters works by the school of Rembrandt and Jan Steen, to the descendants of Benjamin Katz and his brother and business partner Nathan Katz, because they were sold to Nazi agents under duress, and often below market value.

Nathan Katz (left) and Benjamin Katz (right) ran a renowned art gallery in Holland, the Firm D Katz, during the Nazi occupation and sold art to Adolf Hitler's representatives

The gallery was founded in Dieren, the Netherlands, in 1887. It dissolved as a business in 1943

The firm specialized in Dutch 'Old Masters,' which were particularity attractive to Nazi leaders and Adolf Hitler himself

'The Katz brothers feared deportation to concentration camps, reprisal, or wholesale seizure of their trading stock if they did not acquiesce and sell the Artworks,' the complaint alleges.

According to the lawsuit, the well-respected gallery owners used some of the money from these sales to help their relatives escape to safety from occupied Netherlands.

In one instance, 'The Portrait of a Man' by Dirck Jansz Pesser was outright swapped for exit visas that allowed 25 Katz family members flee the country.

Bruce Berg, the grandson of Benjamin and Marianne Katz (pictured in 1946), has filed a lawsuit in the US against the Dutch government seeking to reclaim 143 artworks that had been sold to the Nazis by his grandfather and grand-uncle

After the war, the family were able to buy Pesser's work back from the Dutch government in exchange for $1.5million in today's dollars.

The lawsuit accuses the Dutch Restitution Committee of wrongly concluding that sales by Jewish art dealers like the Katz brothers during the Nazi occupation were no different than all other sales, whose sole objective was to sell art for profit.

The Committee ignored the weight of history and evidence of duress endured by the Katz brothers, the complaint reads.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, which is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, on Wednesday declined to comment, telling DailyMail.com in an email that it has not been officially notified of the complaint.

The paintings in question, which the suit claims are currently in wrongful possession by the Dutch government and several public and private museums, were all sold or traded to representatives of the Nazi regime between mid-1940 and 1942.

The paintings were destined for Adolf Hitlers future "Fuhrermuseum" in Linz, Austria, or for the massive art collection of Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, said attorney Joel Androphy.

The Katz family are seeking the return of the painting by Nicolaes Maes, The Eavesdropper (left), painted in 1657 and now held at the Dordrechts Museum in the Netherlands, and the Portrait of a man, possibly Jan de Stomme, dated 1636 (right)

The Katz heir also seek the return of this artwork by Michiel Pompe van Slingelandt (left) found in the collection of Dordrechts Museum. The Man in the High Cap by Ferdinand Bol (right) was returned to the family in 2013

Goering himself once visited the Katzs art gallery, which was founded in Dieren in 1887, accompanied by armed guards, to inspect and pick out the paintings he wanted for his massive collection while carrying with a handgun.

The Katz brothers learned of the persecution of Jews in Germany and countries occupied by the Third Reich through their art dealer contacts in other countries, the lawsuit asserts.

'The Portrait of a Man' by Dirck Jansz Pesser was swapped for exit visas that allowed 25 Katz family members flee the country

Once the Netherlands was invaded and occupied in May 1940, Benjamin and Nathan Katz came to realize that if they did not comply with the wishes of Nazi agents, they could be stripped of their possessions and sent to concentration camps, Berg's lawyers claim.

As art dealers to the Nazi regime, the Katz brothers were exempt from certain restrictions that applied to all Jewish citizens and Jewish businesses.

Unlike other Dutch Jews, the Katzs were not required to wear the yellow star and their were allowed to drive for business purposes, even out of the country.

On one occasion in 1941, Nathan Katz was permitted to travel to Switzerland to buy an art collection there, after Nazi officials concluded that there was no risk that he would defect because his family and property were still in the Netherlands under German control, as the New York Times reported.

According to the lawsuit, in the Netherlands, unlike in other occupied countries, the Nazis deceptively cloaked the forced sales in the appearance of legality, rather than resorting to boldfaced looting.

The Dutch government and museum defendants have known for decades that the paintings claimed do not belong to them, Androphy stated.

Yet, the Dutch Restitution Committee largely denied two restitution claims filed by a group of Firma D. Katz heirs, which sought the currently claimed paintings as well as other artworks. The Restitution Committees denial relied on arbitrary considerations with no basis in law and ignored evidence of Firma D. Katzs ownership of the paintings at issue.

High-ranking Nazi official Hermann Goering (pictured above with Hitler in 1937) once visited the Katzs art gallery to pick out the paintings he wanted while carrying with a handgun

Nathan Katz was allowed to relocate his family to Switzerland in 1940 on the condition that he continues buying up art for the Nazis.

His brother Benjamin and most of his family fled the Netherlands for Spain in 1942, and later boarded a ship bound for Jamaica, where they lived in a refugee camp.

Benjamin's daughter, Vogue Katz Berg - Bruce Berg's mother - ultimately immigrated to the United States.

Several Katz relatives remained in the Netherlands and by the end of 1943 were rounded up and taken to Westerbork concentration camp.

Nathan was able to negotiate the release of his mother in 1944 by offering a Rembrandt painting to the Nazis, which was gifted to Hitler as a birthday present.

However, the rest of the Katz family members who remained at Westebork were later shipped off to the notorious Bergen-Belzen concentration camp, and 60 of them perished, including Benjamin and Nathan's sister Sibilla.

After the war, Benjamin returned to the Netherlands, where he was investigated by the Dutch government as a Nazi collaborators, but never prosecuted. He passed away in 1962.

His brother remained in Switzerland, where he opened an art gallery of his own. He died in the city of Yverdon in 1949.

Benjamin Katz made two restitution claims in the late 1940s and 1950s. Of the all the paintings sold by the Katzs to Nazi art procurers, only one was ultimately returned to the family.

This is a photo of the ship that the Katz family took to Jamaica to escape the occupation

Berg's mother, Vogue Katz Berg, is pictured cradling his brother, Murray, and posing with his sister, Alma

The entire cache of artworks from the Katz gallery were seized by the US military and given back to the Netherlands after World War II for the purpose of restitution to their original owners, according to the lawsuit.

Firma D. Katz was liquidated and dissolved in 1943, two years before the end of the war.

The US expected the Netherlands to implement just and fair restitution procedures and return the paintings to their original owners. The Netherlands restitution process, however, has a troubled history to say the least, said plaintiffs attorney Rebecca Gibson.

The Netherlands original procedure demanded payment to the Dutch government for all paintings sold to Nazis  even though the forced sales were illegal and the Dutch received no prior compensation.
This is the horrific moment at least 55 people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a meeting of Muslim scholars marking the Prophet's birthday.

A member of the audience had been recording the meeting on his phone and caught the explosion on camera at the gathering of hundreds of Muslims at a wedding hall in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Around 94 people were injured in the attack, with more than 20 injured critically. The death toll is expected to rise.

You can see the terrifying moment scholars are thrown to the ground in the footage, with the man recording sent sprawling.

He can then be seen climbing to his feet unsteadily and joining a crowd of people running to the exit in panic.

The suicide bomber is believed to have easily sneaked into the hall, as the event's organisers hadn't requested security from the police.

Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, said: 'The victims of the attack unfortunately are all religious scholars who gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.'

Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh said 55 people were killed and 94 others were wounded in the attack.

Most wedding halls in Afghanistan have their own private security guards.

A person attending the event was recording the religious scholars just moments before the bomb blast

The footage captured the moment the suicide bomber detonated their explosives, killing at least 55 people

Mohammad Muzamil, a waiter at the event, said he had gone into the back of the hall to fetch water for the guests when he heard the explosion.

'Everything was covered with smoke and dust,' he said. 'There were dead bodies all around on the chairs, in large numbers.'

Ahmad Fareed survived the blast but was caught up in the carnage.

Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries: 'It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh.

'My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving.'

Photos showed the aftermath of the attack and the destruction it caused to the wedding hall that hosted the meeting

Police sealed off roads leading to the scene of the explosion as ambulances raced to the scene.

Hundreds of anxious relatives gathered at local hospitals, looking at lists of those killed and wounded posted outside, for news of their loved ones.

No one immediately claimed credit for the attack, but both the Taliban and affiliates of the so-called Islamic State have targeted religious scholars aligned with the government in the past.

IS claimed a suicide bombing in June that killed at least seven people and wounded another 20 at a meeting of the country's top clerics in the capital.

A waiter at the event said that he heard the explosion and came back to see smoke and dust with dead bodies piled onto chairs

The body of religious leaders, known as the Afghan Ulema Council, had issued a decree against suicide attacks and called for peace talks.

IS said it had targeted 'tyrant clerics' who were siding with the US-backed government. The Taliban denied involvement in the June attack but they also denounced the gathering.

The explosion ripped through a meeting of top clerics during a banquet at a wedding hall in Kabul today in one of the deadliest attacks to strike the Afghan capital in months.

Hardline Sunni Muslims do not observe 'mawlid' - the Prophet Mohammad's birthday - at all, considering it a more modern addition to Islam. When ISIS seized the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014, it banned celebrating the prophet's birth.

The suicide bomber had managed to sneak into the event - which saw hundreds of Muslim scholars celebrating the Prophet's birthday

Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, later suggested that the police should've been contacted to provide security for the event

Today's blast targeted an Ulema Council gathering as millions of Muslims around the world marked mawlid.

It follows a wave of violence across war-torn Afghanistan in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people as militants step up attacks.

A photo posted on WhatsApp purportedly of the function room showed blood splattered bodies, some with the clothes partially ripped off by the force of the blast, overturned chairs and broken glass strewn over the floor.

'The suicide bomber detonated himself inside the hall during a ceremony involving religious scholars,' Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid said, confirming the casualty toll.

At least 50 people have been killed and 80 more injured in a suicide bomb attack on a gathering to mark the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Afghanistan. A victim is pictured arriving at hospital after the blast

No one immediately claimed the attack, but both the Taliban and a local ISIS affiliate have targeted religious scholars aligned with the government in the past

Security forces inspect the site of a suicide attack, inside a wedding hall in Kabul, Afghanistan

Italian NGO Emergency said on Twitter a dozen wounded had been taken to its trauma facility in Kabul, all of them 'seriously wounded'.

A manager of Uranus Wedding Palace, which also hosts political and religious functions, told AFP the suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of the gathering of around 1,000 people.

'There are a lot of casualties - I myself have counted 30 casualties,' he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but the ISIS group has claimed most recent suicide attacks in Kabul, which has become the most dangerous place in the country for civilians.

It was the bloodiest assault in the Afghan capital since a twin bomb attack on a wrestling club in September that killed at least 26 people and one of the deadliest in the country this year.

This was the horrific scene in the aftermath of the suicide bomb attack at the Kabul wedding hall today

The explosion ripped through a meeting of top clerics in Kabul today in one of the deadliest attacks to strike the Afghan capital in months

Afghan men carry a bomb blast victim to a hospital after the suicide attack in Kabul

A suicide attack on Afghans protesting the appointment of a local police chief in the eastern province of Nangarhar in September killed at least 68 people and wounded another 165. No group claimed the explosion.

In January an ambulance packed with explosives detonated in a crowded street in the heart of Kabul, killing more than 100 people, mostly civilians. The attack was claimed by the Taliban.

Last month's parliamentary elections sparked a wave of deadly violence across the country, with hundreds killed or wounded in poll-related attacks.

The attacker entered a banquet room in the Uranus wedding hall, a massive complex housing several large banqueting halls near Kabul airport, and detonated his explosives

Officials at Kabul's Emergency Hospital said 30 ambulances had rushed to the blast site and over 40 people were critically wounded

The latest attack comes as the Taliban intensifies pressure on Afghan security forces, even as the international community ramps up efforts to convince the group to engage in peace talks

It is not the first time that religious scholars have been targeted by militants in the Islamic country.

In June a suicide bomber struck near a gathering of clerics in Kabul, about an hour after the group had proclaimed such attacks a sin.

The latest attack comes as the Taliban intensifies pressure on Afghan security forces, even as the international community ramps up efforts to convince the group to engage in peace talks.

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad expressed hopes in Kabul on Sunday that a peace deal to end the 17-year war could be struck before the Afghan presidential election, scheduled for April.

His comments underscore an apparent increasing sense of urgency in the White House and among American diplomats for a peace deal to be done quickly.
A bipartisan group of senators has written to President Donald Trump, asking him to investigate whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The letter from Republican Sen. Bob Corker and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sets up a showdown between the White House and Capitol Hill.

It comes in the wake of Trump's statement Tuesday insisting there is no certainty bin Salman ordered the killing of the dissident journalist followed by his tweet thanking the Saudi for low oil prices.

In their letter to the White House Tuesday evening, Corker and Menendez claim the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act allows them to force the president to make a formal determination if they ask for one.

'On October 10, we sent a letter requesting that you make a determination on the imposition of sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act with 'respect to any foreign person responsible' for Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi's murder,' they wrote.

President Donald Trump's equivocation on a Saudi prince's responsibility for the murder of a journalist has brought a chorus of anger from senators on both sides of the political aisle

Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey (left) and Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee (right) wrote to the White House demanding a formal declaration from the White House that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the death of Jamal Khashoggi, and said a federal law entitles them to an answer

Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is thought to have ordered Khashoggi's killing at a Saudi embassy in istanbul last month

'In light of recent developments, including the Saudi government's acknowledgement that Saudi officials killed Mr. Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, we request that your determination specifically address whether Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for Mr. Khashoggi's murder.

'We expect to receive your determination within 120 days of our original request.'

Corker, never a Trump fan, tweeted his disgust on Tuesday: 'I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.'

Other Republicans have slammed the president for his statement, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally from South Carolina.

'It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal #Khashoggi,' Graham tweeted.

Graham also warned he expects bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for sanctions on Saudi Arabia.

'I firmly believe there will be strong bipartisan support for serious sanctions against Saudi Arabia, including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms,' he said.

In a scathing criticism of the president, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Democrat, Hawaii) called Trump 'Saudi Arabia's bitch' after his statement this week to stand by the country's rulers despite the murder of Khashoggi.

A chorus of GOP senators berated the president on Twitter.

Khashoggi was slaughtered at the Istanbul consulate; he was an occasional Washington Post columnist and a frequent critic of the Saudi regime

'Our foreign policy must be about promoting our national interests. It is in our natl interest to defend human rights. HR violations lead to mass migration, help extremism flourish & often result in new governments hostile towards the U.S. because we supported their oppressors,' wrote Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed Trump's statement and blamed the president's national security advisor for writing it.

'I'm pretty sure this statement is Saudi Arabia First, not America First. I'm also pretty sure John Bolton wrote it,' Paul wrote on Twitter.

'We should, at the very least, NOT reward Saudi Arabia with our sophisticated armaments that they in turn use to bomb civilians.'

Repubican Sens. Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham also blasted the president's statement

FIRE FROM SENS. GRAHAM AND PAUL

Paul and Graham are longtime critics of Saudi Arabia, and have criticized MBS  the crown prince is known by his initials  in the past. They have also pushed for U.S. sanctions and a reduction in arms sales.

Graham said a week after Khashoggi was murdered that the crown prince had to go.

'I've been their biggest defender on floor of the United States. This guy is a wrecking ball. He had this guy murdered in consulate in Turkey,' he told Fox News in October. 'This guy has got to go.'

Paul has also called for MBS's removal.

'I feel certain the crown prince was involved and he directed this and that's why I think we cannot continue to have relations with him. I think is going to have to be replaced, frankly. But I think that sanctions don't go far enough. I think we need to look at the arm sale,' he told Fox News in late October.

Paul has been one of the most critical voices on Saudi Arabia in the Senate.

Bin Salman was appointed crown prince in 2017 by a royal decree from King Salman, an aging ruler who is thought to be a figurehead.

Trump was also slammed by Turkey, a longtime U.S. ally in the region.

'SAUDI ARABIA FIRST'

Sen. Rand Paul referenced the Saudis' war in Yemen

Turkish intelligence officials were the ones who revealed Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Instanbul on October 2 after he went there to complete paperwork to marry his Turkish finance.

The ruling party there said Trump's statement was 'comic.'

'It is not possible for an intelligence agency such as the CIA, which even knows the color of the fur on the cat walking around the Saudi consulate's garden  to not know who gave this order,' said Numan Kurtulmus, deputy chairman of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's political party, according to Reuters. 'This is not credible either for US public opinion or the world public opinion.'

'COMIC STATEMENT'

'Yesterday's statement is a comic statement,' he added.

President Trump on Tuesday said that he was still open to sanctions that could be imposed by Congress in the lame duck session but would only support them if they were in the United States' national security interests.

He insisted, 'The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone.'

Yet, the U.S. president said he would take no further action because the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia is too valuable.

'That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,' he again asserted.

'Barbaric act'

Sen. Marco Rubio also weighed in

His statement, sent early Tuesday afternoon, claimed, 'They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.'

It went against a reported CIA assessment that it was high probable bin Salman ordered the journalist's murder.

And it also serves to prop up MBS, who is a close ally of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, at a time when the top of the wider Saudi royal family is no longer united in backing him.

One of his uncles is being suggested as the next king by other family members, leaving MBS more politically exposed than he had been before the furor over the murder.

Trump's stunning statement came hours before the president was due to depart the White House for a family holiday at Mar-a-Lago.

And it was just days after the president admitted he had not listened to an audio tape provided by the Turkish government of Khashoggi's murder, because it was too gruesome.

'VERY VIOLENT, VERY VICIOUS'

'It was very violent, very vicious and terrible,' Trump told told Fox News on Friday.

Turmp said then that he didn't know if MBS was lying to him when he told him that he had no knowledge of the murder.

In the interview for Fox News Sunday the president replied: 'Well, will anybody really know? All right, will anybody really know? But he did have certainly people that were reasonably close to him and close to him that were probably involved.'

Vice President Mike Pence had told reporters while he was in Australia that the U.S would hold 'all of those who are responsible' for the murder accountable.

'The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was an atrocity. It was also an affront to a free and independent press and the United States is determined to hold all of those accountable who are responsible for that murder,' Pence told reporters traveling with him on Saturday.

Trump then released a puzzling statement defending the Saudis and the crown prince.

'King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi,' he again pointed out.

It was more love than MBS was getting from inside the royal family.

BATTLE FOR SUCCESSION

Sources close to the royal court told Reuters that princes and cousins from inside the Al Saud family are asking for a change in the line of succession. They acknowledged that the 82-year-old king is unlikely to ditch his son, however.

A Washington Post report over the weekend said the U.S. had high confidence in a CIA assessment that MBS would have been knowledgeable about events happening in the kingdom he effectively rules.

The CIA's confidence level was lifted, CNN reported, after receiving an audio tape provided to the U.S. by the Turkish government earlier this month.

TRUMP'S STUNNING PRO-SAUDI STATEMENT ON TUESDAY America First! 'The world is a very dangerous place! 'The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq's fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' Iran is considered 'the world's leading sponsor of terror.' 'On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. 'After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries - and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States! 'The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body. 'Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't! 'That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world! 'I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction - and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!' Advertisement

Khashoggi can be heard ordering his killers to release him in the audio recording of his murder, before one of the killers shouts: 'Traitor! You will be brought to account,' according to Turkish media.

In Saudi Arabia, the Khashoggi murder has opened an opportunity to seize power from the Crown Prince.

Members of the House of Saud are seeking to find an alternative successor to the throne and prevent MBS from becoming king, sources close to the royal court said.

A preferred candidate is Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 76, younger full brother of King Salman and uncle to the crown prince.

King Salman's only surviving brother flirted with power in London in October as he appeared to distance himself from the king and crown prince over the Khashoggi murder.

Prince Ahmed was one of only three people on the Allegiance Council, made up of the ruling family's senior members, who opposed MBS becoming crown prince in 2017, two Saudi sources said at the time.

Unlike European monarchies the House of Saud is made up of hundreds of princes, with the power of succession drawn across tribal lines, rather than automatically going to the eldest son.

Each branch of the dynasty is consulted before a new king succeeds.
A German mother broke down in court today as she faced the teenager who allegedly stabbed her refugee worker son to death.

Jose M., 20, died after a fight in a public park in Ochtrup, north-west Germany, in the early hours of May 21.

Prosecutors claim 18-year-old Afghan Seyed M. stabbed Jose M. to death after the refugee worker asked him to stop harassing a girl who had rejected his advances.

Heartbreaking: Maria M. cried as she faced Seyed M., 18, who is accused of stabbing her 20-year-old son Jose M. to death during a fight in Ochtrup, north-west Germany, in May this year

Accused: Seyed M. allegedly stabbed Jose M. six times with a 5.5inch bread knife after the refugee worker asked him to stop harassing a girl who had rejected him

Yesterday Jose M.'s mother Maria M cried as Seyed M., a trainee metal worker, appeared before the district court in Munster.

'The day was really worse than the funeral of my son. I was so tense, I was shaking all over,' she told Bild.

'He [Seyed M.] also had the nerve to look everyone in the eye - and stay with me. Without emotion, without remorse, without looking down.

The prosecution claims Seyed M., who arrived in Germany in November 2015, had 'fallen in love' with a girl, but that she had rejected him.

Passionate: Jose M. was involved in local politics and worked with helping refugees

Despite this, he allegedly harassed her, wrote to her on social media, stalked her on her way from work, and even visited her workplace.

The unnamed girl then asked Jose M. for help and he arranged to meet with Seyed M. and a few of the latter's friends to speak to him.

A fight ensued, which is when Seyed M. allegedly stabbed Jose M. six times, including in the hear, with a 5.5inch bread knife.

Following the murder of her son, Jose M.'s mother has called for the German government to do more to help integrate the high numbers of refugees the country welcomed during the 2015 European migrant crisis.

In an article for Bild, Maria M. describes her son as a passionate local politician and activist who had dedicated himself to helping everyone, including refugees in Ochtrup, yet he was killed by one of those he was trying to help.

While placing the blame of her son's death with the killer, she also says that people who have fled war and persecution cannot be left to fend for themselves in a new country without support.

'Please do not get me wrong, I am a foreigner myself. I'm from Portugal, and I think refugees must be helped.

'How many of our children are supposed to die before the politicians finally realize that they have to do much more for the integration of the refugees?

'The worst part is: I envy the culprit. He was the last one who saw my son alive, heard his last words, saw his last breath. I would have loved to have been there, grabbing Jose and telling him I love you.'
The devastated family of a father who died as a result of GHB intoxication said they have lost the 'most important man in our lives' as his alleged murderer faced court.

Eric Michels was found dead at his home in Chessington, south-west London, on August 17, after acute intoxication by the Class C substance.

Alleged sex offender Gerald Matovu, 25, is accused of murdering the 52-year-old and appeared before magistrates today.

Mr Michels (pictured, left, with his son Josh, right) was the most 'important person' in their lives, his son Josh wrote on social media

Mr Michels' son, Josh, paid tribute to his father on social media and said he and his two siblings had lost the 'most important man in our lives'.



'I never thought I'd have to write one of these posts at the age of 23 but unfortunately I do and the devastation is unreal,' he wrote.

Gerald Matovu (pictured) has been charged with the murder of Eric Michels

'If there was any advice I had to give to anyone, it would be to treasure every second you have with your loved ones as you may wake up one morning and they won't be around any more.

'We love and miss you so much Dad, I promise I'll look after Sam and Lottie and make you proud.'

Mr Michels, who grew up in the US and moved to London in 1990, was a senior HR director at energy firm SSE.

He lived at the south-west London address for seven years after separating from his wife, neighbours told the Evening Standard.

Neighbour Michael Pike, 70, today told the paper that Mr Michels 'was going for drinks with some friends in town' when he saw him on 'the Thursday before he was found'.

Alleged drug dealer Mr Matovu is also charged with using a needle to sexually assault a male aged 13 or over in east London.

Mr Matovu is also charged with administering GHB without consent to another man on August 19 and stealing his phone.

He appeared in custody at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court via video link wearing a grey, prison-issue tracksuit.

He is further charged with two other drugs offences - possession of 5ml of GHB at an an address in east London on August 20 and possession with intent to supply 500ml of GHB on August 24 at St Mungo's Hostel.

Mr Michels was found dead at his home in Chessington (pictured) and Gerald Matovu from south-east London has been charged with his murder

The defendant is accused of fraud by false representation regarding a third alleged victim and of stealing an iPhone 10 from a fourth alleged victim in Stratford, east London.

Amanda McCabe, prosecuting said: 'Mr Matovu is expected to be at the Old Bailey in respect of these matters within 48 hours.'

Matovu, of Borough, south-east London, was remanded in custody until his next court appearance at the Old Bailey on Friday. He has yet to plea to any of the charges.
A private New Jersey university cited Chick-Fil-A's 'corporate values' when rejecting calls for the chain to be brought to campus after students rated the franchise as their top choice in a spring semester survey.

Rider University - a private and nonsectarian school - told students that the decision to reject the suggestion was to foster 'inclusion for all people,' according to a November 1 email obtained by Campus Reform.

The Lawrenceville university felt that Chick-fil-A's 'corporate values have not sufficiently progressed enough to align with those of Rider,' adding that the decision would 'promote... inclusion for all people.'

Rider University - a private and nonsectarian school - told students that decision to reject the suggestion was to foster 'inclusion for all people'

The Lawrenceville university felt that Chick-fil-A's 'corporate values have not sufficiently progressed enough to align with those of Rider'

And while the chain was the top choice on the survey, there were many students, faculty and staff that opposed the option - regardless of how popular it was.

'It is important to me and to the University that all voices are heard,' Rider Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Jan Friedman-Krupnick told the conservative site.

'It is important to me and to the University that all voices are heard,' Rider Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Jan Friedman-Krupnick said

'There are a number of factors that contribute to a campus' decision to invite a retail partner on campus. While Chick-fil-A is among other restaurants preferenced by Rider students, there are members of the community (faculty, staff, and students) who strongly opposed the option as well.'

'In all of our campus decisions, we carefully weigh benefits, risks and voices representative of all of our campus constituents.'

Julia Pickett, a junior political science major and president of the school's Young Americans for Liberty chapter, understood that the school's decision was their own as a private institution but did not agree.

'I don't think it is fair, however, because Rider is a private college, ultimately the decision is their own,' Pickett asserted.

'If people didn't want to buy their food then they don't have to,' she added. 'I think that the administration of Rider felt that having Chick-Fil-A on campus would cause unwanted controversy and felt that the easiest fix was to find another restaurant. I wish they would be honest about it though instead of trying to cover it as a deep offense to the school.'

The decision from Rider follows a similar sentiment from John Hopkins University where the school's student body government issued preliminary demands stating that they sought 'non-discriminatory alternatives' to be brought to campus instead of the chain.

Schools have blasted Chick-fil-A and its president, Dan Cathy, for an anti-LGBTQIA stance

The school cited comments and actions from President Dan Cathy that were seen anti same-sex marriage and appeared to be discriminatory toward the LGBTQIA community.

Cathy made incendiary comments about same-sex marriage in 2012 during an interview on 'The Ken Coleman Show.'

'I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, "We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage," and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about,' he said.

In 2012, Equality Matters released a report showing that the Atlanta based company donated close to $2million to anti-gay groups throughout 2010.

One of those groups was the Marriage & Family Foundation, which prides itself on defeating 'the elevation of Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity to protected class.'
Kellyanne Conway says her faith has helped her to put aside her grievances with political rivals like Hillary Clinton and be the bigger person.

Winning the 2016 election has also made it easier for her to move on, the senior Trump aide admits.

'I pray for my critics. I think winning also has finished a lot of sentences and solved a lot of problems,' she told ABC News' Paula Faris in a pre-holiday 'Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris' podcast.

Those critics include the former first lady that President Trump crushed in the general election.

'I definitely pray for Hillary Clinton. I pray for anyone who lacks that level of self-awareness,' Conway told Farris.

Kellyanne Conway says her faith has helped her to put aside her grievances with political rivals like Hillary Clinton and be the bigger person. Sho has winning, the counselor to the president said. She's seen here at the White House in the East Room on Friday

Conway has claimed throughout the nearly two years of the Trump administration that she doesn't speak of or even think about her boss' vanquished opponent very often  even as she's had burns at tip of her tongue about the ex-senator's money-making exploits with her former president husband.

The White House official who led Trump to victory told Faris that she keeps Clinton in her prayers, though, and genuinely hopes the politician who could make a comeback bid in 2020 will use her significant influence to make the world a better place.

Clinton came up in the podcast discussion as Conway talked about reconciling the 'enormous strain' of her job with her her 'unflappable' faith in God.

'Thats where my faith has played a big role for me because I need to forgive them almost immediately. I need to be a bigger person. I forgive my critics and I pray for them because something must be deeply bothering them,' she said.

Prompted by Faris to say whether Clinton has a place in Conway's prayers, the counselor to the president said she absolutely prays for the failed presidential candidate.

'And I pray that shell see that she still has a very large platform to do good,' she added.

'I definitely pray for Hillary Clinton. I pray for anyone who lacks that level of self-awareness,' Conway said in a podcast

Clinton came up in the podcast discussion as Conway talked about reconciling the 'enormous strain' of her job with her her 'unflappable' faith in God

Conway also told Faris that opponents of President Trump's policies who claim his actions clash with his professed faith 'should look a little harder' and stop allowing their partisan beliefs to cloud their judgement.

'His Christianity is personal to him and that is his belief system,' she said at first.

Pressed by to go further by Faris, who asked 'isnt Christianity loving God and loving people' and 'allowing people to see that theres something different inside of them,' Conway said that some of Trump's critics just can't get over the 2016 election.

'Well they should look a little harder. They should look at all. I think people are blinded by their own partisanship. Some are blinded by their own lack of faith in our leaders, in our institutions,' she said. 'There are some frankly who still cant get over an election that was two years ago.'
Cigarettes packs sold across the US will be featuring new 'corrective statements' on packaging beginning on Wednesday, in the latest installment of measures required stemming from the 1999 federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco.

The warnings include much more explicit statements than prior warnings, and call out R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Philip Morris USA, Altria, and Lorillard, the leaders in the tobacco industry, for years of deceitful advertising that hooked hundreds of thousands of Americans on their deadly products.

One example reads in part, 'Smoking is highly addictive,' and 'Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction,' with another explaining, 'There is no safe cigarette.'

Mock-ups of the new warnings are shown in a court document obtained by CNN, with every detail accounted for, including the font, type size and leading to be used in the design of the statements.

Ensuring the tobacco industry doesn't get any extra credit from consumers for what might be perceived as a newfound honest streak, the packages will also include the following disclaimer: 'A Federal Court has ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Philip Morris USA, Altria, and Lorillard to make this statement about the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine.'

Cigarettes packs sold across the US will be featuring new 'corrective statements' on packaging beginning on Wednesday, in the latest installment of measures required stemming from the 1999 federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco. An image of a previous, inadequate warning that simply stated, 'Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide' is shown

'Corrective statements are essentially geared towards preventing and restraining future harm,' Mary Rouvelas, senior counsel for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network joined the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in the federal case against Big Tobacco to help ensure that public health interests were presented to the court.

'Once [the packages with corrective statements on them] start shipping, they will appear in the retailers between two days and two weeks after, depending on how much volume that retailer goes through,' Rouvelas said.

The new warnings are much more explicit than warnings from the past, which historically have been as simple as 'Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide' and 'smoking is addictive.'

Other warnings from years gone by have had a bit more detail, with wording such as, 'Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy,' followed up by the more specific, 'Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight.'

The new warnings are much more explicit than warnings from the past, which historically have been as simple as 'Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide' and 'smoking is addictive'

Other warnings from years gone by have had a bit more detail, with wording such as, 'Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy,' followed up by the more specific, 'Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight'

Now, there are at least five different options for the new required corrective statements included in a court document filed on April 26, referred to as 'Exhibit 16.'

The first statement focuses on the number of deaths caused to smokers, directly each year.

'Smoking kills on average 1,200 Americans. Every day. More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol combined. Smoking causes heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia, and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, and pancreas. Smoking also causes reduced fertility, low birth weight in newborns, and cancer of the cervix,' it reads.

The second mock design calls out the industry for purposely making people dependent on their lethal products.

'Smoking is highly addictive. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction. It's not easy to quit. When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes the brain - that's why quitting is so hard,' the second design read.

A third pointed out the shocking reality that cigarettes that have been marketed as 'low tar' or 'light' are actually no less harmful than cigarettes that don't contain this designation.

'Many smokers switch to low tar and light cigarettes rather than quitting because they think low tar and light cigarettes are less harmful. They are not. "Low tar" and "light" cigarette smokers inhale essentially the same amount of tar and nicotine as they would from regular cigarettes. All cigarettes cause cancer, lung disease, heart attacks and premature death - lights, low tar, ultra lights, and naturals. There is no safe cigarette,' the mock statement read.

Mock-ups of the new warnings are shown in a court document, with every detail accounted for, including the font, type size and leading to be used in the design of the statements

In a fourth corrective statement, the mock-up delves even further into how the tobacco industry meticulously crafted a substance with maximum addictive properties and packaged it for personal consumption.

'R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Philip Morris USA, Altria, and Lorillard intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive. Cigarette companies control the impact and delivery of nicotine in many ways, including designing filters and selecting cigarette paper to maximize the ingestion of nicotine, adding ammonia to make the cigarette taste less harsh, and controlling the physical and chemical makeup of the tobacco blend. When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes the brain - that's why quitting is so hard,' the statement read.

And in a fifth statement, the mock-up focused on the dangers of smoking to non-smokers who happen to be in the vicinity of smoke from those who choose to partake in the poisonous habit.

'Second-hand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans each year. Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in adults who do not smoke. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increase risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, severe asthma, and reduced lung function. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke,' the statement read.

The mock-ups are the second iteration of 'corrective statements' to be rolled out, with the first showing up last year in prime-time television and newspapers advertisements, detailing smoking's harms.

The ads were all paid for by Philip Morris USA, Lorillard, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Altria Group, pursuant to court order from 2006.

Around the time that the television and newspaper ads began to run last year, Murray Garnick, Altria's executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement: 'This industry has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, including becoming regulated by the FDA, which we supported.

'We're focused on the future and, with FDA in place, working to develop less risky tobacco products.

'We remain committed to aligning our business practices with society's expectations of a responsible company. This includes communicating openly about the health effects of our products, continuing to support cessation efforts, helping reduce underage tobacco use and developing potentially reduced-risk products.'

Open communication about the health effects of tobacco use includes the fact that 480,000 people die from it each year, a statistic pointed out by Rouvelas, referencing US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

'We want to make sure that the public knows about the harms of smoking. We want to make sure that it knows about the fact that the industry intentionally manipulated nicotine, there are dangers of secondhand smoke,' Rouvelas said.

'All those things that are in those statements are things that we think are very important to be out in the public domain.'
Two Amazon employees snapped up new condos in Queens immediately before the announcement that the company would build a new headquarters nearby, driving a surge in real estate prices, it has been revealed.

The two employees signed contracts for condos in the trendy new Long Island City development Galerie just before the announcement leaked earlier this month, real estate broker Brendan Aguayo told the Wall Street Journal.

Contacted by DailyMail.com, Aguayo declined to identify the two Amazon employees, citing confidentiality obligations.

The two Amazon employees currently live in New Jersey and Queens, he said. The company currently employs thousands of workers in New York City, many of them working in media, publishing and advertising.

Condos in Galerie, which is located just blocks away from the planned Amazon headquarters site, start at $720,000 for the smallest 403 square-foot studio and range to $2.15 million for a penthouse.

Two employees signed contracts for condos in the trendy new Long Island City development Galerie (above) just before word leaked to the public that Amazon will move in blocks away

Condos in Galerie (above) start at $720,000 for the smallest 403 square-foot studio and range to $2.15 million for a penthouse

Its not clear what type of unit the two Amazon employees purchased, but experts believe they immediately increased in value with the announcement of the company's imminent arrival just a few blocks away.

Reliable home buying and price data since Amazon's early November announcement is hard to come by, but brokers say there has been an explosion of activity.

One brokerage told the Journal that it had sold 150 condos in the last four days, 15 times its normal volume.

Despite the apparent payday made on the inside information, real estate law experts say they don't believe there is anything illegal about the deal the two employees made.

Insider trading laws only apply to the buying and selling of a company's publicly traded securities, such as stock, based on important information that has not yet been released to the public.

An Amazon spokesman did not have an immediate comment when asked by DailyMail.com whether the company has a policy regarding employees buying real estate based on non-public company information.

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (above) was pleased with the tax incentives totaling nearly $3 billion that New York officials used to lure his company to Queens

The company's plans to move to New York, where it says it will hire 25,000 new employees, sparked immediate backlash from residents, who fear it will drive up rents and overload the city's ailing public transit system.

New York offered Amazon $1.525 billion in state tax incentives, plus at least $325 million in cash grants to offset building costs.

The total $1.85 billion in dedicated state incentives brings the package to $74,000 per job created, assuming Amazon hires 25,000 people as pledged.

Additional city tax credits, which are available to other companies as well as Amazon, bring the total incentives to nearly $3 billion.

In contrast, Virginia offered about $596 million in cash grants and tax credits, plus $323 million in infrastructure pledges - about half of New York's offer for the same number of jobs.

Queens residents are seen protesting Amazon's plans in the borough last week. They fear the new headquarters will drive up rent prices and overwhelm the transit system

The Queens agreement also contained buried within its provisions a promise that the government will secure helipad rights for Amazon - a prospect that has weary 7 Train straphangers fuming at the prospect of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos buzzing overhead while they suffer on the subway.

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio - two Democrats who are often at odds - were united in praise of the Queens deal's economic development potential, many local officials were incensed.

'I am steaming mad,' elected Democrat councilor Jimmy Van Bramer said at a protest rally last week near the prospective Amazon site on the East River, overlooking Manhattan.

'We at the city council are going to be looking at every aspect of this,' he said. 'We are going to see how we can reengage in a process that we were deliberately excluded from.'
As Amazon's Black Friday sales are set to soar, furious staff will protest outside UK warehouses over what staff have called 'inhumane conditions'.

Insiders at the GMB Union have said protests in Rugeley, Milton Keynes, Warrington, Peterborough and Swansea could clash with the shopping surge at the end of this week.

Sources told BuzzFeed News staff have been 'knocked unconscious' and suffered broken bones while at work for Amazon.

Staff will be expected to be working hard on Friday as shoppers are expected to scramble for big deals ahead of Christmas

Amazon staff will protest at five UK centres on Friday. Pictured: Amazon's fulfillment centre in Swansea, in the run up to Black Friday

However, the online giant denied any service disruption would take place.

They said in a statement: 'Our European Fulfillment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers.

'Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong.'

However, GMB general secretary Tim Roache said Amazon must improve conditions for it's factory workers.

He said people are 'not robots' and said Amazon must negotiate with workers  as the union advocates for them but is not able to strike deals on their behalf.

He said: 'The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhumane.

'They are breaking bones, being knocked unconscious and being taken away in ambulances.

'We're standing up and saying enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids, homes, bills to pay  they're not robots.

'Jeff Bezos is the richest bloke on the planet; he can afford to sort this out. You'd think making the workplace safer so people aren't carted out of the warehouse in an ambulance is in everyone's interest, but Amazon seemingly have no will to get round the table with us as the union representing hundreds of their staff.'

The protests could coincide with a planned walkout at Amazon's large Madrid factory, while staff are being encouraged to down tools in Poland, Italy and Germany, BuzzFeed reported.

Although extremely popular for online shopping the business has come under fire recently.

Earlier in the year it was revealed workers have required ambulances at Amazon factories 600 times in three years.

Amazon has denied there will be any disruption to delivery over the weekend after the Black Friday sale. Pictured: Amazon's fulfillment centre in Swansea

A statement from Amazon denied there would be a problem this week as planned protests did not, to their knowledge, involve staff supposed to be on shift.

It said: 'We are a fair and responsible employer. We believe in continuous improvement across our network and maintain an open and direct dialogue with our associates.

'These are good jobs with highly competitive pay, full benefits, and innovative training programs like Career Choice that pre-pays 95% of tuition for associates. In the UK, as an example, we recently increased the Amazon wage to start from 9.50 an hour and in the London are from 10.50 an hour.

A spokeswoman also said emergency services being called were at a 'dramatically low' level for warehouses of their kind.

She added: 'Ambulance visits at our UK FCs last year were recorded at 0.00001 per worked hour, which is dramatically low.

'Requests for ambulance services at our fulfilment centres are predominantly associated with personal health events and are not work-related.

'Amazon is a safe place to work, according to the UK Governments Health and Safety Executive, Amazon has over 40% fewer injuries on average than other transportation and warehousing companies in the UK.

'We encourage everyone to compare our pay, benefits, and working conditions to others and come see for yourself on one of the public tours we offer every day at our centers across the UK.'
Many families in Panama City, Fla., have still not returned to their homes more than a month after Hurricane Michael devasted the Panhandle. And some schools in the area just reopened last week.

So, with the community still trying to find its footing after the most powerful hurricane to hit the Panhandle in decades, two schools teamed up this week to cook up thousands of pounds of turkey, ham, along with other traditional Thanksgiving fare like pies, for a community Thanksgiving at Jinks Middle School.

The cooking started on Saturday around 7a.m., and continued late into the night, Greg Bailie, the culinary director at Panama Citys Bay High School, who organized the feast, told Commodore Productions at Gulf Coast State College.

Bay High School students are sharing space at Jinks Middle School because their campus was greatly damaged in the storm.

Some 100 to 120 Bay High culinary students did the bulk of the cooking, though volunteers, including from local businesses and restaurants stepped up with donations, including their time, Baile said.

The community Thanksgivingalong with music and art therapytook place two days before the official holiday, and ABCs Good Morning America featured it in a Wednesday segment.

Putting together the dinner was therapeutic for Bailie, the culinary director. He and his family lost everything in the storm, but they were able to count on a support system to help them through. Not everyone has that, he said.

As bad as the situation may be for me or other people, there are other people much worse off than I am, and if I can do anything to bring a little bit of peace, and comfort, and joy to them, thats whats important, Bailie said.

Education Week spoke with Jinks Middle School Principal Britt Smith a few days after Hurricane Michael tore through the schools gymnasium, which had been a gathering place for his students and the community.

Smith told Commodore Productions that the idea of a community Thanksgiving was hatched about two weeks ago. The staff was also concerned about students, who had lost everything in the hurricane, missing out on celebrating Thanksgiving and other normal childhood activities.

We didnt have any money, and we didnt have any resources, we just had a goal, Smith said. Every time we needed something, somehow or another it was provided. ...Its as if theres been a lot of divine intervention to make this event happen today.
Brad Pitt (pictured Tuesday) has denied that he is to blame for the deterioration of the New Orleans homes his foundation, Make It Right, built for victims of Hurricane Katrina

Brad Pitt has denied that he is to blame for the deterioration of the homes his foundation Make It Right built for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Pitt's foundation sought to build 150 homes in the Lower Ninth ward of New Orleans that were storm-safe, solar-powered, and 'green' for the price of $150,000 in 2007.

Two residents of Pitt's homes filed a lawsuit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court in September accusing Make It Right of unfair trade practices, breach of contract and fraud.

Pitt said on Tuesday that the claims made against him personally should be dismissed.

He claimed he 'does not owe a duty to third parties', according to court documents obtained by The Blast.

The court document also says that Pitt 'cannot simply be lumped together with other defendants and held liable for alleged conduct in which he is not even alleged to have participated'.

The actor's attorney argued that the residents' claims of 'negligent infliction of emotional distress' cant be brought up unless they suffered physical injuries, which they have not.

In September, two residents filed a lawsuit against Pitt's foundation, claiming that the charity sold them 'defectively and improperly constructed homes'.

Scroll down for video

A lawsuit was filed by two New Orleans Lower Ninth ward homeowners in September. It accused the charity of unfair trade practices, breach of contract, and fraud. A home built by Make It Right is seen above

Many of the houses, including the one pictured above, are falling apart, with roofs caving in, wood rotting and walls collapsing

'While the citizens of the 9th Ward are grateful to Brad Pitt they were forced to file this lawsuit because the Make It Right Foundation built substandard homes, that are deteriorating at a rapid pace while the homeowners are stuck with mortgages on properties that have diminished values,' Ron Austin, the attorney representing the Lower Ninth Ward residents, said in a statement to NBC News.

'We have filed to make Make It Right make it right,' he added.

The project started in 2007 and by 2016 had spent $26.9million building 109 homes before construction was halted.

Although Make It Right stopped about 40 homes short of its goal, it led the most visible recovery effort in New Orleans.

The homes were priced at an average of $150,000 for residents looking to resettle.

But residents have complained that the homes aren't what they signed up for with many houses falling apart, some with rotting wood, plumbing issues, and roofs caving in.

The complaint said Make It Right 'fraudulently deprived homeowners of their right to pursue legal actions under Louisiana's New Home Warranty Act' because the charity knew about issues with the homes' building materials and designs - but never alerted homeowners.

The lawsuit claimed that the plaintiffs' homes were 'deficiently constructed and built' with 'defective products' that led to damage such as the growth of mold and air quality problems due to improper ventilation.

Pitt (right, in August 2007) said on Tuesday that the claims made against him personally should be dismissed. He claimed he 'does not owe a duty to third parties', according to court documents

Photos taken by Dailymail.com show another devastated property built by the charity

According to a suit filed by the residents, the homes had structural problems, electrical problems and plumbing issues

According to the suit, the homes also had structural problems, electrical problems, plumbing issues and rotten wood.

The complaint said that Make It Right arranged for engineer inspections of the homes 'allegedly brought in specifically to render a report on the state of the Make It Right homes'.

But homeowners were never given access to those reports.

The lawsuit asserted that engineers found issues in the homes but the charity didn't inform homeowners of the problems, citing a portion of the foundation's 2013 tax filing which accounts for $4.3million in 'warranty and repair liabilities'.

It added that Make It Right gave homeowners a nondisclosure agreement and documents that bound them to arbitration before agreeing to making repairs.

But, the lawsuit said the charity didn't explain these documents to the homeowners, 'fraudulently' obtaining signatures 'on agreements that would deprive homeowners of important legal rights while the homeowners are under duress'.

The complaint said the homeowners noticed problems with the home as early as 2013 but they thought Make It Right would sort out the repairs.

'The homeowners are gravely concerned that their homes, which suffer serious structural problems, will not last as long as their mortgages,' the complaint says.

Make It Right subsequently sued the architect of the homes in mid-September.

The foundation filed a lawsuit saying architecture firm John C. Williams Architects LLC's designs led to $20million in damages.

Make It Right is pointing the finger at Williams Architects, which the charity says it gave $4million dollars to produce architectural drawings for the sustainable homes.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Victor J. Franckiewicz, Jr in Civil District Court, says Williams Architect's defective designs led to a myriad of problems with the homes and that repairing damage inflicted by rain and humidity would cost millions.

From 2007 to 2016 Make It Right spent $26.9million and built over 100 'green' homes sold for $150,000

'The homeowners are gravely concerned that their homes, which suffer serious structural problems, will not last as long as their mortgages,' the complaint says. A finished Make It Right home pictured above in 2009 Brad Pitt and Ellen in New Orleans for Make it Right in 2014

Make It Right said that Williams was responsible for failures to waterproof the structures, many of which had insufficiently sloped roofs, and failed to repair the homes.

The foundation claimed to be left in the dark about the defects.

One derelict seven-year-home became so rotted, it was demolished at the insistence of neighbors in June.

In 2015, Williams was granted permission to replace the roof of that home that still had to be tore down.

In June, Williams acknowledged that one or two of the Make It Right homes 'may be falling apart'.

It also alleged that Williams Architects knew their designs 'did not meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum certification requirements, but failed to disclose that fact,' and the firm 'failed to communicate critical information' and 'suppressed the truth', according to WDSU.

At the time, Make It Right pledged to 'continue to work proactively with homeowners in the Lower 9th Ward'.
Britain's economy could have 40billion wiped off growth in just two years by a no-deal Brexit, a major international report warned today.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said the Government should look to maintain the 'closest possible' relationship with the EU to avoid a downturn.

Its research said failure to reach a Brexit deal could wipe off more than 2 per cent from real gross domestic product over two years - roughly 40billion.

The OECD forecast comes just a day after Bank governor Mark Carney warned a no deal Brexit would be the biggest hit to the economy since the 1970s.

Britain economy could have 40billion wiped off its value by a no-deal Brexit scenario, a major international report warned Theresa May (pictured today at PMQs)

In its latest report, the OECD upped its forecast for UK growth next year to 1.4 per cent from its previous prediction of 1.1 per cent.

It maintained its forecast for growth of 1.3 per cent in 2018.

But the OECD said growth was then set to slow markedly to 1.1 per cent in 2020, while its warnings on the impact of Brexit are stark.

It said: 'The failure to come to a withdrawal agreement with the European Union is by far the greatest risk in the short term.'

It added: 'The lack of details on the future relationship between the UK and the EU or the extension of the transition period, and the resulting uncertainties, could incite businesses to delay investment plans further.

'By contrast, prospects of maintaining the closest possible economic relationship with the European Union would lead to stronger-than-expected economic growth.'

The OECD also gave a more gloomy assessment of the global economic outlook, downgrading its 2018 and 2019 forecasts for growth in the G20 group of economies to 3.8 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively.

The OECD forecast comes just a day after Bank governor Mark Carney (pictured in Parliament yesterday) warned a no deal Brexit would be the biggest hit to the economy since the 1970s

It predicts overall world growth will remain at 3.7 per cent in 2018 and downgraded it to 3.5 per cent next year, with a particular warning over the mounting trade tensions between the US and China.

Angel Gurria, OECD secretary-general, said: 'Trade conflicts and political uncertainty are adding to the difficulties governments face in ensuring that economic growth remains strong, sustainable and inclusive.'

On slowing global growth, chief economist Laurence Boone added: 'There are few indications at present that the slowdown will be more severe than projected.

'But the risks are high enough to raise the alarm and prepare for any storms ahead. Co-operation on fiscal policy at the global and euro level will be needed.'
This is the shocking moment a woman was knocked out by a single punch from a man after she spat at his friends.

The female was involved in a sweary altercation with a group of men before the perpetrator struck her while she was looking the other way.

According to social media users, the controversial footage was filmed after a night out in the seaside town of Cleethorpes in North East Lincolnshire.

The woman was sucker punched in the face (left) with such force that she immediately dropped to the floor unconscious (right)

As the clip begins, the men are heard telling the woman, dressed in a short dress-shirt, to 'f*** off' before shoving her away.

She then shouts back them and spits in their direction - but as she goes to turn away she's sucker punched in the face by another man.

The woman is immediately sparked unconscious and drops to the floor in a crumpled heap

The footage, viewed 50,000 times in less than day, has divided opinion on whether the female deserved to have been hit.

One user commented: 'Anyone who thinks this is OK is wrong. For a start she spits after being confronted by a group of lads, not just one.

'She shouldn't have spat, but that whole group of lads are a bunch of c**** for even confronting a woman by themselves.'

The woman was shoved away by a group of men before turning around and spitting at them

Another wrote: 'Spitting is vile and she was clearly steaming so he should've walked away... that low blow was wrong. No fair fight here regardless of sex and what's right or wrong.'

A third said: 'Could have killed her with that punch. Even though she did spit there was no need for that.'

Another replied: 'You always walk away from argument with female.....full stop,no excuse.'

She then went to turn away (left) but she was sucker punched by a man off-camera (right)

But there were some who jumped to the defence of the perpetrator.

One said: 'Taught her a lesson, maybe she will shut her mouth next time.. Woman want treated like men, right?'

Another wrote: 'She spat, that alone is dirty and disrespectful, anybody who spits male or female deserves to get punched end of story.'
President Donald Trump fired back Wednesday at Chief Justice John Roberts, who had bashed him for claiming the federal judiciary's most liberal court circuit was subject to political bias from an 'Obama judge' who invalidated his newest asylum policy.

'We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,' Roberts said in a statement distributed by the Supreme Court. 'What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.'

Trump was on the golf course in Palm Beach, Florida at the time. He tweeted his response after the back nine.

'Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,' Trump tweeted.

'It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary,' he added, 'but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned.'

President Donald Trump launched a pre-Thanksgiving tirade in the direction of Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday after America's most senior jurist scolded him for saying some federal judges are politically biased

In a two-part Twitter message, Trump urged Roberts to examine why the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, based in California, is the federal circuit whose decisions are most often overturned by the Supreme Court

Chief Justice Roberts had pushed back against President Donald Trump's description of a judge who ruled against his new asylum policy as an 'Obama judge'

'Please study the numbers, they are shocking,' Trump urged Roberts.

'We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!'

Roberts' pushback against Trump marked the first time the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of the president, even though Trump has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.

Roberts said Wednesday, one day before Thanksgiving Day, that an 'independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.'

The president's latest remarks came as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump complained Tuesday about federal judge Jon Tigar in san Francisco, part of the left-leaning Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals  which the president claims is so liberal that conservative litigants there face 'an automatic loss no matter what you do'

The U.S. Supreme Court is pictured in a November 8 portrait that included for the first time Justice Brett Kavanaugh (4th right); Roberts (center, with Trump) is the highest ranking U.S. jurist

Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, a Barack Obama appointee whose courtroom is in San Francisco, struck down the administration's new asylum policy this week

Trump had spoken Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco that put the administration's asylum policy on hold.

The president complained that his opponents file their lawsuits in courts that are part of the liberal-leaning Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

'Every case that gets filed in the Ninth Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won,' Trump said.

The president went on to say about the asylum ruling: 'This was an Obama judge.'

The initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by U.S. District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

Roberts also was appointed by Bush.

The president returned to bashing West Coast judges several times during his pre-holiday press gaggle on Tuesday, saying 'every case that gets filed in the Ninth Circuit' goes against him

Chief Justice Roberts (left) greeted Trump on Capitol Hill for his State of the Union address in January 2018; he also administered the president's oath of office a year earlier

The White House had no immediate response to a request for comment on Roberts' criticism on Wednesday.

Last year the president used the term a 'so-called judge' after the first federal ruling against his travel ban.

During the presidential campaign, Trump criticized Roberts himself for the chief justice's decisive vote in 2012 to preserve the Obama health care overhaul.

Trump also referred to a judge who was presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University as a Mexican who would be unable to rule fairly because of Trump's proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

On Tuesday he suggested the entire Ninth Circuit is a liberal playground where Republican policies can't get a fair shake.

'Everybody that wants to sue the United States, they file their case in  almost  they file their case in the Ninth Circuit,' he told reporters.

'And it means an automatic loss no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is.'
By Emily Goodin, U.s. Politcal Reporter For Dailymail.com

Progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and conservative darling Sarah Palin got into Twitter fisticuffs this week, after the former Republican vice presidential candidate mocked the newly-elected lawmaker for saying there are three chambers of Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez snapped back that Palins tweets are like grandpa emails.

Palin wrote on Twitter on Monday Ocasio-Cortez Fumbles Basic Civics TWICE In 1 Statement and linked to an article on her governorpalin.org website that contained a tweet from Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra, who shared a video of Oscasio-Cortez making a mistake when talking about the branches of government.

Originally the 29-year-old member elect, who will be the youngest woman elected to Congress, said there were three chambers of Congress (there are two: the House and the Senate).

She tried to correct herself.

Members-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., left, and Deb Haaland, D-N.M., are seen after the freshman class photo on the East Front of the Capitol on November 14, 2018. Ocasio-Cortez punched back at Sarah Palin after the incoming lawmaker botched her 'three branches' comment

If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress  Uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House, Ocasio-Cortez said.

But her correction was incorrect: the three chambers are government are the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

Ocasio-Cortez slammed Palin for coming after her, going on a twitter rant about the former vice presidential nominee and other Republicans.

Now thats *TWO* fallen GOP Vice Pres candidates going after a freshman Congresswoman thats not even sworn in yet. Isnt it a little early to be bringing out the big guns? Especially when they look like the FWD:RE:FWD:WATCH THIS grandpa emails from the 08 election they lost, she wrote on Twitter.

She clarified that the other GOP vice presidential candidate she was referring to was former Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman ran as Al Gores Democratic running mate in 2000 and he was considered by John McCain for his 2008 ticket, after Lieberman became an independent.

McCain ultimately opted for Palin over Lieberman. He said before he died it was of his few political regrets. He lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin went after Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter

Palin, the GOP's 2008 nominee, jousted with the incoming lawmaker on Twitter

Ocasio-Cortez also went after former Senate Democrat Joe Lieberman

Ocasio-Cortez wrote that she slammed Lieberman because he killed the public option for healthcare and endorses Republicans

Ocasio-Cortez wrote that she slammed Lieberman because he killed the public option for healthcare and endorses Republicans.

Lieberman was one of two hold outs in the Senate when Democrats were trying to get President Obamas signature healthcare legislation passed. He demanded the public option be removed in exchange for his vote. It was done.

The public option was a proposal to create a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies, which those companies opposed.

Lieberman, in his work with the nonpartisan group No Labels, has worked with Republicans.

However, he also has charged Ocasio-Cortez is too liberal to be effective on Capitol Hill.

In July, after Ocasio-Cortez had defeated Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in New York, Lieberman wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for Crowley to run in the general election on the Working Families Party.

Because the policies Ms. Ocasio-Cortez advocates are so far from the mainstream, her election in November would make it harder for Congress to stop fighting and start fixing problems, he wrote.

Crowley declined to get back into the race.

And Oscasio-Cortez clarified on Tuesday that her twitter thread on the matter was supposed to be funny.

For those who need their jokes explained to them: surprise! This tweet thread is humorous! The emoji in the original tweet signals that humor is indicated in the statement. :), she wrote.

Palin didnt respond directly to the swarm of tweets but she did link to another article on the liberal congresswoman, who some see as a rising star in the Democratic Party, writing: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Drooling Republicans Are Waiting To Chop Up Her Mistakes.

The link was to an article about Ocasio-Cortezs original mistake and her subsequent tweet complaining about Republicans attacking her.

Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real-tomd, they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they dont believe people deserve a right to healthcare, she wrote.

She then corrected her spelling to real-time*.
A smoking ban in Missouri state prisons has resulted in a behind bars black market with a pack of cigarettes going for as much as $100.

According to a report by Fox2, corrections officers are making a profit from the illegal sales.

The cigarette ban went into effect in April after an asthmatic double murderer successfully sued the state over his own exposure to second hand smoke.

As part of the state's settlement they agreed to disallow cigarettes to be purchased at the commissary, and inmates and officers were banned from smoking in or outside the prisons.

Missouri banned smoking in its 21 prisons in April of this year after a double murderer successfully sued the state over second hand smoke exacerbating his asthma

Missouri prisons banned smoking in its 21 prisons since April of this year. Now there is a black market for cigarettes with packs going for as much as $100 (Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, pictured)

To make the situation worse, corrections officers are retiring or quitting at such a fast rate are working long hours because of dire under staffing issues.

Former Chief of Custody at Algoa Prison in Jefferson City, Bill Vallier told Fox2, 'You're missing graduations, birthdays and things at home. You're actually spending more time in the institution than with your own family.'

Inmates are using the deteriorating morale among corrections officers to manipulate them into participating in the behind bars black market trade.

'You can make a lot of money for something that's not even illegal and some of the officers are falling prey to that, especially the new ones,' Vallier added.

Bill Schmutz retired from his position as Deputy Warden at Algoa prison over the summer.

'Overnight a pack of cigarettes went from a few dollars to a hundred dollars a pack and there is staff getting caught bringing cigarettes in. It`s the lure of easy money,' Schmutz said.

And, officers are prohibited from leaving the prison facility to go on a smoke break as well.

Ecclesiastical Denzel Washington said his cellmates at Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron exacerbated his asthma symptoms by smoking heavily

The prisoners are using officers' disgruntled feelings against the DOC to their advantage, making them believe inmates can actually treat them better than the Department, it is claimed.

'In one week we`ve counted seven corrections officers walk off the job because of the way they're treated,' one former prisoner who declined to be identified added.

Ecclesiastical Denzel Washington, 53, sued the state claiming his heavy-smoker cellmate at Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron had exacerbated his asthma symptoms.

He was placed with his cellmate despite doctor's orders that he be held somewhere smoke free.

A federal judge ruled in Washington's favor and demanded all Missouri prisons be smoke-free by April 2018.

Missouri already bans smoking inside prison buildings, but it allowed it in designated areas outside.

The evidence at trial showed some inmates ignore these rules and are commonly written up for smoking in their cells.

Missouri previously allowed inmates to buy tobacco and lighters to keep in their cells.

Attorney Phillip Zeeck, who helped represent Washington, said the ruling would save Missouri taxpayers money because of the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses for the state's more than 30,000 inmates.

Now Washington is asking for a transfer out of state because he says he fears for his life among fellow disgruntled inmates who are angry about the smoking ban.
Two people smugglers who ferried illegal immigrants across the English Channel in small overloaded boats, were today jailed for eight years.

Feim Vata, 32, and Xhemal Baco, 24, arranged to pick up at least six Afghan refugees on the French coastline before making the 25-mile journey across the Channel under the cover of darkness.

The passengers were not wearing any life-jackets and were using empty plastic bottles to bale out sea water from the dangerously overloaded boat.

Feim Vata, 32, left, and Xhemal Baco, 24, right, were today jailed for eight years after arranging to smuggle a group of Afghan migrants in a small overloaded boats across the English Channel from France - using the cover of darkness to avoid detection

Investigators believe the pair made the perilous trip, which was described as 'extremely risky', at least three times.

Each time, the gang would abandon the inflatable boat on the beach after completing the crossing, buying a new vessel for each attempt.

The boat did not have any navigation equipment. Once on the beach, the pair planed to load the migrants into the back of a van.

Experts claimed that crossing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in this manner is akin to walking across the M25 at rush hour.

Both men admitted a charge of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and were jailed for eight years each.

A spokesman for South East Regional Organised Crime Unit said: 'The SEROCU investigation had uncovered that the men were transporting illegal migrants from France in small inflatable boats, travelling across the English Channel at night onto the beaches close to Deal, Kent.

'It is suspected that Baco and Vata completed the trip at least three time and whenever they had cause to abandon the boat, they would simply purchase a new one with cash and using false names.

'On the October 20 2018, Baco picked up six Albanian illegal migrants in France, with Baco driving the small inflatable boat across the English Channel. Upon arrival to the shore close to Deal, Kent, Baco hid the boat in some bushes and he and the illegal migrants entered a vehicle driven by Vata, before they were arrested by officers.'

Detective Inspector Clair Trueman said: 'This was a large scale operation, involving a number of agencies both here in the UK and aboard.

Vata and Baco used this boat, pictured, to smuggle at least six Afghans across the Channel

The migrants used this plastic bottle to scoop out water from the overloaded boat

'We are pleased with today's sentence and the guilty pleas by the men, which shows the quality of evidence that was put forward could not be refuted. Whilst I am pleased that these men are now behind bars, it is amazing that no-one died during the extremely risky process.

'When the men and the illegal migrants were arrested, we found them cold and wet, they had travelled in an overloaded inflatable boat with no life vests or navigation equipment and across a busy shipping lane in total darkness.

'Experts told us that attempting to cross the channel in a boat the size Baco and Vata did, is like trying to cross the M25 at its busiest time on foot. They also told us that the boat was extremely unsuitable and overloaded. The boat Baco and Vata used is not designed to cross the channel, they used empty water bottles for bailing the water out which was found with the boat. It was reckless to even attempt such a crossing and everyone is extremely lucky to have survived.'

Vata and Baco, both from Slough, Berkshire admitted one count of conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration to a member state.

Their conviction follows months of investigation led by SEROCU who were assisted by Kent Police, the National Crime Agency, UK Border Force, French Police, French Navy, National Maritime Information Centre, Immigration Enforcement and Thames Valley Police which resulted in the arrests of the men on 20 October in a pre-planned operation.
A video released Tuesday shows two accused NYPD bribers riding around in an Aston Martin while wearing Santa hats to allegedly deliver bribes to cops.

Bill de Blasio campaign donor, Jeremy Reichberg and his friend, Jona Rechnitz, filmed themselves driving on Staten Island and hand-delivering Christmas gifts to officers, according to videos released by the Department of Justice.

According to the New York Post , Rechnitz and Reichberg delivered Nintendo games and American Girl dolls to three cops that night.





Those items were delivered to former NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, retired officer Eric Rodriguez and convicted ex-Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Rechnitz, who testified against Reichberg on Tuesday, said.

In the video, the men are seen driving up to 1 Police Plaza as Rechnitz boasts: 'We're going to go park in the chief of department's extra spot.'

A video released Tuesday shows accused NYPD bribers, Jeremy Reichberg (left) and Jona Rechnitz (right), riding around in an Aston Martin while wearing Santa hats to allegedly deliver bribes to cops

Reichberg and Rechnitz filmed themselves driving on Staten Island and hand-delivering Christmas gifts to officers at 1 Police Plaza in 2014, according to videos released by the Department of Justice

They were referring to Philip Banks, who was the chief of the department between from 2013-2014.

As Reichberg and Rechnitz approached the entrance of the station, Rechnitz is heard saying: 'Please salute us, officer, if you want to keep your job.'

And sure enough, the officer does just that and the men drive into the plaza.

At one point in the video, Rechnitz says: 'Ho, ho, ho! You little ho!'

Rechnitz told the court that the men were mocking one of Reichberg's competitors named Abe. Rechnitz has admitted to bribing cops and public officials. Reichberg is on trial for bribing officers.

Two weeks ago former prostitute and fiance of billionaire Geoffrey Edelsten, Gabi Grecko, testified in court about her mile-high sex romp with NYPD officers as part of the police corruption trial.

Those items were delivered to former NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant (right in 2016) and retired officer Eric Rodriguez, Rechnitz, who testified against Reichberg (left) on Tuesday, said

The gifts were also delivered to convicted ex-Deputy Chief Michael Harrington (pictured), according to Rechnitz

Grecko previously revealed to the New York Post how she was used to bribe the policemen in a wild, sex-filled private plane trip to Las Vegas in February 2013.

The 29-year-old said she had been recruited for the getaway by Brooklyn businessman Reichberg.

Grecko told the court that Reichberg invited her to give sexual favors to 'anyone who asked'.

When asked if she had a sexual relationship with Grant on the trip, she replied: 'Yes' and that the two shared a room at the hotel.

She added that none of the men 'wanted to be in any pictures' and said it was 'very clear throughout the whole weekend'.

Grecko said she was compensated $1,500 for her services, which she described as 'too little'.

Grant denied the two had sex, but admitted he paid her for the trip, according to the Post.

She said Grant, who drove her home when they returned back to New York, told her in response: 'If our team had done better we would have been able to give you more.'

Two weeks ago former prostitute and fiance of billionaire Geoffrey Edelsten, Gabi Grecko, testified in court about her mile-high sex romp with NYPD officers as part of the police corruption trial

Grecko said she was compensated $1,500 for her services, which she described as 'too little'. Reichberg (center) leaves Manhattan federal court in New York, Monday, June 20, 2016

Grant was charged in 2016 for allegedly accepting prostitutes bought by businessmen, as well as jewelry and gifts, in exchange for police protection.

The prostitute, who also went by the alias Candi on the trip, said she serviced Grant and Rechnitz.

Grecko revealed in the 2016 interview with the Post: 'I was doing it while they were in their seats.'

She said: 'It was me on top the whole time... front, behind, side. They all seemed really comfortable to take their pants off in front of each other and laugh about it. It's like they'd done this before.'

Oral and group sex also occurred on the jet, while Grecko said she had no idea the men were cops at the time, although they took out their handcuffs to use on her.

'I didn't think they were real,' she said. 'They were just waving them around, like to put them on me. I was like, "No way,"' she said.

Businessman Reichberg bought the prostitute as part of a bribe for official favors

The former prostitute is pictured above with her wealthy fiance Geoffrey Edelsten

Furthermore, she told the Post the men were 'really creepy and very rude and offensive'.

When the bunch arrived in Sin City, the men stayed at the MGM Grand, where two penthouses were ordered prior.

The following day, they watched the Super Bowl and Grecko claimed many of the guys stayed in a suite with an accompanying hot tub, while she hung out in a smaller penthouse with Grant.

Grecko, who has appeared on the Celebrity Apprentice in Australia, said the men gorged on food and champagne while watching the San Francisco 49ers, who narrowly lost to the Baltimore Ravens, before more prostitutes were brought in for an orgy.

According to the Post, Rechnitz said Reichberg had many city officials in his pocket and used those connections to charge friends who wanted to buy their way out of jury duty and secure expedited building permits.

Reichberg reportedly had contacts with the citys Department of Buildings, which he used to expedite housing permits for buddies, Rechnitz told the court.

It was also revealed that Reichberg was once paid $2,500 to get someone out of jail.
Nadine Dorries (pictured on ITV last week) launched a tirade on the European Research Group WhatsApp group last night when she was unable to attend a meeting

A leading Brexiteer rebel has savaged her fellow coup plotters for 'letting down' a group of hardline Eurosceptics by failing to send letters of no confidence in Theresa May.

Nadine Dorries launched a tirade on the European Research Group WhatsApp group last night when she was unable to attend a meeting.

She said the failure to force a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister despite going public with a putsch had left the group open to 'ridicule and abuse'.

Ms Dorries - who was among the first Tory MPs to openly demand Mrs May stand aside - said those who promised letters but failed to deliver had 'let the side down'.

She also warned the group they faced lettering Mrs May run a new general election campaign, accused them of amateur press briefing and failing to give the DUP enough credit in their threat to abandon the Government.

Brexiteer ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg launched the attempt to remove the PM last week, insisting she was not delivering a 'proper Brexit' after her divorce deal emerged.

After the letters failed to emerge, he insisted 'patience is a virtue' - before comparing himself to Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring.

Tory party rules say a no confidence vote can be called if 48 Conservative MPs write to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the party's backbench 1922 Committee.

Mr Rees-Mogg and the ERG insisted the move would unleash a flood of letters and force the vote - but just 26 MPs went public and no vote has yet been called.

Ms Dorries voiced her complaint by WhatsApp because she was chairing a debate in the Commons last night instead of attending an ERG meeting. It was leaked tonight to the Guido Fawkes website.

Ms Dorries said the failure to force a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister (pictured tonight in Brussels) despite going public with a putsch had left the group open to 'ridicule and abuse'

She said: 'There are a handful of you who have badly let the ERG down as a group, opening us up to ridicule and abuse in the media and online.

'I am referring to those MPs who have not put their letters in. It is being said that you have let the side down and are not the type of people anyone would want to go into battle with.

'You have left others to do the dirty work of pushing forward the debate and hid under the covers.'

Ms Dorries said just one member of the group had a 'fractionally credible' excuse but that other members, allegedly up to 80 MPs, should have sent letters.

She condemned members of the group believed themselves to be 'superior' to others and 'above the tackiness of submitting a letter'.

The MP blasted: 'We are all equal, all elected members, all have one vote and should all have each other's back.'

Brexiteer ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured yesterday in Westminster) launched the attempt to remove the PM last week, insisting she was not delivering a 'proper Brexit' after her divorce deal emerged

Ms Dorries warned the group they had to either remove Mrs May or face a snap election with her in charge - echoing a complaint she has made publicly.

She claimed Downing Street was 'already preparing for a general election' - something she warned would be a disaster for recently elected MPs.

Confirming the memo was legitimate, Ms Dorries told MailOnline: 'I have been informed by a number of members since I wrote that note, that they are waiting for the meaningful vote to be lost in the Commons, before they put their letters in.

'I think that is a mistake. If the letters go in now, it is about the leadership. If they go in after the vote, it becomes an issue of confidence in the government.'

Best for Britain champion and Lib Dem MP Layla Moran said: 'Brexiteers are squabbling like toddlers and throwing their toys out of the pram about their kack handed coup.

'Nadine Dorries is someone who has sent in a letter of no confidence but yet, has said she doesn't want to remove the Prime Minister.

'I guess this logic shows why the ERG are the crack guerrilla force running the table in Westminster.'

Owen Smith - who tried and failed to oust Jeremy Corbyn in a Labour Party coup - added: 'Nadine Dorries is even squabbling with herself, disagreeing with her own decision to put in a letter to get rid of the PM.

'It would be funny, if the Brexit consequences for our country werent so tragic.'
A second man has been charged after a policeman and his colleague were filmed being savagely beaten in an attack in London on Saturday night.

Kursan Euell from Catford was charged with two counts of ABH after a female officer sustained head injuries and a male officer suffered a fractured rib and cuts in the brawl.

Both officers have since been discharged.

Previously Martin Payne, 20, of Brighton Road, South Croydon was charged with assault causing ABH and assault on an emergency services worker. He was further charged with driving without insurance and driving other than in accordance with a licence.

The two men wearing tracksuits and hoodies savagely kicked the two police officers on Saturday night. It was captured on camera and is believed to have taken place in Merton, south west London on Saturday night

He appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Monday, 19 November, pleaded not guilty and was sent for trail at Kingston Crown Court.

A third man connected to the incident remains at large and is being hunted by police.

In mobile phone footage posted on Twitter the two men can be seen punching and kicking the male and female officer as scores of people pass without intervening.

The shocking incident in Merton, south west London on Saturday night, saw the two male attackers wearing hoodies and dragging the policeman away from his patrol car and kicking him.

A policewoman can then be seen trying to pull them off her colleague but she fails as a man brutally kicks her to the ground.

The assault comes amid London's violent crimewave, with the capital's murder count reaching 122 so far this year over the weekend.

The clip, recorded by a man in his car at 7.55pm on Saturday with music playing in the background, shows several people walk by without stopping to help the officers.

A bus also drives straight past the chaos without stopping to intervene.

Eventually, with the help of a heroic moped rider, the policeman manages to get the attacker off him and pins him down ready to arrest him.

The video was uploaded to Twitter alongside the caption: 'South London at night.. Lol'.

One of the men (pictured in navy) can be seen brutally fly-kicking the female officer (in black and white uniform on the ground) as she rushes in to try and help her stricken colleague

As the attack unfolds (left) several witnesses and a routemaster bus can be seen going straight past without intervening (right)

A heroic moped rider (pictured in helmet) eventually manages to get one of the attackers off the officer

The footage received a mixed response on Twitter, with some finding it funny and others slamming the witness for not intervening.

'Not even the slightest bit funny. If it was the other way round, thered be riots in the streets lol. Have some respect,' one person tweeted.

Another said: 'Shame on you for filming this and not trying to help.'

And one user commented: ' How people can find this funny is beyond me..... and to film it and not even bother to help!!

'These people would be the first to ask for services when needed!'

Police numbers have been called into question after the number of stabbings and shootings across London spiralled out of control.

The latest fatal stabbing took place in Peckham, south east London, claiming the life of pensioner Maureen Watkins, 75.

Her son, Edward Watkins, 55, has been charged with her murder.

In a horrifying attack last week, a mother-of-five from Ilford, east London was killed after being shot with a crossbow in front of her children.

Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo has been charged with Sana Muhammad's murder, which also saw her unborn baby delivered by emergency C-section after she was shot in the stomach.
A serial killer who liked to break young girls' legs before raping and murdering them confessed to nine similar attacks, Indian authorities say.

The suspect, named in the Indian media as 'Sunil', was arrested for the brutal rape and killing of a three-year-old girl but while being interrogated admitted to a series of similar violent sex attacks.

Following a huge manhunt he was arrested in Magarpur village, Uttar Pradesh, yesterday, after the toddler was killed around 320 miles away in Gurugram, a city south west of New Delhi on November 12.

The 20-year-old allegedly targeted little girls, usually in slums, before subjecting them to violent attacks, it was said.

He would hang around food stalls known as 'bhandaras' - community kitchens offering free food during religious festivals - where he would lure his victims with sweets and chocolates, police said.

Police escort a man, accused of raping and killing a three-year-old girl, outside a police station in Gurugram on the outskirts of New Delhi

Sunil, who was said to roam from place-to-place and sleep wherever he could, also reportedly told police that breaking the girl's leg with a brick before raping her was a 'ritual that aroused him'.

Her remains were found the day after she was reported missing just 300 yards away from where she was taken, with her skull fractured after she was struck on the head with a brick.

Medical examiners say she died from 'the head injury and excessive internal bleeding'.

According to the Times of India, Sunil could be one of the worst paedophile-serial killers 'known to Indian law enforcement agencies'.

Police say Sunil allegedly raped and murdered at least nine pre-adolescents girls in Delhi, Gurugram, Gwalior and Jhansi over a two-year period.

The first of his known victims was a four-year-old child who he was said to have kidnapped in 2016 before another girl was found in January last year with head and leg injuries.

Indian demonstrators in Mumbai hold placards during a protest in support of rape victims following high profile cases in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh states

Following a huge manhunt the suspect was arrested in Magarpur village, Uttar Pradesh, after the toddler was killed around 320 miles away in Gurugram, a city south west of New Delhi

Investigating officer Sumit Kuhar, said he would take his alleged victims to abandoned areas and could not be traced because he did not have a mobile phone or a fixed place to live or work.

He added: 'He told us all he wanted was tasty food at bhandaras and young girls to satisfy his lust.

'We are shocked by his confessions as he not only raped and killed three young girls in Gurugaram but four in Delhi, one in Jhansi and another in Gwalior in the last two years.

'He remembers the rapes, connecting them to the bhandaras he had gone to. He would target children who came to get prasad or free food and were alone.

'He chose children who were alone and away from their homes. He would take them to desolate places and even dump the bodies in desolate areas. He had no fixed place to eat or sleep, no fixed place of work place and didnt carry a cellphone.'
Former Smallville star Allison Mack has filed for a restraining order against a 53-year-old man, claiming that he has been stalking her while she is under house arrest in California on sex trafficking charges in connection to the NXIVM cult.

A judge has granted the 36-year-old Mack an order of protection against Thomas Sekera, of Ohio.

According to court documents obtained by the gossip site TMZ, Mack accused Sekera of lurking outside her parents' home near Los Angeles, where she has been living and attending college since April, after being released from jail on $5million bail.

Former Smallville star Allison Mack filed for, and was granted, a restraining order against Thomas Sekera, 53, whom she accused of stalking her at her parents' home in California

Mack claimed that Sekera on one occasion knocked on her parents door and lied that he was sent to assist with her legal defense in the sex cult case.

On another occasion, Mack said that her alleged stalker camped outside the house for six hours and busied himself by peering into all the windows on the ground floor.

The judge ordered the 53-year-old to keep his distance from Mack and her parents' residence.

Mack, 36, is best known for her role as a teenage friend of Superman in CW's Smallville (pictured)

A LinekdIn page associated with Sekera indicates that he works as an electrician in Cleveland.

Court records reveal that in 2002, Sekera was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to three years of community control.

The criminal case stemmed from an incident that took place in March 2001, in which Sekera pulled a loaded handgun on his neighbors fiance and her six-year-old son.

The neighbor testified he believed that Sekera, whom he had never met prior to the altercation, harassed him and his wife-to-be because they were a mixed-race couple.

His criminal record also includes a string of minor traffic violations and a 2014 conviction on a charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Keith Raniere, the former head of NXIVM, and Mack, best known for playing a teenage friend of Superman in the CW networks Smallville, have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

They are scheduled to go on trial in March 2019, along with billionaire Seagram's heiress Clare Bornfman and NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman.

Prosecutors have accused Mack of helping Raniere recruit women to a secret sub-society within NXIVM, known as DOS. The women were branded by way of a surgical tool with a symbol that resembled Ranieres initials and were expected to have sex with 'masters.'

Keith Raniere, the former head of NXIVM, and Mack (pictured outside Brooklyn court in October), have been charged with sex trafficking

In an interview with The New York Times prior to her arrest, Mack acknowledged that members of DOS used the terms 'slave' and 'master' and ordered each other to engage in acts of self-denial, but she said it was all done to further self-discipline and self-empowerment. She likened the brands to getting tattoos, but cooler.

Last week, Mack's defense team filed a motion to dismiss, asking the judge to throw out the sex trafficking, racketeering and forced labor conspiracy charges against her, arguing that her conduct 'simply does not fit the crimes,' according to RadarOnline.

Mack and the other defendants are due back in court on December 6 for a hearing.
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Bali Nine drug mule Renae Lawrence has sparked speculation she is married after arriving back in Australia wearing a ring on her wedding finger following her release from an Indonesian prison.

Lawrence, 41, touched down at Brisbane Airport about 5am local time on a Virgin Australia flight from Bali where she flew economy but sat towards the front of the plane.

The convicted drug smuggler was freed from Bali's Bangli Prison on Wednesday evening - where she had spent 13 years behind bars - after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'.

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, clashed with media as she exited the airport's international terminal, pushing past a reporter.

She refused to answer questions as she navigated her way through the airport, supported by family members including her mother Beverley Waterman.

'We don't want to comment. We've got nothing to say. Please just leave us,' Ms Waterman told reporters.

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Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence (pictured) arrived back in Australia on Thursday after spending 13 years in an Indonesian prison

Lawrence did not answer questions from journalists after she exited Brisbane Airport's international terminal following her arrival in Australia

The 41-year-old later boarded a bus to the airport's domestic terminal, to catch a transfer flight to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney, where she is expected to stay with family

Lawrence was asked several questions by journalists she she walked to the bus but she did not utter a word

She was supported by her mother Beverley Waterman as she returned to Australia following a lengthy absence from the country

'We don't want to comment. We've got nothing to say. Please just leave us,' Ms Waterman told reporters

Lawrence touched down on Australia soil for the first time in 13 years following her release from Bali's Bangli prison

The 41-year-old had left Australia for Bali in 2005, where she was arrested with eight others and convicted of drug smuggling

Lawrence, who appeared teary and overwhelmed, boarded a bus to the domestic terminal, to catch a transfer flight to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney, where she is expected to stay with her mother.

Prior to her release from jail, Lawrence's secret romance with an ice addict jailbird was revealed.

Lawrence had struck up a turbulent relationship with 38-year-old lesbian lover Agus Erna Wijayanti, known as Erna, behind bars.

Erna, who has been jailed twice for possessing ice, met Lawrence in Bangli prison and had been reportedly 'spoiling her like a child' ahead of her release.

The pair first met in 2012 when Erna was given a prison sentence on drug charges, and grew closer when Lawrence was transferred from Kerobokan prison to Bangli jail in 2014.

Lawrence had been arrested at Bali's main airport in April 2005 with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body as part of a failed bid to smuggle a total of eight kilograms of the drug into Australia with a number of other mules - later dubbed the Bali Nine.

The taste of freedom could be short lived as New South Wales Police have two arrest warrants for Lawrence which have been outstanding since 2005.

One warrant alleges she was involved in a high-speed chase in a stolen car with fellow Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.

Lawrence's secret romance with ice addict jailbird Agus Erna Wijayanti (left) was revealed just prior to her release from jail

The Bali Nine drug smuggler struck up a turbulent relationship with 38-year-old lesbian lover Agus Erna Wijayanti, known as Erna, behind bars

The convicted drug smuggler appeared overwhelmed as she navigated past the media covering her return to Australia

Lawrence was supported by family members including her mother as she walked out of Brisbane Airport's international terminal

Lawrence is pictured waiting at Brisbane Airport for her flight back to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney

Lawrence (right) touched down at Brisbane Airport about 5am local time on Thursday on a Virgin Australia flight from Bali

The 41-year-old (centre) was provided with a much different view at Brisbane Airport compared to the one she had experienced in jail

Lawrence was surrounded by cameras and reporters after disembarking her flight from Bali and making her way through Brisbane Airport

The taste of freedom could be short lived as New South Wales Police have two arrest warrants for Lawrence

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman, step-brother Allan Waterman and unknown relative in a quiet room at Bali's international airport prior to her flight back to Australia.

The former prisoner apologised to Fairfax Media when they asked her to speak on her time in jail - claiming she was not ready to share the story.

'I'm sure, I'm positive,' she said when asked if she was sure she did not want to be interviewed.

Her mother added to this that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'.

The third family member, understood to be a cousin, asked that reporters respect the limited amount of time the group have together before flying into an inevitable media storm.

Ngurah Rai Immigration chief Amran Aris said Lawrence had to be deported the moment she had served her time, due to her drug offences.

The convicted drug smuggler, 41, was released from Bangli Prison, Bali, on Wednesday evening after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'

Renae Lawrence has spent her first moments of her uncertain future with her mother and step-brother after spending over 13 years locked up in prison

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman (right), step-brother Allan Waterman (left) and unknown relative in a quiet room at Bali's international airport

Mrs Waterman (right) told Fairfax Media that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, hopped on a flight to Brisbane from Bali's Ngurah Rai international airport at about 9pm local time (midnight AEST)

She was issued a travel document for her travel back to Australia, not a passport.

'Because of her case, the narcotics, she has been given a life ban,' he told Fairfax Media.

Lawrence was released at about 5pm on Wednesday evening after officials held a press conference at the prison doors.

Maryoto Sumadi, Justice Ministry chief, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'.

Mr Sumadi said Lawrence would be deported and banned from re-entering Indonesia for life.

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'

'We have also conducted a hand over between Bangli and the immigration office in Denpasar,' he said.

'Because she is a foreigner, therefore, the person is deemed to be in Indonesia without permission, therefore she needs to be released from prison and into immigration office custody.'

Justice Department officials conducted a health check and said Lawrence was found to be in good health.

At the conclusion of the conference, guards and media flooded the prison door in anticipation for the release of Lawrence.

Lawrence eventually walked from the doors, covered by a heavily armed mobile brigade police.

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows.

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her.

Lawrence appeared after the the conference concluded, flooded by guards and wearing sunglasses

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her

There was speculation Lawrence would speak at the media conference, ahead of her release.

Bangli jail governor Made Suwendra said Lawrence thanked the staff at the prison as she prepared to leave, the Daily Telegraph reported.

'She said thank you as she has already been treated well during her time in prison. And also said sorry for any mistake she's done,' Mr Suwendra said.

Lawrence had an emotional and teary goodbye as she farewelled her inmates.

'All the women prisoners took her out from the women's block and they were hugging and crying,' Mr Suwendra said.

'Some of her friends were also crying.'

She hugged her girlfriend Erna and other female prisoners before heading out to freedom.

Police patrolled Bangli Prison ahead of Lawrence's release on Wednesday afternoon (pictured)

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows

There was originally speculation Lawrence would speak at a media conference

In a tense video, Lawrence met Bali's justice ministry chief, Mr Sumadi, moments before her release.

The 41-year-old appeared shaken and nervous while she conversed with the chief before the pair shook hands.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawerence, and suggested she face the full extent of the law.

'If you commit that kind of offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia,' he told Sky News.

But NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller suggested a deal with Lawrence's lawyers was more likely than a fresh set of handcuffs on the tarmac.

Lawrence was originally sentenced to life in prison but her sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawrence (centre), and suggested she face the full extent of the law

She served 13 years and seven months after numerous reductions for good behaviour.

Lawrence was reportedly prescribed anti-depressants by a local doctor to deal with anxiety before the long-awaited release.

Mr Suwendra praised Lawrence for contributing to prison life in Bangli and being a co-operative inmate.

He hoped Lawrence would be helped to integrate back into life in Australia.

'Renae Lawrence is in a healthy condition. She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous,' Mr Suwendra told AFP.

Renae Lawrence (pictured a week after her arrest in 2005) flew home from Bali on Wednesday night but she has outstanding criminal offences awaiting in Australia

Renae Lawrence (pictured) days after her arrest in Bali on April 17, 2005 - she was released from jail on Wednesday

Daily Mail Australia understands Lawrence will be given a few days to 'settle in' at her Newcastle home before she responds to the outstanding police charges from over a decade ago.

A court date will likely be set for December in Gosford, on the NSW central coast.

Lawrence is the only Bali Nine member to be released.

Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in 2015 and Tan Duc Thahn Nguyen died of stomach cancer in May earlier this year.

Martin Stephens, 42, Michael Czugaj, 32, Scott Rush, 33, and Si Yi Chen, 33, remain in prison where they are serving life sentences, with little chance of release.
Tekashi 6ix9ine's lawyer claimed that his client was 'completely innocent' of federal racketeering and firearms charges as Nicki Minaj took to her social media to lend her support to the embattled rapper.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Lance Lazzaro said in a statement that his client was 'completely innocent of all charges.'

'An entertainer who portrays a 'gangster image' to promote his music does not make him a member of an enterprise,' Lazzaro said of the 22-year-old, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Lance Lazzaro said in a statement that his client was 'completely innocent of all charges'

'Mr. Hernandez became a victim of this enterprise and later took steps by firing employees and publicly denounced this enterprise through a morning show. Threats were then made against his life which resulted in this case being brought immediately,' he added.

Soon after the statement, Nicki Minaj took to her Instagram to offer her own words for 'Danny.'

'For reasons beyond music, the record company will hold off on putting his project out for now,' she said. 'Danny, I love you and am praying for you, your Mother, daughter & her Mom during this time.'

Soon after the statement, Nicki Minaj took to her Instagram to offer her own words for 'Danny', the photo she posted above

'For reasons beyond music, the record company will hold off on putting his project out for now,' she said. 'Danny, I love you and am praying for you, your Mother, daughter & her Mom during this time'

The two have song 'FeFe' out together and the track wound up being 6ix9ine's highest-charting single, coming in at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. It is likely the project she was referring to is the hit track and it's anticipated appearance on 6ix9ine's album which has now been delayed.

Nicki Minaj and 6ix9ine have a song called 'FeFe' out together and the track wound up being the rapper's highest-charting single, coming in at number three on the Billboard Hot 100

The rapper is among five people indicted this week on charges that he directed or participated in violent acts as part of a deadly gang known as the 9 Trey Bloods.

The indictment alleges that the violent episodes involving 6ix9ine included the July shooting of a bystander in Brooklyn and the gunpoint robbery of one of the gang's rivals last spring.

6ix9ine was held without bail after an initial appearance before a Manhattan federal magistrate judge on Monday.

At Monday's hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Longyear said the rapper did not renounce his membership in the gang on the radio show last week.

He said 6ix9ine would have been arrested this week anyway, but it was sped up when authorities learned that he planned to go to a Connecticut casino where it would be harder to protect him from the threats.

Longyear said the threats were overheard on phone calls intercepted Saturday by investigators, including one in which an individual was heard saying that gang members wanted to 'super violate him.'

6ix9ine, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, was indicted on racketeering and firearm charges in Manhattan federal court on Monday. He is pictured in court in October

The prosecutor noted that violence seemed to surround the entertainer. He said 10 shots were fired into a Beverly Hills, California, home where he was filming a music video a week ago.

The statements come after 6ix9ine was placed in general population at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.

The prison is known for being filled with 'extremely dangerous, violent, or escape-prone' inmates, according to the US Justice Department.

Federal prosecutors alleged the 22-year-old rapper was involved in the violent New York City-based gang Nine Trey, a 'violent sect of the Bloods', for several years.

6ix9ine's bail hearing was scheduled for Tuesday but has been pushed to Wednesday because the judge was unavailable.

Federal prosecutors alleged the 22-year-old rapper was involved in the violent New York City -based gang Nine Trey, a 'violent sect of the Bloods', for several years

This April 3, 2018 still image from a surveillance video was released by federal prosecutors to document alleged involvement by the rapper in several violent incidents

This April 21, 2018 still image from a surveillance video shows a shooting at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which prosecutors claim the rapper and Nine Trey were involved in

Hs ex-manager Kifano Jordan, aka Shotti, was charged.

Faheem Walter, aka Crippy, Jamel Jones, aka Mel Murda, Jensel Butler, aka Ish, and Fuguan Lovick, aka Fu Banga, were also indicted.

According to the press release, Nine Trey is a 'criminal enterprise involved in committing numerous acts of violence, including shootings, robberies, and assaults in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn'.

'Members and associates of Nine Trey engaged in violence to retaliate against rival gangs, to promote the standing and reputation of Nine Trey, and to protect the gang's narcotics business,' the press release continues.

The group 'enriched themselves by committing robberies and selling drugs, such as heroin, fentanyl, furanly fentanyl, MDMA, dibutylone, and marijuana.'

Nine Trey was established in the early 90s at Rikers and operates in other areas of the country, including California.

6ix9ine's former manager Kifano Jordan (pictured November 7 in Manhattan court) has also been charged in the gang-related crimes

6ix9ine is currently facing 25 years to life in prison on six counts of the gang-related crimes.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said the gang has been involved in multiple acts of violence and has wreaked havoc on New York City.

'Showing reckless indifference to others' safety, members of the gang were allegedly involved in robberies and shootings, including a shooting inside the crowded Barclay's Center, and a shooting in which an innocent bystander was hit,' Berman said.

'Thanks to the extraordinary work of HSI, ATF, and the NYPD, the defendants will now face justice in federal court.'

The rapper, whose debut album Day69 is among the most downloaded on iTunes, has been among the most ascendant and controversial names in hip-hop in recent months.

In 2015, 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to one felony count of using a child in a sexual performance.

Authorities said the rapper had sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl when he was 18 and distributed videos of the incident online.

6ix9ine recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Brooklyn Criminal Court in connection with a May traffic stop.

Last week the rapper revealed in an Instagram clip that he had dismissed his entire staff, including his manager and booker.

'I fired everybody on my team,' the Gummo artist said in the clip, imploring his fans that he was not going to be performing live in the near future, even in cases where he might be advertised.

'I don't got no manager, I got no booking agent, no PR, no publicist, I don't got nobody on my team - it's just me.'
Two suspected bombs have been found in a disused flat in north-west London, sparking a large counter-terror operation.

Two suspicious items were found at a flat in Craven Park, Harlesden, this morning and are believed to be improvised explosive devices.

The flat was evacuated and the area cordoned off while detectives from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command launched an investigation.

The two devices were subsequently made safe and recovered from the flat and are now undergoing further forensic examination.

A police car and a tent outside the flat in Craven Park where police were called to reports of suspicious items. The Met's counter-terror command has taken over the investigation

Further searches were also conducted around the flat, which was in the process of being refurbished, and the area has now been deemed safe.

Cordons around the block of flats - which are located just opposite Harlesden's police station - were not lifted until 6pm at which point residents were able to return to their homes.

Detectives from the Mets Counter Terrorism Command are now leading the investigation, a police statement said.

Officers are keeping an open mind as to how or why the devices came to be there, police said. No arrests have been made and enquiries continue.

One nearby resident, Suwan lekha, told the Evening Standard: 'I was in the house and a policewoman rang the bell and asked me not to go outside and to keep away because they had found a suspicious package that needed to be investigated.

'I felt safe because there were lots of police officers on the road and Im away from it, the police do good work.'

Chief Superintendent Simon Rose, North West Command Unit said: 'I'd like to thank local residents in the area for their patience and understanding whilst we dealt with this incident today.

'The public's safety is our top priority, and I would like to pay tribute to the specialist officers who attended and were able to safely recover the devices.

'I also want to reassure the local community that we have carried out precautionary searches in the surrounding area to make sure there was nothing else of a similar nature nearby, which I'm pleased to confirm is the case.

'The next stage is to investigate how and why the two devices came to be in this flat and detectives from the Counter Terrorism Command will be leading this.

'I would ask anyone who might have information that could assist us to get in touch, either by calling 0800 789 321 or by calling Crimestoppers, which is completely anonymous.'

The scene at a property in Harlesden, north London after police were called to reports of two suspicious devices found in an unoccupied flat which was in the process of being refurbished
Members of the migrant caravan are willing to enter the United States by any means possible, even if it means stampeding across the border fence.

Some of the migrants who are staying at a refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico, were caught on video by Telemundo news cameras as they scaled towards the top of the metal structure.

'A human stampede would be an immediate provocation to the U.S. and justify [President] Donald Trump to impact the binational dynamics of the economy,' Tijuana councilman Manuel Monarrez said.

Jorge Molina, one of several thousands Hondurans who joined the massive multinational migrant caravan that took its first steps towards the Mexico-U.S. border in mid October, said the majority wants to be on the other side of the fence.

Jorge Molina, a migrant from Honduras seeking asylum from the United States government, says members of the massive caravan that has settled in a refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico, is already considering jumping over the border fence

Since Monday, members of the migrant caravan have been seen practicing scaling up the metal fence along the southern United States border with Mexico. A councilman from Tijuana says such daring act by the migrants would provoke the Trump administration

Sergio Tamai founded Angels Without Borders, a group that has been aiding the migrants during the process, and believes that thousands of migrants could very well jump over the metal border wall in Tijuana

He already sensed the restlessness settling over refugee campsite just south of California.

'Some want to jump over the wall, others want to go the other way, others want to wait,' Molina told Telemundo on Tuesday.

Such daring mission could endanger migrants who are just dreaming of being granted asylum in the United States.

'We were going to gather at that huge door... I think thousands could make that jump,' said Sergio Tamai, who founded Angels Without Borders, a group that has been aiding the migrants during the process.

Migrants made their way into southern Mexico from Guatemala, but not before violently clashing with its military and police force on several occasions in late October.

President Donald Trump even suggested earlier this month that the 5,000 American troops that were recently stationed at a section of the southern border that stretches from Texas to California could fire their weapons if the migrants were to provoke them with violence.

'They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back,' Trump said during a White House press conference on November 2.

'I told them, consider it a rifle.'

A migrant in Tijuana lends a helping hand to another man practicing how to climb the metal fencing that divides Mexico and the United States

Concertina wire placed by members of the United States military partially lines the border wall separating Tijuana, Mexico, behind, and San Diego

A woman in Tijuana, Mexico, looks through a section of the border wall lined with concertina wire

About 3,000 migrants have arrived from the first caravan and settled in Tijuana in recent weeks as they await to cross the border while several thousands are making a beeline towards the Mexico-U.S. border.

Since Monday, a few men left the dirt filled camp area and were seen performing a practice run near Playa de Tijuana, perfecting the skill of climbing up the steel fence in the popular tourist town as onlookers cheered them on.

On Monday, a US federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked Trump's administration from denying asylum to people who enter the country illegally, prompting the president to allege Tuesday that the court was biased against him.
A 500km wall of dust stretching almost the entire length of NSW has closed in on Sydney, prompting warnings from health authorities.

Strong winds from a low pressure system has whipped up masses of dirt across the drought-stricken state, which steadily headed to the coast on Thursday morning.

The skies over Sydney turned a pale red by late morning, as weather experts warned anyone with asthma or other respiratory problems to stay indoors.

Sydney has been blanketed by a thick red haze as a dust storm sweeping across New South Wales tears its way towards the Harbour City

'It's quickly moving east,' Dean Narramore from the Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday morning

'It's a huge system,' Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Anita Pyne said.

'We're expecting the dust to gradually increase over the next few hours, with the main band of dust to hit Sydney through the middle of the day or early afternoon. So the worst visibility is yet to occur.'

The dust is expected to keep sweeping east and may not clear the coast until Friday.

The 500km wall of dust stretching almost the entire length of NSW has prompted warnings from health authorities

Strong winds from a low pressure system has whipped up masses of dirt across the drought-stricken state, which is steadily heading to the coast

Weather experts have warned anyone with asthma or other respiratory problems to stay indoors

NSW Health is warning the dust will likely reduce air quality and has urged children, older people and those with respiratory conditions to take extra care.

'If possible, stay in air-conditioned premises where filtration systems can help to reduce dust particles in the air,' environmental health director Richard Broome said in a statement.

'Dust may aggravate existing heart and lung conditions and cause symptoms like eye irritation and cough.'

The conditions bear a striking resemblance to 2009's 'red dawn' - one of the worst dust storms in Australia's history.

Though spectacular, Mr Narramore warned such events can be potentially deadly.

A number of dust storms have already hit western parts of New South Wales in recent weeks

The skies over Sydney are expected to turn a deep red by late morning, as the dust storm moves east from western NSW

'The dust can get in [the lungs] and you start coughing and wheezing. Be careful about that out and about,' he said.

'Especially later today... There'll be a fair bit of dust blowing around as we move into late morning hours.'

While it's not yet known if the weather event will be as severe as the 2009 storm, further warnings will be issued if that is the case.

Footage of the storm, filmed from inside the White Cliffs Hotel in far west NSW on Wednesday, shows the swirling dust turn everything in sight a husky red colour.

White Cliffs Hotel Manager Olivia Probyn told Daily Mail Australia the storm had a 'mad max/apocalyptic' feel to it.

'Just blew the town red!' White Cliffs Hotel Manager Olivia Probyn told Daily Mail Australia the storm had a 'mad max/apocalyptic' feel to it

Sydneysiders have been told to brace for a dust storm (pictured is 2009's 'red dawn')

'Just blew the town red, bright red! And although it was bright it was that thick I couldn't see across the road to the general store!' she said.

The storm left dust piles everywhere and the clean up was quite the task, she added.

'[It's] still gritty but what can you do, we love [it] out in the bush... That was today...next couple of days will be interesting!' she said.

In 2009, the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were barely visible and flights in and out of the city were cancelled as the dust storm swept across the city.

The storm is expected to hit Sydney and Canberra on Thursday - but it is unknown if it will rival 2009's 'red dawn' (pictured are children playing in Balmain in 2009)

Bureau of Meteorology weather services manager Jane Golding said its computer model suggested Thursday's event could be comparable.

'A frontal system generates some really strong westerly winds, and that frontal system ends up producing a low pressure system to the south of the country which picks up even more vigorous winds,' Ms Golding told the ABC.

She said while the entire state and the ACT could be at risk, the dust storm's reach would depend on the strength of the winds.

An Airservices Australia spokesperson said Sydney Airport has advanced procedures to allow for landing and taking off in low visibility conditions.

However, if conditions were to worsen there is potential for flight delays.
An American missionary who was shot dead with arrows by a tribe he wanted to convert on a remote Indian island wrote a letter to his parents asking them not to be 'mad at them or at God' if he was killed.

John Allen Chau, 26, was shot dead with arrows last week by tribesman when he arrived at North Sentinel Island - one of the world's most isolated regions in India's Andaman islands that is off-limits to visitors.

He had paid local fishermen to take him there before venturing alone in a kayak to the shore on November 15. Chau was shot by the Sentinelese tribe after arriving on the island, according to a fisherman who helped him get there.

Chau was able to safely return to the boat but made his way back to the island the following day, which is when the fishermen said they later saw the tribe dragging his body away.

Indian officials said they are now working with anthropologists to recover his body.

DailyMail.com has since obtained the letter Chau wrote to his parents, as well as several journal entries, he penned prior to his death that detail how he was committed to teaching the tribe about Jesus.

'You guys might think I'm crazy in all this but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people,' he wrote in the letter to his parents.

'Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed.

John Allen Chau, 26, was shot dead with arrows last week by tribesman when he arrived at North Sentinel Island - one of the world's most isolated regions in India's Andaman islands

DailyMail.com has since obtained a letter Chau wrote to his parents he penned prior to his death that detailed how he was committed to teaching the tribe about Jesus

'Rather please live your lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I'll see you again when you pass through the veil. This is not a pointless thing - the eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can't wait to see them around the throne of God worshiping in their own language as Revelations 7:9-10 states.

'I love you all and I pray none of you love anything in this world more than Jesus Christ.'

Chau signed off the letter with his name and 'Soli Deo gloria', which is Latin for Glory to God alone. The letter is dated November 16, which is one day after the fishermen said they first took him to the island.

Dependera Pathak, director-general of police on India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, said Chau organized his visit to the island through a friend who hired seven fishermen for $325 to take him there on a boat, which also towed his kayak.

Two armed Sentinelese came rushing out yelling. They had two arrows each, unstrung, until they got closer. I hollered 'My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you'. John Chau's journal entry after making contact with the tribe

He went ashore in his kayak on November 15 and sent the boat with the fishermen out to sea to avoid detection. Chau interacted with some of the tribespeople, offering gifts such as a football and fish but they became angry and shot an arrow at him, hitting a book he was carrying.

After his kayak was damaged, Chau swam back to the fishermen's boat, which was waiting at a prearranged location. He spent the night writing about his experiences on journal pages that he then gave the fishermen.

He set out again to meet the tribespeople on November 16 and never returned. Pathak said the following day the fishermen watched from a distance as the tribesmen dragged Chau's body away.

Chau's journal entries - dated between November 14 to 16 - have shed some light on what occurred when he first arrived at the island, including how he initially panicked when he saw the tribe's bows.

He detailed how he tried to offer fish to the tribesmen before 'two armed Sentinelese came rushing out yelling'. He said he came face to face with the islanders and at one point was 'just inches' away.

'They had two arrows each, unstrung, until they got closer. I hollered "My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you",' he wrote.

Chau's journal entries - dated between November 14 to 16 - have shed some light on what occurred when he first arrived at the island, including how he initially panicked when he saw the tribe's bows

Chau took a boat ride with the fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to North Sentinel Island (pictured, a file photo shows tribesmen on the island)

The Sentinelese attracted international attention in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, when a member of the tribe was photographed on a beach, firing arrows at a helicopter (pictured)

'I regret I began to panic slightly as I saw them string arrows in their bows. I picked up the fish and threw it toward them. They kept coming.

'I paddled like I never have in my life back to the boat. I felt some fear but mainly was disappointed. They didn't accept me right away. '

He later wrote: 'Well, I've been shot by the Sentinelese By a kid probably about 10 or so years old, maybe a teenager, short compared to those who looked like adults.

'Please do not be angry at them': John Chau's letter to his parents You guys might think I'm crazy in all this but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. Rather please live you lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I'll see you again when you pass through the veil. This is not a pointless thing - the eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can't wait to see them around the throne of God worshiping in their own language as Revelations 7:9-10 states. I love you all and I pray none of you love anything in this world more than Jesus Christ.' Soli Deo gloria. Advertisement

Describing the attack, Chau said: a 'little kid shot me with an arrow - directly into my Bible which I was holding.

'If you want me to get actually shot or even killed with an arrow then so be it. I think I could be more useful alive though

'I don't want to die! Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else continue? No. I don't think so. I still could make it back to the US somehow as it almost seems like certain death to stay here.

'God, I don't want to die. WHO WILL TAKE MY PLACE IF I DO? OH GOD I miss my parents...

'Why did a little kid have to shoot me today?.. Father, forgive him and any of the people on this island who try to kill me...'

He appeared to detail the moment he was initially shot at, saying: 'I heard the whoops and shouts from the hunt. I made sure to stay out of arrow range, but unfortunately that meant I was also out of good hearing range.

'So I got a little closer as they (about 6 from what I could see) yelled at me, I tried to parrot their words back to them. They burst out laughing most of the time, so they probably were saying bad words or insulting me.

'They were also yelling into the forest behind the hut which they made in drumming sound, if I can recall. Perhaps their men were away which would explain why the only ones yelling at me looked fairly juvenile.'

He wrote: 'I spotted one man wearing a white crown or something (flowers maybe?) on his head and he also took a seemingly leadership stance... yelled at me. Leadership stance meaning he climbed atop the tallest coral rock to yell.'

Indian police said a murder case had been registered against 'unknown tribesmen', while seven people - the fishermen who took him to the island - have been arrested in connection with Chau's death.

The Sentinelese who killed Chau can't be prosecuted as contact with them and several tribes on the islands is illegal in a bid to protect their indigenous way of life and shield them from diseases.

The Chau family posted this statement regarding his death on his Instagram account on Wednesday

Chau was a preacher who had visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past, a police source said

Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on November 16, before transferring to a canoe (pictured, a canoe he used in October)

Chau's last Instagram post featured a picture of a waterfall (above) thought to be in the Andaman islands

'Adventure awaits. So do leeches,' Chau wrote in the caption for his final Instagram album on November 2

One of Chau's friends revealed to DailyMail.com that he was 'committed' to travelling to the remote island, deep in the Indian Ocean, to preach Christianity to the tribesmen and had been planning the trip for at least three years.

Neil MacLeod, of Stornaway, Scotland, said he met Chau on a flight from London to Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2015.

'I saw him reading some Christian literature and I'm a Christian and we started talking,' he said.

MacLeod, 47, said Chau told him he had recently returned from India and was trying to figure out how to travel to the remote North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal.

'He mentioned that he wanted to go to these islands, the islands where he has now died,' MacLeod said. 'I had heard of these islands and I know how dangerous they are, so I was surprised by that.

If you want me to get actually shot or even killed with an arrow then so be it. I think I could be more useful alive though John Chau in his journal entry

'He recognized the dangers of travelling there, but I think he had a sense of call. This was something he was working on for three years. He was committed to going there. In his view, he was trying to help these people.

'There are islands that are nearby and he was making relationships and connections to help him get to the islands.'

Since the flight, MacLeod said he had emailed back and forth with Chau, who he described as 'magnetic' and 'charming.'

'He was a lovely character and wanted to help people. The thing that came across was what a delight it was to be in his company.

'He was such a warm and engaging and friendly kind of fellow. You might have an idea of what a missionary might be like, he was a million miles from that. I think he's a real loss. I'm just very sorry about what has happened.'

MacLeod said Chau was based in Portland, Washington, and working as an EMT at the time. He said he had helped during major incidents, including in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

'He was a free wheel so he would go to incidents, like major incidents around the world and look to help,' he said. He had worked with FEMA when he went down to Katrina. He was working there. He's worked in some pretty rough places.'

Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island

The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150

The Sentinelese tribe are an indigenous tribe who live on North Sentinal Island, lies around 450 miles from the coast of Thailand and more than 745 miles from mainland India

He also paid tribute to Chau on Twitter, writing: 'He readily spoke of his calling to serve the Sentinelese. His calling came from a higher authority. He died a servant of the Lord. Saddened by his loss. He was a lovely guy.'

Others flocked to Chau's Instagram to pay tribute, with one friend writing: 'You were a real explorer out to understand the boundaries of terrestrial human travels.

'Those boundaries are seemingly electric at first touch... and you were the first to touch.'

Another added: 'So proud of you John. You are a true hero and it was such an honor to know you. Thank you for your obedience and passion, it's inspiring.'

A police source told Reuters that Chau was a preacher who had visited the nearby Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past. Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island

Chau was a Christian missionary who wanted to interact with members of the Sentinelese tribe, according to International Christian Concern.

William Stark, ICC's regional manager, paid tribute to Chau and condemned his killing.

'We here at International Christian Concern are extremely concerned by the reports of an American missionary being murdered in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to both John's family and friends. A full investigation must be launched in this this murder and those responsible must be brought to justice. India must take steps to counter the growing wave of intolerance and violence.'

Chau tried to reach the island on November 14 but couldn't make it, police sources said

He returned two days later better prepared. He left a dinghy midway and took a canoe to the island alone

Police launched an investigation after they were contacted by the US consulate in the southern city of Chennai, which had been in touch with Chau's mother.

The world's most isolated tribe: Who are the Sentinelese and why are they hostile to outsiders? The Sentinelese tribe has attacked almost everyone who has entered their territory. Because of their rejection of the outside world, little is known about them - including what they call themselves. What is known has been gleaned from viewing them from boats moored far enough away from the tribesmen, who carry spears, bows and arrows, or from the few times the tribe allowed authorities to come close enough to hand over coconuts. The Sentinelese attracted international attention in the wake of the 2004 Asian tsunami, when a member of the tribe was photographed on a beach, firing arrows at a helicopter that was checking on their welfare. Today, the island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150. Campaigns by non-profit and local organizations have led the Indian government to abandon plans to contact the Sentinelese. Survival International works to ensure that no further attempts are made to contact the tribe. It is now illegal to have any contact with the tribe and last year, the Indian government said even taking photographs or making videos of aboriginal Andaman tribes would be punishable with imprisonment of up to three years. They say the Sentinelese have thrived on the small forested island, which is approximately the size of Manhattan, for up to 55,000 years. The women wear fibre strings tied around their waists, necks and heads. The men also wear necklaces and headbands, but with a thicker waist belt. From a distance, they appear healthy and thriving and observers have noted many children and pregnant women at times. According to Survival, the Sentinelese hunt and gather in the forest, and fish in the coastal waters by make narrow outrigger canoes, which can only be used in shallow waters as they are steered and propelled with a pole like a punt. Advertisement

A spokeswoman for the US consulate in Chennai said: 'We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

'When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,' she added, but declined to provide further details over privacy concerns.

Chau's Instagram shows he spent much of his time travelling and he documented his exploits on a blog called The Rugged Trail.

His last post on Instagram was shared on November 2. Alongside a series of pictures taken in the jungle, he wrote: 'Adventure awaits. So do leeches.'

Chau also spoke about his passion for travel in an interview with The Outbound Collective in 2014.

When asked where was on his 'must-do adventure list,' he said: 'Going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India is on the top - there's so much to see and do there!'

He also revealed his personal motto was: 'Make the most of every good opportunity today because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow!'

Speaking about his inspirations, he said: 'Adventurers like John Muir, Bruce Olson, and David Livingston inspire me to go travel and explore, and I definitely get my inspiration for life from Jesus.'

Meanwhile, Survival International, a London-based organization that has been campaigning to protect the indigenous tribes living in the Andamans, called Chau's death a 'tragedy' that should 'never have been allowed to happen.'

The group's international director, Stephen Corry, said: 'This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen. The Indian authorities should have been enforcing the protection of the Sentinelese and their island for the safety of both the tribe, and outsiders.

'Instead, a few months ago the authorities lifted one of the restrictions that had been protecting the Sentinelese tribe's island from foreign tourists, which sent exactly the wrong message, and may have contributed to this terrible event.'

He added: 'It's not impossible that the Sentinelese have just been infected by deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe.

'The Sentinelese have shown again and again that they want to be left alone, and their wishes should be respected.'
Former President Barack Obama visited the Greater Chicago Food Depository this week to help prepare Thanksgiving meals ahead of the holiday on Thursday.

The Obama Foundation tweeted a video of Obama's trip to the food bank on Wednesday, which include a call to action from 44.

'Wherever you are in the country, I'll bet there's an organization just like this one that is doing some really good work,' Obama said.

'Make sure that you give them some support as we go into the holiday season.'

The non-profit organization's mission to combat hunger and food insecurity is especially important now, as America has seen a rise in the national food hardship rate for all households for the first time in several years, according to a report released in August by the Food Research and Action Center.

The FRAC report found that the national food hardship rate for all households increased from 15.1 percent in 2016 to 15.7 percent in 2017, as he food hardship rate for households with children rose to a considerably higher level, from 17.5 percent in 2016 to 18.4 percent in 2017.

Nationally, the food hardship rate for households with children is 1.3 times higher than for households without children.

Mississippi had the highest food hardship rate among the states, at 22 percent, which equates to 1 in 5 households, reporting that they did not have enough money to buy food at some point in the past 12 months.

In nearly half the states, 24 plus the District of Columbia, at least 1 in 7 respondent households (14.3 percent or more) reported food hardship.

In between clips of Obama doing his part to help ease that pain, at least for the holiday, Obama touted the efforts of the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Former President Barack Obama visited the Greater Chicago Food Depository this week to help prepare Thanksgiving meals ahead of the holiday on Thursday, calling on others to do the same across the US

The charity, which serves the city of Chicago and Cook County, is located on West Ann Lurie Place.

'They do great work making sure that those aren't as fortunate are able to enjoy the kind of Thanksgiving meal that so many of us take for granted,' he said, in the midst of interacting with volunteers.

The food bank also shared video from Obama's visit, tweeting a thank you to the former president on Tuesday.

Throughout the videos, Obama is shown working side by side with volunteers, ranging in age from the very young to the more mature

'Thank you to @BarackObama and @ObamaFoudnation for joining our volunteers today at the Food Depository,' the post read.

'We believe no one should go hungry, especially this time of year, and thats why were working to address the root causes of hunger in Chicago and Cook County.'

Throughout the videos, Obama is shown working side by side with volunteers, ranging in age from the very young to the more mature.

With Obama in a black Chicago White Sox cap and others wearing hair nets and aprons, everyone set about bagging sacks of potatoes that will become a part of Thanksgiving meals.

While working with volunteers, Obama took a moment to thank two young girls who are overjoyed to share their selfless work with the president, bending down to hug one of them

'They do great work making sure that those aren't as fortunate are able to enjoy the kind of Thanksgiving meal that so many of us take for granted,' Obama said, in the midst of clips of him interacting with volunteers

Obama is also seen taking a moment to thank two young girls who are overjoyed to share their selfless work with the president.

'You guys are doing such a great job helping out,' he said, while bending down to give one of the children a hug.

'I'm really proud of ya,' Obama added, while going back to backing food items with other volunteers.

Before he left, Obama signed a blackboard at the food bank featuring his signature word, 'Hope,' with the phrase, 'Hope requires action'

'Happy Thanksgiving everybody,' Obama said, while waving at the large group of volunteers. 'I'm really proud of you guys'

He shared the same sentiment with the group at large before leaving the food bank.

'Happy Thanksgiving everybody,' he said, while waving at the large group of volunteers. 'I'm really proud of you guys.'

Before he left, Obama signed a blackboard at the food bank featuring his signature word, 'Hope,' with the phrase, 'Hope requires action.'

FRAC's report anaylzed the seriousness of food scarcity across the US by recording responses to the question: 'Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?'

The Greater Chicago Food Depository serves the city of Chicago and Cook County, is located on West Ann Lurie Place

A 'yes' answer to this question was considered to signal that the household experienced food hardship in the report.

FRAC uses the phrase 'food hardship' to avoid confusion with the annual Census Bureau and US.s Department of Agriculture survey and analysis that produces 'food insecurity' numbers, but the group said the concepts are comparable.

'While often hidden behind closed doors, food hardship is a serious national problem that requires a serious national response,' FRAC president Jim Weill said.

'Too many people in every region, state, and community have been left behind in the economic recovery from the Great Recession, and are still struggling to put food on the table.'
Stephen Colbert joined a chorus of lawmakers ripping Donald Trump for his 'maybe he did and maybe he didn't' claim about the the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on Tuesday evening.

Colbert said in a segment that made a mockery of Trump's day that 'a Magic-8 Ball' would have taken a firmer stance' on the crown prince of Saudi Arabia played journalist's death.

'Did Donald Trump just knowingly provide cover for a murderous autocrat?' Colbert asked. 'Maybe he did, and maybe he didnt.'

Stephen Colbert joined a chorus of lawmakers ripping Donald Trump for his 'maybe he did and maybe he didn't' claim about the the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on Tuesday evening

Trump had declared in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that 'the world is a dangerous place' but that doesn't mean that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the dissident's death.

'It is now,' Colbert said searing the president. 'Apparently you can kill a Washington Post journalist and the president don't give a damn.'

Trump refused to admit that he was wrong on Wednesday to clear bin Salman before all of the intelligence surrounding Khashoggi's death had been assessed.

He insisted he was right not to condemn Saudi Arabian leaders despite the harsh criticism of his pronouncement that the crown prince may have been in the dark.

Trump held the declining price of oil, of which Saudi Arabia is the top exporter, as a reason for maintaining a positive relationship with the kingdom.

'Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82,' he said. 'Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!'

Donald Trump insisted he was right not to condemn Saudi Arabian leaders for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder on Wednesday morning after harsh criticism of his pronouncement the day before that the crown prince may have been in the dark

Trump held the declining price of oil, of which Saudi Arabia is the top exporter, as a reason for maintaining a positive relationship with the kingdom

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says he had nothing to do with with the death, but the CIA has confidentially assessed that couldn't plausibly be the case

The president had argued the afternoon prior that Saudi Arabia could jack up the price of oil and drive up consumer costs while defending a much-maligned announcement that he would take no action at this time against the nation for Khashoggi's assassination.

Bin Salman says he had nothing to do with with the death, but the CIA has confidentially assessed that couldn't plausibly be the case. It's unlikely that the de facto ruler of the kingdom was unaware of what was happening inside the consulate where Khashoggi was tortured and then murdered.

Speaking before he boarded Marine One for the first leg of a trip to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving, President Trump refused to retreat from a claim he had made in a written statement that there was no certainty bin Salman ordered the brutal killing of the dissident Washington Post columnist.

He claimed that Russia and China would sweep in and take Saudi investments for themselves if America introduced tough new sanctions on the oil-rich nation.

The president also denied he had any personal business interest in the Saudi economy, claiming that being president had cost him 'a fortune like you have never seen.'

Trump spoke after the White House issued an exclamation point-littered statement on Khashoggi's killing that went against a reported CIA assessment that it was high probable bin Salman ordered the journalist's murder.

His position entirely ignored the CIA's findings and prompted an immediate backlash from prominent senators.

'I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,' Sen. Bob Corker tweeted.

On the White House's South Lawn Trump explained: 'It is all about America first - it is America first.

'We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars of orders and let Russia, China, everybody else have them,' he said.

Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday evening tweeting 'America First'

America first: Trump defiantly said he would not blame Mohammed bin Salman for Jamal Khashoggi's murder because he did not want to 'break with Saudi Arabia.'

That's all folks: Trump spoke before he got on Marine One to begin his journey to Mar-a-Lago

Trump suggested that among the deals which would be at stake were investment in military equipment made by Saudi Arabia, which he claimed was part of a $400 billion investment by Saudi in the U.S.

'They're paying us 400 billion plus,' he claimed. 'That's probably the biggest amount ever paid to the United States. This is over a long period of time.'

In the past, the president has claimed a $110 billion investment from the Saudis in defense equipment that would disappear if the U.S. sanctioned the nation's military sector.

'If you think I'm going to let Russia have that money or those things, if you think I'm going to let China make the military equipment  hey, China and Russia would love to make a hundred billion dollars worth of military equipment from Saudi Arabia. We have the contracts. They wanted those contracts,' he said on Tuesday.

'That would be a big fat beautiful gift to Russia and China. They are not going to get that gift.'

He also said that he believed Saudis would send up global oil prices, which he took personal credit for keeping low.

'Saudi Arabia, if we break with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof,' he said. 'I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down.'

If he were to act against the kingdom, Trump suggested there would be a global economic meltdown.

'Right now we have oil prices in great shape. I'm not going to destroy the world economy, and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.'

He added, 'I think the statement was pretty obvious what I said. It's about America First.'

Trump also denied that he had any personal financial interest in Saudi Arabia, saying: 'Well I have nothing to do with Saudi  just so you understand.

'I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less,' he insisted. 'As most of you know, being president has cost me a fortune, and that's okay with me. I knew that a long time ago.'

He said the presidency has cost him more than he's profited, although he refused to say how much.

'Being president has cost me a fortune. A tremendous fortune like you've never seen before. But some day I'll tell you what that is.'

His claims came in response to the critical reception that a lengthy written statement defending Saudi Arabia had received.

Before he pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, Trump indicated that he wasn't convinced by the CIA's version of the events leading to Khashoggi's death.

'Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!' the president said.

The CIA has determined that Mohammed bin Salman not only knew about the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, but that he ordered it. But Trump, in a lengthy statement just before he pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, said he wasn't convinced

Trump's intervention serves to prop up MBS, who is a close ally of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, at a time when the top of the wider Saudi royal family is no longer united in backing him.

One of his uncles is being suggested as the next king by other family members, leaving MBS more politically exposed than he had been before the furor over the murder.

The president's was warned by two Republican senators who he sees as key allies, Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, that he was wrong not to sanction Saudi Arabia and MBS, even though he left the option open to Congess.

Graham said it is not in U.S. national security interests to 'look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder' of Khashoggi.

The South Carolina senator said he thinks there will be strong bipartisan support in Congress for serious sanctions against Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family.

Paul also said it was a 'mistake' for Trump to continue supporting arms sales to the Saudis, saying 'it's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia.'

The Kentucky senator has been trying to convince Trump to halt the $100 billion in arms sales that Trump says Saudi Arabia already committed to. Paul said Trump's position signals that Saudi Arabia can 'just behead anybody that protests against the kingdom.'

He also said selling arms is not a 'jobs program,' and the U.S. should not reward Saudi Arabia's 'bad behavior.' He claimed he has the votes in the Senate to block it.

Trump's stunning statement came hours before the president was due to depart the White House for a family holiday at Mar-a-Lago.

And it was just days after the president admitted he had not listened to an audio tape provided by the Turkish government of Khashoggi's murder, because it was too gruesome.

'It was very violent, very vicious and terrible,' Trump told told Fox News on Friday.

Turmp said then that he didn't know if MBS was lying to him when he told him that he had no knowledge of the murder.

In the interview for Fox News Sunday the president replied: 'Well, will anybody really know? All right, will anybody really know? But he did have certainly people that were reasonably close to him and close to him that were probably involved.

'You saw we put on very heavy sanctions, massive sanctions on a large group of people from Saudi Arabia. But at the same time we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good,' he explained.

The president on Tuesday said that he was still open to sanctions that could be imposed by Congress in the lame duck session but would only support them if they were in the United States' national security interests.

He insisted, 'The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone.'

Yet, the U.S. president said he would take no further action because the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia is too valuable.

'That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,' he again asserted.

His statement, sent early Tuesday afternoon, claimed, 'They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region.'

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif fired back on Twitter.

'Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we're also responsible for the California fires, because we didn't help rake the forests - just like the Finns do?'

The comment was a jab at Trump's claim in an interview that wildfires could be prevented by better raking of weeds and underneath trees.

MBS pal Jared Kushner is pictured with his family at the president's turkey pardoning minutes after the statement went out on Tuesday

TRUMP'S EXCLAMATION POINT LITTERED STATEMENT ON WHY HE WON'T BLAME SAUDI ARABIA FOR MURDER OF JAMAL KHASHOGGI Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq's fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' Iran is considered 'the world's leading sponsor of terror.' On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States! The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body. Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an 'enemy of the state' and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world! I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First! Advertisement

In addition to invoking Iran, Trump had contended the United States has already taken 'strong action' against the alleged perpetrators of the crime that MBS says he wasn't aware of.

'After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body,' he said.

Members of Congress, including expected House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, were incredulous at Trump's statement on Tuesday.

'It is true that our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not just its Crown Prince, and that must factor into our response. But to suggest 'maybe he did and maybe he didn't' or that we are incapable of finding out the truth, or that knowing the truth our silence can be bought with arms sales, undermines respect for the Office of the Presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and America's standing as a champion of human rights,' Schiff responded.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another California Democrat, said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, 'I'm shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.'

'I plan to vote against any future arms sales and appropriation to Saudi Arabia. I also believe that the United States should consider sanctions against the crown prince and that the Saudi ambassador to the United States should not be allowed to continue in that role,' she insisted.

Trump in a rebuttal to the complaints had said in his comments that he understands if Congress wants to pursue a different course of action than he did.

'I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction - and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America,' he argued.

He specifically noted that Saudi Arabia is a large producer of oil.

'They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world,' he said. 'As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!'

JAMAL KHASHOGGI'S PUBLISHER VENTS FURY AT TRUMP'S 'BETRAYAL' OF VALUES Washington Post Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan said: President Trump's response to the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a betrayal of long-established American values of respect for human rights and the expectation of trust and honesty in our strategic relationships. He is placing personal relationships and commercial interests above American interests in his desire to continue to do business as usual with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The Central Intelligence Agency has thoroughly investigated the murder of this innocent journalist and concluded with high confidence that it was directed by the Crown Prince. If there is reason to doubt the findings of the CIA, President Trump should immediately make that evidence public. President Trump is correct in saying the world is a very dangerous place. His surrender to this state-oriented murder will only make it more so. An innocent man, brutally slain, deserves better, as does the cause of truth and justice and human rights. In this failure of leadership from President Trump, it now falls to Congress to stand up for America's true values and lasting interests. Advertisement

At the White House on Monday, the president's counselor, Kellyanne Conway had insisted that sanctions were not permanently off the table after launching a passionate defense of the president's actions so far.

She said that Trump would make a decision after reading an intelligence community report.

Vice President Mike Pence had told reporters while he was in Australia that the U.S would hold 'all of those who are responsible' for the murder accountable.

'The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was an atrocity. It was also an affront to a free and independent press and the United States is determined to hold all of those accountable who are responsible for that murder,' Pence told reporters traveling with him on Saturday.

Trump then released a puzzling statement defending the Saudis and the crown prince.

'King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi,' he again pointed out.

It was more love than MBS was getting from inside the royal family.

Sources close to the royal court told Reuters that princes and cousins from inside the Al Saud family are asking for a change in the line of succession. They acknowledged that the 82-year-old king is unlikely to ditch his son, however.

A Washington Post report over the weekend said the U.S. had high confidence in a CIA assessment that MBS would have been knowledgeable about events happening in the kingdom he effectively rules.

The CIA's confidence level was lifted, CNN reported, after receiving an audio tape provided to the U.S. by the Turkish government earlier this month.

Khashoggi can be heard ordering his killers to release him in the audio recording of his murder, before one of the killers shouts: 'Traitor! You will be brought to account,' according to Turkish media.

The audio allegedly also includes a conversation between members of the 'hit squad' during which one of them complains about having to wear Khashoggi's clothing to act as a decoy after his murder.

Shortly after entering the consulate in Istanbul, according to Haberturk, the journalist can also be heard saying, 'Release my arm! What do you think you are doing?'

The exchange is followed by 'a verbal quarrel, noises of a physical fight and then beating and torture', the newspaper reported.

More than an hour after Khashoggi enters the consulate, a male voice can allegedly be heard saying 'it is spooky to wear the clothes of a man whom we killed 20 minutes ago.'

The 59-year-old Washington Post journalist was last seen entering the building on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his Turkish fiancee.

According to Turkish officials, the audio recording proves that Khashoggi was strangled to death and dismembered soon after entering the consulate.

At the State Department, the nation's chief diplomat, Mike Pompeo, echoed the president at a press briefing, telling reporters, 'As the president said today, the United States will continue to have a relationship with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.'

'This is a long, historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to Americans' national security,' he said.

King Salman, 82, made a speech in Riyadh on Monday where he backed his son and made no direct reference to Khashoggi's murder, except to praise the Saudi prosecutor
Lt Col Jason Heard was relieved of the Thunderbirds' command on November 20, 2017, after an incident in which he reportedly grabbed a subordinate by the neck at a bar

The commander of the US Air Force's popular flight demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, was fired last year for grabbing another pilot by the neck in a Maryland bar, it was revealed this week.

The circumstances of the physical altercation and the subsequent firing of Lt Col Jason Heard were detailed in an investigation report, which was obtained by Air Force Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Heard and the other member of the demonstration squadron, who has not been named, reportedly had been feuding for months over the commander's 'perceived risk-taking leadership style' ahead of the September 11, 2017, brawl at an Irish pub in National Harbor, Maryland.

Both Heard and the pilot had been drinking before the commander put his hands around his subordinates neck, according to the report.

Another bar patron ended up stepping in and breaking up the scuffle.

The pilot was reportedly concerned that Heard was not following flying regulations and putting the lives of the team at risk.

According to the report, the same pilot told several of his comrades he thought Heard 'was going to kill him' during one of the flyovers.

The September 11, 2017, altercation took place a day after the Thunderbirds performed a flyover above the Washington Redskins stadium (pictured), during which witnesses said the F-16 fighter jets were flying too low

Heard is pictured giving a speech on the day he assumed command of the flight demonstration team in January 2017

Heard's name is seen emblazoned on the Thunderbirds' leader's F-16 plane in January 2017

According to the newly obtained report, the pilot in the bar incident was not the only member of the squad who had expressed misgivings about Heard's leadership style, which was described as hostile.'

Others testified that Heard, who was appointed commander of the Thunderbirds in January 2017, 'compromised safety and violated Air Force flying regulations and FAA regulations.'

On the eve of the bar brawl in Maryland, the Thunderbirds performed a flyover above the Washington Redskins stadium, during which multiple witnesses said that the F-16 fighter jets were flying too low to the ground for a populated area.

Members of the squadron later complained that Heard (center) compromised safety and violated regulations

Air Force officials ultimately concluded that Heard demonstrrated a lack of judgment and ability to lead the squadron.

He was relieved of his command on November 20, 2017, by Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt, who said at the time that his firing was in the best interests of the Thunderbirds.

The Air Force said in a press release around the same time that Leavitt lost confidence in his leadership and risk management style [and] determined that new leadership was necessary to ensure the highest levels of pride, precision and professionalism within the team.

Heard was replaced by Col Kevin Walsh, who joined the Air Force in 2002. The Thunderbirds website lists him as the current commander of the team.

Heard was replaced by Col Kevin Walsh (pictured), who joined the Air Force in 2002

Heard commissioned into the Air Force in 1999 after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, according to his Air Force biography.

He had previously served as commander of an F-15 squadron and had logged more than 3,000 flight hours including nearly 800 combat flight hours over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

According to an Air Force profile published on the Thunderbirds website, when he took command of the squadron, Heard said that the team was an inspiration to many people.

To me, service as a Thunderbird is both an honor and a privilege, Heard said. It requires significant sacrifice rewarded by the trust our fellow airmen place in us to represent them to the public. I promise to provide adaptive leadership, maintain the standards and fly a safe show.
MI6 is locked in a secret battle with US President Donald Trump to persuade him not to disclose documents linked to the Russian election-meddling probe - it has been revealed.

Intelligence sources on both sides of the Atlantic told the Telegraph that spy bosses in London were frantically appealing to Trump not to make the classified documents public.

The President's aides have reportedly hit back with questions over why Britain wants the documents to be kept secret.

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Trump has threatened to release a series of documents which the UK believes could reveal intelligence sources

Authorities at MI6 (pictured) say they believe the declassification could set a 'dangerous precedent' and dissuade sources from coming forward in the future

But authorities in the UK say they have 'genuine concern' about sources being exposed if classified parts of the wiretap request were made public.

Other sources also said MI6 was concerned the publication of the documents would set a 'dangerous precedent' for the release of top secret information, and may dissuade future sources from coming forward.

A US based intelligence source said: 'I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don't want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA.'

The documents in question concern an FBI request to wiretap former Trump policy adviser Carter Page, submitted a month before the Presidential election in 2016.

Documents show the FBI suspected Page of being lured in by Russian intelligence, and the bureau was given leave to place him under intense surveillance for several months.

Leading Republicans have claimed the operation shows FBI-bias against conservative politicians and Trump has already published a portion of the top secret files.

The documents are of direct relevance to the probe by former FBI director Robert Mueller who is investigating alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election

Memos describing alleged ties between Trump and Russia compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele (pictured) are contained in the papers

Earlier this month, Trump suggested he would be willing to release 21 more pages from one of the applications - a move which sparked widespread outrage in British intelligence communities.

Memos describing alleged ties between Trump and Russia compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele are contained in the papers, which may form part of the reason for Britain's concern.

Steele is most notable for authoring a dossier which claims Russia collected a file of compromising information on Trump.

'It boils down to the exposure of people', said one US intelligence official, adding: 'We don't want to reveal sources and methods.'

The current row risks inflaming UK-US tensions at a time when Britain wants to deepen ties with America as it leaves the European Union.
An elderly man in a South Carolina became aggressive with a cyclist riding in a velomobile.

The argument escalated and the man pulled a gun on the cyclist and it was all caught on camera.

The elderly man ordered the cyclist, Dana Thompson, to remain in his vehicle, but the Thompson did not listen to the man, telling him instead 'I do what I want.'

That is when the elderly man became frustrated and pulled out a gun on Thompson.

The man can be heard off camera telling the cyclist not to get out of the velomobile

When the cyclist doesn't listen to the order and gets out- the elderly man pulls a gun and threatens to blow his head off

Once the cyclist tells the man he is being filmed- he starts to back down and tries to walk away, however the cyclist follows him and calls the police- its unclear if there were any arrests

The cyclist was using Cycliq Fly 12 camera, which recorded the entire bizarre incident.

The man eventually backs down and tries to walk away, but only after Thompson alerts him that he is being recorded.

The cyclist begins following him in his Velomobile while calling the police.

It is unclear if the elderly man was ultimately arrested.
Should Matthew Hedges really be one of MI6s top secret agents, he has a funny way of showing it. Like most of his generation, the 31-year-old PhD student chooses to chronicle his daily existence on the distinctly un-spy-friendly medium of social media, detailing academic and professional achievements on LinkedIn, while recording more personal milestones via Facebook.

His homepage on the latter site is dominated by a photograph of his country house wedding to Daniela Tejada, a Colombian he met during their time as undergraduates at Exeter University, and married in January last year. Hedges was wearing a kilt, a buttonhole, and a contented smile. His bride boasted a bejewelled dress and hairband, and in the picture was leaning forward to deliver a dutiful peck on the cheek.

Over recent weeks, Tejada, an occasionally outspoken PR and marketing executive, has mounted a very public campaign for her husbands release.

Together: Matthew Hedges and his partner Daniela Tejada tied the knot in 2017

In common with most Western observers, she regards the notion that this outwardly normal  and demonstrably unsecretive  young man could be a real-life James Bond as patently absurd. If his current fate wasnt so serious, she says, the whole idea of him working as a spook would be utterly laughable.

He wouldnt make a good spy at all, Tejada told the Mail. He would be too conspicuous.

Moreover, she says, her husband doesnt even speak Arabic. That not only makes him an odd candidate to carry out intelligence work in the United Arab Emirates, but also, tragically, means hes unable to communicate fully with the court-appointed lawyer who was supposed to represent his interests at yesterdays bizarrely short court hearing.

Of course, the authorities in the UAE see things differently.

They regard those same social media profiles as part of a carefully constructed cover story. Whats more, they apparently also take any protestations of his innocence by the British Government as yet more evidence of guilt.

Matthew Hedges with his wife Daniela Tejada

To a degree, therefore, Hedges cant win. But so it goes in a country which, despite its status as a tourist hub, is justifiably regarded by the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, a leading pro-democracy pressure group, as a brutal dictatorship with one of the most repressive governments in the world.

True to this form, the UAE hasnt yet disclosed the specific evidence that led to Hedges being jailed for life in yesterdays hearing. However senior figures in the regime have provided some clues.

Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, the UAEs attorney general, has reportedly said Hedges spent a fortnight-long trip to the country in late April attempting to secure confidential information to potentially pass to a foreign agency.

Anwar Gargash, its foreign minister, meanwhile claims to have heard unusual and embarrassing revelations about the visit.

His fate remained secret until October when Tejada tired of following Foreign Office advice not to publicise the case

Gulf News, an English language paper loyal to the regime, has told readers Hedges was initially reported to the authorities by an Emirati man who thought he was acting suspiciously, asking sensitive questions about some sensitive departments, and seeking to gather classified information on the UAE.

The paper claimed that during interrogation Hedges admitted the charges of spying for the British government.

Diplomatic rumblings date back to May 5, when Hedges was seized at Dubai airport as he waited to board a plane home. His arrest was witnessed by his mother. Although she has not been formally named, she is believed to be a member of the ex-pat community.

Hedges, who was born in Croydon in 1987 (his father is not named on the birth certificate), spent a hefty portion of his childhood in Dubai.

There, he attended a local outpost of Cranleigh, the Surrey public school which (along with Repton and Brighton College) may now be pondering the wisdom of opening lucrative educational offshoots in this Middle Eastern dictatorship.

After studying at Exeter, where he gained not only a future wife but also an MA in international relations  his thesis was on the UAEs military spending post 9/11  he returned to Dubai to work as a researcher for a think-tank called INEGMA.

It researches the regions military and strategic affairs, and is regarded as having close links to the UAEs military. In 2014, he was joined in the country by Tejada, who having completed her own studies, secured jobs with two PR firms: Grace and Garbo, and Four Communications.

Daniela Tejada has been a vocal supporter for her partner to be released

Hedges then went back to the UK and began studying for his PhD at Durhams Hatfield College in September 2015, aged 28.

He worked out of the Al-Qasimi building, home to the school of government and international affairs, which was named after Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, a former student who now rules over an UAE province, where hes been accused of human rights abuses.

To finance the studies, Hedges helped compile reports on the Gulf region for three consultancy firms: Gulf State Analytics, Babylon Communications and Optimum Business Consultants.

Although he and Tejadas marital home is in Exeter, he has largely spent term-time in a 105-a-week student accommodation block, a fact that has only added to his wifes grief: It breaks my heart that we have been married for nearly two years and only been able to spend four months together, she has said.

Earlier this year, Hedges flew to the Middle East for a fortnight. Tejada says he intended to interview a number of experts who could inform his PhD studies on Emirati security policies in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.

At some point, this endeavour obviously raised suspicion. Following his arrest in Dubai on May 5, he was flown to Abu Dhabi and held in solitary confinement.

His fate remained secret until October when Tejada tired of following Foreign Office advice not to publicise the case. She gave a series of interviews claiming he was being held in inhumane conditions, with no access to reading material or any way of passing the time. An initial one shower a fortnight had been increased to one a week, and he had recently been given a mattress to sleep on, she revealed, but he was still suffering anxiety attacks and had suicidal thoughts.

His only mechanism to let go of nerves is self-induced vomiting, she said. His rights are violated on a daily basis and I am shocked that more has not been done to get him out.

Daniela Tejada had, at that point, been allowed to meet her husband just once, with their contact restricted to weekly five-minute telephone calls in which they were forbidden from discussing the case.

During that face-to-face encounter, she says: He was constantly shaking. He clearly did not expect to see me. He seemed to be very cautious about what he said and what he didnt say, which leads me to think he might have been coerced into saying or not saying certain things. Last month Hedges was released on bail, on condition that he wore an ankle tag, in order to prepare for yesterdays trial.

Given Britains supposed links to the UAE, which is home to tens of thousands of ex-pats and attracts hundreds of thousands of our free-spending tourists each year, many analysts expected the case to be quietly abandoned. But it was not to be.

I have a lot of breakdowns. But when you love someone the way I love Matt, you pull strength from where you never thought you had it, Tejada has said. Every time I cry, and I crumble, I give myself ten minutes, wipe my tears off, and keep on going and fighting.

As of yesterday, it is plain this fight now has a long way to run.
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With its unique blend of luxury and tackiness, it is the bedroom that could only have belonged to Hugh Hefner.

The tycoons boudoir in the Playboy mansion has been revealed ahead of an auction of his belongings, showing off where he entertained three wives and dozens of Playboy bunnies.

The questionable taste of the Playboy founder, who died last September aged 91, is on full display.

Hefner put a Betty Boop statue by the fireplace, a monster head above it and a painting of a nude woman above them both.

One wall is covered with photos of himself with women.

Auctioneers Juliens hope Hefners style will be a hit when dozens of his personal items go under the hammer on November 30 in Beverly Hills.

Hugh Hefner's master bedroom at his Playboy mansion in Beverly Hills includes many of the trinkets he collected over his long-life in publishing

Hugh Hefner and wife Crystal Hefner at the Playboy Mansion. All his belongings are to be sold at auction at the end of the month

Among the lots is a eight inch tall vintage painted ceramic ashtray with a female nude, valued at $75 to $150 (59-78).

His singular taste is apparent is a fishnet-stockinged lamp with a fringed shade, valued similarly.

Furniture includes a carved oak chair valued at $400 to $600 (313-469) and a tiger print sofa, valued at $1,500 to $2,000 (1,174-1,565).

Others lots include his signature scarlet silk smoking jacket  a style also worn by third wife Crystal Harris  which is expected to reach between $3,000 and $5,000 (2,348-3,913).

A selection of his captains hats is up for sale for between $300 and $500 (234-391) and there is also a pair of his monogrammed scarlet Dunhill slippers, size nine-and-a-half, for $400 to $600 (313-469).

This eight-and-a-half inch vintage painted ceramic ashtray of a naked woman is expected to fetch between $75 to $150

Hef's 44-inch fishnet stocking leg lamp in high heels which sat in his mater bedroom is thought to be worth between $100 to $200

Hefner's first edition copy of Playboy magazine was discovered earlier this month after 65 years and is set to make thousands for charity.

The 1953 publication, which famously featured Marilyn Monroe on the cover, has recently been unearthed by the late publisher's children, following his death last year.

They have decided to sell the rare magazine along with a number of his other possessions to raise money for charity.

Hefner's personal copy of the first issue of Playboy magazine which featured featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover in 1953, it has an estimated value of $3,000-$5,000

Hefner's famous sailor cap will also be on sale, along with his Playboy logo cuff links and carved briar pipe also featuring a Playboy logo

Hefner's signature red smoking jacket which is expected to fetch up to $5,000

The first edition is to go under the hammer with Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles who are expecting offers up to $5,000.

The magazine remains in fantastic condition and depicts a smiling Monroe in a revealing black dress on its cover.

It cost just 50 cent to buy at the time and boasts on the cover that the publication offers the 'famous Marilyn Monroe nude' in full colour for the first time in any magazine.

The infamous Monroe nude which sold out in 1953 when the screen siren was at the peak of her fame

The auction will take place on November 30 and December 1 at Julien's Auctions with all proceeds going to the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation

The first centrefold: a Monroe print from the 1953 first edition will also be on sale in the vast collection. The first edition copy of Playboy magazine that belonged to Hugh Hefner was uncovered after 65 years

Chauvinistic: Showing the times that were 1953, the magazine's introduction says: 'If you're somebody's sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion'

Inside, the pages also remain well kept, including a nude pinup shot of the blonde bombshell, which acts as the centrefold.

The edition completely sold out at the time and went on to sell more than 50,000 copies.

It launched Playboy into the the public consciousness and soon celebrities were queuing up to pose for the magazine.

His signature tailoring will also be on sale, including his bespoke smoking jacket, worth $5,000 and his silk pajamas, which are valued at $2,000.

Custom 1974 Playboy Monopoly game in a wooden box marked "Monopoly Parts for HMH" with an estimated value of $6,000-$8,000

The Monopoly board game includes a pipe smoking Hefner and Playboy Bunny, among other mansion regulars, custom Hefner Monopoly money, houses and hotels

In January 1952 Hefner quit his job at Esquire after he was refused a five dollar raise and began taking out loans to start his own magazine, also on sale is his Underwood Standard Portable typewriter worth $500

Hefner's 2016 passport will also be on sale in the massive haul set to make thousands for his civil rights focused charity at the end of the month

Hefner's complete personal set of bound Playboy volumes is anticipated to be the most lucrative sale, with estimates at $40,000.

Hefner, who was extremely well read, also owned a first edition copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' and large folio volumes of Slavador Dali's 'Biblia Sacra', worth more than $15,000.

Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions, said: 'We are honoured to present this extraordinary auction event that celebrates a pop culture icon, whose life and legacy truly embodied the American dream.'

Hefner's vintage 1946 coin-operated Wurlitzer jukebox programmed by Hefner and from his game house. It contains 24 original 78 rpm record albums by artists such as Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, Harry James, Johnny Mercer and Lena Horne. The auctioneers estimate $10,000 to $20,000.

A playboy photo shoot print; Hefner's 2007 Playboy Legacy Collection Gold, features a set of 48 chromogenic and gelatin silver prints by various photographers in a wooden case and could sell for $30,000

Christie Hefner, his daughter, added: 'Whether it was building his company into one of the most recognizable global brands in history or standing up for social, sexual and civil rights causes, my father lived an extraordinary life as a publishing, social and cultural pioneer.'

All proceeds will be donated to the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation, which was established in 1964 to support efforts in defense of civil rights, with emphasis on First Amendment rights and rational sex and drug policies.

Hefner's iconic Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles was sold in May 2016 to Daren Metropoulos, the co-owner of Hostess Brands, for $100 million.

Hefner continued to live in the mansion until his death at the age of 91 from natural causes in September 2017.

The auction will take place on November 30 and December 1 at The Standard Oil Building in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly signed an order late Tuesday that allows U.S. troops stationed at the border use lethal force, if necessary, to stop illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, it was revealed.

But his move, done to combat a caravan of migrants making their way from Central America to the United States, could be illegal.

The brave men and women at Customs Border and Protection willingly put themselves in extremely dangerous situations every day to protect Americans and their families. The Presidents authorization ensures the Department of Defense can step in to protect those who protect us, Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

Kellys aggressive stance comes amid reports he and his protege Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen could be on their way out the door with President Donald Trump said to be particularly angry that Nielsen is not tough enough on illegal immigration.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly signed an order late Tuesday that allows U.S. troops stationed at the border use lethal force, if necessary

A White House official told DailyMail.com the authorization came from the president and Kelly was merely communicating the instructions.

The official also said the military is not doing law enforcement but will be there to protect border agents should the situation require it.

Law enforcement could violate the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the use of the U.S. military as a police force.

The order, set forth in a Cabinet memo, will likely be challenged in court.

It comes after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the administrations ban on asylum for illegal immigrants, a decision that infuriated President Trump.

Trump did not sign the Cabinet memo allowing the use of force, but the president did sign an earlier decision memo that included similar recommendations, according to Newsweek.

United States President Donald J. Trump, center left, and First Lady Melania Trump, center right, listen while speaking to Marines with John Kelly, White House chief of staff, left, at Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., U.S, on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018

The order allows troops to perform activities Defense Secretary James Mattis deems necessary to protect border agents, such as a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search, according to the Military Times.

Experts say the authorized authority could cross the legal line.

They are pushing DoDs authority right up to the line of what is permitted without violating the restrictions of Posse Comitatus. Active duty personnel can respond in self-defense of border officials but the perfect world does not exist in factual reality in which this subjective concept can be neatly applied to the environment of border enforcement, Brad Moss, a Washington, D.C. based attorney specializing in national security, told Newsweek.

There are approximately 5,900 active-duty troops and 2,100 National Guard forces deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the Cabinet memo that he signed, Kelly justified the action by arguing credible evidence and intelligence had suggested the migrants may prompt incidents of violence and disorder.

Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday troops would not violate the Posse Comitatus Act.

Retired United States Marine Corps general and White House Chief of Staff John F Kelly visits the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in Belleau, on November 10, 2018 as part of commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the 11 November 1918 armistice, ending World War 1

The president has done little to tamp down speculation Kelly's days in the White House could be numbered. The order, set forth in a Cabinet memo, will likely be challenged in court

I now have the authority to do more. Now well see what she asks me to do, Mattis said, referring to Nielsen.

Trump has also advocated for greater force from the military, saying at an event earlier this month: Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm. Were not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle.

Around 3,000 people from the first of the caravans have arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it closed off northbound traffic for several hours at the San Ysidro crossing.

It has also installed movable, wire-topped barriers, apparently to stop a potential mass rush of people.

Trump has been trying to make a virtual wall of U.S. troops and barbed wire to stop the immigrants as he fights with Congress to get his billion dollar border wall built.

Trump has been railing against a migrant caravan making its way from Central America toward the United States.

He made it a huge issue in the midterm elections, particularly as he campaigned for GOP Senate candidates running in states he won in 2016. Republicans were able to knock off four Democratic senators in these red states.
A woman has revealed sickening details of the creepy phone calls she received from a rapist accused of sexually assaulting a young girl in the toilets of a dance studio.

Megan Rowlett, 36, told The Daily Telegraph she picked up the phone to Anthony Sampieri, 54, at 9:27am on October 8, 2012.

After feigning interest in a volunteer program the Wollongong office worker had advertised, his demeanor darkened.

'I remember how scary it was,' she said of the obscene language he used, telling her in graphic detail of the sexual acts he wanted to commit on her,' she said.

The convicted rapist made the same phone call to six other women before he was eventually arrested for luring a 60-year-old woman into his home and sexually assaulting her on October 22, 2012.

Anthony Sampieri, 54, who was on parole when he allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-own girl in Sydney's south (pictured) was previously caught with a 'rape kit', court documents reveal

Ms Rowlett attended Wollongong District Court when Sampieri was sentenced to a maximum of seven years in prison.

'I remember thinking, 'oh God, he looks creepy',' she told The Daily Telegraph.

She also learned he lived only 500 metres from her home.

Sampieri was given parole after only five years for good behaviour and was released on September 7, 2017.

While on parole, he allegedly made another obscene phone call to a woman in Sydney's south, which should have resulted in him being sent back to jail.

But police investigating failed to inform the relevant authority and released him after questioning.

Sampieri allegedly attempted to molest a seven-year-old girl in the bathroom of a dance school in Kogarah, south Sydney, on Thursday, November 15.

He allegedly stabbed a father who tried to intervene, before a dentist who worked nearby heard the commotion and punched the convicted rapist in the head.

Sampieri allegedly stabbed a father who tried to intervene, before a dentist who worked nearby heard the commotion and punched the convicted rapist in the head

The 60-year-old woman raped after Sampieri lured her into his house told The Daily Telegraph, she hoped he would never be released from jail, and was terrified when she received notice of his impending release in 2017.

'I was told  he'd been refused parole once because he wouldn't toe the line,' she said.

He was denied parole in 2016 for failing to complete a sex offender rehabilitation course, but was released in September 2017.

The woman, who is based in the Illawarra region, said if Sampieri is found guilty of attacking the young girl police should 'lock him away for good'.

'No little girl should have to go through that,' she said.

The woman's demand comes as New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed to find out why Sampieri was released on parole.

The woman's demand comes as New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian vowed to find out why Sampieri was released on parole

Anthony Sampieri, 54, allegedly sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in the bathroom of a dance school (pictured) in Kogarah, south Sydney, last week

NSW Opposition leader Michael Daley also chimed in on the prisoner's early release, saying he hoped it had nothing to do with lack of funding.

When Sampieri was arrested for the 2012 assault, police discovered a 'rape kit' at his home, court documents reveal.

The 'rape kit', which was discovered in a bedroom, included gaffer tape, cable ties, nylon rope and a roll of wire.

Officers also found pornographic DVDs and magazines.

A list of names of women aged between 23 and 83 was discovered at the home.

Next to the women's names were comments such as 'very young' and 'older'.

The convicted sex offender was arrested for raping a 60-year-old woman in the Illawarra region, New South Wales, in 2012 (pictured: toilet where seven-year-old was allegedly assaulted)

On October 6, 2012, Sampieri rang one woman at about 8.30pm and told her how he would assault her.

Another woman heard 'grunting and groaning' when she answered a phone call from Sampieri.

Court documents reveal Sampieri rang several women in the lead-up to the aggravated sexual assault on October 22, 2012, during an alleged 'ice-binge'.

At the District Court in 2013, Sampieri pleaded guilty to raping the woman at his Wollongong home.

He lured her to his home before ordering her to strip, wielding a knife and telling her: 'Now we'll have some fun.'

The State Parole Authority revoked his parole within hours of Thursday's arrest, launching calls for a review of NSW's early release program.

Reports indicate evidence from Wollongong police has been passed on to detectives investigating the Kogarah dance studio assault.

Sampieri remains in hospital under police guard and is yet to be charged over the recent alleged attack.
This was The Beatles ninth studio album, a double LP of 30 tracks, including Back In The USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

Today, on its 50th birthday, we celebrate with a collection of fascinating trivia about the White Album and reveal how it was inspired by, among other things, monkeys, Mia Farrow and an old English sheepdog.

The album is actually called The Beatles

Its working title had been A Dolls House, after the play by Henrik Ibsen. But then a band called Family released an LP titled Music In A Dolls House, so The Beatles decided to simply name the album after themselves.

The White Album name refers to the famous sleeve. This was intended as a complete contrast to the bands previous album, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, whose cover was a colourful montage of famous people.

The plain white design was the work of pop artist Richard Hamilton. The words The Beatles are embossed in white in the Helvetica font. Early copies had serial numbers to create, according to Hamilton, the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.

The secrets of the iconic White Album (inset) examined on its 50th birthday reveal the bizarre stories behind how some of the tracks were inspired and recorded

Ringo Starr sold his copy of the album for a fortune

Ringo received the very first copy, serial number 0000001. The other three band members were given numbers 2 to 4, with the groups manager Brian Epstein getting 7 and their press officer Derek Taylor number 9. John Lennon gave 0000005 to an unnamed friend  when this copy was sold on eBay in 2008, it fetched nearly 20,000. But even that pales when compared with the amount Ringo got for his copy at auction in 2015  $790,000 (around 620,000).

Many of the songs were written in India

In March 1968 all four Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in India to attend a transcendental meditation course run by the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Also in attendance was Mike Love of the Beach Boys.

This contributed to the White Albums opening track, Back in the USSR. The chorus and vocals were a light-hearted send up of the Beach Boys sound, while the title was a parody of Chuck Berrys Back In The USA. When Love heard McCartney playing an early version of the song on his guitar one morning, he suggested adding in something about all the girls around Russia. So USSR went into the title.

In March 1968 all four Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in India to attend a transcendental meditation course run by the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, along with Mike Love of the Beach Boys

Dear Prudence refers to Mia Farrows sister

Prudence Farrow was also on the meditation course. The 20-year-old locked herself in her hut on the retreat for much of the time. Lennon remarked wryly that this was because she was trying to find God quicker than anyone else. The line wont you come out to play? is Lennon and the others encouraging Farrow to leave her hut.

Ringo left the band during recording

By 1968, relations between the band members were fractious. When McCartney criticised Ringos drumming during recording sessions, the drummer decided hed had enough and left. He borrowed Peter Sellers yacht and took himself off to Sardinia.

Ringo Starr did not drum on all tracks

Not to be deterred by Ringos departure, Macca picked up the sticks himself and did the drumming on the first two songs. His performances are technically accomplished. This could be seen as the inspiration for the joke: Ringo wasnt the best drummer in the world  in fact, he wasnt even the best drummer in the Beatles. Although credited to Lennon, the line was actually coined by the comedian Jasper Carrott.

. . . and was lured back by a telegram

Ringos bandmates sent him a message saying that they loved him, and asked him to come home. He did, and when he entered the recording studio, he found that Harrison had covered his drum kit with flowers spelling out Welcome back, Ringo.

The Beatles with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after his farewell appearance at the London Hilton

But the atmosphere remained fraught

Lennon didnt help matters by bringing Yoko Ono to sessions, breaking the bands no wives or girlfriends in the studio rule. So bad was the atmosphere that, at times, he and McCartney recorded simultaneously in different studios. In the end, only 16 of the 30 tracks on the album have all four Beatles performing on them.

John Lennon sang alone on one track

Julia is the only Beatles song on which Lennon performed alone. This is fitting as it was about his mother. When her son was just five, Julia Lennon left him in the care of her sister Mimi. They were later reconciled, but she was hit and killed by a car when he was 17. This prompted Lennon to say that he had lost her twice.

The truth about Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

McCartney wrote the song after hearing its title used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott. The musician, who had once backed Stevie Wonder, used the expression with life goes on, bra tacked on at the end. Scott played congas on the song. The Desmond who has a barrow in the market place was McCartneys tribute to the Jamaican reggae musician Desmond Dekker, whose hit Israelites was topping the charts.

How Claptons guitar got its name

Because relations between the Beatles were so bad, Harrison felt he wanted a friend with him. So he invited Eric Clapton to play lead guitar on his song While My Guitar Gently Weeps. For the recording Clapton used a red Gibson Les Paul that he himself had given to Harrison a few weeks previously. Because of the guitars colour Harrison had named it Lucy, after the red-headed comedian Lucille Ball.

The Beatles On The Set Of A Hard Days Night At Twickenham Studios, (left to right) George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon have their hair combed by (left to right) Pattie Boyd, Tina Williams, Pru Bury and Susan Whiteman

Blackbird is based on a piece by Bach

As a young guitarist, McCartney had tried to learn Bourree in E minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, a piece originally written for the lute. Here, he adapted the tune to come up with Blackbird.

The first night his future wife Linda went back to his house in St Johns Wood, just round the corner from Abbey Road studios, McCartney sat on the window-sill of an upstairs room and played the song to the fans camped outside on the pavement.

Boozy secret behind Long Long Long

The eerie rattling effect providing an atmospheric end to the song was simply the accidental result of a wine bottle left on top of a speaker cabinet. When Paul McCartney held a note on the Hammond organ connected to the speaker, the bottle vibrated.

Inspiration from some very amorous monkeys

Paul McCartney wrote Why Dont We Do It In The Road? after seeing two monkeys mating in India. Their lack of embarrassment impressed him. Thats how simple the act of procreation is, said Macca. We have horrendous problems with it, and yet animals dont.

John Lennon (centre) reportedly told Maharishi (left), if youre so cosmic, youll know why, when asked why he was leaving India

Sexy Sadie was also born in India

And it was also inspired by sexual shenanigans, though this time of the human variety. John Lennon was disgusted that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had made advances towards Mia Farrow, who was present at the retreat with her sister. He wrote the song in response, and originally called it Maharishi. Lennon later admitted they changed Maharishi in the lyrics to Sexy Sadie. Thats about the Maharishi, yes, he explained. I copped out and I wouldnt write Maharishi, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone. But now it can be told.

The original incident was part of the reason Lennon gave up on the meditation course. The Maharishi asked why he was leaving. Lennon replied: If youre so cosmic, youll know why.
The distraught wife of a young academic jailed for life in Abu Dhabi yesterday has told of their living nightmare.

As Jeremy Hunt promised retaliation, Daniela Tejada insisted her husband Matthew Hedges was innocent and said she now feared for his safety.

The 31-year-old was convicted of being a spy in a secret kangaroo court hearing that lasted just five minutes. Lacking even a lawyer, he was left shaking in the dock as the devastating verdict was handed down in Arabic.

Matthew Hedges, 31, was convicted of being a spy in a kangaroo court hearing. He is pictured with his wife, Daniela Tejada

Miss Tejada, 27, said: I am in complete shock and I dont know what to do. Matthew is innocent. I am very scared for him. I dont know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse.

Immediately after the hearing Mr Hunt warned the United Arab Emirates of serious diplomatic consequences. The Foreign Secretary later said: I thought I had some understanding that this was going to be resolved in a satisfactory way. That hasnt happened.

British options are believed to include ending military cooperation with the Gulf state. UK universities are preparing a boycott.

Immediately after the hearing Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned the United Arab Emirates of serious diplomatic consequences

Staff at Birmingham University are due to vote today on an academic boycott of its 100million Dubai campus (pictured), which opened in September

Mr Hunt met Mohammed Bin Zayed, the Emirati Crown Prince, last week and assured him that Mr Hedges was not a spy. Whitehall

Sources have given the same assurance to the Daily Mail.

The Durham University student was arrested at Dubai airport on May 5 at the end of a two-week research trip for his PhD thesis on the security strategies of Gulf states following the Arab Spring.

He was held in solitary confinement for six months and forced to sign a confession written in Arabic during interrogation.

This confession  together with his research notes  was enough for the court in Abu Dhabi to pronounce him guilty yesterday of espionage on behalf of Britain.

Mr Hedges played no part in his five-minute trial and had no lawyer present. In the House of Commons, Theresa May announced she was deeply disappointed and concerned.

Mr Hunt said: Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances.

We see absolutely no evidence for the charges laid against him.

We will do all we can to get him home. I have repeatedly made clear that the handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust.

I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider.

Mrs Tejada, a Colombian-born marketing and PR executive, said after the hearing, which she attended: This has been the worst six months of my life, let alone for Matt who was shaking when he heard the verdict. The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice.

The Foreign Office have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them.

This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthews case seriously.

The British Government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens. They say the UAE is an ally, but the overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matts case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi receiving Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt at the Presidential Palace in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi

Last night Miss Tejada was flying back to the UK for her own safety, according to her MP Ben Bradshaw.

The Labour MP, whose constituency covers Exeter University where the couple met as students, said: It is unbelievable. I went to see the UAE ambassador and he said Matthew had made a mistake and been naive, and that it would all be sorted out, so this has come as a complete shock.

The diplomatic strategy of the Foreign Office has failed. It is quite clear that the softly-softly behind-the-scenes talking to the Emiratis has not worked.

We have very close economic, military and educational ties with the Emiratis, and we need to start using those to ensure my innocent constituent can come home.

When a British citizen is treated like this abroad, the full weight of the British Government needs to come down in support.

Miss Tejada is due to meet Mr Hunt today.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the situation was gravely worrying, adding: The UAE are supposed to be allies.

Crispin Blunt, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, suggested Britain should end military cooperation.

Staff at Birmingham University are due to vote today on an academic boycott of its 100million Dubai campus, which opened in September. Hopes were high when a depressed Mr Hedges was released on bail two weeks ago with an electronic tag, and allowed to stay in Dubai. His wife flew out to look after him and try to build up his poor health in the run-up to yesterdays hearing.

Last night the countrys attorney general, Dr Hamed Saif Al Shamsi, claimed Mr Hedges had confessed to the court the charges against him ... and acknowledged in detail the crimes he committed.

He reportedly said Mr Hedges tried to secure confidential information to potentially pass to a foreign agency.

Gulf News, an English language paper loyal to the regime, said Mr Bridges was reported by an Emirati who thought he was acting suspiciously, asking sensitive questions about some sensitive departments, and seeking to gather classified information on the UAE.

Dr Al Shamsi conceded that an appeal would be allowed.

Radha Stirling, of the campaign group Detained in Dubai, called the hearing a kangaroo court and said the verdict had sent shockwaves through the ex-pat community.

Professor John Williams, who is Mr Hedges supervisor at Durham Universitys school of government and international affairs, said: We are desperately worried about Matts welfare. Hes an innocent man whos been subjected to a terrible period of detention.

The process of the trial has lacked any legitimacy or credibility and his health is not good.

More than 650 academics worldwide recently signed a letter declaring that scholars can no longer regard the Emirates as a safe place for legitimate academic research.

Durhams vice-chancellor Stuart Corbridge said the courts judgement had been delivered in the absence of anything resembling due process or a fair trial.

Mr Hedges has described his PhD as researching the effects of the Arab Spring on the Gulf States adding: The research specifically examines the regions evolving national security strategy.

More than a million Britons visit the UAE every year, with Dubais beaches a major attraction.

Mr Hedges grew up partly in Dubai with his mother and step-father and had jobs there before taking up his academic research.

The UAEs authoritarian regime tolerates little public criticism of its monarchy or policies. Last year Mr Hedges co-authored an article in an academic journal on the Muslim Brotherhood, political movement the UAE regards as an enemy. But his wife said he fully understood the sensitivities of the region and would not have done anything to offend his hosts.

It is thought the regime grew suspicious of him during his two-week research trip when he was interviewing sources for his thesis. While his lawyer says the information he gleaned was not controversial, the Emiratis might not have seen it that way.

Trial condemned as an affront to justice

Matthew Hedges trial has been condemned as an affront to justice. He was not allowed to give evidence at the closed hearing before being sentenced to life in jail inside five minutes.

His court-appointed lawyer, who does not speak English, was not even there when the shocking verdict came in.

The UAE authorities insist the trial was fair and transparent and the accused admitted spying.

But Mrs Hedges confession was allegedly signed under duress and written for him in Arabic, a language he does not speak. The secretive state security court does not allow journalists or the public to attend hearings.

Radha Stirling, of the campaign group Detained in Dubai, said: We have dealt with in excess of 10,000 cases over the past decade.

The UAE has become so confident that it believes throwing money around the UK and US is a licence to jail, torture, kidnap and kill. If the UAE is allowed to continue in this manner, like the recent Khashoggi murder, nobody is safe.
Under cover of darkness, two hooded figures approach a house in Billericay, Essex. One waves a laptop-sized device by the front door while the other holds a similar object near the 40,000 Mercedes-Benz parked on the drive.

The latter then nonchalantly opens the driver's door and drives away while the first man departs in a getaway vehicle. The theft of the luxury car has taken 23 seconds.

No picking of locks, smashing of windows or stealing a car key have been necessary.

Unsurprisingly, the car's owner, company director Danny Talbot was 'beyond angry' when he viewed CCTV footage showing the ease with which his car was stolen on May 17.

He, his wife and two children had been in the house at the time, but the first he knew about the theft was when he saw the empty driveway.

High-tech car thieves working together can steal your keyless car within a few seconds

The high tech relay boxes scan for car keys and broadcast their signal to a second unit beside the motor which opens the door and allows it to start - fooling the car's security system

'It happened in the early hours,' says Mr Talbot, who bought the Mercedes C-Class new in 2015.

How to protect your vehicle: Everyday items like a drinks can or your fridge can stop the criminals in their tracks Every make and model of car which can start 'keylessly' is susceptible to a relay attack. While this might put drivers on edge, there are easy steps you can take to stop you becoming the next victim of a relay theft. Certain metals are capable of blocking key signals, which means if you store your fob with one of these metals around it, criminals won't be able to pick them up and steal your vehicle. The most simple and most ingenious is a metal can. The aluminum in a drinks can will stop radio signals being transmitted from your key and stop burglars in their tracks. Some experts have suggested keeping your keys in the fridge, as the material on the inside will block signals too. If you're looking for a low-cost option, some people wrap their fobs in tin foil - although this isn't endorsed by security firms. Keeping your keys in a small metal box however can work efficiently. Special faraday pouches  cheap wallets which shield the key's radio signal from being transmitted  are also useful for storing your keys when you're away from home - in motorway service stations and public car parks. Experts also encourage drivers to keep them at least 5m away from their front door, to give thieves the worst chance of being able to relay a signal. But some security specialists advise against hiding your car keys too obscurely in your house  because if serious criminals truly want to steal your car, they will break in and do anything to find the keys. Old-fashioned methods like parking in a well-lit area, using a steering wheel lock and installing a proper tracking device to your vehicle are still highly recommended to keep your car safe. Advertisement

So how did the thieves make off with the Mercedes with such ease? The answer is by using a swift and silent technique so successful that it's one of the major factors behind car thefts in England a Wales hitting a six-year high last year.

Yesterday official figures showed the number of cars reported stolen to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in 2017 rose to 43,308  up almost 9,000 since 2016.

Yet crime surveys from the Office for National Statistics suggest the true figure is even higher, with 89,000 vehicles stolen in England and Wales last year. In certain areas, such as the West Midlands, car theft has soared by 80 per cent.

Insurers paid out a record 271 million in theft claims in the first nine months of this year, says the Association for British Insurers, with keyless theft the 'main driver'.

So-called 'relay' theft occurs when two thieves work together to break into keyless cars. They use equipment to capture electromagnetic signals emitted by keyfobs.

One thief stands by the car with a transmitter, while the other stands by the house with another, which picks up the signal from the electronic key, usually kept near the front door on a table or hook.

This is then relayed to the transmitter by the vehicle, causing it to think the key is in close proximity and prompting it to open. Thieves can then drive the vehicle away thanks to the keyless ignition and quickly replace locks and entry devices.

Any vehicle with keyless entry could be vulnerable to relay theft. These include cars from BMW, Ford, Audi, Land Rover, Volkswagen and Mercedes.

The same method could conceivably be used in a car park. And the distance between the device and key could be up to nine metres.

Mr Talbot blames car companies for their flawed technology, and a government failing to tighten laws to prevent such crimes. After all, it is not illegal to sell or own a relay box device.

The only way police can arrest someone is under the 'going equipped to steal' law  meaning they would have to catch the thief red-handed with it, or prove an intent to use it for theft.

This CCTV footage showed a car thief opening the door of a Mercedes in Chigwell, Essex

The same law applies to other gadgets supposedly designed to help owners who have lost their keys, such as key programmer devices, which tell the car to trust a new key and forget the code for the original one.

But police sources, security experts and locksmiths specialising in vehicles have all told the Mail there is 'no legitimate reason' to be in possession of a relay device.

If a driver was to lose their key, a relay box wouldn't help them get back into their car, as the devices only work when the key is nearby. Car manufacturers and service centres would instead use special keys called 'one time use' keys that let them key in a new code for the driver.

An auto-locksmith already has tools to pick the lock of the car and gain access to it. They would then need to work with the owner and manufacturer to code a new key.

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson  who also decried Britain's car theft 'epidemic'  said: 'They can only be used for one thing  breaking into a car which you don't own.'

You'd be forgiven for assuming it's difficult to lay your hands on such a device. But a Daily Mail investigation has revealed it couldn't be easier.

Insiders have warned that Britain's unregulated locksmith industry is awash with traders selling relay devices  some of which use their memberships of trade bodies as a masquerade for supplying them to criminals.

As well as making and selling theft devices, some retailers also provide YouTube videos demonstrating their use.

We discovered one Bulgarian electronics company has been using a small locksmiths in West London as a distributor of the gadgets in Britain.

With prices starting at 14,500, the 'Keyless Go' devices sold by Bulgarian-headquartered Edilock Ltd, are favoured by crime gangs. When a reporter visited its high-street distributor, Greenford Security Services Ltd in Ealing earlier this month, he was told cash could be left behind the counter with 'no questions asked'.

Ron Cliff, who declined to comment, is the owner of Greenford Security and a member of the Master Locksmiths Association. He had boasted that the technology was 'dead easy' to use, and would be delivered 'by DHL' to any address from Bulgaria.

Employees at Greenford Security said customers visit the suburban locksmith from as far afield as the Midlands.

Simon Touch, an automotive locksmith operating from Beirut in the Lebanon, was also named by vehicle recovery experts as a vendor of kits capable of being used for car theft used in Britain.

Both Edilock and Simon Touch exhibited at the Master Locksmith Association (MLA) expo in London last year, while Edilock is a frequent presence at locksmiths' conventions around the country, having also sold its wares at shows in Telford, Coventry, Nottingham and Edinburgh.

Last year, Ireland introduced laws compelling all locksmiths to be government-registered in order to stamp out cowboy vendors. But in Britain no accreditation or registration is required.

Earlier this year, at an emergency summit between police groups, vehicle manufacturers and the Master Locksmith Association (MLA), the MLA said this was one of the main reasons for car crime being at such high levels.

Peter Thompson of CanTrack Global, a vehicle recovery company, said: 'There's a real danger that saying 'I'm a proper locksmith' means being part of an association where they can sell these devices and legitimise themselves.

'At global locksmith events there are law enforcement agents [from outside of Europe] buying off the same guys that are supplying to the criminals.' The Mail worked with Mr Thompson to demonstrate just how effective relay boxes are, using a device he obtained ethically through his work recovering stolen vehicles, to 'steal' three cars in under 60 seconds.

We simulated a situation in which keys were in a house, with a box held up to the front door. The other box was passed from one vehicle to the next. This allowed us to keylessly enter and start the vehicles in under 60 seconds.

Meanwhile companies like Edilock continue to tout their wares. Edilock was founded by Voskan Pehlivanyan, 42, a Bulgarian electronics expert who has been accused of using his skills to help steal cars  a claim he denies. He says instead that his expertise has been called in by car manufacturers and police in Europe.

How we drove away with three luxury keyless cars in less than 60 seconds By Sian Boyle for the Daily Mail With a pair of relay boxes similar to those which criminals use in car-theft sprees, the Daily Mail was able to simulate the theft of three cars in less than 60 seconds. Using the boxes, which bypass the need for the car's key to start the car, we accessed and drove away the volunteered premium cars which are collectively worth almost 200,000. Working with car recovery specialist CanTrack Global, our ethically-sourced relay boxes foiled the security of a 94,000 Tesla model S, a 76,000 Range Rover Sport, and a 28,000 VW Golf GTD  which all have keyless entry and keyless start built into them as standard. Peter Thompson, managing director of CanTrack, said: 'We used one set of relay boxes to 'talk' to each of the vehicles. 'We simulated a situation in which the keys would normally be inside a house with a box held up to the front door. Here, we were placing the car keys next to our relay device. 'The other box was passed from one vehicle to the next. 'This allowed us to keylessly enter and start the vehicles in under 60 seconds - a shocking example of just how effective relay theft devices are.' He added: 'It shows just how quick and efficient relay technology is to open those vehicles without having the key in our pockets, then start the engine and drive away.' Advertisement

Both Mr Pehlivanyan and Ron Cliff, 77, claim to be members of the European branch of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI) which counts Interpol, police bodies, car insurers and licensing companies among its members.

Edilock's website is visited thousands of times a day, with the UK one of its largest sources of traffic.

A description of one device retailing at 16,000 euros (14,500) says: 'The device is produced to open and start any car, without the use of any pick tools, equiped (sic) with Intelligent/ Keyless Go key system.'

Another says it can work on Mercedes up to 300m away and 'when you do not have a clear view'.

Notes in red alongside the devices warn: 'All devices are sold for official use only!!! If you use them for any illegal purposes, this is your own responsibility!!!' When a reporter posing as a buyer contacted Edilock over Skype, he was not asked why he required the device and was told he could pay 16,000 euros in cash by flying to Bulgaria or depositing the sum at Greenford Security.

An employee said its Keyless Go devices worked on 'almost all' cars, and it had 'sold many' in the UK.

The seller boasted that the device could 'pick a key signal through a pocket or door' and could be used an unlimited number of times.

In a statement on behalf of Edilock, Mr Pehlivanyan said he began creating Keyless Go devices 'at the request of several police departments and secret services around Europe'. He said they later declined to pay for development of the technology and refused to buy it.

'When you go to the supermarket and buy a knife and next minute you kill a man. Whose fault is it then?' he added.

Similarly, Hans Kooijman, executive director of the IAATI board, acknowledged Edilock being accused of supplying kits capable of being used for car theft, but said the responsibility wasn't on product vendors to check who was buying.

'If you go to a warehouse and buy a hammer are you going to use it to nail a hammer in the wall or to kill someone?' he said. IAATI itself refused to formally comment.

Ian Elliott, a former Scotland Yard officer who specialised in detecting organised car crime for 30 years, said: 'While I was in the job, I came across a number of criminals using Edilock-type devices.' Mr Elliott said he wanted to see a change in the law preventing the manufacture of relay theft boxes, adding: 'A legitimate business would never need one.'

With a relay box being of no use to a driver who has lost keys, and official car companies using one use keys in such situations, experts believe they are for criminal use.

When shown the offending websites, the Home Office said it would 'continue to work with the police, industry and others to consider the evidence around new technologies and what more can be done to tackle emerging threats'.

A spokesman for Mercedes-Benz said: 'All Mercedes-Benz vehicles have extensive security and anti-theft protection systems, which are continuously developed, taking account of the latest knowledge about criminal methods and attacks on security systems.

'Customers have the option of deactivating the Keyless Go entry system with two clicks of the button on the key.'

Meanwhile, the police investigation is ongoing. Mr Talbot says: 'I can't believe that technology is available allowing thieves to make off with my property so easily.'

A sentiment no doubt echoed by many.
The New Jersey woman accused of conspiring with her boyfriend and a homeless veteran to run a $400,000 GoFundMe scam has been suspended from her state job with the Department of Transportation.

Katelyn McClure, from Trenton, was a receptionist at DOT and a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that McClure is on 'suspension status'.

The representative declined to say whether with she was being paid or unpaid during the time out of office.

Katelyn McClure (right) has been suspended from her job after claiming boyfriend Mark D'Amico (center) duped her into taking part in the GoFundMe scam where they raised $400,000 with a fake story about homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt (left)

McClure and her boyfriend Mark D'Amico have split since they got in trouble for the crowdfunding scam. McClure has now turned against her ex and shared secret audio to help

McClure worked at the Department of Transportation. Left is Bobbitt and right is D'Amico

McClure, 28, was being paid around $43,000 per year for the role she started in 2014, reports NJ.com.

'I told Kate this was inevitable once the charges had been made public by the Prosecutor,' her lawyer James Gerrow told the publication. 'Unfortunately, it is standard operating procedure for a governmental entity. Yet, it adds to the traumatizing impact this case has had on Kate.'

McClure and her former boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, are charged with conspiracy and theft by deception.

A warrant for D'Amico's arrest was issued Monday after he did not show up to a trespassing hearing.

His grandmother, Leslie DeAngelo, claims he changed the locks and refused to vacate her property which was raided by law enforcement in September.

Authorities allege they conspired with Marine vet Johnny Bobbitt, 34, to concoct a feel-good story about Bobbitt giving McClure his last $20 when her car ran out of gas.

They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars which authorities say was spent on luxury items and casino trips.

Bobbitt - the homeless man they actually met at a Philadelphia casino - also faces charges.

McClure's lawyer has said she was duped by D'Amico, 39, and released a secret audio recording that she claims prove her innocence.

D'Amico's lawyer,Mark Davis, denied the claims he duped her, saying: 'She seems to be on a crusade to save her ass at the moment, I assume because her name is on everything.'

Transcript of Katelyn McClure's secret recording she claims proves her innocence McClure: You started the whole f**king thing, you did everything. I had no part in any of this and I'm the one f**king taking the fall **** D'Amico: You don't go to jail for lying on TV, you dumb b***h. McClure: You heard what he said, if this turns into a criminal thing D'Amico: You don't go to jail for lying on TV. McClure: But who made me lie on TV? D'Amico: Who cares? **** D'Amico: How much did you spend in Cali? $2,500? [unintelligible] $3,700? So just right there is $40,000, now you wanna talk about everything else? You act like you didn't spend a dollar. Stop it. McClure: I'm not acting like that. D'Amico: Just stop it. Just stop it. McClure: I never said that I didn't spend a dollar. Advertisement

The recording was made on September 2, after Bobbitt sued the couple, claiming they were raiding his funds and throwing the scheme into jeopardy.

'You started the whole f**king thing, you did everything. I had no part in any of this and I'm the one f**king taking the fall,' McClure is heard saying in the audio released to Good Morning America, which could not be independently verified.

In November 2017, McClure and D'Amico created the GoFundMe campaign supposedly to benefit Bobbitt, who they claimed was living under a bridge and had spent his last $20 to help McClure when she ran out of gas.

McClure shot video supposedly of the moment Bobbitt bought her the gas, and went on to do numerous television interviews peddling the fake story, until all three were arrested last week.

McClure's attorney Gerrow told GMA that D'Amico was 'calling the shots' in the alleged scheme.

'People have to understand that this was an abusive relationship. Mr. D'Amico was the one behind this and he was the one calling all the shots,' Gerrow said.

'She didn't understand or appreciate that this may very well be a crime,' the attorney said.

In the secret audio, D'Amico is heard telling McClure: 'You don't go to jail for lying on TV, you dumb b***h.'

'You heard what he said, if this turns into a criminal thing,' McClure responds. D'Amico repeats: 'You don't go to jail for lying on TV.'

'But who made me lie on TV?' the girlfriend says. D'Amico replies: 'Who cares?'

At another point in the recording, D'Amico is heard lambasting McClure as anything but innocent: 'How much did you spend in Cali? $2,500? [unintelligible] $3,700? So just right there is $40,000, now you wanna talk about everything else? You act like you didn't spend a dollar.'

McClure responds: 'I never said that I didn't spend a dollar.'

McClure (left) claimed homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt (right) helped her when she ran out of gas. But prosecutors say she and D'Amico actually met him at a Philadelphia casino

The scam came crashing down last week, when New Jersey prosecutors announced that McClure, D'Amico and Bobbitt had all been charged with second-degree theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft by deception.

'Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live, McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was 'completely made up',' Burlington County prosecutor Scott Coffina told a press conference.

The couple claimed to be setting up the GoFundMe page for Bobbitt (left)

'I had to make something up to make people feel bad,' McClure said in a text - one of 60,000 reviewed by prosecutors - to a friend.

In one text exchange in March 2018, McClure worried that she and D'Amico had less than $10,000 remaining, but D'Amico wasn't concerned as he believed they'd make more money off a book deal for a titled pitched as No Good Deed, Coffina said.

Coffina added: 'She did not run out of gas on an I-95 off-ramp, and he did not spend his last $20 to help her.'

The prosecutor added: 'D'Amico, McClure and Bobbitt conspired to fabricate and promote a feel-good story that would compel donors to contribute to their cause.'

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said they would be seeking jail sentences 'of some length' which could be between five and 10 years.

Bobbitt was arrested Wednesday night by US marshals in Philadelphia and remained in custody Thursday on probation detainers and a $50,000 bond. A message was left with a previous attorney of Bobbitt's.

D'Amico, 39, and McClure surrendered to authorities Wednesday night and were released on bond.

On Friday, McClure's lawyer revealed that she had split with D'Amico.

'They are not living together anymore and she's not taking his calls,' attorney James Gerrow told Fox 29.

Asked whether McClure believes D'Amico betrayed her, the lawyer said there was 'no question about that'.

Gerrow said McClure tried twice to meet with law enforcement to stop the scam and when she tried to halt the fundraising, GoFundMe did not allow it.

'Kate was being used by both Mr. D'Amico and Mr. Bobbitt and because D'Amico knew she was a very kind person also a bit naive they set up,' Gerrow said.

He added about her reluctance to reveal the scam after they appeared on the likes of Good Morning America speaking about the Good Samaritan and promoting their crowdfunding page: 'What she was concerned about is people will stop giving to causes like this because at her core, she wanted to help this man.'

It all went wrong for the trio when Bobbitt filed a civil case against the couple, which has been put on hold until December while an investigation into potential criminal proceedings related to the raised money plays out, DailyMailTV learned.

Then authorities believed something was amiss in the story Bobbitt told them

The couple have shared photos on social media of themselves taking a helicopter ride and a trip to Disney during luxury vacations to Las Vegas and LA. The trio also posed for pictures with another woman in New York

In the civil suit, Bobbitt says they used the account as a 'personal piggy bank' to 'fund a lifestyle they could not otherwise afford'. It led to authorities searching the couple's home in September and finding lavish belongings.

The couple have shared photos on social media of themselves taking a helicopter ride and a trip to Disney during luxury vacations to Las Vegas and LA. They also posted pictures of shopping sprees and front-row seats at a Broadway show.

The homeless veteran sued the couple who he said hadn't given him all the money they should have

They insisted that they had done nothing wrong and had not spent a single dollar on themselves.

D'Amico, 39, did admit to spending $500 from the fundraising campaign at SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, though he insists he paid it all back with his winnings.

D'Amico had previously said the couple believed Bobbitt shouldn't get the money until he was clean and would spend it responsibly, while the couple have shared photos on social media of themselves taking a helicopter ride and a trip to Disney during luxury vacations to Las Vegas and LA.

He told The Philadelphia Inquirer in September: 'Giving him all that money, it's never going to happen. I'll burn it in front of him.'

But the entire story - including Bobbitt's innocence - was a complete lie, a prosecutor said Thursday. They realized something was amiss among the details which hinted at Bobbitt's involvement.

GoFundMe plans to reimburse the 14,000 donors, who contributed $403,000 to the November 2017 campaign, the prosecutor said.

He said the money donated to the homeless man, Bobbitt, would be refunded to people who saw the story and contributed to him through the GoFundMe page.

Originally aiming for just $10,000, the money was supposed to be spent on a home and a truck for Bobbitt, as well as a trust and retirement fund.

'The entire campaign was predicated on a lie,' the prosecutor Coffina said. 'It was fictitious and illegal and there are consequences.'

Prosecutors released a detailed timeline of the case, including when they concocted the story (October 2017), the amount of money transferred from GoFundMe to their personal bank accounts, and the the trips they went on with the cash
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Bali Nine drug mule Renae Lawrence has been given priority boarding and special attention as she made the journey back to her Australian hometown following a 13-year stint behind bars in Indonesia.

Lawrence, 41, was ushered onto her Virgin Australia flight at Brisbane Airport on Thursday morning, bound for Newcastle, north of Sydney, where she is expected to stay with her mother, Beverley Waterman.

The convicted drug smuggler was seen with her mobile phone in-hand and appeared to have made a last-minute phone call before boarding her flight home.

When she arrived in Newcastle, Lawrence made a mad dash through the terminal in an apparent bid to escape the media spotlight.

Lawrence had earlier sparked speculation she is married after arriving back in Australia wearing a ring on her wedding finger following her release from Bali's Bangli prison.

She had been issued with a travel document for her travel back to Australia, not a passport.

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Convicted drug smuggler Renae Lawrence (pictured with her phone in her hand) flew back to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney, on Thursday after touching down in Australia for the first time in 13 years

The 41-year-old's mother Beverley Waterman closely followed Lawrence as they boarded a Virgin Australia aircraft

Lawrence was seen chatting away on her phone at Brisbane Airport as she boarded the flight to her hometown of Newcastle

Lawrence appeared to have made a last-minute phone call before boarding her flight to Newcastle

Lawrence stepped off the plane at Newcastle Airport surrounded by members of her family, including her mother

When she arrived at Newcastle Airport, Lawrence made a mad dash through the terminal in an apparent attempt to escape the media spotlight

Lawrence had stepped off the plane at Newcastle Airport wearing sunglasses but removed them in the terminal

Lawrence had numerous reporters and camera crew following in her wake, who were also forced to run to keep up with her

The 41-year-old moved through a media scrum after stepping into the terminal, before she started running

Lawrence's mother Beverley Waterman was closely by her daughter's side to help her navigate through the media scrum

Lawrence is pictured outside Newcastle Airport, the first time she has been back in her hometown in more than a decade

She covered herself with a towel inside an awaiting car which took her from the airport to the family home

Lawrence had touched down at Brisbane Airport about 5am local time on a Virgin Australia flight from Bali where she flew economy but sat towards the front of the plane.

She was freed from Bangli Prison on Wednesday evening - where she had spent 13 years behind bars - after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'.

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, clashed with media as she exited the airport's international terminal, pushing past a reporter.

She refused to answer questions as she navigated her way through the airport, supported by family members including her mother.

Lawrence (pictured) arrived back in Australia on Thursday after spending 13 years in an Indonesian prison

Lawrence did not answer questions from journalists after she exited Brisbane Airport's international terminal following her arrival in Australia

The 41-year-old later boarded a bus to the airport's domestic terminal, to catch a transfer flight to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney, where she is expected to stay with family

Lawrence was asked several questions by journalists she she walked to the bus but she did not utter a word

'We don't want to comment. We've got nothing to say. Please just leave us,' Ms Waterman told reporters.

Lawrence, who appeared teary and overwhelmed, boarded a bus to the domestic terminal, to catch the transfer flight to her Newcastle.

Prior to her release from jail, Lawrence's secret romance with an ice addict jailbird was revealed.

Lawrence had struck up a turbulent relationship with 38-year-old lesbian lover Agus Erna Wijayanti, known as Erna, behind bars.

Erna, who has been jailed twice for possessing ice, met Lawrence in Bangli prison and had been reportedly 'spoiling her like a child' ahead of her release.

She was supported by her mother Beverley Waterman as she returned to Australia following a lengthy absence from the country

'We don't want to comment. We've got nothing to say. Please just leave us,' Ms Waterman told reporters

Lawrence touched down on Australia soil for the first time in 13 years following her release from Bali's Bangli prison

The 41-year-old had left Australia for Bali in 2005, where she was arrested with eight others and convicted of drug smuggling

The pair first met in 2012 when Erna was given a prison sentence on drug charges, and grew closer when Lawrence was transferred from Kerobokan prison to Bangli jail in 2014.

Lawrence had been arrested at Bali's main airport in April 2005 with 2.7 kilograms of heroin strapped to her body as part of a failed bid to smuggle a total of eight kilograms of the drug into Australia with a number of other mules - later dubbed the Bali Nine.

The taste of freedom could be short lived as New South Wales Police have two arrest warrants for Lawrence which have been outstanding since 2005.

One warrant alleges she was involved in a high-speed chase in a stolen car with fellow Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.

Lawrence's secret romance with ice addict jailbird Agus Erna Wijayanti (left) was revealed just prior to her release from jail

The Bali Nine drug smuggler struck up a turbulent relationship with 38-year-old lesbian lover Agus Erna Wijayanti, known as Erna, behind bars

The convicted drug smuggler appeared overwhelmed as she navigated past the media covering her return to Australia

Lawrence was supported by family members including her mother as she walked out of Brisbane Airport's international terminal

Lawrence is pictured waiting at Brisbane Airport for her flight back to her hometown of Newcastle, north of Sydney

Lawrence (right) touched down at Brisbane Airport about 5am local time on Thursday on a Virgin Australia flight from Bali

The 41-year-old (centre) was provided with a much different view at Brisbane Airport compared to the one she had experienced in jail

Lawrence was surrounded by cameras and reporters after disembarking her flight from Bali and making her way through Brisbane Airport

The taste of freedom could be short lived as New South Wales Police have two arrest warrants for Lawrence

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman, step-brother Allan Waterman and unknown relative in a quiet room at Bali's international airport prior to her flight back to Australia.

The former prisoner apologised to Fairfax Media when they asked her to speak on her time in jail - claiming she was not ready to share the story.

'I'm sure, I'm positive,' she said when asked if she was sure she did not want to be interviewed.

Her mother added to this that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'.

The third family member, understood to be a cousin, asked that reporters respect the limited amount of time the group have together before flying into an inevitable media storm.

Ngurah Rai Immigration chief Amran Aris said Lawrence had to be deported the moment she had served her time, due to her drug offences.

The convicted drug smuggler, 41, was released from Bangli Prison, Bali, on Wednesday evening after her sentence was reduced for 'good behaviour'

Renae Lawrence has spent her first moments of her uncertain future with her mother and step-brother after spending over 13 years locked up in prison

Lawrence was photographed waiting with her mother Beverley Waterman (right), step-brother Allan Waterman (left) and unknown relative in a quiet room at Bali's international airport

Mrs Waterman (right) told Fairfax Media that speaking to the media 'always gets misconstrued'

Lawrence, the only member of the notorious gang to be released, hopped on a flight to Brisbane from Bali's Ngurah Rai international airport at about 9pm local time (midnight AEST)

'Because of her case, the narcotics, she has been given a life ban,' he told Fairfax Media.

Lawrence was released at about 5pm on Wednesday evening after officials held a press conference at the prison doors.

Maryoto Sumadi, Justice Ministry chief, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'.

Mr Sumadi said Lawrence would be deported and banned from re-entering Indonesia for life.

Upon her return, Lawrence is facing two arrest warrants from NSW Police, which have been outstanding since 2005

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Bali's justice and human rights office, spoke in Indonesian before holding up her release papers and saying: 'She is a free woman'

'We have also conducted a hand over between Bangli and the immigration office in Denpasar,' he said.

'Because she is a foreigner, therefore, the person is deemed to be in Indonesia without permission, therefore she needs to be released from prison and into immigration office custody.'

Justice Department officials conducted a health check and said Lawrence was found to be in good health.

At the conclusion of the conference, guards and media flooded the prison door in anticipation for the release of Lawrence.

Lawrence eventually walked from the doors, covered by a heavily armed mobile brigade police.

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows.

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her.

Lawrence appeared after the the conference concluded, flooded by guards and wearing sunglasses

The convicted drug smuggler remained silent and ignored questions journalists shouted at her

There was speculation Lawrence would speak at the media conference, ahead of her release.

Bangli jail governor Made Suwendra said Lawrence thanked the staff at the prison as she prepared to leave, the Daily Telegraph reported.

'She said thank you as she has already been treated well during her time in prison. And also said sorry for any mistake she's done,' Mr Suwendra said.

Lawrence had an emotional and teary goodbye as she farewelled her inmates.

'All the women prisoners took her out from the women's block and they were hugging and crying,' Mr Suwendra said.

'Some of her friends were also crying.'

She hugged her girlfriend Erna and other female prisoners before heading out to freedom.

Police patrolled Bangli Prison ahead of Lawrence's release on Wednesday afternoon (pictured)

She wore sunglasses and hung her head as she was swept into a black SUV with dark-tinted windows

There was originally speculation Lawrence would speak at a media conference

In a tense video, Lawrence met Bali's justice ministry chief, Mr Sumadi, moments before her release.

The 41-year-old appeared shaken and nervous while she conversed with the chief before the pair shook hands.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawerence, and suggested she face the full extent of the law.

'If you commit that kind of offence, there is a heavy penalty to pay, and it doesn't give you credit when you get back to Australia,' he told Sky News.

But NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller suggested a deal with Lawrence's lawyers was more likely than a fresh set of handcuffs on the tarmac.

Lawrence was originally sentenced to life in prison but her sentence was reduced to 20 years on appeal.

On Wednesday, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he has 'no sympathy' for Lawrence (centre), and suggested she face the full extent of the law

She served 13 years and seven months after numerous reductions for good behaviour.

Lawrence was reportedly prescribed anti-depressants by a local doctor to deal with anxiety before the long-awaited release.

Mr Suwendra praised Lawrence for contributing to prison life in Bangli and being a co-operative inmate.

He hoped Lawrence would be helped to integrate back into life in Australia.

'Renae Lawrence is in a healthy condition. She seems to be happy, but also a bit nervous,' Mr Suwendra told AFP.

Renae Lawrence (pictured a week after her arrest in 2005) flew home from Bali on Wednesday night but she has outstanding criminal offences awaiting in Australia

Renae Lawrence (pictured) days after her arrest in Bali on April 17, 2005 - she was released from jail on Wednesday

Daily Mail Australia understands Lawrence will be given a few days to 'settle in' at her Newcastle home before she responds to the outstanding police charges from over a decade ago.

A court date will likely be set for December in Gosford, on the NSW central coast.

Lawrence is the only Bali Nine member to be released.

Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in 2015 and Tan Duc Thahn Nguyen died of stomach cancer in May earlier this year.

Martin Stephens, 42, Michael Czugaj, 32, Scott Rush, 33, and Si Yi Chen, 33, remain in prison where they are serving life sentences, with little chance of release.
Theresa May (pictured at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Monday) has struck a Brexit deal with Brussels - but now has to sell it to her Cabinet and then Parliament

Emergency EU Summit, Brussels, November 25

What will happen? The EU has scheduled a summit to sign off the Brexit deal covering the withdrawal and future trade - although there are fears that last minute wrangling over issues such as fishing rights and Gibraltar could derail the event altogether.

If it is cancelled the negotiating teams will keep working until they are in position to put an overall agreement to leaders - or they conclude the situation is hopeless.

The next routine EU summit is due to happen on December 13-14.

However, by that point time will be on the verge of running out - as both sides need to ratify the deal before March.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) is still a crucial figure in the Brexit drama

The so-called 'meaningful vote' in the UK Parliament, December 2019

What will happen: Assuming a deal is reached, a debate, probably over more than one day, will be held in the House of Commons on terms of the deal.

It will end with a vote on whether or not MPs accept the deal. More than one vote might happen if MPs are allowed to table amendments.

The vote is only happening after MPs forced the Government to accept a 'meaningful vote' in Parliament on the terms of the deal.

What happens if May wins? If the meaningful vote is passed, there will be a series of further votes as the withdrawal treaty is written into British law.

It will be a huge political victory for the Prime Minister and probably secure her version of Brexit.

What happens if she loses? This is possibly the most dangerous stage of all.

The Prime Minister will have to stake her political credibility on winning a vote and losing it would be politically devastating.

Brexiteers do not want to sign off the divorce bill without a satisfactory trade deal and Remainers are reluctant to vote for a blind Brexit.

She could go back to Brussels to ask for new concessions before a second vote but many think she would have to resign quickly.

The Prime Minister (pictured at the EU Council in June) has made clear the UK will leave without a deal if MPs reject her package

Ratification in the EU, February 2019

What will happen? After the meaningful vote in the UK, the EU will have to ratify the agreement.

The European Parliament must also vote in favour of the deal. It has a representative in the talks, Guy Verhofstadt, who has repeatedly warned the deal must serve the EU's interests.

Will it be agreed? In practice, once the leaders of the 27 member states have agreed a deal, ratification on the EU side should be assured.

If the deal has passed the Commons and she is still in office, this should not be dangerous for the Prime Minister.

Exit day, March 29, 2019

At 11pm on March 29, 2019, Britain will cease to be a member of the European Union, two years after triggering Article 50 and almost three years after the referendum.

Exit happens at 11pm because it must happen on EU time.

If the transition deal is in place, little will change immediately - people will travel in the same way as today and goods will cross the border normally.

But Britain's MEPs will no longer sit in the European Parliament and British ministers will no longer take part in EU meetings.

Negotiations will continue to turn the political agreement on the future partnership into legal text that will eventually become a second treaty. Both sides will build new customs and immigration controls in line with what this says.

Transition ends, December 2020

The UK's position will undergo a more dramatic change at the end of December 2020, when the 'standstill' transition is due to finish.

If the negotiations on a future trade deal are complete, that could come into force.

But if they are still not complete the Irish border 'backstop' plan could be triggered.

Under current thinking, that means the UK staying in the EU customs union and more regulatory checks between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.

Eurosceptics fear this arrangement will prevent the country striking trade deals elsewhere, and could effectively last for ever, as Brussels will have no incentive to negotiate a replacement deal.
Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary

Before she returned to Cabinet last week, Amber Rudd said holding another referendum would be better than a no deal Brexit.

And today she reiterated her view that another vote is on the table.

She said: 'The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

'It is my view that the House of Commons will stop no-deal. There isn't a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.'

Michael Gove, Environment Secretary

A leading Brexiteer, Michael Gove is a crucial player in the Cabinet and his support for Theresa May and her Brexit deal has been key.

He has repeatedly opposed a second Brexit referendum, saying it would be 'hugely disruptive and disrespectful'.

Liz Truss, Treasury Minister

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has never backed a second referendum - but she has suggested another one could be held if MPs vote down the PM's deal.

She said: 'If my colleagues in Parliament don't vote for this then we're in grave danger of not leaving at all.

'I am very very worried about what the alternative looks like, because I'm a democrat. I believe that people voted in good faith to leave the EU and we need to deliver that.'

Esther McVey, ex Work and Pensions Secretary:

Esther McVey, a Brexiteer, quit the Cabinet in fury at the Brexit plan - and has vowed to fight from the backbenches to 'stand up for the UK'.

She used a question in the first PMQs since she quit to press the issue .

She asked Mrs May: 'Can the Prime Minister assure the House today, as she has done on many other occasions, that the UK will be leaving the EU on 29 March 2019come what may?'

Penny Mordaunt, Aid Secretary

A leading Brexiteer, she is determined for Britain to leave the EU and does not want another EU referendum.

Liam Fox, International Trade Secretary

An ardent Brexiteer, Liam Fox has remained loyal to Theresa May and her Brexit deal.

But he would be dead-set against another vote on Brexit having campaigned so strongly to leave in 2016.
Spain has long harboured fears about an independent Scotland - fearing the it could fuel the Catalan independence movement in Spain.

Here are some of the statements the Spanish Government has made about the prospect of an independent Scotland~:

February 2012

Spain's foreign minister Jose-Manuel Garcia-Margallo,

'If Scotland becomes independent in accordance with the legal and institutional procedures, it will ask for admission [to the EU]. If that process has indeed been legal, that request can be considered. If not, then no.'

March 2017

Spain's foreign minister Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis, said: Spain supports the territorial integrity of the UK and doesn't encourage secessions or divisions in any of the member states

April 2017

Alfonso Dastis, the Spanish foreign minister, said Spain would not use their veto to stop an independent Scotland joining the EU.

He said: 'We don't want it [Scottish independence] to happen,' he said. 'But if it happens legally and constitutionally, we would not block it. We don't encourage the breakup of any member states, because we think the future goes in a different direction.'

November 2018

Spain's foreign minister Josep Borrell, warned the UK will break up because of Brexit, and said Spain would not block an independent Scotland joining the EU.

He said: 'I am very much more worried about the unity of the United Kingdom than the unity of the Kingdom of Spain. I think the UK will split apart sooner than the kingdom of Spain.'
The debate about science and religion is usually viewed as a competition between worldviews.

However, in a piece for The Conversation, Professor David N Livingstone and Professor John Hedley Brooke look at the great diversity of ways in which science and religion have worked together.

They argue that early scientific works were motivated by a belief in God and that the two disciplines still enrich each other.

They believe that sciences may provide answers to questions once asked within the faith traditions, concluding that these two disciplines complement each other as much as they conflict.

The debate about science and religion is usually viewed as a competition between worldviews. Throughout history, many have argued that science and religion are inescapably at war (stock)

In his 2015 book Faith versus Fact, the biologist and polemicist Jerry Coyne launched one of his many attacks on religion in the name of science: science and religion, he wrote, are 'incompatible in precisely the same way and in the same sense that rationality is incompatible with irrationality'.

These sorts of generalities have been quite common down the years, often reinforced by references to the condemnation of Galileo by the Roman Catholic Church in 1633 or the altercation in Oxford in 1860 between T H Huxley and bishop Samuel Wilberforce over evolution.

These sorts of statement can also have repercussions in public life. On September 16 2008, Professor Michael Reiss, an evolutionary biologist, resigned as director of education for the Royal Society.

What brought about his removal were observations he'd made about how science teachers should treat questions about origins in schools. He is reported to have said: 'Creationism is best seen by scientists not as a misconception, but as a world view.'

Shortly before Reiss turned in his resignation, the Nobel Prize winner Sir Richard Roberts had written to the president of the Royal Society, Sir Martin Rees, demanding 'that Professor Reiss step down, or be asked to step down, as soon as possible'.

'We gather Professor Reiss is a clergyman, which in itself is very worrisome,' the letter went on:

'Who on earth thought that he would be an appropriate Director of Education, who could be expected to answer questions about the differences between science and religion in a scientific, reasoned way?'

Commenting on the whole episode in the New Scientist, Sir Harold Kroto, another Nobel laureate, observed:

'There is no way that an ordained minister  for whom unverified dogma must represent a major, if not the major, pillar in their lives  can present free-thinking, doubt-based scientific philosophy honestly or disinterestedly. '

Complications

Enshrined in these assertions is the assumption that science and religion are inescapably at war.

And yet we must ask whether this assumption can possibly do justice to the great diversity of ways in which the relations between science and religion have been understood.

Pictured are clerks studying astronomy and geometry. In a piece for The Conversation , Professor David N Livingstone and Professor John Hedley Brooke look at the great diversity of ways in which the relations between science and religion have been understood

There are many sciences, many religions. A scientific innovation problematic for one religious tradition may be irrelevant to another. One science may pose a threat to religious beliefs when other sciences do not.

Arguing for an essential conflict between science and religion fails because, as the philosopher John Gray has written, terms such as 'religion' and 'atheism' have no essence.

The sciences may sometimes provide answers to questions once asked within the faith traditions  but they also leave space for religious enquiry and commitment.

How do we prioritise competing scientific research projects? With limited resources we must ask what is more important for h mankind.

But these are not scientific questions  as the historian Noah Yuval Harari identifies in his best-seller Sapiens, only religions and ideologies seek to answer them: 'Scientific research can flourish only in alliance with some religion or ideology.'

Because science and religion can complement one another as well as come into conflict, the story of their interrelations is complex.

Flash points and trading zones

Looking back over history, we certainly find many occasions when science and religion have been in conflict. Call these flash points. Among these is the rejection of miracles by those convinced that nature is bound by unbreakable natural laws.

Or the denial of human freedom by those who see the human mind as nothing more than the workings of brain chemistry.

In the early 17th century some Catholics found new theories of matter disturbing because of the challenges they posed to their understanding of the Eucharist.

For some Jews, the ban on astrology between 200AD and 500AD stifled astronomical inquiry. For biblical literalists, Darwinian evolution routinely provokes an oppositional stance.

In the 17th century, scientific instruments such as the telescope and microscope were conceived as ways of reversing the effects of Adam's fall from grace. Pictured is a 40-foot telescope made by astronomer William Herschel

On the other hand, we can identify many points of conciliation and enrichment. Think of these as trading zones.

Take the biblical idea that all humankind is descended from a single source. This belief inspired the search for the beginnings of human language and for the routes by which early humans diffused across the globe.

In the 17th century, scientific instruments such as the telescope and microscope were conceived as ways of reversing the effects of Adam's fall from grace.

Scientific methods and instruments were devised as a means for ameliorating the damage to human cognitive powers and sensory apparatus believed to have been brought about by human sinfulness.

Or consider the whole matter of design in the world. This idea was fundamental to the development of the science of ecology.

ARE WE HEADING FOR A GODLESS FUTURE? Graham Lawton, author of the new book 'How to be Human,' suggests that as our lives become more stable, society could become 'godless' as our need for religion fades away. When children encounter religion, Mr Lawson argues they find the explanations it offers intuitively appealing and believable - making them born believers - but this instinct is drummed out of them by education. The author claimed the reason people continue to be believe it because 'they haven't thought that hard about it'. However, although the future will be increasingly secular, humans will never totally lose the god instinct. As long as existential uncertainty exists Mr Lawton claims religion will not disappear completely - even though he believes some of the things in the bible are 'just crazy'. People cling onto moral guidance and existential comfort and they don't let go of them easily, he said. His comments are based on the cognitive theory of religion which states that belief is a by-product of our cognitive equipment. Our brain is primed to see meaning everywhere, which helps us make sense of random events. Children like the idea that there is order and design in the world and it is actually useful as it allows them to reason about possible threats that we cannot see, for example a predator lurking in a nearby bush. According to Mr Lawton, although this is an evolutionary advantage, it also facilitates the build-up of delusional belief and a feeling of rightness. 'To be an actual atheist and reject all religious ideas is not humanly possible - we'll still fill that hole with something, said Mr Lawton. As long as existential uncertainty exists, Mr Lawton claims religion will not disappear completely. Advertisement

Key early works of natural history which stressed the intimate connections between organisms and their environments were motivated in good part by a belief that God had fitted animals and plants to the environmental regimes in which they were located.

In our own day, there may well be benefits to be derived from a dialogue between theological anthropology and those advocating transhumanism.

New technological possibilities are raising profound questions about what it means to be human, a subject on which theologians have had much to say.

At the very least, theology might prove to be a useful conversational partner in articulating values by which to adjudicate among the human capacities that might be prioritised for enhancement.

The survival of religion

With their different sources of authority, the potential for tension, divergence, even animosity between representatives of scientific and religious communities will always be there.

But tension, divergence, animosity  even conflict  are not the same as inevitable warfare. Many religious people have been indifferent to science.

Many scientists have experienced alienation from religion. Mutual suspicion is not uncommon. But, again, indifference, alienation and suspicion are not the same as warfare.

The very words 'science' and 'religion' have undergone profound changes of meaning.

Not until the second half of the 19th century did 'science' become a convenient umbrella to capture an expanding range of specialised empirical enquiries, supposedly  but not always actually  united by a common 'scientific method'.

Can religions survive in technological societies? They already have  and for an important reason. They confer identity and seek to find meaning in events, to interpret the universe, not primarily to explain it.

As Terry Eagleton memorably put it: 'The blunder of believing that religion is a botched attempt to explain the world  is like seeing ballet as a botched attempt to run for a bus.'
A dome on a remote Hawaiian volcano is being transformed from a Mars simulator into the home of mock Moon missions.

The site was once the site of the HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) mission, where a crew of six scientists lived in isolation for eight months, carrying on as if they were actually on the red planet.

Now, after a brief hiatus, a new crew will be moving into a desolate slope of the Mauna Loa volcano.

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A dome on a remote Hawaiian volcano is being transformed from a Mars simulator into the home of mock Moon missions. It was located on a desolate part of the Mauna Loa volcano

THE HI-SEAS MISSION The Hi-Seas (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) mission's crews spend months 8,500 feet above sea level in a geodesic-dome habitat on the northern slope of the Mauna Loa volcano. The volcano is a barren landscape, an abandoned quarry with little vegetation that's as similar to Mars' landscape as planet Earth can get. The crew members live under Mars-like conditions. According to Hi-Seas 'communication latencies and blackouts, in close quarters, under strict water-use rules, etc' are part of the deal. The food study was designed to test food preparation strategies for long-term space exploration. Hi-Seas aims to address problems that may be encountered in future space missions by simulating exploration in areas of the world similar to space environments. The aim of the mission, funded by Nasa's Human Research Program, the University of Hawaii and Cornell University, is to learn about living sustainably on Mars. Advertisement

The most recent HI-SEAS mission, the Mission VI crew, faced some obstacles just four days after it began in February.

A crew member was taken to a hospital after they suffered from an electric shock while troubleshooting during a power outage, the Atlantic reported.

The rest of the crew was evacuated and one member ultimately withdrew, causing them to put the program on hold.

In its wake, Henk Rogers, who built the habitat, thought about what to do next.

He decided a Moon simulator would make the most sense.

'I describe it like this: Youve just invented a canoe and youre sitting on Maui and youre looking at Lanai, which is right next door, and someone says, hey, lets row to England,' Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur, told the Atlantic.

'Im saying lets row to Lanai first. Lets learn how to live on the moon before we start trying to live on Mars.'

Since then, Rogers has completely overhauled the dome by installing new floors, putting in new furniture, replacing old astronaut suits and adding an automatic generator, so as to prevent the kind of accident experienced by the crew member in Mission VI.

The first test simulations for the Moon mission are set to begin next week and will last about two days.

Actual simulations are expected to begin in 2020 and will last several weeks.

The most recent HI-SEAS mission, the Mission VI crew, faced some obstacles just four days after it began, when a crew member suffered from an electric shock and was taken to hospital

The moon simulation will operate similarly to the Mars simulation.

Scientists will have to keep track of the power, water, food and composting toilet systems in the habitat and will have to put on astronaut suits before they leave the dome, according to the Atlantic.

The crew will be largely disconnected from the outside world, except, unlike the Mars mission, which required crew members to wait out a 20 minute delay for sending and receiving emails, the new crew will only have to wait three seconds.

But they won't have many other Earth-like comforts restored.

Pictured are the six members of the Mission VI crew after they emerged from an eight-month simulation of what it would be like to live on Mars. The mission ended in 2017

Pictured is the Mars-like habitat near the Mauna Loa volcano. The study was designed to better understand the psychological impacts of a long-term manned mission to space on astronauts

They'll still have to eat freeze-dried meals and take 30 second showers to save water.

Rogers also plans on installing cameras in common areas of the dome and is even considering starting a livestream that interested members of the public can tune into.

'You could say that weve turned hi-seas into a high-end moon AirBnB,' he told the Atlantic.

However, unlike the Mars mission, the crew will be treated more like researchers instead of lab rats, the Atlantic explained.

HI-SEAS Crew members are seen with their food inventory in a dome in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, during the simulated Mars mission experiment. Many crew members ate freeze-dried meals

Crews will also rotate in and out once the mission begins.

They'll conduct a variety of research and experiments, as well as test novel technologies that could help humans survive on the lunar surface.

The lunar simulations come as many are interested in launching another mission to the moon.

NASA hopes to put a robotic spacecraft on the moon within the next year, as well as astronauts on the moon in roughly 10 years.
A startup has developed a radical headband that could eliminate motion sickness without the need for drugs.

Called OtoTech, the prototype device is worn around the head and delivers subtle vibrations to change how the brain interprets motion.

While the device is still in the early days of testing, its creator, Samuel Owen, believes it could have big implications for members of the military who are increasingly being trained using virtual reality, according to Defense One.

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OtoTech (pictured)targets certain fibers that deliver data about motion to the vestibulocochlear nerve, which transmits balance information from the inner ear to the brain

WHAT CAUSES MOTION SICKNESS? The inner ear plays a key role in our balance system - it contains a complex series of fluid-filled channels which respond to changes in our body position; any changes in these channels are relayed to the brain via the auditory (or vestibular) nerve. The brain can receive conflicting signals, thinking that its moving, even when your eyes tell it that you're not. This often results in motion sickness, or feelings of dizziness and queasiness. Advertisement

OtoTech targets certain fibers that deliver data about motion to the vestibulocochlear nerve, which transmits balance information from the inner ear to the brain.

'The working hypothesis is that [the vibration] causes a chaotic and noninformative stimulus to go to the brain,' Owen told Defense One.

'Somewhere, probably the cerebellum, there's a filtering mechanism that filters out noninformative sensed information.

'It's the reason you don't notice the shirt on your back right now,' he added.

Put simply, the device works to generate white noise so that part of your brain stops noticing information related to balance.

That said, the brain is still aware that the body is moving.

Owen told Defense One that OtoTech appears to reduce motion sickness without negatively impacting balance, vision, alertness or any other factors.

It has already attracted the attention of several major players.

The device works to generate white noise so that part of your brain stops noticing information related to balance. It hasn't been shown to negatively impact balance, vision or motion

Jaguar Land Rover is testing the device, while researchers at Coventry University in the UK and the University of Miami are also looking into how it could be used to reduce vertigo.

The device was initially developed as a way to lessen symptoms of vertigo, but that objective has since broadened to possible applications in the military, virtual reality and other areas.

'We noticed that it would improve the overall virtual reality experience,' Owen told Defense One.

'We've started to use it in our military devices. The initial reaction is, it looks unusual, but afterwards, people don't even notice.'

The device was initially developed as a way to lessen symptoms of vertigo, but that objective has since broadened to possible applications in the military, virtual reality and other areas

It comes as the military has increasingly looked to virtual reality as a way to train soldiers.

The Air Force uses VR to train pilots and even truck drivers, Defense One.

Currently, troops take various medications to reduce motion sickness, but the headband could eliminate that need.
NASA is planning to review the workplace safety culture at SpaceX and Boeing Co, as the two companies gear up to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

The space agency said it would conduct a 'cultural assessment study' of the companies, 'including the adherence to a drug-free environment,' prior to crew test flights scheduled to take place in the coming months.

It comes just months after SpaceX boss Elon Musk faced backlash for smoking what appeared to be marijuana during a live podcast hosted by Joe Rogan.

According to a new report, the decision to launch the review was directly sparked by the CEO's behavior.

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NASA is planning to review the workplace safety culture at SpaceX and Boeing Co, as the two companies gear up to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. A report from the Washington Post claims the decision was sparked by Elon Musk's recent behavior

'We fully expect our commercial partners to meet all workplace safety requirements in the execution of our missions,' said NASA in a statement.

NASA did not give further details on the reasons behind the move, but the Washington Post, which first reported it, said the review was prompted by the recent behavior of SpaceX's founder Elon Musk.

The Washington Post says it spoke with three officials who have knowledge of the investigation.

SpaceX and Boeing are the two main contractors selected under NASA's commercial crew program to send astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Dragon and Starliner spacecraft respectively.

Musk was filmed drinking whiskey and briefly smoking marijuana during a live podcast in September.

While a NASA spokesperson declined to comment, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Washington Post is hoping to secure the public's confidence ahead of the upcoming crewed launches.

'If I see something thats inappropriate, the key concern to me is what is the culture that led to that inappropriateness and is NASA involved in that,' Bridenstine told the Washington Post.

'As an agency were not just leading ourselves, but our contractors, as well.

'We need to show the American public that when we put an astronaut on a rocket, theyll be safe.'

Boeing (Starliner pictured left) plans to fly an uncrewed mission early next year, with plans to add crew mid-2019. SpaceX is currently eyeing November 2018 for its first demo mission with the Crew Dragon (right), followed by its first crewed flight to the ISS in April 2019

NASA has revealed the nine astronauts that will soon take to space aboard the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon. From left: Suni Williams, Josh Cassada, Eric Boe, Nicole Mann, Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Bob Behnken, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover

Boeing said in an emailed statement that it was committed to mission success as NASA's partner, while ensuring the integrity, safety and quality of its products, its people and their work environment.

SpaceX said it actively promoted a safe work environment.

'We are confident that our comprehensive drug-free workforce and workplace programs exceed all applicable contractual requirements,' SpaceX said in a statement sent to Reuters.

WHEN DID NASA LAST LAUNCH CREWED MISSIONS FROM THE US? Shuttle Columbia is shown during lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center in 2003 NASA launched its first space shuttle, Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-1), from the Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981. In the three decades that followed, the space agency deployed a total of 135 missions from US soil. Columbia was only the beginning; following in its footsteps, NASA launched Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor to carry people to orbit. These launches also allowed for the construction of the International Space Station  the largest structure in space, thats now home to a revolving crew of astronauts from all around the world, conducting important experiments that continue to advance our knowledge of the cosmos. The shuttle missions came to an end with the Atlantis shuttle on July 21, 2011 after STS-135. In the years since, NASA has had to rely on Russian modules to send astronauts to the ISS, all of which launch from foreign soil. Now, the space agency has turned to the private sector to provide space taxi services, to take astronauts from US soil to the ISS. On August 3, 2018, NASA revealed astronauts would fly on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon. So far only SpaceX has successfully taken astronauts to the ISS, but it is hoped the first Starliner flight will happen in 2022. The shuttle missions came to an end with the Atlantis shuttle on July 21, 2011 after STS-135. Above, Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fl, marking the official end of the 30-year program Advertisement

NASA revealed the nine astronauts that will take to space aboard the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon earlier this year.

With the two new capsules, NASA will finally be able to launch crewed missions from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade.

SpaceX and Boeing's first Commercial Crew flight tests will be led by astronauts: Eric Boe, Chris Ferguson, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley, Josh Cassada, Suni Williams, Victor Glover, and Mike Hopkins.

For astronauts Cassada and Mann, the milestone missions will also mark their first ever space flights.
Two of the world's most elusive atmospheric wonders have been caught on camera in a stunning visual display.

The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, made a spectacular appearance alongside a rarely-seen 'moonbow' over Sweden's Lapland on Tuesday night.

The dual presence of these famed phenomenons took place at the Lights Over Lapland resort in Abisko, north of the Arctic Circle, where onlookers were left stunned.

It occurred when the aurora borealis coincided with both humidity and a luminous, nearly-full moon.

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Two of the world's most elusive atmospheric wonders have been caught on camera in a stunning visual display. The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, made a spectacular appearance alongside a rarely-seen 'moonbow' over Sweden's Lapland on Tuesday night

Fortunately, the stunning moment was captured on camera by Lights Over Lapland founder Chad Blakeley.

'We've set up an Aurora webcam giving our community a live feed of images of the night Sky, and Northern Lights, over Abisko,' he said.

It was whilst reviewing the footage on the webcam that he spotted the moonbow developing through the Northern Lights.

HOW ARE MOONBOWS FORMED? Just like daytime rainbows, moonbows need the light from the moon to be reflected and refracted by water droplets at a certain angle. Rather than seeing the full spectrum of colours, moonbows often appear to be white to the human eye. However, the colours are there, and long-exposure photographs are a great way of capturing their beauty. The moon needs to be near to or at its fullest phase and low in the sky (less than 42), whilst the night sky itself needs to be very dark. There also needs to be rain falling opposite the moon, or as you can see in the image below, another source of water droplets such as a waterfall. To see a moonbow, the observer has to have the moon behind them (as in an ordinary rainbow). The best time to see moonbows is a couple of hours after sunset or before sunrise. SOURCE: Met Office Advertisement

'It was a unique experience for me and Ive been photographing the Northern Lights every winter for the last 10 years,' he added.

The MEt Office told MailOnline: 'The night sky must be very dark to be able to see moonbows, plus there must be rain falling opposite the moon - this combination makes moonbows more rare than rainbows produced by the sun.

'Also, moonbows are more likely to be spotted at lower latitudes where there are more hours of darkness.'

A moonbow, sometimes known as a lunar rainbow, works on a similar principle to a rainbow, but is the result of moonlight rather than sunlight passing through water in the air.

Light from the Moon shines on droplets of moisture. It is difficult for the human eye to pick out the colours and for this reason it appears white. However, the colours will appear in long-exposure photographs.

Visual display: The dual presence of the Northern Lights and a moonbow took place at the Lights Over Lapland resort in Abisko, north of the Arctic Circle

Aurora borealis: Usually, the Northern Lights appear alone - as here at Lofoten islands, Norway, where green lights are seen hovering above the waters

Moonbows are most easily viewed when the Moon is nearly full. They are relatively rare because they need a number of conditions to appear.

The Moon must be less than 42 degrees high in a very dark sky.

Moonbows were first mentioned by Aristotle back in 350BC, and there are certain parts of the world where you are more likely to see them, such as Hawaii.
A scam circulating on WhatsApp is asking users to enter a 'Black Friday competition' to win discounts and offers.

The chain message has been circulating on the app and encourages people to do a survey to win coupons from supermarket chain Spar.

The hoax is thought to have originated in South Africa last Friday but is said to have picked up steam, spreading to the UK and Ireland.

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Spar Ireland has warned their customers not to click into the link or to forward the message to other contacts on Facebook and Twitter. They tweeted: 'There is a scam circulating on WhatsApp claiming to be a SPAR survey. Do not respond to it, it is a hoax.'

The message reads: 'SPAR in honour of ''Black Friday'' in November, is giving away the free coupons worth R2999. I just received my coupon https://lupx.info/spar'. '

The R2999 is South African rand currency and amounts to around 166.

The retail giant has warned their customers not to click into the link or to forward the message to other contacts.

If you click on the link it will take you to a clone of Spar's webpage to 'complete a survey on the supermarket's customer service before prompting you to forward the message onto other contacts.

They posted on their Facebook page: 'SCAM ALERT! Please note that SPAR has no association with this website. Please do not enter your details on this website and don't share the link.

'Keep in mind that we will always make mention of a competition either in-store or on our Facebook page.

The company also tweeted about the hoax message: 'There is a scam circulating on WhatsApp claiming to be a SPAR survey. Do not respond to it, it is a hoax.'

Bizarrely, the same retailer was used in a similar WhatsApp scam, also in South Africa, claiming to be a Spar initiative which urging people to fill in a survey to qualify for a 'R5000 (268) voucher'.

A new scam circulating on WhatsApp asking users to enter a Black Friday competition to win 166 (2999 rand) of discounts and offers. The chain message has been circulating on the app since last Friday and encourages people to do a survey for supermarket chain Spar

Users were then inadvertently subscribed to an automatic daily subscription service, which deducts R7 (39p) from his or her phone bill.

Similar scams have used the messaging platform to target visitors to Paultons Theme Park, the home of Peppa Pig World, and Alton Towers.

Those who mistakenly believed the offers were genuine shared the scam promotional message with friends and family to try to get free tickets to the theme parks.

Those who receive the hoax text should avoid clicking the link, which takes WhatsApp users to a malicious website with an online form for users to input their personal information.
Whales change their tune regularly in order to keep it simple for their pod to remember, experts have revealed.

Every few years the songs performed by the humpback creatures are ditched in favour of more basic alternatives.

Experts say this is the mammal's version of a re-set button and ensures that the anthemic melodies remain easy for their community to remember.

Scientists from the University of Queensland and St. Andrews University, Scotland, call this 'a cultural revolution' after studying the species for 13 years.

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Whales change their tune regularly in order to keep it simple. Every few years the iconic songs of the humpback whales are ditched for more basic versions (stock)

Focusing on 95 male humpbacks from east Australia, the research revealed that gradual song changes naturally stem from individual creatures but are quickly learned by the rest of the group.

This, experts say, is partly because they animals have a limited learning capacity.

Moreover, it's easier for them to gradually amend and re-learn existing melodies as opposed to creating and reciting brand new ones.

Lead researcher Dr Jenny Allen, from Australia's University of Queensland, said: 'We examined two measures of song structure, complexity and entropy [a tendency to become more disordered].

'Complexity increased as songs evolved over time, but decreased when revolutions occurred. No correlation between complexity and entropy suggests [it would] allow males to stand out amidst population-wide conformity.

'The consistent reduction in complexity during song revolutions suggests a potential limit to the social learning capacity of novel material in humpback whales.'

The findings are published in the journal Royal Society Proceedings.

Scientists from St Andrews University in Scotland studied male humpback whales over 13 years. They found the signature songs of the species change steadily over time as they become embellished (stock)

The data comes just five months after scientists at the University of Buffalo claimed that whales sing as a form of echolocation - rather that to attract a mate.

The team, led by Eduardo Mercado III, said that - contrary to popular scientific opinion - animals are actually 'building up a picture' of their nearby surroundings by analysing the audio.

'They're trying to create a scene that would not be there otherwise. When they create these echoes it's like shining a searchlight in the dark,' Mercado said.
Facebook has been branded heartless after offering up auto-replies in response to live coverage of a shooting.

The social media giant has been branded 'toxic tech' after providing canned responses such as 'so sad' for users to pick from after the hospital shooting in Chicago on Monday.

The feature has been dubbed 'inappropriate' by users and has now been turned off after outcry at the firm's insensitivity towards tragic events.

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Facebook have been branded heartless after offering up auto-replies in response to a live video of a shooting. The social media giant has been branded 'toxic tech' after providing canned responses such as 'so sad' after the hospital shooting in Chicago on Monday.

The shooting at the Chicago hospital killed four people including a police officer who had been planning a wedding.

Thousands watched the live stream of the breaking news on the platform where a live shooter was firing at random in the hospital.

The feature prompted users to click generic condolences including 'heartbreaking' and 'what happened?' instead of writing their own sympathetic messages.

Facebook users who took to Twitter to complain at the presence of the automated feature.

One wrote: 'Toxic tech at its peak'.

Another said: 'Auto-response to tragedy...where do Facebook find these idiots?'

One gadget blogger at Next Web wrote: 'Clicking the comment field accompanying live video allows you to select one of several heart-felt replies  so heart-felt, in fact, that Facebook actually took away the trouble of having to feel it at all.'

Facebook generates the responses themselves. Other automated comments include 'stay safe', 'Hope everyone is OK' , while others are just stand alone emojis such as the 'prayer' emoticon.

The company had been testing the auto-response feature on live video streams including those involving sensitive situations like shootings and sexual assault.

The social media giant have been called 'toxic tech' for suggesting users click on automated replies rather than writing their own sympathies after Facebook showed live coverage of the Chicago hospital shooting

A Facebook spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We have been testing a suggested comment feature on Live videos.

'Clearly this wasn't implemented properly and we have disabled this feature for now.'

Facebook generates the responses themselves possibly by monitoring what other users have written or by looking at the content of the video. Other automated comments include 'stay safe', 'Hope everyone is OK' while others are stand alone emojis such as the prayer emoticon

Buzzfeed News reported that live coverage of a man who sexually assaulted at least three women outside a Catholic supply store before fatally shooting a woman on Monday provoked the feature to suggest phrases like 'unbelievable' and 'respect'.

It also suggested several emoticons, including a sweating head, an embarrassed face and a crying face.

Facebook have since turned the feature off and said that the test was not implemented properly. A Facebook spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We have been testing a suggested comment feature on Live videos. Clearly this wasn't implemented properly and we have disabled this feature for now.'

It is not clear how the system works but it could be that Facebook monitors how people are responding to the coverage to generate similar responses.

Another possibility is that the algorithm automatically tracks the content, title and description of the video and using existing data, generates the appropriate response.
King Richard III was more of a handsome 'surf dude' than a 'hideous misfit', an expert has said.

The infamous monarch, who reigned from 1483-1485, is generally portrayed as a scheming, murderous villain of hideous appearance.

Shakespeare penned the monarch as a paranoid psychopath, often played by actors with a hunchback and a huge nose.

But now a gallery owner specialising in medieval-era art has refuted the historical portrayals of Richard III - and says he was more a handsome, well-built man.

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King Richard III was more of a handsome 'surf dude' than a 'hideous misfit', an expert has said. He was memorably portrayed by Laurence Olivier in his film adaptation of the Shakespeare play (pictured)

Ralph Fiennes as Richard, Duke of Gloucester 'Richard III'. Shakespeare penned the monarch as a paranoid psychopath, often played by actors with a hunchback and a huge nose

Steve Beer, who owns fine art gallery The Medieval Gallery in Dunster, Somerset is set to host a major event on December 1, called 'Picturing Richard's World'.

Featuring artwork displays and talks by experts, he says it may 'radically overturn' the image most people have of the controversial king.

Mr Beer said: 'This event offers a rare opportunity to see artistic interpretations of the latest scientific evidence and modern historical research.

'Richard III has been demonised by generations of historians, artists and playwrights as the sinister, physically misshapen figure who murdered his nephews - the Princes in the Tower.

He told MailOnline the new exhibition is a 'complete re-writing of this part of history'.

'He was memorably portrayed by Laurence Olivier in his film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, in which Richard is presented as an almost pantomime villain.

'But since the discovery of his physical remains in a Leicester car park in 2012, historians and scientists have been able to refute at least a part of the legend inherited from Shakespeare and the Tudors', Mr Beer said.

He explained that a forensic reconstruction of the king, centering on his exhumed skull, acted as the starting point for a new portrait of him.

Painted by Danish artist Anne Gyrite Schutte, the painting will be unveiled at the event at The Medieval Gallery.

The infamous monarch (pictured), who reigned from 1483-1485, is generally portrayed as a scheming, murderous villain of hideous appearance

The mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower (artist's impression) is one of the most enduring in English history

And the king's character will also come under scrutiny in a talk by acclaimed author and historian Annette Carson.

Mr Beer said: 'This will examine Richard's role as Lord Protector and consider if his image as a murderer is really justified.

'This is about a group of experts getting together and trying to reform Richard's image. They are all committed and they are all empirical in their evidence.

'Rarely has this critical period of English history been so vividly brought to life as it will be at this rare event,' he added.

The event will be staged in two parts - first, the talks and displays at Dunster Tithe Barn, followed by the unveiling of the new portrait.

The event will be staged in two parts - first, the talks and displays at Dunster Tithe Barn, followed by the unveiling of the new portrait. Pictured is an image of King Richard III inside Leicester Cathedral

Leicester Cathedral won the tussle to provide the final resting place for Richard III (pictured) following a lengthy court battle

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. He was buried in a Leicester church, but the building was lost to later development. His bones were then discovered under a Leicester car park in 2012 (pictured)

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

He was buried in a Leicester church, but the building was lost to later development.

His bones were then discovered under a Leicester car park in 2012. Authorities in Leicester have said they will reinter his body with dignity and honour.

But a campaign group, the Plantagenet Alliance, claimed York was a more suitable location for Richard's remains as he had spent his childhood and much of his adult life in the North.

Leicester Cathedral won the tussle to provide the final resting place for Richard III following a lengthy court battle.
The human brain has two internal 'clocks' that predict our immediate future.

That's according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley, which suggests our neural wiring predicts the forthcoming milliseconds.

One of the 'clocks' relies on past experiences, while the other is dependent on rhythm - but both are crucial to how we navigate the world.

These inbuilt clocks allow humans to know when to press the accelerator pedal in a car momentarily before the light goes green and the cognitive timekeeping feature also allows us to know when exactly to start singing the next line of a song.

The internal timepieces were discovered after experts studied the accuracy of anticipatory timing amid people with Parkinson's disease.

Finding: One of the 'clocks' relies on past experiences, while the other is dependent on rhythm. These inbuilt clocks allow humans to know when to press the accelerator pedal in a car momentarily before the light goes green (stock image)

'Whether it's sports, music, speech or even allocating attention, our study suggests that timing is not a unified process, but that there are two distinct ways in which we make temporal predictions and these depend on different parts of the brain,' said the study's lead author Assaf Breska.

The findings, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, offer a new perspective on how humans calculate when to make a move.

'Together, these brain systems allow us to not just exist in the moment, but to also actively anticipate the future,' said senior author Richard Ivry.

Breska and Ivry studied the anticipatory timing strengths and deficits of people with Parkinson's disease and people with cerebellar degeneration.

They connected rhythmic timing to the basal ganglia and interval timing  an internal timer based largely on our memory of prior experiences  to the cerebellum.

Both are primal brain regions associated with movement and cognition.

The 'clocks' were discovered after experts studied the accuracy of anticipatory timing amid people with Parkinson's disease. the cognitive timekeeping feature also allows us to know when exactly to start singing the next line of a song (stock image)

Moreover, their results suggest that if one of these neural clocks is misfiring, the other could theoretically step in.

'Our study identifies not only the anticipatory contexts in which these neurological patients are impaired, but also the contexts in which they have no difficulty, suggesting we could modify their environments to make it easier for them to interact with the world in face of their symptoms,' Breska added.

Non-pharmaceutical fixes for neurological timing deficits could include brain-training computer games and smartphone apps, deep brain stimulation and environmental design modifications, he said.
Southern Europe's lucrative truffle industry could vanish within a generation.

That's the stark warning from researchers at Stirling University, who surveyed the potential damage caused by climate change.

They predict that the continent's production of the popular fungi - dominated by France, Italy and Spain - will decline by between 78 and 100 per cent between 2071 and 2100.

A warmer and drier climate would be responsible for the decline, which the researchers say will have a 'huge economic, ecological and social impact'.

They reveal it could also be accelerated by other factors, such as heatwave events, forest fires, pests and diseases.

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Southern Europe's lucrative truffle industry could vanish within a generation. That's the stark warning from researchers at Stirling University, who surveyed the potential damage caused by climate change (stock)

Dr Paul Thomas, from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the university, led the research, which is the first study to consider the future threat of climate change on European truffle production.

'Our new study predicts that, under the most likely climate change scenario, European truffle production will decline by between 2071 and 2100.

'However, the decline may well occur in advance of this date, when other climate change factors are taken into account, such as heatwaves, forest fires, drought events, pests and disease.

'We risk losing an industry worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy. However, the socio-economic impact of the predicted decline could be substantially larger as truffle harvesting and related activities form a key component of local history and cultural activity.'

Estimates have suggested that the truffle industry's worth could reach as much as 4.5 billion over the next 10 to 20 years.

Dr Thomas, working with Professor Ulf Buntgen at the University of Cambridge, studied continuous records, spanning 36 years, of Mediterranean truffle yield in France, Spain and Italy.

A warmer and drier climate would be responsible for the decline, which the researchers say will have a 'huge economic, ecological and social impact'. They reveal it could also be accelerated by other factors, such as heatwave events, forest fires, pests and diseases (stock)

HOW DO YOU GROW TRUFFLES? Historically, truffles were simply 'found' and could not be grown. They were often tracked down by Truffle pigs that had an excellent nose for the fungus. In the 19th century, many of the attempts at cultivating the truffle failed miserably. French gourmet Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once called truffles 'the diamond of the kitchen'. In 1825, he said: 'The most learned men have sought to ascertain the secret [to growing truffles], and fancied they discovered the seed. 'Their promises, however, were vain, and no planting was ever followed by a harvest.' The truffle fungus requires a host, often the roots of a tree in order to grow properly. Truffles are produced by inoculating the seeds of trees with the fungus. This fragile process occurs in a greenhouse and can take some time, the trees are then planted and as the plant grows, so do the roots and, as a result, so do the truffles. The tubers can then be harvested when they are fully developed. Advertisement

'This is a wake-up call to the impacts of climate change in the not-too-distant future,' he added.

'These findings indicate that conservational initiatives are required to afford some protection to this important and iconic species. Potential action could include the expansion of truffle plantations into new territories of a more favourable future climate.

'Management strategies should further include mulching materials and cultivation practices to mitigate soil temperature fluctuations and conserve soil moisture.'

The warning comes one year after Stirling University announced that truffles were successfully cultivated in Scotland for the first time.

The aromatic fungus was grown in the root system of native oak trees at a secret site south of Edinburgh, and harvested by a specially trained sniffer-dog.

Michelin-starred Scottish chef Tom Kitchin, who tested one of the first Scottish truffles last year (2017), said it would be 'a dream come true' to get a good supply of the prized delicacies grown in Scotland.
I recently made a donation on a friends GoFundMe page. I paused over the box to hide my name before clicking it.

Then as I finished up, the website asked me if I wanted to share my donation on Facebook. I clicked skip.

I also have a team in the Walk to End Alzheimers in honor of my mother. Every time I donate online, the website prompts me to announce my gift on social media.

Ill share our teams fundraising page on Facebook but not my own donation. Most people who donate to my team dont share their donations on social media either.

Although these requests to flaunt donations are becoming extremely common, not all donations are trumpeted on Facebook or Twitter or heralded in programs for concerts and school reunions. Some are completely anonymous.

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So while some people may feel good just knowing they helped someone even if no one else knows, others feel that they are a kind, giving person only when others find out about their good acts

I study how someones identity affects their charitable giving.

The twinge of self-consciousness I feel when asked to publicize my donation on social media or have my name revealed made me wonder why some donors broadcast their good deeds while others remain silent.

Moral identities

I often consider the role of what consumer psychologists call moral identity  the extent to which someone values moral traits, such as kindness, generosity, fairness, tenacity and honesty, in themselves as well as in how others see them.

So while some people may feel good just knowing they helped someone even if no one else knows, others feel that they are a kind, giving person only when others find out about their good acts.

When fundraisers offer to list donors names in a school graduation program, prominently place them on the wall of a new building or mention them on a website, it gets easier to reach the people in the second group.

Getting recognized

To study this phenomenon, I teamed up with two other marketing scholars, Vikas Mittal at Rice University and Karl Aquino at the University of British Columbia.

We conducted an online survey of 197 people.

Just as they were finishing another survey on a different topic, we asked people to tell us how important traits like compassion and helpfulness are to them personally and in their daily activities that are visible to others.

People also answered a variety of other questions on another topic.

We then asked them to volunteer five minutes of their time to complete a survey for an educational nonprofit.

Half were told that in exchange for completing the survey, their name would be listed on the nonprofits website. The other half werent told this.

Some people respond differently

People can donate their time or money, as well as items like clothes or food. Anything that helps others can make givers feel like they are the kind, caring person they desire to be or want others to see.

The prospect of being recognized for taking five minutes out of their days to do something voluntarily made a subset of participants more likely to volunteer: those who said their everyday hobbies and interests show traits like kindness and fairness.

Just as they were finishing another survey on a different topic, we asked people to tell us how important traits like compassion and helpfulness are to them personally and in their daily activities that are visible to others

For these individuals, 21 percent volunteered when they knew their name would be listed on the nonprofits website.

Only 6 percent volunteered when they were not told about this recognition.

Of those who place a lot of importance on being moral, 21 percent gave their time when they didnt know they could have their name listed on the website.

When these people knew recognition was an option, their likelihood of volunteering only increased slightly, to 24 percent.

This told us that only those people who want their moral traits to be expressed to others care about whether their donations can be seen.

Not surprisingly, a smaller share of those who did not think it was important to be caring  only 13 percent  volunteered to take the survey.

Catering to a minority

We estimated that only one in five people cares about showing generosity to others without feeling these characteristics really matter to themselves.

They are more likely to donate when they can be recognized as generous. What about the other 80 percent?

When fundraisers offer to list donors names in a school graduation program, prominently place them on the wall of a new building or mention them on a website, it gets easier to reach the people in other groups

About 50 percent tend to place a high enough internal value on being moral to consider donating regardless of whether others hear about it.

The remaining 30 percent arent inclined to donate no matter what.

So should nonprofits cater to this minority and offer ways for donors to be recognized for giving? Id say yes.

Otherwise, they could lose out on donations from these donors, who are approximately 20 percent of all people but constitute a bigger share of potential givers.

At the same time, I believe charities should not presume that most donors want or welcome this opportunity to be recognized every time they support a cause.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered a rare stone weight inscribed with a word from the Hebrew Bible.

The artifact, called a beka, dates back to the First Temple period roughly 3,000 years ago, when it would have been used to measure the value of worshipers donations, according to Haaretz.

Unlike one other such item found in the past, the inscription on the newly-discovered beka was engraved in mirror script, from left to right, hinting that its creator specialized in making seals.

Archaeologists in Jerusalem have discovered a rare stone weight inscribed with a word from the Hebrew Bible. The artifact, called a beka, dates back to the First Temple period roughly 3,000 years ago

The stone weight was found by a team sifting soil near the foundation of the Western Wall.

Beka weights from the First Temple period are rare, however, this weight is even rarer because the inscription on it is written in mirror script, archaeologist Eli Shukron told Haaretz.

The expert says this is a sign of a seal-maker, since seals were always written in mirror script so that, once stamped, the inscription would appear in regular legible script.

According to Shukron, the person who made the beka likely used the same writing style as a seal by mistake.

Unlike one other such item found in the past, the inscription on the newly-discovered beka was engraved in mirror script, from left to right, hinting that its creator specialized in making seals

The stone weight was found by a team sifting soil near the foundation of the Western Wall

The First Temple era came hundreds of years before coins arrived to the region, and Jews at the time paid a temple tax in silver.

To calculate their donation, the silver was placed on a scale opposite the beka weights such as the one archaeologists have found.

Beka weights were used to measure half-shekel donations paid by people aged 20 and up, according to Haaretz.

The extremely rare stone weight was found in nearly the same spot as another discovered by the same team a few years back. According to Haaretz, it may even have been used in Solomons Temple

BRITISH HISTORIAN CASTS DOUBT ON KING SOLOMON TALES According to the Old Testament Solomon ruled the United Monarchy of Israel and Judea between 970 and 931BC and accumulated 500 tonnes of pure gold. However, British historian and author Ralph Ellis believes the tales of staggering riches buried beneath the ground are likely a 'gross misinterpretation' of historical texts. His study, which began in 1997, 'strongly indicates' Solomon was not a rich king of Israel at all, but rather a feared and powerful Egyptian Pharaoh. Mr Ellis believes neighbouring rulers plundered royal tombs located in Egypt's Valley of the Kings and presented the riches to Solomon as 'tribute' to prevent invasion. He believes tales of pharaohs were considered 'unpalatable and unacceptable' by later biblical authors, who altered their history to create a 'purely Israelite' hero. Advertisement

This can be seen twice in the Bible, with a passage from Exodus, for example, stating:

A beka a head, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed over to them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

The extremely rare stone weight was found in nearly the same spot as another discovered by the same team a few years back.

According to Haaretz, it may even have been used in Solomons Temple.
France will wear rainbow laces in Saturday's match against Fiji in Paris as a show of support for Gareth Thomas, after the former Wales captain was the victim of a homophobic assault in Cardiff last week.

A message of support for the 44-year-old, who played in France for Toulouse from 2004 to 2007, was posted on Twitter by Serge Simon, the vice-president of the French Rugby Federation.

'All of French Rugby is with you regarding the homophobic molestation you've been victim of,' Simon said.

France will wear rainbow laces against Fiji in Paris as a show of support for Gareth Thomas

'To show our support, the French rugby players will wear a rainbow shoe lace during the France - Fiji game on Saturday night. We're all in with you in this matter.'

On Sunday Thomas, who came out as gay in 2009, posted a video to Twitter in which he thanked the police and the people of Cardiff for their support following the attack.

He also said he had opted to deal with his attacker, a 16-year-old boy, by talking to them about the harm they caused, 'because I thought they could learn more that way than any other way.'

Thomas added: 'There are a lot of people out there who want to hurt us, but unfortunately for them there are a lot more who want to help us heal, so this I hope will be a positive message.'
'You have expensive taste,' says my host Custom, when I chose my favourite brew. I've tried 18 of the black, white, green, oolong and fusion blends produced on the balmy, highaltitude slopes here at Satemwa - the leading tea estate in Malawi, southeastern Africa.

The hand-made Bvumbwe is my favourite - and, Custom tells me, Satemwa's priciest at 10 a 50g tin. The Earl Grey comes in second, while a peachy hibiscus rounds out the top three.

This comparison of cuppas takes place inside Satemwa's prettily dilapidated white-walled plant. A cheery video on a tiny TV explains how teas are produced on the estate and Custom fills in the gaps - 'all teas contain some caffeine,' he says, 'even green'. About 90 per cent of Satemwa's teas end up in UK mugs and you can buy it at Waitrose.

Time for a cuppa: Tea is picked on the verdant Satemwa tea estate in Malawi

I'm staying on the estate at Huntingdon House, a colonial-style manse with smart furniture and four-poster beds. You can take a one-hour walking tour of Satemwa's hillsides, which I do.

My guide, Lamek, fills me in on the history. It was a Briton, Maclean Kay, who founded the estate in 1923, and the Kay family remains in charge today. He then shows me gum-tree glades. Their wood is burnt to help dry the tea.

So, how is it that with around 10,000 tons of it going to Britain each year, I've never heard of Malawian tea? 'Companies, such as PG Tips or Twinings, which buy from here, use their own branding and mix our tea with others,' says Lamek.

Colonial style: Satemwa was founded in 1923 and Huntingdon House replicates this style

Take your pick: Satemwa produces black, white, oolong, green and fusion blends

We move on, gulping at lush vistas towards Mount Mulanje, spotting a fish eagle scanning Satemwa's lake and passing groups of waving tea-pickers.

Just an hour from Blantyre's international airport, Huntingdon is the perfect tea break while visiting Lake Malawi and the country's rejuvenated safari parks, Liwonde and Majete.

It's a lovely breather after a few days on the move. On my patio, a waiter approaches. Would I like something to drink? Oh yes, a pot of Bvumbwe, please.
An airline passenger who asked for water during a flight delay claims he was given a glass of ice and told 'wait for it to melt'.

Shocked Gene Goh was on board a Scoot flight that was waiting to take off from Changi Airport in Singapore en route to the city of Osaka in Japan.

As he was thirsty, he asked a flight attendant if he could have some 'plain water', but was told that only bottled water was available.

Airline passenger Gene Goh claims that when he asked for water on a delayed Scoot flight, he was given a cup of ice, pictured, and told to wait for it to melt

Mr Goh took to Facebook to complain about his treatment but many of the people commenting weren't so sympathetic and told him he should have paid for a bottle of water

But Mr Goh was not prepared to pay for a bottle, so he asked for tap water.

The flight attendant gave him a cup full of ice, instead.

He then posted a picture of the glass of ice on Scoot's Facebook page, complaining it was no way to care for passengers.

He wrote: 'I was given a cup of ice and was told to wait for the ice to melt.

'All I am asking is for just a cup of water, I wouldn't care if it was from the tap.

'I hope that there could be some sort of care for passengers, not being unreasonable over here.'

But if he was hoping for sympathy, Mr Goh was in for disappointment.

Mr Goh had been traveling on a Scoot service from Changi Airport in Singapore to Osaka in Japan

Commenting on his Facebook post, 'Redles Tian Dude' said: 'Just few dollars for a mineral water. Don't tell me you couldn't afford it... stop making yourself cheap... Well done cabin crew! You did the right thing!'

'Alfred Chen' agreed, adding: 'Typical cheapskate indeed', while 'Rai Nud Din' noted: 'You're lucky to get a cup of ice... and it's free! Be thankful.'

'Tricia Namdrol Drolma' added: 'They should charge for the cup as well', and 'Von Urairat' joked: 'They were expecting you to fill it up with tap water in the lavatory!'

A Scoot spokesperson told MailOnline Travel: 'Serving complimentary drinking water on board is currently not part of our business policy, and bottled drinking water is available for purchase on our flights.'
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Disney has given fans a tantalising taste of how its new Star Wars lands are taking shape thanks to amazing new drone footage and renderings.

A video of the London Symphony Orchestra recording John Williams' new music for the attractions also includes incredible sweeping aerial shots that reveal how construction is progressing.

While new concept art produced by Disney has revealed what one of the settlements inside, called Black Spire Outpost, will look like.

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Sweeping new drone footage showing construction of the new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge has been released by Disney

The footage showing the construction of the new theme park attraction is set against new music composed by Oscar winner John Williams being recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge will open in Disneyland in California next summer and at Walt Disney World in Florida next autumn

Fans of the movies are treated to panoramic shots from above showing jagged mountains and villages being built

New concept art produced by Disney has revealed what one of the settlements inside, called Black Spire Outpost, will look like

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge will open in Disneyland in California next summer and at Walt Disney World in Florida next autumn.

And in the new trailer, fans of the movies are treated to panoramic shots from above showing the jagged mountains and villages being built as scaffolding leans up against them.

Various craft can also be seen dotted around the landscape and there's a time-lapse construction of an At At, too.

While the end shot of the land gives a sneak peek at Han Solo's famous spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, as the orchestra finishes the rousing new tune.

In one sweeping shot, Han Solo's famous Millennium Falcon spaceship can be seen poking out of the landscape

The London Symphony Orchestra can be heard playing Williams' rousing music as Star Wars fans are taken on a brief tour of Galaxy's Edge

The clip has time-lapse footage showing builders hard at work constructing a replica At At

Various craft can be seen dotted around the landscape as construction continues in both Florida and California

The ambitious new attraction is part of a $2billion (1.43billion) investment by Disney in its theme parks

Earlier this week, it was revealed that fans of the movie franchise will be able to pilot the Millennium Falcon and face off against the dark side in battle at the new lands.

Disney also revealed the names of two new major attractions at them - one will be called Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run and the other, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

What's more, it has released two trailers for them, with the one for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance shot inside the actual attraction.

In a new trailer Disney has revealed two of its major attractions inside its Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge lands

Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run, pictured, will allow guests to get behind the controls of the most famous ship in the movie franchise

The two signature attractions of the 'lands' are due to open in Disneyland in California next summer and at Walt Disney World in Florida next autumn.

On the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run, Disney guests are able to go behind the controls of the most famous ship in the movie franchise in one of three unique flight crew roles.

Meanwhile on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, guests are put in the middle of an epic battle between the Resistance and the First Order.

The new trailer for this shows Stormtroopers patrolling corridors and the First Order coming under attack from the Resistance.

Disney has also released a trailer for the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride, which was shot inside the actual attraction

On Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, guests are put in the middle of an epic battle between the Resistance and the First Order

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge will feature a street market and food stalls where Star Wars fans can enjoy delicacies such as blue milk. Pictured is another image from the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance trailer

It was previously revealed that Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge will also feature a street market and food stalls where Star Wars fans can enjoy delicacies such as blue milk.

There will also be a replica Cantina bar run by character Oga Garra.

Walt Disney Imagineering executive Scott Trowbridge, who is overseeing the project, previously said: 'Our intent is to make it feel as if you just walked into one of the movies.

'Bringing to life in the physical world gives us the opportunity to play with a whole bunch of things we've never done before... to really engage all of the senses.

Pictures taken in September show the new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge land taking shape at Walt Disney World in Florida

The images taken at Lake Buena Vista show spaceships and transmitter masts beginning to take shape alongside rocky landscapes

The new attractions will include around 10,000 tons of structural steel and 200,000 square feet of hand-carved rock work

'What does that street feel like? What does that animal smell like? What does blue milk taste like?'

The ambitious new attraction is part of a $2billion (1.43billion) investment by Disney in its theme parks.

Once completed, it will include approximately 10,000 tons of structural steel and 200,000 square feet of hand-carved rock work.
Jessica and Seyat finally tied the knot on Tuesday's episode of Bride and Prejudice - despite the efforts of disapproving mother-in-law Fatima.

And after fans watched them exchange vows, the young newlyweds shared a glimpse of their wedding album on Instagram.

The photos offer a more intimate portrait of their special day, which took place at a charming chapel in Byron Bay, New South Wales.

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'Fairytale ending!' Bride and Prejudice lovebirds Jess and Seyat have shared photos from their wedding album... after 'mother-in-law from hell' Fatima said it was the 'worst day of her life'

Jessica, 21, looked simply breathtaking in a V-neck lace wedding dress designed by Luv Bridal Australia.

She appeared every inch the blushing bride in the floor-sweeping number, which was embellished hundreds of sparking sequins.

Her chestnut hair was styled into loose waves, which cascaded gracefully down her back as she glided down the aisle.

'I do!' The photos offer a more intimate portrait of the young couple's special day, which took place at a charming chapel in Byron Bay, New South Wales

Marital bliss! Jessica, 21, looked simply breathtaking in a V-neck lace wedding dress designed by Luv Bridal Australia, while Seyat suited up for the occasion in a white shirt and grey jacket

Meanwhile, Seyat suited up for the occasion in a white shirt layered underneath a grey jacket and a pair of sharp trousers.

He also accessorised with the typical wedding accoutrements, including a white corsage, a straight black tie, cufflinks and dress shoes.

Fans were also offered a closer look at the couple's diamond encrusted wedding bands, which appeared to be from Zamels Jewellery.

Newlyweds: Bride and Prejudice couple Jessica and Seyat finally tied the knot on Tuesday's episode - despite the efforts of disapproving mother-in-law Fatima

Bloomin' lovely! In another stunning photo, Jess was seen holding a bunch of pastel-hued blooms as she gazed adoringly at her new husband

Put a ring on it! Fans were also offered a closer look at the couple's diamond encrusted wedding bands, which appeared to be from Zamels Jewellery

In another stunning photo, Jess was seen holding a bunch of pastel-hued blooms as she gazed adoringly at her new husband.

'A charming white chapel sets the scene for Jess & Seyat's fairytale ending!' the gallery of photos was captioned on Instagram.

Despite their wedding day looking perfect, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing for the star-crossed lovers.

Seyat's fearsome mother Fatima described the ceremony as 'the worst day of [her] life' and admitted she wanted to slap her daughter-in-law.

They made it! Jessica and Seyat finally made it down the aisle on Tuesday's episode, despite his family's disapproval

'That's why I'm angry, I'm upset. I just felt like slapping her one!' Seyat's mother Fatima (left) didn't 'destroy' the wedding like she promised too, but was nonetheless visibly furious

'Yes, I do feel like I've lost Seyat,' she admitted to producers.

'This is all Jessica's fault,' she continued. 'That's why I'm angry, I'm upset. I just felt like slapping her one!'

Fatima - who has been nicknamed 'the mother-in-law from hell' by fans - also said she 'felt like crying' and 'only came to support' her son.
Bachelorette couple Georgia Love and Lee Elliott marked their second anniversary in August by moving into a new home in Richmond, Melbourne.

And on Wednesday, the TV journalist shared a rare glimpse inside her fashionable closet to fans.

From designer frocks and pre-loved shoes, the 30-year-old revealed that hundreds of designer items from her wardrobe would be up for grabs at a pop-up sale next week.

Charitable heart: Georgia Love (pictured here with boyfriend Lee Elliot) is selling designer items from her wardrobe to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month

'Im selling hundreds of items from my own wardrobe!' The TV journalist shared a rare glimpse inside her fashionable closet to fans on Wednesday, and said the items would be up for grabs at a pop-up sale next week

Georgia explained she was auctioning off her clothes for a cause close to her heart.

'On December 1, I am clearing my cupboards for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. Im selling hundreds of items from my own wardrobe,' she captioned a photo of her closet.

Two crowded racks of clothing were seen in the photo, with frilly tops, floral dresses, denim skirts and stylish trousers on display.

'Wed love to see you there': Georgia and boyfriend Lee Elliott (R) will likely both attend the sale on December 1 from 10am to 4pm at 46 Stafford St, Abbortsford

'Theres a wide range of designer, everyday, formal, casual and sample clothing from brands including Alice McCall, Asilio, Mossman, Rodeo Show, Keepsake, Sheike, Talulah, Finders, C/MEO, Steele and more,' Georgia further explained.

With prices starting from $15, Georgia said every cent of the pop-up sale would be going directly to Pancare Australia.

'Wed love to see you there, supporting Pancare and stocking up your wardrobe before the party season!' Georgia added, noting the address the sale would run from 10am to 4pm at 46 Stafford St, Abbortsford.

'I believe it's vital to create awareness around this brutal disease and hopefully do some good and make a change for people like myself and my family': The charity clothing drive is in conjunction with a cause close to her heart - Pancare Australia

The former Bachelorette became an ambassador for Pancare Australia after her late mother Belinda tragically lost her battle with pancreatic cancer in October 2016, just days after the dating show finale was broadcast.

In a statement at the time, she said: 'Ive had such a whirlwind year, such a range of emotions, from meeting Lee to my Mums battle, and I want to help as much as I can.'

'I believe it's vital to create awareness around this brutal disease and hopefully do some good and make a change for people like myself and my family, but also to hopefully stop others from having to go through the same thing,' Georgia added.
She's no stranger to dazzling on screen and at high-profile events.

And Ellie Bamber set pulses racing once again as she attended Kimpton Fitzroy London's housewarming party on Tuesday evening.

The screen star, 21, displayed her sartorial flair in an elaborate off-shoulder tulle dress by Osman, featuring semi-sheer sleeves and feathered trimmings.

Taking centre stage: Ellie Bamber set pulses racing once again as she attended Kimpton Fitzroy London's housewarming party on Tuesday evening

Exhibiting her slender waist, the Nocturnal Animals actress tied in her outfit with a thick black belt, and boosted her frame with silver strappy heels.

Ellie injected some colour into her dark appearance with burgundy bedazzled hooped earrings.

The High Resolution star swept her auburn tresses into a slick ponytail to reveal her out-of-this-world beauty, enhanced with eyeliner and rich pink lipstick.

The bash was held to celebrate luxury boutique brand Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants opening its first UK hotel in London's Bloomsbury district.

Wow-factor! The screen star, 21, displayed her sartorial flair in an elaborate off-shoulder tulle dress by Osman, featuring semi-sheer sleeves and feathered trimmings

The star first rose to fame with her acting stint on Tom Ford's psychological thriller film Nocturnal Animals in 2016.

Ellie's career has being going from strength to strength, with the Surrey-born beauty joining the star-studded cast of the TV adaptation of Les Miserables, which includes Dominic West, Lily Collins and Olivia Colman.

It is thought to be the first time a major screen version of Victor Hugos classic nineteenth-century novel will not have a white actor in the joint lead role.

Stunning display: Exhibiting her slender waist, the Nocturnal Animals actress tied in her outfit with a thick black belt, and boosted her frame with silver strappy heels

And the Corporation has broken new ground by casting a black actor, Selma star David Oyelowo, as Javert  a part played by Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush in recent film versions.

The young actress has been dating Bodyguard star Richard Madden, 32, since 2017.

In the romance department, Richard recently touched cryptically on his relationship with Ellie in an interview with The Sun, revealing: 'I am sleeping with someone. I am very happy with someone.'

The couple are notoriously tight-lipped about their romance, but confirmed they were dating last August when they were pictured locking lips on a beach in Ibiza.

Pop of colour: Ellie injected some colour into her dark appearance with burgundy bedazzled hooped earrings

More recently they were seen looking cosy and holding hands at the Serpentine Gallery Summer Party in June this year.

Ellie is known for her role in the movie Nocturnal Animals, and will be seen next as Cosette in the BBCs adaptation of Les Miserables.

Their relationship comes after Richard split from Jenna Coleman in 2015 following a four-year on-off romance.

The following year, he was linked to Laura Whitmore and Suki Waterhouse. Suki famously shared the screen with Ellie in the 2016 Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.
She's constantly been in the spotlight since her turn in Netflix's award-winning fantasy horror series Stranger Things.

So it made perfect sense for actress Millie Bobby Brown, 14, to turn the spotlight on a New York icon.

The Stranger Things star threw the switch to light up the Empire State Building in honor of UNICEF and World Children's Day in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday.

Time to shine! Millie Bobbie Brown threw the switch to light up the Empire State Building in honor of UNICEF and World Children's Day in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday

UNICEF's newest ambassador, Millie looked fab in a blue and white gingham Altuzarra frock as she posed on the viewing deck at the top of the 102-story Art Deco building.

Built in 1931, it has a roof height of 1,250 feet and stands 1,454 feet tall, including its antenna.

On a day when the temperature hit a chilly high of just 47F in the area, it was obviously nippy up there.

But Millie had a blue puffa jacket with her that matched the color of her dress perfectly and she put it on to keep out the cold.

The young star also had her nails painted blue to support UNICEF's Go Blue On World Children's Day campaign.

New job: The 14-year-old is UNICEF's newest ambassador and she wore blue Altuzarra frock to support Go Blue On World Children's Day campaign

On top of the world: Millie donned a warm puffa jacket to check out the 360 degree view of the city from the building's viewing deck

Big Apple views! Brown smiled as she took in the unbelievable views of the city

Millie's shiny brunette hair, which she had to shave off to play Eleven in the first season of Stranger Things, is now shoulder length and precision cut into a long bob.

Stranger Things was a sensation when it kicked off it's eight-episode first series in one binge-worth chunk on July 15, 2016.

The nine-episode season two was released on October 27, 2017.

Shady lady: On a day when the temperature hit a chilly high of just 47F in mid-Manhattan, it was obviously nippy up there but Milllie still needed sunglasses

Tidy tresses: Millie's shiny brunette hair, which she had to shave off to play Eleven in the first season of Stranger Things, is now shoulder length and precision cut into a long bob

But fans are going to have to wait for season three. It isn't due until next year and Netflix has yet to set a debut date.

However, Millie can next be seen on the bigscreen in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, alongside Vera Farmiga, 45, and Brits Sally Hawkins, 42, and Charles Dance, 72, due out on May 31.

She's also signed up to reprise her role for Godzilla vs. Kong opposite Alexander Skarsgard, set for release on May 22, 2020.

Her own award: Millie was presented with a model of the Art Deco structure, built in 1931
Ray Hadley was left fuming after his daughter Sarah tricked him into thinking she had copped a hefty speeding infringement in Sydney.

The 2GB radio host's 21-year-old daughter carried out the prank on Wednesday's Kyle and Jackie O Show, during a celebrity edition of the 'Only Lying' segment.

In a phone conversation, Sarah told her famous father she was 'pulled over by police after she travelled down Bannerman Road at 96km in a 40km roadworks zone.'

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He's not impressed! Ray Hadley fumed after his daughter Sarah tricked him into thinking she broke the law - months after his policeman son was arrested over an alleged drug deal

At the start of the prank, Ray asked his daughter sharply: 'What's wrong?'

She explained: 'I was going down Bannerman Road and, dad, I was going 96km and I've been pulled over and it was a roadworks zone.'

'Oh, Christ almighty!' Ray exclaimed before Sarah added: 'And I can't drive my car.'

'Only lying!' The 2GB radio host's 21-year-old daughter carried out the prank on Wednesday's Kyle and Jackie O Show, during a celebrity edition of the 'Only Lying' segment. Pictured: Kyle Sandilands (left) and Jackie 'O' Henderson (right)

She then said: 'But the policeman was really hot so I thought I could get out of it and I tried to flirt my way out of it.'

Sarah, who admitted to receiving speeding fines in the past, was quickly reprimanded by her concerned father.

'Sarah, what madness are you talking about? Sarah, listen, how many times have I told you in the past from when you got your licence to slow down?' Ray pleaded.

'Dad, I can just get Ubers to work!' Sarah insisted.

You've messed with the wrong guy! Ray (pictured in his 2GB studio) sounded agitated after his daughter told him she'd been pulled over by police while driving a car in his name

As the tension increased, Ray fired back: 'You won't be getting Ubers to work! I'll tell you what you'll be doing, you'll be getting there via push bike. That's what you'll be doing - or walking.'

'I mean, fair dinkum... did they give you a ticket or what did they do?' he then asked.

'I'm just calling you because the car's in your name!' Sarah replied, which prompted Ray to tell her: 'Of course it's in my name - I pay the rego.'

'Yeah... can you come pick me up? Because I can't drive,' Sarah said.

However, before Ray agreed to pick up his daughter, he reminded Sarah that her reckless behaviour could reflect badly on him.

'If I pick up the newspaper tomorrow and my name's in there because of this, I'm going to have the s**ts big time!' he raged.

'If I pick up the newspaper tomorrow and my name's in there because of this, I'm going to have the s**ts big time!' Before Ray agreed to pick up his daughter, he reminded Sarah that her reckless behaviour could reflect badly on him

Seconds later, radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson interrupted the heated exchange between Ray and his daughter to reveal it was all just a joke.

Ray took the prank in good humour, but couldn't resist calling Kyle a 'd**k head'.

'I'm sitting here with my blood pressure up, trying to get someone to get to her [Sarah] and now I find out it's a gee-up!' he said, before playfully warning his daughter: 'Wait until I get home!'

The talkback presenter later revealed that his daughter would be donating the $1,000 she won for participating in the 'Only Lying' segment to Father Chris Riley's Youth Off The Streets organisation.

Ray Hadley's son Daniel Hadley was arrested at a pub in Sydney's north-west in August over an alleged drug deal

It's been a challenging few months for Ray, after his policeman son Daniel Hadley was arrested at a pub in Sydney's north-west in August over an alleged drug deal.

The radio presenter publicly broke down in tears at a press conference the morning after his son's arrest, where he revealed he felt 'inadequate' as a parent for failing to notice his son's mental health problems.

'When I was first told, I was angry and perplexed. I had no idea that my son, a respected police officer, would be involved in such a matter,' Ray told reporters.

'My son revealed to me he's been having mental health issues for some time. He was also injured at work some time ago. My son had been seeing his GP about these issues without my knowledge.

'I feel particularly inadequate as a father and a spokesman for R U OK Day when in fact my son is not OK.

'This is going to be a long slow process for my son. I love him dearly, and I wish to God he'd come to me before this morning to tell me what he was battling.'

Police revealed in September that Daniel Hadley had resigned from the police force. He will face court on December 12.
While she's normally seen as a brunette, Anne Hathaway stepped out in New York City as a redhead, and with a big smile to boot.

She was seen rocking strawberry blonde hair while filming her new movie The Last Thing He Wanted in Puerto Rico, but she was pictured on Tuesday in New York sporting a much darker shade of red.

Whether or not this new redhead look is for a new movie or just for fun, the actress had a huge smile on her face the entire time.

Red alert! Anne Hathaway was all smiles while rocking a colorful outfit and new red hair in New York City on Tuesday

The actress was spotted with her traditional brunette hairstyle just a few weeks earlier while attending the Hollywood Film Awards, but has since changed up her tresses to a shade of red.

Hathaway was seen wearing a pink coat with a dark fur stole around the shoulders that nearly matched her hair.

She was also wearing a shimmering sequined top, a mustard-colored knee-length dress and black shoes, while carrying a brown paper bag.

New hair, don't care: Hathaway was seen wearing a pink coat with a dark fur stole around the shoulders that nearly matched her hair

The Ocean's Eight star wasn't seen with her husband Adam Schulman or their son Jonathan during her happy stroll.

Theories about her red hair are already starting to surface, with InStyle claiming that a popular theory is her new look is for reshoots of The Last Thing He Wanted.

While principal photography wrapped in August, it's possible the look is for reshoots, although her hair is a much deeper red now than it was when she was seen with strawberry blonde hair this summer.

Anne in red: Theories about her red hair are already starting to surface, with InStyle claiming that a popular theory is her new look is for reshoots of The Last Thing He Wanted

The Last Thing He Wanted is based on the novel of the same name by Joan Didion, with Hathaway playing a journalist who quits her job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency.

Production took place this summer, although filming took place in Puerto Rico, not New York City.

Dee Rees (Mudbound) directs, with an all-star cast in place that also includes Ben Affleck and Willem Dafoe, slated for release in 2019.

Anne stepping out: The Last Thing He Wanted is based on the novel of the same name by Joan Didion, with Hathaway playing a journalist who quits her job to become an arms dealer for a covert government agency

Hathaway is shaping up to have a big year in 2019, with the release of The Last Thing He Wanted and two more high profile movies.

She stars in the thriller Serenity, reuniting with her Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey, in theaters January 25, 2019.

She stars alongside Rebel Wilson in The Hustle, a gender-swapped reboot of the 1988 classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which arrives May 10, 2019.
The upcoming movie of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats has a formidable cast.

And a new name has just been added to the list - Jason Derulo, who has been tapped to play the mischievous playboy cat known as the Rum Tum Tugger.

Jason, 29, tweeted Tuesday's Hollywood Reporter article announcing his casting in his first feature and crowed: 'Its official! Your boys a workin actor'.

Hunk: For the upcoming film of the musical Cats, Jason Derulo has been tapped to play the mischievous playboy cat known as the Rum Tum Tugger

Taylor Swift will be amid a cast including Ian McKellen and James Corden in the upcoming Cats film, the Daily Mail revealed in July.

Shortly thereafter, Variety reported that the role of faded 'glamour cat' Grizabella, who sings the show's famous ballad Memory, has gone to Jennifer Hudson, who gave an Oscar-winning performance in the 2006 film of the 1982 musical Dreamgirls.

Judi Dench - whose musical theater history includes playing Sally Bowles in the original London run of Cabaret - will be in the film, as will Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson.

Based on Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, the show Cats opened in the West End in 1981 before crossing the Atlantic the following year and temporarily becoming the longest-running musical in the history of Broadway.

Star power: Taylor Swift will be amid a cast including Ian McKellen and James Corden in the upcoming Cats film, the Daily Mail revealed in July

Pedigree: Shortly thereafter, Variety reported that the role of faded 'glamour cat' Grizabella, who sings the show's famous ballad Memory, has gone to Jennifer Hudson

It was eventually overtaken by The Phantom Of The Opera, which like Cats was a Cameron Mackintosh production with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Cameron was also behind the original production of Les Miserables, the 2012 film of which was directed by Tom Hooper, who will helm this new Cats movie.

Trevor Nunn, who directed the original London and Broadway productions of Cats, augmented T.S. Eliot's poems to create the lyrics for the stage version.

'My disobliging ways': The stage musical - which is particularly known for the late Gillian Lynne's choreography - has a song dedicated entirely to the Rum Tum Tugger

Hoofing it: He explains: 'If you put me in a house, I would much prefer a flat,' and meanwhile: 'If you put me in a flat, then I'd rather have a house'

The stage musical - which is particularly known for the late Gillian Lynne's choreography - has a song dedicated entirely to the Rum Tum Tugger, who admits himself: 'My disobliging ways are a matter of habit.'

He explains: 'If you put me in a house, I would much prefer a flat. If you put me in a flat, then I'd rather have a house. If you set me on a mouse, then I only want a rat. If you set me on a rat then I'd rather chase a mouse.'

Paul Nicholas, later famous for the BBC sitcom Just Good Friends, originated the role in the West End before Broadway veteran Terrence Mann took over in New York.

Though the character was initially redolent of a rock star, a 2014 London production revamped him as a hip-hop performer played by television's Marcquelle Ward.

Singing again: Judi Dench - whose musical theater history includes playing Sally Bowles in the original London run of Cabaret (pictured) - will be in the film

Andrew told the Evening Standard: 'Im going to make Rum Tum Tugger a contemporary street cat and he has to do hip-hop. That will be a completely new way of doing it. Ive come to the conclusion that Rum Tum Tugger was possibly the first ever rap song. T.S. Eliot clearly anticipated rapping in his meters.'

As gossip columnist Michael Riedel dished in his book Razzle Dazzle: The Battle For Broadway: 'During [the original run of] Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Trevor Nunn, and set designer John Napier all left their wives for younger women playing cats.'

In Andrew's case, the new wife was Sarah Brightman, who originated the role of Jemima in London and for whom he wrote The Phantom Of The Opera as a vehicle.
She's a regular fixture on the London night scene.

And Lottie Moss oozed sophistication as she joined her mother Inger at Kimpton Fitzroy London's housewarming party on Tuesday evening.

The model, 20, put her best fashion foot forward as she sported a red double-breasted blazer with matching high-waisted trousers.

Like mother, like daughter: Lottie Moss oozed sophistication as she joined her mum Inger at Kimpton Fitzroy London's housewarming party on Tuesday evening

Living up to her style savvy ways, the socialite donned a cream satin cami and pointed fishnet heels.

Lottie maintained her chic appearance with a statement mini handbag and took style inspiration from the early Noughties with gold hooped earrings.

Framing her pretty features with poker straight tresses, the brunette emphasised her beauty with faint touches of blush and dewy foundation.

Meanwhile, Inger, 56, looked glamorous in a velvet black blazer, flattering skinny jeans and elegant suede boots.

Androgynous chic: The model, 20, put her best fashion foot forward as she sported a red double-breasted blazer with matching high-waisted trousers

The bash was held to celebrate luxury boutique brand Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants opening its first UK hotel in London's Bloomsbury district.

Despite her party lifestyle and often being spotted on nights out with the cast of Made in Chelsea, Lottie recently told The Sun she has shunned reality TV offers because she likes having her own personal life.

The model revealed she had been approached about MIC, as so many of her pals are on the show, but isn't interested in taking part.

She said: 'I've been asked a lot from Made In Chelsea. Obviously I'm friends with everyone on it.

Look at her glow: Framing her pretty features with poker straight tresses, the brunette emphasised her beauty with faint touches of blush and dewy foundation

'It's not for me. I quite like having a private life. I don't like everything being on TV.

'My guilty pleasure, which is really bad, is Ex On The Beach and Geordie Shore. I absolutely love them.'

Lottie is the half-sister of supermodel Kate Moss, but she doesn't feel pressured by her legacy.

She previously said: 'My sister and I are two different people and she is on her path and I am on my own.'

Standing tall: Living up to her style savvy ways, the socialite donned a cream satin cami and pointed fishnet heels
Sylvia Jeffreys made an impassioned plea on the Today show on Wednesday, calling on the shoe industry to 'end discrimination against women with large feet'.

The Channel Nine presenter, who has size 42-43 European feet, said she was fed up with the lack of sizes for big feet.

In response to his colleague's complaint, Karl Stefanovic appeared to subtly recommend that she might want to try one of Mara & Mine's designs as the cult shoe brand caters to most sizes.

Free publicity? Karl Stefanovic appeared to subtly promote his fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough's shoe brand on the Today show after Sylvia Jeffreys complained about a lack of sizes for big feet

'They do a size 11 and 12,' Karl said.

Mara & Mine is part-owned by Karl's fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough, a 34-year-old former model who co-founded the company in 2013 with business partner Tamara Ingham.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the network for comment.

Fed up! Sylvia (pictured) began the segment by revealing her struggle to find shoes made in her size, before Karl implied that she might want to try shopping at Mara & Mine

Sylvia had begun the segment by revealing her struggle to find shoes to fit her unusually large feet.

'This is a big issue those of us with a big grip on the earth have been ignored by retailers for too long,' she said.

'We have suffered the indignity of shopping at CanoesForShoes.com for too long.

Fashionista: Mara & Mine is part-owned by Karl's fiancee Jasmine Yarbrough, a 34-year-old former model who co-founded the company in 2013 with business partner Tamara Ingham

'We are sick of that sinking feeling we get when we hear those six offensive words, "We don't go to your size".'

Last week, she wrote an article for 9Honey explaining that the lack of available sizes in shoe shops has has been a source of frustration and disappointment for her over the years.

'Enough is enough. It's high time the shoe industry ended its discrimination against us. The rights of tall, long footed women have been ignored for too long,' she said.

'We deserve equal opportunity too!' Last week, Sylvia wrote an article for 9Honey explaining that the lack of available sizes in shoe shops has has been a source of frustration and disappointment for her over the years

'The fashion industry has answered calls for plus-sized clothes, but what about plus-sized feet? We deserve equal opportunity too,' she added.

Sylvia - who claims to have been fitted for men's trainers at age 14 - also complained about having her toes crushed by ill-fitting heels over the years, and the shame of having to shop at unfashionable shoe retailers.

'So the next time you tell a tall woman you'd love to have her height, consider her pain. The grass isn't always greener,' she concluded.

Bigfoot: Sylvia complained about the lack of stylish shoes for her size 42-43 European feet

Ouch! Sylvia - who claims to have been fitted for men's trainers at age 14 - also complained about having her toes crushed by ill-fitting heels over the years, and the shame of having to shop at unfashionable shoe retailers

Luckily for Sylvia, she will soon boast a shoe-designing sister-in-law when Jasmine marries Karl in Mexico next month.

Indeed, the newsreader proudly wore a pair of $320 mule slippers by Jasmine's label Mara & Mine during an event at the company's flagship Sydney store in February.

The Today show reporter matched the fancy footwear with a sheer black dress and her signature blunt bob hairdo.

If the shoe fits! Luckily for Sylvia, she will soon boast a shoe-designing sister-in-law when Jasmine marries Karl in Mexico next month. Indeed, the newsreader proudly wore a pair of $320 mule slippers by Jasmine's label Mara & Mine at the company's flagship store in February

A photo of Sylvia wearing the distinctive shoes was also posted to Mara & Mine's official Instagram account at the time.

Jasmine opened the shoe store in the Sydney suburb of Paddington in early December last year, an event which Sylvia attended.

The blonde journalist, who is Karl's sister-in-law through her marriage to Peter Stefanovic, is also believed to be attending Jasmine's wedding on December 8.
Being a duel citizen since childhood, Australian actress Nicole Kidman could have lived in America at any time during her life.

However, it wasn't until she met and fell in love with Tom Cruise on set of Days Of Thunder in 1990 that she decided to move to the U.S. on a full-time basis.

'I moved here [to the States] because I fell in love and got married,' Nicole, 51, told Variety when asked about her decision to emigrate.

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'Everything had to fall in place around that': Nicole Kidman has revealed why she permanently left Australia for the U.S. Pictured in London, England on October 13, 2018

'I always make choices for love, and everything kind of had to fall in place around that,' she added.

Nicole and her ex-husband Tom, 56, married in December 1990 but eventually split in August 2001.

The Big Little Lies star shares two adult children with Tom (both adopted): son Connor, 23, and daughter Bella, 25.

She did it for love! 'I moved here [to the States] because I fell in love and got married,' Nicole, 51, told Variety when asked about her decision to emigrate. Pictured with her ex-husband, American actor Tom Cruise, on set of 1990's Days of Thunder

The heart wants what it wants! 'I always make choices for love, and everything kind of had to fall in place around that,' Nicole added. Pictured in Hollywood on March 4, 2018

She also has two biological children - daughters Faith, seven, and Sunday, 10 - with country music star Keith Urban, 51, whom she married in 2006.

Nicole and Keith maintain homes in Tennessee and Los Angeles in the U.S., and Sutton Forest and Sydney in Australia.

The Oscar winner - who was born in Hawaii and moved Down Under with her family aged four - wasn't always interested in heading for the bright lights of Hollywood.

Former couple: Nicole and her ex-husband Tom, 56, married in December 1990 but eventually split in August 2001. Pictured together in January 2001

Speaking to Allure recently, Nicole admitted she was once 'very drawn' to the idea of becoming a nun instead.

The Eyes Wide Shut star, who is Roman Catholic, told the publication that she 'loved the idea'.

'I'm spiritual in that I absolutely believe in God,' Nicole said. 'Obviously, I did not choose to go that path, but I was very drawn to it.'
They're both working actresses who also raise two children.

But Charlize Theron, 43, and Jenny Mollen, 39, appeared to have differing opinions when it comes to school lunches, with Mollen clapping back at a comment made by the South African actress during a past interview.

'Umm  Im also a working mother of two,' said the owner of the @dictatorlunches Instagram account, in response to a quote in which the Mad Max: Fury Road star said that moms posting photos of their kids' elaborate school lunches 'upsets' her.

Flawless: Charlize Theron, 43, and Jenny Mollen appeared to have differing opinions when it comes to school lunches. Charlize seen here earlier this month

On Monday, in a since-deleted Instagram post, the wife of Jason Biggs took umbrage at a quote by Theron she had seen in a magazine.

'If I see one more Instagram blogger packing those incredible lunch boxes, Im going to kill myself,' read the quote from the Monster actress.

Beneath the quote was written, 'On what upsets her as a working mother of two, CHARLIZE THERON.'

Which prompted Mollen to snap back that she was also a working mom.

Mollen runs the popular @dictatorlunches account, in which she shares photos of her four-year-old son Sid's elaborately prepared school lunches.

Mom war: On Monday, in a since-deleted Instagram post, the 39-year-old wife of Jason Biggs took umbrage at a quote by Theron she had seen in a magazine. Mollen seen here this month

Sweet spread: Mollen runs the popular @dictatorlunches account, in which she shares photos of her four-year-old son Sid's elaborately prepared school lunches

Jenny has been married to American Pie actor Biggs since 2008.

The couple starred together in the 2008 film My Best Friend's Girl, but their relationship didn't blossom until they were set up on a blind date later that year.

'The couple are now the proud parents of two sons: Sid, four, and Laz, 11, months.
AFL star Josh Gibson put on a brave face as he attended an event in Melbourne on Tuesday night with friends, after his girlfriend Olga Kononchuk suffered spinal injuries following boating accident last week.

The 34-year-old posed for photos on the red carpet at the House 99 By David Beckham launch alongside friends, Matt Verocchi and Christian Rocchi.

Josh looked dapper in a navy T-shirt, black jeans and suede jacket which he paired with a brown fedora hat and white casual shoes.

AFL star Josh Gibson puts on a brave face as he attends an event with friends after his girlfriend Olga Kononchuk suffered spinal injuries following boating accident

The former I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here contestant smiled as he hugged his friend on his boy's night out.

In January, David Beckham announced on Instagram he would be launching his own grooming brand, House 99, a hair, skin, beard and tattoo collection.

He wrote: 'Im excited to introduce my grooming brand @House99. Welcome to the House,' sharing a short a campaign video which racked up almost 150,000 views and thousands of comments in just half an hour.

Friends: The 34-year-old posed for photos on the red carpet at the House 99 By David Beckham launch alongside friends, Matt Verocchi and Christian Rocchi

Looking good! Josh looked dapper in a navy T-shirt, black jeans and suede jacket which he paired with a brown fedora hat and white casual shoes

The collection, comprising 21 products focusing on hair, skin and body, was created in partnership with L'Oreal and inspired by 'British barbershop culture'.

Josh's appearance on the red carpet comes after he received rather grim news earlier last week his girlfriend Olga had been rushed to hospital with spinal injuries.

She has been receiving visits from her partner of five months as she recovers in The Alfred Hospital at Melbourne.

Bad luck: Josh's appearance on the red carpet comes after he received rather grim news earlier last week his girlfriend Olga had been rushed to hospital with spinal injuries

'Olga had a fall last weekend and did some damage to verterbrae in her lower back,' Gibson's management company said on his behalf in a statement to the Sunday Herald Sun.

'Shes been extremely well looked after by the staff at The Alfred since and is now ready to commence a period of rehabilitation.'

Olga was celebrating Stakes Days with Gibson and friends at Port Phillip Bay in Victoria last Saturday.

Olga was celebrating Stakes Days with Gibson and friends at Port Phillip Bay in Victoria last Saturday. Social media photos showed the pair enjoying the playful day out on the water

Social media photos showed the pair enjoying the playful day out on the water.

Though it appeared the day took a turn for the worst, after Olga suffered spinal injuries on the day following a boating accident.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said water police and an ambulance helicopter had been part of a rescue effort around 10pm.

Josh's management team said his partner's focus was on rehabilitation.

'All our energy is turned towards her rehab and looking after her two boys.'
The Great British Bake Off's creator has claimed the show moved to Channel 4 to escape three years of 'bullying' from 'arrogant' BBC bosses.

The cooking competition left BBC One in a 75million switchover in 2016 - sparking widespread upset among fans due to the new judges and lengthy ad breaks.

But Richard McKerrow, boss of Love Productions, alleged that BBC executives are 'the biggest bullies' and claimed he had 'no choice' but to move.

Allegations: The Great British Bake Off's creator has claimed the show moved to Channel 4 to escape three years of 'bullying' from 'arrogant' BBC bosses

'We really had no choice. I think Bake Off would have died if we hadnt moved,' he told the Daily Express.

Richard revealed tensions mounted when Love Productions allegedly sued the BBC for 'copying' GBBO's format with two new shows.

He claimed the production company's relationship with the BBC started to 'deteriorate' three years before they left the Corporation.

'Unfortunately broadcasters bully independent producers and the BBC is the biggest bully of all and I dont think that is healthy for the industry. I felt bullied,' he claimed.

Move: The cooking competition left BBC One in a 75million switchover in 2016 - sparking widespread upset among fans due to the new judges and lengthy ad breaks (pictured, original judge Mary Berry)

Claims: But Richard McKerrow, boss of Love Productions, alleged that BBC executives are 'the biggest bullies' and claimed he had 'no choice' but to move

He added: 'There is an arrogance that the BBC has that is not good for the industry.' MailOnline has contacted a BBC representative for comment.

According to reports, Love Productions accused Hair - an in-house BBC3 production which tried to find the country's best hairdresser - of having a 'staggeringly similar' format to GBBO.

The company - founded by Richard and Anna Beattie - employed Jonathan Coad, a TV copyright specialist at law firm Lewis Silkin, to sue the BBC after the show was released in 2014.

Rumour has it: Richard revealed tensions mounted when Love Productions allegedly sued the BBC for copying GBBO's format with two new shows, Hair (pictured) and The Big Painting Challenge

The matter was resolved out of court when the BBC paid Love Productions an undisclosed financial settlement, Business Insider reported.

But a year later, Love and BBC are said to have become embroiled in a similar wrangle, this time regarding The Big Painting Challenge, a show presented by Richard Bacon and Una Stubbs.

According to the Telegraph, the BBC hired an official mediation service to try to settle the claim, with executives insisting that GBBO was itself based on a similar format to the Corporation's own MasterChef.

Not happy: Richard (far left) said: 'Unfortunately broadcasters bully independent producers and the BBC is the biggest bully of all and I dont think that is healthy for the industry. I felt bullied. There is an arrogance that the BBC has that is not good for the industry'

Although it was eventually resolved, the secret row apparently led to a 'catastrophic breakdown' in relationship ahead of the GBBO negotiations.

It is understood that Channel 4 - for whom the founders of Love Productions both previously worked - waded in with a 75million deal once talks between the BBC and the production company broke down.

The BBC and Love Productions declined to comment, but a BBC source said it was 'nonsense' to say that a deal couldn't be done.

'We made a very strong offer, everyone understands why the production company made the choice they made,' they told MailOnline.

The old gang: Paul Hollywood was the only original star to make the jump when the show switched channels, with previous judge Mary Berry and presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins opting out

The Great British Bake Off has suffered a drop in ratings since moving to Channel 4 after seven series on BBC One.

The 2017 final attracted 10million viewers - almost six million lower than the number who watched last year's final on BBC One, which drew in an audience of 15.9 million.

Paul Hollywood was the only original star to make the jump when the show switched channels, with previous judge Mary Berry and presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins opting out.

Prue Leith took over Berry's role as a judge, while Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig became the programme's hosting team.
Former Neighbours star, Madeleine West, 38, and celebrity chef, Shannon Bennett, 42, have sold their Lorne mansion near Victoria's Great Ocean Road following their recent split.

The Big Hill coastal retreat, which was architecturally designed to look like outlaw Ned Kelly's helmet, was snapped up in 'late October for an undisclosed amount,' according to realestate.com.au

The former flames listed the multi-million dollar Tesla-powered home in November last year for $4.65 million to $5.1 million, but reportedly lowered the sale price to $4.2 million in September this year, according to the publication.

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Sold! Madeleine West and Shannon Bennett have sold their Tesla-powered mansion with 'Ned Kelly' facade in Victoria for millions following their split

Realestate.com.au reported both Madeline and Shannon were renting out the mansion before the sale, for a staggering $5,000 per night.

Shannon reportedly purchased the vacant block in 2007 and the home was completed in 2010.

Moving on! Madeleine and Shannon listed the multi-million dollar home in November last year for $4.65 million to $5.1 million but reportedly lowered the sale price to $4.2 million in September this year

Impressive: The property is both solar and Tesla powered, and is designed in the shape of the letter 'H'

Lavish and safe! It was built to the highest bushfire-attack ratings, with the 25-metre indoor pool also being used as a water tank

Domain reported that the property is both solar and Tesla powered, and is designed in the shape of the letter 'H'.

It was built to the highest bushfire-attack ratings, with the 25-metre indoor pool also being used as a water tank.

The remarkable five-bedroom home boasts sweeping views of the Australian bush and the ocean.

VIP treatment: In the past, the property has been rented out to guests for $5,000 a night

Masterpiece: Shannon reportedly purchased the vacant block near Victoria's Great Ocean Road in 2007 and the home was completed in 2010

Fancy! The Woods Bagot-designed mansion also includes a number of enviable highlights

Luxury: The master bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows is pictured

Retreat: The remarkable home boasts sweeping views of the Australian bush and the ocean

The Woods Bagot-designed mansion also includes a number of enviable highlights, including six bathrooms, a study and an outdoor kitchen.

Meanwhile the sublime swimming pool has its own cinema and the property includes an impressive wine cellar.

Earlier this year, Madeleine announced her separation from her partner of 13 years, Shannon in September.

Relaxing: A luxury bathtub is positioned in the middle of one of the property's six bathrooms

The Playing For Keeps star broke the news to Stellar, revealing that she and Shannon are 'striving to reconnect as friends and parents'.

Explaining the separation, she said: 'Having a public profile, having two high-pressure careers, having a multitude of children  and I will say they are a lot harder to train than dragons  it puts exponential pressures on a relationship, and cracks can form, and things that we don't necessarily plan in the beginning can happen'.

Madeleine and Shannon began dating in 2005, and are parents to Phoenix, 12, Hendrix, 10, Xascha, 8, Xanthe, 6, and twins Xalia and Margaux, 4.
Actress-writer Lena Dunham stepped out in a colorful ensemble on Tuesday.

The Girls creator-star, 32, was holding both her cell phone and a small plastic bottle while heading out to run errands and take in a meeting.

Dunham's Tuesday outing came after she helped honor the group Oasis at the Largo in Los Angeles, an event where a man stormed onto the stage.

Colorful Lena: Lena Dunham stepped out in Los Angeles wearing a unique and colorful outfit

Dunham, 32, stepped out wearing a light green and white pantsuit of sorts, with a thin, mustard-colored coat that fell below her knees.

She was also wearing light grey and white shoes, with a brown purse slung over her shoulder.

She also had her hair put up in a bun and had on a pair of small golden earrings.

Lena on the go: Dunham, 32, stepped out wearing a light green and white pantsuit of sorts, with a thin, mustard-colored coat that fell below her knees

Dunham hosted the Oasis event at the Largo on Monday night, dubbed Champagne Superanalysis,' which was also attended by her Once Upon a Time in Hollywood co-star Brad Pitt.

'Liam, I think my mom would love you,' Dunham said at the event, according to the Monterey County Weekly.

'I think she'd understand why you're different,' Dunham added. 'That you don't play by everyone's rules. She'd love your big, beautiful voice.'

Meeting time: Dunham hosted the Oasis event at the Largo on Monday night, dubbed Champagne Superanalysis,' which was also attended by her Once Upon a Time in Hollywood co-star Brad Pitt

The night was marred by a bizarre incident when a man jumped on stage, an audience member told DailyMail.com.

'During her show a crazed man jumped on the stage and was then tackled before getting to touch Lena and thrown out of the club,' the audience member said.

The discussion included contributions by Spike Jonze, Julianna Barwick, Jordan Black, Angela Trimbur, Penelope Gazin, Nick Mancini, Ione Skye, Ashley Blaine Featherson, Natasha Khan, Taylor Locke, Retta and Lisa Loeb.

Dunham pays tribute: 'I think she'd understand why you're different,' Dunham added. 'That you don't play by everyone's rules. She'd love your big, beautiful voice'

After writing and directing a number of short films in college, Dunham burst onto the scene with her 2010 film Tiny Furniture.

Two years later, she created the hit Showtime series Girls, which ran for six seasons between 2012 and 2017.

She most recently created the HBO series Camping, and will play Gypsy in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, slated to hit theaters in July 2019.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead

Becky Conner revealed that she is pregnant on Mondays episode of The Conners.

The 43-year-old waitress, a recovering alcoholic, had been told by doctors she only had a five percent chance of conceiving - but a 'one night stand' beat the odds.

Becky (Lecy Goranson) was feeling unwell, which her father Dan (John Goodman) suspected was a hangover, which caused her to reveal she's expecting.

The stork is on the way! Becky Conner (Alicia Goranson) revealed that she is pregnant on Mondays episode of The Conners

'I'm pregnant!' she yelled. 'I had unsafe sex and it worked!'

Darlene (Sara Gilbert) responded, 'You should speak at the high school,' to which Becky sighed, 'God, I wish mom was here.'

The widowed waitress decided she wasnt going to reveal to her family the identity of the father.

'It was a one night stand,' she told her family.

Face-off: Becky and her father Dan (John Goodman) were at loggerheads over her sickness at the beginning of the episode, as he suspected she was drinking again

Queasy: Becky struggled with her stomach as she took orders from a table of Dan, Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and Neil (Justin Long)

Lots of laughs: The trio of stars have picked up the comedic slack since Roseanne's exodus from the series

Different strokes: Jackie and Darlene shared a chuckle as they talked about their relationships

Dan immediately fired her from her gig at the construction site, to protect the babys health.

'When I first found out I was so excited, then I realized that Im 43, on my own and broke,' Becky told Jackie [Laurie Metcalf].

Becky revealed that the father could be one of two men she worked with at the restaurant: the manager, Ramon, or Emilio, the bus boy. After Ramon claimed he'd had a vasectomy, Emilio was revealed as her unborn baby's father.

Becky openly worried about her finances as she chatted her friends, with a couple interested in adopting the child.

'I dont know if I can afford this baby,' she told the couple, who talked about a potential adoption plan.

Emotional: Becky was not happy with the reactions she received as she told her family about her pregnancy

It's not you, it's me: Darlene broke up with Neil because he was too submissive to her

Becky later had a heart-to-heart with Dan about parenthood.

'When you and mom found out you were going to have me, did you freak out?' she asked.

He replied, smirking: 'Only a little, because we didnt know how bad you were going to turn out.

'The truth is I remember thinking, "Oh my God, Ive got to be a grown up now," Ive got to buy life insurance, mutual funds, save for college, but after a couple of years that panic just goes away and you just forget about that stuff.'

Becky noted, At least you had mom to go through it with.'

Dan replied, 'Yeah, two parents isnt the worst thing in the world.'

Pointers: Dan checked out the crime magazine Darlene later got a gig at

Star power: Long is one of the big name guest stars who have appeared on The Conners in the wake of Roseanne's ouster, as Matthew Broderick and Juliette Lewis have been linked with the spin-off series

Darlenes new boyfriend Neil (Justin Long) also made an appearance.

'Im a preschool teacher  we try to inspire the childrens imagination with non specific, gender neutral, tactile objects, he said.

Jackie thought that Neil was eerily similar to Darlenes ex-husband David (played by Johnny Galecki) in their passive personalities.

'She's controlling Neil the same way she controlled David,' Jackie said of Darlene, who eventually split with Neil because of the personality factor.

Darlene applied for a job at a crime magazine called Lock 'Em Up headed by an editor named Ben (Jay R. Ferguson).

Heart-to-heart: Dan and Becky chat over a milkshake at the conclusion of the episode

Heart and humor: The show has continued in the Roseanne tradition of serious storylines peppered with moments of comic relief

Bravo! The actors posed for the studio audience at the end of the show

The two butted heads over how Darlene wanted to re-purpose the mugshot magazine as more sophisticated.

'I think I could really make the arsonists and carjackers people you would want to know,' she told Ben.

Once in the position, she insisted she start a website for the publication.

As she and Ben headed out for a post-work meal, Darlene began telling him about what was socially proper to eat for dinner, to which he pushed back.

Oh youre mistaking me for a child,' he said, 'when actually Im a grown a** adult.'

The Conners continues next week on ABC at 8/7c.
Meghan Markle unwittingly caused a surge in the sales of purple folders last month after she used one to conceal her baby bump upon her arrival in Sydney.

And it seems fans of The Bachelor's Laura Byrne may be running to their nearest Apple store if her recent pregnancy rumours prove true, after she was spotted covering her tummy with a laptop on Wednesday.

The jewellery designer, 32, was spotted in Paddington on Wednesday, and drew attention away from her figure in a baggy T-shirt and billowing trousers.

Just like Meghan! The Bachelor's Laura Byrne (left) covered her tummy with a laptop on Wednesday amid pregnancy rumours... after the Duchess of Sussex (right) used a purple folder to hide her bump upon arriving in Sydney last month

Laura made sure to cover her mid-section with a MacBook laptop, a single sheet of paper and a take-away food bag.

The statuesque brunette completed her look with a pair of sensible flat sandals, a gold pendant necklace and a matching statement bangle.

She also appeared to wear minimal makeup for the occasion, allowing her glowing complexion to take centre stage.

Billowing ensemble: The jewellery designer, 32, was spotted in Sydney's Paddington on Wednesday, and drew attention away from her figure in a baggy T-shirt and billowing trousers

A royally clever maneuver! Laura made sure to cover her mid-section with a MacBook laptop, a single sheet of paper and a take-away food bag

Laura first sparked pregnancy rumours on Tuesday when she attended the 2018 Australian Fashion Laureate in Sydney with her boyfriend Matty Johnson.

The reality TV star set tongues wagging after onlookers noticed she was not drinking alcohol at the event.

And while posing by the media wall before the ceremony, she displayed what appeared to be a tiny bump in her slinky We Are Kindred dress.

Charming! The statuesque brunette completed her look with a gold pendant necklace and a matching statement bangle

She's glowing! Laura appeared to wear minimal makeup for the occasion, allowing her glowing complexion to take centre stage

Her glowing appearance even prompted one eagle-eyed fan to comment on Instagram: 'Pregnant'.

A guest at the event told Daily Mail Australia that the appearance of The Bachelor 2017 couple had raised more than a few eyebrows.

'Laura wasn't drinking at the event like many other guests and didn't talk to media,' they said.

Matty, who hails from Brisbane, is a marketing manager-turned-TV personality, while Laura is the owner of Paddington jewellery boutique ToniMay.

Is there a Bachelor baby on the way? Laura first sparked pregnancy rumours a day earlier when she attended the 2018 Australian Fashion Laureate in Sydney with boyfriend Matty Johnson
Lisa Origliasso and Logan Huffman's November nuptials might just be the most hipster celebrity wedding ever.

The spiritually diverse ceremony incorporated a smorgasbord of religions, from Christianity and Buddhism to Shinto and Hinduism, and was officiated by a high priestess.

Logan took to Instagram on Wednesday to reveal a number of details about the unique nuptials, which was held in the Sunshine Coast hinterland earlier this month.

'The ceremony was lead by our high priestess': Logan Huffman revealed some interesting details about his wedding to The Veronicas songstress Lisa Origliasso

'An integral part of our pre-ceremony above all else, was to show respect to the rightful owners of the land on which we wed,' Logan wrote.

'Wiruungga Dunggiirr from the Numba Gumbaynggiirr nation bestowed us with blessings and protection. It was truly the highest honor.'

He continued: 'The ceremony was lead by our high priestess, Sonnie McAuley Who spoke of the similarities between Christ and Buddha.'

Spiritual gangster! The spiritually diverse ceremony incorporated a smorgasbord of religions, from Christianity and Buddhism to Shinto and Hinduism

After Lisa's brother read a Roman Catholic prayer, Logan's brother recited 'one of Lisa and Is favorite Shinto love tales.'

They weren't done there, with another one of Logan's brother's then reading out an Apache marriage blessing in honour of Native Americans.

From there, Lisa's sister Jessica recited a Hindi prayer to Ganesh, followed by the high priestess 'speaking of the importance of mothers exemplified in the miracle at Cana.'

'In Runic writing of the Elder Futhark': Lisa and Logan signed their wedding contract using the runic alphabet

To finish off, Lisa and Logan signed their wedding contract using the runic alphabet.

'Lisa and I recited our handwritten vows to each other,' Logan wrote.

'Followed by the ancient Germanic signing of the contact -in Runic writing of the Elder Futhark- which I had carved out of a stump of California costal oak.'

This isn't the first time that Lisa and Logan have raised eyebrows.

Earlier this year, they held a hipster engagement party that featured a 'hand-picked vegan grazing table' and a Reiki ceremony.
Rapper Pusha T's show at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square was interrupted by a massive brawl when a group of people threw drinks at the rapper and tried to rush the stage.

While early reports claimed that Pusha himself was jumped on the stage, a video from Apollo For the People Instagram clearly shows that he wasn't involved in the altercation that ultimately spilled onto the stage.

The video shows Pusha T, 41 (real name Terrence Thornton) on stage performing, when he's drenched by multiple drinks that were hurled onto the stage.

Angry fans: Pusha T's Toronto concert on Tuesday night erupted into violence when several men threw beverages on the rapper and rushed the stage

Wet but safe: While early reports claimed that Pusha himself was jumped on the stage, a video from Apollo For the People Instagram clearly shows that he wasn't involved in the altercation that ultimately spilled onto the stage

Off stage: The video shows Pusha T, 41 (real name Terrence Thornton) on stage performing, when he's drenched by numerous beverages that were hurled onto the stage

As more and more beverages were thrown onto the stage, Pusha eventually exited as a number of unruly fans began to hop the barricade between the floor and the stage.

The brawl ultimately spilled onto the stage, where members of the rapper's security team tangled with the men before they eventually dispersed.

Pusha T also reached out to The Shade Room, revealing he was, 'untouched in the altercation and continued to perform after they cleared the stage.'

Stage brawl: Pusha T also reached out to The Shade Room , revealing he was, 'untouched in the altercation and continued to perform after they cleared the stage'

Unruly: The Shade Room also had video showing the brawl on stage from another angle

The Shade Room also had video showing the brawl on stage from another angle, showing how the fan who made it on stage managed to escape.

After the stage was cleared, Pusha T returned to play two more songs, but not before delivering a message to the audience.

'Y'all know where the f*** I'm from? You don't even know! Keep going in this b***h,' he said, before continuing the concert.

Aftermath: The Shade Room also had video showing the brawl on stage from another angle

Message to the crowd: After the stage was cleared, Pusha T returned to play two more songs, but not before delivering a message to the audience

Back to the show: 'Y'all know where the f*** I'm from? You don't even know! Keep going in this b***h,' he said, before continuing the concert

The brawl happening in Toronto may not be so surprising, since it's the hometown of his rival Drake.

Complex reports that, after the brawl, Pusha T went on to perform I Don't Like and The Story of Adidon, and that he blamed the brawl on Drake.

Just a week earlier, Pusha T had performed at Tyler the Creator's Camp Flog Gnaw, where he had a 'F**k Drake* graphic on display.

Beef: The brawl happening in Toronto may not be so surprising, since it's the hometown of his rival Drake (left pictured last week). Pusha is pictured right in July

Pusha brawl: The brawl happening in Toronto may not be so surprising, since it's the hometown of his rival Drake

Back to the show: Complex reports that, after the brawl, Pusha T went on to perform I Don't Like and The Story of Adidon, and that he blamed the brawl on Drake

After the brawl, Pusha took to his Instagram story, sharing a series of brief videos taken from the stage.

One video was captioned with 'The show must go on,' while another said, 'I came to give y'all a show! I will give it to y'all!'

The final video on his Instagram story just said 'Goodnight Toronto,' showcasing the crowd cheering.

Standing tall: After the brawl, Pusha took to his Instagram story, sharing a series of brief videos taken from the stage

Show goes on: One video was captioned with 'The show must go on,' while another said, 'I came to give y'all a show! I will give it to y'all!'
They're two of Hollywood's most acclaimed talents over the past decade, both racking up huge roles and Oscar nominations.

But prior to their respective breakouts, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jessica Chastain both auditioned in vain for key roles on HBO's True Blood, the program's creator Alan Ball said at Vulture Festival Los Angeles on Sunday.

Cumberbatch and Chastain had tried out for the roles of Bill Compton and Sookie Stackhouse, who were played by Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin on the vampire-themed show.

Scroll below for video

What could have been: Benedict Cumberbatch and Jessica Chastain both auditioned in vain for the roles on HBO's True Blood, the program's creator Alan Ball said at Vulture Festival Los Angeles on Monday

Ball, who's also created programs such as Here and Now, Six Feet Under and Banshee, was on hand to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the program's fall 2008 premiere.

He said that Cumberbatch auditioned for the role in London during the casting process, while Paquin auditioned five times amid concerns she could convincingly play a Southerner on the Louisiana-based show.

Ball said another nascent superstar - Jennifer Lawrence - had tried out for the role of a character that was a hybrid of human, werewolf and panther in the show's third season.

According to Ball, HBO was reluctant to green-light a full first season of the program, which would go on to air from 2008 to 2014.

Looking back: Ball was on hand at the event at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel Sunday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the program's fall 2008 premiere

Defining roles: Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin got the roles Cumberbatch and Chastain auditioned for on the vampire-themed show

Ball said that network executives took six months to decide whether or not to advance past a pilot, citing concerns 'it was too pulpy [and] too genre.'

'HBO owes me a lot,' said Ball, as his show's genre-geared success would clear a path for the cable behemoth to move ahead with future hits such as Game of Thrones and Westworld.

Hollywood lore past and present has a noted number of career-defining roles that were up between numerous candidates.

Among them, Variety reported, include Gwyneth Paltrow passing on Kate Winslet's character of Rose in Titanic; Johnny Depp passing on Matthew Broderick's titular role in Ferris Buellers Day Off; and John Travolta passing up the opportunity to play Forrest Gump, which earned Tom Hanks an Academy Award.
Brad Pitt has been filming the new Quentin Tarantino film - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - alongside a star studded cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 54-year-old leading man took a time out from his busy schedule on Tuesday to fly to Beijing, China to attend luxury watch brand Breitling's Squadona Mission event.

Brad showed why he's still a heartthrob dressed in a very elegant black tuxedo.

Dashing: Brad Pitt attended the Breitling Squadona Mission event in Beijing, China on Tuesday

Ever since he broke into the mainstream with his role in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise, Brad has left an indelible impression on fans all over the world.

Not much has changed 27 years later from the looks of his appearance at the swanky event.

The star looked handsome in his black tux, which included a velvet jacket, a traditional black bow tie and a white button down shirt.

He matched it with a pair of black leather boots, while still sporting his longer hair look that's been a staple for the new Tarantino movie.

He's still got it: Brad showed why he's still a heartthrob dressed in a very elegant black tuxedo

Dressed to impress: The star also posed with actor Daniel Wu Yan-Zu on the red carpet

The mission: Both men are apart of Breitling's Cinema Squad campaign - #squadonamission

Stylish: Brad's tuxedo included a velvet jacket and traditional black bow tie

Dapper: Brad is still sporting his longer hair that's been a staple for the new Tarantino movie

Brad caused a commotion with photographers when he hit the red carpet solo, and again when he posed with actor Daniel Wu Yan-Zu.

Both shining stars are apart of Breitling's Cinema Squad campaign - #squadonamission, which also includes such stars as Charlize Theron and Adam Driver.

The effort puts together people with the same goals, passions and achievements in their profession, with the goal of having them work together to show some of the mysteries behind their remarkable craft, according to company website www.breitling.com.

Making his mark: Brad first broke into the mainstream in film with Thelma & Louise in 1991

A-list project: Brad has been hard at work shooting the new Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood alongside Leonardo DiCaprio

Looming large: Brad's pending divorce with ex-Angelina Jolie has gone on for over two-years

As Brad hit the red carpet, there was still no end in sight to his pending divorce with ex-Angelina Jolie. The former couple, and their lawyers, have been haggling over the terms and details for more than two years.

The 43-year old actress was able finalize a move to bring her Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict foundation to the 2018 Fighting Stigma Through Film Festival in London.

It will focus on helping fight discrimination and social stigma that survivors of war zone rape, according to a press release fro the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in the UK.

In recent days, Angelina has been seen spending time with their six children in Los Angeles.
They starred together on ABC's hit TV series Scandal from 2012 to 2018.

And on Monday night, Kerry Washington attended the Broadway production of Network, starring Tony Goldwyn, at the Belasco Theatre in NYC.

'Former work husband. Current friend for life. I will always be one of his biggest fans,' the 41-year-old actress captioned a selfie with Tony.

Former co-stars: On Monday night, Kerry Washington attended the Broadway production of Network, starring Tony Goldwyn, at the Belasco Theatre in NYC. 'Former work husband. Current friend for life. I will always be one of his biggest fans,' she wrote

Washington later posted a photo alongside Goldwyn and Bryan Cranston, who also stars in the play.

'Last night we got to see Network and it was AMAZING,' she wrote. 'Its bold & innovative & FUN. But also tremendously provocative & moving & important. Congrats to the entire company!!!!! So inspiring.'

Network, which debuted November 10, follows anchorman Howard Beale who unravels on-screen during his final broadcast. Rather than lose his job, the network capitalizes on the sudden spike in ratings and Beale becomes the biggest thing on TV.

Actor friends: Washington later posted a photo alongside Goldwyn and Bryan Cranston, who also stars in the play. 'Last night we got to see Network and it was AMAZING,' she wrote. 'Its bold & innovative & FUN. But also tremendously provocative & moving & important'

Tony responded to Kerry's support with gratitude.

'On her ONE day off from her genius performance in American Son, look who came to see me and Bryan Cranston in Network last night!' he wrote on Instagram. 'Love you so much Kerry Washington!'

Ironically, Washington also has a leading role on Broadway.

On-screen couple: Kerry and Tony starred on ABC's hit TV series Scandal from 2012 to 2018

Kerry stars in American Son alongside Steven Pasquale.

Set in Florida, the production follows Kendra Ellis-Connor, played by Washington, and Scott Connor, played by Pasquale, as they search for their missing teenage son.

The play, which will run for a total of 16 weeks, debuted back in October.
She's never been shy about flaunting her famous figure online.

But Kim Kardashian, 38, revealed to Ellen DeGeneres, 60, on Wednesday that she 'gets in trouble' with husband Kanye West, 41, when she posts revealing pictures online because it 'upsets him.'

'You can get in trouble with your husband sometimes over too many photos like that,' the reality TV star said during her appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Marital friction: Kim Kardashian revealed to Ellen DeGeneres on Wednesday that she 'gets in trouble' with husband Kanye West when she posts revealing pictures of herself online

Mixed response: Kim's naked selfies often draw both positive and negative reactions

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians mainstay looked sensational for her appearance in a clingy, cream-colored dress.

A low neckline made the most of the socialite's impressive assets, while she clad her feet in clear heels.

Kim wore her straight, raven tresses in a high pony tail as she discussed her rapper husband's reaction to her revealing social media snaps.

Her man: She said her snaps 'upset' her husband (the couple pictured in June 2018)

She elaborated: 'You know, it's like half-and-half. Cause, you know, he always wants me to be me and feel confident and having fun... but it also bothers him'

'I was gonna ask if [pictures like] that... bothered him,' asked Ellen.

'Yeah, it does,' answered the mother-of-three, simply.

She elaborated: 'You know, it's like half-and-half. Cause, you know, he always wants me to be me and feel confident and having fun... but it also bothers him'.

Battle: And Kim explained how she's locked in a 'cycle' of agreeing to be more 'conservative' in her social media posts to please her husband, before wanting to show off her figure and then sharing a photo that leaves Kanye 'upset'

Kim elaborated on Kanye's reactions to her sexy posts: 'You know, it's like half-and-half. Cause, you know, he always wants me to be me and feel confident and having fun... but it also bothers him'

And Kim explained how she's locked in a 'cycle' of agreeing to be more 'conservative' in her social media posts to please her husband, before wanting to show off her figure and then sharing a photo that leaves Kanye 'upset'.

She said: 'I go through waves. Sometimes I'm like, "Ok I'll be more conservative on my Instagram" and sometimes I really need to get something out if I'm feeling good about myself or I've been working out really hard, and I'll post something and he'll get upset. It's a cycle.'

The reality TV star recently admitted she has lost some of her independence since getting married.

She said: 'I think being with a man like Kanye, you have to learn how to be a little bit not-so-independent.

'I've always been so independent and working, and [had a] schedule, and when you get married and have a husband that has their career and then have kids, your independence ... you have to let it go.

'I had to learn that being with a man like Kanye.'

Her biggest fan: Kanye was thrilled when Kim shared this belfie picture back in 2013 and said he was coming straight home to her

The talk show host then played a hilarious prank on the socialite.

When Kim revealed her deep set fear of spiders, Ellen pretended to hold one in her hands and even chased the terrified one-time sex tape starlet into the audience with it.

In a more serious portion of the interview, the TV star opens up about reliving the cheating scandal between Tristan Thompson and her sister Khloe when it aired in-show six months later and shares its a form of therapy for her family.

However Kim reveals that Ellen actually may have added fuel to the the familial fire.

'You actually got me blocked [on social media] by Tristan,' the Disaster Movie actress disclosed.

Keeping up appearances: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians mainstay looked sensational for her appearance in a clingy, cream-colored dress

Then, Kim talked about evacuating her home due to the catastrophic wildfires in California and tells Ellen her family hired private firefighters, which helped protect their entire neighborhood from danger.

She also revealed that the private firefighting service they used was recommended to her by a friend who had lost their own home to wildfires in Santa Barbara.

'I feel like we were really blessed to have the help of the firefighters that we did,' said Kim.

Plus, on behalf of Kanye West, Yeezy, and Adidas, Kim announced they are donating $200,000 to California Fire Foundation and an additional $200,000 to California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund.

Gag: When Kim revealed her deep set fear of spiders, Ellen pretended to hold one in her hands

Arachnophobia: Ellen even chased the terrified one-time sex tape starlet into the audience with the 'spider'

Sensitive subject: In a more serious portion of the interview, the TV star opens up about reliving the cheating scandal between Tristian Thompson and her sister Khloe

Later in the show, Ellen and Kim welcomed firefighter Michael Williams and his wife Lisa from Oak Park, CA who lost their home in the Woolsey Fire.

Michael and Lisa talked about their decision to stay home and their daring escape as the fires rapidly destroyed their neighborhood.

To help rebuild their lives, Kim presented the couple with a check for $100,000 thanks to the generosity of Kanye West, Yeezy, and Adidas.
She rarely looks anything short of incredible.

And even though she was clad in a relatively simple outfit, Sofia Vergara still looked sensational as she shopped for Rolex watches in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles, on Tuesday.

The actress, 46, cut an effortlessly chic figure in a loose-fit black bardot blouse and ripped jeans as she strolled towards the luxury watch store.

Chic: Even though she was clad in a relatively simple outfit, Sofia Vergara, 46, still looked sensational as she shopped for Rolex watches in Beverley Hills, Los Angeles, on Tuesday

The beauty paired the casual look with some sky high thick black platform heels for her shopping excursion.

Sofia added an extra dose of designer glamour with a Fendi Peekaboo X-Lite brown leather bag draped over her arm, which retails at a whopping 3,250.

The Modern Family star's luxurious brunette locks were styled sleek and straight, with a chic central parting.

The Colombian mother of one enhanced her natural beauty with smudgy eyeliner, and she rocked a brick red lip.

Gorgeous: The Colombian mother of one enhanced her natural beauty with smudgy eyeliner, and she rocked a brick red lip

Sublime: The actress cut an effortlessly chic figure in a loose-fit black bardot blouse and ripped jeans as she strolled towards the luxury watch store

Stepping out: The beauty paired the casual look with some sky high thick black platform heels for her shopping excursion

Decisions, decisions: Sofia perused the store in search of a designer watch

Vergara is currently in the midst of production of the final season of her hit sitcom Modern Family.

Along with her final season of Modern Family, Vergara has also appeared in two movies this year.

She starred alongside Karl Urban and Andy Garcia in Bent and with Tim Roth, Alice Eve and Maggie Q in The Con Is On.

She will also star with her husband Manganiello in Stano, a true story adaptation in theaters next year.

Cha-ching: Sofia added an extra dose of designer glamour with a Fendi Peekaboo X-Lite brown leather bag draped over her arm, which retails at a whopping 3,250

Glam: The Modern Family star's luxurious brunette locks were styled sleek and straight, with a chic central parting

Sensational: The mother-of-one confidently strutted along the street towards the Rolex store

The actors tied the knot on November 21, 2015 in Palm Beach, Florida.

Forbes recently named Sofia as the highest paid actress on television, after she earned a stunning 42.5 million in the course of just one year thanks to her starring role on her long running ABC sitcom Modern Family, and several lucrative endorsement deals.

The actress even spread the wealth to her son Manolo, 26, who has starred alongside his mother in commercials for Head & Shoulders, one of the many product lines that the actress promotes.
Taron Egerton has split from his British producer girlfriend Emily Thomas after the couple dated for two years.

They first started dating two years ago in November 2016 and the couple were last seen attending a series of red carpet events over the summer of this year.

The Robin Hood actor, 28, dropped the bombshell he had gone his separate ways from the brunette beauty in a number of recent interviews in November.

Mending his heartache: Taron Egerton and Emily Thomas SPLIT after two years together as actor ruled out dating to focus on 'reinventing' himself (Windsor, June 2018)

MailOnline has reached out to Taron Egerton's representatives for further comment.

Taron insisted he was 'reinventing' himself in the wake of the break up as he shaved his head to play Sir Elton John in the new biopic Rocketman.

The actor claimed shaving his head had a 'cathartic' impact to change the way he looked following his split.

He said: I found it quite liberating because I just finished the Elton John thing and had this awful hair. So, I shaved my hair cos they had thinned it right out and given me this bald patch.

So sad: The Robin Hood actor, 28, dropped the bombshell he had gone his separate ways from the brunette beauty in a number of recent interviews in November (London, February 2018)

History: They first started dating two years ago in November 2016 and the couple were last seen attending a series of red carpet events over the summer of this year (Windsor, June 2018)

It was very cathartic and also, not to put a downer on things, I split up with my girlfriend not long ago and it weirdly felt a bit like reinvention to sort of change the way I look.

However, the actor also voiced his fears about starting dating again in the light of the powerful #MeToo movement.

The Hollywood star confessed his concerns about becoming a target of fabricated accusations of sexual assault.

Made the cut! Taron insisted he was 'reinventing' himself in the wake of the break up as he shaved his head to play Sir Elton John in the new biopic Rocketman

Moving on: The actor claimed shaving his head had a 'cathartic' impact to change the way he looked following his split

#MeToo, a collective reaction to sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, gained momentum following the allegations of Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey.

Taron reflected on the allegations aimed at Kevin, who he worked with on Billionaire Boys Club, and how it made him question if he wants to actively date.

He told the Radio Times: 'Like a lot of people with a profile I was like, "Holy s**t, what have I done since I was 18?"

'I have just become single again and Im not in a place where Im thinking about dating, but when I am, it will probably affect my thinking a bit. There are certainly situations where I avoid being alone with certain people.'
Kanye West has reportedly donated $500,000 to the Californian Fire Relief fund after the blaze devastated his neighbourhood.

The rapper, 41, who hired private firefighters to protect his $60million pound mansion, is said to have wanted to help contribute towards rebuilding the community.

Set to appear on the Ellen show on Wednesday, Kim Kardashian will speak about the wildbush fire which came within feet of their home.

Kanye West has reportedly donated $500,000 to the Californian Fire Relief fund after the blaze devastated his neighbourhood

According to TMZ, Kim tells host Ellen DeGeneres, the couple had a 'serious discussion' on how to help the community, with Kayne coming up with a plan of action.

The Golddigger hitmaker is said to have called up Adidas and his own Yeezy brand to build up donations, raising a staggering $500,000.

Meanwhile, the publication reports, Kim will further donate $200,000 to California Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief Fund and a $200,000 check to the California Fire Foundation.

Generous: The rapper, 41, who hired private firefighters to protect his multi-million pound mansion, is said to have wanted to help contribute towards rebuilding the community

Set to appear on the Ellen show on Wednesday, Kim Kardashian will speak about the wildbush fire which came within feet of their home

She is also said to present a $100,000 check to firefighter Michael Williams, who lost his house in the blaze but continued to battle the fire to save other peoples' homes.

As the fire ripped through Californian last week, the television personality kept her fans updated as the fire came with feet of their dream home.

The firefighters persistently dug ditches and hosed down the area amid the searing fires, TMZ reported last week.

'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 wrote on Twitter on November 9.

Out and about: Kanye was spotted at the Bel Air Hotel on Wednesday morning

Giving back: Kim tells host Ellen DeGeneres, the couple had a 'serious discussion' on how to help the community, with Kayne coming up with a plan of action

Showing support: The Golddigger hitmaker is said to have called up Adidas and his own Yeezy brand to build up donations, raising a staggering $500,000

'It doesn't seem 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.'

She continues: 'Fire Fighters, I love you and thank you for doing all that you can to keep us safe!'

Overhead photos display a charred area surrounding the mansion, which was encroached by fire after authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of the region, according to the outlet.

Heartwarming: Kim is said to also donate $200,000 to California Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief Fund and a $200,000 check to the California Fire Foundation

Neighbors of the reality TV queen and the Grammy-winning artist appreciated the efforts the couple made due to the layout of the area, the outlet reported.

A fire to Kim and Kanye's home, which is situated paralleled to a field and at the end of a cul-de-sac, could have triggered further home fires.

The couple evacuated their entire security team after reports the flames were encroaching on their home.

Scary: Kim Kardashian West tweeted: '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.'

Kim showed her appreciation to those who fought the flames at the People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica last week.

Kim said she and her family were dedicating the best reality show award they won for Keeping Up with the Kardashians star 'to all of the firefighters, police offers, and first responders' who put their lives on the line to extinguish the fires.

'As horrible as this has been, it's been amazing to see the spirit of everyone involved,' Kim said. '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.'

Her husband Kanye also hinted at future efforts to preserve the neighborhood from fires.

'Building a fireproof community,' tweeted the 41-year-old enigmatically.
Jennifer Lopez's star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame has been vandalised, after graffiti was sprayed on the iconic stone.

According to TMZ, police have taken a vandalism report for the crime and will be investigating further, as the publication explained someone had used black spray paint to damage it.

J-Lo's star was first unveiled in 2013 thanks to her many years of hard work in both film and music, and at the ceremony she said: 'This landmark moment inspires me to work harder and dream bigger for all that is the future.'

Brutal: Jennifer Lopez's star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame has been vandalised, after graffiti was sprayed on the iconic stone

The publication reported that a black symbol - that bears much similarity to an incomplete infinity - was sprayed across the stone, but it remains unclear what was its intended meaning.

Jennifer's star takes pride of place on the iconic Walk Of Fame, near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Jennifer Lopez and Los Angeles Police Department for further comment.

Shocking: A snap of the stone acquired by TMZ showed that it was covered with a line of black graffiti. Police allegedly took a report and are investigating the incident (above in 2013)

Jaw-dropping: Jennifer's star was first unveiled in 2013, the 2,500th of its kind from the iconic walkway

Jennifer's star was first unveiled in 2013, the 2,500th of its kind from the iconic walkway.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, she said to the crowd: 'I love you, thank you so much for going on this journey with me. This landmark moment inspires me to work harder and dream bigger for all that is the future.

'I hope you feel as I do that it was all worth it, and I hope that I have touched your hearts even in a small way.'

J-Lo's star is not the first on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame to be the victim of vandalism, as President Donald Trump's has been defacated on more than one occasion.

Controversial: This is not the first time a Walk Of Fame stone has been vandalised, as President Donald Trump's stone has been defaced on numerous occasions

According to TMZ there were even talks of removing the star while Trump remains in office, after it was it hit by a pick-axe, covered in protest stickers, and even joined at one stage by a golden toilet.

Meanwhile after actor Bill Cosby - who was sentenced to three to ten years in prison in September for historical sexual assault charges - has also seen his star damaged, with people scribbling the words #serialrapist and #MeToo on it.

Even singing superstar Mariah Carey's star was de-faced in 2017, when someone scratched a question mark next to her name, as if they were questioning her skill as a performer.

Other stars to have had their stars vandalised also include John Lennon, Hugh Hefner, Bob Marley and Sofia Vergara.
They're one of the most successful boy bands of all time.

But Take That's Gary Barlow has admitted Meghan Markle had no idea who they were when they met at the Royal Variety Performance in London on Monday night.

'The first thing she said to us was that she wasn't that aware of our music,' Gary revealed during an interview on Australian chat show, The Project, on Wednesday.

'She wasn't aware of our music!' Take That's Gary Barlow reveal Meghan Markle never heard their songs before seeing them perform at Royal Variety gala. Pictured at the event on Monday night, the pregnant royal is seen with band members Gary Barlow (left), Howard Donald (middle) and Mark Owen (right)

'Living in the States, she didn't know us,' he laughed while speaking about the encounter with pregnant royal, 'but she enjoyed the show.'

Despite topping the charts around the world, the Rule the World hitmakers famously failed to crack the American market.

And when asked about the lack of success Stateside by Project host, Pete Helliar, Mark Owen drying answered: 'I think we were too advanced for them at the time.'

Despite topping the charts around the world, the Rule the World hitmakers famously failed to crack the American market. And when asked why during their appearance on Australian chat show, The Project, Mark Owen (pictured right) drying answered: 'I think we were too advanced for them at the time. Also pictured Gary Barlow (left) and Howard Donald (middle)

Promoting their latest album, Odyssey, Take That recently announced tour dates for their 2019 Greatest Hits Live events in celebration of their 30th anniversary.

It comes as rumours abound that Robbie Williams is hoping to reunite with his former bandmates.

The Angels crooner is currently a judge on The X Factor UK and is reportedly keen on a special performance with Take That later on in the current series.

Exciting times: It has been reported that Robbie Williams is hoping to reunite with his former Take That bandmates for a special performance later on in the current series of The X Factor UK

A source told Sun Online: 'Having Robbie on the panel has been a huge coup, but obviously backstage everyone has been talking about whether or not he's going to sing at some point.

'It seems a shame to have one of the biggest pop stars on the planet sat there and not hear him, so they've been plotting a surprise for the end of the series.

'It's a while since they got together and nobody is completely sure when it was going to happen for the anniversary so it'll be a massive moment.'
He's won fans' hearts as a campmate on the new series of I'm A Celebrity.

And DIY:SOS presenter Nick Knowles' new single, Make You Feel My Love has topped the charts on iTunes download chart on Wednesday.

At the time of publication, the 56-year-old's single was beating the likes of Cheryl, Lady Gaga and P!nk - but he doesn't even know it yet.

Shock rise: I'm A Celebrity's Nick Knowles TOPS the charts with new cover single Make You Feel My Love... beating the likes of Cheryl, P!nk and Lady Gaga

The shock rise in popularity comes after Radio DJ Chris Moyles, 44, spearheaded a campaign on Radio X to get crooner Nick in the charts.

He also garnered some cool points on the show on Tuesday night, saying his musical career came after he jammed on a rooftop bar with Biffy Clyro.

He told Emily Atack: 'I've always played, my brother's a really good musician and I've always played along with him and a couple of years ago.

Helped: The rise in popularity comes after Radio DJ Chris Moyles, 44, spearheaded a campaign to get I'm A Celebrity crooner Nick in the charts

Kind: Nick's generosity in giving autistic campmate Anne Hegerty, 60, his pillow in the jungle, also won him an army of new fans

'Somebody heard me, I was playing on a rooftop bar in Soho with some other bands... it was Biffy Clyro.

'Somebody from a record company saw me doing it and I got a phone call saying, "I'm from Universal, want to do an album?"'

Nick's generosity in giving autistic campmate Anne Hegerty, 60, his pillow in the jungle, also won him an army of new fans.

Number one: At the time of publication, Nick's song topped the iTunes download charts

Cheryl is currently perched at number 11 in the iTunes chart.

P!nk sits at number two, while Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's Shallow has dropped down to position four after weeks of success.

But not everyone's a fan. Last year, Noel Gallagher slammed Nick's singing skills in an interview with Alan Carr's Chatty Man which aired on Christmas day.

He said: 'My delivery is better than that. I don't sound like I'm having a stroke when I'm singing it.'

Lagging behind: Cheryl currently sits at number 11 in the same chart despite lots of hype

Popular: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's Shallow has dropped down to position four after weeks of success

Joining in on the digs, boisterous Chatty Man host Alan, added: 'His delivery was less album, more audiobook.'

Of his move into singing, Nick told MailOnline last year: 'I used to be the guitarist at school in a band but it was never going to turn into a career.

'And then I started to do acting. That then led to TV work - mostly factual and news stuff. So I was busy trying to build a TV career.

'But with my TV work I went to Australia and Africa  and I took my guitar with me, to the ass-end of nowhere. I was always playing. It kept the wildlife awake.'

DIY make-up: Nick Knowles had an interesting look to promote his music back in 1996

Getting wiggy with it: A red hairpiece and backing dancers was all Nick needed back in the day

In his younger days, Nick also hosted gigs on Friday nights in one of the rooms of a local pub in London, when people leaving the West End shows would come and watch afterwards.

He continued: 'Music has always played a big part of my life,' he said. 'With DIY:SOS, we are always away on location. So I'd take my guitar and whoever's on location with me, I'll play for them. We have had some great nights.'

'I didn't seek this path, it found me really,' he said. 'Im a story teller. I write scripts too. I have written a movie that toured around the world. These are all creative areas.

'It's a very British thing to stay in lanes. I got a tweet from a teacher about why I'm moving into music, and I was like "are you going to teach your students to only ever do one thing with their lives".'

His new single, Make You Feel My Love, he thinks compliments his deep voice, and 'raised eyebrows' because he'd chosen to cover an Adele track.

'Actually it was written by Bob Dylan,' he said. 'So it was written for a male voice.'
Love Island winner Jack Fincham was celebrating the launch of his new pen range on Tuesday evening.

And his former castmates Kendall Rae Knight and Samira Mighty were putting in appearances at the event, held at Mrs Fogg's in The City, London.

The reality stars dressed to impress for the occasion, with Kendall rocking faux leather while Samira looked beautiful in blue.

Stylish: Love Island beauties Kendall Rae Knight (pictured) and Samira Mighty were putting in appearances at Jack Fincham's pen launch on Tuesday, held at Mrs Fogg's in The City

Elegant: The reality stars dressed to impress for the occasion, with Kendall rocking faux leather while Samira (pictured) looked beautiful in blue

Kendall was embracing a sexy look in her black minidress, which included a studded belt cinching in her waist and silver zip detailing.

She kept the rest of her ensemble minimal, donning a pair of strappy stilettos and a matching shoulder bag.

The glamorous beauty - who has managed to nab countless Instagram endorsements and modelling gigs, despite being the first person evicted from the Love Island villa - was the picture of confidence as she posed at the bash.

Wow: Kendall was embracing a sexy look in her black minidress, which included a studded belt cinching in her waist and silver zip detailing

Chic: She kept the rest of her ensemble minimal, donning a pair of strappy stilettos and a matching shoulder bag

Success story: The glamorous beauty has managed to nab countless Instagram endorsements and modelling gigs, despite being the first person evicted from the Love Island villa

Samira, 23, exuded elegance in an off-the-shoulder mini dress with cinched waist detailing, which showcased her toned frame and lean legs.

She teamed her thigh-grazing, baby blue ensemble with a pair of dazzling silver heels and a glamorous faux fur shoulder bag.

Letting her impressive outfit do the talking, the West End performer opted to forgo any jewellery.

Looking good: Samira, 23, exuded elegance in an off-the-shoulder mini dress with cinched waist detailing, which showcased her toned frame and lean legs

Statement shoe: She teamed her thigh-grazing, baby blue ensemble with a pair of dazzling silver heels and a glamorous faux fur shoulder bag

Hitting the decks: Kendall and Sam Bird were seen trying their hand at DJing

Jack Fincham is going back to his stationery selling roots by launching his very own office essentials range.

The lovable Essex lad was supported by his girlfriend Dani Dyer at the event, proving their romance is stronger than ever.

The reality TV star posted a sweet post in support of her beau, telling her 3.4million followers: 'So proud of you on your pen launch. You amaze me everyday and Im very lucky to have met you. love you.'

Show of support: Jack's supportive girlfriend Dani Dyer was naturally in attendance

Encouragement: The reality TV star posted a sweet post in support of her beau, telling her 3.4million followers: 'So proud of you on your pen launch. You amaze me everyday and Im very lucky to have met you. love you.'
She is in the midst of romantic woes following her fiance John Noble's betrayal, in which he was filmed getting close to a bevy of beauties.

Yet Vicky Pattison has been putting on a brave face in the midst of her heartache as on Wednesday she once again appeared on This Morning to talk all things I'm A Celebrity, while defiantly flashing her ring-free hand.

The 31-year-old former Geordie Shore star beamed as she departed the studio, all the while her former flame shunned the drama in favour of showing off his ripped physique in a series of defiant throwback selfies posted on Instagram.

Bold display: Vicky Pattison has been putting on a brave face in the midst of her heartache as on Wednesday she once again appeared on This Morning to talk all things I'm A Celebrity, while defiantly flashing her ring-free hand

Vicky looked sensational as she strutted out of the ITV building while beaming at cameras and boldly holding her bare left hand up to her face.

Clad in a festive tartan skirt with a thick belt, she minimised her top half with a long sleeved white top yet vamped up the look with a slick of red lipstick.

Taking to Twitter to throw their support behind the star, one fan penned: 'Ah bless Vicky Pattison has got some TV work...

'She seems to be coping rather well with the break up of her relationship considering she required round the clock care from her friends just a few days ago. Youre very brave PET.'

Shock: The 31-year-old former Geordie Shore star beamed as she departed the studio, all the while her former flame shunned the drama in favour of showing off his ripped physique in a series of defiant selfies posted on Instagram

Chic: Clad in a festive tartan skirt with a thick belt, she minimised her top half with a long sleeved white top yet vamped up the look with a slick of red lipstick

Don't look back in anger: Vicky refused to appear downtrodden as she strutted out of the studio

John was accused of kissing another woman while on a lads' holiday in Dubai and cosying up to a bevy of beauties on the same night.

And so it comes as little surprise that Vicky broke down in tears while on stage at a body confidence event held at Hornchurch leisure centre in Essex, on Sunday.

The reality TV star struggled to maintain her emotions at the event, although it is not yet known what specifically triggered her emotions. It's believed Vicky and John have not officially split as of yet but she's clearly upset over his actions.

Ripped: While he has not mentioned his indiscretion, John has been sharing images of her form

Shock: And so it comes as little surprise that Vicky broke down in tears while on stage at a body confidence event held at Hornchurch leisure centre in Essex, on Sunday
Susanna Reid was showing off the results of her one stone weight loss on Wednesday as she left the Good Morning Britain studios, looking sensational in a teal dress.

The 47-year-old presenter showed off her sartorial fashion sense in the classic midi dress and gold striped heels, finishing the look with smart black glasses.

It comes after Susanna hit back at fears that she was losing too much weight, writing on Twitter that she feels 'happy and healthy,' joking that she had just finished a raspberry turnover.

Gorgeous: Susanna Reid was showing off the results of her one stone weight loss on Wednesday as she left the Good Morning Britain studios, looking sensational in a teal dress

Leaving the Television Centre after recording the breakfast show with Piers Morgan, Susanna was effortlessly chic in the team long-sleeved dress.

The mother-of-three accessorised her outfit with watercolour-esque stiletto heels, and looked even more the woman of business with black glasses.

Letter her hair hang loose Susanna showed off her ageless complexion with barely a hint of makeup for the outing keeping her phone close to hand as she headed through the studio grounds.

Sensational: The 47-year-old presenter showed off her sartorial fashion sense in the classic midi dress, finishing the look with smart black glasses

Dressed to impress: Susanna accessorised her look with watercolour-esque stiletto heel

Glamorous: It comes after Susanna was forced to hit back at comments that she was losing too much weight on social media, writing on Twitter that after losing a stone she's never felt better

It comes after Susanna was forced to hit back at comments that she was losing too much weight on social media, writing on Twitter that after dropping a stone in weight she's never felt better.

The tweet read: 'No need to worry! I am healthy and happy, with more energy. Related: I just ate a raspberry cream turnover.'

Showing off his sharp-tongued sense of humour, Susanna's GMB colleague Piers was quick to also post: 'Relax - she's got a long lunch with me coming up. That will undo all the good work.

Defiant: Susanna wrote on Twitter that she 'was happy and healthy' following her weight loss, joking after that she had just enjoyed a raspberry turnover

Hilarious: Her Good Morning Britain colleague Piers Morgan was also quick to back her up, joking in a tweet: 'Relax - she's got a long lunch with me coming up'

Glamorous: Rocking her sartorial green dress, Susanna had her glossy brunette tresses styled into effortless waves

Back in September Susanna explained that she had lost a stone in weight after doctor's said that she had a 'top heavy BMI.'

Talking on Good Morning Britain she said: 'It was a combination of factors, but a doctor said I was at the top end of my BMI. He said it might benefit me if I lost a little weight.'

Wednesday's show proved to be a scary but also hilarious one for Susanna, as Piers proceeded to chase her around the studio with a live tarantula spider.

Strutting: Susanna was the picture of sartorial chic as she made her way through the grounds of the ITV studios

Gorgeous: Wednesday's show proved to be a turbulent one for Susanna as she was chased around the studio by Piers as he held a live spider

Terrifying: Susanna had previously spoke about her decision to lose weight, after doctor's told her she had a 'top heavy BMI'

Bringing on the insect as they chatted about everything on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Piers happily let the spider sit on his hand, before dashing about the studio with it.

Adding: 'Come and meet Mary,' Piers turned the spider towards weather presenter Laura Tobin, who also ran away in fear.

Animal handler Trevor also proceeded to chase Piers in fear for the spiders wellbeing, while the breakfast TV favourite added: 'I think this is called harassment in the workplace.'

Candid: She said: 'It was a combination of factors, but a doctor said I was at the top end of my BMI. He said it might benefit me if I lost a little weight'
Hugh Laurie has been made a CBE during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.

The 59-year-old actor was being recognised for his services to drama since the 1980s.

The House star was presented with the prestigious Commander of the Order of the British Empire honour by the Prince of Wales.

Prestigious honour: Hugh Laurie has been made a CBE during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday

Hugh looked delighted as Charles presented him with the accolade, sharing a few words with the royal during the ceremony.

Smartly clad in a black suit, the beloved British actor couldn't keep the smile off his face.

He was previously appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours.

Also being honoured in the investiture ceremony are Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott, Waterstones founder Timothy Waterstone, Irish rugby player Rory Best and poet and playwright Louise Wallwein.

Hugh boasts an illustrious career in film and TV and has been a regular face on our screens since the 1980s.

Thrilled: The House star was presented with the prestigious Commander of the Order of the British Empire honour by the Prince of Wales

Second ceremony: He was previously appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours

The award-winning actor went to school at Eton and then Cambridge University, where he was president of the Footlights, a drama group that has produced some of the UKs most celebrated actors and comedians.

It was during his time in Cambridge that he met Stephen Fry. The two went on to form a successful comedy partnership.

The pair are best loved for their BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Blackadder and their Jeeves and Wooster adaptation.

He is perhaps best known for playing cantankerous doctor House in the U.S. medical drama series, which aired from 2004 until 2012 and won him two Golden Globes.

Delighted: Smartly clad in a black suit, the British actor couldn't keep the smile off his face

National treasure: Hugh boasts an illustrious career in film and TV and has been a regular face on our screens since the 1980s

His film appearances include The Man In The Iron Mask, Stuart Little and Peters Friends.

Laurie played Richard Onslow Roper in The Night Manager, for which he picked up his third Golden Globe Award.

Aside from acting, Hugh has dabbled in music, releasing two blues albums, Let Them Talk (2011) and Didn't It Rain (2013).

Laurie, who was born in Oxford, has also found success as a writer with his novel The Gun Seller, rleased in 1996.

He declined the opportunity to be interviewed at the palace.
Her portrayal as the hard-hitting journalist Marie Colvin in A Private War has received critical acclaim.

And Rosamund Pike cut a stylish figure as she attended a lunch at Mark's Club in London on Wednesday to celebrate the release of the film.

The actress, 39, teased a hint of her black lingerie underneath her colour block ribbed jumper.

Chic: Rosamund Pike cut a stylish figure as she attended a lunch to celebrate her film A Private War at Mark's Club in London on Wednesday

Rosamund highlighted her trim frame in the autumnal ensemble, mixing burnt orange with black.

She complemented the jumper with a formal form-fitting black skirt and added a boost to her height with velvet heels.

The Gone Girl star styled her sleek blonde locks in a straight centre-parting and accentuated her natural beauty with deftly touches of make-up.

Racy: The actress, 39, teased a hint of her black lingerie underneath her colour block ribbed jumper

Stylish: Rosamund highlighted her trim frame in the autumnal ensemble, mixing burnt orange with black (pictured with Isabella Traglio)

Fashion maven: She complemented the jumper with a formal form-fitting black skirt and added a boost to her height with velvet heels (picture with Christiane Amanpour)

The former Bond girl previously chatted about why she wanted to play a part in her latest movie A Private War.

Rosamund transforms into the fearless and rebellious war correspondent Marie Colvin who is driven to the frontline across the globe.

The talented star discussed struggling to detach herself from playing Colvin, 52, who was killed during a rocket strike in Syria in 2012.

She told Town and Country Magazine: 'I wanted to capture her spirit of rebellion. But I also had to dive into Curies bitterness. I want people to care about journalism again.'

Rosamund previously said she researched the role heavily, spending time with Colvin's close friends and watching videos of her.

Sophisticated: The Gone Girl star styled her sleek blonde locks in a straight centre-parting and accentuated her natural beauty with deftly touches of make-up (pictured with Andrea Broggian)

Gripping portrayal: Rosamund transforms into the fearless and rebellious war correspondent Marie Colvin who is driven to the frontline across the globe in A Private War

In an interview with The Sunday Times magazine, Rosamund said of her latest starring role: 'I have taken responsibility for this one. I care very much about it, about the whole thing.'

Asides from her busy career, the actress is a doting mum to sons Solo, aged six and Atom, now three.

Rosamund has been romancing her long-term love Robie Uniacke since they first started dating in 2009.

And while she is one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, Rosamund insisted bystanders see her as a 'regular' mum.

She told the publication: 'People might recognise me, but I think they just see me as a mother trying to handle small kids on the subway.'
The wardrobe department certainly wasn't playing up Anne Hathaway's figure during a film shoot this week.

Anne was spotted in a frumpy costume while filming in Manhattan on Tuesday. Her red locks also appeared to be a bit of a mess.

The 36-year-old star debuted her crimson hair earlier this week which appeared to be colored for the purposes of a movie role.

Lady in red: Anne Hathaway donned her newly dyed red hair in an unkempt look for a film shoot on Monday in New York

During the shoot this week, the Princess Diaries star looked liked she had just rolled out of bed in the scene.

Her auburn hair was a touch frizzy and undone and later she hit it under a wide brimmed black hat.

Anne was dressed in heather grey ponte pants that were tucked into black leather riding booths.

She layered up with a white T-shirt and a long black cardigan under a shapeless olive toned overcoat lined with fluffy cream fur on the large lapels.

Movie magic: Some have theorized that Anne's new look is for reshoots from a movie she wrapped over the summer

So busy: The Princess Diaries star has three films on the docket to be released in the coming year

The Oceans 8 stunner looked like she was makeup-free, or at least made up to appear that way for the scene.

The actress was spotted with her traditional brunette hairstyle just a few weeks earlier while attending the Hollywood Film Awards, but has since changed up her tresses to this shade of red.

Theories about her red hair are already starting to surface, with InStyle claiming that a popular theory is her new look is for reshoots of The Last Thing He Wanted.

New look: The 36-year-old was spotted earlier in the week with her new crimson locks

While principal photography wrapped in August, it's possible the look is for reshoots, although her hair is a much deeper red now than it was when she was seen with strawberry blonde hair this summer when they first filmed.

Hathaway is shaping up to have a big year in 2019, with the release of The Last Thing He Wanted and two more high profile movies.

She stars in the thriller Serenity, reuniting with her Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey, in theaters January 25, 2019.

And alongside Rebel Wilson in The Hustle, a gender-swapped reboot of the 1988 classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which arrives May 10, 2019.

Serenity now: A trailer for Hathaway's upcoming thrilled with Matthew McConaughey just dropped this week

Fans got a peek at Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway as plotting exes in a newly-released preview for their thriller-at-sea, Serenity.

They portray a formerly married couple who cross paths again amid dangerous circumstances, according to the official studio synopsis from Aviron Pictures.

McConaughey, 49, plays a fishing boat captain named Baker Dill who takes people on tours to Plymouth Island, a luxe ocean enclave.

His ex-wife Karen (Hathaway) seeks him out in hopes of help to kill her abusive new husband (Jason Clarke) at sea.
She broke up from Andy Speer in September, less than two months after the exes welcomed their son Hudson into the world.

Yet Katie Waissel, 32, insisted she wasn't alone as she praised her mum friends for their support in a lengthy Instagram post from New York City on Wednesday.

In the cosy Instagram snap, the X Factor star looked blissfully happy when she posed with her pals and their children.

'It was so wonderful': Katie Waissel insisted she wasn't ALONE and praised her pals for their support as she revealed her plans to move back to UK after Andy Speer split

The mother-of-one remarked on the strong ties she shares with her friends as she revealed her plans to move back to the UK.

She wrote in the caption: 'It Takes A Village. They say that when you have a baby, it "takes a village" however I never really understood this until I thankfully found my own!

'Having Hudson a million miles away from my family, and being a first time mum, I couldnt have been more grateful to have made such wonderful friends that could share their own experiences with me from breastfeeding to sleep training!

'I really wasnt alone! Now that Hudson and I are moving back to the UK, I get to find a new Village all over again.'

Change of scenery: The mother-of-one remarked on the strong ties she shares with her friends as she revealed her plans to move back to the UK

Despite her insistence she wasn't 'alone', the mother-of-one confessed she was feeling 'vulnerable' in the wake of the split.

She elaborated: 'Whilst the thought of this incredibly daunting especially when I am feeling so vulnerable still, I now have the help of @mushmums!

'The @mushmums app allows you to connect with mums in your area, and match based off of your interest, babies age etc.

'I cant wait to meet all the @mushmums in the UK! Love Katie & Hudson.'

She added the hashtags: '#parenting #parenthood #mum #mushmums #letsmush #app #village #tribe #momlife #singlemom #solomama #mumssupportingmums #wegotthis #love #family #gratitude #babies #babyboy #mrhudson #friends #adventures #nyc #london.'

Heartbreaking: She broke up from Andy Speer in September, less than two months after the exes welcomed their son Hudson into the world

Katie and Andy were dating for a year before they discovered she was pregnant with their first child.

She told CLOSER magazine of their split: 'We were in a highly-strung environment and I had a lot of pregnancy hormones so we did row.

'Then one day, I was on our iPad and saw he'd been looking at studio apartments. I was six months' pregnant and suddenly realised I was disposable to him.'

While she doesn't rule out a reunion with the personal trainer, she said the trust has gone after he left her three times during the final three months of her pregnancy.

Katie said Andy moved back in for two weeks after the baby was born and then was gone again but he does pay child support and visits.

However, she told the publication: 'When I see him, we look at each other and smile. Sometimes I wonder if it's not totally over between us, but sadly the trust has gone.'

Katie has had a troubled romance history. She divorced her first husband, model Brad Alphonso in 2012, following domestic violence claims.

She then divorced radio host Brian Moote in 2016 after a year of marriage and accused him of sleeping with the neighbour.
They are reported to have split, after enjoying a brief fling.

But as Luka Sabbat, 20, celebrated his creative label Hot Mess at a party on Monday night, Kourtney Kardashian was there to support him.

The reality star smiled in pictures, taken as she joined Luka's crowd of friends for the event in Los Angeles.

More than friends? Kourtney Kardashian, 39, supports Luka Sabbat, 20, after their 'split' at party to celebrate his creative label in Los Angeles on Monday

On trend: Luka Sabbat hosted the bash to celebrate his creative company Hot Mess with co-founder Noah Dillion; he is seen with Samuel Alemayhu

Night out: Kourtney joined Kaia Gerber, 17, at the event

Wearing leather trousers, a white T-shirt and black jacket, the 39-year-old fitted right in with the younger crowd, who included Luka's model friend Kaia Gerber, 17, daughter of Cindy Crawford.

Their united display came after People magazine reported that Kourtney and Luka had chosen to go their separate ways but still remain on friendly terms with one another.

A source told the publication that 'it was a fun fling for her, but not a big deal,' referring to Kourtney and what she supposedly made of the relationship.

Spot the stars: Wearing leather trousers, a white T-shirt and black jacket, the 39-year-old fitted right in with the younger crowd, who included Luka's model friend Kaia Gerber, 17, daughter of Cindy Crawford

'Down to earth' Luka is said to be a good influence on Kourtney

The insider said: 'She has more important things to focus on, like her kids and work. Kourtney is doing great. She is looking forward to all the fun holidays.'

It's claimed the reality star's friends even encouraged her to continue seeing him, according to sources, having felt that he was exactly what the TV personality needed after her split with Younes Bendjima.

'All of their friends know she's head over heels for Luka,' a source had told PEOPLE before the split.

'None of her friends liked Younes, and they all love Luka even though he's only 20! They think he's good for her, and he's a very down-to-earth and good guy.'

Creative label: It's unclear whether Kourtney's outing with Luka was between two amicable exes or whether the two have reconciled and plan to give their romance another chance

It's unclear whether Kourtney's outing with Luka was between two amicable exes or whether the two have reconciled and plan to give their romance another chance.

Earlier in the evening Kourtney had enjoyed a sushi dinner with her friend Stephanie Shepherd, who previously worked as an assistant for Kim Kardashian.

Stephanie wore black leather leggings with a white T-shirt tucked in, adding black duster coat with silver embellishments and pointed boots.

The two remain close - and even rocked matching looks for Halloween - they were the characters - twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu from Austin Powers: Goldmember.

Stephanie was Kim's assistant from 2013 until 2017; they remain amicable.

Stylish: Kourtney and her pal Stephanie Shepherd were also spotted heading to dinner in Beverly Hills on Monday night
Loro Loughlin has a way of not looking older even though she has crossed the 50 mark.

On Tuesday evening the Fuller House star, 54, showed off her good looks as she stopped by Craig's restaurant in West Hollywood for a late meal.

The blonde beauty has been busy promoting her Hallmark TV movie Homegrown Christmas written by Nina Weinman and co-starring Matt Hamilton. The movie airs December 8.

Walking fountain of youth: Loro Loughlin has a way of not looking older even though she has crossed the 50 mark. On Tuesday evening the Fuller House star, 54, showed off her good looks as she stopped by Craig's restaurant in West Hollywood for a late meal

On trend: The pinup had on a blue and green plaid jacket that had red piping at the bottom and on the cuffs. It was a zip up and looked to have a hoodie

The pinup had on a blue and green plaid jacket that had red piping at the bottom and on the cuffs. It was a zip up and looked to have a hoodie.

The track pants were the same design with zippers up the sides.

The mother of two added pointy heels with see-through sides. And she carried not only a black Christian Dior purse - the design that Princess Diana favored - but also a silver gift bag.

Kim Kardashian would approve: The mother of two added pointy heels with see-through sides. And she carried not only a black Christian Dior purse - the design that Princess Diana favored - but also a silver gift bag

Who's her derm? The siren is almost wrinkle free and has a glow to her of a 20-year-old

The synopsis for Homegrown Christmas was shared on imdb.com.

'After stepping down as CEO of her dream job, Maddie (Loughlin) heads home for the holidays to gain perspective.

'She finds herself running into her old high school sweetheart Carter (Webster), and tensions quickly arise.

'When forced to put together a Christmas dance for the local high school, Carter and Maddie find themselves putting their differences aside and rediscover what made them fall in love all those years ago.'

New movie: The beauty has been promoting her Hallmark TV movie Homegrown Christmas written by Nina Weinman and co-starring Matt Hamilton. The movie airs December 8

Lovely storyline: The synopsis for Homegrown Christmas was shared on imdb.com. 'After stepping down as CEO of her dream job, Maddie (Loughlin) heads home for the holidays to gain perspective'

It was added: 'She finds herself running into her old high school sweetheart Carter (Webster), and tensions quickly arise.'When forced to put together a Christmas dance for the local high school, Carter and Maddie find themselves putting their differences aside and rediscover what made them fall in love all those years ago'

Lori also works with Cindy Crawford as a model for Meaningful Beauty.

And in October she was seen with the Vogue supermodel on set. She noted that she always had fun with the cover girl.

Loughlin has said the skin care system makes her look 10 years younger.

And before that she was pictured with Jennifer Lopez and her mother Lupe at a morning show in New York City.

Two beauties: Lori also works with Cindy Crawford as a model for Meaningful Beauty. And in October she was seen with the Vogue supermodel on set. She noted that she always had fun with the cover girl
Although Covid-19, supply chain issues, inflation and labor shortages may slow or derail Texas economic train, State Comptroller Glenn Hegar is forecasting $24 billion in extra revenue during the current two-year budget period, The Texas Tribune reported. Candidates running for office will be able to point to the surplus as a way of funding proposals like lowering property taxes. What would be your priority for the states surplus funds?

You voted:
Katie Price, 40, was comforted by her nanny Lauryn Cole during their low-key visit to a park on Wednesday amid her bankruptcy woes.

The mother-of-five, who is said to have debts ranging from 250,000 to 500,000, could be made homeless at a court hearing in December.

Seemingly too much for the former glamour model, Katie broke down when she was on the phone during her trip to the park with her nanny.

Katie Price PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Mother-of-five broke down as she was comforted by her nanny on Wednesday amid bankruptcy woes

Lauryn comfortingly draped her arm around Katie when the pair took a moment to sit down in the leafy park.

A clearly upset Katie was seen wiping away tears while her kind employee offered her emotional support.

The businesswoman and the nanny huddled together when they perched on the grassy bank which showed the pair had forged a close bond.

Moving moment: Lauryn comfortingly draped her arm around Katie when the pair took a moment to sit down in the leafy park

So sad: A clearly upset Katie was seen wiping away tears while her kind employee offered her emotional support

Together: The businesswoman and the nanny huddled together when they perched on the grassy bank which showed the pair had forged a close bond

The star hired new nanny Lauryn after her previous employee Nikki Brown hit headlines when she firmly denied accusations of cheating with Katie's ex-husband.

Former Loose Women panelist Katie visit to the park with Lauryn comes amid her bankruptcy woes.

The mother-of-five managed to escape bankruptcy for another month at the end of October but she could be made homeless at a court hearing in December.

Ink-credible: Katie kept off the chill when she headed to the park in a loose-fitted hoodie which she paired with trainers and socks

Close bond: The star hired new nanny Lauryn after her previous employee Nikki Brown hit headlines when she firmly denied accusations of cheating with Katie's ex-husband

Low profile: Katie kept up her glamorous looks by defining her gorgeous features with heavy make-up and she straightened her brunette locks before tossing it into a ponytail

The former glamour model  who was worth an estimated 45million  narrowly avoided being declared bankrupt in August, when she was given 12 weeks to come up with the money she owes to creditors.

Her lawyers came back to London's High Court at the end of October for a fresh hearing over how she will clear up a 22,000 debt with the taxman.

Estimates over the Loose Women star's total debts have ranged from 250,000 to 500,000.

Bad news: Former Loose Women panelist Katie visit to the park with Lauryn comes amid her bankruptcy woes

Small mercies: The mother-of-five managed to escape bankruptcy for another month at the end of October

Terrible news: The mother-of-five could be made homeless at a court hearing in December

Goes way back: The former glamour model was worth an estimated 45million and she has a big following on social media platforms

Time for change: She narrowly avoided being declared bankrupt in August, when she was given 12 weeks to come up with the money she owes to creditors

Explained: Her lawyers came back to London's High Court at the end of October for a fresh hearing over how she will clear up a 22,000 debt with the taxman

Money talks: Estimates over the Loose Women star's total debts have ranged from 250,000 to 500,000

Katie's legal team stated, in October, she would meet with tax officials on November 16 - but further news has not been announced; nor whether she did or did not meet with them on Friday.

It is thought she will attempt to be enter into an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), a formal alternative for indebted people wishing to avoid bankruptcy.

Katie is said to fear having to sell her West Sussex mansion if a trustee is brought in to sell off her possessions.

She is unlikely to be made homeless before Christmas due to rules allowing people living with children to appeal for a 12-month delay to losing their home.

In recent months, there have been reports the former model, a keen horsewoman, had been trying to sell off her pink horsebox and a number of her animals in a bid to reduce her mounting debts.

Plans: It is thought she will attempt to be enter into an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), a formal alternative for indebted people wishing to avoid bankruptcy

Tough times: Katie is said to fear having to sell her West Sussex mansion if a trustee is brought in to sell off her possessions

What's happening? She is unlikely to be made homeless before Christmas due to rules allowing people living with children to appeal for a 12-month delay to losing their home
She's been seeking help to improve her looks, after turning to a new dermatologist.

And as part of her treatment plan, Jenny Mollen has had her fillers dissolved in her face - but not without side effects.

The 39-year-old revealed severe facial bruising in anInstagram post on Tuesday, after earlier undergoing injections to dissolve the fillers.

Bruised: Jenny Mollen gets her face lasered to reduce severe bruising after having her lip fillers dissolved; she is seen in an Instagram Story update from Tuesday

Known side effect: Jenny said that while shocking, the bruising was not unexpected

Day two: Jenny shows off her bruise after laser treatment, which she helps will fade the mark

As Jenny, who is married to actor Jason Biggs, explained, the bruising occurred rapidly.

'I was sitting at lunch with my friend and I went to the bathroom and I was like "Hey, why didn't you tell me there's a giant f**ing bruise on my face?"

'And she was like "Oh, you came in like that".'

Jenny said that while shocking, the bruising was not unexpected.

Change: As Jenny, who is married to actor Jason Biggs, explained, bruising occurred rapidly

Treatment: Jenny went back to her dermatologist to have her bruise lasered

'I was warned this is what happens when you take out the filler. Its all par for the cause.'

On Wednesday morning Jenny returned to her dermatologist and had her bruises treated with a pulsed dye laser. The treatment, normally given 48 hours after a cosmetic procedure sparks bruising, was developed by the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York.

New York-based Jenny explained: 'So I just got lasered, I got the bruise lasered hopefully it's gonna fade faster.'

Not a good look: The author joked she would stand out on the school run

And she joked that until then she would enjoy looking: 'badass like maybe last night i got in a barfight.'

The author - she has penned two New York Times bestsellers - and her husband have two sons: Sid, four, and Lazlo, 10 months.

The Live Fast Die Hot author sparked concern when she shared a photo of her worryingly thin body back in April, explaining that she was experiencing distressing symptoms possibly related to Graves' disease.

Her usual look: Jenny is seen last December with her clear skin

She was later diagnosed with hyperthyroidism after losing a worrying amount of weight and shedding her hair.

Jenny was put on medication to slowdown her overproduction of thyroid hormones, and she reported in June that her thyroid condition had drastically improved.

According to the star, she gained 15 pounds in four weeks.
Her dad Michael packed out stadiums and performed in front of millions.

But Paris Jackson looked like she preferred a more intimate gig as she watched rumored boyfriend Gabriel Glenn perform at the The Viper Room recently.

The 20-year-old was front and center of the small crowd gathered at the famed Hollywood venue on Sunset Boulevard.

Good show: Paris Jackson, left, watched rumored boyfriend Gabriel Glenn, right, perform at the The Viper Room in Hollywood recently

Fan: The star was seen taking photos of her beau, right, who almost appeared blonde in the spotlight on stage

Paris wasn't just there as a fan either; she served as roady, helping the band haul gear before and after the performance.

She even helped out with videography, dropping to her knees to film the band on her phone.

Besides her man, Paris also had family there performing: her cousin and Michael Jackson's nephew, Austin Brown.

Gabriel is in another band too, made up of just himself and 'girlfriend' Paris, called The Soundflowers.

Duet: Gabriel and Paris have their own band called The Soundflowers; here they are seen together in August

They formed the group in June; he plays the acoustic guitar and she plays ukulele, while they both sing.

While Gabriel goes by his own name in the band, Paris goes under the moniker PK Dragonfly.

Despite some PDAs, the pair have not officially emerged as a couple; some reports insist they are just friends, while others claim they are bound for the altar.

Stuck in: Here Paris is seen talking to the drummer who was shirtless with a black vest on

They played a very loved up gig  their second ever  in LA in August, at a Canyon Sessions cancer fundraiser.

A delighted Paris told her 3.4million Instagram followers that her grandmother Katherine came to support and loved the music.

'F**k. i can't believe my grandma made it to our second live show ever. and she actually liked it!?!!!' she shared.

The model, who previously confirmed via Instagram AMA she is bisexual, was in a former relationship with drummer Michael Snoddy and was recently linked to model Cara Delevingne.
The forthcoming Sopranos prequel film just cast it's first Made Man.

Indie actor Alessandro Nivola is in negotiations for the lead role of Dickey Moltisanti, Variety reported on Tuesday.

The Many Saints of Newark, will return fans to the world of the Sopranos, the fictitious New Jersey mob family they loyally followed on HBO for six seasons.

Mafia moment: Actor Alessandro Nivola is in negotiations to play Dicky Moltisanti in the upcoming Sopranos prequel film, according to Variety on Wednesday

Nivola, will take on the role of Dicky, the uncle of Tony Soprano, who was famously played by James Gandolfini.

Dicky Moltisanti was never seen during the drama's tenure on HBO but referenced several times as a sort of mentor of Tony's.

The character is also the father the infamous Christopher Moltisanti, impeccably portrayed by Michael Imperioli in the mafia series.

Dicky is 'a charismatic but violent made man who falls in love with his father's much younger bride, a recent immigrant from Italy,' according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The family: Alessandro will play Tony Soprano's uncle and the father of Christopher, played by Michael Imperioli

HBO hit: James Gandolfini and Edie Falco portrayed Tony and Carmela in the ground breaking series for six seasons

THR also reported that other fan-favorite Sopranos characters besides Moltisanti will be featured in the film; albeit as younger versions of their television personas.

Nivola is a relative newcomer on the Hollywood scene but has been met with acclaim on the indie ciruit.

He's currently nominated for best supporting actor at the upcoming British Independent Film Awards for his role in 'Disobedience.'

Prequel: The Many Saints of Newark will be set 30 years before the television series in riot torn New Jersey

And, the Boston native currently stars in the indie feature 'Weightless.'

He's been married to British actress Emily Mortimer since 2003 and they have two children together.

The plot of the mob prequel is set in the era of the Newark riots in the 1960s, when African-Americans and Italians in New Jersey embroiled in an often fatal feud.

David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, co-wrote the upcoming film adaptation.

The original: David Chase, who created The Sopranos for television, co-wrote the prequel

The Sopranos was a trailblazer in its heyday for HBO as one of the network's initial creations to receive critical acclaim.

It is often labeled as one of the best television shows of all time and frequently credited as the work that carved out the path for the cable network drama surge that is still soaring during this current 'golden era' of television.

While it was on the air, the mafia melodrama earned numerous awards, including two Peabody Awards, 21 Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards
Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian have donated $500,000 to the victims of the California fires after the blaze devastated their own community.

Appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres show on Wednesday, Kim made the announcement which included a $100,000 individual check for a firefighter whose own family home burnt down.

Explaining how she and Kanye hired private firefighters to protect their home, Kim made it clear that without them, the couple's $60million mansion would have burned down.

Keeping up appearances: Kim Kardashian reveals how private firefighters saved her $60m mansion when flames burned 'up to the gate'... and says her family still can't go home

'[The fires] got to our gate and then luckily we had firefighters right there that were helping us to get the fires out.'

However despite saving their home, the Wests cannot return because of smoke damage.

Kim said: 'We're still not in our home now because the smoke smell is too intense and we have these machines everywhere trying to help us blow out the smoke smell.'

Nearly lost: Fire damange can be seen in the park which borders Kim and Kanye's luxury mansion; the couple only saved the property with the help of private firefighters

Generous: The rapper, 41, who hired private firefighters to protect his multi-million pound mansion, is said to have wanted to help contribute towards rebuilding the community

Kim explained that she also tasked the private firefighters with protecting her neighbors homes in their exclusive gated community.

'Our house is right on the end of a big park so the whole park had caught fire and if our house went then every other house would go.

'They saved our home and saved our neighborhood, I made sure they controlled every house on the edge [of the park]. So it wasn't just my home.

'Once they go the whole neighborhood can go. '

Hero: Later in the show, Ellen and Kim welcomed firefighter Michael Williams and his wife Lisa from Oak Park, CA who lost their home in the Woolsey Fire

The mother-of-three said she hired the private firefighting team on the advice of a friend, who lost their own home in a previous blaze.

'We were fortunate... I know that not everyone has this luxury available to them. But we were able to get private firefighters.'

She then announced the donations, to which Adidas and Kanye's Yeezy brand also contributed.

They included a donation of $200,000 to California Fire Foundation and an additional $200,000 to California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund.

'They saved our whole community, we're so grateful to them,' she said.

Set to appear on the Ellen show on Wednesday, Kim Kardashian will speak about the wildbush fire which came within feet of their home

Giving back: Kim tells host Ellen DeGeneres, the couple had a 'serious discussion' on how to help the community, with Kayne coming up with a plan of action

Showing support: The Golddigger hitmaker is said to have called up Adidas and his own Yeezy brand to build up donations, raising a staggering $500,000

Overhead photos of Kim and Kanye's home display a charred area surrounding the mansion, which was encroached by fire after authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of the region.

Later in the show, Ellen and Kim welcomed firefighter Michael Williams and his wife Lisa from Oak Park, CA who lost their own home in the Woolsey Fire.

Michael and Lisa talked about their decision to stay home and their daring escape as the fires rapidly destroyed their neighborhood.

To help rebuild their lives, Kim presented the couple with a check for $100,000 thanks to the generosity of Kanye, along with Yeezy, and Adidas.


Kylie Minogue's representative has responded to a security scare at her concert in Germany on Tuesday.

While performing in Cologne, the Spinning Around star was guarded by around 20 police officers armed with submachine guns following a threat made from Belgium.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a spokesperson confirmed that the threats had been made 'via social media' and that 'routine security procedures' will remain in place for the remainder of Kylie's Golden tour.

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'Police felt it necessary to take extra precautions': Kylie Minogue's representative has responded to security fears at her concert in Cologne, Germany after she was protected by 20 armed guards while performing. Pictured at the concert

'There was additional security at the Cologne show following an individual making threats via social media,' read the statement.

'Given the nature of these threats, the police felt it necessary to take extra precautionary measures.

'We have routine security procedures in place for all concerts which will continue to be in effect for the remaining shows.

'These procedures are continually reviewed and revised to ensure we are doing everything possible in order to create the safest environment for everyone in attendance.'

Protected: In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, a spokesperson confirmed that the threats had been made 'via social media' and that 'routine security procedures' will remain in place for the remainder of Kylie's Golden tour. Pictured performing in Italy recently

While performing in Cologne earlier this week, German police armed with submachine guns protected Kylie, 50, and concertgoers at the venue.

It was previously claimed by DW.com that German newspaper Bild had reported 'a mentally disturbed Belgian man' made threats against the Australian star.

Pictures of the man were plastered around the concert venue and the Belgian police force was also contacted about the threat.

Scary: It was previously claimed by DW.com that 'a mentally disturbed Belgian man' made threats against the Australian star (pictured)

All men were reportedly frisked before being allowed into the concert, which had up to 2,500 guests in attendance.

According to multiple reports, male fans had their identities checked upon arrival.

A police spokesman told German news agency DPA: 'The organisers contacted us due to a possible threat scenario based on evaluating social media platforms.

'When it comes to things like that, we cannot simply stand by.'

Fortunately, the show went on as planned and 'without any disturbance'.

Kylie will perform in Amsterdam on Thursday, before heading to Copenhagen on Friday.

She will return to Germany to play a show in Hamburg on Saturday, then head back to the UK for more concerts.

The Especially for You hitmaker will tour Australia in March, with her first show taking place in Sydney on March 5.
Last month it was reported that the pair were 'miserable together' and had been that way 'for months'.

But whatever is happening behind the scenes, in public Irina Shayk and Bradley Cooper are still very much a couple.

The two stepped out as a family in Santa Monica with their one-year-old daughter Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper on Wednesday.

Irina, 32, and her boyfriend, 43, were dressed casually as they took their little girl to a birthday party ahead of Thanksgiving.

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Family outing: Irina Shayk and Bradley Cooper enjoyed an outing with their one-year-old daughter Lea De Seine in Santa Monica on Wednesday

Irina showcased her impeccable chic style with a v-neck form-fitting top and a high waited maxi floral skirt.

The dotting mom accessorised her glam look small Chanel red cross-body bag, the retails for $3500, and a large white diaper bag.

She completed her ensemble with a pair of designer glasses and kept her brunette locks styled back into a messy low bun.

Effortless style: Irina showcased her impeccable chic style with a v-neck form-fitting top and a high waited maxi floral skirt

Natural beauty: Irina appeared to be wearing a very minimal amount of makeup with a clear complexion and nude pout

Irina appeared to be wearing a very minimal amount of makeup with a clear complexion and nude pout.

Bradley opted for a casual look in a grey T-shit and black trousers for the family day out.

The Star Is Born actor and director was in charge of carrying the couple's daughter, Lea, who was dressed in a matching pink tracksuit.

Is this true? Irina and Bradley's outing comes after Page Six reported last month that the pair who've been dating for over three years were 'miserable together' and had been 'for months'

Irina and Bradley's outing comes after Page Six reported last month that the pair who've been dating for over three years were 'miserable together' and had been 'for months'.

'He doesn't drink and is into spirituality,' the source said. 'She wants to go out,' revealed their source.

The 5ft10 beauty 'went to Ibiza by her herself for a party' tossed by photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.'

Bradley, looked sulky and uncomfortable during a dinner at the upscale New York City restaurant Masa, the paper previously reported.

Party girl: 'He doesn't drink and is into spirituality,' the source said. 'She wants to go out,' revealed their source (Irina pictured solo at the GQ Man Of The Year Awards in Berlin, Germany 2018)

Just rumors? A separate source insisted to the paper that the couple is doing fine, with one eyewitness noting they 'looked cozy and happy' on a recent outing to the eatery Sant Ambroeus

Another source told the newspaper: 'They were not looking happy ... they barely spoke to each other at the start of the meal. Halfway through, she started looking off to the side and he was moody.'

There has been chatter over the celebrity couple's relationship problems 'in that big Russian model community,' an insider told the paper.

A separate source insisted to the paper that the couple is doing fine, with one eyewitness noting they 'looked cozy and happy' on a recent outing to the eatery Sant Ambroeus.

Irina and Bradley were first linked in April 2015. The good looking duo call New York City home; they reportedly moved in together in November 2015 before welcoming Lea in March 2017.
Their romance has gone from strength-to strength since leaving the Love Island villa.

And Megan Barton-Hanson and Wes Nelson were the picture of true romance as they attended the VIP Launch of Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland on Wednesday.

The smitten pair cracked radiant smiles as they cosied up on the red carpet, with their arms wrapped around one another.

Love Islanders: Megan Barton-Hanson and Wes Nelson were the picture of true romance as they attended the VIP Launch of Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland on Wednesday

Megan, 24, cut a chic figure in a leather jacket and furry collar, paired with a plaid scarf and skinny jeans.

She covered up her newly dyed platinum curls with a black beret and completed her ensemble with leather biker boots.

Her pretty features were enhanced with smoky shadow, peachy blush and a scarlet lip.

Wes, 20, looked casually cool in a white hoodie teamed with a navy blue quilted jacket.

Work! Megan, 24, cut a chic figure in a leather jacket and furry collar, paired with a plaid scarf and skinny jeans

Smitten: The smitten pair cracked radiant smiles as they cosied up on the red carpet, with their arms wrapped around one another

He teamed this with black culottes and striped trainers.

Recently, Megan and Wes were hit by claims of furious arguments and rumours of a night in a strip club with Pete Wicks, yet they dismissed the claims.

Megan wrote on Instagram: 'I love you to the moon and back thank you for supporting me through these past hellish weeks your my world and wouldn't have been able to get through it without you [sic]'.

Earlier this month, Megan was accused of disappearing with TOWIE star Pete during a boozy night out at a strip club while Wes was in Belfast doing a PA.

For the fans: The stars stopped to take a photo with one of their loyal fans

Chat: The pair enjoyed a romantic night out together

And later on, she finally addressed the claims made by The Sun, calling them 'bulls***.'

Following the rumours, Megan and Wes continued to stay strong in the face of their haters as they moved in to their new Camden home.

The couple revealed that they've been living with each other since the first week of coming out the Love Island villa, and later put a deposit down on a two bedroom house in Camden, which they have now moved into.
She recently revealed she quit her job as a civil servant following her stint on this year's Love Island.

And Zara McDermott has ventured into new career as she attended the launch party for her clothing line with Lasula at Waterloo's Tonight Josephine on Wednesday evening.

The reality star, 21, mixed androgynous style with sex appeal as she went braless underneath her vibrant red blazer.

Wow-factor! Zara McDermott has ventured into new career as she attended the launch party for her clothing line with Lasula at Waterloo's Tonight Josephine on Wednesday evening

Maintaining her trendsetting display, the TV personality nailed business chic with a pair of tailored trousers and boosted her frame with red strappy heels.

Zara ensured focus remained on her striking ensemble as she kept accessories to a minimum, only sporting a pair of silver dangle earrings.

The honey-blonde beauty styled her tresses into a curly half up half down 'do to reveal her radiant complexion, enhanced with a warm brown make-up palette.

Sultry: The reality star, 21, mixed androgynous style with sex appeal as she went braless underneath her vibrant red blazer

Standing tall: Maintaining her trendsetting display, the TV personality nailed business chic with a pair of tailored trousers and boosted her frame with red strappy heels

Also in attendance was TOWIE's Kady McDermott, who flashed her leggy pins in an oversized black shirt.

Living up to her siren status, the 23-year-old rocked a pair of gold ankle-strap heels and toted a designer clutch bag by Louis Vuitton.

Kady put her chiseled features on full display as she swept her raven locks into a high bun with baby bangs.

All in the details: Zara ensured focus remained on her striking ensemble as she kept accessories to a minimum, only sporting a pair of silver dangle earrings (pictured with Kady McDermott)

Commanding attention: The honey-blonde beauty styled her tresses into a curly half up half down 'do to reveal her radiant complexion, enhanced with a warm brown make-up palette

Legs for days: Also in attendance was TOWIE's Kady, 23, who flashed her leggy pins in an oversized black shirt

Looking good: Living up to her siren status, the make-up artist rocked a pair of gold ankle-strap heels and toted a designer clutch bag by Louis Vuitton

Proving to be her BFF, Ellie Brown was in attendance at the event, just hours after making an appearance at the Surviving Christmas With The Relatives premiere.

The 20-year-old Love Island beauty took centre-stage in a plunging black LBD, teamed with a fluffy jacket and pearl-embellished clutch.

Styling her golden tresses in glossy waves, she plumped her lips with a slick of crimson lipstick and framed her eyes with plenty of mascara and shimmering shadow.

You got a friend in me: Proving to be her BFF, Ellie Brown was in attendance at the event, just hours after making an appearance at the Surviving Christmas With The Relatives premiere (R)

Striking: The 20-year-old Love Island beauty took centre-stage in a plunging black LBD, teamed with a fluffy jacket and pearl-embellished clutch

Meanwhile, Zara recently returned from the Bahamas after planning a luxurious trip as a big surprise to mark the milestone of her love Adam Collard's 23rd birthday.

The couple first hit it off in the Mallorcan villa over the summer when Adam was originally partnered with Rosie Williams.

The muscle-bound personal trainer had no qualms palming off the fiery graduate lawyer to pursue a romance with newcomer Zara.

Standing tall: Love Island's Georgia Steel donned a flirty polka dot playsuit and thigh-high stiletto boots

Blonde beauty: The 20-year-old swept her wavy tresses into a half up half down look to reveal her full-on make-up look, which featured shimmery pink eyeshadow and matching lipgloss

Making their way: Zara's launch was a star-studded affair as EOTB star Nicole Bass (L) and Love Island's Hayley Hughes (R) were in attendance

Biker chic: The 22-year-old flashed her legs in a checked mini skirt with thigh-high boots and a cropped leather jacket

Glamorous: Ryan Antony took a walk on the wild side in animal print trousers as Leah Fletcher stunned in a sleeveless top with a ribbed skirt

Adam garnered the reputation as a bit of a ladies' man after he partnered up with four bombshells in the space of two weeks before he eventually left the villa.

However, on his departure, the hunk realised it was Zara all along he had been pining for and the couple decided to give things a chance on the outside.

While Zara and Adam go from strength to strength after moving in together, a number of the Love Island couples have split up.

Samira Mighty and Frankie Foster finished after a video of the hunk smooching a mystery brunette in a Kent club emerged.

Dare to be bold: Model Victoria Clay wowed in a dangerously low-cut red dress, complete with a sizzling thigh-high slit

Off they go: Zara beamed with pride as she left her event with pal Ellie

Hand-in-hand: Kady headed home with her BFF Jodie, who went on a date with James 'Diags' Bennewith on TOWIE last month

Working it! Essex beauty Nicole, 25, stunned in a lace cami, silk joggers and a faux fur jacket

Turning heads: Jodie Weston stood out from the crowd in a red lace jumpsuit, embellished with a perilously plunging neckline

Ellie was said to have found out Charlie Brake was putting an end to their romance when he made a public statement on social media.

Paul Knops claimed Laura Anderson wasn't wife material and he stressed the pair were never exclusive when he decided to break things off with her.

Laura Crane and Jack Fowler had a low-key break up following their departure from the Love Island villa just days before the final.

Sam Bird claimed to have discovered a picture of Georgia Steel in bed with her ex-boyfriend and the 'heartbroken' star terminated their love affair.
Lin-Manuel Miranda hopes to be as energetic as Dick Van Dyke when he is 91.

The Mary Poppins Returns actor, 38, was in awe of the high energy of his elderly co-star - who appeared in the original 1964 Disney classic - and enjoyed gossiping with him on the set of the highly anticipated sequel.

The 38-year-old performer told Collider that he loved shooting scenes with the legendary Chitty Chitty Bang Bang actor and said: 'It was like the best two days ever. I aspire to having that much energy in my life, someday, much less at 91.

Working together: Mary Poppins Returns star Lin-Manuel Miranda reveals he bonded over 'thrilling' Broadway gossip with co-star Dick Van Dyke, 91

'We were in the scene together, and we were just huddled off in the corner, and I was asking questions about Bye Bye Birdie.

'You want to talk about a run - that guy went from debuting on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie to getting The Dick Van Dyke Show to filming Mary Poppins like, on his hiatus.

'If anyone has a right to be retired and chilling, it's Dick Van Dyke! And yet he's with us singing and dancing, and it was really thrilling, you know, just to swap Broadway stories about him.'

He's back: Dick Van Dyke in the new movie, in which he plays Mr Dawes Jr, the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank

Mary Poppins Returns stars Emily Blunt as the magical nanny who returns to help the Banks siblings and Michael's children decades after her original visit because they are going through a difficult time in their lives.

Dick is appearing in the sequel as Mr Dawes Jr, the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.

Lin-Manuel gushed that starring in the sequel - which is helmed by Chicago director Rob Marshall - was a dream come true.

He added: 'I mean, it's amazing. Because, you know, there are dreams come true moments; getting your show on Broadway, getting to be in a movie.

The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

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[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.
Firefighters have been working round the clock battling the most destructive blaze in California history.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger gave back to the hardworking service men and women as they continued fighting the Camp Fire on Thursday.

The former governor of California, 71, served firefighters and volunteers breakfast from inside a food truck in Chico, California during a visit to tour the devastation.

Showing his support: Arnold Schwarzenegger gave back to the hardworking service men and women as they continued battling the Camp Fire on Thursday

Arnold could not hide his pride for the hardworking service men as he handed out plates of food to the workers.

The former politician even helped prepare the food, mixing together a soup-like dish inside a giant pot over a stove.

Arnold was clearly moved by the dedicated efforts of the firefighters, and the destruction residents were facing.

The actor will be donating $100,000 to the firefighters' fund, according to KCRA.com.

Touched: Arnold was clearly moved by the dedicated efforts of the firefighters, and the destruction residents were facing

Lending a hand! The former politician even helped prepare the food, mixing together a soup-like dish inside a giant pot over a stove

Doing his part: Schwarzenegger happily handed food out during his tour of the city

'They're true heroes. I mean, I play heroes in the movies, but it's movies. These are the true action heroes,' he said, according to the site.

Arnold continued to heap praise upon the firefighters on Twitter, where he recalled visiting the devastated town.

Wearing a USA hat and standing in front of a structure damaged by the blaze, he recalled seeing how the community came together to support one another in time of the tragedy.

Special shout-out: The Redding Fire Department tweeted, 'Oh hey Mr Schwarzenegger Thank you for coming by the #campfire incident base for the troops! #buttestrong'

American spirit: 'Everyone is just coming together, this is the spirit of America, this is what makes us the greatest country in the world,' he said

'Everyone is just coming together, this is the spirit of America, this is what makes us the greatest country in the world,' he said.

The Camp Fire that began two weeks ago has scorched an area roughly the size of Chicago, burned down more than 13,000 homes and killed at least 81 people, with the number increasing daily.

Hundreds of people are unaccounted for - a list that's constantly changing and has spread confusion about the ultimate number of victims.

It has become the deadliest U.S. wildfire in at least a century, and has destroyed the town of Paradise, population 27,000, and surrounding communities.
Cheetahs may be the fastest land animal on earth but they proved to be no match for Nanny Gaynor on Wednesday's episode of The Mummy Diaries.

Gaynor, mum of Sam Faiers' partner Paul Knightley, joined the couple and their kids Paul, three, and Rosie, one, on a trip to Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire and in a bid to keep her beloved grandson happy, decided to chase a cheetah.

With little Paul in her arms, the high-spirited grandmother did her best to try and give her grandson the best view of the big cat shortly before she held a series of reptiles - claiming she wanted to kiss one of the creatures.

Super gran: Cheetahs may be the fastest land animal on earth but they proved to be no match for Nanny Gaynor on Wednesday's episode of The Mummy Diaries

As the cheetah dashed around his enclosure, Gaynor ran around outside too as Paul giggled away, desperate to see the animal up close. 'The energy your mum's got is just unreal,' an impressed Sam told big Paul.

'She's always been like that, she's always had so much energy and been fantastic with stuff,' he told her.

Shortly before, she held on to a series of reptiles in a separate enclosure where she said: 'You can feel tightening like muscle its cold and damp. I can feel his little cold body on my hands... I want to kiss it!'

Rivals: Gaynor, mum of Sam Faiers' partner Paul Knightley joined the couple and their two children Paul, three, and Rosie, one, on a trip to Paradise Wildlife Park in Hertfordshire and in a bid to keep her beloved grandson happy, decided to chase a cheetah

Off she goes! With little Paul in her arms, the high-spirited grandmother did her best to try and give her grandson the best view of the big cat

'She's just all action isn't she, no messing about. She wants Paul to be like her and not be scared of anything.'

'The cheetah comes out and Gaynor is going from left to right, so fast, it's actually quite impressive,' Sam told the camera.

'Without a doubt Gaynor and Paul had the best day ever, it is without doubt her favourite time when she's with baby Paul,' Sam gushed of her eldest's special bond with his grandmother.

Mother in law: 'The energy your mum's got is just unreal,' an impressed Sam told big Paul

Bond: 'She's just all action isn't she, no messing about. She wants Paul to be like her and not be scared of anything,' Paul explained of his mum

As one viewer summed up on Twitter: 'Every child needs a Nanny Gaynor in their life. Shes so loving and caring with a hint of crazy.'

Elsewhere in the episode, Billie Faiers' daughter Nelly, four was once again in the spotlight as she joined her mum and nanny Sue in jetting to Chicago for a campaign with Claire's Accessories.

Turning the camera on herself, Nelly appeared revitalised from having a nap on their long-haul flight as she introduced the camera to her nanny and her mum - who she hilariously called by her first name - before turning the camera on herself.

Cute! Elsewhere in the episode, Billie Faiers' daughter Nelly, four was once again in the spotlight as she joined her mum and nanny Sue in jetting to Chicago for a campaign with Claire's Accessories

Nelly, whose father is Billie's fiance Greg Shepherd, has spent much of her life in the spotlight all the way from her mum's pregnancy on TOWIE to her current day.

Along with her TV work, she has a number of lucrative collaborations including the work they did with Claire's Accessories earlier this year.

As they landed in the US, the trio were filmed in the car after landing where the voice over said: 'After her 40 winks on the flight it seems Nelly is full of beans.'

As the camera turned to the tot, she said: 'Say hello to my nanny! And this is Billie and I'm called Nelly... How are you doing guys?!'

Happy days: Nelly, whose father is Billie's fiance Greg Shepherd, has spent much of her life in the spotlight all the way from her mum's pregnancy on TOWIE to her current day

Happy days: Billie's sweet display with her family comes after the Faiers have made a triumphant return to our screens in the new series of The Mummy Diaires

Model moments: The duo were snapping away for the campaign in expert style

After which, Billie said on camera: 'I'm not quite sure Nelly understands we're practically on the other side of the world she kind of takes everything in her stride'.

The duo are then seen larking around on a photoshoot, with Nelly pulling her very best moves for the cameras while Billie looked on proudly.

Billie's sweet display with her family comes after the Faiers have made a triumphant return to our screens in the new series of The Mummy Diaires.

Sweet: After which, Billie said on camera: 'I'm not quite sure Nelly understands we're practically on the other side of the world she kind of takes everything in her stride'

Happy days: Nelly's father is Greg, who is also father to Billie's son Arthur

Billie and Greg along with their children Nelly, and Arthur, one, join Sam - who appears with beau Paul Knightley and their children Paul and Rosie - on the show, with the cameras documenting the girls' home life in Essex.

This series has been following the lead-up to Billie and Greg's idyllic wedding ceremony, with much focus being on their stag and hen parties.

Fans have seen Billie left disgruntled with Greg, after learning of his plans to have two stag dos - one in Marbella and one in Las Vegas - as well as a booze up with his mates the night before their wedding ceremony in the Maldives.

The Mummy Diaries airs at 9PM on ITVBe

Happy days! This series has been following the lead-up to Billie and Greg's idyllic wedding ceremony, with much focus being on their stag and hen parties
She has starred in endless critically-acclaimed films throughout her 35-year career, including Moulin Rouge, The Hours and Lion.

And Nicole Kidman looked every inch the screen star as she attended the photocall for a special BAFTA A Life in Pictures event dedicated to her life's work.

The Australian actress, 51, exuded elegance in a sleek sweater with decadent pearl embellishments at the bash in London on Wednesday evening.

Stunning: Nicole Kidman looked every inch the screen star as she attended the photocall for a special BAFTA A Life in Pictures event dedicated to her life's work

Sticking to a monochrome palette, The Others actress showed off her slim frame with a figure-hugging black pencil skirt.

The blonde bombshell added height with a pair of pointed stilettos and opted to wear just her wedding ring as jewellery.

Styling her golden tresses in voluminous ringlets, Nicole framed her features with a sweep of smoky eyeshadow and pink lipstick.

Nicole looked delighted to be at the A Life in Pictures event, a series that shares insights from her longstanding career.

Chic: The Australian actress, 51, exuded elegance in a sleek sweater with decadent pearl embellishments at the bash in London on Wednesday evening

Feeling shy? The actress laughed and hid her face in embarrassment as she posed for photos

Looking good: Sticking to a monochrome palette, The Others actress showed off her slim frame with a figure-hugging black pencil skirt

Meanwhile, the actress recently revealed how her love affair with Tom Cruise played a key role in her destiny.

The Oscar-winning star told Variety that her path to Hollywood was cleared when she moved to Los Angeles from her native Sydney amid her romance with the actor, which began as they filmed their 1990 action-romance, Days of Thunder.

'I moved here because I fell in love and got married,' the 5ft11 beauty told the publication, which names her Show Woman of the Year in its latest edition.

'I always make choices for love, and everything kind of had to fall in place around that.'

Killer footwear: The blonde bombshell added height with a pair of pointed stilettos and opted to wear just her wedding ring as jewellery

The mane attraction: Styling her golden tresses in voluminous ringlets, Nicole framed her features with a sweep of smoky eyeshadow and pink lipstick

Friends in high places: The beauty beamed as she posed with Zygi Kamasa, the CEO of Lionsgate UK

Kidman said that the starry couple didn't have to withstand the amount of scrutiny celebrities experience now, amid the rise of tech and tabloid culture.

'If I look back, it actually didn't seem like a lot of interest,' said Kidman, who appears in the upcoming film Aquaman. 'We didn't have social media then. We didn't have paparazzi like now. You had definite control of it.'

The actress recalled how she and Cruise had a passion for adrenaline-chasing activities such as skydiving.

Special: Nicole looked delighted to be at the A Life in Pictures event, a series that shares insights from her longstanding career

Having a whale of a time! The Eyes Wide Shut actress seemed to be in good spirits as she left the building

Big deal coming through! The Australian beauty beamed as she made her exit

'That's the crux of my personality - standing there, just going, "I want to," and then [saying,] "Oh, no, no, no" and just jumping anyway,' she said.

Kidman and Cruise, who also shared the screen in 1999's Eyes Wide Shut and 1992's Far and Away, split in 2001 after 10 years of marriage, and share two adopted children: daughter Isabella, 25, and son Connor, 23.

She's been married to country crooner Keith Urban since 2006, and they have two daughters: Sunday Rose, 10, and Faith Margaret, seven.

Insight: It comes after she revealed her love affair with ex-husband Tom Cruise, 56, played a key role in her destiny, as she moved to LA amid their relationship
Australians may know her as the stunning wife of Chris Hemsworth.

But come December, Elsa Pataky will take centre stage playing a seductress in the highly-anticipated Netflix show Tidelands.

A trailer for the eight-part series was released on Thursday and featured the 42-year-old in some rather suggestive scenes.

FIRST LOOK: 'Do I look cursed to you?' Elsa Pataky (right) stars in Netflix's seductive trailer for Australian drama Tidelands

Written and created by Stephen M. Irwin, Tidelands centres around the mysterious appearance of a body that washes ashore in the small fishing village of Orphelin Bay.

Spanish-born Elsa plays Adrielle Cuthbert, a 'darkly enigmatic' leader of a group of siren-human hybrids.

In the trailer, she sets pluses racing during an intimate scene with Aussie co-star Aaron Jakubenko, who plays the character of Augie Mcteer.

Steamy scenes! Elsa plays Adrielle Cuthbert, a 'darkly enigmatic' leader of a group of siren-human hybrids, in Tidelands

Wearing a plunging nude dress, she straddles Aaron on the floor while dragging her fingers slowly down his chest.

In another scene, she appears semi-nude and responds to the question, 'Are you cursed by God?' with: 'Do I look cursed to you?'

Elsa's character appears willing to do whatever it takes to protect her people, as the trailer shows her standing over a man she has disarmed.

Lady in charge! Elsa's character appears willing to do whatever it takes to protect her people, as the trailer shows her standing over a man she has disarmed

Strong female character: In another scene, she appears semi-nude and responds to the question, 'Are you cursed by God?' with: 'Do I look cursed to you?'

Tidelands also stars Home and Away's Charlotte Best as Cal McTeer, a young woman who returns to her hometown of Orphelin Bay after 10 years in prison.

Charlotte features in a passionate love scene in the trailer alongside fellow Australian actor Aaron Jakubenko.

Other cast members include Dustin Clare, Peter O'Brien, Finn Little and Mattias Inwood.

Local cast: Tidelands also stars Home and Away's Charlotte Best as Cal McTeer, a young woman who returns to her hometown of Orphelin Bay after 10 years in prison

In an interview with Vogue Australia in March, Elsa revealed how convenient it had been to film the series in Australia.

'For me it's great, I shoot in Brisbane which is close to my house, so I can take the kids to school, and then go to work, it's so convenient,' she said.

Elsa married Thor star Chris Hemsworth, 34, in late 2010, and the couple share three children: daughter India Rose, six, and twin sons Tristan and Sasha, four.

The pair, who were previously based in Los Angeles, now enjoy a blissfully relaxed life in Byron Bay on Australia's east coast.

Tidelands - the first Australian original series for Netflix - debuts on December 14
Health giant Bupa is the lead candidate to win a massive contract to supply services to the Australian Defence Force.

However, the Australian Medical Association has warned the Morrison government to be "cautious and vigilant" as it considers a new provider to replace Medibank, which has operated the services since 2012.

Shares in Medibank, which was government-owned until its 2014 privatisation, were halted on Monday after the ADF told the insurer it would not extend its current arrangement with Medibank's Garrison Health Services past June 2019.

A Defence spokesman said Bupa Health Services had been "ranked as the preferred respondent to enter into negotiations".

"Medibank Health Solutions, the incumbent, while considered suitable, was ranked second," the spokesman told AAP on Wednesday.

"Respondents have been provided verbal advice of the outcome of their submission. The procurement process is ongoing."

While not mentioning Bupa, AMA President Dr Tony Bartone said in a statement on Wednesday the government and successful tenderer needed to work closely with doctors to ensure ADF personnel received the best possible care under the new arrangements.

"Our defence personnel deserve quality health care, but we have witnessed problems in the past," he said.

"The AMA was highly critical of the Medibank Health Solutions approach to the provision of medical services when it was first awarded the contract in 2012.

"Many GPs and other medical specialists refused to provide care under the arrangements implemented by MHS.

"There was widespread concern about MHS decisions, including significant fee cuts, unfair contracts, its control of referral arrangements, and poor consultation with the profession - particularly in the initial period after the contract was awarded."

He said the new provider needed to "avoid making the same mistakes that disadvantage defence personnel and doctors".

Medibank chief executive Craig Drummond said on Monday written confirmation was being sought, having only been verbally advised of the decision.

"We are disappointed, unquestionably."

Medibank predicts exit costs from the contract of about $5 million to be incurred in the second half of the 2019 financial year.

Medibank last year made an operating profit of about $30 million from the ADF contract, which it has held for six years.

It said a high level of care had been provided to more than 60,000 permanent and 20,000 reservist ADF personnel, consistently meeting key performance indicators.

Services included on-base health support, pathology, imaging and radiology and a 24-hour ADF national health hotline.
Sri Lanka's ongoing political crisis could lead the country into an "economic abyss"

Sri Lanka's largest party warned Tuesday that the island could default on its debt as Moody's slashed its credit rating and a bitter power struggle dragged into a fourth week.

The South Asian nation has been gripped by an unprecedented political crisis since the president sacked his prime minister on October 26 and appointed former strongman Mahinda Rajapakse in his place.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the ousted premier and leader of the United National Party -- the largest single party in parliament -- refused to step down, declaring his sacking illegal.

President Maithripala Sirisena then dissolved parliament and called snap elections for January 5 -- a decision later suspended by the Supreme Court.

The parliament, restored by court order, voted twice to topple Rajapakse last week but he has also refused to step down, leaving Sri Lanka without a government since November 15.

Mangala Samaraweera, a member of Wickremesinghe's party who served as finance minister until the chaos broke out, said he was worried the crisis could lead the country into an "economic abyss".

"If we don't have a budget approved unveiled in the next few weeks, the government will not be able to spend any money from January 1, 2019," he told reporters in Colombo.

International ratings agency Moody said its decision to downgrade Sri Lanka's credit rating from B1 to B2 reflected external and internal issues, which were "exacerbated most recently by a political crisis which seems likely to have a lasting impact on policy even if ostensibly resolved quickly."

A credit downgrade means Sri Lanka would have to pay more by way of interest on its foreign borrowings, because of a greater risk of default.

The political unrest also saw the International Monetary Fund (IMF) suspend a tranche of a $1.5-billion bailout loan agreed to in 2016.

Samaraweera said there was a serious risk of the country defaulting on a $1-billion sovereign bond that matures on January 10.

"We are now in uncharted territory," he said. "We have never been in a situation where we were unable to meet our foreign debt."
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 13, 2018, shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad receiving a group of former Druze hostages and their families in the capital Damascus

Nearly eight years into the Syrian war, Selim still refuses to perform his military service, just like many fellow Druze from Sweida province rejecting the regime's conscription call.

"I don't want to get involved in the Syrian bloodbath," said the 27-year-old, who gave a pseudonym for fear of reprisals.

The Sweida region south of Damascus is the Syrian heartland of the country's Druze minority which follows a secretive offshoot of Islam.

After the anti-government protests that sparked Syria's war in 2011, the Druze obtained a de facto exemption from military service in exchange for their tacit support of the regime.

Last week however, President Bashar al-Assad urged the minority, which accounted for around three percent of Syria's pre-war population, to send its young men to the army.

After rotating out some very long-serving conscripts, the regime is looking for fresh blood to beef up its ranks and exercise real control over the swathes of land it reconquered from insurgents and jihadists.

Assad's appeal came after the government helped release, earlier this month, a large group of Druze civilians who had been taken hostage by the Islamic State group in Sweida.

His call appeared to terminate a deal whereby the Druze were allowed to organise their own militia rather than serve in the army, but its implementation could prove tricky.

- 'Daesh or the army' -

"I don't want to have to kill the people of Hama, the people of Homs or any other province, for the sake of keeping one man in power," Selim told AFP by phone from Sweida.

"The army is your grave," said the young man, explaining that the lack of a time limit on conscription during war means recruits will not be able to know when they can return home.

To be on the safe side, Selim never leaves Sweida, a province in southern Syria that borders Jordan and where the Syrian security services have a limited presence.

Young Druze men have in recent years enlisted in local militia to protect their region from jihadists and the regime's interests.

In July, Selim was among hundreds of other residents who took up arms to pin back IS after a series of attacks that left at least 260 people dead.

During the assault, the deadliest to have hit the Druze community since the start of the war, the jihadists kidnapped about 30 people, mainly women and children.

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on October 20, 2018 shows a Druze woman and four children who had been held hostage by the Islamic State group after their release

The last of the surviving hostages were released on November 8, leading to Assad's demand that the Druze contribute to the national war effort.

"The regime is trying to tell us: it's Daesh or the military service," said Selim, using a acronym for the Islamic State group.

Khattar Abu Diab, a Paris-based professor of political science and a specialist in Druze affairs, said Assad was attempting to intimidate the minority.

"He wants to use the residents of Sweida as cannon fodder for future battles," he said.

- Punishment -

Sweida was mostly spared by the deadly Syrian conflict and only faced sporadic jihadist attacks they managed to repel.

Residents on several occasions in 2014 besieged detention centres to obtain the release of men who had been rounded up to join the army.

At the time the central government was at its weakest, stretched very thin on many fronts and had humoured the Druze not to risk opening up another.

Druze in the Israelio-annexed part of the Golan Heights hold the Syrian flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad (C) and late Arab Druze leader Sultan al-Atrash (R) during a rally in the village of Majdal Shams on February 14, 2018

That level of autonomy now comes at a cost for Sweida, where security is all but guaranteed by the presence of the Syrian police.

Some residents see a deliberate government effort to maintain a level of chaos in the province.

"The regime uses other means to punish Sweida: the Islamic State instead of barrel bombs, crime and disorder instead of arrests," activist Hamam al-Khatib said.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, around 30,000 Druze men are liable for military service.

The group's head, Rami Abdel Rahman, alleged that the government told Druze leaders it would remove the IS threat if they promise to support the conscription drive.

IS fighters who had been holding out in the volcanic area of Tulul al-Safa, between Damascus and Sweida, finally retreated last week after heavy regime bombardment and a government-negotiated deal.

Regardless of the agreements being cut in Damascus and by their leaders, Druze youngsters willing to serve in the national army are hard to come by.

"The war just keeps going on... we are not killing machines," said Uday al-Khatib, a 25-year-old Sweida resident.

"Yes, the Sweida youth don't do military service, I'm one of them, but we are the ones who pushed back IS and the army didn't help us," he told AFP in a phone interview.
Bamingui Bangoran's elephant population of more than 35,000 in the 1980s ehas been reduced to, "I daresay... zero," said Hilde Vanleeuwe, who oversees conservation work at the park

The forest rangers of Central Africa's Bamingui Bangoran park cannot focus only on saving the region's dwindling wildlife: they have themselves to protect too.

Often armed with little more than Kalashnikov assault rifles, these men must contend with rebel groups who can be far better equipped.

Added to their woes are poachers who prey on the wildlife they seek to protect.

Today, a column of men makes its way through the verdant park, spread over 10,000 square kilometres (nearly 4,000 square miles), or a third the size of Belgium, in the north of Central African Republic.

Sergeant Simplice is leading them towards the zone that Christelle, a young giraffe, has made her home.

These days Christelle gets special protection, because she is the last of her kind in this part of the park.

"She had others in her family, but they have all been killed by poachers," said Simplice as his men set up camp in a bee-infested shelter.

- Dwindling numbers -

"In 40 years, we have gone from more than 35,000 elephants to, I daresay... zero," said Hilde Vanleeuwe, who oversees conservation work at the park.

Embossed on the rangers' sleeves is the head of a giant eland, the world's largest antelope. It serves as the logo of Ecofaune+, a conservation project backed by the European Union since 2016.

The aim of the project, run by the country's waters and forestry ministry, is to protect the region's rich but dwindling wildlife population.

The European Union has supported nature protection programmes in the Central African Republic for decades

"The European Union has been supporting the management and protection of wildlife and biodiversity in the north of the CAR for about 30 years," said the park's coordinator, Andrea Ghiurghi.

But as each project comes to an end, it is only a few months before the good work is undone: once a team leaves, their base is looted and poachers, sometimes linked to armed groups, return.

Then a new team, working for the next EU-financed project, must start from scratch.

"We're well aware of the problem," Ghiurghi said. But this time around, he said, the Ecofaune+ project will hand over seamlessly to its successor, Ecofac 6 -- another EU-financed project.

- Militia attacks -

As if the work was hard enough, the rangers also contend with the mainly Muslim Seleka militia who have operated in the region since 2013, the year they ousted Christian president Francois Bozize, sparking a conflict that has killed thousands.

Seleka rebels are one of the militia groups that CAR forest rangers have to deal with

Militiamen came to the area "to loot weapons and ammunition", one ranger recalled.

Some of his colleagues were even conscripted into the militia, he said, because of their combat experience.

The rangers have also faced off with armed Janjaweed horsemen from Sudan, who conduct long-range poaching missions across central Africa.

Sergeant Simplice will never forget one clash with the Janjaweed.

"One day, we were ambushed by a column of 80 Sudanese who better armed than us," he said, recalling their assault rifles, rocket-launchers and grenades.

"There were 12 of us, but only seven of us returned," he said, showing a scar left by a bullet that had grazed his neck.

The Janjaweed raids, while not as common as they were before 2013, have not stopped either.

After a UN arms embargo imposed on the country in 2013, the rangers rely increasingly on their knowledge of the terrain and on their training, which they get from a French former paratrooper.

The government does not want to supply more weapons for fear they will end up in rebel hands.

"We've only got the Kalashnikov, what can we do?" said Sergeant Eric. "It's a very, very dangerous job."

But he hopes they can help reverse the trend and bring the animals back, saying: "This is our heritage."
A view of Hydro-Quebec's Romaine 1 dam floor in Canada -- the huge construction project, ongoing for a decade, is nearing completion

On a frigid night, the roar of heavy machinery chipping away at rock echoes through Canada's boreal forest: in the far north of Quebec province, four massive hydroelectric dams that will produce "clean energy" for the northeastern United States are nearing completion.

Flowing more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) through the wilderness, the Romaine River in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec is about to hit a literal wall at 51 degrees north latitude with the erection of the fourth and last power station.

Once completed, the construction project -- which started in 2009 -- will see the cold, clear waters of one of Canada's longest untamed rivers flood surrounding lands claimed by indigenous tribes.

From a distance, the bright lights at the site where more than 800 heavy dump trucks, drills and giant backhoe loaders are in use look like reflections of stars in the night sky.

The teams from Hydro-Quebec are working on two fronts.

Hydro-Quebec plans to sell the clean energy generated by the Romaine project -- the Romaine 4 dam is seen here -- to customers in the northeastern United States

They are razing a mountain to make room for the power station. They are also erecting a dike 500 meters (1,640 feet) long and 90 meters high that will hold back the water to be used to generate electricity.

Quebec has a power surplus, so the government is hoping to sell the power produced here to its American neighbors to the south -- and in turn do its bit to help alleviate global warming.

- Dangers of dam building -

Two construction workers get ready to go up in a lift at the massive Hydro-Quebec construction site, which stretches over several kilometers

The construction site extends over several kilometers: there is a full cement factory, an infirmary for workers, offices, a quarry and a dynamite depot.

"This is a major project -- there are many different stakeholders, many simultaneous activities, and many dangers to manage daily," including inquisitive wolves and bears, says Christian Guimond, who is in charge of the dam's construction.

Already four workers have died, which forced the public utility Hydro-Quebec to suspend construction in 2017 while it reviewed its workplace safety practices.

There's now a greater awareness of the risks for workers, said Guimond.

From atop a nearby mountain peak, he points to a kilometer-long tunnel and a ditch built to divert the raging river in order to start construction of the dam itself on the dry riverbed.

The dam is to be completed in 2019.

Costing more than Can$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), it is among the top 10 largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Canada, ranking behind two nuclear plant refurbishments, three other hydroelectric projects and a new Toronto subway line.

For residents of the region, the hydroelectric project has been a mixed blessing, creating jobs in a remote and economically-depressed region but flooding the local indigenous people's traditional hunting grounds.

Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman at the dam construction site, is also a member of a local indigenous tribe -- he says he was against the project at first, because it will flood traditional hunting grounds, but he is now on board

"I didn't want it at first, but I needed work... when I got my first paycheck, I changed my mind about it," said Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman and member of the Innus of Mingan.

His father, who is also chief of the small tribe that lives on a reserve on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, is a fierce opponent of the project.

The chief has the backing of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which have decried huge hydroelectric dams as "ecologically devastating."

"It pains me, makes me sad what we're doing to nature," said Patricia Bacon, a 24-year-old Innu who came here to work at the cafeteria in order to pay for her university studies.

"But times have changed -- every house must have electricity now."

- Export to US -

Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs -- the four new plants will generate enough electricity to power a city, or 1.5 million homes

Once fully operational in 2021, the four power plants on the river will cumulatively generate 1,550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city or an estimated 1.5 million homes.

Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs.

The new Quebec provincial government of Francois Legault, with the backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has pledged to build even more dams once the Romaine project is completed.

The aim is to export as much power as possible to the United States, saying it would be "the biggest contribution that Quebec could make to the planet."

Other provinces also have big hydroelectric projects on the go, such as Newfoundland's Muskrat Falls, Manitoba's Keeyask and British Columbia's Site C.

Neighboring Ontario, meanwhile, is spending Can$25 billion to refurbish two aging nuclear power plants.

A Hydro-Quebec employee looks out over the spillway for the Romaine 3 hydroelectric dam in Quebec -- the hope is to attract more and more US customers with the prospect of clean energy

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC university in Montreal, expressed doubt after visiting the Romaine project about the need for more power plants, pointing to Quebec's current surplus energy.

"In the northeastern United States, there is a great desire to decarbonize electricity production in New England or New York state, so there is a real opportunity for Quebec," he told AFP.

"La Romaine could provide this renewable energy."

However, more transmission lines connecting the power stations to US buyers still need to be approved and built.
Yemeni pro-government forces ride in a pickup truck mounted with a machine gun on the outskirts of the Hodeida on November 18, 2018

The UN's Yemen envoy flew into the rebel-held capital Sanaa Wednesday to push for renewed peace talks after fierce fighting for the lifeline port of Hodeida which has ramped up fears of a catastrophic famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as United Nations envoy Martin Griffiths spearheads the biggest peace push in two years.

But Hodeida residents reported clashes just hours ahead of Griffiths' arrival, and a devastating all-out assault still looms as the coalition eyes a key victory in its war with Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

UN agencies say the closure of Hodeida port due to fighting or damage could put up to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation.

Destruction in Yemen

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory and its port is the entry point for the vast majority of food and humanitarian aid into Yemen.

Griffiths was expected to meet rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in September after the insurgents refused to attend talks in Switzerland.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday that peace talks had been set for early December in Sweden, where "it looks like... we'll see both the Huthi rebel side and the UN-recognised government".

The Huthis have said repeatedly they need stronger international guarantees that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

- 'Sternest test' -

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing Hodeida's port to UN control.

"Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure," said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

Yemeni boy Ghazi Saleh, weighing just eight kilogrammes, is too weak to move or even cry

"If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process."

Both warring sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy's mission to convene new talks, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Residents in the east of the city told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

They said a limited number of people were leaving the city.

Mohammed Rashed, who is currently living in a makeshift tent to the east of the Sanaa, said he left Hodeida last week because of the clashes.

Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, arrives at Sanaa international airport on November 21, 2018

"We could not stay because of the air strikes," he told AFP.

"My house was struck, and my neighbours' homes were struck and people were killed."

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday that its teams had treated over 500 wounded people since November 1 and that it remained "extremely worried for its patients and staff threatened by fighting very close" to its facilities in Hodeida.

- Call for truce -

Britain on Monday presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove barriers to humanitarian aid.

"The only solution is for all the parties to set aside their arms, cease missile and air attacks on populated areas and pursue a peaceful political settlement," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told parliament on Wednesday.

He said the draft resolution was "designed to get a consensus from both sides that allow talks to start before the end of this month in Stockholm".

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Doctors treat a Yemeni men in the rebel stronghold of Saada on November 20, 2018 following a reported air strike

Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, a regional ally that buys billions of dollars-worth of arms from the United States, Britain, and France.

Those governments have come under growing domestic pressure to scale back arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last month.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people -- mostly civilians -- have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began.

Human rights groups believe the real toll may be five times higher.

Save the Children said Wednesday that based on UN figures, between March 2015 and this October some 85,000 children under five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases.
The bombing of the religious gathering in Kabul was one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year

Minutes after he took a seat among hundreds of religious scholars at a ceremony for the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Kabul, a huge explosion shook the room, throwing Ahmad Fareed to the floor.

Scattered around him were the bloodied bodies of turbaned men who had taken the full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life.

"It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh," Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries.

"My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving."

At least 55 people were killed and 94 wounded when the bomber blew himself up in the middle of the banquet hall at the Uranus Wedding Palace on Tuesday evening -- one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan this year.

A video posted on social media purportedly filmed by one of the hundreds of attendees showed a large gathering of men listening to a recitation of the Koran before an explosion triggered pandemonium.

On Wednesday morning, as cleaners prepared the multi-storey venue for more events, bloodied turbans, sandals, overturned chairs and broken glass still littered the cavernous room where the massacre happened.

The suicide bomber blew himself up among hundreds of people attending a ceremony to mark Prophet Mohammad's birthday

The attack drew widespread condemnation in Afghanistan and abroad, with the United Nations describing it as an "atrocity".

US ambassador to Kabul John Bass said he was "sickened and deeply saddened" by the bombing, while the European Union delegation to Afghanistan said the explosion was "an attack on all of us, religious or not, who value freedom".

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack, which he described as an "unforgivable crime".

- Finger of blame -

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the Taliban were quick to condemn the blast. The Islamic State group, which has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul this year, has not issued a statement.

It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar

Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's equivalent of prime minister, pointed the finger of blame at the Taliban.

"Whether they deny it or they don't, they have created that sort of an environment, they are responsible for the violence," Abdullah told AFP in an interview in Paris.

Security at the wedding hall had included a body search by an armed guard followed by physical checks by several religious students, said Obaidullah, a survivor who suffered multiple injuries to his face and body.

It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar.

Afghanistan observed a national day of mourning for the victims on Wednesday

While Muslims around the world celebrate the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, some fundamentalists criticise the events as heretical innovations in Islam.

Most of the people at the gathering were Sufis, a mystical branch of Islam, said Mehrab Danish, an adviser to the religious affairs minister.

"But it is too early to say they were targeted because they were followers of Sufism," he cautioned.

Sectarian militants in Pakistan have long targeted Sufis, but such attacks on the group are rare in Afghanistan.
A United Arab Emirates court has sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on spying charges despite the efforts of his wife Daniela Tejada to prove his innocence

A United Arab Emirates court sentenced British student Matthew Hedges to life in jail on spying charges on Wednesday, prompting a "shocked" Britain to warn of repercussions for relations with its longstanding Gulf ally.

Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student, had protested his innocence ever since his arrest at Dubai airport on May 5 and British ministers had raised his case at the highest level.

"We can confirm that he was sentenced to life in prison," a family spokesperson told AFP.

"The hearing lasted less than five minutes, and his lawyer was not present."

UAE attorney general Hamad al-Shamsi said Wednesday that Hedges was handed a life sentence after "the defendant admitted before the court to the charges brought against him by the public prosecution", according to a statement carried by the official news agency WAM.

He added that the ruling "was not final" as Hedges has the right to appeal against the verdict before the Federal Supreme Court.

Hedges was researching the UAE's foreign and internal security policies after the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, studies that Britain insisted were entirely innocuous but which the UAE said threatened its political and economic security.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "deeply disappointed and concerned" at the verdict.

"We will continue to press this matter at the highest level with the Emiratis," she told parliament.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was "deeply shocked" by the UAE court's decision and warned of repercussions.

"Today's verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances," he said.

Britain has warned of "repercussions for the relationship" with its longstanding Gulf ally the United Arab Emirates after an Emirati court sentenced a British academic to life imprisonment despite its appeals for clemency

"The handling of this case... will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust.

"I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider," he added.

Hunt said he had personally raised the case at the highest levels of the UAE government, including during a visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12.

The case comes with relations already tested by the UAE's heavy involvement alongside Saudi Arabia in a military coalition battling Yemeni rebels since March 2015.

The deployment of Emirati ground troops, trainers and advisers alongside government forces advancing on the lifeline rebel-held port of Hodeida has prompted calls for Britain to halt or place conditions on its huge arms sales to the UAE.

- 'Nightmare even worse' -

Hedges's temporary release on bail on October 29 had raised a glimmer of hope in his case but he was constantly monitored until Wednesday's court hearing, only his third since his arrest.

Hedges's wife Daniela Tejada, who had campaigned vigorously for his release, said the court ruling showed that the UAE was not a genuine ally.

The role of UAE troops training, advising and fighting alongside Yemeni government forces in the country's devastating civil war has already placed Britain's longstanding defence ties under pressure

"The overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matt's case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price."

Tejada was in court for the sentencing and said her husband "was shaking when he heard the verdict".

"The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice. I am very scared for Matt. I don't know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse."

She had previously expressed concern for his safety, saying he was being held in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location with limited access to the British consulate and his family.

- 'Take a stand' -

Tejada was deeply critical of the British government over the failure of its discreet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy in the case.

"Matthew is innocent. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them. This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthew's case seriously," she said.

"The British government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens."

Durham University in northern England, where Hedges was studying for his PhD, said it was "devastated" to learn of his sentence.

Vice-Chancellor Stuart Corbridge said the judgement had been "delivered in the absence of anything resembling due process or a fair trial".

"There has been no information given on what basis Matt was handed this sentence and no reason to believe that Matt was conducting anything other than legitimate academic research," Corbridge said in a statement.

The UAE's attorney general said earlier this month that Hedges was accused of "spying for a foreign country, jeopardising the military, political and economic security of the state".
A picture taken on December 11, 2017 shows African migrants sitting in the Tariq Al-Matar migrant detention centre on the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli

Dozens of migrants have been forced off a cargo vessel by Libyan authorities after refusing to disembark over fears of abuses, in a move decried Wednesday by human rights groups.

The 79 asylum seekers and migrants were forcibly removed Tuesday from the Panama-flagged commercial ship Nivin after rejecting demands for 10 days to get off in the Libyan port of Misrata.

"The humanitarian community is saddened by the turn of events in Misrata," United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Libya Maria Ribeiro said in a statement.

"We regret the reports that some of the people onboard were injured during the forced disembarkation and transferred to the public hospital."

Ribeiro said humanitarian organisations had "strongly advocated for a peaceful solution" and it was "regrettable" that mediation efforts had failed to achieve this.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday condemned the use of force as "the worst possible conclusion to the desperate plea of the people on board the Nivin to avoid inhuman detention in Libya".

It said the Nivin had rescued the group from their sinking rubber dinghy in the waters off Libya under instructions from Italy's Maritime Rescue Coordination Committee on November 7 and then docked in Misrata.

The United Nations said that nationals from Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia were among those onboard.

"Libyan authorities should immediately allow United Nations and nongovernmental personnel to visit the people removed from the cargo ship, find alternatives to their detention, and investigate the possible use of unlawful force," HRW said.

Plunged into chaos following the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya has become a prime transit point for sub-Saharan African migrants making dangerous clandestine bids to reach Europe.

People smugglers have taken advantage of the turmoil, putting African migrants seeking to reach Europe at greater risk.

Many migrants, intercepted or rescued at sea, find themselves held in detention centres where they face dire conditions.

Amnesty International says migrants held in Libyan facilities "are routinely exposed to torture, rape, beatings, extortion and other abuse".

The UN warned last week that the situation in Libya's detention centres "continues to deteriorate" because of food shortages and the spread of diseases including tuberculosis.
Iraqi soldiers cross a highway carrying white surrender flags 25 February 1991 in Kuwait City

Unprecedented heavy rains which recently lashed Kuwait unearthed dozens of land mines planted by Iraqi troops during their 1990-91 occupation, disrupting the emirate's popular desert camping season, officials said Wednesday.

Authorities have closed 18 desert sites and have so far removed at least 48 mines after receiving complaints from the campers, they said.

The civil defence committee has urged campers to delay their plans until after the defence ministry has searched the areas, said Fahad al-Shutaily, deputy director of Kuwait's Jahra and Farwaniya governorates.

"Floods have uncovered and carried away scores of mines, bombs and ammunition left by the Iraqi army in desert areas. We are waiting for the defence ministry to hand over the areas after clearing them," Shutaily told AFP.

The ministry of defence is currently searching at least 18 sites which are normally used for camping.

Iraqi troops, under former president Saddam Hussein, invaded and occupied Kuwait on August 2, 1990 before they were evicted seven months later by a US-led international coalition.

But before that, Kuwaiti authorities say Iraqis planted some two million mines mostly in the desert.

Through multi-billion dollar contracts, Kuwait removed some 1.65 million mines, leaving behind 350,000 others.

Since early November the desert state of Kuwait has received about 300 mm of rain -- almost three times its annual average rainfall -- which has caused widespread damage to residential zones.

The flooding of desert areas has come at the start of the camping season, when hundreds of thousands of Kuwaitis set up modern camps for around four months.

After waiting to enjoy the beautiful and usually uninhabited desert areas, some campers are refusing to heed the warnings.

"A majority of my relatives and neighbours are camping," Yousef Abdullah told AFP.

"No one is backing down because of fear from mines... We impatiently wait for the camping season," he added.

Shutaily however said that over the past two days, authorities have removed 36 camps and warned 60 others.
Bahraini protesters clash with riot police south of the capital Manama following a demonstration against the arrest of Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Shiite opposition movement Al-Wefaq, on August 28, 2015

Bahrain detained and charged five people Wednesday for "obstructing the electoral process", the public prosecution said, ahead of parliamentary polls set for the end of the week.

The Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shiite-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

Opposition movements have been outlawed and hundreds of dissidents have been imprisoned -- with many stripped of their nationality.

Muhanna al-Shayji, head of Bahrain's electoral crimes unit, said one of the suspects was detained after calling on Twitter for a boycott of the November 24 elections, according to a statement released by the prosecution.

A second man was arrested for posting "fake news on the behaviour of one of the candidates" on social media, and the other three were detained for destroying advertisements of candidates, the statement said.

The country's two main opposition groups -- the Shiite Al-Wefaq and secular Waad -- have been prohibited from submitting candidates for parliament.

On November 13, Bahrain detained and charged a man for a tweet saying he would boycott the elections, with a rights group identifying him as Ali Rashed al-Asheeri -- a former member of parliament with Al-Wefaq.

Bahraini authorities accuses Shiite Iran of provoking unrest in the kingdom, an allegation Tehran denies.

Sheikh Ali Salman, who headed the Al-Wefaq group, was sentenced to life in prison on November 4 for spying for rival Gulf state Qatar, in a ruling rights groups have called a travesty.

Human rights groups have frequently said cases against activists in Bahrain -- men and women, religious and secular -- fail to meet the basic standards of fair trials.
Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris' Quai Branly museum

African museum directors on Wednesday welcomed an expert report calling on France to allow the return of thousands of African treasures and artworks, a radical policy shift that could put pressure on other former colonial powers.

Calls have been growing in Africa for restitution, but French law strictly forbids the government from ceding state property, even in well-documented cases of pillaging.

French President Emmanuel Macron raised hopes in a speech last year in Burkina Faso, saying "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums."

He later asked French art historian Benedicte Savoy and Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr to study the matter, and they are to present Macron with their report on Friday.

According to a copy seen by AFP, they recommend amending French law to allow the restitution of cultural works if bilateral accords are struck between France and African states.

Macron, during a visit to Burkina Faso last year, said "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums"

The change would apply in particular to works held in museums which were "transferred from their original territory during the French colonial period," the report said.

"We propose changing heritage laws so that all types of cases can be taken into account, and the criteria of consent can be invoked," Sarr told French daily Liberation in an article posted late Tuesday.

The report was welcomed by advocates of the restitution of works which were bought, bartered or in some cases simply stolen.

"Today it feels as if we're just a step away from recovering our history and being finally able to share it on the continent," Marie-Cecile Zinsou, a daughter of Benin's former prime minister and president of the Zinsou Art Foundation in Cotonou, told AFP.

Her sentiments were echoed by Hamady Bocoum, director of the Museum of Black Civilization in Senegal's capital Dakar.

Noting that the works under discussion were taken "in the context of colonisation and subordination," he said: "It's a good decision that reflects the march of history."

- Art dealers worried -

While the ownership controversy is nothing new, the issue was thrust into the spotlight in 2016 when President Patrice Talon of Benin asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey.

France refused, citing its law that museums are forbidden from permanently parting with any piece in their collections.

Benin's President Patrice Talon asked France to return items including carvings, sceptres and sacred doors from the Palaces of Abomey, formerly the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey

Of the estimated 90,000 African artworks in French museums, around 70,000 are at Paris' Quai Branly museum, created by ex-president Jacques Chirac, a keen admirer of African and Asian art.

In order to proceed with any restitutions, "a request would have to be lodged by an African country, based on inventory lists which we will have sent them," according to the report.

The prospect has raised hackles among some curators and art dealers who say it would eventually empty museums and galleries in some Western countries.

They point to the fact that many objects came from kingdoms which no longer exist, and that in many cases the owners can claim they were obtained legitimately.

Critics also say the move could prompt private French collectors to move their works out of France for fear of seizure.

"No dealer in African art was consulted" by the report's authors, said Yves-Bernard Debie, a Belgian lawyer who is one of the most vocal opponents of returning works taken by soldiers, explorers and others during the colonial era.

European conservationists meanwhile have raised practical concerns, such as the danger of artefacts being stolen or poorly handled by inexperienced museums in politically unstable countries.

Calls have been growing in Africa for the restitution of its cultural treasures

But the report's authors said art market professionals were indeed among those who contributed to the report, along with collectors, lawmakers, legal specialists and even "sceptics".

- Dispersed heritage -

Britain too has faced calls to return artefacts, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece and the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.

On Tuesday, the governor of Easter Island in the Pacific tearfully begged the British Museum to return one of its famous statues.

The London museum has held the Hoa Hakananai'a, one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island's stone monoliths, for 150 years.

Britain has faced calls to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece

Elsewhere in Europe, the French experts said 37,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa were at Vienna's Weltmuseum and 180,000 were at Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren.

The report said such collections were effectively depriving Africans of their artistic and cultural heritage.

"On a continent where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 20 years old, what is first and foremost of a great importance is for young people to have access to their own culture, creativity, and spirituality from other eras," it said.
CAIRO (AP) - An international rights group said Tuesday that Egypt has committed "shocking violations" against children, including torture and enforced disappearances.

Amnesty International said it has documented at least six children, including a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old, who were tortured in custody, and 12 who were subjected to enforced disappearances since 2015. It did not give the ages of the other children.

Citing the children's families, Amnesty said the six were "severely beaten, given electric shocks on their genitalia and other parts of their body or suspended by their limbs." Some of the torture was aimed at forcing the children to confess to crimes they had not committed, it said in a joint report with the Egyptian Front for Human Rights.

Egypt has waged an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi led the military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. Thousands of people have been jailed, with many held without charge or trial. Rights groups say torture is widespread in Egyptian detention facilities, allegations denied by the government.

A spokesman for Egypt's Interior Ministry, which oversees police, did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Amnesty said the 14-year-old boy was detained in January 2016 and held incommunicado for 35 days. It said security forces tortured him in order to extract a confession that he was a member of a terrorist organization and had attacked a hotel, crimes it said he did not commit. He remains in detention and will be tried alongside adults, it said.

It also said at least three children were sentenced to death following "unfair mass trials." Two of these sentences were later overturned, while another is still pending appeal, Amnesty said.

"These findings reveal how Egyptian authorities have subjected children to horrific violations including torture, prolonged solitary confinement and enforced disappearance for periods of up to seven months, demonstrating an absolutely shameful disregard for children's rights, said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty International's North Africa campaigns director.

Bounaim urged Egypt to release "all children that are arbitrarily detained.... and quash any sentences issued to children in adult courts or after unfair trials."
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Macedonia's fugitive former prime minister said Tuesday he has been granted political asylum in Hungary, a week after he fled his country to avoid serving a two-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction.

Nikola Gruevski, prime minister from 2006 to 2016, is considered a close ally of right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, although the government has insisted that the asylum request is purely a legal matter, not a political one.

In a Facebook post, Gruevski said he was a victim of political persecution by Macedonia's current Social Democrat government.

"The courts and the prosecutor's office have been turned into an instrument of political blackmail and calculated (attacks) against political opponents," he wrote. "Today in Macedonia, there are conditions of government repression, discrimination, persecution, politically-motivated arrests and full control by the government."

Authorities in Hungary did not immediately confirm he was granted asylum. Earlier Tuesday, Macedonia made a formal request to Hungary to extradite the 48-year-old conservative politician.

The Justice Ministry said Tuesday that the request noted that Gruevski is facing trial in at least three other corruption cases, including charges that stem from a major wiretapping scandal. The extradition request, the ministry said, also noted the "serious nature of the crimes" in question.

FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2018 file photo, Nikola Gruevski, Macedonia's former prime minister, looks on in parliament in the capital, Skopje. Macedonia's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018, that it has summoned Hungary's ambassador to formally demand that the government in Budapest reject an asylum application by Gruevski, who is a fugitive after he fled from Macedonia to Hungary. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski, File)

Orban has been strongly criticized for the special treatment Hungary has granted Gruevski, including the help he received from Hungarian diplomats as he traveled by road through several Balkan countries after fleeing Macedonia.

Lawmaker Adam Mirkoczki, of the nationalist Jobbik party, convened a special session on Wednesday of Parliament's national security committee, claiming Hungary's immigration officials misled lawmakers about the Gruevski case. Other opposition parties said the Orban government was siding with a "criminal," and accused authorities of breaking Hungarian and international laws during the asylum procedure.

Timea Szabo, a lawmaker with the Dialogue party, said they would seek legal options to ensure that Gruevski does not stay in Hungary.

Macedonia has been wracked by political crisis for more than three years, marked by a bitter rivalry between Gruevski and current Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

Most recently, their two parties have been at odds over the country's provisional agreement to change its name to North Macedonia and end a long-standing dispute with neighbor Greece that would allow it to join NATO.

Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE party is vehemently opposed to the deal, describing it as a national humiliation.

Western leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, traveled to Macedonia to expressed support for Zaev and the agreement with Greece before a Sept. 30 referendum. Voters overwhelmingly backed the proposal but the process was marred by a low turnout.

___

Testorides reported from Skopje, Macedonia. Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Greece contributed

In this picture taken May 12, 2011, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, right, welcomes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, left, upon his arrival in Skopje, Macedonia. Macedonia's fugitive former prime minister Gruevski said Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018 he has been granted political asylum in Hungary, a week after he fled his country to avoid serving a two-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

In this picture taken April 6, 2017, the former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski looks through an open door during a session of the parliament in Skopje, Macedonia. Macedonia's fugitive former prime minister Gruevski said Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018 he has been granted political asylum in Hungary, a week after he fled his country to avoid serving a two-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

In this picture taken April 2, 2018, former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, left, arrives at the criminal court in Skopje, Macedonia. Macedonia's fugitive former prime minister Gruevski said Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018 he has been granted political asylum in Hungary, a week after he fled his country to avoid serving a two-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

In this picture taken Dec 5, 2013, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, left, talks to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, during their meeting in Skopje, Macedonia. Macedonia's fugitive former prime minister Gruevski said Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018 he has been granted political asylum in Hungary, a week after he fled his country to avoid serving a two-year jail sentence for a corruption conviction. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Several activists imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since May, including a number of women who campaigned for the right to drive, have been beaten and tortured during interrogation, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia has detained at least 10 women and seven men on vague national security allegations related to their human rights work. Those detained include Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef, who had campaigned for the right to drive before the decades-long ban was lifted in June.

Amnesty said that according to three testimonies it obtained, some of the activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly. In one instance, an activist was hung from the ceiling. Another testimony said one of the detained women was subjected to sexual harassment by interrogators wearing face masks.

The kingdom is at the center of an international firestorm after the brutal killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had written critically about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's crackdown on dissent, including the arrests of the women activists. Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

"Only a few weeks after the ruthless killing of Jamal Khashoggi, these shocking reports of torture, sexual harassment and other forms of ill-treatment, if verified, expose further outrageous human rights violations by the Saudi authorities," said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty's Middle East research director.

Some of the imprisoned activists were unable to walk or stand properly, had uncontrolled shaking of the hands and marks on their bodies. One of the activists reportedly attempted to take her own life repeatedly inside the prison, Amnesty said.

FILE - In this Oct. 25, 2018, file photo, candles, lit by activists, protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, are placed outside Saudi Arabia's consulate, in Istanbul, during a candlelight vigil. President Donald Trump is facing mounting pressure to sternly rebuke Saudi Arabia over the death of Khashoggi. So far, Trump is resisting calls to harshly reprimand the close U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

Al-Hathloul, an activist in her late 20s, was held in solitary confinement for around three months after her May arrest, a person close to her told The Associated Press.

She was forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia earlier this year from the United Arab Emirates, where she was pursuing a master's degree in Abu Dhabi. Her husband was pressured into divorcing her after he too was forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia from Jordan, where he was working, according to the individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

Some of the men detained in that sweep include Mohammad al-Rabae, a writer and activist, and Ibrahim al-Modeimigh, a human rights lawyer who defended al-Hathloul in court when she was arrested in 2014 and held for more than 70 days for attempting to drive from the UAE to Saudi Arabia.

Also imprisoned is Samar Badawi, whose brother Raif Badawi is serving 10 years in prison and was publicly flogged in 2015 on charges related to blog posts that were critical of the kingdom's ultraconservative clerics. Others detained include Nassima al-Sada, a rights activist from the Eastern Province, and Hatoon al-Fassi, an esteemed professor of Gulf history who was recently announced as the recipient of the Academic Freedom Award by the Arizona-based Middle East Studies Association.

Nearly all the women detained are mothers or grandmothers and well-known in their fields of work. A few of those initially detained were in their 70s and have since been released.

Some of the women detained were at the forefront of calls to lift guardianship laws that give male relatives final say on whether a woman can marry, obtain a passport or travel.

Dana Ahmed, a researcher at Amnesty, told the AP that Saudi authorities have yet to charge any of them. She said the crackdown that began in May targeted human rights defenders, including many who had been silent for years and had previously been persecuted for their human rights work.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - A Wyoming man charged with killing his girlfriend in Idaho in July 2016 argues the death of her unborn baby does not qualify as a second murder that makes him eligible for the death penalty.

Attorneys for 41-year-old Erik Ohlson of Jackson say it's "legal insanity" for Idaho law to protect a first trimester fetus under the homicide law but not under the abortion law.

Ohlson is charged with killing 39-year-old Jennifer Nalley and her unborn baby. His trial is set for July 2019 in Bingham County, Idaho.

"A woman and her doctors can kill an embryo or fetus in the first trimester without repercussions from the law," Ohlson's attorneys Jim Archibald and John Thomas wrote in their Nov. 9 motion to dismiss the murder charge related to the fetus. "To say a potential mother has protection from being prosecuted but a potential father does not have protections violates equal protection under law."

They argue the 12-week-old fetus wasn't old enough to have a right to life.

"Erik Ohlson was put on notice that a fetus in its first trimester could be killed," they wrote. "He knew this personally as two different women he had relationships with had aborted, or killed, their first trimester fetuses."

The attorneys also argued the fetus didn't die because it was shot, but because Nalley was shot. There was no autopsy or death certificate for the fetus, meaning Ohlson can't be charged with a second count of murder.

Prosecutors plan to use text messages apparently sent by Ohlson as evidence for premeditation in Nalley's death.

"She seems to be interested in having this baby without me except for when it comes to money," investigators said Ohlson texted to a friend just before the shooting. "I want to strangle her and witness her last mortal moment."

A motions hearing is set for Dec. 7, the Jackson Hole News & Guide reported .

___

Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com
By Trend





The ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) plays the role of an indicator of Azerbaijan's political atmosphere, Deputy Chairman and Executive Secretary of the NAP, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov said at an event marking the 26th anniversary of the NAP on Nov. 21.

Ahmadov noted that the creation of the NAP is one of the important events in Azerbaijan's modern history, and the party is satisfied with its activity over the past period.

"Over these years, Azerbaijan has significantly strengthened its position in the region. Today, Azerbaijan is one of the countries whose name is pronounced with respect," Ahmadov said.

He noted that the NAP unites 725,000 Azerbaijani citizens as its members.

Ahmadov stressed that this unity is due to the belief in national leader Heydar Aliyev's ideas.

He also stressed that Azerbaijan's future is as bright as the greatness of its historical past.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - One of three inmates on trial for a deadly Delaware prison riot was found guilty of murder Tuesday, the first verdicts in a case that will involve 17 inmates over the next several months.

A New Castle County jury found Dwayne Staats, 37, guilty of felony first-degree murder, first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, two counts of assault, four counts of kidnapping and second-degree conspiracy.

The jury found Jarreau Ayers, also 37, not guilty of murder but convicted him on the same additional charges that Staats faced.

Deric Forney, 29, was found not guilty on all charges.

Perry Phelps, commissioner of the state Department of Correction, called Tuesday's verdicts "a long-awaited step toward healing and closure. We extend our most sincere gratitude to the members of the jury who put their lives and families on hold to thoughtfully listen to and evaluate the evidence presented to them."

Ben Gifford, the attorney representing Forney, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking reaction to the verdict. Staats and Ayers represented themselves in the trial.

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Delaware Department of Correction shows Sgt. Steven Floyd. Floyd died in a February 2017 inmate riot and hostage standoff at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Del. One of three inmates on trial for a deadly Delaware prison riot was found guilty of murder Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, the first verdicts in a case that will involve 17 inmates over the next several months. Sgt. Steven Floyd was killed during the 20-hour uprising. Two other officers were beaten and tormented by inmates before being released. (Delaware Department of Correction via AP, File)

All three defendants were charged with first-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, riot and conspiracy after the February 2017 riot at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center, the state's maximum-security prison. Staats and Ayers are both convicted killers serving life sentences.

Sgt. Steven Floyd was killed during the 20-hour uprising. Two other officers were beaten and tormented by inmates before being released. Response teams eventually used a backhoe to breach a wall and rescue a female counselor. She was not injured.

Prosecutors argued that the three defendants should be convicted of murder under Delaware's "accomplice liability" law, even if none of them inflicted the cuts or blows that killed Floyd. Under accomplice liability, if two or more people join to commit a crime, such as riot, and it is reasonably foreseeable that it could lead to a second crime, such as murder, all can be held responsible for the second crime, even if it was unintended.

"There was a riot. Sergeant Floyd ended up dead," prosecutor John Downs told jurors. "The 16 defendants who were charged with murder did not all murder Sergeant Floyd ... but the people working together to commit the assaults, to commit the riot, are responsible for the actions of others."

The defense countered that prosecutors had no DNA or fingerprint evidence, and that their case was built entirely on conflicting statements from other inmates possibly trying to curry favor in hopes of improving their chances to win appeals or to be treated better in prison.

The inmates' testimony for the prosecution was often at odds with statements they made to investigators after the riot, or conflicted with testimony from other inmates.

Inmates had staged peaceful protests over their treatment and conditions at the prison in the months before the riot.

Ayers acknowledged talking to convicted murderer Royal Downs, a key prosecution witness who pleaded guilty to riot, about staging another protest. Ayers suggested two options for getting prison administrators' attention: refusing to come in from the recreation yard or staying on the prison tier and refusing to lock into their cells.

"I knew something was going to happen. I never lied to y'all about that," Ayers told jurors. "I didn't know the extent of anything. ... Me knowing that something was going on is different from me planning."

A review ordered by Democratic Gov. John Carney found that Department of Correction officials' dismissal of warnings about trouble brewing reflected an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity and adversarial relationships among prison staff, administrators and inmates.

Since the riot, state officials have devoted millions of dollars to security upgrades, staff training, improved programming for inmates and salary increases for correctional officers. Earlier this month, officials announced that hundreds of inmates would be transferred to Pennsylvania in an effort to reduce mandatory overtime in the severely understaffed guard ranks at Vaughn.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The U.S. won, Russia lost and Interpol narrowly escaped disaster - that's the upshot of an unusually high-drama vote for the international police agency's president, dominated by fears that Russia wants to turn Interpol into a tool to hunt down its enemies.

While rights groups and Kremlin critics celebrated the surprise victory of South Korean candidate Kim Jong Yang over his Russian rival, the vote exposed flaws within Interpol that won't vanish overnight. Now the pressure is on Kim and Interpol's day-to-day boss, Secretary-General Juergen Stock, to fix them.

The White House came out publicly against the candidacy of Kim's Russian rival, Alexander Prokopchuk. After the election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Kim "the right man to lead one of the world's most critical law enforcement bodies in its mission to preserve the rule of law and make the world a safer place."

For Interpol, the vote staved off possible collapse, after rumblings from some member countries about quitting the agency.

The vote shows that members "thought really hard about whether they want to back away from this institution or make sure it's run properly and operate fairly,"said Jago Russell, chief of Fair Trials International, which has championed and monitored Interpol's reform efforts.

Authoritarian governments have long sought to leverage Interpol's reach - and notably its system of "red notices" that flag suspects for arrest wherever they go - for political ends. While it has tried to clean up this system, it remains vulnerable to pressure from powerful member states: Its last president vanished in China in a possible political purge, while Interpol quietly looked on.

In this photo provided by South Korea National Police Agency, South Korea's Kim Jong Yang speaks during the 87th Interpol General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Kim was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by other nations. (South Korea National Police Agency/pool via AP)

Stock, the secretary general, acknowledged that "systems can be improved" but stressed that Interpol's information-sharing systems have led to the arrest of 10,000 serious criminals so far this year. "It is fundamental to Interpol's existence that we are neutral and that we are independent," he insisted.

That was a central argument for the U.S. and governments in Europe and elsewhere who lobbied against Russian security service veteran Prokopchuk. The Western powers warned that a Russian victory would have led to further abuses of Interpol by the Kremlin, seeking to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Russia accused its critics of overly politicizing the vote and campaigning to discredit Prokopchuk, calling him a respected professional. Russian officials were subdued in their response to the vote, and it got only modest attention in the state-dominated media.

South Korea's government called Kim's election a "national triumph" that could elevate the country's international standing. Kim secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai, though the agency does not release how member states voted.

The new president is unlikely to make immediate change, though. Kim had already been the acting president, and Interpol's president has more of an oversight role than a hands-on position. Meanwhile, Prokopchuk will remain an Interpol vice president.

But watchdog groups say there's no time to lose.

"Interpol has for too long traded on its James Bond image, the global good guys fighting crime," said Russell of Fair Trials International. "That reputation needs to be underpinned with meaningful rules to prevent abuse. ... I hope that this vote further focuses the mind on the need to do that."

Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for its "red notices" that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on a global "most-wanted" list.

Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists. Interpol's rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons, and the agency has toughened rules to enforce that.

However, countries can issue requests - known as "diffusions" - that flag a person wanted for arrest, before Interpol reviews the notice, leading to what critics say is a major loophole in the system.

"We accept the fact that systems can be improved and recognize that a very small number of noncompliant red notices can seriously affect the lives of innocent citizens," Stock said.

Bill Browder, who runs an investment fund that had once operated in Moscow, says Russia used the diffusion system against him, which led to his brief arrest in Spain earlier this year.

Lawyers who have championed Interpol reform also welcomed the vote, as did Amnesty International's Denis Krivosheev, who said, "If Russian law enforcement agencies engage in abusive practices, then the country pays with its reputation, and this is a stark reminder of it. To Russia it matters a lot, and this is obviously quite embarrassing."

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Charlton reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Danica Kirka in London contributed.

In this photo provided by South Korea National Police Agency, South Korea's Kim Jong Yang speaks during the 87th Interpol General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Kim was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations. (South Korea National Police Agency via AP)

FILE - In this Nov.8, 2018 file photo, people walk on the Interpol logo of the international police agency in Lyon, central France. South Korea's Kim Jong Yang was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday Nov.21, 2018, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)

In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2028, Interpol elected Kim Jong Yang as its president in a blow to Russian efforts at naming one of their own. (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis via AP)

Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol speaks at a press conference on the last day of the 87th International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Tensions were high around Wednesday's vote which elected South Korea's Kim Jong Yang as chief of the international law enforcement agency. Kim defeated Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk in Wednesday's vote. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The Latest on the election of Interpol's next president (all times local):

5 p.m.

Interpol's Secretary General Jurgen Stock says the nationality of the policing organization's president does not affect its neutrality.

Stock spoke on Wednesday after member states voted to elect South Korea's delegate, Kim Jong Yang, as Interpol's new president.

The selection edged out Russia's attempt to put forth one of its own for the presidency. Interpol has faced intense criticism that countries like Russia have abused Interpol's system to go after fugitive dissidents.

Stock told reporters after the conclusion of Interpol's general assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that "it is fundamental to Interpol's existence that we are neutral and that we are independent."

Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol speaks at a press conference on the last day of the 87th International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Tensions were high around Wednesday's vote which elected South Korea's Kim Jong Yang as chief of the international law enforcement agency. Kim defeated Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk in Wednesday's vote. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

Addressing what he said was misinformation circulating in recent days, Stock said Interpol accepts "the fact that systems can be improved" but added this year alone the red notice and diffusion system helped lead to the arrest of 10,000 serious criminals.

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3:30 p.m.

Germany is congratulating the newly elected president of Interpol and warning against politicizing the global police cooperation agency.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr said Berlin is "convinced that Kim Jong Yang is a good choice" and pointed to a "clear election result" in his favor. Kim defeated Alexander Prokopchuk, a veteran of Russia's security services, in Wednesday's vote.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the priority for the new president should be ensuring "stability and continuity" in Interpol's work after his Chinese predecessor's abrupt departure.

Seehofer said in a statement that "all tendencies to politicize the organization and its work should be counteracted."

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3:10 p.m.

The Kremlin says it regrets that the Russian candidate for Interpol president has lost the vote but says it accepts the election results.

Tensions were high around Wednesday's vote which elected South Korea's Kim Jong Yang as chief of the international law enforcement agency.

The United States, some countries in the West and Kremlin critics were warning that the Russian candidate, Alexander Prokopchuk, might help the Russian government to use the organization to go after its opponents.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Wednesday that the Kremlin "regrets" that Prokopchuk has lost the vote but he said that Moscow "has not reason to dispute the results."

Peskov added that the Kremlin was sad to see that the election was held in what he described as "an environment of unprecedented pressure."

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2:15 p.m.

Kremlin critic Bill Browder says common sense has prevailed with Interpol's decision to bypass a longtime veteran of Russia's security services and choose a South Korean as its new president.

Browder spoke out against Alexander Prokopchuk's candidacy, saying it would intensify President Vladimir Putin's efforts to use Interpol to hunt down critics, undermining the international law enforcement agency.

Russia denies accusations of foreign interference and announced new charges against Browder this week in a long-running legal battle against him. Browder says the charges were a "gift" to those trying to block a Russian presidency because it focused attention on the vote.

Browder told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "Common sense has prevailed in a dark world. This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it."

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2:05 p.m.

Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who warned about the Russian candidate for the Interpol presidency, is hailing the election of the South Korean nominee as a victory.

Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in a Russian prison on charges viewed as politically motivated, had warned that the Kremlin could use Interpol to go after its opponents if Alexander Prokopchuk was elected.

Khodorkovsky said in a tweet on Wednesday that the election results were a "common victory."

Khodorkovsky said that "common sense has prevailed. The Kremlin was trying to get their man in - the one that has been helping the authorities for many years to persecute their opponents."

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1: 20 p.m.

South Korea's president says he's "very proud" of the fact that fellow national Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpol's next president.

President Moon Jae-in tweeted from Seoul on Wednesday that Kim is the first South Korean chosen to that top Interpol post.

Moon said he's sending a congratulatory message to Kim along with all South Koreans.

South Korea's police and foreign ministry issued a joint statement saying Kim is an international specialist with "great leadership" and "a vast human network."

The statement quoted Kim as saying that his election is a "national triumph" that he expects to elevate South Korea's international standing and role.

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12:35 p.m.

The spokeswoman for the Russian interior ministry says that the Russian candidate for Interpol president who lost the election will continue to work as the international law enforcement body's vice president.

Russian police official Alexander Prokopchuk, who was opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations, lost the vote Wednesday to Kim Jong Yang from South Korea.

Irina Volk told the Interfax news agency that Prokopchuk will retain his position and continue to "focus on advancing the stature of Interpol in the international police community and making its work more effective."

Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

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11:45 am

The Ukrainian interior minister is calling the election of a South Korean candidate to lead Interpol a victory for his country.

Ukraine, along with Western nations and Russian opposition figures, staunchly opposed a Russian police official who was also in the running for president of the international law enforcement body. Kremlin critics raised the alarm about the Russian candidate, Alexander Prokopchuk, fearing that he could encourage abuse of Interpol's warrant system.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov tweeted Wednesday from the conference room where the vote was held, saying "The Russian candidate has been rejected. This battle is won!"

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11:27 a.m.

South Korea's Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpol's next president, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations.

The White House and its European partners had lobbied against Alexander Prokopchuk's attempts to be named the next president of the policing organization, saying his election would lead to further Russian abuses of Interpol's red notice system to go after political opponents.

Prokopchuk is a general in the Russian Interior Ministry and serves as an Interpol vice president.

Kim's win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China.

In this photo provided by South Korea National Police Agency, South Korea's Kim Jong Yang speaks during the 87th Interpol General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Kim was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations. (South Korea National Police Agency via AP)

Jurgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol speaks at a press conference on the last day of the 87th International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) General Assembly in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. Tensions were high around Wednesday's vote which elected South Korea's Kim Jong Yang as chief of the international law enforcement agency. Kim defeated Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk in Wednesday's vote. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2028, Interpol elected Kim Jong Yang as its president in a blow to Russian efforts at naming one of their own. (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis via AP)
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - The only memento Moses Z. Kaine has from his father is a T-shirt, left more than two decades ago when the peacekeeper's tour of duty finished and he returned home, leaving his pregnant girlfriend behind.

"I was still in my mother's womb when my father ended his duties and left Liberia," the 21-year-old told The Associated Press. "My mother says my father wore this T-shirt when he came around to visit her. She still can remember those moments well."

The story is as old as war itself: Children left behind by the soldiers who fathered them.

Kaine is among more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. A smaller number of children were fathered by members of a separate U.N. mission that emerged as Liberia struggled to emerge from a vicious civil war.

Many of the Liberian children, now grown, have never met their fathers. Others were abandoned by their mothers and grew up as orphans. As they enter adulthood two decades after the peacekeepers' departure, they are the focus of new attention in a world coming to terms with sexual exploitation and abuse by soldiers sent to protect vulnerable communities.

Unlike many of the Liberian children left behind, Kaine says his father looked out for him, asking if he could bring the boy and his mother home to where he lived.

In this photo taken Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018, Moses Z . Kaine, 21 year old , displays a T-Shirt, his father a West Africa peacekeeper, wore to visit his mother, when she was pregnant with him, at a center set up to register and support children left behind by peacekeepers in Liberia, Monrovia. The only memento Moses Z. Kaine has from his father is the T-shirt, left more than two decades ago when the peacekeeper's tour of duty finished and he returned home to leave his pregnant girlfriend behind. (AP Photo/Jonathan Paye -Layleh)

"Family pressure and fears made my mother remain," he said pensively.

Even the few details Kaine has about his father are inconclusive: The T-shirt worn by his father, Lt. Cpl. Taiwo-Oyetunji, still clearly bears the seal of the West African regional body ECOWAS, under whose umbrella the ECOMOG peacekeepers arrived. It's a shirt from Niger, though his father's ID says he is of the Yoruba tribe, from Nigeria. Kaine became emotional upon seeing an identity card with him pictured in his uniformed father's arms.

The young man recently made his way to a support center in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, that was set up to help the thousands of children left behind by peacekeepers.

The United Nations-ECOMOG Children Organization, or UNECO, encouraged soldiers to register themselves and their children. They say they registered more than 6,000 children and eventually set up an orphanage on Monrovia's outskirts.

Many of the West African soldiers cooperated, while others had to be found to register, said Ciah Cole, who set up the center with her husband, the Rev. Abraham Cole. Still, it was not possible to register all of them and much of the material was lost over the years, severing any chance for the children to track their fathers down.

Liberia was in turmoil for 14 years amid back-to-back civil wars that left an estimated 250,000 people dead and forced more than half a million to flee to neighboring countries. The first civil war, which began in 1989 and became one of Africa's bloodiest conflicts, led to a regional peacekeeping force that at one point reached 15,000 troops. A U.N peacekeeping mission later emerged, only to leave Liberia earlier this year.

While many women were raped during the fighting, the thousands of peacekeepers' children were largely the product of relationships Liberian women sought out as a shelter from hunger and hardship. At the time, peacekeepers had some of the best access to food in Monrovia.

"People were starving. There was nowhere to turn and women had to look for different ways to survive," Cole said.

The relationships went against the code of ethics for both ECOWAS and the U.N., which forbid sexual contact with people under the peacekeepers' protection because the potential for exploitation and abuse was high. In the early 2000s, the U.N. refugee agency reported that peacekeepers and humanitarian workers in Liberia had demanded sex in exchange for food, medicines, shelter and education.

Enforcing bans on such relationships remains a major challenge, according to an Associated Press investigation last year that uncovered roughly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers in various countries over a 12-year period.

In Liberia, the thousands of children who resulted from those relationships have now been largely absorbed by society. Nearly 40 of them still live at the UNECO center, which is painted in the peacekeepers' camouflage colors. Over the years, the center has helped to raise many of the children with little financial support.

"When there is no father, no mother, you are handicapped," said 24-year-old Nana Addo, who was placed in the center by his mother in 1995. He has lost hope of ever seeing his Ghanaian father "but if he's still alive and I see him, I will be happy."

The problem is larger than reported, but resources are scarce, said Cole.

"Many of the mothers are hiding, refusing to identify themselves because they say it is shameful and disgraceful that those solders had children by them but could not return to see what's happening to the children they left behind."

She called on governments that contributed peacekeepers to Liberia to assist the children, and urged Liberia's government to set an example.

While a far smaller number of the children were fathered by members of the U.N. mission that arrived years later, the U.N. says it made outreach efforts so Liberian women could register any complaints of sexual exploitation and abuse and receive assistance.

Spokespeople at ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria declined to comment to The Associated Press, saying they did not have the information needed to respond.

Some former ECOWAS soldiers, however, remember relationships with Liberian women well.

Mamadou Dalaba, a former Guinean soldier, said many colleagues impregnated local women and left without telling them once the war was over.

Another who served in Guinea's first contingent of soldiers in 1990 said many men had children with Liberian girlfriends in Monrovia. The men looked after the children as long as they could before returning home, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

For the Liberians left behind, those broken bonds still hurt more than two decades later.

Kaine, the young man who clings to his father's T-shirt and ID card, says he was fortunate to grow up with his mother. He wants to become a mechanic but says he had to leave school this semester due to lack of support. "The country has become too tough," he said, shaking his head.

He, too, issued an appeal to all the peacekeepers who left Liberian children behind to come back and support them.

"In today's Liberia, depending on the government to help people like me is like relying on a broken stick to stand and walk," he said.

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Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Boubacar Diallo in Conakry, Guinea contributed.

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Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

In this photo taken Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018, Nana Addo, a son of a Ghanaian peacekeeping soldier, speaks to the Associated Press, at a center set up to register and support children left behind by peacekeepers in Liberia, Monrovia. There are more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. (AP Photo/Jonathan Paye -Layleh)

FILE - In this Monday Aug. 11, 2003, file photo, soldiers from the West African Peacekeeping Force react at the airport in Monrovia, Liberia. There are more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. (AP Photo/Schalk Van Zuydam, File)

In this photo taken Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018, a photo shows baby Moses Z . Kaine, being carried by his father, a West Africa peacekeeper, at a center set up to register and support children left behind by peacekeepers in Liberia, Monrovia. There are more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. (AP Photo/Jonathan Paye -Layleh)

FILE - In this Aug. 21, 2003 file photo, a West African peacekeeper armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle scouts the area close to the Po river in rebel territory near Monrovia, Liberia. There are more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)

FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003 file photo, soldiers from West Africa peacekeepers force from the Benin republic receive instructions from their commander as they prepare for deployment, in Harbel, Liberia. There are more than 6,000 children fathered by soldiers in a West African peacekeeping mission that came to Liberia in 1990 and left eight years later, according to a center set up to register and support them. (AP Photo/Pewee Flomoku, File)
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - A former Macedonian intelligence chief has been taken into custody for a minimum of 30 days after judicial authorities considered him a flight risk to potentially avoid standing trial over a major wiretapping scandal.

The remand order, announced Wednesday, was issued for Saso Mijalkov who headed state security agency UBK for nearly a decade, until May 2015. Mijalkov is a cousin of former conservative prime minister Nikola Gruevski who fled to Hungary last week to avoid serving a two-year prison sentence for corruption. Gruevski said Tuesday he had been granted political asylum by Hungary.

Mijalkov, along with a former interior minister and other intelligence service officials, have been charged with ordering the illegal wiretapping of more than 20,000 people, including opposition politicians and journalists.
COLTS NECK, N.J. (AP) - In some versions of a story Nov. 21 about the death of a family of four, The Associated Press misspelled the last name of a man charged with setting fire to his own home. He is Paul Caneiro, not Caniero.

A corrected version of the story is below:

4 in New Jersey mansion fire killed by 'homicidal violence'

Authorities: Four people found dead after mansion fire were killed before blaze

By WAYNE PARRY

Associated Press

COLTS NECK, N.J. (AP) - A family of four whose remains were found at the burned-down ruins of their New Jersey mansion was slain before the home was set ablaze, authorities said Wednesday, hours after the mansion owner's brother was arrested on suspicion of arson at his own house.

Prosecutors sought to reassure the public that a random killer was not on the loose in the affluent community of Colts Neck, which is also home to some celebrities.

"We believe that this family in some form or fashion was targeted," Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said.

Paul Caneiro, 51, was charged with setting fire to his home Tuesday in Ocean Township. Less than eight hours later, the fire that destroyed his brother's home was reported about 80 miles (129 kilometers) away in Colts Neck, authorities said.

Gramiccioni said he could neither confirm nor deny that Paul Caneiro was a suspect in the slayings.

At the mansion, Keith Caneiro, 50, was found shot to death on the lawn. Inside, authorities found the remains of his 45-year-old wife, Jennifer Caneiro, and their children, 11-year-old son Jesse and 8-year-old daughter Sophia.

The bodies of the mother and children were badly burned. Medical examiners had not determined causes of death for them as of Wednesday afternoon.

It was not immediately known if Paul Caneiro had retained an attorney. He was charged with aggravated arson and was scheduled to make a first appearance in court next Wednesday.

Paul Caneiro was accused of using gasoline to set his home on fire while his wife and two daughters were inside. No one was hurt in that blaze, which was reported at 5 a.m. Tuesday, about 7  hours before the Colts Neck fire was reported.

Keith and Paul Caneiro were partners at a technology firm in Asbury Park called Square One.

All four members of Keith Caneiro's family were "victims of homicidal violence," the prosecutor said, adding that there was no indication of suicide.

The community held a vigil for the family Wednesday night. Colts Neck Mayor J.P. Bartolomeo said the Caneiros were well known in town and often seen at local shops or school sporting events.

Colts Neck, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of New York City, is home to a number of celebrities, including Bruce Springsteen. Former "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and his wife operate an animal sanctuary there. Queen Latifah sold her mansion there in 2015. Current and former members of the band Bon Jovi have also called it home.

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Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Kosovo's government says it will put a 100-percent import tax on all goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia as diplomatic tensions rise.

Wednesday's decision appears to be retaliation against what Deputy Prime Minister Enver Hoxhaj said was Serbia's "aggressive campaign against Kosovo on the international stage." A day earlier, Kosovo failed to join Interpol because of what it claimed was campaigning by Serbia.

"That was a very aggressive stand from Serbia," Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj told a news conference.

The tariffs come into force immediately. They don't apply to international brands produced in the two neighboring countries.

Haradinaj said that Serbia and Bosnia had never respected the Central European Free Trade Agreement, or CEFTA, rules in trade relations with Kosovo, causing significant financial losses.

Earlier this month, Kosovo introduced a 10-percent tax on goods from Serbia and Bosnia, neither of which have recognized Kosovo's 2008 independence.

In this photo provided by the Kosovo government public affairs office, showing Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, center back, with his cabinet voting during the government meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018, in Kosovo capital Pristina. Kosovo's government has decided to introduce a 100 percent import tax on all goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina. (Kosovo Government via AP)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called a meeting of the national security council, Serbia's top security body, to address the issue. He said after the meeting that Kosovo's move amounted to a de-facto trade ban, but that Serbia won't retaliate.

"The consequences could be catastrophic and destructive for relations in the entire region," said Vucic, urging international pressure on Kosovo to revoke the decision. "This has to stop, there is no other option."

Despite simmering tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, business ties have grown and Serb imports to Kosovo amount to about 400 million euros ($460 million) a year, while Kosovo's exports to Serbia are much lower.

Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said Kosovo's move was as a result of its failure to get an Interpol seat.

Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak likewise called the tariff "payback" for the Interpol decision.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Kosovo to revoke the decision, saying it "is a clear violation of the Central European Free Trade Agreement and of the spirit of the Stabilization and Association Agreement between the European Union and Kosovo."

Zahir Tanin, head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo, also expressed his "concern regarding the potential impact on the people of Kosovo as well as the political implications on the dialogue and normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina."

Kosovo and Serbia have been in European Union-mediated negotiations for seven years. The EU has told the two sides they must normalize relations as a precondition to entering the bloc. Vucic has said that Serbia won't take part in talks until Kosovo lifts its recently introduced taxes.

"It is 20 years since the war, 10 years from independence, and Serbia has not shown the good will to normalize ties," Haradinaj said.

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Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia, and Amer Cohadzic from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In this Sept. 7, 2018 file photo, a truck passes by a billboard that reads: '"Welcome, President" and shows Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, near village of Lesak in northern Kosovo. Kosovo's government has decided to introduce a 100 percent import tax on all goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic, File)

In this photo provided by the Kosovo government public affairs office Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, back 3rd from right, flanked by his cabinet during the government meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018, in Kosovo capital Pristina. Kosovo's government has decided to introduce a 100 percent import tax on all goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina. (Kosovo Government via AP)
In Kathmandu, my cabbie raises the volume of his car stereo. The song playing on the music system is an old Bollywood number from the 1990s. He hums along, clearly enjoying himself  oblivious to my presence. My trip to Nepal's capital city had just begun  I am here to present my work at an academic conference on South Asia and understand the perspective of the Nepali scholars on economic development in the region. It will be at least a week before I take a flight back home to Delhi.

I am coloured by my own prejudices to how people in Nepal perceive Indians, thanks to the negative coverage in the media of relations between the two countries. Nepal and India have traditionally shared a roti-beti relationship, but lately, the relations have nose-dived for multiple reasons.

A serious blow to the relations came during the blockade imposed by Madhesis in 2015 on India-Nepal border. These protests led to supply shortages in the country as Nepal is a landlocked country is dependent on India. Madhesis were seen as having an Indian backing while the cause of the protests was actually their marginalisation in the new constitution.

The rise of China and its increasing influence in South Asia has also come as an irritant in India-Nepal ties. In fact, the political leaders in Nepal have often issued statements pitting the two large neighbours against each other.

Hence, I am on my guard, and attentive to signs of anything Chinese as the media coverage has kept me informed about how Nepal is slowly slipping into a Chinese stronghold. A week is all it will take to wash away my prejudices.

The visit helps me notice how the people in Nepal are open and warm while meaning malice to none. There are bitter memories from the past, there are many complaints and there are also frivolous rebukes showered on India. But located miles away from the Indo-Nepal border, Indian appeal is still going strong in Kathmandu.

Nepal's Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi. (File Photo: Reuters)

The crucial tourism sector of the Nepalese economy accounting for 7.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a case in point. Newspapers were full of headlines in April when Chinese tourists overtook those from India for the first quarter of 2018. However, the situation on the ground is very different. Indians continue to visit Nepal in large numbers, with 2017 marked by 1,60,832 Indians tourists as against just 1,04,664 tourists from China.

While Indian tourists continue to visit Nepal all the year round for pilgrimage and business-related trips, Chinese have helped the tourism industry monetize the dead winter season with inflows during the Chinese New Year. A key difference that continues to mark the two sets of tourists is their ability to strike a chord with the local population. China bahut aaya, medam. Unka bhasha, unka phood  kuch humko nahi samajhta (Chinese tourists have come in great numbers, madam.

But we dont understand their language and food habits), explains a local restaurant owner in the touristy area of Thamel. Chinese are very guarded in their behaviour. They keep to themselves. Hardly interacting with the local population at all. They mean business. So, it is a very mechanical relationship that they share, shares a local tour operator.

The television connected to the local sky network transmits signals from Chinese TV channels including those broadcasting from Tibet. It broadcasts Indian and Pakistani channels as well such as Set Max, Star Plus and ARY. But there are not many takers for TV channels in the Chinese languages.

People glued to their TV sets in Kathmandu are either watching Hindi soap-operas on Star Plus or listening to Nepali numbers on J Music. The language is a strong barrier that continues to hamper Chinas soft appeal in South Asia. While the broadcast may serve the growing number of Chinese in these countries, the locals are clearly not watching.

Great wall of Chinese language: The Chinese television channels do not seem to have takers among the Nepalis (Photo: Monica Verma).

As a part of my research, I had to visit the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu. Flags of the eight South Asian countries dot the beautiful entrance of the building. Inside, a cooperative staff member helps me navigate through documents in their archive section.

Happy with the progress of my work, I leave for the day to check out other buildings in the vicinity. On one side, there is still hope in the South Asian dream, and on the other are examples of expanding business interests of the Chinese.

I spoke to businessmen in Nepal, especially in the construction sector. They are amazed by the speed at which Chinese operate. It takes them a single month to construct an eight-storey building, madam! remarks Ramkumar Puri, a real estate agent in Kathmandu.

They are also worried by the abnormal pace at which land  an important resource  is falling in the hands of the Chinese. China has money and our leaders need that. This is the setting between them, Puri tells me.

However, Sagar Ghimire  a journalist working with the Nepali newspaper Republica  clarifies that foreigners are prohibited by law from owning land in Nepal. "Chinese just undertake the construction as builders by bidding for contracts," he explains.

China is also trying to improve connectivity with Nepal by constructing Trans-Himalayan railway and roads. Recently, China granted transit rights to use its ports for third country trade to Nepal. This made headlines in India as well. Currently, Nepal being a landlocked country has access only to Indian ports like Kolkata and Vishakhapatnam.

However, a Madhesi cobbler sitting right outside the SAARC secretariat building refutes that Chinas gesture would be of any consequence. Hum toh khud kandhe par dho kar bojh la sakte hain India se, par China se bojha kaise dho ke laoge? Pahad aa jata hai beech mein, madam (We can carry goods from India on our shoulders. But how can we bring goods from China? There is a mountain-barrier in between), he says.

To me, this man sounds wiser than the predictions made by our own media. I recall the buzz that this news created in India as a warning sign of Chinas rising influence. However, Chinese ports are more than 3000 km away from Kathmandu. Indian ports are much closer  less than 800 kilometres away.

In commercial transactions, more distance means more cost. Hence, the agreement might end up as just a psychological relief without any practical value for the Nepali traders.

Insightful: The Madhesi cobbler in Kathmandu (Photo: Monica Verma).

With my trip to Kathmandu drawing to an end, my prejudices have been replaced by a sense of optimism. The spirit of India-Nepal ties is alive and kicking. All it needs is a credible partnership in economic development, and a sub-regional cooperation in the form of Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) initiative may be the answer.

Also read: Bangkok gets its first glass skywalk on top of its tallest building. Why we are obsessed with dizzying heights
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone here on Thursday for city gas distribution (CGD) projects across 129 districts which won under the ninth CGD bidding round held recently, the Petroleum Ministry said.

At each of the geographical areas (GA) across 19 states in India, the authorised entities would also hold their event locally, a Ministry release said.

It said the projects, recently awarded by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), would cover 65 GAs to bring gas to around half of the country's population in 26 states and union territories (UTs).

"During the event, the Prime Minister would also launch the tenth CGD bidding round in 50 GAs spread over 124 districts in 14 states," the statement said.

As part of a larger plan to shift towards an environment friendlier gas-based economy, the development of CGD networks will increase the availability of clean cooking fuel or piped natural gas (PNG) and transportation fuel compressed natural gas (CNG) for consumers, it said.

The project has covered 96 cities and districts covering 46.5 lakh households and 32 lakh CNG vehicles so far.

PNGRB launched the ninth CGD bidding round in April for 86 GAs covering 174 districts in 22 states and UTs. The government has authorised bidders to develop projects in 84 of these GAs.

"Based on the commitment made by various entities in this bidding round, around 2 crore domestic PNG connections and 4,600 CNG stations are expected to be installed in the next eight years. This has expanded the potential coverage of CGDs to about 50 per cent of the country's population spread over 35 per cent of India's area," the statement said.

Moreover, PNGRB has initiated the process of tenth CGD bidding round for another 50 GAs covering 124 districts in 14 states to increase the potential coverage to about 53 per cent of the country's area covering 70 per cent of the population, it said.

The e-bidding process was initiated on November 8, a pre-bid conference is scheduled on December 6 and bids can be submitted by February 5, 2019. Thereafter, the technical bids would be opened during February 7-9 and the Letters of Intent are expected to be issued by end-February, it added.

According to the government, while CNG is 60 per cent cheaper as compared to petrol and costs 45 per cent less than diesel, PNG is 40 per cent cheaper than the market price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used for cooking. The government provides each consuming household 12 LPG cylinders per year at subsidised rates.
Is Chinas building of a large number of model villages on the Tibetan side of the Indian border preparation for another stand-off? Its time to discuss this issue with Thimphu

The 40th anniversary of Chinas reform and opening up is being celebrated across the country this year as the Chinese propaganda affirms: Over the past 40 years, the country has transformed itself from a largely agricultural nation into the second largest economy in the world.

One of the most remembered events took place in 1978, when 18 farmers in Xiaogang village in Anhui Province signed a secret agreement to divide collectively-owned farmland into individual pieces and drop the collectivisation of the Great Leap Forward (GLF), which between 1958 and 1960, resulted in some 40 million casualties; in Xiaogang itself, 67 villagers out of 120 had died of starvation between 1958 and 1960.

Forty years later, the name Xiaogang is been used for a different project, which should worry India: The building of a large number of model villages in Tibet, along the border with India.

On October 19, China Tibet News reported that since the beginning of 2018, Tsona County, north of Arunachal Pradeshs Tawang district, has been vigorously promoting the construction of border Xiaogang villages (the literal meaning of Xiaogang is moderately well-off).

Tsona County alone has invested 519 million yuan ($74 million) in the construction projects of nine border villages, benefiting 1,961 people from 617 households. More than 40 per cent of the project has been completed and an investment of 2.2 billion yuan ($314 million) has already been spent.

In May, China Tibet News said that Lepo, the first village in Tibet, north of the border in Khenzimane (Tawang district) boasted a rich vegetation and clear waters: With impressive natural scenery and unique ethnic customs, Magmang ecological civilisation village is also situated in Lepo Valley, Tsona County. The construction of Magmang ecological civilisation demonstration village began on March of 2014 and was completed on December. On January of 2015, the village was inaugurated and a year later, Magmang was awarded Chinas beautiful leisure village by the Ministry of Agriculture. China has 26 national key tourist attractions; the Lepo Valley, close to the Thagla ridge, which saw the first clashes between India and China in October 1962, is one of them.

The new tourist scheme, Slowing down the speed of tour, enjoying the sea of azaleas in Lepo Valley, prolonged the peak season, explained the Chinese authorities.

Dekyi Tsomo, a 27-year-old villager of Magmang, told the website: Previously, houses in the village looked fairly run-down, and all roads leading to the village are muddy. Nowadays, the houses we live in are comfortable and big, with underfloor heating and hot water supply. This kind of house costs more than 400,000 yuan. We only pay 120,000 yuan, the rest is paid by the Government. we all feel grateful. Incidentally, on March 30, 1959, the Dalai Lama spent his last night in Tibet in Magmang; he was on his way to India. The next day, he crossed the border at Khenzimane. He would certainly not recognise the hamlet.

To understand the mushrooming of Xiaogang villages, one should remember the words of the Emperor Xi Jinping, who said: Govern the nation by governing the borders, govern the borders by first stabilising Tibet, Ensure social harmony and stability in Tibet and strengthen the development of border regions.

The villages are officially linked to two themes: Poverty alleviation and defence of the borders. The local populations are said to be the Guardians of the Sacred Land and Builders of Happy Homes.

Senior Communist leaders regularly visit the new villages; whether in the Lohit sector, north of the McMahon Line, where a memorial for the Chinese soldiers, who died in the Walong sector during the 1962 War, has been erected for nationalist tourism; in Metok, near Arunachals Upper Siang district or in Yume, north of Takshing in Upper Subansari; all these areas have their model villages, like in Lepo.

During the last few years, Beijing has concentrated on the development of the southeastern prefectures of Nyingchi and Lhoka, bordering Arunachal Pradesh. But now, while the work on the railway line between Lhasa and Nyingchi continues at a quick pace, the development has started shifting westwards, in areas bordering Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh.

Beijing wants to duplicate in Ngari what has been done in Nyingchi and Lhoka areas; first and foremost, improving infrastructure of the border and creating Xiaogang villages. Among the three new airports to be soon constructed in Tibet, Purang is located in Ngari prefecture of Western Tibet (one is near Lhuntse in Lhoka and the last one, near the Nepal border). The construction should begin in 2019 and it will be functional in 2021.

The objective of these airports is to strengthen the borders communications with surrounding areas. Let us not forget that airports and highways on the plateau legally have a dual use (civilian and military).

There is another aspect to the communist partys policy on the Indian borders: Recalcitrant Tibetans are relocated to places further away from the sensitive Indian borders.

An article recently appeared in the French edition of China Tibet Online, titled: Relocation of the villagers of Lhodrak: mission over.

It affirmed: After a first wave of successful relocation on October 15, a second wave is now over. Lhodrak is the legendary birthplace of Marpa, the great saint who visited India several times and translated the Buddhist scriptures in the 11th century. It is located north of the Bhutanese border.

The villagers relocation project represents the completion of a scheme which is part of the strategy of the CPPs Central Committee for strengthening the border. It is also a good example to illustrate that the party carries the people in its heart, it provides a housing solution to families in need, and a strengthening of the masses on the borders for defence, said the article.

Tibetans in traditional costumes, probably provided for the photo op, are seen on the accompanying pictures. Some of the Xiaogang villages are located north of Bhutan, near the eastern trijunction between India, China and Bhutan, an area which is disputed.

Could it be in preparation of another Doklam? There is, however, a difference with the western trijunction (Doklam). India has no military presence in the area. The time has perhaps come to discuss this issue seriously with Thimphu.

(The writer is an expert on India-China relations and an author)
By Azernews





By Leman Mammadova

In addition to many other areas, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) also cooperates with Azerbaijan to strengthen the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the country's economy, to increase their specific weight and competitiveness.

The bank will provide technical assistance to the Azerbaijani Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), said head of ADB office in Azerbaijan Nariman Mannapbekov.

He noted that ADB will assist Agency for Development of SMEs to attract three experts.

One expert will prepare an instruction to evaluate the impact of laws and regulations on SMEs. Mannapbekov underlined that ADB strongly supports legislative discussion in this direction.

The second expert will be a lawyer, legal advisor who works in this area and who knows where and how improve the legislation. Mannapbekov noted that such an expert will receive ADB's grant support in the near future.

ADB believes that the private sector is the main driver of economic growth, sustainable and stable economic growth can be achieved through private investments.

The main objective of the Asian Development Bank is to support the economic development of member countries and to help alleviate poverty and improve the living standards of the population. Azerbaijan joined ADB in 1999. ADB has approved a $ 4.61 billion loan, guarantee, grant and technical assistance for the country since then. In 2004, the Bank's local representative office was opened in our country. Azerbaijan hosted the 48th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Bank in 2015.

The Asian Development Bank will allocate $ 815 million from its credit resources to Azerbaijan in 2019-2021. This is stated in the bank's three-year business plan. Thus, in 2019, the bank will allocate $ 250 million to the country, $ 265 million in 2020, and $ 300 million in 2021.

These loans, which will be allocated by the bank for three years, will focus on projects in the energy sector, ensuring macroeconomic stability and improving the efficiency of public administration.

So far, ADB provided the development projects in Azerbaijan such as Second Road Network Development Program, Water Supply and Sanitation Investment Program, Power Distribution Enhancement Investment Program, Southern Gas Corridor project, Railroad sector development program and etc.
Four local Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists and an Army paratrooper were killed in a fierce gun-battle in Nadigam village of south Kashmirs Kulgam district while a separatist worker was shot dead by unknown assailants in Anantnag region. The violent incidents occurred on a day when polling was held in several districts of the Valley in the second phase of the panchayat elections.

A police spokesman said that security forces had credible input about the presence of militants in Nadigam area of district Shopian before a cordon and search operation was launched in the predawn hours on Tuesday.

As the search operation was going on, the search party was confronted with bullets fired by the hiding militants. The fire was retaliated leading to an encounter. In the initial exchange of fire one army jawan identified as HC Vijay of 23 Para sustained injuries and was evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment where he succumbed, police said.

During the encounter four terrorists were shot dead and the bodies were retrieved from the site of encounter. The slain terrorists were identified as Abid Nazir Chopan, Basharat Nengroo, Mehrajuddin Najar and Malikzada Inamul Haq, all local cadre of banned Hizbul Mujahideen outfit.

The slain militants, police said, were involved in attacks on security establishments and many other civilian atrocities in the area. Incriminating materials including huge quantity of arms and ammunition were recovered from the site of encounter.

Shortly after the encounter, a large number of protesters marched towards the encounter site despite police advisory against approaching the gun-battle site. The police and paramilitary forces deployed in the area used tear smoke shells, pellets and live ammunition to disperse the protesters resulting in injuries to eight people, eyewitnesses said. Three persons including two women have sustained bullet injuries, they said. The wounded were taken to district hospital Shopian and three of them were shifted to Srinagar for treatment.

In another incident, unknown gunmen fired upon a Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (the) leader Hafeez Mir at his residence in Budroo Achabal area of Anantnag district on Tuesday morning. Mir was rushed to hospital but was declared dead on arrival. His wife has also sustained bullet injuries and is being treated in hospital. Mir was district president ofAshraf Sehrai led Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, which is a constituent of Syed Ali Geelanis faction of Hurriyat Conference.

The separatist groups have condemned Mirs killing.

The killings took place on a day when second phase of panchayat polls was conducted across the state. The first phase of the nine-phased poll was held on November 17.
In the absence of two top CBI officers, agency Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana, both benched by the Government last month, probes into several high-profile cases of the agency involving bribery and special crimes have virtually been halted. The registration of cases has also steeply declined in the last one month.

Besides Verma and Asthana, Additional Director AK Sharma has also been virtually made ineffective following the shake-up as he has been given the charge of inconsequential Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) handling the Rajiv Gandhi murder case.

Following the Governments decision to bench Verma and Asthana, interim CBI Director Nageshwara Rao, a Joint Director rank official, transferred 13 officials posted in the headquarters to different places. This has also adversely affected the functioning of the agency.

The Supreme Court has barred Rao from taking any major policy decision in the pendency of Vermas petition challenging his forced leave.

Sources said the major concern is lack of clarity on who will represent the CBI in the UK court which is going to pronounce its order on liquor baron Vijay Mallya extradition case on December 10. Till now, a team has not been constituted to represent the case, officials said, adding a decision is likely to be taken only after the SC pronounced its verdict on November 29. A decision by the Interpol for issuing a Red Corner Notice against Rs 14,000-crore PNB credit fraud case accused Mehul Choksi is also pending in the absence of proper representation by the CBI, sources said.

Other cases in which investigation will be affected include the IRCTC bribery case involving Lalu Prasads family, Agusta Westland case and INX media case. Other high-profile cases being probed by the agency include NRHM scam of Uttar Pradesh and Saradha scam of West Bengal. However, the Muzaffarpur shelter home case and Manipur encounter cases are progressing well as they are being monitored by the apex court. Asthana was handling the IRCTC case, AgustaWestland probe and Saradha ponzi scam case.

In the wake of benching of Verma and Asthana by the Government and SC restraining interim Director from taking any major policy decision, case files are stuck as the officials are not able to seek legal opinion from the Law Ministry or the in-house legal wing when clarity is required, an official said.

Officials said the case files move right from the investigation officers, mostly comprising DSPs and ASPs, to the SP, then to DIG, Joint Director, Additional Director, Special Director and the Director.

During the course of investigation, the files are also sent to a parallel rank officer of the prosecution wing headed by Director of Prosecution.

Even registration of cases has also taken a hit after the unprecedented action against Verma and Asthana. As many as 47 cases were registered during the period between September 23 and October 23, the date on which Verma and Asthana were sent on forced leave and restrained from taking any supervisory duty in the CBI. But during the period between October 24 and November 21, only 25 cases were registered, officials said, adding the paper work in many cases was completed before the extraordinary action against Verma and Asthana. The registration of cases will further decline as Rao is unlikely to take any decision with regard to registration of cases.

It is fairly difficult to file chargesheets in the absence of legal opinion and clarity of decision making even in cases in which the probes have been completed as three top officials are missing in the CBIs hierarchy, a senior official added.
Led by Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, NDA partner RLSP is all set to walk out of the Modi Government and join hands with Sharad Yadavs newly outfit Loktantrik Janta Dal (LJD) next month. The Congress is in touch with the RJD in Bihar to get Kuswaha respectable number of seats to change side.

Sources said leaders of both the Congress and the RJD are engaged for the seat-sharing talks even as the BJP and the JD(U) indicated they will not spare more than two seats to the RLSP.

Currently the RLSP has three Members of Parliament. For past few months, Kushwaha has been sending signals of leaving the NDA over seat-sharing issue.

Hours after BJP chief Amit Shah and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, in a joint statement last month, announced agreement on seat-sharing for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Upendra Kushwaha met RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav fuelling talks of him joining the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan in Bihar.

In Bihar, the RJD is in the drivers seat and whichever way they drive we have to ride, quipped a top Congress leader. He added that both the Congress and Kushwaha are confident that in present circumstances RJDs Tejashwi Yadav has an upper hand in Bihar in comparison to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Nitish had won the State elections as part of Mahagathbandhan in which Lalu Yadavs RJD bagged more seats than him.

Sources said Sharad Yadav who broke away with Nitish Kumar is keen to contest Lok Sabha and for that he needs a platform and hence he is likely to merge his outfit with RLSP very soon. Yadav enjoys the confidence of Congress as well as RJD because he quit his parent party on difference of ideology on the decision of Nitish to break away with Lalu and again join hands with BJP.

The relation between Nitish Kumar and Kushwaha has reached a point of no return with both leaders making caustic comments about each other. A fortnight ago, RLSP workers were beaten up by the police in Patna for protesting against Nitish Kumar for taking objectionable jibe at Kushwaha.
The Amritsar blast was triggred by Pakistans ISI-backed terrorists who planted the grenade  brought from across the border  with Pakistan Ordinance Factory mark under a tree at a gathering at Adliwals Nirankari Bhawan on Sunday. This and much more was revealed by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday following the arrest of one of the two suspects in the blast case.

Within 72 hours of the blast that took three lives and left 20 others injured, the Punjab Police solved the case by identifying the two attackers, and arresting one of them from Loharka village in Amritsars Raja Sansi.

The attackers have been identified as Bikramjit Singh of Dhariwal village under Raja Sansi police station, who was arrested on early Wednesday morning from near Loharka village in the area, and another as Avtar Singh of Chak Mishri Khan village in Lopoke, Ajnala in Amritsar.

Declaring that the second assailant would soon be arrested, the Chief Minister minced no words to say that the attack was masterminded by Pak-based Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the sole aim to disturb Punjabs peace.

ISI has masterminded this attack...It is using our men as touts. The grenade has POF mark, made with know-how of Austrias Arges, said Capt Amarinder.

Bikramjit Singh, who was the biker and attacked the gatekeeper, has been arrested by the police. We are on to the second person and it is just a question of time, said Capt Amarinder adding that he has admitted the crime and disclosed that he is working for the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF).

The HG 84 grenade, commonly used by Pakistan against our Army in Kashmir, was used in the attack. This type of grenade is filled with small pellets and is very destructive and has effective range of 30 meter radius.

While Bikramjit is just 26-year-old, Avtar is 32, and both were not trained. They did what they have been told to do. They were the first timers.

At the same time, Chief Minister ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack, while described Amritsar attack on Nirankari Bhawan as purely terrorist act.

There was no communal business in this. It was purely a terrorist act. These people were easy targets...They just wanted to disturb Punjabs peace. After seeing that previous attack on RSS leaders could not do anything in the State, they are now going in for large scale killings, he said.

Rubbishing the rumours regarding the arrest of the second accused by the evening, DGP Suresh Arora told The Pioneer that efforts are being made to apprehend him.

He said that the preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikramjit.

Bikram was riding a motorbike (TVS PB-18 M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikrams black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which he has used in the attack, has also been recovered, said Arora.

During interrogation, Bikramjit has disclosed that Avtar Singh called him up late on the night of November 3, and asked him to be ready for an assignment the next morning. Around 4.30 am that day, Avtar reached Bikrams house and both set off on Bikrams Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle to retrieve the hand grenade from an Orchard located at a distance of about one km on Majitha-Hariyan link road. They retrieved the HE 84 hand grenade, which had been buried in a half feet deep pit under a Shisham tree, told Arora.

Before committing the crime, they carried out the recee of Nirankari Satsang Bhawan on November 13 morning, when no one was present at the premises. They especially checked out the locations of CCTV cameras enroute, the layout plan of the Bhawan and the distance from the main gate on the boundary wall of the Bhawan to the Satsang Bhawan building, said Arora.

The State police chief informed that Bikramjit has further disclosed that as decided on November 16, Bikram reached Avtars house at Chak Mishri Khan village at about 9 am, where they removed the number plate of the motorcycle. They started for Adliwal village at about 9.30 am and covered their faces on the way, near village Manawala. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at the Satsang Bhawan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time, said Arora.

Bikram has further revealed that while Avtar successfully slinked into the Satsang Bhawan complex through the open gate, along with the sangat which had just reached there, he himself managed to subdue and take control, at gunpoint, of the two sewadars who had been deployed at the two gate-posts of the Satsang Bhawan complex.

After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on Bikrams mobike and reached Avtars village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the pistol from Bikram. After changing his cloths and appearance, Bikram drove back to his village on his black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle.

According to Bikramjit, Avtar Singh was in touch with one Happy in Pakistan, who had got the hand grenade dumped near the Orchard near Majitha through some of his other associate(s). Bikram has revealed that the geo-location details as well as pictures of the dump location were sent to Avtar on his mobile to facilitate the retrieval of the hand grenade.

Harmeet Singh Happy, known as PhD, had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand-grenade (Arges Type HG-84) of the same specifications to Patiala lad Shabnamdeep Singh, a self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police (Patiala) on October 31.
The Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) received a total of 8,558 petitions, out of which 2,679 were dismissed in limine and the balance 5,879 cases were entertained for inquiry during the year 2016-17. A total of 2,368 cases were disposed of during the year and 14,423 cases were still pending by the end of the year.

These were revealed in the OHRCs annual report placed in the State Assembly.

According to reports, highest number of 3,059 complaints related to labour followed by 2,350 cases related to police and paramilitary force and 1,840 cases related to women were received during the year. The other complaints included children (24), health (18), jail (31), Minorties ST/SC (18), physically-handicapped (12), pollution (31), religion/community (16), service matter (160) and miscellaneous (999).

A total of 10,912 cases were pending for disposal from the previous year, 2015-16.

Under the RTI Act, the commission received a total of 104 applications and disposed of 56 cases in one month time and 44 cases beyond one month. Two cases were transferred to other departments.

Regarding staff position, the report revealed that as many as 21 posts, including Chairperson and Registrars posts, were lying vacant against total sanctioned strength of 69.

The State Government had provided Rs 2,52,43,000 in the State Budget to meet the expenditure of the commission. Out of this, a total of Rs 2,35,73,000 had been spent and the balance Rs 16,70,000 were surrendered.
Now people from rural areas can also nourish their children in playschool environment. In the line of modern playschools, about 150 Anganbari centres of Chas and Chandankiyari in Bokaro district would be developed very soon.

An MoU was signed on Wednesday between district administration Bokaro and Electrosteel-Vedanta group by Deputy Commissioner Bokaro MK Barnawal and Pankaj Mallhan CEO Electrosteel-Vedanta for the development of the centers.

With an investment of Rs 2.50 crore, 70 Anganbari Centers of Chas and 80 of Chandankiyari would be developed as modern centers. Under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Electrosteel-Vedanta group will develop those centers, informed Barnwal.

The modernisation work would be completed in three phases with an expected expenditure of Rs 1.5 lakhs he said adding We have a dream to provide the playschool facilities to our rural children, we have worked on it and with the help of Vedanta it would be going to be completed.

A playschool has a vital role in the inclusive growth of a child; it encourages a child to wonder, to think, to feel and to imagine. Its aim is to extend the childs interest and it encourages participation and prepares children for their entry into formal school, said an official.

Shakti Kumar Disaster Management Officer, Aditya Mohan, Parul Kumari, Kaushik Kumar among others were present on the occasion.
The manifesto released by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) termed as Shapath Patra looks a replica of Delhi model of development and growth. The point manifesto tries to cover all aspects a voter wants before casting vote in favour of any candidate.

In charge of State and Minister of Labour and Employment in Delhi Government Gopal Rai released the manifesto in the State capital on Tuesday.

The door-step-delivery model would provide 40 services to the citizens which is aimed eradicating corruption. In the service all kind of certificates, ration card etc would be provided to the citizens at their door step. To enhance health facilities Mohalla Clinics would be started.

Under Yuva Rozgaar Suraksha Law allowances would be paid till unemployed youth gets employed. Youth who have cleared class 12, completed graduation and post graduation would be provided Rs 1500, Rs 2000 and Rs 3000 respectively.

Electricity which the party harps that state sells costly due to corruption has been included in the manifesto and till 400 units electricity bills of domestic and commercial use would be halved. Poor would be provided power at Rs 50 per month.

Tribals which form a significant component of the state has been tried to woo by assuring all the rights according to the constitution which were not facilitated by early governments would be facilitated and help in main-streaming by AAP.

The party is assuring development works and replicating the Delhi model is among one of the major thing which reflects in the manifesto released today in the state capital.
Condemning the murder of social activist Himmat Kol for opposing illegal grabbing of forest land by Forest department in Mirzapur, state secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Heera Lal Yadav demanded the immediate arrest of perpetrators and a forest ranger. Yadav also demanded that the government must stop the torture of forest-dwellers and tribals in the name of investigation.

In a statement issued in Lucknow on Wednesday, the CPI (M) leader said that the state government was adopting suppressive measures against Kols, forest-dwellers and tribals in UP. Their land in Allahabad, Sonebhadra, Mirzapur, Chandauli and Kushinagar are being forcibly attached by Forest department and mafia. Instead of implementing Forest Act, the mafia in cahoots with forest officials are grabbing the land of these people and are getting tribals and forest-dwellers eliminated for questioning their misdeeds, he charged.

Yadav said that Himmat Kol of Babura Raghunath Singh village in Haliya police station area of Mirzapur was killed for opposing such illegal acts.

A case against the assailants was lodged in the local police station where the role of a forest ranger and a local MLA was suspected. But instead of initiating action and arresting the orchestrators, the police have taken to torturing innocent tribal youths. The state government should ensure justice to Kol and his family, Yadav stressed.
Confident of a good show by party candidates in the ongoing Assembly poll in five states, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has now planned to extensively tour Uttar Pradesh by the year-end and galvanise the party cadres and leaders for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Sources said that Rahul would address at least one rally in all five zones, including a grand rally in Lucknow. The Congress mandarins were reportedly busy chalking out a programme for the Congress president with the focus on regional parties - Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party - to not underestimate them. Even as we were seriously looking for a grand alliance for the next Parliament elections, both Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati were regularly targeting us or our leaders to drive home the point that the Congress had lost ground in UP, quipped a senior Congress leader referring to some recent speeches of Akhilesh and Mayawati.

Preferring anonymity, the Congress leader said that both the SP and BSP were trying to harm the Congress in the ongoing Assembly polls in Central states but the results would show that only Congress was the only party which could dislodge the BJP from the country.

Once we prove our mettle in these ongoing polls, Rahul Gandhi will start extensive tour of UP to further impress that the Congress was as strong in this large state as it was in other states and the party could be not taken lightly, the Congress leader stressed.

The leader said that besides chalking out other programmes for Rahul like road shows, panchayats, chaupal, the party brass was planning some big rallies at least in one district of all the five zones of UP which included a grand rally in Lucknow. The leader also revealed that while announcing rallies of Rahul Gandhi in mid-December, Congress leaders would not take names either of the SP, BSP or other outfits but would highlight the motive of rallies to expose Prime Ministers role in Rafale fighter jet deal, rising prices and corruption issues. The focus will also be on with failure of the Central government in fulfilling promises made by Narendra Modi during the campaigning for 2014 Parliament elections. Besides, the Congress rallies will aim to clearly send out the signal to the SP and BSP that our party is the leading force to defeat the BJP in the 2019 poll. Hence, if they want to support the Congress in its remove BJP mission, they should align with it to form a grand alliance, he said.
First in Delhi, South Asias security exhibition on civil protection and fire safety pertaining to cyber security and surveillance will be held at Pragati Maidan.

The exhibition will run between December 5 - 7 with major focus on security of children has to be dealt differently.

The IFSEC's latest exhibition showcasing the modern equipments and tools will ensure the security cover that would not breach privacy of individual students, schools, families and other stake holders in the process.

Addressing this issue MD UBM Yogesh Mudras, pointed out vitalities that technology has taken care with sensitivity "Children represent a significant and one of the most vulnerable subject category of end users in the extensive range of security and surveillance systems and products available in the market.

With the Delhi Cabinet recently approving the installation of CCTV cameras in government schools to ensure safety of students, child security and surveillance is a trending subject in the industry currently.

CCTV Monitoring in vantage points, Wall Cams providing bird's eye view of the school campus or residential complexes, entrance automation, hidden cameras with inbuilt alerts and GPS tracking of school buses and vehicles form a part of the surveillance as do  very significantly tracking and monitoring children's digital footprints.

Speaking about it Sudhindra Holla of Axis said, "We understand the concerns of everyone about the privacy issue. This is to ensure and make everyone aware that every company has a set of norms to address the privacy issues. We have ensured that surveillance data remains with the authorized people. Access is a very big thing.

If wrong people will get something important they would misuse it. So we have ensured that the leaks are minimal or no leaks. So the exhibition will offer an array of tools that will allow parents, schools and public places meant for children provide them a hassle free safe environment".
By Azernews





By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP), which is the largest component of the Southern Gas Corridor, has been connected to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) on the banks of the Merich River on the Turkish-Greek border, Turkish media outlets reported.

A connection of two gas pipelines was an important step towards the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project, as reported by the TANAP and TAP consortia.

Azerbaijani gas from the second stage of development of the Shah Deniz field will be pumped to Europe, according to TAP.

The welding of TANAP and TAP pipes was supervised by representatives of two consortia.

The total length of TANAP is 1,850 kilometers. TANAP originates in the village of Turkgozu in the province of Ardahan, in the border zone between Turkey and Georgia, crosses 20 Turkish provinces and 67 settlements and stretches to Ipsala in the province of Edirne, where it is connected to TAP.

The initial capacity of the TANAP pipeline is expected to be 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year. About six billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to Turkey, and the rest to Europe. The project's shareholders are Southern Gas Corridor CJSC (51 percent), STEA? (7 percent), BOTA? (30 percent), BP (12 percent).

TANAP, also called the Energy Silk Road, was a historic step towards turning Turkey into an energy hub.

TANAP and TAP are the parts of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is intended to deliver gas from the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz to Europe.

On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project, and on June 12, the opening ceremony of TANAP pipeline was held in the Turkish province of Eskisehir with the participation of the presidents of Azerbaijan - Ilham Aliyev, Turkey - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ukraine - Petro Poroshenko and Serbia - Alexander Vucic.

TANAP shareholders are Southern Gas Corridor CJSC (51 percent), STEA? (7 percent), BOTA? (30 percent), BP (12 percent).

TAP, along with TANAP, is a part of Southern Gas Corridor project. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijani Shah Deniz-2 gas field to Greece and southern Italy across the Adriatic Sea through Greece and Albania, and involves designing, construction and operation of the natural gas pipeline.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on the TAP project was signed by Albania, Italy and Greece in February 2013. The cost of the project is 4.5 billion euros.

The TAP project is one of the strategic objectives of the EU in the energy security and diversification of energy sources, chosen as the shortest and direct way to export natural gas from Azerbaijan to the European markets.

Construction of nearly 74.6 percent of the 878 km pipeline has been completed, of which 550 kilometers will pass through the northern part of Greece, 215 kilometers - Albania, 105 kilometers - the Adriatic Sea and 8 kilometers - Italy. The TAP pipeline is expected to be commissioned in 2020. The initial capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of doubling it.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
Haryana enhances Dearness Allowance

Chandigarh: Haryana Government has enhanced rate of Dearness Allowance (DA) by 6 per cent for State Government employees, who continue to draw their pay in the pre-revised pay scale or grade as per the 6th Pay Commission, from the existing rate of 142 per cent to 148 per cent of the basic pay, with effect from July 1, 2018. Haryana Finance Minister, Capt Abhimanyu said that this DA enhancement would have extra financial liability of Rs 127.90 lakh approximately per month. It would have additional financial liabilities of about Rs 1015.20 lakh for 8 months (from July 2018 to February 2019) to the State exchequer.

Pb releases Rs 322 cr for post matric scholarships

Chandigarh: On the directives of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, the Finance Department on Wednesday released Rs 322 Crores towards Post Matric Scholarships and Power Subsidy for farmers. A spokesperson said, a sum of Rs 172 crores had been released to Department of Social Justice, Empowerment and Minorities for payments under the Post Matric Scholarships scheme for 2016-17, with another Rs 150 crores given to PSPCL for agriculture power subsidy to farmers. The Chief Minister has reiterated his earlier direction to all the departments to manage their finances far more prudently, thereby ensuring financial discipline, besides cutting down any wasteful expenditure in order to further consolidate the states overall fiscal position.

DGP condoles DSPs demise

Chandigarh: Haryana Director General of Police BS Sandhu has expressed deep sorrow and grief over the sad demise of Vinod Kumar, DSP Kanina, who breathed his last on Wednesday following a cardiac arrest. He was 57. Sandhu described him an experienced, intelligent and capable police officer, who had joined Haryana Police as an Assistant Sub-Inspector on December 1, 1994.

PM to lay foundation

Chandigarh: On November 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stones for City Gas Distribution projects in 63 Geographical Areas across India, including three in Punjab, heralding the availability of convenient and environment-friendly natural gas for residents. MP Prem Singh Chandumajra and MLA Narinder Kumar Sharma will grace the event which will stage live telecast of Prime Minister session from Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

Shaam-E-Daawat at JW Marriot

Chandigarh: Exploring the finer nuances of the culinary heritage of historical regions, JW Marriott Chandigarh will be laying out Shaam-E-Daawat, a royal evening feast celebrating the specialty cuisines of Awadh & Hyderabad. It will be organised at Saffron, the Indian fine dining at JW Marriott from November 23 to December 2. Rich and flavoursome, the Nawabi and Nizami cuisines have much in common owing to the unmistakable Mughal influence. Resplendent in its aromas, flavours and visual appeal, the delicacies adorning these cuisines are a treat unlike any other, said Naveen Handa, Executive Chef, JW Marriott Chandigarh.

Free mammography at Gurudwara Sec 19

Chandigarh: On addition to the facility of state-of-the-art lab, mammography facility will be available for one month free of cost at Guru Ram Dass Molecular Imaging and Diagnostic Center running under Gurudwara Guru Singh Sabha, Sector 19 D here. SK Aggrawal, president of Guru Ram Dass Molecular Imaging and Diagnostic Center and Panchvati Charitable Trust told that every test is performed with latest technique and imported machines in this center. Every kind of lab tests such as ultrasound, X-Ray, DAXA scan, TVS scan, and other are available.
About a year after, Punjab Government on Tuesday handed over the job appointment letters to five kin of the deceased fire brigade employees killed in the chemical blast after fire in a private factory at Ludhiana.

Handing over the appointment letters, the state Local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu said that the process to give jobs to the kin of rest of the four deceased employees is on and the appointment letters would be given soon.

Those given appointment letters included Sahil Gill son of Sub-Fire Officer Samaoun Gill, Tushar Sharma son of Sub Fire Officer Rajinder Kumar Sharma, Parminder Singh son of Sub Fire Officer Raj Kumar, Bhupinder Singh son of leading fireman Puran Singh, and Rekha Rani wife of fireman Rajan.

During the fire tragedy that took place during previous year at Ludhiana, the brave staff of the fire brigade didnt care for their lives and performed their duty with extreme dedication and nine officers or employees were martyred in the tragedy. In spite of the limited resources services rendered by the fire personnel were exceptional, said Sidhu.

He said that the kin of the martyred employees were given the financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh, and all their dues have also been given promptly. The victim families were also given the family pension on the priority basis.

Sidhu added that the as per the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singhs directives, works are going on war footing to ensure the rehabilitation of the victims of the recent rail tragedy at Amritsar. Whereas on one hand, the compensation amount has been disbursed to the victims, the jobs would also be given soon enough to the victim families, he added.

Sidhu further said that not only this, the seven victim families, who are not eligible for any job, would be given Rs 8,000 per month for the entire life from his own pocket.
Chief Minister Raghubar Das has instructed officials to expedite the work of railway projects and rail over bridges in the State presently at different stages of completion.

The Chief Minister while holding a review of the projects on Wednesday also opined that a corporation should be formed between the State Government and the Railway Ministry in the lines of Maharashtra.

Corporation would ease the process and help in developing better coordination between the State Government and the Ministry. All the railway related works can be taken up through this corporation so that projects are completed in timely manner and hurdles coming in can be resolved quickly, said an official present in the meeting, quoting the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister during the review meeting instructed to complete the work of all the railway over bridges including Chutia ROB, Namkum Kandra ROB, Ketari Bagan ROB, Gaya pool in Dhanbad as soon as possible.

The Chief Minister at the same time also instructed to send proposals to the Railways Board from the State Government seeking extension of Ranchi-New Delhi Rajdhani and LTT Superfast run as daily, Puri-New Delhi Purushottam Express go up to Jaipur, a train for Ranchi-Lucknow-Dehradun and for increasing the number of trains.

The meeting was also attended by Urban Development Minister CP Singh, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Sunil Kumar Barnwal, Road Construction Secretary KK Soan, Transport Secretary Pravin Toppo, General Manager of South Eastern Railway Purnendu Mishra, ADRM Ranchi Vijay Kumar, Senior DCM Avinash and Neeraj Kumar besides other railway officials.

Notably the Cabinet just a day ago had approved the proposal to extended tenure of the MoU signed between the Ministry and the State for six railway projects in Jharkhand till March 2020. At the same time third revision of the estimate has been done taking the amount to Rs 6505 crore from original Rs 1197 crore.

The six new BG lines namely Ranchi-Koderma, Koderma-Giridih, Koderma-Tilaiya, Deoghar-Dumka, Dumka-Rampur Haat and Ranchi-Lohardaga-Tori have either been completed or are at their advance stages of completion and expected to be completed in 2019-20. The projects are coming up on 50:50 share between the Center and the State.
To make science more interesting and easy to comprehend, a Science Drama Festival will be organised here on Saturday. The festival will be organised by Regional Science Centre, Bhopal, supported by National Council of Science Museum (Government of India).

Students of various schools of the city will present their plays before the audiences, which will be purely scripted and directed by them. While talking about the fest, education officer of Regional Science Centre, Bhopal, MM Rout said, We organize this drama festival every year with a view point to enhance their science skills as well as to spread awareness about the relationship between science and human. This festival is all about science being presented on stage.

Science related topics will be touched at the fest, giving out some informative message. Among all the topics, environment was played enormous times. The drama fest focused, on the subjects like Life of Science, Living Tobacco Free, Future of environment, Science victory over Superstition and even the stories from Panchtantra could be brought to life on stage.Besides, to encourage the skills of students on stage awards will be given in different categories as well. It is to be noted that this schience drama festival is organised every year and different schools participate in it hugely.
Repeated alerts and call for making police presence felt at public places during the ongoing festival season by DGP OP Singh has failed to cut ice with his junior colleagues. Or so it seems.

The DGPs directions were blown to smithereens when members of the two communities came to a head on the streets and fought a pitched battle for several hours before the indecisive and action-shy UP Police personnel in Mirzapur on Tuesday. The strife left several persons, including cops, with injuries. Police patrol has now been ensured to avert any recurrence and prevent violence.

As per reports, Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists took out a procession in Mirzapur on Tuesday night, exhorting Hindus to attend Dharma Sabha slated in Ayodhya on Sunday.

As the procession reached Mukeri Bazar near Gurhatti crossing, a staff holding a saffron flag somehow broke a tube light installed for Barawafat celebrations in the area dominated by members of the other community. This led to heated arguments and soon a police team reached there and pacified the warring groups.

Since the police took no action, hence an hour later, members of both the communities came to a head and started pelting stones and clashed with each other. Initially, remaining mute spectators, some cops tried to intervene but the mob targeted them forcing them to flee the scene. Only after senior officers rushed there and requisitioned additional force from neighbouring districts that the situation could somehow be brought under control.

SP of Mirzapur later suspended inspector of Katra Kotwali police station and two cops posted at Mukeri Bazar police outpost for the dereliction of duty.

The BJP and RSS activists sat on a protest on Tuesday night, demanding action against those involved in the incident.

Meanwhile, UP Congress on Wednesday condemned the incident and said that communal forces were making desperate efforts to vitiate the atmosphere in the state to gain political mileage. The party claimed that clashes between two communities in Mirzapur and emergence of highly objectionable poster about Gyanvyapi in Varanasi clearly pointed to the agenda of some parties that they wanted to polarise the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on religious lines. The communal clash in Mirzapur is nothing but a result of negligence and slackness of the police, who are dancing to the tunes of their political masters and vitiating the atmosphere in the state. It is a state-sponsored violence, asserted UPCC general secretary Vinod Mishra. Urging people to maintain peace, Mishra said that people should be vigilant about the nefarious designs of these political forces. Mishra also criticised the state government for unnecessary building up tension in Ayodhya to divert peoples attention from core issues and non-performance of the Modi and Yogi governments.
Rishikul ground is once again buzzing with indigenous brands of India, showcasing their products at Swadeshi Mela which has started on Wednesday.

The week- long mela would feature cultural evenings, fashion show of Khadi wear, theatre shows and discourses by the eminent people and the artists.

Inaugurating the mela, the state cabinet minister Madan Kaushik said that through such melas, Swadeshi brands of remote areas come within the reach of a common man. The fair is being organised by Swadeshi Jagran Manch in conjunction with Divine International Organisation.

Presiding over the function, Acharya Bal Krishna of Patanjali Yog Peeth stressed on Swadeshi being linked to the collective life of the nation.

This is because the multinational companies not just take the profit back to their countries, giving thus a blow to our economy but also help corruption to thrive thanks to the idea they dig into the collective mind of India being a market to be exploited.

They have no emotional bonding with the country, the people and the culture as they are engrossed in profiteering. By contrast, the brands like Patanjali consider India as family.

In his inaugural speech, Madan Kaushik said, Swadeshi brands like Patanjali have become a start-up thing in the mornings of millions of Indians.

The schemes like Start- up India, Skill India envisaged by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also meant to encourage such indigenous initiatives.

The founder of Divya Prem Sewa Mission Ashish Gautam emphasised on not just Swadeshi branding of business but on the need of having Swadeshi governance through Swadesh Raja.

Citing examples from the history of Chanakya gifting the people with Chandragupta, he said that the head of the country must be steeped in the ethos of India. He also said Raja Ram and Lord Krishna embody the concept of an ideal king according to the spiritual/humanitarian ethos of the country.

Sandeep Goyal of Swadeshi Jagran Manch dwelt on the journey of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch since its inception.

He also spoke of the negative impact left by the formation on World Trade Organisation on the Swadeshi brands, resulting in the presence of over 7000 multi-national companies in India at present.

The speakers sounded concerned over the cottage industries becoming extinct. Muskan Namkeen, Maharaja Achar, Pahadi Utpad, Rajasthani Achar , Pahadi Zakhiya and Patanjali are some of the few brands selling their products at the fair.
Alleging that there was total collapse of law and order in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday stated that the three major incidents in just three days reflected the Congress Governments failure.

AAPs senior leader and Sunam MLA Aman Arora raised finger on the jungle raj prevailing in the state and the total collapse of law and order under Capt Amarinder Singh led Government.

Despite getting inputs from intelligence agencies, the occurrence of three major incidents in last three days shows that the government is in deep slumber leaving fate of the people of the state to destiny, said Arora, while addressing the media after meeting ailing AAP leader and partys Amritsar districts former president Suresh Sharma in Amritsar.

Arora said that bomb blast at Amritsar, killing of the father-in-law of a senior IAS officer, and murderous attack on AAP leader could have avoided if the Government was serious about the security and safety of the people of the state.

He said that the incidents happened in last few days depict the anarchy prevailed in the state. The police and intelligence agencies have failed drastically to protect the people of the state, he said.

Commenting on the arrest of one accused in Nirankari Bhawan blast case, he said that the incident could have avoided. There is an alarming situation in the state as the unemployed youth is indulging into drug and anti-social activities due to the Governments apathy. Congress promised to wave off farm debt, providing jobs to youth etc, but is now shying away from the promises, he said while advising Capt Amarinder to utilise energy of youth in positive way by providing jobs.
Capital police succeeded in nabbing two Nigerians from Mumbai for allegedly hacking bank accounts and transferring the amount to their accounts.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Raipur, Ambreesh Mishra informed media persons that a complaint was lodged in recent days by Senior executive of Devendra Nagar branch of Yes Bank, Mahesh Kumar Rathi.

In the complaint to Devendra Nagar Police Station, the official said that the accused had hacked two of YES Bank accounts and had transferred Rs 2.47 crore through NEFT and RTGS to 26 of their different accounts. The entire act was carried out on the day of Diwali, the official informed.

The Devendra Nagar police had then registered a case under sections 419 and 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and IT Act against unknown persons. After the complaint was lodged, the SSP, Raipur instructed the teams of crime branch and cyber cell to investigate into the matter.

With the brisk action, 90% of the amount hacked was kept on hold and a police team was sent to Mumbai where the accounts of accused belonged.

The police succeeded in nabbing one Rakesh Singh who provided his bank account to the Nigerian gang.

He informed that he gets commission by providing his bank account to them. On receiving information from him, police raided and arrested a Nigerian citizen Osajee Godstime.

According to the police, he was residing in India since 2009 and the police had recovered three passports from him with three different names. Osajee after the arrest had informed about his other associates and the police is trying to nab them, the official informed.
Dolce & Gabbana apologized Wednesday for insulting remarks about China it allegedly made in conversations on Instagram but denied that it was responsible.

Chinese celebrities reacted angrily after screenshots of the conversations were posted on social media and several said they would boycott a Dolce & Gabbana show that was scheduled for Wednesday night. The luxury fashion house later said the show had been postponed.

The screenshots appear to show co-founder Stefano Gabbana referring to China with crude terms and emoji as he defends promotional videos that had sparked controversy earlier. Separately, the Dolce & Gabbana Instagram account used offensive language in another exchange.

Dolce & Gabbana apologized on Instagram and said the accounts had been hacked. "We are very sorry for any distress caused by these unauthorized posts," it said. "We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China."

Zhang Ziyi, who starred in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," said on one of her social media accounts that the Italian brand had "disgraced itself."

The studio for pop idol Karry Wang, an Asia-Pacific brand ambassador for Dolce & Gabbana, said late Wednesday that it had informed the fashion house that it would terminate all cooperation with the brand.

Stefano Gabbana also wrote on his Instagram that his account had been hacked, adding "I love China and Chinese culture. I'm sorry for what happened."

The three promotional videos, which have been deleted from the company's Weibo account, feature a Chinese woman using chopsticks to eat pizza and other Italian food. Many Chinese social media users called the videos racist and full of outdated stereotypes.

Calls to Dolce & Gabbana's offices in Shanghai and Beijing went unanswered.

Image Instagrammed by @dolcegabbana
By Trend





Azerbaijan's First Deputy Minister of Defense, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel General Najmaddin Sadikov met Nov. 20 with a delegation led by the Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey, Army General Yasar Guler, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said.

Colonel General Sadikov welcomed the guests and informed the Turkish side about the military-political and security situation in the region, as well as the current situation on the front line, adding that Armenia continues the occupation policy towards Azerbaijan.

He brought to their attention that the resolution of the conflict is possible only within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and on the basis of the norms and principles of international law.

Colonel General Sadikov recalled that relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan are built on friendship and mutual trust and noted that to build up military power, Azerbaijan is expanding its cooperation with Turkey in the military, military-technical, military-educational areas, which is the main factor providing stability in the region.

Army General Yasar Guler, in turn, expressed satisfaction with the friendly and fraternal relations, including the fruitful cooperation between the countries.

The guest stressed the importance of joint military exercises held with participation of various types of troops, as well as organization of mutual visits and meetings of military experts.

Other issues of mutual interest were also discussed during the meeting.








The following companies are subsidiares of Lear: AccuMED Corp., AccuMED Holdings Corp., Arada Systems, Autotech Fund II L.P.(Delaware) (5.56%, Beijing BAI Lear Automotive Systems Co. Ltd., Beijing BHAP Lear Automotive Systems Co. Ltd.(China) (50%, Beijing Lear Dymos Automotive Systems Co. Ltd., CelLink Corporation, Changchun Lear FAWSN Automotive Electrical and Electronics Co. Ltd., Changchun Lear FAWSN Automotive Seat Systems Co. Ltd., Chihuahua Electrical Wiring Systems S. de R.L. de C.V., China New Trend Group Co. Ltd, Consorcio Industrial Mexicano de Autopartes S. de R.L. de C.V., Cordelia Autoparts Sweden AB, Dunlop Cox Limited, Durango Automotive Wiring Systems S. de R.L. de C.V., EXO Technologies Ltd., Eagle Ottawa (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Eagle Ottawa China Ltd., Eagle Ottawa Fonseca S.A., Eagle Ottawa Foreign Holdings ApS, Eagle Ottawa Holdings Ltd., Eagle Ottawa Hungary Kft., Eagle Ottawa LLC, Eagle Ottawa North America LLC, Eagle Ottawa Warrington Ltd., Evolved by Nature Inc., Foshan Lear FAWSN Automotive Systems Co. Ltd., Grote & Hartmann, Guangzhou Lear Automotive Components Co. Ltd, Guilford Europe Limited, Guilford Europe Pension Trustees Limited, Guilford Mills, Guilford Mills Europe Limited, Guilford Mills Limited, HB Polymer Company LLC, Honduras Electrical Distribution Systems S. de R.L. de C.V., Hyundai Transys Lear Automotive India Private Limited, Industrias Cousin Freres S.L., Industrias Lear de Argentina SrL, Insys - Interior Systems SA, Jiangxi Jiangling Lear Interior Systems Co. Ltd., Kyungshin-Lear Sales and Engineering LLC, Lear (China) Holding Limited, Lear (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Lear (Shanghai) Auto Parts Technology Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Lear Automotive (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive EEDS Honduras S.A., Lear Automotive Electronics and Electrical Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Fabrics (RuiAn) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive India Private Limited, Lear Automotive Interior Materials (Yangzhou) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Manufacturing L.L.C., Lear Automotive Metals (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Morocco SAS, Lear Automotive Operations Netherlands B.V., Lear Automotive Services (Netherlands) B.V., Lear Automotive Systems (Changshu) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Systems (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Systems (Shenyang) Co. Ltd., Lear Automotive Systems (Yangzhou) Co. Ltd., Lear Canada, Lear Canada Holding S.a.r.l., Lear Canada Investments ULC, Lear Changan (Chongqing) Automotive System Co. Ltd., Lear Changan (Hangzhou) Automotive Seating Co. Ltd., Lear China Engineering LLC, Lear Corporation (Mauritius) Limited, Lear Corporation (Nottingham) Limited, Lear Corporation (UK) Limited, Lear Corporation (Vietnam) Limited, Lear Corporation Ara S.L., Lear Corporation Ardasa S.L., Lear Corporation Asientos S.L., Lear Corporation Belgium CVA, Lear Corporation Beteiligungs GmbH, Lear Corporation Canada ULC, Lear Corporation Changchun Automotive Interior Systems Co. Ltd., Lear Corporation China Ltd., Lear Corporation Czech Republic s.r.o., Lear Corporation Engineering (UK) Limited, Lear Corporation Engineering Belgium B.V.B.A., Lear Corporation Engineering Czech Republic s.r.o., Lear Corporation Engineering GmbH, Lear Corporation Engineering Hungary Kft., Lear Corporation Engineering II GmbH, Lear Corporation Engineering Italy S.r.l., Lear Corporation Engineering Morocco S.a.r.l., Lear Corporation Engineering Poland Sp. z.o.o., Lear Corporation Engineering Slovakia s.r.o., Lear Corporation d.o.o. Novi Sad, and United Technologies Automotive.
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Kering SA develops, designs, manufactures, markets, and sells apparel and accessories. The company offers shoes; leather goods, including handbags and wallets, purses, and other leather products; eyewear, textile accessories, etc.; and jewelry and watches, as well as ready-to-wear products for men and women. It also provides perfumes and cosmetics. The company provides Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Brioni, Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, Qeelin, Girard-Perregaux, Ulysse Nardin, and Kering Eyewear branded products. It sells its products through department stores, multi-brand stores, and franchise stores, as well as e-commerce sites. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 1,433 stores. Kering SA sells its products in the Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, North America, Japan, and internationally. The company was formerly known as PPR SA and changed its name to Kering SA in June 2013. Kering SA was founded in 1963 and is based in Paris, France.

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Bonmarche Holdings plc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a multi-channel retailer of womenswear and accessories in the United Kingdom. It sells its products through a network of 325 stores located in the United Kingdom, as well as through Website, mail order catalogues, Ideal World TV shopping channel, and telephone. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Wakefield, the United Kingdom.

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Relative calmness on the contact line between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops is a result of agreements reached between the leaders of the two countries in Dushanbe, acting prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, said at a press conference Nov. 20, Armenian media reported.

On the sidelines of the CIS summit in Dushanbe, a conversation took place between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The sides expressed their commitment to negotiations for settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, strengthening the ceasefire to prevent incidents on the contact line and on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The parties decided to develop mechanisms for establishing operational communication between the relevant structures.

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.
Christopher & Banks Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty retailer of private-brand women's apparel and accessories in the United States. The company designs and sells women's apparel and accessories to customers ranging in age from 40 and older. Its stores offer women's apparel consisting of casual clothing, everyday basics, wear-to-work, leisure/active wear, and sleepwear in missy, petite, and women sizes, as well as jewelry and accessories. As of December 4, 2018, the company operated 461 stores, including 314 MPW stores, 80 Outlet stores, 35 Christopher & Banks stores, and 32 stores in its women's plus size clothing division CJ Banks in 45 states. It also operates christopherandbanks.com, an e-commerce Website for its Christopher & Banks and CJ Banks brands. The company was formerly known as Braun's Fashions Corporation and changed its name to Christopher & Banks Corporation in July 2000. Christopher & Banks Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota.

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US sues to halt sugar merger, says it would harm competition

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block a major U.S. sugar manufacturer from acquiring its rival, arguing that allowing the deal would harm competition and consumers. The suit was filed in federal court in Delaware.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Dover: Accelerated Production Systems, Acme Elevator, Advansor A/S, Advansor Dover International (Poland) sp. z o.o, Advansor Germany GmbH, Alfred Fueling Systems Holdco Ltd., Alfred Fueling Systems Inc., Alfred Fueling Systems Intermediate Holdco Ltd., All-Flo Pump Company, Anman LLC, Anthony Equity Holdings Inc., Anthony Holdings Inc., Anthony Inc., Anthony International, Anthony International Foreign Sales Corp., Anthony International Holding Company, Anthony Mexico Holdings LLC, Anthony North Holdco Inc., Anthony Specialty Glass LLC, Anthony TemperBent GP LLC, Auto Glanz Solutions LLC, Automatik Grundstucksverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Automatik Plastics Machinery (Taiwan) Ltd., BSC Filters Limited, Background2 Limited, Belanger, Belanger Inc., Belvac Middle East FZE, Belvac Production Machinery Inc., Blackmer, BlitzRotary GmbH, Butler Engineering and Marketing S.P.A., CDS Visual, CEP Liquidation LLC, CP Formation LLC, CPC Europe Inc., CPI Products Inc., Caldera, Canada Organization & Development LLC, Chief Automotive Technologies (Shanghai) Trading Company Ltd., Chippewa Square Captive Insurance Company, Colder Products Company, Colder Products Company GmbH, Colder Products Company LTD, Cook Compression BV, Cook Compression LLC, Cook Compression Limited, Cook-MFS Inc., DD1 Inc., DDI Properties Inc., DE-STA-CO Benelux B.V., DE-STA-CO FRANCE, DE-STA-CO Shanghai Co. Ltd., DESTACO UK Limited, DFH Corporation, DFS Netherlands B.V., DSR BZ Holdings LLC, Datamax International Corp, De Sta Co (Asia) Company Limited, De-Sta-Co Cylinders Inc., DeStaCo Europe GmbH, Delaware Capital Formation Inc., Delaware Capital Holdings Inc., Dover (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Dover (Schweiz) Holding GmbH, Dover (Shanghai) Industrial Co. Ltd., Dover (Shenzhen) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover (Suzhou) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover Asia Trading Private Ltd., Dover Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Dover Business Services EMEA Limited, Dover Business Services LLC, Dover Business Services Philippines Corporation, Dover CLP Formation Limited Partnership, Dover CR spol s r.o., Dover Canada Holdings ULC, Dover Canada Operations ULC, Dover Corporation Regional Headquarters, Dover DEI Services Inc., Dover Denmark Holdings ApS, Dover EMEA FZCO, Dover Energy UK Ltd, Dover Engineered Products Segment Inc., Dover Europe Inc., Dover Europe Sarl, Dover Fluids UK Ltd, Dover France Holdings, Dover France Participations, Dover France Technologies, Dover Fueling Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Fueling Solutions UK Limited, Dover Germany GmbH, Dover Global Holdings LLC, Dover Holdings de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dover Imaging & Identification Segment Inc., Dover India Pvt. Ltd., Dover Intercompany Services UK Limited, Dover International B.V., Dover International Operations Inc., Dover International Ventures Inc., Dover International Ventures Tunisia S.a.r.l., Dover International ithalat ihracat ve Pazarlama Limited Sirketi, Dover Italy Holdings S.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Finance Sarl, Dover Luxembourg Participations Sarl, Dover Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Services Sarl, Dover Operations South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Dover Overseas Ventures Inc., Dover Pumps & Process Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment UK Ltd, Dover Resources International de Mexico S. de R.L. C.V., Dover Solutions Colombia SAS, Dover Southeast Asia (Thailand) Ltd., Dover Spain Holdings S.L., Dover UK Pensions Limited, Dover WSCR Holding LLC, Dover WSCR LLC, Dover do Brasil Ltda., Dow-Key Microwave Corporation, Dresser Wayne Data Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Dresser Wayne Fuel Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., EOA Systems Inc., Ebs-Ray Holdings Pty Ltd, Ebs-Ray Industries Pty. Ltd., Ebs-Ray Pumps Pty. Ltd., Em-tec, Espy, Ettlinger, Ettlinger Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH, Fairbanks Environmental Limited, Fibrelite Composites Limited, Fibresec Holdings Limited, Fibresec Limited, Finder, GAL LLC, GIIER LLC, Gala Industries, Gala Kunststoff-und Kautschukmaschinen GmbH, Guangdong Tokheim LIYUAN Oil Industry Technology Limited Company, Highland Park Insurance Company, Hill PHOENIX Inc., Hill PHOENIX WIC LLC, Hill Phoenix Costa Rica Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, Hill Phoenix El Salvador Limitada de Capital Variable, Hill Phoenix Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Honduras Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hiltap Fittings Ltd., Hydro Systems Company, Hydro Systems Europe Ltd., Hydronova Australia-NZ Pty Ltd, Industrial Motion Control LLC, Innovative Control Systems, Innovative Control Systems Inc., Inpro/Seal LLC, JK Group, JK Group S.P.A., JK Group USA Inc., K S Boca Inc., K&L Microwave DR Inc., K&L Microwave Inc., KPS (Beijing) Petroleum Equipment Trading Co Ltd., KPS Fueling Solutions Sdn. Bhd., KPS Hong Kong Holding Limited, KPS UK Limited, KS Formation Inc., KS Liquidation Inc., KSLP Liquidation L.P., Kiian Digital (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Knappco LLC, Knowles Electronics, LIQAL, Liquip, Liquip International Pty Limited, MAAG, MARKEM FZ SA, MARKEM-IMAJE Corporation, MIP Holdings Inc., MS Printing Solutions, MS Printing Solutions S.R.L., Maag Automatik GmbH, Maag Automatik Plastics Machinery (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Maag Gala Inc., Maag Italy S.R.L., Maag Pump Systems, Maag Pump Systems (US) Inc., Maag Pump Systems AG, Maag Reduction Inc., Maag Service (Malaysia) Sdn. Bdn., Maag Systems (Thailand) Limited, Marathon Equipment Company (Delaware), Markem Imaje Center of Competencies Spain S.L.U., Markem-Imaje, Markem-Imaje (China) Co. Limited, Markem-Imaje - Unipessoal Lda, Markem-Imaje A/S, Markem-Imaje AB, Markem-Imaje AG, Markem-Imaje AS, Markem-Imaje B.V., Markem-Imaje CSAT GmbH, Markem-Imaje Co. Ltd., Markem-Imaje GmbH, Markem-Imaje Holding, Markem-Imaje Identificacao de Produtos Ltda., Markem-Imaje Inc., Markem-Imaje India Private Limited, Markem-Imaje Industries, Markem-Imaje Industries Limited, Markem-Imaje KK, Markem-Imaje LLC, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Ltd., Markem-Imaje N.V., Markem-Imaje Oy, Markem-Imaje Philippines Corporation, Markem-Imaje Pty Ltd, Markem-Imaje S.A., Markem-Imaje S.A. de C.V., Markem-Imaje S.r.l., Markem-Imaje SAS, Markem-Imaje Sdn Bhd, Markem-Imaje Singapore Pte. Ltd., Markem-Imaje Spain S.A.U, Markpoint Holding AB, Midland Manufacturing LLC, Mouvex, Northern Lights (Nevada) Inc., Northern Lights Funding LP, Northern Lights Investments LLC, Nova Controls Inc., OK International, OK International (UK) Ltd., OK International Holdings Inc., OK International Inc., OPW Engineered Systems Inc., OPW Fluid Transfer Group Europe B.V., OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions (Jiang Su) Co. Ltd., OPW Fluids Group Inc., OPW France, OPW Fuel Management Systems Inc., OPW Fueling Components (SuZhou) Co. Ltd., OPW Fueling Components LLC, OPW Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OPW Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., OPW Slovakia s.r.o., OPW Sweden AB, Officine Meccaniche Sirio S.R.L., PDQ Manufacturing, PDQ Manufacturing Inc., PISCES by OPW Inc., PSD Codax Holdings Limited, PSD Codax Limited, PSG (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, PSG (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., PSG California LLC, PSG Germany GmbH, Petro Vend Sp. z o.o., Pike Machine Products Inc., Pole/Zero Acquisition Inc., Precision Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Para Postos De Combustiveis Ltda., Precision Service - Servicos De Manutencao E Instalacao De Postos De Abastecimento De Combustivel Ltda., Production Control Services, Pump Management Services Co. LLC, RAV Equipos Espana S.L., RAV France, Ravaglioli Deutschland GmbH, Ravaglioli S.P.A., Reduction Engineering GmbH, Revod Corporation, Revod Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Revod SAS, Revod Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd, Revod Sweden AB, Robohand Inc., Rosario, Rosario Handel B.V., Rotary Lift Consolidated (Haimen) Co. Ltd, SE Liquidation LLC, SWEP Germany GmbH, SWEP Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., SWEP North America Inc., SWEP Slovakia s.r.o., SWEP Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Seabiscuit Motorsports Inc., Simmons Sirvey Corporation, So. Cal. Soft-Pak, So. Cal. Soft-Pak Incorporated, Solaris Laser, Solaris Laser S.A., Somero Enterprises, Sound Solutions, Space S.R.L., Spirit, Start Italiana Petrol Cihazlari Sanayi Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Start Italiana S.R.L., Swep Energy Oy, Swep International A.B., Swep Japan K.K., Sys-Tech Solutions, Sys-Tech Solutions Inc., Systech GB Limited, Systech Shanghai Consulting Company Limited, TQC Quantium Quality S.A. de C.V., TTSI III Inc., TWG Canada Consolidated Inc., TXHI LLC, Tartan Textile Services Inc., The Heil Co., Tokheim Belgium, Tokheim China Company Limited, Tokheim GmbH, Tokheim Group, Tokheim Hengshan Technologies (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Tokheim Holding B.V., Tokheim India Private Limited, Tokheim Sofitam Applications, Trans - Logistic Group S.R.L., Triton Systems, Tulsa Winch Inc., UPCO Inc., US Synthetic, Unattended Payment Solutions LLC, Unified Brands, Unified Brands Inc., Val TemperBent Glass L.P., Vectron Frequency Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vehicle Service Group LLC, Vehicle Service Group UK Limited, Vos Food Store Equipment Ltd., WSCR Corp., Warn Automotive LLC, Warn Industries, Waukesha Bearings, Waukesha Bearings Corporation, Waukesha Bearings Limited, Waukesha Bearings Russia LLC, Wayne Fuel Management UK Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems, Wayne Fueling Systems (Rus) Limited Liability Company, Wayne Fueling Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Wayne Fueling Systems Canada ULC, Wayne Fueling Systems Deutschland GmbH, Wayne Fueling Systems Italia S.R.L., Wayne Fueling Systems LLC, Wayne Fueling Systems Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems Sweden AB, Wayne Fueling Systems UK Holdco Ltd., Wayne Industria e Comercio Ltda., WellMark, XanTec Steuerungs- und EDV-Technik GmbH, and em-tec GmbH.
Infineon Technologies AG designs, develops, manufactures, and markets semiconductors and related system solutions worldwide. Its Automotive segment offers automotive microcontrollers; 3D ToF, magnetic, and pressure sensors; discrete power semiconductors; IGBT modules; industrial microcontrollers; power and radar sensor integrated circuits (ICs); transceivers; silicon carbide diodes, MOSEFTs, and modules; and voltage regulators for use in assistance and safety systems, comfort electronics, infotainment, powertrain, and security products. The company's Industrial Power Control segment provides bare dies, discrete IGBTs, driver ICs, SIC diodes, and IGBT modules and stacks for home appliances, industrial drives, industrial power supplies, industrial robotics, industrial vehicles, and traction, as well as for energy generation, storage, and transmission. Its Power & Sensor Systems segment offers gas sensors, MEMS microphones, and pressure sensors chips; discrete low-voltage, mid-voltage, and high-voltage power MOSFETs; control ICs; customized chips; GaN power switches; GPS low-noise amplifiers; low-voltage and high-voltage driver ICs; radar sensor ICs; RF antenna switches and power transistors; transient voltage suppressor diodes; and USB controllers for use in audio amplifiers, automotive electronics, BLDC motors, cellular communications infrastructure, electric vehicle charging stations, human machine interaction, high-reliability components, Internet of Things, LED and conventional lighting systems, mobile devices, and power management applications. The company's Connected Secure Systems segment provides connectivity solutions, embedded security controllers, microcontrollers, and security controllers for authentication, automotive, consumer electronics, government identification document, Internet of Things, mobile communication, payment system, ticketing, access control, and trusted computing applications. Infineon Technologies AG is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

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Novan, Inc., a clinical development-stage biotechnology company, provides nitric oxide-based therapies to treat dermatological and oncovirus-mediated diseases. Its clinical stage dermatology drug candidates include SB204, a topical monotherapy for the treatment of acne vulgaris; SB206, a topical anti-viral gel for the treatment of viral skin infections; SB208, a topical broad-spectrum anti-fungal gel for the treatment of fungal infections of the skin and nails, including athlete's foot and fungal nail infections; and SB414, a topical cream-based gel product candidate for the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases. The company also develops SB207, an anti-viral product candidate for the treatment of external genital warts; WH602, a nitric oxide-containing intravaginal gel to treat high-risk human papilloma virus (HPV); WH504, a non-gel formulation product candidate to treat high-risk HPV; and SB019 for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Novan, Inc. has a license agreement with Sato Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; and a strategic alliance with Orion Corporation. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina.

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President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has arrived in Turkmenistan for an official visit.

A guard of honor was lined up for President Ilham Aliyev at Ashgabat international airport decorated with the national flags of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

President Ilham Aliyev was welcomed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov and other high-ranking officials.








The following companies are subsidiares of Humana: 154th Street Medical Plaza, 516-526 West Main Street Condominium Council of Co-Owners, 54th Street Medical Plaza, American Eldercare, American Eldercare of North Florida, Anvita Health, Arcadian Health Plan, Arcadian Management Services, Atlantis Physician Group, CAC Medical Center Holdings, CAC-Florida Medical Centers, CDO 1, CDO 2, CHA HMO, CHA Service Company, Care Partners Home Care, CareNetwork, CarePlus Health, CarePlus Health Plans, Cariten Health Plan Inc., Certify Data Systems, CompBenefits, CompBenefits Company, CompBenefits Corporation, CompBenefits Dental, CompBenefits Direct, CompBenefits Insurance Company, Complex Clinical Management, Concentra Managed Care, Continucare Corporation, Continucare MDHC, Continucare MSO, Continucare Medical Management, Dental Care Plus Management, DentiCare, Emphesys, Emphesys Insurance Company, Enclara Healthcare, FPG, FPG Acquisition Corp., FPG Acquisition Holdings Corp., FPG Senior Services, Family Physicians of Winter Park, Go365, HUM Provider Holdings, HUM-e-FL, Harris Rothenberg International, Health Value Management, Humana Active Outlook, Humana At Home (Dallas), Humana At Home (Houston), Humana At Home (San Antonio), Humana At Home (TLC), Humana At Home 1, Humana Behavioral Health, Humana Benefit Plan of Illinois, Humana Dental Company, Humana Digital Health and Analytics Platform Services, Humana EAP and Work-Life Services of California, Humana Employers Health Plan of Georgia, Humana Government Business, Humana Health Benefit Plan of Louisiana, Humana Health Company of New York, Humana Health Insurance Company of Florida, Humana Health Plan, Humana Health Plan of California, Humana Health Plan of Ohio, Humana Health Plan of Texas, Humana Health Plans of Puerto Rico, Humana Healthcare Research, Humana Inc., Humana Innovation Enterprises, Humana Insurance Company, Humana Insurance Company of Kentucky, Humana Insurance Company of New York, Humana Insurance of Puerto Rico, Humana Management Services of Puerto Rico, Humana MarketPOINT, Humana MarketPOINT of Puerto Rico, Humana Medical Plan, Humana Medical Plan of Michigan, Humana Medical Plan of Pennsylvania, Humana Medical Plan of Utah, Humana Pharmacy, Humana Pharmacy Solutions, Humana Regional Health Plan, Humana Veterans Healthcare Services, Humana WellWorks LLC, Humana Wisconsin Health Organization Insurance Corporation, Humana at Home, HumanaDental, HumanaDental Insurance Company, Humco, Hummingbird Coaching Systems LLC, Independent Care Health Plan, KMG America, Kindred Healthcare, MCCI Group Holdings, MCCI Holdings, MCCI Medical Group, MCCI Specialty, MCCI/Lifetime of Aventura, MD Care, METCARE of Florida, Managed Care Indemnity, Medical Care Consortium Incorporated of Texas, MetCare, Metropolitan Health Networks, Naples Health Care Specialists, North Region Providers, Nursing Solutions, OSF HealthCare, PHP Companies, Partners in Integrated Care, Preferred Health Partnership, Preservation on Main, Primary Care Holdings, Primary Care Holdings II, Primary Care Specialists of the Palm Beaches, RMA Medical Centers of Florida, RMA Medical Group of Florida, ROHC, SeniorBridge, SeniorBridge Family Companies (CT), SeniorBridge Family Companies (FL), SeniorBridge Family Companies (IN), SeniorBridge Family Companies (MO), SeniorBridge Family Companies (NY), SeniorBridge-Florida, Texas Dental Plans, The Dental Concern, Transcend Population Health Management, and Transcend Population Health Management II.
Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sport shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, Anvil by Gildan, Alstyle, Prim + Preux, and GoldToe brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks, as well as sheer panty hoses, tights, and leggings under the brands of Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, PowerSox, GT a GoldToe Brand, Silver Toe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, Kushyfoot, Therapy Plus, All Pro, Secret, Silks, Secret Silky, and American Apparel. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brand names; and ladies' shapewear, intimates, and accessories under the Secret and Secret Silky brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, or embellishers, as well as to retailers and consumer brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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Wirecard AG engages in the provision of software and information technology for payment processing and issuing products in the field of outsourcing and white label industry. It operates through the following segments: Payment Processing and Risk Management (PP&RM); Acquiring and Issuing (A&I); and Call Center and Communication Services (CC&CS). The PP&RM segment refers to products and services related to electronic payment processing, risk management, and other value added services. The A&I segment offers settlement services for credit card sales for online and terminal payments. The CC&CS segment reports the complete value-added scope of its call center activities, with other products. The company was founded on May 6, 1999 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

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Representatives of the power structures of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia signed a protocol on the results of a trilateral meeting in Baku.

The meeting of Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov, Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, Army General Yashar Guler and Chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces Major-General Vladimir Chachibaia was held in Baku.

The meeting discussed issues of developing cooperation in a trilateral format, regional stability, ensuring the security of projects implemented in the region, etc.




The following companies are subsidiares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise: 3Com International Inc., 3PAR Inc., Apogee, Aruba Networks Inc., Aruba Networks International Cayman, Aruba Networks International Limited, BlueData Software, Cloud Cruiser, Cloud Technology Partners, Cloud Technology Partners Inc., Compaq Computer (Mauritius), Compaq Trademark B.V., Cray, Cray Inc., EDS World Corporation (Far East) LLC, EYP Mission Critical Facilities Inc., H3C Holdings Limited, HP Enterprise Services Australia Pty Ltd, HP Financial Services (Australia) Pty Limited, HP Financial Services (Chile) Limitada, HP Financial Services (Japan) K.K., HP Financial Services Arrendamento Mercantil S.A., HP Financial Services Company (Korea), HP Financial Services International Holdings Company, HPE Government LLC, HPFS Global Holdings I LLC, HPFS Global Holdings II LLC, HPFS Rental S.R.L., Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd, Hewlett Packard Caribe BV LLC, Hewlett Packard Colombia Ltda., Hewlett Packard Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Hewlett Packard Enterprise B.V., Hewlett Packard Enterprise B.V. Amstelveen Meyrin Branch, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Co. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Cie, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Costa Rica Limitada, Hewlett Packard Enterprise GlobalSoft Private Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India Private Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Ireland Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Luxembourg SCA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Polska sp. z o.o., Hewlett Packard Pathfinder LLC, Hewlett Packard Taiwan Ltd., Hewlett-Packard (Israel) Ltd., Hewlett-Packard (M) Sdn. Bhd., Hewlett-Packard (Nigeria) Limited, Hewlett-Packard (Schweiz) GmbH, Hewlett-Packard (Tanzania) Limited, Hewlett-Packard (Thailand) Limited, Hewlett-Packard ApS, Hewlett-Packard Argentina S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Australia Pty Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Belgium SPRL/BVBA, Hewlett-Packard Bermuda Enterprises LLC, Hewlett-Packard Brasil Ltda., Hewlett-Packard Bulgaria EOOD, Hewlett-Packard Caribe B.V., Hewlett-Packard Caribe Y Andina B.V. LLC, Hewlett-Packard Chile Comercial Limitada, Hewlett-Packard Cyprus Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Hewlett-Packard Egypt Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Financial Services (India) Private Limited, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Canada Company, Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Company, Hewlett-Packard France SAS, Hewlett-Packard G1 SPV (Cayman) Company, Hewlett-Packard Gesellschaft mbH, Hewlett-Packard Ghana Limited, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Hewlett-Packard Guatemala Limitada, Hewlett-Packard HK SAR Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Hellas EPE, Hewlett-Packard Holdings Ltd., Hewlett-Packard International Bank Designated Activity Company, Hewlett-Packard International Bank Public Limited Company, Hewlett-Packard International Sarl, Hewlett-Packard Italiana S.r.l., Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Korea Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Leasing Limited, Hewlett-Packard Limited, Hewlett-Packard Luxembourg Enterprises LLC, Hewlett-Packard Macau Limited, Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Marigalante Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Hewlett-Packard Middle East FZ-LLC, Hewlett-Packard Mocambique Limitada - Sociedada em Liquidacao, Hewlett-Packard Nederland B.V., Hewlett-Packard New Zealand, Hewlett-Packard Norge AS, Hewlett-Packard OY, Hewlett-Packard Operations Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Hewlett-Packard Peru S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Philippines Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Portugal Lda., Hewlett-Packard SARL, Hewlett-Packard SIA, Hewlett-Packard Servicios Espana S.L., Hewlett-Packard Singapore (Sales) Pte. Ltd., Hewlett-Packard South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Hewlett-Packard Sverige AB, Hewlett-Packard Technology Center Inc., Hewlett-Packard Teknoloji Cozumleri Limited Sirketi, Hewlett-Packard The Hague B.V., Hewlett-Packard Venezuela S.R.L., Hewlett-Packard Vision Limited, Hewlett-Packard d.o.o., Hewlett-Packard s.r.o., Limited Liability Company Hewlett Packard Enterprise, MapR Technologies, New H3C Technologies Co. Ltd., Niara Inc., Nimble Storage, Nimble Storage Inc., Nimble Storage Israel Ltd, Nimble Storage Japan GK, Nimble Storage UK Limited, Plexxi, RedPixie, SGI (Silicon Graphics), Sapphire Holding Co, Scytale, Shanghai Hewlett-Packard Co. Ltd., Silver Peak, SimpliVity, Sinope Holding B.V., Trilead, UAB ES Hague Lietuva, and Unis Huashan Technologies Co. Limited.
This post is prompted by a number of things that have left me pondering how as Christians we are to bring about change in our churches. When we strongly b...

6 years ago
iShares Morningstar U.S. Equity ETF's stock was trading at $159.30 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, JKD stock has decreased by 58.7% and is now trading at $65.87.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
Invesco Dynamic Credit Opportunities Fund is a close-ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Invesco Ltd. The fund is co-managed by Invesco Advisers, Inc., Invesco Asset Management Deutschland GmbH, Invesco Asset Management Limited, Invesco Asset Management (Japan) Limited, Invesco Hong Kong Limited, Invesco Senior Secured Management, Inc., and Invesco Canada Ltd. It invests in the fixed income markets across the globe with a focus on the United States. The fund invests in securities of companies that operate across diversified sectors. It invests in fixed income securities such as senior secured floating rate loans, fixed rate loans, and collateralized debt. The fund employs fundamental analysis with a bottom-up security selection process to create its portfolio. It conducts in-house research to make its investments. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Credit Suisse Leveraged Loan Index. It was formerly known as Invesco Van Kampen Dynamic Credit Opportunities Fund. Invesco Dynamic Credit Opportunities Fund was formed on June 26, 2007 and is domiciled in the United States.

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Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. engages in the management of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It operates through the following segments: Asset Management, Real Estate, Renewable Power, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Residential Development, and Corporate Activities. The Asset Management segment includes the management of its listed partnerships, private funds and public securities. The Real Estate segment is comprised of the ownership, operation and development of core office, core retail, LP investments and other properties. The Renewable Power segment encompasses the ownership, operation and development of hydroelectric, wind, solar, storage and other power generating facilities. The Infrastructure segment consists of the ownership, operation and development of utilities, transport, energy, data infrastructure and sustainable resource assets. The Private Equity segment refers to the broad range of industries, and is mostly focused on business services, infrastructure services and industrials. The Residential Development segment represents homebuilding, condominium development and land development. The Corporate Activiti

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BNP Paribas SA provides a range of banking and financial services in France and internationally. It operates through two divisions, Retail Banking and Services, and Corporate and Institutional Banking. The company offers long-term corporate vehicle leasing, and rental and other financing solutions; and digital banking and investment services, cash management, and factoring services to corporate clients, as well as wealth management services. It also provides credit solutions for individuals under the Cetelem, Cofinoga, Findomestic, AlphaCredit, and Opel Vauxhall brands; savings and protection solutions, including insuring individuals, and their personal projects and assets; and asset management, private banking, and real estate services. In addition, the company offers global market services, including investment, hedging, financing, research, and market intellingence across asset classes; security services comprising clearing, custody, and asset and fund services, as well as corporate trust, and market and financing services; and corporate trade and treasury, debt financing, specialized financing, strategic advisory, mergers and acquisition, and equity capital market services for institutional and corporate clients. The company was formerly known as Banque Nationale de Paris and changed its name to BNP Paribas SA in May 2000. BNP Paribas SA was founded in 1848 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

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Goldman Sachs Access Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF's stock was trading at $51.42 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, GIGB shares have increased by 4.3% and is now trading at $53.6072.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
The move concerns houses of worship used by the Muslim minority in Thrace, northern Greece, and on the islands of Kos and Rhodes, synagogues as well as the churches of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and Copts

Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religion will grant licenses to all houses of worship operating in Greece since 1955, according to a cyclical issued on Wednesday.

The move concerns houses of worship used by the Muslim minority in Thrace, northern Greece, and on the islands of Kos and Rhodes, synagogues as well as the churches of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and Copts.

According to the ministry's general secretariat of religions, which published the cyclical, the prerequisite for a license is for the religious site to have operated uninterruptedly in the same venue before August 9, 1955, when the system of issuing construction licenses was introduced.

The act will allow the establishment and operation of the sites and bear all relevant legal consequences, the secretariat noted in a press release.

It is not certain how many religious venues will affected by this move.

Read more at ekathimerini.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Jubair1985 License: CC-BY-SA
China Telecom Corporation Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides wireline and mobile telecommunications services primarily in the People's Republic of China. It offers wireline voice services, including local wireline telephone services and long distance wireline services; CDMA mobile voice services, such as local calls, domestic and international long distance calls, intra-provincial roaming, and inter-provincial roaming and international roaming; wireline Internet access services comprising dial-up and broadband services; wireless Internet access services; and wireline, Internet, and mobile value-added services. The company also provides Best Tone information services; and information technology-based integrated solutions, such as system integration and consulting, outsourcing, special advisory, information application, knowledge, and software development services. In addition, it offers managed data services that include digital data network, frame relay, and asynchronous transfer mode services for government agencies, large corporations, and institutions; and leased line services, as well as sells, repairs, and maintains customer-end equipment. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, including network, Internet access and transit, Internet data center, and mobile virtual network services in various countries, including the Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, South America, and North America; and music production and related information, instant messenger, finance leasing, capital and financial management, and e-commerce services, as well as sells telecommunications terminals. As of December 31, 2019, it had approximately 336 million mobile subscribers; 153 million wireline broadband subscribers; and 111 million access lines in service. The company was incorporated in 2002 and is based in Wanchai, Hong Kong. China Telecom Corporation Limited is a subsidiary of China Telecommunications Corporation.

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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.

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Dolphin Capital Investors Limited (the A'Company') was incorporated and registered in the British Virgin Islands (A'BVIs') on 7 June 2005. The Company is a real estate investment company focused on the early-stage, large-scale leisure-integrated residential resorts in south-east Europe and managed by Dolphin Capital Partners Limited (the A'Investment Manager'), an independent private equity management firm that specializes in real estate investments, primarily in south-east Europe. The shares of the Company were admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (A'AIM') on 8 December 2005.

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UAEs Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group (FERG), a consortium of businesses engaged in the foreign exchange and remittance industry, celebrated the completion of 10 years at its Annual General Meeting.



The event was held at Steigenberger Hotel, Dubai in the presence of office bearers, members and industry leaders and officials representing Central Bank of UAE, Dubai Police, Abu Dhabi Police, Dubai Chamber and other strategic partners of FERG.



FERG, which was formed in 2001 and officially registered under Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2008, brings together UAEs leading exchange houses and money transfer operators to discuss challenges, opportunities and threats facing the industry.



Over the last 10 years, the group has been instrumental in various initiatives for the mutual benefit of every stakeholder in the industry and beyond. FERG was involved in the successful implementation of UAEs Wage Protection System (WPS). It has also worked extensively on making the industry more secure by working extensively on research and training in AML, CTF, Counterfeit Currency and Frauds.



FERG works closely with Dubai Police and other international organizations to curb financial crimes within the sector. The group is also an adherent of the countrys Emiratization policy and actively works to bring Emirati workforce to member companies.



Mohamed Ali Al Ansari, chairman, FERG, said: In a short span of 10 years, FERG has achieved the distinction of being recognized as the voice of the UAEs exchange and remittance industry. Currency exchange and remittance play a vital role for both the multi-national resident community in the UAE, as well as the millions of tourists visiting the country.



At FERG we are committed to ensuring that the services offered by our industry infrastructure are safe, convenient, economical, and aligned with the regulatory framework of the UAE. I would like to thank the Central Bank and the government of UAE for their support in helping us achieve our vision to make this country the leader in the exchange and remittance business.



Osama Al Rahma, vice chairman, FERG, said: The UAEs remittance industry is undergoing a phenomenal digital transformation. At FERG, we are committed to ensuring that we, as an industry, steer through the challenges wisely and make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.



In the last 10 years, the group has been a catalyst for the industrys growth and now our eyes are set on capitalizing on the future. The UAE is on a positive growth trajectory, and it is imperative that the countrys exchange and remittance industry facilitate this growth.



FERG, a non-profit organization registered with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, currently has 67 member companies, ranging from large sized exchange houses with more than 200 branches, to single branch operators. It serves as a common platform for all the players to come together and work towards mutual benefit.  TradeArabia News Service
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Insurances Limited, ADIS A/S, AIB Services Limited, AIS Affinity Insurance Agency Inc., AIS Insurance Agency Inc., AMXH LLC, ARM International Corp., ARM International Insurance Agency Corp., ARMRISK CORP., AS Holdings Inc., ASPN Insurance Agency LLC, Access Plans USA Inc., Acumen Credit Insurance Brokers Limited, Adm Administradora de Beneficios Ltda., Administradora Aon C.A., Admiseg SA, Admix, Admix - Administracao Consultoria Participacoes e Corretora de Seguros de Vida Ltda., Aeropeople Limited, Affinity Group Insurance Services Limited, Affinity Insurance Services Inc., Affinity Risk Partners (Brokers) Pty Ltd, Agenion N.V./SA, Agility Credit Insurance Brokers Limited, Alexander & Alexander Holding B.V., Alexander Clay, Alexander Insurance Managers (Netherlands Antilles) N.V., Alexander Reinsurance Intermediaries Inc., Allen Insurance Associates Inc., Alliance HealthCard Inc., Alliance HealthCard of Florida Inc., American Insurance Services Corp., American Special Risk Insurance Company, Aon (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon (CR) Insurance Agencies Company Limited, Aon (DIFC) Gulf Limited, Aon (Fiji) Ltd., Aon (Isle of Man) Limited, Aon (Thailand) Limited, Aon 180412 Limited (in liquidation), Aon ANZ Holdings Limited, Aon APAC Holdings B.V., Aon Acore Sarl, Aon Adjudication Services Limited, Aon Affinity Administradora de Beneficios Ltda., Aon Affinity Argentina S.A., Aon Affinity Chile Ltda., Aon Affinity Colombia Ltda. Agencia de Seguros, Aon Affinity Mexico Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Aon Affinity Mexico S.A. de C.V., Aon Affinity Servicos e Participacoes Ltda., Aon Affinity do Brasil Servicos e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Aon Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Americas Holdings BV, Aon Angola Corretores de Seguros Limitada, Aon Antillen N.V., Aon Aruba N.V., Aon Assurance Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Australia Group Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 1 Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 2 Pty Ltd, Aon Australian Holdco 3 Pty Ltd, Aon Austria GmbH, Aon Bahrain W.L.L., Aon Belgium B.V.B.A., Aon Benefit Solutions Inc., Aon Benfield (Chile) Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Aon Benfield Argentina S.A., Aon Benfield Australia Limited, Aon Benfield Brasil Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Aon Benfield Canada ULC, Aon Benfield China Limited, Aon Benfield Colombia Limitada Corredores de Reaseguros, Aon Benfield Fac Inc., Aon Benfield Global Inc., Aon Benfield Group Limited, Aon Benfield Inc., Aon Benfield Israel Limited, Aon Benfield Italia S.p.A., Aon Benfield Japan Ltd, Aon Benfield Latin America SA, Aon Benfield Limited, Aon Benfield Malaysia Limited, Aon Benfield Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro SA de CV, Aon Benfield Middle East Limited, Aon Benfield New Zealand Limited, Aon Benfield Panama S.A., Aon Benfield Peru Corredores de Reaseguros SA, Aon Benfield Puerto Rico Inc., Aon Bermuda Holding Company Limited, Aon Bermuda QI Holdings Ltd., Aon Beteiligungsmanagement Deutschland GmbH & Co. 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ULC, Aon Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Finance N.S. 1 ULC, Aon Finance N.S. 5 ULC, Aon Finance N.S. 8 ULC, Aon Finance US 1 LLC, Aon Finance US 2 LLC, Aon Financial & Insurance Solutions Inc., Aon Finland Oy, Aon France, Aon Global Holdings 1 Limited, Aon Global Holdings 2 Limited, Aon Global Holdings 3 Limited [In strike-off], Aon Global Holdings Limited, Aon Global Operations plc, Aon Global Risk Consulting B.V., Aon Global Risk Consulting Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Global Risk Research Limited, Aon Grana Peru Corredores de Seguros SA, Aon Greece S.A., Aon Groep Nederland B.V., Aon Group (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Group (Thailand) Limited, Aon Group Holdings International 1 B.V., Aon Group Holdings International 2 B.V., Aon Group Inc., Aon Group International N.V., Aon Group Pty Ltd, Aon Group Venezuela Corretaje de Reaseguros C.A., Aon Hewitt (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Hewitt (Ireland) Limited, Aon Hewitt (PNG) Ltd., Aon Hewitt (Thailand) Ltd., Aon Hewitt Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aon Hewitt Consulting Korea Inc., Aon Hewitt Financial Advice Limited, Aon Hewitt GmbH, Aon Hewitt Health Market Insurance Solutions Inc., Aon Hewitt Hong Kong Limited, Aon Hewitt Inc., Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting Inc., Aon Hewitt Investment Management Inc., Aon Hewitt Japan Ltd., Aon Hewitt Limited, Aon Hewitt Ltd., Aon Hewitt Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Aon Hewitt Management Company Limited, Aon Hewitt Middle East Limited, Aon Hewitt Risk & Consulting S.r.l., Aon Hewitt Risk & Financial Management B.V., Aon Hewitt Trust Solutions GmbH, Aon Hewitt US Holdings Limited, Aon Holding Deutschland GmbH, Aon Holdings (Isle of Man) Limited, Aon Holdings Antillen N.V., Aon Holdings Australia Pty Limited, Aon Holdings Austria GmbH, Aon Holdings B.V., Aon Holdings Botswana (Pty) Ltd, Aon Holdings Corretores de Seguros Ltda., Aon Holdings France SNC, Aon Holdings Hong Kong Limited, Aon Holdings International B.V., Aon Holdings Israel Ltd., Aon Holdings Japan Ltd, Aon Holdings Limited, Aon Holdings Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Aon Holdings Mid Europe B.V., Aon Holdings New Zealand, Aon Hong Kong Limited, Aon Hungary Insurance Brokers Risk and Human Consulting LLC, Aon Insurance Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Insurance Agencies (Macau) Limited, Aon Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Aon Insurance Brokers (Pvt) Ltd., Aon Insurance Management Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (Antilles) N.V., Aon Insurance Managers (Barbados) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Bermuda) Ltd, Aon Insurance Managers (Cayman) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Dublin) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Guernsey) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Holdings) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Isle of Man) Ltd., Aon Insurance Managers (Liechtenstein) AG, Aon Insurance Managers (Luxembourg) S.A., Aon Insurance Managers (Malta) PCC Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (Puerto Rico) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers (Shannon) Limited, Aon Insurance Managers (USA) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers (USVI) Inc., Aon Insurance Managers Gibraltar Ltd., Aon Insurance Micronesia (Guam) Inc, Aon Insurance Underwriting Agencies Hong Kong Limited, Aon Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Philippines Inc., Aon International Cooperatief U.A., Aon International Energy Inc., Aon International Holdings Inc., Aon Investment Holdings Ireland Limited, Aon Israel Insurance Brokerage Ltd., Aon Italia S.r.l., Aon Japan Ltd, Aon Jauch & Hubener Gesellschaft m.b.H., Aon Korea Inc., Aon Latam Holdings N.V., Aon Lead QI B.V., Aon Life Agency of Texas Inc., Aon Life Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Aon Life Insurance Company, Aon MacDonagh Boland Group Ltd, Aon Majan LLC, Aon Management Consulting Taiwan Ltd., Aon Mauritius Holdings, Aon Meeus Assurantien B.V., Aon Mexico Business Support SA de CV, Aon Mexico Holdings LLC, Aon Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., Aon Middle East Co LLC, Aon Nederland C.V., Aon Netherlands Operations B.V., Aon Neudorf Finance S.a.r.l., Aon New Zealand, Aon New Zealand Group ULC, Aon Norway AS, Aon Overseas Holdings Limited, Aon PHI Acquisition Corporation of California, Aon PMI International Limited, Aon Parizeau Inc., Aon Pension Trustees Limited, Aon Pensions Insurance Brokers GmbH, Aon Polska Services Sp. z o.o., Aon Polska Sp. z o.o., Aon Portugal - Consultores Unipessoal Lda., Aon Portugal - Corretores de Seguros S.A., Aon Premium Finance LLC, Aon Private Risk Management Insurance Agency Inc., Aon Private Risk Management of California Insurance Agency Inc., Aon Product Design & Development Australia Pty Limited, Aon Product Design and Development New Zealand Limited, Aon Product Risk Services Hong Kong Limited, Aon Property Risk Consulting Inc., Aon Qatar LLC, Aon Re (Thailand) Limited, Aon Re Bertoldi - Corretagem de Resseguros S.A., Aon Re Bolivia S.A. Corredores de Reaseguros, Aon Re Canada Holdings SARL, Aon Real Estate B.V., Aon Realty Services Inc., Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc., Aon Retirement Plan Advisors LLC, Aon Retirement Solutions Limited, Aon Risiko & Unternehmensberatungs GmbH, Aon Risk & Asset Management Pty Ltd, Aon Risk Consultants Inc., Aon Risk Insurance Services West Inc., Aon Risk Management (Pty) Ltd, Aon Risk Services (Chile) Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of Latin America Inc., Aon Risk Services (Holdings) of the Americas Inc., Aon Risk Services (NI) Limited, Aon Risk Services (PNG) Ltd., Aon Risk Services (Thailand) Limited, Aon Risk Services Argentina S.A., Aon Risk Services Australia Limited, Aon Risk Services Canada Inc., Aon Risk Services Central Inc., Aon Risk Services Colombia SA Corredores de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Companies Inc., Aon Risk Services EMEA B.V., Aon Risk Services Ecuador S.A. Agencia Asesora Productora de Seguros, Aon Risk Services Holdings (Chile ) Ltda., Aon Risk Services Inc. of Florida, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Hawaii, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Maryland, Aon Risk Services Inc. of Washington D.C., Aon Risk Services Northeast Inc., Aon Risk Services South Inc., Aon Risk Services Southwest Inc., Aon Risk Services Venezuela Corretaje de Seguros C.A., Aon Risk Solutions (Cayman) Ltd., Aon Risk Solutions Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas SA de CV, Aon Risk Solutions of Puerto Rico Inc., Aon Riskminder A/S, Aon Romania Broker de Asigurare - Reasigurare SRL, Aon Rus Insurance Brokers LLC, Aon Rus LLC, Aon S.p.A. Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Aon Saver Limited, Aon Securities (Hong Kong) Limited, Aon Securities Investment Management Inc., Aon Securities LLC, Aon Securities Limited, Aon Service Corporation, Aon Services (Guernsey) Ltd, Aon Services (Malta) Ltd, Aon Services Group Inc., Aon Services Hong Kong Limited, Aon Services Pty Ltd., Aon Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi ve A.S., Aon Soluciones S.A., Aon Soluciones S.A.C., Aon Southern Europe UK Limited, Aon Sp. z o.o., Aon Special Risk Resources Inc., Aon Superannuation (PNG) Limited, Aon Superannuation Pty Limited, Aon TC Holdings Inc., Aon Taiwan Ltd., Aon Treasury Ireland Limited, Aon Trust Company LLC, Aon Trust Corporation Limited, Aon Trust Services B.V., Aon UK Group Limited, Aon UK Holdings Intermediaries Limited, Aon UK Limited, Aon UK Trustees Limited, Aon US & International Holdings Limited, Aon US Holdings 2 Inc., Aon US Holdings Inc., Aon Ukraine LLC, Aon Underwriting Agencies (HK) Limited, Aon Underwriting Managers (Bermuda) Ltd., Aon Underwriting Managers Inc., Aon Versicherungsberatungs GmbH, Aon Versicherungsmakler Deutschland GmbH, Aon Vietnam Limited, Aon Ward Financial Corporation, Aon-COFCO Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Aon/Albert G. Ruben Insurance Services Inc., Asevasa Argentina S.A., Asevasa Caricam S.A., Asevasa Chile Peritaciones e Ingenieria de Riesgos S.A., Asevasa Mexico S.A. de C.V., Asevasa Panama S.A., Asian Reinsurance Underwriters Limited, Asscom Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Association of Rural and Small Town Americans, Associacao Instituto Aon, Assurance Licensing Services Inc., B E P International Corp., B.V. Assurantiekantoor Langeveldt-Schroder, BMS Insurance Agency L.L.C., Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships (Ireland) Limited, Bacon & Woodrow Partnerships Limited, Bain Hogg Group Limited (in liquidation), Baltolink UADBB, Bankassure Insurance Services Limited, Bayfair Insurance Centre Limited, Beaubien Finance Ireland Limited, Beaubien Finance Limited, Beaubien UK Finance Limited, Becketts (Trustees) Limited, Becketts Limited, Beech Hill Pension Trustees Ltd, Bekouw Mendes C.V., Benefit Marketing Solutions L.L.C., Benfield Advisory Inc., Benfield Corredores de Reaseguro Ltda., Benfield Finance (London) LLC, Benfield Group, Benfield Investment Holdings Limited, Benfield Juniperus Holdings Limited, Benfield do Brasil Participacoes Ltda. (dormant), Benton Finance Ireland Limited, Benton Finance Limited, Blanch Americas Inc., Bowes & Company Inc. of New York, CEREP III Secondary Manager LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners I LLC, CFSSG Real Estate Partners II LLC, CIF-H GP LLC, Cammack Health LLC, Cananwill Corporation, Cananwill Inc., Cardea Health Solutions Limited, Casablanca Intermediation Company Sarl, Celinvest Amsterdam B.V., Chapka Assurances SAS, Citadel Insurance Managers Inc., CoCubes, CoSec 2000 Limited, Coalition for Benefits Equality and Choice, Cocubes Technologies Private Limited, Coles Hewitt Partnership, Contingency Insurance Brokers Limited, Contractsure Limited, CoverWallet, Coverall S.r.l. Insurance and Reinsurance Underwriting Agency, Credit Insurance Brokers (Reynolds) Limited, Crion N.V., Custom Benefit Programs Inc., Cut-e, Cut-e (UK) Limited, Cut-e Assessment (Hong Kong) Limited, Cut-e Assessment Solutions Europe Limited, Cut-e Australia Pty Limited, Cut-e Consult DMCC, Cut-e Danmark A/S, Cut-e Finland Oy, Cut-e GmbH, Cut-e Ireland Limited, Cut-e Nordic AS, Cut-e Norge AS, Cytelligence, Delany Bacon & Woodrow Partnership, Dempsey Partners, Denney O'Hara (Life & Pensions) Limited, Doveland Services Limited, E. W. Blanch Holdings Limited, E. W. Blanch Investments Limited, E.W. Blanch Capital Risk Solutions Inc., E.W. Blanch International Inc., EW Blanch Limited, Elysium Digital IP Products LLC, Elysium Digital L.L.C., Ennis Knupp Secondary Market Services LLC, Essar Insurance Services Limited, Exploitatiemaatschappij Beukenlaan 68-72 B.V., Farmaseg - Solucoes Assistencia e Servicos Empresariais Ltda., Farmsure Limited [In strike-off], Finaccord Limited, Financial & Professional Risk Solutions Inc., Futurity Group Inc., GTCR/AAM Blocker Corp., Ge.f.it. S.r.l., Gefass S.r.l., Glenrand M I B (Mocambique) Corretores de Seguros Limitada, Global Safe Insurance Brokers S.r.l., Globe Events Management, Gotham Digital Science LLC, Gotham Digital Science Ltd., Grant Liddell Financial Advisor Services Pty Ltd, Grant Park Capital LLC, Groupe-Conseil Aon Inc., Grupo Innovac Sociedad de Correduria de Seguros SA, HIA Insurance Services Pty Ltd., Hall Rhodes Holdings Limited, Hall Rhodes Limited, Hamburger Gesellschaft zur Forderung des Versicherungswesens mbH, Harbourview West Lake Co-Invest (GP) LP, Health Index Advisors LLC, Healthy Paws Pet Insurance, Henderson Corporate Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Brokers Limited, Henderson Insurance Partnership Limited [In strike-off], Henderson Risk Management Limited, Hewitt Amalco 3 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 4 ULC, Hewitt Amalco 5 ULC, Hewitt Associates (a partnership), Hewitt Associates Administradora e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Hewitt Associates Corp., Hewitt Associates Outsourcing Limited, Hewitt Associates Pty Ltd, Hewitt Associates S.C., Hewitt Associates SAS, Hewitt Associates Servicos de Recursos Humanos Ltda., Hewitt Beneficios Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Hewitt Holdings Canada Company, Hewitt Insurance Brokerage LLC, Hewitt Insurance Inc., Hewitt International Holdings LLC, Hewitt Management Ltd., Hewitt Risk Management Services Limited, Hewitt Western Management Amalco Inc., Hogg Group Limited, Hogg Robinson North America Inc., Huntington T. Block Insurance Agency Inc., I. Beck Insurance Agency (1994) Ltd., IAO Actuarial Consulting Services Canada Inc., INPOINT INC., IRM/GRC Holding Inc., Impact Forecasting L.L.C., Inspiring Benefits, Inspiring Benefits Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Insuractive Limited [In strike-off], Insurance Broker Aon Kazakhstan LLP, International Risk Management (Americas) Inc., International Risk Management Group Ltd, International Space Brokers Europe Limited, International Space Brokers France, International Space Brokers Inc., International Space Brokers Limited, Inversiones Benfield Chile Ltda., J H Minet Puerto Rico Inc., J. Allan Brown Consultants Inc., JDPT Manager LLC, Jenner Fenton Slade Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Credit Insurance) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Insurances) Limited, John Reynolds & Company (Life & Pensions) Limited, Johnson Rooney Welch Inc., K & K Insurance Brokers Inc. Canada, K & K Insurance Group Inc., K & K Insurance Group of Florida Inc., K2 Technologies Inc., KVT GP LLC, Kloud S.a.r.l., Krumlin Hall Limited, Lake Erie Real Estate General Partner Limited, Lake Tahoe GP LLC, Lake Tahoe II GP LLC, Lake Tahoe III GP LLC, Lake Tahoe IV GP LLC, Lenzi Paolo Broker di Assicurazioni S.r.l., Lincolnshire Insurance Company PCC Limited, Linx Underwriting Solutions Inc., Lombard Trustee Company Limited, M.A. Shakeel Management Ltd. Amalco, MacDonagh Boland Crotty MacRedmond Ltd, Marinaro Dundas S.A., Marinaro Dundas SA, Mark Kelly Insurance and Financial Services PTY LTD, McLagan (Aon) Limited, McLagan Partners Asia Inc., McLagan Partners Inc., Membership Leasing Trust, Minet Consultancy Services Ltd, Minet Group, Minet Holdings Inc., Minet Inc., Minet Re North America Inc., Modern Survey Inc., Muirfield Underwriters Ltd., NBS Nominees Limited, National Insurance Office Ltd., Nauman Insurance Brokers Limited, Nexus Insurance Brokers Limited, One Underwriting Agency GmbH, One Underwriting B.V., One Underwriting Health B.V., One Underwriting Pty Ltd, Optica Agency A/S, Optimum Risk Solutions Limited, Ovatio Courtage SAS, P.G. Bradley & Co Limited, PGOF Manager 1 LLC, PRORUCK Ruckversicherungs Aktiengesellschaft, PT Aon Benfield Indonesia, PT Aon Hewitt Indonesia, PT Aon Indonesia, PWZ AG, Paragon Strategic Solutions Inc., PathWise Solutions LLC, Penn Square Manager 1 LLC, Penn Square Manager II LLC, Portus Consulting, Portus Consulting (Leamington) Limited, Portus Consulting Limited, Portus Online LLP, Praesidium S.p.A. - Soluzioni Assicurative per il Management, Premier Auto Finance Inc., Private Client Trustees Ltd., Private Equity Partnership Structures I LLC, Probabilitas N.V./SA, Protective Marketing Enterprises Inc., Randolph Finance Unlimited Company, Rasini Vigano Limited, Redwoods Dental Underwriters Inc., Richard Kiddle (Insurance Brokers) Limited, Risk Laboratories LLC, Riskikonsultatsioonide OU, Ronnie Elementary Insurance Agency Ltd, SA Special Situations General Partner LLC, SG IFFOXX Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, SLE Worldwide Limited, SN Re S.A., Salud Riesgos y Recursos Humanos Consultores Ltda. (former Aon Corporte Advisors Ltda.), SchneiderGolling IFFOXX Assekuranzmakler AG, SchneiderGolling Industrie Assekuranzmaklergesellschaft mbH, Scritch Inc., Shanghai Kayi Information Technology Co. Ltd, Sheppard Netherlands B.V., Specialty Benefits Inc., Sports Insure Limited [In strike-off], Strategic Manager-III LLC, Stroz Friedberg (Asia) Limited, Stroz Friedberg Inc., Stroz Friedberg LLC, Stroz Friedberg Limited, Stroz Friedberg Risk Management Limited, Superannuation Management Nominees Limited, Suresport Limited [In strike-off], Swire Blanch MSTC II SA, Swire Blanch MSTC SA, TTG BRPTP GP LLC, TTG Cayuga Bavaria Intermediate 2 S.a.r.l, TTG Core Plus Investments LLC, TTG German Investments I LLC, TTG Investments II LLC, TTG Irish Investments I LLC, TTG Manager LLC, Tecsefin S.A. en liquidacion, The Aon Ireland Mastertrustee Limited, The Aon MasterTrustee Limited, The John Reynolds Company Limited, The Key West Saxon Group LLC, The Townsend Group Inc, The Townsend Group LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager I LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager II LLC, Townsend Alpha Manager III LLC, Townsend Group Asia Limited, Townsend Group Europe Ltd., Townsend HWL GP Ltd., Townsend Holdings LLC, Townsend Lake Constance GP Limited, Townsend REF GP LLC, Townsend Re Global GP Limited, Townsend SO Manager I LLC, UAB One Underwriting, UADBB Aon Baltic, UK Credit Insurance Specialists Limited, UNIT Versicherungsmakler GmbH, US Underwriting Solutions S.r.l., USLP Underwriting Solutions LP, Underwriters Marine Services Inc., Unidelta AG, Unirobe Meeus Groep, UnitedPensions Deutschland AG, Univers Workplace Solutions, VERO Management AG, Ventiv Technology, WT Government Services LLC, WT Technologies LLC, Wannet Speciale Verzekeringen B.V., Wannet Sports Insurance GmbH, Ward Financial Group Inc., West Lake General Partner LLC, West Lake II GP LLC, Wexford Underwriting Managers Inc., White Rock Insurance (Americas) Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Europe) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Gibraltar) PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance (Guernsey) ICC Limited, White Rock Insurance (Netherlands) PCC Limited, White Rock Insurance (SAC) Ltd., White Rock Insurance Company PCC Ltd., White Rock Insurance PCC (Isle of Man) Limited, White Rock Services (Bermuda) Ltd., White Rock USA Ltd., Willis Towers Watson, Worldwide Integrated Services Company, Wrapid Specialty Inc., Zalba-Caldu Correduria de Seguros SA, and cut-e USA Inc..
The following companies are subsidiares of Occidental Petroleum: 1PointFive Inc., 1PointFive P1 LLC, APC Aviation Inc., APC International Holdings LLC, APC Midstream Holdings LLC, APC Venezuela Srl, ARCO Long Beach, Altura Energy, Amarok Gathering LLC, Anadarko 20-25 Company, Anadarko 20-36 Company, Anadarko 20-47 Company, Anadarko 20-48 Company, Anadarko 20-49 Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 403 c/e Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 406B Company, Anadarko Algeria Company LLC, Anadarko Algeria Oil & Gas Company, Anadarko Brazil Investment I LLC, Anadarko Brazil Investment II LLC, Anadarko Canada E&P Limited, Anadarko China Holdings 2 Company, Anadarko Colombia Company, Anadarko Consolidated Holdings LLC, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Block 103 Company, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Company, Anadarko DBMOS Operator LLC, Anadarko Development Company, Anadarko Development Holding Limited, Anadarko E&P Onshore LLC, Anadarko Egypt Holdings Company, Anadarko Energy Holding Limited, Anadarko Energy Services Company, Anadarko Exploracao e Producao de Petroleo e Gas Natural Ltda., Anadarko Finance Company, Anadarko Gabon Company, Anadarko Ghana Mahogany-1 Company, Anadarko Global Energy S.a.r.l, Anadarko Global Funding 1 Company, Anadarko Global Funding II Ltd., Anadarko Guyana Company, Anadarko Holding Company, Anadarko International Development S.a.r.l, Anadarko International Energy Company, Anadarko International O&G Company, Anadarko International Trading Corporation, Anadarko Jordan Company, Anadarko Kenya Company, Anadarko LMM S.a.r.l, Anadarko Land Corp., Anadarko Mexico B.V., Anadarko Mexico S.a.r.l, Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell BR Corp., Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell LLC, Anadarko Natural Gas Company LLC, Anadarko New Zealand Company, Anadarko OGC Company, Anadarko Offshore Holding Company LLC, Anadarko Offshore Well Containment Company LLC, Anadarko Oil & Gas 5 LLC, Anadarko Peru B.V., Anadarko Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Anadarko Realty LLC, Anadarko Rockies LLC, Anadarko Royalty Holdings Company, Anadarko UK Corporate Limited, Anadarko US Offshore LLC, Anadarko USH1 Corporation, Anadarko Venezuela Company, Anadarko Venezuela LLC, Anadarko Venezuela Srl, Anadarko WCTP Company, Anadarko West Texas BR Corp., Anadarko West Texas LLC, Anadarko Worldwide Holdings C.V., Atlantic Rim Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aventine LLC, Baseball Merger Sub 2 Inc., Bear Branch Exploration LLC, Big Island Trona Company, Bitter Creek Coal Company, Bravo Pipeline Company, Cain Chemical, Cain Chemical Inc., Carbon Finance Labs LLC, Concord Petroleum Corporation, Conn Creek Shale Company, D.S. Ventures LLC, DMM Financial LLC, Deerwood Exploration LLC, Downtown Plaza II, Elk Hills Field, FLAG Development LLC, FP Westport Commodities Limited, FP Westport GmbH, FP Westport LLC, FP Westport Limited, FP Westport Services LLC, FP Westport Trading LLC, Fosters Mill Exploration LLC, Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., Globrep Representaciones S.A., Grand Bassa Tankers Inc., Grupo OxyChem de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Headwater II LLC, Houndstooth Resources LLC, INDSPEC Chemical B.V., INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Export Sales LLC, INDSPEC Holding Corporation, Ingleside Cogeneration GP LLC, Ingleside Cogeneration Limited Partnership, Interore Trading Ltd., Joslyn Partnership, KERR-McGEE TT E&P LTD., KM BM-C-Seven Ltd., KM International Insurance Ltd., Kerr-McGee Corporation, Kerr-McGee Natural Gas Company Inc., Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Onshore LP, Kerr-McGee Shared Services Company LLC, Kerr-McGee Stored Power Corporation, Kerr-McGee U.K. Energy Corporation, Kerr-McGee Worldwide Corporation, Kerr-McGee do Brasil Ltda., Kerr-McGee of Canada Northwest Ltd., Laguna Petroleum Corp., Laguna Petroleum LLC, Liwa Oil & Gas Ltd., MC2 Technologies LLC, Mariana Properties Inc., Marico Exploration Inc., Miller Springs Remediation Management Inc., Moncrief Minerals Partnership L.P., NGL Ventures LLC, Natural Gas Odorizing Inc., New OPL LLC, OEVC Energy LLC, OEVC Midstream Projects LLC, OIH LLC, OLCV CE Holdings ULC, OLCV CE US Holdings Inc., OLCV Net Power LLC, OLCV Services LLC, OOG Partner LLC, OOOI Chem Holdings LLC, OOOI Chem Sub LLC, OOOI Chemical International LLC, OOOI Chile Holder LLC, OOOI Ecuador Management LLC, OOOI Oil and Gas Sub LLC, OOOI South America Management LLC, OPM GP Inc., OPM Holdco LLC, OTCF LLC, OTH LLC, OXY CV Pipeline LLC, OXY Campus LLC, OXY Inc., OXY LPG LLC, OXY Libya E&P Area 103 BR4 B.V., OXY Libya E&P Area 35 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P Concession 103 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 102 B.V., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1981 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1985 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P NC 143 144 145 150 B.V., OXY Libya Exploration SPC, OXY Libya LLC, OXY Little Knife LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings I LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings II LLC, OXY Middle East Holdings Ltd., OXY Oil Partners Inc., OXY PBLP Manager LLC, OXY Support Services LLC, OXY Tulsa Inc., OXY USA Inc., OXY USA WTP LP, OXY VPP Investments LLC, OXY West LLC, OXY of Saudi Arabia Ltd., OXYCHEM (CANADA) INC., OXYMAR, Oakwood Exploration LLC, Occidental (Bermuda) Ltd., Occidental (East Shabwa) LLC, Occidental Advance Sale Finance Inc., Occidental Al Hosn LLC, Occidental Angola Holdings Ltd., Occidental CIS Services Inc., Occidental Canada Holdings Ltd., Occidental Chemical Asia Limited, Occidental Chemical Belgium B.V.B.A., Occidental Chemical Chile Limitada, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Occidental Chemical Export Sales LLC, Occidental Chemical Far East Limited, Occidental Chemical Holding Corporation, Occidental Chemical International LLC, Occidental Chemical Investment (Canada) 1 Inc., Occidental Chemical Receivables LLC, Occidental Chemical de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Occidental Chile Investments LLC, Occidental Chile Minority Holder LLC, Occidental Colombia (Series G) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series J) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series K) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series L) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series M) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series N) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series O) Ltd., Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (Canada), Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (International), Occidental Dolphin Holdings Ltd., Occidental Energy Marketing Inc., Occidental Energy Ventures LLC, Occidental Exploradora del Peru Ltd., Occidental Exploration and Production Company, Occidental Hafar LLC, Occidental International (Libya) Inc., Occidental International Corporation, Occidental International Exploration and Production Company, Occidental International Holdings Ltd., Occidental International Oil and Gas Ltd., Occidental International Services Inc., Occidental Joslyn GP 2 Co., Occidental LNG (Malaysia) Ltd., Occidental Latin America Holdings LLC, Occidental Libya Oil & Gas B.V., Occidental MENA Manager Ltd., Occidental Middle East Development Company, Occidental Midland Basin LLC, Occidental Mukhaizna LLC, Occidental Oil Asia Pte. Ltd., Occidental Oil Shale Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas (Oman) Ltd., Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Occidental Oil and Gas International Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas International LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas Pakistan LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas of Peru LLC, Occidental Oman (Block 27) Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 65 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 65 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 72 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 72 LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Company LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman North Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oriente Exploration and Production Ltd., Occidental Overseas Holdings B.V., Occidental PVC LLC, Occidental Peninsula II Inc., Occidental Peninsula LLC, Occidental Permian Ltd., Occidental Permian Manager LLC, Occidental Permian Services Inc., Occidental Peruana Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 101) Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 103) Inc., Occidental Petroleum (Pakistan) Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Occidental Petroleum Corporation Political Action Committee, Occidental Petroleum de Venezuela S.A., Occidental Petroleum of Nigeria, Occidental Petroleum of Oman Ltd., Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Ltd., Occidental Power Marketing L.P., Occidental Power Services Inc., Occidental Qatar Energy Company LLC, Occidental Red Sea Development LLC, Occidental Research Corporation, Occidental Resource Recovery Systems Inc., Occidental Resources Company, Occidental Shah Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental South America Finance LLC, Occidental Specialty Marketing Inc., Occidental Tower Corporation, Occidental Transportation Holding Corporation, Occidental West Texas Overthrust Inc., Occidental Yemen Ltd., Occidental Yemen Sabatain Inc., Occidental del Ecuador Inc., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Bab) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Shah) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi LLC, Occidental of Abu Dhabi Ltd., Occidental of Bahrain Ltd., Occidental of Bangladesh Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Chipiron) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Cosecha) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Medina) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Putumayo) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia (Teca) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia PUT-36 LLC, Occidental of Dubai Inc., Occidental of Iraq Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Iraq LLC, Occidental of Oman Inc., Occidental of Russia Ltd., Occidental of South Africa (Offshore) Inc., Occidental of Yemen (Block 75) LLC, Oceanic Marine Transport Ltd., Opcal Insurance Inc., Oryx Crude Trading & Transportation Inc., Oxy BridgeTex Limited Partnership, Oxy C & I Bulk Sales LLC, Oxy Canada Sales Inc., Oxy Carbon Solutions LLC, Oxy Carbon Storage LLC, Oxy Climate Ventures Inc., Oxy Cogeneration Holding Company LLC, Oxy Colombia Holdings LLC, Oxy Colombia TopCo Ltd., Oxy Delaware Basin LLC, Oxy Delaware Basin Plant LLC, Oxy Dolphin E&P LLC, Oxy Dolphin Pipeline LLC, Oxy Energy Canada Inc., Oxy Energy Services LLC, Oxy Expatriate Services Inc., Oxy FFT Holdings Inc., Oxy Holding Company (Pipeline) Inc., Oxy International Ventures Ltd., Oxy LPG Terminal LLC, Oxy Levelland Pipeline Company LLC, Oxy Levelland Terminal Company LLC, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, Oxy Midstream Strategic Development LLC, Oxy Oleoducto SOP LLC, Oxy Overseas Services Ltd., Oxy Permian Gathering LLC, Oxy Permian Plaza LLC, Oxy Petroleum de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Oxy Renewable Energy LLC, Oxy Salt Creek Pipeline LLC, Oxy TL LLC, Oxy Taft Hub LLC, Oxy Technology Ventures Inc., Oxy Transport I Company LLC, Oxy Vinyls Canada Co., Oxy Vinyls Export Sales LLC, Oxy Vinyls LP, Oxy Westwood Corporation, Oxy Y-1 Company, OxyChem Ingleside Ethylene Holdings Inc., OxyChem do Brasil Ltda., OxyChile Investments LLC, Oxychem Shipping Ltd., Permian Basin JV Tax Matters Member LLC, Permian Basin Limited Partnership, Permian VPP Holder LP, Permian VPP Manager LLC, Phibro, Placid Oil LLC, Ramlat Oxy Ltd., Rio de Viento Inc., Rodeo Midland Basin LLC, San Patricio Pipeline LLC, Scanports Shipping LLC, SequestCo LLC, Stetson Exploration LLC, Sun Offshore Gathering Company, Swiflite Aircraft Corporation, Transok Properties LLC, Troy Potter Inc., Turavent Oil GmbH [in liquidation], Tuscaloosa Holdings Inc., UP Petroleo III Ltd., Upland Industries Corporation, Venezuela US SRL, Vintage Gas Inc., Vintage Petroleum, Vintage Petroleum Argentina Ltd., Vintage Petroleum Boliviana Ltd., Vintage Petroleum International Finance B.V., Vintage Petroleum International Holdings LLC, Vintage Petroleum International LLC, Vintage Petroleum International Ventures Inc., Vintage Petroleum Italy Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America Holdings Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America LLC, Vintage Petroleum Turkey Inc., WGR Asset Holding Company LLC, WGR Canada Inc., Wardner Ranch Inc., Western Gas Resources Inc., Western Gas Resources-Westana Inc., Western Midstream Holdings LLC, Woodlands International Insurance Ltd., and YT Ranch LLC.
11 Wall Street equities research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Hugo Boss in the last twelve months. There are currently 6 hold ratings and 5 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street equities research analysts is that investors should "hold" Hugo Boss stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in BOSS, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares.

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UAE-based Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) said it allocated Dh514 million ($140 million) for the development of a major high-speed rail network in Morocco that connects the major cities of Tangier and Casablanca.



The landmark rail infrastructure project, which will help cut the travel time between the two cities to two hours, was developed at an estimated cost of $2.3 billion, said a statement from ADFD.



A high-level delegation led by ADFD Director General Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi attended the launch ceremony of the 200-km long high-speed train network project held yesterday (November 15).

It was inaugurated by King Mohammed VI of Morocco in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron, Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoun Al Nahyan, Member of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, Ali Salim Al Kaabi, UAE Ambassador to Morocco and several top Moroccan officials.



The 320-km per hour super-fast train network will help bolster the movement of people, increasing nationwide and cross-city trade and tourism as well as driving sustainable economic development.



Speaking at the launch, Al Suwaidi said: "We are proud of the strategic partnership between the Moroccan government and ADFD. Supporting Moroccos development programmes and objectives has resulted in economic growth and diversification, new job opportunities, and sustainable development in key sectors in that country."



"A first-of-its-kind initiative in the African continent, this state-of-the-art high-speed train will dramatically improve travel times and living standards," he added.



A leading national entity for global development aid, ADFD said it has so far funded 12 transportation projects worth an estimated Dh2.4 billion ($650 million) to support socio-economic development in Morocco.



To date, the Emirati fund has supported Morocco with grants and concessionary loans worth Dh9 billion across 82 development projects spanning diverse sectors, including housing, water, agriculture, education and healthcare.-TradeArabia News Service
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iShares MSCI EAFE ETF's stock was trading at $56.05 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EFA stock has increased by 42.4% and is now trading at $79.79.

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iShares MSCI Brazil ETF's stock was trading at $29.68 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EWZ stock has decreased by 0.5% and is now trading at $29.53.

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iShares MSCI Spain ETF's stock was trading at $22.48 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWP shares have increased by 18.6% and is now trading at $26.67.

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Azizi Developments, a leading private developer in the UAE, said it has awarded a Dh200-million ($54.4 million) contract to Prestige Constructions for the development of Farhad Azizi Residence project within Dubai Healthcare City.



Scheduled for completion in 2020, the project was launched by Azizi Developments in Dubai Healthcare City following the strong demand for Azizi Aliyah Residences, the companys first premium residential project in the wellness neighbourhood.



Azizi Aliyah Residences is in the final phase of construction with the elegantly-designed homes scheduled for handover soon.



Piling work for the 17-storeyed Farhad Azizi Residence, which has a basement and two podium levels, has already been completed and Prestige Constructions will soon start work on the residential development that will feature 634 premium units.



Set in a total construction area of 728,715 sq ft, Farhad Azizi Residence boasts 396 studios, 218 one- and 20 two-bedroom apartments.



CEO Farhad Azizi said: "With strong demand for residential property in the fast-growing Dubai Healthcare City neighbourhood, we are offering investors truly world-class choices and are delighted to partner with Prestige Constructions again, having already worked with them on our Meydan developments."



"We are confident that the company will play a pivotal role in the success of this project," he stated.



Prestige Constructions CEO Nur Alam Choudhary said: "Azizi Developments is setting industry benchmarks with their goodwill and business practices. We are delighted to partner with the company again and are thankful to them for the trust and confidence bestowed in us."



"We will use our best resources to accomplish this prestigious project within the specified timeframe," he stated.



DHCC is the wellness and health district of the UAE with close to 160 clinical partners including hospitals, outpatient medical centers and diagnostic laboratories across 150 plus specialties with licensed professionals from almost 90 countries.



Residents of Farhad Azizi Residence will enjoy panoramic views of the city, leisure activities, family amenities, and the finest healthcare facilities the country has to offer.



In addition to the convenient proximity to iconic Dubai landmarks, Farhad Azizi Residence will be surrounded by green spaces, making it a beautiful and relaxing location for families and working professionals.-TradeArabia News Service
iShares MSCI Pacific ex Japan ETF's stock was trading at $37.77 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, EPP stock has increased by 32.4% and is now trading at $50.02.

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NovaGold Resources Inc. explores for and develops gold mineral properties in the United States. It primarily owns 50% interest in the Donlin Gold project consisting of 493 mining claims covering an area of 71,420 acres located in the Kuskokwim region of southwestern Alaska. The company was formerly known as NovaCan Mining Resources (1985) Limited and changed its name to NovaGold Resources Inc. in March 1987. NovaGold Resources Inc. was founded in 1984 and is based in Vancouver, Canada.

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More than 100 government and business leaders from the UAE and Caribbean countries will attend the debut UAE & Caribbean Cooperation Forum, to be held in Dubai, UAE, and will explore potential to boost economic cooperation between the UAE and Caribbean region.



The event will take place from November 24 to 26, at the Ritz-Carlton, and is being co-organised by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in partnership with the UAE Ministry of Economy and the UAE Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development.



High-level discussions, sessions and presentations at the forum will identify new partnership opportunities between the UAE and Caribbean countries, and place a strong focus on trade, investments, development and cultural exchange, said a statement from the organisers.



Announcing the forum, Reem Bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, said: As the UAE forges forward on its journey to development, it walks in the footsteps of its founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, perpetuating the values of human development, supporting and assisting communities around the world to ensure none are left behind in meeting sustainable development goals.



The upcoming forum is a manifestation of the bridges we have built over the years with the countries of the Caribbean, where economic, cultural and developmental cooperation and partnerships come together to nurture mutual and general efforts to build a better world for future generations, she added.



Furthermore, the UAE-Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund (UAE-CREF), launched during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017, marked a turning point in bilateral relations between the two regions in key sectors, most notable of which are clean energy and infrastructure - both vital for sustainable economic development.



On the sidelines of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2018 in January of this year, the Dh183.6 million ($50 million) UAE-CREF announced the launch of the second funding cycle through partnerships with seven new Caribbean countries, which will substantially contribute to the growth and development of the renewable energy sector in Belize, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, St. Kitts & Nevisand St. Lucia.



Hamad Buamim, president and chief executive officer, Dubai Chamber, said: There is huge potential for Caribbean countries to boost trade with the GCC, Middle East, Africa and Asia, and the UAE is well-placed as a re-export hub that can provide them with easy access to these markets.



Buamim noted that the UAE offers world-class infrastructure, strong logistics expertise and support, investor-friendly business environment, and attractive free zones, which are all important advantages that can help Caribbean companies expand their global reach.



He added that the upcoming Forum would provide an ideal platform to showcase these strengths, as well as untapped business potential that exists in Caribbean countries.



The forum will aim to generate interest in Caribbean markets among leading UAE-based companies and organisations such as Emirates Airline, DP World, Dubai Airports, Etihad Airways, Khalifa Port.



The forum will raise awareness about attractive investment opportunities within the Caribbean region's energy, infrastructure, agriculture, IT and tourism sectors. In addition, the event will highlight key areas where the UAE can offer its expertise and investment to fill market gaps in Caribbean markets and address key economic challenges.



A series of workshops, entitled the 'UAE Technical Assistance Programme', will be hosted on the sidelines of the forum. These events will help Caribbean companies learn more about the UAE's economy and business environment, while participants will also examine strategies for fostering sustainable economic growth across both regions, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Pembina Pipeline Corporation provides transportation and midstream services for the energy industry. It operates through three segments: Pipelines, Facilities, and Marketing & New Ventures. The Pipelines segment operates conventional, oil sands and heavy oil, and transmission assets with a transportation capacity of 3.1 millions of barrels of oil equivalent per day, ground storage of 11 millions of barrels, and rail terminalling capacity of approximately 145 thousands of barrels of oil equivalent per day serving markets and basins across North America. The Facilities segment offers infrastructure that provides customers with natural gas, condensate, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), including ethane, propane, butane, and condensate; and includes 354 thousands of barrels per day of NGL fractionation capacity, 21 millions of barrels of cavern storage capacity, and associated pipeline and rail terminalling facilities. The Marketing & New Ventures segment buys and sells hydrocarbon liquids and natural gas originating in the Western Canadian sedimentary basin and other basins. Pembina Pipeline Corporation was incorporated in 1954 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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DTE Energy Co. operates as a diversified energy company, which engages in the provision of electricity and natural gas sales, distribution and storage services. It operates through the following segments: Electric, Gas, Non-Utility Operations, and Corporate & Other. The Electric segment engages in the generation, purchase, distribution and sale of electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers in south-eastern Michigan. The Gas segment engages in the purchase, storage, transportation, distribution and sale of natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers throughout Michigan and the sale of storage and transportation capacity. The Non-Utility Operations segment engages in gas storage and pipelines, power and industrial projects, and energy trading. The Corporate & Other includes various holding company activities, holds certain non-utility debt, and holds energy-related investments. The company was founded in January 1995 and is headquartered in Detroit, MI.

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Pimco Total Return ETF's stock was trading at $110.14 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, BOND shares have decreased by 1.1% and is now trading at $108.95.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc..
The Dubai Optical Show Vision-X (DOSV-X) ended on a high note as regional and international optical brands, retailers, manufacturers, and suppliers hailed the only eyewear and eyecare trade event in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region as a success.



The organisers of DOSV-X 2018, DV Global Link, a joint venture between Dubai World Trade Centre and Italian Exhibition Group, are impressed with the response to this years show and its strengthened concept, said a statement.



The events new concept was designed with the support of strategic partner ANFAO (Italian Association of Optical Goods Manufacturers). Spurred on by the encouraging feedback and reaction to the event, DV Global Link has already started making plans to ensure next years edition of DOSV-X, from November 12 to 14, capitalises on this years momentum to make the second edition even bigger and better.



Luca Veronesi show director said: The results from this years show have demonstrated that we are on the right path towards our goals of developing an event that meets the growing and dynamic demands of the Mena region.



With the amount of optimism garnered this year, we are even more equipped to plan and provide our stakeholders a show that they truly deserve. Buyers were satisfied with the diversity of the products this year and exhibitors were equally happy to see buyers coming from 71 countries including, besides the Middle East countries, Kenya, India, Nigeria, Russia and Sudan, he said.



What has been achieved over the past three days will hopefully boost the local and regional eyewear and eyecare industry, sealing its international reputation, and laying the foundations for the show next year. I look forward with great excitement to welcoming all exhibitors, visitors, and special guests back, along with a host of new faces for show, he added.



The event also provided a vital platform for the development of local, regional and international strategic partnerships. With exhibitors coming from the UAE and 16 other countries including Italy, Germany, Argentina, Malaysia, Korea and France, participants in the business matchmaking programme were able to reap the rewards of the innovative initiative by developing international business relationship and solidifying existing ties.



In addition to the individual exhibitors, two national pavilions attended DOSV-X, with the Germanys Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs & Energy supporting the presence of 11 German exhibitors and the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) managing the presence of 20 Italian exhibitors under the banner Made in Italy.



The presence of their fashion frames strongly enhanced the product variety at the show, confirming the international imprinting of the show and exciting the buyers interest, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Stage Stores, Inc. operates specialty department stores primarily in small and mid-sized towns and communities in the United States. Its merchandise portfolio comprises moderately priced and brand name apparel, accessories, cosmetics, footwear, and home goods. The company also offers merchandise direct-to-consumer through its e-commerce Website, and private label credit card and loyalty programs. As of August 23, 2018, it operated 764 department stores in 42 states under the BEALLS, GOODY'S, PALAIS ROYAL, PEEBLES, and STAGE names; 63 GORDMANS off-price stores; and stage.com, an e-commerce Website. The company was founded in 1988 and is based in Houston, Texas.

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TCF Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for TCF National Bank that provides various financial products and services in the United States and Canada. It operates through Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Enterprise Services segments. The company offers checking, savings, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; individual retirement accounts; debit and credit cards; and check cashing and remittance services. It also provides investment management and custodial services, trust services, financial and estate planning, and retirement planning and employee benefit programs; residential, consumer, and small business lending products; and consumer real estate secured lending, consumer loans, loans secured by personal property, and unsecured personal loans. In addition, the company offers loans and lines of credit, deposits, cash management, capital market products, international trade finance, letters of credit, foreign exchange management services, and loan syndication services. Further, it provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate banking, and lease financing; and treasury services comprising investment and borrowing portfolios, as well as manages capital, debt, and market risks. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 478 branches, including 373 traditional branches, 102 supermarket branches, and three campus branches located in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, and South Dakota; and 1,062 ATMs. TCF Financial Corporation was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan.

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Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (Kizad) has announced that Dubai-based Gerab National Enterprises will establish its fabrication facility, manufacturing unit and 3PL logistics operations at the zone and nearby Khalifa Port through three major projects.



Kizad is the largest industrial zone in the Middle East and a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Ports.



Gerab Group is a leading bulk stockist and supplier of seamless pipes, welded pipes and allied components.



Under new agreements, Gerab Group will launch its presence in Kizad and Khalifa Port by:

 Setting up Quality International Co Ltd (Quality International) within a 655,000-sq-m plot at Kizad and Khalifa Port which includes a waterfront yard of 172,000-sq-m;

 Adding a 212,000-sq-m plot in Kizad and Khalifa Port for Flexigistic Logistics (Flexigistic), its subsidiary, which will be developed into multi-user facilities;

 Enhancing Samamat Flow Control (Samamat) production capabilities by setting up an integrated production facility.



Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports, said: We are delighted that, Gerab Group has found Khalifa Port and Kizads competitive advantages so attractive that they have decided to enter into a number of new agreements with us to establish their operations here.



The company is one of many major institutions that have chosen Kizad and Khalifa Port as a base for their regional operations due to our commitment to develop a world-class integrated industrial ecosystem that allows companies to collaborate and create innovative solutions, he said.



As businesses continue to leverage our unique value proposition based on connectivity and cost effectiveness, Im confident that Kizad will remain at the forefront of regional industrial development, he added.



Abdullah Sharafi, president of Gerab Group, said: Expanding the portfolio of assets is an integral part of our strategic plan for continued growth and development across the region, with specific focus through investment in domestic operations emphasising our local presence.



With our improvement plans approved for investment in Kizad and Khalifa Port, we are confident of achieving our objective and providing comprehensive support to the growing needs of the UAE, he said.



The main driver of this expansion plan is Quality International, which will provide a comprehensive solution to the regions process equipment manufacturing requirements, he added.



Shashi Ramakrishnan, managing director of Quality International, said: As a company specialised in the manufacturing of process equipments such as pressure vessels, reactors, Shell and Tube Heat Exchanges and also large modules, tank farms and piping spools, the expansion at Kizad and Khalifa Port will reinforce the Companys existing facilities across the UAE, allowing it to take on substantially larger projects that require dedicated fabrication and berth space.



The support provided by Kizad and Abu Dhabi Ports has been exceptional and they have truly demonstrated a partnership model in building long term relationship with investors. We are excited with this partnership and can see a bright future ahead of us, he said.



The improvement and expansion plan not only strengthens our domestic presence, but also positions us as a strategic supplier for the international market, he added.



The expansion will also support the groups other subsidiary companies within the UAE, Flexigistic, a third-party logistics provider offering a one-stop-shop for various industry verticals across the region, and Samamat, an API certified premier manufacturer of Gate, Globe, Check and Ball valves that caters to both local and international clients, said a statement.



Under the agreement, both companies will significantly develop their production capabilities within the industrial zone to meet growing demand for UAE products and services.



This development reflects Kizads commitment to the regional business community, such as launching Kizad Construction City earlier this year to serve as a storage, manufacturing and distribution hub for construction material, machinery and equipment for major construction projects.



More recently, the industrial zone also launched an Entrepreneurship and Incubation Centre that offers cost-effective work spaces, offices and licensing options to enhance the entrepreneurship and SME ecosystem in the UAE, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various personal and commercial banking products and services in Canada and the United States. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases through auto dealer network. It also provides credit cards; real estate secured lending; auto finance; consumer lending; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, private banking, investment advisory, and trust services to retail and institutional clients; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to companies, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,085 branches, 3,440 automated teller machines, and 1,223 stores, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Lithia Motors: 797 Valley Street LLC, Albany CJD Fiat, Baierl Auto Group, Baierl Auto Parts LLC, Baierl Automotive Corporation, Baierl Chevrolet Inc., Baierl Holding LLC, Broadway Ford, Buhler Ford Inc, Cadillac of Portland Lloyd Center LLC, Camp Automotive Inc., Carbone Auto Body LLC, Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Fiat of Morgantown, Cranberry Automotive Inc., Crater Lake Ford Lincoln, Crater Lake Mazda, DCH (Oxnard) Inc., DCH Auto Group, DCH Bloomfield LLC, DCH CA LLC, DCH Calabasas-A LLC, DCH California Investments LLC, DCH California Motors Inc., DCH DMS NJ LLC, DCH Del Norte Inc., DCH Essex Inc., DCH Financial NJ LLC, DCH Freehold - V LLC, DCH Freehold LLC, DCH Holdings LLC, DCH Investments Inc. (New Jersey), DCH Investments Inc. (New York), DCH Korean Imports LLC, DCH Mamaroneck LLC, DCH Mission Valley LLC, DCH Monmouth LLC, DCH Montclair LLC, DCH Motors LLC, DCH NY Motors LLC, DCH Nanuet LLC, DCH North America Inc., DCH Oxnard 1521 Imports Inc., DCH Riverside-S Inc., DCH Simi Valley Inc., DCH Support Services LLC, DCH TL Holdings LLC, DCH TL NY Holdings LLC, DCH Temecula Imports LLC, DCH Temecula Motors LLC, DCH Thousand Oaks-F Inc., DCH Torrance Imports Inc., Dah Chong Hong CA Trading LLC, Dah Chong Hong Trading Corporation, Daron Motors LLC, Day Auto Group, Downtown LA, Driveway Motors LLC, Elizabeth Collision LLC, Florida SS LLC, Ford Lincoln of Morgantown, Freehold Nissan LLC, Fuse Auto Sales LLC, Hamilton Honda, Hazleton Honda, Hutchins Eugene Nissan Inc., Hutchins Imported Motors Inc., Jaguar Landrover Mission Viejo, LA Motors Holding LLC, LAD Advertising Inc., LAD Carson-N LLC, LAD Mission Viejo-JLR Inc., LAD Mobu Inc., LAD-AU LLC, LAD-MB LLC, LAD-N LLC, LAD-P LLC, LAD-T LLC, LAD-V LLC, LBMP LLC, LFKF LLC, LGPAC Inc., LLL Sales Co LLC, LMBB LLC, LMBP LLC, LMOP LLC, LSTAR LLC, Lithia AcDM Inc., Lithia Aircraft Inc., Lithia Anchorage-C LLC, Lithia Anchorage-H LLC, Lithia Armory Garage LLC, Lithia Auction & Recon LLC, Lithia Auto Services Inc., Lithia Automotive Inc., Lithia BA Holding Inc., Lithia BNM Inc. (nonoperating), Lithia Baierl-S LLC, Lithia Bryan Texas Inc., Lithia Buffalo-A LLC, Lithia CCTF Inc., Lithia CDH Inc., Lithia CIMR Inc., Lithia CJDO Inc., Lithia CJDSA Inc., Lithia CJDSF Inc., Lithia CM Inc., Lithia CO Inc., Lithia CSA Inc., Lithia Community Development Company Inc., Lithia Crater Lake-F Inc., Lithia Crater Lake-M Inc., Lithia DE Inc., Lithia DM Inc., Lithia DMID Inc., Lithia Des Moines-VW LLC, Lithia Dodge of Tri-Cities Inc., Lithia Eatontown-F LLC, Lithia FLCC LLC, Lithia FMF Inc., Lithia Financial Corporation (previously Lithia Leasing Inc. and Lithia Credit Inc.), Lithia Florida Holding Inc., Lithia Ford of Boise Inc., Lithia Fresno Inc., Lithia HDM Inc., Lithia HGF Inc., Lithia HMID Inc., Lithia HPI Inc. (nonoperating), Lithia Hamilton-H LLC, Lithia Hazleton-H LLC, Lithia Idaho Falls-F Inc., Lithia Imports of Anchorage Inc., Lithia JEF Inc., Lithia Klamath Inc., Lithia Klamath-T Inc., Lithia LBGGF Inc., Lithia LHGF Inc., Lithia LSGF Inc., Lithia MBDM Inc., Lithia MMF Inc., Lithia MTLM Inc., Lithia McMurray-C LLC, Lithia Medford HON Inc., Lithia Middletown-L LLC, Lithia Monroeville-A LLC, Lithia Monroeville-C LLC, Lithia Monroeville-F LLC, Lithia Monroeville-V LLC, Lithia Moon-S LLC, Lithia Moon-V LLC, Lithia Morgantown-CJD LLC, Lithia Morgantown-F LLC, Lithia Morgantown-S LLC, Lithia Motors Support Services Inc., Lithia NA Inc., Lithia NC Inc., Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #1, Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #3, Lithia ND Acquisition Corp. #4, Lithia NDM Inc., Lithia NF Inc., Lithia NSA Inc., Lithia Northeast Real Estate LLC, Lithia Orchard Park-H LLC, Lithia Paramus-M LLC, Lithia Pittsburgh-S LLC, Lithia Ramsey-B LLC, Lithia Ramsey-L LLC, Lithia Ramsey-M LLC, Lithia Ramsey-T LLC, Lithia Real Estate Inc., Lithia Reno Sub-HYUN Inc., Lithia Reno-CJ LLC, Lithia Reno-VW LLC, Lithia Rose-FT Inc., Lithia SOC Inc., Lithia SSP LLC, Lithia Salmir Inc., Lithia Sea P Inc., Lithia Seaside Inc., Lithia Spokane-B LLC, Lithia Spokane-S LLC, Lithia TA Inc., Lithia TO Inc., Lithia TR Inc., Lithia Uniontown-C LLC, Lithia VAuDM Inc., Lithia VF Inc., Lithia Wexford-H LLC, Lithia of Abilene Inc., Lithia of Anchorage Inc., Lithia of Bend #1 LLC, Lithia of Bend #2 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 1 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 2 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 3 LLC, Lithia of Bennington - 4 LLC, Lithia of Billings II LLC, Lithia of Billings Inc., Lithia of Casper LLC, Lithia of Clear Lake LLC, Lithia of Concord I Inc., Lithia of Concord II Inc., Lithia of Corpus Christi Inc., Lithia of Des Moines Inc., Lithia of Eureka Inc., Lithia of Fairbanks Inc., Lithia of Great Falls Inc., Lithia of Helena Inc., Lithia of Honolulu-A Inc., Lithia of Honolulu-BGMCC LLC, Lithia of Honolulu-F LLC, Lithia of Honolulu-V LLC, Lithia of Killeen LLC, Lithia of Lodi Inc., Lithia of Maui-H LLC, Lithia of Missoula II LLC, Lithia of Missoula III Inc., Lithia of Missoula Inc., Lithia of Pocatello Inc., Lithia of Portland I LLC, Lithia of Portland LLC, Lithia of Robstown LLC, Lithia of Roseburg Inc., Lithia of Santa Rosa Inc., Lithia of Seattle Inc., Lithia of South Central AK Inc., Lithia of Spokane II Inc., Lithia of Spokane Inc., Lithia of Stockton Inc., Lithia of Stockton-V Inc., Lithia of TF Inc., Lithia of Troy LLC, Lithia of Utica - 1 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 2 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 3 LLC, Lithia of Utica - 4 LLC, Lithia of Walnut Creek Inc., Lithia of Wasilla LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 1 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 2 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 3 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 4 LLC, Lithia of Yorkville - 5 LLC, Medford Insurance LLC, Milford DCH Inc., Northland Ford Inc., PA Real Estate LLC, PA Support Services LLC, Paramus Collision LLC, Paramus World Motors LLC, Personalized Marketing LLC, Prestige Auto Group, RFA Holdings LLC, Ray Laks Acura, Ray Laks Honda, Sacramento-L Inc., Salem-B LLC, Salem-H LLC, Salem-V LLC, Sharlene Realty LLC, Shift Portland LLC, Southern Cascades Finance Corporation, Subaru of Morgantown, Tampa-H LLC, Tustin Motors Inc., Wesley Chapel-H LLC, Wesley Chapel-T LLC, Zelienople Real Estate I L.P., and Zelienople Real Estate L.L.C..
iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF's stock was trading at $158.09 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWF shares have increased by 92.1% and is now trading at $303.72.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
Wynnstay Group Plc manufactures and supplies agricultural products in the United Kingdom. It operates through Agriculture and Specialist Agricultural Merchanting segments. The Agriculture segment offers animal nutrition products to the agricultural market; and seeds, fertilizers, and agro-chemicals to arable and grassland farmers, as well as markets grains. The Specialist Agricultural Merchanting segment provides specialist products to farmers, smallholders, and pet owners. This segment offers its products through 54 depots; and specialist catalogues and online channels. It also manufactures and acts as a distributor of equine and small animal feeds through wholesalers and retailers. The company was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, the United Kingdom.

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UAE groups Meraas and Dubai Holding have joined hands for a key event - Dubai Fashion Days - that aims to showcase the most exciting design talents from the Middle East, China and the rest of the world, over the next eight days in the emirate.



The duo is hosting Dubai Fashion Days, a key event that aims to showcase the most exciting design talents from the Middle East, China and the rest of the world, through its joint intiative Hala China in co-ordination with Arab Fashion Week and JollyTrust.



To be held till November 28, it is an eight-day celebration of fashion-centric programming that seeks to showcase the most exciting design talents from the Middle East, China and the rest of the world, thus affirming Dubais position as both an economic and creative hub for International fashion.



Supported by the Dubai Design and Fashion Council, the event aims to transform Dubais fashion scene into a citywide activation at key destinations including City Walk and Dubai Design District (d3).



This pioneering cultural initiative sees the most powerful and influential fashion and development institutions of Dubai joining forces, to stage an innovative programme of fashion shows, retail pop-ups, industry talks and exhibitions, that is expected to attract more than 20,000 visitors, said the organisers.



Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, the chairman of Hala China, said: "The inaugural edition of Dubai Fashion Days at City Walk and d3 aligns with Hala Chinas strategy to develop ongoing events and explore opportunities in trade, tourism and investment that can mutually benefit our economies."



"We have worked diligently to bring together industry experts and stakeholders to create an event that aims to positively impact the fashion world. With a strong offline and online presence, we are confident that Dubai Fashion Days will enable Chinese brands to explore the Dubai market and provide them with international exposure. The event will also establish links between UAE-based designers and the Chinese fashion industry," he added.



Headlining Dubai Fashion Days is the 7th edition of Arab Fashion Week which will take place at City Walk and d3, featuring runway shows from over 30 international and regional UAE designers, said Al Mualla.



The list includes Amato Couture (UAE), Asmariia (Russia), Blssed (UAE), Bav Tailor (UK), Diana Mahrach Couture (US), Danielle Benicio (Brazil), Ilse Jara (Paraguay), Jollychic (China), Nina Zandia (UAE), Old Times (China), Pearla Collection (UAE), Sophia Nubes (Switzerland), Tony Miranda (Portugal), Yara Bint Shakar (UAE) and Youppie! (China).



In a first for any International Fashion week, collections shown on the runway will be available immediately for sale on the official e-commerce platforms of exclusive online retail partners JollyChic and MarkaVIP, transforming the runway shows into a practical see-now-buy-now revolutionary customer experience, said the organisers.



Jacob Abrian, the founder and chief executive of the Arab Fashion Council, said: "We are delighted to co-organise this powerful new initiative together with JollyTrust, in partnership with Hala China."



"The sum of our collective expertise will propel Dubai into new heights on the International Fashion Week Calendar, by providing designers participating in Arab Fashion Week with the unprecedented opportunity to sell their collections from the runway directly to the consumer," he noted.



David Ding, the co-founder of Jollychic, said: "Fashion is an expression of culture and a way to seek resonance. It is also an exploration of the future."



"Emerging designers in China and the Arab world are becoming increasingly influential. Their voices are being heard and ambitions understood. We are very glad to support them on this journey as they seek to gain visibility on the international fashion stage and shape the future of our industry," stated Ding.



For the first time, Jollychic will present and live stream their closing show at Arab Fashion Week, via their app, so that those unable to attend the show can still feel immersed in the excitement and can purchase directly from the catwalk, he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Maserati has appointed Domenico La Marte as its general manager for Middle East & Africa, directing all areas of the business in 11 markets including sales, marketing, public relations, customer relationship management, aftersales and network development.

Prior to his current appointment, La Marte held the position of sales director, South East Asia Pacific, at Maserati in Hong Kong where he spearheaded a large number of importers from Singapore to Taiwan to Australia and New Zealand.

Based in Dubai, he will now focus on maintaining and improving the first-class standards of the dealers network and is accountable for all matters pertaining to customer satisfaction.

Hailing from Italy, La Marte holds a masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Rome and has gained over 18 years experience driving the growth of premium and luxury brands in the automotive industry in Europe and Asia.

Domenico brings a wealth of industry experience and brand knowledge to drive operations in the Middle East and Africa. Domenicos determination for excellence is imperative as we continue to build our reputation and set new benchmarks in design and performance across the region, said Umberto Cini, Maseratis managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. - TradeArabia News Service
Why drive when you can fly in style to the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 this weekend?

Flyhigh Dubai Helicopter Services by Alpha Destination Management offers a helicopter shuttle transfer between Dubai and Abu Dhabi from November 23 till 25.

Chiara Boccascino, director Flyhigh, said: We are proud to offer luxurious helicopter charters exclusively for Formula 1 from our fleet of VIP configured aircraft. The helicopter charters are available between Atlantis The Palm Helipad in Dubai and Yas Links helipad in Yas Island located few hundred metres from the entrance of Yas Marina Circuit. In addition, a free shuttle service by car will be connecting the YAS Links helipad to the different gates and entrances of Yas Marina Circuits. It is a spectacular way to arrive at the tracks.

The service is available every hour from 8 am till 2 am. Travellers can reach the destination in less than 30 minutes, enjoying the stunning aerial views of Dubai.

The helicopter ride prices are:

* Sharing Helicopter: Dh3,045 per person per way

* Exclusive helicopter: Dh16,695 per flight per way (five-seat capacity). - TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Aramco, a global petroleum and natural gas company, will hold its 4th annual forum for the In-Kingdom Total Value Add (IKTVA) programme on November 26-27 at the Dhahran Expo Centre in Dammam.



Held under the patronage of HRH Prince Saud bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, governor of the Eastern Province, the event will bring together a broad spectrum of local and international investors to explore energy supply chain investment opportunities. Experts and specialists from various entities and companies will contribute to dynamic panel discussions, presentations, workshops and seminars.



This years IKTVA Forum & Exhibition will reinforce the programmes positive impact on the national economy in alignment with Vision 2030, Saudi Arabias economic diversification programme. The event will highlight success stories and best practices for promoting supplier local content.



Saudi Aramco designed IKTVA to make the Saudi energy sector globally competitive by localizing goods and services; creating direct and indirect jobs for citizens; and increasing the Kingdoms export of energy-related goods and services by 30 per cent.



The programme falls within the strategic initiative framework of the National Transformation Program intended to amplify efforts by the companys suppliers in driving local goods and services investments, delivering workforce development and technology transfer, and fostering R&D while providing partners with opportunities for expansion.



IKTVA seeks to develop a reliable, sustainable supply chain capable of sourcing 70 percent of its energy sector materials and services requirements locally. By 2030, the programme also aims to establish 30 training centres helping 360,000 highly skilled graduates take on the jobs of the future.



While creating quality jobs, building a well-trained workforce and stimulating economic growth are key objectives, localization is ultimately about sustainability, said Mohammad A Al-Shammary, Saudi Aramco vice president of Procurement & Supply Chain Management.



Sourcing Saudi Aramcos value chain in our own backyard is a strategic move for greater integration and agility, with business benefits that dramatically multiply our contribution to the Kingdoms long-term prosperity, in addition to being a win for our global suppliers, SMEs, manufacturers and service providers.



This years iktva forum is expected to host more than 3,000 participants from over 40 countries, including new and veteran investors, suppliers, and service providers. Also, more than 50 supply chain investment opportunities will be promoted, as well as, multiple seminars focusing on how to do business in Saudi Arabia and with Saudi Aramco. The iktva forum is enriched by an exhibition of local and international companies along with training academes, industrial parks and government entities.



The 2018 IKTVA Forum & Exhibition is the leading global energy supply-chain event, hosting a diverse range of industry sectors both local and international, large and small. Over the past four years, large companies and SMEs have partnered with Saudi Aramco to build a world-class, competitive energy sector.  TradeArabia News Service
Souq.com, an online retail and marketplace website in the Arab region, has launched its White Friday sale, its biggest online shopping event, with more deals than ever.



From the November 20 to 24, customers across the GCC and Egypt can choose from more than two million deals and offers, with discounts of up to 70 per cent, a statement said.



This years White Friday will be the biggest event ever, offering more than two million deals on the widest variety of products. Keeping with Souq.coms customer obsession, deals will be customised for UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, providing customers with the products and brands that they are most looking forward to, at great prices. There will also be top Spotlight deals that will be exclusive to Souq.com.



Ronaldo Mouchawar, CEO & co-founder, Souq.com, said: Since we launched White Friday on Souq.com in 2014, customers have told us how much they like this deals event, so we are happy to be back this year with more deals and more choice than ever. We are also glad that hundreds of small and medium sized businesses are joining White Friday this year, after the positive sales uplift they saw in previous years.



Shoppers across the GCC and Egypt can make huge savings with discounts of up to 70 percent across many categories. Customers can enjoy price drop deals, where they will be alerted immediately after prices drop on certain goods. The biggest ever White Friday sale on Souq.com will feature deals on products from many local and global brands. Hundreds of small and medium-sized business, including craftsmen from across the region, will offer deals on Souq.com.



Souq.coms banking partners in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt will offer monthly instalments with 0 per cent interest for purchases on the site (subject to terms and conditions).



Souq.com brought White Friday to the Middle East in 2014 as a regional version of the global Black Friday, re-naming it as a mark of respect to the day of worship in the region. It is held during the weekend after Thanksgiving every year and this year, will run from November 20 to 24.



Since its first year, White Friday has become a much-awaited shopping bonanza across the region, attracting first-time online shoppers, as well as veteran shoppers.  TradeArabia News Service
Gulf residents have been urged to take advantage of the new Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme of St Kitts and Nevis that allows a family of four to get citizenship and obtain passports to the twin island state for $195,000.



According to the Passport Index 2018, the passport of St Kitts and Nevis is ranked 24 that allows holders of the passport to avail visa-free travel to 133 countries and visa upon arrival in 33 other countries. The country also allows dual citizenship and holders of its passport can also keep and the original passport of the country of the immigrants origin.



St Kitts and Nevis offers Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme  that allows foreigners to obtain a passport in exchange for investment of $150,000 for a single person and $195,000 for a family of four  that allows the person to travel across the world without having to stand in the queue for visas.



The St Kitts and Nevis passport is very well regarded and has excellent reputation, and only relatively few passports have been issued under this citizenship-by-investment programme by the Government. It has the lowest-cost programme among Caribbean states to gain second citizenship for Americans, said Les Khan, chief executive officer of the St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit.



However, according to a recently published Passport Index, St Kitts and Nevis' passport was ranked the world's 26th most powerful and the best in the OECS. The ranking measures a country's passport strength based on the number of destinations its holders can access, with St Kitts and Nevis adding 15 new territories to its list since last year.



I take this opportunity to invite residents of the Gulf countries to take advantage of Citizenship by Investment programme and avail visa-free travel to more than 120 countries globally, Les Khan told Imran Farooq, chief executive officer of Samana Group which owns three immigration consulting firms, including AAA Associates, a Dubai-based firm, during his recent visit to the Caribbean.



At the time the index was elaborated, the Caribbean country offered visa-free or visa-on-arrival travel to 151 destinations. These include the UK, Ireland, Russia, Israel, and the Schengen Area. Since then, the dual-island nation has signed further bilateral visa waiver agreements with Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Bahrain, San Marino and Togo.



St Kitts and Nevis is known for its efforts in establishing wide diplomatic relations, which was reflected in a recent independent study by experts at the Financial Times' Professional Wealth Management magazine.  TradeArabia News Service
This association will enable financial institutions to get an insight into their consumers transactional behavior.

Mumbai: Equifax Analytics Pvt Ltd, (Equifax) a global information solution provider of predictive analytics, announced that it has joined forces with PayU, Naspers fintech company and Indias leading digital payments processor. This association will enable financial institutions to get an insight into their consumers transactional behavior.

This collaboration provides financial institutions more insights while prospecting new to credit customer. It converts data into consumable insights which can be easily incorporated in the digital lending process.

Consumer credit market in India has a lot of scope for growth and this partnership will serve the untapped potential. This innovative product is aligned with our vision of supporting the credit ecosystem including banks, NBFCs, and Fin-techs in order to provide seamless credit access to millions of underserved customers. Furthermore, this provides further validation of our understanding of customers digital behavior and how same can be leveraged to drive credit access to consumers. said Jitendra Gupta, MD, PayU India.

This complementary partnership will enable an informed decision making and smoother journey for the new to credit customers said KM Nanaiah, Managing Director, Equifax Credit Information services Ltd and Country Leader, Equifax India and MEA.

In a country such as India, about 75 per cent of the population has never taken a loan. Consumer loan accounts for almost one-fifth of new loan accounts opened. Through this collaboration, Equifax & PayU is looking to create opportunities to include this particular segment of millions of underserved customers into the fold of credit.

Equifax is a global information solutions company that uses unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga, Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs 11,200 employees worldwide.
There is interest in our strong brand and confidence in our business turnaround efforts, Mr Dube said. (Representational image)

New Delhi: Jet Airways is in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing, its CEO Vinay Dube has said.

In a communication to Jet Privilege members, Mr Dube also said that the airline is deploying aircraft on more profitable, productive and economically-efficient routes.

Grappling with financial woes, the full-service carrier is looking for investors to tide over the liquidity crisis, which has resulted in delayed payments to some vendors and salaries to a section of its over 16,000 employees.

We are in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing to navigate through the current headwinds and create long-term growth. There is interest in our strong brand and confidence in our business turnaround efforts, Mr Dube said.

On November 16, Tata Sons confirmed its interest in acquiring Jet Airways but said no concrete proposal has been made by the group so far. Last week, Jet posted a net loss of Rs 1,261 crore for the second quarter.
New Delhi: Indian agro-exports valued $38.74 billion have a potential to grow to $100 billion by 2022  if the export sector capitalises the opportunity opened up with the trade war between the US and China and SMEs start exporting directly to the overseas buyers.

While increasing the import tariffs for products from the US, China has reduced tariffs on many agricultural products from its Asia Pacific Trade Agreement partners comprising India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Korea and Laos. This could result in increasing the agro exports from India.

According to a study by the commerce ministry, the ongoing trade war has opened a window of opportunity for India to push for higher exports in 171 items, ranging from textiles to marine products. This opens up an additional outbound shipment potential of up to $8.7 billion a year. A large chunk of this export revenue can come from agri commodities and agro-based products.

China has imposed a 25 per cent tariff on US produced soybean, while removing all tariffs on imports through APTA countries. Chinas annual soybean import is of around 100 million tonnes. This presents opportunity for Indian soybean producers to export to China. Similarly, China is world's biggest importer of rice with import of more than five million tonne per year.

Recently, it has allowed exporting of non basmati rice from India. Total of 24 rice mills have been cleared for exporting rice. India is the world's top rice exporter with 12.7 million tonne export last fiscal. So, the potential to export rice to China is huge, said Pawan Gupta, founder of Connect2India.

The agro-products items that will help India make inroads into the American market include shrimps and prawns, yarn, fabrics, garlic, berries, sugar confections, oilcake, leather, rubber and wooden products.

Further, there are products like fresh grapes which were being exported to China. After China increased its tariffs for such products from US, our exports stand to gain significantly. Products such as fresh and dried oranges, corn, durum wheat and grain sorghum are not currently exported to China. India can grab a good share of the $10 million US exports of these products.

In the short to medium term, trade war opens up an opportunity. Besides capitalising this opportunity, if our small and medium enterprises start exporting directly to overseas customers, our $38.74 billion agri-exports can grow to $100 billion by 2022, said Gupta.

According to him, only one per cent of the 65 million SMEs are exporting directly to buyers abroad. They lack global visibility, awareness and competitiveness and hence end up selling their products to merchant exporters.

They have to share a good portion of the profits with the merchant exporters and so they cannot become competitive in the market. They also are not aware of the demand in the international market nor can they plan production according to the demand. Once they get directly in touch with the buyers, their margins will improve, their visibility in the global market will become better and awareness levels also will increase. This will help them double their exports, he said.

Connect2India is currently serving as a platform for the SMEs to reach out to their overseas buyers. Among the SMEs who have come on board largely deal with agro commodities and products.

If India has to touch $2 trillion trade by 2025 as envisaged by the government, the direct exports by SMEs will have to grow to at least 10 per cent from the current one per cent, he added.
Vinta Nanda had credited Tanushree Dutta for courage in opening up against Alok Nath.

Mumbai: The Mumbai police on Wednesday registered an FIR against actor Alok Nath on allegations of rape leveled by writer Vinta Nanda.

"Oshiwara Police has registered an FIR against Alok Nath under section 376 of IPC (rape) on the complaint filed by Writer Vinta Nanda," said senior police officer Manoj Sharma.

Also Read | Vinta Nanda files police complaint against Alok Nath

In October, Alok Nath had filed a civil defamation suit against writer-producer Vinta Nanda, who accused him of rape. The actor had sought a written apology, along with a compensation of Rs 1.

Also Read | Alok Nath responds to CINTAA, his wife moves court against Vinta Nanda

While hearing the case on October 17, a Mumbai court didn't pass an interim order and allowed writer-producer Vinta Nanda to use social media to comment on her rape and sexual assault allegations against Alok Nath.

Vinta Nanda had also lodged a complaint against Alok Nath for allegedly sexually harassing her in the 90s.

In the wake of ongoing #MeToo movement, Vinta had accused Alok Nath of rape and narrated her horrifying ordeal in a Facebook post. She was the writer and producer of teleserial 'Tara' in the 90s, in which Nath played a lead role.

Following the allegations, the Indian Film and Television Directors' Association (IFTDA) had issued a notice to the veteran actor, seeking his stand on the rape allegations made against him.
Ishwarya Menon, who garnered lot attention spoofing actresses in Tamizh Padam 2, has signed a new film, which is totally a contrast to what she did earlier. The pretty actress has gone on board for a love story and murder mystery thriller, directed by debutant Sandeep, who has done few short films.

Talking to DC she says, If TP2 was fun and my character was humor laced, the untitled new film is just the opposite of it. It is a very serious movie and I am doing a character who is totally dissimilar from what I am in real life. It has an interesting premise. I am looking forward to it.

Ishwarya, who has yet another film with a big actor in her kitty, refuses to diverge details about it. I feel the announcement should come from the production house, she quips.

She also denied rumors of doing a film with actor Vemal. I was never approached for a film with Vemal. It is a rumor. With TP2s exposure, the actress has also got offers from Tollywood.
A web-based tool can let a man with prostate cancer see how thousands of other men in his situation have chosen to be treated, which may help him better understand his own options, a U.S. study suggests.

Early-stage prostate cancer may not need treatment right away, or ever, because these tumors often dont grow fast enough to cause symptoms. Because treatment can have side effects like impotence and incontinence, doctors sometimes advise men to put off surgery or radiation and instead get regular screenings to reassess whether the cancer warrants intervention.

There is often no one correct treatment option because the choice of prostate cancer treatment depends on personal preferences around treatment benefits and risks, said senior author Dr. Karandeep Singh of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

There are already a number of great resources available to the prostate cancer patient community to support this shared decision-making process, Singh said by email. However, there are no tools that help patients discover what treatments similar men chose when faced with a similar decision.

Singh and colleagues set out to develop a tool that fit the bill. They used data on treatment choices made by 5,016 men diagnosed with prostate cancer to develop a web-based tool that predicts the most likely treatment choice based on what other men in similar circumstances have chosen.

Then, they asked another 2,527 men with prostate cancer to try out the tool and see how often the program predicted the treatment choice these men would pick for themselves. The tool, it turned out, was highly accurate.

This tool is not meant to replace the shared decision-making process but rather to augment that process by helping patients focus their preparation on likely treatment options prior to meeting with their urologist, Singh said.

Its only meant for men with early-stage tumors that havent spread to other parts of the body. It wont predict treatment decisions for men with more complex cases.

A web-based tool can let a man with prostate cancer see how thousands of other men in his situation have chosen to be treated, which may help him better understand his own options, a U.S. study suggests.

Early-stage prostate cancer may not need treatment right away, or ever, because these tumors often dont grow fast enough to cause symptoms. Because treatment can have side effects like impotence and incontinence, doctors sometimes advise men to put off surgery or radiation and instead get regular screenings to reassess whether the cancer warrants intervention.

There is often no one correct treatment option because the choice of prostate cancer treatment depends on personal preferences around treatment benefits and risks, said senior author Dr. Karandeep Singh of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

There are already a number of great resources available to the prostate cancer patient community to support this shared decision-making process, Singh said by email. However, there are no tools that help patients discover what treatments similar men chose when faced with a similar decision.

Singh and colleagues set out to develop a tool that fit the bill. They used data on treatment choices made by 5,016 men diagnosed with prostate cancer to develop a web-based tool that predicts the most likely treatment choice based on what other men in similar circumstances have chosen.

Then, they asked another 2,527 men with prostate cancer to try out the tool and see how often the program predicted the treatment choice these men would pick for themselves. The tool, it turned out, was highly accurate.

This tool is not meant to replace the shared decision-making process but rather to augment that process by helping patients focus their preparation on likely treatment options prior to meeting with their urologist, Singh said.

Its only meant for men with early-stage tumors that havent spread to other parts of the body. It wont predict treatment decisions for men with more complex cases.
Public health officials in the United States and Canada on Tuesday warned against eating romaine lettuce while they investigate an outbreak of E. coli that has sickened 50 people in the two countries, including 13 who were hospitalized.

The alerts, issued as millions of Americans plan their Thanksgiving Day menus, covered all forms of romaine, including whole heads, hearts, bags, mixes and Caesar salad.

Officials were uncertain of the source of the tainted lettuce.

Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in its food safety alert.

Refrigerator drawers and shelves where romaine lettuce had been stored should be sanitised, the CDC said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada, which is investigating 18 of the E. coli cases, directed its romaine lettuce alert at consumers in Ontario and Quebec.

In the United States, the CDC said the outbreak affected 32 people in 11 states between Oct. 8 and 31. No deaths have been reported, it said.

Symptoms of the infection often include a moderate fever, severe stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, which is often bloody, the CDC said. Most people get better in five to seven days, but it can be life-threatening, it said.

The agency said the current outbreak is unrelated to another multi-state rash of E. coli infections related to romaine lettuce earlier this year that left five people dead and sickened nearly 200.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC traced the origin of that contamination to irrigation water in the Yuma, Arizona, growing region.
New Delhi: An American national has been allegedly killed by people belonging to the protected Sentinelese Tribes in the North Sentinel Island, sources said Wednesday, even as the US consulate maintained he was "missing".

A case of culpable homicide has been registered, and the fishermen who took John Allen Chau, 27, to the island have been arrested. "We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State," a US Consulate spokesperson said.

"When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment," the spokesperson said.

According to a report published in a newspaper in Port Blair, Chau had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands five times earlier too. He had expressed a desire to meet the Sentinelese Tribe, which is known to resist all contact with outsiders, often firing arrows at anyone who comes near. According to the report, Chau had hired a fishing dinghy from the Chidiyatapu area and reached close to the island on November 16, from where he travelled in his own canoe.

He had made a failed attempt on November 14 as well. While his body had been spotted by fishermen, it has not been retrieved yet, the sources said. Till recently, the North Sentinel Island was out of bounds for visitors. In a major step earlier this year, the government excluded this island and 28 others in the Union Territory from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime till December 31, 2022.

The lifting of RAP meant that foreigners could be allowed to visit these islands without permission from the government.
Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan has asked director general of police to initiate thorough probe to identity the fraudsters who had posted an offensive message in her name targeting the Kerala Chief Minister for allowing women devotees to worship at Sabarimala as per the Supreme Court order.

Chennai: Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan has asked director general of police to initiate thorough probe to identity the fraudsters who had posted an offensive message in her name targeting the Kerala Chief Minister for allowing women devotees to worship at Sabarimala as per the Supreme Court order.

The FB post in Malayalam, with her photograph at the top, went viral attracting comments of all sorts from the netizens, posing huge embarrassment to the senior IAS officer known for her no-nonsense attitude devoid of any controversy, and her commitment to honest work.

Translated, the offensive FB post would read: Every government has the responsibility to implement Supreme Court orders. But the government in Kerala respects Supreme Court orders only as per their interests. Even the party slaves have started realising that those who have not implemented the order of SC's seven-judge bench are showing high interest in implementing the Sabarimala order not because of their respect to the Supreme Court.

Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan has asked director general of police to initiate thorough probe to identity the fraudsters who had posted an offensive message in her name targeting the Kerala Chief Minister for allowing women devotees to worship at Sabarimala as per the Supreme Court order.

While CS Girija Vaidyanathan was not available for comment, being away on tour of the cyclone-hit areas along with the Chief Minister, M V Jayaraman, Private Secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told DC: Yes, we brought it to the attention of Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan. She wrote to our CM categorically denying any knowledge of this FB post and also informed her that she has asked the DGP to investigate at once.

The Kerala DGP too has been told to investigate this crime, said Jayaraman.

Independent observers feel that the FB post could be the handiwork of some rightwing activists out to embarrass the Kerala CM as they are upset over his quick acceptance of the Apex Court order permitting women of menstruating age to enter Sabarimala to worship. It is strange, and sad, that they chose to drag the TN Chief Secretary into their unholy scheme.
Reddy met Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday and expressed his desire to join the party, Khuntia told PTI. (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

Hyderabad: A day after Lok Sabha member Konda Vishweshwar Reddy quit the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) citing 'disappointment' at various levels, AICC in-charge of Telangana, R C Khuntia Wednesday said he would join the Congress.

Reddy met Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday and expressed his desire to join the party, Khuntia told PTI.

Reddy would formally join the party on November 23 at a Congress campaign rally at Medchal in the presence of former Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, he said.

The TRS Lok Sabha member from Karimnagar, B Vinod Kumar said, "It's unfortunate that Vishveshwar took that decision (to quit TRS).

"I don't think so," Kumar, the deputy floor leader of TRS in Lok Sabha, told PTI when asked if Reddy's decision would have an impact on TRS prospects in the December seven Assembly elections in Telangana.

In a setback to the TRS ahead of the Assembly polls, Reddy had quit the party Tuesday.

In a letter to the TRS president and caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Reddy said he was disappointed with the ruling party at various levels.

Read: Govt inaccessible: Key TRS MP quits party with 3-page criticism note

He was forced into a position of contemplating leaving the party despite the fact that today TRS enjoys significant goodwill in the "social circles that we are in," Reddy had said in his letter.

Reddy listed disappointments at five levels -- personal, injustice to karyakarthas (those) who worked for Telangana statehood, constituency, state and party -- in the letter.

He said he would resign from the Lok Sabha.

The Telangana assembly elections are scheduled to be held on December 7.
Bhopal: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday claimed that the BJP has run the government "comparatively better" than the Congress and blamed the opposition party for a "credibility crisis" in politics after Independence.

Talking to reporters in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Singh asserted that the country was currently witnessing "acche din" (good days) and it was a matter of perception how people saw it.

He also defended the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre over the Rafale jet deal row.

"Indian economy is the fastest growing economy in the world due to the charismatic work of our Prime Minister (Narendra Modi). India (people) has accepted that BJP is a political party which runs the government comparatively better than the Congress," Singh told reporters.

"I said comparatively... no political party is perfect, neither we are, I never made such a claim. All political parties have shortcomings. But this (BJP) is a political party which works better, comparatively," he asserted.

In a stinging attack on the Congress, he accused it of creating a "credibility crisis" in the country, saying there was a difference between the party's words and actions.

"I believe that in the history of independent India, the politics of Congress has created a credibility crisis about country's politicians and politics as a whole. This credibility crisis was created due to the difference between words and deeds (of politicians)," Singh said.

To a question on the Rafale deal controversy, he said, "Rafale is Ra-fail. Dassault CEO has already clarified. One can see the reality of these allegations."

"It was alleged that the contract of Rs 30,000 crore was being allotted to one offset partner (of Dassault). But, the truth is that the contract is meant for all offset partners and not for one," he said.
They said the motive behind the attack was yet to be ascertained and investigation was underway. (Representational Image)

Amritsar: Former district president of Aam Aadmi Party Suresh Sharma suffered gun shot wounds when two unidentified bike borne men fired at him at Chehertha locality here on Tuesday evening, police said.

The bullets hit Sharma's legs and thighs, they said, adding the former RTI activist was taken to a private hospital where his condition was said to be stable.

At the time of attack, Sharma was at his furniture shop, officials said. They said the motive behind the attack was yet to be ascertained and investigation was underway. Sharma is a supporter of AAP's rebel group led by MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira.

Both factions of AAP condemned the attack. In a press statement, the leader of opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Harpal Singh Cheema, and AAP Amritsar Lok Sabha candidate Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said the law and order situation in the state has gone from bad to worse.
In a three-page letter addressed to TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, Reddy mentioned that the party was getting distanced more and more from the people which it had once represented and the government was becoming inaccessible to the people. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: Ahead of December 7 assembly elections, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) faced a set back when its parliamentarian Konda Vishweshwar Reddy resigned from the party on Tuesday.

Reddy, the richest MP from Telangana with declared assets of over Rs 528 crore, represents Chevella parliamentary constituency in Ranga Reddy district.

Reddy also announced that he was quitting his Lok Sabha membership. It is not immediately known whether the MP has any plans to join the Congress or any other party.

In a three-page letter addressed to TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, Reddy mentioned that the party was getting distanced more and more from the people which it had once represented and the government was becoming inaccessible to the people.

Reddy added that he regretted that the chief minister had inducted people who were against Telangana. I feel people who had fought for Telangana and shared a common ideology, including me, are no longer needed in the party, he said.

MP stated that he felt powerless within the party; he could not speak out or take action as he was bound by the party discipline.

It is believed that Reddy is upset with TRS leadership for sidelining him and giving more importance to transport minister P Mahendar Reddy.

Apart from Reddy, another TRS MP, Sitaram Naik from Mahubabad, is also learnt to be unhappy with the TRS encouraging an IPS officer Lakshman Naik and planning to deny him the seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The corporation which had taken up the infrastructure work at a cost of Rs 721 crore has not even completed 70 per cent of the work despite the administrative sanction being accorded in January. (Representional Image)

Hyderabad: Citizens will have to put up with bad roads until the last week of December. Although tenders were finalised by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, officials claimed that it had not received the amount required from the state government. The civic body has to clear bills worth Rs 10 crore in order to carry on with road laying work under the periodical preventive maintenance (PPM).

The corporation which had taken up the infrastructure work at a cost of Rs 721 crore has not even completed 70 per cent of the work despite the administrative sanction being accorded in January.

According to highly placed sources in the corporation, the civic body has already completed 4 packages out of 51. The corporation received a mere Rs 65 crore from the Hyderabad Road Development Corporation Limited. Sources said that the corporation as of now had to clear bills worth Rs 25 crore out which Rs 10 crore had to be cleared immediately and Rs 15 crore worth work was in the pipeline, which had be cleared after a week. They said that the private agencies which had been executing the road laying work were threatening the civic body that they would stop work immediately if pending bills were not cleared. Out of 1,047 km, the corporation till date completed about 500 km of work. When asked about the same, a senior GHMC official said that if bills were not cleared immediately the civic body would not be able to complete the target by December.
Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on spying charges in April 2017. (Photo: File)

Indore: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Tuesday said India had two days ago sought diplomatic access to former Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who is currently in a Pakistani jail after being convicted there for spying.

The minister added that Jadhavs case is listed for hearing in February in the International Court of Justice.

Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on spying charges in April 2017. India moved the ICJ in May the same year against the verdict. The world court halted Jadhavs execution, on Indias appeal, pending the final verdict by it.

We have secured a stay on Jadhavs execution from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This matter is listed for hearing in February, Swaraj told reporters here.

While Pakistan has claimed its security forces arrested Jadhav from its Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran, India has said Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Speaking on the deportation of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland chopper deal, Swaraj called it a big success on the part of the Centre.

In a swipe at the opposition Congress, Swaraj asked, But why has this (deportation) caused discomfort to the Congress? On the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase, which is at the centre of an acrimonious tussle between the ruling BJP and the Congress, Swaraj said it was not an issue and claimed it could not become a poll issue in MP despite the Congresss best efforts.
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday quashed an FIR against several pro-Hindu activists and BJP leaders, who were booked for violating prohibitory orders under Section 144 during a protest against the alleged killing of RSS member Sharath Madiwala.

They had protested, condemning the killing of Sharath and had demanded criminal action against those involved in the murder.

The Bantwal police registered cases against 15 people, including BJP MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, Puttur MLA Sanjeeva Matandoor, Bantwal MLA Rajesh Naik, Karkala MLA V. Sunil Kumar, Kota Srinivas Poojari, RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, Bajarang Dal state convener Sharan Pumpwell, Prabhakar Kottari and others, for violating the prohibitory orders Section 144.

Sharath, a resident of Sajipa in Bantwal taluk and a member of RSS, was attacked on July 7, 2017 and he died three days later.

During the funeral procession, stones were thrown and the leaders were booked for violating Sec 144.

The leaders had approached the court seeking to quash the FIR against them.

NHAI response sought

The High Court sought a response from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Union government on a petition seeking exemption from payment of toll for advocates and farmers.

The Karnataka State Advocates Association Federation has approached the court seeking directions to the central government to consider advocates and farmers as a special category and exempt them from paying the toll on all National Highways under Rule 3 (1) and also private investment projects.

Rule 3 (1) relates to the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008. The association urged the court to declare the fixation of toll by the NHAI under the concessionaire agreement as exorbitant, arbitrary, whimsical and having no nexus to the service rendered in the background of the provisions of the Central Road Cess fund Act 2000.
The court also directed the Tamil Nadu DGP to peruse the judgement given by the trial court and the high court and arrange for training classes to all investigation officers to sensitise them to the manner in which a probe should be conducted in a case of sexual offence. (Photo: File)

Chennai: The Madras high court has acquitted a man, who was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by a lower court in a case of sexual assault in Tamil Nadus Tiruvannamalai district in 2007, terming the police probe as faulty.

The court also directed the Tamil Nadu DGP to peruse the judgement given by the trial court and the high court and arrange for training classes to all investigation officers to sensitise them to the manner in which a probe should be conducted in a case of sexual offence.

Allowing the appeal by the accused V Venkatesan Tuesday, Justice MV Muralidharan said, It is seen from records that the investigation conducted by an inspector of police is the root cause for the collapse of the case of the prosecution. In the case on hand, the judge said the investigating officer, without taking due care, conducted the probe in a casual manner and was not aware of the manner to investigate into the offence.

The faulty investigation and the conduct of the victim soon after the occurrence of the incident have not inspired confidence in the case of the prosecution, he said.

The matter relates to the sexual assault of a woman by Venkatesan on October 13, 2007 at her residence in Arani.

Venkatesan was handed down the sentence on August 23, 2013 by a lower court for the offence under sections 450 (house trespass), 376 (punishment for sexual assault) of IPC.

Aggrieved over the conviction and sentence passed by the court, Venkatesan preferred the instant appeal in the High Court.

Noting that the accused was arrested after a lapse of 11 months of the incident, the judge said the complaint was lodged by the victim on October 19, 2007 and her medical examination done on October 31, which is a faulty investigation.

The judge then acquitted Venkatesan of all charges.
The governor dissolved the state assembly under the relevant provisions in Jammu and Kashmir constitution. (Photo: PTI)

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has dissolved the state assembly as PDP supremo and former chief minister of the state and J&K's People's Conference leader Sajad Lone staked claim to form government in the state.

The governor dissolved the state assembly under the relevant provisions in Jammu and Kashmir constitution.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Sajad Lone claimed that he has the support of 26 BJP MLAs and 18 others, which is above the majority mark of 44, Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti said she has the support of the Congress and the National Conference, taking their collective total to 56.

On Wednesday evening, PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form government in Jammu and Kashmir with the help of Congress, National Conference.

In her letter to Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, Mufti said: As you are aware, the Peoples Democratic Party is the largest party in the State assembly having a strength of 29. You might have gathered from the media reports that the Congress and National Conference have also decided to extend support to our party to form a government in the State. That takes our collective strength to 56. Since I am presently in Srinagar, it would not be possible for me to call on you immediately and this is to keep you informed that we would be seeking your convenience shortly to stake the claim for forming the government in the State.

Here is Mehbooba Mufti's letter to Jammu and Kashmir Governor.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Mufti in a tweet said that she has been trying to send this letter to Raj Bhavan in Jammu. Strangely the fax is not received. Tried to contact HE Governor on phone. Not available. Hope you see it @jandkgovernor, she wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.com

In another tweet, she said, sending the letter also by mail.

Mehbooba Mufti also said, The BJP had started engineering defections in other parties for furtherance of its political motiveswe three parties have decided to come together setting aside our differences on some issues for protecting Article 35A and stopping horse-trading amid tinkering with laws concerning political identity of J&K.

Also Read: PDP, NC, Congress alliance in making in J&K to checkmate BJP: sources

Asked about the choice of chief minister, Mufti told local news agency KNS, PDP will discuss the issue with its legislators, senior leaders and even grass-root level workers and name the candidate with consensus for the position of Chief Minister. It will take some time.

Minutes after Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form government in Jammu and Kashmir, People's Conference leader Sajad Lone also staked claim to form government in the state with the help of 26-member BJP.
Hyderabad: Worried at the threat posed by party rebels, the main political parties, the TRS and the Congress have identified the important constituencies where the rebels need to be pacified as only two days are left for withdrawal of nominations.

The Congress faces a greater threat from rebels than the TRS. The TRS is facing threat from rebels in 10 Assembly constituencies and the Congress in 16.

More worrying for the TRS and Congress is that the rebel candidates are saying in their campaign speeches that they will remain in their respective parties after they have won. This is one way of getting their own party cadre to support them against the official candidate.

The Congress has succeeded in convincing former Minister P. Shankar Rao and P. Karthik Reddy to withdraw their nominations. But former Mayor of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Banda Karthika Reddy, has refused to withdraw her nomination and remains in the fray. Former minister P. Shankar Rao was so upset at being denied a ticket by the Congress for Shadnagar assembly constituency that he joined the Samajwadi party and was also nominated. He was persuaded to withdraw his nomination by AICC leaders and also resigned from the SP on Tuesday. He said in the interests of the Congress party as directed by the AICC leadership he has decided to withdraw his nomination and work for the victory of the Mahakutami.

Former Home Minister Sabitha Indra Reddys son Karthik Reddy also withdrew his nomination from Rajendranagar assembly constituency as an Independent candidate.

AP Chief Minister and TD national chief N Chandrababu Naidu called all TD rebels to Amaravati and convinced them to support the party. Former MP Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy said that no rebel will be in the fray from the TD.
File picture of Vijaya alias Vijayalakshmi who was killed in wall collapse due to cyclone Gaja after her parents kept her secluded in a small hut on the girl attaining puberty in Thanjavur district.

Thanjavur: Among the several deaths caused by the 'Gaja' cyclone in Thanjavur district, the demise of Vijaya alias Vijayalakshmi (14), a seventh standard student of Anaikadu village near Pattukottai, seems most pathetic. It has raised questions of why a custom should not be waived in an emergency.

Vijayalakshmi attained puberty a day before the cyclone let loose its fury in Pattukottai area. Her parents Selvaraj and Bhnaumathi-daily wage workers who live in a hut in a coconut grove, wished to confine her separately, following an age-old custom.

As the hut in which they were living was small, they sent the girl to a nearby hut used for cooking and asked her to stay there alone, said sources known to their family.

The cyclone fury began around midnight and battered Thanjavur district, particularly Pattukottai area till 6 am on Friday, November 16. Only when the parents came out of their hut in the morning they knew that a tree that struck the hutment Vijayalakshmi was staying claimed her life too.

The shocked parents did not know what to do as the cyclone virtually destroyed the entire village. Later, they cut the tree and recovered her body which had multiple injuries.

Veersenan, a farmer, who helped them in distress, said the police was informed in the morning. But they could reach the place only by 4 pm on Friday as there were four more deaths at Sivakollai near Pattukottai due to wall collapse.

The girl's body was taken to government hospital for post-mortem and handed over the next day. "We buried the body in the grove itself" said Veerasenan.

Though it is customary to separate the girl on attaining puberty, in this case, the act proved fatal and cruel, said Veerasenan. "My feeling is that customs should not be followed blindly. Girls who attain puberty will be in a state of shock at that time and should be protected by parents and they should be with her to instill confidence. But unfortunately they are separated," he said.

"In this case, parents separated her going by custom, but the hut in which they were staying is very small. Even the hut in which the girl stayed was also small. The cyclone was so alarming the parents could not come out," Veerasenan said. Custom followed blindly proved fatal for Vijayalakshmi, he pitied.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai said RSS was responsible for the stand-off on entry of menstruating women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple. (Photo: Facebook Screengrab | @s.ramachandranpillai)

New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai on Wednesday equated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with "Taliban and Khalistan terrorists" while holding them responsible for the stand-off on entry of menstruating women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.

"They (RSS) are behaving like Taliban and Khalistan terrorists. Why are they trying to create trouble in Sabarimala? They should allow everything to be peaceful, they are not doing it," Pillai told ANI.

Pillai made the statement defending remarks passed by the party's Kerala State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who had also likened the RSS with terror outfit. Balakrishnan had accused the RSS of trying to take over Lord Ayyappa temple just the way the Khalistan terrorists had laid siege on the Golden Temple.

"Terrorists do not have any belief. RSS is a terror outfit, they are terrorists. They are doing the same thing in Kerala as the Khalistan terrorists did in the Golden Temple. Had they followed rituals and customs then they would have spared the holy shrine," Balakrishnan had said.

Reacting on Balakrishnan's remark, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader K Krishna Sagar Rao termed the remark as "deplorable" saying that the bankruptcy of the CPI (M) is known to all.

"The bankruptcy of the CPI (M) is very evident with these statements. The fear they have over the largest voluntary network in the country, the RSS, reflects in these statements," said Rao.

Senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh also hit out at the CPI (M) for the remark saying that the party is playing the role of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who takes on anyone who speaks against him.
Pudukottai: Chief Minister K. Palaniswami on Tuesday inspected the Gaja-hit areas in the southern districts, distributed relief materials among the victims and said he would seek Central assistance when he would most likely meet the Prime Minister on Thursday.

We have sought appointment with the PM. We expect it could be the day after tomorrow (Thursday). The state government will present a report on the damage with evidence and seek adequate Central funds the CM told reporters here during his visit to Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts in the morning.

Amid criticism of his government's handling of the situation, the chief minister, who announced a package costing Rs 1,000-crore on Monday for immediate relief and rehabilitation work, urged the Opposition to bury political differences and contribute towards the relief activities. He said the Kerala example and said during the recent devastating floods there, the opposition parties raised no issues even though it took about a month for the relief work to be completed.

Everybody must go by their conscience and do their bit in helping the victims, said the CM.

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam inspect Gaja affected Pudukkottai and Thanjavur districts in helicopter on Tuesday. (Photo: DC)

Asked about the angry victims in several places complaining about tardy relief works, the CM pointed out that loss of lives had been minimized only because the government took precautionary measures, such as moving people in vulnerable areas to safer shelters. None can predict the magnitude of a natural phenomenon and 'Gaja' has left a huge trail of destruction, he said, insisting that ministers and senior officials were on their toes as the government toiled on a war-footing to reach relief to the people.

The CM in a media interaction at Trichy said some opposition leaders and other critics were freely flinging charges in an insensitive manner. Do not insult and humiliate the staff and others risking their lives in carrying out relief work, he said referring to the critics.

Accompanied by ministers and officials, Palaniswami inspected some coconut groves devastated by Cyclone Gaja in Thanjavur district and also distributed relief materials, including rice and other essential articles, to the affected people. At Pattukottai, he distributed Rs 30 lakh as compensation to a woman, who lost all her three sons in a wall collapse during the cyclone  he had earlier announced Rs 10 lakh solatium to the kin of each of those killed in the cyclone.

A report from Nagapattinam said several areas in the district including Vedaranyam and Sirkazhi were experiencing intermittent heavy rains, affecting the relief operations. Residents protested in some places demanding supply of drinking water and restoration of electricity.

On Monday, Palaniswami took stock of the situation at a high-level meeting in Chennai and announced an immediate cash assistance totalling `8,800 to each family sheltered in relief camps, besides 10-kg rice and four litres of kerosene.

He had said the Gaja death toll went up to 46 and that 2,51,674 people were housed in relief camps.
DMK president M.K. Stalin greets CPI leader Sudhakar Reddy at Anna Arivalayam in Chennai on Tuesday. Also seen are (L to R) DMK MP Kanimozhi, CPI MP D. Raja , State CPI secretary R. Mutharasan and former union minister T.R. Baalu. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: Opposition leaders M.K. Stalin and PMK founder leader Dr S. Ramadoss have slammed the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami accusing him of conducting helicopter drama in merely carrying out aerial survey of only a few Gaja cyclone affected places and not meeting the victims to know their problems.

The accusation comes a few days after DMK president M K Stalin appreciated the State Disaster Management Authority (TNSDMA) for its precautionary measures in handling cyclone Gaja. "The precautionary measures undertaken by TNSDMA are worthy of appreciation", Stalin tweeted, adding that the government should lend a helping hand in all the efforts of the TNSDMA in handling the post-cyclone situation with the speed of a storm.

Opposition leader Stalin in a statement, released hours after the Chief Minister accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam paid a visit to Gaja-hit Pudukkottai area and distributed relief material to the people residing in the relief camps on Tuesday, said the Chief Minister went to Tiruchy from where he took a helicopter. "He went to two to three places in the protection of party workers and police. Distribution of relief material and pictures were all a setup. If weather was bad, he could have waited there for a few days, why cut short visit?"

Stalin said the CM cannot hide himself from the wrath of victims. The cyclone caused major havoc in eight districts and the government had not done even little assistance to the affected people. In order to understand the ground realities, the CM must meet the people in person.

When people faced severe cyclonic storm on November 16, CM was participating in function. He should have visited the affected place on the next day. But, he had not done so. One or two Ministers, who went to the affected place, faced the wrath of the people and unable to answer their queries.

Only today, the CM choose helicopter survey as several ministers and ruling party legislators were chased by the angry mob in the affected areas. After conducting aerial survey on a few places, he traveled by car only to a distance and returned to without meeting the victims. He handed over relief materials to only a few persons. The aerial survey was only an eye wash, Stalin said.

Echoing similar view PMK founder leader Dr S Ramadoss said that the meager government assistance would not heal the people. The farmers lost their 25-year long hard earned savings in one night by the onslaught of the cyclone. Ministers faced the peoples anger as they had not engaged in relief and rescue operations. Stating that governments relief package was inadequate, he demanded the CM to expedite the relief and rescue operation and issue suitable assistance to people.
Chandigarh: In a major breakthrough, Punjab Police has traced the grenade attack on Nirankari Satsang Bhawan in Amritsar to ISI-backed Khalistani forces in Pakistan, by arresting one of the two perpetrators of the attack in less than 72 hours after three persons were killed and 15 injured in the terror act.

Announcing this here on Wednesday, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh disclosed that the suspect, Bikramjit Singh alias Bikram (26) was arrested from near Loharka village.

Bikram, an operative of Khalistan Liberation Force, has given information indicating that the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan.

Happy is suspected to be the Pak-based KLF chief Harmeet Singh Happy alias PhD, who had earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings of RSS, Shiv Sena and DSS leaders and a Christian Pastor in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017, in collaboration with Pakistani establishment.

The Chief Minister categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack and described Sunday's attack on Nirankari Bhawan as yet another attempt by Pak ISI and Pak establishment to carry out terrorist actions in Punjab to disturb the peace in the State. It was in ISI's interest to keep the border disturbed to ensure internal peace in Pakistan, said Capt Amarinder Singh.

Attempts by Pak ISI and Pak establishment to forge linkages between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups is a matter of serious security concern for Punjab, said the Chief Minister, adding that the State police was working closely with central agencies to check the spread of such forces. His government was committed to ensuring that nobody was allowed to disturb the state's hard-earned peace and harmony, he asserted.

The Chief Minister pointed out that there had been only two terror attacks in the State in 2018, including the Maqsudan PS attack and Sunday's incident, and both had been successfully solved by the police, who had also cracked all the cases of targeted killings. The sacrilege cases that had taken place in the last 18 months had also been solved.

Giving details, the Chief Minister said that preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikram, who has identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa (32 years) s/o Gurdial Singh, r/o village Chak Mishri Khan, Lopoke (Ajnala), Amritsar.

Giving further details, Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said Bikram was riding a motorbike (TVS PB-18 M- 7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikram's black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which he has used in the attack, has also been recovered.
As per the study, COPD will become the third leading cause of death by 2030 worldwide.

Chennai: On World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Day, doctors in the city say the disease has seen a sharp rise due to pollution and second-hand smoke.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a group of progressive lung diseases including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma which causes difficulty in breathing and severe exacerbation. Due to its similarities in symptoms, the disease is often misdiagnosed, say, doctors.

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 64 million people suffering from COPD worldwide. More than 3 million people died of COPD in 2005. As per the study, COPD will become the third leading cause of death by 2030 worldwide.

Ninety per cent of COPDs today go undiagnosed, says Dr P K Thomas Pulmonologist, Fortis Malar Hospital. It is a simple diagnosis, but the reach of the tool used to diagnose it is very rare, it will not be available in a village or town, says Dr Thomas, where, the need for it might actually be higher.

The first element to prevent COPD is to acknowledge that most of rural India especially women may be susceptible to COPD due to working closely with firewood. Symptoms of lung disease tend to creep up slowly and people often automatically adjust their daily activities to accommodate or reduce their symptoms rather than getting help, he said.

Sufficient data is also not available on the disease as tier II or III cities and smaller towns have no way of recording COPD.

The number of new cases of COPD is growing nearly three times faster in women than in men every year, doctors say with 34 per cent females at the workplace, 54 females at home and 12 per cent at home and workplace were exposed to passive smoking.

COPD is irreversible and the damage to the lungs cant be repaired. However, early diagnosis can help prevent further damage to the lungs and enable a person to lead a normal life, with medication and certain lifestyle changes, Dr Thomas said.
Srinagar: Amid a high-voltage political drama between warring factions of Jammu and Kashmirs mainstream political arena, governor Satyapal Malik dissolved the state Assembly on Wednesday evening.

By virtue of powers vested upon me in terms of Proclamation No. P-1/18 of 2018 dated 20th June 2018 issued under sub-section (1) of section 92 and in exercise of the powers conferred upon me by clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 53 of the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, I hereby dissolve the Legislative Assembly, said an order by the governor.

Earlier, former CM and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had written a letter to the Governor informing him that the National Conference, with 15 members, and the Congress, with 12 members in the Assembly, had decided to extend their support to her party to form a government in the state.

Peoples Conference chief Sajad Gani Lone also wrote a similar letter to the Governor staking claim to government formation. He informed the Governor that he enjoys the support of the BJP legislature party, with 25 members, and 18 other elected members.

Ms Muftis letter read: As you are aware, the Peoples Democratic Party is the largest party in the Assembly, having a strength of 29. You might have gathered from media reports that the Congress and the National Conference have also decided to extend support to our party to form a government in the state. That takes our collective strength to 56.

Since I am presently in Srinagar, it would not be possible for me to call on you immediately and this is to keep you informed that we would be seeking your convenience shortly to stake claim for forming the government in the state.

Ms Mufti said in a tweet that she was trying to send this letter to Raj Bhavan in Jammu. Strangely the fax is not received. Tried to contact HE Governor on phone. Not available. Hope you see it @jandkgovernor, she wrote on Twitter. In another tweet, she said: Sending the letter also by mail.

Mr Lone, staking his claim to form the government, tweeted that since the facsimile at Raj Bhavan was not working, he has WhatsApped the letter to the governor through his personal assistant Jevan Lal. He said: We have sent a letter to His Excellency the Governor staking our claim to form the government. Fax not working. We have WhatsApped it to the PA to His Excellency.

PDP rebel leader Imran Raza Ansari claimed 16 party MLAs were with him. He said that therefore Ms Mufti could not count them while staking her claim.

National Conference vice-presidentOmar Abdullah tweeted: It cant be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the Assembly suddenly appears

In another tweet. he said: "J&K Raj Bhavan needs a new fax machine urgently."

These developments followed reports that the NC, PDP and Congress were inching towards cobbling up an alliance to form the government in the state. The BJP, while reacting strongly to these reports, alleged that these parties were forging an alliance to form a government "at the behest of Pakistan" and that the party would not allow it. The saffron party had urged governor Satyapal Malik to stall the move.

"These parties are coming together to form a government on the directions of Pakistan just to keep the BJP away", former deputy CM and senior BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said at a hurriedly-called press conference in Jammu. He alleged that the decision to form a government was taken after meetings in Dubai and London. He urged the governor to stop any attempt at government formation, asserting that "they (PDP, NC and Congress) were trying things through the backdoor and it is not acceptable".

All the three parties - Congress, NC and PDP - had earlier in the day confirmed that they were inching towards an agreement to form a government in the state before the expiry of six months of Governor's Rule next month.

Jammu and Kashmir was placed under Governor's Rule on June 20, a day after the PDP-BJP coalition fell apart, bringing their two-year-old coalition government down. Since no political party had staked claim to forming a new government after the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition, then governor N.N. Vohra, after taking over, put the Assembly under suspended animation.

Governor's Rule is imposed in J&K for six months under Section 92 of its constitution, but only after the consent of the President of India. In all other states, President's Rule is imposed under Article 356 of the Constitution of India. But since J&K has a separate constitution and regulations specific to it, the government's failure results in Governor's Rule and not President's Rule as is the case in other states. In J&K, Governor's Rule is replaced by President's Rule after the six-month period ends.

No major political party was until recently showing any interest in forming a government in the state as none had a majority in the 87-member House. But on Wednesday two major regional parties - NC and PDP - which like Congress had been discouraged by the circumstances and, more important, the situation on the ground to make any attempt to cobble up an alliance for government formation, had said they were engaged in a serious effort to form the government.

The NC said it was open to supporting government formation with the PDP and the Congress. "It has become necessary, rather obligatory, for the regional parties to join hands to keep communal forces at bay in the interest of the state and its people in view of the challenges it is faced with today," said the party's senior leader Nasir Aslam Wani. He added that the party would hold threadbare discussions on the issue once its president Farooq Abdullah, who was outside the state, returned to Srinagar. "The meetings will decide whether we should join the government or provide it outside support," he had said.

PDP's senior leader and former finance minister Syed Altaf Bukhari had said people in the state would soon get "good news" as the PDP, NC and Congress had decided to join hands to form the government. "There is progress [in the talks] among the three parties. Keeping in view the political situation and special status of the state, the three parties have decided to join hands," he had said in an interview here. "Article 370 and Article 35A are our main issues. All this is being done to safeguard them," he asserted. He added that the announcement on the talks and the alliance would be shared with the people soon.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao lashed out at his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu at a public meeting on Wednesday, calling him a udumu (monitor lizard). The reference was to Mr Naidu reportedly trying to cling on to Telangana state.

While addressing a Praja Ashirwada Sabha held at Jedcherla Mr Rao alleged that Mr Naidu has trying to intrude in the name of Mahakutami. He said he had thrown out Chandrababu from Telangana once and now it was the peoples turn to throw out Mr Naidu permanently from Telangana state.

He questioned why Congress leaders of the state are carrying Chandrababu on their shoulders. He wanted people to question Mr Naidu and Congress leaders over their failure to complete pending projects in erstwhile Mahabubnagar district during their previous regimes.

Stating that Mr Naidu adopted the district but failed to take up any development programmes during his tenure as Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Mr Rao alleged that since the formation of the separate state, Mr Naidu has been attempting to obstruct the Palamuru Lift Irrigation Scheme and yet is seeking votes from the same citizens of Palamuru without any shame or guilt for the injustice he did them.

He pointed out that Mr Naidu and the subsequent Congress governments had turned erstwhile Mahabubnagar district into a district of migrants. He announced that in its next term his government will be implementing the health profile scheme of all citizens of the state.
Vijayawada: CM N. Chandrababu Naidu said that people were not allowing TRS legislators to enter their towns for the election campaign.

Speaking to party leaders on Wednesday, Mr Naidu said this was happening because of the mistakes that the TRS had committed.

He said TD MLAs should learn a lesson from such incidents of legislators being blocked from villages, and be accessible to the public. Mr Naidu said he was confident that due to the development that the TD government had made possible in the state, the TD MLAs would not face such a situation in Andhra Pradesh.

Mr Naidu said that by Tuesday evening, the party membership had gone up to 16,21,739 and about 81,000 new members were being enrolled every day. He said Kuppam topped among the constituencies with a 74 per cent increase in memberships.

The TD supremo said that booth conveners and coordinators had to be appointed, and local leaders should take up the responsibility for it. The party had appointed 39,585 booth conveners and needed another 6,075. Training for 87 per cent of booth conveners had been completed.

He said that due to continuous wrongdoing, the BJPs downfall at the Centre had begun. He said the BJP had made the CBI a collection centre.
Yadav, who has also served in the Union cabinet in the past, stressed it was important for the Congress to come back to power in these elections. (Photo: @MPArunYadav/Facebook)

Nehrugaon: Locked in a pitched electoral battle against Madhya Pradesh's three-time Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Congress candidate Arun Yadav has said he is fighting a "devil" in Budhni and accused him of cheating people of his constituency and of the entire state by perpetrating "maximum atrocities".

Yadav, the former state president of his party, said there was no second thought that the Congress is fighting a big battle in the state to regain power after sitting out for 15 long years, but he has full faith in winning against Chouhan.

The ruling BJP leaders have dismissed claims made by Congress leaders that there has not been enough development in Budhni, known as the chief minister's bastion. The saffron party have countered the Congress's allegations by saying that the state has seen maximum development during the last 15 years, as against what was done during the Congress rule before that.

BJP leaders have said that Yadav has been made a 'sacrificial lamb'. Earlier, Chouhan had also taken a dig at the Congress for fielding Yadav against him, saying the grand-old party has done "injustice" to his "friend" -- first by removing him from the post of state unit president and then by giving him ticket from Budhni.

Yadav, however, said it was a privilege for him that he was chosen by his party for this contest against someone who is the face of the BJP's entire campaign for the November 28 elections for 230 assembly seats.

"This was a call from my boss Rahul Gandhi (Congress President). And I think the objective of my coming here is to give a sense to the electorate in Budhni that we can fight this," Yadav told PTI in an interview during his campaign tour in a constituency that has come to be known as Chouhan's pocket borough for repeatedly electing him.

"I call him (Chouhan) a devil. My party pitched me against him and I think it's a privilege for me. People are responding and that is the best part," the 44-year-old Congress leader and son of the state's former deputy chief minister Subhash Yadav said.

Asked further about his description of the chief minister as a "devil", Yadav said he has reasons to say so. "Madhya Pradesh is the only state in India where women are not safe, where the number of suicides of farmers is highest and in Sehore (Budhni district headquarters) it is the highest. During the last 15 years, there has been no employment for the youth. The biggest scam that was ever in MP is Vyapam, while there is illegal sand mining and other corruption," Yadav alleged.

Yadav, who has also served in the Union cabinet in the past, stressed it was important for the Congress to come back to power in these elections.

"I firmly believe this...it is for each and every worker and leader to go together and fight the battle out and make sure we are in power this time," he said, while hoping that the Congress will win about 155 seats to get a comfortable majority.

The two-time MP from Khandwa-Khargone seat further alleged Chouhan talks about infrastructure and industries and every year holds an industry meet, but there was no industry or employment.

"The state is totally bankrupt now and has a loan burden of Rs 1,70000 crore. He (Chouhan) calls himself 'mama' but under his rule there is maximum 'duraachar' and 'atyachaar'," Yadav alleged.

Chouhan is popularly known as 'mama' (maternal uncle) among his supporters, a moniker says he got work done for welfare of women and girls of the state. Asked how would he counter this image of Chouhan, Yadav described himself as the real 'Narmada Putra' from this constituency and a son of the soil.

"I don't believe in killing people or firing at farmers (referring to Mandsaur incident). For me, each and every voter is important. For me love and affection which has been given by people of Budhni's people to me is very important. If he is real 'mama' after being a chief minister, then why are people committing suicide and why are women unsafe?," he argued.

Yadav alleged even basic amenities are missing in the area after 15 years of rule by the BJP. "There are no roads, water and there is massive corruption here. People say that this constituency has been given to few people on contract. The chief minister talks about Narmada river, but in his own constituency the biggest scam is illegal sand mining which was being perpetrated by his own people and family," he said.

On being tagged by the BJP leaders as an "outsider" in Budhni, Yadav said it was a "propaganda" by the saffron party and he has not come across anyone from the area calling him an outsider as he was working in the area. He also ruled himself out of the race for the position of chief minister, saying he was "just a normal worker" and it was for the party high-command to decide who would get the charge of the state after elections.

He also promised to serve the constituency and fight for the people here even if he fails to get electoral success. Chouhan had won the last elections in 2013 with a margin of about 84,000 votes from Budhni and this time the BJP has given a slogan of 'Abki baar 1 lakh paar' (this time the victory margin should be over 1 lakh).
Words matter. The message may be important but so is its packaging. And yet Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party are defending indefensible words. So convinced are they that only the intention matters that the entire party has waxed lyrical about the virtues of a U-turn.

Indeed, this was a weekend dedicated to the U-turn, thanks to PM Khans candour during an interaction with some journalists on Friday.

He isnt entirely wrong. Politicians go back on their word all the time. There was Mian Nawaz Sharif himself who announced boycotting the 2008 election, only to change his mind on the urging of Asif Ali Zardari who was then playing statesman.

Zardari himself in one of his first speeches after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto called the PML(Q) the qatil League. Later, he would form an alliance with the same party (and make Pervez Elahi the deputy PM) when the PPP got tired of the shenanigans of the Altaf Hussain-led MQM, which wouldnt stop playing musical chairs with the treasury benches.

There was also Zardaris back and forth on the issue of the judiciarys restoration on which he once famously said that promises were not like the Quran or hadith. And lets not forget, the former Presidents famous speech in which he warned some people that they could only stick around for three years while politicians such as Zardari himself were here to stay. And soon after this declaration of war, he left the country and returned only when the three years were up and a new man had taken over.

The PML(N) has not been far behind. The 2008 election flip-flop aside, these days, we are all busy wondering if Nawaz Sharifs recent silence is not a sign of his changing mood and strategy which earlier was about taking on the khalai makhlooq. As someone commented on social media that if the rumours were true, this would be quite the U-turn.

Earlier, the party also suddenly changed its mind about how to run the economy when Sharif senior was sent packing and his finance minister sent fleeing. The new team  ostensibly from the same party  shaped an economic policy which was starkly different from the previous one. And while everyone questioned the different pages that Ishaq Dar and Miftah Ismail were reading from, there were few questions about what the PML(N)s economic vision was. Was it a strong-rupee and low-exports vision, or a more realistic rupee-value one which might aid exports? And where did Nawaz Sharif stand on the issue? Or had he changed his mind somewhere between the summer of 2017 and January 2018?

Indeed, inflexibility is not always good politics. Not even for Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who is being quoted frequently these days. Lets not forget that the man who was known to be the greatest advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity ended up leading the movement for a separate country for the Muslims. Or that he accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan (which envisaged a united India) only to accept a moth-eaten Pakistan a year later. Political realities change and so do plans and strategies.

But then, why the brouhaha over the PTI? Partly, because the party has at times replaced flexible decision-making with what appears to be mood swings. It is one thing to accept political realities; it is another to publicly declaim one thing and then suddenly and equally vociferously take the opposite position, creating the impression that the party just had not done its homework earlier.

Its acceptance and then overnight rejection of Nasir Khosa as caretaker chief minister of Punjab was a case in point. Personally, nothing the party has done since it came to power beats that bit of kabhi haan, kabhi naan. But the flip-flop over Atif Mian, IMF and the dharna provide some serious competition.

As a party that has little experience of governance or power, the PTI was expected to do more flip-flops than the PPP and PML(N) put together. After all, this was the first time, this party was going to experience the results of idealism clashing with hard-nosed realities. And of course, it garners criticism. But that too are the hazards of power.

However, it is not just about quick U-turns and inexperience. It is also about the PTIs inability to separate the defensible from the indefensible. For instance, these days, instead of defending a policy or change of policy, the party has been busy defending the idea of a U-turn. Why? Because the PM himself did it in off-the-cuff remarks.

Another way of looking at it is to say the packaging of the message is important. The decision should be justified; that is the job of every government. But to focus on the words used to attack or criticise  that is surely a waste.

Not all words can be salvaged (or defended)  some are doomed to be forever interpreted negatively. U-turn is one as is appeasement. It boggles the mind that the ruling party has spent two days defending not its policies but a word that cannot be defended. When will the PTI and the PM realise the difference?

By arrangement with Dawn
The grenade attack on the Nirankari Bhavan in Punjabs Adliwal village in Amritsar district has unleashed war of words between all political parties. The Akali Dal, beleaguered after its leaderships indictment by the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission over the 2015 desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, has lashed out at the so-called failure of the chief minister, Capt. Amarinder Singh, to maintain the peace. Aam Aadmi Party leader H.S. Phoolka has lunged at Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat and then retracted his remarks. The Punjab police was quick to see a Pakistani hand as the grenade in question was of Pakistani origin. Leaks from New Delhi claimed that there was the hand of a Burhani Wani clone called Zakir Musa, a former student of engineering at Mohali in Punjab and a rising force in the Kashmir militant hierarchy. A car hijacked in Punjab, a reminder of similar hijackings by Pakistani jihadis before the Pathankot airbase attack, raised similar concerns.

The evolving geopolitics of the region and beyond needs a closer look to understand the issue better. Several commentators have correctly pointed out that comparing this to the 1978 Amritsar clash between the Nirankaris and the protesting Sikhs, which Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale used to seize the militants leadership and capture Sikh minds, would be incorrect. But it would not be wrong to surmise that the Pakistan Army has been attempting for some time to stir militancy in Punjab when the Kashmir Valley remains sullen and disturbed, as they did in the 1980s. The only difference is that the Punjab card was then played first as they wanted to ensure that India did not utilise the Pakistani preoccupation with the Afghan jihad together with the (then) Soviet Union. No India-Pakistan war could be fought with Punjab in turmoil and it also tied down the security forces, thus leaving Kashmir open to Pakistani exploitation. The common feature is that as in the late 1980s, particularly after the rigged 1987 Kashmir elections when surplus fighters returning victorious from Afghanistan after the Soviet troop withdrawal needed work, and Pakistan again has to keep its Punjabi jihadi elements preoccupied with Kashmir while it sorts out the endgame in Afghanistan.

The Afghan imbroglio draws Pakistan into a growing dissonance, if not confrontation, with the United States. Its latest manifestation are the tweets by US President Donald Trump, and strong counter-tweets by Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan. Starting with the delay in capturing Osama bin Laden, for which predictably Mr Trump blames President Bill Clinton, he asserts that the US will no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. He concludes, in capital letters, Thats ENDING. Imran Khan, not one to duck pace bowling, tried to set the record straight in a strong rebuttal. No Pakistani, he declared, had been involved in the 9/11 attack on America, but still Pakistan had participated in the US war on terror. He forgets that in fact $100,000 was wired from Pakistan for the operation by none other than Omar Sheikh, released by India at Kandahar after the Indian Airlines plane hijacking, clearly aided, if not abetted, by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence.

Imran Khan then reverts to the usual Islamabad reasoning that Pakistanis are the victims of terror, suffering 75,000 casualties, with the countrys economy taking a $123 billion hit. Again, this is less fact and more fiction. Pakistan, including the nations top military brass, hugely benefited from the trillion-dollar expenditure by the US Army on its Afghan operations. Pakistan got American equipment, billions in compensation for their coalition support operations and uncounted indirect money ploughed into their economy by the US utilising the transit route via Karachi. Imran Khan then bemoans, correctly, that their tribal areas were devastated and millions of ppl (people) uprooted from their homes. But again, he dodges Pakistans own responsibility in a part of the Taliban, rechristened Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP), turning against them due to their collaboration with the US in taking selective action against only those Pashtun groups not fully aligned with them.

Finally, Imran Khan argues: Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 Nato troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops & reportedly $1 trillion spent on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before. Interestingly the Urdu version, instead of scapegoat, uses the more colourful sprinkling salt on wounds.

Punjab is caught in the middle of this churn, as it was in the 1980s. Bhindranwales rise owed to the Sikh alienation from the Centre and the collapse of the traditional clergys influence as indeed the weakening of the Akali Dal. What the Narendra Modi government has not realised over the last four years is that the Akali Dal has now been reduced to merely the Badal Family Dal, and used to perpetuate power, being far removed from traditional Akali politics. Additionally, the Badals have established their complete dominance over the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), putting pliable individuals in positions of clerical influence. The Bargari agitation is a manifestation of this malaise. The correct parallel with the 1978 incident would be the Bargari police firing on protesting Sikhs, and not the latest attack. By retaining its political links with the Akali Dal, and keeping Mr Parkash Singh Badals daughter-in-law in the Union council of ministers, the BJP is now making the same mistake that Indira Gandhi did by persisting with Darbara Singh as Punjab chief minister.

George Santayanas advice that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it sounds ominous for Punjab today. The external environment is as challenging as in the 1980s, Pakistan as cornered and India, by not talking to it, appears as cussed as Indira Gandhi appeared to Pakistan after her return to power in 1980. It is high time that Prime Minister Narendra Modi rose above political opportunism to seek mature advice and handle Punjab with wisdom.
Weak demand for chips has been hurting the semiconductor stocks.

Shares of Micron Technology led falls for US microchip producers on Tuesday, driven by a combination of concerns over slackening iPhone demand and a series of brokerage downgrades that reflect a growing technology stock selloff.

Micron shares fell 7 percent in early trading after brokerage Baird Equity Research downgraded the stock to underperform, citing fall in memory chip prices.

Weak demand for chips has been hurting the semiconductor stocks. Advanced Micro Devices Inc shares fell 7 percent, while those of Nvidia Corp shed 5.7 percent, taking an additional hit from one of the top cryptocurrency Bitcoin plunging to its lowest in 2018. Both companies get a share of their revenue by selling chips to cryptominers.

Microns NAND flash memory chips and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) memory chips help power servers and smartphones, including Apple Incs latest generation of iPhones.

Continued deterioration in both DRAM and NAND pricing leads us to model eight consecutive quarters of gross margin and EPS contraction, Baird analyst Tristan Gerra, who also lowered his PT to USD 32 from USD 75, said in a note.

NAND outlook continues to worsen, with contract pricing expected to decline mid teens in each of the next two quarters, Gerra said.

Shares of Micron also took a hit from a report on Monday that Chinese authorities would deepen their probe into the chipmaker and Korean firms Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Inc, claiming massive evidence of antitrust violations.

At this moment, we can only comment that we are sincerely cooperating with the investigation, SK Hynix spokesperson Hyun Kyung Lee told Reuters.

Micron declined to comment.

Shares of Micron are down 10.4 percent this year compared to a 6.3 pct fall in the broader Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index.

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It allowed students to experience new cultures, go on virtual field trips, hear from guest speakers and learn from other students, educators and experts from around the world by traveling virtual miles over Skype over a 48-hour period.

The 4th edition of the Microsoft Skype-a-Thon, one of the worlds largest live connections of students at one time, saw participants from 102 countries travel a total of 23 million virtual miles in the span of two days. 11,000 students took part from over 300 schools across India, covering 4.26 million virtual miles, the most by any country globally.

Held on Nov 13 and 14, the annual event continued its theme of Open Hearts. Open Minds. It allowed students to experience new cultures, go on virtual field trips, hear from guest speakers and learn from other students, educators and experts from around the world by traveling virtual miles over Skype over a 48 hour period. Skype-a-Thon saw discussions on diverse topics including conservation, history, computer science, and students also shared cultural experiences through song and dance, games, reading, stories, and virtual field trips, exchanging ideas and learning from each other. The India miles were inaugurated by Anant Maheshwari, President- Microsoft India, and the sessions also focused on AI in education, cybersecurity, empathy and inclusiveness.

We thank all our guest speakers, educators and participating students in making this years Skype-a-Thon a huge success. It was wonderful to feel the energy and power of classrooms connecting across the world. What made it even special is that the 23 million virtual miles travelled also raised funds to support the education resourced for up to 35000 children in WE villages. It is a matter of great pride for India to have covered the most virtual miles among all the participating countries across seven continents, said Manish Prakash, Country General Manager-PS, Health and Education, Microsoft India.

Microsoft had announced earlier that for every 400 virtual miles traveled by Skype-a-Thon participants, the company will donate to WE, a non-profit organization that helps students internationally. WEs holistic, sustainable international development model is built on five pillars of impact  Education, Water, Health, Food and Opportunity. Microsofts donation will support WE Villages Education pillar to provide access to education for up to 35,000 children (supporting UN Sustainable Development Goal #4  Quality Education.)

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Spanning across an average size of 300 square feet, Mi Stores reflect the design of Xiaomis Mi Home stores.

Xiaomi has recently announced Mi Stores in India. Mi Stores are Xiaomis venture into the rural markets for offline expansion and an indication to its new retail business model.

Xiaomi India also achieved one more Guinness World Records feat by opening the highest number of retail stores in the world, by inaugurating over 500 Mi Stores simultaneously. Located across 14 states, all new Mi Stores were collectively inaugurated at sharp 12 pm on 29 October, 2018, marking a first of its kind, unique achievement for the brand.

Spanning across an average size of 300 square feet, Mi Stores reflect the design of Xiaomis Mi Home stores. Mi Stores display interiors with minimalism concept, enabling customers to experience and purchase all Xiaomi products of India under one roof. In line with its expansion plans, Xiaomi India also looks forward to opening 5,000+ Mi Stores all over India by the end of 2019.

The new Mi Store outlets serve as Xiaomis prime retail stores situated in several towns ranging from tier 3, 4, 5 and below. With these initiatives, the brand has rapidly expanded its offline presence in rural India. These stores can also be found in some of the most remote corners of the nation, showcasing the brands vast outreach.

As part of Xiaomis extensive efforts to boost entrepreneurship in the rural sector, the company is encouraging Mi Fans from small towns and villages, and other local individuals to run and operate these stores.

This is Xiaomi Indias second Guinness world record achievement in last 3 months. Xiaomi India recently broke another world record by creating the worlds largest light mosaic (logo) from 9,690 bulbs. Depicting the Mi logo, this world record was designed to symbolise the collective contribution of Xiaomi India employees and Mi Fans, who have all contributed to the overall success of the brand.

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Trump signed the submission on Tuesday before he left Washington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in Florida, a person familiar with the matter said. (Photo: File)

Washington: US President Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday.

"We answered every question they asked that was legitimately pre-election and focused on Russia," Giuliani said in an interview. "Nothing post-election. And we've told them we're not going to do that."

Giuliani said Trump did not plan to answer any questions from Mueller on whether he tried to obstruct the investigation once he won office, such as by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

"It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion," the lawyer said in a statement earlier on Tuesday announcing that Trump's answers had been submitted in the probe, which Trump has repeatedly called a "witch hunt."

Trump signed the submission on Tuesday before he left Washington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in Florida, a person familiar with the matter said.

A spokesman for Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May 2017, declined to comment.

Mueller was tasked to probe "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to tip it toward Trump by undermining Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow and Russia has said it did not meddle in the election.

Trump Tower Meeting

Among the topics Trump answered questions about on Tuesday was a June 2016 meeting between the president's son Donald Trump Jr, other members of Trump's campaign team and a group of Russians, the person familiar with the matter said.

Trump has denied knowing about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, who had promised damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Other questions may have touched on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally with ties to WikiLeaks, who also is under investigation.

"There were no real big surprises in the questions. They were detailed, complex, they were multipart," Giuliani said. He would not say how many questions there were.

Mueller has already brought charges against some former Trump aides, including his former campaign chairman and his former national security adviser, as well as a number of Russian individuals and entities.

US prosecutors are also preparing to pursue a criminal case against Assange, having obtained a sealed indictment that was revealed in an unrelated criminal case filing last week.

WikiLeaks is known for publishing documents that were previously not public. During the campaign, the group published Democratic emails that US intelligence agencies have concluded were hacked by Russia. Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign.

"Little Hope"

Giuliani said in the statement on Tuesday the president had provided "unprecedented cooperation" with the probe over the past year and a half, noting that more than 30 White House-related witnesses had been questioned and 1.4 million pages of material turned over before Trump responded to the pre-election questions in writing.

He added that "much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry."

Giuliani later told Reuters there was "very little hope" Trump would sit for an interview with the special counsel.

Trump's lawyers have been negotiating with Mueller's prosecutors since last year over whether the president would sit for an interview. Trump himself has offered mixed responses.

In an interview that aired on Sunday, he told "Fox News Sunday" that he was unlikely to do so, explaining that "we've wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is, probably, we're finished."

It is unclear whether Mueller would subpoena him to testify, likely setting off a legal and political battle.

Earlier this month, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker as his replacement on an acting basis, renewing calls for legislation to protect Mueller's work. As a private citizen, Whitaker criticized the Mueller probe.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed such legislation.

Lisa Kern Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Duke University, said she was sceptical much of what had been asked was outside the scope of legitimate authority, as Giuliani maintained.

"The special counsel has a broad mandate to determine what took place during the campaign and to determine whether there has been an effort to obstruct that investigation," Griffin said. "As other presidents have found out, they are not above the law."
Once the internal Metropolitan Police reviews are completed, an inquest into the death of Malagardis is expected to take place. (Photo: Twitter | @metpoliceuk)

London: An Indian-origin Scotland Yard police constable (PC) has been dismissed from her job without notice for failing to exercise reasonable care in her treatment and monitoring of a homeless man after ejecting him from a police station in west London.

PC Bhupinder Kalsi was fired following a Metropolitan Police Unsatisfactory Police Performance meeting on Monday, which found that her performance was grossly incompetent and she was guilty of unsatisfactory performance.

Pericles Malagardis, a Greek national who was sleeping at Heathrow Airport, had gone to Uxbridge police station to collect his dog on a cold day in March 2016. The 63-year-old died of hypothermia after he was made to leave the police station for smoking inside the station.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the independent police watchdog, had referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider charges of gross negligence manslaughter.

"We found there was not enough evidence to prosecute for any offences and took no further action," the CPS said.

However, an internal disciplinary panel found that Kalsi "did not provide information requested by the London Ambulance Service regarding actions taken to support Malagardis, and failed to follow instruction and training when dealing with unresponsive casualties", after he was found unconscious on the pavement.

The panel also concluded that Kalsi was viewing a DVD whilst on duty, following Malagardis' ejection from the front office area of the police station.

Another police station staff member is facing a separate disciplinary hearing over the same incident.

Once the internal Metropolitan Police reviews are completed, an inquest into the death of Malagardis is expected to take place.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI has been systematically denigrated in the Narendra Modi-led regime, which he said is making a "careful, well-thought-out calibrated effort" to weaken democracy.

Addressing a press conference ahead of the November 28 Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, Singh said corruption was peaking in the Modi government.

"The country has witnessed credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI systematically denigrated. There is a careful, well-thought-out and calibrated effort to weaken democracy," he said.

LIVE: Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh addresses the media at Indore, Madhya Pradesh. #MPWelcomesDrSingh https://t.co/CI60ijv9ED  Congress (@INCIndia) November 21, 2018

"The rule of law is under attack. history shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed," he said.



In a veiled reference to developments in RBI and CBI, Singh said the Modi government is trying to prevail over big institutions, adding this was detrimental to democracy and law of the land.

"The relationship between the RBI and Finance Ministry has hit a low," the former Union finance minister said, adding there is a need for "harmony and coordination".

"The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate relationship. Both have to work together. Even though the job of running the country rests with the government, specific responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act. There is a need to recognise the interdependence of the two entities and work in harmony," he said.

"I am happy with the efforts being made to bring reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other," he said.

He termed demonetisation as "organised loot and legalised plunder". "This is a done act and can't be reverted. It is up to the people to get rid of the government which brought them on this disastrous path," he said.

The note ban and the "flawed" Goods and Services Tax (GST) of the NDA government have caused a "great damage" to the unorganised sector, Singh said. The note ban failed to achieve its goal, he added.

Asked about his 2014 comments that Modi as PM would be a disaster to the country, he said he did not want to comment on his earlier remarks. "I used harsh words which I should not have. Now people will make the decision," he added.

Singh accused Modi of misusing the Prime Minister's post. "It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents," he said, adding Modi was using "unparliamentary words" against the opposition.

The Rafale deal needs a thorough investigation through a Joint Parliamentary Committee, he said. "Modi is not going in for constitution of the JPC, which gives an impression that something is amiss", he said, adding this has given rise to a "great deal of suspicion" in the minds of people.

On steps needed to improve the economy, Singh said infrastructure investment should increase national savings rate should be encouraged.

"In our (Congress-led regime) time, the national saving rate was 35 to 36 per cent. Now it is 28 per cent," he said. If the GDP rate needs to grow to 10 per cent, the national savings rate and infrastructure investment needs to grow, he added.

Asked if the Congress will be able to revive itself, Singh said the party faced problems since the 2014 elections.

"The reason was the ability of the opposition to mislead the media and the general public about the so-called corruption and we were not able to carry the conviction to convey our point of view," he said.

Singh denied Modi's claim that the UPA government led by him was a "remote-controlled" one.

"The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion," he said.

The BJP promised to bring back money stashed in banks abroad but this turned out to be a hollow claim, he said.

The Modi government's "Make in India" programme has proved to be just a jumla (stunt), he said.

The BJP-led government promised to generate two crore jobs annually but this has turned out to a gimmick, he said.

He also rubbished Modi's claim that the UPA government discriminated against Madhya Pradesh. "Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should stand a witness to it," he said.

"Vyapam (an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam unearthed in Madhya Pradesh in 2013) marred the future of the state's youth, while Narmada river has been plundered by the sand mafia," Singh said.
Four local militants of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen outfit and an army commando were killed while two soldiers were wounded in a fierce gun battle between ultras and security forces in south Kashmir's Shopian district on Tuesday morning.

Four civilians, including three girls, were injured during clashes with the security forces near the site of a gunfight in Nadigam village of Shopian, 58 km from Srinagar.

The gunfight erupted after a joint team of army's 34 Rastriya Rifles (RR), 23 PARA and J&K police cordoned off Nadigam village following 'credible inputs' about the presence of militants in the area, sources said.

As the joint team of forces approached the suspected spot, the hiding militants fired a volley of bullets, injuring three soldiers.

"The forces blasted the house where the militants were hiding. Four bodies were recovered from the encounter site," they said.

An army official identified the injured soldiers as sepoy Shailender Singh of 34 RR, Lance Naik Somveer and Havaldar Bhupinder Singh, both from 23 PARA.

He said the wounded soldiers were shifted to 92 Base hospital in Srinagar, where one of them succumbed.

A police official identified the slain militants as Inam ul Haq, Abid Nazir Wagay, Mehraj ud Din Najar and Basharat Ahmad, all locals, affiliated with Hizbul.

The injured girls were identified as Simran Jan, Meenu Jan and Rafia Jan who have suffered bullet injuries.

A health official said that Simran suffered bullet injury in her abdomen while Meenu and Rafia were hit by bullets in foot and leg respectively.

He said that four injured persons were shifted to a hospital in Srinagar for specialised treatment.

Internet services have been shut down in Shopian as a precautionary measure.

There have been a number of encounters between security forces and militants in Shopian recently.

On November 18, two militants associated with Al-Badr outfit were killed in an encounter in Rebban area of Shopian.

Stepping up their winter offensive, security forces have launched major counter-insurgency operations against militants across the valley.

In October out of 30 killed militants, three were district-level commanders and a well-trained sniper, who picked targets in the darkness of night.

The killed ultras included Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) scholar-turned-militant commander Manan Wani and an army deserted who had joined militant ranks earlier this year.

Nearly 200 militants have been killed in Kashmir this year while 217 ultras were killed in 2017 which was highest in the last nine years.

Army maintains that recruitment of local youth into militancy has seen a decline in Kashmir during the recent months.

The recruitment of local youth in militant outfits has been persistent during past couple of years. However, we have seen a drop in it (recruitment) in the past two months, General-officer-Commanding (GoC) of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lt Gen A K Bhatt, recently said.
Uproarious scenes were witnessed in the Maharashtra legislature on Tuesday with members demanding reservation for Marathas, Lingayats, Muslims and Dhangars.

The Maratha-reservation demand thus is slowly compounding into a major political issue and getting complicated - ahead of the 2019 election year.

The BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance government decided to seek a legal opinion whether or not to table the report of the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) - that has recommended reservation to the Maratha community - in the Vidhan Sabha.

Meanwhile, the Congress and the NCP seems to be divided on the issue of tabling of report. Leader of Opposition in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil of Congress said that for clarity on the issue of Maratha reservation the report needs to be tabled urgently. "Whether the reservation to Marathas would be within the existing 52% or beyond it needs to be known," he said.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar said that there was no need to table the report without checking whether it can be challenged in court. "A section of society intends to challenge the commission's report in court," he said.

Patil also said that the government is committed to provide reservations to the Dhangar (shepard) community under the ST category changing it from the present VJNT category. For this, the Maharashtra government is working with the Centre, sources said, adding that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis along with Fisheries Minister Mahadev Jankar is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Unidentified gunmen shot dead Hafizullah Mir, a senior Hurriyat leader and a close aide of Syed Ali Geelani, in Achabal area of south Kashmir's Anantnag district on Tuesday morning.

Mir's wife was also injured in the attack, reports said. Unidentified gunmen barged inside the residence of Mir at Budhra area of Achabal, 75 km from here, and fired upon him. He and his wife were injured and were taken to district hospital Anantnag, where Mir was declared brought dead.

Mir was district president of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat founded by octogenarian Geelani. Local media reported that he had been receiving threat calls from unknown numbers for the last one month. Mir, according to a local news portal, had demanded that the authorities should verify and locate the origin of these calls and make it public. He had warned that if anything untoward happened to him, the government would be responsible for it.

Earlier, on September 8, unidentified gunmen had killed Hakim-ul-Rehman Sultani, associated with Geelani led Hurriyat, outside his home in Reshipora, Bomai, Sopore in northern Baramulla district.

Like Mir, he too was released from jail some weeks before his killing.
Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy managed to come one step closer to solving the sugarcane crisis. After a six-hour-long meeting on Tuesday, the government decided to get sugar factories to pay farmers all the dues.

Kumaraswamy asked factory owners to come for another meeting before November 22 to finalise payment of dues.

It was also decided that new weighing and measuring equipment would be installed in all factories. There are complaints that factories are shortchanging farmers through wrong measurement, Kumaraswamy told a press conference after the day-long meeting with cane growers and sugar factory representatives.

Factories cannot go back on their word. They should pay farmers whatever was promised. The government is powerful. Factories cannot act pricey. We have got their keys, Kumaraswamy said. I held a separate meeting with factories and it seems they are not ready to relent. But no one with decision-making authority had come. That is why I convened a meeting where those who can make decisions come.

For many years, factories have been entering into agreements  oral or written  with farmers, promising them to pay higher than the FRP. Factories have paid less than what was agreed upon due to dip in sugar prices and other reasons, Kumaraswamy explained. I have asked officials to determine factory-wise the exact amount due.

Asked how the government will determine dues when many farmers had oral agreements with factories, Kumaraswamy said: Oral or written, factories will have put up a notice on their premises stating the price they will pay.

The government also decided that factories should start paying farmers the FRP of Rs 2,750 per tonne fixed this year.

Various cases booked against agitating farmers in the past seven to eight years will be withdrawn after Cabinet approval, Kumaraswamy told farmers. This includes cases that were booked when farmers tried to enter the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi on Sunday, he added.

Kumaraswamy also promised farmers that any loopholes in the Karnataka Sugarcane (Regulation of Purchase and Supply) Act, 2013, will be set right and the law will be strengthened.

There is no ultimate solution yet. It is a continuous process. I have requested farmers to meet me directly, without an appointment, to discuss their problems. This is a pro-farmer government, he said. Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha leader K T Gangadharappa said farmers were content with the days developments.
A Collingdale man has been charged with voter fraud for allegedly filing an absentee ballot for a person who died last year.

Harry Sandoe Maxwell Jr., 79, of the 100 block of Lafayette Avenue, is charged with forgery, tampering with records, conspiracy, and violations of the elections code, all first-degree misdemeanors, according to online court records.

Mr. Maxwells corrupt actions are an affront to democracy, as he violated one of our greatest privileges as citizens, said Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland in a release. In order to assist in protecting the integrity of our electoral system and ensure that all Delaware County residents can cast their ballot unimpeded, my office will continue to do everything in its power to uncover voter fraud and bring to justice those who try to manipulate the outcome of elections in Delaware County.

An investigation was launched after Delaware County Bureau of Elections Chief Clerk Laureen Hagan reported to Criminal Investigation Division detectives Robert Lythgoe and Lisa DeMartini that her office had received an absentee ballot Oct. 25 for the Nov. 6 General Election for an individual who was deceased.

Detectives confirmed with the Bucks County Coroner that the person had died April 23, 2017. The address listed on the absentee ballot application was for a property owned by Maxwell on the 100 block of Lafayette Avenue.

When Lythgoe and DeMartini arrived at Maxwells residence Oct. 29, he allegedly confessed.

Thats me, Im guilty, I had someone sign the name, he said, according to the release.

Maxwell allegedly told the detectives that he routinely picks up girls in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia and brings them to his home in order to obtain absentee ballot signatures from them.

He said one woman that he knows by the name of Brooke signed the name of the deceased person giving rise to the investigation at his request.

Copeland spokeswoman Emily Harris said the ballot in question here was not counted and there is no further investigation of other ballots at this time. It was unknown if Maxwell had carried out the same conspiracy in prior elections.

Maxwell was preliminarily arraigned Monday before Magisterial District Judge Gregory J. Loftus, who set bail at $20,000 unsecured. A preliminary hearing is set for Dec. 4.
CHESTER >> While Great Britain was in the middle of its imperial century, Methodist minister William Booth found the expansion of wealth from the British Empire did little to elevate the poverty in the East End of its capital, London.

One hundred fifty-three years later in the East Side of Chester, the Salvation Army Chester Corps is grappling with the same challenges as the organizations founder.

The economy is doing quite well as far as people in need, that hasnt changed, said Maj. Ervin McKoy of the Chester Corps. An upswing in the economy has historically met an upswing in the Salvation Armys holiday Kettle Drive, according to McKoy, and he hopes that trend extends to the 2018 Merry Christmas Fund.

A $50,000 goal has been set for the 47th year of the charitable partnership between the Times and the Chester Corps to distribute food baskets and toys to those in need in the city and Delaware County during the week of Christmas.

Befitting the Victorian origins of the Salvation Army, the Times presented readers a Dickensian turn of phrase on the front page of the Nov. 25, 1971, edition when it asked readers Wont you help less fortunate? McKoy hopes readers will accept the call to help the array of challenges the Chester Corps faces on a daily basis.

We still have over 200 families that were going to be feeding and giving Christmas gifts to, McKoy said. Id like to do something special this year for our homeless population that comes to our center.

Merry Christmas Fund donations help the Chester Corps stretch its regular operating budget during the holiday season and beyond. With a loss of funding for a major food sponsor, the corps food pantry is operating a bare minimum going into the holiday season.

Along with donations to the fund and food donations, the corps is also accepting toy donations at its 151 W. 15th St. headquarters. A lot of times we dont have enough stuff for older children, McKoy said. We can use extra money to get bikes or they can donate a new bike.

While the corps has faced challenges with the food pantry, McKoy still sees regular acts of Christian charity that exemplify the mission of the Salvation Army. An unexpected example came from a local child recently honored by the corps womens group. There was a young lady, shes 7 years old she has the heart of a salvationist.

The girl (whose name was withheld for privacy), has been purchasing food for the homeless around the city. Her mother drives her around to feed homeless people. Our ladys group heard about it  their hearts were so touched by what she was doing.

Those who wish to contribute to the $50,000 goal can send donations via check or money order made payable and mailed to Chester Salvation Army, P.O. Box 1032, Brookhaven, PA 19015. Please do not mail donations to the Daily Times. Contributors who wish to be recognized should include a very brief, legible holiday message with their donations.

Donations of toys, food and clothing can be dropped them off at the Salvation Army Headquarter at 151 W. 15th St., Chester. For information on donation drop offs or Kettle Worker openings, call the Chester Corps at 610-874-4266.
FAIRFIELD, Utah County  Santa will make a trip from the North Pole to Camp Floyd State Park and Museum on Saturday, Dec. 15.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. visitors can meet with Santa while learning about the Christmas traditions at Camp Floyd, which was built by the U.S. Army in 1858. Today, Camp Floyd State Park features three structures and a cemetery.

The entrance fee is $3 per person or $9 per family.

Camp Floyd State Park and Museum is located 22 miles southwest of Lehi on state Route 73.

For information please call 801-768-8932.
SALT LAKE CITY  Americans are searching the internet for Thanksgiving meals, pies and recipes, according to the latest data from Google Trends.

Food: Turkey tops the list of the most-searched Thanksgiving recipes on Google for the past week in the United States. Stuffing rests at the No. 2 slot, followed by green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie.

Turkey: Turkey cooking techniques are different for every state. Most states are Googling how to cook a smoked turkey. However, most of New England wants to know how to roast a turkey, while much of the South wants to know more about fried turkeys.

Utah is searching for smoked turkey more than roast or fried turkey.

Pies: Pumpkin pie is not the only pie Americans are searching for. Though pumpkin pie is the most-searched pie, pecan pie, apple pie, sweet potato pie and cherry pie are all heavily searched Thanksgiving Day desserts this week.
SALT LAKE CITY  The latest Facebook feature-turned-blunder caused many to raise their eyebrows on Monday.

Whats happening: Ryan Mac wrote a story for BuzzFeed News on Monday about the new Facebook auto-response comment feature that has some pretty controversial suggestions for what to say in response to posts containing sensitive content.

Mac reports that a handful of people noticed Facebook was offering them preset comments for several news stories.

Example: For an MSNBC broadcast covering the shooting that took place at Chicagos Mercy Hospital, Facebook suggested comments like This is so sad and the prayer hands emoji.

Reactions: NBCUniversal contractor, Stephanie Haberman, reacted to the new feature on Twitter.

So Im just noticing that Facebook has a thoughts and prayers autoresponder on our Chicago Hospital shooting livestream and I have thoughts pic.twitter.com/8LQULnbQty  Steph Haberman (@StephLauren) November 19, 2018

Another social media user said the function was dystopian.

This wins for most dystopian thing I've seen all day (and I live in the smoke-drenched Bay Area where everyone is wearing masks, so that's saying a lot)  Mariam Hosseini (@yogurtsoda) November 19, 2018

According to Mac, other videos that the feature was being tested on included Phoenixs Fox 10 story about a sexual assault and possible shooting in a Catholic supply store. Facebooks algorithm suggested comments like respect and take care.

Resolution: (While) Facebook seems to be aiming to improve engagement on live video, critics have called the prompts insensitive and further evidence that the company has not thought out the human impact or consequences of its products, Mac said.

Facebook disabled the feature following the publication of Macs story.

"Clearly this wasnt implemented properly and we have disabled this feature for now, a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

Read more at BuzzFeed News.
SALT LAKE CITY  When Aubriana Martindale told acquaintances that her employer, Smith's Food and Drug, was contributing a three-year gift to extend the reach of East High School's food pantry, she got an incredulous reply:

"East High School?"

The needs are real, she explained. About 60 percent of East High School students live at or below the poverty line. More than 100 students who attend the school are experiencing homelessness. Some 400 students are refugees.

"We are a very diverse high school. We're an urban high school. Within our diversity there is diversity. That's the part of the fabric that intertwines and interweaves that makes our family of East High so strong and so special," said Principal Greg Maughan.

On Tuesday, student leaders, educators, staff and community members gathered in the school cafeteria to celebrate the $65,000 gift from Smith's that will stock the pantry  named Leopard Stash  with canned food, staples, fresh produce, dairy and meat.

The existing pantry has a grab-and-go counter where students can help themselves to a piece of fruit, bagel or granola bar to consume during the school day or after school.

The gift from Smith's expands the reach of the program to include emergency food supplies and referrals to other community resources. The grocery chain, part of the Kroger family of companies, also contributed $5,000 to the Salt Lake Education Foundation to help fight hunger elsewhere in the school district.

Martindale, Smith's corporate affairs manager, said hunger affects people of all ages, races and genders.

Martindale said her father experienced hunger as a child. He dropped out of school to help support his family. His mother was a single mom with four children.

He still talks about a Christmas gift he received in his childhood from his aunt, a case of SpaghettiOs, which he kept under his bed until he was ready to consume one of the cans.

"For those who don't struggle with hunger, we forget just how precious food can be," Martindale said.

Salt Lake City Board of Education member Melissa Ford, who represents the East High School community, said Leopard Stash is a place where the school community can give and receive help, depending upon one's circumstances at the time.

"This is a community. It's a family. We help each other. At any given time in our lives we may need help or we may be in a position to give help. We're probably going to be both at different times in our lives. If we're able to give help, then this is a good place to give help and if you need help, this is a good place to receive it," Ford said.

Anna Bilic, East High's junior class president, said the school community put a lot of effort into building the pantry but the gift from Smith's will help further its reach.

"Having a more solid foundation with this donation will just bring so much more relief and satisfaction to so many people so we're thrilled about that," Bilic said.
ROBIN HOOD  2 stars  Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Jamie Dornan; PG-13 (extended sequences of violence and action, and some suggestive references); in general release; running time: 116 minutes

The latest take on Robin Hood is a loud, melodramatic mess slathered in a thin veneer of 21st-century politics.

As director Otto Bathursts effort opens, a voice-over suggests we dispense with any preconceived notions of the legendary hero. There are probably a few other things we should let go of, too.

The Robin (Taron Egerton) of Loxley we meet early on is living the comfortable life of an English nobleman alongside the love of his life, Marian (Eve Hewson). But the good life quickly comes crashing down as Robin is drafted away to Arabia to fight in the Third Crusade.

Four years later, an embittered and embattled Robin returns home to find his manor in ruins and his love in the arms of another man. In order to fund the war effort, the devious Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) has hammered the community with excessive taxation, and after a false report of Robins death, Marian has started over with a local politician named Will Scarlet (Jamie Dornan), who is trying to build support among the commoners.

His former life destroyed, Robin finds purpose through Little John (Jamie Foxx), an Arabian prisoner he met during the crusade who has come to England in search of justice. One Rocky-meets-the-Middle-Ages training montage later, the pair is ready to take on corrupt government, religious hypocrisy and the full power of a Hollywood special effects team.

The film seems to follow the Spinal Tap philosophy of turning everything up to 11, presumably to cover up for Robin Hoods various shortcomings. Theres a wealth of action and pyrotechnics, but all the mayhem seems only loosely connected to a plot or story, and the strategy seems to be targeting audiences with extremely short attention spans.

Theres a place for bombastic, over-the-top popcorn movies that dont take themselves too seriously (see the Fast and Furious series). But Robin Hoods humor isnt quite funny enough and its serious content isnt quite serious enough. Throw in lazy, pseudo-meaningful dialogue like, this isnt going to end well and, youre only powerless if you believe youre powerless, and the final product is more likely to draw eye rolls than wows.

As the sheriff, Mendelsohn seems determined to set some kind of record for high-volume, spit-spewing scenery chewing, and the addition of F. Murray Abraham as a corrupt and conspiring cardinal only adds another two-dimensional cartoon to the bad guy team.

The battle between style and substance is pretty one-sided, and the convoluted story is laden with vague political allusions  the commoner rebels, dressed suspiciously like Antifa protestors, are quick to embrace Robins call for redistribution of wealth. The whole thing feels like another tactless attempt to retrofit a classic story through a half-cocked contemporary lens.

Robin Hood isnt anything close to the best Robin Hood film  but its probably the loudest. Turn off your brain movies should really be more fun.

Rating explained:"Robin Hood" is a strong PG-13, with wall-to-wall action violence (more loud than graphic), some scattered profanity and mild sexuality (mainly low-cut dresses).
SALT LAKE CITY  Utah House leadership and police are looking into Sen. Daniel Thatcher's claim that House Minority Leader Brian King assaulted him last month before a meeting at the state Capitol.

The two lawmakers have different versions of what happened in a Senate building corridor as they arrived for a Utah Sentencing Commission meeting Oct. 3. And both say surveillance video  which has not been released publicly  will bear out their side of the confrontation.

"I think the video is more than clear," said Thatcher, R-West Valley City.

"It will put it to rest, a lot of it," said King, D-Salt Lake City.

Outgoing House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, has reviewed the video and spoken to Thatcher and King. He said he has a "pretty good sense" of what happened.

"I've seen enough that I'm moving forward," Hughes said, adding he will issue a letter on the matter before he leaves office in January, though he said he doesn't know if it would be a public document.

The speaker said Thatcher's pursuit of criminal charges against King has no bearing on the House process for investigating complaints.

A decision on criminal charges rests with a South Jordan prosecutor after the Salt County District Attorney's Office handed the case off because of a conflict. The Utah Highway Patrol, which provides security at the Capitol, has not released video of the incident, citing the ongoing investigation.

Thatcher said King "attacked" him, grabbing his lower ribs under one of his arms and slamming him into a wall, after he patted him on the shoulder from behind to say hello. He described it as "vicious and violent."

"It was a full-on wrestle move," he said.

King said he put his hands on Thatcher's arms and stepped into him to let him know he was angry with him.

In his statement to the UHP, King wrote that he was irritated a few days earlier in the Capitol's underground parking lot that Thatcher "angrily" wanted to know why he wasn't supporting his re-election campaign. He said it bothered him and he let Thatcher know it during the incident in the hallway.

"I told him he didn't have a clue what it was like to be in the superminority and he needed to stop acting like I owed him or any other Republican my support," he said.

King, who was elected to another term as minority leader Tuesday, said he quickly apologized verbally and with text messages but "he won't accept my genuine, immediate and sincere apology."

Thatcher first went to the state's human resources department but said he was told it could not do anything because King is an elected official. He filed a complaint with legislative leadership and also went to the highway patrol, which took statements from him and King.

Hughes said it's "inaccurate" that human resources doesn't have role in the process and that it is involved in reviewing the incident, but the decision on how to handle it belongs to him.

Last week, Thatcher posted a five-minute video about the confrontation on his Facebook page to counter King's "dishonest" narrative of what happened, which Thatcher said has changed three times.

Thatcher said that since he filed his complaint, a dozen legislators have told him about run-ins with King, including three with physical contact. He said King has a "long-standing pattern of abusive behavior" and that he needs professional help.

In the video, he said King also yelled at a female member of the governor's staff.

King admitted letting the governor's staffer know he was unhappy with her. He said he apologized after the governor's deputy chief of staff told him he thought King had been too harsh.

King said passion runs high at the Legislature and there have been times when he has touched someone, "but not very often in anger."

"In fact, that incident with Thatcher, as the video will show once we get it out, was probably the most physically aggressive I've ever been with anybody in anger," King said.

But, he said, he's not going to allow Thatcher to blow it out of proportion.

"This is what we do as human beings. I hope it's what we do as human beings, that there are times when we err and we promptly and forthrightly go to the individual that may have been put off and we apologize," King said.

Thatcher said he was advised to drop his complaint but he can't because he wants to protect others from the same experience. He said King is "dangerous" and he can prove it in court.

"At the end of the day, failure to prosecute this case sends a signal that elected officials are above the law, because we are unless this prosecutor says we're not," he said.

King, an attorney, said he hopes the prosecutor makes a decision quickly, which he said should be easy based on the narrow set of facts.
SALT LAKE CITY  It's Congressman-elect Ben McAdams after election results were certified Tuesday.

The Democratic Salt Lake County mayor's lead over Republican Rep. Mia Love was at 694 votes following the final vote canvass throughout the 4th Congressional District, just 21 votes beyond the margin that would have allowed Love to ask for a recount.

McAdams ended up with 134,964 votes to Love's 134,270, winning the Nov. 6 election with 50.13 percent of the vote to 49.87 percent for the two-term congresswoman.

While that's close, McAdams insisted it was a decisive victory.

"It is clear that this race is over," he told the Deseret News during an interview at his Millcreek campaign headquarters. "For me, what's important is the voters have expressed their decision."

But Love, who is traveling with her family over the Thanksgiving holiday, has not conceded.

She said in a statement she would be holding a news conference at Utah GOP headquarters Monday "to discuss the race." She said she would be calling McAdams shortly "with the results in and the election now over."

McAdams was confident enough about the slightly larger, 739-vote lead he held after Monday's results to declare victory then, saying he saw no way Love could catch up to him in the final county totals.

Love responded Monday by thanking voters. She expressed a similar sentiment Tuesday, calling engaging in the election process "one of many reasons this is the greatest country on earth."

Few votes were gained by either candidate in the final numbers approved Tuesday. Besides portions of Salt Lake and Utah counties, the 4th District includes Juab and Sanpete counties.

The election results become official Monday, when state officials approve the vote canvass.

State Elections Director Justin Lee said nothing should change between now and then, and that the results in the 4th District are outside of the 0.25 percent margin that permits a losing candidate to request a recount.

Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, congratulated McAdams in a tweet saying, "He has worked hard to represent the citizens of Salt Lake County and I believe he will put the same dedication into representing his district in D.C."

Herbert also tweeted that he hoped "Utahns, particularly those in the 4th district, will be able to move beyond this unnecessarily divisive campaign and that all our candidates will hold themselves to a higher level of civility in the future."

McAdams said while campaigns are about differences, he's ready to move forward.

"Governing is about what we have in common. That's what I'm looking at now," he said. "We've seen robust discussion over the last several months about what may divide us. Now its time to talk about what brings us together."

He joked that Utahns should be happy to no longer have to change the channel or mute the sound on their televisions to avoid the negative TV commercials that flooded the airwaves from both campaigns, as well as out-of-state special interest groups.

More than $10 million was spent on the race. McAdams now joins a Democratic majority that will take control of the U.S. House in January, something he said will be a benefit to Utah.

The last Democrat to represent Utah in Congress was former Rep. Jim Matheson, who defeated Love in her first bid for the 4th District seat in 2012. After he retired, Love went on to win in 2014 and again in 2016.

McAdams said as late as Monday morning he was talking to his four children, ages 7 to 13, about the likelihood of losing the race and serving out the remaining two years of his second term as county mayor.

He said he and his wife promised the family a long-awaited family vacation if Love won, so they felt "a little bit of disappointment" when he determined Monday he'd won.

"Was it unusual (for McAdams) to make a statement without a concession? Yes. But the whole process has been unusual and prolonged," said Chris Karpowitz, co-director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy.

Karpowitz said until provisional ballots were counted in Utah and Salt Lake counties Monday, both candidates still had reason to hope they'd win what was the most competitive race in the state.

That those votes "broke dramatically for Ben McAdams indicates they were likely new voters who were much more Democratic in their approach," likely because of Proposition 2, a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana, he said.

Proposition 2, which passed but will be replaced in next month's special legislative session, was credited with driving voter turnout throughout the state, energizing young voters, especially those new to the process.

The largely by-mail election may have caused some problems for Love, who was counting on support in Utah County to counter McAdams' strength in Salt Lake County.

Instead, Utah County voters who decided that rather than mail in their ballots they would cast them in person on Election Day ran into long lines because there were fewer polling places than in a regular election.

"That fact that people had to wait hours in lines means we'll never know how many people walked away" before voting, Karpowitz said. He said the way Utah County ran the election "seemed to be very problematic and hurt Love."

The governor, a former Utah County commissioner, was even more blunt recently in his assessment, calling the county the "epicenter of dysfunction" after some voters faced four-hour waits at the polls on election night.

Utah County Commissioner Greg Graves, however, took a dig the governor during the vote certification Tuesday.

"Our staff should be commended for the great job," Graves said. "Shame on Gov. Herbert for calling out Utah County when (staff) did an exceptionally good job of counting every vote."

Last week, Love and her campaign sued the Salt Lake County clerk over the vote count, focusing on the voter signature verification process used when ballots were unsigned or signatures didn't match.

The case was dismissed the day after it was heard in 3rd District Court. Karpowitz said the lawsuit "was a sign the Love campaign was very worried how this was going to turn out," especially since it targeted only Salt Lake County.

Jason Perry, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, said the big question for Love now is whether she'll run again in the 4th District.

Perry said in 2020, another matchup between Love and McAdams could turn out differently if there are not high-profile propositions on the ballot bringing voters to the polls.

"I think we have not seen the last of Rep. Love," Perry said. "And this district has proven in this election that it is not safe for anyone."

Contributing: Katie McKellar
FARMINGTON  A Riverdale man who is on the Utah Sex Offender Registry was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a disabled woman in a house where he was supposed to be doing work for the woman's mother.

An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for Jon David Stephens, 49, on charges of forcible sodomy and object rape, first-degree felonies, and two counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony.

In June, police say Stephens was doing work for a woman at her home in Davis County. The woman's 18-year-old daughter is "intellectually disabled" and Stephens was aware of that, according to charging documents.

When the two were alone at the house, Stephens took the woman to a bedroom, asked "if she could keep secrets," and then sexually assaulted her, the charges state.

Stephens was convicted of lewdness involving a child in 1997, according to court records. He was convicted of sex abuse of a child in 2000 and was sentenced to one to 15 years at the Utah State Prison.
WEST JORDAN  Six people, including a police officer, were injured in a four-vehicle crash in West Jordan on Tuesday, police said.

The crash occurred about 3 p.m. on Bangerter Highway near 6500 South when an elderly man entered the highway at 7000 South driving north in southbound lanes, said West Jordan Police Sgt. J.C. Holt.

The wrong-way vehicle first struck the car of an officer who was headed home from a training, Holt said. The officer suffered minor injuries and was not taken to a hospital.

The man's vehicle then hit a minivan that had five people inside. Those occupants, as well as the elderly man, were all taken to a hospital with minor injuries, the sergeant said.

After hitting the police officer's vehicle and the minivan, the elderly man's engine block came out and was dragged several hundred feet by another vehicle, Holt said.

Officers Tuesday were investigating whether a medical issue caused the elderly man to enter the highway going the wrong way.

Traffic in the area was shut down while police investigated.
SALT LAKE CITY  A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against a prosecutor and county attorney's office that charged an Orem man convicted and later exonerated in his wife's death.

In a 152-page civil rights lawsuit filed in July 2017, Conrad Truman, 36, claimed law enforcement in Orem arrested, investigated and incarcerated him based on "misleading, false and outright fabricated evidence," alleging that he murdered his wife, Heidy Truman, 25, and then lied to police about killing her.

He is seeking unspecified damages, claiming violation of his constitutional rights, emotional distress, suffering, humiliation and other financial losses.

Orem City, the Orem City Police Department, individual police officers, Utah County Deputy Prosecutor Craig Johnson and the Utah County Attorney's Office were named in the lawsuit.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart granted a motion to dismiss Johnson and the Utah County Attorney's Office as defendants in Truman's lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Truman alleged Johnson "approved or gave advice in preparing affidavits that contained false information or omissions" and "prepared and filed an arrest warrant," among other allegations.

Stewart dismissed Johnson from the lawsuit because the claims against him were barred by his immunity as a prosecutor, according to court documents.

Other claims against Johnson and the county attorney's office were dismissed because Truman did not meet the legal standard to establish a claim against them, Stewart wrote.

Truman was acquitted in February 2017 when the charges were put before a jury a second time.

A previous jury in 2014 convicted Truman of murdering his wife in their Orem home. He maintained throughout the first trial and at his sentencing that he was innocent. The conviction was overturned in August after Truman argued inaccurate crime scene evidence taken by police influenced the verdict.

Truman's lawsuit alleges that multiple police officers, who had been in the Truman home numerous times throughout the investigation, should have realized that measurements of the scene  listed in police reports as 13.9 feet rather than 139 inches  were incorrect, but that the flawed information was presented at trial, regardless.

Following the first jury trial, Truman was sentenced in February 2015 to serve 15 years to life in prison. When his conviction was overturned, 4th District Judge Samuel McVey declined to reduce Truman's $1 million bail and he remained in custody until he was exonerated in 2017.
AMERICAN FORK  One person was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday morning after being hit by a FrontRunner train.

The pedestrian was crossing the tracks at the platform in American Fork, 782 W. 200 South, about 6:30 a.m. when he was hit by a train pulling into the station, according to a spokesman for the Utah Transit Authority.

"He tapped on and never looked up," said UTA spokesman Carl Arky, who noted the man walked right in front of the train.

Details about how fast the train was going when the man was hit were not immediately released.

The man, whose name and age were not immediately released, was flown by medical helicopter to a local hospital. Arky said he suffered head trauma and broken bones that would require surgery. But by 11 a.m. he was alert and his injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Trains heading north into Salt Lake City were delayed while emergency crews attended to the situation.
SALT LAKE CITY  A Las Vegas man bilked hundreds of investors, including many older and disabled people, out of $1.5 million through a direct mail fraud scam he ran out of mailbox in a Park City store, federal authorities say.

An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City charges Daron Howell Fordham, 49, with six counts of mail fraud.

Fordham  also known as Southboy, Daron Destiny, Paul Park, James Parker, Daron Howell and Darren Fordham  set up a mailbox at a UPS Store in Park City using the name Park Publishers and Distributors, according to the indictment. He paid a printing service in California to send out hundreds of mailers soliciting people to invest in his direct mail program, which had several variations.

The mailers offered an opportunity to make money through a "direct partner program" called "Paul Park's Profit Program," listing a Park City address.

The indictment alleges Fordham's mailer induced individual investors to send money to the address with fraudulent claims and guarantees, including telling people they could make a 976 percent return or more in less than 90 days without doing any work.

The mailer read: "All you have to do is invest in the printing and mailing of our hot-selling FREE CRUISE FOR TWO VOUCHERS (like the one included with this letter) that are used by businesses all across the country. WE DO ALL THE WORK! You decide how many Mailing Spots you want now and you'll receive your Principal Check and PROFIT Check in less than 90 days. Trust me. You'll be upset if you miss this one."

Fordham allegedly told investors they could invest $500 and get a "whopping gross return of $5,570 with $5,070 of it being PURE PROFIT FOR You."

Between January and November 2014, Fordham negotiated or caused to be negotiated at least $1.5 million in checks and money orders related to eight fraudulent promotional schemes, including at least $203,866 through Park Publishers, according to the indictment.

When investors requested refunds or promised dividends, Fordham gave them a previously unmentioned gift card voucher equal to the investment, which could only be used toward an additional business venture by Park Publishers or partners. He also gave out full credit refund certificates, which investors could not redeem for money, goods or services, prosecutors say.

Fordham eventually closed the Park City mailbox so that letters requesting refunds or inquiring about dividends were returned as undeliverable. An 800-number was also disconnected, leaving victims unable to contact Fordham, the indictment alleges.

Fordham pleaded not guilty in federal court and a trial was scheduled for January. Each count of mail fraud carries a potential 20-year prison sentence.
WEST JORDAN  An elderly man who police say caused a multivehicle crash by driving the wrong way on Bangerter Highway has died.

Ronald Leon Newsome, 90, of Taylorsville, died after being taken to a local hospital from the accident scene, West Jordan police confirmed Wednesday. Originally, his injuries were reported to be minor. But police say his condition took a turn for the worse overnight.

Investigators believe he may have suffered a medical condition when he got on Bangerter Highway at 7000 South, driving north in the southbound lanes. He caused a four-vehicle crash near 6500 South. One of those vehicles hit was a West Valley police patrol car belonging to a sergeant who was on his way home from training. He suffered minor injuries.

After hitting the police officer's vehicle and the minivan, the elderly man's engine block came out and was dragged several hundred feet by another vehicle.

The crash on the Bangerter Highway marked the sixth wrong-way driver incident for police in Utah since Friday.

 Early Tuesday morning, a Toyota SUV heading north in the southbound lanes of I-15 struck a Ford Econoline van head-on near 5300 South. Corbin Gray Celotto, 28, of Draper, was arrested at the hospital for investigation of DUI. He will be booked into the Salt Lake County Jail once he is released. A Kaysville police officer who was assisting Utah Highway Patrol troopers was also injured after being hit by a car while setting up road flares.

 On Monday, an elderly woman drove about 3 miles the wrong way on I-84 in Weber Canyon before troopers were able to pull her over. No accidents were reported and no one was injured.

 Bernardino Tereso Gonzalez, 68, was arrested for investigation of DUI on Friday with a 0.148 blood alcohol content, the UHP reported, and driving on a denied license after he got onto I-215, possibly at 4500 South, going the wrong way. He was eventually stopped on I-15 near 3300 South by a UHP trooper who was forced to perform a PIT manuever on the vehicle.

 In the another incident, an 80-year-old woman was driving north in the southbound lanes of I-15 in Utah County early Friday, according to the UHP. Troopers were able to force her car onto the shoulder and no one was injured.

 On Friday, a car rolled off I-15 while trying to avoid a wrong-way driver near Cedar City, the UHP reported. The driver was not injured.
LONDON, England  British Prime Minister Theresa May was hip-deep in controversy during what is a dramatic moment in Great Britain's history when she paused Wednesday to receive Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

May confronted fiery tirades from members of Parliament during the noon hour as part of her weekly "prime minister's questions" session. Elder Holland watched from the Members' Gallery, sitting on a green-upholstered wooden bench in the historic chambers of the House of Commons.

After a lunch with a dozen members of Parliament, he then spent 15 minutes with May in her office at the Palace of Westminster, presenting her with bound copies of her family history in her office before she flew to Brussels for additional critical negotiations about Brexit, her nation's planned exit from the European Union.

"I said, 'Given the kind of day that you had and the week that you are having, this is meant to be a kind of a respite,'" Elder Holland said after meeting May. "And she said, 'This is a true interlude. This is a happy moment.' She smiled about that. I think it was nice for her to have somebody who was not shouting in her face or shaking a fist over some element of Brexit."

A mishandled Brexit could lead to dark outcomes. Some have suggested scenarios that include the dissolution of the United Kingdom, the possibility of the worst British recession in 40 years or May's removal as prime minster over her proposed exit agreement, which includes paying $50 billion in the divorce.

In that backdrop Elder Holland said the debate during prime minister's questions was rowdier than previous sessions he had attended in the past.

"I have never been in one as heated and as vocal as that one got for a few moments," he said, "so much so that the speaker had to insert himself to keep it calm and keep it courteous and make sure there was decorum in that body. That is how tense the political situation is right now."

Elder Holland also used his visit to the Houses of Parliament to present gift copies of the Book of Mormon to key officials and collections at the House of Commons, the primary chamber of the British Parliament.

But the highlight of the day was the visit with May, the second female British prime minister. Wednesday happened to be the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to be seated in Parliament.

Elder Holland also presented her with a wall-hanging of her family pedigree, which May said she would hang at No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence, and a leather-bound copy of the Book of Mormon with an inscription by the church's First Presidency.

"We talked primarily about her family, featuring her pedigree chart and the beautiful leather-bound books that document her maternal line and paternal line," he said. "She seemed very taken by those and very touched by them. It is clearly a very personal gift. It is not the kind of gift VIPs typically would bring to a prime minister."

The family histories took seven months and 2,500 hours of research, compilation and publication, according to a news release.

Elder Holland was grateful for May's time with his delegation, which included his wife, Patricia, two Latter-day Saint members of Parliament  David Rutley and Stephen Kerr  Kerr's wife Yvonne, Elder Alan T. Phillips, an Area Seventy, and Paul Kerry, an Oxford fellow.

"In a very busy day in a very busy life, with genuine national and international tensions, she was courteous to make time with us," Elder Holland said. "She was, I think, very touched by the gift of her family history. She has family values and stands for the same principles we do in that regard."

He said the church's First Presidency  President Russell M. Nelson and his counselors, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring, signed a printed note in the Book of Mormon he presented to May.

"They expressed gratitude for her service, for her dignity, for the leadership that she exerts for and in behalf of the men and women of her nation, including members of the church who are part of her constituency."

It was standing-room-only in the chambers of the House of Commons on Wednesday for prime minister's questions, known here as PMQs.

"It's an extraordinary exercise in democracy," said Kerr, who represents the city of Stirling in central Scotland. "Here we have the highest office in this country, other than of course the queen, subjecting herself, by necessity, because that's our democratic process, to questions from all sides and on any subject."

Kerr, a former Area Seventy of the church, was elected last year.

"For me as a member of the church to see an apostle shake hands with, engage with, converse with the prime minister of my country, that means a great deal," he said. "As far as we know, no sitting prime minister has had the good fortune of ever meeting an apostle before. Today, Theresa May, at a most critical moment in her time as our prime minister, and probably in her life, met someone who could bring her something very special though a handshake and through a few words. So on all those levels, as a member of the church and as someone who loves this country and someone who has the privilege of being a member of Parliament, it was hugely significant."

When he was sworn in, he chose to hold copies of the King James Bible and Book of Mormon in his left hand while raising his right hand. The copy of the Book of Mormon was old, from the 1960s, with a black cover and an image of the Angel Moroni.

Kerr said he thought the book deserved a nicer copy in the collection of the table of sacred texts used for swearing in at the House of Commons. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve took up the cause during his visit to England last year, and the First Presidency provided a blue, leather-bound copy it provides to dignitaries like May.

The members of the First Presidency also wrote an inscription in that copy: "We present this sacred text with our prayer for the blessing of Almighty God upon the peoples of the United Kingdom, the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Parliament."

Elder Holland provided a second copy of the book to the House of Commons Library, embossed with the words "House of Commons."

The sacred texts table in the House of Commons includes copies of the King James Bible, the Koran, the Granth, the Gita, the Welsh Bible, the Torah the Zohar, the Dhammapada and others.

"A beautiful volume of the Book of Mormon takes its place among those texts," Kerr said.

Elder Holland also gave a Book of Mormon to the deputy speaker of the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and others.

"We have never had a day in Parliament like today," Elder Holland said. "You do not get many meetings with prime ministers. As a 19-year-old missionary here, I wanted to get in any door at all. I never thought a day would come when I would get in the door at Parliament or to the office of the prime minister."

Elder Alan T. Phillips, an Area Seventy of the church in London, said the day had deep meaning for British Latter-day Saints.

"Last weekend, on the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, just to have the church be one of the faiths invited to lay a wreath was an important moment," he said. "It meant something for every member. We felt relevant that we were invited and could participate. Following on, when they see an apostle with the prime minister, it will echo that, that the church is recognized and known and valued."
SALT LAKE CITY  Sen.-elect Mitt Romney skewered President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday for their latest comments on Saudi Arabia and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, calling them "inconsistent" with U.S. foreign policy.

"The President's and Secretary of State's Khashoggi statements to date are inconsistent with an enduring foreign policy, with our national interest, with basic human rights, and with American greatness," Romney said in a Facebook post.

"Sanctions do not necessarily require ending the alliance; they do demand real and painful consequence."

Trump on Tuesday declared unwavering loyalty to Saudi Arabia and asserted that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's culpability for the killing of Khashoggi might never be known. The crown prince is a close ally to the White House.

"Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said in a statement.

"That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Trump said. "In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Trump's comments came days after the CIA concluded that the crown prince had authorized the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for the Washington Post.

Romney also took to Twitter to criticize Trump's response after the president indicated Saudi Arabia would not face severe punishment for Khashoggi's death.

"America can't excuse & minimize the brutal & gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident & columnist. Our country is defined by human values, by principle above convenience, & by commitment to morality. We must subject the perpetrators of this outrage to withering sanction," Romney tweeted.

In his statement, Trump said the U.S. has already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Khashoggi and disposal of his body.

Responding to questions about Khashoggi's killing and diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in a briefing with reporters Tuesday, Pompeo said "it's a mean, nasty world out there, the Middle East in particular."

Pompeo said the U.S.-Saudi Arabia relationship "is a long, historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to America's national security."

Romney said during his Senate campaign that while he largely agrees with the Trump agenda, he would call out the president when he believes he is wrong.

Romney, who might be eying a seat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also blasted Trump after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year. He called Trump's decision to side with Putin over American intelligence regarding interference in the 2016 election "disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles."
DeepVeer Wedding: This Is What Ranveer And Deepika Will Wear For Their Bangalore Reception!

The stage is all set for Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone's first wedding reception. The couple, who got married in an extremely private ceremony in Lake Como in Italy will be hosting their first out of three wedding receptions in Bangalore tonight. We had already shared with you how the venue was being decorated to welcome the guests that will mainly include the friends and acquaintances from Deepika's family.

Well, now the first look of the couple from the reception is out. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone shared their picture together on his social media handle and we are on a tizzy, to be honest. The two look like the quintessential Sabyasachi couple with Deepika flaunting a golden saree that has been gifted by her mother and Ranveer sporting a black sherwani that has been created by Rohit Bal. They have been styled by Sabyasachi.

Check out the picture here:
Avanti Communications has signed a Master Service Agreement on Avantis HYLAS 4 satellite with Logical Wireless, a South African Satellite integrator.

Under the new Master Service Agreement, Logical Wireless will use Avantis new satellite, HYLAS 4, to complete its coverage of Sub-Saharan Africa and provide cost-effective and reliable satellite internet services into regions across Africa that suffer from unreliable or non-existent connectivity.

The Avanti partnership will also enable Logical Wireless to deliver high capacity sites for carriers and telecom providers to directly access cloud and content platforms in Africas largest Datacentre, making services more efficient and cost-effective.

Brenden Pronk, Avanti Country Manager and Sales Director for Southern Africa, said: Were delighted to strengthen our relationship with Logical Wireless and support the delivery of high-speed satellite communication services throughout Africa.

Gavin Behr, Managing Director at Logical Wireless, added: Connectivity is critical for all businesses. It becomes problematic in remote areas where no forms of terrestrial connectivity are available. The partnership with Avanti enables us to deploy satellite broadband services that can be installed anywhere and provide a complete communication and connectivity solution to allow individuals and companies to conduct business as if they were in a city.
It is a well-known fact that Apple is strict when it comes to the apps that violate its App Store policies. It removes such apps and doesnt even host apps that do not go by its guidelines. Apple recently removed the Tumblr app from its platform as it was seen hosting child pornography in one instance. Tumblr says that the incident was accidental but it was enough for the iPhone-maker to remove the microblogging and social networking platform's app from the App Store.

The Tumblr app has been missing from Apple's App Store since November 16 but the reason for this was unclear. Initially Tumblr said that it was working to resolve the issue with the iOS app, but later Download.com contacted Tumblr, citing sources, that the reason was related to the discovery of child pornography on the service. The Yahoo-owned social media network confirmed the reason and blamed the industry database for the slip-up.

Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform. A routine audit discovered content on our platform that had not yet been included in the industry database. We immediately removed this content. Content safeguards are a challenging aspect of operating scaled platforms. Were continuously assessing further steps we can take to improve and there is no higher priority for our team, Tumblr said in a statement.

Were committed to helping build a safe online environment for all users, and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to media featuring child sexual exploitation and abuse. As this is an industry-wide problem, we work collaboratively with our industry peers and partners like NCMEC to actively monitor content uploaded to the platform, the statement added. This isn't the first time that Tumblr has been made inaccessible from this type of problem. In March 2018, the government of Indonesia briefly blocked Tumblr after the company failed to remove pornographic content from its service.
Facebook's family of apps, including Messenger and Instagram, suffered a brief disruption causing panic among the account holders belonging to several parts of the world. As expected, users headed to Twitter after the outage to check if they were the only ones affected, as well as make memes on the situation. Facebook acknowledged the problem and after a few hours of struggle, it announced that the services had been restored. The social media giant blamed a bug in its servers for the outage.

We know some people are having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. Were working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Earlier today a bug in our server caused some people to have trouble accessing our apps. The issue has since been resolved  were back to 100% for everyone  and were sorry for the inconvenience, Facebook tweeted. But some people still complained Facebook was not working properly and the app itself is messed up as well as messenger app.

After Facebooks tweet, one of the users complained that pictures and GIFs were not loading on the apps and that a lot of links in posts were broken. Apparently, some people faced problems with two factor login as well. A user claimed that the code generator for 2-factor login was not sending any codes. Facebook's ad manager platform was also not working for some brands leaving them helpless just ahead of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale ads.

FacebookDown was one of the most trending handles on Twitter.

The affected media buyers, who were trying to buy ads for their clients, were unable to see data about how their ads were performing, and they were unable to edit live ad campaigns, or start new ad campaigns. While some claimed that they faced the issue for an hour, others said they experienced the outage for seven or eight hours. The problems affected ads running on all Facebook's apps, including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. However, Facebook claimed that the current ad campaigns that were live and running should not be affected.

This is the second outage that Facebook has suffered in last 10 days. On November 12, the social network went down showing its users error messages saying Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can. After going offline for nearly half an hour, Facebook started working again. A Facebook spokesperson told USA TODAY that the outage was the result of a routine test."
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By ALEXANDRA OLSON

AP Business Writer

NEW YORK  When tech giants like Amazon expand, other companies don't just worry about losing business. They also fret about hanging on to their employees.

Some of the industries that have defined New York City and the Washington, D.C., area will face increased competition for talent when Amazon sets up shop in their territory, with plans to hire 50,000 new workers amid the tightest job market in decades.





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An Interbay development site at 2235 15th Ave. W. sold three years ago for $700,000 to a Denver couple doing business as Little Lot LLC.





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FEDERAL WAY  The Trellis apartments, at 2120 S.W. 352nd St. in Federal Way, sold for $27.4 million, according to Kidder Mathews, whose Philip Assouad and Giovanni Napoli brokered the deal.

The seller was Mosaic USA Federal Way LP, now also associated with Rise Properties. Mosaic Homes acquired the property in 2007 for $11.2 million.





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Jet Airways looking at various sources to raise finances: CEO

Jet Airways on Tuesday said it is in active discussions with several investors, including Tata Sons, to secure sustainable financing to tide over the current stress that is holding back growth.

We are in active discussions with various investors to secure sustainable financing to navigate through the current headwinds and create long-term growth. There is interest in our strong brand and confidence in business turnaround efforts, Vinay Dube, chief executive officer, said in a newsletter to its stakeholders.

The explanation follows the buzz created by the Tata Group carrying out a due-diligence on Jet Airways.

Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, also clarified, "We would like to clarify that any such discussions have been preliminary and no proposal has been made."

Also, on Tuesday, promoters of Tata Group advised Tata Sons board to go slow on acquiring any stake in Jet Airways without knowing full details of the airlines financial position.

Dube also said Jet Airways is in the process of reviewing its network and is deploying aircraft on more profitable, productive and economically efficient routes.

Tata Group, which already owns stakes in two airlines, on Friday informed that it is interested in buying a stake in the full-service carrier, but no proposal has been made so far.

Last week, Jet announced its Q2 results for FY 2019 with a net loss of Rs1,261 crore. The tough operating environment for the aviation industry continues to impact us. However, the companys efforts to reduce costs have been reflecting on their business, which has yielded over ?500 crore of savings in the first half of FY2019. Dube added.

The Naresh Goyal-led airline announced that it has added 18 additional frequencies on domestic and international routes to meet growing demand from travellers along with new services to Singapore via its hubs in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

The airline also announced plans to add increase frequencies on select destinations such as Bangkok, Kathmandu, Singapore, Doha, Dubai, in view of the growing demand.

Jet Airways will take delivery of another six new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft this fiscal and will leverage the same for better cost efficiency, Dube said.
India signs $500 million deal with Russia to build 2 stealth frigates

India and Russia have signed a $500 million contract to build two stealth frigates in India that are expected to be delivered by 2027, two officials familiar with the development said.

Russias state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport and Indias Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) signed the contract in New Delhi to build the Grigorovich-class Project 1135.6 frigates with technology transfer from Russia.

The deal comes weeks after the two countries inked a nearly $1 billion deal to import two other such warships from Russia. The ships being built at the Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad, are expected to be delivered to the Indian Navy by 2022-23.

While the $500 million deal only includes the upfront value of the deal, the actual production of the ship will cost more than the frigates bought directly from the Russian shipyard.

A government official said the warships being built in India will eventually cost a lot more than $500 million. The $500 million is for the foreign content in the vessels, including material, design and specialist assistance. The frigates will cost more factoring in the indigenous content. That cost is being worked out, he said.

GSL is expected to deliver the first frigate in 2026 and the second a year later, a second official added.

India inked an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with Russia for the four frigates in 2016. The Indian Navy currently operates six such stealth frigates  three Talwar class and three Teg class  bought from Russia and inducted between 2003 and 2013.

The best thing is the navy will now have 10 warships in the same class. Thats rare. These ships have proved to be reliable, have good weapons and sensors and new ones will further sharpen our capabilities, said Admiral Arun Prakash, a former navy chief.

The Grigorovich-class frigates will be powered by gas turbine engines supplied by Ukrainian firm Ukroboronproms Gas Turbine Research & Production Complex Zorya-Mashproekt, the officials said.

The frigate deal follows a Rs39,000-crore deal with Russia for the supply of S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems, amidst US objections to dealings with Russia under the sanction it imposed on Russia.

India is in talks with the US to secure a waiver from the Countering Americas Adversaries through Sanctions Act (Caatsa), arguing that its military is heavily dependent on Russian equipment and the two countries share a unique, time-tested relationship.

India is simultaneously exploring ways to bypass the US sanctions including an alternative payment route for Russian equipment.
An Garda Siochana in association with the FraudSMART, a fraud awareness initiative led by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, are urging consumers and retailers to shop and sell online safely and to protect their financial and personal details with the approach of Black Friday (Friday 23rd November) and Cyber Monday (26th November 2018).

Detective Superintendent Gerard Walsh of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau said: "Buying online is a very convenient way to shop particularly in the busy run up to Christmas, however, shopping safely online is not a given, as there are inherent risks. It is vital that people exercise caution when shopping online and follow the fraud prevention advice provided.

Niamh Davenport, leading the FraudSMART programme for Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, advised consumers and businesses that taking simple steps can make all the difference when shopping or selling online, "While Black Friday provides consumers with a great chance to grab a bargain, it can also open up the perfect opportunity for scammers and hackers. It is often a simple or easy measure that people can take to protect against fraud and it is important that consumers know these to avoid being vulnerable to fraudsters.

An Garda Siochanas top tips for shopping online this week and in the run-up to Christmas include:

Be Informed:

 Do your research; only buy from trusted sources, shops or brands that you are familiar with. Use websites that your friends, family or colleagues have used before.

 Do not click on links or adverts from social media. Independently go to the website offering the deal. This will ensure you are not shopping on a fake website.

 Think twice before allowing e-merchant stores to store your payment details

Be Alert:

 Read terms and conditions and make sure you are not committing to a series of recurring payments especially where free trials are offered.

 Always save all documents related to your online purchases.

 When purchasing something online from another person, do not send money up front

Be Secure:

 Use a secure website. Look for the padlock symbol and the S in HTTPS.

 Never send your Card number, PIN or any other card information to anyone by email

 Dont use public Wi-Fi when making payments, always switch to 3G/4G

REMEMBER

 Regularly check statements and transactions for any frauds or suspicious activity

 If you have a suspicion about an online transaction check your account online to ascertain if the payment was made to the genuine retailer.

 Report suspicious transactions to your local Garda station and to your bank or card processor.

They also outlined the steps which retails should consider during this busy Christmas period:

Advice for Online Retailers

Retailers can also be the target of online frauds when it comes to purchases of goods online. Compromised credit cards or requests to pay for goods and services using money transfer services can result in significant losses for online sellers. To avoid those losses, some basic steps should be kept in mind by online retailers and private sellers.

 Beware of any purchases of bulk items or large quantities of the items or random goods

 Check any purchases of high-value goods or goods that can easily be resold

 Be cautious with purchases using credit/debit cards issues overseas or in a different name than the purchaser

 Check that the delivery and billing addresses are the same.

 Check addresses and usernames online using Google to see if there are any reports or complaints.

 Require postcodes with addresses. Use Google maps to make sure the address is correct

 Be cautious of bulk purchases of gift cards and guest logins rather than users creating accounts

 Small cost purchases followed by larger purchases by the same user could indicate someone testing a compromised card

 If you capture IP addresses check them online to see where they are registered. If the billing/delivery address is in a different country, this could indicate a problem

 Dont hesitate to contact the customer by phone and ask them to confirm their payment details such as card number, bank name, card expiry date etc. Genuine customers will usually know these details immediately.

Online Shopping & Fraud Statistics

(Sources: Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, Retails and Consumer Report 2018  PWC)

 46.5bn spent worldwide on Credit & Debit Cards issued in Ireland in 2017 with 15.5bn spent online.

 Downward trend in card fraud with year on year decrease from 45.2m in 2016 to 29m in 2017.

 80% of card fraud occurs in Card Not Present environment.

 38% of 25-34-year-olds shop online weekly.

 57% only use credible websites when shopping on their mobile phone

 38% use social media to inspire purchases, this increases to 94% for 18-24 year olds

Further advice/information

www.garda.ie for crime prevention advice and contact details of local Garda Stations

www.FraudSMART.ie for advice of fraud prevention

https://thecai.ie/your-rights Consumer Association of Ireland
A punter in County Louth toasted a big Lotto win this week when they landed the perfect Christmas bonus thanks to a 10 wager.

The anonymous customer placed the 10 bet on three numbers coming out in the EuroMillions Plus draw on Tuesday evening at odds of 1,500/1.

Numbers 3, 12 and 27 all rolled out, meaning the bet had yielded a handsome profit of 15,000.

Incredibly, two separate customers in Dublin invested 7.50 between them on the exact same three numbers and their combined winnings meant the trio of balls had cost BoyleSports a total of 26,267.50 from those three bets alone.

Lawrence Lyons, spokesperson for BoyleSports said: 3, 12 and 27 were popular numbers for whatever reason this week and no more so than in the household of our lucky Louth customer who is richer to the tune of 15,000.

"We applaud them for beating the 1,500/1 odds and wish them happy spending with their winnings.
Ann (Nan) Lawless, late of Mulholland Avenue, died peacefully on the 1st of November 2018 in St. Francis (Mount Oliver) Nursing Home.

Nan was the daughter of the late William and Ada Lawless, beloved sister of the late Pat and Norah Lawless. She is survived by her sisters Geraldine, Sheila and her brother Billy.

Nan was educated in The Friary National School and St. Vincents Secondary School. After leaving school Nan opened her own business in Park Street selling sweets, toys, religious and Irish souvenirs.

You could always rely on Nan for your sleeper and button earrings before heading out for a night on the town.

Nan was a great intellect, who had a keen interest in current affairs, politics and especially GAA. She was very passionate and had a great love for the Irish language speaking it right to the end  she would speak in Irish to her carers and nurses.

She spent fifty year working on behalf of Gael Linn and was congratulated by President Mrs Mary McAleese for her dedication and hard work.

Lawless's shop was a great meeting place for all native Irish speakers, especially Nan's friends from 'The Conradh na nGaeilge and family members.

Nan was kind, caring and a very good listener. Many people would call into Nan for a friendly chat which she loved.

Not a bad word would pass her lips about anyone. If you had nothing good to say about someone  say nothing at all she would say.

Nan only saw the good in people. Friends from USA, Canada, England and Australia, who left in the 50s and 60s made sure to call into Nan, to her Dad Willie and brothers Pat and Billy and her Uncle Anthony to catch up on times gone by.

Nan's love for the GAA saw her travel to Croke Park on a Sunday and she would be seen front row on the Hogan Stand.

Nan received an appreciation award for her devotion and fundraising for the Gael's Club that her father William Lawless had co founded.

She was presented with a framed Gael's jersey by Tony Coleman where it hung proudly in her room at St. Francis' nursing home

Nan was always involved in sports.

She enjoyed camogie and was a member of the Brookville Badminton Team who won the Intermediate knock out cup, Dundalk and District League in 1961.

She also passed her evenings when she was in good health knitting and painting.

Nan will be sadly missed by her sisters Geraldine and Sheila, her brother Billy, sister in law Ann, brother in law Phil, nieces, nephews relatives and friends.

Nan was predeceased by her father William Lawless, her mother Ada, her sister Norah, brother Pat, sister in law Marie and nephew Paul.

After reposing at her brother Billy's house on Thursday and Friday, Nan's remains were taken to St Patricks Cathedral, Dundalk on Sunday the 3rd of November for Requiem Mass, concelebrated by Fr Mark O'Hagan.

The beautiful music was provided by Brendan McCourt (Organist), Brendan Larrissey (Fiddle) and Sarah McCourt beautiful vocals. Burial took place at St. Patrick's Cemetery, Dowdallshill, Dundalk.

The family would like to add a special thank you to St. Francis Nursing Home for their loving care and kindness in her last years.

Please join the family in celebrating Nan's months mind mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday the 25th of November at 11:30am
The Nasimi Festival of Poetry, Arts, and Spirituality, organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, is underway in Moscow. Its goal is to tell about the work of one of the brilliant poets and thinkers of the East, Imadaddin Nasimi (1369-1417) and to expand cultural and literary ties between Russia and Azerbaijan.

The festival has been started in Baku. The fragments of the immersive performance Immolatio ("Sacrifice") directed by People's Artist of Azerbaijan Vagif Asadov were presented at the Magsud Ibrahimbayov Creative Center in Azerbaijani and Russian langauges. The play is written in Russian and translated into the Azerbaijani and English languages. The author of the play, poet and playwright, member of the Union of Azerbaijani Writers and the European Writers' Council Leyla Begim told Vestnik Kavkaza that Immolatio is dedicated to two great thinkers - enlighteners, who were born in the same year, but lived in different parts of the world - the East and the West, Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic. Imadaddin Nasimi (1369-1417) and Jan Hus (1369-1415) had identical views, ideas and attitudes towards the preservation and development of their native language.

"I live in the Czech Republic. There is the monument to Jan Hus in the Czech town of Boguszowice, which is surprisingly similar to our monument to Nasimi in Baku, and that's how I came up with this idea. Such a resemblance made me think about the similarity of their fates. They were not only born on the same year, they have a lot of similar ideas. Even their attitude to their native language. Nasimi was the first poet who started writing in Azerbaijani, and Jan Hus was the first to read the sermons in Czech, who translated the Bible into Czech language," Leyla Begim said.

According to her, "In a context of the stand off between East and West, dramaturgy allowed representatives of two different civilizations, two peoples, Jan Hus and Nasimi, to share the stage, to show that we should not compare them, but find the common. The play has a modern setting. Students of Prague's Charles University take us back to the 15th century during their discussions of this topic."

According to the play's author, Baku provided a wonderful site, a museum of creativity of our national writer and playwright Magsud Ibrahimbayov: "Magsud Ibrahimbayov's widow, the museum's director Anna Ibrahimbayova offered to use the entire building for it. Then the idea was born to create an immersive performance when the audience moves from one room to the next together with actors. We selected only some fragments of the play - the prologue and epilogue, scenes with angels, as well as several scenes from the 15th century to demonstrate the dialogue between Jan Hus and Nasimi. The performance was a great success, as both people of art and diplomats were among the audience; the play aroused great interest at the EU embassy. They suggested including this production in the upcoming International Festival of Tolerance, since this topic is very suitable for that festival."

Leyla Begim said that she was very happy when she learned that the festival will continue in Moscow: "Nasimi is a significant figure not only for the Azerbaijani people, but for the whole world. That is why his views are so surprisingly similar to the representative of the great European people, the Czech the people of Jan Hus. These are persons of a world-scale, who need to be remembered."
Every single entrepreneur has the dream and goal of opening up his or her own business. Its a task that requires a lot of guts and bravery, and not everyone is ready to take the plunge. If its too spontaneous, there isnt enough planning beforehand, but even when you takeit slowly, you still have to give it a lot of time before you start seeing results. In fact,there are a number ofsteps that you must take before starting a businessif you want to set it towards a course of success. All of these will be explored below in greater detail.

Think of the purpose

To start, you must consider the purposeof the business. What is your idea? How is it different? Even take some time to contemplate what your long-term goals are. Anyone can think of ideas, but it can sometimes take some time to think of one that is worth pursuing as a company endeavour. Once you have figured out exactly what that is, you will have to register your company nameand start planning everything else.

The branding

The branding of your business establishes who you are and what you do. Its the image that you are trying to create for yourself, and you need to figure out exactly what that is. Every single text and visual that you post about your company will be reflective of this, and when anyone sees your companys logo, their mind will already drift to what that stands for. In order tobuild up an emotional connection between consumers and your brand, you will have to be transparent and honest about what you do. However, the whole point is that you are also unique. Why would someone be inclined to purchase from you, if another, more established brand, has the same message with similar products?

Finances

While the goal of starting a company is to generate profit, you must first obtain the necessary financesto fund it. If you do not, your business will be no more than an idea that remains in your head. So, what do you do? The chances are that you do not have the necessary funds in your bank account. In fact,most people dont, and even if you do, you dont want to tap into your entire savings for this sole purpose. Instead, start building relationships with investors, and practice your company pitch so that people see the value in it and want to invest tobegin with.

On the otherhand, there is also the idea of getting bank loans, but this may not always pan out as you hope. Depending on your credit card score, the bank will or will not give you the requested money. If this is the case, however, there are also online loans that you can apply for within the span of a few seconds, and you will receive what you were looking for just as quickly. Yetanother approach you could take is crowdfunding, and thus get the funds from your friends, family, and the general public. However, this isnt something that will work for just anyone, and you reallyneed to ensure your business idea will benefit numerous people in order fora strangerto see the usefulness before they even see the final product or service.

Choose a business location

When its time to rent a physical office location and get outside of the living room or garage you have been working in until now, you need to find the right space. First,you must consider whether you are renting or purchasing a location, and for this,you also need to consider your long-term goals. Know who your customers are and determine what a good traffic area would be in order totarget them, and of course, there is also your own personalaccess of the location to contemplate. You would not want to spend two hours every single morning driving toget there! It is for these reasons, and many more, that you will need to researchin advance until you find that perfect place.

Hire employees

No successful business is a one-person show. Instead, you will need a team of talented and dedicated individuals that can accomplish the day-to-day operations. Its not merely about skill, but whether or not people are a good fit with each other. Remember, everyone will have to communicate on a daily basis and even work as a team toaccomplish specifictasks. That is why it is necessary to ensure it will be a harmonious relationship. It can be built up over time, of course, but it must be a smart hire from the very beginning. Not just anyone will work well within your company structure, and employees who see the value in your ideas will often work the best, as well.

Marketing

If you dont spread the message about your company, no one will know who you are. Thisis a consideration to keep in mind when you have already registered your name, launched your website, hired employees, and things are kicking up into gear. The next logical step is to promote and market everything that you are doing. Ensure that you have a social media presence and consider the best ways to speak to your audience via digital advertisements, public relations efforts, and other marketing approaches.

Running a business can be a challengingendeavourthat requires a lot of dedication onthe entrepreneurs part. Of course, its all worth it when you see the benefits and the profit that accumulates as a result of your hard workand effort. Consider all of the various tips that have been outlinedhere, and remember that at the end of the day, its all thanks to your perseverance and motivation that the business goals will be met. When it is time to change courses with a new idea, dont procrastinate to do so, and remember that having a good team behind the operations is vital.
The Seven Beauties exhibition, dedicated to the works of the 12th century Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi, opened in Moscow. The exposition is presented in the halls of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art. About 60 exhibits, glorifying the culture of Azerbaijan in various aspects, are represented at the exhibition. This is a synthesis of carpets, jewelry, miniatures, national classical music, classical dance and modern art.



The thinker and the poet was born in the ancient city of Ganja. He is best known for his five poems Khamsa - after the author's death, the quintet of his poems was called Panj Ganj. The fourth part of the work is the story of the marriage of Shah Bahram to seven beautiful women, princesses from different countries of the Earth. The girls, like Scheherazade, tell the ruler instructive tales. The exhibition gives the feeling of immersion into the magical world.



"Conceptually, the exhibition gives you the impression that you get inside an old book and stroll through all these seven palaces, learn about these tales told by seven beauties. Here you can see palace exhibits from the collection of the Carpet Museum, magnificent carpets, jewelry from our gold fund ", the project curator, director of the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, chairman of the ICOM Azerbaijan National Committee Shirin Melikova said.





All Tabriz miniatures are presented in a multimedia format for the first time.



For centuries, the poetry of Nizami has inspired the works of many artists. Kara Karayev, an outstanding Azerbaijani composer, is among them. The year 2018 is declared the year of his 100th birthday anniversary. Kara Karayevs ballet The Seven Beauties is in the golden fund of the world musical heritage. In this ballet, Kara Karayev showed the beauties being not so mythical and mystical. He revived them, showed a beautiful palace life. I advise you to watch the ballet. Its really very beautiful," the project curator, an adviser to the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for Culture and Art, Emin Mamedov said.





The journey to the fascinating world of Nizami opens with the installation of conceptual artist Rashad Alekperov.





This is a classic Azerbaijani miniature of Sultan Mohammed - a young man reading a book. Sometimes people lack this, they dont read books, Rashad Alekperov explains.





The vernissage was visited by the Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the head of the Foundations representative office in Russia, Leyla Aliyeva.





Speaking at the solemn ceremony, she stressed that true art knows no boundaries, This is the timeless creativity. This is something that is sent to us from heaven to help a person to become better, penetrate into the depths of his soul and open the highest strength in himself - love."





Director of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative Art Elena Titova told about the cooperation with the Azerbaijani Carpet Museum, where the project was implemented, and expressed gratitude to the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for the opportunity to present the exhibition to Muscovites: The exhibition is oriental, refined, with a deep philosophical meaning and a fascinating design solution. These are modern technologies, the richest history, the skill of artists. "





Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbul oglu called the exhibition a landmark event in the history of relations between the two countries and thanked Leyla Aliyeva for her active assistance and participation.



The exhibition is organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani Carpet Museum. The exposition is welcoming visitors until February 3, and then begins its journey to St. Petersburg, Baku and other cities.


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Hackers planted malware on StatCounter to steal bitcoin revenue from Gate.io account holders, according to Eset researcher Matthieu Faou, who discovered the breach.

The malicious code was added to StatCounter's site-tracking script last weekend, he reported Tuesday.

The malicious code hijacks any bitcoin transactions made through the Web interface of the Gate.io cryptocurrency exchange. It does not trigger unless the page link contains the "myaccount/withdraw/BTC" path.

The malicious code secretly can replace any bitcoin address that users enter on the page with one controlled by the attacker. Security experts view this breach as critical because so many websites load StatCounter's tracking script.

"This security breach is really important considering that -- according to StatCounter -- more than 2 million websites are using their analytics platform," Faou told TechNewsWorld. "By modifying the analytics script injected in all those 2 million websites, attackers were able to execute JavaScript code in the browser of all the visitors of these websites."

Limited Target, Broad Potential

The attack also is significant because it shows increased sophistication among hackers regarding the tools and methods they use to steal cryptocurrency, noted George Waller, CEO of BlockSafe Technologies.

Although this form of hijacking is not a new phenomenon, the way the code was inserted was.

The growth of the cryptocurrency market and its emerging asset class has led hackers to increase their investments in devising more robust attempts and methods to steal it. The malware used is nothing new, but the method of delivering it is.

"Since the beginning of 2017, cryptocurrency exchanges suffered over (US)$882 million in funds stolen through targeted attacks across at least 14 exchanges. This hack adds one more to the list," Waller told TechNewsWorld.

In this instance, attackers chose to target the users at Gate.io, an important cryptocurrency exchange, said Eset's Faoul. When a user submitted a bitcoin withdrawal, attackers in real time replaced the destination address with an address under their control.

Attackers were able to target Gate.io by compromising a third-party organization, a tactic known as a "supply chain attack." They could have targeted many more websites, Faoul noted.

"We identified several government websites that are using StatCounter. Thus, it means that attackers would have been able to target many interesting people," he said.

Telling Financial Impact

Gate.io customers who initiated bitcoin transactions during the time of the attack are most at risk from this breach. The malware hijacked transactions legitimately authorized by the site user by changing the destination address of the bitcoin transfers, according to Paige Boshell, managing member of Privacy Counsel.

As a rule, the number of third-party scripts, such as StatCounter, should be kept to a minimum by webmasters, as each represents a potential attack vector. For exchanges, additional confirmations for withdrawals would have been beneficial in this case, given that the exploit involved swapping the user's bitcoin address for that of the thieves.

"Gate.io has taken down StatCounter, so this particular attack should be concluded, Boshell told TechNewsWorld.

The extent of the loss and the fraud exposure for this breach is not yet quantifiable. The attackers used multiple bitcoin addresses for the transfers, Boshell added, noting that the attack could have been deployed to impact any site using StatCounter.

Protection Strategies Not Foolproof

StatCounter needs to improve its own code audit and constantly check that only authorized code is running on its network, suggested Joshua Marpet, COO at Red Lion. However, most users will not realize that StatCounter is at fault.

"They'll blame Gate.io, and anything could happen -- loss of business, run on the bank,' and even closing their doors," he told TechNewsWorld.

Checking the code is not always a workable prevention plan. In this case, the malware code looked like the Gate.io user's own instructions, noted Privacy Counsel's Boshell.

"It was not easily detectable by the fraud tools that Gate.io uses to protect against and detect malware," she said.

Network admins are not really affected in this type of breach, as the malicious code is processed at the workstation/laptop rather than on the webserver, according to Brian Chappell, senior director of enterprise and solutions architecture at BeyondTrust. It also does not provide any mechanism to gain control over the system.

"In essence, a lot of stars need to line up to make this a significant risk in that regard," he told TechNewsWorld. "Effective vulnerability and privilege management would naturally limit the impact of any intrusion."

That is a direction that admins need to look. There is nothing they can do to control the initial attack, assuming the targeted websites are accepted sites within their organization, Chappell added.

Even a well-protected website can be breached by compromising a third-party script, noted Eset's Faou.

"Thus, webmasters should choose carefully the external JavaScript code they are linking to and avoid using them if it is not necessary," he said.

One potential strategy is to screen for scripts that replace one bitcoin address with another, suggested Clay Collins, CEO of Nomics.

Using analytics services that have a good security reputation is part of that, he told TechNewsWorld.

"Folks with ad/script blockers were not vulnerable," Collins said.

More Best Practices

Traffic analysis, website scanning and code auditing are some of the tools that could have detected that something was causing abnormal transactions and traffic, noted Fausto Oliveira, principal security architect at Acceptto. However, it would have been ideal to prevent the attack in the first place.

"If the Gate.io customers had an application that requires strong out-of-band authentication above a certain amount, or if a transaction is aimed at an unknown recipient, then their customers would have had the opportunity to block the transaction and gain early insight that something wrong was happening," Oliveira told TechNewsWorld.

Using script blocking add-ons like NoScript and uBlock/uMatrix can put a measure of personal control in the website user's hands. It makes Web browsing more challenging, noted Raymond Zenkich, COO of BlockRe.

"But you can see what code is being pulled into a site and disable it if it is not necessary," he told TechNewsWorld.

"Web developers need to stop putting third-party scripts on sensitive pages and put their responsibility to their users over their desire for advertising dollars, metrics, etc.," Zenkich said.

Beware Third-Party Anythings

As a rule, the number of third-party scripts should be kept to a minimum by webmasters, suggested Zenchain cofounder Seth Hornby, as each one represents a potential attack vector.

"For exchanges, additional confirmations for withdrawals would also be beneficial in this case, given that the exploit involved swapping the user's bitcoin address for that of the thieves," he told TechNewsWorld.

Even third-party outsourcing solutions can open the door to cyber shenanigans, warned Zhang Jian, founder of FCoin.

"So many companies within the cryptocurrency space rely on third-party companies for different duties and tasks. The ramification of this outsourcing is a loss of accountability. This puts many companies in a tough spot, unable to locate attacks of this nature before it is too late," he told TechNewsWorld.

Instead, network admins should work toward creating in-house versions of their tools and products, from beginning to end, Jian suggested, to ensure that control of these security measures lies within their reach.

Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open source technologies. He has written numerous reviews of Linux distros and other open source software. Email Jack.




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When we write the history of the IT era, the big factor that has played an important but not well recognized role will be hardware -- specifically, the Oracle Exadata appliance that puts databases into memory for fast access and updates.

All of the cloud software starting with the autonomous database on view this week at OpenWorld -- like security, self-patching capability and apps -- would be vastly different if the database was still running primarily on disk drives. In fact, the database would be running so slowly (relatively) that some of these solutions would remain theoretical.

But Exadata lives. It is integral to everything Oracle does and everything it announced at OpenWorld 2018 this week in San Francisco. It is such a differentiator that the rest of the database vendor-scape is in serious danger of becoming irrelevant.

Ellison's Vision

After decades of staid, steady progress, the relational database market might be returning to its Wild West roots. The reason is Oracle's recently deployed autonomous database.

To say it's just another release of a decades-old product would be to miss quite a bit. Oracle's upturn relies on the convergence of hardware, software, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and a sharp turn to cloud computing. The only thing preventing a reprise of the 1980s database wars is a lack of competition.

You could have seen all of this coming a few years ago if you knew what you were looking at and had the vision of someone like Larry Ellison. It began when Oracle introduced the first Exadata machine that could keep most, and eventually all, of a business' database in memory, which greatly accelerated database performance.

In-memory databases operate at nanosecond speeds, while disk drives -- the traditional home of databases -- run at millisecond speeds. In-memory data operations can run about a million times faster. Although all of that performance doesn't reach a user just wanting to get some work done, enough does to make in-memory databases revolutionary.

The second innovation announced at last year's OpenWorld, and fully released earlier this year, is Oracle's autonomous database software. The product uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to do several things, including installation and tuning, as well as maintenance.

The autonomous database can patch itself without human help. It also can track down intrusions and attempts at data theft that bedevil modern IT departments. Often a patch to thwart intrusions exists, but human operators historically have needed to schedule downtime to implement patches. That's all over now. However, the full benefits come only when you combine hardware and software.

Third, there's cloud computing. As you might imagine, buying and installing all of the hardware needed to support the autonomous databases is a big undertaking that is affordable only for big IT shops. That's why cloud computing is so important. The cloud makes all of this affordable for virtually any business that wants to put its IT in the cloud. That's good for Oracle too, since it gives the company a very large market to address and little competition.

A Tale of Creative Destruction

At Monday's keynote, CTO and founder Larry Ellison announced that the company would make the same cloud data center technology available to very large and well-heeled companies that don't want to share cloud technology. This effectively makes all of the autonomous and in-memory technology available to anyone who wants it.

It's hard to see how these developments won't significantly change the database market. Oracle has chosen Amazon Web Services and its databases for transaction processing and data warehousing as its foil, and in demonstrations on stage running one benchmark after another, Oracle's configuration outperformed the competition by factors of 8 to 1 or more.

Even Oracle's database running on Amazon without in-memory assist runs significantly slower than the Oracle Cloud. To top off the demonstrations, Ellison showed that his company's products are less expensive to use too.

All this calls into question why a business seeking cloud IT services would seek them from another party. It also opens up a gap between Oracle and the rest of the database market. The combination of hardware and software that Oracle has produced, along with the long lead times and high costs needed to duplicate Oracle's feat, make it hard to see how any competitor could bring a credible alternative to market for possibly years.

Taken together, all of this is more than a technology story. It's a tale of economics -- specifically of creative destruction. Advances in technology have begun to commoditize the tech industry, and Oracle is trying to accelerate this curve.

Cloud computing, especially, is a form of commoditization in which basic compute services can be delivered for a fraction of the costs usually involved in supporting all of one's IT needs in-house.

My Take

Markets trend toward monopoly or possibly oligopoly. Oracle has gotten to a rarified position ahead of its competition, in part because it has pursued a program of creative destruction on itself. For too long the company appeared to be making little progress in cloud computing, but in reality it had a swarm of customer-partners, including Salesforce. Engineers worked on site to harden its conventional database products to support cloud computing.

The things the company learned were essential to developing the products it offers today. For instance, Oracle introduced its first Exadata product about one year after it bought Sun Microsystems, and it began selling those units to the cloud industry, at US$1 million per, immediately.

What we're seeing this week at OpenWorld is the distillation of a great deal of experience in the real world. The result is a new IT paradigm that's hard to compete against. This technology is Oracle's hole card. Other vendors might have more cloud data centers, but Oracle is demonstrating that it is the end of an old paradigm, not the beginning of something new.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.

Denis Pombriant is a well-known CRM industry analyst, strategist, writer and speaker. His new book, You Can't Buy Customer Loyalty, But You Can Earn It, is now available on Amazon. His 2015 book, Solve for the Customer, is also available there. Email Denis.


If you're hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow, be sure to leave romaine lettuce off the menu! The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are warning everyone to avoid the classic salad green until investigators can pinpoint the exact source of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 32 people in 11 states.



The FDA advised Americans to stop eating romaine and to toss any that's left in the fridge. Restaurants and retailers should also stop serving it until more is known.

"The quick and aggressive steps we're taking today are aimed at making sure we get ahead of this emerging outbreak, to reduce risk to consumers, and to help people protect themselves and their families from this foodborne illness outbreak. This is especially important ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, when people will be sitting down for family meals," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a press release issued Tuesday. "We want to get this information out to consumers early. While we've made progress, it's still early in this investigation and work remains to pinpoint the source of contamination that contributed to this outbreak and allow us to employ more targeted measures to reduce future risk."



Cases so far have been reported in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. The particular strain causing the outbreak is called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7, according to the CDC alert. It has sent 13 people to the hospital so far, and no one has died.

A map of states where illness has been reported CDC

Illnesses began on Oct. 8, and the last reported case was on Oct. 31. It usually takes about two to three weeks for someone to report an illness after first getting sick, so more people might have been infected since then, the CDC said. Public health workers believe romaine is the culprit because 79 percent of the 14 infected people interviewed so far said they ate romaine lettuce in the week before getting sick, but researchers have not yet been able to pinpoint a specific grower, supplier, brand or distributor to issue a recall.

A timeline of the outbreak so far CDC

The outbreak has also crossed the border into Canada, where 18 people in Quebec and Ontario have been infected so far.

This isn't the first time salad has made people sick in the U.S. and Canada. The strain of this outbreak has a similar DNA fingerprint to one in 2017 that was linked to leafy greens in the U.S. and romaine lettuce in Canada.



The symptoms of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli kick in two to eight days after initial infection. They usually include stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea, and sometimes a fever of 101 degrees or lower, according to the FDA. It usually clears up after five to seven days, but 5 to 10 percent of people who get it develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a potentially life-threatening condition. The FDA explains:

Symptoms of HUS include fever, abdominal pain, feeling very tired, decreased frequency of urination, small unexplained bruises or bleeding, and pallor. Most people with HUS recover within a few weeks, but some suffer permanent damage or die. People who experience these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately. Persons with HUS should be hospitalized because their kidneys may stop working (acute renal failure), but they may also develop other serious problems such as hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and neurologic problems.

If you think you are coming down with E. coli, the CDC advises that you:
(Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC)Swiss student, Anouk Walliser Keel, 14, speaks at the World Council of Churches in Geneva on Nov. 21, 2018.

Protecting children from any kind of violence has always been and should remain an essential message of Christianity, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has told a gathering at the World Council of Churches for World Children's Day.

The patriarch was the keynote speaker at an event involving the WCC and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Nov. 21 for World Children's Day at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, a gathering in which young people had a key input.

"It is important to bear in mind that children do not only represent our future but that they are in fact the present upon which the future is being built," said Patriarch Bartholomew.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople said his church was one of the founding members of the WCC.

The council's general secretary, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, welcoming Bartholomew, noted that in his 2016 Christmas message, he appealed to all the faithful around the word "to respect the identity and sacredness of childhood".

The patriarch called for inter-generational justice and support to children on the move as spiritual responsibility in his message from the Orthodox Church noting a "surrender of culture to technology" in the world.

"Christians are called to protect children both in society and within their own communities," said Bartholomew, and that he was "particularly pleased" with the collaboration established between UNICEF and the WCC on the Churches' Commitments to Children.

He urged the churches to "undertake initiatives that promote the protection of the environment and subsequently, our children".

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Bartholomew said, "The ecological crisis is constantly escalating in the name of growth and development." He said, "Humanity remains oblivious to the global appeals for radical change in our attitudes toward creation."

Tveit said that Bartholomew is known worldwide as the "Green Patriarch".

"Today we recognize you, too, as a pioneer in another urgent field: our churches' responsibility to protect and support children, to defend their rights and care for their well-being," said the WCC general secretary.

"Today, together with UNICEF, we make an important step in trying to open up new avenues and possibilities for Churches' Commitments to Children," said Tveit.

Both the Ecumenical Patriarch and the WCC general secretary signed a petition for renewed commitments to child rights.

Philippe Cori, deputy director for UNICEF's Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia observed that 29 years ago the Convention on the Rights of the Child was submitted recognising specific rights for children.

"This is the most ratified UN convention and brings together the best interests of the child and is core to the dignity, along with the right education," said Cori.

He said, "Half of the world is children and half of the refugees of the world are children and when they are on the move they are trafficked," many of them fleeing their countries due to violence, climate change, famine and droughts.

Jonathan Anugrahan, age 14 from the Church of South India and 18-year-old Laura Groth from the Protestant School in Eisenach, Germany, a member of the Global Pedagogical Network, spoke of their school experiences.

Groth asked Anugrahan if the big classes in India of 60 to 100 students contributed to violence at the schools.

The celebration, one day after UN Children's Day was part of the WCC's 70-year anniversary with Bartholomew and Tveit saying that "every day is a day for children".

Bartholomew noted current challenges facing children include sectors of technology and communication with the computer and the internet dominating every aspect of individual and social life.

"Some of the consequences of this change include the so-called 'disappearance of childhood', the loss of the innocence of children and an early induction into adulthood," he said.

CHILDREN VULNERABLE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

"Children are especially vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation," said the patriarch, but 14-year-old Swiss student Anouk Walliser Keel spoke of how "people like me and you, ordinary parishioners" can work for climate justice.

She said she began her first fund-raising for an environmental campaign with a friend at the age of nine.

"Maybe you are wondering why I, a 14-year-old girl am doing a presentation on environmental protection and the church....I believe I can achieve something. This community is the church...The church is the link between the small me and the bigger world."

Kiran Oommen, a 21-year-old student, is a member of the United Church of Christ (UCC), USA, which is backing a case he and 21 young people made against the U.S. federal government accusing it of making young people disproportionately affected by climate change.

"There is the responsibility to protect our rights to a stable future," said Oommen explaining that, "In the UCC social justice is a core tenet of what it means to be church."

Antonia Antonopoulos, head of Civil Society Partnerships at UNICEF, speaking on moving the Churches Commitments to Children's agenda forward said, "We can always count on the commitment of the WCC when we need it.

She praised, the "powerful and very real testimonies from children today."

Antonopoulos said, "It is important that faith and secular groups share the common values of humanity together."
Giving students more choice over what they learn and how they demonstrate mastery is a tricky task for educators.

Take the case of Lancaster, Texas, 10th grader Michael Lundy. He had to pick from three options to report on his summer reading project, and opted to create a mock Instagram post. I chose the one that was the most fun for me, he said.

But was the fun option the best educational one? How much of a role should the teacher have played in helping the teenager choose from the options? And will giving students greater choice in what they learn and how they learn it lead to higher student achievement?

Educators are wrestling with those kinds of questions as more and more schools embrace personalized learning and its accompanying mantra to give students more individualized control over their academic experiences.

Proponents of this belief argue that it fuels student motivationwhich, in turn, improves achievement.

But critics see it very differently.

Were exacerbating an existing problem by letting kids, instead of teachers, guide learning, said Benjamin Riley, the executive director of Deans for Impact , a coalition of education school directors working to improve teacher preparation and student achievement. Whether a student is smiling, happy, and jumping around doesnt tell you whether theyve learned anything.

The worry is that too much student choice could turn into a free-for-all that could hurt graduation rates, lead to poor performance on state tests, and weaken academic skills.

Still, educators across the country involved in personalized learning initiatives are embracing greater student choice. They cite higher student engagement, lower absentee rates, and even improvements in test scores.

But leaving more learning decisions up to studentsespecially those who are struggling academicallymay leave a lot to chance.

Weighing the Power of Choices Educators need to ask some tough questions about the value of giving students greater control over what they learn and how they learn it.  What are the benefits and drawbacks of giving students more choices in their education?  How much choice should students have about what they learn and how and when they learn it?  When students are permitted to go at their own pace, what structures need to be in place to prevent some students from falling far behind?  Should greater choice be given to more motivated students, or be offered equally to all students?  If students are allowed to work at their own pace, how does that connect to the need to graduate on time and meet state standards?  If you are providing students with options to show mastery, what is the rationale behind providing those specific options?  What kind of data should students be able to access about their own learning? Source: Education Week

If you have kids working far-below grade level, how do you reconcile those things? asked Laura Hamilton, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation , who has researched personalized learning.

At he Myrtle Beach Middle School in the 42,000-student Horry County, S.C., district, personalized learning has taken some interesting twists and turns. When it began in the middle school five years ago, the model was heavy on the use of digital curricula and was highly prescriptive in terms of pacing and what teachers were expected to cover.

Five years later, teachers and students have more control over the resources they use and the lessons they progress through. Students can make choices about their path and focus through digital content. Teachers frequently meet with students and help them set their own goals for achievementfor example, how well they would expect to perform on state tests, said Principal Janice Christy.

We dont want to be teaching students what they already know, she said. Once you know they know it, its time for the student to move on.

Myrtle Beach Middle School teacher Rebecca Myers said her students often work on very different projects or assignments in the same class. Some might be collaborating on a project, others working in small groups to build academic skills, and others meeting with her one-on-one. Sometimes, these might be self-selected tasks, while on other occasions they might be driven by the teachers decision. Students also have choices about how to demonstrate their understanding of a reading passage, picking from an essay or a Google slide presentation, she said.

Bringing KIDS Into the Conversation

Myers insists its not a free-for-all. What students learn is tied tightly to state standards. Teachers frequently meet with students to guide them in setting their own goals, and data play a critical role.

But the student is a key player in this process, examining data and setting expectations for where he or she should be in the learning process.

When all the adults share a vision for student achievement, the piece that often goes missing is when children are left out of the loop, Christy said. We are really focused on making sure we bring the kids into the conversation.

Though the results dont conclusively demonstrate the impact of that approach, the school has seen jumps in achievement on state tests in reading and math in 7th and 8th grade. For example, from 2015 to 2018, 8th grade reading proficiency jumped from 59 percent to 65 percent. Seventh grade math proficiency jumped by 10 percentage points in the same period.

Empowering students to make choices can build important skills, said Betheny Gross, a senior analyst and research director for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which released the report Personalized Learning at a Crossroads  in June.

We want kids to grow up and be confident and capable and charting their own course, Gross said. We know from brain science that developing the capacity to enlist your executive function and meta-cognitive skills takes training, and school is a good place to do that.

The downside is its tricky to do that well.

Gross said researchers working on the report did see instances of students taking positive control of their own learning and developing that agency and capacity. But they also saw drawbacks.

Often, she said, teachers dont have a clear theory of action about how to provide voice and choice for student learning. When students are picking among options without a rationale behind what matters, students are just picking, she said.

In fact, when they have choices, students often go for the option that will be the easiest, not the one that will help them improve their skills the most, Gross said. The kids suffer the consequences of making bad choicesalways picking the collage, never developing the writing skills, she said.

And that reality, many educators say, can affect students who struggle in classor even typical studentssignificantly more than high-achieving students.

Riley of Deans for Impact said educators often point to student engagement as a way to measure whether giving students greater choice over learning is beneficial. But he said theres little evidence that engagement leads to better learning outcomes: Engagement is a poor proxy for learning.

Similarly, some researchers say allowing students to go at their own pace through materials presents complications. Researchers at RAND who are studying personalized learning found that when given flexible deadlines, some students wait until the last minute to do their work, the research groups Hamilton said. You can create some inequities if you allow pace to vary for different students, she said.

Plus, she said, theres an inherent conflict between wanting students to have developed those skills required and giving students choices about what and how they learn. We heard from a lot of folks that there is this tension between state standards and grade-level testing and letting kids go at their own pace.

What I Want to Learn

In teacher Sarah Martindales Advanced Placement biology and chemistry classes at Lancaster STEM Early College High School in Texas, students get plenty of options to demonstrate learning, using a tic-tac-toe board with choices in every square. As assignments progress, students must use at least three of the options to demonstrate mastery.

Lundy, the student who chose the fun option for his summer reading project, is in Martindales class. He concedes that he does sometimes choose the fastest option. You always think: Whats going to take the most and least time? But I only think about what will be fastest if my schedule is packed. Otherwise, its more about what I want to learn.

Martindale is particularly proud of the fact that all of her students passed the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, biology testsa record in her 18-year teaching career. She attributes it, in part, to students having those choices and taking ownership of their own educational success. If theyre more excited about the work, theyll remember it, she said.

Martindale frequently does check-ins with students to make sure theyre progressing and sets deadlines. During those meetings, she pushes them to take learning further. Even the procrastinators, when they know youre not going to leave them alone, they get it, she said.

Lyric Clayborn, a 10th grader who is also in Martindales class, said she appreciates the value of allowing students to have greater control over their education. Not every student gets it when the teacher lectures and they take notes. Some students need to go home and watch videos, she said. I want to be able to choose the way I learn.
Russias Alexander Prokopchuk lost election to South Koreas Kim Jong Yang, who has been elected as the new head of Interpol.

Kim Jong Yang served as acting president of Interpol, while Prokopchuk served as vice president of Interpol.

The elections were held at the 87th Interpols General Assembly in Dubai.

Since October, Kim Jong Yang, 57, had served as acting Interpol president after the dismissal of the former chief Meng Hongwei from China. On September 29, Meng was detained in China on corruption charges.

Two main candidates to replace him were Kim Jong Yang and Russias Prokopchuk. On Monday, a group of US senators from both parties made public an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, asking him to influence members of the Interpol General Assembly in order to prevent Russian national Prokopchuk from becoming the new Interpol head.

China said on October 7 that it was investigating former Interpol chief Meng Hongwei over bribery allegations. Interpol said it received his resignation that same day.

The Interpol president is elected for four years by General Assembly.

Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Dzhabarov said that the election of the Interpols president offers a vivid example of Washington's interference in elections.

"This is a vivid example of the U.S. interference in elections. Americans do it all the time, everywhere, at any level, in any country and any international organization. It is enough for them to voice their opinion, talk to other countries delegations and the result will be what they want it to be," he stressed.

The first deputy chairman added that the position of the Interpols president was a technical one so the election of a South Korean candidate would not affect Russia in any way. "The Interpol is just a database collecting information from interior ministries and intelligences services across the world," the senator noted.

According to the Russian senator, extradition requests are usually forwarded to the country which is expected to search for wanted criminals and extradite them. "That is all. Countries can either respond to such requests or show no response. We havent faced any harm," TASS cited Dzhabarov as saying.
Washington, Nov 20 (epa-efe).- President Donald Trump defended daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump on Tuesday over her use of personal email for official business, while Democrats in the US House of Representatives announced plans to investigate the matter.

"You're talking about a whole different - you're talking about all fake news," the president told reporters outside the White House a day after The Washington Post revealed Ivanka's use of the private account for some official business.

"There was no deletion, there was no nothing. Hillary Clinton deleted 33,000 emails. She had a server in the basement. That's the real story," Trump said, referring to the former secretary of state and his opponent in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's remarks come after media reports Tuesday that Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to investigate Ivanka Trump's case.

"We launched a bipartisan investigation last year into White House officials' use of private email accounts for official business, but the White House never gave us the information we requested," Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

"We need those documents to ensure that Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner (Ivanka's husband and also a White House adviser) and other officials are complying with federal records laws and there is a complete record of the activities of this Administration," Cummings said.

The case is similar to that of Clinton, whose use of personal email led to an FBI investigation and harsh criticism by Trump during the election campaign, and the mogul even proposed jail time for his opponent during the race.

But on Tuesday the president focused on the differences between the actions of Clinton and his daughter.

"They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton," Trump said. "She wasn't doing that to hide her emails."
Monterrey, Mexico, Nov 21 (epa-efe).- Tigres UANL president Miguel Angel Garza said the Liga MX club expected to re-sign French striker Andre-Pierre Gignac on Wednesday.

"I hope the document is signed by Andre before noon. We have discussed the details already and nothing but the signature is missing. I spoke with him and he agrees, he gave us his word that Wednesday would be the day of the signing," the club executive said Tuesday.

The 32-year-old Gignac made an impact on the Tigres when he joined the Liga MX club in 2015 from Marseille.

The French striker received a salary of 1 million euros (about $1.1 million) per year and his new contract, which will run until July 2021, is expected to include a pay increase.

Garza said the club hoped to add reinforcements for the 2019 Clausura tournament and was interested in signing Colombian Jarlan Barrera, a 23-year-old midfielder with Junior de Barranquilla who also happens to be the nephew of legendary player Carlos "El Pibe" Valderrama.

"He is a player who we have followed closely and we are in the process of closing a deal with for the Tigres. These are, again, some of the moves that the club is making so that they can participate in the organization, knowing that they are young players with a promising future," Garza said.

Garza said the club expects to wrap up the re-signings this week of most of the current players on the roster because, although the Tigres did not qualify for the playoffs, management was satisfied with their performance in the tournament.
Shake hands: Dr. Rolf Breidenbach, CEO Hella (left) and Patrick Koller, CEO Faurecia (right).

Hella and Faurecia will cooperate in the development of interior lighting solutions. Within this cooperation, both companies will jointly develop lighting solutions with high-technology content in the domain of surface-lighting and dynamic-lighting for a personalized cockpit environment.

Faurecia contributes its expertise as a complete system integrator for vehicle interiors, Hella supplies innovative products in the field of interior lighting. At the Paris Motor Show held in October 2018, both companies showcased a first demonstration of a unique ambient lighting experience for a more comfortable, dynamic and versatile environment integrated into a Cockpit of the future. On entering the vehicle, occupants were welcomed by personalized interior lighting on the instrument panel, door panels and seats. Faurecia and HELLA have also worked on the autonomous driving scenario to devise a series of dynamic lighting features to enhance driver information and safety.

Trends such as autonomous driving and individualization will completely redefine vehicle interiors. We are therefore already working intensively on concepts for vehicle interior lighting that enable a variety of new functionalities and can be adapted to the different needs of passengers and driving situations, said Hella CEO Dr. Rolf Breidenbach. The collaboration with Faurecia will provide us with additional opportunities to drive the development of innovative interior lighting solutions in a comprehensive manner.

Patrick Koller, CEO of Faurecia: In the rapidly changing automotive industry, we need to create value through innovations with rapid time to market. As a systems integrator in the vehicle interior, we have created partnerships to expand our technology expertise and become more agile. Our strategic collaboration with HELLA is the latest example of this approach. Alongside our partnerships with MAHLE and ZF, we are uniquely positioned to offer safe, connected and personalized user experiences which can be integrated into todays vehicles and will be critical for tomorrows cars.
Electronica 2018: Andrang am Eingang West

With 80,000 visitorsan increase of ten percentelectronica 2018 set a new record. The focal topics included blockchain, artificial intelligence and medical electronics.

Electronica is the most important meeting place for the electronics industry and this year recorded eight percent more exhibitors, ten percent growth in the number of visitors and a more than 20 percent increase in area, siad Falk Senger, Managing Director of Messe Munchen. In terms of the number of exhibitors, the leading countries were Germany followed by China, Taiwan, the U.S. and Great Britain (in that order).

80,000 trade visitors from over 80 countries came to Munich. In terms of the number of visitors, the top countries were Germany followed by Italy, Austria, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, France, Switzerland, the U.S., the Russian Federation, China and Poland in that order.

From the perspective of the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association, the trade fair was a success, noted Christoph Stoppok, Head of Components, Mobility & Systems: The positive trend in the electronics market is also continuing at electronica 2018. Nevertheless, the shortage of skilled labor is an issue that must not be ignored. With electronica Experience, electronica has created a successful format to inspire pupils and students for the subject of electronics.

CEO round table dominated by artificial intelligence

On the fairs first day, prestigious industry representatives discussed the importance of artificial intelligence for electronics. The participants in the talk included Jean-Marc Chery (STMicroelectronics), Dean Ding (Alibaba), Alexander Kocher (Elektrobit), Reinhard Ploss (Infineon), Walden Rhines (Mentor Graphics) and Kurt Sievers (NXP). At the CEO round table, Reinhard Ploss emphasized the need for a sustainable approach to the issue of artificial intelligence: Weve a raft of strong industries in Germany. Artificial intelligence will enter them everywhere and supplement or even replace existing things. Its therefore important to develop an AI strategy in order to establish a digital industry in Germany and Europe.

Electronica Experience: Meeting Place for Students and Pupils

In Hall C6, the new format electronica Experience focused on networking between exhibitors, school pupils, students and trade visitors. On all four days of the trade fair, applications, live demos and a jobs fair provided insights into the world of electronics and its professions.

The highlight was its opening by the U.S. economist Jeremy Rifkin on the first day of the fair. In his talk, he voiced clear demands relating to the use of artificial intelligence: We need to understand what we can use AI for and what not. Big data plays a major role in communication, energy and transportation. AI makes sense in those sectors in order to increase efficiency and cut costs.

The next electronica will take place in Munich from November 10-13, 2020.
DESIGN&ELEKTRONIK's power expert Ralf Higgelke is commenting the leave of Infineon's CFO Dominik Asam.

Dominik Asam, CFO of Infineon, will join Airbus SE. But his contract with Infineon was renewed in March this year until 2023. This is raising some questions.

Infineon is doing really well these days. Sales and profits rose strongly in the past fiscal year. And the order books are bursting with orders for the coming months. At the same time, the world market leader in power semiconductors has set the course for future growth.

For 1.6 billion euros the company is building a brand-new 300 mm wafer fab at its Carinthian site in Villach, which is expected to go into operation at the beginning of 2021. Infineon has also invested heavily in the future topic of silicon carbide. Earlier this year, Infineon signed a long-term supply agreement with Cree for SiC raw wafers valued well over one hundred million dollars. And at the beginning of last week, Infineon bought the Dresden-based start-up Siltectra for 124 million euros, whose technology enables expensive SiC wafers to be split into two thinner ones. This far so good.

And now, with all the joy, the news was bursting that CFO Dominik Asam will leave the company to join Airbus. Why is that? His contract was extended to 2023 in March this year. Furthermore, he was regarded as the possible successor to CEO Ploss, who turns 63 beginning of December and whose current contract expires in autumn 2020.

Perhaps Asam refused to support the investments of up to 1.7 billion euros in factories, new machinery and modern software during the financial year that had just begun. This is 20 percent of the forecasted turnover, well above what many market observers had expected. Likewise, the stock market does not seem to appreciate Ploss's long-term growth strategy. Although the company presented excellent figures, the share price dropped by eight percent immediately after that announcement. Just as if Germany's largest chip manufacturer was heading straight towards the cliff. It seems that short-term investors in particular are fleeing, those who are unwilling to embrace Plosss long-term growth strategy.

In addition, a major economic crisis could occur at any time or the economic motor in China could start to stutter, as some fear in view of Trump's punitive tariffs. This could have been Asam' s warning. However, after the financial crisis of 2008, it also became evident that the market could pick up again very quickly. Back then, many semiconductor companies that considered short-term growth shut down some of their fabs, only to ramp them up again and hire experienced chip designers. This resulted in major delays and supply shortages.

Another possible scenario that might lead to the departure of Asam could be self-made: Experts considered him a possible successor to CEO Ploss, who will turn 63 at the beginning of December and whose ongoing contract expires in autumn 2020. But considering the importance of the business in China, the Supervisory Board may have decided to appoint someone else as its successor. Or: Ploss has decided to stay on for a few more years after 2020 to reap the rewards of his long-term growth strategy.

Anyway, I hope that Infineons supervisory board will continue to support Dr. Ploss's long-term growth strategy and not give in to the temptation of short-term profit optimization. Unfortunately, such far-sighted managers as Ploss are very rare. And I wish Dominik Asam that he will position Airbus financially just as well as Infineon.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras plans to discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev the issue of extending the Turkish Stream gas pipeline to its territory during his visit to Moscow on December 7, a source in Athens familiar with the course of preparations for the visit said.

"Greece is interested in the Turkish Stream, it became clear during recent discussions and from official speeches. For example, the issue was discussed at the meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis and Russia's Ambassador to Athens, Andrey Maslov, in early November, and Alexis Tsipras spoke about the pipeline at the summit in Thessaloniki on November 15," the source said.

The source added that the Greek authorities are interested in strategic investments from Russia. "Although Russian investments in Greece are already significant in the areas of non-strategic interests, such as tourism and real estate, in connection with the visit, strategic investment may be discussed," Sputnik cited the source as saying.
A star system in our galaxy could give us a ringside seat for one of the brightest lightshows in the universe. And, with luck, it wont wipe out all life on our planet, the Science writes.

The system - located eight thousand light-years from Earth and dubbed Apep after an Egyptian snake deity - contains a binary pair of stars surrounded by a serpentine-shaped dust cloud. One of stars is an unusually massive sun known as a Wolf-Rayet star. When such stars run out of fuel, they collapse, causing a supernova explosion.

Theorists believe that if the Wolf-Rayet star is also spinning fast, the explosion will produce intense jets of gamma rays out of either polewhich we can see far across the universe as a gamma ray burst, if we happen to be in the path of the beam.

Apep may be just such a case: both stars are blowing off fast stellar winds; as the winds collide, they billow out in plumes of dust which, as the pair rotate, forms into the pinwheel pattern pictured above. Looking at the spectra of light from the system, the team found that wind is coming off the Wolf-Rayet star at a blistering 3400 kilometers per second, but that the dust plumes are moving at a more leisurely 570 kilometers per second.

This is possible, they say in the issue of Nature Astronomy, if the Wolf-Rayet star is rotating rapidly and so producing fast wind at the pole and slower gusts at its equator. If the scientists are right, and this is a rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet star, it could be the best candidate yet for a gamma ray burst in our own galaxy, although it may not blow for many thousands of years.

"This is the first such system to be discovered in our own galaxy. We never expected to find such a system in our own backyard," said astronomer Joseph Callingham of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON).
President Erdogan rejects ECHRs 'non-binding' decision

President Erdogan on Tuesday said the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling demanding the release of jailed Selahattin Demirtas was "not our concern to

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected a decision by the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights calling for the release of former co-chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas.

"TURKISH NATION IS THE ONE WHO PAYS THE PRICE"

Erdogan recalled that ECHR has many rulings on terror groups and they were all against those made by Turkish courts.

Responding to the reporters at the parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, "Decisions the ECHR make are not of our concern. There are also so many things we can do against ECHR's decision. We will do a counter move, and close the deal,". "Terrorism is still continuing in Turkey and the Turkish nation is the one who pays the price," he added.
Turkey gives list of 84 FETO members to US

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu submitted the list of FETO members to his US counterpart and White House national security adviser.

Turkey has given the United States a list of 84 members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) that it wants American authorities to extradite, the foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Speaking to Turkish reporters at Ankara's embassy in Washington, Mevlut Cavusoglu said he delivered the list to his American counterpart, Mike Pompeo, and White House national security advisor John Bolton. Earlier, Cavusoglu and Pompeo held a 45-minute meeting at the State Department, where they discussed bilateral and regional issues as well as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"THE MURDER MUST BE UNCOVERED"

Cavusoglu said there are unanswered questions and Turkey is insisting that details regarding the murder be clarified, including who ordered Khashoggi's murder. "Many countries do not want to harm their relations with Saudi Arabia because of the Khashoggi murder. Neither do we. However, the murder must be uncovered," he said. Cavusoglu added that Turkey does not view the Khashoggi incident as a political matter.

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, and columnist for The Washington Post went missing after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. After initially saying he left the consulate alive, the Saudi administration admitted weeks later that he was killed there.
Moodys ready to lower Mexico City airport Green Bond Assessment

In an unpredecented move, Moodys Investors Service has said it is ready to lower the Green Bond Assessment (GBA) it assigned Mexico City Airport Trusts $6 billion of green notes.

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Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India: Making of the Maithili Movement by Mithilesh Kumar Jha, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017; pp 368,  1,195.

Mithilesh Kumar Jhas Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India: Making of the Maithili Movement has been published by the Oxford University Press five years after he defended his doctoral dissertation, Language Politics and the Construction of Dialects: A Case Study of Maithili, under the supervision of Pradip Kumar Datta, at the University of Delhi. After the publication of two seminal studies in the 1970s (Brass 1974; Jha 1976), the cultural subjectivity and political consciousness of Mithila, particularly the pluralistic and diverse backgrounds of its speakers and leaders, has received little attention (for notable exceptions, see Singh 1980; Burghart 1993; Jha 1996; Kumar 2013; Davis 2014; Rorabacher 2017). Furthermore, the inclusion of Maithili in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution in 2003 and the Interim Constitution of Nepal in 2007 exposed the outdated and inadequate nature of most previous reflections and analyses of the Maithili movement. Against this backdrop, Jhas book is a timely and valuable contribution to the study of literary and political cultures in South Asia.

The introduction of the book offers an instructive overview of some of the most resilient ideas, concepts, and theories deployed in the field of literary and political studies in India. Among the three dozen scholars who appear in the main body and endnotes of the introduction, a handful of them resurface in the other chapters of the book and contribute directly to Jhas analysis of the Maithili movement. By casting a wide range of critical ideas, expository themes, and theoretical concerns, Jha grapples with the challenge of exploring the history of modern print, nationalist ideologies, colonial modernity, and vernacular politics in India.
Jose Garrido and colleagues have isolated antibodies from human survivors of Andes hantavirus (ANDV) infection that protected hamsters against the deadly disease. The antibodies shielded the animals even when administered after infection, suggesting they could be used as a post-exposure preventative treatment for a disease that currently has no curative options. Hantavirus infections, which are transmitted from rodents to humans, are a major concern due to their high mortality rates. ANDV infection results in an extremely dangerous condition known as hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), which can cause fever, headache, low blood pressure, and heart and lung failure. The ANDV virus - the primary cause of HCPS cases in South America - is the only hantavirus that can be transmitted from person to person. Several studies in humans have shown that the generation of neutralizing antibody responses strongly correlates with survival from HCPS. Suspecting that antibodies from former HCPS patients who had survived infection could be exploited as therapeutic agents, Garrido et al. examined serum samples from 27 HCPS Chilean patients and screened how well their antibodies neutralized ANDV. They identified one patient with particularly promising ANDV neutralizing activity, isolated the patient's memory B cells, and studied two antibodies named MIB22 and JL16 that recognized and neutralized ANDV. Both antibodies prevented HCPS following administration in 100% of hamsters that had received a lethal dose of HNDV three days prior, indicating they could form the backbone of an HCPS treatment either separately or combined, the authors say.

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When consumers turn on a faucet, they expect the drinking water that gushes out to be safe. A new report in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology found that U.S. public-supply tap water generally meets all enforceable standards. However, routine testing for most prospective contaminants is carried out before water is distributed, not where it's used, and the report indicates some consumers are exposed to contaminant mixtures that aren't commonly monitored.

Assessment at the tap is desirable because leaks, cross-connections, back-siphonage and corrosion in the distribution system can diminish water quality and harm public health. In addition, more than 40 million U.S. consumers depend on private wells. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) isn't authorized to monitor private supplies, and few owners do so. To help gain more information about what's going on at the point of water use, Paul M. Bradley and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), EPA, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Colorado School of Mines conducted a pilot-scale survey of tap water from 11 states.

The researchers collected one water sample from each of 26 home and office sites. Samples from private wells, public water supplies and a water cooler were checked for 482 organic and 19 inorganic compounds. The team detected 75 organic and 18 inorganic compounds. Only a water sample from one private well exceeded regulatory standards - in this case, the water was found to contain double the maximum recommended amount of uranium. However, lead was detected in 23 samples. Although none of these samples exceeded current lead regulations, the EPA drinking water goal of zero indicates that no lead exposure is considered safe. The organic compounds detected included pesticides, pharmaceuticals and numerous byproducts of typical water disinfection processes, such as chlorination. The researchers note that little is known about the cumulative health effects of exposure to these mixtures of low-level contaminants among vulnerable populations, such as children and pregnant or breast-feeding women. Tap water monitoring will provide the exposure data needed for public health researchers to address this gap.

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The authors acknowledge funding from the Toxic Substances Hydrology and Contaminant Biology programs of the USGS Environmental Health Mission Area.

The paper's abstract will be available on Nov. 21 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.8b04622

The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, is a not-for-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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Europe will pay dearly for supporting the FETO terrorists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

He said that the time will come when Gulen supporters hiding in Europe will use weapons to destabilize the situation in Western countries.

In addition, Zarif stressed that the countries supporting FETO do not have the right to talk about democracy.

Ankara accuses Fethullah Gulen and his supporters of the 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey, Trend recalls.
One potential way to diagnose Alzheimer's disease earlier is by tracking a person's brainwave activity, which slows down in certain brain regions that are likely to be affected by the disease next, according to recent findings by Baycrest researchers

To turn back the clock on Alzheimer's disease, many researchers are seeking ways to effectively diagnose the neurodegenerative disorder earlier.

One potential way to do this is by tracking a person's brainwave activity, which slows down in certain brain regions that are likely to be affected by the disease next, according to recent findings by Baycrest researchers.

The study, published online in the journal, Human Brain Mapping, found that individuals potentially in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (mild cognitive impairment) and those with a rare form of language dementia (primary progressive aphasia) exhibited sluggish brainwaves and subtle signs of damage in the brain regions responsible for memory and planning. These individuals only displayed minor memory and thinking problems, but their slowing brainwaves predicted the severity of their condition, such as their degree of memory loss.

"By using brain imaging, we were able to pinpoint that this slowing of electrical activity occurs in specific regions that have not yet lost brain cells, but are negatively affected by the disease," says Dr. Jed Meltzer, senior author and Canada Research Chair in Interventional Cognitive Neuroscience at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute. "This means that these areas could be more responsive to treatments since the brain cells have not died yet and are only starting to undergo damage."

These brainwaves may also change in response to interventions, adds Dr. Meltzer.

"Our work identifies a potential biomarker that indicates when the brain cells start to malfunction and opens the door to implementing targeted brain treatments during earlier stages of neurodegenerative disorders," says Dr. Meltzer, who is also an assistant professor in psychology and speech-language pathology at the University of Toronto.

Surprisingly, the study also found that healthy older adults displayed "sped up" brainwaves compared to young adults, which is distinctly opposite to the trajectory of older adults with dementia.

"One of the challenges in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is differentiating whether changes to the brain's structure are a part of normal aging or actually early signs of the disorder," says Dr Meltzer. "Based on these findings, researchers could potentially use measurements of brainwave activity before and after an intervention to test its effectiveness in a faster and clearer manner."

The study analyzed the brain's electrical activity and brain structures of 64 adults as they were unfocused on any tasks (otherwise known as resting-state). Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to measure brainwaves and pinpoint their specific location, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to assess the loss of brain cells. Research participants also underwent evaluations that tested their cognitive abilities.

As next steps, the team is exploring the use of brain stimulation as a way to slow the progression of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease.

This research was made possible through support from the Alzheimer's Association, the Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, the Ontario Brain Institute, the Canada Research Chairs program and the Sandra A. Rotman Program in Cognitive Neuroscience.

With additional funding, the team could continue validating the use of brain activity as a reliable health indicator for early signs of dementia. Researchers could also expand their work on determining effective ways to stall the development of neurodegenerative disorders or treat premature brain changes using non-invasive electrical stimulation.

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About Baycrest

Now in its 100th year, Baycrest is a global leader in geriatric residential living, healthcare, research, innovation and education, with a special focus on brain health and aging. Fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, Baycrest provides excellent care for older adults combined with an extensive clinical training program for the next generation of healthcare professionals and one of the world's top research institutes in cognitive neuroscience, the Rotman Research Institute. Baycrest is home to the federally and provincially-funded Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation, a solution accelerator focused on driving innovation in the aging and brain health sector, and is the developer of Cogniciti - a free online memory assessment for Canadians 40+ who are concerned about their memory. Founded in 1918 as the Toronto Jewish Old Folks Home, Baycrest continues to embrace the long-standing tradition of all great Jewish healthcare institutions to improve the well-being of people in their local communities and around the globe. For more information please visit: http://www.baycrest.org

About Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute

The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest is a premier international centre for the study of human brain function. Through generous support from private donors and funding agencies, the institute is helping to illuminate the causes of cognitive decline in seniors, identify promising approaches to treatment, and lifestyle practices that will protect brain health longer in the lifespan.

For media inquiries:

Michelle Petch Gotuzzo

Baycrest

416-785-2500 ext. 6932

mpetchgotuzzo@baycrest.org

Josephine Lim

Baycrest

416-785-2500 ext. 6127

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Chinese scientists working with other researchers have for the first time uncovered the underlying mechanisms of the hierarchical structure of baleen, with an eye toward developing advanced engineered materials.

In a recent publication, Dr. Bin Wang from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Professors Meyers, Sullivan and Pissarenko from the University of California, San Diego, and Professors Espinosa and Zaheri from Northwestern University (USA), revealed how underlying mechanisms of the hierarchical structure of baleen contribute to its exceptional and unique fracture behavior.

The ocean possesses a cornucopia of organisms that thrive through ingenious strategies, thus providing a wealth of inspiration for innovation. Baleen whales are particularly worth studying due to the many important properties of their characteristic baleen.

Whale baleen is the filter-feeding apparatus inside the oral cavity of mysticetes (baleen whales). It consists of a series of parallel plates suspended from the palate down both sides of the mouth and is the most mineralized material of the keratins. Baleen allows for efficient feeding on great quantities of small zooplankton. This filtering mechanism has enabled mysticetes to evolve into the largest living creatures on earth.

Taking the place of teeth, baleen withstands a lifetime of forces generated by water flow and prey, without fracturing. Indeed, fracture toughness, which measures structural integrity for reliable functioning, is a crucial material property for baleen as well as for materials utilized in marine applications.

Although rarely studied, baleen has long been known to be both strong and flexible. It was a popular material used in corsets from the 11th to the 20th centuries and has been used in Alaskan Native basketry.

Research by Prof. Wang and colleagues shows that the nanoscale structure of baleen's intermediate filaments and mineral crystals, which are embedded in an amorphous matrix, increases its stiffness and strength. Furthermore, microscale tubular lamellae control the direction of crack propagation in case of fracture, and buckle and shear under compression. In addition, baleen's sandwich-tubular structure boosts flexural stiffness and strength with a favorable weight saving.

"Baleen has a highly anisotropic toughness," said Prof. Meyers. "In the longitudinal direction, cracks propagate with ease, leading to desirable delamination, fraying, and formation of bristles, necessary for the filtering action, while in the transverse direction, crack propagation is resisted by the tubular structure, providing the required resistance to water flow and prey impact."

Quasi-static and dynamic experiments, which support the anisotropic fracture behavior of baleen, showed a ductile-to-brittle transition, with a strain rate increasing in the dry condition but absent in the hydrated condition.

Related analysis incorporating the water plasticizing effect and strain-rate stiffening provided new information on baleen behavior under competing factors of hydration and dynamic loading, which is a key consideration for designing new engineering materials for the marine environment.

Prof. Wang said it is "amazing and exciting" to study baleen from a material engineering perspective. Wang emphasized that new findings in material design related to baleen can help achieve the "ultimate goal" of developing advanced engineered materials.

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The vertebrates, the animal group to which humans belong, are extremely diverse and have colonised virtually all of the planet's ecosystems. For many years there was some debate as to which changes in our ancestors' genome could have contributed to the successful evolution of the vertebrates. Now, an international team of scientists co-led by Spanish investigators from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, has just described the processes that ultimately helped to yield the diversity of gene functions and regulation during the transition from invertebrates to vertebrates.

The vertebrates share a unique set of gene regulation systems that allows the information contained in our genome to produce hundreds of specialised cells, tissues and organs. "We conducted an exhaustive analysis of the genomic regulation of different species, finding two key differences between vertebrates and invertebrates. First of all, we observed that generally speaking our gene regulation is much more complex than that of the invertebrates. The second difference is that we have copies of genes that originally performed only very general functions, but which in the vertebrates went on to specialise in much more specific functions, particularly in the brain", explains Manuel Irimia, group leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation and one of the principal investigators of this work.

The scientists studied the genomes of several species of vertebrates, such as the zebrafish or the medaka fish, as well as of the frog, chicken, mouse and the human being. However, in order to understand the origin of the genomic regulation mechanisms that characterise the vertebrates, they needed equivalent data from a closely-related species that would furnish with information about the evolutionary transition between invertebrates and vertebrates. For this purpose, the investigators sequenced the genome of the amphioxus and generated the data required to study its gene regulation. "The amphioxus is an organism that has been used as a research model system since the 19th Century. Its genome has evolved very slowly, without the whole duplications present in the vertebrates. For this reason, the amphioxus can serve as a reference in evolutionary comparisons to understand our lineage", says Hector Escriva, one of the leaders of the work and a researcher at the Sorbonne and at the CNRS in Banyuls sur Mer, France.

The work, recently published by the prestigious Nature journal, not only compares the genomes, but also provides genomic, epigenomic and gene expression data, furnishing unique information about the functional changes that gave rise to higher complexity in the vertebrates. The scientists observed that, while the regulation of the genes that are responsible for the basic anatomy has been maintained between species, the vertebrates incorporated more regulatory regions that enabled them to take on new functions. "Just like studies performed in human beings, our own study gives us an overview of the genome's different regulatory layers and a detailed description of the vertebrates' unique genomic regulation characteristics that gave rise to organisms with a much more complex morphology", states Jose Luis Gomez-Skarmeta, one of the leaders of the work from the Centro Andaluz de Biologia del Desarrollo (CSIC - Universidad Pablo de Olavide).

One of the most important results of this work consists of understanding how the genomic duplications that occurred in the origin of the vertebrates contributed to diversifying gene function. Almost 50 years ago, it was suggested that these duplications were key to our origin, although many of the associated predictions could not be proven until now. "We observed that in most cases, there are copies of genes whose function specialises in specific tissues. This is particularly evident in the brain, which has incorporated new functions that have likely been essential to the vertebrates' evolutionary success", adds Ignacio Maeso, a researcher at the same centre, and one of the leading authors of the work.

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The work that these Spanish scientists have just published enjoyed the participation of laboratories in France, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Czech Republic, Holland, Japan, China, Portugal, Italy, Taiwan, Norway and the United States, and constitutes an unprecedented resource for the scientific community that will enable the latter to explore the elements of functional genomics maintained between species in greater depth and to study the changes that have given rise to vertebrate complexity.
Singapore, 21 November 2018 - Misconceptions about the use of strong opioids showed to undermine optimal pain control among Asian cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy according to a cross-sectional survey conducted at the Sarawak General Hospital in Malaysia. (1)

In a study to be presented at the ESMO Asia 2018 Congress, 133 patients with solid tumours across all stages treated with strong opioids were requested to rate their experience of pain during the week before the delivery of the survey questionnaire by using a visual analogue scale (VAS) from 0-10 and to self-assess the impact of pain on daily activities by completing the Brief Pain Inventory-short form (BPI-sf).

Researchers also investigated types of strong opioids used and patient-related barriers to effective cancer pain management; results were assessed by social determinants including ethnic group, religion and education level.

Overall, a good pain control was reported in 62% of survey participants (pain score < 4) treated with strong opioids usage. "Although levels of pain were improved by more than half in up to 83.5% of patients taking strong opioids --thus confirming effectiveness of these medications, some patient-related barriers still exist", said study author Dr Voon Pei Jye of Sarawak General Hospital. "Fears that strong opioids could damage the immune system and develop addiction were observed as the most common misconceptions, in around 40% of patients. These were followed by the belief that pain could mask the monitoring of cancer progression (23.3%), perceived difficulties in managing side effects of opioids (18.05%), complaints that pain could distract doctors from treating cancer (16.5%), and a fatalistic attitude (5.3%)."

Greater barriers for pain control were found in patients with higher education levels, which may reflect pervasive misconception of opioids use in social media. Fear of harmful effects from taking opioids was observed to be more common in the Malay community, followed by Chinese and Dayak groups. "These differences may reflect some inequities in access to optimal cancer care in the state, however multiple socio-economic factors may also play a critical role in the use of opioids, thus further investigations are needed", commented Dr Voon.

Although adequate pain relief is core to supportive care, it is still hindered by the lack of availability or accessibility to opioids in some countries, according to Prof Sumitra Thongprasert from Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai, Thailand, co-chair of the ESMO Asia 2018 Public Policy programme. "Beliefs and other cultural issues may only partially explain a sub-optimal use of opioids analgesics, and several factors remain to be assessed including how information on benefits of these drugs is delivered by health care providers", she commented. "More importantly, access to prescription of opioids and government restrictions regarding the total amount that a patient could receive each time can significantly influence access and usage patterns among cancer patients."

Accessibility issues, costs and regulatory barriers that can limit prescribing and dispensing of opioid analgesics in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were firstly mapped in 2013 by the Global Opioid Policy Initiative (GOPI) (2) conducted by ESMO with other international partners and which expanded the results of a similar survey conducted in Europe in 2010. (3) Opioid availability was reported to be low in all 20 surveyed countries in Asia, except for South Korea and Japan, and evidence of over-regulation of opioid prescribing was found in the Asia-Pacific region that may restrict or impair access to pain relief treatments. Outcomes from this initiative also highlighted a concrete need to improve palliative care knowledge among clinicians in Asian countries.

"At present, although the availability of critical medications such as opioids, targeted medicines and immunotherapies may be potentially improved in Asia, accessibility issues will be hard to overcome in the next future due to the high costs of cancer treatments", continued Thongprasert. "Some countries across Asia/Asia-Pacific are simply not able to provide expensive medicines to local communities. Also, in countries where patients have to pay on their own for cancer treatments, high costs of medicines can be the primary reason of poor quality in cancer care."

Prof. Nathan Cherny from Shaare Zedek Medical Centre Oncology Institute, Israel, at the time co-coordinator of the Global Opioid Policy Initiative for ESMO, added: "According to the results reported in the paper published in 2013, there is agreement between the WHO, the International Narcotics Control Board, and ESMO, and the 20 international and national palliative care and oncology societies collaborating on the project, (4) about the fact that opioid analgesic therapy is the cornerstone of cancer pain management, and that there is no economic barrier to making opioids available for this indication, and that it must be made a public health priority."

Strategies to improve accessibility to and availability of cancer medicines in LMICs will be discussed in a thought-provoking debate to be held at the ESMO Asia 2018 Congress in Singapore. (5) "Since reducing cancer medicine costs could take some time, other potential strategies need to be assessed, such as the set-up of different pricing according to economic status; pharmaceutical companies providing Patient Access programme or Technology transfer to LMICs to manufacture their own medicines; availability of quality-assured generic and biosimilar medicines; and Compulsory Licensing of anti-cancer medicines. Beyond regulations, major barriers are likely to remain in these countries due to the rapid pace of development of new medicines, limitation of access to research projects and a lack of new technologies." added Thongprasert.

Global commitment on ensuring access to anti-cancer medicines has increased over recent years and according to ESMO President Josep Tabernero, cooperation among different stakeholders can contribute to better guiding the Asia-Pacific countries towards improving access to and availability of essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and medical devices.

"Overall, there is a need to adequately prioritise limited resources to clinical benefits, and collaborative efforts have resulted in new tools and approaches that can play a critical step in addressing policy issues in LMICs. One such platform is the ESMO Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) (6,7) which can help governments to review and adjust their respective national medicine lists to ensure that they prioritise the most cost-effective ones that provide the greatest value to patients."

"Also, by facilitating education and updating of oncology professionals in the Asia-Pacific region, the annual ESMO Asia Congress, launched back in 2014, provides the arena for sharing knowledge as well as discussing and debating major challenges in oncology towards advancing the field and bringing about real and necessary change," the ESMO President concluded.

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Notes to Editors

Please make sure to use the official name of the meeting in your reports: ESMO Asia 2018 Congress

Official Congress Hashtag: #ESMOAsia18

References

Abstract 439P - 'Pain control among cancer patients receiving strong opioids and their perspective towards opioids in a developing coiuntry with a diverse multicultural background' will be presented by Daniel Lee during the Poster Display Session on Saturday, 24 November, from 18:00 to 19:00 (SGT) in the Exhibition Area. Annals of Oncology, Volume 29, 2018 Supplement 9, doi:10.1093/annonc/mdy426 Global Opioid Policy Initiative: http://www.esmo.org/Policy/Global-Opioid-Policy-Initiative N.I. Cherny, J.Cleary, W. Scholten, L. Radbruch, J. Torode. 'The Global Opioid Policy Initiative (GOPI) project to evaluate the availability and accessibility of opioids for the management of cancer pain in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East', Annals of Oncology, Volume 24, Supplement 11, 1 December 2013 Global Opioid Policy Initiative partners: http://www.esmo.org/Policy/Global-Opioid-Policy-Initiative/Partners "The reality of accessing cancer care in Asia and Asia/Pacific" to be held on Saturday, 24 November, from 14:30 to 16:00 (SGT) in Room 310 Cherny N, Dafni U, Bogaerts J et al. ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale Version 1.1 Ann Oncol 2017; 28: 2340-2366. Cherny NI, Sullivan R, Dafni U et al. A standardised, generic, validated approach to stratify the magnitude of clinical benefit that can be anticipated from anti-cancer therapies: the European Society for Medical Oncol Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS). Ann Oncol 2015; 26: 1547-1573.

Disclaimer

This press release contains information provided by the author of the highlighted abstract and reflects the content of this abstract. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With more than 20,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 150 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. ESMO is committed to offer the best care to people with cancer, through fostering integrated cancer care, supporting oncologists in their professional development, and advocating for sustainable cancer care worldwide.Visit http://www.esmo.org

439P - Pain control among cancer patients receiving strong opioids and their perspective towards opioids in a developing country with a diverse multicultural background

D.Z.F. Lee, D.K.L. KIU, V. Pei Jye

Radiotherapy & Oncology, Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching, Malaysia,

Background: Strong opioids are commonly used to manage severe pain among cancer patients, however patients' misconceptions towards strong opioids result in pain under-treatment, reducing their quality of life.

Methods: Patients were invited to fill in a survey inquiring their age, gender, ethic group, religion, education level, occupation, marital status. Pain was measured objectively with a visual analogue scale from 0-10 and effects of pain measured using the Brief Pain Inventory-short form. Patient-related barriers were measured using Barriers Questionnaire-II. Scores were expressed as means with standard deviations and associations were analysed using parametric or non-parametric tests, interpreted at 5% significance.

Results: Of 133 participants, 62% of patients have good pain control however 71% still have moderate to severe interference with daily activities due to pain. Pain intensity correlated positively to daily interferece (p=0.000) of daily activites and belief of fatalism (p=0.001). Patients with higher education levels tend to have strong barriers towards opioids (p=0.000). There were significant difference between ethnic groups on perspective of harmful effects of opioids, with Malay recording greater barriers followed by the Chinese and Dayak communities.

Conclusions: Pain is a multidimensional experience requiring exploration from multiple aspects. Healthcare professionals should educate patients to clear misconceptions regarding opioids and thorough pain assessment is essential.

Clinical trial identification: NMRR-17-2209-37841 (IIR)

Legal entity responsible for the study: National Medical Research Registry of Malaysia

Funding: Has not received any funding

Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
Two Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physicians call on medical and public health communities around the world to condemn the attacks on health care facilities and services in Yemen conducted by the Saudi-led coalition in the three-year-old war. In their Perspectives article receiving early online publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, Amir Mohareb, MD, MGH Division of Infectious Diseases, and Louise Ivers, MD, MPH, DTM&H, executive director of the MGH Center for Global Health, write, "The Yemeni medical disasters are man-made, with outbreaks of infectious diseases and starvation following bombing. The war has been characterized by a violation of medical neutrality."

The physicians call on health care providers to take a role in condemning the war. They describe how hospitals and clinics in the capital city of Sana'a and other areas of the country "have continued to be destroyed, both indiscriminately and sometimes apparently deliberately," since the war began in March 2015. An outbreak of cholera - estimated to have infected more than 1.1 million people and led to more than 2,000 deaths, 20 percent in children under 5 - has been exacerbated by the bombing of water-treatment plants and a lack of fuel needed to operate remaining facilities. Both diphtheria and measles have also increased, probably because of a drop in immunizations, and concerns are rising about a polio outbreak.

The Saudi-led blockade of Yemeni ports has kept out international relief agencies and much-needed food supplies, leading to a near-famine that puts 14 million people at risk of starvation, the physicians write. Even after an easing of the blockade last year, "importation of essential medicines, vaccines and health care equipment remains limited." Citing the U.S. agreement to sell more than $100 billion in arms and provide other support to the Saudis, the authors stress that mounting evidence of attacks on civilians and on health facilities should induce suspension U.S. military support, as has been proposed by a bipartisan Senate resolution. Giving international humanitarian agencies the ability "to investigate attacks on medical facilities and personnel committed by parties on either side of the conflict" is also essential.

"These responses are, in our view, the only just course of action and are the way to erect necessary safeguards for the future," they write. "We rely on humanitarian programs and on the principal of medical neutrality as a salve for the painful consequences of armed conflict. The moral responsibility for this catastrophe is collective. Those of us whose governments support the war's attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure through their direct actions or through their inaction at the United Nations Security Council can do more than stand by silently wondering what the warring parties hope to inherit at the end of the day. A generation of Yemeni people is being sacrificed."

Ivers is an associate professor of Medicine, and Mohareb is a research fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Their article will appear in the January 10, 2019, print edition of NEJM. The MGH Center for Global Health serves the hospital's mission to contribute to improving the health of our global community through service, research and innovation, and medical education.

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Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with an annual research budget of almost $930 million and major research centers in HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, genomic medicine, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, photomedicine and transplantation biology. The MGH topped the 2015 Nature Index list of health care organizations publishing in leading scientific journals and earned the prestigious 2015 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service. In August 2018 the MGH was once again named to the Honor Roll in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."
In the era of personalized medicine, scientists are using new genetic and genomic insights to help them determine the best treatment for a given patient. In the case of cancer, the first step toward these treatments is an investigation into how tumor cells behave in an effort to figure out the best drugs to use to attack them.

Researchers then use DNA- and RNA- sequencing to look at populations of cells, examining which genes are expressed within a sample of cancerous tissue. However, traditional sequencing methods can hide that fact that not all tumor cells necessarily behave in the same way. Not recognizing this means that if you target a tumor with a specific type of drug, some cells may be just different enough to survive and thrive.

In a major advance for genomics, it is now possible to look at what one single cell is doing at any given time with a technique called single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). This method looks at the amount of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in a cell and compares those to other cells to look for differences in gene expression.

However, what information you find can depend on how your run your experiment and how the data are analyzed. Lana Garmire, Ph.D., associate professor of the department of computational medicine & bioinformatics at Michigan Medicine and her team is studying ways to eliminate some of the biases that can make interpreting scRNA-seq data difficult.

"A lot of the noise in this type of sequencing comes from the fact that you have to measure samples in extreme low quantities and in different batches," she explains. For example, the tissue sample a researcher is analyzing may not fit on one plate, a piece of equipment used to house cell samples, and therefore have to be split onto two plates. Differences that arise due to this split are called batch effects. Genomics researchers must correct for these batch effects, but this process can raise a conundrum: how do you know if a difference is a batch effect or a true difference between cells?

New uses for data

Bioinformatics is the term for collecting and analyzing complex biological data using computer programs. It is a relatively new field born out of the ability to gather enormous amounts of biological data, such as DNA and protein sequences.

Researchers rely on bioinformatics techniques to determine which genes are expressed in single cells. But they've had to work around the noise introduced through different research protocols and batch effects. Garmire, who recently joined U-M from the University of Hawaii and is the new faculty director University of Michigan Medical School Bioinformatics Core, has discovered a more efficient way of identifying differences between cells using the same set of data produced during sequencing experiments. Instead of relying on gene expression, she found that looking at what are known as single nucleotide variants (SNVs) can eliminate some of this uncertainty. "With SNVs, you are dealing with numbers that are binary, 0 and 1. Either the mutation is there or not."

Recall that genes are made up of nucleotides represented by the letters A, T, G and C that make up a code that is translated into a protein. Garmire's method looks for differences in single nucleotides, knowing that an A can only be replaced by a T and a G by a C. This new work, described in Nature Communications, developed a new set of procedures to process scRNA-seq data and retrieve this variant information. Further, using a computer program called SSrGE, they can link this variant information to more traditional gene expression information.

"This gives us information on different subpopulations of tumor cells and becomes sort of like a fingerprint that can be marked to identify cell-to-cell differences," says Garmire.

What it all means

Ultimately, drug makers and clinicians use these targets to guide pharmaceutical treatments. "When you want to attack the issue, you go at it by attacking the fundamental features of that issue: the mutations. Clinicians may be able to use this information later on to guide their therapeutics." Garmire looks forward to bringing bioinformatics out of the lab, helping researchers who amass large amounts of data to use them and develop downstream clinical applications. "We divide the body up and specialize but at the end of the day, you need to look holistically and ask, what am I doing and who is this helping? We are developing computational tools to bring bioinformatics researchers and bench scientists and clinicians together to connect the dots and ultimately make change.

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This research was performed during Garmire's tenure at University of Hawaii and supported by grants K01ES025434 awarded by NIEHS through funds provided by the trans-NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative, P20 COBRE GM103457 awarded by NIH/NIGMS, R01 LM012373 awarded by NLM, R01 HD084633 awarded by NICHD and Hawaii Community Foundation Medical Research Grant 14ADVC-64566.
Human language follows certain regularities. For instance, a plural noun must be accompanied by a plural verb, as in the following sentence: "The kids from the neighborhood are playing." As a result, relationships arise where information at the beginning of a sentence is relevant at the end of the same sentence. In German, subordinate clauses can be inserted, before a sentence is complete - such structures are referred to by linguists as embeddings or nested structures. The following is a simple example, "The boy standing over there laughs."

It is believed that the ability to recognize such embedding is unique to humans. Although some animals are capable of learning individual words and their simple combination, they appear unable to grasp the complexity and possible combinations present in human language. The team around study leader Dr. Claudia Mannel from the Department of Neuropsychology now ask: If this ability is part of what makes us human, when does it begin? At the Children's Language Laboratory at MPI CBS, the scientists tested 38 babies to see if and how infants can handle nested structures. Remarkably, babies as young as five months old were able to recognize embedding in innovative tone sequences created for the study. These results mark the earliest evidence to date of this basic ability in humans.

Of course working with babies is not easy, particularly when studying language perception. One cannot simply play sentences and explain the task to the infants. Prof. Jutta Mueller, a collaborator from the University of Osnabruck, explains that this can actually be helpful. "In early childhood research we work with built-in errors or rule deviations and determine whether children can detect them. If babies do so, we then know that they already have the underlying knowledge. Together with the group, we considered how to test this in babies, without overstraining them with too demanding spoken sentences." The team decided to simplify the experiment using simple tones instead - more specifically, five-tone and seven-tone sequences in separate experiments. Embeddings were created by specific arrangements of different tone frequencies.

Dr. Claudia Mannel describes the structure of the experiments: "Children learn by frequency information and acoustic deviations - we know that they perceive such deviations in the womb when you play them sounds. We used this knowledge for the experimental arrangements in the Children's Language Lab. However, in our experiments it wasn't the individual tones that deviated, but the sequences of tones, including the embedding as a whole. We varied these to see if babies recognize the construction of embedded structures. With the brain activity we measured, we could then see from the EEG curves that the infants did in fact register the deviating sequences and thus they must have processed the nested structures. "

The next step is to investigate whether non-human primates might also have the ability to recognize such embedded structures, which would address the question of how this ability may have phylogenetically evolved.

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HAMILTON, Nov. 21, 2018- A new study examining differences in the language used in nearly 40-million tweets suggests national stereotypes--Canadians tend to be polite and nice while Americans are negative and assertive--are reflected on Twitter, even if those stereotypes aren't necessarily accurate.

Linguistic experts from McMaster University used Twitter, one of the world's most popular social media platforms, to better understand national identity on a mass scale and where stereotypes might originate.

The researchers isolated the words, emoticons, and emojis used most disproportionately on Twitter by individuals from each country.

The findings, published online today in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest national stereotypes are grounded -at least partially--in the words we choose. The work builds on earlier research from 2016 when the same team analyzed 3 million tweets.

"The most distinctive word choices of Americans and Canadians on Twitter paint a very accurate and familiar picture of the stereotypes we associate with people from these nations," says Daniel Schmidtke, co-author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at McMaster.

Canadians were far more positive on Twitter, using words such as: great, thanks, good, amazing, and happy. Americans tended to use more negative words like: hate, miss, mad, feel, swear, tired. Americans preferred emojis, whereas Canadians preferred emoticons. Americans also used more netspeak like 'lol', 'idk', and 'af'.

"It's tempting to think that Canadians tweet more nicely than Americans because they really are more nice than Americans," says Bryor Snefjella, the lead author of the study and graduate student in the Reading Lab in McMaster's Department of Linguistics and Languages, who was supervised by another co-author of the study, Victor Kuperman.

"But when we put all the data together, it suggests that something more complicated is happening," he says. The wrinkle is that other studies which have surveyed large numbers of Canadians and Americans have consistently shown that such national stereotypes are not accurate. There isn't any hard evidence to support that an average American's and average Canadian's personality traits are different.

"The Twitter behaviour we observe doesn't actually reflect the real underlying personality profile of an average American or Canadian," says Schmidtke.

To explore further, they exposed study participants to the most typical words and emojis from each nation. The participants were not told anything about how the words were chosen. They were then asked what the personality traits were of someone who often uses the most American and most Canadian words and emojis.

The results? Someone who uses very Canadian words has a personality matching the stereotype of a Canadian, and someone who uses very American words has a personality matching the stereotype of an American.

The team argues that their results show an identity construction strategy in action: Canadians and Americans may create their national character stereotype through their language use.

In future, researchers hope to compare other stereotypes between people in different sets of countries.

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Attention editors: A high res photo of researchers Bryor Snefjella, Daniel Schmidtke, and Victor Kuperman, video and word clouds can be downloaded at this link: https://adobe.ly/2OIVB1X

Please credit McMaster University for photo, video

A copy of the study can be found here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206188
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has today published a new briefing note highlighting the ethical issues that can arise when patients and doctors wish to use experimental treatments.

Several controversies over the use of experimental treatments have been reported in the media recently, including couples feeling duped over expensive fertility treatment 'add-ons'1, deaths following stem cell-engineered larynx transplants2, and parents wishing to access experimental treatments for their children abroad.3

Meanwhile, success stories such as the compassionate use of modified immune cells in babies with leukaemia at Great Ormond Street Hospital show the potential of experimental treatments to help patients who have otherwise run out of options.4

Using three types of experimental treatments as examples: advanced therapies (such as gene and stem cell therapies), surgery, and fertility treatment, the briefing note sets out the ways in which such treatments might be accessed, explains how these treatments are regulated, and summarises some of the ethical issues that patients, families and healthcare professionals need to be aware of.

The Council notes that the use of experimental treatments can raise ethical issues such as:

Difficulties in assessing how safe and effective the treatment will be - if there is an absence of research evidence, and little or no previous experience to draw on.

Challenges around informed decision-making and consent - especially when treatments are sought for a child or person who lacks capacity to consent.

The influence of online information - the availability of online information about experimental treatments can empower patients, but might fail to alert patients to the limits or risks of experimental treatments.

Ensuring healthcare professionals act responsibly and that any treatment offered to a patient are in their best interests and not driven by other incentives.

Unequal access - not everyone can afford experimental treatments privately or abroad, and availability can vary between countries, including within the UK.

Negative impacts on knowledge generation - information about the efficacy and side-effects of an experimental treatment might not be recorded and shared as it would otherwise be within a clinical trial.

Hugh Whittall, Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, said: "Often, experimental medical treatments are considered as a last hope, when all other options have been exhausted. It is completely understandable that people in this position might be willing to try anything and everything they can, despite uncertainties about the efficacy or safety of the treatment, and the likelihood of there being significant costs involved. A key challenge is balancing the interests of patients with ensuring they are protected from harm, particularly if treatments are offered outside of UK regulation.

It is important that patients and their families have access to impartial and accurate information, and are made aware of uncertainties about possible outcomes when making a decision about trying an experimental treatment.

We will be raising these issues with Government and working with regulators, and we are following up this piece of work with a new project exploring how disagreements can develop about the care of critically ill children, and how those disagreements are being resolved.

Advanced therapies

Experimental stem cell and gene therapies are often aimed at conditions for which there is no existing cure, such as cancers, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. They offer the potential of a tailored and bespoke treatment and some have been offered in the NHS. Others, however, raise ethical concerns such as unscrupulous marketing practises by clinics, the influence on patient's expectations of overly optimistic media reports, and the influence of public campaigns over access to very early-stage therapies.

Surgery

There is a strong culture of innovation in surgery. In this area of medicine - more than others - there can be a lack of clarity about what constitutes a new intervention, as opposed to a modification of a routine surgical technique, and patients are sometimes unaware that a surgical procedure offered to them is not routine. There is a lack of systematic oversight of new surgical procedures in the NHS. Initiatives such as the IDEAL collaboration are seeking to improve outcome reporting in surgical innovation.

Fertility

In the private sector, patients are increasingly offered 'add-ons' to fertility treatment, with the aim of improving chances of a successful pregnancy. Despite costing between 50 and 8,000 extra, there is limited evidence to support the use of many add-ons, and a recent study found that some clinics in the UK are providing patients with misleading information about the supporting evidence.5

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Notes to editors

Contact

Sophia Griffiths

Communications Officer, Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Phone: 020 7681 9622

Mobile: 07551 159670

Email: sgriffiths@nuffieldbioethics.org

References:

1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6375673/Couple-spent-20-000-IVF-treatment-7-000-add-ons-UK-sue.html

2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/30/scientists-behind-clinical-trial-accused-cover-deaths-two-young/

3. http://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/Bhatia-N-2018-Disagreements-in-care-of-critically-ill-children-emerging-issues.pdf

(See page 13 onwards)

4. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/two-babies-terminal-cancer-almost-a-miracle-treatment-still-alive-year-layla-richards-waseem-qasim-a7546926.html

5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38094618

About the Nuffield Council on Bioethics

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is an independent body that has been advising policy makers on ethical issues in bioscience and medicine for more than 25 years. We are funded by the

Nuffield Foundation, the Medical Research Council, and Wellcome.

This is the fourth in a new series of bioethics briefing notes published by the Council in 2018.
The Zagorsk Pipe Plant (ZTZ) has signed a direct 41.2 billion ruble supply contract with Gazprom-Komplektatsiya, affiliate of Russian gas giant Gazprom, the company said, noting that is it a new record.

The delivery deadline of 500,000 tonnes of large-diameter pipes is from November 19, 2018 till April 30, 2021, PRIME reported with reference to the documents.

The pipes will be used in the Power of Siberia pipeline.
Syrian conflict has led to an increased number of cases, spread to neighboring countries

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a parasitic infection caused by Leishmania parasite. CL cases have increased dramatically in Syria and neighboring countries due to conflict-related displacement of Syrians. A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases by Rana El Hajj at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon describes the development of a novel immunomodulatory analog that may be an effective treatment of CL.

Currently used therapies against CL may lead to partial or complete cure. However, they associate with many limitations, including repetitive painful injections, lack of availability, expensive cost, and emergence of resistant strains. Furthermore, their efficacy remains hindered by the patient's age and immune system. Researchers investigated the pre-clinical efficacy of an immunomodulatory drug, Imiquimod and one of its analogs, EAPB0503 on two strains (Leishmania major and Leishmania tropica) causing CL in the Middle East Area. They also tested these drugs on freshly isolated parasites from patients' biopsies and proved their leishmanicidal potency.

According to the authors, "Our findings establish Imiquimod as a strong candidate for treating L. tropica and show the higher potency of its analog EAPB0503 against CL". Their research is a promising advancement for the development of effective therapies for CL.

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0006854

Citation: El Hajj R, Bou Youness H, Lachaud L, Bastien P, Masquefa C, et al. (2018) EAPB0503: An Imiquimod analog with potent in vitro activity against cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania major and Leishmania tropica. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 12(11): e0006854. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006854

Funding: This work is supported by the American University of Beirut, CNRS-Cedre. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared no competing interests exist.
LA JOLLA, CALIF. - Nov. 21, 2018 - Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified gene recombination in neurons that produces thousands of new gene variants within Alzheimer's disease brains. The study, published today in Nature, reveals for the first time how the Alzheimer's-linked gene, APP, is recombined by using the same type of enzyme found in HIV.

Using new analytical methods focused on single and multiple-cell samples, the researchers found that the APP gene, which produces the toxic beta amyloid proteins defining Alzheimer's disease, gives rise to novel gene variants in neurons--creating a genomic mosaic. The process required reverse transcription and reinsertion of the variants back into the original genome, producing permanent DNA sequence changes within the cell's DNA blueprint.

"We used new approaches to study the APP gene, which gives rise to amyloid plaques, a pathological hallmark of the disease," says Jerold Chun, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the paper and professor and senior vice president of Neuroscience Drug Discovery at SBP. "Gene recombination was discovered as both a normal process for the brain and one that goes wrong in Alzheimer's disease."

One hundred percent of the Alzheimer's disease brain samples contained an over-abundance of distinct APP gene variants, compared to samples from normal brains. Among these Alzheimer's-enriched variations, the scientists identified 11 single-nucleotide changes identical to known mutations in familial Alzheimer's disease--a very rare inherited form of the disorder. Although found in a mosaic pattern, the identical APP variants were observed in the most common form of Alzheimer's disease, further linking gene recombination in neurons to disease.

"These findings may fundamentally change how we understand the brain and Alzheimer's disease," says Chun. "If we imagine DNA as a language that each cell uses to 'speak,' we found that in neurons, just a single word may produce many thousands of new, previously unrecognized words. This is a bit like a secret code embedded within our normal language that is decoded by gene recombination. The secret code is being used in healthy brains but also appears to be disrupted in Alzheimer's disease."

Potential near-term Alzheimer's treatment uncovered

The scientists found that the gene recombination process required an enzyme called reverse transcriptase, the same type of enzyme HIV uses to infect cells. Although there is no medical evidence that HIV or AIDS causes Alzheimer's disease, existing FDA-approved antiretroviral therapies for HIV that block reverse transcriptase might also be able to halt the recombination process and could be explored as a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease. The scientists noted the relative absence of proven Alzheimer's disease in aging HIV patients on antiretroviral medication, supporting this possibility.

"Our findings provide a scientific rationale for immediate clinical evaluation of HIV antiretroviral therapies in people with Alzheimer's disease," says Chun. "Such studies may also be valuable for high-risk populations, such as people with rare genetic forms of Alzheimer's disease."

Adds first author Ming-Hsiang Lee, Ph.D., a research associate in the Chun laboratory, "Reverse transcriptase is an error-prone enzyme--meaning it makes lots of mistakes. This helps explain why copies of the APP gene are not accurate in Alzheimer's disease and how the diversity of DNA in the neurons is created."

An explanation for recent clinical trial setbacks

The amyloid hypothesis, or the theory that accumulation of a protein called beta-amyloid in the brain causes Alzheimer's disease, has driven Alzheimer's research to date. However, treatments that target beta-amyloid have notoriously failed in clinical trials. Today's findings offer a potential answer to this mystery.

"The thousands of APP gene variations in Alzheimer's disease provide a possible explanation for the failures of more than 400 clinical trials targeting single forms of beta-amyloid or involved enzymes," says Chun. "APP gene recombination in Alzheimer's disease may be producing many other genotoxic changes as well as disease-related proteins that were therapeutically missed in prior clinical trials. The functions of APP and beta-amyloid that are central to the amyloid hypothesis can now be re-evaluated in light of our gene recombination discovery."

Close of one chapter opens another

"Today's discovery is a step forward--but there is so much that we still don't know," says Chun. "We hope to evaluate gene recombination in more brains, in different parts of the brain and involving other recombined genes--in Alzheimer's disease as well as other neurodegenerative and neurological diseases--and use this knowledge to design effective therapies targeting gene recombination."

He adds, "It is important to note that none of this work would have been possible without the altruistic generosity of brain donors and their loving families, to whom we are most grateful. Their generosity is yielding fundamental insights into the brain,and are leading us toward developing new and effective ways of treating Alzheimer's disease and possibly other brain disorders--potentially helping millions of people. There is much more important work to be done."

About Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a public health crisis. The cause of the disease remains unknown--and no meaningful treatment exists. Nearly six million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer's disease, a number projected to reach 14 million by 2060 as the population ages. The annual health care system costs to care for people with the disease exceeds a quarter of a trillion dollars, according to the Alzheimer's Association. The disease also places high burdens on family members: Caregivers of individuals with dementia report substantial emotional, financial and physical difficulties.

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The co-second authors of the study are Ben Siddoway, Ph.D. (SBP); Gwen Kaeser, Ph.D. (SBP and UC San Diego); and Igor Segota, Ph.D. (SBP). Additional authors include: Richard Rivera, Ph.D.; William J. Romanow, Ph.D.; Grace Kennedy; and Tao Long, Ph.D., of SBP; and Christine S. Liu and Chris Park of SBP and UC San Diego. The study's DOI is 10.1038/s41586-018-0718-6.

Research reported in this press release was supported by The Shaffer Family Foundation, The Bruce Ford & Anne Smith Bundy Foundation and SBP institutional funds. Additional support for this work was provided by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) P50 pilot grant (AG00513) and 5T32AG000216-24 training grant, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (105-2917-I-564-085). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

About Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) is an independent nonprofit medical research organization that conducts world-class, collaborative, biological research and translates its discoveries for the benefit of patients. SBP focuses its research on cancer, immunity, neurodegeneration, metabolic disorders and rare children's diseases. The Institute invests in talent, technology and partnerships to accelerate the translation of laboratory discoveries that will have the greatest impact on patients. Recognized for its NCI-designated Cancer Center and the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, SBP employs nearly 900 scientists and staff in San Diego (La Jolla), Calif. For more information, visit us at SBPdiscovery.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/SBPdiscovery and on Twitter @SBPdiscovery.
Droughts or heat waves have consequences that spread beyond farmers anxiously watching their fields; these fluctuations in crop yields can send shockwaves through local and global food supplies and prices.

In a new study, researchers with NASA, the University of Chicago and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research added data on when each specific region plants and harvests its crops--and found it was the single most effective way to improve the simulations.

Published Nov. 21 in Science Advances, the innovative adaptation could improve the information available for policymakers and markets to brace for the impacts of crop loss.

Current models struggle to predict yields, not only in view of long-term climate change, but simply for the following year's crops. "Today's models really can't explain variability from one year to the next. Even if we just try to recreate what happened in the past, they just aren't up to par," said Jagermeyr, a postdoctoral researcher with the UChicago department of computer science, Potsdam, and NASA, and the corresponding author on the study. "It turns out that short-term yield variability is extremely important for policymakers and the food market--naturally for price levels, but also for supply shocks, trade embargoes and reserves."

For the most part, scientists have tried to improve crop yield estimates by improving the model's weather response. But instead, Jagermeyr and coauthor Katja Frieler of the Potsdam Institute tried attacking the problem from a different angle: Instead of assuming farmers grow a single variety of a crop across the globe, they implemented the average times that each region plants and harvests its crops to represent local varieties.

"The model performance just doubles," Jagermeyr said. "Getting the growing season right is the single most effective measure to better match observed corn yields."

For example, Jagermeyr said, consider a corn crop in Austria. If researchers use the same growing timeline for a corn variety growing in Mexico, they might assume the crop would benefit from an October rainfall. But in colder Austria the corn would already have been harvested--so the calculations are thrown off.

With this information, researchers' models matched up much more closely with actual, observed yields. "We are now up to task to simulate historic impacts of droughts and heat waves, which is unprecedented," Jagermeyr said, "and we have every reason to expect our future simulations will be more robust than before."

This is something that's been overlooked, and we simply show how much the timing matters. The nice thing is that it's a low-hanging fruit we can easily implement in our models," he said. "The only difficulty is that it's very data-dependent, and we don't have high-quality observations in all countries yet."

They plan to use this improved model framework to test out crop forecasting throughout the next season in real time.

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Computation time was provided by the University of Chicago Research Computing Center's Midway computing cluster and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of cancer in the world. Every year in Finland, approximately 3,000 new cases are diagnosed, and roughly 1,200 patients die of it. Between 2004 and 2016, an extensive screening programme was conducted in Finland, intending to study the potential benefits and downsides of a nation-wide screening for colorectal cancer.

The study targeted people aged 60-69 years, and just under a half of the age group, or a little more than 300,000 people, were randomised by late 2011. Half of the population in the study were invited for screening, while the other half of the age cohort served as a control group. Faecal occult blood tests (FOBT) were used in the screening, and patients who tested positive for blood were referred for a colonoscopy.

The first study based on the screening results indicated no significant decrease in mortality, so the screenings were discontinued after 2016. However, researchers from the Helsinki University Hospital and the Finnish Cancer Registry wanted to examine whether the screening had offered benefits to patients with colorectal cancer.

"Practically no cancer screenings have been found to have an impact on overall mortality. However, they may still be useful in other ways. We wanted to study whether the patients could avoid the more intense treatments if they participated in screening for colorectal cancer," says Dr. Laura Koskenvuo, gastrointestinal surgeon.

The study examined the data of approximately 1,400 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The results indicated that among patients from the screening group, the surgical removal of the entire tumour was more commonly successful than it was among the control group patients, and they were less likely to require chemotherapy. The patients from the screening group were also less likely to undergo emergency surgery because of their tumour than the control group patients.

"The control group had 50% more emergency surgeries, 40% more incomplete tumour removals and 20% more chemotherapy treatments than patients in the screening group," says Adjunct Professor Ville Sallinen, gastrointestinal surgeon.

Closer inspection of the results showed that these benefits were particularly prevalent among male patients. Similar benefits were not seen among women. Additionally, the researchers found that the screening was most efficient at detecting left-sided colorectal cancer and the screening was found to have no benefit for patients with cancer on the right side, possibly because blood seeping from tumours on the right side becomes so diluted as it travels through the colon that the gFOBT can no longer detect it.

"The strength of this Finnish study is that it randomised an enormous number of people in the public health care system, which meant that we could objectively evaluate the benefits of the screening. Similar studies have not been available anywhere else," says Professor Nea Malila, director of the Finnish Cancer Registry.

"In the future, we must examine whether different screening techniques could improve the situation of female patients and facilitate the diagnosis of right-sided colorectal cancer," the researchers state.

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The study has been published in the esteemed British Journal of Surgery.
Rodent mothers produce more offspring after smelling odors produced by frightened males. This is reported by a team of biologists from Finland and the Netherlands and bring new information the proximate and ultimate explanations of small mammal behavioral responses.

Fear of being eaten has the power to shape populations and drive evolution. The effect the authors report is large: exposed mothers produce litters with about fifty percent more pups compared to unexposed control mothers.

What is most striking about this study is that the cause of the change in numerical reproduction was indirect, says postdoctoral researcher Marko Haapakoski from the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Second-hand information about predators was sufficient to increase the number of offspring, he continues.

Chemical messages

Predation involves more than just predators consuming prey.

Predators can also scare the living daylights out of the animals they target. Our study demonstrates that the resulting fear changes how these prey animals behave and reproduce, explains Dr. Kevin Matson from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

The study shows that a frightening experience can be communicated to neighboring individuals in the population, even when the neighbors do not see, smell, or hear an actual predator themselves.

When a separate group of male voles were exposed to a weasel, they produced chemical messages that could be read by the voles in our study, explains Alwin Hardenbol, who conducted this research as part of his master's thesis at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Vole mothers might produce more offspring when they sense their chances of being eaten soon are high and that their next litter may be their last. Simple physiological mechanisms could allow mothers to adjust litter size. For example, previous research has shown that females can produce more pups simply by mating with more males.

Implications of the findings

Danielle Lee of the Southern Illinois University (USA), an ecologist specializing in rodent behavior and who is unaffiliated with this research project, described the significance of this research.

This innovative experimental study bridges the proximate and ultimate explanations of small mammal behavioral responses. It's been long hypothesized that small, highly fecund (so called "r-selected") species like voles might respond to heavy predation via reproductive compensation. This field study shows how these responses are mediated via chemo-olfactory cues, she says. The work demonstrates once again the importance of this modality for intraspecific communication, population regulation, and trophic interactions, she continues.

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The study of wild bank voles (Myodes glareolus) in Konnevesi Research Station of the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, is published 21.11.2018 in the open access journal Scientific Reports.

Additional information:

Postdoctoral researcher Marko Haapakoski (University of Jyvaskyla, Finland), marko.j.haapakoski@jyu.fi, +358503010756

Assistant Professor Kevin Matson (Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands), kevin.matson@wur.nl Available for comment in English. Upon request, a Dutch-language media contact can be arranged.

Reference: Haapakoski, M., A. A. Hardenbol, and K. D. Matson. 2018. Exposure to chemical cues from predator-exposed conspecifics increases reproduction in a wild rodent. Scientific Reports. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-35568-0

Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35568-0
The lucrative truffle industry is set to disappear within a generation due to climate change, according to new research by a University of Stirling academic.

A warmer and drier climate will be responsible for the decline - which will have a "huge economic, ecological and social impact" - and could be accelerated by other factors, such as heatwave events, forest fires, pests and diseases.

With the truffle species Tuber melanosporum trading at more than 1,000 per kilogram, the industry is worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Estimates have suggested that it could reach as much as 4.5 billion over the next 10 to 20 years, but the new study suggests a bleaker future for the sector.

Dr Paul Thomas, from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Stirling, led the research, which is the first study to consider the future threat of climate change on European truffle production.

He said: "Our new study predicts that, under the most likely climate change scenario, European truffle production will decline by between 78 and 100 per cent between 2071 and 2100.

"However, the decline may well occur in advance of this date, when other climate change factors are taken into account, such as heatwaves, forest fires, drought events, pests and disease.

"We risk losing an industry worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the economy. However, the socio-economic impact of the predicted decline could be substantially larger as truffle harvesting and related activities form a key component of local history and cultural activity."

Dr Thomas, working with Professor Ulf Bu?ntgen at the University of Cambridge, studied continuous records, spanning 36 years, of Mediterranean truffle yield in France, Spain and Italy.

The team correlated the data with local weather conditions to assess the impact of climate on production - and combined the results with state-of-the-art climate model projections to predict the likely impact of climate change on truffle yields.

"This is a wake-up call to the impacts of climate change in the not-too-distant future," Dr Thomas said. "These findings indicate that conservational initiatives are required to afford some protection to this important and iconic species. Potential action could include the expansion of truffle plantations into new territories of a more favourable future climate.

"Management strategies should further include mulching materials and cultivation practices to mitigate soil temperature fluctuations and conserve soil moisture."

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Journal The Science of The Total Environment DOI 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.252

The study, A risk assessment of Europe's black truffle sector under predicted climate change, is published in Science of the Total Environment.
Research led by a University of Sussex scientist has turned a 156-year-old law of physics on its head in a development which could lead to more efficient recharging of batteries in cars and mobile phones.

Dr Jordi Prat-Camps, a research fellow at the University of Sussex, has for the first time demonstrated that the coupling between two magnetic elements can be made extremely asymmetrical. Working with colleagues from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and University of Innsbruck, Dr Prat-Camps' research rips up the physics rule book by showing it is possible to make one magnet connect to another without the connection happening in the opposite direction.

The findings run contrary to long-established beliefs of magnetic coupling, which emerge from the four Maxwell equations dating back to the seminal works of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century.

Dr Prat-Camps said: "We have created the first device that behaves like a diode for magnetic fields. Electric diodes are so crucial that none of the existing electronic technologies such as microchips, computers or mobile phones would be possible without them. If our result for magnetic fields would have one millionth of the same impact as the developments in electric diodes, it would be a hugely impactful success. The creation of such a diode opens up a lot of new possibilities for other scientists and technicians to explore. Thanks to our discovery we think it might be possible to improve and the performance of wireless power transfer technologies to improve the efficiency of recharging phones, laptops and even cars."

Dr Prat-Camps' breakthrough builds on research he and colleagues have carried out over a number of years focusing on the control and manipulation of magnetic fields by the use of metamaterials. Recently Dr Prat-Camps and his collaborators have developed new tools to control magnetism including magnetic undetectability cloaks, magnetic concentrators and wormholes.

As other researchers working with other kinds of metamaterials explored the possibility of breaking reciprocity for light and sound waves, Dr Prat-Camps explored whether the same challenge could be applied to magnetic fields.

After several unsuccessful attempts to break magnetic reciprocity, the team decided to try using an electrical conductor in movement. By solving Maxwell's equations analytically, the researchers very quickly demonstrated that not only could reciprocity be broken down but that, the coupling could be made maximally asymmetric, whereby the coupling from A to B would be different from zero but from B to A it would be exactly zero. Having shown that total unidirectional coupling was possible theoretically, the team designed and built a proof-of-concept experiment which confirmed their findings.

Dr Prat-Camps said: "The magnetic coupling between magnets or circuits is something extremely well-known. It dates back to the seminal works of Faraday and Maxwell and it is deeply embedded into the four Maxwell equations that describe all electromagnetic phenomena. A vast majority of the technologies we rely on today are based on magnetic coupling including motors, transformers, low-frequency antennas and wireless power transfer devices. As far as we know, nobody before us thought to ask whether this symmetry could be broken and to what extent."

The researchers are hopeful the findings could have wide implications. Technology reliant on magnetically-based wireless power transfer includes the vast majority of everyday electronic devices like mobile phones and laptops.

Innsbruck physicists Oriol Romero-Isart and Gerhard Kirchmair said: "If the coupling between coils is symmetric, some part of the energy can also flow in the opposite direction which can greatly reduce the efficiency of the transfer. By using a magnetic diode to prevent this backwards flow, the efficiency of the transfer could be greatly enhanced."

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In recent years, cities have asserted themselves as relevant actors in efforts to address global climate change. The announcement by the United States of their intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has generated more attention than ever for what cities and other subnational authorities can do in this field. A new article in the journal Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law asks: how will the balance between countries as central actors of the international system on the one hand and an increasingly assertive league of cities and subnational authorities be struck?

"It is more uncertain than ever how the relationship between states and cities will evolve," said author Prof. Helmut Philipp Aust, of Freie Universitat Berlin. "In the climate change context, but also with respect to migration, cities no longer automatically accept the authority of national governments. This raises difficult questions for international law and politics."

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Public Sector Net Borrowing Exceeds Forecast, AUD Bulls Break GBP Advance

Following a week of recovery for the Sterling the bears have once again taken control, with the GBPAUD FX pair breaking below the developing trend line we've seen in the week thus far.

The pair is currently trading at 1.76430 in a downwards spike following a disappointingly high 8.0B (versus a forecast of 5.6B) Public Sector Net Borrowing release.

Above: GBP/AUD Makes Downside Break of Week's Trend

GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Gains Despite Brexit Concerns, Volatility Expected to Remain High

Pound Sterling (GBP) has continued its recovery against the Australian dollar (AUD) throughout the Asian session, gaining 0.8% in the week thus far following Thursday and Fridays combined dramatic drop of 2.59%.

In the very short-term were seeing an uptrend develop which looks on track to challenge the larger time frame downtrend that has subdued the Pound in recent months.

At the time of writing the GBP/AUD exchange rate is trading at 1.77104 after an overnight high of 1.7750.

Above: GBP/AUD Forms Short-Term Uptrend

Yesterday say both the Australian and UK central banks providing details on the current economic situation and outlook.

The RBAs Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes indicated a resilient economy, with higher business investment, more jobs and a projected growth forecast of 3% for 2018.

In the UK, the Treasury Committee Hearings saw Carney, alongside MPC members, highlight the importance of having some transition between the current arrangements and the ultimate arrangements. In regards to Brexit adding his backing to the current deal, welcome the transition arrangements in the (European Union) withdrawal agreement.

In regards to the Sterling in the foreign exchange markets he said Implied volatility in sterling is very high right now, much higher than it is for other major currencies, for the obvious reasons of the states of the political discussions youre all involved in and the importance for the outlook for the economy in the short and medium term.

Despite the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Brexit, weighing it down against many majors, the AUD is also suffering from uncertainty in the near-term, despite the upbeat economic outlook. With US-China trade tensions flaring up once again over the weekend, proposed high-stakes trade-talks were cancelled which could explain the recent moves to the upside for the GBPAUD pair.

On Todays news agenda we have UK Public Sector Net Borrowing (9.30am). The forecast of 5.6b is higher than the previous months release of 3.3b. Whilst the expectation is for medium market impact, a figure considerably higher than the forecast could fuel some short-term drops for the Pound.
Calls for Fed to Curtail Hiking Policy as Global Risk Sentiment Sours

Following a fifth consecutive day of declining EUROSTOXX50 amidst pressure on global credit, equity and commodity markets, US treasuries failed reflect the conditions highlighting the inability of the market to price out more hikes from the Fed as long as it is on autopilot. This has led to some to call in to question the Feds projected rate hike policy.

In Danske Banks daily brief, they propose that cracks are starting to emerge in the US Economy with the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, suggesting the Fed should pause its scheduled rate hike policy. As speculation over a fading US Dollar emerges, President Trump on the other hand would like to see a reversal to the Feds proposed hikes with a lower of the cash rate.

War of Words Escalates Between US and China Ahead of Buenos Aires G20 Summit

The US-China trade-war also seems to be escalating with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer hurling accusations at China over intellectual property rights theft in a 53 page-document. Following the cancellation of high-stakes trade-talks between the two nations amidst the war of words between Trump and Xi, investors will now be looking to the G20 summit in Argentina later this month as potential venue to resolve the dispute.

In this regard, Danske Bank predict, Our base case is still for a deal at the meeting next week. A scenario which would do much to alleviate global tensions.

AUS and NZD to Benefit from trade Dispute Resolution

For the FX markets such a development would not only impact the US Dollar and Chinese Yaun directly but also major trading partners for the nations. The Australian and New Zealand Dollars represent prime candidates to benefit from a resolution. Exchange rates for the pair, despite upbeat domestic economic outlooks, have been muted amid the global tension.
The United States should stay in the INF Treaty, Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas said during a speech at the Bundestag.

"We stand for the US not to recklessly abandon the INF Treaty, because we don't want Europe to become a platform for debates about nuclear arms," Sputnik cited the German foreign minister as saying.

Maas added that Germany is planning on including the issues of disarmament and arms control to the international agenda in the coming months.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced in October that Washington would leave the INF Treaty.
Public Sector Net Borrowing Exceeds Forecast, Australian Dollar (AUD) Pressure Breaks Sterling (GBP) Advance

This afternoons session has all but wiped out the gains posted by the sterling in the GBP/AUD exchange rate in the week thus far, following a break of the establishing near-term uptrend.

The pair is currently trading at 1.75833 after retracing to the underside of the trend-line. Next notable resistance lies with the 3 month low of 1.74738, set at the tail end of last week.

Above: GBP/AUD Weekly Gains Wiped Out in Afternoon Session

Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate was placed on the defensive on Wednesday morning following the release of some gloomy public borrowing figures from the UK.

Pound (GBP) Dented as UK Public Deficit Swells

The Pound (GBP) took a knock in currency markets on Wednesday morning, retreating against the Australian Dollar (AUD) and many of its other peers, following the publication of the UKs latest public borrowing figures.

According to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the UKs public deficit swelled from a revised 1.981bn to 7.956bn in October, far more than had been forecast by economists.

The ONS reported the UK government was forced to borrow more to balance the books last month as public coffers failed to keep pace with spending.

Despite Octobers setback the long-term outlook of the UKs public finances is one of improvement, with the government still making solid progress year-on-year.

However analysts were quick to point out that the continued improvement in the UKs public finances as outlined in Chancellor Philip Hammonds Autumn Budget, will likely be dependent on the UK securing a favourable Brexit deal.

Ross Campbell, Public Sector Director at ICAEW explains: In the most recent Budget, the Chancellor pledged further investments into the NHS, roads and schools, and again loosened his target for deficit reduction. It looks like Hammond and May have bet on a positive outcome from Brexit, assuming a deal would be struck and pass parliament. The expectation that a Brexit bounce would deliver a spike in business and investment following an agreed deal gave the Chancellor the room to put off the hard decision on putting up taxes. With no clear support in Parliament for the deal, this is a high risk strategy.

Australian Dollars (AUD) Gains Capped by Skittish Investors

Meanwhile the Australian Dollar (AUD) gains on Wednesday were limited somewhat as the recent equity sell-off and a renewed escalation in US-China trade tensions capped demand for the risk-sensitive Aussie.

The Australian Dollar was slammed on Tuesday, weakening against all of its major peers as stocks commodity prices and cryptocurrencies all fell heavily, denting investor confidence and stifling demand for AUD.

While the Aussie showed signs of recovery on Wednesday morning, renewed trade tensions between the US and China appeared to cripple the chances of any notable rally.

The US levelled fresh criticism at China overnight on Tuesday as a report from US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer accused Beijing of maintaining its unfair and unreasonable trade practices despite pressure from the White House.

Lightizers report read: We completed this update as part of this Administrations strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort. This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation.

This is likely to dampen hopes that the two countries will be able to resolve their dispute at the upcoming G20 meeting and could lead to the US intensifying its tariffs against China in the new year.

GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Forecast: Sterling to Face Further Brexit Volatility?

Looking ahead, trade in the Pound Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate may remain mixed for the remainder of the week as the focus turns back to Brexit.

Theresa Mays trip to Brussels on Wednesday is seen as particularly impactful as she meets with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in an attempt to finalise the declaration on future relations between the UK and EU.

Its seen as vital for the text to be in place before an emergency EU summit this Sunday in which EU leaders are expected to approve the draft Brexit deal.

Meanwhile in the absence of any notable Australian data, movement in the Aussie is likely to continue to be dictated by market risk appetite, with AUD exchange rates likely to slide if trade tensions continue to flare.
No Would-Be-PM Wants to Inherit Brexit Responsibilities

This week's political landscape, whilst still choppy, seems to have calmed somewhat after the chaos that ensued last week following the cabinet approval of PM May's Brexit deal. The resultant market impact saw the sterling dive off a cliff across the board in Thursday's trading, with 1-3% being wiped off exchange rates in mere hours, a rout the Pound exchange rates have yet to recover from.

Rabobank's market research proposes the lack of a forthcoming vote of no confidence may be attributed to a tactical delay, rather than a lack of intent, "From the perspective of any of the would-be PMs... Inheriting Brexit at this point of time is not an attractive proposition. Arguably the next leader of the Tory party would rather take over the reins once the Brexit course has been set and their reputation cannot be tarnished by the decisions May has been forced to make."

This comes as several political commentators suggest "if a leadership challenge to PM May had not emerged by the close of yesterday then the immediate dangers to her job were likely to abate" implying we're likely to see PM May maintain leadership until the ongoing Brexit discussions are resolved and a deal can be ratified by both the EU Council and House of Commons.

Political Uncertainty Underpins Pound in the Near-Term

Given the Sterling's recent sensitivity to the ongoing political situation, Rabobank's Jane Foley predicts that "If May survives the week, GBP may take a little comfort." That being said, Foley rounds off with a word of caution, "the currency remains vulnerable and there is a risk that outlook for the pound worsens before it improves."
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Iran hailed its strong relationship with Russia, affirming that the country is the perfect political and trade ally for it.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed that "Russia understands Iran very well, as Moscow itself has been slapped with strict U.S. sanctions."

The foreign minister also accused the United States of attempting to slap countries with extra pressure in order to impose sanctions against Iran.

Zarif further underlined the need for reviving the condition in Syria while bringing back harmony and independence among Arab nations, MENAFN.COM reported.
Savings of up to $1,000 per couple on five European vacations were announced today for five Grand Circle Travel tours.

"The savings can reduce the cost significantly for a couple, up to $1,000, but the special savings are only available for one week," notes Jesse Slome, author of a travel blog that shares special information on tours from various operators including Grand Circle Travel and Overseas Adventure Travel.

"This is a limited time opportunity to grab a spot on a tour to Spain, Portugal England, Ireland or Italy," Slome shared. "The $1,000 savings on the selected Grand Circle Travel tours is available for tours booked by November 29, 2018 where a special discount code is provided."



To access the tour and code information visit Slome's Discount Overseas Adventure Travel blog at www.discountoverseasadventuretravel.com.

Jesse Slome has traveled to dozens of countries for both business and recreation. A lover of desserts, Slome serves as director of several insurance organizations including the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance and the American Association for Medicare Supplement Insurance.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

During National Nurses Week we acknowledge the excellence and dedication of those who choose the nursing profession. It begins each year on May 6th and ends on May 12th, Florence Nightingales birthday. I grew up surrounded by nurses in a nursing home that my family owned and operated from the mid 1940s until 1960. We lived in a small village in Connecticut and my mothers skills as a Registered Nurse also made her the go-to person for emergencies  cuts, burns, broken bones, head injuries and even emotional problems.

I remember my mother calmly cleaning and dressing a bloody wound after a neighbor fell from a ladder and, on another occasion, carefully positioning a childs possibly broken leg after a fall from a tree. Eventually, a doctor might arrive. But watching my mother and her colleagues in action, day after day, offered me firsthand knowledge that nurses were unsung heroines who never hesitated to respond to an emergency.

Nurses in war zones and military settings have done their job quietly and largely unnoticed as well, putting their lives in peril on the battlefield for centuries. Yet, little is known about their experiences in war or exactly how many participated.

Appropriate financial remuneration in the nursing profession has also been meager and long in coming. Only at the end of the twentieth century did nurses pay, both in military and civilian life, begin to become commensurate with the risks and responsibilities of their jobs.

Many women served as nurses during the Revolutionary War, but they are barely mentioned in history books. The Second Continental Congress, heeding George Washingtons advice to establish a means of caring for wounded and sick soldiers, authorized the formation of hospitals. In July of 1775, congress initiated a plan to provide one nurse for every ten patients and a supervising matron for every ten nurses. But, nurses were not always easy to find and formal training was nonexistent. General Washington blamed the low compensation rateoriginally $2 a monthfor the shortage of nurses, but its more probable that a woman risked receiving a bad moral reputation if she wanted to be a nurse. Nursing care and prostitution were considered to be similar occupations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Congress did increase nurses pay in 1776 to $8 a month.

Louisa May Alcott, long before Little Women was written, had a brief career as an army nurse during the Civil War. Her first publication, Hospital Sketches, was a detailed account of her experience. Louisa was an unknown but zealous patriot when she arrived in Washington, DC, in 1862, to work in the Union Hotel Army Hospital. She had read Florence Nightingales Notes on Nursing and Dr. Homes Report on Gunshot Wounds, but that was the extent of her training. She described in letters to her family that, on her first day, stretcher after stretcher arrived from the battle of Fredericksburgeach with a legless, armless or desperately wounded occupant.." Louisa cared for hundreds of soldiers with devastating wounds and lost limbs, working with little more than soap, water, and whiskey.

Her descriptions were so vivid and evoked so much emotion about caring for the wounded, that the Union Army published Hospital Sketches and provided it to the families of soldiers. This small volume established her reputation as an author, but her experience devastated her health. She contracted Typhoid Pneumonia after six weeks and would suffer from the poisonous effects of treatment with mercury until her death in 1888.

She reported in her journal that she was pleased to receive ten dollars for her short stint in Washington, revealing that the pay had barely improved in one hundred years since the Revolutionary War. Approximately 6000 women served as nurses during the Civil War and their reward was largely the legacy of gratitude described in the letters and journals of the wounded.

Fifty years later, in 1901, the Army Nurse Corp was created during the Spanish-American War and nurses were appointed to work for three years but were not commissioned as army officers. The appointment could be renewed if their skills were satisfactory, but it would take two more wars and another fifty years for nurses to receive commissioned officer status in 1944.

I am on this earth because of the compassion of nurses. During World War I, my grandfather served in the British Army and ended up in a hospital in Malta after suffering the effects of mustard gas and severe wounds in France. The nurses suggested that he correspond with someone. He remembered a young woman he had met on a farm in Connecticut years before. The letters commenced and they married on his return, eventually creating my mother.

Growing up around nurses in the 1950s I was privy to occasional stories and vivid memories. One former army nurse would sit with me and my brothers at a picnic table during her break-time and launch into a story. She once described being one of sixty nurses, climbing over the side of a ship off the coast of North Africa and down an iron ladder into small assault boats. Each boat carried nurses, medical officers, and enlisted men. The nurses wore helmets and carried full packs containing bandages, medicine, gas masks, and canteen belts. Only their Red Cross arm bands and lack of weapons distinguished them from fighting troops. They waded ashore and huddled behind a sand dune while enemy snipers took potshots at them. Before the night was over, their commanding officer ordered them to an abandoned civilian hospital, where they began caring for casualties. There was no electricity or running water, and the only medical supplies available were those they had brought themselves. We kids jumped out of our seats when she described the rat-a-tat-tat of enemy fire overhead.

Nurses were not spared capture and imprisonment during the war. In 1945 U.S. troops liberated sixty-seven army nurses who had been imprisoned in Santo Tomas Internment Camp since 1942 and evacuated them to a convalescent hospital on Leyte where they recovered from malnutrition. Like many men who saw the worst of war, these women came home and slipped back into their communities and rarely shared their experiences.

The exact number of nurses who served in World War II is unknown, but they received 1,619 medals, citations, and commendations. Overall, 201 nurses died while serving in the Army in World War II.

During the Korean War, Army nurses
San Antonios Vantage Bank Texas and McAllens Inter National Bank announced Wednesday that they have completed their merger.

The banks, which announced plans to merge in July, will have about $1.9 billion in combined total assets. The deal creates the states 42nd largest bank based on assets as of June 30, according to the Texas Department of Banking.

The two banks are expected to consolidate operations under the Vantage Bank Texas name, with 24 branches. As of Sept. 30, the banks had a combined $1.5 billion in loans and $1.6 billion in deposits. VBT Financial Corp. is the holding company for the merged institutions.

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The merger had been in the works for more than a year before it was announced. The family of James W. Collins purchased a 100 percent interest in INB from Grupo Financiero Banorte of Mexico for an undisclosed price in spring 2017. The family already owned a controlling interest in the parent company of Vantage Bank and acquired the remaining shares in April, setting the stage for a merger.

We have long maintained that this merger creates substantial value for all of our customers and employees, Collins said in a statement. Our goal is to remain a premier financial services organization while remaining a local, family-owned institution.

Collins is a general partner of Rioco Partners, a private equity and real estate investment firm based in McAllen.

Collins family has been involved in South Texas community banking for more than 50 years. He and another McAllen businessman founded INB in 1985 and sold it to Grupo Financiero Banorte in 2006.

The family invested in Vantage in 2008. They acquired the remaining shares for less than $1 a share earlier this year, according to a minority shareholder who didnt want to be identified. Original shareholders of Vantages predecessor had purchased shares for $7.50 each.

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Guy Bodine, who retired as Vantage Banks chairman, CEO and president with the mergers completion, said in a March 6 letter to shareholders that some would lose money on the Collins familys purchase of the minority shares.

While many of our shareholders will not recoup their original investment, based upon the opinion of our financial advisors we believe this transaction represents a fair price to the minority shareholders, Bodine said in the letter. The letter was provided to the San Antonio Express-News by the minority shareholder who didnt want to be identified.

Sam Munafo, INBs CEO and president, will serve as CEO of the combined banks.

We will be one bank with one leadership team, Munafo said in a statement. We are excited to have made increased investments in our technology platform and in people and systems dedicated to customer service.

After the banks integrate operations next month, they will expand product offerings in San Antonio to include mortgage service and currency exchange services.

INB had 393 employees, almost $1.4 billion in assets, about $1.1 billion in deposits and slightly more than $1 billion in loans as of Sept. 30, according to data filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It generated $16.4 million in net income in the first nine months of the year, a 52 percent increase from $10.8 million in net income in the same period last year.

Vantage had 91 employees, $533.8 million in assets, $475.1 million in deposits and $421 million in loans as of Sept. 30. It posted $570,000 in net income through the first nine months of the year, down from $2.4 million for the same period last year.

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD
By Sunday it had been 10 days since the Camp Fire swept through the town of Paradise, and 10 days since Chrissy Mullinax had reported her mother Cheren Mullinax missing to the Butte County Sheriffs Office.

But not only was the elder Mullinax missing from her family, her name was absent from every Camp Fire missing persons list that Butte County Sheriffs Office had released to the public. Mullinax tried repeatedly to correct this omission, but her mothers name remained in administrative purgatory: Not found, not confirmed dead, not counted as missing.

Starved for answers from her home in Tennessee, the daughter turned to her last option: a desperate Facebook post in a group created for families of the missing. One of the group admins commented and publicized the post, and within hours there was a hit: A reporter had interviewed her mother at a shelter days ago, and better yet, there was photo proof that she was alive.

The admins that are running that Camp Fire missing persons group on Facebook  theyre the only reason why anybodys getting as far as theyre getting, the daughter said Monday. Theyre doing so much better than the hotline.

Amid the chaos of Butte Countys search and recovery efforts, identifying remains and recording the thousands of names reported missing since the fire, families say theyre often left to their own devices to track down loved ones. Its a last resort made necessary by one simple, frustrating factor in the aftermath of the conflagrations devastation: Because of the inevitable chaos involved, the technique of accounting for everyone missing is by definition slow, incomplete and constantly evolving.

This means that worried relatives who cant make it to Butte County have become armchair detectives. They blast social media posts, collect clues from news reports, and connect with other families. Those who can make the drive do all of the above and comb the shelters one by one.

Tammie Konickis family hasnt heard from her mother, 64-year-old Sheila Santos, since the morning of Nov. 8, when the fire began. Konicki said Santos lived at Holly Hills Mobile Estates with a roommate, and there was one set of remains that was found outside their trailer.

Konicki reported her mother missing, and has submitted a DNA sample. But Santos name hasnt turned up on the official list of the missing or dead, leaving her to search for answers alongside the family of her mothers roommate.

In a Sunday evening interview, Konicki said she was actually growing more hopeful each day. Through various degrees of separation, Konicki heard that her mother had escaped with a neighbor.

We keep getting calls from sheriffs asking for more information about her, Konicki said Sunday evening. And from a couple of sources I have, thats possibly a very good sign.

By Monday morning though, that hope was all but dashed.

Talked to sheriff they have a tentative body, she wrote in a text.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea has repeatedly warned that the list was not to be taken literally, and likely contains people who in fact are alive and should not be presumed dead. Its released as raw data, mined from reports from the missing persons hotline, emails and records generated during 911 calls. It could include repeated names or reports from those who simply didnt know someone moved out of the area.

This phenomenon is common in massive fire tragedies, said Lt. Paul Liskey, emergency manager for the Alameda County Sheriffs Office, who is aiding Butte County Sheriffs Office with search and recovery efforts.

There were more than 500 reports of missing people after the 2016 Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, where 36 people died. And there were more than 2,200 missing person reports after last years Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County, which killed 24.

Liskey, whose office advised Butte County on how to track the missing, said the overcount is an act of due diligence. Internally though, the names are prioritized by how concrete the reporting is and the probability of the persons last known location.

I cant waste resources looking for somebody until were through the high probabilities, he said. Then we go to the lower probabilities.

The Sheriffs Office hasnt published a list of people reported missing who are now accounted for, but the number is climbing every day. There were 993 people still unaccounted for as of Sunday evening and 1,318 who were on the list but have since been found.

Last year amid the Tubbs fire, the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office chose not to publish a missing persons list at all.

I think our biggest thing was, we didnt want to freak people out, when theyre just sitting in the shelter, said spokesman Sgt. Spencer Crum.

Sonoma County deployed officers from the probation department to search for the missing, Crum said, and put family members in touch with people who were found.

Its highly possible that many of the missing are safe at shelters. Butte County Sheriffs spokeswoman Megan McMann said the Red Cross and other organizations running shelters have provided names of people staying with them, but those lists could be incomplete.

Evacuees arriving at Red Cross shelters are asked to check yes or no on whether the Red Cross can share their names with law enforcement. About 500 people are at Red Cross six Camp Fire shelters and about 500 are at private shelters, said Red Cross spokeswoman Cynthia Shaw.

Those who check no typically do so because of domestic violence fears  or because they dont want to be bothered by the agency, Shaw said. For those that say no, we will encourage them either to allow us to share it or to reach out to (law enforcement) directly.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com
Ancient aromas of sesame, sumac and cardamom from the simmering pots, sizzling skewers of meat and piping hot loaves of bread swirl overhead as one strolls through the food vendors and spice merchants in the souks of Israel. But thats only part of what hits the senses, recalls San Antonio resident Samantha Mazuz, who lived there for two years.

Israel is a safe place for Jews to come from all over the world, and the cuisine speaks to that, Mazuz said.

Shes a New Jersey native, and her husband, Idan Mazuz, was born in Israel to parents from Yemen and Libya.

Northern African, Ashkenazi dishes, European foods. Its all just mixed together, all this intermarriage, she said. Its definitely an experience. When you walk though the market, you feel that. The different flavors, the different smells.

The modern state of Israel marked its 70th birthday in May, and in that time the swath of land nestled between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan has grown from less than a million people to nearly 9 million. Immigration has been a significant part of that growth, resulting in a nation where more than 35 languages can be heard across a country just a bit larger than the state of Vermont.

This week, with Hanukkah fast approaching (Dec. 2 through Dec. 10), we have a batch of recipes reflecting some of the global flavors that make up modern Israeli cuisine both in Israel and as served here in the United States.

On ExpressNews.com: Nothing says Hanukkah like latkes

It wasnt hard to find recipes. Israeli cuisine has starred in more than a dozen cookbooks published in the past few years and topped multiple lists by food world trend watchers.

The London-based Yotam Ottolenghi is the genres rock star. His 2012 tribute to his birthplace, Jerusalem: A Cookbook, arguably sparked a frenzied global interest in Israels flavors. Hes published more than a half-dozen titles featuring Israei flavors, including this years Ottolenghi Simple: A Cookbook.

Noted chefs Michael Solomonov, Alon Shaya, Tomer Amedi and others also have weighed in with distinctive views on the evolution of Israeli cuisine both there and abroad.

Solomonov was born in Israel, raised in Pittsburgh and rose to prominence in Philadelphia at his James Beard Award-winning restaurant Zahav. His first book, published in 2015, was a tribute to that eatery. His 2018 effort, Israeli Soul, is intensely focused on the food of modern Israel.

Related: Israeli food stars at updated Moshes Golden Falafel

Shaya, a Tel Aviv native, made his name as a restaurateur in New Orleans. His first cookbook, Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel, was released in March.

Amedi helmed the kitchen at The Palomar in London, and he brought sensibilities from his Jerusalem upbringing flavored by Moroccan and Kurdish parents. His recipes appeared in 2017s The Palomar Cookbook: Modern Israeli Cuisine.

These authors and others present recipes influenced by their own backgrounds plus the flavors of Russia, Poland, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and scores of other countries brought in by new residents.

The influx of foreign flavors continues today, Mazuz said. The reasons are heartbreaking and old as time, but not surprising, to Mazuz: Antisemitic sentiment sweeping through Europe has driven several thousand French Jews to Israel in the past few years. Thats resulted in French-inspired restaurants and bars Mazuz visited in Tel Aviv.

I think Israels cuisine is forever evolving, Mazuz said. Its really beautiful.

Recipe: Zucchini Schnitzel

Recipe: Yemenite Stewed Chicken

Recipe: Tahini Ice Cream

Recipe: Stuffed Eggplant

Recipe: Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Feta

Recipe: Jerusalem Grill Rice Pilaf with Pine Nuts

Recipe: Cod Chraymeh

Paul Stephen is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pstephen@express-news.net | Twitter: @pjbites | Instagram: @pjstephen
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on Wednesday dismissed rumors that the ministry is getting ready to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially called the JCPOA, saying such rumors are designed to negatively impact the Iranian economy.

These rumors are certainly false, baseless and purposeful, Qassemi said in a statement, Tehran Times reported citing the Foreign Ministry website.

They are created by certain domestic and foreign circles with destructive intentions and are aimed at making people worried, creating baseless tensions and negatively impacting the economy and peoples livelihood, he explained.
A pair of acquisitions on Monday worth almost $2 billion combined showed that the focus of the oil and gas sector remains on West Texas burgeoning Permian Basin.

In one deal, Cimarex Energy said it will buy its smaller Denver rival Resolute Energy for almost $1 billion in a combination of two companies primarily working in the Permian. With little land in the Permian not spoken for, Cimarex is buying out a competitor mainly to gain its more than 21,000-acre position in the plays Delaware Basin, specifically in Reeves County.

In the other deal Monday, yet another Denver-based company, QEP Resources, said it will sell its Haynesville shale assets in northwestern Louisiana for $735 million to a Dallas private equity-backed firm so it can concentrate exclusively on the Permian. Less than two weeks ago, QEP agreed to sell its Williston Basin acreage in North Dakota and Montana for $1.7 billion as it unloads all its assets outside the Permian.

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Despite temporary pipeline shortages, the Permian remains so popular that a number of companies are working together to invest in communities in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, including in the Midland-Odessa region. The Permian shale oil resurgence in the last couple of years upended the area, and community services and housing supplies were woefully unprepared for the influx of new people.

The Permian Strategic Partnership, which formed earlier this year, has quickly grown from a handful of companies to 17 and counting. The partnership said it is pledging more than $100 million to help improve roads, schools, health care, housing and workforce training.

The Permian now accounts for nearly one-third of the nations record-high oil production of about 11.7 million barrels a day.

The list of companies in the group includes Big Oil players Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as a bevy of Houston producers such as Occidental Petroleum Corp., EOG Resources, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Apache Corp., and major services providers such as Schlumberger and Halliburton.

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The plan, in the coming months, is for the partnership to open an office and hire staff to help lead the effort. Early next year, the companies will launch community meetings to invite citizen input and recruit volunteers.

For most of this year, the Midland-Odessa region has represented the nations hottest housing market, according to the National Association of Realtors, beating out coastal tech centers like San Francisco and Boston.

A once-in-a-generation opportunity has brought us together for a common purpose  to strengthen the communities where we live and work, the partnership said in its announcement.

jordan.blum@chron.com

twitter.com/jdblum23
The 5,800 active-duty troops stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border had no reason to doubt it. Their work stringing concertina wire and building earthen barriers along the Rio Grande would not last much longer.

Their commanding general was planning to send them home before Christmas, and on Friday he said so. On Monday, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said some units might leave as soon as this week.

Now, things arent so clear.

On Tuesday, U.S. Army North backtracked from Buchanans Yuletide optimism.

No specific timeline for redeployment has been determined, the San Antonio-based command said. We will provide more details as they become available.

It wasnt clear what prompted the about-face or when the soldiers might pack up and head home. Army North had no comment beyond its one-paragraph statement. A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to emails and phone calls. Buchanan, who was visiting troops in California, was unavailable.

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Buchanan leads the active-duty border mission that President Donald Trump ordered in late October, in response to several thousand Central American men, women and children making their way through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.

Buchanan told the San Antonio Express-News on Friday that much of the work done by Army engineers to fortify points of entry along the Southwest border had been completed.

He said the end date for the mission was Dec. 15  and that no one had told him otherwise.

Thats the completion of the mission, so we will redeploy in concert with that, he said

Asked if his troops could expect to be home by Christmas, he replied, Well, yeah. The end date for the mission is 15 December, which is a week before Christmas, so sure, thats exactly right.

Buchanan went further Monday, telling Politico that some soldiers could begin returning to their bases this week once their duties were completed.

The president ordered the border deployment a week before the Nov. 6 midterm election, and some critics, including former high-ranking military commanders, have called it a stunt intended to motivate Republican voters. Retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the mission as a wasteful deployment of overstretched soldiers and Marines.

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Defense Secretary James Mattis, however, insisted last week that the operation was legal, ethical and great training.

By law, active-duty soldiers cannot perform law enforcement duties. The combat engineers, MPs and other personnel are on a logistical support mission: to fortify the border, build roads and transport federal Border Patrol agents as necessary.

Retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who once headed the U.S. Strategic Command, said the approaching holiday season should have no bearing on how long the troops stay.

Its an emotional issue, he said. During World War II, people thought the war would be over before Christmas of 1945 and 44. But from a military perspective, they have a job to do. Get the job done. When the jobs done, you go home - not before.

Buchanan said Friday that as needs arise, he might move troops from one place to another to speed up the work. But he said he had no intention of keeping people on the border any longer than necessary.

I am not going to keep them here artificially all the way to the 15th of December, he said. When theyre done with their part of the operation, I do, in fact, intend to send them home.

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
NASA will investigate the workplace culture at SpaceX and Boeing, including drug use, less than a year before the two companies are scheduled to launch their first crewed missions to space, the agency confirmed Tuesday.

NASA will be conducting a cultural assessment study in coordination with our commercial partners to ensure the companies are meeting NASAs requirements for workplace safety, including the adherence to a drug-free environment, Kathryn Hambleton, a spokeswoman at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., told the Houston Chronicle.

News of the probe first was reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, which wrote that the safety review was prompted by a September podcast on which SpaceX founder Elon Musk smoked marijuana and drank whiskey.

William Gerstenmaier, NASAs associate administrator for human exploration, told the Post that the review would examine everything and anything that could impact safety, including hours worked, drug policies and if safety concerns are taken seriously.

MAJOR LOSS: NASAs recent woes took root with loss of space shuttle program

In statements Tuesday, both Boeing and SpaceX confirmed their commitment to safety.

The culture at Boeing ensures the integrity, safety and quality of our products, our people and their work environment, Boeing said in its statement. As NASAs trusted partner since the beginning of human spaceflight, we share the same values and are committed to continuing our legacy of trust, openness and mission success.

SpaceX said it takes its mission from NASA to carry American astronauts to the International Space Station seriously.

SpaceX actively promotes workplace safety and we are confident that our comprehensive drug-free workforce and workplace programs exceed all applicable contractual requirements, the statement read.

Both companies were hired in 2014 by NASA to fly astronauts to the space station as a means of replacing the space shuttle program, which was shuttered in 2011. Its not immediately clear if the review will impact the test flights scheduled for next year.

FLYING COMMERCIAL: NASA names first 9 astronauts to fly on commercial vehicles by Boeing, SpaceX

The review comes at a rough time for both NASA and SpaceX, as the space agency tries to negotiate hurdles that can be traced back to the end of the shuttle program and as Musk negotiates numerous scandals largely related to Tesla, his electric car company.

Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch, wrote on his website devoted to space news that the investigation could be problematic for the space program.

NASA has run out of things to blame its own internal failures on so they go after two external partners to see if there is anything they can dig up, he wrote. The net result will probably be a delay to Boeing and SpaceX launches, which will make [Space Launch System rocket] delays look less bad, I guess.

NASA woes

The loss of the space shuttle in 2011 was felt acutely over the course of just one week in October.

First, the Hubble Space Telescope  the groundbreaking observatory that was built to be serviced by the shuttle  stopped working.

Then, NASAs Office of Inspector General released a report stating the launch of Orion  the spacecraft being built to take humans back to the moon  likely would be delayed because of cost and development problems with its SLS rocket.

And as if that werent enough, the launch of a Russia spacecraft transporting an American to the space station was aborted because of a rocket booster failure  the first incident of its kind in 35 years.

ABORTED LAUNCH: American, Russian astronauts safe after emergency landing of Soyuz MS-10

Of all the recent problems, the emergency landing of the Russian Soyuz highlighted the need for the commercial crew program to get up and running. Now, NASA pays Russia $82 million per seat to take astronauts to the space station, and for a short while after the aborted launch, American astronauts had no means of getting to the space station the U.S. has dumped billions of dollars into.

Russian officials have since said they found the source of the problem and rescheduled the next flight  originally expected to take off Dec. 20  to Dec. 3.

In an effort to avoid the grounding of astronauts, the U.S. awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts totaling $6.8 billion in 2014. The two companies initially were expected to launch crewed test flights this year.

But, like many space-related programs, their schedules have slipped. Now, SpaceX plans to launch an uncrewed flight test in January, with a crewed flight test the following June. Boeings changes are similar, with an uncrewed flight test in March and crewed flight test in August.

A WHIRLWIND FEW MONTHS: NASA astronaut Anne McClain says she's ready for flight to Space Station

A NASA safety panel in October released a report calling into question both companies timelines and construction.

For example, it found that Boeing still has not completed several important tests on the parachute systems, heat shield and other components of the spacecraft. It also found that SpaceX was struggling with the parachute system.

The companies schedules to fly have considerable risk and do not appear achievable given the number of technical issues yet to be resolved, the panel.

Despite these delays, NASA already has announced the nine astronauts who will be the first to fly on Boeing and SpaceX vehicles.

Controversies

Musks SpaceX company has had many successes this year, including launching a Tesla automobile into space and sending its Dragon cargo ship to the space station 15 times.

But Musk has also been plagued with controversies. In an August interview with The New York Times in which he choked up several times, he said that this past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career.

The interview came a week after Musk announced on Twitter that he had funding secured to take Tesla private. Musk eventually stepped down as chairman of Tesla, paying a $20 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which argued that the tweet constituted him lying to investors.

Additionally, Musk is being sued for defamation after calling a rescue volunteer trying to save children caught in a Thai cave this summer a pedo and child rapist, apparently without proof.

And then, of course, there was the podcast in which he smoked pot, which the Post reported is the cause of the NASA review announced Tuesday.

READ MORE: NASAs Orion launch faces further delays as new problems emerge with rocket development

Cowing wrote on NASA Watch that it doesnt matter what SpaceX or Boeing may or may not be smoking given their contributions to space exploration.

SpaceX can reuse rockets and learned how to do so at a fraction of what it would have taken NASA to do so  if they even knew how, that is, he wrote. NASA has no rockets to reuse and they spent a billion dollars to make reusable shuttle engines disposable.

Its not clear how long the review will take, but Hambleton said NASA is serious about the investigation.

We fully expect our commercial partners to meet all workplace safety requirements in the execution of our missions and the services they provide the American people, according to the NASA statement.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
Manuel Medina had a vision.

In late 2016, Medina, then the Bexar County Democratic Party chairman, examined the way Donald Trumps presidential campaign tapped into populist outrage and anti-establishment resentment on both ends of the political spectrum by building an army of the disillusioned and the disenfranchised.

So Medina decided to apply that lesson to a mayoral campaign, consciously assembling one of the weirdest coalitions ever seen in San Antonio politics: progressive Democrats, tea-party Republicans and public-safety unions; South Side Chicano activists locking arms with North Side trust-fund titans.

It didnt matter why you resented City Hall.

It could have been that you lived north of the loop and never got over the citys ill-fated attempt to muscle a downtown streetcar project to completion.

Maybe you were angry about the City Councils 2014 approval of the displacement of residents of the Mission Trails mobile home park to make way for a high-scale development.

It might have been simple irritation at the thought that City Manager Sheryl Sculley received nearly $500,000 a year.

Related: Fitch to reassess San Antonio creditworthiness after charter amendment election

No matter the reason, Medina wanted to speak to/for you.

Ultimately, Medina was too erratic a messenger for San Antonio voters to take seriously in 2017. On election day, he finished a distant third behind Ivy Taylor and Ron Nirenberg, receiving only 15 percent of the vote.

Nonetheless, Medina, the veteran political consultant who immigrated from Mexico at the age of 3, was on to something.

That much should have been obvious two weeks ago to anyone who watched, with some combination of shock and awe, as two out of three charter-amendment propositions from the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association (SAPFA) passed, despite opposition from Mayor Ron Nirenberg and a deep-pocketed Go Vote No campaign.

Voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition B, which limits the city managers pay to 10 times that of the lowest paid city employee and tenure to no more than eight years. By a thin margin, they also granted firefighters the power to unilaterally declare an impasse in contract talks with the city and take the issue to binding arbitration.

The propositions were opposed by Monica Alcantara, the current Bexar County Democratic Party chair, and many grassroots Democrats. Nonetheless, Medinas rogue faction of Manuelistas on the partys County Executive Committee passed a resolution endorsing the propositions.

Medinas ardent support for SAPFAs propositions didnt surprise anyone who saw him campaigning for mayor last year.

Related: Brockhouse, San Antonio firefighters union take victory lap

During that race, he often blasted Sculley and boasted that his first act as mayor would be to terminate her employment (cheerfully skirting the fact that such a move would require the support of a City Council majority).

May 6th new mayor  May 7th new city manager, Medina proclaimed at the time.

At a City Hall news conference in March 2017, Medina was introduced by bomb-throwing SAPFA President Chris Steele. Medina also drew an endorsement from George Rodriguez, the former president of the San Antonio Tea Party, less than three years after Medina had branded the tea party movement a terrorist organization. The news-conference crowd included Medinas Democratic loyalists from the South and West sides.

It added up to a bewildering alliance, but Medina was searching for the sweet spot where chronic progressive frustration with City Hall  the sense that the problems of low-income residents are being ignored while lobbyists and big-money developers get what they want  met conservative hostility to big government.

That unwieldy coalition came through for SAPFAs propositions in a way that it didnt for Medinas mayoral bid. An analysis of the recent midterm election by Express-News reporter John Tedesco found that Proposition B enjoyed strong support in both the south and north ends of San Antonio, a rare achievement in a city where the partisan hue tends to get redder the farther north you go.

The belated success of Medinas coalition-building effort has coincided with rampant rumors that he might be eyeing a 2019 City Council campaign against District 8 incumbent Manny Pelaez.

Pelaez said he heard the rumor from local Democrats and met with Medina for lunch to ask about it. Medina told him that he had no interest.

Medina said the same thing to me last week.

Ive heard that, but I certainly havent been talking about it or thinking about it, Medina said. Im just trying to organize and grow our Democratic base  celebrating the blue wave in S.A., and well get back to it next year and work to elect more Democrats.

Why run for City Council, after all, when you can have more fun sabotaging it with charter amendments?

@gilgamesh470

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Republicans recently chose Mitch McConnell to continue on as Senate Majority Leader.

Meanwhile, Arizona voters elected Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate.

No word yet on whether Sinema plans to break from her party and support McConnell in all legislative matters because she sees him as her boss.

Its worth mentioning given that not so long ago, Sinema pulled a stunt like that back home.

If such extreme bipartisan cooperation sounds crazy, then youve never covered Arizona politics.

I was in the sandbox in the 1990s, when I wrote for the Arizona Republic. There, I covered the infancy of the modern immigration debate. And I still check in periodically  through friends, family, and sources  on the bizarre happenings in the Grand Canyon State.

One of the stranger things happened nearly seven years ago when a group called Citizens for a Better Arizona launched an effort to recall Republican lawmaker Russell Pearce. He was the author of SB 1070, the states racist immigration law, and he was also the powerful president of the Arizona state senate.

Pearce lost his recall election in November 2011.

Soon thereafter, according to the Phoenix New Times, at a meeting of the local chapter of Progressive Democrats of America, Sinema  who was then an Arizona state senator  was asked by Latina activist Lilia Alvarez why she hadnt supported the effort to recall Pearce.

According to Alvarez, and several others in the room, Sinema gave what has to be one of the most ridiculous answers in the history of Arizona politics.

Something like: Russell Pearce is my boss, and thats why I couldnt get involved.According to the Huffington Post at the time, Sinema spokesman Rodd McLeod insisted that the Democrat did support the recall  just privately. He also claimed that her boss comment was taken out of context, and that she was merely trying to explain to the activists how the Senate worked.

Sinema said much the same thing, doubling down on the claim that Pearce was the boss of the senate.

Thus, Sinema wasnt really being complicit in Pearces racist agenda. She was just being condescending as she tried to explain the workings of government to the great unwashed because  according to multiple sources  she always considers herself the smartest person in the room. Oh, thats much better.

As Senate president, Pearce did indeed set the agenda, and he did decide the fate of bills. But the idea that a Republican senate president is the boss of a Democratic senator is absurd.

In fact, its just as outrageous as when Sinema told the NBC affiliate in Phoenix that she supported the idea of Pearce running for Congress because, she said, I love Russell. We get along very well.

Only in Arizona.

Ive heard that Sinema condescension directly. A few years ago, when she was in the House of Representatives, I interviewed her and asked about her hardline stance on immigration enforcement.

In Congress, Sinema co-sponsored a bill calling for regular border threat analysis of terrorism, smuggling and human trafficking. She supported Kates Law, which sprang out of the hysteria over so-called sanctuary cities and would have expanded prison sentences for illegal immigrants who re-enter the country after being deported. She voted for the SAFE Act, which made it more difficult for refugees to enter the United States. And she broke with other Democrats in opposing efforts to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

At one point, in response to a question she didnt like, she called me combative  and then ended the interview. As various activists in Phoenix have told me, she hates being challenged and doesnt take criticism well.

She illustrates perfectly the great mirage of the Arizona immigration debate. Supposedly white Democrats stick their necks out every day to defend Latino constituents against anti-immigration nativists.

Yeah, not so much.

Sinema also doesnt stick to her campaign promises. In July, while trying to win over conservatives, she told Politico that she wouldnt support Chuck Schumer for Senate Minority Leader. This week, when Schumer was re-elected by acclamation, no one objected  including the Senator-elect from Arizona.

Wed better get used to such maneuvers. Sinema looks out for Sinema. Shell say what you want to hear, and then do what is best for her.

In other words, when this one is sworn in and takes her seat in the Senate, shell fit right in.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com
Re: Life in the very, very slow lane, north on U.S. 281, front page, Saturday:

Since I found myself in Fridays traffic snafu that was northbound U.S. 281, I started reading this article. I expected to only read a paragraph or two; after all, how interesting could an article on traffic be?

Instead I found writer Bruce Selcraigs tongue-in-cheek style to be so engaging that I ended up reading it out loud to my husband. It almost made my own hourlong 281 traffic experience seem like an adventure. Almost.

I will be looking forward to more of Selcraigs articles!

Cindy McFarland

Iran policy right

Re: Iran policy wrong, Your Turn, Sunday:

This letter could not be further from reality. Our current policy is shaped around the fact that current Iranian policies are shaped around spreading terror and unrest throughout the Middle East.

Perhaps you have forgotten how our hostages were kept imprisoned for 444 days during the Carter administration. President Ronald Reagan was sworn in, and the hostages were released immediately. Trace back the previous eight years of the Obama presidency, and our military was not properly funded and left in disarray.

Oh, yes, lets discuss the previous officeholder sending billions to this rogue nation in the middle of the night and, of course, it was not payment for hostages, who were not released until the money was on Iranian soil.

With all due respect, your respect for Irans people should be focused on who that regime has in power, and that is who is oppressing the population of Iran. Its not the USA.

Frederick L. Bricker

Vote for the best

Re: Women were the big winners, front page, Nov. 11:

This headline says, again, that women and minorities should only vote for women and minorities.

This is a very bad idea. This idea led to the election of such dishonest people as U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and Mayors Carmen Yulin Cruz and Kwame Kilpatrick. Voters should look at the candidates credentials, experience and record, and vote for the best candidate. If the best candidate is a woman or minority, all the better.

There have been many men who have stood for civil and womens rights, going back to Abraham Lincoln.

Alvin Ronnfeldt
Re: Heroic Doughboy shrouded by myth and mystery, front page, Nov. 11:

In this story about San Antonios first Medal of Honor winner, David B. Barkley, there is no mention of the fact that Camp Barkeley outside Abilene was named in his honor on Jan. 12, 1941.

Camp Barkeley was one of the largest training camps during World War II, with over 60,000 soldiers, and was twice the size of Abilene. It had a 2,300-bed hospital and the largest medical training center, plus an officers candidate school that graduated 12,500 medical officers. The famous cartoonist Bill Mauldin, creator of Willie and Joe, trained here with the 45th Infantry Division. It later included a German POW camp. Camp Barkeley was deactivated after the war ended.

I was a member of K Company, 142 Infantry Regiment, 36 Infantry Division, National Guard from Sweetwater, and we used the old rifle range at Camp Barkeley in 1954. While working in the target pits I recalled graffiti on the walls from soldiers from up north expressing their unpleasant opinions of our great state. I often wonder if those who survived the war are now residents enjoying our warm climate.

The spelling of his last name as Barkley and Barkeley is also an issue, as it is spelled both ways in The Handbook of Texas.

Ray Martinez, New Braunfels

More parties

Re: Centrist Party, Your Turn, Nov. 10:

Bravo! The concept that many, and perhaps the majority, of American citizens are much closer to center deserves merit.

I have been having this discussion with politically minded friends for many years, and on several occasions another capital idea came to light. Why not let the tea party go form their own party (they do call themselves a party ), and allow the far left to form a Socialist Party? Then perhaps the remaining Republican and Democratic parties could return to moderate productive ground. The result would be many more issues discussed and brought to light.

For those of us raised by World War II vets, the word socialism is misunderstood in this country and has a long hill to climb. By the same token, many of the no tax, no regulations chants from the far right are absurd to most folks.

The punchline is rather hilarious and distressing at the same time; it is the one topic that both parties would unite against and fight to the death. Remember the battles Ralph Nader and any other third-party candidaes had getting their name on the ballot?

Kellis Chandler

Go figure

In Venezuela, protesters are in the streets resisting socialism. In the United States, liberals are in the streets demanding socialism.

Lawrence McMahan

Florida  again

Re: Florida finds itself again at center of voting furor, Nation & World, Nov. 10:

I found it odd that no one from the Associated Press or the Express-News caught the grammatical error in using the word furor in the headline. Not only can the word by definition not be used in this instance, but it is also spelled incorrectly. Anyone should know the correct spelling would be F-R-A-U-D!

William Frazier, Boerne

Send out the clowns

Re: Give Texans say on redistricting, Editorial, Nov. 15:

Thank you so much for this editorial. As the system now stands, politicians pick their voters rather than voters picking their politicians. I really doubt thats what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

This ridiculous practice of drawing hyperpartisan, noncompetitive voting districts allows for the election of fringe radicals to be our lawmakers. Lets instead establish an independent redistricting commission, and finally rid ourselves of these clownish congressmen who make Texas the laughingstock of Washington.

Bill Celaya

Dear senators 

To Sen: John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and the entire U.S. Senate:

Do you agree with the appointment of Matt Whitaker by President Donald Trump to the position of acting U.S. attorney general? And if so, do you find said appointment constitutional and therefore legal?

If your answers are yes, please explain your reasoning. If your answers are no, please explain your silence.

William Tassos

Within our means

Re: U.S. Henry Cuellars Nov. 9 e-mail newsletter:

Congressman Henry Cuellar, you should be ashamed for supporting, let alone bragging about, extravagant spending when the country is broke, with a deficit of about $800 billion on a budget of $3.3 trillion. (I cant imagine why $3.3 trillion isnt enough to run the country!)

How can you justify helping secure over $22.5 billion for Pell Grants and a $100 increase in the maximum annual award per student in a minibus appropriations package?

As with my own personal financial situation  and, Im sure, with yours also  the goal is to live below our income so well have sufficient resources saved for our retirement days or emergencies. The country is so far beyond such common sense! The debt owns our budgets, and thats just backward from the way it is supposed to be.

I plead that you use your influence to help our nation start to bring its (actually, our) spending down. Thanks in advance for your efforts on this subject.

Steve Stevens
The New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) marks the 26st anniversary today.

The New Azerbaijan Party was established at the initiative and with active participation of Azerbaijani intellectuals.

The conference, which gathered the representatives of all the regions of Azerbaijan, was held on November 21, 1992 with national leader Heydar Aliyev presiding at the event. The Constituent Assembly approved the decision on the establishment of the party, the party's program and its statute. Heydar Aliyev was unanimously elected as a chairman of the party.

The New Azerbaijan Party was registered by the Justice Ministry on December 18, 1992 and opened its regional branches and cells in all the regions of Azerbaijan within a short period of time.

The number of members of the New Azerbaijan Party reach 700,000 people, AzerTAc reported.
The Chronicle has launched a new weekly Travel newsletter! Sign up here.

If travel experts were truly honest, you would really only hear one piece of advice for traveling during the Thanksgiving holidays.

Dont. Seriously.

But since many of you feel you have no choice but to join the other 54.3 million of your neighbors on planes, trains, waterways and highways  the highest number of travelers for the long Thanksgiving weekend since 2005, according to AAA  experts feel obligated to offer advice that they hope will make the trip to Grandmas house more of a holiday and less of a zombie apocalypse.

If youre flying, theres a little good news: only a tiny fraction of the 54 million are taking to the air during the busiest U.S. travel week of the year. Unfortunately, that fraction still comes out to 4.7 million passengers, according to AAA, or a mass of humanity slightly bigger than the population of Louisiana  joining you in the check-in line, the TSA line, the line at Peets Coffee, the boarding line at the gate and the conga line for the restroom on the plane.

If youre planning on driving, particularly on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after, youll be sharing the highway (aka the linear parking lot) with 48.5 million others, more than the population of Spain. Tip: Pack the patience.

Here are a few other tips  some practical, some philosophical  all intended to reduce the stress, improve the experience and get you and your millions of fellow travelers there in one piece, mentally and physically:

1. Treat the trip as travel

Most people dont travel for Thanksgiving, they commute. And nearly no one likes a commute, especially when it involves hours of traffic, flight delays and amateur travelers who dont know they shouldnt bring two bottles of Prosecco in their carry-on luggage. If you look at the trip as a journey instead of a commute, it means you should look around more, relax a little, turn it into a road trip, learn something new about a place, use the experience to teach youngsters the importance of going beyond their own backyards to see whats out there.

2. Understand space and time

You dont need an advanced degree in physics to get that traveling at the most popular times means everything will be slower, says John E. DiScala, owner of online travel resource JohnnyJet.com. The big mistake is people arent flexible. They all want to leave Wednesday before and return Sunday or Monday. They arent going to get a deal and everything is going to be packed  planes, airports, highways. And the normal time it takes to get places no longer applies, he says. Everything takes a lot longer, so people need to show up at the airport earlier.

3. Know what can go

Provided it fits in your regulation-size carry-on, you are allowed to bring a fully cooked turkey on the plane. Leave the gravy, though. According to online resource Luggage Hero, the general rule for bringing food is that solid is good, soft or spreadable is bad. Spreadable food, including peanut butter, is considered a liquid. Yet a peanut butter pie is allowed because it falls under pies and cakes, which are fine to carry on, according to the sites page on transporting food on the plane. For more details, go to Luggage Heros Thanksgiving page or the TSA What Can I Bring? page. As for the gravy or relish, freeze it. If its still rock solid when you get to TSA screening, theres a good chance theyll let it through.

4. Stay charged

Weve said it before: Have your phone-charging gear handy, especially if you only have an electronic boarding pass. And consider taking a portable external battery; the boom in airport traffic means that the ratio of passengers to electric outlets probably spikes to about 4,587 to 1.

5. Be nice

Christopher Elliott, whose Travel Troubleshooter column appears on SFChronicle.com, recommended in this weeks On Travel column that the simple act of treating people well during holiday will make the trip go better. First, be kind to others. No, this isnt obvious travel advice. If it were, then everyone would do it. But they dont. Its important to remember that the workers who are making it possible for you to fly, drive and ride are spending their holidays doing that. A simple Thanks for being here to the gate agent, flight attendant or toll taker can do wonders and requires no effort at all.

6. Be frugal

Airport goods are always overpriced  youre a captive audience  so you should plan to bring your own snacks, says DiScala, and bring empty water bottles that can be filled on the other side of the TSA checkpoint. At $3 to $5 per bottle, its easy to see the savings, especially with a family.

7. Actually be thankful

Yeah, its easier said. In general, our societys natural default is to complain about things  pointing out whats wrong is news, pointing out whats right usually isnt. But if while sitting at Gate 53 for an hour you take a moment (by yourself or with others) to recount a couple of things that youre genuinely thankful for in the past week  a good meal, someone held the door for you, the weather was great  it can change your entire mood. Try being thankful that its Thanksgiving. And if nothing else, remember that a lot of people arent able to travel, for any number of reasons, so be thankful you can.

Spud Hilton is a travel editor for The Chronicle. Email: shilton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter and Instagram: @SpudHilton
Foxwoods on Tap, craft beer-tasting event at the largest casino on the East Coast, comes during a window of time for beer calories  after the Thanksgiving feast and before Christmas cookies.

I think its really the timing, said organizer Emily Inzana of its popularity. Its in December when its cold out and people... just want to stay in... Were trying to help bring them out of the cold and be like, Hey, heres a fun, craft beer event where you can try different beers and see what you like... and just have a fun time with your friends and after that, you can just stay and enjoy Foxwoods casino.

Greenwich-based Townsquare Media Live Events arranges the third-year event for Foxwoods, lining up the brewers via a handful of distributors for the 150-plus craft brews and other beverages available in the facilitys Premier Ballroom.

Inzana, a producer for Townsquare, said there are two new elements to Foxwoods on Tap: A portion of all proceeds will be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Eastern Connecticut. And 80 percent of the beer servers will be brewery reps instead of Foxwoods servers, an improvement for patrons who want to know more about how and where a brew is made.

The event features the work of 70 different breweries, with a solid representation of Connecticut, regional and national brands  from Two Roads in Stratford to Long Trail in Vermont to Ballast Point based in California.

Obviously Stony Creek (Brewery) is the one thats pretty big, said Inzana of the local brand that now has brewpub at Foxwoods, but also Honor Brewing; theyre pretty cool. A lot of their proceeds go back to veterans. Theyll actually have a table with merch(andise) ... too. Funk Brewing (of Pennsylvania) is also another good one that we bring in.

There are hard ciders, Hoop Tea and the occasional spiked seltzer, too. But beer is king.

We do two styles from each of the breweries, Inzana said. The first one is usually one of the popular ones that everyone likes, and then the second one... well do like a seasonal. So youll see a lot of winter beers coming out; some of them have like cinnamon ones, vanilla cream, stuff like that.

Like most of these beer festivals dotting the landscape, Foxwoods on Tap includes games such as cornhole beanbag toss, beer pong and live music, this time by winners of the 2018 Foxwoods Battle of the Bands, Auguste & Alden.

More Information Foxwoods Resort Casino, 350 Trolley Line Blvd., Mashantucket. Saturday, Dec. 1, 4 p.m. (3 p.m. for VIP.) General admission $35 before Nov. 25, $40 before Nov. 30, $45 at door. VIP $60-$70. Foxwoods.com See More Collapse

Food options (for purchase, from Foxwoods food providers) include pretzels, chicken tenders and party-food options such as cheesy fries and buffalo chicken, Inzana said. There will also be some other vendors of T-shirts and other items.

Foxwoods doesnt offer free water bottles like Mohegans fests do for hydration, alas, but it does have occasional water stations, where you can rinse out a glass and have a little water, Inzana said.

jamarante@nhregister.com; @Joeammo on Twitter
Contributed Photo / Turtledove Home Care / Contributed Photo

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated November as Alzheimers Awareness Month. And 35 years later, that designation still runs strong.

Alzheimers disease is a type of dementia that presents itself in the form of progressive mental deterioration. Currently, 5.7 million Americans are living with the disease, according to the Alzheimers Association.
STAMFORD  Parents of Westover Magnet Elementary school students have so far been cautiously and pleasantly surprised by the schools new office-complex digs.

Concerns appear to have been eased since students moved into the old Pitney Bowes building on Elmcroft Road last week, after severe mold conditions shuttered their Stillwater Avenue school building.

Theyve exceeded my expectations, said Sari Rosenberg, whose son is in second grade. Im definitely happier than I thought Id be. There are definitely some kinks that need to be worked out, but I guess thats expected.

Administration has been pleased with the transition as well.

We are off to a great start in our new space, said Westover Principal Kathy Wunder. While the students and teachers spent the first few days getting acclimated to our routines, by Monday we were back to education as usual. I am so grateful for the flexibility, patience and support from our students, staff and families.

Questions were initially raised about how the office space could be quickly converted to classrooms and how the property could handle dropoff and pickup for the citys largest elementary school.

But parents have been relieved that getting to school has been easier in some cases.

Vanessa Tessitore, who has a third-grader, said she was pleased to realize her daughters bus ride from North Stamford was faster to the new space compared to the Stillwater Avenue school.

The bus shed been taking previously was picking her up really late and getting her home really late, she said. The new site is much farther, so I assumed itd be a lot later, (but) shes getting home within the same time period, if not five minutes earlier ... shes perfectly happy. The teachers are really putting a very positive spin on it for the kids.

Danielle Viesto, who has children in kindergarten and second grade, said the districts effort to keep the students and teachers together has helped the adjustment to the new building.

Its going as smooth as I think it can, she said. I dont think its ideal for a school, but I think the Mold Task Force and our staff did a great job getting these kids into a new facility as fast as they can. My kids are resilient. They just want to be with their teachers and friends.

But the 108,800-square-foot building, leased for $1.8 million and renovated in less than a week, could not completely heal the trust parents say was broken when the district waited until mold complaints were made at a school board meeting to relocate the students and staff.

I feel like this is their way of putting a Band-Aid over it, said Rosenberg, who said her older son has developed health issues from potential mold exposure after attending Westover for several years. Im not happy about the situation. Im hoping this is an example going forward. If they see a little (mold) in one school, they have to fix it immediately and not let it spread.

Westover is not the only school where mold has been found. According to a Board of Education report, mold has been reported in eight elementary schools  Westover, Hart, K.T. Murphy, Newfield, Northeast, Roxbury, Stillmeadow and Toquam, plus Turn of River Middle School and Westhill High School.

erin.kayata@stamfordadvocate.com; (203) 964-2265; @erin_kayata
With Thanksgiving week marking the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, a national consumer group is warning parents to steer clear of certain toys.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group released its annual Trouble in Toyland report, listing toys that arent safe for a variety of reasons.

This year, the group surveyed 40 toys and found 15 with problems, including the expected  those with small parts that are deemed choking hazards  and also some new concerns, such as popular slime toys that have high concentrations of the chemical boron.

Locally, the report was unveiled at the Connecticut Childrens Medical Center in Hartford by members of the consumer group ConnPIRG and medical professionals including Dr. Steven C. Rogers, pediatric emergency physician at Connecticut Childrens.

The good news here is that this is really a drill-down to whats wrong with toys, Rogers said in a phone interview. I think its really good info for us have. And it sends a simple message to parents to be careful about what they pick.

Shawna Upton, a campaign associate with ConnPIRG, echoed those comments.

I think the biggest thing is that no one should have to worry about whether a toy is toxic or dangerous, she said.

The report found six different slime toys that contained high levels of boron, which can be hazardous if ingested.

Products that contain small doses of the chemical  less than 3.68 parts per million  arent considered harmful. But high doses of the compound can cause nausea and vomiting and have long-term effects.

Some of the toys spotlighted by Trouble in Toyland include Kangaroos Original Super Cool Slime, sold on Amazon, which contains roughly 4,700 parts per million of boron.

Other toys spotlighted in the report include Hatchimals Fabula Forest and a bundle of LOL Surprise! Pearl Surprise Turquoise and Purple Styles, all of which have small parts that are a choking hazard for young children, as well as several varieties of balloons, also seen as choking hazards.

Between 2001 and 2016, there were 290 toy-related deaths in children younger than 15, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Deaths have gone down, from 25 in 2001 to seven in 2016, amid increased consumer protections.

In the wake of the report, the Toy Association, a trade association for the toy industry, issued its own statement, defending its products.

What PIRG doesnt tell you (because it would not grab headlines) is that toys are among the safest consumer product categories found in the home, the statement read. U.S. toy safety requirements are among the strictest in the world, with more than 100+ standards and tests in place to ensure that all toys found on store shelves are safe. All toys sold in the U.S., regardless of where they are produced, must be tested and certified compliant before reaching store shelves or consumers.

In a separate statement, the trade association also criticized the PIRGs measurement of boron in slime products. PIRG has clearly measured boron in a way that is inconsistent with the very regulations they reference, making their results misleading and irrelevant, the statement read. Since boron compounds vary in their absorption if swallowed, a migration test simulating the human stomach is the correct method, and widely accepted.

Upton said she wasnt familiar with how boron was measured in the report, and that items were sent to a separate lab that we dont control.

She also stood by the idea that boron levels are something to be aware of. Boron is a serious risk for some children, she said.
FAIRFIELD  A stop to ask police for directions to the highway led to the arrest of four people on larceny charges last week.

At 1:58 a.m. on Nov. 15, an officer went to assist an individual who flagged him down while on Stratfield Road. Donovan Green, the male operator of the vehicle, told the officer he needed directions to get to the highway. The officer, however, noticed the smell of marijuana coming from the vehicle, police said.
A body of a man was recovered on the tarmac at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport yesterday evening, a source in the regional emergency service said, adding that the man was an Armenian citizen, and he had been deported from Madrid back to Armenia via Moscow.

According to the source, after a Boeing 737 bound for Athens, Greece, took off, the body of an unidentified man was found on the tarmac and recovered. Local emergency services have launched a probe into the incident, Sputnik reported.

The man's boarding ticket was discovered at the site of the incident. The pilots of the plane reportedly told local emergency services about the incident, which occurred while the jet was taxiing on the runway. However, the crew decided to continue the flight, as the emergency equipment on the plane did not go off.
Wells Fargo & Co. is a diversified, community-based financial services company. It is engaged in the provision of banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance. It firm operates through the following segments: Community Banking, Wholesale Banking, Wealth & Investment Management, and Other. The Community Banking segment offers complete line of diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses including checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and automobile, student, and small business lending. The Wholesale Banking segment provides financial solutions to businesses across the United States and globally. The Wealth and Investment Management segment includes personalized wealth management, investment and retirement products and services to clients across U.S. based businesses. The Other segment refers to the products of WIM customers served through community banking distribution channels. The company was founded by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo on March 18, 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

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Bank of Cyprus Holdings Public Limited Company, through its subsidiaries, provides banking, financial, and insurance services to individuals, small and medium sized enterprises, and corporate customers. It offers current, savings, notice, instant access, and fixed term deposits; housing, student, consumer, business, syndicated, project, and shipping finance; and debit, credit, and prepaid cards. The company also provides hire purchase, factoring, guarantee, insurance, asset and wealth management, investment banking and brokerage, custody and depository, transfers and payment, and digital banking services. In addition, it is involved in property trading and development activities; land development and operation of a golf resort; management administration and safekeeping of UCITS units; administration of guarantees and holding of real estate properties; collection of the existing portfolio of receivables, including third party collections; and provision of card processing transaction, auction, and secretarial services. As of March 30, 2021, it operates through a network of 95 branches in Cyprus, as well as representative offices in Russia, Ukraine, and China. The company was formerly known as Bank of Cyprus Public Company Ltd and changed its name to Bank of Cyprus Holdings Public Limited Company in January 2017. Bank of Cyprus Holdings Public Limited Company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus.

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Papillon Resources Limited (Papillon) is engaged in the exploration and development of resource projects located in Mali. The Company has joint venture interests in a portfolio of gold tenements (granted licences and applications) in western and southern Mali. The Company's primary focus continued to be the advancement of the Fekola Project (Fekola or Project) located in south western Mali adjacent to the border with Senegal. Papillon completed its pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project. The Company's subsidiaries include Mali Goldfields SARL, Songhoi Resources SARL, Bamagold SARL, Waraba Resources SARL, PIR Mali SARL, Papillon Exploration (AUS), Papillon Mining (AUS), Papillon Exploration (UK) and Papillon Mining (UK).

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held a meeting yesterday evening, with dominating the agenda

The diplomats discussed several issues, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and improving relations between Turkey and the U.S.

Pompeo later said in a press conference that he is content with the "momentum of improving relations with Turkey," and he also discussed the developments in Syria with his Turkish counterpart, Daily Sabah reported.

According to the State Department, Pompeo and Cavusoglu agreed on the need to work together to de-escalate the conflict in Syria and support the reinvigoration of the UN-led peace process to achieve a peaceful, lasting solution to the Syrian conflict.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Crown Prince M. bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de factor leader, ordered the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, according to a U.S. official familiar with the assessment. Others familiar with the case caution that while it's likely that the crown prince had a role in the death there continue to be questions about the degree to which he was involved.
iShares MSCI Denmark ETF's stock was trading at 60.79 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EDEN stock has increased by 77.7% and is now trading at 108.04.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud during the G20 summit in Argentina, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The spokesman noted that the talks between Putin and Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud "cannot be ruled out." "I dont know what will be discussed, although, of course, such an exchange of views cannot be ruled out," Peskov said when asked whether there were plans to discuss the situation in the oil market.

"We assume that both of them [Putin and Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud] will attend that summit [in Argentina], so they will have an opportunity to talk to each other on its sidelines one way or another," TASS cited him as saying.
iShares MSCI Thailand ETF's stock was trading at $63.83 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, THD shares have increased by 21.8% and is now trading at $77.76.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.
Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc. The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of Pennsylvania. The fund invests in tax exempt municipal bonds, with a rating of Baa/BBB or higher. It employs fundamental analysis, with bottom-up stock picking approach, to create its portfolio. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Standard & Poor's Pennsylvania Municipal Bond Index and Standard & Poor's National Municipal Bond Index. The fund was formerly known a Nuveen Pennsylvania Investment Quality Municipal Fund. Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund was formed on December 20, 1990 and is domiciled in the United States.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Franklin Resources: AdvisorEngine, AdvisorEngine Inc., Alumcreek Holdings LLC, Athena Capital Advisors, Balanced Equity Management, Balanced Equity Management Pty. Limited, Benefit Street Partners, Bissett & Associates Investment Management, Brandywine Global Investment Management Europe Limited, CCPF GP Holdco No.2 Limited, CCPF No.2 (GP) Limited, CCPF No.2 LP, CP Industrial Management LLC, CP Intermediate Holdco Inc., CRM Software LLC, Clarion Gramercy (Deutschland) GmbH, Clarion Gramercy (UK) Limited, Clarion Gramercy Limited, Clarion Partners Europe Ltd., Clarion Partners Holdings LLC, Clarion Partners LLC, Clarion Partners Securities LLC, Clarion REIM South America Holdings LLC, Clarion REIM South America Invsetimentos Imobiliarios Ltda, ClearBridge RARE Infrastructure (North America) Pty Limited, ClearBridge RARE Infrastructure International Pty Limited, Darby - Hana Infrastructure Fund Management Co. Ltd., Edinburgh Partners, FT FinTech Holdings LLC, FT Opportunistic Distressed Fund Ltd., FTC Investor Services Inc., FTCI (Cayman) Ltd., FTPE Advisers LLC, Fiduciary International Holding Inc., Fiduciary Investment Management International Inc., Fiduciary Trust (International) Sarl, Fiduciary Trust Company International, Fiduciary Trust Company International of Pennsylvania, Fiduciary Trust Company of Canada, Fiduciary Trust International LLC, Fiduciary Trust International of California, Fiduciary Trust International of Delaware, Fiduciary Trust International of the South, Franklin Advisers GP LLC, Franklin Advisers Inc., Franklin Advisory Services LLC, Franklin Marketplace Loan GP LLC, Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC, Franklin SystematiQ Advisers LLC, Franklin Templeton Alternative Investments (India) Private Limited, Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) Private Limited, Franklin Templeton Asset Management (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Franklin Templeton Asset Management Mexico S.A. de C.V. Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, Franklin Templeton Austria GmbH, Franklin Templeton Capital Holdings Private Limited, Franklin Templeton Chile SpA. V., Franklin Templeton Companies LLC, Franklin Templeton Digital Advisory Services GmbH, Franklin Templeton Fund Management Limited, Franklin Templeton GSC Asset Management Sdn. Bhd., Franklin Templeton Global Investors Limited, Franklin Templeton Holding Limited, Franklin Templeton International Services (India) Private Limited, Franklin Templeton International Services S.a r.l., Franklin Templeton Investment Management (Shanghai) Limited, Franklin Templeton Investment Management Limited, Franklin Templeton Investment Services GmbH, Franklin Templeton Investment Services Mexico S. de R.L., Franklin Templeton Investment Trust Management Co. Ltd., Franklin Templeton Investments (Asia) Limited, Franklin Templeton Investments (ME) Limited, Franklin Templeton Investments Australia Limited, Franklin Templeton Investments Corp., Franklin Templeton Investments Japan Limited, Franklin Templeton Investments Poland sp. z o.o., Franklin Templeton Investments South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Franklin Templeton Investor Services LLC, Franklin Templeton Investimentos (Brasil) Ltda., Franklin Templeton Luxembourg S.A., Franklin Templeton Magyarorszag Kft., Franklin Templeton Management Luxembourg S.A., Franklin Templeton Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Franklin Templeton Private Equity LLC, Franklin Templeton Services (India) Private Limited, Franklin Templeton Services LLC, Franklin Templeton Servicios de Asesoria Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Franklin Templeton Slovakia s.r.o., Franklin Templeton Social Infrastructure GP S.a r.l., Franklin Templeton Strategic Investments Ltd., Franklin Templeton Switzerland Ltd., Franklin Templeton Trustee Services Private Limited, Franklin Templeton Turkey Advisory Services A.S., Franklin Templeton Uruguay S.A., Franklin Venture Partners (Talos Cayman GP) LLC, Franklin Venture Partners LLC, Franklin/Templeton Distributors Inc., ITI Capital Markets Limited, K2 Advisors, LM (BVI) Limited, LM Holdings 2 Limited, LM Holdings Limited, LM International Holding LP, Legg Mason & Co (UK) Limited, Legg Mason & Co. LLC, Legg Mason (Chile) Inversiones Holdings Limitada, Legg Mason Asset Management Australia Limited, Legg Mason Asset Management Hong Kong Limited, Legg Mason Asset Management Singapore Pte. Limited, Legg Mason Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Legg Mason Holding (Switzerland) GmbH, Legg Mason Inc., Legg Mason Investment Funds Limited, Legg Mason Investments (Europe) Limited, Legg Mason Investments (Switzerland) GmbH, Legg Mason Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Legg Mason Partners Fund Advisor LLC, Legg Mason Royce Holdings LLC, Onsa Inc., RARE IP Trust, RARE Infrastructure Limited, REDROSE Caesar S.a r.l., Random Forest Capital, Random Forest Capital LLC, Rensburg Sheppards plc, Riva Financial Systems Limited, Royce & Associates GP LLC, Royce & Associates LP, Royce Fund Services LLC, Royce Management Company LLC, TSEMF III (Jersey) Limited, TSEMF IV (Jersey) Limited, Templeton Asset Management (Labuan) Limited, Templeton Asset Management (Poland) TFI S.A., Templeton Asset Management Ltd., Templeton Global Advisors Limited, Templeton Global Holdings Ltd., Templeton International Inc., Templeton Investment Counsel LLC, Templeton Restructured Investments III Ltd., Templeton Restructured Investments IV Ltd., Templeton Restructured Investments L.L.C., Templeton Turkey Fund GP Ltd., Templeton Worldwide Inc., Templeton do Brasil Ltda., Templeton/Franklin Investment Services Inc., WHITEROSE Caesar S.a r.l., Western Asset Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Western Asset Management (Brazil) Holdings Limitada, Western Asset Management (Cayman) Holdings Limited, Western Asset Management Company Distribuidora de Titulos e Valores Mobiliarios Limitada, Western Asset Management Company LLC, Western Asset Management Company Limited, Western Asset Management Company Pte Ltd., Western Asset Management Company Pty Ltd, and Winfield & Company.
Russia strongly denies all accusations of aggressive and unlawful acts in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated on Wednesday, TASS reports.

"Russia regrets that the confrontational course of Kiev aimed at destabilizing Russian-Ukrainian relations finds support among several states, including EU member countries. Russia strongly denies any accusations directed against it concerning aggressive and unlawful acts in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait," the Russian foreign ministry noted.

Inspections of vessels by the Coast Guard of the FSB Border Service in that zone "are legitimate," the ministry said. "Activities of the Russian border guards are not discriminatory. A total of 48% of the ships (720 of 1,492) inspected in April-October 2018, were sailing to Russian ports or from them," it stressed. "Contrary to Ukraines statements, Russian-flagged ships are also inspected," the ministry said.
ORRVILLE, Ohio  A small row-crop tractor built in the 1940s and 1950s is inspiring a new kind of tractor at a family-owned manufacturing company in northeast Ohio.

The Allis-Chalmers Model G, a tiny, open-frame tractor, was popular in its day among small and specialty crop growers who wanted a clear vision of their cultivator and the crops below.

The old G is still used on specialty crop farms today, as are other offset, open-vision tractors, including the Farmall Cub and Farmall A. But its an aging fleet.

Now, a Wayne County company making its own specialty crop tractor  set to launch by the second quarter of 2019.

The Tilmor tractor has a similar structural appeal as the G, but this modern tractor is definitely not the G, according to Lydell Steiner, project coordinator.

Its kind of in that weird category, said Steiner. As we spent time listening to the owners of Gs, we really listened to what are some of the things we need to do, to make it ready for markets in the 21st century.

Improved tractor

The Tilmor improves upon the G in almost every way, especially with the addition of quick-lock attachments that allow for the changing or adjusting of implements in a matter of minutes. The frame includes mid- and rear-mount toolbars, and it also includes multiple open hitches, similar to Reese hitches, that allow for additional implements or attachments to suit the operators needs.

The tractor also includes modern lighting, and a rollover bar and safety belt. Its powered by either a 23 horsepower gas or diesel engine, plenty of power for tilling, cultivating, planting or mowing.

The tractor is being made by the Steiner family, owners of Venture Products, and theyve been making their own tractors and attachments since the 1970s. Since 2000, theyve built the Ventrac compact tractor and attachments, and with more than 300 employees, the company is still growing.

The Steiners have been working on the Tilmor tractor for the past six years, trying to build a good tractor for an emerging market of small growers.

As we see the increase of the number of smaller specialty farms, whether it be organics or vegetables, we really want to support those individuals and that industry with a tool and equipment that will last, Lydell said.

Where its used

The tractor can be used in northeast Ohio, where specialty crops are popular, but the Steiners also hope to be successful across the country and internationally. Lydell is currently working on a tractor in Nicaragua, and the family hopes to work in African countries and eastern Europe, as well.

Dallas Steiner, Lydells uncle, spent several years working and living in Bolivia in the 1970s and 1980s, and he believes the tractor may have a future there, as well.

The challenge in other countries, as it can also be in the U.S., is the need for a dependable machine that will work well at each individual farm, and that has a strong supply and distribution change. Access to credit is also important, in economies where borrowing is necessary.

Our goal is to get very good at this chain of agricultural solutions, said Dallas, the companys CEO.

He said building the tractor is one accomplishment, but its equally important to get it into the hands of the consumer, and to offer parts and service.

(Story continues below video.)

He recently spoke before the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in Rome, Italy, where he talked about the companys unique history in farm equipment design and innovation.

We have the DNA that can kind of drive that piece, said Dallas, echoing words he told the UN.

The Steiner DNA goes back to Dallas father, Marvin, who had a knack for designing and building things on the family farm, usually in response to a specific challenge or inefficiency.

Finding solutions

Marvin Steiner tinkered with various improvements, including a front-mounted corn chopper, and various types of small, articulating tractors that would eventually become the familys hallmark brand.

He was actually a genius when it came to the art of steel, said Dallas, who has six brothers, about half of whom are still involved with the family business.

As kids, we grew up with a welder in our hand, as we helped him (Marvin) in our farm shop, he added.

The Steiner family still owns the home farm, a 115-acre organic farm now known as Venture Heritage Farm. They use the Tilmor tractor for most of their farming activities, perfecting it in the field and perfecting its overall performance at the factory in Orrville.

Putting the tractor to the test is important, not only so that it holds up and proves reliable, but also so that it can fitted to different kinds of farms, with different kinds of farming practices and also different types of soil.

Different uses

The Steiners know all about the range in soil types  whether its black muck, clay, silt, or even the loose and fine soils of Nicaragua, where they have volcanic soil.

We do our best to give people options, said Lydell Steiner, whose wife, Rebeca, is from Nicaragua.

Attachments include specialized cultivators, planters, tillers and harvest equipment, and more implements are being made as the tractor evolves.

Lydell said the Tilmor project is a passion and a vision that connects with who he is as a person, wanting to find solutions for small growers and also for growers around the world.

Its not an easy undertaking, he said. But its one we believe in, and were glad were doing.

Learn more:

 To learn more about the Tilmor tractor, and attachments, visit www.tilmor.com.

 To learn more about Venture Products, makers of the Tilmor and compact tractors, visit www.ventureproducts.inc.com.
Fourteen landowners and farmers will be better protected from potentially catastrophic flooding thanks to a new 1.8m sea defence project.

Located in Wrangle, Lincolnshire, 5km of sea defence - which protects 3,400 hectares of prime grade one farmland  has been substantially improved to reduce the risk of highly-dangerous flooding.

The potential threat was highlighted by the collapse of adjacent sea defences during the tidal surge of December 2013.

The project involved re-profiling the sea banks and raising them to more than seven metres high with a rear slope leading to a further drainage system in case of particularly high tides.

A project board was created to enable the works to be carried out between the Witham Fourth District Internal Drainage Board, the Environment Agency, Lincolnshire County Council and fourteen landowners and farmers.

The increased threat from rising sea levels and extreme weather events to those who live and work in low lying areas, such as farmers, meant it was important the project got underway.

'Damage to valuable farmland'

One farmer was Hugh Drake, who was represented by law firm Roythornes which sat on the project board. He farms approximately 800 acres on the northern edge of the Wrangle project, growing wheat, vining peas, brassicas and potatoes.

Mr Drake said: The government's recognition of the vulnerability of the sea-defences on the western side of the Wash has been a great step forward and follows the damage done by the events of December 2013.

In those parts of the sea-banks where there is only a single line of defence, the risks of flood damage to valuable farmland, residents and property, as well as the substantial business enterprises in the area, have now been addressed and the Wrangle project is a step in the right direction to improve the resilience of the sea-defence.

For the first time Environment Agency funds, together with EU funding, were spent by the Internal Drainage Board acting as project leader.

'Highly sensitive project'

Simeon Disley, partner at Roythornes, represented the fourteen farmers and landowners. He is also a committee member of The Wash Frontage Group - a group which campaigns for improvements in the sea defences around The Wash  and has extensive knowledge of the area.

Mr Disley said: It was a highly sensitive project as the area sits alongside a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) so the environmental considerations were crucial to the development and design of the bank.

We were also keen to retain as much of the important agricultural land as possible for grazing and food production.

He added: We regularly advise our clients on the ever-changing complexities that the ownership of agricultural land presents and in addition to representing the landowners and farmers, we supported the project with practical and strategic legal advice throughout the innovative scheme.

Im therefore delighted that a solution was reached and the land is now fully protected. The sea defences can now keep pace with climate change to help protect the homes and businesses located on the Wash, he said.

The project followed a major survey in 2016 to identify the existing profile of the banks, collect environmental information and assess the full scope of the works.
The proposed merger of Sainsburys and Asda could lead to increased pressure on farmers and reduce the choice and innovation of products available for the shopper.

This is according to the NFU, who told the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) the farming industry's concerns on the possible creation of the country's largest retailer.

In giving oral evidence, NFU head of food and farming Philip Hambling said that farmers are concerned whether the company can deliver its proposed 10% saving for shoppers without passing this additional pressure on to farmers.

There remains big questions around where the savings are coming from and who is paying the difference.

A report released earlier this year highlights how suppliers will bear 70 percent of the brunt of the merger's efficiencies.

Mr Hambling told the CMA: The consolidation of retail buying power is one of the biggest concerns farmers and growers have about the proposed merger.

As the foundation of the UKs largest manufacturing sector food and drink, there are serious fears that farm businesses will be the ones to take any additional price pressure.

At a time when farms are already facing intense price pressure, the prospect of a further squeeze on price leaves farmers concerned about the potential impacts on their businesses.

'Squeezing margins'

The NFU has concerns that this mergers desire to reduce prices could leave farmers as the ones to take the brunt of significant market disruption as a result.

The union believes this would impact farm businesses ability to supply at ever lower prices.

Mr Hambling added: Farmers and growers provide the British public with safe, traceable and affordable food for all incomes and it is vital that retailers and suppliers continue to invest in productive and progressive farm businesses.

Continually squeezing margins can take away the ability of the food and farming industry to invest and improve quality, range and sustainability.

The NFU is calling for careful consideration of the consequences this could bring to shoppers in terms of product choice and innovation.

Our overall concern is the potential this merger has for market disruption and the associated negative effects for the public. We will continue our analysis and engage with the CMA in its investigation, Mr Hambling said.

In-depth review

In August, the CMA opened its initial Phase 1 investigation into the merger and announced the companies had requested a fast-track referral to Phase 2.

The CMA has now confirmed, through its Phase 1 investigation, that the deal raises sufficient concerns to be referred for a more in-depth review.

These concerns will be considered further in the Phase 2 investigation, along with other issues raised so far with the CMA  including those relating to fuel, general merchandise and increased buyer power over suppliers.

The Phase 2 investigation is a more in-depth review, led by an inquiry group chosen from the CMAs independent panel members.

The group will gather evidence  in particular through multiple customer surveys and engagement with other retailers, suppliers and industry bodies  to inform its detailed analysis.
More than 3,500 people have signed a petition calling on a council to ban non-stun Halal meat being served in local schools.

Schools in West Yorkshire are served meat from animals that have been slaughtered while fully conscious, suffering unnecessary pain and distress, the petition says.

It is a legal requirement that animals must be humanely stunned before slaughter, but non-stun slaughter is still permitted for some religious communities.

However, the RSPCA says for slaughter to be humane, it's essential that animals are effectively stunned.

The British Veterinary Association, representing 17,000 British vets, believes that all animals should be stunned before slaughter to render them insensible to pain and highlights that scientific evidence supports the use of pre-stunning to improve animal welfare.

Both organisations have previously highlighted their concerns around figures which show an increase in non-stun slaughter.

The petition states: We the undersigned call on Kirklees Council to uphold animal welfare standards and only supply meat from animals that were stunned before slaughter.

Kirklees Council has been serving non-stunned halal meat in 42 schools without the knowledge or consent of the majority of pupils and parents.

In some schools all of the meat served is non-stunned and there is no alternative option for pupils. The council has refused to say which schools are affected, the petition says.

There is no need for the council to supply non-stunned halal meat when the majority of halal meat is pre-stunned. Most Muslims are content with stunning.

Other councils have stated there is no need to serve non-stunned meat in their schools and have introduced more ethical catering policies.

Lancashire County Council recently decided to stop serving most non-stunned meat by an overwhelming majority.

The petition adds: Everyone has the right to observe and practice their religion in a free society, but it is clearly unethical for Kirklees Council to serve non-stunned meat to public schoolchildren. Our council has a duty to treat animals in a more humane way.

It comes as research from the National Secular Society shows that at least 18 councils in the UK are supplying non-stunned meat to schools  most of which are not Islamic faith schools.
Growing sugar beet in Scotland could create jobs, report says

Crop would also help with net zero goals
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Certain Chinese commercial banks still interpret sanctions introduced by third states against Russia too broadly, the head of the Russian Central Bank's department in China, Vladimir Danilov, said on Wednesday, Sputnik reports.

"There is a range of problems related to the fact that a number of Chinese commercial banks interpret the sanctions introduced against Russia too broadly," Danilov said at the Investment and Financial Capacities at the Russian Capital Market Forum.

He specified that the Russian Central Bank was engaged in regular related discussions with the People's Bank of China.

"The events that happened literally two or three days ago show that this problem exists. Two days ago we were solving this problem. The Russian [Central] Bank has sent a related explanation to the People's Bank of China. The People's Bank of China, in its turn,. has communicated these explanations to its commercial banks," Danilov added.
With the Me Too movement going in full momentum, several women have come out to share their stories. Amongst many accused is veteran Alok Nath who has landed himself in more trouble. After him being accused of rape by Vinta Nanda, the Mumbai Police has now registered an FIR against the actor under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on Wednesday. In her complaint, Nanda alleged that she was drugged and raped by Nath 19 years ago when the two were working together on a television show.It was on October 8 when the victim had shared the incidence on her Facebook handle. She informed how Alok Nath spiked her drink at his house during a party and later she left the house feeling uneasy. Vinta Nanda even claimed that the actor told her to drop her home in his car, but rather took her to an unknown location and raped her. Soon after her post, Naths wife filed a defamation case which was later dismissed by the Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court.A news portal was quoted today, Mumbai Police Additional CP Manoj Sharma says 'Oshiwara Police has registered an FIR against Alok Nath under section 376 of IPC (rape) on the complaint filed by Writer Vinta Nanda.Alok Nath has also been expelled from Cine & TV Artistes Association (CINTAA) this month.
Prem Nath's Heart Belonged To Films

"While he (Prem Nath) was in school, he'd write letters to Prithvi Papa (Prithviraj Kapoor), whom he was related to, saying he wanted to join films. My grandfather being an Inspector General Of Police sent Papa to the army instead. But Papa's heart belonged to films. Once, he wrote a letter to his father asking him to send ` 100 to buy a gun. With that money, he came to Dadar. He went straight to Prithvi Papa, his guru, and joined Prithvi Theatre."

How Prem Nath Fell In Love With Bina Rai

"Mom (the late Bina Rai) was a fan of dad. They first worked together in Aurat (1953). Mom was nervous in front of a superstar. Her hands were trembling, while giving the shot. So Papa put flowers around her hand in a bid to camouflage that. Papa was taken in by her simplicity. Gradually, they fell in love and got married. Randhir Kapoor, who was a child then, sat on the horse with Papa as the sarwala (best man)."

Amitabh Bachchan's Abhimaan Was Based On Prem Nath & His Wife's Life

Monty recalled, "The years between 1956 -1970 were bad for Papa. Since mom was doing well, producers would line up for her. Invitation cards were addressed as Mr and Mrs Rai'. Papa was happy for her but somewhere his pride was hurt. In fact, Hrishikesh Mukherji based Abhimaan on my parents' life."

The Emotional Side Of Prem Nath

"As is well-known dad was supposed to marry Madhubala. But it didn't work out for religious reasons. But his love for her remained pure even years after she was gone.

Once we were passing by Mehboob Studio in Bandra. Madhubala's father, Ataullah Khan saab, lived there. Papa had heard he wasn't keeping well. He dropped in to see him. Discreetly, he pushed a lakh rupees under Khan saab's pillow. I asked why he'd done that. He replied, "Had I married her, he'd have been my father-in-law. I'm just doing my duty as a son-in-law." He was that emotional. I remember once Madhubalaji had called Papa to congratulate him for a performance. (Smiles) And my mom did feel possessive that moment!"
With Priyanka Chopra-Nick Jonas' wedding date inching closer, there is a lot of excitement building up among the fans. After getting engaged in a roka ceremony in August, the couple are all set to tie the knot in December at the Umaid Bhawan Palace Hotel in Jodhpur. The wedding preparations are going in full swing with PeeCee's mom Madhu Chopra visiting Jodhpur to overlook the wedding preparations.

This morning, we told you that Nick has flown for India for his big fat wedding and now folks, we can tell you that the dulha-to-be has reached New Delhi where his lady love is busy shooting for her film, 'The Sky Is Pink'.

Priyanka took to her Instagram page to share a picture of her with Nick which she captioned as, "Welcome home baby..."

After a tradtional Hindu-style wedding, Priyanka and Nick will be exchanging wedding vows in a Christian ceremony. Scroll down to read details-

Priyanka-Nick's Wedding Dates According to a Mid-Day report, Priyanka and Nick will have two wedding ceremonies. They will tie the knot as per Indian traditions on 2nd December followed by a Christian wedding on 3rd December. Both the ceremonies will take place at the same venue. Priyanka Will Be Wearing A Ralph Lauren Outfit The tabloid quoted a source as saying, "While the bridal trousseau will be an Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla creation, she will sport a Ralph Lauren ensemble for the Christian wedding." Bride In Red Earlier, an Elle Magazine report had revealed that Nick will wear an ivory suit while his bride Priyanka will be clad in red. A High-Profile Wedding "Though Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, may not make it, many Hollywood names are expected. Since it will be their first brush with an Indian wedding, Priyanka wants to make it special," the Mid-Day report quoted a source. Speaking About Nick Jonas Mid-Day was further informed by a source that Nick will be performing to a medley of international songs and Bollywood chartbusters like Gallan Goodiyan and Pinga at the sangeet ceremony which will be choreographed by Ganesh Hegde. He may even croon a Hindi song for his lady love.

Priyanka Chopra- Nick Jonas Pre-Wedding Ceremony: Couple To Recreate Their First Official Date?
The writer-director Vinita Nanda had filed a police complaint against the veteran Bollywood actor Alok Nath on October 17, 2018. The writer had accused the actor of raping her 19 years ago. According to the latest report, an FIR has been filed against Alok. According to ANI, Additional Commissioner of Police Manoj Sharma said, "The Oshiwara Police has filed an FIR against Alok Nath under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (rape)."

According to TimesNow report, Alok's lawyer has revealed that the actor is not feeling well and not in a state to reply to the FIR. The lawyer also stated that the allegations made against the actor are baseless.



It has to be recalled that last month (October), Vinita had opened up about the traumatic incident on her Facebook page. She had shared a long post, after which Alok Nath was accused of harassment and inappropriate behaviour by actresses Sandhya Mridul and Deepika Amin, and other women.

After filing the complaint Vinita had said, "It was not easy for me to give my statement as it is like reliving your pain." Following Vinita's rape accusation, Alok had filed a civil suit in a Mumbai court and sought Rs 1 as damages for allegedly defaming him. His wife had requested for an injunction order against Vinita. But Mumbai's Dindoshi Sessions Court rejected the application!

Alok was recently expelled from Cine & TV Artistes' Association (CINTAA) in lieu of the charges levied against him, during the #MeToo movement by Vinita, and other actors.

Most Read - Sunil Grover's Show: Actors Begin Shooting; Ranveer Singh & Rohit Shetty To Be The First Guests!
Sunils New Show

The show is tentatively titled as Kanpur Wale Khuranas. Sunil will be seen playing jija, while Adaa will be seen playing his wife. We assume Ali and Sugandha will be seen as his saalis. The show will hit the television screens in December 15, 2018.

Kunal Kemmu Turns Host!

Kunal Kemmu is all set to make his debut on television. The Bollywood actor will be seen hosting the stand-up comedy. The show will have list of celebrities and achievers of 2018 as guests.

Kunal Is Both Nervous & Excited About The Show

Regarding the show, Kunal was quoted by TOI as saying, "I am both nervous and excited, as it's a new space that I am exploring. I have known the makers, Neeti and Preeti Simoes, since a long time. They would always joke that we should do something together, as they felt that I am fun and natural. I took this up because it's not a long-term commitment."

The Bollywood Actor Adds

He further added, "Besides, it will also help me test waters and give me an opportunity to understand the medium. I would also get to know how comedy shows work on TV, because I have always been on the other side of the fence."

Ranveer Singh & Rohit Shetty To Be The First Guests!

Since the show will be round-up of the year 2018, it is being said that Ranveer Singh, who is the top newsmaker of this year, will be the first guest along with Simmba director Rohit Shetty!

Why Ranveer?

An insider was quoted by DNA as saying, "Ranveer's Padmaavat was a blockbuster and his marriage to Deepika was the biggest talking point of the year. Also, the first episode will highlight the new combinations of 2018, which makes it ideal for the Gen Y star to join Rohit with whom he is collaborating for the first time in Simmba."

Sara Ali Khan & Karan Johar Are The Second Guests!

The insider also revealed, "While they will open the show, the second episode will see Sara Ali Khan and Karan Johar along with Ranveer and Rohit." Since Ranveer is busy with his wedding receptions in Bengaluru and Mumbai, the episode is slated to be shot in December first week.
The opening of a formal investigation into Noble Group could provide ammunition for lawsuits against the Singapore-listed company and, possibly, also banks associated with the commodities trader.

It may even jeopardise Noble's protracted $3.5 billion debt-restructuring, think some observers.

On Wednesday, Noble announced that both it and its wholly-owned subsidiary Noble Resources International NRI had received letters from a trio of Singaporean watchdogs. The Monetary Authority of Singapore MAS, Commercial Affairs Department CAD of the Singapore police, and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority ACRA, Noble said, were demanding access to their books stretching back to 2012.

A day earlier all...
- Decorative Object Based on Motif of Traditional German Christmas Pyramid -

SAPPORO, Japan, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sapporo White Illumination Executive Committee will hold the 17th German Christmas Market in Sapporo (https://white-illumination.jp/munich/) at Sapporo 2-chome Odori Park from November 22 (Thursday) until December 25 (Tuesday).

Image: The "Gift of Snow" original decorative object

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/201811200576-O1-KY6mBecF

The German Christmas Market in Sapporo was held for the first time in 2002 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the sister city partnership of Munich and Sapporo. The Christmas market, which is a traditional German event, is held every year in Sapporo to let as many people as possible know about the appeal of Munich. The event will be held for the 17th time this year. Over 1.3 million people attended last year's event from inside and outside Hokkaido.

The venue is lined with over 30 stores, including goods booths handling Christmas-related products and food booths selling gourmet items such as Gluehwein (mulled wine) perfect for winter, German beer and hot sausages. This year, an original decorative object called the "Gift of Snow" based on the motif of a traditional German Christmas pyramid will be placed in the center of the venue to make this Christmas more spectacular.

In addition, throughout the duration of the Christmas market, events and workshops will be staged to convey German culture, encouraging international interaction and enabling people to enjoy the atmosphere of Christmas. Furthermore, a game for searching for reindeer hidden in the venue will also be held, along with a stamp-collecting event for enjoying Gluehwein while moving from stall to stall.

The Sapporo White Illumination will also be held in the venue throughout the duration of the market. The lightbulbs spanning across the expansive area of the venue will light up Sapporo, providing fantastic scenery combining white snow with illumination.

Event Overview

Title: 17th German Christmas Market in Sapporo

Duration: 34 days from November 22 (Thu.) until December 25 (Tue.)

Operating hours: From 11 am to 9 pm (last order at 8:45 pm)

Venue: 2-chome Odori Park, Chuo-ku, Sapporo-shi, Hokkaido

Fee: Free admission

URL: https://white-illumination.jp/munich/
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / MGX Minerals Inc. ("MGX" or the "Company") ( CSE: XMG / FKT: 1MG / OTCQB: MGXMF ) and Highbury Energy Inc. ("Highbury") are pleased to report completion of a comprehensive study analyzing beneficial gasification routes from Petroleum Coke ("Petcoke") to three products of value: Hydrogen, FT Liquids and Fuel Gas. Each of these products has potential markets in the oil sands and heavy oil industry. The report outlines a variety and comparison of plant design parameters and a Petcoke-to-Hydrogen process with metals concentration via gasification, utilizing Highbury's patented dual-bed gasification technology, which requires no fine grinding or air separation unit. The goal of ongoing joint research with Highbury is to develop fuel source alternatives and concentrated battery metals by-products including vanadium, nickel and cobalt, which can be seamlessly integrated into existing refinery operations. The study is viewed as positive and the project will now move to the demonstration plant design phase and preliminary pre-feasibility analysis.

Metals in Pet Coke and Ash

Previously released assay results of Petcoke samples collected from stockpiles produced from the Fort McMurray area mining and upgrading operation as well as an Edmonton refinery are summarized below. Both samples originated from Delayed Coking operations. Samples were obtained and prepared by Highbury and metal contents analyzed by Acme Labs of Vancouver, British Columbia using standard ICP analyses.

Ash Content

Ash content was determined by weighing residues after burning coke samples of about 200 g in air in a muffle oven over extended periods at 815C. Table A indicates the average ash content of 6 to 7 samples of each coke.

Table A. Ash Content of Coke Samples





Sample name Ash content (% wt.) No. of samples tested Upgrader Coke A 2.73 0.09 6 Refinery Coke B 0.32 0.04 7

Upgrader Coke A had about nine times as much ash as was in Refinery Coke B.

Proximate Analyses

The cokes contain over 95 % organic (non-mineral) matter. Thermogravimetric analyses on 10 mg quantities are shown below.

Table B. Proximate Analyses of Coke by the Thermo-gravimetric Analyser Method

Quantity (wt. %) Upgrader Coke A Refinery Coke B Volatile Matter 8.9 10.0 Fixed Carbon 86.9 86.3 Residues 4.3 1.7

Residue refers to residual mineral matter left after the thermo-gravimetric test. Except for the % Residue, the two cokes have similar combustion properties.

Metals Analysis in the Coke Samples.

Lithium borate fusion ICP-MS method measures 45 trace metal concentrations in the coke. Results are expressed as (mg/kg) or ppmwt. Table C lists concentrations of selected metals.

Table C. Selected Metal Concentrations in Coke (mg Metal/kg Coke)

Sample V Ni Cu Zr Co Au Ag Upgrader Coke A 421 76.8 86.2 40.5 4.8 0.0011 < 0.1 Refinery Coke B 458 53.4 35.9 1.3 1.3 <0.0005 <0.1

Vanadium is the highest concentration of the 45 trace metals detected in the coke samples.

Ash Analyses

Ash analysis was completed by Bureau Veritas Commodities Canada Ltd. ("BV") of Vancouver, British Columbia using XRF method (XF701). Results are expressed as % wt. in the ash as oxide. Sixteen elements as oxides, and LOI (loss on ignition) are determined. The ash samples were prepared in Highbury's laboratory and sent to BV for analysis. The maximum % the analysis method could accommodate was 10.0 % for V 2 O 5 ; therefore ash samples were diluted by mixing with other solids. In the Highbury laboratory both Al 2 O 3 and Fe 2 O 3 were used.

Table D. Selected Species in the Ash of Each Coke Type

Species (wt. %) Upgrader Coke Ash A Refinery Coke Ash B Al 2 O 3 27.7 9.8 SiO 2 42.6 23.6 V 2 O 5 6.6 45.1 Fe 2 O 3 8.0 2.7 TiO 2 5.7 0.7 K 2 O+MgO+CaO 4.0 6.4 LOI 0.0 4.3 SubTotal (wt.%) 90.8 92.5

For Upgrader Coke A, the sum of Al 2 O 3 +SiO 2 is about 70 %. V 2 O 5 is about 6.6%, according to the ash analyses. For Refinery Coke B, the average % V 2 O 5 in the ash is 45 %.

Table E. Trace Metals Concentration in Ash (mg Metal/kg Ash) for Selected Species [Two Determinations Average]

Sample V Ni Cu Zr Co Au Ag Mo Upgrader Coke Ash A 34600 740 130 1840 230 0.02 2.5 1405 Refinery Coke Ash B 193000 177000 340 405 620 0.02 0.175 5000

Vanadium metal concentrations are 3.5 % wt. in Upgrader Coke Ash A, and 19.3 % wt. in Refinery Coke Ash B, which is also enriched in Nickel.

Background

Petcoke is a carbon material by-product of the oil and gas industry that forms during the oil refining process. As refineries have become more efficient at processing extra heavy crude oils (bitumen) over the last two decades, output of petcoke globally has risen significantly. Because petcoke originates from heavier petroleum fractions, its denser impurities such as metals and sulphur compounds are concentrate in it.

The majority of Canadian petcoke output occurs in close proximity to oil sand producing regions, where bitumen is upgraded into synthetic crude oil. Specifically, the Province of Alberta is known to host vast stockpiles of petcoke. According to the Alberta Energy Regulator, petcoke inventories are estimated to have reached 106 million tonnes in 2016(1).

(1) Source: Alberta Energy Industry, Alberta Mineable Oil Sands Plant Statistics

Research and Development

Development of the detailed process will be spearheaded by Dr. Paul Watkinson, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia and a co-founder of Highbury. Dr. Watkinson is a published expert in the field of gasification and oversaw early work on related oil sand gasification in the early 1990's. He is also a registered Professional Engineer, Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Dr. Watkinson is also an active participant in the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering as well as Engineering Conferences International. He has received numerous awards for his research and has published multiple articles in scientific journals on pilot-scale investigations of conversion of carbonaceous solids, such as coal, shale and biomass, into gaseous and liquid fuels.

N.I. 43-101

Although authored by leading experts in the field and significantly advancing research and development of gasification and metals extraction, N.I. 43-101 does not recognize a scoping study as a N.I. 43-101 Compliant Report. As such MGX cannot release any economic projections whatsoever in regard to metals extraction or associated gasification steps. As Petcoke is widely available in very large quantities at low cost in the Alberta Oil Sands it is unlikely MGX will complete an N.I. 43-101 Resource Estimate, which precludes a compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment, Pre-feasibility Study or Feasibility Study that would allow for the release of economic projections. It is anticipated that a Pre-feasibility and Feasibility Study will be completed for the plant design itself but not the Petcoke resource as it will be purchased as needed and not owned or controlled by MGX.

Qualified Person

Andris Kikauka (P. Geo.), Vice President of Exploration for MGX Minerals, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release. Mr. Kikauka is a non-independent Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards.

About Highbury Energy

Highbury Energy Inc. is an innovative energy company dedicated to the development and utilization of renewable energy resources through the procurement and conversion of biomass. Highbury has developed a proprietary dual-bed steam gasification technology and patented gas cleanup system that converts biomass into high-grade synthesis or fuel gas. This robust process produces a medium calorific value gas from most types of organic matter, such as wood or agricultural wastes, without need of tonnage oxygen. The cleaned synthesis gas can readily replace natural gas in industrial kilns and furnaces in the mineral, pulp & paper, glass, and cement industries. Alternately, the syngas can fuel an internal combustion engine to make electricity, with waste heat used for refrigeration, or district heating. Syngas can also be converted to high value low carbon liquid fuels such as diesel or jet fuel, or into chemicals such as methanol or ethanol.

About MGX Minerals

MGX Minerals is a diversified Canadian resource and technology company with interests in global advanced material, energy and water assets. Learn more at www.mgxminerals.com .

Contact Information

Jared Lazerson

President and CEO

Telephone: 1.604.681.7735

Web: www.mgxminerals.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "potentially" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors. The reader is referred to the Company's public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

SOURCE: MGX Minerals Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/528660/MGX-Minerals-Announces-Completion-of-Gasification-Scoping-Study-for-Petroleum-Coke-to-Hydrogen-with-Vanadium-Nickel-and-Cobalt-Extraction
HANGZHOU, China, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Proya (SHA: 603605), the No.1 cosmetics company on China's A-share market, held its 15th anniversary celebration themed "PROYA 15th Anniversary Gala Beautifying the Future" in Hangzhou on November 19.

All-star guest lineup heralds the next chapter in Proya's world of beauty

Proya's brand ambassadors Li Yifeng and Tang Yan, Proya's friend of the brand Liu Yinglun, Uzero's brand ambassador Barbie Hsu and a star-studded lineup of Chinese celebrities, among them, Harlem Yu, Jane Zhang, Yu Quan, Hua Shao, MoMo Wu, Fu Disheng, Lil Em and Zhou Shen, were present at the celebration. Proya's chairman Hou Juncheng, CEO Fang Yuyou and vice general manager Cao Liangguo made their entrance decked out in "Iron Man" suits, surprising the audience.

Cosmetica Italia president, Renato Ancorotti and mayor of the French city of Chartres, Didier Garnier, in addition to authoritative leaders from across the global cosmetics industry, sent their best wishes for Proya's 15th anniversary in many languages.

Proya Tower opens, creating a beautiful new landmark in Hangzhou

At the celebration, when the fingerprint beams of the three "Iron Men" converged on the big screen, a virtual recreation of Proya Tower at the center of the stage rose slowly, marking the official opening of the building.

Construction of Proya Tower, located at the intersection of Xixi and Gudun Roads, started on September 10, 2015. Designed by US-based architectural firm NBBJ, Proya Tower incorporated building materials originating from environmentally responsible sources, in addition to a powerful, culturally-significant design. With 14 floors above ground and 2 floors below, Proya Tower includes six designated buildings and areas within its perimeter: a building housing a beauty complex, a distinctive cosmetics experience hall, a plastic surgery anti-aging center, an art gallery, an open-air music square and a high-end office building, in addition to the main office building.

The Spring Bud Plan kicks off: the eternal sincerity for love

As the Spring Bud Plan's ambassador of love, Proya's brand ambassador Li Yifeng, together with children participating in the Spring Bud Plan, kicked off public interest events that are part of the Proya & Spring Bud Plan.

Since its inception, Proya has been committed to the cause of beauty while making "the spirit of beauty" its social responsibility. Over the years, Proya has been actively participating in public welfare campaigns, including conducting women's public welfare programs in partnership with UN Women, helping to build Hope Primary Schools as part of Project Hope, making donations to earthquake-stricken areas and promoting environmental protection.

Following 15 years of rapid, forward-thinking development and growth, Proya has not only given consumers the opportunity to understand the unlimited potential of the company, but also let them feel pride in Chinese-made cosmetics. Looking ahead, Proya plans to continue its efforts in achieving the globalization of China's cosmetics industry, so that the world can see the power of "Beauty of China"!

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787442/PROYA_ambassadors.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787443/PROYA_founders.jpg


To fund two certified environmental projects in the Greater Bay Area

HONG KONG, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- New World China Land Limited ("New World China" or "NWC"), the flagship mainland China property arm of New World Development Company Limited ("NWD" or "the Group"; Hong Kong stock code: 0017), is pleased to announce that it is issuing its first green bond to finance two certified environmental projects in the Greater Bay Area. The green bond is one of the tranches of the medium-term note ("MTN") programme, which is being issued in Hong Kong under the New World Group's Green Finance Framework.

The MTN programme of up to US$2 billion gives institutional investors the opportunity to participate in China's real estate sector and support its green growth with one of the leading integrated property developers in China.

The Chinese government has made green development a priority to address the nation's environmental challenges, and regulators are actively encouraging the use of green bonds to finance such projects. Globally, green real estate bonds are increasingly being seen as a way for institutional investors to diversify their holdings and take advantage of the sector's longer investment cycles while meeting rising client demand for socially responsible investing.

Mr. Adrian Cheng, Executive Vice-chairman and General Manager of NWD, said: "The Group is pleased to support green financing in line with China's goal to build an 'ecological civilization' and Hong Kong's growth as a green finance hub. We have both financial strength and mature green building experience. Driven by the 'New World Sustainability Vision 2030' to infuse green and wellness elements into our businesses, we are confident that we can continue to deliver quality for our customers and create value for our stakeholders through this new bond issue."

NWC is principally engaged in property development in tier 1 and 2 cities in the mainland China, with particular strengths in large-scale mixed-used complexes, skyscrapers and residential neighbourhood projects. It currently has projects spanning 17 major cities in China, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Ningbo. As at 30 June 2018, its total land bank of properties under development or planning had a gross floor area of approximately 9.3 million sq.m.

"As one of the leading integrated property developers in China, NWC is known for incorporating sustainable design principals into its property developments to provide healthy, high-quality built environments for China's citizens," said Mr. So Chung-Keung, Director and Chief Executive Officer of NWC. "With a confident eye on China's green future, we will continue to make strategic investments that reflect our attention to sustainability and to those who live and work in the properties we create."

This first green bond issue, which has already received the 'Pre-Issuance Stage Certificate' under the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency's Green Finance Certification Scheme, will be financing two NWC projects in the Greater Bay Area. Both projects will receive national and international green building design pre-certifications and pledge to incorporate green spaces and energy-saving design and materials.

Qianhai CTF Finance Tower is a mixed-use, twin-tower landmark on a prime site in Shenzhen Qianhai Free Trade Zone. The project, which will have a total area of 180,100 sq.m., supports the provincial government's plan to make Qianhai a financial hub for the region. Due for completion by the end of 2021, Qianhai CTF Finance Tower has already earned LEED Gold-level Pre-certification. It expects to earn the WELL healthy building standard's Gold-level Pre-certification and a three-star rating under the China Green Building Evaluation Standard next year.

New World Zengcheng Comprehensive Development Project is a large-scale residential and commercial complex of 250,000 sq.m. in the transportation hub of eastern Guangzhou. The project, which will become New World's one of the landmark developments in Guangzhou when completed in 2021, supports the government's drive to boost Zengcheng's eastern hub. New World Zengcheng Comprehensive Development Project is currently undergoing LEED Gold pre-certification assessment and expects to attain a two-star rating under the China Green Building Evaluation Standard next year.

The NWC's first green bond is being issued in Hong Kong under NWD's Green Finance Framework. Independently verified by Sustainalytics, the Framework has strict eligibility criteria and requires transparent reporting citing appropriate certifications and ongoing impacts such as energy and water consumption, for example. It was the basis of the Group's first green loan in Hong Kong in March 2018.

"New World Group's sustainability vision is part of our wider commitment to building human-centric communities where green, smart and healthy living is a priority. Fast-urbanizing nations, like China, need developments that help boost the local economy and preserve local culture, with green features that enhance quality of life, conserve resources and enrich the natural environment. With innovations that span technology, design and project financing, New World Group is pioneering the urban future," said Mr. Adrian Cheng.

The NWC bond, with New World Development as its guarantor, has HSBC, Mizuho Securities, DBS, Natixis, BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole CIB as Joint Global Coordinators. HSBC and Natixis are the Joint Green Structuring Advisors.

New World Development Company Limited

Founded in 1970, New World Development Company Limited ("the Group", Hong Kong stock code: 0017) was publicly listed in Hong Kong in 1972 and is a constituent stock of the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index. A premium brand infused with a unique personality defined by The Artisanal Movement, New World Group's core business areas include property development, property investment, infrastructure and services, department stores and hotels. As at 30 June 2018, the total asset value of the Group amounted to approximately HK$481.5 billion. The Group has an effective interest of approximately 61% in NWS Holdings Limited (Hong Kong stock code: 0659), approximately 75% in New World Department Store China Limited (Hong Kong stock code: 0825) and wholly owned in New World China Land Limited.

New World China Land Limited

New World China Land Limited is the flagship Mainland China property arm of Hong Kong-listed New World Development Company Limited ("NWD"; Hong Kong Stock Code: 0017) and an early Hong Kong pioneer entering the China property market. The NWC vision is embodied by a humanistic spirit inspiring us to create fulfilling places and thriving cities that people love to call home. Guided by insight, we inject innovation into large-scale mixed-use commercial landmarks, offices, shopping centres, residential neighbourhoods and hotels while preserving local heritage, creating sustainable developments that allow people, city and nature to flourish in harmony. We bring the "Soul of the City" to life.

DISCLAIMER

Not for distribution in the United States. Release, transmission or distribution of this announcement to any other person is prohibited. The distribution of this announcement and other information referred to herein may be restricted by law and persons into whose possession this announcement or such other information comes should inform themselves about and observe any such restriction.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of any offer to purchase, a solicitation of an offer to purchase, an offer to sell or an invitation or solicitation of an offer to sell, issue or subscribe for, securities in or into the United States or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer or sale would be unlawful. No securities mentioned herein have been, or will be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws or other jurisdiction of the United States and no such securities may be offered or sold in or into the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements under the U.S. Securities Act and any applicable state or local securities laws of the United States.

No money, securities or other consideration is being solicited by this announcement or the information contained herein and, if sent in response to this announcement or the information contained herein, will not be accepted.

FCA / ICMA stabilisation applies.

Singapore Securities and Futures Act Product Classification - In connection with Section 309B(1)(c) of the Securities and Futures Act (Chapter 289) of Singapore (the "SFA") and the Securities and Futures (Capital Markets Products) Regulations 2018 (the "CMP Regulations 2018"), the NWC has determined, and hereby notifies all relevant persons (as defined in Section 309A(1) of the SFA), the classification of the bonds as prescribed capital markets products (as defined in the CMP Regulations 2018) and Excluded Investment Products (as defined in MAS Notice SFA 04-N12: Notice on the Sale of Investment Products and MAS Notice FAA-N16: Notice on Recommendations on Investment Products).

MiFID II professionals/ECPs-only - Manufacturer target market (MiFID II product governance) is eligible counterparties and professional clients only (all distribution channels).
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi condemned the terrorist attack in Kabul which killed and wounded dozens of people.

The minister expressed solidarity with the Afghan nation and government as well as families of the victims of the evil and unforgivable crime.

"Those behind the inhumane act have no aim but to fuel the flames of tribal, ethnical and religious sedition," IRNA cited the official as saying.

He expressed hope that the Afghan nation will leave behind these days strongly through maintaining unity and supporting central government and take firm steps in the path of peace and sustainable stability in their country.

In addition, Qasemi reaffirmed Iranian governments all-out backing for Afghan nation.

The suicide bomb attack kills 43 and wounds 83, as scholars marked the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) birth anniversary in Kabul.
The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR")

21 November 2018

WALCOM GROUP LIMITED

("Walcom" or "the Company")

Further re Customer Payment

Trading Update

Further to the announcement on 8 October 2018, the Company provides an update on the default on payments owed to the Company of an aggregate RMB 4.96 million (approximately 556,000) by the Company's largest customer (the "Customer"). The Company has still not received payment of the outstanding amount, and therefore has recommenced legal proceedings against the Customer to recover the contractual monies due.

The Company also provides an update on its current trading and market conditions. The African swine fever epidemic on pigs has affected most provinces in China including those in which the Company operates. This has had an adverse effect on trading, and the Directors now expect revenue for the current financial year to be significantly lower than the previous financial year. This reduction in revenue, in conjunction with the impact of the default on payments owed by the Customer, are likely to lead to the Company's loss before tax for the current financial year being significantly higher than that for the 2017 financial year.

As at 31 October 2018, the Company had cash at bank of approximately HK$ 4 million. Subsequent to this, the Company has repaid a short-term bank loan of RMB 2 million in accordance with its terms and is in discussions with the same lender regarding an additional facility. The Company has also agreed that the secured three-year RMB 2 million revolving credit facility in place via the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Shanghai Walcom Bio-Chem Co., Ltd, will be repaid on a quarterly basis commencing in January 2019.

As previously announced, the Company's working capital position is significantly restrained but manageable in the near term. However, if the full amount outstanding from the Customer is not received or the Company is not able to secure the alternative financing arrangement with its lender highlighted above, or any similar alternative arrangement, the Company may be in a position where it is unable to settle its liabilities as and when they fall due. The Company continues to monitor closely its cash position.

Further announcements will be made in due course.

Further enquiries:
LONDON, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Master Investor are pleased to announceaward-winning research house,QuotedData,as a key sponsor for Master Investor Show 2019. Edward Marten, QuotedData's CEO,shall join the Main Stage line-up on Saturday, 6 April, at London's Business Design Centre.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/788054/Master_Investor_Limited.jpg )



Commenting on QuotedData's sponsorship for a second year running, Edward Marten said:

"We are really excited about the2019Master Investor Show, building on the success of 2018. In 2018, we hosted a lively debate on investment trusts on theMain Stage with some of the best global asset managers, which we will be doing again in 2019.

"In April 2019, for the upcoming show, a selection of our clients will be joining us in the QuotedData village. Private investors will have the opportunity to meet and hear from representatives of some of the best companies, funds and fund managers. They'll also be able to pick up free hard copies of our research and educational guides. Our analysts will be on hand to answer questions and introduce investors to the people that make up our village. The first 15 QuotedData readers who pass our15 minute exam (on page 1 of our latest guide) will be awarded VIP passes to what is the largest private investor event in country. This will be done via our newinvestor events portal. We are excited to partner with Master Investor for the long term, working with their team to build the UK's best private investor show."

Edward Marten will be on the Main Stage in the morning joining an exciting line-up of speakers throughout the day.

Speaking for Master Investor, Ameerah Mian, Partnerships Marketing Manager, said:

"We are pleased to welcome back QuotedData as a sponsor for the second year running. Their skills and expertisein supporting private investors to make informed decisions about their investments complements our offering perfectly. This, paired with their industry relationships, brings an exciting new dynamic to the event, making them an ideal partner."

About QuotedData

QuotedData publishes free, reliable research on carefully selected sectors and companies, some of which is sponsored. QuotedData's highly-experienced team of analysts write with a balanced view - free of opinion and recommendations. Their goal is to provide all the information needed to make investment decisions or to understand in more detail what an adviser is recommending. Currently, at www.quoteddata.com, you will find research on financial stocks, investment trusts, property companies, REITs, biotech and healthcare companies and mining shares. However, their plan is to cover the whole of the UK equity market by the end of 2018.

Founded in 2013, QuotedData is part of Marten & Co, the financial services business that specialises in the provision of high-quality equity investment research to professional investors, as well as offering corporates expertise in access to capital and investor relations.

About Master Investor Ltd.

Master Investor is a digital media and events company producing the UK's leading free investment magazine and hosting the largest annual event for private investors in the UK. The 17th Master Investor Show on 6 April 2019 is expected to attract an audience of up to 5,000 private investors.

The event's main focus is "Connecting companies and investors". Investors participate to meet the executives, founders and board members of public and private companies who exhibit and present at the event. The range of companies exhibiting at the Master Investor Show ranges from early-stage start-ups to public companies with a GBP 100bn market cap.

The event includes presentations by over 50 speakers, including some of the highest profile experts of the UK finance industry. You can find more information at www.masterinvestor.co.uk/show

Register

Reserve your space and meet QuotedData's team and a host of companies offering their advice, services and recommendations into investing at the Master Investor Show 2019.

https://masterinvestor.co.uk/show/tickets/
CONVENING NOTICE OF THE

EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS

Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG

Limited Liability Company offering its securities to the public

Industrial Zone C, 7180 Seneffe

VAT BE 457.288.682

Register of Legal Entities Hainaut - Division Charleroi

www.bebig.com

(the "Company")

The shareholders of the Company are invited to attend the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders scheduled to take place at the office of the notary Berquin Notaires, located Avenue Lloyd George 11, 1000 Brussels, on Friday 21 December at 10:00 am .





Agenda of the extraordinary general meeting :

Amendment of the accounting year and the date of the annual general meeting - As a result, amendment of articles 26 and 35 of the articles of association - Transitional provisions regarding the current accounting year and the next annual general meeting.

Resolution proposal : approval of the amendment of (i) the accounting year to make it start on 1st July and end on 30 June of the following year and of (ii) the date of the annual general meeting, which will take place on the second Thursday of the month of December at 11:30 am and the approval of the transitional provisions so that the current accounting year, which has started on 1st January 2018 will end on 30 June 2019 and the annual general meeting on the annual accounts as per 30 June 2019 will take place in 2019.

Acknowledgment by the shareholders of the following documents, of which they can get a free copy: The joint terms of merger related to the cross-border merger by absorption between the German public limited liability company ( Aktiengesellschaft ) " Eckert & Ziegler Strahlen und Medizintechnik ", having its registered office at 13125 Berlin (Germany), Robert-Rossle-Strasse 10, and registered with the Commercial Register of the District Court of Berlin-Charlottenburg ( Handelsregister in Berlin Charlottenburg ) under the number HRB 64997 B, the " Absorbing Company ", and the Limited Liability Company offering or having offered its securities to the public " Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG ", having its registered office at Zone Industrielle C SN, 7180 Seneffe, Belgium, and registered with the Crossroads Enterprise Database ( Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises ) (RLE Hainaut, division Charleroi) under number 0457.288.682, the " Company " or the " Absorbed Company " (the " Merger "); the joint terms of merger has been prepared by the management board of the Absorbing Company and the board of directors of the Absorbed Company in accordance with article 772/6 of the Belgian companies Code and the Section 122c of the German transformation act, Umwandlungsgesetz (the " UmwG " of the " Tranformation Act ");

The special written report of the board of directors of the Absorbed Company in accordance with article 772/8 of the Belgian companies Code regarding the Merger ; and,

The written report of the statutory auditor of the Absorbed Company in accordance with article 772/9 of the Belgian companies Code. Communication regarding any substantial modification of the assets and liabilities of the merging companies between the date of the joint terms of merger and the date of the Merger. Approval of the Merger by absorption by the Absorbing Company, of all the assets and liabilities of the Absorbed Company, without exception or reserve, in accordance with the joint terms of merger and the articles 671 and 772/1 of the Belgian companies Code and Sections 122a et seq. of the UmwG, with effect on the day on which the commercial register of the district court, i.e. the Handelsregister Berlin-Charlottenburg, will enter the merger into the commercial register of the Absorbing Company (the "Legal Effective Date").

Resolution proposal : approval (i) of the joint terms of merger, (ii) of the Merger, in accordance with the joint terms of merger and the articles 671 and 772/1 of the Belgian companies Code and Sections 122a et seq. of the UmwG, with effect on the Legal Effective Date, and (iii) the dissolution without liquidation of the Absorbed Company with effect on the Legal Effective Date.

Delisting following the Merger.

Resolution proposal : approval of the delisting of the securities of the Company from Euronext Brussels, subject to the completion of the Merger and effective as from the Legal Effective Date.

Powers of attorney for the formalities.

Resolution proposal : approval of the powers of attorney to:

the board of directors to implement the resolutions adopted; any associate of Berquin Notaires, for this purpose electing domicile at the address of the civil company in the form of a limited liability cooperative company "Berquin Notaires", at 1000 Brussels, Avenue Lloyd George 11, all powers to draft the text of the coordination of the articles of association of the Company, to sign it and to file it at the clerk's office of the competent company court, in accordance with the relevant legal provisions; and Anne Tilleux, Alexandre Pasdermadjian, Gauthier Davignon as well as to any other lawyer of the Laga firm, whose office is located at 1150 Brussels (Belgium), boulevard of Woluwe 2, each acting separately, with the right of substitution, in order to carry out all formalities relating to the decisions taken by the general meeting of shareholders, including the formalities with an enterprise locket, in order to ensure the registration/modification of data in the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises and, where applicable, with the Value Added Tax Administration.



RIGHTS OF THE SHAREHOLDERS

A. Right to submit proposals to add items to the agenda or resolutions

Shareholders holding alone or jointly more than 3% of the Company's capital have the right to submit proposals for items to be added to the agenda and for resolutions to be adopted by the general meeting. Shareholders that wish to do so must meet the following requirements:

1. They must prove that they hold the required percentage of shares, as mentioned above, on the date of submission of the proposal (i.e. a certificate attesting to recordation of the shares in the Company's shareholders' register or a certificate prepared by an account holder or settlement institution indicating deposit of the shares); and

2. They must hold more than 3% of the Company's capital on the record date (i.e. 7 December 2018 at 24:00).

The shareholders should submit their proposals, along with proof of title to the requisite shareholding, to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com) or by post to the Company's registered office. These documents must be received no later than 29 November 2018.

The Company will acknowledge receipt of the proposal within 48 hours. If the Company receives additional items and/or proposed resolutions, an updated agenda for the concerned general meeting will be published no later than 6 December 2018 on the Company's website, in the Belgian State Gazette and in the press.

The ad hoc proxy form and the form used to vote by correspondence, along with proposals for new agenda items and resolutions, will be posted on the Company's website, at the same time as publication of the same, i.e. no later than 6 December 2018.

Proxies submitted to the Company prior to publication of the updated agenda remain valid for items previously included on the agenda. As an exception to the foregoing, for items already included on the agenda but for which a new proposed resolution is filed in accordance with Article 533ter of the Company Code, the proxy holder may derogate, at the general meeting, from any possible instructions given by the principal if the execution of these instructions could jeopardize the principal's interests. In this case, the proxy holder must inform the principal accordingly. The proxy must indicate if the proxy holder is authorized to vote on new items on the agenda or must abstain from voting.

The concerned general meeting will examine the new proposals for agenda items and resolutions submitted by one or more shareholders if the latter meet the admission requirements to participate in the meeting.

B. Right to ask questions

Each shareholder is entitled to submit questions in writing to the board of directors or the auditor prior to the general meeting. Shareholders can submit their questions by e-mail to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com) or by post to the Company's registered office. The questions must be received by the Company no later than 15 December 2018. Questions will be answered during the concerned general meeting if the shareholder in question has complied with all formalities to be allowed to attend the concerned general meeting, as explained below.

ADMISSION FORMALITIES

Pursuant to Article 536 2 of the Company Code, only shareholders who meet the two following conditions will be authorized to participate in and vote at the general meeting:

1. The Company must be able to determine, based on the proof submitted pursuant to the procedure described below, that the shareholder holds on 7 December 2018, at 24.00 (CET) (the "Record Date"), the number of shares which that shareholder intends to vote at the general meeting; and

2. The shareholder must expressly confirm no later than 15 December 2018 his or her intention to participate in the general meeting.

A. Registration

The registration procedure is as follows:

Holders of registered shares or registered certificates : no particular actions need to be taken.

Holders of dematerialized shares : the shares to be voted at the general meeting must be deposited with an accredited account holder or settlement institution.

Only shareholders of the Company on the Record Date will be authorized to participate in and vote at the general meeting.

B. Confirmation of participation

In addition, shareholders who wish to participate in the general meeting must notify their intention to attend no later than 15 December 2018 as follows:

Holders of registered shares or registered certificates : the board of directors must be informed in writing no later than 15 December 2018; the notice can be sent by e-mail to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com) or by post to the Company's registered office;

Holders of dematerialized shares : (i) must inform the board of directors in writing no later than 15 December 2018 of their intention to attend (the notice can be sent by e-mail to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com) or by post to the Company's registered office) and (ii) must submit to the Company's registered office by 15 December 2018 a certificate issued by the authorised account holder or settlement institution indicating the number of shares the shareholder wishes to vote at the general meeting and the number of dematerialized shares recorded in his or her name as of 7 December 2018, at 24.00 (CET).



PROXIES

Pursuant to Article 27 of the Company's articles of association, every shareholder can be represented at the general meeting by a third party, who don't need to be a shareholder. Unless the Company Code provides otherwise, a shareholder may only appoint one proxy for any given general meeting of shareholders.

The proxy holder must be appointed using the form prepared by the Company to this end. The original proxy should be received by the Company no later than 15 December 2018. It can be sent by post to the Company's registered office or by e-mail to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com). In the latter case, the form must have an electronic signature that meets the applicable Belgian statutory requirements. The proxy form is available for download on the Company's website or can be requested at info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com). Shareholders and proxy holders are requested to follow the instructions on the proxy form in order to ensure valid representation at the general meeting.

All proxy appointments must comply with the requirements of Belgian law, including the provisions on conflicts of interest and record keeping. Shareholders who wish to be represented by a proxy must also fulfil the formalities to attend and vote at the meeting, as set forth above.

VOTING BY CORRESPONDENCE

Pursuant to Article 32 of the Company's articles of association, each shareholder is entitled to vote by correspondence prior to the meeting, using the form prepared for this purpose by the board of directors. This form is available for download on the Company's website and should be received by the Company no later than 15 December 2018. It can be submitted by e-mail to info@bebig.com (mailto:info@bebig.com) or sent by post to the Company's registered office. Shareholders who wish to vote by correspondence must also fulfil the formalities to attend and vote at the meeting, as set forth above.

AVAILABLE DOCUMENTS

Pursuant to Articles 533bis 2 and 772/10 of the Company Code, as from the publication date of the notice (i.e. 21 November 2018) until the end of the general meeting, all documents that must be made available by law to the shareholders will be posted on the Company's website, www.bebig.com. For the duration of this same period, these documents will be made available to shareholders at the Company's registered office.

Every shareholder is entitled to receive, further to submission of proof of title in accordance with Article 535 of the Company Code, a copy free of charge of (i) the joint terms of merger, (ii) the special report of the board of directors of BEBIG, (iii) the report of the auditor of BEBIG on the joint terms of merger, (iv) the report of the independent directors' committee of BEBIG, (v) the fairness opinion prepared by the independent expert appointed by the independent directors' committee of BEBIG, (vi) the agendas for the meeting and the proposed resolutions or, if no resolutions need be passed, the comments of the board of directors on the items on the agendas, and (vi) the proxy form, (vii) the annual accounts, management report and auditor report of the past 3 financial years of the merging companies and (viii) the interim financial statements.

Together with the present notice, registered shareholders as well as the Company's directors and auditors shall be provided with the reports mentioned on the agendas, along with a description of the Company's capital on the date of the notice and the standard proxy form and form to vote by correspondence.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG via Globenewswire


VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Subscribe Technologies Inc. (CSE: SAAS, OTCQB: SRBBF, Frankfurt: 6GQ) ("Subscribe" or "the Company") is pleased to announce its Gingerly.com service has enabled new account access to over 5000 users of its recent asset acquisition WebinarIgnition.

Subscribe Technologies has been seeking rapid growth through acquisition of related businesses with an existing user base, among other growth strategies.

WebinarIgnition enables users to easily deploy live or pre-recorded (evergreen) webinars and charge viewers through the integrated payment system. Users can host unlimited webinars, host unlimited attendees, build customized page templates and access detailed registration & buyer reports, and professionally designed webinar templates can be customized for any brand, or user experience with color options, logo placement and features that include sales & conversion tracking, email & text message reminders plus Q&A / chat integration.

See Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5yGLQ0JEpw&feature=youtu.be

Further integration between the two platforms is being implemented to enhance productivity and monetization opportunities for users.

President and CEO Mr. Paul Dickson states, "The WebinarIgnition acquisition demonstrates our commitment to evolving Gingerly.com in to a World-Class Software-as-a-Service business platform. WebinarIgnition is used by entrepreneurs we believe to be the same demographic as Gingerly users, so it's a perfect fit. We are pleased to welcome all WebinarIgnition users to Gingerly."

About Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service is a fast emerging, cloud based business model allowing companies to offer services worldwide, and grow their user base exponentially, with scale, and modest relative additional operating costs to do same.

About Gingerly

Gingerly is a cloud-based business management suite and dashboard offering a growing portfolio of a-la-carte business management applications for solopreneurs, small, and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).



For more information or to sign up for the platform, please visit www.gingerly.com .

About Subscribe Technologies

Subscribe Technologies (CSE: SAAS, OTCQB: SRBBF, Frankfurt: 6GQ) develops, partners with, acquires, and invests in cloud based software as a service (SAAS) solutions for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

To learn more about Subscribe Technologies, please visit www.subscribetech.com .

On Behalf of the Board,

Paul Dickson

President & CEO

Contact:

Patrick Butler

VP Shareholder Communications

pbutler@creeksidecommunicationsltd.com

Tel: 1 (855) 439 7227

Forward-Looking Information:

This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business and trading in the common stock of Subscribe Technologies Inc. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the company's management. Although the company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because the company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release.

SOURCE: Subscribe Technologies Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/528600/Subscribe-Technologies-Flagship-Platform-Gingerly-Enables-over-5000-New-Users
NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK COMMODITIES INCOME INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

54930040ALEAVPMMDC31

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

75.32p Capital only

76.71p Including current year income

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

3. Following the Buyback of 37,897 ordinary shares on 22 October 2018, the Company now has 116,126,515 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 2,839,485 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury).

4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3).

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK GREATER EUROPE INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

5493003R8FJ6I76ZUW55

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

334.30p Capital only (undiluted)

334.30p Capital only (Diluted for treasury shares)

334.55p Including current year income (undiluted) XD

334.55p Including current year income (Diluted for treasury shares) XD

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

3. Following the purchase of 50,000 ordinary shares on 12th November 2018, the Company now has 86,409,691 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 23,919,247 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury).

4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3).

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK WORLD MINING TRUST PLC

LNFFPBEUZJBOSR6PW155

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock World Mining Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

384.88p Capital only (undiluted)

395.90p Including current year income (undiluted)

Notes:

1. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

2. Following the buyback of 25,000 ordinary shares on 23 October 2018, the Company has 176,330,242 ordinary shares in issue, excluding 16,681,600 which are held in treasury.

3. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3).

4. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK THROGMORTON TRUST PLC

5493003B7ETS1JEDPF59

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Throgmorton Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

507.01p Capital only

515.09p Including current year income

507.01p Capital only (adjusted for treasury shares)

515.09p Including current year income (adjusted for treasury shares)

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. The Company's issued share capital comprises 73,130,326 Ordinary Shares and 7,400,000 Treasury Shares.

3. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK EMERGING EUROPE PLC

549300OGTQA24Y3KMI14

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Emerging Europe plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

412.31c per share (US cents) - Capital only

321.52p per share (pence sterling) - Capital only

423.28c per share (US cents) - Including current year income

330.08p per share (pence sterling) - Including current year income

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value.

3. Following the cancellation of 5,000,000 treasury shares on 09 November 2018, the Company's share capital consists of 35,916,028 Ordinary shares carrying one vote each. There are no shares held in treasury.



4. As announced on 19 October 2018, the Company has published proposals which will result in the liquidation of the Company's assets subject to approval at a General Meeting to be held on 15 November 2018. The daily valuation includes an accrual in respect of expected costs associated with the liquidation. This accrual accounts for costs directly attributable to the liquidation. It is expected disposal costs will also be encountered while selling down the portfolio however such costs cannot be reliably estimated until the sale is executed. Consequently disposal costs have not been accrued in the valuation at this point."



NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK NORTH AMERICAN INCOME TRUST PLC

549300WWOCXSC241W468

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock North American Income Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

170.23p Capital only

172.08p Including current year income

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

3. Following the share issuance of 100,000 ordinary shares on 14 November 2018, the Company has 68,974,044 ordinary shares in issue, including 31,387,261 which are held in treasury.

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK LATIN AMERICAN INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

UK9OG5Q0CYUDFGRX4151

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

643.39c per share (US cents) - Capital only

643.56c per share (US cents) - Including current year income

501.72p per share (pence sterling) Capital only

501.85p per share (pence sterling) - Including current year income

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

3. Following the Buyback of 20,000 ordinary shares on 24 May 2018, the Company now has 39,259,620 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 2,181,662 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury).

4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3).

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK INCOME AND GROWTH INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

5493003YBY59H9EJLJ16

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

184.79p Capital only (undiluted)

189.86p Including current year income (undiluted)

Notes:

1. Following the buyback of 41,500 ordinary shares on 08 October 2018, the Company has 24,059,668 ordinary shares in issue excluding 8,874,264 shares in treasury.

2. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis, with the exception of the holding in Patisserie Valerie which has been valued at a directors' valuation following its suspension from trading on AIM on 10 Oct. The portfolio's holding in Patisserie Valerie at 20th November 2018 represents 0.16% of the Company's total portfolio following this revaluation

3. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK SMALLER COMPANIES TRUST PLC

549300MS535KC2WH4082

The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Smaller Companies Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

1360.54p Capital only and including debt at par value

1354.14p Capital only and including debt at fair value

1374.75p Including current year income and debt at par value XD

1368.36p Including current year income and debt at fair value XD

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. The total number of ordinary shares in issue excluding treasury shares is 47,879,792. The total amount of ordinary shares

held in treasury is 2,113,731.

3. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3).

NET ASSET VALUE

BLACKROCK FRONTIERS INVESTMENT TRUST PLC

5493003K5E043LHLO706

The unaudited net asset values for the ordinary shares of BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust plc at close of business on 20 November 2018 were:

164.51c Capital only USD (cents)

128.28p Capital only Sterling (pence)

171.67c Including current year income USD (cents)

133.87p Including current year income Sterling (pence)

Notes:

1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis.

2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date.

3. Following the share issuance of 500,000 ordinary shares on 12th November 2018, the Company has 203,991,108 ordinary shares in issue.
DUBAI, UAE, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The agreement will see the implementation of Elsevier's Order Sets and Care Planning solutions in all three Al Hammadi hospitals over the next five years



Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, today announced an agreement with Al Hammadi Company for Development and Investment (Al Hammadi) to implement Elsevier's Order Sets and Care Planning solutions in Al Hammadi hospitals across Saudi Arabia.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/754760/Elsevier_Logo.jpg )



Al Hammadi currently oversees three large hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Al Hammadi Hospital Al Olaya (300 beds), Al Hammadi Hospital Al Suwaidi (428 beds), and Al Hammadi Hospital Al Nuzha (600 beds).

Implementation of Order Sets and Care Planning solutions marks an important step of digital transformation for the hospital. The Saudi Arabian government is encouraging hospitals to harness technology optimizing patient care by putting hospitals with HIMSS EMRAM Stage 6 accreditations or above in higher reimbursement plans. The first step in the agreement with Elsevier will be to complete the implementation phase by the end of 2018.

"We are delighted to add Elsevier's solutions to our hospitals to support us in achieving Stage 6 HIMSS EMRAM accreditation. The agreement is a statement of how our commitment to digital transformation will deliver excellent outcomes in our hospitals," said Mohammad Bin Mohammed Al Hammadi, Chief Executive Officer of Al Hammadi.

Al Hammadi will join a growing number of hospitals in the region to implement Elsevier's Clinical Decision Support Solutions. Last year, following the implementation of Order Sets and Care Planning solutions, the Al Habib Medical Group achieved HIMSS EMRAM stage 6 .

"The agreement with Al Hamadi is a step closer to Elsevier's goal of supporting hospitals around the world to improve clinical outcomes. Hospitals are by nature complex environments, and clearly defined and documented care plans, structured assessment tools, and clinical decision support for doctors can achieve a more consistent delivery of care and improve outcomes for patients," said Tim Hawkins, Managing Director for Clinical Solutions in EMEALAAP, Elsevier.

Elsevier's Clinical Decision Support Solutions focus on driving operational efficiencies through improving communication and increasing access to evidence-based guidelines. Orders Sets quickly translate knowledge into actionable orders, while Care Planning allows the integration evidence-based, patient-centered care planning directly into the hospitals' EHR.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals advance healthcare, open science and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support and professional education, including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 38,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Christopher Capot, Global Communications

Elsevier

+1-917-704-5174

c.capot@elsevier.com


TEL AVIV, Israel, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

New Platform Featuring Machine-LearningArtificial Intelligenceto Be Featured at MoneyLive Summit in London

Finscend, a hot fintech start-up that revealed its state-of-the-art Bank Dispute Platform (BDP) at the MoneyLIVE Nordic Banking 2018 conference in Copenhagen earlier this month, has reported a significant spike in interest in the solution from banks and other financial institutions that issue credit cards throughout Northern Europe.

"We believe banks that deploy Finscend's BDP will immediately benefit from a dramatic reduction in the cost of credit card disputes and free them from their traditional dependency on external support processing centers," states Moshe Teren, the company's CTO and co-founder.

When a card holder requests the issuing bank to raise a dispute, BDP jumps into action to facilitate and streamline the entire system. What enables it to do so is a proprietary technology that incorporates machine learning and artificial intelligence while interacting seamlessly with all existing banking infrastructure. This synthesis allows BDP to automatically calculate a unique dispute-or-not score based on input it receives from hundreds of data points within the payment ecosystem. Based on the score, BDP generates an optimal result for the bank's dispute department.

"Moreover," Teren notes, "BDP has been designed to assure that banks remain compliant with regulatory obligations by identifying, tracking, and monitoring abuse and errors in the system."

"By incorporating all these critical attributes on the same platform, Finscend is revolutionizing the way in which credit card disputes are processed," Teren concludes. "Given the positive reception it received in Copenhagen, we anticipate that our Bank Dispute Platform will generate similar excitement at the MoneyLIVE Summit 2018 to be held November 26-27 in London."

Contact:

Reuben Eliaz, Media Relations Manager

news@finscend.com

+1-773-312-4800

www.finscend.com
Blue Planet Investment Trust plc (LSE: BLP)

21 November 2018

CHANGE OF AUDITOR

Following a formal tender process, Blue Planet Investment Trust plc is pleased to announce the appointment of Scott-Moncrieff as its new auditor with effect from 12 November 2018. Scott-Moncrieff will conduct the audit of the Company's financial statements for the financial year to 30 April 2019. The appointment of Scott Moncrieff as auditor for the following financial year will be subject to approval by shareholders at the next Annual General Meeting of the Company to be held in 2019.

In accordance with section 519 of the Companies Act 2006, Deloitte LLP has deposited a statement with the Company of the circumstances connected with them ceasing to hold office as auditor of the Company (the "Statement"). The Statement confirms that Deloitte LLP resigned as auditor of the Company because the Company held a competitive tender for the audit in which Deloitte LLP was not re-appointed.

For more information, please visit www.blueplanet.eu

You can also contact the Company on 0845 527 7588 or by emailing info@blueplanet.eu
Dublin-based company bolsters its leadership as it moves into next phase of growth

Boxever, the market-leading personalisation platform that uses data and AI to make every customer interaction smarter, today announces the hire of Lorcan Malone as its new COO.

Previously, Malone worked for Swiftpage where he was President and COO. He has over 20 years' industry experience working extensively in both the private and public sectors in the US, Europe and the Middle East, delivering market-leading SAAS solutions and major IT projects.

Prior to joining Swiftpage Malone was VP at Infor CRM, GM at Sage CRM and held a number of senior level positions at IT services company Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Ireland and the Middle East. Malone was also COO at Injazat Data Systems based in Abu Dhabi.

Dave O'Flanagan, CEO of Boxever, said: "We're absolutely delighted to add someone of Lorcan's calibre to the Boxever team. He has a track record of growing organisations from start-up to significant scale, and we're really excited about him bringing that experience to the table. His arrival times perfectly as we continue to diversify into new sectors, and expand into new markets across EMEA, Australasia and Latin America. This new hire caps off an exciting few months here at Boxever following a number of new business wins, a major rebrand and our recent inclusion in Gartner's Personalisation Engine Magic Quadrant."

Lorcan Malone said: "I'm thrilled to be joining a business at the cutting edge of the rapidly expanding martech industry. Boxever has been a leader in the market for a number of years now, helping businesses to unlock the enormous value of data, analytics and AI, and deliver brilliant experiences for their customers. I can't wait to get going as we drive the company through its next stage of growth across multiple markets and sectors."

To learn more about Boxever, please visit: www.boxever.com.

- Ends -

About Boxever

Boxever is a personalisation platform that uses data and AI to make every customer interaction smarter. It connects all your customer, product and operational data, putting your customer at the centre of your business and enabling true 1:1 personalisation. This results in lower acquisition costs, accelerated conversion rates, improved customer engagement and higher lifetime value. Using artificial intelligence, it acts as the "brain" within your customer-tech ecosystem, taking in all data about the customer, deciding what should happen next and executing that action through the most appropriate channels in real time, as it happens.

Today, leading brands from across the globe including Emirates, Air New Zealand, Cebu Pacific, Brussels Airlines and Aer Lingus rely on Boxever to help acquire, convert and retain customers. The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Learn more at www.boxever.com or follow us on Twitter @Boxever.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005206/en/

Contacts:

Boxever

Diana Byrne, VP Marketing

+353 87 1276697

diana.byrne@boxever.com
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said it was shameful that U.S. President Donald Trump had pledged support for Saudi Arabia despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate.

"Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the first paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse Iran of every sort of malfeasance he can think of," the Iranian diplomat wrote on his Twitter page.

Zarif also referred to Trumps unfavorable comparison of forestry management in wildfire-ravaged California and Finland, adding: "Perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests  just like the Finns do?"

Earlier, Trump vowed to stay a "steadfast partner" of Riyadh despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder Khashoggi in Istanbul, Reuters reported.
High-capacity route will connect two key European regions

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ZAYO) was selected by a major webscale company for a wavelength solution to provide capacity between two of the company's data centers in Europe. The solution will be deployed on a direct route owned and operated by Zayo, tailored to the customer's exact requirements.

The route, which leverages acquired assets from Viatel, will provide a key portion of the company's core network in Europe. Zayo continues to see continued demand in Europe for high-capacity networks, in both dark fiber and wavelength form, from global companies in multiple sectors.

"Zayo's owned infrastructure was a major differentiator in winning this business," said Annette Murphy, Zayo's managing director of Europe. "We are able to provide very high-capacity connectivity and deploy it very quickly for the customer."

"In this case, our long-standing customer needs terabytes of throughput on a direct route," said Randy Dunbar, president of Transport at Zayo. "It's an excellent illustration of leveraging our embedded network to provide the customer with a solution that meets their capacity needs."

For more information about Zayo, please visit zayo.com.

About Zayo Group

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ZAYO) provides communications infrastructure solutions, including fiber and bandwidth connectivity, colocation and cloud infrastructure to the world's leading businesses. Customers include wireless and wireline carriers, media and content companies and finance, healthcare and other large enterprises. Zayo's 130,000-mile network in North America and Europe includes extensive metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centers. In addition to high-capacity dark fiber, wavelength, Ethernet and other connectivity solutions, Zayo offers colocation and cloud infrastructure in its carrier-neutral data centers. Zayo provides users with flexible, customized solutions and self-service through Tranzact, an innovative online platform for managing and purchasing bandwidth. For more information, visit zayo.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains a number of forward-looking statements. Words, and variations of words such as "believe," "expect," "plan," "continue," "will," "should," and similar expressions are intended to identify our forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements will be achieved and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. For additional information on these and other factors that could affect our forward-looking statements, see our risk factors, as they may be amended from time to time, set forth in our filings with the SEC, including our 10-K dated August 24, 2018. We disclaim and do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement in this press release, except as required by applicable law or regulation.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005116/en/

Contacts:

Media:

Shannon Paulk, Corporate Communications

303-577-5897

press@zayo.com

Investors:

Brad Korch, Investor Relations

720-306-7556

IR@zayo.com
SAN FRANCISCO, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The global software consulting market is expected to reach USD 382.65 billion by 2025, according to a new study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. The growing demand for digitalization in business processes and low start-up costs associated with software consulting services are expected to drive the growth of the market.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg )

The growing adoption of enterprise software solutions to increase productivity and efficiency of an organization is driving the demand for software consulting services for efficient installation and use of these solutions. The increasing need for the development of enterprise mobile applications and web applications is further expected to drive the demand for consultation planning, implementation, and support for applications.

Migration of IT infrastructure to cloud computing infrastructure and traditional IT solutions to mobile computing solutions are the current trends observed in the market. These trends are expected to drive the demand for software consulting services over the forecast period. Furthermore, new service providers in the market are delivering an innovative business model that redefines the existing business model.

Moreover, digital transformation across the manufacturing industries and adoption of Industry 4.0 standards are expected to drive the demand for software consulting services for installing new software based solutions and gaining insights on advanced changes made in the software solutions. Increasing number of SMEs and their demand for advanced software solutions for developing effective business models are expected to fuel the growth of the market.

Browse full research report with TOC on "Software Consulting Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Application, By Enterprise Size (Large Enterprise and Small & Medium Enterprise), By End-use, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025" at:https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/software-consulting-market

Further Key Findings From the Report Suggest:

The enterprise solution segment is expected to account for a significant market share over the forecast period owing to the increasing demand for an efficient and integrated system that minimizes operational costs.

Increasing investments by large enterprises in advanced technologies to cope with the changing industry dynamics are expected to drive the growth of the large enterprise segment.

The IT & telecom segment is expected to witness the highest growth in terms of revenue over the forecast period. Increasing demand for maintaining quality, security, and performance of software architecture in the IT & telecom industry are expected to drive the growth of the market.

North America is expected to continue to dominate in the market over the forecast period owing to the presence of a large number of software consulting service providers.

is expected to continue to dominate in the market over the forecast period owing to the presence of a large number of software consulting service providers. The key industry participants include Atos SE, Accenture, Capgemini, CGI Group Inc., Cognizant, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, Ernst & Young Global Limited, IBM Corporation, Oracle, PwC, and SAP SE.

Browse related reports by Grand View Research:

Router And Switch Market - The global router and switch market size is expected to exceed USD 41 billion by 2022.



The global router and switch market size is expected to exceed by 2022. Enterprise Networking Market - The global enterprise networking market size was USD 40.06 billion in 2015.



The global enterprise networking market size was in 2015. Business Process Management (BPM) Market - The BPM market is expected to reach USD 23.04 billion by 2024.



The BPM market is expected to reach by 2024. Substation Automation Market - The substation automation market size was valued at USD 114.0 billion in 2015

Grand View Research has segmented the global software consulting market on the basis of application, enterprise size, end-use, and region:

Software Consulting Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2014 - 2025) Enterprise Solutions Application Development Migration & Maintenance services Design Services Application Testing Services Software Security Services

Software Consulting Enterprise Size Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2014 - 2025) Large Enterprise Small & Medium Enterprise

Software Consulting End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2014 - 2025) Automotive BFSI Education Government Healthcare IT & Telecom Manufacturing Retail Others

Software Consulting Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Canada Europe UK Germany Asia Pacific China India Japan Latin America Brazil Middle East & Africa



Explore the BI enabled intuitive market research database,Grand View Compass, by Grand View Research, Inc.

About Grand View Research

Grand 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.

Contact:

Sherry James

Corporate Sales Specialist, USA

Grand View Research, Inc.

Phone: +1-415-349-0058

Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519

Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com



Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com
MACCLESFIELD, England, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- EuroSite Power Inc. (OTCPK: EUSP, the "Company") an On-Site Utility solutions provider, offering clean electricity, heat, hot water and cooling solutions to healthcare, hospitality, housing and leisure centers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe, today announced that it had joined London Stock Exchange Group's international business support and capital raising ecosystem, ELITE. Over 150 UK companies make up the 1000 strong international ELITE community of companies, in addition to advisers and investors.

Speaking at last week's welcome meeting, Umerah Akram, Head of ELITE UK, London Stock Exchange said "I am excited to present the latest group of UK companies to join ELITE, a clear demonstration of the country's ability to grow great businesses. These companies drive innovation, employment, and create opportunities for us all."

"ELITE is committed to giving the British business stars of the future the very best chance to succeed, providing them with access to appropriate expertise and capital. It is a unique, strong community of the best and most dynamic entrepreneurs, advisers, investors and business school academics from the UK, Europe and around the world."

Commenting on EuroSite Power's admission to the ELITE programme, Chief Executive Officer Dr Elias Samaras said, "Since 2012 only 1000 companies have been accepted by the London Stock Exchange Group to complete the ELITE programme. The fact that EuroSite Power have been accepted on to the programme is testament that our hard work has attracted attention. I now look forward to using ELITE as a platform from which to grow our business internationally."

About ELITE

ELITE is a full-service programme designed to help ambitious companies prepare and structure for the next stage of growth through the access to long term financing opportunities. It is a unique offering for scale-ups across Europe and beyond, providing a comprehensive training programme and extensive access to the business and financial community. The ELITE Funding platform, launched in 2017, will also help streamline the capital raising process for ELITE companies.

For further information ELITE, the companies and the full list of partners, please go to: www.elite-network.com

About EuroSite Power

The Company provides institutional, commercial and small industrial facilities with clean, reliable power, cooling, heat and hot water at lower costs than charged by conventional energy suppliers - without any capital or start-up costs to the energy user. More information can be found at www.eurositepower.co.uk.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, as disclosed on the Company's website and in financial statements held by OTC markets for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. This press release does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities by the Company, its subsidiaries or any associated party and is meant purely for informational purposes. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, even if subsequently made available by the Company on its website or otherwise. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

Investor Contact: Media Contact: Dr Elias Samaras Paul Hamblyn EuroSite Power Inc. EuroSite Power Inc. +44 844 693 2848 +44 7920 859 540 elias.samaras@eurositepower.co.uk paul.hamblyn@eurositepower.co.uk

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787634/EuroSite_ELITE.jpg
Further senior organisational changes made in preparation for advancing bemcentinib into the next stage of clinical development in multiple aggressive cancers

BERGEN, Norway, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

BerGenBio ASA (OSE: BGBIO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, oral, selective AXL kinase inhibitors for multiple cancer indications, is delighted to announce the appointment of Alan Barge MD as Interim Chief Medical Officer and member of the leadership team. The Company also announces further senior organisational changes and a strengthening of its clinical operations as it prepares for the intended advancement of its lead candidate bemcentinib into the next stages of clinical development.

Dr Barge is a board-certified oncologist and haematologist, with more than 25 years of experience in cancer drug development, spent primarily at AstraZeneca and Amgen. He spent over 12 years at AstraZeneca, where he was VP and Head Oncology and Infection, during which time he was responsible for the development of Iressa (gefitinib) for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the translational research that resulted in the successful personalised medicine strategy for AZ. Prior to AZ, Dr Barge was European and Global Medical Director at Amgen, at which he was responsible for European approval and label extensions for several of Amgen's cancer therapies. More recently, Dr Barge has been actively involved in the biotech sector in both CMO and non-executive positions, including CMO of Carrick Therapeutics (UK and Ireland) and SVP Oncology at ASLAN Pharmaceuticals (Singapore).

Dr Barge will work as part of BerGenBio's leadership team on an interim basis until a permanent CMO is appointed.

Richard Godfrey, Chief Executive Officer of BerGenBio, commented: "We are delighted to welcome Alan to the team. His vast experience from developing successful cancer drugs with AstraZeneca and Amgen will be most valuable in forming and executing the Company's clinical and regulatory strategy for bemcentinib as we enter the next phase of development. We anticipate further results from our phase II proof-of-concept studies of bemcentinib in NSCLC and AML in the coming months, and aim to start a randomised phase 2 trial programme in these indications in 2019."

In addition, BerGenBio announces the promotion of Dr Anthony Brown to Chief Scientific Officer from Director of Research, succeeding BerGenBio co-founder Professor James Lorens, who becomes a Senior Scientific Advisor to the Company. Murray Yule, BerGenBio's Clinical Development Officer, will leave the Company with effect from 30 November 2018. Further, as noted during the Company's Q3 2018 results presentation, Dr Tone Bjaaland has recently been appointed as Director of Clinical Operations (>25 years' experience in clinical research) and further strengthens the team.

About BerGenBio ASA

BerGenBio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing transformative drugs targeting AXL as a potential cornerstone of therapy for advanced and aggressive cancers. The company's proprietary lead candidate, bemcentinib, is a potential first-in- class, selective AXL inhibitor in a broad phase II clinical development programme. Ongoing clinical trials are investigating bemcentinib in multiple solid and haematological tumours, in combination with current and emerging therapies (including immunotherapies, targeted therapies and chemotherapy), and as a single agent.

In parallel, BerGenBio is developing a companion diagnostics test to identify patient populations most likely to benefit from bemcentinib: this is expected to facilitate more efficient registration trials and support a precision medicine-based commercialisation strategy.

BerGenBio is based in Bergen, Norway with a subsidiary in Oxford, UK. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: BGBIO). www.bergenbio.com

Contacts

Richard Godfrey CEO, BerGenBio ASA

+47-917-86-304

Rune Skeie, CFO, BerGenBio ASA

rune.skeie@bergenbio.com

+47-917-86-513

International Media Relations

David Dible, Mark Swallow, Marine Perrier, Citigate Dewe Rogerson

bergenbio@citigatedewerogerson.com

+44-207-638-9571

Media Relations in Norway

Jan Petter Stiff, Crux Advisers

stiff@crux.no

+47-995-13-891



Forward looking statements

This announcement may contain forward-looking statements, which as such are not historical facts, but are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. These assumptions are inherently subject to significant known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other important factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied in this announcement by such forward-looking statements.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/bergenbio-asa/r/bergenbio-appoints-cancer-drug-development-specialist-alan-barge-md-as-interim-chief-medical-officer,c2679159
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2018) - Seahawk Ventures Inc. (CSE: SHV) ("Seahawk") is pleased to announce that it has closed the first tranche of the Private Placement as announced on November 5, 2018 (see news release) and raised gross proceeds of $912,240.00. Seahawk issued 350,750 shares in the Placement for $0.32 per share, and 2,000,000 shares on a flow-through basis at a price of $0.40 per share. A further news release will be issued on the closing of the balance of the placement.

About Seahawk Ventures Inc.

Seahawk Ventures Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian resource exploration company trading in Canada (CSE: SHV), the U.S. (OTC Pink: SEHKF) and Germany (FSE: 7SR). Seahawk is now the 3rd largest land owner in the Urban-Barry Greenstone Belt in the Abitibi sub province of mining friendly Quebec, Canada, with 100% ownership of several mineral properties.

For more information please contact Seahawk Ventures Inc.

Giovanni Gasbarro,

CEO and Director at 1-604-939-1848

Mitchell E. Lavery, P.Geo.

President and Director at 1-613-298-1596

Neither the Canadian Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES
Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2018) - Minera Alamos Inc. (TSXV: MAI) ("Minera" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received a positive notification from the Mexican environmental authorities (Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales - "SEMARNAT") regarding the Company's permit application (MIA/ETJ) for the development of the La Fortuna Gold Project ("Fortuna"). The notification confirms the successful completion of the technical review phase of the Company's application (Estudio Tecnico Justificativo - "ETJ") for the change of land use to construct mining and processing facilities at the Fortuna project area. Following the completion of the change of land use payments, SEMARNAT will be in a position to issue the formal approval documentation for the project.

"The receipt of this notification represents a major milestone for the Company. Despite some procedural changes in the MIA/ETJ application process that caused early delays, the notice was received a little over a year following the completion of our strategic partnership with Osisko Gold Royalties and starts the transformation of the Company from a junior explorer to a growing gold producer," stated Darren Koningen, CEO of Minera Alamos. "Our highly experienced Mexican technical team continues to demonstrate the ability to advance concurrently our full portfolio of late-stage gold development projects. Mexico remains one of the world's premier mine development locations with respect to the timeframes required for permitting of new operations. We now eagerly await similar notifications regarding the Company's Santana gold project which remains our first priority for construction consideration in 2019 according to the Company's current development schedule."

The receipt of a MIA-ETJ permits for the Fortuna project will allow the Company to initiate applications for other state/local permits that will be required in advance of any commercial mine production. These cover activities such as water use and explosives. In addition, the Company can advance discussions with potential contractors related to mining, crushing, construction, etc. The Fortuna MIA-ETJ applications were structured to provide the Company with significant flexibility to further optimize the development approach for the project and the ability to expand the project operations organically once resources are increased.

In advance of a final construction decision, the Company has also initiated discussions with a number of project finance groups that can provide debt facilities complementary to the Fortuna royalty structure arranged with strategic partner Osisko Gold Royalties. The recently completed PEA (see news release dated August 16th 2018) for the project demonstrated an after-tax internal rate-of-return in excess of 90%, a rapid payback of capital of approximately one year and low production costs for an initial 50,000 oz (AuEq) per annum operation (see La Fortuna Gold Project below).

As planning activities are refined in the coming year (2019) the Company will provide regular updates regarding ongoing advancements at the Fortuna project. The PEA identified several opportunities to further enhance the overall project economics and these are currently under review. Included in this list are the following:

Additional metallurgical studies to further optimize the gold extraction process and improve overall metal recoveries.

A staged plant construction plan (possibly involving earlier use of ore sorting technology) to reduce the initial start-up CAPEX and then expand the facilities once production is underway.

Mine planning studies to evaluate opportunities to delay portions of early waste removal until later in the mine life

Consideration of more aggressive use of ore sorting to offer additional economic benefits for the project (i.e. plant CAPEX reductions, increased mineable gold ounces, etc.)

Trade-off studies aimed at optimizing cut-off grades (with or without ore sorting) and the incorporation of additional milling capacity - the project is permitted for a 2,000 tpd operation with the PEA based on a starting rate of 1,100 tpd.

In addition to the engineering activities, the Company is also preparing for some new exploration at the Fortuna project. The footprint of the currently drilled deposit is small compared to the overall land position (6,200 Ha) and a number of other areas of historical mining activity have been identified with most having never been evaluated using modern exploration methods.

La Fortuna Gold Project

Details of potential development plans for the Fortuna Gold project were prepared in an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") completed by CSA Global Geosciences Canada Ltd (CSA Global) of Toronto, Canada. For a detailed summary of the PEA contents refer to a previous news release issued by the Company dated August 16th 2018.

(Note to reader: Unless stated all currency references are in US dollars).

Table 1 - PEA Summary



US$ CDN$





Pre-Tax NPV (7.5%) $103,800,000 $134,800,000 Pre-Tax IRR 122% 122% After-Tax NPV (7.5%) $69,800,000 $90,600,000 After-Tax IRR 93% 93% Pre-Tax Payback Period 9 months After-Tax Payback Period 11 months Average Annual Production 43,000 oz Gold, 220,000 oz Silver, 1,000 t Copper (50koz GEO1) Preproduction Capital $26,900,000 $34,900,000 LOM Average AISC 2 $440/oz $571/oz Mine Life 5 years Mill Throughput (avg. tpd) 1,100 Mill Grade & Recovery 3.68 g/t Au (90% recovery) Gold Price $1,250/oz Silver Price $16/oz Copper Price $5,725/tonne FX Rate (CDN$/US$) 0.77

Notes:

GEO - Gold Equivalent Ounces "AISC per ounce" is a non-GAAP financial performance measures with no standardized definition under IFRS; additional reference info at bottom of release Base case prices for gold, silver and copper were assessed at values approximately 2%-7% below the three-year trailing average prices for each of the metals and below the majority of the publicly available forward looking estimates available as of July 2018

PEA Cautionary Note:

Readers are cautioned that the PEA is preliminary in nature and there is no certainty that the PEA results will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. Additional work is needed to upgrade these mineral resources to mineral reserves.

Mr. Darren Koningen, P. Eng., Minera Alamos' CEO, is the Qualified Person responsible for the technical content of this press release under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Koningen has supervised the preparation of, and has approved the scientific and technical disclosures in this news release.

About Minera Alamos:

Minera Alamos is an advanced-stage exploration and development company with a growing portfolio of high-quality Mexican assets, including the La Fortuna open-pit gold project in Durango with positive PEA completed, the Santana open-pit heap-leach development project in Sonora with test mining and processing completed and the Guadalupe de Los Reyes open-pit gold-silver project in Sinaloa with mine planning in progress. The Company is awaiting the pending approval of permit applications related to the commercial production of gold at both the Santana and Fortuna projects.

The Company's strategy is to develop low capex assets while expanding the project resources and pursue complementary strategic acquisitions.

For Further Information Please Contact:

Minera Alamos Inc.

Doug Ramshaw, President

Tel: 604-600-4423

Email: dramshaw@mineraalamos.com

Website: www.mineraalamos.com

NON-GAAP Financial Performance Measures

The Company has included certain non-GAAP performance measures (All-in Sustaining Cost - "AISC") in this document. The Company believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with GAAP, certain investors and other stakeholders also use this information to evaluate the Company's economic performance estimates; however, these non-GAAP performance measures do not have any standardized meaning. Accordingly, these performance measures are intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. The Company's primary business is gold asset development and maximizing returns from future gold production, with other metal production being incidental to the gold production process. As a result, where applicable, the Company's non-GAAP performance measures are disclosed on a per gold ounce basis. The Company has followed the guidance note released by the World Gold Council, which became effective January 1, 2014. The World Gold Council is a non-regulatory market development organization for the gold industry whose members comprise global senior gold mining companies.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release may contain forward-looking information and Minera Alamos cautions readers that forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions and risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations of Minera Alamos included in this news release. This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements", which often, but not always, can be identified by the use of words such as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". These statements are based on information currently available to Minera Alamos and Minera Alamos provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements with respect to Minera Alamos' future plans with respect to the Projects, objectives or goals, to the effect that Minera Alamos or management expects a stated condition or result to occur and the expected timing for release of a resource and reserve estimate on the Projects. Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results relating to, among other things, results of exploration, the economics of processing methods, project development, reclamation and capital costs of Minera Alamos' mineral properties, the ability to complete a preliminary economic assessment which supports the technical and economic viability of mineral production could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons. Minera Alamos' financial condition and prospects could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons such as: an inability to finance and/or complete an updated resource and reserve estimate and a preliminary economic assessment which supports the technical and economic viability of mineral production; changes in general economic conditions and conditions in the financial markets; changes in demand and prices for minerals; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; technological and operational difficulties encountered in connection with Minera Alamos' activities; and other matters discussed in this news release and in filings made with securities regulators. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of Minera Alamos' forward-looking statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on Minera Alamos' forward-looking statements. Minera Alamos does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by Minera Alamos or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

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.
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2018) - FluroTech Ltd. (TSXV: TEST), ("FluroTech" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce it has submitted its letter of intention to submit saliva-based roadside drug screening equipment for approval evaluation in early 2019 to the Drugs and Driving Committee ("DDC"), a committee within the Canadian Society of Forensic Science. The role of the DDC is to act as an advisory body to the Department of Justice with respect to issues of drug impaired driving. The DDC makes vital recommendations for the selection of the devices the police forces may use for roadside impairment testing for 9-tetrahydrocannabinol ("THC"), methamphetamines and cocaine. FluroTech has designed a device to meet the requirements of the DDC and will actively work to ensure the product meets their current and future needs.

"Since August, the Company has accelerated its development efforts for its roadside testing device. Prototyping is well underway and the Company has successfully designed test kits to meet the objectives of law enforcement. Importantly, the test kits are being designed to address the issue of controlling the saliva interferences that are causing technical difficulties for many of the devices on the market," commented Dr. Elmar Prenner, Chief Technology Officer at FluroTech. "We are confident we will have a best in class roadside device to submit to the DDC in early 2019."

It is anticipated that FluroTech's roadside testing device, which can also be used in industrial testing, will produce accurate results to the parts per million in a wide range of ambient temperatures. The testing process has a short wait time, with saliva swabs being completed in under five minutes and sample analysis in under eight minutes. Additionally, the device has been designed for ease of use requiring minimal training, and is durable, allowing for use in police vehicle settings.

About FluroTech (TSXV: TEST)

FluroTech is a technology and marketing company whose core business is focused on the commercialization of new technologies in the cannabis industry. FluroTech's proprietary spectroscopy-based technology allows for the testing and identification of organic and inorganic compounds contained within biological samples. Using the technology that was developed at the University of Calgary in conjunction with the University of Alberta, FluroTech has developed a two-part solution comprising an instrument called the CompleTest and consumable testing kits.

To learn more, visit www.FluroTech.com.

Contact Information

FluroTech Ltd.

Alistair Ross Technology Centre

Suite 111, 3553-31 Street NW

Calgary, AB T2L 2K7

info@flurotech.com

Danny Dalla-Longa

Chief Executive Officer

403.680.0644

danny@flurotech.com





Figure 1: FluroTech Logo



To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5928/41179_fllogo.jpg





Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information generally refers to information about an issuer's business, capital, or operations that is prospective in nature, and includes future-oriented financial information about the issuer's prospective financial performance or financial position. The forward-looking information in this news release includes disclosure about current and future submissions to the DDC and the timing thereof, design specifications of the roadside testing device anticipated performance of the roadside testing device and the future performance of the Company.

The Company made certain material assumptions, including but not limited to prevailing market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties to develop the forward-looking information in this news release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Actual results may vary from the forward-looking information in this news release due to certain material risk factors. These risk factors include, but are not limited to, adverse market conditions and regulatory and other risks associated with the cannabis industry in general, failure to achieve patent protection and failure to meet certain timelines for commercialization. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of material risk factors and assumptions is not exhaustive.

The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information in this news release, unless it is required to do so under Canadian securities legislation.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
ODIHAM, England, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A new training facility was opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Royal Air Force (RAF) Odiham. Delivered by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), the Synthetic Training System facility provides the Royal Air Force with leading simulator technology for pilots and crews training to operate Chinook Mk6 aircraft as well as classrooms, mission planning and brief and debrief rooms.

"Connectivity between the separate Flight Deck and Rear Cabin simulators enables whole- crew training for Chinook teams to experience operational scenarios in a coherent realistic environment, something that they have never had before," said Tom Gordon, vice president, Training and Simulation Solutions at Lockheed Martin. "We are proud to deliver the latest training technology and simulators to Joint Helicopter Command and Royal Air Force Odiham, and we are committed to meeting the training requirements and supporting the complex missions of the UK Chinook Force."

In 2015, Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract by the UK Ministry of Defence to design, build and manage the facility, as well as introduce the training system for the Chinook Mk6. An integrated team consisting of Lockheed Martin and Inzpire personnel deliver a support package including maintenance and instruction at the RAF Odiham training facility.

"The Chinook Synthetic Training Facility builds on our relationship delivering the UK Military Flying Training System (UKMFTS) as part of the Ascent joint venture," said Paul Livingston, vice president & group managing director, Rotary and Mission Systems UK at Lockheed Martin. "Along with the synthetic training devices we provide for the C-130J, Merlin Mk2 and shortly the F-35 at RAF Marham, we are at the heart of delivering operational training for UK aircrew."

For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/training

About Lockheed Martin UK: Lockheed Martin UK, headquartered in London, is the UK-based arm of Lockheed Martin Corporation, a global security and aerospace company principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/788134/Lockheed_Martin_Chinook.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466735/LOCKHEED_MARTIN_Logo.jpg
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Tree of Knowledge International Corp. (CSE: TOKI; OTC PINK: TRKWF) (the "Company", "Tree of Knowledge" or "TOK") (formerly Courtland Capital Inc.) has established an excellent relationship with distribution partner, Farma USA, for the sale of its proprietary formulated CBD products in Brazil for illnesses such as epilepsy, autism, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia and is regularly generating purchase orders. The Brazilian market continues to be critical to the Tree of Knowledge business plan as the Company has already achieved the Brazilian government health department approval of its CBD products. This means that the Company's products can be prescribed by doctors and paid for by the Brazilian government's medical system. Tree of Knowledge believes that Brazil, a country with a population over 200,000,000 and an epilepsy population approaching 1,000,000, will be a significant growing market for its government-approved products.

Farma USA has educated approximately 750 doctors throughout Brazil through an educational program about the benefits of CBD and will continue these educational efforts, developing procedures of how to prescribe CBD, and the assurance that, after doctors prescribe, the products will be covered by government insurance.

Michael Caridi, Chairman of Tree of Knowledge, commented, "We are pleased that our proprietary products have been approved by Brazil's Health Department, ANVISA, and are continuing to be prescribed as a leading CBD product. The Brazilian market is one of the largest CBD product markets in South America and Tree of Knowledge is establishing itself as a market leader with its specifically formulated products. As we continue to grow our international footprint, we are thankful that our products are making a difference in many patients and their families' lives in this holiday season."

EVRCBDBrazil FarmaUSA CBD Cannabis Epilepsy Autism Parkinsons MS Fibromyalgia TOKI EVRCBD Brazil TreeOfKnowledgeInternational International

ABOUT TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

The Company produces and sells hemp-based cannabidiol ("CBD") products in certain jurisdictions in the United States, as well as in Europe, South America, Australia and China. Cannabidiol/CBD is a natural constituent of hemp which is purported to contain wellness properties. TOK's CBD product line contains EVR Premium Hemp Oil, which is an organically grown and handled, gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, synergistic compound that is derived from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved industrial hemp grown in the United States. TOK currently offers several CBD products, which may be used in connection with the treatment of a number of ailments and for general wellness purposes.

For further information about TOK, please see the Company's website at www.Evrcbd.com or contact the following:

Tree of Knowledge International Corp.

Michael Caridi, Chairman

Tel: +1 (917) 295-1374

Michael@evrcbd.com

THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

SOURCE: Tree of Knowledge International Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/528691/Tree-of-Knowledge-International-Corp-Provides-Update-on-Its-Product-Marketing-Efforts-in-Brazil
DUBAI, UAE, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

EXPRESS DESIGN COMPETITION

Created seven years ago and of an international nature, this innovative express design competition celebrates its third edition in the United Arab Emirates with an outstanding participation of students and young professionals from this sector

The challenge consisted of redesigning a bathroom product by adding new technological applications

The projectEco-nnectfrom Marco Maximus and Amr Abdelazizis the winner of the competition

With over 135 participants, the project Eco-nnect from Marco Maximus and Amr Abdelaziz has won the first prize of the 3rdedition of the RocaOne Day Design Challenge, celebrated on Saturday 17th in Dubai. The competition, which took place at A4 Space in Alserkal Avenue, poses the challenge to young designers and architects of designing against the clock an innovative proposal for the bathroom space that complies with the description of the briefing revealed early that day.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8448651-3rd-edition-roca-day-design-challenge-dubai/

The concept established as a premise for the participants in Dubai has been to design a bathroom product that incorporates innovative technology that also has to be long-lasting. The proposal has to ensure the hygiene and comfort for users.

Out of all the submitted projects, Eco-nnect from Marco Maximus and Amr Abdelaziz from Attik company, have been the winners, earning the prize of 6,000 AED. The project consists on a bath with a projector attached to the ceiling that shows the image on a large curved glass. This way, the user can keep connected while having a shower. The screen-glass is waterproof and allows navigation, scrolling and speaking with the inbuilt microphone. The member of the jury Mr. Justin Wells highlighted "this proposal is extremely professional, it catches the very core essence of the technology in the bathroom, fundamental to what we are here to celebrate today and also abroading a different kind of materiality what we thought it was a little bit ambitious and well considered in execution as well".

The second prize has been awarded to Visage by Nada Elemam and Mai Ghazala from the American University in Cairo and the American University of Sharjah respectively valued at 4,000 AED. The member of the jury Mrs. Alexandra Nastik highlighted "this project is very simple, very elegant, it looks like a finished project and has a great featuring of technology".

The third prize, valued at 2,000 AED, has been for Barefot wellness by Habiba Aly, Rajwa Taifour and Farah Ahmed from the American University of Sharjah. Mrs. Rama Keilani member of the jury, highlighted that "this idea has lots of potential for future development, it's very innovative".

We Are Water Foundation, whose goals are to raise awareness and to make the public and the institutions think of the need to create a new water culture that allows a fair development and a sustainable management of the water resources around the world and to carry out all kinds of actions to alleviate the negative effects of the lack of adequate water resources, has also presented a fourth award of 2,000 AED to the project that has stood out for its commitment to sustainability, the project The Resevoir by Beman Takla from the British University in Dubai. The member of the jury Mr. Ben Piper commented: "a fantastic example of use of technology, not sophisticated electronic technology, but material science of technology to look at how one could recycle waste water in an efficient, sustainable manner."

Loyal to its commitment to innovation and design, Roca organises this competition with the aim of supporting young talents in the early stages of their professional careers. For this reason, Roca started the internationalization of the Roca One Day Design Challenge in 2015, with the aim of providing a platform where they can develop their creativity and gain the experience of being in touch with the professional world.

This year, the competition has expanded internationally to four more countries than in 2017: Brazil, Singapore, Poland and Bulgaria host the first edition of Roca One Day Design Challenge. Portugal, Russia, Oman, United Kingdom and China celebrate the second edition after the success of last year's first edition. United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, where the competition is already consolidated, celebrate the 3rd and 4th edition respectively. Spain, the cradle of the Roca One Day Design Challenge, celebrates the 7th edition.

You can find more information about the competition and the winners in Dubaion the website.

About Roca

Roca is a company engaged in the design, production and commercialization of products for the bathroom space, as well as ceramic floor and wall tiles for architecture, building and interior design. More than one hundred years after its establishment, the company employs over 23,600 workers and has 78 production plants, with presence in more than 170 markets in the five continents.

http://www.roca.com

About the We Are Water Foundation

The We Are Water Foundation has two key goals. The first one is to promote awareness and encourage debate among the public and organisations on the need to create a new culture for water, to enable the equitable development and sustainable management of the world's water resources. The second goal is to carry out a whole host of actions to counter the negative effects of the lack of adequate water resources. The foundation's fields of activity include involvement in infrastructure, education, health and research, concentrated in the world's most deprived areas.

http://www.wearewater.org

For more information:

Press office

T. 34-626-893-634

Eva Serra

eserra@ulled.com

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/788171/ECO_NNECT.jpg )



Video:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8448651-3rd-edition-roca-day-design-challenge-dubai/
Turkey's cargo ship Kilich 1 is burning off the coast of Greece. The fire reportedly broke out in the ships engine room.

According to the reports from Greece, the ship was heading from Tunisia to Turkey.

The reports also noted that the entire crew of the vessel was evacuated by the Turkish Coast Guard.

Other details of the incident, as well as regarding the cargo being transported on the ship, have not been revealed.
The beer market in the US is expected to post a CAGR of over 2% during the period 2018-2022, according to the latest market research report by Technavio

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005143/en/

Technavio has published a new market research report on the beer market in the US from 2018-2022. (Graphic: Business Wire)

A key factor driving the growth of the market is the rapidly increasing number of craft breweries. Over the years, the demand for craft beer has grown significantly in the US. The segment covered an estimated 23.34% of the overall beer market in the US. The growth of the craft beer market in the US has also increased the number of craft brewers in the US in various states. The increasing and rising rapid expansion of breweries in the US has contributed to an increase in the availability of beer in the market. Most of the breweries have introduced their own and unique beers. This has given customers increased opportunity to try new beer flavors. Thus, the demand for craft beer has led to the growth of the beer market in the US.

This market research report on the beer market in the US 2018-2022 also provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook during the forecast period. Technavio classifies an emerging trend as a major factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

In this report, Technavio highlights the introduction of new beer flavors as one of the key emerging trends in the beer market in the US:

Beer market in the US: Introduction of new beer flavors

The growing popularity of flavored beer in the US is attributable to the increasing volume of consumers in the beer market in the US. The introduction of new flavors in the craft beer segment has led to a boost in the beer market in the US. Flavors set a beer apart from one another and act as a point of differentiation for the consumers. The millennials, one of the largest demography in the US population, is a targeted segment of breweries. The preference of millennials towards flavored beers has seen breweries adopting and incorporating newer flavors in their beer offerings. For example, in April 2018, AB InBev launched Bud Light orange, an orange flavored Light in an aim to capitalize on the popularity of flavored lagers. Thus, the increasing demand for new flavors is expected to lead to the introduction of new flavored beers during the forecast period.

"Along with introduction of new beer flavors, another major factor boosting the growth of the market is multicultural millennials. These millennials are open to experimenting with new products and flavors. The increasing demand for different beers styles and flavors among millennials is driving the growth of the craft beer segment in the beer market in the US," says a senior analyst at Technavio for research on alcoholic beverages.

Beer market in the US: Segmentation analysis

This market research report segments the beer market in the US by product (craft beer and non-craft beer).

The non-craft beer segment led the market in 2017 with a market share close to 77%, followed by the craft beer segment. However, during the forecast period, the craft beer segment is expected to register higher incremental growth as compared to non-craft beer, which will see a commensurate decline in its market share.

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market size and forecast

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation

Geographical Segmentation

Regional comparison

Key leading countries

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005143/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

www.technavio.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2018) - Bayhorse Silver Inc. (TSXV: BHS) (the "Company" or "Bayhorse") has shipped high grade metallurgical samples (166 opt Ag - 175 opt Ag), to identified smelters, as well as to Mineral Solutions LLC, (Minerals) of Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, to receive firm pricing for extracting and refining silver and other minerals from the Company's shipping grade concentrate processed through its Ore-Sorter. The Company will provide an update when results are received.

The 8 kg (17lb) metallurgical samples shipped were reported in the Company's news release BHS2018-34, November 12, 2018. The samples, that graded 175.3 oz/t Ag (5,452.42 g/t), 166.6 oz/t Ag (5,175.60 g/t), and 169.7 oz/t Ag (5,278.25 g/t) respectively, were taken from a homogenous 50 kg underground channel sample from the Bayhorse Silver Mine.

The Company has a Letter of Intent with Minerals Solutions LLC (Minerals) of Coeur D Alene Idaho, a Joint Venture between Liberty Refiners LLC (Liberty) of Hayden, Idaho and Irish Metals LLC (Irish) of Coeur D' Alene, Idaho, to process a portion of its upgraded shipping material directly into pure refinery grade 4 X Nine silver. By grinding its upgraded shipping material to -80 mesh at the Mine, Bayhorse is better able to provide material that meets Minerals' specifications for refining.

Upon receipt and acceptance of definitive terms, the Company will commence deliveries of upgraded shipping material to Minerals.

Bayhorse CEO Graeme O'Neill comments: "By upgrading the mineralization to shipping grade, the Company is able to reduce transportation costs per ounce, and minimize processing losses that inevitably occur during flotation concentration. This allows for reduced costs in the processing and smelting/refining options available to us as we upgrade our high grade silver bearing mineralization to shipping grade, and we minimize the 10% losses that normally occur during the flotation process. We are very proud to have developed the Bayhorse Silver Mine at a cost of $1.00 per inferred silver resource ounce."

The Company is currently tramming over 1,200 tons of already extracted mineralization from the high grade Goldilocks zone, 1,100 feet inside the Bayhorse Silver Mine at the extreme western end of the main haulageway, to the newly built all weather storage pad.

The mineralized material is then passed through the crushing circuit, where it is reduced to between 8mm and 20mm - 25mm in size, to allow for greater selectivity when processed through the Steinert X-Ray Transmissive Ore-Sorter at rates up to 40 tons per hour.



The Sorter removes up to 95% of the unmineralized and low grade material from the process stream, increasing the silver grade to the shipping grade of 103 opt Ag (3,000 g/t) or better prior to being shipped to the smelter/refiner.



Storage Pad - Ready for all weather cover installation



To view an enhanced version of the storage pad, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5015/41184_82e5e35964be79c6_005full.jpg

The Company is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and also advises there is increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure with any production decision. These risks include, but are not limited to, a drop in price of commodities produced, namely silver, copper, lead, and zinc, from the pricing used to make the production decision, failure of the grades of the produced material to fall within the parameters used to make the production decision, and increase in mining costs due to changes within the mine during development and mining procedures. There are also metallurgical recovery changes that cannot be anticipated at the time of production.

This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Dr. Stewart Jackson, PGeo., a Qualified Person and Consultant to the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release.

On Behalf of the Board.

Graeme O'Neill, CEO

604-684-3394

Bayhorse Silver Inc., a junior exploration company, has earned 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive exploration and mining expertise.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2018) - Blackrock Gold Corporation (TSXV: BRC) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that a detailed soil geochemical survey has been started over geologic structures in search of epithermal gold deposits at the Silver Cloud Claim Block in Elko County, Nevada.

After careful consideration and review, the Company has begun surface work, commencing the work plan collaborated with and charted by the late Brian Morris, Blackrock Gold President, who tragically passed away on Nov. 10 in a vehicle accident in Reno, Nevada.

At the Silver Cloud project, over 75% of the 11,040 acre project area has never been tested for soil geochemistry. Review of the project data and historic work by previous mining companies who explored at Silver Cloud over the last two decades indicates soil geochemistry was conducted only in the proximity of the Silver Cloud Mine area. In May 2018, the Company conducted orientation soil geochemical sampling in the northeast portion of the property over untested geologic structures which yielded anomalous silver and arsenic.

The first phase of the soil geochemical survey will focus on an area two kilometers wide by four kilometers long to the north of the Silver Cloud Mines area. There are 18 survey lines with soil samples collected at 30- and 60-meter spacing planned, for a total of approximately 900 samples. The samples will be analyzed for 41 elements including gold and silver.

Gregory Schifrin, CEO of the Company said, "Brian and I constructed a plan to conduct comprehensive geochemical and geophysical surveys in advance of planning a strategic drilling program. With fortitude, we are going forward with this plan and are fully committed to advance the Silver Cloud project to discovery following Brian's vision."

The Company has initiated the survey as part of targeting surface technical work with geochemistry and geophysics ahead of a drill program designed to identify low sulfidation epithermal gold deposit that may be present at the Silver Cloud project.



Silver Cloud Geochemical Survey, 2018

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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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.blackrockgoldcorp.com

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.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" and include any information that addresses activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including the Company's strategy, plans or future financial or operating performance and other statements that express management's expectations or estimates of future performance.

Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. These statements, however, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed, implied by or projected in the forward-looking information or statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the ability of the Company to attract financing and the general market conditions of the industry in which the Company operates, and the other factors discussed in the sections relating to risk factors discussed in the Company's continuous disclosure filings on SEDAR.

There can be no assurance that any forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to revise or update these forward-looking statements after the date of this document or to revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES

OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
In summary

All the resolutions have been adopted

Dividend: 2.36 per share

Renewal of the directorships of Ms Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza and Messrs. Ian Gallienne and Gilles Samyn and appointment of Ms Patricia Barbizet as Director

Approval of the compensation policy items applicable to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2018/19 fiscal year

Approval of the components of the compensation due or granted to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2017/18 fiscal year

Renewal of members of the Board Committees (following the Shareholders' Meeting)

Regulatory News:

Pernod Ricard's (Paris:RI) shareholders held their Combined Shareholders' Meeting (ordinary and extraordinary) today, chaired by Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO, to approve the 2017/18 consolidated and parent company financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2018 and to vote on the resolutions submitted to their approval.

Dividend: 2.36 per share

The shareholders set the cash dividend at 2.36 per share for the 2017/18 financial year. An interim dividend of 1.01 per share having been paid on 6 July 2018, the balance amounting to 1.35 per share will be detached on 28 November 2018 (with a record date of 29 November 2018) and paid on 30 November 2018.

Renewal of Directors

The Shareholders' Meeting renewed for a term of 4 years the directorships of Ms Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza and Messrs. Ian Gallienne and Gilles Samyn and appointed Ms Patricia Barbizet as Director for a term of 4 years.

Approval of the compensation policy items applicable to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2018/19 fiscal year

The Shareholders' Meeting approved the compensation policy items applicable to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2018/19 fiscal year.

Approval of the compensation items due or granted to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2017/18 fiscal year

Pernod Ricard's shareholders approved the compensation items due or granted to Mr Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO for the 2017/18 fiscal year.

Board of Directors held on 21 November 2018 (following the Shareholders' Meeting)

The Board of Directors renewed, on the recommendation of the Nominations, Governance and CSR Committee, the duties of Mr Ian Gallienne as member of the Compensation and Strategic Committees as well as the duties of Mr Gilles Samyn as member of the Audit Committee.

Biographies

Ms Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza graduated from the Jesuit ICADE Business School in Madrid (Licenciatura) and holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Valencia. She pursued her career in the academic world and held various roles in the Faculty of Business Studies at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, including Manager of the Marketing Department and Head of the International Office. In 2004, she joined the Catholic University of Valencia where she held the position of Dean of the Business Studies Faculty until 2008.

In November 2008, Ms Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza joined the Marketing Department where, currently as a Full Professor, she has been researching consumer behaviour (with more than 50 articles published in academic journals and more than 100 papers presented at Conventions or international Conferences) and teaches international master's programmes in Valencia (Chamber of Commerce, UV and UCV) and abroad (at the IAE in Rennes and at the IGC in Bremen (Germany) and at the LUISS University in Rome (Italy)). She was a visiting scholar at Columbia University (New York City), at ESCP Europe (France) and at the University of Sassari (Sardinia, Italy).

In addition, Ms Martina Gonzalez-Gallarza is a member of the American Marketing Association, and of the Spanish and French Marketing Associations.

Mr Ian Gallienne has been Managing Director of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert since January 2012.

He holds an MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau. From 1998 to 2005, he was Manager of the Rhone Capital LLC private equity fund in New York and London. In 2005, he founded the private equity fund Ergon Capital Partners, of which he was Managing Director until 2012.

Mr Ian Gallienne has been a Director of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert* since 2009, of Imerys* since 2010, of SGS* since 2013 and of Adidas* since 2016.

*Listed companies

Mr Gilles Samyn holds a Commercial Engineering degree from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Solvay Business School, in which he held academic and scientific roles from 1969 to 2016. He began his professional career as a consultant at the Mouvement Cooperatif Belge before joining Groupe Bruxelles Lambert* in 1974.

In 1983, after one year as an independent advisor, he joined Groupe Frere Bourgeois where he is now Director and CEO of the Compagnie Nationale Portefeuille.

*Listed company

Patricia Barbizet is a graduate of the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP Europe). She began her career in 1976 in the Treasury Department of Renault Vehicules Industriels, before becoming Chief Financial Officer of Renault Credit International. In 1989, she joined the Pinault Group as Chief Financial Officer. From 1992 to 2018, she served as Chief Executive Officer of Artemis, the investment company of the Pinault family. From 2014 to 2016,

Ms Barbizet also held the post of CEO Chairwoman of Christie's International.

In addition, she chaired the Investment Committee of the French national Strategic Investment Fund from 2008 to 2013. She is currently Chairwoman of Temaris et Associes.

Ms Barbizet also chairs the Board of Directors of the Cite de la Musique Philharmonie de Paris. She is Chairwoman of Zoe SAS and a Director at Yves Saint Laurent. In April 2018, she was appointed as Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of Investissements d'Avenir.

The Combined Shareholders' Meeting was broadcasted live and can now be viewed in both French and English on the http://pernod-ricard.com website.

Shareholders' agenda: 2018/19 half-year results Thursday 7 February 2019

About Pernod Ricard

Pernod Ricard is the world's n2 in wines and spirits with consolidated Sales of 8,987 million in FY18. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard holds one of the most prestigious brand portfolios in the sector: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur, Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard employs a workforce of approximately 18,900 people and operates through a decentralised organisation, with 6 "Brand Companies" and 86 "Market Companies" established in each key market. Pernod Ricard is strongly committed to a sustainable development policy and encourages responsible consumption. Pernod Ricard's strategy and ambition are based on 3 key values that guide its expansion: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust and a strong sense of ethics.

Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 index.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005486/en/

Contacts:

Pernod Ricard

Julia Massies, +33 (0)1 41 00 42 02

VP, Financial Communication Investor Relations

Adam Ramjean, +33 (0)1 41 00 41 59

Investor Relations Manager

Fabien Darrigues, +33 (0)1 41 00 44 86

External Communications Director

Alison Donohoe, +33 (0)1 41 00 44 63

Press Relations Manager

Emmanuel Vouin, +33 (0)1 41 00 44 04

Press Relations Manager
Marijuana News TodayThe first state east of the Mississippi has officially begun selling recreational pot in the marijuana news today as the market has rallied somewhat over the past week.First, the monumental news coming out of Massachusetts. It is the first eastern state to sell recreational pot, which may come as a surprise. (Source: "Recreational marijuana is now on sale in Massachusetts, and Pumpkin Spice Dust is on the menu," CNN, November 20, 2018.)Residents voted to legalize marijuana back in 2016, but as is usually the case, it took a couple years before the changes could be.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Matillion welcomes Thomas Bressie as VP of Marketing

DENVER, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Matillion, the market leader in data transformation for cloud data warehouses, welcomes Thomas Bressie as Vice President (VP) of Marketing. Based in Denver, Mr. Bressie will take on responsibility for all marketing efforts for Matillion, with the aim to strengthen Matillion's Go To Market (GTM) efficacy and further steepen the company's revenue growth trajectory.

"At Matillion, we are rapidly increasing our investment in strategic growth areas. Adding Tom's leadership and experience will not only drive our global marketing ambitions forward but will also serve to increase pace within our other GTM functions such as sales and strategic partnerships," explains Matthew Scullion, CEO, Matillion. "We are thrilled to have Tom on board, who brings with him nearly two decades of experience in the technology industry, and an outstanding track record of success at industry giants such as Oracle, Rackspace, and Intel."

Bressie's over 19 years of technology leadership spans product development, product management, and technology marketing. More recently, Bressie has been focused primarily on cloud in his roles as marketing leader for Rackspace's transformational Fanatical Support for AWS offer and Vice President of Product Marketing for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. His deep background in cloud, as well as his leadership experience, bring the kind of expertise and market understanding Matillion sought out to help continue to steepen the company's growth trajectory.

"It became abundantly clear to me when I began researching Matillion how great of an opportunity we have ahead of us," said Bressie. "As businesses have increasingly turned to the cloud as their IT model of choice, they're discovering how Matillion can unlock the analytical potential of cloud data warehouses by making more of their data analytics-ready with reduced pain and at a reduced cost. We are changing the way businesses think about data transformation, and I couldn't be more excited to be joining the Matillion team."

About Matillion

Matillion is an industry-leading data transformation solution for cloud data warehouses. Delivering a true end-to-end data transformation solution (not just data prep or movement from one location to another), Matillion provides an instant-on experience to get you up and running in just a few clicks, a pay-as-you-go billing model to cut out lengthy procurement processes, and an intuitive user interface to minimize technical pain and speed up time to results. Matillion is available globally for Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, and Google BigQuery on leading cloud infrastructures. Find out more at www.matillion.com .

Contact

Dayna Shoemaker

Product Marketing Manager

dayna.shoemaker@matillion.com

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Renforth Resources Inc. (CSE: RFR) ("Renforth" or the "Company") has retained Eagle Geosciences of Rouyn-Noranda to commence permitting to take a bulk sample from the Discovery Veins at New Alger which would be toll processed for recovery. It is planned that the sample will come from an area of each of the two identified veins averaging 1 g/t Au at surface. Renforth has proven that there is free gold within the mineralized vein system which is not visible to the naked eye, therefore it has been concluded that a bulk sample presents the best technique to get a true representation of the grade at, or slightly below, surface of this mineralized vein system. As part of the environmental work required for permitting Eagle Geosciences obtained, during a recent brief snow melt, composite samples of the west and east veins and the barren greywacke.

Bulk Sample Target Area with Selected Surface Assays



(To view the full-size image, please click here)

The Pontiac Vein System

Renforth has identified, through drill results, geophysics and numerous prospecting and sampling campaigns, at least 3 distinct vein systems in the Pontiac Sediments at New Alger, located south of the Thompson-Cadillac Mine Area Resource on the Cadillac Break. The best defined of these vein horizons is the "Discovery" Vein system, located on high ground approximately 200m south of the mine area, it has been traced over >450m, within which 230m was stripped and comprehensively channel sampled. Stripping and subsequent analysis led to the conclusion that the Discovery Vein system is actually 2 separate veins offset by a fault which runs NW to the western margin of the mine Thompson-Cadillac mine workings. Additionally, historic blast locations were revealed, confirming research suggesting the property was discovered via visible gold at surface in the sediments in 1924, subsequent exploration led to the opening of the mine to the north with the sinking of 2 shafts on visible gold. In the 1930s underground development from the 300 ft. level of the mine drove to the south and drifted west, through the fault, to terminate underground, as best as Renforth can determine using historic level plans, in close proximity to the largest of the historic blast craters stripped on surface. Renforth's sampling of the blast locations did return gold values in blue-black quartz. At present the extent of the Pontiac Vein System has not been quantified and is therefore not included in the Thompson-Cadillac Mine Area Resource (see press release July 17, 2014) on the wholly-owned New Alger Property.

Gold in the Pontiac Vein System

A previously unknown incident of visible gold from drill core in the Pontiac Sediments, located slightly south and east of the extent of Renforth's recent stripping as depicted on the map above, was recently discovered within Renforth's core laydown area. Renforth was relocating and cross stacking core boxes when the geologist noted the presence of visible gold is split core. The core recovered was the witness half of sample #23604 from 38.1m to 39m down the hole in NA-07-04 which assayed 6.73 g/t Au, with no recognition in the log of the presence of visible gold.

Moistened Core Sample NA-07-04 Cut (flat) and Round Side of the Core

Bulk Sample Rationale

Renforth is choosing to proceed with a bulk sample as our comprehensive surface channel program, grab sampling and thin-section analysis of the uncovered vein systems has demonstrated the presence of free gold not necessarily visible to the naked eye, which causes a nugget effect during assaying. Free, or nugget, gold in sample material can be smeared during sample preparation causing issues with the screening sample material is subjected to whereby none, some or all of the nugget material could, or could not, pass through the increasingly fine screens the assay split is subjected to. Generally speaking a "nugget effect" can cause variance in assay results and perhaps not provide an entirely representative assay result. A bulk sample processed on a toll basis for recovery would subject the material to conventional milling and processing technology used within the camp on similar material. It is hoped this will provide a better representation of the presence of gold in the vein system.

NSR Sale to Abitibi Royalties

Renforth has sold a 1% NSR interest in the New Alger Property to Abitibi Royalties for $190,000. The proceeds of this sale will fund the next drill program at Parbec, expected to commence in the next two weeks.

Technical Information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Brian H. Newton P.Geo, a "qualified person" pursuant to the guidelines of 43-101.

For further information please contact:

Renforth Resources Inc.

Nicole Brewster

President and Chief Executive Officer

T:905-831-9606

E: nicole@renforthresources.com

#269 - 1099 Kingston Road, Pickering ON L1V 1B5

No securities regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and information under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward looking. Forward-looking statements are frequently identified by such words as 'may', 'will', 'plan', 'expect', 'believe', 'anticipate', 'estimate', 'intend' and similar words referring to future events and results. Such statements and information are based on the current opinions and expectations of management. All forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and subject to a variety of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, the risks of obtaining necessary approvals, licenses and permits and the availability of financing, as described in more detail in the Company's securities filings available at www.sedar.com. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements and the reader is cautioned against placing undue reliance thereon. Forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is provided and the Company assumes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE: Renforth Resources Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/528748/Renforth-Commences-Bulk-Sample-Permitting-at-New-Alger-on-Discovery-Vein
Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Carlos Ghosn became CEO of Nissan partner Renault in 2005, chairman of Nissan of 2008 and chairman of Renault in 2009, giving him considerable sway over both companies.

Tokyo: Japan was shocked by the news that Nissan Motor Co-Chairman Carlos Ghosn, who was widely respected for rescuing the car maker from near bankruptcy, was arrested on Monday for alleged financial misconduct.

Nissan said that Ghosn, who is also chairman and CEO of Renault and chairman of Mitsubishi Motors, would be fired from his post as Nissan chairman on Thursday.

What is Ghosn accused of?

Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa told a packed press conference on Monday night that the company had found that Ghosn had been using corporate money for personal purposes and under-reporting his income for years in official company filings to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Another board member, Greg Kelly, was also deeply involved in the misconduct, Nissan said. Saikawa said he couldnt elaborate as the cases are being investigated by prosecutors, who have declined to comment.

Prosecutors said that Ghosn and Kelly conspired to understate Ghosns compensation over five years starting in fiscal 2010 as being about half of the actual 9.998 billion yen ($88.9 million).

Public broadcaster NHK said Nissan paid billions of yen to buy and renovate homes for Ghosn in Rio, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam, citing unnamed sources. The properties had no business purpose and were not listed as benefits in TSE filings, NHK said.

Ghosn, 64, has not been formally charged. The Asahi newspaper reported that he and Kelly had submitted to prosecutors questions after getting off a plane on Monday afternoon at Tokyos Haneda Airport. Saikawa confirmed they had been arrested.

Ghosn and Kelly have not been seen since and their exact whereabouts are not known. Suspects are typically taken to the Tokyo Detention Centre, which is linked to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office.

How did this come to light?

Nissans Saikawa said Ghosns alleged improprieties came to light through a whistleblower, after which the company began an internal investigation and informed prosecutors.

Japanese media reports say the informant is a member of Nissans legal department.

The Asahi reported, without citing sources, that the informant gave the prosecutors information in a plea bargain, implying the person may have provided evidence in exchange for a lighter sentence.

How much control did Ghosn have?

After becoming CEO of a struggling Nissan in 2001, Ghosn was hailed as the automakers savior by implementing an aggressive cost-cutting plan. Known for his flair and confidence, Ghosn won respect for his business acumen and for shaking up Nissans traditional corporate culture, which may have made it difficult to hold him accountable.

Ghosn became CEO of Nissan partner Renault in 2005, chairman of Nissan of 2008 and chairman of Renault in 2009, giving him considerable sway over both companies.

On Monday, Saikawa acknowledged that too much power had been concentrated in Ghosn. Looking back, after 2005 when he became CEO of both Renault and Nissan, we did not really discuss the implications, he said.

Frances finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday Ghosn should not remain in charge of Renault after his arrest in Japan.

How could he pull off this alleged deception?

This is the big question.

If the misconduct continued for years, as Saikawa said, analysts question how this could have passed undetected for so long, unless internal auditors and senior management turned a blind eye.

What's next for Ghosn?

Under Japanese law, a suspect can be detained by prosecutors for up to 20 days before being charged or released. Tsutomu Nakamura, a former prosecutor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors office, predicted that Ghosn will be indicted on Friday, 7 December, the last working day before that maximum period.

Ghosn is allowed access to a lawyer during his time in detention.

If bail is granted, it would be exorbitant, in hundreds of millions of yen, or millions of dollars, Nakamura said. But in major cases like this, often no bail is granted until after the arraignment at the first court session.

Falsifying corporate annual reports, which Ghosn and Kelly are accused of, carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to 10 million yen, under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
The French government, Renaults biggest shareholder, had begun to distance itself from Carlos Ghosn, calling for new interim leadership before the meeting, as the Japanese investigation expanded to include Renault-Nissan alliance finances.

Paris/Tokyo: French carmaker Renault tapped its chief operating officer and a senior board member to fill in for embattled boss Carlos Ghosn, after an investigation by alliance partner Nissan led to his arrest on suspicion of financial misconduct.

Thierry Bollore, Ghosns operational second-in-command, will become deputy chief executive, while lead independent director Philippe Lagayette assumes the function of interim chairman, Renault said after a board meeting late on Tuesday.

But the board refrained from firing Ghosn while awaiting more detail on the allegations - in a decision that could also buy more time for an accelerated, permanent succession process.

Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Renault said in a statement. During this period, the board will meet on a regular basis under the chairmanship of the lead independent director.

Ghosn, one of the car industrys best-known leaders, was arrested on Monday after Nissan said he had engaged in years of wrongdoing, including personal use of company money and under-reported earnings. The Japanese company plans to remove him as chairman on Thursday.

The French government, Renaults biggest shareholder, had begun to distance itself from Ghosn, calling for new interim leadership before the meeting, as the Japanese investigation expanded to include Renault-Nissan alliance finances.

Carlos Ghosn is no longer in a position where he is capable of leading Renault, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said earlier in the day. Renault has been weakened, which makes it all the more necessary to act quickly.

Statements by Le Maire, Renault and its board all echoed French preoccupations over the future of the alliance first articulated by President Emmanuel Macron within hours of Ghosns arrest on Monday.

Following talks between Le Maire and his Japanese counterpart Hiroshige Seko on Tuesday, the ministers reaffirmed their shared wish to maintain this winning cooperation.

But in a sign that Nissan may now seek to loosen its French parents hold on the partnership, the Japanese company informed Renault it also had evidence of potential wrongdoing at Renault-Nissan BV, the Dutch venture overseeing alliance operations under Renaults ultimate control, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The private communication came from Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa, whose company is 43.4 percent-owned by Renault in a complex alliance forged by Ghosn over almost two decades.

Major player

Close to bankruptcy when Renault bought its stake in 1999, Nissan has recovered to be the engine of an alliance that generates synergies for both companies and allows them to rival Volkswagen and Toyota Motor Corp on the global stage.

But there have long been tensions as Nissan, while almost 60 percent bigger than Renault by sales, remains the junior partner in their shareholding hierarchy with a smaller reciprocal 15 percent non-voting stake in Renault.

In its board statement, Renault invoked principles of transparency, trust and mutual respect set forth in the alliance charter to demand that Nissan provide all information in (its) possession arising from the internal investigation.

Renault shares closed 1.2 percent lower before the meeting, extending Mondays decline of more than 8 percent. Nissan fell another 5.5 percent, while Mitsubishi Motors Corp, the third alliance member, ended down nearly 7 percent.

Mitsubishi Motors CEO Osamu Masuko said it could be hard to manage the alliance without the unifying figure of Ghosn.

I dont think there is anyone else on Earth like Ghosn who could run Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, he told reporters in Tokyo.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its rating on Renault to neutral from buy, while Exane BNP Paribas moved to neutral from outperform.

The end of Ghosns leadership poses questions and risks for an alliance he had pledged to consolidate with a deeper tie-up, before eventually stepping back from its operational leadership.

It comes at a difficult time for the industry, already grappling with tighter emissions regulations, a diesel sales collapse and big investments in electric and self-driving cars.

Nissan prepares to oust its chairman

Ghosns alleged improprieties also raise questions over governance at the alliance, over which he presided relatively unchecked as chairman of all three partners boards.

Japans Nikkei business daily, citing unidentified sources, said Ghosn had received share price-linked compensation of about 4 billion yen ($36 million) over a five-year period to March 2015, but it went unreported in Nissans financial reports.

The financial reports also did not mention annual compensation of 100 million to 150 million yen Ghosn received from the automakers overseas subsidiaries, the newspaper said.

Nissan declined to comment on the report.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK also said Nissan had paid billions of yen to buy and renovate homes for Ghosn in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam, citing unnamed sources. The properties had no business purpose and were not listed as benefits in compensation filings to the Tokyo bourse, NHK said.

There has been no comment from Ghosn on the allegations, and Reuters could not contact him for comment.

A French diplomatic source said the countrys ambassador in Tokyo had seen Ghosn on Tuesday as part of usual procedures for a French citizen being held in Japan.
Russia's Foreign Ministry commented on the United States' move to expand sanctions on Russia.

The ministry noted that accusations concerning oil supplies to Syria look like a statement of support for terrorists and also show a desire to prevent the reconstruction of Syria.

"At the same time, the main reasons for sanctions are rooted in the domestic political struggle in the United States, where each of the parties seeks to score points by whatever means, particularly by taking steps at the international level. As a result, these steps turn out to be clumsy," the statement reads.

"Accusations concerning oil supplies to Syria - a country whose armed forces have been fighting terrorist aggression for over seven years - look like a statement of support for terrorists and also show a desire to prevent the reconstruction of the war-torn country, where many people live without electricity and heating. Is it what the United States really wants?" the Russian ministry asked.

The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Washington has been demonstrating its inability to make our country change its independent stance at the international stage. "U.S. politicians should start getting rid of illusions about the United States omnipotence that they convinced themselves of. Self-deception is a dangerous thing," the ministry concluded.

The director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the meaning of these U.S. sanctions was to just impose them, to politically declare an increased U.S. pressure on Russia.

"The U.S. lost in Syria, and now they are trying to compensate for their losses by various drastic actions. In fact, they are trying to resort to an attitude of intimidation, and the essence of sanctions does not play a big role here. Sanctions are imposed for the sake of sanctions. At the same time, they address issues, in which a number of people in Washington involved in the imposition of these sanctions are interested. And after it we should expect new waves of restrictive measures," he said.

The senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Olenchenko, agreed that having a reason to impose new sanctions on Russia is no longer necessary condition for the U.S. "These two companies were chosen only because they are registered in Russia and are engaged in the supply of oil from Iran to other countries. That is, it turns out that the sanctions were imposed against Russia, but their action is multi-faceted - a simultaneous blow on Iran and Syria, as well as expressing their displeasure with Russian activity in the Middle East. Their only purpose is to divert attention from the need for a political settlement of the Syrian crisis," he said.

"The current American administration is trying to make economic sanctions the main instrument of their relations with other countries. They immediately resort to this instrument in cases when they do not have diplomatic or political argumentation. Russia was chosen as a sanctions target as a main regulator in Syria. The Americans have their own plans for the future of the Middle East, due to which they will look for ways to create difficulties for Russia, Syria and Iran," Vladimir Olenchenko concluded.

On November 20, the U.S. sanctioned two Russian companies - Global Vision Group and Promsyrioimport - on suspicion of supplying Iranian oil to Syria. Promsyrioimport Director General Andrei Dogayev was blacklisted.
Units of Maersk, DP World and PSA operate four of the ports five terminals, with the fifth owned by the government

New Delhi: The antitrust regulator has ordered a probe into alleged anti-competitive practices by Denmarks A P Moller-Maersk and Dubais DP World at the terminals they operate at the countrys largest container port in Mumbai, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The decision by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to investigate follows a complaint by Singapores PSA International Pte Ltd, which alleged that Maersk and DP World created entry barriers to hinder the growth of PSAs terminal by colluding on certain charges they levy at the state-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT).

Handling 66 million tonnes of cargo in the last fiscal year to March, JNPT is critical to Indias international trade. The port handles more than half of Indias traffic of shipping containers each year.

Units of Maersk, DP World and PSA operate four of the ports five terminals, with the fifth owned by the government. The PSA terminal, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February, is planned to be the largest, expected to nearly double JNPTs capacity and help fulfill the governments vision of boosting Indias economic growth by modernizing its ports.

The dispute centers around so-called inter-terminal transfers.

Under the system, which aims to make the most efficient use of common infrastructure, freight trains arriving at JNPT typically carry containers destined for several terminals but stop at just one that handles all the cargo on a given day. Other operators then collect their containers by truck for loading at their own terminals. A similar procedure is followed, in reverse, when imported containers are unloaded.

In June, PSA, which is owned by Singapore government-owned investment fund Temasek Holdings, lodged a complaint with the CCI alleging it was facing discrimination because Maersk and DP World were imposing a higher fee on shipping companies for handling containers that arrived at the PSA terminal, the sources said.

In an order passed on 9 November, the CCI said its preliminary probe found that Maersk and DP World had coordinated their efforts to prevent PSA from operating effectively at the Mumbai port, said two of the sources who have direct knowledge of the case.

A P Moller-Maersk, the worlds biggest container shipping group, told Reuters that CCI was hearing a case brought forward by PSA, but said it would not comment as the matter was sub-judice.

DP World said it had not received any formal communication from the CCI, but added it has always been committed to ensuring our business meets the highest standards, complying with all laws and regulations.

PSA International did not respond to a request for comment. JNPT and the CCI did not respond to Reuters questions.

COORDINATED CONDUCT

The CCIs decision to order a probe and details of PSAs allegations have not been previously reported.

This co-ordinated conduct on the part of the opposite parties (Maersk and DP World units) prima facie hints at creating entry barriers for the informant (PSA), the CCI said, according to one of the sources privy to the order.

The regulator asked its investigations unit to further probe the allegations and submit a report by January. The probe would also look at the role of individual company executives, the sources said. Such investigations, however, typically extend beyond a year.

JNPT, which began its operations in 1989, is ranked among the worlds top 50 container ports. It plays a key role in Modis plan to develop Indias coastline and maritime sector.

In its complaint, parts of which were reviewed by Reuters, PSA alleged that Maersk and DP World had issued advisories the to deter use of the PSA terminal, telling port users they would need to make their own arrangements to transfer their cargo if it was dropped at the PSA dock.

One of the sources who is privy to the Indian watchdogs order said the CCI found the coordinated conduct by Maersk and DP World had the potential to bring about an anti-competitive effect.

Another source privy to the proceedings, though, disagreed, saying the dispute was only a commercial one and not a competition law matter as alleged by PSA.

The complaint was filed by PSAs Indian unit Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals. The opposing parties in the case are Maersks unit Gateway Terminals India, and DP Worlds Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal and Nhava Sheva (India) Gateway Terminal.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that Indivior had not shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its infringement case.

Hyderabad: Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd on Wednesday said a court in the US has given a ruling in favor of it in a patent infringement case filed by pharma giant Indivior on selling generic version of Suboxone a sublingual film in the American market.

According to a press release issued by the city-based drug maker, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that Indivior had not shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its infringement case.

It also said this decision vacates a district court's preliminary injunction that had prohibited Dr Reddy's from selling its generic version of Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone).

Buprenorphine and naloxone are used to treat adults with opioid dependence or addiction.

As a result of Wednesday's ruling, Dr Reddy's will resume its launch activities as soon as it is permitted, it said.

According to market reports, Suboxone had sales of around $1.86 billion in the US for the 12 months ended April.

A company spokesperson said, "We are pleased with the decision of the appellate court in Dr Reddy's favor, vacating the preliminary injunction that had prevented Dr Reddy's from bringing this important drug to the public. We are committed to providing affordable and innovative medicines that address the unmet and under-met needs of patients around the world and in particular look forward to taking the lead in helping to fight opioid use disorder."

In June, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved Dr Reddy's Buprenorphine and Naloxone Sublingual Film, in four strengths including 2 mg/0.5 mg, 4 mg/1 mg, 8 mg/2 mg, and 12 mg/3 mg, for sale in the US market.

The product was launched immediately after approval, with sales and commercialisation activities halted as a result of a court-imposed temporary restraining order against Dr Reddy's.

The TRO did not include a prohibition on commercial manufacturing of the product.
The meeting comes days after Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu calling for addressing the issue of high finance cost to make Air India profitable.

Mumbai: An 'informal' meeting with Air India's senior management was held on Tuesday by the recently-appointed independent directors of Air India, Y C Deveshwar and Kumar Mangalam Birla. The meeting took place at the airline's headquarters in New Delhi and was also attended by executive directors, sources told PTI. Besides Deveshwar and Birla, Air India has three other independent directors-- R K Tyagi, Syed Zafar Islam and D Purandeswari-- on its board.

"The two Independent Directors held a meeting with the senior management in New Delhi today (Tuesday). It was an informal meeting during which, besides chairman and managing director Pradeep Singh Kharola, director finance Vinod Hejmadi, two other acting board members S S Oberoi and Amrita Sharan were present. "Along with them, the executive directors also attended the meeting," the source said.

When contacted, an Air India spokesperson confirmed that the two independent directors held an informal meeting with the senior management.

The meeting comes days after Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu calling for addressing the issue of high finance cost to make the airline profitable. Besides, it has Rs 55,000 crore debt in the books and the carrier shells out around Rs 4,000 crore annually to service this debt.

According to the airline's audited accounts, its accumulative losses stood at Rs 47,145.62 crore as of fiscal 2016-17, owing to high-interest burden, and increasing competition, among others.

In August, the government had inducted corporate bigwigs K M Birla and Y C Deveshwar into the board of Air India, a day after seeking Parliament's approval for supplementary grant for equity infusion in the loss-making national carrier.

The appointment of Birla, head of an over $44 billion conglomerate, and Deveshwar, chairman of FMCG giant ITC, is for three years, according to a Personnel Ministry order issued late in the evening.

The government had sought Parliament's approval for grant of Rs 980 crore as part of equity infusion into Air India under the turnaround plan.

These appointments were cleared by a Cabinet committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had earlier said in an interview to a magazine that though a decision for privatisation of Air India was taken, its execution would be taken in accordance with market conditions.

--With PTI inputs
Oil is a complex tradable commodity and involves a whole lot of catalysts which influence its price.

Mark Wahlberg playing the role of a sniper in the Hollywood hit titled Shooter while talking about shooting down a distant target, says everything must be taken into consideration  windage, the earth's Coriolis effect, and even the spindrift. He was emphasising the challenges faced by a long distance sniper.

The challenges faced by oil traders are equally daunting. Unlike other commodities, oil is an enigma. Among other considerations involved in the pricing of oil, geopolitical premium, terror premium and speculative premium are dominant factors. Professional oil traders know that the commodity has dozens of catalytic triggers that can cause ripples in the price discovery process.

Take the Strait of Hormuz, for example. It is the sensitive waterway between UAE, Iran and Oman. It witnesses a fifth of all global crude being transported through the straits. Or the Bab-el-Mandeb, the highly inflammable strait between Djibouti, Yemen, and Eritrea  hotbeds of militant activity, which sees up to 8 percent of global crude being ferried across. And the straits of Malacca, Suez Canal and a few more choke points that can drive up the price of crude rapidly with the first shot being fired in the vicinity.

The business of crude is like any other business -- ferry crude through a strife-struck zone and you invalidate your insurance cover. Circumvent the area and you drive up the transportation costs due to the circuitous route being taken by crude tankers. Oil traders keep a hawk eye on these factors on a 24x7 basis. There are various militias which are mushrooming and demanding their share of attention from oil terrorism - Nigeria being a major victim of such actions against its pipeline grid.

Can people influence oil prices?

Recent opinions carried in the media drew attention on three people who were major influencers of oil prices, namely Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, US President Donald Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Can it really be that simple? Oil is a complex tradable commodity and involves a whole lot of catalysts which influence its price.

As a serious oil trader, here is my watchlist of people you should track before initiating a trade:

Zaki Yamani: An erstwhile oil minister of Saudi Arabia and one of the heavyweight traders in the international oil markets, Yamani speaks little, if at all, to the media. But when he does, it is time to listen. He has a reputation of being more right than wrong on oil prices. He has a huge personal net worth to prove it.

Chekib Khelil: The US-educated erstwhile oil minister of Algeria up to 2010 has kept a relatively low profile until two years ago. Of late he has started getting active in the trade and does speak a little to the media, selectively of course.

Rafael Ramirez: He was the oil minister of beleaguered Venezuela up to 2017. Though he has been replaced, he has a strong reading of the pulse of the markets and knows when and where the winds of change are headed.

Muqtada Al Sadr: The son of a murdered Shia cleric (gunned down by Saddam Husseins forces), he is an Iraqi strong man. Literally. He commands personal militias, loyal followers who will gladly lay down their lives for him if needed. He won the elections in 2018 and is now in mainstream politics in Iraq. It was his band of followers who reportedly sent Saddam Hussein to the gallows as executioners on 30 December 2006. His leaning towards Iran (he was in hiding in Iran under the Ayatollah's protection) after his father was assassinated and dreams of having negotiating power to rival Saudi Arabia, to determine oil prices. He is a man on the move and one to watch.

Bijan Namdar Zangeneh: Born in a Kurdish family (which makes him politically opposed to Saudi school of politics), the soft-spoken incumbent oil minister of Iran is sitting on the fourth largest oil reserves of the world (10 percent of global reserves) boasting high octane oil and gas. So significant will be the unified oil reserves of Iran and Iraq (if Muqtada Al Sadrs blueprint were to succeed) that the Saudis feel insecure about the Rise of the Iranian crescent. One of the reasons why Saudi King Salman flew down personally to Moscow to sign a treaty with Vladimir Putin was to pre-empt the Iranians.

Benjamin Netanyahu: If you think US president Donald Trump as an influencer on oil prices, can you leave Bibi Netanyahu out of the reckoning? The head of the Likud party and a strong-arm leader, Bibi is staunchly anti-Iran in his political ideology. Besides the demographic aspect of where Israel is situated, clashes in Palestine/Gaza area drive up oil prices almost immediately. A tough in-your-face talker, many political pundits and oil traders (myself, included) felt the days of the Democrats were numbered after Bibi spoke against the then President Barrack Obama in a White House press conference itself !

While the above gentlemen are noteworthy of your attention, there are many more like Turkish President Recip Tayyep Erdogan, Russian President Putin, US President Trump, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babij, the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Houthis, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and ISIS, among others, who will vie for your attention. Remember what Mark Wahlberg said about sharpshooting mentioned? I think professional oil trading is a whole lot more demanding. May the best traders win.

(The writer heads Bhambwani Securities Pvt Ltd and is the author of 'A Traders Guide to Indian Commodity Markets')
When contacted, Chandrashekhar confirmed in the affirmative on the reason behind his departure from Yes Bank and refused to divulge anything further.

New Delhi: Former independent director of Yes Bank Rentala Chandrashekar quit the board as he was not happy with the recent developments in the bank, which seemed non-focused to find a successor of its MD & CEO Rana Kapoor, sources said Wednesday.

The former bureaucrat wanted the bank to focus on finding a successor for Kapoor rather than indulging in issues such as shake-up in the board composition and the likes, sources told PTI.

When contacted, Chandrashekhar confirmed in the affirmative on the reason behind his departure from Yes Bank and refused to divulge anything further.

Also, he also confirmed that the management, including Kapoor, had wanted him to stay with the bank.

"That's correct," said the former telecom secretary.

Sources said that Chandrashekar was of the view that the bank should have been focussing on the transition and making sure that there was an orderly transition instead of having all the turbulence, including churn in the board and the selection committee to find a successor of Kapoor.

"The need is to focus on really what you need to deal with rather than getting all these different issues which only complicates the transition. All these happenings while the transition is on, it is not a good thing for an orderly transition," sources said quoting Chandrashekar.

They also said that the former government official believed in bank's inherent strength and hopeful of tiding over the present crisis but the matter at the hand is not handled well due to non-focussed approach.

Chandrashekhar had resigned from the board of the bank on Monday -- a third in the series of board level exits -- and Yes Bank attributed his resignation as "due to "personal reasons".

Yes Bank in a revised press release yesterday said that "Rentala Chandrashekhar, Independent Director, has tendered his resignation from the Bank's Board, with immediate effect" and skipped the reason behind him putting in his papers.

"The Nomination & Remuneration Committee (N&RC) of the Bank will look for a suitable replacement in the field of Information Technology and Cyber Security in terms of applicable provisions of Sebi and Banking Regulation Act," Yes Bank said on Tuesday.

On November 14, the bank's non-executive chairman Ashok Chawla had resigned as his name figured in a CBI chargesheet filed in the Aircel-Maxis case.

Another independent director Vasant Gujarathi too had tendered his resignation on the same day over audit committee performance issues.

In a late night development Tuesday, Yes Bank said that Kapoor is in talks with co-promoter Madhu Kapur to reach a truce.

"...efforts are underway for mutual resolution with Madhu Kapur and family, the co-promoter of the bank. This is intended to ensure better support and coordination by the two promoter groups (Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur) with the board of directors of the bank," Yes Bank had said.

The lender has to find a successor for Kapoor by January-end next year as the RBI has not favoured an extension to him to continue as the head of the bank.

As per sources, RBI has flagged issues related to corporate governance as well as under-reporting of bad loans to the corporate sector.

The two promoter groups -- Kapoors and Kapurs -- have been warring on issues related to board nomination as the latter wants to have their say as well, which the former has been reluctant to accede to.

However, following RBI diktat, reports say that the Kapoor camp is keen on resolving the issue at the earliest as it will give them a better hand in controlling the affairs of the bank with over 20 per cent combined stake.

Madhu Kapur and Rana Kapoor's wife Bindhu Kapoor are sisters. Yes Bank was co-founded by Rana and Kapur's late husband Ashok Kapur in 2004 as a new generation private sector bank
The government treated the RBI governor and his team with dignity, making its point without hauling them over the coals despite the extremely provocative and ill-advised speech of Viral Acharya

Alls well that ends well. That is how all public spats between policymakers are supposed to end. Only the prime minister is allowed to win a policy battle between the government and other public institutions. The rest have to learn to live with compromises. So, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel did not resign. That he would not should have been obvious to any experienced analyst the day he called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If his intention was to go, that was the day to go. That the meeting ended cordially with governor Patel recognising, like his 23 predecessors over the past 83 years, that the Sovereign is supreme, whatever markets and fund managers may think.

For its part, the government also treated the governor and his team with dignity, making its point without hauling them over the coals despite the extremely provocative and ill-advised speech of the intemperate deputy governor Viral Acharya.

Politically, the government can claim it was fighting a battle on behalf of micro, small and medium enterprises that are struggling to raise funds. A loan restructuring scheme will be launched for small businesses with a credit facility up to Rs 25 crore.

Banks get a breather to bolster their capital. A committee will examine the RBIs case for retaining more of its reserves than what the government would like it to. Finally, the RBI was willing to be seen conceding a larger role to the advisory board. What happens in practice remains to be seen.

As the dust settles down and the controversy goes off the front pages, as a board member put it, the prime minister is likely to admonish all concerned for allowing differences to get magnified and enter the public domain in election season. After all, as has been said by several analysts, this is not the first time that an RBI governor differed seriously with the Union ministry of finance.

During one of former RBI governor Y Venugopal Reddys many stand-offs with finance minister P Chidambaram, the FM decided to take his complaints to the prime minister. When the prime minister was briefed on the advice given by the finance ministry to the governor, Manmohan Singh asked, So what did the governor say? The reply was simple. Nothing! Reddy kept his counsel. He heard his interlocutor from the North Block and neither agreed nor disagreed! The meeting ended. A few days later the governor called on the prime minister. The matter was resolved, quietly. The Patel-Acharya team, on the other hand, chose to go public with its views. They should learn to be more circumspect.

The finance ministry, too, overplayed its hand. Economic affairs secretary SC Garg and financial services secretary Rajeev Kumar pushed the envelope with their Section 7 threat. The government at the highest levels is not run like that. Authority must be exercised without it being seen to be.

What are the likely consequences of the resolution of this conflict? The immediate outcomes are on the policy front. The central bank may be less monetarist in its approach to monetary policy, accommodating the governments fiscal stance in the run-up to an election. The government will be more restrained and not pull out stuff like Section 7 from its dusty files. The members of the board may have to do more homework if they wish to have their views heard and appreciated. Merely asserting their viewpoint is not going to help.

In the medium to long-term, however, the Patel-Acharya duo may have made the officers of the Indian Administrative Service in New Delhi decide that they should have a foot in the central bank, as was in the past.

In fact, a former governor, and a distinguished one that, held the view that in the interests of smooth operation of RBI-GOI relations, there should always be an IAS officer, serving or retired, occupying one of the top jobs at the central bank. Both C Rangarajan and Bimal Jalan benefitted from the presence of YV Reddy, of the IAS, on their team.

Note the fact that of the RBIs 23 governors, only a handful had never served in New Delhi before their appointment to the top job. Even the ones who did not serve in the government of India had fairly lengthy tenures within the central bank.

When D Subbaraos first term as governor was coming to an end in 2011, a senior colleague of the then prime minister Singh suggested that Raghuram Rajan be invited to India and made the governor. Singh was very clear in his mind that Rajan should serve a tenure as either a deputy governor or as the chief economic adviser (CEA) before being appointed the governor. Rajan wisely opted for the CEAs job, even if for a year, knowing perhaps that a stint in New Delhi would be helpful once ensconced in Mumbai. However, his exit in 2016 may well have been a consequence of his forgetting that the buck stops with Raisina Hill.

Both business and the markets expect the government and the central bank to impart more dynamism to the economy. While injecting more liquidity is one of the many solutions, equally important would be an efficient management of policy. The recent standoff will hopefully encourage governor Patel to be more communicative, infusing greater confidence among investors.

(The author is a political commentator and policy analyst. He tweets at @barugaru)
Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan emphasised that a strong connectivity infrastructure will be crucial to ensure success of all ongoing programmes across areas, including health, education and others.

New Delhi: The government Wednesday exhorted states to use the rural broadband infrastructure being put in place through Bharat Net project, and said it will create opportunities for monetisation and ensure that the benefits of the network reach the masses.

Addressing the Rural Telecom Summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan emphasised that a strong connectivity infrastructure will be crucial to ensure success of all ongoing programmes across areas, including health, education and others.

"With regard to Bharat Net, we have put in this infrastructure in one lakh gram panchayats but states are not coming forward to utilise it. So, how do we reach across to the states to make sure that they utilise it because that will then create more opportunities for monetisation but, more importantly, that is necessary to ensure services reach the people," Sundararajan said.

The industry and government need to team up on projects aimed at bolstering communications infrastructure in the country, she added.

"We have the fiberisation project...wifi hotspots...there are a number of areas where we need to work together. One of things, I want to flag is that in Bharat Net program...there is a huge opportunity for stakeholders in industry because apart from building the infrastructure, in the last phase we are also rolling out wifi hotspots," the secretary said.

The plan is to have around 12 lakh hotspots rolled out over next 1-2 years, she said, adding that it posed a big opportunity for the industry.

"As far as cities are concerned digital access is not such a challenge it used to be, but in rural India there are large number of pockets...also Left Wing Extremist Area (LWE), in North East...there are a number of locations where connectivity is still a big challenge. I think we must ensure that these areas are reached, that the uncovered villages are covered and the unserviced areas are serviced," she pointed out.

The ambitious Bharat Net seeks to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats through high-speed broadband by March 2019. Nearly 50 per cent of the work on the Bharat Net project has been completed, and when fully operational, it will facilitate delivery of e-governance, e-health, e-education, e-banking and other services to citizens across the country.

However, earlier this month, the telecom department reportedly pulled up state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL) over underutilisation of BharatNet infrastructure as well as deficiencies in maintenance of the project.
Telecom sector has been battered by falling tariffs, eroding profitability, and mounting debt, in the face of stiff competition

New Delhi: Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd, has flagged concerns about a severe liquidity crunch in the telecom sector and high spectrum payments at a recent meeting with Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha, an official said.

Telecom sector has been battered by falling tariffs, eroding profitability, and mounting debt, in the face of stiff competition triggered by disruptive offerings of Reliance Jio, owned by richest Indian Mukesh Ambani.

Birla, who heads Vodafone Idea -- the country's largest mobile operator, raised the issues during a meeting with Sinha, which was also attended by Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan.

A senior telecom Ministry official who did not wish to be named said that the meeting took place recently where Birla talked about the severe liquidity crunch in the market, and underscored the need for relief.

The talks were informal and the Department of Telecom will take a view on the issue once a formal representation is made, the official said.

Vodafone Idea Ltd declined to comment on an e-mail query sent to the company on the issue.

The Vodafone Idea Chief is said to have expressed concern over Rs 30,000 crore that is locked up on account of GST payment under 'reverse charge mechanism'.

Under the GST 'reverse charge mechanism' provision, registered dealers are required to make tax payments in case he procures goods from unregistered businesses.

The provision was applicable from 1 July, 2017 till 12 October, 2017. With companies facing trouble in implementing the provision, the GST Council has decided to keep RCM in abeyance till 30 September, 2019.

Amongst other concerns highlighted by Birla was the high upfront payment for radiowaves, the official said adding he has sought that period of payment for spectrum purchases be increased to 18 years from the current 16 years, and favoured a moratorium.

High levies in the telecom sector and the recent hike in import duty also figured in the talks, said the official but did not elaborate.

A bruising tariff war sparked by the entry of Reliance Jio into the telecom sector with free voice calls and SMS, bundled with cheap data has led to pressure on margins of incumbents which have scrambled to match competition.

Earlier this month, at its maiden earnings announcement as a joint entity, Vodafone Idea Ltd reported a consolidated loss of Rs 4,973 crore for the September quarter and announced a fund infusion of Rs 25,000 crore to help it take on brutal competition.

Bharti Airtel too has reported a drop in consolidated net profit for the 10th straight quarter as losses on mainstay India business widened due to pricing pressure from aggressive competition. Overall, its consolidated net profit of Rs 118.8 crore in July-September represented a drop of about 65 percent from Rs 343 crore in the year ago period.

Airtel's loss from India operations (before exceptional items) mounted to Rs 1646.4 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal compared to about Rs 940 crore in the preceding three-month period.

In fact, Moody's Investors Service recently placed Bharti Airtel's rating on review for downgrade, following low levels of profitability and expectation of weak cash flow.

(Disclosure - Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)
TVS Motor Company's chairman and managing director Venu Srinivasan handed over the cheque to Chief Minister K Palaniswami at his residence

Chennai: Two and three-wheeler maker TVS Motor has contributed Rs two crore to the Tamil Nadu government to take up relief work in cyclone affected districts of the State.

The company's Chairman and Managing Director Venu Srinivasan handed over the cheque to Chief Minister K Palaniswami at his residence, a press release said.

Srinivasan Services Trust, the company's corporate social responsibility division also sent relief materials worth Rs one crore to Nagapattinam, one of the worst affected districts of the State in the cyclone.

Palaniswami had visited the districts hit by cyclone Gaja on Tuesday and distributed relief materials to the affected people and indicated he would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to seek central assistance.

The cyclone crossed the coast on 16 November near Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam district, about 350 km from Chennai, with a speed of up to 120 kmph, claiming 46 lives and leaving a trail of destruction in over 10 districts in Tamil Nadu.
Airlines are battling tough business conditions amid rising fuel prices, rupee depreciation and intense competition.

Mumbai: Amid domestic carriers facing "substantial losses", the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) has sought concessions from the civil aviation ministry, including additional time to pay oil companies and airport operators.

The FIA represents full-service carrier Jet Airways and three budget airlines, IndiGo, SpiceJet, and GoAir.

In a letter to the ministry, the grouping said there is a "considerable cash flow mismatch between costs and revenues earned" by the airlines.

"Most of the members (Jet Airways, GoAir, IndiGo, SpiceJet) have bridged the deficit partly through incremental borrowings and partly by stretching operational payment obligations," it said.

Airlines are battling tough business conditions amid rising fuel prices, rupee depreciation and intense competition.

The three listed carriers, Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet, have posted losses in the latest September quarter.

Member airlines be assisted with an "additional one-month unsecured credit" with respect to jet fuel and airport charges to tide over tough times, the FIA said in the letter dated 16 November.

While noting that the member airlines would make staggered payments over the next few months, the FIA has also requested the ministry to consider the possibility of waiving off applicable late payment penalties/ interest during the extended credit period.

Among others, the airlines industry has been pitching for bringing aviation fuel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

"As you are aware airline operations is an extremely competitive business, this competition and the resultant aggressive pricing have resulted in low yields restricting fares from rising commensurate with rising input costs," FIA said.

"Airlines are therefore, facing challenging times and substantial losses in the domestic environment," it added.
National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan delivered a speech at the closing ceremony of the 6th meeting of the 14th National Assembly held in Hanoi on November 20__Photo: Phuong Hoa/ VNA

National Assembly deputies cast their votes on the adoption of the revised anti-corruption in Hanoi on November 20__Photo: VNA

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Vietnams parliament had worked in a democratic, responsible and serious manner and accomplished many important tasks, NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said.The top legislator made the remark yesterday at the closing ceremony of the sixth sitting of the National Assembly held in Hanoi.She said that with confidence that the election of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to the position of State President on October 23 was a significant political development that was positively received by the people and the electorate.During the session, the NA passed nine laws and discussed six draft laws.With 96.7 percent approval, Vietnams legislature also officially ratified the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), or TPP-11, making the country the seventh member of the 500-million strong trade pact to do so.This showcases the Party and the Governments resolve in proactive international integration efforts, and asserts the countrys standing and its responsibilities to the international community, NA Chairwoman Ngan said.She said the meeting had reviewed the progress of the implementation of various NA resolutions on socio-economic development and the State budget in 2018 and from 2016-20.The National Assembly appreciates the role of the Governments robust and hands-on leadership, and the proactive support and co-operation from the whole political apparatus, the business community and people of all classes, in the making of notable accomplishments in 2018 and in the last three years, she said.NA deputies have also voiced their opinions on existing limitations and issues of the economy, proposed practical and detailed solutions to help the country stay on the track of sustainable development.On these bases, the National Assembly has deliberated and approved four resolutions for the socio-economic development and State budget, she said.The top legislator asked NA deputies to communicate the results of the meeting to voters and to continue to listen to peoples wishes and expectations, and report to the legislative body and the Government.Earlier in the day, the National Assembly adopted the revised anti-corruption law with 93.2 percent of deputies in agreement.However, provisions on how to deal with unexplained assets - an issue that drew heated discussion among NA deputies and attracted public attention - did not make it into the version of the new law, due to split opinions among lawmakers.Neither option - either bringing the case to court for review, or taxing unexplained assets - received majority support, so the NA Standing Committee decided that the issue would need further study because it was related to property rights, a basic civil right protected by the Constitution.Additional incomes of officials and ordinary citizens have been accumulated through different periods and sources. We currently cannot effectively monitor assets and the income of people, including officials. The property tax is also still at a proposal stage. Therefore, determining whether unexplained asset have been illicitly obtained or not is difficult, said Nguyen Manh Cuong, vice chair of the NA Judicial Committee.The exclusion of these new measures means the handling of unexplained assets will follow existing legislations.If unexplained assets are proven to have been gained from corruption through authorized agencies, they would be seized. If the case is deemed to be a tax avoidance crime, then the next steps would follow the tax law.Lessons from 10 years of implementing the anti-corruption law brought important insights to be incorporated in this revision of the law, as they provided more foolproof processes for asset valuation as well as more stringent penalties for officials and elected representatives who misdeclared their assets.There is also a whole new chapter in the revised law dedicated to anti-corruption in the non-public sector, effectively extending the fight against corruption into the private sector. It provides regulations to avoid conflict of interests, particularly regarding private businesses that provide services and goods to the public sector.Comprising 96 articles arranged into 10 chapters, the revised anti-corruption law will take effect starting July next year.The same day, the NA also adopted the Law on Planning, set to be effective in 2019, and the revised Law on Peoples Public Security forces, which will take force in July 2019.-
Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur have an acrimonious past and have also battled in the Bombay High Court.+++

Mumbai: Yes Bank's managing director and chief executive Rana Kapoor on Tuesday said he is in talks with co-promoter Madhu Kapur to reach a truce. The confirmation on the speculation comes three months ahead of the 31 January 2019 deadline by which Kapoor is supposed to leave office as per an order of RBI curtailing his tenure.

"...efforts are underway for mutual resolution with Madhu Kapur and family, the Co-promoter of the Bank. This is intended to ensure better support and coordination by the two promoter groups with the Board of Directors of the Bank," the bank said in a late evening statement.

It can be noted that following the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) orders curtailing Kapoor's term, there were reports saying he is trying to reach a truce with Kapur, which can give the promoter group owning over 20 percent of the bank collectively a better control in affairs of the bank. Kapoor and Kapur have an acrimonious past and have also battled in the Bombay High Court.

The statement was issued jointly by Kapoor and Brahm Dutt, one of the seven remaining directors on the board, following a spate of resignations lately.

Seeking to allay fears, the bank scrip shed over 6 percent of value in Tuesday's trade the statement said the seven directors on the board are "fully committed" to discharge their duties.

It added that the resignations will not have any bearing on other crucial processes, including the selection of Kapoor's replacement as the new MD and CEO for the bank. "The new MD & CEO selection process is on track, as per committed timelines," it said.

The Search and Selection Committee and the nomination and remuneration committee is scheduled to meet on 12 December to discuss the final shortlist for new MD and CEO, which will be followed with a full board meet the next day, it said.

On 13 December, the board will decide on two replacement of Independent Directors, shortlisting of Director with Information Technology and Cyber Security Expertise as a replacement of Rentala Chandrashekhar who resigned Monday, it said.

It will also evaluate new chairman for approval by RBI, it said, adding that it will also review from the search and selection committee progress of a selection of candidates. Other key personnel, who have resigned in the recent past include the chairman Ashok Chawla and also O P Bhatt, a member of the search panel.
The first order of capital punishment in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case was announced on Tuesday

The first order of capital punishment in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case was announced on Tuesday. This came a day after the 101st birth anniversary of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, whose assassination on 31 October, 1984 triggered the anti-Sikh riots that saw around 2,800 members of the Sikh community killed across India, including 2,100 in Delhi.

The punishment announced by the Patiala House court is in connection with one of the cases reopened by the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2015, a year after the BJP-led NDA government came to power. Earlier, the case was closed in 1994, with the Delhi Police citing a lack of evidence.

The irony is striking and the optics look bad for the Congress.

More than three decades since the riots, the Sikh community may have moved on, but the issue is still likely to generate heat ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election. For the BJP, more such convictions, preferably with a link between those convicted and the Congress, would be a great talking point in Delhi as well as in Punjab. The Congress, notwithstanding apologies to the community from time to time, would be hard-pressed to defend itself.

The only saving grace for Congress is that the case is 34 years old, and the present generation is far removed in time from the heinous violence into which the country had plunged in 1984. The issue doesn't seem to carry the same traction as it did then. The results of subsequent Assembly elections prove so.

Immediately after the 1984 riots, it was the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that won the Assembly election in Punjab in 1985. But, after President's Rule (1987 to 1992) was revoked, it was the same Congress (that was blamed for the riots) that won the election in 1992. Thereafter, the Congress again won in 2002 and 2017 under the leadership of Captain Amarinder Singh.

Even in Delhi  the epicentre of the riot, the Congress had won three consecutive Assembly elections under Sheila Dikshit, while the BJP won only once  the 1993 election. Prior to that, the Assembly was abolished from 1956 to 1993 as Delhi was a Union Territory in this period.

However, the BJP is determined to milk the issue for electoral advantage. After all, it has long championed the cause of the Sikhs who were targeted after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard. Immediately after coming to power at the Centre in 2014, the Narendra Modi-led NDA government had announced Rs five lakh each as compensation to next of kin of victims of the 1984 riots and in December the same year, cheques were given to 17 Delhi families who had lost relatives in the riot.

This received criticism from Aam Aadmi Party, as the latter accused the BJP of trying to win over the Sikhs ahead of the Delhi election. Arvind Kejriwal in October 2014, had then demanded the setup of an SIT for a thorough probe. The MHA promptly announced that an SIT would be set up, and it was formed in February 2015.

The three-member SIT played a crucial role in Tuesday's judgment, as it examined afresh evidence in cases that had been closed. The SIT found 60 cases appropriate for further investigation and one of them was related to the killing of two Sikh youths in Delhi's Mahipalpur area. Delhi's Patiala House Court handed Yashpal Singh  convicted in connection with the killing of these two Sikhs  a death sentence and gave Naresh Sehrawat a life sentence.

The involvement of Congress leaders like HKL Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler etc brought a bad name to the party. Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the statement made by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi  "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes"  was considered justification for the anti-Sikh riots.

In later years, in an attempt to ingratiate with the Sikh community, Manmohan Singh in 2005 apologised for the anti-Sikh riots. While describing Indira Gandhis assassination as a great national tragedy, he had said, "What happened subsequently was equally shameful". However, in August this year, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi refuted allegations of the Congress' involvement in the riots and triggered a war of words between the party and other political parties.

The court verdict may have come as a major relief for the families of victims, but how much heat it will generate ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election remains to be seen.

"Finally, justice has been delivered on this horrific deed, which is utterly shameful for a civilised nation. We need not just two, but 200 guilty verdicts from top to bottom. However, this verdict which is so delayed, really won't have much of an impact politically," political analyst MD Nalapat told Firstpost.

The Sikh community, irrespective of individual political leanings, wants justice, and no further politicisation of the anti-Sikh riots.

Congress Rajya Sabha member and noted lawyer, KTS Tulsi on 17 November reportedly expressed hope that Congress leader Sajjan Kumar would get the death sentence for his role in the riots.

"Main culprits lik Kumar, Tytler and others who are still roaming free should be punished. Evidence has come against Kumar, who has been identified as an instigator in anti-Sikh riots," remarked Delhi-based Sardar Hardeep Singh, who as a student had been a witness to the riots.
The Bombay High Court will hear on hear on Wednesday, a plea of 2008 Malegaon blast accused Prasad Shrikant Purohit, that he was being prosecuted for terror charges under the stringent UAPA without any valid sanction

The Bombay High Court will hear a plea of Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast that killed six and injured over 100 hundred, on Wednesday, that he was being prosecuted for terror charges under the stringent UAPA without any valid sanction.

The Supreme Court had asked the Bombay High Court to deal with the plea on Monday after Purohit moved a fresh leave petition in the Supreme court after a trial court framed charges against Purohit in the case last month.

The Supreme Court had, on 20 April this year, granted Purohit the liberty to raise the issue of grant of sanction to prosecute him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) before the trial court at the time of framing of charges.

However, the trial court had rejected Purohit's plea on sanction and had framed charges against him. Purohit had said in the pleaa that he was being prosecuted under penal laws including the UAPA without any sanction from the authorities.

The plea also alleged that the charges have been framed against Purohit and others by the special court which had commenced the trial without dealing with his plea on sanction.

The apex court, while granting bail to Purohit on 21 August, 2017, had also said the issue of grant of prosecution sanction could be raised at the time of framing of charges.

Earlier, a special court had, on 30 October, framed terror charges against Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five other accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, setting the stage for their trial which commenced on 2 November.

It had said that the organisation named Abhinav Bharat was formed by the accused with the common object to "spread terrorism" and had framed charges of criminal conspiracy and murder, among other offences.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in north Maharashtra, on 29 September, 2008.

The special court had framed charges against all the seven accused under relevant sections of the stringent UAPA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Apart from Purohit and Sadhvi, the other accused are - Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Rahirkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.

The accused were charged under sections 16 (committing terrorist act) and 18 (conspiring to commit terrorist act) of the UAPA.

Under the IPC, they were charged under sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between two religious groups).

If convicted under these sections, the maximum punishment can be life imprisonment or death.

The accused were also charged under relevant sections of the Explosive Substances Act.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Maharashtra police, which probed the case, had initially charged Thakur, Purohit, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Ramesh Upadhyay, Sudhakar Chaturvedi, Jagdish Mhatre, Rakesh Dhawade, Ajay Rahirkar, Samir Kulkarni, Shyam Sahu, Shivnarayan Kalsangra, Pravin Mutalik and Ramchandra Kalsangra.

Thakur and Purohit were arrested the same year along with nine others for the blast conspiracy.

On August 21, last year, the apex court had granted bail to Purohit, who had been languishing in jail for almost nine years for his alleged role in the case, observing there were contradictions in the charge sheets filed by different investigating agencies.

With inputs from PTI
Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey maintained that Ram temple is a matter of faith and devotion and the party will not make it an election issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls

Lucknow: Ahead of the 25 November 'Dharam Sabha' scheduled to be held in Ayodhya, the BJP on Wednesday claimed it is the only political party in the country, which has "passed a political resolution" for building a Ram temple and stands by it "firmly".

At the same time, Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey maintained that the party will not make Ram temple an election issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

"There is no question of the BJP being behind the scene as far as 25 November Dharam Sabha is concerned, as the BJP is serving people in the capacity of a ruling party. And, it is the only political party in the country, which in its 1989 national executive meeting in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, had passed a political resolution supporting construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya," Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said.

"The BJP stands firmly by the resolution," he said in an interview.

"For the BJP, Ram temple is a matter of faith and devotion. The party is a strong advocate of construction of the temple according to the law. As far as the Dharam Sabha is concerned, the saffron party has respect for the sants and seer community," he said.

On rival political parties accusing the BJP of not declaring the date for construction of the Ram temple and misleading people, Pandey said, "The political parties who talk such things are actually victims of false virtue. The country had seen how those parties had opposed the OBC Bill and the bill banning instant triple talaq in the Parliament. In fact, they are the ones who have shown dual face."

On whether Ram temple will be an issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for the party, Pandey said, "In 2019, our party will not make Ram temple an election issue. Even when our 1991 election manifesto is seen, we had contested elections on the issue of public welfare and development. Construction of Ram temple is a matter of faith and devotion."

"We will contest elections on 'sabka saath, sabka vikaas' and 'saaf niyat, sahi vikas', and the feedback we are getting shows that victory will be bigger than 2014 Lok Sabha elections," he added.

Pandey further said, "In 2014, people of India knew that Narendra Modi was stopped from doing work in Gujarat but they decided to make this person the leader of India. Today, the public can see that Prime Minister Modi is working for them. But some people are trying to stop him for their own vested interests and corruption."

"However, the public will not allow anyone to stop Modi. People will vote in large numbers and the results will be better than 2014 Lok Sabha elections as far as the BJP is concerned," he said.
Three people  including a preacher  were killed and over 20 were injured when two-motorcycle borne men threw a grenade on a religious congregation inside Nirankari Bhawan's prayer hall near Amritsar's Rajasansi on Sunday.

The Punjab Police on Wednesday arrested one of the two men suspected of carrying out the Amritsar grenade attack. Quoting sources, CNN-News18 said the suspect claimed Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) handler Happy Singh 'PhD' alias Harmeet Singh was the mastermind behind the incident. India Today reported that the arrested man, a local, and the other assailant were paid to conduct the attack.

Addressing a press conference, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said, "I'm happy to announce that the police has arrested one of the two attackers, 26-year-old Bikramjit Singh, in the Amritsar grenade attack. The other man, Avtar Singh, will be nabbed soon."

I'm happy to announce that police nabbed one of the two persons involved. 26-year-old Bikramjit Singh has been arrested. The other man will also be arrested soon. His name is Avtar Singh: Punjab CM on #Amritsar blast at Nirankari Mission congregation that claimed 3 lives pic.twitter.com/k0S52mpdKe  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

Speaking on the ISI link, Amarinder said, "For a long time, the Pakistan ISI has been very active. This is something for which we will have to be on our toes. We will not allow these things to happen. Our force is being one step ahead of them and we've been able to neutralise them. A total of 17 terror modules have been busted so far and 81 people have been arrested."

He said that the ISI is using Khalistani Liberation Force to disturb the peace in state. "Pakistan's objective is to disturb peace, be it in Kashmir or Punjab. A disturbed border is Pakistan's security," he said.

The chief minister refused to name any particular person as the mastermind and said, "ISI is the mastermind. These people (Happy Singh 'PhD') are simply the touts they are using."

He said that the grenade (HE-84) used in the attack is a "POF-made" (Pakistani Army ordinance factory) which is filled with pellets. "This is the type of grenade which has been taken from other modules. This is the one being used against forces in Kashmir and this is the one that burst. All those injured have got small pellet wounds," he said.

Three peopleincluding a preacherwere killed and over 20 were injured when two-motorcycle borne men threw a grenade on a religious congregation inside Nirankari Bhawan's prayer hall near Amritsar's Rajasansi on Sunday.

Amarinder, who visited the attack site with senior ministers on Monday, had then called the attack a "clear case of terrorism".

He then said investigators were pursuing certain "leads" aggressively and assured that culprits would soon be arrested. He also announced a reward of Rs 50 lakh for anyone providing information on those involved in the blast.

Prima facie, this appears to be an "act of terror" by separatist forces, organised with the involvement of ISI-backed Khalistani or Kashmiri terrorist groups, the chief minister had said.

With inputs from PTI
Earlier, the Delhi Police, in a statement, had said that the chilli powder, which was found on the floor of the Delhi Secretariat may have fallen out of Sharma's hand and the attack may have been unintentional.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Tuesday arrested the man who allegedly attacked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with chilli powder. The police further informed that 40-year-old Anil Kumar Sharma, the attacker was found to be "unstable and incoherent".

"The accused Anil Sharma has been arrested. A case has been taken up for investigation. Since the accused has threatened Chief Minster, a joint interrogation was conducted by the Intelligence Bureau, special cell and local police. He was found to be unstable and incoherent," the Delhi Police said.

The police said that they have registered a case in the matter while adding that no formal complaint has been received from the Chief Minister Secretariat yet. "After taking suo-motu cognisance, a case has been registered. No formal complaint has been received from the Chief Minister Secretariat. A cognisable offence at prima facie made out. Therefore, a case has been registered under Sections 186, 353, 332 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," the Delhi Police said.

Earlier, the Delhi Police, in a statement, had said that the chilli powder, which was found on the floor of the Delhi Secretariat may have fallen out of Sharma's hand and the attack may have been unintentional.

"Sharma had gone to the Chief Minister's office to submit a complaint with a staff member's reference. After handing over the complaint to the minister, he bent down to touch his feet during which Kejriwal's security persons intervened and his spectacles fell down," reads the statement.

"Subsequently, security personnel moved him aside and found him carrying a pouch in his hand which apparently contained chilli powder, which later got torn," the statement added.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) criticised the Delhi Police's statement and accused them of lying on record. "Instead of owning up its serious lapses, the Delhi Police is spreading lies under political pressure. Delhi government will explore all legal options to deal with the situation," the Kejriwal-led government said in a statement.
Environmentalists are also raising concern over the fact that the bill does not address the downstream impact of the rivers.

Conservationists, experts and communities in Assam opine that the River Basin Management Bill, 2018 for the regulation and development of Indias inter-state rivers and its basins would snatch away states' right on water and thus would violate the federal structure of the country. The bill is likely to be passed in the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament.

The bill, draft of which has been out, seeks to establish 13 River Basin Authorities (RBAs) for each of the 13 rivers which flow through more than one state. The bill says the RBAs would be responsible for preparing master plans for the development, regulation and management of water of an interstate river. However, it does not talk about the status of the existing river boards after the bill becomes an act.

Partha Jyoti Das, water and climate expert from Aranyak, a society for biodiversity conservation and an advocacy think tank says, As per the bill, the chairman of the Executive Board of the River Basin Authorities will be among the officials of the rank of additional secretary from the Central Water Commission. Thus, the bill has a tendency to snatch power from the state government and give it to the Centre.

He further says, The RBAs main function would be preparing a master plan for the river basin management which was earlier done by Brahmaputra Board in Assam. The bill does not talk about the future of such boards as well as the state water resource departments.

Two of the rivers of North EastBrahmaputra and Barakare going to be included in the bill. However, experts feel that uniform laws cannot be applied while addressing water issues in North East when most parts of the river Brahmaputra is in China and there is always a risk of conflict in the international level rather than state level.

Environmentalists are also raising concern over the fact that the bill does not address the downstream impact of the rivers.

Downstream impact of the river Brahmaputra in places like Arunachal Pradesh and Assams Dhemaji and Lakhimpur are huge due to activities in its upstream areas in Tibet region of China. But the bill is silent on the issue, Das says.

The 2,000 MW Lower Subansiri dam in Arunachal Pradesh, built on Subansiri, an inter-state tributary of Brahmaputra has been halted several times in the past three years due to severe protest by organisations in Assam. Likewise, dams built in the Tibetan Plateau of China threaten to reduce river flows into downstream Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.

Rakesh Sharma, deputy chief engineer, Department of Water Resource, Assam says, It should be especially mandated to the RBAs to ensure that downstream states do not suffer from the unwanted adverse impact of a river dam and other similar structures located in the upstream. In cases where such impact cannot be avoided, efforts should be mandated to minimise the same on terms agreeable to all concerned states."

Inter-state rivers in North East India have several dams constructed on it and some are on the process of getting clearance. River experts fear that the policies regarding the basin approach, equitable and sustainable use of water and balance of benefits between states, upstream-downstream cooperation might go against the dam policies.

Conservationists have urged the Centre that those river dam projects seeking clearance, should be halted till the River Basin Authorities (RBAs) are set up.

There should be a fresh process of seeking clearance of dam building as otherwise dam building process and river basin master plan will be conflicting to each other, says Ajit Patowary, an environmentalist and a senior scribe from the region.

Patowary also stresses water assessment in the interstate rivers is required in the next 50 years in the northeastern region.

In North East India, a huge amount of water is needed for implementation of projects under Look East Policy and if there was no assessment of water needed, there will be a general misconception of having surplus water. The administration then might try to divert excess water from North East India to other parts of the state, he said.

The River Basin Management Bill 2018 is also drawing flakes for not mentioning the impact of climate change on a river.

Without account for climate change, its not possible to prepare for future plan of any water resources. Though the bill talks about social and cultural flow but excludes environmental flow. Assessment and maintenance of environmental flow should be mentioned explicitly to avoid any confusion in further process of policymaking, says Patowary.

Wilfred Topno, president of Peoples Action for Development (PAD), an NGO working towards the development, rehabilitation of riverbank communities of flood-prone areas of the state is of the view that regarding the decisions making upon a river, the River Basin Authorities must consider community participation and use their traditional knowledge.

However, Chandan Mahanta, of Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati says that the way the government interprets and implement the bill would influence the mandate of the people on the bill.

For a river basin as big as the Brahmaputra there has to be a generic holistic kind of policy-level document where the things will be fine tunes and provide a good framework for doing justice to the entire water resource, says Mahanta.

The River Basin Management Bill, 2018, if passed is going to amend the River Boards Act, 1956.
The court will hear on Thursday the petitions filed by the three activists, challenging the FIR registered against them by Pune Police on 1 January in connection with Bhima Koregaon violence.

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday extended the relief by a day from arrest granted to civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha, professor Anand Teltumbde and priest Stan Swamy in a case against them over the Bhima Koregaon violence and alleged links with Maoists.

A bench of Justices BP Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal will hear on Thursday the petitions filed by the three activists, challenging the FIR registered against them by Pune Police on 1 January in connection with the Elgar Parishad event held on 31 December 2017.

The police had alleged that Maoists supported the Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune, which led to the violence.

At the event, held a day before the 1 January caste clashes at Koregaon Bhima village near Pune, the activists had made inflammatory speeches and provocative statements that contributed to the Koregaon Bhima violence, police said.

Several activists were named in the FIR. Some of them, including Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudha Bharadwaj, P Varavara Rao, and Gautam Navlakha, were initially put under house arrest on directions of the Supreme Court.

However, all of them except Navlakha were re-arrested and taken into custody by police recently.

Navlakha was released by the Delhi High Court, after which he moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash the FIR against him.

Teltumbde and Swamy are yet to be arrested in the case.
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday said if the chilli powder attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat is not fabricated, then it is condemnable and sought a high-level inquiry into it.

New Delhi: Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday said if the chilli powder attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat is not fabricated, then it is condemnable and sought a high-level inquiry into it.

However, he said that the deputy chief minister's statement equating this incident with that on the Signature Bridge during its inauguration on 10 November shows that it is only a drama.

"If the incident is not fabricated, then it is certainly condemnable. But the statement of the deputy chief minister that this attack is like the attack at the Signature Bridge shows that this is only a drama.

"It seems that this attack has been carried out at the insistence of the chief minister to divert attention from AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan's attack on me and also to cover-up the sins of the AAP," Tiwari alleged.

He said that non-violence is the best way to oppose in a democracy.

"For expressing opposite views, adopting such methods is completely wrong. We demand a high-level inquiry into this incident and the person who has committed this act must be appropriately punished," he said.

The Aam Aadmi Party has described the incident as "politically motivated" while asserting that the BJP is hatching a conspiracy in collusion with the Delhi Police to attack the chief minister.
Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was attacked with red chilli powder at the Delhi Secretariat  a building one cannot enter without being put through a tough round of frisking and a laborious airport-like baggage check

Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was attacked with red chilli powder at the Delhi Secretariat  a building one cannot enter without being put through a tough round of frisking and a laborious airport-like baggage check. To be able to take the elevator to one of the office towers, a picture of the visitor is first clicked by a webcam attached to the reception desk and a day-long paper ID is issued against a government ID.

Party spokespersons, in a press conference, raised concerns over the deliberate incompetence of the Delhi Police, whose operations are controlled by the Central government. As expected, conspiracy theories about the involvement of political rivals are afoot. Of course, this will spill beyond the spectre of the incident. MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj described this as a serious security lapse and then added that 'BJP's Central government has created an atmosphere where anti-social elements are being instigated and promoted to attack Kejriwal'. CCTV footage shows a man, who was later identified as Anil Kumar, who is seen attempting to touch the minister's feet and subsequently smear his face with the chilli powder.

Bharadwaj added that 'the attackers will be protected by the police and no action will be taken'. In 2014, Kejriwal blamed political rivals when he was punched in Delhi's Dakshinpuri area and earlier had ink, synthetic motor oil and even eggs hurled at him in Varanasi, where he was contesting against BJP's then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. The tracing of political motivation to public displays of resentment isn't a practice limited to Kejriwal and AAP. In September, when his convoy was attacked at an election rally, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accused the Congress party of being involved in organising the attack. The BJP chief minister also had a slipper thrown at him while he was standing at a podium during his speech in the poll-bound state.

This points to two problems that need to be addressed:

The first is that leaders from various political parties seem to think they are in some kind of an everlasting war zone, where the only thing they are supposed to do is attack and defend their actions and ideologies. The manifestation of rage through violence is misplaced but the reason for that rage could well stem from public frustration at the ineptitude of the state machinery. In 2014, when the AAP convenor was in an open jeep, an autodriver named Lali garlanded him and then struck him hard on the left cheek, called the political figure a liar and accused him of betraying auto drivers by resigning within two months of taking his chief ministerial oath.

Lali was beaten up by AAP supporters surrounding their leader. Auto rickshaw drivers comprised a substantial chunk of his loyalists; around 2015, every other auto rickshaw in Delhi carried a picture of AAP's signature anti-corruption broom on it. Later, the minister had visited the home of the attacker, sending a positive signal to the rest of the vote bank. And with that, the fact that Lali had committed an offence in the public eye was wiped out. From the point of view of political strategy, the smearing of red chilli power or a splatter of ink by a single person in a large crowd doesn't amount to reflecting public hatred towards a leader and which political rival will want to offer a chance to another party to victimise itself?

The other problem that needs to be addressed in a de-politicised manner here is the punitive action around instances of assaults in public. When it comes to knifing or other equally violent acts, cases are registered under Section 326 of the Indian Penal Code for causing grievous harm using dangerous weapons or means and this can entail imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life. Where the weapon is life-threatening, a case can also be registered under Section 307 for attempt to murder which entails a punishment of 10 years and a fine, and is non-bailable. In case of an ink attack, the procedures that surround the process of filing cases and following up on them eventually negate the gravity and the severity of the punishment.

The chief minister has earlier been the victim of an ink attack. In that case, the accused was a young girl named Bhavna Arora who was sent to 14 days of judicial custody and the lawyer of the complainant had said that legal precedents must be set as deterrents, but the courts only deliver a judgment to ensure such incidents dont happen frequently and disrupt public peace. One among the four charges with which Bhavna was slapped was under Section 353 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to obstruction of work of a public servant. A case can also be slapped against an offender in such a crime under Section 355 pertaining to an assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour a person, otherwise than on grave provocation.

In this case, whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any person, intending thereby to dishonour that person, otherwise than on grave and sudden provocation given by that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term that may extend to two years, or with a fine, or with both. The throwing of ink doesnt come under assault unless one is able to prove it was the cause of grave injury. The offender of this kind is typically booked under Section 503 on grounds of threatening to harm reputation or Section 504 for intentional insult or provocation to damage peace. These are both bailable offences.

The weapon of choice in this case was red chilli powder, which can severely debilitate vision and make the victim vulnerable to a more violent blow. AAP spokespersons described it as a 'jaanleva hamla' or a life-threatening attack and spoke of how the police is busy filing fraud cases against the party's MLAs and not giving its key ministers much-needed security. Instead of reducing this incident to what benefits their political narrative at the moment and linking it to a generic issue of everybodys safety in a city where the chief minister is this unsafe, the AAP should put its tireless activism behind ensuring that the offender is punished and that the motive behind the act is made crystal clear.
A man was arrested in Delhi on Wednesday on charges of masturbating in front of a girl on a bus. The survivor said that no one on the bus helped her and she had to overpower the culprit alone.

A man was arrested in Delhi on Wednesday on charges of masturbating in front of a girl on a bus. The survivor said that no one on the bus helped her and she had to overpower the culprit alone.

The incident occurred on Tuesday when the student was travelling from Kapashera to Vasant Kunj, reported News18. The girl was sitting on the seat reserved for ladies when the man came in front of her and started exposing and fondling himself, after which she started crying for help. With no one coming forward to help her, she beat up the accused herself and informed the police. The police investigation is underway.

This is not a standalone incident. In April, an Uber driver was arrested for allegedly masturbating while ferrying a woman passenger in his cab in Delhi. The accused, identified as Shokeen Khan, was arrested and was found to be having a fake driving license.

A taekwondo instructor was also arrested in April for allegedly flashing and masturbating in front of two women in the Vasant Kunj area of south west Delhi.

In February, a Delhi University student lodged a case against a man for allegedly molesting her on board a bus. The student, who recorded the incident on camera, accused the man sitting next to her of masturbating and repeatedly trying to touch her waist.

With inputs from agencies
Delhi police said that guest houses, hotels and paying guest accommodations where foreign students usually stay, are being scanned to trace the two men.

The Delhi Police on Tuesday issued a notice about the presence of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists in the national capital, and asked people to keep a lookout for them. The notice also included photographs of the two men in dark kurtas and religious headgear.

"Anybody who spots them is requested to call Paharganj police station on 011-23520787 or 011-2352474", the advisory read.

As per a report from News18, the Delhi Police said that guest houses, hotels and paying guest accommodations where foreign students usually stay, are being scanned to trace the two men.

Police have also put up posters of the two suspects across the city, and have circulated their photos on the social media to alert people. The police requested citizens to inform them in case of any sightings, the news agency said.

The advisory comes days after the Delhi police on Tuesday arrested a suspected Hizbul Mujahideen operative, who was earlier associated with the Peoples Democratic Party, for allegedly killing a sub-inspector of the Jammu and Kashmir police.

The man, identified as Ansar Ul Haqe, allegedly hatched a conspiracy to kill the sub-inspector with his girlfriend after finding out that she knew the policeman, officials said. He is a resident of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Haqe was motivated by a local terrorist, Wajid, also a resident of Pulwama. Through him, Haqe came in contact with the terror outfit and was in regular contact with other Hizbul Mujahideen operatives, the officer added.

On 28 October, the bullet-ridden body of 30-year-old Imtiyaz Ahmad Mir was found in Chewa Kalan area of Pulwama district, Pramod Singh Kushwah, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), said. The victim, who was working with the CID department, was returning home in his car when he was allegedly abducted by terrorists and killed, he added.

Mir had been warned about a possible attack on him and even his superiors had told the officer against venturing into his village.

The Delhi Police learnt about the possible hideouts of the accused. However, the accused kept changing his hideouts from Mumbai to Bengaluru and other nearby areas, he added.

On 20 November, police received information that Haqe would come to Delhi Airport from Bengaluru and will head to Srinagar. Accordingly, a trap was laid at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) and in the early morning on Tuesday, the accused was nabbed at T3 terminal of IGI Airport, the senior police officer said.

With inputs from PTI
President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday greeted the nation on the occasion of Eid Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday greeted the nation on the occasion of Eid Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed. "On the auspicious occasion of Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of the Prophet, I extend my good wishes to all fellow citizens, especially to my Muslim brothers and sisters," Kovind said in a statement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too greeted the nation on the occasion.

Greetings on Milad-Un-Nabi. We remember the noble teachings of the venerable Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and pray that there is harmony, brotherhood and peace all around.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 21, 2018

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu tweeted:

I convey my warm greetings and best wishes to the people of our country on the occasion of Milad-un-Nabi/Eid-E-Milad  celebrated as the Birthday of Prophet Mohammad. Prophet Mohammad showed humanity the righteous path of compassion and universal brotherhood. pic.twitter.com/ThJCjBH3cH  VicePresidentOfIndia (@VPSecretariat) November 21, 2018

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also wished the nation on the occasion of Eid Milad-un-Nabi.

Karnataka deputy chief minister G Parmeshwara also tweeted:

This Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi, may you all be showered with choicest blessings of Allah. I pray that your hearts and homes are filled with happiness and peace. Eid Mubarak to all.#EidMiladUnNabi pic.twitter.com/fQ0rqpqYV8  Dr. G Parameshwara (@DrParameshwara) November 21, 2018

Meanwhile, other political leaders and ministers, Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) national spokesperson, Nawab Malik also tweeted to wish the citizens on the festival of Eid. Today 12th Rabbi-ul-Awwal, Birthday Of Prophet Muhammad(S.A.W) by Islamic Calendar. Eid Milad Un Nabi Mubarak to everyone," Malik tweeted.

BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Randeep Surjewala and Ashok Chavan also greeted the nation on Eid.

Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi or Eid-e-Milad is a day dedicated to the Prophet Mohammad and his teachings. According to legends, the Prophet was born on the twelfth day of Rabee-ul-Awwal  which is the third month of the Islamic lunar calendar  in Mecca in 570 CE. In 2018, Milad started from the evening of 20 November and will continue till 21 November.

On this day, hymns are sung in praise of the Prophet and it is also commonly believed that listening to those will make one receive worldly and heavenly rewards. However, the day is marked differently by the Shia and Sunni Muslim sects. The Shia community believes that on this day Prophet Muhammad had chosen Hazrat Ali as his successor, while on the other hand, the Sunni community holds prayer meetings throughout the day.

Several countries celebrate the day by taking out large processions on the street. Prayers are recited and stories of the Prophet are narrated.

With inputs from IANS
The farmers' march from Thane to Mumbai also comes amid many similar rallies being held in other parts of the country, including the 'Kisan Kranti Yatra' on 23 September and the protest led by the Congress' farmers' cell on 23 October.

Demanding compensation for drought and the transfer of forest rights to tribals, thousands of farmers and tribals began a two-day march from Thane to Mumbai on Wednesday, eight months after holding a similar protest from Nashik.

The Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM) is leading the protest, at which Swaraj Abhiyan chief Yogendra Yadav as well as conservationist and Magsaysay Award-winner Dr Rajendra Singh are also at the forefront.

Over 20,000 farmers started walking on Wednesday afternoon and will halt at the Somaiyya Ground in Mumbai's Sion area for the night. They will reach Azad Maidan in South Mumbai early on Thursday and will try to hold a demonstration near Vidhan Bhawan, where the Winter Session of the Legislative Assembly is underway, a leader of the march said, adding that the participants are mostly from the Thane, Bhusawal and Marathwada regions.

What the farmers want from the state



The farmers are demanding that the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee report be implemented. It had recommended giving farmers assured access and control over resources such as land and water, establishing a National Land Use Advisory Service, affordable health insurance at primary health centres in rural areas, extending the National Rural Health Mission to suicide-prone areas and securing grazing rights.

Struggling to cope with the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra, the protesting farmers are also demanding proper implementation of the loan waiver package the BJP-led government in the state had announced last year, land rights for farmers and compensation for farm labourers.

Additionally, they are rallying for an increase in the state's Minimum Support Price (MSP)  the price at which the government purchases crops from farmers  and a judicial system to ensure its implementation.

Most important among their demands is monetary compensation for the drought that has been plaguing the state. The Maharashtra government, on 23 October, had declared 180 tehsils in the state drought-hit. Several of them received rainfall 23 percent less than the normal for the year.

A threat of drought also looms over 17 districts in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra due to deficient rainfall and excess use of water for sugarcane cultivation. Most parts of Marathwada received average rainfall this monsoon, and the water stock in the region stands at just 28.81 percent, according to the Maharashtra Water Resources Department.

Fadnavis govt fails to deliver

Wednesday's rally is not the first time farmers in Maharashtra have voiced their demands. A similar protest was held in March outside Mumbai's Legislative Assembly, where thousands of farmers, led by the Left-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha, held a 180-kilometre-long march from Nashik to Mumbai to press for their demands.

The farmers had demanded fair remuneration and a loan waiver then, as well. They had also asked the government for compensation of Rs 40,000 per acre for the crops destroyed by hail and pink bollworm, allocation of forest land under cultivation to farmers and, implementation of the Forest Rights Act.

The rally, however, was called off after the farmers received a written reassurance from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The government had agreed to sincerely look into their requests, while promising time-bound action into some of them.

The Fadnavis-led government had also assured the farmers that it would ensure better implementation of social welfare schemes and promised to issue new BPL ration cards to the farmers and tribals as they had not been renewed in years. The chief minister ha dalso announced that the state would set up a ministerial committee to review and process the farmers' demands. The committee includes Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil, Water Resources Minister Girish Mahajan, Cooperation Minister Subhash Deshmukh, Public Undertakings Minister Eknath Shinde and Tribal Welfare Minister Vishnu Savra.

However, it appears that no real steps were taken to improve the situation. "We have been consistently asking the state government to fulfil our long-standing demands, but the response has been lukewarm. We were forced to launch this agitation," Pratibha Shinde, general secretary of the Lok Sangharsh Morcha, said during Wednesday's rally. "We are taking maximum care to ensure that the citizens of Mumbai are not inconvenienced."

Avik Saha, leader of the Jai Kisan Andolan, was quoted as saying by NDTV: "Two bills to ensure that all these rights were drafted by the All India Sangharsh Coordination Committee and placed in Parliament, but both bills have been languishing. More than 60 percent of the voters in India are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture. The ruling party and Opposition will now understand the gravity of this problem."

Farmers across India dissatisfied

The farmers' march in Maharashtra also comes amid many similar rallies held in other parts of the country, including the 'Kisan Kranti Yatra' on 23 September from Haridwar to Delhi, and the protest led by the Congress' farmers' cell at Parliament Street in New Delhi a month later.

Many more farmers' rallies will be held to support the farmers' agitation. The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC)  coalition of about 200 farmers' organisations from across India  will organise a farmers; march to Delhi from 28 to 30 November.

Their demands include Parliament approval for the two Kisan Mukti Bills, which propose guaranteed remunerative prices, and for freedom from indebtedness. The AIKSCC will also be releasing a "Farmers' Charter" describing the farmers' vision and demands.

In the south, the BJP will hold a rally in Karnataka's Belagavi on 10 December in protest against the "government's failure" to ensure that sugarcane farmers dues are paid and its failure in drought relief measures. At the farmers' protest rally, the BJP will also raise other issues, including farm loan waiver and lack of drought relief, The Hindu reported.

With inputs from PTI
The incident occurred when activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) objected to some members of the Muslim community trying to plant a religious flag at a particular place in Matar town, a police official said.

Ahmedabad: Four persons were injured and some shops and vehicles were set on fire during a clash between members of two communities at Matar town in Gujarat's Kheda district on Tuesday, the police said on Wednesday.

The trigger behind the last night's skirmish was planting of a flag for Wednesday's Eid celebrations.

The incident occurred when activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) objected to some members of the Muslim community trying to plant a religious flag at a particular place in Matar town, a police official said.

Following the incident, the VHP called for a bandh in the town Wednesday.

"Some members of VHP and other persons tried to object to planting of a religious flag saying its location is close to the flag of Lord Hanuman. An argument ensued leading to a clash between the two communities," said Kheda SP Divya Mishra.

At least one of the four persons sustained stab injuries in the attack, he said.

"Rioters also set ablaze a car, a motorcycle and three roadside kiosks. Some kiosks were damaged," the officer said.

He said the situation was brought under control by police.

"Personnel of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) have been deployed in the village," he said.

Mishra said the shutdown called by the VHP failed to have an impact on Eid celebrations which passed off peacefully.

An FIR was lodged at Matar police station against at least 200 persons, Mishra said, adding that around 12 persons have been named as accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for rioting and attempt to murder.
The protesters demanded that Manohar Parrikar step down as the chief minister as he has been unwell. They said the governance in the state had suffered as Parrikar was ill and remained hospitalised for more than nine months.

Panaji: Hundreds of people, including some Congress leaders, Tuesday evening marched to the private residence of ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, demanding his resignation, and a "full-time" chief minister in his place.

The protestors, who came together under the banner of 'People's March For Restoration of Governance', marched for about 1 kilometre, and gave an "ultimatum" of 48 hours to Parrikar to step down as chief minister.

Apart from the Congress, other political parties including the NCP and Shiv Sena also extended support to the protest march, which was initiated by social activists and NGOs.

The protesters demanded Parrikar step down as the chief minister as he has been unwell. They said the governance in the state had suffered as Parrikar was ill and remained hospitalised for more than nine months.

The police stopped the protest march 100 metres from the chief minister's private residence.

Talking to reporters, Deputy Collector Shashank Tripathy said the chief minister refused to meet the protesters due to his ill-health.

On behalf of the protesters, Aires Rodrigues, social activist and the leader of the protest march, gave an "ultimatum" of 48 hours to Parrikar to step down. "We need a full-time chief minister. For the last nine months, the state administration has collapsed. The chief minister is not meeting his own ministers and MLAs," Rodrigues said.

He said the people who marched to Parrikar's residence had also come to check on his health condition, and warned of launching a statewide agitation in case Parrikar does not step down within 48 hours.

Congress leaders, including the party's Goa unit chief Girish Chodankar, Opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar, MLAs Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Antonio Fernandes, Francis Silveira took part in the march.

The Goa unit chief of Shiv Sena Jitesh Kamat said, "The people of the state are praying for the speedy recovery of the CM, but that does not mean he should continue to put the state administration on hold."

The BJP's South Goa Lok Sabha MP Narendra Sawaikar took to Twitter to express displeasure and claimed some people were taking "pride" in demanding the resignation of a man who had "worked tirelessly to improve and raise life and education standards of Goans". He tweeted:

A statesman, person of integrity, 1st Goan to be a @DefenceMinIndia, envisioned & successfully executed infra projects, worked tirelessly to improve & raise life & education standard of Goans. As he is fighting his battle for life, some take pride in demanding his resignation.  Narendra Sawaikar (@NSawaikar) November 20, 2018

Parrikar, 62, has been recuperating at his private residence since 14 October when he was discharged from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Health Minister Vishwajit Rane had earlier said Parrikar was suffering from pancreatic cancer.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had written to Malik to inform him that her party, National Conference, and the Congress will 'shortly' approach him to stake claim to form the government in state.

Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the state Assembly on Wednesday after both the PDP-NC-Congress combine and the Peoples Conference-led alliance approached him to stake a claim to form the government.

The development comes less than a month before the end of Governor's Rule on 19 December. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti wrote to Malik to inform him that her party, National Conference, and the Congress will "shortly" approach him to stake claim to form the government. The three parties held serious parleys early on Wednesday to discuss the modalities of government formation. Despite the parties coming together, they still faced some hurdle in getting in touch with the governor. Mufti took to Twitter to share the issue:

Have been trying to send this letter to Rajbhavan. Strangely the fax is not received. Tried to contact HE Governor on phone. Not available. Hope you see it @jandkgovernor pic.twitter.com/wpsMx6HTa8  Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) November 21, 2018

"Sending the letter also by mail," she said in another mail.

Mufti, in her letter, said, "As you are aware that the Peoples Democratic Party is the largest party in the state Assembly, having a strength of 29. You might have gathered from the media reports that the Congress and National Conference have also decided to extend support to our party to form a government in the state." The NC had 15 MLAs, while the Congress had 12. The three parties together will have majority in the 87-member House. The BJP is the second largest party in the state with 25 members.

Soon after, People Conference leader Sajjad Lone, who had been reportedly approaching disgruntled PDP leaders for forming an alliance with the BJP, also wrote to the governor and staked claim to form the government.

In his letter, Lone said he had the support of BJP and more than 18 other MLAs. "I will form a strong and politically-stable government for restoring peace, harmony, and prosperity in the state and would work towards overall development in all three regions of the state," he said.

Interestingly, Lone was able to reach the governor by just sending a WhatsApp message to his personal assistant.

The Raj Bhawan released an order to announce Malik's move to dissolve the Assembly. The Assembly was under suspended animation ever since the BJP parted ways with the erstwhile Mehbooba Mufti government.

It needs to be noted that the governor had said on 16 November that the state Assembly would not be dissolved, even if the state was placed under President's Rule in December.

However, he earlier also said 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.
Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before a Punjab Police Special Investigative Team (SIT) in Chandigarh which is probing the police firing on mobs protesting the 2015 incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib in Punjab.

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before a Special Investigative Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police in Chandigarh in its inquiry into the police firing on mobs protesting 2015 incidents of the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib 'bir'  the sacred book of Sikhs  in the state.

Akshay's name had figured in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on the sacrilege row. He is accused of arranging a meeting between former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

However, during questioning, Akshay told the SIT that the charges against him were baseless, and that he had never met Ram Rahim. The actor told investigators that his name had been "needlessly dragged into the row", and that there had been no meeting at him Mumbai home between Sukhbir and Ram Rahim, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in two rape cases.

Incidents of sacrilege in Punjab

It was in June 2015 that the first incident of sacrilege took place at the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in Faridkot district. This was followed by another in October on the streets of Bargari village on the Kotkapura-Bathinda Highway in Faridkot.

It was this desecration in October 2015 that triggered protests. Two Sikh activists were killed and over 60 were injured in clashes with the police. The Ranjit Singh report looked into this case.

In 2017, seven birs of Guru Granth Sahib were found partly burnt at a Gurdwara in Aulakh village of Muktsar district. It was later claimed that this was caused by a short circuit.

Later that year, torn pages containing Gurbani verses from the Sikh holy book were found in an open drain at Khalra village in Tarn Taran. In January 2018, torn pages of the 'Gutka Sahib'  a book of Sikh hymns  were found scattered near a Gurdwara at Mothawali village of Moga district.

The Punjab Police had prepared a report that said more than 100 sacrilege incidents had taken place since 1 June, 2015, in which only 50 accused could be tried, The New Indian Express reported.

Investigations into desecrations

In 2016, the Justice Zora Singh Commission had submitted its report on the sacrilege incident in Faridkot and its aftermath. The then Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal had appointed this commission to ascertain the causes and circumstances that led to the sacrilege and its subsequent fallout.

However, it was alleged that the commission had tried to safeguard the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and absolve it of responsibility. Incumbent Chief Minister Amarinder Singh then set up the Ranjit Singh Commission in September 2018, soon after issuing a notification to have the investigation into the sacrilege incidents withdrawn from the CBI.

The Ranjit Singh report indicted the Badal family with hard evidence, mentioning that they had been "aware" of the police action in Kotakpura. The report said Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was the then de-facto chief minister and Home Minister of Punjab, had not only conspired in the desecration incidents but had also protected the accused belonging to the Dera Sacha Sauda sect.

"He had stalled police action against the Dera men and also shielded the policemen guilty of firing on innocent Sikhs," the report said, adding that the police had opened fire on protesters at Behbal Kalan, killing two people, "without any warning and without taking permission from civil authorities".

The commission had found that the protests were linked to the pardon of Ram Rahim, the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, by the Akal Takht. Ram Rahim had earned the ire of the Sikh community when he had dressed up as the 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, which many Sikhs considered a sacrilege. He was censured by the Akal Takht but pardoned later. In its report, the commission had said Akshay had mediated between the Badals and the Dera Sacha Sauda to secure the pardon for Ram Rahim.

Based on the panel's report, the present Congress-led Punjab government issued show cause notices to several senior police officials, including the then Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini (now retired) and then Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) (Law and Order) Rohit Chaudhary.

In its supplementary report, the Ranjit Singh commission noted: "There is sufficient material available on record in the form of telephone calls between the deputy commissioner, MLA Mantar Singh Brar and Gagandeep Brar (the then Principal Secretary to the chief minister)... The chain is thus complete and clear that (former) chief minister Parkash Singh Badal was not only in touch with district administration but was in touch with the DGP, as well, and was quite aware of the situation developing at Kotkapura and also about the proposed action by the police."

Referring to the supplementary report, the Punjab government then decided to refer the matter to the CBI to ascertain whether anyone else had committed or omitted any act. However, the Shiromani Akali Dal rejected the commission's report and accused the commission of acting as a "Congress Sarkari Commission".

The panel had looked into the incidents of sacrilege in the villages Burj Jawahar Singh Wala, Bargari, Gurusar and Mallke. Besides, it also investigated incidents of sacrilege in the districts of SAS Nagar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Rupnagar and Patiala, SBS Nagar (Nawanshahr), Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Bathinda, Barnala, Faridkot, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Mansa, Moga, Sangrur, Sri Muktsar Sahib and Tarn Taran.

Political controversy

During the 2017 Assembly elections in Punjab, the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib had become a major electoral issue in Bathinda, Muktsar, Faridkot and Moga districts. Both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party had promised that if they came to power, they would re-investigate the entire incident and punish the guilty.

Whom did the SIT interrogate?

The SIT had earlier examined ADGP Jitendra Jain, former Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Bathinda Paramraj Singh Umaranangal, former Ludhiana police commissioner Amar Singh Chahal and former Ferozepur range Deputy Inspector General, besides former Deputy Commissioner of Police MS Jaggi, former Senior Superintendent of Police SS Mann and former Sub-Divisional Magistrate VK Syal of Faridkot.

Former Kotkapura MLA Mantar Singh Brar, too, was questioned by the SIT, which also examined over 50 civilians and 30 junior police officials.

The investigators has already questioned the former chief minister and his son in Chandigarh. On Monday, Sukhbir told the SIT that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab, when asked whether he had met the actor in Mumbai.

Allegations against Akshay Kumar

The Ranjit Singh Commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had referred to a letter dated 9 October, 2017, addressed to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal, claiming that the Dera chief and Sukhbir Badal had met at the Akshay's flat in Mumbai in 2015 to facilitate the release of Ram Rahim's movie MSG: The Messenger in Punjab. The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in the blasphemy case. The movie could not be released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht against it.

The summons to Akshay were issued in connection with the Bargari sacrilege case and the police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura. The summons were related to the investigation into the cases that originated from the various incidents of sacrilege in 2015. The cases were registered under Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

Punjab's sacrilege law

On 28 August, the Punjab Assembly had unanimously passed bills for an amendment to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the CrPC to make sacrilege of all religious texts punishable with life imprisonment.

The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, has inserted Section 295AA to the IPC to provide that "whoever causes injury, damage or sacrilege to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Srimad Bhagwad Gita, Holy Quran and Holy Bible with the intention to hurt the religious feelings of the people shall be punished with imprisonment for life". The bill also substituted "two years" to "10 years" in Section 295 of IPC 1860 to apply in Punjab.

However, the co-president of the principal Opposition in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party's Balbir Singh, accused the Punjab government of playing politics on the issue of sacrilege. "The government has failed to give justice under the existing law. The move to amend the law is to mislead people on the sensitive issue of 'sacrilege'. With the provision of life imprisonment, there is all the more chance of misusing it against political opponents and innocent people," Singh was quoted as saying by The Hindu.
Some residents of Lahaul-Spiti forcibly entered the under-construction Rohtang tunnel around midnight on Tuesday, after waiting all day to gain access and travel to Manali.

Some residents of Lahaul-Spiti forcibly entered the under-construction Rohtang tunnel around midnight on Tuesday, after waiting all day to gain access and travel to Manali. However, people who entered the tunnel fell unconscious halfway through the 8-kilometre long tunnel. They were later rescued by officials of the administration.

According to reports, around 80 people had been waiting at the North portal of the tunnel since 5 am on Tuesday, without the facility of food or shelter. They were demanding access to cross the tunnel on foot from the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) since the closure of the Rohtang Pass, but had not been granted permission, according to a report by The Times of India.

After entering the tunnel around midnight, a few of the residents lost consciousness due to suffocation. Reports said that the district administration sealed the tunnel after the incident.

The Tribune reported that one person was taken to a hospital in Manali, while the rest of the people who became unconscious were taken back to Lahual by the authorities. The people who entered the tunnel included women and children.

The Times of India report said, "The BRO has asked the Lahaul-Spiti administration to take legal action against those who incited people to enter the under-construction tunnel without caring for their safety and security." The report also said that residents claimed the support of agriculture minister Ram Lal Markanda for gaining access to the tunnel.

With inputs from agencies
The force lost 167 personnel between 2015 and 2017, and a majority of them were killed while guarding the highly sensitive border. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has lost 103 personnel in the last three years, mostly while fighting Naxals and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, a Home Ministry official said.

New Delhi: Nearly 400 paramilitary personnel were killed due to firing from across the India-Pakistan border, and terrorist and insurgency violence in the country in the last three years, officials said Wednesday. The highest number of personnel killed in action were from the Border Security Force (BSF).

The force lost 167 personnel between 2015 and 2017, and a majority of them were killed while guarding the highly sensitive border. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has lost 103 personnel in the last three years, mostly while fighting Naxals and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, a Home Ministry official said.

While the BSF lost 62 personnel in action in 2015, 58 in 2016 and 47 in 2017, the CRPF lost nine personnel in action in 2015, 42 in 2016 and 52 in 2017. As many as 48 personnel of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were killed in action in the last three years of whom 16 were killed in 2015, 15 in 2016 and 17 in 2017, the official said.

The SSB guards the Indo-Bhutan and Indo-Nepal border. The troops of the force is also deployed in internal security duties. A total of 40 personnel belonging to the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which guards the Sino-Indian border, were killed in action between 2015 and 2017. Among them, 15 personnel were killed in 2015, 10 in 2016 and 15 in 2017.

Altogether 35 personnel of the Assam Rifles, which guards the Indo-Myanmar border and fights militants in the northeast, were killed in action in the last three years. Eighteen personnel of the Assam Rifles were killed in 2015, nine in 2016 and eight in 2017.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has lost two personnel in action in the last three years  one each in 2016 and 2017. There were no casualties in 2015 from the CISF, which guards, airports, nuclear installations, metro services and other sensitive locations, another official said.
In a fresh breakthrough in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal case, two close aides of Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the including his associate Shaista Parveen alias Madhu were arrested by the CBI on Tuesday, officials said.

In a fresh breakthrough in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal case, two close aides of Brajesh Thakur  the prime accused in the case  including his associate Shaista Parveen alias Madhu were arrested by the CBI on Tuesday, officials said.

The CBI alleged that the girls at the shelter home were taken to Parveen's residence where they "were taught dance and soliciting men" but she claimed she was not an accused and no warrant had been issued against her.

"I have nothing to fear as I was not even associated with the shelter home which is under scanner. I did work for Thakur but I have no knowledge of what happened there," Parveen told reporters.

The CBI officials took her inside their camp office located in the district court premises in Muzaffarpur. She was accompanied by her lawyers. "I am ready to extend full cooperation to the CBI, though I am privy to no secrets. I cannot say whether Thakur was involved in any illegal activities. Although I also handled the affairs of some of his newspapers, I deny reports that I used to liaison with ministers and other VIPs to promote Thakur's business," she said before going inside the CBI office.

Immediately after her arrest, the CBI nabbed Dr Ashwani Kumar who allegedly used to administer sedative injections to girls. Ashwani, who practiced quackery in the district's Kurhani block, was arrested and brought to the CBI camp office in the town by the investigating agency following information that he allegedly used to visit the shelter home to administer injections laced with sedatives to the inmates.

Parveen was a resident of Chaturbhuj Sthan locality in the town and had come in contact with Thakur a few years ago when a drive was launched to rehabilitate girls from a red light area there. Media reports claimed that she used to manage the affairs of all NGOs owned by Thakur, including the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti which ran the shelter home where inmates were sexually abused.

Meanwhile, earlier on Tuesday, former Bihar social welfare minister Manju Verma, who is believed to have links to the case, had also surrendered before a court in Begusarai district on Tuesday. This came after weeks of absconding and the Supreme Court criticising the Bihar Police repeatedly for failing to trace her. She has been sent to a 14-day judicial custody.

Manju Verma's husband Chandrashekhar had surrendered before the same court on 29 October after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) found 50 live cartridges from their home in Bihar's Begusarai during a raid conducted in connection with the Muzaffarpur case. The couple was then booked under the Arms Act. On 1 November, a non-bailable warrant was issued against Manju Verma after the Supreme Court pulled up the Bihar government and questioned why she had not been arrested.

Under immense pressure from the Opposition, the Bihar government had referred the matter of to the CBI. The case relates to mental, physical and sexual exploitation of girl children residing at the Children Home at Sahu Road, Muzaffarpur.

The CBI has booked officers and employees of the shelter home in question  Balika Grih, Sahu Road Muzaffarpur. "It is alleged that officials/employees of Girl's Children Home run by Seva Sankalp Evam Vikash Samiti used to mentality, physically and sexually exploit girl children residing at the said home," CBI spokesperson said.

The matter had come to light earlier this year when the Bihar Social Welfare Department filed an FIR based on a social audit of the shelter home conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The audit report stated that many girls at the shelter home had complained of sexual abuse.

With inputs from agencies
We live in strange times that the whole of Twitter India can be brought to a standstill by the subversive presence of a contemporary Dalit poster

We live in strange times that the whole of Twitter India can be brought to a standstill by the subversive presence of a contemporary Dalit poster. And yet it was never really about the poster was it?

That was just distraction. For the real threat for trolls was my presence there in that room, an educated Dalit woman advocating for the safety of Indian caste-oppressed communities. If any lesson is to be learned from this, it is that an educated Dalit woman who knows her community's rights and fights for it is in fact the greatest threat to Brahminical Patriarchy.

On 9 November, I was part of a closed-door discussion with Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter. The meeting was one of several meetings that Dorsey attended on his trip and was organised by Twitter India to better understand the challenges for women and vulnerable minority communities for India especially on the eve of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The objective of the meeting was to discuss our experience of using Twitter, as journalists, activists, women and minorities, and raise issues related to the routine harassment and trolling we face on the platform. It was also important for me that the conversation did not simply stop at trolling, but that we talk frankly about how trolling is part of an ecosystem of hate speech and disinformation.

For me, this was not simply an academic exercise, but a question of physical safety, even life-or-death on some occasions. I have been subject to many campaigns of casteist and sexist hate on Twitter and have been forced off of the platform before. Being one of the few Dalit women in the world who work on caste and tech equity, the foundation of my work is to ensure that my community and I deserve to have a place where we can have the freedom to express ourselves without the fear of online and real world violence.

I never expected to share my story with the constructive desire to help make the platform better and to represent the over 300 million Dalits who struggle with online violence on digital platforms.

Giving my testimony at that meeting was a way to name the systemic violence Dalits, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Ravidassias, Buddhists and other religious and cultural communities face every day on Twitter. From casteist, Islamophobic, and anti-Christian slurs to outright calls for violence, we face unspeakable amounts of harassment on the platform without any recourse, for the platform currently provides no way to report casteist hate speech and its algorithm is as yet untrained to recognise casteist slurs.

At the end of the meeting, I presented Dorsey the poster that has now become the subject of national debate. The poster was part of a series of posters co-designed by our friend and Dalit sister Thenmozhi Soundararajan in 2016. The poster was intended as a gift, an act of sharing contemporary Dalit culture, as an artifact of solidarity and empathy that reflects the beauty of resilience of Dalit Bahujan Adivasi people.

Is calling out a system of oppression hate speech?

While Dr BR Ambedkar drew many parallels between caste oppression and gender oppression in his work, the term 'Brahmanical Patriarchy' was first used by feminist scholar Uma Chakravarti in a 1993 paper titled Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State. She explains it as the need for sexual control over women and womens bodies to maintain patrilineal succession and caste purity, the institution unique to Hindu society.

When we say 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy', we are referring to our fight against these interconnected systems of oppression. Criticisms of white supremacy are not seen as direct criticisms of people who racially identify as White. Similarly, calling out Brahminical Patriarchy should not be seen as an attack on the Brahmin community. It is not hate speech to name how Brahminical texts and scriptures have legitimised discrimination against a group of people based on their caste. It is not act of violence to call out forces of oppression.

However, it is well known that to those who are privileged, equity feels like oppression and that is the only explanation for the outrage we are witnessing on Twitter today. This fresh round of harassment, accusations and threats that Dorsey, the other women in the photo and I have been facing is not unfamiliar. It is not the first time that Twitter has turned into an unsafe place for my Dalit allies and me. That Dorsey held the poster in the group was an unintended consequence and not an act of political opportunism. It was what I suspect to be a human act on the part of the Twitter CEO, who was moved by the meeting and all of our testimonies.

This is what I think is powerful about Project Mukti's work. Dalit women have all the tools to succeed once we are removed from the shadow of violence and untouchability. That is why our mission has always been to move past the narrative of atrocity and poverty and instead build technological equity and literacy among Dalit Bahujan women and gender minorities. We do this through training, building tech, growing Dalit Bahujan knowledge and culture, and fostering solidarity among Dalit Bahujan-Adivasi people.

This work is my way of taking Savitribai Phule's vision of educating women into the digital arena. However, in doing this work, and in our daily lives as Dalit women simply taking up social and intellectual space online, we are constantly battling Brahminical Patriarchy.

Explicitly casteist and sexist trolling and harassment has been part of our daily work, whether on Wikipedia, Twitter, or even Facebook.

That is why it is time we have a frank conversation about this violence as a nation. Dalit women and religious and minorities are canaries in the coal mine when it comes to harassment on social media platforms. If there is toxicity and hatred on social media, it will find us first. This is why even in the middle of this, I have nothing but deep compassion for the Twitter India team. They now know what we experience all the time.

We hope this episode will light in them a spark of empathy that will guide them as they work towards making Twitter a more equitable and safe environment for all communities, irrespective of their caste, gender, class or religion.

***

The following is a statement released by Anna MM Vetticad, Nilanjana S Roy, Rituparna Chatterjee, Sanghapali Aruna, who were present at the meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey:

Last week Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Public Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, hosted a meeting with a group of women, including the undersigned, at the Twitter office in Delhi where several Twitter employees were present. Twitter asked for it to be an off-the-record meeting to allow everyone involved to be as candid as possible, and we agreed. The objective of the meeting was to hear our experiences of using the platform, to highlight how women's movements and groups had used Twitter, and to share concerns about women's safety and online harassment.

While each of us shared our own experience of handling abusive speech or threats, a Dalit rights activist in the group spoke about her lived experience of Dalits being pushed out of the platform by trolls. She spoke about everyday battles fighting casteist slurs on Twitter and pointed out that caste abuse is not even listed among the categories under which abuse can be reported on Twitter. On hearing this, Vijaya Gadde broke down in tears, and apologised for not having thought of this herself. Though we were all surprised by her reaction and her apparent lack of awareness about caste, we took it as an indicator of her sensitivity to the concerns being expressed.

Each one of us highlighted the gaps in Twitters algorithm in addressing abusive trolling. At the meeting, the Dalit rights activist gifted the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey two posters, one of which, the rest of us have subsequently learnt, said, End Caste Apartheid while the other said Smash Brahminical Patriarchy. Dorsey chose to hold the poster saying Smash Brahminical Patriarchy while posing for a group photo.

The photo was clicked by a Twitter employee, it was mailed to us and we were told it could be shared. It comes as a disappointment to all of us dealing with the abuse, harassment and legal threats that we are facing now, that Vijaya Gadde has, in a Twitter apology, chosen to claim that the photo was a private photo, has apologised to handles alleging that we were instigating hate, and  in sharp contrast to her emotional, apologetic response at that private meeting  publicly distanced herself from Dalit and gender concerns.

This is also in sharp contrast to Twitter's strong stand in favour of women and marginalised communities in other countries. Twitter's misrepresentation and half-truths are the only reason why we have felt compelled to take the unusual step of issuing this statement.

We made it clear during the discussion that we were against any individuals  irrespective of their political or caste affiliations  who actively threaten women. We call on Twitter to step up and not capitulate to bigotry, disinformation and bullying, and to address in serious terms the problem of trolls threatening the life and liberty of scores of women and marginalised communities (including Dalits and religious minorities) online.

Signed: Anna MM Vetticad, Nilanjana S Roy, Rituparna Chatterjee, Sanghapali Aruna
Swaraj's tweet was in response to Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta's comment that her retirement from electoral politics does not imply that she was retiring from politics altogether and that there is a great deal of contribution she can make to public life despite not being in the Lok Sabha.

Senior BJP leader and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday announced that she will not contest the next Lok Sabha election due to health reasons, however, she later clarified on Twitter that she is not retiring from politics as yet.

The 66-year-old leader, who is serving her fourth term in the House and has long been her party's most prominent woman face, told reporters, "It is the party which decides, but I have made up my mind not to contest the next (Lok Sabha) elections due to health reasons."

The Union minister in a tweet said that she was not retiring from politics. Her tweet was in response to Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta's comment that her retirement from electoral politics does not imply that she was retiring from politics altogether and that there is a great deal of contribution she can make to public life despite not being in the Lok Sabha.

You are right, Swapan. I am not retiring from politics. It is just that I am not contesting the next Lok Sabha election due to my health issues. https://t.co/jF5GpPvVwU  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 20, 2018

Swaraj also replied to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's tweet, thanking him for his "kind words". Tharoor in his tweet had said that he always found Swaraj a gracious EAM and was sorry that she will leave the Parliament.

Thanks for your kind words, Shashi. I wish we both continue in our respective positions. https://t.co/k76S6lzXyc  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) November 20, 2018

Swaraj's husband Swaraj Kaushal also posted "thank you" on Twitter and said even Milkha Singh stopped running. A spellbinding orator in Hindi, Swaraj is among the few top politicians capable of speaking in English with equal ease and has had a few rare distinctions, including being the youngest cabinet minister at 25 when she joined the Haryana government in 1977 and the first woman chief minister of Delhi.

She is also the first woman to hold individual charge of the external affairs minister of the country. Indira Gandhi was the first woman to hold the portfolio, but she did so while also being the Prime Minister of India. Swaraj has also served in the Rajya Sabha for three terms and was a member of the Haryana Assembly  the state she comes from  twice. She started her political life with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS' student wing, and later joined the BJP.

Her speeches, grasp on issues and image of an ideal Indian woman marked her out for a bigger role at a very young age, and she steadily climbed up the organisational ladder in the BJP. She was the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the 13-day Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1996 and got the same portfolio again after Vajpayee led the BJP to power in 1998.

However, she had to resign to become Delhi chief minister as the party leadership believed she could lead the BJP to power in the national capital when the incumbent was seen as unpopular. Her short tenure, though, was of little help as the party lost badly. Swaraj's most notable political battle was the one against the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Bellary in 1999 Lok Sabha polls. She was her party's nationalist woman counter to Sonia, often attacked by the BJP for her Italian origins.

Swaraj's intensive campaign, during which she gained proficiency in Kannada, won her innumerable local hearts with her speeches in their language, but Gandhi, who was fighting her first Lok Sabha election in a region then seen as her party's pocket borough, got better of her. Swaraj fell short of victory but grew in stature. Long seen as a protege of veteran BJP leader LK Advani, she was also the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha between 2009-14.

Swaraj had undergone kidney transplant in 2016. "After being elected from Vidisha as Lok Sabha MP, I was the Leader of Opposition. Later I was given the responsibility of External Affairs Ministry. Despite holding these prime posts, I used to visit all Assembly segments in my constituency every month for nearly eight years. Doctors have advised me that I should avoid exposure to dust. Because of this, I am unable to take part even in election rallies," she said, adding, "Due to health reasons, I cannot participate in outdoor public programmes.... I have also told my party leadership, that in view of health reasons, I have to avoid such exposure."

With inputs from PTI
The farmers protest is being led by the Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM). Swaraj Abhiyan chief and former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav and conservationist Dr Rajendra Singh will also be at the forefront of the protests

Over 20,000 farmers and tribals across Maharashtra will march from Thane to Azad Maidan in Mumbai on Wednesday and Thursday. Their protest is related to their demand for compensation for the drought in the region, a complete waiver on farm loans and transfer of forest rights to the tribal community.

The Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM) is leading the protest. Swaraj Abhiyan chief and former Aam Aadmi Party leader Yogendra Yadav and conservationist Dr Rajendra Singh will also be at the forefront of the protests, NDTV reported.

According to reports, the major issues that they will raise include the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report, settlement of the pending claims under the Forest Rights Act, setting up of a judicial system to ensure that farmers get adequate minimum support price, complete farm loan waiver and drought compensation.

"We have been consistently asking the state government to fulfil our long-standing demands, but the response has been lukewarm. We are forced to agitate," Pratibha Shinde, LSM general secretary was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. "We are taking maximum care to ensure that the citizens of Mumbai are will not be inconvenienced."

Wednesday's rally is a follow up to a similar protest held in March outside Mumbai's Legislative Assembly. Even then, they had demanded fair remuneration and a loan waiver. The farmers had also demanded compensation of Rs 40,000 per acre for the crops destroyed by hail and pink bollworm, allocation of forest land under cultivation to farmers and implementation of Forest Rights Act.

Over 30,000 farmers had walked 180 kilometres from Nashik to Mumbai, taking over six days to reach the Maharashtra capital.

The agitation was called off after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state had accepted "almost all" of their demands in writing and assured them they will implement them in a time-bound manner. The farmers, however, said the government has not met any of their demands yet.
MLA Mohd Ilyas Hussain of the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar was disqualified on Tuesday with effect from the date on which he was convicted in a corruption case by a CBI court in Ranchi two months ago.

Patna: MLA Mohd Ilyas Hussain of the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar was disqualified on Tuesday with effect from the date on which he was convicted in a corruption case by a CBI court in Ranchi two months ago.

According to a notification issued by the Vidhan Sabha, Hussain, who represented Dehri assembly segment in Rohtas district, has been disqualified with effect from 27 September, when he was convicted and awarded five years in prison in connection with the bitumen scam of the early 1990s involving defalcation of Rs 18.75 lakh when Lalu Prasad Yadav was the chief minister of the undivided Bihar.

Hussain was the minister for road construction during the period. With his disqualification, the number of RJD MLAs in the 243-strong assembly has been reduced to 80. The RJD had won 80 seats in the 2015 assembly polls, emerging as the single largest party, and had improved its tally earlier this year when it wrested Jokihat from the JD(U).
A month after environmentalist GD Agrawal died fasting for a clean Ganga, an RTI query has revealed that the Prime Minister's Office received three letters from him demanding specific steps to be taken to imrpove the state of the river, but it failed to take action.

A month after environmentalist GD Agrawal died fasting for a clean Ganga, an RTI query has revealed that the Prime Minister's Office received three letters from him demanding specific steps to be taken to improve the state of the river, but it failed to take action.

According to a report in The Wire, in its RTI response to Ujjawal Krishnam, an activist with the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, the PMO acknowledged it received two of Agarwal's letters dated 13 and 23 June. The Indian Express reported that a third letter was also sent, which predates these two.

The PMO, in its reply, said that the letters were forwarded for action as appropriate to the Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation on 20 August. However, the activist did not receive any response from the government.

The 87-year-old former IIT Kanpur professor-turned-environmentalist-turned monk had been on a fast unto death for over three months, when he died at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rishikesh on 11 October.

Better known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, Agarwal had been demanding the passage of Ganga Protection Act, scrapping of all proposed and under-construction hydropower projects on the Ganga, a total ban on sand mining in the river-bed of the Ganga in Haridwar and formation of a council to look into issues related to the river. The government did not accede to any of his demands.

He had also undertaken a series of fasts in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013 as well around similar demands. It was the month-long fast that he undertook in 2010 that led the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, to cancel the three hydro projects on the Bhagirathi river and also to declare the Bhagirathi region from Gaumukh to Uttarakashi an eco-sensitive zone.

Activist wanted Modi's assurance

Agrawal's aides claim that he wrote four letters addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but he did not receive a response to even one. Suresh Raikwar, a close aide of the Ganga activist and another leading member of the Ganga Sadbhavana Yatra said, "Professor Agrawal would have broken his fast if the prime minister had personally assured him."

The Wire report also quotes Swami Shivanand Saraswati, Agarwals spiritual guru and the founder president of Matri Sadan, the ashram that was Agarwals home as saying, "The letters were very clearly addressed to the Prime Minister. They demanded that he take action, instead he just washed his hands off it and left Swamiji to die."

The report further quotes Agrawal's letters where he refers to Modi as his 'younger brother' and accuses him of not acting on his letters. In his third and the final letter to Modi, he wrote, "It was my expectation that you would go two steps forward and make special efforts for the sake of Ganga ji because you went ahead and created a separate ministry for all works relating to Ganga ji, but in the past four years all actions undertaken by your government have not at all been gainful to Ganga ji and in her place gains are to be seen only for the Corporate Sector and several business houses. Till now you have only thought on the point of earning profits from Ganga ji."

Now his aides and monks of the Matri Sadan vow insist that they are going to keep up the pressure to have river Ganga cleaned. "We are acting as a matter of principle. If we fail to act now, what explanation will we offer to future generations?" Swami Shivanand, an aide of Agrawal said.
Surendran was taken into preventive custody on 16 November and removed by police from Nilakkal base camp, as he tried to leave for the Lord Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala.

BJP leader K Surendran, who was taken into custody last week and 71 others who were arrested at Nilakkal for moving towards Sabarimala temple, were granted bail by a Thiruvalla court in Kerala, ANI reported.

While 69 of them were arrested on Sunday night from the temple premises, Surendran and two others were arrested on Saturday night. The court granted bail to the accused upon their furnishing two securities each, and ordered them not to enter the Ranni taluk. This means that none of them will be able to return to Sabarimala, reported IANS.

Surendran was taken into preventive custody on 16 November from Nilakkal base camp, as he tried to leave for the Lord Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala. He was told by a police team led by Superintendent of Police Yatish Chandra not to proceed to the shrine as it would create law and order problems. However, the BJP leader claimed that he had come as a "Ayyappa bhakth" (devotee) and should be allowed to pray at the temple.

The Sabarimala temple reopened on 15 November for a 62-day long Mandala Pooja-Magaravilaku annual pilgrimage season. The police said over 70 pilgrims were arrested since the night of 18 November from the temple after they failed to comply to prohibitory orders, which also spurred protests in Sabarimala and across Kerala.

While angry Hindu activists took to streets, raised slogans and held prayer sessions in front of police stations across the state, Union minister KJ Alphons criticised the state government for the 'crackdown' on the devotees.

As news spread about the arrests, in Thiruvanathapuram protesters assembled near Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's residence and shouted slogans.

The situation grew tense late Sunday when over 200 pilgrims did not vacate the temple premise after 10 pm, as ordered by the state administration and stayed put, singing Lord Ayyappa hymns. As they continued the sit-in despite repeated requests from the police, action was initiated to forcefully evict them from the premises. This led to 72 arrests post-midnight.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Sangh Parivar-led forces and the Congress in Kerala for turning Sabarimala into a "battlefield". These comments were in response to Amit Shah's criticism of the government in its handling of the Sabarimala issue. In his remarks, Vijayan alleged that the Sangh Parivar's agenda was to create trouble by sending "kar sevaks" to take control of the temple and making the pilgrims "scapegoats". Earlier the same day, BJP president Amit Shah accused the Kerala government of treating pilgrims as 'Gulag inmates'.

With inputs from agencies
By issuing a number of apologies that appear even more clueless than the original mistake, Twitter has created a far bigger mess.

If Twitter had a model for monetising controversies on its platform, one suspects its India operations alone would have been enough to make it the worlds first trillion-dollar company. Sadly, that feat belongs to Apple. What Twitter has done though is create a platform for misinformation, perennial outrage and victimhood, and the haplessness of its top leadership is symptomatic of the larger problem that plagues Silicon Valley.

Its tech gurus are great at solving math problems or creating algorithms, but pathetic at finding solutions for issues that influence collective behaviour and concern the users of their products. It is almost as if having created the technology for altering interpersonal communication and the way humans transmit and consume information, the nerdy billionaires are grappling with the complexity of its side-effects. They are either unable or unwilling to come to terms with the magnitude of the issues that face them. They appear out of depth.

This impression is reinforced with the latest controversy over Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posing with a picture that rubbed many Indians the wrong way. Following a closed-door discussion in New Delhi with some Indian women journalists and activists, Jack was handed a placard that read: smash Brahmanical patriarchy. He posed with that poster in a group photograph with some participants. The picture was eventually tweeted, and all hell broke loose.

During Twitter CEO @jack's visit here, he & Twitter's Legal head @vijaya took part in a round table with some of us women journalists, activists, writers & @TwitterIndia's @amritat to discuss the Twitter experience in India. A very insightful, no-words-minced conversation  pic.twitter.com/LqtJQEABgV  Anna MM Vetticad (@annavetticad) November 18, 2018

Rituparna Chatterjee, one of the journalists who was present at the roundtable with Jack and Vijaya Gadde, legal, public policy and trust and safety lead at Twitter, wrote in an article for Firstpost that there was no conspiratorial effort to malign any community. There was a circle of women simply speaking about their individual experiences on the platform.

Chatterjees account is convincing enough. There is no reason to believe that any grand conspiracy was being hatched behind closed doors between self-hating Indians and a burdened, white male. However, Chatterjee entirely misses the point about the backlash that Jacks displaying of the poster has generated. It is foolish to deny that casteism exists in India and the upper castes oppress those lower down the order. It is foolish to deny the patriarchal structure of Indian societies and the male bias that cuts across religions and communities.

But a far simpler and more accurate way of describing it would have been to say: Smash all casteism/patriarchy.

The problem isnt that a Dalit activist has created the poster. Sanghapali Arunas experience as an educated Dalit woman advocating for the safety of Indian caste-oppressed communities is real and there is no reason to denigrate her fight against casteism and patriarchy.

The intersectionality of Brahmanism (not just casteism) and patriarchy and Arunas experience of gender and caste bias is for her to relate. As she writes in her article for Firstpost, it has resulted in unspeakable amounts of harassment on the platform without any recourse and it is entirely appropriate for her to flag it to the head of the tech platform so that solutions are found to filter out casteist slurs.

The problem starts when Jack is pictured with the poster. The message exceeds the medium and becomes problematic because as the CEO of a billion-dollar, multinational company that counts among the users of its platform members of all races, religions and communities, Jack cannot be seen singling out one community (or religion) and condoning violence against it. It negates the misogyny practiced by other communities such as Muslims, for instance, that activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali campaigns against.

These are children; little girls; between the ages of 2 to 8; they have no idea and from one moment to the next they are held down by people they love. And then chop! Parts of their genitalia are gone! The law must protect them! PLEASE.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) November 21, 2018

Smash Brahmanical patriarchy is also not a simple critique of upper caste hegemon. To say Brahmanical would have been closer to the point. The phrase goes much beyond caste bias and misogyny and becomes an open call for violence against a community. The demonisation of Brahmins, as many users have pointed out on Twitter, borders on hate speech. It is something Jack, as the head of a social media giant, should be taking a stand against instead of actively condoning.

Tomorrow if @jack is given a poster with anti Semitic messages in a meeting will his team allow him to hold it up? Why is that any different? Inciting hate against any community is wrong @Twitter @TwitterIndia https://t.co/TeBnOGYNIT  Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) November 19, 2018

The intersectionality of casteism and patriarchy cannot be seen in upper caste and lower caste binaries alone when these experiences are relative, and the abuse of power structure travels all the way down in caste hierarchy. It could be an interplay between OBCs and Dalit, or Dalits and other sub-groups. Therefore, when the critique is against casteism and patriarchy in general, to say Brahminical is not just wrong, it is a Hinduphobic term that represents anti-Hindu bigotry especially in the case of a white American male who paradropped into India and sought to solve Indias thousand intricacies with one poster.

The problem became messier still when Twitter issued a series of apologies and ended up angering everyone.

I'm very sorry for this. It's not relective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us - we should have been more thoughtful. Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India  Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) November 19, 2018

Recently we hosted a closed door discussion with a group of women journalists and change makers from India to better understand their experience using Twitter. One of the participants, a Dalit activist, shared her personal experiences and gifted a poster to Jack. https://t.co/96gd3XmFgK  Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) November 19, 2018

It is not a statement from Twitter or our CEO, but a tangible reflection of our company's efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the world.  Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) November 19, 2018

Not to put too fine a point on it, Twitter was perhaps worried that its already slipping revenues from its fastest growing market could nosedive if the sensitive issue was not handled sensitively. However, by issuing a number of apologies that appear even more clueless than the original mistake, Twitter has created a far bigger mess. It has not only displayed its ignorance about Indias caste fault lines and cultural mores, it has allowed itself to be drawn into the toxic discourse of a political and ideological turf war currently under way.

Playing both sides is fraught with danger, more so when western notions are interpolated into Indian context. The interpolation causes more confusion than clarity. Jacks faux pas and subsequent self-goals, however, seem less of an instance of Hinduphobia. It is more reflective of the shallow worldview of new-age tech billionaires who cannot reconcile their Left-leaning bias with the realities of a complex world. Jack tried to be woke. Hope he has woken up.
The ten people were protesting the death of the tigress Avni, near Air India junction on Tuesday afternoon. They were chanting 'save wild animals' slogans and started walking towards the Mantralaya.

Mumbai: At least 10 persons protesting against the killing of tigress Avni were detained by police at Nariman Point in South Mumbai on Tuesday, an official said.

The incident took place near Air India junction on Tuesday afternoon, where eight women and two men staged protests, the official said.

The protesters were chanting 'save wild animals' slogans and started walking towards the Mantralaya, the state administrative headquarters, located nearby, he said.

All the protesters were detained under sections of the Bombay Police Act by Marine Drive police. They were later allowed to go, he said.
The statement is a little disappointing because, while business concerns are real for a company like Twitter, elsewhere in the world they stand up for whats right.

Last week, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and Vijaya Gadde, legal, public policy and trust and safety lead at Twitter, hosted an off-the-record meeting with seven women at the Twitter office in Delhi. The objective of the meeting was to hear Indian womens experiences of using Twitter as a platform to highlight their opinions and the problems they faced with respect to online harassment.

I attended the meeting with six other women, including journalists and activists, on invitation from Twitter. During the course of the meeting, several important points were raised, including the serious issue of Twitter falling short of addressing sexual harassment, loosely termed as trolling, on its platform. Its important to note that while some of us knew each other from before, many of us met for the first time on the panel. We each took turns describing our individual experiences on Twitter, including our positive experiences, while Dorsey and the Twitter team listened intently and patiently.

While each of the women shared their own experiences of handling abusive speech or threats, a Dalit rights activist spoke about her experience of being pushed out of the platform by trolls and being doxxed. She spoke about the everyday battles of Dalit men and women fighting casteist slurs on Twitter and how there's no concrete way of reporting these because the reporting list, as of now, do not account for casteist slurs. The Twitter team took note of this and acknowledged it as a problem. Journalist Barkha Dutt made public much of what happened during that meeting late last night on this thread.

Each one of us highlighted the gaps in Twitters algorithm in addressing abusive trolling. At the end of the meeting, the Dalit activist who was part of the discussion, gifted the Twitter CEO a poster which he (Dorsey) held while posing for a group photo. The photo was clicked by a Twitter India employee and which we were given permission to share. Some of the panelists were reluctant to post the group photo in public while others exercised their agency in sharing it. Most werent even aware that the poster, gifted moments ago, was in the frame. But at no point was any of the Twitter team members asked to acknowledge the poster or share it. It was their choice alone. It wasnt a private photo as suggested. We were frankly heartened by the positive and empathetic response we received from the Twitter team in actively listening to our concerns and promising to act on them.

The interaction was held behind closed doors to enable all of us and the Twitter team to interact frankly without holding back. However, in the face of the actual legal and physical threats that each one of us now face, its imperative that we present a factual record of what transpired. There was no conspiratorial effort to malign any community. There was a circle of women simply speaking about their individual experiences on the platform.

For example, I highlighted the potential of Twitter as a driving force for welfare initiatives, several of which I spearhead. If we spoke of casteist slurs and abusive trolling, it was to seek ways to fix the system so that women from all communities who are fighting it on a daily basis are not pushed out of the platform, which has a tremendous potential of serving social justice.

The poster has been criticised by several Twitter users as an attack on Brahmins. It isnt. It calls for the end of upper caste oppression of women  a reality in India chronicled through numerous media reports of subjugation of voices from the oppressed communities  which isnt the same as calling for an attack on Brahmins. The systematic oppression exists in all spaces that men occupy, irrespective of caste and religion. However, its important to note that historically, in the context of intersectionality of caste and patriarchy, Dalit women have been subjected to numerous horrors that are well documented and their experiences form the backbone of Twitters inclusivity.

During Twitter CEO @jack's visit here, he & Twitter's Legal head @vijaya took part in a round table with some of us women journalists, activists, writers & @TwitterIndia's @amritat to discuss the Twitter experience in India. A very insightful, no-words-minced conversation  pic.twitter.com/LqtJQEABgV  Anna MM Vetticad (@annavetticad) November 18, 2018

Since the poster was tweeted out, Twitter said in a public statement that the sentiments expressed on the poster do not reflect the views of Twitter as a company or Jack as the CEO, and we regret that this picture has detracted from an otherwise insightful trip to India".

The statement is a little disappointing because, while business concerns are real for a company like Twitter, elsewhere in the world they stand up for whats right. Its important to note that Twitter, in the past, has taken political stands, especially in addressing hate. The Twitter CEO in the past has apologised for accidentally allowing a promoted ad from a white supremacist group to serve on the site". He has taken part in the Ferguson protests and explained why. Both Twitter and Facebook are committed to combating hate speech in Germany.

"We are proud of the fact that Twitter is a platform where marginalised voices can be seen and heard, but we also have a public commitment to being apolitical. We realise that this photo may not accurately represent that commitment," the statement said.

Several thinkers, including BR Ambedkar, have addressed the hegemony of caste, and particularly of Brahmanical patriarchy, so it comes as a disappointment to most of us, faced with harassment and legal threats, that Twitter has chosen to apologise to handles criticising us for allegedly instigating hate. We made it clear during the discussion that we were against any individual  irrespective of their political or caste affiliations  who actively threaten women. Calling for an end to caste oppression does not amount to triggering hate. Hateful tweets targeting women who speak about their experiences of being a minority in an online space, does.

***

The following is a statement released by Anna MM Vetticad, Nilanjana S Roy, Rituparna Chatterjee, Sanghapali Aruna, who were present at the meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey:

Last week Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Public Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, hosted a meeting with a group of women, including the undersigned, at the Twitter office in Delhi where several Twitter employees were present. Twitter asked for it to be an off-the-record meeting to allow everyone involved to be as candid as possible, and we agreed. The objective of the meeting was to hear our experiences of using the platform, to highlight how women's movements and groups had used Twitter, and to share concerns about women's safety and online harassment.

While each of us shared our own experience of handling abusive speech or threats, a Dalit rights activist in the group spoke about her lived experience of Dalits being pushed out of the platform by trolls. She spoke about everyday battles fighting casteist slurs on Twitter and pointed out that caste abuse is not even listed among the categories under which abuse can be reported on Twitter. On hearing this, Vijaya Gadde broke down in tears, and apologised for not having thought of this herself. Though we were all surprised by her reaction and her apparent lack of awareness about caste, we took it as an indicator of her sensitivity to the concerns being expressed.

Each one of us highlighted the gaps in Twitters algorithm in addressing abusive trolling. At the meeting, the Dalit rights activist gifted the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey two posters, one of which, the rest of us have subsequently learnt, said, End Caste Apartheid while the other said Smash Brahminical Patriarchy. Dorsey chose to hold the poster saying Smash Brahminical Patriarchy while posing for a group photo.

The photo was clicked by a Twitter employee, it was mailed to us and we were told it could be shared. It comes as a disappointment to all of us dealing with the abuse, harassment and legal threats that we are facing now, that Vijaya Gadde has, in a Twitter apology, chosen to claim that the photo was a private photo, has apologised to handles alleging that we were instigating hate, and  in sharp contrast to her emotional, apologetic response at that private meeting  publicly distanced herself from Dalit and gender concerns.

This is also in sharp contrast to Twitter's strong stand in favour of women and marginalised communities in other countries. Twitter's misrepresentation and half-truths are the only reason why we have felt compelled to take the unusual step of issuing this statement.

We made it clear during the discussion that we were against any individuals  irrespective of their political or caste affiliations  who actively threaten women. We call on Twitter to step up and not capitulate to bigotry, disinformation and bullying, and to address in serious terms the problem of trolls threatening the life and liberty of scores of women and marginalised communities (including Dalits and religious minorities) online.

Signed: Anna MM Vetticad, Nilanjana S Roy, Rituparna Chatterjee, Sanghapali Aruna
Nuoc Uc a tiep noi My, Israel va mot so quoc gia Tay Au rut khoi hiep uoc toan cau ve di tru cua Lien Hiep Quoc, la hiep uoc yeu cau cac ben ky ket khong tuy tien giam giu dan nhap cu.

Thu tuong Uc cho biet neu tham gia hiep uoc se co hai cho an ninh quoc gia vi khong the phan biet uoc cac truong hop nhap cu hop phap va bat hop phap.

Thu tuong Scott Morrison tai Hoi nghi APEC 2018. Anh: Reuters

Voi chinh sach nhap cu chat che, nhung nguoi en Uc xin ti nan bang tau thuyen cho biet ho khong uoc phep nhap canh vao Uc. Ho se uoc ua en hai trai tam giam o cac ao nho cua nuoc nay o Nam Thai Binh Duong cho en khi uoc mot nuoc khac chap nhan cho ti nan hoac la phai quay tro ve que huong. Cac trai tam giam nay a hung nhieu chi trich tu Lien Hiep Quoc va cac to chuc nhan quyen.

Viec rut khoi hiep uoc di tru Lien Hiep Quoc cua Uc la ong thai moi nhat nham that chat viec nhap cu, nam trong chuoi chinh sach moi nham muc ich ho tro cho viec tai tranh cu cua Thu tuong Morrison trong ky bau cu se dien ra thang 5/2019.

Ket qua cac cuoc tham do y kien cho thay chinh phu bao thu cua ong Morrison ang co vien canh phai chiu that bai trong ky bau cu sap toi.

Moi nam ghi nhan co khoang 190.000 luot nguoi xin nhap cu vao Uc. Ong Morrison trong tuan cho biet chinh phu cua ong muon cat giam con so nay, va huong chinh sach nay a chiem uoc a so y kien ong tinh.

Theo ket qua tham do cong bo boi Fairfax-Ipsos hom 19/11, co en 45% y kien ung ho giam tinh trang nhap cu trong khi chi co khoang hon 20% muon tang con so cho phep nhap cu.

Hoi thang 10 vua qua, chinh phu Uc tuyen bo se thuc hien viec han che nguoi di cu en mot so thanh pho lon cua Uc nhu Sydney, Melbourne va Brisbane trong thoi han len en 5 nam.

Tuy co kha nang gianh uoc nhieu ung ho, van co mot so y kien cho rang hanh ong nay cua chinh phu se dan en viec thieu nguon luc lao ong.

Thong oc Ngan hang trung uong Uc a co phat bieu hoi thang 8 rang lan song nguoi nhap cu moi a giup Uc cung co tang truong kinh te.

Australia rejects UN migration pact, sticks with hardline asylum-seeker policy

(Reuters) - Australia will not sign up to a United Nations migration agreement because it would compromise its hardline immigration policy and endanger national security, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday.

Australia joins the United States, Israel and several Eastern European countries in rejecting the U.N. Global Compact for Migration, which asks signatories not to detain would-be migrants arbitrarily and to use detention only as a last resort.

Morrison said that would jeopardize national security.

"The global compact on migration would compromise Australia's interest," Morrison told 2GB Radio. "It doesn't distinguish between those who illegally enter Australia and those who come the right way."

Under Canberra's tough immigration policy, which has bipartisan support, asylum seekers arriving by boat are told they will never be allowed to settle in Australia.

They are then detained in two detention centers on remote South Pacific islands until they are accepted by another nation or agree to return home. The camps have been widely criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups.

"Australia is a textbook case of how not to treat boat arrivals, by sending them offshore to endure abysmal conditions for years and trying to shirk its international responsibilities onto less-developed countries," said Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch's Australia director.

Australia's rejection of the U.N. pact is the latest move to tighten migration through a series of policies that are likely to form a central element of Morrison's bid for re-election at a national ballot that must be held by May 2019.

Opinion polls indicate his conservative government is on course for a landslide defeat.

Australia has an annual immigration cap of 190,000 places. Morrison said this week his government would likely reduce that threshold, a policy that is popular with voters.

A Fairfax-Ipsos poll published on Monday found 45 percent of voters wanted immigration reduced, while a little more than 20 percent wanted an increase.

Morrison's government said in October it would restrict new immigrants from living in Australia's largest cities - Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - for up to five years.

Although likely to win favor with voters, critics argued such a policy could lead to labor shortages.

Australia's central bank governor said in August an influx of new residents had helped to underpin strong economic growth.
Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik late Wednesday evening ordered the dissolution of state Assembly

Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik late Wednesday evening ordered the dissolution of state Assembly, paving the way for fresh elections. This move came hours after former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone both staked a claim to form the government. In a press communique, the governor said he was ordering the dissolution of Assembly through the powers vested in him under Section 53 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

As per the communique issued by the governor it was noted, In exercise of the powers conferred under clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 53 of the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir the Governor was dissolving the Legislative Assembly. By virtue of the powers vested upon me in terms of proclamation no: P1/18 of 2018 dated 20 June 2018 issued under sub-section (1) of section 92 and in exercise of the powers conferred upon me by clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section-53 of the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, I hereby dissolve the Legislative Assembly.

The Assembly was under suspended animation after BJP pulled support from the PDP and brought Mehbooba's government. The two coalition partners had major differences, including the state's constitutional position and the way the militancy could be tackled. The BJP has accused PDP of being soft towards stone pelters and was seeking abrogation of the state law that bars outsiders from owning property or contesting elections.

The PDP chief earlier wrote to the governor staking a claim to form the government. In a letter addressed to Malik, she said the PDP, with the support of NC and Congress, will form the government. However, during the day Lone also the governor a letter claiming the support of BJP and 18 other MLAs for formation of a government.

In the 87-member legislative Assembly, the PDP, Congress and NC have respectively the strength of 28, 12 and 15 MLAs. The strength of BJP in the Assembly was 25 while as Lone had 2 MLAs. Forty-four MLAs were required for an absolute majority and to form the government. Lone was seeking to cobble together a third front with PDP MP and former deputy chief minister Muzafar Hussain Baigh. Some PDP MLAs, including former minister Imran Ansari, and Zadibal MLA Abid Ansari openly criticised Mehbooba for promoting favouritism in the party.

With the dissolution of the Assembly, the governor would have to order polls within six months. Although the government conducted municipal polls and has already held two phases of panchayat polls, most wards were returned uncontested. Both the NC and PDP boycotted the polls against what they termed as efforts to abrogate Article 35-A of the Constitution which deprives outsiders from owning property in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mehbooba also tweeted that the fax at the Raj Bhawan was not working. Mehbooba said that she was trying to contact the governor on phone, but he was unavailable. Officials at the Raj Bhawan remained unavailable for comment.

The order to dissolve the Assembly evoked a sharp reaction in Kashmir. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah wrote on Twitter, JKNC has been pressing for dissolution for 5 months now. It cant be a coincidence that within few minutes of Mehbooba Mufti's letter staking claim the order to dissolve the Assembly suddenly appears. He earlier tweeted, J and K Raj Bhawan needs a new fax machine urgently.

Peoples Democratic Front (PDF) chairman Hakeem Yaseen said the dissolution of the Assembly was an undemocratic exercise. He added, The governor should have allowed the parties to prove the majority in the legislative Assembly. Earlier in the day, Yaseen said he was ready to support the PDP, NC and Congress combine.

Former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad called the meeting of the Congress leaders on Friday to discuss the modalities for the government formation in the state. Senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari also met Omar before Mehbooba wrote the letter staking the claim to form the government.
John Chau, 27, had taken a boat ride with local fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to the remote North Sentinel Island where the indigenous people live cut off completely from the outside world.

Port Blair: An American tourist was killed by arrows shot by protected tribesmen living in one of the world's most isolated regions tucked in India's Andaman islands, police said Wednesday.

John Chau, 27, had taken a boat ride with local fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to the remote North Sentinel Island where the indigenous people live cut off completely from the outside world.

As soon as he set foot on the island, Chau found himself facing a flurry of arrows, official sources told AFP.

Contact with several tribes on the islands, set deep in the Indian Ocean, is illegal in a bid to protect their indigenous way of life and shield them from diseases.

Police have registered a case of murder and seven accused persons have been arrested.

"The investigation in this matter is on," senior police officer Deepak Yadav said in a press release.

Chau had made several trips to the Andaman islands recently before finally managing to make it to the remote stretch by offering money to local fishermen.

"He tried to reach the Sentinel island on 14 November but could not make it. Two days later he went well prepared. He left the dingy midway and took a canoe all by himself to the island," sources said.

"He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body.

"They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the sea shore."

According to NDTV, on reaching Port Blair the fishermen alerted a Chau's friend Alex, a local preacher who informed his family in US. The family immediately contacted the US embassy in New Delhi for help. The police in the islands arrested the fishermen and questioned the preacher after the US officials informed them of the incident, reported NDTV.

The Andamans are also home to the 400-strong Jarawa tribe who activists say are at threat from outsiders, who often bribe local authorities to spend a day out with them.

But tribes such as the Sentinelese shun all contact with the outside world and are known to be hostile to any encroachers.

The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150.

With inputs from AFP
Voting for the 84 urban local bodies, 39 Nagar Palika councils and 38 urban Panchayats was held on 18 November. The maximum seats of councillors were won by independents, followed by the BJP and Congress.

Dehradun: Uttarakhand's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won five of the seven Mayor seats in the state. The Congress won two. Officials on Wednesday said the BJP had won in Haldwani, Rudrapur, Rishikesh, Kashipur and the state capital Dehradun's while the Congress emerged victorious in Haridwar and Kotdwar.

Voting for the 84 urban local bodies, 39 Nagar Palika councils and 38 urban Panchayats was held on 18 November. The maximum seats of councillors were won by independents, followed by the BJP and Congress. Of the total 1,064 seats, results for 817 have been announced. Independent candidates have won 464, the BJP 215 and the Congress 132.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won two seats and the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have won one seat each. Of the 39 Nagar Palika chairman's results, the BJP and independents have won 10 each and the Congress 13. Of the 38 Nagar Panchayats, the BJP has bagged 18, Congress 6 and independents 12.
NFAI's film festival commemorated the birth centenary of PL Deshpande who enjoyed an illustrious career as an actor, screenwriter, author, humorist, music composer and singer

A three-day film festival organised by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune from 18-20 November commemorated Purushottam Laxman Deshpande (aka Pu La Deshpande)'s birth centenary.

Born on 8 November 1919 in Mumbai, Deshpande  over a career spanning almost five decades  was known for a sense of humour that reflected in most of his writings, be it theatrical plays or films. His humanistic approach towards writing made him a favourite among readers and viewers; his works are republished, screened, staged till date and enjoy attention and popularity.

At NFAI's film festival, a dedicated exhibition showcased 26 select posters of noted Marathi and Hindi films on which Deshpande worked, from Kuber (1947), Vande Mataram (1948), Johar Maibaap (1950), Maisaheb (1953) to Ek Hota Vidushak (1992).

Marathi actor Ashok Saraf inaugurated the event in the presence of Kiran Shantaram and Prakash Magdum, director  NFAI. The film festival was open for all and was organised by NFAI in collaboration with Pu.La.Parivar and Aashay Film club.

"Pu La has contributed massively to comedy through his literary and artistic works. I have a treasure trove of books by Pu La at my house. His humour is not direct or literal in terms of narrative; it is more about reading between the lines. Pu La is my God, and his literature is my panacea for all life's troubles," said Saraf at the event.

"This event is a beautiful tribute to the genius artist who ventured into almost every field of performing arts. We plan to take the exhibition to various parts of Maharashtra in the coming year," said Magdum, adding, "The centenary year is also a good opportunity to trace his lost films and other material. We appeal to the general public to come forward and help the NFAI so that it can be preserved for future generations."

One of the special attractions of the exhibition will be the display of the original hand-written copy of the script of Pu Las cult classic Gulacha Ganpati, which was provided to NFAI in 2015 by the family members of Rajguru, the producer of the film.

Here are the 26 posters that were put up on display at the festival:

Kuber

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1947

Director - MG Rangnekar

A film made with the help of artistes from the drama troupe Natyaniketan. Deshpande plays the role of a spoilt, rich young lad immersed in singing and dancing who matures into a responsible adult in his debut film. The song 'Ja Ja Ga Sakhi' sung by Deshpande became immensely popular.

Vande Mataram

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1948

Director - Ram Gabale

This is the first film where the trinity of PL Deshpande, GD Madgulkar and Sudhir Phadke came together. Based on the freedom struggle and Quit India Movement of 1942, Vande Mataram features PL Deshpande and Sunita Deshpande in the lead roles. The film highlights the contribution of an unknown freedom fighter who hailed from the village of Sonsali located in the Shirali taluka. This film includes the evergreen song 'Ved Mantrahun Aamha'.

Bhagyarekha

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1948

Director - Shantaram Athavale

Based on a novel by Narayan Hari Apte, Bhagyarekha features Shanta Apte and Baburao Pendharkar in the lead roles. PL Deshpande plays the role of the younger brother to Apte. The film propagates Gandhian ideals and refers to the tumultuous period of Quit India agitations.

Jaga Bhadyane Dene Aahe

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1949

Director - Achyut Ranade

Deshpande has written the screenplay and dialogues of the film. The film, with Shanta Apte in the lead role and supported by Sunita Deshpande, deals with the acute problem of housing in urban areas.

Manacha Paan

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1949

Director - AR Sheikh

The film revolves around the wrestling tradition and culture in Maharashtra. Based on the life of a wrestler, Deshpande has written the screenplay and dialogues in collaboration with GD Madgulkar. The village headman and a wrestling champion come together due to a bet waged by the two. In addition to writing, Deshpande has also composed the music for this film.

Mothi Manse

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1949

Director - Ram Gabale

The film is based on Gandhian principles. This is the first film of PL Deshpande as a music director; he has composed 12 songs all penned by GD Madgulkar and that established the famous PL-GD duo. Mothi Manse depicts the progressive-minded Aaba Patil's efforts to calm down social unrest which was triggered by the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gokulcha Raja

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Bal Gajbar

Deshpande has written the story, screenplay, dialogues and lyrics for this mythological film. The film recounts divine miracles of child-Krishna.

Dev Pavla

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Ram Gabale

Deshpande composed music for this comedy. The devotional song 'Kabirache Vinato Shele', whose lyrics were penned by Madgulkar, is remembered even today. It is the story of a simple man's undying faith in God.

Jara Japoon

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Raja Paranjpe

This film chronicled a couple which discovers the realities and bliss of marital togetherness. Shanta Apte, Rajan and Keshavrao Date are seen in lead roles. Deshpande wrote the screenplay for the film.

Johar Maibaap

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Ram Gabale

The trio of PL Deshpande, GD Madgulkar and Sudhir Phadke came together in this devotional film which is based on a story written by Vyankatesh Madgulkar. Deshpande essayed the title role of Saint Chokhamela with ease. Interestingly, this film was released in 1971 under the title of Hi Vaat Pandharichi. NFAI has restored this film.

Kalyan Khajina

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - DS Ambapkar

Deshpande collaborated with Madgulkar to write the story, screenplay and dialogues for this historical film. Poornima, the famous star from the Hindi film industry played her first role in Marathi cinema. One of the highlights of the film was an episode narrating the greatness of Emperor Shivaji where the daughter-in-law of the Muslim Subedar of Kalyan was treated royally and sent back to her home with pride and honour.

Navara Baiko

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Bal Gajbar

Deshpande has written the story, screenplay and dialogues for this comedy. He has also composed the music for this film. A story of a happy couple who tackle a life-changing event.

Var Pahije

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Achyut Ranade

Deshpande wrote the screenplay and composed music for the film where Snehaprabha Pradhan plays the lead role. The story revolves around the senseless bickerings of a couple.

Pudhache Paool

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1950

Director - Raja Paranjpe

Based on a story on migration to cities by Vyankatesh Madgulkar, the trio of Madgulkar, Phadke and Deshpande come together in this film. In the film, Deshpande also featured convincingly in the role of a villager aspiring to earn money in the city and reinvest it in agriculture. He plays the dholki in a Tamasha troupe and falls in love with the dancer. Hansa Wadkar, GD Madgulkar, Raja Paranjpe and Vivek were seen in supporting roles.

Ghardhani

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1952

Director - Ram Gabale

Based on a Namdev Vhatkar story, Deshpande wrote the screenplay, dialogues, lyrics and also composed music for this social film. The film revolves around two close friends and how misunderstanding and jealousy creep in and disturb their life and relationship.

Doodh Bhaat

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1952

Director - Ram Gabale

The story, screenplay, dialogues, song lyrics are penned by Deshpande. He also composed the music for this social film. The song 'Sukatachi Jagi Ya' from the play Sanyasta Khadga written by VD Savarkar was included in this film after seeking special permission.

Sandesh

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1952

Director - Bal Gajbar

The screenplay and dialogues are written by Deshpande and Mir Asgar Ali. Durga Khote and Umesh Sharma play the lead roles. It is the story of a doctor and his mission.

Vithalpayee

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1953

Director - AR Sheikh

Deshpande composed the music for this devotional film. The songs became popular due to Malati Pande's playback singing. It is the story of Niloba, the saintly landlord who follows the path of righteousness.

Mahatma

Language - Hindi/Marathi/English

Year of release - 1953

Director - Datta Dharmadhikari

Based on a story written by PL Deshpande, this is the only Marathi social film which was simultaneously made in three languages. Dharmadhikari's ambitious project starred Gajanan Jagirdar, Raja Gosavi, David and Rekha. It is the story of the Gandhian Shivba who has to pay a heavy price for his honesty.

Maisaheb

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1953

Director - KP Bhave

Deshpande has written the screenplay, dialogues & lyrics for this social film, in addition to composing music for it. Sumati Gupte, Keshavrao Date and Dhumal feature in lead roles. The film depicts the mental turmoil of a young boy when his father remarries.

Gulacha Ganapati

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1953

Director - PL Deshpande

Deshpande has written the story, screenplay, dialogues, composed music and also directed and acted in this film. He plays the role of Naru, a straight-forward simple dreamer. Deshpande took a

long hiatus from filmmaking after this venture. GD Madgulkar wrote the lyrics of the evergreen devotional song 'Indrayanichya Kathi' which was rendered by Bharat Ratna Pt Bhimsen Joshi. This

film has been restored by NFAI.

Devbappa

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1953

Director - Ram Gabale

PL Deshpande has contributed immensely by writing the screenplay, dialogues, lyrics and composing music for this film. The song 'Naach Re Mora' sung by Asha Bhonsle is popular to this day. The film depicted a touching tale of an innocent girl who finds motherly love in the deity she worships. Interestingly, a short film Nave Birhad starring Damunna Malwankar with Deshpande's voiceover narration used to be screened along with this film.

Ammaldar

Language - Marathi

Year of release - 1953

Director - K Narayan Kale

Deshpande had translated Nikolai Gogol's satirical play Inspector General in Marathi titled Ammaldar. He along with Madgulkar wrote the screenplay based on this Marathi play. Deshpande not only composed the music for this film but also played the main role supported by Madgulkar and PM Bhave. It is a critique on the rampant corruption in newly Independent India.

Phool Aur Kaliyan

Language - Hindi

Year of release - 1960

Director - Ram Gabale

Based on PL Deshpande's story, V Shantaram produced this children's film under the banner of Rajkamal Kala Mandir. This is the first children's film which won the National Award for Best Story.

Aaj Aur Kal

Language - Hindi

Year of release - 1963

Director - Vasant Joglekar

Based on Deshpande play Sundar Mi Honar, this film stars Ashok Kumar, Nanda and Sunil Dutt in the lead roles. The songs were written by Sahir Ludhianvi and composed by Ravi became very popular. This romantic tale is set against the backdrop of the merger of a princely state in independent India.

Ek Hota Vidushak

Language - Hindi

Year of release - 1992

Director - Jabbar Patel

Deshpande wrote the dialogues and screenplay for this social film. It is a tragic tale of a comedian who was born as a songadya (a folk theatre artist) in a Tamasha troupe. Lakshmikant Berde plays the lead role. The film won two National Awards in 1992 for Best Feature Film in Marathi and Best Choreography for Laxmibai Kolhapurkar. This is PL Deshpande's last feature film; he breathed his last on 12 June 2000 in Pune. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and the related complications resulted in his death at the age of 80.

All images and film captions provided by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune with some minor editing done by Firstpost.
Kunal Purohits new podcast The Night Shift, in collaboration with The Swaddle, chronicles this very foolhardiness with the stories of four women  taxi driver Nisha, bar dancer Rozy, club bouncer Ranjana and home guard constable Suvarna.

For women in India, the night draws like a curtain, separating the threat of outside world from the purported safety of the world inside our homes. Whether it is family members forbidding us from stepping out to the shops in the evening, or politicians victim-blaming women who go out at night, the freedom to wander and discover a city once dusk approaches is not one we are afforded. Those of us who do venture out are considered foolhardy, asking for the indecency and danger that lurks in the nights shadows. The Swaddles new podcast The Night Shift, with Kunal Purohit, chronicles this very foolhardiness with the stories of four women  taxi driver Nisha, bar dancer Rozy, club bouncer Ranjana and home guard constable Suvarna.

The idea for the podcast came to Purohit from a need to explore feminist living for those who are often overlooked because of the classist, woefully non-intersectional tone of mainstream Indian feminism. We were very clear about wanting to interview women from the informal sector. We wanted to understand how these women interacted with public spaces, and in some senses were pioneers in these spaces, says Purohit. Indeed, there are a lot of firsts in the four womens lives after working the night shift. Nisha is the first woman, and the only woman in her family to drive. Ranjana is the only female bouncer at her club, and Suvarna has changed her husbands outlook towards womens role in society through her work.

Purohit was initially hesitant about navigating his position as a man presenting the stories of these women. He realised that he had to be completely honest with them, and make space for them to tell their story without interfering. He spent a considerable amount of time with the women, getting to know them and building their trust before they could have the candid conversations that resulted in the four podcast episodes. We didnt set out with a particular narrative arc in mind. We wanted to show these women as they were. These stories are so powerful in themselves that it required very little editorialising on our part. The honest storytelling, helped by the conversational nature of the podcast, make a lot of room for unexpected nuance in the womens stories.

For example, despite becoming a bar dancer out of monetary obligations, Rozy wouldnt want to enter the corporate field if it didnt guarantee the same safety  both professional and personal  that her manager at the bar does. Purohit does warn that as a woman with an urban upbringing, Rozy is an anomaly in the bar dancing profession, comprised mostly of women from Nat or Bedia castes. Interestingly, Rozy chose to use a pseudonym while giving the interview. Her story is uncomfortable, yet nuanced. It forces the listener to grapple with their own rigid narratives about a profession as maligned as bar dancing, but also shows the discomfiting way that class runs deep in the Rozys comfort and safety at her job. It is this deeply uncertain place, of grappling with privilege and poverty, choice and obligation, that the feminism of Rozys story finds its surest footing.

Suvarnas job guarding the womens compartments in Mumbai trains also allows her to see a great difference in class. When speaking to Purohit, Suvarna explains that the women in first-class act snooty, and do not cooperate with her and her colleagues. The women in the second class, Suvarna says, show greater solidarity and respect. In both these womens cases, class clearly intersects with their unique positions to illustrate the complex solidarities and differences that are born in feminist resistance. All women do not support each other, and neither do they hold the same position in the world. No issue is truly about all women. These are the differences that hashtaggable mainstream feminism does not address.

The podcast also touches on institutional barriers faced by some of the women in their profession. Suvarna, for example, is paid a pittance for the gruelling nights she works, and rarely gets space to sleep in between shifts. Her position is considered voluntary, but she is still expected to work weekends and holidays. Similarly, Nisha faces misogyny from male competitors and customers alike. Despite being employed by a cab company that only hires female drivers, Nisha and her colleagues lose a lot of customers to poaching from male drivers, and the customers own hesitation.

While these women may face opposition at work, their choice to work, especially at night, has led to considerable changes at home. Its interesting seeing class mix with empowerment in this way. These women are so self-confident after working these jobs, and that really creaks the power dynamics in the household, says Purohit. For example, Ranjana's choice to work at night has also forced her family to unlearn the expectations of domestic labour from a woman. Her husband shares domestic responsibilities with her, cleaning and cooking while she is at work. The equal partnership in domestic duties may seem like a small change on her husbands part, but for a country where Updated Date:
The PDP, Congress, and National Conference (NC) on Tuesday indicated the possibility of forming an alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, ahead of the 19 December deadline to the Governor's rule in the state.

The PDP, Congress, and National Conference (NC) on Wednesday confirmed an alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, ahead of the 19 December deadline to the Governor's Rule in the state. According to reports, PDP's Altaf Bukhari is the 'consensus' candidate for the post of chief minister.

In order to checkmate efforts by the BJP to prop another government, the mainstream parties have been in touch with each other to form a government, according to reports.

The plan envisages a coalition between PDP and Congress, which have been partners in a government between 2002 and 2007, backed from outside by the National Conference. The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC with 15 and Congress with 12 which will make up for a clear majority. The alliance is being discussed with the aim of stemming BJP's chances of forming the government in the state again.

NDTV reported that the talks to form an alliance are in the "advanced stage". The three parties might meet Governor Satya Pal Malik on Thursday, to discuss the proposal, the report said. Sources said that the Congress party is expected to hold a high-level meeting in Delhi on Friday.

Ghulam Nadi Azad, leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said, "I believe in my party members. By tomorrow afternoon everything will be sorted out. An alliance is being talked about in all states. BJP first made the government with PDP, and they worsened the condition of the state."

NC made it clear that they were not interested in joining a coalition government but would not be averse to giving outside support to a PDP-Congress coalition.

The coming together of traditionally bitter rivals, the PDP and the NC, would mark a significant realignment of political forces in the state. The NC had offered its support to the PDP after the 2014 Assembly polls but the latter ignored the offer and aligned with the BJP.

Efforts have also been underway to form a government headed by Sajjad Lone's People's Conference, which has only two MLAs but which would be banking on support by the 25 MLAs of BJP. However, this combination would fall short of the required majority of 44 which is sought to be made by splitting the PDP which has been rocked by dissidence.

After the BJP's withdrawal from the coalition government with the PDP on 16 June, Lone is understood to have been approaching disgruntled PDP leaders for forming an alliance with the BJP, the sources said. Imran Ansari, former PDP minister, is among a few others who have been cosy with the Peoples Conference, which has also approached some of the MLAs for joining the alliance with the BJP.

A former separatist leader, Lone had been successful in breaking away National Conference's chief spokesman Junaid Muttu, who recently contested the urban local body elections and became the mayor of Srinagar.

On Tuesday, one of the founding members of PDP, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, the brain behind its self-rule document, gave a veritable setback to the party by throwing his weight behind the BJP ally Lones idea of opening a new chapter in troubled politics of the state.

With inputs from agencies
Senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari held the post of the education minister in the erstwhile Mehbooba Mufti government. In March, he was given the additional charge of the finance ministry, after Haseeb Drabu was axed from the post over his remark that Kashmir was not a political issue.

Even as the PDP, the Congress and the National Conference on Wednesday revealed an alliance in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the 19 December deadline to the Governor's Rule, senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari seemingly emerged as the 'consensus' chief ministerial candidate.

"Very soon you will get good news," Bukhari said, speaking about the alliance.

My leadership has confirmed it to us that the three parties (Congress, PDP & NC) have agreed to make a coalition to defend the special identity of the state politically and legally. Very soon you will get a good news: Altaf Bukhari, PDP pic.twitter.com/5tHEdBoOGJ  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

Kashmir's richest legislator

Bukhari held the post of education minister in the erstwhile Mehbooba Mufti government. In March, he was given the additional charge of the finance ministry, after Haseeb Drabu was axed from the post over his remark that Kashmir was not a political issue.

Earlier, Bukhari held the portfolio of roads and buildings minister during the tenure of Late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. According to News18, he was the richest candidate in 2014 Assembly election with assets worth Rs 84 crore. The 55-year-old holds a graduate degree in agriculture science from Government Agriculture College in Sopore.

In September 2018, the businessman-turned politician also welcomed the suggestion of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Society Coordination Committee for a tie-up between NC and PDP for the formation of the new government to defend the Article 35A and to fight communal forces.

When Bukhari was asked on Wednesday if he was in the running for the chief minister's post, he said, "There is no such thing. The chief minister will be from among the leaders. This issue is not about chief ministership".

He added that the alliance was being formed to address the Kashmir issue, and to protect the special identity of the state that "we have in the Constitution of India". "As elected representatives, we have to respond to the aspirations of the people and the emerging situation. Article 370 and Article 35A are under attack. This alliance is not being formed for being in power," he said.

Though the state Assembly is presently under suspended animation, the governor it would not be dissolved even if Jammu and Kashmir was placed under President's rule in December. This increases the chances of the NC-PDP-Congress alliance forming the next government.

With inputs from agencies
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad has called for a meeting on Friday to discuss the 'modalities for government formation' in Jammu and Kashmir.

The National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held a series of meetings the past few days to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir in alliance with the Congress. The NC has sought to have a chief minister appointed from its party.

Former minister and NC provincial president Nasir Aslam Wani confirmed to this reporter that leaders of the two parties had met over the past few days to discuss government formation in the state.

"Lots of people have met, and it has been going on for a few days now. One of the formulas is that neither Mehbooba Mufti nor Omar Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. But there are also discussions on that the government has to be NC-led. If it isn't going to be led by Omar saheb, then we are going to have to think about who else can lead us," Nasir said.

"There are many people who have met at various levels, and it is good that regional mainstream parties are meeting and talking for the first time," he said.

On Wednesday, former state finance minister and senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari also met former chief minister Omar Abdullah. The meeting is believed to have been over government formation in Jammu and Kashmir, but Bukhari claimed he had only greeted Omar on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad.

On the meeting between Omar and Bukhari, Nasir said it was not just the two of them meeting, and that such meetings had been "going on for a few days now".

However PDP vice president Abdul Rehman Veeri claimed he was not aware of any meeting between the NC and PDP over forming the Jammu and Kashmir government.

Together, the NC, PDP and Congress have the requisite numbers to form the government in the state. The PDP has 28 MLAs, the NC 15 and Congress 12 in the Legislative Assembly, in which 44 legislators are required to stake claim for government formation. The BJP has 25 MLAs and the Peoples Conference, a strength of two legislators.

Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, has also called for a meeting on Friday to discuss the "modalities for government formation in the state".

Sources in the NC and Congress said the meetings were held as the BJP was seeking to form the government in the state in alliance with a "Third Front", which would be led by former minister and People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone. Former deputy chief minister and PDP MP Muzaffar Hussain Beigh has been meeting Lone for the past two to three months to discuss the possibility of government formation in Jammu and Kashmirs. At a press conference on Tuesday, Beigh had hinted at the possibility of joining the People's Conference to form the state government.

State Congress vice president Ghulam Nabi Monga confirmed that the Congress had called for a meeting of party leaders in New Delhi on Friday, and that Azad will chair the meeting.

After the 2014 Assembly elections had produced a a hung verdict, Azad had floated the idea of a grand alliance of secular parties, including the NC, Congress and PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, to keep the BJP out of power. Monga said that the Congress was in favour of seeking a dissolution of Legislative Assembly at the moment, while stressing that there was a "need to check the BJP from disturbing the conditions in the state".

However, even as the NC, Congress and PDP are in discussion on government formation, the People's Conference has also said that it was "in talks with PDP MLAs over government formation in the state".

Senior People's Conference leader and MLA Bashir Ahmad Dar said both Lone and Beigh have held frequent meetings. He added that a Third Front government in the state "would be led by the People's Conference". "Discussions have happened over the formation of a Third Front in Jammu and Kashmir, which would be led by Sajjad Lone. Besides the support of some PDP leaders, we are in touch with some Congress leaders as well," he said.

However, the trouble for the NC-PDP-Congress alliance in Jammu and Kashmir is that there are a number of legislators in the PDP who are riled up with the party and have even fielded candidates for the civic polls in alliance with the People's Conference. PDP's Gulmarg MLA, Mohammad Abbas Wani, said Beigh's statement points "towards the muck in the PDP, which has promoted favouritism". "We are in support of the Third Front to form the government in the state," he said.

Lone lauded PDP rebel leader and MLC Yasir Reshi on Twitter as two independent candidates, whom he had backed in the civic polls, became the chairperson and vice chairperson of the Sumbal Municipal Committee in Bandipora.

PDP chief and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti had decided that the party would boycott the urban local body elections in protest against the alleged efforts by the Centre to revoke Article 35A of the Constitution, which bars outsiders from owning propertiy in Jammu and Kashmir.
Goa could face a statewide agitation in 48 hours if ailing Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar does not step down from the post. The political crisis deepened after hundreds of residents, social activists and political leaders marched to his home and to demand his resignation.

Goa Shiv Sena chief Jitesh Kamat probably put in words the thoughts of the majority in Goa. "The people of the state are praying for the speedy recovery of the chief minister, but that does not mean he should continue to put the state administration on hold."

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's prolonged illness  he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February  and continued absence has taken a toll on the state administration. Public confidence in the state government is on paper thin ice, with residents of Goa growing restless over both Parrikar's absence and his refusal to hand over the reigns to another leader.

Goa could face a statewide agitation in 48 hours if the ailing chief minister does not step down from the post. The political crisis deepened on Tuesday, when hundreds of residents, social activists and political leaders marched to Parrikar's home and to demand his resignation.

Aires Rodrigues, social activist and the leader of the protest march, gave Parrikar an "ultimatum" of 48 hours to step down from the post, saying Goa was in need of a "full-time chief minister". "For the last nine months, the state administration has collapsed. The chief minister is not meeting his own ministers and MLAs," he said.

Adding to the BJP's strain is one of its regional coalition partners, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP). The BJP-led ruling coalition in the state includes the MGP, Goa Forward Party (GFP) and three independents, but it is the MGP that's demanding that a leader of the party be made the chief minister in Parrikar's place.

The party has threatened to contest the Lok Sabha and Assembly by-elections in Goa solo against BJP candidates if its leader Sudin Dhavalikar is not appointed the chief minister in view of Parrikar's health. A senior MGP legislator, Dhavalikar is currently the second most senior minister in the Goa Cabinet after Parrikar, who has been recuperating at his home since 14 October after being discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.

Unsurprisingly, the Congress has been vying for Parrikar's resignation for months for his absence. It has even gone to the extent of alleging that the BJP was "taking advantage" of Parrikar's health to get people's sympathy with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Goa Congress spokesperson Jitendra Deshprabhu had said the BJP should have asked Parrikar to step down on health grounds.

In October, the Congress had sought a meeting with the chief minister. In a letter, Congress MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco had said, "Your long sickness has immobilised the day-to-day functioning of the official departments of the Government of Goa."

Lourenco had also pointed out that Parrikar's "almost zero public appearance" and absence to his chief ministerial office duties had "accentuated the policy paralysis of the state administration" and that "legislative affairs of the state had suffered when the February-March 2018 Budget Session was curtailed to four days from 22 days" in view of his health.

Parrikar's continuance in the chief minister's post could be a result of the BJP's reluctance to let him resign because of his general acceptance by both allies and the Opposition. It fears losing out on this power and disturbing the political balance in Goa if Parrikar  a popular people's chief minister credited with speedy development in Goa in terms of both infrastructure and education  were to resign. It is no secret that parties allied with the BJP in Goa because of their faith in Parrikar.

"It is a masterstroke," said GFP leader Elison D'Cruz, on the BJP's move to lure two Congress MLAs to the party. "They want to get a majority because they know we (allies) only went with the BJP because of Parrikar."

Moreover, the lack of an alternative to Parrikar, who was the BJP's rallying point in building an alliance in Goa, could be another factor disallowing the party from letting him step down and recuperate without state responsibilities on his shoulders. The prime contenders for the role could be Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar, Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant or North Goa MP Shripad Naik, who is the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of AYUSH  none have the influence Parrikar has in Goa.

The political debate aside, it is the state of administrative matters in Goa that have residents agitated. Projects are on hold without the chief minister's nod and those that were underway have also seen no progress without Parrikar's signature to go ahead with necessary procedures. Frontline quoted a government official as saying that there's a virtual shutdown in the Goa Cabinet.

With uncertainty over its future in Goa, the BJP had planned to discharge Parrikar from the duties of a number of departments he holds in the Goa government and shift the responsibility to other party ministers as well as induct defecting MLAs. However, this might prove insufficient given the current leadership crisis, paralysis in the administration as well as people's diminishing faith in the Parrikar government.
Criticising the Congress, Yadav said its policies were responsible for the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Bhopal: Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said his party didn't accept a Congress offer for an alliance in Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha polls because the Rahul Gandhi-led party was not ready to include the BSP in the proposed coalition.

Criticising the Congress, Yadav said its policies were responsible for the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said that Congress would have "won" more than 200 seats out of 230 in the 28 November elections in Madhya Pradesh had it tied-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP).

BSP chief Mayawati had in October announced that her party would contest Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha polls alone and had accused the Congress of being "arrogant" and not being interested in fighting the BJP. It was seen as a setback for the Congress which has been trying to rally opposition forces to forge an anti-BJP front.

"The Congress doesn't give us any importance. That party was ready to allot seats to SP in Madhya Pradesh elections. However, we told them that the election is going to be a big battle and we need to include the BSP in the alliance, but the Congress was not ready. So, our alliance could not materialise," Yadav told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday after the launch of his party's poll manifesto.

The SP chief's remarks come in the backdrop of the arch-rivals SP and BSP coming together against the BJP in Uttar Pradesh bypolls earlier this year to wrest two important Lok Sabha seats  Gorakhpur and Phulpur  from the saffron party.

Yadav has been maintaining that an alliance with the BSP will be formed in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 MPs to Lok Sabha, to defeat the BJP in the 2019 general elections.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister hit out at the Congress for failing to form an alliance in the state and said its policies were "responsible for the rise of the BJP in the country's politics".

"The Congress would have won more than 200 seats in the 28 November elections had it tied-up with the BSP, SP and GGP. But by not forging an alliance with us, the Congress has given us an opportunity to criticise them," Yadav quipped.

The SP is contesting 51 of the total 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh. In 2013 assembly elections, the SP had drawn a blank.

Earlier in September, Mayawati had tied up with Ajit Jogi's party in Chhattisgarh where the BJP has been in power for 15 years.

Meanwhile, Yadav refused to comment on the demand for construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, saying the issue is "sub-judice".

Attacking the BJP, Yadav alleged the saffron party "takes refuge in caste, Ram temple etc. when it is cornered on issues like demonetisation, GST (Goods and Services Tax) and its poll promise to create two crore jobs".

Yadav also took a dig at the BJP over its electoral promise to provide free scooty to meritorious girl students in Madhya Pradesh. "The BJP manifesto talked about giving scooty to girls but is silent on (prices of) petrol," he said.

Yadav alleged that "40,000 farmers have committed suicide under the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh".

The BJP has been in power in the state since 2003.

"The BJP had also promised that sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh would be paid well for their produce, but didn't keep that promise. The BJP is known for not keeping its promises," he alleged.

Yadav also took potshots at the BJP over its drive to develop 'smart cities' in the country.

"The BJP should tell people how many smart cities have been developed. The BJP had also promised that laptops with data cards will be provided in UP, but people are still waiting," he claimed.
Shivraj Chouhan has been popular enough to get 13 years on the trot, but that very achievement is his biggest hurdle now

Sharp, funny, vicious and raucous as the political discourse is on social media, it is no match for rural India's pithy street wisdom. A few kilometres away from the Datia constituency in a rural setting, a villager gives me a taste of this when I enquire about which way the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha election is headed. "Roti dono taraf se senkna chahiye. Ek taraf jyada senkne se jal jaati hai (you need to bake the bread from both sides; overdoing one side will burn it)".

He did not take any names, neither of individuals nor of parties. But nothing could have described better the delicious dilemma of three-term chief minister Shivraj Chouhan as he seeks a record fourth term in the election slated for 28 November. Chouhan has been popular enough to get 13 years on the trot, but that very achievement is his biggest hurdle now. Another five years for him would mean the bread will be overdone on one side. So it is now time to bake the bread on the other side.

It is not prudent to predict peoples' political behaviour based on one villager's profundity given the complexity of economic, religious, political and social issues involved in a Vidhan Sabha election. But the sense one gets from an attempt to gauge people's pulse after visiting various places and meeting a cross-section of people is that the feeling is predominant in the entire Gwalior region flanked by the Chambal ravines and Bundelkhand.

Take for example the reaction at Pitambara Peeth, a powerful tantrik temporal seat at Datia, represented by powerful BJP minister Narottam Mishra. Sitting in the verandah on a languorous afternoon, priests were engaged in their favourite pastime  political gossip and speculating about the election results. And they seemed to be convinced that Chouhan was on a sticky wicket. Although my intervention in their discussion alerted them, they overcame their inhibition and stuck to their position that the BJP was heavily weighed down by the anti-incumbency factor.

Away from Datia to another extreme of Gwalior are the Chambal ravines in Morena where the dreaded brigands known as baaghis (rebels) used to roam not long ago. Till four decades ago these ravines were inaccessible for most people, as their terrains were infested by dreaded dacoits led by the redoubtable Madho Singh, Mohar Singh, Tehsildar Singh, Makhan Singh and Paan Singh Tomar. A biopic on the latter featuring Irrfan Khan caught the attention of people recently and portrayed the tough life in the Chambal ravines.

Interestingly, these ravines coexist with pristine historical sites that are treasure troves for excavation and the restoration of certain extraordinary monuments. Nearly 50 kilometres away from Gwalior, three such villages in a row  Bateshwara, Parawali and Mitawali  are home to monuments from 300 to 600 AD. Bateshwara has a big Shiva temple with nearly 300 miniature temples around it. The excavation of the site was undertaken by an enthusiastic and renowned archaeologist, KK Muhammad, who singlehandedly restored a part of the structure from ruins. On the face of it, the site looks like a replica of Angkor Wat of Cambodia. In Mitawali, a Shiva temple on a hilltop looks like an exact replica of the Indian Parliament.

I have deliberately introduced the archaeological significance of Morena in order to bring out a larger issue which affects the society and politics of the region. While I was watching the beauty of these magnificent ruins, a big booming sound unnerved me. "What is this?" I asked an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) employee who was standing nearby. "This blast is due to quarry mining in the nearby hills and this is patently illegal," he said, adding that although the ASI had written to the state government about the adverse impact of mining on the archaeological sites, the mining continues quite brazenly.

It is an open secret in the entire region that the quarry-mining mafia and sand-mining syndicate operate in the region with impunity thanks to the help of local BJP leaders that include even ministers. The fact that the sand mafia even killed a trainee IPS officer near Gwalior did not prove to be provocation enough for the state administration to check this criminal enterprise.

The reason is obvious. The economy involved in both these underground activities run into hundreds of crores under the protective umbrella of politics. Since the BJP has been ruling the state for the past 15 years, the party's state leadership is the biggest beneficiary of this mafia operation. Of course, in Gwalior region, this rampant mining of quarry and sand has adversely affected peoples lives. "It is often difficult to sleep due to the noise of blasts," said a resident of Bateshwara. And yet, the fact that mining has been happening in the midst of the election season speaks volumes about the brazenness of the crime syndicate operating in the region.

Apparently the reign of terror unleashed by mine-mafias in the Chambal ravines and the hilly tracts is far more dangerous than that of the gangs of dacoits in the past. At the social and ecological level, these mafias in collaboration with politicians and bureaucrats have ruined the life of ordinary people. The fact that the Madhya Pradesh government appears to be acting as a wilful accomplice in this crime is going against the BJP in this Vidhan Sabha election. What appears to be compounding the BJP's woes is the reality that Gwalior was considered the epicentre of Vyapam scandal in which a fake recruitment drive across the state thrived.

By all reckoning, the accumulated indiscretions of the BJP regime over three terms bear out the earthy formulation of the peasant who says, "Roti ek taraf se jyada senk gayee hai (the bread is overdone on one side)".
Manmohan Singh also alleged that demonetisation did not achieve any of the objectives stated by the Narendra Modi government and no black money was recovered.

As political parties pitch for the upcoming Lok Sabha Polls of 2019, former prime minister Manmohan Singh criticising the Narendra Modi-led government said careful efforts to weaken democracy were being made in the Modi regime and credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI are being systematically denigrated.

At a press briefing in Indore, Manmohan said, Careful, well-thought-out and calibrated efforts are carried out to weaken democracy in the Modi regime and the rule of law has come under attack. Criticising the government policies of demonetisation and GST, Manmohan added: Demonetisation was a monumental failure and the Modi government will never accept this.

In a veiled reference to developments in RBI and CBI, he said the Modi government is trying to prevail over big institutions, adding this was detrimental to democracy and law of the land. "The relationship between the RBI and Finance Ministry has hit a low," the former Union finance minister said, adding there is a need for "harmony and coordination".

"The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate relationship. Both have to work together. Even though the job of running the country rests with the government, specific responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act. There is a need to recognise inter dependence of the two entities and work in harmony," he said.

"I am happy with the efforts being made to bring reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other," he said.

He termed demonetisation as "organised loot and legalised plunder". "This is a done act and can't be reverted. It is up to the people to get rid of the government which brought them on this disastrous path," he said.

The note ban and the "flawed" Goods and Services Tax (GST) of the NDA government have caused a "great damage" to the unorganised sector, Singh said. The note ban failed to achieve its goal, he added.

Asked about his 2014 comments that Modi as Prime Minister would be a disaster to the country, he said he did not want to comment on his earlier remarks. "I used harsh words which I should not have. Now people will make the decision," he added.

Manmohan accused Modi of misusing the Prime Minister's post. "It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents," he said, adding Modi was using "unparliamentary words" against the opposition.

The Rafale deal needs a thorough investigation through a Joint Parliamentary Committee, he said. "Modi is not going in for constitution of the JPC, which gives an impression that something is amiss", he said, adding this has given rise to a "great deal of suspicion" in the minds of people.

On steps needed to improve the economy, Singh said infrastructure investment should increase national savings rate should be encouraged.

"In our (Congress-led regime) time, the national saving rate was 35 to 36 percent. Now it is 28 percent," he said. If the GDP rate needs to grow to 10 per cent, the national savings rate and infrastructure investment needs to grow, he added.

Asked if the Congress will be able to revive itself, Singh said the party faced problems since the 2014 elections. "The reason was the ability of the opposition to mislead the media and the general public about the so-called corruption and we were not able to carry the conviction to convey our point of view," he said.

He denied Modi's claim that the UPA government led by him was a "remote-controlled" one. "The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion," he said.

The BJP promised to bring back money stashed in banks abroad but this turned out to be a hollow claim, he said.

The Modi government's "Make in India" programme has proved to be just a jumla (stunt) and it promised to generate two crore jobs annually but this has turned out to a gimmick, he said.

He also rubbished Modi's claim that the UPA government discriminated against Madhya Pradesh. "Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should stand a witness to it," he said.

"Vyapam (an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam unearthed in Madhya Pradesh in 2013) marred the future of the state's youth, while Narmada river has been plundered by the sand mafia," Singh said.

With inputs from PTI
Congress leader Manish Tewari and entrepreneur Mohandas Pai waded into controversy over Twitter CEO's alleged 'Anti-Brahminical' stand. The were locked into an exchange on Twitter, but apparetly they both were fighting on the same side.

Congress leader Manish Tewari and entrepreneur Mohandas Pai waded into the controversy over Twitter CEO's alleged 'Anti-Brahminical' stand. The duo was locked into an exchange on Twitter, but apparently, they both were fighting on the same side.

Days after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologised for posing with a poster which read, "Smash Brahminical patriarchy", Tewari commented on the issue with an acerbic tweet.

Why blame @CreatorOfTwitt . Anti Bhrahmisam is the reality of Indian politics. Got accentuated in the North post Mandalisation of Indian politics . We are the new Jews of India and we should just learn to live with it . pic.twitter.com/mYXcgt9hx3  Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) November 20, 2018

Tewari's tweet mocked both the politics of 'Mandalisation' and the general trend of oversimplified opposition to any particular group as a whole. However, several people seem to think that Tewari was backing Dorsey for the picture. Pai too replied to Tewari with a steaming tweet asking if the move was not quite like anti-Semitism, which is condemned globally. He even accused Tewari of carrying 'hateful biases.'

@ManishTewari New Jews? Live with it? Then should hatred be acceptable once you apply your new label? is this not equal to Anti Semitism globally? Is such hatred acceptable? Your illoggical and hateful biases are out for the world to see. Shameful. https://t.co/oOkLrz5PNn  Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) November 21, 2018

Tewari responded to Pai clarifying that his tweet did not endorse anti-Brahmin sentiments, and said that what Dorsey did was uncalled for.

You missed the irony in the tweet completely so did everyone else. Of course anti- brahminism is wrong as much as being anti any other comm. What Twitter CEO did was totally uncalled for and he should apologise. All that I was flagging was a harmful strain in our ethos which 1/1 https://t.co/JRMjrl2hkJ  Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) November 21, 2018

Tewari further clarified that all that he meant to do with his tweet was "flag a harmful strain in our ethos which seems to be growing"."The thought behind that tweet was to deprecate the Twitter CEO s action of holding that placard not support it. I unequivocally condemn his action. Hope things are clearer now," he tweeted.

The controversy started last weekend when the Twitter chief met a group of journalists, writers and activists in Delhi to hear about their experiences on the website and app. He was gifted a poster by an activist at the beginning of the closed-door session, which he was still holding at the end when a few photographs were clicked. Journalists present at the event clarified this later, but till then the picture tweeted by a prominent journalist and film critique had already kicked up a storm. Facing severe backlash mostly from members of the upper caste, one of company's leading policy officer for the company has apologised to users and told them neither Twitter nor Dorsey endorsed the signs message.
In a potentially far-reaching realignment of political forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP, Congress and the National Conference appear to be joining hands to form a popular government, sources in the three parties indicated on Tuesday.

Srinagar: In a potentially far-reaching realignment of political forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the PDP, Congress and the National Conference appear to be joining hands to form a popular government, sources in the three parties indicated on Tuesday.

The state is currently under governor's rule which cannot be extended after it completes its six-month period on 19 December. It is proposed to impose President's rule thereafter but the 87-member assembly is not being dissolved, according to Governor Satyapal Mallik.

A popular government headed by the Peoples Democratic Party's Mehbooba Mufti fell when its partner BJP pulled out of the ruling coalition on 16 June.

Political circles have been agog with speculation that behind the scene, efforts were underway to prop up a government headed by Sajjad Lone's People Conference, which has only two MLAs but which would be banking on support by the 25 MLAs of BJP. However, this combination would fall short of the required majority of 44 which is sought to be made by splitting the PDP which has been rocked by dissidence.

The sources said that in order to checkmate such efforts to prop up another BJP-backed government, mainstream parties such as the Congress, PDP and the National Conference are in touch to form a government.

The plan envisages a coalition between PDP and Congress, which have been partners in a government between 2002 and 2007, backed from outside by the National Conference. The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC with 15 and Congress with 12 which will make up for a clear majority.

The National Conference sources made it clear that they were not interested in joining a coalition government but would not be averse to giving outside support to a PDP-Congress coalition.

If such an arrangement comes about, Mehbooba Mufti is unlikely to be the chief minister but the government may be headed by a senior PDP leader.

Coming together of traditionally bitter rivals, the PDP and the NC, would mark a significant realignment of political forces in the state. The National Conference had offered its support to the PDP after the 2014 assembly polls but the latter ignored the offer and aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After the 16 June withdrawal, Lone is understood to have been approaching disgruntled PDP leaders for forming an alliance with the BJP, the sources said.

Imran Ansari, former PDP minister, is among a few others who have been cosy with the People's Conference, which has also approached some of the MLAs for joining the alliance with the BJP.

A former separatist leader, Lone had been successful in breaking away National Conference's chief spokesman Junaid Muttu, who recently contested the urban local body elections and became Mayor of Srinagar.

Efforts made to get a response from Lone did not fructify as he did not respond to messages sent by PTI.

A founder member of PDP, Muzzafar Beigh also joined the bandwagon of Lone on Tuesday and held a press conference here and said "the PDP betrayed the workers, denying them a chance to connect with the people, by boycotting the elections. They left a vacuum and that space has now been occupied. Politics does not wait for people who boycott."

Beigh said, "Now this talk of NC-PDP alliance. How will people of Jammu react? How will people of Ladakh react? It will be an alliance of one religion. Jammu would not like it, Ladakh will not remain part of the state. This will lead to trifurcation of the state."

A former member of People's Conference, Beigh said he was not averse to formation of a third front led by Lone and went on to say "Sajad Lone is like my son. I had contested the elections that led to registration of Peoples Conference as a political party. If Sajad (Lone) is interested in (formation of third front), it should be encouraged. People want something different from the beaten track".

"Sajad has not contacted me directly. The BJP has not contacted me (on government formation or third front formation). However, there are people within the party (PDP) who want an elected government," he said.
It is up to the Centre now, through Governor Satya Pal Malik, to either dissolve the Assembly or let this sort of government be formed

Politics sprung to life in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday when it became known that the Congress, the National Conference, and the Peoples Democratic Party are in talks to form a new state government. This will have a direct impact on national politics. If this bold move succeeds, it will be a feather in the cap of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has apparently been involved in organising it. A major meeting of Congress party leaders was held in Jammu last Sunday. Other meetings are set to have taken place much further afield.

There can be no doubting the legitimacy, and the political logic of an alignment of these three parties. They all stand for secular politics, and the issue they have held up as the banner under which they stand together is the special status of this state. If such a formation takes office, the Opposition will be able to claim, in the run-up to the national General Election, that regional parties have stood firm in states all the way from Kashmir to Kanyakumari against the juggernaut of the BJP's rise.

It is up to the Centre now, through Governor Satya Pal Malik, to either dissolve the Assembly or let this sort of government be formed. Of course, there is still a possibility that the BJP might try to form a government in tandem with Sajjad Lone of the People's Conference, and breakaway factions of these parties. Lone has the open support of BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who visited the state a few days ago to have breakfast at a public event with the new mayor of Srinagar, and other top leaders and associates of Lone's party.

The trilateral alignment has come as something of a googly for the Centre. Malik will have to take tough decisions. Having said more than once that he will not indulge in foul play or encourage horse-trading, he is in a tough spot.

This alignment appeared to have the support of at least half a dozen PDP MLAs, five of whom publicly addressed a press conference in July, quite soon after the BJP withdrew support to the PDP-led state government of which it had been a part since early 2015. The key MLA in that dissident group of PDP MLAs is Imran Ansari, who is arguably the ranking Shia leader in the state. In that capacity, he has pockets of dependable support in several constituencies other than the two he and his cousin directly hold.

There is also talk of attempts to wean away breakaway factions from the legislative parties of the NC and the Congress.

Where Omar Abdullah fits in

NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah is set to have been reluctant to back the PDP and the Congress to form the government  at least until Rahul spoke to him. While Omar appears to have come around to supporting a PDP-Congress coalition, it seems certain that the NC won't participate in the government. Those who back this alignment say that, given the way the politics in the state has played out since the BJP withdrew support to the PDP, a coalition of the Congress with either the NC or the PDP, or both, would almost certainly come together after the next state elections. "Why not try it already?" one of them asked.

Omar's father Farooq Abdullah, who too has been chief minister and now heads the party, is said to have been more readily agreeable to the proposed arrangement. However, he apparently refused to take charge as the chief minister  as PDP president Mehbooba Mufti is said to have proposed. Omar  and many others  would probably still prefer that the proposal pushes the Centre to dissolve the Assembly rather than allow the three parties to block the plan about which Lone and Madhav are enthusiastic. In fact, Omar has called for the dissolution of the Assembly ever since the day the BJP withdrew support to the PDP.
Amit Shah will address youths at a private school in Jaipur in 'Yuva ki baat, Amit Shah ke saath' programme. He will answer questions on national and international issues during the two-hour event

Jaipur/Bikaner: BJP chief Amit Shah will be in Rajasthan on Wednesday, a spokesperson said. Shah will be addressing youths at an event in the state capital and would take part in a road show in Bikaner.

The party chief will address youths at a private school in Jaipur in 'Yuva ki baat, Amit Shah ke saath' programme. He will answer questions on national and international issues during the two-hour event, the party spokesperson said.

The party will be using social media for allowing people to ask questions from six different locations, he added.

Later, Shah will take part in a road show in Bikaner in support of BJP nominees Siddhi Kumari and Gopal Joshi from Bikaner East and West respectively.

Rajya Sabha MP Narayan Lal Panchariya said the roadshow will start from MM Ground and culminate at Junagarh covering various areas.
Senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot Wednesday apologised to the people of Jodhpur for lack of development and said it was neglected by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as he hails from the district.

Jodhpur: Senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot Wednesday apologised to the people of Jodhpur for lack of development and said it was neglected by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as he hails from the district.

He appealed to the people to teach Raje a lesson. "She (Raje) did not do any development work in the entire Marwar region, especially in Jodhpur, because I belong to Jodhpur. I tender my apology for being the reason for this neglect," the former Rajasthan chief minister said. Speaking about the rebellion within the Congress over ticket distribution for the 7 December assembly polls, Gehlot said the party will be able to placate the rebels. "We call upon all the rebels to withdraw their nominations in favour of the party as well as the country," he said. He assured that deserving workers will be given place in the party and government after the election.

New and young candidates have been given tickets by the Congress keeping in mind the party's future, he added. "These young leaders would be working closely with the senior and veteran leaders of the party," the Congress leader said. Gehlot filed his nomination for Sardarpura seat on Monday.

Reportedly, his nomination papers showed that his assets have increased 10 times in 10 years. Gehlot said the growth was due to the rise in the prices of property. "This property is what I received as my share in the parental property. Due to a spurt in the property prices, it has become so expensive," he said. He lashed out at the BJP and said it was misleading them by saying that he had turned a "karorpati" (millionaire).

He said he had given the details of his assets honestly. "This was a natural rise. I did not do anything. In all these years, neither did I purchase any jewellery nor any piece of land. I had purchased one house in 1990 for Rs 90,000 and one in Jaipur for Rs 9 lakh and it is in a bad state," Gehlot said. The Congress leader is on a campaign trail in Jodhpur and has inaugurated candidates' election offices here and in Soorsagar over the last three days.
The number of Muslim candidates from the Congress was similar to the last Assembly election, but all of them had faced defeat. Whereas the BJP had given tickets to four Muslim candidates in 2013, two of them had won.

Jaipur: The Congress has given tickets to 15 Muslim candidates, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielded only one candidate for the Rajasthan Assembly election.

The number of Muslim candidates from the Congress was similar to the last Assembly election, but all of them had faced defeat. Whereas the BJP had given tickets to four Muslim candidates in 2013, two of them had won.

The saffron party's candidate, Yoonus Khan, who is the state transport minister, has been fielded from Tonk constituency, where state Congress president Sachin Pilot is contesting.

Khan, a sitting MLA from Deedwana constituency, was kept reserved by the party until the last moment. After the Congress fielded Pilot from the Muslim-dominated constituency, the BJP replaced sitting MLA Ajit Singh Mehta, who figured in an earlier list, and announced Khan's candidature on Monday.

The Congress, meanwhile, has reposed trust on eight Muslim candidates, who lost in the last Assembly election. It has fielded three women, among which Safia and Gulnaz are the wives of two Muslim candidates who contested the 2013 election.

The BJP, on the other hand, dropped sitting MLA Habibur Rahman, following which he quit the party and returned to the Congress after a decade, becoming its candidate from Nagaur seat. Rahman was the Waqf minister during former chief minister Ashok Gehlot-led government, but joined the BJP in 2008 after he was denied ticket by the Congress.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan lashed out at the BJP and right-wing outfits, accusing them of exploiting the Sabarimala issue for their 'political gains' and trying to 'capture' and take control of the hill-top shrine.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan lashed out at the BJP and right-wing outfits, accusing them of exploiting the Sabarimala issue for their "political gains" and trying to 'capture' and take control of the hill-top shrine. These comments were in response to Amit Shah's criticism of the government in its handling of the Sabarimala issue.

In his remarks, Vijayan alleged that the Sangh Parivar's agenda was to create trouble by sending "kar sevaks" to take control of the temple and making the pilgrims "scapegoats".

On Tuesday, BJP president Amit Shah accused the Kerala government of treating pilgrims as 'Gulag inmates'. In the continued stand-off over the entry of menstrual age women to Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala after the Supreme Court lifted the ban, Shah had slammed the CPI(M)-led government's handling of the situation as "disappointing" and accused it of making pilgrims spend nights next to "pig droppings".

Vijayan tweeted a response to Shah's accusations, saying that Shah's tweets on the issue were "unfounded and misleading". He added, "The pilgrimage is going smoothly. Pilgrims too have expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made. The people affected by the arrangements are the Sangh Parivar elements, who are bent on formenting trouble."

Amit Shah's tweet on Sabarimala is unfounded and misleading. The pilgrimage season is going on smoothly. Pilgrims too have expressed satisfaction over the arrangements made. The people affected by the arrangements are the Sangh Parivar elements, who are bent on fomenting trouble.  Pinarayi Vijayan (@vijayanpinarayi) November 20, 2018

Mr. Shah must have got carried away by the campaign unleashed by these elements. Honble Union Minister Shri. Rajnath Singh himself has said on record that the Govt has no option but to execute the order of the apex court, which answers the allegation levelled by Amit Shah.  Pinarayi Vijayan (@vijayanpinarayi) November 20, 2018

Vijayan also defended the arrest of 69 people from the temple complex on Sunday night and slammed the Congress for opposing implementation of the Supreme Court order. He alleged the RSS and Congress "have become one" on the Sabarimala issue.

The chief minister asserted that Sabarimala would not be allowed to be transformed into a "centre of violence" and his government "will not compromise" with those perpetrating violence in the temple complex. He alleged Sangh Parivar was "exploiting Sabarimala in the name of faith" and trying to take control of the temple. "All protection would be given to the pilgrims visiting the shrine for darshan," Vijayan said.

Targeting the main opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front, he said the Congress' national leadership wanted the Supreme Court verdict to be implemented, but the state unit had a different take.

"Ramesh Chennithala (leader of the opposition in the state assembly) has changed his stance multiple times which ultimately helped the Sangh Parivar politics," Vijayan said.

Defending the police action on Sunday night arresting 69 devotees from 'Sannidhanam' (the main temple complex), the chief minister said "conscious efforts" were made by some people to stay back there even after the customary closing song "Harivarasanam" and despite prohibitory orders.

"Most of them have not come to the temple through the normal route but preferred the forest path evading checking. Conscious efforts were made by some people to stay back at Sannidhanam even after 'Harivarasanam'," the chief minister said.

"Their specific plan is to gain full control of Sabarimala," Vijayan charged and named six Sangh Parivar office bearers whom he alleged posed as devotees to create problems at Sabarimala on Sunday night.

The chief minister also referred to a BJP circular through which, he said, it had planned to deploy its cadre in an organised manner at Sabarimala to ensure that no young women would enter the shrine on the strength of the 28 September court verdict.

"As per the circular of the BJP, they would be sending the "karsevaks" with a hidden agenda to capture and take control of Sabarimala," Vijayan alleged.

He also pointed to statements reportedly made by BJP state chief PS Sreedharan Pillai, including that the Sabarimala issue was an "opportunity for the Sangh parivar" and the saffron party and their agitation was "not against women's entry" but against the Communist party.

"Pillai has made it clear earlier itself that Sabarimala issue was a good opportunity for the Sangh parivar," Vijayan alleged.

Alleging that the Sangh Parivar has a "doctorate in peddling fake news", Vijayan said it has unleashed "fake campaign" against the state maligning its image.

Shah had made the accusation against the Kerala government in a series of tweets on Tuesday. He said, "If several reports of flushing resting places for devotees and them having to spend nights next to pig droppings and dustbin are true, then Pinarayi Vijayan must realize that he can't treat Ayyappa devotees like inmates of Gulag. We won't let LDF crush people's faith with impunity." Gulag was a system of forced labour camps established during Joseph Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union.

Shah's comments underlined his party's support to devotees protesting against the state government's move to implement the apex court order that allowed the entry of women of all groups to the temple.

Shah said the way the way Vijayan's government is handling the sensitive issue of Sabarimala is disappointing as the "Kerala police is treating young girls, mothers and aged inhumanly, forcing them to take the arduous pilgrimage, without even basic facilities like food, water, shelter and clean toilets".

"If Pinarayi Vijayan thinks he can rise against people's movement to preserve Sabarimala by arresting K Surendran, BJP's Thrissur district president and six others, then he is mistaken," Shah said.

With inputs from PTI
Among the top posts in civic bodies, BJP bagged 34, Congress 25 and Independent candidates claimed 23, neck and neck with at least one of the two national parties.

Dehradun: While both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are expressing satisfaction with the result of civic body polls in Uttarakhand, it is the Independent candidates that stole the show.

Among the top posts in civic bodies, BJP bagged 34, Congress 25 and Independent candidates claimed 23, neck and neck with at least one of the two national parties. Independents won more than half the wards across the state while the candidates of both the BJP and the Congress faced defeat in the home constituency of many a tall leader. These two are the biggest parties in the hill state. Until 2017 Assembly polls, when the BJP stormed to power by winning 57 of the 70 seats, Uttarakhand had a Congress government.

Eighty-four of 92 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in the state went to polls on Sunday. These included seven city corporations (Dehradun, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Kotdwar, Haldwani, Kashipur and Rudrapur), 39 Nagar Palikas and 38 Nagar Panchayats. ULB polls in Uttarakhand require a voter to not only elect a corporator for their ward but also the mayor or chairperson of the local governing body.

Voting for one ULBPokhri Nagar Panchayat in Chamoli districtwill be held again. State Election Commissioner Chandrashekhar Bhatt ordered re-polling when it was brought to his notice that ballot papers used at one polling booth there did not bear the signature of the election officer concerned.

Of the remaining 83 ULBs, BJP candidates won the ULB head's post in 34, Congress in 25, Independents in 23 and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in one. Candidates of Samajwadi Party (SP) and regional outfit Uttarakhand Kranti Dal couldn't win the top post in any civic body. Among 1,063 wards (result for one withheld), Independent candidates won 551, the BJP won 323, Congress won 181, BSP won in four, Aam Aadmi Party two and SP and Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) won a lone seat each. Thirty-six of these wards had a lone candidate.

In the biggest city corporation, Dehradun, the BJP won for the third time in a row. Its mayoral candidate Sunil Uniyal Gama beat Congress' three-time MLA and former minister Dinesh Agarwal. Gama polled 1.62 lakh votes and beat Agarwal by 35,632 votes.

Besides Dehradun, three other city corporations had the BJP in power. Now, five will have a BJP member as mayor and two will have a Congress mayor. The mayor post of Haridwar City Corporation was clinched by Congress candidate Anita Sharma in the home ground of Cabinet minister Madan Kaushik. Usha Chaudhary won the Kashipur Municipal Corporation.

High-profile defeats

In Haldwani city corporation, BJP's Jogendra Rautela (64,793 votes) beat Congress' Sumit Hridayesh (53,939 votes) in the race for the mayor's post and got elected for the job for the second straight term. Sumit is the son of Opposition Leader in Assembly and former state minister Indirya Hridayesh, who campaigned in Haldwani aggressively for these polls.

Kotdwar, where the mayor's seat was reserved for a woman, saw a battle between the better halves of BJP MLA Dalip Rawat and former Congress minister Surender Singh Negi; the latter's wife won. Though Kotdwar is the home constituency of state minister Harak Singh Rawat, the BJP candidate here came third.

Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat's Assembly constituency of Doiwala saw BJP candidate Nagina Rani, the chief minister's own pick, lose the election for Nagar Palika chairperson to the Congress candidate. In BJP state president Ajay Bhatt's home district of Almora too, it is the Congress that won the post of Nagar Palika chairperson. In Bhatt's home constituency of Ranikhet (he failed to win in 2017 Assembly poll), the BJP candidate failed to win the Nagar Palika chairperson's seat in Chiliyanaula. In Haridwar, state minister Madan Kaushikconsidered close to the chief ministercouldn't secure victory for the BJP candidate in the mayoral election. Former MLA Yashpal Benam of the BJP won election as the chairperson of Pauri Nagar Palika.

Parties respond

Bhatt told Firstpost he had already predicted that the BJP would emerge numero uno in these elections. He conceded that the party could have won more seats in Nagar Palikas and Panchayats. He said they would analyse and figure out where they were found wanting.

BJP MP from Haridwar and former Uttarakhand chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal claimed that the ULB poll results favour the BJP. He too said the party could have won many seats where Independent candidates won. He said he didn't get why the Congress was celebrating the victory of Independent candidates instead of introspecting.

Uttarakhand Congress president Pritam Singh said their party did well with the limited resources that were at their disposal. He noted that the party snatched Haridwar municipal corporation from the BJP and said the party's victory at Nagar Palika and Panchayat levels punctured the BJP's tall claims. Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat, currently a national general secretary, said these results are a red signal for the BJP. He said the party tried to use Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name to hide the state government's failure, but the electorate has made itself heard.

Political analyst Surendra Singh Arya said these results, where people elected more Independent candidates than BJP-Congress candidates combined, have given an opportunity to both the parties to introspect. He said not only are people questioning the state government's claim of zero corruption-governance, but the Congress' failure to capitalise on anti-incumbency sentiment owing to mismanagement has been exposed.

The author is a freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com
Reuters

A Singapore lawmaker hit out at Facebook on 20 November, saying it had reneged on a promise to help rein in fake news and calling for tougher regulations, which the social media firm has cautioned against.

The criticism follows Facebooks refusal this month of a government request to remove an online article about the city-states banks and Malaysias scandal-linked 1MDB state fund, which the government said was false and malicious.

Facebook has...given assurances that it would work closely with the Singapore authorities to swiftly address online falsehoods. And yet, when there is an actual falsehood that attacks Singapore, Facebook refuses to remove the content, Edwin Tong told parliament.

It was not immediately clear what assurances he was referring to.

It (Facebook) will allow itself to be a platform for the spread of lies, falsity, to poison and divide society through such lies, encourage xenophobia, and profit from that, added Tong, who is Singapores senior minister of state for law.

This months incident reinforces the need for legislation, said Tong, who is also on a panel of lawmakers that has recommended the government consider legislation to tackle the spread of online falsehoods or fake news.

Regarding its refusal to take down the post, Facebook earlier said in an emailed statement it did not have a policy that prohibits alleged falsehoods, apart from in situations where this content has the potential to contribute to imminent violence or physical harm.

Contacted for comment following Tongs remarks, a Facebook spokeswoman referred Reuters to the firms previous statement.

Also on Tuesday, Singapore police said in a statement they are investigating a local blog, The Online Citizen, in relation to an allegedly defamatory article.

The Online Citizen article...made serious allegations that the governments highest officers are corrupt and that the constitution has been tampered with, the police said, adding that laptops and handphones were seized in connection with the case.

The Online Citizens editor Terry Xu could not be immediately reached for comment.

Falsehoods



Singapores Infocomm Media Development Authority this month said Facebook had declined its request to take down a post linking to the 1MDB article by an Australian-based independent blogger.

Facebook has declined to take down a post that is clearly false, defamatory and attacks Singapore, using falsehoods, the law ministry said in a statement on its website at the time.

Facebook, which has its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore and recently unveiled plans to invest $1 billion in its first Asian data center in the city-state, has previously sparred with the government over fake news.

In March, Law Minister K Shanmugam questioned during a parliamentary debate whether social media networks were capable of regulating themselves, while senior Facebook executives pushed back at the idea of further laws to battle fake news.

Singapore ranks 151 among 180 countries rated by the World Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, a non-government group that promotes freedom of information.
Indo-Asian News Service

Google News has launched a new innovation challenge to help scribes and publishers in the Asia-Pacific region produce quality journalism in the digital age.

The Asia-Pacific Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge will fund selected projects up to $300,000 and finance up to 70 percent of the total project cost, that inject new ideas into the news industry.

"We are inviting proposals for projects aimed at increasing revenue from readers, including subscriptions, membership programmes, contributions and/or new digital products and services," Google News said in a statement late 20 November.

"A panel of Googlers and other tech industry executives will review the submissions and fund selected projects up to $300,000 and finance up to 70 per cent of the total project cost," said Kate Beddoe, Head of News and Publishing Partnerships.

Applications for the innovation challenge will open on 28 November and the deadline to submit is 9 January.

According to Google, in Asia-Pacific, journalists and publishers are increasingly grappling with questions over how quality journalism can thrive in the digital age.

"From Yangon to Manila, Sydney to New Delhi, they are experimenting with fresh approaches to reporting and new business models," said the company.

The funding will be reviewed against several criteria, including a "sharing component"  for example by publishing any findings or holding a seminar  so grantees can pass their knowledge on to others in the industry.

The move comes at a time when according to media reports, Google may shut down its Google News service in the European Union (EU) if a proposed "link tax" for using news stories comes into force in member countries.

According to the new copyright directive, adopted by the European Parliament on September 12, tech giants must pay for work of artists and journalists which they use.

"To put the rule changes into effect, individual member countries would have to draft local laws," said the report in The Guardian.

This is not the first time an attempt is being made to charge Google for links. In 2014, Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links. Google then decided to close down the service for Spanish consumers.
tech2 News Staff

Ahead of the general elections which are due to be held in India next year in April and May, to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha, the government has reportedly started fortnightly meetings which will be conducted with the social media companies Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Google to check the spread of misinformation and fake news on each of their platforms.

According to a report by The Economic Times, the home ministry is meeting officials of the four social media organisations this month and will inquire about their appointment of grievance redressal officers specifically for India.

We already know that in order to clamp down on fake news and misleading messages, WhatsApp had appointed a grievance officer for India, Komal Lahiri, who is based out of the US. WhatsApp had also detailed out the process for users to flag concerns and complaints, including those around fake news. You can now immediately report or write to the grievance officer. Head here to know how you can register complaints.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp also said that it would appoint a head of India operations by the year-end.

As for Google, the company has asked for an extension of the deadline to 30 November. The government, in a meeting last month, had asked the companies to appoint their officers latest by 9 November.

Twitter, on the other hand, in a comment made to the publication, said that the platform "appreciates the importance of the work being undertaken by the ministry of home affairs, and thanks them for their inclusive engagement. Discussions with the ministry are ongoing and we have no further details to share at this time. We care deeply about the issues of disinformation and nefarious manipulation of our platform and their potentially harmful effects."
Indo-Asian News Service

Despite mounting pressure from investors to step down as Facebook chairman as the social media firm faces intense scrutiny on data scandals, Mark Zuckerberg has said he has no plans to retire.

In an interview with CNN late on Tuesday, he said this was not the time for him to quit as Facebook shares ended at $132.43  down 40 per cent from its peak in July.

"That's not the plan. I'm not going to be doing this forever, but I'm not currently thinking that makes sense," said the Facebook CEO.

The interview came after the New York Times reported how Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg "ignored warning signs" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm to "dig up dirt" on competitors.

"I do run the company. I am responsible for everything that happens here. I don't think this point was about a specific PR firm; it's about how we act," Zuckerberg said during the interview.

"A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us," Zuckerberg told CNN.

The Times report also suggested that Facebook knew about Russian influence activities on its platform as early as spring 2016.

Facebook hired a firm called Definers Public Affairs to retaliate against or spread inflammatory information about its critics.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook's outgoing Head of Public Policy, has reportedly taken the blame for hiring the Definers.

According to a memo with TechCrunch, Schrage admitted having the company push negative narratives about competitors but denies asking or paying Definers to publish fake news.

Facebook didn't confirm the memo.

In the interview, Zuckerberg said there's no doubt that "we missed something really important" when it came to the Russian interference during the 2016 US election.

"It was not something we were expecting. I wish we understood it before 2016, before the Russians tried to do these information operations in the first place," he added.

Last week, Facebook investors increased pressure on Zuckerberg to step down as Chairman.

According to a report in The Guardian, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which owns a substantial stake in Facebook, "called on Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report".

"Facebook is behaving like it's a special snowflake. It's not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO," Kron was quoted as saying.

Another Facebook investor Natasha Lamb from Arjuna Capital said the combined role of chairman and chief executive means that "Facebook can avoid properly fixing problems inside the company.
tech2 News Staff

Earlier this month, Samsung unveiled its unnamed foldable smartphone at its developer conference. It now appears that Samsung is aiming to ship Bixby 3.0 with the foldable smartphone, which might be called the Galaxy F.

The announcement was made on 20 November, when Samsung hosted the Bixby Developer Day event inviting developers to expand and discuss on its AI assistants ecosystem. The event was held in Seoul, South Korea. It was announced that the company is working on a new version of Bixby thatll bring more features and services, which will be installed on the upcoming foldable phone.

It was also announced that the company will apparently manufacture as many as 1 million units of the device. The smartphone will be launched in March 2019 and will be priced as high as $1,700, which is about Rs 1,24,000.

The company CEO DJ Koh recently said that, "possibly when we start selling the foldable phone, it may be a niche market... but definitely, it will expand. I'm positive that we do need a foldable phone."

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."

The display on the tablet has a resolution of 1536 x 2152 pixels 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 which are rollable and stretchable. There is a possibility that we might see devices with such displays in a few years from now.
Indo-Asian News Service

Chinese electronics major Xiaomi on Tuesday announced it has opened a record 500 retail stores in rural parts of India.

Called Mi Stores and opened on October 29, these are similar to the bigger "Mi Home" stores currently operational in metro cities.

"The company created a Guinness record for opening the maximum number of stores in one single day. Xiaomi plans to open 5,000 Mi Stores by the end of 2019 that will create nearly 15,000 jobs," Manu Kumar Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi Global and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, told reporters here.

"This new business will forever change rural retail in India," he added.

Started with the online-only strategy, Xiaomi is fast expanding its presence in offline retail as well.

In September, the company launched its fourth flagship "Mi Home" experience store in the country, in Bengaluru, along with a new office.

With the purpose of strengthening its offline network further, Xiaomi said in September it wanted to open 100 "Mi Home" stores in 2018 itself.

The company grew to a new high on the back of its successful Redmi 5A and Redmi Note 5 Pro series and refreshed Redmi 6/A/Pro portfolio, said the report.

But the eight-year-old company wants to be recognised not as just another smartphone company and it began working towards this mission in 2014.

Along with its products in the smart home portfolio, it is also venturing into non-technology related segments like luggage, shoes, apparel and more.

Riding on its robust sales in India and Europe, China-based Xiaomi on Monday reported a 49.1 per cent increase in revenue for its third quarter of 2018 as net profit reached 2.48 billion yuan ($357.23 million).
tech2 News Staff

One of the most exciting technologies in science fiction that has eluded reality so far is the ability to zip through space at faster-than-light speeds.

But physicists think it may not stay that way forever. To the contrary, they are optimistic about taking on the challenge on a theoretical level, according to a report in the New York Times.

What science-fiction fans may know as the 'hyperdrive', physicists are calling a 'warp bubble'. A warp bubble would compress space in front of a spacecraft and expand the space behind it, Miguel Alcubierre, Director of the National Autonomous University of Mexicos Nuclear Sciences Institute told the Times.

The bubble would scrunch the space around it, and a starship in such a bubble would only 'appear' to be moving at speeds faster than light, while being stationary the whole time, the report said.

While hyperdrives in sci-fi work more or less like tools that can be powered on to allow a spacecraft to zip through space at extraordinary speeds, a warp drive would get the job done a little differently. It would shrink the distance in front of the spacecraft to a couple of inches, and expand the space behind it to several light-years of distance, and pop the spaceship out of the bubble, Alcubierre explains.

All the world's instruments have been tuned to make measurements based on the laws of nature, yet the bubble would have to defy these laws to work.

The hypothetical hyperdrive would have to sidestep the law of general relativity, according to which no object can move faster than the speed of light, Alcubierre said.

Physicists have also grown more optimistic about one of the critically important requirements of a hyperdrive technology  its energy needs.

From once theorizing it would need all the energy in the universe to proposing that it may need as much as little as a one or two-ton mass, physicists are more optimistic than ever about breaking the technology down to a proof of concept.

That said, even if the bubble were possible to create, researchers are unlikely to bring it into existence within our lifetimes, Alcubierre, a staunch advocate of the hypothetical warp bubble, told the Times.

He added, I would have to say that it is probably impossible...and even if it turns out to be possible, we are probably centuries away from being able to do it."
A video posted on social media purportedly filmed by one of the hundreds of attendees in Afghanistan's Kabul showed a large gathering listening to a recitation of the Koran before the explosion.

Kabul: Minutes after he took a seat among hundreds of religious scholars at a ceremony for the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Kabul, a huge explosion shook the room, throwing Ahmad Fareed to the floor.

Scattered around him were the bloodied bodies of turbaned men who had taken the full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life.

"It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh," Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries.

"My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving," he said.

At least 55 people were killed and 94 wounded when the bomber blew himself up in the middle of the banquet hall at the Uranus Wedding Palace on Tuesday evening - one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan in 2018.

A video posted on social media purportedly filmed by one of the hundreds of attendees showed a large gathering of men listening to a recitation of the Koran before an explosion triggered pandemonium.

On Wednesday morning, as cleaners prepared the multi-storey venue for more events, bloodied turbans, sandals, overturned chairs and broken glass still littered the cavernous room where the massacre happened.

The attack drew widespread condemnation in Afghanistan and abroad, with the United Nations describing it as an "atrocity".

US ambassador to Kabul John Bass said he was "sickened and deeply saddened" by the bombing, while the European Union delegation to Afghanistan said the explosion was "an attack on all of us, religious or not, who value freedom".

President Ashraf Ghani declared Wednesday a national day of mourning for the victims of the attack, which he described as an "unforgivable crime".

"Security at the wedding hall included a body search by an armed guard followed by physical checks by several religious students," said Obaidullah, who suffered multiple injuries to his face and body.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though the Taliban were quick to condemn the blast. The Islamic State group, which has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul this year, has not issued a statement.

It is not clear why the religious scholars were targeted on one of the holiest days in the Islamic calendar.

While Muslims around the world celebrate the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, some fundamentalists criticise the events as heretical innovations in Islam.

"Most of the people at the gathering were Sufis, a mystical branch of Islam," said Mehrab Danish, an adviser to the religious affairs minister.

"But it is too early to say they were targeted because they were followers of Sufism," he cautioned.

Sectarian militants in Pakistan have long targeted Sufis, but such attacks on the group are rare in Afghanistan.
A suicide bomber targeted a gathering of hundreds of Islamic scholars in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people as Muslims around the world marked the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Kabul: A suicide bomber targeted a gathering of hundreds of Islamic scholars in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people as Muslims around the world marked the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh said another 83 people were wounded in the attack, with 20 of them in critical condition and the toll likely to rise.

The suicide bomber was able to sneak into a wedding hall in Kabul where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the holiday.

No one immediately claimed the attack, but both the Taliban and a local Islamic State affiliate have targeted religious scholars aligned with the government in the past.

"The victims of the attack unfortunately are all religious scholars who gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad," said Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief.

He said police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security.

Mohammad Muzamil, a waiter at the wedding hall, said he had gone into the back to fetch water for the guests when he heard the explosion.

"Everything was covered with smoke and dust," he said. "There were dead bodies all around on the chairs, in large numbers."

Police sealed off roads leading to the scene of the attack. Hundreds of family members and relatives gathered at local hospitals, looking at lists of those killed and wounded that were posted outside.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing, calling it "an attack on Islamic values and followers of the Prophet Muhammad," and declaring Wednesday a day of mourning.

"It is an attack on humanity," Ghani said.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned the bombing and expressed condolences to the victims. Afghanistan and the United States have long accused Pakistan of harboring the Taliban, whose leadership is based there. Pakistan denies the allegations, and says it uses its limited influence over the group to encourage peace efforts.

The Islamic State group claimed a suicide bombing in June that killed at least seven people and wounded another 20 at a meeting of the country's top clerics in the capital.

The body of religious leaders, known as the Afghan Ulema Council, had issued a decree against suicide attacks and called for peace talks. IS said it had targeted "tyrant clerics" who were siding with the US-backed government.

The Taliban denied involvement in the June attack but they also denounced the gathering. Both militant groups want to overthrow the US-backed government and impose a harsh form of Islamic rule, but they are bitterly divided over leadership and ideology, and have clashed on a number of occasions.

Afghan security forces have struggled to combat the twin insurgencies since the US and NATO formally ended their combat mission in 2014, shifting to a support and counterterrorism role. President Donald Trump's decision last year to send in additional US forces has had little if any impact on the ground.

The Taliban carry out near-daily attacks targeting security forces and government officials across the country, while the IS affiliate has bombed gatherings of minority Shiites, killing hundreds of civilians.
Adopting the pact 'would risk encouraging illegal entry to Australia and reverse... hard-won successes in combating the people-smuggling trade', Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a joint statement with his home and foreign ministers.

Sydney: Australia's conservative government announced Wednesday it would reject a UN migration pact already denounced by the United States and several European countries.

Adopting the pact "would risk encouraging illegal entry to Australia and reverse... hard-won successes in combating the people-smuggling trade", Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a joint statement with his home and foreign ministers. Morrison was an architect of Australia's hardline policy of detaining asylum-seekers trying to reach the country by boat on remote Pacific islands.

The policy choked off what had been an active people-smuggling trade that saw hundreds of people die at sea trying to reach Australia. But hundreds of people have since been held for years in Papua New Guinea and Nauru under the program, which has been harshly criticised as inhumane by the United Nations and human-rights groups.

"We believe that the compact is inconsistent with our well-established policies and not in Australia's interest," the ministers said. They added the pact "would also be used by those who have sought to undermine Australia's strong border-protection laws and practices" in a jab at opposition parties which have been escalating calls for refugees to be released from Nauru and PNG's Manus Island.

The UN Global Compact for Migration was agreed in July after 18 months of negotiations and is due to be adopted next month. It lays out 23 objectives to open up legal migration and better manage migratory flows as the number of people on the move worldwide has increased to 250 million  three percent of the world's population.

The pact has already been rejected by the US administration of Donald Trump and conservative governments in Poland, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Morrison's minority government has been highlighting the issue of immigration as it prepares for national elections due by next May. Opinion polls show his conservative coalition trailing well behind the main opposition Labor Party.

Earlier this week Morrison announced he would also seek to slash legal migration into Australia, from the current official cap of 190,000 per year to around 160,000. He said the cut was needed to counter worsening congestion in the nation's main cities.
Charging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime with funding Iran's proxy terrorist groups, the Trump administration on Tuesday announced that action would be taken against a deceptive international network in which the Iranian regime, together with Russian companies, sends oil to Syria.

Washington: Charging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime with funding Iran's proxy terrorist groups, the Trump administration on Tuesday announced that action would be taken against a deceptive international network in which the Iranian regime, together with Russian companies, sends oil to Syria. The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated nine targets in an international network through which the Iranian regime, working with Russian companies, provides millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian government. The Assad regime, in turn, facilitates the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) for onward transfer to Hamas and Hezbollah, it alleged.

US sanctions prohibit material support to the Government of Syria, including shipments of oil to Syrian government-controlled ports, as well as material support to designated terrorist groups. The designations include Syrian national Mohammad Amer Alchwiki (Alchwiki) and his Russia-based company, Global Vision Group. Alchwiki and his company are central to the delivery of oil from Iran to Syria, and the transfer of funds to the IRGC-QF's lethal proxies, the Treasury said, adding that the designations also highlight the important role that officials of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) play in facilitating this scheme.

"The Iranian regime continues to prioritise spending money on fomenting terror over supporting its own people," Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Sigal Mandelker said. "This is yet another example of the regime using the proceeds of millions of barrels of its oil to fund terrorists and the murderous Assad regime to the detriment of its own people," he said.

Mandelker said the US will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking to evade its sanctions on Iranian oil. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments. "As we identify in this action, the Assad regime, in turn, funds Iran's proxy terrorist groups. Specifically, in this illicit network, the Iranian regime worked with Russian companies to provide millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian government," a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call.

The Treasury also issued an Advisory to the maritime community regarding the sanctions risks of shipping oil to the Government of Syria, including a non-exhaustive list of vessels that have delivered oil to Syria since 2016. "To assist Syria in paying Russia for this oil, Iran sends funds to Russia through Alchwiki and Global Vision Group. To conceal its involvement in these transactions, the CBI makes these payments to Mir Business Bank using Iran-based Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company (Tadbir Kish), the Treasury alleged.

During the call, the senior Trump administration official alleged that the Assad regime moved hundreds of millions of US dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force for Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. "At the centre of this network is a Syrian national Mohammad Amer Alchwiki, an international businessman, and his Russia-based company, Global Vision Group. Alchwiki and Global Vision Group assist with the delivery of oil from Iran to the Syrian regime, and also the funding of hundreds of millions of US dollars to Quds Force proxies, the official said.

Specifically, Alchwiki and Global Vision Group work with state-owned Russian company Promsyrioimport, which is a subsidiary of the Russian Ministry of Energy, to facilitate shipments of oil from the National Iranian Oil Company  or NIAC  to Syria, the official added. The oil is delivered to Syria through a number of vessels. These vessels routinely switch off their tracking devices to mask the fact that they are delivering illicit oil to Syria, the official noted. "The Iranian regime assists Syria in paying Russia for the oil. And to conceal its involvement in these transactions, the Central Bank of Iran makes payments for the oil using an Iran-based company called Tadbir Kish Medical and Pharmaceutical Company. This is done through Mir Business Bank, an Iranian bank in Russia that we designated two weeks ago, said the official.
By Luke Baker PARIS (Reuters) - International police body Interpol is expected to elect a senior Russian official as its next president on Wednesday, in a move that has provoked alarm in Europe and the United States about the risk of Kremlin meddling. Interpol's 194 member states, meeting in Dubai for their annual congress, will hold the election on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Lyon-based agency said, with a candidate needing two-thirds of the ballots cast to be elected. Multiple voting rounds are possible

By Luke Baker

PARIS (Reuters) - International police body Interpol is expected to elect a senior Russian official as its next president on Wednesday, in a move that has provoked alarm in Europe and the United States about the risk of Kremlin meddling.

Interpol's 194 member states, meeting in Dubai for their annual congress, will hold the election on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for the Lyon-based agency said, with a candidate needing two-thirds of the ballots cast to be elected. Multiple voting rounds are possible.

There are two official candidates, and write-ins are still possible, but the vote is widely expected to lead to Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk, a police major-general and currently one of Interpol's four vice-presidents, being chosen to succeed China's Meng Hongwei as president for a four-year term.

Meng disappeared in September during a trip to China. Days after his wife reported him missing, Chinese authorities said he was being investigated for taking bribes. He has not been seen since, but sent a letter to Interpol resigning.

The presidency of the body is largely ceremonial, with day-to-day work handled by Secretary-General Jurgen Stock of Germany, but it still commands influence. That has led to widespread concern in Europe and the United States about the possibility of Russia being able to exploit Interpol's power.

"Russia has consistently misused Interpol to pursue its political opponents," Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium and a leading member of the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

"(If) Prokopchuk takes charge, democratic and free countries may need to develop a parallel organisation (to Interpol). Worrying times for the international order."

"RED NOTICES"

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators this week accused Russia of exploiting the global body to settle scores and harass dissidents by issuing warrants, known as red notices, for their arrest.

They said the election of Prokopchuk, a senior Russian interior ministry official, would allow Moscow to step up such abuse, which has in the past targeted Bill Browder, a prominent Kremlin critic based in Britain.

Browder, a fund manager who has driven efforts to impose sanctions on Russia via the Magnitsky Act, was briefly arrested in Spain in May on a red notice. He said it would be "outrageous" if Prokopchuk was elected president.

"This particular individual has been responsible for trying to chase me down and have Interpol arrest me seven times," he told BBC radio. "All of a sudden, this guy is now put in charge of the institution he's been trying to abuse for the last six years."

Russian dissident and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Tuesday gave a news conference in London alongside Browder.

Appointing Prokopchuk "would not only damage the reputation of all Interpol member states, but would carry a grave threat to those who may be considered potential victims of political persecution," said Khodorkovsky.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the concerns raised by the U.S. senators, suggesting they were trying to influence the outcome of the Interpol vote.

"This is probably a certain kind of interference in the electoral process of an international organisation," he said.

Officials at Interpol declined to comment.

In an editorial this week, the London Times said Prokopchuk's likely election called into question the viability of Interpol, set up as the International Criminal Police Commission in 1923, before being renamed Interpol in 1956.

"If Interpol is to restore its credibility it has to introduce new safeguards," the paper wrote. "Interpol has to act more swiftly to weed out fake demands from states like Russia and China which manifestly do not respect the rule of law."

(Writing by Luke Baker; editing by Andrew Roche)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of subjecting several activists including some female human rights defenders detained since May to torture and sexual harassment. Over a dozen women's rights activists have been arrested since May, most of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom's male guardianship system, though some have since been freed

GENEVA (Reuters) - Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of subjecting several activists including some female human rights defenders detained since May to torture and sexual harassment.

Over a dozen women's rights activists have been arrested since May, most of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom's male guardianship system, though some have since been freed.

A group of U.N. experts last month called for the immediate release of six female human rights defenders it said were still being held incommunicado in the kingdom.

The May arrests followed an earlier crackdown on clerics, intellectuals, and activists in September 2017 in an apparent bid to silence potential opponents of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The torture allegations come with Saudi Arabia facing an international outcry over the killing last month of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

In a statement, London-based Amnesty said that according to testimony from three individuals it had gathered, some of the detained activists "were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging" that left some "unable to walk or stand properly".

In a similar statement, Human Rights Watch quoted "informed sources" as saying Saudi interrogators tortured at least three female Saudi activists. Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch said the detainees were subjected to sexual harassment.

"Only a few weeks after the ruthless killing of Jamal Khashoggi, these shocking reports of torture, sexual harassment and other forms of ill-treatment, if verified, expose further outrageous human rights violations by the Saudi authorities, Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Middle East research director, said in the statement.

Reuters could not verify the allegations and the rights groups did not clarify the identity of the individuals who provided testimony. Human Rights Watch said the sources were concerned that they and the activists would suffer reprisals if identified publicly.

A Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has in the past denied using torture and said that arrests were made on the basis of suspicious contacts with foreign entities and offering financial support to "enemies overseas".

Last June the Saudi government ended a decades-old ban on women driving cars as part of a bid to diversify the economy away from oil and open up Saudis' cloistered lifestyles.

But while many hailed the end of the ban on women driving as proof of a new progressive trend, it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing of Khashoggi was ordered at the "highest levels" of the Saudi government but has not directly accused Prince Mohammed. Saudi Arabia has denied that the prince ordered Khashoggi's killing.

(Reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Crooked Hillary - a moniker widely regarded by political strategists as being the most effective one Donald Trump came up with to attack Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US elections has come back to haunt an embattled White House which is into full-on damage control mode after Washington Post broke a bombshell story about Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a top White House adviser, sending hundreds of emails about government business from a personal email account last year.

New York: Crooked Hillary - a moniker widely regarded by political strategists as being the most effective one US president Donald Trump came up with to attack Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US elections has come back to haunt an embattled White House which is into full-on damage control mode after Washington Post broke a bombshell story about Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a top White House adviser, sending hundreds of emails about government business from a personal email account last year.

Overall, its beginning to look like payback time, and not just because of the Ivanka Trump email story. The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughters practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign", noted the Post story.

Ivanka Trump's father Donald Trump is underlining the difference between Hillary Trump's use and Ivanka Trump's - "They werent classified like Hillary Clinton," Trump said. "They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton, who deleted 33,000. She wasn't doing anything to hide her emails." Yes and no, because the story of Ivanka Trump's emails in a Trump-led White House isn't about the scale of use or the emails themselves, it's the hypocrisy. The joke's on Trump and the tweets are writing themselves.

America Oversight, the group that obtained the emails, has called on Congress to investigate and Democrats, who have a whopping lead in the House after the midterm elections, are only be too happy to follow through with a wave of aggressive oversight investigations into the Trump administration.

The presidents family is not above the law, and there are serious questions that Congress should immediately investigate, Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, told the Wall Street Journal.

President Trump and senior leaders in Congress have made it very clear that they view the use of personal email servers for government business to be a serious offence that demands investigation and even prosecution, and we expect the same standard will be applied in this case, Evers said.

"She's either criminally stupid or criminally arrogant, I don't know, maybe both, Paul Begala, former adviser to President Bill Clinton, told CNN, referring to Ivanka Trump.

Theres so much self enrichment going on!, Lock Her Up, is echoing on Twitter; the backlash has begun, #CrookedIvanka is a thing and all this at a time when Lock Her Up chants continue to reverberate at Trump rallies.

Democrats will have to handle this with care. They have subpoena power but if Ivanka Trump goes before any committee and emerges from, say, a 5 hour hearing, her performance will be hailed by her father as heroic and end up becoming a huge black eye for the Democrats.

Unlike most other First Daughters - think Chelsea Clinton, Sasha and Malia Obama from recent times - Ivanka Trump makes for an atypical character. She has rarely portrayed any hesitation about being the central act of the Trump drama. When Trump took office, she was already 35 and lording over the familys real estate empire and over the last two years, she has muscled her way into the White House power team despite major run-ins with top staffers. She held a seat for Donald Trump at the G-20 meetings, she sits in on diplomatic phone calls, sashayed into World Bank meetings and is wooed as a guest by heads of state who know nothing makes Trump happier than to see his daughter being treated like a royal career Barbie.

So, what next? The Trump administration has a special expertise in distraction games. When it sees a story blowing up, it's going to say these are not the droids youre looking for.
That Imran would respond to Trumps tweet is not surprising. After all, he has been known for his not-so-charitable views on Pakistans post-9/11 alliance with America.

The bitter Twitter spat between US president Donald Trump and Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has not only exposed the extremely shaky foundations on which their bilateral relationship stands, but also underlined the challenge of stabilising Afghanistan amidst talks of negotiated political solution to the Afghan crisis. Imran must have realised that misplaced bravado comes with a cost.

Trump said in a Fox News interview that Pakistanis dont do a damn thing for us, even though the US has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid. Imran took to Twitter to put the record straight, and asked the US to do soul-searching to get to the reasons for its failures in Afghanistan. Shireen Mazari, Pakistans minister for human rights, also jumped in the fray and accused Trump of suffering from perpetual historic amnesia. After an exchange of undiplomatic tweets between the two leaders, the US suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, sending a strong signal of American frustration with Pakistani policies. It would be a miracle if the rocky relationship between US and Pakistan could be stabilised any time soon.

Trump chose to up the ante at a time when the US is engaged in direct talks with the Afghan Taliban. Washington acknowledges that the role of Pakistans security establishment would be crucial in any Afghan peace process. There is near unanimity in all branches of the US government that Pakistans security establishment is capable of bringing the Afghan Taliban to the table to talk to the Kabul government directly as well to squeeze them to agree to a compromise deal. Under concerted American pressure, Pakistan has been forced to cooperate in the US-led efforts, albeit unwillingly.

Only last month, Islamabad released a number of high-profile Taliban prisoners, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. This move is widely interpreted as a US-directed measure directed at encouraging the Afghan Taliban to show seriousness in the peace talks. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo roped in Zalmay Khalilzad as special envoy for peace talks with the Afghan Taliban. The newly-appointed Khalilzad has already held two rounds of talks with the representatives of Afghan Taliban in Qatar.

Therefore, Trumps recent tweet was not a sudden move; it seems to be well-thought strategy to further pressurise Pakistans security establishment to deliver on Afghan front. Trump taunted Pakistan for sheltering Osama bin Laden and suggested that the presence of worlds most-wanted terrorist in a high-security zone was known to Pakistani establishment. One can only wonder the timing of revisiting the past by raking up this old issue other than to embarrass Pakistans security establishment. And Pakistan fell into the trap. Pakistans foreign office had to issue a public statement that it was Pakistans intelligence cooperation that provided the initial evidence to trace bin Laden.

It was not the first time that Trump accused Pakistan of playing a double game. Ties between the Cold War-era allies strained after Trump, while announcing his South Asia policy in August 2017, lambasted Pakistan for providing safe havens to agents of chaos that kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has much to lose by harbouring terrorists. Trump was equally stringent in his New Year tweet in which he accused Islamabad of being deceitful.

The tempering down of hostility these past months may have prompted Pakistani foreign minister to claim that Washington was keen to reset ties with Islamabad. But Trumps latest outburst has shattered the myth that bilateral ties could get back on track without Pakistan changing its Afghan policies. Trumps message is clear. His administration would further toughen its stand towards Pakistans security establishment.

That Imran would respond to Trumps tweet is not surprising. After all, he has been known for his not-so-charitable views on Pakistans post-9/11 alliance with America. Before becoming prime minister, he frequently spoke in a harsh anti-American tone. In January, he wrote: We became a US proxy for a war against the Soviet Union when it entered Afghanistan and we allowed the CIA to create, train, and arm jihadi groups on our soil and a decade later we tried to eliminate them as terrorists on US orders.

Thus, prime minister Imran responding to Trump's tweets is a continuation of candidate Imrans trademark anti-US rhetoric: Instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat for their failures, the US should do a serious assessment of why, despite 140,000 Nato troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops and reportedly $1 trillion spent on war in Afghanistan, the Taliban today are stronger than before.

But Imran has got his facts wrong. The answer to his question is not difficult, if one is not in Islamabad or Rawalpindi. The reasons behind the prolongation of Afghan war can be traced as much to American ineptitude and ethnic disunity in Afghanistan as to Pakistans not-so-secret support to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Imran replied, No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pakistan decided to participate in the US war on terror. He must be aware that Pakistan chose to be on Americas side, because the US left General Pervez Musharraf very few options.

Pakistan continues to be obstinate when it comes to Afghan Taliban. Rawalpindi has taken no serious steps to address the core American concerns: that Pakistan tolerates extremist groups which use violence against Pakistans neighbours. Pakistans civilian and military leadership has made numerous promises of cooperation, but they have not resulted in ground action.

There is no doubt that Trumps South Asia policy has brought US-Pakistan relationship to a historical low. It is even worse than what it looked like in the 1990s when Pakistan was under stringent American sanctions. But Islamabad cannot blame anyone for recent American hostility. Trumps demand for compliance is not unusual. While Pakistan suffered a great deal from terrorism by Islamist and jihadist elements, Rawalpindi has also enabled terrorist groups that frequently target Pakistans two neighbours: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After years of dithering, Pakistans security forces have taken tough action against those terrorists that threaten the Pakistani State. But what about the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and all other violent outfits whose main focus is not Pakistan, but its neighbours?

The accusations and counter-accusations have squeezed the space to find common ground. Pakistans diplomatic and military officials have been consumed by issuing demarche after demarche to their American counterparts, to no avail. What they need is the opposite: address US concerns.

Just days before his Twitter war with Trump, Imran emphatically justified his innumerable U-turns on critical national and international issues. If he hopes to bring peace and tranquility to the volatile borders by engaging cooperatively with estranged neighboursAfghanistan and Indiathen he must convince the generals in Rawalpindi to make a genuine U-turn in Pakistans Afghan policy. Because the U-turn taken by Musharraf immediately after 9/11 attacks was only a tactical move to prevent American fury from wiping out Pakistans strategic investment: the Taliban.
By Krisztina Than and Kole Casule BUDAPEST/SKOPJE (Reuters) - Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who fled abroad after being sentenced to two years in prison on corruption-related charges, said on Tuesday that he had been granted political asylum in Hungary. Macedonian police had issued an arrest warrant for Gruevski, who resigned in 2016 after a decade in power, after he failed to show up to begin his sentence, following a Nov.

By Krisztina Than and Kole Casule

BUDAPEST/SKOPJE (Reuters) - Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski, who fled abroad after being sentenced to two years in prison on corruption-related charges, said on Tuesday that he had been granted political asylum in Hungary.

Macedonian police had issued an arrest warrant for Gruevski, who resigned in 2016 after a decade in power, after he failed to show up to begin his sentence, following a Nov. 9 court ruling against his motion for a reprieve.

"Today the Republic of Hungary, an EU and NATO member state, responded positively to my previously submitted request to obtain political asylum due to political persecution in the Republic of Macedonia," Gruevski wrote on his Facebook page.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in a reply to Reuters questions that Gruevski was convicted of misuse of office by Macedonian courts after a "thorough and transparent legal process".

"In addition, Mr. Gruevski is indicted in four pending criminal cases. We believe it is appropriate for the Macedonian legal process to proceed and for Mr. Gruevski to be held accountable within the Macedonian justice system," the spokesperson added.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Idok reported without naming its sources that the Hungarian Immigration and Asylum Office had established that the legal conditions to give Gruevski asylum had been met.

Officials at the immigration agency were unavailable for comment. A government spokesman said Hungary "has been in compliance with the...rules" with respect to Gruevski's case, without elaborating.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban supported the fellow right-wing nationalist Gruevski in the run-up to Macedonia's 2017 election and praised his party's efforts to halt migrants passing through the Balkans to western Europe.

Orban's office earlier said it considered Gruevski's asylum request to be "solely a legal issue" to be handled by the competent authority.

The Macedonian Justice Ministry said it would send to Budapest a request for Gruevski's extradition.

"The government expects that the authorities in Budapest will unconditionally accept the request for extradition and in accordance with international law, as a member state of NATO and the EU, will facilitate the return of Gruevski to Macedonia," the government in Skopje said in a statement.

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs, Krisztina Than in Budapest and Kole Casule in Skopje, Editing by Mark Heinrich, William Maclean)

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(Reuters) - A Russian company whose accountant was charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to meddle in U.S. elections sued Facebook Inc on Tuesday, claiming it is a legitimate news firm and its Facebook account should be restored

(Reuters) - A Russian company whose accountant was charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to meddle in U.S. elections sued Facebook Inc on Tuesday, claiming it is a legitimate news firm and its Facebook account should be restored.

The Federal Agency of News LLC, known as FAN, and its sole shareholder, Evgeniy Zubarev, filed the lawsuit in the federal court in the Northern District of California, seeking damages and an injunction to prevent Facebook from blocking its account.

Facebook deleted the company's account in April as it purged pages and accounts associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election.

FAN and Zubarev said they were improperly swept up in Facebook's purge.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

"FAN is an independent, authentic and legitimate news agency which publishes reports that are relevant and of interest to the general public," the company said in the lawsuit.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Richard Chang)

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By Humphrey Malalo and George Obulutsa NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer and wounded five people in Kenya in an attack that has brought fears of an upsurge in activity by militant Islamists.

By Humphrey Malalo and George Obulutsa

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer and wounded five people in Kenya in an attack that has brought fears of an upsurge in activity by militant Islamists.

Police and residents said men armed with AK-47 rifles seized the 23-year-old from a guesthouse in Chakama, a small town south of the border with Somalia and near the coast, late on Tuesday.

Police said no group had claimed responsibility.

The Italian charity the woman was working for, Africa Milele, posted a message on its website saying: "There are no words to comment on what is happening. Silvia, we are all with you." The group says it helps orphaned children.

Tourism is vital for Kenya's economy but it suffered in the early part of the decade after a series of abductions and attacks blamed on Somali militant group al Shabaab that culminated in a raid on a shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013 in which more than 60 people were killed.

The industry has since recovered and authorities say they have taken steps to thwart attacks.

The Ministry of Tourism said security had been stepped up for both residents and tourists.

"This is an isolated incident that occurred well away from any popular tourist areas," the ministry said in a statement.

Two witnesses told Reuters they heard the gunmen speaking Somali. "There were three attackers and they targeted the Italian lady," said Chad Joshua Kazungu.

Ronald Kazungu, who helped the Italian volunteer by documenting her work through photography, said the gunmen made clear she was their target.

Six of them followed her to her room at a guesthouse where she was staying and Kazungu said he failed in his attempt to protect her after one gunman, who was holding the volunteer by her throat, hit him with a club when he tried to intervene.

The attackers opened fire as they left, hitting two children, two teenagers and a man. A 10-year-old boy was shot in the eye and a 12-year-old was hit in the thigh, police said.

On Wednesday a police helicopter circled over the green and yellow guesthouse.

"SMALL SHAKE-UP"

Tour operators said the attack would have only a limited impact on the sector.

"The European market might have a small shake-up but Malindi is 500 km (300 miles) from Nairobi so I don't expect the safari industry to be affected," said Robert Katithi, sales director from Go Kenya Tours and Safaris.

Chakama in Kilifi region is 60 km inland from the coastal resort of Malindi. In 2011 and 2012 there were a series of abductions by al Shabaab, a group linked to al Qaeda, closer to the border with Somalia.

Gunmen grabbed a wheelchair-bound French woman from her home on the northern island of Manda in 2011 weeks after pirates killed a British man and kidnapped his wife from another resort island. The French woman died, while the English woman was released after a ransom was paid.

At the time, the government blamed al Shabaab, which has launched attacks inside Kenya in retaliation for its military interventions in Somalia. The militants denied responsibility.

Armed men kidnapped four aid workers and killed a driver at Kenyas Dadaab refugee camp in 2012.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said it was looking into reports of the attack.

(Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri, Hereward Holland, David Lewis, John Ndiso and Baz Ratner in Nairobi and Giulia Segreti in Rome; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Janet Lawrence)

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Calls for greater transparency have been made in Parliament and among the top-most levels of the State Bank of Pakistan

To most Pakistan-watchers, the sight of Prime Minister Imran Khan jetting around the world looking for assistance in reducing its financial ask from the International Monetary Fund, has been a little puzzling. After all, Pakistan has been in debt before, and it has so far not led to such desperation from the political leadership. The answer to that came this week, when an IMF mission led by Harald Finger concluded its visit to Pakistan.

Reports following the end of the visit indicated that the IMF has demanded among other things, a full disclosure of the extent of its debt to China in carrying out projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. There was warning that the lending body may insist on such terms. Now it seems to be set in stone. That's not something Beijing is going to like at all. It's also extremely awkward for Islamabad. Its delegation was only recently in China to negotiate a relief package for the country.

At one level, it's hardly surprising that the international lender is asking for a good look at the books. As Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde was quoted earlier at a news conference saying that the IMF would always want "a complete understanding and absolute transparency about the nature, size, and terms of the debt that is bearing on a particular country", with a view to assessing "debt sustainability". In simple words, the IMF is not in the business of backing bad debts and it is certainly under no obligation to help Pakistan with its payments to China, nor will it hesitate in demanding an end to unsustainable debt.

Unlike what most commentators are projecting, IMF demands are unlikely to be at the behest of the US. Lenders and banks anywhere will ask questions of borrowers. And dont forget that the IMF had earlier welcomed Chinese investment as a timely leg-up for the ailing Pakistan economy.

The demand to open the books on the BRI will fall on fertile soil even in Pakistan. Calls for greater transparency have been made in Parliament  including by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf when in Opposition  and among the top-most levels of the State Bank of Pakistan. The bank's quarterly reports have reflected the unease at the level of borrowing, particularly in having to draw up debt sustainability projections on the basis of whatever little information it was able gather.

Worse, as The Dawn reports, even the payment mechanism involved in Chinese projects were unknown to the bank, resulting in a significant under-reporting of imports from China because many of the payments were not routed through the countrys banking system. That means there were routes of payment that were known only to those actually concerned in the transfers  on both sides. This is going to be embarrassing, to say the least.

There are certainly some curious points about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)  some of which are not unexpected, given that it is a business initiative and not a charitable enterprise. For instance, Pakistani scholars point out that Chinese projects inevitably have Chinese contractors executing them, with Chinese machinery imported, ensuring that the money flows back to Beijing. Thats something that can be said of many NGOs operating in Afghanistan as well.

What is surprising however is that even manpower is imported from China, leading to dismay not only among locals hoping for work, but economic planners working out unemployment charts. Then are the official statements that hint at an unseemly eagerness to virtually give away important assets. Last year, alarm in the Senate led to questions being asked of the Minister of Ports and Shipping Mir Hazil Bizenjo. The minister had then stated that 91 percent of the revenues generated by Gwadar Deep Sea Port, arguably the cherry on the top of CPEC, would go to China, for the next 40 years.

In a recent instance, a Pakistani Cabinet minister pointed out that even the "ladder and furniture" in a power plant had been imported from China. There's much more  exorbitant tax concessions, Special Economic Zones that tended to shut out local manufacturers, all of which under terms that have been conducted under a cover of secrecy.

That the PTI government was equally aghast at the extent and nature of borrowing was apparent from the incautious comment by Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment Abdul Razzak Dawood that the CPEC needed to be re-negotiated or at least suspended for a year. This rattled the markets, especially since the comment came just after the visit of State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, where the latter appeared to defend CPEC to the media. Later, the government has lowered its slice of investment in the railways by $2 billion citing heavy burden of loans.

China has clearly been stung by the criticism. Wang's visit attempted to explain that Pakistans debt to the IMF was far more than it owed to China, claiming that the CPEC has already created 70,000 jobs in Pakistan. Later a Chinese diplomat based in Pakistan was in a very public spat with journalist Cyril Almeida on criticism of the CPEC. Global Times also chose to underline that "Criticism of the CPEC is proof of its progress", reacting to earlier criticism of a debt trap. It was also rumoured that the visiting Pakistani prime minister was given a lecture by Chinese officials on uncalled-for remarks by his ministers. Whether or not that was true, the tone of remarks during this first visit of Imran to China was markedly cold.

Given the scale of debt, which is around $9 billion in the current year, Islamabad has little choice but to give in to IMF demands. The Fund is a more than discreet body, but even so, chances of the exorbitant deals driven by China are bound to leak. Such leaks come at a very difficult time, when there are rising instances of countries coming to grief on the backs of exorbitantly executed Chinese loans. Apart from Sri Lanka and the Maldives, both of whom are heavily in debt to China, are other instances like Laos where the Chinese-built high speed railway project is likely to severely impact its finances.

This spate of failures endangers the whole "Belt and Road" concept, which lies at the heart of reenergising the Chinese economy. Beijing simply cant afford such negative publicity at any time, but particularly when it has to stave off a trade war. Beijings alternative is to seek out more financially stable countries in which to invest, on the basis of more equitable terms and fairer trading arrangements. Such countries  like India  may drive a harder bargain, but in the long run may prove to be far more profitable for Chinese companies. Beijing may do well to realise that the time for an East India Company Mark II has long gone. Business is welcome, but not a weaponised yuan.
US media reported that the cancelled conference between Boeing and client companies was meant to address questions surrounding control systems on the Lion Air 737-MAX. 'Boeing has been - and continues to - engage with our customers,' a spokesman for the US aircraft manufacturer told AFP. 'We continue to schedule meetings to share information.'

Washington: Boeing on Tuesday insisted it would share any information to emerge from an investigation into the crash of one of its newest planes in Indonesia last month, amid reports a telephone conference with its customers had been cancelled.

US media reported that the cancelled conference between Boeing and client companies was meant to address questions surrounding control systems on the Lion Air 737-MAX. "Boeing has been - and continues to - engage with our customers," a spokesman for the US aircraft manufacturer told AFP. "We continue to schedule meetings to share information."

Last month's crash killed 189 people when Lion Air flight JT 610 plunged into the Java Sea on 29 October, less than 20 minutes after leaving Jakarta on a routine flight to Pangkal Pinang. There were no survivors. Media reports said Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg had sent a message to staff on Monday insisting that the company leadership had not concealed any information relating to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) which was designed to prevent the aircraft stalling.

"I don't have any additional comment on the memo," the company's spokesman told AFP. "The problem of the MAX is linked to its hybrid design," an aeronautics expert, who asked not to be identified, told AFP. "Boeing had to make a number of choices, and above all compromises in the area of avionics and the flight command system during development of this plane," he said.

The expert added the main problem with the MAX was the marriage of older and newer control systems which were installed to make it competitive with rival manufacturers. "That could have been a not insignificant factor in the response of the crew," who seem not to have understood the role of the MCAS in the chain of events that led up to the crash.

Last week, a US airline pilots union, the APA, said that companies and pilots had not been informed of certain changes in the aircraft control system. It said it had passed on new piloting directives to flight crews regarding possible erroneous information about a so-called "Angle of Attack" sensor that could have been linked to the Lion Air crash.
By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke said on Tuesday that the deadliest wildfires in California's history were partly due to lawsuits from environmentalists who have sought to stop forest management practices, such as forest thinning.

"Radical environmental groups that would rather burn down the entire forest than cut a single tree or thin the forest," have brought lawsuits to stop forest management, Zinke told reporters in a teleconference about the California wildfires. "Yes, I do lay it on the feet," of environmentalists, he said.

Remains of 79 victims have so far been recovered since the Camp Fire erupted on Nov. 8 and largely obliterated the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people.

Zinke did not name specific groups, saying he did not want to finger point. He said other factors, such as hotter temperatures, historic drought conditions, and plenty of dead and dying trees also were also to blame.

Randi Spivak, lands director for the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has sued the government over forest practices, said there have been just 38 lawsuits over the federal government's 576 forest management decisions involving California from 2009 to 2017.

"When Zinke says it is due to extreme environmentalists he has no basis in fact," Spivak said. She said climate change and increased development of forest zones prone to wildfires caused the destruction.

Zinke first blamed environmentalists in an interview on Breitbart News after visiting communities hit by the California wildfires.

Another environmentalist said blaming green groups was easier than curbing emissions linked to higher temperatures and droughts. "The only radicals here are Trump administration officials who are exploiting a climate tragedy to try to benefit their friends in the timber industry," said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice.

FOREST THINNING AFTER INSECT, DISEASE DAMAGE

Germany was a model of forest management, Zinke said. President Donald Trump, while visiting California, said Finland's President Sauli Niinisto had recently told him the country rarely has wildfires because "they spend a lot of time raking and cleaning and doing things" to clear the forest floor. Niinisto has said raking did not come up in his conversation with Trump.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said forest management practices need to be sped up, and he hoped that U.S. agencies could get more authority to do so under a farm bill being debated. "There are things we can do, we need the authority to do that," he said.

The Department of Agriculture's Forest Service would like to expand the so-called "good neighbour authority" it has with U.S. states to Native American tribes, counties and other partnerships to protect homes and lives through cooperative agreements or contracts, Perdue said.

The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service would also like to expand categorical exclusions that allow forest thinning in areas damaged by insects or diseases to prevent fires, he added.

But Perdue said it could take years for authorities to catch up on forest management, such as thinning out the fuel of dead trees and dry underbrush, and improving emergency roads.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Bill Berkrot)

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The murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a one-time insider-turned critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a resident of the US, in the Saudi consulate in Turkey has spurred a wave of international anger against Saudi Arabia

Washington: US President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with Riyadh and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of the US and the world, a stand criticised as a "betrayal of American values."

The murder of Khashoggi, a one-time insider-turned critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a resident of the US, in the Saudi consulate in Turkey and dismembering of his body has spurred a wave of international anger against Saudi Arabia and its rulers.

The US had last week imposed sanctions on 17 individuals of Saudi Arabia for serious human rights abuse resulting from their roles in the killing of 59-year-old Khashoggi at the kingdom's Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Khashoggi's death on rogue agents but denied claims that the crown prince had knowledge of the operation.

Trump essentially argued that although the murder of Khashoggi was "terrible" and could not be condoned, it did not merit the disruption of a strategic relationship he has elevated to extraordinary levels.

"We're not going to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in order to let Russia and China have them ... it's a very simple equation for me. I'm about to make America great again," Trump told reporters.

"King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump had earlier said in a statement that immediately drew sharp criticism from his political opponents and the media.

Reacting to the president's comments, Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez issued a statement on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The two called on Trump to focus a second investigation specifically on the crown prince so as to "determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation" of human rights.

The Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a contributor, said President Trump's latest statement on the dissident journalist was a "betrayal of American values."

"President Trump on Tuesday confirmed what his administration has been signalling all along: It will stand behind the Saudi crown prince even if he ordered the brutal murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi," the editorial board of the Post said in a stinging editorial.

"Mr Trump has betrayed American values in service to what already was a bad bet on the 33-year-old prince," it said, while terming his statement as "crude".

Responding to questions from reporters at the White House before leaving for Florida to spend his Thanksgiving holidays, Trump said his decision was all about America first.

"Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down. Right now, we have low oil prices, or relatively I'd like to see it go down even lower," he said.

He denied allegations that this was at the expense of human rights. "At some point, things very positive, frankly, could happen with Iran, but we also need a counterbalance. And Israel needs help also. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake," Trump warned.

The president refuted The Post's allegations that by taking such a decision, he was putting his personal and commercial interests ahead of national interests.

"Well, I have nothing to do with Saudi  just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't take money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less," he said.

"I will tell you and as most of you know, being president has cost me a fortune and that's okay with me," he said.

"All I do is focus on this country and making great deals for this country. I don't focus on making great deals for myself because I don't care anymore," Trump added.

Saudi Arabia, Trump said, is buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of things from the US. "If I say we don't want to take your business, if I say we're going to cut it off, they will get the equipmentmilitary equipment and other thingsfrom Russia and China," he said, adding that in such a case the two countries would be "very, very happy" because right now the US is doing "very well" against China.

"We're doing very well against everybody including Russia. I'm going to keep it that way. I'm not going to tell a country that is spending hundreds of billions of dollars and has helped me do one thing very importantlykeep oil prices down so that they're not going to put $100 and $150 dollars a barrel," he said.

Noting that the oil prices right now are in a great shape, Trump insisted that he is not going to destroy the world economy.

"I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," he added.
Defying intense pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom, claiming it would be a 'foolish' move that would only benefit Russia and China.

Washington: President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

Defying intense pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom, claiming it would be a "foolish" move that would only benefit Russia and China.



Trump said US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi's murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October and who planned it. Since the murder, Trump has taken varying positions on how to react, including possible sanctions.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.

His comments contradicted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which believes Khashoggi's death was ordered directly by the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler widely known by his initials MBS.

Trump was quickly accused by Democratic lawmakers of undermining his own intelligence agencies and failing to confront Saudi Arabia over a human rights atrocity. "Human rights is more than just a phrase, it has to mean something. And that means standing up and condemning a brazen murder by a foreign government. Everyone who played a role in this killing must be held accountable," Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have urged Trump to drop his support for MBS over the Khashoggi case, but the president has been reluctant.

Trump said on Tuesday that both Saudi Arabia's King Salman and MBS "vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder," and that the truth may never be known.

He also stressed that Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, is an important business partner and a "great ally" in the fight against Iranian power in the Middle East. "The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said.

On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said of the statement: "Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse Iran of every sort of malfeasance he can think of."

Congressman Adam Schiff, who is expected to become the leader of the House of Representatives' intelligence committee in January, said the United States should immediately end support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, suspend arms sales to the kingdom, and reduce its reliance on Riyadh in the Middle East.

"The president adds to his track record of ignoring his own intelligence agencies, and undermining American values at home and abroad, by giving Saudi Arabia a pass for the brutal and premeditated murder of a US resident and journalist. Outrageous," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said.

Republicans' Criticism

Some of Trump's fellow Republicans have also vowed to break with him and push for firmer US action against Saudi Arabia.

Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi's death.

The legislation hits human rights violators with freezes on US assets, US travel bans, and prohibitions on Americans doing business with them.

Trump has placed the alliance with Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East policy, and it was the first country he visited after becoming president in 2017.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump ally, said there will be bipartisan support for sanctions against Saudi Arabia, "including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms."

"While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behaviour of the crown prince  in multiple ways  has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," Graham said.

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has developed a close relationship with MBS, and both he and Trump have tried to maintain the alliance.

Trump said on Tuesday he would not suspend arms sales to Riyadh. "If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries - and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!" Trump said.

Representative Eliot Engel, who has the power to block arms deals as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States should use its ability to sell weapons to the Saudis as leverage to influence Riyadh's behaviour. "The reality is that the Saudis couldnt simply buy their weapons somewhere else," Engel said in a statement. "It would take years for the Saudi military to re-equip with Russian or Chinese weapons."

When Trump mentions the $110 billion package with Riyadh last year, he often adds that "it's 500,000 jobs."

But arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia while keeping up to 18,000 existing US workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome industry experts say is unlikely.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Trump's support for Saudi Arabia. The United States was obligated to adopt policies that furthered US national security interests, Pompeo told a news conference following a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington.

Cavusoglu said that Turkey is not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it is receiving from Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's murder, and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry.

(Reporting by Mike Stone; additional reporting by David Alexander, Susan Heavey, Mohammad Zargham, Patricia Zengerle and Richard Cowan; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

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TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan authorities on Tuesday forcibly disembarked more than 90 migrants who had refused to leave a cargo ship that rescued them before docking in a port west of Tripoli, a coast guard commander said.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan authorities on Tuesday forcibly disembarked more than 90 migrants who had refused to leave a cargo ship that rescued them before docking in a port west of Tripoli, a coast guard commander said.

The United Nations put the number of disembarked migrants at 79, saying in a statement "the humanitarian community is saddened by the turn of events". The Panama-flagged "Nivin" vehicles carrier rescued them and other migrants off the Libyan coast 10 days ago as their boat began sinking and brought them to Misrata.

Once there, 14 disembarked willingly but, in the first documented case of its kind, the other 92 refused to leave.

"A joint force raided the cargo ship and used rubber bullets and tear gas to force (them off the ship)," the commander of the central region coastguards, Tawfiq Esskair, told Reuters by phone.

Some had been injured during the disembarkation but were now "in good condition" after treatment in hospital, and all had been taken to a detention centre in the city, he said.

The operation had been carried out under the auspices of Libya's attorney general, he added.

Diplomats from some migrants' countries of origin such as Sudan and Somalia had tried to negotiate with the migrants to leave the ship, which had been transporting cars. Libyas western coast has been a main departure point for migrants fleeing wars and poverty and hoping for new lives in Europe.

But since last year, heavy pressure from Italy - which had been bearing the brunt of arrivals - has resulted in the disruption of coastal smuggling networks and the withdrawal of charity rescue ships.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Both Pakistan and the IMF still have a wide gap in their positions on the need for the increase in electricity tariff, upward revision in the revenue target and additional tax measures on matters relating to Chinese assistance and its impact  both inflow and outflow.

Islamabad: Cash-strapped Pakistan said on Tuesday that "substantive progress" was made with the visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation to develop an understanding about the country's balance of payment issue, amid reports that the global lender sought complete disclosure of Chinese financial support to the country and hiking of energy prices and levying more taxes.

The IMF delegation, led by Harald Finger, visited Pakistan from 7-20 November and held extensive talks with officials after Pakistan formally applied the bailout package, the Finance Ministry said in a statement. It said the discussions covered all sectors of the economy, as Finance Minister Asad Umar chaired the concluding session with the IMF team on Tuesday.

"Substantive progress has been made by the Government of Pakistan and the IMF Mission towards developing a common understanding on the policy and structural reforms framework for the prospective IMF programme, including fiscal and monetary measures, corrective interventions for balance of payments sustainability, pro-poor spending, governance and development of a business-friendly environment," the ministry said.

It further said, "positive engagement with the IMF will continue over the coming weeks to finalise the programme with the Fund."

It said that Pakistan acknowledges and appreciates the support that the IMF is providing in achieving the government's broad-based development agenda aimed at enhancing the social and economic well-being of the people of Pakistan.

The IMF also said that "significant progress" was made toward reaching an understanding on policy priorities and reforms that could be supported by a financial arrangement with it. Finger said the IMF will continue its discussion with Pakistan as the latest meeting in Islamabad remained inclusive, without announcing new dates for the next round of talks.

He said there has been broad agreement on the need for a comprehensive agenda of reforms and policy actions aimed at reducing the fiscal and current account deficits, bolstering international reserves, strengthening social protection, enhancing governance and transparency, and laying the foundations for a sustainable job-creating growth path.

As the mission wrapped up its talks, local media reported about key differences between the two sides over the conditions by the IMF. The IMF proposed tough conditions like a further increase in energy prices, more taxes and complete disclosure of Chinese financial support for any assistance, Dawn reported.

Finance Minister Asad Umar had acknowledged on Monday that the talks were moving ahead positively but there were still differences. "There are still gaps in the position of the IMF and the position that we have, Umar said after meetings with the IMF team.

He said that $1 billion of the $3 billion committed by Saudi Arabia had been remitted to the State Bank of Pakistan Monday and the remaining $2 billion would follow over the next few days.

Pakistan looks forward to a bailout of about $6 billion for averting its balance of payments crisis.

Citing its sources, the paper said the two sides had a wide gap in their positions on the need for the increase in electricity tariff, upward revision in the revenue target and additional tax measures on matters relating to Chinese assistance and its impact  both inflow and outflow.

The sources said the IMF also demanded that the provincial governments finance the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), instead of the federal government, and wanted committed cash surpluses to minimise the consolidated fiscal deficit.

The sources said the IMF was insisting on revising the revenue target upward to Rs 4.75 trillion for the current year  more than an eight percent increase from the existing target of Rs 4.39 trillion. Practically, this means raising about Rs 360 billion additional revenue from the remaining seven months of the current fiscal year.

Umar, according to the sources, told the IMF team that the revenue target could be increased at best to Rs 4.5 trillion.

Regarding the Chinese financing, he said there was complete transparency in the Chinese assistance and whatever the external debt was would have to be shared with the IMF as part of the programme.

The sources told the paper that the IMF mission wanted a clear roadmap for the elimination of power sector circular debt that currently stood at Rs 1.2 trillion and welcomed administrative measures to recover some arrears, but insisted on further increasing electricity rates for full cost recovery of the power supply.

They said the IMF team was not satisfied with the power sector reforms plan and wanted the government to surrender its powers to set electricity tariff and let these be independently dealt with by the power regulator.

Pakistan's current account deficit widened 43 percent to $18 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June, while the fiscal deficit has ballooned to 6.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Citing sources, the paper said the IMF was very critical of the fiscal federalism arrangements at present and noted with concern that the Centre had transferred all profitable taxes to the provinces while keeping all necessary expenditures of provincial nature as a federal responsibility.

The IMF mission also sought a complete market-based free float of the exchange rate and complete independence to the State Bank of Pakistan. The sources said the IMF also suggested an increase in the GST rate.
By Karen Freifeld (Reuters) - U.S.

By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday.

Giuliani said in a statement that "much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry."

But he added that the president provided "unprecedented cooperation" and that it was time to "bring this inquiry to a conclusion."

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

When Mueller was appointed special counsel in May 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the probe would include any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation into possible collusion between Trumps campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow and has called the Mueller investigation a "witch hunt." Russia also has denied collusion.

Giuliani told Reuters earlier that Trump would respond to questions about whether his campaign conspired with Moscow, not queries related to whether he sought to obstruct the probe while in office, which Mueller is also probing.

Among the topics Trump covered was a June 2016 meeting between the president's son Donald Trump Jr., other members of Trump's campaign team and a group of Russians, a source said last week.

Trump last summer denied knowing about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, who had promised damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the election to try to tip it towards Trump by undermining Clinton.

Mueller has already brought charges against some former Trump aides, including his former campaign chairman and his former national security adviser, as well as a number of Russian individuals and entities.

Trump's lawyers have been negotiating with Mueller's prosecutors since last year over whether the president would sit for an interview. Trump himself has offered mixed responses.

In an interview that aired on Sunday, he told "Fox News Sunday" that he was unlikely to agree to an interview, explaining that "we've wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is, probably, we're finished."

It is unclear whether Mueller would subpoena him to testify, likely setting off a legal and political battle.

Earlier this month, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker as his replacement on an acting basis, renewing calls for legislation to protect Mueller's work. As a private citizen, Whitaker criticized the Mueller probe.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed such legislation.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in Miami; Editing by Peter Cooney)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two political foes, his one-time presidential opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, in the spring, but his White House counsel rebuffed him, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two political foes, his one-time presidential opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, in the spring, but his White House counsel rebuffed him, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Don McGahn, the White House counsel at the time, wrote a memo to the president outlining consequences for Trump if he did order these prosecutions.

The outcomes ranged from the traditionally independent Justice Department refusing to comply, to congressional probes and voter outcry, the Times reported.

The New York Times also reported Trump's lawyers privately asked the Justice Department to investigate Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and his role investigating Clinton's use of a private email account and server, but law enforcement officials declined.

It was not clear if Trump read the memo or pursued the prosecutions further, the New York Times said. It was also not clear what specific charges Trump wanted the Justice Department to pursue against Comey and Clinton, the Times reported.

Trump has publicly railed against Clinton's private email use during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, as well as her role in the Obama administration's decision to allow a Russian company to buy a uranium mining firm.

He has also accused Comey, without evidence, of leaking classified information.

The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by James Dalgleish)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
The United States has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive in this regard in early 2018, the Pentagon has said. '$1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended,' Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday.

Washington: The United States has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive in this regard in early 2018, the Pentagon has said. "$1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday. No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January 2018 is a strong signal of American frustration. "But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbors," Sedney told PTI. "Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank. Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was a part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a daring raid by US commandoes in Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of bin Laden. "On Osama bin Laden, I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book, 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Osama Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sydney told PTI in an interview. While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremists, groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, he added. "What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, against Lashkhar-e-Taiba, and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbors," he said. "But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan, and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sydney alleged. We see leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence, he said. "If Pakistan would take some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly," he argued.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted. "Similarly, if Pakistan would take strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney said.
World Television Day is observed on 21 November around the world to acknowledge the role that television has played in shaping societies and changing people's lives

World Television Day is observed on 21 November around the world to acknowledge the role that television has played in shaping societies and changing people's lives. The first World Television Forum was conducted by the United Nations in 1996 and it was from this event that the concept of World Television Day originated.

The United Nations brought together eminent personalities together to talk about the need for transparency in governments. Leading media figures also discussed the role of television in restoring peace and harmony by providing a medium for people's voices to be heard by those who govern them. Similarly, World Television Day too is a celebration of not just the device but the ethos behind it: transparency and openness.

Ideally, World Television Day is an event for the different governments around the globe to strengthen their commitment to keeping media and television, in particular, objective and free. Since the world at large is combating fake news each day, the crusade against biased data should become every person's fight. Television, with its enormous reach, must be recognised for its contribution to people's understanding of pertinent social, political and economic issues.

The author is CEO of The Third Umpire Media. He had held senior management roles at Bertelsmann, National Geographic, Fox Broadcasting, Star TV and other companies. He is also an alumnus of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.
According to Samsungs key executive, Samsungs much-awaited foldable smartphone will ship with Bixby 3.0. It is known that Samsungs Bixby Developer Day is underway in South Korea which has Samsungs Vice President Eui-Suk Chung scheduled to speak as well.

He leads the research and development of software and Bixby at Samsungs mobile business. Hes the one responsible for Bixbys development. The Samsung Developer Conference 2018 was where Samsung unveiled much of what its showcasing today at the Developer day in South Korea. The Bixby Developer Studio and the Bixby Marketplace are the most noteworthy announcements. Furthermore, Samsung is now allowing third-party developers to create features for its virtual assistant.

Eui-Suk Chung also mentioned that Samsung is preparing to ship the next iteration of Bixby with the foldable smartphone. The new Bixby currently in the pipeline will be featured in the foldable smartphone, however, the company hasnt revealed if it will be branded as Bixby 3.0. He didnt provide a lot of details about the next generation of Bixby, only that it will be an upgraded platform with more capabilities. Samsung rolled out Bixby 2.0 with the Galaxy Note 9 earlier this year.

To remind you, Samsung has provided the glimpse of its foldable display at the SDC 2018 earlier this month. It is yet to show off the actual device. Consequently, reports suggest that we might get to see the foldable smartphone in March next year at the MWC 2019.

Source
Google introduced Neighbourly app for local information sharing for Android back in May this year. Today the company has announced that it is expanding to Bengaluru and Delhi, and will soon invite new cities to join every day, including Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Indore and more.

Since June, seven cities have gotten early access to Neighbourly, which includes Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Mysore, Vizag, and Kota. Weve seen people integrate Neighbourly into their daily routines asking just about anything, from the source of a strong LPG smell to why there are elephants on the street outside, said Google.

The Neighbourly Beta app is now available on the Google Play for all smartphones running Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and higher. Google said that it will expand the app to more neighborhoods across India soon.

Join your neighbourhood with a tap. Youll get automatic suggestions on the nearest neighbourhood so you can jump right in.

Switch between multiple neighbourhoods. If you live in one neighbourhood but work in another, you can add both and switch between them one at a time  hearing from neighbours in each.

See better questions just for you. Every time you open Neighbourly, youll see the best questions from your neighbourhood. The more you use Neighbourly, the more personalized it becomes.

Learn how to get more responses. If you ask a question that is unlikely to get an answer from your neighbours, youll receive a notification with some advice on how to best ask them again.

Keep Neighbourly neighbourly. If youre among the most helpful in your neighbourhood, you can earn Top Neighbour status. Top Neighbours help pick the best questions in your neighbourhood and also identify the ones that dont meet the Neighbourly Promise.

Source
Panasonic just launched Seekit Edge and Seekit Loop, two new Bluetooth trackers in India. These tags have Bluetooth 5.0 and let you find lost items such as keys, wallet, luggage and even keep your pets safe. The Seekit Loop is curved for utility and comfort, the perfect keychain and more, while the Seekit Edge is compact and sleek, perfect for a wallet and so much more, says the company. Both have IP65 ratings for water resistance.



These have Bi-Directional tracking and come with Separation Indicator that makes it virtually impossible for you to leave your belongings behind. You can Hear an alert on your smartphone as soon as your valuable disconnects. The app shows last seen location, and also comes with proximity guidance to track as you move closer. These also come with a Selfie Button

for quick selfie and Multiple Alert Modes (up to 80db).

You can send an SOS alert along with your GPS location to 3 of your near and dear ones, by just pressing the Seekit button thrice. The Seekit Loop and Edge use coin cell and promise 12 months and 18 months of battery life, respectively.

Panasonic Seekit Loop and Edge specifications

Bluetooth 5.0, Tracking range of up to 100 feet

Seekit app is compatible with both Android and iOS

Water-resistant (IP65)

Dimensions (Loop): 41 x 32 x 5mm; Weight: 5.4g, Dimensions (Edge): 45 x 3mm; Weight: 7.7g

Battery Life  Loop  CR1632 coin cell offers up to 12 months of battery life, Edge- CR2016coin cell offers up to 18 months of battery life

The Panasonic Seekit Loop and Seekit Edge are priced at Rs. 1299 and Rs. 1599,respectively and will be available across online retailers in India starting from December 1st week.

Commenting on thelaunch, Manish Sharma, President and CEO Panasonic India and South Asia said:

We are largely focusing on both IoT and AI based solutions at our India Innovation Centre. The launch of Seekit is strategically aligned to our objective to create a smart and connected ecosystem. This is another step towards developing technologically advanced and convenient solutions for our consumers.

Manish Misra, Chief Innovation Officer, Panasonic India said:

India Innovation Centre is aligned to Panasonics objective i.e., to develop transformative business solutions in the space of Internet of Things (IoT) that further aids in better living. Seekit is a result of extensive research of consumer behaviour, where the solution uses IoT to safeguard valuables through our smartphone app while harnessing the power of Bluetooth.
What happened

Shares of Lowe's (NYSE:LOW) were trading lower today after the home-improvement retailer posted solid results in its third-quarter earnings report, but lower full-year guidance prompted a sell-off. In recent weeks, a weakening housing sector has pushed down housing stocks, including Home Depot and Lowe's, and that trend continued following Lowe's report. Shares were down 5.4% as of 2:44 p.m. EST on Tuesday.

So what

Comparable-store sales ticked up 1.5% in the quarter and 2% in the U.S. business, driving overall revenue up 3.8% to $17.42 billion, edging out expectations at $17.36 billion. However, gross margin fell from 34.1% to 32.5%, a sign that profitability may be getting pressured by rising costs or poor inventory management. And adjusted earnings per share slipped by a penny to $1.04, but that still beat estimates at $0.98.

As part of the ongoing strategic review since Marvin Ellison became CEO earlier this year, the company said it would exit Mexico, leaving behind 13 stores, and its contracting businesses in the U.S., including Alacrity Services and Iris Smart Home.

Ellison acknowledged the company still faced challenges: "During the quarter, the favorable macroeconomic environment, combined with great values, drove traffic to our stores and website. However, continued challenges with inventory out of stocks, poor reset execution, and assortment concerns in certain categories pressured our ability to turn those visits into transactions."

Now what

Due to those ongoing issues, Lowe's lowered its full-year guidance modestly, adjusting revenue growth from 4.5% to 4% and comps growth from 3% to 2.5%. It also sees operating margin falling 240 to 255 basis points, versus a previous forecast of 180 basis points, and it lowered EPS guidance from a range of $4.50 to $4.60, to a range of $4.08 to $4.24. Adjusted for charges from the Orchard Supply Hardware closing and other one-time events, the company expects EPS of $5.08 to $5.13.

Given that lower guidance and fears of a slowing housing market, Lowe's shares will likely struggle to bounce back in the near future.
Each week, Industry Focus: Financials host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, discuss a stock that has made its way onto their radar. In this installment, Moser discusses why recent Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) purchase Travelers Insurance (NYSE:TRV) could be worth a look.

And, instead of buying all of the bank stocks Warren Buffett and his stock pickers just did, Frankel thinks interested investors should take a look at the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEMKT:XLF).

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Nov. 19, 2018.

Jason Moser: Let's go ahead and wrap this up with our One to Watch this week. Matt, you have an interesting take for listeners, based on what we've been talking about today. What is your One to Watch this week?

Matt Frankel: I'm a big fan of Buffett's banking investments. I've been talking about the value in banks like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs for some time now. Other people on the show have talked about JPMorgan as a big value play, Wells Fargo. But it's not practical for most people to own ten different bank stocks. so, I'm watching the financial sector SPDR ETF, ticker XLF. It's a great way to invest in a bunch of bank stocks and Berkshire itself. Don't forget, Berkshire at its core is a financial sector stock, and is actually the ETF's top holding. Other than that, it owns a lot of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. Pretty much the Buffett banking portfolio, you can buy all in one stock.

Moser: Good deal.

Frankel: And it's a very low-cost index fund. It's a great way, if people feel like I do, that the banking sector as a whole has a lot of potential and is very undervalued right now.

Moser: What's the ticker for that fund?

Frankel: It's XLF.

Moser: I like that. Like you, I'm going to honor Buffett and Berkshire here. I'm going to go with Travelers, ticker TRV, in honor of Berkshire adding to Travelers during the quarter. Insurance is one of those things. Everybody needs it. You don't know when it's going to come in handy, but that's the whole point, really. Travelers is a very well-known brand within the insurance industry. Net premiums for the most recent quarter were up 6%, which is encouraging. They continue to maintain attractive combined ratios. The underlying combined ratio this year chalked up at 93%. That means they're writing good business, and I think you can assume that they will continue to do that. The philosophy with Travelers -- certainly when I was there, and it doesn't appear to have changed -- they want to pay what they owe and move on, try to eliminate as much of those frictional costs that can string out business for a long period of time in the form of subrogation and whatnot.

I think it's also really neat to see Travelers saddling up with Amazon here, coming up with some new home insurance products. They're using some of that technology that Amazon's coming out with, rolling that into its Travelers insurance products, and giving homeowners a new way to view purchasing home insurance, which is, of course, a requirement if you're going to own your home.

So, for me, Travelers. It seems like it's never been a bad time to own the stock. And apparently, Uncle Warren agrees.
HBO's first foreign-language series, My Brilliant Friend, tells the story of Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman who discovers the most important friend in her life, Raffaella Lila Cerullo, seems to have disappeared without a trace.

A writer, immersed in a house full of books, Greco turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their tempestuous friendship, starting from the point when Elena met Lila their first year of primary school in 1950.

Set in a dangerous and fascinating Naples, their story goes on to cover more than 60 years of their lives as she tries to describe the mystery of Lila, Elenas brilliant friend and  in a way  her best friend, and worst enemy.
Dental Fix Awards New Franchise Territory in Virginia

Fast-Growing Mobile Dental Equipment Repair Franchise Continues Rapid Expansion in Virginia

November 21, 2018 // Franchising.com // DAVIE, Fla. - Dental Fix Rx, a fast-growing national mobile dental equipment repair franchise, has officially signed an agreement with existing franchisee Arash Nowbahar, a Virginia-based entrepreneur, to expand his territory. This will be his second territory with Dental Fix Rx.

Over the past few years, Dental Fix Rx has grown tremendously, said David Lopez, CEO of Dental Fix RX. Our concept continues to do well and attract attention from the dental industry and franchise prospects alike, because of our strong reputation as the faster, more cost-effective solution when it comes to equipment repairs.

Dental Fix continues to be North Americas only on-site dental equipment repair franchise. With more than 25,000 dental customers served throughout United States, Canada and Mexico, the company offers clients timely, on-site and customized services that produce quick, yet high-quality repairs. Franchise owners receive all the tools necessary to perform a variety of repairs on dental equipment, such as handpieces, chairs, vacuum pumps and more, all from a fully-equipped mobile repair van. Extensive pre- and post-launch training with continual sales and marketing support is also offered along with an industry exclusive, money-back guarantee.

Our focus in recent years has been on developing more national partnerships with dental service organizations and strengthening existing programs that drive value for our customers and growth for our franchise system, Lopez added. The dental equipment repair sector is a $38 billion industry. Theres tremendous opportunity here for our brand and we have the right systems and programs in place to capture it.

The companys partnership with Darby Dental Supply is evidence that Dental Fix Rx has the ability to dominate the dental equipment repair sector. The Darby Group, the nations largest all-telesales distributor of dental products, became an equity partner in the national mobile dental equipment repair service franchise in 2016. Through this long-term relationship, Dental Fix Rx franchisees are able to generate revenue by offering Darby Dental Supply products to dental practices; Darby also refers work to Dental Fix Rx franchise owners from its 37,000 supply customers.

About Dental Fix Rx

Founded in 2009, Dental Fix Rx is a fast-growing mobile dental equipment repair service franchise that is revolutionizing the dental service industry by delivering immediate, on-demand equipment service, hand-piece repairs and cost-effective consumable products through its network of highly-trained franchise professionals. With local franchise owners serving businesses within their market, Dental Fix Rx completes repairs on-site from mobile repair centers that are equipped to fix a wide range of equipment found in any practice  from compressors to chair upholstery. The company has awarded more than 200 franchise territories that service over 25,000 customers throughout North America. For more information, visit www.dentalfixRx.com.

SOURCE Dental Fix Rx

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Staybridge Suites, the first of its kind in The Netherlands

Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament offers guests a home away from home in a prestigious location

November 21, 2018 // Franchising.com // IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), one of the worlds leading hotel companies, has opened its first Staybridge Suites in The Netherlands, Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament.

Located in the heart of The Hague, the hotel is situated opposite the worlds oldest parliament building still in use, the Binnenhof, and sits alongside the stunning Court Pond the Hofvijver and the famous Mauritshuis Museum, making it the perfect locations to take pictures of The Hagues historic skyline.

Designed to meet the needs of extended stay guests from business travellers to families, Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament offers 101 contemporary designed suites that deliver the comforts of home with fully equipped kitchens, comfortable living areas, and flexible working spaces.

The unique layout and interior design is inspired by the citys rich history and environment. The hotel itself is comprised of three buildings, two of which are located on the central Lange Vijverberg. The historical design influence can be seen in the hotels use of panelling, brass finishing and a traditional colour palette of rich deep blue and warm ochre. Connecting all three buildings together is a stunning Parisian style courtyard, adding to the ambience of the hotel.

From the moment visitors step into the hotels bright and beautiful indoor courtyard lobby, guests will be made to feel completely at ease in the relaxing Livingroom. Those staying can take advantage of Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliaments free Wi-Fi, The Pantry which provides food essentials for guests to purchase 24 hours a day, complimentary breakfast, free laundry facilities and 24/7 fitness room. In addition, Staybridge Suites provides guests with a midweek Social to give those staying a chance to relax with drinks and snacks and meet their neighbours.

Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament is a two minute walk from some of the citys most popular bars, shops and restaurants, including the iconic Bijenkorf department store. With The Hague Central Train Station just a 10 minute walk from the hotel, guests can easily explore nearby cultural venues and attractions, such as the Peace Palace, and miniature theme park Madurodam, Rotterdam, while the sea is just five kilometres away.

Floor Hilhorst, General Manager for Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament commented: We are delighted to be bringing the Staybridge Suites brand to The Netherlands. Staybridge Suites The Hague - Parliament is a hotel where guests can live, rather than stay and is perfect for families and business travellers looking for an extended stay option in one of Europes most historic cities. Staybridge Suites has among the highest guest satisfaction rates of any of IHGs brands and were delighted with the brands Dutch debut in such a central and convenient location.

Guests are guaranteed to get the lowest price for their stay by booking direct through IHG Rewards Club. It is free and easy to join thanks to IHGs Book Direct initiative - a guarantee that guests will get the lowest price when they book directly with IHG. For further information or bookings, please visit: www.staybridge.com

About IHG

IHG  (InterContinental Hotels Group) [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is a global organisation with a broad portfolio of hotel brands, including Regent Hotels & Resorts, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Hotel Indigo, EVEN Hotels, HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, voco Hotels, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Holiday Inn Resort, avid hotels, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

IHG franchises, leases, manages or owns more than 5,500 hotels and approximately 826,000 guest rooms in almost 100 countries, with more than 1,800 hotels in its development pipeline. IHG also manages IHG Rewards Club, our global loyalty programme, which has more than 100 million enrolled members.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Groups holding company and is incorporated in Great Britain and registered in England and Wales. More than 375,000 people work across IHG's hotels and corporate offices globally.

Visit www.ihg.com for hotel information and reservations and www.ihgrewardsclub.com for more on IHG Rewards Club. For our latest news, visit: www.ihgplc.com/media and follow us on social media at: www.twitter.com/ihg and www.facebook.com/ihg.

Contact:

Iman Denney-Brown

iman.denneybrown@ihg.com

+44 (0) 1895 512 267

SOURCE IHG  (InterContinental Hotels Group)

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Late-stage detection and delayed treatment are major contributors to poor breast cancer survival rates in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Improved breast cancer education programs could lead to earlier breast cancer detection and improved outcomes. The Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI) is an international organization that aims to improve breast cancer outcomes in LMICs. As a basic-level intervention, BHGI guidelines support the use of breast cancer education programs that are culturally appropriate and understand local beliefs about breast cancer. This is important because personal beliefs can drive health-related behaviors, including the decision of when to seek medical care. In Uganda, an average of two years pass before women seek medical attention after self-detection of a breast lump; the extended delay may be due to incorrect beliefs about breast cancer. Researchers from the University of Washington, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, and the Public Health Sciences and Clinical Research Divisions at Fred Hutch report on breast cancer beliefs of Ugandan women in a recent publication in the Journal of Global Oncology.

In Uganda, many educational materials used for breast cancer education programs are developed from Western countries while only a limited amount of material has been generated from studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Such studies revealed that many women fear cancer-related social stigma and have strong breast cancer beliefs that are not supported by scientific evidence. Many incorrect beliefs about breast cancer persist despite the grassroots and national efforts to improve breast cancer awareness and education. Some erroneous beliefs are so prevalent, such as carrying items in bras causes breast cancer (>90%), that they need addressing before changes in breast cancer detection and treatment practices will occur, said Dr. John Scheel, Associate Professor of Radiology at the University of Washington and lead author of the new study. Co-author and Fred Hutch Public Health Sciences Member Dr. Beti Thompson further emphasized the importance of understanding womens misconceptions, As breast cancer rates increase in low- and middle-income countries, we find a great deal of misinformation about breast cancer as well as barriers to treatment such as limited treatment facilities. It is imperative that we better understand such beliefs and attitudes so we can give women in these countries the best possible treatment available to them.

Previous studies of breast cancer beliefs were limited by the lack of assessment of demographic factors that may influence the timing in which women decide to get medical care. Assessment of these factors could also help identify subpopulations with strong misconceptions about breast cancer and could lead to more targeted breast cancer awareness programs. In addition, all the current data were collected from breast cancer survivors  women who overcame barriers and were treated early enough to survive. The authors sought to address the existing gaps by conducting an interview-based study that included women in rural and urban areas of Uganda. To ensure cultural appropriateness of the study, the authors collaborated with the Ugandan Womens Cancer Support Organization (UWOCASO); this partnership involved local Ugandan breast cancer survivors in all aspects of the study design, conduct, and interpretation of results. The study survey was carefully designed to assess womens beliefs about breast cancer and included questions about cultural and scientific explanations for development of breast cancer and beliefs related to the benefits of early detection. The survey also assessed socioeconomic factors, access to health care, prior breast cancer knowledge, and personal detection practices.
News

County awaits news from state on Rollover Pass closure

The bids are in, but theres still no clear sign when the state will close a popular county fishing spot.

The Texas General Land Office confirmed Monday it had received bids from companies on how much it would cost to fill Rollover Pass, but the agency hasnt moved ahead with the controversial project.

Despite plans announced earlier this year to close the manmade pass by October, the land office as of last week hadnt chosen a contractor, a spokeswoman said.

We are continuing to evaluate the bids and work through the negotiation process, land office spokeswoman Karina Erickson said.

Rollover Pass is a man-made waterway that flows between the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Constructed in 1954, the pass is a popular fishing spot for local anglers.

The land office has planned to close the pass for more than 10 years because it causes erosion on Gulf beaches and silting in the waterway, officials said. The state spends about $650,000 a year to repair the erosion and more to dredge the canal.

The land office has issued two requests for proposals for the project since March. The initial request was rebid after it generated just a single response with a quote of $12 million. That bid was much higher than what the state believed the project should cost, officials said.

The state in 2008 appropriated $5.85 million to close the pass, although legal challenges and other red tape have long delayed the project.

The state intends to fill the pass with soil and build a public park and fishing pier on top of it, officials have said.

A second bid for the project was issued in July and officials said they hoped the project would start about October.

Galveston County Commissioner Darrell Apffel, who represents Bolivar Peninsula, said the state had informed county leaders the bidding was closed and that an announcement was coming.

The county isnt pressuring the land office to hurry with the closure, Apffel said.

Every day its open is another day people can catch fish in the pass, Apffel said. Ive got as many people that want it closed as want it to stay open.

Meanwhile, a legal challenge to the pass-filling project is still winding its way through an appeals court. The Gilchrist Community Association has asked the 14th Court of Appeals to reverse a lower courts decision and void Galveston Countys use of eminent domain to acquire around the pass.

The county reached a $1.7 million settlement with the Gulf Coast Rod, Reel and Gun Club to purchase 16 acres around the pass in July 2017. The club is not part of the legal appeal, and county attorneys have argued the community association does not have standing to appeal the previous ruling.

The association and the county have submitted briefs over the appeal, but no decision had been made as of Tuesday, according to court records.
Ajika granted the status of an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Georgia - GeorgianJournal
By WestKyStar and MSU Staff Nov. 19, 2018 | 06:59 AM | MURRAY





In an effort to continue meeting the needs of current and prospective students, Murray State University is expanding its undergraduate program offerings to include specializations in game development and design as well as unmanned aerial systems.Our colleges and departments constantly seek ways to innovate and make available new academic opportunities for our students and our communities, said Dr. Renae Duncan, associate provost for undergraduate education.Murray State students now have the opportunity to pursue a distinct degree track in game development through the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems in the Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business. In addition to establishing a base foundation in computer science principles, the new track covers a variety of interdisciplinary subjects, such as computer-based graphical rendering, programming, creative writing, graphic arts, mathematics, physics and audio/video production. Graduates of this track will be well-prepared for careers with both indie and well-established game development companies. Students in other majors may choose to complete a minor in game development as well.The College of Humanities and Fine Arts is also offering an undergraduate certificate in game design to help prepare students for entry-level positions in the video game industry. The curriculum covers technical areas in game programming languages in addition to focusing on learning the necessary design skills in animation and illustration, computer graphics, computer science and creative writing. As students make their way through the certificate program, they will encounter opportunities to create two- and three-dimensional graphics to bring their games and stories to life.Beyond programming there are career opportunities in game development involving story writing, graphic arts, cinematography, dialog production, sound effects, production and marketing, said Dr. Robert Pilgrim, associate professor in computer science. The computer games industry earned more than $100 billion in 2017 with sales of newly released games exceeding the gross receipts of blockbuster movies.The Hutson School of Agriculture and the Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology as well as other academic units are also partnering to offer a certificate and minor in unmanned aerial systems.Participating students will focus on learning how to use drone technology: operating the software, interpreting and mapping data, completing FFA certification training and much more. The new program will also allow students interested in pursuing careers in agriculture or earth and environmental sciences to use drone and mapping technology to see and understand areas of land as they determine crop health, examine soil types and elevation and more. As the drone industry continues to develop, other areas of study will benefit as well. Criminal justice, occupational safety and health, construction, journalism, engineering and art have drone applications that enhance the student experience and career preparation at Murray State.There are many exciting and evolving career opportunities involving unmanned aerial systems, said Dr. Tony Brannon, dean of the Hutson School of Agriculture. It is our goal to provide an education that will afford our students with hands-on training in drones and drone technology that will place them at a competitive advantage in the career market.Students interested in learning about each of these programs should contact the following individuals: Dr. Robert Pilgrim (game development) at rpilgrim@murraystate.edu, Jim Bryant (game design) at jbryant@murraystate.edu and Dr. Brian Hoover (unmanned aerial systems) at whoover@murraystate.edu.Visit murraystate.edu/programs to learn more about undergraduate and graduate offerings at Murray State University.
Google to expand Neighbourly app in India News oi-Priyanka Dua The app supports eight Indian languages apart from English.

Tech giant Google is planning to expand its Neighbourly app which helps people source local information from their neighbors.

Ben Fohner, Senior Product Manager, on Google's Next Billion Users team said, "We're committed to bringing the Internet alive for everyone in India, make it more useful for a billion Indians who speak in local Indian languages. We want to fill the hyper-local information gap that exists today and that's why we launched Neighbourly earlier this year."

He said "In our research, we've found that most of life happens within a 1km radius of where you live. We've also found that when finding local information, people prefer to ask or discuss with another person. Neighborly makes it easy to seek advice and recommendations from neighbors who know the area and have similar tastes. That's why we built Neighbourly, that's why people use it, and that's why we're so excited to make it available to everybody across India."

The Neighbourly app made inroads in popular neighborhoods in Mumbai first, followed by Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mysore, Vizag, Kochi, and Coimbatore.

Early learnings and user feedback from these markets led to helpful insights. Many people, for example, asked to be able to join different neighborhoods -- one where they live and one where they work.

Fohner informed Mumbai had seen questions about flooded areas during the heavy rains and finding the nearest Dahi Handi celebration, while Jaipur's student community asked questions around where to find accounts classes.

"Food is always a popular topic, with questions about the best late night restaurants or seeking for the best street food. Recommendations around popular shopping destinations also ranked high," he added.

The app supports eight Indian languages apart from English.

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New Bixby assistant coming to Samsung's foldable smartphone News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Bixby 3rd version coming to Samsung ambitious smartphones.

Samsung has provided a new piece of information regarding its upcoming Bixby overhaul at its November 20 Bixby Developer Day, in Seoul, Korea. According to The Investor, Boxby will make its first appearance with the company's first foldable smartphone - the Galaxy F.

The statements were made by Samsung AI division head Eui-Suk Chung. He also said that Samsung isn't sure what the name of the latest Bixby version would be. Chung also noted that AI has taken "baby steps" and the bigger changes will be seen over the next decade.

Samsung has already been poised to make AI advancements and come in line with already dominant Google Assistant ad Amazon Alexa. The company recently opened Bixby to work with all the installed apps.

Moreover, it has also provided support for other developers to take part in Bixby projects and bringing all of its AI efforts for the smart assistant. However, we can expect numerous changes with the new Bixby that will help the company match the innovation of the handset it is now expected to come with.

If the company manages to dominate the AI market in the coming days, there will be more changes to the Bixby platform ahead. The move of opening Bixby to developers is to make the voice assistant more competent to its rivals such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Siri.

The new skills will let Bixby do things what we've seen on Alexa like playing music, games, or make reservations for a table at a restaurant, and much more. Although Bixby has a lot to catch up in terms of adoption, the fact that Samsung sells over 500 million products every year, ranging from phones to other electronic goods, which would prove to be good for its assistant.

If these devices are integrated with Bixby, which the company plans to do by 2020, it will amplify the adoption of the smart assistant and bring it in direct competition with other assistants.

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Nubia Red Magic gaming phone arriving this December in India: Report News oi-Sandeep Sarkar A Nubia spokesperson has revealed that the Red Magic smartphone will make its way to the Indian market by December this year.

Nubia had recently grabbed a lot of attention with the release of Nubia X which is a dual-screen smartphone which leaves the trend of the display with a notch behind. It's not only the dual-display Nubia X which has been grabbing all the attention, the company's game-centric smartphone, i.e, the Red Magic has also been received well by the audience. Nubia has released the Red Magic smartphone back in April this year and it is the company's first gaming smartphone. The Nubia Red Magic is yet to be announced for the Indian market, and as per some latest reports, Nubia will release the smartphone in December in the country.

As per a report from Beebom, some sources have revealed that the Red Magic smartphone will make its way to the Indian market by December this year. While the company has not released any specific timeline for the release of the device in India, it is expected that the smartphone will carry a price tag somewhere around Rs 30,000. With this price tag, the smartphone will be competing head-on with Xiaomi Black Shark which is also a gaming smartphone which is also expected to launch in India this month.

Nubia Red Magic specifications and features:

The Nubia Red Magic features a big 6-inch full HD+ display which has a screen resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18:9. The smartphone makes use of an octa-core Snapdragon 835 processor clocked at 2.4GHZ and is clubbed with Adreno 540 GPU to take care of the graphics. The device comes with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. Sadly, you don't get the option to expand the memory via an external storage card.

In terms of optics, the Nubia Red Magic features a single-lens rear camera setup comprising of a 24MP primary sensor with f/1.7 aperture. Up front, you get an 8MP camera to capture selfies and to make video calls. The device is backed by a 3,800mAh battery.

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By WestKyStar & Mercy Medical Staff Nov. 19, 2018 | 07:09 AM | PADUCAH

The Festival of Trees features 20 trees, including Polar Express, Canine Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Farmhouse Christmas, plus many more whimsical trees. They will be on display until December 13 in the Marshall Nemer Medical Office Building Plaza. The winners will be announced December 14.





You can also buy a ticket to win your favorite tree at the Mercy Health  Lourdes Hospital Christmas Market on Saturday, November 17 from 9 am  4 pm in the Marshall Nemer Medical Office Building Plaza. The event is free and features more than 40 vendors with jewelry, childrens clothing, handbags, scarves, and Christmas decor. The Christmas Market benefits the Mercy Health Associates Christmas Giving Program.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Mercy Health with the start of the 7th Annual Festival of Trees celebration. The Festival of Trees is a decoration of Christmas trees by hospital departments to raise money for the Mercy Health Associates Christmas Giving program. The departments donate the decorations and the community is invited to buy a ticket to win their favorite tree. Tickets are $1. You can purchase them in the hospital gift shop.
Undersheriff Alex Esteves (l) and Glasgow Police Officer Tim Fisher (r) pose with the founder of the Law Enforcement Torch Run Chief Richard Lumonyon (c), during the International Law Enforcement Torch Run Convention in Las Vegas last week

Valley County Undersheriff Alex Esteves and Glasgow Police Department Officer Tim Fisher recently returned from Las Vegas, where they represented Valley County and Montana at the International Law Enforcement Torch Run Convention. The two were selected to be two of 27 law enforcement officers from around the state to attend the event due to their volunteer work with the Law Enforcement Torch Run, Special Olympics and the Polar Plunge in Northeast Montana.

According to Fisher and Esteves, despite not meeting the minimum fundraising goal to automatically attend the conference, they were two of four total delegates chosen by the state committee to represent Big Sky Country. They were chosen as a result of their work in building back up the local program and significantly increasing fundraising efforts.

The conference brings together law enforcement officials involved in the Torch Run from around the globe. According to Esteves, participating countries included Ireland, Bermuda, Canada and Jamaica, amongst others. The intent was to promote the Law Enforcement Torch Run's mission and support of the Special Olympics community internationally.

Featured speakers included law enforcement officials and Special Olympics athletes from around the world who gave presentations on the impact the Torch Run has had on their lives. The stories that were given were very eye-opening for Esteves and Fisher. "For me it was about hearing the athletes speak about how law enforcement involvement in Special Olympics has had a positive impact in their lives," said Fisher. Esteves echoed the sentiment describing being inspired by how speaker and Special Olympics athlete Paul Brooks Jr. discussed how he had been shy and seemingly anti-social as a youth and how his involvement in Special Olympics had changed that for him.

Esteves and Fisher help organize two major fundraisers for the Special Olympics and one regional game event each year. This year the first of the two fundraisers will be the "Middle of Nowhere" Polar Plunge on Dec. 1, at 2 p.m. A huge swimming pool will be placed in front of the Glasgow Civic Center for the dive and will feature Chris Pippin on DJ. Hot cocoa, coffee and refreshments will be provided to spectators and participants alike.

"The money that we raise for the polar plunge helps pay for the athletes and volunteers to attend state events," explained Fisher. Esteves went on to add that, "60 percent goes to support local area athletes and Milk River Inc. and the other 40 percent goes to the state to organize events." Those events include the Montana State Special Olympics Games and the Northeast Montana Regional Games.

If you want to volunteer as a plunger you can register at SOMT.ORG or go to the Middle of Nowhere Polar Plunge Facebook page and follow the instructions to sign up. Individuals can plunge solo or sign up on a pre-existing team. Each diver over 18 has a goal to raise $125 and every jumper under 18 should aim to raise $50. If you are unwilling to dive in you can still sign up to raise money for the event.

If you want to donate to an individual or team you can do so by also navigating to the "Middle of Nowhere Polar Plunge" Facebook page and follow the prompts to donate. Anyone is welcome to plunge.
The 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) two-day summit ended without a communique, reflecting the ongoing tensions between the United States and China. Vice President Mike Pence said, the U.S., will not change course until China chang...
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By The Associated Press

Nov. 18, 2018 | CHICO, CA

By The Associated Press Nov. 18, 2018 | 01:21 PM | CHICO, CA

Northern California crews battling the country's deadliest wildfire in a century were bracing for strong winds Sunday that could erode gains they have made in containing the fearsome blaze, which has killed at least 76 and leveled a town.



Even as hundreds of searchers sift through the rubble in the town of Paradise looking for the dead, nearly 1,300 people remain unaccounted for more than a week after the fire sparked in Butte County, Sheriff Kory Honea announced Saturday night. Authorities stressed that the long roster does not mean they believe all those people are missing.



Honea pleaded with fire evacuees Saturday to review the list of those reported as unreachable by family and friends and call if they are safe. Deputies have located hundreds of people to date, but the overall number keeps growing because they are adding more names, including those from the disaster's chaotic early hours, Honea said.



"It's really very important for you to take a look at the list and call us if you're on the list," he said.



The remains of five more people were found Saturday, including four in the decimated town of Paradise and one in nearby Concow, bringing the number of dead to 76.



Among the dead was Lolene Rios, 56, whose son Jed tearfully told KXTV in Sacramento that his mother "had endless amount of love for me."



President Donald Trump toured the area Saturday, joined by California's outgoing and incoming governors, both Democrats who have traded sharp barbs with the Republican administration. He also visited Southern California, where firefighters were making progress on a wildfire that tore through communities west of Los Angeles from Thousand Oaks to Malibu, killing three people.



"We've never seen anything like this in California, we've never seen anything like this yet. It's like total devastation," Trump said as he stood amid the ruins of Paradise and pledged the full support of the federal government. The president initially blamed state officials for poor forest management in exacerbating the fires and threatened to cut off federal funding.



"He's got our back," outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown said on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday. "There have been some back and forth between California leaders and the president. But in the face of tragedy, people tend to rise above some of their lesser propensities. So I think we're on a good path."



Brown also suggested California's severe wildfires will make believers of even the most ardent climate change skeptics "in less than five years" and that those living near forests might need to build underground shelters to protect them from fires going forward.



Rain was forecast for midweek, which could help firefighters but also complicate the search for remains. The National Weather Service warned that on Sunday, the area could get 20 mph sustained winds and 40 mph gusts, which could make it hard for crews to continue making progress against the blaze.



Northern California's Camp Fire has destroyed nearly 10,000 homes and torched 233 square miles (603 square kilometers). It is 55 percent contained.



The fire zone in Northern California is to some extent Trump country, and that enthusiasm was on display as dozens of people cheered and waved flags as his motorcade went by.



Kevin Cory, a wildfire evacuee who lost his home in Paradise, praised Trump for coming to a state that is often at odds with the White House.



"I think that California's been really horrible to him and the fights. I mean they're suing him," he said. "It's back and forth between the state and the feds. It's not right."



But for the most part, survivors, some who had barely escaped and no longer had homes, were too busy packing up what little they had left or seeking help to pay much attention to the president's visit.



Michelle Mack Couch, 49, waited in line to get into a Federal Emergency Management Agency center in the city of Chico. She needed a walker for her elderly mother and tags for her car.



"Let's hope he gets us some help," said Couch, who voted for Trump and whose rental home burned down last week. As far as taking time out to watch the president, she said wryly, "We don't have a TV anymore."



Honea expressed hope that Trump's visit would help with recovery, saying the tour by the Republican president and California's Democratic leaders "signals a spirit of cooperation here that ultimately benefit this community and get us on a path toward recovery."



In Southern California, Trump also met briefly at an airport hangar with families and first responders touched by the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks more than a week ago.



Trump called the shooting at a country music bar, which left 12 dead, "a horrible, horrible event."
Military Takeover: Trump to Cede Security Clearance Management to Pentagon

Sputnik News

03:39 21.11.2018

The Trump administration is gearing up to introduce a "sweeping" effort to grant management of the US government's security clearance program to the Department of Defense (DoD), a new report claims.

Currently, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the National Background Investigations Bureau handle the program, but that could change if President Donald Trump signs the executive order he is expected to, according to Federal News Network, which cited multiple sources.

One defense official told the outlet that the Pentagon has been preparing to take over the program for months, ever since Congress authorized the DoD to take care of its own background checks in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.

It is expected that the DoD will form an entirely new security clearance organization once it gets the proper approval from Congress. In the interim, the Pentagon can restructure its existing apparatuses.

A congressional aide told Federal News Network that a Senate meeting will be held in the spring on the topic of security clearances.

The new department will have just over 10,000 employees, according to industry sources who spoke with the outlet. That number will include contract investigators and the roughly 900 employees already doing the job for the DoD.

In late October, McClatchy reported that the number two official in the US Intelligence community, Susan M. Gordon of the Directorate of National Intelligence, said that the government backlog of 600,000 security clearance applications will be halved by the spring. In 2017, the number of people in the security clearance backlog was as high as 740,000.

That year, a number of people were given temporary security clearances in the face of the massive backlog. The hasty remedy, however, backfired dramatically, with a handful of interim clearances doled out to some highly questionable characters, Sputnik News reported at the time.

"I have rapists, pedophiles and people involved in child porn  I have all these things at the interim clearance level, and I'm pulling their clearances on a weekly basis," the head of the Defense Security Service, Daniel Payne, said.

OPM announced that it had been hacked in 2015, with some 21.5 million records stolen containing information on 22.1 million people, leading to the resignations of the the department's director and chief information officer.

Believed to be included in the trove of stolen documents are details of background checks conducted on current, former and prospective employees of the US government, 5.36 million sets of fingerprints and personally identifiable information including addresses, dates of birth, military records and more. According to the Wall Street Journal and other outlets, US government officials believe that Chinese hackers were behind the attack.

Turning over the responsibility of managing such highly sensitive information to the Pentagon may help safeguard it from future breaches. In 2015, the American Federation of Government Employees union said that the hack compromised every employee of the US government.

 Sputnik

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Ex-US Intelligence Chief Lambasts Trump's Remarks on bin Laden as 'Ignorant'

Sputnik News

23:38 20.11.2018

During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," US President Donald Trump commented on the 2011 mission that resulted in Osama bin Laden's killing. Trump labeled the mission's architect, Adm. William McRaven, a "Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer," expressing dissatisfaction about how the mission was carried out.

Former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper assailed President Trump for his comments about the now-retired Adm. McRaven, who directed the operation in Pakistan in which bin Laden was killed.

Clapper accused Trump of being "ignorant" of what it takes to conduct such an operation.

"What this really is, is misplaced criticism of Bill McRaven. It's really a slam at the intelligence community, who was responsible for tracking down Osama bin Laden," Clapper told CNN.

The former top intelligence official first provided some details of the operation, then explained his view of what Trump's words really meant.

"It took patience and perseverance over a period of years from the intelligence community. Principally, the Central Intelligence Agency. That [Trump's criticism] was more of an indictment against the intelligence committee, though he may not have realized it, rather than Bill McRaven," said Clapper.

During his interview on "Fox News Sunday," Trump described McRaven, a former Navy SEAL, as a "Hillary Clinton fan" and wondered why the US didn't manage to neutralize bin Laden earlier.

"Frankly, wouldn't it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?" Trump asked.

The first reaction came from McRaven himself, who fired back, calling Trump's attacks on the media the "greatest threat" to American democracy during an interview with CNN on Sunday.

McRaven also made clear whose admirer he is.

"I am a fan of President [Barack] Obama and President George W. Bush, both of whom I worked for. I admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and use that office to bring the nation together," he explained.

Clapper is one of several members of the US intelligence community who criticised Trump's remarks. After Trump's interview aired on Sunday, Leon Panetta, former US secretary of defense, and John Brennan, ex- director of the CIA, called for Trump to apologize to McRaven, according to NDC News.

Politicians have responded to the president's comments as well. The Republican National Committee backed Trump, posting a tweet describing McRaven as a "hardly non-political figure" who had backed Hillary Clinton. At the same time, US Speaker of the House Paul Ryan stood up for the former Navy officer, expressing gratitude to him personally and all the troops for "their service".

 Sputnik

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Tenn. National Guard joins in historic Anakonda-18 exercise

By Courtesy November 20, 2018

BEMOWO PISKIE, Poland -- On Nov. 9, NATO's joint training exercise Anakonda-18 (AN-18) kicked off with an opening ceremony, making it the seventh iteration of this key training event. The 10-day exercise involved over 17,500 Soldiers, including National Guard members, 10 countries, and spanned from Poland to Lithuania to the Baltic Sea.

The exercise operated as a certification venue with the intent of achieving goals set during the 2016 Warsaw NATO Summit.

Through the successful tactical planning and realistic training, AN-18 tested and confirmed NATO's ability to perform joint defensive operations on a large scale.

"Today we start Anakonda," said Polish Armed Forces Col. Norbert Iwanowski, commander of the 15th Mechanized Brigade, to the troops during the opening ceremony. "The largest periodic joint exercise organized by Poland with the international participation of allies, partners and headquarters from the NATO Command Structure and NATO Force Structure."

AN-18 used the full scope of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence, military capabilities.

Air defense, infantry, field artillery, tanks and forward observers operated cohesively, integrating all aspects of the battlefield. According to the AN-18 statement, implementing training concepts built on common efforts, shared resources, and collective capabilities ensures allied operational sustainment and combat inoperability.

Collaboration between allies thrived, giving Soldiers the unique experience and opportunity to work as one, multinational, cohesive team.

"During Anakonda, the other American snipers and myself were used as dismount and reconnaissance," said U.S. Army Sgt. Forrest Layton, an American sniper assigned to Battle Group Poland. "We were placed in strategic locations by the British command, and were utilized to deliver real-time battlefield information. Although we were dismounted with somewhat limited interaction with the Queen's Dragoons, we were able to work with them on one route recon movement. I really enjoyed seeing how they operated. Their leadership was extremely professional and kept us informed on their maneuver tactics throughout the exercise."

Although AN-18 is the seventh iteration, this year's exercise introduced new battlefield assets and. For the first time, this exercise was extended to include Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia in the joint operations. AN-18 climbed to new heights by introducing mechanized artillery to the battle picture. This marked the first time that Paladins have been fired this far eastward.

Officially ending on Dec. 6, AN-18 has given NATO and military leaders specific knowledge of joint force capabilities and assets. According to the NATO statement, the operation provided the unique and vital opportunity to train together, enhance capabilities, test and confirm readiness to conduct the joint defensive operation; on a large scale, common procedures, systems and tactics. Knowledge and skills gained from AN-18 will only enhance and propel the capabilities of NATO joint operations, paving the way for continued military enhancement, improvement and readiness.

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RCAF Commander's Statement on the November 20 Auditor General's report

November 20, 2018

From Lieutenant-General Al Meinzinger

Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force

On November 20, 2018, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) released a report on Canada's Fighter Force. It highlighted key points regarding the recruitment and retention of Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Fighter Force technicians and pilots, as well as the need for an in-depth analysis of upgrades required for the CF-18 Hornet fleet to remain operationally relevant until 2032.

The RCAF has proudly served Canada and Canadians for 94 years and has defended the skies over North America, through NORAD, for the last 60 years. There is no question that Canada needs a relevant and capable Fighter Force that enables us to continue delivering on operational missions at home and abroad. In that regard, I welcome the Auditor General's report and take its findings seriously.

Our proud and dedicated aviators are the lifeblood of the RCAF and the foundation of everything we do. I know first-hand your can-do drive and dedication, having grown up in operational squadrons, experiencing this key quality within the RCAF. As your commander, over the last six months I continue to be inspired by the members of our great team, visiting wings and units and engaging and listening to all perspectives. I was recently with our deployed CF-18 Air Task Force in Romania on Operation REASSURANCE and witnessed first-hand the vital work they are carrying out to safeguard the integrity of NATO airspace with our Romanian Air Force partners and their contributions to the reinforcement of NATO's collective defence.

It is abundantly clear that to ensure continued success, we must constantly work to ensure we have the right people in the right positions with the right training to enable our continued success. Given that we remain laser-focussed on delivering a future fighter fleet of 88 aircraft, it is clear we must continue to invest in our personnel. As we move forward, we will continue to take necessary steps to increase the number of skilled and experienced pilots and technicians in the Fighter Force in order to meet our operational demands and prepare for our transition to the future fighter fleet.

These steps include the continuation of the Fighter Capability Maintenance Renewal initiative, which will see further use of contracted support for second-line maintenance, enabling us to bring additional technicians to front-line squadrons.

The Fighter Capability Action Team will continue to lead enhancements to the production, absorption, sustainment, and retention of fighter personnel.

In addition, Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE), Canada's Defence Policy, includes a vitally important initiative to increase the Fighter Force by an additional 200 positions in the coming years.

The experience possessed by RCAF personnel, including fighter pilots and technicians, is critical. We value their knowledge and capabilities, and rely on this cohort to transmit this knowledge to more junior members, thereby bolstering the strength of the squadrons. This knowledge transfer across all RCAF units is what sustains us as an institution.

This is why retaining our personnel is vitally important to us. We have listened to our members as they look for enhancements related to quality of life, quality of service and the reduction of the effect of military life on our families. We are committed to positive change moving ahead. In addition to other Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) initiatives, such as Seamless Canada and the CAF retention strategy, the RCAF is looking at initiatives to make living and working in our organization the best it can be.

I recognize that it is not enough to put initiatives in place. Additionally, the senior leadership of the RCAF is committed to ensuring that our people be informed of developments that affect them, their careers and their familieswhich can be a challenge in our information-saturated world. To this end, I welcome initiatives such as our professional development newsletters and journal that invite open discussion of meaningful topics and the recently-inaugurated "PERSpectives" newsletter that contains human resource information of use to both our military and civilian personnel. I actively encourage our personnel to use these relatively low-tech but accessible platforms to information and ideas sharing.

While retention is essential to a capable and relevant RCAF, we must take other factors into account in preparing for the future. We have advanced rapidly the Future Aircrew Training program to support the training activities needed to produce select aircrew. By improving training methods and delivery models, as well as optimizing training programs, the new Future Aircrew Training program will offer the RCAF greater flexibility to better meet future personnel demands.

In addition to well-led, robust, healthy, and inclusive squadrons, our personnel require the necessary capabilities to do their job. The Government of Canada has made a defined commitment to the RCAF through SSE and made it clear that an advanced future fighter is the only long-term solution to Canada's fighter capability needs. This project is moving ahead with contract award anticipated in the late 2021 or early 2022 timeframe.

To ease the transition to the future fighter, the RCAF is pursuing several regulatory and interoperability upgrades to the CF-18 Hornet fleet. We are also conducting an analysis of core capability upgrades focused on sensors, weapons, and self-protection systems to address the growing challenges presented by evolving threats. This will help ensure our CF-18s remain operationally relevant until the future fighter fleet is fully operational. Canada has also signed an agreement with Australia for the purchase of 18 F-18 aircraft, plus additional aircraft for spare parts. By adding these interim fighters, we will add flexibility to our current fleet, and better enable the RCAF to operate these aircraft until a future fighter has reached full operational capability.

As we move forward, the airmen and airwomen of the RCAF will continue to deliver operational excellence at home and abroad. Moreover, I am confident that the many initiatives we have in the works will make positive strides to enhancing the RCAF's "bench strength", while also ensuring our CF-18 fleet continues to provide valuable air power on behalf of Canadians and our Allies.

I thank the Auditor General and all those involved in this comprehensive review for their diligence and collaboration over the last several months. These independent reviews help strengthen our organization and we remain committed to delivering air and space power on behalf of Canada and Canadians.

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Minister of National Defence's statement in response to the Auditor General of Canada's report on Canada's fighter force

November 20, 2018  Ottawa (Ontario)  National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces

Following the tabling of the Auditor General of Canada's report on Canada's fighter force, the Minister of National Defence, Harjit S. Sajjan, issued the following statement:



"As articulated in the Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy, our Government is committed to providing the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) with the investments and equipment it needs to carry out the missions we ask of them.

I welcome the Auditor General's report on our fighter force. It affirms what I have said consistently  that despite their tireless efforts, the RCAF needs more to meet both its NORAD and NATO commitments without risk-managing one or the other.

The Government of Canada takes these findings extremely seriously. We are taking several steps to address both the Auditor General's recommendations, and our broader concerns around the fighter force:

We will launch new efforts to recruit and retain pilots and technicians. Some initiatives  including the Fighter Capability Renewal Initiative, which will make use of contracted second-line maintenance to return over 200 technicians to front-line squadrons  are already underway. Others will be implemented by fall 2019.

We are upgrading the CF-18s to meet regulatory and interoperability requirements, and ensure they can operate within North American and international airspace past 2025.

The RCAF is assessing necessary combat systems upgrades for the CF-18 fleet that could be implemented to address evolving threats.

We have signed an agreement to purchase 18 Australian F-18 aircraft, with spare parts, to help mitigate the transition to the future fighter aircraft.

As affirmed in Strong, Secure, Engaged, we are proceeding with the procurement of 88 advanced fighters to provide the RCAF with the right quantity and quality of aircraft to meet Canada's airpower needs for multiple decades.

I want to be clear with Canadians that an enduring solution to the CAF's fighter capability will not be achieved until we have both procured a future fighter and increased the number of skilled and experienced technicians and pilots that will allow the RCAF to generate sufficient numbers of mission-ready aircraft. While there is tremendous attention being paid to these efforts, it will take time to realize the full results of our current and future personnel initiatives alone  a timeline that, by design, coincides with the expected arrival of the future fighter.

In the meantime, Canadians can rest assured that  thanks to the incredible efforts of our RCAF aviators  our CF-18s will continue to capably conduct missions in defence of Canadian airspace until the future fighter is fully operational."

Contacts

Byrne Furlong

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of National Defence

Phone: 613-996-3100

Media Relations

Department of National Defence

Phone: 613-996-2353

Email: mlo-blm@forces.gc.ca

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Venezuelan Billionaire News Network Owner, Former Venezuelan National Treasurer and Former Owner of Dominican Republic Bank Charged in Money Laundering Conspiracy Involving Over $1 Billion in Bribes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, November 20, 2018



A Venezuelan billionaire who owns Globovision news network was charged in an indictment unsealed yesterday for his role in a billion-dollar currency exchange and money laundering scheme. A former Venezuelan national treasurer and a former owner of Banco Peravia bank in the Dominican Republic each pleaded guilty in proceedings unsealed today for their roles in the scheme.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Mark Selby of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office, Special Agent in Charge Mark B. Dawson of HSI Houston Field Office, Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro of the FBI Miami Field Office, Special Agent in Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh and Inspector General Jay N. Lerner of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) Washington, D.C. Office made the announcement.

Raul Gorrin Belisario (Gorrin), 50, a Venezuelan citizen with a residence in Miami, Florida, was charged in an indictment filed on Aug. 16, 2017 in the Southern District of Florida with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and nine counts of money laundering. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge William P. Dimitrouleas of the Southern District of Florida. Alejandro Andrade Cedeno (Andrade), 54, a Venezuelan citizen residing in Wellington, Florida and a former Venezuelan national treasurer, pleaded guilty under seal on Dec. 22, 2017 before U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg of the Southern District of Florida to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Gabriel Arturo Jimenez Aray (Jimenez), 50, a Venezuelan citizen residing in Chicago, Illinois and former owner of Banco Peravia bank, pleaded guilty under seal on March 20, 2018 in the Southern District of Florida before Judge Rosenberg to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Charges against Andrade and Jimenez were unsealed today.

The indictment alleges that Gorrin paid millions of dollars in bribes to two high-level Venezuelan officials, including Andrade, to secure the rights to conduct foreign currency exchange transactions at favorable rates for the Venezuelan government. In addition to wiring money to and for the officials, Gorrin allegedly purchased and paid expenses for them related to private jets, yachts, homes, champion horses, high-end watches and a fashion line. To conceal the bribe payments, Gorrin made payments through multiple shell companies. Gorrin allegedly partnered with Jimenez to acquire Banco Peravia, a bank in the Dominican Republic, to launder bribes paid to Venezuelan officials and proceeds of the scheme.

As part of his guilty plea, Andrade admitted that he received over $1 billion in bribes from Gorrin and other co-conspirators in exchange for using his position as Venezuelan national treasurer to select them to conduct currency exchange transactions for the Venezuelan government. As part of his plea agreement, Andrade agreed to a forfeiture money judgment of $1 billion and forfeiture of all assets involved in the corrupt scheme, including real estate, vehicles, horses, watches, aircraft and bank accounts. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 27.

As part of his guilty plea, Jimenez admitted that, as part of the scheme, he conspired with Gorrin and others to acquire Banco Peravia, through which he helped launder bribe money and scheme proceeds. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 29.

HSI Miami, HSI Houston, HSI Boston, FBI Miami, and the FDIC D.C. investigated this case. This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Vanessa Sisti Snyder, Paul A. Hayden and John-Alex Romano of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael B. Nadler and Nalina Sombuntham of the Southern District of Florida's Criminal Division. The Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in this matter. The Policia Nacional (Spanish National Police) also provided significant assistance.

The Fraud Section is responsible for investigating and prosecuting all FCPA matters. Additional information about the department's FCPA enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.



Attachment(s):

Download Gorrin Indictment

Download Jimenez Array Plea Agreement

Download Andrade Cedeno Plea Agreement

Topic(s):

Financial Fraud

Component(s):

Criminal Division

Criminal - Criminal Fraud Section

Press Release Number: 18-1527

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83 Taliban, Daesh terrorists killed in Afghanistan

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Kabul, Nov 20, IRNA -- Afghan Defense Ministry in a statement announced on Tuesday that 83 members of Taliban and Daesh (ISIS) terrorist groups have been killed over the past 24 hours.

The terrorists were killed during 12 operations conducted by governmental forces against the terrorists, the statement read.

According to the statement, 21 terrorists were affiliated with Daesh and others from Taliban.

Some 28 terrorists were also injured in 11 provinces.

Meanwhile, Farah Province governor spokesman Mohebollah Moheb said that 23 members of Taliban were killed and 20 more were injured on Tuesday.

Some military cars and ammunitions were also destroyed in the operation.

9376**2044

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Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg prior to the European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

20 Nov. 2018

(As delivered)

Good morning,

I'm really looking forward to meet the EU Defence Ministers, and in a few weeks, in the beginning of December, High Representative Federica Mogherini will attend the NATO Foreign Ministerial meeting, and I think this just reflects the unprecedented level of close cooperation between NATO and the EU.

We work together in areas such as cyber, hybrid and maritime, and also exercises. Just now we are exercising side by side, so I really welcome that NATO and EU are able to work more closely together than we have done ever before.

When I meet the EU Defence Ministers now, I expect us also to discuss the issue of European defence. I have welcomed EU efforts on defence many times, because I believe that projects such as military mobility, European Defence Fund, PESCO, all of that can contribute to fairer burden-sharing within NATO. It can complement NATO and it can also help to develop new NATO capabilities and also address the fragmentation of the European defence market. So this is something I have welcomed many many times. But I have been equally clear about the fact that EU efforts must not compete with NATO, must not duplicate NATO, because NATO remains the bedrock for European security. We have to remember that after Brexit 80% of NATO's defence expenditure will come from non-EU NATO Allies. And 3 of the four battlegroups we have deployed in the eastern part of the Alliance, in the Baltics countries and Poland will be led by non-EU Allies. And also geography matters. Norway in the North, and Turkey in the South, and Canada, USA and UK in the West are important for European security. So geography and money, these are facts which we cannot ignore.

I will also raise with the EU ministers one challenge we all face and that is the new Russian missiles which are putting the INF Treaty in jeopardy. Russia has developed, tested and also fielded new missiles, SSC-8, for years. These missiles are mobile, hard to detect, nuclear capable and they are putting the INF Treaty in jeopardy. The US is in full compliance with the INF Treaty, there are no new US missiles in Europe, but there are new Russian missiles in Europe, and therefore we should all call on Russia to ensure full and transparent compliance with the INF Treaty because we don't want a new arms race and the INF Treaty has been important for our security for decades.

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Britain slams Germany, France for proposing EU army

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 07:26PM

UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson has lashed out at leaders of France and Germany for their proposal for creating a European army that could rival the NATO military alliance.

"It is an absolutely crazy idea. NATO has delivered European security for the last 70 years and we should feel very proud of it," said Williamson on Tuesday, adding, "Should we undermine that by forming a separate military force? Absolutely not."

The comments come weeks after French President said that the European Union needed its own army to counter threats posed by Russia, China and even the US, which leads NATO.

Macron's idea has been supported by Germany, EU's dominant economic power, and the two countries have repeatedly expressed concerns that a United States under the presidency of people like Donald Trump should no longer be regarded as reliable partner.

Trump reacted furiously to Macron's proposal for creation of the EU army. The US president has even suggested in a tweet that it was the Americans that saved France during the Second World War, when the French were beginning to accept Germany's superiority by learning their language.

However, the idea seems to have irritated Britain, a close US military ally and EU's most powerful military force.

Williamson reiterated in his interview to the Daily Mail that Trump was right to demand countries like France and Germany to meet their obligations regarding NATO's budget.

"Before Europe starts seriously planning its own army it should adequately fund the military that has protected its borders from aggression for 70 years," said the defense minister, adding, "Two per cent of GDP should not be beyond the wit of those who have accumulated great wealth through the protection of NATO, primarily under the leadership of the US and UK."

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Russia says US meddling in election of Interpol president

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 03:33PM

Russia says public opposition by a group of American senators to a Russian candidate for the position of the head of the international police organization Interpol amounts to election meddling, in an apparent dig at an investigation into allegations that Moscow interfered with the 2016 US Presidential Election.

The Russian statement was made by the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday, one day ahead of Interpol's general assembly, where it is scheduled to elect its new head during a meeting in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Alexander Prokopchuk, 57, a general in the Russian Interior Ministry who has been the vice president of Interpol since November 2016, is the front-runner to become the organization's new president. He had also been the head of the National Central Bureau of Interpol of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation since June 2011.

On Monday, four American senators issued a statement that urged US President Donald Trump to oppose the candidacy of Prokopchuk. They accused Moscow of abusing Interpol to settle "scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists" by issuing warrants, known as red notices, for their arrest. They also said the election of Prokopchuk would allow the Kremlin to step up such "abuse."

Peskov, however, hit back in a press conference, saying that "this is probably a certain kind of interference in the electoral process of an international organization."

American intelligence agencies claimed in January that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to try to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The intelligence agencies said Moscow's interference included a campaign of hacking and releasing embarrassing emails, and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her campaign.

The Kremlin has since strongly rejected the allegations.

Back in November 2016, Interpol elected Chinese Vice Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei its new president.

In early October, China's anti-corruption watchdog, the National Supervisory Commission, said Meng was under probe on suspicion of "violating the law."

Meng left Lyon, France, where Interpol is headquartered, on September 25, prompting a media fanfare suggesting his suspected disappearance.

Soon after the watchdog's announcement, Interpol said it had received Meng's resignation "with immediate effect," and that the body would elect a new president at its general assembly in November.

Founded in 1923, Interpol now has 190 member states, making it the second largest international organization after the United Nations in terms of international representation. It has nearly 800 staff and its annual budget, some 80 million euros, is provided mostly by its member states.

The organization acts as a network linking the law enforcement agencies of its members, but it does not employ agents of its own with an authority to arrest.

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Advertisement

By The Associated Press

Nov. 19, 2018 | CHICAGO

By The Associated Press Nov. 19, 2018 | 07:19 PM | CHICAGO

A gunman opened fire Monday at a Chicago hospital, wounding at least four people, including a police officer and a hospital employee.



A police spokesman said the gunman was dead, but it was not immediately clear if he took his own life or was killed by police at Mercy Hospital on the city's South Side.



A witness told reporters that it looked as if the attacker "was turning and shooting people at random."



The shooting apparently began as the suspect was walking with a woman near a parking lot. He turned and repeatedly shot the woman in the chest. He then entered the hospital and continued firing, Gray said.



The two had been talking to each other. Gray said it didn't seem like a heated exchange.



"Then once she fell to the ground, he stood over her and shot her three more times," he said.



Four people were in critical condition, including an officer. At least one of the four was a hospital employee, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.



Television footage showed several people, including some wearing white coats, walking through a parking lot with their arms up.



Jennifer Eldridge was working in a hospital pharmacy when she heard three or four shots that seemed to come from outside. Within seconds, she barricaded the door, as called for in the building's active shooter drills. Then there were six or seven more shots, now much closer, just outside the door.



"I could tell he was now inside the lobby. There was screaming," she recalled.



The door jiggled, which Eldridge believed was the shooter trying to get in. Some 15 minutes later, she estimated, a SWAT team officer knocked at the door, came in and led her away. She looked down and saw blood on the floor but no bodies.



"It may have been 15 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity," she told a reporter.



Maria Correa was at the hospital for her mother-in-law's appointment with a doctor. As the violence unfolded, a hospital employee locked the doors to the waiting area. Correa hid under a piece of furniture, clutching her 4-month-old son, Angel, for 10 to 15 minutes. She heard about eight shots, then more. She lost track of how many.



Those "were the worst minutes of our lives," she said.
Riyadh, allied militants resume Hudaydah attacks despite UN ceasefire efforts

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 09:16AM

The Saudi-led coalition and allied militants have resumed attacks on Yemen's strategic port city of Hudaydah amid United Nations efforts to bring an end to Riyadh's devastating war on the country.

Saudi warplanes carried out more than 10 airstrikes on Hudaydah late on Monday, residents were cited as saying by Reuters.

They said that intense fighting had broken out between militants loyal to former Saudi-backed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and fighters of the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which both runs state affairs and defends the country against the Riyadh-led aggression.

The locals also said fierce battles could be heard on the edges of the city.

"The fighting is escalating and we can clearly hear machine guns and mortar fire. This is one of the worst nights we have experienced," said Hudaydah resident Mustafa Abdo.

Saudi-backed militiamen and foreign mercenaries had last week been "ordered" to halt their offensive aimed at taking the Red Sea port city from the Ansarullah fighters amid growing international pressure on the Saudi regime to end the war.

The Monday attacks followed a draft UN Security Council resolution that urges an immediate truce in Hudaydah. The UK-drafted resolution sets a two-week deadline for removing all barriers to humanitarian aid.

Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement backed the UN's peace bid on Sunday and announced it was halting its counterstrikes as a goodwill measure to speed up the process.

The movement also said it was ready for a broader ceasefire if "the Saudi-led coalition wants peace."

The UN welcomed the decision and called on all warring sides to show restraint to pave the way for talks.

In recent days, the military coalition led by the Saudi regime and militia groups loyal to Hadi have intensified their attacks on Hudaydah, which is seen as the main entry point for food imports and aid relief needed by millions in the war-torn country.

The Hudaydah offensive has sparked concerns over its impact on the civilian population as well as on humanitarian aid operations.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

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Trump Criticizes Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Over Bin Laden Raid

November 20, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized a retired Navy admiral, as he repeated earlier assertions that U.S. military and political leaders erred by not capturing Osama Bin Laden sooner.

Trump on November 19 doubled down on comments he made in a Fox News interview, when he asserted that Admiral William McRaven, a former commander of U.S. Special Operations, was a supporter of Trump's 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

In a post to Twitter, Trump said that Bin Laden should have been captured much sooner than 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs killed him at a compound in Pakistan.

"Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did," Trump said.

"I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center," he wrote.

Trump's criticism of McRaven, and other decisions, prompted angry retorts from administration officials of both presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

In his Fox News interview Trump also said he had canceled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid to Pakistan because "they don't do anything for us, they don't do a damn thing for us."

That comment drew a sharp response from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said his country had suffered 75,000 casualties and lost billions during the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan.

As part of Trump's effort to resolve the 17-year war in Afghanistan, Washington has escalated pressure on Islamabad, whose assistance the U.S. believes is needed to compel the Taliban to agree to negotiate with the government in Kabul.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-criticizes -retired-u-s-navy-admiral-over- bin-laden-raid/29610299.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Pressure Builds On Interpol Ahead Of Vote To Choose New Chief

By RFE/RL November 20, 2018

Pressure is building on Interpol ahead of a vote to choose a new chief for the international police agency, with Russian opposition activists, U.S. senators, and officials from other countries warning against the possibility that a top Russian Interior Ministry official might become the agency's new head.

British media have reported that 56-year-old Major General Aleksandr Prokopchuk will most likely be elected despite allegations that Moscow has used Interpol's procedures to pursue political enemies.

Police chiefs gathered at a four-day meeting in the Persian Gulf city of Dubai are expected to vote on a new chief on November 21.

Interpol's current interim president, South Korea's Kim Jong-yang, is also seeking the post.

The agency, headquartered in Lyon, France, acts as a clearinghouse for national police services that want to hunt down suspects outside their borders. The agency does not have the ability to arrest people.

Critics of the agency have warned that it is increasingly being used by some countries to pursue politically motivated prosecutions by using so-called "red notices." Those are alerts by Interpol to member states that identify suspects wanted for arrest by another country.

Ahead of the vote, the United States said it "strongly" endorsed the South Korean candidate, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on "all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with integrity."

"We believe Mr. Kim will be just that," Pompeo told reporters on November 20.

Meanwhile, Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, tweeted that the Russian government "abuses INTERPOL's processes to harass its political opponents."

Earlier, British Foreign Office minister Harriet Baldwin told lawmakers that London would also support South Korea's bid, saying, "We always seek to endorse candidates who have a history of observing standards of international behavior."

'Absurd' Presidency

Ukraine's interior minister has vowed to push for suspending his country's membership if Prokopchuk is elected.

"Russia's possible presidency at Interpol is absurd and contradicts the spirit and goals of that organization," Arsen Avakov said in a statement on November 19.

Avakov's comments come amid high tensions between Moscow and Kyiv over Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and its backing for separatists in a war in eastern Ukraine.

The question of Russia potentially assuming oversight of the agency drew condemnation from a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including Republicans Marco Rubio and Roger Wicker, and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons.

"Interpol electing...Prokopchuk as its new President is akin to putting a fox in charge of a henhouse," the group said in a letter. "Russia routinely abuses Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman lashed out at the U.S. senators, saying their letter was a "visible example" of "interference in the electoral process" at Interpol.

The statement by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to be aimed at turning the tables on U.S. officials and lawmakers who accuse Russia of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In June, a cross-party group of British lawmakers wrote a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid to urge him to demand the suspension of Moscow's access to the Interpol databases.

The letter warned that Russia's participation in Interpol systems has allowed it to repeatedly request the arrest of Bill Browder, a U.S.-born Briton who was once the biggest foreign investor in Russia and has now become a campaigner against Russian human rights abuses.

Browder, who was barred from entering Russia in 2005, has been detained several times in various countries -- most recently in Spain in May of this year -- while Interpol sought to verify arrest warrants issued by Russia.

"I cannot imagine a more inappropriate person than a person who has been the architect of the abuse doled out to me by Russia at Interpol," Browder said on November 20 at a joint news conference in London with self-exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder of Open Russia Foundation and a Kremlin foe.

"There is probably no more inappropriate person than this person, and there is no more inappropriate country to have any type of leadership position at Interpol than Russia."

Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia's richest man until he ran afoul of the Kremlin in the early 2000s, was imprisoned for more than a decade on charges his supporters said were trumped up. His oil company, Yukos, was dismantled, its largest assets sold off to state oil giant Rosneft.

"I seriously fear that if Mr. Prokopchuk is elected president of Interpol, then at the command of the Kremlin he will be ready to perform absolutely any actions, because he doesn't have to worry about his reputation," Khodorkovsky said.

Russian anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny, who has faced a series of detentions and criminal charges that he and his supporters have called politically motivated, said his associates "have suffered abuse" from Interpol officials who were complying with Russian warrants to persecute Kremlin opponents.

"I don't think that a president from Russia will help to reduce such violations," he said in a posting to Twitter.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition activist, said in an opinion article in The Washington Post that Russia was likely to misuse the "red notice" system if Prokopchuk were to take over the agency.

"The main purpose of the organization is information-sharing and mutual assistance among national police forces. One can imagine what the Kremlin could do with access to sensitive databases around the world," he wrote.

Kosovo Rejected

The November 21 vote is to replace Meng Hongwei, who was China's vice minister of public security and who went missing while on a trip to China in September.

Beijing later said that he was detained as part of a sweeping purge against allegedly corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping's authoritarian administration.

Interpol's general assembly voted on November 20 not to approve membership for Kosovo, the result of what the U.S. Embassy in Pristina said was "a campaign, led by Serbia, to pressure countries to oppose Kosovo's bid."

Accepting Kosovo as a full member would have allowed Pristina to distribute red notices for Serbian officials that Kosovo deems to be war criminals.

Two years ago, Interpol introduced new measures aimed at strengthening the legal framework around the red notice system after facing criticism that governments have abused the system to go after political enemies and dissidents.

As part of the changes, an international team of lawyers and experts would first check a notice's compliance with Interpol rules and regulations before it is issued.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Financial Times

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/interpol-russia -vote/29610055.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Kosovo Fails For Third Time To Win Interpol Membership

By RFE/RL's Balkan Service November 20, 2018

Interpol, the international police agency, has rejected Kosovo's membership for a third time, an outcome that the Balkan country said was disappointing and the United States described as a loss for "closing a critical security gap in the Balkans."

Kosovo's application was assessed on November 20 at Interpol's four-day general assembly in the the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, together with applications from other states that wanted to join the 192-member police organization.

Interpol, which has its headquarters in the French city of Lyon, acts as a clearinghouse for national police services that want to hunt down suspects outside their borders.

The organization's rules stipulate that, in order to become a member, a country must receive two-thirds of votes cast, excluding abstentions. In case the two-thirds majority is not reached, a second round of voting is allowed.

In the first round on November 20, Kosovo's application was supported by 76 countries, while 56 voted against and 22 abstained.

Since the two-thirds threshold, or 88 votes, was not reached, a second round was held, and this time only 68 countries voted in favor, while 51 voted against and 16 abstained.

Kosovo, which fought a war against Serbia in 1998-99, declared independence from Belgrade in 2008. Its independence has been recognized by most Western states, including the United States, but not by Serbia and Russia.

Kosovo's government blamed the failure on what it called "Serbia's wild campaign" against its Interpol membership. "Voting against Kosovo's accession in this international organization only serves...criminals and no one should rejoice," it said in a statement.

While bashing what it said was "a campaign, led by Serbia, to pressure countries to oppose Kosovo's bid," the U.S. Embassy to Pristina praised the "majority of countries" that voted in favor of the move.

Kosovo's previous attempts to join Interpol in 2015 and 2016 were also rejected. In 2017, the Balkan country withdrew its application, citing lack of support.

The U.S. Embassy statement pointed out that accepting Kosovo as a member of Interpol "was never about recognition of Kosovo's independence, but about strengthening global law enforcement cooperation and closing a critical security gap in the Balkans."

It said Kosovo's police force is a "fully integrated and capable institution" that has proven its ability to fight international terrorism, cybercriminals, as well as narcotics, arms, and human smuggling networks.

"With this outcome, we all lose," the U.S. statement said.

Accepting Kosovo as a full member of Interpol would allow Pristina, among other things, to distribute "red notices" for Serbian officials that Kosovo deems to be war criminals for their actions during the 1998-99 war, which ended when NATO initiated a 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.

Red notices are alerts filed by Interpol to member states that identify suspects wanted for arrest by another country.

The United States continues to "strongly support" the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, the U.S. Embassy said in its statement, urging both sides to "avoid provocations and work together on a deal."

Serbia, however, hailed the outcome, with President Aleksandar Vucic saying the vote was a "victory" for Serbia.

"I am proud of our country's struggle," he said. "I want to believe that this will be a clear, undoubted message to Europe and the world to understand that things cannot be solved with one-sided pressure," Vucic said, without elaborating.

During the November 20 session, two other countries -- the Pacific island-states of Kiribati and Vanuatu -- became Interpol members.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-fails -for-third-time-to-win-interpol -membership/29610709.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Canada Air Force Needs Upgrade to Meet NATO, NORAD Commitments - Minister

Sputnik News

23:49 20.11.2018

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A just-completed audit of Canada's military shows a need to modernize the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to meet the nation's obligations to both, NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said in a press release on Tuesday.

"Despite their tireless efforts, the RCAF needs more to meet both its NORAD and NATO commitments without risk-managing one or the other," Sajjan said.

Canada is planning new efforts to recruit and retain RCAF pilots and technicians while upgrading its fleet of CF-18 fighter jets to meet interoperability requirements within North America and internationally, the release said.

Canada has also an agreement to purchase 18 Australian F-18 aircraft, with spare parts, to help mitigate the transition to the future fighter aircraft, the release added.

In addition, Canada is proceeding with longer-term plans to procure 88 advanced fighters to provide the RCAF with the right quantity and quality of aircraft to meet Canada's airpower needs, according to the release. NORAD is the US-Canada organization that guards North American airspace.

 Sputnik

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Pentagon Inspector General: Progress in Afghanistan Remains 'Elusive'

Sputnik News

22:12 20.11.2018(updated 22:19 20.11.2018)

The US Defense Department's inspector general assessed the prospects of achieving peace in Afghanistan to be "elusive" in a new quarterly report, echoing findings that have been repeated by US military officials for years that the battle against Taliban forces remains at a stalemate.

The Trump administration's South Asia strategy has passed its one year mark, the Defense Department's inspector general said in a news release Monday. The evidence suggests US President Donald Trump's strategy has next to nothing going for it in terms of results, according to the assessment of the military, political and humanitarian dimensions of the situation in Afghanistan.

The Trump administration's strategy to push the Taliban closer to peace talks consists of four main programs. The US has increased its troop presence in Afghanistan to 14,000 while shuttling in more equipment. Airstrikes against Taliban narcotics facilities and personnel have gone up. Afghan national defense forces are receiving more training from US military advisors. And the US government has drastically cut its foreign aid to Pakistan in hopes of persuading the country to stop providing safe haven for Taliban forces.

"Despite continued efforts and activities, there was little clear progress toward reconciliation during the quarter," the Defense Department inspector general's office said. "Progress remains elusive."

Record-setting violence plagued Afghanistan's October parliamentary elections, Sputnik reported. US Army Major Danny Sjursen told Fault Lines on Radio Sputnik in an interview after the elections that "one of the reasons there was so much violence in this election is that something like 44 percent of all Afghan districts are under the control of the Taliban, or are at least being contested by the Taliban." (He spoke freely on the condition that his statements not be construed to reflect views of the Defense Department or the US government.)

"So, that'd be as if there was a civil war going on in the United States today, and you had to find your ways to the polls through the middle of opposing landmines in a war," said Sjursen, who has previously been deployed to Afghanistan.

US diplomats have nonetheless offered reassuring statements about Afghanistan. The Trump administration's strategy is "indeed working," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Kabul in July. "Now more than ever, the United States stands as an enduring partner for Afghanistan," the American diplomat said.

Pompeo offered his definition of America's progress in Afghanistan as "the capacity that we now have to believe that there is hope that many of the Taliban now see that they can't win on the ground militarily."

Military officials have also remained optimistic about Trump's South Asia policy, yet their positivity has been tempered by skepticism of how well the strategy is working. On Saturday, Gen. Joe Dunford, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the audience at the Halifax International Security Forum that progress on peace talks with the Taliban was being made "below the surface." Still, Dunford said, "We're a long way from where we could say we're on the right path."

Pointing to previous comments made by US military officials one year ago that the war against the Taliban was at a stalemate, Dunford told the audience that "it hasn't changed much," according to an AP report.

The Pentagon inspector general said in its report that despite the upbeat public statements from American diplomats and military leaders, "available measures of security in Afghanistan, including total security incidents, population control and civilian casualties, showed little change."

In short, the first year of the Trump administration's South Asia strategy resulted in a continuation of the status quo characterized by violence and instability in Afghanistan. Trump's "instinct" was to draw down the US' military presence in Afghanistan, eventually leaving altogether. Instead, he followed along with what national security advisors insisted was the best way forward, according to Major Sjursen.

"I do think people in his national security circles, including [then-National Security Advisor] H.R. McMaster, were very much tied to the status quo. And the 'status quo' was the Forever War in Afghanistan. A few more troops, a few more billion dollars, a few more advisors, and we can make things happen. These guys have spent their entire adult lives  the second half of their entire adult lives  trying to win this fight and banging their head against the wall over and over," said Sjursen.

 Sputnik

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US Air Force Conducts Rapid F-35A Drills in Utah

Sputnik News

22:00 20.11.2018(updated 22:22 20.11.2018)

The US Air Force's 388th Fighter Wing and Air Force Reserve 419th Fighter Wing, both stationed at the Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah, staged a combat power exercise this week that involved dozens of F-35A multirole fighter jets.

Dubbed the first-ever "Elephant Walk" exercise to include stealth fighters, the Air Force said in statement that the drills were carried out to show the strength and readiness of the combat-ready F-35A units.

A total of 35 F-35A jets were launched during the exercise, with aircraft taking off in 20 to 40-second intervals, according to Air Force officials, which indicated that having multiple squadrons take off allows the units to better assess potential issues.

"We are ready to fight tonight, and exercising with multiple squadrons of F-35s can demonstrate our ability to defeat potential adversaries wherever they may arise," Maj. Caleb Guthmann, 34th Fighter Squadron assistant director of operations and exercise project officer, said in a statement on Monday.

The Standard Examiner reported that all jets were in the air over an 11-minute period. Col. Michael Ebner, the vice commander of the 388th Fighter Wing, told the publication that the short-notice drill was a historic moment for the F-35A program, since it included the highest number of Lightning II jets to be simultaneously launched.

The official doubled down on the remarks made by Guthmann, saying that the fifth-generation fighter was a "global deterrent" against conflict that would work as an advisory to the US' enemies.

Hill AFB presently has 47 F-35s, with the remainder of the 78-strong fleet expected to arrive in 2019.

In related F-35A news, the Lockheed Martin-manufactured jet marked a first at Florida's Eglin Air Force Base after successfully deploying a GBU-49 precision bomb during a combat training session that took place earlier this month.

A pilot assigned to the 388th Fighter Wing's 34th Fighter Squadron drops a GBU-49 bomb from an F-35A Lightning II Nov. 7. 2018. The 34th FS is the first unit to employ the GBU-49 in combat training. The squadron recently completed a Combat Hammer weapons evaluation exercise at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Pilots say the GBU-49 is effective and accurate and will make the F-35A even more lethal.

"It's a really flexible weapon. It was reliable, accurate and effective," Lt. Col. Matthew Johnston, 34th Fighter Squadron commander, said. "Like any new weapon, what we learned, and what we will learn as we continue to train with the GBU-49, will directly impact our tactics and will make the F-35A even more lethal."

The test was conducted on November 7 by the 388th Fighter Wing's 34th Fighter Squadron.

 Sputnik

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Czech President: We Are Doomed to Stay in Afghanistan

Sputnik News

21:33 20.11.2018(updated 21:34 20.11.2018)

The Czech Republic, one of the countries contributing to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, has lost a number of military personnel serving there in recent months.

During a meeting with Czech army leaders, Milos Zeman expressed concern that the Czech Republic, along with other Western countries, is condemned to continue its military presence in Afghanistan, fighting against Islamic terrorism.

"We are doomed to stay in Afghanistan, defending our country's interests. Leaving this country means showing cowardice, abandoning our interests, as well as a disavowal of the heroism of our soldiers who perished over there. I will support a possible surge (in the number of Czech troops), because only by applying this exact approach, and never by leaving the battlefield, can we counter Islamic terrorism," Zeman said.

Earlier, in August 2018, Milos Zeman defended the Czech participation in NATO's mission from verbal attacks by some political parties. Addressing Czech ambassadors, Zeman said that Czech soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan for Prague, adding that the country's military presence is critical to its national interests, Radio Praha reported.

NATO's mission "Resolute Support" in Afghanistan was launched on January 1, 2015. It consists of around 16,000 troops from 41 countries. The official aim of the mission is "to help the Afghan security forces and institutions develop the capacity to defend Afghanistan and protect its citizens in a sustainable manner."

Since November 2, 2018, the number of Czech personnel has been 348, according to the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The Czech contingent is deployed in Parwan Province in Afghanistan, where they maintaining security for Bagram Airfield.

Between August and October 4, several Czech soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, subsequently being buried as heroes with military honours.

 Sputnik

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'Catastrophic Damage' to US Naval Shipyard For Nuclear Subs Predicted

Sputnik News

16:42 20.11.2018(updated 16:44 20.11.2018)

The US Navy needs to begin protecting its most vulnerable facilities immediately, and has only 10 to 20 years to begin work on the rest.

The Norfolk Naval Shipyard at the foot of the Chesapeake Bay in southeast Virginia, America's oldest and one of four Navy shipyards that maintain the country's nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers, now faces a major threat in the form of rising seas and a powerful storm driven by climate change that is blowing right through the area, warns an article jointly published by NBCNews.com and InsideClimateNews.

"It would have the potential for serious, if not catastrophic damage, and it would certainly put the shipyard out of business for some amount of time," said Ray Mabus, who was the Navy secretary under President Barack Obama. "That has implications not just for the shipyard, but for us, for the Navy," he added.

Among the shipyard's greatest vulnerabilities are its five dry docks, which were not designed to handle such threats. High-tide flooding has already caused extensive delays in ship repairs, disrupting maintenance schedules throughout the Navy's fleet.

Although the Navy has erected temporary flood walls and uses thousands of sandbags to protect the dry docks and is now elevating some equipment, the facility still remains vulnerable,

In October, Hurricane Michael showed what can happen to coastal military bases caught in a storm's path when it razed to the ground much of Tyndall Air Force Base, damaging more than a dozen stealth fighters undergoing maintenance there.

In its 2011 report, the National Research Council warned that a thawing Arctic would force the Navy to police a vast new area in particularly harsh conditions.

The report also found that 56 naval facilities worth a combined $100 billion would be threatened if sea level rose about three feet.

The report also warned that the Navy needed to begin protecting the most vulnerable facilities immediately, and had only 10 to 20 years to begin work on the rest. According to retired Rear Admiral Jonathan White, little progress has been done.

"Many of those recommendations, most if not all, have gone unanswered," he said. "Every year you wait to make decisions and take actions, the risk goes up. And I think the expense also goes up," he said.

While military commanders take climate change seriously, politics and legislative gridlock can block funding. Addressing climate change has become more difficult under President Donald Trump, who said recently that he thought climate scientists had a political agenda. As a result, military officials are now reluctant to work openly on climate change.

All of the nation's 69 submarines and 11 aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered and can be repaired at only a handful of facilities with the equipment and personnel to handle radiological material. Of the Navy's four shipyards, only Puget Sound in Washington State and Norfolk can dry-dock aircraft carriers.

Recent flooding has worsened already poor conditions at Norfolk with most capital equipment infrastructure at the shipyards, such as cranes and other core machinery being beyond its effective service life and obsolete, the article says.

 Sputnik

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EU is Not and Will Not Become Military Alliance - Mogherini on European Army

Sputnik News

16:08 20.11.2018(updated 16:38 20.11.2018)

French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked a continental debate after calling for the creation of a pan-European army to defend the EU against Russia, China and even the United States in light of recent cyber attacks and, as he put it, attempts to meddle into France's domestic affairs.

EU will never be transformed into a military alliance. This is what High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini stated during a press conference in Brussels, commenting on the possibility of the creation of a joint European army.

"The European Union won't turn into a military allliance. There is no competition with NATO," she said.

"We are not building a European army, nobody is talking about a European army here. We are investing to be more reliable and more active security "suppliers" in the region and around the world," Mogherini noted.

On November 6, appearing on Europe 1 radio program, French President Emmanuel Macron called for setting up a European army that would function independently from the US. He called attention to the fact that France had recently faced multiple attempts by outside forces to meddle in its domestic affairs and cyber space. In particular, the French president mentioned threats allegedly originating from China, Russia, and the United States.

The German Chancellor has backed his proposal, stressing recently that "Europe must take its fate in its own hands."

As a parallel move to undertake, she proposed to establish a "European security council" in order to better supervise the initiative. Merkel suggested it could be a "good supplement to NATO." Despite being vigorously supported by the European Commission, the idea was branded "insulting" by Donald Trump, who noted that Europe should first cover its NATO share.

The idea of a single EU army has notably been around for at least several years. Since as early as 2013, Berlin has overseen efforts towards closer EU defence integration through the s0-called Framework Nations Concept, which stipulates that Germany should share its troops and equipment with its European allies.

 Sputnik

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By The Associated Press Nov. 15, 2018 | 07:25 PM | FRANKFORT

The Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld a law that bans labor unions from collecting mandatory dues from workers.

Federal law requires labor unions to represent all workers in a bargaining unit, even workers who do not join the union. Most union contracts require all workers to pay a fee to help the union enforce the contract. But at least 28 states have passed laws exempting workers from these fees.

None of those laws have been struck down by the courts. Kentucky's law went into effect in January 2017. Labor unions argued it violated the state's Constitutional ban on laws that unfairly target a specific group of people. But the court ruled the law is not discriminatory because it applies to all employers and employees, with a few exceptions.
Remarks to the Press

Remarks

Michael R. Pompeo

Secretary of State

Press Briefing Room

Washington, DC

November 20, 2018

SECRETARY POMPEO: Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.

I want to touch on five topics today. First, the United States today sanctioned an international network that the Iranian regime and Russia are using to provide millions of barrels of oil to the Assad regime. This is in exchange for the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars to the IRGC Quds Force. That money is then passed on to terrorist organizations like Hizballah and Hamas. The United States in its continued efforts will not allow these dirty dealings to flourish. Iran will not be allowed to exploit the international financial system, to hide revenue streams it uses to fund terrorist activity, support sectarian militias, abusing civilian populations, or to destabilize the region.

Second, you've seen that Interpol is electing a new president. It's an important organization. We strongly endorse Kim Jong Yang, who is serving as its acting president. We encourage all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader with credibility and integrity that reflects one of the world's most critical law enforcement bodies. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that.

Third, our Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad just got back from his trip to Afghanistan, the UAE, and Qatar. Ambassador Khalilzad's first and last stop was Kabul, where he met with President Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah, and other Afghan stakeholders to facilitate a peace process between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban. During this visit to Kabul, Ambassador Khalilzad met with men and women active in Afghan civil society and peace efforts, members of the media, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations. In every one of his meetings, Ambassador Khalilzad stressed that all Afghans must have a say in creating a sustainable peace for Afghanistan. We will continue to work with all interested parties to support and facilitate an inclusive peace process.

Fourth, our Special Representative for North Korea Steve Biegun is meeting today with his Republic of Korea counterpart to further strengthen our close coordination on efforts to achieve our shared goal of the final, fully verified denuclearization, as agreed to by Chairman Kim. These are important discussions today with the Republic of Korea. They are discussing ongoing diplomatic efforts, our sustained implementation of UN sanctions, and the inter-Korean cooperation.

And finally, I just left a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu today. I welcomed the positive momentum in our relationship following the release of Pastor Brunson and urged reopening additional channels to address issues of mutual concern. We are still greatly concerned about Turkey's continued unjust detention of U.S. locally employed staff and citizens, including NASA scientist Serkan Golge. We also discussed the Khashoggi case and the need to work together to de-escalate conflict in Syria, support the reinvigoration of the UN-led peace process, and achieve a peaceful, lasting solution to the Syrian conflict.

With that, I'm happy to take a few questions.

MS NAUERT: I'll call on questions. Abbie from NBC, please, go right ahead.

QUESTION: Sure. Mr. Secretary, one of the things that the President points to in his statement is a $110 billion arms initiative. But by the State Department's own record in October, only 14.5 billion has come through. When do you expect to see the rest of the money from that arms agreement?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Some of these contracts, defense contracts in particular, are complex, lengthy contract negotiations. We are working diligently on the remainder of those. We actually hope that number will end up being even greater. I couldn't tell you when those negotiations will conclude, but we are very hopeful that each of those commitments that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made to the United States to purchase equipment will be completed in a timely fashion.

MS NAUERT: Michel, with Al Hurra.

QUESTION: Yes, and thank you so much. Mr. Secretary, based on the President's statement, moving forward, the relations with Saudi Arabia won't be affected by the killing of Jamal Khashoggi? And how can you differentiate between the kingdom and the crown prince?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah. So it's a mean, nasty world out there, the Middle East in particular. There are important American interests, to keep the American people safe, to protect Americans  not only Americans who are here, but Americans who are traveling and working, doing business in the Middle East. It is the President's obligation  indeed, the State Department's duty as well  to ensure that we adopt policies that further America's national security.

So as the President said today, the United States will continue to have a relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They are an important partner of ours. We will do that with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its people. That is the commitment that the President made today. It's that straightforward.

By the way, this is a long, historic commitment, and one that is absolutely vital to America's national security. We are determined to ensure that we continue to make sure that we take care of the American people in all of the strategic decisions we make about with whom we work around the world.

MS NAUERT: Michele with NPR.

QUESTION: So one quick follow-up on that, and then a question on Iran. So does the "America first" agenda mean putting U.S. business interests ahead of human rights concerns? And then on Iran, have you considered any specific actions, specific sanctions, to pressure Iran to release the American citizens who are held there?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Let me try taking your second question first.

QUESTION: Yep.

SECRETARY POMPEO: We are engaged every day, literally every day, in working to return every U.S. citizen who is either wrongfully detained or a hostage somewhere around the world. That certainly includes Bob Levinson and all those that are being held by the Iranian regime. We are determined to get them back. As President Trump has made very clear, we're not going to pay a price for their return, but we are prepared to work with all those who can assist us in getting those Americans returned to their families and returned here to our country.

Your other question is best answered by talking about what we have already done. There has been an enormous effort with respect to fact-finding pertaining to the death, the murder, of Jamal Khashoggi. A lot of U.S. resources have been devoted to determining the facts to the best of our ability to determine precisely what happened there.

The United States took a very strong response. We have sanctioned 17 individuals in connection with that investigation. We are at the same time committed to making sure that we place America's national security interests and all the actions that take place in the context of doing the right thing to make sure that America continues to thrive and grow. And when we do that, the world is better off for it too, and the Middle East is better off as well.

MS NAUERT: Ben from NHK.

QUESTION: Yeah, you mentioned Steve Biegun's meeting with his South Korean counterpart. I just wanted to ask: What's the message he's going to be sending as far as what the U.S. Government would like to see the South Korean Government do as far as coordinating their inter-Korean efforts and the denuclearization efforts?

SECRETARY POMPEO: So I think there's complete agreement between the South Koreans and us with respect to how this should proceed. We now have a working group that formalizes those processes so that we can be sure that we don't talk past each other, that we don't take an action or the South Koreans don't take an action that the other is unaware of or hasn't had a chance to comment on or provide their thoughts. And that's the purpose of the working group that's being led on our side by Stephen Biegun.

We have made clear to the Republic of Korea that we do want to make sure that peace on the peninsula and the denuclearization of North Korea aren't lagging behind the increase in the amount of inter-relationship between the two Koreas. We view them as tandem, as moving forward together. We view them as important parallel processes, and that working group is designed to make sure they continue to remain that way.

MS NAUERT: And a final question, CNN.

QUESTION: Hi. Secretary Pompeo, you mentioned you're gathering all these facts. Does the President's statement today mean that that fact-finding segment is over, and have you seen the assessment he is expected to get today?

SECRETARY POMPEO: I can't comment on intelligence matters. I'd direct you to the  to the DNI Director Coats or to the CIA to talk about particular intelligence issues. Facts will obviously still continue to come to light. I'm confident of that. It's the way the world works.

QUESTION: And as these facts come to light, will you pursue further actions against whoever, even if it does show culpability of --

SECRETARY POMPEO: We have been unambiguous with respect to how we have treated the data set that we have been able to get. When America has the information it needs, it will, of course, do the right thing to protect American interests. And we have done so every time.

MS NAUERT: Thank you, everybody.

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UN chief advocates for a strengthening of peacekeeping in Africa

20 November 2018 - Citing the "encouraging progress" achieved by United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa  which hosts half of all ongoing missions  UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called the international community to strengthen cooperation and commitment to peacekeeping, during an open debate held at the Security Council.

Currently, half of all peacekeeping missions  seven out of 14  and four in five UN 'blue helmets' are based in Africa. In addition, African nations provide nearly half of peacekeepers deployed worldwide, including almost two thirds of all women peacekeepers, and the majority of UN police officers.

"Peacekeeping in Africa continues to present some of our greatest challenges," said Mr. Guterres. "United Nations missions are carrying out complex operations with multidimensional mandates in extremely dangerous environments," he explained, citing transnational crime, non-State armed groups and terrorist groups, who sometimes target peacekeepers directly.

The Secretary-General paid tribute to all peacekeepers that have fallen in the line of duty, and to the eight African blue helmets stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who were killed last week while trying to "prevent an attack on the town of Beni" and "create a safe environment for those working to end the Ebola outbreak there".

Inviting the people in Security Council room to observe a moment of silence, he reiterated his condolences for the families of the fallen.

"Peacekeeping is a remarkable exercise in global solidarity. United Nations peacekeepers are ready to pay the ultimate price for peace, and we are all in their debt," he said.

Citing Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire as two examples of missions that were able to close because they had been successful, the Secretary-General highlighted how instrumental the operations in DRC, Mali, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Sudan's Darfur region, were to the respective ongoing political stabilization processes and peacebuilding efforts.

He praised the "excellent cooperation" at the "highest levels" between the UN and the African Union (AU) for all those missions to carry out their mandates successfully, including through the two Joint UN-AU Frameworks, on Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security, and on the Implementation of Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

"Our partnership with the African Union and African Member States is vital to our collective efforts for peace, and we must continue working to strengthen it," he stated. "We are working closely with the AU on joint planning for the mandating of their peace support operations, and on legal and human rights compliance frameworks".

The UN chief noted that he was encouraged by African support for his Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative, launched earlier this year, and signed by 42 African governments to date. "This aims to mobilize all partners and stakeholders to first, to refocus peacekeeping around more realistic mandates; second, to make our missions stronger and safer; and third, to mobilize greater collective support for political solutions, and for well-equipped and well-trained troops," he explained.

Given the many challenges that lie ahead, Mr. Guterres told the participants of the open debate that the UN has taken many measures to improve the effectiveness of the operations, including: a closer integration of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities; increasing the numbers of women in peacekeeping at all levels; and tackling sexual exploitation and abuse with more support to victims and more accountability.

"But as I have told this Council before, we need to understand that UN peacekeeping has limits," the UN chief said. "We face more and more situations where we need peace-enforcement and counter-terrorism operations that can only be carried out by our partners  namely, the African Union and various subregional configurations".

He added that "it is essential that African-led peace operations acting under the Security Council's authority are provided with strong mandates and predictable, sustainable and flexible finance, including through UN assessed contributions where appropriate".

Mr. Guterres expressed gratitude for the European Union and other donors who pledged to support the regional G5 Sahel Joint Force to combat terrorism and organized crime, but regretted that "so far, almost half the pledges have not been earmarked, let alone disbursed".

"There has been progress over the past year," he explained, noting that the Joint Force has "reached initial operational capacity" but that we are far from what is needed to fill "equipment shortfalls and capability gaps," and meet the security needs of the Sahel.

"In our interconnected age, security challenges on one continent present a risk to the whole world," the Secretary-General stated. "The factors that drive conflict in Africa  including poverty, youth unemployment, climate change, competition for resources, and transnational crime  threaten global security," he added.

"Improving the impact and effectiveness of peacekeeping in Africa is a collective responsibility."

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UN Envoy Prepares for Peace Talks in Yemen Amid Renewed Fighting

By VOA News November 20, 2018

U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths visits war-torn Yemen Wednesday to prepare for peace talks after fresh fighting erupted in the key port of Hodeida.

Griffiths is scheduled to meet with Iran-aligned Houthi officials in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a in an attempt to persuade them and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government to begin negotiations in Sweden by year's end.

Both sides recently expressed support for Griffiths' efforts, but the eruption of violence after a lull raised the possibility talks could be derailed.

Yemeni military officials accused the Houthis on Monday of firing in the eastern part of Hodeida. Pro-government forces responded and Saudi-led coalition jets launched airstrikes.

A Yemeni government official accused the Houthis of firing a rocket toward Saudi territory, saying it failed to reach its target and fell into Yemen.

In New York, U.N. Security Council member Britain circulated a draft resolution to the rest of the council, calling for a cease-fire in Yemen, a halt to attacks on civilian areas, and unhindered access to Hodeida.

The port is under rebel control and is a lifeline for food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to the suffering population.

The Saudis have accused Iran of sending arms to the rebels through the port, a charge it denies.

The Trump administration has joined its Western allies in demanding a cease-fire in Yemen. The United States has stopped providing refueling services to Saudi coalition aircraft that attack Yemen.

Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said a cease-fire will eventually take hold in Yemen, but that each side wants to fire the final shot before it takes effect.

"Usually, before a cease-fire goes into effect, we normally witness an escalation of hostilities," he said. "And it appears to me that since the fighting continues in Hodeida  and the claim that they fired a rocket or a missile into Saudi Arabia that did not reach its target  tells us that the Houthis are keen on telling everybody that the last shot was theirs before the cease-fire."

The Houthis seized Sana'a in 2014, forcing the government to flee to exile in Saudi Arabia.

The group has since relocated to the southern Yemeni city of Aden.

Saudi-led airstrikes aimed at driving out the Houthis have killed thousands of people and wiped out entire civilian neighborhoods, including hospitals.

The fighting has compounded the misery in Yemen, which is also dealing with mass starvation and a cholera outbreak.

The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Yemen since the Saudis intervened in March 2015. Some human rights groups, however, believe the death toll may be five times higher.

Edward Yeranian in Cairo contributed.

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Russia Accused of Abusing Interpol as It Seeks to Secure Presidency

By Henry Ridgwell November 20, 2018

Interpol is in danger of being politicized by Russia as the organization chooses a new president, according to Kremlin critics.

A senior Russian police official is one of only two candidates put forward for the role of president of the organization, which coordinates police forces across the globe, in a vote scheduled Wednesday in Dubai. The winner of the election will replace Chinese national Meng Hongwei, who was detained in Beijing in September over corruption allegations.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the United States was supporting Kim Jong Yang of South Korea to lead the international police agency Interpol, pitting Washington against the Kremlin's candidate, Maj. Gen. Aleksandr Prokopchuk.

Prokopchuk, who heads Russia's national Interpol Bureau, is widely seen as the favorite to be elected president of the organization. Critics say in recent years Russia has abused Interpol's so-called "red notice" system of international arrest warrants to pursue its political enemies.

Among those targeted have been Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russian businessman, and financier Bill Browder, the subject of six red notice requests by Russia, all of them thrown out by Interpol. The two men held a news conference Tuesday in London to highlight their concerns.

"This is a perfect way for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to basically breathe the fear of God into all of his enemies, so that they know that they can't even escape Russia if one of his guys is at the head of Interpol," Browder told reporters. "The Interpol constitution has very specific rules, which forbid countries who are serial abusers from using the system. We intend to begin a legal process to have Russia suspended from their use of Interpol."

As chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management in Russia, Browder uncovered $230 million in tax fraud allegedly carried out by senior Russian officials.

Browder's investigating lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested and beaten to death in police custody in 2009. Russian courts later convicted Magnitsky posthumously, and Browder in absentia, of stealing the money. Browder strongly denies the charges.

This week, Russian prosecutors opened a new investigation into Browder, claiming he was involved in Magnitsky's death and pledging to request another Interpol arrest warrant.

"This hypothesis is highly likely to be true because Magnitsky was one of the closest accomplices of Browder in the crimes committed earlier," said Mikhail Alexandrov, a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor general.

Browder says the false accusation underscores the need to stop Russia from abusing Interpol.

He was instrumental in campaigning for the United States to adopt the Magnitsky Act, which enables the withholding of visas and the freezing of assets of human rights offenders. Several Russians have been sanctioned under the act, and Browder says Putin is rattled.

"He wants to stop me from advocating for Magnitsky Acts around the world," Browder said Tuesday. "It was his government that ordered a terrorist attack in the U.K. using chemical weapons in Salisbury. It was his government that shot down MH17 [a Malaysian Airlines flight], killing 298 innocent individuals. It was his government that cheated and hacked in elections in the United States and Europe. And to put his representative in charge of the most important international crime-fighting organization is like putting the mafia in charge."

Moscow denies involvement in those crimes.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has written to Interpol to warn against the appointment of Prokopchuk, describing it as "akin to putting a fox in charge of a henhouse." Ukraine and Lithuania have threatened to quit the organization if he is appointed.

Interpol told VOA the president is democratically elected by its members, adding that the role does not involve the day-to-day running of the organization. Interpol did not respond directly to accusations of abuse of its red notice system by the Kremlin.

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Kremlin: Opposition to Russian Candidate to Head Interpol is Election Meddling

By VOA News November 20, 2018

The Kremlin says opposition to a Russian candidate to lead the global police group Interpol amounts to election interference.

The election for a new leader is set for Wednesday at the end of Interpol's annual conference in Dubai.

Four U.S. senators issued an open letter Monday urging President Donald Trump to oppose the candidacy of Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk, the current Interpol vice president.

The senators said Prokopchuk had been "personally involved" in what it said was Russia's routine "abuses of Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents and journalists."

"This is probably a certain kind of interference in the electoral process of an international organization," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in response to criticism of Prokopchuk.

Interpol member countries will vote to replace Meng Hongwei, who disappeared in his native China in September. China later told Interpol that Meng had quit after being charged with accepting bribes.

Also vying for the presidency of Interpol is South Korea's Kim Jong-Yang, who is serving as acting president.

Prokopchuk, considered the leading candidate, has also been criticized by others including Bill Browder, a U.S.-born British fund manager and Kremlin foe who has been the subject of several arrest notices issued by Interpol at Russia's request.

Browder said it would be "outrageous" if Prokopchuk wins the election, which he maintains is an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to "expand his criminal tentacles to every corner of the globe."

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'US mulls designating Venezuela state sponsor of terror'

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 06:42AM

The United States is considering enlisting Venezuela as a "state sponsor of terrorism," but no final decision has been made by Washington yet, an informed source reportedly says.

The source told Reuters that the deliberations had moved forward in recent days with strong lobbying by junior Republican Senator Marco Rubio, himself the son of Cuban migrants and a hawk on Latin America.

The move could limit US economic assistance and impose financial restrictions on Venezuela.

The source, however, said no time frame had been determined yet for the decision on whether to designate Venezuela as a terrorism sponsor.

A US official, who also talked to Reuters under the condition of anonymity, said it would be a challenge for the US administration to provide concrete proof linking the Venezuelan government to terrorism if it decided to add Venezuela to the list.

Caracas has already been facing a series of US sanctions targeting its economy and officials since 2014 over alleged human rights abuses and threats to US national security.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said the US administration is seeking to assassinate him.

Rubio has long pressed the administration of US President Donald Trump to take a tougher stand against the Maduro government.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September, Rubio and two other Republican senators called for naming Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism and accused it of links to Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), without offering any proof.

The United States has classified Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement as a "terrorist" group. Hezbollah is a resistance and political group that has aided the Lebanese military fend off Israeli aggression on Lebanon in the past.

According to The Washington Post, which first reported that the Trump administration was considering blacklisting Venezuela, the US State Department has been asking for feedback on the proposed move from various agencies in recent days.

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State Department Terrorist Designation of Hajji 'Abd al-Nasir

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

November 20, 2018

The Department of State has designated Hajji 'Abd al-Nasir as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224, which imposes sanctions on foreign persons who have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism. Today's designation seeks to deny al-Nasir the resources to plan and carry out terrorist attacks. Among other consequences, all of his property and interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with him.

Hajji 'Abd al-Nasir has held several leadership positions in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and SDGT. Within the past five years, al-Nasir has served as an ISIS Military Amir in Syria as well as chair of the ISIS Delegated Committee, the council that reports to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and exercises administrative control of the terrorist organization's affairs. The Delegated Committee is responsible for planning and issuing orders related to ISIS's military operations, tax collections, religious police, and commercial and security operations.

"ISIS is down but not out," said Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State. "As ISIS continues to lose ground on the battlefield, we must starve it of the resources it uses to commit terrorism around the world. Today's designation is another step towards ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS."

Today's action notifies the U.S. public and the international community that Hajji 'Abd al-Nasir has committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism. Designations of terrorist individuals and groups expose and isolate them, and deny them access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist the law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies and governments. Additionally, in a coordinated global action taken yesterday, the United Nations Security Council's 1267 ISIL and al-Qa'ida Sanction Committee added al-Nasir to its Sanctions List, subjecting al-Nasir to an international asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo.

A list of State Department-designated FTOs and SDGTs is available here: http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/index.htm.



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Six Killed, 10 Injured in a Blast at Indian Ordnance Factory

Sputnik News

13:31 20.11.2018(updated 14:34 20.11.2018)

India's apex audit body, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), warned the government on several occasions of safety lapses at ordnance factories across the country.

New Delhi (Sputnik): At least six persons died and another ten were injured in an explosion on Tuesday morning at a state-owned ordnance factory in Maharashtra, India.

"Around 10 to 15 contract labourers were at the site when the incident occurred. The blast occurred in one of the ammunition boxes while unloading the ammunition. The incident took place in an open land," Nikhil Pingle, additional superintendent of police said.

The explosion occurred while ammunition was being unloaded for disposal. This is the second big incident of blasts at Indian ordnance factories in the last two years.

In May 2016, 19 people were killed, including two army officers, four Defence Security Corps jawans, and 13 firefighting staff in a blast at an ammunition depot at Pulgaon. The Central Ammunition Depot at Pulgaon, spread over 10,000 hectares, is India's largest and Asia's second largest ammunition depot, housing a variety of arms and ammunition, including the BrahMos missiles.

On the basis of recommendations of a Court of Inquiry on the 2016 fire incident at Pulgaon, the Ministry of Defense had decided that disposal of all defective segregated mines for exudation of TNT, held at various locations, be undertaken by the Army Headquarters. It was also decided that the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) would replace or repair the defective ammunition within three months. The Indian Army, in consultation with all stakeholders, also finalized the standard operating procedures for the disposal of defective ammunition.

 Sputnik

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Pakistan summons US envoy to protest Trump's bin Laden emarks

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:07AM

Pakistan has summoned the US charge d'affaires to protest the "baseless" accusations leveled against Islamabad by President Donald Trump, who has criticized the Asian country's role in fighting terrorism as well as the capture of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"The Foreign Secretary called in the U.S. CdA Ambassador Paul Jones to register a strong protest on the unwarranted and unsubstantiated allegations made against Pakistan," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Trump, during a Fox News TV interview aired on Sunday, defended canceling financial aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan earlier this year because "they don't do anything for us, they don't do a damn thing for us."

The US president suggested that Pakistani authorities knew bin Laden's location prior to his killing by US troops in a raid inside Pakistan in 2011. He said bin Laden had been living in "a nice mansion" in Pakistan next to a military academy and "everybody in Pakistan knew he was there."

On Monday, Trump tweeted again and doubled down on those claims.

"Rejecting the insinuations about OBL (Osma bin Laden), Foreign Secretary reminded the US CdA that it was Pakistan's intelligence cooperation that provided the initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of OBL," the ministry said, adding that "baseless rhetoric about Pakistan was totally unacceptable."

Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Imran, who is known for his fiery anti-American rhetoric, defended his Pakistan's contribution to Washington's so-called war on terror, saying that "record needs to be put straight on Mr. Trump's tirade against Pakistan."

The premier went on to say that Pakistan had borne the brunt of Washington's so-called war on terror.

"Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 billion was lost to economy. US 'aid' was a minuscule $20 billion," he added.

The latest friction threatens to further worsen the already fragile relations between Islamabad and Washington.

In August last year, the American president also in a major speech outlining US policy on Afghanistan accused Islamabad of offering a safe haven to "agents of chaos."

Successive US governments have criticized Pakistan for what they call links with the Taliban and for harboring bin Laden.

Washington has also long accused Pakistan of ignoring or even collaborating with groups which attack Afghanistan from safe havens along the border between the two countries. Pakistan denies supporting the Afghan Taliban militants.

In addition, Pakistan and Afghanistan also regularly accuse each other of sheltering militants. Both sides, however, deny such allegations.

Afghanistan has been gripped by insecurity since the US and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror in 2001. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

US forces have been bogged down there through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Trump.

The militants are now launching attacks on both Pakistani and Afghan soil.

Pakistan, which joined the US war on terror in 2001, says it has paid the price for the alliance.

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Islamabad Summons U.S. Envoy In Protest To Trump's Pakistan Criticism

By RFE/RL November 20, 2018

Pakistan has summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires in Islamabad to protest against President Donald Trump's criticism of Pakistan's role in fighting terrorism and the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Trump's remarks in the past several days have angered Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who on November 19 retorted by saying on Twitter that few allies have sacrificed or helped Washington as much as Pakistan in its war against terrorism.

The tension threatens to further fray relations between the two countries which have repeatedly clashed about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan's alleged support for militants.

"The Foreign Secretary called in the U.S. CdA [charge d'affaires] Ambassador Paul Jones to register a strong protest on the unwarranted and unsubstantiated allegations made against Pakistan," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on November 20 in Islamabad.

Over the weekend, Trump said in an interview that Pakistan doesn't "do a damn thing" for the United States despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid, and he alleged that Pakistani officials knew bin Laden's location before his killing by U.S. troops in a raid inside Pakistan in 2011.

'Baseless Rhetoric'

"Rejecting the insinuations about OBL [Osama bin Laden], Foreign Secretary reminded the US CdA that it was Pakistan's intelligence cooperation that provided the initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of OBL," the ministry said, adding that "baseless rhetoric about Pakistan was totally unacceptable."

As part of Trump's effort to resolve the 17-year war in Afghanistan, Washington has escalated pressure on Pakistan, whose assistance the U.S. believes is needed to compel the Taliban to agree to negotiate with the government in Kabul.

In his interview with Fox News television,Trump had said he canceled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid to Pakistan.

That comment drew an immediate response from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who on November 19 said his country had suffered 75,000 casualties and lost billions of dollars during the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan.

With reporting by AP and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/islamabad-summons-u-s -envoy-in-protest-to-trump-s-pakistan -criticism/29610592.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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UK warns Russia about military operations at Azov Sea

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:59AM

The UK has warned Russia against using its growing military presence in the Sea of Azov to "destabilize" regional economy, amid allegations that Ukrainian ships are being denied access to the waters.

In a statement published Monday, the UK Foreign Office accused Russia of delaying or preventing Ukrainian ships' access to the sea while blocking other ships from entering Ukraine's ports.

"Russia and its security forces continue to disrupt Ukrainian and international shipping calling at Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov," the statement read, claiming that Moscow had "unlawfully" built bridges that connected the Crimean Peninsula to its mainland.

After constructing the bridges, Russia has stopped and searched vessels sailing in the region, causing delays and other problems for more than 200 vessels, the statement continued.

"Restrictions on freedom of passage have been accompanied by an increase in Russia's military presence in the sea," the Foreign Office said.

Ties between Russia and the rest of Europe have deteriorated since February 2014, when Crimea rejoined Russia following a referendum.

In siding with Ukraine, the European Union (EU) has leveled several rounds of sanctions against the Russian government. The NATO military alliance has also joined the pressure campaign amassing troops and equipment on Russia's borders.

Tensions between Ukraine and Russia resurfaced this year after Kiev detained two Russian vessels for port calls in Crimea, which Ukraine still considers its territory.

Russia blasted the move as "maritime terrorism" and increased patrols in the sea.

The standoff has raised the alarm among EU officials, with the bloc's neighbor policy commissioner, Johannes Hahn, noting that a trip to Kiev was a priority.

In its statement, the Foreign Office said Russia should allow Ukrainian ships move freely.

"The UK supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and territorial waters," it added.

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Putin urges Russian military to take 'concrete steps' against US withdrawal from INF Treaty

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 03:21AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday Moscow does not need to join another arms race, but it would not leave Washington's decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty unanswered.

Russia is ready to continue dialog with the US on the bilateral treaty banning medium-range missiles, which has become one of the cornerstones of nuclear disarmament, the Russian leader said at a government meeting in Sochi.

Still, the US should "treat this issue with full responsibility," the president said, adding that Washington's decision to withdraw from the agreement "cannot and will not be left unanswered."

The president also called on the government and military officials to develop "concrete steps" Russia can take in response to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty, the RT reported.

US President Donald Trump said on October 20 that Washington would withdraw from the INF, which was signed towards the end of Cold War in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The treaty, seen as a milestone in ending the Cold War arms race between the two superpowers, banned ground-launch nuclear missiles with ranges from 500 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers and led to the elimination of nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles.

In his Monday remarks, Putin warned that his statements were not empty threats. He said that Russia had previously cautioned the US against leaving the treaty regulating missile systems and warned Washington about potential retaliation.

"Now, we have hypersonic weapons capable of penetrating any missile defense," Putin said, referring to Russia's state-of-the-art weapons.

Moscow will not allow anyone to drag itself into another armed race, the Russian leader said. Instead, Russia plans to focus on "balanced development" of its Army, Navy and Air Force. The troops are expected to adopt new military training techniques, using the combat experience they received in Syria. Russia will also continue to modernize its military hardware.

Putin said he hopes that the "common sense" will prevail and the US will continue a dialog with Russia in the fields of strategic stability and collective security on the basis of "mutual responsibility."

The Cold War-era treaty, which rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles, has come into question against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the West and Russia.

European leaders worry any collapse of the INF treaty could lead to a new, destabilizing arms race.

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20 Years After Killing, Starovoitova's Sister Doesn't Believe Mob Boss Ordered Hit

By RFE/RL's Russian Service, Current Time TV November 20, 2018

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Twenty years after democratic reformer Galina Starovoitova was assassinated, her sister says she does not believe that an infamous alleged crime kingpin who was implicated in the slaying was, in fact, behind it.

Speaking to RFE/RL on November 20, the anniversary of a slaying that stunned Russia and sent shock waves abroad, Olga Starovoitova said she hoped that those who ordered her sister's murder will be identified and brought to justice someday.

Galina Starovoitova, a prominent reformist politician who was co-chair of the Democratic Russia party, was shot dead in the stairwell of her apartment building in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998.

In 2005, a St. Petersburg court sentenced a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer and another man to prison terms of 20 and 23 1/2 years after convicting them of involvement in Starovoitova's killing.

In August 2015, former lawmaker Mikhail Glushchenko was convicted of "taking part in the organization of the murder" and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.

A few months earlier, Glushchenko claimed that Vladimir Barsukov -- an alleged organized-crime boss now in prison for murder and other crimes -- ordered Starovoitova's killing after she blocked him from establishing ties with a number of corrupt city officials.

Olga Starovoitova said she believed that Barsukov, who is also known as Kumarin, might have been involved in her sister's killing but that it's unlikely he ordered the hit.

She said there could be several layers of people involved in ordering and organizing the killing, adding that she suspects specific people but will not name them because she believes in the presumption of innocence and does not have proof.

Russia's security services "have always been chauvinists toward women" and particularly dislike "talkative women," Olga Starovoitova said, referring to women who speak their mind or challenge the authorities.

Referring to her sister and Anna Politikovskaya, an investigative journalist who was killed in her Moscow apartment building in 2006, she said that "talkative women" were being "shot down one by one."

She also said she had been told that her sister's killing was still under investigation.

An investigator "told me that investigation of Galina Starovoitova's murder is the second longest in Russia."

"The longest one is the investigation into the murder of [Tsar] Nicholas II" and his family, who were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

Barsukov, the alleged head of the notorious Tambov organized crime group, is serving a 23-year prison term for murder, attempted murder, extortion, and asset-grabbing in cases that are unrelated to Starovoitova's murder.

Barsukov was a powerful figure in St. Petersburg in the 1990s and was vice president of the Petersburg Fuel Company.

Vladimir Putin, now president and at the time a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, awarded the city's lucrative gasoline concession to the company in 1994.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-starovoitova-- 20-years-sister-doesnt-believe-mob-boss -ordered-hit/29610905.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Zarif condemns US president's shameful statement on Saudi crimes

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 09:12PM

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has denounced a statement by US President Donald Trump that Washington will stand by Saudi Arabia despite the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi as "shameful."

Earlier in the day, Trump said in a statement issued by the White House that the incumbent US administration will support the Saudis despite international condemnation of Khashoggi's killing at the kingdom's consulate in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul early last month.

He added that the US intends to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia even though "it could very well be" that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had knowledge of Khashoggi's death.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event," Trump said, adding, "maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

He added that he had no intention of cancelling military contracts with Riyadh.

The US president then accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East region, saying, "Iran states openly, and with great force, "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" Iran is considered "the world's leading sponsor of terror.""

Trump further claimed that "Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave."

The allegations came as Iran has no military ties with Yemen and the missile capabilities of Yemeni army forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees are home-grown.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country's popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

A number of Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.

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US will remain steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure Israel's interests: Trump

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 06:27PM

President Donald Trump has said Washington intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure interests of the United States, Israel and regional partners.

Trump said that it is possible that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had knowledge of the assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday.

Trump said that "King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

"That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the US president insisted. "They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."

"The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!" he added.

He mentioned that Saudi Arabia had "agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States."

"Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!" he pointed out.

He acknowledged that the "crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone," but implied that due to the murder of a journalist Washington cannot cancel such lucrative business deals with the kingdom.

Some US senators have called on Trump to cancel arms deals with Saudi Arabia as a punishment over the murder of Khashoggi -- a US resident who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 after being lured into the mission for some standard paperwork.

While mounting evidence released by Turkey and even the CIA point to bin Salman's role in the murder, Trump had resisted calls inside Washington to hold him responsible.

In an attempt to ease the criticism, the US Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudis involved in the murder on Thursday.

The sanctions came after the Saudi public prosecutor announced that five officials faced a possible death sentence in the case but exonerated bin Salman, also known as MBS.

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Saudi king throws his weight behind his son, Judiciary on Khashoggi murder

Iran Press TV

Tue Nov 20, 2018 02:23AM

Saudi King Salman has thrown his weight behind his son, Crown Prince Mohammed, and lavished praise on the Saudi Judiciary in his first public remarks since the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is said to have been murdered at bin Salman's order.

"The kingdom was founded on Islamic principles of justice and equality, and we are proud of the efforts of the judiciary and the public prosecution," King Salman said in his annual address to the country's top advisory body Shura Council on Monday.

"We ensure that this country will never deviate from implementing God's law without discrimination," he went on to say, without directly addressing the murder of Khashoggi in his speech.

The king also praised bin Salman's ambitious economic reform program, whose fate is not clear anymore amid allegations of the crown prince's direct role in the assassination.

Last week, the Saudi public prosecutor exonerated bin Salman of involvement in the murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, but the CIA reportedly concluded he had ordered the assassination.

Saudi Arabia's official broadcaster Al-Arabiya later reported the crown prince will attend the upcoming Group of 20 Summit in Argentina in his first overseas trip since the murder.

In a show of defiance, the prince will come face-to-face with international leaders from Turkey, the United States and other European nations at the two-day summit that begins November 30.

US President Donald Trump and other leaders are expected to attend the summit. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has kept international pressure mounting on the kingdom, is also expected to attend.

Saudi royals turn against crown prince

Meanwhile, some members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are agitating to prevent bin Salman from becoming king, three sources close to the royal court told Reuters on Monday.

Dozens of princes and cousins from powerful branches of the Al Saud family want to see a change in the line of succession but would not act while King Salman is still alive, the sources said. They recognize that the king is unlikely to turn against his favorite son.

Rather, they are discussing the possibility with other family members that after the king's death, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 76, a younger full brother of King Salman and uncle of the crown prince, could take the throne, according to the sources.

Prince Ahmed, King Salman's only surviving full brother, would have the support of family members, the security apparatus and some Western powers, one of the Saudi sources said.

Alarmed by such reports, Crown Prince bin Salman, along with his father, resumed an unprecedented domestic tour Monday with a visit to northern Tabuk region, as they seek to leverage links with different tribes and religious leaders and shore up support for the leadership.

The visit followed a trip to central Qassim province and the neighboring region of Hail earlier this month.

The House of Saud is made up of hundreds of princes. In the Saudi monarchy, there is no automatic succession from father to eldest son. Instead the kingdom's tribal traditions dictate that the king and senior family members from each branch select the heir they consider fittest to lead.

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Trump Suggests Saudi Crown Prince Knew About Khashoggi Killing

Sputnik News

20:40 20.11.2018(updated 23:15 20.11.2018)

Earlier, the US president claimed that the Saudi crown prince said in telephone talks that Riyadh had nothing to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia later stated on multiple occasions that the royal family did not order Khashoggi's killing.

US President Donald Trump said that the Saudi crown prince "could very well" have had knowledge about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. At the same time, Trump confirmed that the US intends to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia in order to ensure the interests of Washington and its allies in teh region.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't! We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi," Trump said.

Trump stressed that US intelligence agencies were still continuing to assess all information relating to the murder of the Saudi journalist.

He added that at the moment, the US would not be undertaking any punitive measures against the kingdom over the Khashoggi case. The US president noted, though, that he would be ready to consider proposals by Congress in regards to Saudi Arabia if they are consistent with "absolute security and safety of America."

"I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so," Trump said.

The US president also reiterated his earlier statement that cancelling arms export contracts with Riyadh would only benefit Russia and China. He noted that after his "heavily negotiated trip" to Saudi Arabia, the latter had agreed to invest some $450 billion in the US economy.

"If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries," he said.

Previously, a bipartisan group of US senators suggested freezing arms supplies to Saudi Arabia under previously signed contracts over the Khashoggi scandal. Trump didn't support the idea, claiming that if the US halts its arms supplies, Riyadh would start buying weapons from Russia and China instead.

Trump insisted that weapons sales to the kingdom would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US, but a recent report by the think-tank Centre for International Policy suggests that the number would be much lower.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a resident of the US, was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh has firmly denied accusations of its involvement in the killing and has insisted on multiple occasions that the royal family had nothing to do with his assassination.

Saudi Arabia assured that the killing was a "rogue operation" and announced that 21 individuals have been arrested in relation to the case, 11 of whom have already been charged. Saudi prosecutors announced that five of those arrested face death sentences for their crimes.

 Sputnik

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Saudis Ready to Find Alternative Arms Suppliers Amid Khashoggi Scandal

Sputnik News

16:00 20.11.2018(updated 16:01 20.11.2018)

Earlier, Germany froze weapons shipments to the kingdom over reports that the CIA allegedly believes that the royal family was behind Saudi journalist Khashoggi's murder. Riyadh strongly denies involvement and has called the killing a "rogue operation." Authorities have already arrested 21 Saudi citizens suspected of involvement in the murder.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said in an interview with the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Riyadh is considering buying weapons from alternative suppliers, as Berlin is freezing shipments of weapons that were slated for the kingdom according to previously signed contracts, while the US and France are considering following suit.

"We prefer to be armed by our allies, but Saudi Arabia's commitment to defend its land and people obligates it to obtain the weapons it needs from any source," al-Jubeir said.

Germany announced on 19 November, 2018 that it would be suspending arms exports to Saudi Arabia, including signed contracts, in connection with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on October 2. Earlier, Berlin imposed a temporary ban on new deals on weapons sales to Riyadh.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has also voiced opposition to selling weapons to the kingdom in due to the alleged involvement of Riyadh in Khashoggi's murder.

However, US President Donald Trump urged against freezing the existing contracts, claiming that arms sales to Saudi Arabia would generate between 450,000 and 600,000 jobs in the US. However, a recent report by the think-tank Centre for International Policy suggested that the number of jobs dependant on the contracts is lower  around 20,000.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a resident of the US, was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh has firmly denied accusations of its involvement in the killing. Saudi authorities have insisted on multiple occasions that the royal family did not order the assassination of the journalist and that the killing was a "rogue operation."

On 15 November, the Saudi Prosecutor General's Office revealed the results of their investigation, claiming that Khashoggi died in the consulate after being "forcibly restrained, and injected with a large amount of a drug."

Saudi prosecutors announced that 21 individuals have been arrested in relation to the case, 11 of whom have already been charged. Five of those arrested face death sentences for their crimes.

 Sputnik

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Saudi FM Blasts 'CIA Report' on Crown Prince's Alleged Role in Khashoggi Killing

Sputnik News

09:04 20.11.2018(updated 09:05 20.11.2018)

Last week The Washington Post reported, citing sources with knowledge of the case, that the CIA had named Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as the person who had given the order to kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Both US President Donald Trump and the State Department stated that the final conclusions of the case are yet to be made.

In an interview with Al Sharq Al Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir dismissed the allegations that Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had orchestrated the killing of Jamal Khashoggi as 'false'.

"We in the kingdom know that such allegations about the crown prince have no basis in truth and we categorically reject them, whether through leaks or not. There are leaks that have not been officially announced, and I have noticed that they are based on an assessment, not conclusive order," the foreign minister was cited as saying.

Jubeir also commented on earlier remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the order came from 'the highest levels' of the Saudi government but certainly not from Saudi King Salman:

"We have already asked the Turkish authorities at the highest level about the meaning of these comments, and they confirmed to us categorically that the crown prince is not meant by these comments. The leadership of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the crown prince, is a red line, and we will not permit attempts to harm or undermine them," he said.

In a parallel development, Saudi King Salman stood by his son, the crown prince, praising his social and economic reform programme, and lauding efforts of the public prosecution without directly addressing the killing of Khashoggi.

"The kingdom was founded on Islamic principles of justice and equality, and we are proud of the efforts of the judiciary and the public prosecution. We ensure that this country will never deviate from implementing God's law without discrimination," he said, while delivering his annual address to the Shura Council on Monday.

Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported that the CIA had concluded that Prince Salman had ordered to kill Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month.

A spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, immediately denounced the newspaper's allegations as 'false', while both President Donald Trump and the State Department said that the final conclusions of the case are yet to be made.

"They [the CIA] haven't assessed anything yet, it's too early," Trump said.

Saudi authorities have consistently denied the royal family's involvement, describing the murder as a 'rogue operation'. They have detained 21 suspects, having charged 11 of them and demanded the death penalty for five of the accused.

Jamal Khashoggi disappeared on 2 October after entering the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul; after weeks of speculation that he could have been killed inside the building, Riyadh confirmed his death.

On 15 November, the Saudi Prosecutor General's Office announced that Khashoggi died in the consulate after being 'forcibly restrained, and injected with a large amount of a drug resulting in an overdose that led to his death'.

 Sputnik

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Trump: US Interests Outweigh Harshly Punishing Saudis for Killing Journalist

By Steve Herman November 20, 2018

Abandoning Saudi Arabia, despite its responsibility for killing a U.S.-based journalist, "would be a terrible mistake," President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday.

Any human rights concerns are outweighed by U.S. national security and economic interests, the president said.

"We're staying with Saudi Arabia," Trump announced, noting the kingdom's mutual opposition to Iran and Riyadh's purchases of American military equipment that mean, according to the president, "hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment."

Russia and China "are not going to get that gift," Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn before departing for the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We've kept oil prices down," Trump said, claiming they would soar if the U.S.-Saudi relationship was broken up.

"I'm not going to destroy the world economy and destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," he added.

'Maybe he did, maybe he didn't'

Asked about a reported conclusion by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman most likely knew about or ordered the plot to kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul, Trump replied: "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and stated, concerning the CIA's finding: "They have nothing definitive."

The president denied that his decision to avoid harshly punishing the Saudis for the Oct. 2 killing had anything to do with his personal business interests.

"I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't make money from Saudi Arabia," Trump said. "Being president has cost me a fortune."

Earlier in the day, in a statement issued by the White House, Trump said he understood that some lawmakers in Congress  who "for political or other reasons"  wanted to pursue sanctions against Riyadh for the killing. "They are free to do so," he said.

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," Trump said.

But the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez, sent a letter to Trump Tuesday reminding him U.S. law requires him to examine whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's death.

The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the president to determine if a foreign official is responsible for a human rights violation.

The act is named for Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky who was apparently beaten to death in prison in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of tax fraud.

"I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," Senator Corker tweeted Tuesday. He added that Congress will consider "all the tools at our disposal" to determine the role of the crown prince in the Khashoggi killing.

Khashoggi lived in the United States, writing opinion articles for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince and Riyadh's involvement in the long-running Yemen conflict.

His editor at the newspaper, Karen Attiah, described Trump's statement as "full of lies and a blatant disregard for his own intelligence agencies. It also shows an unforgivable disregard for the lives of Saudis who dare criticize the regime. This is a new low."

U.S. intelligence community

Veterans of the U.S. intelligence community are also expressing their disdain with the president's stance.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, after Tuesday's statement said on Twitter that Trump "excels in dishonesty," so now it is up to Congress to obtain and declassify the CIA findings on Khashoggi's death.

"No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince  should escape accountability for such a heinous act," Brennan wrote.

Former CIA officer Ned Price said in the wake of the president's statement, which puts the agency's reported high confidence assessment on par with Saudi denials, "how appointed intelligence leaders could continue to serve after this betrayal is beyond me."

A Saudi prosecutor cleared the crown prince of wrongdoing last week while calling for the death penalty for five men, among the 11 indicted in the case. The prosecutor said a total of 21 people had been detained in connection with the killing.

Turkish officials concluded that Khashoggi was tortured and killed, with his body then dismembered.

Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that Ankara might formally seek a U.N. investigation of the killing if cooperation with Riyadh reached an impasse.

VOA's Chris Hannas and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.

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Flaws that caused crack in Memphis I-40 bridge likely there since construction
Trump Standing by Saudis Despite Khashoggi Killing

By Ken Bredemeier November 20, 2018

President Donald Trump said Tuesday the U.S. is standing by Saudi Arabia even though the president acknowledged Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about a Saudi operation last month to kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul.

"It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said in a statement, adding that "we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder."

But the U.S. leader said, "In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country."

Multiple U.S. news agencies have cited U.S. intelligence officials saying the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the crown prince, the de facto Saudi leader, ordered the October 2 killing. Saudi officials deny this.

Trump said, "The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone." But he said it would be foolish for the U.S. to cancel a possible $110 billion in U.S. defense contracts with Saudi Arabia, arguing that "Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries - and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!"

Trump said he understands that some lawmakers in Congress, who "for political or other reasons," want to pursue sanctions against Riyadh for the killing and said, "They are free to do so."

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," Trump said.

"After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world," Trump said. "They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world."

He concluded, "As president of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!"

Khashoggi lived in the United States, writing opinion articles for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince and Riyadh's involvement in the long-running Yemen conflict.

His editor at the newspaper, Karen Attiah, described Trump's statement as "full of lies and a blatant disregard for his own intelligence agencies. It also shows an unforgivable disregard for the lives of Saudis who dare criticize the regime. This is a new low."

A Saudi prosecutor cleared the crown prince of wrongdoing last week while calling for the death penalty for five men, among the 11 indicted in the case. The prosecutor said a total of 21 people had been detained in connection with the killing.

Germany's foreign minister said Monday that Berlin will ban 18 Saudi nationals from entering Europe's border-free Schengen zone because of their alleged links to Khashoggi's killing. Heiko Maas said he had consulted with France and Britain before announcing the ban.

"There are more questions than answers in this case, with the crime itself and who is behind it," Mass said on the sidelines of a European Union meeting in Brussels.

Trump has said he has been fully briefed on an audio recording of the killing of the dissident Saudi journalist, but has no intention of listening to it because of the violence it depicts.

"It's a suffering tape. It's a terrible tape," Trump told Fox News in a White House interview last Friday.

"It's very violent, very vicious and terrible," Trump said.

Asked in the Fox interview if the crown prince lied to him about his involvement, Trump replied, "I don't know. Who can really know?" adding, "He told me that he had nothing to do with it. He told me that, I would say, maybe five times at different points, as recently as a few days ago."

Fox interviewer Chris Wallace asked Trump whether he would go along with moves in Congress to cut off U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen or halt arms sales to Riyadh.

Trump equivocated, saying, "I want to see Yemen end. It takes two to tango and Iran has to end also. I want Saudi to stop, but I want Iran to stop also."

Khashoggi, who lived in the U.S. and wrote opinion columns for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince, was killed at the Saudi consulate while he was trying to get documents for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.

Turkish officials concluded that he was tortured and killed, with his body then dismembered.

VOA's Chris Hannas contributed to this report.

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Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia

November 20, 2018

America First!

The world is a very dangerous place!

The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq's fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" Iran is considered "the world's leading sponsor of terror."

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism.

After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!

The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an "enemy of the state" and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world. As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!

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Turkish FM Says Ankara Could Seek UN Probe into Khashoggi Murder

Sputnik News

00:16 21.11.2018(updated 00:25 21.11.2018)

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he has discussed with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday the case of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

However, Ankara is not satisfied with the cooperation it is receiving from Riyadh over the murder of Khashoggi and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry over the issue if its liaising with SAudi Arabia comes to an impasse, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Last week, a CIA leak to several news outlets revealed a "high confidence" intelligence assessment that the October 2 murder of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul had been ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Meanwhile, S President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that the CIA did not determine whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was aware of the prepared assassination.

"They did not make a determination," Trump said. "They did not make that assessment. The CIA has looked at it. They've studied it a lot. They have nothing definitive. And the fact maybe he did, maybe he didn't."

Earlier on Tuesday, US Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed shock that Trump had said there would be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and vowed to oppose all future US arms sales and financial aid to Riyadh.

"I plan to vote against any future arms sales and appropriation to Saudi Arabia," Feinstein said on Tuesday. "I also believe that the United States should consider sanctions against the crown prince and that the Saudi ambassador to the United States should not be allowed to continue in that role."

"The facts are clear. Khashoggi, a US resident and columnist for a US newspaper, was killed by agents of the Saudi government in a Saudi consulate. This was a premeditated murder, plain and simple," Feinstein said.

Khashoggi went missing on October 2, after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh has initially denied any knowledge of the journalist's whereabouts, however, later the Saudi authorities admitted that the Washington Post columnist had died inside the consulate.

On November 15, the Saudi Prosecutor General's Office said that the journalist had been killed with a drug injection and his body had been dismembered and taken out of the consulate, adding that a total of 21 people had been detained in relation to the case.

US lawmakers have called for further action against the government of Saudi Arabia, including axing the arms deal with the kingdom over the Khashoggi murder. The Trump administration has already sanctioned 17 Saudi nationals who were allegedly involved in the killing.

 Sputnik

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'Done Deal': Turkish FM Says Purchase of Russian S-400 Cannot Be Cancelled

Sputnik News

02:10 21.11.2018(updated 02:24 21.11.2018)

S-400 is the next-generation mobile missile system which can carry three different types of missiles capable of destroying a variety of aerial targets at a short-to-extremely-long range, from reconnaissance aircraft to ballistic missiles.

US officials have warned that if Ankara goes ahead with its plans to purchase the S-400 system, the United States could withhold the transfer of F-35 jets to Turkey. In addition, the US Congress passed legislation that would block the transfer of F-35 jets.

According to Reuters, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in Turkey is a done deal and cannot be canceled, dding that Ankara, however, needs further defense procurement that could be bought from the United States.

"The current deal is a done deal, I cannot cancel it," Cavusoglu told reporters after meeting with US State Secretary Mike Pompeo as quoted by Reuters. "But I need more and I prefer to buy from my allies," Cavusoglu said.

In December 2017, Ankara signed a loan agreement with Moscow envisaging the delivery of the Russian-made S-400 air defense systems to Turkey. Russia's Rostec state corporation CEO Sergey Chemezov said then that the contract envisaged the delivery of four S-400 battalion-size sets worth $2.5 billion, with 55 percent of the contract sum being covered by Russian loans.

On October 25, Akara said that Turkey would begin the deployment of the S-400s in October 2019.

The US Department of Defense spokesman Eric Pahon told Sputnik on Monday that the Pentagon was still working with US Congress to find alternatives to Russia's S-400 air defense systems for Turkey.

"As we've discussed with our Turkish counterparts, the S-400 purchase would have significant consequences or could have significant consequences on the US-Turkey defense relationship. There is a lot of things that that purchase comes along with," Pahon said.

According to the US-based media reports, sanctions over the purchase of the Russian military equipment could be triggered under the US Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which came into force in 2017 and is set to punish Moscow for it alleged meddling in the US 2016 presidential election, something vehemently denied by Russia.

CNBC reported last week, citing people with first-hand knowledge of a US intelligence assessment, that at least 13 countries have also expressed their interest in purchasing the Russian S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile systems instead of US equipment. In particular,

Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam were among the countries that had already engaged in talks on buying the Russian missile systems.

Accordnig to CNBC military sources, S-400 had been more powerful, in terms of capability, than the US most capable Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

The Saudi authorities have also reportedly been openly engaged in talks with Russia on the missile system purchase.

 Sputnik

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FoxBen Vereen is returning to his hometown of New York City, to celebrate Thanksgiving with his cabaret show, Steppin Out with Ben Vereen.

The Tony award-winner will perform on Thursday and Friday at The Cutting Room in Manhattan.

Ive always wanted to go there because they have greats like Judy Collins, Billy Joel, various rock artists whove played there and now Im coming to the room, the 72-year-old entertainer tells ABC Radio.

Its a beautiful room, and whats so lovely is, Thanksgiving Day, they will give a toast to Thanksgiving and everybody gets a free glass of champagne.

Vereen, who is Usher's godfather, will also be performing December 2 in Ridgefield, CT. He says his show is a celebration of the holiday season.

Ill be doing numbers which you know, and also telling stories about what is going on with my career. Vereen says. Then I go to Ridgefield December 2, which is the first day of Hanukkah, so I get to do Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas all combined into one.

Vereen, who starred as Chicken George in the epic 1977 miniseries, Roots, joins the cast of Star next Wednesday, November 28. Hell portray Calvin Brown, the former husband of Patti LaBelles character, Miss Christine. Brown is the father of sisters Carlotta and Cassie, played by Queen Latifah and Brandy.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne is preparing for his final F1 drive with the team, and the Belgian has admitted that he has "mixed emotions" about the prospect of leaving the team he's been a part of for five years in total.

The 26-year-old blew everyone away on his debut in Bahrain 2016, when he was flown in to replace the ill Fernando Alonso. He read the steering wheel's manual on the flight over to Bahrain but needed no time to adjust in the car, as he finished within the points that very weekend.

The former Formula 2's future looked very bright at that stage, and at the end of that 2016 season, he was given a permanent seat at the team for 2017. In the two seasons he drove in the papaya-orange cars, Vandoorne's obvious talent simply hasn't come out. He hasn't beaten Alonso in qualifying since October last year, and although he's had some good races, he is still surplus to demands at this point.

Im heading to Abu Dhabi with mixed emotions, Vandoorne told Crash.net.

Although Ive spent two years as a Formula 1 driver with McLaren, Ive been with the team for five years and call many of them my friends.

Ive built a great relationship with McLaren and its been a significant part of my life. My final grand prix as a McLaren driver on Sunday will be sentimental, but also the right time to say goodbye to this chapter in my career.

I want to leave Abu Dhabi on a high, so well be putting everything we can into maximising our weekend and getting the most out of it. I have great memories from Abu Dhabi in my junior career, and its a really cool atmosphere as you race from day into night.

Im excited for the next challenge  which begins in only a few weeks  but I also want to enjoy every moment in the car and with the team this weekend for the final time.

The 26-year-old will join the Mercedes-funded Racelab team in Formula E in 2019.
Nov 21, 2018 | By Cameron

Last year, we reported on the Virginia Tech team that developed a method for 3D printing Kapton using stereolithography (SLA). That interdisciplinary team out of VTs Macromolecules Innovation Institute (MII) has taken the discovery one step further by creating a direct ink write (DWI) technique that is much more flexible than the previous method.

Kapton is the yellow film thats often mistaken for gold foil on satellites, but those familiar with 3D printing will also know Kapton as a liner used on the beds of FDM 3D printers. The reason Kapton is used in space and on 3D printers is that it remains mechanically stable across a wide range of temperatures, from -269 to 400C. It makes for a great thermal and electrical insulator in vacuum environments thanks to its low outgassing rate and high thermal conductivity at low temperatures.

While Kapton is very useful, its notoriously difficult to manufacture in any format that isnt thin film, which is why it was such a big deal when researchers at Virginia Techs Design, Research, and Education for Additive Manufacturing Systems (DREAMS) Lab discovered how to 3D print the material. But there were some drawbacks to the SLA method. For one, an object has to be 3D printed all at once, meaning incorporating components can only be done after a part is complete. Additionally, SLA 3D printers can work with only one material at a time.

The DIW technique is extrusion based like a desktop FDM 3D printer, except that the Kapton material isnt a thermoplastic that solidifies as it cools; its a photocurable resin and each layer is cured (solidified) by ultraviolet light. It allows for printing different parts beside each other, and conductive components can be added by hand to the part mid-print. The 3D printer itself can also be later upgraded to extrude multiple materials with the Kapton. DIW 3D printing has one more trick up its sleeve, though: because each layer is cured after the entire layer is extruded, layers can be extruded directly onto existing parts, even curved faces.

Daniel Rau, one of the co-authors of the DIW paper and a Ph.D. student in the DREAMS Lab said, "Because its so simple, (DIW) gives us incredible flexibility on the ink, synthesis, and the properties it has." This approach permits the designing of Kapton into printed electronics and sensors. "As soon as we were able to print Kapton, people asked us about applications. The answer we often gave was printed electronics, but that's challenging to do in stereolithography. This new technique could really enable that as we look towards simultaneous printing of conductive materials and this excellent insulator," stated Christopher Williams, director of the DREAMS Lab.

The DIW Kapton maintains its mechanical properties up to 400C and its degradation temperature is 534C, only a smidge below the 550C of conventional Kapton film. Research sometimes happens in small steps, and occasionally breakthroughs are made in leaps and bounds. Getting 3D printed Kapton to a point where other components can be designed into a 3D print may be enough to see commercial applications.

Posted in 3D Printing Technology

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The provincial government has put British Columbia on a path to require the sale of all new light-duty cars and trucks to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by the year 2040.

The government will introduce legislation next spring to phase in targets for the sale of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). This legislation will set targets of 10% ZEV sales by 2025, 30% by 2030, and 100% by 2040, while government will take additional steps to make ZEVs more affordable.

Premier John Horgan outlined a three-point plan to kick-start and fuel the rollout of the ZEV standard:

Expanding the size of the provinces electric vehicle direct-current fast-charger (DCFC) network to 151 sites, with 71 already completed or underway and, leveraging federal and private-sector dollars, another 80 in the works. Increasing the provincial incentive program, administered by the New Car Dealers Association of BC, by $20 million this year to encourage more British Columbians to buy clean energy cars now. This will bring the incentive program up to $57 million in total. Reviewing the incentive program with an eye to expanding it over time, so buying a ZEV becomes a more affordable option for middle- and lower-income British Columbians.

If we want British Columbians to be part of the solution for reducing air pollution, we need to make clean energy vehicles more affordable, available and convenient. Premier Horgan

Horgan added that this initiative is the first major policy commitment of the governments upcoming strategy to meet BCs legislated climate goals.

British Columbia already has one of the largest charging and fueling infrastructure networkselectric and hydrogen fuelingin Canada and, with 12,000 clean energy vehicles registered, the highest adoption rates of electric vehicles in the country.
King County Metro, the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle, will soon begin testing long-range battery-powered buses that can travel more than 140 miles on a single charge, the latest milestone toward a zero-emission fleet.





The latest models can travel nearly six times farther than the fast-charge buses Metro currently has in its fleet. At that distance, the battery-powered buses could satisfy about 70% of Metros bus routes, reducing air and noise pollution throughout the region.

Manufacturers will provide 40- and 60-foot battery-powered buses for the performance test. The buses will initially be operated out of Metros South Base in Tukwila. Metro has committed to prioritize deployment of new zero-emission buses on service operating from South King County, improving air quality and public health first in low-income and communities of color, which are most vulnerable to the public health impacts of air pollution.

Among the buses under test are four New Flyer Xcelsior CHARGE battery-electric, heavy-duty transit buses (two 40-foot and two 60-foot).

King County Metro earlier this year became the first transit agency in North America to install a high-powered charging station at a base facility where recharging is combined with cleaning and maintenance. Short-range buses at Metros Bellevue Base can now fully recharge in much less time, which has made operations more efficient.

Metro is now building the infrastructure needed to recharge both short- and long-range buses to achieve its goal of operating a zero-emission fleet no later than 2040. King County is working with local utilitiesSeattle City Light and Puget Sound Energyto ensure that the batteries are charged with clean, renewable energy.

Two decades ago, King County Metro pushed the manufacturing industry to produce diesel-electric hybrid buses and now operates the largest fleet of its kind in the nation. Now it is using its purchasing power to demonstrate that there is strong market demand for quieter and cleaner battery-powered buses.

Before committing fully to manufacturers, we first must take steps to test the performance of this fast-moving technology. Metro General Manager Rob Gannon

In July, the authors of a comprehensive study praised King Countys leadership in the transition to zero-emission fleets, quantifying the benefits of battery-powered buses: lower maintenance and operational costs, reduced noise pollution, and less greenhouse gas emissions.

King County Metro was recently named the best large transit system in North America by the American Public Transportation Association, which cited the agencys accomplishments in transitioning to clean, renewable sources of energy.
Automated Border Control Market

The report on the global Automated Border Control market covers historical market trends, current market dynamics, market valuation by segmentation as well as region, country-level analysis for every segment, key players market share analysis, competitive landscape and supply chain analysis.

Market Highlights:

Market Research Future (MRFR) asserts in its detailed report that the global automated border control market is set to expand at CAGR of 16% through the forecast period (2017-2023). This expansion can be attributed to the rising awareness about security issues, enhanced convenience of travelers, and rising tourism.

Automated Border gates are computerized self-service barriers operated by border force located at immigration check points, at arrival halls, which proves its worth in the sector through smoother and faster passenger flow, reduced frustrations and provides more operational efficiency. For operation, the passports are required to possess a biometric logo on the front cover which can be readable by automated border control gates. After recognizing the ID, the person at control tower confirmed the persons identification with the support of facial recognition technology and provides immigration. These gates can be adapted at all major arriving halls of the airport, seaport which reduces the time taken by the conventional ones. With the increase in automation and IoT, it is necessary to adapt such technologies in order to be prepared for future challenges. Gunnebo Group (Sweden) mentioned in its recent study that in 2015, 700 million people travel yearly and is expected to grow by 75% in 2023.

Get a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4662

Major Key Players

HID Global (U.S.),

Atos Corporation (France),

Cognitec Systems (Germany),

Magnetic Autocontrol GmbH (Germany),

and Modi Modular Digits GmbH (Germany) and many more.

Industry News

February 2018, Dubai International Airport Inaugurates New Generation Automated Border Control. The international airport of Dubai aims that the automated border control will carter the passengers and the airport authority in experiencing different level border control and enhanced immigration security process.

February 2018, FXE becomes first general aviation airport with automated passport control kiosks. The airport has achieved a distinct milestone for implementation of automated passport control self-kiosks to strengthen border immigration protection and customs duty. FXE is the first general aviation airport to do so.

Segmentation:

Globally, automated border control market is segmented by solution, component, and application.

By solution, the market is segmented into ABC eGate and ABC Kiosk which differ by the process they follow. The eGate market has witnessed growth due to rising security concerns and better traveler convenience during border crossing process. For instance, nine new automated passport control eGates have been installed at Copenhagen Airport that makes use of facial recognition technology. Another example is Vision Box, an Australian based company that has implemented automated border control technology at the busiest airports like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Darwin and many more. At present, there are 83 eGates installed and over 10 MN passengers have been successfully screened through them.

By component, the market is segmented into hardware, software, and services. The automated border control software is a highly popular choice among governments worldwide, particularly facial recognition technology. Factors like frequent terrorist attacks, need for better national security, identity thefts, and increasing number of illegal immigrants traveling across borders with ease has given rise to governments opting for this software, which identifies individuals by comparing their face against a database of known faces.

By application, there is airport, land port, and seaport. Factors that drive the automated border control market at seaports are increasing security threats in coastal areas, need to simplify communication between border sharing parties, and counteracting terrorist activities. For instance, Libya has recently signed an agreement with Niger, Chad, and Sudan to secure the joint sea border against human and weapons smuggling. This move will help control and secure Libyas sea borders and will also strengthen cooperation on joint border control by making use of automated border control technology at their sea ports.

Regional Analysis

Geographically, the automated border control market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest of the World (RoW).

Among all regions, Europe dominates the automated border control market due to many automation companies in this region flourishing and possess strong technical base. Technological advancements in the region are on the rise, for instance, airports in Europe such as Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (France), and Frankfurt Airport (Germany) are already equipped with automated border control gates. Also, major government initiatives and launch of new projects to enhance customer experience, simplification of border crossing process, and increasing security measures leave a positive impact on the automated border control market in this region.

Browse Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/automated-border-control-market-4662

Intended Audience

Border Security Control

Immigration Department

End Users

Government Representatives

Technical Developers

Research Firms

IT Enablers

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.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

Media Contact

Company Name: Market Research Future

Contact Person: Abhishek Sawant

Email: Send Email

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Website: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/automated-border-control-market-4662


Chairman's Address to the Annual General Meeting

Brisbane, Nov 21, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - State Gas Limited ( ASX:GAS ) provides the Company's Chairman address to the Annual General Meeting.Welcome to our Company's first AGM since listing on the ASX in October last year.As you will be aware, we conducted our IPO last year to raise the funds to explore and appraise the PL 231 permit area as sole Operator and 60% holder of the Permit.Soon after listing last year, we successfully flow-tested the existing suitable wells within the Permit area and took gas samples for analysis.We spent the majority of 2018 planning the initial program, including reprocessing of the available historical seismic data, interpreting the results using modern geophysical techniques and identifying and prioritizing drilling targets.As part of the extensive planning activities for the current drilling program, the Company undertook environmental investigations, access arrangements with landholders and selected contractors through a comprehensive tender process.This year also saw the grant of our Pipeline Survey Licence to investigate options to interconnect with the Queensland Gas Pipeline and broader east coast gas market.In terms of personnel, we have been able to recruit Lucy Snelling, an experienced executive from the oil and gas sector with legal, commercial and operational experience as our Chief Executive Officer.Following Lucy's appointment, we recruited James Crowley as our Chief Operating Officer. James's career in the industry includes 34 years in Australia, Egypt, New Zealand and the North Sea. He held senior executive roles with AGL Energy, Senex Ltd, Origin Energy Ltd, and Apache Corporation.One of the tasks James undertook was a detailed review of the geology of the Permit and the results of historical drilling.As previously advised, this review has indicated that in addition to conventional gas, PL 231 may have potential for significant quantities of coal seam gas due to both the presence of Permian coal seams and positive pressure maintenance. Surprisingly, the PL 231 permit area has not previously been explored for coal seam gas.Following that geological review the Company refocussed its planning for drilling to include the investigation of the coal seam gas potential in PL 231.That drilling program is now well underway, with the completion of our Primero West-1 well last week and the imminent commencement of drilling at Nyanda-4.Lucy will be elaborating on the drilling program in her presentation.As most market observers will be aware, the east coast gas market remains buoyant and gas shortages in the domestic market, and a strong international market present significant opportunities for new gas developments in Queensland.As Australia and most other developed economies transition to a lower carbon environment, gas is likely to become more important as a transitional fuel, supporting intermittent renewable generation such as wind and solar.Granted under the 1923 Act, our Permit conditions are not currently subject to the domestic gas reservation policies applicable to some of the more recent permit areas offered by the Queensland Government.Subject to exploration success and infrastructure investment, we see long-term opportunities for the Reid's Dome Project to provide gas to both the domestic and international markets.Clearly this is an exciting period ahead for the Company and we look forward to providing updates to shareholders and the broader market on the Project and our Company as we progress our exploration and development program.To view the presentation to the Annual General Meeting, please visit:About State Gas Limited

State Gas Limited (ASX:GAS) is a Queensland-based developer of the Reid's Dome gas field, originally discovered during drilling in 1955, located in the Bowen Basin in Central Queensland. State Gas is 100%-owner of the Reid's Dome Gas Project (PL-231) a CSG and conventional gas play, which is well-located 30 kilometres southwest of Rolleston, approximately 50 kilometres from the Queensland Gas Pipeline and interconnected east coast gas network.

Permian coal measures within the Reid's Dome Beds are extensive across the entire permit but the area had not been explored for coal seam gas prior to State Gas' ownership. In late 2018 State Gas drilled the first coal seam gas well in the region (Nyanda-4) into the Reid's Dome Beds and established the potential for a significant coal seam gas project in PL 231. The extension of the coal measures into the northern and central areas of the permit was confirmed in late 2019 by the Company's drilling of Aldinga East-1A (12 km north) and Serocold-1 (6 km to the north of Nyanda-4).

State Gas is also the 100% holder Authority to Prospect 2062 ("Rolleston-West"), a 1,414 km2 permit (eight times larger than PL 231) that is contiguous with the Reid's Dome Gas Project. Rolleston-West contains highly prospective targets for both coal seam gas (CSG) and known conventional gas within the permit area. It is not restricted by domestic gas reservation requirements.

The contiguous areas (Reid's Dome and Rolleston-West), under sole ownership by State Gas, enable integration of activities and a unified super-gasfield development, providing economies of scale, efficient operations, and optionality in marketing.

State Gas is implementing its strategic plan to bring gas to market from Reid's Dome and Rolleston-West to meet near term forecast shortfalls in the east coast domestic gas market. The strategy involves progressing a phased appraisal program in parallel with permitting for an export pipeline and development facilities to facilitate the fastest possible delivery of gas to market. State Gas' current focus has been to confirm the producibility of the gas through production testing of the wells.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., has launched with other senators an investigation into allegedly dangerous working conditions at a warehouse owned by Greenwich-based XPO Logistics that might have contributed to several pregnant workers miscarriages.

The probe of the Fortune 500 company by Blumenthal and eight other senators responds to a New York Times article published last month that reported a number of employees miscarried while working at the facility, which processes boxes of iPhones and other devices for Verizon Wireless. Some of the miscarriages predated XPOs 2014 acquisition of the property, but the abominable conditions and antiquated policies at these workplaces have reportedly continued to this day, the senators wrote in a letter Tuesday.

It has never been more important for Americas largest companies to exhibit resolute leadership by protecting workers and protecting women, the senators wrote in the letter to XPO CEO Bradley Jacobs and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. In light of this latest disturbing report that chronicles XPO turning a blind eye to pregnant workers, we urge XPO to re-evaluate its priorities with its workforce and make immediate changes to its current, allegedly deleterious workplace practices.

In a statement Wednesday, XPO denied the worker mistreatment reported by The Times at its Memphis, Tenn., plant.

We look forward to sharing details about our progressive employee policies with the senators and providing information that demonstrates the allegations made in prior news articles about our Memphis facility are false, the statement said. We take seriously our responsibility to provide a safe workplace where all employees, including pregnant women, are treated with respect.

Working while pregnant is generally considered safe by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, but some physically strenuous work can increase the risk of complications. Two women said they suffered miscarriages this year while working at the Memphis plant investigated by The Times.

One of the women, 19-year-old Ceeadria Walker, told The Times she gave her supervisor a doctors note that recommended fewer hours on her feet to avoid injury or pregnancy complications. Walker was allowed to focus on paperwork on some days, but she told The Times she spent most of July on a conveyor-belt line lifting 45-pound boxes. In August, she miscarried.

Federal contractors such as XPO cannot deny accommodations to pregnant workers when it provides accommodations to other employees with similar limitations, according to the letter.

It is inexplicable that XPO, a company with a revenue of over $15 billion in 2017, including over $85 million in (fiscal year 2018) from federal contracts, found it unreasonable to provide accommodations for these women, the senators wrote.

In its statement, XPO said, Our continuing commitment to a best-in-class work environment includes an accommodation policy that exceeds legal requirements for family issues.

At the end of their letter, the senators asked XPO to provide more information about its accommodations for pregnant workers and respond to allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination involving Tennessee employees.

The Times also reported that a 58-year-old Memphis worker, who dealt with previous cardiac problems, died in October 2017 from a heart attack she suffered on the warehouse floor. She had complained to her son that her supervisors would not let her leave her early when she did not feel well, according to The Times.

In June, two workers were killed when they were crushed while unloading cargo at an XPO-operated facility in Lockport, N.Y., according to the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal.

XPO has faced regulatory scrutiny in other states. Last year, the California Labor Commissioners Office awarded four XPO truck drivers a total of $855,000 after finding the company had misclassified them as independent contractors, The Times reported.

The letter to XPO and Verizon was also signed by seven other Democratic senators  Elizabeth Warren, Tina Smith, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Tammy Baldwin and Mazie Hirono  as well as Bernie Sanders, an independent.

XPO is headquartered at 5 American Lane, in the northwest corner of Greenwich. It ranked No. 186 on this years Fortune 500 list, with a current market value of about $9 billion. It operates in 32 countries, with more than 98,000 employees, according to its website.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott
GREENWICH  When the Greenwich firefighters knocked on her apartment door in Armstrong Court, Maria Rivas opened it and burst into tears.

This means a lot to me, she said. Im going through a lot right now.

Members of Greenwich Professional Firefighters, the local union, were handing out boxes stuffed with Thanksgiving food to widows and low-income residents Monday as part of an annual tradition dating to 1973.

Rivas recently had to resign from her job at Greenwich Hospital, so the food box helps, she said. She also accepts help from the United Way.

Someday, when I have more, Ill give back, Rivas said.

A firefighters job is help people, said firefighter Matt Romeo, who took on the responsibility in 1997. Giving out food is a different way of doing his job.

Matt Romeo has the biggest heart in the department, multiple firefighters repeated, and each time, Romeo made a joke or tried to shift attention to the task at hand as they delivered the boxes of food before the holiday.

Each cardboard Chiquita banana box contained: a 12-pound turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cans of green peas, corn and gravy, stuffing, mixed nuts, cranberry sauce, coffee, butter, milk and dinner rolls.

Many widows in town do not need the food, and instead want it donated to families in need, Romeo said. Each year, the town Department of Social Services provides Romeo with a list of families.

Across from Rivas, Maria Pasto hoisted her 2-year-old Annalee Loza onto her hip as the firefighters arrived with her box.

The economy is hard on us, she said. Were very thankful.

The Greenwich Fire Department made many of her Thanksgiving dinners as a child possible, too. Now, she hopes to teach Annalee how to be grateful, she said.

Although bringing the holiday cheer, the firefighters were still on duty. They were interrupted when one of the two fire engines had to respond to a call.

Other firefighters used their walk around the units to make mental notes of metal bars across windows and padlocks on doors accessing the floor above. That information helps them plan for emergencies and how to put out fires.

When Rivas smoke detector beeped, they asked whether her batteries were fresh. They offered to replace the device if it was not working  something they often do while delivering food.

Its just nice to help people in need, Steve Casner said.

At Greenwich High School that afternoon, parents sorted food into boxes, which students brought outside to load into the cars of parents and teachers, who distributed the goods around town.

Monday culminated a weeklong fundraiser called Penny Wars and a food drive. Folsom House raked in the most pennies, which were worth positive points, finishing with 556 points, while Bella House raised the most money, $1,000. The houses raised $5,000, which was used to purchase fresh carrots, celery, onions and turkeys from Aux Delices.

Cantor House won the food drive, and the five houses supplied about 800 items.

In total, the drives provided meals for 100 families, said Kathleen Mendez, faculty adviser of Roots and Shoots, an environmentally conscious group that also runs a food drive for Sept. 11.

The more students see the food in the middle of the Student Center, the more competitive it gets, and the more people want to get involved, senior Grayson Avesato said.

More donations are more during the holidays, but the need is year-round, senior Will Ferrarese said. The school administration often reminds students to donate outside this time.

Its super easy to grab a couple of cans, Ferrarese said. It feels good to help out.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
GREENWICH  Freshman Bryn Kummell took the stage at Greenwich High School and, with a dose of humor, opened up about how she has seen the effects of bullying.

Humor is her coping mechanism, Kummell said. Listening to many other students who shared stories that would never leave the the sanctity of the GHS auditorium, she realized she was not alone.

Everyone has been bullied before, Kummell said. We should be able to relate to each other.

Kummels favorite part of NAMES Day, an annual event at GHS dedicated to teaching freshmen about the power of words and names, was the open mic session. Thats when students got to speak candidly about their experiences of being bullied, in person or on social media, for their race, religion, sexual orientation or appearance. Other students admitted to having bullied peers through insensitive jokes or name-calling.

Its a good day to ask yourself, have I treated others the way I want them to treat me?, Interim Headmaster Rick Piotrzkowski said. Today, your chance to think about and talk about positive and negative impact your words and actions have on others.

The Anti-Defamation League of Connecticut assisted the 95 students and 30 staff members of the NAMES team to put on the all-day programming on Tuesday. The presentations, a panel, a keynote speaker, breakout sessions and skits all serve to stop prejudice and stereotyping at GHS.

We know that learning to accept other people is not something that comes easily, nor do we expect that things will change immediately, but we feel that this day is an important step toward making our school a more positive place for all of us, said junior Charlotte Hallisey, a NAMES team member.

Ann-Marie Knight led student volunteers in an exercise in which they closed their eyes and ripped up sheets of paper according to her directions. Every page looked different, and the freshmen inspected the other designs to see how theirs compared.

We make an effort to fit in, its something we do quite naturally, Knight said.

Growing up as one of four black children in school, however, Knight did not fit in: her hair was too curly, her skin too dark. She constantly deflected racial slurs and comparisons to animals.

Her mother would repeat the adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. For Knight, nothing was further from the truth.

Day after day, the names, the jokes, they hurt, Knight said. Theres no need for the names, theres no need for the jokes. Yes, indeed, they hurt.

She showed students a recent video of Connecticut high schoolers sharing their experiences as targets of bullying  for being transgender or an overweight dancer, or having puffy hair  or witnessing friends joke that all Middle Eastern people are terrorists.

The video was cool, freshman Katie Scamman said.

Kummel, Walker and their friends are interested to see whether the messages relayed on NAMES Day will stick.

For some people itll resonate, Scamman said. But for other people, theyll go back to normal.

The group of friends was encouraged by the number of students who shared their stories, fellow freshman Ben Walker among them.

Its good to have people who care, Walker said.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
STAMFORD  The city police departments Girls Leadership Group visited the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County Monday to drop off about 40 turkeys to feed the poor on Thanksgiving.

The turkeys were donated by the Stamford Police Association to help the Food Bank collect 15,000 turkeys this year.

I like how they help the community, Trailblazers Academy student Tyhria Allen, 13, said after delivering the turkeys. I know it makes me feel good to help. If I could do more stuff to help the community, I would.

The group was formed six years ago by Chief Jon Fontneau as a way for middle school-aged girls to forge friendships and develop positive relationships with police officers.

One of the mentors, Sgt. Kelly Connelly, said most of the girls had never been to the Glenbrook food bank and were humbled by the experience.

I think it was good, because we were doing a good thing for the community, Trailblazers student Nakiyah Fields, 11, said.

Food Bank Executive Director Kathleen Lombardo said she was grateful for the donation.

It is nice to see our police department teaching the youngsters of this community that they have a role caring for their community, Lombardo said. They are learning that they will be the next generation to carry forward this type of giving.

Trailblazers student Star Mendez, 11, said, I was very proud of myself because I was helping. I think it is very helpful for the community.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
It's never been easier to build a brand. Right now with a little effort you can build a following on Instagram or Shopify, start selling stuff and create a nice small business for yourself. But, if you want to move things to the next level and become a real enterprise, you need to learn to market like the big guys.

Related: 3 Marketing Mistakes That Kill Tech Startups

Ironically, one of the best ways to do that is to watch what happens when they screw up. Branding failures aren't just entertaining. By illustrating just how terrible the fallout can be if you get things wrong, they illustrate the importance of having the right principles and systems in place. Through watching the stumbles of national brands, smaller businesses can learn what to do -- and not do -- to move up to the next level.

Helpfully, some of America's biggest companies have obliged with some pretty spectacular brand fails lately.

1. Amazon selling sugary cereals at Whole Foods

Like lots of other people, I was excited when Amazon bought Whole Foods. The whole premise of the deal was that the scale of Amazon would enable more people to access the quality, healthy food on offer at pricey Whole Foods. But, then recently I spoke to a few friends who reported seeing things like Honey Nut Cheerios on the shelves of their local Whole Foods.

Let me be clear: You're not supposed to be able to buy Honey Nut Cheerios at Whole Foods. The brand experience is all about health and quality, not processed, sugar-laden junk. Opening up a premium brand to more consumers can be a great move, but that's not what Jeff Bezos and Amazon appear to actually be doing with Whole Foods so far. Instead, they're violating the basic promise of the Whole Foods brand, and risking diluting it beyond all recognition.

This isn't just a temptation for behemoths like Amazon. Smaller brands face similar questions all the time as they start to grow and add new revenue streams. Is that new sponsorship or partnership actually in line with your values? Are you broadening the appeal of your brand or are you selling out? Adding new customers is great. Losing your own core identity isn't.

Lesson: Never forget your core mission. Filter all new revenue streams and partnerships through the lens of your values.

Related: The 5 Biggest Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

2. IHOP's half-baked IHOB stunt

I'm all for clever, disruptive marketing. Stunts can get people talking about your brand. But, not if you do them in the half-baked way IHOP recently did when it briefly changed its name to IHOB (for International House of Burgers) to highlight its new menu options.

I understand what IHOP was going for -- these days lots of carb-conscious customers aren't excited about sitting down to a giant stack of starchy pancakes and IHOP wanted to get the word out that they offer alternatives. But, its execution of the idea was just really weak. If you're going to go and disrupt the market in a radical way, you need to go all in.

Wendy's is a good example of a brand that succeeds. Its logo might be a sweet looking little girl, but on Twitter that little girl deals out some serious shade. It's outrageous, hilarious and consistent.

When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine. https://t.co/esdndK1iFm  Wendy's (@Wendys) November 24, 2017

You get that level of execution the same way you do in any other area of business -- you know what you're aiming for and then hire the right people to execute it. If you're going for humor, bring in a stand-up comedian, for instance. Don't rely on the same old advertising agency.

Lesson: Wishy-washy won't get you anywhere. Go all in on your concept and make sure you hire the right people to get you there.

Related: 11 Disturbingly Offensive Ads That Landed Big Brands in Trouble

3. Starbucks' one-day diversity training

When a national scandal erupted over a racist Starbucks barista who called the cops on two black customers who were just sitting in a store waiting for a meeting, the company actually did a lot of things right. Chairman Howard Schultz immediately came out with a strong and unequivocal statement that the company doesn't tolerate racism. He didn't hedge his words and he didn't delay. Second, the company demonstrated a real commitment to change by closing its stores and missing out on a day of revenue to train its employees to avoid bias. Again, bravo.

But, the problem is that brand building isn't about one-off gestures. It's about creating structures to make sure you brand is executed consistently over time. A crisis is an opportunity not just to make an authentic apology but also to change the way you do things long-term. Update your website underscoring your values. Develop a crisis response plan for the future. Create new training that happens not just once but on an ongoing basis. Set up policies that nudge your customer-facing employees to always behave in ways aligned with your brand.

To the best of my knowledge, Starbucks hasn't done any of that. Which creates a huge risk of a similar incident happening again in the future, and if it does there will be no way to rebuild a brand that's all about community and safe spaces for people to gather.

Lesson: Responding to a crisis isn't just about on-off gestures. The more important work is setting up an architecture that ensures problems don't happen again in the future.

Related:

A Marketing Disaster Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: 3 Lessons From Recent Big Brand Fails

3 Marketing Mistakes That Kill Tech Startups

5 Marketing Missteps That Make Cash Flow and Business Growth Stumble



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Tom Steyer, the California billionaire best known for his campaign to impeach President Donald Trump, is making a move toward a potential 2020 White House bid, launching town halls in key primary states on the platform of "five rights."

Steyer announced the move Tuesday on his website and with a full-page ad in newspapers across the country. His "five rights" focus on education, the environment, voting rights, the economy and health care.

"These rights are fundamental to our shared belief in the promise of America, a promise of the freedom and power to pursue our dreams and earn a fair share of this country's vast wealth," Steyer said in a statement announcing the tour. "A hostile takeover of our democracy by large corporations and their enablers in politics has eroded that promise, and we must act to reclaim that power and put it back in the hands of the American people."

The tour begins Dec. 4 with an event in Charleston, South Carolina, and moves on to Fresno, California. There will also be stops in the key presidential primary and caucus states of Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa, according to Steyer spokeswoman Aleigha Cavalier.

Tuesday's launch also includes a six-figure Web ad buy on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, Cavalier said.

Steyer, a philanthropist and former hedge fund manager, founded the advocacy group NextGen America in 2012 and has spent more than $100 million on political campaigns since 2016. But he took a pass on running for office in 2018, instead launching a nationwide TV ad campaign urging lawmakers to impeach Trump.

In an interview with The Washington Post in his San Francisco office in September, Steyer demurred when asked if he plans to run for president. But he did suggest the next president need not be a current or former senator or governor.

"I think that the most important thing is going to be to have somebody who [has] thought really deeply on these issues in terms of understanding both how the process works and how that policy works," he said. "That's a real hurdle for everybody. . . . Watching Mr. Trump, what you see is he hasn't really thought about the policy implications of a lot of what he's doing."

Trump is the first person to win the presidency with no experience in public office or the military. Were he to win, Steyer would be the second.

The potential 2020 Democratic field includes dozens of would-be contenders, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. One advantage Steyer would bring to the race, according to his team, is a network of more than 6 million grass-roots supporters built through his Need to Impeach effort.

The day after Election Day, Steyer was in Washington. During remarks to reporters at a news conference organized by environmental groups, it was clear future elections were on his mind.

On climate change, Steyer said "it is completely unclear to me that there are Republicans who are willing to compromise."

"Flipping the House was a big step forward," he added. "But we have to realize that's just a step."
The European Union scored a tactical win in its fight to contain the populist forces that are challenging its democratic values, forcing Poland's nationalist ruling party to back down in its push to wield control over the country's Supreme Court.

The Law & Justice Party is at the vanguard of a push to roll back the EU's multicultural and rule-of-law norms in favor of "illiberal democracies" -- a phrase coined by the movement's standard bearer, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Wednesday the party submitted a draft law to reverse rules that forced dozens of judges on the Supreme Court to retire before their terms expired in what critics called a political "purge."

The legislation is a response to an emergency injunction from the European Court of Justice, which demanded Poland reverse the changes that lowered the retirement age for jurists. The injunction was a result of an unprecedented lawsuit against an EU member, which the bloc's commission said was undermining the rule of law.

"The commission scored a point showing that principled resistance makes sense," Marcin Zaborowski, senior associate at Visegrad Insight, a think-tank focused on central Europe. "It also creates a precedent that will be closely watched across the region."

The U-turn comes as Law & Justice scrambles to recover from a smaller-than-expected victory in October regional elections, where the party's clash with the EU boosted support for opposition parties. It's also reeling from the shock resignation of its appointed head of the financial markets watchdog following a newspaper report that he had asked the owner of a troubled bank for a bribe in exchange for favorable treatment.

The first opinion survey carried out since the scandal broke showed support for Law & Justice dropping five percentage points to 33 percent. That's still seven points ahead of the biggest opposition group, but if it were to remain at that level, it would give the opposition a chance to block the party from seizing a new majority in general elections next year.

The government heatedly argued last week that its changes to the Supreme Court don't undermine its independence, and it accused the EU of lacking evidence to attack the judicial overhaul. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who has vowed to "re-Christianize Europe" and help the rest of the EU "with proper values," has repeatedly said that Poland respects the rules of the bloc.

Andrzej Dera, a minister in the chancellery of Law & Justice ally President Andrzej Duda, suggested that the party wasn't really backing down.

"The essence of the matter can be explained by a saying applied to judo: back off to win," he said. "The point is to avoid fines that could be imposed by the EU court and implement the judiciary reform."

While the draft legislation -- which cleared the lower house in a fast-track legislative process -- appears to eliminate the most important breaches to the political independence of the Supreme Court.

The top tribunal said the new bill doesn't reverse other sweeping changes which continue to undermine the justice system. They include giving the justice minister power to appoint the heads of ordinary courts, the political takeover of the body that promotes judges and the packing of the Constitutional Court with ruling-party loyalists, the court said.

"I have been following the Hungarian case for too long to not be extremely suspicious," said Laurent Pech, a professor of European law at Middlesex University in London. "Every single rule-of-law probe recommendation has yet to be complied with."

- - -

Bloomberg's Zoltan Simon contributed.
Every year at Passover, Jews gather to celebrate God's freeing of our forefathers from bondage. Seated around the seder table, we exult in the song "Dayenu," which, in Hebrew, translates as "It would have been enough." Over the course of 15 stanzas, we cite the litany of miracles God performed - "If he had brought us out of Egypt," "If he had split the sea for us," "If he had fed us manna" - each followed by grateful repetition of dayenu. For a people who love to complain, it's a deeply meaningful expression of faith.

Donald Trump's presidency has produced several moments, such as his acknowledgment that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital, that might similarly inspire Jews' gratitude. But is it enough?

I have been thinking about the "Dayenu" tradition in the weeks since an anti-Semitic terrorist killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. A furious debate erupted within the Jewish community about the degree of blame, if any, that the president bears for that heinous crime. Among the motives expressed by the alleged shooter, Robert Bowers, for targeting the synagogue was its congregation's help resettling refugees in the United States. Refugees are the sort of immigrants for whom Jews feel a special affinity, and about whom Trump has stoked no small amount of fear and revulsion.

The shooter, of course, is the only person legally responsible for the killings, and Bowers had denounced Trump as a "globalist" controlled by Jews. As happens whenever the subject of Trump and anti-Semitism arises, after the attack we also heard the familiar catalogue of facts recited: Trump's daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism; she has borne him Jewish grandchildren. I will add that I do not believe that the president is himself an anti-Semite.

But crimes such as the one committed in Pittsburgh do not occur in a vacuum. And the rise of Trump in American political life has coincided with a rise in anti-Semitism, among other forms of bigotry. Yes, correlation is not causation, but Trump nonetheless appeals to sentiments and animosities that don't bode well for the future of Jewish life in this country.

Since first setting foot in colonial America, Jews have understood that our fate is inextricably bound to that of other minorities. Thus, we have always felt a deep appreciation for the fundamental American values of pluralism, tolerance and religious freedom. Jews and Jewish organizations were at the forefront of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement and, later, the movement for LGBTQ equality.

Since taking office, Trump has stoked the sort of nativism, xenophobia and demagoguery that have typically repelled American Jews, no matter their political creed. Yet Trump's Jewish and philo-Semitic defenders have implicitly framed his presidency as a matter of bargaining, weighing these repellent aspects of his tenure against his unprecedentedly pro-Israel policies. Relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? Dayenu. Withdrawing from President Barack Obama's Iranian nuclear deal? Dayenu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wielded his kosher stamp of approval last year when he said, "There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than Donald Trump."

Trump has indeed been "good for Israel," as the American Jewish political shorthand would have it. But in the wake of the deadliest anti-Semitic massacre in our nation's history, we should ask whether these pro-Israel policies compensate for the rhetoric and behavior of an American president who daily traduces the norms, values and traditions that have allowed Jews to flourish here as nowhere else.

Foremost among these desecrations is the president's penchant for lies and conspiracy theory. Judaism is a lifelong commitment to truth; since Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, Jews have pursued wisdom as the key to a meaningful life. And throughout history, Jews have been subjected, like no other people, to vicious lies. The ceaseless repetition of these lies for centuries, from powerful political leaders all the way down to family dinner table conversations, culminated in the worst mass murder in human history, the Holocaust.

Jews, then, ought to have a special sensitivity to politicians who lie and demagogue and scapegoat, even when the lying and demagoguery and scapegoating doesn't explicitly concern us.

I am not calling for the shunning of Jews who back this president. Declaring Trump-supportive Jews political treyf (nonkosher) is precisely what liberal Jews decry when their conservative co-religionists brand them "self-hating" simply for holding dovish views on the Middle East. It is in the nature of being Jewish to argue, foremost among ourselves. Jews don't issue fatwas.

But regarding Trump's support for Israel, however sincere, I can only reply: lo dayenu - it's not enough. And as long as he comports himself in the way he has - attacking minorities, demonizing immigrants, lying with abandon - it never will be.

Kirchick is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age."
HARTFORD  U.S. Rep. John B. Larson doesnt have much time to convince Governor-elect Ned Lamont and his yet-to-be-named Transportation Commissioner that tunneling through Hartford is the best path forward.

With a divided Congress in Washington where Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate, infrastructure spending is one of the only areas where the two parties might be able to agree. And Larson is situated as a member of the Ways and Means Committee to make sure Connecticut gets the funding for his big idea.

Its an idea that comes with a big price tag, but Larson believes it would be political malpractice not to ask for what the region needs when Connecticut gets back less money than it gives to the federal government.

Larson told about two dozen residents in the north end Tuesday that his proposal amounts to a sketch on the back of a napkin, but its a concept worthy of pursuit because of the economic development it provides and the ease of transportation.

The question is are we going to make the same mistake we made 50 years ago? Larson said. Or are we going to focus on the kind of economic change and vitality that will save the levees, recapture the riverfront, and reunite north Hartford, and create economic development?

He said tunneling through Hartford would allow traffic that doesnt plan on stopping in Hartford to flow from Roberts Street in East Hartford to Flatbush Avenue in West Hartford on I-84 and from the North Meadows to the South Meadows on I-91.

One of the plans proposed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation under outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy calls for rerouting I-84 through north Hartford and East Hartford. That new route is through a big portion of Hartford and East Hartfords tax base. The route essentially cuts through the car dealerships in both cities.

State Rep. Joshua Hall, D-Hartford, said thats concerning.

State Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, asked what Larson needs to do in order to secure the funding for the tunnel.

First, Congress needs to pass an infrastructure bill and fund it.

McCrory said hes concerned about Larson putting forward the tunnel proposal and the governor putting forward a different, competing proposal.

Larson said theres nothing to squabble over until theres an infrastructure bill.

However, Larson said he believes Lamont will be supportive of the tunnel idea. Lamont has not directly addressed the issue, but in accepting Larsons endorsement during the Democratic primary in July, he agreed that pulling highways out of downtown and the Connecticut Riverfront is a good idea, saying its time to stop bifurcating our cities.

McCrory asked Larson what he can do to help move the tunnel idea forward.

Larson said he believes Lamont, and whoever he appoints as Transportation Commissioner, will support the tunnel concept.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation has been planning for the replacement of the elevated portion of I-84 for years, but Larson said they need to think bigger.

He said tunneling through Hartford would not disrupt as much of the flow of traffic through the city as shutting down I-84 for two to five years as they tear down the viaduct, which is the elevated portion of the highway near Aetna. Larson said people dont think about that when they are considering the various proposals.

Larson said tunneling is a turn-key operation, which would allow business to continue as a tunnel boring machine cuts a path.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation is focused on the 2.5 miles of highway that needs to be rebuilt or torn down because it is beyond its 50-year lifespan. Transportation Department engineers believe it would be best to lower the interstate, but a final decision isnt expected until 2020.

The cost of lowering I-84 has been estimated at about $2 billion.

But Larson said theres other considerations, too.

He said focusing solely on the so-called Aetna viaduct doesnt help find federal money to replace the levees and reconnect the city with the Connecticut River. Larson said Connecticut is too far down on a list for levee replacement, but including it as part of an infrastructure package makes sense.

Governor-elect Lamont is grateful to Congressman Larson for his leadership, applauds his big thinking, and supports Larsons efforts to bring federal infrastructure dollars back to Connecticut, Lacey Rose, Lamonts communications director, said. While the Congressman works to secure federal funding, Lamont will be focused on making critical changes to alleviate traffic, improve our roads and rails, and attract new businesses throughout Connecticut.

Lamont indicated in one of his last debates that he would replace Transportation Commissioner James Redeker.

This story may have been modified from its original version. See the original at ctnewsjunkie.com.
One of the trends in smartphone software this year is the ability to track and manage time spent within apps or setting limits for time-wasters like social media. This is one of the better trends to come from 2018 with many phone makers offering a different take on this. With that said, Googles Digital Wellbeing app is no longer in beta.

If you wanted to use the Digital Wellbeing app on the Google Pixel 2 or Pixel 3, you had to sign up for a beta using your Google account. This is no longer the case as the app is now officially stable and out of beta. It is now available to all Google Pixel devices and all devices running the vanilla-flavored Android One OS.

Source: Play Store

Unfortunately, the app is not available for non-Google devices running Android Pie, but perhaps down the line Google might offer support for these brands like OnePlus and Essential, who run near-stock Android skins on their phones.

If you want to install the Digital Wellbeing dashboard on your Pixel or Android One smartphone, all you need to do is search and download it from the Play Store. Once installed, it wont be in your app drawer  it will be in the Settings menu.

From here, you can view how long you are spending on which apps and set limits and conditions to keep off timewasters during times that productivity is needed.

Via
Samsung will ship Bixby 3.0 with the foldable Galaxy F

During its Bixby Developer Day, Samsung shared some new information regarding the Smart Assistant.

According to Samsung VP of R&D and Bixby development Eui-Suk Chung, Samsung is aiming to ship Bixby 3.0 with the foldable Galaxy F smartphone. That would tentatively pinpoint Bixby 3.0's arrival at March.

Sadly, Eui-Suk Chung hasn't shared anything specific about the improvements Bixby 3.0 will bring.

Otherwise Samsung's Bixby Developer Day hasn't brought any new information regarding the assistant. Talk revolved around the new Bixby Developer Studio and Bixby Marketplace, which are topics Samsung opened up on at its Developer Conference earlier this month.

Samsung will open Bixby up to third party developers and allow them to sell new features through its Bixby Marketplace.

Whether Bixby 3.0 will land on current Samsung devices, prior to the release of the foldable Galaxy F smartphone is unclear.

Source
King Mohammed VI received Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at Rabats royal palace.

The meeting between the monarch and Sanchez was an opportunity to review Moroccan-Spanish bilateral bonds, according to a statement from the royal office.

King Mohammed VI and Sanchez also agreed on the need to boost bilateral ties thorough consolidating political dialogue and giving more dynamism to economic partnership between the two countries.

The King and the President of the Spanish Government also welcomed the level of cooperation between the two countries, which face several challenges related to security and development in Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spains ambassador in Rabat, Ricardo Diez-Hochleitner, and secretary-general for International Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, also attended the audience offered to Sanchez.

he Kings advisor, Fouad Ali El Himma, Minister of the Interior Abdelouafi Laftit, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita, and the ambassador of the King in Madrid, Karima Benyaich, also took part in the audience.

King Mohammed VI also offered a luncheon in honor of Sanchez chaired by Head of Government Saad Eddine El Othmani

Upon his arrival, Sanchez was received by El Othmani in Rabat earlier today.

Both officials held talks and discussed measures to further reinforce the bilateral ties. Sanchez told the press today that the economic partnership between the two countries is also important, which is why we agreed to organize a Moroccan-Spanish economic forum next year.

Aside from business, Spain is also considered as a voice to Morocco at the EU parliament. Throughout the recent months, Sanchez voiced Moroccos migration-related concerns.

Recognizing Moroccos efforts, Sanchez said that Morocco made efforts in fighting against irregular immigration. He added that migration is a shared responsibility and we need to strengthen our cooperation on this issue.




Haiti - FLASH : The National Palace deploys its special unit equipped with weapons of war





Since Sunday, hooded men in black uniforms mostly carrying some weapons of war (M60) and circulating in the capital aboard pickups belonging to the National Palace covered with camouflage paint, equipped with machine gun have caused fear and various interpretations in the population.



Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the PNH confirmed that this was not a new unit of the PNH, but the Specialized Unit of the National Palace Guard (USGPN), noting that this unit had not been deployed on his order.



Gedeon condemned the presence in the streets, of USGPN agents carrying weapons of war and traveling in pick-up trucks equipped with heavy machine guns (M50). He mentioned having discussed of that at the last meeting of the Superior Council of the National Police (CSPN) and notified that there was no question of interventions in the streets of units having nothing to do with the units of policing of the PNH.



For his part, Mario Andresol, the former Director General of the PNH also deplored the use by USGPN agents of weapons of war, intended to intimidate the population.



Jude Charles Faustin, President Jovenel Moise's Special Adviser, justified the presence of USGPN members on the streets and the armaments they have because of the threats and the conjuncture, specifying about the equipment of this unit "There is nothing new, since it has always been the General Secretariat of the National Palace that deals with the acquisition of weapons, equipment and materials for the USGPN" a unit that is remembered is responsible for providing presidential security.



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Security : The Ministry of Health condemns attacks against ambulances





In a press note, the Ministry of Public Health strongly denounces and condemns the attacks perpetrated against the ambulances in all regions of the country.



The Ministry recalls that "Ambulances are used to provide emergency pre-hospital care, transport any person whose case requires care, to the nearest hospital or health center and technically appropriate. Under the Highway Code, ambulances are given priority in traffic.



The drivers, nurses, and first aiders working in these ambulances are mothers and fathers who, day and night, perform their duties with great dedication and professionalism to help the population in all circumstances, in all places and without any discrimination.



The Ministry is asking people to show their solidarity and facilitate the free movement of all ambulances, whether public, private, from hospital or philanthropic.



Ambulances are at the service of the population. Protect them !"



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : NEHRO threatens to file a complaint against President Jovenel Moise !





The New England Human Right Organization (NEHRO), a Boston-based international human rights organization, hails the people of Haiti for its massive participation across the country on November 18 in the great mobilization to demand that the light be shade on the use of the PetroCaribe Funds, despite the orchestrated intimidation campaign. NEHRO sends its sympathies to the families of those killed, wounded, illegally and arbitrarily arrested and detained during this day of protest and demands their unconditional release.



Moreover, NEHRO demands that the Police and Judicial Authorities promptly carry out an investigation to determine the perpetrators of acts of murder and violence perpetrated last week against citizens in the neighborhoods of La Saline and the slums of the metropolitan area.



the NEHRO specifies "In case of inaction or mutism of the Haitian authorities in the face of these acts detrimental to life and freedom committed in La Saline on November 13 and across the country on November 18, 2018 , NEHRO will formally lodge a complaint with the International Human Rights Institutions against President Jovenel Moise, Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant and Members of the High Command of the National Police as presumed contractors and the agents directly involved in the crackdown on peaceful protesters".



NEHRO encourages the Haitian people to remain mobilized to obtain in all peaceful ways the truth about the use of PetroCaribe funds and for the enjoyment of their civil and political rights.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Metropolitan area paralyzed

For the second consecutive day, for fear of violence, economic activities as well as public transport, were almost completely paralyzed in the Metropolitan area, commercial enterprises, schools and public bodies were also closed...



The Dominican Chancellor, minimizes the protests

Miguel Vargas Maldonado, the Dominican Minister of Foreign Affairs, acknowledges that the recent demonstrations and the reported violence are worrying, but he considers that these are isolated cases.



Defeats of our Grenadiers against El Salvador

Tuesday night on the lawn of the Stadium Cuscatlan in San Salvador our Grenadiers afrontaienr the team of El Salavador during a friendly match, which they lost in favor of the host country [1-0], during a registered goal by Joaquin Rivas to the 29' minute. Note that Donald Guerrier, Derrick Etienne and Arcus Carlens were forced to return to their respective clubs because of important commitments, were replaced by Alex Christian, Ricardo Ade and Jems Geffrard.



See also:

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26175-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26151-haiti-league-of-nations-haiti-wins-against-nicaragua-[2-0]-and-takes-the-lead.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26041-haiti-football-haiti-el-salvador-in-friendly-match.html



Steven benoit would resign if he was Moise

Faced with the crisis out of control in Haiti, former Senator Steven Irvenson Benoit said on the air of a radio of the capital, that if he was in place of President Jovenel Moise he would resign.



The Protestant Federation urges the Head of State

In a note, the Protestant Federation of Haiti (FPH) urges President Jovenel Moise to quickly convene all vital sectors of the Nation and political parties of the opposition, to allow the country to recover its social cohesion and stability political and prevent once again, foreign intervention on the soil of Haiti...



"Konsome lokal" Fair

This year, the "Konsome lokal" Fair at the Canne a Sucre Historical Park, on December 1st and 2nd, will have 95 kiosks and products for all tastes.

Admission price :

300 gourdes for adults

50 gourdes for children.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2018/11/20 | Source

The cast of "The Last Empress" expect a 20% viewing percentage.

Advertisement

The premiere of the SBS drama "The Last Empress" was held in Mokdong, Seoul on the 20th with Jang Nara, Choi Jin-hyuk, Shin Sung-rok, Lee Elijah, Yoon Da-hoon, Lee Hee-jin, Yoon So-yi, and Stephanie Lee.

Shin Sung-rok's most recent drama "Return" recorded a shocking 17.4% which is the highest result by an SBS drama this year. Therefore, he anticipates to have that effect on "The Last Empress" and go over 20%.

Jang Nara said, "If the percentage goes over 25%, I will arrange a tour to the Buyeo in Chung-nam where we filmed the drama with the viewers and the staff who helped to make the drama".

Regarding the issue that "The Last Empress" is directed byJoo Dong-min who was involved with the issues surrounding "Return" by replacing the leading actress, Shin Sung-rok said, "This will be his signature drama and he communicates with everyone on set".

"The Last Empress" begins on the 21st of November.
Spains Democratic Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and right-leaning Peoples Party (PP) refused to hold a pro-Polisario symposium within the Spanish Parliament in Madrid.

The news comes in line with speculation about Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchezs awaited first visit to Morocco since his election in June.

Spanish news outlet El Pais reported Saturday that any awkwardness caused by Sanchezs delayed visit vanished at Sundays World War I ceremony in France. Sanchez met and talked with King Mohammed VI, who was at the event along with other world leaders.

The outlet stated that Sanchez made an appointment to visit Morocco soon after his election on June 2, but has not yet found a suitable time for the meeting.

The delay may have proved uncomfortable for the King and the Spanish minister, especially during the Marrakech Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration on December 10, without Sanchez having made a prior formal visit to Morocco, the host country.
C. "Norm" Spoonheim, 85, passed away due to natural causes on Thursday, November 15, 2018, at Riverstone Hospice in Billings.

Funeral services will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 21, 2018, at Turner Christian Church with visitation beginning at 12:00 p.m.

Burial will follow in the Turner Cemetery. Norm's family has suggested memorial donations be made in his name to Riverstone Hospice House, 2230 Mission Way, Billings, MT 59102.

Holland & Bonine Funeral Home has been entrusted with services and arrangements.

Please visit Norm's online memorial page and leave a message of condolence for his family at http://www.hollandbonine.com/.

Norm was born on May 7, 1933, in Chinook, to Christian and Mary (Snowball) Spoonheim, the youngest of seven children. He was raised in Turner, attending Turner Public Schools. In 1953, Norm enlisted in the U.S. Army, and served in Korea until his honorable discharge in 1955. He then returned to Turner, where he worked as a carpenter along the Hi-Line. Norm and his brothers, Bob and Mel, worked together building houses in Whitewater, Turner, and Harlem, many of which are still standing and considered a tribute to excellent construction. In August of 1963, Norm married, they had two children and later divorced. For the remainder of his life, he ran his own construction and remodeling business. He truly loved his work and enjoyed it as long as he could.

Norm was a kind, loving man with a quiet sense of humor who enjoyed dancing and flirting with the "girls." "Coffee time" was very important to Norm, as his coffee breaks were at 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. daily. He also loved playing cards and skunking his children at cribbage any chance he got. He adored his two children and doted on his four grandchildren. Collecting vintage cars was a favorite hobby, which led to his purchase this past summer of a 1928 Chevrolet AB National, the first car in which he could remember riding with his dad.

Norm was preceded in death by his parents, Christian and Mary Spoonheim; his siblings, Mabel Cotter, Carl W. Spoonheim, Gladys Tandy, Vilma Nissen, Melvin Spoonheim, and Robert "Bob" Spoonheim; and a special friend, Myrle Haugen.

He is survived by his children, Carolyn (Gordon) Turner of Kingston, ID, and Chuck (Marvel) Spoonheim of Billings; grandchildren, Chas Spoonheim, Kylie Spoonheim, Grant Turner and Nate Turner; and numerous nieces and nephews.
Havre's Helping Haven "Something Old Made New Just for You!" The Helping Haven receives so many generous donations from the community that they are excited to give back and donate this beautiful "Something Old Made New" tree to the Boys & Girls Club. It includes two lovely quilts, one made from denim and one from wool, a beautiful rug made from old shirts, mittens made from wool sweaters, a pinecone wreath, and a window saved from St. Jude Thaddeus School that has been made into a beautiful stain glass nativity scene. The tree package also includes a rocking chair, lamp and other fun and/or repurposed items.

Havre Daily News staff

Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line has highlighted more of the trees donated for Saturday's Festival of Trees fundraiser.

Local people, groups, organizations and businesses decorate and donate the trees to be auctioned off at the festival.

The event, which starts at 7 p.m. in the club, also includes a reverse auction of a Karen Vosen quilt, silent auctions and the Five Golden Rings Game, which features five rings donated by Heirloom Jewelers and J.M. Donoven Designs in Fine Jewelry.

Tickets, which are $25 each, can be purchased by calling the club at 265-6206 or by visiting its website at http://www.bgchi-line.net/.
Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line receives check for $1,500 from Ford

Representatives of Havre Ford and Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line pose for a photograph with a $1,500 check Havre Ford and the Ford Foundation presented to the club as part of the Ford Focus on Child Hunger campaign.

Press release

The Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line received a check Tuesday totaling $1,500 from Havre Ford and the Ford Motor Company Fund. Ford and local Ford dealers are donating more than $100,000 to 64 Boys & Girls Clubs in Washington, Oregon, northern Idaho, Montana and Alaska to help feed children during the holidays. It's part of the Ford Focus on Child Hunger campaign.

This donation is in response to the increased demand for nutritious meals during the holidays, when many children lose access to school nutrition programs. It is estimated nearly 24 percent of children - that's one in four - are unsure how their next meal will be provided.

The Ford Fund provided $1,000 to the Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line. Havre Ford donated an additional $500 to the Club. The money will be used to provide meals and snacks at the Clubs during the holiday season.

"No child should have to worry about where their next meal is coming from," said Steve Steinmetz, general manager at Have Ford. "We're happy to partner with the Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line in the fight against child hunger."

Ford Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company, is working in several ways to address food access and food insecurity throughout the U.S. In the past five years, the Ford Focus on Child Hunger initiative has donated more than $2.5 million to the five-state area, providing more than 2.5 million meals to regional programs.

In addition to these efforts, earlier this year, Ford dealers in the region collected over 105,000 pounds of peanut butter, enough to make nearly 1.5 million peanut butter sandwiches, which feeds kids during the summer when school nutrition programs are closed. Havre Ford also participated in the peanut butter drive.

Ford Motor Company Fund is the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. Established in 1949, Ford Fund invests in innovative, transformational programs that empower people to take control of their lives and contribute to overall community prosperity.

Ford Fund works with local and global partners to create opportunities that advance education, promote safe driving, enlist employee volunteers and enrich community life. Ford Fund's signature programs include Ford Blue Oval Scholars, Ford College Community Challenge, Ford Driving Dreams, Ford Driving Skills for Life, Ford Next Generation Learning and the Ford Volunteer Corps. For more information, visit http://community.ford.com or visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FordFund/ and Twitter @fordfund.
Kenneth Parisian looks out of the window of his apartment at Oakwood Village Tuesday in Havre. Parisian, moved last week from Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation to the housing complex. Gov. Steve Bullock announced Tuesday that a project to purchase and renovate Oakwood was one of five in the state approved for federal tax credits, with Affiliated Developers Inc. approved for more than $3.6 million to use in the project.

Gov. Steve Bullock announced Tuesday that Oakwood Village in Havre will be one of five projects in Montana receiving Federal Tax Credits to develop affordable housing.

"This is a win-win for Montana," Bullock said in a press release. "Montana families thrive when they have a safe and affordable place to call home, and our economy continues to grow when we are able to house a productive workforce, while creating hundreds of construction jobs in local communities throughout the state."

The press release said Affiliated Developers Inc. will receive $3,881,250 in tax credits for acquisition and rehabilitation of Oakwood Village.

It added that the total project investment of $7,716,755 in Oakwood Village will result in 100 jobs for Montanans, creating $4.5 million in wages and salaries.

Affiliated Developers did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Montana Board of Housing Executive Director Bruce Brensdal said Tuesday that tax credits come with some restrictions. The restrictions include the amount of rent that can be charged to the tenants of the building and tenant income level required to move in, he added.

Affiliated Developers has no deadline that the company will need to start working on the property, although most companies will start working on projects immediately after receiving the tax credits, he said.

"Until Monday, this project, along with all the others, didn't know if they had credits or not, so they were unable to do a whole lot," he said. "But now that they know. It's kind of like getting out of the starting box, they are all off and running."

Brensdal added that Oakwood Village is an existing Housing and Urban Development project and Affiliated Developers will need to work with HUD and the existing owners to finalize the purchase.

"Kind of the rule, or what they will have to do, is to have at least most of the rehab done by the end of 2020," he added.

Part of working with HUD will be that Affiliated Developers will need to accept the existing debt on the project, he said, adding that the debt will be part of purchasing the property from the existing owners.

Brensdal said, to his knowledge, the sale of the property was contingent on the awarding of the tax credits, and now that the tax credits have been awarded the sale should occur soon.

The process of receiving the tax credits is quite competitive, he said. Across the state this year, 17 projects applied. Out of those 17, eight were invited forward in the process to fill out a full application for the credits, and out of those eight, five were selected to receive the tax credits, Brensdal said.

Havre Daily News/Ryan Berry A courtyard at Oakwood Village is quiet Tuesday afternoon, November 20, 2018 in Havre, Mont.

The selection process has multiple factors that the board considers when they decide to fund a project, he added. A scoring process is used for each project. The board looks at geographic distribution, if a community has received tax credits in the past, and the housing market, in addition to many other variables, Brensdal said.

This project is important for the Havre housing market for a variety of reasons, he said.

"I think it's good news for Havre for sure," Brensdal said.

He added that he wanted to congratulate Havre in receiving the tax credits.

"I think there is an awful lot of competition for very few resources," he said. "So it's just a great thing that we are able to help keep those apartments (for Havre's) community and helping folks that live there."
MSU News Service

BOZEMAN  Montana State University will host its annual Crop and Pest Management School, set for Jan. 14-16, in MSUs Strand Union in Ballroom D.

MSU Extension, the MSU College of Agriculture and the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station will host the two-and-a-half-day workshop, which will focus on crop and pest management in small grains, including presentations on agronomy, MSU crop breeding program updates, integrated weed management, entomology and plant pathology.

The workshop is geared toward producers, certified crop advisers, county agents and those working in agribusiness.

Upon completion of the workshop, credits will be available for private and commercial applicators and certified crop advisers.

This is the 16th year MSU has offered the workshop, which attracts a diverse and high-quality roster of speakers that includes producers, industry, government, and academic agriculturists. This years guest presenters are Lyle Benjamin, Montana Grain Growers Association president, who will provide an overview of the small grains industry in Montana and Juliet Marshall, a plant pathologist at the University of Idaho, who will give an update on cereal diseases.

In addition to Benjamin, MSU speakers Monday, Jan. 14 include:

 Jessica Torrion, interim superintendent of the Northwestern Agricultural Research Center, will present research results from five years of studying wheat irrigation strategies.

 Luther Talbert, MSU spring wheat breeder, will provide an update on new spring wheat varieties and program highlights.

 Jamie Sherman, MSU barley breeder, will provide an update on MSUs barley breeding program.

 Noelle Orloff, research associate and Tim Seipel, MSU Extension weed specialist, will address herbicide carryover and ways to identify herbicide damage.

Tuesday, Jan. 15, speakers include:

 Prashant Jha, associate professor at MSUs Southern Agricultural Research Center, will address precision weed management and herbicide resistance.

 Hikmet Budak, MSU Winifred Asbjornson Plant Sciences Chair, will discuss CRISPR technology and small-grain traits.

 Clain Jones, MSU Extension soil fertility specialist, will discuss soil acidification in addition to ways to identify, prevent and mitigate damage.

 David Weaver, professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, will conduct an entomology activity and provide updates on Montana pests.

 Aaron Esser, Adams County director in Washington, will share Washington State University research on wireworms and wheat.

Wednesday, Jan. 16, Frankie Crutcher, assistant professor at MSUs Eastern Agricultural Research Center, will deliver research highlights on small grains and pathology.

The cost for the workshop is $195. The deadline to register is Monday, Jan. 7. The full workshop schedule, a printable mail-in registration form, and a link to an online credit card registration page can be found at http://plantsciences.montana.edu/labs.html.
Press release

GREAT FALLS  The National Wheat Foundations National Wheat Yield Contest offers growers the opportunity to compete with farmers from across the United States and improve their production practices through new and innovative techniques. Today, NWF announced winners for the 2018 National Wheat Yield Contest.

The contest recognizes winners in two primary competition categories: winter wheat and spring wheat, and two subcategories: dryland and irrigated.

Montana Grain Growers Association member Randy Bokma, Denton, placed fifth nationwide in the dryland winter wheat cate...
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) yesterday announced a new $500 million relief aid for Yemen.

The two Gulf States announcement came during a joint press conference held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, which was attended by the General Supervisor of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, and the UAEs Minister of State for International Cooperation, Reem Al Hashimy.

Al-Rabeeah said the Saudi-led military coalition countries have provided $18 billion in aid to Yemen over the past three years.

On her part, Al-Hashimy pointed out that the new fund will target more than 10 million Yemenis.

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemens embattled government.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the countrys population has been displaced.
Every year after Thanksgiving, Americans kick off the holiday shopping season with big stores advertising deal after deal. Not long ago, Americans during the holiday season typically would visit locally-owned small retailers in a downtown area to purchase all of their gifts. Business owners would decorate their shops with lights and ornaments or create elaborate window displays to grab the imagination of a passerby and encourage them inside. It was a magical time of year, and many of us still hold on to those memories today.

With the dramatic changes in retail over the last twenty years, t...
Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, said Allen is a highly talented HR executive and brings a wealth of experience across a variety of industries to News Corp Australia.

Recently with Origin Energy, Allen held the dual roles of general manager people and culture for the integrated gas business, and GM capability and culture for Origin.

In this capacity, she was part of rebuilding the gas business from the ground up and resetting Origins purpose, values and culture.

Before her nearly nine years with Origin, Ruth held senior roles with construction engineering company Thiess John Holland across the areas of capability, leadership and culture.

Her previous experience also includes five years at Telstra, responsible for managing sales capability, cultural transformation and leadership in the customer sales and service division across inbound and outbound contact centres and Telstra shops.
A detective whose face was slashed in a razor blade attack on a plane as he accompanied a deported man to Nigeria has been awarded 25,000 damages at the High Court.

Barrister Breffni Gordon told Mr Justice Michael Twomey that Det Gda Eamon Moran, of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, was escorting the Nigerian national from Madrid to Lagos when he armed himself with a razor blade and attacked him.

He said Det Gda Moran (44) was lacerated across his right ear, the right side of his face and his upper back before his attacker was restrained.

The officer told the court he was 38 at the time of the attack in March 2012 and was fortunate there was a doctor on board who applied dressings to stop the bleeding.

On his return to Madrid he went to hospital where he had 29 stitches before returning to Ireland where he saw his GP.

Det Gda Moran, of Templeogue, Dublin, said he was treated with anti-inflammatory analgesic medication.

Scars

The scars of his wounds continued to heal, though they remained visible and he experienced numbness.

He said that more than three years after the incident, he was told by a medical expert that while his wounds had fully healed the scarring "will remain with me for the rest of my life".

Judge Twomey heard that Det Gda Moran suffered from stress, anxiety and sleep disturbance and had attended nearly a dozen counselling sessions.

The officer told the Public Expenditure and Reform Minister's legal team that there had been a very short turnaround at Lagos and he had not been hospitalised until his return to Madrid.

People had initially been concerned for him and he had had to tell the story of the attack over and over and found this distressing, but he was better able to talk about it now.

He told the court he had been off work for about four months but had been keen to get back to his duties.

Judge Twomey awarded Det Gda Moran 25,000 damages together with just over 3,000 special expenses.
Desmond Duffy walks out of the Criminal Court of Justice a free man after he was acquitted of murder. Photo: Tony Gavin

Dublin pensioner Desmond Duffy walked free from court yesterday after being found not guilty of murdering his "abusive" and "violent" partner, Desmond 'Dessie' Sullivan.

Mr Duffy (70) cried quietly and whispered "thank you" as the jury left the courtroom, having spent seven hours and 11 minutes deliberating after a nine-day trial.

He said from the outset that he was acting in self-defence after his partner of 36 years attacked him in the kitchen of their home.

At 4.46pm the jury returned with a verdict. Mr Justice Paul McDermott thanked the jurors and exempted them from further duty for 10 years.

He then turned to Mr Duffy and told him he was discharged.

Mr Duffy turned to his legal counsel and asked: "Can I go?"

Outside the Criminal Court of Justice, his supporters hugged him as he prepared to return home.

Trouble

The court heard that Mr Duffy, referred to as 'Big Des' during the trial, called Garda Maurice Ward, who is married to a niece of Mr Sullivan (59), shortly after 10pm on May 23, 2016, to say there was "trouble" and could he come over urgently.

Gda Ward arrived about 30 minutes later and found the lifeless body of Mr Sullivan, referred to as 'Little Des' during the trial, in the kitchen.

He called emergency services but knew there was no point in trying resuscitation.

The accused took to the stand in his own defence during the trial, saying he was not there to blacken Mr Sullivan's name.

"You don't spend 36 years of your life with somebody you don't love. We had our problems but Dessie also had his good sides," Mr Duffy said.

He told his defence counsel Caroline Biggs SC that he was defending himself from an attack by his "abusive" and "violent" partner.

"I feel so sorry for his family, especially his mother who I was very close to, his sister and others but I'm still grieving, devastated and heartbroken by what happened," he said.

"I have lost my partner of 36 years and I will never, ever get over that.

"It was never my intention to hurt him or injure him."

Mr Duffy said he stayed with Mr Sullivan despite the abuse.

"I covered it up and I denied it. At the end of the day I did love the man," he said.

State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy said Mr Sullivan died from compression of the neck causing a lack of oxygen to the brain.

Mr Sullivan had hypertensive heart disease and a combination of alcohol and diazepam in his bloodstream, which may have contributed to his death, making him vulnerable to arrhythmia of the heart.

Prof Cassidy found evidence of tiny haemorrhages around the eyes, which was common in cases involving asphyxiation.

She said the haemorrhages showed that the airway was blocked for "some seconds".

Bruising around the Adam's apple was consistent with Mr Duffy's explanation that he used a pincer-like grip of the fingers and thumb of his right hand when he reached out to defend himself.

The trial heard from multiple witnesses that Mr Duffy had been the victim of domestic abuse for about three decades.

Anne Quinlan said she got a lift home from a wedding in Killiney in the mid-1980s with the two men and as Mr Duffy drove, Mr Sullivan started punching him in the face, head and upper body and screaming at him.

Nasty

Carmel Savage, a close friend of both men, said Mr Sullivan could be nasty and wouldn't let Mr Duffy speak.

Melissa Farrell recalled seeing Mr Sullivan dancing at the crematorium on the morning of Mr Duffy's brother's funeral.

Later that day, Mr Sullivan dumped a basket of sausages and chips on Mr Duffy's head.

There were multiple other incidents and Mr Duffy said in evidence that he would sometimes stay in a local hotel to avoid the abuse or, if he didn't have enough money, would wander the streets.

On the night Mr Sullivan died both men had been drinking in Grace's Pub in Rathmines and came home shortly after 9pm.

Neighbours heard raised voices, with Katie Daffy, who knew both men, saying this occasion was different because Mr Duffy seemed to be arguing back. It sounded like he had "snapped", she said.

Mr Duffy said that when they got home, Mr Sullivan started punching him and pulling his hair.

Mr Duffy went to bed, hoping to defuse the situation, but Mr Sullivan followed him, pulled the bedclothes off and took Mr Duffy's credit card from his shirt pocket.

He taunted him, telling him: "F**k off, go stay in your f**king hotel now."

Mr Duffy went downstairs, to get his jacket, but Mr Sullivan told him he had hidden it.

The row continued, with Mr Sullivan punching Mr Duffy, who said he raised his arm to defend himself and pushed Mr Sullivan toward an alcove in the kitchen.

He said Mr Sullivan was pushing against him but then slid down the wall and fell on his side.

The prosecution argued that Mr Duffy was angry and had decided he wasn't going to take the abuse any more when he squeezed Mr Sullivan's neck.

Ms Biggs said her client acted in self-defence, and Mr Sullivan's heart disease, combined with alcohol and drug use, made him vulnerable.

Mr Justice McDermott told the jury that to find Mr Duffy guilty of murder the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that he intended to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Sullivan and that he was not acting in self-defence.

If he was acting in self-defence but used more force than was reasonably necessary, he would be guilty of manslaughter, he said.

If he was acting in self-defence and used no more force than a reasonable person would consider necessary, he told the jury to acquit.
Geraldine OBrien said her family felt betrayed by the cold and cruel response to the death of Teresa Lyons

The HSE has offered its "sincerest apologies" to the family of a woman who died after her jugular vein was torn in routine surgery.

Teresa Lyons's grieving daughter Geraldine O'Brien told her inquest yesterday that, on the day her mother died, her family was forced to leave her alone in a "hugely overcrowded" Emergency Department at University Hospital Limerick.

The family was told by staff to leave the seriously ill 76-year-old as there was only room for patients, Ms O'Brien said.

Guilty

A verdict of medical misadventure was returned at the inquest, held at Limerick Coroners Court.

Teresa Lyons, of Granville Park, Limerick, who had a history of diabetes, went to the hospital on December 29, 2016, with vomiting and diarrhoea.

She died eight hours later during a routine surgical procedure after her condition worsened, her inquest heard.

Reading from a victim impact statement, Ms O'Brien said she and her siblings feel "guilty" because they never got a chance to say goodbye to their mother.

"Staff, while coping, were struggling in packed [conditions]... we were asked to leave to make room for even more patients. While we were very reluctant to leave mam alone, we were given no choice," Ms O'Brien said.

"Over the next hour [my sister] Valerie tried to go back to mam's bedside but was repeatedly denied entry due to the overcrowding."

Family members remained in the waiting room at the hospital throughout the day, but they were not informed Ms Lyons had been moved to intensive care, nor were they told she was due to undergo a surgical procedure, Ms O'Brien said.

"At 5.55pm, Valerie again tried to get back in to see mam only to be advised she was still there and she was doing fine, but she had been moved to ICU at this stage," added Ms O'Brien.

She said the family felt "stonewalled" and "dismissed" by the HSE whenever they attempted to get information on their mother's treatment.

Ms O'Brien said they were invited to a meeting with hospital management in March 2017 and management "agreed this was unfortunate and should not have happened".

"In their own words, they said they 'failed' the family. Another comment was made that they would 'learn' from it, so no other family would suffer the same way."

Ms O'Brien said the family received its "first official information provided in correspondence" from management on July 30, 2018, 19 months after her mother's death, adding: "We feel this cold, clinical, cruel lack of engagement has left us feeling hurt and betrayed by the management of UL hospital."

Ms Lyons died during a "renal replacement therapy" procedure after her kidneys had failed. The inquest heard it was a routine procedure with a very low risk to the patient.

Dr Andras Mikor, a senior registrar at UHL at the time, carried out the procedure and said he called for assistance because he could not remove a surgical wire guide that had been inserted in Ms Lyons's neck to deliver fluids and medication.

Snagged

When the wire was eventually removed it was found to have "a kink" in it, which it was accepted had probably "snagged" on Ms Lyons's right internal jugular vein, causing it to tear.

Ms Lyons was pronounced dead a short while later, after attempts to drain fluids and perform CPR had failed.

Since the fatal incident, a new type of wire has been in use at UHL, the inquest heard.

A post-mortem examination concluded death was due to hypovolemic shock as a result of a torn vein.

Limerick Coroner John McNamara said a verdict of medical misadventure "does not carry any implications" for the clinicians involved in Ms Lyons's treatment, who said they had done their best to "fix her".

A solicitor for the HSE offered her "sincerest apologies and sincerest condolences" to the Lyons family.
A teenage drink-driver who was going to visit his mother's grave on his birthday when he crashed and seriously injured another motorist has been jailed for five months.

He was also given a four-year driving ban.

Philip Dunbar, of Glenshane Drive, Tallaght, was 17 at the time but is now 18.

Dunbar pleaded guilty at Dublin Children's Court to drink-driving, dangerous driving and driving without a licence or insurance in Kiltipper Road, Tallaght, on August 21 last year.

The court heard he was driving a 99D-reg car that veered on to the wrong side of the road and collided with an oncoming vehicle whose driver suffered a punctured lung.

Fractured

Dunbar suffered a fractured neck and was found to have 93mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The court heard he had four previous convictions.

All of them were for traffic offences, having no licence or insurance and failing to produce documentation. Those charges had resulted in a nine-month ban being imposed last February.

Pleading for leniency, defence counsel Amy Deane said Dunbar's mother had died of an overdose.

She said he was sorry for the injuries he inflicted.
An immigration officer at Dublin Airport was entitled to look at a man's text messages which led the official to believe he was here to enter into a marriage of convenience, the High Court has ruled.

The Pakistani man arrived in October last year with a visa and was interviewed by the officer who then examined his phone. He claimed he was here to visit his brother.

He was refused permission to land and taken to Cloverhill Prison. Four days later, he was removed from Ireland.

He brought proceedings against the Justice Minister and gardai in a bid to quash the decision to refuse him permission to enter the State, and sought a declaration that the search of his phone breached his European Convention rights.

Sham

He also complained about his detention and the conditions under which he was held at Cloverhill.

Mr Justice Max Barrett refused to grant the reliefs he sought.

He said the notion that the immigration officer took an irrelevant consideration into account when making his decision to refuse landing came from a reference in the officer's notebook to "Brother's sham marriage".

The judge found the notebook contained "but a record" of the immigration officer's conversation with the man as well as thoughts arising.

In relation to conditions at Cloverhill, the judge said that, while prison "doubtless is not pleasant", there was no evidence to suggest the conditions breached his human rights.
Jenny Powell recovering at home after she was beaten and robbed by an armed gang who burst into her house

A violent criminal on bail for an aggravated burglary is the chief suspect in the armed raid on a disabled pensioner in west Dublin.

Jenny Powell (84) is recovering after an armed gang forced their way into her Mulhuddart home last Friday night. She was beaten and robbed by the men, who armed themselves with a hammer and a saw, before they fled with just 20.

The Herald has learned that gardai have identified an on-the-run Dublin criminal as the chief suspect.

Gunpoint

The thug, who is in his late 20s, is currently on bail over a separate break-in at a pensioner's home.

In that disgraceful incident, the same man is alleged to have threatened the woman at gunpoint in her rural home before robbing her. He was arrested and charged over that incident but has since been released on bail.

However, in recent weeks, the man has breached his bail conditions and is now being actively sought by gardai.

The fugitive cannot be identified for legal reasons as he is facing serious charges before the courts.

A source said the thug was also suspected of robbing Ms Powell in a previous incident.

"He is a prime suspect in this investigation," the source said. "He has robbed the same poor woman before and is a suspect in similar targeted robberies on OAPs."

The career criminal once caused a jail security alert after being involved in a tense stand-off with prison officers while he was behind bars.

Detectives at Blanchardstown Garda Station are continuing their investigations into the aggravated burglary at Ms Powell's home but no arrests have yet been made.

Speaking to the Herald this week, the pensioner said the robbers "tossed" her around as they looked for money.

"They were even rummaging under the mattress. All they got was 20," Ms Powell said.

"They were hurting me, and I'll be 85 next month. These people need to be caught. I've been living here for 20 years, it's never happened to me before. I'm not going to let these people drive me out."
A great-grandmother has been recognised as the world's longest surviving single lung transplant patient by the Guinness Book of Records.

Vera Dwyer (77), from Co Sligo, was honoured yesterday at a ceremony in Dublin's Mater Hospital, where she said the operation in the UK saved her life and allowed her the privilege of raising her children.

She said her longevity is due to "positive thinking, good care and the fresh air" of her native Sligo.

Mrs Dwyer was awarded a gold medallion from the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association to mark the 30th anniversary of her operation.

She was diagnosed in the 1980s with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an irreversible, chronic and ultimately fatal fibrotic lung disease.

She was seriously ill when she was transferred to Harefield Hospital near London in 1988.

However, thanks to the kindness of an organ donor she received a new lung.

"Another patient was given the other lung, but she didn't survive," said Mrs Dwyer.

At the time, lung transplantation was not available in Ireland and she had to travel to England for the life-saving procedure.

The mother-of-four, grandmother-of-seven and great-grandmother-of-three also received a kidney transplant in 2009 and underwent hip replacement surgery last May.

"It's an absolute honour to receive this award. Thirty years ago I was given just days to live and I'm very lucky to still be here," she said.

Wonderful

"I would like to thank all the doctors and nurses who have helped me, especially those at the National Heart and Lung Transplant Centre at the Mater Hospital who have been wonderful in my care since the centre opened in 2003.

"But most especially my two donors, without whom I would not be here."

Consultant transplant and respiratory physician Prof Jim Egan said that last year a record 36 lung transplants took place in Ireland, and the country is currently ranked fourth in Europe for the number of such operations per million of population.
Four people displaced by fire in Hagerstown row home, no one hurt

Four people escaped unhurt from a fire in their home on South Burhans Boulevard in Hagerstown. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
https://www.aish.com/jw/me/Ben-and-Jerrys-in-Israel-Dont-Boycott-Us.html

The Israeli company has nothing to do with the decisions of the international brand.

In recent weeks, there has been talk in the Jewish community of deserting Ben and Jerrys over a recent campaign during the U.S mid-term elections, which drew the iconic ice cream manufacturer into an uncomfortable impasse with political activists renowned for their outspoken anti-Semitic views.

The story unfolded with Ben and Jerrys announcing a new politically charged flavor just ahead of crucial nationwide votes cleverly titled Pecan Resist, taking a swipe at the Trump administration. In addition the company awarded financial grants to four organizations including, The Womens March whose co-founders who include Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory  renowned proponents of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views.

Sarsour, a former director of the Arab American Association has endorsed boycotting Israel, described an image of a rock-throwing Palestinian as the epitome of courage and recently encouraged American Muslims not to humanize Israelis. Meanwhile activist Mallory has regularly heaped praise on the anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farakhan describing him as the greatest of all time.

The BDS movement would love to see Ben & Jerrys close in Israel

Almost as soon as the grant to Womens March was announced, twitter and the blogosphere was scooping up counter protests with calls on shoppers to boycott the company and for shop owners to remove Ben and Jerrys products from shelves. Ben and Jerrys USA have defended the new flavor explaining that while they may not agree with everything these two women say, they do support their work for womens rights.

Aish.com spoke to a senior manager at Ben and Jerrys Israel to find out where they stand.

We are an independent Israeli company, the spokesman said. We dont have anything to do with the decisions of the international brand and it is important to mention that we do not intend to market Pecan Resist in Israel.

We spoke to our parent company and voiced our objection, but we have been unable to change the situation.

The Ben and Jerrys factory opened in Israel in 1987 in the town of Kiryat Malachi, near Ashkelon, where today it employs around 140 Israelis who mainly live locally. The ice cream industry nets around $1.2bn annually in Israel where Strauss and Nestle are the biggest producers. Ben and Jerrys is the third largest brand with around 10% of the market.

So, what impact has this had on Israeli sales? Its hard to say, the spokesman said. I hope not too bad, but its more a sense that we have been given the cold shoulder and our customers should know that we distance ourselves from this decision of the parent company.

He added, Stopping buying Ben and Jerrys in Israel is exactly what anti-Israel groups are looking for. The BDS movement would love to see Ben & Jerrys close in Israel.
At a recent lecture series, the Sarsanghachalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, said, Fraternity is the essence of the Sanghs activities, and exemplifies our countrys unity in diversity.

It is this tradition of fraternity that is referred to as Hindutva, Bhagwat continued. And that is why we say that Bharat is a Hindu Rashtra, where Rashtra, stands for people. This does not mean that we do not want Muslims in it. Because Hindutva sees the entire world as one family  Vishwakutumb. Some in the audience were perplexed by this statement.

Confusions arise because people tend to focus on particular positions that we take in response to prevailing conditions, losing sight of the original spirit that defines us. Hindutva is the view of life that is inherently inclusive and stands for the good of all of creation.

This is why Hindus never identified as Hindu. When they travelled abroad for trade, they were called Hindus, indicating that they came from beyond the river Sindhu. Invaders also called us Hindu, in the same vein. Thus Hindu became the descriptor for all those who live in this region.

While opposing British rule, Hindus and Muslims worked together in the first war of independence in 1857. In 1905, too, while opposing the unjust partition of Bengal, they stood together and succeeded. Subsequently, the British planted the seeds of divisions and hatred between the communities, leading to Partition. In those tumultuous years, the Muslim view completely negated the essence of Hindutva and Bharatiyata. The Hindu opposition to the Partition evolved into an articulation that was against Muslims. If in those years Hindu leaders reflected anti-Muslim sentiments, it was a reaction to the violence and venom: a reaction that failed to reflect the eternal inclusive thought that defines Bharat.

It should always be kept in mind that the Hindu view is not exclusivist and does not believe in otherising. This is why Swami Vivekananda said in his famous speech in Chicago that he was proud to belong to a faith which, in its ancient Sanskrit language, has no equivalent or substitute for the word exclusion.

Semitic thought divides humankind into two groups: those who are believers, and those who are not. Those who do not follow Semitic faiths are shunned and threatened. This exclusivist conception even influences socio-political ideologies such as communism that have roots in societies that subscribe to Semitic faiths. If you do not subscribe to communism, then you are branded a right winger and silenced. The people who subscribe to such thought have hence represented Hinduism as an ism something that is discriminatory towards those outside its fold. Hence in our opposition to this misrepresentation of an all-encompassing faith, we have also drifted towards this understanding of being Hindu.

Independence came to Bharat alongside a Partition of the British dominion and a transfer of population that was not intended. The people of this subcontinent had been one since ancient times. In one part of Bharat, Bharatiya Muslims comprised a minority and, in the other, what became Pakistan, the Hindus were the minority. Both Constitutions were written at the same time. Pakistans Constitution drew from Semitic thought and so a delineation between Muslim and Non-Muslim citizens denied equal rights to all. However, in Bharats Constitution, keeping with the Hindu view of life, all religions were given equal rights.

Because Pakistan followed Semitic traditions, it introduced the concept of minorities. However Bharat, followed the essence of Hindutva and preserved a tradition of not discriminating among people on the basis of religion. Hence the concept of minority is irrelevant in the context of Bharat.

In post-Independence India, opposing Hindutva and appeasing Muslims and Christians for votes became the hallmark of party politics. At times, Hindu society had to counter the aggression of violent fundamentalist Muslim elements. As a result, anti-Muslim sentiment grew in the Hindus mind. However, the Muslims and Christians of Bharat have a Hindu origin. Because Hindu society was weak, some were compelled to change their faith. Muslims may forget this, but Hindus must not. They must, together with our Muslim brethren, plant the seeds of a prosperous Bharat.

The Sanghs second Sarsanghchalak, MS Golwalkar, articulated this in an interview with journalist, Saifuddin Jilani.

Dr Jilani: Much has been said about Indianisation and a lot of confusion has arisen over it. Could you please tell me how to remove the confusion?

Golwalkar: Indianisation was, of course, the slogan given by Jana Sangh. Why should there be such confusion? Indianisation does not mean converting all people to Hinduism.

Indianisation is the realisation that we all owe allegiance to this land. We share common ancestors, culture and aspirations. It does not mean quitting one religion for another. In fact, we believe that a single religious system for all humans is not suitable.

During his lecture series, Bhagwat said, As a people, we all have a Hindu identity. Some feel pride in referring to themselves as Hindus while others, due to some material considerations or political compulsions, only say they are Hindus in private. Then there are those who have simply forgotten. All these people are our own and no one is our enemy. There may be those who have declared us their enemies, but whilst we may defend ourselves, we aspire to take them along with us too. This is Hindutva.

Veer Savarkar had also said, You are a Muslim, hence I am a Hindu, else I am a Vishwa Manav, a global human. These lines sum up the essence of Hindutva for me.

Manmohan Vaidya is sah sarkaryavah (joint general secretary), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

The views expressed are personal
Every evening for the past three weeks in Colombo, a group of people have assembled at a traffic roundabout near the Liberty cinema and shopping mall. They hold handwritten posters in English, Sinhala and Tamil. This is not what we voted for! says one. Democracy not for sale! says another. They are lawyers, theatre persons, journalists, and seasoned activists, but also students, corporate employees, and senior citizens attending their first such protest.

The Liberty Protests  named for its location but adopted for its promise  have occurred every day since October 26, when Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena stunned everyone with an overnight regime change. He sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, and replaced him with former president and foe, Mahinda Rajapaksa, a man Sirisena had run against just four years ago.

Sri Lanka has spent nearly all its 70 independent years battling multiple insurgencies and a three-decade-long civil war, but it has never seen such a barefaced illegal dismissal of an elected government.

Protestors demanded that parliament be reassembled, and whoever had majority demonstrate it. Meanwhile, a sitting parliamentarian revealed that Sirisenas Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) offered bribes of up to 500 million Sri Lankan rupees for MPs to cross over to Rajapaksa. This especially disgusted Sri Lankans reeling under unbearable inequalities and an economy on the downslide.

Under pressure, Sirisena first agreed to reconvene the 225-member parliament, but then dismissed it and called for snap general elections instead. Appalled, the other parties moved the Supreme Court, which threw out the presidents order and allowed parliament to reconvene. Two no-confidence votes have since rejected Rajapaksa, even as his supporters rowdily flung chairs, books and chilli paste at the Speaker and the police guards. He refuses to bow out still, insisting he has the peoples vote.

Today, Sri Lankans have two prime ministerial claimants, but no real political options. On November 4, a young woman protestor held a poster that captured the countrys dilemma:

Mahinda is a cancer,

Ranil is not the cure.

Tamil civil society, Muslim solidarity groups, fishworkers, mothers of the disappeared, and tea estate workers had joined the protests that day: a reminder that calls for liberty are not new in Sri Lanka. Each of these groups, cornered by violence, corruption or debilitating poverty, has stood up to regime after regime, offering solutions and policies they can recite in their sleep now.

In 2015, Sirisena had offered a glimmer of hope when he allied with Wickremasinghes United National Party. Together, they promised to investigate missing persons, return Tamil-owned land grabbed by the military, put politicians and generals accused of war crimes on trial, and unfriend illiberal China in favour of the West. The United Nations, estranged neighbour India, and the islands embattled Tamils and Muslims fervently hoped for political magic. A rabbit pulled out of a hat, it unravelled in barely six months.

People did regain some political freedoms, but constitutional reforms and inclusive measures became paralysed. The president and PM struggled to see eye to eye. Acting on purely personal impulses, Sirisena has abused the very authority he swore to limit.

But it is not Wickremasinghe people want either. Liberty protestors declare that they are for democracy, not the UNP. As the mother of a disappeared 21-year-old on her 700th day of protest in Jaffna told me over the phone, Ranil wont look for my missing son, but hell at least let me shout for justice till my throat is hoarse. Under Mahinda, I will also disappear. She has not experienced true liberty in decades, but she recognises its thieves.

Within half an hour of Rajapaksa being sworn in, there were already signs of things to come. His goons stormed the office of five state-run newspapers and took over the editorial. The state broadcaster was forced to play folk tunes all night. His supporters bizarrely claim its a legal coup.

Rajapaksa is a textbook example of a popular autocrat. In his two terms as president, he ended a long ethnic war through brazen war crimes against Tamil civilians, launched a military state of silken highways and disappearing people, and installed the beginnings of Sinhala Buddhist attacks on the Muslim community. But it was his friendhsip with China and his corrupt familys suffocating control that made Sirisena, his former defence and health minister, break ranks and ally with arch rival, Wickremasinghe. In 2015, backed especially by Tamil and Muslim parties, Sirisena won the presidency, but Rajapaksa still won a majority of the Sinhalese vote. He is able to whitewash his nepotism and corruption with folksy oratory seeped in Sinhala Buddhist supremacy.

Even if Wickremasinghe has this round, Rajapaksa could still win the 2019 presidential elections. He cannot contest himself (the 19th amendment limits presidents to two terms), but he could install a loyal lieutenant, and take prime ministership in 2020. Unless novel contenders and ideas emerge now, Sri Lanka might just add one more man to the global club of elected majoritarian despots.

Rohini Mohan is a journalist and author of The Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lankas Civil War

The views expressed are personal
The vilification of Aung San Suu Kyi continues unabated. Whether it is Amnesty International or United States vice-president, Mike Pence, no one, it seems, can wait to signal their virtue by throwing an egg at her face. The gravest charge against Suu Kyi is that she does not speak up, she does not issue condemnations against the Myanmars military, who stand accused of brutalities. Amnesty, in a letter to Suu Kyi (informing her that they no longer thought she was an ambassador of conscience), wrote: 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.

What a lowly expectation! While under house arrest  the period during which Suu Kyi acquired most of her fans  all that Suu Kyi could do was speak up. She had the luxury to read and write, play the piano, meditate, and be a symbol. Today, she has a job to do: remake a country that has systematically hollowed out its institutions over the past 50 years and ensure that it stays the course on its democratic transition.

Speaking up against injustice is important, but it is more useful to address its causes. We must ask: speak up to what end? Condemning the military does not help refugees petrified to return to their homeland, nor does it create a better future for them. A safe and harmonious environment and the prospect of citizenship does.

How do you build a safe and harmonious environment? By ensuring rule of law and security for all. How do you ensure rule of law in a region riven with communal distrust and hate, and where the law and order forces are themselves culpable for violence? Well, you start by asking why distrust and hate exist, and why the law and order forces are so willing to kill, burn and rape. Distrust and hate exist because of immediate and longue duree histories burned into the social psyche of the Burmese people, and the soldiers who kill and plunder are part of that society. Equally, because those soldiers do not answer to Suu Kyi.

In the international Press, Suu Kyi, who is state counsellor, is typically described by the epithet de facto leader of Myanmar, to say that even though she is not the official Head of State, she runs the government. And she does  she runs as much of the government that she is allowed to by the 2008 Constitution  but it is a very tight space. The Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces is the Supreme Commander, meaning that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his troops do not take orders from her.

Suu Kyi does not control the military, but the Senior General controls much of what she does. The minister for defence is a serving military officer appointed by the commander-in-chief, as are the ministers for home affairs and border affairs. Home Affairs has control over the police force, the Bureau of Special Investigation, prison services and the general administration Department  basically, the essential apparatus of the State. And thats just peacetime. The Constitution provides clear opportunities for the military to take over if there arises or there is sufficient reason to arise, a State of emergency. If, say, a riot  whether spontaneous or instigated  were to break out in Rakhine State, or if there was another attack by terrorist groups such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, Min Aung Hlaing would be well within his Constitutional rights to step in and do as he pleases.

Amending the Constitution is impossible without the militarys support. Any amendment to the Constitution requires more than 75% of the parliament to vote for it, which effectively hands the military a veto because 25% of the seats are reserved for military officers, all of whom are in active service and answerable to Min Aung Hlaing.

Suu Kyi has sought to navigate this precarious balance in military-civilian relations through careful alliances, including with former generals, and slowly building up fundamental capabilities throughout the political and legislative systems. She has succeeded in repealing draconian laws such as the 1975 State Protection Act (aka the Law to Safeguard the State Against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts) and the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, legislation that the junta used to suppress political dissidents and activists.

She has sought to implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State and strengthen the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement, and Development in Rakhine. But it is a slow and arduous task and much remains to be done, not least because within Myanmar there is little sympathy for the Rohingyas, whom the rest of the country see as interlopers from neighbouring Bangladesh, similar to the situation in Assam.

Speaking up will make her look good with the international press, but it will do nothing for the challenges Myanmar faces.

The international community needs to strengthen her hand, not weaken it.

Abhijit Dutta is the author of Myanmar in the World: Journeys through a Changing Burma

The views expressed are personal
Bookmakers are predicting a mixed bag for the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in four state assembly elections, satta (local bettors) market operators in these states said.

The bookies in Madhya Pradesh are seeing a swing in favour of the Congress edging out the ruling BJP while those in Chhattisgarh are giving clear victory to the BJP and the ones in Rajasthan say the Congress is much ahead of the rival BJP. In Telangana, the odds favour the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) with the rival Congress-led grand alliance coming close behind.

The satta markets operate on the local sentiments of the players and may not reflect the ground situation.

In the satta market low price indicates victory while high price indicates defeat, said a bookie based in Rajasthans Sikar town.

For instance, in Chhattisgarh for every one rupee placed on bet, one will get 90 paise for BJP and Rs 1.40 for the Congress. This basically means that if there is an upset, people make money and operators lose.

In Madhya Pradesh, the bookies are predicting that the Congress has made a lot of ground in the last fortnight and may upset the ruling BJP.

As per the rates, it is a close race with the Congress slightly ahead at present. The prediction is that the Congress will get 112116 seats in the 230 assembly seats, while the BJP will get 100102 seats, he said.

Another bookie in Bhopal said about a month ago, the BJP was a clear winner. We were giving 130 seats to BJP as compared to less than 100 to the Congress, he said, without commenting on the reasons for the swing.

If someone would have placed a bet of Rs 1,000 on Congress a month ago, he may win twice that amount. But now, he will not earn much on Congress, a local bookie said.

In Rajasthan, which has major satta markets in Sikar, Phalodi and Nokha, the operators are expecting a clear win for the Congress though the BJP has made some recovery in the last two months.

Two months ago, the punters were giving the Congress 132 to 134 seats when it was a direct contest between the BJP and the Congress. With emergence of third front and after BJPs sustained campaign, we are predicting about 118122 seats for the Congress, said a Sikar based bookie.

He added that the BJP is expected to get Rs 5557 seats as compared to 4749 two months ago.

The bookies in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh said they accept bets for election in each assembly constituency, region and entire state. The rates vary each day depending on the speeches made by local leaders and political developments.

The betting market of Sikar had predicted a full majority for the BJP in the 2013 state assembly elections and had given 135140 seats. Its assessment of the win was correct, but the party got 163 seats.

The betting market of Phalodi, the biggest in the country, is claiming that Congress will come back to power. Till Wednesday, the assessment of the local punters was that Congress will get 126130 seats and the BJP will get 5558 seats. But the real markets will open on Friday, said one of the bookies of Phalodi.

In Chhattisgarh, where polling ended on Tuesday, the satta market favours the BJP.

Our prediction is that the BJP will win 4243 seats and the Congress 3637. The Ajit Jogi-led alliance with get seven seats, said a Raipur-based satta market operator, who was not willing to be named.

He said that after the second phase polling, the probability of the BJP winning has improved.

According to satta operators in Telangana, bettors expect the Telangana Rashtra Samiti to return to power. The stakes for KCR is high but the mood has slightly changed in the past fortnight with rates for the Congress-led grand alliance picking up, said a Hyderabad-based bookie.

While polling was complete in two phases in Chhattisgarh, it is scheduled to be held in Madhya Pradesh on November 28 (along with Mizoram) and in Rajasthan and Telangana on December 7. The counting of votes for all the states will be done on December 11.

(With inputs from HT correspondents in Jaipur, Bhopal, Raipur and Hyderabad)
Ranveer compliments Deepika on her choice in flowers

Ranveer gave a compliment to Deepika for choosing the floral decorations at their reception. See it in this video:

"Did you select these flowers?"



*nods*



"Kya baat hai!" pic.twitter.com/rjnkCPPk4Y  AB | #LadkeWaale  (@Abhisingh183) November 21, 2018

Deepika, Ranveer joined by their parents on stage

The newlyweds were joined by their families on stage inside the reception venue. Check out their pics:

More pics from the reception

The internet is full of pictures from Ranveer and Deepikas reception. Here are a few more.

Invitation card for reception for Bollywood mates out

Manisha Koirala shared the invitation card for Deepika and Ranveers Mumbai reception for their friends from Bollywood. It will be hosted on December 1 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Read full story here.

Ranveer, Deepika made their entry to Lamberghini

The newlyweds arrived for the photo-op to the new hit song Lamberghini by The Doorbean.

Sabyasachi reveals who designed the outfits

Fashion designer revealed that Rohit Bal has designed Ranveers sherwani while Deepikas golden saree is a gift from her mother. It was bought from a saree shop in Bangalore, Angadi galleria.

Fans find similarity between Deepika and Anushkas reception looks

Eagle-eyed fans have spotted how similar Deepika and Anushka Sharma looked at their receptions. Check out their pics:

Anil Kumble arrives for reception

Ex cricketer Anil Kumble arrived for the reception with his wife Chethana. He wore a suit while she wore a pink saree and carried a Sabyasachi clutch.

PV Sindhu arrives for the reception

Badminton star and Olympian PV Sindhu arrives for the reception of Deepika and Ranveer. She is seen in a pink outfit.

Ranveer tells media to enjoy the food

After greeting the media, Ranveer told them, Khana kha ke jaana. The two then laughed and posed for more pictures.

Bollywood actors Deepika Padukone, right, and Ranveer Singh pose at their wedding reception in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. The couple got married at Villa Balbianello, a lakeside mansion featured in Star Wars and James Bond films in Lenno, Como lake, northern Italy on Nov. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi) ( AP )

Ranveer spotted fawning over his wife

A new video from the venue shows Ranveer fixing his wifes saree and then blowing her a kiss.

Deepika, Ranveer interact with media

Deepika and Ranveer have arrived for their reception and are posing for the media. See pics:

Ranveer, Deepika share first pic

Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone have shared the first picture from their reception. The two look like royalty in his sherwani and her golden saree. Read full story here.

Special corner setup for Deepika, Ranveer to interact with media

A special corner has been set up at the venue where the newlyweds will interact with the media. Check it out:

Bengaluru: A view of the venue where newlywed actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh are going to host their wedding reception in Bengaluru. ( IANS )

Sabyasachi reveals the real source of Deepikas wedding saree

After claiming, on numerous occasions, that Deepika was a head to toe Sabyasachi bride, the designer has clarified that Deepikas sari was only modified by him.

Check out 17 new pictures posted by the newlyweds

Deepika and Ranveer shared 17 new pictures from their wedding in Italy on Instagram. Check them out in this video:

The Leela Palace gets decked up for the reception

Inside images from the venue show an arrangement of flowers. There is also a small stage set up for the bride and groom to meet their guests.

Deepika spotted inside The Leela Palace

Deepika is spotted at the reception venue, checking arrangements for the night. She is seen in black sweatpants and white sneakers. She is also wearing her red chooras.

Deepika, Ranveer are at venue

Deepika and Ranveer arrived at the Leela Palace in Bengaluru for their reception. They were seen leaving hand-in-hand from her home in their car.
Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh have arrived in her home town, Bengaluru, for the first of their two receptions, to be held on November 21. The newlyweds have been in constant media spotlight since they returned from their secretive Italy wedding. They were spotted arriving in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

According to a Filmfare report, the Deepika and Ranveer Bengaluru wedding reception will be held at the Leela Palace. Deepikas mother, Ujjala, has been personally overseeing the arrangements for food, which will be mostly south Indian. Ranveers parents also reached the city ahead of the function.

Check LIVE updates from their Bengaluru reception here.

The Leela Palace is a luxury property situated on Old Airport Road. It has 357 rooms, banqueting and conferencing options and multiple restaurants. See pictures here:

The guest list is expected to include mostly Deepikas side of the family, with her father, badminton star Prakash Padukones friends expected in large numbers.

Deepika and Ranveer will both wear Sabyasachi outfits, keeping with the trend that began with their wedding. On Tuesday, 17 new pictures from the wedding, held at Lake Comos Villa Di Balbianello, on November 14 and 15, were shared online. Their Bollywood friends commented on the pictures, with many of them saying that the photos make them want to get married too. Karan Johar, Sonakshi Sinha and Huma Qureshi were some industry folks who expressed their intention to get hitched.

The couple tied the knot in both Konkani and Sikh traditions in Lake Como. They returned to India on November 17 amid huge fanfare. They greeted the press and gathered fans outside Ranveers Mumbai home, which had been decked out for the occasion.

A second reception will be held in Mumbai on November 28, and yet another party may be hosted by couple early in December, as per reports.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singhs wedding festivities are far from over. The newlyweds have invited Bollywood stars to party with them on December 1 for a third wedding reception.

Actor Manisha Koirala shared the invitation on Twitter when someone doubted her tweet saying that she was invited to the reception. Manisha wished the newlyweds on Twitter but said that she will not be able to attend the reception as she is out of town. What a gorgeous couple!! Wishing you lifelong happiness @RanveerOfficial and @deepikapadukone really sad I am out of town & cant join in the celebrations but praying for lasting love and togetherness. godbless you both!, she wrote in her tweet.

Check all LIVE updates from their Bengaluru reception here.

But they had not invited anybody in their wedding...then what r u talking about, a person asked her. She then shared the invitation card for the reception and wrote in a tweet: Normally I dont give explanations.

 normally I dont give explanations pic.twitter.com/BIp0z8LFkA  Manisha Koirala (@mkoirala) November 21, 2018

The card is deep red and reads Celebrations in a large font. Dear Manisha, Please join us for a party to celebrate our wedding. Saturday, 1st December 2018. 9.00 PM Onwards. The Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. Dress Code: Black Tie. With All Our Love.

It was earlier assumed that the two will host a reception for Bollywood in Mumbai on November 28. It now turns out that reception will be for family members and media persons.

Ranveer and Deepikas Bollywood reception might now clash with the wedding festivities of Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. The two are rumoured to tie the knot on December 2 in Jodhpurs Umaid Bhavan, with pre-wedding events kicking in earlier.

Ranveer and Deepika tied the knot in Italys Lake Como on November 14 and 15. They arrived back in Mumbai on Sunday, November 17. The couple shared pictures from their wedding, mehendi and haldi ceremonies on Tuesday. They are hosting a reception in Bengaluru on Wednesday for their families.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
The US has suspended US $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trumps directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. This comes days after Trump said that Pakistan does not do a damn thing for the US, alleging that its government had helped al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad

USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended, Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistans neighbours, Sedney said.

Pakistans leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans, he said in response to a question.

This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others, said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistans Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden.

I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book The Wrong Enemy that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Ladens presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan, Sedney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistans security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistans neighbours, he said.

But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence.

If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge peace dividend, he asserted.

Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India, Sedney added.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to agents of chaos that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has much to lose by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading the mayor/chairman seats in 84 urban local bodies in Uttarakhand till Tuesday evening. The major damage has been posed by the independent candidates who have swept the ward seats with a huge margin.

As per the state election commission (SEC) data, results of 54 seats of mayor/chairman had been declared until 6pm, of which the BJP had won 25 and the Congress 15. The independents had won 17 seats.

The independent candidates also did well in the election for the councillors of 1,064 wards across the states 13 districts, having won 384 seats of the 657 for which results had been declared until 6pm. The BJPs 165 candidates had won the membership while the Congress had won 105 seats. One each had been won by the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD).

Polling across 84 ULBs had taken place on Sunday, with nearly 70% of the 23,53,923 voters casting their ballot. There are 4,978 candidates in fray for the mayoral seats (municipal corporations), chairman (municipal councils and town panchayats), and councillors (wards).

BJP state president Ajay Bhatt told HT, The counting process will continue until late at night. I can only comment once the results of every local body has been declared.

Congress state president Pritam Singh claimed that most of its rebel leaders, after being denied the ticket, contested as independents for the councillor and chairman positions. Independents whom we did not give ticket are winning the chairman and councillor seats. This shows that the people favoured our party. However, I could only talk about the results once the state election commission has released the final result.

Nearly 4,000 police personnel were deployed across the 44 counting centres along with an additional police force of 11,000 personnel deployed across the state to ensure peaceful counting.

A few incidents were reported in Dehradun where BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi protested against the polling personnel after they questioned his presence at the counting centre. Another was reported in Haridwar where the Congress and the BJP supporters reportedly entered into a scuffle.
Santokh Singh, who lost three members of his family in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, triumphed after fighting a protracted legal battle for the past 25 years.

We wanted both of them to be hanged. It has been 34 years and my son who was then 2-year-old still has scars on his body which he suffered during the riots violence. But we are satisfied with the courts verdict. Its not only our victory but a big victory for humanity, said Santokh, 71, hours after a Delhi court awarded the first death sentence to a man and life term to another for killing two men and injuring three others during the riots in Mahipalpur.

Santokh is the elder brother of three of the five victims in the Mahipalpur case, including Hardev Singh who died in the attack. He has been fighting the legal battle along with his two surviving brothers  Sangat Singh and Kuldeep Singh  and a neighbour Surjeet Singh since the case was registered in 1993, on his affidavit filed before Justice Ranganath Misra Commission.

Recalling what he witnessed on November 1, 1984, Santokh said, My son, who was just 2-year-old then, suffered burns. A doctor in the camp saved his life. My son, who is currently living in Germany, still has those scars on his body. Out of my injured brothers, we didnt find Hardevs body then. Police found it later.

Also Read: Victims of mass genocide cant be left in a lurch, says judge in 1984 anti-Sikh riots case

Santokh reached Delhi with his two brothers from their native village in Punjabs Jalandhar on Monday to be present for the courts verdict. I wanted to inform my family members about this victory. But by the time I called them, they had already watched the news about the judgment on television, he said.

According to Santokh, he is lucky to have survived the violence because he had left his Mahipalpur home a day before his brothers and friends were attacked by a violent mob of around 1000 people on November 1, 1984.

I was at a gurudwara at Delhi Cantonment where I was working as a Granthi. I rushed back home soon after I learnt about the attack on my family members. The scene that I witnessed there is still fresh in my mind, he added.

Santokh said that though a case was registered in 1993 on his affidavit, they could not pursue the case because of the lack of financial support. No politician came forward to help us get justice. We want to thank the SIT members for reopening our case and investigating it, he said.

One of the riots survivors, who was present in the court during the verdict, called the judgment a start, saying the fight will continue till they get complete justice and bring all perpetrators to justice.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia on Tuesday moved the Delhi high court, challenging their prosecution by a trial court in the alleged assault of former chief secretary Anshu Prakash at a midnight meeting at the CMs residence.

They also challenged the order permitting two advocates to conduct the prosecution on behalf of the officer of Delhi Police, instead of regular public prosecutor.

The matter, which was mentioned before a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V Kameswar Rao, is likely to be heard on November 22 by Justice Najmi Waziri.

In their pleas, the CM and his deputy sought directions to set aside the order of the additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) and that the prosecution in the case be conducted by the public prosecutor.

The impugned order is otherwise based on conjunctures and surmises and is liable to be set aside, the petition claimed.

The petition challenged the appointment of advocates Siddharth Aggarwal and V Madhukar, rather than a regular public prosecutor.

On October 22, the trial court had allowed Prakashs plea, seeking direction to conduct the prosecution through the counsel nominated by Delhi Police and not through lawyers empanelled by the AAP government.

Delhi Police had filed a charge sheet against 13 accused, based on a complaint filed by Prakash. In his complaint, Prakash had said he was assaulted at a midnight meeting at the CMs residence on the intervening night of February 19-20.

On October 25, Kejriwal, Sisodia and nine other AAP MLAs were granted bail by the trial court in the assault case.
A west Delhi resident allegedly tried to throw chilli powder at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal outside his office at the Delhi Secretariat on Tuesday afternoon  an incident for which the Delhi government blamed the police for failing to protect the CM. The man was restrained before he could smear the powder on Kejriwals face even as the CMs spectacles broke in the melee. The incident was captured on CCTV camera.

Police identified the man as Anil Kumar Sharma, 40, an employee of a private firm who went to meet the CM saying he wanted to seek financial assistance for the treatment of his ailing mother. The Delhi Police said they registered a case under IPC sections 186 (obstructing public servant), 353 (assault), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

They arrested Sharma late on Tuesday. Though we did not receive any formal complaint from the chief ministers secretariat, based on preliminary enquiry, a cognizable offence was made out, said Rajesh Khurana, JCP (central range).

Read more: Delhi Police first said Arvind Kejriwals spectacles fell, then acknowledged chilli attack

In the first official statement immediately after the attack, however, the police did not mention any attack on the CM. They said the CMs spectacles fell when his security tried to prevent Sharma from touching his feet. Subsequently, security personnel removed him and found him carrying a pouch, which tore and apparently contained chilli powder, the police said. The police revised the statement after CCTV footage showed the man bowing before Kejriwal before suddenly trying to reach for his face. When asked why the police had made that initial statement, a senior officer who asked not to be named blamed poor language skills of an officer involved in the recording of the incident.

The Aam Aadmi Partys (AAP) spokesperson Raghav Chadha, who said he was an eyewitness to the attack, alleged that the intent behind the planned attack was to injure Kejriwal. Later, at a press conference, deputy CM Manish Sisodia recalled all the previous attacks on the CM. In the same building, a shoe was hurled at the CM. At the inauguration of Signature Bridge on November 4, bottles were thrown towards the CM while he was making a speech. Have any arrests been made in any of these cases? he asked.

The government later lashed out at the police for lying on record and sought to know how a man carrying chilli powder and a matchbox had access to the CMs office.

Read more: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal to take regular stock of public grievances

According to Khurana, Sharma was at the secretariat to seek financial help for his mother, who suffers from tuberculosis. He first met an officer at the Public Grievance Monitoring System (PGMS) on the seventh floor before approaching the CM on the third floor at 2.25pm.

The attempted attack took place when the CM was walking out of his chamber for lunch. Sharma tried to hand over his complaint to the CM, who in turn passed it on to a staff member... Sharma then bowed down to touch Kejriwals feet, but used the opportunity to charge towards him. The attempt, however, was swiftly foiled by the CMs security staff, said Amit Sharma, additional deputy commissioner of police (central).

A private security guard outside the CMs office recounted Sharma pleading with Kejriwal moments before the attack. He said, aap hi se ummeed hai [you are our hope]

Khurana said the local police, special cell and the Intelligence Bureau conducted a joint interrogation of Sharma because of the threats he made against Kejriwal. During the interrogation, he was found to be incoherent and mentally unstable, he said.

The BJP initially condemned the attack, but later alleged that it may have been an inside job carried out at Kejriwals instance. The statement of the deputy CM comparing todays attack to the one at the Signature Bridge shows that it is only a drama, alleged Manoj Tiwari, the Delhi BJP chief.

In a video that television channels played in the evening, the accused could be heard calling Kejriwal a traitor and the BJP a party of patriots in response to journalists queries. Hindustan Times could not verify the authenticity of the video.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said some political parties want to get him killed and that is why he has been attacked four times in the last two years.

Kejriwal had come to Thana Kalan village in Haryanas Sonepat district to hand over a Rs 1 crore cheque to BSF martyr Narender Singhs family as he said the compensation given by Haryana government to martyrs (Rs 50 lakhs) was not adequate.

Talking to media, Kejriwal said Tuesdays chilli powder attack on him inside Delhi secretariat was a result of other political parties insecurity.

This is not a small thing. I dont think in the history of our country any chief minister has been attacked four times in two years. So it is clear that these attacks are not happening just like that, but someone is behind them, he said.

We (AAP) have become a pain for other political parties, and that is why they want to get me killed. The way we have transformed Delhi, improved government schools and hospitals in just three years, is a cause of worry for other political parties because people are raising questions on their incompetence. People are asking why other states cannot give Rs 1 crore ex-gratia to families of martyrs when Kejriwal government can, the CM said.

Kejriwal said even though there was a threat to his life, he will continue to work for the people of the country. I dont care if my life is cut short, but every breath and every drop of blood will be spent for the development of this nation, he said.

On being asked about the INLD feud and Dushyant Chautalas plans to float a new party on December 9, Kejriwal said he did not mind an alliance if he was approached by a politician holding clean image.

Earlier, the Delhi CM addressed a gathering to pay respects to BSF martyr Narender Singh, who had died in Jammu and Kashmir on September 29.

How long will our soldiers keep getting killed like this? Our forces are not weak that we cannot take on Pakistan. There should not be any politics on soldiers death. But why do all political parties make poll promise of taking strict action against Pakistan but do nothing when they form government? he asked.

Kejriwal said India had long been disrespecting its soldiers by giving nothing to the martyrs families while awarding crores of rupees to sportsmen and film stars.

It used to make me feel sad. That is why the first thing we did after coming to power was announce Rs 1 crore ex-gratia for martyrs families. No money can bring a life back, but at least families will feel their country stands with them in their time of grief, he said.

The CM said the authority to give jobs to martyrs kin was with the LG and not him, and said he was hopeful that the Delhi high court will shift these powers to the CM instead of LG.
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday blamed the Delhi Police for the repeated lapses in ensuring the safety of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who, earlier in the day, was attacked with chilli powder by a man at the Secretariat  the building in which the CM, his cabinet colleagues and top bureaucrats work.

Sisodia questioned if any kingpins were held by the police in the previous cases of violence against Kejriwal. He said that instead, the police have been unjustly targeting AAPs ministers and MLAs and arresting them in bogus cases.

Sisodia added that the attacks have become so common that someone could even throw acid or an explosive at the CM and other AAP MLAs. Police in the national capital do not work under the elected government of Delhi and are controlled by the Union ministry of home affairs through the Lieutenant-Governor, he said.

Calling the incident yet another conspiracy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the election season, AAP leader Gopal Rai announced that the party would stage a protest in front of the BJP headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg on Wednesday.

The Delhi government came down heavily on the police for initially stating that the accused did not intend to injure the CM. However, later, in a CCTV footage released by the government, the man can be seen stretching out his hand to touch Kejriwals face immediately after touching his feet.

The government questioned how the police could allow a man to enter the Secretariat  a high security zone  with a packet of chilli powder and matchbox.

The security of the Secretariat is the responsibility of the Delhi Police. It is surprising how a man was allowed to stand outside the CMs office on the third floor where even reporters are not allowed there. How did the accused manage to be there right when the CM was leaving his office? Sisodia said at a press conference.

The deputy CM lashed out at the police saying this is the third time that either the CM or a minister has been attacked at the Secretariat.

Before this, a person hurled a shoe at Kejriwal while he was holding a press conference at the media centre, which is also part of this high-security Secretariat, he said, adding that the general administration department (GAD) has been directed to conduct an inquiry at its level.

In February this year, environment minister Imran Hussain and former AAP member Ashish Khetan were allegedly manhandled by unidentified persons in the same building.

Until now, at least four attacks have happened on CM Kejriwal alone. Has any arrest been made by the police in those cases till now? Has any kingpin been held? Any chargesheet filed? the deputy CM said.

In January, 2016, ink was thrown on the CM during an odd-even thanksgiving event at the Chhatrasal Stadium. On November 4 this year, bottles were thrown when Kejriwal was giving a speech at the inauguration of Signature Bridge.

AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj alleged that the attacker had links with the BJP. The attacker is associated with a BJP neta from Naraina. Thank God we got CCTV footage of the incident. Had we relied on the Delhi Police, then the attacker would have gone scot-free as the police say the chilli powder packet accidentally fell from his pocket while he was being taken aside, he said.

Bhardwaj also said the BJP-ruled central government has created an atmosphere wherein anti-social elements are being instigated and promoted to attack CM Kejriwal.

Raghav Chadha, AAPs spokesperson and its Lok Sabha in-charge from South Delhi, called the polices version of the attack absolute rubbish.

An eyewitness to the incident has deposed that the CM was attacked. Instead of investigating the matter, the Delhi Police is shrugging off all responsibility. The CCTV footage bears out the complete truth, he said.
If proof was still needed of the dysfunctional nature of the US-Pakistan relationship, we have had a great deal of it in the past two days, both in the form of unseemly spat on Twitter between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Washingtons reiteration of the suspension of $1.6 billion in security aid for Islamabad.

Over the weekend, Mr Trump again excoriated Pakistan for failing to act against al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and for not doing a damn thing for the US after receiving billions of dollars in aid. Mr Trumps remarks were part of his criticism of Admiral William McRaven, the Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the raid that resulted in bin Ladens killing in Pakistan. But it soon led to a very public row with Mr Khan, who responded on Twitter, saying that the US should make a realistic assessment of why the Taliban are stronger than before and not make Pakistan the scapegoat for its failures in Afghanistan.

Mr Trump hit back by ruling out further aid, which was followed by Mr Khans terse rejoinder that Pakistan will do what is best for its interests in the face of the American leaders false assertions. This was followed by a US spokesman highlighting the denial of security aid since the beginning of the year.

Over past decades, Pakistans civilian and military leaders have turned a blind eye to activities of friendly jihadis while accepting billions of dollars in aid from the US, including funds meant to be used to target some of those same terrorists. The US is not without fault either. For years, it ignored warnings from countries such as India about terror groups operating from Pakistani soil. But it is also clear that Mr Trumps tough stance, including the suspension of security aid and repeated calls for Pakistan to crack down on terrorists, hasnt had the desired effect on Mr Khans government, which enjoys the complete backing of the military.

Mr Trump is a pioneer of diplomacy by Twitter, but badly composed messages with poor punctuation within the platforms 280-character limit are hardly the way for leaders of two important countries to address their serious problems and differences. Such public spats as the one between Mr Trump and Mr Khan can only point to more trouble for the bilateral relationship in the year ahead, something that will have significant ramifications for the so-called peace process in Afghanistan that the US is trying to put together by reaching out to the already emboldened Taliban.
Since August, Tinder has been encouraging college students to spread word about the dating app on campuses, in exchange for merchandise such as branded T-shirts, keychains and notebooks.

Its not unusual for brands to woo youngsters through campus peer networks. In recent years, college students have also been taken on as social media influencers for brands ranging from Starbucks to Viacom18 and PayTM (see Campus influencers, P13). Typically, they are rewarded in perks rather than payment  mainly merchandise and free passes to events.

Tinders campus ambassador programme, however, has some faculty and principals concerned.

Its called TinderU (variations have been rolled out in the US and UK), and in India it has engaged students at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi University, Manipal University, and Mumbais Narsee Monjee and KJ Somaiya colleges, among others.

Campus ambassadors are expected to encourage peers to sign up on the dating app, gather feedback from new users, and create engaging content to promote the app on social media.

We organise meet-ups, share Tinder stories, says Ritu Jain, 19, a campus ambassador at Ramaiah college in Bangalore. I want to study abroad and I think having Tinder on my CV will be a plus.

All the students involved are over 18, but the stated aim  to make Tinder a part of the college experience and gather feedback to help customise our future product and marketing initiatives in the words of Raunaq Singh Kohli, manager for events and alliances at Tinder India  has raised questions about how to monitor activity that involves the college community but is conducted almost entirely online.

Usually we do not allow private endorsements on campus. We have a special panel and elaborate procedures for sponsorships and tie-ups with brands. But we are not aware of such activities that happen on a student-to-student level, said Parag Ajgaonkar, principal of Narsee Monjee College. A spokesperson for KJ Somaiya College, requesting anonymity, said they found the idea worrying.

With any brand activity involving college students, ideally, there should be involvement from college administration too, says Lakshmi Lingam of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The same rules that apply to sponsorships and promotional events on campus should apply.
A week to the day a three-year-old girls unclad body was found in a room in Sector 66, the man accused of raping, torturing and bludgeoning her to death was arrested from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh after the Gurugram Police launched a massive manhunt, pressing into service 1,200 cops from across police stations and crime units for round-the-clock combing operations in Gwalior, Jhansi and Delhi.

The police on Tuesday said the accused man, 20-year-old accused Sunil Kumar, was a serial killer and a paedophile, who confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering at least eight other minor girls in Gurugram, Delhi, Gwalior and Jhansi.

Raj Kumar, sub inspector (SI), crime branch Sector 39, said that during interrogation the accused man told the police that shaunk led him to commit the crimes.

Catching the accused was not easy as he had come to the city just weeks before the crime and was living with his sister and mother. Police said the first clue was received after a partial image of the accused man was captured in a CCTV set up at a multi-storey building opposite the crime spot in Guga Colony, Sector 66.

Also Read: 70 teams of 1,200 cops hunt for accused in Gurugram minors rape-murder case

The police questioned homeless people to zero in on the profile of the accused man. But the main lead was received after the relatives of the accused, who were detained by the police, mentioned certain common places in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which the accused visited often, SI Kumar said.

The victims sister said that he ate mostly at community kitchens and langars and engaged in daily wage work. Other relatives mentioned a community in Gwalior and Magarpur village in Jhansi, where he often spent time, SI Kumar said, adding that the police even set up community kitchens in the city to lure him in.

Working on this information, the police circulated his photograph at railway stations and coordinated with their counterparts in different states.

Soon, the city police received information that shortly after the incident, the accused had eaten at a community kitchen near a Gurudwara in Sadar and had slept in citys Kamala Nehru Park. The police were informed that the following day, on November 12, he was seen at the Hanuman Mandir in Central Delhi, he ate a meal at the temple and spent the night under a flyover. On November 13, he boarded an overnight train from Hazrat Nizammudin railway station in Delhi to Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, and worked at a farm for two days.

He then reached Magarpur village in Jhansi to meet some acquaintances on November 16.

Once the police received information that the accused was in Magarpur, two teams each left for Gwalior and Jhansi and were scouting bus stations and railway stations for possible leads, SI Kumar said.

On Monday, around 2pm, the accused was arrested from the village near Bhairon Baba temple after police received a lead that the accused was eating at a bhandara there.

Sumit Kuhar, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) crime, who headed the special investigative team (SIT) formed to nab the accused, said that the November 11 incident was the third rape and murder of a minor girl committed by the accused man in the city and he had evaded arrest in two similar incidents in Gurugram between November 2016 and January 2017.

Police said that they were verifying the criminal record of the accused man and had contacted local police in Delhi, Jhansi and Gwalior for similar cases registered in their jurisdictions.

DCP Kuhar announced commendation certificates and Rs 2 lakh cash reward for the crime branch from Sector 39 .
Actor Anil Kapoor, who was recently announced as the Hindi voice of Baloo, the bear in Netflixs upcoming film, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, has joked on Twitter that he wont need makeup to play the part, owing to his hairy reputation.

A Twitter user on Tuesday joked that Anil wont need makeup for the role, and shared several shirtless pictures of the actor from his youth. Replying to the persons tweet, Anil exclaimed, That was my exact reaction! Its like you were there!

That was my exact reaction! Its like you were there! @Ali22jan https://t.co/p2ASjDbTfp  Anil Kapoor (@AnilKapoor) November 20, 2018

Anil also responded to others who made jokes about him being cast as Baloo. Check out his response:

Living the bear life has paid off! @sourabh_kuki https://t.co/fV2RXadsTc  Anil Kapoor (@AnilKapoor) November 20, 2018

Anil along with actors Abhishek Bachchan (Bagheera), Kareena Kapoor Khan (Kaa), Jackie Shroff (Shere Khan) and Madhuri Dixit (Nisha) have been announced as the Hindi voice cast in the film, based on Rudyard Kiplings The Jungle Book.

The original English voice cast includes Christian Bale (Bagheera), director and star Andy Serkis as Baloo, Cate Blanchett as Kaa, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan. Serkis, Bale, along with actors Freida Pinto and Rohan Chand, who plays Mowgli, will be in India to attend the films world premiere on November 25.

A previous adaptation of The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau and released to massive commercial success in 2016, featured the voices of Priyanka Chopra and Irrfan Khan in Hindi.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle was initially supposed to be released theatrically by Warner Bros, but was sold to the online streaming giant shortly after the release of its first trailer. Netflix retitled the film and have scheduled it for a December 7 release. The online release will be accompanied by a limited theatrical release in the US and UK.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A jobless 20-year-old man has confessed to raping and killing at least nine girls aged between three and seven in New Delhi and three other cities over the past two years, police said on Wednesday.

The case spotlights the number of young children who go missing every year in India and raises the question of whether the police have sufficient resources to investigate such brutal sex crimes.

The confession followed Mondays arrest of the man, identified as Sunil Kumar, on charges of raping and killing a three-year-old girl on November 11 in a slum area of Gurugram, best known for its glitzy shopping malls and luxury apartments, that borders Delhi.

He used to first break the legs of the victims before attempting rape, said Subhash Boken, an assistant sub-inspector and public relations officer with Gurugram police. Then he would murder them.

A court on Tuesday granted police remand of the man for eight days, Boken said, adding that he did not yet have a lawyer. Reuters could not reach him in prison to seek comment.

Police have linked three cases of dead children to his statement and are investigating the rest, Boken added. Four of the cases are in Delhi, three in Gurugram, and one each in Jhansi and Gwalior.

He has not been formally charged and police often claim success in solving crimes before a defendant has had his day in court. The man, who was unemployed apart from occasional work as a daily labourer, said he mostly targeted community kitchens such as those distributing free food to the needy.

He would target young girls who went to pick up food, offering them sweets or money, and abduct them, Boken quoted him as having told police. The man, who was arrested from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, committed his last crime in Gurugram while visiting his sister in the same slum area where the victim lived, police said.

It is very unfortunate that such cases are still happening in India, despite the government framing a law and approving the death penalty for rape, said Priti Mahara, an official of child rights organisation CRY. Police, government officials and society at large need to support the victims and their families.
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before the Punjab Polices special investigation team (SIT) probing incidents of police firing on anti-sacrilege protesters in Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan in October 2015 after the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari in Faridkot.

Akshay denied having ever met Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

The actor arrived at the Punjab police headquarters in Chandigarh at 9:30am after the special team sent him a notice under Section 160 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on November 11 to appear before it. He left for Mumbai later in the day.

The actor was questioned in the officers lounge by the five-member team, headed by ADGP Prabodh Kumar for about an hour. According to an SIT member, Akshay was asked five questions which pertained to his alleged relations with Ram Rahim and Sukhbir Badal.

The entire story seems to be a script of a bollywood movie. I am surprised that I have been dragged in this case unnecessarily. I have never met Ram Rahim, an SIT member quoted Akshay as having told the probe team.

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.

He was earlier asked to appear at the Amritsar Circuit House for his examination as a witness in a case registered at Kotkapura police station. The SIT later agreed to record his statement at the Punjab police headquarters, following a request by Kumars Mumbai-based counsel.

The SIT is questioning Kumar as his name was mentioned in the report by the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission, which was tabled in the Punjab assembly in August this year, on the incidents of sacrilege in the state.

The report referred to a letter it received from former MLA Harbans Jalal written on October 9, 2017, claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and the then deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actors flat in Mumbai in 2015 to facilitate the release of the Dera heads movie The Messenger of God-2 in Punjab.

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie MSG was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Jalal also alleged that giving pardon to the dera head by the Akal Takht in a blasphemy case was also part of the plan discussed in the meeting. However, Jalal had stated that his allegation was based on hearsay.

Kumar, however, has denied meeting the Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case. He also said he never arranged any meeting between Sukhbir Singh Badal and Singh. In a tweet, he even dared anybody to prove his statement wrong.

He had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal.

The SAD chief, who was questioned by the SIT on Monday, also denied meeting the Bollywood star outside Punjab.

The probe team had also questioned former chief minister Parkash Singh in the case on November 16.

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 from the Central Bureau of Investigation was issued.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi and former finance minister P Chidambaram fired another salvo at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his sudden decision to ban high-value currency notes that, they said, has hurt farmers and destroyed small industries.

Chidambaram, who was the first to launch his tweet-strike, picked on a justification for the decision that PM Modi had given yesterday. The prime minister had, speaking at a rally in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, explained his notes ban decision as a bitter medicine to wipe out corruption.

The truth, Mr Prime Minister, is that you used note ban as a tez (bitter) medicine to destroy MSME. Now, Government wants RBI to revive that sector!, Chidambaram wrote, in a sharp criticism of the November 2016 move by the government to invalidate old high value currency notes.

A few hours later, Rahul Gandhi delivered his comeback to PM Modi.

The notes ban has destroyed the lives of crores of farmers. Now they dont have enough money to buy seeds or fertiliser. But even today, the Modi government is making fun of the helpless farmers plight. Now, even his agriculture ministry is saying that demonetisation broke the farmers back, he tweeted.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sought to justify the notes ban, arguing that it was a bitter pill necessitated due to the spread of corruption during the Congress regime so that black money stashed under beds could be brought back into the countrys treasury.

Modi had said this while addressing a public meeting in Jhabua, 350 kilometres west of Bhopal, where he had gone to campaign for the BJP ahead of the state assembly elections on November 28.

Modi had said: When termites strike, the most poisonous chemical is required to treat it. Corruption spread on such a scale during Congress regime that I had to use a bitter pill of demonetisation to treat the same so that those who looted the poor returned the money to the countrys treasury.

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Modi had, in a televised address, announced that the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes would be rendered invalid from midnight that day. Ever since then, the Opposition and other parties have time and again criticised the move saying that the decision has badly affected various sectors of the economy. Even as the opposition parties are trying to make it a poll issue, the prime minister and the ruling BJP has claimed it to be a success story and claims that it the decision has helped remove black currency and had reduced corruption.
An American tourist was killed by arrows shot by protected tribesmen living in the remote North Sentinel Island in the Andaman islands, AFP reports quoting police .

John Chau, 27, had taken a boat ride with local fishermen before venturing alone in a canoe to the island where the indigenous people live cut off completely from the outside world.

As soon as he set foot on the island, Chau found himself facing a flurry of arrows, official sources told AFP.

Police officer Vijay Singh said those arrested are fishermen who facilitated the Americans visit to the Island.

Singh said the man was killed on Saturday. He declined to give any other details, saying he was investigating the case, AP reported.

Chau had made several trips to the Andaman islands recently before finally managing to make it to the remote stretch by offering money to local fishermen.

He tried to reach the Sentinel island on November 14 but could not make it. Two days later he went well prepared. He left the dingy midway and took a canoe all by himself to the island, AFP reports quoting sources.

He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body, sources said adding, they were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the sea shore.

Also read | Isolated tribe kills American tourist on remote island in Andaman sea. But who are Sentinelese?

The body has not yet been retrieved, a police official said.

The North Sentinel island is out of bounds even to the Indian navy in a bid to protect its reclusive inhabitants who number only about 150.

The Sentinelese people live on their own small forested island and are known to resist all contact with outsiders, often attacking anyone who comes near.

Website Andaman Sheekha, quoting sources, reported that the victim visited Andaman and Nicobar Islands five times in past and had a strong desire to meet Sentinelese tribes for preaching Christianity.

The Andamans are also home to the 400-strong Jarawa tribe who activists say are at threat from outsiders, who often bribe local authorities to spend a day out with them.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has claimed that he has helped 1398 farmers from Uttar Pradesh by paying off their loans.

In a late night blog post on Monday, the 76-year-old actor revealed he has personally arranged for 70 selected farmers to travel to Mumbai and receive their bank letters. Bachchan had earlier helped 350 farmers from Maharashtra by paying off their loans.

Gratitude leans across to the desire of removing some of the burdens that farmers continue to suffer from... It was Maharashtra first, when over 350 farmers loans were taken care of... now its UP and 1398 of them that had out standings of loans on banks has been done with an outlay of 4.05 crore.

And the inner peace it generates when the desired is completed, he wrote.
Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence was the real mastermind of the grenade attack on Nirankari Bhawan in Amritsar three days back, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said on Wednesday, adding that the case has been solved.

Three people were killed and 20 injured when two masked bike-borne men forced their way into the prayer hall in Adliwal village of Amritsar on Sunday and threw the grenade on the crowd.

The chief minister showed pictures of the two accused and said that one of the two, named Bikramjit Singh (26) has been arrested and his associate, Avtar Singh will be arrested soon.

The person who is the mastermind (of the attack) is Inter-Services Intelligence. These (Harmeet Singh PhD alias Happy) are only touts which they were using, he said.

Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harmeet PhD, who has been in Pakistan for more than two decades, was being probed in connection with the attack. He is already the prime suspect accused of strategising the targeted killings of Punjabs some socio-religious leaders in 2016-17. He is a native of Amritsar district and a doctorate, which earned him the surname of PhD, his profile with the state intelligence department says.

He has also been booked by National Investigating Agency (NIA) investigating the cases of targeted killings of different community leaders, mainly those belonging to the right wing groups.

Comparing grenades found earlier, Amarinder said, This is the type of grenade which has been taken from other modules. This is the one being used against forces in Kashmir. This one is made under license by Pakistan ordnance factory and is filled with pellets.

He ruled out communal angle to the attack and asserted that it was a terrorist attack. The people at the Nirankari Bhawan were easy targets, and so they were targeted, he said.

We had info in the past about other organisations being targeted but we took precautionary measures and prevented that, he said.
Investigations into the Amritsar grenade attack on Sunday have revealed that the strike was planned in Lahore with the involvement of pro-Khalistani Sikh diaspora in Germany and Canada, according to top security officials in New Delhi who spoke on condition of anonymity. The officials characterised this as a desperate attempt to revive militancy in Punjab and said it might not work. According to the officials, a local module, broadly identified (one person has been arrested the officials said), was used for the attack with an Islamist network used for transfer of weapons (in this case, Pakistan-made grenades) to the actual perpetrators.

A high-level meeting convened by National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, who himself directly handled Sikh militancy in 1980-90s, reviewed the Nirankari Bhawan blast at Rajasansi in Amritsar on Tuesday and came to the conclusion that the entire plot was hatched across the border with the direct involvement of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. The meeting was attended by Home Secretary, Rajiv Gauba, Punjab Director General of Police, Suresh Arora, and Intelligence chiefs. The attack in Amritsar comes amidst intelligence that Pakistan has activated the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) network to strike in the Indian hinterland before the general elections next year.

Senior government officials told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity that a forensic analysis of the HG-84 grenade used in the blast also point towards Pakistan with definitive markings on the pin. However, there is no panic within the national security establishment the officials added because such incidents happen occasionally in Punjab but that there is no chance of the state veering towards militancy again or the local populace supporting the separatists. The officials said the grenade is a fragmentation-type one used against personnel.

Even as the internal security establishment and Punjab Police are trying to piece together the entire chain of events, intelligence agencies have pointed to the possible role of the network established by Kashmiri Al Qaida commander, Zakir Musa, who studied in Mohali from 2010 to 2013. According to the security officials, the blast was planned with the help of some fringe elements of the Sikh diaspora that helped identify locals to be used in the attack and funding it. The officials added that the locals may have also been mercenaries. The weapons and grenades were arranged either through the Musa network or using Jaish couriers from across the border.
The armed forces effort to reduce the number of cases they fight against their own has seen the withdrawal of just around 180 cases of a total of 7,676, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

The armed forces were asked to review the cases because the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government doesnt want them to waste time and resources on litigation, and also believes they should not be engaged in legal battles with their own.

Courts too have taken a dim view of such cases. Earlier this year, the ministry of defence was fined Rs 1 lakh each on two separate occasions by the Supreme Court for unnecessary litigation.

As of November 2018, 7,676 cases had been filed by the services against their people, according to a recent review by the ministry of defence. A review of pending cases carried out by the ministry on June 6 was inconclusive. No clear or satisfactory position is emerging, the minutes of the meeting accessed by HT said.

Subsequently, the ministry on September 7 said in a communication: Litigations (should) be viewed in an impersonal, non-adversarial and dispassionate manner and should not be made a prestige-issue or a win/loss situation. The tendency to the continuous unethical filing of appeals in issues that have attended finality at the high court or Supreme Court should be checked and all such pending appeals should be identified and immediately withdrawn.

It reiterated that appeals should be an exception and not the rule. It isnt clear how many cases were withdrawn last year. Often, apart from engaging government law officers, the three forces hire lawyers and private firms to litigate matters in the Armed Forces Tribunals (AFT) and the Supreme Court. These come at a huge expense.

The Indian Army, which accounts for over 6,000 of the 7,676 cases, will be withdrawing the least number  58. The Navy will withdraw 79 out of 388 cases. These are mostly pending before various benches of AFTs. The Air Force has already withdrawn 13 cases and is the process of withdrawing 22 more cases out of 59 cases pending in the Supreme Court. The IAF is contesting around 1,058 cases in the Armed Forces Tribunals.

We have decided not to litigate where court orders have given relief to an individual serving or retired soldiers of the IAF. Only when court orders have an impact on policy, an appeal is filed, a senior IAF official said.

A defence ministry meet earlier this week failed to make much headway on the issue, another official said. The defence minister is likely to review the issue on Saturday again. The spokesperson of the ministry of defence and the Indian Army, Colonel Aman Anand, did not respond to queries seeking comment.
At least six people were killed and 18 injured in a massive explosion at Pulgaon-based Central Ammunition Depot in Maharashtras Wardha district, around 110km from Nagpur, on Tuesday morning when they were disposing of unused ammunition made at the Khamaria Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).

The factory is infamous in Indian defence circles for producing substandard ammunition and effectively forcing the military to stop using one of its main anti-aircraft guns, the L/70.

The explosion took place when employees and contract workers from the Khamaria Ordnance Factory were destroying unused 23mm anti-aircraft ammunition rounds.

The operation was taking place under the technical supervision of the depot staff, said BB Pande, the defence public relations officer.

Today morning at 7.10am, while carrying out the demolition of old explosives by the staff of ordnance factory, Khamaria, in Jabalpur, there was an accident. The demolition was being carried out in the demolition land under the jurisdiction of central arms depot, Pulgaon, said Pande.

Officials of ordnance factory Khamaria, Jabalpur and of ordnance factory Chandrapur rushed to the spot, he added.

As recently as last year, the then Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Sarath Chand, wrote to the Union ministry of defence that firing of L/70 guns was suspended due to increased frequency of ammunition accidents.

He added that there were 27 incidents involving this ammunition between 1998 and 2016. Three serious incidents have occurred in the past two years, Lieutenant General Chand wrote to secretary, defence production, Ashok Kumar. The biggest setback was the loss of confidence in the ammunition produced by OFB, he added. Hindustan Times has seen a copy of his letter.

The restrictions on the use of L/70 are still there, an army officer confirmed on condition of anonymity. HT learns that there are similar restrictions on the use of the Zu-23, a Russia-made towed anti-aircraft gun whose ammunition is also made at Khamaria. The Indian army has stopped using Zu-23 ammunition from Khamaria, and uses imported ammunition, according to a senior army officer familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.

The spokesperson of the ministry of defence declined to comment.

Officials said the ammunition involved in the accident was taken to Pulgaon because the depot has the space and the expertise to carry out the operation, which was executed by the staff of ordnance factory, Khamaria, with the help of staff supplied by an authorised contractor. The contract workers dug a pit and placed a sandbag over the explosives.

Among the victims was an army staffer, an employee of the ordnance factory in Khamaria and four contract workers. They were identified as Narayan Shamrao (55), Vilas Lakshman (40), Uday Virasingh (37), Pravin Prakash Munjewar (25), Rajkumar Bhovate (23) and Prabhakar Ramdas Wankhede (40).

All the injured were taken to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital at Sawangi in Wardha district, where the condition of three of them was reported to be critical.

This is the second major blast in the depot in two years. In May 2016, 18 people were killed in a fire in the depot while disposing of explosives.

The depot stocks assorted weaponry, including bombs, grenades, shells, and rifles. All the ordnance produced in different factories arrives at this facility before it is sent out to various forward bases.

In his letter, lieutenant general Chand wrote OFB and Directorate General of Quality Assurance ie yet to fix responsibility and traceability for the lapses that have led to the accidents thus far.

Experts called for quick action in light of the incident.  Some drastic action is needed, accountability has to be fixed; besides infusion of new technology to change the production process is urgently needed. Otherwise, these accidents will keep repeating, said lieutenant general A K Saghal (retd.), a former director general of air defence.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Tuesday said India had two days ago sought diplomatic access to former Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who is currently in a Pakistani jail after being convicted there for spying.

The minister added that Jadhavs case is listed for hearing in February in the International Court of Justice.

Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on spying charges in April 2017. India moved the ICJ in May the same year against the verdict. The world court halted Jadhavs execution, on Indias appeal, pending the final verdict by it.

We have secured a stay on Jadhavs execution from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This matter is listed for hearing in February, Swaraj told reporters here.

While Pakistan has claimed its security forces arrested Jadhav from its Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran, India has said Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Speaking on the deportation of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the AgustaWestland chopper deal, Swaraj called it a big success on the part of the Centre.

In a swipe at the opposition Congress, Swaraj asked, But why has this (deportation) caused discomfort to the Congress? On the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase, which is at the centre of an acrimonious tussle between the ruling BJP and the Congress, Swaraj said it was not an issue and claimed it could not become a poll issue in MP despite the Congresss best efforts.
National security advisor Ajit Doval leaves for the city of Chengdu in South-west China on Thursday for the 21st round of Special Representative Dialogues between India and China on boundary resolution.

He will discuss strategic issues with state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi with the focus on maintaining status quo along the 3,488 kilometre Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries even as India enters an election season that effectively ends only in mid-2019. The crucial SR dialogue is on November 23-24 and, significantly, has been scheduled outside Beijing.

This is Wangs first talks as Chinas designated SR; he took over from former SR Yang Jiechi earlier this year. The mechanism was put in place in 2003 with the mandate of achieving a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution for the India-China border question at an early date.

The 20th round was held in India last year, the first one after the 73-day standoff between border troops at Doklam (Donglang in Chinese) near the Sikkim border in 2017 was resolved.

While the objective of the dialogue is peace and tranquillity along the LAC, both sides are veering towards the reality that despite claims on territory under occupation by the other side, the best option is as it is; where it is.

India claims 38,000 square kilometers land in the Aksai Chin region of Eastern Ladakh with another 5,180 kilometre illegally ceded by Pakistan to Beijing in 1963. China covers 90,000 square-kilometre territory, a large chunk of Arunachal Pradesh or what Beijing calls South Tibet.

The fact is that, the solution to the boundary issue does not lie in historical claims as ancient Indian religious scriptures repeatedly mention unhindered pilgrimage to Mansarover lake in Tibet and the Chinese talk about historical claims to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

According to diplomats based in New Delhi and Beijing, the basic purpose of the dialogue apart from resolution of the vexed boundary issue is to maintain peace along the largely undefined or loosely defined LAC in the Western and Eastern sector.

The two special representatives will stress on continuous military exchanges on the border so that either of side does not take any unilateral steps on the border. This bilateral assurance is significant to the Modi government as India goes into the general election mode immediately after the ongoing assembly election results come out next month.

As for the issue of the border talks under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have maintained sound momentum of growth. The two sides have maintained close communication and coordination in all border-related affairs, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang, said.

We have properly managed the differences through dialogue and consultation. The border areas on the whole maintained stability, he said.

Apart from boundary issues, the two special representatives will discuss the security environment in the region and beyond, with councillor Wang expected to stress that Chinas belt road initiative through Pakistan is not aimed at India but purely an economic initiative.

India has opposed the BRI in Pakistan from day one as the road passes through occupied Kashmir.

India is aware that China has increased its economic leverage with Pakistan by committing $3 billion as loan to tide over the IMF payment crisis faced by the Imran Khan government with an option of more loans to plug any gap. In this context, Saudi Arabia has committed another $ 6 billion to Pakistan with the hope that Islamabad will use its good offices with Turkey to soft pedal the Jamal Kashoggi killing. The UAE has committed another $ 3 billion.

Talks with the Taliban with the focus on stabilising Afghanistan will also feature in the strategic part of the SR dialogue as China is opposed to continued US presence in Kabul while India wants the Americans to stay so that the restive region is not again taken over by ultra conservative Islamists of different hues.

Referring to the informal summit between Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in April, Geng said: They (the officials) will follow the guidance of the consensus reached by the two leaders bearing in mind the general picture of the bilateral ties and benefits of the two peoples on the basis of the outcomes that have been achieved to actively promote the negotiations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modis November 2016 notes ban move today came under a three-point attack from former PM Manmohan Singh. Addressing a press conference in Madhya Pradeshs Indore, Singh minced no words in his criticism of the governments move to invalidate high-value currency notes.

Manmohan said: Demonetisation was a monumental failure and the Modi government will never accept this. Demonetisation did not achieve any of the objectives stated by the Modi government... no black money was recovered.

This is not the first time that the former PM has spoken out against the notes ban decision. Manmohan has earlier referred to the move as being nothing more than organised loot and legalised plunder and has dubbed November 8, 2016, as a black day for Indian economy.

Addressing the press conference, Singh said corruption was peaking in the Modi government. The country has witnessed credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI being systematically denigrated. There is a careful, well-thought-out and calibrated effort to weaken democracy, he said.

The rule of law is under attack. History shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed, he said.

Continuing his attack on the NDA government, he said that the note ban and the flawed Goods and Services Tax (GST) of the NDA government have caused a great damage to the unorganised sector.

The next Congress government will simplify the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but demonetisation is a done act; Now people should take every step to get rid of a government which took them to this disastrous path, he said.

On Tuesday, speaking at Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, PM Narendra Modi had justified the notes ban saying, When termites strike, the most poisonous chemical is required to treat it. Corruption spread on such a scale during Congress regime that I had to use a bitter pill of demonetisation to treat the same so that those who looted the poor returned the money to the countrys treasury.

During his tenure as prime minister, Manmohan Singhs government had been beset with allegations of corruption and multiple scams by the opposition led by the BJP.

Two days ago, the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had hailed Manmohan Singhs integrity humility and sagacity and also reminded people of his unique and different leadership style.

His demeanour is such that it appears that he was born wise. He is the very epitome of integrity, humility, sagacity and gravitas. Not for him tall claims. Not for him empty and fanciful boasts. Not for him self-promoting bombast. Not for him falsifications of facts and history. Not for him the language of abuse and vitriol, she said about Singh, who won this years Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development.
After issuing an official statement that suggested there was no attack on Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday, the Delhi Police changed its statement and acknowledged there was an attempt to attack the chief minister after footage of the incident that was captured by a CCTV camera emerged.

When asked about the discrepancy, the police blamed their own poor language skills.

It appears someone with poor language skills framed the statement in a hurry, said a senior police officer who asked not to be named.

The Delhi Police registered a case under relevant IPC sections, including assault on public servant and criminal intimidation, and arrested Sharma late Tuesday night. Though we did not receive any formal complaint from the CMs secretariat, based on preliminary enquiry, a cognizable offence was made out, said Rajesh Khurana, joint commissioner of police (central range).

While the alleged attack happened at 2.25 pm, Delhi Police issued their first statement at 4.56 pm. It said that Kejriwals spectacles fell when his security officers were trying to remove Sharma, who was trying to touch his feet. Subsequently, security personnel removed him aside and found him carrying a pouch that tore and apparently contained chilli powder, the statement had said.

No sooner had the police circulated the message, the CCTV video emerged. It purportedly showed Sharma trying to lunge at Kejriwal after bowing.

Delhi Police then issued a revised statement at 5.23 pm. Keeping with the CCTV footage, it pointed out how the attempt to charge towards the CM was swiftly foiled by security. It maintained Sharma was found carrying a pouch that tore and apparently contained chilli powder.
The European Union has unveiled a sweeping new vision to significantly scale up ties with India, including closer coordination to forge a multilateral rules-based world order and enhanced military-to-military relations and joint exercises.

The strategy will build on the partnership forged by the two sides in 2004, and recommends the EU should consider negotiating a Strategic Partnership Agreement to update the 1994 EU-India Cooperation Agreement. India is on top of our priorities in terms of external agenda, EU envoy Tomasz Kozlowski told the media on Wednesday. The EU is ready for a leap forward in ties and is proposing to reinforce the EU-India strategic partnership, he said.

As the EU works to develop joint defence capabilities, it is essential to develop military-to-military ties with India, including high-level contacts and joint exercises, the document said. The strategy also calls for the two sides to help build the capacity of Indian Ocean and East African nations.

The strategy envisages cooperation to counter-terrorism, online radicalisation and terror financing, including the development of a platform for joint threat assessments and closer coordination at UN and Financial Action Task Force. It also proposes the two sides to join forces to consolidate the rules-based global order, based on multilateralism with the UN and WTO at its core.

The Modi government, diplomats said, has come to see Brussels as a useful partner for key programmes, including renewable energy and climate change. The EU is set to join the International Solar Alliance as a partner by the year-end.

Last month, the two sides discussed the political situation in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. The EU has taken aboard Indias priorities and expectations and these can be seen throughout the new document, said Kozlowski.
At the end of a day of dramatic developments, Jammu & Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik on Wednesday night dissolved the state assembly in a contentious decision that may well be challenged in the courts.

The dissolution, announced in a statement by Raj Bhawan, came after Mehbooba Muftis Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its arch-rival National Conference (NC) teamed up with the Congress for a shot at government formation with the support of 56 legislators in the 87-member assembly. The Peoples Conference led by Sajjad Lone, later staked a rival claim, saying it had the support of 25 legislators belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and more than 18 others.

Prior to dissolving the assembly, the governor consulted the Union government, people close to the central leadership said. The action, under Article 53, does not need to be ratified by Parliament under J&Ks Constitution.

The impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with opposing political ideologies including some which have been demanding dissolution of the Assembly; whereas the experience of the past few years shows that with the fractured mandate that is there in the Assembly, it is not possible to form a stable government comprising of like-minded parties, the governor said in a statement.

The coming together of such parties in a grouping is nothing but an attempt to gain power rather than to form a responsive government, he added, and also spoke of reports of extensive horse trading and possible exchange of money.

In my twenty six year old career as a politician, I thought I had seen it all! But like they say never say never!, Mufti wrote in a Twitter post, thanking NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah and the Congresss Ambika Soni for helping us achieve the seemingly impossible.

The PDP had 28 members in the assembly, the NC 15 and the Congress 12. The bloc had the support of one independent MLA as well. The Peoples Conference, besides 25 legislators of the BJPs, claimed the support of more than 18 other MLAs; it had two seats of its own, and had been counting on the support of dissidents from the PDP. Senior PDP leader Muzaffar Baig on Wednesday said he may quit the party and join a third front with Sajjad Lone.

No other governor in the recent times has dissolved an elected assembly, that too in such a highly sensitive state as Jammu & Kashmir, senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in New Delhi. This is a 360-degree failure of the Centre and the earlier state government in J&K. Violation of ceasefire, cross-border terrorism, civilian killings and army killingsthere is a two-three fold rise on all these parameters. We may challenge this decision in the court of law but first we have to study the JK governors order...

Following assembly elections in 2014, the PDP and the BJP ruled J&K in a coalition that lasted almost 40 months. In June, the BJP parted ways with the PDP, saying it had become impossible to continue in the government given the growing radicalism and terrorism in J&K. To be sure, with the dissolution of the assembly, which deprives the rival formations of a chance to prove a majority on the floor of the house, the claimed seat numbers in the assembly have been rendered infructuous.

The PDP-NC-Congress alliance would not have given the state a stable government with Sajjad Lone and Muzaffair Baig claiming the support of 18 PDP MLAs, a senior central government functionary in New Delhi said on condition of anonymity. Instability in J&K is not in the interest of the country, the person said.

The best option in such a scenario is to go in for a fresh election at the earliest. This assembly cannot produce a stable government, the BJP said in a Twitter post.

Before the assembly was dissolved, Mufti, 59, staked her claim in a letter addressed to governor Malik and attached to a message she posted on Twitter, noting that her party was the largest single group in the 87-member assembly.

You might have gathered from the media reports that the Congress and the National Conference have also decided to extend support to our party to form a government in the state. National Conference has a strength of 15 and the Congress 12. That takes our collective strength to 56, she added.

Since I am presently in Srinagar, it would not be possible for me to call you [in Jammu] immediately and this is to keep you informed that we would be seeking your convenience shortly to stake claim for forming government in the state, the letter said. In the Twitter message, she wrote: Have been trying to send this letter to Rajbhavan. Strangely the fax is not received. She hoped the governor would see her message.

Lone pressed his own claim not long afterwards. Following our telephonic conversation regarding government formation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, i hereby formally stake my claim for government formation in the state with the support of Bharatiya Janata Party and more than eighteen elected members of JK state legislature which is more than the required number of members making a majority in the state legislative assembly, he wrote to the governor.

On Wednesday, senior PDP leader, Altaf Bukhari, met NC leader and former J&K chief minister, Omar Abdullah, and discussed the details of a new alliance.

Now that our identity is under threat, we have thought of a special response to meet the special situation, Bukhari told a television channel in Srinagar.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and former J&K chief minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, of the Congress said informal talks were underway to explore the formation of a new government in J&K. NC chairman and MP from Srinagar, Farooq Abdullah, had set the ball rolling on Saturday when he said he was willing to hold talks with the Congress and the PDP to form a government in J&K.

The Congress has formed governments with both the PDP and the NC from 2002-08 and from 2009-14, respectively. The NC and the PDP have traditionally been bitter opponents and their coming together with the Congress marks a burying of the hatchet to forestall attempts by the BJP, which had 25 MLAs in the House, to prop up another political front by engineering a split in the PDP and forming a minority government with the outside support of the saffron party.

Three PDP MLAs (Imran Reza Ansari, his uncle, Abid Ansari, and legislator, Mohammad Abass) openly evinced an interest in joining such an alliance. Baig, a founding member of the PDP and Baramulla Lok Sabha MP, hinted at joining the third front, saying that Lone was like his son and his party like his home.

The end of the PDP-BJP coalition, two days after the Centre decided to resume counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir, suspended for a month for Ramzan, had presaged a new period of uncertainty in Indias most sensitive state, wracked by almost three decades of militancy.
Hours after she announced that she wont be contesting the next Lok Sabha elections due to her health, Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took to Twitter to reassure people that though she may not be contesting the elections, she is not retiring from politics.

Sushma, who represents Madhya Pradeshs Vidisha in Parliament, had announced her decision in Indore yesterday where she had gone to canvass for the Assembly elections currently underway.

Soon after Sushmas announcement, Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta had come out in her support on Twitter. Retiring from electoral politics on account of health issues doesnt imply she is retiring from politics altogether. There is a great deal of contribution she can make to public life despite not being in the Lok Sabha, he tweeted.

Appreciating his comment, Sushma tweeted, You are right, Swapan. I am not retiring from politics. It is just that I am not contesting the next Lok Sabha election due to my health issues.

Sushma has been suffering from diabetes and had undergone a kidney transplant in December 2016.

Congresss MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, who is known for his Twitter diplomacy, also tweeted his admiration for the veteran BJP leader.

For all our political differences, I am sorry that Sushma Swaraj will leave Parliament. As chair of the jury for Outlook Indias social media awards, I was happy to honour her Twiplomacy. As chair of Parliaments ExtAffsCmt I always found her a gracious EAM, Tharoor tweeted.

Sushma, gracious in her reply to Tharoor, wrote, Thanks for your kind words, Shashi. I wish we both continue in our respective positions.

Former finance minister P Chidambaram too praised Sushmas decision and wished her good health and a long life.

Smt Sushma Swaraj is the Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh and she is smart. She has read the writing on the wall in Madhya Pradesh and announced that she will not contest the 2019 LS election. Braving illness, Smt Sushma Swaraj has served the country with great dignity. We wish Smt Sushma Swaraj good health and a long life, he tweeted.
Police in Kerala were unnecessarily harassing devotees going to the Sabarimala temple by imposing several restrictions, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan said on Wednesday as he trekked to the hilltop shrine to Lord Ayyappa in the states Pathanamthitta district.

Radhakrishnan, the Union minister of state for shipping and finance, questioned senior police officer over the ban on private vehicles heading to Pambha, the last entry point to the temple.

You (police) are unnecessarily harassing devotees. Why only KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) vehicles are being allowed till Pambha? This is not good for Sabarimala pilgrims. Private vehicles should also be allowed, the minister asked superintendent of police Yatish Chandra.

I came as a devotee. I am a regular here and I am really upset about the restrictions. Why are you putting undue pressure on devotees? the angry minister asked after reviewing the facilities put in place by the state government.

Chandra said that parking lots in Pambha had been washed away in the floods that hit the state in August. He said the KSRTC buses would not park at Pambha and would be returning with the pilgrims. The official said if private vehicles were allowed, they would create traffic blocks causing difficulties to the devotees.

The senior police officer explained the features of Pamba, an environmentally fragile area, to the minister. Chandra also said if Radhakrishnan gives his written permission allowing private vehicles to Pambha, he was prepared to do so.

The minister, who was accompanied by state leaders and activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party, also interacted with devotees, especially those who arrived from neighbouring states.

Chandra said Radhakrishnan could travel in his official vehicle but the minister refused as a mark of protest and left with his supporters in a state-run bus to Pambha carrying the customary irumudikkettu or the sacred offerings to Lord Ayyappa.

The government should correct itself, otherwise the people will correct them, he said while speaking to reporters in Pambha.

BJP leader AN Radhakrishnan said his party will approach the Union home ministry seeking action against Chandra, who allegedly misbehaved with the minister.

He was rude to the Union minister. It seems he has taken a few lessons from the chief minister who is an expert in insulting tall leaders, he said.

Radhakrishnan is the second Union minister to visit the temple after the minister of state (MoS) for tourism KJ Alphons went there on Monday. Alphons had accused the Left government in Kerala of turning the Sabarimala temple complex into a war zone and not providing facilities to the devotees at the hilltop shrine, after more than 70 protesters were arrested late on Sunday.

Radhakrishnan arrived at Nilakkal, about 20 km from Sabarimala, a day after opposition Congress-led UDF MLAs and the BJPs members of Parliament also visited the temple to take stock of facilities offered to devotees.

Senior leaders and activists of the Opposition Congress-led UDF, who staged protests at Pamba and Nilakkal on Tuesday, were booked for defying the prohibitory orders on Tuesday.

BJPs V Muraleedharan and Nalin Kumar Kateel, along with a group of other party leaders, also visited Nilakkal and Pamba and reviewed infrastructure facilities. They had also interacted with devotees and enquired about the facilities offered at the shrine complex.

The temple in Sabarimala opened on Friday for a 64-day pilgrimage, the third time since the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on the entry of women between the age of 10 and 50. There was a string of protests in Kerala in October when the temple opened for the first time after the Supreme Courts September 28 order.

Traditionalists, who believe the presiding deity, Lord Ayyappa, is celibate, had opposed the court verdict and last month stopped dozen-odd women who tried to enter the temple.

(With agency inputs)
Court expresses concern

Court expresses concern over the decision of 100 odd pilgrims from Maharashtra who failed to trek the hilltop citing tension in the area.

How did this pilgrims return? Their right to pray was affected. Who is responsible for this? How can you allow some officers to take law into their hands? Situation in Sabarimala is really deplorable, said the court

TDB President says they are ready to talk to anyone to ease the tension

Travancore Devasom Board that runs the temple, says they are ready to talk to anyone to ease the tension in Sabarimala. TDB president A Padmakumar said board is willing to engage anyone to ensure pilgrims progress.

Court grants bail to K Surendran and 70 others

A court in Pathnamthitta grants bail to BJP general secretary K Surendran and 70 others who were arrested on Sunday night for holding Nama Japam flouting section 144 at hilltop temple.

Minister carries Irumudi Kettu

Minister carries Irumudi Kettu, a bundle carrying traditional offering materials to the presiding deity, and moved to Pambha where the 5.5 km trek to the temple top begins.

As a mark of protest the minister dumps his official vehicle and takes State road transport bus to Pamba. He is asked to take his official car but others were not allowed. Later minister also decides to take bus along with his supporters.

Arrangements for Pilgrims are bleak

Devotees are treating pilgrims as enemies. Devotees are shocked to see such severe restrictions.

Devotees dependent on government buses

If government vehicles can ply till Pamba why devotees are forced to depend only government buses, asks union minister Pon Radhakrishnan. The government is harassing the devotees, unnecessarily, he added.

I came as a devotee. I am regular visitor here but I am really upset with the restrictions that are putting undue pressure on devotees, minister asked police officials in anger.

Pon Radhakrishnan in Nilakkal

Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan raps state government officials for harassing devotees, asks SP Yatish Chandra why devotees vehicles are not being allowed. Many pilgrims complained him that they were forced to walk 16 km because of adamant posture of police.

Sabarimala peaceful, union minister visits temple

Minister Pon Radhakrishnan to visit the temple today. High Court is hearing a plea questioning restrictions on devotees.VHP warns of Ayodhya like stir to save Sabarimala. Yesterday BJP chief Amit Shah and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan crossed swords over hill temple.
Eager to celebrate Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadavs 79th birthday on November 22, former Uttar Pradesh minister Shivpal Yadavs Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) or PSP (L) will mark the day as Secularism Day and hold special programmes in Lucknow and the Yadav familys pocket borough of Etawah as part of the celebrations.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) has also put up hoardings across Lucknow about celebrating the leaders birthday.

Shivpal formed the PSP (L) on October 23 months after quitting the SP after a power struggle with his nephew and Mulayams son, Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh and Shivpal have been trying to lay claim to the Mulayams legacy, who has sent mixed signals on his support to the two parties.

The split came amid the SPs attempts to put together an opposition alliance to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had swept the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, winning 71 out of the 80 seats in 2014.

Mulayam had joined Shivpal at the death anniversary event of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia on October 12. He had earlier visited the office of Akhilesh-led SP in Lucknow twice besides sharing the stage with his son in Delhi at a rally in September. Shivpal was sidelined in the SP after Akhilesh took over the party leadership in 2016 and was re-elected for another five years in October 2017.

PSP (L) spokesman Deepak Mishra said their party believes in socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia and Netaji (Mulayam)s ideology.

Netaji has followed the ideology of secularism since joining politics in 1964. We do not want his ideology to get weakened, he said. Netaji has also given his consent to attend a wrestling event organised in Etawah. A seminar is also organised in Lucknow (as part of the birthday celebrations), he added.

SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary We are not competing with anyone. The SP has asked its district and city units to celebrate the occasion.

Mulayam, a three-term Uttar Pradesh chief minister and former defence minister, represents Azamgarh in Lok Sabha.
In an attack that the police suspect is a result of personal enmity, former chief of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)s Amritsar City unit, Suresh Sharma, was injured after an unidentified assailant fired four shots at him, on Tuesday about 7pm.

Sharma, a member of the political affairs committee of the AAPs Sukhpal Singh Khaira faction, was attacked at his furniture shop at Partap Bazaar in Chheharta area of Amritsar. He was injured in his right leg.

A man in his 20s, with his face covered, entered the shop and shouted for my father. He fired four shots, of which three hit my father on the leg. No one from the market tried to nab him as he fled, said Sajan Sharma, son of Suresh, adding that he was at his home at the time of the firing.

I reached the shop to find my father lying in a pool of blood. With the help of other shopkeepers, I rushed him to a private hospital in Chheharta from where he was shifted to another private hospital in Amritsar, Sajan added.

ADCP-City 1 Jagjit Singh Walia visited the hospital; while ADCP-City2 Lakhbir Singh Walia rushed to the crime scene and examined the CCTV footage installed in Partap Bazaar.

Preliminary investigation suggests that there were two assailants. One of them opened fire. The area of Chheharta has been cordoned off and an alert has been sounded in the city. We have clues, Walia said, adding that prima facie the attack seemed to be a result of a personal grouse.

A case has been registered under sections 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC and under sections 25-27-54-59 of the Arms Act against unidentified people.

Law and order has collapsed: Khaira

Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who has been suspended from the AAP, claimed that the attack was yet another instance showing that law and order had collapsed in the state. If a prominent citizen like Suresh Sharma is attacked like this under the Congress regime, the fate of the common man can be well imagined, he added.

Punjab leader of opposition Harpal Singh Cheema and AAP Amritsar Lok Sabha candidate Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal also condemned the attack. Intelligence and state police have failed. There is anarchy and Jungle Raj in the state. I appeal to people to maintain peace, Cheema added.
Four opposition parties have joined the Congress to form a Maha Kootami (Grand Alliance) to remove Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) from power in Telangana. Chief minister K Chandrashekar Raos daughter and TRS MP, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, spoke to Srinivasa Rao Apparasu about the united opposition challenge ahead of the December 7 elections. Edited excerpts:

How does the TRS plan to deal with the united opposition?

This pseudo unity among the opposition parties is nothing new. In the by-elections over the last four years, they fought together and lost miserably. This time also, the TRS, under the leadership of KCR, will win against all the opposition parties. We are confident of... winning 100 out of 119 assembly seats as people are extremely happy with the TRS.

Why have you raised such a hue and cry over the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)s alliance with the Congress?

Why should not we? ...we have been telling our people about the political forces that have been working against Telanganas interests. We have been telling them how Andhra politicians are constantly stalling its development. ...when Telangana is going in the right direction and emerging as the countrys number one state, what business does (TDP chief) Chandrababu Naidu have in Telangana? We want our people to know what is happening so that they would stand by us.

TDP is a political party which has a presence in Telangana. Does not it have the right to contest the elections?

If TDP is a political party in Telangana, should it not work for the states interests? If you are constantly working against Telangana and writing letters to the Centre against the irrigation projects being implemented in this state, what right do you have to contest in Telangana? Naidu has stalled even bifurcation of the high court. We are not worried about Naidu or his party. We have to expose this alliance, which will in future also work against Telangana...

Do not you think harping on Telangana pride and Andhra domination will have a negative impact on TRS among Andhra voters?

I do not think so because in the last four years, TRS has never discriminated against people from Andhra. We have conveyed it to them not just in words, but in actions. We are confident of their support. If they do not understand it, well, this is democracy.
India and Vietnam have agreed to boost bilateral trade and expand cooperation in oil and gas and defence, including the implementation of a $100 million line of credit to build patrol vessels, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Tuesday.

Vietnam has been bolstering its military capabilities in the face of aggressive moves by China in the South China Sea. India and Vietnam have robust defence cooperation dating back almost two decades, including exchange of visits, supply of equipment, and training of air force pilots and submariners.

We are committed to further deepen our defence and security cooperation. I reiterated Indias commitment to provide training support for Vietnams armed forces, Kovind told a joint news briefing in Hanoi with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong. The two leaders reviewed the implementation of an Indian credit line of $100 million to build four high-speed patrol vessels for Vietnams Coast Guard. Kovind said they also agreed to strengthen cooperation in peaceful uses of atomic energy and outer space, science and technology, oil and gas, infrastructure, agriculture and innovation-based sectors.

Kovind said he was confident the two sides will achieve the target of boosting bilateral trade to $15 billion by 2020, up from $12.8 billion last year. Trong, who also heads the Communist Party, said the two sides will find ways to boost their modest investment. India currently has 182 investment projects worth $816 mn in Vietnam, while Vietnamese businesses have only seven projects in India worth about $6 million.

Kovind is only the second foreign leader to address the Vietnamese Parliament after Chinas President Xi Jinping.

In his address to the National Assembly, Kovind said Vietnam is pivotal to Indias Act East policy and both countries are stakeholders in the commerce, security and stability of the Indo-Pacific region.

He added, Vietnam and India share a vision for the Indo-Pacific region, of which the South China Sea is a critical component.

Close on the heels of Kovinds three-day visit, Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat will travel to Vietnam on November 22-25 for interactions with the military hierarchy, including Gen Ngo Xuan Lich, the defence minister.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh will mobilize support for the November 25 congregation of Ram devotees in Ayodhya, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) event that could put the Ram Janmabhoomi issue back in focus ahead of next years parliamentary election, two leaders of the ruling party said.

The VHP is organising the Dharam Sabha, a meeting of Hindu religious figures, at Bengaluru, Nagpur and Ayodhya on November 25 and in New Delhi on December 9. Senior functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), too, are expected to attend the event.

We have been asked by partys leadership to provide whatever support that we can to make the event a success, a BJP member of parliament from central Uttar Pradesh said on condition of anonymity. We have already started mobilizing support for the event. It will be an impressive show.

We expect a gathering of over 1 lakh at Ayodhya, VHP spokesman Vinod Bansal claimed. The event at Delhi will see a turnout of more than 4 lakh. Another VHP leader said top BJP and RSS leaders are expected to attend the event in Ayodhya and in Delhi.

The gathering is likely to be the biggest in Ayodhya since December 6, 1992, when tens of thousands of Kar Sevaks (volunteers) razed the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya . Some leaders say the number of attendees could even be double the expected 100,000.

Already, Karsevakpuram in Ayodhya, the unofficial HQ and official workshop of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, is a hive of activity. VHPs newly-elected international president Vishnu Sadashiv Kokje is personally supervising preparations for the Dharam Sabha along with the bodys international vice-president Champat Rai.

Rai has a team of volunteers who report back to him every day on the number of households they personally reached out to with invitations for November 25.

The Ram temple is an election promise of the BJP, and the party expects any action on this front to help it consolidate its base in Uttar Pradesh.
Iqbal Ansari, a Muslim litigant in the Ram JanmabhoomiBabri Masjid case, on Tuesday stated that he will support the government if it frames law for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. However, later in the evening, Ansari said: My statement to support law on Ram temple is out of compulsion.

Ansari is one of the several parties in the ongoing title suit of Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court.

If the government frames law for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, I will support it in the larger interest of the country, Ansari told newsmen at his residence in Ayodhya in the daytime.

Peace must prevail in the country and, if it is ensured through framing of law for construction of Ram temple, then I will support such a move, he added.

It may be pointed out that three Muslim litigants in the Ayodhya dispute have ruled out any out-of-court settlement of the issue.

Later in the evening, talking to HT over phone, Ansari said: The case (Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid) is going on in the Supreme Court. We must wait for the courts order. Muslims will abide by the courts verdict.

But if the government wants to frame a law (for construction of temple) then we have no choice but to support the law, said Ansari. My statement to support law on Ram temple is out of compulsion, he added.

Recently, litigants Iqbal Ansari, Haji Mahboob and Mohammad Umar categorically ruled out any out-of-court settlement of the Ayodhya dispute. At a meeting of local Muslims in Ayodhya, a resolution was passed clearly stating that Muslims would not shift the mosque to any other site. It also categorically pointed out that Hindus could construct temple on Ram Chabootra in the outer court yard of the now razed Babri Masjid.
Two issues are dominating the election campaign in Madhya Pradeshs opium belt of Mandsaur and Neemuch: the death of six protesting farmers in police firing in Mandsaur on June 6, 2017, and the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana (BBY), the October 2017 scheme under which the state government pays farmers the difference between the average market price across the country and the price they get for their produce.

In the 2013 assembly elections, the BJP won six of the seven seats in Mandsaur-Neemuch -- the epicentre of the June 2017 farmers agitation -- with the farmers and Patidars solidly behind the party. At that time, farmers were getting at least three to four crops, including the prized opium, in a year with over 70% of the area under irrigation, according to government figures.

But now, farm distress has become a major poll issue, one that the Congress hopes to use to its advantage. Congress candidate from Mandsaur, Narendra Nahata says, The main issues are continuing farm distress despite BBY, and the killing of six farmers by police. Bhavantar has been a total failure and, as promised in our election manifesto, we will do away with BBY and revert to minimum support price (MSP), along with bonus for farmers. The promise for loan waiver of Rs 2 lakh is part of our plan to give relief to farmers. According to Nahata, farmers are not getting the right price for their produce.

Nahatas charges resonate with some farmers unhappy with the BBY, who say the intention behind the scheme might be good but procedural problems and petty corruption were hobbling it. They want a minimum support price to be declared for the main kharif crops. They also point out that price of crops is lower today compared to 2013, whereas input costs have risen between 20 and 30%. Madhusudan Patidar (20) of Chillod Pipliya in Mandsaur, the nephew of Kanhaiyalal Patidar who was among the six farmers killed in June last year, says that under the BBY, the land title has to be clear and linked to a bank account to get registered.

In many cases, the land is held jointly by brothers and they cant register. Also, we have to sell the crop in separate lots as all farmers have to be given a chance, often having to wait for two days or more. While 50% is paid in cash, the rest of the amount has to be paid in 28 days. But we got the payment for the soyabean crop four months later...  he says.

Lokesh Carpenter (48) of Barkhedapanth in Mandsaur says the price farmers used to get earlier was higher. I sold garlic at Rs 10,000 per quintal in 2015-16 and prices have crashed to Rs 500 per quintal, while the Bhavantar price is Rs 1,600 per quintal. Same is the case with soyabean, which I sold at Rs 4,800 per quintal in 2012-13 and is now selling at Rs 2,500 per quintal, while the Bhavantar price is Rs 3,399 per quintal. MSP was better and transparent.

Mandsaur-based agriculture expert NS Sipani, who is an Indian Agriculture Research Institute fellow, explains the problem. Bhavantar is a good policy but has failed because a section of traders in collusion with mandi officials have hijacked it. It is one of the main issues in the elections here.

A Patidar community leader, Amritlal Patidar, claims farmer anger is likely to harm the ruling BJPs prospects. If 70% of the 300,000 Patidars in the seven constituencies in Neemuch and Mandsaur had voted for the BJP earlier, now 70% are against the party. Also, no one has forgotten last years farmer deaths.

Bansi Lal Gujar, Kisan Morcha state president, however, backs the Bhavantar scheme. Bhavantar has solved most problems. Like this year, there was a glut in garlic production in 2004-05 and again in 2008-09, and farmers had to throw it away and the central government could do nothing. This government is at least buying it and in Mandsaur alone, farmers have got 100 crore through this scheme.

BJP leaders also defend the BBY and list all that the party has done for farmers like waiving power bills and building houses under the Prime Ministers Awas Yojana . They hold up the benefits of BBY, under which 1,952 crore has been distributed among farmers for the 2017-18 kharif crop. They also point to the Rs 500 per quintal bonus for the soyabean and maize crop for the 2018-19 kharif seasons. Yashpal Sisodiya, the BJP candidate from Mandsaur, waves away talk of farmer angst. Farmer distress is only in the minds of the Congress and not on the ground. I have been to rural areas where farmers are happy with the regular power supply and power bill waiver. On farmer deaths, he says there was anger but that has dissipated.
A PRIVATE WAR Direction: Matthew Heineman Actors: Rosamund Pike, Tom Hollander, Jamie Dornan, Stanley Tucci Rating: 4 / 5

Looks like Hollywoods quietly vowed to put out at least one true-events film about journalists every year. Spotlight took the Best Picture Oscar in 2015. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot saw the funny side of covering war in 2016. The Post made it to The American Film Institutes top 10 films of last year.

A Private War goes further in all senses of the term. It spans the last decade in the life of Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), the firebrand American war correspondent at the UKs The Sunday Times, and the many prices she paid before she was killed in an attack in Syria in 2012.

The bravery is made evident early on. Colvin heads to Sri Lanka in 2001 to report on the Tamil rebels and loses an eye in a grenade attack, wearing her trademark eyepatch from then on.

Pikes warts-and-all portrayal of Colvin captures the ever-haunted look in that one good eye, the tears she fights back, and her twitchy discomfort with parties back home.

There are assignments to Libya (and a plum interview with Muammar Gaddafi), hard-won scoops about buried prisoners of war in Iraq, hard drinking in Kabuls bars after a bloody day in the field.

Bravery turns to bravado. Director Matthew Heineman overlaps war scenes on to Colvins London home to mirror her panicked inability to distinguish reality from horrific memory. Relationships break down, friendships fray. Alcoholism , nightmares, and post-traumatic stress disorder take over despite sanatorium breaks. And egged on by an editor (Tom Hollander) who sees her as a prize pig, Colvin soldiers on, as wars get messier, journalists are imperiled further and her obsession with reporting overrides her sense of self-preservation.

Bits of the real Colvin seep into Pikes warts-and-all portrayal. A voiceover from an interview goes past the ever-haunted look in that one good eye, the tears she fights back, and Colvins twitchy discomfort with parties back home. There are dusty war scenes and a heroines mental isolation much like Kathryn Bigelows Zero Dark Thirty. But Heineman keeps Colvin flawed as much as fearless. So the climax, as Colvin risks detection by doing live broadcasts from a bombed-out city, shows not just the human cost of the war but the human cost of covering it.

The Syrian war is now in its eighth year. At least 43 journalists have been killed on the job globally this year alone. In one voiceover, Colvin worries if enough people will care when your story finally reaches them. A Times editor acknowledges that Colvins story is pretty grim for the Sunday front page. Its pretty grim for the multiplex too. Its up to the viewer to not shy away.

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Demanding the implementation of the measures promised by the government, thousands of farmers and tribals started their two-day march towards Mumbai from a suburb of Maharashtras capital on Wednesday, eight months after a similar protest.

The farmers started walking towards the Azad Maidan in Mumbai on Wednesday to put forth their demands to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government, ahead of the general election next year. More than 5,000 farmers and tribals had gathered at the Anandnagar Octroi Naka in Mulund since Tuesday night.

The farmers began their march from Octroi Naka towards a BMC Ground in Chunnabhatti. They will halt at Chunnabhati where they will be joined by thousands of other protesters by Thursday morning. The march is likely to cause traffic jams in Mumbai on both days.

Farmers in Maharashtra, who are struggling to cope with the agrarian crisis and natural calamities, are demanding a proper implementation of the loan waiver package announced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2017, the implementation of recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Commission, land rights for farmers and also compensation for farm labourers.

Each of the farmer or tribal is travelling with two kilograms of rice and one kilogram of dal and is set to stay put in Mumbai unless their demands are met, Pratibha Shinde, the general secretary of the Morcha, said.

On March 12, the government had assured implementation of the Recognition of Forest right Act in six months. More than 2.31 lakh claims out of the total 3.64 lakh claims were pending with respect to forest right. Out of this in six months only 5448 claims are disposed of, this is merely 2% work by the government, Shinde said.

She also said the state should provide compensation in buying foodgrains and other prices in the drought-hit areas.

The grains should be given at Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg in all the drought-affected districts. The farmers who have lost their crops due to the drought should also be compensated. We will not return till these prime demands among the others are met. More than 20,000 farmers will march to Azad Maidan on Thursday, though we will ensure there is no traffic jam or any disruption in the city.

Farmers from Nandurbar, Dhule, Parbhani, Jalgaon, Nasik, Amravati, Buldhana, Pune, Gadchiroli and Chandrapur districts of the western state have joined the protest, under the banner of Lok Sangharsh Morcha.

They were joined by conservationist Rajendra Singh and activist Yogendra Yadav of Swarajya Abhiyaan.

Singh, popularly known as waterman of India, said if the standard of living in the villages and tribal belts is not improved all these people will be forced to migrate to the cities.

The farmers and tribals are facing basic issues liked scarcity of food and water. All the water from the villages they reside is provided to cities like Mumbai and Thane. They have not received their forest lands, while most drought-affected villages are awaiting compensation, he said.

The government has many schemes for farmers and tribal on paper, however, their implementation is negligible, he added.

This is the second time this year that the farmers and tribals have pressed for their demands. More than 35,000 farmers from across Maharashtra, led by Left-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), took out a march from Nashik to Mumbai on March 12. Their 180km march over several days culminated in Mumbai on March 11.

The farmers called off their agitation after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government accepted almost all of their demands in writing and assured to implement them in a time-bound manner. But the farmers said the government has failed to keep its promises.
Thousands of farmers in Maharashtra will march from Thane to state capital Mumbai on Wednesday to reiterate their demand for support from the government on several issues on Wednesday, eight months after a similar protest.

The march, which will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, will see farmers and tribals take part in it. Traffic jams are likely in Mumbai on both days as protesters will walk down the roads from Thane toll Naka to Azad Maidan.

Farmers in Maharashtra, who are struggling to cope with the agrarian crisis and natural calamities, are demanding a proper implementation of the loan waiver package announced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in 2017, the implementation of recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Commission, land rights for farmers and also compensation for farm labourers.

We have been consistently asking the state government to fulfil our long-standing demands but the response has been lukewarm. We are forced to agitate, said Pratibha Shinde, general secretary of Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM), which is organising the protest.

We are taking maximum care to ensure that Mumbai citizens are not inconvenienced, Shinde said.

The march will start from Thane and end at Somaiyya Ground in Sion on Wednesday, where the Morcha will hold a rally. The next day, the farmers will march to Azad Maidan and continue their agitation till their demands are met.

More than 35,000 farmers from across Maharashtra, led by Left-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), took out a march from Nashik to Mumbai on March 12 to press for their demands. Their 180km march over several days culminated in Mumbai on March 11.

The farmers called off their agitation after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government accepted almost all of their demands in writing and assured to implement them in a time-bound manner. But the farmers said the government has not met any of their demands since then.
Social activist Agnes Kharshiing is a well-known name in Meghalaya. Along with being a human rights activist, she is also an environment defender of repute. On November 8, Kharshiing and another activist, A Sangma, were in the East Jaintia Hills district to track and document cases of illegal mining. (In 2014, the National Green Tribunal imposed a blanket ban on coal mining, once the driver of Meghalayas economy.) While the two activists were conducting their investigations, a group of 30-40 people encircled their car and attacked them brutally. Both are in hospital with severe injuries. Sources, a Hindustan Times report said, point towards coal mafia being involved in the attack as Kharshiing had shared several pictures of trucks ferrying coal illegally and their dumping grounds. However, authorities are yet to confirm the identity of the attackers.

According to Defenders of the Earth, a report released by international NGO, Global Witness, in 2017, being an environmental activist in India is a dangerous occupation. While Brazil tops the 2017 list with 49 deaths, India is ranked at fourth with 16 deaths. India got a special mention in the 2017 report as one of the countries where the situation is getting progressively worse, along with Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But those who follow environmental issues will argue that the number of deaths (16) does not reveal the true picture: In the recesses of this large and diverse country, many cases of attacks, harassments and threats go undocumented, and attackers go unpunished.

Unlike the police firing on people protesting against Sterlite in Tamil Nadu or, for that matter, the protests of Dongria Kondhs against Vedanta in Odisha, the attacks on Kharshiing and Sangma went unnoticed on prime time.

But what is happening in Meghalaya is a story that applies to all of the country.

The principle of intergenerational equity says that natural resources are a shared inheritance where the State is the trustee on behalf of the people to ensure that future generations receive the benefit of inheritance and, therefore, the State must do all it can to ensure that it is not pilfered. But the principle is broken routinely: Illegal extraction of natural resources is rampant across the country because lack of administrative and political will.

This mismanagement of natural resources will lead not only to environmental problems such as land degradation, soil erosion and pollution, but it can also create serious social and economic tensions. And these will not be restricted to a particular region, it will have a ripple effect across the country, something which environmental defenders such as Kharshiing and Sangma can see clearly, but those in power (wilfully) refuse to.

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In politics, it is always better to keep an eye on your rivals. That may not have been the intention when a 360-degree revolving high-resolution camera was installed atop Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars residence. The purpose, the police had then insisted, was to ensure better protection of the chief ministers residence.

But the police have given in to pressure from Nitish Kumars neighbour and arch rival, Tejashwi Yadav, after the young Rashtriya Janata Dal leader went to town with his suspicions. The Bihar chief ministers next door neighbour who shares a common boundary wall had complained on, and off social media, that the location of the CCTV camera was designed to spy on him.

In a series of tweets, Yadav wrote, Nitishji, you and your police have every right to secure your lives but neither of you reserve any right to breach my privacy by peeping into my bedroom, entrance of the main hall, kitchen, residential office and personal privacy through a 360-degree HD camera. You can get the camera installed on the main gate of our house, we have no problem with that.

Echoing the sentiments expressed by his mother and former chief minister Rabri Devi, Yadav had alleged that the chief minister was spying on him. The camera exposes the privacy of my entire house, including my bedroom and kitchen, he had said.

Inspector General (Security) BS Meena had sought to resolve the issue with the explanation that the camera wasnt working and was installed there on a trial basis. It doesnt breach anyones security. Still, if anyone has objections to the camera, we will take corrective steps, he said.

Subsequently, the camera was removed on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, finding the camera gone, RJD workers celebrated it as Yadavs triumph over Nitish.

RJD spokesperson Bhai Virendra speaking to the media said that this was yet another defeat for Nitish Kumar. The chief minister shall continue to lose on all fronts and soon will have to give up his chair, he said.

The JD(U), in turn, said the RJD had no serious agenda or development issue to discuss. There are much larger issues like poverty, under development among the Dalits, backward classes and minorities in the state but RJD only wants to focus on trivial issues, said JD(U) spokesperson, Neeraj Kumar.
Several weeks after filing his divorce petition, former minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasads son Tej Pratap Yadav continues to keep his visit back home a suspense, even as his mother, Rabri Devi has exuded confidence that her elder son would soon settle his marital problems by returning to Patna.

Everything will be fine. Tej Pratap will be back in Patna soon, Rabri said, after reaching Patna from New Delhi on Monday. Rabris statement gave enough hints about how the RJDs first family was trying hard to mollify Tej Pratap, who, on November 2, had filed a divorce petition seeking separation from his wife of six months, Aishwariya Rai. He has sought divorce citing compatibility issues with his wife.

The 30-year-old has remained away from the state capital for last three weeks preferring not to speak even to his family members regularly and hinting that he would not backtrack on his decision to seek divorce from his wife. But, of late, Tej Prataps parents and younger brother Tejashwi Prasad Yadav are said to have stepped up efforts to convince the Yadav scion return home and patch up with his wife.

Insiders in the RJD said Tej Pratap, a former health minister and Mahua MLA, is at present staying in Vrindavan and performing pujas along with his group of friends. If sources are to be believed, he has told his family members that he would return home after November 23 when Kartik month ended.

A few days back, Tej Prataps in-laws, including mother-in-law Poornima Rai, had visited Rabris 10, Circular Road residence and stayed there for a few hours before reportedly coming out in tears.

Tej Pratap is performing various religious activities in the month of Kartik. He is likely to return to Patna after Kartik Purnima. He is in regular touch with his mother and other family members, said a close associate of the former health minister.

Sources said one of Tej Prataps brothers in law and Samajwadi Party MP Tej Pratap Singh Yadav (husband of Lalu Prasads youngest daughter Laxmi) has been trying to convince him to give up his adamant stand on the divorce issue.

There are also speculations that Tej Pratap has started softening his stand due to mounting family pressure and may not pursue the petition when it comes up for hearing on November 29. But, he has reportedly not given up on his demand for ouster of three of his cousins - Nagmani, Om Prakash and Manish - from family affairs.

All three brothers are said to be close to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi. Tej Pratap has for long been objecting to the cousins interfering in family and party affairs, say sources.

Tej Pratap has differences with his cousins and wants them to stay away from his family. This is one of the main reasons why he is still annoyed with his parents and not coming to Patna. However, we are hoping that he will soon return, said a senior RJD functionary and close associate of the RJD chief, wishing not to be quoted.
With just 48 hours left for the withdrawal of nominations for the Rajasthan assembly elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress are both battling rebels.

In the Congress, senior party leaders said on condition of anonymity that at least 50 rebel leaders, including four former ministers and six former MLAs, could spoil the partys chances in the December 7 polls. The party is looking to snatch power from the BJP in the heartland state.

The party has now designated senior leaders to manage the dissenting leaders. In Jaipur, for example, the exercise will be monitored by Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mukul Wasnik and Rajiv Shukla. The Congress has appointed coordinators with each team; in addition, state leaders such as former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and state unit president Sachin Pilot, party general secretary in-charge Avinash Pande and four secretaries will also be in touch with the rebels.

The prominent dissenters include former state ministers Mahadev Singh Khandela from Khandela, Babulal Nagar from Dudu, Lalit Bhati from Ajmer South and Brahmdev Kumawat from Masuda. All have filed nomination as independent candidates. In addition to them, six former MLAs too have filed their nominations after being denied party tickets. They are CS Baid from Taranagar, Sanyam Lodha from Sirohi, Nathram Sinodia from Kishangarh, CL Premi from Keshoraipatan, Bhimraj Bhati from Pali, and Haji Abdul Kayum from Masudha.

The Congress has introduced 110 new faces and repeated 85 candidates in its list. Monday was the last day of filing nominations while November 22 is the last day for withdrawal of nominations.

The BJP, too, is in damage control mode after at least 20 rebel candidates filed their nomination, said party leaders on condition of anonymity. Five ministers and several MLAs have already resigned from the party after being dropped. The ministers who resigned are Surendra Goyal, Rajkumar Rinwa, Dhan Singh Rawat and Hem Singh Bhadana and all of them have filed nominations as independents.

Goyal is contesting from Jaitaran, Rinwa from Ratangarh, Rawat from Banswara and Bhadana from Thanagazi.

Among the prominent MLAs who resigned are Mahua MLA Om Prakash Hudla, Ladpura MLA Bhawani Singh Rajawat, Ramgarh MLA Gyandev Ahuja, Sagwara MLA Anita Katara, Sojat MLA Sanjana Agri, Malpura MLA Alka Singh, Sridungargarh MLA Kishna Ram Nai, Dungarpur MLA Devendra Katara, Ghatol MLA Navneetlal Ninama and Sikrai MLA Geeta Verma.

To manage the dissidence, chief minister Vasundhara Raje has reached out to the rebels and the party appointed a team of leaders to try and placate the rebels. This team comprises state BJP president Madanlal Saini, state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna and other senior leaders. The BJP has dropped four ministers, 60 MLAs and introduced 82 new faces in its list.

Officially, both parties denied reports of dissidence. Party men going rebel is nothing new. It happens in all the parties when an individual is denied a ticket. Similarly, there is an aftermath to pacify them. Some are also assured place in government, once party comes in power, said a senior Congress leader on condition of anonymity.

We have very few rebels in our party. There are only about 15-20 of them who matter. Some have already relented, senior BJP leader Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said. He did not disclose names of those who have relented.

Congress spokesperson Satyendra Singh Raghav said, Efforts are being made to pacify rebels by senior leaders and we are hopeful that they will withdraw their nomination in support of party candidate.

Analyst Narayan Bareth said it was unclear how much damage the rebels would inflict. What has happened in these elections in ticket distribution has been never seen before  the kind of anarchy, mismanagement and protest are for the first time. Certainly, damage will be there as their image has been dented, rest it has to be seen to what extent they can repair it, he said.
Having survived a challenge from hardline anti-Europeans in her own party, UK prime minister Theresa May comes to Brussels on Wednesday to fine tune the terms of the Brexit divorce.

The British prime minister will enjoy afternoon tea with the president of the EU commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, with negotiations set to continue right up to Sundays planned deal-signing summit.

Neither side has much wiggle room left to polish the withdrawal treaty nor the political declaration on future relations that goes alongside it, but May must show that she has left nothing on the table if she is to convince British MPs to ratify the deal.

And she now appears to have bought herself time to focus on negotiations in Brussels, after a leadership challenge from anti-European members of her own party fizzled out, at least temporarily, without a confidence vote.

She nevertheless still faces pressure from her Northern Irish parliamentary allies, who oppose a deal they say weakens British sovereignty in their province, and from Spain, which warned it might veto the accord over the issue of Gibraltar.

European Union leaders will meet on Sunday to approve both the outline declaration on future post-Brexit ties and the withdrawal agreement struck last week, hoping finally to put an end to the uncertainty over Britains exit in March.

But political challenges remain on both sides of the Channel.

Two of Mays top ministers quit last week over the divorce deal, including her Brexit secretary, while MPs from all parties came out against it.

A leadership challenge by Mays own Conservative MPs failed to materialise, however, and when she gathered her new-look cabinet Tuesday they agreed to press on.

The withdrawal deal covers Britains financial settlement, expatriate citizens rights, contingency plans to keep open the Irish border and the terms of a post-Brexit transition.

Officials are now racing to agree details of the accompanying outline statement on the future trading and security relationship for after Britain leaves the EUs single market and customs union.

European ministers have signed off on the draft divorce terms, but the agreement now risks being derailed by opposition in Madrid.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain, which has a long-standing claim on the British territory of Gibraltar, warned he would vote no to Brexit unless there are changes to guarantee Madrid a say in future relations between it and the EU.

Spain wants the right to negotiate the future of Gibraltar with Britain on a bilateral basis.

- Show our displeasure -

Opposition to the agreement is also building in the House of Commons in London, which will vote on the final Brexit deal, probably early next month.

On Monday MPs from Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) abstained on three budget votes in the Commons and voted against the government on a fourth, in apparent defiance of their deal to back the Conservatives on finance matters.

Pro-Brexit Conservatives have also savaged the divorce deal, which they say keeps Britain too close to the EU.

Rebels led by MP Jacob Rees-Mogg failed in their attempt to force an immediate confidence vote in Mays leadership, but warned they would keep trying.

He said May had taken a deliberate decision not to deliver a proper Brexit.

Their opposition raises the risk of the deal failing and Britain ending its four-decade membership of the EU with no other arrangement in place.

- Bank of England backing -

Despite the opposition, May has continued to defend her deal in meetings with politicians, business leaders and party members.

The withdrawal agreement sets out plans for a 21-month transition after Brexit, in which Britain and the EU want to turn their outline agreement on the future relationship into a full trade deal.

But controversially, it says that if that deal is not agreed in time, Britain will adopt a backstop arrangement to keep open its land border with Ireland.

This would keep all of Britain in the EUs customs union, and Northern Ireland also in parts of the single market.
Disregarding US intelligence assessment that Crown Prince Mohammad bin-Salman ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the Saudi royal may or may not have had knowledge of it and all but ruled out any further punitive measure.

In a statement headlined, Standing with Saudi Arabia, the president stressed close strategic and business ties with the oil-rich desert kingdom and said the United States has already sanctioned 17 Saudis for the murder, indicating seemingly he was not contemplating further action.

Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! he said.

That being said we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder, he added.

Asked later by a reporter if Saudi Arabia was getting away with murder, the president said, No, no, this is about America First. Theyre paying us $400 billion plus ($450 billion in investments and deals, as mentioned in the statement issued earlier by the White House).

The CIA has concluded on the basis of intercepts and audio recordings that Mohammad had ordered the killing of the journalist, according to multiple media report. And the US has sanctioned close aides and advisers of the crown prince for their involvement in the killing.

But the president remains unconvinced about the role of Mohammad, who is close to the White House and Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Khashoggi was a strident critic of the crown princes policies and had lived in the US in self-imposed exile since 2017. He was also a columnist for The Washington Post. He was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, where he had gone to collect some papers for his upcoming marriage. He was killed by a 15-member hit team from Saudi at the consulate and the body was dismembered for disposal.

In a statement packed with exclamation marks, Trump seemed to be siding with the Saudi royals on the killing. He said they have insisted Mohammad played no role in the planning and execution of the killing.

He also repeated their portrayal of Khashoggi as an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. But, he added, trying to put some distance, my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

But the president left the door open for congressional action. I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction, and they are free to do so, he said.

I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America, he cautioned.

I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!

The Trump administration has struggled to deal with the crisis and the president has been seen trying to shield the crown prince citing ties with the kingdom and the role it plays in containing Iran and dealing with terrorism in the region, and business deals with it and the jobs that they create.

The president reprised that line on Tuesday saying the $450 billion Saudis agreed to spend and invest in the US during his heavily negotiated trip last year will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth.

It would be foolish, he added to cancel those contracts which will go then to Russia and China. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States.
An Indian-origin Scotland Yard police constable (PC) has been dismissed from her job without notice for failing to exercise reasonable care in her treatment and monitoring of a homeless man after ejecting him from a police station in west London.

PC Bhupinder Kalsi was fired following a Metropolitan Police Unsatisfactory Police Performance meeting on Monday, which found that her performance was grossly incompetent and she was guilty of unsatisfactory performance.

Pericles Malagardis, a Greek national who was sleeping at Heathrow Airport, had gone to Uxbridge police station to collect his dog on a cold day in March 2016. The 63-year-old died of hypothermia after he was made to leave the police station for smoking inside the station.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), the independent police watchdog, had referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider charges of gross negligence manslaughter.

We found there was not enough evidence to prosecute for any offences and took no further action, the CPS said.

However, an internal disciplinary panel found that Kalsi did not provide information requested by the London Ambulance Service regarding actions taken to support Mr Malagardis, and failed to follow instruction and training when dealing with unresponsive casualties, after he was found unconscious on the pavement. The panel also concluded that Kalsi was viewing a DVD whilst on duty, following Malagardis ejection from the front office area of the police station.

Another police station staff member is facing a separate disciplinary hearing over the same incident.

Once the internal Metropolitan Police reviews are completed, an inquest into the death of Malagardis is expected to take place.
The department of defense put a dollar figure on the administrations growing dissatisfaction with Pakistan Tuesday with Pentagon informing reporters that $1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended. No details were offered, triggering speculation in some quarters that this was an add-on suspension, of new funds, in view of recent criticism of Pakistan by the US president over Osama bin Laden.

This is not a new decision or a new announcement on the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) security assistance freeze, Lt Colonel Kone Faulkner, Pentagon spokesperson, said in an email to Hindustan Times, referring to the programme under which Pakistan has received the bulk of US security assistance, as reimbursement for operations undertaken to assist US-led international coalition force in Afghanistan.

The suspension of security assistance to Pakistan was announced in January 2018. CSF is included in the suspension, which remains in place. The $1.66 billion figure provided yesterday is a total of security assistance dollars to Pakistan that has been suspended to date.

The Trump administration had announced in January it was suspending nearly $2 billion in security assistance to Pakistan for its failure to take decisive action against terrorists operating from its soil. A remaining portion of that suspended money  $300 million  was repurposed some months ago at the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

That was also seen erroneously as new suspension, a US official said on background. It was repurposed to be spent under under a different budgetary head to prevent it from lapsing. That money was from the defense departments 2018 budget  the National Defense Appropriation Act, 2018  and it would have lapsed as unspent allocation.

An amount of approximately the same amount, $300 million, is sitting there, standing by for Pakistan for this year (from the 2019 budget) should the suspension be lifted, the official said, adding, on background once again, that determination will be made at the presidential level,. The secretary of state has to make the determination technically, and certify it, based on Pakistani counter-terrorism actions, for the money to be released.

The Trump administration has continued to press Pakistan to do more in bilateral settings and meetings and through public remarks and comments, making counter-terrorism the headline topic in engagements with the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan as well.

Those exchanges have not always been pleasant. President Trump denounced Pakistan in a recent interview to Fox New for not doing a damn thing for the United States despite the billions it has received in assistance. He cited as evidence fact that Osama bin Laden was living in a beautiful mansion in Abbottabad in Pakistan, before a US navy SEALs team killed him in 2011.

Prime Minister Khan hit back in a series of tweets. No Pakistani was involved in 9/11 but Pak decided to participate in US War on Terror. Pakistan suffered 75,000 casualties in this war & over $123 bn was lost to economy. US aid was a minuscule $20 bn.

But there is approximately $300 million on the table for Pakistan if it able to provide sufficient proof its taking decisive counter-terrorism measures indeed, provided it can.

It will take more than cosmetic steps by Pakistan to get the Trump administration to unfreeze security assistance, said Joshua White, a former Pentagon official. Washington is looking for serious and sustained efforts against the Haqqanis [Haqqani Network], and active measures to incentivize the Taliban to engage in peace talks.

He added: I also suspect that any resumption of security assistance would be phased, focusing first on restoring military exchanges and narrowly-targeted counterterrorism assistance programs.
India and China will continue discussions to resolve their long-pending border dispute when officials from the two countries meet in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu later this week.

Led by Indian national security advisor AK Doval and Chinese state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi, the officials will meet for the 21st round of bilateral border talks under the special representatives (SR) mechanism on November 23 and 24. It will be Wangs first talks as Chinas designated representative; he took over from Yang Jiechi earlier this year.

The mechanism was put in place in 2003 with the mandate of achieving a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution for the India-China boundary question at an early date.

Recently, the focus has been more on maintaining peace along the 3,488 km-long disputed border after the 73-day standoff between border troops at Doklam (Donglang in Chinese) near the Sikkim border last year.

The 20th round was held in India last year, the first one after the standoff was resolved. In fact, under the SR mechanism, the second mandate is pending the final resolution of the boundary question, to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

As for the issue of the border, talks under the strategic guidance of the two leaders China India relations have maintained a sound momentum of growth. With the ever deepening cooperation of all areas the two sides have maintained close communication and coordination in all border-related affairs, foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at the regular ministry briefing on Wednesday.

We have properly managed the differences through dialogue and consultation. The border areas on the whole maintained stability, he said.

The two sides attached great importance to it. The two special representatives will have in-depth exchange of view on border-related issues, Geng said.

Referring to the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in April this year, Geng said: They (the officials) will follow the guidance of the consensus reached by the two leaders bearing in mind the general picture of the bilateral ties and benefits of the two peoples on the basis of the outcomes that have been achieved to actively promote the negotiations.

The two will also exchange views on the major issue of bilateral ties and the regional and international issue of mutual interest, Geng added.

The SR dialogue follows in quick succession after officials from the two countries met in Chengdu earlier this month for the 12th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC).

They (officials) discussed ways to effectively manage border areas in accordance with the strategic guidance provided by the leaders of the two countries at the Wuhan Summit, a statement from the Indian embassy in Beijing said.

The officials also explored various confidence-building measures with a view to further enhance mutual trust and understanding.
A British academic was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in the United Arab Emirates on charges he was spying for the UK  a verdict that Britain described as shocking as it urged the Middle East country to reconsider its decision.

Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student in Middle Eastern Studies at Durham University, was arrested at Dubai Airport on May 5 and detained. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had travelled to the UAE to discuss the case with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances, Hunt said in a statement which underscored his surprise at the decision.

Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers: We are deeply disappointed and concerned at todays verdict. ... We are raising it with the Emirati authorities at the highest level.

Britain had until now been reticent over the case, citing ongoing legal proceedings. Officials have declined to comment on intelligence matters, in keeping with government policy.

Hedges wife Daniela Tejada, who was in court, said she was in complete shock.

Matthew is innocent, she said. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them.

Urging the British government to make a stand for him, she added: I am very scared for Matt. I dont know where they are taking him or what will happen now. Our nightmare has gotten even worse.

Hunt said the case would have consequences for bilateral relations.

I have repeatedly made clear that the handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust, Hunt said. I regret the fact that we have reached this position and I urge the UAE to reconsider.

Hunt says consular officials have been in close contact with the academics family and the case.
Off to NYC?

His minimalist three-bedroom Bel Air home has a space-themed room for relaxing and looking up at the stars, plus an outdoor bar and hot tub.

Rumour has it that he wants to focus on making things work with on/off girlfriend Gigi Hadid, and spend more time with her in New York.

> Read more

Pacific Union (Los Angeles)
M ore than 85 per cent of parents in the capital aged over 55 have helped, or are planning to help, their kids to buy their first place, compared to a national average of 76 per cent.

A third of grandparents are also chipping in, a poll by financial advice group Key Retirement shows.

Frenetic house price growth in London over the last 30 years has enabled baby boomers to collectively amass 481 billion of housing wealth, according to Savills.

This splits down and those aged 50 to 65 own 229 billion of equity whereas homeowners aged over 65 hold 252 billion.

On the flipside, it means that the price of the average first-time buyer home is now 365,750 and values in the capital are now more than 13 times the average resident income.

As a result London parents plan to give on average 19,400 to help their offspring afford a deposit. Grandparents intend to donate 11,200.

House prices in every London borough, November 2018 1 /32 House prices in every London borough, November 2018 Barking and Dagenham Average price November 2018: 314,816 Annual change: 1.5% Source: Rightmove, November 2018 Bob Comics/Flickr Barnet Average price November 2018: 638,449 Annual change: -0.2% Bexley Average price November 2018: 408,913 Annual change: 2.8% Daniel Lynch Brent Average price November 2018: 581,778 Annual change: -0.4% Daniel Lynch Bromley Average price November 2018: 536,921 Annual change: 2.1% Daniel Lynch Camden Average price November 2018: 985,430 Annual change: -0.6% Daniel Lynch Croydon Average price November 2018: 432,595 Annual change: -2.2% Alamy Stock Photo Ealing Average price November 2018: 557,026 Annual change: 0.8% Graham Hussey Enfield Average price November 2018: 458,460 Annual change: 0.3% Graham Hussey Greenwich Average price November 2018: 437,947 Annual change: 1.0% Daniel Lynch Hackney Average price November 2018: 625,135 Annual change: -4.9% Daniel Lynch Hammersmith and Fulham Average price November 2018: 971,975 Annual change: 2.8% Daniel Lynch Haringey Average price November 2018: 603,691 Annual change: 0.2% Harrow Average price November 2018: 555,569 Annual change: -1.6% Daniel Lynch Havering Average price November 2018: 406,169 Annual change: 1.3% John Winfield Hillingdon Average price November 2018: 493,666 Annual change: 1.5% Drayton Wharf / Howarth Homes Hounslow Average price November 2018: 531,607 Annual change: -2.6% Islington Average price November 2018: 751,991 Annual change: -1.4% Kensington and Chelsea Average price November 2018: 1,622,610 Annual change: -2.2% Shutterstock Kingston upon Thames Average price November 2018: 612,899 Annual change: 0.4% Lambeth Average price November 2018: 624,633 Annual change: 6.8% Daniel Lynch Lewisham Average price November 2018: 459,062 Annual change: -2.5% Alamy Stock Photo Merton Average price November 2018: 624,062 Annual change: -3.8% Newham Average price November 2018: 415,626 Annual change: -0.2% Redbridge Average price November 2018: 460,909 Annual change: 0.1% Richmond upon Thames Average price April 2018: 841,418 Annual change: 0.0% Graham Hussey Southwark Average price April 2018: 658,767 Annual change: 1.8% Jeremy Selwyn Sutton Average price April 2018: 463,721 Annual change: 0.1% Alamy Stock Photo Tower Hamlets Average price April 2018: 577,341 Annual change: -3.9% Waltham Forest Average price April 2018: 479,089 Annual change: -0.1% Daniel Lynch Wandsworth Average price April 2018: 785,602 Annual change: -2.9% Westminster Average price April 2018: 1,445,625 Annual change: 0.0% Shutterstock

There is clearly a real desire among this group to support younger generations and a recognition of some of the financial challenges they are facing, says Will Hale, chief executive of Key Retirement.

The over-55s have done well out of property wealth growth and many may be benefiting from generous company pension schemes.

This transference of wealth has also become a popular way of minimising inheritance tax at a later stage.

Inheritance is set to play an increasing role in peoples wealth and the challenge for families is how to efficiently pass this money through the generations, says Austin Broad, head of advice at AFH Wealth Management.

CONSIDERATIONS

However, there are a number of things to consider when thinking about how family wealth can help without accidentally falling into a tax trap, he warns.

If a parent or grandparent passes on more than 3,000 in a year, this money could be classed as a potentially exempt transfer: if the donor dies within seven years of making the gift, the money could be liable for inheritance tax where the whole estate is worth more than 325,000.

But funds below 3,000 a year can be passed down without incurring tax and if the child marries, that sum can go up to 5,000.

If the the parent is still working and the money comes out of an income, it is also exempt.

Ruth Jackson, of the website LoveMoney.com, says: Giving your child smaller amounts will help them avoid inheritance tax.
Groundbreaking

21 November 2018

Running Aces Casino & Racetrack will be adding another word to its name: hotel. The official groundbreaking ceremony was held today to celebrate the start of a new 116 room hotel. RAHP, LLC and GrandStay Hospitality, LLC are teaming up to operate the property scheduled to open in early December 2019. Running Aces is working with architectural firm The Cuningham Group and Truline Construction on the development of the hotel.

Taro Ito President/CEO of Running Aces Casino & Racetrack was joined by City and County officials as well as local residents to mark this special event.

Running Aces signed an exclusivity agreement with GrandStay Hospitality, LLC in 2016 and with the addition of Running Aces, there will be 20 GrandStay properties across Minnesota.
Industry Update

Appointment

21 November 2018

Goncalo Monteiro

Appointed General Manager

At Four Seasons Hotel Montreal, Canada

Seasoned hotelier Goncalo Monteiro has been appointed opening General Manager of the all-new Four Seasons Hotel Montreal. He arrives from China, where he was most recently Hotel Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Cotai Strip. Originally joining the family of Four Seasons in his native Lisbon 20 years ago, Goncalo honed his hospitality skills in the food and beverage division across Europe before moving to Asia in 2010, first as Director of Food and Beverage before being promoted to Hotel Manager in 2014.

Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is dedicated to perfecting the travel experience through continual innovation and the highest standards of hospitality. From elegant surroundings of the finest quality, to caring, highly personalised 24-hour service, Four Seasons embodies a true home away from home for those who know and appreciate the best. more information

Recent Appointments at Four Seasons Sean Casserly - Resort Manager 19 November 2021  Sean Casserly joins the team at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole as Resort Manager, trading in city lights for rugged mountain peaks and expansive skylines. Casserly brings more than two decades of Four Seasons experience to his new role, arriving as the property prepares for a bustling winter season across the Resort, The Spa, Westbank Grill, Ascent Lounge and The Handle Bar. read more

Michael White - Chef 16 November 2021  Continuing its tradition of collaborating with the world's best-loved names in food, Lido Restaurant, a storied destination within The Surf Club, also home to Four Seasons Hotel and Residences at The Surf Club, has welcomed Michael White as Chef. read more
Performance

21 November 2018

Hotels in the Asia Pacific region posted positive results across the three key performance metrics during October 2018, according to data from STR.



U.S. dollar constant currency, October 2018 vs. October 2017



Asia Pacific

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Occupancy: +1.6% to 72.5%

Average daily rate (ADR): +1.5% to US$111.68

Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +3.0% to US$80.93

Local currency, October 2018 vs. October 2017

Bali

Occupancy: +18.0% to 75.6%

ADR: +39.0% to IDR1,890,946.89

RevPAR: +64.1% to IDR1,429,016.40

The absolute ADR and RevPAR levels were the highest for any October in STR's Bali database, while the absolute occupancy level was the largest for an October in the market since 2011. STR analysts note that performance was lifted during 8-14 October, when meetings of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group were held.

Phuket

Occupancy: -16.1% to 63.5%

ADR: +0.7% to THB2,985.51

RevPAR: -15.5% to THB1,896.78

The occupancy level was the lowest for an October in the market since 2009, while the absolute ADR and RevPAR levels were the lowest for an October since 2010. The steep year-over-year decrease in occupancy was worsened by comparison with a strong October in 2017. Regardless, Phuket has now seen four consecutive months of RevPAR declines. STR analysts believe this could be due to a decline in group business, along with a softening of tourist numbers from Mainland China, something that other key destinations in Thailand have also seen in recent months.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29-year-old representative-elect of New Yorks 14th Congressional District, has received criticism for her choice to express herself through rap lyrics. The politician, who based part of her campaign on the fact that she grew up within a struggling community, called upon Cardi B's "Best Life" to express how she will continue to represent the people as she enters Congress.







Rick Loomis/Getty Images

Her tweet included the part of the song that deals with authenticity: "Never did I switch, story stayed the same/I did this on my own, I made this a lane."

https://twitter.com/_/status/1064958383760072704



Ocasio-Cortez had previously given details about her upbringing and the challenges she has overcome. She claims to have leveraged this difficult situation, fashioning her experiences into the kind of skills that could help her community now that she is in a position of political power.

My dad died when I was 18, my mom scrubbed toilets + drove drove schoolbuses, I bartended to help her, and still won a Congressional primary at 28. Ill take my family over a fat bank account any day, and my experience makes me a better legislator.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1064932838955515904



Despite the positive message, many social media took offense and were quick to criticize her use of rhythm and poetry as a form of communication. One of them commented on her responsibilities: "You have a civic duty to write intelligibly. You are a Congress person serving the United States of America. You are not just speaking for yourself, you are speaking for Americans. Have an assistent re-read, if necessary."
Fat Joe invited Tekashi 6ix9ine onto his Coca Vision live steam on TIDAL nine months ago, and a warning he gave the rainbow-haired rapper was spot on. In the segment, Fat Joe warns Tekashi that the police will be coming for him. "One million percent, they are plotting on you," he exclaimed in the video. "You got a lot of energy around you, so the question is. Do you want to be successful? Do you want to be the king? Do you want to be rich, do you want to take care of your family? What do you wanna do? 'Cause I gotta tell you, as an OG... one move. They 'gon try to throw you in there. Big time. Do you understand this?" Apparently, Tekashi didn't understand. Check out the interview below at the 8:30 mark.

TMZ caught up with Fat Joe recently, and asked him how it felt to correctly predict how Tekashi would be taken down. "I was just trying to school him," Fat Joe admits. "I been through that, I had the heat on me, you know, I was wilin' in the streets. I tried to tell him as a young kid, it's my job." Fat Joe also reveals that he was with Tekashi just a few weeks ago in Dubai, and the two stayed at the same hotel. It was then that Tekashi told Joe that he felt like he was about to be wrapped up in some criminal charges. It explains why Tekashi fired his entire staff, in an attempt to distance himself from the crew.
Jay Critch's name has been popping up in many circles for a few years, but he only released debut project that finally dropped earlier this month. Hood Favorite confirmed what everyone's been saying about the Brooklyn rapper for a minute: he's the next New York rapper to blow up. Many became familiar with Jay Critch through his association to Rich The Kid who signed the rapper to his label, Rich Forever. Through the label's compilation projects, Critch showed promising signs of becoming the next hottest rapper out of New York City with his efforts on "Rich Forever Intro," "Did It Again" and more. His single "Ego" helped ramp up the anticipation for Hood Favorite and showcased his ability to mesh flow and lyricism together effortlessly. On the latest episode of "On The Come Up," Critch discusses his rise in the rap game, Hood Favorite and more.



Image By HNHH

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"Around 8th grade, freshman year of high school, I started going hard with the music," the 21-year-old rapper tells us about his entrance in the rap game. "When I started recording songs on my friend's computer and just playing them for my friends like people in my neighborhood, and I seen their reaction, that's when it clicked for me, like, I could really do it. That's when I started going hard. Everybody was tellin' me they like my songs, keep going, that it could really turn into something big."

Critch's hometown of Brooklyn has produced some of the most celebrated lyricists in hip-hop such as Biggie and Jay-Z -- two artists he cites as his early influences. His music doesn't necessarily have the "quintessential" New York sound, but he does believe that his sound is leading the way for a new era of hip-hop coming out of New York City.

"I feel like my sound is the new wave of New York," he said. "I make sure [there's] still lyrics and flow to it and people could still turn up and to it. You want it to be enjoyable and not only just straight lyrics, lyrics. So I try to make it a mix of both. I feel like I do that very well."

Critch's unique sound and the buzz he created in Brooklyn is what helped get the attention of Rich The Kid. Critch credits that Rich The Kid for having an ear for "who could pop." Alongside Famous Dex, the three of them formed Rich Forever and their chemistry is undeniable.

"First time we got in the studio, it was just clicking. It was me, Rich and Dex. We made most of Rich Forever 3 tape that same day," he recalled. "Just playing beats, and knocking out songs. The chemistry was just there from the start."

Peep the latest episode of "On The Come Up" with Jay Critch and subscribe to HNHH TV for a new episode, every Wednesday.
Kanye West continues on his venture of giving to those in need with a half a million dollar donation. West has already donated $150,000 to the family of Jemel Roberson. Roberson was killed by police while he was working as a security guard. He stopped an armed gunman with a weapon of his own, but when police showed up, they shot and killed Roberson instead of the gunman. Prior to that, West donated around $200,000 to Chicago Mayoral candidate Amara Enyia.

According to TMZ, Mr. West has donated $500,000 to relief for the massive California wildfires. Their source comes from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which will have Kim Kardashian as a guest on Wednesday. The source from the show says that Kim will be promoting her Glam Bible, but the show will shift to the devastation in California. During this segment, Kim reveals that she and Kanye West wanted to help in any way they could. West used his Yeezy brand to help raise funds, and they came up with $500,000. On the show, Kim will be presenting Ellen with two checks. One $200,000 check to the California Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief Fund, and another $200,000 check to the California Fire Foundation.

That last $100k check will be given to firefighter Michael Williams and his wife who will be on the show as well. They lost their home, but Willaims still saved neighbors' homes and will be caught off guard by the generous contribution.
Delilah is an elegant bar and restaurant in West Hollywood, California. Some of the most famous celebrities breeze in and out of the venue on a regular basis, and Tyga decided to take over Delilah for his 29th birthday. 29 is a big year for everyone because it's perceived as the last year of "youth." Once we hit our thirties, things like going to the club, acting wild at festivals, and living reckless in several regards, becomes abhorrent to others. Nobody wants to be the older guy in the club (except maybe those misplaced older guys in the club). With that in mind, Tyga celebrated his last year of unjudged youth with strippers, alcohol, and a Belly theme.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqaYhUhhJ1s



According to In Touch Weekly, Tyga opted to have Delilah redone in a Belly theme. The famous gangster flick starring Nas and DMX had one of the most memorable movie openings in hood classic history. He transformed the night spot Delilah into the nightclub scene from the gangster movie Belly, an insider told In Touch. We had burlesque dancers from 9-11 and exotic dancers from Crazy Girls from 11pm-2am and a 3D cake of Tyga at the strip club! TMZ got their hands on footage from the party, and it looks like a wild time.
MMA fighter Arnold Berdon, husband of UFC's Rachael Ostovich, has reportedly been arrested on attempted murder charges after he brutally assaulted Ostovich during an argument at their home in Hawaii. According to TMZ Sports, Ostovich was hospitalized over the weekend with serious injuries, including a broken orbital bone, which will force her to miss the biggest bout of her career against Paige VanZant.

Per TMZ:

"Cops in Honolulu opened a domestic violence investigation earlier this week ... and now police officials tell us 27-year-old Arnold Berdon -- Ostovich's husband and father of her child -- was arrested Tuesday evening on suspicion of 2nd degree attempted murder."

According to Hawaii News Now, Ostovich wrote that Berdon punched her repeatedly on the head, face, and ribs during the attack which left her gasping for breath. Also in the temporary restraining order, obtained by Hawaii News Now, Ostovich describes how she had to escape through the balcony and that she coughed up blood and vomited several times.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1065059871861571586



As a result of injuries sustained during the attack, the 27-year old fighter was forced to pull out of her match against Paige VanZant, which was scheduled for the UFCs debut on ESPN+ on January 19. According to MMA site Bloody Elbow, Ostovich is currently 1-1 in the UFC, and 4-4 overall. VanZant, 24, has not fought since she broke her arm in a loss to Jessica Rose-Clark last January.

Berdon, who holds a 7-2 MMA record, is still in custody at the Honolulu Police Department, though a family member told TMZ that he "intends to vigorously dispute in court any allegations he assaulted his wife."
Viral videos are circulating into a storm of speculation about what happened in a Minnesota McDonalds on Monday night, a situation that escalated to the point where a man pulled a gun on a group of high school students.

A group of friends, mostly Somali, were at the library studying when they got hungry and went down the street to McDonalds, where they ordered and tried to pay with the Apple Pay app on their phones. The transactions weren't working and apparently, a guy behind them got annoyed by the holdup and expressed his discontent. Jihan Abdullahi and Amal Mohammed then left the line and tried to figure out what was going on with their phones or if there was another way to pay, when the guy in the camo hood made a comment about them paying with the EBT app. Mohammed says that "Jihan said, 'Just because I'm black does not mean I use EBT.' Basically after that, he was trying to say, 'You do use EBT,' and Jihan was saying, 'No I dont,' and telling him to stop being racist."

The situation escalated to the point where the two had to call over their other friends and the guy was yelling at them and telling them to shut up (note the footwear):

The situation got to the point where he felt justified in pulling a gun on the students, laughing and walking outside. When the group of friends ran away towards the back of the McDonalds to hide from the armed, angry man, an employee of the McDonalds yelled at them to "get the fuck out of my store" and, in response to worries that there was an armed and unstable-looking guy outside, said: "I don't give a fuck." Another employee said that he pulled out a gun "for a reason."

The police are investigating the whole event and the owner of the McDonalds, Paul Ostergaard said that "nothing is more important than the safety and security of our customers and employees." Uh-huh. One other man in the store protested the employee's idea of kicking the kids out and, according to Farida Osman (who uploaded the videos) he saved their skins: "Im so thankful that one man was there. I feel like if he wasnt there, we would have had to leave; they wouldve called the cops on us."

[via]
The suspects in XXXTENTACION's murder case have been maintaining their innocence since they were captured. One of the men accused of killing the South Florida rapper, Dedrick Williams, has been trying his best to prove his innocence by requesting the court for money in order to conduct his own private investigator, which he was granted. Now, he's asking for more money in order to hire experts to testify.



Broward Sheriff's Office via Getty Images

Dedrick Williams has asked the judge for $10K to hire a gang expert and another $20K to hire an A/V forensics expert, The Blast reports. Williams wants to hire an audio and visual forensics expert because he claims "Analysis of said evidence is critical to the Defendants case and his right to due process.

Williams believes the $10K for the gang expert is necessary to retain this expert to investigate and educate his legal team as well as a jury, the manner in which gang affiliation affects this case and any and all defenses available to the defense.

The judge on the case previously granted a motion for Williams to receive $10K for a private investigator to build his defense. He was also granted an additional $20K in order to hire an electronic evidence expert to look into cell phone tower analysis and computer and cell phone forensics.

We'll keep you updated on new developments in XXXTENTACION's case.
If the phones are ringing off the hook at a restaurant, thats usually a welcome thing. But when a good percentage of those calls are for donations, that can become a problem.

Houston restaurateurs are solicited daily for donations for charitable events, ranging from outright donations of food to gift cards to silent-auction wines and chef dinners to full-scale participation in culinary events. Almost always, that money comes directly out of the restaurants pocket.

For a startup that wants to be a good neighbor but is struggling to build a business, charitable giving can be a dicey proposition. Erin and Patrick Feges, the owners of Feges BBQ, which opened at 3 Greenway Plaza in March, made it easy on themselves. Instead of trying to satisfy many requests, they chose to focus their efforts on causes that were dear to their hearts: womens health awareness and military veterans.

Theres so many important causes out there, but we decided wed have a better impact if we focused on womens advocacy and veterans, Erin said. We love puppies. We love children. We love farmers, but its important for us to hone our energies so we can have a greater impact.

Their choices came naturally to them.

Patrick joined the Army in 2004, just out of high school, and was looking forward to a 20-year military career. But his world shifted dramatically  and violently  when on a deployment in Ramadi, Iraq, his base security team was mortared, and shrapnel severed his iliac artery. His military career ended that day in 2004, but while in rehabilitation at a military base in San Antonio, another began. A fellow soldier he met during his recovery gave him a well-used Brinkman barrel smoker  a vertical barbecue pit so small a brisket barely fit. But that smoke chamber set him on a new career course that has come to bring him great notice in Texas barbecue community. Feges BBQ is the culmination of a culinary career that has put him in the kitchens of Underbelly, Brennans, Killens Barbecue and Southern Goods, where he was the restaurants first pitmaster.

The Feges were married in 2016 and since then have teamed to make Feges BBQ a brick-and-mortar reality after years of pop-ups and food festivals.

Erins extensive culinary background includes Per Se and Babbo in New York and Plonk!, the Clumsy Butcher hospitality group and the executive chef position at the JW Marriott Houston Downtown in Houston. In addition to that resume, she has made womens health care her charitable focus. She became involved in the Houston-based Ill Have What Shes Having, founded in 2017, a group that includes women in the culinary and hospitality fields working to support womens health care. A founding member of the organization, Erin now works alongside other powerful women in the Houston culinary community to counter what they consider legislative attacks on womens health and health care initiatives in Texas. Some of the women include Monica Pope of Sparrow Cookshop, Jillian Bartolome of Aqui, Lisa Seger of Blue Heron Farm, Anita Jaisinghani of Pondicheri, Claire Smith of Canopy, Laurie Harvey of State Fare and Karen Man of Public Services.

A lot of it had to do with the 2016 elections, Erin said. Just knowing that the time was changing, and we were facing new challenges on how our government views womens health and the cost of womens health. If we dont start doing something now and talking about it now, it might be too late.

To date, Ill Have What Shes Having has had events to benefit Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Legacy Community Health, six pop-up events, and their biggest event, the $500-a-plate Charitable Feast in April that brought out the biggest womens names in food and wine in Houston.

The Fegeses support each others causes, too. In early November, they judged a chili competition for the Lone Star Veterans Association. They also cooked a whole hog (Patricks specialty) for a fundraiser at Heights neo-icehouse Eight Row Flint; that hog was purchased at an auction that helped raise $160,000 at an Ill Have What Shes Having gala in April.

Patrick has worked at barbecue events such as Eat for a Cause to benefit Houstons homeless veterans. He also volunteers for Lone Star Veterans, an organization that provides military veterans with community building and networking, and Impact a Hero, dedicated to supporting wounded combat veterans and their families. There are more than 300,000 veterans in the Greater Houston area according to the Veterans Affairs Office for the city of Houston.

Patrick said veterans causes will always be close to his heart. I know what these people have gone through because I know what Ive gone through, he said.

And at Feges BBQ, veterans have a standing discount. Its just one way, Patrick said, that he can acknowledge veterans and give back.

greg.morago@chron.com

twitter.com/gregmorago
So much of the good stuff in Sean Becks life traces back to his early childhood in rural Iowa, where he had the privilege of taking for granted, he recalls, fresh eggs, fresh meat and fresh produce.

It gave Beck his appreciation for good food, and he eventually segued into pairing it with fine wines and, eventually, a career in serving the same. Then, about 13 years ago, along came the Iron Sommelier competition, a fun event created for those who sell wine in Houston restaurants or private clubs to show off their knowledge, passion and, most importantly, to help raise money for the Periwinkle Foundation.

The personable Beck, who had become the wine buyer and wine-list curator for Backstreet Cafe, was among the first to sign up. He proved to be good at it  so good, in fact, that he won the first three competitions, spread over six years, helping make the event successful enough that it began to be held annually and had to move to a larger venue, now The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa. Along the way, he acquired more than a cursory interest in what Periwinkle does with the cash the festive Iron Somm evening brings in.

The total for 2018 was a record $320,000, and $2.3 million has been raised since 2005. Tickets, priced at $250, sold out quickly for the competition on Nov. 8. So did the hefty underwriter sponsorships. And local sommeliers now clamor to be in the mix, each picking three themed wines, then pitching himself or herself as the smartest wine person in the room. Many bring elaborate photo presentations. Some have gone so far as to have vineyard soil samples shipped in.

More Information To donate to the Periwinkle Foundation, visit periwinklefoundation.org. For more information on Iron Sommelier, visit ironsommelier.org. See More Collapse

Other wine professionals volunteer their time to do the judging, while attending guests get to pick the Peoples Choice champion.

Having retired undefeated, Beck coordinates the competition rather than competing. The father of a young child himself, he has also become an active participant in the Periwinkle camps that let children who are battling cancer and other serious diseases escape their hospital rooms and get out in the fresh air, where they can be normal kids. Importantly, siblings are welcome, too. Sickness is, of course, always a shared burden in families.

Angie Changs half-brother Andrew is a cancer survivor and former Periwinkle camper. She remembers attending camps with him  she was 13 when he was diagnosed at the age of 3  and seeing how he profited from the experience. Fittingly, Chang, a veteran of the Houston wine scene herself, has become a manager/floor sommelier for Beck at Backstreet Cafe. And while working at Yauatcha last year, she earned 2017 Iron Sommelier runner-up honors.

The Periwinkle Foundation develops and provides programs that positively change the lives of children and young adults who are challenged by cancer and other life-threatening illnesses and are cared for at at Texas Childrens Cancer Center and Hematology Centers.

No matter what Periwinkle would ever ask me to do, Ill do, Chang said. They were very impactful on Andrews recovery, on his life. There are many good memories from those camps.

Fully recovered from his childhood ordeal, hes working in the restaurant business, as well.

In Iowa, Beck recalled, I was able to grow up in the outdoors, doing all the crazy stuff kids do  climbing trees, playing games, being a Boy Scout. Ive got wonderful memories of all that, so I can imagine what it must be like for these sick children, who have spent a considerable amount of their young lives in hospitals, being tested, being poked and prodded, to experience the unbridled joy of feeling like an actual kid for a week.

They get to bond with other kids dealing with the same things they are, and not have to be identified as being strange or different because of what theyre going through. I find the children to be just like me. Theyre enthusiastic, unbridled, and they dont censor themselves. Being able to do something that benefits them and is also tied to wine, theres no downside. Its fantastic.

The signature program for more than 30 years has been Camp Periwinkle, a weeklong adventure held at the Camp For All Facility in Burton, near Brenham. Activities include swimming, horseback riding, archery, arts and crafts, nature discovery, fishing, swimming and a variety of sports. On Friday during the camp, Beck pitches in as the Sundae Sommelier  subbing a wide variety of ice creams for wine varietals.

Its the best day, he said. Youll get to see every kid. Youll see survivors you knew from years ago and their families. The doctors and nurses working the event are such amazing, sweet people. The restaurant business is hard and its easy to get jaded.

Camp Periwinkle quickly un-jades him.

Its amazing for their psyches, Beck said. But Ill be honest. Its a selfish thing, too. It feels good. I get a huge kick out of being there.

dale.robertson@chron.com

twitter.com/sportywineguy
The Houston restaurant industry is well versed in taking care of its own. When waiters, bartenders and chefs fall on hard times, there is typically a pop-up dinner, barbecue or bake sale for financial support.

So when chef Chris Shepherd learned that his friend, sommelier Antonio Gianola, had multiple sclerosis, he stepped into action, organizing a fundraiser set for fall 2015. The initial plans were for a wine dinner at Shepherds now-closed Underbelly restaurant. But things escalated, and the intimate dinner blossomed into a full-fledged, live-fire culinary event called Southern Smoke.

Suddenly streets were getting blocked off, and there was a stage and lighting and a lot more, Shepherd said, recalling the first year.

A lot more is quite an understatement. The James Beard Award-winning chef asked some of his industry friends  who happen to be some of the nations biggest names in barbecue and Southern foodways  to participate. They all said yes, including brisket king Aaron Franklin of Austin, plus whole-hog maestro Rodney Scott and chef Sean Brock, both of South Carolina. That first Southern Smoke in October 2015 turned the parking lots of Underbelly, the Hay Merchant bar and Blacksmith coffee shop into a block party where Houston foodies ate and drank their way through superstar-chef food, wine, beer and cocktails. It raised $181,000 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Energized by the outpouring of support, Shepherd and his team vowed to make Southern Smoke an annual to-do that has grown each year in both attendance and money raised. The 2018 event in September brought in $425,000. To date, Southern Smoke has raised more than $1.3 million.

More Information To donate to Southern Smoke - or if you're a hospitality-industry worker who wants to apply for aid - visit southernsmoke.org. See More Collapse

I cant raise $100,000 myself. I cant donate that myself, Shepherd said. We do it by the way we know how  by cooking and throwing a party and having a good time.

That good time continues to attract formidable volunteer efforts from near and far. Top Houston chefs  Hugo Ortega, Justin Yu, Ryan Pera, Manabu Horiuchi and Brandi Key among them  are involved year after year; famed restaurateur and star of Nexflixs Ugly Delicious David Chang added star power in 2017.

James Beard Award winner Edouardo Jordan, chef of JuneBaby and Salare restaurants in Seattle, said coming to the 2018 iteration was an easy decision: Its part of my ethos to give back and help the community. I know Chris and know what hes doing.

James Beard-honored chef Chris Bianco, considered the countrys finest pizza maker, also flew in this year. It took me almost no seconds to say Ill be there, Bianco said. We can all do something, we can all give something. The world needs a lot of things right now. Its great to know the money is going to people who need it.

Southern Smokes donations still include the MS Society but have expanded to other organizations such as Legacy Community Health, the Gulf Seafood Foundation, Hurricane Harvey relief efforts and its own foundation, Southern Smoke Emergency Relief Fund, which assists food-and-beverage-industry professionals in need.

Pitmaster Billy Durney of Hometown Bar B Que in New York, whose own restaurant was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, said one of the reasons he signed up for 2018 Southern Smoke was to learn how to put on fundraising events at that scale. He said he wants to help grow Southern Smoke and create other events with his barbecue brethren that give back to the community.

In our industry, theres nobody who does it better than Chris, Durney said.

Shepherd said the parking lot was still being cleaned the morning after the event in September when he got a call from the mother of a man in the Houston restaurant community who had a life-threatening illness. The mans insurance was maxed out  could they help? The Southern Smoke Emergency Relief Fund cut a check for $98,000 that day.

It brought tears to a lot of people here, Shepherd said. This is something we keep doing because theres a lot of need out there.

Shepherd says he remains astonished by the amount his event has raised. And that an idea for a fundraising dinner turned into one of Houstons biggest culinary events.

I know it sounds corny, but I keep telling everyone if youre not willing to stand on the edge of the water and jam your foot into it to make a wave, then the wave never starts, he said. You have to start somewhere.

greg.morago@chron.com

twitter.com/gregmorago
Everywhere inside Valerie Tolmans home in Missouri City are signs that she has a big heart.

There are family photos, including two biological and two adopted children who are all now grown, her two rescue dogs, Ivy and Ellie, are close by and, in an upstairs bedroom, are four kittens shes fostering.

Her love of animals and passion for helping strays find homes earned her the Missouri City Volunteer of the Year award in 2017.

Tolman, a former newspaper reporter and software-industry analyst, started the volunteer program at the Missouri City Animal Shelter in 2014 after she retired. The shelter had a high kill rate (70 percent for dogs, 98 percent for cats), and with Tolmans efforts, the euthanasia rate for dogs dropped to 23 percent and 64 percent for cats. She later formed Friends of Missouri City Animal Shelter, a nonprofit to expand the groups efforts to keep animals healthy, alive and adoptable. The organization spent more than $40,000 annually on veterinarian bills for the animals.

I like living things, and it breaks my heart to think something is suffering  animals or humans, Tolman said.

She even challenged city officials about the lack of funding for the shelter, and volunteers encouraged the public to complain in letters and emails to the City Council. Eventually, the council budgeted $250,000 for the shelter.

I fought city hall and won, she said. The animals are in such better shape. Im proud of that.

Prior to her work with the shelter, Tolman fostered wild animals, like racoons, squirrels and small mammals, through the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition for 15 years.

But shes most proud of her efforts to send high students from low-income families to college.

She and husband Davis Tolman, a retired petroleum geologist, started a scholarship for first-generation college students in 2001. The first year, they sent three high school seniors to college using their own funds. The second year, they engaged their church to help, and the congregation joined their efforts to send four students to college that year.

Tolman said 51 students have received full tuition, including books, through the program, which pays for community college for the first two years, then two years at a four-year college or university.

Although the graduation rate for the scholarship recipients is 54 percent, Tolman said all of the students tend to fare better in life simply because they attended college. Most of the students are the first in their families to go to college.

It has a ripple effect, and even though some may not finish, there is a feeling that anything is possible, she said. We now have nurses, teachers and engineers because of this program.

joy.sewing@chron.com
WASHINGTON - Top lawmakers are considering a taxpayer-funded bailout for retirees who are members of certain failing pension plans, scrambling to solve a retirement crisis that threatens more than 1 million Americans.

A draft of the plan, obtained by The Washington Post, would direct the Treasury Department to spend up to $3 billion annually to subsidize payments for retirees from certain underfunded pensions.

FOREIGN POWER: Canadian pension fund buys stake in BridgeTex pipeline

The retirement programs are called "multiemployer" pensions, as workers from multiple companies pay into the same retirement benefit program. But many of these pensions lack the financial assets to cover the benefits they have promised retired workers, leading to a panic from retirees who were counting on the funds. These pensions have often been plagued by mismanagement, inaccurate economic projections, and in some cases corporate bankruptcies.

In many cases, the companies these pensioners used to work for no longer exist or no longer participate in the retirement plan.

The federal bailout is one of multiple proposals being considered by a special congressional committee tasked with addressing the pension crisis. The committee has a Nov. 30 deadline to submit a proposed solution, and aides cautioned that negotiations were extremely fluid and that there is a risk talks will unravel.

The aide said the plan reviewed by the Post was one option under consideration and did not represent a final deal.

Negotiators are considering a number of other potential changes to try and shore up multiemployer pension plans, including new fees paid by union members and companies as well as higher premiums levied on pensions, according to the draft reviewed by the Post.

The committee, led by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, was created earlier this year and charged with producing a plan by the end of this month that could be presented to the full House and Senate for passage.

"The hard-working men and women who are counting on this committee deserve a solution, and Chairman Hatch and I continue to negotiate with other members of the committee to reach a bipartisan agreement," Brown said in a statement Tuesday.

Nicole Hager, spokeswoman for Hatch, said: "Joint Select Committee members are continuing to work in good faith to reach a bipartisan agreement before their Nov. 30 deadline. Members understand that the longer the problems facing the multiemployer system are allowed to continue, the more challenging and expensive they are to solve."

White House officials have been briefed on the status of talks but they have not expressed whether they would support the deal if it is finalized. A Treasury Department spokesman didn't have an immediate comment on the plan.

Lawmakers have for years resisted using taxpayer money to backstop failing pension plans, believing that this would lead to a backlash from voters and also create an expectation that the government will intervene whenever help is needed.

But the dire financial condition of many of these multiemployer plans has forced lawmakers to consider such a move as part of a broader package of changes. A growing number of multiemployer plans are now severely underfunded, and the issue gets worse every year as more people retire and seek benefits they believe they were promised.

Lawmakers from both parties, under pressure from many retired constituents and business groups, have expressed alarm that hundreds of thousands of older Americans could soon see their retirement savings plans vanish or become severely depleted because the pensions were mismanaged or underfunded.

Many people in these pension plans, such as retired truck drivers, grocery store clerks, and delivery workers, were employed by companies that went out of business. And many of these multiemployer pensions were underfunded, meaning they anticipated higher returns and lower payouts than what occurred. As problems worsened, taxpayer assistance was seen by many experts as inevitable.

"We bailed out Wall Street in 2008 and 2009," said Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed to a top role at the Treasury Department in 2015 working on problems with multiemployer pension plans. "Bailouts have occurred before."

The PBGC was created by Congress to provide a financial backstop for pension plans, but the PBGC's program to insure multiemployer plans is severely underfunded. It had $67.3 billion in liabilities as of last year and just $2.3 billion in assets. The entire fund is projected to run out of money by 2025, though the agency said "there is considerable risk that it could run out before then."

Last year, the PBGC provided $141 million in assistance to 72 insolvent multiemployer plans, and there are a number of others that are listed as "critical" and likely to soon become insolvent.

Lawmakers have been particularly alarmed about one faltering plan called Central States Teamsters, which has 400,000 participants and whose members include retired truck drivers, among others.

Once that happens, the PBGC would only be able to pay a "small fraction" of the pension benefits that retirees were expecting, the agency said last year. Because PBGC was created by Congress for the purpose of protecting pensions, some experts believe that emergency government assistance was always anticipated.

"When the [expletive] hits the fan and people's livelihoods will be lost, government has always stepped up to back its own creations," said Joshua Gotbaum, who served as director of the PBGC from 2010 until 2014.

The proposal under consideration would protect payments for beneficiaries in Central States and other failing plans by drawing on taxpayer funds and also by significantly boosting fees on workers and retirees in healthy pension plans. That approach could emerge as a roadblock for certain Democrats and for some outside groups representing pension plans that don't want to pay additional fees.

The proposal could shift up to $90 billion in additional liabilities to the PBGC, creating major new responsibilities for the agency, according to an analysis by some outside stakeholders.

The special congressional pensions committee was proposed by Brown earlier this year after he was unsuccessful in getting Congress to act on the solution embraced by Democrats, which would create a Treasury Department loan program for pension plans to borrow from.

There are basically two types of private-employer pensions, those that are run by individual companies and those that multiple companies participate in as a way to spread the membership and risk. A number of multiemployer plans are in extreme financial turmoil because they are underfunded and a shrinking number of members is responsible for paying the benefits of a rising number of retirees.

The PBGC was created in 1974 as a backstop for pension plans, but Congress has resisted extending taxpayer money to subsidize benefits up to this point.

There are more than 1 million Americans who participate in severely distressed multiemployer pensions, and another 9 million who are in healthier programs that could be impacted by changes.

Fights over the fate of multiemployer pension plans can be very divisive, pitting workers and companies against each other even when neither group did anything to cause the financial problems.

Earlier this year, the Post chronicled a messy fight between Just Born Quality Confections and its union workforce. Just Born is a Pennsylvania company that makes Peeps candy, and it was trying to change its union contract in a way that allowed it to direct new workers towards a 401(k) plan and not allow them to participate in the faltering multiemployer pension.

That multiemployer pension faced severe financial constraints because of the bankruptcy of Hostess Brands several years earlier.

Because that bankruptcy, Just Born was required to make additional payments to the pension, even though it had nothing to do with the other company's mistakes. A federal judge ultimately intervened, ruling Just Born could not unilaterally block new workers from being members of the pension.
As the holiday eating season is upon us, many adventurous amateur chefs will be trying their hand at deep frying their own turkeys at home.

This week Chron.com visited General Manager Zach West in the kitchen of Razoo's Cajun Cafe in Pasadena to get some tips on how to deep fry the bird without deep frying yourself.

Check out the video below to learn more about frying a bird at home...

Now Playing: Learn more about deep frying your holiday bird from an expert. Video: Julie Takahashi, Houston Chronicle

West and his kitchen team have already prepared 40 fried turkeys marinated with a Cajun rub for guests this season, fried in soy bean oil, all ready to be picked up and reheated at home. He did have some rules of thumb for those who are looking to deep fry it home.

JUST SAY NO: People in US, Canada warned to not eat romaine lettuce

"For one, have a fire extinguisher handy," he told Chron.com on Tuesday. "Also wear gloves and protective eye gear. You don't want to get hot oil in your eyes. It's not a good thing."

As West explains in the video it's best to always make sure the bird is entirely thawed out before placing it in the fryer. Excess moisture should also be patted off the turkey. Water interacting with the hot oil is a recipe for trouble. There is no preferred oil to use.

"The oil doesn't impact the taste," West said. "Most people use canola or peanut oil."

The fryer, he adds, should be in a well-ventilated outdoor setting with a fire extinguisher nearby in case of an accident. Low-hanging obstacles can also cause trouble. Keeping kids and pets away from the process is ideal as there is a risk of injury for small creatures near blazing hot oil.

ASTROS WONDERLAND: Houston Astros host their own Nutcracker Market-inspired holiday event

West also noted that the turkey will not fry correctly if there is stuffing inside it. It would complicate the frying process and with potentially some hungry people at your house waiting for their tryptophan fix, there is no room for delays.

Julie Takahashi

It typically takes under an hour to completely fry the bird, West said. In the Razoo's kitchen he showed as how his team fries their birds which is a little different than what many people use at home.

THE BEST PART OF THE HOLIDAYS: Three recipes to try with leftover Thanksgiving turkey

Why are we so enamored with fried turkeys?

"They just taste better," West said. "The complaint about turkeys baked in the oven is that they are so dry. And let's be honest, frying makes everything better."

He's not wrong.

As for the oil that is left over, West said that folks at home should give it a few hours to cool down before being disposed of properly.

"Don't pour down a drain or in your grass," he warned.

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
Rep.-elect Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said Monday that the lawmaker she is succeeding in the House, Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas, should run for president in 2020.

O'Rourke narrowly lost in his bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the midterm elections. But O'Rourke's campaign electrified Democrats in Texas and the country, with the progressive three-term congressman stoking speculation of national aspirations and amassing a $70 million war chest.

In an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Escobar said she asked O'Rourke about his plans over dinner while she was in Washington for freshman orientation. She said O'Rourke's immediate plans are to spend time with his family in Texas.

"I think he should run. I really do," Escobar said, calling O'Rourke the kind of "credible public servant that our country has been longing for."

O'Rourke had previously pledged not to run for any office within the next six years if he won election to the Senate.

While O'Rourke came up short against Cruz, Escobar credited him with running a largely positive campaign that she said "fired up" voters who had previously felt shut out of the process.

"We owe such a debt of gratitude to Beto . . . He does it in a beautiful, genuine way that really touches people, and I think that's what our country needs right now," Escobar said.

Several top Democratic donors and potential staffers are awaiting word of O'Rourke's 2020 plans before making a decision on signing up with any of the other potential campaigns, Politico reported Monday.

O'Rourke "should run . . . He's Barack Obama, but white," one Democratic bundler was quoted as saying.
An emergency room physician in Rhode Island said one of her own had been "murdered" and vowed to fight.

A Baltimore trauma surgeon proclaimed that "Gun Violence is not just a statistic," and named the police officer, physician and pharmacy resident who were killed Monday at Mercy Hospital & Medical Center in Chicago.

REPEAT: After school shootings, NRA pins blame on familiar list

Physicians and nurses from Atlanta and Chicago to New York and Washington and even abroad expressed anger and anguish after another instance of gun violence - one that an emergency physician said "hits too close to home."

They called out the National Rifle Association for having told them to "stay in their lane." They called on colleagues to speak out about gun violence. "No one should have to fear for their life in a hospital (or anywhere) because of guns," one physician tweeted.

Another asked: "Are you really still asking if @ThisIsOurLane?"

"Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing, not death. Schools are supposed to be places of learning, not death. Churches are supposed to be places of worship, not death," Eugene Gu, a surgeon and scientist, tweeted late Monday, following the deadly shooting at the hospital in Chicago. "Our country is supposed to be the United States of America, not a war torn battlefield. Of death."

The calls to action come after the NRA told doctors to "stay in their lane" earlier this month, suggesting that gun policy is the NRA's domain. It sparked a backlash from medical professionals across the United States and abroad, voicing their disdain on social media with the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane.

The Chicago shooting further fueled the flames, prompting medical professionals to voice their opinions.

As The Washington Post's Frances Stead Sellers reported:

The NRA tweet was spurred by a position paper from the American College of Physicians posted on Oct. 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 such 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 Rights," the paper said.

The NRA lashed out, first with a Nov. 2 editorial saying that 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 Nov. 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."

The Annals of Internal Medicine responded in kind.

In an editorial published Tuesday in the prominent academic medical journal, physicians said that the NRA "does not believe firearm-related injury and its prevention is within the purview of physicians."

"We could not disagree more," they wrote.

"If you are unconvinced and need examples of why firearms are a health issue, here are a few. People with accidental gun-related injury nearly always require acute medical care, and many go on to have chronic injury-related health issues. Almost 40 percent of individuals who commit suicide are seen by their primary care provider within the preceding month. Firearms are a frequent and very effective means of suicide. Thus, talking with patients at risk for suicide about their access to firearms is clearly 'in our lane.' "

The editorial also stated that physicians and nurses are responsible for performing surgeries to try to save the lives of victims in such situations, and informing the families when they still die.

"These responsibilities are not only in doctors' lane, they are our job," the physicians wrote. "Consequently, so is advocating for policies that reduce firearm injury and conducting research to better inform policies to keep our patients safer."

The NRA did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post.

After the Chicago shooting, the medical community returned to Twitter, extending prayers and pledging to fight. The victims were identified as Chicago Police Officer Samuel Jimenez; an emergency room doctor Tamara O'Neal; and a first-year pharmacy resident, Dayna Less, according to the Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.

It is unclear whether Trump read McGahns memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Clinton and Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the FBI director, Christopher Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.

More for you Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke remains defiant amid ethics probes

A White House spokesman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the presidents criticism of Wray, whom he appointed last year after firing Comey.

Mr. McGahn will not comment on his legal advice to the president, said McGahns lawyer, William Burck. Like any client, the president is entitled to confidentiality. Mr. McGahn would point out, though, that the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey.

It is not clear which accusations Trump wanted prosecutors to pursue. He has accused Comey, without evidence, of illegally having classified information shared with The New York Times in a memo that Comey wrote about his interactions with the president. The document contained no classified information.

Trumps lawyers also privately asked the Justice Department last year to investigate Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and for his role in the Clinton email investigation. Law enforcement officials declined their requests. Comey is a witness against the president in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Trump has grown frustrated with Wray for what the president sees as his failure to investigate Clintons role in the Obama administrations decision to allow the Russian nuclear agency to buy a uranium mining company. Conservatives have long pointed to donations to the Clinton family foundation by people associated with the company, Uranium One, as proof of corruption. But no evidence has emerged that those donations influenced the U.S. approval of the deal.

In his conversation with McGahn, the president asked what stopped him from ordering the Justice Department to investigate Comey and Clinton, the two people familiar with the conversation said. He did have the authority to ask the Justice Department to investigate, McGahn said, but warned that making such a request could create a series of problems.

McGahn promised to write a memo outlining the presidents authorities. In the days that followed, lawyers in the White House counsels office wrote a several-page document in which they strongly cautioned Trump against asking the Justice Department to investigate anyone.

The lawyers laid out a series of consequences. For starters, Justice Department lawyers could refuse to follow Trumps orders even before an investigation began, setting off another political firestorm.

If charges were brought, judges could dismiss them. And Congress, they added, could investigate the presidents role in a prosecution and begin impeachment proceedings.

Ultimately, the lawyers warned, Trump could be voted out of office if voters believed he had abused his power.

Trumps frustrations about Comey and Clinton were a recurring refrain, a former White House official said. Why arent they going after them? the president would ask of Justice Department officials.

For decades, White House aides have routinely sought to shield presidents from decisions related to criminal cases or even from talking about them publicly. Presidential meddling could undermine the legitimacy of prosecutions by attaching political overtones to investigations in which career law enforcement officials followed the evidence and the law.

Perhaps more than any president since Richard Nixon, Trump has been accused of trying to exploit his authority over law enforcement. Witnesses have told the special counsels investigators about how Trump tried to end an investigation into an aide, install loyalists to oversee the inquiry into his campaign and fire Mueller.

In addition, Trump has attacked the integrity of Justice Department officials, claiming they are on a witch hunt to bring him down.

More significant, Mueller is investigating whether the president tried to impede his investigation into whether any Trump associates conspired with Russias campaign to sow discord among the U.S. electorate during the 2016 presidential race.

Trump stoked his enmity for Clinton during the campaign, suggesting during a presidential debate that he would prosecute her if he was elected president. If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, Trump said.

Its just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country, Clinton replied.

Because you would be in jail, Trump shot back.

During the presidential race, Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney, also said he would have indicted Clinton, contradicting Comeys highly unusual public announcement that he would recommend the Justice Department not charge her over her handling of classified information while secretary of state.

When the facts and evidence show a criminal violation has been committed, the individuals involved should not dictate whether the case is prosecuted, Whitaker wrote in an op-ed in USA Today in July 2016.

Two weeks after his surprise victory, Trump backed off. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont, Trump said in an interview with The Times. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.

Nonetheless, he revisited the idea both publicly and privately after taking office. Some of his more vocal supporters stirred his anger, including Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro, who has railed repeatedly on her weekly show that the president is being ill-served by the Justice Department.

Pirro told Trump in the Oval Office last November that the Justice Department should appoint a special counsel to investigate the Uranium One deal, two people briefed on the discussion have said. During that meeting, the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, told Pirro she was inflaming an already-vexed president, the people said.

Shortly after, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote to lawmakers, partly at the urging of the presidents allies in the House, to inform them that federal prosecutors in Utah were examining whether to appoint a special counsel to investigate Clinton. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney for Utah declined to comment Tuesday on the status of the investigation.

Trump once called his distance from law enforcement one of the saddest parts of being president.

I look at whats happening with the Justice Department, he said in a radio interview a year ago. Well, why arent they going after Hillary Clinton and her emails and with her, the dossier? He added: I am not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
Dr. Ed Young, the founder and senior pastor of Houstons Second Baptist Church, has every right to express his personal political views.

If hes going to do so, though, he should take care to get his facts straight. Thats good advice for anyone, of course. But Young is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention in addition to being the senior pastor of Second Baptist, which is one of the largest churches in the state.

He has a bigger platform than most people. And Youngs audience includes a number of Republican leaders like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick who might look to him for guidance.

Yet on election night, Young gave his followers bad information during an off-the-cuff speech at a watch party for outgoing GOP Rep. John Culberson, who represents Texass 7th Congressional District in western Harris County.

Culbersons supporters must have been dispirited at the time. The voters of the district, which was once represented by George H.W. Bush, had just elected a Democrat, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, by a five-point margin.

Read more: Lizzie Pannill Fletcher looks to legislate the way she wonin moderation

So its no surprise that Young was asked to say a few words after Culberson gave his concession speech. But its a shame that rather than offering any wisdom or counsel, Young chose to attack the Democratic Party.

Its no longer a party. Its some kind of religion that is basically godless, Young said.

And as long as America  this is represented by every Democrat I know  does not believe in the sacredness of the life in the mothers womb, God will not bless America or make us a great nation, he continued.

Its possible that Young simply needs to meet some more Democrats. There are some Americans on the left who engage in political debates with idolatrous fervor. There are also some Americans like that on the right. And most of us see things with a bit more nuance, I think.

In fact, Culbersons constituents are demonstrably capable of evaluating candidates on an individual basis, regardless of their own partisanship.

We know that because the 7th Congressional District overlaps with Texas House District 134, where Republican Sarah Davis won her bid for re-election, despite a challenge from Democrat Allison Lami Sawyer.

Fletcher won 56 percent of the vote in the precincts shared by both districts, whereas Davis won 58 percent.

Opinion: Texas Pastor Ed Young splits America right down the church aisle

And its worth noting, in this context, that Democrats  as a group  are actually much more religious than pundits perceive them to be.

In a 2014 study from the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters described religion as very important in their life. The same was true of 51 percent of independent voters who participated in the study, and 47 percent of those who tend to favor Democrats.

In other words, its simply not the case that Democrats are godless, as Young put it.

The Democratic Partys coalition includes a large number of secular progressives; thats true enough. Its also true that most white evangelical Christians vote Republicaneven when the Republican Party nominates someone who doesnt seem to share their values, like Donald Trump.

According to NBCs exit polls, three-quarters of white evangelical Christians favored Republican candidates in this years midterms. By contrast, 70 percent of religiously unaffiliated voters opted for Democrats.

But neither group is a majority, even within their own party. In fact, religious nones made up just 17 percent of the electorate. White evangelicals made up 26 percent. Another 26 percent of the electorate was Catholic  and Catholic voters narrowly favored Democrats.

Grieder: Billy Graham deserves the honors he was too humble to accept

None of Americas religious groups are entitled to disproportionate influence over public life, of course. A foundational principle of this country is the separation of church and state. And political leaders shouldnt try to leverage faith for partisan purposes, in any case.

Still, such data offer an interesting way of looking at the American electorate, which is more heterogeneous than partisans often insist.

Young might see the Democratic Party as godless, but he was wrong to make that assertion on election night. Its one thing to disagree with Americans on the other side of the aisle, but partisans who mischaracterize each other in such broad strokes arent acting in good faith.

And religious leaders who do so are missing an opportunity to provide their followers with the guidance they might need.
A necklace found at the scene of a fatal shooting earlier this month in the Braeswood area led investigators to a Dickinson man now charged with capital murder.

Wilfred Boudine, 25, is accused of killing 63-year-old Anthony Anderson as he walked down the street in the 3700 block of Wood Valley, near Stella Link and the South Loop.

A witness told police that at 11 a.m. on Nov. 2, Anderson and another person were arguing in a driveway of a vacant property before Anderson started walking away. The other person then pointed a pistol and fired multiple shots at Anderson, who continued walking down the street, according to charging documents.

GANG-THREAT WARNING: Mother says her son was threatened before he was killed

The other person, later identified as Boudine, then got in Andersons 2013 silver Toyota Corolla, pulled up next to Anderson and shot him two more times before fleeing, the witness told police.

Anderson had multiple gunshot wounds and was taken to Ben Taub Hospital, where he died.

Two days later, Texas City police conducted a traffic stop on the stolen vehicle, and Boudine was arrested and charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to Galveston County arrest records.

During a questioning, Boudine told a Houston Police Department investigator that he bought the car on Nov. 2 and that he wasnt aware of a murder, the charging documents show. He said he bought the car from a man at a gas station in Dickinson, but the investigator found no video evidence that that occurred, police said.

The investigator later found a photo on Boudines girlfriends Facebook page, showing Boudine wearing a necklace that matched one found at the scene of the killing.

Boudines sister told police that she saw her brother at a friends house with the Corolla and a pistol, trying to get new paper tags for the car. She also said shed seen her brother wearing that necklace.

On Nov. 13, Boudine told investigators that he and another friend met Anderson at a gas station and were going to get him drugs in exchange for letting them use his car for the weekend, police said.

The three of them ended up at Wood Valley, Boudine told police. He blamed the shooting on the other friend who was allegedly in the car, but said he drove the stolen vehicle away, according to the charging documents. The witness who saw the shooting said the person driving the car shot Anderson, however, and Boudine was identified as the suspect.

Police said its believed that Boudine also stole Andersons cell phone.

Houston police said Boudine is in custody.

This story has been updated to reflect that the shooting took place in the Braeswood area.

NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
When the menudo starts cooking and family members hunt for authentic tamales, the only thing missing from your Tex-Mex Christmas celebration is a Selena-themed Christmas sweater.

The "Queen Feliz Navidad Ugly Christmas Sweater" by California-based company Magic Mood Art has already sold out once. According to Channel 13, they just restocked the product, which is available for $35 in sizes small to 2XL on their website.
Aunt Carol's green bean casserole may be delicious, but it's not worth booking it down Interstate 45 to get out of town for Thanksgiving, especially when police may be lurking nearby.

At least nine speed traps have been reported in the city of Houston in the last year on speedtrap.org, a website monitored by the National Motorists Association. An additional 45 speed traps have been pinpointed across the state of Texas.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella

Beyonce fans had a field day on social media this week after Houston rapper Paul Wall suggested Travis Scott was the city's most successful musician.

"There's never been somebody of Travis' caliber to come out of Houston," Wall told Complex Music on Monday. "There have been successful mainstream music acts that represented Houston, but not as successful and for as long as Travis, by any means."
HPD

The Houston Police Department is thanking a local company for putting together a Thanksgiving meal for its officers and cadets.

Speaking at the "Banquet for Badges," Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said he was grateful to Aggreko for organizing the event as a way to show thanks to the future and current members of the Houston Police Department.
TX DPS

A Houston mother whose 2-year-old daughter allegedly ingested prescription drugs and cocaine has missed her scheduled court date, according to local media reports.

Brenda Monsarret-Lopez, 25, was charged with endangering a child in October after her daughter was rushed to the emergency room twice in a three-month period for ingesting Clonidine, a prescription medication often used to treat ADHD.
This summer, Arkansas became the first state to require poor people to prove theyre employed to receive Medicaid.

Critics say the state is trying to save money on the backs of the poor. Thats nonsense, Arkansas officials reply. They want to help the poor. Backed by the Trump administration, they are inspiring slackers and moochers to climb the economic ladder.

Thirteen other states are pursuing similar policies. Theyd do well to pause their plans. For many low-income families, the Arkansas experiment has already proved disastrous. More than 12,000 have been purged from the state Medicaid rolls since September  and not necessarily because theyre actually failing to work 80 hours a month, as the state requires.

Consider Adrian McGonigal, who is challenging the policy in federal court.

McGonigal, like most non-disabled, nonelderly Medicaid recipients, had a job. Full time, too, at a chicken plant. The plants chemicals sometimes aggravated his COPD, a chronic lung disease, but his employer accommodated the condition by moving him from processing to shipping.

More important, McGonigals prescription medication  funded by the states Medicaid expansion, since his job didnt come with health insurance  kept his symptoms in check.

McGonigal was unclear about what he needed to do to report his work hours, or if he had to report at all. The new policy applies only to Medicaid expansion enrollees, but even most people in that group dont have to frequently check in with the state (because of age, disability, state already has work information on file, etc.). Like many I spoke with, McGonigal says he got confusing and sometimes conflicting information from the states Department of Human Services, which told him to report online. He doesnt have a cellphone or computer, so he borrowed his sister-in-laws smartphone.

I thought that everything was good, he told me in an interview for The Washington Post and PBS NewsHour. I thought it was just a one-time deal that you reported it, and then that was it.

It wasnt.

The state wanted him to report monthly. He learned this only when his pharmacy told him his insurance had been canceled. After that, he couldnt afford his medication. His COPD flared up, and he landed in the emergency room. And he missed lots of work.

I tried to stick it out, and still go to work, but I just couldnt do it, he said. Ultimately, reluctantly, his supervisor let him go.

In other words: A policy intended to help people get jobs instead cost McGonigal his.

This was predictable. A Hamilton Project report found that the preponderance of evidence suggests Medicaid has little or positive effects on labor-force supply. For many families, safety-net services support work, rather than discourage it.

There are other reasons programs such as Arkansas are unlikely to improve work outcomes.

The lives of low-income Americans can be precarious. They may change addresses and phone numbers often  which explains why other Arkansans I interviewed, including at a Little Rock homeless shelter, said they learned about the work reporting system only after their insurance was already at risk.

Arkansass overall unemployment rate is low. But in rural areas, jobs still can be few and far between. Many workers dont have control over their hours, either.

The state made reporting online-only to avoid hiring more staff. Officials did this even though Arkansas has the lowest level of household Internet access in the country, and the online portal doesnt work well on smartphones. Once, when I tried it, I got an error message saying my phones browser was not compatible. The next day, it was mysteriously compatible again.

Most indefensibly, the website shuts down every single night between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. for scheduled maintenance.

No wonder 80 percent of those required to report work hours or exemptions each month are reporting nothing at all.

I asked Cindy Gillespie, director of the states DHS, how confident she was that all  or even most  of the thousands of people kicked off Medicaid were not working and were insufficiently motivated to work. She said shes confident anyone improperly removed from the rolls could easily get their situation reversed.

McGonigals experience suggests otherwise.

Last month, his legal-aid lawyers persuaded DHS to grant him a good cause exemption and a chance to re-enroll in Medicaid. But because of additional red tape, he still hasnt gotten any of his medication. Its been six weeks.

Meanwhile, the chicken plant says hes welcome back. But only, McGonigal says, when  and if  hes healthy enough to work.

Rampells email address is crampell@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter, @crampell.
Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is reportedly considering replacing the current 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian steel imports with restrictive import quotas under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Such a move could prospectively cripple expansion of U.S. oil and natural gas production because of supply restrictions.

A tax on material used in exploration and production and critical infrastructure projects was imposed on the U.S. oil and natural gas industry with previously adopted steel and aluminum tariffs with Mexico and Canada. This added expense, combined with challenges associated with pipeline constraints in West Texas and the Chinese retaliation on domestic oil exports, has caused unnecessary strain for an industry vital to our state and country from an economic and national security perspective. If import quotas were to be imposed, the consequences could be far worse if these products are made unavailable. Of particular concern to independent oil and natural gas producers is the reality that quotas also have a disproportionate impact on small businesses, who are unable to purchase this material in bulk to meet their supply needs.
Consequently, male teachers who quit under such circumstances were also likely to avoid ever working for another female leader again.

When male teachers request transfers, they are more likely to be to schools with male principals, the researchers noted.

These results suggest that opposition from male subordinates could inhibit female progress in leadership, they added.

Similarly, in male-dominated workplaces, women were three times more likely than men to point to gender as a reason for why they were being treated unfairly or unable to progress in their career, the Pew Research Center reported.

The study on male teachers turnover rate included about 650,000 teachers and about 6,400 schools.
11,000 delegates expected at Kenyas Blue Economy summit

November 20,2018 | Source: Capital FM

Eleven Heads of State are among 180 delegations expected in Nairobi next week as Kenyas inaugural Blue Economy Summit kicks off.



Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma said on Tuesday over 11,000 delegates have already confirmed participation at the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference set to commence Monday, exceeding an earlier target of 6,000 delegates.



This is truly a global conference. One hundred and eighty countries have already confirmed attendance out of which 11 delegations will be led at the Head of State level, she said.



As at yesterday (Monday) we had a registration of 11,571 participants; clearly great enthusiasm from across the world, she pointed out.



Juma who spoke when she met co-hosts and co-sponsors of the three-day event expressed gratitude for support received towards hosting of the conference whose Sh800 million budget is now fully funded.



Our co-hosts and co-sponsors are one of the main reasons why I can say with great confidence that Kenya is ready to welcome the world to Nairobi and the conference is destined to be a great success, she pointed out.



Canada and Japan will be co-hosting the event with Kenya having each contributed Sh300 million.



Qatar and Norway have each contributed Sh50 million with the United Kingdom providing Sh33 million. China has contributed Sh20 million with Oman, Portugal, and Ireland donating Sh10 million each.



Other countries that have made contributions are Sudan (Sh5 million), South Africa (Sh8 million), Nigeria (Sh2.5 million), Fiji (Sh500,000) and France (Sh300,000).



The Ocean Foundation, European Union, and African Export-Import Bank (AfriEXIM Bank) have each contributed Sh150 million, Sh25 million, and Sh5 million.



The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have each made Sh10 million funding available.



The Kenya Commercial Bank and Capital Markets Authority have provided Sh5 million and Sh1 million respectively with the University of Nairobi and Kenya Tourism Board expected to provide non-monetary support.



Among foreign leaders expected to attend the conference are Seychelles President Danny Faure who was last week named the African Union champion for the Blue Economy.

 2018 Capital Digital Media. Capital Group Limited. All Rights Reserved

Theme(s): Others.
UN biodiversity conference high-level segment emphasizes need for integrated action

by Lynn Wagner

November 20,2018 | Source: IISD

The High-level Segment (HLS) of the UN Biodiversity Conference brought together leaders from national governments and international organizations during a two-day event immediately preceding the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 14) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Parallel sessions addressed ways and means to mainstream biodiversity into the energy and mining, infrastructure, manufacturing and processing, and health sectors. Participants also exchanged views on the transformational path needed for the new global biodiversity framework to be adopted in 2020.



During the HLS, which convened from 14-15 November, participants were addressed by the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouly. In addition to parallel sessions on mainstreaming biodiversity into a variety of sectors, the HLS included a panel discussion on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and 2050 vision, and launched the International Alliance on Nature and Culture. At the conclusion of the two-day event, participants adopted the Sharm El-Sheikh Ministerial Declaration.



Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment, Egypt, opened the HLS highlighting the importance of participation of all sectors in mainstreaming biodiversity, drawing attention to the attendance of Egypts planning and finance Ministers. Ambassador Jose Octavio Tripp Villanueva, Mexico, on behalf of CBD COP 13 Presidency, stated that actions must be accelerated to meet 2020 targets and the SDGs. Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP, or UN Environment), emphasized three key points to achieving the task at hand: conservation, co-existence, and communication. Cristiana Pasca Palmer, CBD Executive Secretary, noted the need to shift societal narratives away from production and extraction, and towards co-existence, co-creating, and co-sharing. Siim Kiisler, Minister of Environment, Estonia, and President of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), emphasized the need to create synergies on: efficient use of resources; maintenance and restoration of ecosystems; and climate change adaptation and mitigation.



The Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration on Investing in Biodiversity for People and Planet was developed by Egypt following consultation with Parties. Through the Declaration, governments commit to mainstream biodiversity through, among other actions: integrating biodiversity values in legislative and policy frameworks, and development and finance plans; phasing out or reforming subsidies and other harmful incentives; strengthening ecosystem-based approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation; promoting sustainable consumption and production and a circular economy; and facilitating access to and transfer of relevant technologies. The Declaration invites the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to convene a summit on biodiversity before CBD COP 15 in 2020.



CBD COP 14 is convening from 17-29 November 2018, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and is being held concurrently with 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 to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits arising from their Utilization. Known collectively as the 2018 UN Biodiversity Conference, the meeting is organized around the following theme: Investing in Biodiversity for People and Planet.

 1990-2018, IISD

Theme(s): Others.
Bullshit.com: Frenkie de Jong to Manchester City is a done deal

Transfer Balls: Following the Mirrors news that Frenkie de Jong had agreed to join Manchester City for 60m comes news in the, er, Daily Mirror that he hasnt. But he might. The paper of record (surely clickbait factory  ed) says City will have to pay a club record 75m for the Ajax and Netherlands midfielder.

Its been three days since the Sun said Frenkie de Jong to City was done deal  three days since the Mirror told its readers City have beaten Barcelona to the signing. Manchester City have blown the competition out of the water.

That was all tosh. But worry not because the Mirror has more news:

The paper reports in an exclusive:

Manchester City will have to pay a club-record 75million in the upcoming bidding war with Barcelona for the new Johan Cruyff However, Spanish champions Barca are also very keen on De Jong, and several other top clubs are monitoring the rapid progress hes making this season.

Why is 75m the fee in a bidding war? Its more than the 60m it cost city to sing Frenkie three days ago.

Anorak

Posted: 21st, November 2018 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, Manchester City, News, Sports, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
(ANSA) - Rome, November 21 - The European Commission said on Wednesday that it has rejected the Italian government's budget plan for 2019. "Our analysis suggests that the debt rule must be considered to have not been respected," the Commission said in a report on Italy's debt. "We conclude that the opening of a procedure for excessive deficit based on the debt is therefore justified".

Premier Giuseppe Conte's government's budget plan sees Italy running a deficit of 2.4% of GDP next year.

The 5-Star Movement-League executive did not heed the Commission's call to make significant changes to the package, saying the deficit was needed to finance key pledges and boost sluggish growth.

Rome has also argued that boosting growth is the best way to bring down Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio of over 130%.


(ANSA) - Rome, November 21 - A young Italian woman working as an aid volunteer in Kenya was kidnapped in an armed attack in a coastal area of the African nation on Tuesday, Kenyan police said on Wednesday.

The captive is 23-year-old Silvia Romano, sources said.

Lilian Sora, the head of the Marche-based Africa Milele NGO that the woman works for, said she is from Milan.

Kenyan police said five people were injured in the attack in which gunmen fires indiscriminately at around 8pm on Tuesday as they kidnapped the woman. Somali-based Islamists are thought to have been behind a series of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenya's coast.


General strike in Tunisia on Thursday UGTT secretary doesn't rule out additional actions

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, NOVEMBER 21 - A general strike by civil servants in Tunisia was confirmed for Thursday after negotiations between the Tunisian government and UGTT (Tunisian General Labor Union) broke down on Wednesday. Workers are protesting denied salary rises by the government.



Striking employees include workers in the ministries and the central, regional, and local public offices.



A minimum level of service will be guaranteed "according to measures established by the general sector federations", UGTT said.



Civil servants are also expected to hold a demonstration in front of the Tunisian Parliament on Friday.



UGTT Secretary General Noureddine Taboubi announced a national meeting for Saturday to consider adopting further actions in the event that the union's demands are not accepted.(ANSAmed).




Migrants: Bosnia, cold doesn't discourage refugees Many in tents at border with Croatia attempt to reach Italy

(ANSAmed) - SARAJEVO, NOVEMBER 21 - Bihac and other areas of north-western Bosnia at the border with Croatia woke up yesterday with 8 centimeters of snow. It was the first snowfall of the year and migrants, who are numerous in the area with some sleeping in tents, were concerned. Their hope is to cross into Croatia to reach western Europe.



According to local estimates, the number of arrivals and of migrants in Bosnia has dropped by some 2,500 people. At the same time, thanks to the enlargement of centers in Bihac and Hadzici, near Sarajevo, hosting conditions for migrants have improved sensibly. Nobody, however, wants to stay in Bosnia.



''We want to go to Italy, one of our relatives has been working for 10 years in Milan, we want to go there to work too'', two Pakistanis, Hamza and Muhammad, 21 and 27, told Radio Sarajevo. They reportedly tried to cross the border in vain for five times. ''Many have succeeded and we will too, we will not give up'', said Hamza, who fled Pakistan three years ago because he risked being killed after he say a relative kill a youth.



''From Pakistan to Turkey - said Hamza - we paid passeurs 2,000 euros, to reach Greece 700 euros and there we finished our money so we worked at orange plantations for three years; we spent an additional 1,000 euros to reach Macedonia, 300 until Serbia and another 300 until Sarajevo''. (ANSAmed).




So how might we steer these new developments away from a 21st century reboot of car-centric cityscapes, and away from the noise, congestion and tailpipe emissions that are plaguing cities today?

Perhaps by focusing on the destination  a safe and comfortable city with many clean and convenient ways to get around  some design principles can be formulated. Policy and planning principles that focus on how sharing, electrification, and automation contribute to a multi-modal mobility ecosystem can help get us where we want to go.

Sharing of vehicles and rides could be key to making the most of scarce road space and dampening potential rebound effects in travel activity. Pricing signals based on footprint or passenger throughput can incentivise active modes, pooled rides, and transit. On the most heavily trafficked routes, supply-side measures, like converting lanes into dedicated priority bus networks, could help deploy automation sooner.

Electrification could help to reduce the energy use and emissions impacts of AVs. With high utilisation rates, commercial fleets  the most likely early adopters of AVs  will favour powertrains with low operational costs and higher efficiencies such as EVs. Automated driving technologies may be easier to implement in EVs due to the greater number of drive-by-wire components. While the outlook for electrification of AVs seems promising, commercial services will demand greater utilisation and range, requiring larger and more expensive battery packs or more frequent recharging. On-board computers and electronics may draw significant power, reducing the range of an electric AV. Ensuring suitability and synergies between automation and electrification requires a more deliberate design of EV-related policies and charging infrastructure buildout to prepare for an automated and shared future.

Early evidence from several major U.S. cities, including Boston and New York, show that ride-hailing services may be adding to congestion and substituting for public transit. While low-cost autonomous taxis could accelerate this trend and displace public transit, the right policies could instead ensure that they serve as first- and last-mile feeders to transit services and as substitutes to single occupancy vehicles. If cities and countries can compel corporate providers of mobility services to disclose certain key data, urban and transport planners may be able to better target infrastructure investments and services to ensure more efficient and equitable access.
The IFJ welcomes the signing of a collective agreement on the safety of journalists between the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) and the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC).

The agreement was signed on Monday 19th November by Minister Ahmad Assaf, supervisor of public media in Palestine, and Nasser Abu Baker, President of the PJS, and witnessed by Younes Mjahed, Senior Vice President of the IFJ.

The preamble of the agreement emphasizes the importance of protecting freedom of expression for a democratic society, the value of public service broadcasting and stresses the need to guarantee journalists' social and professional rights as the foundation for media freedom.

The agreement commits both public broadcasting establishments to providing human and financial resources to strengthen the safety of their journalists and field crews. It includes the development of professional safety procedures, safety training, equipment and insuring field crews against work accidents. It also provides for psychological and moral support to journalists and media workers.

Nasser Abu Baker, PJS president, said We thank the PBC for its continuous cooperation with the PJS to support its journalists and Palestinian journalism as a whole. Signing this agreement is a form of Palestinian journalism and journalists response to the continuous Israeli attacks on them. We look forward to signing similar agreements to guarantee the rights of journalists and to strengthen their safety.

Minister Assaf Ahmed assured that he will continue to make every effort to develop Palestinian journalism, including improving the social rights of journalists working in public media institutions and to put an end to weak employment contracts from which employees have suffered for many years.

Younes Mjahed said after signing the agreement added we congratulate the PJS and all its members working at the PBC on this agreement. We are also grateful to the administration of the PBC for their great cooperation. This agreement will strengthen the protection of journalists not only in Palestine, but it will also be a tool to fight for strengthening journalists rights in the Arab region and around the world.

The signing ceremony was attended by several representatives of the PJS, PBC and IFJ, including Khaled Sokkar, General Director of the PBC, Musa Al-Shaer, treasurer of the PJS, and Monir Zaarour, IFJ Policy and Programs Director for the Arab World and the Middle East.

The signing of this agreement took place the day after a conference organized by the PJS entitled Journalists under fire in which more than 700 Palestinian journalists from across the West Bank participated. Rami Al-Hamdallah, the Palestinian prime minister, spoke in the conference and emphasized the governments commitment to protect press freedom and freedom of expression. He also confirmed that the Palestinian government had just finished preparing a draft law on the right of access to information which will be adopted in the near future.

Philippe Leruth, President of the IFJ, also spoke in the conference and called on the Palestinian government to adopt a legislative system to organize the Palestinian media and journalism sector in accordance with international standards to ensure the development of independent journalism. He also criticized the Israeli governments refusal to recognize the International Press Card issued by the IFJ, which is recognized by more than 140 countries around the world.
PARIS - The protest of the so-called movement of 'yellow vests' is looking increasingly like an uprising in La Reunion, the French department in the Indian Ocean where since Saturday, the first day of protests, great tension has been registered along with an increasing number of incidents involving police officers.

Last night, violent clashes between young demonstrators and security officials left 16 policemen wounded, including one who was seriously injured, the prefecture said.

The policeman lost a hand in the explosion of a grenade in his car where he had fled to escape from protesters who were throwing stones at him. According to the main television channel on the island, the clashes between police and demonstrators were particularly violent in the city of Port. Local television reported that demonstrators threw stones and police responded with tear gas. There are currently 25 road blocks on the island.
Monaco National Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo: "On behalf of the United States Government, I wish to congratulate the Monegasque people on celebrating your 162nd National Day, la Fete du Prince.

"The United States and Monaco have enjoyed over 150 years of friendship, and those bonds continue to grow. We are proud to call Monaco a friend and a partner in promoting peace, trade, and cultural exchange. We look forward to continuing our collaboration to the benefit of both the United States and Monaco."
U.S. Position on APEC Statements

Washington, DC - The United States congratulates Papua New Guinea for a successful year as host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings. We are proud of the work that we achieved together to break down barriers to trade and investment throughout the APEC region, supporting positive outcomes for our people and the region.

The United States was proud and fully prepared to join consensus on the draft APEC statements, agreeing to promote free and fair trade in the region and to combat unfair trade practices. It is unfortunate that not all economiesdespite their rhetoriccould support these positions.

Nevertheless, this year, working with our partners, the United States advanced priorities including on digital trade, services trade competitiveness, structural reform, trade facilitation, and womens economic participation. These areas are critical to all APEC economies as key drivers of future growth.

We remain committed to fighting unfair trade wherever it exists in the region. APEC, as the premier economic forum in the region, should continue to advance the ideals of free, fair, and reciprocal trade, to level the playing field and unleash new opportunities for all of our workers and businesses. The United States will continue to constructively engage in APEC to achieve those objectives.
Last week, Amazon announced that Northern Virginia and New York City would be the two locations chosen to house their new HQ offices. The news was met with mixed emotions by many in the startup world.

With a shortlist of 20 cities across the U.S., including many thriving and emerging startup hubs in the Heartland, there was excitement that Amazon may set up shop and further boost the economy in these locations. While New York City and the Washington, D.C., area will certainly benefit and thrive from Amazon's decision, the cities won't have any trouble bringing in ~20,000 Amazon workers who will soon flood these cities -- and that's the issue.

I wonder if the transformative potential that was dangled in front of the remaining 18 cities has left them wondering what to do next. After the news broke, AOL co-founder Steve Case urged these cities to view this decision "not as the end, but as a new beginning."

Case has asked these cities, and the coalitions they formed to bid for Amazon's HQ2, to re-purpose their plans, money and resources to instead strengthen their home-grown startup sector locally.

I'm literally in the business of building startup communities across the globe -- Techstars functions on the belief that entrepreneurs can build and thrive anywhere. There are so many existing activities that serve entrepreneurs from hackathons and startup weekends to investment accelerators and corporate innovation workshops. Every one of these locally supported programs could further expand the startup potential in these cities, where the next Amazon could be grown.

A couple things have to happen first. If you live in any city that Amazon didn't choose, here are two simple things you should do:

1. Unite

While it would have been great to bring another top tech company (and the talent they attract) to cities like Denver, Atlanta, Austin, Raleigh/Durham and Toronto, these tech scenes are already thriving. What about the grassroots efforts in the other 200-plus cities?

It's also exciting to see entrepreneurial ecosystems grow locally and create great local companies, but it takes a concerted collaborative effort to create community momentum. Now, more than ever, every community actor needs to band together.

One place to start is by reading Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City written by Brad Feld. The book provides actionable advice, the most important of which (in my opinion) is that a movement to unite must be entrepreneur-led. In other words, assemble a group of entrepreneurs and get their input and help in what to do.

By coming together as a startup community, and pushing the local government to further invest, you'll build alliances with local decision-makers. As a result, you'll build stronger connections amongst yourselves.

2. Give back

Your local startup community may be heavily focused on one vertical. Many of Detroit's startups, for example, focus on mobility. Most cities have multiple companies competing for the same market share.

While healthy competition is good, you need to find ways to give back to the whole startup community that make the ecosystem stronger -- even if that means helping your competitors. You could refer previous employees to other startups. You could share some of those precious resources your company holds close to the vest.

At Techstars we lead with "#givefirst" -- to give without the expectation of getting anything in return. An example of this is when we open sourced the Techstars playbook and taught others how to create accelerators through the creation of the Global Accelerator Network (GAN), which we founded. Some might have thought of that as competitive, but we thought of it as #givefirst.
Editor's note: Inc. magazine's 2018 Company of the Year is Bird. Here, we spotlight a contender for the title.

WeWork, the co-working startup that launched in 2010, is known for renting out office space on flexible terms, but co-founders Miguel McKelvey and Adam Neumann clearly have much larger ambitions.

In 2018 alone, WeWork opened a private school called WeGrow and a physical store called WeMrkt, both in New York City. Neumann has even expressed a desire to one day have entire WeWork communities, where everything from your apartment to the school your children attend is brought to you by WeWork.

"When I think of We, I think of an ecosystem that brings it all together," Neumann said at the 2018 U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington. "The fabric of that ecosystem happens at the building, at the neighborhood, and at the city."

Thanks to a number of significant company milestones, 2018 has also been a breakout year for WeWork. In September, it surpassed JPMorgan as the largest occupier of office space in Manhattan. The finance giant has 5.2 million square feet of office space compared with WeWork's 5.3 million. Other services WeWork has introduced in 2018 include Powered by We, which crunches data to design and build optimal workspaces for companies in their own offices; HQ by WeWork, a private headquarters designed for companies with between 11 and 250 employees; and WeWork Labs, a program designed to help early-stage startups grow.

Evolution of We

"As our business has grown, both our membership and service offerings have diversified," a company spokesperson told Inc. "We're also continuing to see the profile of our membership base change in positive ways, including longer deal terms, larger deals, and large global accounts." (The founders declined to comment for this article.)

What's more, as the company has grown, so too has its membership. WeWork now has more than 268,000 members in 287 locations, up from 150,000 in 172 locations a year ago. The company's occupancy rates have also increased from 78 percent to 84 percent during the same period.

If all of this diversification and growth sounds expensive, it is. While the company has raised more than $7 billion from Japan's SoftBank--its largest investor--and its revenue during the first six months of 2018 more than doubled year-over-year, to a reported $763 million, the company has been losing money at an accelerated rate. WeWork posted a loss of $723 million during the first half of 2018, more than double its losses from the same period last year. Despite these losses, SoftBank hasn't flinched. The company committed $3 billion to WeWork in November at a reported $45 billion valuation, giving it the largest valuation of any startup aside from Uber.

WeWork has faced its fair share of personnel challenges, too. In addition to a well-publicized cleaning-staff strike in 2015, the company this year dealt with sexual assault allegations. In October, Ruby Anaya, a former director of culture in New York, filed a lawsuit against the company claiming she was sexually assaulted at two WeWork events. Instead of properly investigating the incidents, WeWork fired Anaya, the suit alleges. WeWork called Anaya's claims "meritless" in a statement, adding that Anaya was "terminated solely because of her poor performance."

Real Risks

Critics of WeWork's business model have pointed out that having so much exposure to real estate represents a real risk, as a market downturn could lead its startup and small-business tenants to end their leases with the company. As WeWork has grown and evolved, however, so too has its client base. Today, businesses with more than 1,000 employees account for more than 25 percent of WeWork's total membership. Large enterprise clients like IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce now represent the fastest-growing segment of members, according to the company.
"Welcome to the future," said Anand Agarawala, as he adjusted his Microsoft HoloLens.

Minutes later, a hologram of his co-founder Jinha Lee beamed into space in front of us in a conference room.

I drew some doodles on an iPhone, and, after hitting send, they transferred to virtual sticky notes in the air. Holding up two fingers and saying "Inc. magazine" filled the space with past magazine covers, article previews, and an Amazon subscription page. I pinched one of the sticky notes and tossed it to Lee--it landed right in front of his face.

"We're basically filling the room with our thoughts," said Agarawala.

Agarawala and Lee are the entrepreneurs behind Spatial, an augmented reality conference room app that launched to the public in October. The app promises to take remote working to a new level by turning meeting attendees--all of whom need to be wearing a VR headset like a HoloLens--into lifelike avatars that can interact with one another. The app allows users to drag content from a web browser, smartphone, and the Google Suite of applications into a shared holographic space. When the meeting is over, you can preserve the virtual room where you've tacked up your sticky notes and come back to it later.

"The high-level goal we're trying to do is increase the communication bandwidth between people," says Lee.

New York City-based Spatial isn't the only company trying to fix the problem of connecting people in different locations and helping them work better together. Doghead Simulations is working on VR collaborative spaces. And then, of course, there are more traditional and widely used videoconferencing apps like Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts. With Spatial, the co-founders say, they've found a better way to literally give everyone on your team a seat at the conference table.

"If your meeting can be done effectively via conference rooms, then we're probably not the best solution," Agarawala says. "With that said, conference calls kind of break down after three to four people."

Both Agarawala and Lee have tinkered with the 3-D space for years. After selling a 3-D desktop interface app, BumpTop, to Google in 2010, Agarawala joined the early Android team and later worked on Google Glass. In South Korea, Lee spent his alternative mandatory military training at Samsung working on making a TV device more than just a physical screen before studying at MIT Media Lab.

Agarawala and Lee, aware of each other's work, finally crossed paths at a TED Conference in 2013. A few years later, Agarawala asked Lee if he wanted to start a venture together. Lee initially wasn't sure if it was the right time to dabble in AR startups. Eventually, he agreed, thinking that even if they failed, at least they would have worked on an important project in the future of computing.

The co-founders say that Spatial has a handful of customers in industries including health care, military intelligence, tech, and advertising. Ford is currently using Spatial for its internal "warring" meetings on autonomous vehicles, while creative agency Ideo is exploring Spatial for brainstorming sessions, Agarawala says. A pharmaceutical company is using Spatial to display presentations, charts, and 3-D images of cells for its clients. Spatial's 10-person staff--with two remote employees--has holographic meetings at least once a week.

The company declined to disclose how much Spatial costs, but mentioned that there will be separate prices for enterprise and consumer customers.

Before it can gain any kind of widespread adoption, Spatial has some challenges in front of it: Agarawala admits that the technology is limited--the avatars, for instance, looked more cartoonish than lifelike. Plus, there isn't much technical support with these platforms yet.

"They have to align themselves within very specific tasks or markets, because the technology isn't robust enough yet to have a general-purpose-type device," says Tuong Nguyen, Gartner senior principal analyst, who focuses on immersive technologies.

While AR still is not common in office environments, mixed reality (the blending of the physical and virtual worlds)--especially for training purposes--already can be found in industries like manufacturing. With desk jobs, "all the information you need is literally at your fingertips, whereas heavy industries don't have that information right at their face," says Nguyen. Walmart recently rolled out a VR training program for more than 4,000 stores.

Spatial also provides virtual reality capabilities, but Agarawala says that VR is not the company's primary focus because "not everyone feels comfortable losing themselves in the room."

To date, Spatial has raised $8 million in funding from investors including iNovia Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Samsung Next, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito. On the product side, the company's next task is making the setup more seamless with single sign-on capabilities. Of course, Spatial also needs to prove to more customers that donning a clunky headset just for a meeting is worth it.
Robin Hood, the masked avenger, glides through the air in slow motion. In the space of a single, high-flying leap, he unsheathes a pair of arrows and lets his bow direct them straight into the hearts of his enemies. With Kingsmans Taron Egerton in the lead for his latest self-titled cinematic adventure, this Robin Hood can do it all. A master of both archery and martial arts, hes a preternaturally powerful figure who uses that power to enact a justice that exists outside of the law, here leading a revolt against the corrupt English crown. In short, hes a superhero. Theres no doubt about it.

And hes not the first folk hero to be given a super-powered makeover onscreen. In last years King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, whoever was worthy to wield Excalibur was also blessed with its magical abilities, not unlike those of Mjolnir, Thors hammer from the Marvel universe.

The age of the folk hero has long ended. Now that every deed can be photographed, caught on film, or streamed directly on the internet, weve been robbed of the ability to mythologise our heroes, or even to craft them anew out of half-truths and plausibilities. Superheroes are now the ones that have become symbolic of our values, in a way that folk heroes once were. And, in turn, those folk heroes we already know have now become superheroes. Its an inevitable process.

That said, superheroes themselves have drawn heavily on the established structure of folklore. The stories, from the Lone Ranger to Spider-Man, often start the same: fate strikes an ordinary person who, following a series of life-changing events, takes up the mantle of hero. If they are of extraordinary birth, they must often pass a series of tests to prove their worthiness. They exist as defenders of the goodness of mankind: love, righteousness, and peace.

Superheroes, like folk heroes, are constructed out of a multitude of often contradicting stories, woven together by different creators. Comic books are constantly in a cycle of rewriting the origins of their heroes, while drastically changing their fates on a dime. Indeed, their identities are so closely aligned that folk heroes have often cropped up in the middle of comic book universes: Robin Hood was briefly the identity of Hawkeye, when he was sent back to the 12th century with his memories drained, and provided a clear inspiration for DCs Green Arrow. Marvels Knights of Pendragon, meanwhile, are a team of British superheroes, each possessed by one of the spirits of the Knights of the Round Table.

So its easy (and tempting) for Hollywood to cast folk heroes as superheroes, since so much of the groundwork is already there. Although Robin Hoods mission to rob the rich and give to the poor is a relatively late addition to his story  he may have been an established figure by the 1370s, but the first evidence of those actions arrive in 1592  the idea clearly stuck. Ever since Howard Pyle wrote The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood in 1883, an extremely influential version of the story written for children, Robin Hood has been solidified as a do-gooder vigilante. It was Sir Walter Scotts Ivanhoe (1819), meanwhile, that formalised into canon Robin Hoods ability to fire an arrow straight through his opponents, splitting it down the middle.

 Robin Hood 2018 UK trailer

Robin Hood may even have served as a kind alias for criminals since variations on the name feature in Medieval court records. And so, it could be that Robin Hoods name became a kind of mantle to be taken up by those who deemed themselves worthy (if that can be said of petty thieves and outlaws), just as the title of Captain America has been passed between several different superheroes, from Steve Rogers to The Falcon.

Hollywood, bizarrely, has largely stripped him of his symbolic status and focused on painting him as a plausible historical figure: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), starring Errol Flynn, depicted him as a Saxon knight fighting against Norman oppressors; Robin and Marian (1976), with Sean Connery, showed him as an ageing crusader; while in Robin Hood (2010), with Russell Crowe, he managed to prevent a French invasion. This years latest version, then, is a rare example of cinema embracing his status as pure folklore.

As could be said for King Arthur. The version of the myth were most accustomed to, thanks to the 1967 movie musical Camelot, draws on whats called Arthurian romanticism, a French version of the legend that introduces the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. More recently, theres been a similar trend of trying to place King Arthur in a historical context: both King Arthur (2004) and The Last Legion (2007) placed him at the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

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Charlie Hunnam in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

In its superhero-ising of the character, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword in fact looks back to one of the earliest iterations of the figure. Before Geoffrey of Monmouth consolidated the more fantasy-orientated version we know today (from Merlin to Excalibur) in the 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae, Welsh and Breton sources portrayed Arthur as a superhuman warrior who fought off giant cat-monsters, boars, witches, dragons, and giants. Another tradition even teamed him up with a whole band of heroes.

One of Chinas greatest folk heroes will receive the Hollywood treatment once more, when Disney draws from its 1998 animated film Mulan for a live-action remake, set for release in 2020. Its a film which already fitted superhero characteristics onto the story of Hua Mulan. Although the original hero (from the Ballad of Mulan) disguised herself as a man and fought bravely in the army for 12 years, Disneys Mulan is responsible for almost single handedly saving all of China. The live-action version may pit Mulan, played by Liu Yifei, against a powerful witch, played by Gong Li, but its unclear whether Mulan herself will be endowed with any supernatural powers.

Whatever happens, the trend is here to stay. The folk hero has hitched its hopes of survival on its modern evolution, for better or worse.

 Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Robin Hood is out in UK cinemas now
Following in the footsteps of Boxing Day, the January sales are now upon us, and there are many deals to be had.

While some people use this month to recover from overindulging, for others, its an opportunity to grab a bargain.

Whether youre after a new television, a laptop or the best Amazon bargain, we have created dedicated guides for a range of products and retailers so you can get your hands on the best deals as the holiday season draws to a close.

As well as finding the best deals, weve also created the ultimate guide on which retailers are taking part below, with insight on their latest deals, what else they are expected to offer, and when.

You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.

Januray Sale Quick Links

Top picks

Whatever youre looking for this January, youre sure to find it. Here are our top picks of the current deals:

Smart speaker deals

Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Smart speaker with Alexa  was 49.99, now 29.99  Buy now from Amazon

Apple HomePod  was 319, now 279  Buy now from Currys



Sony LF-S50G Wireless Smart Sound Speaker  was 149.99, now 99  Buy now from Currys



Sonos One Voice Controlled Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa  was 199, now 179  Buy now from Amazon

TV deals

Laptop deals

Asus 15.6 Gaming Laptop, Intel Core i5, GeForce GTX 1050 Graphics, 8GB RAM  was 849.99, now 649.99  Buy now from Very



Apple MacBook Air 13.3 Intel i5 8GB RAM , 256 GB SSD (2017)  was 1,049, now 949  Buy now from Currys



Asus 12.5 360 Degrees Rotatable Full HD Touchscreen Chromebook, Intel Core M3-6Y30 Processor, 4 GB RAM  was 499, now 499  Buy now from Amazon



Apple MacBook Pro 13 Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD (2017)  was 1,799, now 1,599  Buy now from John Lewis & Partners





Game console deals

Kitchen appliance deals



Tablet deals

Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 Tablet 32 GB  was 229.99, now 159  Buy now from Currys



All-New Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa, 8 HD Display, 16 GB  was 79.99, now 59.99  Buy now from Amazon



Apple 9.7 iPad 32 GB, Space Grey (2018)  was 299, now 289  Buy now from Currys

Furniture deals

Which stores are taking part?

Heres our roundup of some of the retailers to watch out for and quick links to their pages:

Amazon  The online giant was one of the biggest retailers taking part in discounts for Boxing Day and for January it continues to offer major reductions on everything from electronics to this years must-have toys, games, fashion, jewellery and beauty products. You can find the latest Amazon deals here.

AO  You can expect this online electrical retailer to offer a wide range of deals on its products, from appliances and TVs to smart home products. You can find the latest AO deals here.

Argos  You can expect to see deals appearing online across technology, home and toys. You can find the latest Argos deals here.

Apple  The tech giant Apple has traditionally resisted partaking in sales but we predict that there will be great savings on iPhones, iPads, Macbooks and accessories.

Currys PC World  This January, we expect Currys to offer exciting deals across top brands including Hoover, Dyson, Samsung and HP. You can find the latest Currys PC World deals here.

Habitat  Homeware company Habitat traditionally launched its winter sale just ahead of the Christmas holidays and continues to offer discounts on upholstery, occasional furniture, storage and rugs. You can find the latest Habitat deals here.

John Lewis  This year, John Lewis clearance sale began online on Christmas Eve. The retailer is expected to price match rivals on popular tech, home and fashion lines thanks to its Never Knowingly Undersold tag line. You can find the best John Lewis deals here.

Very  With discounts on fashion, home, tech and gifts, Very should be on your list this January. Find the latest Very deals here.

How can you get the best deals?

When it comes to making the most of the January sales, preparation is key and, with many of us now shopping online, thats where you can expect to find the very best deals.

But, whether youre shopping in-store or bargain hunting from the comfort of your sofa, its important to shop around and research items you want to buy well in advance rather than splashing out on a whim.

We suggest sticking to a shopping list of items that you know you actually want, setting yourself a budget and watching out for additional discount codes online.

Its also a good idea to check retailers returns policies before buying and to check terms and conditions for sites youve not used before.

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.
Blac Chyna has come under fire for promoting a skin bleaching cream on social media.

The Instagram star has partnered with Whitenicious by Dencia to create a $250 (195) skin-brightening lotion housed in a Swarovski crystal-coated jar.

According to the brands website, the Whitenicious x Black Chyna Diamond Illuminating & Lightening Cream gives a brightening glow for younger-looking skin and brightens and lightens without bleaching skin out.

The 30-year-old mother-of-two has endorsed the cream with numerous social media posts including one on Instagram that announced she would be launching the product with an upcoming appearance in Nigeria.

Lagos Nigeria, join me at the first official launch of my face cream this Sunday November 25th at the Whitenicious store from 1-5PM. Everyone is invited, Chyna wrote.

People were quick to call out the star for promoting European beauty standards, taking particular issue with her plans to plug the cream in Nigeria - where 77 per cent of women use skin lightening products on a regular basis.

Whys #BlacChyna coming to Lagos to launch and promote her bleaching cream? Were fighting for self love here and shes literally spitting on our faces. Im beyond disgusted at this point one person wrote on Twitter.

Another person added: Blac Chyna is having a skin bleaching party in Nigeria. How very problematic!

A third person wrote: Bleaching creams are not cool.

Others came to Chynas defence stating: Skin lightening didnt start with Blac Chyna.

I know for some of you, she may be an easy target, but we need to get to the root of the problem how darker skinned black people have been conditioned to hate their complexion.

In response to the backlash a spokesperson for Chyna told TMZ: Blac Chyna's been using Whitenicious dark spot corrector for a few years to deal with her hyperpigmentation.

We're told Chyna felt this was a good deal for her because a lot of women of colour suffer from skin issues.

But Chyna isn't the first to promote skin bleaching. Last year, a Nivea advert that featured a black woman using one of the companys skin lightening products with the tagline visibly lightens was branded racist by social media users.

In fact, while we often hear of skin bleaching predominantly happening in Africa, its widely practised everywhere, including the US, Southeast Asia and India.

Previously speaking to The Independent, Dr Sujata Chandrappa, a Bengaluru-based dermatologist said that clients often visit her clinic wanting the skin tone of their favourite celebrity.

Theres a pressure on men and women, among themselves, she said.

They have some role model in their head and they want to get there no matter what. Thats the wrong concept.

If I encourage them too much, I get the sense that Im promoting racism.

Today, these types of products are illegal in the UK but a recent BBC undercover investigation revealed that illegal skin-whitening creams are still being sold all over the British high street.

What's more, many were found to contain ingredients such as hydroquinone, which can damage the liver and nervous system. Trading Standards officials said there was no excuse for selling the creams.
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 21 - These are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: MADRID - The Prado Museum celebrates its 200th anniversary with a large commemorative exhibition titled 'Prado Museum 1819-2019: A Place of Memory' (to March 3).



TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM - 3rd edition of Italian Cuisine Week continues (until 25/11).(ANSAmed).




The Duchess of Sussex had a night out on the town on Monday as she attended her first Royal Variety Performance.

As is the case any time Meghan leaves the house, all eyes were on her outfit, and this time she harked back to the Nineties in a halterneck ensemble.

The duchess wore the striking, sequinned top from London-based brand Safiyaa, with a long black skirt to match.

Royal Variety Performance 2018 (Ian Vogler/PA) (PA Wire/PA Images)

This is the second time Meghan has worn something by Safiyaa, perhaps in a bid to pay tribute to her new hometown.

This undoubtedly wont be the last well hear of the label now it has the duchess seal of approval, so heres everything you need to know about it

Who is behind the label?

Meghan has a strong reputation for supporting women  just take her empowering speech during the recent trip to New Zealand when she said: Womens suffrage is about feminism, but feminism is about fairness.

So it perhaps comes as no surprise that she wants to champion female-lead brands like Safiyaa.

The label was founded in 2011 by Daniela Karnuts, and is named after her daughter. In fact, the website specifies Safiyaa is created by women for women.

Karnuts says: It is the idea of our brand becoming for dresses what Savile Row is for suits.

Whats the aesthetic?

Safiyaas vibe is all about sleek elegance  perfect for the wardrobe of a duchess.

These arent the kind of clothes you pop to the shops in, but are definitely for a fancy event.

So much of what Karnuts does is bespoke, meaning theres a heavy emphasis on tailoring throughout her designs.

Even if Safiyaas aesthetic is formal and elegant, it still has a strong sense of fun.

Sequins and glitter appliques are a common sight, just like on Meghans bodice.

Just because something is well-tailored definitely doesnt have to mean it cant be glamorous.

So what about Meghans outfit?

Royal Variety Performance 2018 (Ian Vogler/PA) (PA Wire/PA Images)

In case you wanted to get the full duchess look, Meghans wearing the Malaya top (895) and Gayeta fishtail skirt (595) from the brands Resort 19 collection.

If youve heard the name Safiyaa before, it might be because Meghan wore a royal blue cape dress by the brand when attending a state dinner in Fiji last month.

And Meghans sequinned halterneck situation is giving us serious flashbacks to another iconic royal fashion moment.

The Princess of Wales, Versailles 1994 (Martin Keene/PA) (PA Archive/PA Images)

Back in 1994 Princess Diana wore a black glittery halterneck to a charity concert in Paris, designed by another London-based designer  Catherine Walker.
Bitcoin has fallen to its lowest price since October 2017, marking the latest losses in a year that has seen its value drop to just a quarter of what it was worth just one year ago.

Despite these losses, some cryptocurrency analysts are making the bold prediction that bitcoin could return close to record highs before 2019.

After falling below $4,300 late on Tuesday, the price of bitcoin experienced a slight bounce back and was trading at around $4,600 at the time of writing. This is a long way from the lofty predictions that some analysts forecast for bitcoin this year, with many having forecast a return to the $20,000 price it reached at the end of 2017.

But while some cryptocurrency analysts have revised their predictions, others have stood by their figures in anticipation of a major market turnaround in the coming weeks.

One of the most optimistic predictions comes from Adam Back, co-founder of the blockchain firm Blockstream, who said he anticipates gains that will take bitcoin's price to more than 100-times today's value.

"Personally I consider $250k-$500k/BTC plausible in the years ahead," Mr Back said on Twitter in response to fellow cryptocurrency enthusiast Bobby Lee, who himself speculated about whether the overall value of bitcoin could overtake the overall value of gold in the coming years.

Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins  the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Screenshot Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures What goes up... Bitcoin price crashes spectacularly, losing half of its value in a matter of days Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin plunges The cryptocurrency eventually bottoms out below $4,000 in 2019 before slowly rebuilding momentum to outperform more traditional assets Getty Images

The recent market slump also failed to dampen the bullish forecasts of Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee, who said that he expected bitcoin to reach $15,000 before the end of 2018.

Mr Lee justified the current price of bitcoin by referring to the recent plunge in the price of tech stocks, like Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Increased institutional backing, he said, would help turn bitcoin's fortunes around.

"Global markets have seen liquidity dry up, and bitcoin is not necessarily a value asset  so as growth stocks, tech, and FAANG [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google] come under pressure, it's going to hurt bitcoin. The downturn in FAANG is hurting those owning bitcoin," Mr Lee told CNBC.

"The next wave of adoption is institutional. There is a crossover happening. This is just an awkward transition... Once we have that, institutions will feel a lot more comfortable making bets [on bitcoin]."

Bitcoin has suffered two major price falls in less than a week, following months of market stability (CoinMarketCap)

Other analysts have taken a more retrospective look at bitcoin's recent turmoil, saying that such significant price movements are not surprising given the cryptocurrency's history.

"What were seeing now are the after-effects of the unprecedented rise of Bitcoin and other cryptoassets seen in 2017. This year is simply a retracement of that. The same is happening in broader markets as well where tech stocks, for example, are following a similar pattern. As with all markets, if prices reach levels that are higher than can be justified they need to pull back," Mati Greemspan, an analyst at the online trading platform eToro, said in an email to The Independent.

"These cycles can sometimes be accentuated in the crypto market due to the riskier nature of this nascent industry. In the same way previous cycles have not signalled the end for broader markets, these price movements dont signal the end for cryptoassets. Were still very much at the beginning of the crypto journey. At this stage, volatility is to be expected.
Elon Musk has renamed the BFR, the spaceship that he hopes will carry humans to Mars.

It will now be known as Starship, he said, though the bottom part will have a separate name.

The BFR name had always been slightly controversial and strange: while SpaceX officially insisted it was short for "Big Falcon Rocket", the F really seemed to stand for something a little more explicit.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

Mr Musk announced its new name on Twitter, giving little context for the change and no explanation of why it had happened.

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"Renaming BFR to Starship," he wrote in the first post, in a characteristically short but momentous post. "Technically, two parts: Starship is the spaceship/upper stage & Super Heavy is the rocket booster needed to escape Earths deep gravity well (not needed for other planets or moons)," a follow-up read.

The spaceship  whatever its name  is SpaceX's big hope for the future of space travel. The company hopes that it will eventually replace not only the existing modes of deep space transport but its existing rockets and spacecraft, too.

Eventually, SpaceX hopes to use the Starship to carry people to Mars, where they will live, and possibly even beyond. In the shorter term, the company is aiming for a 2023 mission that will see a Japanese billionaire pay for a host of space tourists to take a trip around the Moon  if the Starship, which will cost around $5 billion to build  is ready in time.

Starship is actually the spacecraft's fourth name. Before it was known as the BFR, the spaceship was known as the Interplanetary Transport System or ITS  and before that it was called the Mars Colonial Transporter, or MCT, marking it out as part of Mr Musk's plan to send people to take over Mars.
The Duchess of Sussex had a heartfelt reunion with the women who inspired the Together: Our Community Cookbook, a charitable recipe book for which she wrote the foreword.

In September this year, it was announced that the duchess had been making regular private visits to the Hubb Community Kitchen in West London, a communal kitchen that supports members of the community affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

The duchess and the women working in the kitchen collaborated with one another to create the Together cookbook, which features more than 50 recipes from around the world.

(Getty Images)

Two months on from the books release, the duchess returned to the kitchen to see the impact that the money raised from sales has had on the facility.

Meghan warmly greeted Zaheera Sufyaan, kitchen coordinator, and Abdurahman Sayed, chief executive of the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Centre in North Kensington, as she arrived.

Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Show all 16 1 /16 Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen PA Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen REUTERS Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen REUTERS Meghan Markle returns to Grenfell Tower community kitchen Getty Images

She wore a burgundy Club Monaco dress and coat for the occasion, which she promptly covered with an apron as she rolled up her sleeves to help the women prepare an array of food in the kitchen.

When the Hubb Community Kitchen was opened last year following the devastation of the Grenfell Tower fire, it only had enough funding to open its doors for two days a week.

Now, thanks to the duchess input and the support that the book has received, the kitchen is open for the community every day.

(REUTERS)

Following on from the success of the book and the kitchen, some have been launching their own projects to further benefit the community.

These projects include an initiative to give support to women whove been affected by domestic violence, a meal-delivery service for women in maternity wards and a healthy snack scheme for children.

In Meghans foreword for the cookbook, she highlights the significance of the kitchen as a safe space for those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Melding cultural identities under a shared roof, it creates a space to feel a sense of normalcy, she writes.

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In its simplest form, the universal need to connect, nurture, and commune through crisis or joy - something we can all relate to.

All money raised from the Together cookbook is monitored by the Royal Foundation, of which the duchess is a patron alongside the Duke of Sussex, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The contraceptive pill has been sparking controversies since it became available in the UK in 1961.

Despite research linking it to everything from breast cancer and blood clots to low libido and weight gain, it remains the most popular form of contraception for women today and is taken by more than 100 million women worldwide.

But countless studies have identified strong links between taking the pill and poor mental health, and a new BBC Two documentary sheds light on the severity of the problem, revealing how its left some women suffering from depression and experiencing suicidal thoughts.

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The hormone in the pill that has been linked to prompting psychiatric complications is called progesterone, which is found in both the combined pill and the mini pill.

Studies have linked the hormone to depression, anxiety and low mood, but researchers have yet to find an ethical way to prove cause and effect because this would involve distributing placebo pills to study subjects, which could lead to unwanted pregnancies, the moral complexities of which are obvious.

A survey conducted by the team behind the documentary, titled The Contraceptive Pill: How Safe Is It?, found that one in four women taking the pill said it had negatively affected their mental health.

Danielle, 31, is one of these women. Speaking in the Horizon episode, she recalls how her side effects were completely debilitating and terrifying, adding that shed never experienced poor mental health prior to taking the pill.

I went from being fine to having suicidal thoughts within six months, she adds.

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Grazias editor-in-large Vicky Spratt had a similar experience, recalling how her mental health deteriorated soon after she began taking the pill aged 14, leaving her suffering from depression and regular panic attacks.

I remember thinking if this is what the rest of my life is going to be like, I dont want to live it', Spratt, 30, says in the documentary.

At the time, Spratt was prescribed antidepressants and cognitive behavioural therapy, but she claims that not a single doctor thought to make the connection between her deteriorating mental health and her contraceptive pill.

After some extensive Googling, she came across research online that linked the pill to depression and decided to stop taking it to see if it would make a difference; she felt better within weeks.

In the documentary, we see Spratt interview the Copenhagen-based professor jvind Lidegaard, who has access to a unique database of medical records because in Denmark, every single persons data is logged in a central system.

This enabled him to look at the records of more than one million Danish women aged between 15 and 34 over a sixteen-year period, producing two studies on the topic of mental health and hormonal contraception.

One found that women taking the pill - either the combined pill or the progestogen-only pill - were more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than those not on hormonal contraception. The difference was particularly noticeable for young women aged between 15 and 19 on the combined pill. Another found a link between hormonal contraception, suicide attempts and suicide.

Lidegaard's findings were confirmed by a separate Swedish study of more than 800,000 women that had been published in March.

Despite the number of women experiencing poor mental health as a result of the pill, Spratt says little is being done to combat this in the UK due to a lack of data and an apparent reluctance from the NHS to take measures to rectify this.

She has been investigating the links between the contraceptive pill and mental illness for nearly two years and, after conducting a series of freedom of information requests, found that this was not something the NHS had any data on.

This means that the NHS is not monitoring women who are currently taking hormonal contraception and being treated for mental health issues, at least not in the same way that Danish medical officers are.

It also means that women may not be fully informed about these possible side effects prior to taking the pill, with no mention of depression or anxiety on leaflets distributed to women in sexual health clinics. Instead, they list mood changes as a possible side effect.

What does that even mean? It could refer to anything, Spratt tells The Independent.

I think the NHS is sticking with mood changes because theyre nervous about women being deterred from taking the pill and unwanted pregnancies rising as a result.

It surprises me that despite known links between progesterone and depression, the NHS arent looking into it and, as a result, we dont know how many women are affected by this in the UK.

Spratt describes the seeming reluctance as odd, adding that this is why she decided to take part in the BBC documentary.

We just need to do the research and collect the data so doctors are able to properly inform women about the potential risks of taking the contraceptive pill.

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Dr Zoe Williams, who presents the documentary, explains that all medicines have potential side effects, but the pill is different to most because it is taken by women who are well, rather than to prevent or treat illness or disease.

Therefore side effects that significantly impact on quality of life, in a negative way, are not acceptable, she tells The Independent.

Especially when there are so many types of pill and alternatives methods for contraception available.

Horizons The Contraceptive Pill: How Safe Is It? airs on BBC Two on Wednesday at 9pm
The Prime Minister made her big Brexit pitch to businesses at the CBI on Monday.

Clearly, this forms a key part of the strategy to sell any Brexit deal to MPs and the public, as a quick glance at No.10s Twitter feed shows.

But what do some of the UKs biggest firms make of Brexit? How much of a risk is it for them? And what are they doing to prepare?

We at The UK in a Changing Europe have analysed the latest annual reports and public statements of all FTSE100 companies to see if any patterns emerge. And they do.

Essentially, these companies can be broken down into four categories in terms of how they understand their exposure to Brexit.

Highly regulated sectors

(AFP/Getty Images)

The most worried are those in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, air travel and banking which are highly regulated. A number have already restructured their businesses in response to the UKs anticipated exit from the EU.

This includes companies like EasyJet, Barclays and HSBC. EasyJet have established subsidiaries in both the UK and Austria to allow them to continue their operations as now.

Similarly, Barclays have transferred billions of pounds in assets to their Irish subsidiary, while HSBC have shifted their Polish and Irish subsidiaries to their French unit. Recent reports suggest more restructuring in these sectors could even be needed.

Border-exposed sectors

In the UK online retail accounts for a larger share of the total than in any other major economy (Reuters)

In sectors like food retail, logistics and fashion, firms are concerned primarily about disruptions to supply chains, as well as exchange-rate movements which would affect the cost of supplies and the value of their assets.

Burberry, for instance, is seeking Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) status, which would reduce the physical checks of their goods and simplify customs procedures, to minimise any potential difficulties.

There are also widespread concerns about access to labour after Brexit. Although this is not explicitly a border issue, it of course connects directly to changes in the future UK-EU relationship. Marks & Spencer has cited growing market labour shortages, which may be further compounded by Brexit as a key risk to their business.

Macro-exposed sectors

Persimmon: The scandal hit housebuilder has reported a 1.1bn profit (Reuters)

The third group do not see Brexit as a direct risk to their businesses, and their concerns mainly relate to the indirect effects from any wider economic difficulties.

Construction firms in particular, such as the Ashtead Group and Persimmon, see the major risks as macroeconomic, with the latter saying, ongoing economic uncertainty may reduce consumer confidence, impacting on demand and pricing for new homes. In short, the main concern is that Brexit could have a domino effect across the economy.

These firms also have significant worries about access to Labour; Taylor Wimpey have said leaving the EU could impact on the availability of skilled workers given the relatively large proportion of the labour force, particularly in the South East, that is from Eastern Europe.

Unaffected sectors

(Bloomberg)

The final group are those that deem Brexit to be more or less irrelevant to their activities. This includes mining, natural resource and tobacco companies such as BP, Anglo-American and Rio Tinto.

For these firms, their activities mostly take place outside the UK, and even outside Europe.



Antofagasta, a copper mining firm, has said: As the Group has no operations or material exposure to the UK, Brexit is not expected to have any appreciable impact on the Group.

UK business does not have a single view about Brexit. However, there are some commonalities across the four Brexit business groups identified. None, even the most directly impacted, has said that Brexit poses an existential threat to them. It will mean varying degrees of adaptation and adjustment, but it will not meanin their assessmentthat their businesses will become non-viable as a result.

Even GlaxoSmithKline, who have estimated that Brexit will cost them 70m over the next few years and 50m per year thereafter, concluded over the longer term, we continue to believe that Brexit will not have a material impact on our business.

Of course, this doesnt guard against volatility in the markets. Investors view of the risk Brexit poses may differ markedly from businesses themselves, and they are much more reactive to political turmoil than businesses themselves, as the hit many stocks took at the end of last week following the resignations from Cabinet showed.

Despite the recent political noise, we need to be careful not to overstate what Brexit means for some the UKs biggest firms. For instance, Standard Life Aberdeen, an investment company, said we consider [Brexit] to be a major regulatory change.

In other words, it is something that many firms would rather not be dealing with, but they will accommodate it just as they do other government initiatives.

It will of course mean, and already has meant, that companies spend money on preparations and restructuring that otherwise would not have taken place. This redirects resources from other, productive activities. However, this effect is difficult to quantify and may only become clear in the medium to long term.

Nor does what we know now help us to get a handle on the investment that has been withheld. Astrazeneca, for instance, have said they are holding back investment in the UK until they get more certainty, but few others have indicated that such decisions have been made or to what extent their investment decisions have been determined by Brexit

 No-deal Brexit will mean 'lost jobs, lower wages and higher inflation' warns Bank of England governor Mark Carney

There is also an irony to this Brexit preparation. It means that companies are in fact spending, which could even benefit the economy in the short run, as we at The UK in a Changing Europe pointed out in our recent Cost of No Deal report. This spending, of course, may well not be sustained.

Overall, there is a clear distinction between those in the highly regulated and border-exposed sectors who are more worried about the content of the future relationship and those in the macro-exposed and unaffected sectors which are mostly worried about uncertainty and the prospect of no deal. Most firms would probably support the Prime Ministers deal given the alternative of no deal.

What none of this addresses, of course, is perhaps the biggest business risk when it comes to Brexit: the impact on small businesses.

These companies have less scope to spend on contingency plans to prepare for Brexit and as a result have taken fewer, if any, measures. Yet these businesses, with fewer than 50 employees, account for 99.3 per cent of UK firms, almost 60 per cent of private-sector employment and almost 40 per cent of turnover.

While the FTSE100 firms may get the headlines, it is small businesses who are the backbone of the British economy, and who may hold the key to whether or not Brexit is a success.

Matt Bevington is a policy researcher at The UK in a Changing Europe
Brexiteers are not telling the truth when they claim France would not need to impose onerous and costly border checks on imports of UK produce in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the President of the Normandy region has said.

Some Brexiteers have argued that because the UK and the EU are currently fully aligned in terms of food and plant standards it would be unnecessary for France to check UK produce entering the EU after 29 March 2019, even though Britain would suddenly be a third country.

And some have even sought to argue that the imposition of such checks would be illegal under World Trade Organisation rules.

Lord Lilley, a pro-Brexit former UK trade and industry secretary, suggested this in an interview with the BBCs Today programme on Monday, as he sought to play down the economic risks of leaving the EU without an agreement.

But Herve Morin, President of the Normandy region and a former defence minister in the cabinet of President Nicolas Sarkozy, insisted on Wednesday that such checks would be unavoidable due to EU customs union and single market rules.

The British are sovereign, but its the European rules we apply in France, he told The Independent, speaking at the French ambassadors residence in Kensington, central London.

Its a decision that stems from the EU. We are bound by European rules  as are the Dutch, the Belgians and the Irish.

Anybody who says something different is not telling the truth.

The prospects of such checks is deeply worrying for UK for UK farmers.

The National Farmers Union president Minette Batters said in September that crashing out of the EU would be an Armageddon scenario for British farmers.

Trade experts agree with the reading of Mr Morin and dismiss the claim that WTO rules forbid new checks.

The EU is obliged by the WTO to treat the UK as it treats other third countries. That is, with many more frictions than the UK faces at present as a member of the EU, says Alan Winters of the UK Trade Policy Observatory.

 What does a no-deal Brexit mean?

Normandy is home to a number of major ports, including Cherbourg, Le Havre and Caen, serving both the tourist and business trade.

Mr Morin said that there were huge challenges to get the infrastructure in place for future customs checks, even assuming the UK enters a 21-month transition period in March 2019.

Theres a lot of stake economically, said Mr Morin. Customs will have to be set up, capacity will have to be increased.

Lord Lilley told the Today programme on Monday: The European Union signed up to World Trade [Organisation] sanitary and phytosanitary agreement which says that you shall accept the tests in another country if theyre identical to you own  well ours will be identical. But they will probably nonetheless want to carry out checks to check that our checks are good  but we can handle that, thats not going to be bring the world to an end.
Renault has appointed an interim chief executive to take over from Carlos Ghosn who is to be detained for up to 10 days by Japanese police over allegations of "significant misconduct".

The French carmaker's chief operating officer Thierry Bollore will step up to the top job on a temporary basis but Mr Ghosn will remain as chairman and chief executive.

Mr Ghosn, who is also chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi, was arrested on Monday after after Nissan alleged that he had underreported his income by $34.5m over five years.

The Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday that authorities had been granted extra time to question the executive.

Nissan also accused its chairman of misusing company funds, reportedly to buy four houses in Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Beirut and Amsterdam.

The company said that another Nissan board member, Greg Kelly, was also involved in the alleged misconduct.

Mr Ghosn is expected to be formally sacked as chairman at a board meeting on Thursday. Mitsubishis board is due to meet next week to discuss Mr Ghosns future.

The scandal put the future of the Renault-Mitsubishi-Nissan alliance in jeopardy and has delivered a blow to the share prices of all three companies.

A months-long internal investigation into Mr Ghosns conduct came as he was reportedly negotiating a merger between Nissan and Renault which had angered some of the Japanese firms board members.

The two companies already own shares in each other but the deal would have made the alliance irreversible, against the wishes of some senior Nissan figures, who had been looking for ways to scupper it, the Financial Times reported.

Mr Ghosns alleged misconduct is said to have taken place between 2010 and 2015 and, if proven, could result in a prison sentence of up to 10 years for the chief executive.

Frances finance minister Bruno Le Maire said Renault should remove Mr Ghosn from his position, but added that French authorities have examined Mr Ghosns tax affairs in the country and found no wrongdoing.

The revelations threaten the future of one of the most prominent chief executives in the world who had been hailed as a saviour of both Nissan and Renault.

Mr Ghosn has worked at Nissan since 1999, when he became chief operating officer after Renault acquired a 43.6 per cent stake. He served as chief executive officer from 2001 until 2017.

He earned the nickname Le Cost Killer at Renault due to his ruthless management strategy.
The US has once again ramped up trade tensions with China, accusing it of intellectual property theft ahead of a crucial meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 summit later this month.

The US trade representatives office released a 53-page report in which it accused China of conducting a global espionage campaign to collect sensitive commercial information, and said the country operated an unfair technology transfer regime which requires US companies to hand over tech and intellectual property to Chinese competitors.

We completed this update as part of this administrations strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort, trade representative Robert Lighthizer said. This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices.

In response to the report, a spokesman for Chinas foreign ministry said US officials should read a white paper published by the Chinese government in September that claims China firmly protects intellectual property rights.

Meanwhile, one of Mr Trumps top economic advisers has suggested that the case could be made for evicting China from the World Trade Organisation.

Kevin Hassett, chair of the presidents council of economic advisers, said that China had misbehaved and said the US had been failed by the WTO.

The latest escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing comes weeks after Mr Trump and Mr Xi agreed to strengthen economic exchanges.

The two economies have been locked in a battle over trade for months now, which has seen the US impose tariffs on $250bn (195bn) worth of Chinese goods, and the Asian power retaliating with $110bn of duties on US goods.

The WTO has previously warned that the US-China trade war poses a grave threat to the global economy, putting millions of jobs at risk.

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Last month, the organisations director-general, Roberto Azevedo, said: Without action to ease tensions and recommit to cooperation in trade, we could see serious harm done to the multilateral trading system.

The long-term economic consequences of this could be severe. These effects would cause significant disruptions for workers, firms and communities as they adjust to this new reality.

Potentially millions of workers would need to find new jobs; firms would be looking for new products and markets; and communities for new sources of growth.
A Christian parent has threatened her child's school with legal action after it organised a pride parade which she claimed promoted LGBT lifestyles.

Heavers Farm Primary School in London held a parade earlier this year in which encouraged children to celebrate what makes them proud of themselves and their family.

The primary school was forced to cancel family invites after a group of parents threatened to stage a protest.

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Izoduwa Adhedo claimed the event went "against our Christian beliefs" and was an attempt at "indoctrination".

Christian Concern, a conservative group, is supporting her as she considers legal action.

Ms Adhedo, whose son attends the school, was due to meet school governors to make a formal complaint on Tuesday.

In a statement, she said: After I complained about my young child being forced to take place in an event that goes against our Christian beliefs, the schools attitude towards me changed completely. I know other parents who are afraid to speak up because of how the school has treated me.

It was like being bullied. They stopped treating me like any other parent but were antagonistic towards me. I believe that they retaliated against me by unreasonably excluding me from the premises, victimising my child and not taking my safeguarding concerns seriously.

I wasnt even trying to stop the Pride event. I just wanted my child to receive an education, rather than indoctrination.

 Gay Christian shuts down religious Pride protesters in Cardiff: 'Re-read your bible'

Susan Papas, the headteacher at the school, told The Guardian: Equality is a thread that goes through our curriculum. Weve done projects on black history month, disability and womens history.

At the end of the year we decided to do something on anti-homophobia as part of Pride month, taking the idea that people and families can be different but everyone can be proud. There were some objections but they were outweighed by support.
Gaza: Erdan, Israel closer than ever to controlling Strip Gallant, Hamas leader Sinwar's days are numbered

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 21 - Israel is ''closer than ever'' in controlling a part or all of Gaza, the minister for strategic affairs, Gilad Erdan, told a congress organized by the Jerusalem Post.



According to Erdan, ''going from defense to an offensive against Hamas implies targeted murders of the leaders of terror from the organization's military wing''.



During the same event, the minister of construction, Yoav Gallant, stressed that the days of the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yiahya Sinwar, are numbered ''and he will not end his days at home at an old age''. ''Israel - he added - is ready, if necessary, for a large-scale operation in Gaza''. Hamas, according to the minister, is at an ''important turning point'': it must reconsider whether it means to fight Israel or maintain the calm situation of the past few weeks. (ANSAmed).




A rise in hate attacks in Italy cannot be separated from politicians unashamedly embracing racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner rhetoric, the United Nations has said.

UN special rapporteurs also condemned smear campaigns against groups rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean and criminalisation of the work of those who defend migrant rights.

They said people of African and Roma descent in particular had suffered in a rise in racist incidents.

Recommended Italy orders seizure of refugee rescue ship over spurious HIV claim

The UN added that 169 racially motivated incidents were recorded during and after elections in March, 19 of which were violent attacks. The polls saw two anti-establishment parties, the Five Star Movement and the right-wing anti-illegal migrant League party come out ahead.

Rapporteurs also attacked a planned move to restrict immigration rules in Italy, which they said would certainly lead to violations of international human rights law.

The Decree-Law on Immigration and Security, pushed by far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini, includes measures that would abolish humanitarian protection status for migrants and block asylum seekers from accessing reception centres designed to combat social exclusion, the UN said.

It has passed the Italian senate and is due to be voted on by parliaments lower house later this month.

In October, Mr Salvini, also the League's federal secretary, said he wanted to amend the decree to include restrictions on opening hours of ethnic shops.

Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma Show all 10 1 /10 Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma The new development at Via del Riposo houses about 140 people Alex Sturrock Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A young girl plays peekaboo from inside her new home Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma Roma children play between the metal housing containers Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma There are communal outdoor areas where children can play and ride bikes Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A sense of community is growing and card games are often played among the residents Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A young girl cuddles her kitten Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma Abiade lives in the container park with her partner and four children in a two-room unit Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A boy poses for the camera Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A young girl hugs her mother and baby brother Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo Inside Italys new emergency housing development for Roma A number of the children living in the development have places at nearby schools Alex Sturrock/children from Via del Riposo

The restrictions add to a number of policies instituted by the government aimed at foreigners and ethnic minority groups. The policies include crackdowns on pro-immigration local politicians, turning away refugee ships, and a census of Italys Roma traveller population.

A group of UN special rapporteurs said in a statement that migrant rights were at risk due to a climate of hatred and discrimination in the country.

They said: During the most recent electoral campaign, some politicians fuelled a public discourse unashamedly embracing racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner rhetoric. Such speech incites hatred and discrimination.

They added: Removing protection measures from potentially thousands of migrants and limiting their ability to regularise their stay in Italy will increase their vulnerability to attacks and exploitation.

They will be at greater risk from traffickers and other criminal groups, and many will have no means to meet their basic needs through lawful means. Exclusion also leads to social tensions and to more insecurity. An inclusive approach would therefore benefit not only the migrants, but also the Italian people.

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The group admitted Italy faced challenges due to the absence of an effective European-wide system of solidarity in relation to migrants arrivals, but added: The government must adhere to the values enshrined in the Italian constitution, and the international commitments it signed up to.

The Independent has contacted the Italian interior ministry for comment.
Bones of a newly discovered species of vegetarian dinosaur have been dug up in Brazil.

Three astonishingly well preserved skeletons were uncovered and shed new light on one of the earliest of the long-necked dinosaurs that lived more than 225 million years ago.

The new species, which lived before giant dinosaurs had emerged, would have weighed about 16st and grown to around 12ft long and 5ft tall.

Experts say the discovery is also remarkable because it shows the dinosaurs were social creatures at this early stage of their evolution, choosing to live in groups rather than alone.

Named Macrocollum itaquii, it is a distant cousin of the sauropods  the later long-necked beasts that walked on four legs, such as Brontosaurus, which grew into the largest terrestrial animal to walk on Earth.

It roamed South America when it was still part of one huge supercontinent called Pangaea, before the land mass broke up.

Macrocollum, Latin for long neck, may help palaeontologists finally discover how the sauropods grew so big.

Like sauropods, the new species was also a plant-eater, but unlike them it walked on two legs.

This gives us an amazing picture of how these animals lived, which has never been done before Rodrigo Muller

The dominant vegetation at the time was ferns and gymnosperms, flowerless plants that produce cones and seeds, and the creature would have gorged on them to nourish its substantial body.

Biologist Rodrigo Muller, of the Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil, said: "The morphology of its teeth suggests this dinosaur was herbivorous."

Its long neck would have helped it access a lot more food, reports the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Mr Muller said: "Indeed, the neck elongation present in the new dinosaur may also have provided a competitive advantage for gathering food resources.

"It would have allowed members of the group to reach higher vegetation compared to other early vertebrates.

"There are three articulated skeletons in five tons of rock. This is unique.

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"It suggests these animals probably died together, as they share the same degree of disarticulation.

"So if they died together, these dinosaurs probably lived together.

"This gives us an amazing picture of how these animals lived, which has never been done before."

Agencies contributed to this report.
Two men who used a small inflatable boat to smuggle Albanian migrants into the UK, in an operation so dangerous it was "like trying to cross the M25 at its busiest time on foot", have each been jailed for eight years.

Feim Vata, 32, and Xhemal Baco, 24, both of Slough in Berkshire, were sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court for conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration, Kent Police said.

A joint investigation between UK and French authorities found they were moving migrants at night in small inflatable boats from France, across the Channel to the Kent coast near Deal.

They used the extremely unsuitable and overloaded craft in a move compared to trying to walk across Britains busiest motorway during rush hour.

The pair were arrested on 20 October, after Baco was seen picking up six Albanian migrants in France, driving the boat across the Channel and meeting Vata in Kent.

Investigators believe they had made the trip at least three times, using an old plastic water bottle to bail out the boat as they made the crossing.

Detective Inspector Clair Trueman said: It is amazing that no one died during the extremely risky process. When the men and the illegal migrants were arrested, we found them cold and wet, they had travelled in an overloaded inflatable boat with no life vests or navigation equipment and across a busy shipping lane in total darkness.

The extremely unsuitable craft used by Feim Vata and Xhemal Baco to bring Albanian migrants across the channel (PA)

Experts told us that attempting to cross the channel in a boat the size Baco and Vata did is like trying to cross the M25 at its busiest time on foot. They also told us that the boat was extremely unsuitable and overloaded.

He added: The boat Baco and Vata used is not designed to cross the channel, they used empty water bottles for bailing the water out which was found with the boat. It was reckless to even attempt such a crossing and everyone is extremely lucky to have survived.

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Groups of swarming climate change protesters are blocking major roads in central London as part of the escalating Extinction Rebellion movement.

Following on from its occupation of five Thames bridges on Saturday afternoon to call for greater political action against global warming, dozens of demonstrators in four different groups across the capital began blocking roads at 7.30am on Wednesday, near the height of the morning rush hour.

Bearing banners and placards, the activists are preventing cars, buses and lorries from passing for seven-minute periods, then stepping aside for two minute intervals before repeating the cycle.

Recommended Thousands of climate change protesters block London bridges

Protesters blocking off both sides of Vauxhall Bridge Road told The Independent they planned to continue the protest until 3pm, possibly moving on to other locations. They began the demonstration at Lambeth Bridge.

The demonstration has been met with an angry response by frustrated motorists commuting to work and those taking part were harangued by some members of the public.

Protesters are also understood to have begun the day blocking roads at Tower Bridge, Earls Court and Elephant and Castle.

Of course people are going to be annoyed to sit in traffic, no one wants top sit in traffic, said George, an organiser at Extinction Rebellion who wished not to provide his surname.

Adding he was truly sorry to motorists for the disruption, George said action was necessary in light of the IPCC report last month which said the world has 12 years to avert an environmental catastrophe.

Climate change is heading towards the abyss, George said. Disruption, unfortunately, is absolutely necessary to force a conversation.

Darren Cooper, a climate activist who signed up to Extinction Rebellion after Saturdays protest, said he was protesting due to the criminally negligent government and right-wing billionaires who have a vested interest in fossil fuels.

Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Show all 25 1 /25 Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Demonstrators block Westminster Bridge in central London to show anger at government inaction on climate and ecological issues AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges A pro environment protester is arrested by police on Lambeth bridge in London EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Organised by Extinction Rebellion, the protest is part of many taking place this weekend to bring attention to political inaction on issues of pollution and climate change Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Organised by Extinction Rebellion, the protest is part of many taking place this weekend to bring attention to political inaction on issues of pollution and climate change PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Demonstrators on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Police with demonstrators on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges A demonstrator is led away by police on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters

Referencing Theresa Mays infamous go home vans, and the Windrush scandal, Mr Cooper said the government was not being held responsible for its actions.

We need disruption to bring attention to the problem because we are running out of time, he said.

A female protester added: People are sick of being told its enough to sign a petition when were faced with extinction.

One driver stuck in traffic on Albert Embankment, however, said the demonstration was causing more pollution and that he was going to be late to work.

It aint going to make a f****** difference bruv, it makes people hate you more, one furious pedestrian shouted at protesters.

Jim Davidson, an English comedian and former TV presenter, was spotted angrily remonstrating against protesters from his car.

"Why arent you moving them? Davidson reportedly shouted at police, before telling demonstrators who tried to approach him he did not talk to "lefties", according to the BBC.

Police were at the scene at Vauxhall Bridge, and demonstrators said they were absolutely ready to be arrested. None had been made at the time of publication.

The Independent has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment.

Extinction Rebellion plans on similar protests in London on Thursday and Friday.
A British student has been sentenced to life in jail in the United Arab Emirates on charges of spying for the UK government, with London promising "serious diplomatic consequences."

Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old student at Durham University who went to the country to research his PhD thesis, was handed the sentence at an Abu Dhabi court in a hearing that lasted less than five minutes, and with no lawyer present.

His wife Daniela Tejada, who was present at the court room, said she was in complete shock.

This has been the worst six months of my life, let alone for Matt who was shaking when he heard the verdict, she said in a statement. The UAE authorities should feel ashamed for such an obvious injustice. Our nightmare has gotten even worse.

She added: Matthew is innocent. The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them. This whole case has been handled appallingly from the very beginning with no one taking Matthews case seriously. The British government must take a stand now for Matthew, one of their citizens.

Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary

British prime minister Theresa May said she was deeply disappointed and concerned at the verdict. We are raising it with the Emirati authorities at the highest level, she told parliament.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has been involved with the case over the past few months, said: Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom. I have repeatedly made clear that the handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries.

He later tweeted: "We have seen no evidence to back up charges against him ... UAE claim to be friend & ally of the UK so there will be serious diplomatic consequences. Unacceptable."

Mr Hedges was detained in May at Dubai airport as he was leaving the country following a research trip, and held in solitary confinement for five months. During that time he was interrogated without a lawyer or consular access. A representative for the family said that his mental and physical health has seriously deteriorated during his detention.

UAE attorney general Hamad al-Shamsi said Hedges was accused of spying for a foreign country, jeopardising the military, political and economic security of the state.

Mr Hedges has denied the charges, and maintains that he was in the country to research the impact of the Arab Spring on the UAEs foreign policy.

Matthews wife has made repeated appeals to the UK government to intervene. In a statement released last month, she said: Matt is a man of integrity and principle. He has a brilliant academic mind and an impeccable track record. He is kind and caring and greatly loved and respected. Please send him home.

Mr Hunt said previously the UK government was very worried by the case and he has personally spoken with the UAE foreign minister twice about it.

 UN asked to intervene over Dubai ruler's daughter Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammad al-Maktoum 'being detained against her will' after failed escape from UAE

We are very concerned to make sure there is proper due process, the court system is fair and that Matthew Hedges is treated properly and humanely and that we get a just outcome, the foreign secretary said in October.

Middle East minister Alistair Burt also travelled to the UAE to intervene on his behalf.

More than 100 academics have signed a petition calling for Mr Hedges release, and deriding his treatment by authorities as degrading and inhumane.

Not only is he an innocent man being held unjustly, but it also places into question existing and future academic ties between the UK and the UAE, said the petition, signed by academics from American, British and Spanish universities.
Amber Rudd has admitted anything could happen if Theresa Mays Brexit deal is defeated and suggested MPs will then prefer a Final Say referendum to crashing out of the EU.

The new work and pensions secretary undermined the prime ministers threat of my deal or no deal, saying: There isnt a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place.

Asked if the choice would be a fresh Brexit referendum or leaving with no deal, she replied: Its my view that the Commons will stop no deal.

And she said, of next months crucial vote: If it doesnt get through, anything could happen. The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

Ms Rudd also cast doubt on Ms Mays plans to seal the Brexit deal at a summit with EU leaders on Sunday, acknowledging there are still obstacles in the way.

Hopefully it will get through this week, she said, adding: There is still a negotiation going on in terms of actually getting this agreement through.

The comments make Ms Rudd the first cabinet minister to rule out a no-deal Brexit  and the first to suggest an agreement at European level could yet be derailed.

They came as the prime minister prepared to head to Brussels for talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, under huge pressure for further wins in the final text.

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

However, Ms Rudd, denied the deal was doomed when it reaches the Commons, arguing MPs would take a careful look over the abyss and back it.

I think likelihood is that, despite what people say, the withdrawal agreement will get through, the May loyalist told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

Ms Rudd has previously argued a Norway-style EEA deal  effectively keeping the UK in the EU single market  is an option, if parliament rejects Ms Mays strategy.

She hinted at that approach in the interview, saying: There will be different amendments that will be followed up on.

In the summer, Nick Boles, a former Tory minister warned party hardliners that their dream of a no-deal Brexit would be blocked by at least 40 fellow Conservatives.

And The Independent revealed in June that they could use a humble address  the tactic Labour used to force the government to release Brexit economic assessments  to prevent it.

Earlier, another senior Tory, Damian Collins  who opposes Ms Mays deal  said the public should be given the final say if it is rejected, in either a referendum or a general election.

I don't think, as parliament, we could just stand back and watch the country fall off the edge of a cliff without asking the people whether that was the step they wanted to take, he said.

Confirming he will vote against the agreement, Mr Collins said: I don't accept that this is a deal we have to accept or face the cliff-edge.

Labour, which has vowed to stop the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, welcomed Ms Rudds acknowledgement that parliament would hold the whip hand.

Amber Rudd seems to have ignored Number 10s spin by admitting that Parliament would stop a no deal Brexit, said Keir Starmer, the partys Brexit spokesman.

Its time for the government to drop the false choice between a bad deal and no deal, and to come forward with a plan that can command the majority support of parliament.
Former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke has said he will back Theresa Mays Brexit plans when they comes to a vote in the House of Commons.

Mr Clarke said the deal to be signed off at a Brussels summit this weekend was not ideal, but that it delivered continuity for business and lay ground for critical future trade negotiations with Europe.

His intervention will be seen both as a boost for Ms May  coming from one of the greatest critics of Brexit  and as proof for some eurosceptics that her proposals do not give the UK a clean enough break from the EU.

It comes as Ms May heads to Brussels to hammer out the final details of the political declaration on the outline of Britains future relations with the EU, to be approved on Sunday by the European Council along with the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Mr Clarke, seen as one of the most pro-EU MPs on the Tory benches, said: I will vote for this deal.

I think its, you know, its a bit of a dogs breakfast. I think if she hadnt made so many efforts to appease the really hardline eurosceptics in my party, she could have got a slightly better one.

We could have just stayed in the single market and the customs union on the date of withdrawal before we go into the big negotiations on what the long term aim is.

The ex-cabinet ministers accepted however that the deal delivered certainty for business in the short term, something that the more liberal wing of Ms Mays party has demanded as a red line.

 Amber Rudd admits new Brexit referendum on table if Theresa May's deal rejected by parliament: 'Anything could happen'

Speaking to Sky News, he added: Ill settle for this, it keeps the borders as they are, it keeps everything continuous for British business, industry and investment and it paves the way for the transition period, because the serious negotiations start now really, about what are the long term arrangements going to be, which will affect all our children and grandchildren.

Mr Clarkes support will buoy Ms May as she seeks the backing of her party ahead of a critical commons vote expected next month and could help persuade other remain-minded MPs to fall in behind the PM.

But hardline Brexiteers could see his support as a sign that the deal on the table does not pull the UK far enough out of the orbit of the EUs singe market and customs union.

Chief secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss also took to the airwaves to make the case for the deal, telling Tory MPs they face a choice between Ms Mays Brexit deal or not leaving the EU at all.

She told told BBC Radio 5 Lives Emma Barnett Show: If my colleagues in parliament dont vote for this then were in grave danger of not leaving at all.

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

I am very, very worried about what the alternative looks like, because Im a democrat. I believe that people voted in good faith to leave the EU and we need to deliver that.

Ms Truss said she was confident weve got a good deal to send before Parliament.

New pensions secretary Amber Rudd made a similar warning, saying that the commons would stop no-deal and if Ms Mays plans did not go through anything could happen.

The minister, a former Remain campaigner who replaced Leave-backing Esther McVey in the cabinet following her resignation last week, added: The Brexiteers may lose their Brexit.

Ms Rudd made clear that she expected MPs to rally behind Mrs Mays proposals, telling BBC Radio 4s Today programme: I dont think we are looking at another referendum.

I think people will take a careful look over the abyss  MPs of all parties  and consider whether they think it is in the best interests of the whole country.

I think the likelihood is, despite what people say, that the withdrawal agreement will get through.

Ms May will meet European Commission President Mr Juncker in the late afternoon today. Brussels has indicated that the withdrawal agreement will not be rewritten as some Brexiteers want. Work is ongoing, however, to flesh out the political declaration on the future UK-EU relationship.
Negotiators have just 24 hours left to resolve outstanding issues with the Brexit deal if a summit on Sunday is to go ahead, Brussels has warned.

A senior EU official said on Wednesday that time was running out to produce a final text in time for the planned summit, with last-minute concerns around fishing rights and Gibraltar threatening to sink the plan.

Although Britain and the European Commission struck a draft withdrawal agreement and future relationship plan last week, a number of member states have raised significant concerns with the proposals and declined to sign off.

Angela Merkel has now also threatened to pull out of the summit if no agreement is ready in time for the meeting, according to diplomats in Brussels. The ultimatum is being interpreted as a bid to avoid late-night sessions of face-to-face negotiations between leaders.

The commission is keen that the Sunday summit be little more than a glorified rubber-stamp, with the deal having been signed off beforehand  but the stipulation appears to be risking the entire meeting.

Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters in Brussels that a final agreement would have to be done before a key meeting of national officials on Friday at the latest, if it was to be ready for the Sunday summit.

We will need to have agreed beforehand on the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet, he said, addressing the issue of the summit.

Sherpas are due to meet on Friday. Of course they will need to see a final text before then and the commission stands ready to consider the text and take any action at any time.

Asked if Sundays special EU summit to sign off the Brexit deal could be cancelled because of the deadlock, the prime ministers spokesman said: A summit has been called, an agenda has been published and we look forward to attending.

Theresa May travelled to Brussels on Wednesday evening to meet with commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in the hope of resolving the impasse. She told reporters after the meeting that she would return on Saturday for another meeting with Mr Juncker, and that there are some further issues that need resolution that she hoped could be resolved.

We have had a very good meeting this evening. We have made further progress and as a result, we have given sufficient direction to our negotiators, the PM said. I hope for them to be able to resolve the remaining issues and that work will start immediately.

A commission spokesperson said: Very good progress was made in the meeting between President Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May. Work is continuing.

We will need to have agreed beforehand on the political declaration on the future relationship and we are not there yet Valdis Dombrovskis, EU commission vice president

The prime minister is under pressure at home from MPs in her own party who see the deal as too tough on Britain, but in Brussels she is also facing opposition from member states who feel the EU has given away too much already. A failure to gain more concessions from Europe is expected to see her cabinet again rocked by yet more resignations.

Spain in particular has raised concerns about Gibraltars treatment under the draft plan - prime minister Pedro Sanchez insisted he would vote against the draft deal unless he wins assurances over the disputed peninsula of Gibraltar.

On Wednesday night, Ms May spoke to Mr Sanchez and "there had been good engagement between the UK, the Government of Spain and the Government of Gibraltar," May's office said, adding that the UK and Gibraltar "looked forward to these discussions continuing."

Meanwhile other member states such as France, Denmark, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands are concerned that the commission did not secure access for their fishing fleets to British waters.

The fishing section of the agreement commits the EU and UK to negotiating a fishing agreement by July 2020, during the transition period. But the group of discontent member states, led by France, is concerned that the EU has given Britain access to the benefits of the customs union through the Northern Ireland backstop without securing access for its fleets first.

The situation is particularly sensitive because Brexiteers also want to reopen the deal, but have been told they cannot do so. Reopening it to make it harsher on Britain would probably enrage them further  and add to the 70-plus Tory MPs who have now suggested they cannot vote for the plan.

Diplomats familiar with the situation suggested the changes could be accommodated by so-called side-declarations that would avoid reopening talks on the agreement but give clear stipulations about how the EU expected the legal text to be interpreted.

Aside from the fishing issue, Spain is demanding concessions for Gibraltar, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warning: If there are no changes regarding Gibraltar, Spain will vote no to the agreement on Brexit.

 Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell: Spain will not back Brexit deal over issue of Gibraltar

The country takes issue with a clause added to the withdrawal agreement at the last minute  article 184. The article says the EU and the UK will seek to negotiate rapidly the agreements governing their future relationship before the end of the transition.

But Spain wants an addition to the text specifying that Gibraltar will not be covered by that agreement, and that it is for Spain and Britain to negotiate the future of the territory bilaterally.

Neither side appears willing to give ground on the issue, with Theresa May telling MPs on Wednesday: Gibraltar is covered by our exit negotiations  We are seeking a deal that works for the whole UK family and that deal must work for Gibraltar too.

The withdrawal agreement must be approved by a qualified majority vote of the European Council, meaning Spain alone cannot sink the deal without the support of other countries  although it could cause serious trouble down the line and veto a future trade agreement if the issue is not resolved now.

If Spain and the fishing states joined forces, they would have the numbers to block the agreement.

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

Spain has long resented Britains claims on Gibraltar, a British overseas territory that is home to around 30,000 people, and has previously threatened to use Brexit to wrest concessions on the issue.

The upsurge in interest in the Gibraltar issue could be down to the fact that the Spanish region of Andalusia has local elections scheduled for 2 December  just a week after the final Brexit summit.

Andalusia borders Gibraltar, and includes the county of Camp de Gibraltar  or countryside of Gibraltar. Around 10,000 Spanish people cross the border into the British overseas territory every day to work, so their livelihoods are connected to Brexit talks.
The Queen should ask Jeremy Corbyn to form a government if MPs vote down Theresa Mays Brexit deal, John McDonnell has said.

The shadow chancellor claimed that, according to the UK constitution, Labour must be offered the chance to govern if Ms May is no longer able to command a majority in the Commons.

Until now, Labours policy has been that a general election should be triggered if the governments proposed withdrawal agreement is rejected by parliament, but Mr McDonnell admitted this would be difficult to bring about.

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Instead, he said, Mr Corbyn should be given the chance to put Labours plans before MPs, adding that he believed they would be backed by the Commons.

Ms May has faced questions over the status of her governing majority, with the Democratic Unionist Party, whose votes she relies on, refusing to support the prime minister unless she changes her Brexit plan.

Speaking to City leaders at an event organised by Reuters, Mr McDonnell said: We havent sufficiently explored the concept of a minority government in our constitution, our custom and practice.

If [the government] cant command a majority, usually it is then the duty of the monarch to offer to the opposition the chance to form a government  and that would be a minority government  to see whether they have a majority in parliament.

I think we could secure a majority in parliament for some of the proposals that were putting forward.

Mr McDonnell was speaking after the DUP temporarily pulled its support for the government in protest at Ms Mays Brexit deal.

Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Show all 13 1 /13 Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Esther McVey Britain's Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey arrives to attend the weekly meeting of the cabinet at 10 Downing Street in London. - Britain's Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey resigned from the cabinet over draft Brexit deal AFP/Getty Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Dominic Raab British Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab give a press conference at the end of the final round of talks in Brexit negotiations at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium EPA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Rehman Chrishti Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party Rehman Chrishti tendered his resignation letter this afternoon PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Anne-Marie Trevelyan Parliamentary private secretary in the Department of Education Anne-Marie Trevelyan resigned stating that she cannot support the deal Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Sam Gyimah Universities minister Sam Gyimah resigned on November 30, claiming the government's decision to pull out of the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system as a deciding factor PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Shailesh Vara Shailesh Vara who has quit as Minister of State for Northern Ireland, saying he cannot support Theresa May's Brexit agreement, which he said "leaves the UK in a halfway house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation" PA Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Suella Braverman Brexit minister Suella Braverman has resigned, stating It is not what the British people, or my constituents, voted for in 2016. Cabinet ministers resign over Brexit deal Ranil Jayawardena Parliamentary private secretary to the ministry of justice Ranil Jayawardena resigned as he could not back the deal "in good conscience"

The Northern Irish party abstained on a number of key votes on the Finance Bill, throwing into doubt the future of its Commons pact with the Conservatives.

The prime minister will need the DUPs votes if she is to have any chance of getting her proposed deal through parliament.

Mr McDonnell said the real test would come when MPs are given a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal next month.

He said: The process around offering the opposition party [the chance to try to form a government] usually comes as a result of the minority government losing votes within the House.

Thats already begun to happen on the Finance Bill, and the Finance Bill is usually the most significant piece of legislation in any year.

However, I think the test is whether or not the government is losing consistent votes on the issue of the deal itself. If it is, then its demonstrating that as a minority government it hasnt got the will of the House, the majority of the House, and therefore its a situation where its ungovernable, theyre not in government.

Therefore the normal process is that the opposition party should be offered the opportunity to see if it can form a government that could secure a majority in the House for its proposals, and I think thats the process we should go through.

Turning to Brexit, the shadow chancellor said he was confident that parliament would block a no-deal outcome at all costs.

He said: There is an overwhelming majority opposing anything that smacks of being no deal.

I think that the concerns that people have of falling off a cliff edge  there is no majority for it. There will be a majority against it.

Mr McDonnell refused to confirm whether he thought Brexit would happen at all, saying that while Labour wants to respect the result of the referendum, its very difficult to predict at the moment what the final outcome will be.
Spains prime minister has doubled down and warned his country will reject the Brexit agreement negotiated by Theresa May, unless it is given concessions on Gibraltar.

Pedro Sanchez said his government needed assurances that the deal does not apply to the British Iberian territory, which Spain claims sovereignty over.

Speaking in Madrid, Mr Sanchez said: If there are no changes regarding Gibraltar, Spain will vote No to the agreement on Brexit.

Spain takes issue with a clause added to the withdrawal agreement at the last minute  article 184. The article says the EU and the UK will seek to negotiate rapidly the agreements governing their future relationship before the end of the transition.

But Spain wants an addition to the text specifying that Gibraltar is excluded from those talks, and that it is for Spain and Britain to negotiate the future of the territory bilaterally.

Downing Street has however said it believes both the withdrawal and agreement and the future relationship will apply to Gibraltar.

Because the withdrawal agreement will be approved by qualified majority vote of the European Council, Spain alone cannot sink the deal without the support of other countries  though it could veto a future trade agreement down the line.

If there are no changes regarding Gibraltar, Spain will vote No to the agreement on Brexit Pedro Sanchez, Spanish prime minister

The demand presents a dilemma for negotiators, however  as Brexiteers on the British side also want to reopen talks on the withdrawal agreement to gain more concessions, but have been told they must accept it as it stands.

Other countries such as France and Denmark are understood to have other concerns with the plan, which they see as too soft on the UK  because it does not guarantee their fishing fleets access to British waters.

Mr Sanchez has now thrown his weight behind his foreign minister, who raised concerns with the plans at the start of the week.

The negotiations between Britain and the EU have a territorial scope that does not include Gibraltar, the negotiations on the future of Gibraltar are separate discussions, Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell had said on Monday morning in Brussels.

This is what needs to made clear, and until it is clarified in the withdrawal agreement and in the political declaration on the future relationship, we cannot give our backing.

Spain has long resented Britains claims on Gibraltar, a British overseas territory that is home to around 30,000 people, and has previously threatened to use Brexit to wrest concessions on the issue.

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

The Gibraltar issue is also controversial with the Spanish public, with successive governments benefiting politically by grandstanding on the matter.

The upsurge in interest in the Gibraltar issue could be down to the fact that the Spanish region of Andalusia has local elections scheduled for 2 December  just a week after the final Brexit summit.

Andalusia borders Gibraltar, and includes the county of Camp de Gibraltar  or countryside of Gibraltar. Around 10,000 Spanish people cross the border into the British overseas territory every day to work, so their livelihoods are connected to Brexit talks.
Yellow vest in parliament, session suspended MP Jean Lassalle wore symbolic protest vest

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, NOVEMBER 21 - The French National Assembly suspended its session briefly on Wednesday after MP and former presidential candidate Jean Lassalle wore a yellow vest in solidarity with protesters demonstrating against fuel price hikes.



Lassalle put the vest on while Interior Minister Christophe Castaner was speaking about the topic, in light of a new demonstration being publicised on Facebook that is planned for Paris on Saturday.



Lassalle, an independent, is known for his spirited personality and for going against the grain.



National Assembly Speaker Richard Ferrand repeatedly asked Lassalle to remove the vest, and when Lassalle did not respond, Ferrand briefly suspended the session.(ANSAmed).




An Italian woman has been kidnapped by gunmen during an attack on the south-eastern coastal town of Chakama in Kenya, and five other women and young men have been shot.

Police said a "gang... abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area", in a statement posted on Twitter.

A witness said the gunmen were initially demanding money from terrified residents, but took the Italian volunteer, who has not been named, with them when they left. It is the first kidnapping of a European citizen in Kenya for a number of years.

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The men, armed with AK-47 rifles, attacked the town of Chakama on Tuesday evening, police said. The town is west of Malindi, a major tourism destination on the coast.

There was no immediate comment from the Italian government.

Police did not say if the gunmen were suspect militants from al-Shabaab, an Islamist group based in neighbouring Somalia that has launched deadly attacks in Kenya for years, including the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in which nearly 70 people were killed.

"Neither the reasons for the attack nor the identity of the attackers have been established," police said.

An unidentified witness told Kenyan TV channel KTN News: "The European lady got out of her room, instead of lying on the ground, to enquire what was going on. One of the attackers then slapped her."

"Their aim was to get money but they took off with her to the river and, before leaving the village, they started shooting in the air and they shot one woman and four boys," the witness said.

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Police said the wounded were all under the age of 25, and were taken to hospital. One boy, aged 10, suffered a gunshot wound to his left eye, but was described as being in a stable condition.

Police officers were pursuing the gunmen, a statement read, adding: "We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim."

Al-Shabaab have intensified attacks in Kenya since it sent troops into Somalia in 2011, and there have been several attacks in recent months in which Kenyan soldiers were killed.

Nonetheless, those attacks have all taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia. Chakama, where Tuesday evening's attack took place, is nearly 300km (185 miles) southwest of the Kenya-Somalia border.

Additional reporting by Reuters
The National Weather Service has warned about the threat of flash floods with rain predicted for areas in northern California affected by the state's deadliest wildfire,

Areas near the mountains, in particular, have no trees to stop rainwater due to the blaze, and the scorched earth will not be able to absorb even the moderate amount of rain expected.

The pending rain also brings the problem of mudslides and boulders on local roads as well as ash and debris being carried into streams.

Cal Fire and weather service officials said the soil just below the surface gets packed by intense wildfire heat and can become impermeable to water, causing an almost instant wash off of debris, ash and loose dirt during extremely heavy rainstorms, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Those in the vicinity of the Camp Fire in Butte County, the Delta and Hirtz fires near Shasta City and Redding, California, and residents near the Mendocino Complex fire around Clear Lake, have all been warned of the flash floods.

Most people in the area evacuated during the height of the blazes but returned to survey the damage.

 Camp fire: Video shows 'firenado' raging during California wildfire

Several residents have been staying in caravans or tents in vacant parking lots as they try to recover possessions and rebuild their lives.

Due to the possible flooding though, more indoor shelters have been opened in the region.

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 storm is expected to begin midweek and last through part of the weekend, with another storm hitting next week.

Search and rescue crews may also be hampered by the rain.

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They are surveying a massive area. Here were looking for very small parts and pieces, and so we have to be very diligent and systematic, said Joe Moses, a commander with the Monterey County Sheriffs Office told the local CBS News station.

Sheriff Kory Honea expressed doubt the searches would be completed before the rain began.

There is some positive news from the rain - firefighters and public health officials say it will help to control or stop the blazes and clear up the unhealthy amounts of smoke and debris that have been in the air for the past 10 days.

It will also put a halt to "fire concerns for the winter," meteorologist in the National Weather Service's Sacramento office Robert Baruffaldi told CNN.
Police are investigating an apparent shooting and "suspicious" fire that ripped through a New Jersey mansion Tuesday afternoon.

One person was found dead with a gunshot wound outside of the mansion located in Colts Neck, New Jersey, as numerous other fatalities were reported inside of the building.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said the two adults and two children killed in the incident were victims of homicide, after previously confirming multiple fatalities had occurred in a tweet.

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New Jersey firefighters were forced to speed tanker trucks of water to the blaze since there are no fire hydrants located on the streets of Colts Neck, a suburban township in Monmouth County.

Videos taken by helicopters above the fire shows the massive fire consuming the large, modern mansion as smoke billows into the sky.

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

There was no threat to the public as of 4:00pm local time, law enforcement officials said in a press conference.

However, sources told NBC New York a second fire had erupted at an Ocean Township home belonging to the brother of somebody who lived in the mansion located in Colts Neck. That home was safely evacuated, officials confirmed.

While investigating the incident, police reportedly found numerous gas cans placed behind the home.

Authorities have described both fires as suspicious, and remained on the scene near the mansion hours after it began around 1:30pm, writing in a tweet that firefighters were still working on fire.

Colts Neck is a well-to-do community about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of New York City and is home to horse farms. Typical homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at about $750,000.

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Public records show the home is owned by Keith Caneiro, 50, and Jennifer Caneiro, 45.

The 5,700-square-foot home has four bedrooms and five bathrooms, according to Zillow. The owners purchased the property in 1998, and the home was built in 2003, public records show.

Mr Caneiros LinkedIn profile describes him as the CEO and chief technology officer for a company in the New York City area called Square One. His profile says he graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science degree in 2018 and previously received certifications from Harvard Business School.

Additional reporting by AP
Cindy McCain has said she will never get over Donald Trump's attacks on her late husband, John McCain's his legacy as an American war hero.

The widow of the Arizona senator addressed controversial remarks the president has repeatedly made that he does not consider Mr McCain a war hero because he was captured during the Vietnam War, saying, I like people that weren't captured.

When asked whether she was hurt by those comments during an interview with BBC, Ms McCain replied: Yeah I was. I thought it was inappropriate and wrong. I really did. It hurt the family, too.

She added, I think that was a wrong thing to say and I  I dont know if Ill ever get over it, if Im being honest. But Im the wife, thats my prerogative, I dont have to.

Ms McCain, who became regarded as a political force alongside her husband during his tenure in the Senate, has kept notably quiet about Mr Trumps presidency since he made it to the Oval Office in 2016.

On Wednesday, the Republican refused to commit to voting to Mr Trump in the 2020 election, suggesting she did not believe the president was guaranteed to seek a second term.

You know, I dont even know if hes going to run, and hes not sure, I dont believe hes sure hes going to run, she said. At this point, Id like to see some softening of the rhetoric, I really would.

Its hard, she continued. Its hurtful.

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The president was not invited to Mr McCains funeral earlier this year, though several members of his administration  including Vice President Mike Pence  attended the historic occasion alongside former first families.

The late senator and decorated military veteran died of brain cancer complications at 81-years-old, after a long battle with glioblastoma.
The newly elected crop of Demcrat US House members are looking make an impact as soon as they arrive - by seeking to change the dress code rules to allow the wearing religious headwear, like hijabs, on the floor of the chamber.

The so-called hat ban has existed since the 1830s, when it was seen as a harmless but indecorous practice according to one member at the time.

However, the victory of Congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who wears a hijab, has decided that the rue is not fit for practice.

Recommended First two Muslim women elected to US congress

Ms Omar wrote on Twitter and Instagram: "No one puts a scarf on my head but me. It's my choice -- one protected by the first amendment.

She and Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress.

Rules changes will be submitted in January by the new Congress to make an exception for members on religious grounds, but also for those wanting to wear a head covering if suffering from an illness.

Nancy Pelosi, the current House minority leader and likely next Speaker of the House, said in a statement to NBC News: "Democrats know that our strength lies in our diversity, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion. After voters elected the most diverse Congress in history, clarifying the antiquated rule banning headwear will further show the remarkable progress we have made as a nation.

While the majority of the US House identifies as Christian, religion has played an interesting role in conduct on the floor.

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

When the pope came to visit, he wore his skull cap. Jewish members do not wear yarmulkes on the floor or in their daily lives but some staffers do.

Some of the other provisions of the current dress code include coats and ties for men and women cannot go sleeveless.

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It is up to the Speaker of the House to enforce the rules, but putting the exemption into the rules will make it harder for future Speakers to rescind the provision, whether on political grounds or otherwise.
Senators have demanded that Donald Trump investigate what role, if any, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman played in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Two senior senators invoked the Magnitsky Act in an attempt to force the president to determine whether the prince was involved in the Washington Post columnists death at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The law, named after slain Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, allows the US government to impose sanctions against a foreign person determined to have been responsible for human rights violations.

Bob Menendez, a Democrat, wrote to Mr Trump alongside Republican Bob Corker in an update to a 10 October demand for a sanctions determination. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, Mr Menendez tweeted. The senators said they expected Mr Trump to make his determination within the 120-day deadline triggered last month.

In light of recent developments, including the Saudi governments acknowledgement that Saudi officials killed Mr Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate, we request that your determination specifically address whether crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible, the pair wrote.

While Mr Trump has denounced Khashoggis killing as an unacceptable and horrible crime he has also made clear he does not want to punish Saudi Arabia for it.

Following a series of shifting denials, Riyadh eventually admitted Saudi operatives intentionally killed the columnist, but has insisted the Crown Prince was not involved.

Mr Trump has rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tough response, and dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that the crown prince must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!, the president said in a statement.

Recommended Trump submits answers to Robert Mueller questions in Russia probe

He has suggested that the kingdoms spending power and its opposition to Iran are his main concerns. He said in a statement laden with exclamation points and beginning with his trademark phrase America First! that Riyadh planned to invest some $450bn (350bn) in the US thanks to his diplomatic efforts.

It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth, he said on Tuesday, giving top billing to purchases of military equipment from big guns Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

Mr Trump told reporters at the White House that oil prices would skyrocket if the US broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish.

He also praised the kingdom as a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.

The US has previously sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the 2 October killing of Mr Khashoggi, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Mr Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts would merely benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Asked by a reporter on Tuesday if he was saying that human rights were too expensive to fight for, he said: No, Im not saying that at all.

Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA

Mr Menendez tweeted a direct criticism of the presidents reasoning after sending his letter. He said: The fact is we cannot allow exaggerated profits from weapons sales and other business deals to drive our foreign policy at the expense of our broader interests, human rights, and promoting values that will make us secure over the long-term.

We know countries that observe democracy and human rights are less likely to go to war, less likely to draw American troops into battle, and better for global stability. In other words, when we stand up for democracy and human rights, we ARE putting America First.

Mr Corker tweeted that Maybe he did and maybe he didnt wont cut it. He added: I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Turkeys foreign minister also appeared to rebuke Mr Trump during a trip to Washington, saying Khashoggis slaying should not be covered up for the sake of maintaining trade ties with Riyadh..

Mevlut Cavusoglu also told Turkish journalists that Saudi Arabias cooperation over the investigation into the killing is not at the desired level. He added that Turkey would take formal steps to seek an international investigation if it reaches an impasse with Riyadh.

He added: This is a humanitarian issue. It concerns a murder. It is not possible to say our trade will increase, lets cover this up, lets ignore it.

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Irans foreign minister mocked the president's announcement that he did not intend to punish the Saudi leadership. In a tweet sent late on Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that Mr Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of.

He went on to joke that perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests - just like the Finns do?

Mr Trump has said he plans to meet with Mr bin Salman at the G20 summit in Argentina in December.

Additional reporting by agencies
Donald Trump has thanked Saudi Arabia for lowering oil prices, just hours after he refused to condemn the kingdom over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The president tweeted: "Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!"

He followed up moments later by repeating his slogan, "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!".

Mr Trump's statement strains credibility. Most oil analysts credit Russia for pressuring Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations to keep output up and oil prices down.

Recommended Senators tell Trump he must determine whether crown prince responsible

Mr Trump himself also played a role. By granting waivers from U.S. sanctions on Iran oil sales to China, Japan, and six other countries, he undermined expectations of a crunch and created an unanticipated glut in the market, collapsing oil prices.

The president likely hopes news about oil prices will divert attention away from his handling of the Khashoggi affair. The Washington Post columnist was ambushed, murdered, and dismembered by a Saudi kill team in Istanbul 50 days ago. Despite global outrage over the killing of the journalist, Mr Trump has insisted on sno erious consequences for the Saudi leadership believed to have ordered the assassination because of Saudi weapons purchases, the White House's confrontation with Iran, and oil prices.

Lower oil prices might please US consumers, but will likely not help Mr Trump politically. Despite a booming economy, Mr Trump's approval ratings remain low, with 53 per cent of voters disapproving of his presidency.
Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

We answered every question they asked that was legitimately pre-election and focused on Russia, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in an interview. Nothing post-election. And we've told them we're not going to do that.

Mr Giuliani said Trump did not plan to answer any questions from Mr Mueller on whether he tried to obstruct the investigation once he won office, such as by firing former FBI Director James Comey last year.

It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion, the lawyer said in an earlier statement on the probe, which Mr Trump has repeatedly called a witch hunt.

Mr Trump signed the submission on Tuesday before he left Washington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in Florida, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr Mueller was tasked to probe any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation into possible collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to tip it towards Mr Trump by undermining Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow and Russia has said it did not meddle in the election.

Among the topics Trump answered questions about on Tuesday was a June 2016 meeting between the president's son Donald Trump Jr, other members of Mr Trump's campaign team and a group of Russians, the person familiar with the matter said.

Mr Trump has denied knowing about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, who had promised damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

There were no real big surprises in the questions. They were detailed, complex, they were multipart, Mr Giuliani said. He would not say how many questions there were.

Mr Mueller has already brought charges against some former Trump aides, including his former campaign chairman and his former national security adviser, as well as a number of Russian individuals and entities.

Mr Giuliani said in his statement the president had provided unprecedented cooperation with the probe over the past year and a half, noting that more than 30 White House-related witnesses had been questioned and 1.4 million pages of material turned over before Mr Trump responded to the pre-election questions in writing.

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He added that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry.

Mr Giuliani later told Reuters there was very little hope Trump would sit for an interview with the special counsel.

Mr Trump's lawyers have been negotiating with Mr Mueller's prosecutors since last year over whether the president would sit for an interview. Mr Trump himself has offered mixed responses.

Earlier this month, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker as his replacement on an acting basis, renewing calls for legislation to protect Mueller's work. Mr Whitaker has previously criticised the scope of the Mueller probe.

Reuters
US Army and Marine engineers deployed to the nations southern border ahead of the arrival of a caravan of thousands of refugees and migrants are set to start returning home.

Army Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan said the US military troops currently deployed across the US-Mexico border have installed nearly 75 per cent of the obstacles they sought to emplace across various ports of entry, telling Politico, Once we get the rest of the obstacles built, we dont need to keep all those engineers here.

The first troops who were deployed to the region as Donald Trump warned of the migrant caravans imminent arrival will start heading home in the coming days, Politico reported, long before many of those migrants are able to reach the US-Mexico border  and just two weeks after the 2018 midterm elections.

However, despite the president previously saying the caravan needed to be met with a military presence, the military has resisted several of his requests, and now reportedly views the mission of those troops as nearly completed.

For example, Mr Buchanan said Monday the military had denied a Department of Homeland Security request for an armed force to assist US Border Patrol agents during a possible violent confrontation.

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not it supported redeploying those troops before a previously set 15 December deadline.

The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Show all 15 1 /15 The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Texas and Mexico are connected by entry points like these. US Border Patrol in Laredo, Texas conducts daily patrols throughout the Rio Grande, snaking between the US and Mexico, where it searches for migrants and drug traffickers. The legal entry point to Mexico can be seen above the riverines frequently used by cartels to funnel narcotics into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol US Customs and Border Protection oversees its side of the entry point. US Customs and Border Protection officers oversee the processing of nearly two million trucks and three million pedestrians annually at the Laredo sector, which also processes the majority of trade between the US and Mexico. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The Rio Grande snakes between Mexico and the United States. The US and Mexico have bordering coastlines in Laredo Texas, where the Rio Grande's occasionally rough currents splash onto both nations' shores. For migrants attempting to enter into either country, the swim is much more dangerous than it appears. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Drug traffickers and migrants use "highways" to cross the border. US Border Patrol agents call worn pathways like these "highways," as they are frequently used by drug traffickers and migrants entering into the US. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The journey is still far from over. If they're able to make it onto land, many obstacles still remain for migrants and drug traffickers. US Border Patrol agents are equipped with high-tech security, K-9 units and aerial camera footage surveilling 40 miles of borderlands. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Border Patrol uses classic methods and high-tech to surveil the border. A control room at the Laredo sector headquarters is fully-manned 24/7 with a team of local employees who alert agents on the ground of border crossings in real-time. Their cameras live-stream 40 miles of the 170 mile territory the sector covers. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The US provides trusted traveler programs on both its southern and northern borders. Officers lead the way to Sentri offices, which runs a trusted traveller program from US and Mexican local residents who regularly cross the border for work or leisure purposes. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The pathway to freedom. Once travellers are processed, they walk up this ramp towards the US. Many Mexicans cross the border each day with collapsable shopping carts to buy goods while visiting the country. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol But first, the wait. A dog waits for their owner to go through processing with US Customs and Border Patrol. On a good day, processing can take under an hour. On a bad day, well, there's just no telling how long one might be stuck inside the Laredo sector field offices. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The first lady of CBP. Inside the Laredo field offices, US Border Patrol agents keep a framed photo of Christine Davis, the first female agent to join the federal agency in 1975. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol "The hall of fame." US Border Patrol also honors those who have served in the agency for over thirty years. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Officers inspect a vehicle in secondary processing. Outside, officers are conducting secondary inspection on a vehicle that's been pulled aside for further investigating. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol The waiting room for detained migrants. A US Customs and Border Protection officer shows the inside of a holding room where people requiring further questioning go through secondary processing. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol A man and his daughter go through processing. US Customs and Border Protection also regularly provides humanitarian visas and other temporary permissions for people with valid reasons seeking entry to the US. Here, a father and his daughter await to see whether they will be provided one of those visas. Chris Riotta The Independent goes on a ride-along with US Border Patrol Laredo processes over three million pedestrians annually. Thousands of legal asylum seekers, migrants and refugees seek entry to the US through the southern border annually, where they go through processing at offices like this after arriving at a legal port of entry. For many, the trip can take days, if not weeks or even months. Chris Riotta

Critics of the Trump administration lambasted the White Houses calls to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the southern border  a larger presence than that in Afghanistan  ahead of the midterms, calling it an election ploy designed to undermine the Democratic Party and its position on immigration.

Mr Trump further stirred controversy just before the election by falsely insinuating he could revoke the nations practice of providing birthright citizenship without amending the US Constitution.

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He also signed an order denying migrants who arrived between ports of entry the possibility of asylum, defying US immigration laws. That order was blocked by US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco on Monday, who issued a temporary restraining order and said in his ruling current law allows migrants to apply for asylum whether or not at a designated port of arrival.

The general overseeing the US-Mexico border deployment added that logistics troops will also be among the first troops to return home once the ports of entry have all been fortified by the military. He added that the troops withdrawal will likely be quieter than their deployment, with virtually all recently deployed troops leaving the region by Christmas.

As soon as Im done with a capability, what I intend to do is redeploy it, he said. I dont want to keep these guys on just to keep them on.
An American man who visited a remote Andaman island has been killed by its isolated community of bow-and-arrow wielding hunter-gatherers, Indian police said.

Travel for any purpose to North Sentinel Island is banned, both to protect its inhabitants and because they have been known to attack outsiders in the past.

The American visitor has been identified by news agencies as John Allen Chau, 27, and the US consulate in Indias eastern city of Chennai said it was aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

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Indian media reports described Mr Chau as an adventure tourist who had visited the Andaman island chain several times in the past. One unnamed police source told Reuters Mr Chau had shown a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese people.

He was ferried to North Sentinel Island by fishermen whose dinghy he chartered, according to police. Vijay Singh, a police official on the island chain, said seven men had been arrested on suspicion of helping Mr Chau.

Mr Chau posted this image to Instagram on 21 October (John Chau/Instagram) (Instagram)

Police are now investigating and a murder case has been opened, officials said. Indian media reported that Mr Chau had been found dead by the fishermen, but Mr Singh said police were still in the process of recovering the body.

He told the Associated Press he believed Mr Chau was killed on Saturday, but declined to comment further while the investigation was still going on.

There were conflicting reports among local media regarding the purpose of Mr Chaus visit to the island. The Andaman Sheekha newspaper quoted sources saying Mr Chau had been to the Andamans five times in the past and wanted to meet the Sentinelese to preach Christianity.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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But a profile of John Chau on a website called The Outbound Collective describes him as an explorer at heart with going back to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India as top of the list for his next must-do adventure.

Shiv Visvanathan, a social scientist and a professor at Jindal Global Law School, said North Sentinel Island was a protected area.

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The exact population of the tribe is not known, but it is declining. The government has to protect them.

Poachers are known to fish illegally in the waters around the island, catching turtles and diving for lobsters and sea cucumbers.

Tribespeople killed two Indian fishermen in 2006 when their boat broke loose and drifted on to the shore.
The Trump administrations scuppering of the Iran nuclear deal, and Europes determination to salvage it, is sparing Tehran from serious punishment in a series of alleged terror and assassination plots on European soil; including one carried out in Denmark in late September, officials have told The Independent.

The alleged Iranian assassination attempt, targeting Arab Iranian activists holed up in a house near Copenhagen, will be raised during meetings of European foreign ministers in Brussels this week. The accusation of clandestine violence on the continent is the third of its kind against Iran in the past year.

European officials are outraged by the allegations, which include the assassination of an Arab-Iranian activist leader in the Netherlands last year, an attempt to bomb a gathering of Iranian exiles and US officials in France, and the plot to target an Iranian activist in Denmark last month.

But although sanctions against Iranian individuals are being considered, European officials say any response will be restrained. Officials dont want to hand hardline Tehran rivals of president Hassan Rouhani ammunition that could jeopardise his efforts to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark nuclear deal forged by the EU, US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran in 2015.

Nor do officials want to give Trump, whom they consider a threat to the world order, any satisfaction or encouragement.

Ministers gather at the start of an EU foreign affairs council meeting in Belgium on Monday (EPA-EFE) (EPA-EFE/STEPHANIE LECOCQ)

We want to play it smartly so that Trump doesnt say, See, I told you these weak Europeans will eventually understand the real nature of Iran, says a senior European diplomat involved in Iranian matters. Our policy should be nuanced so that we can send a message to [Irans] deep state while keeping the channels open.

US officials have encouraged Europeans to take action against the Iranians, attempting to use the alleged assassination and bombing plots to drive a wedge between Iran and its JCPOA partners.

It is very strange to us to see this Iranian regime would spend so much time trying to keep the Europeans on side, at the same time conducting bomb plots and assassination attempts in Europe, Brian Hook, the US State Departments Iran policy chief, told reporters on 5 November. And its important for everybody to understand this is the regime that theyre dealing with.

But Europeans seem to be taking a different path. On Tuesday, Denmark announced that its ambassador to Tehran, Danny Annan, would be returning to his post on Thursday after being recalled to Copenhagen a few weeks ago over the assassination plot.

Officials acknowledge that European action against Iran over the Denmark operation could well be stronger if the Trump administration wasnt bullying them on their policies towards Tehran, and other matters such as trade and defence spending.

In this case, there is absolute solidarity with Denmark, says an EU official. Denmark itself has however been very clear, and been very public, saying they would like to differentiate that issue from their continued support for the JCPOA.

In effect, they are shielding Iran from the consequences of its reckless actions just as the Trump administration has protected Saudi Arabias leadership following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The reality of interstate relations is such that their long-term calculus transcend almost any specific source of mistrust, says Henrik Breitenbauch, director of the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Even if the underlying calculus may be wrong, states do act according to their perceived interest.

We want to play it smartly so that Trump doesnt say, See, I told you these weak Europeans will eventually understand the real nature of Iran. Senior European diplomat

The alleged operation in Denmark first came to light in the suburban community of Ringsted, a town of 21,000 people 60km southwest of Copenhagen that is the Danish headquarters of a small exiled Arab-Iranian political group called the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).

On 22 September, a deadly terrorist attack in southwest Iran left dozens dead and injured. Habib Jabor, leader of the Denmark-based branch of the ASMLA, immediately praised the attack via an exile satellite television station, and suggested his group was behind it, before later rescinding the claim.

Soldiers and a cleric sit close to the ground seeking cover at the scene of an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz in September (AFP/Getty)

Even though Isis quickly made a credible claim of responsibility for the attack, Iranian officials were publicly outraged by the ASMLAs claim and accused Denmark of hosting terrorists. Iranian intelligence services, which operate out of embassies and cultural centres across Western Europe, apparently began upping surveillance on the group.

Unbeknownst to the Iranians, however, the Danish intelligence services had also decided to keep a closer eye on the ASMLA, and quickly detected, then stepped up surveillance. Scandinavian authorities have grown to tolerate Middle East governments spying on exile communities.

Habib Jabor, centre, and other members from the ASMLA group meet in an office in Ringsted (EPA-EFE) (EPA-EFE/Liselotte Sabroe)

But then something triggered a warning light, and the Danish services became convinced on 28 September that an imminent plot to kill Jabor was underway.

Iranian intelligence has been mostly refugee espionage but no assassination, says Ali Alfoneh, a Danish-Iranian researcher and security specialist, who has been briefed on the case.

Reports from Israel suggested they provided intelligence to the Danes. Alfoneh described it as an intelligence operation mostly overseen by Scandinavian services. But the tight-lipped Danish spy service has yet to disclose or describe what intelligence led them to believe that an attack was taking place.

They say they have concrete evidence, but we dont know what that evidence is, says an analyst at a Scandinavian foreign ministry.

Security forces responded forcefully. Police shut down all road, rail, and sea routes to Zealand, the island that includes both Ringsted and Copenhagen, effectively cutting off 40 per cent of Danes from the outside world, in search of a black Volvo with Swedish plates that was supposedly carrying a team of assassins.

Even the Oresund Bridge linking Copenhagen to Malmo, featured in the Scandinoir series The Bridge, was closed, creating traffic havoc in two countries.

 Senator Lindsey Graham says it would be terrible to be Iranian on Fox News

Weve never seen anything like this in Denmark, says Kristian Corfixen, a journalist for the daily Politiken. They closed all the bridges, the ferries, the southern border to Germany. You had these big queues of cars. Kilometres and kilometres of people waiting.

On 30 October, Finn Borch Andersen, the head of Denmarks intelligence service, publicly disclosed the alleged assassination plot and unveiled the extradition and arrest of a 39-year-old Norwegian-Iranian IT consultant who Danish authorities have yet to publicly name.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley this week incorrectly described the suspect as an assassin. His profile suggests he was likely more a patsy than a hardened Iranian intelligence operative. According to his LinkedIn page, he had helped design the website for the Iranian embassy in Oslo. A Danish judge ruled on 8 November that legal proceedings against him would be closed to the press and extended his detention by four weeks.

He was working in tech companies. Hes a family man, says Alfoneh. He must have had some contacts with the Revolutionary Guard. Maybe they offered him money. Maybe he was under some kind of pressure. They asked the man to take a few photos. He was probably not aware of the rest of the operation.

For Danes, what is being described by local newspapers as The Iran Affair has been a wake-up call, bringing the bloody intrigues and feuds of the Middle East to the mostly quiet and industrious Scandinavian archipelago. Theyve likened the case to that of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was assassinated by Saudi operatives in Turkey, or Sergei Skripal, the Russian turncoat agent who survived a nerve gas attack by alleged Kremlin officers.

Several Danish political parties have called for an investigation of the Iranian embassy in Copenhagen, adding to public pressure over the case.

Denmark has a self image like the Shire from the Hobbit, says Breitenbauch, of the University of Copenhagen. Were not used to the harsh realities of Middle East politics reaching our shores."

Jon Stone in Brussels contributed to this report
A passenger plane taking off from Russias busiest airport ran over and killed an Armenian man after he reportedly fled across the runaway while he was being deported.

Russian officials said the 25-year-old had died after being hit by the landing gear of a Boeing 737 as it took off on a Moscow-to-Athens flight at Sheremetyevo airport on Tuesday evening.

The man, named locally as Albert Yepremyan, is thought to have been discovered after the jets crew told air traffic control to investigate the incident, believing they had hit an animal in the darkness.

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Mr Yepremyan is understood to have been in the process of being deported from Spain, having been initially placed on a flight from Madrid to Moscow.

He was then due to be transferred to a flight to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, but escaped to the runway while being placed on to an airport taxiway bus.

The man went through the airport gate during boarding for a Moscow-Yerevan flight, went to the bus, but quickly headed towards the runway instead of getting in, an unnamed Sheremetyevo official told Russian news agency Interfax.

On the flight from Madrid, Mr Yepremyan had started a fight. After landing, police were called on board and detained him.

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The aircraft involved in the incident is understood to have landed safely at Athens International airport later that evening.

Ground crews discovered damage to the fuselage and human remains on the exterior of the plane.

In a statement, Sledkom, Russias main federal investigation body, said it had opened a criminal case over Mr Yepremyans death.

The organisation said it would determine whether the incident had been in violation of air travel safety regulations.

After going through the check-in procedure for the flight , the man gathered with other passengers and proceeded to board the aircraft, Sledkom said.

Subsequently, under circumstances that are not currently understood, the young man, when boarding an apron bus, proceeded towards the airport runways.

After that, the man stepped on to the runway number two in the area of the alpha taxiway, where he was fatally injured by the acceleration of the Boeing 737 aircraft.
A former Danish gang leader who wrote a memoir about leaving his life of crime was gunned down within hours of launching his book.

Nedim Yasar was shot at least twice as he left the book launch in Copenhagen. police said. The gunman then fled the scene.

The 31-year-old was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition and died on Tuesday.

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Yasar formerly led a gang known as Los Guerreros, Spanish for "warriors", which was involved in the drugs trade.

His book Roedder (Roots), about leaving the criminal underworld, was published.

Denmark's justice minister, Soren Pape Poulsen, paid tribute to Yasar, tweeting: "How sad and infinitely meaningless. I met Nedim once. I met a man who with all his heart wanted to create and new life and make a difference for others. My thoughts and compassion go to his friends and family."

He added: "It goes without saying that this terrible tragedy begs the question of whether we as a society have the right protection for those who want to step out of the shadows and back into society."

Police investigate the scene of the shooting after the book launch in Copenhagen (Bax Lindhardt/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Copies of Yasar's memoir 'Roots - A gangster's way out' displayed in a bookstore (BAX LINDHARDT/AFP/Getty Images)

Yasar was born in Turkey and came to Denmark aged 4.

He decided to leave his gang and join an exit programme after he became a father, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

The former gang leader, who made a name for himself as a radio host after quitting, often spoke of his life experiences on his talk show.

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Police said Yasar told them he had been the victim of an attempted assault in 2017, after he quit the gang.

Denmark had a record number of gang-related shootings last year, police said. Criminal gangs in the country's capital are involved in feuds, violence, robberies, extortion and drug sales.
Gavin Williamson, UK defence secretary, raised eyebrows on Wednesday with a headline-friendly committent for more troops and the deployment of a Royal Navy ship to Ukraine.

The disposition of armed services, described as a direct response to Russian aggression ... in defence of values of freedom and democracy, coincided with a visit to London by Ukrainian defence minister Stepan Poltorak.

As long as Ukraine faces Russian hostilities, it will find a steadfast partner in the United Kingdom, Mr Williamson was reported to have told his Ukrainian counterpart, according to the Ministry of Defence.

But beyond the tough rhetoric, the exact extent of the British commitment remains vague, and is certainly unlikely to worry the Kremlin.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed an unspecified number of British forces would be sent to train Ukrainian special forces and marines early next year. These add to the 100 personnel currently in the country.

And the HMS Echo, a hydrographic survey ship, will also be deployed to the Black Sea region, complete with its crew of 72.

The MoD statement said the ships presence in the region was designed to demonstrate the UKs support to ensuring freedom of navigation.

Ukraine has been embroiled in war in the east of the country since 2014. The vast body of evidence suggests they are fighting Russia and Russian proxies, though the Kremlin officially denies any involvement.

Fighting in these regions has died down from highs of 2014 and 2015, and is now concentrated around a handful of flashpoints near Donetsk airport, controlled by Russian-backed separatists, and the port of Mariupol. But this year, a new battleground has emerged around the Sea of Azov, the strategic gateway to the shoreline east of Crimea, which Ukraine still controls.

I guess these statements are meant to annoy and irritate Moscow, but they are meaningless Vladimir Frolov, former Russian diplomat

Tensions are high in the region following the completion of a new bridge linking annexed Crimea with the mainland. Now any vessels looking to access Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov have to cross that barrier. Kiev is complaining that Russia has now established a de facto blockade of those ports, with Russian border guards harassing Ukrainian vessels.

Wednesdays statement makes no mention of the deployment being sent anywhere near the Azov Sea flashpoint.

If that happens there would be some potential for escalation, says Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat. But what Mr Williamson had suggested so far did not amount to much militarily and would not provoke a Russian invasion.

 Vladimir Putin opens Russia's controversial bridge to Crimea

The ship to be deployed would be part of [the annually recurring] Operation Sea Breeze, and it would also be a research vessel, not a destroyer as the US Navy sometimes sends, he said. I guess these statements are meant to annoy and irritate Moscow, but they are meaningless.

If anything, Williamsons rhetoric is likely to help Moscows PR effort, which has long portrayed the Ukrainian war as an imperial conflict between Russia and the west.

Soon after news broke of the British deployment, propaganda outlets in the separatist-controlled east also stepped up to the plate.

Military experts from the UK have arrived in Donbass to organise a chemical weapons attack, one announced.
Israel has threatened to slap high taxes on Airbnb and encourage legal cases against the accommodation website, over its decision to ban listings from West Bank settlements which are considered illegal by most world powers.

Tourism minister, Yariv Levin, called on the firm to reverse what he called a discriminatory decision and disgraceful surrender to the boycott movement. He vowed that Israel would retaliate.

If you have a policy of discrimination against Israelis you cannot earn money in Israel, he said.

He added the government would encourage hosts in West Bank settlements to sue the company and make it pay for its decision.

Mr Levin said that Israel would impose other restrictions on Airbnbs operations in the country, without elaborating.

The threat of sanctions against the firm comes as the country battles against the Boycott, Divesment, Sanctions campaign (BDS), which advocates boycotts against the country over its treatment of Palestinians.

It has claimed a number of successes in recent years, having helped push other large firms out of the West Bank. It has also disrupted film festivals, concerts and exhibitions around the world, by challenging artists appearing at them.

Airbnb announced earlier this week that it would delist around 200 properties in the coming days and cease its operation in Israeli settlements that are at the core of the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Show all 7 1 /7 Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Children play as their parents prepare for their homes to be destroyed (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank A toddler plays in the dirt of Khan al-Ahmar village (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Palestinian flags festoon the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar as they await eviction (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Children play as their parents brace themselves for the bulldozers (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank Iman, 7, says she does not want to leave her home (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank The demolition order includes the villages school, which provides education for some 170 children from five different Bedouin communities. (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent Palestinians await Israeli demolition of their homes in the West Bank The playground of the school which will likely be demolished in the coming days (Bel Trew) Bel Trew/The Independent

The company declined to comment on the Israeli threats.

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and today over 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to some 200,000 Israelis in east Jerusalem.

Most of the international community considers settlements illegal and an impediment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Israel sees the territory as disputed and says the fate of the settlements must be resolved in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Airbnbs decision coincided with the publication of a Human Rights Watch report investigating tourist rental listings in settlements by Airbnb and Booking.com.

Entitled Bed-and-Breakfast on Stolen Land, the report says Israeli settlements discrimination against Palestinians uniquely violates humanitarian law and Airbnbs nondiscrimination policy.

 Trump backs two-state solution for Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Most Palestinians must obtain a permit to enter the settlements or Israel proper and typically do so as labourers.

Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watchs Israel-Palestine director, said with its threatened sanctions, Israel was prioritising its support for settlements over a thriving tourism industry in Israel proper that relies on services like Airbnb. If applied, the sanctions could affect lodging costs for thousands of tourists expected to arrive in Tel Aviv next year for the Eurovision song contest.

Mr Shakir said the governments response reflects the degree to which the government is willing to go, putting the whole countrys interests at stake over its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Additional reporting by agencies
In one terrible moment, Muhammad Ahmed Tadfi lost 10 members of his family when an airstrike destroyed their home in the west of Raqqa.

His mother, brother, sister-in-law and seven nieces and nephews were all killed as they sheltered in the basement in the final stages of the battle for the city, a little over a year ago. That they had survived the worst of the fighting made their deaths all the more senseless to him.

The area was liberated. There was no Isis there, he says, sitting in the restaurant where he now works. They could have avoided this destruction.
Campaigners have accused Saudi Arabia of subjecting several activists, including female human rights defenders, imprisoned since May to torture and sexual harassment.

More than a dozen womens rights activists have been detained for months, most of whom had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the Kingdoms male guardianship system, but some have since been freed.

A group of UN experts last month called for the immediate release of six female human rights defenders they said were still being held incommunicado in Saudi Arabia.

The arrests in May followed an earlier crackdown on clerics, intellectuals and activists in September 2017, in an apparent attempt to silence potential opponents of the countrys de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The torture allegations come as Riyadh faces international outcry over the killing last month of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Amnesty International said that, according to testimony from three individuals it had gathered, some of the detained activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging that left some unable to walk or stand properly.

Human Rights Watch quoted informed sources as saying Saudi interrogators tortured at least three female Saudi activists. Both of the human rights organisations said the detainees were subjected to sexual harassment.

Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive Show all 8 1 /8 Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman gestures while driving in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman drives at night in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive Saudi women embrace as they celebrate the lift of the female driving ban in Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman straps in Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman drives to work in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive Fadya Fahad is one of the first female drivers for Careem, a ride sharing company in Saudi Arabia Getty Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman stops at a petrol station while driving to work in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Reuters Saudi Women celebrate their freedom to drive A Saudi woman waits for coffee on the commute in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Reuters

Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty Internationals Middle East research director, said: Only a few weeks after the ruthless killing of Jamal Khashoggi, these shocking reports of torture, sexual harassment and other forms of ill treatment, if verified, expose further outrageous human rights violations by the Saudi authorities.

The allegations could not be verified and the campaigners did not clarify the identity of the individuals who provided testimony. Human Rights Watch said the sources were concerned they and the activists would suffer reprisals if identified publicly.

A Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has in the past denied using torture and said that arrests were made on the basis of people accused of having suspicious contacts with foreign entities and of offering financial support to enemies overseas.

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Last June the Saudi government ended a decades-old ban on women driving cars as part of an attempt to diversify the economy away from oil and open up Saudis cloistered lifestyles.

But while many hailed the end of the ban on women driving as evidence of a new progressive trend, it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the killing of Khashoggi was ordered at the highest levels of the Saudi government but has not directly accused Prince Mohammed. Saudi Arabia has denied that the prince ordered Khashoggis killing.

Donald Trump released a statement on Tuesday defending US ties with Saudi Arabia in spite of saying the Crown Prince could very well have known about the assassination.

Additional reporting by Reuters
Anyone with access to an internet connection will soon be able to investigate civilian casualties caused by the US-led military coalition bombing of Raqqa during the battle to capture the city from Isis.

Amnesty International is launching a new project that it hopes will involve thousands of members of the public in its ongoing investigation into the destruction in the city.

Strike Tracker, designed in conjunction with independent casualty monitor Airwars, will allow anyone to sift through satellite pictures of Raqqa over the period of the battle and mark when a building was destroyed. Doing so will help investigators research potential war crimes.

There is a mountain of evidence left to sift through, and the scale of the civilian devastation is simply too large for us to do this alone, says Milena Marin, senior adviser for tactical research on Amnesty Internationals Crisis Response team.

With thousands of Strike Trackers on the case to help us narrow down precisely when and where coalition air and artillery strikes destroyed buildings, we can significantly scale up our ability to map out the apocalyptic destruction in Raqqa.

Around 80 per cent of Raqqa was destroyed and at least 1,400 civilians killed in the four-month battle that saw the the US-led coalition use overwhelming air power to oust jihadi fighters from their de facto capital last year.

Amnesty says the coalition has shown little interest in properly accounting for the death toll. In lieu of a proactive effort by the coalition to find out how many civilians it killed, the rights group has been conducting on-the-ground investigations of its own in Raqqa, which it claims has produced compelling evidence of apparent violations of international humanitarian law.

"War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Show all 20 1 /20 "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria A child injured by an IED explosion in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Children riding a bicycle among destroyed buildings in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Entire neighbourhoods in Raqqa are damaged beyond repair Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the house where seven members of the Badran family were killed in a Coalition strike on 18 July 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the house where seven members of the Badran family were killed in a Coalition strike on 18 July 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Members of the Badran family killed in three separate Coalition air strike on 18 July and 20 August 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria The city of Raqqa in northern Syria has become hardly recognizable to those who try to return after months battle between US-backed forces and the Islamic State terrorist group for control of it. The city has no running water or electricity and homes, business and public squares are mere rubble and debris Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Fayad Mohammed and his daughters Wafa, Fadda and Tamam; Ammar al-Faris; Reem al-Maddad, Yusra Abd-al-Aziz, and baby Razqiya Habib; Jasim Hamal and Salem Hamad. They were among the 16 civilians killed in Coalition air strikes on 12 October 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Men wait by the side of the road for casual labour in Raqqa. Many end up clearing partially destroyed or damaged buildings, a very risky endeavour as many building were mined by IS and civilians are frequently killed and injured by mines Amnesty "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite images showing the Aswad familys building before it was destroyed in a Coalition air strike which killed eight civilians, five of them children, on 28 June 2017 CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the Aswad familys building after it was destroyed in a Coalition air strike which killed eight civilians, five of them children, on 28 June 2017 CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Amal Othman, 13, and her brothers Ammar, 8 and Mahmoud, 17; and Jamal Aswad, 41  four of the eight victims killed in a Coalition air strike on 28 June 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Low-income district west of the Jezra intersection on the western outskirts of Raqqa city destroyed by the Coalition shelling started in June 2017 Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Ali Hassan Nafa; Mahdia Hashish and her husband Hussein Ali; Hussein Hashish, Mohammed Hashish and Hussein Ibrahim Hashish, and Mohammed Ali Hashish Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Harat al Badu, a built up area in central Raqqa, next to the stadium. It was the scene of the final battle in the city between SDF/Coalition forces and IS Amnesty International "War of Annihilation"  devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Map showing where the Badran, Hashish, Aswad and Fayab families were living before the coalition air strikes Unosat /Amnesty International

Those investigations led the coalition to revise its initial civilian casualty assessment for the city from 23 to more than 100. But that number is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Ms Marin.

The coalitions blatant denials and shoulder-shrugging are unconscionable  their military offensive killed and maimed hundreds of civilians and then left the survivors to pick up the pieces, she says.

Raqqa was liberated from Isis by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in October 2017. The fighters faced an entrenched enemy and required overwhelming US air power and military support to capture the city.

During the battle, Isis prevented civilians from leaving and used them as human shields  a tactic which greatly contributed to the high civilian death toll. But Amnesty says the coalition failed to properly adapt its strategy to protect civilians.

In October, Amnesty claimed its investigation into the coalitions air campaign in Raqqa provided a strong prima facie case that many coalition attacks that killed and injured civilians and destroyed homes and infrastructure violated international humanitarian law.

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A spokesperson for the coalition told The Independent at the time that the cost of liberating Raqqa came at a very high cost, but insisted there was no alternative.

The fighting to liberate the citizens of Raqqa was often house to house against an enemy with no regard for human life that used IEDs and booby traps every step of the way, and Raqqa citizens as human shields, said US army colonel Sean Ryan.

Liberating the citizens of Raqqa was the goal and the other choice would be to let Isis continue to murder, torture, rape and pillage the citizens of Raqqa, and that is simply unacceptable, he added.
As many as 85,000 children have starved to death in Yemen, according to Save the Children with the charity warning that up to 14 million people are at risk of famine if a ruinous war does not end soon.

Since 2015, when the fighting first broke out the group has estimated that at least 84,700 children under the age of five may have died from malnutrition. That is the equivalent of every child in Birmingham, Britains second biggest city, the group added.

The devastating statistic came as fighting flared in the Red Sea city of Hodeidah, the frontline of the latest battle, where food prices had soared by at least 400 per cent, according to local residents.

Only two hospitals are now working in the port town, both of which are dangerously close to the front line.

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For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and its entirely preventable, said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Childrens Yemen director.

Because of the fighting parents are delaying taking their children in for treatment of malnutrition, when their internal organs are not working, and they have multiple infections due to the wasting," he added.

Mr Kirolos said at that point medics can do nothing to save them.

The charity warned that the number of cases has dramatically increased since a Saudi Arabia led coalition imposed a month-long blockade on the impoverished country a year ago.

The Gulf alliance launched a bombing campaign in the Spring of 2015 to oust the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that swept control of the country forcing Yemens recognised President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee.

The fighting has sparked the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Over two-thirds of the population now rely on aid to survive. According to the United Nations, 400,000 children are on the cusp of dying from hunger, 15,000 more than last year.

Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Show all 17 1 /17 Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Doctors take some blood of Yemeni Yousef Abdullah Bakhit Ali, 13, suffering from severe acute malnutrition. With ongoing and unending conflict in Yemen, humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate across the country Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor weighs Yemeni baby Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef, 9 months suffering from malnutrition Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal,12 years old and suffering from severe acute malnutrition. He arrives with his family at a Unicef supported treatment centre in a hospital in Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor measures the arm of Yemeni Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal, 12, who is suffering from malnutrition at a treatment centre in a hospital in Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen There are over 400,000 severely malnourished children in need urgent lifesaving assistance in Yemen Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal is weighed Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor measures the arm of baby Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to reach 275,000 malnourished children with critical life-saving supplies and care for over 5 million people with safe and clean water to stop the spread of life-threatening diseases Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef with his family in his house in the outskirts of the capital Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen The country is on the brink of famine and children's chances of survival are becoming slimmer by the day Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal has his arm measured Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to provide nearly 1 million children with vaccines and healthcare Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are working with partners around-the clock to save children suffering from malnutrition and disease Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to provide 9 million people with emergency cash assistance to help families buy basic commodities so they can survive Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal is suffering from malnutrition Unicef Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef/Abdulhaleem

For the last five months the crisis has deepened as the gulf coalition and Yemen government troops it supports, have waged an intermittent campaign to seize Hodeidah, home to some 300,000 people.

At least 80 percent of the countrys food and medical supplies come through Hodeidah port, but amid the fighting, commercial imports have plummeted.

Goods now coming through are only enough to meet the needs of 16 percent of countrys population, according to the UN. Save the Children said on Wednesday any further decline in imports would be likely to lead directly to famine.

When Nusair started getting sick again, mother Suad* couldnt afford to make the long trip to the hospital. (Mohammed Awadh / Save the Children)

There had been hopes of ceasefire this week when Yemens internationally recognised government said on Monday it would take part in UN-brokered peace talks scheduled next month.

Just hours before Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the rebel groups political decision maker, tweeted that he wanted the rebels to halt all military operations and stop firing missiles on Saudi Arabia.

But on Wednesday residents in Hodeidah told The Independent fighting had flared again in the city, where food prices have soared meaning families were going hungry or eating rotten food to survive.

Citizens feel trapped here. Food prices have gone up as much as 400%. Some food is smuggled into the city, but nobody is able to buy it due to financial problems, Ibrahim al-Jaberi said from the city.

Families who cant afford it are waiting for food items to be expired then they can buy them for cheaper Ibrahim al-Jaberi, Hodeidah resident

Families who cant afford it are waiting for food items to be expired then they can buy them for cheaper. Everyone here is looking for a way out, he added.

Save The Children said that Hodeidahs two remaining hospitals were now both located next to the front line, and just a few days ago one was completely inaccessible because of the fighting.

Those inside the city are too poor to escape and so are forced to stay and weather it out, the charitys country director added.

I witnessed one old lady who had come into the hospital and was asking to sell the filings in her teeth to pay her way out of Hodeidah, Mr Kirolos told The Independent.

Nusair*, 13 months old, in his house in Hodeidah, Yemen. (Mohammed Awadh / Save the Children) (Mohammed Awadh/Save the Children)

Meanwhile in the countryside families are forced flee to more remote areas to escape the bombardment, making them further away from health centres that could treat their starving children.

I cant go to sleep, it is torturing, and I am worried about my children, said Saud, a Yemeni monther who son Nusair nearly died from malnutrition last month.

I am scared of the jet fighters and the hunger, she added.

Save The Children warned that there are 150,000 children in Hodeidah are at risk if the gulf offensive continues.

In the past few weeks there have been hundreds of airstrikes in and around Hodeidah. Save the Children is calling for an immediate end to the fighting so no more lives are lost, Mr Kirolos said.
Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may increase that which is given to him, reads the line from Anton Chekhovs Uncle Vanya. Translated from the original Russian, the line is projected onto the wall in English and Azeri, but delivered in Japanese by an actor in the Kyoto-based Chiten Theatre. The stage is set with a baby grand piano wrapped in cellophane; one actor is wearing six inch platform Oxfords and another is standing on his head.

The production is part of the MAP Festival in Baku, Azerbaijan, and were in a converted ship maintenance warehouse on the Caspian Sea, the main venue of the YARAT Contemporary Art Space.

Its not the type of performance you may associate with the Caucasus region, known for carpets, vast oil reservoirs and the trendy city of Tbilisi in Georgia. But Azerbaijan is working to change that, using its petro-wealth to position its capital Baku as an international centre for the arts and architecture: a Dubai on the Caspian. The injection of culture is an attempt to draw tourists to the country and revitalise the arts after the traumatic fall of the Soviet Union.

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Well-publicised festivals with international headliners and flamboyant grandscale architecture are examples of this push. These are funded by government and corporate sponsors, who are betting that a vibrant grassroots arts scene can develop in an incubator created by these headliner projects.

The MAP Festival has more than doubled in scope since 2017, its inaugural year. This years event featured 16 shows and 13 productions from companies and artists hailing from all over the world. YARAT raised the profile of the MAP Festival by timing the 9 November opening to coincide with the heavily publicised launch of a solo installation by the artist Pedro Gomez-Egana.

The performance of Uncle Vanya at Bakus Chiten Theatre (MAP International Theatre Festival 2018) (Yarat and MAP Festival)

Born in Colombia but based in Norway, Gomez-Egana was motivated to bring his work to Azerbaijan by the possibility and proportion of the YARAT exhibition space. He was also inspired by the vision of YARATs energetic artistic director Suad Garayeva Maleki. Prior to meeting Maleki, Baku was not on my radar at all, says Gomez-Egana.

Founded in 2011 by Aida Mahmudova, a Central Saint Martins graduate and niece of Azerbaijans first lady, YARAT was originally a collective for local artists. Since then, the collective has morphed into a not-for-profit non-governmental organisation with more financing and structure, says Garayeva Maleki over green tea in her office. Support from the government, she says, is limited to the main exhibition space  the converted industrial warehouse where many of MAPs theatre productions were staged this year.

The YARAT exhibition space (Fakhriyya Mammadova/MAP International Theatre Festival 2018) (Fakhriyya Mammadova)

The Azerbaijani government supports other cultural initiatives, including the Baku Jazz Centre (and its annual festival), the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum and large-scale architectural works like Zaha Hadids controversial Heydar Aliyev Centre. The carpet museum, designed by the Austrian architect Franz Janz, is shaped like a giant rolled-up carpet. Public arts are supported by the government; they embellish the city, says Garayeva Maleki.

But is the art scene in Baku more style than substance? Perhaps: Gomez-Egana describes Baku as a city of facades where attendees of art events have little attention for the work itself. After all, the Heydar Aliyev Centre, as well as the three Baku Flame Towers, appear to emphasise exterior panache over whats on display inside.

Bakus Flame Towers (iStock)

But Dubai, now the undisputed contemporary art capital of the Middle East, was a desert backwater 30 years ago. Azerbaijan has had fewer than 20 years to recover from the traumatic aftermath of perestroika and the breakup of the Soviet Union. For 20 years it was survival mode, we had coups detat every few years. It was a horrible, crazy collapse. All the artists had to stop working and do whatever they could to feed their families, says Garayeva Maleki.

Zaha Hadids Heydar Aliyev Centre (iStock)

Part of YARATs mandate is to fan the dormant flame of homegrown arts in the country, and help young Azeri artists find their identity. Half of YARATs temporary artist residencies are reserved for Azeri artists, who are mentored by a group of Azeri permanent residents. The Artim Project Space, a small gallery in old Bakus warren of streets and alleys, is well suited to this younger generation. This month, the space features the Shy Boy of the Pink Future installation by 26-year-old Agil Abdullayev, a collection which reckons with identity and otherness in the social media age.

Art can always be a way to do some city branding, says Pedro Gomez-Egana. But one shouldnt underestimate what these kinds of opportunities make room for. There are interesting visions, and people who manage to show challenging work, that builds audiences and builds practices.

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YARAT contemporary art space

A former ship maintenance warehouse converted into a gargantuan, modular space which stages installations, workshops and theatre performances.

YARAT Painting Museum

Adjacent to the contemporary art space, the painting museum features fascinating work by Azerbaijans cadre of Soviet-influenced painters working in the mid-20th century.

Artim Project Space

Smack in the middle of the Old City, this cosy space managed by YARAT hosts experimental installations and other work by youthful Azerbaijani artists.

Heydar Aliyev Centre

This staggering-in-scale Zaha Hadid masterpiece is catnip for Instagrammers.

YAY Gallery

This YARAT-managed space in the old city features contemporary Azeri photography and artwork, which focuses on a modernising Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

Not as far from contemporary art as you might think, the carpet museum features a series of amazing carpets woven with images of oil derricks. The building itself is also shaped like a rolled-up carpet. Its delightfully on the nose.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Turkish Airlines flies from London to Baku, with a stop in Istanbul, from around 330.
Passengers on Wednesday afternoons easyJet flight from Gatwick to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland touched down to find barely a trace of snow.

As the citys webcam shows, apart from a few small sprinklings of snow, the terrain on the Arctic Circle looks as though it was a pleasant late-summer day rather than a winter wonderland.

In the coming days, the annual Santa season is due to get under way, with hundreds of flights carrying tens of thousands of British families to Finnish Lapland  mainly to Rovaniemi, and also to four other airports. But according to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, no snow is forecast for Rovaniemi for the rest of November  just a little rain.

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There are fears that holidays may either be cancelled or that what should be a joyful experience will prove miserable.

These are the key questions and answers.

How does Santa season work?

Starting in late November, and running through to Christmas, tour operators arrange trips to Finnish Lapland for British families. The companies include specialists such as Transun and giant firms such as Tui. The standard offering is a day trip, typically costing 400 or 500 per person and packing in a range of activities.

The Finnish authorities say that 677 charter flights are expected this winter, a 15 per cent increase on 2017, carrying well over 100,000 passengers.

In addition, this winter, easyJet has launched flights from Gatwick to Rovaniemi, offering the prospect of DIY trips.

Transun says in its day-trip publicity: On our Winter Wonderland day break, we take you and your family to a magical location, close to a vast snow-covered wilderness.

Increasingly, though, travel firms are offering three- and four-day breaks, which are far more relaxed and rewarding, with Tui offering a taster session of snowmobiling and husky or reindeer sleigh rides.

How much snow usually falls  and and when might some more arrive?

A Visit Finland spokesperson said: Following an unseasonably hot summer and autumn in Finland, Lapland is yet to see the heavy snowfall which would traditionally have fallen by now.

Transun tells prospective customers: Snow falls in Lapland between October and May and it is common to find thick snow cover in November and December. But the tour operator warns: It is also possible that there may be a period of warmer weather, especially given the effects of global warming, which may cause the snow and ice to melt before the next snowfall.

For the next two weeks, no snow is forecast, merely some rain on days when the temperature is expected to hover around zero.

As a result, some departures have been cancelled. Transun has done so with its first two outings, saying: It has been unseasonably warm in Lapland recently and there has been limited snowfall. We have therefore cancelled our first two departures of the winter and offered affected passengers alternative dates later in December at no additional cost. If the alternative dates were not suitable, we have offered a full refund.

We are monitoring the weather in Lapland daily, and putting contingency plans in place should the warm weather continue.

We operate in a less commercial area about 250km further north of Rovaniemi, so the chances of snow are much greater.

A TUI spokesperson told The Independent: We keep a close eye on the forecasts and continue to monitor the situation closely, but we also have a number of contingency plans in place in Lapland to ensure customers can still have the trip they are looking forward to. For example many of the resorts we head to are able to make use of snow cannons as necessary.

Unfortunately as the temperature isnt predicted to be cold enough to allow for the completion of the Snow Village in Kittila for the first weekend of the season we have taken the difficult decision to cancel just the 1st and 2nd December day trips to that resort.

We have directly contacted any affected customers with alternative options. We would like to reassure anyone heading to Kittila for three or four nights at the beginning of December or later, or to anyone due to visit any of our other Lapland resorts over this period or at a later point in the season, that we are confident well be able to offer them the full experience as planned.

What happens if our trip is cancelled?

You should be offered the choice of a full refund or an alternative departure date; if you opt for the latter, then there may be a price adjustment.

Santa Claus in a shopping centre at Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland (Simon Calder)

At the moment our trip is going ahead, but we no longer want to go. What rights to we have?

Talk to your travel agent or tour operator, asking what will happen if there is no snow  registering your concern about the forecasts and indicating that you will seek a refund if the holiday cannot be delivered as offered.

If you are booked on a three- or four-day trip with Tui, you could point out the firm says youll have some free time to play in the snow and that all the activities such as snowmobiling and sleigh rides will be included at some point during your holiday.

But at the time you booked the trip, you agreed to terms and conditions that provide the operator with a lot of flexibility. Transun says, for example: All activities are arranged subject to local weather conditions, which are outside of our control.

If there are insufficient levels of snow or ice for reliant activities to operate upon the day of participation, then our suppliers will move all activities to a position where snow is available, adjust tracks accordingly so a modified activity programme can operate or provide alternative activities that are not reliant on snow and ice.

Where this happens no refunds will be made.

Ive booked a DIY trip using the new easyJet flights. Can I get a refund or claim from my travel insurance?

No. The flights are going ahead regardless, and the accommodation you booked will also be available. The only possible option for a refund that I can see is if you have booked snow-related activities that cannot be carried out.

Is this a good time to explore Lapland?

Yes, with no impediments to travelling around, the landscapes of the Sami people are wide open. And Arktikum, the science and culture centre in Rovaniemi, remains a fascinating attraction.

You will certainly get a bargain on flights. Going out from Gatwick to Rovaniemi this coming Sunday, 25 November, and flying back three days later, easyJet is charging just 60 return per person for a family of four.

The Visit Finland spokesperson said: Visitors travelling to Northern Finland now will nonetheless be able to explore Finlands beautiful landscapes with an array of different activities, well as searching for the Aurora Borealis.

We have no doubt the snow is on its way and look forward to welcoming visitors from around the world as usual throughout the winter season.
Tui has doubled its offering to Sousse in Tunisia three and a half years after 30 British tourists were killed in a terror attack while on one of its package holidays there.

The UKs biggest tour operator only started selling holidays to the resort again this summer, with three hotels available.

This is doubling to six hotels for Tuis winter programme: Marhaba Beach Hotel, Marhaba Salem Hotel, Royal Kenz Hotel, Sensimar Scheherazade, Tour Khalef and The Pearl Resort and Spa. There will also be extra flights from Gatwick and Manchester, with capacity for 10,000 more people in total.

Its summer 2019 offering will see an additional 37,000 seats to Tunisia on flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, East Midlands, Glasgow, Luton, Newcastle and Doncaster Sheffield.

The interest in this popular year-round destination has resulted in an increased programme, with eight regional airports flying to Enfidha next summer and capacity increasing by 50 per cent for winter 2019, said Tui UK managing director Andrew Flintham.

We will continue to follow Foreign Office advice for all destinations we operate to as well as referencing the FCO Travel Aware campaign across our website, customer documentation and in our stores and encourage everyone to check the FCO website regularly for the latest travel information.

The FCO removed Tunisia from its no-go list in July 2017 and rival tour operator Thomas Cook started selling packages there in February 2018.

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It launched its programme with three flights a week from Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham, offering a range of hotels in the long-established resort of Hammamet. Thomas Cook has a choice of four Sousse holidays for 2019.

The FCO advice states: Terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Tunisia and there have been a number of attacks in recent years.

A state of emergency  in effect since a suicide attack on a police bus on 24 November 2015  has been extended several times, most recently on 5 November 2018 by one month.

However, although the FCO advises against travel to near the Libyan and Algerian borders, the majority of the country, including tourist resorts, is no longer off limits.
Responses to the UK announcing it had secured a deal with the EU on the terms of its exit have been met with a decidedly mixed response  and not only in Britain. The Spanish government this week made clear that the future of Gibraltar would have to be included in a separate deal.

France, meanwhile, loading pressure on the government, called for London to sign "level playing field" labour laws and restrictions, as well as to abide by future EU environmental standards.

That was always a problem many in Britain failed to appreciate: the 27 member states would all want their say. And some  in particular those with important economic ties and rivalries to Britain, such as France, or who share contentious issues and borders, such as Ireland and Spain  would want a bigger say than others.

The EU, meanwhile, has been clear in its intention to make a no-deal scenario as unpalatable as possible. That, too, was always going to lead some member states to try to extract more from London as part of the deal, believing the UK would take any deal rather than risk leaving without one. That this approach may make a deal harder to pass the House of Commons did not seem to matter to them.

But one member state has broken ranks.

This week, the Dutch government proposed a "Great No Deal Bill" in the Staten Generaal which set out plans for a series of emergency laws in the event that the deal fails to pass. Within the bill are provisions to recognise UK qualifications and driving licenses, as well as social security guarantees such as agreements on healthcare for citizens and shared energy links.

You might think this is just sensible planning; the sort of thing a responsible government should be doing to protect itself, and the kind of forethought sadly lacking in Westminster. But a closer reading suggests an intention beyond simple preparation to avoid chaos at the port of Rotterdam after a No Deal Brexit. Recognition of professional qualifications and energy sharing agreements does not suggest the Dutch are merely being pragmatic. This bill doesnt talk about turning hard shoulders of motorways into lorry parks. Its all about continuity.

You might say: so what? Surely thats a good thing? And youd be right. But this level of preparedness sets out a willingness to minimise disruption between UK-Dutch trade and employment to a degree not shown by other member states. While France is busy tightening the thumbscrews, the Netherlands is actively loosening them.

There is clearly an understanding in the Hague that a hard Brexit, though important to the ideologues in Brussels, is not beneficial to member states. Nations that depend on good links with the UK will suffer as a result of no deal, and whilst France is big enough to try to throw its weight around, others are not. It is in their interests to make any eventuality palatable - not just the EUs deal.

There is, of course, another reason for the Dutch governments move to ease friction with the UK. Geert Wilders Freedom Part

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Support free-thinking journalism and subscribe to Independent Mindsy (PVV) is now the second largest in the Netherlands, playing off nationalist rhetoric and growing euroscepticism in the low countries. A damaging No Deal would easily be seen as an EU-made disaster, and should it impact negatively on the Dutch economy, one can see well in advance how that might be pounced upon by the PVV. Through its own stance, the EU might unwittingly empower yet another anti-EU or nationalist movement right on their doorstep. Clearly, that is a fire Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte wants to avoid stoking.

The Dutch are not breaking ranks entirely with the EUs line to make a hard Brexit hurt. But these efforts show that, in the capitals of Europe, there are still some who are worrying about what the future holds  and who are even prepared to risk the ire of the EU to avoid it.
Stealth has never been Donald Trumps strong point. With aggressive press conferences and blustering, hateful speech, inflicting the world with his innermost inane thoughts seems to be his version of political diplomacy. The US presidents refusal to openly criticise Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is one such example. His flat-out dismissal of the heads of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee over the same situation, provides another.

After calling on the president to launch an investigation into whether his ally and its leader, Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the man suspected by the CIA of ordering the murder, had anything to do with Khashoggis death, Trumps immediate response was to double down on what wed already heard.

Apparently unfazed by the brutal nature of the killing, as well as the mounting evidence against the Saudi state, he told reporters: If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake. The mistake being that Russia and China could then become enormous beneficiaries of all the newfound business that would then be up for grabs if he so much as hinted at holding the nation accountable.

 Stephen Colbert hits out at Trump over Saudi Arabia decision

No surprise really: this is the head of the fake news brigade speaking. A man who just this week was forced to reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acostas press credentials after removing them for daring to challenge him during a press conference. The wellbeing of journalists is as much of a priority to Trump as maintaining his integrity, as his assertion that maybe Bin Salman had knowledge of the operation to kill Khashoggi and maybe he didnt goes to show.

Nevertheless, there is something intriguing about Trumps inability to employ tact or diplomacy in exercising his office. Not because its refreshing, nor because it is worthy of praise. There is an argument that at least we know what Trump is thinking  more than we can say for some world leaders, perhaps  but that would grant him too much power. Whats surprising is that, rather than a clever political choice, it appears Trump cant help but say exactly what he means at that moment to maintain his staunchly protectionist approach to politics. And thats how he came to being so bluntly honest about the US and its relationship to the controversial Saudi regime.

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Odd, then, that Trumps tolerance for the brutal honesty of others is so low.

As youll recall, earlier this year after Michelle Wolfs routine during the White House Correspondents Dinner  an event he has avoided for the past two years  the president lashed out, hurt that a comedian would do something so questionable as to fulfil the their role as an amusing and political headline speaker. This year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian, he tweeted. Maybe I will go?

Quick as ever, Wolf responded: I bet youd be on my side if I had killed a journalist.

Shes only half-right. When it comes to Trumps White House, moral corruption alone does not a friend make. It takes arms and billions of dollars worth of investment, too.
Just in case you had trouble comprehending that the Italy of Matteo Salvini is morphing into a fascistic state, along come the authorities to give you yet more evidence.

Short of the kind of proper war that fascists think good for a people, Italy has declared war on... non-governmental agencies, humanitarian charities and defenceless refugees  a formidable coalition to be pitted against armed police and gunboats.

It seems that the Italian state believes itself to be in mortal danger from refugees carrying infectious diseases such as TB, and, rather more bizarrely, the idea that a cargo of clothing can transmit HIV/Aids.

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Clownish as the Italian government has become, this is beyond parody. Italy is not some Aids-free paradise in any case, any more than anywhere else. It should go without saying that no one has ever caught Aids through wearing a pair of jeans, but the notion is so outlandish that perhaps some people will believe it, as if some new breakthrough in the health sciences has been achieved in Rome. What Italians should be really concerned about is being infected with the virus of fascism.

What Salvinis government is really doing is fairly obvious: they are simply using whatever ruse they can to evade their international responsibilities. If a leaky boat struggling across the Mediterranean is rescued by a seaworthy vessel run by an NGO, then the NGO has the perfect right to take the refugees to safety in the nearest port, which in this case would be in Italy.

Once there, they can have their cases examined and accepted or rejected, according to international law. If they are ill, then they can be treated, irrespective. It is as simple as that. There is no clause in the Geneva Convention or any other accord that allows a refugee to be sent home (wherever that may be) if they are sick.

Indeed, the chances are that, after an arduous journey at the mercy of people-traffickers, they will indeed be unwell, through no fault of their own. They are often fleeing near certain death, after all.

Fascism is a doctrine that prides itself on its nationalism and its ruthlessness.

Mercy and compassion are regarded as decadent, weaknesses associated with feeble democratic states run by gangs of selfish corrupt politicians and judges  what we in Britain contemptuously term the establishment or liberal elite  or Enemies of the People, in that notorious Daily Mail headline.

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Of course, the public has always thought that most politicians are only in it for themselves. As they old joke goes: Please dont tell my mother Im a politician, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel.

Yet what we see today is quite insidious and dangerous, and is getting to form a hold in Europe. It is that traditional contempt for politicians is becoming contempt for democracy itself. That is the most terrifying thing that has emerged for the economic and other troubles of recent times.

A century ago a man named Mussolini led the fascists charge in Europe. Now, he has modernday heirs and successors, sharper suited and more telegenic maybe, but with much the same outlook.

This new xenophobia and heartlessness is not a uniquely Italian phenomenon, however. Across Europe far-right parties are gaining ground in places that, not so long ago, would have been unimaginable.

We have grown used to it: we should not. From France and Sweden to Hungary and Poland, they are on the march. In the European parliament elections next summer, these parties will be sure to make spectacular gains  and what a strange place Brussels will be then.

They find it easy to capitalise on the migrant crisis, and, to be fair to the Italians, the European Union has shown a woeful lack of solidarity with the southern nations that have had to deal with the crisis  Italy, Malta and Greece. So the failure to defeat fascism and the causes of fascism is not Italys alone. It is Europes failure, and its shame.
The prime minister flies to Brussels this afternoon with her Brexit deal, which seemed to have been done and dusted last week, in deep trouble. Last Wednesday, the cabinet signed off the hard part, the draft withdrawal agreement, and Theresa May carried on, swatting aside the loss of two cabinet ministers and a failed attempt by Conservative MPs to launch a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

Now the deal seems back in the mincer, as Julian Smith, the chief whip, tells the prime minister he cannot get it through the House of Commons without something sufficiently different from what people currently think they are voting for, according to Daily Mail political editor Jason Groves.

So May could ask Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission president, for a form of words that could help her sell the deal back home. But it is hard to see what he could offer that other EU leaders would accept.

The biggest problem for hard-Brexit opponents of the deal has long been the guarantee of an open border in Ireland, known as the backstop. Its intended to be temporary, but can only be ended by agreement with the EU. Several cabinet ministers, and even some respected think tanks, seem to think this question can be reopened  despite the cabinet having agreed to it last week.

This seems unlikely. All that Juncker can offer is a fudge in the wording of the non-binding part of the Brexit deal, the political declaration on the future trade relationship between the EU and the UK. That document has not been finalised yet: the purpose of Mays trip to Brussels is to do so.

Meanwhile, as is traditional in the run-up to crucial EU summits, other member states have raised last-minute objections. The new Spanish prime minister is not happy about Gibraltar and France wants our fish.

It is quite possible that a deal wont be done in Brussels when the EU leaders meet on Sunday, and that the Brexit train will trundle closer to the buffers at the next summit on 13 and 14 December.

All this is happening at the same time as the prime ministers operation in Westminster is wheeling around to face the opposite front in its battle to get the deal through parliament.

In her interviews over the weekend, Theresa May shifted from threatening opponents of her deal with the prospect of Britain leaving the EU without a deal  which would cause immediate economic dislocation in March. Instead she warned hard-Brexit opponents in her own party, who would welcome a no-deal Brexit, of the prospect of no Brexit at all.

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Amber Rudd, the prime ministers cheerleader, restored to cabinet, confirmed this rush from the eastern to the western front on the Today programme this morning: The House of Commons will stop no deal. There isnt a majority for that to take place.

That sounds as if the government has accepted the Labour line, crafted by Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, that MPs will do whatever it takes to avoid crashing out without a deal.

And that means the prime minister threatening her Brexit rebels  and the band of Labour MPs who say that the result of the referendum has to be respected  with the alternative to her deal being that Britain stays in the EU.
In the novel Shantaram, the reformed heroin addict and convicted armed robber Gregory David Roberts sets out some basic rules for street fighting, of which the most important is to always get crazier than the other guy. It is a theory he puts into practice seconds later in a fight with three Indian prison guards, which begins with him punching himself in the face, smearing his own blood across his forehead and telling them: Youll get me! Youll get me! But one of you, standing there, will lose an eye. One of you. Ill rip someones eye out with my fingers and eat it! So come on! Lets get on with it!

From a position of certain victory, the prison guards nonetheless panic and retreat.

Viewed through this unlikely prism, Theresa Mays strategy for getting her now hilariously maligned Brexit deal through the House of Commons starts, vaguely, to make sense. Vote my deal down, she is telling the hard Brexiteers, and you might end up with Remain. Vote my deal down, she is telling the Remainers, and you might end up with no deal at all.

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Your entry-level analysis of the Brexit chaos is to point out she cant possibly do both and is therefore bluffing. But that, surely, is the point? One of you is going to lose an eye. Ive no idea which, but one of you will. So what do you do?

Which brings us belatedly on to Prime Ministers Questions at which, with his very first question, Jeremy Corbyn wanted to know if, as the new work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd had said on the radio that morning, no deal really was no longer an option and parliament wouldnt let it happen.

This was a question May all but declined to answer, for no greater reason than it is not immediately clear how parliament could move to block no deal. No deal is the default option. You can only block the cliff edge by pointing the car in a different direction.

She pointed out that Corbyns current position appears to be to oppose her deal, then via a general election he has no power to grant, negotiate a new deal in the implementation period that wont actually happen if he votes down a deal. Meanwhile he wont say whether there should or shouldnt be a second referendum, what the question in it should or shouldnt be if it does or doesnt happen, or how he would or wouldnt vote in it. (Attention apprentice street fighters: craziness and uselessness are not the same).

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At the very end Esther McVey appeared to ask May if the UK would definitely leave the European Union on 29 March 2019. She told her yes, it would. These yes/no questions at which the prime minister can only possibly answer one way have served an interesting function in recent political years, chiefly to get the prime minister to put on the record in the public cameras a position that might very well end up not being the case. See David Camerons eight plain claims on similar occasions when asked if he would quit if he lost the referendum, or Mays continual ruling out of a snap election.

But anyway, there you have it. Its my deal, no deal or no Brexit. But were definitely leaving and were definitely not leaving without a deal.

Vote for my deal or dont, but one of you is going to lose an eye.

There is a political street fight coming  could it be that sensible May has worked out the only sane thing to do is go absolutely crazy?
This week, Yemens internationally recognised government agreed to take part in peace talks in Sweden after a leader in the Houthi rebel group called for a halt to military operations.

Since the Houthi uprising in 2015, the war has turned Yemen into one of the worlds worst humanitarian disasters. The bulk of the criticism has been placed on the Saudi-led coalition as well as the western countries which arm it. But if we want to achieve peace in the region we need to start to take into consideration the atrocities the Houthi rebels have also committed.

In September 2014, Houthi rebels, who only represent a small minority of the population in Yemen, attacked the capital city of Sanaa and seized it. Many Yemenis called this a coup against the elected and internationally recognised Yemeni government.

The Houthis were able to take the capital in just a few days thanks to the backing they received from Iran, which has been providing Houthi rebels with missiles which have targeted Saudi Arabia, and seems likely to continue to do so regardless of UN sanctions.

The war in Yemen is a proxy for Irans war against Saudi Arabia, as part of its wider Shia Crescent strategy, which aims to link a network of allies spanning from the border with Iraq to Lebanon in a crescent shape.

 Malnutrition centre in Mukalla, Yemen provides care for children suffering hunger and famine

In February 2014, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds forces, Qasem Soleimani, in a meeting with Iranian armed forces, explained the motivation behind Irans strategy in the region, dubbed the Shia Crescent. He said: The Shia Crescent is not political but it is actually an economic crescent, as Shias hold 80 per cent of the worlds oil in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Without understanding this core reason behind the Houthi offensive, achieving peace in Yemen is nigh on impossible  any plan to end the war without putting more pressure on Iran to dismantle its Quds forces is highly likely to fail, as weve seen since the beginning of this conflict.

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Houthis are merely a proxy of the IRGCs Quds forces. However, now that Iran is under intense pressure by the current US administration and its own people, it can no longer continue to arm and sponsor the Houthis like before. Consequently, Houthi rebels have been pushed to show willingness in negotiations for the time being.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that Houthi rebels have refused to join any peace talks to end the war in Yemen in the past.

According to Kamal Kharrazi, the head of Irans Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Tehran is negotiating with European countries about the Yemen crisis and, according to Iranian media, the war was the top priority of the discussion between British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt and Iranian officials on Monday.

Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Show all 17 1 /17 Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Doctors take some blood of Yemeni Yousef Abdullah Bakhit Ali, 13, suffering from severe acute malnutrition. With ongoing and unending conflict in Yemen, humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate across the country Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor weighs Yemeni baby Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef, 9 months suffering from malnutrition Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal,12 years old and suffering from severe acute malnutrition. He arrives with his family at a Unicef supported treatment centre in a hospital in Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor measures the arm of Yemeni Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal, 12, who is suffering from malnutrition at a treatment centre in a hospital in Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen There are over 400,000 severely malnourished children in need urgent lifesaving assistance in Yemen Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal is weighed Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen A doctor measures the arm of baby Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to reach 275,000 malnourished children with critical life-saving supplies and care for over 5 million people with safe and clean water to stop the spread of life-threatening diseases Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Yahya Hamoud Ali Al Huzef with his family in his house in the outskirts of the capital Sanaa Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen The country is on the brink of famine and children's chances of survival are becoming slimmer by the day Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal has his arm measured Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to provide nearly 1 million children with vaccines and healthcare Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are working with partners around-the clock to save children suffering from malnutrition and disease Unicef/Abdulhaleem Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef are currently working to provide 9 million people with emergency cash assistance to help families buy basic commodities so they can survive Unicef/Huwais Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Ali Mohammed Ahmed Jamal is suffering from malnutrition Unicef Children suffering from acute malnutrition in Yemen Unicef/Abdulhaleem

But from the Iranian perspective, a ceasefire in Yemen is only crucial for the time being because it needs to focus on domestic economic challenges as the country hopes to ease US sanctions. It is hard to imagine they are truly seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict, as it remains a key part of their wider regional strategy of expanding their influence. Indeed, look at other countries where Iran has sought to impose its influence  namely Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, which are extremely divided and unstable. There is little reason to assume Irans intentions are different in Yemen. This suggests the main reason behind Houthi rebels announcing halting attacks on the Saudi-led coalition is linked to Irans current domestic problems, as opposed to a genuine willingness to find peace in the region.

Yemen is not an isolated war but intrinsically linked to Irans wider regional strategy. Unless this aspect begins to be highlighted more insistently, it is difficult to see any lasting peace in Yemen  a treaty could be signed, but as Iran faces other problems it could return to destabilising Yemen because it is a crucial part of Irans Shia Crescent into Saudi Arabia.

It is highly unlikely Iran will stop pursuing its belligerent efforts to establish its Shia Crescent in the long run because that is the very essence and purpose of the Islamic regime of Iran. This poses a great threat to the stability in the region, and threatens Saudi Arabia and Bahrain which have significant Shia population in their countries.

In relation to this, James Mattis, US defence secretary, recently stated that the US has significant evidence which indicates Iran has been transferring a significant amount of weapons into Bahrain. Such evidence is an indication of how serious Irans destabilising role in the region is, and how determined it is to establish a Shia Crescent, which must be taken into consideration by the international community.

It is crucial to put pressure on Iran to dismantle its Quds forces because herein lies the key to peace in the region and in Yemen. The wars in the Middle East are part of wider geopolitical tensions, and Yemen cannot be dealt with in isolation of the rest of the regions instability, which the Quds forces have a lot to answer for.

Raman Ghavami is a Middle East commentator and campaigner for Kurdish rights
Cameroon's military has freed nine children and their teacher who had been kidnapped by gunmen from a school in Kumba.

Armed gunmen abducted the students from Lords Bilingual School on Tuesday morning, according to Nto'ou Ndong Chamberlin, senior divisional officer for the Meme Division where Kumba is located.

"Two of the terrorists were killed yesterday and two others early today," Chamberlin said, adding that the military destroyed their camp.

When the military came in, the kidnappers fled, abandoning the children, he said. Others are on the run and wounded.

The military found three of the children late on Tuesday and six others with their teacher on Wednesday. The teacher was wounded in crossfire shooting between the military and the gunmen, Mr Chamberlin said. She is now being treated in the hospital in Kumba.

As for the children, Mr Chamberlin said: "All of them are strong and healthy and have been handed over to their families."

The kidnapping comes more than two weeks after 79 students and three staff were kidnapped from their school in the neighbouring North West region. They were ultimately released.

A parent, Mosima Brenda, questioned if her child should continue going to school in the troubled region.

"I am still thinking if my child should again go to school in the crisis-prone town or not. I think it is high time we sent him to a more secured town in the French-speaking region," she said.

The latest unrest in Cameroon's North West and South West regions began in 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers staged demonstrations calling for reforms, criticising what they called the marginalisation of the Anglophone population, which accounts for about one-fifth of Cameroon's 25 million people.

Violence increased after factions of separatists armed themselves following a government clampdown on protests in 2017.

Armed separatists have vowed to destabilise the regions and hundreds of civilians have been killed and dozens of schools have been burned and teachers threatened. They are demanding the formation of an independent state they call Ambazonia.
Former UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson is set to be a surprise attendee at the DUP's annual conference this weekend.

While EU leaders gather in Brussels to rubber stamp the Brexit deal agreed with Prime Minister Theresa May, the hardline Brexiteer will be in Northern Ireland.

While serving as foreign secretary Mr Johnson failed to ever visit the border between the North and Republic and described the so-called Irish question that has dogged the Brexit negotiations as "folly".

The Fermanagh-based 'Impartial Reporter' is now reporting that he will attend the DUP's annual conference in Belfast on Saturday. The move is likely to be seen as a further sign that Arlene Foster's party are preparing to dump their confidence and supply arrangement with Mrs May.

Mr Johnson has been one of the Prime Minister's fiercest critics since quitting Cabinet over her Brexit plan.

The headline guest at the gathering was expected to be UK Chancellor Philip Hammond.

He is still expected to address DUP members on Friday night but that will be overshadowed by Mr Johnson's arrival on Saturday ahead of Mrs Foster's keynote address.
The DUP has warned the British government it faces a "rude awakening" over its draft EU withdrawal deal.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is on Thursday expected to meet business leaders from Northern Ireland who back the proposed accord.

But her government faces calls from her erstwhile Democratic Unionist allies to take into account contrary opinions in the region.

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley fielded stiff criticism from DUP members of her scrutiny committee at Westminster on Wednesday.

Strangford MP Jim Shannon told her: "If you don't cast your net wider and seek opinions of other people and stop seeking the... one blinkered opinion, which it is clear to me that some people are pursuing, then you are going to get a very rude awakening."

The withdrawal deal was agreed in principle by Mrs May and the EU last week.

It includes a 39 billion divorce bill and the customs backstop which keeps the UK in the EU customs union to prevent the return of a hard Irish border with checkpoints on the frontier.

Ms Bradley acknowledged a difference of opinion with Mr Shannon but said government is about taking decisions and providing leadership.

She said: "The safeguards put in place, the reassurances given, the way that the EU dislike the backstop, means as a legal construct, not as a person or country, there is no way that there will be a situation where we can be bound into the backstop indefinitely.

"The right thing to do is to accept the deal and to get the future relationship and make sure we never go into the backstop in any way."
British Prime Minister Theresa May will this afternoon meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for talks aimed at paving the way for an EU leaders' summit on Sunday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has told the Dail that his EU counterparts meeting in Brussels signalled broad approval for the draft Brexit deal, which was published last week.

But Mr Coveney added that Spain had "raised concerns" about the future of Gibraltar, a disputed British territory bordering Spain, after Brexit kicks in.

Brussels officials confirmed that Spain was threatening to veto the EU Brexit treaty, which is still expected to be signed by EU leaders at Sunday's summit. Officials hope Spanish objections that the deal does not explicitly state Madrid will have a veto on future EU-Gibraltar relations can be overcome, along with concerns by a host of countries over access to UK fishing waters.

The short visit to Brussels will come as a welcome respite for Mrs May from her ongoing battles in London over the deal unveiled eight days ago.

EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has made it clear that the draft deal is effectively closed to further negotiation, rejecting calls by UK critics of the deal.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs are propping up Mrs May's minority government, flexed its muscles by not voting with the government on budget measures on Monday.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds followed up yesterday with a call to the prime minister to renegotiate the draft deal.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that British finance minister Philip Hammond and former foreign minister Boris Johnson are expected to attend the annual conference of the DUP in Belfast this weekend.

Items expected to be covered at today's Brussels meeting include an extension to the transition period which sees no change in EU-UK relations after Brexit happens on March 29 next. At present, this is fixed at December 31, 2020, but it is likely to be renewed once, until either the end of 2021 or 2022.

But a bigger focus will be the 15-page non-binding declaration on future EU-UK relations post-Brexit. Officials close to the process believe this could be enhanced ahead of the weekend summit, and this may improve Mrs May's slim chances of getting her parliament to ratify this deal.

This will attempt the difficult task of straddling the Brexiteers' objections to apparently locking the UK into the EU customs union and single market, and the need for continued UK access to EU markets. Irish interests occur here as Mrs May will seek indications that the Irish backstop, "deemed an insurance policy," will never need to be used.

Against this, the EU will be pushing a deal on access to UK fishing waters.
The top table, from left: Pat Cleary, Jim O'Regan, Simon Cross (all Beet Ireland), Bobby Miller and Clive Carter, both Irish Grain Growers Association at the meeting in the Talbot Hotel, Carlow. Photo: Alf Harvey.

The unveiling of plans to redevelop the sugar beet industry in Ireland attracted a crowd of over 300 farmers to Carlow last week.

The meeting was told that it will cost 300m to revive the Irish sugar industry, and that the commitment of farmers to grow beet will also be required.

The meeting was organised by Beet Ireland in conjunction with the Irish Grain Growers' Group (IGGG) and was the second of a series of meetings to entice farmers to invest 1,000 each in a newly formed beet grower's co-op.

The initiative is based on getting 1,000 growers to produce 1.4 million tonnes of beet per year, which equates to 50,000ac or an average of 50ac per grower.

Beet Ireland was established in 2011 to develop a new sugar and bioethanol industry in the southeast.

Following a feasibility study and the abolition of EU sugar quotas in 2017, the company purchased a site in Ballyburn, near Castledermot, Co Kildare.

The information meetings are being held to appraise growers of progress and to secure farmer engagement in the project.

"We are at a crossroads now; we have purchased a site, the beet quotas have gone, we are now asking farmers to come on the journey and be proud of what they own," said Michael Hoey, chairman of Beet Ireland.

The next step is the planning and design of processing facilites. Support will be sought from the Government, investors and banks, and it is envisaged that the project will be completed at a cost of 300m by 2022.

A comprehensive presentation on the potential of the beet industry, and also the proposed development of the site, was given prior to the meeting.

The advantages of beet as a rotation crop were outlined. The meeting was told that the production of sugar, beet pulp and bioethanol will have a significant input into the overall profitability of farming, and there is also potential for new added-value products.

Crosshead

Like other crops, price fluctuations will influence the price per tonne.

Other questions from the floor included queries on transportation, cleaning methods, machinery, value-added products, financial projections and dividends.

Jim O'Regan, Cork tillage farmer and Beet Ireland director, told the meeting that reviving the beet industry required farmer investment.

"We want to establish a future for the tillage farmer. The dairy co-ops started small and have been successful. Dairy farmers had no problem investing in their future; we need to do the same for tillage," said Mr O'Regan.

It is hoped that by the end of the year there will be adequate commitment from farmers to proceed to the next stage of the planning process.

By joining a co-op, farmers will have an input into the development of the project, the meeting was told.

Growers will also be invited to invest further at a later stage but the full extent of the investment required could not be quantified at the moment, the meeting heard.

Bobby Miller

Stradbally, Co Laois

The chairman of the Irish Grain Growers' Group, Bobby Miller is in tillage and beef and farms 145ac. He has already invested his 1,000 in the project.

"The large turnout shows an appetite for change," he said. "There is certainly an element of trust and faith, and also risk."

The IGGG is playing its part in getting the sugar beet industry back by accepting payments from growers. Bobby is particularly pleased with the co-op structure of this venture, and intends to commit beet as a rotation crop to his present tillage acreage.

"It is now totally in the hands of the farmers if this project is to proceed," he said.

George Byrne

Bennekerry, Co Carlow

George is a tillage and beef farmer, with 500ac in tillage.

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"I will certainly engage with the process," he said. "I came with an open mind and now feel that the investment will be well spent. I will spread the word.

"It will be of great benefit for the wider farming community. I hope that 1,000 farmers invest. Businesses need investment, this is a venture for the future from which farmers, rather than multinationals, will benefit."

Noel Lawler

Narraghmore, Co Kildare

Noel, 55, farms 300ac and is excited at prospect of a revitalised beet industry.

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"The meeting was well presented and positive. Like any new industry, it is hard to get initial commitment and there is a bit of uncertainty, but I feel there is potential," he said.

Noel grows fodder beet. "There are a lot of advantages to beet, it's a good catch crop, it's more profitable than wheat or barley, and it provides a cleaner and healthier rotation," he said.

Noel is undecided on the investment. "It is very hard to decide on the spur of moment. I will go to a further meeting to clarify some points."

Tommy Doyle

Kilcullen, Co Kildare

Tommy has been farming in Ballyshannon all his life and grew beet for over 20 years.

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He farms 100ac, dry stock and tillage, mostly spring barley. He would like to see the sugar beet industry back.

"The country needs it as all the sugar is now imported. We need our own sugar to stop imports," he said.

Tommy is interested in investing but is uncertain whether he will be in a position to grow sugar beet.

"I keep stock and would have to take conacre to have enough land to grow it.

"The price would, of course, be important but as we can't tell the price of grain from year to year - it's understandable that we are not being offered a definite price this evening."

Colm Fingleton

Ratheeniska, Co Laois

A founder member of IGGG, Colm is a grain farmer.

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"I am heartened by the huge turnout," he said. "Farmers have had a bit of time to forget the beet production of the past and are looking forward to new structures.

"Farmers are looking for higher margins and also for diversification. Producing sugar beet will reduce the acreage of other crops and this should increase prices."

Colm is likely to invest in the industry but is still unsure if he will grow the crop.

"I will wait and watch with interest how it progresses," he said. "This venture will raise the profile of the tillage farmer who needs an industry in which to invest. It was a very positive meeting."

Pat Cleary

Monasterevin, Co Kildare

A director of Beet Ireland, Pat farms 750ac with his son Darragh, of which 65pc is leased. It is predominately tillage.

Pat was delighted with the turnout.

"We had a lot of registrations on the night. The more the farmers put into this, the more control they will have," he said. "We have seen the success of the co-op template both in Ireland and overseas and are very optimistic about this venture.

Pat also emphasised the positive effects of growing beet on our carbon footprint. In addition, by producing sugar in Ireland, we omit carriage from abroad.

"This venture will provide a significant job boost for south Kildare not just in agriculture but also for ancillary industries," he said.

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Using his loaf: 'I am keen to feed the masses and there are already plans for expansion,' says Eoin Cluskey of Bread Nation

There is greater awareness of food provenance right across Ireland, much of which is being fuelled by younger consumers interested in where and how the food and drink they consume is produced. While taste is subjective, it is attracting more attention as a distinct selling point.

A good example of an industry that markets itself on taste is craft beer. According to a recent report by Bord Bia, there are approximately 125 brewing companies in the Republic of Ireland, 75 of which are independent production micro-breweries. Collectively they produced 157,000hl (hectolitres) of craft beer in 2017, an increase of 10.7pc on the previous year.

This equates to 2.6pc of domestic beer consumption in Ireland. Most craft beers market themselves based on unique flavour and Irish consumers have been very receptive.

Farmers are increasingly viewing themselves as food producers, and rightly seeing themselves in a unique position to supply raw materials to a more diverse market. Very few Irish farmers are growing crops, be it hops or barley for thriving micro-breweries.

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This may be the fault of the brewer as much as the farmer, and until consumers ask for Irish grown products in craft beers, this is unlikely to change. While innovation at farm level requires capital investment, it also offers additional revenue streams.

As the organic market becomes more mainstream, it can still be challenging for speciality producers to find routes to market - but there are growing opportunities in many sectors. Ireland is a net importer of both organic and conventional grains.

Organic wheat

Organic farmers in cereal production primarily grow oats, and barley to a lesser extent. Very few organic farmers grow wheat as it tends to be a very hungry crop that can exhaust soil fertility. In addition, demand for organic wheat for human consumption remains relatively low.

James Kelly from Ballymore Organics in Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare has been growing organic cereals for a few years now.

Last year James built a flour milling plant on his farm. The grain is stone-ground which is a slow process of grinding large stones together with the wheat in the middle.

In stone-ground flour the endosperm, bran, and germ remain in their natural, original proportions and is more nutritious. In October of this year his stone-ground wholemeal flour was shortlisted for an award at the National Organic Food Awards.

Growing cereals organically is a technical business and management is key. "This farm grew wheat traditionally but growing good milling wheat organically leaves no room for error, and it must suit your soils which should be balanced and biologically active," says James.

"Although wheat works well as the first crop in the rotation, growing winter wheat can shorten your rotation in an organic system by one growing season as it is such a nutrient-demanding crop, so if you are going to grow it you need to get a premium price for it.

"For me that is achieved by adding value to it through on-farm processing. At the moment I am selling 20kg sacks of flour direct to restaurants and cafes."

There is a thriving cafe and bakery culture in Ireland, and flour grown at Ballymore farm is generally used for soda breads but also sourdough breads.

This year James experimented with a heritage landrace wheat, sown at 190kg/ha, in ideal conditions straight out of ley. "It established really well, and the vigour was superb, but that doesn't necessarily translate into yield or quality," he says.

"The biomass was enormous, plants grew 5ft tall whereas my modern wheat variety was knee-high, due to exceptional weather through the growing season. Obviously, lodging is a concern with crops this tall and this year the standing ability was not tested as it was such a dry year, we had no rain here for three months," said James.

"In terms of yield, organic cereals are lower and if you grow heritage varieties organically you are looking at reducing your yield further, so while the idea of heritage grains sounds good, for me it does not stack up economically.

"The disease resistance is low so that is also a risk in an organic system as you cannot use fungicides to deal with problems that arise. I still have an open mind on heritage varieties and experimentation is good, but at the end of the day margins have to add up."

As James is farming and running the flour business on his own, there are a lot of things to keep on top of. "You have to get everything right; there are no shortcuts when selling to consumers," he says.

"The wheat I grow averages from 9-14pc protein and people using the flour do not use additives to enhance their bread so the taste is not compromised. For me organic farming is the perfect option, it is great for the farmer and the environment, I really believe in it, and there is a lot of truth in the saying you are what you eat!"

Passionate

Another new business that is passionate about organic farming is Bread Nation, who opened their cafe on Pearse Street in Dublin just 11 weeks ago. The bakery is also on the premises and is certified organic with the Irish Organic Association.

Bread is baked daily for wholesale deliveries and cafe owner and head baker Eoin Cluskey is keen to help people understand more about what is in the food they are eating.

"We need to talk more about food," says Eoin. "As a baker we are accountable for what we sell to people, so for me using organic flour is vitally important. I can stand over it, knowing that it is produced sustainably and pesticides are not applied to grow the grains. Then when it comes to my part in the chain, I don't add processing aids or artificial additives - we simply use flour, water, salt and fermentation. It remains a natural product."

Business has thrived since they opened and the feedback about their bread is hugely positive. "For me this is encouraging as I am keen to feed the masses and there are already plans for expansion," says Eoin.

"One thing that surprises me is the lack of availability of organic raw materials here such as butter, grains and buttermilk. I need volume at the right price as I am selling it on to customers and I would love to source all of this locally, but there is no-one making organic butter or buttermilk in the country, bizarre in a country world famous for its butter!

"I would love to see more farmers in Ireland going organic, and as producers and chefs we need to take on that challenge; we can all do more. I care about the process and what is in our food, that is what drives me and why I use organic ingredients in what we create at Bread Nation, and the market has responded showing that customers care too."

Grace Maher is development officer with the Irish Organic Association, grace.maher@irishoa.ie
Details of the 2019 Areas of Natural Constraint (previously Disadvantaged Areas) have been announced by the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed.

The ANC Scheme (previously referred to as the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme and the Less Favoured Areas Scheme) has been a support for farmers in Ireland since the 1970s, and new EU rules required that Member States change their approach to designating townlands.

This new approach is based on identifying townlands that are considered to be constrained by reference to a range of bio physical criteria set out at EU level.

For the vast majority of farmers, the townlands they farm which have been eligible up to now will remain eligible under the new Scheme.

In total, c. 98pc of currently eligible townlands will remain eligible under the new Scheme. In addition, over 2,000 townlands will now also have eligible land under the Scheme for the first time in 2019.

According to Minister Creed to the extra 25m provided for the Scheme in 2018, a further 23m will now be added to the Scheme in 2019 and the details of the allocation of this money will form part of discussions with stakeholder groups.

The Minister also outlined that there will be an appeals process in place to deal with queries from farmers in the small number of townlands that are no longer eligible under the new Scheme in 2019.

This appeals committee will be set up with an independent chairman, and will ensure clarity for all farmers affected by changes to the Scheme.

How land was assessed

From 2019, eligible areas must instead be designated using the following list of bio-physical criteria:

Low temperature

Dryness

Excess soil moisture

Limited soil drainage

Unfavourable texture and stoniness

Shallow rooting depth

Poor chemical properties

Steep slope

While all the biophysical criteria listed have been mapped, the main criterion impacting in Ireland is excess soil moisture  essentially a prevalence of soils which retain high levels of rainfall with knock on effects for the farming of that land.

This work identified at townland level areas which display one or more of the listed biophysical criteria at a level above the 60pc threshold set out in the Regulation.

The fine tuning process has been carried out at District Electoral Division level. Essentially, the process identified the following 3 categories:

DEDs that displayed a stocking density over a 3 year average at level above 1.8 LU per hectare have been fine tuned out. The national average stocking Density is 1.45LU/Ha per DED.

DEDs that displayed an average level of above 15pc of the agricultural area taken up by arable crops have been fine tuned out.

DEDs that displayed a combination of greater than 8pc arable coverage and between 14.  1.8 LU per hecate have been fine tuned out.

Identification of areas of specific constraints

The regulation also allows MS to identify areas where it is necessary for land management to be continued in order to conserve or improve the environment, to maintain the countryside, to preserve the tourist potential of the area, or to protect the coastline.

Up to 10pc of the total land area of Ireland can be designated in this way as eligible under the Scheme.

This is the approach taken in the current scheme to underpin the enhanced rates available for island farmers.

As with fine tuning, the approach taken here has been the subject of protracted discussion discussions with DG Agri. The approach taken has been to designate areas under the following 3 headings as having specific constraints:

1. Areas of environmental importance

Under this heading, DEDs where 50pc or more of the DED is covered by the Natura 2000 Directives lands and the National Heritage Areas are now eligible under the Scheme. This approach is clearly in line with the emphasis placed on environmental challenges in our RDP.

2. Structural Constraints  Fragmentation and Farm Size

Under this heading a DED is deemed to have a specific constraint where it meets the following two criteria

Where the land holding is in multiple blocks, ie fragmented.

Where the average farm size in a DED is less than 80pc of the national average, i.e. less than 25.6 hectares.

Taken together, these two elements represent a constraint on farms where we wish to support the continuation of farming in line with the requirements of the EU regulation.

3. Structural Constraints  Grassland and Field Size

Under this heading, townlands were identified where more than 50pc was in permanent grassland and there was an average field size of less than 4 hectares.

Focusing on these areas helps to maintain the traditional patchwork landscape as well as addressing the constraint identified in Commission guidance documents which state that grassland used for agricultural purposes is mainly concentrated in regions with less fertile soils.

Further, the Department said that in order to fully focus the support here on those specific areas within this category facing the most acute need for support, a further refinement was required.

It has identified a cohort of farmers where the average Family Farm Income (FFI) is less than 65pc of the FFI of farmers who were not classified as disadvantaged / facing constraints in the current iteration of the Scheme.

"It is our view that these farmers are clearly a cohort where the constraint is most likely to lead to land abandonment etc. In focusing the structural constraint in this way, the scheme can be more targeted in avoiding land abandonment and the consequent knock on effects in terms of maintaining the patchwork landscape and preserving the environment."

The outcome of this process can be summarised as follows

The vast majority of land that was eligible under the existing Scheme will remain eligible under the new approach.

Some 700 townlands that would have previously been eligible are not eligible under the new designation. Farmers impacted financially by this change will receive a degressive phasing out payment in 2019 and 2020. In the majority of cases, the financial impact of this change is relatively small.

Over 2,000 townlands will now be eligible under the new approach and will be eligible to receive a payment for the first time in 2019.

Townlands no longer eligible in 2019

Some 700 townlands will no longer be eligible for the ANC scheme in 2019, having being eligible in 2018.

These townlands are spread across the country. Where farmers hold land in these townlands and there is a negative financial impact, degressive phasing out payments will be in place for 2019 and 2020 as set out in the relevant EU regulations. A rate of 80pc of the 2007-2013 rates will be payable in 2019, and a rate of 20pc in 2020.

Approximately 750 farmers will be negatively impacted by this change. Leaving the phasing out payments aside, the financial impact will be under 1,000 for over half of the farmers impacted.

The allocation of an additional 23m to the ANC Scheme in 2019.

In Budget 2019, an additional 23m in funding was allocated to the ANC Scheme. This means that the total allocation for the Scheme has increased by 50m to 250m over the last two budgets.

Following on from the redesignation project, a proportion of the additional 23m allocated in Budget 2019 will be expended on payments to farmers who will now be eligible for the first time under the Scheme in 2019, and existing beneficiaries who are gaining new eligible land under the redesignation (including tillage land which is now required to be eligible for the first time).

For farmers who wish to confirm that the townlands in which they are farming are eligible for support under the 2019 Scheme, a full list of eligible townlands organised on a county basis is available here.
The business started as a corner shop in Dingle and it today comprises nine SuperValu stores across the southwest along with two hotels in Dingle

Pre-tax profits at the Garvey group of SuperValu and hotels last year soared to 5m.

New accounts filed by Commidare Holdings Ltd show that the Co Kerry business group enjoyed the 176pc increase in pre-tax profits after revenues increased by 3.5pc from 117.54m to 121m in the 12 months to the end of January 6 this year.

The business started as a corner shop in Dingle and it today comprises nine SuperValu stores across the southwest along with two hotels in Dingle.

The group is one of the largest privately owned firms in Munster and today employs 774.

Profits at the company were helped by an increase of 1.2m in value of the company's quoted investments.

The accounts also disclose that since year end, Tomas Garvey has sold property assets to the group for 1.965m.

The group last year paid out a dividend of 300,000 and this followed a dividend pay-out of 200,000 in 2016.

Its operating profit last year increased by 18pc from 3.65m to 4.15m.

The group's pre-tax profit take account of finance costs of 360,722.

The group paid corporation tax of 733,379 resulting in a post-tax profit of 4.29m.

On January 6 last, the group had shareholder funds totalling 22.1m that included accumulated profits of 21.8m. The group's cash pile increased from 4.8m to 6.33m.

The group's operating profit last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of 2.3m and non-cash amortisation costs of 1.62m.

The group continued its expansion last year as it incurred 2.4m in acquiring tangible fixed assets and this followed a spend of 9.6m under the same heading in 2016.

Staff costs at the group last year increased from 15.46m to 16.32m. Numbers employed increased marginally from 767 to 774. Directors' remuneration last year increased from 634,427 to 640,155. The group's loans last year reduced from 33m to 30.2m.
Changes to the tax breaks which will hit thousands of ordinary workers have been put off for a year after a climbdown by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.

Mr Donohoe has confirmed that a review of tax relief on expenses will be carried out by the Revenue Commissioners next year.

But he said there will be no attempt to stop the entitlements availed of by at least 80,000 workers until 2020.

"Expenses that are wholly, exclusively and necessarily included for the purposes of work will continue to be claimable under the Tax Consolidation Act. That is not changing," Mr Donohoe said.

"But what will be happening next year is that the matter will be reviewed. They [Revenue] have informed me that there won't be any change in terms of how they implement this policy until January 1, 2020."

This was added to by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's office, which said the review of concessionary flat rate expenses was needed "to ensure that the expenses granted remain justified and appropriate to modern day employments and work practices".

The Irish Independent yesterday outlined how the Revenue Commissioners were moving to strip tax allowances from January 1 from 80,000 people - including teachers, CIE workers, hotel, bar and construction staff.

More than 500,000 PAYE people claim the tax relief, but six categories of workers have already lost the relief. This includes some 76,000 low-paid retail workers.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach faced accusations of "giving tax cuts with one hand while clobbering workers with the other".

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said Mr Varadkar pledged at his party's Ard Fheis on Saturday that he would make major tax cuts over the coming five years.

But she said Revenue was moving to cut a small tax allowance to low-paid workers.

The General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, said nurses' expenses would be affected by potential changes to the current flat rate.

She said nurses are required to pay for their own uniforms, to launder them and also pay for registration with the nurses and midwifery board of Ireland.

The Taoiseach said there would be no change in workers' tax allowances until 2020 - "if at all".

But he also argued that the Revenue Commissioners were independent in such matters and workers would still be able to claim other expenses.

Employees have been urged to act now to claim back the allowance for the previous four years. Advisers at Taxback.com said the relief can be claimed for the last four years.

Revenue is undertaking a review of some 53 employment categories where workers are allowed to claim expenses to help defray the cost of providing and maintaining uniforms and tools.

Commercial director at Taxback.com Eileen Devereux said those facing a cut in the relief should ensure they are getting it for this year and for the previous four years.

"We are urging those who will be affected to move now to claim back reliefs for the previous four years."

She warned that we are fast approaching the deadline to claim refunds from the 2014 tax year, which will be on December 31.

Ms Devereux said PAYE earners can submit a claim for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. And come January 1 people will be able to submit a claim for 2018 flat-rate expenses.
Brexit uncertainty is not hurting sales at easyJet, CEO Johan Lundgren has said, adding that the airline is well-prepared should the UK leave without a deal next March.

Bookings for around that time have not seen any drop-off and next summer's are slightly ahead of summer sales a year ago, Lundgren said.

"There doesn't seem to be any concern for people to book their holidays and go away for next summer," said Mr Lundgren. "We've been preparing ourselves for the past two years for any scenario, a deal or a no deal," he added. Larger rival Ryanair has warned that Brexit could force carriers to ground flights.

As well as setting up a new airline in Austria, Mr Lundgren said that by the time the UK leaves the EU, EasyJet aims to have more than 50pc of its shareholders from outside the UK and from other EU countries - up from 47pc - to comply with EU rules.

Reuters
FRANCE has urged Renault to replace CEO Carlos Ghosn after he was arrested in Japan on financial misconduct allegations, which sources said formed part of an investigation extending to its broader carmaking alliance with Nissan.

Mr Ghosn, one of the car industry's best-known leaders, was arrested on Monday after Nissan Motor said he had engaged in wrongdoing at the Japanese firm, including personal use of company money and under-reporting his earnings, for years. Nissan plans to remove him as chairman on Thursday.

In a sign Nissan may be seeking to loosen its French parent's hold on their alliance, the Japanese company told Renault's board on Monday it also had evidence of potential wrongdoing at Renault-Nissan, the Dutch venture overseeing alliance operations under Renault's ultimate control, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The private communication came from Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, whose company is 43.4pc-owned by Renault in a complex alliance forged by Mr Ghosn over almost two decades.

In its first public comment since the arrest, Renault yesterday said it remained focused on its partnership with Nissan and Mitsubishi.

"Thierry Bollore, chief operating officer of the Renault group, is specifically in charge of the continuity of the executive committee of Renault group," it said, sketching out interim arrangements for keeping the company running.

The French state, which owns 15pc of Renault, has begun to distance itself from Mr Ghosn, a French citizen who was born in Brazil and is of Lebanese descent.

"Carlos Ghosn is no longer in a position where he is capable of leading Renault," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told France Info radio.

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"Renault has been weakened, which makes it all the more necessary to act quickly," he said. Following talks between Mr Le Maire and his Japanese counterpart Hiroshige Seko, the two ministers issued a joint statement reaffirming support for the Renault-Nissan alliance and a "shared wish to maintain this winning cooperation".

Close to bankruptcy when Renault bought its stake in 1999, Nissan has recovered to be the engine of an alliance that generates synergies for both companies and allows them to rival Volkswagen and Toyota on the global stage.

But there have long been tensions as Nissan, while almost 60pc bigger than Renault by sales, remains the junior partner in their shareholding hierarchy with a smaller reciprocal 15pc non-voting stake in Renault.

Renault shares were down 3pc by yesterday afternoon, having slumped more than 8pc on Monday. Nissan stock fell another 5.5pc, while Mitsubishi Motors, the third member of the alliance, ended down nearly 7pc.

Mitsubishi Motors' CEO Osamu Masuko said it could be hard to manage the alliance without the unifying figure of Mr Ghosn. "I don't think there is anyone else on Earth like Ghosn who could run Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi," he told reporters in Tokyo.

Mr Ghosn's alleged improprieties also raise questions over governance at the alliance in which the three partners' boards are all chaired by a single executive.

Japan's Nikkei business daily, citing unidentified sources, said Mr Ghosn had received share price-linked compensation of about JPY4bn (31.2m) over five-years, but it went unreported in Nissan's financial reports.

Reuters
Flat pack furniture giant Ikea is to cut up to 20 jobs in Ireland over the next two years as part of its global transformation plan.

The job cuts will come as part of a cull of 7,500 Ikea workers worldwide.

Ikea currently employs 730 staff at its two outlets here - the full-sized store in Ballymun and its order and collection point in Carrickmines, South Dublin.

"We are transforming our business to better meet the needs of our customers and be more convenient and affordable to more people," Ireland market manager Claudia Marshall said.

"The impact on the Irish business is minimal and at this stage we anticipate that over the next two years, potentially less than 20 jobs out of the 730 in Ireland may be made redundant. We will work closely with all our co-workers to support them during this period of change."

Earlier this month the group said it has no plans to open further stores in Ireland, despite strong growth in sales.

Ikea's parent firm Ingka Group said that as part of the transformation, it is assessing all parts of the organisation and is "simplifying to enable a greater focus on adding value to its customers".

As part of the shake-up, 11,500 new jobs will also be created over the next two years through the opening of what Ikea called 30 new "touchpoints".

Javier Quinones, Ikea UK and Ireland country retail manager, said: "We are in a fast-changing retail environment and while we continue to grow, we are evaluating how we can remain relevant in the eyes of consumers - now and in the future.

"While the opportunities ahead of us are exciting, we know that some of the changes won't always be easy and in some cases, we will have to make difficult decisions.

"Co-workers are at the heart of our business and throughout this transformation we will have an ongoing dialogue on how to navigate these changes, to ensure we do this in a way in line with our values and ensuring that our co-workers feel supported."

(Additional reporting PA)
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photo: Reuters

MARKET turmoil continued to grip Europe yesterday, with a sell-off in tech stocks in the US and retail gloom there also contributing to a tough day for investors.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney also warned of a shock for Britain similar to that it experienced in the 1970s if there's a no-deal Brexit.

The price for West Texas Intermediate tumbled below $54 (47.41) a barrel for the first time in a year amid concern Opec's plans to cut production won't be enough to stem a surge in stockpiles and a sell-off in global equities. Futures for January delivery fell as much as 6.2pc in New York.

Meanwhile, there were warnings that the end of quantitative easing could spell trouble for Italy's debt. One Governing Council member noted that Italy's central bank is the largest buyer of the country's debt. He said that raises the question of who will purchase the roughly 275bn of government securities Italy is expected to issue next year.

In Ireland, the Iseq Overall Index had slumped almost 1.2pc soon before the close, to 5,827. It's now back at a level not seen since 2016. Ryanair was 1.8pc lower at 11.44 near the end of the session. Shares in rival Easyjet tumbled almost 5pc, despite it reporting a 41pc jump in full-year profit.

Shares in CRH had barely budged near the close, at 24.10, after it said that third-quarter sales rose 4pc to 7.96bn and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was up 3pc to 1.37bn.

Mincon plummeted more than 9pc after mining stocks were hit.

The UK's Ftse-100 was down 0.6pc minutes before the close. Germany's DAX fell 1.5pc and France's CAC-40 lost 1.1pc.
Laura Whitmore has been going out with boyfriend Iain Stirling for over a year, but having him perform his stand-up act in front of her family still made her nervy.

The comedian, best known as the narrator of Love Island, flew in from London with Laura for his first Irish gig.

Laura admitted she was a little apprehensive about what her quick-witted fella might say on stage in Vicar Street on Sunday night.

"My family were all there so I was like, 'Oh, God, I don't know what he's going to say'," she said.

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Whatsapp TV presenter Laura Whitmore was in Dublin to launch the world's first Connected Restaurant powered by the Three Network and using Samsung technology.

However, Iain's act went down a treat with everyone there, with Laura saying he brought the house down.

"It's such a good venue - I think I was more excited than he was. It was a great crowd, we were all laughing," she said.

"It was lovely, I think he did really well. Scottish and Irish humour are quite similar anyway.

"When I travel away I still have my Irish community that I hang around with and I think that the humour travels very well."

As for ever making a move back to Ireland, it's not on the cards right now for Laura, who has lived in London for a decade.

Appearing on the Late Late Show London special made her realise that home was never more than a stone's throw away.

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"I always come home. When we were doing the Late Late, we were talking about the Irish abroad and I was thinking I only spend about 30pc of the year in London and I'm constantly moving around," she said.

"My stuff is in the one place, my family are here. It doesn't matter where you live, because I literally flew home at the weekend and then I'm flying back to London today.

"You get to Ireland in a day, I'm really lucky - I've friends who are in Australia or America. For me, it feels like I'm an hour from home."

Laura said keeping in touch with family through social media has made life much easier for her and kept the feeling that she is missing out at bay.

"I've got a little niece and she knows me from seeing me on FaceTime and not just from the telly," she said.

Laura added that while she was called to try out for the Dancing With The Stars presenting gig, which ultimately went to 2FM DJ Jennifer Zamparelli, she didn't screen test.

"They called and I wasn't able to do it or go forward for it," she said.

Laura was speaking at the launch of the world's first Connected Restaurant powered by the Three Network and using Samsung technology, in Clarendon Street, Dublin. It will be open from November 29 to December 2.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Russia has set up a special commission to probe the fatal incident at Moscows Sheremetyevo airport when a 25-year-old Armenian citizen was struck and killed by an airplane on the runway. The investigation will last ten days, Russias Federal Air Transport Agency director Alexander Neradko said, according to TASS.

He said that the plane that struck the man was operated by Aeroflot.

Neradko declined to comment on details of the incident until the probe is completed.

According to Interfax, the plane that hit the man landed in Athens with a damaged fuselage.

Athens airport told Interfax that the Boeing 737 landed at 22:50 local time and emergency personnel immediately examined the aircraft.

Biological traces and damages were discovered on the external parts of the fuselage. The aircraft has been temporarily grounded.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
The grave of Little Nellie of Holy God at Sunday's Well in Co Cork

Inspired: Pope Pius X said Little Nellie was the sign he'd been waiting for to lower the age of Communion

This week there was a full house at Cork's Girl's Club Centre for what was billed as a 'Little Nellie of Holy God Evening'. Those attending were urged to bring along "stories of miracles" which might be used "to make Little Nellie a saint".

Many won't have heard of Little Nellie, who died aged just four 109 years ago, but to her devotees, she is "the unofficial patron saint of Cork". She has inspired a dozen books spanning a century, and if you go to YouTube, you'll find two musical tributes, one a highly polished ballad in the schmaltzy style of R Kelly, the other a rough and ready Country'n'Irish waltz.

While Ellen 'Nellie' Organ's afterlife has been a feel-good story, her brief existence was filled with pain, suffering and tragedy.

She was born in 1903 in a Waterford military barracks, before her soldier father's job would take the family to Spike Island in Cork Harbour. One day, with her mother suffering the early symptoms of tuberculosis, Ellen was entrusted to a babysitter who dropped her. The infant's hip and back were twisted out of joint. As she grew, and she developed curvature of the spine, her pain intensified. She had difficulty walking and was unable to sit up straight.

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Her mother finally succumbed to the scourge of TB when Nellie was just three. Unable to cope, the father handed his four young children into the care of the nuns in Cork. Examined at a Sisters of Mercy hospital, she was found to be suffering from the savage affliction of whooping cough. She spent most of her time in the infirmary, where the nuns and nurses quickly came to believe that they were in the presence of a spiritual savant.

Gift of 'discernment'

She is known as Little Nellie of Holy God because she always referred to the deity as "Holy God" and to the chapel as "the house of Holy God". She was deeply fascinated by the religious icons in the chapel, especially the Stations of the Cross. Her carers believed that the tiny girl had the mystical gift of 'discernment', which meant that she instinctively knew what the will of God was directing her to do in any given situation. This 'gift of discernment' is one reason her followers today believe she qualifies for sainthood.

When she died in 1908, her grave at St Joseph's Cemetery quickly became a place of pilgrimage. In many cases, those at the graveside prayed directly to the little girl for blessings, cures and miracles. They would leave votive items like crutches by the graveside.

A year after her death, her remains were exhumed for reburial in the Good Shepherd Convent Cemetery in Sunday's Well. It is claimed that when the coffin was reopened, she looked exactly like she had at the moment of her death, with not a hint of decay.

A victim of the economic crash, the Good Shepherd Convent, and Little Nellie's resting place, passed into the hands of receivers, cutting off access to a growing stream of pilgrims. Two years ago, the Bishop of Cork & Ross called for a second exhumation of Little Nellie so she could once again be made accessible to her devotees.

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However, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd said this week that good progress has been made with the new owners of the site, and they hope the access issue will be soon resolved.

"A few years back, lots of people were ringing into the Bishop's office about Little Nellie, so the Bishop asked me to set up a study group," says Fr Patrick McCarthy, parish priest of the Church of Saints Peter & Paul in Cork. "Our report is almost complete."

He takes care to stress: "Our mandate was not promotion, but to gauge levels of devotion. And there is growing devotion to Little Nellie, from Cork to Canada. What's remarkable is that the child died aged just four-and-a-half in obscurity, but 109 years later she is widely venerated."

The investigators identified places at home and abroad where there appeared to be a special interest in Nellie. They put notes on parish noticeboards inviting people to share their beliefs and experiences.

"People did tell us they were asking for miracles," Fr McCarthy confirms.

So what's so special about this mere child that inspires such veneration?

"She was said to have a remarkable understanding of the Holy Eucharist, or 'the real presence', as we call it," he says. "She grasped how Christ is really or substantially present in the Eucharist, and not just symbolically. She could apparently sense 'the real presence'. One story is that a nurse claimed to have received Holy Communion, but Nellie flatly told her that she had not received it that day."

Word reached the Bishop of Cork about this little girl's intense spirituality, and he sought and got a special dispensation so the dying Nellie could make her First Communion aged four, and not the usual (for the time) age of 12.

Pope Pius X became a fan. He'd already given long thought to lowering the age of First Communion from 12. "The Pope said that Little Nellie was the sign he'd been waiting for to go ahead and lower the age," Fr McCarthy says. It dropped from 12 to seven.

Relics of the little girl, in the form of personal items, were requested by the Pope and the Queen of Spain.

Fatima siblings

For over a century, the Vatican has resisted calls to elevate Little Nellie to sainthood. This has had nothing to do with doubts about her precocious piety, but because the Church has traditionally only canonised children who died as martyrs. However, that situation changed earlier this year when huge crowds thronged Fatima in Portugal for the canonisation of brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who the faithful believe encountered the Virgin Mary in 1917. "Up until this year, the practice was that child saints always had to be martyrs, but Francisco and Jacinta were not, so their canonisation raises the possibility - and it's only a possibility - for Little Nellie to follow suit," Fr McCarty explains.

The Fatima siblings died young, aged nine and 10, so at just four years old, Nellie would be one of the youngest saints in Church history, but not the youngest. The Holy Martyrs - the male under-twos slaughtered in the Bible by King Herod in search of Jesus - have been accorded the status of saints.

The current devotion to Little Nellie - the praying to an individual for cures and miracles - seems very much like old-time religion from Ireland's past. Is there a lot more of it going on than mainstream society sees? Is it still a strong presence, but only underground?

"I think there's no doubt it's not all one-way traffic," Fr McCarthy replies. "In our church, there's shrines to Our Lady, Padre Pio, etc. If you sit at the back of the church on, say, a weekday, you'll see men and women of all ages, sitting in prayer or contemplation, and often lighting a candle. Maybe it's to ask for something, maybe an act of thanksgiving. What's interesting is how many are men of all ages. They may not even go to Mass.

"At the heart of it, I think, is that at some point, or with some event, we all come to a realisation of the fragility of life."
L-R: Mikolai Urbanowicz, 36yrs, Marta Adamajtys, 36yrs, Sylwia Wolasewicz, 33yrs, and Roman Wolonsewicz, 36yrs, all from Tottenham, London, England pictured at the Four Courts during their Circuit Civil Court action for damages.Pic: Collins Courts

A motorist, who rear-ended a taxi at a Dublin roundabout, did a runner into the late evening darkness of Dublins 1,700 acre Phoenix Park, the Circuit Civil Court was told today Wednesday.

Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke said that while such an action would inevitably have raised suspicions in the mind of the taxi driver the court could not assume that because of this and other matters, the accident had been a ready up.

Judge Groarke said the defence put forward by the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) was also asking him to infer, because a passenger in the taxi had made a phone call in a foreign language to someone only seconds before the collision, that the caller was in contact with the rear-ending driver who had done a runner.

This is a vast crevasse you are asking me to jump and I am not entirely comfortable with it, Judge Groarke told the MIBIs defence team.

The judge also referred to conjecture by the taximan that the driver of the car that rear ended him resembled an Eastern European in looks and said the court would not be happy to rely on such evidence to establish identity in a criminal case.

Judge Groarke was dealing with 60,000 damages claims by each of four Polish nationals who were passengers in the taxi and who were injured in the rear-ending incident at the Half-Way-House roundabout near Phoenix Park on 29th January 2009.

Sylwia Wolasewicz (33) and her partner Mikolaj Urbanowicz (36) together with their friends Roman Wolonsewicz (39) and his partner, Marta Adamajtys (36), sued the MIBI for a total of 240,000 damages.

The four claimants, all from Tottenham, London, told the court they had been on a first-time weekend trip to Dublin and after having shopped in the Blanchardstown Centre they had gone into the city and had got drunk or had become pretty drunk mostly on Jack Daniels whiskey and Coca Cola.

Having returned to their rooms in the Travelodge Hotel near the M50 they had decided to go in to Temple Bar and called a taxi which had been rear-ended at the nearby Navan Road roundabout. All had been injured in the collision and had been treated overnight in James Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown.

Within 48 hours of the incident all four had attended a local GP, having been advised this would be necessary if they intended making a claim, and had, as a group, attended the offices of OConnor McCormack Solicitors.

Awarding them damages ranging from 4,750 to 10,000, totalling 30,180 together with District Court costs, Judge Groarke told barrister Sharbee Morrin, counsel for all of the claimants, he was convinced they were genuine by the fact two of them had failed to get proper medical reports from their treating doctors in England.

It seemed to him that if they had gone to such bother about an accident they would have followed through with determination and vigour to have all the is dotted and ts crossed.

Judge Groarke said he was not convinced they were people engaged in a fraud and he was giving them the benefit of the doubt in all cases.
The High Court has granted injunctions allowing two leaving cert students facing expulsion for videoing and posting on social media a classmate snorting some white powder during a class to return to school.

Details of the incident, which involved the snorting of sugar by the other pupil, were published in an Irish daily newspaper.

Following an investigation by the school the two teens, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, were informed that the school's board of management had made "a preliminary decision" that they should be excluded.

The school said they had behaved in a manner that posed a serious threat to the good order and discipline of the school.

The students brought High Court proceedings against the board aimed at quashing that decision which they say is in breach of fair procedures, disproportionate and flawed.

As part of their actions, the student's sought injunctions allowing them to return to school pending the outcome of their actions, which the school had opposed.

Mr Justice Max Barrett ruled on Wednesday morning that both students were entitled to injunctions compelling the school to permit the students to attend the school and continue their education for the present academic year pending the full and final determination of their proceedings against the school's board of management.

Outside of the court, following the ruling, the students and members of their families became emotional and embraced other.

In his decision, Mr Justice Barrett said he was not deciding on the issues in the full cases.

He said in the applications before the court the students, in what is an important school year for them, wanted to "get back to school, get down to work, and get the best possible Leaving Certificate results."

The students had made out a strong case and the balance of justice favoured the granting of the injunction.

He said it was of significance that the court was "not dealing with students who had taken any illegal substance," but with two schoolboys who "engaged in an unplanned, impromptu occurrence as it unfolded before them."

The video had been shared on a social media platform with a limited number of participants. It was never alleged they had consumed something illegal, he said.

The court said it was also alive to the special educational needs of one of the students, and that both students are due to sit the Leaving Certificate examinations next summer.

He said their performance will "have a significant determinative effect on the future course of their lives".

The Judge said he also considered it as "a matter of significance that educational officers at Tusla, who had become involved with the children following the decision to expel" are of the view the students would be better back at school.

The Judge added that the students have acknowledged that the disciplinary process "will continue."

Even with the injunctions in place, the orderly implementation of the disciplinary process will continue, he said.

He said the "public interest in a well-ordered schools system where rule yields consequences and compliance by the school with ordained disciplinary processes, will be protected."

Following his ruling lawyers for the school board expressed its concerns about the court's decision and the potential implications it had for the disciplinary process.

Feichin McDonagh SC for the board indicated that it would seek an urgent appeal of the decision before the Court of Appeal and sought a stay on the order.

The application for a stay was opposed by Andrew Whelan BL and Derek Shortall Bl for the students.

However, Mr Justice Barret declined to place a stay on his decision and also awarded the students their legal costs of the injunction application against the school's board.

In opposing the injunction application lawyers for the board of management argued that there were no grounds in the student's claims that give the court the jurisdiction to make an order lifting their suspensions.

It also argued that the student's action was premature.

The student's full judicial review proceedings against the school will return before the High Court at a later date.
More than 20 criminal cases could be "tainted" by the actions of a solicitor who advised clients despite not having the necessary practising certificate to do so.

A Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal recommended Alan Lloyd be struck off after the Law Society expressed concerns about the potential impact on criminal prosecutions as a result of his actions.

The tribunal heard the solicitor's conduct had the potential to prejudice investigations as detainees have a constitutional right of reasonable access to a practising solicitor.

Although qualified as a solicitor in New York and on the Irish roll of solicitors at the time, Mr Lloyd had no practising certificate and little experience when he attended to clients at garda stations in Co Offaly on at least three occasions during 2016 and 2017.

A practising certificate must be issued to a solicitor by the Law Society before they can advise clients.

The tribunal heard he was involved in consultations with people arrested for questioning over alleged rape, drugs and assault offences.

When challenged by a garda sergeant involved in a rape investigation, Mr Lloyd, who is in his 50s, claimed to be a registered solicitor and provided a registration number. But in reality he was effectively on "work experience" at Tullamore firm AM Maloney & Co.

The tribunal heard he attended the garda stations when the firm's principal, Aisling Maloney, was abroad or on business elsewhere. She claims not to have known what he was doing and alleges he ignored specific instructions as to the extent of the work he could do for the firm.

In the rape case, Mr Lloyd advised a then 17-year-old boy, but gardai became suspicious of his qualifications and experience when he constantly interrupted instead of maintaining a watching brief during interviews.

Mr Lloyd admitted to several counts of misconduct and apologised for his behaviour, saying he was "over-eager", had "overstepped" and had been "trying to stay in work".

He said he was currently unemployed and in receipt of jobseeker's benefit.

The tribunal heard Detective Garda Liam Lonergan was investigating Mr Lloyd's activities and, in a sworn affidavit for High Court proceedings last year, said that "in excess of 20 cases have been identified as possibly being tainted".

The detective told the tribunal yesterday that his inquiry was ongoing.

Barrister Frank Kennedy, for the Law Society, told the tribunal: "It will not necessarily be the case that there will be an adverse consequence arising from this wrongdoing, but there is a very serious risk of that happening."

In recommending the solicitor be struck off, tribunal chairman Michael Lanigan said Mr Lloyd's expressions of regret had been noted.

"However, it is a fact that trials have collapsed for lesser reasons," said Mr Lanigan.

The chairman said the "dishonesty" involved was "grave" because it related to people's constitutional rights.

A separate tribunal yesterday heard allegations of misconduct against Aisling Maloney, the principal in AM Maloney.

Mr Kennedy alleged she failed to properly supervise Mr Lloyd and that if she didn't know what he was doing, then she ought to have.

Ms Maloney vehemently denies misconduct.

The tribunal will give its findings in that case in January.
Free: Desmond Duffy is accompanied from the Criminal Court of Justice after being found not guilty of the murder of his partner Des Sullivan. Photo: Tony Gavin

Pensioner Desmond Duffy walked free from court yesterday after being found not guilty of murdering his "abusive" and "violent" partner, 59-year-old Desmond 'Dessie' Sullivan.

Mr Duffy (70) cried quietly and whispered "thank you" as the jury left the courtroom having spent seven hours and 11 minutes considering its verdict following a nine-day trial. Mr Duffy said from the outset that he was acting in self-defence after his partner of 36 years attacked him in the kitchen of their home in Somerville Park, Rathmines, Dublin 6.

At 4.46pm, the jury returned with its verdict. Justice Paul McDermott thanked the members of the jury and exempted them from further jury duty for 10 years. He then turned to Mr Duffy and told him he was discharged.

Mr Duffy then turned to his legal counsel and asked: "Can I go?" Outside court, his supporters hugged him as he prepared to return home.

The trial heard that Mr Duffy called Garda Maurice Ward, who is married to a niece of the deceased, shortly after 10pm on May 23, 2016, to say there was "trouble" and could he come over urgently.

Gda Ward arrived about 30 minutes later and found the body of Mr Sullivan in the kitchen.

The accused took to the stand in his own defence during the trial, telling defence counsel Caroline Biggs he was not there to blacken Mr Sullivan's name. "You don't spend 36 years of your life with somebody you don't love. We had our problems, but Dessie also had his good sides," Mr Duffy said.

He told Ms Biggs that he was defending himself from an attack by his "abusive" and "violent" partner. He added: "I feel so sorry for his family, especially his mother who I was very close to, his sister and others, but I'm still grieving, devastated and heartbroken by what happened. I have lost my partner of 36 years and I will never ever get over that."

He further told his trial: "It was never my intention to hurt him or injure him."

Mr Duffy said he stayed with Mr Sullivan despite the abuse. "I covered it up and I denied it," he said, "and at the end of the day I did love the man."

State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy said Mr Sullivan died from compression of the neck causing a lack of oxygen to the brain. Mr Sullivan had hypertensive heart disease and a combination of alcohol and diazepam in his blood stream which may have contributed to his death, making him vulnerable to arrhythmia of the heart. She found evidence of tiny haemorrhages around the eyes which she said were common in cases involving asphyxiation. She said the haemorrhages showed that the airway was blocked for "some seconds".

Bruising around the Adam's apple was consistent with Mr Duffy's explanation that he used a pincer-like grip of the fingers and thumb of his right hand when he reached out to defend himself.

The trial heard from multiple witnesses that Mr Duffy had been the victim of domestic abuse for about three decades.

Anne Quinlan said she got a lift home from a wedding in Killiney in the mid-1980s with the two men and as Mr Duffy drove Mr Sullivan started punching him in the face, head and upper body and screaming at him.

Melissa Farrell recalled seeing Mr Sullivan dancing at the crematorium on the morning of Mr Duffy's brother's funeral. Later that day, Mr Sullivan dumped a basket of sausages and chips on Mr Duffy's head.

There were other incidents and Mr Duffy said in evidence that he would sometimes stay in a hotel to avoid the abuse.

On the night Mr Sullivan died, the two men had been drinking in Rathmines and returned home around 9pm.

Neighbours heard raised voices, and one said it was different because Mr Duffy seemed to be arguing back.

Mr Duffy said that when they got home Mr Sullivan started punching him and pulling his hair. Mr Duffy went to bed, hoping to defuse the situation, but Mr Sullivan followed him.

Mr Duffy went downstairs and the row continued with Mr Sullivan punching Mr Duffy. Mr Duffy said he raised his arm to defend himself and pushed Mr Sullivan towards an alcove in the kitchen.

He said Mr Sullivan was pushing against him but then slid down the wall and fell on his side.
Recovering: Attack victim Jenny Powell in her home in Mulhuddart in west Dublin. Photo: Kyran OBrien

A VIOLENT criminal on bail for an aggravated burglary is the chief suspect in the armed raid on a disabled pensioner in west Dublin.

Jenny Powell (84) is recovering after an armed gang forced their way into her Mulhuddart home last Friday night. She was beaten and robbed by the men, who armed themselves with a hammer and a saw, before they fled with just 20.

The Herald has learned that gardai have identified an on-the-run Dublin criminal as the chief suspect.

GUNPOINT

The thug, who is in his late 20s, is currently on bail over a separate break-in at a pensioners home.

In that disgraceful incident, the same man is alleged to have threatened the woman at gunpoint in her rural home before robbing her. He was arrested and charged over that incident but has since been released on bail.

However, in recent weeks, the man has breached his bail conditions and is now being actively sought by gardai.

The fugitive cannot be identified for legal reasons as he is facing serious charges before the courts.

A source said the thug was also suspected of robbing Ms Powell in a previous incident.

He is a prime suspect in this investigation, the source said. He has robbed the same poor woman before and is a suspect in similar targeted robberies on OAPs.

The career criminal once caused a jail security alert after being involved in a tense stand-off with prison officers while he was behind bars.

Detectives at Blanchardstown Garda Station are continuing their investigations into the aggravated burglary at Ms Powells home but no arrests have yet been made.

Speaking to the Herald this week, the pensioner said the robbers tossed her around as they looked for money.

They were even rummaging

under the mattress. All they got was 20, Ms Powell said.

They were hurting me, and Ill be 85 next month. These people need to be caught. Ive been living here for 20 years, its never happened to me before. I mind my own business and Im not going to let these people drive me out.
The Government has created another two-tier health service that pays GPs 450 to provide an abortion but just 250 to look after a woman during pregnancy, doctors warned yesterday.

The 450 HSE payment to the doctor covers three visits for a woman availing of medical abortion.

However, Dr Maitiu O Tuathail, president of the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP), pointed out family doctors get paid 250 by the HSE to give free antenatal care to a woman for the duration of pregnancy and this could involve 12 visits.

He said it highlights "the chronic underfunding of antenatal care in Ireland, and the urgent need to review the fee structures under which GPs work, in the form of a new contract".

Dr O Tuathail also pointed out a woman can have an abortion for free, but will pay around 200 for reliable contraception to prevent pregnancy.

GPs have received a 38-page contract asking them to opt in to the service from January to provide medical abortions that involve giving medications and includes doctor visits.

"We find it incredibly disappointing that the agreement for the termination of pregnancy services excludes universal access to long-acting reversible contraceptives.

"The Government will provide universal access to the termination of pregnancy, but not equal access towards preventing a pregnancy in the first place. This is simply bad medicine," he said.

The Government has also to follow through on promises to subsidise fertility treatment, which continues to be a huge expense for women who need support to have a child, he added.

"The women of Ireland are entitled to a holistic, comprehensive women's health service. This is not what this delivers. It is bad medicine," said Dr O Tuathail, who is a pro-choice GP.

There are continuing concerns about the supports that will be available to GPs, including access to ultrasound to date a pregnancy.

"Many questions remain as to how GPs will be expected to provide a safe abortion service for the women of Ireland. We need clarity with respect to the availability of ultrasonography to date pregnancies.

"The provision of emergency aftercare does not seem to have been addressed. Issues around the medico-legal indemnity for GPs who opt to provide this service must also be clarified," he said.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Simon Harris said he intended to introduce legislation in 2919 to allow for free contraception for women.

As a first measure to improve access, he will be increasing availability of barrier contraception for men as this does not require legislation.

Meanwhile, the lengthy contract sent to GPs to sign up to providing medical abortions has outlined what will happened at each of the three visits provided to patients.

At a woman's first visit the doctor must establish date of pregnancy.

A second visit should happen at least three days later, where she will get medication to end the pregnancy. She will get a second medicine to take at home.

The third visit will check if the pregnancy has ended and the woman will be offered contraception advice and referred to hospital if there are complications. The HSE will give the GP the two medicines.

A doctor who agrees to provide the service must give three months' notice if they want to opt out.
Households face annual carbon tax bills of at least 3,000 unless the Government introduces a raft of measures to reduce emissions and tackle climate change.

The stark tax bill figure  which could rise to as much as 4,559  comes just a week after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pledged to cut taxes worth 3,000 to the average worker if Fine Gael is re-elected to Government.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has outlined how the carbon tax will have to increase from 20 per tonne today to between 300 by 2024 and 470 by 2030 if Ireland is to meet its legally binding reduction targets and avoid massive fines.

If imposed, the changes will result in hefty increases in home heating bills and motoring costs.

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The average emissions per household from energy use stands at 9.7 million tonnes. When the tax is levied at 20 per tonne, the total paid by households is 194. However, if this tax rate is increased to 300, it will total 2,910  and if it is hiked to 470, the total comes to 4,559.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has been forced into a U-turn over changes to tax breaks which would hit thousands of ordinary workers.

The Irish Independent reported yesterday how the Revenue Commissioners moved to strip teachers, CIE workers, hotel, bar and construction staff of their annual tax allowances.

The flat rate scheme is meant to cover the costs of workers who have to pay for uniforms and tools.

Mr Donohoe has confirmed that a review of tax relief on expenses will be carried out by the Revenue Commissioners next year. But he said there would be no attempt to stop the entitlements availed of by at least 80,000 workers until 2020.

Irish carbon emissions are among the highest in the EU. Most energy use in an average Irish home is for heating, followed by water heating, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) recently found.

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The ESRI suggests that unless a raft of ambitious policies including retrofitted properties, electrifying the transport fleet, achieving mass-scale energy efficiencies and phasing out of fossil fuel use takes place, the hikes will be needed for Ireland to avoid being hit with fines.

Ireland is required to reduce carbon emissions by 20pc over 2005 levels by 2020 to comply with EU rules. It is not expected to reach this target, and the European Commission will likely impose fines or force the State to buy permits to compensate at cost of millions of euro.

More onerous targets are in place for 2030, with a 30pc drop required.

The new ESRI analysis, using the 'Ireland, Environment, Energy and Economy Model' (I3E) suggests that without new policies, dramatic carbon hikes will be required to avoid fines.

Its analysis is based on four scenarios - the first has the carbon tax remaining at the current level of 20 per tonne. In this scenario, both 2020 and 2030 targets are missed.

Using a second scenario where the carbon tax would rise to 30 next year, and 5 per year after, it also found the targets were missed.

Even a third, more stringent, carbon tax proposed by the Environmental Pillar group - which called for a 70 tax next year, rising by 5 a year - saw the targets being missed.

"We look at what tax would we need to reach the target," ESRI research officer Kelly de Bruin said.

The analysis suggested that if agriculture reduced emissions at the same rate as the rest of the economy, the carbon tax will have to increase from 20 at present to just under 50 by 2020 and 300 by 2030. This would result in the average household paying 2,910 a year in carbon taxes in 2030, up from less than 200 at present.

If agriculture did not play a role, the tax would need to increase to around 150 by 2020 and 470 by 2030 if the State is to hit its targets. This would increase bills to almost 4,600.

"When you consider it in relation to the existing carbon tax, it is just jaw-dropping," she said. "It's safe to say the 20 carbon tax isn't going to cut it," but she added she did not expect the higher levels to be imposed.

Last weekend, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar outlined how he wanted to introduce a tax cut worth 3,000 to the average worker if Fine Gael is returned to Government.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has also insisted that Ireland will struggle to remain competitive in a post-Brexit era without major reductions in income tax.

He said the "acceleration of where we have been over the last two budgets" would help more than 900,000 workers.
AN INTERNAL document compiled by the Defence Forces on foot of Budget 2019 has suggested their funding has actually been reduced.

Defence Minister Paul Kehoe has been forced to reject accusations that he is the Scrooge of Government on foot of the revelations.

The document acknowledges that increased spending of 48m for the Defence Forces was announced on Budget Day  but says the amount of money available is reducing or remaining stagnant in real terms.

Officials reached this conclusion after using a number of key statistics relating to economic growth. They also compared the finance made available to Defence with other departments.

Fianna Fails defence spokesman Jack Chambers told the Minister: Youre the scrooge of Government when it comes to allocations and securing funding for the military across this State.

Mr Kehoe rejected the claims, saying it was actually quite worrying that this internal document leaked out of the Defence Forces, presumably meant to be one of the most secure places.

I am quite happy with the budget I negotiated, he told the Dail.

The report referenced by Mr Chambers noted how Defence fared poorly compared to An Garda Siochana where funding has been made available for 800 new recruits.

Similarly, overseas aid has been increased by 110m in Budget 2019, the document states.

Youve secured the lowest percentage relative increase to any other department, Mr Chambers said, adding that the Mandarins in Mr Kehoes department should work on getting a great allocation.

The Minister took great umbrage at civil servants being called Mandarins and said it was total ignorance to do so.

He said the internal military documents are completely contradicted by its own analysis.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Presidents Office will be re-located back to 26 Baghramyan the building that was formerly housing the head of state. Currently the Armenian presidents seat is at 47 Mashtots Avenue in Yerevan.

The bill on amending the law that regulates the issue was adopted today in parliament.

Earlier this year 26 Baghramyan was designated as the Prime Ministers Office, and 47 Mashtots as the Presidential Office. At the same time, the building in Republic Square was provided to the staff of the government, but it was later too given to the PMs staff.

The government, led by the Prime Minister, believes that the prime minister can implement the leadership of the governments activities and coordination of its work through one seat. In addition, we think that the historically-significant 26 Baghramyan must be returned to the President, who is also the head of state, deputy minister of justice Arthur Hovhannisyan said.

He mentioned that the move is symbolic.

54 MPs voted in favor, 2 abstained.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
FORMER Justice Minister Michael McDowell has rejected claims that a 2004 referendum on citizenship rights was mean-minded and suggested it would pass again by a considerable majority if put to the people.

The 2004 referendum saw the Constitution amended to take away the automatic right to Irish citizenship for children born in Ireland.

The referendum also ensured that the Oireachtas would be in a position to pass legislation which governs how other people born in Ireland may become Irish citizens.

Speaking in the Seanad on a Labour Party law proposed by Senator Ivana Bacik that would see children born in Ireland to foreign parents made eligible for citizenship if theyve been resident here for three years, Mr McDowell said he supported the bill but defended the 2004 referendum.

He said the bill is well intentioned and addresses an aspect of the law which needs to be addressed by the Oireachtas.

Speaking about the citizenship referendum Mr McDowell said there was consultation with Opposition parties and the intent to deal with the issue of automatic citizen was well signaled in advance.

It wasnt accused of being mean-minded at the time. It wasnt accused of being based on lies or propaganda at the time, he said.

It was to bring Irish law into conformity with the laws in the rest of Europe in relation to these matters.

Its been suggested on a number of occasions here in this House that the referendum was mean minded: it wasnt, 80pc of Irish people voted for it and if the matter was put back to them again I dare say that 80pc of the people would be vote to keep it as it is, he said.

Legislation due to deal with how asylum applications are dealt with which was expected at the time he left the Department of Justice did not materialise, leading to unconscionable delays, he said.

Mr McDowell said that the consequence of the referendum was to put the power to legislate on matters of citizenship in whatever way it deemed appropriate,adding thats not mean minded, thats democratic and said he welcomed the Bill but advised a second reading.

The issue of children being deported despite having never lived outside of Ireland has been highlighted in recent weeks when Eric Zhi Ying Xue (9)  who was born in Ireland - faced deportation to China.

There is a review of his case and the Bray schoolboy faces no imminent threat of deportation.

The former Progressive Democrats leader said that there should be a mechanism in place for children to enter a process where discretion can be applied to their case.

The government will not be accepting the Opposition party's Bill.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan claimed there are issues in the Bill that amount to "bad law" and that it's "something of a knee-jerk reaction to a particular problem".
The brother and sister of Celine Cawley, the businesswoman killed by her husband Eamon Lillis, will address a Women's Aid conference as the 10th anniversary of her death approaches.

Chris Cawley and Susanna Cawley have been included on the panel of speakers for the launch of Women's Aid Femicide Watch 2018.

It takes place on Friday in Dublin and will hear calls for reviews into domestic killing.

Celine Cawley (46) was killed by her husband at their home in Howth, Co Dublin, on December 15, 2008.

The mother of one, who ran a successful TV production company, was killed by a series of blows to the head.

Lillis (61) was jailed for six years in 2010 for the manslaughter of his wife but was released in 2015.

He was found not guilty of her murder after a high-profile trial.

Chris Cawley has previously said the battle with Lillis over his sister's estate - once valued at 4m - was "distress upon distress".

The family have since campaigned for the introduction of 'Celine's Law' to prevent people convicted of manslaughter from benefiting from their crimes.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris will also address the conference on new responses by the force to make women and children safer.

Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty and international expert on domestic homicide Dr Jane Monckton Smith are among the others who will address the conference.

Domestic violence survivor and advocate Jessica Bowes will also address those in attendance.
THE Dail was on the verge of being adjourned this afternoon as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin sparred over carbon tax increases.

Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail threatened to halt proceedings over the "racket" while People Before Profits Richard Boyd Barrett described the two men as "children".

As ordered was restored Mr Martin was seen to approach the Ceann Comhairle for a private word before walking out of the chamber.

He complained that Mr Varadkar was allowed to breach standing orders to accuse him of misleading the Dail.

It followed a debate on whether the Taoiseach had announced in August that he would include an increase to carbon tax in Budget 2019.

Earlier, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar publicly conceded that householders will have to pay more in carbon taxes over the coming years in efforts to meet international global warming targets.

But Mr Varadkar has insisted the Government "has no intention" of levying families with an extra 3,000 per year to cover the cost of failures to meet Irelands legal obligations to cut carbon tax in the battle against global warming.

The Taoiseachs comments came during sharp exchanges with Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, who pointed to the Taoiseachs pledge last Saturday to gradually give the average worker an extra 60 per week over the next five years via income tax cuts.

He pointed to a report today from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on Irelands poor performance on meeting internationally agreed lethal targets.

During a heated debate Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan, challenged all the party leaders and TDs to state what they will do to pick up the pace on tackling global warming.

He addressed all the key party leaders by name in making this challenge.

The Taoiseach said the international carbon emissions targets would inevitably mean dearer coal, gas and electricity. He conceded that conservation measures could not really offset these increases over the first three years  but he agreed that all parties should agree a common approach.

"Im up for that," Mr Varadkar told the Green Party leader.

The Taoiseach agreed Ireland will not meet its 2020 carbon reduction targets and would struggle to meet tougher targets committed to for 2030.

"Let me now join with Eamon Ryan and ask the leader of Fianna Fail: will they sign up to targets for 2030," Mr Varadkar added to general consternation.

Mr Martin had challenged Mr Varadkar to outline his plans for a carbon levy over the coming five years in the same way as he had pledged the income tax cuts over five years. "When you cut taxes  other taxes go up," the Fianna Fail leader said.

The Taoiseach said the Government was committed to tackling carbon emissions and playing its part in dealing with global warming. He conceded that this would mean an increase in various carbon taxes.

"But the ESRI are way off the mark," Mr Varadkar adding that his Government, or any other led by Fine Gael, had "no intention" of raising carbon taxes to the extent cited in todays report.

The Taoiseach defended the income tax cuts promised at his partys Ard Fheis last weekend.

"I believe youre allowing people to hold on to more of the money they earned in the first place," Mr Varadkar argued.

He rejected claims by Mr Martin that next years modest income tax changes would be funded by the increase of VAT from 9pc to 13.5pc for hotels and catering.

The Taoiseach also said the Government would outline its carbon tax plans in the future, along lines he had outlined his income tax proposals, and he challenged Fianna Fail to do the same thing.

Working off his iPhone, Mr Varadkar quoted himself as saying that the Government plan was to increase "the carbon tax over the next couple of years".

He said this didnt necessarily mean next year and accused Fianna Fail of making "false claims".

Clearly frustrated, Mr Martin shouted: "Youre not honest."

The Ceann Comhairle was forced to repeatedly intervene and threated to suspend the Dail before order was restored.
A ROW over alleged misogyny led to the suspension of the Seanad today.

A remark made by Fine Gael Senator Jerry Buttimer to Fianna Fail Senator Lorraine Clifford Lee led to chaotic scenes, as the Seanad was suspended by the Cathaoirleach, Denis ODonovan, who described the back and forth as nonsense.

Ms Clifford Lee was faced with accusations of damaging the cause of women after she called on Mr Buttimer to withdraw a remark she described as misogynistic.

Mr Buttimer said: I know Senator Clifford-Lee is trying to assert herself here but it is important to listen as well.

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Sinn Fein Senator Maire Devine said the language was not good, prompting Ms Clifford Lee - who has recently been appointed deputy leader for her party in the Seanad - to describe it as very gendered.

Mr Buttimer repeatedly objected to the suggestion that the comment was misogynistic and said he has never been accused of making personal comments in the House.

He refused to withdraw the remark, saying I enjoy the rough and tumble of politics but I have never in my 12 years in the Oireachtas been personal or made personal charges against people.

I make a political charge and the Members of the House will vouch for that. I am very disappointed, he said.

Fine Gael Senator Gabrielle McFadden urged Ms Ms Clifford Lee refused to withdraw her comments and said: She is damaging the cause of women. She should withdraw her remark.

However, Ms Clifford Lee questioned if the comment would have been made to a man and said she will continue to call out misogynistic language.

Mr ODonovan suspended the Chamber telling members: What is going on here is nonsense.
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has been accused of "drinking Champagne and eating $400-a-plate lunches with the super-rich" while other political leaders were marking Armistice Day.

The accusation was made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar while replying to questions from Ms McDonald about a proposed reduction in tax breaks for some workers.

Mr Varadkar said it was to call out what he described as the "hypocrisy" of Sinn Fein who we "know for years and years they told porkies about their own salaries".

The Taoiseach said he was surprised to read in the Irish Independent that on November 11, when other politicians were at Armistice events and Michael D Higgins's inauguration, Ms McDonald was "hobnobbing with the super-rich" in New York.

The Sinn Fein leader missed the commemorations and inauguration as she took part in a series of events in the United States and Canada, including a major party fundraiser believed to have brought in around 500,000.

"This is rank hypocrisy from Sinn Fein. We hear it far too often. We have already seen the leader of Sinn Fein exposed in her attitude to the Armistice and her attitude to our President and our Constitution. She chose to hobnob with the super-rich in America at a $400-a-plate lunch rather than respect the war dead or respect our President," Mr Varadkar told the Dail.

Ms McDonald gave just a one-line response to the statements, saying she had attended a remembrance service in Sligo on November 14 "which was absolutely wonderful and inclusive".

It prompted Mr Varadkar to have a second attack, claiming her party comes into the Dail "day after day, and accuses us of having some sort of special relationship with the super- rich and of having the wrong priorities".

"We see members of Sinn Fein trying to claim that somehow they can put themselves in the shoes of low-paid shop workers while we know for years and years they told porkies about their own salaries. I refer to the false claim that they were living on the average industrial wage. We actually know they were living very well on the wages they were claiming," he said.

The Dublin Central TD previously said Sinn Fein was well represented by its own Aras candidate Liadh Ni Riada, Donegal TD Pearse Doherty and MLA Conor Murphy.

Put to her that if Ms Ni Riada had won, she would have attended, Ms McDonald replied: "I don't know that.

"I had a long-term commitment to go to the States and to Canada. This is the first occasion as party leader. It's important that I was there," she said last week.
A REVIEW of historic cases of alleged child abuse in Scouting Ireland has found evidence of 71 alleged abusers and 108 victims.

Children Minister Katherine Zappone revealed the shocking figures at an Oireachtas committee this morning.

The alleged cases relate to a period between the 1960s and 1980s.

Ms Zappone said that none of the alleged abusers are still working with Scouting Ireland.

She said reports have been made to Tusla, the Child and Family Agency and the Gardai in relation to all of the alleged abusers who are still living.

Ms Zappone described the revelations as "deeply upsetting".

Scouting Ireland's new chairperson Aisling Kelly said she is "very distressed" to learn of the alleged abuse.

She told the committee: "It is apparent from the ongoing review of past practice, being carried out by Mr Elliott at the behest of the Board, that there is evidence of past abuse emerging from the former organisations that merged to form Scouting Ireland some sixteen years ago.

"Unfortunately, this is so as with so many other organisations in this countrys history.

"Scouting Ireland is working hard to establish the full extent of the knowledge that exists in relation to that abuse; a process that deserves time and space in order to gather an accurate picture.

"No adult volunteer wants to hear that of their organisation which forms more than a hobby for them, but rather a way of life."

Ms Kelly said: "Personally, as a mother of two very young children, this fills me with deep sadness.

"I want to say categorically that Scouting Ireland is committed to providing support and help to all victims of past abuse within Scouting and is looking to include this in our policy framework.

"The Committee should be assured that this new Board of oversight will meet this situation with integrity, compassion and dedication," she added.

Safeguarding expert Ian Elliott has been reviewing historic cases. Mr Elliot told TDs and Senators that he doesnt believe the final figures have been uncovered. He said the numbers are expected to increase.

He said that 14 of the alleged abusers had multiple victims.

Mr Elliot said the majority of the suspected abusers are deceased.

Those who are alive have been reported to the jurisdiction they are in, including Northern Ireland and overseas.

He said he does not know what all of the living individuals are currently doing, but they are not involved in scouting and have been reported to the authorities.

The revelations came at the Committee on Children and Youth Affairs.

Its chairman, Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell, said the alleged abuse cases are deeply disturbing and underscore the urgent need for reform within the voluntary organisation.

He said committee members have unanimously expressed their "dismay and shock" that independent safeguarding official Mr Elliot had uncovered the historic cases.

Mr Farrell said the information broadens and deepens the context for the need for "root and branch" reform within Scouting Ireland.

He said: "To be told that these previously undisclosed cases within Scouting Ireland files date from the 1960s to 1980s, and do not involve current staff or volunteers, provides cold comfort".

He noted that Mr Elliot expects the number of cases to rise considerably as he continues to audit Scouting Ireland files.

Mr Farrell said: "The Committee will carefully weigh todays assurances from Scouting Ireland leaders that all is being done now to build strong child safeguarding policies within their institution."

Scouting Ireland released a statement this afternoon where its chairperson apologised for the hurt that has been caused by the actions of some past members and the organisations that preceded it.

Aisling Kelly said the board of the organisation is committed to a new era of openness, integrity, transparency and accountability.

She said it's clear from Mr Elliot's work that there is evidence of past abuse within the former organisations that merged to form Scouting Ireland 16 years ago.

She added: "Neither the offenders nor the victims were always dealt with appropriately by either organisation.

"We are working hard to establish the full extent of the knowledge that exists in relation to that abuse but as of today, we have identified 108 alleged victims of abuse which was perpetrated by 71 alleged offenders.

"These cases go back to the 1940s with the majority occurring between the 1960s and 1980s.

"The appropriate statutory agencies have been fully informed of alleged perpetrators still living."

Ms Kelly said: We are deeply sorry for the hurt that has been caused by the actions of some past members of Scouting Ireland and its legacy organisations.

"We are taking a victim led approach to this work and we are determined to ensure a comprehensive and compassionate response to those that were so badly wronged in the past. "

She said many of the cases were identified by victims coming forward to Scouting Ireland with their stories.

According to Ms Kelly: "We now have a process where victims are being listened to and many feel that for the first time their voice is being heard."

She said the organisation is committed to providing support and help to all victims of past abuse within our organisation.

"You will be listened to, you will be supported, she said.

Ms Kelly added that a new policy for supporting victims of abuse has been developed and will be considered for approval by the Board at its next meeting.

She also said Scouting Ireland is increasing its professional Safeguarding resources, including recruiting a full-time Safeguarding Manager.

She said that, as recommended in a report by former senator Jillian Van Turnhout Report, safeguarding is now a standing item on the Boards agenda.

Ms Kelly said: "Safeguarding of children and adults is our number one priority.

"We cannot change the past, but we can make sure that this organisation is a safe environment for all our members now and into the future."
When Damien McClean talks about college life - about the happy years he spent as a mathematics student at Trinity College Dublin - his words may fail to register with former students of an older hue.

Visits to the pub were comparatively infrequent, getting together over steaming cups of coffee were just as common. And if other generations of late teens/early 20s fully embraced a drink-to-get-drunk culture, it was one that was utterly alien to McClean and to many of his peers.

The 25-year-old welfare officer at the Union of Students of Ireland says years of "messaging" about the destructive nature of heavy alcohol consumption has hit home and he believes he and his friends have been lucky to grow up in an era where personal choice is paramount in Ireland - and that includes attitudes towards drinking too.

"If you go out for a night and decide you won't drink, or you'll just have one or two, people don't put pressure on you to drink or to drink more. It just isn't seen as cool to do that, and a lot of it is down to the way we see personal choice. That's been reflected in Ireland when you look at the decisive results of the referendums on same-sex marriage and abortion."

McClean says more frequent conversations on mental health have resulted in a new generation feeling differently about alcohol than even those 10 years their senior might have experienced.

"The problems that alcohol can cause aren't swept under the carpet for this generation," he says. "They're out in the open. People can talk about their mental health in a way that might not have been possible before and if you see someone in your company who chooses not to drink, you accept their position because there might be a reason why they're not drinking."

While it's true that Ireland's average per capital alcohol consumption figure is down from a 2001 high of 14.3 litres, the numbers have been steadily creeping up again. It now stands at 11.15. And young people are among those helping to push up the figures, according to Alcohol Action Ireland's Head of Advocacy, Eunan McKinney. "We're still an outlier when it comes to binge drinking," he says. "We're the number one in Europe. And it's not surprising when you consider that 90,000 people under the age of 18 have experienced drunkenness. Three quarters of 16 to 17-year-olds are drinking significantly, and that's before they even reach the legal age.

"The quantity of alcohol per capita had gone down during the recession, but it's been going up again with the recovery. When there's more disposable income, people will spend it - and the widespread availability of alcohol is a real problem."

McKinney says there is a slight rise in the number of people - including those in their late teens and early 20s - who have opted not to drink alcohol at all, but he believes the message isn't getting through as well as it should be.

Jade Gill is a 19-year-old from Longford who is studying psychology at the University of Limerick and she says alcohol-safety campaigns aren't as prominent as some might imagine.

She has been legally able to drink for just over a year, and echoes Damien's sentiments about the social life of college not revolving around the pub. "You might just as easily spend a few hours in a cafe as you would in a pub," she says.

She has also found that there is little social pressure to drink and if you don't wish to partake, you're not judged.

"It's hard to compare it with other generations because this is all I know, but it feels as though you can go out and have a good time and not drink if you want to. But it is college life after all, so often people want to go and have a couple of drinks."

She says that when she and her friends are going out for a "casual drink", they tend to have a beer or cider. "But when going 'out out', far more people would drink spirits. And in Limerick, almost every bar or nightclub seems to have drink promotions or free drinks for the first set amount of people to enter."

There are other trends, too, that may seem a little alien to older generations. "There's definitely a huge emphasis placed on 'prinking' - pre-drinking in order to reduce the amount of drink we have to buy when we do go out to the pub. Many people tend to buy knock-offs of more expensive alcohol brands from Lidl or Aldi.

A third year University College Dublin arts student, who does not wish to be named, says he and his friends "rely" on discount supermarkets "and cheaper offies [off-licences]" for their alcohol fix. "If our generation is drinking less than any other, I'd be thinking: 'Just how much did everyone drink before?' Maybe it's just me and my friends, but it's a pretty broad cross-section - male/female, Dublin/outside Dublin - and we'd go through a lot most weeks."

Despite his own views on alcohol, the student notes that several of his acquaintances are teetotal, or almost never drink.

"I went to a school where rugby was the be-all and end-all and there was an attitude among some of them that alcohol was poison. It was all about getting your body right, eating well and working out. There's still a bit of that attitude here [in college], especially if you play sport."

But that's not the norm, he insists. "Irish people like to drink and my generation [he's 20] are no different. But we're probably drinking in a different way than our parents did. Pubs aren't as important. College is expensive, so most of my peers just don't have the money to go to pubs all the time. We'd usually have people over to each other's gaffs and there would be slabs of beer [in packs of up to 24 units]. That's by far the cheapest way of having beer - and works out at less than 1 for a 500ml can. That's five or six times cheaper than you'd end up spending in a bar or club for the same drink."

And it's that very attitude that concerns Alcohol Action's Eunan McKinney. "There's no doubt that easily accessible, low-cost alcohol is pushing up consumption rates among young people. They might have 25 to spend on alcohol in a week, and that's why they're going for slabs."

He says that's it's imperative that the Public Health Alcohol Act - which passed through the Oireachtas after more than 1,000 days last month - will have to address minimum cost.

"Slabs that are now 24 could go up to 38. If you have finite amount of money to spend and the alcohol becomes more expensive, then hopefully you'll end up drinking less.

"The rates of consumption did go down, but they've been going up again for a number of years now and we have to be very careful not to lose sight of that fact."
We go behind the scenes to find out whats coming in 2019, so that you can plan when and what to buy.

ALFA ROMEO: They've just introduced the Stelvio 2.9 V6 bi-turbo 510hp AWD Quadrifoglio (118,795). The Giulietta line-up has been refreshed with a new special series called B-Tech. They are absorbing the diesel VRT increase on Giulia and Stelvio.

ASTON MARTIN: New luxury SUV, the DBX, is expected by the end of 2019.

AUDI: The new A6 saloon is just on the market (from 51,650 on-the-road). SE and S Line specs prompt Audi claims it's the best-equipped car in the segment.

The revised Q3 is poised for 191-reg (petrol, diesel engines, front-wheel/quattro options, outputs from 150hp to 230hp).

The second-gen compact A1 is due next month.

The new electric e-tron SUV is available to order from January. Cars arrive in the spring. Price, including a four-year service plan, starts from 101,750 on-the-road They claim the 95kWh high voltage battery provides power and range (400kms) and boasts a 0-100kmh time of under six seconds.

BMW: New models for 2019 include the X5, 8 Series Coupe (convertible arriving Q2), 3 Series and Z4.

The 3-series has a newly developed lift-related damper control system. Away from the mechanics is the Intelligent Personal Assistant, which responds to the prompt 'Hey BMW' , just like keen rival's 'Hey Mercedes'. Occupants can speak with 'him' - he learns all the time. Prices from 43,770 for the 318d SE. Expected here in March.

The new X5 starts at 87,390 and debuts here on December 1.

There are two 8 Series models initially. The 840d xDrive 6cyl diesel coupe (320hp) costs 116,740, with the M850i xDrive V8 petrol (530hp) from 164,710.

The new Z4 open-top costs from 50,420 for the sDrive 20i Sport, which is expected next March.

The ranges of the i3 and i3s have increased by almost 30pc thanks to higher-intensity batteries. The i3 (120Ah) starts at 45,760.

CITROEN: They have the new Berlingo van coming in January, the Berlingo itself in February, and the C5 Aircross SUV in March.

DS: The new DS7 Crossback and a new small SUV, the DS 3 Crossback, are on course for next year.

DACIA: They expect a lot of interest in the new Duster, with prices starting at 17,390. The Sandero and Logan MCV have been updated with new WLTP engines.

FIAT: The new 500X has been updated inside and out and is ready for January. It is the first Fiat model to have the latest family of turbo engines.

FORD: The Mustang Bullitt, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary Warner Bros film starring Steve McQueen, arrives at the end of the month. It has a 5-litre V8 (464PS) and new rev-matching technology for seamless gear changes. Priced from 73,000.

The Mondeo hybrid estate arrives in February.

The Focus Active is due the first quarter - with the same engines as the Focus hatch: a 1.5 litre diesel and a 1.0 litre EcoBoost petrol.

The Ford Ranger Raptor is due in March. The high-performance version of the current Ranger is based on the US take of the F-150 Raptor, but it is not as extreme. It will have a bi-turbo version of Ford's diesel with 213hp and 500Nm of torque.

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HONDA: The new CR-V hybrid arrives in February and will cost from 38,000. It has a 2-litre i-VTEC petrol engine, electric motor and lithium ion battery pack to pump 184PS.

The front-wheel drive model has emissions of 120g/km and official average (combined) fuel economy of 5.3l/100km (53.3mpg). The all-wheel drive version's figures are 126g/km and 5.5 l/100km (51.4 mpg).

HYUNDAI: The much-acclaimed new Kona electric is here, as is the new Santa Fe. The Kona electric is an important car, with its 64Kwh battery is capable of covering 482km, they say. That's a lot of range. It costs from 35,995, excluding delivery and related charges.

The Santa Fe has both 2-litre and 2.2-litre diesels - not many in the segment have that sort of choice.

Hyundai also have a lot of up-specced cars for January, including the evergreen, sales-topping Tucson.

JAGUAR LAND ROVER: A facelifted XE is scheduled for next year, with hybrid technology featuring, we hear.

The new Range Rover Evoque will arrive for 192-plate in late Q2.

There is now a new Discovery Commercial as a two-seater model from 43,367 (ex-delivery and excluding VAT at 9,974).

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JEEP: The Renegade gets a new look and engine line-up, with pricing to be confirmed in the next few weeks. Will be the first model in the range to use the new GSE petrol engine in both 1-litre 120hp and 1.3-litre 150hp DCT guises.

The new Wrangler - orders in December - will come as a two-door or four-door.

KIA: The new Proceed, a shooting brake version of the new Ceed, goes on sale in January. Initially there will be the new 1.4-litre direct injection 140bhp petrol.

The eNiro electric car is due for 192-reg, but with some advance models for March road testing. There's a choice of two batteries - 485km (64kw) or 312 km (39.2Kw).

Also coming is the new Soul EV, maybe a little before eNiro.

LEXUS: The new ES 300h mid-size executive goes on sale from January, from 49,450. It has the new 2.5-litre self-charging hybrid (106g/CO2, 190 tax). The Lexus Safety System Plus is standard.

The RC 300h is updated and on sale from January (56,950). It's now designed to look like a baby LC 500, but there is no change to the hybrid engine. Safety system and Premium navigation standard.

Their first compact crossover, the UX 200h, gets here in March (39,500).

MAZDA: They have an exciting year, ahead with the launch of the seventh-generation Mazda3. First cars expected from April. There will be a four-door and five-door, 2-litre petrol, 1.8 diesel and the new Skyactiv-X engine. They claim the latter has the fuel efficiency and torque of a diesel and reduced Co2 emissions.

The CX-5 gets a few changes early in 2019 with a new PlatinumPlus grade.

They also have a "surprise" for the 30th anniversary of the MX-5 - a limited-edition 184PS model.

MERCEDES: They will have eight new, and seven face-lifted, models next year, including petrol mild hybrids, petrol and diesel plug-in hybrids and EQC, a full electric mid-size SUV with a one-charge 420km range.

For January expect the facelifted C-Class in saloon, coupe, estate and cabriolet guise. Arriving February/March are the new A-Class saloon and B-Class.

April/May/June will see New CLA, CLA Shooting Brake and GLE with a seven-seat option. V-Class due a facelift. They're saying the electric EQC, styled on the new GLC, will make it here in this timeframe, earlier than indicated.

July/September will see the new GLS. In July come the facelifted GLC Coupe and SUV models.

The new GLB mid-size SUV arrives October/ December. It will slot below the GLC. There will be a seven-seat option.

AMG: The A 45 and A 45 S are expected to arrive Q1 next. GLC 43 and 63 SUV expected Q1. GLE 53 SUV in Q1. GT facelift Q1. GLC 43 Coupe and GLC 63 Coupe are due Q2. The AMG CLA 35 and 45 Coupe are Q2 debutants, as is the AMG A 35 saloon.

MITSUBISHI: The updated Outlander PHEV has just arrived, with prices starting at 39,900. They claim that's a 20pc price reduction on the previous model. They also claim it has an EV-only range of 45km (combined 600km). With a confirmed WLTP rating of 46g/km, road tax is just 170.

The new L200 will arrive in September. Specs, engines and pricing will be announced mid-year. A new ASX is due in September.

MINI: The MINI Electric and Countryman Hybrid are expected next year.

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OPEL: The big news is the new Corsa, which is due later next year. By the way, it will only come as a five-door. I think that we are seeing the demise of three-door hatches, except in some hot-hatch forms. I'm told there will be an electric version of the popular hatchback by 2020 - in other words, the year after next (isn't time really flying?).

Also later in 2019 will be the Grandland X PHEV plug-in hybrid vehicle, and the next generation Vivaro.

The Grandland X PHEV will launch mid-2019. The new Vivaro, produced in Luton in both commercial and passenger guises, is due next summer.

Right now there is the current Corsa GSi 1.4-litre 150HP petrol (from 24,895) - it's a bit of fun without being a mad hot-hatch. The new Combo Cargo is also on the market.

NISSAN: The new extended range (330km-350km) 60kw LEAF comes in the second quarter of next year. Also on its way is the 1.3-litre and 1.7 PET-powered models for the Qashqai, as well as a new 1-litre petrol in the Micra. Also expect a new Juke.

PEUGEOT: Their new 508 large-family fastback will arrive here in late spring, costing from 32,400 ex-works. That is for the Active 1.5 BlueHDi 130bhp model. Standard is a five-year extended warranty.

The new Rifter, a replacement for the Partner Tepee MPV, arrives late this year for 191-reg. There's a choice of two lengths (4.4m or 4.75m), and you can have five or seven seats.

There's a spread of new petrols and diesels on the new Partner, as well as manual and automatic options. It arrives late 2018.

RENAULT: The Clio has been updated with an all-turbo engine range. The 0.9 TCe comes with 75hp or 90hp. They're claiming big improvements in performance, consumption and road tax. Prices start from 16,390.

The Captur crossover gets a facelift and more spec (alloys, air con standard). It starts from 20,290.

The Megane's 1.5 dCi diesel is uprated to 115hp and there's a new 1.3 TCe petrol producing 140hp in most versions.

Both the Kadjar and Scenic get the new 1.3 TCe petrol. Diesel versions of the former will have the upgraded 1.5 dCi 115 engine, while the Scenic will get a new 1.7 dCi engine. There will be updated versions of the Koleos SUV announced in early 2019.

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SEAT: The Tarraco large SUV will arrive in February as a five or seven-seater, with pricing to be confirmed soon. Trim levels will be SE and Xcellence - no entry-level spec. There will be petrol and diesel models, as well as DSG and 4Drive transmissions in some combinations.

The sub-brand CUPRA is also being rolled out in January. Pricing will be confirmed soon for the Ateca model. It will have a 2.0TSI 300hp engine, DSG and 4Drive drivetrain (0-100kmh in 5.2 seconds).

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SKODA: The KODIAQ RS is due in January for 191-registration. It's a powerhouse combination of a 2.0TDI 240hp engine, 4x4 and DSG gearbox.

The SCALA (the Rapid successor), with design based on the VISION RS concept, will be unveiled next month and is due by June. Petrol TSi engines will range from 95hp to 150hp and there will be a 1.6TDI 115hp diesel.

SUZUKI: There will be a facelifted Vitara with 1.0 and 1.4 Boosterjet engines in Q1. And the new baby 4x4 Jimny, powered by a 1.5-litre petrol (101bhp) is due.

TESLA: Model 3 cars in right-hand drive should - stress should - start arriving late next year.

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TOYOTA: Early 2019 arrivals include the RAV4 hybrid (2.5) - first week of January. Prices from 35,900.

The Corolla hatchback is due the second week of January, Toyota tell me, with 1.8 hybrid and 2.0 hybrid powertrains. There will also be a 1.2T petrol. Prices from 26,370.

The new Corolla Touring Sport Hybrid (estate) arrives the third week of February - with 1.8 and 2.0 hybrid set-ups. Prices start from 28,420.

The Corolla saloon hybrid also arrives the third week of February, Toyota are saying. It will major on the 1.8 hybrid powertrain (122hp, WLTP 98 g/km). Hybrid prices start from 26,820 and while there will be a 1.6-litre petrol, they expect 90pc of purchases next year to be hybrid. Standard is the marque's Safety Sense package.

The Camry 2.5 hybrid is due by April, prices start from 39,750. There will be some minor changes to the Prius.

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VOLKSWAGEN: Their smallest crossover, the T-Cross, arrives in April. They are describing it as a mini Tiguan. There will be two petrol engines initially, both 1.0-litre TSI (95hp, 115hp). Expect a 95bhp 1.6-litre diesel too. The concept version of the GTi TCR (Touring Car Racing) is going into production, we're told. Only a few are coming here in early 2019. The TCR pumps "around 290hp". Expect it to cost around 48,000.

The Passat gets a facelift for the 192-plate, with the main focus on digital innovation. They could throw the digital kitchen sink at this car to give it advantage in a fading segment. A revised version of the GTE is also on the cards.

VOLVO: They will have their new S60 from April with a T5 petrol. The T4 petrol, T8 Twin Engine Hybrid and T6 Twin Engine hybrid will follow for 192-plate. A refreshed XC90 is due for the 192-plate and will come with D5 and T8 Twin power.
Black Friday is coming, and bargain-hunters are sharpening their elbows.

As more and more airlines, hotels and package holiday companies jump on the bandwagon, how can you get the best Black Friday travel deals?

First off, approach travel bargains in the same way you would any other shopping  only buy something that you really want, check that the savings really do compute (i.e. a 50pc discount might be calculated from a higher rack rate thats never really used) and double check any blackout dates before paying out.

We spotted a few hotels advertising Black Friday rates that are suspiciously similar to their regular low season prices, for example - so check that your discount actually is a discount before you get the credit card out.

Here's our pick of the best Black Friday bargains. Well be adding to the list as different deals are announced, so keep an eye on this page

Flights: 100 off transatlantic fares

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Aer Lingus is offering discounts all week, with up to 100 off round-trip transatlantic flights  you can get to Los Angeles from 169 one-way from Dublin, for travel between January 8 and March 22. aerlingus.com.

Ryanair has a different deal available each day as part of its Cyber Week sale, with eight consecutive days of bargains on offer (e.g. up to 70pc off car hire, or lead-in prices from 7.99). It's also offering 10pc off of all check in bags on bookings made this week. ryanair.com.

WOW air has a 'Purple Friday' sale with flights from Dublin to Iceland from 49.99, and Dublin to US destinations like Boston, Chicago and Toronto (via Reykjavik) from 119.99 each-way. The deals are available to midnight on November 25, but bear in mind that the rates don't include seat selection or bags. wowair.ie.

Norwegian is offering 15pc off long-haul routes from Ireland to the US, and 30pc off short-haul flights. Book using the code EVERYROUTE18 on norwegian.com/ie.

FYI, Skyscanner.ie has a dedicated page on Black Friday deals, and its research into 2017 data showed that 11am is the best time to score a Black Friday bargain.

*Our Tip: Some flight discounts only apply if you book them as part of a return trip. This may not always be the cheapest way to fly - it's always worth shopping around for prices on both legs.

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Hotels: Up to 45pc off rooms

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Both Clayton Hotels and Maldron Hotels are offering 15pc off B&B stays booked from November 2126, for stays up to February 28. Theres an additional 10 off room rates if you sign up to their sites, claytonhotels.com and maldronhotels.com.

The InterContinental Dublin is offering 25pc off room-only rates this Cyber Week, for bookings made from November 23  30. intercontinentaldublin.ie.

The Radisson Blu Hotel Athlone is offering 30pc off rooms booked between November 19  27, for stays up until the end of August 2019. radissonblu.ie/hotel-athlone.

Lough Erne Resort has a Black Friday offer of 99 per room for a midweek stay in a luxury lodge guest room, with breakfast and spa access, for stays Sunday  Thursday from January 3  March 28 (which is up to 45pc off). The offer is bookable until November 23. It also has a 50pc discount on all room upgrades during the sale. lougherneresort.com/black-friday.

Flynn Hotels is offering up to 25pc off on B&B rates from Friday, November 23 to Sunday 25, bookable to March 2019. It has a similar deal on Cyber Monday, November 25. flynnhotels.com

Amber Springs Hotel in Gorey, Co Wexford, is offering 20pc off stays of two nights or more, across all available dates except July and August, bookable from November 23  26. ambersprings.ie.

The George Hotel in Limerick is offering 30pc off reservations made between November 23  26, including B&B, room-only and package rates. Use the code BLACKFRIDAY on its website. georgelimerick.com.

The House Hotel in Galway is offering an overnight stay with dinner, cocktails in The Yard and breakfast for 129 per room, available to book from November 20  25, for stays Sunday  Friday up to February 28. thehousehotel.ie.

*Our Tip: Before booking with a search site like hotels.com (itself offering 50pc off), try contacting the hotel directly. It may beat the rate, as it won't have to pay the hefty agent's commission.

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Package Holidays: Up to 63pc off

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GoHop.ie will offer 50 off every flight + hotel package on its website on Black Friday only from 9am. Use the discount code BLACK50 when booking. gohop.ie.

American Holidays is offering 100 off per multi-destination booking. The discount is available from Thursday, November 222 through Saturday, November 24. americanholdiays.com.

Sunway will have Black Friday travel deals online on Friday with discounts of up to 45pc, including a seven-night break in Fuerteventura from 269pp. Sunway.ie

Camino Ways is offering 25pp off all holidays, using the code BLACKFRIDAY18. Bear in mind you can also use this in conjunction with a 10pc early bird discount. The offer is available up to November 23. caminoways.com.

TUI has Black Friday deals running until Monday, 26th November. It's offering 50 off bookings (use the code BF50), 100 off Mexico holidays (BF100), and 100 off Marella Cruises (BFCRUISE100). tuiholidays.ie.

TrekAmerica has up to 30pc off selected tours this winter, if booked between November 21-26. For example, you can save up to 524.70 on a Florida Christmas, New Orleans New Year tour, departing on Christmas Eve. trekamerica.co.uk.

Celebrity Cruises (above) is offering savings of 50pc off cruise-only fares for second guests in a booking, along with free Classic Drinks Packages and up to $200 onboard spending money for bookings made between November 22  26, on selected 2019 European and Arabian cruises. celebritycruises.ie.

Turquoise Holidays is offering 50pc off a luxurious Maldives break, with seven nights half-board at Six Senses Laamu costing 2,290pp (2,573pp) including flights from Dublin with Qatar Airways. This is based on travel between April 21 and September 30 of next year, and is bookable only from November 23  26. turquoiseholidays.co.uk.

Emirates Holidays, which partners with airline Emirates to do flight and holiday packages, has discounts of up to 63pc on trips to Dubai (based on a three-night stay at the five-star Atlantis The Palm from 899pp). The offers run until November 30. emiratesholidays.com.

Small group adventure tour operator Intrepid Travel has 20pc off over 1,000 trips worldwide for 2019 departures. The sale expires on November 28, and is valid for tours departing January 15 to December 15, 2019. IntrepidTravel.com/Cyber-Sale

G Adventures has discounts of up to 35pc, including a trip to Everest Basecamp reduced by over 400 to a starting price of 812 (excluding flights). gadventures.co.uk.

See itaa.ie/offers for more Black Friday travel deals from ITAA members.

*Our Tip: Many travel agents and tour operators will offer discounts via their newsletters and Facebook pages... note, however, that many discounts are subject to minimum spends.

Airport Shopping and other tips

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Fancy a bit of Duty Free? The Loop at Dublin Airport has up to 50pc off of high street prices on selected lines this week, across perfumes, cosmetics, skincare and more. You can also shop online, and collect in up to three months time. theloop.ie.

Cheap hostel stay? Generator Hostels has 25pc off its hostels in Dublin and other European cities when you book two nights or more between November and March. generatorhostels.com

Promoted: See the latest offers and deals on Independent Discounts

Black Friday ski deals? DirectSki.com has a seven-night package to Chamonix in the French Alps departing January 19 from 299pp. That's a saving of up to 50pc on the brochure price, based on five people sharing a the 3-star, self-catering Residence La Riviere. Austrian deals start from 349pp. directski.com.

Crystal Ski (crystalski.ie), meanwhile, has ski deals from 349pp.

All that commercial frenzy leaving you cold? In a bit of a Black Friday backlash, Stena Line has created a Round Up Campaign running to November 27, in which passengers can round up their on-ship purchases, with the surplus money donated to Mercy Ships. The charity delivers free healthcare to developing countries.

NB: All prices subject to change/availability.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. School principals in several provinces are suspected in embezzling state funds, police said.

Law enforcement agencies have launched investigations into misconduct in the public school of Lenughi, a village in the Armavir province. Police said the principal and accountant of the school have written off funds as a salary for a guard from 2014  2018, who never even showed up for work, and embezzled the money. The two are suspected in appropriating 2,5 million drams.

A similar investigation is underway in the Aygevan village of the same province. The school principal is suspected in embezzling more than 2 million drams with the same method  filing employment records by the names of relatives and appropriating the money.

A probe into the very same type of misconduct is also underway involving the school principal of Araks village, Armavir.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
A rape trial was under way at the Courts of Criminal Justice in Dublin. In the court were judge, jury, both legal teams, a stenographer, a court usher, the defendant and a lone woman who was supporting him. On the stand, was a taxi driver giving evidence.

Two reporters down the back were awaiting the resumption of another trial and at one stage, the usher tiptoed down to see who they were and what their business was here.

A red cardboard 'in camera' sign on the courtroom doors warned off any members of the public.

In all, there were around 26 people present. Quite enough at a sensitive hearing, no matter who might be on trial.

The atmosphere was hushed, formal and unheated.

We don't always get things right in this country - particularly when it comes to rape trials.

But contrast this situation with the so-called 'Belfast trial' which took place last spring, with Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding accused of raping a young student at a party.

Into the court on day two had trooped a number of high-profile rugby players, celebrities across the entire island.

Rory Best, captain of the Ireland rugby team, was joined by Lions, Ireland and Ulster star Iain Henderson, Ireland and Ulster winger Craig Gilroy and Ulster prop Kyle McCall.

They cut a startling swathe through the courtroom, as they squeezed onto the narrow seats.

"The reason I was there, it's on the record I've been called as a character witness," Best explained afterwards.

"I was advised it was important to attend, so I got both sides of the story. Because it's an ongoing legal matter, I will make no further comment than that."

It prompted a storm that was well-merited.

Whatever Mr Best's rationale, his appearance at the trial was controversial and, potentially, significant when you take into account how the jury might have factored in the support of these local heroes for those standing trial.

Only last month, Mr Best described it as a personally difficult time - but remained defiant.

"It's a lesson I hope my kids take from it," he claimed.

"If you have friends that are in trouble and need a bit of help and support, and if they are promising you that they have done nothing wrong, even though people may not think it's the right thing to do, I think it is."

But that was not all that was very wrong with the Belfast trial. It was a bunfight from start to finish. The public were allowed to attend, and daily there was an unseemly scrum for seats.

With thick glass walls dividing the public area from the body of the court, people felt free to comment loudly on what they were hearing.

The atmosphere was extremely heated.

At several points of the testimony of the young woman in the witness box, there were jeers, scoffs and even mocking laughter .

"Choking on her lies," an older woman said amid satisfaction at one stage.

As they awaited the verdict, another woman brought in a long swathe of crochet to work on, for all the world like the grisly 'tricoteuse' who sat, knitting calmly, at the foot of the guillotine in revolutionary France.

This circus is exactly what Northern Judge John Gillen was talking about when he included a recommendation that the public should be barred from rape trials because many complainants found the prospect of giving their innermost details in court humiliating, in "the cruel gaze of the public".

The gaze of the public was indeed cruel and merciless during this trial, with the lines drawn very early on.

Another of his recommendations proposes legislation to curb the "inappropriate" use of social media during trials.

As well as the dangerously active comments posted on the evidence in the Belfast trial unfolded, pictures of one witness were widely disseminated on social media - wrongly identifying her as being the young woman at the centre of the trial - amid much comment about how she looked.

After the acquittal of the four defendants, the alleged victim never gave a public interview. But in John Gillen's report, she must feel some vindication in having done Northern Ireland some service.
Q&A

What exactly did Hillary Clinton do?

From 2009 to 2013, Ms Clinton used a personal server and email address - hdr22@clintonemail.com - during her four years as secretary of state. She also reportedly set up addresses for her aide, Huma Abedin, and State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills.

She did not activate or use an official state.gov email account. That account would have been hosted on secure US government servers.

Why did she use a personal email address for official correspondence?

During a press conference at the UN, Ms Clinton said that she preferred to carry just one smartphone with one email address, rather than have separate devices (one for work, one for personal emails). At the time, government-issued Blackberry phones were reportedly unable to access multiple email accounts.

Why was this controversial?

Critics claim there was a security risk if restricted government business was sent over personal email servers (Ms Clinton says no information in her emails was marked classified at the time she sent or received them).

They also say Ms Clinton could skirt around freedom of information requests, with sole control of what information was handed over to interested parties, such as the congressional committee investigating 2012's Benghazi consulate attack in Libya.

Was it illegal?

It's a grey area. Federal law during Ms Clinton's tenure called for the archiving of such private email records when used for government work, but did not set out clear guidance or punishments for violations. Rules were subsequently tightened after she left office.

In 2011, when Ms Clinton was secretary of state, a cable from her office sent to all employees advised them to avoid conducting any official business on their private email accounts because of targeting by unspecified "online adversaries".

In 2016, the FBI concluded that it had found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

How many emails were involved?

Ms Clinton says she sent or received 62,320 emails while secretary of state. Her lawyers say 30,490 of those were official and they've been turned over to the State Department. Ms Clinton said the remaining emails were about private matters, such as her daughter's wedding and her mother's funeral.
A US woman has allegedly thrown her two-month-old daughter from a moving car on the tourist island of Bali and then tried to kill herself by jumping from the vehicle, Indonesian police said.

South Denpasar police chief Nyoman Wiarajaya told a news conference that officers have not been able to question Nicole Stasio because she is in hospital in a severe state of depression.

A driver and guide who were with 32-year-old Stasio told police she jumped out of the car without warning on Tuesday evening at a junction in Denpasar, and they were initially unaware of what had happened to the girl.

Villagers found the baby with severe injuries less than a mile from where Stasio leapt out of the vehicle.

The baby died about seven hours later at the same hospital, Bali Mandara, where Stasio is being treated.

Mr Wiarajaya said the woman, who was born in California, travelled to Bali with her parents in July. The parents stayed for about 10 days and Stasio gave birth on the island in September after her parents left the island.

"She refused to answer when they (the parents) asked about her baby's father," Mr Wiarajaya said, quoting information from the driver and tour guide who had accompanied the family.

"But she gave the impression that she was unmarried and her family preferred that she give birth to a child abroad, like wanting to avoid something," he said.

The driver, Wayan Siaja, and the guide, Made Arimbawa, told police they had taken Stasio and her daughter to Bali's international airport on Tuesday evening but Stasio changed her mind about returning to the US and told them to take her back to Ubud, a town popular with tourists for its traditional crafts and culture.

They said she sat silently in the car before the tragic events unfolded, according to Mr Wiarajaya.
Arrests: A police officer at the scene of a raid in a Melbourne suburb

Three men who allegedly plotted "chilling" terror attacks in Melbourne were charged yesterday, less than two weeks after a stabbing rampage inspired by Isil left two dead in Australia's second city.

The trio, all Australian nationals of Turkish descent, were detained by counter-terror police in overnight raids as they escalated preparations to attack crowded areas of Melbourne, according to police.

The three, two brothers aged 31 and 26 and a 21-year-old, were later charged with planning a terrorist action, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, officials said.

Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton said the men were "certainly inspired by Isil" but had no known links to a specific organisation.

They had been under investigation since March but had become "more energised" since the Isil-inspired stabbing attack in Melbourne on November 9, he said.

The men had sought to purchase semi-automatic .22 calibre rifles, and police were concerned they could target forthcoming Christmas season events that will see huge crowds gathering in the city.

"There was a view towards a crowded place, a place where maximum people would be attending, to be able to kill, we allege, as maximum an amount of people as possible," Mr Ashton said.

The group had not yet picked a specific target or time for the attack, and Ashton added that police were confident yesterday's arrests had "neutralised any threat to the community from this group".

In the November 9 attack, a Somali-born Australian, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, stabbed and killed one man and wounded two others in a central shopping area before being shot dead by police.

Coincidentally, the victim of that attack, Sisto Malaspina (74) was honoured by a state funeral in Melbourne yesterday.

Hundreds of citizens and dignitaries attended a service at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral to bid farewell to Malaspina, the beloved owner of a local Italian cafe and a well-known figure on the city's vibrant restaurant scene.

The three arrested men were identified in local media as Ertunc and Samed Eriklioglu, aged 30 and 26 respectively, and Hanifi Halis (21).

"If we had not acted early in preventing this attack, we'll allege the consequences would have been chilling, with a potential significant loss of human life," said Ian McCartney, a federal counter-terror police spokesman, in announcing the arrests.

Australian police have charged 90 people in relation to 40 counter-terrorism investigations since 2014, when the country's terror alert level was raised to "probable".

Melbourne has been the target for a number of attacks and plots.

 Daily Telegraph, London

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Engineering group Babcock International has revealed a 64% plunge in half-year profits after charges linked to its overhaul and it warned over nuclear decommissioning revenues.

Shares fell as much as 12% after the group  the Ministry of Defences second largest contractor  reported pre-tax profits falling to 65.1 million in the six months to September 30, down from 181.9 million a year earlier.

Profits were pushed lower by a 120 million charge related to the restructuring of its oil and gas business and also including costs such as its decision to sell the Appledore shipyard in Devon.

We are taking decisive actions to further strengthen the group, which will deliver benefits next year and beyond.Archie Bethel, Babcock chief executive

On an underlying basis, Babcock posted a 2.5% rise in pre-tax profits to 245.5 million.

Babcock stuck to its guidance for the full year, with low single digit growth in underlying organic revenues expected and improved profit margins.

But the firm worried investors as it cut its 2019-20 guidance for revenue from its joint venture for decommissioning of Magnox nuclear sites in the UK.

The contract is due to end in August 2019 and Babcock does not now expect any additional revenue after that date.

This means the step down in revenues is set to be greater than first thought, at 250 million in 2019-20 against previous forecasts for 100 million, with an associated 20 million hit to its operating profit.

Chief executive Archie Bethel said: We are taking decisive actions to further strengthen the group, which will deliver benefits next year and beyond.

The results follow a torrid time for Babcock shares, which have been sent tumbling after a highly critical research paper posted last month by a mystery analyst called Boatman Capital.

Babcock last week hit out at the report, alleging the claims made by Boatman were false and malicious, and moved to assure over its financial health.

The Boatman report alleged Babcock has a terrible relationship with the MoD, while it also claimed Babcock has systematically misled investors by burying bad news about its performance.

It also launched a scathing and personal attack on Babcocks bosses  chairman and defence industry veteran Mike Turner, and Mr Bethel  claiming they are not up to the job.

Babcock said last week it strongly refutes the claims made in the report by the anonymous and so far untraceable Boatman.

Analysts at Liberum said the first-half results were in line with expectations, though they trimmed their 2019-20 forecasts on the worse-than-expected nuclear outlook.

They also dismissed the Boatman claims.

We have performed a thorough review of Babcocks accounting and believe that concerns are overdone, they said.
Renae Lawrence is escorted as she leaves Bangli prison in Bali (Dana Pradana/AP)

A convicted Australian drug mule returned to her homeland early on Thursday hours after she was deported from the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, where she had served nearly 14 years in prison for smuggling heroin.

Renae Lawrence was the only woman among nine Australians who were arrested in 2005 for attempting to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin from Bali to Australia.

Lawrence, 41, wearing black sunglasses and a black T-shirt, was escorted on Wednesday afternoon through a crush of reporters outside Bangli prison on Bali into a waiting car. She made no comment.

She faced a throng of media when she and her mother, Beverley Waterman, landed at Australias Brisbane Airport, where they are expected to take a domestic flight to their hometown of Newcastle.

Lawrence faces potential arrest in Newcastle on outstanding warrants that predate her ill-fated journey to Bali.

Asked by reporters in Brisbane if she wanted to comment on her return to Australia, Lawrence looked teary-eyed and declined. Her mother explained: Its very overwhelming.

Asked later if she had anything to say, Lawrence told reporters in the Bahasa Indonesia language: Thanks to the government of Indonesia. Thats it.

Lawrence faces potential arrest in Newcastle on warrants including one that alleges the former panel beater was involved in a high-speed police chase in a stolen car a month before her arrest in Bali in April 2005.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has indicated a deal with Lawrences lawyers to hand herself in to police was more likely than her being arrested at Newcastle Airport.

From our perspective, we will make a time reasonable with her legal team to bring her in to have those warrants satisfied, Mr Fuller told reporters on Tuesday.

Maryoto Sumadi, head of Balis justice and human rights office, said Lawrence is banned from ever re-entering Indonesia.

She may be the only member of the group dubbed the Bali nine by Australian media to walk free from prison.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders, were executed by a firing squad in 2015, causing a diplomatic row between Indonesia and Australia.

Five others had their sentences increased to life on appeal and another member, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, died from cancer in May.
Counter-terrorism detectives are investigating after two suspected bombs were found in an empty flat.

Officers were called to a property being refurbished in Craven Park, Harlesden, in north-west London, at 9.30am on Wednesday.

The block of flats was evacuated and roads were closed after specialist officers assessed them as being suspected improvised explosive devices, Scotland Yard said.

Both items were taken for forensic examination.

Further searches took place before the area was deemed safe and the cordon was lifted at around 6pm, the Metropolitan Police said.

Chief Superintendent Simon Rose said: "The next stage is to investigate how and why the two devices came to be in this flat and detectives from the Counter Terrorism Command will be leading this.

"The public's safety is our top priority, and I would like to pay tribute to the specialist officers who attended and were able to safely recover the devices.

"I also want to reassure the local community that we have carried out precautionary searches in the surrounding area to make sure there was nothing else of a similar nature nearby."

He appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

There have been no arrests.
Several other people have been wounded, police said (PA)

Gunmen have kidnapped an Italian volunteer along Kenya's coast, police said.

Police chief Joseph Boinnet said five people also have been wounded by the attackers who shot indiscriminately in the county of Kilifi.

Mr Boinnet identified the volunteer as an Italian woman aged 23.

He said the motive for the attack was not clear and the identity of the attackers is yet to be established.

Somali-based Islamic militants have been blamed for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners at Kenya's coast.

Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al Shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.
Italy has ordered the seizure of the migrant rescue ship Aquarius for alleged illegal waste treatment, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said yesterday.

Investigators suspect the vessel, chartered by MSF and the SOS Mediterranee charity and currently stuck in the French port of Marseille, passed off 24 tonnes of potentially toxic waste as ordinary waste, Italian media reported.

MSF bank accounts in Italy have been blocked by the authorities, the international charity said.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania are running the inquiry into migrant clothing, food leftovers and sanitary waste that was handled at Italian ports from the Aquarius and the Vos Prudence, another vessel chartered by MSF last year.

The ships have rescued thousands of migrants from the Mediterranean with immigration a hot-button issue in the European Union. "All our port operations, including waste management, have always followed standard procedures," MSF said in a statement.

"The relevant authorities have not contested these procedures or identified a public health risk since we started our activities at sea."

"The only crime we see today on the Mediterranean is the total dismantling of the search and rescue system," said MSF Italy director Gabriele Eminente.

He added in the statement that MSF had suffered "two years of defamatory campaigns" against non-governmental organisations.

Aquarius has been in Marseille since Panama revoked the right to fly its flag following a request from Italy's far-right, anti-establishment government, meaning the Aquarius cannot legally set sail.

The International Organisation for Migration says that about 15,000 migrants have drowned in the central Mediterranean since 2013.
- 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."
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The Public Services Regulatory Commission has fined Veolia Jur  the countrys water supplier  with 10,000,000 drams for violating obligations assumed by a contract.

The watchdog said that after recapping results of a monitoring on water supply and draining systems, it concluded that the supplier has breached the deadlines in certain cases under paragraph 16, 19 and 19,1 of the November 30 2016 378 decision of the commission.

The commission said that the company has violated the rules in 24 cases in the 2-nd three-months period of 2018.

It was previously fined twice for the same violations.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Personnel assess the damage to the train near Barcelona. Photo: Getty Images

A commuter train derailed outside of Barcelona yesterday, killing one person and leaving 44 injured.

A landslide triggered the crash between the towns of Terrassa and Manresa just after 6am local time, a spokeswoman for the train company, Renfe, said. The train carried 131 people.

Rescue workers were trying to free passengers trapped in the wreckage, Spanish television reported.

The north of Spain has suffered heavy rains in the last few days causing flooding and landslides.

In 2013, 79 people were killed and about 140 injured when a train travelling from Madrid to north-west Spain came off the tracks. It was Spain's worst train wreck for decades.
Top-flight stocks in London rebounded on Wednesday, shaking off a three-day losing streak and gloom in global markets to notch up a gain of more than 100 points.

The FTSE 100 index closed 102.31 points, or 1.47%, higher at 102.31.

An early rally was led by banks and mining stocks, with shares in most blue-chip companies finishing the day higher.

Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index, said: Ignoring the negative sentiment that dragged on trading in US and Asia overnight, the FTSE bounded higher on Wednesday. Snapping a three-day losing streak and with only a handful of firms in the red, the FTSE managed to power back through 7000.

The French Cac was 1.03% higher while the German Dax jumped 1.61%.

Oil prices also rebounded after declining earlier in the week, as expectation of a production cut grew.

But growth was tempered by data showing a rise in US crude supplies.

A barrel of Brent crude was trading 2.7% higher at 64.11 US dollars, still much lower than the four-year high of more than 84 dollars reached at the end of September.

US president Donald Trump thanked Saudi Arabia on Twitter for the recent decline in oil prices.

Meanwhile the pound slipped 0.15% to 1.276 US dollars.

Sterling was also lower against the euro, slipping 0.26% to 1.121.

Ms Cincotta said: Pound traders were holding their nerve as Theresa May headed to Brussels to try to finalise the Brexit deal and to put the finishing touches to the political declaration on future partnership.

In corporate news, B&Qs owner Kingfisher finished the day in the red, down 7.5p to 238.8p as it warned there was no quick fix to its problems.

The company posted a slump in sales at the DIY chain and said that it will exit Russia, Spain and Portugal to focus on its core markets.

TalkTalk shares were 3.6p higher at 125.6p as it reported narrower losses in half-year results.

The company also confirmed plans to shift its headquarters from London to Salford in a move affecting hundreds of staff.

Babcock shares took a beating, falling 28.2p to 566p after it revealed a 64% plunge in half-year profits.

Profits were pushed lower by a 120 million charge related to the restructuring of its oil and gas business and also including costs such as its decision to sell the Appledore shipyard in Devon.

The saga of troubled Patisserie Valerie parent Patisserie Holdings took another turn on Wednesday as the accountancy watchdog launched an investigation into Grant Thorntons audit of the firm. It will also probe former finance chief Chris Marsh.

Shares in the company are still suspended on Londons junior market after it discovered a black hole in its accounts and was forced to seek emergency funding.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Johnson Matthey, up 364p to 3,141p, NMC Health up 270p to 3,678p, Melrose Industries up 9.85p to 177.1p and Smurfit Kappa up 118p to 2,290p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Kingfisher down 7.5p to 238.8p, Shire down 46p to 4,584p, Intertek down 41p to 4,556p and Ferguson down 39p to 4,749p.
Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols president (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis via AP)

South Koreas Kim Jong Yang has been elected as Interpols president ahead of the controversial Russian candidate.

Mr Kim edged out Alexander Prokopchuk, a long-time veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the US, UK and other European nations.

The surprise election result was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied up until the final hours before the vote against Mr Prokopchuks attempts to be named the next president of the policing organisation.

Very strong letter from 12 US Senators including @SenatorDurbin @SenatorCardin @SenFeinstein @SenWhitehouse @SenBlumenthal and others arguing against Russia taking over Interpol and using their persecution of me as the example. pic.twitter.com/Rum6a6TpEh  Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) November 21, 2018

The US and others expressed concern that if Russias candidate had been elected, that would have led to further Kremlin abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Russia accused its critics of running a campaign to discredit its candidate, calling Mr Prokopchuk a respected professional.

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Groups campaigning to clean up Interpol celebrated the win, as did South Korea. South Koreas police and Foreign Ministry issued a joint statement saying Mr Kims election is a national triumph that could elevate South Koreas international standing.

Mr Kims win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpols general assembly in Dubai. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Mr Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Mengs departure from the post and was senior vice president at Interpol.

Kim Jong Yang, INTERPOL President: Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety. To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.#INTERPOLGA pic.twitter.com/D4n7m61fy9  INTERPOL (@INTERPOL_HQ) November 21, 2018

Russias Interior Ministry said after the vote that Mr Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position.

Spokeswoman Irina Volk told the Interfax news agency that Mr Prokopchuk will focus on advancing the stature of Interpol in the international police community and making its work more effective.

Most of Interpols 194 member countries attended the organisations annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast.

Interpol was facing a pivotal moment in its history as delegates decided whether to hand its presidency to Mr Prokopchuk or Mr Kim, who were the only two candidates vying for the post.

Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for issuing red notices that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on the worlds most-wanted list.

Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists, even though its rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons.
Moshe Gordon sits outside his guest house in the West Bank (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)

Israel says it will slap high taxes on holiday rental company Airbnb and encourage legal steps against the site over its decision to ban listings from West Bank settlements.

The threats of sanctions ramp up Israels fight against a global movement advocating for boycotts over the countrys treatment of the Palestinians.

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign  known as BDS  has claimed a number of successes in recent years, leading Israel to identify it as a major threat.

If you have a policy of discrimination against Israelis you cannot earn money in IsraelYariv Levin

Israeli tourism minister Yariv Levin called on Airbnb to reverse what he called a discriminatory decision and disgraceful surrender to the boycott movement, vowing that Israel would retaliate.

If you have a policy of discrimination against Israelis you cannot earn money in Israel, he said.

He also said the government would encourage hosts in West Bank settlements to sue the company to make it pay for its decision.

Mr Levin added that Israel would impose other restrictions on Airbnbs operations in the country.

Airbnb announced on Monday that it would delist 200 properties in coming days and cease its operations in Israeli settlements that are at the core of the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians. The company declined to comment on the Israeli threats.

.@Airbnb says it'll no longer profit from illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Leading Palestinian BDS advocate Omar Barghouti said the decision is "an important step," but called for all tourism companies to stop profiting from illegal Israeli settlements. pic.twitter.com/Fs7OB2vmQl  BDS movement (@BDSmovement) November 20, 2018

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Today more than 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 200,000 Israelis in east Jerusalem.

Most of the international community considers settlements illegal and an impediment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Israel sees the territory as disputed and says the fate of the settlements must be resolved in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

The boycott movement, which calls for sanctions against settlement products and companies doing business in the West Bank, has made inroads in recent years, helping to tarnish Israels international image and prompting it to take retaliatory measures.

Israel has enacted a law banning any foreigner who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel from entering the country. It has identified activist groups from around the world whose members can be denied entry upon arrival.

BDS supporters say that in urging businesses, artists and universities to sever ties with Israel, they are using non-violent means to resist unjust policies towards Palestinians. Israel says the movement masks its motives to delegitimise or destroy the Jewish state.

The Palestinian-led movement claims responsibility for pressuring some large companies to stop or alter operations in Israel or the West Bank, including carbonated drink maker SodaStream, French construction company Veolia and international mobile phone giant Orange.

Airbnbs decision coincided with the publication of a Human Rights Watch report investigating tourist rental listings in settlements by Airbnb and Booking.com.

Entitled Bed-and-Breakfast on Stolen Land, the report said Israeli settlements discrimination against Palestinians uniquely violates humanitarian law and Airbnbs non-discrimination policy.

Most Palestinians must obtain a permit to enter the settlements or Israel proper and typically do so as labourers.

Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watchs Israel-Palestine director, said that with its threatened sanctions, Israel was prioritising its support for settlements over a thriving tourism industry in Israel proper that relies on services like Airbnb.

If applied, the sanctions could affect lodging costs for thousands of tourists expected to arrive in Tel Aviv next year for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Quote of the Day, on property rentals in illegal settlements off-limits to Palestinians. @Airbnb just stopped listing there, will other travel sites like @bookingcom follow suit? pic.twitter.com/D8T6GZp0jE  Human Rights Watch (@hrw) November 20, 2018

Mr Shakir said the governments response reflects the degree to which the government is willing to go, putting the whole countrys interests at stake over its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Human Rights Watch, along with Palestinian officials and other rights groups, have for years pressured Airbnb to pull out of Israeli-occupied territory.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called Airbnbs decision an initial positive step, and urged the company to extend its decision to Israeli listings in east Jerusalem. The BDS movement echoed that sentiment in a statement on its website.
Around eight gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer along Kenyas coast and wounded several people, including three children.

Five people were injured by the attackers, who shot indiscriminately at around 8pm on Tuesday in the Chakama trading centre in the county of Kilifi, said Kenyas police chief, Joseph Boinnet.

The gunmen abducted Silvia Costanza Romano, 23, an Italian woman working for Africa Milele Onlus, according to Mr Boinnet and Italys foreign ministry. The motive for the abduction is not clear and the identity of the attackers is not yet known, he said.

The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town. 1/6  National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018

The gunmen came looking for a white woman, said Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, who said he witnessed Ms Romanos violent kidnapping.

He heard gunfire which prompted all the shops in the area to close and many people in the trading centre to hide.

At around 7.30pm six men, some armed with guns and others with machetes and clubs stormed into the Milele offices and demanded to know where is the mgeni (Swahili for visitor).

Expand Close Sylvia Constanza Romano, left, with local resident Ronald Kazungu Ngala (AP Photo) / Facebook

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I told them she had left to go and get a power bank, but they didnt believe me and surged into the room where they found her, Mr Ngala said.

He said he followed them and heard one gunman ask the other if she is the one and when he was answered in the affirmative, he proceeded to slap her very hard until she fell.

Ronald please, please! Ronald, please help, Ms Romano said, according to Mr Ngala. I tried to push away a man who was smothering her while holding her down for her hands to be tied behind her back, but someone hit me in the head with a club and I got dizzy.

She told me to help myself and I ran for the man at the door with a club and pushed him away and escaped.

He said two of the gunmen who were outside the room shot at onlookers.

Expand Close Villagers gather outside a small house where they claimed the suspected kidnappers of an Italian woman had been staying in recently, in the village of Chakama (AP Photo) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Villagers gather outside a small house where they claimed the suspected kidnappers of an Italian woman had been staying in recently, in the village of Chakama (AP Photo)

Mr Ngala said the gunmen took Ms Romano across the Galana River. He said the gunmen looked and spoke like members of a local herding community known as Orma.

Many herding communities in Kenya that live near the border areas are armed to protect themselves against rivals, who may come across the border to steal their livestock.

In one of her latest postings on Twitter, Ms Romano said she was grateful to the kids she was working with for showing her how to live without material things.

These children, these people have taught me to live with no material things but with love, Joy, gratitude, smiles, sincere eyes  and be happy in such simple way. Thank you Kenya, thank you Chakama. This has been the deepest experience of my Life, she said.

Somali-based Islamic extremists have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenyas coast. Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.
Officials at Kabul's Emergency Hospital said 30 ambulances had rushed to the blast site and over 40 people were critically wounded (stock picture)

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a banqueting hall where Islamic religious scholars had gathered in the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday, killing more than 50 people, three government officials said.

Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said more than 80 other people had been injured.

"A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a wedding hall where Islamic religious scholars had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammad's birth," Mr Danish said.

The attacker entered a banquet room in the Uranus wedding hall, a massive complex housing several large banqueting halls near Kabul airport, and detonated his explosives.

"Hundreds of Islamic scholars and their followers had gathered to recite verses from the holy 'Quran' to observe the Eid Milad-un-Nabi festival at the private banquet hall," said Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul police.

Officials at Kabul's Emergency Hospital said 30 ambulances had rushed to the blast site and over 40 people were critically wounded.

The Taliban said in a statement that "our men were not involved in the Kabul blast and we condemn the loss of human lives".
US senators have written to President Donald Trump demanding that his administration "make a determination" about whether the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Senators Bob Corker and Bob Menendez wrote a letter to Mr Trump on Tuesday, asking for an investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

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The act requires the president to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation of internationally recognised human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression.

On Tuesday, the president condemned the killing of Mr Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a "horrible crime ... that our country does not condone".

But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that the crown prince must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.

"It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," the president said. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticised the royal family.

The US earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the October 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Mr Trump said "foolishly cancelling these contracts" worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, he responded, "No, I'm not saying that at all."

He then switched the subject to the "terrorist nation" of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.

The US needs a "counterbalance" to Iran, "and Israel needs help, too," he said. "If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake."

But Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky contended the administration has "blinders on" in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"It's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia," Mr Paul said in an interview. "Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you don't support either side."

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Mr Trump, also disagreed with the president's statement, saying America must not lose its "moral voice" on the international stage.

"It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi," Mr Graham said.

Likewise, Representative Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said that to suggest that US silence can be bought with arms sales "undermines respect for the office of the presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and America's standing as a champion of human rights".

Mr Trump told reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would "skyrocket" if the US broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to "destroy" the world's economy by being "foolish with Saudi Arabia".

Asked about any personal financial involvement, he said: "Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me. What does have to do with me is putting America first."

Mr Trump said that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed both "vigorously deny" any knowledge of the planning or execution of the killing.

He also said the CIA has not made a conclusive determination about whether the crown prince ordered it.

"We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi," Mr Trump said.

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."

Saudi prosecutors say a 15-man team sent to Istanbul exceeded its authority when the lead negotiator in the team decided to kill Mr Khashoggi for refusing orders to return. The Saudis say the agents dismembered his body, which has not been found.
In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2028, Interpol elected Kim Jong Yang as its president in a blow to Russian efforts at naming one of their own. (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis via AP)

Fears of a "mafia" takeover of Interpol have been allayed after the organisation elected a South Korean as its new president over a Russian candidate.

Kim Jong Yang beat Alexander Prokopchuk, whose running had prompted claims his appointment would politicise Interpol and see it used to hunt down enemies of Vladimir Putin.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the result as "very important news for rule of law internationally" after concerns Mr Prokopchuk would be victorious.

British financier Bill Browder, a long-standing critic of Mr Putin, hailed the vote and vowed to continue his battle to get Russia suspended from the police network over its "serial abuse" of arrest notices.

He tweeted: "Interpol rejects Russian candidate as president. Instead votes to elect South Korean candidate. Reason prevails in this dark world.

"Now, the clear next step is to suspend Russia from Interpol for its consistent and serial abuse of the Red Notice and diffusion system for political purposes. My legal team is preparing an initiative to use Interpol's own rules to begin this process."

Interpol confirmed the decision had been made at its general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday.

A day earlier, concerns had been raised at the possibility of Moscow interior ministry veteran Mr Prokopchuk's election.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable warned it would be "an absolute insult to the victims of the Salisbury attack", while Marina Litvinenko, widow of poisoned dissident Alexander Litvinenko, had said Mr Putin's critics in the UK would not feel safe if the Russian candidate won.

In the Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Harriett Baldwin said the UK supported Mr Kim.

The latest election was sparked after previous Interpol president Meng Hongwei was arrested in China during a purge against allegedly disloyal or corrupt officials.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The department of Public Relations of the Armenian Presidential staff commented on some media reports according which the President of Armenia should interfere in the current situation over the position of the CSTO Secretary General.

Armenpress presents the full statement of the PR department:

Recently opinions are voiced in some media outlets about the necessity of interference of the President of the Republic in the current situation around the position of the CSTO Secretary General. The President of the Republic carries out his activity within the powers and functions vested in him by the Constitution. According to the same document, conducting foreign policy is entrusted to the government of Armenia.

Nevertheless, President Armen Sarkissian uses his experience and personal ties to contribute to solving the foreign policy issues if necessary. And this necessity is formed through the discussions between the President and the Prime Minister.

On November 2 Armenias Yuri Khachaturov was dismissed from the position of the CSTO Secretary General after Armenia applied to the CSTO member states to launch the process of recalling him as criminal case was filed against Khachaturov over the 2008 March 1 unrest in Yerevan.





Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Renault says it has decided to retain chief executive Carlos Ghosn despite his arrest in Japan on allegations that he misused assets of partner Nissan and misreported his income.

Renaults board of directors announced that the number two at the company, chief operating officer Thierry Bollore, would temporarily fill in for Ghosn.

Mr Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains chairman and chief executive officer, a statement from Renaults board said. While Ghosn deals with his legal issues in Japan, Mr Bollore will have the same authority to run the company as the CEO, it added.

Renaults board said its decision was made with an eye towards keeping the company on a steady course to preserve the interests of the group and the continuity of its operations.

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Ghosn runs Renault, Nissan and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance that he helped turn into the worlds biggest car-seller last year, and France and Japan want to keep it intact.

Renaults move to appoint a temporary leader was in line with a demand by the French government, which owns a 15% stake in the firm. Finance minister Bruno Le Maire had said earlier that Ghosn was not in position to lead the Renault Group while fighting the accusations in Japan.

The French car maker said after an emergency meeting of its board of directors in Paris that it would further consolidate its alliance with Nissan. The two firms have a partnership with smaller car maker Mitsubishi.

Asked about reports that Nissan and Renault had been on the verge of merging, Nissans chief executive Hiroto Saikawa told reporters he had not heard of such a plan.

Nissan said on Wednesday that Ghosn will be held in custody for another 10 days, according to Japanese media reports.

The Kyodo News service also reported that another Nissan executive, representative director Greg Kelly, will also be detained for another 10 days. Kelly was arrested on suspicion of collaborating in the wrongdoing.

Earlier this year, Ghosn signed a contract that would have run until 2022.

Renaults board said it is requesting that Nissan pass along details of its investigation into Ghosns alleged wrongdoing. Mr Le Maire said authorities have examined Ghosns tax situation in France but have found no wrongdoing.

Japanese prosecutors said they were holding Ghosn, 64, for allegedly collaborating to falsify securities statements and underreporting 44.6 million dollars in income from 2011 to 2015.
Donald Trump has refused to say if he thinks Saudi Arabias crown prince knew of the plot to kill Jamal Khashoggi or not (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump has declared he will not further punish Saudi Arabia for the killing of US-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr Trump made it clear in an exclamation-filled statement that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing.

The president condemned the killing of Mr Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a horrible crime  that our country does not condone.

Maybe he did and maybe he didn'tDonald Trump on what Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew

But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about the plot.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, the president said. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt.

The statement began with the words America First! followed by The world is a very dangerous place!

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticised the royal family.

The US earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the October 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the Crown Prince  in multiple ways  has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic.  Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 20, 2018

Mr Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Critics denounced Mr Trumps statement saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.

Trump on the fallout over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi: "It's a shame, but it is what it is." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/4bkzq2of0Y  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 20, 2018

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, he responded: No, Im not saying that at all.

But then he switched the subject to the terrorist nation of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.

The US needs a counterbalance to Iran, and Israel needs help, too, he said. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake.

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Republican senator Rand Paul said Mr Trump was making a mistake, contending the administration has blinders on in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Its a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia, Mr Paul said in an interview. Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you dont support either side.

Trump appears to have lied for weeks about what he knew about the Khashoggi murder. Now he essentially says he doesnt care about it. House must investigate what he knew and when he knew it, and why he is so beholden to MBS.  Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) November 20, 2018

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Mr Trump, also disagreed with the presidents statement, saying America must not lose its moral voice on the international stage.

It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi, Mr Graham said.
President Donald Trump has publicly thanked Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices a day after deciding not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mr Trump, who made clear in a statement that he feels the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing, tweeted that its Great! that oil prices are falling.

Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower! he wrote from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is spending Thanksgiving.

The international crude benchmark has fallen under 65 US dollars (50) per barrel from a four-year high of more than 86 dollars (67) in early October as the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia have stepped up output.

However, OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, could announce production cuts at its December 6 meeting in Vienna, nudging prices upward.

The president condemned the killing of Mr Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticised the royal family.

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Mr Trump described the killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a horrible crime  that our country does not condone.

But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from US intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about the plot.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, the president said. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

Maybe he did and maybe he didnt wont cut it. So tonight, @SenatorMenendez and I sent a second Global Magnitsky letter to the president requiring that he specifically determine whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal #Khashoggi.  Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) November 21, 2018

The US earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the October 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Mr Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons.

Critics, including high-ranking officials in other countries, denounced Mr Trumps statement, saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.

Trump appears to have lied for weeks about what he knew about the Khashoggi murder. Now he essentially says he doesnt care about it. House must investigate what he knew and when he knew it, and why he is so beholden to MBS.  Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) November 20, 2018

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, Mr Trump responded: No, Im not saying that at all.

But he preferred to focus on Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia. The US needs a counterbalance to Iran, and Israel needs help, too, he said. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake.

Mr Trump was roundly criticised by Democrats, but some Republicans weighed in against him, too.

Republican senator Rand Paul said the Trump administration has blinders on in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia and said Mr Trump showed weakness in not standing up to Saudi Arabia.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted: I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back against President Donald Trump for his description of a judge who ruled against Mr Trumps migrant asylum policy as an Obama judge.

It is the first time the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Mr Trump, who has previously criticised federal judges who ruled against him.

Mr Roberts said on Wednesday the US does not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. He commented in a statement released by the Supreme Court after a query by The Associated Press.

Mr Roberts said on the day before Thanksgiving that an independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

Last year, the president used the term a so-called judge after the first federal ruling against his travel ban. During the presidential campaign, Mr Trump criticised Mr Roberts himself for the chief justices decisive vote in 2012 to preserve the Obama healthcare overhaul.

Expand Close Donald Trump has previously lashed out at judges who have ruled against his policies (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump has previously lashed out at judges who have ruled against his policies (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Mr Trump also referred to a judge who was presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University as a Mexican who would be unable to rule fairly because of the presidents proposal to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

The presidents latest remarks come as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats.

Mr Trump had spoken on Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to a ruling by US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco that put the administrations asylum policy on hold.

The president complained that his opponents file their lawsuits in courts that are part of the liberal-leaning 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won, Mr Trump said.

The president went on to say about the asylum ruling: This was an Obama judge.

However, the initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by US District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W Bush. Mr Roberts also was appointed by Bush.

The White House had no immediate response to a request for comment on Mr Roberts criticism on Wednesday.
One of the most successful web shows for Alt Balaji in recent times has been Kehne Ko Humsafar Hai which starred Ronit Roy Mona Jaswir Singh and Gurdeep Kohli in lead roles.

Almost instantly, a second season of the show was announced and the new addition to the cast only made things better. We are talking about Apurva Agnihotri

With Apurva's addition, not only did the show become a Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin reunion, but it takes the excitement level several notches up.

Teasing us in the perfect direction, the cast has begun shooting in the city of Qatar, where a couple of images were shared.

Ronit, Apurva, and Mona look as fantastic as ever, and we cannot wait already-

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Are you excited too for the second season? Leave in your comments below..
Viral Bhayani

The couple will be seen in Sabyasachi outfits, who is also the designated designer for them and the entire family. From her Mehendi to Sangeet to the Konkani ceremony, DeepVeer chose Sabyasachi for all their functions.

Agencies

Now that the frenzy over Deepika-Ranveers wedding has calmed down, its time for Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas wedding, which will take place in Jodhpurs Umaid Bhavan, as confirmed by PCs mother Madhu Chopra. Now, if reports are to be believed, they will tie the knot twice. On Dec 2, the duo will have Hindu ceremony, which will then be followed by a Christian wedding on Dec 3.

We have seen them making a public appearance a lot of times but the pictures from the ceremony are so full of love and joy that you feel like you're a part of their love story too. There wasn't anything pretentious about them. The wedding must have taken place in Italy but everything was Desi - right from the ceremonies to the photographs that were shared on social media.

While scientists are looking for life on other planets, people in India cannot stop obsessing over Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoors son Taimur Ali Khan. He seldom fails to make headlines. This time, the cute little toddler is making news because of the chubby-cheeked, blue-eyed, adorable 54 cm tall doll that is inspired by the tiny tot.

Agencies

Popular actor-comedian Sunil Grover is returning to the small screen with Star Plus show Kanpur Wale Khuranas. The actor, who is known for playing characters like 'Gutthi' and 'Dr Mashhoor Gulati', says the fresh concept of the show interested him. "I am happy to be back on the small screen with a fresh concept. This character is unlike any I've played before and I am very excited to embark on this journey of entertaining my viewers.
Whats happening around the world? Many are dreading an apocalypse. California wildfires caused immense destruction leaving many homeless and worried. Pollution of all sorts, particularly that in air, is making it difficult for people to even breathe. So much so, that life expectancy has decreased by 10 years! Deadly diseases like Cancer is gripping many people, including celebrities like Nafisa Ali, Irrfan Khan and Sonali Bendre.

While scientists are looking for life on other planets, people in India cannot stop obsessing over Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoors son Taimur Ali Khan. He seldom fails to make headlines. This time, the cute little toddler is making news because of the chubby-cheeked, blue-eyed, adorable 54 cm tall doll that is inspired by the tiny tot.

If you were living under the rock for past couple of days, a quick Google search is enough to enlighten you on the fact that a doll called Taimur Baba Doll is available on First Cry.

Yes, tts a crazy, scary and creepy world that you are living in!

People were stunned when this was first pointed out by producer Ashvini Yardi, who shared it from Kerala on her Twitter handle. It left us all creeped out.

Meanwhile at a toy store in Kerala... pic.twitter.com/J2Bl9UnPdT  Ashvini Yardi (@AshviniYardi) November 19, 2018

No dearth of fools in the Country https://t.co/Tm7UysmBMx  Kunal kothari (@kunalchor) November 20, 2018

Saif Ali Khan has often talked about how he doesnt understand peoples obsession over Taimur. He has also expressed his worry on wanting him to lead a normal life and childhood. Paparazzi has been requested to not click his photographs, which Saif knows cost Rs 1500 per picture. He is apparently at the top spot in the rate card, Saif had revealed on Koffee With Karan.

Never liked or supported a single troll on Saif's son Taimur.

He s just a baby who doesn't know what's happening around him..

Its creepy and disgusting to see people making toys of him just for their fun https://t.co/2kf8Wpakjp  Srikar (@cheeku1896) November 20, 2018

After knowing that a doll in the name of Taimur is being sold. He was of course, stunned.

Maybe I should trademark his name The least they could do is send me one!. I am glad people are benefiting from him. I only ask God for his safety and happiness in return, he told Hindustan Times.

When will this madness come to and end?!
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Yelk faction MP Lena Nazaryan is reassuring that there was no administrative resource usage in the meeting of caretaker PM Nikol Pashinyan with residents of Gegharkunik province.

She was speaking about accusations from Republicans alleging that Pashinyan has begun campaigning ahead of time.

The representative of any party is entitled to visit provinces and meet with the locals, Nazaryan said.

The caretaker prime minister participated in the opening of a high school in Gegharkunik province, and also had the opportunity to meet with residents of the province. Nikol Pashinyan has regularly met with citizens during his entire time in office. And there is nothing unusual in this. What Pashinyan is able to to  interact with citizens and answer their questions, Republican candidates can also do, no one is disturbing them from going to Gegharkunik or other provinces and interact with the people through a rally. It is another matter that in my opinion they wont succeed in doing it, she said.

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
Just recently India recorded a 24% decline in the total number of cases of malaria between 2016 and 2017. This is also one of the countries with the highest burden of malaria to achieve this feat, according to the latest World Malaria report.

Well, the most recent study by WHO claims otherwise. India along with 15 other countries in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for almost 80 per cent of the malaria cases reported globally last year.

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According to a WHO report which notes that a whopping 1.25 billion people in India were at the risk of contracting the mosquito-borne disease.

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2018 World malaria report, however, in an encouraging note said that India was the only country to report progress in reducing its malaria cases in 2017 as compared with 2016.

It said five countries to account for nearly half of all malaria cases worldwide were Nigeria (25 per cent), Democratic Republic of the Congo (11 per cent), Mozambique (5 per cent), India and Uganda (4 per cent) both.

Twitter

On the contrary the report stated that targets to reduce global rates of infections and deaths from malaria were not being met.

The study reveals that while new cases fell steadily up until 2016, the number rose from 217 to 219 million in 2017: the targets set by the WHO Global technical strategy for malaria 20162030 call for a drop in malaria case incidence and death rates of at least 40 per cent by 2020.

The 10 highest burden countries in Africa reported increases in cases of malaria in 2017 compared with 2016. Of these, Nigeria, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had the highest estimated increases, all greater than half a million cases.

Reuters

In contrast, India reported three million fewer cases in the same period, a 24% decrease compared with 2016.

However, cases in the African countries rose by 3.5 million compared with the previous year. Nearly 80 per cent of global malaria deaths in 2017 were concentrated in 17 countries in the WHO African Region and India, the report said.

Seven of these countries accounted for 53 per cent of all global malaria deaths: Nigeria (19 per cent), Democratic Republic of the Congo (11 per cent), Burkina Faso (6 per cent), Tanzania (5 per cent), Sierra Leone (4 per cent), Niger (4 per cent) and India (4 per cent).

Reuters

The report noted that while India "had made impressive gains and was on track" to meet the Global technical strategy for malaria 2016-2030 targets, it still accounted for 4 pert cent of the global burden of malaria morbidity and 52 per cent of deaths outside of the WHO African Region.

India was among the countries that detected high treatment failure rates and responded by changing their treatment policies, it said. The report added that India and Indonesia were on track to achieve a 2040 per cent reduction in case incidence by 2020.

The WHO, the main United Nations health agency, and its partners have launched a country-led 'high burden to high impact' response plan to coincide with the release of the report with the aim of scaling up prevention, treatment and investment to protect vulnerable people, and get reductions in malaria deaths and disease back on track.

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The plan builds on the principle that no one should die from a disease that can be easily prevented and diagnosed, and that is entirely curable with available treatments.

"The world faces a new reality: as progress stagnates, we are at risk of squandering years of toil, investment and success in reducing the number of people suffering from the disease," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"We recognise we have to do something different now," Ghebreyesus said. A positive note was struck in Paraguay, which has this year been certified as malaria free, the first country in the Americas to receive this status in 45 years.

Reuters

The number of countries nearing elimination has now grown from 37 to 46, and three countries Algeria, Argentina and Uzbekistan have requested official malaria-free certification from the WHO.

Domestic financing has been identified as key to the success of the WHO's malaria strategy. The UN agency says that funding, which has levelled off, needs to reach at least USD 6.6 billion annually by 2020 more than double the amount available today.

Malaria kills an estimated 660,000 people each year.
Oh, the Internet vultures are going to love this. Last year, the oh-so-sweet story of a homeless man helping a stranded woman by giving her his last $20 to reach home safely went viral on social media.

Turns out, it was a scam. The people who donated to the campaign, setup by the woman to help the homeless man, are probably still reeling from the shock of having been sucked in to a meticulously planned evil scheme.

Kate McClure/ Facebook

A bitter scam that began with a seemingly genuine gesture

Back in October 2017, Kate McClure's heartwarming, good-on-humanity story popped up on the Internet and went viral within seconds. It was almost 11 at night when McClure's car broke down in the middle of Interstate 95, a major highway in Philadelphia. Close to her wit's end, she headed to the nearest gas station where she reportedly met Johnny Bobbit, a homeless man. Bobbit told her to head back to her car, lock the doors and wait while he fetched the fuel. True to his words, Bobbit made it back minutes later with a red gas can.

(Also read: Woman Raises Rs 1 Crore For Homeless Man Who Gave His Last Rs 1000 To Help Her Out)

He was down to his last $20 (Rs 1400, approx.) when he bought fuel for McClure's car.

With not even a few dollars to spare, McClure was relieved and promised to return the favour. Bobbit didn't press the issue further, and didn't even ask for any money. All this, from a homeless veteran who spent his days sitting on the side of the road with a sign. He had once worked in the Marine Corps and also as a paramedic and a firefighter.

What followed later was a repayment in the form of spare dollars, cereal bars, a jacket, warm socks, a hat and gloves. It wasn't too long before New Jersey-based McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, reportedly set up a GoFundMe page for Bobbit.

The story is in the link guys. Thanks so much for even taking a quick look! Let's do something special https://t.co/MFugVz1mj2 #philly #love  Kate McClure (@getjohnnyahome) November 11, 2017



According to reports, the goal was to raise close to $10,000 (Rs 7,00,000 approx.) for Bobbit's expenses for six months. When the first of the money started trickling in, they decided to surprise Bobbit.

His reaction was caught on camera by McClure. "God, that's amazing. Damn, y'all did all that. That is awesome," Bobbit says in the video.

In nine months, the number was up to $402,706 (Rs 2.8 crore, approx.).

That number doesnt even make sense to me. The world (yes the world) has gone above and beyond. It really shows what people can do together! pic.twitter.com/KeBFQfogDJ  Kate McClure (@getjohnnyahome) December 6, 2017

(Also read: US Woman Raises $100,000 To Help A Homeless Man Who Once Lent Her $20 To Fill Gas In Her Car)

'A perfect storm'

By August, 2018, things turned bitter after Bobbit's lawyers alleged that a major chunk of the money never reached him as first intended. "From what I can see, the GoFundMe account raised $402,000 and GoFundMe charged a fee of approximately $30,000. Mark D'Amico and Kate McClure gave Johnny about $75,000. There should be close to another $300,000 available to Johnny," Bobbitt's lawyer Chris Fallon had told CNN.

Reportedly 14,000 had contributed on the GoFundMe page, and Bobbit's attorneys Fallon and Jacqueline Promislo, at the time, wanted to ensure the money found its intended recipient.

GoFundMe meanwhile claimed that such misuse of funds was rare. The company released a statement saying, "When there is a dispute, we work with all parties involved to ensure funds go to the right place. We will work to ensure that Johnny receives the help he deserves and that the donors' intentions are honored."

The problem started when instead of buying Bobbit a house as promised, the New Jersey couple bought him a camper. Probably with nowhere else to park, Bobbit left the camper parked in the couple's driveway and lived with them till June. But that wasn't all. Bobbit alleged he didn't even have money to buy food or other daily essentials. Meanwhile, the couple alleged that Bobbit had in fact picked and chosen the camper himself. Promislo later said that wasn't true.

According to the The Philadelphia Inquirer, the couple has 'spent or given him more than half of the money' but are withholding 'roughly $200,000' till Bobbit 'gets a job' and is 'drug-free.'

In the same report, Bobbit even wondered how she could afford a new BMW or even trips to Las Vegas, Florida and California. The whirlpool of allegations didn't settle. Reportedly, a lack of bank statements and even transparency has done little to help Bobbit's case. The same report even quotes D'Amico as saying, "Giving him all that money, it's never going to happen. I'll burn it in front of him."

The truth finally unfolded

The Philadelphia Inquirer report talks about a series of leaked text messages where McClure messaged a friend saying, "Okay so wait the gas part is completely made up," after her friend wondered why McClure didn't contact her after her car ran out of gas. "I had to make something up to make people feel bad... So, shush about the made up part." Her friend cautioned her that the story could backfire.

The 'campaign' then:

Screen grab/GoFundMe

And the 'campaign' now:

Screen grab/GoFundMe

Even McClure's mom suspected that something was amiss. But Bobbit had had enough and decided it was time to sue the couple. An investigation by prosecutors in to the matter revealed the truth.

On November 15, 2018, all three were arrested, held in custody and later released. According to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, if found guilty of the charge of theft by deception and conspiracy, the three could face five to ten years in prison.

McClure's attorney Jim Gerrow Jr. claims "Kate only had the best intentions" and had no hand in the whole matter, and that D'Amico and Bobbitt did.

McClure and Mark D'Amico have broken up. They have a court hearing on December 24. Bobbit is in a Correctional Facility in Philadelphia and will be extradited to New Jersey.

Burlington County Prosecutor

And now, GoFundMe plans to refund everyone's money who donated it thinking they were contributing towards a good cause.
Thirty-four years ago, a huge tree fell in Delhi the heart and capital of India. The ground for Sikhs seeking justice has been shaky ever since.

However, the recent verdict by Delhi Patiala House Court has come as a ray of hope. Yashpal Singh, one of the convicts has been given the death sentence. The other convict, Naresh Sherawat has been given life imprisonment. It has taken thirty-four years but Sikh families still continue to go to the court for each hearing and theyre not stopping till they get their justice.

An incident that is still talked about in a hush-hush voice, the mere mention of year chauraasi opens up wounds that are far from healing. The year might be more than three decades away but Sikhs remain frozen in time. As a young Sikh girl born eleven years after the Sikh massacre, I know that 1984 is not a year to be discussed casually at family gatherings. However, while watching the news of the convictions, I saw a Sikh woman on the television screen crying and asking, Saadi ki galti si? Saade nirdosh logan nu kyon maareya? There was hopelessness and despair on her face with which she posed this question: Why did you do this to the innocent people of my community?

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As a young person from the Sikh community, I always wanted to know and after watching this woman, I finally found the courage to ask my father what exactly happened during that time. See, thats the thing about the wounds we carry. We never have to mention the words, euphemisms are enough for the others in the community to understand what happened.

What my sixty-one year old father told me took me back in time and tore me emotionally. I could suddenly feel the helpless of this woman I had seen on my television screen even though I didnt know her personally. Because even at sixty-one, my father clearly remembers the days leading up to the massacre, a word I use instead of rioting because even the the Central Bureau of Investigation believes that the violence was organised with support from the Delhi police and some central-government officials. And we know that when your government comes after you with proper plans of killing, it is not just mere rioting but a massacre.

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My father remembers that 31st October, when Indira Gandhi was assassinated, he was having coffee in office. He reached home on time without facing any disturbance that day but, as the day drew to a close, things took a gory turn. My father and his family could see that theres fire and smoke but not even in their wildest dreams had they imagined that it was because people from their own community were being burnt alive. Things by 1st November 1984 had taken such a bloody turn that my father recalls rioting men throwing burning tyres around the necks of Sikh men and then dancing around their victims while they cried in pain, as their skin burnt along with the rubber. These men who were out there to get Sikhs carried inflammable material, sharp weapons and had nothing on their minds but destruction.

In my familys case, the neighbours were rather watchful. Their area had seven houses and one of them was occupied by my family, the only Sikh family in the area. The Bengali and Kashmiri pandit neighbours kept a strict watch. Made sure that no one knows about the Sikh family staying there. And once things went out of hand, the Kashmiri pandit family gave refuge to my family. So genuine was their concern that they shut off the television in their house till my family stayed with them since the news channels only showed one thing- blood-hungry people shouting, khoon ke badle khoon chahiye.

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My family, thankfully, made it out safely. They could finally come out of hiding and resume life. However, the owner of the electronic shop which my dad used to visit to get things fixed, had lost his son. The shop that once used to bustle with people was now empty and when my father dared to ask the old father where his son was, all that the man could say, log aaye si, sab lae gaye. The people who had come had taken away everything from his.

His staff member, also Sikh, couldnt report to work because her father had jumped off a building when he saw the attackers approaching. Looking at the men hack her fathers head as soon as he hit the ground affected him psychologically. A family friend remembers her twelve-year-old brother begging for his life. His last words were, uncle, humne kuchh nahi kiya. He was pulled out of his house and hacked to death after this while his sister watched.

PTI

And just like that, our world changed. Our men were no more. The killing was such that once a happy area of West Delhi is now called the Widow Colony. Dont believe me? Look it up on Google Maps. The psychological impact is such that I, a person from a generation that wasnt even born in that time, live in the fear of a day that this might happen all over again.

So, yes, the new verdict is the most amount of positive weve experienced in past thirty-four years from the judicial system. We welcome it with warm hearts that were still nursing. Now, we wait for other verdicts to come out as well because our families wont stop visiting the court house for every single hearing.

A tree fell in Delhi once upon a time, the ground beneath our feet is still shaking.
A Facebook photo of a homeless man, possibly suffering from depression, helped a family from a remote village near the India-Pakistan border in Punjab reunite with their loved one after nearly five months  all thanks to some good Samaritans in Greater Noida.

Angrez Singh, the 25-year-old from Gurdittawada village in Punjabs Firozpur district, had left home in July this year after he slipped into depression due to fights with his wife. His family had lost all hope of finding him until their village chief recently showed them his photo and whereabouts posted on Facebook by Sunil Nagar.

On November 18, he was reunited with his family. Angrez was suffering from depression and one day he vanished, leaving me, his wife and two daughters behind.

toi

We searched for him for a long time and then gave up. But thanks to some good men, I got my son back, Raja Singh, Angrezs father, told TOI.

In fact, it was Nagar who had first spotted Angrez with a fractured leg at a secluded bus stop near the UP Human Rights Commissions office in Greater Noidas Sector Gamma 1 on November 13.

Another resident, Dinesh Kumar, was giving him food, and he told me that Angrez sustained injuries in an accident. I tried to talk to Angrez but he could not communicate with me in Hindi. However, I did not lose hope and finally managed to get his name and the name of his home district, he said.

reuters

Nagar posted Angrezs details on his Facebook page. Soon one of my friends called me and asked me about other details. And it was he who got in touch with Punjab police and in turn with the chief of Gurdittawada village. Angrezs family was informed and they recognised his photo on Facebook, he said.

Nagar managed to admit Angrez to the district hospital in Noida. I had first taken him to the Community Health Centre in Bhangel but it didnt have X-ray facility. Then with help from local police, I took him to the district hospital, he added.

Nagars Facebook post received over 400 shares on the social media site.
In a bizarre incident, an inmate of Peermade sub-jail in Idukki, accused of raping his daughter, cut off his penis. The 42-year-old man from Vandiperiyar used the blade provided by jail authorities for shaving to commit the act.

The jail officials immediately rushed him to Peermade taluk hospital and later admitted him to Kottayam Medical College Hospital. The condition of the accused is stable, said jail officials. The doctors managed to sew back the body part and he is said to be out of danger.

As per jail rules, the inmates are allowed to shave on Tuesdays and the authorities provide them with razor and blade.

The man was booked for raping her daughter four months ago and though the court had granted him bail, no one came forward to help him meet the conditions of bail.

"He claimed that he didn't commit the crime," said a jail department official.

"When the jail authorities informed us about the incident, we provided escort and other assistance to admit the man to Kottayam Medical College Hospital," said Peermade sub-inspector Rajesh.
An American tourist who tried to enter an Andaman Island which is a home to an uncontacted tribe was killed by the hostile tribe.

The deceased has been identified as 27-year-old John Allen Chau, who was in India on a tourist visa.

Chau had reportedly reached near the North Sentinel island, which is home to the indigenous tribe on November 16 and attempted to make contact with the residents who are known to be hostile to outsiders.

File Image

There are also reports that he had travelled to the island which is not accessible for outsiders at least five times in the past.

Police have arrested seven fishermen who took him to the island illegally. According to the fishermen, Chau was travelling on a canoe alone when he came under attack with arrows from the tribes.

They then dragged the body of the Chau and disappeared into the wilderness. The island authorities have launched a helicopter hunt for the tourist's missing body. But given how hostile the tribes are to outsiders, it is highly unlikely that the body will ever be recovered.

While it is not yet clear why Chau was trying to make contact with the Sentinel tribe, it is reported that he was a missionary.

According to International Christian Concern (ICC) Chau, had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on five previous occasions and had expressed a strong desire to meet with the Sentinelese tribes to preach Christianity.

This is not the first time outsiders, and tourists have tried to illegally enter the strategically important and protected islands in Andaman and make contact with the indigenous people.

File Image

A few years ago videos of members from another protected tribe, the Jarawa dancing for tourists on the lure of sweets and fruits had triggered massive international outrage, with many even comparing it to a human safari.

Despite a ban on entry into the island, there have been a number of incidents were outsiders have to manage to reach the island by bribing local authorities to spend a day out with them.
The National Crime Records Bureaus (NCRB) Crime In India report of 2017, expected to be released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the coming days will for the for the first time document crimes committed by Khap panchayats.

This will document all the crimes involving Khaps from across the country.

BCCL/FILE

Khap panchayats are caste or community groups, mostly in rural areas of states like Haryana, Rajasthan and UP which often acts as a kangaroo court and settle local disputes.

They have however come under the scanner for pronouncing punishments like fines, flogging.

The Khaps have also been accused of ordering honor killings in cases of intercaste marriages and social boycotts.

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According to reports, there have been as many as 251 honour killings in 2016 against 28 in 2014, the year from which the NCRB started maintaining a record of such incidents.

The Khaps, however, said the move was an attempt to paint the Khap as a group of criminals.

Khaps have never committed any crime. It is because of Khap panchayats that Indias culture and values are intact in many parts of the country, Sube Singh Samain, a spokesperson of Haryanas Sarv Khap Jat Panchayat told The New Indian Express.
A teenage girl succumbed to age-old menstruation taboo that has still gripped parts of India. The 14-year-old girl died in a cyclone after being forced to sleep separately because she was menstruating.

Her family said that she was trapped in the hut on November 16 when Cyclone Gaja made landfall in Tamil Nadu.

Some villagers are now saying that this is a wake up call as it was a common practice to segregate girls from other members of the family while they were on their periods.

At least 46 people have died so far in Tamil Nadu due to the cyclone.

In rural India, menstruation is still a taboo and women are believed to be impure while on periods. They are mostly kept out of the house in a shelter, given food and water in different utensils. They are not allowed to enter the house or touch any household item.

BCCL

According to BBC, the family of the girl, S Vijayalakshmi, lives in a house next to the hut but they survived the storm. Her grandmother, S Visalakshi, said they couldn't rescue her as a coconut tree had fallen on the hut, which made it impossible to reach her.

"I told them to take her to a different place. But within hours, the cyclone had struck and we couldn't move anywhere," she told BBC.

"We are shattered," she told BBC. "When we saw the tree, we lost hope. We waited for villagers to help us remove the tree and pull her out of the hut."

She was rushed to a hospital but was declared brought dead by the doctors.
Delhi has been put on alert after the Police issued a notice warning about the presence of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists who have infiltrated in the national capital. Read More.

Here's More Top News For The Day:

1) Train 18, Indias First Engineless Train That Runs At 160 Kmph, To Start Operating By December 15

Train 18, Indias first engineless train, is expected to start operations by December 15. The semi-high speed train is set to replace Shatabdi Express trains. The train is presently undergoing trials in Moradabad. Read More.

2) And The Winner Of Most Vegan-Friendly City 2018 Goes To Chennai For Promoting Vegan Lifestyle

Animal welfare organisation, People For Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) has declared the southern Indian city of Chennai as the Most Vegan-Friendly City 2018.The city was honoured for providing an environment in which vegan-friendly establishments can thrive. Read More.

3) Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Manager, Who Prepared Minor Girls For Prostitution, Lands In Jail

Representational Image

Saista Praveen alias Madhu, a close assistant of Brajesh Thakur, the man who ran the Muzaffarpur shelter home, was arrested by police officials on Tuesday. CBI officials stated that Madhu used to teach how to have sex to the minor inmates of the facility. Read More.

4) 1000 Cops From Three States Nab Paedophile & Serial Killer Who Raped 3-YO Girl In Gurugram

After nearly a week of manhunt the Gurugram Police have arrested the accused in the rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in the city.The accused, identified as 20-year-old Sunil Kumar was arrested from Jhansi on Tuesday after a massive manhunt involving more than 1,000 cops across Haryana, Delhi, and UP. Read More.

5) How Humans Made Trafficking Of Eel For Consumption The Largest Wildlife Crime On Earth

AFP

Critically endangered eels, worth billions of Euros are being trafficked each year from Europe and end on tables in Japan and China as a culinary delight. Wildlife activists have called this "the largest wildlife crime on Earth." Read More.
Delhi has been put on alert after the Police issued a notice warning about the presence of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists who have infiltrated in the national capital.

On Tuesday, the Delhi Police released the photos of the two men and asked people to keep a lookout for them. The notice also included photographs of the two men in dark kurtas and religious headgear.

In the photo which is believed to be shot in Pakistan, the two men are seen leaning on a milestone that reads, Firozpur 9 kilometres and Delhi 360 kilometres.

An archway is also seen in the background with a Pakistani flag hoisted from the top.

Police said they are scanning guest houses, hotels and paying guest accommodations where foreign students usually stay to trace the duo.

BCCL/ File

News about the presence of the two JeM terrorists in Delhi comes nearly a week after four unidentified men hijaced a taxi at gunpoint in Pathankot, sparking fears of another 2016-like attack.

It also coincides with the grenade attack on a religious congregation in Amritsar on Sunday which killed three people.

Following the attack the Punjab Police had had warned that six to seven Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists "could be moving towards Delhi" from the state.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Aircompany Armenia is joining the worldwide Black Friday event, the airline said in a press release.

Customers will be given the chance to buy roundtrip tickets from Yerevan to Tel Aviv and Lyon for only 150 Euros, and to Voronezh and Mineralniye Vody for only 100 Euros. The offer is available on November 23 and only in the event of buying the tickets from the airlines office. Tickets can be bought for any date.

One person is entitled to buy two tickets, while a family can buy a maximum of four.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Critically endangered eels, worth billions of Euros are being trafficked each year from Europe and end on tables in Japan and China as a culinary delight. Wildlife activists have called this "the largest wildlife crime on Earth."

As mankind has encroached more and more land, disrupting water bodies and constructed more dams, stocks of European eel (anguilla anguilla) have plummeted 90 per cent in three decades. On top of that, criminal gangs smuggling the lucrative fish are pushing it towards oblivion.

Despite growing alarm from conservationists, hundreds of tonnes of eels are still legally and illegally fished each year. In France -- which catches more of the fish than any other EU state -- the issue has taken on political dimensions.

AFP

"There's around 10 per cent of stocks left compared to 30 years ago due to habitat loss and what we've done to the migration pathways in Europe," Andrew Kerr, chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG) that works to conserve the species, told AFP.

The eel's vertiginous decline has provoked some action from governments and law enforcement agencies. It is now listed in the CITES international convention on trade in endangered species, resulting in strict national catch quotas.

The problem, according to Michel Vignaud, head of fishing regulation at France's National Biodiversity Agency, is exploding Asian demand for a product viewed as both a delicacy and an aphrodisiac.

"We cannot legally export eels outside the EU, but the prices are different in Asia. There is a real Asian demand for eel," he told AFP.

AFP

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said that in 2016 China produced close to a quarter of a million tonnes of eel for consumption, far ahead of Japan -- where eating eel is seen as bringing good luck and fertility -- and the EU.

The bloc's law enforcement agency EUROPOL estimates as many as 100 tonnes of baby eels -- known as glass eels for their translucent skin -- are trafficked abroad each year: equivalent to around 350 million fish.

"Glass eels trafficking involves environmental crime, smuggling, document fraud, tax evasion and money laundering," a spokesman told AFP.

The live eels are largely caught -- legally or otherwise -- in Western Europe before being smuggled eastwards in vans or lorries, often falsely labelled as non-endangered fish, police and conservationists say.

AFP

Criminal gangs then divide the eels into suitcases, up to 50,000 of the tiny fish per bag, which are then flown by commercial airliner to Asia.

The fish are grown in special farms to their full size -- up to a metre and a half -- and then sold to market for the equivalent of 10 euros each.

"Prices vary so you can only come up with bracket figures, but we're talking billions (of euros). It's the biggest wildlife crime by value on Earth," said Kerr. "It's the most trafficked and travelled animal on the planet."

EUROPOL has scored a number of major hauls in recent years, including Spanish police busting an eel-smuggling gang in possession of 350 kilogrammes of glass eels in April.

But as mass trafficking continues to undermine EU-wide efforts to save the threatened species, there are fears for the future of one of the world's most storied fish.
For a while now, ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many people have been suggesting that it's time for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to resign.

However, he's not ready to give up the mantle, and made that very clear in a recent interview.

Reuters

Just last week, The New York Times published a story, detailing all the underhanded ways Facebook attempted to hide its failings and wrongdoings over the past two years. They found anonymous sources that witnessed Facebook deflecting lawmakers away from dangerous issues, attempting to hide breaches of privacy, and even directly lying about the seriousness of the problem. That story has intensified the already prevalent calls for Zuckerberg's resignation.

Also Read: Zuckerberg Admits Facebook Made "Big Mistake" In Protecting User Data, Says He's Not Resigning

But the Facebook chief says he has no intentions of going anywhere. In a chat with CNN that aired on television last night, Zuckerberg clarified that he intends to stick to his role as chairman of the board. He owns 60 percent of voting shares in the company, which means he also possesses voting control of the board. If they want him gone, he has to agree first.

"I'm not currently thinking that that makes sense," Zuckerberg told CNN, about his chances of stepping down.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

In fact when asked about his COO Sheryl Sandberg, and if she would keep her job following the long line of company fails, he went ahead and praised her. To go by NYT, she is equally responsible for Facebook's missteps as well as its reluctance to truly make amends. Instead, Zuckerberg praised her work at Facebook over the years, saying he hoped to have years more working alongside her.

"Sheryl is a really important part of this company, and is leading a lot of the efforts to address the biggest issues that we have," Zuckerberg told CNN. "And she's been an important partner for me for 10 years. And I'm really proud of the work we've done together, and I hope that we work together for decades more to come."
Humans wear fitness trackers to monitor their daily health and exercise routines. But now Australia is suggesting putting similar trackers on animals.

No, not people's pet dogs or cats. They want to use them to track the health of their cows and other cattle.

The Ceres Tag - Images courtesy CSIRO

Researchers at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organ) in Australia have teamed up with agricultural startup Ceres Tag to develop a new wearable gadget for the country's livestock. It's similar to the chip the Karnataka government recently implanted in many cows, but it seems to vastly outstrip its Indian counterpart in capabilities.

What can the cow fitness tracker do?

The tracker is implanted into the cow's ear, and is designed to function as is for the animal's lifespan. It obviously has basic sensing potential, allowing cattle ranchers to monitor the health of their animals. It also goes beyond, able to alert the owner to a cow making odd movements, thanks to the accelerometers on board. This could let the cattle owner know his cow might be sick, in pain, or giving birth.

Moreover, the tracker has GPS capability, allowing a farmer to track the exact location of individual cows thanks to IoT technology. This, Ceres Tag CEO David Smith says, could improve grazing management and help locate lost and stolen cows.

Ceres Tag CEO David Smith

So far, the tag has been implanted in 100 cows at a CSIRO research station, and the test results have been promising. Unfortunately, there's been no mention of how much these tags cost to manufacture. If the can be economically made and maintained, perhaps India's livestock farmers could also benefit from this technology.
In the predominantly Muslim nation of Indonesia, to belong to the LGBTQ community is a tricky affair.

With the added social stigma, the community members are facing a rather strange protest against them. What's worse is that it's a state-sanctioned demonstration of hatred or at least that's what it looks like.

According to this report, the protests which were led by the citys own mayor promised regulations to 'cleanse' LGBT elements from their communities.

Being a part of the LGBTQ community is no crime in the country, yet the intolerance is growing. A Guardian report states that there's a 'sustained backlash' against gays and homosexuals.

While explaining the exorcism bit of the protest, Lucky Abdul Hayyi, a member of Padangs Majelis Mujahidin told this local daily, "These men are possessed by female genies, this is what many of us have found with LGBT perpetrators."

The country is known to take to extreme measures against those they 'suspect' as LGBTQ members. From parading them on the streets to exiling them.

They have done it all and it's a shame that even in this day and age a practice so utterly regressive is prevalent!
In a world that's filled with paranoia, making jokes about 'blowing up' a place is a big no, no!

But sometimes, words slip up and the deed is done. In an incident similar to the 'Left Phalange' from Friends, a man got into serious trouble with his bomb reference.

Arthur Posey, 30, was arrested on Tuesday night after he allegedly threatened to blow up the chicken chain restaurant's bathroom.

Posey told an officer that he had told an employee at the restaurant that he was going to " 'blow the bathroom up,' in reference to a bowel movement."

Also Read: To Delay Flight, Jaipur Man Makes Hoax Bomb Threat Call To IndiGo, Arrested

However, employees at the eatery, Willie's Chicken Shack, told officers that they never heard Posey say anything about a bathroom. Posey will have a mental competency hearing, which is currently set for Nov. 29.

Since the incident, many have come to the defence of the man:

I demand justice for Arthur Posey. Who here among us has not made the same threat and followed through on it? pic.twitter.com/Qw4QjUbWrm  Todd Britton (@BTBritton) 19 November 2018

Any one thats familiar with urban vernacular knows that blow up the bathroom means to funk it up with a mean poop job lol  Tanya  (@Sincerely_Tanya) 19 November 2018

White people when they heard him say man Im bout to go blow up the bathroom pic.twitter.com/T5hAXsexZm  Im a suburban dude (@DThompson25) 19 November 2018

Posey is charged with two counts of communicating false information of planned arson, according to the Times-Picayune.
Time and again we are slapped with an atrocious incident of sexual assault and it's sickening, to say the least.

Despite the MeToo movement and widespread rage against sexual assaulters, some men really can't reign in their urges. Now again, a man allegedly masturbated in front of a student on a Delhi bus.

Reuters/Picture For Representation

The worst part about this incident was that the commuters present didn't flinch one bit and continued watching the disgusting act.

The incident occurred on Tuesday when the student was travelling from Kapashera to Vasant Kunj. According to the girl, she was sitting on the seat reserved for ladies when a man came in front of her and started fondling himself.

ALSO READ: Of Ogling, Flashing & Masturbating: Why Public Transport Is Most Unsafe For Women

The victim started crying and asked for help but not a soul budged. So, the girl took matter in her own hands and beat up the menacing bloke and handed him over to the police.

Reuters

According to a report by PTI, the man, a hawker by profession, was arrested from Shyampukur police station area in the city.

Delhi: Man arrested on charges of masturbating in front of a girl on a bus yesterday. Surviour says no one on the bus helped her and she had to overpower the culprit alone. Police investigation underway  ANI (@ANI) 21 November 2018

In April, an Uber driver was arrested for allegedly masturbating while dropping a woman passenger in his cab in Delhi.

ALSO READ: Disgusting Picture Of Lahore Man Masturbating In Public Sparks An Unsettling Debate On Internet

In a separate incident in February, a student of Delhi University (DU) had lodged a complaint against a middle-aged man for allegedly masturbating beside her in a moving bus.

As we all know, this is probably the millionth case of public masturbation and there just seems to be no end to this shenanigans. But the good thing is, not everyone is willing to take this sitting down.
In a chilling incident, a Moroccan woman allegedly murdered her lover, minced and cooked his flesh in a traditional Arabic dish called machboos and served the dish to a few construction workers working near her home in UAE.

Facebook

The 30-year-old woman told police that she butchered her boyfriend- who was in his 20s - to get back at him for dumping her after seven years of financial support.

The man's brother filed a missing-person report last January. When he went to the couple's home and asked the accused about his brother, she said she didn't know where he was and that they broke up after she learned that the man was about to marry another woman.

He then spotted a human tooth in a blender, which led to the woman's recent arrest, states reports.

The Al Ain Police conducted DNA tests that proved that the tooth and the rest of the blender's contents belonged to the deceased.

During the police investigation, the woman said that after chopping her boyfriend's body, she asked her friend to clean up the house and get rid of the remains.

The woman would be referred to Al Ain court on charges of premeditated murder.

Agency Inputs
Actor Amitabh Bachchan is being conferred the Sayaji Ratna Award by the Baroda Management Association in Vadodara on Nov. 20. The superstar has taken care of paying farmer loans from the Uttar Pradesh. (IANS photo)
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. Mayor of Yerevan Hayk Marutyan has held a meeting today with UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Shombi Sharp, the City Hall said in a press release.

During the meeting the Mayor praised the process of the active cooperation and results between Yerevan and UNDP. Marutyan noted that the City Hall is further ready for cooperation, with the hope that the ongoing programs will be continuous.

Sharp reiterated the existing close cooperation with the city. He said that cooperation between UNDP and Yerevan is literally visible  modern street lighting systems have been installed that enable up to 60% energy saving and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the UNDP has provided assistance in increasing energy efficiency in several public and apartment buildings.

With a grant provided by the Green Climate Fund, an energy efficiency raising project is being carried out in public buildings of Yerevan with joint co-funding.

Soon a renovated childrens center will be inaugurated in the Erebuni district, with an increased 50% energy efficiency.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Infosys plans to hire 500 American workers at its new Technology and Innovation Hub in the Richardson, Texas. Above: file photo of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott visiting Infosys corporate headquarters in Bengaluru, India, earlier this year. (gov.texas.gov photo)
A wounded Kashmiri youth on a stretcher in Srinagar's main hospital Nov. 20 after he was fired upon during a protest against the killing of four militants. Four militants and an Indian army commando were killed Nov. 20 in a gunbattle south of Srinagar, officials and local reports said, triggering protests. Policeopened fire with pellet guns and live ammunition to disperse protestors. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images)
The government of Haicheng city, in the Chinese province of Liaoning, has set out its plan to restart local magnesite mining, with expectations it will permit exploring again after mid-September 2019.

The Haicheng city government has set three phases of its plan to regulate magnesite mining and ensure sustainable development...
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YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian attended a meeting on Universal Children's Day at TUMO center on November 21, joining the global initiative of UNICEF to make childrens voice heard.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Presidents Office, during the event the children representing different educational institutions raised the issues concerning them.

In his speech President Sarkissian emphasized that for him children are the most valuable citizens of Armenia. Armen Sarkissian also participated in the discussions and answered the questions of the children.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
The employers I talk to at Agency Iceberg know that offering freedom is a competitive way to attract and retain great people. But cracks are showing. Some leaders are worried that productivity is taking a hit and team culture is dying, as people arent as present in the office. They know some employees are taking too many liberties, but they dont want to snatch back the benefit.

If this sounds familiar, it might be time to tighten up flexibility in your business. Here are some questions to consider.

Are my employees taking advantage?

If youve hired well, you should have committed people. But talent of all tenures, generations and personal situations can lose focus when you loosen structure. Watch for signs such as missing meetings, being difficult to reach online or via mobile within agreed hours, not hitting targets, or failing to meet deadlines.

Keep an eye on increasing requests for flex-time favours that dont suit your business. Too many Friday afternoons off, despite the promise of making up time on the weekend, is unlikely to suit client-facing roles.

How much flexibility suits what we do?

Think about the type of work that must be done, and when and where its best performed. Consider the ideal situations for teamwork, client meetings and mentoring. Whats the right mix of in-person or online interactions for each  for example, daily in-person WIPs, weekly face-to-face strategy sessions or continual dialogue online?

Should flexibility be earned?

If you give freedom to one part of the business, you should give it to all, with awareness of whats appropriate for each role. But for new hires, it could help to set a probation phase. You can understand their working style, build trust and ensure they know whats expected.

How can I get some discipline back?

When setting boundaries, look at your own behaviour first. Are you being responsive when o -site, taking interest in your staff so they feel energised? Then ask your team how they view the situation, as they could be struggling to adjust to digital life, and you can think about how to better manage the change.

Easy ways to get structure back include booking regular in-person meetings and agreeing on hours employees must be available to clients and colleagues. Set expectations for response times, regardless of where the employee will be working from.

How can technology help?

You can keep everyone in easy reach by supplying quick messaging tools (such as Skype for Business, Slack or Google Chat) and video conferencing capabilities. Project management cloud platforms such as Toggl are great for time tracking, and workflow dashboards such as Trello help you see what everyones up to on projects.

How can culture help?

You want people to be self-motivated and happy to come into the office, and to stay focused on their work when o -site. Culture can play a big part in getting momentum back. Set up workshops to share insights, challenges and encouragement. And theres nothing wrong with team lunches and Friday celebrations to bring back the spark! Flex is the future  but within reason.

Digital freedom is here, and everyone wants to embrace the benefits. Considering these questions should help you offer flexibility while keeping productivity high and a great company culture alive.

A recruitment expert and the founder and director of Agency Iceberg, Anna ODea has placed thousands of employees in the best workplaces. ODea is also the founder of #LeadingLadies, an award-winning interview series featuring C-suite professionals career journeys.
Chan and Nugent join MetLife from BT Group, collectively bringing more than 17 years of experience in the financial services industry. Murphy makes the switch from AMP and has more than a decade of financial-services industry experience, while Nyabadza moves from CommInsure, bringing more than 11 years of experience to his new role.

Were a people business. We want every single adviser who works with us to have a one-on-one relationship with somebody at MetLife who cares for them and whom they trust to deliver great outcomes for their clients, said Matt Lippiatt, head of retail sales. Marcus, Aaron, Pat, and Stephen bring energy, experience and insight to our team and will enable us to work with even more advisers around Australia.

The appointments come just four months after the launch of MetLife Protect, a modular life-insurance product for small-to-medium enterprises and families.

Were delighted to be expanding our team at this exciting time for MetLife, said Lippiatt. I know their experience and passion will be key to driving our success in the adviser market.
Sturgess is an experienced industry executive who knows and values the Arch brand, Papadopoulo said. His elevation to lead our international operations is well deserved, and Im confident in his ability to successfully build on the transformation started by Matt Shulman.

Sturgess has been with Arch Insurance since 2005, and before that held various roles in the financial services industry, including tenures with the Royal Bank of Canada and Chubb Insurance Company of Canada.

Two strategic appointments have also been made at Arch Insurance Canada, effective January 01, with Gale Lockbaum becoming president and chief operating officer and Jean-Pierre Galipeault taking the role of chief regional executive.
In Australia, cyber insurance has traditionally been seen as a liability line of cover, explains Davis. However, our claims data is useful to inform businesses and brokers alike what their actual exposures are, which are the first party lines of coverage, such as cybercrime and business interruption. These are two areas which all businesses can relate to, whether they hold a large amount of sensitive data or not.

During 2017, cybercrime made up approximately 30% of CFCs claims. Ransomware  in part driven by numerous large-scale events over the course of the year  also made up a significant percentage.

One of the most significant issues, says Davis, is that many SMEs see themselves as simply too small for cybercriminals to bother with them. But this is a short-sighted view, she warns. SMEs do not always have the resources to have dedicated IT security teams, and things can slip through with relative ease.

Simple human error can provide a gateway for problems, Davis says. Id say around 75% of our current claims can be traced back to human error  someone clicking a dodgy link or opening a spam email, for example.

Additionally, brokers should work with their clients to develop better outcomes around cyber-threats.

Youd be surprised at how many SMEs dont have proper policies around basic things, like patching, employee awareness training and testing backups, says Davis.

However, this can yield a hidden advantage for brokers; as the wording around cyber insurance policies is not yet as firmly established as in many other industries, these policies present brokers with a unique opportunity to form a close partnership with their clients.

Its important for businesses to remember that youre not trying to replace the IT department, says Davis. Having proper cover is intended to be complementary, working in conjunction with the internet security policies that the IT department already has in place.

The costs incurred as the result of a cyberattack can be considerable, with shutdown costs, digital forensics and all potentially chewing up valuable resources. Additionally, it can also severely damage the reputation of the organisation. While in the past businesses have frequently glossed over data breaches, Australias new mandatory reporting laws have meant a far greater degree of public scrutiny and exposure.

However, with the right broker and insurance partner, organisations can get back on their feet as soon as possible, says Davis.

Ultimately, were eager to provide brokers with the tools, talking points, case studies and data to help them address myths around cyber insurance policy when theyre meeting with clients, she said.
However, with a new data privacy breach hitting the global headlines every day, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about how their personal data is being stored and processed. This great societal shift around the notion of digital privacy has been recognized by policy makers and regulators in the shape of strict new rules and regulations.

On May 25, 2018, the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. As the strongest data protection regime in the world, the GDPR has extra-territorial reach that applies strict regulation upon any company offering goods or services to EU residents or monitoring the behavior of EU residents. The GDPR is built around the concept of consent, meaning consumers have more power to determine what happens with their personal data. For example, they have the right to be forgotten and the right to access any information a company holds on them within one month of asking.

Insurance is and always will be a data industry. Its a vital component across the entire insurance value chain, from prospecting, to marketing, to underwriting, to claims and so on. Data is the air the insurance industry breathes, and yet the industry must be cautious and abide by the consumer protection laws coming into force around the world.

As insurers, data is the foundation of everything we do. We would certainly be nervous about the introduction of a law that might deny access to the data we need to underwrite our products effectively, said Nat Wienecke, senior vice president for federal government relations at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCIAA).

The US does not yet have a GDPR-style federal privacy law. However, Congress has started laying the ground-work for a national privacy law. The Trump White House said this summer that the administration is meeting with companies and other interested parties to hopefully come up with a policy thats the appropriate balance between privacy and prosperity, according to White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.

At present, individual states are enacting their own privacy protections. In 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will come into effect. It has been described as being similar to GDPR in that it will compel companies to tell customers upon request what personal data theyve collected, why it was collected and what types of third parties have received it.

However, senior executives at firms like AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter and Charter Communications have appealed to Congress against the inconsistency of state privacy laws like the CCPA and have all come out in support of a federal proposal, according to the Associated Press.

I think theres a lack of knowledge among the average consumer about how much information is essentially publicly available on any one individual person, Wienecke told Insurance Business. By introducing the GDPR, Europe is at the tip of the sphere in terms of who owns personal data and what can be legally done with it. The US hasnt really answered some of these questions yet.

Lots of consumers dont realize that you can buy specific consumer data in the same way that you can buy food at a grocery store. Theres a lack of awareness around that, and as our country debates what that means, I think our primary view as an insurance industry is that we need to be able to have data in order to understand risk. Because of this data, were starting to see some really innovative risk models around the world, which is allowing insurers to experiment with different underwriting criteria and is enabling progression in the industry.

Enforcement of a GDPR-style national privacy law in the US would require a considerable cultural shift, according to Charlotte Warlock, senior associate at Clyde & Co. She said: Its a very challenging concept for some US tech companies [and data-reliant industries] to have to disclose what theyre doing with your personal data.

I was at an insurance conference recently in California and we were discussing the California Consumer Privacy Act. One of the queries from the audience was: What if I dont want to tell you what personal data I have on you? And, what if I dont want to delete it? Surely I should be able to make money from this. Thats where its going to be culturally quite challenging to get companies to see that they should be protecting peoples rights and peoples privacy rights in particular.

Stricter privacy laws wont just impact the insurance industry; they will also impact insurance consumers. Insurers are in a dynamic position where they must comply themselves and also advise others around best practices.

Insurers and brokers need to encourage insureds to institute a proper plan and to look at what data theyve got and what theyre doing with it, Worlock added. Do they have a proper procedure in place to respond to data subject access requests? Have they considered their breach notification plan? Have they considered how quickly they can respond to the discovery of a breach and mitigate their regulatory liability by making sure they do everything on time? By having proper processes in place, a lot of insureds would reduce that liability.
In 2010, Vorotinov took out a $2 million life insurance policy on himself  he also designated his wife Irina and their son Alkon as beneficiaries.

In October 2011, his body was supposedly found in Moldova by authorities following an anonymous tip. His wife traveled to Europe to confirm the identity of the corpse, which was found with a passport, hotel cards and phone numbers that all link back to Vorotinov. That body was then cremated and the ashes interred at the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

Irina later submitted a death claim to Mutual of Omaha; the insurer sent her a check for $2,048,414.09.

According to the US District Attorneys Office, Irina recruited a third party to open a bank account at a local US Bank branch. She also asked the third party to transfer $1.5 million to another account under her sons name. From March 2012 to January 2015, over $1.5 million of the payout proceeds were wired to accounts in Moldova and Switzerland.

In 2013, Customs and Border Patrol agents stopped Alkon in Detroit as he arrived from a trip to Moldova. Authorities seized his computer and found recent photos of his father, proving that he is still alive.

Irina, 51, has since pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property. She is currently serving a 37-month federal prison sentence.

Alkon, 28, pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony and was sentenced to three years of probation and over $2 million in restitution  to be paid jointly.

CBS Minnesota reported that Igor Vorotinov faces one count of mail fraud and is currently being held in Sherburn County Jail.

Related stories:

Former firefighter charged with burning down own house

California man charged with insurance fraud in children's death
Our biggest risk quite frankly is that they buy less reinsurance in the marketplace, not just necessarily from us. So, we do have that exposure, but its not like were so overweight with one or two insurance companies that if they were to merge, it would be a huge problem. Its concerning and its something we need to address  but its not a fundamental challenge to our business model.

There has been a trend in recent years of higher retentions and less reinsurance buying, but I think that has probably reversed a bit. I dont think theres an enormous wholesale change of companies buying reinsurance, but the trend has probably turned from a slight decrease (with more retentions at insurance companies) to a slight purchase increase. Some of that comes from these mergers and acquisitions. In rare cases, some of these acquisitions actually create more reinsurance spend because they find out theyve got accumulations in aggregation that they dont want to hold on their balance sheet, so they turn to reinsurance.

From a reinsurance business standpoint, M&A is not a key focus within Swiss Re, according to Wolfe. The business has huge global scale and enormous diversification with regards to the lines it operates in, so theres really no need to pursue acquisitions, he explained. A few key drivers of M&A activity in the insurance industry are: scale, diversification, talent, processes and systems. Wolfe commented: Those are some of the key areas I would think about when considering a purchase. The answer in a lot of cases is that Swiss Re either has it or has something thats as good as whats out there in the marketplace.

Rather than looking to buy other firms, Swiss Re is more interested in partnership opportunities. The reinsurance giant is constantly on the look out for innovative companies that can benefit from the assistance, scale, expertise and resources it can provide, while also improving Swiss Res knowledge in a niche area. Its not Swiss Res strategy to take equity stakes in new companies, but rather to look for companies that are beyond start-up level and have some form of revenue stream and customer base, so they can engage with Swiss Re on a larger scale.

Our biggest priority now is thinking about how we can create more insurance and then ultimately reinsurance opportunities, Wolfe told Insurance Business. We want to increase the size of the market. How do we get people who have uninsured or underinsured risks in society to think about the insurance system and then ultimately the reinsurance system as a method to transfer or help mitigate those risks? How do we help our clients grow? If we can help them grow, were ultimately going to grow along with them. Thats how we approach most of our relationships.
Most of the demand will come from Asia, where premiums are expected to grow by around 9%  three times faster than the global average. Furthermore, innovation in insurance will expand the boundaries of insurability and further drive premium growth, the report said. It will also help improve global resilience by narrowing existing insurance protection gaps.

The global economy has been performing well, and growth will remain solid, said Jerome Jean Haegeli, chief economist at Swiss Re. However, the best is probably over. Cyclical momentum is positive but we expect real GDP to slow by about 1-2 percentage points in most parts of the world over the next two years. This also takes into account mounting structural challenges to growth, such as higher debt burdens, reduced savings on account of aging societies, and low productivity.

The report identified an increase in downside risks to global growth, such as the record-low level of unemployment in the US that could likely lead to higher wage gains, as well as the higher risk of overheating in the medium term. In the long term, escalation of US-China trade tensions in to a global trade war poses a huge risk to economic growth. The report estimates that a worst-case scenario, such as a 10% tariff on all goods worldwide, would decrease global GDP by 1.5% to 2% in a three-year period.

As for the insurance sector, the current good economic growth environment is conducive to insurance premium development, Swiss Re said. It forecasts that global non-life and life premiums will both grow by around 3% annually over 2019/20, with gains driven by the emerging markets, many of which are in Asia.

With the global economic power shift from west to east continuing unabated, China and emerging Asia in particular, will be the main source of insurance demand in the coming years, Haegeli said. Based on our models, we project that in US dollar terms, the growth rate of insurance premiums in emerging Asia will be more than three times that of the world average over the next two years. According to its data, Chinas share of global premiums increased from 0.8% in 2000 to 9.7% in 2017, and is predicted to reach 16% by 2028.

The report also addressed the issue of resilience, saying that the world economy remains mostly unprepared for a global recession, 10 years after the financial crisis. It said that the economy has less capacity to absorb shocks due to lower growth trends when compared to a decade ago, higher debt burdens, weaker financial market structures, and a trend leaning towards less openness.

It also highlighted the importance and potential of insurance as a pillar of resilience, and argued that a more supportive policy environment will allow insurers to expand their risk-absorbing capacity and long-term investment activities in resilience-building projects such as infrastructure.

sigma estimates that the global re/insurance sector has total assets under management of about USD 30 trillion  roughly three times the size of Chinas economy This large asset base should be fully mobilised as risk absorber.

In order to mobilize these funds, Swiss Re said that the industry and governments must harness innovation in insurance to narrow protection gaps. Developments such as parametric insurance are expanding the scope of insurability for natural catastrophe risks that have previously been difficult to insure, it said.

The report was published in Swiss Res flagship research publication sigma, which marks its 50th anniversary this year.
Through the partnership, BreachAwares platform will be provided alongside Burns & Wilcoxs other cyber products and services, allowing commercial clients to better understand their exposure to compromised credentials, a release said.

BreachAwares platform could also lead to more favorable cyber insurance premiums for Burns & Wilcoxs clients.

Cyber threats continue to be a major business concern. Burns & Wilcox partnered with BreachAware to pair cyber security and monitoring services with our specialty insurance solutions. Brokers and agents can now offer their clients another solution to improve security, regardless if they have a cyber Insurance product, said Burns & Wilcox corporate vice-president, national professional liability practice leader David Derigiotis.

Our team understands the importance of cyber security and risk management in the insurance industry, and our program is fit to complement the services offered through Burns & Wilcox, added BreachAware CEO Andrew Alston.

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Theyre just trying to disrupt the distribution channel of leads, so when they have a device in every house and theyre able to integrate with any carrier, theyre effectively using themselves as a lead provider, said Laird Rixford, CEO of Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC). But then you have a lot of carriers, such as Travelers, that are going to continue to distribute those leads to their own agencies, so theyre trying to keep their agencies in the mix for the time being.

Read more: Will insurers be able to compete with Amazon?

The real risk, added Rixford, is when we look further down the road.

As more and more carriers either look to create their own call centers or funnel leads only to key partners, thats a strategy that Amazon or Google, or anybody out there, might take advantage of by becoming the source of leads, he said. However, while Amazon is extremely ubiquitous  its all over the place and they have lots of reaches into peoples world  its not the end-all, be-all.

A lot of services available through Amazon today are not ones that normal consumers are purchasing on a regular basis because they prefer traditional ways of doing things, Rixford told Insurance Business, and that could continue with insurance. Its also not the first time that the industry has faced a disruptive threat and come out the other end intact.

There was the big worry about the internet disrupting insurance lead distribution and it really hasnt happened, explained Rixford. Some channels have changed, but agencies that have embraced the internet and embraced technology, theyre still getting leads, theyre still generating leads, and then they have the added benefit of actually having relationships and building that one-to-one relationship with their clients, and building that rapport that leads to long-term clients and not just a single-day customer.

As for smart home kits, agencies and carriers have been providing roadside kits, home planning kits, and home inventory applications for a long time, and they in turn create a deeper bond between the insurance provider and consumer. Amazons AI capabilities are also not unique, with agencies and carriers starting to leverage AI to better serve their customers, alongside exploring the integration of other technology solutions into business processes.

Read more: Evolution in insurtech continues, backed by funding from industry giants

Yet, while Rixford doesnt see Amazon becoming an insurance carrier or direct agency anytime soon, the industry should still feel some pressure.

We as an industry need to operate in a way that continues to make sure we are protecting ourselves from any threat, whether it be Amazon or Google or anything that might disrupt long-term the current way of how insurance is distributed to consumers, he said. We just need to be, as an industry, cognizant of that and make sure that were leveraging the same technologies that they do.
A Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled that Dielectrics, a Massachusetts-based medical device manufacturer, illegally fired Ileana Bermudez after she collected workers compensation benefits and filed a lawsuit against the company.

The case, Ileana Bermudez vs. Dielectrics, Inc., came about after Career Group Staffing Services Inc., a temporary employment agency, hired Bermudez and placed her at Dielectrics Chicopee, Mass., manufacturing facility.

On July 26, 2013, Bermudez was injured when Kevin Ramos, an employee working at the facility, negligently operated a forklift, causing several large metal sheets to fall on her right foot.

Bermudez suffered a fracture to her right foot as a result, and she could not work for about eight weeks. She filed a workers compensation claim that named Career Group as her employer and collected benefits from its insurer for medical bills and lost wages.

She was able to return to work at the facility in September 2013, and in December 2013, she was hired as a full-time employee. In July 2015, she filed a third-party action for negligence and respondeat superior against Dielectrics and Ramos. Dielectrics then terminated Bermudez in a notice.

It is important to Dielectrics that when we promote an employee to a supervisory position the employee has a belief in the [c]ompany and behave[s] with the [c]ompanys best interests at heart. Our supervisors need to support Dielectrics in that way so that we can entrust them to spread those same values to their subordinates.

When you sued Dielectrics after being compensated for your injury by workers compensation, we had little choice but to conclude that you dont believe in the company and dont have its best interests in mind, the notice stated, as referenced in the Appeals Court opinion. This adversely affects the department youve been entrusted to supervise and the company as a whole. As such, we have decided to terminate your employment effective immediately.

As a result, Bermudez brought an action against Dielectrics for retaliatory termination. A first judge ruled that Dielectrics wasnt an employer and couldnt be sued for retaliation but allowed Bermudez 20 days to file an amended complaint for wrongful termination in violation of public policy. Bermudez filed an amended complaint that added this public policy claim.

After Dielectrics moved to dismiss the amended complaint, however, Bermudez voluntarily dismissed her public policy claim and a second judge also dismissed her claim for retaliatory termination. Bermudez appealed, contending that the dismissal is erroneous because her third-party negligence claim is a right.

In his opinion regarding the appeal, Associate Justice James R. Lemire pointed to the Massachusetts workers compensation act, which provides wage-loss protection to employees who are injured on the job and incur a loss of earning capacity from the injury.

He stated in his opinion that prior to 1971, when an employee suffered from a work-related injury, she could choose either to file for benefits under the act or to file a third-party action for her injuries but could not do both. In 1971, a revised version of the act abolished the necessity for an election between filing a workers compensation claim and an action against a negligent third party.

In 1991, the act was amended again through the workers compensation reform act.

The language in the first sentence of the 1971 statute, abolishing the need for an election between remedies, remained the same for the 1991 statute, Lemire stated in his opinion. At the time of Bermudezs injury, an employee was entitled to pursue a third-party action against any person responsible for her injury after collecting benefits under the act.

Although Dielectrics argued that the right to sue for personal injury cannot be afforded by the act because it was created by common law, the Massachusetts Appeals Court disagreed, finding that Massachusetts law prohibits an employer from retaliating against its employee for exercising a right afforded by the act.

In Lemires opinion, he stated that without the 1971 amendment, Bermudez likely would not be able to sue Dielectrics for her injury because she already collected workers compensation from Career Group.

It would be unfair today to allow an employee to file both a workers compensation claim and a third-party action, yet only prevent the employer from terminating an employee for filing one claim but not the other, Lemire continued in his opinion.

As a result, the Massachusetts Appeals Court concluded that Bermudez exercised a right afforded by the act when she filed her third-party action against Dielectrics, and her amended complaint sets forth sufficient facts that Dielectrics termination of her employment was in retaliation for the third-party negligence suit. The judgment to dismiss her amended complaint was therefore vacated.

Topics Legislation Workers' Compensation Massachusetts Manufacturing
British company structures which hide the identity of those behind them were branded a disgrace by the whistleblower who brought to light an alleged 200 billion euro ($228 billion) money laundering scandal involving Danske Bank.

The role of the United Kingdom is an absolute disgrace. Limited liability partnerships and Scottish liability partnerships have been abused for absolutely years, Howard Wilkinson, who headed Danske Banks Baltics trading unit from 2007 to 2014, told European Union lawmakers on Wednesday.

And in a sign of the wider repercussions of the Danske Bank affair, Deutsche Bank said it played only a secondary role as a correspondent bank, limiting its need to know about the people behind the transactions.

Chief Regulatory Officer Sylvie Matherat said that the German bank had acted once it noticed suspicious transactions, but declined to comment on the volume of payments.

Deutsche Bank helped process up to $150 billion in suspicious payments, a source with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters on Monday.

Payments made through the tiny Estonian branch of Denmarks biggest bank between 2007 and 2015 have triggered investigations by authorities in Denmark, Estonia, Britain and the United States and caused anger among shareholders who have seen the value of their investments in Danske Bank tumble.

Britains National Crime Agency (NCA) has said it is investigating the use of UK-registered companies and a number of so-called professional enablers in connection with the widening scandal, which has already led to the departure of both Danskes chief executive and chairman.

Whistleblower Protection

On Tuesday, a coalition of law firms said they would be pursuing compensation on behalf of investors, in the first move to claim damages against Danske Bank.

Danske Banks interim CEO Jesper Nielsen told the EU lawmakers that it had found signs of internal collusion and suspicious activity that needed to be investigated.

It is up for the authorities now to determine the exact level of money laundering and the same goes for what happens to the 42 people that have been reported to authorities and the eight that has been directly to the police, Nielsen said.

Wilkinson, whose anonymity was ended by an Estonian newspaper, said this was a gross abuse of human rights, in part because whistleblowers risk never working again.

The Briton said he did not back mandatory internal reporting channels for whistleblowers, although he said it would not have crossed his mind to go to Estonian authorities in 2013 because he trusted his employer to deal properly with his reports.

He also called on EU lawmakers to ban non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) such as the one he signed with Danske Bank, which prevent former employees speaking out over wrongdoing.

I took the view that the right thing to do was to take his (a senior executives) word for it and take the money, he said when asked why he had signed an NDA with Danske Bank.

American Connection

Wilkinson reiterated his view that almost all the money that flowed through Danske Banks Estonian branch passed through banks in the United States, including one major European lender.

In my estimate 80-90 percent of the money that went through Danske Bank ended up in dollars leaving through U.S. correspondent banks into the financial system, he said.

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Bank of America all cleared dollar transactions for Danskes Estonian branch, sources have told Reuters.

JPMorgan ended the correspondent banking relationship with Danske in 2013 on grounds that transactions did not comply with anti-money laundering rules, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday, while Bank of America has declined to comment.

Wilkinsons U.S. lawyer Stephen Kohn has said the EU should harmonize whistleblower protection with the United States to avoid major money laundering scandals like the Danske incident.

In a written response to the EU lawmakers, Kohn called for the establishment of a government agency where whistleblowers can report confidentially or anonymously, as well as payments of 10-30 percent of the proceeds obtained from wrongdoers to incentivise whistleblowers to step forward.

A number of U.S. authorities offer financial rewards to incentivise informants to help recover billions of dollars lost to large-scale and often well hidden economic crime.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says it alone paid $168 million to 13 individuals in the latest financial year, up from $50 million in the previous year. It has handed $326 million to 59 people since the program began in 2011.

Increased protection for whistleblowers against retaliation, and remedies to compensate them for loss of reputation and income and emotional distress, is also crucial, Kohn added.

Danish lawmakers pledged to improve legal protection for whistleblowers following a public hearing on Monday.

($1 = 0.8776 euros) (Additional reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Teis Jensen in Copenhagen and Kirstin Ridley in London; writing by Alexander Smith; editing by Jason Neely/Keith Weir)

Related:

Topics Legislation USA Europe Uk
Generali has earmarked up to four billion euros for acquisitions and growth as it looks to asset management and high-margin business in Latin America and Asia to fuel earnings.

Italys top insurer  which generates most of its revenues in Italy, France and Germany  said in its new plan covering the next three years it was keen to strengthen its position as Europes top player.

But it also said it was looking to expand in emerging markets where margins were higher. It said Asian and Latin America markets could provide up to 25 percent of annual earnings growth.

Europe is a priority for M&A but well also look at high-potential markets if it can give us size, General Manager Frederic de Courtois told analysts.

He said deals would involve insurers and asset managers but cautioned there was no rush and nothing was currently on the table.

If suitable targets had not been found by the end of the plan then other solutions to use the capital would be considered, including a share buyback, de Courtois added.

Europes third-biggest insurer will generate more than 10 billion euros [$11.4 billion] cash in the next three years, paying 4.5-5 billion euros [$5.1 billion-$5.7 billion] in dividends, cutting debt by up to 2 billion euros [$2.3 billion] and deploying 3-4 billion euros [$3.4 billion-$4.6 billion] for growth.

Asset management is increasingly complementary and by the end of 2021 we will be an insurance and asset management group, Chief Executive Philippe Donnet said.

Donnet, who took over as CEO in 2016, has been selling off non-core assets over the past two years to focus on capital-light products, new services and fee-based businesses.

Generali is looking to grow its managed asset business so it can cross-sell products to its policy holders and avoid paying fees to third-party operators to boost earnings.

In September it said it was in exclusive talks to buy French asset manager Sycomore and in October agreed to buy Polands Union Investment.

The insurer, which will grow earnings per share by 6-8 percent a year to 2021, said it expected to add 50 basis points to its Solvency II  a key indicator of financial strength.

UBS said while Generalis new targets were positive, especially debt reduction, the groups shares rightly reflected concerns over political uncertainty.

A high solvency ratio and healthy capital generation provide some downside protection, the broker said.

Generali holds 64 billion euros in Italian state bonds which have weighed on the groups share price in recent months as investors fret over the new populist governments deficit spending plans.

Chief Investment Officer Timothy Ryan said Generali now sees better investment opportunities in private markets than in government bonds.

At 1305 GMT Generali shares were up 0.7 percent in line with the European insurance sector.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari and Stephen Jewkes; editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Topics Mergers Europe Generali Life Assurance (Thailand) Plc.
An air ambulance on its way to pick up a patient crashed shortly after taking off in North Dakota, killing all three people on board, and military officials involved in the response said the plane may have broken up in midair.

The twin-engine Bismarck Air Medical airplane took off about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and crashed shortly after in a field about 20 miles northwest of Bismarck. Air traffic control officials lost contact with the plane about 11 p.m., county spokeswoman Maxine Herr said.

CHI St. Alexius Health and Bismarck Air Medical said in a joint statement that the pilot, a paramedic and a registered nurse had been heading to Williston to pick up a patient. The statement did not provide their names.

It is a sad day here for both of our organizations, Kurt Schley, president of CHI St. Alexius Health Bismarck, and Dan Schaefer, operations chief for Bismarck Air Medical and Metro Area Ambulance Operations, said. We are grieving for the family members of those who were on board.

The Morton County Sheriffs Office, Civil Air Patrol and Air Force Rescue Coordination Center based at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida located the crash scene around early Monday using radar and cellphone technology, Herr said.

An analysis by the Air Force team indicated the plane might have broken up at about 14,000 feet and that corresponded with what they found on the ground, said Civil Air Patrol Lt. Col. Sean Johnson.

He said he didnt want to speculate on the cause. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating. FAA records show that the Cessna 441 turboprop was built in 1982. Bismarck Air Medical is listed as the registered owner.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Schild said there was light snow in the area at the time but no hazardous weather. Johnson said there was the potential for fog or haze.

Gov. Doug Burgum issued a statement expressing condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims.

We are deeply saddened by the news of last nights airplane crash that claimed the lives of the pilot, a paramedic and a registered nurse  individuals who dedicated their lives to saving the lives of others, he said. We are forever grateful for their service.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics North Dakota
Gallagher Affinity and Secure CyberID, a provider of cybersecurity services, have launched an online, discounted suite of cybersecurity products for small to mid-sized companies under contract with the federal government. The 360 Coverage Pros portal is designed to meet the growing demand for cyber and data breach prevention, insurance and compliance.

360 Coverage Pros will offer federal contractors data breach and cyber liability insurance fas well as standards and technology compliance services, cyber risk assessments, and data breach protection and response.

Cyber criminals and foreign adversaries continue to target small to-midsize businesses, especially in the federal government supply chain. Often with limited resources (IT and financial), these SMBs are viewed as easy targets for cyber-attacks, said Will Lynch, founder and CEO of Secure CyberID.

Secure CyberID is a provider of cybersecurity, data breach protection and identity theft products.

Topics Lawsuits Cyber New Markets A.J. Gallagher Contractors
Long-term exposure to a chemical compound currently used for making nonstick coatings appears to be dangerous, even in minute amounts, according to draft findings released by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It was the first time EPA weighed in on newer, supposedly safer versions of an increasingly scrutinized family of stick- and stain-resistant compounds. Older versions of the compound are turning up in dangerous levels in drinking water supplies around the country.

Drinking water contamination has been the main concern cited by public health officials and regulators in connection with the compounds, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalyl substances, or PFAS.

The EPA findings said animal studies show the so-called GenX nonstick compound has the potential of affecting the kidneys, blood, immune system, liver and developing fetuses following oral exposure. The data are suggestive of cancer, the draft report said.

Toxicity is only one piece of information that public officials consider when determining whether there is a risk to public health, the report said. Other factors, such as exposure, must also be considered.

Lee Ferguson, an environmental analytical chemist and associate professor at Duke University, said those findings would mean the compounds that were replacing toxic compounds for are also toxic.

Concern over GenX, used in Teflon and other materials, has been strongest in North Carolina. Authorities have found it in water supplies serving hundreds of thousands of people downstream of a Chemours Co. plant that makes it outside Fayetteville.

The recent draft findings suggest chronic exposure to GenX is dangerous at levels as low as a few hundred parts per trillion, Ferguson said. Two older versions from the same family of compounds  taken out of manufacturing in the United States  have been found to be dangerous at less than a hundred parts per trillion.

PFAS are used in nonstick coatings on things ranging from pans to fast-food wrappers, as well as firefighting foam. Federal toxicology officials determined recently that the two phased-out versions of the compound are dangerous at levels far lower than previously known. An unidentified White House official in an email released through open-records laws called that finding a potential public relations nightmare earlier this year.

Chemours media representatives didnt immediately respond to a phone call and email seeking comment on the EPA report.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican whose district stretches into the Fayetteville area, said he looks forward to the completion of a pending EPA management plan that the agency says will help guide state and local governments.

I encourage swift action to help the state better understand what we need to do going forward to keep our water clean and keep our citizens safe, he said in a news release.

In one of the North Carolina areas dealing with GenX contamination, New Hanover County public health director Phillip Tarte said he was reviewing the report, calling it an important step.

There are no federal health standards for GenX. The EPA classifies it as an emerging contaminant needing research.

The chemical is related to other fluorinated chemicals including PFOA, which has been blamed for causing health problems. In February 2017, Chemours and DuPont  which spun off Chemours two years ago  agreed to pay nearly $671 million to settle thousands of lawsuits related to the release of PFOA from a Parkersburg, West Virginia, plant more than a decade ago.

The EPA held a series of hearings on the contaminants earlier in the year. State and local officials and others used the hearings to urge the agency to take the lead in regulating the compounds.

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement Wednesday that the EPA is delivering on its commitment to provide our state and local partners the tools and information they need to address PFAS.

The EPA will now seek 60 days of public comment on its findings.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Pollution Chemicals
Louisiana is getting $161.4 million in restoration grants from the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill to restore two barrier islands and a headland in the Terrebonne Basin.

The work will restore Timbalier and Trinity islands, which are currently at a critical minimum width in some areas, and the West Bell Headland.

Additionally, this proposal includes funding to enhance plans for the long-term sustainability of the entire length of Louisiana barrier islands, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation said.

In addition to Louisiana, three other Gulf states are getting a share of an additional $280 million in restoration grants from stemming from the BP spill.

Florida is receiving $53 million for seven projects, including $16 million to protect coastal forest and wetlands along the Lower Suwanee River and Big Bend coast, the foundation said in a news release.

Nearly $49 million will go to eight Alabama projects, including $22.5 million to create and restore artificial reefs. Texas will get $19 million for five projects, including $6 million to protect 575 acres of coastal habitat in Cameron County, next to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuges Bahia Grande Unit.

The foundation is getting $2.5 billion over five years for restoration projects. The moneys coming from criminal damages paid by BP PLC and drilling company Transocean Deepwater Inc.

The latest grants are the sixth round and bring the total so far to $1.3 billion.

The spill was off Louisiana, which suffered the worst damage and has received more than $625 million for 13 projects. Alabama has received more than $195 million for 32 projects; Florida more than $160 million for 33 projects, and Texas more than $150 million for 47 projects.

Foundation spokesman Rob Blumenthal said Mississippi, which has received nearly $140 million for 18 projects, did not have any new projects considered for this round of grants.

The smallest grant awarded on Nov. 19 was $100,000 to remove invasive species and debris from Hurricane Harvey and then plant native vegetation at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center within the Port Aransas Nature Preserve.

Hurricane Harvey destroyed two miles of boardwalk and uprooted significant stands of wetland vegetation in the preserve that settled as debris, smothering existing wetland vegetation and causing significant degradation of coastal marsh habitat, a news release said. The debris has prevented the regrowth of marsh vegetation and limited the flow of freshwater to the area.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Louisiana Energy Oil Gas
A plane crash in north Georgia left one man dead and another injured.

Gainesville police say 68-year-old Robert Carlisle Alberhasky of Cumming, who was believed to have been the pilot of the small plane, was killed in the Saturday night crash.

Gainesville police spokesman Sgt. Kevin Holbrook said passenger 69-year-old Mark Lewis of Flowery Branch was critically injured and hospitalized.

Holbrook said it appeared the 2015 Lancair International Legacy RG was about to land at Lee Gilmer Memorial Airport when it possibly struck some trees and then a tower at the airport.

The Times newspaper of Gainesville reports that Gainesville police, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

Holbrook said the NTSB will be in charge of the investigation.

Information from: The Times

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Georgia Numbers
Fidelity and Vanguard are among the largest fund companies in the world, and both offer 401(k) plans as parts of their services. Since 401(k) plans operate under the same tax laws and regulations, there are three main areas of comparison: the companies themselves, the funds offered, and provider features.

Company Structure

Vanguard is owned by the clients who invest in its funds; it is similar to a customer-owned credit union in that regard. Since there are no external owners hoping to make profits, the fees are set just high enough to carry the actual operating expenses and keep the company healthy, but no more than that.

The Fidelity owner structure is more traditional with external owners, notably a series of family trusts. This fundamental difference explains why Vanguard fees consistently undercut the market average by a wide margin. However, Fidelity is by no means a high-cost company. Many of its funds are considerably cheaper than the market average, even beating Vanguard in a few notable instances.

Fidelity has received criticism in the past for its practice of subcontracting funds, essentially allowing third parties to label their funds "Fidelity" and taking a cut of the earnings while stating a lower return on investment to the investor. Since the funds don't have to make the same disclosures that a real Fidelity fund would, investors were kept in the dark about the fact they were being bilked, according to Ken Himmler, a Los Angeles-based financial planner, author, and founder and president of H&H Retirement Design and Management.

A new set of disclosure rules went into effect in 2012 that should make 401(k) fees considerably more transparent. Each 401(k) provider is now required to disclose every cent it charges in the annual prospectus it sends to its clients.

Comparing the Funds

As of February 2016, Vanguard offers over 124 funds in its lineup, while Fidelity has approximately 575. Fidelity also runs a fund network with access to over 10,000 funds from hundreds of different providers.

The main strength of Vanguard is its razor-thin fees, especially for its index funds, which helps the bottom line for investors. A fee difference of 0.5% may seem insignificant at first blush, but many years or perhaps even decades of compounding makes the size difference of the nest egg quite significant in the end.

Meanwhile, Fidelity has a knack for attracting talented fund managers and has several exceptionally successful actively managed funds. The fees may be higher, but they may be worth it for niche sectors and regional expertise.

Who has the better offering boils down to what kind of investor you are. An active trader who likes to sniff out bargains and undervalued sectors will appreciate Fidelity's vast selection. By contrast, a passive investor who merely glances at the annual statement once a year may be better served by the slimmer but cheaper selection of fundamentals offered by Vanguard.

Features

Both companies offer plenty of educational material about retirement savings, asset allocation, compounding returns, and fund basics on their websites. Vanguard has more tailored resources for specific situations, while Fidelity has a cleaner interface, making navigation a breeze.

Each offers one-on-one phone consultations and assistance for starting new accounts, and each offers an easy rollover option for dormant 401(k) capital from previous employers. Fidelity maintains a number of investment centers in most metropolitan areas and runs free investment seminars on everything from financial basics to advanced income diversification strategies in retirement. Vanguard offers personal advisors who maintain client profiles and can be reached by phone or email for investment consultations.

In truth, both companies provide very high levels of user-friendliness on their websites and in their services. The key as a client is to figure out what features are most important to you, what type of funds you are looking for, and what the costs are.
While some of the world's top coffee-producing nations are well-known, others may come as a surprise. More than 70 countries produce coffee, but the majority of global output comes from the top five producers: Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia.

1. Brazil

The production of coffee has played a pivotal role in the development of Brazil and continues to be a driving force in the country's economy. The plant was first brought to Brazil in the early 18th century by French settlers. With the rise in popularity of coffee among Europeans, Brazil became the world's largest producer in the 1840s and has been ever since.  Some 300,000 coffee farms are spread over the Brazilian landscape.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Brazil is expected to produce 58 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in the 2019-20 marketing year, accounting for more than a third of the world's production.

2. Vietnam

Relatively new to the international coffee trade, Vietnam has quickly become one of the largest producers. In the 1980s, the Communist Party made a big bet on coffee, and production increased by 20% to 30% every year during the 1990s, completely transforming the nation's economy. Vietnam is expected to produce 32.2 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in 20192020, according to the USDA.

Vietnam found a niche in the international market by focusing primarily on the less-expensive robusta bean. Robusta beans can have up to twice the caffeine as Arabica beans, giving the coffee a more bitter taste. Vietnam is the No. 1 producer of robusta coffee in the world, accounting for more than 40% of global output in the 20192020 marketing year.

3. Colombia

A popular advertising campaign featuring a fictional coffee farmer named Juan Valdez helped brand Colombia as one of the most famous coffee-producing nations. Colombia is renowned for its quality coffee and is expected to produce 14.3 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in 2019-20.

For several years beginning in 2008, Colombian coffee crops were hit by a leaf disease known as coffee rust. Output plummeted but has since rebounded as the country replaced trees with rust-resistant varieties. Colombia ranks second in arabica production, and millions worldwide prefer their mild, well-balanced flavor.

4. Indonesia

Indonesia's location and climate have helped it become the third-largest producer of robusta beans in the world. Total production, including robusta and arabica, is 10.7 million 60-kilogram bags in the 20192020 marketing year. In Indonesia, there are 1.2 million hectares of coffee crops; small, independent farms account for the vast majority of output, each owning one to two hectares.

Indonesia produces several types of highly sought-after specialty coffees, the most interesting of which is Kopi Luwak. Harvested from the feces of Asian palm civets, the beans have a distinctive and understandably unique flavor. The process of collecting and harvesting the beans is rather intensive, and the result is one of the most expensive coffee beans in the world.

5. Ethiopia

Ethiopia regained the No. 5 spot in the 20182019 year and is expected to produce 7.3 million 60-kilogram bags in the 20192020 marketing year, just edging out Honduras, which had captured position from Ethiopia in the 20162017 marketing year.

Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer in Africa and is expected to export a record amount in the 20192020 marketing year, according to the USDA.
The Simplified Employee Pension IRA (SEP IRA) offered by the Vanguard Group is considered one of the best individual retirement account (IRA) products available. Though SEP IRAs are a popular retirement savings vehicle and are offered by many different financial institutions, the Vanguard SEP IRA offers a unique combination of affordability, diverse investment options, high-quality customer service, and ease of use.

If your business does not currently offer a retirement savings plan and you'd like an inexpensive option that allows you to contribute to the retirement savings of all your employees at your discretion, a Vanguard SEP IRA may be right for you.



Key Takeaways A SEP IRA is a retirement plan that can be established by a small business or someone who is self-employed.

Vanguard offers quality SEP IRA administration for an affordable price.

In its SEP IRA, Vanguard features a suite of its low-cost index ETF and mutual fund offerings.

What Is a SEP IRA?

A SEP IRA is a retirement savings plan offered by businesses to help their employees save for retirement, or they may be set up by the self-employed for their own benefit. Rather than being funded by employee salary deferrals, like a 401(k), a SEP IRA is funded solely with employer contributions made directly to individual retirement accounts (IRAs) held by employees.

Employees retain full ownership of their IRAs and may make after-tax contributions if their specific plan allows, but the employer is primarily responsible for contributing to each employee's account on their behalf.

Employer contributions are limited to $57,000 in 2020 and $58,000 in 2021, or 25% of employee compensation, whichever is lower. If employees are allowed to make contributions, the limit is $6,000 per year in both 2020 and 2021, or $7,000 each year for those aged 50 and older because of permitted catch-up contributions. 

Contributions for the self-employed are limited to 20% of net income. Net compensation for self-employed individuals is generally the net profit from IRS Schedule C reduced by the deductible self-employment tax. The 2020 eligible compensation limit is $285,000, and in 2021, the eligible compensation limit is $290,000. 

Employees must be allowed to participate if they're 21 or older and earn at least $600 in 2020 or $650 in 2021. Also, they must have worked for you in at least three of the past five years, though employers may set less restrictive eligibility rules. Contributions to a SEP IRA must be made by the employer's tax deadline (plus extensions).

Affordability

In general, SEP IRAs are one of the more affordable retirement benefit options for employers. Since IRAs are owned by employees individually, the administering institution does not have to manage plan assets, which greatly reduces operating expenses. This makes SEP IRAs especially attractive to small business owners who may not have the excess capital to maintain more administratively intense plans.

The Vanguard SEP IRA

The chief advantage of the SEP IRA offered by Vanguard is that it is relatively cheap compared to other SEP products. Vanguard is owned by the shareholders of its mutual funds, so it does not benefit the company to charge more in fees than is truly necessary. When the company makes money, its shareholders make money, whether they hold their investments in SEP IRAs or individual brokerage accounts.

Investment Options

Like other IRA products, Vanguard's SEP IRA allows participants to invest in a range of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and individual stocks.

Vanguard mutual funds are, on average, about 83% cheaper than comparable funds offered elsewhere. They charge no load fees, no 12b-1 marketing fees, and no commissions.

A Vanguard one-person SEP IRA can invest in mutual funds and ETFs offered by Vanguard, as well as mutual funds and ETFs from other companies, individual stocks, certificates of deposit (CDs), and bonds. There is no minimum investment. A Vanguard SEP IRA for more than one person may include only Vanguard mutual funds, including Admiral Shareslow-cost index funds and actively managed funds that are limited to larger account balances ($3,000 for index funds, $50,000 for most actively managed funds, or $100,000 for certain sector-specific index funds).

Through an individual brokerage account within a SEP IRA, an account holder can purchase stocks, bonds, ETFs, and options contracts outside of the Vanguard portfolio. While these trades incur commission charges, the amount of the charge decreases as the size of the account grows.

Accounts with less than $10,000 may incur a $20 annual service charge per Vanguard mutual fund held in the account. Account-holders can circumvent this charge by signing up for electronic statements. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services is available for one-person SEP IRA holders, though it requires a $50,000 minimum investment.

Customer Service and Online Platform

The quality of service provided and the user-friendly online platform are two more reasons why Vanguard's SEP IRA and its other retirement savings products stand out from the crowd. Many people know they need to save for retirement, but they are not sure how to go about it or how to invest those savings. While no customer service system is foolproof, Vanguard seems to have a fairly good handle on what investors need.

Customer service representatives are available by phone and email. Vanguard's user-friendly website also has an extensive support center designed to help investors troubleshoot their own issues.

In addition to information about its products and the various investments available, the Vanguard site provides members with resources for planning their retirements and meeting their individual investment goals, including income calculators, expense spreadsheets, and tax filing information. The site provides a simple platform for plan-sponsoring employers to manage contributions and for employees to track the progress of their investments.
What Are Swipe Fees?

Nothing is free. Those rewards points you get on your debit card and credit card, the convenience of not having to carry loads of cash, purchase protections, and the many other perks that come with using a card are far from free. Sure, you may pay for some of them through an annual fee or interest payments, but a large portion of them are financed by the merchant.

How, you ask? In the form of interchange fees, which for some reason were quickly dubbed swipe fees by politicians back in 2010, when Congress passed a bill to regulate them. And though merchants pay them, they ultimately pass them on to you in the form of higher prices.

The Journey of the Swipe

You go into your favorite store to buy the must-have shirt that will be your party wear for the summer. Heading to the register to pay, you pull out your credit or debit card and swipe or chip it in the machine. At that time the merchant is charged an interchange or swipe fee. The average fee for transactions in which a physical card is used is 1.95% to 2% for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards. For transactions that dont involve a physical card, such as online purchases, the rates rise to between about 2.3% to 2.5%. Rates for American Express are not publicly stated but are generally thought to be higher, though the Opt Blue card, introduced in 2015, has a rate closer to the average for Visa, etc.

This fee may seem a little high, but the banks and payment processing companies, such as Visa and Mastercard, argue that when you swipe or chip your card, the merchant is paid right away, but it will most likely be a minimum of 30 daysand possibly longerbefore the credit card companies receive your payment. You may argue that the interest you incur as a result of holding a balance pays for that expense. However, according to the companies, interest alone doesnt cover the costs.

Swipe Fee Statistics

According to Nilson Report, merchants paid Visa and Mastercard $67.6 billion in swipe fees in 2019up from $25.6 billion in 2009. Add in American Express, Discover, and private label cards, and the annual total jumped to $92.7 billion. The fees averaged 23 cents for every transaction. For every $100 you spent, $4 of that went to credit card companies, even if you paid cash. In 2016, for the first time ever, credit card swipe fees exceeded the amount customers paid in overdraft fees: $33.8 billion to $33.3 billion.

The swipe fee is supposed to cover the cost of processing your credit card payment. However, for decades, the Merchants Payment Coalition has put almost blind trust in its payment processors, with agreements that contained no verifiable data, allowing plenty of opportunities for merchants to get bilked.

Credit Card Swipe Fee Laws

It was U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who offered an amendment to the regulatory bill seeking to allow the Federal Reserve to set interchange rate fees while letting merchants set a minimum amount that a consumer must spend in order to use a card. It passed in May 2010. Finally, retailers could offer customers discounts if they paid by cash or other methods that dont come with swipe fees. At the time, Durbin said, By requiring debit card fees to be reasonable...small businesses and their customers will be able to keep more of their own money.

However, credit card companies were concerned that the cap on swipe fees proposed by the Federal Reserve was only 12 cents. In late June 2011, after heavy lobbying by special interest groups representing the big banks, the maximum swipe fee was raised to 21 cents.

$92.7 million The total in swipe fees retailers paid to credit-card companies in 2019

The Effects

The compromise left credit card companies breathing a sigh of relief, but merchants argued that the 21-cent cap would do little to help their bottom line while ensuring that consumers wouldnt see any price relief. Tellingly, a U.S. Government Accountability Office study found that when Australia lowered its credit card fees in 2003, it had no noticeable effect on the price of goods and services.

What has happened in the ensuing years is that merchants are paying less than they once were, but card companies now charge the maximum swipe fee on even the smallest transactions. Therefore, merchants that process those smaller transactions have seen costs go up.

In 2018, merchants suffered a disappointing loss when the Supreme Court ruled that businesses that accept American Express cards could not offer incentives to consumers to get them to use a card with lower swipe fees. Industry insiders saw the loss as a setback to the merchants larger ambition of taking on swipe fees in the form of legal action.

However, in June 2018, a longstanding (since 2005) class-action lawsuit by merchants against Visa, Mastercard, and some of the larger issuing banks alleging that the companies were colluding to set artificially high swipe fees was settled out of court. The defendants agreed to pay the merchants between $5.54 billion and $6.24 billion. It is unclear how the money will be disbursed, but on Jan. 24, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted preliminary approval of the settlement. Final approval was granted on Dec. 13, 2019, but on Jan. 3, 2020, an appeal was filed. As of June 2021, the matter remains unresolved.

The Bottom Line

Credit card companies argue that swipe fees serve the merchant by offering certain protections and instant payment, while merchants believe that the fees are much too high. What remains constant is that these fees are passed on to consumers each time they swipe or chip their cards.
November 21, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Following the news on 13 November 2018 that global energy and services group ENGIE has acquired a 90% controlling stake in Simpa Energy India to fund geographic expansion and accelerate growth,

Ankit Mathur, Power Industry Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view on this development and its implications:

"The Indian power industry is undergoing rapid transformation and is well on course to achieve its ambitious renewable energy target of 175 gigawatt (GW) by 2022. Simpa Energy India is a leading solar solution provider in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. Through this acquisition, ENGIE, which is one of the largest foreign investors in India's solar space, is reinforcing its commitment towards decentralized renewable energy solutions to support India's rapid transition to clean energy.

"ENGIE India plans to provide solar home solutions with pay-as-you-go pricing model to households and small businesses in rural India. The company currently has around 800 megawatt (MW) of utility scale solar projects (around 330 MW under construction) and 280 MW of utility scale wind (all committed in final development or construction).

"In September 2018, ENGIE and French infrastructure and investment firm STOA announced a 50:50 joint-venture (JV) to build wind power projects in India. The JV has set a goal of establishing over 2 GW of wind power capacity over the next five years. The JV will be developing both onshore and offshore wind projects under the scope.

"In November 2018, ENGIE Laborelec, the utilities division of ENGIE, announced partnership with Tata Consultancy Services to develop cyber security products and services for power utilities and critical energy infrastructure.

"ENGIE has been actively increasing its investments and offerings in India's renewable energy and power sector. This acquisition is in line with the company's strategy to remain close to customers in the distributed energy market. The company will leverage Simpa's innovative business model in this huge untapped market with significant growth potential. The company is bullish on the Indian power market and is open to inorganic opportunities if they make a sound and promising business sense."

For more information

To gain access to our latest press releases: GlobalData Media Centre

Analysts available for comment. Please contact the GlobalData Press Office:

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Notes to Editors

Comments provided by Ankit Mathur, Power Industry Analyst at GlobalData

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Cork and other cities outside of Dublin should have a dedicated minister to help deliver on the Governments pledges under its 2040 investment plan.

The call comes from Cork Chamber president Bill OConnell, who was speaking to an audience of business and political leaders, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, at its annual gathering in Dublin.
Cork Chamber president Bill OConnell used his address at the organisations annual Dublin dinner to outline a vision of how he sees Cork in 2030 if the once in a lifetime opportunity is grasped for the city.

Speaking to an audience of 600 from the business community as well as political leaders including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr OConnell said the opportunity for Cork to complement Dublin as a global city and brand in its own right could not be wasted.

President of Cork Chamber, Bill OConnell at the annual Dublin dinner in the Clayton Hotel Burlington Road:

Taoiseach, Lord Mayor, Tanaiste, Ministers, Mayor of Cork County, Ambassadors, elected representatives, ladies and gentlemen, etc.

If you can't see the above video, click here.

"Im delighted to be here this evening. A capital city, forging ahead, with 89 cranes on the skyline, with a modal shift to 70% sustainable transport, casually announcing 1000s of new jobs at a time. An outward looking capital and a global brand. Its hard to believe its 12 months since last years event and our city regions have been moving with pace.

"So too has the GAA. One of my great passions. Some of you noticed I managed to avoid any reference to sport last year - I was more than happy with that given the crest of the wave Dublin was on, having just secured three in a row.

"Now that four in a row is in the bag I think it would be remiss of me not to single it out for special mention. We in Cork are happy weve made the obvious strategic decision (cough!) to focus solely on the small ball with our camogie and hurling which will hopefully bring Cork its first hurling title in more than 10 years. We can only live in hope.

"The biggest threat to Dublins drive for 5 is perhaps not on the field of play. I recall an episode of the Sunday Game where the panel was discussing dividing Dublin up into smaller boroughs.

"If this does happen then dont hesitate to reach out as we in Cork have plenty of experience redrawing local boundaries and would be only too happy to help! I jest of course  next year itll be fascinating to see if Dublin can get the famous five and make this team truly legendary.

"And what of Cork? Our beautiful city, our safe harbour, the Rebel county - a place like no other. Well, that beautiful county and city are poised to make great strides.

Cork is going to be the fastest growing city region over the next 20 years. Weve never had a strategic vision as strong as Ireland 2040. Ive heard our Tanaiste speak passionately on how 25% of the citys footprint has yet to be developed. We have the resources and track record to back this up. Now I say - lets just do it, lets make it happen.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and we truly have it in our grasp to make this great city region of ours a global brand and real complement to Dublin. Lets not waste it.

"So what I want to do tonight was for us to imagine what Cork is going to look like in the future  so with your indulgence (you can close your eyes if it makes it better

"The year is 2030. Dublin are going for 15 in a row...

"Ive hopped onto our Luas in Ballincollig. My iPhone 20 confirming Ive made contactless ticket payment and that my journeys by electric vehicle have saved over 350 kilos of carbon from our natural environment this month.

"Looking around I see grandmothers with their grandchildren, professionals in suits, professionals in runners, kids going to school. I listen, I hear beirt daoine ag labhairt cupla focal. La brea brothallach a bhi ann. I hear other languages too, German, Danish and Chinese.

"Glancing through the window I see the Childrens Service Centre, providing equal opportunities for all children.

"We stop at the Science park, proudly flying the EU flag. Students of UCC and Munster Technological University hop on and off. We pass a new apartment building being lifted into place in segments. Fully powered by renewable electricity, it actually contributes energy to the grid.

"One of the students wonders why people used to stand outside in mud and gravel laying block on block back in the day. They laugh before discussing the incredible careers available in construction. Its about innovation. Its about creating a better society.

Bill OConnell, Cork Chamber President; Taoiseach Leo Varadkar; Tanaiste Simon Coveney and Conor Healy, Cork Chamber CEO.

"We coast into the City Centre, past the Events Centre towards Patricks Street. A live data stream over the Capitol shows record footfall this month.

"A combination of our urban population having doubled, consumer confidence based on steady, counter-cyclical budgetary measures, steady investment in public transport infrastructure and increasing levels of sustainable high-value jobs in the city centre.

"Two Gardai on bikes chase an autonomous vehicle down the street, openly flaunting the PanaBan. Wholl get the ticket?!

"A girl next to me has her iPad out, doing an augmented reality tour of her favourite boutique before hopping off to check it out in real life. A drone leaves a menswear shop delivering a tailored suit to the customer's door.

"Coming along by the Lee, the water is pure and clear. With the addition of multiple pontoons, the river is a lively source of activity. Bikes are tied to railings. Boats come and go. Some hardy folks are taking a swim lesson while the tide is at its highest. The Urban Regeneration Fund has created three exceptional civic spaces for our city region.

"The quay walls stand steadfast -- 4km worth are fully restored and bolstered to keep our city safe and dry.

"I decide to stay on a little longer and get off just as the tracks begin their dive south through the Docklands. The Port of Cork buildings look fantastic. Limestone warehouses bordered by both channels of the Lee. Lovingly adapted to new use, adorned at their southernmost tip by Irelands tallest building.

A testament to the delivery of a New Cork. A symbol of the balance of old and new, heritage and progress. From the top floor, you can see all the way to Blackpool, to a rejuvenated historical part of our city.

Where commuters from Mallow to Midleton hop off at Kilbarry Station to work with the best tech companies in the world. Where dedicated bus and cycle lanes filter from the M20 Limerick motorway, the worlds smartest motorway.

"Best of all, apartments peep out adding a new dimension to the skyline, providing downtown accommodation, where young workers, families and senior citizens live together in new communities in the heart of the city.

"In the Docklands, our 300th Cork FDI investor recently opened its waterfront office bolstering the financial services cluster in the city even further.

"Connecting Cork. The CEO has chosen to live in a houseboat by the quayside. The availability of the new hospital, schools, housing and amenities all within walking distance having swung the decision to base in Cork rather than Frankfurt.

"A little further out, yachts and dinghies cut through clean water. Dive boards rattle under feet at the open harbour baths. The harbour is thriving. It works hard for Cork, enabled by the M28 Ringaskiddy motorway, hosting a thriving Port and ever-growing energy industry. To sea, an offshore wind farm churns slowly, exporting our energy surplus to the continent.

"The Luas doors close behind me. I walk past Kent Station. The 16.00 high speed rail to Dublin is just departing. Weve been clever here lowering journey time to 90 minutes, meaning Cork based companies can visit their Dublin outposts on a whim and be back in time for lunch on the Mall.

Totally biased but what a cracking picture of a New Cork painted by Bill!

We want to live in Cork 2030 already#CorkDubDinner #corktogether  Cork Chamber (@CorkChamber) November 20, 2018

"Dublin is evolving. Its an exemplary commuter ecosystem, the envy of capitals worldwide. Bike, walk, car, Luas, Metro, DART and Bus Connects. Live data for every commuter. A liveable city for those who choose not to commute at all. A capital city for all of Ireland to be proud of. They even have enough water.

"Walking up Summer Hill to the Chamber, the evening New York flight leaves a trail high overhead. Im struck by how much we have achieved since my time as President in 2018.

"Our community is now more diverse than ever before. We have created economic resilience, our economy is influenced by global trends rather than weakened by them. Our young people can choose incredible career paths on their front door. The diversity of the world has come to them, and they may join it elsewhere as they please, and not out of necessity.

"Entering the Chamber Council room, I am delighted to meet with Chamber colleagues and members. I refuse to eat the vegan wraps as we sit around the boardroom table waiting for our guest and the beginning of our meeting!

"When the Minister for City Regions enters the room she is warmly greeted by all. Some locally roasted coffee is poured. The meeting begins. The topic of discussion: How do we plan for a sustainable Ireland 2080?

"Its the year 2030. The Ireland 2040 commitments have been delivered by Government without delay.

"WE are Cork. Irelands most competitive and vibrant city region. The BEST place for business. And the All-Ireland back-to-back camogie and hurling champions for the fifth year in a row.
Three Irish organisations have been recognised as among Europe's top 100 digital champions.

The Financial Times newspaper released the list today which details the people and companies leading Europes growth in five categories.

Those recognised were blockchain platform Aid:Tech, Code Institute, an educational technology start-up, and the housing and homeless charity, Peter McVerry Trust.

Dublin software company Aid:Tech is mentioned for its use of technology for social challenges.

The company was also successful at The Irish Times Innovation of the Year Awards last night where it was crowned the overall winner.

Aid:Tech was the first in the world to deliver international aid using blockchain technology when it helped to distribute relief among Syrian refugees in northern Lebanon on behalf of the Irish Red Cross.

The technology enables welfare, donations, remittances and healthcare to be digitalised and tracked.

Code institute was recognised for its technology training, as it teaches coding to people who want to change careers and has recently expanded to teaching refugees and asylum seekers.

The Dublin-based company was the first in Ireland to launch a coding bootcamp.

Homelessness charity Peter McVerry Trust was listed as a pioneer in using technology for social challenges.

It created a smartphone app to track vacant housing as part of their Reusing Dublin project.

Francis Doherty, Head of Communications at Peter McVerry Trust said: We are delighted to have been recognised by the Financial Times, Google and global digital experts for our digital work.

At Peter McVerry Trust we believe that it is imperative that NGOs embrace digital opportunities to progress their mission statements.

The Reusing Dublin project enables us to identify new housing projects in Dublin that no one else is looking.

"By targeting long term vacant buildings we are securing more housing for social housing purposes in high demand and need areas.

"This will hopefully result in less homelessness and fewer communities blighted by dereliction and vacancy, which are really positive social outcomes resulting from using digital technologies," he said.

Digital Desk
History was made today when the first Irish international holographic call was carried out between Ireland and Vodafones Innovation Centre in Germany using 5G technology.

Hosted by Vodafone Irelands CEO, Anne OLeary, the holographic call involved a Q&A session with Max Gasparroni, Vodafone Irelands Interim CTO, who was in Germany, using fully standardised 5G technology.

It was part of Vodafone Irelands launch of first live 5G network site open for trials in Dublins Docklands.

The network consists of fully standardised Ericsson 5G being deployed over Vodafone

Irelands recently acquired 5G spectrum.

Vodafone Ireland said it will use this site to trial the latest 5G hardware, software and services as they become available in advance of 5G products hitting the market, and will continue to expand coverage in the area over the coming months.

The firm said the first Irish international holographic call was a demonstration of the type of possibilities that can be achieved on 5G, which could become an everyday future reality across business and society in Ireland.

Benefits include robotic surgery, driverless cars and real time virtual gaming on the move, Vodafone Ireland said.

Vodafone and Ericsson have also partnered with NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin, to create a new 5G accelerator programme.

Through the nationwide programme, participants will have the opportunity to develop and enhance their business plans and validate the commercial potential and technical feasibility of innovative 5G enabled products and services.

Earlier this year, Mr Gasparroni told the Irish Examiner what 5G would mean for everyday life once it became mainstream.

5G is the next generation of mobile technology, built upon the foundation of 4G. What will it do? It will provide four main features, essentially. "That is, ultra-high speeds, firstly. The second feature is that you will be able to connect a huge amount of devices. Thirdly, it will increase the reliability of the connection. Fourthly, it will mean very low latency. These four features mean an improvement of what we currently have on 4G.

5G will enable for the everyday user  that is someone in the normal sense, someone with a smartphone, or a device with the Internet of Things (IoT)  to unlock a plethora of new use cases. We classify the use cases broadly into four categories. The ultra-high speeds will enable use cases like broadband in media.

So it could be 4K media streaming, video analytics, holograms  very high definition video download and upload, with continuous progress in terms of screen resolutions enhancing what can be transmitted.

It will enable the massive adoption of the Internet of Things, where you have a number of devices connected.

"It could be a car, it could be a fridge inside your home, smart meters, smart lighting. What it does is build on narrow-band IoT technology as part of the 4G, he said.
By Ray Managh

A garda, who told the High Court he feared he was going to die when a gun was aimed at his head, has been awarded 18,000 damages at a Garda Compensation hearing 14 years after the incident.

Mr Justice Michael Twomey heard that Garda Colm Gregan was 27 when a gunman at the public hatch in Shankill Garda Station, Co Dublin, threatened that he wanted to shoot a garda.

Divisional Crime Task Force officer Garda Gregan, now 41, told the court that while walking through the station on 14 August, 2004, he saw three colleagues cowering in a hallway. He had been told of the threat and could see the gunman through a door window.

He had entered the public office and requested armed assistance over the radio and when the suspect saw him he had pointed the weapon at him. Garda Gregan had held his hands in the air in plain sight of the armed man.

The High Court hearing was told Garda Gregan said to the gunman that he was not armed and was not a threat to him. He had the gun pointed at his head. Garda Gregan said he believed he was going to die. Shortly afterwards, the suspect started screaming and frothing at the mouth.

Garda Gregan, of Blackrock Garda Station and now resident in Wicklow, said the whole incident lasted about an hour, and for half of this time he was alone with the suspect. The man had later surrendered the gun.

I remember thinking about my family and how I was never going to see them again that I would never grow old and have a full life I was frozen on the spot, Garda Gregan said in an affidavit.

He outlined to the court how he had afterwards experienced persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

In April 2006, national media reported that the man involved had hoped to provoke gardai to shoot him by entering the station waving a gun and that he had been sentenced to three years imprisonment by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
A then 15-year-old boy was arrested over a sophisticated burglary after he was followed from Dublin to Tipperary by an undercover Garda special crime task force, a court has heard.

The boy, now aged 16, was caught following a surveillance operation involving the Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and an Emergency Response Unit, the Dublin Childrens Court was told today.

The boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, was charged with burglary, theft a 25,000 car and criminal damage at a house in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary on March 23, 2018.

In an outline of the prosecution evidence for the purpose of deciding the teen's trial venue, Det Garda Liam Brennan said gardai were in possession of confidential information about organised crime activities, namely burglaries.

It was alleged a high performance Audi S3 car with Northern Ireland registration plates was being used and was being kept at a location in Co. Kildare.

A surveillance operation was set up.

It was alleged the Audi was followed and seen changing its registration plates in a lane-way before it was followed along the N7 to Nenagh.

It was alleged the boy and another person got out and went to the back of a row of houses while the Audi stayed in the area.

Det Garda Brennan said there was nobody in the house when it was burgled.

The rear patio door was broken before keys to a Ford Focus along with some cash were taken.

The car driven away but pulled in at a service station in Birdhill, Tipperary.

It was alleged the boy was filling it with petrol when gardai moved in to the front and rear of the Ford Focus.

The teen ran but was stopped, the court heard.

Cash identified as being taken from the house was found his cap, the court heard.

The registration plates on the Ford and Audi were also changed after the burglary, it was alleged.

The teen was taken to Templemore Garda station where he made no comment when interviewed, Det Garda Brennan said.

Pleading with the court to accept jurisdiction, defence solicitor Jeremy Ring asked the court to note the boy, who is from Dublin, was aged 15 at the time.

He said the teenager had been caught red-handed and was offering to plead guilty.

Mr Ring asked the judge to note the boy's mother, who was present for the hearing, was of the belief her son had undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

He had also been abusing a large number of different substances which his mother had been unaware of until he was later drug-tested. He felt shame when she found out, the solicitor said.

The teenager was interested in horses and if that were properly channelled that would be a useful way for him to spend his time, the solicitor said. A placement in a course at an education and training centre in Dublin has been organised for the boy, the court heard.

Refusing jurisdiction, Judge O'Connor described both the offence and the surveillance operation as very sophisticated. These type of burglaries were very frightening and all too common in the country-side, he said.

Despite the boy's issues, he held the case was too serious for the Childrens Court.

This means it will be dealt with in the Circuit Court, either in Dublin or in Nenagh, which have tougher sentencing powers.

The boy was remanded on bail to appear again in four weeks to be served with a book of evidence.
The Dail will vote on whether to accept the draft Brexit withdrawal agreement this evening.

A four-hour debate is due to take place this evening on backing the plan.
One million Irish people are drinking water from private supplies, many of which are not being monitored to ensure that the water is safe to drink.

That is according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which found that many private water supplies are not on the local authorities register and those that are registered are not monitored sufficiently to ensure safe drinking water. Almost 20% of Irelands population is supplied by private water supplies.

The study found that the quality of drinking water in private supplies remains poorer than that in public supplies. Small private supplies can serve commercial and public buildings and facilities such as hotels, B&Bs, schools, creches, pubs, and campsites and are drawn from springs or wells. These supplies have the poorest water quality of all private water supply types.

The EPA found that E. coli was found in 51 of these small private water supplies. No E.coli testing results were reported to local authorities for 711 small private water supplies, which represents 27% of known regulated private supplies.

Where monitoring was carried out, it shows that private water supplies, to commercial businesses or to buildings to which the public has access, are at greater risk of being contaminated than public water supplies.

The EPA pointed out that an estimated 15% to 30% of the 172,000 private household wells in the country are contaminated by E.coli, while two-thirds of these wells are at risk of contamination.

Consumption of water that contains E.coli generally leads to gastrointestinal illness, but in a small number of cases it can result in severe and long-term kidney failure.

Director of the EPAs Office of Environmental Enforcement, Tom Ryan, said the findings were very concerning and unmonitored water supplies posed a serious public health risk.

We are concerned about the continuing poor quality of drinking water in private supplies serving commercial or public activities such as creches, nursing homes, and hotels, said Dr Ryan. Our report found that many of these supplies are not being monitored for water quality.

The consumption of water of unknown quality poses a serious health risk to consumers, particularly vulnerable people such as the young and elderly.

Programme manager of the EPAs Office of Environmental Enforcement, Darragh Page, said: We know that there are a number of private supplies not on the local authority register. We would encourage all private water suppliers and local authorities to ensure that all private water supplies are on the register and are tested regularly.

It is essential that all water supplies are tested to confirm that consumers health is not being put at risk. Where water supplies are contaminated, water suppliers should take action to protect consumers.
Fianna Fail has called for a "national conversation" around sexual consent as well as special workshops and awareness campaigns in schools and colleges.

Justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan is also pressing for specific sentencing guidelines for rape and sexual assault, calling on the government to enact outstanding legislation from 2013.

The party wants consent awareness campaigns for young males in college. This follows the rape of three female college students in Cork, as revealed by the city's Sexual Violence Centre (SVC).

'Male predators' were targetting women in Cork as they left pubs and nightclubs, according to the SVC recently.

Mr O'Callaghan, speaking to the Irish Examiner, said: "There is a concern in universities about whether there is an awareness of consent. It also should be done in secondary schools.

This is a discussion we need to have amongst young men. Unfortunately, this generation of young men are exposed so much to pornography on the internet, which portrays women in a very submissive way.

While welcoming the government's commitment to carry out a second Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland report, the Dublin Bay South TD said the Departments of Justice and Education need to have a role in highlighting the issue of consent among young men.

By having workshops or it should be part of the curriculum in secondary schools. And there should be awareness in universities," he said, adding that a "national conversation" was needed.

A Fianna Fail 2013 Bill to set up a judicial commission to oversee sentencing guidelines, including for rape and sexual assault, was still pending before the Oireachtas, added Mr O'Callaghan.

Mr O'Callaghn said while there were proposals for guidelines for personal injury awards, the same logic should apply to sexual crimes, adding:

There is still a lot of inconsistency, especially in the circuit criminal court, in respect of it [ sentencing].

"What threshold should the sentences be when circumstances involved X,Y,Z, violence was used or the extent to which the accused was in a position of responsibility over the victim?

There can be guidelines for issues like that.

Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O'Connor said last month that she was "appalled" at the prevalence of sexual violence among students.

She also said that sexual consent classes should be embedded across all third level facilities.
The Government has done a U-turn on the idea of holding a referendum to keep water services in public ownership.

Previously shot down by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the move will now be considered and could potentially be put to voters next May.

Attorney General Seamus Woulfe will consider amendments to a bill from Independents 4 Change TD Joan Collins. The Government says there are problems with the current wording which could have adverse consequences for group and private water schemes.

Instead, the legal advisor for the Cabinet will prioritise drafting a constitutional amendment which will focus on keeping the States national water authority in public ownership.

Ms Collins told the Irish Examiner that Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy had told her he wanted to hold the referendum potentially next May, to coincide with the local elections. The ministers spokesman declined to confirm or deny this.

The alternative approach would see the electorate asked to keep in public ownership the entity responsible for public water and wastewater services. This is opposed to putting ownership requirements on the State of water resources, water infrastructure, or the public water system.

The changes would ensure that the water authority could not be placed in private ownership, the Cabinet was told.

The move reflects a cross-party recommendation from the Oireachtas Committee on Water.

A decision to potentially move ahead with a referendum comes after the controversial subject of charging for water was a key campaign issue in the 2016 general election.

However, the move to consider a referendum comes after Mr Varadkar shot down the idea in October last year. He told the Dail he did not see how a referendum on water would make a blind bit of difference.

Ms Collins last night said that her own legal advisors would need to consider any Government amendment.

Meanwhile, an independent review of the national broadband plan has found that tendering guidelines were not breached, according to reports last night.

Last night, RTE reported that the Smyth report into the National Broadband Plan procurement process ruled that the procurement process was not undermined by contacts between former communications minister Denis Naughten and businessman David McCourt.

The report is expected to state that, as a result, the Government can proceed with the process of evaluating the bid.

Mr Varadkar said people named in the report would be given an opportunity to consider the review before it is published.
By Ann O'Loughlin

Summary judgment has been granted by the High Court for 571,000 against a British life peer who once owned and later rented one of Ireland's finest Georgian mansions.

The judgment against Lord George Magan was over a dispute about rent arrears for what is his family's secondary home, Castletown Cox and its 513-acre estate in Kilkenny.

Lord Magan, whose primary residence is in Kensington, London, opposed the application for judgment by a trust set up by him, the Castletown Foundation. The foundation, managed by Jersey-based Yew Tree Trustees, was established to benefit two of his children, Edward Magan and Henrietta Black.

Lord Magan continued on as a tenant of the property at a rent of 100,000 per year.

In a counter-claim, he argued he was entitled to a set-off some 361,000 for what he spent on upkeep of the property since the trust stopped contributing towards maintenance in 2013.

He separately claimed he was entitled, under the Landlord and Tenant Act, to a new tenancy and that this matter was currently before the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB).

He claimed the trust took unlawful possession of the house in a "dawn raid" on May 23 last when what his lawyers described as "a large gang" employed by the trust cut chains and locks to forcibly enter the property. No member of the Magan family was there at the time.

He is seeking damages for trespass and forcible entry because he was disputing the termination of his tenancy at the time.

The trust said it costs half a million a year to look after the property. With just 100,000 rental income and fees from a licence to use the house's world-class collection of fine art, paintings and furniture, most of which are owned by a separate trust, it is not enough to pay the bills, it said.

This was in circumstances of the 570,000 rent arrears while some 1.8m (St1.6m) is also due under the licence for use of art and furniture. Lord Magan also owes another 2.1m (St1.9m) for loans to him from the trustees to meet personal expenditure unrelated to Castletown Cox, the trust said.

Alongside this, some 14.5m in borrowings are secured on the property to a finance company, Sancus Jersey.

The trust managers, Yew Tree Trustees, decided in 2015 the only way to relieve the financial strain on the trust was to bite the bullet and sell Castletown Cox".

An agreement was reached this year to sell it to an unidentified buyer for more than 19m.

That sale was due to close last August. A month later, Sancus Jersey could have exercised its right to appoint a receiver to the property because of default on the unpaid 14.5m.

However, the court heard, the intended purchaser paid off the debt in anticipation of securing ownership of the house.

If Sancus appointed a receiver there would be a "fire sale" of the asset and significant value would be lost, the trust said.

The Castletown Foundation argued that if the court granted summary judgment over the unpaid rent, Lord Magan cannot then maintain his claim for a new tenancy because the judgment would be a "knockout blow".

Lord Magan's lawyers said the matter should go to a full hearing in order to prevent an injustice in circumstances where he was now counter-claiming for wrongful exclusion.

Mr Justice Robert Haughton, in his judgment today, said the foundation was entitled to summary judgment of 571,893 over the rent arrears. He also ordered 20% of that should be remitted to the Revenue in Withholding Tax.

In relation to Lord Magan's application to dismiss the foundation's case over the purported termination of the tenancy, he declined to strike out the reliefs it sought.

He, however, granted a stay on the foundation pursuing certain reliefs in relation to the tenancy pending determination of the landlord and tenancy proceedings.

He will hear the parties on a later date in relation to staying further hearing of the matter in the High Court pending determination in the Circuit Court of issues related to the validity of the purported tenancy termination.
By Nick Bramhill

Dublins deepening housing crisis is driving away more foreign workers than ever before, a damning new survey suggests.

A combination of soaring rents and stagnant housing stock has resulted in the capital being ranked the worst city in the world in which to find affordable accommodation.

The just-published Expat City Ranking 2018 has placed Dublin in 72nd position out of 72 major global cities in its finance & housing sub-section.

Further analysis of the figures reveals that nine in 10 foreign workers in Dublin feel local housing is not affordable - compared to only 44% globally.

Aside from housing, 70% of expats in Dublin are also unhappy with the high cost of living, compared to just 37% of respondents across all cities in the survey.

The extensive Munich-based study by InterNationsm which involved over 18,000 respondents ranked Dublin in 66th position, overall.

The overall ranking was determined by the results of over two dozen sub-sections.

Although Dublins ranking, marginally ahead of both Paris and London, is near the foot of the table, Irelands capital still performed strongly in some areas  most notably for career opportunities which saw it placed third in the world, only beaten by first-placed Prague and Houston, Texas.

The capital also scored highly for local friendliness, with nearly eight in 10 respondents saying they have been made to feel welcome in their adopted city.

Commenting on Dublins poor overall performance in this years survey, the companys CEO Malte Zeeck said: Expats in Dublin are less than satisfied with life in the city, putting the Irish capital in the bottom 10 of the Expat City Ranking.

The result is mainly due to the citys poor performance regarding the quality of urban living, as well as finance and housing.

Once again, Dublin performs well in terms of local friendliness, with 78% of expats rating the general friendliness of the citys residents favourably, whilst just 62% say the same globally.

This is especially noteworthy when we look at its UK counterpart, London, where barely half the residents, just 53%, consider the local residents to be friendly.

Taipei in Taiwan and Singapore were voted this years top cities for expats while, at the other end of the table, the sprawling Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh and Jeddah were ranked the least desirable urban destinations.

With 3.3m members in 420 cities around the world, InterNations is the largest global community and information site for people who live and work abroad.

There are more than 20,000 members of InterNations in Ireland, with 16,000 based in Dublin.

Best and worst

Top seven cities in the world:

1. Taipei

2. Singapore

3. Manama

4. Ho Chi Minh

5. Bangkok

6. Kuala Lumpur

7. Aachen

Bottom seven:
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has admitted Ireland will miss EU carbon emission reduction targets for 2020 and could face having to pay hundreds of millions of euro for credits.

Mr Varadkar told the Dail Ireland hopes to meet carbon reduction targets for 2030.

CO2 emissions are lower than they were, notwithstanding a significant increase in population, but we are nowhere near close to reaching our target of a 20% reduction by 2020, he said.

With the reduction likely to be closer to 1%, it is evident that we will not reach our 2020 targets but I do think we will meet our 2030 targets. I am determined that we should do so for renewable energy and CO2 emissions.

Mr Varadkar said changes to carbon taxation for households and consumers could make a difference.

The Government held off on increases in the budget but has indicated such rises will apply in future budgets. Petrol, diesel, and coal are among the fuels subject to carbon taxation, levied at 20 per tonne.

Ireland must reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 to comply with EU rules. If not, the EU could impose fines or force Ireland to buy carbon allowances.

The cabinet discussed these issues yesterday, with Mr Varadkar later admitting in the Dail

in the afternoon

that the level of carbon credits would be substantial.

There was a range from somewhere between 98m to 500m, but it is on the lower end. I do not know the exact figures, he said.

The response came after Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said the official confirmation that Ireland would not meet its 2020 targets was an extraordinary story of failure.

The Taoiseach is in a position to outline how much he thinks can be afforded in tax giveaways for the next five years, so surely he, or the Government, has some idea as to how much it will cost to purchase carbon credits or pay the fines we might face as a result of our failure to meet our climate change targets by 2020? The failure is dramatic, said Mr Martin.

The Government last night failed to specify the level of carbon allowances discussed by Cabinet.

A spokesperson for the Department of Environment said negotiations would begin with other member states shortly in relation to purchasing carbon and renewable credits. Estimates cited were based on worst-case scenario estimates and likely to be lower than the minimum of that range.

At their weekly meeting yesterday, ministers also approved that a road map on climate change targets be written up by all departments.

Environment Minister Richard Bruton will oversee the action plan. It will include boosting incentives for the public to limit their levels of carbon output. Areas to be examined include the use of electric/hybrid cars and retrofitting more homes and businesses.
By Fiachra O Cionnaith, Eoin English, and Caroline ODoherty

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has called for strict limits on how alleged rape and sexual assault victims are treated in court after a public backlash over aggressive legal tactics in high-profile cases.

Mr Flanagan said that he wants the full-blooded defence-team tactics to be re-examined as part of a wider courts review set to be published next month amid warnings that courts are re-abusing victims.

Speaking as the Government launched the second Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland report, which will begin early next year and conclude in 2023, Mr Flanagan said while he recognises the fundamental constitutional right to a defence, there are genuine concerns over how people are treated in court.

Noting the national and international furore over revelations that a defence team made reference to the underwear a 17-year-old was wearing in a recent rape trial to defend the accused, he said a system-wide overhaul may now be needed.

In a statement to the Irish Examiner last night, a spokesperson for Mr Flanagan said: The minister acknowledges the fundamental constitutional right of a person accused of a criminal offence to defence themselves. However, he also strongly believes the rights of complainants in sexual offence cases must also be protected.

The minister is in principle in favour of the introduction of protocols and specialist training for members of the legal profession.

While stressing that any changes are ultimately a decision for Tom OMalley, the chair of the Governments courts review, the spokesperson noted Mr Flanagans comments on RTEs Claire Byrne Live programme on Monday night, when he hit out at the full-blooded defence tactics in some cases and called for new protocols to be introduced.

Mr Flanagan confirmed the OMalley review will examine if the identities of defendants in rape cases should remain anonymous.

The second Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) report follows the initial SAVI report in 2003.

Between now and 2023, the SAVI report will undertake a comprehensive national survey on the prevalence of sexual violence. It will have an initial 150,000 budget next year before subsequent funding of 1m a year is made available.

The nationwide survey will be used to underscore reforms in sexual assault-related services. It will be undertaken by Central Statistics Office officials with specialist training.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of the One in Four survivors group, said the SAVI report is needed to ensure accurate data in order to plan for services and understand why sexual violence is the most under-reported crime in this society.

While also welcoming the step, the CSO said the survey will, out of necessity, involve sensitive questions on difficult subjects.

Meanwhile, a separate review in Northern Ireland called for major reforms in how the judicial system in the province approaches rape cases in the aftermath of the Belfast rugby rape trial controversy.

It also emerged as a leading campaigner said a 48% rise in reported rapes in Cork City since the start of the year shows that people are becoming more willing to come forward if they are attacked.

Mary Crilly, director of the Sexual Violence Centre in Cork, said the fact 49 rapes have been reported to gardai so far this year  up from 33 for the same period last year  doesnt mean that rape is on the rise.

I think its a sign also that people are saying enough is enough and feel more confident in reporting rape to the gardai, Ms Crilly told members of the Cork City joint policing committee.

This story was amended on November 21, 2018
A Fine Gael senator suing over a newspaper story which he says described him as a robber told the High Court he was shocked and upset when he saw the article.

"I just could not believe what it contained", said Sen Paudie Coffey.

He said the article "hugely contributed" to the loss of his Dail seat in 2016, was "a pure fabrication" and caused him to be subject to public ridicule.

He was forced to bring defamation proceedings because the paper, the Kilkenny People, refused to retract and offer redress for the January 2016 article, he said.

Headed "Coffey the Robber", it carried comments from Sen Coffey's FG colleague, John Paul Phelan TD, about proposals to extend part of the local administrative area of Kilkenny into neighbouring Waterford.

The paper quoted verbatim from a press release issued by Deputy Phelan in which he referred to an 18th century figure called Crotty the Robber who led a gang of "bloodthirsty" highwaymen in the Comeragh Mountains. "Now Coffey the Robber is trying to do the very same", Deputy Phelan said.

Sen Coffey said he learned of the article from an email sent by former Ireland international rugby player, Mick Galwey, to a first cousin of the senator. Mr Galwey had taken a photo of the article with a comment : "Is this the best headline ever in the Kilkenny People this week, class, not even the Bomber will get ye out of this!!!!!!"

He told his counsel, Barney Quirke, he was later subject to comments and ridicule at funerals, social events, hurling and rugby matches.

At a rugby match in Thomond Park in 2016, he met Mick Galwey who was in the company of others, including well-known fellow rugby players, when Mr Galwey "turned round and said here comes Coffey the robber and there was a big laugh".

While he laughed along, it was this incident that made him feel he had to do something to stop this. He said that after he lost his Dail seat, he got "so low" that he contemplated leaving politics.

He had also failed to win election to Seanad Eireann, but in July 2016, Enda Kenny appointed him as a Taoiseach's nominee.

Cross-examined by Rossa Fanning SC, for the paper, he accepted he had only seen the Deputy Phelan press release for the first time in the witness box. He did not think of suing Deputy Phelan, or asking him for a retraction or apology, because it was not him who published the article.

He disagreed with counsel it would have been "politically impossible to sue Deputy Phelan because you are a member of the same party" and repeated it was not him (Phelan) who published it.

He agreed he had met Deputy Phelan many times at parliamentary party meetings since the article was published but said the only time they spoke about it was last year.

He said Deputy Phelan approached him asking about him suing the Kilkenny People. "He said: can't you be bigger and step back and I said no, I was damaged by that paper".

He agreed he did not make a complaint to the chairman of the FG parliamentary party about a colleague making these "outrageous" remarks about him.

When counsel suggested had not done so because "it was not all that serious", he replied it was a serious matter he had been concerned about for a long time.

Mr Fanning said did he think Mick Galwey was being serious. "He ridiculed me", Sen Coffey said.

"Are you seriously suggesting it was other than a joke", counsel asked.

It was a joke at my expense.

Was he asking the jury to take the article literally. "I can only read what is on front of me".

Mr Fanning said "Crotty the Robber" had a reputation for cannibalism. Was he asking the jury to say he was a cannibal.

Sen Coffey said he was not aware Crotty was a cannibal but he was aware he was a murderer.

He agreed it did not mean he was a murderer or the leader of a gang of highwaymen. It did however compare him to a robber, he said.

It did not mean he was hiding in a cave in the Comeragh mountains but he said he was from the Comeragh area.

He disagreed it was a play on words.

It is not responsible journalism and it is not a joke in my eye.

The case continues.
The man accused of murdering a 38-year-old woman told gardai she was happy in her dying moments as they both sang songs together.

Cathal O'Sullivan, 45, who is originally from Charleville, County Cork is on trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork and denies murdering Nicola Collins on March 27, 2016 at a flat at 6A Popham's Road, Farranree, Cork, over the Gala store.

The prosecution case closed today.

Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and the jury of nine men and three women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork heard more evidence from the memo of the interview of the accused by Detective Garda Kevin ODonnell and Detective Garda Deirdre Murphy two days after her death.

Cathal OSullivan said, It was her dying with me. She was happy in her last moments. We were singing songs before she fucking passed away.

He said he spent up to 30 minutes trying to revive her, doing CPR. He told gardai that he knew what he was doing as he pumped her chest in a 1-2-3-4 rhythm but he said he lost his upper body strength towards the end and used his feet and his legs to try to do the same thing.

I cried, Nicola, come back. Nicola, Nicola, Nicola, come back. I did hit her a lot at that time (when Ms Collins was dying). I was shouting, Nicola, Nicola, wake up. Come back. Fucking help. I thought she was fucking joking, like.

I thought she was joking. I thought she was holding her breath or something. I thought she was trying to freak me out.

I did hit her a number of times trying to bring her back. I thought she was joking. I am pretty sure she was dead when the jaw thing happened, he said.

The deceaseds injuries included a fractured jaw.

Detectives said to the accused that when he phoned his friend Mathew Twomey in Limerick in the early hours of the morning in question, you told him you had a fight with her, that she died and you brought her back to life. He replied, That is crazy.

Murder accused Cathal O'Sullivan

Detectives asked him if he thought that a lifelong friend who grew up with him in Charleville would have made that up. He said his friend was a bit blurry during the three phone calls he made to him.

Detectives asked, Did you assault her? He replied, No, I did not. I tried to revive her.

It was put to him that she was assaulted on at least two occasions  in the bathroom and in the bedroom - and that she was viciously assaulted. The accused man replied, She was never assaulted. How do you explain over 130 injuries? detectives asked and he replied, She got injured coming at me. She was the instigator. I did not assault her.

Asked why he did not call the ambulance sooner, he said that it was her wish, which he said she expressed on the Thursday and again later on the Sunday, that he would not call an ambulance.

The accused said the deceased used to harm herself and that there was an incident in the days before she died.

She had a knife and dragged it across her hand. She is a self-harmer. I just wanted to get the fucking thing off her. There was a struggle ensued or whatever the fuck it is. At the end of that we were on the couch.

"She would not stab you but because I was trying to take the knife off her she kind of was. She didnt go to stab me but because I was trying to take the knife off her she would kind of go like that. I got it off her. I fucked it underneath the bed.

The trial continues tomorrow.
A man has been arrested and charged in connection with two burglaries on the same premises on two consecutive nights in West Cork earlier this week.

The man, who is in his 20s and who is understood to be from the West Cork area, was arrested yesterday by gardai investigating two burglary incidents at the same premises in Cregane, Rosscarbery, on Monday and Tuesday nights.
By Ann OLoughlin

A 24-year-old man who sued the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin over the circumstances of care when he presented with the sudden onset of blurred vision has settled his High Court action.

Horse rider Connor Callaghan had claimed he allegedly suffered permanent vision impairment and is no longer able to compete in showjumping competitions.

It was claimed there was an alleged failure to take appropriate action once it was established that a haemorrhage in the eye area had not resolved spontaneously within six weeks.

It was further claimed there was an alleged failure to schedule surgical intervention and that he was allegedly caused to suffer permanent visual impairment.

After talks between the parties, Mr Justice Michael Hanna was told the case could be struck out. The settlement is without admission of liability.

Connor Callaghan, Inch View, Scarnagh, Gorey, Co Wexford, had sued the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, Adelaide Rd, Dublin, over the care he received at the hospital five years ago.

Mr Callaghan attended the hospital with a history of one days sudden onset of blurred vision. It was noted that there were no symptoms of flashing lights, floaters or double vision and no history of trauma and a consultant review was planned for the next day.

A pre-retinal and subhyaloid haemorrhage, an accumulation of blood, was diagnosed in the macular region which is the area near the centre of the retina.

Mr Callaghan claimed conservative treatment was advised and he attended for further review on March 31 and on April 4, 2013.

It was claimed when he attended on May 2, 2013, his haemorrhage was recorded as having persisted and his clarity of vision on the left was noted to have reduced to hand movements. It is claimed Mr Callaghan was not considered for surgery.

It was further claimed conservative management was continued and there was a guarded prognosis for visual improvement.

It was alleged Mr Callaghan had suffered secondary retinal toxicity and permanent visual damage which are recognised risks associated with conservative treatment continuing beyond six weeks from the onset.

It was claimed the conservative management of his condition was queried by Mr Callaghans mother.

Mr Callaghan was referred to another hospital and in August 2014, it was claimed another specialist concluded Mr Callaghans persistent visual deficit was due to retinal toxicity secondary to iron leaching out of the haemoglobin contained within the blood which had collected.

It was claimed there was an alleged failure to take appropriate action once it was established the haemorrhage had not resolved spontaneously within six weeks.

It was further claimed there was an alleged failure to schedule surgical intervention and that he was allegedly caused permanent visual impairment.

The claims were denied.
Some 785m was transferred out of Ireland in personal remittances last year, mostly as a result of migrants sending money back to family members in their homeland.

New figures published by the European Commission show Ireland had the sixth-highest level of personal transfers among the 28 EU states in 2017.

The only countries with bigger outflows of money by migrants were France, Spain, the UK, Italy, and Belgium.

The value of money transferred abroad by people living in the Republic in 2017 was up 1.2% on the previous year, an increase of 9m.

The majority of personal transfers consist of flows of money sent by migrants to their country of origin. In most cases, money is being transferred to other family members.

The vast bulk of the money sent from Ireland stays within the EU.

Ireland had the third-highest level of personal transfers within the EU, with money sent to other EU member states accounting for 79% of all remittances, due to the high percentage of foreign nationals living in the Republic who are from other EU member states, such as Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

There are 535,000 foreign-born nationals living in the Republic, or approximately 11.6% of the population.

Eleven EU countries recorded a net inflow of money from personal transfers, including Portugal, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, all countries that have a high proportion of their citizens living in other EU states.

For example, the net surplus was worth 3bn to the Portuguese economy last year.

In Ireland, there is no inward flow of personal remittances, sent from outside the Republic, unlike in previous decades, when Irish emigrants would have sent money home to their families from countries like the UK, the US, and Australia.

32.7bn was sent outside the EU by people living in the EU in 2017, with the biggest amounts sent to Asia (20%) and north Africa (19%).
| BY Ricki Green |

Passion Pictures has taken out gold and bronze awards, and Animation Company of the Year at the 2018 Ciclope Awards, held this week in Berlin.

Dedicated to celebrating the craft of execution, Ciclope Festival this year also awarded work from Spike Jonze and Hiro Murai (of Atlanta and This is America fame).

Says Katie Mackin, MD, Passion Pictures Australia: Its extremely gratifying to see Joy Story: Joy & Heron being recognised (with gold) on the global stage, particularly amongst such esteemed individuals, and up against some really impressive films.

Two Passion directors collected bronze; Reuben McNaughton, for his Together Again spot for Dementia UK, and Salon Alpin for the Iceland Foods Theres a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom spot, which has exploded online after being deemed too political and banned in the UK.

Adds Mackin: Its a pleasing testament to the power of the story and the importance of its message.
A leading campaigner for victims of sexual violence has welcomed a 48% increase in the number of reported rapes in Cork City since the start of the year as a sign that people are becoming more willing to come forward.

Mary Crilly, director of the Sexual Violence Centre in Cork, said the fact 49 rapes have been reported to gardai so far this year  up from 33 for the same period last year  doesnt mean that rape is on the increase but actually reflects the prevalence of sexual violence in Ireland today.

In previous years, the relatively low rape reporting figures tended to suggest that sexual violence and rape wasnt a problem, she said.

So I am glad to see this rise in the number of reported cases. It is reflective of the extent of the problem.

I think its a sign also that people are saying enough is enough and feel more confident in reporting rape to the gardai. But there is still much work to be done.

Ms Crilly was speaking after a crime figures briefing by senior gardai to the Cork City joint policing committee (JPC) this week.

Chief Superintendent Barry McPolin told the committee there has been a 6% drop in the number of reported rapes and sexual assaults in the Cork City Garda division in the period January 1 to October 2018 compared to the same period last year  down from a combined total of 155 to 145.

A breakdown in the figures shows the number of reported sexual assaults (not aggravated) in the city is down 21% from 122 in the first 10 months of 2017 to 96 so far this year.

However, the number of reported rapes is up from 33 in the first 10 months of last year to 49 so far this year  an increase of 48%.

Chief Supt McPolin said he was not in a position at the JPC to clarify how many of those cases may be historic.

Ms Crilly said the establishment of the Gardas dedicated Protective Services Unit at Anglesea St to investigate sexual crime, human trafficking, child abuse, and domestic abuse has been a positive development in encouraging more people to report. She said similar units are needed in north and west Cork.

Ms Crilly also criticised the legal system which allowed the defence team in a rape trial in Cork last week to use a teenagers underwear  a thong with a lace front  as evidence against her. Ms Crilly said she did not want to scapegoat an individual but suggested the criticism should be focused on a system which allows such an argument go unchallenged.
The President of the Irish Road Haulage Association, Verona Murphy, has claimed it is outrageous that politicians are making policies on carbon tax when they do not know enough on the subject.

She told Green Party leader Eamon Ryan that he knows nothing about the issue of carbon tax.

On RTE Radio Ones Today with Sean ORourke show she asked him if he knew the difference between Euro Six diesel and Euro Six gas engines, to which he replied that he did not. They have the same emissions, but are different sizes for domestic or commercial use.

Their robust discussion was in relation to an ESRI report that predicted that carbon tax will have to increase substantially  from 100 per person a year to 1,500 a year  if Ireland is to meet legally-binding targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

A new computational model developed by the institute that factors in economic data, environmental trends and energy consumption, has found carbon tax on fossil fuels will need to increase to 300 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted over the coming decade to avoid substantial fines in the form of compliance costs.

Ms Murphy said the problem is that the report was not issued three years ago as the deadline which has been agreed is unrealistic.

The current rate of 20 per tonne was not increased in the budget as had been widely anticipated, although Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Climate Action Richard Bruton have confirmed it is set to increase in coming years.

However, a 300 carbon tax would only be sufficient to enable Ireland to meet its targets if there were reductions in agricultural emissions in particular (currently accounting for a third of Irelands emissions), the ESRI analysis shows.

Ms Murphy wants credit where credit is due and maintains that hauliers are doing more than their fair share. She pointed out that hauliers pay a minimum of 40c, and up to 80c, per litre for Adblue agent which is used to help reduce nitric oxide emissions.

In Belgium, hauliers receive a rebate of 24c per litre. Is climate change different in Belgium? she asked.

Ms Murphy asked Mr Ryan if putting nappies on cows made sense given that agriculture plays such a major part in the carbon tax problem.

Mr Ryan said that the problem is the use of fossil fuels as well as agriculture and that reaching a solution was not going to be easy. This is going to require us to change everything, transport, food, fuel. We need a system that works better for everyone. We have to ensure that it is not punitive, something that benefits everyone.

He said that everyone will have to play their part.

Ms Murphy called for a fuel rebate. My members deserve the same as hauliers in Belgium.

Some people are playing a bigger part than others.

Mr Ryan said that if the Government relies on just the carbon tax then that will not work to reach the targets. He said it should be made easier for people to retrofit their homes.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said ESRI predictions that households will have to pay carbon taxes amounting to 3,000 in future years were "way off the mark", but that a regime to increase such levies was needed.

Mr Varadkar said he favoured a Canada-type model and agreed with suggestions by the Greens of gradual increases over several years possibly quadrupling carbon charges to 80 a tonne.

The debate comes after the Economic and Social Research Institute warned in a report that there needs to be a 15-fold increase in carbon taxes - up to 3,000 a home - by 2030 to help Ireland meet EU targets.

Such rises would hike up heating and fuel costs to encourage users to reduce emission outputs.

Speaking in the Dail, Mr Varadkar said such projections were way off on the mark. The Government had yet to work out the increases, TDs were told.

The answer came after Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin quizzed Mr Varadkar about carbon tax rises after the Fine Gael leader on the weekend was able to promise up to 3bn in income tax cuts.

Green leader Eamon Ryan called for an immediate doubling of carbon taxes to 40 a tonne next year and a further 5 extra annually up until 2030. Money collected could be returned to people, he said, asking about more solar panels, heating changes and electric car charging points.

We need to know what you are going to do, declared Mr Ryan, calling on other party leaders in the Dail to also outline their preferences for carbon taxation.

Mr Varadkar, who this week admitted Ireland would miss EU 2020 targets on climate change and now was looking to 2030, responded that he and the Greens were joining forces to agree on charges.

A suite of measures including targets and investments were needed, the Dail heard.

Ireland needed to get it right after countries such as Australia had failed to properly introduce such a system, Mr Varadkar added. Furthermore, France was facing protests over such charges, he said.

Mr Varadkar also likened the levies to water charges, saying that they could not get it wrong like that.

He said, after speaking to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau last month, that he favoured gradual carbon tax increases rising possibly to 80 a tonne.

Revenue would go back to users through tax or welfare credits, he explained.

But other parties, including Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, were called on to set out their limits and for a cross-party agreement on future carbon taxes.

The rises, conceded Mr Varadkar, would see increased costs in fuel for the haulage industry and for agriculture but there would be a number of years for those impacted to adapt, the Dail heard.
By Tom Tuite

A teenage drink driver, who was going to visit his mothers grave on his birthday when he crashed and seriously injured another motorist, has been jailed for five months.

Philip Dunbar, from Glenshane Drive, Tallaght, was aged 17 and still a juvenile at the time but is now 18 and an adult, so can be named. He was also handed a four-year driving ban.

He pleaded guilty at the Dublin Childrens Court to drink driving, dangerous driving and driving without a licence or insurance in connection with the incident at Kiltipper Rd, Tallaght, on August 21, 2017.

Judge John OConnor heard the youth had been driving a 99D-reg car when he veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided with an oncoming driver who suffered a punctured lung as a result of the crash.

A sample of his blood was taken which was found to have 93mg of alcohol per 100ml blood.

The teenage driver had also suffered a fractured neck, the court was told.

He subsequently admitted to gardai that he did not have a licence or insurance at the time.

The court heard he had four prior convictions. All of them were for road traffic offences, having no licence or insurance and failing to produce documentation in March last year.

Pleading for leniency, defence counsel Amy Deane told the court her clients mother had died of an overdose.

At the time of the crash, it was Dunbars second birthday without his mother and he was visiting her grave. The court heard he left school at 14.

The barrister said that Dunbar was sorry for the injuries he inflicted.

Sentencing, Judge John OConnor said it was serious dangerous driving charge and it was not his first offence. He also noted the victim had to be brought to hospital and had suffered a collapsed lung.
Its been difficult coming to terms with the fact my son has autism. What is harder is ensuring education, in particular, doesnt leave him behind, writes David OMahony.

Realising that my son had autism was heartbreaking. Seeing the State fail him so consistently has only added to that heartbreak.

My wife and I have been fighting an uphill struggle since before Jacob was diagnosed. We were told by the early intervention team that they thought it was autism (we had known this long before) and that he was going to be transferred to another team and then we were sort of left to our own devices.

A few occupational therapy and physio sessions and no real support beyond that. Not even a booklet on how to deal with it. Off you go, figure it out yourself, bye bye now. Its the last thing any parent in this situation needs.

I dont remember much from the earliest days of coming to terms with the situation.

Its enough to try and internalise that my son had a disability that would be always with him. Its been hard seeing his twin brother go off on one mainstream route while Jacob is on another.

What I remember from those days is deep sorrow and a sort of numbness. There was an irrational yet pervasive feeling of guilt, as if it was my fault. Of course, its nobodys fault. But in that early fog it seemed logical that I should shoulder some responsibility or blame  Im his dad, Im supposed to protect him from everything.

Grief is a warped and bizarre thing that doesnt always make sense in hindsight. There is plenty of hope still.

Any number of people on the autistic spectrum (were all on it somewhere, by the way) have gone on to success: Eamon de Valera, Dan Aykroyd, Daryl Hannah, to name a few, and far more go about their business every day.

I wouldnt say Im sad about it now. He is who he is and I love him as he is, even if I wish I could make it go away for his own sake. But I would say Im angry.

Not at him, not at autism, but at the chronic inability of this republic to support those who need help. Jacob spent two years on a waiting list to be assessed and diagnosed  we had had him privately diagnosed long before that, but thats not enough to access schools or services  and he has received nothing bar one physio session since.

It took forever and a day just for our complaint about him not being assessed to be processed and upheld, with the outcome being that that didnt push him up the queue.

Thats not to say that the therapists in officialdom arent good or arent understanding. Theyre drowning in a sea of referrals without the lifebuoy of resources that should be provided by the State which means parents are drowning along with them.

We have gone private for whatever we can, primarily occupational and speech therapy.

We have been incredibly fortunate on this front, with some particularly superb therapists who have made a real, tangible difference to him (a case in point is that he has occasionally used an Australian accent, copying his occupational therapist).

David O'Mahony and his son Jacob.

We have been so lucky also that he got a place in the Shine early learning unit in Carrigaline. Shine, for those who dont know, is a charity that helps children with autism (and their parents) through intervention, advocacy, information, and a plethora of other services that we would be lost without.

We met them first to ask about benefit entitlements, and they not only went through the form with us but helped us fill it out.

It was an unexpected ray of light. When Jacob was offered a place in their early intervention unit we were overjoyed, and seeing how much they have helped him since he started there has been just wonderful.

Hes a different child to when he started, and he likes it so much that when he started back in September he ran in and gave one of the teachers a hug. If I was a king Id knight them all and build them a whole new school.

I nearly wish he could stay there forever (incidentally, Shines new website, autismaware.ie, is a boon of information thats of real help to parents, guardians, and carers).

Charities such as Shine are the ones stepping into the breach, to fill the gaps through what amount to sheer heroics.

Receiving a diagnosis that your child has autism is a desperately lonely time. Shine helped us immeasurably, even just by talking to us.

Honestly, I dont know where wed be had we not met them. The demand on their resources and knowledge must be endless.

Having fought endlessly up to this point, we are now fighting just to get him schooling. He isnt suitable for a mainstream class, which is just a fact of life. But he cant get a place in a school with an autism unit either.

There are 40 or so schools in Co Cork which have units and effectively zero places. We applied to one school, where his brother goes, only to learn it had had 24 applications  24!  for 2019 and couldnt take any of them.

It simply doesnt have the space, and to be fair to the school it did consider our request to set up an additional unit; it cant fit it on the grounds. Scale that across 40 schools (just primary schools) and you get a sense of the crisis thats besetting our countrys children with disabilities.

Home tuition is an option but he needs a school setting where he can mix with other children. Being told by somebody in officialdom that were just one of many in the same situation is, frankly, bullshit.

We have applied to special schools with many unhappy results. There is such a dearth of special schools in Cork that some wont have spaces for two or more years, and he would be well down a huge queue at the best of times.

David O'Mahony and his son jacob.

In one infuriating and demoralising incident, one special school wouldnt consider him because he turned five three days before its cut-off point.

There has been one chink of possible light in recent days, with a special school we hadnt known about becoming a real possibility for him.

We wont know until February, but for now its some real hopeful news that, while were not allowing to ignite entirely, were keeping tended and alight in the corner.

We dont want to get burned if it doesnt work out.

And if it doesnt, well, Im not sure where we go. Back to fighting in the trenches, no doubt, battling for what should be a given.
Everyone knows the journalist was killed in a consulate in Turkey, but reaction has been muted because of Saudia Arabias strategic importance,says Richard N. Haas.

In the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president Al Gore attempted to alert his fellow Americans to the perils of global warming.

What made the truth inconvenient was that avoiding catastrophic climate change would require people to live differently and maybe give up what they love (such as gas-guzzling cars).

For two months, we have all been living with another inconvenient truth, ever since Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist working for The Washington Post and living in the US, disappeared after entering Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul.

A large part of the truth is undeniable: Khashoggi was murdered by individuals with close ties to the Saudi government and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Weeks of official Saudi denials and lies only reinforced the conclusion  now also the reported judgment of the CIA  that the murder was premeditated and approved at the top.

MBSs direct role may not be proven, but most observers familiar with Saudi Arabia harbour little doubt. It is not a system that tolerates freelancing.

What makes the truth inconvenient is Saudi Arabias strategic importance. The Kingdom accounts for over 10% of global oil output. Its sovereign wealth fund sits on an estimated $500bn.

Saudi Arabia is the most influential Sunni Arab country, occupying a special role within the Muslim world, as the custodian of Islams holiest sites. It is central to any policy confronting Iran.

Mohammed bin SalmanMBS, for all his faults, is a reformer, who understands that his country must open up and diversify, if it is to thrive and the royal family is to survive. He is also popular at home, especially with younger Saudis, who constitute the bulk of the population.

But the faults of the young and impulsive Crown Prince are many. In addition to his role in the murder of Khashoggi, he recklessly ordered the Saudi attack on Yemen, which triggered his countrys equivalent of the US war in Vietnam: a strategic and humanitarian catastrophe.

He kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister, undermined Qatar, arrested wealthy Saudis who refused to embrace his consolidation of power, froze diplomatic relations with Canada over a critical tweet, and imprisoned political activists, including women seeking greater rights.

The Saudi strategy for dealing with the outcry over Khashoggis murder is clear: Hunker down and weather the storm. Mohammed bin Salman and his inner circle are calculating that the worlds outrage will fade, given their countrys importance. He has good reason to believe that other Sunni Arab states will stand by him, because of the subsidies he provides.

Israel, too, has indicated support for MBS, owing to his willingness to normalise relations and, more important, because of the two countries shared interest in countering Iranian influence.

US president Donald Trumps administration is standing by its man, so far refusing to acknowledge his role in Khashoggis murder and resisting calls for sanctions against Saudi Arabia.

What, then, should be done? Former US secretary of state James A. Baker recently drew a parallel to US policy toward China in 1989, at the time of the massacre of protesting students in Beijings Tiananmen Square.

George H.W. Bushs administration (of which I was a part) worked hard to thread the needle: introducing sanctions to convey displeasure with the Chinese government, but limiting the punishment and keeping lines of communication open, due to Chinas importance. Would a similar policy toward Saudi Arabia prove viable?

Ideally, the US and European governments would let it be known that they would be more open to working with Saudi Arabia if the power of the Crown Prince were reduced. There should also be limits on US arms sales and intelligence support, which, fortunately, the US Congress is likely to impose.

But more important than any sanction would be ratcheting up public and private pressure on Mohammed bin Salman, regarding what is needed and what needs to be avoided. What is needed is a concerted push to end the Yemen conflict.

What needs to be avoided is exploitation of the Trump administrations anti-Iran animus to provoke an armed confrontation that would force others to overcome their qualms and side with Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump during his visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017.

A war with Iran would be costly and dangerous. MBS should be made to understand that the US will be a strategic partner for Saudi Arabia only if he acts with greater restraint in Yemen and elsewhere, and with greater respect for US interests.

Consultations should also be held with China and Russia. Unlike the US, both have working relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran, which gives both a stake in preventing such a war.

All too often in the Middle East, a bad situation becomes a worse situation. MBS has created a bad situation. The aim should be to establish sufficient limits so that it does not become worse.

Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order.
Two of the reasons empires, past or present, exercise power is to show the plausibility of their ambitions or to show they still have, in theory at least, power to exercise.

Chinas relentless expansion shows the first; the Gordian knot of the Brexit tragedy hints at the second in a delusional, wistful way.

Chinas uncompromising attitude to those it regards as opponents, especially internal opponents, shows a relentless autocracy happy to deny human rights we in the West imagine, in untested theory at least, inviolable.

UN and American officials have reported that a million Muslims are held in Chinese internment camps.

Former inmates have told of how they were forced to renounce Islam and recite Communist Party songs for hours each day.

There are reports of internees being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, both forbidden by Islam.

There are reports of torture and death as well. Cultural change imposed by force.

Intolerance is on display in Hong Kong too. Three campaigners behind the 2014 pro-democracy umbrella movement have pleaded not guilty to public nuisance charges brought because they advocated advancing democracy.

The grip of Chinese president Xi Jinping  described by The Economist as the worlds most powerful man  can be seen in a poll asking people if they agreed with the direction taken by their government. In China, 92% supported his regime.

If absolute power corrupts, then we are forewarned.
November 20, 2018



Big data equals better forecasting and a boon for water managers

POCATELLO  A research paper that uses data collected by lidar imaging to better measure snowpacks in Western U.S. mountains by former Idaho State University geosciences graduate student Chris Tennant has received a 2017 Editors Choice Award by the journal Water Resources Research.

Only about 1 percent of articles published annually in the journal receive this recognition.

The selection by the editors of the journal is based on technical significance, novelty, originality, presentation, and broader implications of the publication. The work will be highlighted at American Geophysical Union Hydrology Section business meeting in December.

The title of Tennants paper was Regional sensitivities of seasonal snowpack to elevation, aspect, and vegetation cover in western North America and it included three ISU geosciences faculty as co-authors, Kathleen Lohse, Sarah Godsey and Ben Crosby. It included data collected at the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory in Southwest Idaho.

The ability to be able to account how much snow covers the ground over large areas has radically changed with the use of lidar, Tennant said. Weve gone from measuring snow depth in watersheds at points that are 3-feet-by-3-feet to measuring at the scale of whole watersheds, 50-100 square miles.

The data Tennant analyzed was collected by planes flying over watersheds using light detection and ranging (lidar), which is a surveying method that measures snow depth by using pulsed laser light. Prior to the use of lidar, scientists estimated the snowpack by sticking pipes in the ground that measured snow depth at various sites, and then made assessments of the total snow pack based on these individual sites.

Chriss project evaluates at a foot-by-foot scale how thick the snowpack is over a large area well beyond what humans could go out and physically measure, said Crosby, who was Tennants advisor at ISU. So now we have a continuous measure of how thick the snow cover is over a given landscape.

Tennant found it makes a big difference in a watershed if there is vegetation or not, what direction the slope is facing and what elevation it is and how these factors influence the thickness of a snowpack. Knowing the thickness and other characteristics of a snow pack better allow scientists to more accurately estimate its water content.

Most water in the West used for everything from municipal water supplies to irrigation and industrial uses comes from the mountain snowpacks. Thus, the more accurately the snowpack is measured, the better able managers and others can forecast the amount of water that will be available during the year, which is extremely important for flood control and the waters many uses.

Chriss work improves the ability to forecast how much water a given winters snowpack will yield and provide for the demands downslope, Crosby said.

For example, in his current position for the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Tennant uses the data collected from lidar surveys to help determine the water release from the Corps dams in California.

Tennant credited his collaborators and those who have collected the lidar data across the West for the success of his paper. He and Crosby estimated the cost was in the millions of dollars for collecting the data that was analyzed in the paper.

I think it is really important to emphasize how much work has been done to generate those data sets and make them available, Tennant said. This paper would not have been produced if it wasnt for all the work that went into that.

These new snowpack data sets could also be valuable for helping to predict how climate change could impact Western watersheds in the future, in part because they measure watersheds at lower and higher elevation levels than the way the watershed snow packs were measured historically. This will help scientists to more accurately measure the water content of regional snow packs in the future.

This study demonstrates the utility of airborne lidar surveys for evaluating how physiography and regional climate interact to determine watershedlevel snow distributions and helps better inform how climate will affect vital western U.S. snowpack and water resources, Tennant states in the article.

Besides the ISU contingent of co-authors, Tennant also collaborated with Adrian Harpold at the University of Nevada, Reno; Laurel Larsen, University of California, Berkeley; Paul Brooks, University of Utah; Robert Van Kirk, Humboldt State University, California; and Nancy Glenn, Boise State University.

This is an example of the type of project enabled by community data resources, Crosby said. Science is no longer done by one or two people who are just slaving away by themselves in a laboratory. Now it is typically a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional endeavor for projects that are trying to cross between disciplines and regions. Using these types of data sets is an example of one of those projects succeeding because of being inclusive rather than exclusive.

Tennant, a native of North Carolina who earned his bachelors degree at Western Carolina University, earned his masters degree in geosciences from ISU in 2011 and his Ph.D. in geosciences in 2015. The article recognized was part of his Ph.D. thesis work. Tennant now works as a water control data systems administrator for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineering in its Sacramento, California, District Office and is completing post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley

Bottom photo information: Photo of Middle Fork Salmon River watershed provided by Ben Crosby, showing the exact kind of conditions studied for this research  how does snow cover vary with elevation, facing direction and vegetation.
Optus Business has reached a $12 million deal with industrial firm CSR Limited to provide voice, data and mobile services across 150 Australian sites.

A statement from Optus said it would provide the foundation for CSR's technology transformation and help the latter prepare for a more digitally-enabled future.

The solution provided by Optus will allow CSR to combine voice, video and data applications on a single network. A mobility solution for CSR employees would encourage users to use mobile ways of working.

Optus Business managing director John Paitaridis said: Technology is changing the way we work and how businesses operate and its all underpinned by the need for a resilient, high-capacity, scalable enterprise-grade network.

CSR, like many Australian enterprises, is preparing for the rapidly growing volume of data needed to leverage the latest technology developments that are transforming how customers and employees are interacting and engaging with organisations."

Craig Buttriss, CSRs general manager of Enterprise IT, said: CSR is continuing to reinvest in its technology to deliver the best experience for our people and customers.

We recognise the importance of data for our business and needed a network which is scalable and cost competitive to meet our future business requirements.

Optus Business services will provide us with the strong foundations for our IT strategy which can support not only our business requirements today, but also those of the future as we continue to develop new products and better experiences for CSR customers.
Huawei Australia has announced it has selected 29 undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) students to take part in its Seeds for the Future program, a unique business and cultural experience program.

In partnership with the Australian Technology Network of Universities and supported by the Australian Government New Colombo Plan, the 29 students will travel to China for three weeks of cultural and hands-on IT lessons and training.

That's five more students than in 2017, with iTWire having covered the program extensively over the past few years, as seen with links to previous coverage as well a range of video interviews conducted by me with the 2016 delegation of students and also the 2017 delegation here, with both articles also including full video of both year's graduation ceremonies.

Now, for those needing a refresher, we're reminded that "Huaweis Seeds for the Future fosters local Information & Communications Technology (ICT) talent, promotes interest in the telecommunications sector and encourages a greater understanding of the people and opportunities within Australias largest trading partner, China".

It's clearly an immersive program that gives the students the opportunity to "participate in a wide range of Chinese cultural and business experiences over the course from learning Mandarin at the Beijing Language and Cultural University, to visiting The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall of China".

"Students then visit Huaweis Shenzhen Headquarters for product and services training with Huaweis industry leaders."

Huawei Australia chief executive George Huang thanked the Australian Government for its continued support of the Seeds for the Future program and stressed the importance of industry collaboration with universities.

He said: Each year Huawei brings together young people from around the world to participate in the Seeds for the Future program.

Industry training and education is vital to ensure Australias next generation of ICT professionals are well prepared to contribute to our industry when they enter the workforce.

Exposure to Huaweis world-leading research and development environment will help the students to understand the commitment and focus required to continually move the industry forward.

Jenny Nguyen, a 2017 Seeds for the Future participant from QUT, and now a Systems Engineering Engineer at Boeing, said the program was a true highlight of her university education so far, and you can see my video interview with Nguyen (and other students) in my 2017 coverage here.

She added: From exciting cultural activities to our time at Huawei University, the range of cultural appreciation and business insights was invaluable.

"With global leaders like Huawei investing in the engineers, architects and IT professionals of the future, its exciting to think what lies ahead for me.

Lisa Connors, the manager of Huawei's Seeds for the Future Program, said: "Next year marks our 15-year anniversary in Australia. While there have been some incorrect things said about our company recently, the great thing about this program is that it is a real investment in Australias ICT future.

"The benefits for Australia are long term having better educated, better engaged and shaped globally aware students who will go on to become leaders in our industry.

"Huawei is extremely proud to be involved in helping facilitate this knowledge transfer which will leave a long lasting legacy."

As Huawei reminds us, "Seeds for the Future is a global initiative, implemented in 96 countries worldwide. Since 2013, Huawei Australia has provided over 75 Australian undergraduates with the opportunity to learn about China and to experience Huaweis dynamic global business.

"Through funding from the Australian Government and ATN members, the Seeds for the Future initiative is recognised as a valuable investment in cultivating young Australian talent in the STEM industry. The program is in its fifth year in Australia and is growing in momentum."

So, who are the 2018 Huawei Seeds for the Future participants?

They are as follows:

NSW

Reezvy Ali  University of Technology Sydney

Joseph Cerdan  University of Technology Sydney

Adrienne Fidelino  University of Technology Sydney

Lorna Hennessy  University of Technology Sydney

Cassandra Phoon  University of Technology Sydney

Queensland

Michael Barbera  Queensland University of Technology

Steven Bickley  Queensland University of Technology

Michael O'Brien  Queensland University of Technology

Kenneth Cheung  Queensland University of Technology

Jake Smith  Queensland University of Technology

Alexandra Tran  Queensland University of Technology

Yuval Bernstein  James Cook University

Timothy Coulter  James Cook University

Connor Fitzsimmons  James Cook University

Jason Owens  James Cook University

Elijah Thomas  James Cook University

South Australia

Michael Bishop  University of South Australia

Riley Bowen  University of South Australia

Nicole Carter  University of South Australia

Jordan Comley  University of South Australia

Vanshika Kapoor  University of South Australia

Akash Saini  University of South Australia

Victoria

Stephanie Batten  RMIT University

Bradley Denney  RMIT University

Claire Taylor-Cuthbertson  RMIT University

Western Australia

Munsif Khan  Curtin University

Ryan Pyrc  Curtin University

Alexander Rose Curtin University

Mia Walters  Curtin University

More information on the Seeds for the Future: China Experience program can be found at Huaweis global website here, with Huawei's Australian Seeds for the Future website here.

Here's some additional info about the Australian Technology Network of Universities and the New Colombo Plan:

"The Australian Technology Network brings together four of the most innovative and enterprising universities in the nation: Curtin University, RMIT University, University of South Australia (UniSA) and University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

"The ATN is committed to forging partnerships with industry and government to deliver practical results through focused research. It educates graduates who are ready to enter their chosen profession, dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and eager to claim a stake in building sustainable societies of the future.

"ATN universities teach over 220,000 students, or almost 20% of Australias student population. With nearly 1 in 4 international students choosing to study at an ATN university, the ATN is also the largest provider of international education, both with its onshore and offshore students.

"The ATNs aim is to help secure Australias reputation as the clever country, and contribute to its social and economic wealth, while championing the principles of access and equity that have ensured its members are the universities of first choice for more students."

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade  New Colombo Plan

"The New Colombo Plan a signature initiative of the Australian Government which aims to lift knowledge of the Indo Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to study and undertake internships in the region.

"The New Colombo Plan involves a scholarship program for study of up to one year and internships or mentorships, and a flexible mobility grants program for both short and longer- term study, internships, mentorships, practicums and research."
The Federal Government has said it would make all services with which citizens have to interact accessible online by 2025, according to a Digital Transformation Strategy released by Human Services and Digital Transformation Minister Michael Keenan on Wednesday.

In the process, the government claimed it would make the country one of the top three digital governments globally.

Keenan said providing data to the government  such as information about births or deaths  which has to be done multiple times at present, would be a thing of the past.

Imagine never having to queue up in a government office again because every sort of transaction you can think of will be available online  whether it is applying for welfare payments, registering a birth or a death, or even setting up your business end to end, he said.

Or imagine never having to wait on the phone to have your questions answered because a digital assistant will be available 24-hours a day to help you with anything you need to know.

"This is the way Australians will be able to interact with government in the very near future  a future where their needs come first and where privacy and security are always paramount.

In the detailed strategy document, Keenan pointed to the electronic clearance of passengers at airports, the online tax filing portal and processing of Medicare claims at a doctor's office as three ways in which life had been made easier for Australians.

The document listed three strategic priorities as being government that was easy to deal with; government that was informed by citizens; and government that was fit for the digital age.

BY June 2019, the document said the government planned to have in place virtual assistants for welfare support, digital identity, a child care marketplace, single touch payroll, staggered SMS notifications from myGov, and Medicare enrolment for the newborn.

For businesses, across the same timeframe, there were pledges of proving online facilities to handle tax affairs, business registration, digital ID for the Australian Business Registry, digital identity replacing AUSkey, the pilot of a special assistant for some grant programs, and personalised information for businesses.

Similarly, a list of services have been listed to be made available for every year to the end of June 2025.
I was updating some online passwords this week when I ran across the following digital certificate error when trying to access my cable providers website, brighthouse.com, using Google Chrome:

Google Digital certificate error message

Over the last few years digital certificate errors have gotten less common. This one intrigued me for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which was that the certificate involved in the error was being used by a fairly big company and not some mom-and-pop shop that might not know their computer security from a hole in the ground.

I immediately clicked on the Not secure label preceding the offending URL to examine the digital certificate in more detail to see if I could figure where the error was. Ive been doing public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates for over 20 years. I like to figure out the errors myself, to see who made what goof.

Googles own research has shown that the more a person knows about PKI and digital certificates, the more likely they are to ignore digital certificate errors and proceed to websites with digital certificate errors (which could be a bad move). For a few years this led to Google and Microsoft both providing less digital certificate information when a digital certificate error was encountered. Luckily, both companies seem to have reversed course and will let us digital certificate nerds do more detailed inspection when we feel motivated to do so.

So, I opened up and examined the offending digital certificate. Heres some of what I saw:

Google Digital certificate error details

In a nutshell, I could find no errors or mistakes  at least none readily identifiable. It was using SHA256 (not SHA1). It had a 2048-bit RSA key (not 1024-bits). The subject, *.brighthouse.com, was correct for the website page I was viewing, and also re-entered under the subject alternative name (SAN) field. Most of the certificate errors I see are made in the subject or SAN fields, as they are linked to the URL domain name, but I couldnt find any easy-to-identify errors. It perplexed me.

So, I quickly opened it up in Microsoft Edge, and the website and certificate displayed without error. In Edge, I opened the digital certificate, examined the serial number and thumbprint values, and compared them to the digital certificate in Google Chrome. They matched. Same certificate, but for some reason Chrome wasnt liking it. I closed Edge and swapped back to Chrome.

Then I did what I should have done in the first place. I slowed down and read the actual error message that Chrome displayed:

Google Certificate error was specific to Symantec PKI

There, I saw the only clue I needed. The error message said NET:: ERR_CERT_SYMANTEC_LEGACY. Thats right. Last year Google went to war with Symantec over a bunch of purported issues, including the fact that Symantec, through one or more of its PKI businesses (VeriSign, Thawte, GeoTrust, RapidSSL, etc.) issued certificates containing Google domain names to entities not belonging to Google.

This was a pretty big deal in the computer security world last year. I expected the phrase, Thems fighting words, to be said before revolvers were pulled. Ultimately, Google decided that they could no longer trust Symantec or any digital certificate Symantec issues, and they were going to, among many other actions, invalidate all Symantec-issued certificates very soon. This panicked much of the world because tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of public certs issued under the Symantec PKI arms would be involved. Googles move could cause millions of otherwise trusted and beloved websites to start erroring out.

Google, after consulting with much of the industry, including the respected CA/Browser Forum public PKI standards group, decided to delay and phase in the invalidations over more time.

Well, that time is here.

Google has explained some of the timeline and how the impact was phased in over varying Chrome versions. Turns out not all the big companies who should have gotten their certificates updated before now have done so. Well, all the complaining customers and executives will probably get that rectified in short order.

Although I and many others think this part of Googles solution was ham-fisted, I respect Googles right to determine the safety of its own products and in erring on the side of safety. I do wish the error message was a bit more informative. It would have been great if the messaging was a little less hackers are attacking you and more of The company you are connecting to is using an invalid digital certificate, click here for more details. Not sure why warning messages provide so little useful information to the casual viewer. Perhaps thats why my initial reaction was to gloss over the warning message and to start looking for the details on my own.

All of this is to say, if you use Google Chrome, expect a rise in digital certificate errors. If you see the Symantec_Legacy part of the warning message, youll know what its about.
Im sitting in a village in remote Afghanistan and listening. But not listening for what you might think, given that I am a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer.

I am sitting in a circle, in a room full of women who live in this war-torn village, working to understand the challenges of their day-to-day lives. Im listening to the gossip, the humor and the concern for their children. I am working to create a connection, which is not an easy job. Being a single woman over the age of 20 would ordinarily ostracize a person in this village, so I keep quiet. I have always loved a challenge.

My education prepared me for unfamiliar situations like this. I decided to veer away from the traditional college experience and attend Norwich University in Vermont, the oldest private military college in the United States. The male to female student ratio at Norwich was, and still is, seven to one. I viewed this imbalance as an opportunity to distinguish myself and eventually rose to Regimental Commander, the highest ranking for a Cadet, and only the 3rd female to hold that position in Norwichs 190 year history. After graduating, I began a career as a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, a 2nd Lieutenant, and eventually, a Captain.

Raising My Hand

During my service in 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a pilot program to insert women alongside elite Special Operations units in Afghanistan. The objective was to train female soldiers to accompany their male colleagues on missions and build relationships with Afghan women in ways that could prove challenging for male soldiers in an Islamic country. I knew this would be my next chapter.

I volunteered and shortly after joined a unit of women who were hand-picked to serve in this highly specialized role. I made it through the mentally and physically grueling selection process and began training as part of Culture Support Team II (CST-2). After two months of training, all of the CSTs were called in for a meeting. We were divided into two groups. Half of the CSTs were embedded with Rangers, where missions were urgent, often unpredictable and dangerous. The other half were assigned to Special Forces, which serve longer-term hearts and minds missions, with small teams embedded in remote locations to establish relationships with key communities, obtain intelligence, train local police and deliver resources to the community.

Special Forces

I was assigned to the latter half and was deployed for eight months with a Special Forces team to a remote village in rural Afghanistan. My role was to gather intelligence, bond with the local women, and help them with basic services like healthcare and education for their children. I traded my fatigues for a traditional local dress and got to work.

While the landscape and the culture was absolutely foreignI naturally connected with the women. The commonalities I found and the contacts I made helped me fulfill my mission, but also taught me a lot about myself.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE U.S.

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sandy Lake Gold Inc. (Sandy Lake Gold or the Company) (TSXV:SLAU) announces that it has entered into a non binding letter of intent (LOI) dated as of 19 November, 2018 to acquire a 100% interest in a suite of mineral exploration properties totaling approximately 25,888 acres in Guyana, South America.

The properties are located in the southwestern extremity of the Cuyuni Basin, Guyana; which hosts the Aurora Mine deposit (6.53 MOZ Measured and Indicated resource*4). Included in the package are the historic Aremu Mine and the Peters Mine concessions; two of the four historic producing mines in Guyana.

Mr. Patrick Sheridan, Executive Chairman and CEO of the Company states, The acquisition of these historic and advanced stage properties immediately launches Sandy Lake Gold into the forefront of mineral exploration in Guyana. Both Aremu and Peters Mine share similar geological settings and history as the Omai Mine (3.7 MOZ produced) and the Aurora Mine (6.53 MOZ Measured and Indicated resource*4) and both Aremu and Peters offer an outstanding opportunity for the discovery and development of high grade vein type, as well as open-pittable disseminated gold deposits.

Mr. Sheridan also commented, As we advance our district scale Sandy Lake Gold Project located in Northwestern Ontario, we will continue to aggressively seek additional properties of merit. We are delighted to have this opportunity to build a highly focused and successful exploration Company.

About the Aremu Mine *1

The Aremu Mine was in production between 1906 and 1911 and produced 6,488 ounces of gold from 14,632 tons of ore at an average head grade of approximately 0.44 oz/Au t. A vertical shaft was sunk to 170 ft. below surface and 1200 ft. of horizontal drifting was developed at the -82 ft and  160 ft levels. The actual mine*(1) consisted of numerous veins and workings including the Aremu Quartz Reef, Power House, Scotland and the Donicker veins; all located along a 16,000 ft east-west trend.

About the Peters Mine, Puruni River *1

Prior to the construction and opening of the Omai Mine in 1993, the Peters Mine was the most developed and highest grade deposit in Guyana. The mine produced over 40,000 ounces of gold between 1905 and 1909, with mill head grades exceeding over one ounce per ton. The property was developed to a depth of 300 ft, with the majority of production above the 200 ft level.

Geological mapping, sampling and diamond drilling in the mid 1960s was conducted at the Peters Mine property by the Geological Survey of Guyana, sponsored and funded by the USGS and United Nations. Importantly, three of the four drill holes at Peters Mine site intersected quartz veins and stringers, all containing visible gold at horizons below historical mine workings.

In the late 1990s Guyana Goldfields Inc. acquired the project and conducted limited drill programs, both as the operator and the optionor of the property to WSR Gold Inc.; these work programs were concentrated in the Main Shaft (MS) area and returned some significant intersections including:

Table of Historical Drill Holes *2,3

Mineralized Length (meters) Hole # From To Length Grade g/t Au MS-01 122.80 128.90 6.10 32.70 MS-07 125.10 130.30 5.20 13.87 MS-08 107.90 160.50 52.60 5.70 MS-18 11.80 14.00 2.20 26.50 including 74.00 96.00 22.00 1.84 MS-19 11.00 51.00 40.00 7.11 MS-31 30.50 57.10 26.60 7.60 PM07-1 108.00 184.00 76.00 2.70 including 108.00 128.00 20.00 2.51 including 111.75 125.00 13.25 3.51 PM07-5 0.00 118.00 118.00 1.22 including 0.00 21.00 21.00 1.09 including 25.50 54.00 28.50 1.58 including 70.00 118.00 48.00 1.52 including 157.00 177.00 20.00 2.50

This historical data referred to is based upon data and records prepared by previous operators. MS drill hole results are prior to the implementation of National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101). The Company is presenting this historical data for reference purposes only. The Company is not treating the historical data as NI 43-101 compliant, but is of the view that it may be an indicator of mineralization on the property.

*footnotes

1. A Guide to Mineral Exploration in Guyana

Bulletin No. 38

Geological Survey of Guyana  J.R.MacDonald

1968

2. Press Releases

Guyana Goldfields Inc. TSX:GUY

April 3, 2002

December 30, 2003

Available at www.sedar.com

3. Press Release

WSR Gold Inc. TSXV:WSR

May 29, 2007

4. Guyana Goldfields

Independent Technical Report

Updated Feasibility Study

Aurora Gold Mine Project,

Republic of Guyana

Timothy Carew, P.Geo

SRK Consulting

February 21, 2017

Available at www.sedar.com

Sandy Lake Gold will continue to assess other properties of merit in the Cuyuni Basin with the intention of making additional acquisitions.

The LOI contemplates the purchase of a 100% interest in the various properties by issuing to the vendors 100 million common shares of the Company. The closing of this transaction is subject to several conditions including, but not limited to the following:

(i) approval of the majority of disinterested shareholders as the transaction is a non-arms length transaction, wherein Mr. Sheridan has a significant interest in the vendors of the projects;

(ii) completion of a NI 43-101technical report on the Aremu  Oko project;

(iii) completion of reciprocal due diligence; and

(iv) approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

SANDY LAKE GOLD PROJECT UPDATE

Sandy Lake Gold Inc. currently controls approximately 104,000 acres of contiguous mineral claim holdings in the Sandy Lake Greenstone Belt located 225 kilometers north of Red Lake, Ontario. In 2014, a limited drill program in the western part of the claim package returned high grade gold intercepts of 12.86 Au g/t over 6.85 meters and 12.17 Au g/t over 6.2 meters. (Goldeye Explorations Limited press release April 9, 2014 available at SEDAR.com). The Company believes these encouraging intersections are part of a much larger mineralization event.

The Company has completed a VTEM airborne and ground geophysics surveys over the Phase 1 target areas. In February 2018 the Company signed a 5,000 meter drill contract and has mobilized all necessary equipment for the project. The Company is currently negotiating an exploration agreement with the First Nation communities, whose Traditional Territories encompass the project.

Sandy Lake Gold Inc. looks forward to advancing the exploration and development of this emerging gold district in partnership with the First Nations.

All scientific and technical information in this press release has been prepared under the supervision of Dan Noone, (a Director of Sandy Lake), a qualified person within the meaning of NI 43-101. Mr. Noone (B.Sc Geology, MBA) and a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.

For further information please contact:

Patrick Sheridan

Executive Chairman & CEO

(416) 628-5904

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words expect, anticipate, continue, estimate, may, might, will, project, should, believe, plans, intends and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information and/or statements. Forward-looking statements and/or information are based on a number of material factors, expectations and/or assumptions of Sandy Lake Gold which have been used to develop such statements and/or information but which may prove to be incorrect. Although Sandy Lake Gold believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements as Sandy Lake Gold can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. In addition to other factors and assumptions which may be identified herein, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: results from planned exploration and drilling activities; Sandy Lake Golds future plans for operational expenditures; the accuracy of the interpretations of exploration and drilling activity results; availability of financing to fund current and future plans and expenditures; the impact of increasing competition; the general stability of the economic and political environment in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests; the general continuance of current industry conditions; aboriginal matters; the timely receipt of any required regulatory approvals; the ability of Sandy Lake Gold to obtain qualified staff, equipment and/or services in a timely and cost efficient manner; the ability of the operator of each project in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests to operate in a safe, efficient and/or effective manner and to fulfill its respective obligations and current plans; future commodity prices; currency, exchange and/or interest rates; and the regulatory framework regarding royalties, taxes and/or environmental matters in the jurisdictions in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests. The forward-looking information and statements included in this news release are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon. Such information and/or statements, including the assumptions made in respect thereof, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results and/or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information and/or statements including, without limitation: risks associated with the uncertainty of exploration results and estimates, currency fluctuations, the uncertainty of conducting operations under a foreign regime, exploration risk, the uncertainty of obtaining all applicable regulatory approvals, the availability of labour and/or equipment, the fluctuating prices of commodities, the availability of financing and Sandy Lake Golds dependence on its management personnel, other participants in the property areas and/or certain other risks detailed from time-to-time in Sandy Lake Golds public disclosure documents, (including, without limitation, those risks identified in this news release and Sandy Lake Golds current managements discussion and analysis). Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligations to publicly update and/or revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of additional information, future events and/or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

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 and / or accuracy of this release
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE U.S.

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sandy Lake Gold Inc. (Sandy Lake Gold or the Company) (TSXV:SLAU) announces that it has entered into a non binding letter of intent (LOI) dated as of 19 November, 2018 to acquire a 100% interest in a suite of mineral exploration properties totaling approximately 25,888 acres in Guyana, South America.

The properties are located in the southwestern extremity of the Cuyuni Basin, Guyana. The Cuyuni Basin hosts the currently producing Aurora Gold Mine and numerous artisanal mine workings. Included in the package are the historic Aremu Mine and the Peters Mine concessions; two of the four historic producing mines in Guyana.

Mr. Patrick Sheridan, Executive Chairman and CEO of the Company states, The acquisition of these historic and advanced stage properties immediately launches Sandy Lake Gold into the forefront of mineral exploration in Guyana. Both Aremu and Peters Mine share similar geological settings and history as the Omai Mine (3.7 MOZ produced) and the Aurora Gold Mine and both Aremu and Peters offer an outstanding opportunity for the discovery and development of high grade vein type, as well as open-pittable disseminated gold deposits.

Mr. Sheridan also commented, As we advance our district scale Sandy Lake Gold Project located in Northwestern Ontario, we will continue to aggressively seek additional properties of merit. We are delighted to have this opportunity to build a highly focused and successful exploration Company.

About the Aremu Mine *1

The Aremu Mine was in production between 1906 and 1911 and produced 6,488 ounces of gold from 14,632 tons of ore at an average head grade of approximately 0.44 oz/Au t. A vertical shaft was sunk to 170 ft. below surface and 1200 ft. of horizontal drifting was developed at the -82 ft and  160 ft levels. The actual mine*(1) consisted of numerous veins and workings including the Aremu Quartz Reef, Power House, Scotland and the Donicker veins; all located along a 16,000 ft east-west trend.

About the Peters Mine, Puruni River *1

Prior to the construction and opening of the Omai Mine in 1993, the Peters Mine was the most developed and highest grade deposit in Guyana. The mine produced over 40,000 ounces of gold between 1905 and 1909, with mill head grades exceeding over one ounce per ton. The property was developed to a depth of 300 ft, with the majority of production above the 200 ft level.

Geological mapping, sampling and diamond drilling in the mid 1960s was conducted at the Peters Mine property by the Geological Survey of Guyana, sponsored and funded by the USGS and United Nations. Importantly, three of the four drill holes at Peters Mine site intersected quartz veins and stringers, all containing visible gold at horizons below historical mine workings.

In the late 1990s Guyana Goldfields Inc. acquired the project and conducted limited drill programs, both as the operator and the optionor of the property to WSR Gold Inc.; these work programs were concentrated in the Main Shaft (MS) area and returned some significant intersections including :

Table of Historical Drill Holes *2,3

Mineralized Length (meters) Hole # From To Length Grade g/t Au MS-01 122.80 128.90 6.10 32.70 MS-07 125.10 130.30 5.20 13.87 MS-08 107.90 160.50 52.60 5.70 MS-18 11.80 14.00 2.20 26.50 including 74.00 96.00 22.00 1.84 MS-19 11.00 51.00 40.00 7.11 MS-31 30.50 57.10 26.60 7.60 PM07-1 108.00 184.00 76.00 2.70 including 108.00 128.00 20.00 2.51 including 111.75 125.00 13.25 3.51 PM07-5 0.00 118.00 118.00 1.22 including 0.00 21.00 21.00 1.09 including 25.50 54.00 28.50 1.58 including 70.00 118.00 48.00 1.52 including 157.00 177.00 20.00 2.50

This historical data referred to is based upon data and records prepared by WSR Gold Inc. and Guyana Goldfields Inc. MS drill hole results are prior to the implementation of National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101). The Company is of the view that the above historical data is reliable, however it has been unable to independently confirm the historic drill results.

*footnotes

1. A Guide to Mineral Exploration in Guyana

Bulletin No. 38

Geological Survey of Guyana  J.R.MacDonald

1968

2. Press Releases

Guyana Goldfields Inc. TSX:GUY

April 3, 2002

December 30, 2003

Available at www.sedar.com

3. Press Release

WSR Gold Inc. TSXV:WSR

May 29, 2007



Sandy Lake Gold will continue to assess other properties of merit in the Cuyuni Basin with the intention of making additional acquisitions.

The LOI contemplates the purchase of a 100% interest in the various properties by issuing to the vendors 100 million common shares of the Company. The closing of this transaction is subject to several conditions including, but not limited to the following:

(i) approval of the majority of disinterested shareholders as the transaction is a non-arms length transaction, wherein Mr. Sheridan has a significant interest in the vendors of the projects;

(ii) completion of a NI 43-101technical report on the Aremu  Oko project;

(iii) completion of reciprocal due diligence; and

(iv) approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV).

Trading in the common shares of the Company on the TSXV has been halted and will remain halted until the requirements of the TSXV have been met to reinstate trading.

SANDY LAKE GOLD PROJECT UPDATE

Sandy Lake Gold Inc. currently controls approximately 104,000 acres of contiguous mineral claim holdings in the Sandy Lake Greenstone Belt located 225 kilometers north of Red Lake, Ontario. In 2014, a limited drill program in the western part of the claim package returned high grade gold intercepts of 12.86 Au g/t over 6.85 meters and 12.17 Au g/t over 6.2 meters. (Goldeye Explorations Limited press release April 9, 2014 available at SEDAR.com). The Company believes these encouraging intersections are part of a much larger mineralization event.

The Company has completed a VTEM airborne and ground geophysics surveys over the Phase 1 target areas. In February 2018 the Company signed a 5,000 meter drill contract and has mobilized all necessary equipment for the project. The Company is currently negotiating an exploration agreement with the First Nation communities, whose Traditional Territories encompass the project.

Sandy Lake Gold Inc. looks forward to advancing the exploration and development of this emerging gold district in partnership with the First Nations.

All scientific and technical information in this press release has been prepared under the supervision of Dan Noone, (a Director of Sandy Lake), a qualified person within the meaning of NI 43-101. Mr. Noone (B.Sc Geology, MBA) and a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.

For further information please contact:

Patrick Sheridan

Executive Chairman & CEO

(416) 628-5904

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words expect, anticipate, continue, estimate, may, might, will, project, should, believe, plans, intends and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information and/or statements. Forward-looking statements and/or information are based on a number of material factors, expectations and/or assumptions of Sandy Lake Gold which have been used to develop such statements and/or information but which may prove to be incorrect. Although Sandy Lake Gold believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements as Sandy Lake Gold can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. In addition to other factors and assumptions which may be identified herein, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: results from planned exploration and drilling activities; Sandy Lake Golds future plans for operational expenditures; the accuracy of the interpretations of exploration and drilling activity results; availability of financing to fund current and future plans and expenditures; the impact of increasing competition; the general stability of the economic and political environment in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests; the general continuance of current industry conditions; aboriginal matters; the timely receipt of any required regulatory approvals; the ability of Sandy Lake Gold to obtain qualified staff, equipment and/or services in a timely and cost efficient manner; the ability of the operator of each project in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests to operate in a safe, efficient and/or effective manner and to fulfill its respective obligations and current plans; future commodity prices; currency, exchange and/or interest rates; and the regulatory framework regarding royalties, taxes and/or environmental matters in the jurisdictions in which Sandy Lake Gold has property interests. The forward-looking information and statements included in this news release are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon. Such information and/or statements, including the assumptions made in respect thereof, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results and/or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information and/or statements including, without limitation: risks associated with the uncertainty of exploration results and estimates, currency fluctuations, the uncertainty of conducting operations under a foreign regime, exploration risk, the uncertainty of obtaining all applicable regulatory approvals, the availability of labour and/or equipment, the fluctuating prices of commodities, the availability of financing and Sandy Lake Golds dependence on its management personnel, other participants in the property areas and/or certain other risks detailed from time-to-time in Sandy Lake Golds public disclosure documents, (including, without limitation, those risks identified in this news release and Sandy Lake Golds current managements discussion and analysis). Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligations to publicly update and/or revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of additional information, future events and/or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

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 and / or accuracy of this release
Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Irving Resources Inc. (CSE:IRV) (Irving or the Company) announces that it intends to conduct a non-brokered private placement to raise approximately $2,083,000 by the issuance of approximately 1,894,000 units (the Units) at a price of $1.10 per Unit (the Private Placement). Each Unit will be comprised of one common share of the Company and one-half of a share purchase warrant (the Warrants). Each whole Warrant will be exercisable for one common share of the Company at a price of $1.75 per share for a period of two years from the date of issue, subject to an accelerated expiry provision.

The Company plans to use the net proceeds of the Private Placement to fund matters related to property exploration in Japan and for general working capital purposes.

About Irving Resources Inc.:

Irving is a junior exploration company with a focus on gold in Japan. Irving also holds, through a subsidiary, Project Venture Agreements with Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) for joint regional exploration programs in the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Malawi and the Republic of Madagascar. JOGMEC is a government organization established under the law of Japan, administrated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, and is responsible for stable supply of various resources to Japan through the discovery of sizable economic deposits of base, precious and rare metals.

Additional information can be found on the Companys website: www.IRVresources.com.

Akiko Levinson,

President & Director

THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This press release does not constitute, and the subject matter hereof is not, an offer for sale or a solicitation of an offer to buy, in the United States or to any U.S Person (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 1933 Act)) of any equity or other securities of the Company. The securities of the Company have not been registered under the 1933 Act and may not be offered or sold in the United States (or to a U.S. Person) absent registration under the 1933 Act or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act.
VANCOUVER, Nov. 20, 2018 /CNW/ - NGEx Resources Inc. (TSX: NGQ, OMX: NGQ) ("NGEx", or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of a positive Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") at its 100% owned Josemaria project in San Juan province, Argentina. A Conference Call and Webcast to discuss these results will be held on Wednesday, November 21, at 9:00am Eastern Time. All values in this release are reported in US dollars.

Commenting on the results, CEO Wojtek Wodzicki stated, "The PFS shows robust economics and confirms the great potential of Josemaria. Long term copper fundamentals are strong, and the global project pipeline is at multi-decade lows. We believe that this scarcity will lead to premium valuations for companies with construction-ready projects. We plan to work towards fast-tracking Josemaria towards production by starting work on a feasibility study, securing water rights, and advancing our environmental permitting plans."

Josemaria PFS Highlights:

A $2.0 billion after-tax NPV using an 8% discount rate and an IRR of 18.6% at $3.00 /lb copper;

after-tax NPV using an 8% discount rate and an IRR of 18.6% at /lb copper; Strong front end production and cash flows drive a 3.4 year payback period and support a variety of financing alternatives;

An Initial Probable Mineral Reserve of 1, 008 Mt of 0.29% copper, 0.21 gpt gold, and 0.92 gpt silver (or 0.41% CuEq);

of 0.29% copper, 0.21 gpt gold, and 0.92 gpt silver (or 0.41% CuEq); Pre-production capital cost of $2,750 million (excluding costs prior to a construction decision);

(excluding costs prior to a construction decision); Average annual production (rounded) of approximately 125,000 tonnes of copper, 230,000 ounces of gold, and 790,000 ounces of silver per year at a C1 cost of $1.26 /lb CuEq;

/lb CuEq; First 3 years full years of annual production average 170,000 tonnes of copper, 350,000 ounces of gold, and 1,000,000 ounces of silver;

20 year mine life producing over 5.4 billion lbs of copper and 4.6 million ounces of gold;

Low strip ratio of 0.71:1 (waste:ore);

Excellent metallurgy producing a clean, marketable, precious metals rich copper concentrate;

Design incorporates planning for a fully autonomous haul truck fleet along with high pressure grinding rolls;

All major mining and infrastructure located in San Juan Province, Argentina  facilitating permitting in one jurisdiction;

 facilitating permitting in one jurisdiction; Potential opportunities to further improve the project include: Recovery of additional gold from the oxide cap at Josemaria; Increasing metallurgical recoveries and concentrate grades with additional test work and optimization; and Delineating more or higher-grade material through continued exploration on the Company's extensive land package.



Project Description

Josemaria is a copper-gold (Cu-Au) porphyry system located in the Andes Mountains of San Juan Province, Argentina. The project is located about 10 km from the Chilean border and is about 140 km southeast of the city of Copiapo, Chile and 350 km northwest of the city of San Juan, Argentina.

The PFS contemplates that Josemaria would be mined using conventional open pit methods and assumes the latest in autonomous haul truck technologies. From the open pit, ore would be trucked to a primary crusher, crushed, and then sent to the process plant. The comminution circuit design considers a high-pressure grind roll ("HPGR") crushing circuit followed by ball mill grinding. The circuit was designed to process 150,000 tonnes per day of ore. Conventional sulphide flotation will follow the comminution stage and is expected to produce a gold and silver-rich copper concentrate. Groundwater for the process plant would be supplied from nearby aquifers to the plant site, and power would be supplied via 250 km of power line construction to connect to the Argentine national grid. Concentrates would be trucked from the plant to the port of Caldera in Chile, approximately 380 km by road from the Josemaria plant site, requiring the construction of 57 km of new road to connect to the public highway.

Summary of Josemaria PFS Economic Results:

Pre-Tax NPV (8%) & IRR $2.9 billion NPV

21.3% IRR After-Tax NPV (8%) & IRR $2.0 billion NPV

18.6% IRR Undiscounted After-Tax Cash Flow (LOM) $6.5 billion Payback Period from start of processing (undiscounted, after-tax cash flow) 3.4 Years Metals Prices Assumed $3.00/lb Cu $1,300/oz Au $20.00/oz Ag Initial Capital Expenditures (rounded) $2,750 million LOM Sustaining Capital Expenditure (excluding closure) $833 million LOM C-1 Cash Costs (Co-Product) $1.26/lb CuEq Nominal Process Capacity 150,000 t/d Mine Life 20 years Average Annual Metal Production (rounded) First 3 years

(full production) Life of Mine 170,000 t Cu

350,000 oz Au

1,000,000 oz Ag 125,000 t Cu

230,000 oz Au

790,000 oz Ag LOM Average Process Recovery 86% Cu

71% Au

59% Ag

* All figures reported are in 2018 US dollars and on a 100% Project and 100% equity basis valuation. This includes a 3% provincial mining royalty, other minor private royalties, and 25% corporate tax rate.

The PFS was prepared and managed by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. with input from Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. (Canada), Knight Piesold (Vancouver), BGC Engineering (Canada), Merlin Geosciences, and Gino Zandonai.

A National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") Technical Report that summarizes the results of the PFS and incorporates the initial mineral reserve statement for Josemaria will be filed within 45 days on SEDAR and on the Company's website (the "Technical Report"). For readers to fully understand the information in this news release, they should read the Technical Report in its entirety, including all qualifications, assumptions and exclusions that relate to the PFS. The Technical Report is intended to be read as a whole, and sections should not be read or relied upon out of context.

Project Economic Sensitivity to Copper Prices

A cash flow valuation model for the project has been developed based on the PFS. The model was developed using a long-term copper price of $3.00/lb. The following figures show the sensitivity of estimated NPV for the Project's cash flows at various copper prices and discount rates (Au and Ag held flat at $1,300/oz and $20/oz respectively):

Sensitivity to Discount

Rate & Copper Prices $2.50/lb Copper (US$ billion) $3.00/lb Copper (US$ billion) $3.50/lb Copper (US$ billion) Pre-Tax After-Tax Pre-Tax After-Tax Pre-Tax After-Tax Discounted at 5% $2.9 $2.0 $4.4 $3.2 $5.9 $4.3 Discounted at 8% $1.7 $1.1 $2.9 $2.0 $4.0 $2.9 Discounted at 10% $1.2 $0.7 $2.1 $1.4 $3.1 $2.1

Capital & Operating Cost Estimates

Capital costs were derived from a variety of sources including derivation from first principles, equipment quotes and factoring from other costs contained within the PFS study. Costs are estimated to an accuracy of +/- 25% which is equivalent to an AACE International, Class 4 Estimate.

Estimated Capital Costs (US$ million) Mine Pre-strip $49 Mining $204 Crushing $486 Processing $457 On-Site Infrastructure $162 Off-Site Infrastructure $280 Total Direct Costs $1,638 Indirect Costs $309 Project Delivery $245 Owner's Costs $83 Contingency $474 TOTAL INITIAL CAPEX $2,749 LOM Sustaining Capital $833 Closure $150 Total Life of Mine Capital $3,732

The PFS estimates that the C1 cash costs (by-product basis) over the life of mine will average $1.26/lb CuEq. C1 cash costs include at-mine cash operating costs, treatment and refining charges, royalties, selling costs, and transportation costs and are reported on a $/equivalent payable unit of the primary metal.

Operating Costs (US$/t processed) Mining $2.85 Processing $3.23 Other Infrastructure $0.02 Site G&A $0.72 TOTAL $6.82

Initial Josemaria Mineral Reserve Statement

The Initial Mineral Reserve estimate for Josemaria, shown below, is based on the Mineral Resource model with an effective date of 7 August 2015 (details of the Josemaria Mineral Resource estimate will be contained in the Technical Report). The Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves.

Josemaria Mineral Reserve Statement Tonnage Grade Contained Metal Category (all domains) (Mt) Cu

(%) Au

(g/t) Ag

(g/t) CuEq

(%) Cu

(B lbs) Au

(M oz) Ag

(M oz) Proven - - - - - - - - Probable 1,008 0.29 0.21 0.92 0.41 6.5 6.5 28.8 Total Proven and Probable 1,008 0.29 0.21 0.92 0.41 6.5 6.5 28.8

Notes to accompany Josemaria Mineral Reserve table: 1. Mineral Reserves have an effective date of 20 November 2018. The Qualified Person for the estimate is Mr. Robert McCarthy, P.Eng. 2. The Mineral Reserves and Resources in this news release were estimated using the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines prepared by the CIM Standing Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by CIM Council. 3. The mineral reserves are based on a pit design which in turn aligns with an ultimate pit shell selected from a WhittleTM pit optimization exercise. Key inputs for that process are: Metal prices of $2.95/lb Cu, $1,225/oz Au; $19.00/oz Ag;

Mining cost of $1.80/t ore and waste at a reference elevation of 4180 m, plus cost adjustments of $0.016/t/10m bench above reference and $0.025/t/10 m bench below reference;

Processing cost of $3.60/t ore milled;

General and administration cost of $0.80/t milled;

Pit slope angles varying from 42 to 46 degrees; and

Process recoveries are based on grade. The average recovery is estimated to be 85% for Cu, 65% for Au and 66% for Ag;

CuEq was calculated using total payable revenue from all metals in the mine plan, converting to copper, and back calculating for grade based on life of mine average copper recoveries and payables; 4. Mining dilution is estimated to be 5%; 5. Ore loss is assumed to be 1%; 6. The Mineral Reserve has an economic cut-off, based on Net Smelter Return, of $4.95/t for prime mill feed; 7. There are 711 Mt of waste in the ultimate pit. The strip ratio is 0.71 (waste:ore); 8. All figures are rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Totals may not sum due to rounding as required by reporting guidelines.

Mining & Processing

The study contemplates conventional open pit mining methods using autonomous haul trucks. Mine planning incorporates stockpiling strategies to focus on the early extraction of the highest-grade ore in addition to deferring waste stripping. Including pre-stripping, the open pit will be in operation for 23 years, delivering ore to the mill for 20 years, with a life of mine strip ratio of 0.71:1. A maximum mining rate of approximately 115 Mt per year (including waste) is required to provide the nominal 150,000 tonnes per day of ore to the mill. A total of 1,008 Mt of ore is expected to be processed over the life of the mine.

Primary crushed ore will be transported via surface conveyor to a coarse ore stockpile, and then transferred to the process plant. The process considers the use of HPGR's as part of a three-stage crushing circuit, followed by conventional ball mill grinding and sulphide flotation. Design throughput is 150,000 tonnes per day. Water obtained from the concentrate thickener, tailings thickener and concentrate filter will be recovered and sent back to the process plant to be used as make-up water.

The proposed PFS production schedule and metal production profile is shown on the attached figures. Note: the project assumes a 30-month construction period, which would begin mid way through Year 1.

Josemaria Production Schedule Figure 1

Josemaria Metal Production Schedule Figure 2

Metallurgy

A two-phase metallurgical test work program for Josemaria was conducted at SGS Minerals S.A. laboratories in Santiago, Chile. SGS Minerals S.A. laboratories is independent of the Company. Multiple composite and variability samples were tested for mineralogy, physical characterization, gravity concentration, conventional sulphide flotation (open/locked cycle tests with different flowsheets), flotation tailings cyanidation and solids settling. Based on the testwork completed to date, life of mine metal recovery is expected to be 86% for copper, 71% for gold, and 59% for silver. Copper concentrate grades are expected to average 25% over the life of the mine. It is anticipated that the concentrate will be clean, precious metals rich, and readily marketable.

Recent metallurgical testing performed at ALS, Kamloops, BC focused on confirming and improving the bulk concentrate flotation results achieved by SGS. ALS is also independent of the Company. The work generally confirmed the results and identified several areas that could be explored to increase the overall copper concentrate grades while maintaining similar recoveries. Additional test work is planned during the 2018 / 2019 field season to optimize this work as Josemaria transitions into a Feasibility Study.

Infrastructure

The major infrastructure items considered and estimated in the PFS are:

Water Supply: Water is fully supported by aquifers in Argentina , located near the proposed plant site. The industrial water make-up requirement is estimated to be 750 L/s.

Water is fully supported by aquifers in , located near the proposed plant site. The industrial water make-up requirement is estimated to be 750 L/s. Power Supply: The site will be supplied with electricity through a 250 km long, 220 kV, single circuit power transmission line connected to the El Rodeo substation in San Juan province, Argentina . Average electrical demand is estimated to be 136 MW. A price of $0.075 /kWh was used for long-term power supply. Power supply alternatives from Chile were also considered however, the lower power costs in Argentina led to operating costs savings over the Project life.

The site will be supplied with electricity through a 250 km long, 220 kV, single circuit power transmission line connected to the El Rodeo substation in San Juan province, . Average electrical demand is estimated to be 136 MW. A price of /kWh was used for long-term power supply. Power supply alternatives from were also considered however, the lower power costs in led to operating costs savings over the Project life. Tailings Storage Facility: Tailings, water from the milling process, and surface runoff will be stored within a typical surface storage facility ("TSF"). The TSF consists of a starter embankment across a large valley located 7 km from the process plant and subsequent embankment raises along with two smaller containment embankments, designed to contain 1 Bt of tailings and water over the life of the project.

Tailings, water from the milling process, and surface runoff will be stored within a typical surface storage facility ("TSF"). The TSF consists of a starter embankment across a large valley located 7 km from the process plant and subsequent embankment raises along with two smaller containment embankments, designed to contain 1 Bt of tailings and water over the life of the project. Concentrate Transport: Concentrate will be transported by truck from the filter plant to the port in Chile . The PFS considered the use of a port near the city of Caldera which is located 77 km northwest of Copiapo. The approximate trucking distance from the plant site is 380 km. Existing secondary access from the mine site through Argentina to the city of San Juan will also be used. Fifty-seven (57) km of new road construction is required.

Social & Environmental

Knight Piesold completed the environmental baseline work for the Company in 2017 and 2018, in addition to reviewing the historical work from other independent consultants who assisted in the preparation of the environmental work. Efforts here will be used to support the ultimate preparation of the respective Environmental Impact Assessments ("EIA").

Baseline studies to date include: geosciences, air & water, terrestrial biota, the human environment, and natural & cultural heritage. The list of environmental components to be studied was derived from the Chilean national environmental assessment regulations, the Argentine national mining environmental law and from the International Finance Corporation's Sustainability Performance Standards (IFC 2012). Baseline studies are ongoing and will continue into the upcoming field season.

Communication with the local community, private land owners, and other interested parties is also ongoing.

Mineral Resource

The Josemaria Mineral Resource remains unchanged from the Mineral Resource estimate reported by the Company with an effective date of 7 August 2015 and is based on data from 116 drill holes totaling 52,725 m of drilling, of which 34 holes (13,164 m) are reverse circulation (RC) and 82 holes (39,561 m) are core holes. The total length of assayed intervals is 51,092 m and there are 27,344 assays.

The Mineral Resource estimate as of the effective date of 7 August 2015 is shown in the table below (base case highlighted). Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Josemaria Indicated Mineral Resources (sulphide) Tonnage Grade Contained Metal Cutoff

(CuEq) (Mt) Cu

(%) Au

(g/t) Ag

(g/t) CuEq

(%) Cu

(B lbs) Au

(M oz) Ag

(M oz) 0.60 148 0.56 0.38 1.5 0.76 1.8 1.8 6.9 0.50 295 0.47 0.34 1.3 0.65 3.0 3.2 12.6 0.40 559 0.40 0.29 1.2 0.55 4.9 5.2 21.8 0.30 835 0.35 0.25 1.1 0.49 6.5 6.6 29.7 0.20 1,066 0.31 0.22 1.0 0.44 7.4 7.4 34.5 Josemaria Inferred Mineral Resources (sulphide) Tonnage Grade Contained Metal Cutoff

(CuEq*) (Mt) Cu

(%) Au

(g/t) Ag

(g/t) CuEq

(%) Cu

(billion lbs) Au

(million oz) Ag

(million oz) 0.50 9 0.37 0.28 1.1 0.52 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.40 85 0.31 0.23 1.0 0.45 0.6 0.6 2.7 0.30 236 0.28 0.19 0.9 0.38 1.4 1.4 6.8 0.20 404 0.24 0.15 0.8 0.33 2.0 2.0 10.8

Josemaria Indicated Mineral Resources (oxide) Tonnage Grade Contained Metal Cutoff

(Au

g/t) (Mt) Cu

(%) Au

(g/t) Ag

(g/t) Au

(k oz) Ag

(k oz) 0.40 10 0.18 0.46 1.4 150 460 0.30 23 0.16 0.40 1.3 290 950 0.20 43 0.15 0.32 1.2 450 1,610 0.10 77 0.13 0.25 1.0 610 2,520 Josemaria Inferred Mineral Resources (oxide) Tonnage Grade Contained Metal Cutoff

(Au

g/t) (Mt) Cu (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) Au

(k oz) Ag

(k oz) 0.40 2 0.00 0.43 1.2 27 73 0.30 3 0.00 0.40 1.1 37 102 0.20 4 0.00 0.34 1.0 48 145 0.10 7 0.02 0.26 0.9 62 214

Notes to accompany Josemaria Mineral Resource tables:

1. Mineral Resources have an effective date of 7 August, 2015. The Qualified Person for the estimate is Mr. Gino Zandonai, RM CMC. 2. Sulphide Mineral Resources are reported using a copper equivalent (CuEq) cutoff grade. CuEq was calculated using US$3.00/lb copper, US$ 1,400/oz gold and US$23/oz Ag and was based on copper, gold and silver recoveries obtained in metallurgical testwork on four composite samples representing the rhyolite, tonalite, porphyry and supergene zones. Copper recoveries for the rhyolite, tonalite and porphyry zones were calculated as a function of copper grade, ranging from a low of 81% to a high of 97%. Copper recovery in the supergene zone was fixed at 85%. Gold recoveries were fixed between 62% and 73% and silver recoveries were fixed between 53% and 75% depending on the zone. 3. Mineral Resources are reported within a conceptual Whittle pit that uses the following input parameters: Cu price of US$3.00/lb; mining cost of US$2.20/t; process cost (including G&A) of US$7.40/t processed; copper selling cost of US$0.35/lb and over-all pit slope angle of 42. The oxide resource was treated as waste for the Whittle run, however preliminary testwork has shown good recovery of gold through cyanide leaching and there is a reasonable prospect of eventual economic extraction of gold and silver using this method. 4. Mineral Resources (sulphide) have a base case estimate using a 0.2% CuEq cutoff grade; Mineral Resources (oxide) are reported using a 0.2 g/t Au cutoff grade. 5. Details of the Josemaria Mineral Resource estimate will be contained in the Technical Report. 6. Totals may not sum due to rounding as required by reporting guidelines.

Qualified Persons

The following Qualified Persons (QPs) will co-author the Technical Report that will be based on the PFS. These QPs have reviewed and approved the information in this news release that pertain to the sections of the PFS technical report that they are responsible for.

Geology: Fionnuala Devine , P.Geo., of Merlin Geosciences

, P.Geo., of Merlin Geosciences Metallurgy: Robin Kalanchey , P.Eng., of Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. ( Canada )

, P.Eng., of Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. ( ) Mineral Resource: Gino Zandonai , MSc. (CSM), CP (RM CMC #0155)

, MSc. (CSM), CP (RM CMC #0155) Mining & Mineral Reserve: Robert McCarthy , P.Eng., of SRK Consulting ( Canada )

, P.Eng., of SRK Consulting ( ) Processing: Robin Kalanchey , P.Eng, of Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. ( Canada )

, P.Eng, of Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. ( ) Infrastructure: Scott Elfen, P.E., of Ausenco Engineering Canada Inc. ( Canada )

) Economic Evaluation: Neil Winkelmann , B.E. (Mining), MBA (FAusIMM), of SRK Consulting ( Canada )

, B.E. (Mining), MBA (FAusIMM), of SRK Consulting ( ) Environmental & Social: Bruno Bontrager , P.Eng., of Knight Piesold ( Vancouver )

Each of the individuals above are independent QPs for the purposes of NI 43-101. All scientific and technical information in this news release in respect of the Josemaria project or the PFS is based on information prepared by or under the supervision of those individuals.

Conference Call and Webcast

A conference call to discuss the PFS results will be held on Wednesday, November 21st, 2018 at 09:00 Toronto time, 14:00 UK time, or 15:00 Swedish time.

Please call in 10 minutes before the conference call starts and stay on the line (an operator will be available to assist you).

Conference ID: 80968702 Toll-Free North America: +1 888 390 0605 Local Toronto: +1 416 764 8609 Local Vancouver: +1 778 383 7417 London: 08006 522435 Sweden: 0200899189 To view the live webcast presentation, please register using this direct link:

Click Here

The presentation slideshow will also be available in PDF format for download from the NGEx Resources website www.ngexresources.com before the conference call.

A replay of the telephone conference will be available approximately 2 hours after the completion of the conference call until December 19, 2018.

Replay number (Toll Free North America): +1 888 390 0541

Replay number (All others): +1 416 764 8677

The pass code for the replay is: 968702 #

About NGEx

NGEx is a Canadian mineral exploration company with projects in Chile and Argentina. The Company's shares are listed on the TSX and on the OMX under the symbol "NGQ". The Company's main focus is on advancing the development of its two, large copper/gold deposits, Los Helados and Josemaria, located in Chile's Region III and adjacent San Juan Province, Argentina. The Company owns a 100% interest in the Josemaria project and is the majority partner and operator for the Los Helados project, subject to a Joint Exploration Agreement with its joint exploration partner in Chile, Pan Pacific Copper ("PPC"). The Company is also actively seeking new exploration projects and carrying out earlier stage exploration on projects with large scale potential.

Additional Information

This information is information that NGEx Resources Inc. is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, on November 20, 2018 at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

On behalf of the board

Wojtek Wodzicki,

President and CEO

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made and information contained herein in the news release constitutes "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation (collectively, "forward-looking information"). The forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on information available to the Company as of the date of this news release. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information. Generally, this forward-looking information can frequently, but not always, be identified by use of forward-looking terminology 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, conditions or results "will", "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotations thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements contained in this news release include statements regarding the results of the PFS and the anticipated capital and operating costs, sustaining costs, net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, process capacity, average annual metal production, average process recoveries, anticipated mining and processing methods, proposed PFS production schedule and metal production profile, anticipated construction period, anticipated mine life, expected recoveries and grades, anticipated production rates, infrastructure, social and environmental impact studies, availability of labour, tax rates and commodity prices that would support development of the Josemaria Project. Information concerning mineral resource/reserve estimates and the economic analysis thereof contained in the results of the PFS are also forward-looking statements in that they reflect a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered, and the results of mining, if a mineral deposit were developed and mined. Although NGEx believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements since NGEx can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements, including the risks, uncertainties and other factors identified in NGEx's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators, including the Company's Annual Information Form available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. In addition, these statements involve assumptions made with regard to the Company's ability to develop the Josemaria Project and to achieve the results outlined in the PFS; the ability to raise the capital required to fund construction and development of the Josemaria Project; and the results and impact of future exploration at the Josemaria Project.

Statements relating to "mineral resources" are deemed to be forward-looking information, as they involve the implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions that the mineral resources described can be profitably produced in the future.

The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and NGEx does not undertake any obligations to publicly update and/or revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of additional information, future events and/or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of the Company's operating environment. Forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions that the Company believes are reasonable, including that the current price of and demand for commodities will be sustained or will improve, the supply of commodities will remain stable, that the general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed on reasonable terms and that the Company will not experience any material labour dispute, accident, or failure of plant or equipment. These factors are not, and should not be construed as being, exhaustive. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that would 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 statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. All of the forward-looking information contained in this document is qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information due to the inherent uncertainty thereof.

Estimates of Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources

Information regarding reserve and resource estimates has been prepared in accordance with Canadian standards under applicable Canadian securities laws, and may not be comparable to similar information for United States companies. The terms "Mineral Resource", "Measured Mineral Resource", "Indicated Mineral Resource" and "Inferred Mineral Resource" used in this news release are Canadian mining terms as defined in accordance with NI 43-101 under guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves adopted by the CIM Council on May 10, 2014. While the terms "Mineral Resource", "Measured Mineral Resource", "Indicated Mineral Resource" and "Inferred Mineral Resource" are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, they are not defined terms under standards of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Under United States standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that the mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve calculation is made. As such, certain information contained in this news release concerning descriptions of mineralization and resources under Canadian standards is not comparable to similar information made public by United States companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. An "Inferred Mineral Resource" has a great amount of uncertainty as to its existence and as to its economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an "Inferred Mineral Resource" will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of Inferred Mineral Resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. Readers are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of Measured or Indicated Resources will ever be converted into Mineral Reserves. Readers are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an "Inferred Mineral Resource" exists or is economically or legally mineable. In addition, the definitions of "Proven Mineral Reserves" and "Probable Mineral Reserves" under CIM standards differ in certain respects from the standards of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Non-IFRS Measures

This news release refers to certain financial measures, such as pre-production capital costs, initial capital expenditures, sustaining capital expenditure, closure costs, C1 cash costs, payback period, undiscounted after-tax cash flow, net present value, strip ratio, IRR and other financial metrics which are not measures recognized under IFRS and do not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. In the mining industry, these are common performance measures but may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. The Company believes that, in addition to conventional measures prepared in accordance with IFRS, certain investors use this information to evaluate the Company's performance and ability to generate cash flow. Accordingly, it is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.
Indicated Resource of 2.1 Bt @ 0.6% CuEq (8.4 Mt Cu, 19.4 Moz Au) including 400 Mt @1.49% CuEq (3.6 Mt Cu, 11.9 Moz Au)

OTTAWA, Nov. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. (Cornerstone or the Company) (TSXV:CGP) (Frankfurt:GWN) (Berlin:GWN) (OTC:CTNXF) is pleased to announce the following update on the exploration program at its Cascabel copper-gold porphyry joint venture exploration project in northern Ecuador, in which the Company has a 15% interest1 financed through to completion of a feasibility study and repayable out of Cornerstones share of project earnings or dividends, plus 9.25% of the shares of joint venture partner and project operator SolGold Plc, for a total direct and indirect interest in Cascabel of approximately 23%.

Figures referred to in this news release can be seen in PDF format by accessing the version of this release on the Companys website (www.cornerstoneresources.com) or by clicking on the link below:

HIGHLIGHTS:

Alpala deposit updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) 2 reports 2.05 Bt @ 0.60% copper equivalent (CuEq) (8.4 Mt Cu, 19.4 Moz Au) Indicated, plus 900 Mt @ 0.35% CuEq (2.5 Mt Cu, 3.8 Moz Au) Inferred, including: High grade core of 400 Mt @1.49% CuEq (3.6 Mt Cu, 11.9 Moz Au) Indicated plus 20 Mt @ 1.05% CuEq (0.2 Mt Cu, 0.4 Moz Au) Inferred

MRE reported using a cut-off grade of 0.2% CuEq, reflecting the reasonable potential for economic extraction by high production rate mass mining methods such as block caving.

Potential for further growth with the 2019 drilling campaign to continue to expand the deposit at Alpala SE, Alpala NW, Trivinio and Alpala Western Limb.

President and CEO Brooke Macdonald said: "We are pleased that the increase in high grade resources has been added within or adjacent to the previous high grade envelope suggesting a robust target for early extraction of higher grade material. We are also confident that continued exploration on other Cascabel targets will add to the total mineral inventory."

The reader is cautioned that it is uncertain that further exploration will result in the conversion of unclassified mineralization to Inferred Mineral Resources, the upgrading of Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources, or the additional targets on Cascabel being delineated as a mineral resource.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Cascabel is located in northwestern Ecuador in an under-explored northern section of the Andean Copper Belt, 60 km northeast of the undeveloped inferred resource of 982 million tons at 0.89% Cu Llurimaga (formerly Junin) copper project3 (Figure 1).

Alpala Mineral Resource Estimate Update

The Alpala MRE update was estimated from 68,173 assays, with 66,739 assays representing diamond drill core samples, and 1434 assays representing rock-saw channel samples cut from surface rock exposures. Drill core samples were obtained from total of 133,576m of drilling comprising 128 diamond drill holes, including 75 drill holes (Holes 1-75), 34 daughter holes, 8 redrills, and 11 over-runs, and represents full assay data from holes 1-67 and partial assay data received from holes 68 to 75. Rock-saw samples were obtained from 2743m of rock-saw cuts from 262 surface rock exposure trenches. In contrast, the Dec 2017 Maiden MRE was estimated from 26,814 assays obtained from 53,616m of drilling comprising 45 drill holes (Holes 1-33) including 10 daughter holes and 5 redrills.

Grade Category Resource Category Tonnage (Mt) Grade Contained Metal Cu (%) Au (g/t) CuEq (%) Cu (Mt) Au (Moz) CuEq (Mt) Total >0.2% CuEq Indicated 2,050 0.41 0.29 0.60 8.4 19.4 12.2 Inferred 900 0.27 0.13 0.35 2.5 3.8 3.2 Mr. Martin Pittuck, MSc, CEng, MIMMM, is responsible for this Mineral Resource estimate and is an "independent qualified person" as such term is defined in NI 43-101 The Mineral Resource is reported using a cut-off grade of 0.2% copper equivalent calculated using [copper grade (%)] + [gold grade (g/t) x 0.63] The Mineral Resource is considered to have reasonable potential for eventual economic extraction by underground mass mining such as block caving Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability The statement uses terminology, definitions and guidelines given in the CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (May 2014) The MRE is reported on 100 percent basis Values given in the table have been rounded, apparent calculation errors resulting from this are not considered to be material The effective date for the Mineral Resource statement is 7th November 2018

Table 1: Overall Mineral Resource Statement for the Alpala Copper-Gold Deposit, effective November 7, 2018

The MRE update is reported using a cut-off grade of 0.2% copper-equivalent (CuEq) which joint venture partner and project operator SolGold and SRK Consulting (which audited the MRE update) consider to be reasonable, reflecting the potential for economic extraction by high production rate mass mining methods such as block caving. The central portions of the deposit present an opportunity for early extraction of higher grade material.

The updated MRE is presented on a 100% basis and has an effective date of November 7, 2018. It represents an overall increase of 259% (by metal content) of indicated resources from 3.4Mt CuEq in Dec 2017 Maiden MRE (at a cut-off of 0.3% CuEq) to the current 12.2 Mt CuEq (at a cut-off of 0.2% CuEq) associated to an overall decrease of 20% (by metal content) in the inferred category from 4.0 Mt CuEq in Dec 2017 Maiden MRE to the current 3.4 Mt CuEq.

The MRE update for the high grade core zone also represents an increase of 392% (by metal content) of indicated resources from 1.2Mt CuEq in the December 2017 Maiden MRE (at a cut-off of 1.1% CuEq) to the current 5.9 Mt CuEq (at a cut-off of 0.9% CuEq), associated to a decrease of 75% (by metal content) in the inferred category from 0.8 Mt CuEq in the December 2017 Maiden MRE to the current 0.2 Mt CuEq.

Cut off Grade

(% CuEq) Resource Category Tonnage (Mt) Grade Contained Metal Cu (%) Au (g/t) CuEq (%) Cu (Mt) Au (Moz) CuEq (Mt) 0.10 Indicated 2,460 0.36 0.26 0.52 8.9 20.2 12.9 0.15 Indicated 2,290 0.38 0.27 0.55 8.8 19.9 12.7 0.20 Indicated 2,050 0.41 0.29 0.60 8.4 19.4 12.2 0.30 Indicated 1,500 0.49 0.37 0.73 7.4 17.8 10.9 0.45 Indicated 810 0.66 0.57 1.03 5.4 15.0 8.3 0.70 Indicated 490 0.84 0.83 1.37 4.1 13.0 6.7 0.90 Indicated 400 0.90 0.93 1.49 3.6 11.9 5.9 1.10 Indicated 200 1.13 1.36 1.99 2.2 8.7 3.9 1.50 Indicated 120 1.35 1.77 2.47 1.7 7.0 3.0 0.10 Inferred 1,380 0.22 0.11 0.28 3.0 4.7 3.9 0.15 Inferred 1,140 0.24 0.12 0.32 2.8 4.3 3.6 0.20 Inferred 900 0.27 0.13 0.35 2.5 3.8 3.2 0.30 Inferred 490 0.34 0.16 0.45 1.7 2.5 2.2 0.45 Inferred 150 0.49 0.26 0.65 0.7 1.2 1.0 0.70 Inferred 50 0.67 0.41 0.93 0.4 0.7 0.5 0.90 Inferred 20 0.72 0.52 1.05 0.2 0.4 0.2 1.10 Inferred 10 0.76 0.70 1.20 0.1 0.1 0.1 1.50 Inferred - - - - - - -

Table 2: Mineral Resource Statement for the Alpala Copper-Gold Deposit expressed by a range in copper-equivalent cut-off grades, effective November 7, 2018. Refer to the explanation for Table 1 for description and qualifications that pertain to the resource statement.

There remains strong potential for further growth with the 2019 drilling campaign to continue to expand the deposit at Alpala SE, Alpala NW, Trivinio and Alpala Western Limb (Figure 2). These target areas all fall within large magnetic inversion anomalies that are continuous with the magnetic anomaly encompassing the Alpala deposit, where the magnetic response is attributed to the strong correlation of magnetite with the chalcopyrite mineralization.

A revised independent technical report for the updated MRE prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 will be filed on Sedar in due course.

About the Cascabel Joint Venture with SolGold:

Exploraciones Novomining S.A. (ENSA), an Ecuadorean company owned by SolGold Plc and Cornerstone, holds 100% of the Cascabel concession. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, including SolGolds fully funding the project through to feasibility, SolGold Plc will own 85% of the equity of ENSA and Cornerstone will own the remaining 15% of ENSA. SolGold is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project. SolGold shall receive 90% of Cornerstones distribution of earnings or dividends from ENSA to which Cornerstone would otherwise be entitled until such time as the amounts so received equal the aggregate amount of expenditures incurred by SolGold that would have otherwise been payable by Cornerstone, plus interest thereon from the dates such expenditures were incurred at a rate per annum equal to LIBOR plus 2 per cent until such time as SolGold is fully reimbursed.

Logging, sampling, assaying and reporting

Holes referred to in this release were or are being drilled using HTW, NTW, NQ and BQ core sizes (respectively 7.1, 5.6, 4.8 and 3.7 cm diameter). Geotechnical measurements such as core recovery, fracturing, rock quality designations (RQDs), specific gravity and photographic logging are performed systematically prior to assaying. The core is logged, magnetic susceptibility measured and key alteration minerals identified by experienced loggers and sometimes using an on-site portable spectrometer. Core is then sawed in half at the ENSA core logging facility, and half of the core is delivered by ENSA employees for preparation at ALS Minerals Laboratories (ALS) sample preparation facility in Quito. Core samples are prepared crushing to 70% passing 2 mm (10 mesh), splitting 250 g and pulverizing to 85% passing 75 microns (200 mesh) (ALS code CRU-31, SPL21 and PUL-32). Prepared samples are then shipped to ALS in Lima, Peru where samples are assayed for a multi-element suite (ALS code ME-MSP61, 1g split, 4-acid digestion, ICP-MS finish). Over limit results for Ag (> 100 g/t) and Cu, (> 1%) are systematically re-assayed (ALS code Ag-AA62, 4-acid digestion, AAS finish). Gold is assayed using a 30 g split, Fire Assay (FA) and AA finish (ALS code Au-AA23).

Quality assurance / Quality control (QA/QC)

The ALS Laboratory is a qualified assayer that performs and makes available internal assaying controls. Duplicates, certified blanks and standards are systematically used (1 control sample every 15-20 samples). Rejects, a 100 g pulp for each core sample and the remaining half-core are stored for future use and controls.

Qualified Person:

Yvan Crepeau, MBA, P.Geo., Cornerstones Vice President, Exploration and a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for supervising the exploration program at the Cascabel project for Cornerstone and has reviewed and approved the information contained in this news release.

About Cornerstone:

Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of projects in Ecuador and Chile, including in the Cascabel gold-enriched copper porphyry joint venture in north west Ecuador.

Further information is available on Cornerstones website: www.cornerstoneresources.com and on Twitter. For investor, corporate or media inquiries, please contact:

Investor Relations:

Mario Drolet (Montreal); Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Tel. (514) 346-3813

Corporate Matters: Sabino Di Paola, CFO (Ottawa); Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

Tel. (343) 689-0714

Due to anti-spam laws, many shareholders and others who were previously signed up to receive email updates and who are no longer receiving them may need to re-subscribe at http://www.cornerstoneresources.com/s/InformationRequest.asp

Cautionary Notice:

This news release may contain Forward-Looking Statements that involve risks and uncertainties, such as statements of Cornerstones plans, objectives, strategies, intentions and expectations. The words potential, anticipate, forecast, believe, estimate, expect, may, project, plan, and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes that its expectations reflected in these Forward-Looking Statements are reasonable, such statements may involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed in our regulatory filings, viewed on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets, predicting natural geological phenomena and from numerous other matters of national, regional, and global scale, including those of an environmental, climatic, natural, political, economic, business, competitive, or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes the facts and information contained in this news release to be as correct and current as possible, Cornerstone does not warrant or make any representation as to the accuracy, validity or completeness of any facts or information contained herein and these statements should not be relied upon as representing its views after the date of this news release. While Cornerstone anticipates that subsequent events may cause its views to change, it expressly disclaims any obligation to update the Forward-Looking Statements contained herein except where outcomes have varied materially from the original statements.

On Behalf of the Board,

Brooke Macdonald

President and CEO

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.

1 Subject to SolGold satisfying certain conditions. See About the Cascabel Joint Venture with SolGold below.

2 See heading below titled Alpala Mineral Resource Estimate Update.

3 0.4% Cu cut-off grade; Micon International Co. Ltd. Technical Report for Ascendant Exploration SA, August 20, 2004, pages 28 & 29. Mineralization identified at the Llurimaga copper project is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Cascabel Property.
Geophysical survey's completed at Bronze Fox and East Tsagaan Suvarga projects

Mapping and soil sampling completed at Bronze Fox

Permitting and drilling tender completed with upcoming Technical workshop to refine drill targets at both projects

Project generation field activities advanced, various reviews ongoing

VANCOUVER, Nov. 21, 2018 /CNW/ - Kincora Copper Ltd. (the "Company", "Kincora") (TSXV:KCC) is pleased to provide an update on field activities recently completed at various targets.

The SJ Geophysics Ltd. ("SJ") geophysical survey's at the Company's 100% owned East Tsagaan Suvarga ("East TS") and Bronze Fox projects were completed on time and under budget.

Results are promising, supporting multiple drill targets at Bronze Fox and East TS. In preparation for drilling at both projects over the winter, Kincora has completed a tender for the proposed drilling programs with a preferred drill contractor selected and favourable rates returned. Final modelling and interpretations are expected in the upcoming weeks, supporting the Company's next Technical Committee workshop scheduled for the second week of December.

Kincora has strengthened and accelerated its project generation function, becoming the foremost international group pursuing further countercyclical expansion opportunities in Mongolia. In the last 12 months the team has reviewed over 300 projects, with 178 targets "ground-truthed" and better-rated opportunities undergoing more detailed assessment.

Peter Leaman, Senior Vice-President of Exploration, stated: "Since the first significant capital raising post the IBEX transaction and establishment of the new technical team, over the last 14 months Kincora has very cost effectively implemented our two pronged strategy. We have commenced the first modern systematic and district scale exploration across our wholly owned and dominant position in the world-class Southern Gobi copper belt, and become the foremost international group pursuing further countercyclical expansion opportunities in Mongolia focused on porphyry copper, gold and VMS targets. These disciplined and systematic approaches are proven to yield results.

Tendering for drilling contractors has been completed in preparation for drilling commencing, subject to board approvals, over the Mongolian winter at multiple targets at both Bronze Fox and East TS.

Significant progress has been made at Bronze Fox, including a new interpretation of the lithology and mineralized system, which coupled with new international geophysical surveys and the full 24,000 metres of drill core being relogged supports multiple high-grade targets for drilling. Bronze Fox is a large mineralized system and three of four holes drilled by Kincora into the monzodiorite section of the intrusive complex intersected over 1% copper and have only tested 260 metres of over a kilometre strike length.

Preliminary results of the SJ geophysical survey at East TS have provided significant encouragement, supporting our exploration approach and the concept of a series of Devonian porphyry intrusives at moderate depths in a proven brownfield environment."



Figure 1: Location of Bronze Fox and East Tsagaan Suvarga in the Southern Gobi copper belt



East Tsagaan Suvarga ("East TS")

Across a 7.8km by 6km area of interest a total of 67.8 kilometres of IP, resistivity and magnetotelluric (MT) data were collected along lines spaced at 150m supporting detailed 3D inversions and integration with the existing ground magnetic, gravity and drilling data.

First phase exploration previously undertaken by Kincora has confirmed East TS as a brownfield Devonian target beneath explorable cover with four large-scale conceptual intrusive bodies interpreted from magnetic, gravity and resistivity data with spatial correlation with Phase 1 drilling (Cu/Mo assay & magnetic susceptibility).

Preliminary IP results from the SJ survey are positive, with broad chargeability highs coincident at three of the four conceptual intrusive bodies. The initial results, which are subject to final modelling and interpretation, are supportive of sulfides associated with demagnetised zones that may represent magnetite-destructive mineralized phyllic or argillic alteration at moderate depths.

Final IP, resistivity and MT models, integration and interpretation are expected in the upcoming weeks which will support a detailed review with previous geological results at in the Company's next Technical Committee workshop which is scheduled for the second week of December. The Workshop will refine proposed drilling activities at East TS at the three large interpreted intrusions with coincident chargeability highs located in an unexplored brownfield Devonian complex. Drilling permits are already in place for the three proposed targets.

Figure 2: East Tsagaan Suvarga is a brownfield Devonian target beneath explorable cover





Bronze Fox

The SJ survey completed a series of 6 North-South DC resistivity and IP lines for 33.8 line kilometres to further refine identified high-grade targets before drilling.

The survey has provided more detailed IP coverage, higher resolution with greater depth penetration, to the west of the previous "Search" survey (which at the time was restricted due to access issues to the western license) and across a second intrusive complex, where previous gradient IP had been completed.

Following positive first phase pan concentration survey results earlier this year, coupled with previous geophysics, a coincident area for follow up mapping and soil sampling was identified.

An initial 1:10,000 scale geological mapping program was completed across this 6.4km by 3.4km area with an infill soil sampling of 200m by 100m (previous 500m by 500m).

The results of this latest phase of field season activities, the SJ geophysical survey and improved surface geology from maiden mapping and infill soil sampling, coupled with the earlier pan concentration survey, geophysical and drilling results will be integrated and interpreted in the Company's next Technical Committee workshop which is proposed for the second week of December. The Workshop will refine proposed drilling activities at Bronze Fox with drill permits already in place.

Figure 3: Bronze Fox - SJ survey lines with maiden mapping and infill soil sampling program relative to eastern and western license boundaries and prior exploration





Project generative activities

In 1Q'18, Kincora strengthened and accelerated its project generation function, becoming the foremost international group pursuing further countercyclical expansion opportunities in Mongolia focused on porphyry copper, gold and VMS targets.

In the last 12 months the team has reviewed over 300 projects, with 178 targets "ground-truthed" involving over 12,000 kilometers of road distance.

Commercial success for the project generative function is achieving a path to control for new projects that sits within "Target Testing" and "Advanced Drilling" stages of Kincora's project pipeline, where the Company can maximize value to our shareholders and the project venders.

Kincora has adopted a detailed systematic regional targeting approach utilising our proprietary database and experience that is backed up by "boots on the ground" field activities, utilising appropriate modern exploration techniques in a cost effective manner. In total, ground-truthing this field season has resulted in a shortlist of six copper-gold targets, often with multiple field and/or geophysical activities, with better-rated opportunities undergoing more detailed assessment.

New exploration license tender

Mongolia's Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry re-opened the land tender system in 3Q'18, including total proposed land area covering 86,690km2 (or ~5.5% of Mongolia's landmass). To date, 40 tender areas have been announced.

In October, Kincora lodged a maiden tender application under the new system for a grassroots conceptual porphyry target. There were a total of three groups that lodged tenders. The Company's application was not successful in the final award of the license.

About Kincora

Kincora is a junior resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties, with a focus on Tier 1 copper-gold projects in Mongolia. For further information: www.kincoracopper.com.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information in this news release was prepared in accordance with the standards of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum and National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and was reviewed, verified and compiled by Kincora's geological staff under the supervision of Peter Leaman (M.Sc. Mineral Exploration, FAusIMM), Senior Vice-President of Exploration of Kincora Copper, who is the Qualified Person for the purpose of NI 43-101.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
UN envoy Martin Griffiths was preparing Tuesday to head to war-torn Yemen to lay the groundwork for peace talks in Sweden, after fresh fighting shook the flashpoint city of Hodeida.

Griffiths  whose efforts at kickstarting peace talks failed in September  is again trying to get the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government to the negotiating table by the end of the year.

He is expected to meet with Huthi officials in the capital Sanaa on Wednesday.

Both sides have in the past week expressed their support for the envoy and his mission to hold talks in Stockholm, but fierce clashes erupted in the Red Sea city of Hodeida late Monday after a lull.

Military officials said that the battles were the worst since loyalists halted an offensive last week, and were concentrated in the eastern part of the city where rebels fired artillery.

Pro-government forces struck back, supported by warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition which launched a dozen raids, the sources said.

According to Huthi-run media, clashes lasted up to four hours and resulted in fatalities.

The city was relatively calm on Tuesday morning, according to an AFP correspondent who spoke to residents by telephone from Khokha about 100 kilometres (62 miles) away.

 Call for truce 

On Monday, Britain presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida city, whose port serves as an entry point to nearly all imports and humanitarian aid to the impoverished country.

The draft, circulated by Britain to the 14 other council members and seen by AFP, sets a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove all barriers to humanitarian aid.

The proposed resolution would significantly ratchet up pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the Huthis to seek a negotiated settlement in Yemen, where millions are on the brink of starvation.

It also calls for a large injection of foreign currency into the economy to support Yemens collapsing currency and for salaries of civil servants, teachers, and health workers to be paid within a month.

Mohammed Ali al-Huthi, head of the Huthi rebels Higher Revolutionary Committee and an influential political figure, tweeted on Monday that he wanted his group to announce readiness to suspend and halt all military operations and stop firing missiles on Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia also lent its support to new talks.

Saudi King Salman told the Shura Council, his countrys top advisory body, that Riyadh also backed a political solution and a comprehensive national dialogue in Yemen.

Multiple past attempts to hold negotiations between the government alliance and Huthis have failed.

Griffiths said on Monday he hoped the rivals would meet in Sweden within the next few weeks. No date has yet been set.

 Stop selling weapons 

The Huthis have controlled Yemens capital Sanaa since capturing it in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the war to bolster Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

Both parties in the Yemen conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on France to address laws-of-war violations with the UAE  a key member of the Saudi-led coalition  during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyans visit to Paris on November 21.

If President (Emmanuel) Macron is truly concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, he should tell the crown prince that France will stop selling weapons to the UAE if theres a real risk of their unlawful use, Benedicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Although western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, which is a regional ally and spends billions of dollars on arms from the United States, Britain and France.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people  mostly civilians  have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi intervention in March 2015, but rights groups believe the toll may be five times higher.

The war in Yemen  already one of the worlds most impoverished countries  has left the nation on the edge of mass starvation.
The UN Yemen envoy faced his sternest test on Wednesday as he flew into the rebel-held capital Sanaa for talks on averting all-out fighting for the lifeline port of Hodeida and widespread famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as UN envoy Martin Griffiths makes the biggest peace push in two years.

But a devastating all-out assault on the citys vital docks still threatens as coalition commanders scent a potentially game-changing victory in their three-and-a-half year war on the Iran-backed Huthi Shiite rebels.

UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port of Hodeida is closed by fighting or damage.

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory in the densely populated highlands, and some 80 percent of commercial food imports and virtually all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through its docks.

Griffiths did not comment to waiting reporters on his arrival at Sanaa International Airport, an AFP photographer reported.

He was expected to hold afternoon talks with rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in acrimony in Switzerland in September when the rebels failed to show up.

The Huthis have said repeatedly that they need stronger security guarantees from the international community that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

 Sternest test 

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing over of the port of Hodeida to UN control.

Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure, said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process that has been stalled for the past two years.

But if he fails, peace in Yemen will look increasingly remote and the prospects for its embattled population increasingly dire.

Both sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy and his mission to convene new peace talks in Sweden, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Just hours before Griffiths arrival in Sanaa, residents in the east of Hodeida told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

 Call for truce 

On Monday, Britain presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove all barriers to humanitarian aid.

The proposed resolution would significantly ratchet up pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the rebels to seek a negotiated settlement.

It also calls for a large injection of foreign cash to support Yemens collapsing currency and for salaries of civil servants, teachers, and health workers to be paid within a month.

Multiple past attempts to hold negotiations have failed.

Griffiths said Monday he hoped the rivals would meet in Sweden within the next few weeks. No date has been set.

 Stop selling weapons 

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, which is a regional ally and spends billions of dollars on arms from the United States, Britain, and France.

They have come under increased domestic political pressure to halt, or at least attach conditions to, their arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last month by top agents Riyadh insists were acting without orders.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people  mostly civilians  have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began, but human rights groups believe the toll may be five times higher.

The World Food Programme says up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation.

Save the Children said on Wednesday that some 85,000 infants under the age of five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases between March 2015 and this October based on UN agency figures.
The UN Yemen envoy flew into rebel-held capital Sanaa Wednesday to push for fresh peace talks, as fighting for the lifeline port of Hodeida has ramped up fears of widespread famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as UN envoy Martin Griffiths makes the biggest peace push in two years.

But Hodeida residents reported clashes just hours ahead of Griffiths arrival and a devastating all-out assault still threatens as the coalition eyes a key victory in its war with Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port of Hodeida is closed by fighting or damage.

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory, and some 80 percent of commercial food imports and virtually all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through its docks.

Griffiths  who has said he wants Yemens rivals to meet within weeks in Sweden  did not comment to reporters on his arrival at Sanaa airport.

He was expected to hold talks with rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in acrimony in Switzerland in September when the rebels failed to show up.

The Huthis have said repeatedly that they need stronger security guarantees from the international community that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

 Sternest test 

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing over of the port of Hodeida to UN control.

Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure, said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process.

Both warring sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoys mission to convene new talks, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Residents in the east of Hodeida told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

Locals said there was a limited number of people leaving the city, but some families have decided to flee in the past few weeks.

Mohammed Rashed, who is currently living in a make-shift tent to the east of the Sanaa, said he left Hodeida last week because of the clashes.

We could not stay because of the air strikes, he told AFP.

My house was struck, and my neighbours homes were struck and people were killed.

 Call for truce 

On Monday, Britain presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove barriers to humanitarian aid.

The proposed resolution would significantly ratchet up pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the rebels to seek a negotiated settlement.

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, which is a regional ally and spends billions of dollars on arms from the United States, Britain, and France.

They have come under increased domestic political pressure to temper their arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last month.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people  mostly civilians  have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began, but human rights groups believe the toll may be five times higher.

Save the Children said on Wednesday that some 85,000 infants under the age of five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases between March 2015 and this October based on UN agency figures.
The UNs Yemen envoy flew into the rebel-held capital Sanaa Wednesday to push for renewed peace talks after fierce fighting for the lifeline port of Hodeida which has ramped up fears of a catastrophic famine.

Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as United Nations envoy Martin Griffiths spearheads the biggest peace push in two years.

But Hodeida residents reported clashes just hours ahead of Griffiths arrival, and a devastating all-out assault still looms as the coalition eyes a key victory in its war with Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

UN agencies say the closure of Hodeida port due to fighting or damage could put up to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation.

The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory and its port is the entry point for the vast majority of food and humanitarian aid into Yemen.

Griffiths was expected to meet rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in September after the insurgents refused to attend talks in Switzerland.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday that peace talks had been set for early December in Sweden, where it looks like well see both the Huthi rebel side and the UN-recognised government.

The Huthis have said repeatedly they need stronger international guarantees that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.

 Sternest test 

The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing Hodeidas port to UN control.

Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure, said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.

If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process.

Both warring sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoys mission to convene new talks, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.

Residents in the east of the city told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.

They said a limited number of people were leaving the city.

Mohammed Rashed, who is currently living in a makeshift tent to the east of the Sanaa, said he left Hodeida last week because of the clashes.

We could not stay because of the air strikes, he told AFP.

My house was struck, and my neighbours homes were struck and people were killed.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday that its teams had treated over 500 wounded people since November 1 and that it remained extremely worried for its patients and staff threatened by fighting very close to its facilities in Hodeida.

 Call for truce 

Britain on Monday presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove barriers to humanitarian aid.

The only solution is for all the parties to set aside their arms, cease missile and air attacks on populated areas and pursue a peaceful political settlement, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told parliament on Wednesday.

He said the draft resolution was designed to get a consensus from both sides that allow talks to start before the end of this month in Stockholm.

The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.

A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.

Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.

Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, a regional ally that buys billions of dollars-worth of arms from the United States, Britain, and France.

Those governments have come under growing domestic pressure to scale back arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul last month.

The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people  mostly civilians  have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began.

Human rights groups believe the real toll may be five times higher.

Save the Children said Wednesday that based on UN figures, between March 2015 and this October some 85,000 children under five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases.
Since November 10 there has been a sit-in at the entrance to the headquarters of the Truth and Dignity Commission (IVD), in the Montplaisir district of Tunis. It is led by former political activists close to the Islamist Ennahdha movement, including Bessma Balii, who has been part of a trial before the specialized transitional justice court in Nabeul under way since September. They are calling for the IVD to publish as soon as possible the key decisions concerning the list of individual and collective victims eligible for financial compensation. Also, they are demanding that students banned from the countrys universities under former president Ben Ali because of their political activism be given back their rights to professional reintegration.

Recommended reading Tunisian victim gives chilling testimony in courtroom without sound

The transitional justice law of December 2013 dedicates a whole chapter to the rehabilitation and compensation of former political prisoners and activists, who were the targets of human rights violations under the old regime. The reparation of prejudice suffered by the victims of violations is a right guaranteed by the law and the State has a responsibility to provide adequate, efficient forms of reparation according to the gravity of the violations and the situation of each victim. The means at the States disposal at the time of implementation are nevertheless taken into account, says Article 11 of the law. This article also details the different forms of reparation and rehabilitation, with reference to international standards.

Some victims nevertheless appear to be worried. They complain that the IVD has been silent with regard to their requests. And with the Commissions mandate due to run out on December 31, 2018, they fear that the reparations promised since the start of the process will not live up to their expectations.

We consulted the victims

The Commission has nevertheless organized several workshops on the methodology for designing a general reparations programme  one of the IVDs designated tasks  , in association with its partners including the UNDP and International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Hayet Ouertani, who heads the IVDs reparation and rehabilitation committee, explains the different stages of the IVDs strategy: We started by studying the victims files, then we examined the Tunisian laws on reparation and rehabilitation, and finally we looked at international conventions and the comparative experiences in this domain. This is what led us to take account of the weaknesses of some of these experiences where the victims were not consulted.

Alongside a scientific study commissioned by the IVD on all that has been done on reparations and rehabilitation in Tunisia since the January 14, 2011 fall of the Ben Ali regime, the Commission in 2017 launched national consultations on the overall reparations programme. 6,275 people aged over 19 from different administrative districts of the country took part. They came from civil society, womens associations, regional development organizations and victims groups. By overall reparations programme we mean not only material compensation but also rehabilitation, professional integration or education, the restitution of rights and official apologies, explains Hayet Ouertani, as if to allay the fears of victims.

Financial reparations first

The qualitative data from this consultation is derived from workshops with civil society and focus groups with victims. As for the quantitative information, it has been drawn from two opinion surveys, one amongst 2,045 victims of human rights violations who sent their cases to the IVD and attended private hearings, and one amongst 3,044 people considered to be a representative sample of the Tunisian population.

A series of expectations emerge. The first concerns individual financial compensation, which most people surveyed want. The second is linked to shedding light on the truth, while the third concerns professional reintegration.

The Dignity Fund that is to compensate victims has been financed by the State with a single grant of 10 million dinars (about three million Euros). It also has funds from the arbitration commission and donations from private individuals or other States. The compensation is to be paid by the government when the IVDs work is finished. The overall reparation and rehabilitation programme, which has been the subject of internal discussion at the IVD since April, is now being finalized.

Reparations for the regions

But for the team of six working with Hayet Ouertani, the hardest task has been how to design reparations for the victim regions. 205 dossiers concerning the regions, the villages and districts who suffered systematic marginalization, have been presented to the Commission. How can the States intent to stigmatize these regions be proven? To answer this, we looked back at the speeches of top political personalities and examined statistics linked to development, such as unemployment, education, health, clean water and electricity supply, says the president of the reparations committee. The difficulty is even greater when it comes to a local area. We have tried to be imaginative in our recommendations, so as to bring the regions out of marginalization whilst also trying to be balanced. We do not want our proposals to create rivalries between people.

In mid-December, the Truth and Dignity Commission will organize an official ceremony to present its final report and recommendations on reparations for victims. This is awaited with both hope and apprehension by the women of the sit-in that is continuing at the Commissions headquarters.
| BY Lynchy |

The results of the London International Awards judging, that took place early last month in Las Vegas, have been released and Japanese agencies lead Asias performance claiming 23 of the 88 statues awarded to Asia.

Japan won 6 Gold, 9 Silver and 8 Bronze.

4 Gold statues were awarded to Dentsu Inc Tokyo and 2 to TBWA\Hakuhodo Tokyo.

Japans statue winners were:

Beacon/Leo Burnett Tokyo, Tokyo

 Silver  Verbal Identity  Naming for Bacon Potato Pie titled Hahon Hohaho Hie

Dentsu Inc., Tokyo

 Gold  Design  Art Direction Campaign for Kabuki: Art & Artifacts exhibition in Kyoto  Eating Kabuki with Your Fingers Campaign 

 Gold  Design  Poster Campaign for Kabuki: Art & Artifacts exhibition in Kyoto.  Eating Kabuki with Your Fingers Campaign 

 Gold  Design  Use of Illustration Campaign for Kyoto Tango Railway titled Mistery Train  Poster, Mistery Train  A Dragon, Mistery Train  An Ogre, Mistery Train Picture Book

 Gold  Music & Sound  Music Adaptation  Instrumental for Technics/ SL-1200 titled The Philharmonic Turntable Orchestra

 Silver  Design  Art Direction Campaign for 3rd_PAGE  Only for Aesthetic Eyes Campaign titled The Screw, The Doorknob, The Gear

 Silver  Design  Brochures/Catalogues  Consumer Campaign for 3rd_PAGE  Only for Aesthetic Eyes Campaign titled The Screw, The Doorknob, The Gear

 Silver  Design  Brochures/Catalogues  Consumer Campaign for Heartland Beer titled Art Book, Catalogue of Exhibition, Posters, Shoppers, Gift Box

 Silver  Design  Client Promotion for Kobe newspaper titled Since 1995

 Silver  Design  Use of Photography Campaign for Tohoku Shinkansen titled Get Back, Tohoku Campaign

 Silver  Print  Art Direction for Kobe Newspaper titled Since 1995

 Bronze  Design  Poster Campaign for SDGs Japan titled Beginnings Dont Happen. We Create Them., Differences Multiply Possibilities., Good Things Come To Those Who Change., Whats Rejected Today, Might Be Praised Tomorrow., One Plus One.

 Bronze  Design  Use of Photography Campaign for JINS Time Slip Glasses titled Optical Odyssey 1930s, Optical Odyssey 1950s, Optical Odyssey 1980s

 Bronze  Digital  Branded Content for Technics/ SL-1200 titled The Philharmonic Turntable Orchestra

 Bronze  Digital  Music/Sound Design for Technics/ SL-1200 titled The Philharmonic Turntable Orchestra

HAKUHODO Kettle, Tokyo

 Silver  Digital  Branded Content for Y!mobile titled 720 Hours of Youth

 Silver  Digital  Use of Social Media for Y!mobile titled 720 Hours of Youth

PYRAMID FILM INC., Tokyo

 Bronze  Design  Product Development for Plarail titled Craft Train

R/GA, Tokyo

 Bronze  Digital  Retail for MUJI titled Tokyo Pen Pixel

TBWA\HAKUHODO Inc., Tokyo

 Gold  Design  Product Design for AIG Japan CSR titled Pride Jersey

 Gold  Integration  Business-to-Consumer for AIG Japan CSR titled Pride Jersey

 Bronze  Design  Innovative Use of Design for AIG Japan CSR titled Pride Jersey

 Bronze  Digital  Weird Wonderful Work for ProPILOT titled ProPILOT Hotel

This year, twelve GRAND LIAs for the best of categories were awarded  see all of them here.

The following companies were honored with the 2018 Global Of The Year Awards:

Global Network of the Year: McCann Worldgroup

Global Agency of the Year: BBDO New York

Global Independent Agency of the Year: Jung von Matt, Hamburg

Global Health & Wellness and Medical Network of the Year: FCB Health

Global Production Company of the Year: MJZ

Global Post-Production Company of the Year: The Mill

Global Music & Sound Company of the Year: Rumble Studios, Sydney

The following companies were honored with the 2018 Regional Of The Year Awards for Asia:

Regional Network of the Year for Asia: Dentsu

Regional Agency of the Year for Asia: Dentsu Inc., Tokyo

Regional Production Company of the Year for Asia: Illusion, Bangkok

DOWNLOAD ALL THE WINNERS HERE: 2018LIA_WinnersList.xls

View all the Winners and Finalists with media and full creative credits.
Bose will build WhatsApps first full country team outside of California and will be based in Gurgaon. He will join WhatsApp in early 2019.

New Delhi: Giving in to the governments pressure over fake messages, US-based WhatsApp on Wednesday appointed Abhijit Bose as its India head.

Mr Bose will build WhatsApps first full country team outside of California and will be based in Gurgaon. He will join WhatsApp in early 2019.

After a spate of lynching incidents in the country due to fake messages spread through Whatsapp platform, the government was pressing the company to set up a corporate entity in India and comply with Indian laws.

In September, the messaging platform had appointed Komal Lahiri as the grievance officer for India. However, she is based out of the US.

The government was nudging Whatsapp that it would be better if the grievance officer for the country is also based out of India.

Mr Bose and his team will focus on helping businesses, both large and small connect with their customers, said the company.

The company has also been testing its payments facility which allows users to send money to each other. WhatsApp formal roll out of its payment operation has been delayed after controversy over false news.
Three of the civilians including two girls received bullet injuries during the clashes, the hospital sources said.

The Army said that the slain soldier Lance Havaldar Vijay Kumar, 37, was a resident of village Sagwan of Tosham Tehsil, in Bhiwani district of Haryana, and is survived by his wife and three children. (Representational image)

Srinagar: Four Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) militants and an Army paratrooper were killed and three other soldiers injured in a fierce gunfight in J&Ks southern Shopian district on Tuesday.

The officials said that a joint team of the Armys 23 PARA and 34 PARA, the J&K polices counter-insurgency Special Opera-tions Group and CRPF launched a cordon-and-search operation at Nadigam, 60 km south of summer capital Srinagar, early on Tuesday following credible input about the presence of militants in the village.

As the predawn search operation was underway, the search party was confronted with bullets fired by hiding terrorists. The fire was retaliated, leading to an encounter, a statement issued by the police here said.

It added that in the initial militant fire, 4 army jawans got injured. One of the jawans, who was critically injured, was evacuated to Srinagar, where he was admitted to the Armys 92-Base Hospital. However, he soon succumbed to injuries. The condition of three other soldiers Sepoy Shailender Singh, Lance Naik Somveer and Havaldar Bhupinder Singh injured in the clash is stated to be out of danger.

The Army said that the slain soldier Lance Havaldar Vijay Kumar, 37, was a resident of village Sagwan of Tosham Tehsil, in Bhiwani district of Haryana, and is survived by his wife and three children. The mortal remains of the martyr were flown for last rites to his native place, where he would be laid to rest with full military honours. In this hour of grief, the Army stands in solidarity with the bereaved family of the martyr and remains committed to their dignity and well being, a statement issued by the Army here said.

In the encounter, four militants who were identified as Aabid Nazir Chopan, Basharat Nengroo, Merajuddin Najar, and Malikzada Inam-ul-Haq  all local Kashmiris  were killed. The police said that the slain HM cadres were involved in attacks on security forces and their establishments, civilian atrocities, and other subversive activities in south Kashmir areas.

The killing of militants sparked off protests in the area, which soon turned violent. Ten persons were injured, three of them critically, when the security forces fired live ammunition to quell protesters and stone-throwing mobs at Nadigam and its neighbourhood, the witnesses and hospital sources said. Later during the day, the protests and clashes spread to neighbouring Pulwama district, reports said.

Three of the civilians including two girls received bullet injuries during the clashes, the hospital sources said.
Notices have been issued to T Harish Rao, Revanth Reddy, Vanteru Pratap Reddy, Revuri Prakash Reddy, Uttam Kumar Reddy.

Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar said that notice has been issued to Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: The Election Commission has served notices to five politicians in Telangana after receiving various complaints against them for allegedly violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).

Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar said that notices have been issued to Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, Congress leader Revanth Reddy, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Vanteru Pratap Reddy, and TDP leader Revuri Prakash Reddy.

"We have also received a complaint against Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief Uttam Kumar Reddy for speaking at a religious meeting. We have also sent a notice to him. We have asked them to file their replies," he said.

He further informed that they have also received a complaint against former MLA and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) candidate Gangula Kamalakar for threatening a BJP leader and added that they are examining the complaints and will take action accordingly.

Telangana CEO said that around 32,796 polling stations have been created for the convenience of the voters. As many as 48,000 police personnel will be deployed on the polling day for security purposes. Apart from the police force, 279 companies of Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMF) will also be deployed for the polls, Rajat Kumar said.

Since the Model Code of Conduct was imposed in the state, Rs 90.72 crore including cash and goods has been seized.

He further informed that they have received around 3,583 nominations for the assembly polls.

The assembly elections in the state are scheduled to be held on December 7 to elect members from 119 constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on December 11.

The Telangana Assembly was dissolved prematurely in September on the recommendation of the ruling TRS government.
The manifesto was released by TDP's Telangana unit president L Ramana here Wednesday.

The manifesto said a house, financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh and a job would be provided to the families of 1,200 'martyrs' who sacrificed their lives for separate Telangana. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: Loan waiver and an investment support scheme for farmers, free cycles to girl students and free laptops to college and university students are some of the highlights of the Telugu Desam Party's manifesto for the upcoming Telangana Assembly elections.

The manifesto was released by TDP's Telangana unit president L Ramana here Wednesday. The manifesto promised waiver of up to Rs two lakh agricultural loans. It said Rs 10,000 crore would be allocated in the budget for a market intervention scheme for the benefit of the farm sector.

Bonus, in addition to the minimum support price, would be announced for major crops, it said. Farmers would be given an annual investment support of Rs 10,000 per year per crop, it said.

The manifesto said one lakh jobs would be filled up in the first year (after coming to power). Efforts would be made to upgrade the skills of unemployed youth. It said unemployment assistance of Rs 3,000 per month would be given to unemployed youth.

The manifesto said a house, financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh and a job would be provided to the families of 1,200 "martyrs" who sacrificed their lives for separate Telangana. A permanent memorial would be built for the "martyrs", it said.

"Free laptops to students from Inter (XI and XII) to university," it said. It said cycles would be distributed free of cost to girl students of 68th standard to Inter.

The manifesto said financial assistance of Rs five lakh would be extended to those building houses in their own land as part of efforts to provide housing for all.

It also said 'Pragati Bhavan', the Chief Minister's official residence built during the TRS regime, would be made a public hospital. The party said it would be committed to the points mentioned in the manifesto.

TDP is part of the "grand alliance" for the Assembly elections. The party is contesting 13 seats (out of 119) as part of seat-sharing among the alliance partners. Elections are scheduled in Telangana on December 7.
The holidays are the perfect time for shoppers to hunt for a good deal. It's also a prime opportunity for bad actors to scam consumers.

Hundreds of malicious Black Friday apps and websites will be looking to steal personal data and credit card information this year in the United States and United Kingdom, according to a new report from cybersecurity company RiskIQ.

Cybercriminals create fake mobile apps and landing pages with realistic branding, especially around major holidays and events like Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. They want to convince consumers to download bad apps or visit bogus sites and ultimately "phish" for sensitive data.

A scam circulating on popular messaging platform WhatsApp ahead of Black Friday promises 99%-off discounts on Amazon.com. On Twitter, Amazon's official help account wrote: "Please don't share your order/account/personal details in such websites."

Consumers are especially vulnerable when shopping on smartphones.

Mobile browsers have a much shorter address field, and consumers may not see the full URL on their phone. This makes it harder to spot a scam.

According to marketing firm Criteo, over 40% of all sales in November and December 2017 were made on mobile phones, and the trend is only expected to grow.

Steve Ginty, senior product manager at RiskIQ, says to check that the website has a valid "HTTPS" connection with a lock symbol, not "HTTP," which is vulnerable to attacks.

Users should also be careful when downloading apps. Bogus holiday deal apps made by scammers can fool users into typing in their credit card information, while other apps feature malware that can steal personal data or lock a smartphone until the user pays a ransom fee.

According to RiskIQ's recent report, 5.5% out of the 4,324 Black Friday-related apps on global app stores are deemed malicious and unsafe, and 4.6% of Cyber Monday apps are malicious. The firm recommends scrutinizing who developed the app, and only downloading apps from official app stores like Apple and Google.

Yair Levy, a cybersecutity and information systems expert at Nova Southeastern University, says to only shop with retailers you trust.

"Don't try to look for offers that are too good to be true. At the end of the day, that's what they are," he said.

Levy also suggests having a credit card dedicated to online shopping. This makes it easier to track purchases and identify fraudulent activity.

Shoppers should be wary of email deals, too. Phishing emails can look similar to those sent by top retailers, and consumers should ignore or delete these emails, no matter how good a deal seems. Cybersecurity company BullGuard says the aim of these fraudsters is to get consumers to click on a link within the email, and enter their personal information.

Some experts anticipate more scam activity this holiday season than last year.

"Every year we see this growing significantly," said Levy. "Why? Because it becomes more successful. Every year more people shop online."
MEDFORD, Ore.  People traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday this week have one more thing to be thankful for  gas prices that continue to fall, according to AAA.

"Plunging crude oil prices and seasonably lower demand for gasoline are putting downward pressure on pump prices in all 50 states," the organization said in a statement.

This week, the national average for regular unleaded gasoline fell seven cents to $2.61, while Oregon's (generally higher) average likewise dropped seven cents to $3.20. AAA says that these have been the largest single-week drops in gas prices this year.

Moreover, Southern Oregon is experiencing a rare gasoline renaissance, with prices lower in the Medford/Ashland area than in Portland  lower, even, than the state average.

But with the good news comes the bad  gas prices are still much higher this year than last year, and Oregon's prices are well above the national average.

As many as 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more away from home this Thanksgiving, AAA projects. That marks a 4.8 percent increase over last year.

"About 704,000 Oregonians will head over the river and through the woods," AAA said. "This is the second-highest travel volume on record for the holiday, second only to 2005."

About 89 percent of Americans plan to travel by car this year  86 percent in the Pacific Northwest. About 609,000 Oregonians expect to drive.
SALEM, Ore.  Not far behind returning firefighters from the Rogue Valley Strike Team, forestry crews are now on their way back to Oregon after helping with Camp Fire efforts in Butte County, California. Teams from both the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) and Douglas Forest Protective Association (DFPA) were released on Tuesday.

Our crews came down readily willing to serve Cal Fire and the citizens of Butte County, said ODF Agency Representative Matt Howard. While the work they completed was within their scope, training and experience, the difference with the Camp Fire was the sheer magnitude of the incident. The severe loss of human life, infrastructure, and natural resources are unlike anything our folks have experienced."

Oregon's forestry teams helped construct and improve fire lines, conducted controlledburns, and assisted with recovery efforts in Paradise and the nearby communities harmed by the fire. The Camp Fire is believed to be the deadliest wildfire in at least a century  with more than 151,000 acres burned, 79 confirmed fatalities, and more than 13,000 structures destroyed.

All 28 crew from ODF and DFPA are heading home to their families just in time for Thanksgiving.

As the agency representative, I am extremely humbled to have shared this assignment with the two experienced Engine Strike Teams from the Oregon Department of Forestry and Douglas Forest Protective Association. Our homecoming is bittersweet as we head home to our loved ones, Howard added. Our heartfelt wishes are with our fellow firefighters, Paradise and surrounding communities, and all those impacted by this tragic fire.
MEDFORD, Ore.  Search efforts on the ground within the Camp Fire zone are a logistical nightmare  thousands of homes burned, hundreds of missing (the true number remains uncertain), and 81 confirmed deaths with only a handful of those people identified. With such staggering work ahead for Californian authorities, search and rescue (SAR) teams from Southern Oregon have been lending a hand.

SAR teams from Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties heeded the call for aid  with some teams still at work in the Paradise area, some already returned, and others on their way back.

Jackson County's team demobilized on Wednesday in order to head home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

"There is still a lot of work to do in Paradise and we may be called upon to return. In the meantime, were sending thoughts of healing to the community there," the Jackson County Sheriff's Office posted.

Meanwhile, Klamath County's SAR team has been on the ground in Butte County since Sunday. They sent five volunteers down to help, facing "long days and unsettling work, but all agreed it was the right thing to do," according to the Klamath County Sheriff's Office.

This is what Search and Rescue is  this is what we do. We take on missions hoping to perform rescues and help people. Butte County would do the same for us, said SAR Commander Brian Bryson.

Josephine County's team also traveled down on Sunday, sending two SAR deputies and six volunteers. They were set to work assisting the Butte County Sheriff's Office, National Guard and fire personnel in searching burnt residences  looking for victims of the Camp Fire in Paradise.

"Due to the National Weather Service putting out an alert for possible flash flooding in Butte County, California, Josephine County personnel will be returning home Wednesday morning November 21st, 2018," the Josephine County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. "This however is only the first operational period and an official request has been received for more assistance following the Thanksgiving Holiday."

There are reportedly 38 SAR volunteers from southwestern Oregon aiding California in the search.

All of this mutual aid is a result of CORSAR  California Oregon Search and Rescue. It describes a coalition between Southern Oregon and Northern California Sheriff's offices with a commitment to help one another in times of need.

"It is an honor to serve the public as a member of this distinguished and professional team," the Josephine County Sheriff's Office said.
CM Raman Singh, however, tried to put up a brave front saying that his party would secure 50 out 72 seats that had gone to polls on Tuesday.

While polling began at 7 am in two of the 19,336 booths, the rest followed the usual time of 8 am to 5 pm. (Photo: PTI)

Bhopal: An overall turnout of 74.17 per cent was recorded in the two-phased Chhattisgarh Assembly polls whose second phase was held on 72 seats on Tuesday in an incident-free exercise. This years voter turnout is nearly three per cent less than 2013, the EC said.

On Tuesday, the voter turnout was recorded at 71.93 per cent. In the first phase election for 18 seats on November 12, the poll percentage was 76.42. The results of the 90 seats will be declared on December 11.

The high polling recorded in second phase of polls appeared to have made the ruling BJP nervous.

Chief minister Raman Singh, however, tried to put up a brave front saying that his party would secure 50 out 72 seats that had gone to polls on Tuesday.

We will achieve our target of securing 65 plus seats this time, he added.

The Congress, however, said the party would return to power with a massive mandate in Chhattisgarh this time.

The high polling in the first and second phase of polls indicated that there has been a strong undercurrent ag-ainst ruling BJP in the state, a Congress spokesman said.

AICC secretary in-charge of Chhattisgarh P L Punia alleged electoral malpractice by BJP in the second phase assembly elections in Chhattisgarh. He moved the Election Commission in Delhi in this regard.

Fates of nine ministers, Chhattisgarh Prad-esh Congress Committ-ee president Bhupesh Baghel and Congress Legislature Party leader T.S. Singhdeo have been sealed in the EVMs on Tuesday.

The BJP and Congress have fielded their candidates in all the 90 seats. AAP has fielded candidates in 66 seats.
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The health care experience is so much more than a buzzword to be talked about in administrative circles. Some physicians I encounter (a minority, but still enough) really scoff when they hear this term. Responses Ive heard from doctors include: Hospitals are not hotels! or If that means giving our patients as much Dilaudid as they want, then count me out!

Aside from these sweeping statements being entirely silly, they are most definitely not what improving the health care experience is all about. I know a lot of physicians cringe (actually, probably most do) when they ever hear the term customer service applied to what we are doing in health care. Of course, patients are not a customer or a commodity, and referring to them as anything other than a patient serves to devalue and cheapen the practice of medicine.

On the other side of the coin, if focusing on the health care experience means bringing what weve learned from a whole host of other industries to health care  things like responsiveness, listening, taking complaints seriously, timeliness, and wanting people to feel good about their interactions with us  then thats something health care should absolutely be embracing. Here are three big reasons why we should always be doing this:

1. We are in this to make our patients better

Think back to 100 years ago (okay, imagine it, unless I have some really old readers). Beds were lined up in rows on the medical wards. There would be one nurse taking care of them, a doctor with an entirely paternalistic approach, and very few medicines or other treatments available. Beds were uncomfortable, minimal pain or sedative medicines available (think biting on something while the doctor cut you), and the crying from your fellow patients would have not given you any rest. Thankfully weve really progressed since then. Obviously, the comfort of our patients is front and center of what we do. And that ties into the health care experience at the most fundamental level.

2. We are living in an increasingly competitive world

Health care in America has changed dramatically over the last 30 years, from predominantly independent physician practices delivering care, to large health care conglomerates battling for more patients, and hence more reimbursements and income. Across the country, you will see billboards announcing any particular hospital as The best for your care or the Shortest ER wait times. Like it or not, this is where its at  and especially in this new world of online ratings and word spreading like wildfire of negative experiences  patient experience is what any organization (and by extension, employed physicians) will live and die by. From that very first interaction, ambience when setting foot (or being rolled) into hospital, atmosphere on the medical floors, how we communicateall the way to food options in the cafeteria: it all counts.

3. It makes our jobs more enjoyable

The very best organizations that understand patient experience is paramount, are also undoubtedly the best ones to work in. Ive worked in dozens of different hospitals over the last few years in very different parts of the country. Actually, Ive also worked in both England and Australia too (countries with very unique health care systems). From large academic medical centers, to tiny community rural outposts. It doesnt matter how big any organization is, or the famous name attached to it, those which are known for great patient experience and get stellar reviews, have always been a pleasure to be associated with. Importantly, they consistently also deliver the best care as well.

These are just three things to keep in mind when we strive for a better health care experience. Having said this, lets never forget the single most important thing that patients will always remember will be their human interactions. With their doctors, nurses, any other health care professionals, or even the food services staff. Physicians do play a very special and understated role here  because we are the leaders of the clinical team and the buck stops with us (please dont ever forget that doctors!). Patients are coming to us at very low points in their lives, and will acutely remember everything. Unlike a hotel or restaurant, none of them wants to be there either. We, therefore, owe it to them to give them the best and most positive experience possible under difficult circumstances. One truly worthy of a caring profession.

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
Just one day before Dr. Tamara O'Neal and two others at Chicago's Mercy Hospital were shot and killed by her ex-fiance, the former couple and her family were in church together, her father told CNN.

Juan Lopez, 32, shot O'Neal dead in the hospital's parking lot Monday afternoon before killing a Chicago police officer and a pharmacy resident inside the facility, authorities said.

Lopez, who police say also died of a gunshot, was O'Neal's fiance until late September, when she called off the engagement, her father, Tom O'Neal, told CNN on Tuesday in a phone interview.

Tammy, as her relatives knew her, attended church services Sunday with Lopez and her family in Indiana, where she was from, Tom O'Neal said.

Lopez "couldn't accept" that the relationship was over, her father said. The former pair had been scheduled to marry in October, he said.

O'Neal's father said she was a strong faith believer and that she and Lopez were not united in their faith.

"I just thank God for the 38 years we had with her. I was thinking we'd have a lot longer," Tom O'Neal said. "We were expecting being grandparents, spoiling the grandchildren.

"She's tremendously loved by her family. This isn't all a loss," he said. "The things she did, we're going to hold on to those things."

How the shooting unfolded

Tamara O'Neal had just finished her emergency room shift at Mercy Hospital when Lopez approached her in the parking lot, argued with her and shot her, officials said. Police haven't said what led to the confrontation.

Responding police officers pursued the gunman into the hospital, exchanging gunfire with him for several minutes.

Lopez then shot and killed two more people -- Chicago police Officer Samuel Jimenez and 25-year-old pharmacy resident Dayna Less, who was exiting an elevator -- before Lopez also died, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson said.

Lopez also was killed; it is unclear whether Lopez died from police gunfire or a self-inflicted gunshot, Johnson said.

The hospital's emergency department, and several other parts of the hospital, still were closed Tuesday as a result of the shooting, spokesman Jim Ritter said.

The shooting drew large numbers of law enforcement and emergency responders. Vehicles with flashing lights cordoned off the blocks around the medical center.

When the gunman entered the facility, hospital worker Patricia Rinella and others barricaded themselves in a room, blocking a door with a copy machine, she told CNN affiliate WBBM.

"It was too close for comfort," Rinella said. "It just seemed like he was all over the place."

'Just the best person ever'

O'Neal lived a hard-working life: She recently took on medicine as a second career; she helped needy children get school supplies; and she was dedicated to church, agreeing to work much of the weekend to guarantee Sundays off, her boss recalled Monday night.

"Just the best person ever. Really," Dr. Patrick Connor, chairman of the hospital's emergency department, told reporters as he tearfully paid tribute to her.

A native of Portage, Indiana, O'Neal had graduated the University of Illinois-Chicago's emergency medicine program in 2016, he said.

"Simply one of the most fascinating, hard-working persons," Connor said. "Medicine was a second career for her. ... She just started practicing here two years ago."

O'Neal "fundraised every year for disadvantaged children, for first, second, third grade, to get all their school supplies," he said.

And O'Neal was "completely dedicated to church" and its choir, arranging never to work on Sundays, Connor recalled.

"From last year, when I started here as chairman, that was her one thing that she wanted: 'I want to be able to go to church on Sundays,'" Connor recalled. "I said, 'OK, so you work Fridays and Saturdays, and we'll make sure you go to church on Sunday.'

"Just will be sorely missed."

Officer had just completed probation

Jimenez, the slain police officer, had just become a full-fledged member of the force, having completed probationary training period after joining the Chicago Police Department in February 2017, the police superintendent told reporters.

Jimenez and his partner went to the hospital when they heard dispatch traffic about the shooting there.

"They weren't assigned to that particular call, but they went," Johnson said, "because that's what we do."

Jimenez and Less, a pharmacy resident and recent Purdue University graduate, were killed during the shootout in the hospital, police said.

A bullet also hit the holster of a second officer, who was uninjured, Johnson said.

The responding officers "saved a lot of lives because we just don't know how much damage he (the gunman) was prepared to do," Johnson said.

Jimenez is survived by a wife and three children, Johnson said.
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- A major California wine producer must stop using labels that imply a connection to Oregon pinot noirs.

The Mail Tribune reports that the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has ruled that Napa Valley vintner Joe Wagner must surrender nine labels -- including Elouan and The Willametter -- because of the deceptive labeling.

But wine produced by Elouan Winery that is already in stores and warehouses will not be recalled.

The labeling caught the attention of the Oregon wine industry and state Legislature last summer.

Wagner has previously called the controversy a "charade."

He says he uses Oregon grapes but produces the wine in California.

Oregon wine producers say the state's $5.6 billion wine industry needs to be protected from false claims.
EUGENE, Ore. -- A Springfield man pleaded guilty Tuesday to shipping marijuana out of state in Styrofoam rocks.

Illegal export continues to plague Oregons under-regulated and insufficiently enforced state laws governing state-licensed marijuana, said Billy J. Williams, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon.

The U.S. Attorneys Office said Springfield police began investigating Curran Millican Manzer, 37, in September 2017 after the United Parcel Service reported that packages Manzer shipped to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, smelled strongly of pot.

Manzer sent additional packages to Oklahoma City the following month, also believed to contain marijuana. In the same time frame, Manzer received several packages containing cash.

In November 2017, police obtained a search warrant for packages sent or received by Manzer via UPS.

Police conducted surveillance at a UPS store in Springfield and saw Manzer drop off six packages for shipment to Oklahoma City. A canine unit responded.

Police searched the packages and found six large, Styrofoam rocks containing 143 pounds of marijuana.

Manzer faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $1 million fine and a three-year term of supervised release.

The sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 26.

As part of the plea agreement, Manzer will forfeit criminally-derived proceeds and property used to facilitate his crimes prior to sentencing.
2:45 P.M. UPDATE: Traffic is slowing down in our area, especially on Interstate 5 North near Albany.

Allow some extra time to get where you need to go.

A few crashes between Tangent and Albany on I-5 Wednesday afternoon are backing up traffic, as well, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

ODOT said the delay on I-5 northbound at milepost 228 is estimated to be under 20 minutes.

There is a heavy traffic jam on I-5 northbound between Halsey and Salem.

________________________

EUGENE, Ore. -- With AAA predicting this year will have the highest volume of Thanksgiving travel since 2005, its important to plan ahead for the holiday weekend.

ROAD TRAFFIC

Nationally, more than 54 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home during the week of Thanksgiving, a nearly 5 percent increase from last year.

A majority of those travelers will be driving  an estimated 48.5 million people.

Here in Oregon, about 704,000 people will be traveling  609,000 by car.

Nationally, gas prices are expected to be on the rise, but according to AAA Oregon, well be seeing the largest weekly drop of the year in pump prices as we head into the holiday weekend.

Oregons average is dropping seven cents to $3.20, AAA said.

The Oregon Department of Transportation reminded drivers to expect traffic and a record number of travelers starting Wednesday and continuing through Sunday. Heavy congestion is especially expected on Interstate 5.

Staffing will be increased to help deal with congestion and crashes, and more signage will be posted to warn travelers about delays, ODOT said.

Drivers should remain patient, make sure their vehicle is in good working order and take emergency supplies on the road with them, ODOT said.

For more information about road construction projects that may be taking place along your route, click here.

To check real-time road conditions, click here.

AIR TRAVEL

Not only will the roads be busier than weve seen on the holiday in more than a dozen years, the Transportation Security Administration is projecting that this year will be the busiest Thanksgiving for air travel ever.

The TSA said the busiest day will likely be the Sunday following Thanksgiving as everyone returns home from their trips. They said nationally, they expect to screen up to 2.6 million people per day leading up to the holiday and 2.7 million the Sunday after.

Those traveling on Thanksgiving Day or the Friday after should expect a lighter travel day.

WEATHER

Locally, were looking at a rainy holiday weekend.

Coast

Wednesday: Rain showers

Thursday: Rain, breezy with winds 10-20 mph, gusts 30 mph

Friday: Rain

Weekend: Mostly cloudy, a few showers Saturday night to Sunday morning

Valley & Umpqua

Wednesday: Rain showers

Thursday: Rain, breezy with winds 15-25 mph

Friday: Rain

Weekend: Mostly cloudy, a few showers Saturday night to Sunday morning

Cascade & Siskiyou passes

Wednesday: Wintry mix, little to no accumulation

Thursday: Snow down to 4,500 feet, 3-7" accumulation

Thursday night: Snow down to 4,500 feet, 5-9" accumulation

Friday: Wintry mix, 1-2" accumulation possible

Weekend: Mostly cloudy, a few snow showers Saturday night to Sunday morning above 5,000 feet

Watch our Winter Weather Special on KEZI 9 News at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 21.

To track weather changes on our website, click here.

BLACK FRIDAY & CIVIL WAR

With shoppers out looking for Black Friday deals and the Civil War game between the Ducks and Beavers on Friday, traffic on I-5 could be even more jammed this holiday weekend.

For those shopping locally, the city of Eugene will be offering free parking at city-owned spaces and garages downtown on Nov. 23 and 24 -- Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. The city hopes this will encourage residents to shop locally and support local businesses.

"We're excited to partner with the Downtown Eugene Merchants to support local businesses and make the holiday shopping experience better for everyone," said Jeff Petry, parking and technology manager with the city.

The free parking locations are the following:

Overpark

Parcade

Pearl Street

Hult Center

Broadway North

Broadway South

Library Garages

On-street spaces in downtown Eugene are also included in the holiday weekend free parking:

5th Avenue to 18th Avenue

Lincoln Street to High Street

Parking lot at 829 Pearl St.

If you're headed to Woodburn to take advantage of the Black Friday deals there, ODOT officials said it's important to approach the exit in the far right lane several miles before the exit, as traffic will likely be backed up.

However, if you're headed past the busy Woodburn Interchange, perhaps to enjoy the Civil War game in Corvallis, ODOT officials advise staying in the left lane to avoid the backup of vehicles taking the exit.

Kickoff for the Civil War is set for 1 p.m. Football fans headed to the game should leave early and allow for plenty of travel time.

Download our news and weather apps for the latest.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
EUGENE, Ore. -- The busiest travel dates of the year are here.

Right now and over the next few days, people will be traveling up and down the interstate to see family and loved ones.

ODOT officials said they're expecting heavy congestion starting Wednesday through Sunday.

Dayne Miner and his wife said they left from Seattle to come to Eugene on Wednesday to beat the worst of the holiday traffic.

"On purpose," Miner said. "With traffic being what it is."

They are just one of thousands traveling the I-5 corridor, braving what people are calling terrible traffic.

"Oh yeah, especially in this kind of weather," said traveler Madeline Spurlin. "Because I-5 gets really crazy this time of year because it's just backed up traffic all the way through."

Even convenience stores are prepping for the rush.

Places like the ARCO AM/PM on Beltline are doubling up their weekly orders to make sure they're well stocked.

They even have extra employees working the daytime shift to get everyone in and out as quickly as possible.

Even with that extra help, Miner said traffic will still be the biggest battle.

"The 205 almost the entire way was bumper to bumper southbound," Miner said. "I was just trying to find a McDonald's. I finally found one on the fourth attempt."

Miner said he does have some advice for drivers over the next couple of days.

"Leave early. Take your time. Don't hurry. It's better to get there late, than not to arrive at all."

When it comes to filling up your gas tank, the manager of that ARCO AM/PM said right now, their gas prices are 14 cents cheaper than they were this time last week.
Corvallis, Ore. -- Oregon State offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren talked with the media ahead of the Civil War on Friday. Among the topics discussed: the senior class leaving OSU, gameplanning against former colleague Jim Leavitt, and the uniqueness of the rivalry in the northwest.
A senior officer said the CMs spectacles broke but his eyes seemed to have been spared any damage.

New Delhi: A man threw chilli powder at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal outside his Delhi Secretariat office on Tuesday, an attack which the AAP described as politically motivated, and claimed the BJP was hatching a conspiracy in collusion with the Delhi police to attack the CM. The man, Anil Kumar, who has been detained, was reportedly targeting the CMs eyes. A senior officer said the CMs spectacles broke but his eyes seemed to have been spared any damage.

Mr Kumar, whose Aadhaar card was recovered, had reportedly brought the chilli powder to the secretariat in packets of khaini (chewing tobacco). After throwing red pepper powder at the CM, the accused reportedly threatened to shoot him after he comes out of jail, an official said. The attack took place outside the CMs third floor room as he was going for lunch.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari condemned the attack, saying it cannot be tolerated or justified by anyone, and demanded a high-level probe, noting that the attack had happened in a high security zone.

Some officials close to Mr Kejriwal accused the Delhi police of being lax over the CMs security, and said this was the third attempt to harm him in a month.
Rahul Gandhi, other top Opposition leaders will offer proposals; BJP not invited.

The AIKS, along with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and All India Agricultural Workers Union, are the main organisers of the event. (Representational image)

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be among the top Opposition leaders who will put forward their proposals on how their parties would address agrarian distress and issues plaguing the farming community, if voted to power in 2019, at a mega farmers rally in the capital on November 30. All the political parties opposed to the BJP have been invited by the organisers of the November 29-30 farmers rally to announce promises they intend to make to save agriculture in their manifestoes for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, All India Kisan Mahasabha general secretary Hannan Mollah told this newspaper.

The AIKS, along with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and All India Agricultural Workers Union, are the main organisers of the event. Mr Mollah said invitations have been sent to all political parties except the BJP. We have asked parties to only send their top leaders, whose words carry weight, he added.

AIKS sources said that on November 29, four separate groups will march to the Ramlila Maidan from Delhis Nizamuddin, Anand Vihar, Majnu Ka Tila and Bijwasan areas. On November 30, there will be a march to Parliament House under the banner of Nation for Farmers, in which besides nearly one lakh farmers, ex-servicemen and youth organisations are also likely to participate. The chief demand would be that the NDA government call a special session of Parliament to address farmers issues.

A senior AIKS office-bearer said: On November 30 we will have two separate sessions in Parliament Street. In the morning, we will have farmers leaders from across the country speak about the crisis facing the agricultural community, and in the afternoon we will have a political session, where leaders would put forward their proposals on how their parties will handle this issue if voted to power. It is this special session for political parties in which the Congress president will be speaking.

Mr Gandhis participation comes amid efforts by the Congress to make agrarian distress a major poll plank ahead of 2019. The party has been using farmers issues to target the BJP in the ongoing Assembly elections too.

In fact, the Congress manifesto for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh has focused mainly on the farm crisis, where it has promised to write off loans and implement a number of other welfare measures, including enhancing the minimum support price for crops in line with the key recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission.
Kilkenny was the deserving winner of this years Foodie Destination Award (organised by the Restaurants Association of Ireland) which is why Neven Maguire chose the city as his base for his two Christmas programmes this year.

As well as the traditional favourites (turkey,lamb and ham), Neven demonstrates how to cook some interesting and stylish starters and visits two of the countrys best pastry chefs.

The OPW generously offered Kilkenny Castle as the location, and Neven installed himself in the Castles Victorian-era kitchen to cook his dishes.

As always, Nevens recipes are crowd-pleasing dishes which are straightforward to make.

Neven filmed part of his Christmas Special at Kilkenny Castle

PROGRAMME ONE:

Neven cooks two stylish starters - trout pate (made with smoked trout from the nearby Goatsbridge Trout Farm, the longest-established, privately owned fish farm in the country), and duck confit with vegetable crisps.



This is followed by the traditional roast turkey with braised red cabbage, and cranberry and sausage meat stuffing, and a butterflied leg of lamb.

Neven also meets Adrian Cummins, Chief Executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland to learn more about the Foodie Destination award and the reasons why Kilkenny beat 29 other entrants.

Neven then visits The Hole In the Wall, Kilkennys oldest tavern, located in a house built in 1582 where the owner, cardiologist Dr Michael Conway, shows Neven how to make Irish Coffee with poteen made in Kilkenny.



PROGRAMME TWO, Friday December 7th:

To get everyone in the mood for Christmas, the episode starts in St Canices Cathedral, Irelands best preserved and extraordinary medieval cathedral where Neven listens to two choirs rehearsing carols for Christmas.

Neven with the Kilkenny College Choir

Glazed ham is a traditional favourite but this year Neven cooks a loin of bacon - very similar in taste but easier to cook, and easier to carve. He braises the bacon in cider, and glazes it with apply syrup, both made locally by Highbank Organic Farm. Neven comes up with a new way to make the most of the leftovers: turkey and ham coleslaw.

Kilkenny has a growing foodie scene, part of the reason why it won this years Foodie Destination Award, and one of the citys new cafes is Cake Face, run by Laura and Rory Gannon who show Neven how to make their Untraditional Chocolate Mince Pie.

Neven makes his own alternative to Christmas Cake, a Yule Log, before wishing everyone a happy Christmas back at the Cathedral and a final carol.



Neven's Kilkenny Christmas is produced by David Hare of InproductionTV for RTE and is sponsored by BORD BIA

Always choose food with the Bord Bia Quality Mark this Christmas so you know that it has been produced to the highest Bord Bia quality standards which have been verified at every stage.
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If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter .

Support our mission and join our community now.
A scientist has told the trial of a man accused of murdering his partner that she found blood stains on the accuseds clothing which, she concluded, was more likely due from a 'strike' than from administering CPR.

Renars Veigulis (32) of Old Bridge Street in Freshford, Co Kilkenny has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to murdering Rita Apine (29) at their home on or about May 14, 2017.

Mr Veigulis told ambulance staff that his partner fell down the stairs, while prosecuting lawyers have told the jury they will hear evidence that her injuries were inconsistent with a fall.

Detective Sergeant James O'Brien, from Kilkenny Garda station, gave evidence today to Vincent Heneghan SC, for the prosecution, that he arrived at Old Bridge Street shortly after Ms Apine had been removed from the scene.

He said he looked in through the front door of the apartment at Old Bridge Street and could see a large amount of blood on the tiled floor.

Det Sgt O'Brien said he asked Mr Veigulis to accompany him back to Kilkenny Garda station to give a witness statement. Det Sgt O'Brien said he explained to Mr Veigulis that he wasn't arresting him and he'd be free to come and go. Mr Veigulis was 'very forthcoming', the detective said.

He said he was aware his superior, Superintendent Derek Hughes, had designated the apartment as a crime scene. It did not mean, at that time, that a crime had allegedly been committed but that the location was of interest.

Det Sgt OBrien said he subsequently got a call from Supt Hughes in which he learned that Ms Apine had passed away.

As a result of that, the detective said he changed his mind and Mr Veigulis was no longer being treated as a witness. The detective said he informed Mr Veigulis that he was arresting him on suspicion of murder at 5.35pm. He said he placed his hand on Mr Veigulis shoulder and informed him why he was arresting him. An interpreter was present to provide translation.

In reply, Mr Veigulis said: yes, so shes dead?, according to the detective.

Sandra McGrath, from the DNA section of Forensic Science Ireland, also gave evidence to Mr Heneghan today that she received a large number of items to examine, including a white hooded top belonging to Mr Veigulis.

Ms McGrath said there was a large amount of contact-blood staining on the sleeves of the top and the back of the hoodie. It was blood that had been transferred from a blood-stained surface to a non-blood-stained surface.

On the sleeve also was a spatter pattern. It results from force being applied to wet blood. She said the forces could be made by a strike into wet blood or airflow from the body. Ms McGrath said she had to consider the two alternatives, whether it was force from a strike or from administering CPR.

She said she concluded that the blood spatter patterns were more likely due to a strike rather than CPR or expiration from the body.

Under cross examination from Michael Bowman SC, for the defence, Ms McGrath accepted that contact staining could be made by cradling somebody in one's arms.

She also accepted that a 'strike' was the application of force to wet blood. Mr Bowman said he didn't want the jury getting a picture of 'striking somebody'.

The trial continues tomorrow before a jury of seven men and five women with Ms Justice Tara Burns presiding.

On Tuesday, Dr Stephen Doak, from Forensic Science Ireland, told the jury: There was more to the event than someone just landing at the bottom of the stairs. These blood-staining marks are significant and I felt there was a forceful event that occurred at the time, he remarked.

Dr Doak gave evidence that he observed a large area of blood-staining on the wall beside the first step of the stairs and there was contact blood-staining on top of the baby-gate, which was located at the bottom of the stairs. Dr Doak said he also found hair swipe blood patterns on the wall of the stairs.

He said he returned to the house at Old Bridge Street on May 17 and used a chemical based substance known as luminol which 'lights up' blood in a darkened room as he had previously formed the opinion that something was not quite right, namely that there were 'missing areas of blood'.

He said he sprayed the chemical onto the wall of the stairs and believed there had been a 'washing up incident' of the blood-staining.

The person who wiped this wall had a blood-stained sponge or cloth and left this marking which was not visible to the naked eye but was visible to the chemical eye, said Dr Doak.

In conclusion, Dr Doak said that after he had used luminol he was of the opinion that there had been an active attempt to wipe out blood-stained patterns on the interior walls behind the front door.

Opening the trial last week, Mr Heneghan, for the DPP, said the accused and the deceased were from both Latvia. Mr Veigulis came to Ireland about five years ago, followed six months later by Ms Apine, and in 2016 they moved to Freshford, about 20 miles from Kilkenny City.

On Wednesday, the jury also heard the contents of Mr Veigulis' witness statement, made before he was arrested. In it, he said he was a restaurant assistant in the Kilkenny Design Centre while Ms Apine had been a professional poker dealer for Ladbrokes in Latvia. She stopped working shortly after moving to Ireland when she got pregnant.

Mr Veigulis said he worked the previous day from 2pm to 12.30am and, when he got home, Ms Apine and their daughter were asleep. He said his daughter woke him up at around 7.30am and they went downstairs to play some games.

He said Ms Apine woke up at around 10am. She came downstairs to make coffee and Mr Veigulis went to the shop twice to buy items like milk, bread and cigarettes.

Mr Veigulis said his partner had gone upstairs to put on makeup. When he was downstairs playing with his daughter, he heard "boom, boom, boom and found her at the bottom of the stairs, the jury heard.

The jury has heard the audio of Mr Veigulis 999 call.

Speaking to an emergency call-taker with the National Ambulance Service, the jury heard Mr Veigulis say: Hello can I talk with Kilkenny ambulance. Please, my wife has fallen down the stairs.

The emergency-call taker accepted, under cross examination from Michael Bowman SC, for the defence, that Mr Veigulis was clearly distressed and anxious. The jury could hear he was breathing heavily.

Please, please very fast. All blood on the floor, please, the defendant was heard telling the emergency call-taker".
This week's Kilkenny People has details of a wide range of positions in the recruitment section.

Below are some top picks for job vacancies:

Mowlam Healthcare are hiring Care Assistants in their Archersrath Nursing Home.

The HSE have vacancies for a Staff Nurse in Wexford and South Tipperary. Guaranteed immediate part-time and full-time hours available to include evening and weekend work.

Axa are recruiting for a Branch Manager to join their Direct Operations Team in Kilkenny. Must have minimum insurance qualification of APA.

Brothers of Charity Services Ireland are hiring for the posts of Permanent Full Time Team Leader and Permanent Part Time Support Workers and Locum Relief Support Workers.

A Receptionist/PA is required for a busy architectural practice in Kilkenny city centre. Must have good familiarity with Microsoft Office.

Excel Electrical contracting company are seeking a Purchasing Manager/ Buyer. Experience required. Hours are flexible and negotiable.

Kilkenny County Council are hiring a Senior Enterprise Development Officer. The current salary scale for this position is 48,978 to 63,672.

A full time Pharmacy Technician is required by Fallons Pharmacy. This is a temporary position to cover maternity leave.

KELLYS agricultural business are hiring a Trainee Stores Person and a Stores Person. Applicants are all required to be team players with good IT and communication skills.

A Community Development Data Analyst is required by Kilkenny County Council. Must possess minimum of Level 7 in the National Framework of Qualifications or equivalent.

For details on how to apply for these positions- and more- be sure to pick up this week's edition of the Kilkenny People!
You may from time to time have come upon the Irish Wheelchair Association, whether its on your way to work, passing our accessible transport, in the car park at the back of Croke Park on All Ireland Hurling day in September or on a dark winters evening in November when we are out fundraising around the county for our National Angel Campaign. Have you ever stopped to think What do they do and who supports them Well the answer is simple.



The Irish Wheelchair Association is based at Claddagh Court, College Road, Kilkenny delivering quality services to the people of Kilkenny for almost 20 years.



Kilkenny is one of the largest IWA Resource and Outreach services in the country providing a range of services such as, Independent Living, Home Support Services, Holiday Service, Supported Living, Driving School, Information Services and a vast range of programmes delivered every day in our Resource and Outreach Service to the people of Kilkenny.



As we all know Community support is a huge and important support to IWA Kilkenny are we are delighted to team up with Johnstown Tractor Run for their annual event which takes place on Sunday the 25th of November 2018. The proceeds raised by the Johnstown Tractor Run will be shared with the Irish Wheelchair Association North Kilkenny Branch, Spokesports and Claddagh Court and will be used to maintain the excellent level of services currently being delivered in Kilkenny. We are thrilled to be involved in this fantastic community event and welcome this community integration opportunity for our members and their families.



We would like to thank our sponsors Kilkenny On Ice and all our local sponsors for spot prizes and gifts.



If you wish to support this worthwhile cause and help us to continue delivering quality, life-changing services to the people of Kilkenny please contact us at IWA Kilkenny Claddagh Court College Rd Kilkenny 056-7762775.
Pakistan high commissioner Sohail Mahmood hailed the move as a special gesture by the Pakistan government.

Pakistani agencies have also been preventing the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan from visiting Sikh gurdwaras. (Representational image)

New Delhi: Pakistan on Tuesday issued a whopping 3,800 visas to Indian Sikh pilgrims to participate in the celebrations to mark the 549th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the Sikhs and the founder of Sikh-ism. Pakistan high commissioner Sohail Mahmo-od hailed the move as a special gesture by the Pakistan government.

While the move is bound to be welcomed by New Delhi, Indian security agencies have been concerned by attempts by notorious Pakistani spy agency ISI to try to radicalise Indian Sikh pilgrims visiting Pakistan to resurrect the terrorist Khalistan movement that wreaked havoc in Indias Punjab province in the 1980s and early 1990s. The terrorist movement was smashed by the Punjab police way back in 1994.

But the recent grenade attack in Amritsar is being viewed in India as a fresh attempt by the ISI to stoke terror in Punjab. Pakistani agencies have also been preventing the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan from visiting Sikh gurdwaras.

In a statement issued meanwhile, Islamabad said, The Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi has issued over 3800 visas to Sikh pilgrims from India to participate in the 549th birthday anniversary celebrations of Baba Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Pakistan from 21-30 November 2018.

It added, This is by far the largest number of visas issued in recent years to Sikh yatrees (pilgrims) for Baba Guru Nanaks birth anniversary celebrations, well beyond the maximum number of 3000, mutually agreed between the two countries for this event.

We extend profound felicitations to our brothers and sisters celebrating this auspicious occasion and wish all yatrees a spiritually fulfilling yatra, Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood said.

The Pakistan High Commission meanwhile also said, The issuance of pilgrimage visas to Sikh pilgrims is in line with the Government of Pakistans efforts for promoting visits to religious shrines and people-to-people interactions. This also reflects the commitment of the Government of Pakistan to faithfully implement the bilateral Protocol on Visits to Religious Shrines.
ROCHESTER, Minn.- After recent shootings in places of worship, the most recently at a Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Christ United Methodist Church held a service to welcome all religions through it's doors.

Now is a time to come together, said Pastor Elizabeth Macaulay.

People filled the church to celebrate one another differences tonight.

Security monitored the entrance and kept doors locked after seven o'clock. Whether you are jewish or muslim, lead Pastor Elizabeth Macaulay says they do not turn their backs on anyone.

It always feels important for us to be together and give thanks together it's a common language that we share, she said.

Elizabeth adds the main message of the evening was spreading peace.
MASON CITY, Iowa  A trial is scheduled for a North Iowa man facing separate drug and theft charges.

Harold Victory Stinnett Jr., 28 of Clear Lake, is pleading not guilty to 1st degree theft as a habitual offender, possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine, and possession of marijuana.



Felix Arp Felix Arp

Mason City Police say Stinnett and Felix Arp, 27 of Mason City, abducted two people from a Yesway convenience store in Mason City on July 2, forced them to drive to a parking lot, and then took their victims phones and wallets.

Stinnett was then pulled over in Mason City on November 2 and authorities say he had six grams of meth and more than $1,200 in cash in his possession.

Stinnett is set to stand trial in both cases on January 8, 2019.

Arp has also pleaded not guilty to 1st degree theft. His trial is scheduled for January 8, 2019 as well.
MASON CITY, Iowa  Two men accused of stealing a jet ski are entering different pleas.

Authorities say Jordan Ronald Currier and Kristofer Warren Voigt stole the jet ski on August 27 from a Clear Lake property. Court documents say the jet ski was on a trailer with a for sale sign on it and video surveillance footage shows two men hooking the trailer to a pickup truck and driving away with it.



Jordan Currier Jordan Currier

Law enforcement says the jet ski was then found parked in Voigts driveway.

Currier, 24 of Forest City, has pleaded guilty to 2nd degree theft. No sentencing date has been set.

Voigt is pleading not guilty to 2nd degree theft and conspiracy to commit a non-forcible felony. No trial date has been set.

Voigt was re-arrested on November 7 in connection with the search for a missing woman. She was found with Voigt and he was taken into custody while she was transported to Mercy Medical Center  North Iowa. Online court records do not list any charges against Voigt related to that incident.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Bishop John M. Quinn of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester believes the decision to file for bankruptcy is the best way to handle the allegations of sexual assault.

"In other words, the bankruptcy judge will be able to make very objective decisions about the compensation of those victims," Quinn said.

The Diocese is facing 121 claims of child sexual abuse from claims under the Minnesota Child Victims Act. Even though the pending claims of sexual abuse happened between 1960 and 1986, the Diocese is taking action to provide justice to survivors by using the money from the bankruptcy to compensate the victims.

Mack Eleid, a doctor at Mayo Clinic who also attends service at the Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelis, believes the Diocese is making the right decision.

"I think it's unfortunate and I think...but it makes sense given all of the expenses and the costs."

Eleid believes the Church needs to continue acknowledging the past.

"I think it's an important thing to talk about," Eleid said.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  Few activities are as quintessentially Minnesotan as ice fishing, and some anglers are already venturing onto the ice. If that sounds dangerous, it should, especially with a Thanksgiving warmup in the forecast.

Authorities already have had to rescue some anglers. But when cold weather returns, Minnesota's 10,000 lakes will be making ice. So here's a look at what to expect for the 2019 ice fishing season:

IS IT SAFE YET?

No. it's true that the recent cold snap put a fresh sheet of ice on many lakes statewide. And reports from conversation officers show that several anglers and spearers haven't been willing to wait. They've even met with some fishing success.

But the Department of Natural Resources likes to say that ice is never 100 percent safe, and no fish is worth a life. Conservation officers are still urging "extreme caution" on many lakes.

"Ice, especially early ice with snow cover, is extremely deceptive because you can't see dangerous cracks or the thickness of the ice under the snow," Conservation Officer Adam Block said in a statement, reminding parents that the holiday weekend is a good time to teach kids about the dangers of ice.

Last Saturday, conservation officers responded to a call of anglers stranded on the ice on Upper Red Lake. Emergency responders brought them safely back to shore, but the officers had to use an airboat to recover their fish house, augers and other gear.

WHEN WILL IT BE SAFE?

Sportsman's Lodge on Lake of the Woods at the northernmost tip of Minnesota says on its website that it's hoping for an early December start date, once there's 8-12 inches of good ice.

Some resorts on Upper Red Lake reported 5 inches early this week, which under good conditions can support activities on foot.

On Mille Lacs Lake, Eddy Lyback of Lyback's Ice Fishing says on his website that the ice extended out about 2 miles early this week, but he hasn't ventured out on it and won't for a while, though he says a few anglers have walked out on the bays to try their luck.

THE RULES

The DNR is maintaining its existing regulations for the winter season on Upper Red Lake, a four-walleye bag limit with only one allowed longer than 17 inches. That's been in place since the May 2017 fishing opener. The DNR says sport anglers have harvested around 235,000 pounds of walleyes from the lake since last December. That's a record since walleye fishing resumed on the lake in 2006.

While Upper Red Lake has been a success, Mille Lacs is still recovering from a dramatic decline in its walleye population. For the third straight winter, anglers will be allowed to keep only one walleye, and it must be between 21 and 23 inches, or over 28 inches. DNR officials expect the walleye bite on Mille Lacs to be quite good this winter because the relatively low numbers of forage fish such as perch and tullibee should make an anglers' bait hard to resist.

THE TOURNAMENTS

The Brainerd Jaycees $150,000 Ice Fishing Extravaganza bills itself as the world's largest ice-fishing contest. It's scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 26, on Hole-in-the-Day Bay on Gull Lake. The long list of prizes includes a new truck, ATVs, augers and other equipment, to name just a few. It typically draws 10,000 people. The kickoff party is the night before at Grand View Lodge.

In celebration of Minnesota's ugliest fish, the International Eelpout Festival on Leech Lake's Walker Bay is set for Feb. 21-24. On those three days the population of Walker, normally around 1,000, increases tenfold. But it's not all about the pursuit of the slimy bottom-feeder, which is a freshwater member of the cod family and allegedly tastes pretty good if properly prepared. Other events include eelpout curling, polar plunges into the lake, an ice bar and live music.
NORTHWOOD, Iowa  A man accused of leading law enforcement on a multi-county chase is changing his plea.

Phillip Franklin Abbott, 58 of Forest City, is charged with eluding for an August 28 incident wre the Worth County Sheriffs Office says Abbott refused to pull over for a deputy, leading to a pursuit where Abbott nearly crashed into another deputy and his vehicle.

Abbott is now pleading guilty to eluding and has been sentenced to seven days in jail, with credit for time served, and two years of probation.
AUSTIN, Minn.  Police are investigating an early morning stabbing.

Officers were called to Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin at around 5:40 am Wednesday. A 25-year-old man from Illinois told police he left a bar in Austin and had been walking when someone tapped him on the shoulder and stabbed him in the stomach. The man says the stabber then stole between $60 and $80 from him.

Acquaintance of the man took him to the hospital. His injuries are not apparently life-threatening.

Austin Police Captain David McKichan says the victim could not describe his attacker, the weapon, or exactly where the stabbing happened.

Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call the Mower County Law Enforcement Center at 507-437-9400.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- There are two candidates in the running to become the new Community Development Director for Rochester. This person will lead a brand new department that will oversee community planning for the city.



Tracy Steinkruger and Cindy Steinhauser will be interviewing for the position.



The Rochester Art Center hosted a meet-and-greet with the candidates so residents and leaders could learn more about their backgrounds and goals.



Jerry Wiliams, a retired community member, envisions the person chosen to be a visionary.



"So this person is going to have a huge task to form this department," Williams said.



The goal is to have a new Director start the job at the beginning of January.
OSAGE, Iowa - One North Iowa school district is helping those who go without food in Mitchell County by stuffing a bus full of food for those in need.

Osage Middle School students have spent the last two weeks collecting food donations, and today, they spent time at Dollar General and Randy's Neighborhood Market looking to gather more. Their goal is to fill an entire school bus full of food and household items. Through their efforts, they have gathered 3,330 items for the Mitchell County Food Bank, plus $451.70 in cash donations, surpassing last year's amount, which was the first year they participated in a drive.

Tristan Mork is a 7th grader, and participated in last year's drive, which involved a smaller school bus.

"At the end of the year, as soon as we saw that bus was filled, I said to myself, 'man, I bet we can fill a giant bus.'"

He also recognizes the need in the community.

"It's a good thing that we can as a school especially go out in the community, gather items to give to the people that are in need and need the food and they can't really provide it themselves."
MASON CITY, Iowa - A business operating inside Lincoln Intermediate School in Mason City is giving special needs students a shot at learning entrepreneurial and life skills.

5th graders in Brenna Bothwell's class operate a once a week business called "The Bean." Each week, teachers and faculty turn in orders for either coffee, hot chocolate or herbal tea, and on Tuesdays, students deliver them around the school, as well as to the District Administrative Center and Roosevelt Elementary.

Bothwell came up with the idea after she found a similar program on Instagram, and says that it teaches a lot of life skills.

"We're working with money so they have to be able to recognize and identify money, and they have to be able to count it. And they also have to be following the directions in order to make the coffee. They have to have hygiene skills so they're not drinking out of the cups or anything like that."

It's a positive experience for students, encouraging work and fun, as well as building relationships.

"Any kind of jobs that we can incorporate in the school setting that would help prepare students with disabilities for their future employment of what life is going to look like when they get older, that's the greatest thing we can do as a teacher."

Cooper Garrison participates in the program, and when the service first started last month, he says it was met with a positive reaction from faculty.

"The first day we has Mrs. Hugi, she's part of the 6th grade. She was so excited, she even stopped her class to announce it."

Bothwell adds that the concept could be implemented elsewhere.

"Feel free to reach out to people that you think might not be willing to do something like this because you never know what people are going to say. And in the long run, more people are willing to help out compared to not willing to help out."

For start-up costs, the school's PTO sponsored $500 for the program. Since the program's launch, the program has made that money back.

Bothwell hopes that the program can continue with incoming students.
Modi said Congress used to woo tribals earlier by telling them chicken, egg story every elections.

Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said he had to use a bitter medicine like demonetization to treat the deep-rooted corrupt system in the country.

Corruption has ruined the economy of the country. We use toxic substance to get rid of termite. Similarly, I used a bitter medicine such as note ban to treat corruption in the country, Mr Modi said while addressing an elections meeting in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh.

He said the note ban had brought back the black money into the banking system and people who used to horde currency notes under their beds, factories and offices were now paying tax of every single penny of theirs.

The money was being used for welfare of the common men. Describing the farm loan waiver promise of Congress as sham, he exhorted the people not to walk into the trap of Congress which has failed to deliver on its similar promise in Karnataka being ruled by the party.

People in Karnataka had hit the streets to protest against the failure of Congress to write off farm loans in the state.

The loan waiver promise by Congress made ahead of 2008 parliamentary elections had also proved to be a sham, he added.

Mr Modi said Congress used to woo tribals earlier by telling them chicken, egg story every elections.

They (Congress) used to hold loan mela in tribal areas before elections. They used to offer chickens to tribals saying that the chicken will hatch egg which will produce chicken again. The gullible tribals used to believe the chicken, egg story of Congress and vote for the party, he said.

He drew a comparison of performances of 55-year-rule of Congress and 15-year-rule of BJP in MP, saying that the governments under Congress had the pushed MP to backwardness. But, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government had transformed the state from a sick state to a developing one.
ST. PAUL, Minn.  A Winona County murderer gets some bad news on the day before his birthday.

The Minnesota Supreme Court has rejected the petition for post-conviction relief by Jack Willis Nissalke, formerly of Rush City and who will turn 53 on Thanksgiving Day.

Nissalke was convicted of 1st degree murder in the death of Ada Senenfelder. Her body was found on June 6, 1985. Authorities say she was cut and stabbed 33 times and bled to death from a wound to the heart. Her death went unsolved until Nissalke was finally arrested in July 2008.

Prosecutors said Nissalke killed Senenfelder after she told police that a friend of Nissalkes has sexually assaulted a minor child, leading to that friends arrest on a probation violation. Nissalke was accused of pressuring and threatening Senenfelder to recant her story and when that failed to get Nissalkes friend out of jail, authorities say he killed her.

Nissalke was sentenced in 2009 to life in prison without chance of parole. He filed for post-conviction relief in 2017, claiming there was newly discovered evidence in the case and arguing there were interests-of-justice exceptions to the statute of limitations on post-conviction appeals, which had already expired for him.

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected all of Nissalkes arguments and claims without even conducting oral argument. The Court ruled that the evidence Nissalke presented was not new did not justify waiving the statute of limitations.
Perhaps we should all give thanks that the market is closed for Thanksgiving. Itll give us a chance to recover from quite a beating  and for some, time to wish for a Santa Claus rally to rescue stocks. Its rough out there. The November-to-April period seasonally has been the best time of the year to be invested. It looked like that might be the case this time around, too. After a devastating October that saw the Standard & Poors 500-stock index drop almost 7%, November started strong. Alas, it didnt last. Stocks started sliding again in the second week of November, and by the week of Thanksgiving they had already taken out the October bottom. As of this writing, the S&P 500 was about 2% away from hitting new 52-week lows. Is a Santa Claus rally still in the cards? December is a historically strong month, after all. The final month of the year has been positive more often than any other, finishing higher 66 out of the past 90 years. And the market indeed is ready for a reprieve in December following two lousy months in a row. But don't hang your hat on Santa Claus coming to town. Why the Grinch Could Steal Christmas Well start with stock valuations, which never seem to matter  right until they do.

Expensive markets can continue to get even more expensive, sometimes for years. Consider that Alan Greenspan first complained about irrational exuberance in the markets as early as 1996. It would be well over three years until the market finally rolled over. Yet when the bubble finally burst in the first quarter of 2000, it got ugly. The market was down 15% by year end and proceeded to lose nearly half its value before it finally hit bottom. Theres no guarantee the market will follow a similar path this time around. But its worth noting that when the S&P 500 peaked in late September, it was actually more expensive than at the top of the 2000 tech bubble, at least as measured by the price-to-sales ratio. Again, markets dont fall simply because theyre expensive. But when stocks are priced for perfection, expectations get more and more difficult to meet. Eventually, investors lower their expectations, which means revaluing stocks. A company growing at, say, 10% per year is worth a lot less than one growing at 20% per year. This brings us to another reason why investors might end up with coal in their stockings this year. Last years corporate tax cuts were a game changer. In many cases, companies were paying half as much as they were previously in taxes. Every dollar not paid in taxes is a dollar of profit that investors get to keep. Well, were now coming up on the one-year anniversary of the cuts. That means come the first quarter of next year, well no longer be comparing higher post-cut profits to lower pre-cut profits. Thats a big deal, and Wall Street is starting to come to terms with that.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabias King Salman will inaugurate on Thursday the Waad Al-Shamaal project, a 440-square-km city for mining industries in the countrys northern region, Al Arabiya TV said, quoting energy minister Khalid al-Falih.

The project will cost 85 billion riyals ($22.7 billion) and create 10,000 jobs, Falih said. It is part of an industrial scheme aimed at opening up Saudis north to development that will boost job creation.

Mining is key to the kingdoms reform plan to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons, as the government aims to more than triple this sectors contribution to the nations economic output by 2030.

Saudi authorities estimate the region holds 500 million tonnes of phosphate ore, around 7 percent of global proven reserves, mainly in the Al Jalamid and Umm Wual areas between Arar and Turaif.

The energy ministry estimates the kingdoms unused mineral resources to be valued at 5 trillion riyals.

Saudi Arabias efforts to build an economy that does not rely on oil and state subsidies involves a shift towards mining vast untapped reserves of bauxite, the main source of aluminum, as well as phosphate, gold, copper and uranium.

Al Arabiya quoted Falih as saying the mining sector will be open to foreign investment after introducing a new law, without giving further details.

Currently Saudi Maaden 1211.SE is the kingdoms sole miner, producing gold and copper and has in recent years expanded into the production of aluminum and phosphates. It is 65 percent owned by the kingdoms Public Investment Fund.

Maaden, which is also the Gulfs largest miner, was developing its third project to manufacture phosphate fertilisers at its Waad al-Shamal facility at an estimated cost of 24 billion riyals.

Reporting by Marwa Rashad; additional reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by David Evans
(Kitco News) - With bitcoin now below $4,600, U.S. regulators are reportedly expanding their investigation into cryptocurrencies to see whether last years massive bitcoin rally was triggered by market manipulation.

At the centre of the investigation is an allegation that traders used tether  another cryptocurrency  to control bitcoins price during its unprecedented rally, which saw prices jump from around $5,500 in November of last year to nearly $20,000 a month later.

It is suspected that traders used the crypto exchange Bitfinex to move bitcoin prices illegally, Bloomberg reported citing three unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Some of the suspicious activity being investigated includes spoofing, which is otherwise known as placing fake orders to boost prices and then pulling out.

The criminal probe into cryptocurrencies was first opened by the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year to look into allegations of price manipulation by crypto traders.

The investigation is focused on illegal practices that can influence prices  such as spoofing or flooding the market with fake orders to trick other traders into buying or selling, Bloomberg said.

The idea that bitcoins rally last year was manipulated through tether was also brought up in a research paper published back in June by professor John Griffin and doctoral student Amin Shams from the University of Texas.

Tether seems to be used both to stabilize and manipulate bitcoin prices, the papers co-authors wrote.

Griffin and Shams went on to explain that traders would buy the cryptocurrency via tether when bitcoin would decline in order to stabilize and boost prices.

Overall, our findings provide substantial support for the view that price manipulation may be behind substantial distortive effects in cryptocurrencies, they said.

There are also concerns surrounding tether itself, which claims to hold $1 in reserve for each tether issued. At the time of writing, tether was trading at 97 cents, down 0.58%.

Bitcoin, in the meantime, continued to fall, last trading at $4,569.40, down 0.03% on the day, following a significant drop from over $6,400 seen just last week.
(Adds Chinese Foreign Ministry comment)

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday said that China has failed to alter its "unfair" practices at the heart of the U.S.-China trade conflict, adding to tensions ahead of a high-stakes meeting later this month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The findings were issued in an update of the U.S. Trade Representative's "Section 301" investigation into China's intellectual property and technology transfer policies, which sparked U.S. tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods that later ballooned to $250 billion.

"We completed this update as part of this Administration's strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

"This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation."

In the update, USTR said it had found that China had not responded "constructively" to the initial section 301 reports and failed to take any substantive actions to address U.S. concerns. It added that China had made clear it would not change its policies in response to the initial investigation.

USTR said that China was continuing its policy and practice of conducting and supporting cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property and was continuing discriminatory technology licensing restrictions.

The update said that despite the relaxation of some foreign ownership restrictions, "the Chinese government has persisted in using foreign investment restrictions to require or pressure the transfer of technology from U.S. companies to Chinese entities."

China's Commerce Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China had already offered a detailed response to the U.S. complaints in a government white paper issued in September. "I recommend the U.S. side read it in detail," he told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

The essence of China-U.S. trade and economic cooperation is mutual benefit, he added.

"It's normal for there to be friction in economics and trade. What's key is to have dialogue and consultations on the basis of mutual respect, equality and sincerity," Geng said, without further elaborating.

The report comes as the Trump administration and top Chinese officials are discussing possible ways out of their trade war and negotiating details of the Trump-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires at the end of November.

But acrimonious trade rhetoric between the governments of the world's two largest economies has been increasing in recent days, spilling over into an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit last weekend.

A top Chinese diplomat said on Tuesday that the failure of APEC officials to agree on a communique from the summit was a result of certain countries "excusing" protectionism, a veiled criticism of Washington's tariffs. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday that the United States would not back down from the trade dispute, and might even double tariffs, unless Beijing bowed to U.S. demands. (Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Yawen Chen in Beijing; Editing by Sandra Maler and Darren Schuettler)

david.lawder.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May met the EUs chief executive in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss a blueprint for Britains future ties, hoping to secure commitments that will appease rebels at home opposed to a Brexit draft treaty.

With just over four months before Britain leaves the bloc, Mays meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker aims to try to finalise an outline of future relations before a summit of EU leaders on Sunday.

The two leaders shook hands in front of TV cameras at the Commissions headquarters but declined to answer questions.

Outstanding issues include a Spanish threat to block the so-called political declaration over Gibraltar as well as problems from other states on fishing rights and future trade ties.

One EU diplomat said there was still some work needed on those three aspects: fish, goods and Gibraltar ... Juncker and May will try to sort it out. A second EU diplomat said: The only thing really outstanding is Gibraltar.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez demanded assurances that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks with Madrid.

Many in Brussels thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a Dec.2 local election in the southern Andalusia region. They said the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk. [L8N1XW2P7]

The British and European parliaments must ratify a deal to end more than 40 years of partnership before Brexit day, or Britain could leave the EU with no treaty.

The publication last week of a draft exit treaty sparked the biggest crisis of Mays premiership, with two cabinet ministers quitting and dozens of Conservative members of parliament calling on her to step down. They accuse May of making too many concessions to the EU, while others oppose Brexit altogether.

May hopes the blueprint on future relations  a political document of about 20 pages meant to be agreed side-by-side with the legally binding 600-page exit treaty  will help win back enough support at home for her approach to pass in parliament.

Despite the political turmoil around her, May has shown no sign in public of any doubt that she can bring home a deal.

The draft treaty envisages Britain staying in a customs union with the bloc, which many Brexit supporters see as a compromise too far.

The EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the draft treaty, while also seeking to assuage concerns expressed by some of the remaining 27 member states. While unanimity among the 27 is not legally required to endorse the deal now, the bloc seeks a unified stance.

NO RENEGOTIATION

We are following the latest developments with growing concern, said a second EU diplomat. No one wants to reopen the withdrawal agreement.

Both sides have also been advancing contingency plans for the worst case scenario  Britain crashing out of the EU without an agreement.

Diplomats in Brussels said Britain was also seeking an easy flow of goods after Brexit, a position which was too close to the privileges allowed only for countries that sign up to EU single market rules, including free flow of people and services.

The UK wants free movement of goods, which they wont get because thats back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we dont do, another diplomat said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britains fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under its control after Brexit.

EU states with pending issues are seeking to address them either through the blueprint of post-Brexit EU-UK ties or through separate EU statements. France has backed such extra declarations, while Germany opposed them, saying the focus should be on completing the blueprint.

EU envoys will meet on Thursday morning to discuss the outline of future ties. Negotiators will then look at it again at a meeting set for Friday.
PARIS (Reuters) - Emmanuel Macrons popularity took a further hit in recent weeks, according to a poll on Sunday, as fuel tax protests rumbled on across France in the latest sign of discontent with the presidents economic reforms.

Only 25 percent of those questioned in an Ifop poll between Nov. 9 and 17 said they were satisfied with Macron, down from 29 percent in October, according to the survey of almost 2,000 people published in the Journal du Dimanche (JDD).

Macron, who came to power 18 months ago vowing to reshape the economy and overhaul institutions, has brushed off slumping ratings to push through a series of reforms, including a loosening of laws governing hiring and firing.

His government introduced fuel tax hikes to encourage drivers to embrace less-polluting cars, touching a nerve with voters in rural areas in particular as the extra cost began to bite in October when global oil prices surged.

Angry motorists and other demonstrators, many accusing Macron of being out of touch with ordinary people, blocked roads across France on Saturday in a grassroots campaign dubbed the Yellow Vests that drew nearly 288,000 protesters.

More than 400 people were injured, 14 of them seriously, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said, with some frustrated drivers trying to ram through blockades, and at least 157 people were taken into police custody.

A woman protester died when she was accidentally hit by a panicked driver at one blockade.

Some maintained protests on highway slip-roads, tolls and roundabouts on Sunday.

In another Ifop poll in the JDD on Sunday, 62 percent of those surveyed said the government should prioritize policies to help household incomes even if it meant advancing more slowly on measures to fight climate change.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who said on Sunday he was sensitive to the sense of abandonment expressed by some protesters, stressed that the government would not back down on its fuel tax plans.

These are set for another hike in January including on diesel, the most commonly used fuel in France.

The path weve set out on is the right one and were going to stick to it, Philippe told France 2 television. He said workers would ultimately have less of a tax burden by the end of Macrons mandate, with some measures already feeding through this year, such as reduced housing tax bills.

Macrons popularity has sunk to as low as 21 percent in other polls recently, after a torrid summer marked by a scandal over the violent conduct of his former security adviser and the departure of several ministers.

In another poll released on Sunday, by OpinionWay, Macrons approval ratings were unchanged in November from a month earlier at 29 percent.
Gabriela Baczynska, Elizabeth Piper

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said she would be returning to Brussels on Saturday to hammer out an outline of Britains future ties with the European Union after her meeting with the head of the blocs executive on Wednesday failed to bridge the gaps.

May met European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker for about an hour and a half to try to win commitments aimed at helping her appease rebels at home opposed to her draft Brexit treaty.

There were some remaining issues which we have discussed, May said afterwards. I will be returning on Saturday for further meetings, including again with President Juncker to discuss how we can ensure that we can conclude this process.

With just over four months before Britains departure, May is trying to finalise an outline of future relations before a summit of EU leaders on Sunday due to endorse the Brexit accord.

Raising the stakes, EU diplomats said they had been told that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not willing to come on Sunday for any more talks, meaning a text must be ready beforehand.

Spains prime minister, meanwhile, insisted he would vote against the draft deal unless he wins assurances over the disputed peninsula of Gibraltar.

May said negotiators from both sides would continue working on the text. I believe we have been able to give sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues, she said.

A spokesman for the European Commission said very good progress was made at Mays meeting with Juncker: Work is continuing.

Diplomats in Brussels said EU states concerns over fishing rights and future trade ties had largely been addressed in the political declaration on the EU-UK future ties that would form a package with the legally binding divorce deal, meaning Spains concerns were the final issue to be settled.

The only thing really outstanding is Gibraltar, said one EU diplomat.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez demanded assurances that the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar would be settled through direct talks with Madrid.

If this is not solved by Sunday, Spain, a pro-European government, will unfortunately have to vote No, he said at an evening news conference in Valladolid with his Portuguese counterpart.

Many in Brussels thought Sanchez was trying to score points with voters at home before a Dec. 2 local election in the southern Andalusia region. They said the issue could be solved by the leaders and warned Madrid not to put the whole Brexit agreement at risk.

As an olive branch to Brexit campaigners in Britain, May was seeking to include their proposed technological solutions to keep the border open on the island of Ireland. The EU has previously dismissed these ideas as unrealistic at this stage.

Mays finance minister, Philip Hammond, said Britains parliament needed to back her deal or risk either seriously damaging the economy or jeopardising Brexit altogether.

A smooth exit from the European Union - doing this in an orderly fashion - is worth tens of billions of pounds to our economy, he told broadcaster ITV.

If the deal is not approved by parliament, we will have a politically chaotic situation ... In that chaos that would ensue, there may be no Brexit, he added.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The British and European parliaments must ratify the tentative deal to end more than 40 years of partnership before Brexit day on March 29, 2019, or Britain would be set to crash out of the EU with no treaty.

The publication last week of a draft exit treaty sparked the biggest crisis of Mays premiership, with two cabinet ministers quitting and dozens of Conservative members of parliament calling on her to step down. They accuse May of making too many concessions to the EU, while others oppose Brexit altogether.

May hopes the blueprint on future relations  a political document of about 20 pages meant to be agreed side-by-side with the legally binding 600-page exit treaty  will help win back enough support at home for her approach to pass in parliament.

The Northern Ireland party that props up Mays government said it does not plan to withdraw its support yet despite opposition to her withdrawal deal.

The confidence and supply agreement ... is very much still in existence, Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster told the BBC broadcaster.

Asked when the party might consider pulling the plug on support for May, Foster said: Were not there yet.

Despite the political turmoil around her, May has shown no sign in public of any doubt that she can bring home a deal.

The draft treaty envisages Britain staying in a customs union with the bloc, which many Brexit supporters see as a compromise too far.

The EU is trying to discourage Britain from any renegotiation of the draft treaty, while also seeking to assuage concerns expressed by some of the remaining 27 member states. While unanimity among the 27 is not legally required to endorse the deal now, the bloc seeks a unified stance.

DEMANDS

Both sides have also been advancing contingency plans for the worst case scenario  a no-deal Brexit.

Diplomats in Brussels said Britain was also seeking an easy flow of goods after Brexit, a position which was too close to the privileges allowed only for countries that sign up to EU single market rules, including free flow of people and services.

The UK wants free movement of goods, which they wont get because thats back to discussing partial access to the single market, which we dont do, another diplomat said.

In addition, France has called for more guarantees on future access to Britains fishing waters, which London wants to keep firmly under its control after Brexit.

Most in the EU are determined to get the deal over the line, with a third EU diplomat saying: There is plenty of negotiating time left to achieve that.

Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Jan Strupczewski, Robin Emmott in Brussels and Ingrid Melander in Madrid, Editing by Richard Balmforth and Hugh Lawson
Stuff reports:

The leading candidate to become the next president of Interpol is Alexander Prokopchuk, a police general in the Russian Interior Ministry who has for the past seven years headed Interpols Russian bureau. Prokopchuks candidacy was kept under wraps until the last moment  and, presumably, until the Kremlin was confident of securing enough votes. The British government has determined that Prokopchuks victory is assured to the extent that there is no point in trying to stop him.

This would be a very bad thing.

A British human rights group, Fair Trials, wrote to the Interpol secretariat strongly protesting the nomination and noting that it would not be appropriate for a country with a record of violations of Interpols rules (for example by frequently seeking to use its systems to disseminate politically motivated alerts) to be given a leadership role in a key oversight institution. Politically motivated alerts have been a favourite Kremlin tactic, used to legitimise its prosecution of political opponents and make their lives more difficult by limiting their movements. Despite the explicit ban in Interpols constitution on any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character, the organisation happily accepted Moscows requests to issue red notices  in effect, international arrest warrants  against prominent Kremlin opponents.

I recommend people read the book Red Notice by Bill Browder. Russia has tried to get him arrested on multiple occasions through the Interpol system.

Fortunately the powers that be at Interpol do currently follow the rules and cancel the red notices when they determine they have been issued improperly. But if the President of Interpol is a Putin lackey, that may no longer be the case.

But the misuse of the red notice system would be the least of the problems should Prokopchuk accede to Interpols presidency. The main purpose of the organisation is information-sharing and mutual assistance among national police forces. One can imagine what the Kremlin could do with access to sensitive databases around the world. For one thing, there could be many more inconspicuous Russian tourists visiting foreign countries on brand-new passports to admire ancient gothic cathedrals.

The problem we have is that the majority of countries in the world are not democracies.

Maybe what we need is to set up new international bodies, with memberships restricted to democratic nations that follow the rule of law. Basically the OECD countries as a starting point.

UPDATE: They did the right thing and rejected the Russian. The BBC reports:

Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its president, rejecting the Russian frontrunner who had been accused of abusing the international police bodys arrest warrant system. Mr Kim was chosen by Interpols 194 member states at a meeting of its annual congress in Dubai. He beat Russias Alexander Prokopchuk, who had been widely tipped to win. But there was growing concern that Mr Prokopchuk would use the role to target critics of Russias President Putin.

This is really good news. Interpol does important work and would have suffered if Putin got to control it.

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The BJP leader said his partys main agenda in the state is development and the Congress has made cow and the RSS a part of the discourse.

New Delhi: The battle for Madhya Pradesh continued to peak with the BJP exhorting its cadre to work towards its slogan abki baar 200 paar while the Congress state unit chief, Kamal Nath claimed that he was hungry to bring his party back in power in the state.

The Congress is out of power in the state since 2003. Mr Nath, the state Congress chief and a key campaigner for his party however, evaded a direct reply to a question on whether he could be made the chief minister if his party wins the polls.

Rahul Gandhiji will decide how it will happen, Mr Nath said during his first campaign rally in the Budhni assembly seat in support of Congress candidate Arun Yadav, who has been fielded against chief minister Shivraj Singh.

The BJP also continued to play the Hindutva card with partys national vice president and state in-charge Vinay Sahsrabuddhe said the Congress cannot hoodwink people by their sudden faith in Lord Ram. He was replying to a question of the Congresss Ram van gaman path yatra and its bid to woo Hindu voters by promising to build cow sheds in the poll bound state.

The BJP leader said his partys main agenda in the state is development and the Congress has made cow and the RSS a part of the discourse.

When asked whether or not the party target of 200 plus seats in the assembly polls is ambitious, the BJP vice president said that the targets are always ambitious and the party us known for its high ambitions. He sounded confident that the party will come close to its ambitious target.

The party had won 165 seats during last polls but many opinion polls have predicted that though the BJP will retain power, its tally will come down as the opposition Congress is in a resurgent mode.
Ramchandran Pillai defended remarks by CPI(M) Kerala State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who had also likened RSS with terror outfit.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai said RSS was responsible for the stand-off on entry of menstruating women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple. (Photo: Facebook Screengrab | @s.ramachandranpillai)

New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai on Wednesday equated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with "Taliban and Khalistan terrorists" while holding them responsible for the stand-off on entry of menstruating women in Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.

"They (RSS) are behaving like Taliban and Khalistan terrorists. Why are they trying to create trouble in Sabarimala? They should allow everything to be peaceful, they are not doing it," Pillai told ANI.

Pillai made the statement defending remarks passed by the party's Kerala State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who had also likened the RSS with terror outfit. Balakrishnan had accused the RSS of trying to take over Lord Ayyappa temple just the way the Khalistan terrorists had laid siege on the Golden Temple.

"Terrorists do not have any belief. RSS is a terror outfit, they are terrorists. They are doing the same thing in Kerala as the Khalistan terrorists did in the Golden Temple. Had they followed rituals and customs then they would have spared the holy shrine," Balakrishnan had said.

Reacting on Balakrishnan's remark, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader K Krishna Sagar Rao termed the remark as "deplorable" saying that the bankruptcy of the CPI (M) is known to all.

"The bankruptcy of the CPI (M) is very evident with these statements. The fear they have over the largest voluntary network in the country, the RSS, reflects in these statements," said Rao.

Senior BJP leader Giriraj Singh also hit out at the CPI (M) for the remark saying that the party is playing the role of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who takes on anyone who speaks against him.
The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 here where security has been stepped up. (Photo: PTI)

Chandigarh: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar Wednesday appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Punjab Police, which is probing the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 here where security has been stepped up. Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.

The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on November 21 at the Amritsar circuit house. However, police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT at Chandigarh.

The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had given a reference of a letter written (October 9, 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie "MSG".

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case.

The movie "MSG" was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Kumar has denied arranging any meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head. The actor has also denied having ever met the Sirsa headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case. Kumar had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former Chief Minister Parkash 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," Kumar had said in tweet.

"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," Kumar had said.

The SIT has already questioned former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal in Chandigarh.

On Monday, Sukhbir told SIT members, that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab when he was asked by the SIT members whether he had met the actor in Mumbai. The summons are related to the investigation of cases involving various incidents of sacrilege in 2015, police had said.

The summons had 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 summons state, "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 5-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year.
Media reports on DIG allegations against officials irk CJI.

An upset CJI handed over a copy of a media report based on Mr Vermas reply to his lawyer Fali Nariman and said, You being a senior member, we have given this to you. Please help us. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: A furious Supreme Court on Tuesday told all parties in a case involving the CBIs top brass that they do not deserve a hearing in the light of the leaks to the media in the highly-sensitive case centred around the probe agency chief and his deputy levelling corruption charges against each other.

The courts anger stemmed from a news website carrying details of a reply filed by CBI chief Alok Verma and other media reports based on sensational allegations by the probe agencys senior officer M.K. Sinha against top officials in his petition filed in court.

Making it clear that the court was not a platform where people can come and express whatever they want, an anguished bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, heard the matter twice during the day and said it would not hear any party, including the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), and confine itself to the purported leak and publication of Mr Sinhas allegations.

The bench, also comprising justices S.K. Kaul and K.M. Joseph, vented its ire at the start of the hearing over the leak of documents related to the case and said that it wanted to keep the CBI directors response confidential to maintain the probe agencys dignity.

An upset CJI handed over a copy of a media report based on Mr Vermas reply to his lawyer Fali Nariman and said, You being a senior member, we have given this to you. Please help us.

After a quick look at the documents, a shocked Mr Nariman said, How did this leak come out? We dont know.

Mr Nariman added that the leak was totally unauthorised and he was very disturbed and shocked by it. After giving the copy of the news report to Mr Nariman, the bench adjourned the hearing till November 29 on the plea filed by Mr Verma, who has challenged the Centres decision to divest him of duties and sending him on forced leave, saying, We do not think any of you deserve any hearing.

In a sudden turn of events, Mr Nariman re-entered the courtroom after a few minutes told the bench that the news article in question was published by the portal on November 17 on the basis of Mr Vermas reply given to the CVC during the preliminary enquiry proceedings and had nothing to do with the CBI chiefs reply filed in sealed envelop in court on Monday.

The bench also referred to Mr Nariman news articles on the allegations levelled by Mr Sinha, who is CBIs DIG, in his separate plea challenging his transfer to Nagpur.

Yesterday, we had refused the mentioning (seeking urgent listing of Mr Sinhas plea) and we had expressed that highest degree of confidentiality was to be maintained. But here is a litigant who mentions it before us and then goes out to distribute the petition to everyone, a miffed CJI said.

Our efforts to maintain the respect of this institution are not shared by these people. They are giving it to everybody, he added.

This is yesterdays article. We want to know what is going on. This court is not a platform for people to come and express whatever they want. This is a place where people come for adjudication of their legal rights. This is not a platform and we will set it right, the court said.

Mr Sinha on Monday dragged the names of NSA Ajit Doval, Union minister Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary and CVC K.V. Chowdhury into the controversy over alleged attempts to interfere in the probe against CBI special director Rakesh Asthana, who has also been divested of his duties and sent on leave by the government along with Mr Verma.

Mr Chowdhury did not respond to queries when his reaction was sought while Mr Doval was not immediately available for comments. The Union minister termed the allegations as baseless and malicious.
Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun in the morning followed by cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 49F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with occasional rain after midnight. Low 41F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
'I have made up my mind not to contest next elections,' Sushma Swaraj told media in Madhya Pradesh.

New Delhi/Indore: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, one of the most prominent faces of the BJP and the Narendra Modi government, announced on Tuesday that she had made up her mind not to contest the 2019 general election due to health reasons. Ms Swaraj, 66, announced this at a media interaction in Indore in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh amid growing speculation within the party since early this year that she could be sent to the Rajya Sabha or appointed as a governor due to health reasons. Ms Swaraj, a former Delhi chief minister, has represented Vidisha in the Lok Sabha since 2009.

In Madhya Pradesh, the state BJP is abuzz with rumours that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans son Kartikeya could make his electoral debut either from Vidisha or Bhopal, considered as the partys strongholds. Speculation in also rife in the BJP state unit that some other family member of the CM or one of his confidants could stand from Vidisha if Ms Swaraj is not contesting from there. Ms Swaraj, who is serving her fourth term in the Lok Sabha, told reporters in Indore: It is the party which decides, but I have made up my mind not to contest the next (Lok Sabha) elections due to health reasons. She had undergone a kidney transplant in 2016.

After being elected from Vidisha as a Lok Sabha MP, I was the Leader of the Opposition. Later, I was given the responsibility of the external affairs ministry. Despite holding these prime posts, I used to visit all Assembly segments in my constituency every month for nearly eight years.

Doctors have advised me that I should avoid exposure to dust. Because of this, I am unable to take part even in election rallies. Due to health reasons, I cant participate in outdoor public programmes... I have also told my party leadership that in view of health reasons, I have to avoid such exposure, Ms Swaraj said.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said it was her personal decision, and declined to comment any further.

Ms Swarajs husband Swaraj Kaushal, a former governor of Mizoram, posted thank you on Twitter, and said that even Milkha Singh had one day stopped running.

A spell-binding orator in Hindi, Ms Swaraj is among the few top politicians capable of speaking in English with equal ease, and has had a few rare distinctions, including being the youngest Cabinet minister at 25, when she had joined the Haryana government in 1977, and the first woman chief minister of Delhi.

She is also the first woman external affairs minister of the country though Indira Gandhi, as Prime Minister, had held charge of the portfolio.

Ms Swaraj also served in the Rajya Sabha for three terms and was a member of the Haryana Assembly  the state she comes from  twice.

Ms Swarajs most notable political battle was the one against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Ballari in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. She was her partys nationalist woman counter to Mrs Gandhi, often attacked by the BJP for her Italian origins. Ms Swarajs intensive campaign, when she gained proficiency in Kannada, won her innumerable local hearts with her speeches in their language, but Mrs Gandhi, fighting her first Lok Sabha election in a region then seen as her partys pocket borough, got the better of her. Ms Swaraj fell short of victory, but grew in stature.
(TROY, Ks.) A Doniphan County, Kansas deputy now faces charges following an investigation by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

According to the Kansas Chief, Deputy Raymond Hall has been charged with mistreatment of a person in custody and battery.

The charge was filed by Nemaha County County Attorney Brad Lippert, who is serving as special prosecutor in the case.

Hall has been on paid leave since July 2017, one month after the investigation began.

In October, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it was "investigating allegations against an employee of the Doniphan County Sheriff's Office."

Hall joined the department in 2013.
A massive hunt was on to trace the other suspect, Avtar Singh, the CM added.

Chandigarh: In a major breakthrough, the Punjab police has traced the grenade attack on Amritsars Nirankari Satsang Bhavan to ISI-backed Khalistani forces in Pakistan, and arrested one of the two perpetrators of the attack in less than 72 hours after three persons were killed and 15 injured in the terrorist incident.

Announcing this here on Wednesday, chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh said the suspect Bikramjit Singh, 26, also known as Bikram, the son of Sukhwinder Singh of Dhariwal village, was arrested early on Wednesday from near Loharka village. A massive hunt was on to trace the other suspect, Avtar Singh, the CM added.

Bikram, an operative of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has given significant information indicating the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan. It is suspected that Happy is Pakistan-based KLF chief Harmeet Singh Happy, who is believed to have earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings of RSS/Shiv Sena leaders and workers (and a Christian pastor) in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-2017, in collaboration with his Pakistani handlers and that countrys Inter-Services Intelligence.

The chief minister categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack and said Sundays strike on the Nirankari Bhavan was yet another attempt by the ISI to carry out terrorist attacks in Punjab to disturb peace in the state. It was in the ISIs interest to keep the border disturbed to ensure peace in Pakistan, Capt. Singh said.

Such attempts by the ISI and the Pakistani establishment to forge links between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups was a matter of serious concern for Punjab, the chief minister said, adding that the state police was working closely with Central agencies to check the rise of such forces. The CM noted that there had been only two terror attacks in the state in 2018, including the Maqsudan PS attack and Sundays incident, and both had been successfully solved by the police, which had also cracked all cases of targeted killings. The sacrilege cases in the past 18 months had also been solved, he said.

Giving details, the CM said preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikram, who had identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa, 32, son of Gurdial Singh of Chak Mishri Khan village at Lopoke (Ajnala) in Amritsar district.

Giving further details, Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said Bikram was riding a TVS motorcycle (PB-18 M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikrams other black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB-02-BF9488), which he had used in the attack, had also been recovered, the DGP added.
A case of culpable homicide has been registered, and the fishermen who took John Allen Chau, 27, to the island have been arrested.

New Delhi: An American national has been allegedly killed by people belonging to the protected Sentinelese Tribes in the North Sentinel Island, sources said Wednesday, even as the US consulate maintained he was "missing".

A case of culpable homicide has been registered, and the fishermen who took John Allen Chau, 27, to the island have been arrested. "We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State," a US Consulate spokesperson said.

"When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment," the spokesperson said.

According to a report published in a newspaper in Port Blair, Chau had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands five times earlier too. He had expressed a desire to meet the Sentinelese Tribe, which is known to resist all contact with outsiders, often firing arrows at anyone who comes near. According to the report, Chau had hired a fishing dinghy from the Chidiyatapu area and reached close to the island on November 16, from where he travelled in his own canoe.

He had made a failed attempt on November 14 as well. While his body had been spotted by fishermen, it has not been retrieved yet, the sources said. Till recently, the North Sentinel Island was out of bounds for visitors. In a major step earlier this year, the government excluded this island and 28 others in the Union Territory from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime till December 31, 2022.

The lifting of RAP meant that foreigners could be allowed to visit these islands without permission from the government.
The Trinamul Congress supremo has accepted his resignation which was sent to Raj Bhavan also for approval.

Kolkata: In a dramatic twist heavyweight Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Tuesday quit his ministership of two key departments: fire and emergency services and housing departments in rebellion within few hours of a fracas with chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the Assembly over his performance and controversy in his personal life.

The Trinamul Congress supremo has accepted his resignation which was sent to Raj Bhavan also for approval. She was so furious that she also ordered him to quit the city mayors post by Wednesday. Sources revealed that Mr Chatterjee has no other option but to follow her decision only.

Municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim, known among his cabinet colleagues for his proximity to Ms Banerjee, has replaced Mr Chatterjee to look after the two departments. Meanwhile, municipal commissioner Khalil Ahmed, an IAS officer, will look after the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) till the new mayor's appointment.

Asked about Mr Chatterjee going to resign Member, Mayor-in-Council (Health) Atin Ghosh said in the evening, I came to know of it from the media as I was busy in a meeting. The KMC will continue to function according to the municipal act in a democratic structure. Any gap will be filled on the party's order at the right time.

This is the first time when a senior minister from the Trinamul resigned following a direct clash with Ms Banerjee during her rule. Mr Chatterjee, who has been in the news for the past one year over his separation battle with his wife Ratna Chatterjee for a college professor: Baishakhi Banerjee, earlier wanted to resign four times.

But the chief minister rejected his pleas while advising him to concentrate on running his departments instead of indulging in romance which caused a major embarrassment to the party as his problems in personal life became public with the court battle with his wife.

Trinamul insiders indicated that Ms Banerjees advice however went in vain. Mr Chatterjee, who once was given three portfolios by the chief minister, started losing his posts in the party and government soon. His wings were clipped earlier when the environment department was snatched from him while his security ring was trimmed.

The relation between Mr Chatterjee and the Trinamul supremo however hit an all-time low on Tuesday afternoon when Ms Banerjee summoned him to Speaker Biman Banerjees chamber at the Assembly for a talk after the question hour was over at the House.

The chief minister was displeased over his reply to an Opposition MLAs question about a housing department, sources disclosed. As Mr Chatterjee went to the chamber, the Trinamul supremo pointed out that he was more busy in shopping than paying attention to his departmental works. Mr Chatterjee countered her.

He asked the chief minister if she meant the shopping was for Baishakhi, sources elaborated adding that Ms Banerjee then asked him to choose either his political life or personal life. Mr Chatterjee replied her that he was ready to quit his posts as his need in the party has ended.
During a three-year period from 2015 to 2018 (September), fire safety violations have been found in 2,942 establishments in Mumbai.

Mr Fadnavis said that 300 people have died and 1,045 have been injured due to fire incidents in Mumbai city and suburbs in last six years.

Mumbai: During a three-year period from 2015 to 2018 (September), fire safety violations have been found in 2,942 establishments in Mumbai. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has prosecuted 18 of these establishments for not taking necessary measures to correct these irregularities.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis informed the state Legislative Assembly on Tuesday that 5,804 establishments in the BMC jurisdiction were inspected for fire safety from the year 2015 to 2018 (September). Of them, fire safety violations were found in as many as 2,942 establishments, which amounts to nearly 50 per cent.

The BMC served notices to these establishments under the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act 2006 asking them to correct the violations. Of them, 2,924 establishments have carried out the necessary corrections within the stipulated time. The 18 establishments, which failed to make corrections, have been prosecuted by the BMC, said Mr Fadnavis replying to the issue raised by Shiv Sena MLA Ajay Chaudhari about the Crystal Tower fire at Hindmata, Parel.

Mr Fadnavis said that 300 people have died and 1,045 have been injured due to fire incidents in Mumbai city and suburbs in last six years.

To check fire safety violations, the Mumbai Fire Brigade has formed fire safety implementation cell, which examines various establishments. The cell officials, along with the help of building and factory and public health departments, examine restaurants, hotels, and other eateries in their jurisdiction. If any irregularities found, the concerned establishments are served notices asking to correct them. If they are still not altered within the stipulated deadline, legal action will be taken against them.

According to state officials, the establishments should carry out inspection of their fire safety measures twice a year (in January and July).
The project aims at preparing the coastal communities to be resilient and adapt to the issues of climate change & work on the reduction of emissions.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is assisting the new project. The project aims at preparing the coastal communities to be resilient and adapt to the issues of climate change and work on the reduction of emissions.

Mumbai: Communities living in the coastal areas of Maharashtra will get a boost as a UN-backed fund has approved $43.4 million for upgrading climate resilience for communities along Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha as part of its efforts to combat the extreme impacts of climate change. In Maharashtra, the forest department said that the fund would be largely used to encourage community-based livelihood and occupations related to fisheries, crab and oyster farming among others.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is assisting the new project. The project aims at preparing the coastal communities to be resilient and adapt to the issues of climate change and work on the reduction of emissions.

Providing support to the local communities for strengthening their livelihood sources and engaging them in conservation process at the same time  this is what we are trying to achieve through series of projects that we are undergoing at the Sindhudurg coast, said a senior officer from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority.
From governments side, revenue minister Chandrakant Patil was trying to convince the opposition parties.

Mumbai: Opposition parties of Maharashtra refused to hold discussion in the legislative council of Maharashtra on Tuesday and asked the state government to declare a specific compensation to the drought-affected farmers first. They were asking Rs 1 lakh for horticulture and Rs 50,000 for other crops per hectare compensation. The house got adjourned for the day amidst the ruckus over the issue.

Opposition parties like Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress, Peasant and Workers Party (PWP), Loktantrik Janata Dal and others were asking for immediate relief to the farmers.

Rural part is facing the worst ever drought. All the claims of Jalyukta Shivar have been exposed now. Farmers are facing greater stress of loss of crop and also the loan. So, in this case the state government needs to immediately extend helping hand, said Opposition leader Dhananjay Munde.

From governments side, revenue minister Chandrakant Patil was trying to convince the opposition parties. The state government has already declared drought. So the steps to help the farmers have already been taken. The government is ready to discuss the issue in the house, said Mr Patil. However, opposition was not ready to listen.
While some of the petitions opposed the governments decision, two petitions had sought immediate implementation of the quota.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday disposed of the petition filed to expedite the process of preparing a report on the Maratha community. The government has asked the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission to determine whether or not the Marathas are socially and economically backward. The state government informed the court that the report has been submitted to it and only recommendations have been accepted by the state, so now preparations are going on to make a law based on them.

On Wednesday, additional government pleader Abhi-nandan Vagyani informed the court that the state Cabinet had received the recommendations from the commission and further action is being taken. The state Cabinet is in the process of placing the rep-ort before Assembly and taking other appropriate steps, Mr Vagyani said.

A bench of Justices B.P. Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal noted that the commission and the state had complied with the courts previous orders on submission of such recommendations and, therefore, there did not remain any need for a further hearing on the petitions. The court also said, Once the commissions recommendations are placed before the legislature and made public, the petitioners can approach this court if they still have any grievances.

The bench was hearing a bunch of petitions filed between 2014 and 2015 after the Congress-NCP government granted 16 per cent quota in government jobs and education to the Maratha community.

While some of the petitions opposed the governments decision, two petitions had sought immediate implementation of the quota. In November 2014, in an interim order, a division bench of the HC had stayed the then governments dec-ision to provide the 16 per cent quota on the grounds that it was in breach of the Supreme Courts order that prescribed an upper limit of 50 per cent for caste and community-based quota.
Days after being briefed by the CIA Director, Trump said we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump said in the statement, which started with the sentence that 'the world is a very dangerous place'. (Photo: File)

Washington: President Donald Trump Tuesday signalled that the US will not take strong action against Saudi Arabia or its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the brutal murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and intends to remain steadfast partner of Riyadh in the interests of his country, Israel and all other partners in the region.

He, however, said that the US intelligence agencies would continue to assess all information related to the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist.

"King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

Trump said in a statement, headlined "America First". Days after being briefed by the CIA Director, the US President said we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The US intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!"

Trump said in the statement, which started with the sentence that "the world is a very dangerous place". Acknowledging that there were members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction, he said they are free to do so.

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," he said. Noting that after the US, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world, Trump said they have worked closely with America and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world.

"As the President of the US, I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First! Trump said.

Trump said the crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that US does not condone. "Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime.

We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body," he said.

Trump asserted that representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an "enemy of the state" and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but "my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

Observing that the world is a dangerous place, Trump said Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilise Iraq's fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more.

Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" Iran is considered "the world's leading sponsor of terror," he alleged.

"On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism," he said.

Trump said that after his heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest USD 450 billion in the US. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the US. Of the USD 450 billion, USD 110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great US defence contractors.

"If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries - and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!" Trump said.
Chandigarh, Nov 21 (PTI) A 300-page, magisterial probe report on the Amritsar train accident in which about 60 people died last month was submitted to the Punjab Home Secretary Wednesday.

Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner B Purushartha, who was appointed special executive magistrate by the government to probe the October 19 accident, said the report was submitted to Punjab Home Secretary N S Kalsi.

Soon after the submission of report, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh asked Home Secretary Kalsi to "immediately examine" the report to "put up" the file before him, an official said.

The report had statements of over 150 people. They included railway officials and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who was the chief guest at the Dussehra event, held close to the railway tracks in Amritsar.

The report would now be examined by the Home Department, a senior official said.

Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had questioned the Railways for giving a clean chit to the train driver, too had submitted his statement in writing.

Opposition Akali Dal had rejected the institution of a magisterial probe and sought registration of a criminal case against Navjot Kaur Sidhu and the event organisers.

About sixty people were mowed down by a train that hurtled through a crowd, which had spilled onto the railways tracks while watching the burning of a Ravana effigy on Dussehra this year.

The railways had initially refused to order a probe, saying it was a case of trespassing and not of negligence by its officials or the loco-pilot.

But two weeks after the accident, it said the chief commissioner of Railway safety would probe the tragedy.

Additional Director General of Police (Railways) Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota is separately conducting an inquiry into the Amritsar train accident to fix responsibility.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Islamabad [Pakistan], Nov 21 (ANI): Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua on Tuesday summoned United States Charge d'Affaires (CdA) Ambassador Paul Jones to protest against the recent statement made by US President Donald Trump against Islamabad.

Terming the allegation "unwarranted and unsubstantiated", Januja conveyed Pakistan's disappointment on the recent tweets and comments made by the US President, reported Dawn.

Janjua further rejected the claims about Osama bin Laden made by Trump and pointed out that it was Pakistan's intelligence cooperation that provided the "initial evidence to trace the whereabouts of bin Laden".

Earlier on Sunday, Trump in an interview with Fox News said that Pakistan doesn't do "a damn thing for us," and defended his administration's decision to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the country. Trump also alleged that the Pakistan government helped wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden to hide in their country.

Trump continued his tirade against Pakistan through his Twitter handle on Monday, saying, "Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did. I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton famously missed his shot. We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there. Fools! We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That's ENDING!"

Responding to Trump's remarks, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday hit back at the US President and clarified that Islamabad had no role in the September 2001 attack on New York's World Trade Centre. He also asked the US to assess their failure in tackling terrorism instead of making Pakistan a scapegoat. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Ties between US and Pak strained after Trump last year hit out at Pak for providing safe havens to 'agents of chaos' that kill Americans

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden. (Photo: File | Representational)

Washington: The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. The Pentagon's statement came days after Trump said Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col. Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday. No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney said. "Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Sedney was part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid by US commandos in Pakistan's Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden. "I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sedney said.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism, Islamabad has also enabled terror groups that attack its neighbours, he said.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will pay a two-day visit to Laos from November 22 where she will co-chair the 9th Meeting of India-Laos Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation with her counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith, a statement said.

The two sides will review the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation covering areas of defence, development partnership, agriculture, trade and investment, education and culture, science and IT, energy and mining, transport and natural resources and environment.

Swaraj will also meet Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. Her other engagements would include an interaction with the representatives of the Indian community in the Southeast Asian country, the statement said.

The joint commission meeting and other engagements of the external affairs minister will further enhance the cooperation between the two countries in various areas, the statement added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
As weird as it may sound but a lawsuit has been filed in London, UK against Sheikh Hamad Isa Ali al-Khalifa, a cousin of Bahrains king. He is being sued by an Egyptian middleman for breach of verbal contract for which he was employed to set up meetings between the Sheikh and his favourite Bollywood actors. Salman Khans Fan Shahrukh Gets Arrested for Threatening His Father, Salim Khan.

Ahmed Adel Abdallah Ahmed, an Egyptian businessman claims that Sheikh Khalifa had contracted his firm CBSC Events to help him set up meetings with 26 Bollywood stars for a fee off an estimated US $35 million or GBP 27 million. The stars ranged from the Khans to Ranveer Singh, Aishwarya Rai, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor.

Ahmed says he arranged for the Sheikh to meet with four of the Bollywood stars from his wish-list  Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh and Aditya Roy Kapoor for a fee of $3 million but then refused to pay the rest of the agreed sum after meetings were set up with other actors like Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan. The middle man has hence sued Sheikh Khalifa for breach of contract and $20.9 million in damages.

According to Ahmeds lawyers, the sheikh met with Shah Rukh Khan at the St. Regis Hotel in Mumbai on 16 January 2016 and he came with $400,000 in cash. Two days after the meeting, the sheikh allegedly paid the balance amount to Ahmed split in British and U.S. currencies -- 6,00,000 and $2,50,000 in cash. The lawyers say they have submitted photographic evidence of this transaction to the court.

Ahmed also accuses the Sheikh of agreeing to pay more than 380,000 to sponsor the Times of India Film Awards, where he would be able to mix with Bollywood actors, but then reneging on this deal as well.

Sheikh Khalifa has however denied that he promised to pay such an outrageous amount of money to make his dream come true. He said he was very enthusiastic at the prospect of these meetings but said he expected to be charged $30,000 to $50,000 for private meetings.

I am deeply disappointed that someone whom I had come to think of as a good friend is bringing this claim, according to a prepared statement by Sheikh Khalifa. I was trusting when Ahmed offered to introduce me to my Bollywood idols. I have since been pursued by Ahmed for enormous sums of money, despite having been very generous to him in the past. I do not accept that there was ever any contractual arrangement between us, let alone one that was exclusive and could never be terminated. I believe this claim has no merit, and I shall defend it, the statement read.

"This is an interesting case and involves oral agreements reached in London between two parties from the Middle East, concerning arranging meetings with famous Bollywood stars," said Pavani Reddy, the Managing Partner of Zaiwalla & Co  the London-based law firm representing Ahmed in the trial, which began on Monday. Oral agreements are accepted as contracts and enforceable under UK law but a judge has to determine that if such a contract existed and if it had then been breached.

But the details published by British publications such as the Guardian show that the Sheikh had agreed to spend thousands of dollars for meetings with the Bollywood stars that could last as less as 15 minutes. If Ahmeds claims are true then the cost of one meeting priced at $1.5 million a meeting would have cost the Sheikh $100,000-a-minute.

Neither party in the lawsuit has called on any of the Bollywood stars in question as witnesses because they were not privy to the arrangement between the Sheikh and the businessman.

The lawsuit is ongoing at the London High Court and is expected to last this week. (With PTI inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 10:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Locals gather at the site where two motorcycle-borne masked youths threw a grenade at a religious congregation in Amritsar (Photo Credits: IANS)

Chandigarh, November 21: A preliminary probe into the fatal blast reported in Amritsar on Sunday, has revealed that the conspiracy of the terror attack was hatched in Lahore, with Pakistan's Inter-State Intelligence (ISI) colluding with a pro-Khalistan extremist group based in Canada.

The conclusion was reportedly reached on Tuesday, during a high-level meeting called by National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. The meeting was attended by top officials, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora and Intelligence chiefs. 'Grenades Used in Attack Are Similar to Ones Manufactured by Pakistan', Says Punjab CM.

A forensic analysis of the grenades used in the blast has found them to be manufactured in Pakistan. The pins found from the exploded grenades bore markings in Urdu, reports said. The ammunition was handed over to the Khalistani extremists through a Islamist network, which may involve Kashmiri terrorist and al-Qaeda operative Zakir Musa.

The attackers charged of executing the terror assault could be hardline radicalised locals, picked up by the Canada-based extremist group which joined hands with the ISI.

The agenda of the attack, the investigation found, is to revive militancy in Punjab. According to details of the meeting accessed by reports, NSA Ajit Doval -- who has overseen the counter-insurgency operation in Punjab during the late 80s' -- said the recent terror attack would fail to revive militancy as the majority of Punjab's populace is against the separatist movement.

Notably, the terror attack was carried out against the Nirankari Bhawan -- which has opposed the Khalistan movement since the last four decades. The grenades on Sunday were thrown at a congregation of the religious sect gathered in Rajasansi village of Amritsar. 3 devotees had died, whereas, 15 others were left injured.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 10:13 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
New Delhi, November 21: Amid rising fuel prices and decline in rupee against the US dollar, airlines in India have sought an emergency credit from oil firms and state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) and private airports. Reports inform that airlines in India are seeking help from the government to obtain unsecured credit from several oil companies to combat the rising cost. Reports claim that the recent spike in oil prices has pushed the Indian airlines deeper into losses.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, the aggressive pricing are stopping fares from rising to reflect higher input costs, the Federation of Indian Airlines said in a letter sent to the aviation ministrys top bureaucrat last week. The letter said there is a considerable cash-flow mismatch between costs and revenues earned. In wake of the growing loss, the Federation urged the aviation ministry to assist airlines in obtaining a penalty-free, one-a-month unsecured credit line from oil companies and airports.

According to the report, the communication addressed to Aviation Secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said that the airlines are facing a difficult time by facing massive losses in the domestic environment. The FIA which consists of Jet, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd.s market-leading IndiGo, SpiceJet Ltd. and Go Airlines India Ltd., accounts for almost 80 percent of the domestic market. Jet Airways in Talks with Various Investors for Sustainable Financing, Says CEO Vinay Dube.

According to a report by PTI, the domestic airlines' industry in India is believed to post losses of $1.65-1.90 billion this fiscal year due to higher costs and lower yields. The India unit of Sydney-based Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said in its Mid-Year Aviation Outlook 2019 said that the airlines need to raise over $3 billion in near term based on June quarter estimates, with full-service carriers requiring around $2.6 billion and the low-cost peers needing $400 million. Jet Airways Pilots Say No to Additional Duties If Salary Dues Not Cleared by November 30.

The HT report quotes CAPA saying that most of the airlines in India have cash balances that can cover expenses for only two to three weeks. Meanwhile, the CRISIL Ltd informs that Indian carriers would need to raise fares by 12% to offset the double blow from fuel and currency depreciation.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 01:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Gurugram, November 20: A man was arrested by police for allegedly raping and killing a 3-year-old minor girl in Gurugram's Sector 66 on November 11. The accused was arrested by Gurugram police from Uttar Pradesh's Jhansi on Tuesday. After finding the minor's body, the police launched the probe and nabbed the accused. Delhi Shamed Again! 24-Year-Old Man Rapes Minor After Kidnapping Her from Footpath; Police Arrest Accused.

Following the man was arrested he confessed to the crime and admitted to committing several such crime on children in the past two years. Police officials while speaking to news agency ANI said, 'The accused confessed that he has committed several such crimes on children in the past 2 years.' Meanwhile, the accused is under the police custody and booked under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act).

Earlier in a similar incident, a man from Delhi was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and raping a two-year-old girl on Friday. After committing the crime, the accused dumped her near the tracks of Old Delhi Railway station. Later, the 24-year-old was arrested by police and was booked under the sections of IPC and POCSO Act.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 20, 2018 11:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Celebrities and their brand endorsements can leave a huge impact on their fan-following sometimes. With products like fairness items or skin lightening creams, there is always a risk. Blac Chyna is the latest one who has come under fire for endorsing Whitenicious, a skin lightening cream. The reality star announced her collaboration and invited people for the official launch of the face cream which will take place on November 25 in Nigeria. Fans were enraged with her latest deal and called her out on social media, for the idea and also the venue of choosing Africa for the launch. Fairness Creams Are Not Safe? Government to Ban Over-the-Counter Sales of Steroid-Laced Creams.

The face cream is so luxurious that even its packaging screams fancy. The cream jar is handcrafted with Real Swarovski crystals and thus costs $250 for 100g. Chyna's reps told the TMZ that the star has been using the cream for years, "She has been using Whitenicious dark spot corrector for a few years to deal with her hyperpigmentation. She felt this was a good deal for her because a lot of women of colour suffer from skin issues." Fans were clearly not happy with the kind of message she was passing on. Can Your Fairness Cream Cause Cancer? 8 Body Care Products That Can Harm You.

Check Black Chyna's Post about Whitenicious Skin Lightening Cream Launch in Nigeria

Check Tweets Slamming Black Chyna for Endorsing Skin Lightening Cream Whitenicious

The fact @BLACCHYNA is going Africa to sell bleaching cream makes me sick. People like her is whats wrong with the world. No morales *disgusting* call yourself WhiteChyna at this rate  Meeks (@MeeksCandiace) November 20, 2018

The Place of Launch is a big problem here

Blac Chyna is really going to launch her whitening cream in Nigeria  On her first ever trip to Africa  Ata PR foreplay atleast..? pic.twitter.com/uy6U5NU4VL  breezy (@breegathoni2) November 20, 2018

I love how #BlacChyna is going to Africa to sell her stupid ass lightening cream. That shit is poison, Africans need to wake up. You dont look cute walking around looking like a damn leopard. Smfh  3 (@Deeyaloo) November 20, 2018

Blac Chyna launching a skin bleaching cream is just Blac Chyna doing Blac Chyna things...the real issue here is that its being targeted to the Nigerian market and the fact that the villainous product will most likely sell out in Nigeria.  Ibadan Lord  (@degosTee) November 20, 2018

Comments off? Was she sure of the backlash?

So Blac Chyna is going to Nigeria to promote a bleaching cream, wow. All the comments are turned off lol. I would really have loved to read them all.  Princess (@ElmaGyan) November 20, 2018

The whole problem with the fairness creams

Fair & Lovely Whitenicious All these names suggesting the lighter you are the more beautiful you will be.  Kelechi Okafor (@kelechnekoff) November 20, 2018

That is the entire problem with such products, which encourage a skewed idea of defining beauty. Meanwhile, the description of the product on their website states, "This protective illuminating product helps restore radiance and moisture while providing UV protection." Fans were clearly not happy with the idea and even the venue chosen for the launch. As they have made their displeasure clear wonder if Blac Chyna has any reaction to defend her?

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 08:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
A Facebook auction was held to auction a South Sudanese child bride on October 25. The event happened on the social networking site which is currently reeling in controversies, was unaware of the activity it hosted. The auction was held for a 16-year-old girl in South Sudan where the father demanded money from prospective bridegrooms. Facebook which found out about the atrocious activity being carried out on their platform took it down and permanently disabled the account which held the auction. However, the girl was already married by that time.

According to Plan International, the highest bidder was a rich businessman who gave the girl's father 500 cows, three cars and approximately Rs 7,13,000 for his daughter's hand in marriage. George Otim, Country Director of Plan International South Sudan was quoted as saying, "This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets. That a girl could be sold for marriage on the worlds biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief." Uttar Pradesh: Girls at Deoria Shelter Home Forced to Marry Disabled Men Under CMs Mass Marriage Scheme.

Activists expressed worry that the incident could encourage other families to follow suit demanding higher dowries to marry off their daughters. In recent times, bidding prices of young girls have gone high with rich men ready to shell out a bomb. In this case, the girl was bid on by five men with some being high-ranking South Sudanese government officials.

Meanwhile, the auction of girls and them being sold to the highest bidders have been a practice in the country since ages. In this case, the auction was conducted by some from the community and not her parents. However, the family benefitted out of the auction.

Otim added, "While it is common for dowries to be used in marriages in South Sudanese culture, nothing can excuse the way this girl  who is still a child  has been treated as nothing more than an object, sold off to the bidder prepared to offer the most money and goods."

CNN quoted a company spokesperson in a statement as saying, "Any form of human trafficking -- whether posts, pages, ads or groups are not allowed on Facebook. We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook. We're always improving the methods we use to identify content that breaks our policies, including doubling our safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology."

Otim further said, "Plan International is calling on the South Sudanese government to investigate this matter and suspend any officials who took part in the bidding. We would encourage any girls who find themselves in similar situations of forced and early marriages to report these to the police."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 10:47 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Mumbai, November 21: In a shocking case of brutality against an animal, a street male dog was brutally gang-raped by four men in Mumbai. The shocking incident took place in Malad's Malwani area during the wee hours of Saturday. The incident came to light when a local resident, Sudha Fernandes, who regularly feeds the canine spotted the dog bleeding profusely and its genitalia mutilated, reported Deccan Chronicle. Uttar Pradesh Beastiality Case: Man Rapes Goat in Hamirpur, Registered for Unnatural Sex with Animal.

Currently, the dog is taken to a veterinary doctor where he is getting stabilised, stated animal welfare NGO Animals matter to me. Sudha told the newspaper that the dog was crying in pain and didn't allow anyone to touch him. The doctors who are treating the dog said its private parts has been mutilated which couldn't happen unless someone forcibly harmed it. Bestiality in Washington: Man Sexually Assaults Dying Beaver, Arrested.

Later, an Auto driver informed Sudha that around 2 am in the night, the dog was sexually assaulted by four men, who were in an inebriated state. The dogs' loud scream alerted the auto driver but till the time he reached the location, the accused had fled from the spot. Meanwhile, Sudha has filed a police complaint against the unidentified accused and the police investigation is underway.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 04:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
New Delhi, November 21: When generally ministers, MPs and people in power prefer following the VIP culture during flying and often end up fighting crew, Union Minister Jayant Sinha shun it and set an example for other flyers. Jayant Sinha's humble response to an air hostess when she refused to change pre-booked meal won hearts after his co-passenger shared the incident on Twitter.

Sinha was flying from Delhi to Ranchi on Tuesday on budget airline AirAsia India. During the flight, when he asked for a particular meal, the air hostess told him that he had pre-booked some other meal which cannot be changed at the last minute. Sinha then paid for the particular meal he wanted without making any fuss. His co-passenger Asad Rasheed witnessed the incident. AI Cabin Supervisor Slaps Flight Attendant Over Wrongly Served Non-Veg Meal.

"@AirAsia Your cabin crew needs to recognize MoS for Civil Aviation. Flew Delhi-Ranchi I5-545 today, with @jayantsinha in the adjacent seat. He asked for a specific food item but was told you have booked a South Indian meal, which cant be changed now. So he paid for his snacks!" Gurguram-based Rasheed tweeted. Sinha responded to his tweet with a winking face smiley.

There have been several reports of unruly incidents involving passengers in recent times, including Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who allegedly assaulted an Air India staffer at the Delhi airport for not being allowed to fly business class. A 'no-fly' list was then introduced to bar such passengers from flying.

Mumbai-based jeweller Birju Kishore Salla, who had created a hijack scare onboard a Jet Airways flight on October 2017, was put in the no-fly category, the first person in the list.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 04:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
New Delhi, November 21: The European Union wants implementation of the Iran nuclear deal even though the US pulled out of it and imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran, EU Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said on Wednesday.

"Our understanding is that the EU is interested in implementing the Iranian nuclear deal," Kozlowski said during a media briefing here.

"From our point of view, failure of the Iran nuclear deal will have negative consequences for the security situation in West Asia," he said.

The US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Tehran signed with the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union and imposed the new sanctions on Iran over its alleged nuclear programme. Uranium Enrichment May Resume if Deal With EU Fails: Iran President.

This sparked concerns in New Delhi as Iran is a major supplier of crude oil to India. The sanctions also put in jeopardy the crucial Chabahar port in Iran being jointly developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan.

However, earlier this month Washington exempted India from its sanctions on Iran oil imports and development of the Chabahar Port.

"I am positive about India's efforts to develop the Chabahar port," Kozlowski said.

India is investing $500 million to develop the Chabahar port and a road link from there to Afghanistan to give access to that country, bypassing Pakistan. The port is also a key link in the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km-long multi-modal network of ship, rail and road routes to move freight between India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 06:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Two men and two women were taken into custody for breaking laws that prohibit disturbing religious harmony. If found guilty, they could get two to five years in prison.

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Four Finnish citizens were arrested on Langkawi Island, a well-known tourist destination in Kedah State, for allegedly distributing pamphlets related to Christianity, local police reported today. If convicted, they could get two to five years in prison.

On Langkawi, the largest island in the eponymous archipelago, Police Chief Mohamad Iqbal Ibrahim said that his officers arrested two men and two women after members of the public complained.

The Finns, aged between 27 and 60, were arrested at a hotel and the police seized their pens, notebooks and a bag. They are accused of breaking laws that ban disturbing religious harmony.

Religion is a very sensitive issue in Malaysia, where over 60 per cent of the population is Muslim.

Critics argue that, in recent years, religious conservatism has grown undermining the religious tolerance that once characterised Islam in the country.

According to official statistics, 9 per cent of the Malaysian population is Christian, half of them Catholic. The government however does not differentiate the various Churches.

In theory, the Constitution guarantees the right of each religious group to manage its own affairs. However, this right has often been violated, as in the case involving the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims.

In 2014, the High Court rejected a Christian request for the right to use the word, which means "God" in the local versions of the Bible.

The rights of non-Muslims are also been trampled by Sharia, which courts enforce in cases involving Muslims and non-Muslims.
Bern, November 21: Direct democracy will be witnessed in Switzerland again on Sunday as the Alpine nation would go to polls to decide whether cows should be horned or not. The referendum was a result of an 8-year-long campaign by farmer Armin Capaul, demanding the government to ban the dehorning of bovines.

Capaul, 66, has received support from animal rights' groups, who argue that the horn is part of an animal's "dignity". According to Capaul -- who has been a farmer since childhood -- cows use horns for communication and body temperature regulation, whereas, dehorning turns them "sad". Cows Help Police Arrest a Criminal by Chasing and Cornering Her in a Field in Florida (Watch Video)

Those against a ban on dehorning cows argue that the bovines could cause hurt to other animals, as well as human beings, if they are left with horns. They also stress that cows with horns require more space for resort to overgrazing.

The referendum is primarily being conducted to mitigate the second concern. If the Swiss voters cast their mandate in favour of Capual's proposal, the government would have to grant an annual subsidy of 190 Swiss franc ($191.65) per horned animal.

The Swiss government, which has opposed Capaul's proposal and appealed the referendum participants to vote against it, said the overall subsidies would cost the exchequer nearly 30 million Swiss francs out of the total budget of 3 billion.

Nearly 75 per cent of total Swiss cows are dehorned across the nation, whereas, 20-25 per cent are allowed to grow horns naturally. The bovine rearers who allow their animal to remain horned claim to sustain additional expenditure as compared to their counterparts with dehorned bovines.

An opinion poll conducted GFS Bern found that nearly 49 per cent of referendum participants are likely to vote in favour of Capaul's proposal, whereas, 46 per cent are expected to vote against the roll-out of subsidies.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 02:57 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Bangkok, November 21: Thailand on Wednesday officially launched e-visa on arrival for visitors, which is the latest attempt of the kingdom to facilitate immigration process of foreign tourists.

Surachet Hakpal, Acting Commissioner of Thailand's Immigration Bureau, said at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport that the new e-visa on arrival was to deal with overcrowding in airports in Bangkok and other cities, reports Xinhua news agency. He said tourists wait for one to two hours to get their visa on arrival and pass the immigration at Thailand's airports now. 18.78 Lakh Foreigners Visited India on E-visa within First 10 Months, Set New Record.

An early application online, at least 24 hours before arrival at the kingdom to at most 30 days before arrival, will dramatically shorten the immigration process to one minute, he said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 21, 2018 06:57 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
by Mathias Hariyadi

Between 25 October and 7 November, nuns helped Palu residents with means provided by the Sacred Heart of Mary, a parish located in the heart of the city. The group travelled as far as Pengawu, Kayumalue, Ngapa, Desa Layana, Sipeso and Pantai Barat.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  A group of nuns joined the humanitarian mission the Church organised in Central Sulawesi, a province devastated by earthquakes and a tsunami on 28 September.

Most of them are healthcare specialists from various Franciscan religious orders: the Little Sisters of St Francis (SFD), the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (FCJM) in Pematangsiantar, the Franciscan Sisters (OSF) in Sibolga, the Missionaries Sisters of Mary (FMM), the Sisters of St Francis of the Martyr Saint George (FSGM).

The nuns helped out the people of Palu, the epicentre of the quake, between 25 October and 7 November, on the initiative of the Commission for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC). The work was performed thanks to the material help provided by the Sacred Heart of Mary Parish, which is in the heart of the city.

From the start of the emergency, the church of the Diocese of Manado served as the coordination centre for Catholic aid. Some young doctors and interfaith activists joined the Franciscan nuns, noted Sr Geovani Purba, who hails from Yogyakarta (Java).

"Our congregation, she told AsiaNews, sent two professional nurses to Palu: Sister Emmanuella Ginting, from Karo district, and Sister Mediatrik Tinambunan, from Simalungun (also in North Sumatera province)".

"Once in Jakarta, they joined the nuns of the other orders" and left for Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi. From there, they reached Palu on four lorries loaded with basic necessities.

"The journey could have been shorter, a day, but the vehicles were loaded with food and medicine", Sr Mediatrik explained. "We had to cross several remote places and we are happy when we reached those who needed our help."

Once they met up with volunteers from the Sacred Heart of Mary parish, they went as far as Pengawu, Kayumalue, Ngapa, Desa Layana, Sipeso and Pantai Barat.

"In addition to health care, we have also provided psychological counselling to deal with the trauma, through a variety of games and songs. Others helped local volunteers to organise meals for the poor, "she added. Some members of the group also provided spiritual assistance to the prisoners at the Maesa prison.

For Sister Adelia, FSGM, a nurse at the Panti Secanti Hospital in Gisting (Lampung), the Palu expedition was not her first to a place affected by disaster. She helped quake victims in Aceh and the Mentawai Islands, and, more recently, she was in Lombok and Mount Sinabung, with Caritas Indonesia (Karina Kwi).

"My role as a nun and nurse is clear. I was ready to go anywhere in Palu on a humanitarian mission to help the Diocese of Manado. I was in charge of trauma care at the crisis centre. But days later, I was given the task of assessing because of limited personnel. In a single day, I met about ten village chiefs from different areas, she said.

Despite the load of work, The joy of carrying out a humanitarian mission did not make me feel tired, she said.

(Sr Geovani Purba, SFD, contributed to this article).
Thomas Sankara quotes should be heard by every African. Legendary Tom Sankara was a Burkina Faso statesman and military leader, President of the country from 1983-1987. He had the revolutionary Marxist views and was one of the theorists of Pan-Africanism. For his left-wing convictions, revolutionary activities and ambition, he was nicknamed African Che Guevara. He became a real example of a fighter for millions of Africans.

Photo: plutobooks

Thomas Sankara revolution quotes once helped people to stand up and tell their opinion against others.

Thomas Sankara's best quotes

Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of womens silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.  Thomas Sankara, Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

  

He who feeds you, controls you  Thomas Sankara

  

I can hear the roar of women's silence  Thomas Sankara

  

Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail . We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.  Thomas Sankara

  

Our revolution is not a public-speaking tournament. Our revolution is not a battle of fine phrases. Our revolution is not simply for spouting slogans that are no more than signals used by manipulators trying to use them as catchwords, as codewords, as a foil for their own display. Our revolution is, and should continue to be, the collective effort of revolutionaries to transform reality, to improve the concrete situation of the masses of our country.  Thomas Sankara

  

Humankind does not submit passively to the power of nature. It takes control over this power. This process is not an internal or subjective one. It takes place objectively in practice, once women cease to be viewed as mere s*xual beings, once we look beyond their biological functions and become conscious of their weight as an active social force. What's more, woman's consciousness of herself is not only a product of her s*xuality. It reflects her position as determined by the economic structure of society, which in turn expresses the level reached by humankind in technological development and the relations between classes.

Photo: guardian

READ ALSO: Bob Marley's quotes about life

The importance of dialectical materialism lies in going beyond the inherent limits of biology, rejecting simplistic theories about our being slaves to the nature of our species, and, instead, placing facts in their social and economic context.  Thomas Sankara, Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

  

The specific character of [women's] oppression cannot be explained away by equating different situations through superficial and childish simplifications. It is true that both the woman and the male worker are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current system, the worker's wife is also condemned to silence by her worker-husband. In other words, in addition to the class exploitation common to both of them, women must confront a particular set of relations that exist between them and men, relations of conflict and violence that use physical differences as their pretext.  Thomas Sankara, Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

Today, Thomas Sankara has become the benchmark for most African youth. A lot of politicians cite his ideals and development model. He also became a symbol of anti-globalism and the fight against foreign debt. His encouraging quotes are often added in the speeches of politicians.

No matter what you like, serious life quotes or inspirational quotes with a positive mood, youll always find something for yourself in the words of Thomas Sankara.

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Source: goodreads.com

Source: Legit
- APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and Senator Godswill Akpabio attended Jonathans book launch

- The appearances of the APC chieftains caused a stir as Oshiomhole reportedly ensured that he took photographs with the national chairman of PDP

- President Buhari was represented by the SGF at the event

The national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshimohole, made a surprise appearance at the venue of ex-President Goodluck Jonathans book presentation.

He arrived at the same time with a former Akwa Ibom state governor, Godswill Akpabio.

Akpabio recently left Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the APC.

Their arrival at the venue according to The Punch also disrupted events.

Legit.ng gathers that Oshiomhole ensured that he took photographs with the national chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus.

Ex-President Obasanjo, PDP national chairman, Senator David Mark, APC national chairman and the SGF at the book launch. Credit: The Nation

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Former Sokoto governor Wamakko makes predictions ahead of 2019 elections

President Muhammadu Buhari who was also invited to the event was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha.

Speaking on behalf of the president, the SGF described Jonathan as a true democrat and for the umpteenth time, commended his courage for voluntarily conceding defeat at the 2015 general elections.

Adams Oshiomhole shaking hands with Senate president Bukola Saraki at the book launch. Credit: Twitter

Source: Twitter

Meanwhile, in an earlier report by Legit.ng, ex-President Jonathan pointed mass defections by PDP governors, opposition from Northern leaders and fake news as prominent factors behind his defeat to President Buhari in 2015.

The new allegations by Jonathan are reportedly contained in a book about his tenure in office titled My Transition Hours launched on Tuesday, November 20.

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Some governors wanted to be vice president whilst others strived to be the president. If I contested none could realise his ambition. This muffled implosion would fully manifest in the buildup to 2015, which each ship-jumper calculating how much he or she would take from the PDP or the most opportune moment to cause maximum damage and based on that, plot their exit.

As they jumped ship in preparation for the 2015 elections, only very few of these lots, if any at all, bothered about what the PDP did or did not do in terms of delivering our campaign promises. Their opposition to my re-election was principally driven by personal ambition. They therefore played up the issue of where I come from and the faith, I professed to fuel their burning ambition. My performance mattered quite little, if it mattered at all, he reportedly wrote.

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Editor's note: A former Secretary of State for International Development in the United Kingdom, Priti Patel, in this piece, warns investors to be wary about investing in Nigeria, stating specifically that the Nigerian government has disrespect for international law and convention, and court decisions. The article was first published for City A.M., Londons first free daily business newspaper.

Read below:

When the Nigerian finance minister visited London last week, she and her officials came to advertise Nigeria as a country that is open for business.

The minister, Zainab Ahmed, came to promote Nigerias $2.8billion Eurobond sale, which follows on from the Nigerian governments oversubscribed $1billion Eurobonds sale in February 2017.

I am a supporter of economic investment into developing countries - open markets and capitalism have paved the way for poverty reduction around the world.

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Many nations in Africa, including Nigeria, have benefited from investment over the years, and Nigerias Eurobonds could bring relief to its ongoing economic woes.

Over the last decade, the amount of UK foreign direct investment into Africa has more than doubled from 20.8billion to 42.5billion. This is good news.

However, as with all investments, investors should know of the corrosive effect of corruption, as well as the lack of transparency and associated difficulties of doing business in certain countries.

In Nigeria, the unhappy experience of the firm founded by two Irishmen, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), is a case in point, and demonstrates the risk that businesses will face in Nigeria.

In 2010, P&ID signed a 20-year contract with the Nigerian government to create a new natural gas development refinery, but the project fell through after the Nigerian government reneged on its contractual commitments. Upon taking office, President Buhari promptly cancelled a compensation settlement, and has done his level best to pretend Nigerias obligations to P&ID do not exist.

Since Buhari reneged on this deal, P&ID has undertaken legal efforts to affirm a tribunal award, first decided in London. It also made several attempts in court to force the Nigerian government to respect its obligations.

The most recent court decision at a London tribunal confirmed that the Nigerian government owes P&ID almost $9billion for the initial breach of contract, loss of income, additional costs, and interest accrued after five years of non-payment.

However, the Nigerian government has continued to flout international law and convention, and it refuses to respect the various court decisions.

Investors must consider this long-running scandal and weigh this obstinance against Nigerias mishandled economic potential.

Let us not forget that Nigeria is the only member of OPEC that is dependent upon petrol imports to keep the country going. Nigeria is ranked 145th in the world for its ease of doing business, which demonstrates the risks of investment into Nigeria.

Despite the presidents public anti-corruption platform, Transparency International has not seen any reduction in corruption since Buhari took office. In fact, the precise opposite has happened, with Nigeria falling 12 places between the 2016 and 2017 rankings.

READ ALSO: We never promised to transform Nigeria in 4 years - Fashola

President Buhari currently faces serious allegations, which include staging show trials of opponents of a regime that is accused of corruption and graft, while simultaneously shielding his own party members and inner circle.

We should all welcome international efforts to attract international investment into developing economies. However, to do this successfully Nigeria must seriously tackle corruption, rather than use it as a smokescreen. It must honour its obligations to companies like P&ID. Until then, investors inevitably will be very wary of investing in Nigeria.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Legit.ng.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@corp.legit.ng drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

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Contact us if you have any feedback, suggestions, complaints or compliments. We are also available on Twitter.

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Is President Buhari Really Doing Badly As Nigeria's Leader? - Nigeria Street Gist | Legit TV

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- The presidency condemns Priti Patel, former secretary of state for international development, United Kingdom for warning investors against Nigeria

- Malam Garba Shehu says what Patel relied on to issue the warning was based on false assumptions

- The presidency explains the situation, reels out some of Buhari's achievements and says the justice minister would make further comments on the issue

The presidency has condemned a statement credited to Priti Patel, former secretary of state for international development, United Kingdom, calling on investors to be wary about investing in Nigeria.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the government made the condemnation in a statement by Malam Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesperson, on Tuesday, November 20.

The report said Patel had also alleged that in spite of the presidents anti-corruption platform, Nigeria had not seen any reduction in corruption since the inception of the Buhari administration.

In reply, the presidency said: Trumpeting a so-called Transparency International report is a false fabrication that cannot be supported by the facts on the ground.

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The statement added that this wicked proposition lacks substance and is devoid of merit in empirical evidence established by facts.

The presidency added that the issue raised by Patel about lack of security of investment was equally false and untenable.

Nigerian has recognized the right of the investor, both local and foreign, as enshrined in our constitution which states clearly that no investment can be taken from its owners without recourse to the law.

Given the constitution, you dont even need international protection for assets held in this country. In addition to the constitution, there exist several laws allowing protection for investments.

Beyond this, this administration has moved forward by recognizing arbitration processes. The judiciary in the country has a practice code to give legitimacy to awards and arbitration clauses in agreements.

Cumulatively, we have established a proper climate of investment on account of which, the nation has gained 24 points of excellence in the global ease of doing business index, it added

The statement said that in Patels main case of the 2010 agreement between NNPC and P&ID for a 20-year contract to create a new natural gas development refinery, we do not wish to plead the governments case in the press.

According to the presidency stated that the project fell through after a past Nigerian government reneged on its contractual commitments.

Suffice it to say that the government of Nigeria, in recognition of the sanctity of the judiciary, has submitted to the jurisdiction of a court in the United States to determine the issues in dispute.

What we can only say at this point is that Nigerians need to pity their own country for the way things were done in the past.

By the time President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in and took office, the only amount in the anti-corruption recovery account over 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party was only N2 billion.

This account has succeeded in netting over N400 billion as of today, translating to 1,360 per cent increase. This cannot amount to nothing in terms of progress, the statement said noting that the Treasury Single Account (TSA) had led to greater visibility and control of government funds by way of consolidating resources in an account as against the past where such accounts were scattered.

This administration has introduced the IPPS, whose implementation has led to an extra-ordinary reduction of ghost workers, saving the treasury billions of naira, every month.

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The whistle-blower mechanism put in place has yielded enormously to the treasury and reduced corruption.

In addition to several and urgent legislations targeted at the reduction of corruption, the administration has equally signed highly rewarding Mutual Legal Assistance with countries that have translated to tremendous recoveries.

In the fullness of time, more will be said by the minister of justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), the statement said.

Legit.ng reported earlier that the works, housing and power minister, Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday, November 21, said in 2015, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari never promised to transform Nigeria in four years if given the mandate.

Fashola, who inaugurated the President Muhammmadu BuhariOsinbajo 2019 campaign group comprising of about 5,000 political foot soldiers in Lagos state, argued that the administration did not promise to bring about change in different sectors of the country in four years.

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Is President Buhari Really Doing Badly As Nigeria's Leader? - Nigeria Street Gist | Legit TV

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- Reactions continue to trail Alhaji Atiku Abubakar's policy document tagged 'TheAtikuPlan'

- The PDP presidential candidate released the document on Monday, November 19, ahead of the 2019 elections

- The PDP says the policy document embodies the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared that the policy document by its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, embodies the collective mindset, yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians in their quest for a new leadership and a better life in our country.

According to a statement sent to Legit.ng by the national publicity secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbodiyan, the Atiku Abubakar's policy document offers solutions and practical direction for delivery in all sectors of our national life.

He, however, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari of failing, to articulate any solutions or operable policy direction in his procured and pedestrian Next Level document.

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His words: The negative reactions of Nigerians to the Next Level mantra have shown that the document is dead on arrival as Nigeria cannot afford the reinforcement of failure, especially as the electorate have already seen through the deception and cheap attempt to beguile them again ahead of the elections.

The Atiku Abubakar policy document is a product of very wide, painstaking and productive consultations with Nigerians from all walks of live, critical stakeholders and development partners in key sectors, in the overall determination to chart a new course for our nation.

The policy document foretells a new dawn as it articulates practical solutions and answers to the myriad of economic, social and political challenges facing our nation and sets out all-inclusive templates for national rejuvenation, cohesion, protection of human rights and democratic tenets, wealth creation, transparency and elimination of corruption in governance.

He said Atiku's policy is in line with PDP's manifesto, stressing that the document places utmost priority on the people, by focusing chiefly on their yearnings for job creation, infrastructural development, poverty eradication, human capital development, inclusiveness and national unity.

He further said the Atiku policy, seeks to implement pro-poor policies that grant all citizens, irrespective of financial and social status, unhindered opportunity to participate in economic activities to achieve self-reliance and become active contributors to national development.

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During the launch of the policy document, Atiku said he has a plan to kick-off sound economic policies that would help to pull at least 50 million Nigerians out of poverty within two years.

The former vice president said the policies would ensure the creation of job opportunities for Nigerians and create a minimum of 2.5 million jobs annually, lifting at least 50 million people from poverty in the first two years.

He further stated that the effect of such a policy would help to double Nigerias GDP to N900 billion by 2025.

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Atiku Abubakar: Everything You Should Know About PDPs Candidate on Nigeria Election 2019 | Legit TV

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Francis speaks in a video-message released for the 34th World Youth Day in Panama next January centred on I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis has a video-message for young people ahead of the 34th World Youth Day in Panama next January centred on the theme: I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word (Lk 1:38).

In his address, the Holy Father calls on youth to have the courage to ask God what he wants from them and respond to his call as Mary did, with a brave and generous yes.

Francis notes that Marys answer to the angel is the positive reply of one who understands the secret of vocation  to go beyond oneself and place oneself at the service of others. Our lives only find meaning in service to God and to other people.

There are many young people, both believers and nonbelievers, who when they come to the end of a stage in their studies, feel a desire to do something for those who are suffering. This is a strength in young people, a strength that all of you possess. It is a strength that can change the world. It is a revolution that can overturn the powerful forces at work in our world. It is the revolution of service.

To be at the service of others does not only mean to be ready for action. It means also to be in conversation with God with an attitude of listening, just like Mary. She listened to what the angel said to her and then she responded. It is by relating to God in the silence of our hearts that we discover our identity and the vocation to which God is calling us. It can be expressed in different ways: in marriage, in consecrated life, in the priesthood All these are ways of following Jesus. The important thing is to discover what God wants from us and to be brave enough to say yes.

Mary was a happy woman, and this is because she replied generously to God and opened her heart to Gods plan for her. When God has a proposition for us, like the one he had for Mary, it is not intended to extinguish our dreams, but to ignite our aspirations. Propositions like this are meant to make our lives fruitful and produce many smiles and happy hearts. To respond to God positively is to take a first step towards being happy and towards making many people happy.

Dear young people, take courage, enter within yourselves and say to God: What do you want from me? Allow God to answer you. Then you will see how your life is transformed and filled with joy.

With the upcoming World Youth Day in our sights, I invite you all to prepare for it by following and taking part in the initiatives that are happening. They will help you on your path towards this goal. May Our Lady be with you on this pilgrimage, and may her example encourage you to be brave and generous in your response.

Have a good journey on your way to Panama! And, please, do not forget to pray for me. See you soon.

Francis will leave for Panama in the morning of 23 January and arrive in the afternoon. Two days later, there will be the first symbolic meeting with WYD participants. At 10.30 am, he will lead the penitential liturgy with young inmates at the Las Garzas juvenile centre in Pacora, east of the capital. In the afternoon, he will be at the Via Crucis at Campo Santa Maria la Antigua in the Cinta Costera. On the 26th there will be a Vigil with young people in Campo San Juan Pablo II and on the 27th Mass for World Youth Day. Then the Pope will have lunch with some of the participants.

During the visit to Panama, in addition to the countrys authorities, the pontiff will meet with Central American bishops on the 24th, dedicate the restored altar of the cathedral of Basilica de Santa Maria la Antigua on the 25th, and visit the Casa Hogar el Buen Samaritan on the 27th. He will fly home to Rome on the 28th.
The internet is filled with admiration for a couple who got engaged recently at Jos airport. Just like in a fairy tale movie, the oyinbo groom-to-be got on one knee and popped the question to his Nigerian sweetheart in the presence of airport users.

A Facebook user identified as Luka Samson Aaku who shared the photo revealed that it was the groom-to-be's first time in Nigeria and in Jos but his heart which is lined with love for his woman was sure he was ready to take the next step and came bearing a ring.

The beautiful bride-to-be was all smiles as he said yes to her man. The couple are set to walk down the aisle any moment and anyone can guess that their love story is just as beautiful as they are.

The photos are now making waves online with everyone wishing the couple all the best as they take the next step in their relationship to forever.

READ ALSO: Photos from Goodluck Jonathan's 61st birthday

READ ALSO: My friend used to date his friend - Davido's bae Chioma reveals how she met him

Lovers get engaged at airport (Picture/UGC)

Source: Facebook

Congratulations to the couple!

Meanwhile, recently, a certain Duke of Shomolu made a public marriage proposal to DJ Cuppy on the pages of a newspaper. He asked if she could be his sixth wife and she shared the details of the proposal on social media.

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How long should it take between a proposal and the actual wedding? on Legit TV:

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- Justice A Abubakar of the Federal High Court in Awka, Anambra state, has sentenced four traders to six years in prison

- The traders were sentenced to prison after being found guilty of possessing and selling counterfeit and substandard drugs bearing forged tradmarks

- The prosecutor, Nwokoro Emmanuel, says the judgement will serve as a deterrent to the public

Four traders have been sentenced to six years in prison by a Federal High Court in Awka, Anambra state, for dealing in fake drugs.

Justice A Abubakar ruled that after they were found guilty of possessing and selling counterfeit and substandard drugs bearing forged trademarks, Anayo Okoye, Ifeanyi Onuoha, Chukwudozie Eze, Okechukwu Nwafor, would serve 18 months each in prison, Punch reports.

Legit.ng gathers that before their sentence, the convicts' lawyer, EO Ego, had earlier pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy. The lawyer said the convicts were first time offenders who had families to cater for.

According to the judge, the jail term will run concurrently since one of the convicts had already been in detention for about five years.

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Reacting to the judgement, the prosecutor, Nwokoro Emmanuel, said: The judgment is a step in the right direction because that will send a warning signal to all those out there peddling fake drugs in the society. I do know that a lot of people have died as a result of fake drugs and this judgment will help in stopping that. We are there to ensure that people are safe in the society.

To me, the judgment is okay. What is important is that it will serve as a deterrent to the public. It is aimed at stopping the people from indulging in the wrong acts.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the police in Lagos state arrested an ex-employee of a pharmaceutical company, Chukwunonye Madubuike, for alleged indiscriminate distribution of a controlled substance identified as codeine in the state.

The suspect was said to have sold the illegal substance to an undercover investigator of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Adejuwon Soyinka.

When the news of the transaction broke out, Madubuike took to his heel. According to the commissioner of police in Lagos state, Edgal Imohimi, the suspect was arrested in the Idiroko border town of Ogun state while attempting to escape to Cotonou, Benin Republic.

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Imohimi, who stated that Madubuike claimed he sold the controlled substance in order to meet his sales target, said while in the employment of the pharmaceutical company, the suspect had access to the substance for the purpose of distribution to licensed retail pharmacies in his assigned territory.

The police boss said: "But due to his greed for money, he knowingly supplied the controlled drug to persons who are not supposed to have access to them in the first place contrary to the dictates of the drug laws of Nigeria."

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- Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has urged Nigerians to ensure that they do not hand over the nation and democracy to thieves and hooligans

- The former president stated this when he chaired the public presentation of Goodluck Jonathan's book, My Transition Hours, to the public in Abuja, on Tuesday, November 20

- Obasanjo said if the nations democracy was handed over to thieves and hooligans they could use it as a weapon against the people

Nigeria's former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who chaired the public presentation of Goodluck Jonathan's book, My Transition Hours, to the public in Abuja, on Tuesday, November 20, urged Nigerians to ensure that they would not hand over the nation and democracy to those he called thieves and hooligans.

Legit.ng gathered that Obasanjo said if the nations democracy is handed over to those in these categories, they could use it as a weapon against the people.

The former president said: There is still no substitute for democracy when all is said and done. It fosters peace. It builds and does not destroy. It unifies, rather than divides.

READ ALSO: Jonathan reveals alleged reasons he lost in 2015, lists his achievements

But all these can only happen if democracy is in the hands of democrats. If it is in the hands of thieves and hooligans, they can use it as a weapon. We should ensure hooligans dont get it.

Obasanjo recalled a statement credited to a diplomat that he preferred to live in Nigeria because if it appeared that all would collapse in the morning, things would be cool and calm by the evening.

Let us continue to make Nigeria cool and calm, he said.

Obasanjo congratulated Jonathan for enjoying a peaceful retirement, adding that the post-office life which the former president was enjoying is one that all must crave for, describing it as a life of continued service to humanity.

He said the former president had a residual responsibility to continue to serve people and God.

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Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, November 20, in Abuja hailed his predecessor, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, for voluntarily conceding defeat at the 2015 general elections, describing him as a true democrat.

Buhari poured the encomium at the launching of a book titled My Transition Hours by Jonathan amidst hundreds of guests from outside and across the country.

Represented by the secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, the president said Jonathans act of courage had made him a patriotic leader and earned him popularity among Africans and other leaders.

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Governors visit Buhari, Google to train Nigerians, Nigeria no longer corrupt | Legit TV

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- Justice Ayo Salami has warned Nigerian leaders to curb corruption before it eats deeper into the nation

- Salami said Nigeria is heading for doom if corruption is not tackled as soon as possible

Justice Issa Ayo Salami, the former president of the Court of Appeal, says Nigeria is heading for definite doom is nothing is done to put an end to corruption in the country, Daily Trust reports.

Salami made this statement at the national conference and annual general meeting of the Committee of Heads of Internal Audit Departments/Units in Nigerian Universities at Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara state.

Salami, while speaking at the event said: Ones job and integrity are inseparable and should not be separated because the moment professionalism is compromised, it (the profession) becomes in most cases, ineffective.

READ ALSO: Presidency slams UKs ex-secretary of state over comment against Nigeria

"May I ask which of the professions is being practised in Nigeria with due integrity? Certainly, theres none. I want to say at the risk of repetition but for the purpose of emphasis, that Nigeria is heading for doom if it fails to drastically deal with the chronic disease of lack of integrity in the practice of the professions. To my mind, all are practised with impunity and damning consequences.

All virtues such as courage, truthfulness, dutifulness, hard work, brilliance, skillfulness, productivity, and competence are universal principles anywhere all over the world. In the same vein, their opposites such as stealing, idleness, falsehood, laziness, betrayal of trust, smart practices, incompetence and recklessness stand condemnable anywhere in the world. Nigeria cannot be an exception.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo accused the Goodluck Jonathan administration of carrying out grand corruption with impunity during its tenure.

Osinbajo made the accusation on Monday, November 12, when delivering the 40th anniversary lecture of the Association of Friends in Lagos.

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Laolu Akande Speaks on How Presidency is Tackling Economy | Legit TV

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Editor's note: Reuben Abati, former spokesperson to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, in this piece talks about the former president's book titled My Transition Hours which was launched as part of his 61st birthday celebrations.

There was no bitterness in him after he left power. He did not look back. He did not look down. Instead he looked up and after looking up, he looked forward and went on pressing ahead. That forward movement has resulted in this work of statecraft and statesmanship of which I am privileged to write the foreword.

Though there are many themes in this book, My Transition Hours, the theme that most excites me is the one on youth and the next generation  John Dramani Mahama, President, Republic of Ghana, 2012 -2017.

Those are some of the words with which former Ghanaian President John Mahama introduces the long-awaited and much-anticipated book by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. President Mahama is President Jonathans close friend. In a way they both share a similar destiny.

READ ALSO: Jonathan reveals alleged reasons he lost in 2015, lists his achievements

Their bosses died and they both went on to become President. They also both won election as President and later lost their re-election bids. But they are perhaps more united by the shared affinities between Nigeria and Ghana. President Mahama is eminently well-qualified to write the even-handed, thoughtful foreword to President Jonathans first book, out of office.

Jonathan is Nigerias first President from the South South, first Ph.D holder in Nigeria to become President, first Nigerian President to rise through the ranks from the position of Deputy Governor to Acting Governor, Governor, first Gubernatorial candidate nominee to become Vice President, Acting President and eventually President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

No other Nigerian, dead or alive, has gone through such trajectory, or rite of passage. President Jonathan was Acting President 2010-2011, following the death of his principal, Umaru Musa YarAdua, in circumstances that threw the country into a quandary and raised issues about Nigerias geo-politics and the matters of ethnicity and geography, indeed more importantly the right of minorities to also rule Nigeria, and if and when they are allowed to do so, whether or not they will be treated fairly.

I have enjoyed the privilege of reading President Jonathans first memoir out of office, which will be publicly presented today in the nations capital, Abuja, and I can report that it is a book about how Nigeria and vested interests treated him badly.

He is the villain in the book: badly treated by entrenched interest groups, treacherous party members, a propaganda and hate-driven opposition and a badly constructed political ecosystem. The book is titled My Transition Hours.

In 2011, after much ethnic uproar and conscientious objection by progressive forces, Jonathan won Nigerias Presidential elections and remained Nigerias President till 2015. He lost the 2015 Presidential election, according to the countrys Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but despite his prompt concession to General Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, Jonathan has suffered badly under his successors watch.

He has been maligned, persecuted, harassed, intimidated, humiliated and insulted. His wife has been abused, maligned, criminally tagged and many of his associates have been labelled crooks and thieves. In 2015, in the lead up to the general elections.

Jonathan announced that his ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. He signed a document to respect the outcome of the process. He kept his word. His successors have rewarded him with odium and abuse. They have done their best to discredit and destroy him.

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In this book, My Transition Hours, President Jonathan fights back. His public persona is that he is a meek, gentle personality who lacks the guts to fight. Indeed, after the 2015 elections, everyone deserted him.

The Aso Rock Villa became ghost town. Nobody picked our calls again. Giants in the corporate sector who used to beg for access to President Jonathan were reportedly now on the Buhari side. Only the Attorney General of the Federation, the security chiefs and a few others came around. The President was left with just his main body, that is - his innermost circle of aides.

We felt hurt by the fact that many of the persons who benefitted from President Jonathan had jumped ship and were now su*king up to the other side. We saw some of the people who called President Jonathan their brother and friend, on the Buhari side less than 24 hours after the election was decided.

They were laughing and grinning! It was a painful moment for us. That was the real Transition Hours and that was when President Jonathan started threatening that he will write a book on his Transition Hours. He chose the title of the book at that very point. He wanted to tell his own story.

I am intrigued that he has refused to change the title, but I recall how tough those transition moments were for us. On our return trip to Otuoke, we were treated shabbily by the newcomers. We had to struggle to be recognized. We were treated like regular passengers! The people who took over from President Jonathan were determined to humiliate him. It got much worse later.

In this book, President Jonathan tries to fight back and set the records straight. I am glad he is doing this. I once went to him and asked that we should put a team together to protect his legacy.

His response was that God will fight for us, after God it is government, these people will crush us because they dont know God, but let us rely on God. Some people, who thought we should help our boss, ignored this advice tried to put a team together.

They ended up in underground cells, and got labelled as thieves! Others fled into exile. It is good to see President Jonathan himself, more than three years later, speaking up. The man that comes through in these pages is the real Jonathan. and that is perhaps the big point: a Jonathan that is confident, strong, clear-headed and assertive, who does not take nonsense and who is very clear in his mind about leadership options.

If he had won a second term, Nigerians would have seen a different Jonathan. He worked hard to hold the country together and to prevent mischief from over-running the country. He makes his case in this book as he addresses some of the strong issues that came up during his tenure.

It is not standard practice for a President to justify himself and his tenure. It is also not standard practice for a President to be discredited by his successor. President Jonathan has every reason to write this book.

He has chosen the right moment to go public: his successors most vulnerable moment. What he does majorly is to tell Nigerians that most of the things said about him were fake news. He insists that he did not abuse power as Nigerias President.

He argues that every negative thing that has been said about him is an attempt to give him a bad name in order to hang him. He argues that real strength is power under control. He adds: This book is not my biography, as that will come later. This book reveals how I used power as shield in the service to our nation and God. Jonathans argument is that power should never be abused.

The book is defensive and reactive on the vexed issues of fuel subsidy, Boko Haram, stealing is not corruption, governance and so on. President Jonathan takes on the major criticisms of his administration.

He doesnt quite provide hard facts but he talks back. The key issues that the book addresses are noteworthy. This is a book that every Nigerian should pay attention to. In this book, a former President of Nigeria is saying that he was badly treated and he became a villain, because he came from a minority part of the country.

He states that people (are) working against our interest. In this book, a former President of the country tells us that the idea of one Nigeria does not exist because we are a divided country. My boss insists: that there is no patriotism in Nigerian politics.

He refuses to pull punches. Nobody is spared. In Chapter 3 titled Politics and Patriotism: The Fuel Subsidy Dilemma, he argues that politics in Nigeria and some other African nations is conducted like primitive war.

His major reference is the battle over fuel subsidy in 2012. He argues that the protests over the fuel subsidy proposals were politically motivated. Donald Duke should read this chapter. There are some references to him here. Chapter Four is titled The Chibok School Girls Affair. The Governor of Borno state needs to read this chapter.

He is accused of seizing an opportunity to politicize an unfortunate incident. The APC also allegedly indulged in psychological programming, making President Jonathan look like a villain. President Jonathan rejects the labels.

He pointedly accuses the Barack Obama administration in the United States of working against his administration and he provides evidence to back his claims. He accuses President Obama thus: For some strange reason, the Obama administration had tactically penciled Nigeria and my administration down for failure.

Hadiza Bala Usman, now in charge of Nigerian Ports Authority, should also read Chapter Four of this book. President Jonathan is convinced that the Chibok girls matter is an act of grand conspiracy, because whereas he took every necessary step, the Governor of Borno State had a different agenda.

In Chapter Five, he deals with the question of stealing and corruption. He provides an explanation on that particular matter. The irony is that many of the initiatives now being adopted by the Buhari administration Treasury Single Account, IPPIS and the BVN were all Jonathans initiatives. Jonathan discloses that his government did better on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. Chapter Six is focused on Power Struggle in Nigeria.

Here, Pr5esidnet Jonathan talks about he strayed into power and the attack of he majorities on the minorities. In Chapter 7, he offers an account of his Presidential election campaign.

He goes further to describe what happened during the 2015 presidential election and how he personally took the decision to save Nigeria from a descent into imminent chaos. Too many persons have tried to write the story of that significant moment in Nigerian history.

I am glad that President Jonathan has now given his own account to correct the many lies that may have been told. He records the responses from the international community. It is a rich and detailed account.

In this book, ,President Jonathan puts on the table his credentials as an internationals statesman and the goodwill he enjoyed among his peers before and after the election of 2015.

To be fair to him, making Nigeria look good in the international community was one of his major achievements. But President Barack Obama of the United States did not help him, and he refers to this more than once in this book.

In Chapter Ten, President Jonathan talks about what he and his team did with the 2014 National Political Conference and his personal commitment to the peace and stability of Nigeria. Needless to remind us that the Buhari administration upon assuming office threw away the report of that conference. In Chapters 11 to 13, President Jonathan takes on other interesting subjects including the youth bulge, private sector reform and the African Renaissance.

This must be a book close to his heart. He uses it to settle scores and to explain the main issues of his era as President. I consider this a must read for all Nigerians and students of the Nigerian process.

President Jonathan offers a personal portrait of his own politics, career and achievements. I may have read the book through the prism of a man who was his staff and who was involved, but I can tell that this is a honest and forthright reportage of what transpired. President Jonathan gave to Nigeria his very best.

He was conscious of his humble beginnings and he wanted to make a statement. He was a poor mans son who made it to the highest level in Nigeria. He was an embodiment of the Nigerian dream.

But Nigerian politics is vicious and dirty. You will find a sense of that in this book. He projects himself as a victim, but he probably does not tell the full story, which is okay. It means he can tell more stories.

There are persons who will read this book and throw tantrums, but may such persons, like Nasir el-Rufai and the Governor of Borno state and all the deceitful associates who fooled the President during the 2015 elections, for reasons of religion and ethnicity, be reminded that this is all told a very kind book.

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President Jonathan playing the statesman has refused to tell it all. He has held back much more than he has given away. Some of us who were part of his Main Body may have now been unwittingly empowered to tell more stories.

I know that my boss is excited by this book. He wants to be remembered for the right reasons and not for the fake news that his opponents reported about his Presidency. President Goodluck Jonathan was President at a unique moment in Nigerian history.

His emergence and experience both mark a special moment in Nigerian history. I urge you to read this book, his first one, on what he encountered as Nigerias President, before, during and after. Despite the travails of his post-office experience, Goodluck Jonathan, his legacy and value, will survive beyond his transition hours.

He will, beyond everything else, find a good place in Nigerian history.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Legit.ng.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@corp.legit.ng drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

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Contact us if you have any feedback, suggestions, complaints or compliments. We are also available on Twitter.

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Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | - on Legit TV

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- The Nigerian Army base in Borno state has been hit by Boko Haram terrorist

- The horrible attack by the insurgents in the state claimed the lives of many soldiers and left many more injured

- The attack took place in Metele village around Lake Chad on Sunday, November 18

Dozens of soldiers were killed and many others sustained gun wounds when Boko Haram insurgents invaded their base at Matele Kukawa local government area of Borno state on Sunday, November 18.

The incident occurred at remote village of Metele in Lake Chad Basin around 5:00pm. A security source said the insurgents subdued the soldiers and left with their ammunition, Daily Trust reports.

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Confirming the incident, a military official who pleaded anonymity said: They opened fire and forcefully gained access to the military base, we lost some soldier who stood to protect and some are yet to return. From what I got, they were outnumbered and overpowered.

It was a sad day for us at the Theatre, the terrorists took the advantage of the bad terrain and attacked us, it was really bad on the side of the troops.

We got the reports that Boko haram terrorists attacked Matele village in Kukawa LGA on Sunday, the attack lasted for hours before they eventually penetrated the military base and now, the rest is the story.

Our concern is they are becoming stronger and more deadly almost on a weekly basis, the military needs to rise above this, more manpower and intelligence gathering is needed to be deployed

Added to this, on Friday, November 16, some insurgents attacked Kekeno village in Kukawa local government area and killed many people.

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Meanwhile, Lt General Tukur Buratai, the chief of army staff, represented by the Theatre commander of operation Lafiya Dole, Major General Abba Dikko, on Tuesday, November 20 commissioned a newly reconstructed road after it was named Heroes Drive and dedicated to slain and wounded officers fighting at the theatre of operation.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that troops of sector 3 Operation Lafiya Dole deployed at Kekeno town, Kukawa local government area of Borno state on Sunday, September 23, repelled Boko Haram terrorists attack.

Legit.ng gathers that this was disclosed on Monday, September 24, by the director of Army public relations, Brigadier Texas Chukwu.

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Is President Buhari Really Unable to Rescue Leah Sharibu from Boko Haram? - Street Gist | Legit TV

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- Ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, accuses the APC of embarking on a persecution spree when they came into power rather than consolidating on what his government had achieved

- Jonathan says the recession that occurred after he left office was a self-inflicted injury caused by misplaced priorities of the current administration

- The ex-president states that the excuse by the ruling party that the collapse of world crude prices harmed the Nigerian economy does not hold water

Ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, has alleged that after he left office, the All Progressives Congress (APC) made Nigerias economy slip into recession through malicious propaganda that tore the countrys economy into shreds.

The former president made the allegation in his book entitled My Transition Hours, where he faulted the ruling party for embarking on a persecution spree rather than consolidating on what his government had achieved, The Cable reports.

Recall that the opposition and their sympathisers and campaigners, both local and international, with their malicious propaganda, tore our economy to shreds, threatened our stability and existence as a nation and intimidated our citizens, all in the bid to take over power, Jonathan wrote.

READ ALSO: APC chairman Oshiomhole, Saraki 'reunite' at Jonathans book launch (picture)

Rather than forge a coalition and build on the momentum we had gathered when they eventually took office, they went on a persecution spree and vengeance mission. That the country slipped into recession soon after we left office was a self-inflicted injury caused by misplaced priorities. The narrative of inheriting empty treasury is a blatant lie.

Jonathan dismissed the narrative by the APC that it inherited an empty treasury as false. He said the excuse by the ruling party that the collapse of world crude prices harmed the Nigerian economy does not hold water.

Also, the excuse of the collapse of world crude prices does not hold water. This is because the Fourth Republic took off in 1999 with crude oil selling for less than $20 per barrel and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at 0.58 per cent, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures. Yet, the economy maintained a steady growth from that year, peaking at 15.33 per cent in 2002 when the average crude oil price was about $25, the former president narrated.

It is also instructive that the oil and gas sector constitute about 11 per cent of our GDP. There had to be a wider causative factor than just the fall in world crude prices.

READ ALSO: Presidency slams UKs ex-secretary of state over comment against Nigeria

It also amounts to standing facts on their heads to continuously claim that recession was caused by so-called mindless looting. The truth is that the opposition, in a bid to undo our government, became its own undoing when it got to power, because of the burden of justifying deliberate misrepresentations.

There is wisdom in the saying that if you win a prize and get the crown, dont go around destroying the person who previously held that prize; it will lose its value.

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Even after winning the election and forming the government at the centre, the blame game continued. When two brothers fight to death, it is the neighbour that inherits their fathers wealth. And we have seen neigbouring nations like the Republic of Benin and Ghana reaping from the capital flight out of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Goodluck Jonathan has revealed the alleged reasons why he lost the 2015 presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The former president claimed that the mass defection of some former governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the then opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) cost him his bid to be re-elected for a second term in office.

Jonathan who lost the 2015 presidential election with just over 2.5 million votes also reportedly blamed northern leaders who wanted power returned to their region for sabotaging his re-election bid.

These claims, according to Premium Times, are contained a book about his tenure in office titled My Transition Hours launched on Tuesday, November 20.

Jonathan replies to Buhari's allegations | Legit TV

Source: Legit
- The speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has showered praises on former president Jonathan for conceding defeat in 2015

- Dogara, who was a guest at the book launch of the former president, remarked that the call made by Jonathan signposted the maturity of Nigerian democracy

- He also noted that the former political leader has made a great mark that would make him the darling of the country

The speaker of House of Representatives, Honorable Yakubu Dogara, has commended the legacy of democracy laid by the former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan during the 2015 general election.

Nigerian Tribune reports that the flurry of encomiums was made in Abuja on Tuesday, November 20, during the launching of a book by the former president titled, My Transition Hours, an autobiography detailing the political life of the Nigerian political leader.

Legit.ng gathers that Dogara, during his remark on the book, expressed that Jonathan's concession of defeat during the 2015 poll was suggestive of the fact that Nigerian democracy has come of age, when compared to the legacies of power-thirstiness exhibited by past leaders.

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He said: Your excellency, we celebrate you. Those who chose not to do what you did today are not being celebrated, as a matter of fact if they were to organise an event like this, nobody will even attend and I guess the high point would be the events in Cote dIvoire involving Laurent Gbagbo and we all know where he is presently, where he has been confined to and that is lesson to anyone who will not want to follow this legacy of honour and dignity that you have established as a standard.

We celebrate you today because your executive powers conferred you the authority to take a seat among the demagogues and the narcissists of Africa but you refused. You chose instead to take a seat at the table with all those statesmen of Africa and today, you are celebrated."

Yakubu Dogara, who also noted that the country could have easily been plunged into crisis, added that the former president would be remembered for making a call which averted political tension to President Buhari.

He said the action established the confidence of world on the genuineness of Nigerian democracy, adding that such action exhibited by Jonathan signposted a rare legacy.

He added: "In moments of difficulties, great uncertainty such as the presidential elections of 2015, it took only leadership for us to be able to renew our confidence in our political process.

That singular gracious call you put to your opponent was what brought our democracy to maturity and conferred legitimacy to our political process. Nobody ever is going to change that.

We celebrate you today because by doing that you have brought honour to yourself and you have brought honour to all those that will identify with you.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that mixed memories of the 2015 general elections were brought to consciousness during the launching of a book titled, My Transition Hours, an autobiography by former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan celebrating his birthday and political career.

In the glamour-laden event that enjoyed the presence of the creme de la creme from all walks of life both home and abroad, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan opened cans of worms and cleared the dusts surrounding his defeat to President Muhammadu Buhari in the last 2015 presidential election.

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Obasanjo and Jonathan are good | Legit TV

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- The police has confirmed the death of Michael Adikwu, the prime suspect of the Offa bank robbery

- Following the confirmation of Adikwu's death, the case involving five other suspects has been adjourned to Friday, November 30

- The move for the adjournment of the case was forwarded by the Kwara state attorney-general and commissioner for justice, Kamaldeen Ajibade

Five of the six Offa bank robbery suspects appeared before an Ilorin high court on Wednesday, November 21, without the prime suspect, Michael Adikwu.

The lead prosecuting counsel who is also the Kwara state attorney-general and commissioner for justice, Kamaldeen Ajibade told the court that the police headquarters revealed that Adikwu is dead, TVC News reports.

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According to Ajibade, the director of public prosecution spoke with deputy commissioner of police Abba Kyari who confirmed that Adikwu is dead.

Ajibade requested for adjournment of the case for proper amendment to the charge sheet following Adikwu's death.

Speaking at the court, the suspects said that they were served on Monday, November 19, but since there was a public holiday on Tuesday, they could not get any lawyer to stand for their defence.

Promising an accelerated hearing, the trial judge, Halima Salman, adjourned the case to Friday, November 30.

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The suspects are standing trial over Offa bank robbery in April 2018, where more than 30 persons including policemen were killed.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the police had released the full list of suspects arrested in connection with April 5 multiple bank robbery in Offa Kwara state, during which 33 persons, including nine policemen, were killed.

Going further, the police also released list of all the exhibits recovered, banks and police station attacked during the robbery.

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Nigeria News: Offa Bank Robbery - The Untold Story (NAIJ EXCLUSIVE) | Legit TV

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- The political space in Nigeria has started experiencing more gale of defections as the 2019 general elections campaign begins

- Two House of Representatives members dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress on Wednesday, November 21

- One of the lawmakers defected to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, while the other has not named his new party

As the 2019 general elections campaign begins two members of the House of Representatives have dumped the ruling all Progressives Congress (APC).

The members identified as Kolawole Babatunde (Ondo) and Mukaila Kazeem (Ogun), resigned from the ruling party on Wednesday, November 21.

Punch reports that the lawmakers' resignations letter were read by the speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara, during plenary on Wednesday, November 21.

Legit.ng gathers that in the letters read by Dogara, Babatunde defected to the opposition Peoples Democratic (PDP), while Kazeem did not name his new party.

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The lawmakers blamed their defections on how the party managed its primaries and fielded its candidates for the 2019 general elections.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Ahmed Abu, a member of the House of Representatives, representing Mokwa/Lavun/Edati federal constituency in Niger state, decamped from the All Progressives Congress (APC), citing irregularities in the party's primary elections.

Abu, in a letter signed by him and sent to the national vice chairman of the APC in north central, the Niger state chairman of the APC and his ward chairman, said he was disappointed in the outcome of the October 4 primary election in Niger state.

The lawmaker said the election which was marred by violence and irregularities was declared inconclusive but to his surprise a candidate's name was submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as the winner of the same election.

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In a previous report by Legit.ng, it was another loss for the ruling political party in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as four members of the House of Representatives in its fold announced their defection on Tuesday, November 6, raising the figure of defectors recently.

The defecting lawmakers were identified as Dada Awoleye (Oyo), Segun Williams (Ogun), Lawali Hassan and Adedapo Lam-Adesina (Oyo).

While Awoleye defected to Accord Party (AP), Williams, Hassan and Lam-Adesina defected to Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Action Democratic Congress (ADC), respectively.

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The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit TV

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- The attempt by two drug addicts to escape arrest by officials of the NDLEA in Lokoja, the Kogi state capital has led to their death

- The suspects were said to have jumped into River Niger as they ran from the approaching operatives and drowned in the process

- However, four of the suspects, including one said to be a dealer and three more who patronised him were arrested

Two suspected drug dealers drowned in River Niger, Lokoja, the Kogi state capital, on Monday, November 19, while trying to evade arrest by some officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

It all started when operatives of the NDLEA, using a tip off from members of the Adankolo community in Lokoja, went on an operation in the area. But upon sighting the agency's operatives, the drug addicts took to their heels.

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Punch reported that two of the suspects ran into the river, got entangled in nets set by fishermen and drowned.

Meanwhile, four of the suspects, including one said to be a dealer and three more who patronised him were arrested in the operation.

An Adankolo resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity said that after discovering the floating bodies of the two men who drowned, some hoodlums headed to the local police station and vandalised it thinking that the operation was carried out by the police.

He said that residents of the community are now belted in fear of attacks from the hoodlums who have promised to revenge the death of their colleagues.

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Idris Bello, the commandant of the NDLEA in the state, who confirmed development said that the arrested dealer was being profiled with a view to getting more information from him, adding that the suspects would be charged to court upon conclusion of investigation.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that three men with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) had been intercepted by the NDLEA in Zamfara state.

According to Gabriel Eigege, the commander of the agency in the state, the men were intercepted by a team of NDLEA officers from Gunmi area command on routine check along Gadan Zaima area.

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Suspected cannabis traffickers reject Police accusations | Legit TV

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- One of President Vladimir Putins trusted allies, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been said to be engaged in the politics of African nations

- The 57-year-old Prigozhin is now active in countries like Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

- This move by Prigozhin is prequelling Putin preparation to host more than 50 leaders for the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a business tycoon known as Vladimir Putins chef for his Kremlin culinary artistry has reportedly helped Russia to conquer areas in Ukraine, turn the tide in the Syrian war and meddle in US elections. Now hes reaching deep into Africa with an army of mercenaries and spin doctors in tow to cash in on his newfound expertise.

Prigozhin manages a restaurant St. Petersburg, and is now a major figure in Russias push to boost its geopolitical influence by rekindling Cold War ties across Africa which is laden with untapped mineral riches.

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Although not financially buoyant as its like the US, Europe and China, Russia is carving out a niche by shoring up strongmen in unstable but potentially rich states who have a taste for Russian weaponry.

Prigozhin's set of soldiers and political operatives are offering security, arms training and electioneering services in exchange for mining rights and other opportunities.

He is already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russias military already has relationships with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.

African countries where Russia has established its influence (Photo credit: Bloomberg)

Source: Depositphotos

This progress comes as Putin prepares to host more than 50 leaders for the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019. Its an event that will cement Russias active presence in the region, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said before a sweep through the continent earlier this year.

The low-profile nature of Prigozhins businesses ensures some deniability for the Kremlin. Putin, who gave Prigozhin an award for his service to the state in 2014, this year compared his old allys international work to that of George Soros, the American billionaire financier whos long been accused by the Kremlin of subverting governments at Washingtons behest.

Peter Pham, head of the Washington-based Atlantic Councils Africa Center, said: The Russians want influence with governments, they want economic access and theyre much more flexiblethats their advantage. It doesnt cost very much to send a couple of hundred guys to shore up a president.

As relations with the western world keep keep plumbing new lows, Putin is finally pursuing a comprehensive strategy for developing commercial and security ties with Africa as a whole, according to Polina Slyusarchuk, who runs Intexpertise, an Africa-focused research group in St. Petersburg.

More recently, Egypt won a $25 billion Russian loan to build its first nuclear power plant. And Russia is in talks with Eritrea to establish its first logistics hub on the Red Sea, not far from the Pentagons only permanent base in Africa and Chinas first military facility abroad, both in Djibouti.

In March, Lavrov, Putins long-serving foreign minister, made a five-nation swing through Africa that included a stop in Zimbabwe, where Russian companies are involved in a $3 billion platinum-mining venture, the countrys biggest investment project. Prigozhin wasnt far behind.

Prigozhins political consultants advised Emmerson Mnangagwa on his disputed victory in the July election to succeed Robert Mugabe, who turned Zimbabwe into an international pariah during his four-decade rule, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Mnangagwas main opponent accused Russians of helping his rival manipulate the polls. The ruling Zanu-PF party has denied any Russian involvement in the election.

Putin gained a military toehold in the heart of the continent early this year, after the UN issued a waiver for Russia to arm and defend the government of the Central African Republic. The CAR, which is mired in civil conflict, appealed for help after France, its former colonial master, suddenly ended a three-year peacekeeping mission.

The work of Prigozhins mercenary venture, known loosely in the Russian media as Wagner, has already led to gold and diamond concessions in both the CAR and Sudan, according to Russian and French media reports.

Three Russian journalists were murdered in the CAR in July, 2018. They were investigating Prigozhins activities, according to exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was funding their trip.

Prigozhin is now expanding his reach across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest country in Africa after Algeria and one of the worlds richest in minerals, the people said. The former Belgian colony is about to elect a new leader for the first time since 2001, when Joseph Kabila succeeded his slain father.

Kabila recently named a trusted retired general as his ambassador to Russia, tasking him with negotiating arms supplies and assistance, according to a Western official who asked not to be identified. The DRC said through its embassy in Moscow that Russia hasnt yet supplied any weapons. It also denied local media reports that Russians are actively involved in the election.

If Kabilas EU-sanctioned protege wins as expected, then the DRCs military ties with Russia will intensify, which in turn will lead to more opportunities for Russian companies, according to Jean-Jacques Wondo, a Congolese security analyst based in Brussels.

China has invested heavily in the DRC, but Beijing is reportedly growing increasingly frustrated with Kabilas shifting demands.

Kabila is desperate for outside help, said Martin Fayulu, an opposition candidate in the Dec. 23 poll. Its not surprising Russia is moving into the Congo, given our vast mineral wealth.

Madagascar, the worlds biggest producer of vanilla and a holder of major deposits of nickel, cobalt and uranium, is another chaotic country where Putin and Prigozhin share an interest. A Kremlin envoy flew to the island in March for talks with then-president Hery Rajaonarimampianina.

Russian election consultants affiliated with Prigozhin are in the country amid a tight race for the presidency between two other former leaders that will end next month, one of the people familiar with his activities said.

Russia has supported many candidates, according to Jean-Claude de LEstrac, a former Mauritius foreign minister and expert on Indian Ocean territories. The Madagascar Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

In Guinea, Russia is supporting a bid by President Alpha Conde to scrap term limits so he can seek to stay in power after his mandate ends in 2020, said the Western official with knowledge of Russia-Africa ties.

The African country is the single largest supplier of bauxite for Russian aluminum giant United Co. Rusal. Guinea Foreign Minister Mamadi Toure and government spokesman Aboubacar Sylla didnt answer calls seeking comment.

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Moving into North Africa, Prigozhin attended talks this month between Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls most of the eastern part of the oil-rich state.

Hes providing military services to Haftars Libyan National Army in return for energy deals, two people familiar with the matter said. LNA spokesman Ahmed Mesmari didnt answer repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Irina Abramova, the head of Russias state-funded Institute for African Studies in Moscow, said: Like any normal businessman, Prigozhin is looking for the most lucrative places to invest his money. He thought, why shouldnt I give it a go? And he should only be thanked for that if Africans benefit.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that about 115 Nigerian students had benefited from the 2017/2018 Bilateral Education Agreement Scholarship Programme to Russia and Algeria.

Malam Adamu Adamu, minister of education, during an orientation programme held for the scholars in Abuja on Wednesday, November 7, said that 94 scholars would be going to Russia while 21 of them would be going to Algeria.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better.

Top 5 Scandalous Quotes About Africa | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- A Moroccan woman has killed her lover and served the remains to Pakistani workers as part of a traditional rice and meat dish

- The 30-year-old woman was said to have committed the crime in August but was only recently discovered

- Her lover's brother found the deceased's tooth inside a blender in her home and reported her brother missing

A United Arab Emirates-based Moroccan woman has been accused of killing her lover and serving his remains to Pakistani workers.

BBC reports that prosecutors in the United Arab Emirate said the 30-year-old woman cooked her boyfriend and served his remains as part of a traditional rice and meat dish.

Legit.ng gathers that the crime was said to have been committed in August but was only recently discovered when a human tooth was found insider her blender by the deceased's brother.

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The deceased's brother reported the deceased missing to the police, after which DNA test was run on the tooth. The result confirmed that the tooth belonged to the victim.

According to report, she confessed to police that she committed the crime. She was said to have called the crime a moment of insanity. Report has it that the woman had been in a relationship with her boyfriend for seven years.

The suspect, who will be tried pending an investigation, was said to have killed the victim when the latter told her he would be marrying someone else from Morocco.

The police said the woman first told the brother she had kicked the victim out of the home, but later confessed to killing him after she was interrogated.

According to report, she has been sent to hospital for mental examination.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the police in Lagos arrested a 23-year-old housewife, Damilola Ayeni, for allegedly stabbing her husband and father of two children, Olumide, to death at their house on Bamgbose street, Lagos Island.

The incident, which reportedly happened on Friday, August 4, occurred during a disagreement between the couple.

The 36-year-old victim was rushed to the Lagos Island General Hospital where he died due to the injury sustained when his wife allegedly stabbed him.

The deceaseds father, Sunday Ayeni, who reported the case to the police, said his son was murdered by the wife over suspicion of infidelity.

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He said: My son and I work at the Lagos Island General Hospital. While I work as a security guard, he worked in the pharmacy department. They got married at the Ikoyi registry.

They had issues many times and my son reported her to me. I told them to go their separate ways, but people said I should not come between them."

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better

Lagos Police Commissioner Parades Suspected Criminals (Nigeria News) | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) will soon begin deploying fighter jets to Niger Republic airfields to serve as airbase to launch attacks on terrorists

- This was disclosed by the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar on Wednesday, November 21

- The CAS made the statement at the closing ceremony of the maiden edition of Nigerian Air Force International Air Power Seminar

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) will soon begin deploying fighter jets to Niger Republic airfields to serve as airbase to launch attacks on terrorists.

This was disclosed by the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar on Wednesday, November 21, while speaking to journalists at the closing ceremony of the maiden edition of Nigerian Air Force International Air Power Seminar with the theme: Air Power in Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Understanding and Responding.

The CAS revealed that the decision was taken after, more collaboration with the Nigerien Air Force.

READ ALSO: You brought peace to Nigeria - Abdulsalami Abubakar tells Jonathan

His words: We can now deploy our air planes to their air fields and operate from there, rather than coming back to Maiduguri, we can operate from Diffa which is in Niger Republic.

We have benefited immensely and it will definitely add value to what we are doing.

Speaking on the success of the three-day seminar, Air Marshal Abubakar said: The most important nothing for us is the fact that we have underlined the global character of terrorism.

There is no country in the world that can fight terrorism in the world alone, so the whole idea of this seminar, is to gather people who have similar interest, similar understanding of this kind of threat.

Boko Haram is not a Nigerian problem alone. It is a global problem, therefore what we did was to simply bring to Nigeria, people from different countries that have fought terrorism before or are currently fighting terrorism so that they understand what we are doing.

We also have people from the academics who have come to share with us their experiences and how best they think we can improve on what we are doing.

Speaking earlier, Major General Yousef Al-Hnaity, the Commander of the Jordanian Royal Air Force described the seminar as highly important.

It is not only for Nigeria or the region, it is for the world. The presentations had great value. The issues has been discussed and the challenges have been addressed, he said.

He noted that the Nigerian Air Force and the Jordanian Air Force have a smooth working relationship, adding that he will work side-by-side with the CAS to strengthen the relationship.

He also stated that he will work with the CAS to ensure that areas where there can be partnership between both countries come to fruition.

On his part, the Chief of Staff of the Niger Republic Air Force, Lieutenant-Colonel Boulama Issa Zana said the seminar was a concentration of ideas to overcome terrorism.

He hailed the CAS for inviting experienced countries fighting terrorism to the seminar, saying, we would take this experience and put it in our areas.

We are collaborating and and also improving on how to work together, he added.

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President Muhammadu Buhari declared the seminar open on Monday, November 19, in Abuja.

Commending the NAF for pulling such feat with the seminar, the president said the military is saddled with the responsibility of finding practical ways to reinvigorate the fight against insurgency.

He noted that the seminar is timely since the outbreak of the Boko Haram crisis in the northeast of Nigeria, the NAF and indeed the Armed Forces of Nigeria have been engaged in conducting counter insurgency operations that have challenged the services doctrine, tactics, training, Order of Battle and Force Protection architecture.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have updated to serve you better.

Nigerian Air Force wings 2 Liberian and 12 Nigerian pilots in Abuja | Legit TV

Source: Legit
Some protesting members of NASU, Osun state university chapter, on Wednesday, November 21, reportedly locked many graduating students and their parents out of the main campus in Osogbo, where convocation ceremony for the 2017 set is currently going on.

The Punch reports that the Non-Academic Staff Union members, who were protesting unpaid May and June 2018 salaries took over the campus main gate and prevented parents that came with their wards to witness the convocation from going into the venue of the event with their vehicles.

READ ALSO: Probe bishop over alleged death rumour of Buhari - Presidency writes DSS, police

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that President Muhammadu Buhari, on Saturday, November 17, said the federal government is considering setting up an education bond to finance infrastructure in public universities.

The president made the disclosure at the University of Ibadan on the occasion of the institution's 2018 convocation and 70th Foundation Day Ceremony.

The senior special assistant on media and publicity to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Laolu Akande, said President Buhari was represented by the vice president.

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Buhari said: Amongst other options we are working on the details of an education infrastructure bond for public universities, to involve raising money from the capital market to give a push to infrastructure in our universities.

Our on-going talks with the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) are a fallout of the chequered history of negotiations concluded in 2013 with government. There is no question that ASUU has a point. "

However, we must seek to resolve it amicably and with minimum disruption to the academic calendar."

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better

Benue IDPs: Education amidst crisis | Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- APGA has declared that it would not support President Muhammadu Buhari's re-election in 2019

- The party's national chairman, Victor Oye, said that APGA has its own presidential candidate for the election

- He said the relationship between Anambra governor, Willie Obiano, and President Buhari, should not be termed as endorsement for his re-election bid

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has declared that it would not support the 2019 re-election bid of the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari.

Punch reports that the national chairman of APGA, Chief Victory Oye, on Wednesday, November 21, stated this at a press conference in Amawbia near Awka, the state capital.

Legit.ng gathered that Oyes reaction came following the relationship between the state governor, Willie Obiano and Aso Rock, resulting in the governor accompanying Buhari to several trips abroad.

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Some had insinuated that Obianos seeming support for Buhari was a payback gesture to the president for allowing a free and fair governorship election in the state in 2017 where Obiano won the poll against the candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Tony Nwoye, who came a distant second.

At the press conference on Wednesday, Oye said APGA had one of the best presidential candidates in the 2019 race.

They say APGA is working for the APC; thats balderdash. Were not working for the APC; were working for ourselves.

"APGA has chosen a presidential candidate in the election, General John Gbor, and his running mate, Jerry Chukwueke, an international businessman.

Our presidential candidate is a Ph.D. holder in Anthropology. Were working to market him and he is highly accepted in the whole North Central. He is a man without any blemish as far as Nigerian politics is concerned.

"He was a director of the army elite corp. Thats not a small feat in the military.

So, were not campaigning for Buhari; were campaigning for General Gbor. That name has been destined to be the next president of Nigeria; you may not believe it; but when God destines something, nobody can change it, Oye stated

Speaking on the crises that trailed APGA primaries, especially in Imo and Anambra states, Oye said the party had expected that because of the successes the party had recorded in Anambra in the past 12 years.

He said that the party was on top of the situation, adding that various reconciliation committees set up to handle the internal wrangling were working assiduously to resolve the issues arising from the partys primaries.

READ ALSO: Probe bishop over alleged death rumour of Buhari - Presidency writes DSS, police

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was endorsed by the United Progressive Party (UPP) for the 2019 general elections.

The UPP on Tuesday, November 20, said its national working committee (NWC) decided to endorse Buhari as its presidential candidate in 2019 after evaluation of all options.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better.

Is President Buhari Really Doing Badly As Nigeria's Leader? - Nigeria Street Gist | - on Legit TV

Source: Legit
President Muhammadu Buhari is reportedly meeting behind closed doors with governors from the southeastern part of the country.

According to The Nation, the meeting started shortly after the governors arrived the State House around 4.07pm.

The deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, is also at the meeting. They were driven to the forecourt of the Presidential Villa in a bus.

READ ALSO: Probe bishop over alleged death rumour of Buhari - Presidency writes DSS, police

Except for the Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha, the four other governors of the zone including Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu are said to be in attendance at the meeting, Daily Trust states in its own report.

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the governors from the southeast zone had agreed to hold a meeting with President Buhari in Abuja on Wednesday, November 21.

Issues such as the second Niger bridge, the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu and the non-representation of the region in Nigeria's security apparatus are top items in the agenda of the said meeting

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The director general of the southeast governors forum, Professor Simon Ortuanya, revealed this to journalists in his briefing on Monday, November 19.

Ortuanya disclosed that the meeting came as result of the governors initial interaction on the pressing needs of the geopolitical zone which entailed the second Niger bridge.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have upgraded to serve you better.

The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit TV:

Source: Legit
- Former president Goodluck Jonathan has said that he was not happy the way his former ministers were treated by Buhari-led government

- He said he laughed when people called him clueless

- Jonathan, however, said that in spite of the alleged persecution, some of his former ministers have distinguished themselves in their chosen careers

Former president Goodluck Jonathan has said that he laughs anytime people try to run down his administration as a clueless one.

Punch reports that the former president said this in his recently published book titled, My Transition Hours.

Legit.ng gathered that he laughed when certain propagandists attempt to stand logic on its head by maligning his administration as one bereft of ideas and clueless.

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He said: Sometimes I laugh when certain propagandists attempt to stand logic on its head by maligning my administration as one bereft of ideas and clueless. In assessing my administration, it is best to focus on facts.

I cannot assess myself. I leave that to history and I make bold to say that never in the history of Nigeria till date has the nation had such a star-studded cabinet full of achievers and people who got to the top of their chosen fields by merit.

Jonathan said the only thing that saddened him was the hounding of his former ministers by the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

He, however, said he was happy that many of his ministers and former appointees had become leading world figures today like Adewunmi Adesina and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Jonathan added: Most painful has been the attacks on my ministers, aides, associates and even members of my family. There is an attempt to erase our legacy from history. The good thing is that the unending barrage of attacks, deliberate misinformation, and programmed media smear campaigns have failed to sway the opinions of those with the clear view of our beliefs, efforts, and achievements.

There are millions of Nigerians and others around the world who are still impressed with our modest achievements in consolidating democracy and growing the nations economy. They will continue to serve as my strength and encouragement.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Buhari, Ekweremadu, southeast governors meet in Aso Rock

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima, criticised former President Goodlucks new book, My Transition Hours, barely a day after its public presentation in Abuja, describing it as elementary and containing fiction.

Governor Shettima alleged that the former president lied about the issue of the Chibok schoolgirls, who were abducted in 2014.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better.

Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | - on Legit TV

Source: Legit.ng
- An ally of Governor Amosun and federal lawmaker has dumped the APC

- The lawmaker cited irregularities in the partys primary as the reason for his move

- He defected to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM)

An acclaimed ally and trusted friend of Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state, Mukaila Kazeem, has reportedly defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).

Kazeem, who represents Abeokuta North/Obafemi-Owode/Odeda in Ogun state, dumped the APC barely hours after the ruling party inaugurated a special committee tasked with the sole duty of reconciling aggrieved party members.

The Punch reports that the lawmaker was aggrieved because he felt the APC primary was rigged in favour of Olumide Osoba, the son of former Governor Olusegun Osoba.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Buhari, Ekweremadu, southeast governors meet in Aso Rock

A source close to Kazeem was quoted by the newspaper to have said: We were treated badly by the APC in Ogun state after the process was hijacked by Dapo Abiodun and his cabal. They ensured that Osobas son was given the ticket. So, we have decided to leave the party for them. We have Governor Amosuns blessing.

What was Olumide Osobas record in the National Assembly when he served between 2011 and 2015?

Kazeems defection was announced by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on the floor of the chambers on Wednesday, November 21.

Amosun had accused the APC chieftain, Bola Tinubu, of causing crisis in the Ogun state chapter of the ruling party by imposing his candidates on the party.

He has vowed not to support Dapo Abiodun who emerged as the APC governorship candidate amid controversial circumstances.

There are speculations that many of Amosuns allies and supporters are expected to leave the APC soon as the date set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the submission of names of governorship and House of Assembly candidates draws to a close.

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Meanwhile, Femi Adesina, the special adviser on media and publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, has said his principal would rather lose the 2019 presidential election than rig it.

The presidential spokesman said this on Tuesday, November 20, during a programme on ARISE TV.

In his response to concerns raised ahead of the 2019 elections, Adesina assured that the process will be free and fair.

NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better.

Is President Buhari Really Doing Badly As Nigeria's Leader? - Nigeria Street Gist | - on Legit TV

Source: Legit
The Bethlehem Area School Board has locked in its leadership team for the next five years by extending the contracts of two of the district's top administrators.

Monday night the board voted to approve new early-bird employment deals with Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer Jack Silva and Chief Financial Officer Stacy M. Gober.

Earlier this year, the board approved an early-bird contract renewal for Superintendent Joseph Roy.

All three administrators were hired to lead Pennsylvania's sixth-largest school district as it was in the midst of recovering from risky financial derivative deals that left the district deeply in debt following the 2008 financial crisis.

Under Gober's financial guidance, Bethlehem has gone from severely in the red to having millions in the bank and a healthy credit rating. Silva has overseen an overhaul of the district's reading program and curriculum, the roll out of Project Lead the Way and the creation of career pathways in district schools.

The terms

Gober's contract, which was last extended in November 2013, runs from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2024. She will be paid $171,000 in the first year.

Silva's new contract runs from Nov. 1, 2019 until Oct. 31, 2024 and his salary will be $172,500 in the first year. His last contract was approved in January 2014.

If either wish to leave the district, they must give the board 60 days' notice. If the school board wants to terminate the contract without cause, it must give 150 day's notice.

Both contracts allow for annual raises provided they receive satisfactory performance reviews, but raises are not guaranteed.

Time off

Gober gets 20 vacation days a year and can carry over a max of 10 a year, although they can accrue without limit and be paid out if the contract is terminated. She can cash out five days per year at her per diem rate.

She has 13 days of sick leave, which can carry over and could be paid out at a rate of at least $125 per day when the deal ends. Sick days from a prior district are not eligible for a retirement payout. Gober also gets three personal days, but they do not accumulate. Unused personal days will be converted to sick leave at the end of each year.

The contract allows Silva to carry over any unused vacation, sick or personal days into his new contract. He will get 20 vacation, a personal day and 13 sick days a year. He can cash out five vacation days annually at his per diem salary rate.

Any additional unused vacation and sick days can carry over year to year. He can carry over up to four personal days, any additional are converted to sick days. He's also eligible for two emergency leave days, which are use it or lose it days.

If the contract is terminated for any reason, Silva gets all of his vacation days paid out at his per diem rate and all of his unused sick days at a rate of $150 per day.

The district must obtain a term life insurance policy equal to two times Silva's salary and pay the full premium cost and obtain disability insurance. Silva is eligible to be reimbursed for additional term life insurance up to a max cost of $2,500 per year.

Under the contract, both Gober and Silva and their families are entitled to the same insurance as other administrators covered under the district's Act 93 agreement, which applies to administrators and school principals who don't work under a contract.

Other perks

Gober can be reimbursed for all "reasonable expenses" related to her job with proper documentation, but the agreement does not specify what those expenses are. Her mileage will be reimbursed at the IRS rate. She is entitled to a private office, secretary, staff and the resources she and the district deem necessary.

Silva's contract specifies he can be reimbursed with expenses with itemized documentation, including the cost of his iPhone and laptop and mileage at the current IRS rate.

For both, the district will also cover the dues for at least three professional organizations such as the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators or the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials.

The district will also cover food, lodging, travel and registration fees to attend job-related conventions and conferences.

Extra education

Silva, who has a doctorate, can be reimbursed for any graduate courses he takes as long as he earns a B grade or better and the school board approves it. He can take up to 12 credits per year and the reimbursement can't exceed the cost to attend graduate-level classes at Lehigh University.

But if Silva leaves the district he may be on the hook for the cost of the classes. If he leaves within one year he must repay the entire cost, the amount he owes declines the longer he stays. But even if he departs within four years he'd still be on the hook for 25 percent of the cost.

Gober's contract contains the same terms regarding graduate courses.

If Silva were to become unable to perform his job due to illness or accident the board does have the option to terminate his employment with 60 days written notice and pay out the contract.

Retirement perks

When he retires, Silva gets a $1,000 payout for every year of administrative employment he spent in the Bethlehem Area School District. When Gober retires, she receives a $1,000 payout for every year in the district deposited into her tax sheltered annuity.

Gober's contract allows for the district to match her contributions into a tax deferred annuity or a retirement account, but the contribution can't be more than 10 percent of her salary.

Gober, who was business director for Cheltenham Township schools, was hired in November 2009 to replace Stanley J. Majewski Jr., assistant to the superintendent for finance and administration.

Silva, of Fountain Hill, joined the district in November 2010 from the Souderton Area School District. He became the assistant superintendent for education at a time the curriculum office was in turmoil.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Philippines government has issued a warning to its overseas foreign workers to be about a scam targeting applicants for employment aboard cruise ships.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said it has uncovered a recurrence of the illegal operations which are out to get money from Filipinos looking to work for a cruise ship.

The scam begins with an e-mail from the recruiter claiming to represent a major company such as Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, MSC Cruises, P&O Cruises, etc.

The recruiter guarantees the target person a job with a cruise ship, in exchange for paying a fee upfront. When the victim pays, the scammer  and the supposed job  simply disappear.

One of the most important things to remember when looking for employment in a

the cruise ship is that you should never pay any fee, including recruitment and placement fees, POEA stated.

Legitimate manning agencies and cruise lines are not allowed to charge administrative fees from seafarers, the agency said.

According to POEA, cruise ship job scams tend to have the following features:

 Jobs are advertised on free websites and social media. Scammers would not

pay advertisement for jobs that do not exist

 Emails are sent from free email accounts such as Yahoo and Gmail.

 The correspondence is in poor English and very informal

 Scammers operate from countries such as Malaysia, Ghana, Nigeria, etc.

 The job offers are usually very generous (high salaries, short working hours, long paid holidays, etc.)

 No thorough interviews with candidates

 The job offer is for free but asks payment for visa, training, or lawyer fee

 Payment is through MoneyGram or Western Union

Getting a job on a cruise ship is not an easy process. If it sounds too good to be true,

it most likely isn't true! said the POEA.

Thousands of Filipinos working overseas are currently employed at international passenger vessels, as well as in cargo and other shipping lines.

Many work as part of the crew, as well as front office, accommodation and food, and beverage teams.

From January to September 2017, more than 1.2 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed. Most of the overseas workers are land-based, while more than 200,000 of them are sea-based workers
Lehigh Valley diners don't need to go to a white-tablecloth ristorante to get fresh-made pasta prepared by an Italian chef.

Santisi Imports, the artisan Italian food retailer in Palmer Township, has expanded its business by opening Pastificio 601, a cafe selling pasta made from scratch and more. Customers can either take home packaged fresh pasta, or eat prepared dishes right at the cafe.

Located at 601 Stones Crossing Road in Palmer Township, Pastificio 601 will hold a grand opening celebration on Saturday, Nov. 24, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., offering tastings and free take-home samples of the house-made pasta.

The kitchen is led by Andrea Moretti, an Northampton Community College culinary school graduate who hails from Rome. He prepares a compact daily menu of sandwiches, salads and, of course, fresh pasta dishes featuring ravioli, penne, tagliatelle and more.

For those who prefer to handle the cooking themselves, Pastificio 601 also sells loose and pre-packaged pasta from behind a deli counter, with options including butternut squash ravioli. Meats and sauces are also available.

Meanwhile, a counter previously used for olive oil tastings has been turned into a fully equipped espresso bar.

Breaking into fresh pasta is only the latest expansion for Santisi, an ever-growing business first started as a hobby in 2004. Partners Phil Noto and Frank Oieni moved the business into its current location in 2011, opening a showroom and later a retail shop there.

"You can't stand still in business," Noto said.

The idea to make pasta on-site first came up two years ago, Noto said. The owners discovered that doing so would require building a commercial kitchen -- and if they were going to go through that trouble, Noto and his partners figured they might as well serve prepared foods as well.

Moving into food service, Santisi wanted to give the new wrinkle a brand new name to reintroduce itself to the public. And so, Pastificio 601 was born. (Pastificio translates to "pasta factory.")

"It's like hitting the refresh button on the computer," Noto said. "We don't want to be stale."

Noto said you can tell the difference between Pastificio's fresh pasta and the industrially made, dried fare that most customers are used to.

"I'm the fussiest Italian eater," he said. "I want to chew my pasta."

While you can find fresh pasta at supermarkets, Noto points that it's usually been pasteurized or otherwise treated to extend its shelf life.

"Even if it's 'fresh,' it might have been made almost a year ago," he said. "We call ours 'truly fresh' pasta."

Pastificio 601's pasta is made with eggs and is meant to be eaten right away: The loose pasta lasts about seven days, while the modified atmosphere-packaged offerings keep for about 14 days.

The pasta's quality is so apparent, Noto said, that when pitching it to wholesale customers, they have the customers try it only with butter -- no sauce. Pastificio 601 counts Lafayette College as one of their major customers, Noto said.

Already serving regular breakfast and lunch, Pastificio 601 plans to save the evenings for private events and special "chef's table" menus for a minimum of 10 people.

It's still a work in progress. More cafe tables are coming -- currently two conference tables provide much of the seating. In the warmer months, outdoor seating will also be available.

Pastificio 601's hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Wednesday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. For the holiday season, Noto said they plan to be open seven days a week, and may expand its regular hours depending on foot traffic.

Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.
Imitating a common phone scam, a pair of Bethlehem residents allegedly tried to convince an Alabama man that his grandson needed bail money.

Instead, the would-be victim sent a dummy package and alerted authorities, who were ready and waiting when it arrived, the Lehigh County district attorney said in a news release Tuesday.

Angela Guzman, 38, and Narciso Burgos-Nunez, 45, both of the 700 block of Cherokee Street, are both charged with one count each of criminal attempt to commit theft by unlawful taking, a third-degree felony.

The DA's office said it was alerted of two suspicious calls on Nov. 8. The man from Tuscaloosa, identified only by his initials in the news release, said the first caller identified himself as the victim's grandson, said he was in Lehigh County Jail and needed $5,000 for bail -- one of many tactics familiar to authorities.

(FBI: How to identify common fraud schemes)

The Alabama man did not recognize the voice and, after the call had ended, confirmed his grandson was not in custody, District Attorney Jim Martin's office said.

Soon came a second call by someone claiming to be from the Lehigh County Public Defender's Office, providing a specific name and instructions to mail the bail money to an address in Fountain Hill, authorities say. The man later confirmed with the public defender here that the name given was bogus.

So, the DA's office said, the man stuffed an envelope with bubble wrap, sent it to the Fountain Hill address and gave the tracking number to Lehigh County Chief Detective Michael Millan.

Knowing approximately when to expect the package, Millan and Detective Edward Ressler staked out the address and arrested Guzman and Burgos-Nunez when they picked up the delivery, the news release said.

"Unfortunately, these telephone scams are far too frequent and often trick unsuspecting victims into relinquishing significant amounts of money," Martin says in the release. "I encourage anyone receiving such a phone call to be suspicious and confirm the identity of the caller."

Guzman and Burgos-Nunez were arraigned Nov. 9 and released the following day on $5,000 bond each. They each face a preliminary hearing scheduled Jan. 10 before District Judge Wayne Maura.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Most folks in Phillipsburg know it as the black bridge, a South Main Street span over railroad tracks that's traversed by those traveling through the town hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day.

It also has a formal name that carries far more significance: the Kenneth "Red" Vandegrift bridge. The town gave the bridge that name in 2003, and the reason for the designation is anything but arbitrary.

Vandergrift was a Phillipsburg police officer who on Nov. 17, 1930 responded to reports of a man threatening his wife with a gun on Chambers Street. The man, Robert McClement, shot Vandegrift before killing himself. Vandegrift died at Warren Hospital three days later.

On Tuesday, the anniversary of Vandergrift's death, Phillipsburg police and other dignitaries remembered Vandergrift's ultimate sacrifice during a ceremony at the bridge.

About 8 retired officers attended the ceremony along with about 16 active duty officers.

The Phillipsburg Police Department Honor Guard marched across the bridge to kick off the ceremony.

Phillipsburg Police Sgt. James McDonald read the Officer Down Memorial Page about Vandegrift.

A wreath was fixed to the upright of the bridge beneath a bronze plaque that memorializes Vandegrift.

The Rev. Randy Nelson, pastor of the Phillipsburg Alliance Church, offered the invocation and benediction.

Washington Township police Officer Zachary Grawehr performed "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes, and Phillipsburg police Chief Robert Stettner also spoke.

Phillipsburg resident Joan Caffrey Stocker rendered "Taps" at the conclusion of the ceremony.

Freelance photographer Tim Wynkoop contributed to this report.

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Laois Local Enterprise Office has been announced as category runners-up in the finals of the European Commission's European Enterprise Promotion Awards.

One of the projects nominated by Ireland this year was the Laois Start Your Own Business programme delivered by LEO Laois which was successful in the "Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship" category.

Local Enterprise Office Laois have taken an innovative approach to engage with marginalised groups over the past two years by adopting mainstream Start Your Own Business programmes to meet their identified needs.

We are proud to be runners up in our category in the 2018 @EEPA_EU #EEPA2018 #MakingItHappen pic.twitter.com/IgiBQFoIvF  LEO Laois (@LEOLaois) November 20, 2018

This is the first time ever that a Local Enterprise Office has been chosen to represent Ireland at the finals of this prestigious European final which adds to the scale of Laois's success. The awards ceremony was held in Graz, Austria on Tuesday, November 20.

Amongst the initiatives undertaken in that time were a Start Your Own Business programme aimed at people aged 55 and above, the first Start Your Own Business programmes delivered in both the Midlands Prison and Portlaoise Prison as well as the first Start Your Own Business programme in Ireland delivered in an asylum seeker direct provision centre.

Delighted to announce we are 1st @Loc_Enterprise Office ever nominated to represent #Ireland in the final of the @EuropeanCommiss 's prestigious @EEPA_EU Awards. Final to be held in Graz Austria in November as part of @EuropeanSMEWeek #Laois #PromotingEnterprise https://t.co/bpZT4mm81a  LEO Laois (@LEOLaois) August 16, 2018

Local Enterprise Office Laois were represented at last night's final by Evelyn Reddin, Head of Enterprise and Seamus Doran, Business Advisor.

Evelyn Reddin said this award is a huge achievement they are proud of.

"We were deeply honoured to be the first Local Enterprise Office ever selected to represent Ireland at the European Enterprise Promotion Awards.

"Then to be selected by the European Commission tonight as the runners-up in our category is a huge achievement and one we will be very proud of.

"The work we undertook was very experimental and innovative and it is an honour to see it awarded at a European level. Our success at the European Enterprise Promotion Awards was a recognition not only of ourselves in Local Enterprise Office Laois but also for our colleagues in each of the Local Enterprise Offices throughout Ireland.

"To have a Local Enterprise Office recognised by the European Commission in this manner is a real endorsement of the quality of the work undertaken by all of our Local Enterprise Offices," she said.

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards recognise outstanding projects from across Europe which work to support entrepreneurs and small businesses in six different categories.

Each country in the European Union, as well as Turkey, Iceland and Serbia, can nominate a maximum of two projects to the European Enterprise Promotion Awards final.

The finals of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards are organised on an annual basis by the European Commission as the centrepiece of European SME Week.

The finals are traditionally held in the country which holds the Presidency of the European Council at that time, in this case Austria.
Kildare Town Community School is hosting a Focus on Apprenticeships, Further Training and local colleges tomorrow afternoon on Thursday November 22 from 2-4pm for senior cycle students and their parents.

Students will have the opportunity to speak with apprentice providers in a variety of career areas ranging from hospitality, construction, engineering, carpentry. Students can bring CVs to the event.

They will also be able to meet with representatives from professional bodies who are coordinating new apprentices in a variety of areas such as Insurance, Accountancy, Hospitality, Plastics, Automobile and many others. Horse Racing Ireland and RACE will also be in attendance.

Maynooth University, Trinity College, National College of Ireland, Carlow IT, Athlone IT, Waterford IT and our local Further education provider will provide information on the courses on offer there KWETB and DIT will give information on the apprenticeship programmes they coordinate. Bank of Ireland, Garda, Defence Forces, Pfizer, TEGRAL, ESB and many other companies will be available to speak with students and their parents.

Other local schools have been invited and parents and students are encouraged to avail of this opportunity to attend this information packed event.
Free parking over Christmas/New Year in Naas this year will be curtailed.

Only people who leave their vehicles in the council operated car parks will be able to do so for free - between December 17 and January 2.

These are located at Fairgreen, the former Hedermans site, Abbey Street and off Friary Road (Boyles).

Last year and in previous years there was free parking at all locations in Naas (apart from privately operated sites which charge fines of up to 120 and use clamps as a penalty) for the same period.

But this time anybody who parks on the street and anywhere else but the car parks will have to pay as usual - or run the risk of incurring a 40 ticket.

The restricted parking arrangements were agreed by councillors at a Naas Municipal District meeting yesterday.

But not before some difference of opinion emerged.

Cllr. Carmel Kelly said many traders were opposed to the suspension of the charge and she wanted to days with free parking Dec. 22 and Dec. 29.

Cllr. Darren Scully said the Naas traders are divided over what rules should apply at Christmas he also said free parking on Saturday would encourage people to leave their car in the town on Friday night and for most of Saturday.

Another councillor, Rob Power, said that there should be free parking between 11am and 3pm over the Christmas period. Cllr. Fintan Brett was against any relaxation of the rules.

Free parking means people park all day long and head to Dublin, he said.

The meeting was told that pay parking will not be suspended in Celbridge, Leixlip or Maynooth.
LifeStyle

The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand.
A LIMERICK man who pleaded guilty to threatening or abusive behaviour had his case adjourned to February at Newcastle West court.

Before the court was Frank Moloney, 8 Wallers Well, Janesboro who was found by gardai on a public roadway at Newborough, Patrickswell last October 15.

He was extremely drunk and a danger to himself and traffic, Inspector Alan Cullen told the court. Initially, the defendant did not cooperate with gardai and was arrested, after which his behaviour towards gardai softened.

Pleading for his client, solicitor Ted McCarthy said he had fought an alcohol addiction over many years.

He is doing his best to stay off alcohol, he said, adding that his client had gone for rehab and was attending AA.

He fell off the wagon basically, Mr McCarthy said.

He had come from Limerick to visit his girlfriend and initially resisted arrest.

But having been arrested he apologised, the solicitor said.

His client was now back on the wagon, he said.

Judge Mary Dorgan convicted Moloney as charged but adjourned the case to February 5 to see how he behaves.
FBI(LUMBERTON, N.C.) -- Authorities are asking North Carolina deer hunters for help in the ongoing, weeks-long search to find kidnapped 13-year-old Hania Noelia Aguilar.



Hania was kidnapped just before 7 a.m. local time on Nov. 5 outside her home at the Rosewood Mobile Home Park in Lumberton, a city in Robeson County, according to police.



She had grabbed her aunt's car keys that morning so she could turn on the vehicle before school. That's when a witness saw a man clad in all black with a yellow bandanna over his face approach the girl and force her into the green, 2003 Ford Expedition, police said.



The suspect then drove away in the family's SUV with Hania inside, police said. The stolen vehicle was located several miles away on Quincey Drive three days later, but Hania was nowhere to be found.



Investigators have been seeking surveillance footage from anyone who lives or owns a business on or near Quincey Drive. They have now expanded their plea to local hunters who have deer cameras in Robeson County and have any footage between Nov. 5 and 8.



"It is vitally important we find every piece of video that may help us determine the exact movements of the stolen SUV from Rosewood Mobile Home Park to Quincey Drive where it was found on November 8," FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch said in a statement Tuesday. "Let us determine whether or not the footage you have can provide us with any investigative clues."



Meanwhile, investigators are still trying to track down a man who was seen in surveillance footage walking in the neighborhood on the morning when Hania was abducted. The three videos, which the FBI released earlier this month, show the unidentified man wearing light-colored shoes, a light-colored shirt and a hoodie.



The man is not considered a suspect or person of interest at this time. Rather, he's someone authorities "want to speak with" because he may be able to help investigators narrow down a timeline of Hania's kidnapping, according to FBI supervisor Andy de la Rocha.



So far, investigators said there's no indication to believe Hania isn't alive.



The FBI, which last week named Hania's disappearance its "Most Wanted: Case of the Week," is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information on the case. The state of North Carolina is also offering a $5,000, bringing the total possible reward amount to $30,000.



Hania is described as a Hispanic girl who is 5 feet tall and weighs about 125 pounds, according to the FBI. She has black hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a blue shirt with flowers and blue jeans.



Authorities have set up a special tip line that anyone can call if they have information to help investigators find Hania: (910) 272-5871.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Interview Opportunity: Loving Refugees--Our Neighbors Honoring United Nation's Human Rights Day -- December 37, 2018; 9am3pm EST

Welcome Refugees Radio & Podcast Tour



"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." -- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights



Contact: Amylynn Warners, 800-679-1957, amylynn@revellbooks.com



BLOOMINGTON, Minn., Nov. 21, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Human Rights Day, December 10, 2018, marks the seventieth birthday of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.



The answer to humanity's question of chief peace and freedom comes from humankind itself. We must stand for equality, justice, and human dignity.



"Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me about Loving My Neighbor," a modern-day memoir that gives new meaning to the parable of the Good Samaritan, debuts at the height of an unresolved seven-year civil war in Syria and during an integral moment of American history in the making.



Just as the refugee stories in the books "Enrique's Journey" and "Where the Wind Leads" and in the film "The Good Lie" played an integral role in creating awareness for political and social reform in 2014, as the US dealt with an influx of refugees from Central America, this memoir shines a light on compassion and engages us in reflecting on America's rich history of providing refugees a hope-filled future in the land of the free and the home of the brave.



The uplifting story of the unlikely, unexpected friendship between two people who once stood at opposite ends of a cultural divide brings to life the socially just world we envision. These men, once strangers, give the essence of hope, home, and sanctuary new meaning, recapture the American dream . . . and inspire us to live it.



Throughout the week of December 3, Shawn Smucker will be available to speak with you and share his inspiring story of friendship that makes compassion a matter of eternal life and proves that one who shows mercy is one who proves to be a neighbor.



Shawn Smucker is author of Christianity Today's 2018 Fiction Book of the Year for Children and Youth, "The Day the Angels Fell," and its sequel, "The Edge of Over There." He lives with his family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Learn more at ShawnSmucker.com.



To book Shawn Smucker as your guest contact Amylynn Warners

(800) 679-1957 x394 or email her at amylynn@revellbooks.com



Questions and prep document to be provided for confirmed interviews


Market leader gives insights into the sweets category





PEOPLES expectations of desserts are continually being lifted. Consumers are now increasingly looking for more sophisticated and indulgent creations, writes Anand Surujpal, general manager of marketing and innovation at Patties Foods.

When choosing to indulge in desserts, consumers are looking for offers that are worth it, to justify the extra treat.

With changing family dynamics and lifestyles, Australians are having fewer sit down family meal times, which means fewer traditional dessert occasions.

This has meant that theres more opportunity for sweet consumption during the day and less reliance on an after-dinner sweet fix.

When entertaining, dessert is often a challenge to get right for guests, so Australians look for dinner party worthy solutions to make their life easier in the kitchen.

Whats working with Nannas (Patties Foods Ltd.)

Retailers are telling food makers to re-invigorate a category that hasnt been active in some time. Nannas Indulgent Collection Mini Cremes is Patties Foods response to these requests.

Based on consumer insights over the last 12 months, we have found that portioned, frozen sweets and desserts are providing the convenience and permissibility that consumers desire. Frozen products that are convenient to store, prepare and serve have been performing well due to the low-time commitment and ease of preparation.

Whats the next trend innovation?

Another insight that is important to Nannas right now is tapping into current flavour trends locally and globally and incorporating such influences into the supermarket freezer for consumers.

How Nannas Indulgent Collection Cremes deliver for the category

Nannas Indulgent Collection Mini Bites is filling a gap for people looking to indulge at home, including, the dinner party host, the romantics and the lover of desserts.

Nannas Indulgent Collection Mini Cremes are perfect bite size pieces, suitable for entertaining or a personal indulgence, easy to prepare and offer a range of flavours that provide variety and suit different tastes.

The premium range includes 16-packs of Strawberry Creme, Caramel Creme and Chocolate Creme. Each bite has a flaky pastry base topped with an indulgent creme with Belgian chocolate shavings on top.

Nannas Indulgent Collection Mini Bites rolled out in Woolworths & Independents retailers nationally in October.

Also in Australian Food News
THE LIMERICK father of Evanna Lynch has thanked supporters for helping her come so close to winning the high-profile Dancing with the Stars in America.

Donal, from Murroe, and wife Marguerite Lynch were in Los Angeles to see their actress daughter perform in the final and come third with Keo Motsepe.

Sincere thanks to the people of the Mid-West who responded to our request to help gather votes among their friends in America. While details of the popular vote are not revealed we understand that the decisive popular vote for the first three contesting couples was very close, down perhaps to one thousand votes between them.

For a relatively unknown non dancer to garner so many votes from the American public must surely be an indication of how the Irish in the US got behind Evanna and Keo, said Donal.

While delighted at the journey Evanna has danced through he says they were, of course, disappointed with the result on Monday night.

Especially as Evanna and Keo came out on top on the night with a perfect score of 60/60 from the three judges for their two dances. But, as they say, thats sport for you. She enjoyed every moment of the series, she amazed us and the judges from week to week with her dancing and she brought communities together in following and supporting her.

She promised to dance her heart out. That she did. In the words of one of my friends, when you leave it all on the pitch (stage) you can do no more. So, no tears and no regrets, said Donal.

Evannas Harry Potter cast colleagues had wished her well in advance of the final, as did Leona Lewis.
A STUDY carried out at the University of Limerick has shown that mental health care in the community reduces stigma.

The research has offered the first evidence that community-based mental health services have a positive impact on local attitudes to mental health.

An article in this months Journal of Mental Health, based on studies of two Pieta House centres, shows that where services are delivered within the community rather than in an institutional setting, the stigma of mental health in that community is reduced.

This work is amongst the first to offer evidence in support of the World Health Organisations recommendation that community-based services are more effective and lessen social exclusion of those affected by mental ill-health, says Dr Michelle Kearns, lead author of the study.

A community-based approach can be viewed as a welcome addition to hospital-based alternatives. Not only do such services have the benefits of accessibility and allow for treatment in a familiar environment, they also appear to impact the stigma of help-seeking and mental health issues, she stated.

The research, titled The Impact of Community-based Mental Health Service Provision on Stigma and Attitudes Towards Professional Help-seeking was conducted in collaboration with Pieta House mental health services, an advocate and practitioner of community-based mental healthcare.

The group supports movement away from traditional, hospital-based treatment models towards integrated, community-based services that are accessed on an outpatient basis.

This new model of healthcare was speculated to lessen the stigma around mental ill-health and help-seeking, as it provides distance from the stereotyped, historical, insane asylum rhetoric, said Dr Kearns.

Until now, however, there was little or no evidence available to support such claims.

At UL Dr Kearns, who is now based in UCD, examined the impact of Pieta House Suicide Prevention Centres opening in two towns in Ireland.

It was found that, amongst local residents, mental health-related stigma was significantly lower and attitudes towards seeking professional help significantly more positive after Pieta Houses community-based mental health services had been introduced in each locality.

This suggests that the presence of local, community-based services can serve to reduce the stigma surrounding mental ill-health and positively impact help-seeking by initiating a normalising effect.

Co-author Professor Orla Muldoon said that local, community-based, accessible services such as Pieta House thus play an important role in facilitating help-seeking behaviour and the uptake of mental health support services, as this research suggests that their reach extends beyond the direct therapeutic effect of those receiving individual counselling, by positively impacting attitudes and stigma towards mental ill-health amongst those residing in the surrounding area.

Brian Higgins, CEO of Pieta House, said: Pieta House would like to sincerely thank Dr Michelle Kearns and Professor Orla Muldoon on the in-depth research carried out which studied the impact at local level of the establishment of a Pieta House centre in an area.

The findings highlight that the presence of Pieta House, accessible mental health services in two localities have a positive impact on people seeking help by reducing the mental health stigma, changing norms and attitudes towards seeking professional help.

Our vision at Pieta House is a world where suicide, self-harm, and stigma have been replaced by hope, self-care, and acceptance. Stigma is frequently what brings people to the doors of Pieta House, often adding to stresses on youth and adult mental health. Thank you to the Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme for the funding to facilitate the publication, Mr Higgins added.
GARDAI in Limerick are appealing to motorists to ensure their vehicles are locked when parked.

It follows a number of break-ins to vehicles over the past week.

In one incident, a homeowner was alerted to a male who was getting into her car at 3am.

She shouted at him and he ran off but he took her drivers licence and public services card with him. These cards take time and effort to replace and its very annoying for the lady but if the car had been locked this would not have happened, said Sergeant Ber Leetch.

In another incident, a consaw was stolen from the back of a van which was not locked by the owner who was carrying out a job inside the property.

Park your vehicle in a well lit up place and make sure that the vehicle is locked before you leave it, added Sgt Leetch.
Nov 27, 2018, 5 PM

An artists rendition of the planned National Airmail Museum in Fort Wayne, Ind. Image, by Tessellate Studio, courtesy of National Airmail Museum at www.nationalairmailmuseum.org.

By Michael Baadke

The airmail hangar at Smith Field in Fort Wayne, Ind., has been designated as the future site of the National Airmail Museum. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, signed into law on Oct. 5 by President Donald J. Trump, includes a provision to officially establish the Fort Wayne site as the nations new museum dedicated to the history of airmail.

The museum at Smith Fields Hangar 2 will be funded by private donations, not by tax dollars. A 2017 report suggested the museum project would cost about $2.5 million.

The affirmation of the museum site follows efforts by U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) to secure the National Airmail Museum designation and to highlight the hangars role in airmail history.

Todays vote to pass this FAA reauthorization benefits Hoosiers, and the safety and security of Indianas airports, Young said. Im glad my bipartisan legislation to designate a national airmail museum in Fort Wayne was included in this authorization, and I look forward to seeing this project move forward.

Banks said: Im pleased that the House and Senate reached a deal on a final FAA package that includes my language to recognize the hangar at Smith Field. The hangar at Smith Field is the perfect structure for a National Airmail Museum. The Friends of Smith Field have worked tirelessly to make this museum a reality, and I am proud to support this initiative.

Section 526 of the bill presented to the president notes that commercial airmail carriers began operations at Smith Field in 1930.

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The museum will educate the public on the role of airmail in aviation history and honor the role of the hangar in the history of the nations airmail service, according to the wording of the bill, which also notes that the museum will not be a unit of the National Park System.

The National Airmail Museum will be a place for the community to come together and celebrate the storied history of Fort Wayne and the citys role in aviation history and the development of the National Airmail Service, according to information at its website.

Plans call for the museum to feature interactive hands-on exhibits and artifacts, and also to serve as headquarters for Chapter 2 of the Experimental Aircraft Association. A gift shop and dining area are also planned.

Visitors will be transported back to a time when Fort Wayne played an essential role in the development of the Airmail Service and supported the efforts of WWII, the museum notes.

Local aviation pioneers Art Smith and Paul Baer flew through Smith Field, according to the museum, as did such nationally known peers as Charles Lindbergh, World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker, Billy Mitchell and Douglas Wrong Way Corrigan.
Nov 27, 2018, 4 PM

This cover, mailed in late 1967 to pay a magazine subscription, is currently the only known commercial cover bearing a "Look" magazine coil stamp that was not used for a "Look" magazine mailing.

By Jay Bigalke

The Dec. 10 issue of Linns Stamp News just landed on the presses and goes in the mail to subscribers Monday, Nov. 26. And if you subscribe to Linns digital edition, youre at the head of the line with early access Saturday, Nov. 24. Here are three stories you'll want to check out.

Look: a 1967 cover with a special glowing stamp

The holy grail for those who collect the United States Liberty series of 1954-80 is the so-called Look coil on cover; that is, the phosphor-tagged version of the 3 Statue of Liberty coil stamp inadvertently created by the U.S. Post Office Department for a Look magazine mailing. The Odd Lot columnist Wayne L. Youngblood explores the subject.

Canada Wildlife series stamp found in mixture

In the Kitchen Table Philately column in each issue of Linns, E. Rawolik VI or E. Rawolik VII analyzes the content of stamp mixtures offered to collectors. This week, E. Rawolik VI reviews a Clearing house mixture and reports that the mixture brought winning results and included a surprise high-denomination Canadian stamp. E. Rawolik, of course, is a pseudonym that is kiloware (a stamp mixture) spelled backward.

Calculations from decades ago make it possible to better understand the use of business reply mail

Examples showing the return of business reply mail (often abbreviated as BRM) are quite common. However, examples where there is documentation on the return envelope or form, such that one can discern exactly what types of items were returned, are rarely seen. Modern U.S. Mail columnist Tony Wawrukiewicz discusses this subject in the Dec. 10 issue.

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Exemplary: ALDI cheered for paid leave provision for domestic violence victims





ALDI employees will have access each year to ten days of paid family and domestic violence leave as the retailer takes a stand to help drive societal change to prevent violence against women.

To the end of October this year, violence against women had claimed 58 lives, 11 of them in October alone. More women have already been murdered this year than in all of 2017, according to Our Watch and Counting Dead Women Australias researchers.

The Fair Work Commission in March this year granted workers covered by Awards five days of unpaid Domestic Violence leave.

After the commissions decision, ALDI Australia reviewed its leave policies and introduce a new domestic violence policy for employees that goes beyond the Fair Work Commissions provisions.

We want to ensure that any ALDI employee who may be experiencing domestic violence has our full support, the company says.

The recently introduced ALDI Family and Domestic Violence Policy outlines a number of measures designed to offer practical assistance to any employee in need. These include:

Ten days of paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave annually for full-time and part-time employees (in addition to annual leave, sick/personal leave and compassionate leave entitlements). Casual employees may take 10 days of unpaid leave;

A one-off payment of $250 for incidental expenses associated with Family and Domestic Violence;

Assistance in accessing various support services, including access to our specially trained Family and Domestic Violence Supporters;

Assistance in changing work location if requested and where possible; and

Access to other leave entitlements such as annual leave, personal/carers leave, long service leave, other accrued time or leave without pay in accordance with policies ALDI Australia managing director Viktor Jakupec said today the companys goal is to provide a supportive workplace promoting respect and the prevention of all forms of violence.

Also in Australian Food News

Karen Willis, executive officer, Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia says ALDI is taking a very important leadership role by supporting employees experiencing family or domestic violence.

Through their policy, ALDI are making a strong statement that they are here to help any employee experiencing this terrible crime, Ms Willis said.

The options available as part of this policy are exemplary, assisting employees to access relevant support as they need it.

ALDI is an Employer of Choice, proud to be taking a stance on this important topic by providing our workforce of 12,000 employees access to this policy, the company says.

Working conditions at ALDI are considered to be some of the best in the industry with employee benefits including salaries well above market rates, comprehensive training, an employee wellness program, and paid maternity leave, the company says.
Is being a takeover target next for Nexba?



Nexba founders Drew Bilbe and Troy Douglas

SURGING to scale-up from start-up, Australian drink maker Nexba is open to a distribution deal with one of the worlds beverage giants.

The no-sugar, nothing artificial soft drink maker booked a 156 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue in FY17/18, banking $10 million in gross sales the same year.

The busy bee has launched three new ranges in Australia in the past eight weeks  tonic water, kombucha, and probiotic water  at the time its sparkling water arrived on Sainsburys shelves in the UK.

Speaking to Australian Food News before travelling to London to scope a local manufacturer, Nexba co-founder and CEO Troy Douglas said the company was totally open to a collaboration with a multi-national company for distribution.

He was answering a question about Nexba presenting now as a takeover target for the likes of Coke or Pepsi.

MORE: How Nexba Beverages turned iced tea into a war on obesity

Also in Australian Food News

Nexba from Australia sent Sainsburys 20 large shipping containers full of sparkling water flavours  watermelon, cucumber and mint, lemon and lime, and coconut and mango.

Mr Douglas will in the UK also be pressing home his products advantages as the one-litre sparkling water units hopefully charge through the checkouts of more than 500 Sainsburys stores.

If things go well, Nexbas full range including its Naturally Sugar Free soft drinks, the tonic waters, kombucha and probiotics could be on offer in the UK next year.

Sugar is seen as the new tobacco

The company is riding the anti-sugar wave, and consciousness about obesity and diabetes, catching the trend at a critical moment with a soft drink claiming the taste and mouthfeel of a sugary drink but without sugar or artificial ingredients.

Mr Douglas is forward in claiming a virtue for the company playing a part in tackling diabetes and obesity, and leads his pitch saying sugar is seen as the new tobacco, equating the health impact of sugary drinks to cigarettes.

Though at the same time the company trumpets concern for health and signals its virtue in fighting the scourge of sugar it commercially guards its proprietary Naturally Sweetener blend, its patented secret sugar-free, nothing artificial formula.

Mr Douglas said the UK soft drink levy, introduced in April this year, had already seen a rise in artificial substitutes as brands seek quick fixes to maintain sweetness.

We believe all brands and food and beverage categories that are high sugar should seek to have Naturally Sugar Free alternatives that dont compromise on taste and do not use artificial ingredients, he said.

Now a household name at Coles and Woolworths Australia, as well as a range of other retail outlets, Nexbas financial success and commitment to healthier living appealed to Sainsburys Future Brands initiative, which works with innovative, small suppliers to make distinct products available to their consumers at scale.

Sainsburys Head of Future Brands Rachel Eyre said Nexba was a natural fit for the dedicated, Future Brands team.

Nexba is a distinctive brand with an innovative, great-tasting product for our consumers who are concerned about their sugar intake. Nexba provides another step towards making Sainsburys a home for truly unique brands, said Ms Eyre.

Nexbas ambitious growth and innovation agenda has already seen them expand beyond soft drinks to a flavoured sparkling water range and more recently a selection of tonics, kombuchas and other functional beverages have hit Australian supermarket shelves.
It's happening again: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning Americans to avoid romaine lettuce.

In a fresh statement posted online today (Nov. 20), the agency announced that officials are "investigating a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce." In other words, E. coli-tainted lettuce is here again.

So far, 32 cases have been reported in 11 states. In addition, 18 cases linked to the same outbreak have been reported in two Canadian provinces. Consumers are being advised to "not eat any romaine lettuce, and retailers and restaurants [should] not sell or serve any" until the CDC learns more about the outbreak.

If you have any romaine in your home, you should throw it away, even if some of it was already eaten and you did not get sick, the CDC says. The advisory applies to all types of romaine lettuce, including "whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of pre-cut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix and Caesar salad," the CDC says. If you don't know if lettuce is romaine, don't eat it.

Last spring, an E. coli outbreak in romaine lettuce killed five people and sickened more than 200 people in 36 states. The outbreak was first reported in March, and the CDC didn't declare the lettuce safe to eat until mid-May. In that outbreak, the source was traced to a contaminated irrigation canal in Yuma, Arizona.

Originally published on Live Science.
This ochre painting of an aurochs (an extinct species of large cattle) was painted above El Miron Cave, in Spain, about 35,000 to 24,000 years ago.

Artists have been painting with ochre, a naturally occurring pigment, for hundreds of thousands of years. Their masterpieces range from prehistoric, ochre-pigmented images on cave walls to paintings on canvasses and other artwork from medieval times and onward.

Ochre (pronounced OAK-er) is clay pigmented by hematite, a reddish mineral that contains oxidized iron, which is iron that's been mixed with oxygen, said Paul Pettitt, a professor of paleolithic archaeology at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

Because ochre is a mineral, it doesn't wash away or decay, allowing it to persist through the ages. "Its vibrant color and ability to adhere to surfaces  including the human body  make it an ideal crayon or paint base," said April Nowell, a paleolithic archaeologist and professor and chair at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada. [The Color of Blood: Here Are Nature's Reddest Reds (Photos)]

Where it's found

Ochre occurs naturally in rocks and soil  essentially in any environment where iron minerals have pooled and formed, Pettitt said. "It can be found in valley edges, eroding out of cliffs [or even] in caves eroding out of the bedrock," Pettitt told Live Science. In its more eroded form, ochre can be found in certain soils and then sieved out.

"It's actually very easy to obtain," Pettitt said. "Anybody who is using caves or operating in and around valleys will quite easily discover ochre."

People who pick up ochre will notice that it stains their hands a "nice red or yellow color," Pettitt noted. Once collected, ochre can easily be grated against a coarse piece of stone or ground by a mortar and pestle and then turned into a powder. Then, this powder can be mixed with a liquid, such as water, saliva or egg whites, and turned into pigmented paint.

Ochre can also be used as a crayon. "It is very pliable," Pettitt said. "You can break it into small lumps."

Ground ochre (Image credit: April Nowell)

History

The earliest evidence of ancient humans using ochre dates to the Paleolithic, about 285,000 years ago, at a Homo erectus site called GnJh-03 in Kenya. There, archaeologists found about 70 pieces of ochre weighing about 11 lbs. (5 kilograms).

However, more convincing evidence dates to about 250,000 years ago at the early Neanderthal site of Maastricht-Belvedere in the Netherlands, Pettitt said. During the 1980s, archaeologists in the Netherlands excavated small concentrates of the reddish mineral, according to a 2012 study in the journal PNAS. The Neanderthals may have powdered the ochre and mixed it with water so that they could paint their skin or clothing, Pettitt said.

Archaeologists have found a number of other Neanderthal ochre paintings in caves. These include linear fingerprint patterns in La Pasiega, in northern Spain; a hand stencil in Maltravieso, in west-central Spain; and red-painted stalactites that were originally sparkling white in Ardales, in northern Spain  all of which date to at least 64,000 years ago, according to a 2018 study in the journal Science. However, the dating of the ancient ochre in Spain may not be accurate, said Lawrence Straus, a distinguished professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. And while it's possible that Neanderthals used ochre to make lines and dots  that is, non-representational paintings  it's debatable whether they actually made complex cave paintings, such as illustrations of animals or human figures, Straus said.

Early Homo sapiens also illustrated with ochre. At Blombos Cave, in South Africa, archaeologists found an abalone shell containing finely ground ochre, charcoal and fat that may have made up a painting kit dating to about 100,000 years ago, Nowell said. The earliest human-made drawing is a red hashtag on small rock flake that dates to about 73,000 years ago, also at Blombos Cave.

Meanwhile, the oldest drawing is an image of a cow-like beast created with ochre on a cave wall in Borneo, Indonesia, dating to about 40,000 years ago. [Photos: Oldest Known Drawing Was Made with a Red Crayon]

After the time of these early sites, ochre paintings became more widespread, reaching Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Russia and Australia. When people crossed over the Bering Strait land bridge from Siberia and East Asia to the Americas, those people also used ochre, as evidenced by a burial covered in ochre in Alaska dating to about 11,500 years ago.

It's relatively common to find ochre-covered burials. It's likely that ochre colored the deceased's clothing, but as the clothing decayed, the ochre stained the grave and bones red, Pettitt said. One of these graves includes the famous Red Lady of Paviland in South Wales, in the United Kingdom, which is actually the burial of a young man who lived during the Paleolithic about 33,000 years ago. But when the burial was found in 1823, archaeologists thought that the stained-red grave must contain the remains of some sort of indecent, scarlet woman, Pettitt said.

Ochre continued to be used as a pigment throughout antiquity and was even used by artists in medieval times and the Renaissance, as well as in modern times, Pettitt said.

Prehistoric people created this ochre fingerprint artwork in Chufin, a cave in western Cantabria, Spain, about 24,000 to 20,000 years ago. (Image credit: Copyright Lawrence Guy Straus)

Uses and symbols

As a bright red pigment, it's possible that ancient people saw ochre as a symbol of life, in part because it is the color of blood, especially deep-red menstrual blood. "Some societies quite commonly associate the color red, and therefore ochre, with creation, life and fertility," Pettitt said. (However, not everyone agrees. See more below.)

Moreover, red is a striking color that's easy to see, especially in the low-light setting of a cave, Pettitt said.

Other than serving as paint, ochre had plenty of uses. People used it to tan hides, as mosquito repellent, for protection against the sun or cold, for medicinal purposes, for use in the extraction or processing of plants, and as an adhesive, such as attaching handles to stone tools, Nowell told Live Science in an email.

In art, "there is evidence that early peoples preferred certain colors," Nowell said.

For example, at the site of Qafzeh in Israel, archaeologists have found 84 lumps of ochre on layers dating between 100,000 and 90,000 years ago. About 95 percent of those lumps are red, even though yellow and brown ochre were also found in the area, she said. There's also evidence that ancient people heated ochre to turn it red. This may mean that early humans had a basic understanding of ochre's chemical properties, according to research by Francesco d'Errico, a professor of archaeology at the University of Bordeaux in France, Nowell said. [Photos: 2 Paleolithic Boys Were Buried with Fox Teeth and Spears]

In addition, about 266,000 years ago, early hominins at a site called Twin Rivers in Zambia collected a type of hematite that has reflective metallic flakes in it, which make it glitter.

With those finds taken together, "to me, it is very possible that, initially, ochre was used for some mundane purpose, but over time, it took on a symbolic dimension," Nowell said. "I think the evidence for heat treating and preferential color selection and the addition of 'glitter' to some of their pigment paints, as well as the inclusion of vast amounts of ochre in burials (at some times and places) suggests to me that ochre's vibrant color(s) had a visual salience for Upper Paleolithic peoples."

It's hard to say if ochre symbolized menstruation, because there is no evidence for that, she said

"What we can say, following colleagues like Steve Kuhn [a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona], is that it is likely that ochre was a simple way of marking a body (living or dead) and that information about group membership or status or any number of other variables could be communicated easily and cheaply," Nowell said. "The fact that ochre stains easily and lasts for a very long time (and mixes well into paint) likely are other reasons why it was used a lot."

Additional resources:

Read more about ochre's use through history at ThoughtCo.

Get the definition of ochre at Encyclopedia Britannica.

Learn more about prehistoric pigments at the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Originally published on Live Science.
As California's Camp Fire continues to burn and the smoke spreads across a large swath of the U.S., experts say that the biggest health danger from the smoke comes from the particulate matter that it contains.

Indeed, in terms of harm to human health, "the principal exposure from wildfire smoke is from the particulates," Dr. Jacqueline Moline, who specializes in occupational and environmental medicine at Northwell Health in New York, told Live Science.

Most of those health problems occur because the smoke from wildfires contains particles that are sometimes called "PM2.5," meaning particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrometers in size. (For comparison, the average human hair is 70 micrometers in diameter.) [In Photos: Devastating Wildfires in California]

People who are exposed to wildfire smoke may develop a number of symptoms, including headaches; eye irritation; and irritation of the linings of their nasal passages, sinuses, throat and bronchi, said Moline, whose research has focused on the effects of toxins on health. When people are exposed to the particulates in the smoke, they cough, produce more mucus and experience nasal congestion.

And those are just the problems that otherwise-healthy people experience when they're exposed to this smoke. People who already have health problems can face other issues.

For example, there is clear evidence that wildfire smoke leads to a worsening of asthma and other chronic obstructive lung diseases, said Colleen Reid, an environmental health sciences researcher and assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Studies show that people with these conditions are more likely to need to go to the emergency room or to use more of their prescription medicines when wildfire smoke is in the air, she said.

In addition, there is some evidence that people living in regions where fires tend to occur are more likely to die on days when there is smoke in the air than on other days, according to a 2016 study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that Reid led. But the researchers noted that more studies are needed to confirm this finding.

Some studies suggest that in addition to breathing problems, exposure to wildfire smoke may worsen cardiovascular or heart problems, Reid said.

But much of the research done to date has been on fires that occurred more distantly in the past. The fires that are currently burning and other fires in recent years have exposed people to much higher levels of smoke than typical fires that occurred longer ago, Reid said. For example, last year's Mendocino Fire, which raged for six weeks and burned 460,000 acres, and this year's Camp Fire have both had much higher impacts on the air quality in high-population areas than typical California fires in the past, Reid said. "It could be that once we look at the health effects of these fires, we may see they were worse, but we're not sure yet."

What is clear is that the level of particulate matter in the air during fires can be many times higher than the levels caused by other factors.

The problem with particulate matter

When the air quality is good, the small particulate matter levels are usually around 10 to 15 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m^3), Reid told Live Science. When a meteorological "inversion" occurs, meaning warmer air that is usually high in the atmosphere moves closer to the ground where it traps air pollution, levels can rise to so that air quality exceeds the Environmental Protection Agency standard for PM2.5 of 35 ug/m^3. But wildfires can send levels above 200 ug/m^3. [8 Ways Air Pollution Can Harm Your Health]

"Those are really high levels," Reid said. "When you see the smoke and you can't see the horizon  that's a problem for health."

What's more, the chemicals that make up the particulate matter in wildfire smoke are often unknown.

Smoke from wildfires is typically a mixture of gases and particles from burning trees and other plant materials, said Dr. Antonio Rodriguez, director of the division of pulmonology at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami. But if a fire involves other materials, like those found in a house, toxic gases and vapors can be released. These compounds can remain on the surface of the particles and be carried into the lungs. Such compounds can be very harmful and may injure the lungs, causing cellular damage and fluid buildup in the areas around the lung tissues.

When smoke enters the lungs, it triggers a defense mechanism that involves the release of chemicals called cytokines, which induce inflammation, Moline said. This inflammation may start small, in cells that line the lungs, but it can lead to a body-wide inflammatory response. People may then develop an increased susceptibility to infections, and individuals with allergies may have worsened allergic reactions.

Rodriguez also noted that small particulate matter is not only able to enter the lungs and cause significant respiratory symptoms, but is also small enough to pass through the lung tissue and enter the bloodstream.

Rodriguez, who has treated many children exposed to smoke produced by wildfires in the Everglades in Florida, said that young children, older adults and pregnant women may be particularly affected. Smoke causes kids to have itchy eyes, sore throats, headaches and occasionally even nausea, he said.

People who live far from the current fires, however, are unlikely to have negative health effects from the blazes, Reid said. The levels of particulate matter are usually not high enough to cause health problems in places that are distant from the fires, she said.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 1:20 p.m. ET to correct the abbreviation for micrograms per cubic meter, as well as clarify a quote from Colleen Reid about the effects of a meteorological "inversion" on air quality.

Original article on Live Science.
Milton Tadeau Pimenta is currently head of contract logistics in South America for the company

CEVA Logistics has promoted Milton Tadeau Pimenta to the role of managing director of its Australia & New Zealand cluster. Currently head of contract logistics in South America for the company, he will take up his position in January 2019, reporting directly to CEO Xavier Urbain.

He takes over from Carlos Velez Rodriguez who is leaving CEVA to pursue other career opportunities but who will work with Pimenta to ensure a smooth handover.

Pimenta joined CEVA 17 years ago and is a results-driven, performance-focused team leader with a wealth of experience across both Freight Management and Contract Logistics, CEVA said. He has previously lived in both Australia and Asia and has extensive knowledge of the industry there.

Speaking about Pimentas promotion to his new role, Xavier Urbain said: Milton is a very astute operator with an energetic, commercial mind. He is a true team motivator who is ideally placed to lead the Australia & New Zealand cluster in the next step of its development.

I also want to thank Carlos for his valuable contribution in the turnaround of the business there and for developing one of the most impressive Contract Logistics campuses we have in the CEVA world.
New York-based Quick International Courier specialises in solutions to the aviation and pharma and healthcare industries, generating US$200m annually

International freight forwarding and logistics group Kuehne + Nagel (KN) today announced its acquisition of Quick International Courier, a global market leader in time-critical shipments for the aviation and pharma and healthcare industries, generating more than US$200 million annually.

The company highlighted the significant global expansion potential in the high-growth segments of aviation and pharma and healthcare logistics, and the addition of the company enhancing the groups global customer solutions portfolio.

Founded in 1981 and headquartered close to JFK Airport in Jamaica, New York, Quick has about 550 employees specialised in Next Flight Out and Next Drive Out shipments, among others. These shipments are usually urgent in nature and often global, complex and logistics-intense with a high cost of failure while operated with strictly defined protocols and control points from order to delivery, KN said, noting that Quick deploys different key regional support centres and control towers all over the world.

Quick consists of Sterling Aviation, QuickSTAT, Quick Healthcare and Quick Logistics, which will continue to operate as independent product brands, providing tailor-made solutions to the aviation and pharma and healthcare sectors.

Air freight director Yngve Ruud commented: This acquisition is an important milestone in the implementation of our solutions strategy and a confirmation of our leading position in air freight. With its unique expertise in time-critical shipments in the fields of aviation and pharma and healthcare  both key strategic focus and investment areas for Kuehne + Nagel  the company perfectly complements our existing global portfolio.

Our customers will benefit from a much greater scope of services and capability for time-critical shipments, while Quicks customers will get access to Kuehne + Nagels global network across more than 100 countries.

CEO Detlef Trefzger commented: Kuehne + Nagels M&A strategy is focused on expanding our footprint, creating synergies and acquiring know how. The acquisition of Quick is another accelerator to drive network growth and to enhance our global customer solutions portfolio.

Dominique Bischoff-Brown, CEO of Quick International Courier, said: We are looking forward to become part of the Kuehne + Nagel Group. Joining forces with one of the leading logistics providers offers us new growth perspectives within a worldwide operating network.

Both parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and to clearance by the competent merger control authorities.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews restored power to 29,900 customers in San Francisco and Concord early Wednesday afternoon after a storm-related blackout hit swaths of the city, Peninsula and East Bay, company officials said.

Blackouts continued to pepper the utility companys outage map at 1:30 p.m., showing outages in Oakland, San Leandro, San Mateo and Union City.

In San Francisco, customers in the Mission District first lost electricity around 9:55 a.m. and a second wave of customers lost power around 10:41 a.m, according to PG&Es outage map. Power was restored by 1 p.m, said PG&E spokeswoman Andrea Menniti.

Mission resident Britta Gustafson tweeted photos of a downed power line near 23rd and Alabama streets, where caution tape barricaded people from entering the area.

Gustafson said she heard a low boom and creaking just as her home lost power, prompting her to rush out to the sidewalk to see what the workers were doing.

(It) looked like they were nailing insulators to the plank to set it up with the lines, she said.

Around Concord and Walnut Creek, an hour-and-a-half-long blackout affected 19,000 customers, according to PG&E officials.

As of 1 p.m., there were still 10,135 customers without power throughout the Bay.

PG&E officials do not know what caused the outages but suggested the rain may have impacted service.

These wet and windy conditions might cause trees, limbs and other debris to fall into power lines, damage equipment and interrupt electric service, Menniti said.

PG&E crews were also working in Union City, where 1,331 customers were affected Wednesday morning, officials said.

Around 12:34 p.m., outages blanketed Oaklands Fruitvale and Dimond neighborhoods, where officials said there is no current estimate for when power will be restored. PG&E reported at 1:30 p.m. that 1,879 customers in downtown San Mateo had also lost electricity.

A blackout also hit 1,242 customers in San Leandro, where repair crews headed out to fix damaged equipment on a power pole, according to a map provided by the utility.

Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
Dozens of performers have attempted takes on Queens Bohemian Rhapsody. Among the more creative is a recent release by Metalachi, a mariachi band that performs metal music. Next week, that band is headed to New Braunfels.

Self-described as the worlds first and only heavy metal mariachi band, Metalachi consists of five musicians typically donning heavy metal attire with black sombreros atop their heads and traditional mariachi instruments in their hands.

Their song choices are not limited just to Queen, but also include hits like Sweet Child O Mine (originally by Guns N Roses) and Here I Go Again (Whitesnake).

RELATED: Photos: Two Tons of Steel's unique rockabilly, Texas country blend had Gruene Hall dancing

The bands five performers call themselves El Cucuy, Vega De LaRockha, Kiko cane, Paco Halen and Queen Kyla Vera. Their mythological-esq Facebook bio details the bands journey from Veracruz, Mexico, to the U.S., where the band discovered the album Paranoid by Black Sabbath.

Metalachis New Braunfels performance is scheduled to take place Nov. 30 at 8 p.m. at the River Road Ice House. It is part of a tour that will spend two weeks in Texas, stopping in nine Texas cities including Corpus Christi, Austin and Houston.

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.net | @smchavey
Last year when Agricole Hospitality announced a trio of interconnected projects in EaDo, the restaurant Indianola sounded tailor made for Houston. Named for a Matagorda Bay town that was once a Texas port of entry, Indianola was billed as a celebration of American dishes born from the immigrant experience that began in port cities across the country. Houston, a city rich in immigrant cultures, would be the perfect home for a restaurant whose menu would be fluent in the region's culinary Esperanto.

Indianola is now open  a stark, minimalist room where the food provides vibrant flavor and color swatches and each dish functions as a narrative thread for Houston's rich foodie fabric. Indianola, however, is much less a civics lesson and more an invitation for the culinary team (executive chef Paul Lewis working with Agricole partners Ryan Pera, Morgan Weber and Vincent Huynh) to interpret immigrant-inspired food at will. And without elaborate justification.

Nothing wrong with that. In fact, Indianola's backstory might not matter at all to the curious early birds who always seem to get to the new restaurants before they even open. Now that all three of Agricole's concepts are ready for consumption  including the sunny Vinny's pizza shop and the charmingly quixotic Miss Carousel bar  the adjacencies provide a one-stop night on the town in EaDo.

TRIPLE THREAT: What to know about each of Agricole Hospitality's EaDo concepts

So, what's on the menu? It begins with snacks: a house-made sourdough with cultured butter and sea salt; butter mean hummus topped with French feta, hazelnut dukkah served with Ritz crackers; deviled ham dip with bread and butter pickles; crab imperial with Chesapeake Bay seasoning and crackers; and warm brie en croute and a salad of frisee, bacon, sunflower seeds and champagne vinaigrette.

Small plates: Shrimp and crab cocktail with avocado; crispy duck wings with Fresno chile and herbs; slow-cooked pork ribs; mushroom toast with goat ricotta; and a salad of hoja santa-wrapped goat cheese with Persian cucumbers, radish and green chile agua fresca.

Main dishes include a wood-grilled half chicken served with Spanish rice; wood-grilled cauliflower flavored with za'atar and served with house-made yogurt and green chutney; ricotta gnudi in roasted vegetable broth; wood-grilled pork steak with quick-braised coconut collard greens; pan-roasted lamb loin with English pea puree and gnocchi; and a Texas Wagyu burger on a cheddar-jalapeno bun topped with provolone, charred tomato relish, pickles, lettuce, onion and served with sour cream and onion potatoes. For big meat lovers there's a wood-grilled steak with green tomatillo escabeche and corn puree, and an enormous bone-in wagyu ribeye that is coal roasted and served with chimichurri sauce. It weighs about 60 ounces and will set you back $155.

Lewis explained how the rainbow trout entree  a dish that might call to mind hotel lodges or old school rail dining car fare  went through a variety of preparations before it emerged with Latin flavors. Originally the fish was meant to be served grilled whole then it became a butterflied fillet that was pan seared. A classic soubise (French onion sauce) morphed into a colorful Latin salsa of tomatoes, onion, garlic and Mexican oregano cooked low and slow with achiote. Fresh cilantro and lime enliven the plate. A continental dish told its own story as a uniquely Houston plate.

Lewis said all the culinary principals brought their own immigrant backgrounds to the table when conceptualizing the Indianola dishes that reflect a modern, culture-rich city. "It's truly about the people who are in this company and bring the flavors of where they come from," he said.

"Houston is a great example of a cosmopolitan city creating a diverse cuisine."

Pastry chef Natasha Douglas, drawing from her years of travel and living in Spain, Vietnam and Mexico, created the dessert menu that includes dark chocolate semifreddo flavored with Chinese five spice, hazelnut, anise and espresso; Basque cheesecake made with Idiazabel cheese, quince paste and walnuts served with a caramel sauce; and a passion fruit and white miso pot de creme with candied shiso gelato.

Indianola's wine list offers up many glasses from a bottle collection of mostly North American wines. Fancy a cocktail? They come from next door's Miss Carousel bar where the cocktail menu is organized in a unique fashion: "Sours," "Collins, swizzles and highballs," "juleps, cobblers and fixes," "refreshing, bitter Italian," "spiritous, bitter Italian," "spiritous" and "extremely interesting non-conformists." The house's Miss Carousel Cocktail (which falls into "refreshing, bitter Italian" mode) features Wild Turkey rye, overproof cognac and amaro with a pistachio orgeat, lemon, orange flower water and egg white. Feeling a bit non-conformist this day, we sampled Red-Eye to San Cristobal made with rum, cognac, Benedictine, amontillado sherry, sweet vermouth, black garlic and grapefruit oil. Some of the cocktails (Negroni, Old Fashioned, Margarita, Moscow Mule and juleps) have been completely rethought and re-engineered in thrilling new forms.

It's hard to say who is the star of Agricole's three-ring extravaganza. Vinny's has solid buzz for its giant pizzas and hefty slices; Miss Carousel is where the most ardent cocktailians are going for a spin and reaching for the golden ring; and Indianola has foodies aflutter.

For Lewis, it's a great time to be a chef associated with an important restaurant brand that has built a serious fan base.

"Agricole built up a great following. There's a lot of loyalty from customers," he said. "We put a lot of effort into three unique concepts. There's so much energy from staff, management and our own customers. It's fun to come into work every day. It's great to see a dining room full of people having a good time."

Indianola, 1201 St. Emanuel, 832-582-7202; agricolehospitality.com/Indianola

Greg Morago writes about food for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Send him news tips at greg.morago@chron.com. Hear him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to learn about Houston and Texas barbecue culture.
Laredo officials are excited and encouraged by news of an investor for the former Mercy Hospital property, which has sat empty, blighting the Heights area for almost two decades.

A non-binding memorandum of understanding was signed in Houston on Sunday by the new investor, Long Gao, and the hospital's property owner, Laredo Lomas Properties Ltd.

The memorandum states that both parties will work together to build the World Free Trade Plaza in Laredo, a total investment of $50 million. Gao will finance the capital project and plan the commercial layout, according to the document, provided by Andrew Carranco, son of the property owner.

"Both parties agree that a principal goal of this project will be to provide a platform to revolutionize Laredo's economy by providing the opportunity for Laredo's trade to expand to a worldwide platform," the memorandum reads.

READ ALSO: Operator needed for historic Plaza Theater after unanimous vote by Laredo City Council

Foreign trade goods will be showcased at the World Free Trade Plaza, such as food, electronics, construction materials, clothes and textiles. It will essentially be a commercial trade mall, with offices, a hotel, a conference center, bars and restaurants, according to the MOU.

Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz said that the fact they have an investor of this magnitude interested in the project is exciting news.

"It's very positive for our city, and that neighborhood that has been under siege, so to speak, for so many years," Saenz said.

Olivia Varela, executive director of the Laredo Economic Development Corporation, said they have been working with Laredo Lomas Properties for months on potential projects for the former hospital site.

"While it is still in somewhat of an initial phase, we have good indication from the investor that they are willing to move forward on this project, as indicated through their (memorandum of understanding) signing in Houston this past weekend," Varela said. "... We're also very pleased with the City of Laredo's cooperation and support of this project, which can have very far-reaching and positive economic impact for not only the district, but for the community."

Daily fines loom

Last year, Laredo City Council voted to sue the property owners to bring the building up to code. In May, a jury gave Chendo Carranco of Laredo Lomas Properties 150 days to get the property in full compliance with the city's codes and ordinances, or else pay $1,000 a day per violation.

Those 150 days are up on Thursday.

City Attorney Kristina Hale says it doesn't matter if the Carrancos have an investor or a memorandum of understanding. The jury rendered a verdict, and no one appealed it, Hale said. The city does not have the ability to waive their order at this point, she said; The building needs to meet city requirements.

It is not clear exactly how many violations exist at the property currently.

The city and the Carrancos have another court date set for Dec. 11 to decide a potential receiver for the property to take on the responsibility of the incurred fines.

Louis LaVaude, chairman of the Old Mercy Hospital Boilding Ad-Hoc Committee, said he thinks that as long as the Carrancos can show that they are working toward an earnest money contract, that the city should hold off on the fines.

RELATED: Renderings show what Laredo's state-of-the-art convention center could look like

The city needs to do everything they can to be on board, he said, and begin the process of applying for the foreign trade zone designation.

Varela said they are looking into that now.

Councilman Alex Perez, who represents District III where the former hospital is located, and proposed the creation of the ad-hoc committee, issued the following statement to LMT on Tuesday:

"The old hospital has been deteriorating for the last 18 years. In my 7 years as District 3 Council Member, we have brought various investors as a city and in conjunction with the owner to no avail. We have had numerous town hall meetings with the area as one of the main topics. Recently, an official TAMIU study by Dr. (Andrew) Hilburn, sampled 500 area residents. Some of the main points from that study was what the residents wanted to see in the area and how they wanted it accomplished. Number one, by far, was a park, followed by housing, shops, a school and so on.

"Roughly half of the residents were in favor of a public/private partnership with the city (study is available upon request).

"A few months ago, the city hired a consultant group, Viva Laredo, which did a more specific neighborhood master plan for the area in which neighborhoods charrettes were held over a couple of days. (Design and plans available upon request) The idea there was to customize the incentives to fit the appropriate investor, either as a city or through a public/private partnership.

"... We, as the community, are elated that the owner is finally working on getting something done with the property. There is still concerns as to the final outcome and we will keep pushing that the development is in accordance to the needs and wants of the surrounding community. The city will continue with the current process of enforcement and court orders."

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
Laredo police have identified the man who was fatally struck by a vehicle Saturday at the intersection of Sanchez Street and San Francisco Avenue.

Authorities identified him as 23-year-old Josue David Gonzalez-Castellanos, a Honduran national. LPD said they identified him through fingerprint comparisons.
Michelle Robinson was only 7 when she concluded there was something very wrong with her second-grade class at Bryn Mawr Elementary School. She had already quarreled with her piano teacher for going too slowly. Her schoolteacher had a similar deficiency, though much worse.

Robinson grew up to become Michelle Obama. She recounts many world-shaking events in her just-published memoir, "Becoming." But to me, her most intriguing revelation has nothing to do with global history. It is what happened when the working-class girl, long before she was famous, found herself in an urban classroom where no one was learning much.

Bryn Mawr was an average South Side Chicago school near the little rented apartment where the girl who would become first lady lived with her father, who worked at a city water treatment plant; her stay-at-home mother; and her older brother. Kindergarten and first grade had been fine, but the second-grade teacher was tolerating what Obama in her book called "a mayhem of unruly kids and flying erasers."

The teacher, she said, "couldn't figure out how to assert control" and "didn't seem to like children." She said "it wasn't clear that anyone was particularly bothered by the fact that the teacher was incompetent. The students used it as an excuse to act out, and she seemed to think only the worse of us. In her eyes, we were a class of 'bad kids,' though we had no guidance and no structure and had been sentenced to a grim, underlit room in the basement of the school. Every hour there felt hellish and long."

She lived close to the school and went home for lunch every day. Her mother, Marian Robinson, placidly listened to the girl's complaints. The book makes clear that Robinson and her husband, Fraser, were the key to their children's successes. The mother and father had dropped out of community college. They had little money. But their parenting skills were exceptional.

I have taken swipes in previous columns at the assumption that what are called "helicopter parents" - mothers and fathers very involved in their children's studies - are bad. What Robinson did to rescue her daughter from an educational dead end also contradicts that view. It shows that hovering parents, if sensitive and strategic, can be a godsend.

When her daughter complained about the teacher, Robinson just said, "Oh, really?" - never indulging the child's outrage but quietly taking action. "She went over to the school and began a weeks-long process of behind-the-scenes lobbying," Michelle Obama said. I now understand why the Obamas wanted this clever and diplomatic woman with them in the White House while their daughters were growing up.

Her mother's undercover campaign, Obama said, "led to me and a couple of other high-performing kids getting quietly pulled out of class, given a battery of tests, and about a week later reinstalled permanently into a bright and orderly third-grade class upstairs, governed by a smiling, no-nonsense teacher who knew her stuff."

Robinson had no money or degrees, but school officials were probably impressed that she and her husband had raised two smart, well-behaved students. She also had the wit to realize she couldn't get the teacher fired and couldn't rescue every student in the class. She persuaded the school to do something she knew it could do without much fuss: let Michelle and a few others skip second grade.

Educators often resist acceleration, but the Bryn Mawr principal endorsed it. According to Obama, Robinson then tried one more idea, quite audacious, to save other students.

"My mother, who is by nature wry and quiet but generally also the most forthright person in any room, made a point of seeking out the second grade teacher and telling her, as kindly as possible, that she had no business teaching and should be working as a drugstore cashier instead," Obama said. She did not say if that had any effect.

I think we should formally recognize such ingenious moms and dads. Perhaps a "Helicopter Parent of the Year" award? No, that might be misunderstood. "Resourceful Parent of the Year" would work. We can name the award after Marian Shields Robinson.

- - -

Mathews is an education columnist for The Washington Post, his employer for nearly 50 years. He created the annual America's Most Challenging High Schools rankings of high schools and has written nine books.
SEOUL, South Korea - On the militarized front line dividing the Korean Peninsula, South Korea has been busy bulldozing and blowing up some of its guard posts.

It is a symbol of what Seoul hopes will be a new era of relations with Pyongyang. But it also one of the few steps South Korea can take to build confidence with the North without violating U.N. sanctions or going against its U.S. allies and protectors.

In South Korea, frustration is building that its efforts to improve relations with North Korea have not been matched with a corresponding improvement in ties between Pyongyang and Washington.

Indeed, five months after President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, there are worrying signs of backsliding.

A meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, was canceled at the last minute earlier this month. And as the United States resumed small-scale military exercises with the South Korean military, North Korean media warned the country could restart its nuclear program unless sanctions were lifted.

Pyongyang is frustrated that - in its eyes - Trump has not come through on a promise to build a "new era" of relations, while the U.S. administration remains adamant that strict sanctions will remain in place until North Korea surrenders its nuclear weapons.

"These acts by the U.S. apparently came from a medieval-era way of thinking that only threatening, coercive and barbarian tactics could enhance its negotiating leverage," DPRK Today, a state-sponsored website, said Monday, also complaining about recent military exercises with Japan involving nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and bombers. Those "illogical" tactics won't work, it said.

In Seoul, the government is wary of criticizing the United States directly. But behind the scenes there is a real sense that Washington needs to move the needle forward by building trust with the North.

"As long as this lack of confidence persists, the United States and North Korea will just be going around in a vicious circle," said Lee Soo-hyuck, a ruling-party lawmaker who led South Korea's negotiations with the North a decade and a half ago. "I really hope the United States has some novel idea."

There is a fundamental disagreement between Washington and Seoul about how we arrived at this point. The Trump administration credits its "maximum pressure" campaign for forcing Pyongyang to the negotiating table. South Korea's government believes it was President Moon Jae-in and Trump's joint efforts to extend the hand of friendship to Kim.

From that disagreement comes discord about how to move the process forward.

Vice President Mike Pence told NBC News last week that it is "absolutely imperative" that when Kim next meets Trump, he hand over a "verifiable" plan to disclose his nuclear and weapons sites, open them for inspection and dismantle them.

"Now we need to see results," Pence said.

It is an approach the South Koreans believe to be premature.

"North Korea is aware that reporting a list of its nuclear weapons is a very important step toward denuclearization," South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said during a parliamentary hearing this month. "But such steps must come after concrete measures are taken to build up trust by both sides."

Chung also quoted Kim as saying that handing over such a list before the two sides trust each other " is the same as telling us to submit a list of targets for attacks."

There is understandable wariness in Washington about trusting a regime that has never demonstrated its trustworthiness in the past, and has not renounced a January pledge to move from testing to mass production of warheads and missiles.

But some experts say the United States also is at risk of missing an opportunity to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and explore just how far Kim is prepared to go in cutting his nuclear arsenal in return for better relations and economic development.

Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford University who was involved in U.S.-North Korea talks from 1992 to 2000, said it's unrealistic to expect North Korea to allow thousands of U.S. investigators to roam its country at will. Washington also needs to be more aware of how its rhetoric plays in the North, he said.

"Why is it so hard for people to grasp that North Korea is not a conquered country?" he asked. "America also needs to stop rubbing their noses in the fact that we're going to keep sanctions on until hell freezes over."

Joseph Yun, former U.S. special representative for North Korea, said Washington was guilty of "a tremendous amount of mixed messaging" between Trump and other members of the administration - and those under Trump were guilty of being "way too uncompromising."

As a result, he said, Pyongyang was not even giving Pompeo and new Special Representative Stephen Biegun the chance to meet face to face with North Korean officials. "Without getting those meetings, you can't rely on summits to do all that work."

Recent articles in North Korea state media suggest doubts may be surfacing in Pyongyang about whether Kim's more conciliatory approach to Washington is bearing fruit, experts say.

"Ultimately the only road to a real agreement is to build trust between the United States and North Korea," said Lee, the South Korean lawmaker. Lee headed South Korea's delegation at six-party talks when North Korea submitted a list of its nuclear facilities in 2003. "Only if this happens will North Korea feel safe to actually tell the truth."

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has missed small but significant opportunities to signal its interest in a new relationship with Pyongyang, extending at the end of August a travel ban on U.S. citizens and blocking American aid workers from making humanitarian trips to the country.

Yun, the former special representative, said the United States should consider opening liaison offices with North Korea but ultimately should talk to Pyongyang about sanctions relief.

"You can see bits of the sand castle crumbling," said John Delury, an associate professor of international studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. "And there's a big wave out there."

- - -

The Washington Post's Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - The "special relationship" between Britain and the United States has been a fixture of international politics for decades. Could Washington now also have a "special friend" in Ireland?

Daniel Mulhall, Ireland's ambassador in Washington, thinks so. And he says it's largely because of Britain's departure from the European Union.

"Brexit is a game-changer for Ireland," Mulhall said to The Washington Post. "We become a bridge between the European Union and the United States both for investment but also for influence."

Those hopes even have a tangible symbol: This month, seeking to expand its diplomatic mission in Washington, the Irish government closed a deal to buy a 6,500-square-foot building once used by the Egyptian Embassy. It's still a far cry from Britain's gargantuan embassy compound, one of the biggest in Washington, but it's a signal of Dublin's intent.

Before he took up residence in Washington last year, Mulhall served as Ireland's ambassador to Britain. He personally campaigned against Britain's vote to leave the E.U. in 2016; after British voters approved Brexit, he later told a reporter, he felt "sadness" that Britain's relationship with Ireland was being risked.

Now he sees Brexit as a new opportunity for Ireland - one that could rival many Brexiteers' own hopes for an economic future that relies on greater trade with the United States and other nations outside of Europe.

"Britain is under a cloud of uncertainty as far as its future access to the European single market in concerned," Mulhall said. "We feel that any country that's looking at either expanding its presence in Europe or establishing a presence for the first time will look less favorably on Britain and more favorably on Ireland."

After Brexit, British leaders have clung to the idea of an unbending Anglo-American bond. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to visit President Trump after he took office last year. Both leaders praised the "special relationship" during that visit, with May saying it was based "on the bonds of history, of family, kinship and common interests."

But at the same time, Britain's position as a member of the E.U. was one of its key selling points. "We are strong and active members of the European Union, the gateway to the world's largest single market," said May's predecessor, David Cameron, in a 2010 speech.

With Britain looking to leave the E.U., many other E.U. countries are now pledging to become Washington's new "gateway to Europe." Ireland may be a particularly attractive base for American companies: Its common-law system is similar to the American legal structure, and it is known for being one of the most business-friendly countries in the E.U.

And, of course, Ireland and the United States share a common language. "We will be the only English-speaking country left in the European Union," Mulhall pointed out.

Outside experts agree that Ireland is well positioned to strengthen its ties to the United States. "Ireland's institutions have been calibrated toward attracting U.S. investment for decades, which places the country in a strong position to attract investment which may pivot away from the U.K. post-Brexit," said Neil Dooley, a politics lecturer at the University of Sussex.

Given that Ireland is a relatively small country - just 4.7 million people - even a small change could have profound effects on the economy. Irish firms are in the process of reforming their business plans for a post-Brexit future, according to Sean Davis, the regional director for Enterprise Ireland, a state economic agency that promotes new export sales.

Davis said that 73 percent of Irish companies that work with Enterprise Ireland have taken some kind of action to deal with a post-Brexit future. That often means planning to steer their exports away from Britain. "The U.K. is going to become less attractive to Irish companies," Davis said.

Companies sponsored by Enterprise Ireland opened 59 offices in the United States last year, according to Davis. In total, there are more than 800 Irish-owned companies in the United States, with 100,000 people employed by Irish-origin companies.

That's a useful talking point given the Trump administration's focus on protecting American jobs, but there could be other issues down the line. The United States has a considerable trade deficit with the Ireland, and Trump has specifically called out the country as a "tax haven." The tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017 appear to have hit U.S. investment in Ireland, according to Irish estimates.

And with Trump, there's always the risk of unexpected feuds. The president is at odds with the Irish government on a variety of foreign policy issues; he has already canceled one trip to Ireland amid planned mass protests.

As such, any hopes for a "special relationship," with this president at least, may be premature. "I don't think Ireland kids itself that it has a special, meaningful relationship with the U.S.," said Brian Lucey, a professor at Trinity Business School at Trinity College Dublin. "Particularly with Trump, where there's a hard-nosed, mercantilist approach."

But Mulhall argued Ireland knows how quickly things can change. "We were by far the poorest E.U. country" 40 years ago, he said. "Today we're one of the richest ones."

"This is, I think, one of the most exciting projects of my 40-year career in the foreign service," he said of Ireland's new global ambition. "We're no longer a weak country trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps. We now have strengths and we need to deploy those strengths to advance our interest further in this changing and sometimes volatile international environment."
Amid headlines about marijuana legalization getting approved by voters this fall in the Midwest and unlikely places like Utah, a question remains: Whatever happened to marijuana in Maine?

If efficiency and effectiveness are the standard for grading how governments implement the will of the people, Maine would get an F. Two years after state voters approved the sale of adult-use cannabis in the state, you still cant buy it anywhere in Maine. By contrast, voters in Nevada and California approved legal recreational marijuana the same day as voters in Maine but have been able to buy marijuana for a long time. Both businesses and the governments are enjoying the cannabis profits.

Whats more, there remains confusion about where things stand In Maine. There's a lot unknown and that's the problem right now," a medical marijuana dispensary owner told CBS 13 in Portland. "Nobody really knows anything."

Related: Pro-Marijuana Candidates Were Big Midterm Winners but Now They Need to be Prodded

A brief history of marijuana in Maine.

Maine has a history of being on the forefront of the marijuana movement -- until lately. Back in 1976 it became just the third state to decriminalize marijuana possession. It's been more than 40 years and still just 22 states and the District of Columbia have done that, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In 1999, Maine voters legalized medical marijuana. They were only the fifth state to do so.

Then came 2016. A ballot proposition approving the sale of adult-use marijuana passed, but so narrowly that opponents requested a recount. However, after the recount started and it became apparent the result would not change, they withdrew their recount petition. The pathway was clear for the state to set up a regulated marijuana sales system.

Enter Governoer Paul LePage

The state legislature had nine months to hammer out a system governing marijuana sales. They accomplished that goal, but then ran into Gov. Paul LePage. He vetoed the measure in November 2017. The Republican governor he cited guidance from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions as part of the reason for his veto, disregarding -- or, at least, not mentioning -- the fact that other states had moved ahead with marijuana sales. LePage wrote in his veto message that "until I clearly understand how the federal government intends to treat states that seek to legalize marijuana, I cannot in good conscience support any scheme in state law to implement expansion of legal marijuana in Maine.

Related: Pesticide Contamination Is a Growing Cannabis Safety Concern

Round 2

In 2018, the state Legislature crafted a bipartisan compromise bill that would allow legal cannabis sales -- which, after all, is the will of the people. The new measure is more conservative than the first one. For example, it prohibits cannabis social clubs. It also put in specific measures that gave more power for controlling cannabis sales in the hands of local governments.

LePage vetoed it again.

This time, the Legislature overrode his veto, moving forward with plans to create the system. They finalized those plans in June, handing responsibility for writing the rules for a regulated marijuana system to the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services.

Outside Help

As it turned out, the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services didnt know how to craft rules to create a legal, regulated adult-use marijuana market. Instead, they solicited bids from consultants. Five applied but the process just closed in November 2018.

And thats where things stand. Comments in media reports vary, but the consensus seems to be that a consultant should be hired by January, and then it might take another nine months to get the regulations written. That would put the start of sales, realistically, in the fall of 2019.

Tammie Snow, an attorney who represents those in the marijuana industry, told CBS 13, A lot of my clients are frustrated. Obviously, they're frustrated because it has been two years."

Now, it looks like it will be three.

Follow dispensaries.com on Instagram to stay up to date on the latest cannabis news.

Related:

State Regulators Consider Better Ways to Determine Who Controls Cannabis Business

Marijuana in Maine: Slow Motion Crawl Toward Adult-Use Sales

Adults In Massachusetts Can Legally Buy Marijuana Starting Today



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Morgan County

Jacksonville Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Marvin D. Gilmore, 25, of St. Louis, Missouri, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 8:38 a.m. Tuesday on charges of driving while license is revoked or suspended, resisting a peace officer and operating an uninsured motor vehicle.

BURGLARIES, THEFTS

 Several undisclosed items were taken from a vehicle between 4 and 7 p.m. Monday while it was parked in the 300 block of South Main Street, according to a report filed at 7:06 p.m. Monday.

 Approximately $4 and an iPhone adapter were taken from a vehicle overnight Monday while it was parked on Briarwyck Drive, according to a report filed at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

 A wallet was reported stolen from a vehicle overnight Monday, according to a report filed at 11:40 a.m. Tuesday.

 An undisclosed amount of cash was taken from a vehicle overnight Monday while it was parked on Goltra Avenue, according to a report filed at 2:34 p.m. Tuesday.

 Several undisclosed items were taken from a vehicle overnight Monday while it was parked on Shiloh Drive, according to a report filed at 3:54 p.m. Tuesday.

 Credit cards were taken from two vehicles overnight Monday while parked on Laurel Drive, according to a report filed at 6:02 a.m. Tuesday.

 Undisclosed items were taken from three vehicles overnight Monday while they were parked on West Hall Drive, according to a report filed at 11:49 a.m. Tuesday.

ACCIDENTS

 A vehicle driven by Judith J. Eoff, 70, of Jacksonville struck a vehicle driven by Cesar H. Vasquez Chavez, 71, of Gainesville at 10:53 a.m. Tuesday at the intersection of Grand Avenue and West Lafayette Avenue. Eoff was cited for failure to yield at an intersection.

South Jacksonville Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Brandi N. McFadden, 29, of 6 Hazelcrest Court was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:09 a.m. Tuesday on a charge of criminal trespass to state land.

 Sally A. Williams, 47, of 226 Green St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:21 a.m. Tuesday on charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.

 Angela C. Fearneyhough, 49, of 170 S. Hill St., Winchester, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 3:13 a.m. Tuesday on charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.



Pike County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Desirae A. Howland, 33, of Pleasant Hill was arrested at 5:42 p.m. Sunday on a petition to revoke conditional discharge and warrants accusing her of failing to appear in court on criminal trespassing and driving while license is suspended charges.

 Keith T. Leblanc, 38, of Reserve, Louisiana, was arrested at 5:45 p.m. Saturday on a driving under the influence charge.

 Donald J. Little, 35, of Pittsfield was arrested at 6:54 p.m. Saturday on charges of driving under the influence and improper lane use.

 Guage A. Akridge, 24, of Hull was arrested at 8:46 p.m. Friday on a petition to revoke probation.

 Alicia K. Niffen, 28, of Pleasant Hill was arrested at 7:26 p.m. Friday on a petition to revoke or modify bond.

 Charles Longcor, 26, of Hannibal, Missouri, was arrested at 12:07 p.m. Thursday on charges of fleeing to elude, driving while license is suspended or revoked and theft of a motor vehicle.

 Charles B. McDonald, 23, of Barry was arrested at 4:31 p.m. Nov. 14 on charges of delivery of cannabis, possession of cannabis and possession of drug paraphernalia.

 William K. Poor, 23, of Griggsville was arrested at 5:29 p.m. Nov. 13 on an escape charge.

 Shannon D. Shanks, 45, of Louisiana, Missouri, was arrested at 9:28 p.m. Nov. 13 on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended.

Compiled by David C.L. Bauer, Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree and Audrey Clayton
These are the findings of the most recent restaurant inspections by the Morgan County Health Department.

Each violation found reduces points on a restaurants score. The score ranges from a perfect 100 to a zero. Anything below 70 is considered failing. Critical violations that could lead to food-borne illnesses result in 4, 8 or 9 points being taken off. Minor violations take away 1 or 3 points. All violations must be corrected by the next inspection unless otherwise noted.
A Houston woman is behind bars Tuesday after allegedly leaving her infant daughter alone in a hotel room for hours.

Charmaine Delquis Edmond, 25, checked into the Best Classic Inn in the 1200 block of Rankin Circle on Sunday night, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
A Houston mother whose 2-year-old daughter allegedly ingested prescription drugs and cocaine has missed her scheduled court date, according to local media reports.

Brenda Monsarret-Lopez, 25, was charged with endangering a child in October after her daughter was rushed to the emergency room twice in a three-month period for ingesting Clonidine, a prescription medication often used to treat ADHD.
A 77-year-old man was arrested Tuesday morning in the fatal shooting of a cat earlier this month at a North Side apartment complex.

Donald Martin is charged with cruelty to a non-livestock animal, according to court records.
Aurora Serrano, 45, joined our Lord in His heavenly kingdom on Sunday, November 18, 2018.

She was preceded in death by her grandmother Teresita Martinez, and aunt Alejandra Lopez.

Left to cherish her memory are her daughter Yesvet (Jaime Nieto) Buruato; son Benito Buruato, Jr.; grandson Jaime Israel Nieto; parents Juan and Xochitl L. Serrano. She is also survived by her brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and other loving relatives and friends.

The family will be receiving condolences on Tuesday evening, November 20, 2018 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels & Cremation Services, 719 Loring at Cortez; where a Vigil for the Deceased and Rosary will commence at 7 p.m.

Funeral Services will be held on Wednesday morning, November 21, 2018 departing at 8 a.m. from Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels to San Luis Rey Catholic Church for a Mass at 8:30 a.m.

A private cremation and inurnment will be held at a later date.

You may express your condolences, share your favorite memories, and sign the guestbook online at: www.joejacksonfuneralchapels.com.

Arrangements have been entrusted to the care and direction of the funeral service professionals at Joe Jackson Heights Funeral Chapels & Cremation Services, 719 Loring at Cortez, Laredo, Texas 78040; (956)722-0001.
As senators scatter to the 50 states to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends, we wish them the very best that the homiest of our holidays can offer. Its too soon for stockings on the mantel, but were hoping theyll find plenty of rest and whatever else they need to return to Washington with vigor and wisdom.

They are going to need both as they confront a once-in-a-generation opportunity - fleeting, but real - to reform the federal criminal justice system, an effort that liberals and conservatives have been working on together for many years.

That is, if only the reformers can persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to give them a vote on an improved version of the First Step Act. Hes been hedging, even though a House version of the bill has already passed overwhelmingly. The bolder version alive in the Senate has been embraced by leading GOP senators and by President Donald Trump.

The First Step Act aims to reform our criminal justice system in two major ways. It looks to offer inmates better and more opportunities to get ready to lead productive lives when they are released. Thats the part the House passed overwhelmingly earlier this year.

The other part of the reform was stripped out of the House bill but has now been revived in the Senate. It deals with sentencing changes and would begin to slowly reduce the number of federal inmates, especially among those convicted of nonviolent offenses. This is badly needed. As Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, likes to say, if its good to be tough on crime, its even better to be smart on crime.

The sentencing changes are modest, and probably would give only a few thousand inmates an opportunity to leave prison early. Given that our federal prison population peaked at just under 220,000 in 2013, up from about 25,000 in 1980, those numbers are small.

But weve long felt that we ought to take what reforms we can get. So, when the House passed the First Step Act without the sentencing reforms, we were disappointed. But we agreed with Cornyn, who said some reform was better than none. We urged support for the House version of the bill.

It turns out, others in the Senate werent ready to give up on a bolder, better bill. For that, were grateful.

An iron-clad conservative in his seventh term, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, had for years opposed sentencing reforms. But since becoming judiciary chairman in 2015, hes spent more time listening to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, about how unfair the federal sentencing laws can be.

In an interview Tuesday, he told the Chronicle editorial board that hes been fully converted, and refused to give up on the dream of a bolder set of reforms just because the House had stripped them out. He sawed off some of the more liberal provisions Durbin and Lee had championed and settled on what he believed was a smart compromise.

After the House passed the First Step Act, he dug in his heels in the hopes of giving reformers in the Senate time to improve the bill.

The extra time paid off last week. Trump said hell support the stronger bill, immediately upping its profile. Conservative think tanks like the Texas Public Policy Foundation are on board, too.

Grassley told us as many as 10 or so conservative members of the Senate remain opposed. And given how vocal some of them have been -- Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas is an example - McConnell may be reluctant to call a vote if it will trigger a public split in his caucus.

Thats put Cornyn, the majority whip, in the middle. I think his role in the leadership has given him the responsibility to be pragmatic, Grassley said. But I want his support. I think well have it, if we can show him well have the votes.

Cornyn has supported the more robust reforms. But he also knows if Cotton and company cant be converted, McConnell may simply kill the bill. Perhaps if he can win over Cotton, he can win over McConnell.

But by ceding so much ground to Cotton, Cornyn risks blowing a rare opportunity.

Instead, he and the other reformers should hang tough, and not let holdouts like Cotton weaken the bill any further. McConnell has indicated that if the votes are there for the bill, hell let it come to the floor.

When the holiday is over, Cornyn will be busy counting those votes. Hes the whip, after all, and we hope hell use it to convince his GOP colleagues to get smart on crime and back a bill that has been years in the making.
Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major will be the keynote speaker at a special event in Longford next month to mark the role played by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Mr Major will travel to the county to deliver a lecture on his former Irish counterpart's role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland at a function at Longford's Backstage Theatre on December 10 next.

ALSO READ: John Major to deliver lecture in Longford in honour of late Taoiseach Albert Reynolds

Longford County Council Chief Executive Paddy Mahon announced the news at last week's monthly meeting of Longford County Council.

In doing so, he said the event was also timely as it would coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Downing Street Declaration, an accord both Mr Major and Mr Reynolds helped broker.

News of Mr Major's impending visit was greeted with universal praise by elected members.

Fianna Fail's Martin Mulleady led much of that optimism as he lauded the role played by former Cathaoirleach Cllr Mick Cahill in helping engineer the event.

"To get such an iconic figure and peace maker to Longford is absolutely massive for the county," he said.

For his part, Cllr Cahill offered up a modest and typically precise overview of his own role in securing Mr Major's attendance.

It's going to be fantastic for Longford and will be a great tribute to former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, he said.



Cllrs Seamus Butler and Joe Flaherty also spoke in glowing terms of the announcement by also singling out the role played by local TD Robert Troy in the process.

In a statement issued by Longford County Council following last week's meeting, it said the lecture led by Mr Major would cover the themes of peace, reconciliation and citizenship.

It is appropriate that the lecture is taking place on December 10, in week of the 25th anniversary of the Downing Street Declaration, the statement outlined.
IDA chiefs are facing mounting calls to secure a strategic land bank with a view to attracting new and potentially lucrative foreign direct investment to County Longford.

Senior representatives from the State's inward investment company were told of the key issues still facing the county at a meeting of the local authority last Wednesday.

IDA Divisional Manager Denis Curran spoke of the recent job announcements at both Avery Dennison and Red Seal Cups, investments he said underlined Longford's resurgent appeal as a viable destination for new companies to set up in.

However, claims the IDA had been instrumental in enticing UK leisure firm Center Parcs to the county were quickly shot down by Cllr Seamus Butler.

Just in case anyone gets the opinion that it was IDA that attracted Center Parcs to Longford, it was this local authority that drove it, he said, despite expressing his delight at the absolute sea change shown by its chiefs towards Longford.

Cllr Joe Flaherty said the Avery Dennison and Red Seal announcements apart, questions over Longford's ability to make further inward investment inroads remained.

We have as skills deficit and the other issue is an infrastructural deficit, he said.

The Longford Fianna Fail general election candidate said there was an urgency for a landing space hub to cater for four to five new firms.

Fine Gael's Micheal Carrigy agreed with his Fianna Fail opposite number concerning calls for a land bank, an asset Cllr Paul Ross said was conspicuous by its absence in Ballymahon.

It's an issue we have if we are to attract business as we have nowhere to put them (businesses), he said.

In response, Mr Curran described competition to secure foreign direct investment, in any form, as nothing short of brutal.

It is hyper intensive and there is well over 120 inward investment agencies we are competing with on a day to day basis across the globe to try and secure inward investment, he said.

On the topic of building up its property portfolio base, councillors were told that while additional funding had been made available from government to address those shortcomings, resources were not endless, Mr Curran maintained.

Our (IDAs) preference is for the private sector, where possible, to drive commercial property construction, he said. We dont want to be using taxpayers money to go out and build office space when the private sector can do it.

We have gone back to government and received extra funding to build advance office space but it is a finite amount of money and we need to work with our property team to choose locations on a rolling basis.
Food, Wine, & Dining, Local News, Health & Wellness, Press Releases, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 21 2018

Warning Comes as Outbreak of E. coli Linked to Romaine Affects New York and 10 Other States.

New York, NY - November 21, 2018 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today cautioned New Yorkers to follow the food safety alert from the Centers for Disease Control to not eat any romaine lettuce due to an E. coli outbreak across the country. The CDC is advising consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home to not eat it and throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick. The CDC is also urging retailers and restaurants not to serve or sell any romaine lettuce until further notice.

"As we prepare to gather with family and friends for the Thanksgiving holiday, I urge all New Yorkers to follow the CDC's guidelines and refrain from eating or serving romaine lettuce until it is safe to do so," Governor Cuomo said. "As always, New Yorkers should be aware of current product recalls and food safety recommendations to ensure a happy and healthy holiday for all."

Thirty-two cases of people infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli have been reported in 11 states, including two in New York State. The illnesses started on dates ranging from October 8, 2018 to October 31, 2018. Thirteen people have been hospitalized, including one person who developed a type of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.

In addition, at least 18 people in Ontario and Quebec, Canada have been infected with E. coli. The current outbreak is not related to the Spring 2018 multistate outbreak of E. coli infections linked to romaine lettuce from the Yuma, Arizona region. If you have symptoms of an E. coli infection, talk to your healthcare provider.

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "As we work with our state and federal partners to determine the cause of this outbreak and what can be done to reduce contamination and protect public health, we urge New Yorkers to stay away from romaine lettuce while this investigation continues. The best way to protect yourself and your loved ones from getting sick is to not eat or purchase any type of romaine lettuce at this time."

NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets Commissioner Richard A. Ball said, "To protect consumers from this foodborne outbreak, we are urging New York families, retailers, grocers and restaurants to adhere to the warning and pull any romaine lettuce from their shelves and menus. Working with our partners, we will follow this investigation closely and keep consumers informed."

E. coli are bacteria that normally live in the intestines of humans and animals. Although most strains of this bacteria are harmless, several are known to produce toxins that can lead to illness and cause diarrhea or vomiting. The type of E. coli bacteria that most commonly produces toxins causing illness is Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC). One of the most common E. coli strains, called E. coli O157:H7, is a STEC that can cause severe diarrhea. People become infected by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the bacteria.
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: November 21 2018

Student Groups Collecting Food To Help Local Food Insecure Families Enjoy The Holiday.

Dix Hills, NY - November 21, 2018 - Groups of students in the Half Hollow Hills Central School District have been fundraising and collecting food to help local families who are food insecure enjoy a happy Thanksgiving. Food insecure families are never sure if they will have enough food to feed their family from week to week, and it continues to be a major problem on Long Island, especially during the holiday season.

Students at West Hollow Middle School and Half Hollow Hills High School East worked together to collect food for the Gerald J. Ryan Outreach Center, a not-for-profit organization serving Wyandanch and surrounding communities, by providing food, clothing, education and employment opportunities. At West Hollow, students helped collect 400 cans of yams, 500 boxes of cake mix, and 400 cans of cranberry sauce during their Thanksgiving food drive. Student groups at High School East including the National Art Honor Society, Interact Club, National Honor Society, Amnesty International and Girls Learn International teamed up to collect over 2,000 items including stuffing, canned vegetables, corn bread mix, and gravy that the Gerald J. Ryan Outreach Center will use to provide families in need with an enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner.

At Half Hollow Hills High School West, the Interact Club collaborated with the local Melville Rotary club, Stew Leonards and BNB Bank to fundraise for their annual Turkey Drive which will help provide 85 local families and church groups with turkeys for Thanksgiving.

The students in our district do an outstanding job each year of being self-starters when it comes to giving back to those that are less fortunate around the holidays, said Dr. Harrigan. We encourage all of our students to participate in service learning programs to learn about the importance of volunteering, while building a life-long love of giving back to your community.

ABOUT HALF HOLLOW HILLS
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases

By Legislator Anker's Office Published: November 21 2018

The Alumni Wall of Honor at Rocky Point High School celebrates those who graduated from the Rocky Point School District and went on to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

Rocky Point, NY - November 21, 2018 - On Friday, November 16, Legislator Anker joined the On Friday, November 16, Legislator Anker joined the Rocky Point community at the unveiling of the Alumni Wall of Honor at Rocky Point High School to celebrate those who graduated from the Rocky Point School District and went on to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

I am honored to join Rocky Point in honoring our local residents who chose to serve in our military, said Legislator Anker. May this wall remind them that no matter where or how far they may go, this community will always be their home.
Michael B. Jordan is one of the hottest actors on the planet right now (literally, look at that damn smile), after stealing the show on Black Panther and spearheading the Rocky/Creed franchise.

All the mahi he's been putting means that naturally, a lot of people want a piece of him, especially the ladies. Although the "Killmonger" actor remains single, Jordan revealed that he is open to offers.

Jordan stopped by The Ellen Show, and both Ellen and co-host Chrissy Teigen probed the actor about his dating life until he finally spilled the tea.

"You're in all these amazing movies. Really, so much has happened and you're still somehow single. How is that possible?," asked Ellen. "I've been working crazy, so not really having the time to properly date," answered Jordan, but Ellen and Chrissy weren't satisfied. "We don't buy it. We all work hard but we have relationships," stated DeGeneres.



"Have you ever hooked up via direct messages?," Chrissy asked, opting to hit Jordan with a less formal dating question. "Yes, I have," answered Jordan honestly. "I'm human, I'm human. Not often, but yes, I have."

Catch the video up top!
The mobilisation of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protest movement marks an important step in the development of the class struggle in France. With no party, no union, and no pre-existing organisation, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in this movement against a tax increase on diesel and petrol, sweeping aside the pseudo-concessions and threats of the government. They are supported by a large majority of the population.

Their determination is a reflection of their anger and suffering. They are burning with indignation at a government that is constantly increasing the tax burden on workers, retirees and the middle classes, while the richest benefit from all sorts of "tax relief", subsidies and other rebates. The yellow vests have fully understood that the argument of the "ecological transition" is just another pretext to loot the mass of the population for the benefit of a handful of wealthy parasites.

This movement is politically and socially heterogeneous, naturally! The reactionary government policy on fuel hikes has hit not only workers, but also artisans, small traders, small farmers, white-collar professions, pensioners and other intermediate social layers. The social and political heterogeneity of the yellow vests movement indicates its deep roots in society. It is not just a mobilisation of a vanguard of the most conscious and organised workers. It is a mass movement that has raised usually inert social strata. Of course, no one can say how far it will go. But what is clear is that a movement of this nature is characteristic of the precursors to a revolutionary situation. On the island of La Reunion, the movement has already taken on an insurrectional character.

Lenin on mass movements

Left-wing activists who are critical about the "confusion" of the movement must think about what Lenin wrote in 1916:

"Whoever expects a pure social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is [] The socialist revolution in Europe cannot be anything other than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry oppressed and discontented elements. Inevitably, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will participate in itwithout such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possibleand just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses slid errors. But objectively they will attack capital, and the class-conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, capture power, seize the banks, expropriate the trusts which all hate (though for difficult reasons!), and introduce other dictatorial measures [1] which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately purge itself of petty-bourgeois slag."

As Lenin explained over a century ago, mass movements are hardly ever 'pure'. The workers' movement should "unite and direct" the struggle of the masses towards socialism / Image: public domain

These few lines from Lenin characterise the movement of yellow vests. At the same time, they indicate the role that trade unions and political organisations of the workers' movement should play in such circumstances: they should "unite and direct" the struggle of the masses towards the conquest of power and the overthrow of capitalism. In this respect, there is a huge discrepancy between what Lenin wrote a century ago and what most of the leaders of the labour movement do today. In fact, they do not lead anything. They have turned their backs on the movement of the yellow vests, when they are not attacking it.

For example, the leader of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, described this movement as "totalitarian". As an agent of the bourgeoisie within the labour movement, Laurent Berger never misses a good opportunity to defend the established order, that is, the domination ("totalitarian", in a sense) of the banks and multinationals.

Errors by union leaders

What about Philippe Martinez, who heads the most powerful and militant trade union confederation, the CGT? The "overthrow of the bourgeoisie" and the "victory of socialism" are light years away from his intentions, which is very regrettable, because the problems of the masses cannot be solved on the basis of capitalism. This being said, what position does Philippe Martinez defend? He says he understands the "legitimate" anger of the yellow vests, but refuses to involve his organisation in this movement, because he does not want to see the CGT "march beside the National Front". At the same time, however, he recognises that the extreme right is a "minority" in the movement (in fact, it is marginal as an organised force in general). The initial and central demand of the yellow vests is the cancellation of the increase in fuel taxes, but Philippe Martinez does not support this demand. On the contrary, he has asked the government to revalue the minimum wage, so that workers can  among other things  buy "clean vehicles"!

Philippe Martinez, leader of the CGT, has refused to support the yellow vests in their struggle against the fuel tax hike / Image: Mister NK42

This position is completely wrong, and totally disconnected from the real situation. Of course, we must fight for an increase in the minimum wage and wages in general. But this demand does not contradict or exclude the demand that is at the heart of the movement of yellow vests, which has animated broad layers of society: the cancellation of the increase in taxes on fuel. Instead of opposing this with the demand for a salary increase, the management of the CGT should take up the central (and fair) demand by the yellow vests, while defending its general programme for increasing purchasing power  including, of course, an increase in wages.

The CGT should explain that the rise in fuel taxes has nothing to do with the environment. This is looting for the benefit of multinationals, because the money from tax increases will end up in the coffers of the bosses, in the form of subsidies and tax giveaways. If the government needs a few billion euros to brace its budget, let it take from the coffers of multinationals  not the pockets of the people! Instead of making this simple and clear point, Philippe Martinez has implied that the hands of the bosses lie behind the yellow vests, thus spreading mistrust.

By refusing to engage in the fight for lowering fuel taxes, the leadership of the CGT has abandoned this ground to the right and far-right wing, whose professional demagogues have discovered, in recent days, that they are against these taxes, and are making it known loudly. Fortunately, the grassroots of the CGT ignored their marching orders from Philippe Martinez. They mobilised with the yellow vests. Links have been created; joint actions have even been carried out. This is the way to go forward!

Support the yellow vests  expose the demagogues!

Moreover, how does the CGT's leadership plan to wrest from the government  and therefore the employers  the 300 Euro minimum wage increase it is demanding? Presumably, by organising a new "day of action" without any future plans, despite the obvious failure of the strategy of action days over the last 10 years? We can only assume. For the moment, with a mass movement in which he refuses to participate, Martinez simply demands salary increases.

We have often stressed that the strategy of "days of action" is hopeless. It led to the defeat of the great social movements of 2010, 2016 and 2017 (among others). The crisis of French capitalism is so deep that in its race to carry out cuts and roll back reforms, the Macron government will not shrink from action days, no matter how massive they are. In the present circumstances, for our class to win a serious victory, it will require the development of a movement of renewable strikes in a growing number of economic sectors.

This is precisely what the bourgeoisie and its government fear: that the movement of yellow vests will play trigger a movement of renewable strikes. This is the moment Philippe Martinez has chosen to declare: "you can do it without me! I will not mobilise alongside the FN. " This position is absurd. What the movement of yellow vests demonstrates very clearly is the growing exasperation and combativeness of large layers of workers. Therefore, instead of deserting the field, the CGT leadership should do everything it can to support this movement, and build on its momentum to put on the agenda a general offensive of the working class against all the reactionary policies of the government. For starters, the leadership of the CGT should make a call to its members to participate massively in the demonstration of yellow vests in Paris, scheduled for 24 November. Then, Wauquiez, Le Pen and the other bourgeois demagogues would hesitate and try to hold back the movement. Which is to say, their masks would slip.

Notes

[1] In Lenin's day (that is, before the horrors of Nazism and Stalinism), the term "dictatorial" had no negative connotations at all. By "dictatorial measures", Lenin simply refers to measures (economic and political) by which workers impose their will on the bourgeoisie  just as the bourgeoisie, under capitalism, imposes its will on the workers. In this sense, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is nothing but workers' democracy: the power of the workers once they have overthrown the "dictatorship of capital".
Members of the security team at MGM Springfield will vote this month on union representation, claiming the casino has not honored some of its commitments to them.

The 200-some group is a mix of former members of area police departments, correctional officers and military veterans who transitioned into the private sector as well as younger officers who entered the field earlier in their careers. They undergo emergency training, including emergency medical procedures and defensive tactics. The officers are hourly workers who say they are paid less per hour than they were promised.

"There were a lot of things told to us that MGM never fulfilled so we decided to exercise our rights," said Kevin Frazier, a retired correctional officer who works full-time as a security officer at MGM. "We were told that we were going to be making $18. We were told that if we were trainers, we would receive an extra dollar an hour," he said, of officers who took additional classes to become certified in training others on staff in CPR and defensive tactics.

Frazier hopes unionizing will lead to higher pay on holidays, weekends and overnight shifts -- a significantly busier time than during the day.

"Basically, we were promised money that we never got," another MGM security officer who requested not to be identified told MassLive. "Since day one that we started working there, we have been inquiring about the raise.

"They don't pay time-and-a-half on Sundays. Walmart pays time-and-a-half on Sundays."

MGM Wednesday did not respond specifically to complaints by security workers of pay or that it did not honor some of its commitments to them, but released a statement saying that it supports the right of workers to unionize.

"We believe in the right to join or refrain from joining a union," MGM Springfield President and COO Michael Mathis said in a statement shared with MassLive. "We are proud of the partnerships we have forged, continuously leveraging our relationships with community-based organizations to promote and assist with job placement and workforce development. It is important for employees to make an informed decision, based on factual information, exercising their right in a secret ballot election."

The officers will vote Tuesday on a representation proposal from the Law Enforcement Officers Security Union, which has membership in several major cities on the East Coast. The union represents other security workers in Western Massachusetts, including officers at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield.

MGM's Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas is one of few casino security teams to be unionized. The officers joined International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America and signed a three-year contract with management in 2017. Officers at Excalibur, another property operated by MGM in Las Vegas, rejected a representation proposal from the union last year.

Meanwhile a union official has accused the casino of seeking to prevent officers from organizing.

Security workers told MassLive they have been asked to attend "roundtable discussions" regarding the unionizing effort and speak with management at the casino about the potential ramifications of the vote.

While many in gaming are supportive of workers organizing, there is a concern about security organizing for fear of a strike, LEOSU Organizing Director Steve Maritas said.

"In the casino industry, the security officers are the only officers that have the power to shut down the casino," Maritas said. "If housekeeping goes on strike, they can continue to operate. The gaming commission will shut the casino down if the security team walks out."

He added, "That's why they're so adamant about the security not being unionized."

The call to unionize comes as former Springfield Police Sgt. John Delaney announced his retirement as a security executive at MGM Springfield. In March Delaney announced he was retiring from the department to take the job.
"Creed II" is now in theaters. The main character, Adonis Creed, portrayed by Michael B. Jordan, is going head-to-head with the son of Russian brawler Ivan Drago. Drago is the fighter who killed Creed's father in "Rocky IV." The film looks exciting, and fans are pumped to see Creed and Drago duke it out in the ring. Fans of Jordan have been giving the film rave reviews, but some critics say "Creed II" is just too predictable. Will you be seeing "Creed II"?

PERSPECTIVES

Most folks who have made it to the theaters to see the film are giving it rave reviews. The film does follow the blueprint of the "Rocky" installments, but fans are praising Jordan and his love interest Tessa Thompson for their performances.

#Creed2 has the energy and character depth of the first CREED with some creative nods to previous ROCKY movies. The fights are top notch, as always, and even if you know where it's heading, you're still cheering at the end from the edge of your seat. Definitely a worthy sequel pic.twitter.com/p5nrcXcCat  Erik Davis (@ErikDavis) November 16, 2018

Ok! So I saw #Creed2 last night and its definitely worth seeing. Even if you only come to see Michael B Jordan. Its good.  Carbs Is My Love Language (@UFullOfBritt) November 20, 2018

But some feel even Jordan can't make this film work. Mara Reinstein of US Magazine calls the sequel predictable:

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As the number of confirmed cases of the polio-like disease acute flaccid myelitis continues to increase and more states report suspected cases, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevent has announced the creation of a task force to address this "critical public health issue."

"I want to reaffirm to parents, patients and our nation CDC's commitment to this serious medical condition," said Dr. Robert R. Redfield in a release.

"This task force will ensure that the full capacity of the scientific community is engaged and working together to provide important answers and solutions to actively detect, more effectively treat and ultimately prevent AFM and its consequences."

The task force, composed of un-named representatives from scientific, medical and public health, is to make recommendations for better coordination and effective action to the scientific board of counselors within CDC's Office of Infectious Diseases. It is scheduled to submit its first report at the board's Dec. 6 public meeting in Atlanta.

There has been an unexplained spike in cases of AFM, a rare but potentially debilitating condition, every other year since 2014 and the task force is to address solving what the CDC has called a "critical public health issue" whose cause remains unknown and for which there is no specific clinical management and nearly half of those diagnosed are said to not make a full recovery.

There are now 106 confirmed cases of AFM among the 273 reports that the CDC has received so far this year of patients under investigation in 29 states.

The CDC says all but five have been diagnosed in children ages 18 or younger.

AFM, which often initially manifests as a respiratory illness, causes inflammation in the spinal cord and interferes with the transmission of nerve signals to and from the brain.

It is defined by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists as a "rare and very serious condition that affects the nervous system causing weakness in the arms or legs and is, in some instances, also associated with long-term disability."

It has been compared to polio myelitis because it can result in limb paralysis. However, the CDC has said its confirmed cases are not caused by poliovirus as all the stool specimens from AFM patients have tested negative for the poliovirus.

Last week, the CDC had reported a year-to-date tally of 90 confirmed among 252 cases under investigation in 27 states.

There are 430 confirmed cases of AFM in 46 states and the District of Columbia since 2014 when the CDC began tracking the disease.

The CDC has said that the coxsackievirus A16, Enterovirus-A71, and -D68 was found in the spinal fluid of four of these confirmed cases, which points to the cause of their AFM. No pathogen (germ) has been detected in the spinal fluid to confirm a cause in all the other 226 cases, the CDC said.

The highest number of confirmed cases in recent years were 120 in 2014 in 34 states and 149 in 2016 in 39 states.

In 2017, CDC received information for 33 confirmed cases of AFM in 16 states across the U.S.
Every Thanksgiving, the streets of Andover flood with more than 10,000 runners, joggers, walkers, and spectators for the "Feaster Five" road race -- one of the largest Thanksgiving Day races in New England.

But the bitter cold forecast has Race Director Dave McGillivray and his team nervous for participants' safety. Organizers announced in a statement that the 5-mile race and "Kid's Fun Run" races are canceled, and only the 5K race will continue.

"With temperatures in the low teens and winds gusting to as high as 40 mph, we will only run the 5k course. Our concern is that extended exposure to the low temperatures may lead to possible frostbite," organizers wrote in a statement on the Feaster Five website.

In a statement, organizers said McGillivray consulted Boston meteorologist Barry Burbank, Andover Police Chief Patrick Keefe, Fire Chief Mike Mansfield, and medical officials to make an informed decision on cancelations.

The news comes as potentially record-breaking cold temperatures are creeping into New England on Wednesday evening and into the Thursday holiday. With severe wind chills and an arctic blast of cold air, apparent temperatures will feel below zero across nearly all of Massachusetts Thursday morning.

Registered participants who were signed up to run the 5-mile race will automatically be entered into the 5K race. Anyone who opts not to run due to cold, including children registered for the kids' races, can still retrieve their "swag" including their bib, hoodie, and buff, or runner headwear.

Regular water stops will not be available along the 5K route, which starts at the corner of Main Street and Balmoral Street and finishes in Brickstone Square. The race also asks that only walkers or runners participate: "We strongly recommend no strollers or dogs," organizers noted.

The popular "Feaster Five" event is one of six major road races around Boston on Thanksgiving. The Andover race suggests that runners warm up, wear several warm layers -- including gloves and hats -- and be cautious of icy roads.
Allan Chiocca, the embattled town administrator in Rockland, filed a discrimination complaint Tuesday, the latest twist in a drama that's roiled the South Shore town over the last six months.

Chiocca has been on paid leave since May 29, when Deidre Hall, then a member of the town's board of selectmen, accused him of behaving inappropriately in a late night sexual encounter at Town Hall.

"She was actually the true victimizer, exploiting her position of power to force him to participate in sexual acts against his will," Chiocca's lawyers wrote in the complaint filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, according to the Boston Globe.

Chiocca is seeking damages for wages, benefits, and emotional distress, according to the Globe. He did not identify a specific cost in the complaint, but in July sent the town a request for settlement totaling more than $5 million.

The Rockland Board of Selectman voted on Chiocca's future Tuesday. It was the first time since the scandal started the board had enough members to vote on the issue. The board lost two members over the summer when Hall and Ed Kimball, with whom she was having an affair, resigned. The Nov. 6 election filled those vacated seats.

The board voted to keep Chiocca on paid administrative leave until his contract expires on June 30, 2019. The board will not renew his contract, selectman announced in a meeting Tuesday night. The town also shared, for the first time, that Kimball is also threatening legal action.

"This entire episode has been an embarrassment to the town of Rockland, and we would all like it to end,'' Chairman Larry Ryan said at the Tuesday night meeting, reading from a prepared statement. "Unfortunately, the individuals that put the town in this position do not seem interested in putting this behind them or letting the town do so."

A $40,000 report by the town found that Hall, not the town administrator, was the aggressor during the encounter.

The drama began on May 1 when Hall and Chiocca went out for drinks after a Board of Selectmen meeting. Hall shared that she and fellow board member Kimball had been having an "intense physical and emotional affair," but that Dawn Kimball, the selectman's wife, found out. Kimball told Hall they had to end things and she said she was upset.

Chiocca told investigators that during this time, and at the bar, Hall pressured him to allow her to perform a sexual act on him. If he didn't allow it, she wouldn't vote to approve his $30,000 raise, the report said.

"[She] reminded him that she was his boss and would be voting on his contract extension. Although not inclined to accept Ms. Hall's advances, Mr. Chiocca was concerned that if he thwarted her advances, she would not vote in favor of his contract extension and increase in compensation," according to the report.

The town also announced that it has hired Pierce, Davis & Perritano, LLP to defend the town.

"Over the past several months we have met with a number of town employees to learn more about the facts which give rise to this threatened litigation. That said, we intend to vigorously defend the town in these lawsuits and are confident that the current Board of Selectmen has taken all steps necessary to both investigate the facts which give rise to these claims and to protect the interests of the town," lawyers wrote in a statement.

Hall previously told MassLive she "refutes the findings of the report."

"I am not going to talk through the specifics out of respect for my former colleagues' privacy," Hall told MassLive. "I would never want them to go through what I've been through."
AMHERST - The town's School Committee earlier this month unanimously approved a program providing Spanish and English language and cultural learning at Fort River Elementary School.

One aim of the program is to reduce the "current achievement gap for Spanish-speaking English learners," according to Superintendent Michael Morris. He said the idea "aligns with our focus on social justice."

Family outreach sessions earlier this year showed strong community support for the program, Morris said.

The superintendent said the voluntary full-day program would be implemented in kindergarten only for the 2019-20 school year. Details of the program are still being developed.

The following year, the program will expand to first grade, with one additional grade level added each year until all six grades are involved.

The program "will be based at Fort River with a lottery process to allow for participation of students from other Amherst Elementary Schools, as space permits," Morris wrote.



"The program will prioritize Spanish-speaking English Learners in the lottery, as per the mission of the program," he said in a statement. There are about 140 kindergarten students in Amherst public schools, he said.

In an interview, Morris said that during the first year it is projected there would be about 40 slots, consisting of two sections, for Fort River kindergartners who will participate in the program. He said a third section, consisting of 20 students, would be for those not wishing to opt into the program.

Morris said he forecasts the initiative to be "cost-neutral" for the district. Additional instructional materials will be purchased but no new staff will be hired.

"I appreciate the many staff members who have developed this proposal and look forward to being able to honor who our students are and what our larger community desires with the implementation of this program," Morris said in his statement.

Additional family engagement events are planned in the coming months to share ideas and provide more information about the program, he said.

The Amherst School Committee oversees the town's pre-kindergarten through grade six public education system.

Data from 2017 on the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website shows ethnicity at Fort River Elementary School as follows: 47 percent white, 22 percent Hispanic, 15 percent Asian, 10 percent African-American and 6 percent multiracial, non-Hispanic.

The state data shows 52 percent of Fort River students classified as "high needs," 39 percent "economically disadvantaged," 24 percent "first language not English," 16 percent "English-language learners" and 26 percent "students with disabilities."

Fort River in 2017 had an enrollment of 335 students and a student-to-teacher ratio of about 9 to 1, according to state data. Fort River was classified as a Level 3 school, on a scale with 1 be the best performing, and 5 being the worst.
NORTHAMPTON - Day 2 of recreational drug sales in Northampton resembled Day 1 at New England Treatment Access, as hundreds of people waited in line outside before the store opened.

At the 8 a.m. opening, the line extended from the front door across the parking lot, down the sidewalk on Pleasant Street and down Fulton Avenue.

Amanda Rositano, director of compliance for the facility, said the lines seem a little smaller than on opening day, but they are prepared for it to grow during the day.

The staff have been working to see that it moves as quickly as it can.

NETA staff have been working the line, she said. Staff are handing out menus of items available for purchase to those waiting in line, and answering any questions people have. The idea is for customers to enter the store with an idea of what they want and then to purchase it quickly, she said.

This is preferable to having customers dilly-dally inside the store because the quicker people make purchases and leave, the more quickly new customers are allowed inside and the more quickly the line outside moves, she said.

On Tuesday, the NETA facility on Conz Street became one of two marijuana facilities on the East Coast to be legally sell recreational marijuana to anyone over 21. The other is Cultivate Holdings LLC in the Worcester County town of Leicester.

The Northampton had been dispensing medical marijuana for several months.

On Day one, NETA officials estimated more than 2,000 customers had been served during the day, and that there was no shortage of product.

The wait times for as long as 3 hours during the day, and the line stretched around the corner and down the block.

The last customers were admitted into the store at 9:57 p.m., minutes before the 10 p.m. closing time.

At 8:30 p.m., 90 minutes before closing on Tuesday, people were no longer admitted into the line, and several late-comers were turned away.

On Wednesday, Northampton police continued to block off access to Fulton Avenue from Pleasant Street to control traffic. Cars were allowed enter Fulton from Conz Street to park in the NETA lot.

Temporary signs banning parking were placed along Conz and Pleasant Street, and a detail of officers stood by to keep things orderly. Side streets in the vicinity appeared to have few available parking places, but it was unclear if that was the related to NETA traffic or some other factor.

Rositano said NETA staff are anticipating demand will eventually level off and the waiting line will disappear. But for now, no one knows when that will be.

"It's hard to predict. It depends on how quickly other operations come online," she said. "We planned to be the first online and to be busy for some time."

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission is reviewing applications prior to awarding retail licenses for different operations across the state.

In nearby Easthampton, the INSA medical marijuana dispensary has been granted its retail license and expects to begin sales to the general public in 2 to 3 weeks.

Rositano said the NETA management and staff have planned for opening day and all off that planning paid off.

"Yesterday was almost flawlessly executed," she said.

The facility to steps to insure there was enough product in inventory to meet the damage, and there have been no shortages over the first two days, she said. "We're looking good."
EASTHAMPTON -- Mayor Nicole LaChapelle has signaled her intention to replace longtime City Solicitor John H. "Jack" Fitz-Gibbon with Mark A. Tanner, principal trial attorney with Bacon & Wilson of Springfield.

LaChapelle submitted Tanner's name to the City Council on Monday, along with a list of other routine appointments. She said that Fitz-Gibbon's annual contract expires at the end of December, and that she would like Tanner to start in January.

The council packet contained Tanner's resume and a cover letter.

"Since returning to Western Massachusetts in 2001, I have practiced extensively in municipal law, land use law, and litigation," Tanner wrote.

"On a personal level, I enjoy helping local governments understand and navigate the complex regulatory framework in when they operate, and hope you will afford me the opportunity to do so," he added.

Councilor Daniel Rist told LaChapelle that he plans to attend any upcoming meeting where Tanner will be vetted.

"This is important," said Rist. "We have had the same city attorney for more than a decade. We need some time for that."

The matter was referred to the appointments subcommittee. Councilor Peg Conniff, who chairs the subcommittee, said a meeting would be scheduled soon, at a time that works for Tanner.

After the council meeting was adjourned, LaChapelle explained that she wants a "fresh set of eyes" on the city's legal matters.

"I have a great appreciation for attorney Fitz-Gibbon's service to the city over several decades," she told The Republican. "That said, as we go forward as a city, I'm looking for a fresh set of eyes on what we are are doing as far as economic development, charter review, and a different set of eyes on ordinances and the relationship between the executive and legislative."

LaChapelle said Tanner brings added legal resources due to his affiliation with Bacon & Wilson, a full-service law firm.

Reached by telephone Tuesday, Fitz-Gibbon said he understands that LaChapelle has the ability and authority to choose a new city lawyer, and that he wishes her well.

"I've enjoyed working with the city for the past 16 years, and will miss it," Fitz-Gibbon said. "It was fun while it lasted."

The solicitor is not an employee, and has a contractual relationship with the city.

Fitz-Gibbon was named city solicitor in 2003, replacing David Sullivan, who is now Northwestern district attorney.

Fitz-Gibbon has helped Easthampton navigate many legal issues, including neighborhood opposition to affordable housing. More recently, He drew criticism from progressive activists when he opined that the city charter does not empower the City Council to declare Easthampton a sanctuary city.

A graduate of the University of Wyoming School of Law, Tanner has served on the board of directors of People's Institute, Franklin County County Community Development Corporation, and was previously president of the Hampshire County Bar Association.

Tanner could not be reached for comment.
HOLYOKE -- The City Council put a moratorium on its own recently passed ordinance regulating temporary signs at homes and businesses, halting key components of the ordinance from taking effect.

The move comes as the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is challenging the ordinance in U.S. District Court.

Councilor Rebecca Lisi, along with several other councilors, introduced two late-file orders at Tuesday's meeting, including the moratorium. The second order, referred to the Ordinance Committee, calls for a revising or rescinding the ordinance.

Ward 3 Councilor David K. Bartley drafted the temporary sign ordinance, which has drawn the ire of residents who questioned the ordinance's legality and constitutionality. Several residents spoke out against the regulations during the Nov. 20 meeting.

Peter 'Al' Williams, of Pearl Street held a wooden sign inscribed with the word "Ceremony." The sign was used recently to direct guests to his wedding ceremony, held at his home.



He wondered if such a sign would fall under the temporary sign ordinance.



"I personally find that a little outrageous. I find it irresponsible to have my elected officials turnaround and limit my free speech," Williams said. "I don't think it's constitutional. I think it also displays a real lack of fiduciary responsibility."



Williams said ACLU's suit would cost the City of Holyoke money, and urged the council to revoke the ordinance.



"It makes no sense to me. There's no reason for signs to be regulated between December and March," he said.

The ACLU in its court filings said the ordinance is unconstitutional, violating the First and 14th Amendments.

Council President Todd McGee said the latest ordinance was meant to correct a previous ordinance considered unconstitutional. He told residents in the gallery that the council has no intention of limiting free speech rights.

McGee, an attorney, said the moratorium and subsequent actions would make the ACLU's complaint "moot," and telegraph intent to the court that the council was keenly aware of the matter before the body.

The ordinance, passed in early-October, would require residents and businesses to register temporary signs between Dec. 1 and March 1 with the Building Department. For now, the moratorium stops that requirement.

The ordinance includes political messaging and business signs like sandwich boards and signs attached to vehicles.

Ward 5 Councilor Linda Vacon, who chairs the Ordinance Committee, said the City of Holyoke remains at legal risk even if a rescission passed.

Vacon reminded her colleagues the council and other city committees conducted hearings on Bartley's ordinance. She echoed McGee's belief the council would never limit residents' First Amendment rights.

Lisi said the council should send the court a "clear message" that the City Council was taking the federal complaint seriously.

She said the city must protect itself from monetary damages, too.

Morse and City Building Commissioner Damien Cote are lead defendants in the ACLU's suit. As a matter of procedure, such court filings list or add key city leaders and department heads as defendants.

In his veto letter to the council, Morse said the ordinance violated citizen's First Amendment Rights and caused an undue burden on residents.

Bartley did not speak on the matter during the session. He did, however, talk by phone early Tuesday about the ACLU's filing.

He said his order underwent over a dozen public meetings and hearings, drawing scant or no attention from the mayor or residents.

Like McGee, he said the order was meant to correct a faulty sign ordinance on the books, and make it constitutionally compliant. The previous ordinance did not adhere to Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision.



The Supreme Court found any restrictions, whether on content or time limits, violated the First Amendment.

Bartley, an attorney, said he disagreed with the ACLU's assertion that the newest ordinance violated the First Amendment or free speech rights.

He said the City's Law Department provided legal guidance throughout the process, ensuring the ordinance would past constitutional scrutiny.

While he said the ACLU holds the right to file suit, the organization is "targeting one of the poorest communities in the Commonwealth." He added the court filing contains much rhetoric.

"The bottom line is the bottom line. The ACLU is looking for money. They want reimbursement for attorney fees, court costs, and other remedies," Bartley said. "The altruistic ACLU proves, once again, they're really a bunch of phonies."

He added, "They say they're fighting for the First Amendment. Their arguments are so thin. They really give themselves away at the end. They want money. That's what it's all about."

Bartley said the City Council "follows the law," even if the court finds in the ACLU's favor. "We will respect and adhere to the court judge's ruling," he said.

City Solicitor Crystal Barnes could not comment on the ACLU's complaint.

Though Bartley's name appears several times in the ACLU's motion, he is not a named defendant.

"It is true the order started with me. But let us remember, the full City Council unanimously voted for the ordinance," he said. The council voted 12-0 in favor, with Ward 4 Councilor Jossie Valentin absent.

Bartley said the mayor has not fared well in veto attempts.

He recalled only a few of the named plaintiffs appeared at one of the over dozen public hearings held on Bartley's order. "The mayor didn't appear at any," he said.

Few councilors, except for members of the Ordinance Committee, participated in the process, according to Bartley.
SPRINGFIELD -- Springfield District Court Judge John Payne on Wednesday said he didn't understand how the name and address of a victim in an attempted sexual assault case was made public in court documents.

He said he had ordered that a police report on the incident, in a case against accused killer Stewart Weldon, be made public except for personal information protected under law. That information includes the victim's name.

But the woman's name, address and phone number was not redacted in documents made public last week.

The Republican / MassLive and The Boston Globe, which had gone to court in June seeking the release of the police report, did not publish the woman's name in their recent reporting on the documents.

Assistant District Attorney Max Bennett said he wanted to make sure the Springfield District Court Clerk's Office knows that the name and address of the woman should not be released, as it was in error last week. Payne agreed there should be assurances the information won't be released.

The woman said Weldon tried to drag her into his home in February.

Weldon was arraigned in connection with the incident on June 4, but the police report was immediately impounded and no details of the alleged attack were released.

Weldon, 41, is charged with murder in the deaths of of Kayla Escalante, 27, of Ludlow, and Springfield residents Ernestine Ryans, 47, and 34-year-old America Lyden. Their bodies were found in and around the 1333 Page Blvd. property where he lived with his mother.

He was arrested after a traffic stop on May 27, when a woman in his car -- the mother of his children -- told police he'd been holding her captive and brutalizing her for weeks.

A grand jury indicted Weldon on a total of 52 counts, including kidnapping and aggravated rape. The indictments list a total of 11 victims, including the woman who says he attacked her in February.
An embattled Massachusetts State Police officer whose payroll records have been drawn into a federal investigation is looking to retire.

The Massachusetts State Treasury confirmed to MassLive that former Massachusetts State Police union president Dana Pullman has submitted his application to retire. The confirmation comes after WCVB first reported Wednesday that Pullman retired Nov. 2.

Pullman, a 31-year veteran of the state police, resigned as president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts in late September, citing personal reasons. The FBI and IRS are investigating whether Pullman misused union funds for his personal benefit and have subpoenaed records from a charity run by Pullman's wife, the Boston Globe has reported.

Pullman earned just over $91,000 from the State Police last year. He took in another $71,000 from the union in 2017, the Globe reported.

The Massachusetts State Police denied a MassLive public records request for Pullman's payroll details earlier this month, saying the records are related to an ongoing federal investigation. The denial was the first confirmation that Pullman's pay had attracted the attention of federal investigators.

On the day of Pullman's resignation, State Police Col. Kerry Gilpin sent the union a letter saying the department would begin cracking down on allegedly improper uses of publicly funded union business leave.

The news is the latest in a string of scandals that have plagued the Massachusetts State Police in the past year that have resulted in indictments of troopers accused of abusing overtime shifts as well as four troopers facing federal charges.

MassLive reporter Dan Glaun contributed to this story.
NORTHAMPTON - The line that stretched all the way around the block began shorten by nightfall, from several thousand to several hundred to several dozen until finally at 9:57 p.m., 3 minutes before closing, when the last handful were allowed inside the New England Treatment Access building.

And with that Day 1 of legalized marijuana sales in Northampton drew to a close.

"We'll be open again tomorrow," said Norton Arbelaez, director of Government Affairs and spokesman for NETA.

As one of two places in Massachusetts that are for now permitted for retail sale of marijuana, NETA expected a swarm of business on the first day, and that is exactly what they got.

The line at its peak stretched out the parking lot, down the sidewalk and around the corner, and wait times to get inside were 2 to 4 hours.

Arbelaez said that, all in all, things went quite smoothly. There were no problems and there was a steady stream of customers from 8 a.m. until closing at 10 p.m. He said the store saw more than 2,000 people coming in through the doors.

NETA had no problems with the supply to meet the demand. "This was the capstone of 2 years of preparation," he said. They were ready to have enough inventory on hand to meet capacity, and when all was said and done, things worked out as planned, he said.

"We served everybody," he said.

Everybody up to and including Mayor David Narkewicz, who rang up the first purchase at 8 a.m. when he paid $24 for a marijuana-infused candy bar. Narkewicz said he did not plan to sample it but preferred to save the bar as a piece of city history.

Near the end of the day, a man who identified himself as Patrick said he drove 2 hours from Taunton to then stand 90 minutes in line to be able to go in the shop and legally purchase marijuana.

While Cultivate Holdings in Leicester, the other state's only legal marijuana retail operation, is a lot closer to Taunton, the Northampton location had the advantage of being open later. Cultivate Holdings, he said, "close at 6 p.m."

As a NETA staff member circulated along the line handing out paper menus of the products inside, Patrick decline. "I already know what I'm getting," he said.

Unlike Narkewicz, Patrick said he had no intentions of preserving his purchase for posterity, but would likely smoke it as soon as he drives the two hours back to home.

"I'll keep the receipt as a momento," he said.

At 8:30 p.m and the line roughly 90 minutes long, staff capped the line. The last two people in line were designated the last people in line, and everyone who came later than that -- and several came later than that -- were told they would not be able to get inside.

Late-comers were given a coupon for 20 percent off that was redeemable on Wednesday though.

"We just made it, buddy," said one of the two men to the other. Then they high-fived.

The two, neither of whom would give their name, said they each live in the area and work in Northampton.

"I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about," said one.

The other said he was pleased to see marijuana legal in Massachusetts. He said he has friends in Colorado, the first state to legalize retail sales, and when he has gone to visit, he was always taken by how normal it is.

"You go to the store, buy your stuff, and then you go home and smoke it," he said. "It's so easy."

The two eventually said the novelty of legal marijuana would eventually wear off and the lines would take off. Neither had any idea when that will be.

Each said although it is now legal to purchase, possess and use, marijuana still has negative connotations for some, which is why no one approached by a reporter would give their full name or why some would decline to be interviewed at all.

"Yeah, no!" said one woman emerging from the store clutching an NETA bag to a reporter who had approached her.

"Even though it's legal, the stigma will always be there," said the second of the two men.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Customers may not want their names in the paper, but at the same time, several emerged from the store clutching their purchases and making no effort to conceal them as they walked past police.

Toward the end of the night, two men held aloft their bags as they posed for photos in front of a Northampton police cruiser.

Arbelaez said eventually when the novelty wears off and marijuana sales become more normal, people will wonder why it was criminalized in the first place.

"The 'Prohibition model' is bankrupt," especially when it comes to the people of color who have been punished disproportionately in the enforcement of drug laws, he said.

"This is the first step in creating a new equilibrium of social justice," he said.
EASTHAMPTON -- After lengthy discussion, the Planning Board on Tuesday awarded developer Michael Michon and his team a special permit to redevelop the rambling, derelict former mill complex at One Ferry Street.

Construction is scheduled to begin this spring at the 7-acre site, and plans show a mixed-use development with up to 152 dwelling units and approximately 60,000 square feet of commercial, retail, and office space. Some buildings will be torn down, and others renovated.

The permit marks a major milestone in the city's effort to revitalize its 19th-century industrial mills in the Pleasant Street area. If all goes well, One Ferry will join Eastworks, the Keystone Mill, Mill 180, and, on the other side of town, One Cottage Street and Cottage Square, as key drivers in the city's decades-long transformation from a struggling mill town to a 21st-century arts and industry mecca.

Michon, who previously developed Mill 180, appeared with Springfield lawyer Brad Martin, land consultant Rob Leveque, and architect Siegfried Porth.

The Planning Board agreed 5-0 that the plans by One Industrial Lofts, LLC meet all criteria laid out in the city's mixed-use mill district zoning overlay district.

The project will provide high-quality architectural design, a compatible mix of uses within the old mills, and an enhanced pedestrian environment, and Michon's plans are in keeping with the city's planning vision, the board determined.



The project is backed by a $3.5 million MassWorks grant that will pay for infrastructure and public amenities to support the project.

It's not known if any of the units will be set aside as "workforce housing." The Massachusetts program was set up to encourage private housing for working households whose incomes are too high for subsidized housing, but too low for market rents.

The state's rules for workforce housing recently changed, eliminating a key financial incentive, said Michon, Leveque, and Martin. The state used to provide a $100,000 incentive per workforce housing unit, but that funding source is no longer available, they said.

There is currently no requirement under the city's zoning to provide affordable housing in the mill district, noted City Planner Jeff Bagg.

"The intent of the zoning was to encourage the redevelopment of these properties," said Bagg, while mentioning that the policy could be revisited in the future. Bagg added that the conditions of the MassWorks grant might require some affordable housing, and that he would look into that.

Michon said that certain aspects of the development are "still flexible." For instance, he said, if someone is interested in developing a "boutique hotel" on the property, he would be open to that.

However, parking-intensive uses would not be accepted.

"The last thing a building owner wants is parking wars," said Michon, adding that a call center with 200 employees would not work.

Michon is bound by the terms of his special permit to build at least 50 percent of the 152 units first proposed. If that number should fall, a new permit would be needed. However, the One Industrial Lofts team said that that's highly unlikely to happen.

The development would provide parking, a new public connection between Ferry Street and the Manhan Rail Trail, a walkway along the Lower Mill Pond, and a roundabout to manage traffic at the intersection of Ferry, Pleasant, and Lovefield streets.

Mayor Nicole LaChapelle sat quietly through most of the hearing.

LaChapelle has said that the redevelopment of One Ferry is one of the top priorities of her administration. The area was designated a federal opportunity zone, which offers tax incentives to investors.

This story has been updated with additional commentary from city planner Jeffrey Bagg.
AGAWAM -- The Rt. 5 southbound offramp to Rt. 57 is being widened to two lanes, and the ramp's shoulder will be closed for construction during the day from Nov. 26 to Nov. 30.

The ramp is being widened to accommodate motorists headed to points in Agawam while the Morgan-Sullivan bridge is under construction. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said the solution was adopted "in response to a good suggestion received at the public meeting held in October" in West Springfield.

Northern Construction will be working on the ramp during the entire week after Thanksgiving, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

At the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge, there will be no work or lane closures between 12 p.m. Wednesday and 5 a.m. Monday for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.



The work hours are subject to change based on traffic impacts. No detours are required at this time.
With record-breaking cold expected to hit the state on Thanksgiving, area shelters are doing what they can to protect the homeless.

Temperatures aren't expected to climb out of the teens and 20s for much of the state, and wind chills could reach minus 15 on the slopes of the Berkshires Thursday morning, the National Weather Service reports.

"We are keeping our shelters open around the clock and our outreach teams have been urging people to come inside," said Barbara V. Trevisan, vice president of marketing and communications for Boston's Pine Street Inn. "Our teams know many of those who stay outside and will be monitoring them closely."

She said the shelter is open all day for the holiday and typically will stay open all day when temperatures get frigid.

The Friends of the Homeless shelter in Springfield is also open 24 hours a day and doesn't see a big change in numbers when it gets cold, said Executive Director Bill Miller in an email.

"As far as numbers of people go, we are already crowded and have been," Miller said. "Our efforts go year-round so that when the cold hits, we are not caught off guard."

The shelters run by ServiceNet in Northampton and Greenfield, while typically open from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., are open all day on holidays, said Jay Sacchetti, senior vice president of shelter and housing.

The agency offers 20 beds each in Northampton and Greenfield. There is also a six-bed overflow shelter in Easthampton.

In Amherst, Craig's Place cannot increase its capacity of 22 beds for men and six for women, Co-Director Jade Lovett wrote in an email.

"We will be in touch with other local and regional resources to ensure that if we are full, our guests have other viable options and remain indoors," she said.

The shelter has been full this month, she said, "particularly after the first snow."

The shelter at the First Baptist Church, which hosts the program, will not be open during the day because of church activities. But Lovett wrote that there are meal programs in town where people can go to stay warm.

The Center for the Human Development serves a Thanksgiving meal at the First Congregational Church in Amherst at 1 p.m. People are invited to stop in earlier for coffee.
SPRINGFIELD -- A fire displaced five adults and heavily damaged a historic house in the Six Corners neighborhood Tuesday night.

The residents of the multi-family home at 54 Ridgewood Place were able to escape safely with their three dogs. No one was injured in the fire that was reported at 9:13 p.m., said Dennis Leger, executive assistant to Fire Commissioner Bernard J. Calvi.

The fire started on the second floor of the home. Flames could be seen shooting through the roof and thick smoke blanketed the neighborhood.

Firefighters extinguished most of the flames by 10 p.m. but are expected to be working at the house for several hours, Legersaid.

The home is located at the corner of Ridgewood Place and Union Street. Both streets are currently closed.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, he said.

Angela Anderson, who lives across the street from the home said a neighbor knocked on her door and told her the house was on fire. She knew the residents had been able to escape safely but at first was concerned two of the pets had not.

Soon after another neighbor told her the other two dogs were safe as well.

"I was out taking a walk about 10 minutes earlier and I didn't see anything and I didn't smell smoke," she said.

The house dates to the 1800s, she said.

"He (the owner) works on the house all the time. It's a shame," Anderson said.

The Pioneer Valley of the American Red Cross has been called in to assist the residents, Leger said.
SPRINGFIELD - Two men were arrested on federal charges Wednesday in connection with at least nine armed robberies committed throughout Western Massachusetts.

Alfredo Aldeco, 32, of Holyoke, and Emilio Rivera, 30, of Springfield, were each charged by criminal complaint with one count of interference with commerce by robbery and aiding and abetting, according to a release issued by U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling.

The suspects are slated to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court.

According to court documents, between Oct. 25, 2018, and Nov. 14, 2018, there were at least nine armed robberies of convenience stores located in Holyoke, Chicopee, Florence, West Springfield, and Agawam.

Investigations into the robberies led law enforcement to determine that the same two men were involved in many of the robberies.

During each of the robberies, a suspect brandished a distinctive long-barreled, black firearm-type object, and during at least one of the robberies, the suspect threatened to "come back and kill" the store clerk if the clerk called the police.

The charge of interference with commerce by robbery provides for a sentence of no greater than 20 in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the federal sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

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The number of federal prison inmates under investigation in connection with the death of notorious Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger is now up to four, according to media reports.

The Boston Globe reported Wednesday that two additional inmates are now being eyed in connection with 89-year-old Bulger's death, which is being investigated as a homicide.

Felix Wilson, 26, of New York, and Sean McKinnon, 32, of Vermont, are now being looked at by federal authorities, the Globe reported. It is not clear if the two are suspected of participating in the killing, planning it, or covering it up.

McKinnon, who is serving an 8-year sentence for stealing guns, shared a cell with Fotios "Freddy" Geas, a Mafia hitman formerly of West Springfield, according to the Globe.

Wilson was sharing a cell with Bulger, according to the Globe.

Bulger arrived at the USP Hazelton facility in West Virginia just hours before he was allegedly beaten to death on Oct. 30 with a lock in a sock.

Geas, who is serving a life sentence for two murders, was identified as the first suspect in Bulger's killing.

Paul J. DeCologero, of Lowell, was then identified as the second suspect.

All four men have been in solitary confinement since Bulger was found beaten, the Globe reported. The Globe, citing the New York Times, said Wilson and McKinnon could have been moved to solitary confinement as a precaution.

The Globe, citing several law enforcement sources, said security video captured DeCologero and Geas entering Bulger's cell around 6 a.m. on Oct. 30.

Bulger was found unresponsive around 8:20 a.m.

According to the Globe, law enforcement officials say Geas admitted to attacking Bulger, but said he did so alone.

Bulger, who was an informant to the FBI, was serving life in prison for 11 murders.
BOSTON -- One side will say that youth workers at a juvenile detention facility in Boston physically beat boys under their care. The other side will say the teenagers made up the accusations, and the assaults did not occur.

A jury trial began Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court for six former employees of the Casa Isla detention center who are accused of assaulting residents.

"These young incarcerated men were stuck out on an island in the middle of Boston Harbor in a locked facility with staff who beat them, threatened them and intimidated them," said Assistant District Attorney Sarah Stancato McEvoy in her opening statement.

The staff members deny the charges, and their attorneys argued in opening statements that the residents making the allegations are not credible.

"This was a group of violent, manipulative men who were out there on that island who told nobody about anything, didn't describe it to anyone. They sustained this program of violence," said Edward Krippendorf, an attorney for Casa Isla employee Silvio Depina.

Casa Isla was a locked facility for teenagers sentenced by the courts to the custody of the Department of Youth Services. It was located on Long Island, a now-unused island off Boston Harbor that, until a bridge was torn down in 2014, was home to various social services. Volunteers of America of Massachusetts had a contract with the state Department of Youth Services to run Casa Isla.

Prosecutors allege that staff at Casa Isla beat residents in a ritualized assault called "orange chicken." In orange chicken, a resident's pants and underwear were pulled down, and the teen was beaten on his buttocks with an orange, DYS-issued sandal. The case will center on "orange chicken" assaults against two particular juveniles. Prosecutors will also allege additional incidents of physical and sexual assault and threats that accompanied the assaults.

Six men are being tried together on 41 charges relating to the assaults. They are: Jalise Andrade, 37, of Brockton; Depina, 40, of Brockton; Emmanuel Fedna, 33, of Everett; Hermano Joseph, 27, of Taunton; Ainsley Laroche, 44, of Roxbury; and Raymond Pizarro, 27, of Hyde Park.

Judge Jeffrey Locke is presiding.

All of the defendants are facing charges relating to physical assault. Joseph and Depina are also charged with indecent assault, and Depina, Andrade and Laroche are accused of witness intimidation.

Another staff member, Joseph Cintolo, 29, of Quincy, was charged with one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. His case was separated from the other defendants, and a status conference will be held next week.

An eighth man, Wilkins Jeanty, was charged initially, but the charge against him was dropped.

McEvoy said in her opening statement that prosecutors will bring evidence to show that staff members tried to hide the assaults by closing the blinds in the room where an assault was occurring, blocking the door with a ping-pong table and making sure no superiors were around.

The prosecutor said residents were given a choice to lie down voluntarily for a beating or to be pinned down by residents. "If he chose to lay down in front of everyone and agree to pull down his own pants and underwear, the beating was less severe," McEvoy said.

She said residents were threatened with beatings if they told anyone what was happening, and the decisions residents made to participate in beatings and keep silent were "about survival."

Attorneys for the staff members said prosecutors could not prove the charges.

Krippendorf told jurors they will hear "generalizations" and "open-ended situations," rather than specific evidence."Don't let these witnesses or the commonwealth rest on scary-sounding or nefarious-sounding words like orange chicken or a ritual that occurred," Krippendorf said. "Don't substitute words like that for actual evidence that something happened, by whom or to whom or when."

Krippendorf said the teenage Casa Isla residents were not "a timid group of boys out there being victimized" but a "violent, manipulative group of men" who lied about their experiences. He called them people "you wouldn't believe in any aspect of your life" who were motivated to lie to cut deals on sentences in their criminal cases and to win financial settlements in civil lawsuits related to the abuse.

"They have a direct stake in the outcome of this case because a guilty conviction means a payday for them," said Andrade's attorney, Patrick Noonan, referring to the civil suits, which are still pending.

Lawyers for the defendants indicated that they will argue that there is no physical evidence of the assaults, whether in photographs, videos or medical records. Joseph's attorney, Michael Tumposky, said a program director at the facility reviewed 500 hours of videotaped surveillance footage without finding evidence of assault.

"The facility was rampant with violence according to the commonwealth, but there's no corroboration," Tumposky said. "Where's the photo, video, medical records? You're not going to have that because it doesn't exist, because these events did not happen."

The prosecution's first witness testified only briefly on Wednesday before the jury was excused for Thanksgiving.

E.P., now 21, was 17 when he arrived at Casa Isla with a history of criminal activity and stays in other youth facilities.

The Republican is not identifying the men involved in the criminal case who were juveniles at the time of the incidents.

E.P. testified that staff would close the blinds in the cafeteria, block the doors, check the building for superiors and tell a resident he was going to get "orange chicken." E.P. said he was on a "team" of four or five residents who were spared the orange chicken attacks because they were charged with helping staff carry them out.

"I'd just try to be the first one to jump up and restrain them if I had to," E.P. said.

Asked why he participated, E.P. said, "to avoid having it done to me."

The trial continues Monday.
Massachusetts' first two stores to legally sell recreational marijuana opened amid fanfare on Tuesday.

It is only the beginning of what is expected to be a new billion dollar-plus industry, which could take years to ramp up.

"Realistically, to be a really full-fledged industry, they'll need 200 to 300 stores in the next few years, and it will take that long to get to that number," said Jim Smith, a partner at Smith, Costello & Crawford, who represents marijuana companies.

Cultivate in Leicester and New England Treatment Access in Northampton became the first two companies in Massachusetts to sell recreational cannabis, two years after voters approved a ballot question legalizing it. While their opening is historic, marking the first time cannabis was sold legally east of the Mississippi River, it will take time to reach the point where any adult consumer can drive up to a convenient store and easily buy marijuana.

"Marijuana is widely consumed and popular among Massachusetts adults. There's going to be large demand," said Matthew Schweich, deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group that advocates for marijuana legalization. "At the start, there won't be many stores to service that demand."

The next store to open is likely to be PharmaCannis in Wareham, which was awarded a final license Nov. 1. A company that has a final license still needs to upload its inventory to a state tracking system and undergo a final inspection before it can open for sales.

At a Cannabis Control Commission meeting Tuesday, two additional companies were awarded final licenses: Alternative Therapies Group in Salem got permission to open a retail store, while I.N.S.A. in Easthampton got a license to cultivate marijuana, manufacture products and open a retail store.

SIRA Naturals has a final license to cultivate and transport cannabis and manufacture products, but not to operate a retail store.

Around 20 companies hold provisional licenses, which means they can start to grow marijuana and build their stores. But they must still undergo inspections, register employees and fulfill other requirements.

"I think we're going to see a steady progress," said Cannabis Control Commission Chairman Steven Hoffman. "I think you're going to see every couple of weeks, a couple of new stores, and not just stores but cultivation sites, manufacturing facilities."

As of Nov. 20, 192 marijuana businesses had submitted completed applications to the Cannabis Control Commission, which oversees licensing. That included 65 potential growers, 60 retailers and 51 product manufacturers. More than 900 businesses had submitted at least one part of their application.

Smith predicted there may be a few more stores open before the end of the year. "I think it's going to be a very slow ramp-up," he said.

For now, some experts say stores are likely to sell out, although by Tuesday afternoon, Hoffman said both NETA and Cultivate had assured him that they had sufficient supply. NETA set a cap on how much one individual could buy that was lower than the state cap.

There is a limited supply of adult-use marijuana, since much of the cannabis now being grown in Massachusetts is at facilities only licensed for medical use. It will take time for businesses to grow enough to meet the demand, now that the market has expanded from only medical patients to anyone 21 or older.

"In other states that opened, their supply really didn't start to meet demand until a year or 18 months," said Jim Borghesani, a spokesman for the pro-marijuana ballot campaign who now owns a marijuana-focused public relations firm. "I don't see that being different in Massachusetts."

There are several reasons Massachusetts' marijuana industry has been slow-growing, compared to a state like Nevada, which legalized marijuana at the same time as Massachusetts and started sales in October 2017.

One reason is the licensing process. "The Cannabis Control Commission, to their credit, is being incredibly thorough," Smith said. "They want the industry to be successful, and thoroughness takes time."

Another reason is the municipal approval process. In Massachusetts, cities and towns have local authority to ban, zone, cap or place moratoriums on marijuana businesses. Some towns are more resistant than others to marijuana, and prospective business owners must find available property in the appropriate zoning in a town that allows it. Businesses must then negotiate host agreements and obtain any necessary permits.

Most local moratoriums will expire at the end of the year, with the expectation that cities and towns have used the time to craft zoning bylaws.

Borghesani said he hopes the opening of the first stores will alleviate some of the concerns municipalities have about welcoming marijuana companies.

"I think we're going to see a lot of towns and local officials looking to see how these stores do in the towns," Borghesani said. "Which I think will mean that they'll find out that some of the fears that are being voiced by opponents simply won't materialize."

Businesses also face challenges raising capital. Smith said opening a single retail store costs around $1 million. Things like licensing, security requirements, obtaining property, buying insurance and getting banking services all cost money -- often more than they would cost other types of business. Because marijuana is still federally illegal, and therefore a somewhat risky business, obtaining financing for a marijuana business is harder and costs more than for other businesses.

"You can't open one of these businesses on the cheap," Smith said.

At Tuesday's Cannabis Control Commission meeting, Hoffman acknowledged that the industry is only beginning. "While we accomplished a lot, we all recognize we have a lot more work to do," Hoffman said.

Hoffman quoted Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
AMHERST -- Despite being named as one of many possible 2020 presidential contenders from Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Newton, stressed this week that he has "no plans" to pursue a White House run.

Kennedy, who stopped in Amherst on Tuesday to take part in the annual Monte's March fundraiser, told The Republican that while he will support other Democrats as he did ahead of the 2018 election, a 2020 presidential bid is not on his radar screen.

"I'm happy to be supportive of colleagues and causes where they think I can be helpful, certainly. Other than that, I have no plans," he said in an interview.

Kennedy offered a decisive "no," when asked if he is running for president in 2020.

"I have no plans to (run.) No," he said. "Six ways from Tuesday, no. And no plans to do anything else."

The congressman stressed that his focus is on representing Massachusetts residents in Congress -- particularly in the wake of Democrats' gains in the 2018 midterms.

"I do think the American public just bestowed on the Democratic House an extraordinary responsibility that we haven't had for a while, and that is to force and act on a vision and policies we just ran campaigns on - particularly on health care," he said. "I expect that they expect that we deliver. Part of that is going to be acting on our agenda, part of that is hopefully seeing an administration and a Republican Senate that's willing to work with us as well."

Kennedy further offered his full-throated support for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's bid for U.S. House speaker -- a position that some members of Massachusetts' delegation hope to see go to another Democrat.

"I'm a strong supporter and ally of Leader Pelosi -- and I have been and will continue to be proud to support her," he said. "I expect that she's going to be speaker of the House, and I think that as dust settles and she's able to make a case for our caucus that she's going to be able to earn that support."

The congressman, however, said he acknowledges that not all members of the Democratic caucus share his sentiments.

"It's a discussion some in our caucus definitely want to have, and if they want to have it, we should have it," he said.

More than a dozen House Democrats announced this week that they plan to oppose Pelosi's bid to take over as the chamber's next speaker, including U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, and Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston.

Moulton has also been rumored to be a potential 2020 White House contender, as well as Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Massachusetts U.S. Sen. John Kerry and former Gov. Deval Patrick.
U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, condemned President Donald Trump Wednesday for suggesting that the White House would not punish Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Noting that the CIA has tied the crown prince to Khashoggi's October murder, Neal accused the president of siding "with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over the professionals in America's intelligence agencies."

The congressman further called for Saudi Arabia to be "held accountable for orchestrating the murder of an innocent writer for the Washington Post, who was also a legal resident of the United States."

"His shocking death is contrary to the values of democratic societies across the globe that champion a free and independent press and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms," he said in a statement. "I support organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that are calling for an independent investigation into this brutal killing. We deserve to know the truth about the death of Jamal Khashoggi."

Neal's criticism came just hours after Trump took to Twitter to thank Saudi leaders for the current low oil prices.

"Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" he tweeted.

Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Trump, meanwhile, announced Tuesday that he was "standing with Saudi Arabia" despite Khashoggi's death.

"The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one and one that our country does not condone ... King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder," he said in a statement.

The president added that although Saudi officials could have had knowledge of the event, "we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi."

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," he said. "They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region."

Trump later told reporters that his decision to stand with Saudi Arabia was "all about 'America First.'"

Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Saudi Arabia initially denied involvement in his disappearance, but later said his death had been an accident. Although officials later acknowledged that his murder had been premeditated, they did not implicate the crown prince in the killing.

Saudi Arabia has said it will seek the death penalty against five individuals reportedly involved in Khashoggi's murder.

The United States, in response to the death, sanctioned 17 high ranking Saudi officials.

American intelligence officials have offered with "high confidence" that the crown prince was directly involved in the killing.

Congressional leaders called on the White House this week to investigate whether the crown prince ordered the plot.
Free-agent reliever David Robertson prefers to sign with a team near his Rhode Island home, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters (including MLB.com's Bryan Hoch):

David Robertson is representing himself this offseason. He has spoken to Brian Cashman, who said the righty would prefer to pitch for a team near his Rhode Island home. (That does include New York).  Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) November 16, 2018

Robertson, who has pitched for the Yankees in nine of his 12 big-league seasons, could still re-sign with New York. But three other clubs near Rhode Island-- the Red Sox, Mets and Phillies-- stand out as teams with interest in adding bullpen help this winter.

Boston remains interested in a reunion with Craig Kimbrel but is known to be exploring alternative options as well. One of those may very well be Robertson, who is representing himself this winter and could take a discounted deal to pitch near his home (and his wife's hometown of Medfield, Mass.).

Robertson posted a 3.23 ERA and 11.8 K/9 in 69.2 innings for the Yankees in 2018, completing his eighth consecutive season with a sub-3.50 ERA. He's projected to sign a three-year contract, though he may be amenable to a two-year pact if the right fit presents itself.
Healthcare Contract Manufacturing Market  Highlights

Healthcare contract manufacturing is the outsourcing of the manufacturing process of drugs to contract manufacturing organizations. It serves other companies in pharmaceutical industries and medical devices to offer comprehensive services from drug development to drug manufacturing. The global healthcare contract manufacturing market is presumed to expand at 9.86 % CAGR during the forecast period (2017-2023) owing to the growing demand for medicine supplies, asserts Market Research Future (MRFR).

Drivers and Constraints Impacting the Market:

Patent protection expiration of major drugs along with medical devices and competition and economics of trade and production to favor CMO is likely to foster the market growth during the assessment period. The market is likely to expand owing to the growing demand for medical devices and drugs due to the increasing population in the emerging economies. Moreover, with the increasing demand for generic drugs, the rising number of patent expiries, and huge pipeline of drugs, the global market for healthcare contract manufacturing is anticipated to augment in the coming years.

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On the flip side, issues of control of third parties coupled with complexities associated with supply chain are considered to retard the market growth over the assessment period. Also, rising complexities in the clinical trials along with lack of in-house laboratory capacity are likely to impede the growth of the market.

Global Healthcare Contract Manufacturing Market: Segmental Analysis

The global healthcare contract manufacturing market has been segmented on the basis of service type, type, industry, and region.

By mode of type, the global healthcare contract manufacturing market has been segmented into non-sterile and sterile. Among these, the non-sterile contract manufacturing is estimated to hold the largest market share.

By mode of service type, the global healthcare contract manufacturing market has been segmented into medical device contract manufacturing services and pharmaceutical contract manufacturing services. Among these, the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing services are presumed to hold the largest market share.

By mode of industry, the global healthcare contract manufacturing market has been segmented into biopharmaceutical, medical device, and pharmaceutical. Among these, the segment for medical devices is presumed to hold the largest market share with 43.7 %.

Competitive Dashboard:

The major players operating the global market are Boehringer Ingelheim, Benchmark Electronics, Catalant, Patheon, Vetter Pharma International, Hamilton Company, Aesica Pharmaceuticals, AbbVie, Grifols International, Flex Ltd, Lonza Ag, Forefront Medical Technologies, Sanmina Corporation, Evonik Industries, Mylan, S.A, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and others.

Industry News:

October 16, 2018: Piramal Enterprises Ltd. is weighing the sale of its contract pharmaceutical business in a potential deal worth $1 billion, citing unidentified people. Piramal Pharma Solutions offer services from drug discovery to development as well as commercial manufacturing, with operations in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company has sent out preliminary marketing materials to potential buyers.

Regional Insights:

Geographically, the global healthcare contract manufacturing market span across America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.

Among all the regions, the American region is anticipated to dominate the global market due to the growing investment in the healthcare sector, focus on research institutions on updating technologies, and presence of strong economic conditions. American contract manufacturers have also upgraded their factories and manufacturing capabilities. With cost-efficient models and advanced manufacturing units, American contract manufacturers are making Asian companies run for their money.

The European region is considered to hold the second position in the global market owing to the presence of high health care spending, and growing support from the government. For instance, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the expenditure on healthcare in Germany in 2014 was EUR 321 billion. France recorded the second highest level with EUR 237 billion.

Asia Pacific is presumed to be the fastest growing market due to the presence of a large number of developing nations in this region, such as China and India. Such developing countries are encouraging the growth of healthcare contract manufacturing market.

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The Hemodynamic Monitoring Systems Market is growing pervasively mainly due to the growing rate of cardiovascular disorders, worldwide. In the year, the hemodynamic monitoring systems market had valued at USD 780 MN which is expected to reach USD 1,054 MN by 2023, registering 7.3% CAGR during the forecast period (2017-2023).

Over the last couple of decades, incidence of diseases and disorders related to the heart and blood pressure have increased drastically. Sadly, the figure is growing every year. Although a number of precautionary measures and innovative therapies are taken care of, the prevalence of these diseases is rising continuously, becoming a major concern. Such factors are commutatively contributing to the growth of the hemodynamic monitoring systems market, globally.

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Increasing technological advancements in the field of heart care drive the market growth. The global hemodynamic monitoring systems market is heading with the pervasively rising number of patients suffering from arterial diseases led by the sedentary lifestyle.

On the flip side, factors such as stringent government regulations and unfavorable reimbursement policies in some countries are acting as a headwind that is obstructing the market growth. Besides, the lack of skilled healthcare professionals is expected to the hamper the market growth.

Key Players  Global Hemodynamic Monitoring Systems Market

Some of the market leaders profiled in the report are

Argon Medica,

Teleflex Incorporated,

Osypka Medical,

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation;

PULSION Medical Systems SE,

LiDCO Group plc,

Cheetah Medical,

Deltex Medical Group Plc.,

ICU Medical,

Osypka Medical GmbH,

CareTaker Medical,

CNSystems,

NI Medical, and

Uscom.

Innovation, mergers & acquisitions, product launch, and regional expansion remain the key strategies for these players to maintain their market positions.

Segments  Global Hemodynamic Monitoring Systems Market

The global hemodynamic monitoring systems market has been segmented on the basis of product, type, end-use, and region.

By product, the market is segmented into disposables, monitors, minimally invasive, and others. Among these, the segment  monitors accounts for the largest segment. By type, the market is segmented into invasive, non-invasive, and others. Out of these, the Invasive accounts for the major segment. By end-user, the market is segmented into hospitals, clinics, ambulatory care centers, home care settings, and others. The segment hospitals and clinics is the largest segment. By region, the market is segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Out of these, the Americas region dominates the market, whereas the Asia Pacific region accounts for the fastest growing region.

Regional Analysis  Global Hemodynamic Monitoring Systems Market

North America accounts for the leading share in the market for the hemodynamic monitoring systems. Factors positively impacting the market growth in the region include the high per capita health care expenditures and rapid uptake of advanced technologies in the growing healthcare sector.

Moreover, the rising geriatric population along with the increasing prevalence of high/low BP, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and obesity issues that are leading to heart diseases & disorders are fuelling the market growth in the region.

Furthermore, the presence of well-established market players along with the growing number of patients suffering from major/minor heart issues is positively impacting the growth in the regional market.

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The Europe hemodynamic monitoring systems market accounts for the second-largest market, globally. Attributing to the increasing healthcare expenditure, availability of advanced treatment facilities, and government initiatives, the market is estimated to register a remarkable CAGR during the forecast period (2017-2023). Increasing cardiovascular issues in the region are becoming paramount concerns which, in turn, are contributing to the market growth.

The hemodynamic monitoring systems market in the Asia Pacific region is rapidly emerging as a promising market. Growing number of aging populaces alongside the prevalence of cardiac disorders growing at an alarming rate are driving the market in the region. Also, some of the other dominant factors such as the faster adoption of healthcare technology, government initiatives to improve the quality of healthcare, favorable insurance, and reimbursement policies are fostering the growth of the APAC market.

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Market Research Future Introduces the Global Laser Therapy Market Research Report. Reports Provides the classifications and industry Structure with Top Industry Players, Recent Trends and Industry Dynamics up to 2023.

Laser Therapy Market  Synopsis

The Global Laser Therapy Market Is Expected To Grow At A CAGR Of 9.2% During The Forecast Period. Laser therapy is a non-invasive medical treatment that uses light of a specific wavelength to treat multiple diseases. Laser therapy is most commonly used to remove tumors or precancerous growths, remove kidney stones, repair a detached retina, treat hair loss, and various cancers. Laser treatment is also used to seal nerve endings after surgery, lymph vessels to reduce swelling, and blood vessels to help prevent blood loss. Lasers have become an essential part of the ophthalmology.

In laser-based ophthalmology, a beam of light reshapes the cornea, thereby improves the corneal focusing. It can also be used to create a channel to relieve the intraocular pressure of glaucoma or cauterize tiny hemorrhages. Commonly used lasers in ophthalmology are Nd: YAG LASER, excimer LASER, femtosecond LASER, and others. Increasing prevalence of the diseases like cataract and arthritis is the major driver for the market growth.

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According to the National Eye Institute, the number of people in the U.S. with cataract is expected to double from 24.4 million in 2010 to 50 million by 2050. Moreover, in 2015, National Eye Institute stated that more than half of the Americans suffer from a cataract related problems in their life span. Moreover, growing demand for aesthetics and rising geriatric population followed by increasing demand for non-invasive procedures will boost the market growth. However, high procedural cost will restrain the market growth during the forecast period.

Laser Therapy Market  Segments:

The global laser therapy market is segmented on the basis of type and application.

On the basis of type, the market is segmented into diode lasers, solid state lasers, gas lasers, dye lasers, and others.

On the basis of application, the market is segmented into dermatology and aesthetics, surgery, dental, and others. The surgery segment is further segmented into urology, ophthalmology, and others.

Key Market Influencer:

Angiodynamics

Biolase

Valeant

IRIDEX

Cutera and others.

Laser Therapy Market  Regional Analysis:

The Americas dominate the global laser therapy market owing to a large patient population, strong government support for research & development, high healthcare spending, and growing geriatric population. In 2015, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. the total healthcare expenditure accounted for 17.8% of the total gross domestic product (GDP), which accounted for USD 3.2 trillion.

Europe is the second leading region in the global laser therapy market, which is followed by Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for laser therapy. According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People in 2016, the number of people living with sight loss are expected to reach 2.7 million by 2030 due to possible cases of refractive error, cataract, glaucoma, and others.

The presence of a huge patient population and continuously developing economies like India and China boosts the market growth within the region. Moreover, growing geriatric population within the region fuels the market growth. According to a study conducted by International Journal of Advanced Medical and Health Research in 2015, in India, the prevalence of blindness was 1.1%, the principal cause being cataract, affecting over 9 million people accounting for 62.6%.

The Middle East and Africa contribute the least to the growth of the global laser therapy market. The Middle East dominates the market in this region due to the presence of developed economies like Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and others within the region. Whereas, Africa holds the least share of the global market due to the limited availability of medical facilities, poor economic condition and stringent government policies.

Major TOC of Laser Therapy Market Research Report  Global Forecast till 2023:

1 Report Prologue

2 Market Introduction

3 Research Methodology

4 Market Dynamics

5 Market Factor Analysis

6 Global Laser Therapy Market, By Type

7 Global Laser Therapy Market, By Application8 Global Laser Therapy Market, by Region

9 Competitive Landscape

10 Company Profiles

11 Appendix

12 Conclusion

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The Tattoo Removal Market is growing with the rapid pace; mainly due to changing trends, and poor artwork. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the tattoo removal market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period growing rapidly.

Tattoos are permanent markings in the skin made by injecting ink using needles into the second layer of skin called dermis. The practice of tattooing is now an acceptable form of body art. Tattoo is sported to mark special events, to pay honor or respect, to celebrate life, choices, and to pay tribute and memorial to lifes purpose and companions. Over the past years, the tattoo has become an attractive, artistic, and expression among the people. Having said that, most of the people getting their skin inked are between the ages 18 to 24. About 80% of these decisions are made from immaturity.

Despite these significant driving factors, high of laser procedures, and scars left after the surgical removal of tattoo, and number of sittings for laser treatment are expected to decline the market growth. Among the several types of tattoo removal treatments available in the market, the most effective and most commonly used tattoo removal method is Laser Therapy. However, the Laser therapy is time consuming and it takes multiple sessions to remove the tattoo based on the size and the colour of the tattoo. The more the number of sessions, higher the cost of treatment.

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In past few year various market players has come up with the advanced laser technologies. For instance, in the year 2016, Cutera Inc launched enLighten III which is used to remove multicolour pigments. The laser was launched with three wavelengths. 1064nm, 532nm and 670nm

On considering the recent trends, it is observed that the licensing the technology with local players to reach untapped regions has also attracted a great deal of attention. Looking at the scenario for the tattoo removal the number of people are increasing. The company by licensing out their technique can reach out the other geographic areas. The expansion of the tattoo removal services in to new regions will grow the market significantly.

Segments Tattoo removal Market

Tattoo Removal market has been segmented on the basis of treatment method which comprises of Laser Therapy, Surgical Method, Topical Creams and others. Laser therapy accounted for the largest market share of 66% of total market in 2016. On the basis of end user, market is segmented into Laser centers, dermatology clinics, and other. Laser centers dominated the global market with the largest market share of 60.9% of the total market in 2016.

Key Players for Tattoo removal Market:

Some of the key players in this market are:

Astanza

Cutera Inc

CynoSure

Dimyth

Lutronic

Syneron Medical Ltd.

Quanta System S.p.A.

Tattoo Removal Market  Competitive Analysis

There are numerous large scale and small scale players operates in this market all over the globe.

The companies mainly include the manufacturers of the equipment such as Laser systems, and some of the manufacturers of the topical aesthetic products such as tattoo removal creams and ointments. The major revenue in the market is generated by the Laser centers and cosmetic surgeons working at the dermatology clinics.

Cutera Inc. is one of them by holding a strong share in the market. The veteran laser and optical engineers founded this company. The Cutera is involved in medical aesthetic devices. Company has a wide range of products for face and body medical aesthetic medical devices. Introduction of innovative products have been Cuterass key growth strategy. For instance, in the year 2016, the company has received FDA approval for enLighten III laser.

CynoSure is also one of the leading market player in tattoo removal market. Cynosure is highly innovative company that has 37 U.S patents and markets over 14 different light based systems, representing advanced levels of solid-state, liquid and semiconductor laser technologies. On March, 2017, CynoSure was acquired by Hologic The Science of Sure.

Astanza (U.S.), Cutera Inc (U.S.), CynoSure (U.S.), Dimyth (China), Lutronic (U.S.), Syneron Medical Ltd. (U.S.), and Quanta System S.p.A (Italy) are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the tattoo removal market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.

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Regional Analysis of Tattoo removal Market:

Globally North America is the largest market for Tattoo removal. This large share is majorly due to the large number of tattoo studios in the United States and the huge tattoo loving population. Number of people getting their skin inked is more in North American region which ultimately helps in growth of the tattoo removal market in the region. Europe is the second-largest market majorly due to recent advancements in the laser technology and the increasing adoption of the laser technology by the European countries for the purpose of body aesthetics. Furthermore, Asia-Pacific market is expected to be the fastest growing market for Tattoo removal due to continuous developments in developing countries like India and China. China and Japan are the countries having cultural connection with the tattoos that goes long back in the history. Rising number of people opting to go for Laser therapy in order to get rid of tattoos is boosting the tattoo removal market in this region. On the other hand, Middle East & Africa are the countries with less craze for the art of a tattoo making and also due to the affordability issues and hesitant approach of people towards body aesthetics is slowing the growth of the tattoo removal market in the region.

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Facing an unwieldy portfolio of over 100 B2B brands, Georgia-Pacific has embraced a less is more strategy to accommodate the digital customer journey. Now the focus is on about a dozen brands the company can invest with deeper meaning that cuts across multiple product categories. And part of that new 
by Tanya Gazdik , November 20, 2018

Youve heard of Friendsgiving, and of course, the traditional Thanksgiving holiday is Thursday, but Ally Bank is offering a new twist with "Banksgiving."

The digital bank recently surprised its 5.5 million customers during the new holiday introduced to show its appreciation for their loyalty. During a single day in November, Ally granted wishes big and small, from $25 gift cards to $55,000 to help a customer who helps others.

The banks agency, Anomaly, created a heartwarming video a little over 3 1/2 minutes long that follows two Ally call center associates, Luke and Brittany, as they speak with customers about their Banksgiving wishes and travel to meet with them in person. The bank is sharing the video on its social media sites.

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"Weve found that this kind of content connects with our customers and the general public because it feels genuine, it makes an emotional connection and is coupled with this season of thanksgiving, Ally CMO Andrea Brimmer tells Marketing Daily. The idea of Banksgiving is just an extension of the what our customer service associates do all day every day: doing the right thing by the customer no matter how much time that takes.

This campaign stems from an interaction that an Ally customer shared on social media. When an associate asked her if there was anything else he could assist her with today, the customer asked if she could have a million dollars. When the associate answered with I wish I could give you a million dollars, the customer shared the chat on Twitter and asked that the associate be given a raise.

That interaction inspired Banksgiving and eventually the great reactions from our customers that we shared in the video, Brimmer says. We see that todays consumer is very discriminating about being marketed to and knows so much more about whats marketing and whats not. But that drives us to be more creative with how we go about things, and Banksgiving is a great example of how weve done that."

For the promotion, Ally randomly selected customers who called into its call center, asking them, Is there anything else I can help you with today? Then the company worked to grant their wishes. Gifts were personalized to reflect customers passions, like help with fall yard cleanup and a holiday visit to see family.

Others gifts were even larger. The bank enabled one customer in Hamilton, N.J. to visit her partner in the Netherlands, whom she hadnt seen since May of 2016. Ally also surprised a customer in Gainesville, Fla. with an additional $50,000 to help her continue mentoring young women and deliver holiday baskets to those in need in her community.

Giving back isnt a one-day event at Ally -- it is an inherent part of the company culture linked to its brand promise, says Diane Morais, president of consumer and commercial banking products.

As an online-only bank, our customer service associates are an essential part of the customer experience, and they take our Do It Right philosophy to heart every single day, Morais says in a release. This video illustrates the human element when you call Ally Bank and highlights the great work by our team in taking care of our most important asset: our customers.

Ally designates the entire month of November as Giving Back Month, where Ally employees get out into the communities where they live. Each employee is offered eight hours of personal time off every year to volunteer for a cause close to them. The employee's chosen charity also receives a $25 donation for each hour volunteered.

Last year Ally employees volunteered 17,000 hours, and the company donated $800,000 through this program. This month, Ally employees will participate in nearly 190 volunteer events across the country.
by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, November 21, 2018

Jane Maas, who has been described as one of Madison Avenues original Mad Women for breaking the glass ceiling and ascending to the top of its creative ranks, died Nov. 16. She was 86.

Maas, who began her career at Ogilvy & Mather in 1964, rising from junior copywriter to creative director at the venerable agency, is best known for her work at Wells Rich Greene, where she led the teams that created such iconic campaigns as New York States I Love New York.

In 1981, she became the first woman to head a major New York City agency she didnt found, served as president of Muller Jordan Weiss, and in 1987, president and then chairman of Earle Palmer Brown Advertising and Public Relations.
by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, November 21, 2018



Whats that you say, No Schitt? Yes, I know Im stating the obvious here, but Id still like to make the case why one of the most destructive forces of this presidency is not its stated goal: the deconstruction of the administrative state. It is the deconstruction of our social fabric.

As the head of Americas executive branch, the President is more than just a boss. Like the CEO of a corporation, he or she is the figurehead that most defines its reputation. And as anyone on Madison Avenue knows, reputations matter. They impact a brands equity, and an organizations bottom line, influencing whether others will do business with or even remain loyal to you.

It may be impossible to quantify the impact our current POTUS has had on Americas brand equity, but an interesting analysis released earlier this week by agency MBLM suggests it is material.

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The agency, which conducts a periodic study measuring and ranking the intimacy of top brands, conducted a special edition benchmarking famous figures, including current and past POTUS.

Entertainers, athletes, politicians and spiritual leaders drive many of the trends, beliefs and messages we consume, the inaugural Brand-Intimate Famous Figures report reads. Think about the world we live in, and the impact they have on the products and services we buy, use and sell. In this way, they are undeniably powerful brands. Brands can be and are much more than logos or companies. They are the sum total of everything we associate with and believe about a product, service, or in this case, a person.

You can read the report and its methodology here, but the top line is that former POTUS Barack Obama dominates the index, followed closely by his former First Lady, Michelle Obama. Actor Tom Hanks ranks third, followed by our current POTUS.

Clearly, the current Presidents brand plays to a significant percentage of the population. Im not debating that, although Id like to question why. My real point is why it contributes to the decay of our social fabric in a way that is more damaging than his legislative and policy agenda.

Laws can be amended and policies can be changed. Social values can change too, but generally speaking, they have been moving in a downward direction. With this POTUS as a role model, I think that it's being accelerated.

Some years ago, when we both were media reporters at Advertising Age, Scott Donaton shared a startling epiphany with me. He said he had noticed a change in prime-time network TV sitcoms in which the children characters were depicted as talking back to adults, often their parents, and using more potty-mouth language.

Scott said he thought this was contributing to a shift in the respect new generations had not just for adults, but for our institutions.

I think Scott, who is now Global Chief Creative and Content Officer at Digitas, was right. And I got to experience this vicariously through my wife, a public middle-school teacher. She has also observed a marked downward shift in the respect adolescents have not just for their elders, but for institutions like schools.

For the past couple of years, Ive asked her what the impact of having a role model like our current POTUS has had on her students. Its anecdotal, of course, but she says the decay has accelerated.

Im not sure who benefits from this, but Im pretty sure its not making America greater.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, November 21, 2018

Earlier this year, Facebook removed 70 accounts it said were controlled by the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed company that engages in online influence operations for the Russian government.

Now, one of those accounts, the Russian Federal Agency of News or FAN, has sued Facebook over the takedown.

Facebook, while claiming to protect the public from 'fake news,' is actually engaging in censorship and denying FAN subscribers access to a legitimate news organization, the Russian company alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in the Northern District of California. Facebook seeks to dictate news content based upon its own political view point, thereby attempting to influence the public media coverage of internal political events in the Russian Federation.

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FAN's claims include an allegation that Facebook violated the First Amendment. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and an injunction requiring the social-networking platform to restore FAN content.

The Russian company acknowledges in its complaint that its accountant -- Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova -- is under indictment for conspiring to manipulate elections in the U.S. But FAN argues that Khusyaynova is merely a bookkeeper who doesn't play a role in editorial decisions.

(Last month, the Department of Justice alleged that Khusyaynova managed the finances of Project Lakhta -- an initiative that aims to sow discord in the U.S.)

FAN is a legitimate news organization that adheres to journalistic standards in its publications, the company writes.

Regardless of FAN's claims of legitimacy, its lawsuit will likely be dismissed, according to Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman.

The lawsuit's going to fail because Facebook is not a state actor, and the complaint does nothing to convince us otherwise, Goldman says.

The First Amendment prohibits state actors -- meaning the government -- from censoring speech based on its content. But the First Amendment doesn't stop private companies like Facebook from deciding what content to allow on their platforms.

Facebook and Google have both prevailed in other lawsuits over content removals.

For instance, Facebook defeated a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit advocacy organization Sikhs for Justice, which alleged in a 2015 lawsuit that Facebook violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking the organization's page in India. Google recently prevailed in a lawsuit brought by Prager University, which alleged the tech company discriminated against conservative clips on YouTube.
Elliot Schrage, Facebooks departing head of public policy and communications, is taking responsibility for hiring Definers Public Affairs -- the Republican consultancy that sought to undermine the companys critics by linking them to billionaire financier George Soros.

Schrage made the admission in a new internal memo, which was obtained and published by TechCrunch on Tuesday.

In the memo, Schrage defended Definers use of what was essentially opposition research.

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I believe it would be irresponsible and unprofessional for us not to understand the backgrounds and potential conflicts of interest of our critics, Schrage writes. This work can be used internally to inform our messaging and where appropriate it can be shared with reporters.

In his memo, Schrage also said Facebook specifically asked Definers to look into Soros and negative comments he had been making about the company.

During a speech at Davos earlier this year, Soros characterized Facebook as a menace to society, Schrage recalls. We had not heard such criticism from him before and wanted to determine if he had any financial motivation, Schrage notes.

Schrage also defended linking anti-Facebook coalition Freedom From Facebook to Soros on the basis that Soros was funding several of the coalition members.

Since The New York Times first reported the business relationship between Facebook and Defines last week, critics have accused the company of playing into an anti-Semitic narrative against Soros.

Schrage insists that nothing could be further from the truth.

Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate, Schrage insisted in the memo. The idea that our work has been interpreted as anti-Semitic is abhorrent to me -- and deeply personal.

Immediately following the bombshell report in The Times, Facebook severed ties with Definers.

Cofounder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg has both denied having any knowledge of the Facebooks relationship with Definers -- a story that Schrage supported in his memo.

Schrage, who reports directly to Sandberg, announced plans to leave Facebook earlier this year -- a decision that connected to the companys mishandling of the Cambridge Analytica controversy.
New research finds that our response to even minor daily stressors, such as getting stuck in traffic or queuing for too long at the supermarket, can affect how healthy our brain is, particularly into old age. Share on Pinterest Our emotional response to a daily stressful situation, such as being stuck in traffic, may affect our brain health, particularly in old age. Prolonged chronic stress can lead to a wide range of adverse health consequences, from diabetes, heart disease, and sexual dysfunction, to mental health conditions, such as depression, burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even schizophrenia. Zooming in on the effects that stress has on the brain, recent studies have suggested that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol may impair memory. But how do small, daily stressors affect the aging brain? New research, led by Robert Stawski, an associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregons State University in Corvallis, suggests that it is not so much the stressful events in themselves, but our reactions to them that harm our brain health. Specifically, Stawski and colleagues examined how seniors response to everyday stressors, such as a traffic jam, affects their cognitive health. The findings are available in Psychosomatic Medicine, the journal of the American Psychosomatic Society.

Studying stress and cognitive health Stawski and colleagues examined 111 seniors aged between 65 and 95 for 2.5 years. Throughout the study period, the researchers evaluated the participants cognitive health using standardized assessments every 6 months. Some of these assessments included asking the seniors to look at two sets of numbers and then say if the same numbers appeared in the two sets, albeit in a different order. Previous studies have suggested that performance in these tests is an indicator of so-called response time inconsistency  a marker of impaired cognitive processing and poor brain health. Over the 2.5 year period, the participants completed the exercises up to 30 times. The researchers also asked the participants to talk about the stressors they had been subjected to that day, as well as about the stressors experienced by their family members and other close friends. The seniors rated their feelings during a stressful moment using a range of positive and negative emotions, as well as a scale of intensity. Finally, they also completed a checklist on physical symptoms.
There is a limited amount of scientific literature on the idea behind Indian classical music as a healing therapy. Its position in the genre of healing through music, though proven through the ages, has not been researched and applied as thoroughly and on the scale that it ought to have been. Every parent knows that soothing tones and sounds pacify even the most irritable of babies. Therefore, the primary proof of the efficacy of music or Raga therapy is the lullabies we sing to infants and toddlers. This is later heightened into Raga therapy for more mature perceptions of adults and adolescents. Practitioners of music therapy have living proof of the effectiveness of music in therapeutic applications on a daily basis. They treat conditions like stroke, brain injury, depression, autism, Alzheimers disease and many others.

The therapeutic effect of ragas in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music is a time-tested one, described in the ancient system of Nada Yoga. It channelizes vibrations emanating from sounds to uplift the level of the patients consciousness. Raga Chikitsa, an ancient manuscript in Tanjores Saraswati Mahal Library built by Raja Serfoji, a Maratha king, contains a treasure on ragas and spells out their application and use in fighting common ailments and diseases.

How does the system of Raga therapy actually work? A Raga is a sequence of selected notes (swaras) that lend appropriate mood or emotion in a selective combination. Its a yoga system through the medium of sonorous sounds. Depending on its nature, a raga could induce or intensify joy or sorrow, violence or peace, and it is this quality which forms the basis for musical application. Thus, a whole range of emotions and their nuances could be captured and communicated within certain melodies. Playing, performing and even listening to appropriate ragas can work as a medicine.

To be rendered effective, Ragas are used in a combination with Ayurveda, the ancient science of Vedic healing. A Raga must be played or sung to a patient keeping in mind his/her physical nature of vata, pitta or kapha.

Vata is responsible for all kinds of movement in the body

Pitta is responsible for digestion and metabolism

Kapha is responsible for all structure and lubrication in the mind and body

The time assigned to the Raga during the day or night is also important. Moreover, it is to be seen whether the time of the day or night is naturally suited to vata, pitta and kapha.

Lets take an example. Early morning is the natural kapha time for Ayurveda. A kapha-type person should be treated to an early morning Raga like Bhairav, to cure physical imbalances. The later part of the morning and afternoon is pitta time. Raga Bilawal can be used during these hours to treat patients. Late afternoon and evening is vata time, when Raga Pooriya Dhanashri and Marwa can be used as a cure. It is very important, however, that the Ayurvedic constitution of the patient be kept in mind  as to whether he or she is a vata, pitta or kapha person.

The people at the core of this treatment would be the music therapist, the client, the clinical facility whether at home or in a hospital, and music providers. Music therapists interact with their clients and the use of music. They assess their clients and create a clinical plan for treatment in coordination with the team and client goals. This is what determines the course of clinical sessions. A music therapist works within a client-centered, goal-directed framework.
Love seems to be the flavour of the month in Bollywood. With #DeepVeerKiShaadi trending on social media platforms all over again with their wedding images (finally) going public last evening, and Nickyanka's wedding prep gaining speed, there's another addition to this love-list.

Bollywood's latest couple Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt were spotted outside a Juhu clinic last evening. Reportedly, Ranbir was accompanying Alia to the clinic, after she suffered a minor injury during the shoot of the couple's upcoming movie 'Brahmastra'.

Recently, images from the sets of 'Brahmastra' in Bulgaria also surfaced on the internet, where the couple was shooting with the cast of the film. Ranbir and Alia could be seen chilling in the sets.

Post their visit to the clinic, the couple also obliged fans by getting clicked with them.

While yesterday DeepVeer fans declared that the latest wedding images of Ranveer and Deepika are proof of their loving relationship, Ranbir and Alia's fans have also claimed that Ranbir's decision to accompany Alia to the clinic proved that Ranbir really cares about Alia.

Well, though the move seems like a huge hit with the girls in the country, let's admit it that this is the most humane thing to do under any given circumstance, and more so if it involves the woman you claim to love. So let's not hype this up for a very simple and normal thing that it is.

But yes, it sure seems that Ranbir and Alia are slowly moving up the relationship ladder, won't you say? Good for them.
Twitter is a great place for people to share news and new ideas but sometimes people get so illogical, it's actually hilarious. Case in point, some people on the website are trying to get Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, banned from Twitter, his own site. Yep, let that sink in.

This absurdity is a result of Jack holding up a placard that said 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy' during his visit to India. He met up with a bunch of women journalists, activists, and writers to talk about his experience in the country.

During Twitter CEO @jack's visit here, he & Twitter's Legal head @vijaya took part in a round table with some of us women journalists, activists, writers & @TwitterIndia's @amritat to discuss the Twitter experience in India. A very insightful, no-words-minced conversation  pic.twitter.com/LqtJQEABgV  Anna MM Vetticad (@annavetticad) November 18, 2018

Here's the poster that has caused the controversy.

 Twitter

So basically, the term 'Brahminical Patriarchy' is causing the outrage but people are not understanding that it's not being anti-brahmin or even directly saying anything about brahmin people.

Feminists use the term #BrahminicalPatriarchy to talk about how #brahminical norms determine #caste & #gender relations. It is fact not violence to name how one caste through scripture has held hegemonic power for centuries. #SmashBrahminicalPatriarchy @twitterindia @jack pic.twitter.com/SYQgLvnqBx  Dalit Diva (@dalitdiva) November 20, 2018

Nope, this is not a direct attack at brahmins but people are angry because this is apparently 'anti-brahmins' or 'anti-Hindu'.

As an Indian I am disappointed at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy' placard - will Minister @Ra_THORe pl take action for this hate mongering against an Indian community,spreading hatred? @PMOIndia @rsprasad https://t.co/TMae3DbNXa  Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) November 19, 2018

Yep, people aren't happy.

Terrorism has no religion.

Yet Patriarchy is Brahminical. #TwitterLogic  Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) November 20, 2018

But, the best kind of hate came in the way of a movement to ban the CEO of Twitter from Twitter itself.

Ban the Twitter's Jack 'Ass' CEO https://t.co/WgKvzGCZeu  Pawan Kr (@Pawan_Mithila) November 20, 2018

Do you even know what you're saying?

Twitter should ban it's CEO account. https://t.co/2QfjdZQTjT  Akash Sharma (@krisakashsharma) November 20, 2018

Are you kidding me?

Both I and Twitter have one thing to say -

Awkward  Twitter (@Twitter) November 19, 2018

Okay, I'm done with the absurdity of this, this is the real question.

I'm mildly confused about one thing. Why are some people who say there is no such thing as Brahminical patriarchy upset with those who want to smash it?



If it doesn't exist, let them smash it, no. What goes of your daddy?  Amit Varma (@amitvarma) November 20, 2018

Exactly.

Why are people outraging against twitter's campaign to smash brahminical patriarchy? It only refers to a culture where discriminatory notions of purity, pollution, and inherent hierarchy prevail. What is wrong in opposing something like that?  Vasudha Venugopal (@vasudha_ET) November 19, 2018

You can't really reason with such people.

Right wing outrages without academic knowledge. To outrage against @Jack because he supported Smash Brahminical Patriarchy is like outraging against someone who said "end racism" or "stop rape". It is a concept, a feminist call for decades. pls read https://t.co/IjeMJnGC3j pic.twitter.com/KhDvw2VOwX  Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) November 19, 2018

They live their life based on that 'High School Musical' song.

when women say "men are trash" men lose their shit



when dalit women say "smash brahminical patriarchy" brahmins lose their shit



when kashmiris say "azadi from india's occupation" indians lose their shit



oppressors everywhere lose their shit when the status quo is challenged  my sou-ditious heart  (@soupykaur) November 19, 2018

By trying to get Jack banned from his website?

Twitter CEO @jack held a placard that had 'Smash Brahminical Patriarchy' written on it and the Hindu Right, as usual, has reacted with self-righteous indignation. By foolishly calling it an attack on Brahmins, they are trying to get back at Twitter for banning RW hate-mongers  Manimugdha Sharma (@quizzicalguy) November 19, 2018

Just stop.
They say we must not challenge the laws of nature, yet more than often, we end up doing exactly the oppposite. At this point in civilisation, we seem to be obsessed with challenging nature. The same attitude of an American tourist visiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands seems to have brought him to a tragic end.

It is being reported that a 27-year-old American man named John Allen Chau has been killed by the local endangered tribe of the area. Arrows were shot at the victim who was taken to the North Sentinel Island, where the indigenous Sentinelese live.

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The Sentinelese tribe is well-known for resisting any interaction with the outside world, and as of 2011, their population was estimated at 40. Reports suggest that the tribes are facing a threat from outsiders, who often bribe the locals in order to gain access to them.

Seven fishermen have been arrested in relation to the American's death, as they are allegedly responsible for taking the American to the area.

An NDTV report states that the fishermen told the police that they last saw the American man being hits by numerous arrows after he landed on the island on November 16.

 YouTube

The report also quotes a source revealing disturbing details, He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body. They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the seashore," the source said.

While this seems pretty scary, we feel that the man should have known better than to approach the tribe which is known to attack outsiders who try to interact with them. Regardless, do you think what the tribal people did is justified?
You may have noticed the so-called influencers, celebrities, and maybe some of your friends get a dip in the number of followers they have. Well, that's because the company has announced that it will systematically eliminate fake followers, likes, and comments that users may have purchased through third-party apps and platforms.

Instagram influence is worth big money these days, and many users have turned to third-party services to gain fake followers and likes. The crackdown comes as Instagram parent Facebook strives to assure people that the leading social network and its services can be trusted.

 Reuters

Accounts we identify using these services will receive an in-app message alerting them that we have removed the inauthentic likes, follows and comments given by their account to others. We will also ask them to secure their account by changing their password, Instagram said in an official statement.

Third-party services that generate fake followers, likes, and comments violate both Community Guidelines and its Terms of Use. Instagram says it has built machine learning tools to help detect accounts growing artificially. The latest move is to reduce inauthentic or artificial activity on the platform on a much wider scale.

 Instagram

Instagram users who continue to use such third-party apps possibly seeing their "experience impacted", but the service did not specify in what ways.

Engagement manipulation has long plagued platforms like YouTube and Twitter, and Instagram is no different. Wannabe "influencers" buy up these fake profiles to garner more engagement and in turn mislead clients.

 Reuters

Instagram's parent company Facebook has been battling against fake profiles as well and has removed 754 million fake accounts in the past quarter alone. Facebook has been proactive and concerned over the usage of fake profiles on its platform since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, wherein Ad campaigns were launched to influence the result of a Presidential Election.

Fake profiles are also increasingly posting "fake news" and spreading false rumours. Though, coming back to Instagram, the presence of these fake profiles removes the authenticity of a post and misleads the users. These fake profiles also influence the algorithm based feed to push out targeted content, depriving genuine users.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Markos Bolaris received today the Czech Ambassador, Mr Jan Bondy, who briefed him on his countrys Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lukas Kauckys upcoming visit to Greece (26-27/11) on the occasion of the 100 year anniversary of diplomatic relations between Greece and Czechoslovakia.

The Ambassador extended an invitation to the Deputy Minister to an event marking the commencement of operations of the Cultural Centre of the Czech Embassy in Athens, where the Czech Deputy Minister will be present, and which will include an exhibition on the activity of Greeks in Moravia in the 19th century.

The prospects of carrying out investments in the tourism sector on the part of the Czech Republic were further discussed, especially in mainland Greece. The good level of collaboration was confirmed in the fields of education, the inflow of tourists to our country, and the increase in interest on the part of Czech businessmen to invest in Greece.
UPPER THUMB  Six Thumb area fire departments fought a house fire for over four hours in the village of Unionville.

The fire at 3189 Bay St., (M-25), was called in to Tuscola County Dispatch at about 11:10 p.m. Monday, as a possible structure fire.
Puerto Vallarta Gearing Up for CarnavalPV 2019 Parade

A message from the CarnavalPV organizers, February 26, 2019: It is with a great deal of anguish, that organizers announce the cancellation of CarnavalPV scheduled for Tuesday, March 5th. We wish to thank those who have supported the annual event over the past several years, especially the south side businesses and organizations. Due to the increasing number of visitors to Puerto Vallarta, the registration numbers were low. The additional time needed to properly participate is just not available at this time of year. People of Vallarta of dedicating their time to our visitors, to ensure everyone is enjoying our paradise. For those that have paid, refunds will be processed immediately. We would like to thank everyone for their ongoing support.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - With Mardi Gras just a few months away, Puerto Vallarta is gearing up for a special edition of its annual parade. This year's three-kilometer-long carnival parade will begin at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, March 5th in the hotel zone and proceed on the world-famous Malecon to Los Muertos Pier.

Observers should be prepared to catch some beads and revel along with incredible floats, colorful costumes, towering stilt walkers, street performers and dancers, all part of the family-friendly festivities branded as CarnavalPV.





The friendly tenor of Puerto Vallarta and its yearly carnival is brought to the forefront by the diverse merrymaking crowd that is drawn and welcomed by the event: "gay, straight, light, dark, male, female, old, and young, all for a collective purpose, to get as many beaded necklaces as possible. Don't miss the fun," said CarnavalPV organizers, Gary Green and Tim Longpre, in a press release.

Businesses, organizations, schools and individuals can sign up and register their floats and troupes through email at info(at)carnavalpv.com or join the conversation at the festival's Facebook page. $10,000 pesos will be awarded to the most creative entry. Incanto, Andales on the Bay, and Reinas Bar captured the top creative honors in 2018.

Organizers said last year's event brought over 30,000 cheering residents and tourists from all walks of life together on the city streets to be wowed by floats and parade participants celebrating the diversity of the city.

Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is best known in New Orleans but celebrated in many cities around the world. Fat Tuesday refers to the day when many people eat fattening foods and stock up before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season.
UPPER THUMB  Bishop Walter A. Hurley, Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese of Saginaw, has called for the names of deceased priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor to be added to the diocesan website.

Robert Gordon Smith is one of the individuals named this week. Smith died on June 24, 1980. He was ordained in 1945, and his assignments took him to Washington D.C., Saginaw, East Tawas, Harbor Beach, Vassar Millington, Rogers City, Onaway and Gaylord.

A complete listing, including the names released in April, may be found at https://saginaw.org/names-clergy-accused-sexual-abuse-minor.

Clergy added to the diocesan website this week are included because allegations against them have been reviewed and determined to be credible by the diocesan Review Board, according to a news release the diocese issued this week. The Review Board is mostly comprised of individuals who are not employed by the diocese, and who have broad expertise beneficial to the protection of children.

"In determining allegations to be credible, the Diocese of Saginaw is not making a definitive statement regarding the certainty of the allegations nor the guilt of the accused," the release states. "The diocese is only stating that the allegations are highly serious and have not been discredited.

It is our sincere desire, in listing these names, to acknowledge that the allegations brought forward to the diocese have merit, Hurley stated in that release. We hope and pray this step and others will continue to promote healing for all victim-survivors.

The Diocese of Saginaw shared the listing of priests posted this week with the Michigan Attorney Generals Office in September. In addition to those names, the diocese provided the Attorney Generals office with all other names of deceased clergy, about whom the diocesan Review Board had insufficient information to make a determination regarding credibility of an allegation. Since the diocese is no longer in possession of its files, it is unable to engage in any further review. However, it is possible that the diocese may add other names to this list following the Attorney Generals investigation, and/or upon people coming forward with new information.

Any person with knowledge of sexual misconduct involving a minor by these individuals or any other past or present clergy or diocesan representatives are encouraged to contact their local law enforcement. After contacting authorities, you also may contact Sister Janet Fulgenzi, coordinator of the Office of Child and Youth Protection for the diocese, at 989-797-6682 or jfulgenzi@dioceseofsaginaw.org.

The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw was established on Feb. 26, 1938, by Pope Pius XI. On that date, those priests who were serving within the geographic boundaries of the newly established diocese became priests of the Diocese of Saginaw.
This week, the Huron Daily Tribune is showcasing local businesses in anticipation of Small Business Saturday.

These are people who may have owned businesses for generations, or who have launched a second career in their retirement.

These business owners help drive the local economy like no big box store can.

Thats not to say large retailers have no value. On the contrary, they are very important.

But theres a special place in the local economy for mom-and-pop stores and unique start-ups.

Small Business Saturday, an American shopping holiday held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, is a great time to support these local entrepreneurs. Its a perfect time to shop local and directly help the areas economy.

According to the Small Business Administration, there are 30.2 million small businesses in the United States, which accounts for 99 percent of the countrys businesses.

United States small businesses employed 58.9 million people, or 47.5 percent of the private workforce in 2015, states the 2018 Small Business Profile compiled by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Firms with fewer than 100 employees have the largest share of small business employment.

Nearly all U.S. exporters are small businesses, according to Forbes.

In Michigan, there are 856,352 small businesses, which account for more than 98 percent of all the states businesses. Small businesses hire 1.8 million, which is about half of all employees in Michigan, according to the Small Business Administration.

So this Thanksgiving holiday weekend, please make a point to shop local  or, as the Small Business Administration is proposing  shop small.
PIGEON  After operating a brandname business in Pigeon for several years, Todd Schuette took the skills he learned there to use in his own company.

Schuette started Smoking Todds Sausage Company at 100 Ruppert St. in Pigeon about 18 months ago.

I used to own the IGA store in Pigeon. When I sold that business two years ago, I started Smoking Todds Sausage Company, said Schuette. My father started in the grocery business in 1975. I started working in the family business when I was a sophomore in high school from then on until I sold the business.

He makes summer sausage, beef jerky, pepper stixs, and bacon, and does deer processing.

The love of processing meat has been handed down for generations.

His grandfather, Porky, owned a butcher shop in the Thumb, and Schuettes father learned the butcher trade from his father-in-law, and then started his own grocery store.

The familys recipes have been handed down from generation to generation continuing the excellent quality smoked sausage and meats that are their trademark.

Most of the products I make are the same that I used to do when I owned the IGA. So people are familiar with me and what I make because of the IGA, he said. With deer hunting going on, Im really busy processing deer right now.

Schuette is registered with the state of Michigan to process deer.

You dont have to have a license for that, he explained. But, you do have to have a food dealers license for the beef and pork business. I have that. ... Hunters bring the deer to me to process for them. I supply the beef and pork for the other products I make. I buy the beef and pork from a meat distributor.

Smoking Todds Sausage Company uses quality meat that is smoked naturally with applewood and no artificial flavors. His meats are gluten and MSG free, and he uses cloth bags to make summer sausage.

He has taken his meat products to farmers markets and festivals. A few of the markets he has gone to include Port Austin, Pigeon, and Bay Port.

Schuette also has an online store at www.smokingtodd.com where his meat products can be bought.

He doesnt have set business hours to work with customers.

People call me and I meet them, he said.

To do that, or for more information, call Smoking Todds Sausage Company at 989-551-9512.
NEW HAVEN  A former Middletown mayor waived his right to be indicted Tuesday and pleaded guilty to fraud stemming from a scheme in which he allegedly embezzled about $490,000 from his former employer, then stole an estimated $457,000 from a family member to repay the employer, federal officials said in a release.

Stephen T. Gionfriddo, 68, of Middletown, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer in New Haven, according to the release from the U.S. Attorneys office.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Gionfriddo was hired by a Rocky Hill law firm as a paralegal in August 2013. Beginning around December 2013, Gionfriddo caused the firms bookkeeper to prepare checks payable to various of Gionfriddos creditors by misrepresenting that the funds were needed to pay client expenses, according to the release. Gionfriddo also intercepted numerous checks payable to the law firm or to the firms clients, endorsed the checks over to himself, and then deposited the checks into his personal bank account for his own use, officials said.

In July 2017, Gionfriddo forged the signature of one of the firms partners on a Notice of Certificate Maturity in order to cancel a certificate of deposit in the name of one of the firms clients, and then mailed the form, the U.S. Attorneys office said. When the $112,748.21 distribution check representing the proceeds of the clients CD was mailed to the firm, Gionfriddo intercepted it, forged the signature of the payee, and converted it to his own use, according to the release.

Through this scheme, Gionfriddo stole $543,372.21 from the law firm and its clients.

In late September 2017, the principals at the law firm confronted Gionfriddo about the theft of funds, and Gionfriddo promised to repay the firm. On Oct. 3, 2017, Gionfriddo called the Thrift Savings Plan, a defined contribution plan for federal employees, and impersonated his brother, who had worked for the federal government and maintains a TSP account.

During the call, Gionfriddo obtained information about how to effect a hardship withdrawal of money from the account and have it sent to a bank account he controlled, according to the release. Gionfriddo also was advised on that call that TSP would issue a Form 1099 in January as a result of the hardship withdrawal.

On Oct. 4, 2017, Gionfriddo faxed a form requesting a withdrawal of $195,000 from his brothers TSP account for medical expenses. Gionfriddo directed the TSP to deposit the funds into a bank account that he controlled, according to the release.

In an effort to conceal this scheme from his brother, Gionfriddo contacted the U.S. Postal Service and had his brothers mail held for the entire month of January, officials said. Gionfriddo also stole from his brothers bank and investment accounts in the total amount of $201,518, according to the release.

Gionfriddo was arrested on a criminal complaint on June 12.

Gionfriddo pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. Judge Meyer scheduled sentencing for Feb. 12, at which time Gionfriddo faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years on each count.

Gionfriddo was previously convicted of federal wire fraud and mail fraud offenses in 2006 for embezzling more than $633,000 from clients while acting as their attorney.

The 68-year-old served on Middletowns Common Council from 1979 through October 2005, and was mayor for six months after Sebastian Garafalo stepped down to assume duties as tax collector in 1993.

This matter is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan L. Wines.
MIDDLETOWN  In four short months, a handful of teens and their two female mentors have formed a bond so strong it feels just like family.

All take part in the Teen Leadership Institute at the North End Action Team, which meets weekdays at the 654 Main St. community organization.

Since July, Middletown High School students Teanna Ocasio, 16; Imani White, 17; Thaddeus Whitley, 15; Makayah Joseph, 18; and MHS graduate Felanyely Barett-Valdez, 19, who attends Middlesex Community College, have gathered after school Tuesdays through Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m. Along with program coordinator Shanay Fulton, they enjoy one anothers company and take part in various programs  some of which theyd have no opportunity to do otherwise.

The teens have built a trust with one another, and have come to understand what is spoken about among their friends and mentors at NEAT is confidential.

Formerly a special needs paraprofessional at the high school, Fulton now works with people with disabilities at Keigwin Middle School.

She had met many of the NEAT teens at MHS, when she was a co-advisor of the Student Minority Coalition.

I had a lot of students there gravitate toward me, she said, because she would be helping students in a lot of their classes. During Black History Month in February, the administration asked her to put together a program to complement activities, so she arranged a dance segment.

The students loved it, they were so dedicated, she said, so she agreed to conduct a percussive dance program known as stepping once a week at the high school. There, teens developed their talents and learned from one another. They wanted to come every single day, Fulton said with a laugh.

She felt like these children did not have an outlet to do that. They have certain (activities) at the school, but they didnt have a drill team, she started that. They love it, said Fultons 20-year friend, educator Tanjah Thompson, who joined the teens in August. Since the program didnt really take off at the high school, Fulton brought it to NEAT.

When the opportunity came up to head the Teen Leadership Program at NEAT, she jumped at it. The group began meeting Mondays and Wednesdays, but students enjoyed it so much, they asked for it to become a five-day-a-week program, which Fulton obliged as long as she could.

I was there every day, said Fulton, who would come home from work, enjoy an hour-long break, then take her 10-year-old son along to the NEAT office. But soon, it became too much, and the project was scaled down to three times a week.

The first thing the students do when they come in is their homework, a routine they admit wouldnt necessarily happen at home.

Ocasio most likes having a place to work and be focused at a time of day when we can also enjoy each others company and talk together. If you need someone to talk to, theyre always here to listen, she said.

When I go home, I dont do my homework, White said. Now that I come here, I can do my homework and chill, because if I go home, Im just going to sleep.

White considers Fulton a best friend.

We can talk to her about anything and shell always have connections with us  life experiences that weve been through. She wont go around telling our business, shell keep it to herself, and help us if we have issues going on in our lives, she said.

Fulton said her young charges are talented and creative, so she has encouraged them to express themselves. For instance, Thaddeus is a gifted dancer and drawer, and very photogenic, he joked.

I learned every single one of them can draw. I had no idea when I was at the high school they were even into art. That was awesome to find out, said Fulton. These are things you wouldnt really know because its not fostered in the school for them.

These learning experiences have brought the adults and teens together.

This is so people can have a safe haven for you to come to and talk, and say your problems without feeling like youll use it against me or think less of me, Thompson said. Were here to help you, not judge you. Like family, you may argue, but at the end of the day, youre still family.

Among the activities the kids have engaged in are an anti-bullying project in collaboration with the MAC650 art gallery next door. In September, they conducted a screening of the Fox Searchlight film Step at the Russell Library. The story is based on the experiences of high school students in Baltimore, Maryland, and the challenges they face. Following the viewing, students showed off their dance skills and led the audience in a drill.

One day, Fulton realized the students had never stepped foot on the Wesleyan University campus, despite all but one having grown up in Middletown. She brought them to enjoy lunch in the cafeteria.

I did that two or three times, to the point where they want to go all the time, Fulton said. One time, we sat there for the whole three hours. They had their sketch pads, they felt like they were college students. These are all things theyve never done before because nobody has taken the time.

Some said they didnt even know it was allowed.

I didnt know other people could eat there, White said. I thought it was just for college students.

Thompson said she wishes she had an adult as a mentor while she was a teen.

Shes talking to them and I can step in and tell them my point of view so they started to open up to me as well, so we all kind of became a team, said Thompson. I had nothing. Its What I say goes  you couldnt really express yourself.

Thompson said they teach manners, how to conduct themselves when applying for a job, how to write a resume and cover letter, how to speak, how to dress, your posture, how to carry yourself.

We never had somebody telling us certain things in life and how to do this or do that, she said.

Its like being in a family, Fulton said.

You have your little battles and scuffles, but at the end of the day, when its all done, we all get along, Fulton said.

For information, visit neatmiddletown.org, email tli@neatmiddletown.org or call Fulton at 203-514-0095.

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Tanjah Thompsons and Imani Whites first names. Also, the original photo caption swapped identifications for Ocasio and White.
The night before Thanksgiving is a holiday all its own. As people have the next day off work and friends and family are all back in town, celebrations ensue.

>>Click through the slideshow to see what's going on the night before Thanksgiving in Connecticut.

The most popular activity: drinking.

Thanksgiving Eve, Blackout Wednesday, Drunksgiving  whatever you call it, the night before Thanksgiving is considered one of the biggest drinking occasions of the year.

People travel from all corners of the country to converge on their hometowns in time for the holiday, hit up the local bar scene with high school buddies they haven't seen in years, and wax nostalgic over drinks.

While celebrating Thanksgiving Eve is a tradition for many, it can be especially pronounced for college students. Many are home for the first time since the semester began and have some serious catching up to do with their hometown friends.

Perhaps this is because Connecticut is a mostly suburban state full of quaint hometowns.

According to Business Insider, Blackout Wednesday "seems to be more of a suburban phenomenon than urban. Shane Smyth, who owns two bars in the Boston area, said the one located in the city's financial district is typically pretty dead on Thanksgiving Eve, while Hugh O'Neill's in the suburb Malden, is jumping."

The issue is that some of these college kids are under 21  which leads to an issue synonymous with Thanksgiving Eve: underage drinking.

"Underage drinking is an issue we grapple with in Connecticut," Diana Lejardi, spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), told Hearst in 2017.

She acknowledged the increase in drinking rates in college-aged students (legal or not) when they come home for Thanksgiving and get together with old friends. More troubling is the rate of alcohol use in high school students  at any time of year.

According to the DMHAS Connecticut School Health Survey, one in three Connecticut high school students drink alcohol. Half of those students report they binge drink  that is, consume five or more alcoholic drinks in a row.

Knowing that underage drinking is prevalent in Connecticut  what's a parent to do during this heightened time of holiday drinking?

Underage revelers may turn to their parents' liquor cabinets  no doubt stocked up Thanksgiving  at a time when adults are distracted, busy prepping for dinner the next day, so parents may want to try keeping liquor out of sight for the time being.

Read Connecticut's Social Host Law here.
The U.S. Army said Tuesday that more than 97 percent of its generals are currently deployable, after a news story this week reported that up to one in five of its general officers were non-deployable in 2016 for medical reasons.

USA Today reported that data for 2016 showed the "rate for active-duty, ready-to-deploy generals, not including the Reserve or the National Guard, was 79.6 percent."

Overdue medical and dental exams were the main reason for failure to meet what the Army refers to as medical readiness in 2016, but the medical readiness rate for generals has improved to nearly 85 percent, USA Today reported.

Army officials said the medical readiness rate is not the same as the deployable rate. For example, a 30-day, temporary profile or an out-of-date dental exam does not mean a soldier is non-deployable.

"As of October 2018, over 93 percent of the total Army -- soldiers of all ranks -- are deployable, while over 97 percent of Army general officers are deployable," service spokeswoman Kathy Turner told Military.com.

About nine months have passed since Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that the U.S. military has no place for service members who are incapable of deploying for more than 12 months.

The Army announced recently that it had reduced its number of non-deployable soldiers from last year's 121,000 -- about 15 percent of the total force -- to about 59,000, which is about 6 percent of the active duty, Guard and Reserve.

"The Army has made substantial gains since October 2016, and the data from that time does not reflect recent improvements in deployability for the Army as a whole and for the general officer corps specifically," Turner said. "The Army's top priority is readiness, and soldiers are expected to be worldwide deployable to ensure our Army is ready to fight today and in the future."

The service also recently released a new policy for dealing with soldiers who are non-deployable for administrative reasons after the Pentagon's new deploy-or-out policy took effect Oct. 1. The policy for the first time defines the six criteria all soldiers must meet to be deemed deployable.

The data in the USA Today story came from a June 2017 report on the state of the Army's general officer corps that was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
The $11 million scam worked this way: Phony websites with names like Army.com were set up offering to help kids who wanted to join the military. Instead, it was just a lure to pass them on to for-profit schools who targeted them for enrollment, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Twenty-eight veterans organizations on Tuesday asked the FTC to release the schools' names to serve as a warning to those considering enrolling at colleges that bought "leads" from the firms operating the bogus websites.

In exposing the con in September, a majority of the five FTC commissioners made a policy decision to withhold the schools' names. An FTC spokeswoman said Tuesday that Freedom of Information Act requests would have to be filed to obtain the names.

Carrie Wofford, president of Veterans Education Success, said her group had filed a FOIA request Tuesday. "It is hard to conceive of a more reprehensible scheme," she said. "The colleges that participated in this ugly scheme should not be protected."

In letters to the FTC, and to the heads of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the veterans organizations charged that "these websites acted perniciously in interfering with the military's genuine recruitment and in denying potential enlistees with the opportunity to proudly wear their nation's uniform."

In addition to Veterans Education Success, other organizations calling for the release of the names include AMVETS, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans of America, Military Officers Association of America and the National Military Family Association.

When it exposed the scam in September, the FTC seized nine websites with names such as Army.com, Air-Force.com, NavyEnlist.com, MarinesEnlist.com and CoastGuardEnlist.com.

The sites were run by two Alabama-based firms -- Sunkey Publishing and Fanmail.com -- which allegedly made about $11 million selling data to private schools, the FTC's complaint said.

The companies would contact potential recruits who visited the websites and suggest that the military is downsizing. As an alternative, the companies' pitch encouraged them to enroll at specific for-profit schools under the false impression that the U.S. military endorsed them, the FTC said.

The FTC said the Army.com website included this come-on: "Please be aware that our military is currently downsizing. Army.com wants you to know that there are more ways for you to serve your country than just military service. If you had a college education, you could contribute through engineering, science, law, health care, and more."

If the potential recruit expressed interest, Sunkey would sell their personal information to schools for $15 to $40, the FTC said.

In a statement accompanying the FTC's complaint in September, FTC Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter called for the release of the schools' names, but they were overruled by the majority of the five commissioners.

In a joint statement at the time, Chopra and Kelly said the actions of Sunkey and Fanmail "harmed young people looking to serve their country, as well as the public. Not only was the alleged conduct unlawful, it was also un-American."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
RAF MILDENHALL, England -- The U.S. Air Force is moving operations of some of its most sophisticated spy planes about three hours southwest in England as part of a larger force consolidation effort in Europe.

The 95th Reconnaissance Squadron and 488th Intelligence Squadron at RAF Mildenhall will be relocated to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire by 2024, British officials said.

The squadrons work with variants of the RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft, which flies surveillance in various locales, including Africa, the Middle East and near the NATO alliance's eastern borders with Russia.

More than 500 airmen and their families will eventually make the move to Fairford, located in the Cotswolds, an area known for its hills and picturesque country villages.

"The agreement to relocate the United States Rivet Joint capability to RAF Fairford cements U.S. presence at the base and will bring substantial benefits to Gloucestershire and local communities," Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood said in a statement.

The RC-135 Rivet Joint mission will continue to provide intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination capabilities for U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa from RAF Fairford. Its sensors collect and analyze electronic emissions from communications, radar and other systems.

The fleet is operated by the 55th Wing based at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and deployed to forward operating locations worldwide. The wing operates three RC-135S Cobra Ball, two RC-135U Combat Sent and 17 RC-135V/W Rivet Joint aircraft.

American B-52H Stratofortresses and B-1B Lancers also deploy from RAF Fairford during temporary rotations. The base also hosts the Royal International Air Show each year.

The villages nearby Fairford, a three-hour drive southwest from Mildenhall, will now have to prepare for a friendly invasion of American troops and their paychecks.

"The presence of over 1,200 personnel and dependents to the area will bring substantial financial benefits to the local economy and our local community," Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, said in a statement. "I look forward to welcoming all incoming personnel to the Cotswolds and I hope this represents a continuation of our long-lasting and deep military cooperation with our American allies."

American forces were originally scheduled to leave the U.K.'s Mildenhall, Alconbury and Molesworth bases by 2022, but will continue operating at those locations until at least 2024, according to the British Defense Ministry.

The moves are part of the European Infrastructure Consolidation process, which includes returning use of 15 sites throughout Europe to host nations. The moves will save about $500 million annually, according to the Defense Department.
China's Sub Force Is Growing More Powerful. This Is What the US Navy Needs to Do to Stay Ahead
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday that active-duty troops deployed to the border can now help protect any Customs and Border Patrol agents who come under attack but will remain unarmed under new authorities he's been granted by the White House.

"I now have authority to do more" with the 5,800 active-duty troops sent to Texas, Arizona and New Mexico last month, he said, but stressed that he will decide how that authority is used.

The troops will "not be doing law enforcement" and "we do not have arrest authority," Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon in an informal session.

The new authority could apply to a situation in which a CBP agent comes under attack by a migrant, Mattis said. Unarmed U.S. troops could come to the aid of the agent and take the migrant to the next available CBP agent for arrest.

"We could stop them from beating on [the agent]," he said.

The new authorities, granted in a memo late Tuesday night from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, do not include any references to the use of lethal force, and there have been "no calls for any lethal force from [Department of Homeland Security]," Mattis said.

He said that military police among the active-duty troops at the border also could be used for crowd control. They would be unarmed but would likely carry shields and batons to assist CBP "if we had to back them up," he said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that migrant asylum seekers surging to the border amount to an "invasion" and has said their ranks could be infiltrated by potential terrorists and MS-13 gang members.

However, Mattis said the threat does not rise to the level that would force him to scrap the tentative Dec.15 deadline for the end of the deployment.

He said many of the troops would likely be home for Christmas but some might stay, depending on the needs of DHS and CBP.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis cited efforts to bring peace to Yemen as a reason to maintain close military ties with Saudi Arabia, despite the murder of Washington Post contributor and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.

"We're still trying to sort out the effects of the Khashoggi murder" on U.S.-Saudi relations, Mattis said, but he added that the U.S. does not often have the opportunity to work with "unblemished partners."

"If you're going to end the war [in Yemen], you're going to have to deal with the Saudis," Mattis said Wednesday in an informal session with Pentagon reporters.

Mattis said he was working closely with United Nations Special Envoy Martin Griffiths to arrange for peace talks in Sweden early next month between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the ousted Yemeni government backed by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates.

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Mattis told reporters last month that he had high hopes the talks could begin in November, but that plan fell through.

The plan now was to have the talks in early December, Mattis said, adding that "the Saudis and the Emiratis are fully on board" with the proposal. Mattis said he had a specific date for the start of the talks but chose not to disclose it

In his remarks, Mattis appeared to echo President Donald Trump's statement Tuesday, in which he said the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia was too important to U.S. interests to be derailed by the murder of Khashoggi, who disappeared last month while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Trump cited Saudi oil sales and pledges to buy billions in arms from the U.S. that would provide thousands of jobs to U.S. workers.

"We're unapologetic about America's view of human rights," Mattis said, "but on the other hand, if we're going to stop the war in Yemen, we're going to have to deal with [the Saudis]."

The three-year old conflict, in which the Houthis have launched missiles at Riyadh, and the

Saudis have been charged with indiscriminately bombing civilian targets, has spawned what the United Nations has described as the worst current humanitarian crisis in the world.

The U.S. has been providing the Saudis with intelligence and, until recently, aerial refueling for their warplanes. However, there have been recent signs that both sides could be ready for an agreement, Mattis said.

The Saudis and the Emiratis have agreed to put up $500 million to feed 10 million Yemenis for 30 days if peace talks can be arranged and prove fruitful, Mattis said. He also said that Saudi and Emirati forces had ceased their offensive on the Yemeni port of Hodeida.

"For 72 hours, the front lines have not changed," Mattis said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com.
The Saudi-led coalition striking Houthi rebels in Yemen is losing roughly one to two tankers worth of U.S. fuel per day after the Air Force halted its mission of refueling the coalition several weeks ago, officials with U.S. Central Command said.

But even before the announcement to halt refueling was made Nov. 10, CENTCOM had begun working with Air Forces Central Command and Transportation Command "to reduce its dynamic requirement for tankers" in the Horn of Africa region, according to Army Maj. Josh Jacques, a CENTCOM spokesman.

"AFCENT constantly assesses its dynamic requirement for air-refueling capacity and works with CENTCOM and TRANSCOM to manage tanker resources to meet this dynamic requirement," Jacques said in a statement Saturday.

He did not specify when those conversations began.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis revealed in recent weeks that the U.S. has refueled "less than 20 percent" of the coalition's jets since the conflict began in 2015.

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"We refuel probably less than 20 -- I think less than 20 percent of their aircraft," he said during a speech at the United States Institute for Peace. "They have their own refuelers, by the way."

Jacques said that means, on average, one to two Air Force tankers won't be used on a daily basis to refuel coalition planes in the Horn of Africa region.

"While we cannot speak on behalf of the Saudi-led coalition regarding their aircraft, in general the U.S. provided 1 to 2 tankers' worth of fuel per day, based on the average offload of fuel," he said. "That said, rates of U.S. refueling vary based on the needs of operational planning and execution."

An Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker can carry a refueling load of up to 200,000 pounds of fuel.

Earlier this month, the Saudi government said it had "requested cessation of in-flight refueling" from the U.S. for its fighter jets after The Washington Post reported the Trump administration was planning to stop the refueling over growing political concerns.

Lawmakers for the last three years have tried a variety of ways to oppose the war. That includes invoking the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which would force the U.S. to end its involvement in the Saudi-led conflict within 30 days of passage unless voted upon otherwise, amid the growing number of civilian casualties and what many officials around the world have declared a humanitarian crisis.

The Trump administration has also faced pushback for its continued support of Saudi Arabia in arms sales and intelligence after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist. Khashoggi is believed to have been killed by Saudi operatives at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October.

Following the Post's report and the Saudi government's announcement, Mattis said the Defense Department welcomed the decision.

"We support the decision by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, after consultations with the U.S. Government, to use the coalition's own military capabilities to conduct inflight refueling in support of its operations in Yemen," he said in a statement.

However, Mattis' statement didn't clarify how the U.S. would monitor Saudi jets refueling from U.S. tankers for operations against the Islamic State -- it is a global coalition member in the U.S.-led fight -- and instead return and use that fuel for strikes in Yemen.

Jacques said that isn't a concern for U.S. officials.

"Air-to-air refueling locations in support of the [counter-ISIS] coalition are in a different vicinity than those used to support the Saudi-led coalition's operations in Yemen," he said. "The significant distance between the two areas makes it operationally infeasible for [Saudi] fighter aircraft refueling from tankers supporting the [counter-ISIS] mission to transit and conduct operations in Yemen."

How Much Fuel Did U.S. Provide?

As of Aug. 31, Air Force tankers such as KC-10 Extenders and KC-135 Stratotankers had conducted 2,919 sorties and offloaded 92.3 million pounds of fuel to coalition fighters in the Horn of Africa since the onset of the Yemen crisis, CENTCOM previously told Military.com. Jacques cited the same figures Saturday when providing the most recent statistics.

That amounts to 12,102 refueling operations, or what officials describe as "refueling events," CENTCOM has said.

By comparison, in that same timeframe, the Air Force has conducted 47,624 sorties and offloaded more than 2 billion pounds' worth of fuel in operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to the latest Air Forces Central Command airpower summary.

More than 275,000 aircraft have been refueled for Operation Inherent Resolve within the last three years, AFCENT said.

While operations have slowed in the Iraq and Syria fight within the last year, officials said airmen will nonetheless keep busy for refueling missions in the area of responsibility.

"There is no shortage of global requirements requiring tanker support, to include a critical refueling capability mix supporting U.S. Central Command objectives in theater," Air Mobility Command spokesman Col. Chris Karns told Military.com.

"Aerial refuelers continue to ensure the persistence and ensure the necessary reach to achieve desired effects. For Operation Inherent Resolve alone, the U.S. has fulfilled about 90 percent of the tanker capability requirements" for the coalition, he added.

Jacques reiterated there is no intention of slowing down in other Middle East operations.

"Refueling operations will continue throughout the [area of responsibility] to deliver decisive airpower on behalf of U.S. Central Command for the security and stability of the region," he said.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
In 1960, Israeli secret agents were tasked with running down rumors that Nazi SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann was alive and well in Argentina. Known as "the Architect of the Final Solution," Eichmann was the highest-profile German officer to escape prosecution after World War II.

"Operation Finale" (out now on Digital, coming to Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand on Dec. 4) tells the story of Eichmann's capture and eventual prosecution back in Israel. Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, Eichmann's court proceedings were broadcast live all over the world, giving many people their first opportunity to hear details of the Holocaust.

The movie stars Oscar Isaac, Melanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, Michael Aronov and Greg Hill as the Israeli team sent to Argentina, and Ben Kingsley gives an amazingly low-key yet powerful performance as the Nazi war criminal.

"Operation Finale" proceeds at a deliberate pace, showing the tedium of spycraft and trusting the audience to understand the importance of the mission. It's not all car chases and explosions.

We've got an exclusive video in which the cast and crew talks about the film. Come back on Dec. 4 for an interview with "Operation Finale" director Chris Weitz.
As Americans gather all over the country this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, thousands of military members will miss the family fellowship because they're deployed overseas (or at the border).

That doesn't necessarily mean military members don't have a great holiday. Friendship and fellowship flourish on one of our nation's greatest holidays, and many veterans tell us that some of their best holiday memories are of sharing turkey with their fellow service members.

Tell us about your favorite Thanksgiving military memory. Where were you, who was with you and what made the day so special?
Lloyds superyacht insurance shakeup underway!

Earlier this year, Lloyds of London, the specialist insurance market, issued a warning to a number of its marine syndicates, including those that underwrite superyacht businesses. The warning gave loss-making marine syndicates three months to create viable business plans or be dropped  the deadline for the presentation of said remediation plans being Friday 3 August.

On 2 August, TradeWinds News reported that Brit Global Speciality, Lloyds syndicate 2987, ended its yacht insurance business lines. Since Brits exit, various reports have suggested that a further five to seven syndicates have pulled out of the yachting market. The shakeup of the Lloyds market follows a sustained period of falling premiums and unsustainable loss ratios. Yachts are widely considered to be the greatest loss maker within the Lloyds marine portfolio.

Ive been talking for a long time now about the sustainability of the insurance and what I mean by sustainability is this: the insurance market relies on simple principles, you create a pool of funds so that, when you claim, money comes out of that pool, starts Simon Ballard, managing director of CRS Yachts. Unfortunately, over the last five years in particular, the pool has not been big enough. Underwriters havent been charging enough money to cover the losses that have occurred. This is for a number of reasons, but over capacity and competition are chief among them.

According to a number of sources, the Lloyds superyacht insurance market has been running on an unsustainable loss ratio. For a number of years, the Lloyds market operated at about 120 per cent loss ratio. In 2015 the Lloyds market collected around 150million of premium and operated at a loss ratio of 140 per cent, meaning that it paid out around 210million of claims. By all accounts, 2015 was a relatively uneventful year compared with those that followed.

Considering the losses that have occurred since, including two high-profile 100m-plus claims and the severe damage caused by the hurricanes that decimated the Caribbean and Florida in 2017, one can appreciate that the loss ratios since 2015 have continued to significantly worsen. TradeWinds News reports that a senior Lloyds broker has suggested that Lloyds is prepared to reject business plans and drop loss-making enterprises.

In the last 10-15 years, there has been an oversupply of capacity that has softened the rates and create what, on the surface, appears to be healthy competition. But, ultimately it has driven rates to an all-time low. It got to the point where the insurance community unanimously agreed that there needed to be a market correction (rate increase), but no one seemingly acted on it, comments Mike Taylor-West, director of global market at La Playa.

As a result of the severely unsustainable market softening, a number of syndicates, it would seem, have decided to withdraw from the market even before Lloyds has begun to decline business plans. It is expected that in the days and weeks to come that an even greater number of syndicates will drop out of the market.

According to the TradeWinds report, Brits marine insurance business accounts for 10 per cent of its total business. Of that business, the yacht business lines were an even smaller proportion, with some estimates suggesting it accounted for significantly less that one per cent of the total business. As a result, businesses such as Brit are viewing the superyacht market, a loss making and relatively insignificant contributor to the larger group, as being surplus to requirements and have, therefore, cut their losses by removing themselves from the market place.

People have been talking about rate rises but I dont think that they have come fast enough because there is still over capacity in the market place, continues Ballard. I personally dont think that just increasing the premium pot is going to be enough. Businesses are really going to have to look at how policies are underwritten and consider the whole mechanism in order for the system to become fairer. This process will happen, but it will happen slowly.

If you consider that Lloyds is a superyacht market leader, we will see other businesses following suit because this is not just a Lloyds issue, we see overseas securities offering cheap and more unsustainable rates, Ballard says. This is crunch time, it is in everybodys interest to create a sustainable market because if it isnt, the clients suffer as there may not be insurers willing to underwrite this class.

It has been suggested that capacity in the sub-5million category is likely to be affected the quickest, with the sub-10million category also likely to be strong effected. Sub-10million is going to be more difficult, but all lines are going to be affected, continues Ballard. We are probably seeing the biggest change we are ever going to see in this business.

The strange side of this is that consumers would generally expect brokers to champion cheaper rates, continues Taylor-West. And yes, in a sustainable marketplace this would be the case, but ultimately that is not where we are and some of the suicidal rates that are currently available put the clients at risk. The current climate requires responsible broking.

However, like the market itself, there is also an over-capacity of brokers and market players that has contributed to the pricing race to the bottom. The problem with a cheap marketplace is that it puts pressure on the claim and it leads the providers of the capacity to adopt positions that seek to find ways to narrow or avoid claims rather than paying them.

In the coming days and weeks, it is expected that the market will experience further consolidation. It has also been suggested that, in order to foster a more sustainable marketplace, premiums are likely to increase.

www.superyachtsecurity.com

www.imafgroup.com

http://www.superyachtnews.com
The Cubs have struck a deal with the Padres to acquire righty reliever Rowan Wick, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune tweets. Minor-league infielder Jason Vosler will head to San Diego in return.

Wick came available as the Padres finalized their 40-man roster plans in advance of todays deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft. Hell occupy a roster spot in Chicago.

The live-armed 26-year-old is still fairly new to pitching after moving out from behind the plate. He reached the majors briefly last year but did not distinguish himself in his ten appearances. Over 54 innings at Triple-A, Wick carried a 2.67 ERA with 10.7 K/9 and 5.2 BB/9.
Honda will recall about 122,000 of its 2018 and 2019 model year Odyssey minivans due to the risk that its sliding doors could open while the vehicle is in use.

In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the automaker says that the rear latches on the power sliding door might "generate higher than normal friction, causing them to stick." If this were to happen, the doors could be prevented from closing all the way which would obviously increase the chances they fly open while the vehicle is in use.

Honda is not aware of any injuries related to the recall, and says that dealers will replace the latches once parts are available. The automaker expects to have all the needed parts by late December, which is also when it will start to notify affected owners.

The Associated Press reports that most of the 122,000 affected minivans are in the United States and Canada. The NHTSA reports that 107,774 of the affected models are located in the U.S.

"Because the new vehicle warranty on all affected vehicles would have provided a free repair for the problem addressed by this recall, without any payment by the owner, reimbursement for pre-notification repairs will not be offered," Honda says in NHTSA documents.

On top of using the NHTSA's website, owners can call Honda at 888-234-2138 to check if the recall affects them.

To search active recalls, use the NHTSA's website to search your 17-character VIN at this link. VIN numbers are typically located under the driver's side windshield, or along the inside of the doors behind the seat or under the steering wheel. To sign up for NHTSA safety alerts for a specific vehicle, sign up at this link.
ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor officials have agreed to release information about where there were once lead components in the city's water system and where some residents may need to have their water service lines replaced due to potential contamination.

The City Council voted 11-0 Monday night, Nov. 19, to direct the city staff to compile the information by Dec. 31 and release it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Ann Arbor News and MLive.

When The News originally requested the information in September, city officials said it wasn't readily available and asked for payment of $667.94 to compile the records and release them.

After enactment of stricter Michigan regulations for lead, city officials said in September that thousands of Ann Arbor homeowners may need their water service lines replaced with new copper piping if they still have galvanized steel pipes that were once connected to lead "goosenecks" in the city's water system.

Even though all known lead parts have been removed from the city's water system, the city maintains, remaining galvanized lines that run under lawns or driveways to homes still can harbor lead and be a source of drinking water contamination.

The News appealed to City Administrator Howard Lazarus in September, noting Michigan's FOIA law allows records to be released without charge or at a reduced charge if the public body determines releasing the records primarily benefits the general public.

Lazarus denied the fee waiver in October, holding firm on the city's request for $667.94 to cover the cost of the city's public services manager spending eight hours compiling records at $95.42 per hour, with one hour worth of fees waived as standard practice.

After The News informed the city that FOIA law does not allow a public body to charge more than the hourly wage of its lowest-paid employee capable of compiling the records, the city agreed last month to reduce the fee to $409.71 and have a different staffer do the work.

The News put its FOIA request on hold when two City Council members, Jack Eaton and Anne Bannister, announced intentions to support publicly releasing the information without charge.

They brought forward a resolution to that effect at the first meeting of the new City Council on Monday night, and convinced their colleagues that releasing the information is in the public interest.

"The public wants to know about where the lead was, where the galvanized pipe remains, and MLive is willing to disseminate that information to the public," said Eaton, D-4th Ward.

Monday night's meeting was the first meeting for new council members who, along with Eaton and his allies already on council, have called for greater transparency in city government.

They received some pushback Monday night from the city administrator, who continued to raised concerns about releasing information under FOIA without charging for it.

"This is information that homeowners obviously need to know," said Council Member Elizabeth Nelson, D-4th Ward, one of the four new members sworn into office.

"I find it a compelling argument that MLive is essentially doing us a service of sorts to inform people."

Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, said many residents are asking for greater transparency and precaution in light of the Flint water crisis.

In its FOIA request in September, The News asked the city to release the following information:

Records showing the known locations of lead components removed from the city's water system.

Records showing the known locations of any remaining lead components in the city's water system.

Records showing locations where the city believes galvanized water service lines may need to be replaced under the revised Lead and Copper Rule.

"We shouldn't burden our local newspaper unnecessarily," Eaton argued. "Our state Freedom of Information statute favors disclosure of public records. The city itself struggles to get our information disseminated, and so any opportunity that we have, we should cooperate with the local media."

Eaton believes information about where lead pipe connections were replaced in the city's water system should be readily available.

"The location of the galvanized pipe that remains, we are going to have to compile soon enough, because the MDEQ has told us that they want us to remove that galvanized pipe," he added. "And so I don't believe that we should charge MLive a FOIA fee to compile a list that we're going to have to compile ourselves soon enough."

Eaton said he plans to propose changes to the city's FOIA policy in the coming months to make it easier for local media to gain access to information that serves a public interest.

"This is just a first step towards becoming more open and more transparent and not burdening our local media with these fees," he said, prompting a response from the city administrator.

"I have some very real concerns about this," Lazarus said, calling it a "slippery slope."

Having to respond to FOIA requests without charging for it, Lazarus said, could be a tremendous disruption to city staff.

Lazarus also said it's hard in the age of online blogging to define what constitutes media.

Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, shared the administrator's concerns about it being a slippery slope.

Council Member Chip Smith, D-5th Ward, said he looks at FOIA fees as simple cost recovery for the city, though he agreed the information requested in this case should be public.

As the Flint water crisis gained national attention two years ago, Ann Arbor officials acknowledged there still were about 118 known lead pipe connections in the city's water system, and the city took steps to replace them.

"We've replaced all of those lead goosenecks, so no longer is there any lead on the city's side of the curb stop," Brian Steglitz, the city's water treatment plant manager, told council members in September.

As streets have been repaved, the city's portion of galvanized water service lines also have been replaced with copper, which can be bent and does not require lead goosenecks.

Water service lines on private property are normally the responsibility of homeowners to maintain and replace, but the state's new regulations make it an issue for cities to address.

The city has to prepare a preliminary inventory of galvanized service lines that may need to be replaced with new copper pipes.

That's due to the state by Jan. 1, 2020, and then the city must gradually replace the old pipes -- potentially around 2,500 of them -- starting in 2021. A complete distribution system inventory is due to the state by Jan. 1, 2025.

The city plans to adhere to the state's requirement to replace the service lines at an average rate of 5 percent per year starting in 2021, but not to exceed 20 years total unless an alternate schedule is approved by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

How those replacements will be funded and to what extent homeowners may have to pay remains to be seen. Replacing a water service line can cost several thousand dollars.

"We will be subsequently developing and incorporating into our future capital improvement plans for the city the removal of those additional galvanized services that are on the customer side," Steglitz told the council in September.

"Clearly there are some challenges associated with that we would have to navigate, because it's on the customer side, private property, but we will be working through those issues."

It's unclear whether affected homeowners who want to act quickly to replace their galvanized lines in the next year or so could receive reimbursement under a future city program starting in 2021.

The state's new regulations for lead reduce the action level from 15 parts per billion to 12 ppb starting in 2025, requiring utilities to take action if they're above that level. Steglitz said that doesn't really impact Ann Arbor since the 90th-percentile lead level here is 3 ppb, though the levels can vary for different homes.
A 20-year-old University of Michigan student from suburban Detroit man is accused of killing his aunt with a 15-pound barbell.

Nayir Masrur of Troy jumped from a second-story window in order to flee police who were searching for him following the violent death of his aunt about 2:30 p.m. Nov. 12, according to police.

The victim, Dr. Rubab Huq, a 55-year-old physician, was discovered dead in the basement of a home on Shoreline Drive in Troy.

Following a one-hour, multi-agency manhunt, police arrested Masrur in a marshy area near the Shoreline residence, police said.

Masrur is now charged with first-degree murder.

His lawyer, Paul Stablein, told WJBK he expects to request a psychological examination to determine whether the third-year UM economics student is mentally competent to stand trial.

"His mother and father are supportive of him," Stablein told the TV station. "He has a community that is concerned for him."

Relatives reported Masrur "missing and in an agitated state" prior to the discovery of his dead aunt, police said.

"This can be described as an unprovoked attack," Troy Police Sgt. Meghan Lehman said. "There is nothing I can release otherwise about a motive for the murder."

Masrur is being held without bond in the Oakland County Jail. He is scheduled to return to court for a probable cause hearing on Nov. 27.
Fire officials are continuing to investigate the cause of a fatal fire that started at a Ypsilanti Township apartment complex Saturday night.

The sole fire victim has been identified as 76-year-old Robert Gardner, who was located dead inside one of the apartments, Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office spokesman Derrick Jackson confirmed.

The Washtenaw County Medical Examiner's Office listed "residential house fire" as Gardner's death, but said the full autopsy won't be completed for about 60 days.

Firefighters responded to the blaze inside an apartment building on the 1500 block of Village Lane, near Ford Lake in Ypsilanti Township, at about 10 p.m. Saturday night, Nov. 17.

Ypsilanti Township Fire Lt. Jerry Hamilton said there was one fatality, but no other injuries.

Two of the estimated 15 to 20 apartments in the complex suffered fire damage, fire officials said.

In addition to the Ypsilanti Township Fire Department, firefighters from Ypsilanti, Superior Township and Pittsfield Township assisted on the scene.

The Red Cross also came out to assist displaced residents, while HART Huron Valley provided on-scene support.
ESSEXVILLE, MI -- A local teen is facing a 20-year felony after allegedly making threats against his Essexville high school.

The 15-year-old male, whose name is being withheld due to his age, has been petitioned in Bay County Probate Court with one count of making false reports or threat of terrorism.

The early afternoon of Oct. 26, a Florida woman left a voicemail on a Bay County Sheriff's deputy's phone, saying she had learned of the potential threat. The deputy referred the matter to detectives, who notified the Essexville Department of Public Safety.

Officers determined the threat pertained to Garber High School and contacted Essexville-Hampton Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Cortez, who put the facility in lockdown mode. Officers arrived at the school and arrested the suspect, a freshman.

The arrest happened within 20 to 30 minutes of officers being alerted to the threat, police said.

Officers found no weapons at the school, but during their investigation, seized numerous non-firearm weapons from the suspect's Essexville home, said Lt. Nate House.

House added investigators believe they thwarted an imminent threat and that the suspect had "outlined very specific, detailed plans" regarding harming his fellow students.

The teen is represented by Bay City attorney Matthew L. Reyes, who said his client and a friend had been chatting via an online messenger service. During the conversation, Reyes' client made a reference to shooting up the school, Reyes said.

The sister of the other person in the chat saw the thread and told a friend of hers living in Florida, who then told her mom, who notified police, Reyes said.

"This involved a private conversation between two boys, essentially joking with each other," Reyes said. "At no point was anyone threatened. At no point was a threat made."

The teen remained in custody at the Bay County Juvenile Home as of Nov. 20, Reyes said.

If the teen is adjudicated in juvenile court -- analogous to being convicted in adult court -- the court has discretion on the potential penalty, which can range from nothing to the teen being sent to a state-run facility indefinitely, Reyes said.

The teen's case is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 27.
FLINT, MI - Stephanie and Jeremiah Miller just knew.

From the moment they were asked to take an unborn child into their Grand Blanc Township home, there was no doubt on their decision.

"She asked if we wanted the baby and we said yes," said Stephanie Miller after being asked by a sister. "It kind of went from there. We were at the hospital when she was born."

The couple's story shared during a ceremony in Genesee County Probate Judge Jennie E. Barkey was one of several shared by families adding a new member Tuesday, Nov. 20 across mid-Michigan during Adoption Day gatherings.

Saginaw County Probate Judge Barbara L. Meter said November is National Adoption Month across the country.

The designation is meant to "raise awareness with regard to children who are in foster care, who need help desperately, who've gone through a lot and have suffered a lot of emotional trauma and hurt and whom need permanent stability and love and that's why we have adoption day."

Kawkalin residents Kurt and Jessica Bruske adopted 3-year-old Brody on Wednesday, the second adoption for the couple, in a ceremony by Bay County Probate Judge Jan Miner.

"We decided we didn't want to build our family in a traditional way because, why make it easy? There's so many kids that need help," said Jessica Bruske. "We decided to be foster parents and we tried to do reunification. They just didn't work out and so we are grateful to be able to keep them forever."

Miner noted there is a shortage of foster homes, with the "primary goal" of reunification with parents, but if that is not possible then proceeding to the adoption process.

She added the state of Michigan "needs to place resources, help for our parents as the children continue to grow in the adoptive home. That's one area I think that we are missing and could really use...a big push from our government."

Meter called the opportunity to take part in the day "an absolute privilege and an honor" to be a part of the joy felt in her courtroom.

"It is a highlight of this job," she said. "It is the pinnacle to be able to join children who are in such great need with their forever loving families and homes."

For the Miller family, which includes 7-year-old Anthony and 2-year-old Calibur, Harper's brother, who was adopted by Stephanie's mom who lives at the couple's Grand Blanc home, the trip to Wednesday became a bit cloudy when Stephanie became ill.

She had to undergo thyroid surgery in December, ending with low calcium levels and being diagnosed with thyroid cancer and undergoing radiation treatments.

Despite the trials, Stephanie Miller told Barkey: "I couldn't be happier."

"When she was born, I didn't think that we'd be able to take her because of my health issues, but I pushed through and I did what I had to do for her," she said.

"It's a sure motivating force, isn't it?" said Barkey.

For Jeremiah Miller, he's already been bowled over by the little girl that the couple's son Anthony helped name.

"When she smiles, it just melts my heart," he said.

MLive photographers Kaytie Boomer and Nate Manley contributed to this report.
GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Two lanes of traffic on southbound Interstate 75 will temporarily close Tuesday night as crews perform an inspection on the Maple Road bridge.

The Michigan Department of Transportation announced the southbound I-75 lane closures at Maple Road are set from 7 p.m-9 p.m. Nov. 20 to allow for a routine bridge inspection.

One lane of traffic on southbound I-75 at Maple Road will be maintained at all times during the inspection process, according to MDOT.
SAULT STE. MARIE, MI -- A worst-case scenario oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac could have an economic impact in the tens of billions of dollars, a new study from a Michigan State University researcher estimates.

The study was commissioned by For Love of Water (FLOW), a Traverse City-based advocacy group that has called for the shutdown of Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil and gas pipeline in the Straits.

The study is led by MSU professor Robert Richardson, who previously was commissioned by FLOW to research the economic impacts of an oil spill on tourism, fishing, real estate, municipal water and natural resources. He pegged that impact at $6.8 billion.

This latest study, which is viewed as supplemental to the preceding one, looks at the economic effect on the "steel industry value chain" if a large-scale oil spill blocks iron ore carrying ships from travelling between Lake Superior and Lake Huron via the Soo Locks.

In just two weeks time of a Soo Locks shutdown, the study states, up to $45 billion of gross domestic product would be lost.

"The findings of this updated report are chilling and cry out for action by the Snyder administration to shut down Line 5 now before an oil spill disaster strikes the heart of the Great Lakes and our shipping-dependent regional economy," Kelly Thayer, deputy director of FLOW, said in a statement.

The Soo Locks would be shut down if a spill reached the St. Marys River and ship traffic hazarded cleanup efforts or contamination spread, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Paul Rhynard said.

"If oil is in a channel or if commercial traffic is going to impact cleanup efforts, we'll close it down as long as we need to," Rhynard said.

For years activists and environmental groups have called on officials to shut down the controversial, aging pipeline. When an anchor struck the lines April 1, it resulted in three dents and an abrasion and renewed calls to shutdown the 65-year-old twin pipelines.

Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said in a statement that the Canadian energy company is focused on plans to house the oil-and-gas pipeline in a tunnel beneath the Straits.

"Enbridge is focused on moving forward with a solution, and we believe that the time is right to build for the future," Duffy wrote in a statement. "The tunnel project would make a safe pipeline even safer and reflects Enbridge's steadfast commitment to protecting the Great Lakes while safely meeting Michigan's energy needs ... Placing Line 5 in a tunnel would reduce the likelihood of a release into the Straits to near zero and eliminate the potential for an anchor strike."

If all goes to plan, the tunnel won't be operational until seven to 10 years from now. In the meantime, the pipeline will continue to operate.

Gov. Rick Snyder wants Enbridge to pay for the tunnel's construction and then hand over operations and ownership to the Mackinac Bridge Authority, the independent state agency which operates the Mackinac Bridge.

The authority is not yet able to do so, but a bill in the state House would allow them to, if passed.

Richardson's recent study relies in part on recent economic analyses of the Soo Locks from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The study also assumes a "major spill" of 2.5 million gallons of oil that reaches the St. Marys River. Not all such major spill scenarios reach the St. Marys River area.

The DHS report states a shutdown of the locks for 180 days would precipitate the loss of roughly $1.1 trillion in gross domestic product.

"Anything that closes down vessel traffic is going to be a severe impact to the U.S. industry," said Tom Rayburn, director of environmental and regulatory affairs with the Lake Carriers' Association.

Richardson's study attempts to quantify the value lost by not just the steel industry, but those industries that rely on steel and would face shortages in the event of an oil spill barring iron ore ship traffic.

The American Iron and Steel Institute, an association of North American steel producers, in a statement said that nearly all iron ore mined in the U.S. passes through the Soo Locks.

"We were surprised to find how even a short delay could create this compounding effect and create such large economic impacts," Richardson said.

The study does not estimate the impact on other industries, such as coal, grain export and limestone, which rely on the Soo Locks.
ALLENDALE, MI - Grand Valley State University will receive $248,039 of $1 million in grant funding awarded to 22 colleges and universities through Michigan's Campus Sexual Assault Grant Program, state officials announced Tuesday, Nov. 20.

"These grants enable our colleges and universities to develop innovative, evidence-based campaigns and strategies to help make our campuses safer--for students and survivors,'' said First Lady Sue Snyder, who launched the program in 2015.

Michigan State Police administers the program that aims to change the overall culture of sexual assault among the college-age population, according to the news release. Five other West Michigan schools got smaller grants.

Grand Valley received the most funding of those awarded. The university received two awards, $50,983 to continue its work on social change, and $197,056 for security upgrades on campus, according to Lindsey Holden, an analyst in MSP's Grants and Community Service Division.

Jesse Bernal, the university's vice president for Inclusion and Equity, said the smaller grant was called Peer Pressure for Social Change.

In recent years, Grand Valley has received funds to develop and grow its bystander intervention program that includes training peer educators under a national model.

Bernal said the grant will help maintain and expand peer education work and support a new effort focused on men and masculinity.

He said part of the new programming is how to engage men in the work of preventing sexual violence.

"We are creating safe spaces for conversations,'' he said, noting the need to dialogue to transform cultural perceptions of gender dynamics.

Bernal said most sexual assaults are committed by a person who identifies as a man against someone who identifies as a woman.

He said there will be various platforms to engage in conversations about masculinity, including what we mean by the term, to "debunk and demystify'' stereotypes.

Jessica Jennrich, director of Grand Valley's Gayle R. Davis Center for Women and Gender Equity, and Victim Advocate Krystal Diel wrote the social change grant.

In October, Mrs. Snyder visited Grand Valley to discuss the next chapter in campus sexual violence prevention and complimented the university on the multiple efforts to reduce assaults.

"Grand Valley has a comprehensive effort around the prevention, education and response to campus sexual violence,'' Bernal said.

The purpose of the grant program is to fund the development of new and innovative programs to reduce and/or eliminate sexual assault on campuses, with the goal of improving the safety and security of all students.

Bernal said the grant for the security upgrades, including cameras and lighting, is based on an extensive university assessment to enhance safety and security.

He said the social change grant also includes partnering with public schools to begin engaging in conversations about consent before students arrive on campus.

"We know that sexual violence is happening at younger and younger ages,'' he said.

This year marks the highest investment in the grant program to date, with more than $2.5 million in grant funding available since 2015.

"Our work is far from over, and we must continue investing in programs that will help inform and empower students and institutional leadership to prevent sexual assault on Michigan's campuses,'' First Lady Sue Snyder said.

The state grant funds were appropriated from the fiscal year 2019 General Fund. Other West Michigan universities and colleges receiving full or partial funding from the grand program include:

Western Michigan - $132,557

Ferris State - $39,675

Davenport - $22, 225

Aquinas - $11, 695

Lake Michigan - $6,500

Grant recipients have until Nov. 30, 2019 to spend their awards. A complete list of award recipients is available on the MSP website.
HOLLAND, MI -- A 19-year-old man has been arraigned on charges of murder and first-degree child abuse after his girlfriend's baby died from cranial cerebral trauma.

Cameron Michael Toppen was arraigned Wednesday, Nov. 21 in Holland District Court.

Ottawa County sheriff's detectives say he was watching the child in the afternoon hours of Nov. 15 when the child was injured.

Rescuers went to a home in the 14500 block of Dogwood Court in Grand Haven Township for a medical call and were told an 8-month-old was in seizure.

The child, Scarlett Rae-Marie Burroughs, was rushed to Helen DeVos Children's Hospital and later died.

An autopsy showed she died of cranial cerebral trauma.

Toppen was watching the child while the mother was at work on Nov. 15, police said.

Toppen is held in the Ottawa County Jail without bond.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Veterans and active-duty troops alike were greeted with handshakes, salutes and a row of American flags as they returned home for Thanksgiving.

Dubbed "Operation Handshake," about 40-plus veterans and other volunteers lined the disembarkation gates at Gerald R. Ford International Airport, welcoming home active military members for their brief holiday respite.

Jacob Harkness, a member of the U.S. Army's 506th Infantry Regiment, was one of those greeted Wednesday, Nov. 21.

Harkness hasn't been home to Grand Rapids since June, and it's the last time he'll see his family again before shipping out.

"It's awesome to see all the support, especially from home," he said. "We're getting ready to deploy right now. I'm home for Thanksgiving and right after that I ship off."

U.S. Air Force Airmen Andrew Evans arrived back Wednesday for the first time since he was sent to his duty station in September.

"I was definitely not expected that at all," he said. "Thank you for all the support. It was really nice to come home to. I have some cards to read. I've never had that before."

Dozens gather to greet active duty military and veterans as they return home 15 Gallery: Dozens gather to greet active duty military and veterans as they return home

Operation Handshake was started 11 years ago by the Patriot Guard Riders' Michigan chapter.

On Tuesday the riders welcomed vets and military home at MBS International Airport in Freeland, according to Tony VanGessel, Captain of the Patriot Guard Riders of West Michigan. The day before, they did so at Bishop International Airport in Flint.

"This is what Thanksgiving is really all about," VanGessel said. "What we see each year is an inspiration. We get a thank you from the military members, but it's also heartwarming for the general traveling public around us to see what transpires."

In all those 11 years, one moment sticks out the most, VanGessel, an Army veteran, said.

A WW2 veteran had disembarked and asked VanGessel what all the fanfare was for. VanGessel replied, "It's for you."

"He just couldn't help it, he started crying and he said, 'Thank you. I've never been welcomed home before,'" VanGessel recalled. "A World War 2 vet, and nobody's ever welcomed his home. It was emotional for all of us. There were probably 200 people here with flags and signs and cards. I don't think there was a dry eye, because you think about that, that was a long time ago and to never be welcomed home in all that time, that's a lot."

Another emotional moment came Wednesday when Debra Simonsohn was greeted by the volunteers. While not a veteran herself, Simonsohn's cousin died in the service.

"I lost my cousin, he was in the service and we lost him, and so it just brought a lot of emotions up," she said.

Operation Handshake began at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Ford Airport. It goes until 7 p.m.

"We are so appreciative of our military members' service to our country and we know that not everyone can make it home during the holidays because they are making other sacrifices," said Ford Airport spokesperson Tara Hernandez. "For those returning to West Michigan we want to make it extra special and let them know we are thankful for their service."
LANSING, MI - A coalition of groups including the Michigan League for Public Policy and The United Way for Southeastern Michigan on Tuesday urged lawmakers not to undo paid sick leave and minimum wage increase proposals they adopted in September.

The legislature adopted the measures rather than let them go to the ballot. The plan was to adopt and amend, and lawmakers are considering changing the laws before they go into effect next year.

Those changes are opposed by some groups.

"Michiganders overwhelmingly support measures like paid sick leave that benefit working people and their families," said Kyle DuBuc of the United Way for Southeastern Michigan.

"It's outrageous that anyone in the legislature would consider disregarding not just the will of the citizens, but the needs of nearly 2 million workers, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet."

The United Way of Southeastern Michigan, Michigan League for Public Policy, League of Women Voters of Michigan and We The People, a advocacy group that, according to its website, focuses on political organizing, education and building alliances.

"It's ironic that elected officials whose livelihoods depend on our democratic process would willfully strip power from the voters on these important issues," said Gilda Z. Jacobs, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy.

"Whether it's before or after they're voted on, legislators should keep their hands off of citizen-initiated measures and let the will of the people stand. And if they don't, we hope Governor Snyder will veto any efforts to water these policies down."

The new minimum wage law slowly brings minimum wage for tipped workers like waiters and bartenders up to the same level as regular minimum wage and raises minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2022. It doesn't go into effect until March of next year.

Under the new paid sick time law, Michigan workers would be able to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, capping out at 72 hours per year for larger businesses and 40 hours per year for small businesses, which must also allow unpaid leave. Both sizes of business could elect to offer more paid sick leave.

If the measures had been voted on by the people, the legislature would have needed a three-fourths majority to amend them - something that would have required bipartisan compromise. Since the legislature approved them instead, lawmakers can amend them with a simple majority.

Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, said earlier this month that changes were coming.

He said changes to the proposals would focus on "making it more acceptable to the business community so we continue to keep our economy on track."

The legislature returns to Lansing next week.

Note: This story has been changed to reflect the difference in paid sick time requirements for large and small businesses.
CLARK LAKE, MI -- St. Rita's Catholic Church gives food to about 200 families during the Christmas season.

It is a huge undertaking to organize the project. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, the church had lots of help. About 10 students from Lumen Christi High School helped organize boxes for the giveaway.

It was part of the school's annual ThanksLiving project.

Students were sent to over 30 locations in the community for a two hour block to help with whatever was needed. Some sang at retirement homes. Some helped at schools.

At St. Rita's, students cleaned boxes and stacked them in preparation to be filled with food for those in need.

"We like to think we are giving more than we are getting," said Deacon David Etters as he helped students at St. Rita's. "We definitely appreciate the opportunity to put our Catholic faith in action for the community by giving to others."
JACKSON, MI - A trucker from Texas caught transporting 10 kilograms of cocaine through Jackson County a year ago will spend the next decade in federal prison.

Jose Luis Vega, 59, pleaded guilty to one federal felony count of possession of controlled substance with intent to distribute and was sentenced in late July 2018 to serve 10 years in prison, according to court records.

"Having traveled all the way from Texas to Michigan in an apparent attempt to distribute the cocaine here - all while on parole for a nearly identical offense, Vega has earned the 120-month sentence that is mandated by statute," Assistant United State Attorney Matthew Schneider wrote in Vega's sentencing memorandum.

Vega was additionally sentenced to five years of supervised release to begin once he finishes his 10-year sentence.

Vega was caught, Aug. 22, 2017, at the Grass Lake scales on westbound I-94 transporting 10 one-kilogram bricks of cocaine found placed inside a closet in the cab of his semitrailer, according to an affidavit from the Drug Enforcement Agency.

A Michigan State trooper working at the weigh station witnessed a dark blue semitrailer fail to stop at the weigh station for inspection as directed and pulled the truck over, records show.

Vega, who was identified as the driver, was attempting to fill out his log book and acting strangely when questioned by the trooper, according to the affidavit.

After consenting to have his truck searched by police, the troopers using police K-9s located the 10 bricks of cocaine, records show.

Vega was arrested at the scene and taken to the Jackson County Jail where he was being held on a $250,000 bond until his case was picked up by federal prosecutors.

Shortly after his state court case was dismissed for federal charges, Vega was removed from the Jackson County Jail and placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshall Service.

Vega's attorneys said his participation in the crime was limited to transporting the cocaine and he was "no more than a courier or mule," court records show.

Prosecutors said the extent of Vega's involvement beyond transporting the drugs is unknown, records show.

Vega was on parole at the time of the incident for a prior drug conviction in 2001 stemming from an arrest by the Texas Drug Enforcement Task Force for drug possession and evading arrest, according to the affidavit.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the 2001 drug case.
JACKSON, MI - A trio of organizations are making it their joint mission to offer good food and company for Jacksonians on Thursday.

Free Thanksgiving meals will be offered at the following places on Thursday, Nov. 22.

Martin Luther King Center, 1107 Adrian St., 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., hosted by Kingdom Life Ministries

JaxNaz Church, 3905 Clinton Road, noon to 3 p.m., hosted by Compassionate Ministries of Jackson County

Jackson Interfaith Shelter, 414 S. Blackman St., 7 a.m. (breakfast), noon (lunch) and 5 p.m. (dinner)

More than 100 people attended last year's Thanksgiving event at the King Center, The Rev. Fred Parker Jr. said. The event includes a kids zone, family activities and free clothing from a clothing drive - in addition to a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

"We're really targeting those who might feel like they've been marginalized, left behind or looked over," Parker said. "No one should have to go without great company and some great food on Thanksgiving day."

All are welcome to the event and can get a free ride through feedjackson.org or calling 517-962-2029.

"We need some good news in our city, right now," Parker said. "Here's a great time for good news. And our hope is that this will uplift some people's spirits."
BATTLE CREEK, MI -- People 21 and older in Calhoun County will no longer be prosecuted for marijuana offenses that will become legal in Michigan in the coming weeks, the prosecutor's office reports.

Michigan voters approved Proposal 1 on Nov. 6, legalizing recreational marijuana for adult use. The state board of canvassers is expected to meet on Nov. 26 to certify the election results, so the new recreational marijuana law will take effect on Dec. 6, the city of Battle Creek said.

Once the results are certified, people 21 years and older may possess and use 2.5 ounces or less of marijuana.

Within a residence of a person 21 years or older, possess, store, and process not more than: 10 ounces of marijuana; any marijuana produced by plants legally cultivated on the premises; and for one's personal use, cultivate up to 12 plants at one time, on one's premises, according to the city.

While the new law is expected to become official in the coming weeks, people in Calhoun County will not be prosecuted now as long as they follow the guidelines in the new law, Calhoun County Prosecuting Attorney David Gilbert said on Nov. 21.

"We're not going to enforce a law that's been repealed," Gilbert said. "We're not going to be using community resources and county resources to enforce something voters decided they don't want enforced."

Enforcing a law that will be null soon would be a waste of resources, he said.

Gilbert said he believes there are few pending cases, and they will be dismissed if they fall under the new law.

Other areas of the law not impacted by Proposal 1 will still be enforced, he said, such as possession of more than 2.5 ounces, possession or use of any amount by people under 21, public use, growing more plants than what is allowed, or selling marijuana.

"People need to make themselves aware of the law," he said.

The city of Battle Creek takes the same position as Gilbert, a news release from the city states, and from this point forward will not prosecute misdemeanor cases related to behaviors that will become legal under Proposal 1, even though they will not be legal until Dec. 6.

Anyone driving while under the influence of marijuana also will be prosecuted, because that behavior was not legalized under the new law, the city said.

Officers may make these arrests after observing unsafe driving due to marijuana use with the same approach taken when someone is under the influence of alcohol.

Other prosecutors in Michigan have taken a similar stance as Gilbert and will no longer prosecute people for things being made legal under Proposal 1.

The city of Battle Creek anticipates the state's regulatory guidelines to be available by December 2019.

"Because of that, city staff anticipate workshops on any potential local ordinances happening next summer, with likely Planning Commission action before ordinance introduction in November or December of 2019," the city said in a news release.

Anyone with questions about the ordinance process can contact planning staff at 269-966-3320; and with questions about legal/arrest issues can contact the Battle Creek Police Department at 269-966-3322.
BATTLE CREEK, MI -- A Battle Creek restaurant will offer a free meal to those in need tomorrow.

For its second year in a row, The Fire Hub restaurant at 175 S. Kendall St. on the corner Kendall Street and Dickman Road, will serve free meals from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 22. No appointment or invitation is required.

In cooperation with the Food Bank of South Central Michigan and the Haven of Rest Ministries, The Fire Hub plans to feed up to 500 guests, according to a news release from the restaurant.

"Our priority is to help our community, so we are going to do whatever we can to provide a warm, healthy holiday meal for those in need," said Michael McFarlen, Vice President of Food and Beverage at FireKeepers. "We will continue to develop creative ways to help our neighbors as long as there is a need."

Anyone interested in volunteering at the meal can call The Fire Hub at 269-753-0065.

FireKeepers Casino Hotel, a casino owned by the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, opened The Fire Hub in 2017 after redeveloping a historic firehouse, according to The Fire Hub Restaurant website. The building is also home to Kendall Street Pantry which collaborates with the restaurant and other organizations to find ways to give back to the community and those in need.
PORTAGE, MI -- The Portage City Council has taken action to prohibit recreational marijuana businesses, with plans to revisit the issue in the future.

Some council members said they would support an ordinance for recreational marijuana businesses in the future.

The city council met Tuesday, Nov. 20, and unanimously passed the city ordinance amendment on second reading to prohibit recreational marijuana businesses in Portage.

Mayor Patricia Randall said the council is waiting to see how the state is going forward, and wants to define how the issue will be handled in Portage.

"We want to define this in our community so it doesn't define us first," she said.

Portage will consider the issue with a process like the one officials used while considering a medical marijuana ordinance, she said.

"We have a democracy. Our citizens did vote this in. This council god willing will all be in place in six months, and we are telling you we will go about this just as we did medical marijuana, very progressively," Randall said.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Pearson said he is in favor of recreational marijuana. The city should not rush to pass a local ordinance for recreational marijuana businesses, he said, and instead allow the state some time to develop its rules.

"We are approving what we can at this time and we have to wait for the state," he said.

Pearson said he will take the issue up with the Portage council if nothing happens within a year.

Council members said they would revisit the issue again and discuss an ordinance for recreational marijuana that works with the medical marijuana ordinance.

"This is a balancing act," Richard Ford said. "Right now we don't want to have a wild west with individuals operating outside the confines of LARA. So by passing this ordinance we're going to prevent that from happening.

"But I do full expect that our city administration will be considerate of the will of the people and we will have an ordinance in place allowing recreational marijuana when LARA allows us to do so," he said.

LARA, the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, is expected to have its rules in place within about a year.

Several citizens addressed the council.

Dan Gage of Portage criticized the council for not having addressed the issue earlier.

"They're sending a clear message by any delay, denying me access to safe legal recreational marijuana," he said.

The action requires city administration to provide a report to the council within six months, City Manager Larry Shaffer said.

The city council accepted the amendment on first reading on Nov. 6, which is Election Day, when the council convened before final election results were reported.

In Portage, 56 percent of voters were in favor of Proposal 1 to legalize recreational marijuana, Shaffer said.

Portage currently has one medical marijuana dispensary that serves people who have state-licensed medical marijuana cards. The dispensary is facing an uncertain future as a ruling in a pending court case could shut the business down or allow it to remain open.
MUSKEGON, MI - The mother of a 6-year-old was sentenced to jail on truancy charges after her child racked up more than two dozen unexcused absences.

Brittany Ann Horton, 28, of Twin Lake was sentenced to five days in jail after she refused to cooperate with repeated attempts to help her get her child to school, according to the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office. She pleaded guilty to truancy.

Her child had 26 unexcused absences, according to the prosecutor's office. It does not count excused absences when considering truancy charges.

Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson launched his Operation Graduation program several years ago to combat the issue of truancy. The program provides a series of interventions to try to get parents to send their children to school. In the case of older, uncooperative students, they are provided with interventions as well.

Students are flagged for intervention once they accumulate nine days of unexcused absences.

"When parents like Ms. Horton refuse to make reasonable efforts to address the truancy problem, our office is committed to making sure the children of our community are not deprived of an education," according to a statement from the prosecutor's office.

Even after Horton was charged in March, her child missed another 14 days of school, according to the prosecutor's office.

When she pleaded guilty on May 17, sentencing was deferred and the prosecutor's office agreed it would dismiss the charge if her child did not have any additional unexcused absences. She also agreed to work with the prosecutor, the school and service providers.

That agreement didn't stick, and on Nov. 16, Muskegon County District Judge Harold Closz sentenced Horton to five days in the county jail and nine months of probation and ordered her to pay $525 in costs and fines.

Efforts to get Horton to send her child to school began on Oct. 25, 2017, when the school sent a letter to her about the issue, according to the prosecutor's office. A second letter was sent on Dec. 11. A meeting with Horton was scheduled by the school for Dec. 21 but she didn't show up, according to the prosecutor's office.

The school contacted Hilson's office on Jan. 22, which sent her a letter on Feb. 2. A meeting with Horton was scheduled by the prosecutor's office for Feb. 21, but she again didn't show up. The truancy charge, a misdemeanor, was authorized on March 5.

No information about the child's father was provided to the school or the prosecutor's office.

Filing criminal charges against parents is considered a "last resort," according to the statement from the prosecutor's office.

"Had Ms. Horton met with us, the school or service providers, she would have been provided any services needed to address any possible issues, including but not limited to transportation issues, daycare arrangements, counseling, mental health services or anything else necessary to address barriers in getting her child to school," according to the statement.

Agencies provide assistance to parents through school-based Family Resource Centers, and include the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the mental health department and Mediation and Restorative Justice.

"Our office does not file charges against parents who are genuinely trying to resolve the issues," the prosecutor's statement reads. "The vast majority of chronic truancy cases never end up in court."
SAGINAW, MI -- The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw has now released the names of 18 former clergy "credibly accused" of sexually abusing minors. But church leaders said Wednesday they can't say how many people have claimed they were victims.

"I don't really want to give you a number because it isn't, it wouldn't be accurate, and it's not based on anything that I can verify," Saginaw Bishop Walter A. Hurley said on Wednesday, Nov. 21. "And part of the difficulty is that we do not have our files and some of that information would be in the files."

Law enforcement raided Catholic Diocese of Saginaw properties twice this year, seizing documents and computers, as part of a state investigation into sex-abuse claims in the diocese and the six other dioceses in Michigan.

The Saginaw Diocese on Wednesday published the names of 13 clergymen, 11 of them deceased, against whom it said credible accusations of child sexual abuse were made. This list is in addition to five clergy the Diocese previously named.

Hurley couldn't say what years the alleged abuse spanned, but it's likely the abuse allegations date back to at least the 1950s, as James Aloysius Mulvey, one of the accused, died in 1959.

Hurley said the Saginaw Diocese's decision to release the names of accused sexual abusers is part of a national trend.

"Dioceses all over the country, at this point, are releasing names," Hurley told reporters Wednesday. "Part of it is an increased awareness, if you will, of the implications of sexual abuse, the need to validate the victims, the survivors of that."

After publishing the 13 additional names in a press release and a posting on the organization's website Wednesday, the bishop met with reporters at the Diocesan Center for Ministry, 5802 Weiss St., in Saginaw Township to answer questions. He called the sexual abuse of minors a "terrible tragedy."

Earlier this year, Erin Looby Carlson, the Diocese's director of communications, told MLive/The Saginaw News that since February, the Diocese received 12 complaints from adults reporting they were abused by a priest when they were minors. All those priests are now either dead or have been removed from ministry, Carlson said.

The clergymen named Wednesday are:

Martin Ignatius Kalahar, retired Feb. 1, 1966, died April 13, 1966. Allegation made posthumously.

James Aloysius Mulvey, died Nov. 7, 1959. Allegation made posthumously.

Neil Francis O'Connor, retired Sept. 16, 1966, died March 8, 1989, age 81. Allegation made posthumously

Thomas William Ryan, died Jan. 25, 1975.

Raymond John Pilarski, permanently removed from ministry Oct. 9, 2007, died Oct. 17, 2017.

Robert Gordon Smith, previously removed from public ministry, died June 24, 1980.

Joseph Szarek, removed from ministry in Saginaw October 1958, but later served in Diocese of Albany. Died July 14, 2012.

Camillus Frigo

James Marron, posthumous allegation.

Francis McHugh, posthumous allegation.

Richard Thomas Szafranski, removed from ministry in April 2006.

The church said there also are credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor regarding some former clergy members of the Diocese of Saginaw who became priests in other dioceses. While the Review Board of the Diocese of Saginaw has not received credible allegations of abuse regarding those listed below, credible allegations against the following have been reported in another dioceses:

Ronald Vincent Gronowski, permanently removed from public ministry 2002.

Terrence Andrew Raymond, deceased 1986.

The Diocese named the 13 "because allegations against them have been reviewed and determined to be credible by the diocesan Review Board." That board is mostly composed of individuals not employed by the Diocese who "have broad expertise beneficial to the protection of children."

The Diocese stated that in determining allegations to be credible, it is not making a definitive statement regarding the certainty of the allegations nor the guilt of the accused.

Hurley said he recently attended the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, which influenced his decision is name the former priests now.

"We heard, first hand, a number of victims that spoke to us and it just, in my mind, made this more urgent," he said.

The three-day-long meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops made headlines earlier this month when, at the direction of the Vatican, it ended without any vote on two major anti-abuse proposals. The Vatican issued an order for such action to be delayed until after a global meeting on sex abuse scheduled for February, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to the 18 priests now named by the Saginaw Diocese, suspended Saginaw Diocese priest Rev. Robert DeLand Jr. faces trial next year on criminal charges involving three alleged victims.

And the diocese suspended Rev. Ronald J. Dombrowski as a "precautionary measure" after a person accused him of sexually abusing them when they were a minor. Dombrowski has not been criminally charged.

Diocese officials say they have provided the Attorney General's office with "all other names of deceased clergy, about whom the diocesan Review Board had insufficient information to make a determination regarding credibility of an allegation."

Hurley said he thought there were three or four of them.

The attorney general's office announced in October it is reviewing sex-abuse allegations in all Michigan Catholic dioceses dating back to the 1950s.

Also this month, the Catholic Diocese of Gaylord created an online list of priests and deacons the church said are credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors dating back to 1971. As of Nov. 15, the list featured 10 clergy. Eight of the priests are deceased. The two living priests -- Ronald Gronowski and James Holtz -- have been "permanently removed from public ministry."

And in October, a priest with a Fenton church was removed from the facility after a sexual harassment complaint was made against him.
SAGINAW, MI -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saginaw has released the names of several dead and two living priests who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

The Diocese divulged the 13 clergymen's names on Wednesday, Nov. 21, via a press release and a posting on the organization's website.

The release comes in a year of sexual misconduct allegations in the Saginaw Diocese. In February, The Rev. Robert J. "Father Bob" Deland was arrested on sexual assault charges. In the spring, the diocese released the names of five clergy credibly suspected of sexual misconduct.

"It is our sincere desire, in listing these names, to acknowledge that the allegations brought forward to the diocese have merit," said Bishop Walter A. Hurley, the Diocese's apostolic administrator. "We hope and pray this step and others will continue to promote healing for all victim-survivors."

The clergymen named Nov. 21 are:

Martin Ignatius Kalahar, retired Feb. 1, 1966, died April 13, 1966. Allegation made posthumously.

James Aloysius Mulvey, died Nov. 7, 1959. Allegation made posthumously.

Neil Francis O'Connor, retired Sept. 16, 1966, died March 8, 1989, age 81. Allegation made posthumously

Thomas William Ryan, died Jan. 25, 1975.

Raymond John Pilarski, permanently removed from ministry Oct. 9, 2007, died Oct. 17, 2017.

Robert Gordon Smith, previously removed from public ministry, died June 24, 1980.

Joseph Szarek, removed from ministry in Saginaw October 1958, but later served in Diocese of Albany. Died July 14, 2012.

Camillus Frigo

James A. Marron, posthumous allegation, died 1987.

Francis McHugh, posthumous allegation.

Richard Thomas Szafranski, removed from ministry in April 2006.

There also are credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor regarding some former clergy members of the Diocese of Saginaw who became priests of other dioceses. While the Review Board of the Diocese of Saginaw has not received credible allegations of abuse regarding those listed below, credible allegations against the following have been reported in another diocese:

Ronald Vincent Gronowski, permanently removed from public ministry 2002.

Terrence Andrew Raymond, deceased 1986.

Gronowski, 76, and Szafranski, 70, are still living.

The Diocese named the 13 "because allegations against them have been reviewed and determined to be credible by the diocesan Review Board." That board is mostly composed of individuals not employed by the Diocese who "have broad expertise beneficial to the protection of children."

The Diocese stated that in determining allegations to be credible, it is not making a definitive statement regarding the certainty of the allegations nor the guilt of the accused. The Diocese is only stating that the allegations are highly serious and have not been discredited.

The Diocese has shared the names with Michigan Attorney General's Office, which is investigating all seven dioceses in the state.

"In addition to those names, the Diocese provided the Attorney General's office with all other names of deceased clergy, about whom the diocesan Review Board had insufficient information to make a determination regarding credibility of an allegation," the organization stated. "Since the Diocese is no longer in possession of its files, it is unable to engage in any further review. However, it is possible that the diocese may add other names to this list following the Attorney General's investigation, and/or upon people coming forward with new information."

The Diocese is encouraging anyone with knowledge of sexual misconduct involving a minor by these individuals or any other past or present clergy or diocesan representative to contact their local law enforcement.

MLive-The Saginaw News could not immediately reach the Attorney General's Office and the Saginaw County Prosecutor's Office for comment on the release of the priests' names Wednesday.

After contacting authorities, you also may contact Sister Janet Fulgenzi, OP, PhD, coordinator of the Office of Child and Youth Protection for the diocese at 989-797-6682, or jfulgenzi@dioceseofsaginaw.org.
JCDecaux will operate in the outdoor advertising industry in Nigeria through an exclusive partnership and licensee agreement between JCDecaux and Horizon Outdoor Advertising Limited, a wholly Nigerian owned subsidiary of Grace Lake Partners.

Lagos, Nigeria. Source: JCDecaux Nigeria.

A Traffic Information System (LATIS): a network of 94 sq m digital traffic arches designed by Marc Aurele providing real-time traffic information to commuters at strategic driving decision points across Lagos.

A high-quality advertising street furniture programme: a network of advertising bus shelters designed by Lord Norman Foster, which have solar-powered roof panels and are 100% energy self-sufficient.

A self-cleaning automatic public toilets programme, designed by Patrick Jouin, located at the city's busiest bus stations and free to use for Lagosians.

A network of 92 sqm billboards for the stations under construction of the upcoming Lagos cable car system (LCCT), which will link the key hubs of the economic capital - Lagos Island, Mainland and Victoria Island.

(L-R): Adelaide McKelvey, sales and marketing director, JCDecaux Sub-Saharan Africa; Mark Cooper, CEO, JCDecaux Sub-Saharan Africa and Opeoluwa Filani, sales director, Horizon Outdoor Advertising.

Urban infrastructure

Grace Lake Partners (GLP) is an indigenous investment and advisory firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, with a philosophy of creating shared value. Horizon is Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) certified and a member of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN).The partnership - JCDecaux Grace Lake - has commenced work installing four city-wide public service programmes, all at no cost to the citizens of Lagos. The programmes cover the installation, operation and maintenance of:This partnership gives JCDecaux a foothold in Nigeria, the largest economy of the continent, with GDP of over 332 billion in 2017 and the most highly populated country in Africa, with 190 million people (a population which will double in the next 30 years).The partnership will also help maximise the economic potential of Lagos, Africa's biggest city, the economic capital of the country. With nearly 21 million people, it is market with huge potential for advertisers and media agencies.The arrival of JCDecaux in the highly fragmented outdoor advertising market of Nigeria will increase the markets value (estimated at 115 million), offering brands an unprecedented digital communications platform to grow their audience.Considered as one of the most gridlocked cities in the world, Lagos is planning to install urban infrastructure that will provide a high-quality public service and accelerate its transformation into a smart city pioneer on the African continent.With the LATIS project, the new JCDecaux Grace Lake partnership delivers a solution that gives drivers real-time information on traffic, through digital traffic arches at key junctions across the city and via a mobile app designed and built by Nigerians.This traffic information system, a first for the group, has been specially designed to meet Lagos's needs and help ease traffic flow in the city by suggesting alternative routes and estimating times of arrival.JCDecaux Grace Lake is also contributing to the modernisation of public transport and improvement of passenger services by installing a network of solar-powered bus shelters and automatic public toilets in the main bus terminals. These facilities will help meet environmental and social commitments by: encouraging mobility, easing road traffic, developing solar power, promoting hygiene on the public highway, creating sustainable skilled jobs and encouraging the training of a local workforce.These programmes demonstrate the strength of JCDecauxs economic model, which can deploy public utility urban infrastructures financed completely by selected, high-quality advertising anywhere in the world.Jean-Sebastien Decaux, CEO, Southern Europe, Belgium and Luxembourg, Africa and Israel, said: In line with our unique model of organic development, we are delighted to be entering the Nigerian market and particularly Lagos, a thriving city in many respects.We will put our capacity for innovation, particularly digital, at the service of one of the most dynamic cities in sub-Saharan Africa. We have developed a unique service to bring Lagos the best of our expertise in street furniture and an unprecedented traffic information system, a first for Africa and for JCDecaux.
With 160 deals, IT and ITES was the busiest sector followed by manufacturing and healthcare (47). The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space was third, recording 41 deals. Let's take a look at the biggest mergers and acquisitions in India this year. (Representative image)

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IDBI Bank has put on hold its stake sale in IDBI Federal Life Insurance until completion of the lenders ownership control to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).

The public sector lender is awaiting final regulatory approvals for the insurance giant to acquire up to 51 percent shareholding.

We started the sale process in the insurance joint venture, but then the LIC deal occurred. The sale process is on hold now. We will take a decision on IDBI Federal Life Insurance in consultation with LIC once it completes its investment, said Rakesh Sharma, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of IDBI Bank, in its post-results press conference.

IDBI Bank holds 48 percent stake in the venture and Federal Bank and Belgian life insurer Ageas hold 26 percent each.

Earlier in 2018, when IDBI Bank was looking to sell stake in its life insurance company, Max Life Insurance and Aditya Birla Sun Life were said to be frontrunners for this acquisition. However, the deal could not go through since the parties did not agree to the terms and conditions of the process.

Due to lack of clarity on the stake sale in IDBI Bank, there was an impact on the business of its life insurance joint venture: IDBI Federal Life. From April to October period, it collected Rs 355.47 crore in new premiums, down 14 percent on a year-on-year basis.

Vighnesh Shahane, CEO & Whole-time Director, IDBI Federal Life, recently told Moneycontrol that the last 15 months have been a period of uncertainty for the company. With the LIC-IDBI Bank deal, he said it is time to rebuild the company againThe deal will help grow the market for us as well and also improve the insurance pie for us," he added.

When it comes to the deal, Shahane said LIC is a powerful and trusted brand among policyholders.

On August 1, the Cabinet approved LICs acquisition of up to 51 percent stake in the financially weak IDBI Bank to revive it out of the bad loan trouble.

Additionally, LIC being the state-owned insurance firm, its ownership of IDBI Bank and thereby stake in another insurance firm IDBI Federal Life may face regulatory hurdles.

Sharma said, We will take a view as per regulatory guidelines once the deal with LIC is completeOnce the regulatory approvals are through, the deal (LIC) will be completed soon.

IDBI Bank will receive Rs 20,000 crore from an open offer to purchase shares from its minority shareholders. The offer, at Rs 61.73 per equity share, will kick-start around December 5 and close on December 14.
Jet Airways| RS 4,244 crore loss (Image: Reuters)

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Even as Naresh Goyal leads Jet Airways in talks with the Tata Group, challenges are brewing internally in the form of disgruntled pilots.

While the November 20 meeting between National Aviators Guild - the pilots' union - and the management has been postponed to November 26, a section of the pilots' has asked for the salary arrears to be paid by the end of the month.

"If the demand is not met, the pilots may look at other options as declining work," said a source. When asked if the pilots would consider going on a strike, the executive declined to comment.

The Guild has asked for immediate regularisation of salary payments. The pilots are yet to be paid 25 percent of the September salary and that for the whole of October.

While pilots continue to report to work, many of them have declined to do additional duties.

"Earlier, pilots would do overtime, and come to duty even on off days. Not anymore. What is the incentive when everything is only on pay slips and you don't get it?" an executive told Moneycontrol.

Each airline has its own guidelines on how many hours a pilot should fly a month and it may vary from 70 hours to 80 hours. If a pilot flies more than that, it is considered overtime.

Sources added the flight cancellation on November 18 - when 10 flights did not take off from Mumbai - was due to a rostering issue that arose because of pilots declining additional duties.

Jet Airways has about 2,000 pilots.

Industry observers said if the liquidity crunch is not checked, then there could be a repeat of the 2009 situation. Then, about 130 flights were cancelled on a single day after pilots failed to report to work. Jet Airways then said the pilots had resorted to a "simulated strike."

Airline response

As of now, Jet Airways has refuted it is facing non-cooperation from pilots.

In a written response, a company spokesperson said:

"Jet Airways would like to submit that your above observations are erroneous and completely conjectural. On the contrary, and as communicated on numerous earlier occasions, the company continues to enjoy the complete support and cooperation of all its employees, including pilots and engineers, through their respective representative bodies, who have extended their solidarity and full support to the airline. The airline would like to reiterate that the reason for the above-mentioned cancellations of November 18 was a systemic error, and not pilot non-cooperation, as is being unduly speculated."

The spokesperson added: "The company continues to have adequate pilots and run scheduled operations, with rising on-time performance, reflecting growing operational reliability. "

Town hall

Jet Airways pilots have a town hall meet every quarter.

The last one was held in October, each in Mumbai and Delhi. And non-payment of salary was the focal point of discussion.

While one section of pilots pushed for stringent action, like declining work as a form of protest, others favoured to wait a little more before a drastic step was taken.

Sources told Moneycontrol many pilots have started looking out and have even got offers from other airlines. "But many are waiting it out. Most want to see how the talks with the Tata group pan out," said an executive.

There were reports earlier that about 50 pilots at Jet have put in their papers in the last two months. While sources reconfirmed the number, they added: "But it may be unfair to blame all the resignations at the financial crunch faced by the company. Many of these pilots had put in papers even before the crisis began," said an executive.

The company spokesperson said Jet Airways is "progressively addressing compensation matters."

"Jet Airways has a transparent and open culture and employees as well as the management regularly engage through various forums to discuss and resolve matters of mutual concern via internal, defined, consultative processes. The management is in regular dialogue with the pilots and other teams to discuss and resolve on-going issues including disbursement of salaries. As stated earlier, Jet Airways is committed to meet its obligations and has been progressively addressing compensation matters for the 15% affected employees, while payments to all others continue to be made as per schedule," said the spokesperson.
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Dr Reddy's won a major legal battle against Indivior in US, with an appeals court vacating preliminary injunction order of a federal court that blocked the former from selling the generic version of the opioid treatment drug Suboxone.

A trial judge was wrong to say that Indivior was likely to win its patent-infringement case, said the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a 2-1 ruling, before remanding the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

Analysts expect Dr Reddy's to make around $50-75 million in rest of FY19. Dr Reddy's had booked sales of around $10-$15 million days after its launch before it was stayed by the court.

Suboxone had sales of around $786 billion in the US for the first nine months of 2018. The drug accounts for about 80 percent of Indivior's sales.

On July 13, Dr Reddy's received a setback when the District Court of New Jersey converted a temporary injunction against it into a preliminary injunction that prevents it from launching the drug in the US until the patent litigation pertaining to US Patent No. 9,931,305 is concluded.

Dr Reddy's launched its generic buprenorphine/naloxone sublingual film or Suboxone, which is used in the treatment of opioid dependence, "at-risk" in the US after it got a final approval from the US FDA on June 15.

An "at-risk" launch of a generic drug is when a company launches the drug for sale while the patent litigation is still ongoing.

Specialty drug maker Indivior, which British drug maker Reckitt Benckiser spun off as a separate company four years ago, approached the court and secured an immediate injunction against Dr Reddy's from on the grounds of pending patent litigation.

The Hyderabad-based drug maker is pinning hopes on the quick launch of generic Suboxone sublingual film to revive its sagging fortunes in US market, where it was bogged down by lack of significant approvals and regulatory compliance issues for last three years.

Indivior is disappointed that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated the preliminary injunction against Dr. Reddys," Indivior said in a press statement.

"Indivior will continue to vigorously pursue ongoing infringement cases against DRL to protect its Suboxone sublingual film patent portfolio," the company said.

Indivior added that it is in the process of interpreting the ruling in its entirety and will issue a statement on its implications once this review has been completed.

Indivior is working to promote a new opioid addiction treatment called Sublocade to compensate for loss of Suboxone.
Reacting to the outcome of the recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) board meet, Shyam Srinivasan, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Federal Bank, said that the decisions take by the board will only delay the problems, however, he said "if it helps the customer, we should consider it".

What is invoked is already being exercised. So I dont know whether something dramatically different will come other than giving it one more quarter or one half of a year extension. All this only masks the problem. So I would look out for what it is, he said.

The RBI board on November 21 decided to constitute an expert committee to examine the Economic Capital Framework (ECF), the membership and terms of reference of which will be jointly determined by the government of India and the central bank.

With regard to banks under Prompt Corrective Action (PCA), it was decided that the matter will be examined by the Board for Financial Supervision (BFS) of RBI.

The board has advised the central bank to consider a loan restructuring scheme for small and medium enterprises (SME) for loans up to Rs 25 crore.

The board, while deciding to retain the Capital to Risky Asset Ratio (CRAR) at 9 percent, agreed to extend the transition period for implementing the last tranche of 0.625 percent under the Capital Conservation Buffer (CCB), by one year (up to March 31, 2020).

Our credit book across the country is about Rs 100,000 crore. If you take the corporate or wholesale and put the Rs 25 crore slice, that is about Rs 25,000-30,000 crore so Rs 70,000 crore of our book is at or below Rs 25 crore of exposure retail, agri, SME, mid-market, business banking, commercial banking all put together, he said.

On the asset quality for micro and the SME segment, Srinivasan said, Many quarters, it has been quite consistent. We havent seen any degradation. Yes, there have been these goods and services tax (GST) related delayed payment opportunity that came up but that ends in the December quarter. We havent seen any pick up. Our slippages by segment, in fact the SME and the commercial banking slippages have been trending down barring Q2 which saw the pick up on account of the Kerala floods."

Source: CNBC-TV18
India and Vietnam have decided to step up defence cooperation and oil exploration to boost their bilateral ties as they reaffirmed the importance of freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, amid China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region.

The two countries, during the state visit of President Ram Nath Kovind to Vietnam, shared the view that defence and security cooperation has become an important pillar of the comprehensive strategic partnership, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

They welcomed the sustained mutual visits by each other's naval/coast guard vessels, particularly in 2018 and in the years to come.

Kovind and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Phu Trong agreed to effectively implement the Joint Vision Statement on VietnamIndia Defence Cooperation for the period of 2015-2020.

They agreed to step up cooperation in human resources training, and promote collaboration between the Army, Air Force, Naval and Coast Guard of the two countries, as well as cooperation in cyber security and information sharing, the joint statement said.

Vietnam appreciated India's offer of the USD 500 million line of credit to defence industry.

The two sides agreed to step up experience sharing in the training of personnel for participation in the UN peace-keeping operations and cooperation in addressing war legacies in Vietnam, and to strengthen criminal information exchange and law enforcement experience sharing.

They agreed to actively support each other and step up coordination at multilateral defence and security cooperation frameworks, the statement said.

In the spirit of the proposal for an ASEAN-India Strategic Dialogue on maritime cooperation made at the commemorative summit held in New Delhi in January, they agreed to hold the first Maritime Security Dialogue on issues related to maritime domain and further encouraged port calls of each other's naval and coast guard ships, it said.

India and Vietnam also agreed to continue promoting bilateral investment, including cooperation projects between Vietnam Oil and Gas Group PVN and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in oil and gas exploration on land, continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Vietnam.

The two leaders encouraged the two sides to be more active in identifying models for cooperation, including those involving third country.

The Vietnamese side welcomed and agreed to create facilitating conditions for Indian companies to invest into new thermal energy and renewable energy projects in Vietnam, the statement said.

India and Vietnam exchanged views over the current developments in the South China Sea, and reiterated the importance of the maintenance of peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation and over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, it said.

China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea and has also laid claims on the Senkaku islands under the control of Japan in the East China Sea.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the South China Sea.

The US is periodically deploying its naval ships and fighter planes to assert freedom of navigation.

India and Vietnam stressed the necessity of full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea as well as the early conclusion of a substantive, effective and binding Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, the statement said.

They emphasised the importance of peaceful settlement of disputes, including the full respect for diplomatic and legal processes, and complete compliance with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS), the statement said.

The two sides reiterated that the parties concerned should continue exercising self-restraint and refrain from the use of force or threat to use force, it said.

India and Vietnam unequivocally condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism, the statement said, adding that Vietnam shared India's concern that terrorism is one of the most serious threats to global peace, security and stability.

They underscored that there is no justification whatsoever for act of terrorism and recognised that terrorism cannot be and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic groups, it said.

They called upon all nations to adopt a comprehensive approach in combating terrorism, blocking sources of financing terrorism, dismantling terrorist bases, safe havens and countering misuse of the internet, including social media and other communication techniques, the statement said.

The two countries also agreed to cooperate in building a strong consensus for early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), it added.
India's crude oil imports in October rose to their highest level in at least more than seven years, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry showed on Tuesday.

Crude imports in October climbed 10.5 percent from a year earlier to 21.02 million tonnes, the highest monthly import figure in PPAC data going back to April 2011.

Imports rose as many refiners resumed purchases after maintenance of units.

In October, India's oil imports from Africa surged to more than a three-year high.

In India, the world's third-largest consumer, oil imports typically rise from October due to higher fuel demand in the festival season and as industrial activity picks up after months of monsoon rains.

India is among the eight countries to have received a waiver from the United States to continue crude oil imports from Iran without penalty after sanctions were reimposed on Tehran.

India's oil imports from Iran fell by about 12 percent to about 466,000 bpd in October. The country's overall purchases from Iran in the April-October period, the first seven months of the current fiscal year, rose 34 percent.

Meanwhile, imports of oil products declined nearly 20 percent and exports fell more than 4 percent, the data showed.
While the government stands stiff on its ground that the financial sector is facing liquidity crunch, sector players believe that the situation has improved over the fortnight.

Things have started to improve in the last 10 days or so. We have started getting more sanctions as lenders are more open to lending than they were about a month ago, Jugal Kataria, chief financial officer (CFO) of Satin Creditcare, a private micro-finance institution (MFI), told Moneycontrol.

He said that things are changing and its about time that liquidity concern will be over for the industry.

Financial sector was embroiled in tightened liquidity after one of largest non-banking financial companies (NBFC), Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Service (IL&FS), faced strings of defaults on its debt payment. Soon after, the entire NBFC sector went in red with fears of more defaults gripping the sector.

Another industry player, on condition of anonymity, said that there is a mix of big, small, private and public lenders in the sector and someone or the other is lending.

Also read: Exclusive: FinMin fears major NBFC default without liquidity lifeline; says situation fragile

Though people are still talking about it I think things are beginning to improve and the panic is over, he said.

Another executive of micro-finance industry said that the industry blew the situation disproportionately.

"The situation is more sentiment based than anything else, he said adding that things have been blown disproportionately due to one firm defaulting and others getting cautious.

The large MFIs are getting funds Only the smaller MFIs with inadequate capital are facing difficult, he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Kataria said that due to the liquidity crunch, the industry has collectively degraded their growth percentage.

We had given our guidance that earlier we wanted to grow at 40 percent, Y-o-Y, but in lieu of current overall NBFC scenario, we are going slightly slowly. It's not because we do not have funding but everybody is being cautious and is conserving resources. So, we are thinking that we will probably grow at 30-35 percent this year and then start growing further, he said.

Also read: RBI not recognising stress in the NBFC sector: FinMin sources

Interestingly, ties between the government and the RBI had severed due to differing views on liquidity situation in the country. While the North Block believed that liquidity in the sector was drying and that the NBFC and the housing finance sector could collapse in six weeks, the RBI felt that the situation was under control.

In a letter dated 26 October, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) discussed the financial stability impact of the IL&FS default and described the situation as fragile.

Without additional liquidity support a significant default from among the largest NBFC and HFC could occur within six weeks and the financing cycle of productive sector would be adversely affected, the letter states.

During the 19th Financial Stability and Development Councils (FSDC) meeting held early this month, the RBI had asked for data from the government to prove that liquidity condition had worsened.

After the meeting, sources in the finance ministry had lashed out at RBI, stating that the central bank was not recognising crisis in the sector.

"(Activity in) Real estate and auto sales are down due to the liquidity crisis but they (RBI) are not recognising it, the source said, indicating that steps taken by the Reserve Bank to alleviate systemic liquidity are not enough.

When asked about the same from industry players, they said that RBI had done enough even as there are always expectations of more.

There are always more expectations from regulators but RBI has done enough for MFI sector, Kataria said adding that the regulator has understood industry challenges and has worked accordingly.

The RBI will conduct purchase of government securities under open market operation (OMO) on November 22 to the tune of Rs 80 billion.
Imagine if you could just present an identification card and a bot could auto-populate an insurance proposal form for you. No back and forth over a physical form being filled or incorrect details being filled into the proposal form. Max Life Insurance is planning a pilot project wherein technology would be able to read details from documents like PAN card so that the issuance time is reduced to 12 minutes from around 30-35 minutes now.

A pilot will begin in the next month with agents wherein technology will enable almost two-thirds of the form to be automatically filled when documents are scanned.

Manik Nangia, Director Marketing and Chief Digital Officer, Max Life Insurance said the idea is to fill the form in the presence of the customer and in the shortest time possible using technology. When it comes to medical underwriting, there will be a system to send interactive SMSes to the policyholder so that they can fill it correctly.

When a policy document is sent to an insured, the first step will be to scan the relevant document to auto-populate the data. Post this, for medical questions like smoking and family history of diseases, interactive SMSes will be sent to the policyholder. They can reply in yes or no and this will be filled in the policy form.

Even after the policy document is filled, SMSes are sent to customers to ascertain if they have understood the features of the product and the premium paying term.

In the second phase, Nangia said the plan is to have a system wherein models like Google Assistant could be used to fill the form completely. This would be a text-to-speech model wherein the home assistant device would read out the details to be filled and the policyholder would respond to the questions asked.

We are in talks with Google to have the system in the process. This will enable that customers can answer in multiple languages too and the process is less cumbersome, he added.

With this, Nangia said the quality of disclosures would also increase leading to lesser frauds at the time of claims settlement.

At present, there is a high incidence of insurance agents filling up proposal form on the behalf of the insured. This leads to discrepancies, especially in the medical disclosures. For instance, if a smoker is presented as a non-smoker in the proposal form, the insured or their family can face problems during claims settlement.

Max Life Insurances Value of New Business (VNB) increased by 42 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 290 crore in H1FY19 due to a significant growth in new business as well as a higher share of protection products. New business grew by 21 percent YoY to Rs 1,909 crore in H1FY19.

About 30 percent policies sold during H1FY19 were pure protection policies, with a YoY growth of 56 percent. Here, e-commerce channel contributed to 13 percent of total policies sold in H1FY19.
Carlos Ghosn

France's Renault says it has decided to keep its CEO Carlos Ghosn on despite his arrest in Japan on allegations that he misused assets of partner Nissan Motor Co. and misreported his income.

Renault's board of directors announced late November 20 that the No. 2 at the company, Chief Operating Officer Thierry Bollore, would temporarily fill in for Ghosn.

"Mr. Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains chairman and chief executive officer," a statement from Renault's board said.

But while Ghosn deals with his legal issues in Japan, Bollore will have the same authority to run the company as the CEO, it added.

Renault's board said its decision was made with an eye toward keeping the company on a steady course "to preserve the interests of the group and the continuity of its operations."

Ghosn runs Renault, Nissan and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance that he helped turn into the world's biggest car-seller last year, and both France and Japan want to keep it intact.

Renault's move to appoint a temporary leader was in line with a demand by the French government, which owns a 15 per cent stake in the automaker.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had said earlier on November 20 that Ghosn was not in position to lead the Renault Group while fighting the accusations in Japan.

The French automaker said after an emergency meeting of its board of directors in Paris that it would further consolidate its alliance with Nissan.

The two automakers have a partnership, also, with smaller automaker Mitsubishi Motor Corp.

Asked about reports that Nissan and Renault had been on the verge of merging, Nissan's CEO Hiroto Saikawa told reporters Wednesday that he had not heard of such a plan.

There was no update Wednesday in Tokyo from prosecutors on Ghosn's case, and no public word from Ghosn himself. It was unclear where he was being held following his arrest on Monday.

Nissan's board of directors is due to meet on November 22 and expected to approve a proposal to dismiss both Ghosn as its chairman and another executive, representative director Greg Kelly, who is alleged to have collaborated with his boss in falsifying financial reports.

Earlier this year, Ghosn signed a contract that would have run through 2022.

Renault's board, meanwhile, said it is requesting that Nissan pass along details of its investigation into Ghosn's alleged wrongdoing.

Le Maire said authorities have examined Ghosn's tax situation in France but have found no wrongdoing.

Japanese prosecutors said they were holding Ghosn, 64, for allegedly collaborating to falsify securities statements and under reporting USD 44.6 million in income from 2011 to 2015.

Bollore, a member of Renault's executive committee, joined Renault in September 2012 and was named chief operating officer only last February.

He has a long career with both tiremaker Michelin and auto parts company Faurecia, spending time in Asia with each.

Of French, Brazilian and Lebanese background, Ghosn is a towering corporate figure in France, where Renault is one of the heavyweight industrial survivors.

He is more controversial in Japan, where top foreign executives are rare and even the biggest corporate bigwigs tend to keep a low profile.

Ghosn is admired for driving a turnaround at Nissan when it was near bankruptcy and for his foresight in pushing to bring electric and autonomous cars to the masses.

But in a 90-minute news conference late November 19 night, Saikawa, the Nissan CEO, said his boss had too much power and the company was overdue for some change.
Amid public concern over data privacy, the government intends to impose higher penalties on companies if they fail to report cases of a data breach of Indian users to concerned authorities, a government official told The Economic Times.

There have been several cases of personal data breaches by technology giants like Facebook and Google in the past one year, which the government came to know of after the companies released public statements.

Most companies do not comply with rules of the Information Technology Act, 2008, which require them to pay financial penalties if breaches are not reported to the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY). They do not even respond to multiple letters by authorities since penalties are so low.

The ministry is working on a draft of the final data protection law, which could be tabled in the Parliament by December-end.

"Increasing penalties to ensure higher reporting of incidents is one way of looking at it. Regulators around the world, be it in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or the data protection bill, are resorting to fairly high penalties so that it acts as deterrence. However, we also need a legal and regulatory framework to support them," Nehaa Chaudhari, Public Policy Head at Ikigai Law, told the paper.

In October, Facebook accounts of 50 million Indians were exposed to a personal data breach. The ministry wrote to the social media giant regarding the extent of the damage. Facebook told the government it would respond after an investigation.

Google too announced it would shut down its social media arm, Google+, after reports that 5 lakh users may have been exposed to external parties due to a bug that was in the system for two years.

A company spokesperson had said Google always goes beyond legal requirements and applies methods focused on our users. In a statement, it said millions of notifications are sent to users about privacy and security bugs.
What do some of the most sought-after companies look for when hiring talent? SheSays invited a panel of top ad agencies to answer this question and to share how you can best present yourself to snag that dream job - whether you're starting out, moving onto senior management or making a sideways shift.

Speakers: Larissa Elliott, a freelance art director/creative director, Vicki Buys, the MD Ogilvy Cape Town, Matt Ross, executive creative director for King James Group, Tabitha King head of talent at King James Group and Nondu Petlele, content director for VML.  She Says CT Facebook group

Skills of the future

Matt Ross, the executive creative director for King James Group.

There is an innate belief that talent is the thing that takes you further. And as an industry, frankly, we really do celebrate talent and we should be. But what is beneath that veneer of talent is people who work immensely hard. And that is the distinguishing factor. It's literally hours put in.

Be prepared to let your hard work and passion lead you to where you want to be.

Advertising is such a dynamic industry and people are constantly looking for new ways to switch it up. So when they are switching stuff up, be the one that they're switching that stuff up with.

When you're trying to get noticed or when you're trying to get your foot in the door or trying to get your CV read, just tell me what you're really good at. And more importantly, tell me what you love. Because everyone has that same list of skills coming out of education these days.

Larissa Elliott, a freelance art director/creative director.

I think it's quite important to identify yourself but I think once you're inside an agency-structure, make the most of being in there and learn from every single department.

Define your niche as a freelancer

Tips on how to get to the top

Vicky Buys, the MD Ogilvy Cape Town.

In the first part of the discussion, the panel spoke about the skills of the future, what skills freelancers need to focus on and how you can get to the top following a non-linear career path.The speakers included Vicki Buys, MD of Ogilvy Cape Town, Larissa Elliott, a freelance art director/creative director, Nondu Petlele, content director for VML, Matt Ross, ECD for King James Group and Tabitha King head of talent at King James Group. The panel was moderated by Annette Muller, founder of Flexyforce.After the speaker introductions were made and the audience had settled down, Muller jumped right into the discussion, asking the panellists to make sure that the advice they share is practical advice because they really wanted the audience to leave with practical tips and tools that they can easily implement.As a parent of two little girls I often think about their futures. I had read a fair bit about the future of robotics and the changing nature of the working space. And across the board from a practical standpoint, I've read about the five Cs (creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication and compassion) and I think these are guidelines that are very applicable and will also be applicable in the future.This is essentially what we do on a day-to-day basis. The best service people understand collaboration, the best creatives understand creativity and critical thinking. The other thing within that is that hard work and time spent are things that will always trump anything else. It was true 600 years ago and it will be true in 600 years time.I think Matt is right. Hard work is never going to go out of style. But also people are not staying in the same job, doing the same thing for 20 years like our parents and grandparents. So try new things. Those of us who have been in advertising for a long time have seen new jobs come up and people who have been in advertising for a long time are probably a dying breed. Nowadays people start off in one place and end off in another.Just be curious. Want to know about different things. Want to know what your friend, the strategist is doing. Want to know what the creatives are doing and be involved in their processes. Being curious was my thing. And because I was curious, people said, 'She's a bit of a unicorn, what do we do with her?' And then they created a position for me that was needed in the company. But then I got to step into that position and I made it what I wanted it to be.I didn't even know what I wanted to study and I studied three things. But all those little things helped me to get where I am today. So just be interested.I'd be terrified right now if I was entering the workspace and not just in our industry - I read somewhere that the top 21 jobs in the next decade haven't even been identified yet.I probably receive between 40 and 50 CVs a day and what's interesting is that the skillset is so vast. Maybe 10 years ago, you got CVs and the person was a copywriter or an art director. Whereas now, the CVs that I get, there's a skillset list of somebody that should have been in the business for 20 years.The copywriters know how to design and the designers know how to copywrite. There's just a multi-skilled talent force out there which is incredibly exciting. But I think that on a practical note if you're trying to get your foot in the door, pick something.It's quite important with our clients asking us to be more agile. You need to be able to sit across a table with your client and talk about business interests. Talk about stats and talk about strategy. Talk about what is the relationship with your suppliers and your distribution.Because clients are starting to ask more of us than ever before. If you can make the most of being inside an agency, talking to the accounts department, the strat department, the digital team, everyone. And even the receptionist and how she greets clients. All of that stuff allows you to function as an entrepreneur inside an agency and those are the skills that you eventually want to lead with should you start your own thing or if you want to take it to the next stage.It can be overwhelming. Dealing with clients, especially when they are startups themselves, they are going to want more bang for their buck and they want you to do a bit of everything. I would say don't restrict yourself if you have interests in many different fields. If you want to do a bit of design, a bit of copy, a bit of social media. I think, yes, do that and explore those things but know that everyone will advise and the guys at the top of the chain will say, 'Define your niche'. And I think the way you can do that is to look at an industry that you can cater the best towards.What I did was I had always said from the day I graduated by the time I am 30, I want to be a marketing director. LOL. But honestly, I was always very clear on what it was I wanted. And there's that saying that goes, 'Figure out what you want, write it down and work every single day to achieve this'.So I've been very clear on what I want and I think in watching other people navigate it, I think people who aren't clear on what they want get frustrated, and I think what I have certainly observed at many different agencies is people have an expectation that the agency is going to automatically grow them.But as someone who has managed people in different ways, we can't manage what we don't know that we want. So if you aren't clear on what you want, people aren't necessarily going to help you get there. People also get distracted, so you have to shut out the noise and go, 'What am I good at?' and 'What do I want to do?' and 'How am I going to get there?'Read part 2 here:
Equity benchmarks continued with their downtrend for second consecutive day, in tandem with global markets, with Nifty holding 10,600.

A global sell-off mirrored in the Indian markets as well, while a recovery in crude oil prices weighed on benchmarks.

The day began on a somber note, with benchmarks opening around flat terrain, but a recovery in financials helped market stay in the positive region for a brief period. However, a selloff in major names, especially in the IT space, dragged indices lower.

Last hour saw some marginal recovery in financials as well as midcaps, helping the market close off low points.

The Nifty IT index was the big loser along with energy stocks as well. Meanwhile, pharmaceuticals and PSU banks were the big gainers. In the broader markets, Nifty Midcap index rose over half a percent.

At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 274.71 points or 0.77% at 35199.80, while the Nifty ended down 56.20 points or 0.53% at 10600.00. The market breadth was negative as 1,256 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,305 shares, while 136 shares were unchanged.

Yes Bank, Axis Bank, and Dr Reddys were the big gainers, while TCS and Infosys lost the most.

Stocks in News

Shares of Dr Reddys Labs gained 6 percent as after the company won a major legal battle against Indivior in the US. An Appeals Court vacated the preliminary injunction order of a federal court, which blocked Dr Reddys from selling generic version of opioid treatment drug, Suboxone.

Bank of Barodas shares gained 1 percent after the public sector lender sold its stake in the Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL).

Excel Industries shares climbed 3 percent intraday after a rating agency upgraded company's long term rating.

Minda Corporation shares rallied 7 percent after the company reduced its stake in joint venture by selling to Japanese partner.

After buying agrochemical company in Costa Rica by the subsidiary, UPL shares gained more than 2.5 percent.

Adani Gas was locked in 20 percent upper circuit at Rs 97.80 on Wednesday after the company expanded its pan-India presence by bagging 13 city gas distribution (CGD) projects.

ITI stock climbed 4 percent after the company listed out reasons for rising share volume recently. It rallied 22 percent in last one month.

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation has reported a massive 52.55 percent year-on-year growth in second quarter profit to Rs 438.7 crore despite sharp rise in provisions and liquidity crisis. The stock gained 4 percent higher.

Bank of America has maintained its buy call on Jubilant FoodWorks with a target of Rs 1,600. This implies a potential upside of 32 percent from the last traded price. The stock ended a percent higher.

Shares of Jet Airways rallied over 2.5 percent higher after a media report indicated that promoter is in talks with foreign partner for financial support.

Global Markets

European stocks were higher as investors looked to shrug off negative global market moves. Stoxx 600 was up around 0.3 percent.

Meanwhile, markets in Asia were mixed amid weak handover from Wall Street. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.23 percent in afternoon trade. The Shanghai composite rose 0.21 percent to close at around 2,651.51. The Shenzhen composite added 0.544 percent to end its trading day at about 1,386.43.
The Nifty50 is likely to open lower on Wednesday following muted trend seen in other Asian markets. The index closed 107 points lower at 10,656 on Tuesday.

Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a flat to negative opening for the broader index in India, a fall of 9.5 points or 0.09 percent. Nifty futures were trading around 10,660-level on the Singaporean Exchange.

US stocks sold off for a second day on Tuesday as energy shares dropped with oil prices, and retailers including Target and Kohls sank after weak earnings and forecasts, fueling worries about economic growth, said a Reuters report.

Asian stocks fell on Wednesday, weighed by a renewed bout of selling on Wall Street, and crude oil struggled after a sharp slide as economic growth concerns gripped global markets, it said.

The rupee rose by 21 paise to end at 71.46 against the US dollar on November 20 on increased selling of the greenback by exporters amid softening crude oil prices, and persistent foreign fund inflows.

Stocks in news:

HDFC Bank: The bank acquired 4 percent equity stake in Clearing Corporation of India from Bank of Baroda for Rs 124 crore. It is proposed to increase the stake in CCIL from the current 5 percent to 9 percent from an investment perspective.

NBCC: Company has submitted the Expression of Interest (EoI) for submitting Resolution Plan for Jaypee Infratech (JIL) and the company has been provisionally shortlisted by Resolution Professional of JIL as Prospective Resolution Applicant.

Minda Corporation: Company has entered into definitive agreements with its joint venture partner, Furukawa Group of Japan, for change in equity structure of Minda Furukawa Electric Private Limited (JVCO).

Technical Recommendations:

We spoke to SMC Global Securities and heres what they have to recommend:

Dredging Corporation of India Limited: Buy| Target: Rs 415| Stop Loss: Rs 342| Return 12%

Filatex India Ltd: Buy| Target: Rs 59| Stop Loss: Rs 49| Return 11%

Raymond Ltd: Buy| Target: Rs 860| Stop Loss: Rs 730| Return 10%

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
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Here are the stocks which are in news today:

HDFC Bank: The bank acquired 4 percent equity stake in Clearing Corporation of India from Bank of Baroda for Rs 124 crore. It is proposed to increase the stake in CCIL from the current 5 percent to 9 percent from an investment perspective.

Excel Industries: CRISIL upgraded rating on long term bank loan facilities of the company to A+/ Stable from A/Stable and reaffirmed rating on short term bank loan facilities at CRISIL A1. The rating on fixed deposits has been withdrawn as the company has discontinued acceptance and renewal of the fixed deposits.

Dolphin Offshore Enterprises: Its wholly owned subsidiary, Dolphin Offshore Enterprises (Mauritius) Pvt. Ltd. won an arbitration award against Alcock Ashdown (Gujarat) Limited. The total award amount including interest till date will be around $1 million.

NBCC: Company has submitted the Expression of Interest (EoI) for submitting Resolution Plan for Jaypee Infratech (JIL) and the company has been provisionally shortlisted by Resolution Professional of JIL as Prospective Resolution Applicant.

Minda Corporation: Company has entered into definitive agreements with its joint venture partner, Furukawa Group of Japan, for change in equity structure of Minda Furukawa Electric Private Limited (JVCO). As per the proposed realignment, the equity stake of joint-venture partner in the JVCO will change from 49 percent to 75 percent and stake of Minda Corporation Ltd. will change from existing 51 percent to 25 percent.

Suzlon Energy: As first part of the transaction, Canadian Solar disposal acquired 49 percent stake in company's subsidiaries Amun and Avighna respectively for a combined cash consideration of Rs 26.42 crore. And as second part of the transaction, Canadian Solar acquired balance 51 percent stake in Amun and Avighna respectively for a combined cash consideration of Rs 28.11 crore.

: Company filed application to SEBI requesting extension of time to file financial results.
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After buying agrochemical company in Costa Rica by the subsidiary, UPL shares gained more than 2 percent intraday Wednesday.

UPL Corporation (Mauritius), the wholly owned subsidiary of the company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire directly or through its subsidiaries 100 percent of the shares of Bioquim Group which has annual business is in excess of $20 million.

Companies, which are part of acquisition, are based at Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic; and Guatemala.

Bioquim Group is engaged in the business of producing, selling and marketing of agro-chemicals and crop protection products in Costa Rica and certain countries in the Caribbean and Central American Region.

The deal is expected to be completed in first half of calendar year 2019.

Bioquim Group sells its products in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Its annual turnover from the fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2017 was in the range of about $18 million to $21 million.

At 12:00 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 774.05, up Rs 14.30, or 1.88 percent on the BSE.
NTPC | Company reported higher standalone profit at Rs 3,504.8 crore in Q2FY21 against Rs 3,262.4 crore, revenue rose to Rs 24,677.1 crore from Rs 22,764.6 crore YoY. Company to buy back its shares worth Rs 2,275.7 crore.

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India's largest electricity producer NTPC is eyeing distressed power plants run by RattanIndia Power and Jaiprakash Power Ventures, reports Bloomberg.

NTPC is carrying out an internal assessment of these plants --RattanIndia's plants at Nashik and Amravati in Maharashtra and Jaiprakash's Nigrie plant in Madhya Pradesh, sources told the news agency.

The utility generator is said to consider bidding for these plants if creditors of the two companies take these assets to the bankruptcy court.

Several stressed power projects may land in the bankruptcy courts if the Supreme Court at a scheduled hearing on November 28 decides to lift an ongoing moratorium, whereby banks are barred from filing any insolvency cases against loan defaulting power companies. In September, the apex court had asked banks to maintain status quo on insolvency proceedings against such power companies.

In India, 34 power assets with a capacity of 40,130 MW remains stressed. The power industry accounted for $78 billion (RS 5.65 lakh crore) of loan exposure as of March, including debt that would be considered delinquent under the new rules, the report said.

Podcast | Editor's pick of the day: Supreme Court offers interim relief to stressed power assets

NTPC's acquisition would allow it to expand at a lower cost as against building a new plant. RattanIndias two plants have a combined installed capacity of 2,700 MW and Nigrie has a capacity of 1,320 MW.

The acquisition would also mark a shift in the company's strategy as it has mostly stayed away from competitive bids to boost capacity, the report said.

The company would be able to raise required funds for the acquisition, sources told the news agency. The company had a cash balance of about $616 million (Rs 4,400 crore) as of March 31, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

The reports said that NTPC could add more plants to its list of targets.
Japanese tech giant Panasonic on Wednesday said it expects to clock sales to the tune of Rs 140 crore in the next one year from its bluetooth-based trackers that have been conceptualised and designed by its team in India.

The company, which launched two versions of its tracker 'Seekit' priced Rs 1,299 onwards, will start selling the devices online from the first week in December.

"We are starting with a small device and this will be built up into a larger ecosystem. While the market is still at a nascent stage, there is a strong potential not only in the consumer segment but also enterprise...we expect sales of Rs 140 crore in the first year," Panasonic India and South Asia President and CEO Manish Sharma told PTI.

He added that using their mobile phones, users can find out the location of keys and other items to which the tracker can be attached to.

Since the device has bi-directional tracking feature, it also allows users to find their phone by double pressing the button on the tracker.

If users leave their phone behind, Seekit will 'buzz and glow', reminding the user to go get it, Sharma said adding users can also click selfies using the device.

Seekit also allows users to send SOS alerts with their GPS location to three selected contacts by pressing the button on the device. The devices have a battery life of 12-18 months.

Apart from consumers, Panasonic sees a huge potential in the enterprise segment. "We are also talking to companies like luggage makers and car makers to embed our technology in various products," he said.

Sharma said reports suggest that globally the beacon market (including marketing potential) is expected to touch USD 14.8 billion by 2024. Currently, the market size is about 30 million units globally.

Beacon is a device designed to attract attention to a specific location.

"We are focusing on both Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence-based solutions at our India Innovation Centre. The launch of Seekit is strategically aligned to our objective to create a smart and connected ecosystem," Sharma said.
A construction worker walks past a hoarding of Indian conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji Group on the outskirts of Mumbai

The Shapoorji Pallonji Group plans to raise $1 billion by selling stake in its solar power unit to investors. The 153-year old conglomerate plans to cut its debt through a series of asset sales, Bloomberg reported.

The group will sell as much as 30 percent stake in the solar engineering arm of group company Sterling & Wilson. The funds would be raised through a pre-listing stake sale, followed by a public offering, Jai Mavani, Executive Director of the group, was quoted as saying.

The pre-IPO placement may be completed in the next six months. The company is in discussion with multilateral agencies and sovereign funds for investment, Mavani told the news agency.

Mavani said there will be a separate listing of the water purification unit of Forbes & Co, Eureka Forbes. The company is also considering selling real estate and parts of these proceeds will help it pare debt.

The Pallonji Mistry-owned group has come to the market at a time when debt funding is scarce in India because of a liquidity crisis.

"We have leveraged ourselves to the level that we believe is sustainable but, beyond a point, we want to create equity for ourselves. Be it Sterling & Wilson or Eureka Forbes, their real value is a multiple of whats in the balance sheet," Mavani was quoted as saying.

Khurshed Daruvala, Chairman of Sterling & Wilson, said revenue from its solar unit for the year ending March 2019 will be Rs 9,500 crore (approximately $1.3 billion).

The company is building its presence in US and Australia, where the solar contracts market may be valued at $10 billion, Daruvala said.

Shapoorji Pallonji is engaged in engineering, construction, energy and infrastructure, real estate, textiles and financial services. India, which is deemed as the fastest growing economy in the world, is a promising market for the company as the government has earmarked a lot of funds for infrastructure and has promised housing for all by 2022.

According to Bloomberg data, the group's companies have raised $4.3 billion since 2014 by issuing bonds and borrowing from banks. Pallonji Mistry's net worth is $18.4 billion.

Mavani said he is optimistic that Eureka Forbes will be valued at more than its parent Forbes, which has a market capitalisation of Rs 2,610 crore.

The company is looking to sell some of its real estate. It recently sold a technology park in Pune and is on the last leg of the sale of its Chennai IT park.

Mavani said the group aims to raise Rs 3,000 crore by March 2019 through asset sales and infusions from the founder family.
Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd, has flagged concerns about severe liquidity crunch in the telecom sector and high spectrum payments at a recent meeting with Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha, an official said.

Telecom sector has been battered by falling tariffs, eroding profitability, and mounting debt, in the face of stiff competition triggered by disruptive offerings of Reliance Jio, owned by richest Indian Mukesh Ambani.

Birla, who heads Vodafone Idea -- the country's largest mobile operator, raised the issues during a meeting with Sinha, which was also attended by Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan.

A senior telecom Ministry official who did not wish to be named said that the meeting took place recently where Birla talked about the severe liquidity crunch in the market, and underscored the need for relief.

The talks were informal and the Department of Telecom will take a view on the issue once a formal representation is made, the official told PTI.

Vodafone Idea Ltd declined to comment on an e-mail query sent to the company on the issue.

The Vodafone Idea Chief is said to have expressed concern over Rs 30,000 crore that is locked up on account of GST payment under 'reverse charge mechanism'.

Under the GST 'reverse charge mechanism' provision, registered dealers are required to make tax payments in case he procures goods from unregistered businesses.

The provision was applicable from July 1, 2017 till October 12, 2017. With companies facing trouble in implementing the provision, the GST Council has decided to keep RCM in abeyance till September 30, 2019.

Amongst other concerns highlighted by Birla was the high upfront payment for radiowaves, the official said adding he has sought that period of payment for spectrum purchases be increased to 18 years from the current 16 years, and favoured a moratorium.

High levies in the telecom sector and the recent hike in import duty also figured in the talks, said the official but did not elaborate.

A bruising tariff war sparked by the entry of Reliance Jio into the telecom sector with free voice calls and SMS, bundled with cheap data has led to pressure on margins of incumbents which have scrambled to match competition.

Earlier this month, at its maiden earnings announcement as a joint entity, Vodafone Idea Ltd reported a consolidated loss of Rs 4,973 crore for the September quarter and announced a fund infusion of Rs 25,000 crore to help it take on brutal competition.

Bharti Airtel too has reported a drop in consolidated net profit for the 10th straight quarter as losses on mainstay India business widened due to pricing pressure from aggressive competition. Overall, its consolidated net profit of Rs 118.8 crore in July-September represented a drop of about 65 per cent from Rs 343 crore in the year ago period.

Airtel's loss from India operations (before exceptional items) mounted to Rs 1646.4 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal compared to about Rs 940 crore in the preceding three-month period.
Delhi's air quality remained in the "very poor" category on November 21, with four areas recording "severe" pollution levels even as the Cental Pollution Control Board (CPCB) directed agencies to join social media to help citizens lodge complaints directly.

Pollution watchdog CPCB also noted that actions of the public and enforcement bodies have been "inadequate" in curbing pollution.

With no clarity on undertaking of cloud seeding to induce artificial rain in the national capital, scientists at IIT Kanpur said they had made all preparations, including procurement of aircraft from the ISRO, to conduct the same.

According to CPCB data, the overall air quality index (AQI) in the city was recorded at 373, which falls in the "very poor" category. Anand Vihar, Nehru Nagar, Mundka and Wazirpur recorded "severe" air quality, while 30 areas recorded "very poor" air quality, it said.

At 392, the overall air quality of Greater Noida was the worst in the National Capital Region (NCR), just points below the "severe" category. Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad too recorded "very poor" overall air quality.

On November 21, the PM2.5 level (particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometre level) was recorded at 240, while the PM10 level was recorded at 389, the CPCB data said.

According to the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting (SAFAR), air quality in the national capital is expected to remain in the "very poor" category in the next two to three days.

"At present, winds are unfavourable for dispersion which allows pollutants to accumulate. Humidity is still high which is unfavourable," the SAFAR said in its report, adding that fire counts from stubble burning has declined and will have a marginal impact.

Meanwhile, the CPCB directed public and enforcement agencies to immediately join social media platforms on which citizens can lodge their complaints on pollution directly, noting that actions of these bodies have been "inadequate".

The directions have been made to the NDMC, SDMC, EDMC, DMRC, CPWD, DDA and the state pollution control boards of Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, among other public bodies.

In a meeting with public agencies and state pollution control boards, CPCB Member Secretary Prashant Gargava asked the agencies to join social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to facilitate citizens lodging complaints of air polluting activities.

"It has been observed that most of the agencies are yet to join social media platforms and take action in respect of complaints concerning them," the CPCB was quoted as saying in the minutes of the meeting that took place last week.

The CPCB said the complaints reported were forwarded to the agencies concerned for action, however "it is observed that most of the agencies are yet to join and also action taken on complaints are inadequate".

"It was reiterated that agencies must immediately create Facebook page and Twitter handle to join CPCB social media platform to address complaints," it said, adding that the action taken in response must also be posted on the same platform through which complaints are received.

Gargava directed representatives of agencies to ensure effective corrective action in all cases of air polluting activities being reported through social media and the Sameer app that has been developed by the CPCB.

The move comes in the wake of Delhi battling alarming levels of pollution for over a month due to regional factors like stubble burning and localised factors like pollution from vehicles, firecrackers and construction activities, among others.

On Monday, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority Chairperson Bhure Lal also lashed out at enforcement agencies, alleging that Delhi's civic and urban bodies are "not properly implementing" the directions issued to curb pollution.

Scientists at IIT Kanpur however said despite their preparations, they were not certain about when the cloud seeding could be done as they are waiting for meteorological conditions to fall into place.

"We have made all the preparations and have also got the aircraft from ISRO which will be needed to induce the artificial rain. The technique has been tested before in Maharashtra as well as parts of Lucknow. However, this is the first time in India that artificial rain would be created over a big land mass to counter the damage done by air pollutants," Manindra Agarwal, Deputy Director of IIT Kanpur, said.

Cloud seeding is the process of combining different kinds of chemical agents, including silver iodide, dry ice and even common salt, with existing clouds in an effort to thicken them and increase the chances of rainfall.

While IIT Kanpur is supporting the plan of the CPCB to induce artificial rain by providing the salt mix and other logistical support, a group of students at IIT Delhi are also helping the weathermen in monitoring conditions to become favourable for creating artificial rain.
China on Wednesday presented an upbeat picture of Sino-India ties ahead of this week's border talks, saying the relations maintained "sound momentum" as the two countries "properly managed" differences through dialogue and consultations.

The 21st round of India-China border talks between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be held at the picturesque Dujiangyan near southwest China's Chengdu city from November 23 to 24.

Announcing the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: "under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-India relations have maintained sound momentum of growth".

"With ever-deepening cooperation in all areas, the two sides have maintained close communication and coordination in all border related affairs.

"We have properly managed the differences through dialogue and consultation. The border areas on the whole maintained stability," he said, answering a question on how China viewed the progress made during the 20th rounds of talks.

Both Doval and Wang are designated Special Representatives for the border talks.

This will be the first round of talks for Wang who earlier this year succeeded State Councillor Yang Jiechi in a reshuffle.

Special Representatives' talks are regarded as highly significant by both the countries as they cover all aspects of bilateral relations besides making efforts to resolve the border dispute.

The India-China border dispute covered the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC). China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of its southern Tibet.

Officials maintain that this round of talks may focus more on reviewing the progress of dialogue being held on trade and maintenance of peace at borders than movement towards solution to the dispute as India headed for general elections early next year.

Elaborating further on China's view on the border talks, Geng said the two sides attached great importance to it.

"The two special representatives will have in-depth exchange of view on border related issues. They will follow the guidance of the consensus reached by the two leaders bearing in mind the general picture of the bilateral ties and benefits of the two peoples on the basis of the outcomes that have been achieved to actively promote the negations.

"At the same time, we properly manage differences, peace and tranquillity at the border areas. The two sides will also exchange views on major issue of bilateral ties and the regional and international issue of mutual interest," he said.

Officials on both sides maintain that though a solution to the border dispute still eludes the two countries, a lot of headway has been made in the 20 rounds of talks in terms of working out mechanisms to restore peace and tranquillity along the border to resolve tensions out of the aggressive patrolling by troops.

The last round which was held in New Delhi between Doval and Yang took place in the immediate backdrop of 73-day standoff between the two militaries at Doklam over Chinese military's plan to build a road close to India's strategic Chicken Neck corridor connecting the northeastern states.

It ended after the People's Liberation Army (PLA) halted the plans to build the road.

The Doval-Yang meeting in New Delhi in December last year also prepared the ground for the informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in April, which resulted in not only normalisation of relations but gave a new fillip to the improvement of relations in all spheres of the relations notwithstanding the border dispute.

Since then, both the countries have held several rounds of talks to enhance India's exports rice, sugar as well as pharmaceuticals to China to reduce the USD 51 billion trade deficit as well as improving military-to-military relations.

Ahead of the border talks, top defence officials of India and China held the 9th India-China Annual Defence and Security Dialogue here on November 13 after a one year gap due to the Doklam standoff.
Red & Yellow Creative School of Business introduces their unique 12-month Digital Marketing Online Employed Learnership, with registrations open until 30 November 2018.

Designed for corporates who want to develop and retain internal talent in this emerging and critical discipline, while benefiting from maximum B-BBEE Skills Development ROI. The best part is that learners dont have to take time off from work during the course, as all of the theory and learner support is delivered online and actual work-based learning and assignments count towards their study hours.While effectively upskilling employees, corporates can take advantage of Seta funding grants, tax deductions and valuable points on their B-BBEE scorecards. They can also recognise both the full cost of the programmethe full salary of each learner for the duration of their participation in the programme.This 12-month NQF Level 5 qualification is built on the National Certificate in Advertising framework and based on Red & Yellows flagship Digital Marketing course. Andrew Allison, Red & Yellows COO, says, Corporates need to constantly upskill their people for relevance and longevity in the current business environment. This learnership is a key opportunity that could change the face and function of an organisation set on making a real difference.Learners will be exposed to international best practice and gain the theoretical and practical techniques needed for a position in the field of digital marketing and advertising. As digital marketing becomes more competitive and complex, in-house marketing departments and agencies are increasingly in need of properly trained professionals.This is a game-changer. From digital marketing strategy and tactics, to digital media planning and optimisation, client-agency relationships and project management, employees will gain skills that they can immediately implement in their day-to-day roles, notes Su Little, course presenter and Red & Yellow lecturer. On top of that, the tax and B-BBEE benefits are a huge win.The learnership is open to all South African companies, and there is no minimum number of students necessary to enrol. Late enrolments will be accepted until Friday, 30 November 2018. Find out more about the learnership on the website or send us an email az.oc.wolleydnader@1emoclew to sign up your team.
BJP national president Amit Shah

BJP president Amit Shah reiterated that his party was committed to building a Ram temple in Ayodhya and it would not change its stand.

He also exuded confidence of forming next government at the Centre in 2019 with a majority higher than that of the present one despite the Congress' bid to forge a grand alliance.

Shah made the remarks while interacting with youths at a function. He targeted the Congress and asked youths and party workers to ensure BJP's victory in the state for its unhindered progress.

"The BJP is committed to building the Ram temple in Ayodhya, Shah said, adding there was no question of diluting or changing the party's stand.

The BJP president, however, said the matter was in the Supreme Court and the party wanted a 'nyayik samadhan' (judicial resolution) of the dispute.

Shah accused the Congress of talking of forging 'mahagathbandhan' to confuse the voters and urged the BJP workers and supporters not to be swayed by the Congress' propaganda.

During his interaction with the youths at Jaipur's Tagore School auditorium, the BJP president fielded questions from participants present there as well at six other locations in Bharatpur, Ajmer, Kota, Jodhpur and Udaipur.

Shah also highlighted the work of the state and the Union governments and the BJP's vision for the youths and development.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, the party's state unit president Madan Lal Saini and other leaders were also present in the programme.

Later during the day, Shah held a roadshow in Bikaner in support of the party candidates. Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Arjun Ram Meghwal were also present in the roadshow from Jassusar Gate to Jungarh Fort.
BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during an election rally in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh on November 19 (Image: Twitter.com/@myogiadityanath)

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said since the Congress did not work in the interest of farmers, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi.

In a veiled reference to veteran Congressman Digvijaya Singh, he said a Congress leader's name had cropped up in a Naxal-related case.

"The Congress has not worked in the interest of the farmers. Therefore, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi. This is your responsibility," Adityanath said, while addressing a gathering at Narsinghar in this district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

"A big Congress leader's name has cropped up in a case connected to Naxals. Terrorism and Naxalism are a threat to the nation and the Congress's sympathy for them is condemnable," he added.

The Pune police had earlier said a letter seized in connection with the Elgar Parishad probe referred to a mobile number purportedly belonging to Singh.

Two days ago, Singh had dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take action against him in the Elgar Parishad case.

Adityanath claimed that Naxalism started emerging in Madhya Pradesh 15 years ago.

"Madhya Pradesh was then known for potholed roads, unemployment, but after the BJP came to power, it turned the state into a developed one," he said.

Adityanath expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win the elections in all the five states where they are being held, including Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Justifying the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj, he said it was because of the confluence of the holy rivers of Saraswati, Yamuna and Ganga, and added that the old name was not right.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged his political rivals were conspiring to get him eliminated, a day after a man flung chilli powder at the AAP supremo outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat.

The chief minister's spectacles broke but he was not injured.

Kejriwal claimed he was attacked four times in the past two years.

He said this during his visit to Sonipat in Haryana where he handed over an ex-gratia cheque of Rs 1 crore to the family of martyred BSF jawan Narender Singh.

"During the past two years, there have been four attacks on me. This is not a minor issue. I think in India's history, there must not be a single example when a chief minister faced attacks on four occasions in two years. So, it is clear that such attacks are not taking place, but they are being carried out," Kejriwal told reporters.He was asked who would he blame for the attack on November 20.

The chief minister claimed that the AAP government in Delhi has carried out lot of development in a short span of three years, including in schools and hospitals in the capital, which governments of other parties "failed" to do in the last 70 years.

He said the AAP and development works done by the party has become an eyesore to the rivals, who were conspiring to get him "eliminated".

"We have become an eyesore for them and they are conspiring to get me killed.They are repeatedly carrying out such attacks on us. Because the way development works are being carried out in Delhi, be it bringing improvements in its schools and hospitals in a span of three years we have done so much work, these parties have not been able to do so in 70 years," he said.

"Now, everywhere they (these parties) are being asked (by public) why they are not able to do this. People are asking if Kejriwal can give Rs 1 crore (to families of the martyrs), why they cannot give the same amount. They (these parties) feel that if this (AAP) party exists for some more time, then people will raise questions and people will make their life miserable," Kejriwal said.

The chief minister said people in Haryana have already started raising "such questions" and elsewhere too, the parties are being asked "if AAP can bring improvement in schools, hospitals ... good compensation to farmers, why cannot they?"

They are conspiring to get me killed, Kejriwal alleged.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the BJP leadership had knowledge of the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the opposition party wants the latter eliminated to stop him from working for the people.

On its part, the BJP termed the incident as "drama" by Kejriwal, with its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari demanding a high-level probe into it.

In Sonipat, Kejriwal handed over the ex-gratia cheque to the family of BSF jawan Narender Singh, who was brutally killed by Pakistani troops along the international border (IB) near Jammu on September 18.

Accompanied by AAP's Haryana unit president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal arrived in the afternoon and met the martyr's family in their native village Thana Kalan.

Kejriwal had also visited the village on September 21.

The Aam Aadmi Party government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the kin of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the national capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering in the village, Kejriwal said, "We are all proud of his sacrifice."

The chief minister sought to know "why successive governments do not give befitting reply to Pakistan".

"For how long valiant soldiers such as Narender Singh ji will keep giving sacrifices, for how long will families will lose their near and dear ones. When the country needs such sacrifices, definitely these will be given, but our country is not so weak that we cannot give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

"People of our country and the Army can give befitting reply and as was said here today that there should be no politics on this issue," Kejriwal said.

"I think all parties are one on this, then why governments are weak. Why successive governments don't give a befitting reply to Pakistan. Every government, every party says they will give befitting reply to Pakistan, but they forget later on," he added.

The chief minister said though no amount of money can compensate the loss, but families of martyrs need to know "that we stand behind them.
President Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Australia on November 21 on a three-day visit, becoming the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country.

Kovind, who landed in Sydney from Vietnam along with his wife Savita Kovind on their second leg of two nation visit, will hold talks with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and discuss bilateral issues.



President Kovind received a warm welcome on his arrival at Sydney, Australia. He is the first ever President of India to pay a State Visit to Australia. pic.twitter.com/qWJYTSrDAX

 President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 21, 2018

He received a warm welcome on his arrival at Sydney, Kovind's official Twitter handle said in a tweet.

Kovind is the first-ever President of India to pay a state visit to Australia, it said in another tweet.

During his three-day visit, he will attend the unveiling ceremony of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Sydney's Parramatta suburb on November 22 to mark his 150th birth anniversary.

He will also address the Indian diaspora and business community.

In Melbourne on November 23, he will meet Victoria's governor Linda Dessau and leader of the opposition Bill Shorten.

Kovind is also expected to oversee the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Australia and Invest India, apart from a mining research agreement and two university collaborations, according media reports.

On November 20, India's High Commissioner to Australia Ajay Gondane told Australian Financia Review newspaper that the President's visit shows that the relationship between two countries was on an upward trajectory and it was likely to give it a positive momentum.

"Every relationship needs a boost from time to time," he said, adding that it was important for Australia to realise while China was a dragon, India was no longer an elephant and more like a deer.

"We are running and soon we will be galloping. India's economy has been expanding at a rate of 6 to 7 per cent and even 8 per cent. With this expansion of the Indian economy, we hope that Australians will now catch on and be a willing partner," Gondane said.

The relationship was progressing and the two sides have held bilateral military exercises and the multilateral co-operation would increase over time," he said.

"The exchanges between the two countries have been at a very high level," the envoy said.

On export and investment targets, Gondane said it was achievable and that he expected Australia to achieve its India export and investment growth targets, set out in the recently launched Indian economic strategy report before 2035.

"It is achievable. By 2025, you will see a lot of Australian investments. Trade will increase. Once it is realised in Australia that you can invest in India and take a lot of profit, that will accelerate," Gondane said.

Gondane also hoped that investments by Indian companies in Australia will expand, stating that projects like the Adani Carmichael mine would be a test case.

"The company has invested so much of its money in the project. Let's hope this comes to fruition so that it sends a very good signal," he said.

Recently, Australia announced that it was formally referring India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over its sugar subsidies.

Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham said Australia would engage in formal discussions with India and other WTO members regarding this issue at the upcoming WTO Committee of Agriculture meeting later this month.
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Scamsters in Thane have been misusing Google's User Generated Content policy to edit a bank's contact details that appear on Google Maps by replacing it with their own contact numbers. The con artists dupe customers who call them into revealing sensitive account details such as Personal Identification Numbers (PIN).

Under Google's User Generated Content policy, anyone can edit the contact information on Google Maps page, such as the address and phone number. The tech giant believes that allowing users to suggest edits provides comprehensive and up-to-date information.

The Maharashtra cyber police believe the trend began over a month ago, The Hindu reported.

"We have received at least three complaints from the Bank of India (BoI) over the last one month. In all three instances, we immediately notified the authorities at Google," Superintendent of Police Balsing Rajput of the State cyber police told the paper.

Kaun Banega Bewakoof: Fraudsters dupe people with lure of KBC prize money

Rajput added that many customers search for their banks contact details online and after they get the incorrect number, they call it with their queries. Not knowing that they are speaking to a scamster, customers fall prey to revealing sensitive details such as their Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) or the CVV numbers of their debit and credit cards, enabling the con artists to withdraw money from their bank accounts.

After the incident came into light, Bank of India has asked its users to seek contact details from the bank's official website only.

"After these incidents came to our notice, we modified the contact details on these branch listings on Google Maps. We asked users to use only Bank of Indias official website to search for branch contact details," a BoI spokesperson said.

Google said that they recognise there may be occasional inaccuracies or bad edits suggested by users. "When this happens, we do our best to address the issue as quickly as possible. The Google Safety Center outlines tips to help consumers stay safe online," a Google spokesperson said.
The BJP accused the Congress Wednesday of working to deny justice to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots victims and also targeted Kamal Nath, the opposition party's chief in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, saying he was removed as the party's in-charge for the Punjab Assembly polls following protests by Sikhs.

A day after a Delhi court awarded death sentence to an accused and life imprisonment to another in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the probe carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the Narendra Modi government led to the sentencing.

"We (BJP) are very satisfied," the Union minister told reporters about his party's stand on the verdict and added that people needed to be told that the Congress had, during its rule, tried to ensure that the Sikh riot victims did not get justice.

The opposition party did it to save its own people, Prasad alleged.

There was no reaction to the court verdict from the Congress Wednesday, but its spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had welcomed it Tuesday.

"The Congress's stand is clear. This is a legal process, a legal process which must be allowed to work out its course and we are very proud, happy and fortunate that it is taking its course," Singhvi had told reporters.

Tuesday's court verdict gave some sort of a balm to those suffering for over 30-35 years, Prasad said.

The law minister said his party wanted to assure the Sikhs, especially those whose families had suffered, that the SIT would probe the cases honestly, without any undue outside interference, and take action against the guilty.

Targeting Nath, who has been accused by some Sikh bodies of having links to the riots, Prasad noted that the Congress had removed him as its in-charge for the Punjab polls last year following protests by people.

The Congress should answer as to why was Nath removed, he said.

Nath had in the past rejected the charges against him and said he had no links with the 1984 anti-Sikhs riots, following the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Prasad also pointed out that Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his mother Indira as the prime minister, had said the earth shook when a big tree fell and alleged that the Congress had condoned the organised violence against Sikhs.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh might have apologised for the riots, but the opposition party should answer if it had disassociated itself from Rajiv Gandhi's comments, the BJP leader said, adding that the remarks had rubbed salt into the wounds of the riot victims.

He also asked the Congress to answer why no action was taken against the culprits during its over-two-decades-long rule following the riots.

Prasad claimed that the previous Congress governments had set up several committees to probe the riots only to delay justice, adding that in some cases, the opposition party never acted on the reports of those panels.

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had constituted the Nanavati Commission, which had said the riots were organised and had also blamed the police, he said.

The report of the commission was submitted when the Congress came to power in 2004 and its government took no action, Prasad claimed.

He also referred to a commission headed by former chief justice of India Ranganath Misra, whose report had largely exonerated the police and claimed that the riots were not a case of organised violence.

Noting that the Congress had nominated Misra, now deceased, to the Rajya Sabha in 1998, Prasad alleged that it was a "reward" for his report.
New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi along with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu addresses the media outside his residence at Tughlak Road in New Delhi, Thursday, Nov 1, 2018. (PTI Photo/Kamal Singh) (PTI11_1_2018_000162B)

A day after resigning from the TRS, Telangana MP K Vishweshwar Reddy met Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday, amid indications of his joining the Grand Old Party.

Sources said Reddy met Gandhi at the latter's residence here and that he was likely to join the Congress during a November 23 public rally, to be addressed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, at Medchal in Telangana.

"I had a very warm and cordial meeting with Member of the Lok Sabha, from Telangana, Shri K Vishweshwar Reddy, who resigned from the TRS yesterday.

"I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the future and to working together for the betterment of Telangana," Rahul Gandhi said in a Facebook post.

He also posted a picture of Reddy and him together.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Telangana R C Khuntia said Reddy expressed his desire to join the Congress during his meeting with Rahul Gandhi, adding that the Telangana MP would join the opposition party soon.

In a setback to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) ahead of the December 7 Assembly polls in the southern state, Reddy quit the party Tuesday and in a letter to its chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, said he was disappointed with the party at various levels.

He was forced into a position of contemplating leaving the party, despite the fact that the TRS enjoyed a significant goodwill in the "social circles that we are in", Reddy said in his letter to Rao.

He listed his disappointments at five levels -- personal, injustice to the party workers who worked for Telangana's statehood, constituency, state and party -- in the letter.

Reddy also said he would resign from the Lok Sabha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power in Madhya Pradesh for 15 years. Congress has been calling this their chance to dethrone the saffron party, riding on a possible tide of anti-incumbency. (Image: shivrajsinghchouhan.com)

Except for two brief Janata Party and Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments, politics in Madhya Pradesh has been a binary contest between the BJP and the Congress. The third front, including the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), have not been key players so far. (Image: PTI)

After weeks of intense seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the BSP, Mayawati abruptly announced her party would not ally with the Congress.

She later said the alliance did not take shape as Congress was not willing to give BSP enough seats. Mayawatis decision came as a major blow to the Congress.

In the 2013 elections, the vote share difference between the BJP and the Congress was 8.5 percent. BSPs vote share was 6.29 percent. Going by the numbers, BSP would have added considerable weight to the Congress chances this time. (Image: Reuters)

Out of the 230 constituencies, 34 fall in the Chambal-Gwalior region, which has high concentration of Scheduled Caste (SC) voters. SCs form the core of BSPs supporters. This could hurt the Congress chances, especially in this region. (Image: PTI)
Madhya Pradesh Assembly Polls 2018 - Key Constituencies

As many as 2,907 candidates from 230 assembly seats are in the fray for the upcoming state polls in Madhya Pradesh.

The central Indian state will head for polling in a single phase on November 28. Counting of votes will happen on December 11 along with Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana.

The stakes are high for both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress in the state. Congress is trying to wrest the state from the BJP, which has been in power for 15 years. The outcome of the assembly polls in the five states will also set the stage for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

As many as 34 candidates  the highest number  will contest from Bhind districts Mehgaon constituency. Panna districts Gunnor seat, on the other hand, will witness a contest between the lowest number of nominees  four.

There are 1,102 Independent candidates in the fray across the 230 constituencies. Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded 227 candidates while Akhilesh Yadavs Samajwadi Party (SP) is contesting from 51 seats.

Similar to the general political landscape in the state, the contest in most seats will directly be between the incumbent BJP and the challenger Congress.

In 2013, BJP had won 165 seats, Congress 58, BSP had won four and Independents had won three seats.

Heres a look at some of the key constituencies:

Budhni

The Budhni Assembly seat is currently held by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The contest here will be directly between the chief minister and former Union minister and former Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Arun Yadav.

In 2013, Chouhan had defeated Congress Mahendra Singh Chauhan by 84,805.

The BJP government in the state is facing anti-incumbency after being in power for 15 years. However, observers suggest that the chief minister continues to be popular after holding the states top office for 13 years.

Also read | Vyapam: The scam that threatens to undo CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan

Mandsaur

Mandsaur has often been referred to as the epicentre of the farmers agitation in the state.

It was in Mandsaur on June 6, 2017, that police had fired at protesters who were demanding better prices for their harvest. Six protesters were killed in the firing, leading to violent protests that spread to neighbouring districts. A day later, a local factory was torched by protesters.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi had staged a rally here this year to mark the first anniversary of the farmer protests. Agrarian distress is being seen as one of the key factors in this election.

BJP has retained the sitting Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Yashpal Singh Sisodiya. Sisodiya is being challenged by Congress Narendra Nahata. Congress is hoping to make large gains in the rural areas of the Malwa region.

In 2013, Sisodiya had beaten Congress candidate Mahendra Singh Gurjar by around 24,295 votes.

Waraseoni

This constituency, which is located close to the states border with Maharashtra, is also witnessing an interesting battle. Incumbent BJP MLA Yogendra Nirmal is being challenged by CM Chouhans brother-in-law Sanjay Singh Masani.

Masani joined the Congress on November 3, saying the state needs Congress state unit chief Kamal Nath, not Chouhan, as the chief minister. Masani is the brother of Chouhan's wife Sadhna Singh.

Sanjay Singh Masani (left), brother-in-law of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan addresses a press conference with Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia in New Delhi. (Image: PTI)

BJP MLA Nirmal had beaten Congress Pradeep Amritlal Jaiswal by 17,755 votes in 2013. Jaiswal had beaten BJP candidate Bodh Singh Bhagat in 2008 by over 15,000 votes. Incidentally, Jaiswal had beaten Nirmal in the 2003 assembly election by just over 1,000 votes.

Also read: Key trends from the states binary politics

Govindpura

This is one of the constituencies from Bhopal district. No Congress candidate has won this seat since the 1972 assembly polls. The seat has been held by former chief minister Babulal Gaur  CM Chouhans predecessor  since 1980, effectively making it a BJP bastion.

This time, BJP has fielded Gaurs daughter Krishna Gaur against Congress Girish Sharma.

The move to filed Krishna instead of Babulal Gaur may be aimed at cutting the anti-incumbency sentiment that the government might be facing.

In 2013, Babulal Gaur had won with a margin of over 69,600 votes, up from a margin over around 33,000 votes in 2008.

Also read | 161 crorepati MLAs, 73 with criminal cases: A glance at Madhya Pradesh's outgoing Assembly

Dr Ambedkar Nagar - Mhow

This seat, one of the eight seats in Indore district, has been held by BJPs National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya since 2008.

BJP has fielded Usha Thakur against Congress Antar Singh Darbar. Antar Singh Darbar had earlier held this seat and was beaten by Vijayvargiya in 2008. In 2013, Vijayvargiya defeated Darbar by around 12,600 votes.

Shivpuri

The focus in Shivpuri is on Yashodhara Raje Scindia, state minister in CM Chouhans government. Yashodhara is also the aunt of Congress Madhya Pradesh campaign chief Jyotiraditya Scindia and sister of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Yashodhara is the incumbent state minister for Commerce, Industries and Employment and Chairman of the Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation.

BJP leader and state minister Yashodhara Raje Scindia addresses a public meeting in Madhya Pradesh on November 17, 2018. (Image: Twitter.com/@yashodhararaje)

She had previously won the seat in 1998 and 2003. She has held the constituency since 2013 when she defeated Congress Birendra Raghuwanshi by over 11,000 votes.

This time, Yashodhara is being challenged by Congress Siddharth Lada.

Observers suggest that many top ministers in CM Chouhans cabinet are facing anti-incumbency, including Yashodhara.

Also read | 112 Bills passed in 135 sitting days: A report card of the outgoing Madhya Pradesh Assembly

Bhitarwar

Even though Congress has been in the opposition for 15 years, Bhitarwar is one of the seats where the party has done well over the last few assembly elections.

The constituency assumes significance as BJP has reinstated its faith in Anoop Mishra, who had lost in 2013 to Congress candidate Lakhan Singh Yadav.

The two will be clashing again this time. Mishra is former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees nephew.

The constituency is located in the Chambal-Gwalior region where Scheduled Caste (SC) voters hold significant influence. SCs form the core of Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)s support. Hence, BSP candidate Beenu Patel could spoil the sitting MLA's chances.

In 2013 too, Yadav had won the seat with a small margin of around 6,500 votes. BSPs candidate Ram Niwas Singh Gurjar had picked up over 24,500 votes. Congress and BJP had bagged 40,578 and 34,030 seats respectively.

Bhopal Dakshin-Paschim (Bhopal South West)

This constituency has been held by senior cabinet minister Umashankar Gupta since 2008. Gupta is the Minister of Revenue and Science & Technology in the state government. He had earlier served as the states home minister.

Gupta is facing a challenge from Congress PC Sharma and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)s chief ministerial candidate Alok Agarwal.

In 2013, Gupta had defeated Congress Sanjeev Saxena by over 18,000 votes.

A win in this seat would held Congress make inroads into the urban seats in Madhya Pradeshs capital, which have been bastions for the BJP.
December 01, 2018 / 04:24 PM IST

Re-polling will take place from 8 am to 5 pm at Mohri polling booth in Anuppur assembly segment of Madhya Pradesh today, an official said Friday.

The Election Commission (EC) endorsed its observer's report which said there was a mismatch of 56 ballots at Mohri in Anuppur district during November 28 assembly polls, state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) V L Kantha Rao told PTI.

The report prompted the EC to order re-polling in the booth.

There was a difference of 56 in the number of voters' signatures in the register with the presiding officer and the number of votes recorded in the Electronic Voting Machine, he added.

The state polls saw a voter turnout of 75.05 per cent in the elections, Rao had told the reporters Thursday.

 PTI
Harsh V Pant

As the Brexit negotiations head towards an endgame, there is turmoil all around. British politics is on a knife's edge with the future of Prime Minister Theresa May, and in some ways the entire Conservative Party, on the line. The Opposition too is struggling to put its own house in order and even the European Union (EU) is facing disunity within its ranks despite pretensions of a united front.

Last week, an agreement on the withdrawal deal was reached in principle by May and the EU, which included a 39-billion-pound 'divorce bill' and the controversial customs "backstop" that keeps the UK temporarily in the EU customs union so as to prevent the return of manned customs posts at the Irish border. However, the joint political declaration on future relations, which is to be confirmed on Sunday, is only temporary. It will be the 21-month transition period after Britain leaves the EU on March 29, 2019 that would see the finalisation of the binding agreement. And this has led to challenges from all sides.

Theresa May is meeting EU officials today to finalise a Brexit deal to be agreed at this Sunday's summit even as she is under pressure from her own MPs to not cede any further ground in negotiations. For the time being, her threat is that she has managed to get the best possible deal from the EU and that it's either this deal or no deal (and therefore no Brexit) that has secured her position. But there is a demand for more clarity on all sides of the British Parliament about the exact terms of UK's future engagement with the EU if at all Parliament is to support the deal.

Despite a number of resignations from her cabinet and backroom manoeuvring to topple her from No 10 Downing Street, May looks stronger today than she looked last week and that's a tribute to her own political skills and quite an accomplishment under the present circumstances. Though her critics remain unrelenting, opinion polls are underscoring that support for May is growing among the British populace, which is looking for a speedy resolution of this crisis. The opposition parties have also been unable to come up with a coherent response.

On the other side, the EU had to complete the text on future ties with the UK on November 20 but several member states have raised objection, leading to a delay. Spain, which is worried about the future status of Gibraltar, has warned it will reject the draft Brexit withdrawal deal without a clarification of the text on future talks on the status of Gibraltar. France has raised concerns about fishing rights, and the Netherlands and Denmark remain concerned about the potential competitive advantage to UK businesses over EU without the UK being tied to strict environmental regulations.

Despite these concerns, Brussels would be hoping that when it would come to the crunch on Sunday, all 27 member nations of the EU would sign up to the Brexit deal so as to avoid a situation where there is a no deal and further uncertainty haunts the region. In some ways, it is in EU's interest that the British Prime Minister gets her plan approved by the British Parliament. A domestic political crisis in the UK is not in EU's interest at this critical juncture. May also wants to demonstrate that she is fighting hard to secure British interests. So in a way, both May and the EU are sailing in the same boat and both want to cross the turbulent waters of Brexit as seamlessly as possible.

As Britain struggles with its future relationship with the EU, its outreach to nations like India is growing in order to seek out new avenues for economic relationships. Several British officials have suggested that Brexit could augur well for trade ties between India and the EU as the two nations would find it easier to conclude a free trade pact without the involvement of the entire panoply of EU member states. The challenge for the UK at the moment is to sort out its own internal deliberations on the future of its trajectory with the EU. New Delhi will assess its own future with the UK in light of the choices London makes with Brussels.

(Harsh V Pant is professor, Kings College London, and distinguished fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal)
The PDP, National Conference and Congress have agreed to join hands to form a new government in Jammu and Kashmir, senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari said here on November 21. The businessman-turned-politician said around 60 MLAs were supporting the proposed alliance in the 87-member House.

"The leaders have agreed to form an alliance. The PDP, NC, Congress at the leadership level have agreed. What are the contours of the alliance, it has not come down to the MLAs. I am an MLA and I have been told only this much," Bukhari told reporters here.

The Peoples Democratic Party leader, who met National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah earlier in the day, said he did not discuss the alliance issue with the former chief minister.

"We keep on meeting. I had no talks about the alliance but generally we all meet," he said.

Bukhari, who is tipped to lead the alliance if it comes to fruition, denied that he had called a meeting of PDP MLAs in connection with government formation.

Asked if he was in the running for the chief minister's post, Bukhari said, "There is no such thing. The chief minister will be from among the leaders. This issue is not about chief ministership".

"This alliance is being formed to address the Kashmir issue, the situation in Kashmir and to protect the special identity of the state that we have in the Constitution of India.

"As elected representatives, we have to respond to the aspirations of the people and the emerging situation. Article 370 and Article 35-A are under attack. This alliance is not being formed for being in power," he added.



Who ever said may you live in interesting times knew what they were talking about.

 Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) November 21, 2018

Meanwhile, minutes after speculation of the alliance went viral, NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted:
Kota: Congress President Rahul Gandhi addresses a public meeting in Kota, Rajasthan, Wednesday, Oct 24, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI10_24_2018_000224B)

Congress president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday claimed that demonetisation had "destroyed" the lives of farmers and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making "fun" of their plight during his poll campaigns.

Taking to Twitter, he cited a media report that claimed the agriculture ministry has admitted that demonetisation has hit the farmers hard.

"Noteban has destroyed the lives of farmers. Now they do not even have enough money to buy seeds and fertilizer," Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.

"But, Modi ji is making fun of our farmers' plight. Now his Agriculture Ministry has also said that farmers were badly affected due to demonetisation decision," he said on Twitter referring to Modi's campaigns in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

While polling in Chhattisgarh was completed in two phases on November 12 and 20, elections in Madhya Pradesh will be held on November 28.

On Saturday, the Congress chief tagged on Twitter a video of the prime minister's speech during the poll campaign in Chhattisgarh, where he alleged that people were hiding their black money under beds and in wheat stocks in their homes before the note ban.

Gandhi had asked if absconders like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who have allegedly committed bank frauds, have ever sown wheat.

Have you seen Mallya, Mehul bhai and Nirav Modi sow wheat. Modiji, don't insult the farmers. You first indulged in a scam by collecting farmers money by noteban and handed it over to your suit-boot friends.

"Now you are saying that farmers' money was black money. India will not tolerate this insult of farmers, Gandhi had tweeted in Hindi on Saturday.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has defended demonetisation, saying it was a "highly ethical" move and not merely a political one.

Jaitley also said hard data showed an increase in tax base, greater formalisation of the economy and India retaining the fastest growing economy tag for the fifth year in a row.

On November 8, 2016, the government had scrapped old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. It later issued the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 banknotes.

The Congress is seeking to woo the farmers in Madhya Pradesh, which goes to polls on November 28, and has announced a farm loan waiver for them in the state, if it comes to power.
December 07, 2018 / 05:01 PM IST

The caste dynamics in the state and the race for reservations

Rajasthan is a land of myriad colours, and this pluralism extends to the communities and ethnicities that make up the population of the state.

The state is made up of 89 percent Hindus, 9 percent Muslims while 2 percent belong to other religions. The Scheduled Caste (SC) population is 18 percent, Scheduled Tribe (ST) 13 percent, Jats 12 percent, Gujjars and Rajputs 9 percent each, Brahmins and Minas 7 percent each.

Among these, the Rajputs and the Jats have been at loggerheads ever since the princely states were merged into the Indian Union in 1952. At that time, the princes had fielded a large number of their nominees, and the electorate which was used to being ruled by the kings had voted for them.

Click here to read more
Maruti Suzuki WagonR EV | An all-new updated WagonR will be launched in India sometime towards the end of next year. Further, the car is expected to have a range of 130 km and a fast charging capabilities. The car thats been testing in India has been the Japanese market car but the one to launch will be based on the India-spec model.

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Maruti Suzuki, the countrys largest car maker, said it is on track to meet its 2020 deadline for commercially launching its first battery-powered car in the country.

The Delhi-based company is developing a fully electric vehicle based on the feedback it is receiving from a fleet of 50 modified battery-powered Wagon R that are running across the country.

The initial feedback from the test vehicles has been positive but the testing has to go on for some more time. After all our EV strategy is based on it. But we are committed to the deadline of 2020 rollout, said a senior executive of the company on the sidelines of launching the all-new Ertiga.

Developed by parent Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) but manufactured at the Gurugram factory in India, these test EVs were launched by Maruti more than two months ago.

While rival Hyundai will launch an electric variant of the Kona SUV next year after Mahindra & Mahindra introduces an electric KUV 100 during the middle of next year, Maruti has instead decided to go in for a completely new model for their EV debut.

None of our current generation models can support full electrification. So the first EV vehicle has to be fully new from scratch, said the Maruti Suzuki executive quoted above.

SMC Chairman Osamu Suzuki is believed to have urged Maruti Suzukis board to target sales of 1.5 million electric cars in India by 2030. Maruti Suzuki has already set itself a target of selling 5 million cars a year (from 1.64 million last year) by 2030 in order to maintain its iron grip on the domestic car market.

While companies are pushing ahead for the development of electric cars there is still the apprehension among manufacturers overcharging infrastructure to be set up by the government.

Though the government has promised infrastructure of one charging point every three kilometres on the highway but a similar promise was made even during the rollout of CNG fuel. Even today CNG stations are inadequate but demand for CNG vehicles is still very high, added the executive.
The second and final phase of polling for Chhattisgarh concluded on November 20. National leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, held rallies in the central Indian state. (Image: BJP Chhattisgarh/Twitter)

Pictured: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Chhattisgarh. PM Modi addressed three rallies in the state, and focused on development and the 'urban Naxal' debate. (Image: BJP Chhattisgarh/Twitter)

BJP president Amit Shah at a roadshow. Shah addressed over half-a-dozen rallies in the state. (Image: BJP Chhattisgarh/Twitter)

Pictured: Congress state chief Bhupesh Baghel and secretary in-charge PL Punia during campaigning. Before the first phase on November 12, there were reports of a rift within the state Congress, especially between Baghel and Punia over choice of candidates. The reports were denied by the party. (Image: Bhupesh Baghel/Twitter)

Pictured: Rahul Gandhi addressing a rally. Gandhi addressed a number of rallies in the state, and focused on the lack of development in Raman Singh-led Chhattisgarh. (Image: INC Chhattisgarh/Twitter)

Pictured: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati seen addressing a crowd. Mayawati forged an alliance with Ajit Jogi-led Janta Congress Chhattisgarh, and is looking to play the role of a kingmaker in the event of a hung assembly. (Image: JCC/Facebook)

Pictured: Former chief minister Ajit Jogi during a rally. Jogi has pitched himself as the regional alternative to the two national parties contesting in the state, and has said his alliance with BSP and CPI will form the government. (Image: JCC/Facebook)
People attend a commemoration ceremony at a monument to the so-called "Heavenly Hundred", the anti-government protesters killed during the Ukrainian pro-European Union (EU) mass demonstrations in 2014, to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the uprising in Kiev, Ukraine. (Reuters)

Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican. (Reuters)

Germany will back an agreement on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, and she hoped Spain's objection to wording over the disputed British territory of Gibraltar could be resolved by Sunday. "We know how difficult the discussions are in Britain, but I can say for Germany that we will agree to this exit agreement," Merkel told German lawmakers on Wednesday in a wide-ranging speech during a budget debate. (Reuters)

Wreckage of a crashed training aircraft lies in a paddy field at Mokila, Shankarpalli in Ranga Reddy district some 46 kilometres from Hyderabad. (PTI)

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar at Chandigarh airport after appearing before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Punjab Police in connection with the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot, in Chandigarh. (PTI)

Maruti Suzuki MD and CEO, Kenichi Ayukawa(L), and Senior Executive Director (Marketing and Sales), RS Kalsi, during the launch of all-new 'Ertiga', in New Delhi. (PTI)

Police and local people carry out rescue and relief works after a bus, carrying over 50 people, fell off a bridge over the Mahanadi river, in Cuttack district of Odisha. At least 12 people were killed in the accident. (PTI)

Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Uday Kotak and MD & CEO, Tata Steel Ltd TV Narendran, at CII National HR Summit, in Mumbai. (PTI)

Inside of a wedding hall in Kabul, Afghanistan, is seen a day after a suicide attack. A suicide bomber was able to sneak into the wedding hall where hundreds of Muslim religious scholars and clerics had gathered to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. (AP/PTI)
The UAE will host the second edition of India-UAE Strategic Conclave on November 27 that will initiate dialogues to widen the scope of bilateral investments between the two countries.

The day-long conference to be held in Abu Dhabi will be inaugurated by Navdeep Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE .

Key business leaders and senior government officials will come together to lay the blueprint for greater economic cooperation between the two countries, a statement released here said.

It will explore the possibilities of economic gains through boosting both the countries' status as major trade hubs and key gateways to regional and international markets, the statement said.

The conclave aims to boost the connection between the business communities of the two countries.

"We are glad to conduct the second edition of India-UAE Strategic Conclave in Abu Dhabi this year. This will further enhance the insights from the inaugural edition by identifying key areas for more investment flows between the two nations," Deepak Lamba, President, Times Strategic Solutions Limited, said.

This conference will enhance the connection between the governments and business communities of both countries to forge new partnerships and explore the possibilities of deeper cooperation in sectors of mutual interest, Lamba said.

Since India and UAE are two of the world's largest and fastest growing emerging markets, the conclave will provide a platform to highlight investment potential in India and the UAE by creating awareness among investors about exciting opportunities, he said.
Japan said on Wednesday it is ready to work for the stability of the Nissan-Renault global alliance following the stunning arrest of common Chairman Carlos Ghosn, as the Asahi newspaper reported prosecutors are weighing bringing a case against the Japanese automaker.

Nissan Motor Co has portrayed itself as a victim of Ghosn, one of the global car industry's best-known leaders, who it accused of years of wrongdoing, including personal use of company money and under-reporting earnings. It plans to remove him from post on Thursday.

Japanese prosecutors arrested Ghosn on Monday, saying he and Representative Director Greg Kelly conspired to understate Ghosn's compensation at Nissan over five years starting in fiscal 2010 as being about half of the actual 10 billion yen ($88.65 million).

The Asahi quoted unnamed sources as saying that the mis-stating meant Nissan also bore responsibility and that prosecutors were eyeing the possibility of putting together a case against it.

Prosecutors were not immediately able to comment. Nissan declined to comment on the report. Ghosn and Kelly, who has also been arrested, have not commented on the accusations so far and Reuters has not been able to reach them.

Ghosn has bestrode the alliance as chairman and chief executive of Nissan's French partner Renault, and chairman of third partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp.

The alliance "is a symbol of Franco-Japanese industrial success and we will continue to support it," Japan's top government spokesman said on Wednesday, calling for a "stable relationship" between the three automakers.

Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday that Ghosn had received share price-linked compensation of about 4 billion yen over a five-year period to March 2015 but that it went unreported in Nissan's financial reports.

Renault on Tuesday tapped its chief operating officer and a senior board member to fill in for Ghosn, but the board refrained from firing him while waiting for details on the allegations - a decision that could buy more time for an accelerated, permanent succession process.

Shares in Nissan rose 0.8 percent on Wednesday after falling nearly 6 percent a day earlier. Mitsubishi Motors was down 0.6 percent after losing nearly 7 percent on Tuesday.
Sri Lanka's current political crisis due to President Maithripala Sirisena's "irresponsible" action of sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has left the country on the brink of an "economic anarchy" never experienced before, the ousted finance minister said.

On October 26, Sirisena, in a controversial action, sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, plunging the island nation into political chaos.

Wickremesinghe has demanded a floor test to prove his majority. Sirisena's party did not cooperate with parliamentary Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to hold the floor test.

Ousted finance minister Mangala Samaraweera said: "As a result of these actions, Sri Lanka is on the brink of an economic anarchy and chaos as never experienced before".

"The cavalier and irresponsible actions of the president starting on October 26th based on personal animosities and precipitating a series of illegal acts, places at risk Sri Lanka's ability to meet its immediate debt obligations.

"In early January 2019, we have to repay USD 1 billion of Rajapaksa's debt taken in January 2014, the repayment of which is also under the purview of Parliament," he said Tuesday.

Samaraweera said as per Article 148 of the Constitution, Parliament shall have full control over public finance.

In the absence of a legitimate government, a grave situation has now arisen as there is no legal way to meet public expenditure and obligations of the state from 2019, he said.

"The Constitution does not provide for any alternative arrangements for public finance, even with the intervention of the executive envisaged under the limited circumstances of article 150(3) under which the President can only allocate finances for the first three months of a new parliament.

"Thus, under the current circumstances, from January 1st 2019 until a new parliament is convened, the spending power of the state ceases to exist," Samaraweera said.

A legitimate government with an adequate majority in parliament would have had the opportunity to present at least a vote on account which would have covered at least the first three months of the new year enabling payment of pensions, salaries and settlement of debts, he said.

Rajapaksa, at the time of appointing, said a vote on account would be presented. However, Sirisena suspended the assembly until November 16, seen as a move to allow Rajapaksa buy time to obtain majority by engineering defections from Wickremesinghe's UNP. He managed to win nine of them, leaving him at 105, still eight needed for a simple majority.

Later on realisation of lack of numbers, Sirisena dissolved the assembly and set fresh parliamentary polls for January 5, 2019. A legal challenge against this was temporary upheld throwing the whole administration into disarray.

"This illegal government has no majority and are pirating the government benches through force and violence, and they cannot muster a majority to even pass a vote on account, they are forcibly preventing the lawful government from taking the critical steps to provide funding for 2019," Samaraweera said.

Samaraweera said Sri Lanka had never defaulted its debt obligations.

"The actions of October 26 have irreversibly undermined Sri Lanka's credibility in global markets - risking our ability to service future debt as well. We are being pushed towards a state of economic collapse as we stumble on to a road of a Greece like situation," he said.

The only way to rescue Sri Lanka from this unfortunate and unnecessary crisis is for the President to recognise the Prime Minister and the government that was in place prior to October 26, he said.

It is necessary for all like-minded people, regardless of political affiliation, to come forward to save the country from an otherwise impending economic collapse by supporting efforts to reestablish the supremacy of Parliament and the Constitution, he said.

The purported government's spokesman Bandula Gunawardena dismissed Samaraweera's claims and said Sri Lanka was still capable of meeting its debt repayment due in January.

Last week, Parliament witnessed unprecedented violence as lawmakers threw furniture and chilli powder at each other after Rajapaksa lost a no-trust vote.

The political imbroglio has created much uncertainty with work in state institutions being hampered. Sirisena last week urged top bureaucrats to carry on as usual.
OPEC

Iraqi Deputy Oil Minister Fayadh al-Nema said on Wednesday that OPEC will work to stabilise oil markets, crude prices and supplies at its next meeting.

"OPEC and non-OPEC producers will work together to restore balance to oil prices and supplies to make sure prices stay stable," he told journalists at an oil exploration conference in Baghdad.
President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

Defying intense pressure from US lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom. He said it would be a "foolish" move that would only benefit Russia and China, competitors of the United States in the arms market.

Trump said US intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi's killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and who planned it. Since the murder, Trump has taken varying positions on how to react, including possible sanctions.

But on Tuesday, Trump stressed Saudi Arabia's weapons purchases and its role in keeping world oil prices low as influencing his decision.

"It's all about, for me, very simple. It's America first," Trump said, adding: "I'm not going to destroy the world economy and I'm not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia."

Speaking at the White House to reporters before departing for Florida, Trump said of the possibility that the Saudi crown prince had a hand in the murder: "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and argued that the CIA had not made a definitive determination.

His comments contradicted the CIA, which believes Khashoggi's death was ordered directly by the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler widely known by his initials MbS.

Trump was accused by Democratic lawmakers of undermining his own intelligence agencies and failing to confront Saudi Arabia over a human rights atrocity.

"Human rights is more than just a phrase, it has to mean something. And that means standing up and condemning a brazen murder by a foreign government. Everyone who played a role in this killing must be held accountable," Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have urged Trump to drop his support for MbS over the Khashoggi case, but the president has been reluctant.

Trump said on Tuesday that both Saudi Arabia's King Salman and MbS "vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder," and that the truth may never be known.

After offering numerous contradictory explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance, Riyadh said last week he had been killed and his body dismembered when "negotiations" to convince him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. It said allegations the prince had ordered the killing were false.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Washington on Tuesday that Turkey was not entirely satisfied with the level of cooperation it was receiving from Riyadh on Khashoggi's murder and may seek a formal United Nations inquiry.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they had asked Trump for a second human rights probe over Khashoggi's killing.

Similarly, Representative Francis Rooney, a Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should apply the so-called Magnitsky Act to those responsible for Khashoggi's death.

The law freezes US assets of human rights violators and prohibits Americans from doing business with them.

REGIONAL PARTNER

Trump said Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer, was an important business partner and a "great ally" in the fight against Iranian power in the Middle East.

"The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region," Trump said.

On Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said of a White House statement: "Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of."

US Representative Adam Schiff, who is expected to become leader of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in January, said the United States should immediately end support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war, suspend arms sales and reduce its reliance on Riyadh in the Middle East.

Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, lived in the United States and was a Washington Post columnist. He went to the consulate to collect documents for a planned marriage.

BROAD BACKING FOR A US RESPONSE

Trump has placed the alliance with Saudi Arabia at the heart of his Middle East policy, and it was the first country he visited after becoming president in 2017.

Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, has developed a close relationship with MbS.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sometime Trump ally, said there would be bipartisan support for sanctions against Saudi Arabia, "including appropriate members of the royal family, for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms."

Representative Eliot Engel, who has the power to block arms deals as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Washington should use its ability to sell weapons to the Saudis as leverage to influence Riyadh's behaviour.

"The reality is that the Saudis couldn't simply buy their weapons somewhere else," Engel said in a statement. "It would take years for the Saudi military to re-equip with Russian or Chinese weapons."

When Trump mentions the $110 billion package with Riyadh last year, he often adds that "it's 500,000 jobs."

But arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing US workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome industry experts say is unlikely.

Asked on Tuesday whether he was putting personal business interests over those of the United States, Trump said: "I have nothing to do with Saudi - just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia."

At a political rally in 2015, however, Trump said: "I like the Saudis, they're very nice. I make a lot of money with them. They buy all sorts of my stuff, all kinds of toys from Trump. They pay me millions and hundreds of millions."
Foreign exchange earnings totaled USD 24 billion in January-October 2019, with a growth (year-on-year) of two percent.

The United States has suspended $1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan, following President Donald Trump's directive in this regard early this year, the Pentagon has said.

"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defense told reporters in an email response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January of this year is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney told PTI.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan.

He was a part of the Pentagon when Osama bin Laden was killed in a daring raid by US commandoes in Abbottabad.

Over the last few days Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of bin Laden.

"On Osama bin Laden, I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book, 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Osama Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sydney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremists groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, he added.

"What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, against Lashkhar-e-Taiba, and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbours," he said.

"But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan, and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sydney alleged.

We see leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence, he said.

"If Pakistan would take some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly," he argued.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.
U.S. President Donald Trump waves prior to departing on a trip to Wisconsin from the White House in Washington, U.S., October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RC13580F4390

US President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with the kingdom and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of America.

The death of Khashoggi, a onetime insider turned critic of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and a resident of the US, has spurred a wave of international anger against Saudi Arabia and its rulers.

The US last week imposed sanctions on 17 individuals of Saudi Arabia for serious human rights abuse resulting from their roles in the killing of Khashoggi at the kingdom's Consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

"Because it's America first to me," Trump told reporters, adding that despite Khashoggi's murder, the US will remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia to ensure its interests as well as those of Israel and all other partners in the region.

"It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!" he said in a statement that immediately drew sharp criticism from his political opponents.

"I'm shocked that President Trump said there will be no punishment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said as she and several other lawmakers announced their plan to bring in legislations to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Responding to questions from reporters at the White House before leaving for Florida to spend his Thanksgiving holidays, Trump said his decision was all about America first.

"We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders and let Russia, China and everybody else have them. It's all about -- for me -- very simple, it's America first," he said.

"Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. I've kept them down. They've helped me keep them down. Right now, we have low oil prices, or relatively I'd like to see it go down even lower.

"But I think that it's a very simple equation for me. I'm about making America great again and I'm about America first," Trump argued.

He denied the allegations that this was at the expense of human rights.

"No, I'm not saying that at all. If you look at Iran... and you look at what they're doing, they are a terrorist nation right now. Although, I must tell you, they're a lot better right now than they were when I took office. When I took office, they were heading in a very, very bad direction.

"At some point, things very positive, frankly, could happen with Iran, but we also need a counterbalance. And Israel needs help also. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake," Trump warned.

The President refuted The Washington Post's allegations that by taking such a decision, he was putting his personal and commercial interests ahead of national interests.

"Well, I have nothing to do with Saudi -- just so you understand, I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't have money from Saudi Arabia. I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I couldn't care less," he said.

"I will tell you and as most of you know, being President has cost me a fortune and that's okay with me," he said.

"All I do is focus on this country and making great deals for this country. I don't focus on making on great deals for myself because I don't care anymore," Trump said.

Saudi Arabia, Trump said, is buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of things from the US.

"If I say we don't want to take your business, if I say we're going to cut it off, they will get the equipment -- military equipment and other things -- from Russia and China," he said, adding that in that case the two countries would be "very, very happy" because right now the US is doing "very well" against China.

"We're doing very well against everybody including Russia. I'm going to keep it that way. I'm not going to tell a country that is spending hundreds of billions of dollars and has helped me do one thing very importantly -- keep oil prices down so that they're not going to USD 100 and USD 150 dollars a barrel," he said.

Noting that the oil prices right now are in a great shape, Trump insisted that he is not going to destroy the world economy.
Right to Information (RTI) activists have expressed support and admiration for the strong, pro-people stand of Prof Dr Sridhar Acharayalu, who retired as Central Information Commissioner on 20 November 2018. Prof Acharayalu made waves by issuing a show cause notices to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) just a few days before his retirement.

The Central Information Commission (CIC) had issued a show-cause notice to RBI governor Dr Urjit Patel for dishonouring a directive from the Supreme Court to disclose list of wilful defaulters. The Supreme Court had upheld the decision of a Judgement passed by the then Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi who had also called for the names of the wilful defaulters. Prof Acharyulu observed how there is stark difference between what the RBI governor and deputy governor says and what is displayed on their website regarding the RTI Act.

The show cause notice however did not go down well within the CIC and Prof Acharyulu was apparently pulled up for it. Prof Acharayalu has written a strongly worded letter to the Chief Information Commissioner in this regard, which has been made public.

His stand has found support from leading activists such as Mr Gandhi, former Central Information Commissioner. Mr Gandhi, in an email to Prof Acharayalu thanked him for upholding the RTI Act and how over the past five years, he has tried to consciously to expand the domain of transparency as defined in the law while many others have been doing the opposite.

Mr Gandhi says, "You have rightly picked on the issue of RBI non-compliance of CIC decisions given by me, and the Supreme Court order. Perhaps if these orders had been implemented some of the rot in the banking sector may have been stemmed. The CIC was not concerned about this but only concerned with allowing RBI to run its empire in a manner it wished."

"I had brought up the matter of non-recognition of non-performing assets (NPAs) by labeling them corporate debt restructure (CDR) through a khap panchayat named corporate debt restructuring in 2015. The CIC sided with their plea that they need not follow the RTI Act. I then brought up the issue of non-compliance of the commission's and Supreme Court's order by RBI before the Commission in another case, and the CIC again frustrated this without any reference to the RTI Act. When you dealt with the issue of RBI being in contempt of CIC orders which had been confirmed by the Supreme Court, the commission should have lauded it.

Alas, it appears to have taken the view that the commission must not be embarrassed and it should speak with one voice like a labour union," Mr Gandhi added.

Expressing his disappointment, Mr Gandhi says how the letter written by Prof Acharyulu to Chief Information Commissioner RK Mathur was evidence to the fact that the commissioners do not show any bias towards or adherence of the RTI Act. This is primarily because of the selection process not being transparent and also because of not understanding the prospective applicants take on transparency, accountability or the RTI Act itself, he says.

In conclusion, Mr Gandhi shared an excerpt from his judgement, Thus RBI argued that it did not wish to share the information sought as some of it could adversely affect the public interest and compromise financial sector stability. RBI was unwilling to share information, which might bring out the weaknesses in the financial institutions, systems and management of the inspected entities. It was further contended that disclosure can erode public confidence not only in the inspected entity but in the banking sector as well. This could trigger a ripple effect on the deposits of not only one bank to which the information pertains but others as well due to contagion effect. It appears that the RBI argued that citizens were not mature enough to understand the implications of weaknesses, and RBI was the best judge to decide what citizens should know.

Citizens, who are considered mature enough to decide on who should govern them, who give legitimacy to the government, and framed the Constitution of India must be given selective information about weaknesses exposed in inspection, to ensure that they have faith in the banking sector. They must see the financial and banking sector only to the extent which RBI wishes. If the RBI made mistakes, or there was corruption, citizens would suffer. This appears to go against the basic tenets of democracy and transparency.
In September 2011, Pranab Mukherjee, when he was the finance minister, made the lethargic Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issue a notification to curb unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) or spam calls and SMS. Unfortunately, the ordinary mobile subscriber has no respite from the spate of unwanted commercial calls and SMS messages bombarding her everyday despite being registered on the national do not call (NDNC) registry.

The TRAI released consultation papers and then launched a mobile app called DND (do not disturb) to report unwanted SMS or call. But without any real time monitoring or strict action against violators - which include top insurers, lenders, telecom operators and credit card issuers, this menace continues, leaving mobile subscribers searching for a respite.

In addition, unlike other regulators like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) or Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), the telecom regulator seems unconcerned about customer issues and has no formal mechanism for grievance redress or filing complaints.

TRAI does not take any cognizance of individual complaints from telecom subscribers. The TRAI portal under its telecom consumer complaints monitoring system , says, TRAI Act, 1997 does not envisage handling of individual consumer complaints by TRAI. Consumers are advised to take up their complaints with their respective service providers. Complaints, if any, received in TRAI are forwarded to the service providers. No follow up action is taken by TRAI on individual complaint(s).

When the regulator is not responsible for addressing consumers grievances, there are no prizes for guessing how complaints are treated. A majority of complaints are discarded without much action or on flimsy grounds, especially those against telemarketers or the telecom service providers.

According to the telecom regulator, as on May 2018, there were 23 crore mobile subscribers registered with the DND registry.

Last heard, TRAI and its chairman RS Sharma were coercing Apple Inc to allow access to call and SMS details for its DND 2.0 mobile app on iPhones in India.

The app DND 2.0 works well for Android based devices. In my previous article , I had examined the first version of the DND app. The new version is much better in terms of ease of use and functions. Unfortunately, an app is not a regulator and can only act as a facilitator by forwarding details of spam calls and SMSs to the central registry number 1909 in a specified format.

I am also regular complainant about unwanted SMS and calls. I had opted for full or zero DNC category (which means no telemarketing SMS/call). However, except in few cases, where the number of the caller or SMS sender is available, and thus can be disconnected, there is hardly any action against the telemarketers or spammers reported on the app.

This is especially true for spammers who use codes (XX-XXXXXX) to send bulk text messages; they are evidently protected through various means. For example, one astrologer was spamming me with SMSes using BW ASTROL as header. When I filed complaint through the DND app, after a few days, the status showed 'incomplete/incorrect info'!

Many spammers are shielded by the telcos themselves as these are paid services. For example, I used to receive several SMS from a portal selling old items, with a header of IM-Selold. When I complained, I was told this was a 'service SMS/call'!

Interestingly, the header IM stands for Idea from Mumbai circle, my service provider. So no guess how the spammer could have received my mobile number and got away from the crime with a label of 'service SMS/call'. As per TRAI regulations, first letter in the header of the SMS denotes name of operator followed by area or region. ( For more check this page from NDNC.in

Out of my 30 complaints about the Idea number filed through the DND app, there was action only against four. This too was because these four were mobile numbers and were disconnected after my complaint. On my Jio connection, I had filed 15 complaints, and there was action against one number only.

In both cases, there was no action against any telemarketer, who had used bulk SMS services. This means telemarketers, who sent SMS through any telco are shielded by the same or other telco from where the message originated.

Check the SMS below that was sent by a telemarketer.

However, instead of taking any action, I was told this was a service SMS/ call!

I am wondering which service provider offers to book a spacious flat for Rs2.5 crore. This is a clear marketing messge soliciting business, however, Idea Cellular, Vodafone (I received the SMS on this number as well) and TRAI (yes, ultimately the buck stops with the regulator) think otherwise.

This action taken message was sent by Vodafone. It mentions no action has been taken by HFCL. This HFCL is Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd, which had won 4G licences in almost every telecom circle. As per TRAI, there are 175 telecom service providers, but HFCL does not feature in the list. I even checked the list of registered telemarketers. There are 8,638 registered telemarkers as per the national do not call registry portal but again HFCL is not there in the list. So the large question remains, who is HFCL and how it was supposed to take action on my complaint?

In the above cases, the operator is Idea Cellular, which recently was merged with Vodafone. Hope, they will at least try to match with DNC handling efficiency of Vodafone (it is not the best, but still much better compared with others).

On handling DNC complaints, less said is better for Reliance Jio. It directly tells that the spammer is not a telemarketer or the CDR (communication detail record) does not match or the subscriber only has opted for this preference or service call/SMS.

What I found through my UCC complaints and attempted resolutions is that Lodha, one of the biggest name in building and construction is not a telemarketer and hence all SMSes (spams text messages) sent by them should be considered as gift. In case of another spammer, Radius builders and developer, I was told this was my opted preference on a zero DNC number!

As I mentioned earlier, I have opted for zero DNC, which means telemarketers should not send me any SMS or make any calls on my number. However, it does not happen. Despite the zero DNC, I continue to receive spam SMS and calls.

Another reason, why there is no action against spammers is non-availability of records. This is absurd, but yet most of the times used by telcos. For example, Vodafone have a funny way to handle DNC complaints. When you file a complaint (by sending an SMS to 1909 in this format: the unsolicited commercial communication, XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy), you will immediately receive an SMS providing complaint number. What follows is really funny. The customer care executive will call you and ask to provide all the details, which you had already shared through the SMS. What is weird, is many a times when I complained through Twitter, Vodafone told me that they could not reach me. This too when I was in our office in well-located and connected place like Dadar! But maybe they are admitting their poor coverage or network signal in this area.

Is there any solution for getting rid of telemarketing SMS or calls? Unfortunately, nothing within the ambit of TRAI or its rules and regulations. Few years ago, one mobile subscriber had won a compensation of Rs3 lakh from Airtel after filing case in the Maharashtra State Consumer Commission. Shashikant Ganga, a Mumbai-based lawyer had filed complaint about receiving text messages despite having opted for do not disturb (DND) facility. After hearing both the parties, the State Commission had awarded Rs3 lakh to Ganga and asked Airtel to pay this amount within 60 days, says a report from Times of India

But then how many subscribers will approach the consumer courts? This means, TRAI has to pull its socks and help mobile subscribers get rid of unwanted commercial communication or spam SMS and telemarketing calls. The regulator can do this by imposing heavy penalty on telemarketers as well as both the operators, sender and recipient for failing to filter spam messages or calls.
The De Beers Group Designers Initiative calls on design students in Botswana, Namibia, SA, and Canada to take part in the 2018/2019 Shining Light Awards.Winners of the Shining Light Awards will participate in a 12-month apprenticeship programme at the Milan Polytechnic Design School in Milan, Italy and the runners-up will win a three-month internship programme at Forevermark or a design programme at a local design school.The theme for the event is Heroines and Heritage and the deadline to enter is 31 January 2019. Click here to enter.
November 21, 2018 Keeping Bin Salman In Place Will Hurt Trump's Middle East Policies Against the advise from his intelligence services U.S. President Trump decided to leave the effective Saudi ruler, clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, in place. That move is unlikely to help with his larger policy plans. Bruce Riedel, a (former) high level CIA analyst, long warned of betting on Mohammad bin Salman. Even before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Riedel wrote that Saudi Arabia is at its least stable in 50 years (also here): The stability of Saudi Arabia is becoming more fragile as the young crown princes judgment and competence are increasingly in doubt. Mohammed bin Salman has a track record of impulsive and reckless decisions at home and abroad that calls into question the kingdoms future. Riedel warned that the Trump administration, by betting on Mohammad bin Salman, put everything on one dubious card. MbS is unstable and made himself many internal enemies. If King Salman suddenly dies there will probably be a leadership crisis. Saudi Arabia could end up in chaos. U.S. Middle East policy, largely build around MbS, would then fall apart. The CIA disliked MbS since he replaced Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince. MbN is a longtime U.S. asset with a proven record of cooperation. MbS came from nowhere and the CIA has no control over him. That he is indeed impulsive and reckless only adds to that. That the CIA feared that MbS meant trouble even before the Khashoggi disaster, explains why it sabotaged Trump's attempts to exculpate MbS over the murder of Khashoggi. While Riedel was writing about the Saudi danger, Jamal Khashoggi, a longtime Saudi intelligence agent who had aligned himself with the wrong prince, went to Istanbul to build the public relation infrastructure for regime change in Saudi Arabia: Jamal Khashoggi, a prolific writer and commentator, was working quietly with intellectuals, reformists and Islamists to launch a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now. He wanted to set up a media watch organization to keep track of press freedom. He also planned to launch an economic-focused website to translate international reports into Arabic to bring sobering realities to a population often hungry for real news, not propaganda. Part of Khashoggis approach was to include political Islamists in what he saw as democracy building.

...

Khashoggi had incorporated his democracy advocacy group, DAWN, in January in Delaware, said Khaled Saffuri, another friend. .. The project was expected to reach out to journalists and lobby for change, representing both Islamists and liberals, ... Khashoggi's projects were allegedly financed by Qatar but probably also had CIA support. MbS got wind thereof. He told his private office chief Bader Al Asaker to send his bodyguards to kill Khashoggi. They did so on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But it was a much too large and too complicate mission. They Saudi agents made too many mistakes. They also underestimated the Turkish intelligence service. The Turks had bugged the Saudi consulate and have records of all phone calls. When they learned from Khashoggi's fiancee, a well connected daughter of a co-founder of Erdogan's AK Party, that Khashoggi was missing, they wound back the tapes and unraveled the story. The killers had made four phone calls to Al Asaker to report back. In one of the calls the mission leader told him: "Tell your boss" that "the deed was done." The Turkish president Erdogan was delighted to receive such a gift. It allowed him to cut his strategic competitor down to size. The Saudis were too slow to recognize the danger. They came up with all sorts of unbelievable claims over what happened in their consulate. Trump sent Secretary of State Pompeo who told them to find a sufficiently high ranking scapegoat: The plan includes an option to pin the Saudi journalists murder on an innocent member of the ruling al-Saud family in order to insulate those at the very top, the source told MEE. The Salman clan did not follow that advice. The Saudi prosecutor accused and indicted only minor staff. Trump fumbled the issue. He clearly did not want to accuse the crown prince. But the CIA preempted him. It went public and accused MbS of having given the order himself. Despite the CIA assessment Trump continues to defend the relations with Saudi Arabia. In a quite weird statement, dictated by Trump himself, the White House did not exculpate Mohammad bin Salman of the murder, but essentially said "we don't give a fuck!" The statement on Standing with Saudi Arabia begins with this: America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraqs fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, Death to America! and Death to Israel! Iran is considered the worlds leading sponsor of terror. The Trump statement further makes these points: The Saudis promise a lot of money to us!

Some Saudis murdered Khashoggi.

They say the dude was a bad guy!

MbS may have ordered it. Or maybe not.

Good U.S. relations with the Saudis is in the interest of Israel!

The Saudis kept pumping oil when I asked them.

America First! The statement does not mention the Saudi King, it only speaks of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is certainly not a whitewash for MbS. Trump shows support for the country of Saudi Arabia, but not for its royal leaders. That is why they will probably hate it. Trump will get much criticism from the foreign policy borg for burying the case like this. But that criticism is over style, not over substance. U.S. support for bloody dictators is the rule, not the exception. But that still leaves the concern that Trump bet his whole Middle East policy on his relations with the Saudis. And even as parts of it already fail, he continues to do so. Trump's priorities in the Middle East are: the 'deal of the century' for Israel, the forging of a united Arab front against Iran, weapon sales, cheap oil and minor issue like financing the U.S. occupation of Syria and ending the unsavory war on Yemen. None of these issues has seen any success. - Through his son-in-law Jared Kushner Trump wants to arrange the ultimate deal for Israel which consists of disfranchising the Palestinians of any national rights while the Saudis pay them off. That plan failed when Trump, with verbal agreement from MbS, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. King Salman intervened and stopped any further cooperation on the issue. It is doubtful that there will be any more Saudi support for the 'peace plan' at least as long as he lives. - The Trump administration urged the Saudis to make nice with Qatar to then found a "Arab NATO" under U.S. command. The Saudis rejected that. Qatar supports political Islam in form of the Muslim Brotherhood which the Gulf potentates see as the biggest danger to their rule. - Trump hoped that the Saudis would buy lots of U.S. weapons. He brags about a $110 billion deal he claims to have made. But final sales this year were only made for $14.5 billion. The Saudis acquired not one big ticket item from the U.S. since MbS rose to his position. This concerns not only the CIA but also the Pentagon and the weapon industry: Saudi sources said U.S. officials had cooled on MbS not only because of his suspected role in the murder of Khashoggi. They are also rankled because the crown prince recently urged the Saudi defense ministry to explore alternative weapons supplies from Russia, the sources said. In a letter dated May 15, seen by Reuters, the crown prince requested that the defense ministry focus on purchasing weapon systems and equipment in the most pressing fields and get training on them, including the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system. - The Saudis increased oil production to keep the markets stable while the U.S. sanctions Iran. But Trump gave waivers to buyers of Iranian oil and the oil price fell from $80 per barrel down to $60/b. The Saudis are furious over this. They need at least $80/b to balance their budget. They will now cut their production: The Saudis are very angry at Trump. They dont trust him any more and feel very strongly about a cut. They had no heads-up about the waivers, said one senior source briefed on Saudi energy policies. The Saudis will cut oil production and Trump will have to renew the waivers to buyers of Iranian oil or risk a very high oil price that would hurt the U.S. economy. - Despite U.S. pressure the war on Yemen still goes on. Yesterday the fighting around Hodeidah port resumed after a few days of lull. Trump will come under more pressure from Congress to finally end the war. - When asked for a quarter billion for the U.S. occupation of northeast Syria the Saudis coughed up a paltry $100 million. There is really nothing in Trump's list on which the Saudis consistently followed through. His alliance with MbS has brought him no gain and a lot of trouble. Trumps main Middle East project is to regime-change Iran in support of Israel. His main campaign sponsor, Sheldon Adelson, demands that. Without a stronger Saudi Arabia and its full support the project is likely to fail. Why then is he still promoting relations with Saudi Arabia? Professor Asad Abukhalil, says that Trump's believes that standing with the Saudis gives him leverage: I feel that Donald Trump wants what is best for his administration. He has somebody, he has Mohammed bin Salman, as he best can have him. He is holding him by the neck. And if he survives, he  Mohammed bin Salman  will be greatly indebted to Trump, and to Netanyahu, because those two stood by him and kept him afloat. And because of that situation, Mohammad bin Salman will be obligated to make so many concessions  political, military, and financial  to the United States, and even to Israel. Some of it would be more direct now. Perhaps he would even visit the Israeli occupation state. But why would MbS, once absolved, do such? Why should he feel pressured? What actually need would he have to feel "obligated"? If that is Trump's calculation it is likely wrong. MbS has shown no sign that he will ever follow Trump's orders. MbS is a ruthless man. He will never become the docile poodle Trump needs him to be. That is also the assessment of the U.S. intelligence services. As Abukhalil continues: On the other hand, the intelligence agencies, I think, my reading, is that they do not think that Mohamed bin Salman is capable of steering the regime in a direction that is more in the interest of the stability of the regime. As a result they would rather make a change in order to save the regime. They worry that bin Salman is too reckless, and his thinking is ruled too precarious, which endangered American interests in that region. Gina Haspel, the CIA's director and torture queen, will take her assessment to Congress. There are many furious voices there, who want MbS to go. The Zionist lobby will not be able to buy off each and every one of them. Even one of Trump's allies, Senator Lindsay Graham, is pushing for a strong punishment. But a private French intelligence outlet claims that Graham's motive is not as pure as it seems: Regarding Sen. Lindsay Graham and his constant rants against MBS. @Intel_Online explains that "he is Lockheed Martin's man in the Senate" and that the weapon supplier faces huge opposition from the "Salman clan" due to disagreement about technology transfer. The paper goes on in explaining that the Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI), launched by the PIF, is the state-owned military industrial company that has been refusing the US trade proposals for the past 2 years, because KSA wants technology transfer but the US refuses. The pressure on Saudi Arabia, and on Trump, will not recede. The CIA will insist to act on its assessment. The military industrial complex will demand real weapon sales. The media onslaught will also continue. The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote, reports today of torture against women activists in Saudi prisons. Turkey already leaked new details from the recordings it has and threatens to publish more tapes: The conversations among the murderers, their conversations with Riyadh after committing the murder, dialogues that will prove the crown prince was the one who directly gave the order, perhaps the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egyptian intelligence's role in the incident, and as a matter of fact, information on Israeli intelligence's "expertise" or on the U.S. leg of the murder may be revealed. MbS announced that he will take part in the G20 summit in Argentina at the end of November. That is a big mistake. Turkey is a also a G20 member. Erdogan might want to use the occasion to play selected parts of the tapes to the attending heads of state, and to the world media. Everyone in attendance would have to distance themselves from MbS. It would be another public relation disaster for Saudi Arabia. Trump is making a mistake by keeping Mohammad bin Salman in place. He will never get the support from him that he needs for his larger plans. The U.S. surely has enough leverage to push him aside. If Trump does not do it, others will likely give it a try. The outcome is uncertain. The consequences may well be severe. Posted by b on November 21, 2018 at 17:48 UTC | Permalink Comments
We think the market is missing Air Products (APD) tremendous revenue growth potential. We have raised our fair value estimate for the industrial gas producer in addition to increasing our moat trend rating and stewardship rating. Management has made great strides in its ambitious plan to deploy roughly $15 billion of capital over the next five years, having committed almost $8 billion thus far. We expect that as new projects come on line and start contributing to the bottom line over the next few years, the market will eventually take notice.

Air Products benefits from operating in an industry with a very favorable structure. Despite selling what are essentially commodities, public industrial gas companies have consistently delivered lucrative returns because of their economic moats. Industrial gases typically account for a relatively small fraction of customers costs but are a vital input to ensure uninterrupted production. As such, customers are often willing to pay a premium and sign long-term contracts to ensure their businesses run smoothly. Long-term contracts and high switching costs contribute to industrial gas producers moats, helping them generate a predictable cash flow stream and lucrative returns.
As the latest step in its anti-money laundering initiative, the B.C. government has launched an anonymous tip platform available to concerned citizens who want to report on illegal funds funnelled through the provinces real estate, horse racing, and luxury car segments.

Intended to collect on-the-ground data on dirty money, the portal will be available for use until January 31, 2019.

British Columbians want their government to crack down on money laundering, wherever it takes place. We agree and we also believe that British Columbians can help, Attorney General David Eby said.
Western Canada experienced the most notable declines in housing demand last month, according to new data from the Canadian Real Estate Association.

The CREAs October measurement of the nationwide sales-to-new-listings ratio, which illustrates demand by quantifying absorption during the same month, showed that Vancouver suffered the most significant adjustment: The citys ratio fell by 26.22% year-over-year to reach 48.4, which also made it the third lowest in Western Canada.

The Vancouver situation is exacerbated by the fact that only 11% of current renters in the city are planning to proceed to home ownership by next year, according to the Altus Groups Vancouver Flash Report 2018.
Editors note: The Reporter-Telegram will address the expansion of bike-friendly streets in Midland

There have 42 vehicle wrecks with bicyclists and 133 with pedestrians since the start of 2017, according to the city of Midland.

Councilwoman Sharla Hotchkiss said Tuesday she expects a new ordinance will lead to lower numbers.

We want our city to be known for the safety it provides all citizens, Hotchkiss told those in council chambers. I hope the proposed ordinance will be a step forward in providing that safety.

Hotchkiss said the vulnerable road user ordinance passed by the Midland City Council is based on an ordinance already passed by 25 Texas cities and will enhance the existing Texas Transportation Code statutes.

The ordinance, which the council passed unanimously on Tuesday, states that someone operating a motor vehicle has the duty to move to an adjacent lane to pass a vulnerable road user, if available. If there is no available lane, the operator must provide a safe distance of 3 feet when passing or 6 feet if operating a commercial motor vehicle.

The ordinance also states that when making a left or right turn, a motorist cannot make the turn if a vulnerable road user is in the intersection or close enough to create a hazard.

Sadly, approximately 50 cyclists and 400 pedestrians are killed every year in Texas, Hotchkiss said.

Vulnerable road users start with pedestrians, runners and bicyclists, but also include people who are physically disabled, children, skaters, highway construction workers, tow-truck operators, utility workers, a worker with a legitimate business in or near the road or right-of-way, a stranded motorist or passenger, a person on horseback, a person operating equipment other than a motor vehicle, including, but not limited to a bicycle, a unicycle, a handcycle, a horse-driven conveyance and unprotected farm equipment, according to the ordinance.

Interim Police Chief Seth Herman said Tuesday during the meeting the ordinance has been needed for some time. People need to focus more on the operation of the motor vehicle, he said. This is another ordinance passed by this council that puts the onus back on driving safely. In August 2015, the same council passed a citywide texting-while-driving ban.

Herman said the law is enforceable. Others in attendance at the meeting, including biking enthusiasts such as former Peytons Bikes owner David Ham, showed the camera technology that cyclists could wear to catch drivers driving dangerously. During the meeting, they showed video of a truck coming close to running over a cyclist. There was a noticeable reaction when the truck came into the picture, because of how close it was. City officials and police said information from the camera can be shared to identify drivers who are in violation of the ordinance.

Writing tickets isnt the goal, officials said, just like it hasnt been with the texting-while-driving ban. It is creating awareness for safety and creating good habits. Councilman Jeff Sparks said it was disappointing that bad drivers again have forced government to come up with a solution. Like everyone else who addressed the subject during the meeting, Sparks said he hoped the attention will result in change and that education allows the message to reach as many Midlanders as possible.

The ordinance states that motorists who are in violation will face a fine of up to $200. It will take effect Jan. 1.

Click through the slideshow above to see who will be considered a vulnerable road user under the ordinance.
NEW YORK  The stories of dead bodies piled up high Monday as jurors at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera heard gruesome testimony about six brutal drug war murders.

One of the victims nearly had his head cut off by a fusillade of gunfire. Another was killed on his doorstep after being lured from home by false news that his son had just been run down by a car.

A third made a small, but fatal, error: He refused one day to shake Guzmans hand.

Last week, the federal prosecutors trying Guzman, the Mexican drug kingpin known as El Chapo, offered evidence about the gothic bloodshed his cartel routinely committed. But as the proceeding entered its second week, the government began to tie that violence directly to Guzman.

Instead of these gory tales, the courtroom audience had expected a prosecution witness, Jesus Zambada Garcia, to confess to a bombshell act of corruption. Last week, in a private sidebar conversation, Guzmans lawyers said Zambada would testify to having paid at least $6 million to the incumbent president of Mexico. That testimony never came Monday, but it may Tuesday when Zambada returns to the stand.

But no less than a half-dozen times, Zambada, said Monday that Guzman, his former boss in the Sinaloa drug cartel, had arranged for people to be killed for seemingly minor reasons. In what was Zambadas third day as a witness, Guzman emerged as a kind of gun-loving hothead who owned a diamond-encrusted pistol with his initials on the handle and who once relaxed by taking target practice with a bazooka.

From the start of the trial, which is being held in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, prosecutors have accused Guzman not only of earning $14 billion by routinely shipping ton-sized batches of drugs into the United States, but also of taking part in more than 30 murders. Zambada began Monday to describe some of those killings, starting with the slaying of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, a former member of the Sinaloa cartel.

In 2004, he said, Guzman and Carrillo Fuentes were rivals as part of a larger war between the Sinaloa traffickers and a vicious gang, the Zetas, with whom Carrillo Fuentes had allied himself. At a meeting to restore the peace, Guzmans longtime partner, Ismael Zambada Garcia, tried to broker a truce. But when Guzman put his hand out, Carrillo Fuentes did not take it.

Not long after, Zambada said, armed assassins lay in wait for Carrillo Fuentes and his unsuspecting wife, gunning both down as they exited a movie theater in Culiacan. Chapo said he was going to kill him, Zambada told the jury.

The following year, a similar fate befell Julio Beltran-Leyva, another of Guzmans former allies. According to Zambada, Beltran-Leyva had disobeyed an order not to send a shipment of cocaine from Acapulco. At Guzmans behest, Zambada testified, a team of assassins attacked Beltran-Leyva, firing so many rifle rounds at him that his head was left dangling from his neck.

It was clear from Mondays testimony that drug trafficking, especially in Guzmans orbit, was not an occupation that promoted health or longevity. People around him seemed to die with alarming frequency.

There was, for instance, his younger brother, Arturito Guzman, who was murdered in prison on New Years Eve in 2004. There was also a police officer who usually stayed at home out of fear, but walked outside into a spray of bullets after one of Guzmans killers knocked on his door and shouted  falsely  that his child had just been hit by a car.

Even those who endured the violence surrounding Guzman required a level of machismo to survive. One gunman, caught in the crossfire of Beltran-Leyvas murder, was knocked unconscious for five or 10 minutes with a head wound, Zambada said. When he finally awoke, the gunman dismissed the wound as a scratch.

William Purpura, one of Guzmans lawyers, asked Zambada a few questions Monday afternoon, largely pointing out that in prior statements he had never mentioned Guzman in connection with some of the murders the government accused him of committing. Purpura also suggested that Zambada was a liar who could say whatever he wanted since most of the people who could corroborate  or refute  his account were dead.

Purpura noted that Juan Jose Esparragoza, Guzmans mentor, who knew him better than anyone, was dead  and so was Guzmans brother, Arturito. Guzmans former ally, Amado Carrillo Fuentes  a brother of Rodolfo  was also dead, Purpura said, having bled to death in 1997 while undergoing plastic surgery.

All of them are dead, Purpura told the witness. So theres really no one but you, correct?

Zambada readily agreed.

Fortunately, he said, Im alive.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
The strangulation death of a 1-year-old boy apparently at the hands of his 6-year-old sister has led to a criminal charge against the father who left them alone in his vehicle during a shopping spree.

Adrian Middleton, 26, told authorities he left his two young children in the back seat of his car on May 20 while he went inside a thrift store for nearly two hours near Jacinto City. When he returned to the car, his son was unconscious with a seat belt wrapped around his neck.

Middletons daughter told officials with the Harris County Childrens Assessment Center that she was playing with her younger brother in the back seat and that she got angry when he would not stop crying, according to court records.

She told the center she wrapped the seat belt around her brother, and thought he had fallen asleep.

Six months after the strangulation death of Adrian Middleton Jr., their father has been charged with child abandonment. He turned himself over to Baytown Police Department around 2 p.m. Monday, jail records show.

According to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Harris County, the 26-year-old father told Houston police that he left the air conditioner on, played a movie and gave his children water and a snack before shopping at the Family Thrift Store on 12001 East Freeway on May 20.

He said that he had looked out the store window to check on his children while shopping. The father initially told authorities the children were belted in their car seats, but later said they were not using car seats.

Surveillance video from the store shows Middleton entering the business about 10:35 a.m. and leaving about 12:15 p.m., according to court documents.

As Middleton placed the shopping bags in the trunk of his car, he noticed his daughter crying in the back seat. She told him that she did something bad, according to court documents.

Middleton called 9-1-1 and attempted CPR after finding his son.

The boy was transported to Texas Childrens Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His death was ruled as a homicide by strangulation, the documents say.

The girl is now in the custody of her grandmother, Houston police said.

Nicole Hensley contributed to this report.
Sonora, CA  A local store launched an internal investigation to uncover an employees alleged thefts.

Sonora Police were called to the Walmart at the Crossroads Shopping Center on Sanguinetti Road in Sonora to take a sales associate into custody for stealing. When officers arrived at the store, management relayed that security had been engaged in an investigation of store cashier, 21-year-old Mikala Elizabeth David of Jamestown. She had been hired about three months prior, but for the past several weeks her cash drawer was coming up short, according to the manager. David, who was working at the time, was called to the managers office where she was confronted by security regarding the missing money. SPD spokesperson Krishna Livingston relays, She did admit to taking the money and was held in the office until our officers arrived. We took her into custody and transported her to jail.

David was charged with embezzlement. Livingston told Clarke Broadcasting that she could not give the exact amount David allegedly stole from the register, but the charges stipulate that it was for theft over $400. Her bail was set at $20,000.
National Turkey Federation View Photos

For those seeking a Thanksgiving plate, there are two table locations this evening. There are also to-go meals.

Daryl Sarina, Christian Heights Business Administrator and Special Events Coordinator, was Wednesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day.

Tonight, from 5:30PM to 7:00PM, Christian Heights Church and The Heart Rock Coffee Company (formally known as Heart Rock Cafe) are hosting their annual Sit-Down Dinner. Meals will be available to take to someone in need and meals will be delivered to locations starting at 4:00PM if arrangements have been made.

According to Sarina, This is a community event. Everyone is invited.

Additionally, this year the Jamestown Hope Center, located at 10365 9th street, will offer a sit down meal from 5:30 to 7 PM.

These events are not just limited to members of Christian Heights Church.

For more information on to-go meals, call (209) 532-7305.

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 KVML.
Seventy-nine years before the Pilgrims sat down in 1620 with their Indian friends in Plymouth, Mass., to celebrate a bountiful harvest, Spanish explorers held what has been acknowledged as the first thanksgiving service in what is now the United States. That watershed event took place about 65 miles north of Plainview in Palo Duro Canyon.

An official Texas Historical Commission marker four miles east of Canyon alongside Texas 217 leading to Palo Duro Canyon acknowledges that Fray Juan De Padillo conducted thanksgiving services there on May 29, 1541, for the army accompanying Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.

Much like the Pilgrims, Coronado and his 1,500 traveling companions had much to be thankful. Tired, hungry and disillusioned, the large company found food and water for themselves and their animals, and help from the friendly Indian tribes who live there.

In 1540, Coronado embarked on an expedition from the west coast of Mexico into what is now the Southwestern United States in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, expecting to find a large civilization and great wealth.

He crossed the deserts of Arizona, discovering the Grand Canyon, before reaching the western border of New Mexico and Cibola. Instead of a wealthy civilization, he found the pueblos of poor but industrious agricultural Indians.

Coronado spent the winter of 1540-41 at Tiquex on the Rio Grande, 20 miles north of Albuquerque. Unfortunately, continued Spanish demands for warm clothing and shelter eventually caused friction with their Indian hosts. Fighting broke out and several hundred Indians were killed before the uprising could be put down.

Although peace was restored, Coronados reluctant hosts apparently were ready for the Spaniards to move on. Realizing Coronados quest for great wealth, they introduced the conquistador to one of their slaves from a supposed city of great wealth called Quivera. The Spaniards called him La Turque  the Turk  because they thought he looked like one.

The pueblo Indians offered Turk as a guide, and he led the expedition of 1,500 men and thousands of horses, cattle and sheep across the Pecos River and onto the Texas plains. There they wandered across a trackless sea of grass, supplies dwindling, for several months before happening upon Palo Duro Canyon.

The men and animals made a harrowing descent into the canyon where they encountered a group of Indians called the Teyas.

A hailstorm hit the canyon the first night and stampeded the expeditions horses and destroyed much of their equipment.

Coronado sent hunters to venture onto the plains to kill buffalo and other game, but the hunters got lost. Helpful comrades built fires and blew trumpets to help them find their way back to the canyon. Most did.

The Teyas at Palo Duro Canyon told Coronado they knew of Quivera  it was to the northeast in what is now Kansas, and not to the southeast as the expedition had been traveling.

Confronted with this new information, the Turk admitted he had been trying to get the Spaniards lost instead of finding his home city of Quivera. The Turk would eventually pay for the deception with his life.

With supplies running short and chances of finding gold in Quivera slim, Coronado called his captains together for a tactical decision. It was agreed that the main column would split, with Coronado accompanied by 30 horsemen continuing to Quivera, and the rest returning to Tiquex.

Based on an account of the expedition written by one of Coronados captains, an 18th century Mexican historian, Mota Padilla, said those decisions were made on the day of the Feast of the Ascension, May 29, 1541. This feast, which included a Catholic Mass, can be considered Americas first Thanksgiving. Reports of the event indicate that the Mass was witnessed by Indians, who watched quietly in amazement.

It was really not the same kind of thanksgiving as we understand the term, Dr. Fred Rathjen, a West Texas A&M history professor, told the Herald in 1983. Its thanksgiving with a small t in the service of the (Catholic) church, but not in the sense of a national holiday. But it did happen, and it is significant.

The actual Mass was celebrated by Father Fray Juan De Padilla, O.F.M. Franciscan missionary, who later became the first martyr for Christianity in the United States and in Texas. The priest accompanied Coronado to Quivira, and later returned to the region where he worked toward civilizing and christianizing the Wichita and other Indian nations in the region of the Texas Panhandle. His martyrdom occurred in 1544.

Not long after the Mass and feast of thanksgiving, Coronado and his small band left for Quivera. Some accounts said he departed later that day, while others indicate that phase of his journey began on June 2. He soon found Quivira, a small poor settlement on the Arkansas River in central Kansas. As he now suspected, there was no gold. He visited with the natives a few days before rejoining the main column in Tiquex.

But before returning to Tiquex, the main column, under command of Tristan De Arellano, remained in Palo Duro Canyon for two weeks.

According to accounts cited by the late Eddie Guffee, former curator of Llano Estacado Museum, Arellanos army returned to Tiquex via the Running Water Draw, crossing just east of Plainview and traveling west.

From Tiquex, Coronados army walked back to Mexico without the gold it had sought, and with Coronados image and career permanently tarnished.

To comment:

dmcdonough@hearstnp.com

806.296.1353
Allseas

Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras has awarded a contract to Houston-based McDermott International Inc. to build the final leg of an offshore natural gas pipeline near Rio de Janiero.

McDermott said Tuesday that the oil field service company won an engineering, procurement, construction and installation for the final section of a natural gas pipeline supporting Petrobras' Rota 3 offshore project.
Walk around the house in your Sunday best, say your thanks, eat that turkey, check the time and see it's barely 3 p.m. Now what?

Before extended family members start asking questions and make you regret saying you were thankful for them, know that staying home is not your only option.
Just in time for Black Friday specials, a national consumer group is warning parents of potentially dangerous toys and gifts for kids.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group released its 33rd annual Trouble in Toyland report detailing hazardous and mislabeled toys, including concerns over tech items with recording devices.

No parent should have to worry about whether the toys they are purchasing are toxic or potentially harmful for their children, said Bay Scoggin, state director for the organizations Texas office, flanked by doctors at The Childrens Hospital of San Antonio and U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio.

As in prior years, balloons were a main concern. Balloons are the top cause of choking deaths from childrens products and most balloons sold on Amazon were not appropriately labeled as a choking hazard, Scoggin said.

RELATED: CDC tells grocers, food suppliers, home cooks: Get rid of romaine

The Childrens Hospital trauma doctors remove something from a childs throat about a once a week, said Dr. Ian Mitchell, medical director of the trauma program.

Recently, doctors there have treated toddlers who swallowed small batteries that became lodged in their esophagus, where they can damage tissue. The Childrens Hospital has seen four such cases in the past six weeks.

The difference between a button battery and a coin is the difference between a loaded gun and just a piece of metal, Mitchell said. A 2-centimeter button battery in the esophagus of a child will melt through it in just under two hours.

Its become such a national issue that hospitals have developed protocols specifically for such instances and treat them as a trauma, Mitchell said.

Around the holidays, doctors also see a spike in children rushed to the hospital for some sort of injury from playing with a toy, Mitchell said, likely because of more new toys and more people in the house for social gatherings, meaning less supervision of the kids.

The report also expressed major privacy concerns about increasingly popular toys embedded with Bluetooth devices and internet connectivity. Despite it being illegal, some toys record children and sell the data to marketers and other third-party retailers, Scoggin said.

These toys are toys that your children can interact with, which is such a neat thing that I wish I had had in my childhood, Scoggin said. Unfortunately, one of the things that is happening is the Bluetooth speakers are listening to the childrens information and gathering data on them.

Scoggin urged parents to research tech toys before buying them. A list of most privacy-invasive toys is compiled on www.toysafetytips.org.

More than 150 toys have been recalled as a result of the groups reports.

Last year, Target pulled the trendy fidget spinners from its stores after the groups report found they contained lead levels above federal regulations for childrens toys.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva
The University of Texas at San Antonio initiated a Title IX investigation into a sexual assault claim detailed in a social media posting and on flyers displayed at an off-campus apartment, according to a statement from university president Taylor Eighmy Tuesday afternoon.

Due to the potential magnitude of the situation, I have asked UT System to take charge of our investigation, and it has hired nationally-recognized independent law firm Ice Miller to comprehensively examine these allegations, Eighmy wrote. The investigation will take some time, but I have asked all involved to approach this work with the highest sense of urgency.

Eighmy did not provide any details about the sexual assault allegation.

RELATED: UTSA student says she exchanged apologies with prof who ousted her

He made a public plea for whoever posted the flyers to report the incident to the Office of Equal Opportunity Services or through the UTSA Hotline if they want to remain anonymous.

The flyers identify alleged perpetrators of sexual assault, Eighmy said. He did not say how many were named but said designated campus staff members will ensure those individuals receive due process.

The leaflets were discovered a day after others were posted in campus restrooms rebuking rape and abuse culture and calling for victims to be believed. That flyer did not describe a specific instance of abuse or rape, but said, We, the women of UTSA, are choosing to take a stand against the rampant sexual assault, and abuse on campus and in the world. They included an email address for victims to anonymously vent about their experiences.

Eighmy had praised the desire to raise awareness in a statement Tuesday morning. His statement announcing the investigation came in the afternoon, and reiterated zero tolerance of sexual assault.

As I stated in my previous communication, UTSA firmly and unequivocally condemns all forms of sexual violence and misconduct. These behaviors have no place at our university  under any circumstance, Eighmy wrote.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva
Editors Note: This story originally published in 2018.

Fifty-six years ago, San Antonio served as the backdrop for President John F. Kennedy's last full day alive.

On Nov. 21, 1963, JFK and First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis zipped through the Alamo City for a 2-hour and 25-minute tour before heading to Houston and then making the fateful trip to Dallas, where he was assassinated less than 24 hours later.

More than 100,000 people lined a 26-mile route through San Antonio, that passed through spots like the University of the Incarnate Word, named Incarnate Word College at the time, and Brooks Air Force Base.

The two-day Texas tour was an attempt to build support for his 1964 re-election.

RELATED: Rare photos show the hours leading up to and following the assassination of JFK

Those who were able to get close to the president gave the San Antonio Express-News a retelling of their experiences with him.

"It was, I'd say, the highlight of my life. All the air came out of it the next day," Walter Warren, then an Air Force policeman guarding a gate at Brooks AFB, where the president gave a stirring speech about space travel in his last official act, said in 2013 San Antonio Express-News interview.

In the documentary "Last Two Days, November 1963: 21-22," a video shows crowds greeting the polished first couple at the San Antonio International Airport and through downtown.

Portions of Kennedy's speech at the dedication ceremonies for the Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks AFB are also included in the documentary.

"[...] We do stand on the edge of a great new era," Kennedy said, not knowing he would die just hours later.

Experience the historic day in the video and gallery above.

Staff writer Scott Huddleston contributed to this report. | Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
The San Antonio woman who was arrested after she allegedly crashed down an embankment and onto train tracks early Monday was identified by police.

Amber Rodriguez, 25, was taken into custody after the crash on suspicion of intoxication assault.
AUSTIN  U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke baked scones the morning after he lost his high-profile bid for the U.S. Senate. Live-streaming from his kitchen in El Paso, ORourke told followers about his latest accomplishment.

Youre wondering what Im doing on all the free time I have now, he said, wearing a gray T-shirt he picked up on the campaign trail featuring the state flag along with a mustang, a rattlesnake and a wind mill, symbols of the city of Sweetwater. Baked goods. Baking therapy.

Dozens of political candidates across Texas are figuring out how to cope after losing tight races in the Nov. 6 election. Twenty-eight candidates were beaten by margins smaller than 5 percentage points. Many were Democrats edged out in some of the closest contests their party has seen in more than 20 years.

Now they are left to seek meaning in defeat.

There is a dirty rumor that any sort of grief should be cleaned up and wrapped up and put into a little present for others that [says], Im over this in a month or less. But really, grief takes much longer than that, said Becca Van Tassel, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical director at the Austin Center for Grief and Loss.

Grieving takes two main forms, she said. One is called intuitive and is characterized by open expression of emotion, such as crying in public. The other, more likely to be seen in politicians, is instrumental and is expressed through an activity. People who grieve in the instrumental mode tend to be problem-solvers who view loss as a challenge to overcome.

On ExpressNews.com: Democrat Beto ORourke exposed a blue spine across the middle of red Texas

They cant fix election results but they can make a meal for their family, Van Tassel said.

Cooking, knitting and craft projects help people cope because they involve following directions, and the project concludes with a tangible result, she said. Candidates may also tap into their support network, reconnect with people and spend time with family to build resilience, she said.

Resilience is the experience of making meaning of an adversary so that the event becomes a part of your story so you can continue on with your life. And I think thats where the work is going to be: How do you make meaning of this whole experience? Van Tassel said.

A little more than six months after her stinging defeat in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton said she spent time with her grandchildren, cleaned out her closets and took long walks in the woods.

I wont lie, Chardonnay helped a little, too, she said in a commencement speech at Wellesley College, where she graduated in 1969. But heres what helped most of all: remembering who I am, where I come from and what I believe.

Coming off the campaign trail has been an adjustment for Justin Nelson, an attorney and first-time candidate who spent long stretches of time on the campaign trail in a heated bid for Texas attorney general.

Nelson, a Democrat, lost to Republican incumbent Ken Paxton in an unexpectedly close contest. Nelson fell short by barely 300,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast, a margin of less than 4 percentage points.

Now, he is changing diapers and reading bedtime stories to his three young children.

Its this weird mix of being really disappointed you lost mixed with pride in how well you did and hope that you paved the way. Its a weird mix of emotions, Nelson said.

That was pretty nice to be back in the routine, Nelson added. Its very difficult to unplug completely.

Canning pear butter was part of Kim Olsons post-election therapy. The Democrat from Mineral Wells ran a long-shot campaign to unseat former rodeo cowboy Sid Miller as Texas agricultural commissioner. She lost by about 400,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast, a margin of less than 5 percentage points.

On ExpressNews.com: Women were the big winners in 2018 Texas midterms. Heres why.

Here is some sage advice if you are restless, Olson, a farmer and retired Air Force Colonel, wrote on Facebook. Find something simple to do: clean a closet, do a clothes purge, toss out of date spices, shred push cards or write thank you cards.

After one to three months, its time for a disappointed candidate to set a new goal, said Christopher Fagundes, an assistant psychology professor at Rice University.

When people dont have a goal that they can strive for, especially when theyve been real goal-oriented, thats when depression can kick in, he said.

But just like someone rebounding after a romantic breakup, candidates shouldnt rush their recovery, he said.

Olson is already looking ahead to her next political adventure. On what she called her post-election coping cruise, she talked on Facebook about watching a tugboat do its work.

Hes turning this big old ship around so we can get out of the channel, you know, kind of like those of us who ran for office. Sometimes it takes a little bit of a tugboat to turn a big ship like Texas around.

She added, Ill see you in 2020.
Democrats wont be able to do much policymaking over the next two years because of President Donald Trump and the Republican Senate. But they can use their House majority to do more than investigate Trump. Democrats can hold hearings and pass bills that make clear their partys vision for 2020 and beyond. They can figure out which ideas have the potential to improve peoples lives and win over voters.

One idea making the rounds is the elimination of all student debt. Major publications have published columns promoting the idea. Almost 20 House Democrats have signed on to a bill  written by Jared Polis, Colorados governor-elect  that would cancel all debt.

The allure is clear enough. Americans hold about $1.4 trillion in student debt. Eliminating it seems like the kind of bold, progressive idea that Democrats should embrace.

But its actually a bad idea. It is the sort of proposal  alluring but counterproductive  that Democrats should avoid as they build an agenda.

The fatal flaw of universal student-debt cancellation is that its not, in fact, progressive. It mostly benefits the upper middle class. Education debt, as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have written, is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off. The highest-earning quarter of the population holds about half of all student debt, according to Baum and Lee. Which means that universal student debt cancellation would be a giant welfare program for the bourgeoisie.

To be clear, student debt is a real problem. But its a complicated problem. Most people struggling to pay off their debts are not graduates of four-year colleges. They are instead nongraduates  people who attended college (often a for-profit college) but never received a degree. They have the worst of both worlds: debt and no degree.

Most graduates of four-year colleges, by contrast, are doing just fine. I know youve probably read stories about liberal arts college graduates who ran up enormous debts and now cant find decent work. But they are the rare exceptions.

For one thing, college graduates come disproportionately from higher-income families. Most of these families dont make enough to pay for college outright, so their children take out some loans. But the amounts are usually manageable, because most students attend public colleges and those who attend private colleges usually receive financial aid.

The average four-year college graduate who takes out loans ends up with less than $30,000 in debt. That typically translates into monthly payments of about $300  or about 7 percent of the starting salary of a brand-new college graduate (which is more than $50,000 a year). Over time, this percentage declines, as the graduate receives raises. No wonder the overwhelming majority of college graduates repay their loans on time.

I happen to have been an example  of a college graduate who did not deserve to have his loans forgiven. I grew up in a middle-class family that was doing fine but needed financial aid. My dad worked as a high school teacher, and my mom worked at a local college. I went to Yale University with the help of extended family members who pitched in, a scholarship and student loans. In todays dollars, I graduated with about $22,000 in debt.

And I certainly did not enjoy repaying it. It was a meaningful amount of money for a young journalist. If some politician had suggested canceling my debt, I might have signed on to the movement.

But it would have been a silly movement, one that conflated the real struggles of poor and working-class young adults with the mild discomforts of the professional class. The same is true today. A recent Brookings Institution study by Judith Scott-Clayton found that the loan-default rate for borrowers with a bachelors degree was less than 8 percent. The default rate for borrowers without any degree was a miserable 40 percent.

I know that some four-year college graduates really are struggling. But this country has too many big problems to start showering the upper-middle-class with enormous government benefits.

The right approach is a debt-forgiveness program that helps families who really need it. People whose income is below a certain threshold should have some of their debt forgiven (expanding the income-based repayment programs that already exist). And federal financial aid should expand, too, with a focus on poor, working-class and truly middle-class families.

Congressional Republicans, unfortunately, have shown no interest in these issues. Now that Democrats have the House, lets see what they can come up with.
President Donald Trump is flirting with idea of family separation 2.0 as a way to deter Central American asylum-seekers from entering this country.

As with this administrations first attempt at separating families at the border, this new approach would be a draconian mistake.

It would be yet another stain on our moral authority compounded by the failure to address the root causes of why so many Central American families are seeking asylum here.

If our best response to a humanitarian crisis is to force families to choose either long-term detention or long-term separation, then we have already failed ourselves and our neighbors.

Distressed by the sight of the migrant caravan heading northward from Honduras and into Mexico, and frustrated by a surge in family detentions at the U.S.-Mexico border, some officials in the Trump administration have revived the idea of family separation.

The president has expressed openness to it, particularly as a political wedge during the recent election. He heralded it as a great midterm issue for Republicans, rather than seeing it as a humanitarian crisis in need of American intervention and assistance.

This version of family separation would be cleaner. No kids alone in cages, calling for their mothers. But make no mistake, it would be just as cruel.

Families would be detained together for 20 days, after which parents would face a binary choice: Either stay together in detention for months, if not years, or have children placed with relatives as these cases unfold.

Its legally dubious and a clear attempt to circumvent the Flores Settlement, which says children cant be held in immigration detention centers for more than 20 days and must be released to the least restrictive environments possible.

This is not, as administration officials characterize it, a matter of voluntary separation. It is as voluntary as handing over your wallet during an armed robbery.

Border Patrol agents arrested more than 16,000 families at the U.S.-Mexico border in September, and there has been a surge of migrant parents and children since Trump rescinded his first attempt at family separation.

Some administration officials have said this second version of family separation would send a clear signal to asylum-seekers from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. This surge in the apprehension of families has occurred at a time when overall apprehensions are historically low. A better way would address the underlying reasons so many Central Americans are fleeing their countries.

These families, by and large, are fleeing persecution and death in what are, generally, failed states plagued by gang violence. If the choice is to have ones kids risk death by gang violence or make a perilous northward journey to the most prosperous country the world has ever known, well, its easy to see why families would choose to seek asylum or even risk separation.

There are better ways  families released into the community pending adjudication, perhaps with ankle bracelets for the adults.

Understandably, the surge in families heading northward should be a concern of federal officials. The reasons these families come are patently obvious. But separating those families who do make it to our border is not a solution. It would only be another self-created crisis.

If our best solution is separating kids and parents indefinitely, then we do not understand the problem.
A NUST student became violent in court and prison officers had to hold him down as he began spitting and laughing while continuously interrupting the magistrate.

Tavonga Chandonzi (19) appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Adelaide Mbeure facing an unlawful entry charge.

Officials held him by his arms as he laughed like a deranged person while the magistrate was talking.

Chandonzi was represented by Mr Garry Sengweni of the Sengweni Legal Practice firm who asked the magistrate to remand him out of custody so he may be treated for an undisclosed ailment in Harare where his family is based.

Mrs Mbeure remanded him out of custody on free bail.

The court heard Chandonzi is a Structural Engineering student who resides in Selborne Park.

Mr Mufaro Mageza for the State said on Friday last week Chandonzi sneaked into a fellow students room and tried to steal a cellphone and laptops.

The complainant and other students residing at the same house went to peep through the window to check what he was doing. They saw him trying to unlock their laptops and a cell phone. He failed and shouted that the owner(s) should come and get their things. He gave the complainant her phone through the window he said.

While he was locked inside, the landlord went on to report the matter to the police leading to his arrest, the court heard.

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Movement for Democratic Change member, Paddington Japajapa has nailed the Zimbabwe National Army for the death of six civilians on the 1st of August following protests in the central business district of Harare.

Making his submissions at the Commission of Inquiry into the post election violence, Japajapa said he followed the army during their CBD operations and saw soldiers shooting randomly at civilians walking in the streets of Harare.

I never saw any people demonstrating, what I saw was the Zimbabwe National Army shooting randomly at civilians who were walking in the streets of Harare Japa Japa told the Commission.

He added that the deployment of soldiers to quell protests was unnecessary as it was like using a 30 pounds hammer to kill a mosquito further calling for the amendment of the constitution to avoid a repeat of the 1st of August disturbances from happening again.

Japajapa said a police officer who was manning the Zanu PF Harare provincial offices shot a dreadlocked vendor.

It was unnecessary for the military to be called in to quell protesters , it was like taking a 30 pounds hammer to kill a mosquito

A police manning Zanu PF provincial offices shot a vendor who was in dreadlocks, he added.

The constitution must be amended to avoid military deployment to deal with civilians unless the country is in a war, said Japajapa.

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The ugly fights emerging within the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) are weakening President Emmerson Mnangagwas power base since ex-combatants played a key role in his ascendance to the throne.

While it was the Zimbabwe Defence Forces which orchestrated Mnangagwas rise to power through a soft coup in November last year, it was the war veterans  through ZNLWVA  who did the groundwork under the leadership of the now under-fire Chris Mutsvangwa. They were Mnangagwas foot soldiers fighting in his corner until he entered State House.

The former liberation war fighters have, however, been exchanging harsh words with informed sources confiding in the Daily News that the simmering tensions were over resources.

A source within the association revealed that there were substantial donations that were pumped into ZNLWVA towards the removal of former president Robert Mugabe, but these did not reach all the war veterans, hence the infighting.

If you look at most of the war veterans, they are poor and only a few benefited from the donations, the source said.

The associations secretary-general and deputy minister of Defence Victor Matemadanda recently tore into Mutsvangwa, who has been highly critical of alleged cartels that he says now control Mnangagwas government.

Yesterday, Matemadanda referred questions to the ZNLWVA spokesperson Douglas Mahiya who feigned unity in the ex-combatants camp.

But the real picture is different.

Analysts canvassed by the Daily News said Mnangagwas power base is now being denuded by the ugly fights gnawing at the heart of the party, however behind the scenes.

Professor of World Politics at the London School of Oriental and African Studies Stephen Chan said the divisions among the war veterans over resources were a mirror of the structural imbalances in the country.

Such quarrels will widen and deepen as the money supply becomes less and less. The veterans are only one aspect of a nationwide phenomenon of lack of fiscal confidence, said Chan.

Concentrating on one aspect of the political power struggle once again  its like a Zimbabwean disease  detracts from the hard task of making very hard decisions: basically how to grapple with the acute austerity demanded by any IMF rescue programme. Zimbabweans will not have seen anything like that before, he added.

Politically, analysts said the war veterans squabbles are also a reflection of the deep rooted divisions in the high offices, and Mnangagwa has to revive the economy otherwise his militant rivals will have an upper hand.

A fortnight ago, the usually bellicose war veterans had a meeting with Mnangagwa demanding the heads of several Zanu PF bigwigs who also stand accused of having abused funds in the removal of Mugabe.

Political analyst Maxwell Saungweme said while the war veterans did a great job and fought the liberation struggle, their influence, particularly the few very political ones, now is overstated.

So many things have changed since the war and Mugabes first 30 years in power. Now the war vets are no longer a very influential constituency due to many factors including old age, involvement in plunder of national resources under Mugabe and their political partisanship, he said.

Mnangagwa can do without them. To ward off (competition from within his party), Mnangagwa needs the army, youth, women and sections of the opposition and civil society than he needs the war vets. The easiest way of warding off (internal rivals) is to resuscitate the economy and open the democratic space. If he did so, Mnangagwa will get support enough from Zimbabweans to silence the militant (rivals), said Saungweme.

However, Namibia-based academic and scholar Admire Mare said Mnangagwa has every reason to fear from the ructions in the war veterans camp.

He said the cracks and crevices manifesting within the war vets association are not essentially new but they have always resurfaced, especially after elections.

I wouldnt say the influence of war vets is overstated within the party but I think we are seeing the realignment of interests and political camps. These are individual fights for recognition within the party structures in the post-Mugabe political order.

The extent to which it can affect the sitting president depends on a number of endogenous and exogenous factors. But my reading of it is that there is need to nip them in the bud. I wont be surprised if the president calls for a war vets indaba to address their grievances, said Mare.

While a few war veterans live decent lives, the majority live on the economic fringes even though they still command reasonable influence within their communities.

Mugabe tried on several occasions to engage the garrulous war veterans but he failed to capture the leadership that had already taken a stand to support Mnangagwa.

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FIVE months following a deadly explosion at a Zanu PF rally addressed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa at Bulawayos White City Stadium which killed two security agents and injured 49, including Vice-President Kembo Mohadi, the trail appears to have gone cold.

In addition to Mohadi, Zanu PF chairperson Oppah Muchinguri, Vice-President Constantino Chiwengas wife Marry, Zanu PF political commissar Engelbert Rugeje and womens league secretary Mabel Chinomona were among the injured.

That there has been no meaningful arrests is a matter of public record and that nobody has been formally charged for the bombings which targeted the President and his deputies, five months down the line the case has not been closed and the nation is in the dark as to what really happened, a source within the police said.

The source also said the police were not really aware of what was happening as evidence, including debris collected at the scene, was taken by the army.

Mnangagwa soon after the general elections, had warned that investigations were at an advanced stage and arrests would be made soon after his inauguration, but nothing has happened yet.

We now have the knowledge on who did it. We want the current (electoral) processes to pass then we will deal with that matter. But we want to thank God that he (Mohadi) is here with us today otherwise we could have died together in Bulawayo in that incident, Mnangagwa said while addressing Zanu PF new legislators on August 10.

Police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba could not give any updates on the investigations, saying she could not get in touch with the officers handling the investigations.

I have to talk to the people who are handling the investigations on the ground and at the moment they are not answering their phones. Once I get hold of them, I will call you, she said.

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Due to the considerable amount of political thrashing around on Brexit, well attempt to keep this post to a few potentially important items. I hope readers will as usual pipe up in comments with reactions and additional sightings.

The most disheartening aspect is that the UK press and pols seem to be as clueless as the Tories have been and continue to be from the outset of the Brexit process. They appear unwilling to accept that the UK has had very little bargaining leverage, and the fact that the EU is governed by treaties also limits how much latitude it has.

Just as it proved difficult to dislodge the Governments fantasy that the UK would get a special, bespoke, close deal that would let it have frictionless trade with few obligations, so too are those who oppose the deal coming up with either remedies or ways out that are delusional. For instance, former Brexit minister David Davis wrote on Monday:

It does not have to be like this. What we need now is leadership and the courage and confidence to deliver for the UK. We can deliver an honest and clean Brexit, leaving all the possibilities such as global free trade deals open for bright future. If we need to leave with no deal and negotiate a free trade agreement during the transition period, so be it. Lets be clear and honest and tell the EU thats what we are prepared to do.

Um, if theres no deal, theres no transition period.

A related vein from Tories is that they are pushing May to improve the terms of the deal, when Barnier is striving to treat the draft agreement as settled. Barnier is already having trouble containing demands from the EU side. From the Financial Times:

France is leading a push for uncompromising EU declarations to accompany any Brexit deal with Theresa May, raising demands that would further complicate the UK prime ministers efforts to win Westminsters backing for the withdrawal agreement The EU statements, known as side declarations, are commonly used by the bloc in difficult negotiations. While they are outside any formal agreement, their aim is to manage expectations by clarifying the EUs internal interpretation of any deal In a sign of the obstacles facing Mrs May, who needs to push through the eventual deal through a deeply sceptical House of Commons, France and Spain are championing the idea of separate EU statements, according to several diplomats from the bloc. These would set out the EU blocs red lines more clearly than in the formal political declaration.

The hot topics are fishing rights. level playing field, provisions, and Gibraltar, where what was depicted as a deal between Spain and the UK fell apart. Spain now wants a formal commitment that the Withdrawal Agreement does not prejudge Gibraltars position.

Another can of worms has been opened by the Governments procedural loss on the question of amendments. MPs will be able to propose and vote on amendments to the withdrawal bill. We expect at least two to be debated seriously and to have the potential to be passed. One is to condition approval on a second referendum, the other is the so-far not clearly defined Kier Starmer no no deal scheme.

Quite a few people who should know better are pushing for a second referendum. As weve described, theres no way for it to be completed before the March 29 drop dead date and the EU has never indicated any willingness to postpone Brexit to allow for one. Clive saw way too much of this sort of thing over the weekend:

Ive been watching the Sunday political slots right across the MSM this morning. Honestly you would have not believed there could be such an outpouring of gibberish. Just be glad youre not here, thats all Ill say. The entire political establishment is going on one, giant, collaborative, unicorn hunt. I could supply link after link of this, what I can only describe as the madness of crowds, but televised. Ill settle for this little peach from Conservative ultra-pro-EU grandee Michael Heseltine. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/18/it-is-time-for-a-second-referendum-brexit-michael-heseltine He saves his best words til last: The government now faces uncomfortable choices. There is no rational argument that sees the Brexit deal passing through the Commons. Every day that it takes the government to recognise this increases the risk of no deal. I do not believe that the Commons will allow this devastating consequence to arise. Two things have to happen. A cross-party alliance has to vote for an alternative option  the most obvious is to put the issue back to the British people in a second referendum. The Europeans have to agree  and I think they would  to move the March 2019 deadline to allow time for this. (my emphasis) No, luvvie, they dont. And they wont. Then only positive I can draw is that it has finally been exposed how the entire U.K. political elite (both in the various parties and the credentialed access-journalism media) for Leave and Remain have not got the faintest idea how the EU works and how the U.K. can  and cant  interact with it. The Remain ultras are showing themselves to be every bit as bad as the Leave ultras. Theres enough cakeism to fill the next five seasons of the Great British Bake Off.

Similarly, if someone has figured out what Labours shadow Brexit minister Kier Starmer is cooking up, please clue me in. I cant make sense of this Guardian report:

Labour is planning to force a Commons vote within weeks that would make it impossible for Britain to crash out of the European Union without a deal, as fears grow about a disastrous hard Brexit if parliament rejects Theresa Mays agreement. Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, is working on plans to amend key elements of Brexit legislation that still have to pass through the Commons, in order to prevent parliament ever approving the option. Starmer told the Observer that Labour would make sure parliament offered a legislative route to make no deal impossible. If the prime ministers deal is rejected  and thats looking increasingly likely  parliament will not just sit back and allow her to proceed with no deal, he said. There are plenty of Conservative MPs who have come up to me to say that they will not countenance the UK crashing out of the EU without an agreement. There is a clear majority in parliament against no deal, and Labour will work across the Commons to prevent no deal. On the governments own analysis, over 50 changes to legislation would be needed for a no-deal outcome, so there will be no shortage of opportunities to pass binding votes on this issue.

Huh? The UK can diddle with its legislation all it wants. Unless it rescinds its Article 50 notice, it will crash out without a Withdrawal Agreement.

What does it take to do that? Clive had a stab at that too:

The EU will require the revocation instruction to be made in line with the constitutional requirements of the Member State (or some such wording). What, exactly, will those constitutional requirements be? Either: The UK government alone can simply say (e.g. via a Cabinet decision) it want to issue the revocation  it wont need a parliamentary vote to do so and can make the notification via executive action (equivalent)  the UK Prime Minister make the notification to the Council. Or: Parliamentary approval is required I would say its more likely to be the former than the latter, but ultimately itll go to the UKSC to make a ruling, if the UK government does decide it wont need to go via Parliament. So thats all fine, then isnt it? No. Theres still the small matter of the legally binding fixed leaving date which was added to the EU Withdrawal Bill https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-public-bill-office/2017-19/compared-bills/EU-(Withdrawal)-Bill-tracked-changes-since-introduction.pdf with the hard-coded exit day or 29th March 2019. This must be repealed regardless of whether the EU decides to (is forced to) accept the revocation for the triggering of A50 following the (as were are assuming for the purposes of this exercise) Opinion permitting this action being given by the CJEU. Recall that the UK leaving the EU is a two-sided process. The UK can legally leave the EU and the EU is powerless to stop it. The EU can determine that, following the provisions in A50, a Member State has legally left the EU and the UK is powerless to stop it. In order to halt leaving altogether, both limbs of any revocation of A50 must be in place. The EU must have had its legal position changed (by the new, assumed, mechanism which the CJEU Opinion might enable) and the UK must have had its legal position changed (by repealing the 2018 EU (Withdrawal) Bill). Failure to have both limbs in place will, using the most polite language about it, not result in legal certainty. The EU could still, legally, have to regard the UK as being a Member State (as it considers A50 rescinded and the UK having re-acceded  or alternately not left at all, I wont split the hair on that one) but the UK, with that pesky 2018 EU (Withdrawal) Bill still UK law, would consider itself to have left.

Another issue is that the EU will simply reject any amendments; that is certainly Barniers body language. So what happens if a referendum amendment or Starmers clever add-ons get nixed by the EU? Or if the Government gets them stripped out on that basis? Again a take from Clive:

Itll all be down to amendments. Here it would need a constitutional layer to give an accurate opinion because UK legislation and parliamentary procedures are very obtuse. But I think theres real doubt that the clerk to the commons would accept an amendment which says, in effect, you have to have a referendum on this bill becoming law. Parliamentary procedures are designed to stop an amendment which creates a condition that might not happen (such as the UK government having to both bring forward new primary legislation, which might not get passed  such as a referendum  and then that referendum concluding in a way which supports the bill being voted on) being attached to a bill. Parliament can only conclude a bill in a way which creates legal certainty. In effect, a bill can only be passed if, as a result of that bill, the courts can look at that bill and say, without any ambiguity this is the law, this is what the law says. You couldnt have the Withdrawal Agreement pass through Parliament  whereupon it becomes law  but then have everyone (including the courts, both UK domestic and others such as the CJEU) have to then say to themselves ah, well, maybe not, well have to wait for the referendum result, whenever that is, whatever questions are on it, to know what the UKs legal position in in respect of the EU. I imagine the UK governments chief whips office is going through all this now. Just because Parliament is sovereign, it doesnt mean it can act like a constitutional equivalent of a drunk in a bar.

But even if the Government is legally correct to nix these amendments, can you imagine the backlash? The press is treating all sorts of barmy ideas as serious, and if May refuses to let them be heard, the MPs will take it out against the bill (as in vote it down clean) and against her (Labour has threatened a vote of no confidence if the bill fails to pass; it takes a higher number of votes to pass if the motion of no confidence does not come from the ruling party).

To make things more fun, Nicola Sturgeon is working against Mays deal, but with the same bad ideas that are circulating. From Politico:

Pro-EU Conservative MPs can be part of a cross-party coalition against Theresa Mays Brexit deal, and against a no-deal exit, Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Tuesday. Sturgeon was speaking in Westminster following talks with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the U.K.s opposition Labour party. Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party is the third largest party in the House of Commons, said those opposed to the binary choice of Mays deal or no deal should unite behind a single alternative strategy  and that Conservative MPs have a role to play in the interests of building a coalition in Westminster. The next stage of these discussions has to then look at what option can the opposition coalesce around, Sturgeon said, adding that options included a second referendum, a permanent customs union and single market arrangement.

And the Ultras are looking like yesterdays news, having not made good on their threat of a vote of no confidence. However, at least for some of them, the failure to send in the required letters may instead have been because they knew theyd lose, which would mean May could not be challenged for another year. The more opportune time would be if/when the Brexit bill fails to pass. So then well see if the Ultras were all bark, no bite, or if they managed to muster a tiny bit of discipline when it mattered.
By George Washington. Originally published on Washingtons Blog

Preface: Our approach is to build bridges in the climate debate (see the postscript, below). But one of our duties as investigative journalists is to debunk unscientific claims, from whichever side they come from. This article helps to debunk one particular recent claim about global cooling.

Numerous websites have claimed that a new scientific paper by a high-level NASA scientist proves that the Earth is entering into a planetary cooling period.

Specifically, the paper says that reduced solar activity will likely lead to a substantial cooling in the Earths thermosphere  a layer of the atmosphere high above the Earth.

Should run out and buy warmer clothes?

Even though I studied environmental science at a good university as an undergraduate, I had no idea whether a cooling thermosphere would mean:

(1) It will get cooler down here on the surface of the Earth (the bottom portion of the atmospheric layer called the troposphere)

(2) There is no correlation

or

(3) As one wannabe expert proclaimed on the Internet, a cooler thermosphere will lead to a warmer climate on the surface

So Washingtons Blog asked one of the co-authors of the study, Dr. James Russell to help us understand what the study means 

Russell is a Professor of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and Co-Director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University in Virginia. He received his PhD in aeronomy  the physics and chemistry of the upper atmosphere of planets  from the University of Michigan, and served as head of the Chemistry and Dynamics Branch and the Theoretical Studies Branch in the NASA Langley Atmospheric Sciences Division.

Dr. Russell told us:

My short answer is the cooling effects we are seeing in Earths thermosphere are a result of the current solar minimum conditions. The thermosphere is the layer of Earths atmosphere 65 miles above Earths surface and is highly sensitive to solar activity. There is no relationship between the natural cycle of cooling and warming in the thermosphere and the weather/climate at Earths surface. I hope this helps clear up this serious misunderstanding. The recently published findings from analysis of SABER data by Mlynczak et al. (2018) do not imply there is a problem with global warming observations at the earth surface. There is no connection between the thermospheric and ground level observational results.

Postscript: Many who are worried about global warming are promoting actions that actually may do more harm than good:

For my ideas on common ground on climate, please see:
Dont be a turkey: Keep grease out of sinks, wipes out of sewer pipes Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (Chuck L)

These animals eat absurd amounts of food National Geographic (David L)

Garfield the tomcat has a lucky escape The Nation Thailand (furzy). This is the sort of thing that would normally be a story only in a very small town..

The microscopic structure of a cats tongue helps keep its fur clean Economist (David L)

Spider silk is five times stronger than steelnow, scientists know why Science (David L)

Huge waterspout hits Italys south-western city BBC (David L)

The Genius Neuroscientist Who Might Hold the Key to True AI Wired (UserFriendly)

U.S. judge selects first case in federal Monsanto weed-killer litigation Reuters (David L)

Widely used reference for the human genome is missing 300 million bits of DNA MedicalXpress (Robert M)

Insulin shortage could affect 40 million people with type 2 diabetes Guardian (Kevin W)

Young People Are Having Less Sex Atlantic (UserFriendly)

Worlds first full-body medical scanner generates astonishing 3D images New Atlas (David L)

A Molecular Mechanism for Alcoholism? Science Magazine

Romaine lettuce is not safe to eat, CDC warns U.S. consumers Washington Post (J-LS) Says a lot about the US that they cant isolate this even a bit.

Anti-vaccination stronghold in N.C. hit with states worst chickenpox outbreak in 2 decades Washington Post (Kevin W)

China?

How The New York Times Deceived the Public on North Korea Nation (resilc). From last week, still germane.

From Politicos morning newsletter yesterday:

FRESH EURO NUMBERS: Three out of four Europeans see the euro as a good thing for the EU as a whole, according to an annual Eurobarometer survey previewed by Playbook. That, for the second year running, is the highest proportion since people started using the EUs cash. The highest good mentions for the euro overall come from Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Spain  all above or equal 80 percent. The least convinced are the citizens of Cyprus, Italy, Belgium and France  but theres still a majority in favor of the common currency in all 19 countries. Good for my country? The survey polled 17,000 or so people in eurozone countries. Sixty-four percent of them said the common currency is good for their nation. The biggest surprise and biggest change from 2017? Fifty-seven percent of Italians think the euro is a good thing for Italy  up a substantive 12 percentage points. Heres the most telling chart from the survey

Italy Orders Seizure of Migrant Rescue Ship New York Times (Kevin W)

Brexit

New Cold War

Russia, West clash over chemical arms watchdogs new powers AFP. Kevin W: This is going to cause some serious trouble.

Syraqistan

Syria  Back In The Arab Fold Moon of Alabama Saudi official hints at Qatar-canal announcement The National. UserFriendly: lol this is what it looks like when a spoiled brat throws a temper tantrum while he just so happens to be crown prince.

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Gift Guide: Black Friday tech deals that are actually pretty good TechCrunch. EM: Our advice? Stay inside and shop online where you can, be aware that most of the best deals are stocked in hilariously low quantities and dont be stubborn and buy some no-name Android tablet just because the sign says its 80 percent off and, well, theyre out of the TV you wanted anyway. My advice? Stay away from the boatload of spyware gadgetry featured in this TechCrunch piece. An actual TV deal would have been a refreshing outlier here. If I didnt  cough  know better, Id surmise that TechCrunch is getting paid by the likes of Amazon to push the latters line of spyware products. Microsofts Office 365 outage is a big backwards step for security Wired (David L)

Trump Transition

The Hitlergate Hearings Consent Factory, Inc. UserFriendly: ROFL

Californias expensive race for schools chief is over as Tony Thurmond defeats Marshall Tuck Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times (EM). From a few days back but still important.

California Burning

U.S. Coast Guard orders energy company to clean up massive 14-year-long oil spill in Gulf of Mexico or face $40,000-a-day fine Washington Post (David L)

Gunz

Fake News

Mr. Market Has a Sad

Subprime Rises: Credit Card Delinquencies Blow Through Financial-Crisis Peak at the 4,705 Smaller US Banks Wolf Street. EM:

In other words, the overall banking system is not at risk, the megabanks are not at risk, and no bailouts are needed. But the most vulnerable consumers  well get to why they may end up at smaller banks  are falling apart  The real problem with credit cards isnt the banks  credit card debt is not big enough to topple the US banking system. Its the consumers, and what it says about the health of consumers. The analysis of Wells Fargos cost of funding was interesting  average cost of funding $1.73 trillion in loans was a mere 0.87%.

New York City subway and bus services have entered death spiral, experts say Guardian. So depressing.

Airlines face crack down on use of exploitative algorithm that splits up families on flights Independent

Apple Co-Founder Claims Self-driving Isnt Realistic, Sick of Lies The Truth About Cars (Randy K)

Principles for Dummies American Affairs (Scott). Ray Dalio takedown.

SEC sends a message: ICOs are securities offerings Yahoo (EM)

Class Warfare

Antidote du jour. Stephanie: This is my cat Leo, I caught him in the middle of his bath!!! And he was REALLY enjoying his bath!!!

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will travel to Rome and Naples from Thursday, 22 November to Friday, 23 November 2018.

On Thursday, 22 November in Rome, Mr. Stoltenberg will participate in a panel discussion at the Mediterranean Dialogues Conference on Daesh/ISIS: The Day-After. Countering a new wave of violent extremism. The panel discussion will include a Q&A session.

In the margins of the Conference, the Secretary General will also have bilateral discussions with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, H.E. Mr. Enzo Moavero Milanesi, with the Minister of Defence, Ms. Elisabetta Trenta and other senior ministers.

On Friday, 23 November, Mr. Stoltenberg will visit the Headquarters of Allied Joint Force Command (JFC) in Naples. He will be welcomed by Admiral James G. Foggo. The Secretary General will make a tour of the Regional Hub for the South in JFC Naples.

Photographs and video will be available on the NATO website after the event.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg).
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain to NATO Headquarters on Wednesday (21 November 2018). The Secretary General and His Majesty laid a wreath at the Monument in Memory of the Fallen, and then participated in a meeting of the North Atlantic Council. Opening the meeting, the Secretary General said: in 1982, NATO, an Alliance based on democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law, welcomed Spain as a member. Mr. Stoltenberg praised Spain for its many contributions to the Alliance, on land, at sea, and in the air. He particularly thanked Spain for its contributions to training local forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, which helps to suppress international terrorism.

Read the remarks by the NATO Secretary General and by His Majesty the King of Spain here.
(As delivered)

Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Welcome, Your Majesty. On behalf of the North Atlantic Council it is a great pleasure and honour to welcome you here to the new NATO Headquarters. In 1982 NATO, an alliance based on democracy, individual liberty, and the judicial law welcomed Spain as a member. NATO keeps Spanish citizens secure and Spain is committed and highly-valued NATO Ally.

Spains voice is valued around this table where we take key decisions for our security. Your troops are part of our battle group in Latvia. Spanish jets help police Allied airspace over the Baltics. You host missile defence ships in Rota and your Patriot battery in Turkey helps protect against missile threats form Syria. Spanish troops also play an important role in the fight against terrorism between Afghan forces so they can build the conditions for peace and they train Iraqi forces to defuse improvised explosive devices and to ensure ISIL does not come back. Our work to stabilise partners and our cooperation with the European Union in the Mediterranean can also help alleviate the refugee and migrant crisis.

And so, we thank you for your countrys active role in this Alliance and, once again, it is a pleasure to welcome and then to give you the floor, Your Majesty. So, please welcome.

His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain: Mr Secretary General, Ambassadors, Minister  first of all, allow me to thank you Secretary General for your kind words regarding myself and Spain. It is a real pleasure to be back since 2002. Then as Crown Prince and now to the new headquarters as King of Spain. And thank you also for the opportunity to address todays session of the North Atlantic Council; it is indeed a great honour. So, this is my first visit to the new headquarters that were inaugurated just a few months ago. It surely represents in the best way possible, not only the enduring importance of the Alliance but also its ability and our common will and need to adapt to new times and new challenges. Mr Secretary General, Ambassadors - next year we will all celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Washington Treaty. Together we will celebrate 70 years of commitment  70 years of unity and the defence of our shared values. But, these values and principles are not 70 years of age. No, they are very much older than this great Alliance. They are the same values and principles that inspired the founding fathers of the United States when they wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They are the same values and principles that inspired the members of Frances National Constituent Assembly when they wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Other Citizens in 1789. And they are the same values and principles that inspired the authors of Spains first constitution in 1812 - the Constitution of Cadiz. These same values and principles are, of course, today contained in Spains present constitution. Of which we are celebrating its 40th Anniversary in just a few days on the 6th December. This constitution not only established an advanced democratic, plural framework of freedom and rule of law for all the people of Spain, but it also enabled Spain to once again be fully part of the international community. Indeed, without the constitution of 1978 Spain would not have become a member of this organisation in 1982, or a member of the European Union in 1986.

Over the course of the 70-year history that we will shortly commemorate, the Alliance has proven its capacity to effectively respond to any challenges and threats to global security; adapting to shifting, historical-induced strategic circumstances. All aimed at guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the Allies and protecting the democratic values that are at the very foundation of our modern societies. This path of success is built on two higher values that define the Alliance present. And will define its future: the importance of unity and the essential nature of the transatlantic relationship. This second value  this essential nature - and I am sure I will pull some smiles from you now - pre-dates 1949 and is in fact much older. It was forged 457 years ago before the Washington Treaty. Because it was in 1492 when the Spanish Crown discovered the new world to the old world when the idea of fraternal unity between the two shores of the Atlantic began to take shape. A unity that we continue to defend in these halls. Mr Secretary General, Ambassadors  it is clear that in todays world NATO is facing a complex strategic environment combining a myriad of threats. Resurgence of old and familiar ones and emergence of new dangers. Hybrid threats that combine convention and unconventional domains and which have enormous potential for destabilisation; or cyber-attacks and misinformation campaigns, which in using new technology are more subtle and covert and, therefore, more difficult to contain but can indeed dramatically affect our day-to-day lives. These challenges are sometimes global and are changing the security paradigms. As in the case of international terrorism whose brutality we all sadly know, and Spain particularly. And which we must always fight together if we are to be effective. Mr Secretary General, Ambassadors  since joining NATO in 1982 Spain has demonstrated its sincere active commitment to the Alliance, an alliance that plays a key role in maintaining international peace and security. In accordance with the purposes and principles set down in Chapter One of the United Nations Charter. My country has a unique geostrategic position between Africa and Europe and America  between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Between the north and the south. Which makes Spain both a border and a bridge between countries and cultures with a singular profile in terms of global security. Respect for international law and for a fair, inclusive and effective global governance supported by our dedication to multilateralism are the pillars of Spains commitment to the international order and to maintaining international peace and security. Spain firmly believes in preventive diplomacy, in peaceful solutions to international disputes and in dialogue as a means of easing and even resolving conflicts. It is with this conviction in mind that Spain actively contributes to the Alliances political and military endeavours. At present there are approximately 3,000 men and women from Spains armed forces deployed abroad on NATO missions and on EU, UN and national missions. All clearly reflecting Spains determination to be an unwavering, steadfast ally. Men and women from our army, our navy and our air force, as well as our civil guard, have served or are serving in NATO actions, missions and operations. They have served on land in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and Latvia. They have served in the skies over the Baltics and over Libya. They have served on the borders of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. Wherever NATO is, or has been, Spanish troops have also been present. That is our commitment, that is our hallmark. As a strongly committed member of both NATO and the EU, Spain supports an ambitious European defence, a defence that increases our effectiveness in addressing the crises that affect our own security and that contributes to a better distribution of responsibilities between the two sides of the Atlantic. Europe can and must assume greater responsibility for our common defence and security. All of this in harmony with NATO as part of this commitment to strengthening Europes security. Spain has the firm conviction that strong transatlantic ties must be maintained. Transatlantic solidarity and cohesion are fundamental. Their absence or weakening: a huge risk to world peace and stability. Spain has defended collaboration between the two organisations focusing on the complementary and clear synergies that exist between them both. And on avoiding unnecessary overlaps and duplications. We welcome the unprecedented levels of cooperation achieved between the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union in recent years. The declarations signed in Warsaw and Brussels are indisputable proof of this; and please allow me, Mr Secretary General, to thank you for your personal involvement and dedication to achieving these advantages, which my country truly appreciates.

Cooperating with EU and with other international organisations such as the UN, the OSCE and the African Union is crucial to our security. Doing so, with our partners -above all those that are strategically close - with the aim or projecting stability is the best way to guarantee our own security. Therefore, the Alliance must continue to play an important role in the south. A region that is of particular interest to us and in which some of the security challenges that most concern us are perhaps concentrated. It must do so through political dialogue and practical cooperation with our Mediterranean partners. As well as through the missions deployed - like in Afghanistan and Iraq in which Spain is an active participant. Security and peace in Europe are directly linked to greater stability in the Mediterranean region where cooperation between NATO and the European Union is increasingly necessary, offering more and more possibilities for synergies. I would also like to speak about Spains commitment to women, peace and security  a matter that I understand will be discussed by the Council after this meeting has ended. Spain has been spearheading initiatives at the international level and promoting womens increased participation in conflict prevention and peace-building. Combating violations and abuses of their freedoms and dignity. With a conviction that gender inequality is yet another threat to international peace and security. We must all take on greater responsibility for effectively applying the regulatory framework we have helped to shape. The role of NATO is also fundamental in this area.

Mr Secretary General, Ambassadors  I would also like on this occasion to honour all those who have given their lives during NATO operations and missions, to uphold our shared values. We must never forget their exemplary dedication and sacrifice, which must guide us always in our daily work. To conclude, I wish to emphasise the concept of commitment  a word that defines this Alliance like no other. To emphasise NATOs commitment to the values and principles that define us as free societies, and also to emphasise Spains steadfast commitment to this Alliance, an alliance that will soon have stood for 70 years. May the next seven decades be equally full of success in defending freedom and democracy. I, for one, am sure that they will. Thank you all very much.

Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Your Majesty, thank you so much for your speech and I think that this speech really reflects the strong commitment of your country to our Alliance and the many contributions you are making to our shared security and to our collective defence. Let me also take this opportunity to thank you for your personal commitment to our Alliance.
(Natural News) In cities, pedestrian crossings ensure the safety of people as they cross the road. In Wyoming, wildlife crossing structures allow pronghorn herds to follow their traditional migration path without needing to cross dangerous highways, an article in Science Daily stated.

A joint effort between the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Oregon State University (OSU) examined the effectiveness of these animal crossings. The researchers observed the behavior of pronghorn when the animals came across animal crossing structures.

If the pronghorn treated the structures in the same way they reacted to predators and vehicles, they would get stressed or even panic. Panicked reactions could put both animal and human lives in danger.

The researchers were pleased to report that pronghorn were using the man-made structures to avoid human vehicles, thereby ensuring their safety and those of human drivers. Furthermore, Wyoming state authorities also reported that the incidents of vehicles hitting wildlife dropped by 70 percent after they finished building the crossing structures and fences.

These separate reports indicated that pronghorn are capable of changing their behavior in response to human efforts to protect them and other humans. (Related: Grazing animals on forested pastures found to actually stimulate plant growth, benefiting conservation efforts.)

Protecting the last known migration corridor of North Americas pronghorn

The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is a large mammal found only in the North American continent. Unrelated to either goats or antelopes, it is one of the fastest ground animals on the planet, second only to the cheetah.

Large herds of the animals used to migrate across central and western North America. Today, due to human activities, there is only one remaining pronghorn migration that we know of.

The Path of the Pronghorn is one of the longest active migrations of large mammals in the continent. Every year, pronghorn herds trek between Grand Teton National Park and the Green River Basin.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation studied the movement of pronghorn through the choke point at Trappers Point Historical Monument. They erected crossing structures across a 12-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 191.

Furthermore, they also set up fences that were too tall for the pronghorn to surmount. They hoped that the fences would force the pronghorn to use the animal crossing structures instead of crossing the highway.

Pronghorns adapted their migratory behavior to use animal crossing structures

From 2011 to 2014, the WSC researchers studied the response of the pronghorn to the new animal crossings. They took note of the time it took for the animals to adapt to these additions to the traditional migratory route. Last but not least, they determined if the animals preferred using overpasses or underpasses.

At first, the pronghorn evaded the suspicious-looking crossings. They would rather try their luck crossing U.S. Highway 191 despite the known risk of getting hit by a speeding vehicle.

As time passed, the increasingly inured animals began to use the crossing structures. By the conclusion of the study, all of the pronghorn used the animal crossings. They also preferred to use an overpass rather than an underpass.

The researchers noted that the pronghorn did grow more wary over time while using the crossing structures. However, other stress behaviors stayed low while the success rate for their crossing attempts went up.

This study is helpful for wildlife managers on a number of levels, one of which is to provide a baseline of understanding on how migratory wildlife may respond to modifications of important migratory pathways over time, said Jon Beckmann, the author of the WCS study.

If you want to know how you can help preserve pronghorn and other native species, check out Ecology.news.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

ScienceDirect.com
(Natural News) Your muscles will greatly benefit from repeated exposure to the stress caused by heat. A group of Utah-based researchers reported that long-term heat therapy will enhance the output of energy-producing mitochondria in the cells that make up muscle tissue, an article in News Wise stated.

The study is the first to ever be conducted with human participants. The researchers believe their findings can open up a new therapeutic approach for patients who suffer from chronic ailments and disorders involving their muscles.

Mitochondria are vital to the health of any organism. These organelles provide most of the energy used by cells to perform almost all bodily functions.

Chronic and serious health conditions can develop if the population of mitochondria goes down, or if the important organelles malfunction and lose some of their efficiency. Some of the possible complications include the likes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, and Type 2 diabetes.

This decline can be countered by increasing the amount of regular physical exercise. A daily exercise regimen of two hours has been shown to raise the population and efficiency of mitochondria in your body.

Extended bouts of exercise is not an option for patients afflicted with certain chronic diseases. They do not have the time or the physical robustness to exert themselves for long periods every day. (Related: Obese women with PCOS can improve their health by simply soaking in a hot tub.)

Heat therapy can replicate the benefits of physical exercise

A Brigham Young University (BYU) research team looked for an alternative means of increasing mitochondria that did not require extensive exercise. They drew inspiration from existing animal studies on heat therapy.

The earlier research efforts used rodent models to simulate the effects of the therapy on humans. The results indicated that exposure to mild levels of heat could achieve the same mitochondria-boosting effect as physical exercise.

For their new study, the researchers gathered 20 volunteers. Not a single one of the participants had exercised on a regular basis for three months before the human trial.

Each participant underwent two-hour-long sessions of heat therapy every day. The method chosen was shortwave diathermy, which sent pulses of electricity through muscles to increase their temperature.

The thigh muscles of one leg of each participant was increased by 7 F. This temperature was chosen because it matched the heat produced by two hours of actual physical exercise.

The other, untreated legs of the participants served as the control group. The trial period lasted for six days.

During the first day of treatment, researchers counted the number of mitochondria in the muscles of the participants. They re-evaluated the mitochondria population 24 hours after the final treatment.

Frail patients can improve their mitochondria levels through heat therapy

The BYU researchers found that heat treatment increased the functionality of mitochondria in the treated legs by 28 percent. Furthermore, the levels of several proteins associated with the production of the energy organelles rose.

Based on their findings, they believe that long-term heat therapy achieves two effects on mitochondria. First, it improves the efficiency of the existing population of organelles. Second, it encourages muscle cells to produce additional mitochondria, further bolstering the energy output.

The results of the study are very promising for patients who are unable to exercise for a variety of reasons. Heat therapy can be substituted for physical exercise to improve their skeletal muscles.

Our data provide evidence to support further research into the mechanisms of heat-induced mitochondrial adaptations, concluded the researchers.

Would you like to read more stories about heat therapy? AlternativeMedicine.news has more articles about the benefits of this treatment.

Sources include:

NewsWise.com

Physiology.org
(Natural News) Warning: If you have not taken mind-altering prescription drugs yet, dont, because if anyone has a good story, which can even be a total lie about you being a danger or threat to society in any way, all they need is a sympathetic judge, and then a swat team will be raiding your house in the early morning hours to take your guns. Should you resist, you will be shot to death on the spot, in your own home, even if youve never committed a crime, and all your guns are legally obtained.

Currently, there is an attempt to scrub all private U.S. medical records against gun owner registrars, so the Democratic gun-grabbing, soon-to-be-dominated House of Representatives can begin their full-fledged, Nazi-style gun confiscation agenda. Are you a danger to yourself or others? No? It doesnt matter, because if someone else thinks or even says you are, then laws are growing roots that enable a tyrannical regime to remove, using force, that alleged threat.

Obama already set up a system to merge the vast federal data system for personal medical records with background check systems that directs the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

If the Democrats have their way, American healthcare will include every gun owner registering every gun they own, and that will be followed by heavily armed confiscation of every private citizens guns, and were not just talking about automatic and semi-automatic weapons, because thats just the emotionally charged beginning. If youve ever even spoken to a doctor about being stressed, depressed, anxious, or nervous, you will be the first to experience protection from yourself through gun confiscation and possible arrest. This is exactly how the pharma gun trap will function.

Anyone who takes any psych medication, even just once, including for ADHD, ADD, anxiety, or depression will be subjected to having all of their guns confiscated

You see, nearly every mass shooting in America over the past two decades has been committed by a young adult male taking psych medications, namely SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). These drugs block the normal production of dopamine and nerve impulses in the brain, causing extreme depression, massive anxiety, thoughts of suicide and homicide that eventually end up being carried out for real.

After these events occur, whether real or staged, the mass media never mentions prescription mind-altering drugs, yet still advertises them as doctor recommended during the commercials between the news propaganda.

Plus, all media is emotionally charged so Americans will then support a police-state nanny government that will come take the very weapons that prevent more gun violence from happening  as we see, only in alternative media coverage, plenty of cases where psycho shooters are gunned down by legal carrying folks in public places that are not safe zones. Democrats want nothing more than to disarm the masses using propaganda where people literally vote to lose their own Constitutional rights.

Red Flag gun confiscation laws are already in affect in Maryland and several other states where the government can confiscate your guns at your home at gunpoint because anyone (even a nut-job) says youre a threat

Whether by prescription drugs or rumor that youre dangerous to yourself or others, the Democratic tyrannical regime, a.k.a. the Deep State, wants complete control. Funded by Big Pharma and the elite globalists that are currently running the Democratic-Socialist-Communist Party, all social media, Google, YouTube, the television networks, most major newspapers, and major propaganda websites, if the Senate is overrun in two years by this insane mafia-style mob, then mass gun confiscation will ensue immediately.

No doubt, there will be many, many more mass shootings all over the country, and many of them will be designed, promoted and staged by the FBI and leading Democrats.

On November 5, 2018, the Red Flag gun law already claimed its first victim in Maryland, where a 61-year-old man with no criminal history (who was described by his own family as harmless) was shot to death by police at his own front door at 5 a.m. because someone made a phone call and simply claimed they thought he was a threat. This law allows anyone, including family members, neighbors, or healthcare providers, to petition a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves. This event is just one of over 100 red flag warrants that have already been served in Maryland based on hearsay.

Ever seen the movie with Tom Cruise called Minority Report? This has become a reality in the United States, where thought crimes are being pursued by rogue police states that seize guns and kill people because someone said you might do something bad one day.

Tune into BigPharmaNews.com for more current events about Big Pharma and the insane Democrats trying to medicate everyone so they can take away our guns.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com

NationalReview.com

BigPharmaNews.com
(Natural News) As a legislator, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a pretty good activist, given that in the short time since she won her seat during the midterm elections earlier this month shes already taken part in a climate change protest in the office of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a conference call with Justice Democrats, a group whose objective is to oust primary incumbent Democrats not seen as Left-wing enough.

Actual governing is going to be a much harder concept for her to grasp, however, as evidenced by the fact that a) shes already fallen into the habit of upsetting the Democrat establishment and b) she cant even name the three branches of government.

Speaking of that conference call with Justice Democrats over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez actually told attendees, If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress  uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House.

Watch the train wreck/dumpster fire:

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress  Uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House." The 3 branches of government: executive, legislative, judicial. pic.twitter.com/8rPSpzottE  Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 19, 2018

Just. Wow.

If this doesnt make her the poster child for why Civics 101 should be reintroduced into our public school system, then no one can be.

For the record, young lady, there are only two chambers of Congress  the House (that would be the chamber you were elected to), and the Senate.

The presidency is its own chamber  or, as it is correctly referred to, its own branch  of the three branches of our government. The other two are the Legislative Branch (thats the one you belong to) and the Judicial Branch (think federal courts and the Supreme Court).

As if making the mistake wasnt bad enough, The Daily Wires Ryan Saavedra noted that Ocasio-Cortez sought to draw more attention to her lack of civics knowledge by complaining about being corrected on Twitter.

What she doesnt know is stunning

Maybe instead of Republicans drooling over every minute of footage of me in slow-mo, waiting to chop up word slips that I correct in real tomd [sic], they actually step up enough to make the argument they want to make: that they dont believe people deserve a right to healthcare, she wrote. (Related: Even the diverse Democratic Party isnt diverse ENOUGH for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.)

What healthcare has to do with her lack of knowledge about our form of government (or Republicans in general) is known only to Ocasio-Cortez. But since she brought it up, we would challenge her to name a single Republican lawmaker who has actually come out publicly or privately and said, Ya know, I dont think Americans ought to have a right to healthcare. Just one.

Most Republicans have been trying to make it so that more Americans have easier, more affordable access to healthcare, but thanks to the Democrat-passed Obamacare, that access is more limited and far more expensive than it ought to be. Maybe Ocasio-Cortez should address that issue.

Oh, wait. She did. Medicare for all  at a price tag north of $32 trillion over 10 years. Brilliant.

During her conference call, Ocasio-Cortez also demonstrated that she doesnt understand another basic tenet of our system: That were a representative republic.

She told conference attendees that Justice Democrats members ought to run for office in their home districts to weed out establishment Democrats who are demographically and ideologically out-of-touch with their districts.

The U.S. Constitution provides that voters can elect someone who lives in their respective district to represent them in the House; it does not say that person must reflect the demographics of the district, or even the political, cultural, and social ideologies of the people living there (though most often winning candidates do share a similar ideology with voters  otherwise they wouldnt win).

This young upstart has much to learn about how our system really works. Youd think that shed learn it before running for Congress.

Read more about the absurdity of Ocasio-Cortez at Absurd.news.

Sources include:

AmericanThinker.com

DailyWire.com

NewsTarget.com
(Natural News) Ever since humans discovered the true nature of diseases  that they are not caused by wayward spirits or imbalanced humors  the demand for new treatments that offer protection from infection and cellular damage has been on the rise. According to a study that was published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the essential oils of the pepper fruit tree has a promising potential to be one of these treatments.

For years, conventional medicine and its variety of chemical medications were the go-to sources of cures for the modern world. But with mounting evidence of conventional medicines limitations and accounts of its treatments adverse effects, its reputation as an authority did not go unquestioned.

Take, for instance, the issue of so-called superbugs, germs that are hard to kill because they have become resistant to conventional antibiotics. Many experts blame the indiscriminate use of germ-killers and antibiotics for these microorganisms augmented ability to survive.

Modern research has called attention to how certain essential oils, such as oregano essential oil, can kill even bacterial strains that have developed resistance to antibiotics. Other essential oils have been found to treat and prevent various conditions effectively while remaining inexpensive and safe.

The authors of the study wanted to know if the essential oils from the pepper fruit tree (Dennettia tripetala) contained antibacterial and antioxidant effects. The plant was already found, in previous studies, to have anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and insecticidal capabilities. Other inquiries on the essential oils from the plants fruit in various states of ripeness were made, but information on the unique components of its unripe fruit oil (UFO) and ripe fruit oil (RFO) remained limited.

To test the plants bactericidal properties, the researchers administered both UFO and RFO to different strains of multi-drug resistant bacteria. They also determined the oils ability to scavenge free radicals to gauge the potency of its antioxidant effects.

In general, the plants essential oils were confirmed to have potent antimicrobial properties. Its UFO was especially remarkable, acting against most of the bacterial strains used in the experiment while requiring lower minimum inhibition concentrations (MIC) than RFO. What this means is that UFO is slightly more effective than RFO in killing bacteria.

In contrast, RFO showed greater antioxidant strength than either UFO and vitamin C but performed just below beta-carotene. The researchers noted that both essential oils could scavenge multiple types of radicals but in a concentration-dependent manner.

They confirmed that the prepper fruit trees essential oils did possess powerful antibacterial and antioxidant properties that could make them excellent lead constituents for new treatments, especially against infections.

Natural ways to treat infections

An infection is not something to take lightly. Even minor injuries can become considerable health and safety concerns once infection sets in.

Infections happen when pathogens, such as bacteria, invade the body. The key, therefore, is to inhibit the growth and spread of these microorganisms by using antibacterial substances. Here are natural antibiotics that can be found in most homes:

Honey  This is one of the oldest antibiotics known to humanity. It contains sugar and hydrogen peroxide, both of which have antibacterial effects. Its low pH level also inhibits bacterial growth. When applied to wounds, honey can prevent infection and hasten the healing process.

 This is one of the oldest antibiotics known to humanity. It contains sugar and hydrogen peroxide, both of which have antibacterial effects. Its low pH level also inhibits bacterial growth. When applied to wounds, honey can prevent infection and hasten the healing process. Garlic  This pungent vegetable has potent antimicrobial properties. Its extract (which can be made at home by soaking cloves in olive oil) can be applied directly onto wounds.

 This pungent vegetable has potent antimicrobial properties. Its extract (which can be made at home by soaking cloves in olive oil) can be applied directly onto wounds. Thyme  The essential oil from this herb works against a wide variety of bacterial strains. It cannot be taken by mouth though and must be diluted with coconut or olive oil before being applied directly to wounds.

 The essential oil from this herb works against a wide variety of bacterial strains. It cannot be taken by mouth though and must be diluted with coconut or olive oil before being applied directly to wounds. Myrrh  The extract of this resin is effective against both bacteria and fungi, including Candida albicans.

Learn more about natural treatments against infections at Cures.news.

Sources include:

Science.news

BMCComplementAlternMed.BioMedCentral.com

Healthline.com
(Natural News) In recent days, POTUS Donald Trump was criticized by firefighters, Left-wing Democrats, environmental groups, and #NeverTrump Republicans for daring to state that the wildfires currently burning up California were largely the fault of poor forest management by the state.

Early on, the president tweeted there was 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!

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

Later, during a visit to the state, he was asked what effect climate change has had on the fires, to which he responded, Maybe it contributes a little bit. The big problem we have is management. You need management. Im not saying that in a negative way, a positive Im just saying the facts, according to The Guardian.

The New York Times, whose writers and editors seem incapable of covering the president in a positive light, declared such comments misleading in a Fact Check article:

Mr. Trump is suggesting that forest management played a role, but Californias current wildfires arent forest fires. 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.

Did you catch that bit of genius from NYT fact-checker Kendra Pierre-Lewis? She literally said the fires were not forest fires, then described them as wildland-urban interface fires that moved from forests or grasslands into neighborhoods. Apparently she has no clue that some people build homes in or near forests.

In any event, turns out that  once again  POTUS Trump, and not his detractors, was right. (Related: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earns an F in science for demanding 100% renewable energy in 10 years.)

The Trump hate runs deep with the Left

The Daily Wire reported that California Gov. Jerry Moonbeam Brown, after denouncing the president as an environmental doofus, has, in recent days, quietly pushed state lawmakers to loosen restrictions on logging regulations that were put in place to satisfy raging environmentalists  a move that appears to have confirmed that President Trumps recent critiques of state logging practices and lousy forest management was correct.

In August, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that Brown, one of the most environmental wacko governors currently in office, proposed that lawmakers change current rules to allow for some thinning of state-controlled forest lands:

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing broad new changes to Californias logging rules that would allow landowners to cut larger trees and build temporary roads without obtaining a permit as a way to thin more forests across the state.

Naturally, environmentalists became unhinged because they have been pushing to make logging rules in the state even tougher. Still, thats become harder to do even in deep blue California because a series of wildfires in recent years are taking a political toll on some lawmakers.

The rule change was minor: It called for allowing private landowners to cut trees up to 36 inches in diameter (up from the current mandate of 26 inches) on their own property without first having to obtain a timber harvest permit. Lawmakers were even admitting that the states forests  especially those in the northern part of the state  had become dangerously overgrown.

But when POTUS Trump began insinuating that poor land management was, in large part, to blame for the fires, Brown backtracked and actually started blaming the fires on (wait for it) climate change/global warming.

Brown, like the rest of the Left, is so triggered by the president that he cant even admit when he and POTUS agree on a policy.

Read more about the Lefts ridiculous climate alarmism at ClimateAlarmism.news.

Sources include:

DailyWire.com

SantaCruzSentinel.com

TheGuardian.com
(Natural News) Some Natural News readers may be familiar with the 1970 movie Colossus: The Forbin Project starring Eric Braeden, before he became a soap-opera star, about a sentient supercomputer [spoiler alert] that takes over the world.

This kind of dire forecast is no longer found just in the realm of science fiction, however.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss and PayPal co-founder, warned in 2014 that rapidly, artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy human life as smarter and more intuitive robots reign supreme.

He has also, subsequently, claimed that when AI outpaces people, humans will disturbingly be reduced to the intelligence level comparable to a house cat in comparison.

Back in 2015, Health Ranger Mike Adams, the founder of Natural News, warned that once AI technology develops into highly evolved, self-aware systems, the human race has a big time Terminator problem.

Follow this along for just 4-5 generations and you get machines with demigod-level cognitive capabilities, and it wont take but a microsecond for such a machine to conclude that humans are a threat to its own existence, Adams wrote.

At the recent SXSW Conference in Austin, Tex., Google director of engineering Ray Kurzweil, 69, made a bold prediction about artificial intelligence singularity, the Express of London reported. Given the potential ramifications, you might want to save the date.

By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence. That leads to computers having human intelligence, our putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, thats not just a future scenario. Its here, in part, and its going to accelerate.

Unlike the events in the Forbin Project, Kurzweil insists that the likelihood of AI overlords enslaving humans is an unrealistic scenario. The futurist, author, and inventor added that with AI, They may not yet be inside our bodies, but, by the 2030s, we will connect our neocortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud.. Were going to be sexier. Were going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.

Elon Musk recently acquired a start-up company with the purpose of developing so-called neural lace technology to hook up the human brain to a computer for the purposes of achieving enhanced cognitive functioning. He has already launched an initiative calling for AI safety standards with the nonprofit organization OpenAI.

A study by accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers claims that robots and artificial intelligence could take over two of every five jobs in America within about the next 15 years.

Sources include:

Express.co.uk

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) For years, the daily baby aspirin propaganda has suggested that taking a daily dose of the wonder drug would help stave off cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. But new research has just confirmed what many have long suspected: The notion that aspirin will prevent heart disease in healthy people is nothing but a pharmaceutical farce. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the findings are no doubt a slap in the face to Big Pharma and their shills. After spending decades insisting that pharmaceuticals are the pathway to perfect health, it turns out that the wonders of aspirin are more fiction that fact.

Past research has long indicated that the daily aspirin regime was doing more harm than good. And for many, the very idea that some pharmaceutical drug will magically prevent heart disease and boost heart health was hard to swallow; Big Pharmas drugs rarely promote overall health  even though thats what theyre allegedly designed to do.

Aspirin found to have zero health benefits

As Sayer Ji, founder of Green Med Info reports, research published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled, Effect of Aspirin on Disability-free Survival in the Healthy Elderly, has revealed that healthy, older adults do not benefit from daily aspirin consumption. More, taking a baby aspirin every day increased the risk of adverse health outcomes. Specifically, daily aspirin intake was associated with an increased risk of mortality, largely attributed to cancer.

The study featured 19,000 adults who were aged 65 to 70, or older. Participants were part of a large-scale study across the United States and Australia.

Dr. Anne Murray, a geriatrician and epidemiologist at the Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, reportedly stated of their findings, We knew there would be an increased risk of bleeding with aspirin, because there has always beenBut not only did it not decrease risk of disability or death, it did not decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke, and there was an increase in the rate of death.

Ultimately, aspirin administration offered zero health benefits to healthy seniors. Instead, it seems it may increase cancer risk, as well as overall risk of death. These findings are diametrically opposed to the conventional wisdom that aspirin is protective and supports good health.

The risk of harm

This is not the first study to show that aspirin does not deserve its wonder drug reputation. In 2017, a study led by a cohort of researchers from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands found that a daily aspirin regime could increase the risk of heart attack by up to 190 percent.

As sources explain, the team studied 30,000 patients with atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that presents with rapid and often irregular heart beat. The team found that patients who were given aspirin were 1.9 times more likely to have a heart attack than patients who were given warfarin, a drug that targets vitamin K.

Study leader Dr. Leo Stolk reportedly commented, We identified an  increased risk of [heart attacks] among current and past aspirin users in comparison with VKAs. There also exists doubt about the usefulness of aspirin in atrial fibrillation.

Research has also shown that using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like aspirin, for cold and flu symptoms isnt all its cracked up to be. A study of over 9,000 patients revealed that those who took painkillers like aspirin to treat a respiratory infection were more than three times as likely to suffer a heart attack than those who did not.

Multiple reports from 2009 and from 2010 show a similar trend: Aspirin doesnt prevent heart attacks, even in the so-called target populations, and it may actually cause more health issues. Overall, it seems the science on aspirin is settled  even if the propaganda-pushing pharma industry isnt ready to admit it.

Learn more about what heals and what harms at Medicine.news.

Sources for this article include:

GreenMedInfo.com

NPR.org
A Sonoma County man believes his foreign ex-wife duped him into marriage and used a law that protects immigrant spouses from domestic violence to file a false abuse claim and remain in the United States. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has learned thousands of Americans may be in the same boat.

Ed Dorsaneo, and several other men who spoke to NBC stations on the East Coast, worry their wives are gaming the immigration system. They point to a provision in the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, which was designed to help abused immigrants petition for a green card without the knowledge of their American spouses.

The landmark law originally passed a quarter century ago with overwhelming bipartisan support. Many say it transformed the way the U.S. protects women from abuse. Its up for reauthorization in early December.

But Dorsaneo and others believe many immigrant wives and husbands are exploiting that law and filing false abuse claims.

FALLING IN LOVE

Dorsaneo met his former spouse in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2012 when he was on a break from a military contracting job in Afghanistan. The pair hit it off and started dating long distance.

Im looking for that long-term relationship, Dorsaneo told NBC Bay Area. That someone to share a life with once I got out of where I was; if I make it out.

NBC Connecticut

A year later, Dorsaneo proposed and brought his fiancee home to the North Bay, where they got married. But within a week of tying the knot, Dorsaneo says all intimacy stopped, and his wife moved out of their bedroom and demanded access to his bank accounts. He said he smelled a scam.

It was horrible, he said. It was having to come to the realization that, oh no, its not only your dream not coming true. The nightmares just beginning.

Dorsaneo believes his wife used him to obtain a green card. Marriage is one of the shortest paths to permanent residency in the United States, and Dorsaneo thinks his wife knew that.

Just three months after tying the knot, he filed for divorce, and his ex-wife left the state. But he later learned she cited abuse by my U.S. citizen spouse on a petition to stay in the country.

Dorsaneo vehemently denies any abuse occurred.

Never, he said. I never touched her in a violent or aggressive manner. I dont see any type of emotional abuse.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT PETITIONS

To John Sampson, a retired federal immigration officer, Dorsaneos story sounds like thousands hes heard before. For the past 10 years, hes worked as a private investigator specializing in marriage fraud and says hes been contacted by roughly 2,000 Americans who believe they were duped into marriage by foreign spouses.

Its ridiculous. I see it almost on a daily basis, said Sampson, who spent nearly four decades working in federal immigration.

NBC Bay Area

Sampson says a thorough investigation of VAWA petitions should involve talking to both sides, but that doesnt happen. Since the claims are confidential, American spouses arent able to respond to abuse allegations. In most cases, they dont even know their wives or husbands filed petitions claiming abuse.

[Theyre] powerless to stop it, defend it or even submit evidence to exonerate [them], he said.

Sampson and many others say its difficult to know how often immigrants may be exploiting VAWA, and by all accounts, its difficult to ascertain the extent of marriage fraud. In a 2012 report to Congress, the Congressional Research Service looked into concerns that VAWA provisions might unintentionally facilitate marriage fraud.

The report concluded that although reliable estimates of marriage fraud generally, and VAWA fraud specifically, remain elusive, anecdotal evidence suggests that attempted fraud through VAWA remains an ongoing concern.

Eleonore Zwinger, a senior staff attorney with the International Institute of the Bay Area, says the Violence Against Women Act helps abused immigrant spouses step out of their relationships to pursue lawful permanent resident status on their own, without being dependent on their abuser.

Janice Kephart, who served as terrorism counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tells NBC Bay Areas sister station in Washington D.C. that ten percent of terrorism cases she reviewed were linked to sham marriages.

VAWA OFFERS CRITICAL PROTECTIONS FOR ABUSED WOMEN

Several immigration attorneys who work on these kind of abuse cases say its virtually impossible to game the immigration system.

This is not one little application and a little letter, and its all good, said Eleonore Zwinger, a senior staff attorney with the International Institute of the Bay Area (IIBA), a nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants. Its a very serious and thorough process for the applicant and immigration side.

NBC Bay Area

IIBA has helped hundreds of foreign spouses file VAWA petitions, which Zwinger says take hours to compile and require detailed declarations by petitioners. Zwinger says a victim must show he or she is a person of good moral character and entered into the marriage in good faith.

Petitioners must also show evidence of abuse  which could be physical, emotional, verbal or financial in nature  and if they cant, federal immigration will deny their claims and can start deportation proceedings.

Data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the government agency that processes VAWA petitions, show officers denied 33 percent of the petitions filed by immigrant spouses over the past decade.

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A spokeswoman told NBC Bay Area in a statement, USCIS adjudicates all petitions, applications and requests fairly, efficiently, and effectively on a case-by-case basis to determine if they meet all standards required under applicable law, policies, and regulations.

According to USCIS, participating in marriage fraud can result in five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The department says marriage fraud is a serious crime that weakens the nations security and makes all Americans less safe.

Zwinger says the VAWA petition process is kept confidential because of the risks associated with alerting abusers. The American citizens are not on trial, and because of that, she says, there is no right created under the law for the U.S. spouses to speak on their own behalf.

Zwinger says the bottom line is immigrants are vulnerable, and VAWA can help protect them.

It is meant to protect victims of domestic violence and also sexual assault; to help a victim step out of an abusive relationship and become self-sufficient, seek safety, seek independence  without being subjected to abuse, she said. So its a very, very powerful tool.

EVIDENCE OF A SCAM?

Dorsaneo believes he has evidence his ex-wife scammed him  and the United States. A private investigator Dorsaneo hired reported finding a woman Dorsaneo identified as his ex-spouse on a Ukrainian website advertising sex workers about a month before the couple met.

Dorsaneo says his former wife marked no on an immigration form asking if shed ever engaged in prostitution.

The scam continues, Dorsaneo said.

Now, hes on the hook financially. His ex-wife is suing him for breach of contract, saying he failed to provide financial support guaranteed to immigrant spouses who would otherwise need government assistance. A federal judge ordered Dorsaneo to pay up.

Through her attorneys, Dorsaneos former wife declined to comment. Her lawyers also declined to comment, citing pending litigation and confidentiality. Its unclear what her legal status is now, but public records show shes still living in the U.S.

Dorsaneo is trying to move on.

Theres an emotional toll that Im having to relive, which is just intangible, he said. Its harsh.

If you have a tip for the Investigative Unit email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Liz Wagner on Facebook and Twitter.
High-priced San Francisco is known for launching trends, however, feces-laced graffiti may be the most peculiar and disgusting one yet.

While surveying parts of downtown San Francisco, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered graffiti that appeared to look as if it were made from feces. The markings were found along sidewalks on two different blocks: 700 block of Ellis Street, between Polk and Larkin Streets, and the 500 block of Larkin Street, between Eddy and Turk Streets. Piles of excrement were also found near each of the markings. However, NBC Bay Area did not test the graffiti to confirm the presence of feces.

Following the investigative report, some weighed in on social media with their own thoughts on the graffiti. "That's not feces," @TheChiropractor wrote on Twitter. "That's foam caulking that can be scraped off."

That's not feces, that's a foam caulking that can be scraped off  Dr. Austin Davis (@TheChiropractor) November 14, 2018

Mayor Promised Cleaner City Within 90 Days

The Investigative Unit spotted the graffiti while revisiting 20 of San Francisco's dirtiest blocks. The team surveyed streets and sidewalks in search of trash, needles, and feces. The Investigative Unit first inspected the area in January and repeated the process in early November in order to compare the level of cleanliness before and after Mayor London Breed took office. As a candidate, Breed promised a cleaner San Francisco within three months, if elected. Breed was sworn in more than four months ago on the steps of city hall during a ceremony on July 11.

There is a huge difference in certain parts of the city, Breed told the Investigative Unit. I'm not seeing as much of what I used to before I took office.

Mayor London Breed declined to give specifics after being questioned about a potential time line on when dodging feces on streets and sidewalks will no longer be the norm in San Francisco.

When Will Stepping On Feces No Longer Be the Norm?

In comparing Breeds first three months in office with the three months prior, San Francisco 311 data reflects an 8 percent increase in complaints regarding used needles, 3 percent increase concerning trash, and 30 percent increase regarding human feces.

"I don't think it's because the city is actually dirtier," Breed said. "I think it's because more people are reporting the challenges that exist."

While Breed acknowledges "there is still work to be done" in cleaning up San Francisco, she no longer appears willing to attach any type of time table to future progress. When asked when stepping over feces will no longer be the norm in San Francisco, she quipped, "soon rather than later." When pressed for more specifics, Breed, with a smile, repeated herself, "sooner rather than later."

SF Received Nearly 21,000 Requests to Clean Human Feces Last Year

The mayor recently assembled a new crew dubbed the Poop Patrol to clean feces across San Francisco seven days a week. Last year, San Francisco received 20,960 requests to clean human feces from streets and sidewalks. The number of complaints in 2018 is expected to exceed that figure based on the 11,944 cleaning requests received in just the first six months of this year.

San Francisco is home to the highest rent prices in the world with the average apartment renting for $3,500 per month, according to a recent study released by Walletwyse, a financial advice website.

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San Francisco has spent more than $308 million cleaning up its streets since fiscal year 2013, yet, the city has struggled to develop trusted metrics to measure its job performance. In 2003, voters approved a measure that requires San Francisco to annually inspect and rate street cleanliness across the city. Over the past five years, San Francisco paid a public relations firm, JBR Partners, more than $400,000 to conduct those inspections.

Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban reveals new developments in his ongoing Diseased Streets investigation.

Public Relations Firm Awards SF Nearly Perfect Cleanliness Score

A recent NBC Bay Area investigation revealed the firm awarded San Francisco a nearly perfect cleanliness score for fiscal year 2016-17. As a result, in December 2017, the city concluded the data could be flawed and pledged to overhaul its process for measuring job performance within the citys street cleaning program. Despite the realization from the city that the data may not be accurate, San Francisco continued to pay JBR Partners to conduct another annual survey for the 2017-2018 fiscal year, which resulted in similar cleanliness scores, boasting high marks. The effort to reform the city's assessment process, which began prior to Breed's term in office, is still ongoing.

JBR Partners has yet to respond to repeated requests for comment.

"Unfortunately, I can't control what's happened in the past," said Breed. "I can only control what I'm doing now as mayor to move the city forward."

______________________________________
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen toured the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday, speaking about the Trump administration's efforts to fortify the crossing amid what she called the migrant caravan "crisis."

Nielsen said there are currently 6,200 individuals with the migrant caravan camped out in Tijuana, Mexico, and another 3,000 in Mexicali. She said this would ultimately result in 8,000 to 10,000 migrants amassing at our southern border.

The crisis is real and it is just on the other side of this wall, Nielsen told reporters at Border Field State Park, the seaside park that sits at the southwest corner of the United States, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and Mexico's Playa de Tijuana to the south.

Following Nielsen's comments, the office of the mayor of Tijuana said there were 2,965 members of the caravan in the city. That figure, according to the mayor's office, includes 1,696 men, 637 women, 255 boys and377 girls.

For nearly two weeks, thousands of migrants have made their way by foot and bus from the southern border of Mexico to Tijuana, where many are living in overcrowded shelters until they can seek asylum from the United States.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen toured the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego Tuesday and spoke to media about the "hardening" of the crossing amid the migrant caravan attempting to reach the U.S. "The crisis is real and it is just on the other side of this wall," Nielsen said.

In response to the caravan of migrants, the Department of Defense sent about 5,800 active duty, reserve and National Guard forces, including 1,100 Camp Pendleton-based Marines, to span the southern border to assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the reinforcing of the border.

This has included adding concertina wiring to the U.S.-Mexico border fence to keep migrants from climbing over the fence and into the U.S.

This is a border wall with row upon row of concertina wire, said Nielsen. Make no mistake  we are very serious. You will not get into our country illegally.

[NATL-SD] In Photos: Troops Secure Border for Migrant Caravan's Arrival

The DHS secretary said the migrant caravan is not only comprised of women and children but rather of many grown men and teenage boys, some of whom have been violent in their efforts to reach the border. She said at least 500 criminals including gang members, have been identified among the caravan.

Nielsen said many of the migrants are attempting to travel into the U.S. to reunite with family members or seek jobs  neither of which warrant asylum under U.S. law.

The caravan does not give one a special right to enter this country, Nielsen said, adding that migrants with the caravan will have to get in line when it comes to the asylum-seeking process.

The DHS secretary said President Donald Trumps administration was upset by a judges recent ruling ordering the U.S. government not to enforce a ban on asylum for people who cross the southern border illegally.

Efforts to secure the border come as thousands of migrants from a caravan from Central America make their way to Tijuana. NBC 7's Liberty Zabala reports.

This is a dangerous ruling and will undoubtedly be overturned, she added.

Nielsen said border security remains a top priority for the Trump administration and DHS will continue its efforts to stop the caravan from illegally entering the country.

You will be detained, prosecuted and repatriated, she said.

Just before Nielsen arrived a man swam around the border fence that extends a few hundred feet into the Pacific Ocean and was met by Border Patrol agents at the beach on the U.S. side.

Nielsen said he was arrested for entering the country illegally.

Nielsen said she spoke with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis Tuesday and the Department of Defense will continue to partner with the DHS until the caravan is stopped.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen spoke in San Diego about the future of the military presence at the border. NBC 7's Bridget Naso has more.

She said any asylum claims will be treated with respect to the law.

On Monday, U.S. Marine Lt. Dustin Pavlick said his platoon of about 45 Marines was working on "construction and reinforcing this obstacle to support the mission of Customs and Border Protection."

"Our priority right now is to get a half a mile of wire on this wall," he said while giving NBC 7 and Telemundo 20 a look into their efforts near the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Also on Monday, CBP temporarily shut down all northbound lanes into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry so troops could position moveable barriers due to a report that a group of Central American migrants was trying to rush the border, according to CBP.

Northbound lanes at the San Ysidro POE have been shut down as Customs and Border Protection crews continue their "port hardening mission." NBC 7's Liberty Zabala reports.

Though no activity materialized, the agency said the closure at the nation's busiest border crossing was needed.

Nielsen praised the efforts on Twitter saying, "@CBP and @DeptofDefense appropriately responded by blocking the lanes, deploying additional personnel and seeking assistance from other law enforcement and federal assets."

.@CBP and @DeptofDefense appropriately responded by blocking the lanes, deploying additional personnel and seeking assistance from other law enforcement and federal assets. #CBP has reopened lanes for legitimate trade and travel. I want to thank them for their swift actions. pic.twitter.com/eJVVuAs0w6  Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen (@SecNielsen) November 19, 2018

The tweet was accompanied by a photo showing a line of helmeted border patrol agents carrying shields.

San Ysidro is the borders busiest crossing, with about 110,000 people entering the U.S. every day. That traffic includes some 40,000 vehicles, 34,000 pedestrians and 150 to 200 buses.

President Donald Trump tweeted a photo Monday of the border fence at Border Field State Park covered in concertina wire with the message, "No climbers anymore under our Administration!"

The Fake News is showing old footage of people climbing over our Ocean Area Fence. This is what it really looks like - no climbers anymore under our Administration! pic.twitter.com/CD4ltRePML  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2018

Images captured last week showed migrants, in celebration that they reached the U.S. border, scale that same fence and walk or sit atop it.

About a dozen migrants stood on the sand on the U.S. side of the fence before eventually returning to the Mexico side. No arrests were made.

NBC 7's Liberty Zabala took a closer look at the infrastructure Marines are using to secure the parts of our southern border.

Border Field State Park has a long history and involves government entities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border.

The Border Infrastructure Project is a fenced corridor between an older fence once constructed along the border and a new fence built in 2008  2009. It is owned by the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The DoD said the troops would not interact with migrants but would complete "border-hardening" tasks, like using pieces of barbed wire, concrete roadblocks and rebar to create movable barriers that can be used to block lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry.

Army Military Police are there to protect the Marines who are not armed and are prohibited from enforcing the law.

NBC 7's Melissa Adan spoke to a business owner who said they lost a substantial chuck of business because some of their customers couldn't travel from Mexico.

Analysts and the Pentagon estimate that the entire deployment operation could cost $200 million.

Meanwhile, tensions on the Mexican side of the border have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days, The Associated Press reported. And with U.S. border inspectors processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana's main crossing to San Diego, they will likely be there for months while they seek asylum in the U.S.

Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has called the migrants' arrival an "avalanche" that the city is ill-prepared to handle, calculating that they will be in Tijuana for at least six months as they wait to file asylum claims. Gastelum has appealed to the federal government for more assistance to cope with the influx.

Video captured at the border shows U.S. Marines installing razor wire and barriers.

Some Tijuana residents supported the migrants, but others accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. On Sunday, about 400 Tijuana residents took to the streets in protest, waving Mexican flags and chanting "Out! Out!"

They also complained about how the caravan forced its way into Mexico, calling it an "invasion." And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group.

"We don't want them in Tijuana," protesters shouted.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Footage shows towering flames in San Francisco as crews battle a fire caused by a gas explosion.
It's a good year for forensic science as California authorities on Tuesday arrested a Hayward man suspected of killing Stanford graduate Leslie Perlov in Palo Alto in 1973.

The murder of 21-year-old Perlov remained unsolved for decades until a criminalist with Cold Case Investigators located an unknown male DNA profile on evidence provided by the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office, authorities said.

The DNA led to John Arthur Getreu, 74, who was interviewed by Sheriffs Office Investigators, according to officials. He was later arrested at his home in Hayward.

Investigators said they worked with Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company in Virginia, who helped analyze the unknown DNA profile by using advanced DNA testing and traditional genealogical methods to establish the relationship between the unknown subject and their ancestors.

"Upon receiving Parabons report, the Sheriffs Office continued to investigate the murder of Leslie Perlov. As a result, John Arthur Getreu was identified as a suspect in our investigation," the Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Authorities then obtained Getreu's DNA, and positively matched it to the unknown DNA found in evidence.

Perlov was last seen Feb. 13, 1973, around 3 p.m. at her last place of employment in Palo Alto. Her vehicle was discovered at the gate of an old quarry located near the intersection of Old Page Mill Road and Page Mill Road.

Three days later, officers located Perlov's body under an oak tree west of where her car was abandoned. Getreu is killing Perlov by strangulation, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Getreu has been booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail.

Earlier this year, authorities in California have great success in using DNA genealogy to identify and arrest suspects of cold case murders.

Authorities identified and arrested the infamous Golden State Killer who terrorized California suburban neighborhoods in a spate of brutal rapes and slayings in the 1970s and '80s, as well as the NorCal rapist who tormented victims for a 15-year period beginning in 1991.
As many communities across the Bay Area hash out how to manage marijuana sales, Milpitas is looking to pass on the issue altogether.

The East Bay city may soon take steps toward permanently banning all cannabis businesses, according to the Mercury News. If the ban goes forward, Milpitas would be in the minority of local governments saying "no" to pot businesses.

In a 4-0 vote Tuesday night, the city council came up with a so-called urgency ban to go into effect immediately while also drafting a permanent ban to go into effect at a later date, the newspaper reported.

The current temporary ban, which was enacted when California voters voted in support of legalizing marijuana, expires in January.

According to the Mercury News, Tuesday's meeting at Milpitas City Hall proved to be a heated debate with more than 100 people signed up to speak. Some people submitted letters ahead of time, most of them urging the council to ban marijuana businesses in the city. Some claimed a link to crime while others told the council that the tax revenue from marijuana sales wouldn't be worth it.

Those sentiments counter what California voters said they wanted in saying "yes" to legal marijuana back in 2016. Fifty-eight percent of Santa Clara County voters supported legalization. Precincts in Milpitas were in line with those numbers.
What to Know The Camp Fire in Butte County has torched 153,336 acres and was 80 percent contained as of Wednesday morning

The deadly blaze has wiped out 13,778 homes

Fire crews hope to fully contain the wildfire by Nov. 30

UPDATE: (6:10 p.m.) Death toll in Camp Fire now at 83 after two more bodies found, Butte County Sheriff's Office says. Officials also say 563 people remain unaccounted for.

--

Light rain falling Wednesday in some areas of Northern California could aid crews fighting a deadly wildfire while raising the risk of flash floods and complicating efforts to recover the remains of those killed.

Heavier rain was expected later in the day in the Paradise burn area, where a monstrous wildfire has killed at least 83 people and destroyed more than 13,000 homes.

Farther south, residents of communities charred by a Los Angeles-area fire stacked sandbags as they prepared for possible downpours that threaten to unleash runoff from hillsides left barren by flames.

Forecasters say the rain could cause mudslides and rock slides.

In Paradise, teams sifted through ash and debris as they searched for bodies about 140 miles northwest of San Francisco.

"The task is arduous," said Rick Crawford with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "And the possibility exists that some people may never be found."

Precipitation could hinder the search by washing away fragmentary remains and turning ash into a thick paste.

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a surprise visit to the area, providing encouragement to weary firefighters while helping serve them breakfast.

"I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all the work that you do," he told firefighters during a brief speech.

The 71-year-old actor also slammed President Donald Trump for blaming the wildfire on poor forest management. He told firefighters, "you are tough to not only fight the fires, but you are tough to listen to all this crap."

Authorities trying to identify people killed are using rapid DNA testing that provides results in just two hours. The system can analyze DNA from bone fragments or other remains, then match it to genetic material provided by relatives of the missing.

The technology depends on people coming forward to give a DNA sample via a cheek swab.

But as of Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the start of the inferno, only about 60 people had provided samples to pop-up labs, said Annette Mattern, a spokeswoman for ANDE, a Colorado company that is donating use of the technology.

"We need hundreds," Mattern said. "We need a big enough sample for us to make a positive ID on these and to also give a better idea of how many losses there actually are."

Officials said nearly 870 people were still unaccounted for.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Paradise and nearby communities and for those areas charred by wildfires earlier this year in Lake, Shasta, Trinity and Mendocino counties.

The Camp Fire, which has burned an area about the size of Chicago  nearly 240 square miles  was 80 percent contained.

In Southern California, people who worried days earlier that their homes might be consumed by flames were taking precautions against possible mudslides caused by the approaching storm.

Residents filling sandbags at Malibu's Zuma Beach were mindful of a disaster that struck less than a year ago when a downpour on a fresh burn scar sent home-smashing debris flows through Montecito, killing 21 people and leaving two missing.

The 151-square-mile Woolsey Fire in the Los Angeles area was almost entirely contained after three people were killed, 1,643 structures destroyed and 364 damaged.

Associated Press journalists Olga R. Rodriguez, Christopher Weber and John Antczak contributed to this report.
With two Chicago police officers shot in less than 24 hours, gun violence is front and center for those who want to be Chicago's next mayor.

Public safety and fighting crime are the issues the candidates for mayor say they are asked about the most.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, alongside police Supt. Eddie Johnson Monday night and again Tuesday afternoon, responded to questions about whether Chicagoans are just growing numb to the violence.

Two days in a row Emanuel has been part of news conference in hospital lobbies after two police officers were shot--one of them fatally.

"I don't think people are immune, numb, I think they want to see action," he said.

Mayoral candidate Garry McCarthy -- the former police superintendent believes politics -- and consent decrees -- have negatively impacted how police fight crime.

"Nothing's going to change in this city, until we first make it safe," he said Tuesday. "I wish that somebody would've asked me the question of why didnt we get Amazon. Its pretty simple, cause its too dangerous for Amazon to be here."

State Rep. Lashawn Ford, who also has plans to run for mayor, supports more metal detectors in public spaces.

"We've been working on legislation to make sure hospitals and public spaces have metal detectors at their entry points," Ford said. "The federal government has issued $1.6 billion for metal detectors for states that would like to apply for grants."

Gery Chico -- also running for mayor -- gave credit to fallen Officer Samuel Jiminez and the other offices who ran into mercy hospital.

"God only knows if they weren't there yesterday, how much worse this could have been, if this gunman had made his way into the hospital further," Chico said.

Of course with so many running for mayor we are unable to include all of them in today's story, however fighting violence and policing will continue to be questions asked of the others running for mayor as well.
Illinois medical marijuana companies are working to expand as they expect opportunities to grow after years of stagnation, given recent legislation to expand access to medical marijuana and the election of a weed-friendly governor.

Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries and other Illinois cannabis companies are trying to prepare for an expected growth in the industry, The Chicago Tribune reported . Companies are working to hire employees and ensure products are high-quality and consistent.

With marijuana now legal in Canada, some Illinois companies are finding success securing Canadian investors seeking to dive into the industry.

Green Thumb debuted on the Canadian Securities Exchange in June, becoming the first Chicago medical marijuana company to sell shares of its stock to the public. GTI raised $67 million through its listing, along with an additional $61.6 million in financing.

The company has been able to hire additional workers in the eight states where it operates, expand facilities and acquire more dispensaries. GTI expects to expand its Illinois workforce from about 180 to 270 people by the end of the year.

Cresco, which has three Illinois cultivation centers, hopes to go into the public market soon. The company announced last month that it will merge with Randsburg International Gold Corp, a Canadian company. It's also raised $100 million in private funding.

The Illinois medical cannabis industry has come a long way just three years after the launch of the state's pilot program for patients with a small number of medical conditions. Gov. Bruce Rauner signed legislation this summer that expands medical marijuana use to people prescribed opioids. The move expanded medical marijuana to more than 46,000 qualified patients.

Democrat governor-elect J.B. Pritzker has also said that he hopes to legalize and decriminalize cannabis soon after he takes office next year.
What to Know A Chicago police officer and two hospital employees died in a shooting Monday at Mercy Hospital. The suspected shooter also was killed.

The incident began with an altercation in the hospital parking lot, police said, where the suspect fatally shot a doctor he knew.

The gunman ran into the hospital. A pharmacist was shot in an elevator, and the officer was struck in the exchange of gunfire.

A picture is emerging of a disturbing and recurring theme in Juan Lopez's troubled life just a day after authorities say he went on a fatal rampage at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center.

Jarrett Bridgeman worked with Lopez in security at Illinois Masonic Hospital.

"He would make remarks, sometimes, about women," he said.

Bridgeman told Telemundo Chicago that those remarks against women stood out. They came at a time when the gunman's first marriage was falling apart.

In a 2014 petition for an order of protection--- his soon to be ex-wife complained that Lopez slept with a pistol under the pillow and left it accessible to their child.

There were incidents where he brandished the gun when he became angry with a neighbor, and again in the face of a realtor.

She said he also sent threats via text message that he would come to his ex-wife's job and "caused a scene."

Lopez's estranged wife cited "constant infidelity and abuse."

Bridgeman said he sometimes wondered what his colleague was thinking---when he heard the views expressed about women at work.

The comments were "crass, inappropriate, especially in a professional environment," he said.

That's what they thought at the Chicago Fire Academy too.

The academy threw Lopez out after just two months in 2014---in connection with his treatment of women there.

Internal department files say female recruits complained that he repeatedly and intentionally bumped into them.

"He was accused of bullying," spokesman Larry Merritt told NBC 5. "In the end, he didn't show up---was called to respond---and was fired."

Since last February, Lopez had worked at a Chicago Housing Authority call center---but reportedly had never given up his law enforcement dreams---still owning a number of weapons.

"Yes, he was concealed carry--and had a FOID card," Chicago police Supt. Eddie Johnson said. "I think he purchased four weapons in the last five years."

The Cook County medical examiner ended speculation about the cause of Lopez's death Tuesday. The official autopsy results show two wounds. One to the abdomen, and a single gunshot to the head, which investigators said appeared to have been self-inflicted.
What to Know A Chicago police officer and two hospital employees died in a shooting Monday at Mercy Hospital. The suspected shooter also was killed.

The incident began with an altercation in the hospital parking lot, police said, where the suspect fatally shot a doctor he knew.

The gunman ran into the hospital. A pharmacist was shot in an elevator, and the officer was struck in the exchange of gunfire.

The family and friends of two doctors and a Chicago police officer killed in a shooting at Mercy Hospital are speaking out to share memories of their loved ones.

Juan Lopez, 32, is accused of opening fire at the hospital, killing Dr. Tamara O'Neal in the parking lot before entering the building and fatally shooting a pharmacist, Dr. Dayna Less, and Officer Samuel Jimenez.

Chicago police Supt. Eddie Johnson said O'Neal was leaving after her shift at around 3:28 p.m. Monday when she and Lopez got into a verbal altercation in the parking lot.

A friend tried to intervene in the argument, Johnson said, and Lopez lifted his shirt and displayed a handgun. The friend fled into the hospital, and witnesses said they saw Lopez shoot O'Neal at least six times in the parking lot.

As police arrived at the scene, Johnson said Lopez shot at officers before they exited their cars, and then ran into the hospital, where he and police engaged in an exchange of gunfire.

During the exchange, Less was exiting an elevator when she was fatally shot, Johnson said.

Jimenez, 28, was also shot in the exchange and taken in critical condition to the University of Chicago Hospital. He later died from his wounds.

O'Neal met the accused gunman Lopez three years ago when he was working as a security guard, her family said. They were engaged to be married in October, but she recently broke it off.

Her family said they were trying to be friends, and Lopez even went to church with the O'Neals on Sunday - one day before the deadly shooting. O'Neal's family said they don't want Tamara to be remembered as a victim, but instead want to focus on the good that she did.

"She liked the high impact of working in trauma and getting people well," her father Tom O'Neal said Tuesday.

Others remembered her as a dedicated emergency room physician who "loved helping people" and "had a heart of gold."

O'Neal's nephew Lashawn O'Neal called her "wonderful" and "caring," while Jalaysia Tucker remembered her aunt as "always the life of the party" with "the biggest laugh."

Less was a pharmacy resident at Mercy who overcame a headache disorder that required surgeries and started a blog about her struggle with the hope of helping others.

"My daughter aspired first and foremost to be the best person she could every single day of her life," her father Brian Less said of his only child.

"She loved helping others. She was good at her job because it helped others. She was forged in her own adversity which made her the strongest person I will ever know," her family said in a statement.

Less had plans to get married next year.

Fellow officers and friends gather in his Edison Park neighborhood at a local bar Tuesday night to remember Jimenez, a young man with a growing family and who was proud to have recently become a Chicago police officer.

He was a great guy," Officer Gorzerany, Jimenez's close friend through the police academy and beyond said. "He made time for everybody you know."

Hes the last person youd think this would happen to," he said, adding that Jimenez would "never turn his back" on a dangerous situation like Monday's shooting.

Mercy has set up a fund for donations to benefit the victims' families, and a candlelight vigil was scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Chicago's Federal Plaza.
Rejecting a plea for more time from Chicagoan George Papadopoulos, Special Counsel Robert Mueller told a federal court this morning the former advisor to President Donald Trump should be required to report for prison as scheduled next Monday.

Papadopoulos pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI, in connection with the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and was sentenced to 14 days in prison. While his surrender date was set for Monday November 26th, Papadopoulos filed a motion last Friday citing a current case challenging the constitutionality of Muellers appointment.

If the appeal is successful, then the Special Counsel lacked the constitutional authority to prosecute Mr. Papadopoulos in the first instance, his attorney Michael Hatley wrote. A modest stay of his incarceration pending the outcome of that appeal should be granted.

But this morning, Muellers office fired back, telling the court that Papadopouloss motion is made only for the purposes of delay, and he has not presented a substantial legal question that is likely to result in reversal.

The motion also reminded the court that Papadopoulos had no standing appeal of his own, had pled guilty to the charges, and in fact, had waived his rights to appeal when he signed his agreement.

Plus, if he had a problem with the legality of Muellers job, the special counsel said he had plenty of time to have already made that argument.

The first Court opinion addressing the validity of the Special Counsels appointment was publicly released on August 2, 2018, well in advance of his sentencing, the motion states. Two judges of this Court have rejected the same argument, concluding that the appointment of the Special Counsel is valid.

In a motion filed this morning, Papadopoulos declared that he needed a ruling on last weeks motion before reporting for prison, his sentence being so short that it would be pointless to get a favorable ruling after it had been served. In the earlier filing, his attorney further argued there is no need for him to report on time, since Papadopoulos does not pose a risk of flight, or a danger to the community.

Mr. Papadopoulos has fully complied with all of the conditions of his release, he said. And has appeared faithfully for every court appearance and for several interviews with the government.

His arguments received no sympathy from Mueller, who told the court, The defendant received what he bargained for, and holding him to it is not a hardship.
A former Middletown mayor who was arrested, accused of embezzling almost $1 million from his former employer as well as a family member, has pleaded guilty, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Police said 68-year-old Stephen T. Gionfriddo, of Middletown, was accused of embezzling approximately $540,000 from a Rocky Hill law firm he worked for and its clients, then stealing nearly $400,000 from his brother to pay the law firm back.

Gionfriddo was arrested on June 12, charged him with wire fraud and pleaded guilty Tuesday, according to the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

In 2006, Gionfriddo was convicted of mail fraud and wire fraud for embezzling more than $633,000 from clients while he was acting as their attorney, according to the federal officials, and he was disbarred.

Gionfriddo was accused of making bogus requisitions for approximately $377,895 in checks from the law firm between December 2013 and September 2017, purportedly to pay client expenses, but he used the funds for his personal use, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gionfriddo was also accused of forging the signature of one of the firms partners to convert a certificate of deposit for $112,748.21 to a check. In all, he is accused of stealing $543,372.21 from the law firm and his clients.

When principals of the law firm confronted him, in September 2017, Gionfriddo promised to repay the firm and took money from a family members checking account and online trading account and impersonated family, causing a hardship withdrawal of $195,000 to be made against his family members contribution plan, federal authorities said.

Gionfriddo served as the mayor of Middletown for six months in 1993, according to the Associated Press.

He will be sentenced on Feb. 12.
A 15-year-old Guilford High School freshman who died after a shooting in Guilford accidentally shot himself, according to a report from the States Attorney.

On January 31, police were called to 104 Seaside Ave. for reports of a gunshot victim and found 15-year-old Ethan Song. He was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

At the time, police said Song was with another teen and no adults were home at the time of the shooting. Song did not live in the home, police said.

In a report released Tuesday, the Waterbury States Attorneys office said investigation determined that Song accidentally shot himself in the head with a .357 magnum handgun, calling the death a horrific and preventable tragedy.

According to the report, the weapon was stored with two others in a cardboard box inside large Tupperware in a master bedroom closet of the home. Each weapon had a gun lock and there was no evidence that the weapons were loaded, but investigators determined that the keys to those locks and ammunition for the guns were also hidden in the closet.

The report goes on to say that it appears juveniles had played with the guns several times, then returned them to their original hiding place to avoid detection. Investigators said there is no evidence that the gun owner knew the juveniles had accessed the guns.

The States Attorneys report said the circumstances of the case do not support prosecution of the gun owner. The storage of the weapons did not violate Connecticut law, nor is there any evidence that the gun owner knew or should have known that juveniles could access the guns without permission.

The Song family has established the Ethan Miller Song Foundation in honor of their son, with a mission to raise awareness about gun safety and to teach children about the dangers of distracted driving and opioid abuse.
A witness to a Marine's act of heroism just two months before his tragic death recounted the incident to NBC 7 and explained why she thinks the man should always be remembered.

Two months ago, United States Marine Corps Sgt. Gary Wilson, 33, of Fairfield, CT, saved two people from a burning car on State Route 163.

Kristina Hill and another man saw the crash, too, and also pulled over to help. As they looked for a rock or hard object to break the window with, Sgt. Wilson walked up and broke it with his elbow.

"When I looked up, Gary Wilson was walking towards the car very stoically, quickly, no kind of emotion on his face. He walked right up to the car and busted out the window with his elbow. He reached in and pulled the woman out and cradled her to safety. It was sort of like right out of a movie."

The other woman in the car was alert, but couldn't move her arms to unlock the door, Hill said. She walked to the other side to help her, but Wilson was already there.

"Gary Wilson, again, was there. He had pried open the door, pulled her out and carried her out to another car."

Hill continued.

"Just like that. No hesitation. Just very heroic. I've never seen anything like it."

Hill said the disabled car was engulfed in flames within two minutes and was ready to explode.

"I believe wholeheartedly he saved their lives," she said.

Wilson's courage and selflessness had a profound impact on Hill and the two stayed in touch after the crash.

Wilson told Hill about another crash he witnessed just a week later in the same area. He pulled over and gave CPR to a man who ultimately died at the scene from his injuries.

Further inspired by his heroism, Hill wrote a letter of recommendation for Wilson to receive a recognition medal for his efforts. She said Wilson was never looking for any recognition, but she wanted him to get it.

"He was a Marine and he said that's what Marines do," Hill said.

Wilson was a drill instructor at MCRD after tours of duty in Okinawa and Camp Pendleton.

He earned two Good Conduct Medals, three Sea Service Deployment Ribbons, National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

He was killed in a motorcycle crash Friday evening on northbound I-15, according to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD). After learning of his tragic death, Hill said she could only scream in disbelief.

"I just hope he knows that his life was so important and that he touched so many people and I'm going to share his story all my life," she said.

To Hill, Wilson's story needs to be told because she says we're living in a time with so much negativity and division.

"I want him to know and his family to know he did change the world and he made an impact and that he's not going to be forgotten... Whoever brought him up and raised him did an amazing job."

MCRD San Diego released the following statement after Wilson's death:

"We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. Wilson. Our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult period. This is truly the loss of a fine Marine, and he will be missed greatly."
Hayley Horzepa reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds for help managing health expenses she said were necessary after a fall at Mohegan Sun landed her in the hospital.

Horzepa wanted her birthday celebration at a local casino to be memorable. It was, but not in the way she had hoped.

Its been a really stressful situation, said Horzepa.

In September, Horzepa said she walked out to the Cabana area at the Mohegan Sun Casino to sit outside and enjoy a warm night. On her way back inside the casino, Horzepa said she hit the ground, injuring her wrist and knee.

I didnt even know like why I fell? Im thinking like what am I like clumsy? Did my shoe break? Like whats going on? Horzepa said.

Horzepa provided photos of a tile that she believes was the reason for her fall. She said she was bleeding and disoriented, but insisted she wasnt intoxicated and said she reported the incident to a manager. The casino says their surveillance video contradicts her claim that it was that tile that caused her fall.

Im thinking like an elderly person could end up with a broken bone or somethingyou know, said Horzepa.

Horzepa was transported to the hospital after omplaining of back pain.

The last thing I wanted to do was to spend the night at the ER, said Horzepa.

In October, Horzepa said Mohegan Sun covered her trip to and from the hospital. But she still had a $587.99 emergency room bill for treatment related to lacerations to her wrist and knee.

When she contacted Risk Management for Mohegan Sun, Horzepa told us an employee revealed that her claim was denied.

Their response to this was absolutely appalling, said Horzepa.

Hayley says shes been going back and forth with Mohegan Sun Risk Management and has had no luck getting a resolution. So, she turned to NBC Connecticut Responds.

The President & General Manager of Mohegan Sun, Ray Pineault tells Responds:

Mohegan Sun was in communication with this guest, and take all matters related to guest safety very seriously. Upon review of this particular matter, there were material discrepancies based on video review. The video footage showed the fall occurring at a different area than what was reported to security by the guest.

Horzepa disagreed with that claim and asked to review the video to show staff where she fell on the property. But she said Mohegan Sun declined her request.

Still, Mohegan Sun told us: We made restitution out of good will as our goal is always to provide as best guest satisfaction as possible.

Mohegan Sun confirmed that the casino reimbursed Horzepas $587.99 emergency room bill and that made her feel a whole lot better.

There are good people out there like you Sandra, said Horzepa. It was like an amazing experience that you called me back.

Including Horzepas case, NBC Connecticut Responds has recovered more than $350,000 for our viewers.
The streets of San Pedro Tapanatepec in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico changed overnight.

The tranquil town in south-western Mexico was interrupted by the bustle of thousands of migrants, mostly Honduran, who stopped to rest for a few hours in between long days of walking on their journey toward the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among those who arrived, are Raquel and her parents.

The newborn barely opens her eyes and her tender fingers move slowly while her father, Ernesto, uses a piece of cardboard as a fan to protect her from humidity and heat.

"We are here because of the heat, but at night we go to the shelters," said Ernesto, who is accompanied by his wife and two other daughters, a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old.

Images: A look Inside the Migrant Caravan

Ernesto, who did not share his last name and asked not to be identified on camera, said he fears for his life and his safety is in under constant threat in Honduras.

It was a sentiment shared by several of the migrants NBC 7 and T20 spoke with while traveling with the caravan from Tapanatepec northwest to Santo Domingo Zanatepec.

Maryui Elizat said that if she returned to Honduras, she would fear violence and face hunger for the rest of her life. She is eight months pregnant and scheduled to give birth in less than three weeks.

Elizat still has several hundred miles ahead of her before reaching the border, where she, along with others in the caravan, planned to seek asylum to gain entry into the U.S. They traveled approximately 25 miles Monday through the state of Oaxaca.

The caravan of thousands is made up of hundreds of children like 9-year-old Aisleen.

"I feel a little happy, but like, I have a little bit of fear. I feel a little nervous," the young girl said. "But first, God, let's get there."

About 7,000 people make up the migrant caravan that traveled through southern Mexico Monday. NBC 7's Rigo Villalobos has more with an exclusive look.

Aisleen's mother, Eucebia Dominguez, only brought one of her three children along for the long journey. Aisleen admitted that the hardest part of the journey hasn't been the walking, but the fatigue and hunger is what haunts them.

When the migrants can rest -- trying to fight exhaustion, prevent illness and deportation during the journey -- they are helped along the way by locals. The Mexican Red Cross has also been offering assistance.

"Thank God, they have supported us a lot, just like when we were in Guatemala, they supported us a lot," said a migrant in the caravan.

Many of the migrants in the caravan are from Honduras. NBC 7's Catherine Garcia has more on the history of the moving caravan.

Angela Corte, a merchant in Tapanatepec, made a salsa and cheese for the migrants. Corte told T20 that it was all she could afford to offer.

Meanwhile, other Mexican residents along the route have opened their homes and business for the migrants to charge their cell phones and provided water drums for them to bathe in.

Some preferred to clean themselves in the rivers that run along the road. When they change their clothes, the migrants shield one another. And although they carry very little money, with all the help they've received, they haven't lacked anything.

Nine-year-old Aisleen wants to get an education when she arrives in the U.S. She said while the path to get there is long, she knows it will be worth it.

"We are going to get there; we have faith that we are going to get there, and you know, only God can break barriers," said Eucebia Dominguez, citing scripture.
What to Know South Korea called Kim Jong Yang's election in the hotly-debated election for Interpol's presidency a "national triumph"

There had been controversy over the possibility of a Russian security service veteran, Alexander Prokopchuk, being elected to the position

The U.S. on Tuesday came out against the election of Prokopchuk; Russia has accused critics of running a "campaign to discredit" him

South Korea's Kim Jong Yang was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations.

Kim's surprise election was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied up until the final hours before the vote against Alexander Prokopchuk's attempts to be named the next president of the policing organization.

The U.S. and others expressed concern that if Russia's candidate had been elected, that would have led to further Kremlin abuses of Interpol's red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Russia accused its critics of running a "campaign to discredit" its candidate, calling Prokopchuk a respected professional.

Groups campaigning to clean up Interpol celebrated the win, as did South Korea. South Korea's police and Foreign Ministry issued a joint statement saying Kim's election is a "national triumph" that could elevate South Korea's international standing.

Kim's win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Meng's departure from the post and was senior vice president at Interpol.

Russia's Interior Ministry said after the vote that Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position. Spokeswoman Irina Volk told the Interfax news agency that Prokopchuk will "focus on advancing the stature of Interpol in the international police community and making its work more effective."

Most of Interpol's 194 member-countries attended the organization's annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast.

Interpol was facing a pivotal moment in its history as delegates decided whether to hand its presidency to Prokopchuk or Kim, who were the only two candidates vying for the post.

Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for issuing "red notices" that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on the world's "most-wanted" list.

Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists, even though its rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons.

The agency faced criticism two years ago when Interpol's member-states approved Meng as president for a four-year term. Amnesty International has criticized "China's longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad."

In 2016, Interpol introduced new measures aimed at strengthening the legal framework around the red notice system. As part of the changes, an international team of lawyers and experts first check a notice's compliance with Interpol rules and regulations before it goes out. Interpol also says it enhanced the work of an appeals body for those targeted with red notices.

Still, member countries can issue requests, known as diffusions, directly to other countries using Interpol's communication system, without going through the centralized Interpol vetting that's in place for red notices. Watchdog groups are urging Interpol to reform the diffusion system too.

Bill Browder, who runs an investment fund that had once operated in Moscow, says Russia used the diffusion system against him, which led to his brief arrest in Spain earlier this year.

Browder and another prominent Kremlin critic, oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, warned Tuesday that electing Prokopchuk who has ties to President Vladimir Putin would have undermined the international law enforcement agency and politicized police cooperation across borders. Prokopchuk was in charge of facilitating Interpol warrants on behalf of Russia.

Browder and Khodorkovsky  who are reviled by the Kremlin  celebrated the result of the Interpol vote. Browder told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "Common sense has prevailed in a dark world. This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it."

A lawyer who wrote a book on Interpol, Christopher David, hailed Kim's election as "a solid, uncontroversial choice." He said in a statement that if Interpol is to be a credible crime-fighting resource, Kim must increase transparency "to demonstrate and maintain its political neutrality."

A day before the Interpol vote, the White House had come out publicly against the election of Prokopchuk, with National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis saying "the Russian government abuses Interpol's processes to harass its political opponents." U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was encouraging all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol to choose Kim.

Russia, however, secured a win for its ally Serbia on Tuesday when Kosovo's bid to join Interpol failed to garner enough votes at the general assembly in Dubai. The move would have boosted Kosovo's efforts at recognition of its statehood. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Nataliya Vasilyeva and Danica Kirka contributed.
A statewide Amber Alert was discontinued overnight for a 2-year-old police believed to be in "grave or immediate danger."

Police in Burkburnett issued the Amber Alert Tuesday evening for Eli Scott Smith.

The Texas Department of Public Safety tweeted overnight that the alert was discontinued and the boy was marked as "Found" on the state's Amber Alert website. No further information was offered.

Burkburnett is north of Wichita Falls, just south of the Texas-Oklahoma border.

In connection with the Amber Alert, Burkburnett police searched for 48-year-old Michael Scott Smith and 51-year-old Robin Michelle Golden.

Police described Smith as a white male, who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 205 pounds. He has brown hair, blue eyes and was last seen wearing a black fox hat, a blue shirt and blue jeans.

Golden is described as a white female, standing 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighing 145 pounds. She has brown hair and blue eyes, police said.

A black 2003 Saturn Vue with California license plate DP416RZ was connected to the case.
From three stories up, six people leapt onto mattresses held by good Samaritans and dropped a baby to rescuers on the ground to escape a massive apartment fire in Dallas Wednesday morning.[[501004531,R]]

I didnt want my daughter to lose her life, he (good samaritan) told me just trust me I got her, I got her, so without even thinking I just dropped her," Shuntara Thomas, who dropped her 1-year-old daughter to safety said.

Residents of the Meadows at Ferguson apartments on the 11700 block of Ferguson Road were awoken at about 7 a.m. to police officers and other rescuers banging on doors alerting them to the fire.

Dallas police officers were the first to arrive at the scene after spotting smoke billowing from the building, according to Jason Evans, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman. Evans credited police for going door-to-door, alerting residents to escape while others dragged mattresses from homes to serve as improvised landing pads for people trapped and willing to jump to safety. Dallas Police released video from one of the officer's body camera on Wednesday afternoon, showing the officers rushing to get everyone to safety.

Video from a Dallas police officer's body camera shows the dramatic scene as they arrive at an apartment fire in the 11700 block of Ferguson Road on Wednesday morning.

Witnesses on scene also caught the dramatic scene on cell phone video as the flames poured from the third floor apartment.

Six residents of a Northeast Dallas apartment complex, including a baby, leapt from their third-floor windows Wednesday morning to escape a massive fire that devoured two dozen residences and left three people injured, including a firefighter, authorities say.

Darren Hicks and Byron Campbell joined others in rescuing people trapped in a burning apartment building Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018.

"Everybody held the mattresses on both sides and we told everybody just aim for the mattresses," said Darren Hicks, a man visiting friends at the apartment complex who helped rescue people trapped by the fire.

Six people, including a baby who had to be caught, jumped from the third-floor to mattresses on the ground below, firefighters said.

"I seen a lady, she yelled out the window she was about to drop the baby. So, my first reaction, was go by the window and catch the baby. When she dropped the baby I caught the baby and curled him up in my hands," said rescuer Byron Campbell, who was with Hicks visiting friends at the apartment complex.

Hicks and Campbell told NBC 5 they rushed to help to prevent a worse ending to a story where people were obviously losing everything -- they didn't want it to be any worse so close to Thanksgiving.

From three stories up, six people leapt onto mattresses held by good Samaritans and dropped a baby to rescuers to escape a massive apartment fire in Dallas Wednesday morning.

Byron Campbell talks about catching a baby dropped from a third-floor window while residents escaped a growing fire. Nearly two dozen residences were damaged and three people were injured, including a firefighter, authorities say.

The massive fire devoured two dozen residences, 18 of which were occupied, and left three people injured, including a firefighter who suffered second-degree burns to his shoulder and arm, authorities said. The two injured residents were transported to hospitals with injuries not considered life-threatening. All are expected to be OK.

The building was severely damaged by the fire and DFR said investigators were not able to enter it to determine what sparked the blaze. The building was demolished later in the morning.

An apartment building in Dallas is torn down after a fire devoured the structure to the point it was unstable.

DFR said firefighters attacked the fire quickly but were soon forced into a defensive posture. Firefighters were able to contain the fire to the one building and had the fire under control by 8 a.m. Video from Texas Sky Ranger showed flames shooting through the roof as firefighters surrounded the 3-story building.

@DallasFireRes_q has extinguished the fire on Ferguson Rd, but the real heroes did their work before hand, as civilians and @DallasPD worked together to get residents to safety. 6 people, including a baby, jumped from the 3rd floor while they held mattresses on the ground. pic.twitter.com/gBW42MfuRA  DALLAS FIRE-RESCUE (@DallasFireRes_q) November 21, 2018

The American Red Cross is assisting 40 people made temporarily homeless by the fire by providing them with comfort kits and disaster assisstance.

The Red Cross said all of the people impacted by the fire were moved to vacant residences in the community. Anyone else impacted by the fire is asked to call 1-800-RED-CROSS for help.

Check back and refresh this page for the latest update. As this story is developing, elements may change. NBC 5's Tim Ciesco, Courtney Gilmore, Jack Highberger and Frank Heinz contributed to this report.

Dallas Fire-Rescue crews converged on a burning Northeast Dallas apartment building Wednesday morning.
The fate of the long-running criminal case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has faced securities fraud charges since 2015, was thrown into further uncertainty Wednesday after a court ruled against prosecutors who have threatened to quit if they're not paid.

The decision is a victory for Paxton, a Republican, who was re-elected in November and has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging that he duped investors in a tech startup.

Special prosecutors have previously suggested they would drop the case if they're not paid $200,000 they say they're owed. They had been making an hourly rate of $300, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that prosecutors should have instead been hired under a fixed rate under the law.

Prosecutors issued a statement expressing disappointment over the ruling, but they didn't say whether or not they would remain on the case.

"While we are disappointed with the majority's ruling and are exploring all legal options available to us, it does not alter the fact that Ken Paxton remains charged with three serious felony offenses," said Brian Wice, a Houston attorney who is one of the special prosecutors.

Pushing back on the fees were elected commissioners in Collin County, near Dallas, which is Paxton's hometown and is responsible for paying the prosecution team. A onetime political donor to Paxton had also previously sued, calling what prosecutors made exorbitant and unfair to taxpayers.

"Attorney General Paxton is extremely grateful for the court's decision," Paxton spokesman Jordan Berry said.

It was a 5-3 decision by the court, which only includes Republican judges and is the same court that threw out abuse of power charges against former Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2016. The court didn't say how much prosecutors should be paid, but Judge Elsa Alcala, in a dissenting opinion, argued that abiding strictly by a fixed rate under the law would pay out $2,000 at the most.

If convicted, Paxton faces 5 to 99 years in prison. But the prospects of him ever standing trial appear to have dimmed with the case in a standstill for nearly a year.

Prosecutors have accused Paxton's conservative allies of trying to derail the case by challenging their fees and making it impossible for them to eventually put on a fair trial. Among those they have singled out was Rick Santorum, the former U.S. senator and GOP presidential candidate, who told a Dallas television station last year that the case against Texas' top prosecutor was a witch hunt.

A judge moved the trial to Houston, but the case has languished.

In the meantime, Paxton has regained his footing within the GOP after many top Texas Republicans kept a distance following his indictment in August 2015, just eight months after he took office. His office has been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, who singled out Paxton as doing a "great job" during an October a rally ahead of the midterm elections.

Paxton won re-election by fewer than 4 percentage points, making it a relatively close race in Texas, where Republicans for a decade have comfortably cruised to double-digit wins for statewide office. His opponent, Democrat Justin Nelson, staked his campaign on reminding voters about Paxton's indictment and plastered the attorney general's mugshot on highway billboards.

The charges against Paxton stem from 2011, when he was a state lawmaker and lined up investors for a tech startup called Servergy Inc. without telling them the company was paying him. Paxton has argued that he was under no obligation to do so and a federal judge agreed with him last year, throwing out a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that was nearly identical to the criminal case.
Health officials in the U.S. and Canada told people on Tuesday to stop eating romaine lettuce because of a new E. coli outbreak.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is working with officials in Canada on the outbreak, which has sickened 32 people in 11 states and 18 people in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

The strain identified is different than the one linked to romaine earlier this year but appears similar to last year's outbreak linked to leafy greens.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the agency doesn't have enough information to ask suppliers for a recall, but he suggested that supermarkets and restaurants should withdraw romaine until the source of the contamination can be identified. People are also being advised to throw out any romaine they have at home.

The contaminated lettuce is likely still on the market, Gottlieb told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

He said FDA wanted to issue a warning before people gathered for Thanksgiving meals, where the potential for exposure could increase.

"We did feel some pressure to draw conclusions as quickly as we could," he said.

In Canada, officials issued similar warnings to the two provinces where people were sickened. They said there was no evidence to suggest people in other parts of the country had been affected.

Most romaine sold this time of year is grown in California, Gottlieb said. The romaine lettuce linked to the E. coli outbreak earlier this year was from Yuma, Arizona. Tainted irrigation water appeared to be the source of that outbreak, which sickened about 200 people and killed five.

The FDA's blanket warning in the current outbreak is broader and more direct than the ones issued in the earlier outbreak, said Robert Whitaker, chief science officer for the Produce Marketing Association. In the earlier outbreak, the warnings about romaine from Yuma might have been confusing, he said.

Whitaker said the industry group told members they should cooperate with the FDA and stop supplying romaine lettuce, especially since people have been told to stop buying and eating it.

No deaths have been reported in the current outbreak, but 13 people in the U.S. and six in Canada have been hospitalized. The last reported U.S. illness was on Oct. 31, while and the most recent illness in Canada was early this month.

Tracing the source of contaminated lettuce can be difficult because it's often repackaged by middlemen, said Sarah Sorscher, deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. That can mean the entire industry becomes implicated in outbreaks, even if not all products are contaminated.

"One of the problems with produce is that it can be very hard to trace back," she said.

She said washing contaminated lettuce won't ensure that harmful germs are killed.

Infections from E. coli can cause symptoms including severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. Most people recover within a week, but some illnesses can last longer and be more severe.

Health officials have also been reminding people to properly handle and cook their Thanksgiving birds amid a widespread salmonella outbreak linked to raw turkey. Last week, Hormel recalled some packages of Jennie-O ground turkey that regulators were able to tie to an illness.

But unlike with romaine lettuce, regulators are not warning people to avoid turkey. Salmonella is not prohibited in raw meat and poultry, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which overseas raw meat, said cooking should kill any salmonella.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the extent of the CDC warning. It extends to all romaine lettuce.
California Senator Kamala Harris said the deployment of military forces to the U.S.-Mexico border is a political stunt orchestrated by President Donald Trump for TV cameras.

Senator Harris, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, toured San Diegos Camp Pendleton on Monday and met with Marines of 1 Marine Expeditionary Force.

Harris was briefed on 1 MEFs operations and its role in national defense and intelligence, but said she visited the base to meet with military families and thank them for their service and sacrifice.

She also criticized the deployment of more than 1,100 Marines, and thousands more troops from other branches, to assist Customs and Border Patrol in what it is calling Operation Secure Line, a "border hardening" mission meant to prepare the areas infrastructure for the arrival of thousands of migrants hoping to seek asylum in the United States.

Harris said she believes the administrations decision to deploy troops to the border was based on a political agenda and said it was an inappropriate use of the countrys limited resources.

These [service members] who are deployed are going to leave their families, they will not be home, it looks like, for Thanksgiving, all because there needed to be some demonstration for the TV cameras based on a political agenda instead of what is a national security threat, the Senator said.

The Department of Defense insisted last week that the troops were sent there to help CBP and nothing else. Analysts and the Pentagon estimate that the entire deployment operation could cost $200 million.

Harris also spoke about Marines and other service members involvement in the fight against devastating wildfires burning across the state, and used it as an example of how military members affect people and communities in their country whom theyll never meet or visit.

Part of the importance of moments like this is remembering that there are real men and women behind the seal of the United State of America who are dedicating their lives in service and we cannot ever thank them enough for all that they do, Harris said.

Harris also said she spent time with spouses of deployed and active-duty Marines who are concerned about their safety and livelihood in military housing, and said it was important that troops be given the dignity they are due.

Homes on Camp Pendleton and other military bases across the country were found to have mice infestations and mold problems, according to a Reuters report.

A letter signed by Harris and fellow California Senator Diane Feinstein asked Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis and the Pentagon to conduct a fact-finding mission into the problems.

Harris said humidity and mold were among the concerns of Marine families she spoke with Monday.

A spokesperson for the Government Accountability Office told NBC 7 a review of military housing conditions was ordered by the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

Harris was also critical of the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General, saying the Attorney General should be someone who is constitutionally appointed and someone who will be very clear that they will protect Bob Muellers investigation.

The senator tweeted earlier in the day that she supports a lawsuit challenging the appointment filed by senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
It had been 10 days since the Greenbergs evacuated their Malibu Park house, endured six hours in the mass exodus traffic jam on Pacific Coast Highway, and settled in with accommodating Woodland Hills friends to wait out Woolsey, the most destructive fire ever in their world-renowned seaside community.

Finally, they returned over the Santa Monica Mountains through Malibu Canyon, stopping in the civic center at the newly-opened Assistance Center before making their way up the coast, already knowing their home of three decades had been consumed.

"I'm kind of afraid to go back to our neighborhood," admitted Tony Greenberg, MD, sitting with his wife, Jill, who runs the Malibu Learning Center tutoring program located on their property.

As they spoke with a reporter outside the assistance center, they encountered friends and neighbors who had also suffered losses. But without missing a beat, Dr. Greenberg added a pledge.

"I believe we have to rebuild our neighborhood."

It is a recurring theme your hear from most everyone returning to Malibu, haven for artists and creators, its scenic beauty of mountains meeting ocean again scarred by wildfire, the full extent of it still yet to be fully assessed, but perhaps as many as 600 homes destroyed.

"Nobody ever though it would be of this magnitude," said Karen York, longtime publisher of the Malibu Times newspaper.

A quarter century ago, she and her husband had lost their La Costa neighborhood home during what until Woolsey had been Malibu's worst ever conflagration, the Old Topanga fire that destroyed much of the city's eastern end.

Woolsey burned father west, the brunt of it inflicted on Malibu's up-coast end, beyond the civic center all the way into Ventura County.

The city of Malibu, comprising more than 20 miles of coastline and extending only a few miles inland, is home to 13,000 residents, with thousands of summer visitors. Also considered within the Malibu community are many more who live in the unincorporated area in the mountains above.

York already looks ahead to Malibu's recovery.

"That's really important to rebuild as fast as we can," York said.

Many in Malibu use the word "magical" to describe the appeal.

"Malibu is a special place," said the Greenbergs, who spoke of not only the beauty and the climate, but the community connection.

"We didn't realize how important that was till this happened to us," Jill Greenberg said.

"We don't stop. We put our heads down and keep walking," declared one well-known Malibu resident still visibly in physical pain.

Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner, the stuntman, surfshop owner, and incoming Malibu mayor came to the assistance center having been been only recently released from being hospitalized for burns and other injuries suffered trying to save his house from the Woolsey fire.

Like so many in his community, Wagner is already giving thought to what needs to be done differently this time when Malibu rises again from ashes.

From his experience, Wagner sees need for more more rigorous roofing standards. It was not the wall of flames that overwhelmed his house in the hills, he said, but windblown embers that ignited the roof.

Standards should be focused on area needs and adopted locally, not imposed from Sacramento, in the view of State Senator Henry Stern, D-Malibu, whose Malibu condominium home burned in the fire.

The Greenbergs will be disappointed if incorporating greater fire resistance deprives homes of charm.

"I hope I don't have to build a concrete bunker," said Jill Greenberg. What they will keep is one item on their property that did survive Woolsey, their whimsical laughing fountain.

She emphasized she and her husband want to stay in Malibu Park, but at the same time, said insurance provisions mean many residents have no choice. If the Greenbergs keep their home in California, their policy limits reimbursement to rebuilding their existing property, not using the proceeds to buy another house, unless they move out of state.

Another area of concern is water delivery systems that could not meet demand Nov. 9 when the fire came across the mountains and down to the coast at Point Dume. Many residents who stayed behind to try to protect their homes said water pressure dropped to a trickle.

Council member Lou La Monte urges a new look at the long delayed plan to upgrade Malibu's Waterworks District 29.

There have disagreements over the scope of the project, in part stemming from resistance among many community members to infrastructure improvements that would enable unwanted development and growth.

Given Malibu's location below brush covered canyons prone to seasonal Santa Ana Winds, periodic wildfires have always come with the territory, since before the current drought, before recognition of climate change, even before Malibu was discovered by movie stars and moguls, and the Malibu Colony developed as Hollywood's seaside playground.

Looking from the outside, what some forget, La Monte and others remind, is that Malibu is home to thousands who are neither famous nor rich, many first lured up coast decades ago when it was a less expensive alternative to coastal living than Santa Monica.

"This community will always be vulnerable," La Monte said.

But for those who savor what it can be again, "the tradeoff is generally worth it."

And there is even a sense of gratitude that, as horrific as was the Woolsey fire, it was orders of magnitude less severe than what, in the Sierra foothills 400 miles to the north, the Camp Fire inflicted on Paradise.
Authorities Tuesday identified a woman who was killed, along with her teenage sister, in their Westchester-area apartment, which was set on fire.

Uniek Atkins, 27, and Sierra Brown, 16, were found dead after firefighters put out the blaze in their apartment last Saturday morning.

Both victims had been shot, and the case is being investigated as an arson-homicide, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

No arrests have been made, and police have not released any suspect information.

Relatives who gathered Sunday at a vigil in memory of the victims said they were both mothers and had recently moved into their apartment in a two- story building at 8655 South Belford Ave. The family members told reporters they had no idea why anyone would want to harm either victim.

Anyone with information on the crime was urged to call 877-LAPD-247.

If you would like to donate to a GoFundMe account set up for Uniek Atkins and Sierra Brown, you may do so here. Note that GoFundMe deducts 2.9 percent of all funds raised, plus 30 cents per donation, in the form of payment processing charges.
What to Know Tyler Laube is an alleged member of a white supremacist group known as the Rise Above Movement.

Laube is accused of assaulting journalists and protesters at a "Make America Great Again" rally in Huntington Beach in May, 2017.

Laube signed an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act.

An alleged member of a militant Southern California white supremacist group pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge in connection with a violent political rally in Orange County last year in which several journalists were attacked.

Tyler Laube, 22, of Redondo Beach signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last week in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act, court papers show.

He is expected to be sentenced March 25.

In the plea agreement, Laube admitted to being associated with the so-called Rise Above Movement, attending a "combat-training event" in San Clemente on March 15, 2017, and assaulting counter-protesters and others at a "Make America Great Again" rally in Huntington Beach 10 days later.

At the March 25, 2017 rally, Laube and other RAM members broke off from the main event at Bolsa Chica State Beach and confronted protesters opposed to President Donald Trump, and several journalists, according to prosecutors. An OC Weekly reporter and two photographers said they were assaulted at the event.

RAM members then posted photos and videos of assaults committed by Laube and others in order to recruit potential members "to engage in violent confrontations at future events," according to the plea agreement.

Laube and three others were indicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury on Nov. 1 for allegedly inciting violence against counter-protesters, journalists and a police officer at political rallies in California.

Laube and co-defendants Robert Rundo, 28, of Huntington Beach, Robert Boman, 25, of Torrance, and Aaron Eason 38, of the Riverside County community of Anza, were indicted on one count each of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act. Additionally, Rundo, Boman and Eason were charged with violating the riots statute. Each of the two counts carry sentences of up to five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Last month, federal authorities arrested suspected RAM founder Benjamin Daley, 25, of Redondo Beach, and three others for their suspected roles in last year's deadly far-right rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Daley, Thomas Walter Gillen, 24, also of Redondo Beach, Michael Paul Miselis, 29, of Lawndale, and Cole Evan White, 24, of Clayton, California, are awaiting trial in Virginia.
What to Know There's chance of rain Wednesday evening and a better possibility after midnight

The bulk of the rainfall will spread across Northern California over the Thanksgiving holiday

Residents in SoCal burn areas were warned that they should be prepared to evacuate

A bout of rain will move quickly through Southern California, but it will have the potential to unleash rockslides, mudslides and minor debris flows in areas recently stricken by wildfires.

There's chance of rain Wednesday evening and a better possibility after midnight amid southwest winds of around 15 miles per hour and a 50 percent chance on Thanksgiving morning, followed by a partly cloudy afternoon.

Between seven-tenths of an inch and an inch-and-a-quarter of rain are expected to fall on coastal slopes and in the foothills, which could trigger slides over areas denuded by the Woolsey Fire in L.A. and Ventura counties and the Hill fire in Ventura County. Highway 1 and Santa Monica Mountain canyon roads are particularly vulnerable, they said.

Rain Timing:

Ventura County:- 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.

LA County, Orange County, Inland Empire: Wednesday night to Thursday morning, 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Showers moved into Northern California early Wednesday.

Warning for Residents Near Woolsey Fire

Residents near the Woolsey Fire were warned that mud and debris flows are a very realistic threat that might force evacuations. The Woolsey Fire was 100 percent contained Wednesday evening.

Some fire-damaged areas remain unsafe, the electrical system is "extremely damaged," and road crews are working to clear rocks as emergency personnel prepare for the impending storm, Department of Public Works Director Mark Pestrella told the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

"We're going to have rock fall, we're going to have roads closed," Pestrella said. "The roads will not be safe to travel beginning Wednesday evening."

Pestrella said he expected Pacific Coast Highway would be closed at some point.

Burn area residents concerned about mudflow can pick up empty sandbags at their local fire stations, and can visit the LA County web site for storm season emergency resources, including Los Angeles County's "Homeowners Guide to Flood, Debris and Erosion Control." The sandbags should be used to divert potential flows, not dam them.
What to Know Kayla Morgan was arrested Monday after Marion County Sheriffs deputies say they received a call of a woman running in and out of traffic.

When deputies approached Morgan, she could be seen running away before dropping the infant head first on the ground.

A 23-year-old Florida woman was captured on police body camera video dropping a baby on its head, fracturing the infant's skull, while running away from police.

Kayla Morgan was arrested Monday and charged with aggravated child abuse and resisting arrest.

Marion County sheriffs deputies were called after witnesses reported seeing a woman darting in and out of traffic near Silver Springs while holding an infant, according to NBC affiliate WESH-TV.

When deputies approached Morgan, she could be seen running away before dropping the infant head first on the ground. Video shows a bystander rushing to help the child and handing the baby over to officers.

The baby was taken to the hospital with a fractured skull, deputies said. It was not immeditaley clear if Morgan was the baby's mother. Officials said the baby is expected to recover.

Morgan was taken to an area hospital after telling deputies she had been taking psychoactive drugs, including methamphetamine and the street drug "Molly," over the last three days.

She told investigators she thought "a monster was trying to suck her blood," according to WESH.

It was not immediately clear if Morgan had an attorney.
The Broward Sheriff's Office captain who was the commander at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting scene is resigning, the department said Tuesday.

Capt. Jan Jordan informed Sheriff Scott Israel she would be resigning Tuesday for personal reasons, according to a BSO statement. Jordan has been with the department since January 2013.

Jordan was removed from her post overseeing the Parkland area after city officials expressed concern over how the sheriff's office reacted to the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 and wounded 17 others. Jordan was also criticized for her actions during the shooting at last week's Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission meetings.

Law enforcement officers told investigators Jordan appeared to be in a trance-like state and overwhelmed as she tried to direct the initial response to the attack.

Meanwhile, the first sergeant who responded to the shooting scene, Sgt. Brian Miller, has been placed on restrictive administrative duty pending an internal investigation, BSO officials said. Miller arrived at the school during the shooting but video shows he stayed outside the parking lot until long after the massacre ended, even as other law enforcement officers entered the building.
Thanksgiving is right around the corner and nothing rings in the holiday spirit more than...food recalls?

Here is the list of foods that have recently been recalled ahead of this years festivities.

Romaine lettuce:

Health officials are warning people to stay away from romaine lettuce entirely after it was connected to an E. coli outbreak that hospitalized 13 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

Beef:

Nearly 100,000 pounds of beef have been recalled after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it may be contaminated with traces of E. coli. Brands including Swift Ground Beef and Blue Ribbon Ground Beef are not safe to eat, officials announced Saturday.

Ground Turkey:

Jennie-O recalled almost 100,000 pounds of raw turkey products in an ongoing salmonella outbreak. The outbreak resulted in one death and 164 reported illnesses.

Cake Mix:

Several Duncan Hines cake mixes were recalled in early November after a sample of the brands Classic White mix tested a positive finding of salmonella. The recall includes Classic White, Classic Yellow, Butter Golden and Confetti cake mixes.
What to Know The bodies of four people, two of them children, were found at a burning mansion in the wealthy New Jersey community of Colts Neck

Prosecutors say the blaze was intentionally set; father Keith Caneiro was shot and his wife and two children were stabbed, sources say

Authorities are also looking into whether it's connected to a fire at the home of Keith Caneiro's brother, who has been arrested for arson

All four members of a New Jersey family -- including two children -- were killed before their mansion was torched in what Monmouth County police say is one of the most "heinous" cases they have ever seen.

Keith Caneiro, 50, Jennifer Caneiro, 45, and their children Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8, were found dead and badly burned Tuesday after emergency services were called to a fire at their stately home in Colts Neck, an upscale community near the New Jersey shore, officials said.

Keith was found outside the house, shot in the head and back, while his wife and two kids were found inside and appear to have been stabbed, law enforcement sources told NBC 4. Jesse and Sophia were stabbed and killed in separate rooms, sources say, apparently still asleep. Their $2 million home was set on fire just after noon.

"We believe that in some form or fashion, this family was targeted," Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. He said the entire family appeared to be victims of homicidal violence. "This is one of the most heinous cases we have ever seen," he said.

All four members of a New Jersey family  including two children  were killed before their mansion was torched, in what Monmouth County authorities say is one of the most worst cases they have ever seen. Brian Thompson has the latest information on the tragedy that shook an upscale New Jersey neighborhood.

The news comes as Keith Caneiro's brother was charged with torching his own home on the same day, 10 miles away, while his own wife and daughters were inside.

On Wednesday morning Paul J. Caneiro was charged with one count of aggravated arson in connection with a fire at his Ocean Township home early Tuesday morning, municipal court records show. A criminal complaint alleges that Paul set his own home on fire with gasoline before daybreak, while his wife and two daughters were inside.

Monmouth County, New Jersey, Prosecutor's Office

Officials continue to investigate the link between the two fires and would not confirm or deny whether Paul was a suspect in his relatives' killings. Gramiccioni said the public should not be concerned that there is a quadruple-killer on the run.

A vigil was held for the Caneiro family Wednesday night at the Colts Neck Town Hall. Many shedding tears at the vigil were classmates of Jesse and Sophia.

"She and the youngest daughter bonded so we've been following the updates on the news and it's just really important to come out and support the community tonight, " family friend Ryan White said as he held his daughter.

On Tuesday, firefighters responded to the blaze at the Caneiro mansion in Colts Neck around 12:30 p.m. after a lanscaper alerted emergency services. The fire burned for hours. Video showed firefighters battling the blaze as smoke poured from the roof of the two-story home, which is surrounded by fields and includes a large swimming pool.

Chopper 4 footage showed a sheet in the middle of the yard next to the house, with police tape cordoning off the area.

Colts Neck is a well-to-do community about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of New York City and is home to horse farms. Typical homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at about $750,000. Bruce Springsteen owns an estate there, and his son is a former member of the fire department. Former "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and his wife operate an animal sanctuary there; Queen Latifah sold her mansion there in 2015.

Paul J. Caneiro, 51, of Tilton Avenue in Ocean Township, is charged with one count of second degree Aggravated Arson in connection with a fire Monday at his residence. Investigators are urging anyone with any information about this incident to call 800-533-7443. pic.twitter.com/26pIvKq4Il  Monmouth Prosecutor (@MonCoProsecutor) November 21, 2018

The investigation into the mysterious New Jersey mansion fire where four people were found dead continues. Sources say the mom and two kids found inside were possibly stabbed, while the father was shot. Brian Thompson with the latest details.

The 5,700-square-foot mansion that burned has four bedrooms and five bathrooms, according to Zillow. The owners purchased the property in 1998, and the home was built in 2003, public records show.

The Caneiro brothers were partners in an Asbury Park business. Keith's LinkedIn profile describes him as the CEO and chief technology officer for the technology consulting company Square One. His profile says he graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science degree in 2018 and previously received certifications from Harvard Business School's online platform.

Paul Caneiro is listed as the vice president of Square One. His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

A huge fire was burning at a New Jersey mansion Tuesday.
What to Know The trial of Chanel Lewis, accused of killing Queens jogger Karina Vetrano, has ended in a hung jury; the judge has declared a mistrial

Vetrano's 2016 strangulation death shocked the city; her body was found by her father and police hours after she went missing

Suspect Chanel Lewis was connected to the case via DNA evidence that was obtained from underneath Vetrano's fingernails

A hung jury mistrial has been declared in the case of a 22-year-old man accused of murdering a young woman when she went out for a run in her Queens neighborhood more than two years ago.

A family member of Vetrano could be heard saying "Oh, my God" in the courtroom as the mistrial of Chanel Lewis was declared.

Jurors said they were split and that it didn't seem as though they would make progress one way or another by deliberating any further.

The judge agreed, saying that although it had been only a day and a half, it seemed as though the jury had exhausted all routes.

Jury deliberations started Monday and continued into Tuesday night. The jury, comprised of seven and five men, asked to review evidence like pictures of Vetrano's neck injuries and a photo of her necklace, photos of the autopsy, photos of the running trail, and Lewis' web searches. They also asked to rewatch Lewis' confession tape.

The judge read back 75-page testimony from the medical examiner regarding DNA evidence. A control hearing about what happens next is scheduled for Jan. 22.

Lewis had pleaded not guilty to murder and sexual abuse charges in the Aug. 2, 2016 death of 30-year-old Karina Vetrano. He was 20 when he allegedly sexually assaulted and strangled Vetrano, abandoning her body in the marsh.

Vetrano had gone out for her usual run early that evening. She never came home. Her father, Phil Vetrano, was among the group that found her body in Howard Beach's Spring Creek Park hours after she was reported missing.

Phil Vetrano broke down on the stand as he testified about the horror.



I let out this sound that I  that I never made before or since. It was  I dont know. It was like a wail, he recalled. And then I screamed, My baby, my baby.



Lewis, who was 20 when he allegedly sexually assaulted and strangled Vetrano, was arrested in the killing about six months after her death. Prosecutors said he was connected to the case via DNA evidence obtained from underneath Vetrano's fingernails. The medical examiner had said she fought for her life.



In a confession tape played during the trial last week, Lewis was heard saying he was angry about the loud music his neighbor had been playing when he encountered Vetrano jogging on the park trail.

While you were in the park, did something happen? Assistant District Attorney Peter McCormack asks Lewis on the tape, which is dated Feb. 5, 2017.

Yes, Lewis replied.

Lewis then admits that he got angry and started hitting [Vetrano] in the face and mouth, video shows.

At some point during the attack, Vetranos tooth broke, he says, adding that Vetranos face ended up in a pool of water.

Lewis also admits to putting his hands around Vetranos neck and hitting her for about five minutes, before dragging her somewhere off the pathway.

Her clothing was pulled off, but Lewis denies sexually assaulting her.

Lewis' defense lawyers claimed in closing arguments that a confession was obtained under duress and the evidence in the case was weak.

They said the DNA found on the Vetrano's body was minuscule, and that police were eager to make an arrest six months after her body was found.

"This is a rush to judgment," one of Lewis' lawyers said.

The defense also claimed there was sloppy police work, starting with the crime scene when Vetrano's father lifted up and hugged her lifeless body when he found her. He broke down on the stand as he testified about the horror last week.

The defense said because of that, "The crime scene became corrupted for the first time. You can't blame Mr. Vetrano for what he did. He did what any dad would do."

They said the entire case was based on a rush to judgment and that prosecutors lacked the burden of proof.
A white Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi said during a debate with her African-American Democratic opponent Tuesday night that she apologizes to people who were offended when she complimented a supporter by saying she would attend a "public hanging" if the supporter invited her.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's remark was caught on video that was released last week. It has brought widespread criticism both inside and outside Mississippi, a state with a history of racially motivated lynchings.

"For anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statement," Hyde-Smith said Tuesday during a televised debate with Democrat Mike Espy.

The apology was a new approach for Hyde-Smith, who repeatedly refused to answer questions about the hanging comment at a news conference Nov. 12, the day after the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted the video on Facebook and Twitter.

The clip shows Hyde-Smith praising a cattle rancher at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." Shortly after the video's release, she said in a statement that the expression was an "exaggerated expression of regard" and said it is "ridiculous" to read any negative connotation into it.

"There has never been anything, not one thing, in my background to ever indicate I had ill will toward anyone," Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner, said Tuesday night. "I've never been hurtful to anyone. I've always tried to help everyone. I also recognize that this comment was twisted and it was turned into a weapon to be used against me, a political weapon used for nothing but personal and political gain by my opponent. That's the type of politics Mississippians are sick and tired of."

Espy responded during the debate: "No one's twisted your comments because your comments were live, you know, it came out of your mouth. I don't know what's in your heart but I know what came out of your mouth. It went viral in the first three minutes around the world. And so it's caused our state harm. It's given our state another black eye that we don't need. It's just rejuvenated those stereotypes that we don't need anymore."

Hyde-Smith is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress. Espy is a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary, is seeking to become the state's first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

During the debate, Hyde-Smith questioned a $750,000 lobbying contract Espy had in 2011 with the Cocoa and Coffee Board of the Ivory Coast. She noted that the country's ex-president, Laurent Gbagbo, is being tried in the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, including, Hyde-Smith said, "murder, rape and unspeakable things against young girls."

"I don't know how many Mississippians can really relate to an income that can command a $750,000 check from one person for a lobbying job," said Hyde-Smith, who is a cattle rancher.

Espy, who is an attorney, said: "I found out later that this guy, the president, was a really bad guy. I resigned the contract."

Federal registration papers show Espy terminated the contract two weeks before its scheduled end.

Hours before Tuesday's debate, President Donald Trump defended Hyde-Smith's "public hanging" remark, saying at the White House that she loves the people of Mississippi and the U.S.

"It was just sort of said in jest," Trump said. "She's a tremendous woman and it's a shame that she has to go through this."

Walmart asked Hyde-Smith to return a $2,000 campaign contribution because of the hanging remark. Walmart spokeswoman LeMia Jenkins said Tuesday that the company donated to Hyde-Smith Nov. 8, three days before the release of the video with the "public hanging" remark.

"Sen. Hyde-Smith's recent comments clearly do not reflect the values of our company and associates," Jenkins said in a statement. "As a result, we are withdrawing our support and requesting a refund of all campaign donations."

Hyde-Smith's campaign did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about whether it would refund Walmart's contribution.

Senate races rarely gain national attention in Mississippi, a deeply conservative state. But this matchup  the last major race of the 2018 midterms  has drawn scrutiny after Hyde-Smith's remarks.

Trump is traveling to Mississippi for two Hyde-Smith rallies Monday on the eve of the election. Former Vice President Joe Biden has endorsed Espy.

Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate to temporarily succeed longtime Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April amid health concerns. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41 percent of the vote when four candidates were on the ballot Nov. 6. If she wins the Nov. 27 runoff, Hyde-Smith would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed.
What to Know An $8 million soundstage will provide a home for touring bands, film crews and theater productions in Wilmington, Delaware.

The soundstage on the 7th Street Peninsula will be available to rent.

An $8 million soundstage will provide a home for touring bands, film crews and theater productions in Delaware.

The News Journal reports Wilmington officials on Friday announced plans for the Pine Box, a 25,000-square-foot soundstage that will be 95 feet tall and built on 10 acres of land.

The soundstage on the 7th Street Peninsula will be available to rent to build sets, practice performances and test out sound and lighting. Video and lighting studios and office space will also be available.

The owner of building company Light Action Productions, Scott Humphrey, compared the planned space to Rock Lititz in Pennsylvania, and said he hopes Wilmington's proximity to Philadelphia and Washington will attract a high-profile clientele.

Humphrey hopes to break ground next month and open the stage late next year.
Alberto Mendoza escaped Honduras for the United States in 2016, seeking political asylum.

The 26-year-old living in Philadelphia was arrested by immigration agents, however, and faced a difficult decision: remain jailed for years while awaiting an asylum hearing or be bailed out.

Libre by Nexus, a private company that guarantees bonds to courts on behalf of undocumented immigrants, did just that for Mendoza's $10,000 bond. He was free to go, with one exception: Mendoza must wear an electronic monitoring device on his ankle.

And the freedom afforded him by Libre by Nexus came with a high cost. He has been paying $420 a month to the company to lease that GPS device.

He blamed the company for confusing him at the time he signed the deal with Libre by Nexus.

"They never said I would be paying for the device," he told NBC10 Investigators. "They never told me that."

The CEO of Nexus, the parent company of Libre, disputed Mendoza's recollection of how the contract for the $10,000 bond was presented to the Honduran native.

"We explain the program to our clients, and heres why," CEO Mike Donovan said. "We care about our clients and we want them to be successful."

The contract does explicitly mention the expensive lease for the device, though most of the agreement is in English. It's a language Mendoza doesn't speak or read.

Here is the exact wording in the contract:

You are required to wear a GPS tracking device until one of the following occurs: 1) Your case before the Immigration Court is complete 2) You remit collateral in the amount of $10,000 to replace collateral pledged by Nexus ProgramsYou are required to make payments for the lease of the GPS equipment and for the GPS monitoring service. The amount of the monthly lease payments are $420. These payments are due on the 1st of each month, for as long as you wear the GPS bracelet.

The company has recently made changes to the way it presents contracts to prospective clients whose first language is Spanish, and has improved the GPS devices.

The entire agreement is in Spanish now, and the devices are being upgraded to wristbands, which aren't as onerous or embarrassing as the ankle device.

"Weve updated contracts and updated devices," Donovan said in an interview. "Its because every business grows and evolves."

Mendoza, meanwhile, has an updated contract. He now pays $400 a month, and the payments are going toward paying down the $10,000 that Libre by Nexus guaranteed for him with federal immigration court.
A homicide investigation was launched Wednesday morning after a man was found dead with a gunshot wound near a park in Oceanside.

Police were called to Calle Montecito, near Libby Lake Park, at about 3 a.m. Wednesday after a report of gunshots, the Oceanside Police Department said.

When officers arrived, a man in his 20s was found dead in the street. He appeared to have a gunshot wound, prompting police to launch a homicide investigation, the OPD said.

No suspects have been identified.

Detectives had cordoned off part of Calle Montecito as they continued their investigation. Police remained on scene at 7 a.m.

OPD said the shooting may have been gang-related but the investigation is ongoing.

One resident who lives nearby said she was warned about dangers at the Libby Lake Park.

"I heard about Libby Lake being kind of just scary and watch out for shootings and gang violence but this is the first since Ive moved in, in like a couple months, that Ive seen something," Kelsey Delee said.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this story. Details may change as more information becomes available.
Hundreds of residents and dozens of sailors came out to an annual turkey giveaway in National City in preparation for Thanksgiving.

The mayor of National City, Ron Morrison, hosts the yearly event. This Tuesday marked its 10th year.

I think its amazing that everybody can come together like this and just be one big, happy family for this thanksgiving season, Petty Officer 1st Class Sarah Alvarez told NBC 7.

Alvarez, who has served at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center (SRMC) in Barrio Logan for the past three years, said she was in line for a friend.

Im here to get a turkey for one of my sailors who cannot, she said. Just having some hard times, so I want to make sure that this sailor has a good Thanksgiving.

Roughly 680 people were in line for the Thanksgiving bird and other holiday sides.

These are the ones we can help right now, and these are the ones were going to help, Morrison told NBC 7. Thats just the reality of our world today.

Most of the families were preselected for the free food through schools and the military.

Its great, said Marisela Baltazar, an electricians mate at SRMC, who was getting a turkey for herself. Everybody gets together to help out people in need.

Morrison, alongside nearly 10 donors, bought and passed out the free meals to those who needed it.
Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.


A representational photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): India and Russia Tuesday sealed a USD 500 million deal for construction of two missile frigates in Goa for the Indian Navy, sending a clear signal of continuing with high-level defence collaborations notwithstanding the US warnings of sanctions.



Officials said the agreement for manufacturing of the two Talvar-class warships was signed between defence PSU Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) and Russia's state-run defence major Rosoboronexport under the government-to-government framework for defence cooperation.



Under the deal, Russia will provide design, technology know how and key materials to GSL for construction of the ships in India. The ships will be fitted with most advanced missiles and other weapon systems, they said.



"We have finalised a USD 500 million deal with Russia for construction of two warships in Goa," CMD of GSL Shekhar Mital told PTI.



He said construction of the ships will begin in 2020 and the first one will be ready for induction in 2026 while second one will be ready by 2027.



The two sides already finalised another deal amounting to around USD 1 billion under which Russia will supply two frigates to India by 2023.



Tuesday's agreement came nearly six weeks after India signed an agreement with Russia to buy a batch of S-400 air defence missile systems at a cost of around USD 5 billion.



India is going ahead with mega defence deals with Russia disregarding warnings by the US of sanctions. The Trump administration has put several Russian firms under sanctions under Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).



The US said countries engaged with Russia's defence firms may also face actions under CAATSA. India has been hoping to get a waiver from the US on the deals it was signing with Russia.



Russia has been India's largest defence supplier. The defence and security cooperation has been on an upswing between the two countries in the last few years.



Russian defence major Rosoboronexport on Tuesday emerged as the lowest bidder in the Indian Army's tender for procurement of a batch of short-range air defence missile systems, official sources said Monday.



The other contenders for the deal were Swedish firm SAAB and French military firm MBDA. The size of the contract is likely to be around USD 3 billion.


What to Know Cesar Sayoc, the man accused of sending pipe bombs to prominent critics of Trump and prominent Democrats, made a court appearance in NY

Sayoc was ordered held without bail

Sayoc was arrested a week ago outside a South Florida auto parts store in a van in which he had been living

The man accused of sending pipe bombs to prominent critics of President Donald Trump made his first court appearance Tuesday in New York and has been ordered held without bail.

Cesar Sayoc made his first court appearance on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan following his transfer from Florida. His attorneys had said last week in Miami that it would be better if his lawyers in New York could take the case as soon as possible.

Sayoc has been accused of sending improvised explosive devices to numerous Democrats, Trump critics and media outlets in a scare that heightened tensions before the crucial midterm elections, happening the same day as his court appearance.

None of the devices exploded and no one was injured.

Authorities searched in the Bahamas on Tuesday for a small private plane carrying a high-end New York City event space designer, her two young boys and a pilot from New Hampshire that disappeared the day before.

Prosecutors told a judge that Sayoc presents a flight risk and is a serious danger to the public. The defense did not argue this point.

Sayoc faces nearly 50 years in prison if convicted on five federal charges that were filed in New York because some of the devices were recovered there.

During his court appearance, which lasted about 12 minutes, Sayoc looked at the judge the entire time, answering "yes, sir" to all of the judge's questions.

He also asked for a court-appointed attorney.

Sayoc's next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 11.

Sayoc was arrested a week ago outside a South Florida auto parts store in a van in which he had been living, a vehicle covered with stickers of Trump and showing images of some of the president's opponents with red crosshairs over their faces.

His lawyers decided not to seek release on bail after prosecutors released a letter outlining more evidence against him, including DNA linking him to 10 of the explosive devices and fingerprints on two of them.

Packages addressed to Hillary Clinton, former President Obama, billionaire George Soros, ex-Attorney General Eric Holder, former CIA director John Brennan, Rep. Maxine Waters  who was sent two  Joe Biden and Robert de Niro all appear to have the same characteristics. NBC has team coverage.

Other evidence includes online searches Sayoc did on his laptop and cellphone for addresses and photos of some of his intended targets, which included former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, California Sen. Kamala Harris and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Packages were also mailed to CNN in New York and Atlanta.

Prosecutors say the most recent crude bomb was recovered Friday in California, addressed to the liberal activist Tom Steyer.

None of the devices exploded, and no one was injured in the pipe bomb scare.

In Pictures: Pipe Bombs Addressed to Hillary Clinton, Obama, CNN, Others
A woman and her adult son were killed on the eve of Thanksgiving in a fire that engulfed their home in Bethesda, Maryland.

The woman and man were found dead in their house in the 4900 block of Western Avenue.

The man was WSSC employee John Randolph, the company said in a statement. The woman was his mother, Inga.

"I'm just kind of numb," said Michael Randolph, the son and brother of the victims.

He said he is thankful for the times he did have with his brother and mother.

"Nobody can take our memories," he said. "You know, material things can be lost and can burn up, be gone, but we had many good times as a family."

"John was a beloved member of the WSSC family who worked in the Accounting Division for over 26 years," WSSC said.

Fire officials did not immediately identify the two victims but said their next of kin had been notified.

Firefighters were called to the house at about 1 a.m. Wednesday. A neighbor called 911 to report that the home across the street was fully engulfed in flames.

The victims were found when firefighters searched the home.

Neighbors said they believed the woman was in her 90s and her son was in his 60s.

"The sweetest people ever. There's nothing bad to say. I've known him forever," neighbor Bobby Gonzalez said.

The house had no working smoke detectors, a Montgomery County fire department spokesman said. One smoke detector had no battery in it. Another was still in the box, uninstalled.

The victims are the county's first and second residential fire deaths of the year.
Inside an abandoned building on Chicagos West Side, on a Wednesday night in October, Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier became this years 22nd known transgender murder victim in the United States.

Frazier also was the second black transgender woman to be killed in Chicago within a five-week period, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a LGBTQ advocacy group.

That night, Oct. 3, she stepped off a friends porch and approached a white car that had driven onto Adams Street in West Garfield Park, the Chicago Tribune reported. The driver was allegedly a regular client of the 31-year-old Frazier, who neighbors said was a sex worker.

Neighbors would find Frazier around 9:30 p.m. in the buildings backyard, suffering from multiple stab wounds. A half an hour later, she was dead.

Her life is among those being memorialized on Tuesday, Transgender Day of Remembrance. At least 29 transgender individuals were murdered in 2017, according to the Human Rights Campaign, and another 22 in 2018.

Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a transgender author, said the number of known murders each year has increased since she founded the day of remembrance, in 1999 in response to the killing of a transgender woman named Rita Hester.

In its early years, the day of remembrance consisted of small vigils in San Francisco and Boston, and they were generally recognized only by the transgender and LGBTQ community, Smith said.

Its been amazing to watch it become something that is so much bigger, that is treated worldwide, written about and considered a part of the community, she said.

Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaigns national press secretary, said that the day had evolved to recognize that transgender women of color, particularly black trans women of color, are facing the bulk of this discrimination and violence.

Of this years murders, 82 percent of the victims were transgender women of color, according to the organizations new report, A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in America in 2018.

Mara Keisling, the founder and executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that the struggles of people from traditionally marginalized communities are reflected in these cases.

We live in a country where you are more susceptible to violence if you are a person of color, if youre low income, if youre a woman, if youre an immigrant, Keisling said. And if you are all or most of those things at once -- a young, black, low-income trans woman -- you have a bigger bullseye on your back.

The 22 murders highlighted in the Human Rights Commission's report include deaths that are "influenced or contributed to by the hate and prejudice against transgender people," McBride said. But transgender activists believe that there may be more murder victims who were killed for being transgender.

How the media cover these murders and how law enforcement and medical examiners log them including which gender a victim is identified by and whether a legal or chosen name is used  can influence the victims list.

Chicagos medical examiners office initially filed Fraziers record under a different name, according to the Chicago Tribune. And whereas police said Frazier was female in its reports, the medical examiner wrote her gender as unknown.

The Human Rights Campaigns report found that 74 percent of the victims were described with the wrong gender in initial media coverage and police documents concerning their death.

Smith also said that theres a common misconception that all victims of anti-transgender violence identify as transgender. But Smith said a non-trans person who is attacked because someone assumed they were transgender can also be considered a victim.

Its an important distinction because a person can be affected by anti-transgender violence and never have considered themselves transgender in the first place, Smith said.

A report released by the FBI last week found anti-LGBTQ hate crimes rose 3 percent in 2017. More than 16 percent of federally reported hate crimes target the LGBTQ community, according to NBC News.

Although Keisling said she thinks the increase in the number of murders may be a result of better reporting, she also believes that violence against the transgender community has grown.

The perpetrators feel empowered, Keisling said. I talk to folks all the time who have been without incidents for 25, 35 years and suddenly people are harassing them, calling them names, slapping at them and telling them to get out of bathrooms.

Because of the increase, McBride said that she doesnt envision a future yet where a specific day of remembrance is not needed.

So long as there is a need for mourning and healing, there will be a need for a Transgender Day of Remembrance, McBride said.

Keisling said the Transgender Day of Remembrance is important because it reminds people that the transgender individuals were more than just victims.

If youve been to vigils and funerals, if youve seen mothers just crying to the point of wailing that they have lost their baby, when you see best friends who now are just horrified that theyve lost this person who is so dear to them, these arent just numbers, these arent just the 23 people who were murdered this year, said Keisling, referring to the number of deaths in the 12 months since the last remembrance day. These are actually 23 remarkable people with such promise and beauty and they were just cut off. And I think remembering that is just important.
California's legislature will be asked to protect utilities from possible bankruptcy by shielding them from billions of dollars in liability linked to this year's deadly swath of wildfires, the San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday.

Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena), plans to introduce a measure that could allow Pacific Gas & Electric and other utilities to pass onto customers some costs related to this year's fires, according to the paper.

Holden chairs the state Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee.

"We want to send a signal to the financial markets that we are not going to leave the utilities flapping in the wind," Kellie Smith, chief consultant for the committee, told the paper.

"If a utility goes bankrupt, that will hurt ratepayers a lot more than this mechanism we are creating to make the utility pay until it hurts," Smith said.

It's unclear when the bill might be submitted. A message left for Holden spokesman Garo Manjikian was not immediately returned.

"There will be a time and a place for all of this, but right now, PG&E is solely focused on helping the first responders and helping our customers recover and rebuild," PG&E spokeswoman Andrea Menniti said Tuesday.

State officials have blamed fallen or sagging power lines and poles for sparking some of California's worst recent wildfires, and PG&E equipment specifically for 17 Northern California blazes last fall. PG&E already has told investors it expects to be on the hook for more than $2 billion in damages.

PG&E's stock plunged 60 percent and the investor-owned utility lost $15 billion in valuation in the week following the Nov. 8 Camp Fire in Northern California, which has killed at least 81 people and destroyed some 13,000 homes.

No cause has been determined, but speculation has centered on PG&E, which reported an outage around the time and place the fire ignited. Another transmission line also malfunctioned a short time later, possibly sparking a second fire.

Several victims have sued the company, blaming its equipment for the fire.

Meanwhile, victims of a destructive Southern California wildfire have sued Southern California Edison, alleging the utility was negligent in failing to shut off power before the blaze started. Three people were found dead in the ashes of the Woolsey Fire west of Los Angeles, which has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings.

Edison said in a statement that it can't comment on litigation related to wildfires.

This fall, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that would smooth the way for utilities to pass on costs of wildfires to customer via increased monthly power bills. The measure, SB 901, allows utilities to sell bonds to cover their liability costs and pay them off over time through higher rates.

The measure requires the PUC to determine how much a utility and its shareholders can handle without being forced into bankruptcy. It was inspired by last year's devastating fires and also applies to 2019 fires but doesn't cover potential costs for 2018 fires if utilities are found liable for them.

Holden's bill apparently would plug that hole but critics are calling it a bailout.

"What a happy Thanksgiving gift this is for PG&E shareholders, directors and executives to enjoy this holiday weekend, while over 12,000 residents of Butte County spend Thanksgiving in shelters, tents or their cars with some mourning their dead or distraught over loved ones who are missing," state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, a frequent critic of the utility, said Tuesday.
One of the nation's largest student loan servicing companies may have driven tens of thousands of borrowers struggling with their debts into higher-cost repayment plans.

That's the finding of a Department of Education audit of practices at Navient Corp., the nation's third-largest student loan servicing company.

The conclusions of the 2017 audit, which until now have been kept from the public and were obtained by The Associated Press, appear to support federal and state lawsuits that accuse Navient of boosting its profits by steering some borrowers into the high-cost plans without discussing options that would have been less costly in the long run.

The education department has not shared the audit's findings with the plaintiffs in the lawsuits. In fact, even while knowing of its conclusions, the department repeatedly argued that state and other federal authorities do not have jurisdiction over Navient's business practices.

"The existence of this audit makes the Department of Education's position all the more disturbing," said Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, who worked for the Department of Education under President Barack Obama.

The AP received a copy of the audit and other documents from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, who has been a vocal critic of Navient and has publicly supported the lawsuits against the company as well as questioning the policies of the Department of Education, currently run by President Trump's Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Warren is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2020.

Navient disputed the audit's conclusions in its response to the Department of Education and has denied the allegations in the lawsuits. One point the company makes in its defense is that its contract with the education department doesn't require its customer service representatives to mention all options available to the borrower.

"This (audit), when viewed as a whole, as well as dozens of other audits and reviews, show that Navient overwhelmingly performs in accordance with program rules while consistently helping borrowers choose the right options for their circumstances," said Paul Hartwick, a company spokesman.

However, the five states suing Navient  Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, California and Mississippi  say the behavior breaks their laws regarding consumer protection. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says in its own lawsuit the practices are unfair, deceptive and abusive and break federal consumer protection laws.

Of the five states that filed lawsuits against Navient, Washington, Illinois and Pennsylvania said they were aware that an audit existed, but did not receive copies from the Department of Education. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declined to comment on whether it had a copy of the report.

The Department of Education said withholding the report was intentional, repeating the argument it has made in court and in public that only it has jurisdiction over student loan servicing issues, through its Federal Student Aid division, or FSA, which oversees student loans.

"FSA performed the review as part of its own contract oversight, not for the benefit of other agencies," said Liz Hill, a Department of Education spokeswoman.

When student borrowers run into difficulties making payments, they can be offered forbearance, which allows them to delay payments for a set period of time. But under a forbearance plan, in most instances, the loan continues to accumulate interest and becomes a more expensive option in the long run.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleges in its lawsuit against Navient that between 2010 and 2015 Navient's behavior added nearly $4 billion in interest to student borrowers' loans through the overuse of forbearance. It is a figure that Navient disputes.

A 2017 study by the Government Accountability Office estimates that a typical borrower of a $30,000 student loan who places their loan into forbearance for three years  the maximum allowed for economic-hardship forbearance  would pay an additional $6,742 in interest on that loan.

"This finding is both tragic and infuriating, and the findings appear to validate the allegations that Navient boosted its profits by unfairly steering student borrowers into forbearance when that was often the worst financial option for them," Warren said in a letter to Navient last week.

As part of their inquiry, DoE auditors listened in on about 2,400 randomly selected calls to borrowers from 2014 to 2017 out of a batch of 219,000. On nearly one out of 10 of the calls examined, the Navient representative did not mention other options, including one type of plan that estimates the size of a monthly payment the borrower can afford based on their income. Auditors wrote that many customer service representatives failed to ask questions to determine if such a plan, known as an income-driven repayment plan, might be more beneficial to the borrower.

There is no public record of how many struggling borrowers serviced by Navient may have been impacted by these practices. In its most recent annual report, Navient says it services 6 million student loan borrowers, of which 12.7 percent are more than 30 days past due. That would be roughly 762,000 customers who are struggling in some fashion to pay their student loans.

If one out of every 10 of those customers were pushed into forbearance instead of an income-driven repayment plan, as the department's audit found, that would be 76,200 of Navient's borrowers.

The DoE report contains recommendations for how Navient could fix its practices but makes no mention of firm requirements or sanctions.

The education department's Federal Student Aid division decided to do a review of Navient's forbearance practices after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed its lawsuit against the company in January 2017, department spokeswoman Hill said, to see if there were any compliance issues.

She said DoE officials came to the conclusion that Navient was not improperly steering borrowers. "Nothing in the report indicates forbearances were applied inappropriately  the observations noted focused on suggested improvements regarding how to best counsel" a small minority of borrowers, she said.

In response to questions over the 2017 audit, Navient pointed to the fact that nine out of every 10 borrowers on the calls were offered all their options and that this audit is just one piece of a broader story. The company noted that the number of its borrowers who are enrolled in income-driven repayment plans is in line with or above the track records of other student loan servicing companies. In addition, it said the company is paid less by the Department of Education for putting students in forbearance.

Navient, which split off from Sallie Mae, is a publicly traded company. Shares of Navient fell sharply after the AP published its report, closing down $1.26, or 10.5 percent, to $10.74.

In calls and presentations with investors, Navient has said a company priority is to lower its operational costs.

As a student loan servicing company, Navient has one primary operating cost: its employees, including the hundreds of customer-service agents who man Navient's telephones every day. The fewer customer-service agents Navient employs, the more money Navient puts in its pocket. Doing calls to determine whether a borrower should be in an income-driven repayment plan takes longer, student loan industry experts say.

In fact, that is exactly what Navient said in its response to the Department of Education's audit.

"We (are not) aware of any requirement that borrowers receive all of their repayment options ... on each and every call," the company said, adding that if the Department of Education chose to require all servicers to discuss income-driven repayment plans with all borrowers, the Department of Education needs to redo its contract with Navient.

Seth Frotman, who was the highest-ranking government official in charge of student loans until he quit in August in protest over how the Trump-controlled Department of Education and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were handling the issue of student loans, said Navient's response was outrageous.

"In short, Navient, when confronted with evidence of its bad practices, is telling the government, 'Pay us more money or take a hike.' And It looks like the Department of Education took a hike," Frotman said.
Thanksgiving travelers got help from favorable weather in most of the U.S Tuesday, but flight delays piled up at airports around the country by day's end.

Wet and frigid forecasts threaten to made driving more challenging in the next day or two.

By late Tuesday afternoon, fewer than 150 U.S. flights had been canceled  a low number all things considered. But 3,000 flights were delayed, according to tracking service FlightAware.

The largest number of delays  about 400  was at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where dense fog slowed the pace of departures and arrivals. Flights going to Boston and Newark, New Jersey, were also more likely to be delayed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. So were flights to San Francisco, where visibility has been reduced due to smoke from the wildfire in Paradise, California.

Driving was difficult in parts of New England. The remnants of a recent snowstorm left messy road conditions across much of the region, and the forecast called for more snow on Wednesday followed by blustery winds and high temperatures in the teens on Thanksgiving Day in northern New England.

Rain, with snow in the higher elevations, could slow traffic Wednesday in much of California, Oregon and Washington.

The AAA auto club predicts that 54.3 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home between Wednesday and Sunday, the highest number since 2005 and about a 5 percent increase over last year. AAA says 48 million will drive and 4.7 million will fly.

Looking at a longer, 12-day period, the airline industry trade group Airlines for America predicts that a record 30.6 million people will fly on U.S. carriers, up from 29 million last year. That's more than 2.5 million per day.

The airline group expects that Wednesday will be the second busiest day of the holiday period behind only Sunday, when many travelers will be returning home.

Travelers should prepare for long lines at airport checkpoints. The Transportation Security Administration expected to screen about 25 million people between Monday and next Monday, an increase of 5 percent over last year.

The airline group's numbers are bigger because its forecast covers an extra day and it counts connecting passengers again, while TSA only counts those people once when they pass the checkpoint.

TSA says the holiday rush really started last Friday  similar to last year but earlier than in previous years. The Sunday following Thanksgiving is expected to be one of TSA's 10 busiest days ever.
BUCKS COUNTY >> Police departments in Morrisville Borough, New Hope Borough and Northampton Township report the following incidents and arrests: Morrisville Borough CONTAINMENT OF DOG >> On Nov. 2 Joao Dos Santos, 19, was cited for failing to keep a dog contained on the property. Incident occurred in the 100 block of S. Harding Avenue. BURGLARY >> On Nov. 3...
A person is fighting for his life after being shot during a hunting trip in Vermont Tuesday.

Police in Stowe say one male shot another shortly before 5 p.m. while they were standing outside a vehicle, where they had just returned after hunting. Authorities believe the shooting was accidental, and that the rifle went off inside the truck as it was being unloaded.

The victim, identified Wednesday as 31-year-old Joshua Fitzgerald of Westford was taken to UVM Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. Police said Wednesday that Fitzgerald was in serious but stable condition.

The man who was unloading the gun was identified as 24-year-old Avery Cochran of South Burlington.

State and local police, as well as the Vermont State Fish and Wildlife service, were investigating the shooting.
Two Massachusetts residents have been charged in connection with various child pornography offenses, including the sexual exploitation of an infant, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

Authorities said Thomas Cross, 28, of Amesbury, and Desiree Daigle, 23, of Salisbury, were arrested on Nov. 15. Cross was charged with possession, receipt, and distribution of child pornography. Daigle was charged with sexually exploiting a child.

According to court documents, a search warrant was executed on Nov. 15 at Cross' home where authorities seized several electronic devices.

Authorities said upon reviewing the devices at the scene, law enforcement observed files containing child pornography, as well as chats between Cross and a person identified as Daigle, in which various child pornography files were exchanged.

Some of the images seized reportedly depicted an infant known to Daigle and were apparently taken in Daigle's home. Court documents allege that in the course of the online chat, Cross and Daigle discussed plans for Cross to meet the child in person so they could sexually abuse the child together.

Both Cross and Daigle admitted to exchanging child pornography with each other, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Daigle appeared in federal court on Nov. 19 and was ordered detained pending a trial. Cross appeared in federal court for a hearing on Nov. 20 when a U.S. District Court magistrate took the matter of detention under advisement.

It's unclear if Cross or Daigle have attorneys or when their next court appearances will be.
What's more New York than almost sitting on a partially-nude man painted to camouflage into a classic subway cart?

That exact sight materialized on a G train last week thanks to painter Kori Moore, who spent four hours painting model Hardy Brooklyn to blend into an orange subway seat and a map of the NYC subway system last Thursday.

The painting was rather convincing, apparently. "A lot of people, in true NYC fashion didn't give a s*** and payed us no mind," Moore said. "But the best compliment was when someone stepped in and almost sat on him."

Man Painted to Look Like Subway Car and Map Goes Viral

Moore, originally from Ohio but now based in Philadelphia, teamed up with the wildly popular Instagram account Subway Creatures for the living art piece. Photos of the spectacle were taken by photographer Dre Verrios of the Instagram account MrNYCSubway and a video was shot for Subway Creatures.

That video is now going viral on the Subway Creatures page, with more than 380,000 views.

Moore says Subway Creatures asked them to collaborate after their first foray into body art -- painting a male model into a flower -- ended up on the account. Moore pitched the idea of camouflaging the model into a subway seat to celebrate the iconic New York City subway and its people.

[NATL-NY] New Yorkers' Dogged Determination to Get Pets on Trains

"A lot of the comments on the Subway Creatures' Instagram post were about how well he blended in. Which is great for a city where everyone wants to stand out," Moore said.

"Also someone said [real New York] camouflage would have been black pants, jacket, sunglasses and ear buds with a phone to the face. This is a fun juxtaposition to that comment."

See more of Moore's work here.

MTA Conductors Spill 10 Secrets of the NYC Subway System
Widower vows to give 4,000 to primary to buy something "so everyone will remember Augusta for it".

THE husband of a woman who died unexpectedly from a stroke is raising money for Silchester Primary School in her memory.

Augusta Nobra, 46, suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage  an uncommon type of stroke caused by bleeding on the surface of the brain  on October 31 and died instantly at her home.

Her husband, Paulo Custodio, 49, who owns the Silchester Garage, has now decided to honour her memory by raising 4,000 for the school, where their son Alex, eight, is a pupil.

Mr Custodio said: She was a lovely person and she was a very caring person.

She always worried about other people and had a very strong character and beliefs.

She wouldnt back off if she believed in something. My son is just like that too.

We had a life like any other couple with ups and downs and always managed to get through it.

Mr Custodio met Augusta when they were 12 or 13 years old at school in Portugal and started dating when they were 18.

They married in 1994 and their 25th wedding anniversary would have been in August next year.

We got married in Portugal. It was a very simple marriage, Mr Custodio said.

Augusta didnt really like big things and we married with our close family and a couple of friends.

It was quiet and simple  that was what she was about.

She wouldnt be happy about all the things I am doing  she wouldnt like the publicity.

But as I am helping the school where our son goes she would be happy.

He added: All the money raised will go to Silchester school.

We don't know yet what theyll do or buy with money, but Im working directly with [headteacher] Mrs Williams and other teachers to do or buy something that the school may need and will last a long time, so everyone will remember Augusta for it.

Mr Custodio and Ms Nobra moved to Silchester in 2009 and have a wide circle of friends.

The people here have been amazing, said Mr Custodio.

We didnt realise how many friends we had.

The school, the community, everyone has been amazing.

Theres not a lot anyone can do, but they have offered any help.

The mums from the school have even offered to bring me food.

Ms Nobra was a regular attendee of the Silchester Striders walking group, which meets every Wednesday, and on the day she died she was looking forward to attending the walk.

Silchester Striders founder Clare Payne said: Augusta was such a kind, beautiful and thoughtful lady.

I think I speak for everyone who knew her that she touched our lives in so many ways.

Augusta had a brilliant sense of humour and I know this special lady, with her sharp wit and kindness, will be greatly missed by so many.

Ms Nobra was cremated at Thatcham crematorium yesterday (Wednesday) and her ashes will be scattered in Figueira da Foz, Portugal, on Sunday.

A tribute from their son Alex was read at the funeral.

It said: I miss mum so much.

She was a kind and generous person. I am really sad you died.

I love you and I will never forget you.

Mr Custodio said: Me and Alex are going to carry on.

Me and Alex have talked and all the plans that the three of us made, we are going to do together.

We are going to work hard to do everything we wanted to do together.

To donate to the fund, visit https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/paulo-custodio?utm_source=Facebook&fbclid= IwAR29QUx0FqiPXhMVStmlIIBh4WRyq0tZq77Zcqt3u6eA7Q9V9itsrdTcgT8
With temperatures expecting to be incredibly cold over the next few days, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Tuesday the activation of the states severe cold weather protocol.

The protocol is in effect from 5 p.m. Wednesday through 10 a.m. Friday. For a list of shelters and warming centers open throughout Connecticut, call 211 or visit www.211ct.org.

Winter weather conditions are coming to Connecticut early this year, and the next couple of nights are expected to be brutally cold, Malloy said in a prepared statement. It is a priority that anyone in need receives protection from the bitter conditions, and this protocol initiates a series of procedures to ensure that shelters are available and transportation is provided to help bring people indoors.

This is the first time this seasons the protocol has been activated.

When the protocol is enacted, it directs staff from the states Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, the Department of Social Service, the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Department of Housing to coordinate with 211 and Connecticut shelters to ensure those who need shelter are protected from the cold.

A strong cold front is forecast to move across Connecticut on Wednesday afternoon, with temperatures expected to drop rapidly moving into the evening. Lows on Wednesday night are expected to be around 10 degrees, with wind chills between -5 degree and -10 degrees.

Sustained winds will continue Thursday, with highs expected to be around 20 degrees and a wind chill near 0 degrees all day. Thursday night, temperatures will hover around 10 degree with wind chills remaining around 0 degrees.

Moderate temperatures are forecast to return Friday, with highs near 32 degrees.

Heres a look at what communuties are doing to prepare for the extreme cold:

New Haven

Mayor Toni N. Harp and the citys emergency response, public safety, and social services officials have activated a special cold weather protocol ahead of a forecast for subfreezing weather Thanksgiving Day.

With that in mind, outreach workers have been visiting known encampments of homeless residents to warn them of the imminent freeze and direct them to emergency shelters. Beyond that, hours of homeless shelter operation have been extended; the citys five facilities will be open all day Thanksgiving Day.

Details about New Havens cold weather preparations are also available by calling 211: the citys Info Line.

Torrington

The City of Torrington will be experiencing extremely cold conditions starting Wednesday night through Saturday morning. We are asking all residents to take appropriate precautions. The following locations are available as warming centers if needed:

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: Joseph House, 116 Water St.; 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday and Thursday, 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday.

Also on Friday, Community Soup Kitchen, 220 Prospect St., 10 a.m,. - 3 p.m.. St. John Paul the Great ,Church Hall, 111 East Main St., 3 to 9 p.m.

Operation Overflow opens for the winter season on Friday, November 23, 2018 at Trinity Church at 220 Prospect Street. Operation Overflow will be open 7 days a week from that point forward from 9:00 PM - 6:00 AM until April.

Joseph House will be operating as a warming center for the winter season 7 days a week from 6 am to 9 pm.

If additional services are required, Please contact 211 or visit the Gathering Place located at 21 Prospect Street Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
DANBURY  Dozens of heavily armed police officers and even several federal agents swarmed the Visual and Performing Arts Center at Western Connecticut State University for what they believed to be an active shooter on Tuesday afternoon.

They found no gunman, no shots were ever fired and no one was injured.

But the swift and severe response is an unfortunate sign of the times, officials and students agreed in the aftermath of the frightening afternoon.

Thankfully no one was injured, but you just cant be too proactive in these situations, Mayor Mark Boughton said. Thats why we tell people, If you see something, say something. 

The response does speak volumes, he continued. Youve read, heard about or saw on TV horrible incident after horrible incident. We certainly take every single incident and claim seriously, so well bring every resource we have available to bear. Its certainly a reflection o how on edge people are these days.

Officers responded to the WCSU westside campus just before 2 p.m. Tuesday for reports of active shooter with a long gun in the performing arts building.

The first set of officers were on the scene within just a few minutes and entered the building but found no signs of a shooting or even an armed person, Danbury Police Chief Patrick Ridenhour said. They evacuated students from the building and the campus immediately issued a shelter in place to students and staff as more officers poured into the campus.

Less than 20 minutes later, the scene was overrun with dozens of armed officers from neighboring municipalities, state police troopers and even several agents from the area field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. SWAT teams arrived a few minutes later and moved in on the building, clearing it room-by-room over the next three hours.

Freshman Chris Elhers was one of two witnesses who believed they saw a man with a weapon outside their classroom. He and his classmate, a young woman not named by police, rushed everyone else to the front of the room.

If it wasnt a gun, it looked a lot like a gun, Elhers said. I didnt second guess it, I just ran to the front of the classroom to hide.

Elhers told police and a reporter at the scene that he believed he saw a man with a large duffle bag. Both he and his classmate were visibly shaken.

Im hoping Im wrong and that it wasnt actually a gun, Elhers said. But Im just a little freaked out.

WCSU police will continue to investigate the incident and will review all available surveillance video to try to track down what happened, officials said.

The westside campus lockdown was lifted at about 5 p.m. and WCSU canceled the remainder of classes Tuesday to send students home a half-day early for the Thanksgiving break. Other nearby public schools were locked down, including the Western CT Academy for International Studies located at the back of the WCSU westside campus.

WCSUs Midtown campus was locked down this summer after a report that a man was on campus with a gun, but that turned to be a man carrying a microphone stand.

Elhers classmate broke down into tears talking to investigators while police cleared the building.

She was distraught that her report had caused such a significant response, Boughton said.

The young lady who reported this to police was upset she caused such a commotion, he said. But we assured her thats not at all the case.

Id rather call all my officers and pay hundreds of thousands in overtime and mobilize all that equipment than to have that one concern raised and we dont take it seriously and the unthinkable happens.
The Community Culinary School of Northwestern Connecticut, based in New Milford, is accepting applications for its next session.

The next 12-week program will start Jan. 7 at St. Johns Episcopal Church on Whittlesey Avenue.

If you love to cook and are interested in an exciting new career opportunity, you may be a good candidate for the Community Culinary School, said Dawn Hammacott, executive director of the school.

The New Milford-Danbury area has more than 500 businesses that employ food service personnel, Hammacott said.

The industry is always in need of reliable, trained employees, she said.

The school trains people ages 18 and older for jobs in food service.

Instructed by chef Blythe Roberts, the students will learn a range of cooking techniques in a full-scale kitchen.

The school also arranges internships for all students, trains them in the skills needed to get a job, and assists with job placement.

Additionally, the meals students prepare are distributed to those in need through the New Milford Food Bank.

Tuition is free for qualifying candidates.

The school was established in 2007 to provide unemployed and underemployed men and women with the skills they need to find jobs with career paths in the food service industry.

Classes will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at St. Johns Episcopal Church.

The school is modeled on the Community Kitchen program of the anti-hunger organization, Feeding America.

It relies largely on donations and grants, and has received support from the Connecticut Community Foundation, the Harcourt Foundation, the Meserve Memorial Fund, Union Savings Bank, Savings Bank of Danbury, Diebold Foundation, Womans Club of Danbury/New Fairfield, and other area foundations and civic organizations.

For information, call Dawn Hammacott at 203-512-5791 or email culinaryschool@sbcglobal.net.
NEW MILFORD  The town is looking to expand on its recent progress in connecting the riverfront and downtown by creating a master plan, and adding sidewalks and parking spots.

The Riverfront Revitalization Committee is reviewing 12 bids to create a master plan, which is expected to be done next September. The committee planned to present its choice to Town Council this week for approval. It is expected to cost no more than $30,000.

This will dovetail perfectly with the Plan of Conservation and Development that the Planning Commission and Town Council are undergoing so that all of that good information can go into the POCD, said Liba Furhman, chair of the Riverfront Revitalization committee.

The committee is also looking at a company to complete a market analysis by May 15, and seeking grants to restore old buildings in a park along the river. It wants to add sidewalks to make it easier to get down to the river from the Green.

A presentation last week was on the agenda as the committees final report, but the Town Council unanimously voted to reappoint all of its members and extend the committee another six months.

Furhman suggested the committee become permanent to help with the long-term initiatives.

This could go on forever because the riverfront will always be there to take care of, she said.

Plans are split between eight categories to further the connection between downtown and the riverfront, including revitalizing brownfields, improving public transportation and infrastructure, as well as providing economic benefits.

Furhman said they have already made progress in some of these areas, including getting funding to build a sidewalk along Patriots Way and establishing a walking loop that travels around the green and down to the river.

She noted there are some physical barriers including the railroad tracks and the steepness of the embankment at Youngs Field.

Furhman said she hopes to expand on existing initiatives as well.

For example, the committee hosted the inaugural riverfront festival this month, which drew1,300 people. The hope is to extend the festival to two days next year.

This and other events have shown the downtown and riverfront are connected, Furhman said.

Weve shown the riverfront and downtown can truly be looked at as a unified space and not as two distinct and opposing business centers, she said. They really have to be treated as one.

New Milford has been working to improve access to the Housatonic River for years. Under former Mayor David Gronbach, the first piece of the riverwalk was completed and a kayak rental company agreed to set up by Youngs Field.

Officials have continually touted the benefits the river brings to the area, especially in terms of tourism and improving the quality of life, which helps attract businesses.

Wed like to emphasis the Housatonic River for the powerful asset it is, she said, adding the views alone are worth $1 million.

This year, the town, local businesses and organizations put out flower pots and other landscaping to beautify downtown. A long-term maintenance plan was also rolled out for the riverwalk.

Furhman said she hopes this can keep going and ultimately envisions affordable housing being built on some of the brownfield along the river, as well as adding parking ad other transportation options, such as car or bike rentals. The town already received a state $170,000 grant to create a plan to revitalize brownfields.

She said its important to have established businesses or organizations, such as colleges or museums, to help draw people to the area and keep it going.
The Sarah Noble Intermediate School community in New Milford recently recognized Veterans Day with several events. Several classrooms had visits by local veterans, many of them relatives of students in their respective classroom. In addition, veterans were invited to attend a special breakfast and participate in three assemblies  one for each grade level  held in the multi-purpose room. Students also showcased their pride for loved ones and friends who have served by displaying veterans names, ranks and photographs on boards near the main office. For more photographs, visit www.newmilfordspectrum.com.
Of the more than 23,000 genes in the human genome, only a handful assume a very central role in signal transduction and growth regulation. Of these, the three genes encoding RAS proteins are particularly important, as they are found mutated in over 25% of human cancers. The processes around the RAS gene products are also involved in a variety of rare human developmental disorders called the RASopathies. RAS proteins are absolutely central regulators of growth and oncogenesis and, in turn, every regulator of RAS is poised to be fundamentally important for cancer and a broad variety of human diseases.

Driven by the interest in identifying underlying genetic determinants of drug response in a specific type of cancer of the hematopoietic system, CeMM now reports on the mechanistic link between the LZTR1 gene, previously associated with a variety of rare disorders and rare cancers, and RAS. These findings provide a new key regulator of a pathway that is one of the best studied signaling pathways in biology. As such, it represents a major advancement. The study not only sheds new light and details on the regulation of a central growth-promoting protein, but also offers a molecular explanation for an unusually large number of pathological conditions, ranging from different types of brain and pediatric cancers to developmental pathologies like Noonan syndrome.

The research team found that the protein called LZTR1, in concert with its copartner cullin 3, regulates RAS by attaching to it a small molecular tag, called ubiquitin. The modified RAS proteins demonstrate altered localization within the cell and reduced abundance. Mutational defects or inactivation of LZTR1 lead to an increase of RAS dependent pathways causing dysregulation of growth and differentiation. LZTR1 can therefore be considered a breaker of RAS action.

Giulio Superti-Furga, the Principal Investigator who directed the study, CeMM's Scientific Director and Professor for Medical Systems Biology at the Medical University of Vienna explains: "The study is part of a long-term effort to understand the mechanism of anti-cancer drugs in leukemia and beyond and I find it very rewarding to have contributed to the discovery of a fundamental aspect of RAS regulation, the key player in cellular growth." Johannes Bigenzahn, the MD postdoctoral fellow and first author adds: "I am very happy from a medical as well as scientific perspective to have discovered a mechanism behind so many different genetic diseases as well as many unusual forms of cancer. It is reasonable to expect that our discovery may lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies targeting RAS-dependent phenotypes in the future."
While screening for colorectal cancer did not, so far, reduce mortality, it did reduce the need for chemotherapy and emergency surgeries among male patients, shows a recent Finnish study.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of cancer in the world. Every year in Finland, approximately 3,000 new cases are diagnosed, and roughly 1,200 patients die of it. Between 2004 and 2016, an extensive screening programme was conducted in Finland, intending to study the potential benefits and downsides of a nation-wide screening for colorectal cancer.

The study targeted people aged 60-69 years, and just under a half of the age group, or a little more than 300,000 people, were randomized by late 2011. Half of the population in the study were invited for screening, while the other half of the age cohort served as a control group. Fecal occult blood tests (FOBT) were used in the screening, and patients who tested positive for blood were referred for a colonoscopy.

The first study based on the screening results indicated no significant decrease in mortality, so the screenings were discontinued after 2016. However, researchers from the Helsinki University Hospital and the Finnish Cancer Registry wanted to examine whether the screening had offered benefits to patients with colorectal cancer.

"Practically no cancer screenings have been found to have an impact on overall mortality. However, they may still be useful in other ways. We wanted to study whether the patients could avoid the more intense treatments if they participated in screening for colorectal cancer," says Dr. Laura Koskenvuo, gastrointestinal surgeon.

The study examined the data of approximately 1,400 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The results indicated that among patients from the screening group, the surgical removal of the entire tumor was more commonly successful than it was among the control group patients, and they were less likely to require chemotherapy. The patients from the screening group were also less likely to undergo emergency surgery because of their tumor than the control group patients.

"The control group had 50% more emergency surgeries, 40% more incomplete tumor removals and 20% more chemotherapy treatments than patients in the screening group," says Adjunct Professor Ville Sallinen, gastrointestinal surgeon.

Closer inspection of the results showed that these benefits were particularly prevalent among male patients. Similar benefits were not seen among women. Additionally, the researchers found that the screening was most efficient at detecting left-sided colorectal cancer and the screening was found to have no benefit for patients with cancer on the right side, possibly because blood seeping from tumors on the right side becomes so diluted as it travels through the colon that the gFOBT can no longer detect it.

"The strength of this Finnish study is that it randomized an enormous number of people in the public health care system, which meant that we could objectively evaluate the benefits of the screening. Similar studies have not been available anywhere else," says Professor Nea Malila, director of the Finnish Cancer Registry.

"In the future, we must examine whether different screening techniques could improve the situation of female patients and facilitate the diagnosis of right-sided colorectal cancer," the researchers state.
Angelman syndrome is a genetic disease with no cure. Children grow up with severe intellectual disabilities and a range of other problems, arguably the worst of which are epileptic seizures. Now scientists at the UNC School of Medicine have found evidence that genetic therapy may prevent the enhanced seizure susceptibility.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the research marks the first time scientists were able to reduce seizure susceptibility in mice by activating a dormant copy of the UBE3A gene so it could replace the faulty mutant version. While replacing the faulty gene in juveniles reduced seizures, replacing the faulty gene in adult mice had no effect.

The UNC scientists also found evidence that the loss of this gene in Angelman syndrome promotes seizures by impairing the normal activity of inhibitory neurons - cells that normally keep brain circuits from being overstimulated.

"These findings should be very useful in the development and testing of therapies for Angelman syndrome," said senior author Benjamin D. Philpot, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, associate director of the UNC Neuroscience Center, and member of the UNC Autism Research Center.

Angelman syndrome, named for the pediatrician who first described it in 1965, afflicts roughly one in 20,000 people, which implies that there are more than 16,000 people with the syndrome in the United States alone. The syndrome is caused by the loss of function of a single gene, UBE3A, but with an odd twist: the mutant or deleted copy of UBE3A is the one inherited from the patient's mother. This maternal copy is crucial in neurons because - for reasons still unknown - the paternal copy of UBE3A is silenced in these cells via a mechanism called genomic imprinting.

UBE3A encodes a protein that works in an important cellular waste-disposal and gene-regulating system. Precisely how the absence of this protein in neurons causes Angelman syndrome has never been clear. Even so, scientists have been working on candidate therapies to restore UBE3A activity in neurons, thereby preventing or reversing some or all of the features of the disease. Among these features is epilepsy, which afflicts about 90 percent of Angelman syndrome patients, who typically do not respond well to standard anti-seizure medications.

Some aspects of the disease reflect abnormal prenatal and early postnatal development, and may never be reversible with treatments that start years after birth. But epilepsy often doesn't start in Angelman patients until age 2 or 3, suggesting that early life replacement of UBE3A might cure it or prevent it. Philpot and colleagues decided to investigate how early the gene reinstatement needed to take place. They took advantage of an Angelman syndrome mouse model, in which researchers inserted a working copy of the UBE3A gene that would lie dormant in brain cells until scientists turned it on with a chemical switch.

The scientists found that switching on UBE3A failed to prevent or reverse the high susceptibility to seizures in adult Angelman mice. However, switching on the gene when the mice were just three weeks old made them as resistant to seizures as ordinary mice.

"Three weeks of age for a mouse corresponds to early childhood for a human, so this suggests that there may be a window of opportunity in childhood for the prevention of Angelman syndrome epilepsy," said first author Bin Gu, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Philpot Lab who performed most of the key experiments.

Another big question for Angelman syndrome researchers has to do with the neurons affected by the disease. Philpot wondered, to treat the condition successfully, would UBE3A activity need to be restored in all types of neurons or just in some?

Philpot's team removed functional UBE3A from excitatory neurons - which trigger activity in connected neurons - and observed that the resulting mice were unaffected. Then they blocked the gene just in inhibitory neurons, whose activity normally quiets and regulates connected neurons, thereby preventing the neural hyperactivity that can trigger seizures. With UBE3A gone from the inhibitory neurons, the mice became even more susceptible to seizures than if UBE3A were absent from all neurons.

"This result implies that if you want to limit epilepsy in Angelman syndrome, you'll need at least to restore the function of UBE3A in inhibitory neurons," Philpot said.

The researchers gained another clue to the mechanism of Angelman syndrome seizures when they examined the brains of the seizure-prone mice, particularly in an area of the brain known as the hippocampus. They detected an abnormal accumulation of perineuronal nets (PNNs) - structures that surround neurons and block them from making new connections. Abnormal PNN formation has previously been linked to seizures. The scientists found that the abnormal PNN deposition did not occur in the young mice where UBE3A activity had been restored.

"We can now think of these abnormal PNNs as biomarkers for enhanced seizure susceptibility," Philpot said. "We now want to determine if these structures actually cause seizure susceptibility, for example by disrupting the connections that inhibitory neurons normally would make in this brain region."

Philpot and collaborators at UNC, along with other researchers elsewhere, are working on potential Angelman syndrome treatments, including drugs that would activate the previously silenced paternal copy of UBE3A in brain cells.
MDMA or ecstasy pills can help individuals trust more and cooperate say a team of researchers who are looking at its properties that could help treat psychological disorders. The study was published this week in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

The team from Kings College London have found that MDMA can help raise the activity of several parts of the brain that are associated with social behaviour and empathy.

This can thus help the user understand the intentions and beliefs of others and help them become more trusting and cooperative. At present MDMA is being tried in human volunteers for treatment of Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Researchers add that MDMA could help subjects undergo psychotherapy sessions more successfully when they are more receptive and cooperative.

Professor Mitul Mehta from the Kings Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) in a statement said, Understanding the brain activity underlying social behaviour could help identify what goes wrong in psychiatric conditions. Given the social nature of psychotherapy, understanding how MDMA affects social interaction sheds light on why the drug could become a valuable tool in treating patients.

The team however noted that while MDMA could help the participant become more trusting and cooperative, it did not make them gullible. For example, the 20 participants were given a series of games with trustworthy people and cheaters. Half of them were put on MDMA while the other half was given placebo. They were then given tasks and games.

Those on MDMA were more cooperative but did identify people who were cheaters and did not naively trust them said Mehta. The participants also underwent MRI scans so that the researchers could understand the changes made by the drug on the brain.

One of the tasks was that a pair of participants was given a situation called the prisoners dilemma. Here two accomplices are supposedly arrested and are being interviewed separately. They are being persuaded to turn on the other against a chance to be released. If they remain silent both would serve a short sentence and if they both turn on each other they would both serve a long sentence.

The team of researchers found that those on MDMA were less likely to turn on their partners compared to those who were on placebo. However if the MDMA participants knew their partners to be selfish and untrustworthy, they tended to turn on them similar to those on placebo.

This meant that MDMA did not make them naive or gullible. However, if the partners proved themselves to be cooperative again, those on MDMA did not rat out on them and re-established their trust quickly.

Simultaneously their brain activity showed that MDMA could light up the superior temporal cortex and mid-cingulate cortex regions of their brains. These areas are important to interpret other peoples intentions and beliefs.

The main decision making area of the brain was the right anterior insula. This area was stimulated on MDMA so that participants could appraise the risks involved in a better manner.

But when faced with untrustworthy partners, this region showed a decreased activity said experts. Dr Anthony Gabay, the first author of the study said, Using MRI scans, we were also able to see that MDMA had an impact on brain activity when processing the behaviour of others, rather than altering the decision-making process itself.

This research is important to build our understanding of how drugs might alter social cognition, said Mehta. He added, It has applications in testing novel drug therapies for mood and anxiety disorders. It also tells us which parts of the task a drug may alter, so we can target parts of behavior people are having difficulty with. MDMA is a Schedule I drug which means that it has a high abuse potential and has no acceptable medicinal use.

Source: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2018/11/16/JNEUROSCI.1276-18.2018
Long-lived yelloweye rockfish have difficulty detoxifying mercury within sensitive liver cells

It takes six months to get really good at accurately gauging the age of yelloweye rockfish. Because they can live for up to 120 years, this species is of particular interest to Benjamin Barst and scientists like him who study the effects of toxic chemicals on living organisms. Over the course of their lifetime, the fish can accumulate high levels of mercury and other trace elements in their tissues. But it wasn't known how much of those elements accumulate in sensitive sites within yelloweye cells. So Barst, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University's Department of Natural Resource Sciences, set out for Alaska's Inside Passage in search of answers. The results are to be found in a paper published in this month's issue of Environmental Pollution.

The research team collected eight yelloweye, weighing up to 8.8 kilograms, from the waters of Alaska's Inside Passage on a sport fishing vessel called the Pheasant Plucker. The fish's livers were removed and tissue samples immediately frozen so they could be analyzed later at laboratory facilities back in Quebec City and Montreal.

Isolating toxic elements to better deal with them

By examining the tissues at a subcellular level, the researchers discovered yelloweye were able to immobilize several potentially toxic elements within their liver tissues (cadmium, lead, and arsenic) thus preventing them from interacting with sensitive parts of the cell. But mercury was found in concentrations known to be toxic - and most of it was in sensitive sites, such as mitochondria and enzymes, within liver cells.

"Alaska appears to be a pristine place," says Barst, "but mercury from industrial activities can be transported over long distances and accumulate in sensitive sites within fish livers with dangerous results. Our earlier work had shown clear damage to the livers of rockfish in the fish with the highest levels of mercury. But we didn't know whether the damage was caused by the mercury or by other trace elements. Now we know that mercury is not well detoxified by these fish. This adds another layer of evidence indicating mercury may be the cause of the problem."

The results underscore the potential risk that contaminants pose for yelloweye rockfish, one of the largest species of rockfish in the coastal waters of western North America. Yelloweye are listed as threatened in the Puget Sound-Georgia Basin of the U.S., and as a species of "special concern" in Canada, where conservation areas have been established to protect rockfish habitat from commercial and recreational fishing.

Source: https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/fish-can-detox-too-not-so-well-when-it-comes-mercury-291612
Analysis of doctor-patient conversations to help shape design of future specialists' communication training

A joint study by researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and clinicians at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) has yielded insights into how doctors can better communicate the value of clinical investigations to patients.

The research team is one of the first groups in Singapore to use Conversation Analysis, a method for studying social interaction, in a hospital setting.

In Conversation Analysis, video recordings of interactions in an authentic setting are transcribed verbatim. Researchers analyse the verbal and non-verbal aspects during each person's turn to talk, paying attention to context and identifying recurring patterns of interaction.

This micro-analysis is richer in insights compared to retrospective interviews and surveys commonly used in health communication studies. Researchers can subsequently give clinicians specific recommendations in terms of what to say, and how to say it at a specific point, in order to enhance the communication process.

For example, when addressing a patient's concern about pain during a procedure, just explaining the use of anaesthetics may not be enough to reduce the fear. Instead, the doctor can share what his past patients said about their experience.

The research outcomes are expected to shape the design of medical communication modules for training of future urologists in TTSH.

The study which involved an analysis of 150 doctor-patient conversations at TTSH's Urology clinics was led by Professor Luke Kang Kwong Kapathy and Assistant Professor Lim Ni Eng, both from NTU School of Humanities, in collaboration with Adjunct Assistant Professor Png Keng Siang, Senior Consultant, Department of Urology, TTSH.

"Conversation Analysis is a fresh look into communication in healthcare which doctors were not previously exposed to. We are excited that our day-to-day doctor-patient interactions can shed so much insight through the use of this novel approach," said Adjunct Asst Prof Png Keng Siang.

"Current medical education already includes communication training, but we want to go a step further in looking at the actual interactions in the clinics. Studying the languages, responses and social psychology in the clinical setting gives us insights on what makes patients more receptive to doctors' recommendations, which may lead to patients being more willing to go through necessary tests and increased patient satisfaction," said Prof Luke, who is the Chair, School of Humanities, and Associate Dean (Research), College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences at NTU.

Richer insights

The study involved filming 150 first-visit consultations at TTSH urology clinics. A preliminary study involving 50 patients and three urology consultants started in July 2016.

From the initial findings, a larger study involving 100 patients and clinicians from the urology department was conducted from mid-2017 to mid-2018. Patients had given their written consent to participate in this research project, which was approved by National Healthcare Group's ethics review board.

A common reason for patients to be referred to Urology clinics is the presence of blood in urine. As this can be caused by various reasons, a first-visit consultation often involves the recommendation of various diagnostic procedures, in order to pinpoint the exact cause behind the symptom. These tests may consist of a urine test, renal ultrasound, as well as cystoscopy which involves running a thin tube with lens to the bladder through the urethra.

Recurring scenarios include patients' expression of fear towards cystoscopy, and apprehension towards going through multiple tests. To enhance the communication process, doctors can be more aware of patients' subconscious signs of fear. To patients who may view the tests as being optional, they can also explain upfront that all the tests are needed to pinpoint the exact cause behind the symptoms, before going into test details.

NTU's Asst Prof Lim said, "Our study also brings up the question of how much patients know or do not know about the various medical procedures when they enter the clinic. How this knowledge affects patients' interaction with doctors and their decision-making process can be further studied."

Throughout 2018, the research team had presented their findings at several international conferences such as the Singapore Public Health & Occupational Medicine Conference, the International Symposium on Healthcare Communication, and the Global Health Histories Seminar jointly organised by the World Health Organisation and Sri Lanka's government.

NTU and Tan Tock Seng Hospital have been collaborating in advancing patient care through their engagement in the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Health City Novena.

The NTU team is part of a medical humanities research cluster at the university, which looks at the linguistic, social and cultural aspects of medical practice.

Other ongoing projects by the same team include enhancing communication in TTSH's Ophthalmology clinics and in the training of medical students. The researchers also aim to apply Conversation Analysis in palliative care in future.
Fails to keep pace with health and economic burden of major health threats

Total U.S. investment in medical and health research and development (R&D) in the U.S. grew by 27% over the five-year period from 2013 to 2017, led by industry and the federal government, according to U.S. Investments in Medical and Health Research and Development, a new report from Research!America. Industry accounted for 67% of total spending in 2017, followed by the federal government at 22%. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) accounted for the lion's share of federal spending in medical and health research in 2017 - $32.4 billion or 82.1%.

Academic and research institutions, including colleges and universities, independent research institutes (IRIs), and independent hospital medical research centers also increased spending, dedicating more than $14.2 billion of their own funds (endowment, donations, etc.) to medical and health R&D in 2017. Other funding sources - foundations, state and local governments, voluntary health associations and professional societies - accounted for 3.7% of total medical and health R&D expenditures.

"Overall, U.S. investments in health-related research and development continue to move in a positive direction, but it's important to consider whether this investment is enough to overcome health threats that are taking lives, reducing productivity, and single-handedly placing our fiscal future at risk," said Research!America's Chair, the Honorable Michael N. Castle. "Other nations are investing in R&D hand over fist, so it's an economic competitiveness issue, too. We need to consider strategies for keeping the U.S. at the forefront even as we make more headway against deadly and costly health threats."

Biopharmaceutical companies contributed the largest share of funding within the industry sector, accounting for over 53% of total U.S. medical and health R&D expenditures in 2017. Of the top 25 U.S.-based pharmaceutical firms, 17 increased their spending, with eight spending more than $1 billion on pharmaceutical R&D that year. Increased investments in this sector may, in part, reflect the suspension of the medical device excise tax from 2016 to 2018.

Federal R&D investments were uneven across health agencies during the five-year period. The NIH received $2 billion increases in 2016 and 2017, but funding for other federal health agencies varied, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality experiencing stagnant or reduced budgets over the last two years. Federal investments are expected to increase in the next two years due to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which lifted austerity-level budget caps for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. "Our nation cannot afford less than a full-court press against deadly and debilitating health threats. The returns - both quantitative and qualitative - on medical and health R&D dwarf our investment. It is heartening that we are on the right path, but it's time to dramatically step up our game," said Mary Woolley, president and CEO, Research!America. "Sequestration - automatic spending cuts - could return in 2020, resulting in deep cuts in federal agency budgets. It's more important than ever for advocates to engage policymakers to make the case for the increased investments needed from both public and private sectors in order to put research and innovation to work at the level they can deliver to find the solutions to what ails us."
Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that a program designed to enhance self-care and lead to more seamless management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in adults successfully reduced rates of emergency room visits and hospitalization, and the burdensome symptoms and limitations caused by the condition.

Describing results of the six-month trial of the program in the Nov. 12 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, the investigators said patients in the new program (called BREATHE) were re-hospitalized at half the rate of a similar group of patients who received standard care without the program. BREATHE patients also reported improved quality of life, the research team said--a boon to high value health care efforts being made in the field of medicine.

"When a person with COPD gets admitted to the hospital with difficulty breathing, the doctors and nurses focus on their immediate problem and not their chronic disease and overall health, and so the chance that the person will have another flare-up and end up in the hospital again remains high," says lead author Hanan Aboumatar, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "About half of patients will end up back in the hospital within six months."

"COPD is incurable and chronic, and our new program--which combines hospital to home transition support with chronic disease management support--is one way of reorganizing care in a way that reduces future hospitalization risk and expenses, while preserving patients' quality of life," she adds.

COPD is a label applied to a group of chronic conditions --including emphysema and chronic bronchitis-- that damage the lungs and cause breathing problems. An estimated 16 million Americans are living with COPD, generating costs to the health care system of more than $30 billion annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Smoking, air pollution, lung injury and genetics can all play a role in the development of COPD. Coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing symptoms range in severity, and people with COPD often experience worsening flare-ups over time.

Because the damage is irreversible and progressive, treatment focus is on symptom management with drugs, oxygen, and lifestyle changes. Previous studies have shown that patients who follow a set of strategies to manage their COPD do much better and have a greater quality of life, says Aboumatar, but "getting these strategies to patients and ensuring their successful use has been a challenge."

To address that challenge, Aboumatar and her colleagues teamed up with COPD patients and caregivers to design a program that would give patients better support immediately after being hospitalized with a COPD flare-up.

Specifically, the program--delivered to COPD patients admitted to medical units at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center between March 2015 and May 2016--paired patients and their family caregivers with a COPD nurse who met with them during hospitalization. The nurse continued consultation with the patient and caregiver, on average, 6.1 times over the three months after hospitalization through phone calls and/or home visits depending on patients' preference.

The nurse offered tailored support on how to take medications, use inhalers and breathing techniques, and manage COPD symptoms. In addition, the nurse worked through issues patients may face when living with COPD, including access to care, mobility services and other community resources.

Overall, 240 patients hospitalized for COPD were randomized to receive either the standard of care or the new three-month program. The control and intervention groups had average patient ages of 63.9 and 66, respectively, were 36.7 and 40 percent men, and 83.3 and 81.6 percent white. Participants in both groups had been diagnosed with COPD for an average of three years. The patients' hospitalizations and emergency department visits, as well as quality of life scores, were tracked for six months from the time of initial hospitalization.

Some 203 patients completed the six months of follow-up. During that time, there were 15 deaths and 337 subsequent hospitalizations. The number of COPD-related acute care events--either hospitalization or emergency department visits--per participant was 1.4 in the control group and 0.72 among those enrolled in the new program.

In addition, the quality of life-- as measured by a standard questionnaire known as the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire--showed better scores in the intervention compared to the control group. While the score declined by 1.53 points on average over the six months of study for those in the intervention group, it increased by 5.44 points for those in the control group. The St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire scores range from 0-100 (lower scores indicate better quality of life), and a four-point difference on the 100 point scale is considered clinically meaningful.

"Our findings support the idea that a comprehensive program that reorganizes care for patients to help address long-term COPD self-management at a time when they're already struggling with a hospitalization due to a COPD flare-up is more effective than limited support that is focused on recovery from the current hospitalization," says Aboumatar. "When hospitalized due to a COPD flare-up, this condition becomes more of a priority, so it's a good moment to start a conversation with a patient about what they can do to successfully manage it." Aboumatar adds that having the same nurse interact with patients both in the hospital setting and after discharge helped build a relationship that allowed the patients to communicate effectively with and trust their nurse.

Aboumatar and her colleagues plan to test the program in other settings. She acknowledges that the program may be less feasible in rural areas, where patients and resources are more geographically spread out. The program is also being adapted for potential use with other chronic diseases marked by acute flare-ups, such as congestive heart failure.

The BREATHE program was developed in partnership with COPD patients, their family caregivers and clinicians of various disciplines.
People who vape and smoke cigarettes are no more likely to drop the nicotine habit than those who just smoke, a new study suggests.

Researchers at The Ohio State University studied 617 tobacco users and found no differences in quit rates for "dual users" of both traditional and electronic cigarettes.

This research adds important information to the conversation as public health and medical professionals grapple with the role vaping might play in reducing cigarette smoking, said study senior author Mary Ellen Wewers, a professor emeritus of health behavior and health promotion, and a member of Ohio State's Center of Excellence in Tobacco Regulatory Science.

Participants in the study were part of a larger group of about 1,200 rural and urban Ohioans whose habits are being followed by researchers. All of them are considered heavy tobacco users - those who smoke every day or at least some days every week.

The study appears in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

The researchers sat down with participants every six months for 18 months to ask them about tobacco use, interest in quitting and quit attempts they'd made. They also documented what type of tobacco products the participants used.

At the first check-in, six months into the study, the dual users were more likely to have stopped using tobacco, but that difference disappeared by the 1-year and 18-month interviews. By the end of the study, most dual users were back to smoking cigarettes exclusively.

"The initial difference we saw might be due to a higher interest in quitting among the dual users, but that higher quit rate vanished with time," said lead author Laura Sweet, a graduate student in Ohio State's College of Public Health.

"Tobacco is such a huge killer, and if these products help people quit, that could be really significant for public health. But in this study it looks like they don't, and we need to know that as well," Sweet said.

Though electronic products still deliver nicotine and much remains unknown about their long-term health effects, there's general agreement that they are less harmful than cigarettes in adults.

"The hope would be that adult cigarette smokers are trying e-cigarettes because they want to stop cigarettes and are looking for alternatives to help them," Wewers said, adding that she and others who work on tobacco prevention are concerned that younger people who vape will start there and transition to cigarettes down the road.

The researchers can't be sure what factors contributed to their findings, but the results prompted Sweet to wonder if many adults who smoke and vape are doing so because vaping is more accepted in certain environments, rather than because vaping might help them drop nicotine altogether, she said.

Wewers, a member of the Cancer Control Research Program at Ohio State's Comprehensive Cancer Center, said she wasn't surprised to see a higher likelihood of quitting cigarettes at six months in the dual users, because that group expressed greater interest in quitting overall.

"It makes sense that during the first few months they may do better at quitting, but given that cigarette smoking is such a cyclical thing - people quit and resume all the time - it's not surprising that they went back to smoking after a year," she said.

Because this study didn't assess light smokers or those who consider themselves "social" smokers, it's hard to say what role vaping might play in quitting, Wewers said.

But for health care providers trying how best to help heavy smokers quit, this study could help inform those doctor-patient conversations, she said.

"Providers get questions about trying e-cigarettes all the time from people who want to quit. Our paper would suggest that it's not a promising approach - the majority don't quit, and most of them go back to combustible products exclusively," Wewers said.

"This reinforces the recommendation that there are good, approved medications and nicotine-replacement products out there now and that those should be the first-line approach to helping smokers quit."

The study findings are limited in that the researchers relied on self-reported information from the smokers and did not conduct tests to confirm whether someone had quit. But the study is stronger than some other similar work, because it used a randomly selected sample of smokers in both an urban Ohio county and in six Appalachian counties in the state, Wewers said.

Next, Wewers said she's interested in exploring the role of flavored products for those who vape, and wants to know more about what motivates smokers to pick up e-cigarettes.

"Is it because e-cigarettes haven't been banned to the same extent as cigarettes? Is it that there's so much advertising? We'd really like some answers to these questions."
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| BY Ricki Green |

UNICEF, with the help of Republic of Everyone, has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of education for kids, on this World Childrens Day, 20 November 2018.

Around Australia, statues of children wear the blue UNICEF backpack with the message, #PackForTheFuture, to raise awareness of the need to equip every child, everywhere with the education they deserve. In Parramatta, a statue of Sir John Martin  a child whose determination to get an education took him from servants son to NSW Premier and Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court  wears the backpack as a symbol of the transformative power of education.

Even in New York, the famous Fearless Girl wears the #PackForTheFuture backpack to inspire people to stand up for childrens education.

By placing the backpacks in the public eye, UNICEF shares its message with the world  that when we equip children with what they need to succeed, we give them hope, allow them to dream, and help them live the best possible futures they can.

The concept of #PackForTheFuture has also been brought to life through a free photography exhibition at the Sydney Opera House, on the Western Broadwalk until 21 November. It features children from 22 countries, from Syria to Somalia, and the Rohingya refugee camps of Bangladesh to the South Pacific. In each photo, the UNICEF backpack is part of their story. Filled with pens, notebooks  and hope  the blue backpack often becomes the most treasured possession these children own.

As kids are the focus of this campaign, UNICEF led research on 1001 kids across Australia to understand their thinking about the Australian education system. On social, videos about the results push people to read the report, to find out what kids think of their education, and their expectations and doubts about what theyre learning at school.

UNICEF extended the campaign with the support of national ambassadors and partners.

Find out more and read the full results of the report at www.worldchildrensday.org.au.

UNICEF

Director of Fundraising and Communication: Jennifer Tierney

Associate director of communications: James Nichols

Campaign Lead, Senior Brand Strategist: Manuella Perche

Communication and Media Specialist: Nicole Lawrence

External Communication Manager Policy and Programs: Brinsley Marlay

Agency: Republic of Everyone

Founder : Ben peacock

Account Manager : Natalie Huuskes

Creative Director : Max Guena

Copywriter : Tessa Hewson

Head of Design : Claire Sutton

Designer : Eva Kiss
| BY Ricki Green |

In The Thicket is delighted to announce the signing of visionary filmmaker Georgia Hudson.

Hudson is a multi-award winning music and commercial director, nominated in 2017 and in 2018 as Best Director at the UKMVAs.

Inherently female, beautiful and moving, her passion for dance, emotion-driven and the way movement interacts with the camera have been harnessed to create works for Under Armour, P!nk and Loyle Carner, just to name a few.

Artistic, dynamic and beautiful  Hudsons films interrogate youth culture, identity and self-expression on a physical and intuitive level, with her signature attention to slick and unique aesthetics.

She has been selected has part of the New Directors Showcase by Ridley Scott and Saatchi & Saatchi at Cannes Lions 2018.

Hudson is currently developing Temper, an artistic documentary on youth culture and grief. To be released in 2019.

Click here to check out Georgias reel.

For more info on Georgia contact genevievet@inthethicket.com.au
New Delhi:

Launching a scathing attack on Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa on Tuesday accused them of being the "most opportunistic" politicians in the country. He also attacked the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress government in the state on the farmers' issues and extended his party's full support to the cause by calling for a statewide agitation on Wednesday. Yeddyurappa said that Gowda and Kumaraswamy were synonymous with "betrayal".

Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, you and Deve Gowda are most opportunistic" politicians in the country," Yeddyurappa said, while attacking the duo for repeatedly not keeping their promises. They say I had gone to their door to make me chief minister, you should be ashamed to make such statements," he said, recalling that it was Kumaraswamy who quit the Dharm Singh lead Congress-JD(S) coalition in 2006 and joined hands withthe BJP to form the coalition government.

Read More | Karnataka government celebrates Tipu Sultan Jayanti amid tight security, protests by BJP

The former chief minister also hit out at Kumaraswamy for a remark he made against a protesting woman farmer at Belagavi on Sunday. "It is shameful on the part of the chief minister to make a disgraceful remark against a woman farmer. It is also arrogance to call the protesting farmers goondas and dacoits," Yeddyurappa said as quoted by PTI. Describing the chief minister's remarks against the woman "derogatory", he lashed out at Kumaraswamy for trying to defend it.

Farmers are protesting in Belagavi for the past few days demanding clearance of their pending arrears by sugar factories for the cane supplied and announcement of purchase price for sugarcane for the current season. They had intensified their protest Sunday by "gatecrashing" their loaded trucks into "Suvarna Vidhana Soudha", the legislature complex in northern district, protesting Kumaraswamy's cancellation of his scheduled visit to meet them.

Also Read | Karnataka bypoll results: Setback for BJP as Cong-JD(S) wins four of five seats

He said those in public life should gracefully accept criticisms. Farmers protested the way they did as the chief minister backtracked from his promise, he said. "Power seems to have gone into the chief minister's head," he said, adding that Congress leaders who are supporting Kumaraswamy's government should think over the CM's remarks. "If they have self-respect they should ask the CM to implement the decisions or quit the post," Yeddyurappa said.

In a strong reaction, Kumaraswamy had described those who barged into the legislature complex as "goondas" and accused them of defaming the entire farming community. He had also made remarks against a woman farmer while questioning her 'silence' in the past four years on the arrears issue and her farming background.
New Delhi:

Former Aam Adami Party (AAP) district president and RTI activist Suresh Sharma was shot at by an unidentified gunman at his shop in the Chhehrata area of Amritsar on Tuesday evening. As per reports, a youth came to his furniture shop at 6.30 pm and shot at Sharma thrice and fled the spot. The AAP leader was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries. His condition is said to be stable, according to his family.

The city has been on high alert since a grenade attack on a Nirankari congregation at Rajasansi in Amritsar in which three people were killed on Sunday.

Read More | Man who attacked Arvind Kejriwal was issued entry pass for Delhi Secretariat: Sources

JS Walia, the Superintendent of Police in Amritsar, said he is stable now, we will examine the CCTV footage. Further investigation is underway. Sharmas statement will be recorded after he is in a condition to speak, he said.

He is stable now, we will examine the CCTV footage, and further investigation is underway: JS Walia, SP Amritsar on former AAP District President and RTI activist Suresh Sharma shot at in Amritsar #Punjab pic.twitter.com/VuZtNKxA1Q  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2018

Sharma, an active RTI activist and anti-corruption campaigner, is known for his critical opposition of rival political parties. Sharma resigned as AAPs district president earlier this year when AAP leader Sukhpal Khaira was replaced as leader of opposition.

Khaira condemned the attack on Sharma saying that there is a breakdown of law and order in Punjab. I strongly condemn the murderous attack on our party colleague and PAC member Suresh Sharma ji in Amritsar today. It appears theres no security for life of ordinary people in Punjab, Khaira said, according to new agencies.

Read Only | Delhi Pollution: Air quality dips to poor; AQI recorded at 273

He demanded immediate arrest of the culprits and stringent action against them. The police have ruled out any possibility of a terror angle in the attack, but have hinted at personal animosity behind the attack.
New Delhi:

In the wake of rising pollution level in the national capital, centre is planning to induce artificial rain this week to wash away toxic pollutants from the air, a minister said. Delhi's air quality has deteriorated to alarming levels in the past three weeks.



Air quality in Delhi today was again recorded in the poor category. At Lodhi road area, the Air Quality Index (AQI) PM 2.5 was at 273 (poor category) and PM 10 at 266 (poor category) according to the news agency ANI.



ALSO READ | Delhi Pollution: Air quality in poor category; AQI recorded at 273



Cloud seeding for artificial rain would be done once the meteorological conditions are stable, a senior official said. Plans are to induce rainfall this week, but if the meteorological conditions are not found suitable then it would be done next week, he said.



Cloud seeding is the process of combining different kinds of chemical agents, including silver iodide, dry ice and even common table salt, with existing clouds in an effort to thicken them and increase the chance of rainfall.



The weathermen are monitoring conditions to become favourable for creating artificial rain, which can be induced in 24 hours, the official said.



In 2016, the government tried to explore the possibility of cloud seeding for artificial rain but the plan never worked out.



Last year, the government had proposed the possibility of reducing dust by watering Delhi from a helicopter to Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan.



ALSO READ | Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy 'most opportunistic' politicians: Yeddyurappa

Delhi is reeling under the menace of air pollution from the past couple of years. The region faced a major air quality crisis last year when severe pollution level forced shutdown of schools and colleges.
New Delhi:

Taimur Ali Khan is a national obsession since his birth. Aged just about two, he has a staggering fan base who always keep themselves updated about his whereabouts and the paparazzi never miss out on clicking him at any event or even a casual outing.

With media paps hovering around him all the time, a doll-making company tried to cash in on Taimuras popularity and it looks berserk!

Film Producer Ashwini Yardi shared a photo of the same stating how a Kerala store has been selling this Taimur-styled doll.A

The next level creepy doll has garnered mixed reactions on Social media. Some even went on to compare the doll with Childas play horrific character, Chucky!

This is also highly disturbing that people would buy a toy that looks like someoneas child and give that to their kids to play with or just buy it and collect it. Next level creepy? I think yes. a The Wandering Mind (@Dash_Adyasha) November 19, 2018

How is this even allowed? a Saurabh (@sagrawal05) November 20, 2018

Caution: Watch this doll-image on your own risk!

Meanwhile at a toy store in Kerala... pic.twitter.com/J2Bl9UnPdT a Ashvini Yardi (@AshviniYardi) November 19, 2018

When Saif Ali Khan was informed about this Taimur doll, he seemed pretty amused as he said, "Maybe I should trademark his nameaThe least they could do is send me one! I am glad people are benefiting from him. I only ask God for his safety and happiness in return,a.A

However, Kareenaas opinion of the doll doesnat matches with that of Saif! "A

In interaction with Mumbai Mirror, Bebo admitted how she didn't know how to react looking at the doll at first as she said, "Taimur canat run away from his popularity and neither can his parents. When I saw the doll,A I wondered what was I supposed to say. But Saif pointed out that it is because people love him so much and such things are a blessing for him. There is so much genuine warmth for our son that itas bad to stop people from clicking his pictures or making his dolls. But, they should understand that he is a two-year-old child and needs a normal life. Both Saif and I are struggling to give him that and will continue to do so without telling the media to back off, no matter how annoying it gets after a point. Itas tough on him as itas on Saif and me.a

Having spotted this, weare definitely in shock and disbelief over the extent of Taimur's crazy fan-following.

On the last aired episode of Koffee With Karan 6, show host Karan Johar pointed out Taimur's pictures are sold at the highest bid according to the unofficial "rate chart" based on stars' popularity quotient.A

Saif Ali Khan said in an interview in October that he wouldn't mind Taimur doing nappy commercials but Kareena stopped him from doing so, saying, "Don't be so cheap, you can't sell your son."

Time and again, Taimur has taken social media by storm with his adorable pictures from a play date, vacations with his parents and casual outings enjoying a walk or a sport with his dad Saif. And each time, he has melted thousands of hearts with his innocence and cute looks.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Amritsar grenade attack was planned in Lahore and pro-Khalistani groups of Canada and Germany were also involved, top security officials familiar with the probe said. According to a report published in The Hindustan Times, citing the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the attack was a desperate attempt to revive militancy in Punjab. The report further stated that a local module was used for the attack and an Islamist network helped in the transfer of Pakistan-made grenades.

[Live] Addressing Press Conference at Punjab Bhawan, Chandigarh. https://t.co/vWTp2LF9DB  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) November 21, 2018

At least three people were killed, and 20 others sustained serious injuries after two suspected terrorists hurled hand grenades at a Nirankari Bhawan congregation in Amritsar's Rajasansi village. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had also described the attack a suspected handiwork of the ISI-backed terror modules.

Also Read | 2 suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists sneak into Delhi, police release pictures

Prima facie, this appears to be an act of terror by separatist forces, organised with the involvement of ISI-backed Khalistani or Kashmiri terrorist groups, Singh had said on Monday.

Besides this, the grenade attack in Amritsar had striking similarities with the ISI-backed terror module in Patiala, which was busted by the Punjab Police earlier this month.

On November 1, the anti-terrorism unit of the Punjab Police had nabbed one Shabnamdeep Singh alias Maninder Lahoria, who allegedly confessed to being on a payroll of Pakistani handlers. The police had also recovered a motorcycle, a pistol and a hand grenade from Lahorias possession. Surprisingly, the perpetrators of the Amritsar grenade attack also on a motorcycle, waved a gun and lobbed grenades at Nirankari Bhawan congregation.

Officials probing the Amritsar grenade attack said that the police had also recovered letters pads of "Khalistan Gadar Force" and other Pakistan-based terror outfits from Lahorias possession.

Lahoria had allegedly told the investigators that he was getting instructions from his handlers in Pakistan to target police posts and worded areas during the festivals. He was promised Rs 10 lakh for each act of violence, the police officers claimed.

Also Read | Amritsar Nirankari Bhawan attack 'act of terror', Khalistani hand being probed

The involvement of Pakistan-based Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) leader Harmeet Singh alias PhD in the Amritsar grenade attack is also suspected. Harmeet Singh has been accused of trying to revive militancy in Punjab by radicalising the states youths through social media.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

An American tourist, identified as John Allen Chau, was killed by unidentified Sentinelese tribesmen in North Sentinel Island of Andaman and Nicobar, reported news agency ANI. The police have arrested seven people, mostly fishermen, in connection with the murder of the American tourist. A case has been registered under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The arrested fishermen reportedly told the police that the last time they saw the American tourist, he was being attacked by the protected tribesmen with bows and arrows. The North Sentinel Islanders, who are one of the worlds uncontacted people, dragged the tourist to the beach and half buried him in the sand.

"He was attacked by arrows but he continued walking. The fishermen saw the tribals tying a rope around his neck and dragging his body. They were scared and fled but returned next morning to find his body on the seashore," news agency AFP quoted sources as saying.

Also Read | Maharashtra: Tigress chases tourist vehicle at Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, video goes viral

The killed American had tried to reach the Sentinel Island on November 14 but failed to make it. However, two days later, he took a canoe himself to the island but caught by the tribesmen.

"He tried to reach the Sentinel Island on November 14 but could not make it. Two days later he went well prepared. He left the dingy midway and took a canoe all by himself to the island," the agency added.

Who are the Sentinelese - the world's last uncontacted humans?

The Sentinelese are the worlds last isolated humans. They are found in the dense forest area of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. They are known to resist contact with the outside world. As per the 2011 census, which was conducted from a distance, their population was estimated at 15  12 male and three females. However, in 2001 census, their population was estimated at 40-50.

The Sentinelese are designated as a protected Tribe and speak an unclassified language. They are a hunter-gatherer society and survives on hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants.

Also Read | Indian tourists among worlds highest spenders abroad, reveals new data

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New Delhi:

The Punjab police has arrested one of the two accused, who allegedly blasted the Sant Nirankari Dera in Amritsar, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said in a press conference on Wednesday. The accused has been identified as Bikramjit Singh aka Harmeet Singh PhD, a Pakistan-based Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) leader. The KLF leader is accused of trying to revive militancy in Punjab by radicalising the states youths through social media.

"I'm happy to announce that police nabbed one of the two people involved. 26-year-old Bikramjit Singh has been arrested. The other man will also be arrested soon. His name is Avtar Singh," Amarinder was quoted as saying.

Read | 2 suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists sneak into Delhi, police release pictures

Confirming the ISI role in the Amritsar attack, Singh further said there was no communal angle in the blast, adding that "It was a clear case of terrorism. The people attacked were a soft target. Don't try to politicise the incident. Every agency at national and state level is cooperating".

"Pak ISI has been very active and we have to be on guard. We will not allow these activities to continue in Punjab. We will be one step ahead of ISI," the chief minister added.

Talking about the type of grenade in Amritsar blast, Singh said, "This is the one being used against forces in Kashmir and this is the one that burst. This one is made under license by Pakistan licensed factory and is filled with pellets".

Watch Amarinder Singh's LIVE press conference here:

[Live] Addressing Press Conference at Punjab Bhawan, Chandigarh. https://t.co/vWTp2LF9DB  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) November 21, 2018

My congratulations to DGP @PunjabPoliceInd Suresh Arora and his team for solving the Adliwal grenade blast case within 72 hours. My govt will not allow the evil designs of Paks ISI to foment communal disturbance in Punjab by engineering such terror attacks.  Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) November 21, 2018

Read | Hurriyat leader Hafizullah Mir shot dead in South Kashmir's Achabal

At least three people were killed, and 20 others sustained serious injuries after two suspected terrorists hurled hand grenades at a Nirankari Bhawan congregation in Amritsar's Rajasansi village on Sunday, November 18, 2018. The grenade attack in Amritsar had striking similarities with the ISI-backed terror module in Patiala, which was busted by the Punjab Police earlier this month.

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New Delhi:

A day after a Delhi court awarded death penalty to convict Yashpal Singh and ordered life imprisonment to another, Naresh Sherawat, in connection with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday launched a blistering attack on the Congress for instigating violence against the Sikh Community that followed assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi. The 1984 anti-Sikh riots left nearly 3,000 people dead and several injured.

In a Facebook post, Jaitley also praised the governments led by Narendra Modi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee for ensuring that those guilty for the 'massacre' were punished in accordance with the law of the land.

Accusing the then Congress government and the Prime Minister's Office of allowing the militancy in Punjab to go unchecked, Jaitley further said that 1984 would always be known as amongst the worst for Indian governance.

The Union Minister was referring to several incidents that occurred in 1984, such as the change in Jammu and Kashmir governance Operation Blue Star. Bluestar succeeded in hurting the psyche of Indias most patriotic community. A myopic Government did not consider the political cost of this move, he added.

Those, whom the Congress had created to counter the Sikh influence of Akali Dal had gone out of control. The Operation Bluestar proved to be a historic blunder, Jaitley wrote.

Congressmen led violent mobs. The Police colluded with them. It did not fire, lathi charge or even teargas the mobs. The rioters were given a free hand to kill and loot. Places of worship of the Sikh community were damaged. Sikh houses were burnt. Their trade establishments were looted. Thousands of innocents, men, women and children were burnt, were mutilated. The Police did not even register the First Information Reports, he said.

Jaitley recounted how the first NDA Government led by Atal Bihar Vajpayee appointed the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission of Enquiry for probing the violence. He further pointed out that the Narendra Modi Government appointed a Special Investigative Team (SIT) in 2015 which was headed by Justice G.P. Mathur, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court.

The finance minister also added that the case in which Delhi Court recently convicted two people, sentencing one of them to death was prosecuted after decades by this SIT.

Arun Jaitley further said that though success has been achieved in one case, the Indian society and particularly the Sikh community wants a closure of the horrible memories of 1984.

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New Delhi:

Bombay High Court is scheduled to hear a petition challenging Maharashtra government's decision to grant reservation to the Maratha community in government jobs and educational institutions. A bench headed by Justice BP Dharmadhikari will take up the plea filed by a Pune-based activist Hemant Patil against the quota provided to the Marathas.

In his plea, Patil said that the state already provides 52 per cent reservation to various castes and communities and if the ruling government will grant 16 per cent to the Marathas, it will defy the Supreme Court judgment. The top court had set an upper limit of 50 per cent caste-based reservations provided by state governments.

Also Read BJP to lose 30-40 seats in Lok Sabha polls if Patidar quota stir not addressed, says Ramdas Athawale

On November 18, the Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced the his government has accepted the recommendations of the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) on the socio-economic status of the Marathas and would grant them 16 per cent reservation under a new Socio-Economic Backward Class (SEBC) category.

We have accepted the recommendations made by the MSBCC. We have decided to accord reservations to the Maratha community under a new SEBC category. The reservations to be granted to Marathas will be independent of the existing reservations for the OBC category, the Maharashtra chief minister had said.

In November 2014, the Bombay High Court had stayed the then Congress-NCP governments decision to grant 16 per cent quota to Marathas, saying that it was the breach of Supreme Courts order.

Also Read | Quota in Job Promotion: How BSP chief Mayawati reacted to SC verdict

The erstwhile government had also granted 16 per cent quota to Marathas in government jobs and educational institutions. The High Court is also likely to hear a batch of pending petitions filed between 2014 and 2015 on the Maratha quota issue. Two of they had sought immediate implementation of the quota.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The National Conference (NC), the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Congress are in talks to form a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir frustrating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s efforts to prop up a government headed by Sajjad Lone's People Conference, according to a News 18 report. The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC with 15 and Congress with 12 which will take them well ahead of the majority mark of 44.



Lone, a former separatist, was successful in breaking away National Conference's spokesman Junaid Muttu, who recently contested the Urban Local Body polls to become the mayor of Srinagar.



ALSO READ | PDP leader Muzaffar Baig hints at joining third front if it emerges



The coalition talks hold the potential to trigger far-reaching realignment of political forces in Jammu and Kashmir and envisages an alliance between PDP and Congress, which have been partners in a government between 2002 and 2007, backed from outside by the National Conference, PTI reported.



The National Conference has made it clear that they were not interested in joining a coalition government but would not be averse to giving outside support to a PDP-Congress coalition, News 18 reported.



On Tuesday, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, senior PDP leader and former Member of Parliament, said he would leave the party if the third front emerges, which is also what the Peoples Conference-led by Sajad Lone is aiming at in the state. Baig targeted the PDP and the National Conference leaderships for its decision to boycott the local body elections. According to Baig, the PDP has failed to live up to its vision.



Beigs statement was welcomed by Lone. Taking to micro blogging site Twitter, Lone wrote, I am humbled by Muzaffar Beigh Sahibs statement. A person of his stature, experience and intellect can be the defining attribute of the emerging third party @JKPC_ I remember him as my favourite uncle during my childhood. I was his pampered brat. (sic)



ALSO READ | 2 suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in Delhi, cops release photos



Jammu and Kashmir at present is under Governors Rule which will end on December 19. A Presidents Rule may be imposed thereafter but the 87-member Assembly is not being dissolved, according to Governor Satyapal Mallik.



















For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

NASA has finalised Jezero Crater delta, a 3.6 billion-year-old crater where the sediments contain clays and carbonates, as the landing site for its upcoming Mars 2020 Rover mission, the US space agency said. 45 kilometres in size, Jezero Crate is located on the western edge of Isidis Planitia -- a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator. Scientists have debated where to land the rover for the past four years, and whittled down their decision from more than 60 possible sites.



ALSO READ | 2 suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists sneak into Delhi, police release pictures

"The landing site in Jezero Crater offers geologically rich terrain, with land forms reaching as far back as 3.6 billion years, that could potentially answer important questions in planetary evolution and astrobiology," Mr Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement on Monday.

"Getting samples from this unique area will revolutionize how we think about Mars and its ability to harbour life," he added.

Its ancient lake-delta system offers many promising sampling targets of at least five different kinds of rock, including clays and carbonates that have high potential to preserve signatures of past life.

The crater, once home to an ancient river delta, could have collected and preserved ancient organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life from the water and sediments that flowed into the crater billions of years ago.

In addition, the site contains numerous boulders and rocks to the east, cliffs to the west, and depressions filled with aeolian bedforms (wind-derived ripples in sand that could trap a rover) in several locations.

Selecting a landing site this early allows the Rover drivers and science operations team to optimise their plans for exploring Jezero Crater once the Rover is safely on the ground.

The $2.5 billion rover is planned to launch in July 2020, and land in February 2021.



ALSO READ | Man who attacked Arvind Kejriwal was issued entry pass for Delhi Secretariat: Sources



It will not only seek signs of ancient habitable conditions and past microbial life but will also collect rock and soil samples and store them in a cache on the planet's surface.

Mars 2020 is designed to land inside the crater and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth for further analysis, perhaps by the later 2020s.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday strongly defended "steadfast partner" Saudi Arabia despite CIAs conclusion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event - maybe he did and maybe he didn't!" Trump said.

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," he added.

Khashoggi  a leading columnist in The Washington Post  was brutally murdered on October 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Reports in the US media said that according to the CIA probe, the crown prince was the man who ordered the killing.

Also Read | Will conclude who killed Jamal Khashoggi in next two days, says Donald Trump

The CIA findings claimed that 15 Saudi agents flew on government aircraft to Istanbul and assassinated Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate. The CIA investigated multiple intelligence inputs and a phone call between the Saudi Crown Princes brother  Saudi ambassador to the United States  and Khashoggi.

Princes brother had assured Khashoggi of safety and directed him to visit the Istanbul consulate to collect the documents he needed for his marriage. After initially denying about the murder, Saudi Arabia later blamed the killing on rogue agents but refuted the claims that the crown prince had orchestrated the operation.

Also Read | Saudi Crown Prince ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi's killing: CIA

While the Kingdom received international condemnation, the US president refused to believe on CIAs conclusion, saying the probe agency had not made 100 per cent determination on the killing. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Trump had said that he refused to listen to the terrible tape recording of Khashoggis murder provided by Turkey.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the US dollar 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan will remain suspended until the country acts against terrorism. This comes days after he said that Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad. US accuses Pakistan of giving terrorists safe heaven inside its territory.



ALSO READ | Khashoggi Murder: Trump defends Saudi despite crown princes 'hand'

"I want Pakistan to help us. We're no longer paying US dollar 1.3 billion to Pakistan. We're paying them nothing because that's what they've done to help us. Nothing," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday before for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Over the last few days, Trump has accused Pakistan of not helping the US in its fight against terrorism.



Trump in an interview to Fox news said that people in Pakistan knew that Laden was living in a mansion near their garrison city of Abbottabad, but they did not tell the US and kept on accepting billions of dollars in aid.

"And I cut those payments off a long time ago. We're not paying Pakistan any money because they're not helping us at all and we'll see where it all goes," Trump said.

Early this year, Trump announced to stop all security assistance to Pakistan earlier this year.

"I hope to have a good relationship with Pakistan," said Trump, indicating that the relationship between the two countries can come back on track if Pakistan took action against terrorist groups and their safe havens.

"But right now, we're paying Pakistan nothing. I cut them off. They were getting USD 1.3 billion a year. They're not getting anything now," Trump asserted.

Former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, said Trump might be incorrect in saying that Pakistan has not done anything for the US.

Over the decades, Pakistan has helped the United States with some of its policy objectives, he said.

"He is right in noting that Pakistan has offered tactical cooperation in return for aid while at the same time undermined the strategic US objectives," Haqqani told PTI.

Pakistani leaders, he said, are being disingenuous in describing the US as "ungrateful".

Americans have provided over USD 43 billion in military and economic assistance since 1954, helped build Pakistan's conventional military capability, and bailed Pakistan out of both economic and political crises on several occasions, he said.

Haqqani, who is the director for South and Central Asia at the prestigious Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, said Islamabad would continue to be tempted to go back to old transactional patterns, but not Washington.

"It is the Americans who are likely to be less interested in returning to what I describe in my book on the subject as 'Magnificent Delusions.' Not only do Pakistan's ambitions in Afghanistan conflict with the US plans but the two countries strongly disagree about China's expanding influence in Asia," he said.



ALSO READ | Pakistan says substantive progress in talks with IMF on bailout

Observing that only a strategic rethink on the part of Pakistan can lead to a reset in US-Pakistan ties, Haqqani said until then, occasional twitter spats and "we paid a heavy price for being your ally" statements will continue to characterise the unusual relationship.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.



(With PTI inputs)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Barbara saved her neighbors sons from foster care after their mother lost custody.

She knew the boys, 8 and 11, well. They had often stayed with her when they were too afraid to go home or were hungry, but their fridge was empty.

Barbara and the boys moved into a bigger apartment with the help of a local program that provides security deposits, and she receives a guardianship stipend.

The News-Times has partnered with United Way of Western Connecticut each holiday season since 2011 to help families like Barbaras. Since then, The Giving Fund has raised more than $500,000 for families in need.

For the rest of the year, the newspaper will share six cases each week of local residents or families  whose names have been changed to protect their privacy  that readers can assist by donating.

For Barbara, a gift of $1,000 would help pay for groceries for the two growing boys and brighten their holiday season.

Making a difference in the lives of our neighbors is not only the right thing to do, it is essential to the long-term vitality of our community, Kim Morgan, CEO of United Way of Western Connecticut, said. A flourishing community starts with financially stable and thriving residents who support local businesses and make our community stronger. The Giving Fund gives local families and individuals real relief that has a tremendous impact on their current and future lives.

United Way of Western Connecticut administers the fund free of charge, so 100 percent of donations go directly to those in need.

Donations are collected for each case until it is fully funded. Any donations received above the amount needed will benefit other, underfunded cases.

Donations can be given at https://www.uwwesternct.org/thegivingfund. Checks can also be mailed to The Giving Fund, P.O. Box 1001, Danbury, CT 06813.

This weeks six cases:

Case #101: Mr. Taylor, 61, has colon cancer that metastasized to his liver and left lung. His symptoms are progressing. He finds himself fatigued and some days has significant pain, both of which interfere with his ability to participate in great amounts of activity.

Mr. Taylor appreciates lifes simple things, such as his family, friends, dog and local coffee shop. He also enjoyed working at his business alongside his dad until he passed a few years ago. He tries to work at least one hour a day, doing what he loves, but this has become impossible many days.

As a result, Mr. Taylor has lost his steady income and is struggling to pay his bills.

A gift of $800 would allow him to purchase groceries, buy warm winter clothing and personal care items, and enjoy his iced coffee at the local shop, which has become a luxury.

Case #102: Penny, 32, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder due to surviving domestic abuse for four years.

She has physical disabilities and chronic pain as a result of injuries sustained during the domestic violence. Her beloved dog also recently passed away.

Despite the hardships, her spirit has remained strong and she has begun painting again, something she loved to do as a young child.

Penny needs to have extensive dental work done that she cannot afford. A gift of $1,000 would allow Penny to begin to have the dental procedures to prevent tooth loss.

Case #103: Tara is a young adult who was sexually assaulted by a family friend. After she was assaulted, Tara made a report to the police so that the individual who assaulted her could be held accountable.

The experience was extremely traumatic, and she is working hard in counseling to help her cope, while trying to stay focused on school and work.

Recently, Taras car broke down and needed repairs beyond what she could afford. Getting a ride to work and school has been a challenge. A gift of $1,500 would help Tara repair her car entirely and allow her to focus on the things that are important for her to have a healthy and successful future.

Case #104 is Barbara, mentioned above.

Case #105: Madeline is the mother of a 17-year-old son who attends college.

Madeline came to the United States at 18, met someone shortly after, got married and gave birth to her son. After many years, the marriage turned abusive and she divorced.

Recently, she found a better-paying job and gave notice to the job she had. But she then learned the new job could not immediately employ her, so she was left without an income for a period of time.

She has since started her new job, but struggles to catch up on the rent she owes and is at risk of being evicted. A gift of $1,360 would help Madeline to keep her rent current and allow both herself and her son remain in their home.

Case #106: Maya is the mother of three children. Four years ago, she became the family breadwinner when her ex-husband lost his job and moved out of state.

Last year, the company shed been with for the last 10 years closed its Connecticut facility, so she got an entry-level cashier position in the hopes of advancing in the company. Until then, Maya struggles to support her family.

She hopes to move into a less expensive apartment when the lease on her current place expires in January, but cannot afford the required two-month security deposit.

A gift of $1,500 would reduce some stress for this hard-working mother and provide an opportunity for the family to get back on track.
BETHEL  The town plans to update its policy on holiday displays after backlash from an atheist group over a nativity set downtown.

The American Atheists Legal Center sent a letter to the Board of Selectmen last week asking the board to rescind its approval of the new manger at P.T. Barnum Square.

The group criticized the selectmen for not accepting an application for a non-religious display, but town officials said that application was missing required information.

We want inclusiveness, First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker said. This idea that things were being denied is just not true.

Holiday displays have caused controversies in other Connecticut towns, including Shelton, where a resident erected a sign two years ago on the Huntington Green celebrating the winter solstice and calling religion a myth. The sign was later vandalized.

Knickerbocker said he supports the nativity set staying up, but said the selectmen need to set written policies for how they deal with displays. Selectmen have voted on previous displays based on past practices, he said.

We need to provide more written guidance to people, Knickerbocker said.

The selectmen will hold a special meeting 6 p.m. Monday in Room A of Town Hall to develop a policy that will get Bethel through this holiday season.

But in the new year, Knickerbocker said he aims to establish a committee that would create a more in-depth procedure to regulate how many displays are permitted, how big they can be, how long they can stay up and more.

There are some details we need to actually put down in writing, he said. We cant just rely on past practice anymore. Its gotten too complicated.

The American Atheists Legal Center offered to help the town develop its policy.

A nativity set has been displayed in downtown Bethel during the holidays for as long as Knickerbocker can remember.

A resident donated the original, which town crews used to set up and store.

Thats over the line, Knickerbocker said.

After he took office, Knickerbocker nixed that practice beginning with the 2010 holiday season. He said the Chamber of Commerce then took over responsibility for the manger until this year, when the chamber asked the local churches to handle it.

The churches then raised about $5,000 for a new set and earned approval last week to put it in P.T. Barnum Square.

Were happy to have so many individuals and members of the community assist in getting the new set, said Tim Martin, who was on the committee that set up the nativity. We think its great and we hope it's there for many years for the community to enjoy.

Meanwhile, another Bethel resident, James Naddeo, had tried to create an inclusive holiday display for downtown. He said he applied to the town and contacted religious leaders from several faiths, as well as non-religious people, about contributing.

But churches either did not respond or said they did not want to cause controversy, Naddeo said.

I followed the application process and attempted to create a more inclusive display for the benefit of all, he said. But with limited interests from others due to concerns about the response from townspeople, it seems unlikely that will happen now.

Naddeo added he did not want the nativity removed.

The American Atheists Legal Center accused the town of discriminating against Naddeos application.

The residents of Bethel are being denied their First Amendment right of free speech if the applicants religion is a factor in deciding whether to approve a display on town property, said Geoffrey T. Blackwell, litigation counsel for the American Atheists, in a statement.

But Knickerbocker said the application was missing an image of the display and an insurance form, which are required.

There is no effort to deny people any right, Knickerbocker said. It would be a nice thing to have other cultures represented on that green.

Knickerbocker said there would be space in P.T. Barnum Square for another display this year if someone applied.

It does get crowded, but we would have to make room, he said. We cant deny on the basis of that.
| BY Ricki Green |

ASX listed RXP Group today launched its new positioning Making Happier Humans to reduce the increasing complexity faced by a growing number of businesses wanting to deliver effective and meaningful customer experiences.

Says Ross Fielding, CEO at RXP Group: Its critical that digital consultancies focus on the people aspect of technology-enabled solutions. Making Happier Humans is our commitment to always prioritising people over technology in our delivery of meaningful signature experiences.

Underpinning Making Happier Humans is a model built around Expression, Experience and Enablement. This service model brings together one end-to-end offering in a simplified structure and is supported by a robust methodology that leverages RXPs deep specialisation in human centered design and agile delivery.

Says Fielding (left): RXP has evolved over time, moving from focusing solely on technology services to becoming a trusted digital partner known for delivering effective transformative solutions.

Many of our competitors appear to be adding complexity to their client relationships, just when Australian businesses are demanding simple and effective solutions. To maintain our leadership in providing exceptional customer experiences, at a time when the digital economy is set to hit $139 billion by 2020 and where client and customer environments are increasingly more complex, we continue to find ways to make things simpler.

To bolster delivery of Making Happier Humans, Adam Donnelley has been appointed to the role of group chief strategy officer (CSO) having previously been the CSO for advertising agency The Works, which RXP acquired last year. Prior to this he was managing partner at DDB running the Telstra account and prior to that was executive vice president, strategy for MRM/McCann, responsible for both its New York and Princeton offices. He is currently president of the Australian chapter of International Advertising Association.

Says Donnelley: Making Happier Humans deliberately sets the bar high, creating a culture where we must deliver meaningful engagements for clients and their customers. Today brand expression must match brand experience and RXP Group are uniquely placed to do this, fusing creativity, design and technology to deliver value at scale and speed.

Additionally, RXP has appointed Charles Agee (Telstra and IBM) to the role of group executive, southern region, driving alignment and implementation of the new positioning across Victoria and Tasmania.

Says Fielding: The appointment of Adam and Charles has strengthened the leadership within the RXP Group and, along with the Making Happier Humans positioning, is already driving new business wins including The Smith Family and Madi Homes in NSW, and the Department of Health & Human Services in Victoria to name a few. There are exciting times ahead for us.
BETHEL  Eighth-graders at Bethel Middle School just finished researching camp life in the Revolutionary War, but on Tuesday they witnessed first-hand what that experience would have been like.

Five reenactors dressed in eighteenth century garb came to the middle school library to show the students what life was like for women and Continental and British soldiers during the war.

Each had replicas of equipment, such as canteens, drums and a pipe tomahawk their characters would have used back then. Students passed around the items and even churned their own butter.

It made you feel like you were there at the time, eighth-grader Joe Troetti said.

The day was an example of authentic learning, something the social studies department emphasizes to foster critical thinking and help students understand the material, said Debbie Tierney, the social studies teacher who helped organize the program.

Students learn so much more from first-hand experience, she said. Their experience is more meaningful than reading words off pages in a book.

Tierney also brings veterans to the school so students can learn about military life and recently led a field trip to Boston, where students walked the Freedom Trail and visited Quincy Market. She plans to ask a congressman to speak to her class during an upcoming unit on the constitution.

Tierney started the reanactor program last year when she learned her student teacher, Bill Hagan, was a reenactor.

Hagan, who now teaches sixth-grade social studies at the school, was dressed as a loyalist soldier.

We do this once a year to try to bring history to life for her kids, he said.

His character was a whitesmith who crafted softer metals, so he passed around lead and pewter the soldiers would have used.

Hagan explained to students why he was in a green coat, not red. The British wore red coats, but there were not enough to go around, so American loyalists were given green, he said.

This was really the first American civil war, where there were Americans on both sides fighting, Hagan told the students.

The students moved in stations around the library to observe and ask the reenactors questions they had developed in a previous class.

The students said they were impressed with how the reenactors stayed in character and how interactive the day was.

You can see how they dealt with problems and went about their daily lives, eighth-grader Olivia Cantadori said.

Among the reenactors was James Burr. He has been a reenactor since 1975 and plays a continental soldier.

He said his ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and, in a way, he does, too.

They say history repeats itself and it does, Burr said.

Burrs daughter, Cindy Wolf, played a colonial woman and taught the students how to churn butter. His son-in-law, Lawrence Wood, was dressed as a war chief from the Mohawk tribe.

Wood has been a reenactor for about five years and goes to events nearly every weekend.

We do it because we love what we do and we love the history, Wood said. We want to keep it alive.

He said Tuesdays lesson would help students understand the Revolutionary War better than anything else could.

Its one thing to read about it in a book, he said. Its another thing to go out and experience it.
By the time any of us are in our early 20s and entering the workforce, our core values are pretty well set. This is not to say that we cant change over time, but research shows that we dont change much when it comes to the fundamental beliefs and values we hold after a certain age.

Related: More Than 1,500 Google Workers to Stage Walkout Over Sexual Misconduct Handling

These personal values are the single best predictor for our behavior at work on a daily basis. So, to create a workplace thats truly engaged, business leaders must understand not only who their people are as individuals but also give them a way to vocalize and express those personal values when appropriate.

When Google made the decision earlier this month to offer executives accused of sexual assault paid exit packages, some of its employees believed that offer violated their personal values. Workers felt that their personal beliefs around what constitutes proper conduct in the workplace were ignored and disregarded.

This led more than 1,500 Google employees to "walk out" in protest on Nov 1. Yes, this was a big PR nightmare for the search giant, but it might also signal good news: that Googles team members have a strong value set and feel empowered to voice their opinions.

Why you should empower your employees to speak up.

Even though the circumstances that brought on the protest were unfortunate, the behavior by employees may reflect an engaged workforce. Clearly, these people felt comfortable and confident in speaking up  even if that voice was in opposition to current company practices. What's important, though, is that it's rare to see this sort of unified behavior in organizations where people feel unempowered to affect change.

Empowered employees are far more engaged employees. This means that, as a business leader, you should consider it critical to empower your workers to speak up on issues they care about. Creating a culture that does that leads to a positive impact on your bottom line business performance through higher levels of productivity and lower levels of employee turnover.

So, whether you lead a company the size of Google or -- likelier -- a smaller organization, here are some concrete steps you can take to drive a more engaged and united workplace.

Related: Googlers Stage Walkout to Protest Trump's Immigration Ban

Clarify your company core values (then live by them).

Company vision and values are more than a poster in the breakroom. If employees believe they are part of something bigger than themselves, they are more likely to be engaged and go above and beyond their tasks and individual goals.

However, only a small percentage of American workers believe in their organizations values. Gallups recent Core Values Audit showed that just 27 percent of employees surveyed strongly agreed that they believed in their company's values, and only 23 percent strongly agreed that they could apply their organization's values to their work every day.

As an employer, its important that you be aware that employees who are disconnected to your company can more easily get stuck in autopilot and require more motivation outside of daily tasks in order to be engaged and productive.

All organizational performance starts with a clear and compelling vision and core values that underscore how that mission will be achieved. Essentially, engaged employees understand the bigger company picture and how they fit into it. In Googles case, its engaged employees reacted in protest when they saw their company failing to live out its established values. And, this wasn't the first time Google employees retaliated against what they believe to be right.

Last April, thousands of Google employees, including dozens of senior engineers, signed a letter to the CEO protesting Googles role in a federal program that could be used to improve drone strike targeting. Again, this could be considered the sign of an engaged workforce. In an organization where employees aren't as engaged, more resignation memos than picket signs or petition letters likely would have resulted.

Get to know the individual(s).

In the same way that employees must know your companys core values, you must know your people's values. This can be especially tough in fast-paced or large corporations like Google, but theres nothing more important.

Communication works more effectively when people know how the other side operates(personality quirks, preferred methods of handling conflict, biggest pet peeves, etc.). Zappos, a company known for its employer brand, has an 80-20 rule that mandates managers spend at least 20 percent of their time with their team members.

As Zappos Insights trainer Kelly Wolske wrote on a company blog, When you get to know each other on a personal level, mutual respect grows. Knowing someones triggers as well as their strengths can also improve communication.

Leaders, in short, can learn more about their people by using technology or focus groups to bring employees together to talk about whats most important to them, both at home and at work. The point is to identify three to four closely-held core values for each team member. Then use this information to set goals to motivate and reward employees on an individual level to improve engagement. In return, you will garner company loyalty and engagement organization-wide.

Listen intently and frequently.

The Qualtrics Global Employee Pulse study found that 60 percent of employers polled solicit feedback but only 30 percent act on it. Circulating regular surveys or implementing feedback technology in your business is one step, but collecting, analyzing and acting on feedback is another. Such action doesn't have to be daunting if you have the right tools in place, but employee input should never go in one ear and out the other.

A fantastic example is the way Google CEO Sundar Pichai handled the most recent protest. On October 30, Pichai sent an email to employees making it clear that he supported the walkout. He acknowledged that the companys approach to handling past sexual harassment cases hadn't been enough -- evidence that he was listening. He said he shared employees' feelings of anger and disappointment; and he noted that sexual misconduct had persisted far too long in our society and at Google, thus echoing the sentiment of many of his colleagues.

The email exemplified a culture of listening and action. As leader, he didn't sit back and stay silent but instead listened and stood by his teams. In doing so, he no doubt increased his following. Listening, followed by acting and creating change, builds trust in the workplace. If employees feel theyre being heard, they will absolutely be more engaged at work.

Engagement is personal. We each have our own unique wiring and value-set that determine the blueprint behind who we are and what we need in the workplace. The universal truth, however, is that we all feel more engaged when we can bring our true selves to the workplace -- even when that means speaking up against company policy.

Related: Sundar Pichai's Reaction on Google Employees Walkout & Facebook Open-Sources its Horizon AI Tool: 4 Things to Know Today

Those companies that take the time to understand their people and empower them to speak their own truth will benefit from an engaged workforce that drives organizational success.

Related:

Could the Walkout Have Been a Positive Sign for Google's Employee Engagement?

3 Keys to a Vision Others Can Own

Engaging Employees in Corporate Responsibility Is a Brilliant Strategy



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
In June, Instagram reached 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, as reported by Statista. The process of liking photos, sharing stories and getting new followers has turned the platform into a social staple (even my grandma is liking cat memes on IG versus Facebook these days). More importantly, Instagram has become a goldmine for marketers, influencers and brands.

Here are some of the best tools available for obtaining insights, driving results and leveraging Instagram in 2019. Happy 'Gramming.

1. Social Gone Viral

Developing organic growth isn't easy. Thats why Social Gone Viral has become one of the leading organic growth platforms on the market. Social Gone Viral uses targeted marketing algorithms to help its customers get followers, comments, likes, sponsorships and more. If youre looking organically grow, check them out. This tool can help you get trending posts.

Related: How 39 Major Businesses Use Instagram Stories (Infographic)

2. Magic Social

If you want a leg up on the competition or to emulate Instagram profiles that you admire, Magic Social is a great way to do it. Magic Social is a tool that allows you to track the activities of another profile on Instagram. The platform includes numerous services, such as benchmarking, side-by-side comparisons and engagement metrics. This is a great tool that helps you build similar audiences to your peers or competitors.

3. Rocket Social

Photos are hands down your most valuable asset when it comes to Instagram. So its crucial that you have constant likes and followers engaging with them. Rocket Social is an automation tool that increases engagement on your Instagram photos. Yes, some people warn against these types of tools, but a healthy mix of automation and organic is useful. You should ask all of your favorite influencers (seriously).

4. Iconosquare

Social media and data analytics seem to be a match made in heaven. Iconosquare is an analytics and social media management platform that allows users to get in-depth information on followers, engagement, hashtag analysis and other social media metrics. The goal of the platform is to help users understand why actions have occurred through trends. It's super useful if you're building a business through IG.

5. Unfold

Instagram stories are still relatively new compared to all the other features present on the platform. As a result, many users havent learned to harness the power of them. Fortunately, Unfold is here to help. Unfold is an application that allows you to create videos that are both beautiful and professional, Unfold also allows you to save your Stories.

Related: 5 Ways to Help You Boost Your Conversions on Instagram

6. SocialRank

What is a profile without its followers? Success in the social world isnt just about amassing a large number of followers, its about understanding and interacting with that audience. SocialRank has taken a unique approach to analytics by keying in follower demographics. On the platform, you can take in-depth looks at follower demographics, export different lists, identify your most engaged followers and much more. It's a great way to segment and target your audience and followers.

7. Magisto

After photos, video content is the most important asset on Instagram. Thats why Magisto is so great. Magisto is a video editing platform that uses AI to create business and personal videos. You give Magisto your content, and it creates an awesome video. It's simple to use and churns out pretty quality videos.

8. Have2HaveIt

If youre looking to sell a product on Instagram, look no further. Have2HaveIt helps businesses increase revenues on Instagram by providing a link that directs followers to ecommerce websites. If you like to shop for products, you've most likely come across the app. When you click on an image, it shows the various products and hyperlinks to a page that allows you to purchase that product. My wife says it's the easiest way to shop online.

9. Sendible

Automation, automation, automation. Sendible is a full-featured social media management tool. On the platform, users have access to an array of services, which include scheduling and posting content, replying to followers, collaborating with multiple teams and developing analytics reports. Sendible makes it easy to manage social media on the go. It's super useful for company branding versus personal branding.

Related: How Two Millennials Spun Celebrities' Instagram Comments Into a Full-Time Job and 800,000 Followers

10. Boomerang

Boomerang is a tool made by Instagram that allows users to create short and engaging videos. The application works by taking a series of small snapshots and turning them into a video, similar to a GIF. It's a fun way to create different and engaging content. Your favorite travel bloggers love to use this app to take pictures of their coffee overlooking majestic oceans or at their favorite waterfall. Please use it sparingly.

There are tons of amazing Instagram tools out there, but before choosing your tool, take the time to clearly define and understand your goals, whether that means getting followers, increasing engagement or tracking results. Once you know what you want to do, these tools will help you get the job done. Shoot me new tools I didn't list on Twitter (@andrewmedal) or follow me on Instagram (@andrewmedal) to check out my latest coffee art.

Related:

The 10 Best Instagram Tools for 2019

5 Ways Ecommerce Brands Create Strong Communities

Techie Tuesdays: Xiaomi Sets a New World Record & Instagram's Drive Against Fake Engagement



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
| BY Ricki Green |

Starcom Melbourne has helped rally a number of media partners to pledge their support and donate air time and space to help Lion Dairy & Drinks raise $1 million so far to help dairy farmers impacted by drought in NSW, South East Queensland and Northern Victoria.

Lion Dairy & Drinks Be True Blue Farmer Drought Fund launched last month via a temporary 10 cent-per-litre wholesale price increase for all Dairy Farmers and Pura 1L, 2L and 3L fresh white milk sold to participating retail outlets across NSW, Queensland and Victoria until 31 January 2019.

The campaign features open letters to the Australian public from dairy farmers in South East Queensland, NSW and Northern Victoria who supply Lion Dairy & Drinks, explaining first-hand the impact of the drought and the difference that purchasing Pura and Dairy Farmers branded fresh milk from selected retailers is making for them.

Starcom has so far secured support from media partners in TV, radio, out-of-home, digital and press.

Says Darryn Wallace, marketing and innovation director, Lion Dairy & Drinks: Every day of every week of every month, regardless of the conditions, our dairy farmers are out working to bring us fresh milk so that we can provide this essential product to all Australian households. So in what is a 1-in-100 year drought across parts of Australia we wanted to provide all households across Victoria, NSW and Queensland the opportunity to support our farmers with our Be True Blue Drought Fund.

Since our launch in early October we have been overwhelmed with the support from our media partners to bring this campaign to life and after reaching our first major milestone of paying our drought-impacted dairy farmers in NSW, Northern Victoria and South East Queensland a total sum of more than $1m on behalf of the business, our brands and farmers, I wanted to say thank you for your support. You have made a real difference and we appreciate your help, generosity and commitment.

Says Sam Harris, client services director, Starcom: We are really proud to be able to work with Darryn and the broader Lion Dairy & Drinks team on such a vital initiative. With the generous support of great media partners, weve been able to build and bring to life a four-month media plan that so far has seen more than $1 million in media value running across the Eastern Seaboard. The support from media partners has been essential and we look forward to this continuing over the remainder of the campaign as we raise more money for our farmers.
UPDATED: Rochester 18-month-old found safe, state police say

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- An Amber Alert has been issued for an abducted Rochester 18-month-old.

Rochester police believe Ta-Niyah Williams was taken by Terrence Williams, 27, on Monday night at 8 p.m. on Dewey Avenue in Rochester.

Ta-Niyah is black with short, black hair and brown eyes, the Amber Alert said. She's approximately 2-feet, 11-inches tall and weights approximately 22 pounds, the Amber Alert said.

Terrence Williams is black, has short, blonde hair and hazel eyes, according to the Amber Alert. He stands approximately 5-feet, 6-inches tall and weights approximately 140 pounds, the Amber Alert said.

He is also listed in New York State's sex offender database. Williams was convicted of lewd and lascivicious battery with a victim between 12 and 15 years old in Florida in 2014 and was sentenced to a year in jail, according to the New York and Florida sex offender registries.

"The cihld was taken under circumstances that lead police to believe that they are in imminent danger of serious harm and/or death," the Amber Alert said.

Police ask that anyone with information calls the Rochester Police Department at 866-NYS-AMBER.
An article by Philip Pan at the NY Times provided a short review about how China failed to fail over the past 40 years. The title of the article The land that failed to fail: How China caught up with the West indicates that many people fail to identify what contributes to success, failure and what does not matter.

There are now many examples of national success and failure and mixed results. It should be easier to learn the lessons of what works, what does not and what does not matter.

There are still those who deny China has been a clear winner from 1978. There have been 40 years of success. There are flaws in what China has been doing.

The UK and USA did have an economic success and rise before China. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong also had rises from undeveloped to fully developed nations. Germany, Canada, Austrlia and Europe have had success.

What does not work

The Soviet Union and Russia provided a lot of lessons to China and the World about what does not work in running a country. Learning this lesson is actually not completely trivial. Venezuela, Cuba, western progressives and some western intellectuals failed to learn about what did not work for the Soviet Union and Russia. Russia itself is still repeating some of its Soviet Union mistakes.

Problems in analysis of what works and what does not

More developing countries need to study and follow how China rose from 1978 through 2018. This is again a lesson that is actually not completely trivial. The World Bank and various NGOs still advise countries with development models that ignore methods which were proven successful with China.

Before his death in 2012, Meles Zenawi, Ethiopias leader for 21 years, wanted his country to mimic Chinas economic strategy. His successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, has been even more enthusiastic about trying to create a developmental state modeled on East Asia.

Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, and Bolivia are trying to replicate Chinas economic transformation. High-ranking decision-makers visit China on study trips. National planning bodies issue ambitious documents modeled on Chinas experience.

Vietnam and many other Asian countries finally appear to be on paths of economic success. There will be more Asian countries and some African countries to find more of what works, what is essential and what are harmful. There are South American and African countries to study what does not work.

America and Europe have insisted that the Western historical path to affluence is the only model of development. The central idea is that democracy and free markets are the only pathways to stability and prosperity.

Chinas development model is too often misinterpreted or oversimplified. For many Western analysts, the Beijing Consensus was a non-democratic challenge to liberal capitalism. It was boiled down to a combination of authoritarian rule with pro-market economic policies.

There are various comparisons of Chinas development model to the Western development model.

There is a list of six models of development. This list does not include a China development model.

There are several problems:

* analysis of development is often done by political scientists who do not understand business, finance or engineering

* they often do not properly split out what is truly driving success versus what is a problem but not a fatal problem that does not kill success.

There is more than one way to success and multiple options are needed.

Democracy

There is detailed tracking of how democratic a country is. There is a political score from -10 authoritarian to +10 for fully democratic. This does not correlate to economic growth or economic success. There are many very successful countries with full democracy. There are some autocratic countries with economic success. Singapore and China have or will have full development while being mostly autocratic.

Norway and Sweden have economic success but the lessons they provide on development need to be analyzed for what works and what is there and is leaching upon the success.

Details of Chinas model

1) China and the West started with small farmers and rural areas. Partly because of worries about an impending food crisis, China started its reform drive by breaking up farming collectives and empowering small-scale farmers. They linked effort to reward, productivity and output sharply increased. It also laid the groundwork for change throughout the economy.

Chinas leaders did not simply unleash agricultural markets, as Western development agencies often recommend developing countries do. Instead, they concentrated state policies on ensuring that peasant farmers had the resources, knowledge, and incentives necessary to maximize output.

The gains from reconfiguring incentives were immediate and dramatic: the rural poverty rate fell from 76 percent to 23 percent between 1980 and 1985, as hundreds of millions escaped poverty for the first time. Higher incomes and productivity, in turn, prompted demand for new manufacturing products.

The US and the West also had a strong rural sector first. This was created over a hundred or more years.

2) Invest heavily in knowledge infrastructure. China has invested heavily in education and innovation, producing the well-educated workforce and highly skilled specialists that have motored its economy forward.

3) Prioritize cohesion over participation. Although China is often criticized for being authoritarian, many of its leaders feel more accountable to its people than those in many developing countries that hold regular elections. The primary explanation for this apparent paradox is the countrys high degree of social cohesion and strong sense of nationhood, which result from its ethnic homogeneity (China is 90 percent Han) and its long history as a unified state.

Despite the lack of elections, Chinese leaders have been concerned with performance. Just as General Electric managers are concerned with performance.

4) Build a competent government committed to inclusive development.

* administrative function competence. Government is able to execute.

* The state has worked to ensure that all its citizens are able to participate and gain from economic growth; this is rarer in the developing world than is usually recognized.

* Chinas government has been consistently committed to promoting development, adopting aggressive policies to attract investment, promote growth, boost exports, and develop technology and human resources.

5) Invest heavily in infrastructure.

6) Experiment with new policies first, then implements reforms gradually. Lots of trial and error and A-B testing.

The US also has an effective process of creative destruction.

7) Focus on reworking incentives and removing obstacles to growth.

China eschewed the big bang approach to reform under which all prices and markets are freed simultaneously, as happened for example in Poland in 1990. Instead it focused on big issues such as incentives, mobility, price flexibility, competition, and openness.

8) Use financial markets to promote development and stability.

9) Use government policy to boost economic competitiveness.

Just as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and to some extent even the United States once did, Chinas government prioritized certain sectors and companies deemed likely to become globally competitive. It then ensured their access to cheap capital and land, technology, human resources, and regulatory assistanceadvantages over their peers elsewhere. It has also used regulation to keep foreigners at bay (such as in restricted industries) or to diminish their influence. Yet it has also used Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to promote foreign investment at certain times, in certain places, and in certain sectors, giving them a larger share in its economy than many of its neighbors do. Protectionism has thus been selectively strategic.

10) Promote self-reliance.
ALBANY  Capital Region hospitals aren't getting any safer, according to the latest batch of ratings from national patient safety watchdog, The Leapfrog Group.

In fact, when it comes to hospital-acquired infections, problems with surgery and other preventable complications that can arise during hospital stays, most of them are less safe than they were one year ago, the group's biannual ratings show.

The group assesses more than 2,600 hospitals nationwide each spring and fall on 28 measures of patient safety, and assigns them a letter grade of A to F. Measures include everything from rates of bedsores, patient falls, and MRSA and C. diff infections, to accidental cuts and tears during surgery and death from serious treatable complications.

In the Capital Region, six health care systems saw their grades drop from one year ago, including Albany Medical Center (C to D), St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam (B to D), Saratoga Hospital (A to C), Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson (C to D), Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville (B to C) and Glens Falls Hospital (B to C).

Another three  St. Peter's Hospital in Albany (C), Albany Memorial Hospital (D) and Ellis Medicine (D)  earned the same grades they did one year ago.

"Health care was an important issue in the 2018 mid-term elections, yet both parties are still neglecting the third leading cause of death in America  errors and infections in hospitals," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "Every elected official, from city councilors to senators to the president should hold hospitals accountable and support efforts to improve patient safety."

The ratings, which are among the toughest hospital quality ratings out there, have been a thorn in hospitals' sides since they were first introduced.

Leapfrog was founded in 2000  on the heels of a major report documenting the high rate of deaths in America caused by medical errors  by large employers and healthcare purchasers who wanted to improve transparency around patient safety in hospitals. One way to do this, it said, was to review and rank hospitals using data provided to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the American Hospital Association and its own surveys.

But the low scores drew criticism from a number of hospitals, with at least one opting to sue for defamation. The American Hospital Association advised people against using the scores at all, saying they were based on unreliable measures and biased toward hospitals that participated in Leapfrog's survey.

Asked about its low score Tuesday, Albany Medical Center issued a statement saying it does not participate in the Leapfrog safety grade survey, and took an apparent dig at the group.

"Albany Med does, however, provide required data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The Joint Commission, and the New York State Department of Health  all of which validate their data and adjust for risk to ensure its quality," spokeswoman Sue Ford said.

Albany Med declined to report data to Leapfrog on at least five measures, according to the survey. The hospital is still assessed, however, using data available elsewhere. On 18 of the 28 measures, including death from serious treatable complications, it scored worse than the average hospital. On five, it scored better.

Area hospitals that responded to requests for comment Tuesday said they take patient safety seriously.

"Measuring health care quality is not as simple as applying a letter grade," a spokesman for Ellis Medicine said.

St. Peter's Health Partners, whose St. Peter's Hospital in Albany and Albany Memorial Hospital are graded each spring and fall, said it appreciates Leapfrog's effort to inform consumers of hospital quality and patient safety.

"St. Peter's Health Partners fully supports the transparent sharing of quality and patient safety performance data," said Dr. Alison L. Hong, chief quality officer for the system. "These data can be difficult to interpret for consumers, and Leapfrog is one of many health care rating groups. We encourage patients and consumers to talk to their care providers about what is best for them, as care is individualized."

Still, St. Peter's and Albany Memorial hospitals declined to report data to Leapfrog on seven and five measures, respectively.

The only local hospital to report all requested data to Leapfrog was St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam, which scored better than the average hospital on 13 safety measures and worse on 14.

Despite its overall C grade, Glens Falls Hospital stood out as an area hospital that outperformed the average hospital on the most safety measures. On 16 measures, it scored better than the average hospital nationwide, and on seven it scored worse. It declined to report data on five measures.

Look up your hospital's score here.
EAST HAVEN  The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe into a shortfall in school department funds.

External forensic accountants recently discovered a shortfall of $31,786 from a school program managed by Catherine Finkle, the wife of a local school board member.

This prompted Superintendent of Schools Erica Forti to fire Finkle, who had managed the local Little Jackets childcare program, earlier this month.

Finkle is married to school board member John Finkle. Neither could be reached for comment.

When asked about the investigation, Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys office, declined to comment.

Forti did not respond to requests for comment. However, in a letter dated Nov. 8, Forti outlines her reasons for firing Catherine Finkle, and the letter provides insight into the alleged financial mismanagement.

Forti noted she found Finkle to be not fully forthcoming, and her responses were inconsistent or inaccurate during an October pre-disciplinary meeting, when the findings of the external audit were discussed.

Forti also alleged that Finkle filled out timesheets for her daughters, who both worked for the Little Jackets program, and forged their signatures, in violation of policies and protocols.

The superintendent further accused Finkle of failing to satisfy her responsibilities for managing the programs finances.

The forensic accountants found that, under your leadership, a shortfall of $31,786 existed in a two-year period between payments received and deposits made, Forti wrote. You could not explain this shortfall.

Forti claimed Catherine Finkle failed to maintain basic financial records and could not accurately describe the programs policies regarding tuition or wage rate structure, the letter shows.

Finkle also allegedly didnt realize that personal items were purchased with her Sams Club card, and she provided authorization for the East Haven Public Schools to pay for the items, according to the letter.

These issues and your responses at the pre-disciplinary meeting demonstrate that you are unable or unwilling to carry out the responsibilities of the management of the Little Jackets program, Forti wrote.

Attorney Christopher Engler of the law firm of Shipman & Goodwin in Hartford, who represents the East Haven Public Schools in the matter, could not be reached for comment.

Town Attorney Joseph Zullo said he learned of the federal investigation on Tuesday following a WTNH news report.

The board of education and town are separate entities, Zullo said. If the town does become involved (in any Department of Justice investigation), we will cooperate to the fullest extent possible.

Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. did not respond to requests for comment.

Michelle Tuccitto Sullo can be reached at mtuccittoster@gmail.com.
GUILFORD  Officer Mark OConnor was recently awarded nearly $200,000 in damages after a jury agreed that the town, in passing him over to promote multiple younger candidates to sergeant, discriminated against him, according to court records.

The town is now asking that the jurys verdict be set aside, claiming it was issued based on improper reasoning and court proceedings.

In an amended complaint filed in April 2017, OConnor, through Watertown-based attorney Eric Brown, claimed the Guilford Board of Police Commissioners chose to promote less-qualified, but younger, candidates to sergeant on multiple occasions between May 2015 and August 2016. The decision was made despite the fact that, among other accolades, he had received the highest department evaluations of his work, according to the complaint.

OConnor alleged the town discriminated against him because of his age and his filing two complaints with the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities  one associated with the alleged age-related discrimination; the other with a workplace injury.

In answering the complaint, the town denied that it discriminated against OConnor and said, through Attorney Jeffrey Kennedy of Branford-based firm Milano & Wanat, that the candidates promoted were at least equally qualified.

The complaint wound its way through the judicial system for more than two years.

On Nov. 7, a jury found the town had discriminated against OConnor on the basis of age and his filing the CHRO complaint about the issue. They rejected his claim that he had been discriminated against because of his injury.

OConnor was awarded $166,319 in economic damages and $30,000 for emotional distress, according to court documents.

In a Nov. 19 filing, the latest in the case, the town claimed the jurys findings should be thrown out.

Kennedy and fellow attorney Sean R. Caruthers argued that OConnor had only provided circumstantial, rather than direct proof of discrimination; that he did not prove he was so superior a candidate that the boards decision could not be reasonably justified; that the non-economic damages should not have been awarded, as OConnor remains a member of the Guilford Police Department and thus does not qualify to bring a claim for emotional distress; and that testimony offered by former Officer Lawrence Ruggiero was irrelevant and highly prejudicial.

According to court documents, an email from Ruggiero to OConnor was introduced during the proceedings, in which Ruggiero discussed a conversation he allegedly had with Chief Jeffrey Hutchinson. Hutchinson allegedly mentioned a preference for hiring younger officers.

The town argued that this did not pertain to the issue of promotion; that Hutchinson did not have the power to promote officers; and that OConnor admitted he believed Hutchinson acted fairly.

Brown declined to comment Tuesday. Kennedy and Caruthers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
Kate McClure, one of three charged with deceiving the public in the viral GoFundMe campaign for a homeless vet that prosecutors recently alleged was all a lie, has been suspended from her job with the state of New Jersey.

McClure, police booking photo

A spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation confirmed Wednesday McClure was suspended. The spokeswoman could not comment on whether she'd been suspended with or without pay.

McClure, 28, is a receptionist within the state Department of Transportation. State records show she started working for the state in 2014 and currently makes a little over $43,000 annually.

Her lawyer, James Gerrow, said Wednesday they knew the suspension was likely.

"I told Kate this was inevitable once the charges had been made public by the Prosecutor," he said. "Unfortunately, it is standard operating procedure for a governmental entity. Yet, it adds to the traumatizing impact this case has had on Kate."

McClure is charged along with her former boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, and Johnny Bobbitt, a homeless man living in Philadelphia, with theft by deception involving a GoFundMe campaign that raked in over $400,000 last fall.

The story took off nationally, and virally. It was called "Paying it Forward," and had its genesis in McClure, from Florence, in Burlington County, running out of gas on her way to Philadelphia and Bobbitt, using his last $20 to get her gas.

The GoFundMe, which McClure and D'Amico prompted in the media, was aimed at getting Bobbitt back on his feet.

The story started unraveling in August and September of this year with accusations and a lawsuit by Bobbitt.

Last week, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office alleged it was a giant scam from the start, predicated on a lie.

Gerrow responded earlier this week by laying blame with D'Amico, saying he was the one "calling the shots."

Mark Davis, representing D'Amico, shot back, saying, he suspects people are having a hard time picturing McClure as a victim. "She seems to be on a crusade to save her ass at the moment, I assume because her name is on everything," he charged.

In the midst of the saga, McClure and D'Amico split, and her grandmother has been trying to get him to leave the Florence home where they once lived together.

The grandmother, Leslie DeAngelo, owns the home and filed a trespassing charged against D'Amico earlier this month, alleging in a criminal complaint he changed the locks and won't vacate the home.

McClure and D'Amico were renting the home from her grandmother when it was raided by police in September.

D'Amico did not show in Florence Municipal Court Monday for a hearing on a trespassing charge in that case and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Mark D'Amico, the 39-year-old Burlington County man wrapped up in the GoFundMe story turned alleged hoax, will not vacate the home where he once lived with his ex, Kate McClure, which was raided by police in September, a criminal complaint shows.

A judge in Florence issued a warrant for his arrest on a trespassing charge after he did not show in court Monday to answer it.

Mark D'Amico

The charge was brought by Leslie DeAngelo -- McClure's grandmother -- who also filed a criminal complaint against him saying he won't leave her property on Cedar Lane Extension.

D'Amico and McClure were renting the home from her grandmother when it was raided by police in September.

McClure is also charged in the alleged scam, which revolved around the $400,000 they purportedly raised via GoFundMe for homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt. All three are charged with theft by deception for what authorities say was a scam from the start.

The story started unraveling in August and September with accusations and a lawsuit.

On Oct. 2, court records show, DeAngelo served D'Amico with a notice to leave the property.

"The police have on bodycam footage when he was given the notice to quit and he said he would be out on Nov. 1," DeAngelo wrote in her criminal complaint.

DeAngelo said after promising he'd leave, D'Amico instead changed the locks and remained living there.

"He is staying there without our consent," she wrote.

DeAngelo filed the criminal complaint with Florence Municipal Court on Nov. 7, and D'Amico was due for an appearance Monday. When he didn't show, the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.

It's unclear if he's currently in the house. On Monday, his new lawyer was unaware of the municipal, trespassing case.

D'Amico also has a warrant out for outstanding municipal court offenses from traffic violations to destruction of property in other towns, as well as facing criminal charges for theft by deception over $75,000 and conspiracy.

Paige Gross may be reached at pgross@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @By_paigegross.
Authorities said Tuesday they are searching for a 15-year-old who they believe shot and killed another 15-year-old last week in Camden.

The suspect is charged with first-degree murder and weapons charges on Thursday, Camden County Prosecutor Mary Eva Colalillo said in a news statement.

The prosecutor's office named the suspect, and issued a photo of him. NJ Advance Media does not name felony suspects until they are waived to adult court.

The teen suspect was charged as a juvenile, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said Tuesday.

The office said their suspect was the gunman who killed a 15-year-old on Nov. 13 at Princess and Euclid avenues in Camden around 3:30 p.m.

That victim was not identified by the prosecutor's office Tuesday but 6ABC previously reported his name as Javonne Davis.

Davis died at Cooper University Hospital about an hour after arriving there.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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A Vineland man has become the latest person to commit suicide in a South Jersey jail.

Cumberland County deputy administrator Kim Wood said Gregory Kubiak, 32, of Vineland was found by staff at the jail after attempting to commit suicide Saturday. Staff at the jail attempted CPR on Kubiak, and he was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died Tuesday night.

Kubiak's death comes a month after the United States Department of Justice came to the facility to investigate the care inmates with mental health received while incarcerated. The Department of Justice declined to comment about the most recent incident.

PBA Local 231 is the corrections officer union in Cumberland County. The union's attorney, Stuart Alterman, has been a vocal critic in the past about the current jail administration. Alterman said the jail administration is trying to place the blame on the corrections officers instead of the current policies in place.

"The current administration is more about scapegoating and making themselves look like they do everything right than actually running the jail in a professional manner," Alterman said.

Alterman questions whether the present administration thinks it is doing the right thing, or if it isn't informed on how to adequately train officers on how to be handling mental health issues.

"How come all of these suicides didn't occur with the prior wardens and former staff before many of the experienced staff being forced to retire, and before the administrations changing?" Alterman said. "With warden (Glenn) Saunders and (Bob) Bilicki were present, we didn't have to deal with the volume of suicides that we are dealing with today."

The Cumberland County Jail is not the only facility that has seen a similar trend. The Atlantic County Jail has had six suicides in a span of three years. Both jails have multiple lawsuits against the counties. The families are being represented by attorney Conrad J Benedetto.

"Based on the number of inmates that have died over the past few years while incarcerated in county jails up and down the state of New Jersey, we think there is a public health crisis in the state. It seems that many counties apparently lack the ability to, or interest in, tending to the mental health needs of some of its own citizens," Benedetto said in a previous interview with NJ Advance Media. "Unfortunately, we are not surprised by news of another inmate death at a New Jersey county jail. We are hopeful that the many lawsuits we and other law firms have brought against New Jersey counties regarding these inmate deaths will help shine a spotlight on this crisis and put an end to it."

Cumberland County declined to comment about Kubiak's death.

Chris Franklin can be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cfranklinnews. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
Concerning recent articles and editorials about a high number of suicides among inmates at the Cumberland County and Atlantic County jails, each of which have seen six such incidents in less than three years:

There are three times as many correctional officer suicides as inmate suicides. When will authorities and the media address that?

How about if you report on the statistics about officer suicides compared to individuals incarcerated, or compared to other professions?

Among New Jersey Department of Corrections officers, who work in state-run detention facilities, there have been 25 documented suicides since 2001, including 17 since 2010.

That's only the numbers for state DOC officers. It doesn't include any county correctional officers. The lives of correctional police officers are just as valuable as any other life. But no one reports on that.

William Sullivan, Executive Vice President, PBA Local 105, Trenton

Editor's note: Sullivan's union represents correctional officers at NJDOC state prisons and detention facilities.

VA medical system fails local veteran

Happy Veterans Day? I think not.

My husband, a 100 percent disabled Vietnam War veteran, recently was denied life-necessary treatment by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at the offices of a private cardiology practice in Elmer.

My husband needs to undergo this cardiac therapy four times a week. Instead of traveling to nearby Elmer, the VA is insisting that he travel for his therapy to another state -- to a VA site in Delaware -- despite his ill health.

I never even got a courtesy call back from a nurse practitioner at the VA, who, I'm told, denied our request to use the local facility.

Quite honestly, I believe officials are just waiting for Vietnam vets to die off. Shameful.

Eileen Bennett, Mauricetown

Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com
Thanksgiving, America's favorite food holiday, is finally here.

There will be green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberries and pies, lots of pies.

And of course, on tables in households across the country, there will be turkey.

And therein lies the start of a problem: grease.

Much of that grease --- plus fats and oils --- ends up being poured down the drain, a place it doesn't belong. The grease builds up in sewer systems, combines with other items that don't belong in the system and clogs the pipes, creating a massive headache for the people who have to keep the system running.

"We have major problems due to people dumping food solids down the drain," said George White, the facility maintenance director for the Western Monmouth Utilities Authority. White estimates that the WMUA spends "a couple hundred hours" every year clearing clogs out of its sewer lines. The utility services about 26,000 customers and oversees more than 250 miles of sewer lines in Marlboro, Matawan and other parts of Monmouth County.

White added that the holidays are a particularly troublesome time of year, with a higher volume of grease entering sewer systems and being exacerbated by the cold temperatures, which hardens the grease faster.

Aqua America, a private water utility that serves more than 175,000 customers in more than 30 municipalities in New Jersey, points out that bad clogs can back up raw sewage and lead to serious health hazards.

Utility companies urge people to not pour grease into the sink and down the drain. Aqua America lists cooking oil, butter, lard, meats, sauces, dairy and food scraps as common items that contribute to clogged pipes.

So what can you do to properly dispose of grease?

Pour your grease into a metal can, wait for it to cool and then throw the grease-filled can in the trash. And don't forget to use strainers in sink drains to catch food scraps.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
As New Jersey's largest city continues distributing water filters to more than 40,000 residents to mitigate elevated lead levels in its drinking water, a neighboring town that buys water from Newark will now offer free filters, too.

Starting next week, Bloomfield will hand out filters to residents concerned about lead build-up in their homes. The township reported elevated lead levels in its tap water last year and in the first six months of 2018.

Recent drinking water samples show 16 of 61 homes exceeded federally accepted levels for lead contaminant between January and June 2018, state data show. If 10 percent or more of a municipality's samples have more than 15 parts per billion of lead, that triggers a certain actions by the town and requires public education.

"The township is definitely concerned with anything that affects public health and this is something that we're becoming more aware of. It's something that a lot of older townships are facing," Bloomfield spokesman Dan Knitzer told NJ Advance Media. "We're trying to be proactive with it."

Knitzer said the township ordered more than 100 filters with the option to buy more depending on need. They'll arrive next week.

Bloomfield officials said old lead plumbing and lead fixtures are causing the elevated lead levels, not the township's water mains. Officials say distributing filters is the latest step to help residents mitigate water issues. The township is also working with residents to replace old lead plumbing.

"We are hopeful that our homeowners work with us to ensure that lead is removed from their homes," Mayor Michael Venezia said in a statement.

Bloomfield purchases pre-treated water from Newark's Pequannock Water Treatment Plant. Newark has reported elevated lead levels in its tap water since 2017 caused by more than 15,000 lead service lines and ineffective water treatment.

A recent study, commissioned by Newark, found the method used to treat Newark's water to prevent lead from leaching into the tap water, known as corrosion control, stopped working. When water is not effectively treated for its corrosive properties, it will eat away at lead pipes as it makes its way through the distribution system, dissolving lead into the drinking water.

An NJ Advance Media review of the study, however, also found that it pointed to the likely cause as to why Newark's corrosion control stopped working.

Newark lowered the water's pH in 2012 in order to avoid violating another federal standard, one that restricts levels of possibly carcinogenic chemicals that can form when water is disinfected. Those moves made the water more acidic and corrosive, likely rendering corrosion control less effective over time.

Newark is in the process of changing the way it treats its water to prevent lead leaching.

Bloomfield's tap water also contains elevated levels of haloacetic acids, a group of five possibly carcinogenic chemicals that are byproducts of the water disinfection process. The township has violated the disinfection byproduct standard that regulates the amount of the contaminant repeatedly since 2017.

Elevated levels of haloacetic acids have been found in Newark as well.

The PUR filters are nationally certified to remove 99.99 percent of lead from tap water and also remove disinfection byproducts. Township officials are encouraging residents who pick up a filter to agree to have their water tested for lead.

"Everyone is concerned about these issues, and we have a program for testing lead levels but we have a shortage of volunteers willing to participate," Bloomfield Township Administrator Matthew Watkins said.

"We are asking residents receiving free PUR water filters to participate in the lead testing program."

Filters can be picked up at the health department located at 1 Municipal Plaza between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Residents need to bring proof of residency.

For more information, residents can call 973-680-4024.

Read more of NJ.coms coverage of New Jersey water issues here.

Read more:

City's fix of one water problem likely created another. This one's got a $75M price tag.

Newark's water breaches levels for dangerous contaminant. And nearby towns are drinking it, too.

Newark said it was fixing the lead in its water. Now there's a problem with the treatment.

[Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the actions triggered by lead level exceedance.]

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- Six of Jersey City's bravest were promoted the rank of captain at a city hall ceremony attended by department brass, elected officials and the firefighters' family and friends on Tuesday.

"Bless them as we convene today and all their tomorrows," prayed Fire Department Chaplain the Rev. James Pagnotta, who also took a moment to remember Jersey City firefighters who have died in the line of duty over the years.

"We pray for those who protect us," Pagnotta said. "May they return home safely."

Among those promoted was Jon Burns, whose father retired from the department in 2000 at the rank of deputy chief.

"It feels good following in his footprints," Jon Burns said before being promoted Tuesday. "It's a great job."

Also greeted by applause and cheers when promoted Tuesday were new captains James Pappas, Matthew Ostrowski, Robert DelFino, James McGraw and Patrick Donnelly.

Click on the photo gallery above for a look back on the ceremony.
JERSEY CITY  Jersey City's council took a step toward finally resolving the seven-month controversy surrounding the Katyn monument on Tuesday when it advanced a measure intended to keep the statue at its longtime Exchange Place home "in perpetuity."

The measure, which was given unanimous approval by the City Council, comes five months after the council authorized by a 6-3 vote the administration's plan to move the statue to the foot of York Street, a measure that was later challenged by a group of voters and voided by a Hudson County Superior Court judge on Friday.

The effort may be largely ceremonial  council members can't keep a future council from moving the statue  but supporters of keeping the monument at Exchange Place have been seeking an official action declaring Exchange Place the permanent home for the monument.

The Katyn statue commemorates the 1940 massacre of over 20,000 Polish people by the Soviet Union. Mayor Steve Fulop in April proposed moving it to make way for a city park at Exchange Place funded by a local business group.

After the council authorized moving the statue in June, critics collected enough signatures to force a referendum on the statue relocation. After publicly supporting the idea of the referendum, saying he wanted voters to decide, Fulop reversed himself and asked the council to call off the statue's removal entirely. Fulop said he the statue referendum would likely delay implementation of a new business tax given final adoption by the council on Tuesday.

The judge's nullification of the June ordinance that authorized moving the statue came after a woman sued Jersey City alleging it made improper changes to the ordinance in between its introduction and adoption. The judge's action also led the city to cancel a referendum planned for Dec. 11 that would have asked voters whether they approve of the June ordinance.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY  A new tax on city businesses was given unanimous approval by the City Council Tuesday night following a nearly four-hour public hearing that saw dozens of speakers, most of them urging the council to approve the tax to help fund the city's public school district.

Council members said they sympathized with the concerns of local business owners and groups, who object to the tax as an undue burden, but added that the school district is facing a financial "crisis" the tax will help solve. The state is gradually eliminating a form of aid that would have brought the district $175 million this year.

Councilman Jermaine Robinson, who owns a Randolph Avenue restaurant, gave a list of taxes business owners must pay  "milk, lottery, cigarette, business, fire, jukebox, TV, music, food, liquor sales and use, property, employment, FICA, Social Security, Medicaid, consumption, franchise"  and said he was conflicted over siding with the city's business owners or with the city's "babies."

"Tonight I choose those babies, so you can tax me as I please," Robinson said.

"I don't think this is the end all, be all solution," Councilwoman Denise Ridley said. "We may need to re-evaluate the burdens to our small businesses."

The tax would amount to 1 percent on a business' total payroll, with the wages of Jersey City residents exempt. The businesses would pay the tax, not workers.

City and school officials believe the tax could bring in as much as $80 million annually. All of the revenue would be given to the 30,000-student school district, which is facing a roughly $20 million shortfall starting in July because of the state aid cuts. Any amount collected by the tax that is greater than the shortfall is held in a trust to be used later.

"I am obviously thrilled at the outcome," Schools Superintendent Marcia V. Lyles said after the vote, adding that there is "a great deal of work to be done" to fully fund the school district.

State education officials say the district, which operates on a $600 million budget, is spending $100 million less than it should to provide an adequate education to all its students.

Tuesday's public hearing lasted for three hours and 40 minutes and featured 65 speakers, the vast majority teachers, parents and even some children who urged council members to pass the tax.

The council vote is likely not the end of the fight over the payroll tax. A group representing business owners has threatened to start a petition drive that, if successful, would either force the council to reverse the payroll tax or put the tax up for a vote during a referendum. That group would have 20 days from Tuesday to collect signatures from over 6,000 voters who want the tax overturned.

An alternate proposal tax proposal pitched late Monday night by Council President Rolando Lavarro was not considered. Lavarro said he proposed that plan, which had the backing of the business groups who oppose the payroll tax, to avoid the potential referendum fight. On Monday he asked council members to support adding it to Tuesday's agenda, but Lavarro never made a motion to have it added.

Lavarro voted for the 1 percent payroll tax, but said he fears business groups are right that there will be a significant economic impact.

"We're probably going to see a loss of jobs ... I hope I'm wrong," he said.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
St. Peter's Prep Dean of Students John Morris is eating more than turkey this Thanksgiving.

On Wednesday, he had to eat his words.

Following through on a challenge he issued to the students and staff of the Downtown Jersey City high school, Morris showed up to work in a turkey costume after the school took first place in the Great Ignatian Challenge by collecting about 16,000 pounds of food to donate to local churches.

Within the last week of the challenge, St. Peter's had raised about 8,000 pounds of food and were in second place out of the five participating Jesuit schools in the tri-state area. That's when Morris issued the challenge of getting to 15,000 pounds of food by the end of the week.

"It was really inspiring to see how quickly everyone responded," said Morris. "When I went on to the web page where our donations are, it showed that they have gone up in real time. It was good to see people reaching out to help others while at the same time sharing the connection between our community and working together."

The five schools that participated -- Xavier High School, Loyola School, Regis High School, all of New York, Fairfield Prep in Connecticut, and St. Peter's -- collected a combined total of 49,000 pounds of food.

The 16,000 pounds of food St. Peter's collected will be donated to St. Patrick & Assumption/All Saints Parish and St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, both in Jersey City.

Staying true to his word, Morris donned the full turkey costume at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday and vowed to wear it until he completed his bike commute home to Bayonne.

"When I put it on, I was hesitant to come out of my office because I knew I was going to be greeted by kids who knew it was coming," said Morris. "I felt a little self-conscious at first but as the day has gone on, I've grown used to it. It'll be worth a few stares from people as I ride home in it."
JERSEY CITY  Hundreds of people filled the City Council's chambers on Tuesday night to urge the council to pass a payroll tax that is intended to fill a yawning budget gap facing the city's public school system.

Supporters of the tax plan chanted "we hope you fund our schools" before the start of the meeting. They sent children up to each council member with bags containing water bottles  a reference to the lead contamination in the schools' drinking water  and a flyer describing the district's "funding crisis."

The stakes are huge for Jersey City, which over the next seven years will gradually lose a form of state school funding that would have totaled $175 million this year. That's nearly a third of the 30,000-student district's total budget.

Mayor Steve Fulop and state Sen. Sandra B. Cunningham made rare appearances before the council to urge them to approve the tax.

"Nobody in this room created the problem by itself but it's ours to solve," Fulop said.

Cunningham co-sponsored the state bill approved over the summer that allows Jersey City to implement the tax, which would amount to 1 percent on the payroll of nearly every city business. The wages of Jersey City residents would be exempt.

"We cannot allow the children in the Jersey City school system to have any less than any other school system in this state," Cunningham told council members. "If we don't look out for our kids, who will?"

Jeff Budney is one of the handful of speakers who spoke against the tax plan. Budney cited "extraneous personnel" and "wasteful" spending at the school district as he urged council members not to levy the tax.



"This payroll tax is merely an attempt to maintain the status quo that perpetuates a broken system and all its ill effects will be felt by all who live here," he said.

The public hearing on the tax plan began at 6:49 p.m. It is expected to last for hours.

Business owners and groups have voiced objections to the tax plan, saying it would drive businesses out of the city and place an undue burden on those that remain. A group tied to real estate developer LeFrak has been airing television commercials urging viewers to call council members to "stop the jobs tax" and calling residents offering to connect them to council members' offices.

A Nov. 7 public hearing on the payroll tax attracted a large number of people opposed to the tax idea. Tuesday's hearing was dominated by supporters, including some public school students like 12-year-old Isaiah Skurnick, a School 4 seventh grader.

"Technology is the zeitgeist of this generation and still our computers are broken, they're missing keys or they won't turn on," he said. "This payroll tax can help with all of that."

When Fulop spoke to the council, he referenced the tax plan's opponents who made a big show at the Nov. 7 council meeting.

"You had a full room of people here and when you looked at those people you probably didn't recognize many of them because they didn't live here," Fulop said. "Two weeks later you have a room here of people you probably recognize for the most because they're your neighbors, they're your family, they're your friends, people that you see at church, there's people you see at Little League."

One of those opponents is the city's former corporation counsel, Jeremy Farrell, who was recently hired by LeFrak and has been lobbying council members to oppose the tax.

The first 90 minutes of Tuesday's hearing was subdued compared to some of the more recent, boisterous hearings. Council President Rolando Lavarro appeared to be expecting a rowdier crowd. He started the hearing with a speech asking for decorum and making sure police officers were around to eject anyone disorderly.

"Officers, are you here tonight? Just want to make sure our officers are present," Lavarro said.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY  The formerly tight political relationship between Mayor Steve Fulop and Council President Rolando Lavarro is showing more signs of wear, with the two men trading barbs over competing plans to help fund the local public school district.

The dust-up led Lavarro to lob the greatest insult you could hurl at a Democrat in 2018: he compared Fulop to President Trump. The mayor responded by accusing Lavarro of being cozy with real estate developers.

Fulop characterized this all as a friendly disagreement, but he has made moves to curtail Lavarro's power. He did not reappoint Lavarro as a member of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency board when his term expired in June (Lavarro has continued to attend JCRA meetings). Fulop said Tuesday he didn't know Lavarro's term had expired.

Lavarro told The Jersey Journal Fulop is playing "petty, boss politics."

"It's disgusting," Lavarro said.

The latest clash between Fulop and Lavarro, both Democrats, started Monday when Lavarro presented council members at their caucus with a school funding plan he wants them to adopt. Lavarro's plan calls for a .75 percent payroll tax, an increase in local school taxes and diverting unexpected revenue intended for the city budget to the school budget. Lavarro also wants new revenue from potential marijuana sales to fund schools.

Fulop has his own plan, a 1 percent tax on any city business' payroll, that was set for final adoption by the council on Tuesday night.

The plans have been proposed to offset tens of millions in annual cuts to state school aid expected to begin in July.

As Lavarro pitched his idea to council members on Monday, Fulop trashed it on Twitter, calling it a "bad idea" that "helps the developers and hurts the residents."

In an email Lavarro sent to The Jersey Journal at 12:59 a.m. on Tuesday, the council president responded by saying, "Jersey City's children and families deserve a wholistic solution to the funding crisis and not one of the mayor's 140-character Twitter rants. The mayor of our city tweeting like Donald Trump doesn't solve our funding problems."

Fulop said he doesn't regret what he said about Lavarro's school funding plan.

"The public should be made aware that Rolando is repeating verbatim the sound bites the developers say and it is concerning he is carrying their water to let them off the hook for paying for schools," he said.

Tension between the two was evident on Tuesday before the council meeting. Fulop was on the council dais speaking with Councilwoman-at-large Joyce Watterman. Lavarro walked by the two of them and sat in his chair. The two men did not speak to each another.

People close to Fulop and Lavarro said they aren't sure what the public spat is about and declined to speculate on the record.

"Boys will be boys," said Mira Prinz-Arey, the councilwoman for Ward B.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Hudson County is one step closer to having its first female police chief.

Union City police Capt. Nichelle Luster has been named acting chief of the department following the retirement of Chief Richard Molinari, who held the post since 2013 and named Luster as his temporary replacement.

A member of the Union City Police Department since 1994, Luster worked her way up through the ranks, holding several positions before becoming the first female captain on the force in 2013.

Luster said that if named chief permanently, she hopes it will be the result of her "ability in the department and my service to the community of Union City, as opposed to being based on my gender," she said.

"I do, however, recognize that it would be a first."

National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives Director Kym Craven said women make up about 13 percent of law enforcement officers.

"Women have a role in law enforcement," said Craven, whose organization has about 700 members. "Communities want their law enforcement to reflect their communities."

Penny Harrington became the first woman to lead a police force in a major U.S. city in 1985 when she was named police chief in Portland, Oregon.

In North Jersey, Bergen County got its first female police chief in 2015 when Cathy Madalone took the post atop Bergenfield's department. Eileen Tiernan followed suit in Woodland Park in 2018 when she became Passaic County's first female chief.

"I think everybody has something they bring to the table and whether you are a man or a woman, you have strengths and weaknesses," Madalone said. "Obviously, a woman is a little more sensitive in some situations, such as domestic violence.

"They bring the testosterone level down and there is a calming factor," she added, while also noting that male officers also have specific strengths.

Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez made history in 2015 when she became Hudson County's top law enforcement officer. In August, Jersey City promoted its first female officer to the rank of deputy chief.

Madalone, who was in the police academy with Luster, said Union City "couldn't have a better chief."

Luster's career in public service began in the U.S. Army where she served as a military police officer in Germany, the United States and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba during the Haitian refugee crisis of 1992. She then spent time volunteering with Union City Emergency Medical Services before becoming a police officer.

She spent five years on loan to the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office Homicide Unit and most recently worked in Molinari's office as an accreditation officer. The Union City Police Department met the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies' high standards for accreditation for the first time last year under Molinari's watch.

Union City Police Chief Richard Molinari is retiring after 33 years with the department.

Molinari, whose last day was Friday, will officially retire in about two weeks. The 52-year-old Union City native said he is proud of the department's accreditation.

"It's good for residents because it tells you you have a professionalized police department that has met the highest standards of policing," Molinari said.

Molinari did not want to comment on Luster's potential elevation to permanent chief, saying that was a decision for Mayor Brian Stack.

Stack could not be reached for comment.

Molinari said community outreach was key during his tenure. The department averaged 150 outreach events per year and officers are assigned all city schools. He said it makes residents more comfortable with reaching out to police.

The former chief also said there was difficult two-year period while he was top cop during which four officers died. Lt. John Mark Zeitounian died in a car crash in May 2017 while Officer John Kamel was killed in a motorcycle crash two months later. Officer Ricardo Fernandez and Lt. Gregory Katseyeanis both died of illnesses in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

"That was a tough time for the police department," Molinari said, a 33-year veteran of the department. "This is a tremendous agency that truly came together at a hard time. They all had families and the police department came together and bonded with families and it was truly amazing."

Molinari said he plans to spend more time with his own family now, "but I'll be back in the workforce because it's in my nature. I'm going to leave the door open and see where the road goes."
Two of the four women who admitted their roles in a New Jersey oxycodone distribution ring were each sentenced Tuesday to at least four years prison.

Flemington residents Michele Call, 63 and Nelida Rios, 55, received terms of 54 and 48 months, respectively, the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey said in a statement. They were previously convicted of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone.

Both women will also be subject to three years of supervised release when they are released from prison and were fined $1,000. U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson ordered Call to forfeit $40,000 and Rios to surrender $42,000.

Marie DeJulia, 42, of Lodi, and Call's daughter, Alicia Balaban, 35, of Wellington, Florida have also pleaded guilty are are set to be sentenced next week.

Authorities previously said Balaban was the leader of the outfit, which distributed 30 mg pills from April 2016 through January.

Balaban, Call and Rios obtained oxycodone prescriptions, filled them in Flemington and then distributed thousands of 30 mg pills to DeJulia from the homes of Call and Rios, officials said.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you interested in the N.J. cannabis industry? Subscribe here for exclusive insider information from NJ Cannabis Insider.

After months of private negotiations, Democratic leaders of the state Legislature on Wednesday released the most recent version of a blueprint to create a multi-billion-dollar legal marijuana industry in New Jersey and allow low-level criminal arrests and convictions to be expunged.

Hearings are scheduled Monday morning at the Statehouse in Trenton for the 147-page "New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory and Expungement Aid Modernization Act."

Broadly, the bill would legalize the possession and personal use of one ounce or less of marijuana for people at least 21 years old, and create, regulate and impose a 12 percent tax a commercial marijuana industry in the state. An extra 2 percent excise tax would be raised for towns which host cannabis businesses.

The legislation also creates a framework for an "expedited expungement" process for people who have prior arrests and convictions for possession or distributing up to an ounce of marijuana. Within six months of the law's enactment, the Administrative Office of the Courts must create an electronic filing system for expedited expungements.

A separate bill will offer more details on the expungement process, the sponsors have said.

The legislation is not dramatically different than the latest proposal obtained by NJ Advance Media in September. But some key details have been clarified.

According to the latest version of (S2703):

* Cannabis delivery services would be permitted.

* Dispensaries would be permitted to create "consumption" areas -- public lounges separate from the retail operation, where people could get high. The dispensary would need the local governing body to pass an ordinance permitting the consumption area first, however.

* A Cannabis Regulatory Commission, led by five members appointed between the governor and the Legislature, would oversee nearly every aspect of the industry. The commission would be affiliated with the Department of Treasury but independent. The commission's executive director would be appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate.

* The commission would oversee the new Office of Minority, Disabled Veterans, and Women Cannabis Business Development to promote entrepreneurship from these three communities. The bill sets a goal of 30 percent participation from these "socially and economically disadvantaged communities."

* In addition to licenses for cultivators, processors, wholesalers and retailers, the commission would set aside 10 percent of licenses for "micro-businesses" to give smaller operators an easier chance to enter the market.

* Applicants who apply to be licensed cannabis businesses by the state must sign an agreement they will hire workers represented by labor unions. Exceptions are made for micro-business owners.

* The commission will give preference to applicants whose businesses are located in impact zones, "for which past criminal marijuana enterprises contributed to higher concentrations of law enforcement activity, unemployment, and poverty," according to the bill.

The zone must have a population of 120,000 or more, or it must have a high crime index as measured by the State Police, an annual average unemployment rate of 15 percent and rank in the top 33 percent for marijuana- or hashish-related arrests, the bill said.

On the population criteria alone, only Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Elizabeth would qualify as an impact zone, according to Census data.

The bill also strikes any reference to the word "marijuana" and replaces it with the scientific name of "cannabis" when referencing products sold and regulated on the legal market.

The state Senate and Assembly budget committees are scheduled to meet as one body 10 a.m. Monday to debate and vote on the legalization bill.

In addition, the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee is scheduled to meet at the same time down the hall to approve two bills (S10) and (S2426) that promise to make the medicinal marijuana law more consumer-friendly and expand the economic reach of the medical market.

The health committee will immediately send the medical legislation to the budget committees, which are expected to approve them.

The next public step is a vote by the full Senate and Assembly in mid-December. Both houses are controlled by Democrats.

But in the weeks between, negotiations will continue in earnest as Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, and legislative leaders must try to come to an agreement on the final language.

On early Thursday morning, Murphy's spokeswoman Alyana Alfaro said the governor "remains committed to legalizing adult-use marijuana, a critical step in eliminating racial disparities in our criminal justice system.

"The Governor is committed to working with the Legislature to legalize adult-use marijuana the right way, one that makes the state fairer, prioritizes the safety of New Jersey residents, and ensures that some of the economic benefits go the communities hardest hit by the war on drugs," Alfaro said.

Murphy and Democrats remain far apart on two major issues in the legislation: the tax rate, and the how much power a new commission created by the legislation will exercise over the new industry.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester; Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex; and the bill's prime sponsor, Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, are adamant about giving the proposed Cannabis Regulatory Commission most of the authority to control the new cannabis market, including the medicinal program. Murphy wants most of the decision-making to remain in the hands of the administration.

Sweeney has also said he will not support a tax rate higher than 12 percent, plus 2 percent for towns willing to host cannabis businesses. Any higher, he said, and people may continue to buy from the illegal market.

But earlier drafts of the bill called for a staggered increasing over five years maxing out at 25 percent, and the governor privately has said 12 percent is too low.

Liza Acevedo, Coughlin's spokeswoman struck an optimistic tone Wednesday about the chances for a compromise.

"Discussions with the governor are ongoing," she said. "The Speaker and Senate President are working together to forge agreement with the administration. The Speaker is confident the bill will pass when it is posted for a vote in the full Assembly."

If the two sides can't agree, legislative leaders could pass the bill and send it to Murphy, allowing him to rewrite portions under a conditional veto.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Payton Guion contributed to this report.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
A Bucks County, Pennsylvania woman has been charged with endangering the welfare of her children after police tracked her cell phone to locations in New Jersey and Delaware while the kids were home alone for over 24 hours.

Falls Township, Pa. police announced the charges against Sarah Grace, 28, on Tuesday for an incident in August.

At about 8:15 p.m. on Aug. 3, police were called to an apartment complex on Mill Creek Road by a resident who had taken in one of her children. The child had knocked on the person's door carrying three backpacks, police said.

Police searched for Grace and later determined she'd left her two young children alone and unsupervised since the day before.

Grace's cell phone records show she was at her home at on August 2, at approximately 12:00 p.m., when she left and traveled to Trenton and then Princeton, and then to Delaware, police said.

The records show she did not leave Delaware until August 3, 2018, at approximately 10 p.m. and as of 11:59 p.m. that night still had not returned home.

Falls detectives later found her and arrested her on the endangering charges. They did not say why she allegedly left her kids alone, or where exactly she traveled in New Jersey and Delaware.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno denied allegations that the Philippines agreed on loans with China under "onerous conditions."

"That's coming from the alarmist group. There's no such thing as onerous conditions. We were smart. We're not like other countries. We don't mortgage our territories for a loan that is as straightforward as a railway system," Diokno said in a press briefing Wednesday.

This was in response to Filipino think tank IBON Foundation's statement on Monday, claiming the Duterte administration is brokering questionable deals with Beijing. The think tank said the Philippines is "virtually giving up" its sovereignty if it submits to China's terms.

But Diokno said government only allows loans for projects that would pass the cut-off of 10 percent for economic rate returns.

IBON Foundation, in its statement, claimed China requires disputes surrounding the loan agreeements be settled at the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC).

Diokno disputed this.

"Usually, when you sign a loan, in case of arbitration, you assign that to a third party. Like, say Singapore, if there's a court there. You do not say it will be resolved by a Chinese court," Diokno said.

The administration's ties with China were reaffirmed after Chinese President Xi Jinping went to the Philippines for a state visit Tuesday. Over 20 deals were inked between the two countries.
Days after a contract mix-up left kids in Trenton's public schools without the protection of security guards, Mayor Reed Gusciora held a press conference Tuesday saying school safety is a paramount concern for the city. He stopped short, however, of calling for the district's superintendent to resign -- a demand some community members made at a heated school board meeting Monday night.

The city's police officers will patrol Trenton's 21 schools for the time being, Gusciora announced at the event Tuesday.

The school's security guards are employed by Patriot Security Group, which was awarded a $2.5 million dollar contract by the Board of Education in August, according to meeting minutes. That company has been entangled in a legal battle with another one, Motivated Security Services, over the legitimacy of the contract it was awarded.

The back-and-forth legal battle resulted in the board being restrained from making payments to the Patriot Security Group, and as a result Patriot was unable to pay its employees, according to court documents.

As a result, security guards walked off the job last Thursday. The gap in security coverage meant schools were left without in-house security for a few hours until Trenton police officers arrived.

In a Friday press release, Gusciora said he was "disappointed" that he was not made aware that there were problems with the school security guard contracts sooner, and that his administration was not given the opportunity to work with the school board "to rectify the situation before it became problematic."

As of Friday, at least 21 Trenton police officers were pulled from their normal duties and placed at each of the 21 schools within the district. The cost of covering those officers' shifts was not immediately clear, but Gusciora said the school district will have to pay for the officers placed in school buildings.

The security transition has not been an entirely smooth one.

Six district elementary schools were without security again Tuesday morning, after Gusciora said district officials told the city those schools would be covered by security guards. After receiving calls from parents and school staff, the city dispatched police officers to the schools, he said.

In a video recording of Monday's night's board of education meeting, President of the Trenton Education Association Twanda Taylor called out Superintendent Fred McDowell and school board president Gene Bouie to step down amid earlier chants of "move Fred, get out the way," from members of the public.

"It is time for the district to be liberated, clean it up," she shouted into the microphone at the standing-room only meeting.

At-large city councilman Jerell Blakeley also called for McDowell to resign, and said that the security guards that worked in the district schools were victims of legal mess.

"This is not the best we can do. This drama is something that is untenable, is unacceptable," Blakeley said.

The superintendent's office did not return NJ Advance Media's request for comment on the matter. A message for the security company was not immediately returned.

The mayor Tuesday called for better communication between the city and the school board, and on the superintendent and board to create a plan of action, which would include giving the city advance notice of any future problem with third party security firms.

Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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UPDATE: Colts Neck fire: Brother tried to torch own house with his wife, daughters inside, cops say

The brother of the Colts Neck man found dead along with his wife and two children in a quadruple homicide at their burning mansion Tuesday has been charged with setting his own house ablaze hours earlier the same day.

Paul Caneiro, 51

Paul Caneiro, 51, was booked in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold Wednesday morning on one count of aggravated arson in Ocean Township, jail records show.

Caneiro's brother, Keith and his family were found dead Tuesday at their Colts Neck estate, according to sources. Keith Caneiro was found with a gunshot wound that did not appear to be self-inflicted outside his smoldering Colts Neck mansion Tuesday afternoon, sources previously told NJ Advance Media. The mansion was in flames when authorities arrived around 12:45 p.m.

According to multiple law enforcement sources, Paul Caneiro was charged with trying to intentionally set a fire at his Tilton Drive residence in the Wayside section of town earlier on Tuesday morning.

No charges have been filed in the Colts Neck fire or in the homicides of Keith Caneiro, 50, his wife Jennifer Caneiro, 45, and two of their children. Jennifer Caneiro and the two children were found inside the $1.5-million dollar sprawling mansion on Willow Brook Road.

Keith and Jennifer Caneiro

At an afternoon press conference on Tuesday, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni declined to release the names of the victims in the Colts Neck blaze, but said two of the bodies located inside the residence were children.

He said the bodies inside were "burned severely."

Gramiccioni said detectives were following up on leads that the fire in Ocean Township is possibly linked to the Colts Neck blaze.

Paul Caneiro lives at his Ocean Township residence with his wife, Susan.

Paul Caneiro's home on Tilton Drive in Ocean Township. He was charged Wednesday morning with intentionally setting it on fire. (Sophie Nieto-Munoz | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Neighbors told NJ Advance Media Paul Caneiro appeared visibly distressed, with "tears in his eyes," after the fire broke out before dawn at his house.

Neighbors said he stayed at the scene until about noon. He and his wife had not returned home as of Tuesday evening.

Neighbors described the Ocean Township couple, who have two older children, as friendly and helpful, and said Paul Caneiro had been injured in a car accident in Asbury Park a few years ago.

Keith Caneiro is listed as the owner of both the technology firm, Square One, and EcoStar Pest Management in Asbury Park, working both businesses with Paul Caneiro.

The two grew up in Brooklyn before both marrying women from Staten Island and moving to New Jersey.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office is scheduled to have a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz, Ted Sherman and Thomas Moriarty contributed to this report.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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UPDATE: Colts Neck fatal fire mystery deepens as brother is charged with setting his own house ablaze

Keith Caneiro grew up in Brooklyn and was the best man in his brother's wedding.

Caneiro, whom a source says was found dead outside his Colts Neck mansion on Tuesday, was the owner of a technology firm and a pest control company in Asbury Park, according to public records and social media. He also dabbled in real estate.

Caneiro, 50, his wife Jennifer Caneiro, 45, and two of their children died in an apparent quadruple homicide at the family's sprawling estate on Willow Brook Road, discovered after a fire swept through the home, a law enforcement source told NJ Advance Media

The source said that Keith Caneiro, who was found on the home's front lawn, had suffered a gunshot wound that did not appear to be self-inflicted.

Keith and Jennifer Caneiro

Keith Caneiro is listed as the owner of both the technology firm, Square One, and EcoStar Pest Management in Asbury Park, working both businesses with his brother.

He had operated Square One, in Asbury Park since 1987, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Records show Caneiro also has an active real estate license. A professional real estate website registered with his name as the web address advertises an affiliation with Keller Williams Realty.

Jennifer Caneiro grew up on Staten Island as Jennifer Karidis, her maiden name, records show.

Photos of the Caneiros on Facebook show a happy family playing in the kitchen, relaxing with loved ones and enjoying trips overseas.

Caneiro's brother, Paul Caneiro, of Ocean Township, is involved in both the technology firm and the pest control operation, according to Jared DeVincenzo, who works in the building which houses both businesses. The pair grew up in Brooklyn before both marrying women from Staten Island and moving to New Jersey.

Paul Caneiro's home on Tilton Drive was also the scene of a fire Tuesday morning, one that is now also under investigation by the prosecutor's office for possible links to the Colts Neck fire.

Whether the two fires are related "remains to be seen," Gramiccioni told reporters.

Neighbors told NJ Advance Media Paul Caneiro appeared visibly distressed, with "tears in his eyes," after the fire broke out before dawn at his house.

Neighbors said he stayed at the scene until about noon. He and his wife had not returned home as of Tuesday evening.

Neighbors described the Ocean Township couple, who have two older children, as friendly and helpful, and said Paul Caneiro had been injured in a car accident in Asbury Park a few years ago.

When Paul Caneiro married his wife Susan in 1991, his brother Keith served as his best man, in a wedding officiated by the mayor of Shrewsbury, according to the couple's wedding announcement in the Staten Island Advance.

Keith Caneiro's LinkedIn profile says he graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in 2014, and was either enrolled or recently completed a master's program at the university.

Both his LinkedIn profile and Facebook page also indicate he had taken courses at Harvard Business School.

He graduated from John Dewey High School in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Caneiro purchased the family's home on Willow Brook Road in 1999, according to Monmouth County property records. He and his wife paid off the $1.8 million mortgage two years ago.

Prosecutor's office officials indicate they expect to release more information Wednesday.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz contributed to this report.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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The controversial use of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey money to finance rebuilding the Pulaski Skyway is once again under fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the bi-state agency to recalculate Newark Airport use fees after United Airlines filed a complaint in 2014 that airport fees were being diverted to non-airport projects, including the state's $1.5 billion Skyway overhaul.

The FAA ordered the authority on Nov. 19 to recalculate Newark Airport costs that make up fees and to revise its rates.

The FAA report said the fees charged to United are not based on a reasonable and transparent methods.

United complained Newark Airport fees were 75 percent higher than at JFK, also run by the Port Authority.

"The record also shows that PANYNJ has expended considerable amounts of airport revenue on non-aviation facilities it does not own," wrote Kevin C. Willis, FAA director of airport compliance. "(Newark Airport) users are improperly subsidizing a portion of PANYNJ's non-airport related projects."

Willis named the Pulaski Skyway and the new Wittpenn Bridge as the specific non-aviation facilities not owned by the Port Authority.

The Port Authority was ordered to submit a plan that includes how the agency intends to adjust rates and charges at the airport, based on a better, more accurate accounting of costs.

Port Authority officials said they plan to appeal the decision.

"The FAA has now issued an initial agency determination on United's 2014 complaint as to certain Port Authority financial and accounting practices from 1995 to 2014," said Ron Marsico, a Port Authority spokesman. "This does not constitute a final agency decision, and the Port Authority will appeal this initial determination."

In Jan. 2017, the authority agreed to pay $400,000 to settle federal Security and Exchange Commission charges that it misled investors who purchased bonds, that helped fund the Skyway rehabilitation. The full Skyway opened to traffic in late June.

United filed the initial complaint in Dec. 2014, contending the Port Authority levied "excessive" departure fees at Newark Liberty International Airport to pay for the Pulaski Skyway rebuilding and other non-aviation projects. United asked the FAA to conduct an audit of the bi-state agency's airport fee structure and related finances.

The repairs to the Pulaski Skyway, owned and run by New Jersey, came under scrutiny more than two years ago. Then Gov. Chris Christie unveiled a Transportation Trust Fund plan in 2011 that used Port Authority funds for the canceled ARC rail tunnel under the Hudson to fund the Skyway project.

United said in its complaint that fees charged by the Port Authority at Newark are the highest in the nation. The airline said it amounts to discrimination against United, which accounts for more than two thirds of Newark's flights.

United argued the Port Authority violated federal law requiring that fees to be fair and reasonable and be used for airport-related costs.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A federal judge has ruled it unconstitutional for New Jersey to threaten businesses with prosecution and other penalties for BYOB advertising that invites patrons to bring their own alcohol after a strip club challenged the rule on free speech grounds.

The ruling clears the way for restaurants and other businesses to tout BYO in its promotional materials.

Stiletto, a strip club with locations in Atlantic City, Carlstadt and New York, does not have a liquor license, so it sells non-alcoholic beverages and allows customers to bring their own alcohol as long as it's not hard liquor.

The club filed suit in 2017 over the state's ban on BYOB advertising, saying they wanted to encourage customers to bring their own beer and wine but had avoided such advertising over fears of prosecution.

Stiletto, through its corporate entity, GJJM Enterprises, sued Atlantic City, its police chief, the state's attorney general and the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

New Jersey law allows the consumption of beer and wine at establishments that don't have a liquor license. However, clubs and restaurants that advertise they are BYOB are subject to prosecution as a disorderly person's offense.

Further, any business owner who violates the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control regulations may be barred from operating as a BYOB.

"New Jersey's statutory ban on BYOB advertising places a content-based restriction on speech that fails strict scrutiny because it is not supported by a compelling government interest," U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez wrote in his decision Monday.

The judge found that language of New Jersey's statute banning advertising "outside or inside the premises" to be unconstitutional.

"While the state may, and does, regulate conduct regarding alcoholic beverages, it has not shown that regulating the speech concerning that conduct furthers a governmental interest sufficient to override the constitutional rights at stake in this case," the 13-page ruling states.

Rodriguez rejected New Jersey's argument that it has strong interest in regulating alcoholic beverages.

"Banning speech is different from and more intrusive than banning conduct," the ruling states.

Stephen D. Holtzman, the attorney for the law firm representing the strip club, was not available for comment Wednesday.

New Jersey Attorney General's Office spokesperson Leland Moore said his office would have no comment on the ruling.

Atlantic City officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A 50-year-old man convicted of assaulting a woman on a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport last year won't serve any time in prison.

Michael Hildebrand, of Orchard Park, New York, must serve one year of probation, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Roemer ruled during a court hearing Tuesday in Buffalo. Hildebrand faced up to six months in prison after previously pleading guilty to assault on an aircraft.

Hildebrand grabbed the groin area of another passenger without her permission while on a United Airlines flight to Buffalo on Dec. 20, 2017, the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's Western District said.

In a Twitter post the passenger wrote several hours after the 45-minute flight, the woman said a visibly drunk man seated in the same row grabbed the inner part of her upper thigh three times. The first time, she said she swatted his hand away. The next time, she ordered him to stop. On the third occasion, she got out of her seat and told a flight attendant.

The woman also said Hildebrand harassed two other women, including her fiancee.

The Buffalo woman wrote that flight attendants were able to change the seats for her and another woman. Hildebrand continued to accost the the woman's fiancee, who was seated across the aisle from him, she said at the time.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
After two weeks of fasting, environmental activists will finally break bread today in Trenton.

The 14-day protest, aimed at inspiring Governor Phil Murphy to institute a moratorium on state approval for fossil fuel projects in New Jersey, has featured more than 40 people fasting for various lengths of time.

Only two of the participants, organizer Ted Glick and member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation named Owl, will have fasted for the entire two weeks.

Glick said that he believes the climate fast has gotten the attention of Murphy's administration.

Since the protest began, administration officials have met with activists four times. Glick said he was told by Deborah Cornavaca, Murphy's deputy chief of staff for outreach, that the administration intends to hold a meeting between activists and state officials to discuss climate change and fossil fuel development in New Jersey.

"Obviously we'd like to have the governor there, but if he's not there we'd like to have Tammy Murphy there," Glick said of the proposed meeting.

On Nov. 12, the third day of the fast, Glick said he approached and talked to Murphy before the governor spoke at a clean energy event at Princeton University.

"I respect what they are doing," Murphy said after being approached by Glick in Princeton. "I have said to each of them, I hope when they are fasting they are careful of their own well-being. I would say, with all due respect to them, and, again, I respect what they are doing and I share in many respects their passion and their objectives."

Murphy went on to say that he is focused on advancing clean energy in New Jersey, and that he hopes activists in oil and gas-rich states like Oklahoma and Texas also speak up for clean energy.

For his part, Glick said he is pleased with the response he has seen to the fast from the Murphy administration.

"I didn't know that all of this was going to happen," Glick said of the response to the fast. "I certainly had hopes. But to know that all of this has happened is very gratifying."

But the fast will be ending on a bit of a sour note.

On Monday, state police ordered the protestors to break up their picket line under the threat of arrest. Video of the incident shows that the state police told protestors that their demonstration permit was only good for the State House Annex grounds, and that they were not allowed to picket in front of the governor's office.

Glick said that they complied with the police.

"We are going to discuss coming back and doing one in the future," he added.

Glick, a veteran of multiple extended fasts before this one, noted that he has never had a run in with police at a protest.

"We do feel it was a violation of our rights," Glick said.

The official end to the fast will come Wednesday at noon, in a ceremony in front of the State House Annex.

Glick said that he and Owl will break their fast with a little bread at the ceremony; he'll then ease back into eating by spending a few days with just juice and soup.

Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
It's time to apply a new set of rules to Facebook, one that matches its global imprint, because it still believes that it is entitled to reap billion-dollar benefits without a dime's worth of accountability.

This website is no longer just a privacy burn pit adorned with cheery cat videos. It spawned the Arab Spring that erupted in the streets of Cairo. It was used by the Myanmar military as a tool for genocide. It allowed Kremlin disinformation to ignite a war in Ukraine. It gave Russia the ability to weaponize ads and fake news and contaminate a U.S. election.

And now we know that it willfully went out of its way to profit from that erosion of democracy, which we hope Congress remembers when it drafts the regulations it had promised back in April.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg knew all about the Russian propaganda and hate speech on their website as early as Spring 2016, but that they hid the evidence and pushed out executives who advocated a more aggressive defense.

We have laws forbidding foreign entities from funding political ads. But Facebook essentially allowed an adversary to hijack a megaphone that reaches 2.2 billion people, creating chaos in the American electoral process, and then lied about it.

Sandberg reportedly was angry about two things: that her security team looked into Russian meddling at all, because it left the company exposed legally; and that a year's worth of evidence was shared with the board of directors. She didn't even want Russia mentioned in the company's first big white paper about foreign interference.

Zuckerberg, who for months following Donald Trump's election called Facebook's impact on it "a crazy idea," is characterized by the Times as "distracted" throughout this period. Some steely stewardship there.

In the past year, as he has tried to ward off government regulation, Zuckerberg has gone before Congress to promise he'll get his half-trillion-dollar toy under control, part of an apology tour for the Russian escapade and for allowing the pro-Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly harvest information from 87 million users.

Yet at the same time, the company lobbied Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to convince other lawmakers to back off Facebook (surprise: his daughter works there), and hired a Republican opposition research firm to shift the blame onto rival tech giants such as Google.

The firm, known as Definers, also spread lies that depicted Democratic megadonor George Soros - a recurring villain in Republican conspiracy theories - as the leader of a "broad anti-Facebook movement," which some see as a pernicious anti-Semitic trope that connotes a Jewish puppet-master choreographing a rebellion.

Remarkably, the Times also reported that Facebook enlisted the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights group, to say that criticism of Facebook was anti-Semitic.

In other words, while Zuckerberg was publicly repentant, Facebook was engaged in the sleaziest forms of dark-ops lobbying.

This Times report should erase any lingering fantasy about Facebook's real mission. Its primary goal is to build astonishing fortunes by getting people to turn over personal information, which can be used for nefarious purposes.

As a media company, its societal impact must come with a level of responsibility. Facebook cannot always be the perfect arbiter of truth, but it can at least try. And yes, it's complicated: The data breaches and unauthorized uses of that data are one thing; the management of fake news and malicious content is harder to tackle. Its promise last week to demote "provocative content" is a good start, but it does not go far enough.

Because when Facebook fails, the consequences are felt globally. Ethnic violence can erupt. Elections lose their legitimacy. It grew too fast, and it is too overwhelmed to fix or police itself. It's time for Congress to call Zuckerberg back in and tell him the reckoning has arrived.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
By Anthony Zurcher

The East Room of the White House -- with its vaulted ceilings, ornate chandeliers and gold curtains -- is the closest thing to a throne room the United States has.

When set up for a presidential news conference, it is magisterial. The president is announced, and the doors to a long hallway swing open. He steps onto the podium, towering over reporters squeezed tightly into the wooden chairs before him.

It feels a bit like an audience with a king. And on this particular day, the king was angry.

Donald Trump held this formal news conference, only the second of his presidency, to respond to the results of the midterm elections. It was, he said, "very close" to a "complete victory" for Republicans, despite the fact that his party lost control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.

After spending weeks of battering and belittling his political opponents, the president opened by changing his tone and speaking of bipartisanship. When it came time to interact with the gathered journalists, however, the olive branch was replaced by a mailed fist -- as it always seems to be.

The president accused one reporter, who is African-American, of asking a "racist" question. He said he's not "a big fan" of another. And he repeatedly barked at persistent questioners to sit down.

The real fireworks came when CNN's Jim Acosta tried to ask a series of questions, culminating with the president accusing him of being a "terrible person," mocking his network's ratings and reiterating his own contention that outlets that promote what he considers "fake news" are enemies of the people.

As a reporter for BBC News, I was seated a few rows behind and to the left of Acosta as he questioned the president, who at one point huffily stepped away from the lectern while the reporter continued to talk. The White House would later accuse Acosta of "placing his hands" on an intern trying to take his microphone away -- and suspend his press credentials.

From my vantage point, I thought there may have been nonhostile contact between the two -- in stark contrast to the obvious verbal hostility between reporter and president. A review of video from the incident corroborates this.

Acosta has a reputation as a dogged reporter, but his time at the White House during the Trump administration illustrates the perils of covering a president who uses dust-ups with journalists as a political tactic.

When the news cycle turns against him, one of the president's first instincts is to criticize those who report the news. And journalists often take the bait. They've spent their whole professional careers dedicated to their craft, after all, and it's human nature to take such slights and derogations personally -- and to talk about them in private and then in print and then on-air for days.

That's exactly what the president wants. An us-vs.-them debate between Trump and media personalities is friendly terrain for the White House. It feeds into the perception held by conservatives across the country that journalists, who are predisposed to questioning authority, are out to get this president. It diminishes the impact of the stories reporters spend so much time covering.

And as a further complication -- and temptation -- it also can benefit outlets such as CNN and reporters such as Acosta, who see followings grow, ratings soar and advertising dollars pour in with every new Trump-related controversy.

There's a mirror to this perception on the left, casting "the media" as some sort of cohesive whole that can stand up to the president -- as opposed to a chaotic mass of individuals and outlets, each vying for a small slice of the story.

When people ask me why reporters don't just walk out when a news conference turns ugly as it did Wednesday, I chuckle. Telling journalists to walk away from a story is like asking them to stop breathing.

Sitting next to me in the East Room was a Korean reporter, perched on the edge of her seat. Her hand shot up every time the president appeared poised for a new question.

"Mr. President, sir! North Korea! North Korea!" she said pleadingly.

Try asking her to give up a chance to get a choice line from the leader of the United States about an issue that is of the utmost importance to her audience.

I like to tell friends and colleagues that covering Donald Trump can feel like falling into quicksand. The more you struggle, the more you fight, the quicker you sink.

Instead, the best strategy -- the only way to survive -- is to take a deep breath. Find solid footing. And move deliberately. That's what the story and the audience deserve.

Anthony Zurcher is senior North America reporter for BBC News based in Washington, D.C. Copyright 2018 Creators.com

Submit letters to the editor and guest columns at jjletters@jjournal.com
The other snow boot has dropped.

If you were on the snow-choked roads of New Jersey last Thursday afternoon, probably the last thing on your mind was deciding whether to order the braised buffalo short rib with heirloom broccoli and burnt onion puree or the pan seared scallops with crispy pork belly and smoked paprika for dinner.

While many parts of the state were swallowed by snow and drivers endured 8-hour commutes, the governor was chowing down shortly after 8 p.m. at a 5-star restaurant a mile from his home.

For Gov. Phil Murphy, this is only the latest misstep in his response to the snowstorm, political experts say. His press conference on the day after the storm was a round-robin of blame shifting, from weathermen to commuters to the sheer size of the storm itself before he finally accepted that "the buck stops with me."

But both Democrats and Republicans alike say seizing on what Gov. Phil Murphy ate at the swanky Restaurant Nicholas is to miss the point.

"If you need a staff member to tell you not to be in a fancy restaurant during a snowstorm, you have a problem," said Risa Heller, former communications director to Democratic Gov. David Paterson of New York, and now a crisis PR specialist.

Heller said she worries the former Goldman Sachs executive turned governor either lacks an intuitive connection to what voters react to most viscerally, or is missing the Democratic allies willing to explain his actions.

"You don't need staff to have empathy. You shouldn't, anyway. These are the basics," Heller said.

A veteran GOP operative for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts agreed.

"There's an argument to be made for the chief executive to stay out of the way of first responders," said Ted Newton, who'd vetted Gov. Chris Christie to be Romney's running mate in the 2012 presidential election.

"But it's silly to assume that optics don't count. And it's even more stupid to end up in a fancy restaurant. The only signal you're sending is that you don't care," Newton added.

Michigan's outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Snyder learned this the hard way in 2016, taking plenty of flack for crafting a sumptuously bejeweled birthday cake for his wife in the shape of Nordstrom's packages and Chanel bags at a time when residents of Flint were left gargling with lead from a poisoned water system.

In his defense, Murphy's team notes that the governor ate at the bar and was on the phone helping to coordinate the storm response throughout his dinner.

But others note residents would have been furious even if he had dined out on President Trump's go-to order of Big Macs, Filets-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted, which runs less than $25.

"Even if in practical terms he couldn't be doing much more than he probably was," said one Democratic strategist, who worked for a previous Democratic governor but who declined to speak for attribution. "You just don't want a series of things that make you seem aloof or out of touch."

Heller said that Murphy should take this latest PR lesson seriously.

"Is there a way out? There is," said Heller. "He's got another three years to prove to people that he knows his job is to understand what people are facing, and is working for them. And it doesn't look like you're working for them when you're eating dinner in a restaurant."



Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
No one was hurt Wednesday morning when a small electrical fire broke out in a second floor classroom at St. Theresa School in Kenilworth, officials said.

The fire broke out in ceiling light fixtures and forced the evacuation of students to the church across the street, Kenilworth police said in a statement.

The school on Washington Avenue was closed the rest of the day as officials investigated and assessed the damage after firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The National Weather Service issued a "dangerous" snow squall warning for three New Jersey counties Wednesday afternoon.

The warning was in effect for Morris, Warren and southern Sussex County until 6:30 p.m.

A squall can bring heavy and blowing snow and can cause "dangerous, life-threatening" travel conditions, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters called for winds up to 30 mph with a burst of snow that could cause "extremely poor visibility" for I-80 corridor.

Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The U.S. Marshals Service and several local law enforcement agencies wrapped up Operation Boo-Dat Tuesday (Nov. 20) after arresting 26 fugitive sex offenders.

Since Oct. 10, the agencies have been conducting compliance checks with registered sex offenders in the New Orleans area.

Harvey man shot former girlfriends new boyfriend: JPSO

The goal was to make sure offenders didnt participate in any Halloween activities that could entice children, including passing out candy, decorating their home or costuming, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Milton Ramirez of the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The law enforcement teams were also looking for fugitive offenders who hadnt properly followed the state laws regarding registration.

The collars included Chad Downing, 38, of Harvey, a sex offender convicted of forcible rape involving an 8-year-old victim, according to Ramirez and Jefferson Parish court records. He was wanted by the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office for failure to register in that jurisdiction and auto theft.

Downing was arrested Halloween morning (Oct. 31) at a home near a Lower Ninth Ward elementary school in New Orleans, a violation of the registration rules, Ramirez said. Downing was booked with possession of cocaine, failure to register as a sex offender and unlawful presence of a sex offender, according to Orleans Parish court records.

This is Downings second arrest via the Operation Boo-Dat sweep. The task force took him into custody at City Park in New Orleans in 2017. He pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and unlawful presence of a sex offender in February and was sentenced to a total of two years in prison, Orleans Parish court records said.

David Freeman Boyle was arrested Nov. 15 at a Marrero home, Ramirez said. Boyle was convicted in 1992 of sexual battery of a 6-year-old girl in Massachusetts, according to court records. Boyle hadnt registered with JPSO, and his roommates had no idea he was a convicted sex offender, according to Ramirez.

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But the task force didnt arrest just sex offenders. Authorities also arrested relatives of fugitives accused of helping suspects avoid arrest.

Jefferson Parish authorities have been looking for Ray Colbert, 29, of Harvey, for more than two years since he failed to comply with registration requirements. Colbert was convicted of indecent behavior with a juvenile in 2010 for sending sexually explicit messages to a 12-year-old girl on MySpace, according to court records.

Boo-Dat task force members didnt find Colbert during the sweep. But they did arrest his mother, step-father and sister on Nov. 15 and booked them with harboring or concealing a sexual offender, Ramirez said.

Theyve been hiding the guy. They have continual contact with him, said Ramirez of Colberts relatives, who were aware of his fugitive status.

U.S. Marshals are also still looking for Jason Zeller, a Metairie sex offender wanted by the FBI for skipping court on child pornography and solicitation of a minor charges. Federal agencies have released bulletins asking the public to be on the lookout for Zeller.

We have some leads. Were still trying to get on him, Ramirez said.

Federal authorities called Operation Boo-Dat a resounding success thanks in large part to the collaboration with state and local law enforcement.

Many of these arrests were a direct result of the tremendous community involvement and outstanding support we continually receive from our friends at Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans, said U.S. Marshal Scott Illing.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Jason Zeller, Ray Colbert or any of the other fugitive sex offenders is asked to call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Tips can be texted to C-R-I-M-E-S (274637); text TELLCS then the crime information. Callers or texters do not have to give their names or testify and can earn a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an indictment.
Nakesia Washington, the travel consultant accused of taking money from Essence Festival attendees in a vacation package scam, is now facing more than five dozen new charges as the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office continues its fraud investigation.

Between Nov. 14 and Nov. 20, Detective Stephen Bowman has booked Washington, 40, of Harvey, with 20 counts of theft valued between $1,000 and $4,999, 33 counts of computer fraud and 11 counts of theft less than $1,000, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, spokesman for the department.

JPSO identifies alleged drunk driver in 7-car Harvey crash

Washington is accused of defrauding an undisclosed number of travelers who paid money for vacation packages to attend the popular music and empowerment festival during the July 4 holiday in New Orleans. Washington sold hotel and ticket packages ranging in price from $1,092 and $2,208 through the company she owns, OBL Travel, according to authorities.

But dozens of customers arrived to find that they had no hotel reservations or tickets to the shows and conventions, according to the Sheriffs Office.

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Travel consultant Mattine Buchanan said she lost more than $31,000 that she paid Washington while coordinating an Essence trip for 25 women from the Nashville area.

The Sheriffs Office estimated the losses at about $80,000 back in August when Washington was first arrested based on two complaints investigated by the department. That was before the dozens of additional charges piled on since then.

The Sheriffs Office declined to give an estimated amount of money stolen on Wednesday (Nov. 21).

The case is still under investigation, Rivarde said.

Washington was being held Wednesday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna in lieu of a $300,500 bond.
The Louisiana Fire Marshal is seeking to arrest a 38-year-old man accused of trying to set his mothers mobile home in Amite on fire in July, the agency said in a news release Wednesday (Nov. 21).

Dwayne Vining is accused of igniting items in his mothers home after she tried to kick him out, according to a news release. He is wanted on a warrant for one count of aggravated arson.

Tangipahoa Fire District No. 1 responded on July 1 to the 400 block of West Pine Street in Amite, after a table cloth and pillow case were being lit on fire inside the home, the State Fire Marshals office said in the release. Both items were removed before damaging the inside of the home, the agency said, but State Fire Marshal investigators learned Vining lit the objects on fire during an argument with this mother over him moving out.

Vining remains at large and is believed to frequent the Tangipahoa Parish, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the fire marshals office.

The State Fire Marshal has asked anyone with information about Vinings whereabouts to call their Arson Hotline at 1-800-256-5452 or share a tip at lasfm.org
New Orleans police are looking for two men in connection with an attempted armed robbery on Canal Street Sunday (Nov. 18).

Police described one of the men, pictured on the left, to be 5 feet, 5 inches tall, in his 20s, with long hair and wearing a black long-sleeve shirt and black pants. The other man was described to be 5 feet, 7 inches tall, with a mustache, beard and wearing a gray hat, gray hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans.

The two men approached a 39-year-old man around 5:50 p.m. in the 1100 block of Canal Street, police said, and demanded his belongings. The victim refused and then the man, in the left photo, said he had a gun and put his hand behind his back to signal that he had a weapon, police said.

The victim ran into a business, without giving the men any of his belongings, police said.

Anyone with information on this incident or on the pictured suspects is asked to contact 8th District detectives at 504-658-6080, or to call anonymously to Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-STOP.
Prosecutors in District Attorney Leon Cannizzaros office have filed motions to vacate John Floyds 1982 murder conviction, and to dismiss their case against him.

Floyd, who served 36 years of a life sentence before he was freed from Angola last year, was convicted of killing former Times-Picayune copy editor William Hines in 1980. He was acquitted in another slaying, of businessman Rodney Robinson.

His release came last June, after U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance ruled Floyd made a credible claim he was coerced into falsely confessing to two murders that occurred within a three-day span.

In her ruling, Vance said police suspected one killer committed both crimes, physical evidence indicated a black man with a different blood type than Floyd, who is white, killed Robinson, and a black mans hair was recovered from the Hines murder scene.

The credibility of Floyds confession in the Hines case was further undermined by new evidence of his limited mental capacity, she wrote.

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Also, Vance noted Floyds defense team was denied fingerprint test results from both crime scenes and a statement from one of Hines friends regarding the victims sexual preferences.

Court upholds freedom for former Angola inmate John Floyd, who long denied 1980 murder

State prosecutors appealed Vances decision, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition asking for a review of the appeals court decision that upheld Vances ruling.

I find it unfortunate that an opinion has replaced the finding of the experienced judge who was the finder of fact when the evidence was freshest, and who was in the courtroom 35 years ago to personally evaluate the credibility of the defendants concocted alibi testimony, Cannizzaro said Tuesday (Nov. 20). "Because witnesses no longer are with us and a large amount of evidence was not preserved, we do not anticipate being able to try this case again.

Floyds attorney, Richard Davis of the Innocence Project New Orleans, said hes glad Floyd is finally exonerated. He added Floyd is very pleased the case has come to an end, and is having a happy Thanksgiving with his family.
After a story about the arrest of a man accused of making a bomb threat at Willies Chicken Shack on Canal Street spread across the Internet this week, the restaurant chains owner wants the public to know he believes his staff did the right thing by reporting the incident to police.

The Nov. 13 arrest of Arthur Posey, 30, on two counts of communicating of false information of planned arson, occurred when a manager at the downtown restaurant contacted police after someone allegedly told her he was going to blow this place up, according to Poseys arrest warrant.

NOPDs account of Poseys response when confronted by police drew headlines from TMZ, Fox News, the Huffington Post and several other national outlets. According to the warrant, Posey claimed to an officer he told a male restaurant employee he was going to blow the bathroom up, in reference to a bowel movement.

However, police then spoke to a male employee at the restaurant who told officers Posey, never told him anything about a bathroom, the warrant states. NOPD placed Posey under arrest that evening.

The manager who reported the threat to police also contends Posey never stated that he needed to use the restroom, and that he, never mentioned the restroom at all, according to Meghan Selva, the assistant to Willies Chicken Shack owner Aaron Motwani. Contrary to some reports, she said, no one at the restaurant heard the accused man mention a bathroom. He also did not order any food or drinks, she said on Tuesday (Nov. 20).

He walked in, caused chaos and walked right out, Selva said.

Warrant: Man accused of bomb threat claimed he was referring to bowel movement

Selva confirmed the warrants account of the mangers story, adding that the manager also said Posey pointed to one of the tables and specified thats where he was going to put the bomb.

According to the warrant, another Willies Chicken Shack employee also told police she heard Posey, say he was going to get a bomb and put it under the middle table of the restaurant closest to the front door.

After capturing attention from people inside the restaurant, said Selva, citing the mangers recollection, Posey left Willies Chicken Shack and went into a nearby business where he was then arrested.

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The bomb threat was reported shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday, records say.

Selva said police arrived quickly and the officers and managers handled it very well.

Motwani said in a prepared statement the safety of his employees and customers, is of the utmost importance.

Our employees at the location did the right thing by alerting the authorities to what they anticpated was a possible threat, Motwani said.

The evening of the alleged bomb threat at Willies Chicken Shack came just three days after the Westin Hotel at Canal Place was evacuated for a bomb threat, Selva noted. An arrest in that case  of Harry Armstrong, who is also accused of choking a woman and threatening her during the evacuation -- was not publicly reported until late in the evening on Nov. 13, the same date as the Willies Chicken Shack alleged threat.

Though it does not appear the alleged bomb threats, which were reported within blocks of each other on the edge of the French Quarter, are related, Selva said staff at Willies Chicken Shack were on high alert, after the Westin evacuation.

Everybodys OK now, but during that time, especially so close to a different bomb threat...Its scary, Selva said. Working in downtown New Orleans, she added, you see the different personalities and you never know what some of these people are going to do.

Orleans Parish Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell on Nov. 15 appointed the Orleans Public Defenders Office to represent Posey. He scheduled a mental competency hearing for Nov. 29 in the case. His attorney filed a motion in court on Nov. 20 requesting a bond hearing, and one was scheduled for Nov. 30.

The Orleans Public Defenders office, which could not immediately be reached, generally does not comment on cases.
The leader of one of New Orleans oldest charter school organizations is retiring. Mickey Landry, the Choice Foundations chief executive officer and former principal of one its schools, plans to retire in 2019, the organization announced last week.

Landry has been involved in education for almost 50 years, according to a Nov. 16 letter to parents from Choice Board President Jim Swanson. The board president lauded Landry for the love and compassion he has for each student in our schools.

Although we have much hard work ahead of us, Mickey has positioned us well for future success, Swanson stated.

The Choice Foundation manages the C-rated Esperanza Charter School in Mid-City, the C-rated Lafayette Academy in Carrollton, and Lafayette Academy Extension at the Paul Dunbar Building in Hollygrove.

Landry became a principal at Lafayette Academy shortly after Choice Foundation obtained the school in June 2007. He later balanced that role with work as Choice Foundations CEO until he moved full-time to direct the charter organization in 2013. A 2017 financial audit shows Landry received more than $270,000 in salary and benefits from Choice Foundation last year.

Landrys experience is highlighted in several NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune articles over the last decade. He was described in 2016 as a prominent figure in Louisiana education who has served on several advisory groups. Landry was also one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against then-Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2014 to stop Jindal from undoing the Common Core academic standards.

Landry, 69, is a New Orleans native who grew up in the 9th Ward and started teaching at an all-girls Catholic school when he was 19. He spent two years teaching in Orleans Parish schools during his 20s, when he found "incredibly talented teachers who were mired down in bureaucracy, Landry said in a 2008 interview with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

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Landry once served as headmaster of Christ Episcopal School in Covington before he left to head private schools in New Hampshire and Colorado. He eventually returned home after Hurricane Katrina to work in the citys new charter school system.

Charter group seeks coats for New Orleans students. Heres how to help.

In his letter, Swanson told parents Choice Foundation is working to identify and hire a successor by the spring of 2019 for the 2019-2020 school year. Choice board member Pierre Conner is tasked with building and leading a committee of board members in managing the search process. Barry Rowland of Boston-based Carney, Sandoe & Associates has been hired to design and lead the organizations search process in collaboration with the board members, Swanson stated.

Swanson extended an invitation to parents to participate in the search process. Rowland is expected to develop participatory workshop listening sessions for the board and the groups parents beginning in two weeks.

The selection of our executive leader is an undertaking we take very seriously, and we are committed to running a transparent, rigorous, and inclusive process, Swanson stated.

Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles.
Lead was found in the drinking water in at least 12 public schools in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes, WVUE television reports. Jefferson conducted its own tests over the summer at 20 of its 86 schools, and the Louisiana Department of Health tested five New Orleans and St. Tammany schools that were built before 1986 and had no plumbing changes since then.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than 1 part per billion of lead in childrens drinking water, but at a cafeteria drinking fountain at Mildred S. Harris Elementary in Bridge City, Jefferson found 23.3 parts per billion. A school system spokesman told WVUE that parents were notified and the problem has been taken care of.

Harahan Elementary tested at 7 parts per billion. Other Jefferson schools that tested higher than 1 part per billion were East Jefferson High in Metairie, John Ehret High in Marrero, Allen Ellender School in Marrero, Henry Ford Middle in Avondale, Phoebe Hearst Elementary in Metairie, Bonella A. St. Ville Elementary in Harvey, West Jefferson High in Harvey and Granville T. Woods Elementary in Kenner, although WVUE did not specify their levels.

In New Orleans, a kitchen water sample at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy of Global Studies in Algiers came back at 15 parts per billion. In St. Tammany, a Covington Elementary kitchen sample showed 12 parts.

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Flushing water lines might not lower lead levels in your drinking water, study says

. . . . . . .

Clarification: This story was changed to better reflect that lead levels in school drinking water tested higher than levels recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach.
Scientists have mapped a huge nation of more than 200 million connected termite mounds that stretches across 89,000 square miles of northeastern Brazil, with some of the 10-foot-high mounds -- still being used by termites today -- dating back as much as 4,000 years, according to a report in Current Biology earlier this month.

Hidden from view in a semiarid region of scrub forests are tens of millions of densely packed, cone-shaped earthen mounds that local residents call murundus, says the paper authored by scientists from Great Britain, Brazil, Nebraska and New York. The scientists say they based their conclusion of the size of the termite region on modeling that was confirmed by ground searches and the inspection of satellite images where the mounds were visible.

The mounds are not nests, but rather are part of a complex, interconnected network of underground tunnels, the researchers said, each built with about cubic yards of soil, the equivalent of a load carried by a medium-sized dump truck.

Home Wreckers: How the Formosan termite is devastating New Orleans

The network has been built by Syntermes dirus termites, native to Brazil, and the authors say they remain intact because the arid climate and the acidic, mostly clay soils in the region dont support agricultural activity.

Tests on soil samples from the center of 11 mounds indicate they date back 690 to 3,280 years, comparable to the worlds oldest known termite mounds in Africa.

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The researchers estimated that the termite complex contained as many as 200 million mounds, and that the soil moved by the termites in building them was the equivalent of constructing about 4,000 great pyramids of Giza in Egypt, making this the greatest known example of ecosystem engineering by a single insect species.

Theres no internal structure in the mounds, unlike those built by termites elsewhere, the report said. Each newly formed mound contains a single large central tunnel extending into the ground, where it intersects with the underground tunnel network. Horizontal galleries below ground contain dead leaves or termite brood, but the researchers have been unable to locate a royal chamber with a termite queen, either in or below the mounds.

The tunnels also are not open to the environment, which the researchers said ruled out their use for ventilating the underground network.

At night, when food is available, groups of 1050 workers and soldiers emerge onto the forest floor between the mounds from an array of small (diameter of 8 mm) temporary tubes excavated from below; those temporary tubes are sealed shut after use, the report said.

The researchers conclude that the broad pattern of tunnels and nests is the result of limited leaf-fall from the scrub forest vegetation.
What was once an avant-garde architecture development meant to restore a flood-ruined 9th Ward neighborhood has become a legal battleground. Back in early September, Brad Pitts Make It Right Foundation was sued by two Lower 9th Ward residents who accuse the non-profit organization of building and selling substandard houses that are rapidly deteriorating.

The two homeowners are harbingers of a class action lawsuit on behalf of other residents who purchased the 109 experimental, energy-efficient Make It Right homes. Millions of dollars are at stake. Pitt, the Hollywood leading man who founded Make It Right, and other former officers of the foundation were named among the defendants in the September lawsuit.

Brad Pitt's Make It Right group sued over post-Katrina houses it built in New Orleans

On Nov. 20, lawyers representing Pitt filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the claims against Pitt and remove him from the lawsuit. Pitts lawyers argue in the court filing that, even though Pitt spearheaded the project in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he cant be held personally responsible by the owners for construction of the buildings.

In mid-September Make It Right sued New Orleans architect John C. Williams, who oversaw the construction of the modernistic homes, for defective design work that led to leaks and other flaws. According to the Make It Right lawsuit, repairing the damage caused by rain and humidity to the homes could cost Make It Right $20 million.

Read: Architect says it was shocking and insulting to be sued by Make It Right.

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In Pitts motion to dismiss, his lawyers argue that even if the homeowners' claims against Make It Right are credible, Pitt isnt to blame. Nor, they say, can he be accused of fraud. Pitts lawyers, who filed the motion in the United States District Court For The Eastern District Of Louisiana, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Lawsuit against Brad Pitts Make It Right has become a federal case

Starting in 2006, Pitt used his celebrity clout to establish the Make It Right charity that provided homes at affordable prices tailored to displaced residents. The endeavor, which used house plans by architectural superstars such as Shigeru Ban, Thom Mayne and Frank Gehry, was certainly one of the most audacious post-K recovery proposals.

Ground was broken on the first Make It Right homes in 2008. By 2015, the development had cost over $26 million and had become a popular post-K tourist attraction. Construction discontinued by early 2016. In recent years Make It Right has been tight-lipped, not responding to questions from the press and conducting what residents describe as scant communication with home owners. Pitt has not spoken publicly about Make it Right since the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2015.

A batch of experimental weatherproof lumber allowed considerable water damage to some of the homes, the residents say. Owners have complained of other problems as well. The worst case came to light near the 10th anniversary of the start of construction, when an abandoned 7-year-old Make It Right house at 5012 North Derbigny St. was demolished on June 30 at the insistence of neighbors, because of rain damage and rotting.

Doug MacCash has the best job in the world, covering art, music and culture in New Orleans. Contact him via email at dmaccash@nola.com. Follow him on Twitter at Doug MacCash and on Facebook at Douglas James MacCash. As always, please add your point of view to the comment stream.
President Donald Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton, his rival in the 2016 election, and former FBI director James Comey, the New York Times reports.

The report cites two people familiar with a conversation Trump had with White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II in the spring about launching a case against Clinton and Comey. McGahn reportedly told Trump he didnt have the authority to issue such an order, and that even requesting investigation would come across as an abuse of the presidents power.

According to the report, McGahn had a memo drafted that warned Trump he could face consequences, including possible impeachment, if he called for an investigation of his political rivals.

Read the entire New York Times report.
There are many myths about the origin of Thanksgiving, but this much we know: The holiday grew out of gratitude for a successful harvest, and this gratitude was shadowed by the knowledge that hunger was never very far away.

On this, our most food-centric national holiday, we express our gratitude in part by donating generously to food drives: in an average month, the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans receives from 15,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds of food from community donations; in November, that figure more than doubles to more than 100,000 pounds, which Second Harvest distributes to people in need.

Food banks provide food to many people. But they arent nearly enough to end hunger in our communities. For every meal supplied by a food bank, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) feeds 12 meals to program participants.

This week, as we prepared our Thanksgiving tables, our representatives in Washington gathered around the negotiating table to plan the future of that program in final version of the Farm Bill, the legislation that authorizes funding for SNAP and decides who is eligible for food assistance.

The bipartisan version that has passed the Senate largely preserves SNAP as it is, ensuring that people throughout the United States, including 39 percent of Louisiana children, will be able to count on the programs benefits in the years to come. The version that passed the House on a party-line vote includes harsh work-reporting requirements that would do next to nothing to connect SNAP beneficiaries with good jobs, but would kick a great many people off of food assistance. This includes many people who work, but whose work hours fall below an arbitrary threshold in some months.

Work requirements impose significant paperwork burdens for no real gain, diverting resources from feeding people to creating new administrative hoops for people to jump through. Studies of similar changes to cash assistance programs in the 1990s found that work requirements had devastating effects on many families, contributing to a rise in deep poverty among people already living on the economic margins.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that even with the aid of programs like SNAP and charitable food distribution, 1,837,000 Louisianans lack consistent access to enough nutritious food for an active and healthy life. Without food assistance programs, that number would be significantly higher. And even as food bank supplies fluctuate throughout the year, SNAP is there as a vital support for more than 900,000 people in Louisiana, who rely on the programs benefits to keep healthy food on the table and to free up resources for other basic needs such as rent and utilities.

Even in the best of times, food banks provide a valuable supplement for people who struggle to make ends meet, but they cannot fill the gap between what a family living in or near poverty needs in order to consistently have access to nutritious food, and what that familys resources will allow. But this year is not the best of times. As food banks have responded to extraordinary need in areas devastated by natural disasters, their local shelves are emptier than usual, even at one of the high points of the giving year.

Thanksgiving reminds us that gratitude at good fortune should be met with compassion for need, and that being a nation of plenty mandates that we also be a nation that cares for everyone who lacks essentials. Work requirements like those proposed in the House version of the Farm Bill set limits on the guarantee that in a nation with rich and abundant resources, no one should go without food.

As we contribute generously to food drives, without thought to restricting who might receive our donations, we should recognize that hunger exists throughout the year. And our most effective tools for fighting it  the government programs that reach the most people in need  are strongest when they reflect the ideal that we affirm with our Thanksgiving donations: that no one in America should go hungry, and that access to food should not come with harsh conditions.

Danny Mintz is an anti-hunger policy advocate with the Louisiana Budget Project. His email is danny@labudget.org.
A task force searching for ways to fund courts with tax money instead of fines and fees wants to draft some hard recommendations by the end of the month, though it has only a fraction of the information it has requested.
A 25-year-old South Louisiana man was among two people killed when a car ran off a Kentucky roadway early Tuesday (Nov. 20) and crashed in a nearby wooded area, according to authorities in Paducah, Ky.

Joshua Gunter of Metairie was a passenger in the car, which crashed about 4 a.m. off the 1200 block of South 5th Street in Paducah.

The cars driver, 23-year-old Jose Gomez of Memphis, Tenn., was also fatally injured, according to the Paducah Police Department.

Gomez was driving a Dodge Challenger southbound on South 5th Street when he failed to stop at the streets dead end, instead driving into a wooded area.

The car hit a tree, ran down an embankment and caught fire, police said.

Gomez and Gunter were pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation by Detective Corey Willenborg, collision reconstructionist Eric Taylor and the McCracken County Coroners Office.
Chinese officials, citing "massive evidence," have accused Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix of colluding and fixing the price of DRAM. If the allegations are true, the three largest DRAM manufacturers in the world would be directly responsible for the massive price increase for DRAM over the past few years. This isn't the first time these three companies have been accused of price-fixing. Back in 2005, all three pled guilty to similar charges levied by the US Department of Justice.

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PC builders, enthusiasts, and consumers have been feeling the burn of rising RAM prices this year. Fingers have been pointed at several possible causes, but the Chinese government thinks they may have found the culprit. They claim that Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix (the three largest DRAM manufacturers in the world) have been fixing the price of DRAM.

According to Chinese officials, inspectors have been investigating the companies for a long time and have collected massive evidence pointing to price fixing. In case you arent up on your corporate law, price fixing is an agreement between competitors to maintain, or fix, the price of products at a specific amount. Price fixing is a serious corporate offense and is denounced by many countries as an anti-competitive and consumer-hostile practice. If the Chinese claims are true, Samsung et. al. may be in boiling water.

This isnt the first time these three companies have been accused of price fixing. Back in 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) brought formal charges against Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and others for fixing DRAM prices. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron ultimately pled guilty to the charges and paid massive fines (collectively, about US $650 million), although Micron was given amnesty in exchange for cooperating with the DoJ.

Earlier this year, the three companies were hit with a class action lawsuit accusing them of intentionally restricting DRAM supply to artificially inflate prices. The suit was brought forth after an investigation by the NDRC, Chinas antitrust regulator, concerning the dramatic increase in DRAM prices from June 2016 to December 2017 was opened. The class action suit is still pending judgement. The massive evidence claimed by Chinese officials may be the result of this investigation.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron currently control about 95.5% of the DRAM market. If the allegations of the Chinese government are true, we may be seeing some unfavorable headlines concerning these three companies in the near future.


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Nine senators, led by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, wrote letters to the chief executives of Verizon and XPO Logistics demanding that the companies account for the conditions in a Memphis warehouse where several women suffered miscarriages.

The senators inquiry was spurred by a New York Times investigation last month that revealed that six women had lost their pregnancies after being denied breaks from heavy lifting at the warehouse. The facility is operated by XPO Logistics and handles cellphones, tablets and other gadgets that Verizon ships to customers on the East Coast.

In light of this latest disturbing report that chronicles XPO turning a blind eye to pregnant workers, we urge XPO to re-evaluate its priorities with its work force and make immediate changes to its current, allegedly deleterious workplace practices, the senators wrote to XPOs chief executive, Bradley Jacobs.

In a letter to Verizons chief executive, Hans Vestberg, the senators urged the telecommunications giant to push XPO to change its practices.
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A Bronx man was arrested on Tuesday and charged with defacing the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan three weeks ago with a threatening racist slur.

The man, Ivan Nieves, 57, was charged with vandalism and disorderly conduct but not any hate crime. He was released on bond by a federal magistrate judge pending further proceedings.

[Mr. Nieves was found guilty of vandalism on April 11, 2019, after a short bench trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan before Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang. He was acquitted of a charge of disorderly conduct.]

In the Nov. 1 incident, the authorities said, a vandal used a black marker to scrawl Kill followed by the slur on a plaque that offers a brief history of the burial ground, which is estimated to contain 15,000 intact skeletal remains of New Yorks colonial African-American community.
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After announcing a deal to bring an Amazon headquarters to New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio might have expected to be taking a victory lap, having beat out hundreds of other elected leaders from around the country who also wanted to boast about new jobs in their region.

Instead, they have spent the last week doing damage control. So far, it isnt working.

On Tuesday, two of the most outspoken critics of the deal, State Senator Michael Gianaris and City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, said that state officials had invited them to join an as-yet-unannounced community advisory committee that would provide input on planning but would have no ultimate veto.

They refused. They are trying very hard to move from announcement to implementation, and we do not accept the announcement, Mr. Gianaris said of how he believes the state, the city and Amazon moved to complete the deal. Thats why were not participating in this charade.

Mr. Van Bramer took a similar view. I think its going to help get us what we want, he said of his refusal to join the committee. Because what we want is to stop this bad deal.
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When Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights announced in September that it was planning to bail out hundreds of women and teenagers from Rikers Island as part of a national campaign to demonstrate that cash bail discriminates against the poor and minorities, the response from New York City officials was less than enthusiastic.

The mayor, the police commissioner and the citys district attorneys all said they worried that public safety might be put at risk.

At first blush, those concerns may have been misplaced.

In October, hundreds of volunteers acting on behalf of the advocacy group posted $1.2 million in bail to free 105 people from Rikers Island and other city jails.

Of the 90 who have since had scheduled court appearances, only two failed to show up as of Friday, according to the group. One was rearrested on a nonviolent misdemeanor charge, and the other has stopped responding to a lawyer, according to Wade McMullen, supervising attorney for the group.
In court on Tuesday, a defense lawyer tried to get Mr. Zambada to provide more information about the ties between Mr. Lopez Obrador and the security official. Federal prosecutors immediately objected, and Judge Brian M. Cogan shut down that line of questioning.

All of this took place as the courtroom audience was waiting for Mr. Zambada to testify about paying off a Mexican president. That expectation had been created last week after reporters saw a transcript of a sidebar Judge Cogan held with prosecutors and defense lawyers.

At the sidebar, the defense revealed a potential bombshell: that Mr. Zambada had previously told the authorities that he had paid the now incumbent president of Mexico at least $6 million in bribes. The defense asked for permission to bring that information out in open court.

But hours before Mr. Zambada appeared for his final day of testimony, the government filed a motion under seal to preclude cross-examination. The secret motion prompted another lengthy discussion out of the jurys hearing on Tuesday afternoon, the transcript of which was also sealed.

It was only after that sidebar discussion ended that Judge Cogan shed a little light on what was going on in private. Ruling from the bench, he announced he was going to limit the questions that Mr. Guzmans lawyers could ask Mr. Zambada.

He said the value of the information that might be learned from a broader cross-examination did not outweigh, as he put it, protecting individuals and entities who are not parties to this case and who would face embarrassment.

Who those people and entities were remained unclear. But when Mr. Zambada took the stand again to finish his testimony, Mr. Guzmans lawyers were only allowed to ask vague questions about bribes to presidents. William Purpura, one of the Mr. Guzmans lawyers, asked Mr. Zambada, for example, if he would corrupt the president of Mexico if he could.

Perhaps, Mr. Zambada responded.

The government is expected to introduce 15 more cooperating witnesses who, like Mr. Zambada, will offer an inside view of Mr. Guzman and the cartels operations. The defense, meanwhile, is likely to continue to argue that Ismael Zambada is the true mastermind of the organization and to press those witnesses about the extent of corruption in Mexicos government. But Judge Cogan has made it clear he will put limits on how far that questioning can go.
At the outset of his statement, Mr. Trump declared, The world is a very dangerous place! Indeed. He is making it more so by emboldening despots in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The killing, revealed in all its inhuman detail by a Turkish audio recording and followed by a stream of lies revising previous lies from the Saudi regime, seemed to reflect arrogance of a rising breed of autocratic rulers impervious to shame or moral judgment. Mr. Trump is confirming them in their impunity.

In simplistic and often inaccurate terms, the statement reflected Mr. Trumps view that all relationships are transactional, and that moral or human rights considerations must be sacrificed to a primitive understanding of American national interests  or as he put it, America first! We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, the president declared. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Trumps first reference to Mr. Khashoggi came only after a long riff about Iran, which Mr. Trump depicted, remarkably, as solely responsible for the war in Yemen. With disregard for the abundant evidence that Saudi Arabia has waged an indiscriminate air campaign that is responsible for a humanitarian disaster, he claimed that the Saudis would gladly withdraw if Iran did, and would provide humanitarian assistance. That was followed by a passage on the tens of billions of dollars in arms sales and investment Mr. Trump claims he has extracted from Saudi Arabia  claims that are vastly overblown.

When Mr. Trump did briefly note Mr. Khashoggis murder  a terrible one  the president repeated Saudi slanders that the journalist was an enemy of the state and an Islamist, disingenuously adding that this did not affect his thinking. Its not the first time Mr. Trump has suggested that this is not someone for whom America should jeopardize its interests.

In the absence of leadership from the president, it falls to Congress to take action and protect Americas standing in the world. Mr. Trump knows he is on a collision course with the legislature: His statement concludes with a challenge to members of Congress who for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction to go ahead and try.
I really wrestle with this question: What is the worst thing about President Trumps approach to foreign policy? Is it that he is utterly amoral or that he is such a chump? Because the combination is terrible  a president who is an amoral chump is the worst thing of all. He sells out American values  awful enough  but then gets nothing of value in return.

Trump presents himself as a tough, savvy deal maker, and then he lets all these leaders play him for a sucker. The word is out on the street: Hey, guys, get in line! Trump is giving away free stuff! Just tell him youre fighting Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood or that youre a friend of Sheldon Adelsons, and you get free stuff!

Last May, Hanukkah came early for Israel when Trump moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem  a dream of every Israeli prime minister  for free! Trump could have gone to Bibi Netanyahu and said: Bibi, here is the deal. I am going to make your dream come true and move the embassy. But in return youre going to freeze all Israeli settlements in the heart of the West Bank. Then Trump could have told the Palestinians: Youre not going to like this. Im moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. But I am getting you something no American president ever got you  a freeze on Israeli settlements beyond the settlement blocks.

Instead, Trump gave the embassy move away for free. Well, I shouldnt say that. He got millions of dollars in donations for the G.O.P. from right-wing Jewish megadonor Sheldon Adelson  who lobbied for the move  and warm applause from evangelicals. So Trump got something, but America got nothing.
They are a familiar sight at farmers markets and public squares across California every election season: workers gathering signatures needed to place voter initiatives on the ballot.

Nine people have been charged with felony election fraud after they went to a different part of town to collect signatures: Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles district attorney announced on Tuesday that the nine had been charged with paying homeless people off  with one dollar bills and stray cigarettes  in exchange for signing fake names on petitions for the initiatives or on voter registration forms. (People who sign petitions are required to be registered voters.)

The petition gatherers were charged with a dozen felony counts after gathering hundreds of names in the 2016 and 2018 elections, prosecutors said. They face up to seven years in prison. The charges include circulating petitions with false names and registering a nonexistent person.
Among the uncertainties that remain is what will become of the children who are still in federal detention, apart from their families because of various legal and logistical hurdles.

The parents of 30 of the children have been declared ineligible for reunification based on their criminal histories, though immigrant advocates have argued that some parents were unfairly included based on old or minor convictions that would not affect their ability to safely care for their own children.

The remaining 117 detained children all have parents who were deported without them, according to the report. A variety of volunteers and nongovernment organizations working with the federal government have been trolling through remote parts of Central America to try to find the parents  11 of whom have not yet been located.

Of those who have been found, seven parents asked that their children be returned home. Those deportations were still pending as of Nov. 6, when the report was drafted. A total of 99 parents had waived their rights to reunification and left their children in the United States alone, presumably fearing what the child could face if sent home. For most families, that means violence, severe poverty, or both.

Evelyn Stauffer, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services, said that the agency takes its duty to care for all children referred to its care and custody with the utmost seriousness. She added that the agency was still working to reunify the children with their parents or place them with sponsors, and that 92 percent had been discharged thus far. Those children who could not be placed with sponsors will remain in the agencys care until their day in immigration court, or until they turn 18, Ms. Stauffer said.
The new court documents, which were filed on Monday and obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday, contain a series of details that describe what Ms. Miniutti alleges took place during the night in question. In the documents, Ms. Miniutti, an actress, refers to Mr. Avenatti, 47, as her boyfriend.

In a sworn declaration, Ms. Miniutti said she and Mr. Avenatti dated from October 2017 until Nov. 13, the night she alleges that they began to argue about money and that Mr. Avenatti berated her using expletives.

After the alleged verbal abuse, Ms. Miniutti said, she went to a guest bedroom in the apartment she says they shared to sleep alone. But Mr. Avenatti followed her, according to the declaration, and eventually began forcefully hitting her in the face with pillows.

Ms. Miniutti alleges that Mr. Avenatti then grabbed my right arm and dragged me out of the bed.

He dragged me on the floor of the apartment towards and out of the door into the public hallway, she wrote in the declaration. I was wearing only my underwear and a T-shirt at the time, and suffered scratches to the bare skin on my side and leg.

Mr. Avenatti then pulled Ms. Miniutti back into the apartment and initially blocked the door, the declaration says. Ms. Miniutti said she was eventually able to get around Mr. Avenatti and leave the apartment, but he followed her into an elevator, where she says he repeatedly begged, Dont do this Mareli, dont involve them.
ATLANTA  In an often-biting opinion, a federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Mississippi law that sought to forbid most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Judge Carlton W. Reeves of Federal District Court in Jackson, the Mississippi capital, wrote that the law disregards the 14th Amendments promise of due process and defied the United States Supreme Courts existing precedents on abortion rights.

The state chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the judge wrote. This court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature.

He added, in a footnote, that the Legislatures professed interest in womens health is pure gaslighting and that Mississippi officials challenge abortion rights but choose not to lift a finger to address the tragedies lurking on the other side of the delivery room: our alarming infant and maternal mortality rates.
WASHINGTON  Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, was paid more than $1.2 million in the past few years by a group active in conservative politics that does not reveal its donors, according to financial disclosure statements released Tuesday and other documents.

The disclosure raised questions about who Mr. Whitakers financial patrons had been before he joined the Justice Department last year and whether he might have any undisclosed conflicts of interest. And it highlighted the prominence of so-called dark money groups that pursue political agendas and employ members of both parties without being required to make public the source of their funding.

Mr. Whitaker worked for nearly four years as the executive director of the group, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, also known as FACT, before being tapped as chief of staff for Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, in September 2017. Mr. Whitaker became acting attorney general this month after Mr. Sessions was forced out.

The group provided the overwhelming majority of his income since at least 2016, according to the filings released Tuesday by the Justice Department.
Ms. Love raised the money during the primary period, even though she knew she would have no primary challenger after she won the nomination at the party convention in April. Her campaign called the complaint completely false and desperate but agreed to redesignate $372,000 for her general election campaign and pay back up to $10,000.

Ms. Loves unique profile  daughter of Haitian immigrants, a convert to the Mormon Church and the only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus  presented a challenge to Democrats who sought to depict her as a Trump loyalist.

She did not enlist the presidents help in her campaign, which he seemed to interpret as a snub.

At a televised news conference the day after votes were cast, Mr. Trump attacked Republicans who lost their seats for what he saw as their insufficient support of him and his agenda. The result of Ms. Loves race was still days from being called, but Mr. Trump scornfully lumped her in with the losers anyway.

Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost, Mr. Trump told reporters. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.

Mr. McAdams rode to victory in the Fourth District  which includes a slice of progressive Salt Lake City but extends south to incorporate a string of more conservative cities and towns in Juab, Sanpete and Utah Counties  in part thanks to his record as mayor of Salt Lake County, which covers 85 percent of the district.

The city has emerged as a progressive oasis in recent years, and Mr. McAdams has positioned himself as a centrist able to meet the needs of its disparate constituencies. They include immigrants, gay people, religious conservatives, tech employees and investors arriving from out of state.

Mr. McAdams became well known for negotiating a deal among Republicans, religious leaders and the gay community on a nondiscrimination ordinance, and worked with Republicans in the State Legislature to alleviate homelessness in the region. As part of that effort, Mr. McAdams secretly posed as a homeless man for three days.

For her part, Ms. Love portrayed Mr. McAdams as the politician who was out of touch with the district, casting him as a liberal supporter of Hillary Clinton and abortion rights who would not represent the wishes of Utahns in Congress. In the end, it was not enough.
The agency did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday about the intelligence assessment.

Officials said the Trump administration has not decided whether to shift the mission of the 5,900 active-duty troops who were deployed to the border ahead of an approaching migrant caravan from Central America. Talks are ongoing, said one Defense Department official who was not authorized to speak about the deliberations.

Military documents have predicted that only a small percentage of the migrants will make it to the border. Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday that the cost of deploying the military troops was expected to reach $72 million so far.

Currently, the troops are authorized to use military force only for self-defense. The White House is pushing to give the soldiers and Marines explicit authority, in writing, to accompany and defend agents who might come under attack, administration officials said.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to accede to the White House wishes, according to the officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal talks.

More than 3,200 migrants from the caravan have reached the border city of Tijuana, Mexico, where they may have to wait for months if they decide to seek legal entry. Officials estimate that the number could reach more than 10,000. An additional 3,000 migrants are in the border city of Mexicali, about 100 miles east of Tijuana, according to reports from Customs and Border Protection.
(If youre wondering: In 2014, 11 percent of Americans indicated that President Barack Obama was most likely to spur an argument.)

Focus on the food

Thats part of how the Supreme Court justices help keep comity, according to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. The justices host a steady stream of elaborate birthday lunches, retirement dinners and weekend bagel spreads.

We cant talk about cases, said Justice Sotomayor. Thats our absolute rule.

Theres a long tradition of shared meals at the court: During the early years, the justices took nearly all their meals together in a shared boardinghouse. When the boardinghouse style disappeared, said Justice Ginsburg, dissent began to appear.

Lay down the law

Some basic ground rules can help make everyone feel comfortable during the holiday. What do those look like? Well, maybe designate the living room as a politics zone. Or place certain topics off-limits. Hosts can play a big role in this process: Considering starting the night with a toast to civility, and arrange seats at the dinner table strategically.

Forget about winning

We know, its not that you want to win, its just, how could your mother/uncle/second cousin be so delusional! Wrong attitude. The key to successful conversations, according to a guide created by the founders of the Womens March, is open-ended questions, no judgment, respect, and a balance of talking and listening. Basically, be kind. Remember: These people are (supposedly) your loved ones.

If youre really worried, you can practice good argument techniques with Uncle Angry Bot, a tool developed by the former psychiatrist Karin Tamerius, the founder of Smart Politics, a liberal nonprofit advocating the use of radical civility.

But if that feels impossible 

Go cute or go home

Our advice? Find the cutest thing in the room and home in. Be it the grandchildren or the dog, nothing builds group morale more than something adorable. Of course, editor Tom and I have the CUTEST CHILDREN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. (What can we say? Were very lucky.) So this is an easy strategy for us.
WASHINGTON  Nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants are operating around the world today as on Sept. 11, 2001, despite nearly two decades of American-led campaigns to combat Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, a new independent study concludes.

That amounts to as many as 230,000 Salafi jihadist fighters in nearly 70 countries, with the largest numbers in Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

The reports conclusions, drawing on multiple databases dating to 1980 to compile one of the most extensive studies of its kind, underscore the resiliency of these terrorist groups, and the policy failures by the United States and its allies in responding. The findings also highlight the continuing potency of the groups ideology and social-media branding in raising money and attracting new recruits as they pivot from battlefield defeats in strongholds like Iraq and Syria to direct guerrilla-style attacks there and in other hot spots.

Some of these groups do want to target Americans overseas and at home, particularly the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, said Seth G. Jones, the director of the centers transnational threats project and one of the reports six authors. All this indicates that terrorism is alive and well, and that Americans should be concerned.
Also this month, a federal trial judge in Montana, which is part of the Ninth Circuit, blocked Mr. Trumps decision to allow construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, saying the administration failed to present a reasoned explanation for the move and simply discarded the effect the project would have on climate change.

Mr. Trump pointed out on Tuesday that the Supreme Court in June had reversed a ruling from the Ninth Circuit blocking his order limiting travel from several predominantly Muslim nations. Mr. Trump vowed to win the asylum case in the Supreme Court, too.

The Ninth Circuit has a reputation for being frequently reversed by the justices, but its reversal rate is only a little higher than average and not as high as that of some other circuits.

Mr. Trump vowed to take steps to address his unhappiness with the court. Ill tell you what, he said, its not going to happen like this anymore. But it was not clear what he proposed to do.

The Ninth Circuit is really something we have to take a look at because its not fair, he said. People should not be allowed to immediately run to this very friendly circuit and file their case.

Limiting the courts jurisdiction would require legislation and could raise constitutional issues. But there are other ways Mr. Trump could address his misgivings about the court.

The most obvious is to change its composition of 16 Democratic appointees and seven Republican ones. Mr. Trump has already appointed two judges to the court, and he has six more vacancies to fill. Once he does, the court, which is authorized to have 29 active judges, will be nearly evenly divided between Democratic and Republican appointees.
WASHINGTON  President Trump has long viewed foreign policy as a series of business deals, stripped of values and idealism. But his 633-word statement on Tuesday about the brutal killing of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi showed the extent to which he believes that raw, mercantilist calculations should guide the United States decisions about the Middle East and the wider world.

Mr. Trump made clear that he sees alliances as transactional, based on which foreign partners buy the most weapons. American jobs outweigh American values. And all countries act abhorrently, so an American president should never hold friends to different standards than enemies.

Tuesdays message could become something of a blueprint for foreign leaders  a guide to how they might increase their standing in the eyes of the American president as well as how far they can go in crushing domestic critics without raising American ire.

It was also a revealing meditation on the role that Mr. Trump believes facts should play in political decision-making. The C.I.A. concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia had ordered Mr. Khashoggis killing, American officials said last week. But on Tuesday, the president dismissed not only that assessment but also the very process of seeking the truth, implying that it did not really matter anyway. (Maybe he did and maybe he didnt! Mr. Trump wrote of Prince Mohammed.) Instead, the decisions of a president should be guided by what is best for the economy and the United States security.
WASHINGTON  President Trump released an exclamation-point-filled statement on Tuesday about the assassination of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. It took him some time to get to Mr. Khashoggi. But bear with it. The statement is a fascinating journey into the mind of the president. Mr. Trump, when he is not obfuscating, is sometimes startlingly transparent about why he makes decisions.

Here is the presidents statement, as released by the White House, with additional context.

Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia America First! The world is a very dangerous place!

Well, indeed it is! But not so dangerous, perhaps, that one should expect to be assassinated in a consulate while going to collect paperwork for a wedding.

The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraqs fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more.

Mr. Trump, here, is trying to remind the public who the United States real enemy is. Hint: It is not Saudi Arabia. Riyadhs strong support for the Trump administrations hard line on Iran is a prime reason that the White House has maintained support for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias de facto ruler.

Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, Death to America! and Death to Israel! Iran is considered the worlds leading sponsor of terror.

The Iranian government has been prone to shout the equivalent of Death to America and Death to Israel. But officials say Iranian terrorist activity is down recently. Tehran is seeking to keep Europe on board with the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the Trump administration withdrew.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia would gladly withdraw from Yemen if the Iranians would agree to leave. They would immediately provide desperately needed humanitarian assistance.

Saudi Arabias war in Yemen is a humanitarian disaster that has created the worst famine the country has seen. Despite calls from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for a cease-fire, Saudi Arabia has stepped up its military operations. The Saudi militarys lack of discipline and planning in its airstrikes has resulted in high numbers of civilian casualties, according to American officials. Regional experts say the Trump administrations most decisive action against Saudi Arabia so far has been to cut off aerial refueling flights for Riyadhs military campaign in Yemen.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism. After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. Of the $450 billion, $110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and many other great U.S. defense contractors.

This is a prime example of Mr. Trumps brutally transactional foreign policy. He is supporting Saudi Arabia because he thinks it is critical for the United States defense industry. Saudi Arabia spends huge amounts on its military, and the United States is a beneficiary. However, the presidents numbers are exaggerated. Trouble in the Saudi economy has led the government to slow roll some of the pledges to buy high-ticket items, including the missile defense system known as Thaad.

If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States!

Baloney! The Saudis cannot hang a Russian or Chinese bomb on American-built F-15s or Apache gunships. They dont fit. Wont work. Saudi Arabia has heavily invested in American-made and NATO-standard weapons. Where do you get munitions and spare parts for those planes and helicopters? The United States.

The crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one, and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the murder. After great independent research, we now know many details of this horrible crime. We have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and the disposal of his body.

Here, at last, we get to Mr. Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and Virginia resident who was assassinated last month in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The Trump administrations sanctions have mostly targeted the members of the Saudi kill team who traveled to Turkey to kill Mr. Khashoggi. Interestingly, the administrations list included Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Prince Mohammed, but it did not include Ahmed al-Assiri, a former deputy head of the Saudi intelligence service, who Saudi officials said masterminded the plot to confront Mr. Khashoggi in the consulate on Oct. 2.

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that  this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

Mr. Trump is repeating some of the phrases that the Saudi government has used to discredit Mr. Khashoggi. The president is pointedly not rebutting those claims, just saying his decision is not based on them. Arguably, he is being a bit backhanded.

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

Who knows! Can we ever really know what happened behind closed doors? Mr. Trump is clearly waiting for the kind of evidence shown on television: a recording of the crown prince giving the order or a confession of one of the kill team members. But former intelligence officers say that is not how it works. The puzzle pieces are never all present. Even without the smoking gun, enough evidence has emerged for C.I.A. officials to conclude that Prince Mohammed gave the order, according to current and former officials.

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

Remember who the bad guy is here! Another hint: It is not Prince Mohammed.

I understand there are members of Congress who, for political or other reasons, would like to go in a different direction  and they are free to do so. I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing nation in the world. They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levels  so important for the world.

Other presidents have often shied away from talking about what lies at the heart of the strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia  oil production and low gas prices. Not Mr. Trump. And, surprising as it may seem, he is correct about the United States being the worlds largest oil producer.

As President of the United States I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply it is called America First!

In 1979, William Safire, the New York Times columnist and former presidential speechwriter, offered readers of this newspaper some sage advice: Dont overuse exclamation marks!!!
Before she was shot and killed outside the Chicago hospital where she worked, Dr. Tamara ONeal was an endlessly persistent physician who was devoted to making sure her patients felt cared for, her colleagues said.

Dr. ONeal, an emergency room physician at Mercy Hospital, south of Chicagos downtown, sometimes had trouble disconnecting herself from work when she was off duty, said Dr. Adele Cobbs, the hospitals assistant director for the Emergency Department. Dr. ONeal would often call during her free time just to check that her patients were healthy, she said.

She felt very strongly about serving the underserved, Dr. Cobbs said. Being an emergency room physician was a way to reach the masses.

On Monday afternoon, when Dr. ONeal left the hospital, she encountered a man who family and colleagues identified as her former fiance, and the two got into an argument. When someone in the hospital parking lot intervened, the man lifted his shirt and showed a handgun, the police said. Then he opened fire, they said, killing Dr. ONeal.
Who is the real you: the person in the mirror or the person in the pictures? Are you the author of your own story, or are society and commerce pulling your strings? Do you appear authentically of your time?

Snapchat-saturated teenagers broach these questions of self and image 100 times a day. But these are quintessentially modern problems, which began to take root in 19th-century Europe, when new markets and technologies swept aside old forms of knowledge and wealth, and when the border between reality and appearances started to get seriously hazy. Your clothes, your accessories and your expressions became signals of a new age  especially for women, who only sometimes were allowed to determine how others saw them .

That is the message this fall of fantastic exhibitions of two French painters on either side  teacher and student  of Modern arts birth in 1860s Paris.

The more surprising is the teachers show, Corot: Women, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Camille Corot (1796-1875) is known almost exclusively as a landscape artist, and his paintings dappled light and atmospheric effects, made from observations en plein air (outdoors), set the stage for the coming of modern French painting.
PARIS  The sprawling Quai Branly Museum in Paris is stuffed with treasure. It has some 70,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa in its collection, including magnificent statues from present-day Benin and delicate paintings that once decorated church walls in Ethiopia. But a long-awaited report coming out this week could have a dramatic impact on what visitors see there, with repercussions for other international museums.

The report was commissioned in March by President Emmanuel Macron of France from two academics, who were asked to draw up proposals for the restitution of pieces of African cultural heritage. It is due to be delivered to Mr. Macron on Friday. A copy was made available to The New York Times.

The academics, Benedicte Savoy of France and Felwine Sarr of Senegal, recommend that objects that were removed and sent to mainland France without the consent of their countries of origin be permanently returned  if the country of origin asks for them. This restitution should be part of a collaborative process of information gathering, research, scientific exchange and training in the next five years, they say.
A few years ago, I paid a visit to the Senegalese fashion designer Oumou Sy in her Dakar studio and got a lesson in a concept of chic that goes beyond mere lookism to encompass an ethic of self-presentation: high style as a civic virtue. The Wolof word for this ideal is  sanse  (pronounced sahn-say), and its the operative aesthetic in this exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

The show is based on a collection of spectacular Senegalese gold jewelry given to the museum by the art historian Marian Ashby Johnson in 2012. Most of the elaborately filigreed necklaces, bracelets and earrings date from the 20th century. And although produced by male goldsmiths, they were often commissioned by women who had a hand in dictating designs. These discerning patrons certainly had in mind a conspicuous display of wealth and prestige. But they were also conscious of preserving the past  some jewelry themes and techniques can be traced back to archaeological samples  and of keeping up with the global present. Visual motifs from Europe and South Asia, and from the Jewish and Islamic Middle East show up in various combinations.

It says something about the values such jewelry represented that gold itself was not always the crucial ingredient. For economically less fortunate wearers, superb designs made in cheaper materials  woven fiber, say  were acceptable substitutes. It was the spirit the design embodied that mattered most and entire couturial ensembles could be built around it. On commission from the museum, Ms. Sy has created such an ensemble  an extravagant gown and headwrap accented with gold galore  for the show . Its sensational. Fashion as public sculpture, Id call it.

Through Sept. 29. 950 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C.; si.edu/exhibitions.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If youre interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox.

Maybe He Did, Maybe He Didnt

Stephen Colbert expressed outrage on Tuesday over President Trumps stubborn support of Saudi Arabia. The president released a statement on Tuesday refusing to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last month.

Despite the C.I.A.s conclusion that the crown prince authorized the killing, Trump essentially said the truth was unknowable: It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt!
The fugitive slave clause might have been enshrined in the Constitution, but it initially proved difficult to enforce. In the early days of the United States, the federal government was weak; the bigger the country became, the bigger and more permeable became the boundary between North and South. Northern legislatures, for their part, passed personal liberty laws to make it harder for slaveholders to recover their runaways.

Southern apologists for slavery, who liked to talk about happy slaves, had to devise ever more labyrinthine theories to explain why such happy people were so determined to escape. One Louisiana physician coined the term drapetomania, from the Greek words for runaway and madness, to diagnose a disease of the mind that induces the Negro to run away from service. More common was the enraged accusation that deceitful Northerners colluded with slave stealers and inveigled slaves to flee.

Delbanco depicts a republic that kept facing the problem of white supremacy and kept electing to punt. Sometimes this involved outright haggling, as in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. But the subject of slavery was so incendiary that in 1836 the House of Representatives implemented a gag rule, whereby any antislavery petitions would be tabled automatically without debate.

The antebellum South was tantamount to a rich, expanding, authoritarian power  what the historian Sven Beckert has called a kind of Saudi Arabia of the early 19th century. And as much as Northerners wanted to cast slavery as a Southern sickness, the North had long benefited from the slave system too, supplying the capital and processing the raw materials extracted by slave labor into textiles and sugary treats. As Emerson wrote about such refined pleasures, Nobody tasted blood in it.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 deepened the connections as well as the divisions between North and South, as the federal government assumed responsibility for recovering runaway slaves and demanded that the Northern states cooperate. The law denied habeas corpus to captives, rendering even free black people in the North vulnerable to slave catchers. Delbanco accepts that a string of precipitating events in the ensuing decade may have hastened the Civil War  the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship rights to black people, John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry  but he argues that the Fugitive Slave Act launched the final acceleration of sectional estrangement.

The War Before the War makes a few pointed comparisons to our current moment, though Delbanco emphasizes that, by the truly bloody standards of antebellum lawmaking, which included the vicious beating of the abolitionist senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor, our politics are a veritable model of decorum.

Still, as he lucidly shows, it was in the name of avoiding conflict that the nation was brought to the brink and into the breach. As early as 1827, the editors of Freedoms Journal, one of the countrys first black newspapers, warned that all the deflecting and deferring could only sustain a terrible accommodation for so long. National sins, they wrote, have always been followed by national calamities.
I have anxious kids. So when it comes to tragic events, my general philosophy is to do whatever I can to shield them. But last month, when a shooting left 11 dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue, I was consumed by the news  and it felt hard not to share with them a version of what had happened.

My daughters couldnt really fathom that a person would hate anybody, let alone want to hurt people simply for being Jewish, as we ourselves are. For my 5-year-old, this feeling of deep injustice quickly transformed into an outsize pride in the upcoming Hanukkah as her holiday, one that should get equal standing with Christmas.

When we visited a drugstore the other day, she marched off to the aisle of holiday trinkets to assess the overall balance of sparkling tinsel to kitschy dreidels. At the bookstore, she eyed the childrens section to ensure that all religions were on display (we live in Brooklyn: so, yes).

While Hanukkah is probably the best-known and most accessible Jewish holiday in America, it has never been a particularly important one religiously. It was elevated, starting in the 19th century, because of its proximity to Christmas and the chance it provided for Jews in America to have their own year-end gift-giving celebration. Cleansed, usually, of its actual roots as a story about forced assimilation and a bloody rebellion, it has also become a favorite subject of childrens books, something for the Jewish boys and girls whose houses Santa skips.
Severance offers blatant commentary on dizzying abundance and unrelenting consumption, evolving into a semi-surreal sendup of a workplace and its utopia of rules, not unlike Joshua Ferriss Then We Came to the End. Ma revivifies this model. Set against the backdrop of a catastrophic illness  Shen Fever, which results in a fatal loss of consciousness  the novel draws a circle around the lives of Candaces office cohort and the fever-stricken. Both live in an infinite loop that marks them as creatures of habit, mimicking old routines and gestures they must have inhabited for years, decades. Candaces uninfected state is not all that divorced from that of the fevered, who exist in an interstitial stage of residual humanity.

But laced within its dystopian narrative is an encapsulation of a first-generation immigrants nostalgia for New York, a place where, as Candace notes, most people have already lived, in some sense, in the public imagination, before they ever arrive. Ma conjures the expat protagonist of Joseph ONeills Netherland, who argues that we are in the realm not of logic but of wistfulness. In its most lucid moments, Severance evokes traces of, if not Meghan Daum in her misspent youth, then the essay Goodbye to All That, when a young and equally bemused Joan Didion looks at gleaming kitchens through brownstone windows, considering New York not as a place of residence but as a romantic notion: One does not live at Xanadu. Candace dips elliptically into her past, unfurling memories of her dead parents and her childhood in China. When she recalls her mother telling her stories, her remembering elicited my remembering.

Though she lingers on long after most have fled or perished, Candace eventually departs New York in a nostalgia-yellow taxi and joins a group of survivors who find her outside the city. After the End came the Beginning, Ma writes in the opening line of the prologue. The cultlike groups self-appointed leader pulls on a French vanilla-scented e-cigarette and sermonizes that the internet is the flattening of time. The survivors theorized grandly and Google the states of grief, Is there a god, Maslows pyramid. They end up living in an abandoned mall  an inversion of life in which the department stores are communal spaces and the boutiques are personal rooms.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  The Philippines and China may soon have stronger legislative ties.

Senate President Tito Sotto on Tuesday said he brought up his proposal to Chinese President Xi Jinping for a more vigorous relationship between the two countries' legislative bodies during their bilateral meeting.

"He agreed with my proposal that there should be stronger interparliamentary ties with NPC (National People's Congress) ng China  their Congress  and our Congress," Sotto told CNN Philippines.

Sotto, House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and several lawmakers met with Xi for 30 minutes, an hour before he departed for Beijing after his two-day state visit.

"We are fostering better relationships and maganda 'yung mga pronouncements niya," Sotto said.

Arroyo, during her opening speech, highlighted the good relationship between China and the Philippines, especially during the presidency of President Rodrigo Duterte.

"The all-around cooperation between China and the Philippines over the past two years has been very good indeed, perhaps as good as it has ever been," she said.

She added the House of Representatives will focus on working on areas that are essential to economic activities to ensure that the joint activities with China will be fully maximized.

The Philippines and China on Monday signed key agreements on oil and gas exploration, infrastructure, and telecommunications. Duterte and Xi witnessed the exchange of 29 bilateral agreements.

"The traditional oversight function of the legislative will be useful in encouraging our implementers from the Executive Branch so that they can maintain focus and strive for maximum results in the shortest possible time," Arroyo said.

She added, "The relationship between China and the Philippines is very important for our countries... Good relations between neighbors is always priority."

Sotto said Xi laid down his other plans for Filipinos, including increasing job opportunities for Filipino teachers and nurses; multiplying mutual visits from 1 million to 2 million; and opening up free trade to the Philippines, among others.
Above, a more recent naturalization ceremony.

Nadav Gavrielov wrote todays Back Story.

_____

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1. Chief Justice John Roberts defended the independence of the judiciary after President Trump criticized a ruling by a federal judge.

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges, wrote Chief Justice Roberts, left, rebuking the president. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best.

Mr. Trump had criticized a ruling by Judge Jon Tigar, who ordered the administration to resume accepting asylum claims from migrants no matter where or how they entered the county.
 Interpol, under pressure from the West, elected a South Korean police veteran as its president, rather than a Russian candidate who critics feared would jeopardize the organizations independence. [The New York Times]

 German prosecutors are investigating Alice Weidel, a leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and three other party members for accepting dubious donations from a Swiss company in last years election campaign. [The New York Times]

 An estimated 870 people are listed as missing after the Camp Fire in Northern California, a shocking and fluctuating figure that reveals the anguish in affected areas. [The New York Times]

 An American heir of the Dutch art dealer Benjamin Katz has sued in the U.S., demanding the Dutch government and Dutch museums return 143 works that the Katz family says were sold to the Nazis under duress during World War II. [The New York Times]

 In Copenhagen, a former gangster who left a life of crime to mentor young people was shot and killed while leaving a party for his book launch. [BBC]

 A peanut allergy drug could have lifesaving potential, a study found. [The New York Times]

Smarter Living

Tips for a more fulfilling life.
TOKYO  Carlos Ghosn, one of the worlds most powerful car industry leaders, will be detained for 10 more days as prosecutors investigate accusations of financial misconduct against him, and French and Japanese officials prepare to meet over the case.

Japanese prosecutors arrested Mr. Ghosn, who oversaw an alliance between Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, Monday on his corporate jet shortly after it landed at Tokyos Haneda airport. He has yet to be charged with a crime.

Mr. Ghosns detention could last several more weeks. Under Japanese law, prosecutors can hold suspects for up to 23 days without filing charges. While he is held, Mr. Ghosn is likely to live in spare conditions. Even a request for extra blankets would have to go through lawyers.

There will be no special treatment for Mr. Ghosn, said Tsutomu Nakamura, a former prosecutor in Japan who is now a private defense lawyer with no role in the case. He will be treated in the same way as a burglar.
You left Martha and went to work for Susie Hilfiger at Best & Company.

Ive had the pleasure of working for some very strong-willed women.

Any commonalities there?

Businesses are successful when the business side and the creative side have good checks and balances. When one side of the business has too much power, it can be really challenging. And those two companies tipped more toward creative than the business side of it. When the creative could always trump business decisions, it made it very difficult to do my job.

So what happened at Best & Company?

Susie flat out fired me by messenger in front of my entire team when I was C.E.O. in the fall of 2006. The messenger came and said, Are you Gregg Renfrew? And I opened up this package, and it said: Youre fired. Youre out of this building right now. I was in the middle of a meeting in front of the entire team. So that was a humbling experience.

What did you learn from Martha and Susie?

One of the challenges that we face as women leading an organization is theres this desire to be liked, and this desire not to be considered a tough bitch . Women who are powerful are often considered to be tough, as opposed to strong. I try to be strong and confident, as opposed to tough and abrasive.

How did Beautycounter get going?

I watched An Inconvenient Truth and had become impassioned with the environmental health movement. I was washing my children with a natural foaming oatmeal body wash by a name brand, but when I went on the Environmental Working Groups database, it rated it an eight out of nine for toxicity. I thought I was using natural oatmeal body wash, and in fact I was putting toxins on my babies. I was just outraged. And I became truly obsessed with this.

At the same time, I was looking at where direct to consumer was going, and where I saw the biggest white space was in beauty. No one had pioneered meaningful change in that industry. It took me a couple of years to concept the idea, the selling model, create the products from scratch. I went in thinking that we could just use white-label products and change a few ingredients. That was certainly not the case.

Youre very focused on bringing more regulation to your own industry. Thats unusual.

Most people still believe that the Food and Drug Administration is protecting them in terms of personal care products. And most people believe that the products on the market are safe. But the F.D.A. is not necessarily screening ingredients for safety, which is very different from the food industry. The F.D.A. can be protective of the consumer in certain industries, but in our industry, we are woefully underregulated, and they dont have the power to recall products. And this is one area where you have bipartisan support. Everyone agrees that we need to update the laws. Its been 80 years now.
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company learned that the hard way in August. A third-party vendor shipped software to the chip maker without pre-screening it. An engineer at Taiwan Semiconductor failed to scan the software, which was infected with the WannaCry ransomware, installed it and then connected it to the companys operating system. The undetected virus then spread.

The chief executive, C.C. Wei, speaking at a news conference at the time, rejected rumors of hacking. Instead, he acknowledged, it was purely our own act of negligence.

But the company was lucky. A full recovery took only a few days, and while initially it seemed that third-quarter revenue would be off by 2 percent, Elizabeth Sun, a company spokeswoman, said in an email that the revenues did not suffer because Taiwan Semiconductor fulfilled some of the delayed orders, while increases in demand in other areas helped to offset the losses.

Mondelez International and Merck suffered much more significant losses after the 2017 Notpetya attack, although they described them differently in filings.

In its annual report for 2017 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mondelez stated that the malware affected a significant portion of our global sales, distribution and financial networks. The net revenue loss, the company said, was less than 1 percent of the companys global net revenues of $25.9 billion. That still amounts to $103.6 million. In addition, the company incurred incremental expenses of $84 million predominantly during the second half of 2017 as part of the recovery effort.
Japans largest bank has already been penalized by the State of New York for letting countries on sanctions lists like Iran and Myanmar route payments through its systems, but a current inquiry is more serious: Its a federal case involving North Korea.

The bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in Manhattan late last year as it was locked in a court fight with the New York Department of Financial Services, according to two people who were briefed on the investigation but not permitted to speak publicly. That litigation involves the departments attempts to punish the bank, known as MUFG, for breaking anti-money-laundering rules.

The subpoena was issued after the state said in a court filing that the bank had intentionally ignored an internal filter designed to keep it from doing business with companies and people on international sanctions lists. The Department of Financial Services said the bank had also failed to set up a system for checking the identities of some of its Chinese customers doing business along the North Korean border, a hot spot for money laundering.

It was not clear whether prosecutors had found any evidence that North Koreans laundered money through the bank, but the holes in the system meant to trace such transactions were a chief concern of the Department of Financial Services.
The 33 hour sale at Dunhams begins the morning after Thanksgiving and lasts through Monday, when the local schools are closed for deer-hunting season.

There are no giant sales on flat-screen televisions or stockpiles of the hottest holiday toy. The big draw is the hot chocolate and the chance to win a $100 gift card.

Dont expect internet deals, either. Pardon our delay, but good things take time, Dunhams website apologizes. Our online store will be coming soon.
Swedens banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions  a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed, compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogen, an official at the Swedish Bankers Association.

There are two proposals by the Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace, Mr. Trogen said. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.

The central bank has plans to roll out a pilot version next year of a new type of Riksbank money  the digital krona, or e-krona  that could replace physical cash or at least help calm the current cash conundrum. An e-krona would mean that the functions of a currency backed by the state would remain, even in an all-digital world that is fast approaching.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, noted last week that several central banks were seriously considering digital currencies. While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further  seriously, carefully and creatively, she said.

Mr. Ingves, the central bank governor, said, This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.
President Trumps protectionist impulses have upended the global debate about international trade.

But so far, his policies have barely changed a fundamental reality: The United States is still less protectionist than it has been throughout most of its history or than most nations are today.

Even if the tariffs currently in place inflict only limited damage on the economy, however, the consequences will be much more severe if Mr. Trump follows through on his threats to take much more aggressive action.

Heres the big picture.

The average tariff rate in the United States was 1.4 percent, according to the latest data compiled by the United States International Trade Commission. That was nearly as low as it has ever been.

But that figure only includes tariffs imposed in the administrations first year. A lot has happened since then.
Mr. Ghosn has been embroiled in several fights over his executive pay, attracting the ire of investors and politicians. In 2016, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who was at the time the finance minister, pressured Renault into reducing Mr. Ghosns compensation.

His salary came under scrutiny again the next year, and in 2018 he agreed to a 30 percent pay cut in return for another four-year term as chief executive.

His own pay far outstripped those of his counterparts in Japan  he earned four times the pay of Toyotas chairman in 2017  and he was unrepentant.

How did he earn the nickname Le Cost Killer?

Mr. Ghosn joined Renault in 1996 as executive vice president overseeing manufacturing, purchasing, research and development, after 18 years at Michelin, the tire maker. Renault was reeling from a failed merger with Volvo and Mr. Ghosn slashed costs to improve margins, earning him the nickname Le Cost Killer. Its sexy, he said of the moniker this year. Theres blood in it, theres meanness.

In 1999, Renault acquired a large stake in Nissan, and Mr. Ghosn was sent to Japan to become chief operating officer. Months later, he closed five domestic factories and eliminated about 21,000 jobs, some 14 percent of the work force.

Mr. Ghosn was pilloried in the press, but the aggressive cost-cutting worked and stabilized Nissan finances.

He is seen as an innovator for how he later engineered an arrangement that allowed the two automakers to operate like a single carmaker, sharing the cost of developing new models and buying components together.
I got phone calls from conservatives wanting to know, Why did we do anything? Why are we putting forward a proposal at all? Mr. Wheeler acknowledged in an interview last week. His argument, that more restrictive replacement is better than killing off the climate regulation entirely, won the day.

Then, in August, the E.P.A. and the Transportation Department moved to gut another major federal effort to combat climate change by relaxing rules aimed at reducing car tailpipe pollution. The Trump administration plan also voided Californias ability to set its own, stricter standards, triggering a potentially ugly legal battle between Washington and blue states over the ability to fight global warming.

Mr. Wheeler, according to several people involved in the discussions, pushed back forcefully against an analysis used by highway officials to justify the rollback, which argued that stricter fuel pollution rules would cause thousands of deaths in road accidents. The agency argued that more efficient cars are less safe because they are lighter .

People who have attended meetings with Mr. Wheeler said he argued that the fatality numbers relied on bad calculations and were likely to be successfully challenged in court.

Mr. Wheeler on Friday denied that he had clashed with Jeffrey A. Rosen, the chief Transportation Department architect of the auto-standards rollback, saying he merely sought to understand his colleagues mathematical modeling and legal reasoning. I wanted to make sure what we were putting forward would be upheld in the courts, and he assured me that the work they had done would be, Mr. Wheeler said.

A department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said o n Tuesday that there was no dispute between the agencies.

Mr. Wheelers predecessor, Mr. Pruitt, faced more than a dozen federal investigations into his conduct, including his extensive use of first-class air travel, renting a condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist with business before the E.P.A. and enlisting aides on personal tasks like buying a used mattress from Trump International Hotel and seeking a Chick-fil-A franchise for his wife.
Gabrielle Boucinha, a freelance graphic designer, introduced her Instagram account in the wake of Phoebe Philos much lamented exit from Celine. Her feed, @oldceline, a compilation of images dating from Ms. Philos decade-long tenure at the luxury house, has drawn an ardent following, swelling from a few hundred in September, when Hedi Slimane was set to replace Ms. Philo as creative director, to a current 143,000.

Combined with a surge in sales of recent and more vintage Philo designs, that figure, Ms. Boucinha said, would seem to suggest a consumer reaction  a mini-revolt, if you will  unmatched in recent memory. At luxury houses, designers come and go, she said. But Ive never seen this kind of response to a switch in a houses creative direction.

As late as this month, when the new bag that Mr. Slimane designed arrived in stores, Ms. Philos champions (Philo-philes, in fashion parlance) were still chasing down trophies bearing the designers singular stamp, prowling shops and foraging for castoffs on eBay and consignment sites like Tradesy, Vestiaire Collective and the RealReal.

The rush appeared to signal disenchantment with Mr. Slimane, who in his debut collection for the house swapped Ms. Philos deftly underplayed, slightly masculine swagger for a steamier rock-meets-young-Hollywood look.
What scientific topics are you most curious about and why?

In your opinion, what are the most pressing questions in science today? Why do you think these are so important?

In 11 Things Wed Really Like to Know, New York Times reporters celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Science Times section by offering up their thoughts on todays most pressing questions in science. Here are a few of the mysteries that pique their curiosity and what current research has to say about them:

In Does the Universe Still Need Einstein? Dennis Overbye writes about physicists search for an explanation of the universe:

More than anyone, it was Einstein who set the goal for modern science: the search for a final theory of everything, a unified theory, he said, that would explain why there was no other way to put together the universe than the one we seem to live in.  There are no laws of physics, read the headline on an article in Quanta, the online science magazine, last summer by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the director of the Institute for Advanced Study, where Einstein spent his last 22 years. Instead, Dr. Dijkgraaf wrote, there is a frighteningly complex landscape of possibilities, a nearly infinite, subtly connected network of complementary versions of reality. There exists a universe for every good or bad dream youve ever had, each with its own set of so-called fundamental particles, forces, laws and dimensions. This landscape, also known as the multiverse, is the vision of string theorists who have vaulted past Einstein in the current scientific imagination.

In Will We Survive Climate Change? John Schwartz interviews Kate Marvel, associate research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, about the future of the planet:

Reports of the threats from a warming planet have been coming fast and furiously. The latest: a startling analysis from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting terrible food shortages, wildfires and a massive die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040, unless governments take strong action.  Its worth pointing out there is no scientific support for inevitable doom, she said. Climate change is not pass-fail, she added. There is a real continuum of futures, a continuum of possibilities. So yes, things will be bad. And yes, we need to do more, so much more, to head off what could come. But how awful things get, and for how many people, depends on what we do.

In How Long Can People Live? Nicholas Bakalar explores how scientists are trying to increase human longevity:

One widely published researcher in the field, S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that there is an upper limit to how long we can live  about 85 years. Parts of the body, including the brain, are not designed for long-term use, he said. Were seeing the consequences of pushing the limits of survival: the rise of Alzheimers disease, dementias, joint and hip problems, loss of muscle mass. These are not a consequence of failure, but of success, he added. Dr. Olshansky advocates extending health span, not life span. We will all die. No serious scientist believes in immortality. But we also are closer to assuring healthier old age than ever before.

In How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars? Cade Metz assesses the threat that artificial intelligence poses to humanity:

A neural network can learn to recognize a dog by gleaning patterns from thousands of dog photos. It can learn to identify spoken words by sifting through old tech-support calls. And, as the two researchers showed, a neural network can learn to write phishing messages by inspecting tweets, Reddit posts, and previous online hacks. Today, the same mathematical technique is infusing machines with a wide range of humanlike powers, from speech recognition to language translation. In many cases, this new breed of artificial intelligence is also an ideal means of deceiving large numbers of people over the internet. Mass manipulation is about to get a whole lot easier.  Ideally, artificial intelligence could also provide ways of identifying and stopping this kind of mass manipulation. Mark Zuckerberg likes to talk about the possibilities. But for the foreseeable future, we face a machine-learning arms race.

And in Honestly, Some Questions Are Better Left Unanswered, Mr. Overbye argues that there are some mysteries that are better left alone:

Its not that I dont want them solved. No, I worry that I might be disappointed by the Big Reveal, in the way old horror movies were scarier when you never saw the monster.  I dont really want to know whats in a black hole: The end of time? Another universe? All your bad dreams? My lost socks? Id hate for any of those intriguing possibilities to be eliminated. Nor do I want to know what evolution has in store for us. If I knew how it was expected to go, and I tried to intervene, I probably would screw it up. Im not as smart or as innovative as nature, randomly shuffling the genetic deck. The fate of the universe? I feel the same way about it as I feel about the future of the stock market: Entrusted with too much knowledge, I will make grave errors.

Students, choose one of the 11 articles and read it in its entirety. Then, tell us:

 Which of these questions intrigued you most and why? What did you learn about it from reading the article, and what is your reaction to the information? What else do you want to know about the topic?

 Which scientific mysteries do you want solved and why?

 What impact do you think research in this area could have on the world?

 Mr. Overbye writes that there are some scientific mysteries that are better left unsolved. Do you agree? What are some things that you would prefer not to find out? Why?

 What role does science journalism play in our society? How does it serve the public? In your opinion, how important is it? Would you ever like to be a science reporter? Why or why not?
Accepting the South for what it is, instead of what we imagine it to be, is not easy. I think that if you were to Google Southern photography, youre going to come up with the images of a rusted pickup truck in a field, Richard McCabe said.  But the South is as much Houston as it is the Mississippi Delta. I think what we dont realize is the place is just as connected as everywhere else.

New Southern Photography, an exhibit Mr. McCabe organized at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans , challenges the outdated assumption that the South is disconnected and isolated. Many people have tried to create a new visual language for the South, only to fail because theyd presumed there was a singular, representational way to do that. Mr. McCabe, who is the museums curator of photography, didnt make the same mistake.

New Southern Photography is not intended to define the South, Mr. McCabe wrote in the exhibits catalog, but rather to create an open discussion. And that discussion includes a diverse group of photographers. There are photojournalists: A beautiful collection by Kael Alford depicts the environmental threats to Louisianas coastal communities; another collection by Scott Dalton, a Houston-based photographer, tells the story of immigration, drug trafficking, and trade at the United States-Mexico border in Texas.
Somethings wrong, the 27-year-old woman said to her new husband. I think you need to take me to the hospital. It was the day after their wedding. The womans husband and her best friend were car fanatics, and so the newlyweds had wanted to commemorate their union with pictures at a drift track in rural Toutle, Wash. The best friend would drift cookies, circling the couple in a tight, controlled skid. As another friend took pictures, the two embraced, wreathed by smoke and dust and barely contained chaos as the red Mustang fishtailed around them. In the photos, the couple look happy.

But as they loaded up the car to go home, the young woman started to feel strange. Shed been a little jittery all day. She noticed she couldnt stop talking. She figured it was just the excitement of the weddings aftermath. But suddenly her excitement felt out of control. Her heart, which was racing since she got up that morning, went into overdrive. It pounded so hard that it hurt her throat and chest. She couldnt think. Her hands took on a life of their own  they opened and closed incessantly.



Its Just Anxiety

Her new husband was confused and worried. They drove to a hospital a couple of towns over. It was a panic attack, they were told. Since the birth of the couples daughter a year before, the young woman had struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety. Shed just married and had these crazy pictures taken; it was no wonder she was panicking. The young woman accepted the diagnosis, but she couldnt help feeling that this was different from the anxiety she sometimes experienced.

She was given a medication to take if she had more symptoms and sent home. The pills didnt seem to help. The next day she felt her heart pounding in her throat and the same spacy-headed jitters from the day before. She tried the medicine again but after that, her memory is just fragments.
Moving to England on the back of the success of Dogtooth gave Lanthimos access to bigger budgets and internationally known stars like Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz  but in many ways, he has shaped his English-language productions to suit the spontaneous practices he developed in Greece, rather than remodeling himself to Hollywoods specifications. He likes to shoot with natural light, inviting the contingency of unplanned weather to enter his scenes, and he rarely makes use of the expensive cinematic lighting that productions order by default. I do walk outside and see the lighting people, the equipment just sitting around, he says. Its such a waste of their time, of the films money. He steers clear of movie makeup, preferring to let the real face of his actors show through, unadulterated, the hair unfussy and requiring little touch-up work. One consequence of these decisions is that his sets are unusually quiet and intimate, and without setting up lights or pausing to reapply makeup, he explains, they are able to get much more of the actual work done. We can do the scene over and over again, immediately, nobody has to stand around waiting. And the actors love it.

The atmosphere he creates has more in common with an experimental theater troupe than a typical multimillion-dollar movie set. Lanthimos works to bring an actors instincts to the surface  and he shrugs off questions about a characters psychological motivation, back story and context as effortlessly as he does questions about himself. If you want to [expletive] annoy him, ask him character back-story questions, Colin Farrell told me, laughing, of his first experience working with Lanthimos on the set of The Lobster, where Lanthimos refused to tell him what happened in the scene before the one they were filming. He doesnt really feel the need, you know. For him a story is born and dies between the first and last page. Lanthimos is trying to give space to mystery, Ariane Labed, his wife, told me. Yorgos does not explain things, even to the actors really, and theyre not used to that. But then they go through this experience, and they discover that having gaps in their characters journeys, they actually have more room for their own imaginations, [their] own mistakes, [their] own doubts, and I think thats why actors are amazing in Yorgoss films. Theyre on the line.

For The Favourite, Lanthimos gathered the central cast together for three weeks of rehearsal, where they delivered their lines while trying to tie themselves in knots, jumping from carpet tile to carpet tile, or writhing around on the floor. He had us do all sorts of things that keep you from thinking about what your lines mean, Olivia Colman, who plays Queen Anne, told me. It was completely unique. These gamelike exercises were also ways of forcing an actors reflexes to the surface, submerging that part of the mind that analyzes and questions, or turns away from the moment and toward a script or director for answers. The best way to describe it is, it becomes completely unconscious ... completely instinctual, explains Rachel Weisz, who first worked with Lanthimos in The Lobster and appears in The Favourite as Sarah Churchill, the queens confidante and lover. If you asked me afterward what had just happened, I wouldnt be able to tell you. And in fact, the experience of watching the two films, the ones Ive been in, are unlike other films in that Im completely surprised by what I did. Usually when you film you have a sense of what youve done, but with Yorgos you have no sense. If that makes sense.

Like the stories themselves, which thrust characters, existentially underprepared, into disorienting situations, Lanthimoss direction forces actors to inhabit their roles with convincing immediacy, giving them an authentic vulnerability. It reflects the broader connection between his films and theater, a temporary structure assembled by bodies that are clumsily, complicatedly occupying space. In a scene from last years The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimoss take on a horror film, the wife (played by Nicole Kidman) feigns unconsciousness in their bedroom at her surgeon husbands request; she rolls over, limp and lifeless, her head hanging off the edge of the bed as he caresses her. As he pulls her body ungracefully toward him, her hair dragging across the comforter, her foot catches on a pillow and it falls over, a piece of reality quietly disheveling the fantasy. Auteurs like Luca Guadagnino or Paolo Sorrentino, with their swooping, reeling shots and kinetic dance sequences, may get more credit for capturing bodily experience on film, but Lanthimos arguably shows greater fidelity to our actual bodies, stubborn and awkwardly choreographed by fate, etiquette and overarching structures of power  not glamorous bodies but bodies of ungainly yearning.

Lanthimoss latest project seems likely to win over even his most skeptical viewers: Brimming with an exhilarating sense of struggle, The Favourite s brash reimagining of Queen Annes court has a raw, magnetic likability to it. As Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone expressively vied for Olivia Colmans affections, they evoked throaty, full-body laughs from the audience at the screening I attended, rather than the tight, pressurized laughter I heard while watching his earlier films. The Lanthimos aesthetic transposes seamlessly to a historical setting: the sense of remoteness, the intricate system of rules and manners, the powerful force that oppresses everyone, including the individual chosen to wield it. But if in previous films that looming force was inhuman (social, familial or supernatural), in The Favourite that power has its origins in human tendencies  loneliness, lustfulness and our susceptibility to manipulation. Power, of the state and of the individual, circulates in a wild and destabilizing way among the three women as they plot and beguile and wield themselves like weapons. Words are used as shoves or slaps; sex becomes a literal power grab, upsetting a fragile and transient order.

The Favourite is a first for Lanthimos  as a foray into period drama, as the director of a script that he did not originate himself  and it marks a true shift in his emotional palette. Rather than keep the viewer at arms length, this new film works to draw you into the palace intrigue. You root for Abigail, the newcomer and underdog, as she tries to secure her livelihood, and then you root for Sarah just as strongly as she struggles to maintain her position by banishing her competition from the court. But as the hierarchy churns, the effort to get on top and stay there starts feeling less like rowdy fun and more like a form of imprisonment, implicating the viewer as well in its casual cruelty: Why do we as observers choose favorites, when this partiality so clearly limits our ability to see the whole? The ending, when it arrives, is inevitable yet unexpected. It is quietly, inscrutably heartbreaking  one of the only moments in a Lanthimos film that is not funny, not at all. Theyre not so helpless in this film as in my others, Lanthimos told me breezily as we left the restaurant. But theyre still trapped.

He was heading back home after our lunch, to work out issues with the version of The Favourite that will be shown on airplanes  they wanted to censor every other thing, even blurring the naked bodies of the cherubs in the palace art. But whether he felt that he owed me more time in lieu of self-explanation, or because he was in the mood to talk, he went out of his way to walk with me to my next appointment. He led us away from the high streets and down narrower residential rows where the hedges are a thick, towering green, trimmed into forcefully geometric shapes. He pointed out the bramble taking back the edge of an ad hoc park and the local town hall where he and Ariane were married. In these quiet slivers of street, London no longer feels modern: Its a pileup of the old and the new and the very old, the ground beneath our feet named by Saxon villagers. I could tell that I was being led though a terrain that was deeply personal, emotional, meaningful, but without an explanation of what I was seeing, I had to reconstruct the links myself. Its a kind of closeness at a distance, the same feeling I experience when I watch one of his films. When I mentioned that he seemed at home here, in his element among the mixture of old and new, the council flats facing meticulously preserved historical buildings, he seemed pleased, as if Id noticed something so important to him that he didnt mind allowing a stranger a glimpse. He thought for a moment, and then he replied with a slight smile: At home, yes. But not so at home that its become boring.
NANCE Love Jones had it a little bit.

HEGGINS I loved The Women of Brewster Place and Eves Bayou. I watched The Color Purple for a whole summer when it came out. But it didnt feel like there was anything reflecting our generation.

CENAC The black movies that were really successful back then were either broad comedies like Martin Lawrence, or movies with maybe a little more respectability in their politics, like Tyler Perry.

SIMIEN It was a very Tyler Perry world, which wasnt really Tylers fault.

JENKINS Id seen all of these white guys making mumblecore movies with no budget and getting them into South by Southwest. It almost seemed like only the lives of 20-something white kids were deemed to be interesting, and like our lives were not as interesting or not on the same wavelength. I was like No, thats bull  in my experience, there are black people in these scenes, too. But they werent showing up in the films.

CHERIE SAULTER (co-producer of Medicine for Melancholy) Its a little different than the mumblecore films in terms of bringing up issues like gentrification and identity very explicitly. But I think mumblecore sort of gave us a way to connect to film festivals and a broader audience.

NAT SANDERS (editor) Its funny because hed never actually watched the mumblecore stuff. I remember during shooting I went and watched Aaron Katzs Quiet City, and maybe a [Joe] Swanberg film, because Barry had mentioned it. But later when I asked him something about it he goes, Ive never seen any of those movies. He had just been aware that something was happening out there.

JAMES LAXTON (cinematographer) It was a time when young filmmakers had opportunities that didnt exist before.
Over the course of Steve McQueens four films, including the 2014 best picture winner 12 Years a Slave and his latest, the crime drama Widows, the director has displayed a knack for first images that jolt. Though his movies may initially disorient you, thats by design: By the time you acclimate to one of McQueens opening shots, youve been taught how to watch the provocative feature that follows.

Ive seen enough films in my life to know that your intent as a director has to be put over within the first five minutes of the picture, because audiences are so skittish, McQueen said. Its like the start of a conversation: Whats your first impression of someone?

Other directors might fritter away their films opening moments on a title sequence or an establishing shot of the city, but McQueen has no use for that. Instead, hes more likely to drop you right into the action.

Below, McQueen walks us through some of those potent first impressions.

A Surprising Clinch in Widows

Though Widows is about four women banding together to pull off a risky heist, it doesnt begin with the sort of action you might be expecting. Instead, McQueen trains the languorous opening shot on the protagonist Veronica (Viola Davis) and her husband, Harry (Liam Neeson), as they make out in bed with evident passion: At a time when sexual desire has been leached from most studio movies, the up-close intimacy between the two actors feels real and startling.
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The driver of a Ford pickup truck traveling on the Brooklyn Bridge rear-ended a Nissan on Wednesday morning, setting off a six-car crash that ignited a fiery explosion and left a 32-year-old man dead, the police said.

Firefighters pulled the man, Kristopher Hambas, of Scarsdale, N.Y., unconscious from his vehicle, a Volkswagen, the police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Six others sustained minor injuries, officials said, including the driver of the pickup truck.

The bridge was shut down for more than an hour during the morning commute, officials said. Sixty fire and emergency personnel rushed to the scene, where three vehicles were on fire.

According to the police, the pickup truck was traveling on the Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge at about 7:15 a.m. when it slammed into a Nissan, causing the car to strike the median. The truck then hit Mr. Hambass vehicle, pushing it into a concrete barrier, where it then burst into flames.
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Raised in Brooklyn, the brothers Keith and Paul Caneiro married women from Staten Island and moved to houses in suburban New Jersey about 20 minutes apart. In 1991, Keith was the best man at Pauls wedding. They each had children and were business partners, co-owning a technology company and a pest control business.

But now Keith M. Caneiro is dead, killed on Tuesday along with his wife and children in their stately home in Colts Neck, N.J., which was then set on fire, law enforcement officials said.

Paul J. Caneiro, 51, was arrested Wednesday and charged with setting his own house on fire in nearby Ocean Township on the same day his brothers family was found dead. His wife and two daughters were at home when he lit the blaze, a charging document said.

While the two events seemed to be linked, Christopher J. Gramiccioni, the Monmouth County prosecutor, did not name a suspect on Wednesday in the killings of Keith Caneiro, 50; his wife, Jennifer Karidis Caneiro, 45; and their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8.
As soon as court was back in session on Tuesday, Judge Cogan discussed the secret memo at a second sidebar conference  which was itself conducted in secret. The subject was apparently so sensitive that he immediately placed its transcript under seal.

It was only after the sidebar ended that Judge Cogan gave a vague explanation about what was going on.

Speaking from the bench, he said that he agreed with the prosecutors and would limit the questions that Mr. Guzmans lawyers could ask Mr. Zambada on cross-examination. He also said that whatever might be learned from a broader line of inquiry did not outweigh protecting individuals and entities who were not directly involved in the case and who would face embarrassment if Mr. Zambada were allowed to testify without restraint.

Judge Cogan never identified those individuals and entities, and because he sealed the transcript, the government and the defense could not discuss them. Who they were  and why they stood to face embarrassment  remains another secret.

In court on Tuesday, Mr. Zambada did name one of Mexicos top law enforcement officials, Genaro Garcia Luna, as someone who took bribes. He said that on two occasions he met Mr. Garcia Luna in a restaurant and each time gave him a briefcase stuffed with at least $3 million in cash.

Mexico has long been plagued by troubles with corruption, and some in the country were not at all surprised that tales of graft were emerging, thousands of miles away, at El Chapos trial in Brooklyn.

The world might be shocked, but here, for us, this is old news, said Fernanda Hernandez, 23, a secretary from Mexico City. To learn the inner workings of corruption at the highest level is something that for some reason feels rather obvious to us.
When Madeline Singas, the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the allegations, announced that Mr. Schneiderman would not be charged with a crime, she explained that some of the reported abuse fell outside the statute of limitations. While many have advocated for the expansion (or eradication) of time frames that victims can come forward, little progress has been made to accomplish this. As the law now exists, serial predators will continue to elude punishment, given that the crimes they commit often occur over a period that can span decades. Cases built on one or two recent accusations  ignoring a long-term pattern of abuse  easily fall apart.

Often, domestic abuse victims choose not to cooperate, but that does not seem to have been an issue in Mr. Schneidermans case. His accusers spoke to investigators, and as Ms. Selvaratnams lawyer said, they were willing to go forward with a criminal trial. So the question remains: With what crime might Mr. Schneiderman have been successfully charged?

Felony assault in New York State requires the demonstration of significant injury  a broken limb, a gunshot wound, serious impact to an organ. If none of these can be proved, a prosecutor might then move on to consider misdemeanor assault, and here, too, she might run into trouble. The definition of injury, in regard to this statute, revolves around substantial pain, but it does not include the mental anguish that so often distinguishes the life of someone who has been abused by an intimate. Beyond that, a prosecutor would have to prove that there was intent to cause physical injury.

Disturbingly, the requirement of intent allows nearly anyone accused of beating someone up during consensual sex to claim he was doing so for the purpose of arousal. When the allegations against Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat, were made public, he maintained that he crossed no line. It was only after he was cleared that he essentially admitted what he had done, accepting full responsibility for his conduct and committing to making amends.

An assault should not require so much qualification. If someone is going to say that his intent was not to beat you up but to add spice, said Lisa Smith, a former sex-crimes prosecutor who is now a consultant on gender violence, well, then we want laws that dont give defense lawyers the option of raising such a ridiculous argument. Ms. Singas has, in fact, proposed them.
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Of all the complications of living in New York City, you might not imagine wild turkeys making the list.

But for years, growing flocks of them have held sway in a section of Staten Island where every day is turkey day.

While most Americans wrestle with a turkey only on Thanksgiving  brining, basting and broiling a frozen version of the species  residents here tangle with them year-round: on lawns, wandering the streets, roosting on parked cars.

But soon Staten Islands wild turkeys will roam here no more. They, however, will meet a far more pleasant fate than their dining-table-bound counterparts.
James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress for nearly three decades, who led the nations treasure house of knowledge into the digital age and added millions of books, films and cultural artifacts to its historic collections, including a trove of tweets, died on Tuesday in Washington. He was 89.

His daughter Susan Harper Billington said the cause was complications of pneumonia.

Mr. Billingtons death came a little more than three years after he retired amid mounting criticism that he had presided over a series of management and technology failures in his last years in office. He stepped down in September 2015, having planned to retire at the end of the year. He was succeeded by Carla D. Hayden, the first woman and the first African-American to lead the Library of Congress.

Mr. Billington, a distinguished authority on Russian and Soviet history, was named by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 as the 13th director of the library, the repository of the American experience founded in 1800 under legislation that shifted the capital from Philadelphia to Washington.

He arrived at the dawn of a new era. The internet was in its infancy, newspapers and printed books were thriving, computers were relatively unsophisticated, and Google, Facebook and Twitter were still over the horizon. For all its millions of books and manuscripts in 450 languages, its 550 miles of shelves and 19 reading rooms, the Library of Congress was terra incognita to most Americans, even to many scholars.
Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, were adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.

In one of Americas wealthiest enclaves, an area of sprawling mansions near San Diego that sell for upward of $10 million, bragging rights still go to those who live in homes designed nearly a century ago by the architect Lilian J. Rice.

Rice was in her early 30s when she planned the civic center of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., 20 miles northeast of the city, and designed many of the homes tucked into the surrounding rolling hills and eucalyptus groves.

While Rancho Santa Fe is a small community  its population hovers around 3,000  Rices impact on architecture in California is great. In less than 20 years of professional work, she designed more than 100 homes in San Diego County and planted Spanish Colonial Revival as a state architectural style.

She insisted on three things in her designs: restraint in decoration, high-quality craftsmanship and harmony between a home and its site.
Pablo Ferro, who with quick cuts, hand lettering and a bundle of innovative ideas put a jolt into the often drab world of movies opening credits, died on Nov. 16 in Sedona, Ariz. He was 83.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Allen, said.

Mr. Ferro burst into the film business in 1964 with his attention-getting title sequence for Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubricks nuclear-age black comedy. His hand-lettered titles, full of incongruous sizes (the gigantic A in A STANLEY KUBRICK PRODUCTION dwarfed the other words), appeared over footage of aircraft refueling in midflight.

In a 2009 article about groundbreakers in Mr. Ferros profession, The New York Times called it the title sequence that inspired a thousand hand-drawn title sequences.

Dozens of films followed, many of them Oscar contenders, including Philadelphia (1993) and Good Will Hunting (1997).
The reputation of foster care has become so bad that few may have noticed when New York Citys Department of Investigation reported last month that the Administration for Childrens Services was failing to ensure the safety of foster children. Of course, it is not hard to find headlines about foster parents accused of abusing kids. Earlier this year Jennifer and Sarah Hart drove their S.U.V. off a Northern California cliff, killing themselves and at least four of the six children they had adopted, probably out of the foster system. Last year, Cesar Gonzales-Mugaburu was acquitted after spending a year in prison on a charge of endangering or sexually abusing eight of the nearly 100 boys he had fostered in his Long Island, N.Y., home. In Duchesne County, Utah, a foster mother was charged this month in the death of a 2-year-old boy in her care.

Stories like these buttress the widely held misperception that children are most likely to be abused by strangers and that those in foster homes are therefore uniquely vulnerable.

But if you read past the first paragraph of the New York City investigation, you come upon this startling fact: A majority of the maltreatment incidents (which include cases of both abuse and severe neglect) happened while foster kids were visiting their biological parents. Foster parents were the perpetrators in just 19 percent of maltreatment incidents last year.

Thats terrible, but more disturbing is that children who have been removed from their parents homes because of abuse or neglect are then brought back to visit or stay with those parents. And they are subject to physical or sexual abuse all over again.
Of course, in this story there are righteous Muslims to be proud of as well. They include the Supreme Court judges, whose prudent decision that saved Ms. Bibi noted the Prophet Muhammads tolerance for Christians. They include Punjabi politician Salman Taser, who stood up for Ms. Bibi in 2011, only to be assassinated for that by his own bodyguard. They include three British imams, who recently joined the campaign to grant asylum to Ms. Bibi in Britain.

In other words, the militant Islamists who want to kill all blasphemers, real or perceived, do not define Islam. But they do define a fanatic, ferocious, dangerous strain within Islam.

This strain has led to various attacks on freedom of expression, the bedrock of civilization, over the past three decades. The first one was the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis infamous 1989 death fatwa calling for the execution of the author Salman Rushdie for his irreverent novel, The Satanic Verses. Then came the violent reactions to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Terrorist attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo followed. And among nations like Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, Ms. Bibi is only one of the many victims of blasphemy laws.

Muslims who support such violent or oppressive responses to blasphemy are missing two important points. One is that it is them, not the blasphemers, who are defaming Islam, by presenting it as an immature tradition that has little room for civilized discourse. The second point is that their zealotry is not as religiously grounded as they think.

To see this, one must look at the Quran  the most fundamental and only undisputed source of Islam. Most notably, throughout all of its 6,236 verses, it never tells Muslims to silence blasphemy with force. It tells them only to respond with dignity.
To the Editor:

In Dismissing Asylum Rights, President Joins Global Chorus (The Interpreter, front page, Nov. 3) is right to argue that we dont really have a global refugee system so much as a loose network of partly observed norms. The absence of a reliable system for relieving stress on asylum states creates a mess for both refugees and for governments.

Sadly, we had a chance to fix this mess but missed the boat. Responding to the chaos of Syrian and other refugees arriving in Europe in 2015, the United Nations began a global compact process that was supposed to deliver a dependable mechanism to share burdens and responsibilities.

But after more than two years of consultations, the United Nations refugee agency has instead offered only loose guidelines and a promise that there will be meetings whenever a large refugee movement occurs.

Its no wonder that governments  including the United States  see little benefit to abiding by the rules.
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Community journalism is the lifeblood of democracy, Diane McFarlin, the dean of the journalism school at the University of Florida, told me this week, and very much at risk these days.

Shes right. The number of reporters covering statehouses has dropped by more than one-third since 2000, for example. And academic studies have found a raft of problems to be associated with a decline of local journalism, as The Columbia Journalism Review has detailed. The problems include less informed voters, lower voter turnout and higher borrowing costs for local governments  because, without anyone to hold them accountable, those governments become less responsible.

It is something of a Thanksgiving tradition for this newsletter to celebrate some of the fantastic local journalism that is still being done. This week, I asked people on Twitter and the deans of several journalism schools to recommend great local work from 2018. Much of it involves what David Kurpius, the University of Missouris journalism dean, calls the watchdog function. The list is not comprehensive, of course, and I invite you to send me other examples, at leonhardt@nytimes.com. Ill mention a few more in Fridays newsletter.
Letters to the future were a widespread phenomenon in the Soviet Union in 1967 and 68. Those years were characterized for the Soviet masses by the fantasy of space exploration and the introduction of the two-day weekend, the first time since World War II that workers didnt have to work six days a week. The letters were written to commemorate a half century since the 1917 revolution and the establishment a year later of the Komsomol, the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. They reflected the dream of a more comfortable future, one where ordinary people could finally enjoy the fruits of grueling labor of generations before them.

You work and live in a Communist society which we have begun to build, our generation: the pupil of Lenins Komsomol, Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin unveiled the first space routes, while you fly to other planets, says a handwritten letter unveiled in October in Sedelnikovo, a Siberian village.

We are building, building, building, reads a letter in the city of Tobolsk, listing hardships during construction of a railroad through the swamps to western Siberias oil fields. We believe that in 2018 people will be safe from war and hunger. The world will be more just than it is today and there will be no capitalists left.

Unveiling and reading these letters over the past two years, as the quality of life for most Russians declines, has inspired bittersweet contemplation. While the two-day weekend is still around, another institution of the Soviet era, the state pension, has taken a hit: A reform pushed by Mr. Putin will raise the retirement age next year to 60 from 55 for women and to 65 from 60 for men. (These reforms have been especially unpopular and are widely believed to be responsible for a sharp decline in the popularity of United Russia, the majority party, and of Mr. Putin himself.) The remnants of other benefits of the Soviet welfare state  like free health care and education  continue going through optimization, the preferred Russian euphemism for budget cuts.
Mr. McGahn apparently was able to dissuade Mr. Trump from issuing the order to prosecute political enemies by telling him that the plan was so antithetical to American political values that it could trigger impeachment proceedings. (One sympathizes with Mr. McGahn trying to get his head around the order in the first place and attempting to explain to his boss, with the patience due an errant schoolchild, how profoundly out of line he was.)

Mr. McGahn is hardly a Lincolnesque figure, but he is sufficiently steeped in American legal and political culture, and sufficiently experienced, to be able to rebuff the president. The screaming question here is what could have happened  or might happen in the near future  if the order had been issued to Trump crony Matt Whitaker, now the acting attorney general, through the incoming White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, a far more callow figure than Mr. McGahn. After all, both Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Whitaker were most likely chosen in large part for their moral malleability  a quality Mr. Trump has repeatedly and loudly demanded from his branchs lawyers.

I hope and believe that the order to prosecute  without even a predicate of criminal activity  would have prompted a raft of resignations at the Department of Justice. But not everyone would have left, and if the attorney general commanded it, it probably would have been put in motion.

Presumably the prosecution would have been halted before Mrs. Clinton was led away in handcuffs. But possibly not, given doctrines of deference to the executive branch, which typically leave defendants scant room to question indictments based on improper prosecutorial intent. In any case even the mere initiation of the prosecution would have been a severe injury to American democracy.

Its the sort of injury, moreover, that would have been near-inconceivable before 2016. The principle that the president may not simply prosecute political enemies is part of the DNA of American political culture, but Mr. Trump is the heedless radioactive force indifferent to the nature of the bonds he is breaking.
I worked in a medium-level federal prison from 1993 to 2014. They are NOT all the same. Victorville [in California] and Coleman [in Florida] are notorious for these problems, but they dont happen everywhere.

Yes, I had a few gunners [inmates who masturbate when female prison employees are near them] and flashers during my 21 years. Every one was disciplined. When one inmate came to see me in my office, stood too close to me and had a visible erection under his clothes, I just shooed him out and reported it to the lieutenant afterward.

The lieutenant was appalled and told me I should have considered that an emergency and hit my body alarm. (If the inmate had touched me, or not left immediately when I told him to, of course I would have done so.)

As for verbal harassment, threats of rape, etc.  I cant comment on that because they never happened. The inmates knew better than to speak to female staff that way. Of course I dressed conservatively (I was not in uniform).

I learned to love vests and soon gave up wearing skirts (mostly because I always wanted to wear shoes I could run in). I wore makeup but never perfume.
Glocester, R.I. | $449,000

An 1898 gambrel-roof house with five bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms

A wealthy Providence family built this house near a hotel they owned in the rural village of Harmony, now part of the town of Glocester, R.I. Constructed in the British Arts and Crafts style, it is about 20 minutes from Providence and an hour from Boston.

Size: 1,841 square feet

Price per square foot: $244

Indoors: Crossing a wraparound mahogany porch supported by pillars made of locally quarried stone, one enters through a Dutch door of unusual breadth. (The original owners, a pair of brothers, were reportedly portly.) To the left, a massive stone fireplace is flanked by French doors opening to the porch. Straight ahead, a comfortably wide staircase has a stained-glass window set in the wall. To the right is a space that could serve as dining room; beyond it is a butlers pantry with a half-bathroom and an eat-in kitchen with a vintage stove.

Five bedrooms, most with varnished woodwork and dormer windows, line the L-shaped second-floor hallways; there is also a bathroom with white-painted wainscoting and an interesting three-part medicine cabinet.

Outdoor space: The 1.44-acre property has a potting shed and a chicken coop. A 1940s gazebo with a hexagonal roof was recently restored and surrounded by a circle of stones. The two-car garage has the former chauffeurs quarters upstairs.
Between the oceans bright blue surface and its blackest depths  660 to 3,300 feet below  is a mysterious, dark span of water. Welcome to the twilight zone.

Recent evidence suggests there are more animals here by weight than in all of the worlds fisheries combined. But who lives here, and in what quantities?

Since August, a group of scientists has been using new technology to better understand the twilight zones strange inhabitants. They hope their findings will lead to a more sustainable approach before the fishing industry tries to harvest some of its abundant life as fisheries closer to the surface are diminished.

The time is right to get this knowledge before its too late, said Heidi Sosik, a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who is leading The Ocean Twilight Zone project. This twilight zone region of the ocean is really, very barely explored, but the more we learn, the more interesting and more important it seems to be in playing a role in the whole ecosystem.
In part, its a linguistic issue: Latinx just doesnt translate to Spanish, some argued. A commenter from Ohio wrote that , if youre a Spanish speaker, the term Latinx reads like a thousand nails in a thousand blackboards. Some readers in Latin America said it was an Anglicization that wasnt relevant in their home countries. Another implied that the term is elitist, writing that the word Latinx ostracizes all the speakers of Spanish who dont have wealth or time to pontificate the oppression of a language which at its very root genders everything. In a very official poll on my personal Facebook page, some friends and family said that theyd never even heard of it.

So, should it be used at all?

Linguists have mixed feelings.

Kim Potowski, a professor at the University of Illinois who specializes in Spanish linguistics, tried to employ inclusive language in a forthcoming Spanish grammar book , but replacing the masculine O throughout overwhelmed her and her co-writer, Naomi L. Shin. It came to a point where we said, You know what, were not ready, she said. Maybe in the fourth or fifth edition of the book, she added, we will have those Xs in there.

There is absolutely no consensus among linguists, said Dr. Potowski.

Another scholar, Lourdes Torres, a professor of Latino studies at DePaul University in Chicago, argues that the word Latinx undermines hard-fought feminist battles. In its attempt to be gender-inclusive, she said, one can argue that its gender-erasing of women who have fought for a long time to not just have Latino, but to have Latino/Latina, to make sure women are represented.
On this weeks Modern Love podcast, the actress Mira Sorvino reads A Forgotten Prayer, Answered, an essay about a couples fateful trip to Chimi Lhakhang, a fertility temple in Bhutan.

Charlotte Bacon, the author of the 2011 essay, is the associate director of humanities grant support at Dartmouth College. She previously taught English and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire. She has published three novels.

Ms. Sorvino won an Academy Award in 1995 for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite. She appears in the new season of the Sony Crackle series StartUp. Stay tuned after the reading to hear from her, Ms. Bacon and the Modern Love editor Daniel Jones.

To read past Modern Love columns, click here. Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.
Im horribly cheap, but Spotify is one of the few apps I pay for. Since Im paying, my expectations are sky high, and yet the app is buggy and slow, and it crashes regularly. I expect it to read my mind and know exactly what I want to hear at all times, but it doesnt, so Im disappointed.

I also love that more and more messaging apps are adding options for ephemeral conversation. Im increasingly convinced that the default of digitally hoarding all conversations forever was a terrible idea, and I like that I can get my conversations to disappear from most of the chat apps I use now.

Youve written a lot about security. How do you keep your own tech setup secure?

I got interested in security out of necessity. When I was a kid using social media for the first time, I was also in the process of extricating myself from an abuser. I had to figure out how to use things like Myspace  it felt very important at the time to have a vibrant Myspace life!  in ways that would protect my anonymity, my location data and other sensitive information. Id constantly be messaging my friends, asking them to take down certain pictures or posts that could help my abuser find me.

This isnt a concern for me anymore, but the situation forced me to think about what kinds of personal data I was sharing online from the moment I started doing it, and Im grateful for that. A lot of people dont think about their online privacy until theyre dealing with a compromising situation in which their data is already out there.

Unfortunately, I think experiences like mine are quite common. Lots of people learn about the risks to their online security only when theyre affected by a widespread breach like Equifax, or another security threat. After college, I started learning more about cryptography and going to crypto parties, which helped me realize security could be something fun instead of something scary. Encryption is seen as this nerdy, niche subject, but I think theres something almost romantic about putting in the time and effort to keep a conversation private and safe  it shows you care.

What about protecting conversations with sources?

I approach security as a journalist in much the same way that Ive approached security as a person. The first thing I think about is limiting my exposure  what kind of data are my source and I generating? How do I minimize that footprint, or at least minimize how long my devices retain it? The second step is securing the data we do end up generating, which often means encrypting it.
At first glance its hard to tell when Bernie and Mikeys Trip to the Moon takes place. The sets tired kitchen and living room could have been lifted from any of the past six decades. The characters clothing is unburdened by fashion trends. Elvis Presley is playing. We could be watching The Honeymooners or Roseanne.

Scott Aiellos play, which just opened at 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan, passingly establishes that we are in the 1990s  the clunky corded phone helps  but avoids references to the news, technology or pop culture. The focus stays tight on the working-class Vincolo family as they negotiate life with an intellectually disabled daughter in a Chicago suburb: Bernie, now in her 20s and still playing in a sandbox.

Bernie (Stephanie Gould), alternately docile and demanding, rude and sweet, stubborn and accommodating, sets the pace of the Vincolos existence. Her perpetually harried mother, Gladys (Margo Singaliese), is the very picture of long-suffering grit, busying herself making what we suspect is a bottomless supply of pasta and gravy  this is an Italian-American brood, after all  while her father, Mike Sr. (Jordan Lage), finds an escape tending his bar, the Scorpio Lounge.

As for the kind, soft-spoken Mike Jr. (Forrest Malloy), he is accepting of a future caring for his sister when their parents are gone, and resigned to his dead-end job at a chain restaurant.
The point of all this apparatus, Mr. van Hove and Mr. Versweyveld said, is to create a theatrical experience that is constantly in motion  the play is two hours long without an intermission  in which everyone is under observation and no one is told where to look. As they envision it, the boundary between whats occurring on that giant screen and what is happening in reality should always be ambiguous.

The production still needed its Howard Beale, which it found in Mr. Cranston. At 62, he is two years older than Finch was when he played the part, though Mr. Cranston is hardly the fading lion the British actor had been. Mr. Cranston has won four Emmy Awards for his acting work on Breaking Bad, a Tony Award for All the Way and an Olivier Award for the London production of Network.

He is deliberate in his choices and confident when he reaches them. When it comes to the theater, Mr. Cranston told me, I dont believe in absolute blind reverence to the material. I just dont. Because it is a performance art. Its not a painting. (This would not necessarily have endeared him to Chayefsky, who was a stickler for the written word.)

Mr. Cranston has already spent many months inhabiting Beale, and he said he had grown accustomed to the characters arc, as he evolves from a bitter relic to a beloved articulator of public rage  and then, horrifically, into an anti-Arab, pro-corporate demagogue.

But within that trajectory, Mr. Cranston said he was still making discoveries about the play and his performance. He could never anticipate, from show to show, how he might deliver a monologue like the mad as hell speech, when Beale defiantly tells his audience he has no solutions for a world in which we know things are bad  worse than bad, theyre crazy.

Sometimes that speech stays angry and gets [expletive] furious, Mr. Cranston said. Sometimes it takes me to a place where Im weeping, and Im so hurt and damaged and broken. I dont really know from time to time, and thats great. Thats where it should live.
Visitors to Old Havana usually come to the neighborhood to take in its faded beauty, the vintage cars cruising cobbled streets and the colonial buildings dating back to the citys Spanish roots in the 16th and 17th centuries. This photogenic neighborhood, a Unesco World Heritage site, isnt typically thought of as a shopping destination. But worth exploring are a number of appealing spots; generally Cuban-owned, these establishments sell a diverse range of mostly locally made goods, from art, jewelry and home goods to, of course, cigar boxes.

1. Clandestina

Cuban designer Idania Del Rio, 37, opened her store a few years ago on a heavily trafficked street bustling with tourists, with the intention of offering more stylish souvenirs to buy than the requisite T-shirt or postcard. The items sold here have a stylish flair, such as the burlap and cotton totes printed with catchy logos in bright colors. One white cotton tote was imprinted in bright blue with se acabo el drama  the drama is over. Merchandise also includes pouches, pillowcases, aprons and T-shirts. From one Cuban peso, or about $1.

Villegas St, 403; clandestina.co
Good morning.

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When Mark Borman, chief operating officer of Taylor Farms, surveys the expansive fields in the Salinas Valley he sees more graying workers harvesting lettuce than ever before.

The same goes for workers at the packing plants of the company, one of the worlds largest producers and sellers of bagged salads and fresh-cut vegetables.

From New York to California, the nations agricultural workers are aging. They are also in short supply, as fewer immigrants are arriving to replace those who retire, and younger generations are finding less physically taxing work.

In a 2017 survey of farmers by the California Farm Bureau Federation, 55 percent reported labor shortages, and the figure was nearly 70 percent for those who depend on seasonal workers. Wage increases in recent years have not compensated for the shortfall, growers said.
For bikers, the patch is key to belonging and the optics of appearing tough, and members can spend months or even years proving themselves before they earn the right to wear it.

The patch is like the American flag to these guys and speaks to the identity of the club, the individual and the culture, said William Dulaney, a retired associate professor who is an expert on motorcycle groups. Some clubs have the rule that if the colors even touch the ground, they have to be destroyed.

The Mongols marks, like those of other biker groups, are registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Clubs have aggressively protected their patches from unauthorized use.

The Hells Angels have gone after large corporations including Toys R Us, the Alexander McQueen fashion line, Amazon, Saks, and Walt Disney, accusing them of infringement on its deaths head logo  a skull in a winged helmet  and other club symbols.

They have usually been successful, reaching settlements that require defendants to cease using the trademarks and to recall and destroy merchandise, among other concessions.

The Mongols have had their share of run-ins with the law. The group was founded in Montebello, Calif., in 1969 and has about 1,000 members in the United States, most of whom are Hispanic. About half of the clubs membership is in California, though Mr. Santillan said 11 new chapters were recently established in Texas.

In 2012 Christopher Ablett, a suspected member of the Modesto, Calif., chapter, was sentenced to life in prison for the 2008 murder of the president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels, Mark Guardado. In 2014 David Martinez, a Mongols member in San Gabriel, Calif., was charged with murder in the shooting death of a Pomona police officer.
WASHINGTON  There is a 45-year-old Democrat from the Rust Belt who has hosted yoga sessions on the Capitol lawn, a 40-year-old Harvard-educated former Marine from Massachusetts who made recruiting and supporting veterans to run for Congress a pet cause, a few seasoned lawmakers who rarely buck their party, and a handful of newcomers who campaigned promising change in Washington.

The 16 House Democrats who signed a letter on Monday calling for new leadership of their party are the leading edge of what threatens to escalate into a full-blown intraparty fight for control of the new majority. The letter was an unmistakable message to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California that she may not have the votes to reclaim the speakership she lost in 2011.

Their ideological leanings and political profiles are diffuse  certainly not the Democratic equivalent of the Freedom Caucus, the group of ultraconservative Republicans that often acts as a thorn in the side of G.O.P. leadership. What the group shares is a determination to shake up the top echelons of the House Democratic Caucus, whose leaders have remained unchanged for more than a decade, with Ms. Pelosi, 78, at the helm; Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, 79, as the No. 2, and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, 78, as the third ranking.

So far, no lawmaker has been willing to come forward to challenge any of them directly, and the list of signatories to the letter is limited, representing fewer than 10 percent of House Democrats. In fact, their ranks may be shrinking as Ms. Pelosi pulls them to her one at a time. On Wednesday, one of their most senior members, Representative Brian Higgins from Buffalo, dropped out and endorsed Ms. Pelosi.
Similarly, boasts about Republican achievements in the Senate should be taken with a grain of salt.

All but one Senate race has been decided: a runoff election in Mississippi. Assuming Republicans win that race, the party will have gained two seats from their current razor-thin majority of 51 senators, matching their showing during the 1970 and 2002 elections. But before the 2016 elections, Republicans had the majority with 54 seats; now they have 52.

Claims of widespread voter fraud in the chaotic Florida races for governor and senator are baseless.

The Florida Department of State, which oversees the elections, has said it has seen no evidence of criminal activity, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has said it has received no complaints of fraud. Additionally, a federal judge has said he has seen no evidence of wrongdoing in vote tallying in Broward County, where President Trump and Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican candidate in the Senate race, have raised claims of fraud. The county is a populous Democratic stronghold and has a history of poorly managing elections. But that isnt evidence of fraud.

Florida officials did not mysteriously find votes only for Democrats after Election Day. Claims about missing and forged ballots may sound like nefarious activity, but likely have simple explanations.

Protracted vote tallying, in which election officials continue to count provisional and mail-in ballots after the polls close, is routine. In Florida, the Republican candidates for governor and the Senate also gained votes during the process; though their leads narrowed, both won their races after the recount.

The latest data from the state shows that about 851,000 mail-in ballots were requested  but not submitted  by voters. Up to an additional 5,000 ballots were disqualified by election officials who found that voters signatures did not match state records. Those mismatches, however, could be because of signatures changing over time or because of illnesses like a stroke.

Fears of voter impersonation or of undocumented immigrants voting were also wildly exaggerated.

These cases do happen, but are more rare than being struck by lightning, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Mr. Trump warned of people who put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. But for this kind of fraud to affect an election, an army of voters would need to memorize the addresses and names of people they are impersonating and to produce fake identification or forge signatures; if caught, they would face a criminal penalty of up to a $10,000 fine or five years in prison.
WASHINGTON  The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that has played a leading role in moving the courts to the right, is reviving a federal judicial clerkship academy, according to materials posted on Wednesday on the groups website.

The foundation canceled an earlier version of the program last month after an article in The New York Times raised questions about some of its features, including requirements that participants keep teaching materials secret and promise not to use what they learned for any purpose contrary to the mission or interest of the Heritage Foundation.

John Malcolm, a Heritage Foundation official, said the revised program eliminated those requirements, which he said had been the subject of widespread and warranted criticism.

We led with our chin, and we got hit, he said. It was a self-inflicted wound.

The language that was in the original application was totally unnecessary and was just a misguided attempt to protect the reputations of the people who were involved, Mr. Malcolm said. But it was silly, and we shouldnt have done it. It was never our intention to have some kind of loyalty oath. People do not have to be loyal to the Heritage Foundation.
Still, in interviews with nearly a dozen of Mr. Ayerss confidants, White House officials and former administration officials, Mr. Ayers was invariably described as someone who could bring to the White House the political skills that Mr. Kelly lacks. And, they say, he has been effective in protecting and elevating Mr. Pence while also forging alliances with influential members of Mr. Trumps inner circle, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter Ivanka Trump.

But the president tends to keep staffing decisions close to his chest, often announcing his choices after lengthy cliffhangers. One senior administration official said Mr. Ayers is not the only possible replacement Mr. Trump has considered.

Mr. Ayers did not respond to a request for comment for this article, nor did the White House or the vice presidents office.

But last month, Mr. Trump sought to tamp down rumors by inviting a reporter for New York magazine into the Oval Office, where Mr. Kelly, Mr. Ayers and Mr. Pence were ready to display their affection for each other.

Privately, Mr. Ayers has done little to stop the speculation. According to a former senior administration official, he has openly discussed with his allies the possibility of succeeding Mr. Kelly, something that has not gone unnoticed in the West Wing.

Even if he does not end up next to Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, it has been a rapid and lucrative rise for Mr. Ayers since his start as a 20-year-old personal aide in Mr. Perdues come-from-behind-victory as Georgias first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

Less than two years later, Mr. Ayers was named campaign manager for Mr. Perdues successful re-election campaign, and after that, he took a job running the Republican Governors Association. At the time, the group was something of an afterthought in the Republican big-money landscape. But Mr. Ayers grew it into a political juggernaut that corralled six- and seven-figure donations from some of the biggest donors on the right.
WASHINGTON  Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday that American troops stationed at the southwest border would not be armed with guns to confront incoming migrants, despite a White House directive that aims to protect border security officials by pairing them with military forces.

The White House memo seeks to expand the mission of the troops at the border to also include duties such as crowd control and temporary detention. But Mr. Mattis said it left the final decision on what American soldiers and Marines could do  and could not  to the defense secretary.

Mr. Mattis mentioned one possible instance in which troops might act: defending a border agent who was hit by a rock, and detaining the migrant who threw it. But asked whether such a situation might call for the American soldier to be armed, the defense secretary unequivocally said it would not.

No, he said. Not with a firearm.

Sent to the Pentagon on Tuesday night, the memo was signed by John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, not President Trump. It is the latest in a series of White House directives to prod active-duty troops toward a more aggressive role at the border against an approaching caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America.
WASHINGTON  Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary on Wednesday, rebuking President Trump for calling a judge who had ruled against his administrations asylum policy an Obama judge.

The chief justice said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role.

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges, he said in a statement. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

That blunt statement may represent a turning point in the relationship between the heads of two branches of the federal government, which until Wednesday had been characterized by slashing attacks from the president and studied restraint from the chief justice.

Chief Justice Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, made his statement as he is adjusting to a new dynamic on the Supreme Court. The arrival last month of Mr. Trumps second appointee, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, thrust the chief justice into the courts ideological center, a spot that had long belonged to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who retired in July.
WASHINGTON  A potential deal to ease President Trumps metal tariffs on Mexico and Canada is being complicated by the Trump administrations push to place strict quotas on imported steel from the two trading partners.

Canada and Mexico have been pushing for the removal of Mr. Trumps 25 percent steel and 10 percent aluminum tariffs ahead of the ceremonial signing of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement this month at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Buenos Aires. While the three countries reached a new trade pact in September, the metal tariffs have remained in place, and Canada and Mexico have been pressing the White House to relax the levies before the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is signed.

The White House could ultimately lift the aluminum tariffs, but the administration still wants to impose limits on foreign steel to prevent a flood of cheap metals into the United States, according to people briefed on the discussions. American trade negotiators are proposing a quota system that would cap the volume of steel Canada and Mexico can export to the United States each year. The countries are also discussing an agreement that would bolster efforts to combat dumping of cheap metals from China, which has been a source of ire for all three nations.

American trade officials have made some progress in securing an agreement with Mexico, which is eager to eliminate the lingering threat the metal tariffs pose to its economy. But United States and Canadian negotiators remain far apart over the potential quotas, with Ottawa insisting on a higher limit and a more flexible system, according to several people briefed on the continuing talks.
WASHINGTON  The escalating brinkmanship between the United States and China as they race to quash each others global influence is forcing other nations to pick sides between the two superpowers, putting at risk future cooperation on geopolitical threats and a resolution to the economic standoff.

The rivalry, which has reached a new pitch and scope, is now centered on the trade war that President Trump started this year. But tensions have also sharpened over a broad range of diplomatic and military issues, like Taiwan, the South China Sea and economic sanctions on North Korea and Iran.

Across the globe, the United States and China are jockeying to build alliances or partnerships and shut out the other power. The hard-nosed competition surfaced over the weekend at an Asian economic forum that pitted Vice President Mike Pence against President Xi Jinping of China. The dispute threatens to disrupt the Group of 20 summit meeting that starts Nov. 30 in Argentina.

The United States again vented its frustration on Tuesday, accusing China of continuing to engage in unfair trade practices despite Mr. Trumps tariffs. China fundamentally has not altered its acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation, and indeed appears to have taken further unreasonable actions in recent months, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said in a report.
When she was in sixth grade, Sandra Parks wrote an award-winning essay about gun violence and crime in her hometown, Milwaukee.

This week, two years after she described how we are in a state of chaos, she was fatally shot when someone outside fired a gun at her home and a stray bullet went into her bedroom.

The shooting happened Monday as Sandra, 13, was watching television at the time, her sister, Tatiana Ingram, told the television station WISN.

My sister took it like a soldier: She just walked in the room and said, Mama, Im shot, Ms. Ingram said. She was only hit one time, in her chest. The bullet wasnt even for her.
CHICO, Calif.  The first major rainstorm in months brought misery and jubilation Wednesday to a region of Northern California decimated by a firestorm that raced through towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills and sent choking smoke across a large swath of the state.

The rain, which was expected to intensify on Thursday, is helping to extinguish the so-called Camp Fire, the deadliest in the states history, firefighters said. By Wednesday afternoon, the storm had already cleared the air of smoke that had closed many schools.

But the rain also brought potentially treacherous conditions to firefighters working in steep ravines as they try to stamp out the fires remnants, said Scott McLean, the deputy chief of the California Department of Forestry, known as Cal Fire. And it multiplied the suffering of the evacuees, some of whom have been living outside.

Ive had mice in my tent, spiders, its freezing at night and now this rain, said Amy Sheppard, 38, who lost everything when the firestorm swept through the town of Magalia. She is sleeping in a tent encampment in Chico, the city in the Sacramento River Valley nearest to the destroyed communities. Ive been crying so much I cant cry no more, she said.
Historians say at least tens of thousands of women, many of them Korean, were lured or coerced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Army during World War II. The issue remains one of the most intractable disputes stemming from Japans decades of colonial rule over Korea, from 1910 to the end of the war in 1945.

Under the 2015 agreement, Japan apologized to the women and expressed responsibility for their suffering, and it provided $8.8 million to establish the foundation in South Korea, meant to provide care for the surviving women in their old age. In return, South Korea promised not to criticize Japan over the issue again.

The agreement, negotiated by the government of the president at the time, Park Geun-hye, was hailed by the United States, which has urged Seoul and Tokyo to leave their historical disputes behind in hopes of forming a united front to deter North Korea and counter Chinas expanding influence in the region.

But the deal has been deeply unpopular among South Koreans, including some of the surviving victims, who say it fell short of official reparations and a declaration of legal responsibility on Japans part. Of the 239 South Korean women who have came forward since the 1990s to say that they were forced to work in the brothels, only 27 are still alive.

One of the survivors, Kim Bok-dong, 92, welcomed the governments decision on Wednesday.

Abe must apologize and pay reparations, she said, referring to the Japanese leader, in a recording that supporters made from her hospital bed, which they played during a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday. Some of the survivors and their advocates have held a rally there every Wednesday since 1992, demanding Japanese apologies and reparations.
One note written in wobbly scrawl read: Sisto, you are truly a Melbourne icon. Our hearts are broken.

The attack, which is being treated by the police as an act of terrorism, was deeply shocking to Melbourne on a number of levels. It leaves the city grappling with the loss of two lives  that of Mr. Malaspina and his attacker  which between them encapsulated all of Australias greatest hopes and fears around immigrants and what they bring to our shores.

But the death of Mr. Malaspina is especially cruel and his life is worth contemplating.

A few years ago, after more than two decades living in the United States, I set out to write a loving tribute to my hometown of Melbourne. The resulting story was big and unwieldy and full of longing. Its central question was: what is it about Melbourne that is so magical?

The answer to that question might well be: Pellegrinis.

In my ode to Melbourne, I told the story of the place. It was the citys original espresso bar and when it opened in 1954, it paved the way for the incredible cafe culture for which the city (and this country) is now known. I quoted my father, who remembers the cafes opening as being the beginning of Melbourne becoming what it is.
COPENHAGEN  In the eyes of his former associates, Nedim Yasar, once the leader of a notorious Danish gang, did something much worse than just leave the criminal life: He talked about it, becoming a nationally recognized expert on gang violence.

Mr. Yasir was fatally shot on Monday night at what should have been a high point in his reformed life  he had just left a party in Copenhagen celebrating the release of a book about him, written with his cooperation. His death was big news in Denmark, lamented on the front pages of many newspapers.

He was killed for what he said, not just because he left a brotherhood, said Aydin Soei, an author and sociologist who interviews and writes about gang members. The code is to leave the gang and shut up about it, but he went the other way. He stood up with his story, burning to break the chain feeding the gangs new members and to encourage others by saying there is an alternative to the gangs.

The police in Copenhagen said they did not have any suspects and appealed for witnesses. In a statement, investigators said they were aware of an attempt on Mr. Yasars life at his home last year, but they had not been aware of any recent threats.
Interpols tepid response to that highly unusual action sparked criticism that it was too quick to yield to influence from an authoritarian government. Mr. Stock did not directly address those criticisms but said, Interpol has to work in a space neutral to geopolitics, but not of course neutral to human rights.

Mr. Kim has served as interim president of Interpol since Mr. Mengs disappearance. Mr. Prokopchuk has served as a vice president of the organization and is well regarded by his colleagues.

But Mr. Prokopchuk has also worked for more than a decade in a Russian department that has flooded Interpol with requests for international warrants, known as red notices, seeking the arrest of political dissidents and others. Interpol has rejected requests that it viewed as baldly political, but the Russian government has at times found workarounds by seeking a different type of warrant, known as a diffusion. Diffusions are circulated through Interpol but do not get reviewed there.

The investor Bill Browder, one of the highest-profile Kremlin critics, is the most public target of this effort. The Russian government has repeatedly sought his arrest. Early this year, he live-tweeted his detention in Spain on a warrant issued out of Moscow.

On Tuesday, Mr. Browder held a news conference in London and warned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was trying to use Interpol to intimidate his opponents.

This is a perfect way for Putin to basically breathe the fear of God into all of his enemies, he said. So they know they cant even escape Russia if one of his guys is at the head of Interpol.

The presidency is in many ways a ceremonial position at Interpol, where executive power is held by the secretary general. Former Interpol officials said that if he had become president, Mr. Prokopchuk would have had little ability to influence the issuance of red notices. They said that Interpol delegates are encouraged to vote on the merits of individual candidates, not on their home countries.
ROME  The European Union upped the ante in a standoff with Italy on Wednesday, taking another step toward punishing a government that has repeatedly flouted its fiscal rules by insisting on a heavy-spending budget that fails to bring down the countrys burdensome debt.

With what the Italian government has put on the table, we see a risk of the country sleepwalking into instability, said Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission vice president.

The country, which is led by populist and anti-establishment forces, was a case of particularly serious noncompliance, he added.

The European Commission, the blocs executive branch, will now turn its negative assessment of the budget over to eurozone countries. In two weeks, they could give the commission the green light to start an excessive deficit procedure against Italy, which could lead to steep fines.
The discussions between France and Germany have become so intense  with Germany wanting the deal done by Friday and France wanting to prolong the debate into Sunday  that there are some who worry that the Sunday meeting may not happen at all.

Spain, with its prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, ruling in a minority government, has responded to domestic criticism by insisting that it will oppose a Brexit deal unless there are guarantees that the future of Gibraltar, a British colony claimed by Spain, is left out of the agreement. His concern is that the colonys future remains a bilateral issue.

Spain is likely to get some sort of guarantee or side-letter, known as a declaration, clarifying the point, and Spanish officials said on Wednesday that there had been some progress in easing their concerns.

Fish are also a sensitive issue. Future fishing quotas are so complicated that they were left out of the withdrawal agreement, postponed to the ensuing post-Brexit negotiations on the details of a future relationship. But the issue is important to all countries concerned, with even the British fishing industry divided between those who live on exports to the European Union and those who sell domestically.

Both Britons and Europeans are upset that if a separate deal on fish is not done by July 2020, during the transition period the European fishing industry will lose access to British waters while Britains will lose access to European markets.

There are other concerns, noted Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a research institution. Some countries known for their pragmatism, like the Dutch, the Swedes and the Baltic countries, are working on legislation to cover important trading issues with Britain in the case of a no-deal Brexit. But the European Commission wants them to refrain from doing so now, to keep pressure on Britain to complete and ratify the withdrawal agreement rather than work to help the British mitigate with mini-deals in advance of a possible no-deal, Mr. Grant said.
LONDON  A court in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday sentenced a British academic to life in prison on spying charges, prompting a pledge from Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain that the issue would be raised at the highest level with the Emirati authorities.

The severity of the verdict stunned British officials, who had been reluctant to discuss the case in public in the hope that the Emirati authorities would settle the matter quietly after a high-level intervention by the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt. British officials had also said that it was not their practice to comment on matters related to espionage.

The academic, Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old postgraduate student at Durham University in northeastern England, was arrested in Dubai on May 5 as he was planning to fly out. Colleagues said he had been pursuing research for a doctorate on the effects of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 on Emirati diplomacy.

But the response suggested that the Emirati authorities wanted to show other researchers that some lines of inquiry, which have not been publicly defined, were considered off limits. The Emirates largely sidestepped the pro-democracy protests that seized other Arab countries from North Africa to the Middle East in 2011.
The United States announced on Wednesday that peace talks to end the war in Yemen would begin next month in Sweden. The announcement came amid growing global pressure to stop the bombing campaigns by a Saudi-led coalition that have unleashed conditions amounting to possible war crimes, according to a United Nations report in August.

The announcement by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis at the Pentagon came on the heels of a statement by the aid agency Save the Children on Wednesday that underscored the harrowing nature of the conflict: An estimated 85,000 children might have died of hunger since the bombings began in 2015.

Experts say Yemen has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and 14 million people could soon be on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations.

Its entirely preventable

For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death  and its entirely preventable, Tamer Kirolos, Save the Childrens country director in Yemen, said in the statement. Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop.
In our business were probably dealing with 95% the main thing, but there are a lot of applications that dont fit their criteria, especially in the changing environment were operating in now, said Bernie Upton, broker at The Home Loan Shop. It was good for us to see how the specialist lenders collaborate with each other, and allow us to collaborate with them to get efficient outcomes for customers.

Most people dont know enough about specialist lending, NIULIFE Home Loans founder Jon Masaga added. Nowadays I have noticed that customers are a lot more open to specialist lenders; so long as we explain why these options work for them, customers are more than happy to consider it. It was valuable having the lenders there and being able to ask questions about the types of deals they can and cant do.

Sandra Algar at Mortgage Link Hutt Valley said the event was very well-run and that it is increasingly important for mortgage advisers to be well informed about specialist lending  especially since it could mean the difference between some clients getting the lending they need, or not.

Spotcap direct sales manager Sam Coleman also commented on the events success, saying it was an opportunity for advisers to get answers to questions directly from specialist lenders.

As a business lender, it was great to be able to show mortgage advisers how we can assist their residential lending clients who might also be business owners, he stated. Breaking into smaller groups meant we could focus our attention on eight to ten advisers at a time, and provided a forum for them to ask questions of importance to them and their clients.
The South African Government has sparked outrage around the world after it was reported that it plans to auction off a confiscated white lion to raise funds for the countrys nation conservation department. Animal activists claim that the buyers will likely be wealthy hunters looking for easy trophies or businessmen involved in the lion bone trade.

Mufasa the white lion was confiscated as a cub from a private owner three years ago, and placed in the care of WildForLife, an animal rehabilitation charity in northern South Africa. Despite numerous requests to have Mufasa relocated to a wildlife conservation sanctuary which offered to care for Mufasa and his companion, Suraya, free of charge for the rest of their lives, government officials refused. To make matters worse, a few months ago WildForLife was notified by the South African Government that the rare white lion was going to be auctioned off to private buyers in order to raise funds for the nature conservation department. The charity has been involved in a legal battle to save Mufasa ever since.

Photo: Twitter/Dan Schneider

The government told me on three different occasions that Mufasa would be going on auction. It is common practice for the department to auction animals that they have confiscated, Dr. Tjitske Schouwstra, a veterinarian who cared for Mufasa, told NBCs TODAY.

Schouwstra added that, most likely, the buyers will be either trophy hunters participating in canned hunting (a common hunting method where the animal is kept in a confined area to make shooting it easier) or lion bone traders.

A lot of overseas hunters come to South Africa to shoot lions and obviously a canned hunt is an insurance that you can get a trophy, Schouwstra said. The other possibility is the lion bone trade, which is very prominent at the moment.

Photo: YouTube/SABC

Canned hunting and lion bone trading have become big businesses in South Africa, and the South African reports that there are around 12,000 lions currently being bred in captivity for commercial purposes. Females are constantly bred to maintain a steady supply of lion cubs, which are either sold when they become old enough, or used in the breeding cycle.

Mufasa is sterile, so he is of no use to lion breeders. Selling him to the highest bidder is the only way the Government can profit off of him, and the fact that he is a rare white lion means that he will most likely fetch a very good price. Experts estimate that there are only 300 white lions in the world, and just 13 living in the wild.

Knowing the grim fate that awaits Mufasa if he ends up being auctioned off by the Government, WildForLife, the charity that operates the Rustenburg Rehabilitation Center where the lion currently lives, started a legal battle against South Africas conservation department, and also launched an online petition to raise awareness about the situation.



Support for Mufasa has been pouring in from all over the world, and while the petition has yet to reach its goal of 290,000 signatures, the public outcry has prompted the South African to step in and launch an investigation into this case as well as the plight of captive lions in general.

Carol Zietsman, the lawyer fighting for Mufasa, said that the white lion is only alive today because the outcry on social media and from animal activists has managed to delay the auction.

Authorities have declined the medias requests for comments, claiming that the matter is in litigation, and Mufasas fate is still uncertain. If you want to help, sign the petition launched by WildForLife and share it with your friends.


Kate Patchen

Facebook hired Kate Patchen, who headed the Justice Dept.s antitrust office in San Francisco, this month as associate general counsel for litigation matters.

The 14-year Justice Dept. veteran joins the social media giant as tech companies grapple with antitrust issues and critics blast Facebook as too big and in the need of a break-up, noted the Financial Times.



A reinvigorated Congress is expected to mount an effort to cut Facebook down to size.

Congressman David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who will chair the judiciary subcommittee on regulatory reform, commercial and antitrust law in January, ripped Facebook in the aftermath of the New York Times Nov. 14 article on the social media companys effort to smear critics.

He tweeted that Facebook shouldnt be trusted any longer to regulate itself and said Congress should get to work enacting new laws to hold concentrated economic power to account.

Embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told CNN on Nov. 21 that he will not step down in the wake of the NYT article and defended COO Sheryl Sandberg as a really important part of the company.

Zuckerberg said he hopes to work with Sandberg for many decades to come.


Sanjay Nair

Technological innovations are fundamentally changing society as we know it, affecting both our work and personal lives.

In fact, artificial intelligence, long confined to advanced tech projects, is increasingly prevalent in objects as mundane as household appliances and as ubiquitous as smart phones. Googles Pixel 3 phone, for example, has AI capabilities that auto-adjust the camera to capture the best picture, as well as predictive texting and machine-learning, enabled call screening, offering a preview into the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution.

That revolution is well underway and is seeing technological breakthroughs in a wide range of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, the Internet of Things, fifth-generation wireless technologies and additive manufacturing/3D printing, among many others.

As the First Industrial Revolution used steam power to replace people in manufacturing, the Second replaced steam power with electric power, allowing for mass production. The Third utilized electronics and information technology to automate production. This so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution will combine aspects of each of these previous revolutions by blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.

The result is a transformation of technological speed, impact, adoption and relevance that has no historical precedent.

The Fourth Industrial Revolutions exponential pace is not only disrupting nearly every industry globally, but also fundamentally transforming entire systems of production, management and governance.

To put it bluntly, were living in a world where technology is evolving faster than we are, and we cannot predict the long-term societal impact these advancements will have.

As anxiety increases from the risks of AI, driverless cars and robotic automation, its our job as communications professionals to help people understand these emerging technologies and their impact  both good and bad  in a proactive way. In effect, we must help facilitate the long-term exponential thinking necessary to develop a system for technology to augment and complement humans.

A key component of this is ensuring that those responsible for the Fourth Industrial Revolution  technology companies  are taking the right actions to build and maintain societys trust.

In the 2018 Edelman Trust in Technology supplement, we examined the societal and economic concerns in relation to technology of people around the globe. We found that even in this climate of distrust, technology is still the most trusted of all business sectors  meaning that technology companies have a license to lead.

The technology sector has evolved to a point where it isnt about speeds-and-feeds; everything is now fast, and whats important is how your tech can improve lives and provide positive change. Companies need the public to trust their technology if they want widespread adoption and those that havent built trust will pay a steep price in such an environment.

While tech is the most trusted business sector, troubling concerns around their societal value and impact are bubbling, and if disregarded could lead to further tech backlash. In our trust in technology supplement, three-quarters of respondents believe tech companies need to improve societal issues broadly, while 79 percent want tech companies to play a larger role in educating the future workforce to keep pace with emerging skills.

Organizations need to act with purpose and take a stand on issues that speak to their values. Leading with transparency and ethics both internally with employees and externally with stakeholders at large will have a positive impact on society and business, an impact that is welcomed by the general public.

This includes doing more to help regular people affected by emerging technologies, such as automation, in their day-to-day lives.

Our client, Infosys, partnered with the Rhode Island school of Design to train the future workforce with the necessary tech tools. Over the next two years, Infosys will train 1,000 designers across the globe, and has chosen to partner with RISD to contribute to this goal because of the institutions ability to guide an immersive learning experience steeped in both studio practice and the liberal arts.

Beginning with an eight-week pilot this summer, Infosys will partner with RISD to develop a curriculum to build the skills of these designers, helping them acquire design- and human-centric skills in technologies used to address challenges facing Infosys global clients. Infosys will focus on hiring designers with these specialized design skills as part of its commitment to hire 500 American workers in Rhode Island over the next five years.

Companies must also set an example for inclusion and ethics. PayPal, for example, canceled plans to build a headquarters in North Carolina over equality concerns regarding the 2016 Bathroom Bill. The company chose to speak out against laws they saw as at odds with their company values. Both Adobe and HP have taken affirmative actions towards diversity and inclusion efforts. For example, HP has committed to diversity internally and externally with its suppliers and partners. Recently, Apples Tim Cook waded into the conversation around the separation of immigrant families and children.

Being open is crucial to building trust in tech. Only 53 percent of global respondents believe that tech companies are transparent and authentic in how they operate. For example, the recent backlash against social media tech giants related to privacy and transparency is making consumers increasingly wary of tech practices.

Technology companies must act to address data privacy concerns and join forces with regulators, platforms and consumers to restore and maintain trust. Silence is not an option.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is being shaped on pillars of human curiosity as much as greed. We cant afford to blindly pursue one, or be consumed by the other, without considering the eventual consequences. In short, how we act today as a global community will shape our collective future.

We are living in interesting times, with advances coming at a rapid-fire pace. AI and other emerging next-generation technologies are impacting how we work, live and play. Organizations today must take the human impact into consideration to be competitive in the business world of tomorrow.

***

Sanjay Nair is global chair of Edelmans technology sector.


Howard Solomon

Finn Partners is opening a new office in Costa Mesa, CA. The new location will be Finn's fourth west coast office, joining Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco. It will support technology, food and beverage and consumer accounts. The Costa Mesa location is near such Orange County-based clients as BSH Home Appliances, TP-Link and Easterseals Southern California, Establishing a strong, strategic footprint in the western U.S. has been a top priority for Finn, said Howard Solomon, managing partner, FinnPartners West. Our newest office positions us just minutes away from our existing Orange County clients and provides stronger access to the region's expanding business opportunities located in nearby Anaheim, San Diego and other burgeoning SoCal business centers.

Manifest is restructuring its business to bring together all of its brand communications offerings. The reorganization includes what the agency calls a refreshed brand identity as well as a new website that incorporates a thought leadership platform, Incites. In addition, Manifest is introducing a ventures component, called Make, that will allow the agency to play a role in the development of brands from the ground up. Through Make, the agency already has equity in Closed on Monday, a grooming brand; ethical cryptocurrency exchange Salt; and a Swedish social media network that is yet to launch. The restructuring will also allow Manifests London, New York and Stockholm offices to work together more closely.

Golin Singapore has added creative content agency Hurrah Productions to its Asia-based office. Hurrahs staff and clients will become part of Golin Singapore. This move follows Golins creation of a digital, analytics and creative team in Singapore. Hurrah has worked with such clients as Netflix, Aston Martin, US Trucks and Jetstar. James Rotheram, Hurrah Productions founder, will become an executive director at Golin. Jamess team will add an additional layer of terrific capabilities to what we can offer clients, said Golin Singapore executive creative director Shouvik Prasanna Mukherjee.
WABC(COLTS NECK, N.J.) -- A wealthy New Jersey family was killed before their mansion was set on fire in what authorities are investigating as a quadruple homicide.



The killer shot Keith Caneiro and stabbed Caneiro's wife, Jennifer, and their two young children before setting the family's mansion on fire, an official briefed on the case told ABC News.



Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said at a news conference Wednesday that the family was "targeted" in the horrific crime.



"The case has transcended into a multiple homicide investigation in addition to the arson matter. And to date, our investigation has revealed that unfortunately, sadly, each of these individuals were the victims of homicidal violence at some point prior to when the fire was set," Gramiccioni.



Keith Caneiro's brother and business partner, Paul Caneiro, was arrested and taken into custody on charges stemming from another suspicious fire at his home early Tuesday. But Gramiccioni would not say if Paul Caneiro is a suspect in the killing of his brother, sister-in-law, 8-year-old niece and 11-year-old nephew.



Paul Caneiro, 51, allegedly used gasoline to ignite the blaze at his home on Tilton Avenue in Ocean Township around 5 a.m. Tuesday while his wife and two daughters were inside, according to an arrest warrant obtained by ABC News.



The warrant alleged that Paul Caneiro "purposely or knowingly" set the fire at his home. His wife and children managed to escape the blaze unharmed.



Gramiccioni said agents from the FBI and Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives are working with local law enforcement to determine if the arson fire in Ocean Township is connected to the murder and arson blaze in Colts Neck about 10 miles away.



The Colts Neck fire broke out about 12 p.m. Tuesday at the Caneiro family's 5,784-square-foot mansion on Willow Brook Road. Keith Caneiro was found dead outside the home with multiple gunshot wounds, Gramiccioni said. Jennifer Caneiro and the couple's two children were found inside the home severely burned, he said.



Officials briefed on the probe told ABC news they after the victims stabbed to death, their bodies were left to burn.



"We believe in some fashion the family was targeted," Gramiccioni said. "If it was random violence who presented risk to community first thing wed do is put that info out to the public. Have no reason to believe thats the case, think it was targeted. Cant go further than."



As firefighters worked late into Tuesday night to put out the fire on Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck, fire investigators quickly discovered evidence of arson.



Paul Caneiro was booked at the Monmouth County Jail on suspicion of aggravated arson in connection with the Ocean Township fire, sheriff's officials said.

Keith Caneiro was the founder and chief executive officer of Square One, a technology services consulting firm in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  A trained pathologist on Tuesday said there's no factual basis for the Public Attorney's Office's claim that some children died after receiving the anti-dengue vaccine Dengvaxia.

Doctor Raymundo Lao told lawmakers at the joint House committee hearing on the Dengvaxia controversy that the vaccine cannot be blamed for the children's deaths since they had "very serious diseases" even before they were vaccinated.

Lao based his findings on the analysis of the children's medical records and examination of their organs.

He added the forensics team from PAO that conducted the autopsies on the Dengvaxia recipients didn't have proper training because they left out certain elements in their report.

"In all of these cases, we have seen that these patients had pre-existing diseases, very serious diseases that caused the patients' deaths. There are jumps to conclusion that are not logical and do not have a basis in fact. Their conclusions are these are Dengvaxia-related when the findings are clearly the result of another disease process," Lao said.

The pathologist called PAO reckless for linking Dengvaxia to the children's deaths without scientific basis since their statements have caused parents to be wary about vaccinating their children. In April, there were pockets of outbreaks in Metro Manila and Mindanao after fears of possible negative side effects brought by vaccines.

"We have now generated hysteria among the public and that a lot of parents are now refusing to have their children vaccinated  routine vaccinations  that are deemed effective," he added.

Former Health Secretary Janette Garin had asked the Department of Justice to include Lao's testimony in its preliminary investigation about the Dengvaxia controversy, but her request was denied.

In December 2017, the government halted its nationwide dengue vaccination program that began in 2016, after 837,000 children were immunized. Sanofi's earlier study showed that those with no previous infection and got vaccinated with Dengvaxia could contract more severe dengue.
Investors looking for property in Lake Country can relax  at least for now.

The provincial government has no plans to include the Kelowna bedroom community in its Speculation and Vacancy Tax.

That after Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick pressed the finance minister during committee meetings on the tax Monday evening in the legislature.

Letnick asked Carole James specifically about the possibility of including Lake Country at some point in the future.

"Our interpretation of what she said is she clearly told British Columbians that outside of the currently targeted municipalities, including Kelowna, West Kelowna, Nanaimo and others, there will be no additional municipalities added to the list in the future," Letnick told Castanet.

"That's the language we believe she told us."

However, in a review of the transcript and the actual discussion, James seems to leave the door open for future expansion of the tax.

"There will be opportunities to be able to review that as we meet with the mayors and councils, but the areas that are there are the areas that will remain," said James.

"We're not looking at expanding it. We need to ensure that we implement the tax, that we monitor it and that we see it as we go along."

Letnick says another piece of the legislation, which gives the minister the power to expand the tax, will be up for discussion later today.

"We will press her on that piece to ask her why she needs the ability to include other jurisdictions into the spec tax ... if there were not going to by any other jurisdictions added."
1984 the worst year for Indian governance', says Jaitley; Slams Congress for anti-Sikh riots

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Nov 21: A day after Delhi Court awarded severe punishment to two accused in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lashed out at the Congress in a Facebook post and explained in detail how the grand old party misused the government machinery in 1984 and orchestrated the riots.

Thousands of Sikh men and boys were bludgeoned, slashed and burned to death by mobs in the days after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Activists have accused the then ruling Congress of having turned a blind eye and say some of its leaders helped orchestrate the violence.

"1984 is one of the most remembered years in recent history. That year will always be known as amongst the worst for Indian governance," Jaitley wrote.

"The direct fallout of the disastrous operation in June, 1984 at the Golden Temple was the assassination of the Prime Minister. This was one of the most unfortunate and condemnable acts in Indian history. It also indicated a failure of governance. The fallout of this was not anticipated. It proved to be catastrophic. The Congressmen led groups of mourners and protesters shouting "Khoon Ka Badla Khoon". This provocative slogan was shown in television on Doordarshan continuously in round-the-clock telecast," he added.

Delhi's Patiala House Court on Tuesday pronounced death sentence for Yashpal Singh convicted in 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. He was convicted in connection with the killing of two Sikhs in south Delhi's Mahipalpur area during 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Another convict was Naresh Sehrawat was sentenced to life imprisonment.

[1984 anti-Sikh riots: Convict Yashpal gets death sentence, Naresh given life imprisonment]

"Anti-Sikh violence started in several parts of the country. Delhi was the worst affected. Congressmen led violent mobs. The Police colluded with them. It did not fire, lathi charge or even teargas the mobs. The rioters were given a free hand to kill and loot. Places of worship of the Sikh community were damaged. Sikh houses were burnt. Their trade establishments were looted. Thousands of innocents, men, women and children were burnt, were mutilated. The Police did not even register the First Information Reports," Jaitley wrote today (November 21).

The following is Jaitley's full post 'THE LEGACY OF 1984':

THE LEGACY OF 1984

A Delhi Court has awarded two accused in the 1984 Sikh Massacre case to Death penalty and life imprisonment. This gives us an opportunity to look back at the legacy of 1984.

1984 is one of the most remembered years in recent history. That year will always be known as amongst the worst for Indian governance. The year started with the Prime Minister's Office actively conspiring to destabilise the National Conference Government in the sensitive State of Jammu & Kashmir. An alternate Government headed by Shri Gul Mohammad Shah, who was the estranged brother in law of Dr. Farooq Abdullah proved to be disastrous. The manipulative politics of the Prime Minister's Office and the Congress Party was being experimented in a sensitive State. Needless to say, it proved to be catastrophic for the State.

OPERATION BLUESTAR:

Anticipating elections towards the end of 1984, the Congress Party Government allowed the militancy in Punjab to go unchecked. It wanted to strike on election eve. The terrorist built up within the Golden Temple went unchecked. Those, whom the Congress had created to counter the Sikh influence of Akali Dal had gone out of control. The Operation Bluestar proved to be a historic blunder. It was poorly planned and terribly executed. There were no intelligence inputs with regard to the number of militants and their ammunition that they had collected within. Many innocents got killed in the process. But the biggest damage was both to the highly revered Sri Harminder Sahib, The Akal Takht and to the Sikh psyche. Bluestar succeeded in hurting the psyche of India's most patriotic community. A myopic Government did not consider the political cost of this move.

OCTOBER - NOVEMBER, 1984:

The direct fallout of the disastrous operation in June, 1984 at the Golden Temple was the assassination of the Prime Minister. This was one of the most unfortunate and condemnable acts in Indian history. It also indicated a failure of governance. The fallout of this was not anticipated. It proved to be catastrophic. The Congressmen led groups of mourners and protesters shouting "Khoon Ka Badla Khoon". This provocative slogan was shown in television on Doordarshan continuously in round-the-clock telecast. Anti-Sikh violence started in several parts of the country. Delhi was the worst affected. Congressmen led violent mobs. The Police colluded with them. It did not fire, lathi charge or even teargas the mobs. The rioters were given a free hand to kill and loot. Places of worship of the Sikh community were damaged. Sikh houses were burnt. Their trade establishments were looted. Thousands of innocents, men, women and children were burnt, were mutilated. The Police did not even register the First Information Reports.

THE AFTERMATH:

The Congress Government tried to misrepresent facts. Civil Liberty Organisations brought a detailed report on the extent of mob violence and injustice. The Report was banned. The Courts refused to lift the ban. A Judicial Commission headed by Justice Rangnath Mishra gave a clean chit to the Government to the extent that there was no collusion or failure of the Government. Post his retirement from the Supreme Court, the Judge first became the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and subsequently a Congress Member of the Rajya Sabha. The victims and the community were crying for justice. Those Congressmen who led the mobs were made Members of Parliament and even Ministers. There were no arrests, no prosecutions and no convictions. The Civilised Indians and the Sikh Community developed serious doubts about our capacity to deliver Justice. It was only stray cases in which justice could be secured.

THE ROLE OF THE TWO NDA GOVERNMENTS:

The First NDA Government led by Shri Atal Bihar Vajpayee appointed the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission of Enquiry. The Commission prepared an excellent Report giving details, Police-station wise, where the accused were prima facie guilty of crimes and the status of each case. It recommended action. Some people were prosecuted as a result of these cases. In two to three decades even evidence starts disappearing and evaporating. Many witnesses had died. Some shifted out of the country. It was again Shri Narendra Modi Government which in 2015 appointed a Special Investigative Team (SIT) headed by Justice G.P. Mathur, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court. The SIT detected a large number of cases where the accused were prima facie guilty but even charge sheets have not been filed. The case in which Delhi Court yesterday has convicted two people, sentencing one of them to death was prosecuted after decades by this SIT. Subsequently, this SIT got subsumed in another SIT headed by Justice S.N. Dhingra, a retired High Court Judge. The subsequent SIT was appointed by the Supreme Court.

Yesterday justice has been done in one case where two accused have been punished, one with life sentence and the other with death sentence. There are thousands of such cases which required a similar punishment in 1980s itself. The period from 1984 to 1998 was one of cover-up where all cases were buried - as though, the 1984 genocide had not happened. The two NDA Governments led by Shri Vajpayee and Shri Modi in which the Akali Dal led by Shri Prakash Singh Badal has been an important constituent made significant efforts to investigate the cases where evidence was still available. Success has been achieved in one case. The Indian society and particularly the Sikh community wants a closure of the horrible memories of 1984. We owe to the victims that the other cases suggested by the SIT for investigation and prosecution be vigorously pursued. The same is being done. Such convictions in those residual cases will be a small consolation.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 19:29 [IST]
Haryana Unlock Guidelines: What is open, What is not; Check details

2015 Sacrilege case: Akshay Kumar quizzed by SIT, denies meeting Sukhbir Badal outside Punjab

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Chandigarh, Nov 21: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before a special investigation team (SIT) of the Punjab Police which is investigating the incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib and the subsequent firing on protesters in 2015.

Kumar arrived at the Punjab police headquarters in Chandigarh at 9:30am after the special team sent him a notice under Section 160 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on November 11 to appear before it.

In a statement, Kumar said,''I don't know why I've been dragged in this case. All allegations of the meeting looks like a script of a movie. I was in Punjab in 2011 for a performance that's when I happen to meet Sukhbir Badal.''

''I have never met Sukhbir Singh Badal outside Punjab. It's being said that the meeting happened at my home in 2015 but at that time I was busy shooting for movies Baby and Gabbar is Back,'' he further said.

Kumar was questioned regarding his alleged role in brokering a deal between the controversial godman, who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and Sukhbir Badal in Mumbai in 2015 just days before the release of a film of the godman.

However, Kumar has denied that he arranged any such meeting or had any role in brokering the deal.

The SIT has given Akshay Kumar the option of appearing before it in Chandigarh instead of Amritsar. The Punjab Police SIT had earlier summoned Kumar to Amritsar circuit house on November 21.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said earlier that his government had no role in the summoning of the Badals and actor Akshay Kumar by the SIT.

The SIT was set up by the Amarinder government in September this year to probe cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the firing ordered on those protesting against the sacrilege cases in October 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal was in power in the state.

Two persons were killed in the police firing in Behbal Kalan village near Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.

(with PTI inputs)
India's first canine training centre comes up at Attari; Dogs to be trained on narcotics detection

Amarinder Singh says 'ISI masterminded Amritsar blast'

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Amritsar, Nov 21: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said the grenade used in the attack at a prayer hall in Amritsar, which killed three people, was made in Pakistan. A motorbike-borne man, he said, has been arrested for the attack.

Two days after three persons were killed in a grenade attack on a Nirankari sect congregation at Adliwala village, on the outskirts of Amritsar, the Punjab Police were finally able to crack the case. According to reports, one of the masterminds behind the Amritsar blast case was arrested by the police.

During the interrogation, a Local man confessed that he threw a grenade at the Nirankari Sabha. The plot was revealed in a key audio tape. The attacker further said Pakistan's ISI hand in the Amritsar terror attack.

How ISI is using troubled Sikh-Nirankari relations to foment trouble in Punjab

Briefing the media, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh confirmed the arrest of the accused by the Punjab police. He also said that the second accused has also been identified.

Punjab CM said, "I'm happy to announce that police nabbed one of the two persons involved. 26-year-old Bikramjit Singh has been arrested. The other man will also be arrested soon. His name is Avtar Singh."

The CM ruled out the communal angle in the attack. He said, "There is no communal angle. It's a pure case of terrorism. They were targeted as they were easy targets. We had info in the past about other organisations being targeted but we took precautionary measures & prevented that."

Amritsar attack: Several Sikh activists under scanner being questioned

"The person who is the mastermind is Inter-Services Intelligence. These (Harmeet Singh 'PhD' alias Happy) are only touts which they were using, " said the CM.

Earlier on Monday, Amarinder Singh said that the attack "seemed to carry Pakistan's signature". He said initial investigations indicated that "the grenade used was similar to the ones being manufactured by the Pakistan Army Ordnance factory".

Three people and over 20 injured when two motorcycle-borne men threw the grenade on a religious congregation on city outskirts here on Sunday. The incident took place inside the Nirankari Bhavan's prayer hall at Adliwal village near Amritsar's Rajasansi, police said. A congregation of the Nirankari followers was being held inside at the time.

The attack took place while Punjab was on high alert after an input claiming "a group of six-seven JeM terrorists were in Punjab" and they were "planning to move to Delhi".

Moreover, the security agencies were also on alert after four people fled with an SUV after threatening its driver at gunpoint near Madhopur in Pathankot district a few days ago.
Babri petitioner says, he doesnt have objection over bill in Parliament for Ram temple

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Nov 21: Amid tensions building up in Ayodhya where Vishwa Hindu Parishad has called a meeting and Dharm Sansad on November 25, the Muslim petitioner in the matter Mohammad Iqbal Ansari has supported making law to facilitate Ram Temple for peace and tranquility in the society.

There is an ongoing debate in the country if the decision of the Supreme Court on the matter should be waited for, bill should be introduced in Parliament for it or a compromise should be brought about by sitting across the table. Mohammad Iqbal Ansari said that he does not have any problem if a bill in Parliament is passed in this regard. He will also not raise any objection in this regard if the Centre brings in any such law.

Muslim Rashtriya Manch wants riddance from minority tag which made them second grade citizen

He said, "Muslims don't want riots and we also don't want any damage caused to the country." Iqbal Ansari is the son of the main petitioner in the Babri Mosque case Mohammad Hasim Ansari who had nominated him as his successor on the matter during his lifetime. Ansari had recently said that built up of people is continuing in Ayodhya for November 24 and 25 events which is looking like a situation as it was on December 6, 1992 when the crowd demolished Babri Mosque, several other mosques and even houses of several Muslims were set on fire.

Security of Ansari was beefed up after this incidence but he had said that contrary to the perception Muslims in Modi-Yogi regime are more secured than ever. Meanwhile, not only VHP leaders are reaching Ayodhya but many other too are reaching. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh general secretary Suresh (Bhaiya ji) Joshi too recently visited Ayodhya and besides praying at Ram Lalla Temple met with sadhu and saints involved in the Temple movement.

'First temple, then govt': Shiv Sena's new slogan ahead of 2019

Now, the VHP rally and visit of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackrey to Ayodhya is planned for November 25 and for which preparations are being made. Meanwhile, there are certain group in the city that is opposing visit of Thackrey and VHP rally. But the VHP is going ahead with its plans in Ayodhya.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 11:23 [IST]
Photo: Police hand out Dwayne Edward Zbucki, 54 of Burnaby, has been arrested and charged with the alleged poppy donation theft.

Police have arrested a man accused of stealing money from a poppy donation box.

Dwayne Edward Zbucki, 54 of Burnaby, has been arrested and charged with the alleged poppy donation theft.

Const. Jeff Scott, with the New Westminster Police, said on Nov. 8 at approximately 2 p.m., Zbucki allegedly entered the Royal Canadian Legion at 631 6th Street to order food.

After he paid for his food at the cash register, the staff noticed that the donation tin for poppies was missing. Upon reviewing video surveillance, it appeared that Mr. Zbucki concealed the tin while paying for his meal, said Scott.

Staff located the empty donation tin outside.

The New Westminster Police Department released a photo of the suspect, who was subsequently identified by members of the public.

In the early hours of Nov. 20, Zbucki was arrested in Vancouver.

We are thankful to the public for their assistance identifying Mr. Zbucki, which led to his arrest in Vancouver, said Scott. This past Remembrance Day was the 100th anniversary since the end of World War I, and we are forever grateful to the men and women who protect our country and serve as peace keepers around the world.

Zbucki is due to appear in court today, and has been charged with one count of theft under $5,000 relating to the theft from the Royal Canadian Legion.
Congress confident of Sonia Gandhis magic working in Telengana; her rally on November 23

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Nov 21: It is not only in Rajasthan but United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi will address one rally in Telengana to make an emotional appeal to the people of the state. Rallies of Sonia Gandhi did not work for the Congress in the last elections but the Congress is of the view that Sonia's rally will have its impact this time round.

Sonia Gandhi had addressed three rallies in the last election but she will do just one rally in Telengana in this election. Congress in-charge of Telengana R C Khuntia said on being asked that her only rally in the state matters a lot for t he party. Earlier her rally was scheduled for Warangal but due to some technical issue of flying helicopter, the rally has been shifted for Medchal for November 23.

Telangana elections: For the first time Rahul-Sonia to share stage

He said that this place is close to Hyderabad and part of the greater Hyderabad. But the Congress does not have any answer so far whether leaders of Congress' ally Telugu Deashan Party (TDP) leaders will also be present in the Sonia Gandhi's rally or not. Khuntia said that the Congress does not have any problem in TDP leaders joining the rally but any decision in this regard will be taken only by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Congress managers are of the view that due to Telengana being carved out of Andhra Pradesh, there is a huge respect for Sonia Gandhi among people of the state which the party failed to encash during the last elections. The Congress feels that it was due to local leaders who failed to properly assess chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao. They did not realize that the was better equipped to utilise sentiment of people of Telengana.

Telangana polls: Big-wigs set to take centre stage

Congress in-charge Khuntia said that actually Chandrashekhar is now stuck by holding early elections in the state. He said that Rao thought the Congress and other organisations won't be prepared for elections but his action is harming them only because the Congress has been able to make lead by strong alliance in the state over the TRS. The Congress is assured of the victory in Telengana as people of the state have a better option now.
Expulsion of Chaturvedi to benefit Samajwadi Party with his son being a party candidate

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Nov 21: Though Samajwadi Party is contesting just fifty seats in Madhya Pradesh but it has been able to make tremor in the Congress with one of its senior party leader and Brahmin face Satyavrat Chaturvedi's son contesting from Rajnagar constituency as SP candidate. And this has resulted into expulsion of Chaturvedi.

Actually, the expulsion of Satyvrat Chaturvedi is a blessing in disguise for the Samajwadi Party as already angry Brahmin voters may now vote for the Brahmin candidates of the Samajwadi Party if they have to choose between the Congress and the SP providing a better chance for the son of Satyavrat Chaturvedi. Satyvrat Chaturvedi had dared his party to expel him, Chaturvedi started campaigning for his son. However, the veteran leader had maintained that he was born as a Congressman and would die as one but he will canvas for his son as he could not leave his son at the mercy of others being a dutiful father.

[Religious and spiritual leaders posing threat to BJP in Madhya Pradesh]

Chaturvedi has been expelled for six years when he campaigned for his son Nitin Chaturvedi, a Samajwadi party candidate in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. The SP is trying to stop the BJP's bid to form the government for a fourth consecutive term. Chaturvedi was upset with the Congress leadership for not fielding his son from Rajnagar constituency in Chhattarpur district.

In one such effort ,the SP has come out with a manifesto with all freebies. While releasing the manifesto of the Samajwadi Party in Bhopal, president of Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav was aggressive against the BJP government in the state. He took a dig on the BJP by asking if it wants to give petrol also with scooty that it promised with obvious attack on rising prices of petrol.

He talked about loan waiver and free electricity to farmers. He also took up the matter of crop prices. Akhilesh Yadav said that Madhya Pradesh government is copying policies of the Uttar Pradesh government and schemes like laptop distribution are part of this scheme.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 22:07 [IST]
Congress in alliance talks with Sharad Pawar's party, others for Goa polls

Hundreds march to Manohar Parrikar's home demanding his resignation within 48 hours

India

oi-PTI

Panaji, Nov 21: Hundreds of people, including some Congress leaders, on Tuesday evening marched to the private residence of ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, demanding his resignation, and a "full-time" CM in his place.

The people, who came together under the banner of 'People's March For Restoration of Governance', marched for about 1 km, and gave an "ultimatum" of 48 hours to Parrikar to step down as chief minister.

Apart from the Congress, other political parties including NCP and Shiv Sena also extended support to the protest march, which was initiated by social activists and NGOs.

The protesters demanded Parrikar step down as the chief minister as he has been unwell.

They said the governance in the state had suffered as Parrikar was ill and remained hospitalised for more than nine months.

The police stopped the protest march 100 metres from the chief minister's private residence.

Talking to reporters, Deputy Collector Shashank Tripathy said the chief minister refused to meet the protesters due to his ill-health.

On behalf of the protesters, Aires Rodrigues, social activist and the leader of the protest march, gave an "ultimatum" of 48 hours to Parrikar to step down.

"We need a full-time CM. For the last nine months, the state administration has collapsed. The CM is not meeting his own ministers and MLAs," Rodrigues said.

He said the people who marched to the CM's residence had also come to check on his health condition.

Rodrigues warned of launching a statewide agitation in case Parrikar does not step down within 48 hours.

Congress leaders, including the party's Goa unit chief Girish Chodankar, Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, MLAs Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Antonio Fernandes, Francis Silveira took part in the march.

The Goa unit chief of Shiv Sena Jitesh Kamat said, "The people of the state are praying for the speedy recovery of the CM, but that does not mean he should continue to put the state administration on hold."

The BJP's South Goa Lok Sabha MP Narendra Sawaikar took to Twitter to express displeasure and claimed some people were taking "pride" in demanding the resignation of a man who had "worked tirelessly to improve and raise life and education standards of Goans".

"A statesman, person of integrity, 1st Goan to be a @DefenceMinIndia, envisioned and successfully executed infra projects, worked tirelessly to improve and raise life and education standards of Goans. As he is fighting his battle for life, some take pride in demanding his resignation," Sawaikar tweeted.

Parrikar, 62, has been recuperating at his private residence since October 14 when he was discharged from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

Health Minister Vishwajit Rane had earlier said Parrikar was suffering from pancreatic cancer.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 8:32 [IST]
Hyderabad rape case: The rapist will be caught and killed in encounter, Telangana minister

Italian with 22 live bullets held at Hyderabad airport

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Hyderabad, Nov 21: An Italian businessman with live bullets has been arrested at the Hyderabad airport today.

The accused has been identified as Nicole Sangermano, who is said to be in his 70s. He was scheduled to travel from Hyderabad to Dubai, but during the screening of his luggage, the security found 22 live and three used bullets.

NIA arrests one in terror funding case

The accused is said to be a sports marketing businessman. He had arrived in Hyderabad to take part in the F1H2O racing event, which had been held at Vijayawada. Investigations are underway.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 10:41 [IST]
Congress leader Saifuddin Soz

"Mehbooba Ji should move court as what Governor has done on Centre's instructions is undemocratic and unconstitutional. Mehbooba Mufti wrote to Governor only after Congress and NC supported PDP and the Governor should have given her a chance," Congress leader Saifuddin Soz told news agency ANI. (Image courtesy - ANI/Twitter)

Ghulam Aabi Azad

"I said this afternoon also that it's a suggestion & no final decision has been taken yet (on PDP-NC-Congress alliance). BJP dissolved the assembly even though only a proposal was made," Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said. (Image credit - ANI/Twitter)

NC leader and former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik's decision to dissolve the state assembly within minutes of PDP president Mehbooba Mufti stakingclaimfor government formation "cannot be a coincidence".

[Governor dissolves J&K assembly after Mehbooba stakes claim to form govt]

"JKNC has been pressing for assembly dissolution for 5 months now. It can't be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears," Omar said in a series of tweets.

Earlier,Mehbooba in a tweet said she was not able to fax her letter to the Raj Bhawan for stakingclaimfor government formation."J&K Raj Bhavan needs a new fax machine urgently," Omar quipped after PDP president went public with her letter on Twitter.

Sajjad Lone

Earlier Wednesday, Sajad Lone, leader of the People's Conference, also staked claim to form a government in the state with the support of the 25-legislator strong BJP and "more than 18" other lawmakers. In a letter to Governor Satya Pal Malik, Lone, whose party has two MLAs, including himself, said he has the support of more than required number of legislators in the assembly to form a government. After the PDP's claim to form the government, former deputy chief minister and senior J&K BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said the efforts are being made on "instructions of Pakistan" and urged the people to thwart the attempt.

The fast-paced developments began Tuesday with disgruntled PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Beigh hitting out at a possible alliance between his party and National Conference saying "it will be a government of one religion" and people and Jammu and Ladakh regions would not like it.

J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik

Despite opposition from some quarters, the attempts at government formation by PDP, NC and Congress intensified on Wednesday and culminated indissolutionof the assembly by the Governor. Governor's rule was clamped in the state on June 19 for a 6-month period following the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition government after the saffron party withdrew support. The state assembly was also kept in suspended animation so that political parties could explore the possibility of forming a new government.
Jaish looks to hit Delhi, national capital on high priority alert

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Nov 21: Three days back, the Intelligence Bureau had sent out a detailed advisory relating to a terror attack, following which the national capital, New Delhi was put on high priority alert.

Two days after this attack, three people were killed in a grenade attack at Amritsar. Now the Delhi Police has released images of two Jaish-e-Mohammad operatives, who could strike in the capital.

J&K Panchayat elections: High alert as ISI looks to target polls

The alert regarding a Jaish attack has been sounded and the same has been classified Grade A and actionable. The Jaish has been attempting to carry out a strike in the capital and also in other parts of Punjab, an Intelligence Bureau official told OneIndia.

In a photograph released by the police, the two men are seen leaning on a milestone which reads, Firozepur, 9 kilometres and Delhi, 360 kilometres.

It may be recalled that last week the Punjab Police had received an input stating that terrorists of the Jaish had sneaked in to the state via Ferozepur.

The fresh alert comes just three days after the IB had sounded a high alert in New Delhi after a message on a WhatsApp group run by the Jaish-e-Mohammad threatened to strike at the national capital.

In a letter, the IB sounded a high priority alert in the wake of this message. The letter states, ' according to a message circulated by one Pakistani national Ameer Hamza, the Jaish is planning to carry out terrorist attacks on security establishments in Delhi to avenge the killing of its commander Usman in Tral, Pulwama on October 30.'

Delhi put on 'high priority alert,' following specific Jaish threat

The letter has been sent to various security establishments that include the CISF, NSF, Railway Protection Force and also the Delhi police. It is requested to issue necessary guidelines and instructions to all unit commanders of the Delhi-NCR based units/battalions to take all precautionary and preventive measure to avoid any untoward incident. The force personnel to be kept on highest alert and the intelligence machinery should be geared up for collection and exchange of useful advance information to prevent occurrence of any such incident, the advisory further read.
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

J&K govt accountable for every rupee spent on ground after revoking Article 370: FM Sitharaman

J&K: Army jawan injured in a mine blast at Balakote sector of Poonch

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Srinagar, Nov 21: An Army jawan was injured in a mine blast at Balakote sector of Poonch district, Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, two Army personnel were injured as Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked mortar shelling on Indian positions and civilian areas along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri and Poonch districts.

Polling for the second phase of panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir was underway in the two districts. While Poonch registered 81.7 per cent polling, in Rajouri the voter turnout was recorded at 83.5 per cent

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 12:14 [IST]
Justice done: Terrorist who killed SI in Kashmir nabbed by Delhi police

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Nov 21: In a major breakthrough the Delhi Police has nabbed a terrorist who was involved in the killing of a sub inspector. The terrorists who belongs to the Hizbul Mujahideen has been identified as Ansar-ul-Haq, who is around 25 years of age and is a student of MA in English.

Delhi: Nine held for murdering elderly doctor to fund their holiday trip

The terrorist is said to have killed SI, Imtiyaz Ahmed Mir of the Jammu and Kashmir police in Pulwama on October 28. Following the incident, he went absconding. The police say that he had first come to Delhi, following which he went to Mumbai and then Bengaluru.

Following that he returned to Delhi from where he was picked up from the airport, the police also said.

Police team attacked in New Delhi

In a tragic incident, the police officer, Mir was shot dead by terrorists of the Hizbul Mujahideen. He had been warned of a possible attack on his life, but he was desperate to see his parents who reside at Sontabugh in Pulwama. To avoid terrorists, he had even changed his appearance. He had shaved off his beard and decided to use his personal vehicle to reach his native place.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 6:21 [IST]
SC refuses to postpone Tripura municipal elections: 'If we do it then it will set a wrong precedent'

Malegaon blast case: Bombay HC denies relief to Lt Col Purohit

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, Nov 21: On the Supreme Court's directive, the Bombay High Court will on Wednesday hear the plea of Lt. Col. Prasad Shrikant Purohit, one of the accused in the 2008 Malegaon bast case, that he was being prosecuted in the matter without any valid sanction. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed the high court that Purohit's plea be dealt with on November 21.

A special court on November 2 had commenced the formal trial against Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and five other accused after framing of charges under various penal law in the Malegaon blast case.

Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya charged in 2008 Malegaon blast case: A timeline

Purohit, in his plea, referred to the earlier apex court order by which the trial court and the Bombay High Court were directed to deal with the claim of Purohit that he was being prosecuted under penal laws including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act without any sanction from the authorities.

The plea also alleged that the charges have been framed against Purohit and others by the trial court which had commenced the trial without dealing with the claim on sanction.

Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
Manmohan Singh says Modi Govt not ready for probe into Rafale deal

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Indore, Nov 21: Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who is in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, said Modi government is not ready for joint parliamentary committee to probe Rafale deal.

In press meet held in Indore, Manmohan Singh, said, " The people of the country are suspicious of the Rafale deal, the opposition and various groups are demanding a joint parliamentary committee but Modi government isn't ready for it. Isse pata lagta hai daal mai kuchh kaala hai."

Chidambaram calls Sushma Swaraj 'smart' for announcing retirement

He said Narendra Modi's 2014 job promises are now pipe dreams. He said that our nation is going through extremely challenging times for last 4 and a half years. Youth are suffering from acute joblessness.

Speaking on the failure of note ban, Singh said, "Demonetisation was a monumental failure. Modi Govt will never accept it; no black money was recovered. Demonetisation didn't achieve any of the objectives that were stated by the Government."

Congress once again embroiled in the same old problem of infighting in poll-bound states

Singh attacked the Centre for belittling credibility of government institutions. "We have witnessed how the credibility of our institutions like Parliament, CBI have been systematically denigrated. A careful, well-thoughtout and calibrated effort is being made by the powers to weaken these institutions, " he said.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 15:51 [IST]
Photo: Facebook Clara Forman and her two daughters Karina and Yesenia.

Kelowna residents will gather to remember a mother and her two daughters killed almost a year ago.

A candlelight vigil will be held for the second time since the death of Clara Forman and Karina and Yesenia.

The three were killed in their Rutland home just a few days before Christmas last year. Jacob Forman, Claras husband and father to the two young girls, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder.

More than 100 people gathered with candlelight flickering and snow falling last year to remember Clara and her daughters.

The group Moms of the Latin American Community will be hosting this years vigil on the stairs outside the Kelowna Law Courts at 5 p.m. on Dec. 9.

It has almost been a year since this tragedy happened, and we want to honour the life of Clara, Yesenia and Karina, said organizer Vicky Belteton.

All are welcome.

It is an opportunity for the community to come together and mourn as one, said Belteton.
Modi, Yogi in maximum demand from BJP while Rahul from Congress; Sonia may address 4 rallies

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Nov 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is banking heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for the Rajasthan Assembly elections. So the state BJP is trying to get some more rallies of these leaders in the state. On the other hand national president of the Congress Rahul Gandhi is maximum in demand in the state who is likely to address at least two rallies in every region of the state.

It was decided that Modi will address 10 rallies in the state while Yogi will be addressing 21 rallies in the state besides party president Amit Shah and chief minister of the state Vasundhara Raje addressing sizable number of rallies. The party is planning to project Yogi as the main face of the party in Rajasthan. Campaign drive of the BJP will focus around these leaders. Shah started his campaign with road show in Jaipur and Bikaner on November 21 and after that Modi and Yogi will take the election campaign ahead.

Rebels to trouble both the BJP and the Congress in Rajasthan Assembly elections

The PM will have his meetings at Hanumangarh, Sikar, Nagore, Alwar, Jaipur, Dausa, Bhilwara, Kota and one or two more places while Amit Shah will address 12 rallies at places like Badmer, Jalore, Sirohi, Dungerpur, Ding Kumher, Karauli, Sawai Madhopur, Nawalgarh, Sujangarh et al. Yogi Adityanath will have 21 rallies in the state.

Rahul Gandhi is the biggest start campaigner for Congress in the state and the party has already made it clear that Rahul will be the face of the party in the state as the party does not want to project any face in the state. He will be addressing over a dozen of rallies in the state. He will address at least two rallies in every region. Senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mukul Wasnik are camping in Jaipur and they will give the final touch to election campaigning in consultation with senior leaders of the party.

Manvendra, Acharya Pramod, Alpesh some interesting names among Congress' star campaigners

Congress spokesperson Satyendra Singh said that the election campaign will start after the last date of withdrawal of nomination is over. Programmes of the leaders will be fixed as per the demands made by the candidates. Rahul will start his rally from Udaipur region and he will also address a big rally in Jhalrapatan where Manvendra Singh is challenging the CM. Former party president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also in the list of star campaigners. There is a possibility that Sonia Gandhi may address rallies at Jodhpur, Udaipur, Alwar and Sikar.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 17:42 [IST]
From plotting a hijack to creating the JeM, why Pakistan guards Masood Azhar so much

What does the meeting between Taliban and Jaish-e-Mohammad mean for India

Nagrota attack: Terrorists had a free run, visited Pakistan on multiple ocassions

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Nov 21: The Nagrota attack was probably one of the most lethal strikes the country has witnessed in recent times. Seven soldiers of the Indian Army were martyred in the attack that was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad.

The National Investigation Agency has filed a chargesheet in this case and named 13 accused, including Maulana Abdul Rauf Asghar, the brother of Jaish chief, Maulana Masood Azhar. Out of the 13 accused, four are Kashmir natives.

Asghar who is the mastermind of this attack and overseen the entire operation right from the start to end. He kept in close touch with his men, including the locals from Kashmir. He oversaw the training programme and even coordinated where the logistics were concerned. His point man in Kashmir was Mufti Asghar, who was the launch commander of the Jaish. Asghar was also tasked with sourcing the mobile phones, equipment and also providing logistics.

How terrorists obtain valid visas with the help of Kashmiri separatists

The NIA says in the chargesheet that the terrorists who finally attacked the Nagrota camp where Hissam, Aadil and Numan. These persons were highly trained, the chargesheet also says.

Further the NIA says that an accused in the case, Mohammad Ashiq Baba had visited Pakistan several times and met with Jaish terrorists, Waseem (Operational commander of JeM), Abu Talha alias Doctor (Dett commander in Jammu region) and Qari Zarar (Launch commander of JeM for Jammu region).

He was taken for a meeting with Mufti Asgar at Muzaffarabad, PoK.

On reaching there he was received by Abdullah @ Al Hijama and Tariq Mir, both JeM terrorists who are close associates of Mufti Asgar. During meeting with top leadership of JeM commanders Mufti Asgar chalked out a detailed plan including the modus operandi to be adopted for infiltration of JeM terrorists and he asked Ashiq to activate local JeM network in Jammu and Kashmir.

How a blend of Military Intelligence and strong policing cracked the Nagrota attack case

Ashiq Baba was given training at the training centre of JeM at Manshera in Pakistan and handed over money for arranging logistics along with a GPS enabled Huawei mobile phone for communication with JeM leaders in Pakistan.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 9:56 [IST]
Opposition showing coalition possibilities: Will 2019 see a repetition of 1977?

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

New Delhi, Nov 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in a way taken India to a ride on the time machine. Political developments in the country in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election are making the scenario resembling the one that had prevailed in 1977 when Indira Gandhi was the power centre who everybody else wanted to defeat. The mission was successful with parties and leaders across the spectrum joining hands to topple the Congress from power at the Centre for the first time since Independence.

However, the coalition that came to power in the wake of the Emergency and fall of Indira Gandhi was short-lived and tumbled out within three years.

Lok Sabha polls 2019: Why a Modi vs Naidu battle is far better than a Modi vs Rahul one

Oppn tie-ups showing possibilities at small scales

Forty-one years since then, political developments across the country are looking similar. Even though the ruling BJP has continued to dominate the electoral scene over the last four years and won a number of states that were once deemed impossible for it to conquer, the Opposition has also made some crucial marks. In between devastating and close losses, the Opposition parties have succeeded in keeping the hope of forming an anti-Modi alliance alive. Possibilities are taking birth on a small scale at different corners of the country (Congress-JDS alliance in Karnataka; SP-BSP tie-up in UP; talks of Congress-NC-PDP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir; Chandrababu Naidu taking a lead in meeting other regional leaders) and it has to be seen whether these possibilities can be turned into major opportunities by the anti-Modi leaders and their outfits.

One major obstacle in the way of the grand alliance could be the regional satraps' personal ambition for power. We have already seen Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee saying after a meeting with Naidu that all members of the alliance are its faces which raises questions over its future conduct. Mayawati, on the other hand, has made it abundantly clear that she is desperate to score points for her own party first (even if that necessitates dumping the Congress) before thinking about the national good. It is very natural for the regional parties to think about their own survival before the pan-Indian developments and that makes the question whether they can present worthy alternatives to Modi even more relevant.

Anti-Indira govt of 1977 did not last long

In 1977, too, India had seen something similar. Once the common mission of getting rid of Indira Gandhi was met, the fissures within the coalition grew and since the alternative to Indira had a number of leaders than one, it did not take long for the internal trouble to snowball. India saw two prime ministers in three years while there were others who could also become holders of the post. The internal chaos and the uncertainty did not take time to lead to the fall of the anti-Indira government and she was back to the helm in 1980 and the Congress back in power for almost another decade. The death of Jayprakash Narayan, the unifier of the anti-Indira forces in 1979, didn't help things either.

Everyone will be the face of Opposition, says Mamata Banerjee after meeting Naidu

The voters of today's India will not accept a repetition of the 1977 act today for a political instability and chaos can be too costly for the nation in terms of economy and peace. The Opposition scrambling for space and face will have to come out with an answer to Modi fast so that its fate doesn't go the way of the Janata government in 1977 if at all it can manage to defeat Modi in 2019. Naidu so far has played the role of the unifier decently and could be an acceptable face of the grand coalition if it materialises. But how much ground will the other ambitious leaders cede?

This is the million dollar question seeking an answer ahead of the general elections of 2019.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 18:01 [IST]
Going slow on Hafiz Saeed, looking up to Azhar, Pak is only worsening its case at FATF

Parliament to Pathankot: What makes the Jaish-e-Mohammad so lethal

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Nov 21: The Jaish-e-Mohammad, without a doubt the most dangerous outfit, where India is concerned. Headed by Maulana Masood Azhar and run by his brother, Maulana Abdul Rauf Asghar, the outfit is capable of striking big.

The outfit is known for its strike rate not just in Jammu and Kashmir, but in Delhi and Punjab as well. It was this outfit that carried out the high profile attacks on Parliament and Pathankot.

The Jaish headed by Maulana Masood Azhar was founded in 2000. However after making a deadly start in the Valley, it had become dormant for long. It is since the Pathankot attack that we have begun to witness that the group has been raising its ugly head once again.

Nagrota attack: Terrorists had a free run, visited Pakistan on multiple ocassions

The group may not have the numbers that the Hizbul Mujahideen has, but it is more deadly than another terror group in the Valley. If one were to do a comparison of the numbers, the Hizbul has anything between 200 to 300 operatives in comparison to 40 to 50 that the Jaish has.

What makes the Jaish so lethal?

Now, what makes the Jaish so lethal? First and foremost, these terrorists are highly trained and have state of the art weapons. The M4 Carbine was first brought into the Valley by this group. The other factor is that the group puts in place a plan before staging an attack. It undergoes the entire process of recruitment, training, reconnaissance and then carrying out an attack.

The Hizbul Mujahideen on the other hand shows its dominance through its numbers. Most of their terrorists are untrained and do not have powerful weapons. The recent plea by the Hizbul Mujahideen commander through a video message complaining about the lack of weapons or outdated ones is a clear indicator of what the strength of the outfit is.

Jaish chief reserves best weapons for his nephews, while rest fight with SLRs

He even said that there have been instances of their men fighting with pistols and in some cases without weapons even. An Intelligence Bureau official explains to OneIndia that the Hizbul was a fading outfit, brought back to life by a social media campaign by slain commander of the outfit, Burhan Wani. This went on to become a fad and their presence became restricted largely to the social media through which they indulged in propaganda.

Nurtured by Pakistan:

The Jaish on the other hand which is nurtured by the Pakistan army and ISI has grown in terms of strength. Pakistan has been investing more into this group and with a free flow of funds and access to the best possible weaponry has gone on to become extremely lethal. Moreover the Jaish focuses on big operations and attacks at Nagrota and Pathankot are proof of this.

Over the past couple of months, several local youth have been making a beeline towards this outfit.

The Jaish, however uses only its Pakistani terrorists in big attacks. The locals are tasked with gathering information and logistics, security officials say. The choice of Pakistani terrorists for major attacks is due to the fact that they are highly trained. These terrorists undergo extensive training before they are launched into the Valley, officials also say.

How Jaish-e-Mohammad went from dormant to most lethal in the Valley

Officials also admit that the encounters with the Jaish terrorists especially those from Pakistan are the hardest. Firstly they are highly trained, secondly they have sophisticated weapons and more importantly they are ready to die. They plan only in terms of fidayeen attacks and this makes the encounters difficult the officer added.

However in the case of the Hizbul Mujahideen, security officials have found it relative easier. They do not have the required training and neither do they possess sophisticated weapons. The fear of death also makes them extremely vulnerable the official also pointed out.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 16:31 [IST]
Violation of SC order barring bandhs will be \"viewed seriously\": Kerala HC to state authorities

Kerala Woman to face trial for abetting suicide of man falsely accused of impregnating her

This is not circus or cinema: Kerala HC frowns after man attends virtual hearing without shirt

Pregnant due to rape, victim claims in Kerala High Court police not taking steps for DNA test of foetus

Sabarimala row: Kerala HC asks explanation from state govt on imposing sec 144

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 21: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday sought an explanation from the state government on imposing section 144 around Sabarimala Temple, according to news agency ANI.

The court directed the state to explain in detail how is section 144 being implemented in the area. The HC also asked the government how it would distinguish between pilgrims and protesters coming to the hill shrine.

In reply, the state government told the court that it would file an affidavit. The government assured that the advocate general will be present in the court to explain on the matter by noon. The HC agreed to the submission.

Sabarimala row: BJP leader K Surendran who was taken into custody, granted bail

Earlier, on Tuesday, Sabarimala witnessed moderate crowd of pilgrims, even as eight people were taken into preventive custody from the temple complex and opposition congress-led UDF leaders booked for violating prohibitory orders at the base camps.

Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Tuesday accused the Kerala government of treating pilgrims as 'Gulag inmates', prompting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to allege the Sangh Parivar was making the pilgrims 'scapegoats'. Mr Shah slammed the CPI(M)-led government's handling of the situation as "disappointing" and accused it of making them spend nights next to "pig droppings".

Restrictions have been imposed at the Lord Ayyappa temple following protests by devotees and activists of the BJP and RSS over the state government's decision to implement the 28 September Supreme Court order.

VHP threatens nation-wide protest on Sabarimala if state govt continues right violations

The apex court earlier refused to stay its September 28 verdict, lifting the ban on girls and women in the 10-50 age group from entering the shrine, and decided to hear a batch of review petitions in open court on January 22.

Sabarimala has been witnessing protests by Hindu groups ever since the September 28 verdict. The temple opened for the annual pilgrimage season on Friday.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 13:50 [IST]
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram

Former Union Minister P Chidambaram earlier said Sushma Swaraj's decision not to contest in 2019 Lok Sabha elections is linked to changing political scenario in Madhya Pradesh. A day after

Swaraj ruled out contesting Lok Sabha elections, Chidambaram called her 'smart' for observing the political climate in the BJP-ruled state.

Swapan Dasgupta

Sushma, who represents Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha in Parliament, had announced her decision in Indore yesterday where she had gone to canvass for the Assembly elections currently underway.

Soon after Sushma's announcement, Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta had come out in her support on Twitter.

[Chidambaram calls Sushma Swaraj 'smart' for announcing retirement]

"Retiring from electoral politics on account of health issues doesn't imply she is retiring from politics altogether. There is a great deal of contribution she can make to public life despite not being in the Lok Sabha," he tweeted.

Appreciating his comment, Sushma tweeted, "You are right, Swapan. I am not retiring from politics. It is just that I am not contesting the next Lok Sabha election due to my health issues."

Shashi Tharoor

Sushma has been suffering from diabetes and had undergone a kidney transplant in December 2016.

Congress's MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, who is known for his Twitter diplomacy, also tweeted his admiration for the veteran BJP leader.

"For all our political differences, I am sorry that Sushma Swaraj will leave Parliament. As chair of the jury for Outlook India's social media awards, I was happy to honour her Twiplomacy. As chair of Parliament's ExtAffsCmt I always found her a gracious EAM," Tharoor tweeted.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj

Sushma, gracious in her reply to Tharoor, wrote, "Thanks for your kind words, Shashi. I wish we both continue in our respective positions."

She was elected to 15th and 16th Lok Sabha from Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency. This constituency came into existence in 1967. This constituency covers parts of Raisen, Vidisha, Sehore and Dewas districts.

In a party event held in Indore, Swaraj had said, "It is the party which decides, but I have made up my mind not to contest next elections." According to reports, Swaraj cited health reasons for not contesting the next elections.
Rahul Gandhi's old tweet goes viral: 'Mark my words, govt will take back anti-farm laws'

Telangana elections: For the first time Rahul-Sonia to share stage

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Hyderabad, Nov 21: For the first time the mother son duo of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi would share the stage at an election rally in Telangana, which polls next month.

Rahul and Sonia will be on the stage at a public meeting at Medchal constituency on November 23.

The party workers are very excited as it would lend a boost to the campaign, a Congress leader told OneIndia.

Telangana polls: Big-wigs set to take centre stage

The Congress for obvious reasons hopes to make a grand success out of the event. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president, N Uttam Kumar has been holding teleconferences with party workers and leaders and urging them to ensure that large crowds turn up. Further he has directed all Congress leaders to give a grand welcome to the mother and the son.

Sonia and Rahul will reach Begumpet airport by 4 pm on November 23 and will attend the public meeting from 5 pm to 6.30 pm in Medchal. They will return to Delhi after that.

Reddy told party workers that Sonia Gandhi is coming to the state for the first time after the formation of Telangana. All party workers should attend and welcome her in a grand manner.
Telangana polls: Hyderabad police commissionerates gear up for D Day

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Hyderabad, Nov 21: Personnel from three police commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda have been mobilised for the November 28 Assembly elections in Telangana and they are already doing whatever it takes to ensure that the elections are held peacefully in the capital city. One hundred and nineteen seats in the Assembly will go to the single-phase polling on December 7 while the results will be announced on December 11, along with those in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

According to a report in Telangana Today, polling stations were being assessed keeping in mind the past experiences and once the data on them are received, the same will be published digitally for the convenience of all police officers as well as the election officials.

Congress confident of Sonia Gandhi's magic working in Telengana; her rally on November 23

Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said in a recent meeting that the aim was to see the polling passes off peacefully and that the voters get a suitable environment for casting their ballots. Police personnel in Cyberabad and Rachakonda Commissionerates have also undertaken area sensitisation marches in their respective areas for over a month now as preparation for the polls.

According to police sources, Hyderabad has around 40 lakh voters and 4,000 polling stations out of which, 1,300 are considered 'critical'. Also some 3,000 weapons in the city have been deposited by the license holders in the city.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 17:11 [IST]
Will NC, Congress and PDP form alliance before elections, asks BJP; Welcomes assembly dissolution

India

oi-Vikas SV

Srinagar, Nov 21: The BJP on Wednesday welcomed Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik's decision to dissolve the state assembly and said the PDP, NC and the Congress hatched a conspiracy that would have done injustice to the people of Jammu and Ladakh.

"BJP welcomes the decision taken by the Jammu and Kashmir Governor. Once again, NC, Congress and PDP hatched a conspiracy in Jammu and Kashmir that would have done injustice to Jammu and Ladakh. Will they form an alliance before elections?" Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina told ANI.

[Governor dissolves J&K assembly after Mehbooba stakes claim to form govt]

Governor Malik's decision to dissolve the assembly came shortly after Mehbooba staked a claim to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir with the support of Congress and the National Conference (NC). The PDP chief, in a letter to the Governor, said she had the support of 56 of Jammu and Kashmir's 87 legislators, including the National Conference's 15 MLAs and the Congress's 12. The PDP is the state's largest party with 29 MLAs. A party or alliance needs 44 for the majority in J&K.

The main reasons cited in the press release by from the Governor's office for taking the decision was security situation in the valley and horse trading.

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Story first published: Thursday, November 22, 2018, 1:13 [IST]
Karma! Now, Trumps daughter Ivanka accused of using personal email for govt business

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Washington, Nov 21: During the last presidential election in the US, the Republicans had torn into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over allegations that she had used her private email server during her stint as the secretary of the state. Now, new reports have emerged saying President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka used a personal email account for government business and it was created a fresh new controversy in American politics.

On Monday, the Washington Post came up with the revelation and charges of hypocrisy were levelled against Trump. The president had called his rival Hillary "Crooked" over her use of a private email server and sought her to be "locked up".

Trump downplays Ivanka's remarks on media

According to the Washington Post, Ivanka, who is a senior advisor at the White House, used a personal account to send hundreds of emails to White House aides, officials and assistants last year flouting the federal records rules.

It was learnt that the White House ethics officials came to learn about her practice while reviewing emails accumulated last year by five cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit, the report said. They reportedly found that Ivanka often talked about official business using a private account with a domain she shares with her husband Jared Kushner who is also a part of the Trump administration.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 10:03 [IST]
Photo: Chantelle Deacon

The community is invited downtown Thursday for Pentictons kickoff to the holiday season.

The Downtown Penticton Association's Tree Light Up Festival and open house runs from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. with activities for the whole family.

Gingerbread cookie decorating, letters to Santa, bouncy castles, music and a photo station will all be available in the run up to the lighting of the Nanaimo Square tree at 7:15 p.m.

Many local businesses will also be extending their hours until 8 p.m. in conjunction with the festival, giving attendees the chance to get some Christmas shopping done.

Grandmothers for Africa will be hosting a caroling fundraiser in support of the local Meals on Wheels program. Guest choirs will be warmly accepting your loose change "to make change" for their caroling performances throughout the evening.
Are Imran Khan and Gen Bajwa at war over appointment of new ISI chief?

Imran Khan highlights need for improving Pak-India ties; takes a dig at India over T20 cricket victory

Imran Khan speaks of better ties with India and rubs T-20 World Cup victory

Pakistan continues its attempts to internationalise Kashmir issue

International

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Nov 21: Pakistan continued its attempts to internationalise Kashmir issue. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan who is in Kuala Lumpur on a two-day official visit to Malaysia met his counterpart Mahathir Mohamad where he raised Kashmir issue.

Imran Khan briefed Tun Mahathir on the grave human rights situation in Kashmir and in this regard referred to the Reports of UNOHCHR, Amnesty International, International People's Tribunal and All Parties Parliamentary Kashmir Group, UK. He also discussed the role of OIC Contact Group on Kashmir to highlight the issue.

Grappling with internal problem, Pakistan PM taking twitter route to solve Kashmir problem!

At a press conference following a brief meeting, the two leaders said they had discussed several topics of mutual interest especially on anti-corruption and tourism.

This is Mr Khan's first bilateral visit to Malaysia after assuming office in August. The two countries enjoy warm brotherly relations founded in mutual respect friendship and understanding reinforced by strong cultural and religious affinities, the Foreign Office said in a statement last week.

Pakistan was facing a $12 billion financing gap for the current fiscal year.

The Pakistan government is keen to minimise the amount borrowed from the International Monetary Fund by getting loans from "friendly" countries like Saudi Arabia, China and Malaysia as officials here believe that the global lender could attach tough conditions.

Raking up Kashmir issue at OIC "unwarranted": India

On Sunday, Khan visited the UAE where he held talks with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and discussed matters of bilateral, regional and mutual interest, amid reports that the Gulf country is ready to extend financial assistance to Pakistan.

Early this month, Prime Minister Khan visited China, which reportedly agreed to provide $6 billion in aid to Pakistan.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 14:48 [IST]
Collapse of Kabul will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history: Donald Trump

Personal email for govt business: Comparing Ivanka with Hillary unfair, says Donald Trump

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Washington, Nov 21: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, November 21, came to the defence of his daughter Ivanka, a senior adviser at the White House, after the latter was accused of using a personal email account for government business. The incident has created a fresh new controversy in the political circles of the US and the Democrats-dominated House of Representatives have sought to investigate the matter in further details.

According to a Washington Post report, the president refused to entertain comparisons of his daughter with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton who he contested against in the 2016 presidential election. Trump had consistently criticised Clinton over reports of her using a private email server for official work during her stint as the state secretary in the Barack Obama administration that preceded that of Trump.

Karma! Now, Trump's daughter Ivanka accused of using personal email for govt business

"They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton, who deleted 33,000. She wasn't doing anything to hide her emails. I looked at it just very briefly today and the presidential records - they're all in presidential records. There was no hiding," Trump told reporters at the White House defending Ivanka before leaving for Florida.

"There was no server in the basement like Hillary Clinton had. You were talking about a whole different, you're talking about fake news. So what Ivanka did, it's all in the presidential records. Everything is there."

When asked whether he would permit the congressional Democrats to interview Ivanka, Trump said the former could take care of herself.

Trump downplays Ivanka's remarks on media

It has been reported that Ivanka sent several emails last year to White House aides, officials and her assistants using a personal account and many of them were in violation with the federal rules.

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 10:07 [IST]
US President and Imran Khan on Twitter war over aid to Pakistan

International

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Nov 21: Amid the Pakistan government led by Imran Khan seeking bail out of $12 billion from all possible places and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United State refusing to bail out the country by sighting certain obvious reason like terrorism being one of them. US president Donald Trump has defended his administration's decision on this issue.

US President Donald Trump defended the US government's decision by tweeting that Pakistan has not taken enough steps to stop terrorism so it is correct to stop million of dollars of aid to Pakistan. Trump also criticised Pakistan for giving shelter of dead Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. But the most interesting aspect of this development is Pakistan responded the US attack.

[Don't make Pakistan a scapegoat for US failures: Imran Khan takes on Trump]

Pakistan called a very senior US diplomat and told him than allegation regarding Osama bin Laden is baseless and registered the country's protest against the US President's comments. He said that Osama is a closed history and raking up the issue may deteriorate relations between both the countries. This is to recall that Pakistan is seeking bail out from all possible lenders from China, US, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, IMF and some other place. But trouble of Pakistan is far from getting over.
US suspends $1.66 billion security aid to Pakistan

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Nov 21: The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration.

The Pentagon's statement came days after President Trump said that Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday. No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern - that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney told PTI. "Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank. Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistan's Abbottabad. Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden. "I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sedney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed. After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

"What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbours," he said. "But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence. If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.

"Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney added. Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists. In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.

PTI
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Lucknow

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Lucknow, Nov 21: IG Civil Defencehas ordered probe after a video of civil defence officers dancing in an inebriated state in Prayagraj went viral. The civil defence officers are in Prayagraj as part of training for 2019 Kumbh mela.

DG Civil Defense, JL Tripathi, took cognizance of the incident of officers dancing on duty in an inebriated state. He directed IG Civil Defense Amitabh Thakur to investigate the matter.

Amitabh Thakur, who is investigating the matter, told local media that the investigation is underway and action will be taken against officials.

The incident has surfaced amid the state government is more concerned about arrangment and law and order in Parayagraj. The much-anticipated Ardh Kumbh Mela in 2019 in Prayagraj, erstwhile Allahabad, will witness a large number of Hindu devotees and sages gather in the city.

Pontoon bridge Workers construct a pontoon bridge over River Ganga for upcoming Kumbh Mela 2019, in Allahabad, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018. mock drill A firefighter carries out rescue work during a mock drill organised as part of preparedness for upcoming Kumbh Mela at Sangam, in Allahabad, Monday, November 5, 2018. Under construction Workers construct a pontoon bridge over River Ganga for upcoming Kumbh Mela 2019, in Allahabad, Tuesday, Oct 30, 2018. Mural painting A sadhu walks past a mural painting created as a part of the ongoing project 'Paint my City' for the upcoming Kumbh Mela festival, in Allahabad, Tuesday, Oct 30, 2018. Photo Courtesy: PTI Photos

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Story first published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 10:35 [IST]
Photo: The Canadian Press Firefighters work the scene of a fatal at 15 Willow Brook Rd. Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, in Colts Neck,N.J. Authorities say two adults and two children were found dead at the scene of a burning mansion near the New Jersey shore. Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni says the fire continues to burn late Tuesday afternoon at the two-story home in Colts Neck. He says one body was found out front. He is not yet identifying the victims.

Two children and two adults were found dead Tuesday at a burning mansion that was intentionally set ablaze in an upscale community near the New Jersey shore, officials said.

One of the owners of the home is a technology CEO with a relative whose home also caught fire Tuesday, records show. Authorities said they were investigating whether the two blazes were connected.

Three severely burned bodies were found inside the mansion in Colts Neck, and a man's body was discovered outside, Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said at a news conference.

Officials have not released any identities, and a medical examiner was still investigating how the four people died, Gramiccioni said.

"It's important to emphasize that we have no reason to believe that anyone in the community is in any danger at this time," he added.

Firefighters responded to the fire around 1:30 p.m., and it was still burning hours later. Video showed firefighters battling the blaze as smoke poured from the roof of the two-story home, which is surrounded by fields and includes a large swimming pool.

Helicopter footage showed a sheet in the middle of the yard next to the house, with police tape cordoning off the area.

Colts Neck is a well-to-do community about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of New York City and is home to horse farms. Typical homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at about $750,000. Bruce Springsteen owns an estate there, and his son is a former member of the fire department. Former "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and his wife operate an animal sanctuary there; Queen Latifah sold her mansion there in 2015.

Public records show the mansion that burned Tuesday is owned by Keith Caneiro, 50, and Jennifer Caneiro, 45.

The 5,700-square-foot home has four bedrooms and five bathrooms, according to Zillow. The owners purchased the property in 1998, and the home was built in 2003, public records show.

Caneiro's LinkedIn profile describes him as the CEO and chief technology officer for a company in the New York City area called Square One. His profile says he graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science degree in 2018 and previously received certifications from Harvard Business School's online platform.

Earlier in the day, officials said there was a fire at a home in Ocean Township about 10 miles (16 kilometres) from Colts Neck. Public records show that the home is owned by Paul and Susan Caneiro, and that the two men shared at least one address in New York several decades ago. They are also "friends" on Facebook, but it is unclear how they are related.

Paul Caneiro is listed as the vice-president of Square One.
Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump speaks to the media before leaving the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, to travel to Florida, where he will spend Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago.

President Donald Trump declared Tuesday he would not further punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi  making clear in an exclamation-filled statement that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing.

The president condemned the brutal slaying of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a "horrible crime ... that our country does not condone." But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and also dismissed reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.

"It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," the president said. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

In many ways, the statement captured Trump's view of the world and foreign policy, grounded in economic necessity. It began with the words "America First!" followed by "The world is a very dangerous place!"

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the royal family.

The U.S. earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the Oct. 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Trump said "foolishly cancelling these contracts" worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons. Critics denounced Trump's statement saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, he responded, "No, I'm not saying that at all." But then he switched the subject to the "terrorist nation" of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. needs a "counterbalance" to Iran, "and Israel needs help, too," he said. "If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake."

The mistake was Trump's, said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, contending the administration has "blinders on" in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"It's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia," Paul said in an interview. "Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you don't support either side."

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Trump, also disagreed with the president's statement, saying America must not lose its "moral voice" on the international stage.

"It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Graham said.

Likewise, Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said that to suggest that U.S. silence can be bought with arms sales "undermines respect for the office of the presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and America's standing as a champion of human rights."

Trump's statement, issued just before he pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey at the White House and left for the long holiday weekend in Florida, underscored his world view of putting U.S. interests  both financial and geopolitical  above all else.

He told reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would "skyrocket" if the U.S. broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to "destroy" the world's economy by being "foolish with Saudi Arabia."

Asked about any personal financial involvement, he said: "Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me. What does have to do with me is putting America first."

Trump said that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed both "vigorously deny" any knowledge of the planning or execution of the killing. He also said the CIA has not made a conclusive determination about whether the crown prince ordered it.

A U.S. official familiar with the case told The Associated Press last week that intelligence officials had concluded that the crown prince, the kingdom's de facto leader, did order the killing. Others familiar with the case, however, have cautioned that while it's likely the crown prince had a role there continue to be questions about the degree.

"We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Trump said. "In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."

Saudi prosecutors say a 15-man team sent to Istanbul exceeded its authority when the lead negotiator in the team decided to kill Khashoggi for refusing orders to return. The Saudis say the agents dismembered his body, which has not been found.

Democrats on Capitol Hill called on the CIA and other top intelligence agencies to publicly report what it has learned about the killing.

The CIA had no comment on the president's statement. However, former Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic, tweeted: "Since Mr. Trump excels in dishonesty, it is now up to members of Congress to obtain & declassify the CIA findings on Jamal Khashoggi's death. No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince should escape accountability for such a heinous act."
Photo: CTV

A former Quebec provincial police officer who drove into a car at high speed and killed a 5-year-old boy has been sentenced to eight months in jail.

Patrick Ouellet received his sentence Tuesday in the suburb of Longueuil south of Montreal, where his dangerous driving caused the death of Nicolas Thorne-Belance in February 2014.

Ouellet, 34, was also forbidden from driving for a total of 20 months  an additional year after his sentence is complete.

The father of two is appealing the guilty verdict, and within hours of his sentencing he was released pending that appeal.

Quebec court Judge Eric Simard had accepted a joint sentencing recommendation presented to him last month by the Crown and defence.

"It is clear that the sentence suggested by the parties is at the lower end of the range of sentences ordinarily imposed for offences of the same nature," Simard wrote. "This suggestion is reasonable, however, when considering all of the circumstances, the degree of responsibility of the accused and the preponderance of mitigating factors."

Simard took into consideration Ouellet's dismissal from the police force, his remorse, his low risk of recidivism and his lack of a criminal record. But the judge also highlighted aggravating factors like the former officer's flagrant lack of judgment and the impact of his actions on the family of the young boy.

The judge referred to letters read in court Oct. 22 by the boy's mother, Stephanie Thorne, and older sister, Dalia, who was in the car with Nicolas that morning. They told the court their family life was largely destroyed that day, and they are still trying to keep their heads above water.

Thorne-Belance's family hugged each other following the sentencing but didn't comment to reporters.

Ouellet's trial heard he was part of a surveillance operation and was travelling in an unmarked police car at 134 km/h in a 50 km/h zone when he hit the car driven by Nicolas' father.

The crash occurred in a residential neighbourhood the day before Valentine's Day, and Nicolas died a few days later in hospital.

Ouellet was rushing to catch up to the vehicle of a former Quebec Liberal official under surveillance as part of a corruption investigation.

"He voluntarily placed himself in a situation where he was unable to respond adequately to the unexpected events that would necessarily occur in a residential area at 8 a.m. on a weekday, where it is reasonably foreseeable that tens, if not hundreds, of people, including children, are on their way to school, daycare, work with all the imponderables that come with it," Simard wrote. "Moreover, absolutely nothing justified such risk taking."

Quebec's prosecutors' office initially decided against charging Ouellet, but the justice minister requested an independent assessment, which recommended a single count of dangerous driving causing death.

Ouellet, who was convicted in July on that charge, kept his eyes down as his sentence was read Tuesday.

"We were convinced that this punishment was just and appropriate given the circumstances that were enumerated by the court," prosecutor Genevieve Langlois told reporters after the hearing.

Ouellet's lawyer Nadine Touma said that as a result of the crash, police have changed the way they approach surveillance operations, ensuring the public is protected while policing obligations are fulfilled.
Photo: The Canadian Press In this photo taken Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, a computer screen shows the leaked online post from Guilin University of Electronic Technology warning of "hostile domestic and foreign powers" that were "wantonly spreading illicit and illegal videos" through the internet in Beijing, China.

A Chinese university's plan to conduct a blanket search of student and staff electronic devices has come under fire, illustrating the limits of the population's tolerance for surveillance and raising the prospect that tactics used on Muslim minorities may be creeping into the rest of the country.

The Guilin University of Electronic Technology is reconsidering a search of cellphones, computers, external hard disks and USB drives after a copy of the order leaked online and triggered such an intense backlash that it drew rare criticism in state-run newspapers.

Searches of electronics are common in Xinjiang in China's far west, a heavily Muslim region that has been turned into a virtual police state to tamp down unrest. They are unheard of in most other areas, including where the school is located in the southern Guangxi region, a popular tourist destination known for spectacular scenery, not violence or terrorism.

That's why the planned checks worry some.

"Xinjiang has emerged as China's surveillance laboratory," said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic politics and national identity at La Trobe University in Australia. "It is unsurprising that some of the methods first pioneered in China's west are now being rolled out in other regions."

Under President Xi Jinping, the government has in recent years tried to tighten controls over what the public sees and says online and stepped up political oversight of universities. Sometimes, these measures have run into a new generation of Chinese accustomed to greater freedoms, sparking public outcry and occasionally government retreat.

The leaked notice in Guilin warned that hostile domestic groups and foreign powers are "wantonly spreading illicit and illegal videos" through the internet. It said the search for violent, terrorist, reactionary and obscene content, which was to be conducted this month, was necessary to resist and combat extremist recordings that it called mentally harmful.

The order triggered a public uproar last week.

Posts on China's Weibo microblogging site with hashtags on schools checking electronic devices were viewed nearly 80 million times. Users voiced privacy concerns, comparing the measure to computer chips inserted in brains and the George Orwell novel "1984."

Then came critical editorials in state-run publications saying the notice could violate Chinese constitutional protection of the right to communicate freely and have those communications remain confidential.

"If colleges and universities check the phones, computers, and hard disks of teachers and students, they're suspected of infringing on communication freedom and privacy," said an editorial in the Beijing Youth Daily. "Those responsible at the school should be held accountable, as they had a great negative impact on the school's image."

Administrators told another state-owned publication, "The Paper," that the search had not yet been carried out, and that they were considering reducing its scope. University and local education ministry officials referred questions to a media office, which did not answer repeated phone calls.

Weibo, while not a government body, ran into hot water in April when it said it would censor content related to gay issues on its microblog. The company backpedaled under intense criticism, including from state-run publications.

It's unclear what prompted the Guilin university's planned search. It could have been a trial run to see how the public would react or an overzealous local administrator, said Christopher Colley, a National Defence College of the United Arab Emirates assistant professor who has lectured at Chinese universities.

Either way, he said, the backlash shows that though online censorship is common in China, physical searches of phones and laptops is an extreme measure that many will not accept.

"Most people in China are willing to tolerate Big Brother as long as it contributes to social stability, but for many, this is going too far," Colley said.

Schools in Xinjiang have been conducting similar searches since the region's highest court in early 2014 issued a notice forbidding audio and video recordings promoting terrorism, religious extremism and ethnic division.

Teachers and administrators at Xinjiang Normal University's College of Physics and Electronics searched electronic devices in every dormitory on campus on Nov. 9, 2014. A post about the search on the school's website says, "Through investigating violent and terroristic videos, religious extremism on campus has been weakened."

In 2017, China University of Petroleum's branch in Karamay, a city in oil country in Xinjiang's north, ordered various school departments to assign inspectors to search the computers of all teachers on campus.
Photo: Contributed Ryan Patrick Beaulieu

Vancouver Police are looking for a man who was convicted of manslaughter.

Police are asking for the publics help to locate 33-year-old Ryan Patrick Beaulieu, a federal offender who is currently wanted after failing to return to his Vancouver halfway house.

Beaulieu is serving a five-year-eight-month sentence for manslaughter. He has an extensive criminal history that includes assaulting a peace officer, Sgt. Jason Robillard said.

Beaulieu is Aboriginal, 511 tall, 166 lbs., with short black hair and brown eyes. He has a tattoo of the word Love on his left hand, and other tattoos on his neck and right eyebrow.

He was last seen just before 5 p.m. on Nov. 15, wearing a red Chicago Bulls hat, a red sweatshirt, blue jeans, black shoes, and glasses. He was carrying a black backpack, said Robillard.

If you see Ryan Patrick Beaulieu, or have any information about his whereabouts, please call 9-1-1 immediately.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  An exasperated Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin is not taking lightly the Palace shrugging off a Chinese draft text of a proposed agreement with the Philippines on joint oil and gas exploration in the disputed South China Sea.

"Palace Com doesn't care if it's a Chinese draft? I fu*k*n* care! A framework or architecture for gas and oil in our part of the sea demands the draft be MINE... MIO... FILIPINO," he said on Twitter.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Palace Com doesn't care if it is a Chinese draft? I fu*k*n* care! A framework or architecture for gas and oil in our part of the sea demands the draft be MINEMIOFILIPINO. But China pointed out I forgot to insert the name of the participants. I'm sparing of words. Accepted.</p> Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) <a href="https://twitter.com/teddyboylocsin/status/1065019366012522497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2018</a></blockquote>

Presidential Spokesperson Sal Panelo on Tuesday said it did not matter who drafted the accord although he had not yet seen it.

Locsin noted that in the draft, Beijing had left blank the local company that would represent the Philippines in the proposed working group that would negotiate the final deal. For its part, China had named the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

"But China pointed out I forgot to insert the name of the participants. I'm sparing of words. Accepted," he said.

The Chinese draft  released on Tuesday by Senator Sonny Trillanes  said that China and the Philippines had agreed to conduct joint oil and gas exploration in "relevant sea areas" in the South China Sea. No specific location was identified.

READ: China names state-owned firm in draft joint exploration deal, sets aside claims

It is unclear which version was finally signed in a ceremony witnessed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is on state visit in the country, and President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday. The Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between China and the Philippines has not been released to the public.

The proposed deal is criticized by some quarters, including acting Supreme Court Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, due to possible violations of a constitutional provision giving the country exclusive rights to its natural resources.

On Monday, a resolution filed by opposition senators called for the public release of the final draft agreement. It urged Duterte not to sign any deal that would undercut the country's rights under local and international laws, saying that doing so would be a betrayal of public trust.

READ: Malacanang vows to release information on PH-China deals amid clamor for transparency
Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump speaks to the media before leaving the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018, to travel to Florida, where he will spend Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago.

President Donald Trump has declared he will not further punish Saudi Arabia for the killing of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi, making clear in an exclamation-filled statement that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing.

The president condemned the brutal slaying of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a "horrible crime ... that our country does not condone." But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.

"It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," the president said Tuesday. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

In many ways, the statement captured Trump's view of the world and foreign policy, grounded in economic necessity. It began with the words "America First!" followed by "The world is a very dangerous place!"

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the royal family.

The U.S. earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the Oct. 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Trump said "foolishly cancelling these contracts" worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons. Critics, including high-ranking officials in other countries, denounced Trump's statement, saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.
Photo: The Canadian Press This undated photo provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office shows a detail from a diamond-encrusted pistol that a government witness said belonged to infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, at Guzman's trial in New York, Monday, Nov. 19, 2018.

Mexico's former top security chief and another law enforcement official who once worked under the country's new president-elect took millions of dollars in bribes from the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel in the mid-2000s, a witness testified Tuesday at the U.S. trial of kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Former cartel member Jesus Zambada made the allegations Tuesday while testifying about what he described as widespread corruption among authorities who were paid to keep their hands off the lucrative and violent drug operation.

During cross-examination, Zambada claimed he personally made at least $6 million in hidden payments to the former federal security chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, on behalf of his older brother, cartel boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. The cash was delivered during two meetings at a restaurant in Mexico between the start of 2005 and the end of 2007, he said.

Cartel leaders had agreed that they would pool up to $50 million to buy the protection of Garcia Luna, Jesus Zambada added when being asked about previous statements first made after he was flipped by U.S. authorities.

The witness also said a separate bribe of "a few million dollars" was made in 2005 to Gabriel Regino, who worked in the administration of current President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador when he was mayor of Mexico City.

In a letter published in Mexican media, Garcia Luna responded, "I repeat that it is false, defamatory and perjury to say that I have ever received any material goods from any person, police officer or criminal group."

Regino, now a private lawyer and law professor, wrote on Twitter, "I categorically deny these accusations."

Jurors in federal court in Brooklyn also heard testimony on Tuesday from U.S. agents about how they intercepted cocaine-stashed jalapeno cans and more than $1 million in drug proceeds hidden in the paneling of a Ford Bronco used by Guzman's brother. The trial is off the rest of the week and is to resume Monday.

Guzman, perhaps best known for escaping from Mexican prisons, has pleaded not guilty to drug-trafficking charges. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
Photo: The Canadian Press British Prime Minister Theresa May gets in a car as she leaves 10 Downing Street in London, to attend Prime Minister's Questions at the Houses of Parliament, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday in a bid to finalize a Brexit agreement as she continued to battle domestic critics of the draft deal.

The U.K. and the European Union agreed last week on a 585-page document sealing the terms of Britain's departure, but are still working to nail down agreement on future relations.

EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Sunday to rubber-stamp the deal, but sticking points remain. Spain has said it will vote against if Gibraltar's future isn't considered a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday that his government "cannot accept that what will happen to Gibraltar in the future depends on negotiations between the U.K. and the EU."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that she hoped Spanish reservations could be overcome before Sunday's summit. But, she added, "I can't say how we will solve this issue."

The deal, which spells out the conditions of Britain's exit from the EU in March and a framework for future relations, also needs to be approved by the European and British Parliaments.

But May is under intense pressure from pro-Brexit and pro-EU British lawmakers, with large numbers on both sides of the debate opposing the divorce deal.

Before leaving for Brussels, she will face opponents of the agreement during the prime minister's weekly question-and-answer session in the House of Commons.

She won a reprieve from some of her Conservative Party foes after pro-Brexit rebels acknowledged that a bid to trigger a no-confidence vote in May had failed, for now.

But Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party  whose 10 lawmakers prop up May's minority  has begun abstaining on votes in the House of Commons as a sign of their displeasure at the deal. The DUP opposes plans for keeping the border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland open after Brexit, saying it weakens the ties binding the U.K. by creating separate trade rules for Northern Ireland.
Photo: CTV

Fake tax notices have been sent to homeowners in Vancouver.

The forms received by some owners in the city's West Side look like the real thing, but did not come from the government.

A group called Step Up Now sent out the forms, which detail a controversial new school tax that will affect Point Grey homeowners. They show the owner's latest property tax assessment, and what to expect next year due to the tax.

Homeowner Stephen Wiseman says he'll pay an extra $13,000 on his $6.7-million house because of it.

"I was pretty shocked to see this in print I don't have the money to pay this tax," he told CTV.

"All of a sudden with these tax rates, doctors, lawyers, accountants, other professionals are really wondering where they're going to come up with the money to stay in their own house," he said.

Step Up Now has not commented on the notices.

But, the school tax has sparked protests, with some residents calling for the recall of MLA David Eby.

The Ministry of Finance says residents should disregard the fake notices.

"This is inappropriate, misleading and could result in harm to homeowners. We will take appropriate measures with the organization," the ministry said.

Real tax notices will be mailed out in January.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: CTV

Vancouver Police got their man overnight.

VPD asked for the public's assistance to locate 33-year-old Ryan Patrick Beaulieu, a federal offender who was wanted after failing to return to his Vancouver halfway house.

Now the federal offender has been arrested by the Vancouver Police late Tuesday night and remains in custody.

Beaulieu, is doing time for being convicted of manslaughter, Beaulieu is serving a five-year-eight-month sentence for manslaughter. He has an extensive criminal history that includes assaulting a peace officer, Sgt. Jason Robillard said.
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Carlos Ghosn will remain chairman and CEO of Renault despite being detained in Japan on allegations he misused assets of partner Nissan Motor Co. and under-reported millions of dollars in income.

The French carmaker's board of directors announced its decision after an emergency meeting in Paris on Tuesday.

The board, however, said it was appointing the automaker's No. 2 executive, Chief Operating Officer Thierry Bollore, to temporarily fill in for Ghosn.

"Mr. Ghosn, temporarily incapacitated, remains chairman and chief executive officer," a statement from Renault's board said. But while Ghosn deals with his legal issues in Japan, Bollore will have the same authority to run the company as the CEO, it added.

Renault's board said its decision was made with an eye toward keeping the company on a steady course "to preserve the interests of the group and the continuity of its operations."

Japanese prosecutors were considering Tuesday whether to file formal charges against Ghosn.

Ghosn runs Renault, Nissan and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance that he helped turn into the world's biggest car-seller last year, and both France and Japan want to keep it intact.

Renault's move to appoint a temporary leader was in line with a demand by the French government, which owns a 15 per cent stake in the automaker. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had said earlier Tuesday that Ghosn was not in position to lead the Renault Group while fighting the accusations in Japan.

The decision not to part ways with the CEO may also reflect the esteem in France for Ghosn, who recently met with President Emmanuel Macron, and had met with four past presidents.

Renault's board, meanwhile, said it is requesting that Nissan pass along details of its investigation into Ghosn's alleged wrongdoing.

Japanese prosecutors said they were holding Ghosn, 64, for allegedly collaborating to falsify securities statements and underreporting $44.6 million in income from 2011 to 2015. A second Nissan executive, Greg Kelly, was also suspected of collaborating with him.

Le Maire said authorities have examined Ghosn's tax situation in France but have found no wrongdoing.

Bollore, a member of Renault's executive committee, joined Renault in September 2012 and was named chief operating officer only last February. He has a long career with both tiremaker Michelin and auto parts company Faurecia, spending time in Asia with each.

There was no word from Ghosn himself. Japanese prosecutors have refused to say where he is being held.

The prosecutors, who reportedly arrested Ghosn after questioning him upon his arrival by private jet at Tokyo's Haneda airport, have 48 hours from the time of his arrest Monday to decide whether to press charges. They can hold a suspect for up to 20 more days per charge if they decide they need more time.

Nissan's board was due to meet Thursday to consider dismissing Ghosn and Kelly. Earlier this year, Ghosn signed a contract that would have run through 2022.
B.G., Opalesque Geneva:

Two months shy of the year-end, hedge funds have averaged poor performance after a period of volatility and equity market declines (except for Latin American hedge funds which did well in the wake of the Brazilian election). This is a time of opportunity for strategies that can gain in "turbulent circumstances."

According to Singapore-based data cruncher Eurekahedge, hedge funds were down -2.15% for the year so far, their weakest performance on record since 2008 when they declined -9.55% in the first 10 months. The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index declined -2.27% throughout October in what turned out to be the worst month for the global hedge fund industry since 2011.

Chicago-based indexation and research house HFR reported the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index (FWC) had fallen by nearly 3% in October, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) return to -1.66%.

Research house Preqin says that the Preqin All-Strategies Hedge fund benchmark returned -2.35% in October, bringing the YTD figure down to -0.78%. October's figures are the lowest for hedge funds since January 2016. This has increased the challenge for fund managers to attract inflows, following net outflows for the industry in Q3 o......................

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Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitors Therapeutics Key Players Analysis - Merck, Eli Lilly and Company, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim

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The study analyzed that the CDK inhibitors therapeutics pipeline comprises approximately 24 drug candidates in different stages of development.CDKs are the catalytic subunits of serine or threonine protein kinases that regulate the checkpoints in the cell cycle to control the proliferative capacity of cancerous cells. These proteins form cyclin-CDK complex which gets activated after phosphorylation, leading to cell proliferation.Download report sample at:**Various collaborations for CDK inhibitors drug developmentEli Lilly and Company and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH entered into a collaboration for clinical studies of their drug candidates in combination, in patients diagnosed with HR+, HER2-metastatic breast cancer.Some of the key players developing drugs as CDK inhibitors for the treatment of various indications include Eli Lilly and Company, Merck & Co., AstraZeneca plc and others.Browse report at:**Various drug designations for CDK inhibitors drug developmentUSFDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to a drug candidate of Eli Lilly and Company which is being developed for the treatment of refractory hormone-receptor-positive (HR+) advanced or metastatic breast cancer. This will facilitate the development and expedite the review of drug candidate for the treatment of refractory HR+ advanced or metastatic breast cancer.About P&S IntelligenceP&S Intelligence, a brand of P&S Market Research, is a provider of market research and consulting services catering to the market information needs of burgeoning industries across the world. Providing the plinth of market intelligence, P&S as an enterprising research and consulting company, believes in providing thorough landscape analyses on the ever-changing market scenario, to empower companies to make informed decisions and base their business strategies with astuteness.Contact:P&S Intelligence347 5th Ave. #1402- 210New York City, NY 10016 United StatesToll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)International: +1-347-960-6455Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
We have a unique opportunity in B.C. to give another form of democracy a chance for two election cycles.

If we vote for proportional representation in this referendum, we will get an opportunity to return to first-past-the-post in about eight years. This is a chance worth taking.

Our democracy fails in many ways.

The legislature is not representative of voters wishes. More than half the votes cast elect no one. The vision of these voters does not have a voice in Victoria. Under PR, about 95 per cent of votes help elect an MLA.

Under FPTP minority rules. In 15 of the last 17 elections, the majority of seats (and all of the legislative power) have been elected by fewer than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

Regional differences are exaggerated by FPTP. Results from the last election suggest the interior is almost exclusively Liberal, when only about half of the rural electorate voted Liberal. Similarly, the NDP is overrepresented in Vancouver. This is leaves many voters without government representation. Under a PR system, we would have at least two MLAs; one would almost certainly be a government representative.

Under FPTP, some votes are more valuable than others. In the 2017 BC election, 111,000 votes were required to elect a Green Party member and less than 20,000 to elect a Liberal or NDP member. Under a PR system, almost all votes would help elect an MLA. Currently, 59 ridings in BC are considered safe. Only about 28 swing ridings in any election are in play. Parties pander to local issue to win these ridings. Elimination of bridge tolls is an example of such an election pledge. Under PR, every vote counts equally so all constituencies, and constituents, become equally important.

Many voters cast ballots strategically. We try to identify a party we can tolerate to try to prevent a party we really dislike from winning. Neither the vote count nor consequently the seat count reflects voter wishes. Cynicism toward our electoral process grows and voter turnout declines.

Coalition governments established under FPTP systems are unstable. Small changes in popularity are often sufficient to win a disproportionate number of seats and move from the Official Opposition to a majority government. That is a big incentive to pull the plug on minority support under FPTP. The incentive under PR is much smaller. A small increase can gain the party more seats. Parties will soon see that focusing on effective policy development is where the advantage lies.

PR policy based on co-operation of multiple parties will not likely be repealed after every change of government, which is expensive.

BC deserves a healthy democracy with a legislative assembly that reflects the voters wishes.

Richard Pearen, Vernon
Global Cosmetic Market 2018-2023 - Loreal, Pantene, Nivea, Lancome, Avon, Dove, Olay, Estee Lauder, Christian Dior, Aveeno, Garnier, Shiseido, Neutrogena, Maybeline

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Our Popular Market Research Report on 2018 Market Research Report on Global Cosmetic Industry Covers Industry Present Trends, Statistics, Demographics and Future ProjectionAccording to the Global Cosmetic report, the market is expected to reach the value of $XX million at the end of the forecast period of 2018  2023, showing good progress, rising at a CAGR of XX%. The Global Cosmetic report covers a detailed analysis of the Cosmetic including the various parameters on which the Cosmetic is analyzed such as the product, applications, regions, competition, and many others. The Global Cosmetic report from 99 Strategy is prepared keeping in mind the key requirements of the customer, which is to empower them with the information to take on the market.Get a Free sample of Global Cosmetic Market report atEach product is analyzed in depth across all parameters which include the market size by value and volume, trends in the market for a particular product, and which is the product with the largest share in the market and which is the fastest growing product, among others.Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.):SkincareHair CareMake-upPerfumesOral CosmeticsOthersGain Full Access of Global Cosmetic Market with complete TOC atFor providing the customer with the best view of the competition to handle, the Global Cosmetic report provides an in-depth view of the top players in the Cosmetic.The report includes a detailed company profile of the players along with their product portfolio and recent developments in the Cosmetic. The players information is a handy tool for the customers to understand which are the current trends that are being followed in the Cosmetic.Company Coverage (Sales Revenue, Price, Gross Margin, Main Products etc.):LorealPanteneNiveaLancomeAvonDoveOlayEstee LauderHead&ShoulderChristian DiorChanelAveenoGarnierSchwarzkopfMaybelineClarinsShiseidoClean&ClearNeutrogenaNatureThe fastest growing and the leading applications are covered in the report along with the value and volume statistics to elucidate the market trends.Application Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Different Demand Market by Region, Main Consumer Profile etc.):50 Years OldDo Inquiry Before Accessing Global Cosmetic Market Report atA vast portion of the Global Cosmetic report covers the regional analysis of the Cosmetic. The performance of the market in different regions across the globe holds significance for the customer for their plans of growth and expansion. As many players across the globe are forming partnerships and acquiring other companies in specific regions to gain a foothold in the Cosmetic, the regional market analysis comes handy here for the customer to realize maximum gains through planned expansions in lucrative regions.Region Coverage (Regional Production, Demand & Forecast by Countries etc.):North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico)Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain etc.)Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia etc.)South America (Brazil, Argentina etc.)Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc.)The Global Cosmetic report further provides a detailed analysis of the Cosmetic through a SWOT analysis, price analysis, marketing channels, and value chain. The horde of data and statistics has been provided to compliment the information in the report through tables and charts for easy consumption of the customer. Anyone looking to garner information about the Cosmetic for commercial or academic purposes, the Global Cosmetic report presented by Orbis Research is a great value buy.For any enquires before buying, connect with us @ enquiry@orbisresearch.comOrbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Name: Hector CostelloEmail: Send EmailOrganization: Orbis ResearchAddress: 4144N Central Expressway, Suite 600, Dallas, Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone: +1 (214) 884-6817
Levulinic Acid Market Growth Analysis and Trends Forecast Analysis Report 2018-2024 | Biofine International, Avantium, Simagchen Corporation, GF Biochemical Ltd, etc. GF Biochemical Ltd

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The segmentation of levulinic acid market can be done based on application such as usage in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, food additives, tobacco and cosmetics. It can also be segmented according to the method of production. It can be produced from glucose or biomass waste.Request for a Table of Content of this research report @Levulinic acid is mostly produced from carbohydrates in presence of mineral acids such as hydrochloric acid at temperature 140-200 degree Celsius. The geographical segmentation is useful to study regional demand for levulinic acid in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa.Levulinic Acid Market size will witness healthy growth with developments in the agriculture and biofuel industry. It is a type of keto acid, manufactured from degraded cellulose and precursor to biofuels. Its naturally occurring form is Delta-amino levulinic acid (DALA) and it finds usage as herbicide in lawns and is useful for grain crops. It is also used as a plant growth stimulator. It can be used as a potential replacement of petroleum products reducing amount of greenhouse emissions. In most cases microorganism Rhodobacter is used in its production. Leluvinic acid also used in cigarettes for binding nicotine to neutral receptors.The consumption of levulinic acid is increasing in both cosmetic and pharmaceutical markets. Even today sulfuric acid is used as herbicides to kill weeds, but it is not fully desirable because of its corrosive nature. This gives chances to DALA to establish itself as safe herbicide alternative. Indian Government is betting big on green fuel, particularly biofuel with first and second-generation biofuel plants already commissioned. Other Asia Pacific countries are also looking for green alternatives as WHO reports regularly warn about growing pollution across the whole world.In North America and Europe green alternatives get tax reliefs and escape from some of the stringent industrial clauses. It is expected that Germany will lead the market in Europe. Global focus on smart agriculture and alternative to fossil fuel is an important driver of levulinic acid market. Its derivation from waste biomass leads to a significant saving on raw material costs. The industry possibilities are endless and near future will be shaped by technology which can make leluvinic acid products cheap and more efficient.The physical properties of levulinic acids lead low yields which hurts economies of scale. High equipment costs make mass production a very costly affair. Vinyl acetates and cellulose acetates are upcoming substitutes produced and available at cheaper rates. Setting appropriate conditions for production of levulinic acid from waste biomass is a daunting task and not easily achievable. Separating the reaction products and obtaining levulinic acid is another tough task. Many Asia Pacific nations impose education cess and countervailing duties on the levulinic acid market, leading to increasing product costs, hence posing hindrances in the Levulinic Acid Market growth.Request for a Customization of this research report @North America is a key consumer of levulinic acid as the U.S. is one of the largest production grounds for biofuels. Most companies in North America imports levulinic acid from Chinese manufacturers. Levulinic acid is sold in Asia Pacific through bulk chemical suppliers and finds increased usage in oil & gas and paints & coatings industry. Biofuel is an upcoming industry in Asia Pacific and levulinic acid can expect lot of demand from this sector. In Europe levulinic acid is mostly used as raw material for other chemical industries.The ideal location for levulinic acid production factory is near glucose/sugar manufacturing facilities for easy access to raw materials. Global companies in levulinic acid market are Biofine International, Avantium, Simagchen Corporation, GF Biochemical Ltd, etc. GF Biochemical Ltd is largest producer of levulinic acid in the world. Levulinic Acid Market players mostly rely on strategic partnerships for supply to the end-user companies.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Global Agriculture Micronutrients Market Analysis 2018-2025: ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., Akzo Nobel N.V., Agrium Inc., BASF SE, Compass Minerals International Inc.

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ResearchMoz include new market research report "Global Market Study on Agriculture Micronutrients: Micronutrients to Find Largest Application in Soil During 2017-2024" to its huge collection of research reports.The global agriculture micronutrients market report focuses on all the key opportunities, latest trends, drivers, micro and macro-economic factors, and challenges that are expected to impact the growth of the global market for agriculture micronutrients. Analysis of all the factors across major regions are given in the report. The report helps readers to gain insights on all the important factors on the market growth during the forecast period 2017-2024. The report also focuses on all the key segments and regions to identify opportunities.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @Research methodologyThe qualitative and quantitative data presented in this report is offered in the report with the help of extensive research process. Weighted average model of the global agriculture micronutrients market is provided by a comprehensive research methodology including primary and secondary research. Secondary research helps in understanding the overall market and the primary research helps in understanding the current scenario in the market. The data collected through secondary research is analyzed and validated, similarly, data collected through primary research is also cross-checked with available data sources. This helps in accurately identifying opportunities in the market. This process is done to obtain accurate data on all the segments and regions in the market. The data obtained from various source is triangulated to provide a better forecast with estimated numbers.The global market for agriculture micronutrients is segmented on the basis of product type, application, crop type, and region. The key segments are further divided into sub-segments and all the key regions are segmented into countries.Read Complete Table of Content @Competitive AssessmentThe report on the global agriculture micronutrients market offers a complete package including leading players in the global market. Latest product development by all the major players, new business overview, product portfolio, financial overview, market share, revenue through sales, partnerships and mergers and acquisitions has also been included in the report. Moreover, Porters five force analysis, SWOT analysis, and market attractiveness analysis are also included in the report. All the information given in the report help to identify better opportunities for growth. Decisions making is an essential part of the business and the information provided in the report including trends, current market scenario helps in taking a decision.Make An Enquiry @The report on the global agriculture micronutrients market include the opinions offered by manufacturers, and suppliers operating in the global market for agriculture micronutrients. The market attractiveness index is also provided in the report to help in identifying all the growth opportunities in the market.About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.For More Information Kindly Contact:ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Blog:
Netherlands: Country Intelligence Report Analysis By top Key Vendors Operating like KPN, T-Mobile Netherlands, VodafoneZiggo, Tele2 Netherlands, Lebara, Canal Digitaal, Online

Netherlands: Country Intelligence Report

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"Netherlands: Country Intelligence Report", a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in the Netherlands today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2022. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile and pay-TV segments, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The telecom and pay-TV services market in the Netherlands will see lethargic growth from 10.2bn in 2017 to 10.6bn by 2022 at a CAGR of 0.6% over 2017-2022 as fixed broadband, mobile data and pay-TV services will sustain total market growth over the forecast period. Mobile voice revenue will decline over the forecast period due to falling voice ARPS. Mobile data revenue will expand at the fastest CAGR of 4.9% in  driven by continued rise in smartphone penetration and consumption of higher-value data-centric plans. The pay-TV market will grow from 1.4bn ($1.6bn) in 2017 to 1.7bn ($2.1bn) by 2022 at a CAGR of 3.3% in  (5.1% in $) driven by an increase in IPTV subscriptions.Key Players: KPN T-Mobile Netherlands VodafoneZiggo Tele2 Netherlands Lebara Canal Digitaal OnlineGet Sample Copy of this Report@The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Demographic and macroeconomic context in the Netherlands.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, tariff regulation and more.- Telecom and pay-TV services market outlook: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, mobile data and pay-TV markets.- The competitive landscape: an examination of the positioning of leading players in the telecom and pay-TV services market as well as subscription market shares across segments.- Company snapshots: analysis of the financial position of leading service providers in the telecommunications and pay-TV markets.- Underlying assumptions behind our published base-case forecasts, as well as potential market developments that would alter, either positively or negatively, our base-case outlook.Scope:- The overall telecom and pay-TV services revenue in the Netherlands will grow at a CAGR of 0.6% in  (2.4% in US$) during 2017-2022.- Mobile revenue will account for 46.5% of total telecom and pay-TV services revenue in 2022, driven by increasing adoption of 4G/5G services.- KPN leads the Netherland's mobile market in terms of mobile subscriptions for 2017, followed by VodafoneZiggo and T-Mobile Netherlands. Major operators focus on LTE network advacements to remain competitive in the market.Make an Inquiry before Buying@Reasons to buy:- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of the Netherlands telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in the Netherlands mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in the Netherlands telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in the Netherlands.Key Points from TOC:Market highlights 4Demographic, macroeconomic and regulatory context 5Demographic and macroeconomic context 6Regulatory context 8Telecom and pay-TV services market outlook 9Total telecom service revenue 10Mobile services market 12Fixed services market 18Pay-TV services market 22Competitive landscape and company snapshots 25Competitive landscape 26KPN 28VodafoneZiggo 29T-Mobile Netherlands 30Tele2 Netherlands 31Additional resources 32Baseline forecast assumptions 33Data tables 34Glossary 36Research methodology 39About the authors 40Country Intelligence Report coverage 41About GlobalData 42Get More Information about this Report@About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Info:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email id: sales@orbisresearch.com
Food Processing Market Huge growth | PepsiCo, Glaxo-SmithKline (GSK), Mapro Foods

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HTF Market Intelligence released a new research report of 62 pages on title 'Food Processing Industry in India 2017 ' with detailed analysis, forecast and strategies. The study covers key regions and important players such as PepsiCo, Glaxo-SmithKline (GSK), Mapro Foods, Dabur, Parle, Nestle, Frito-Lay, and HaldiramsRequest a sample report @According to the data provided by the Department of Industrial Policies and Promotion (DIPP), the food processing sector in India has received around US$ 7.54 billion worth of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during the period April 2000-March 2017. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) estimates that the food processing sectors have the potential to attract as much as US$ 33 billion of investment over the next 10 years and also to generate employment of nine million person-daysHTF ' latest market research report titled Food Processing Industry in India 2017 provides an overview of the current status of the industry. Increased urbanization and changing lifestyle of individuals have played a major role in spurring growth in this sector. Despite processing levels being abysmally low in the country, the rising income and resultant increased spending on food items have ensured that volume of processed food consumed in the country has remained high. Increased penetration of organized retail is also helping in driving demand for processed food as more individuals are becoming aware of their availability. Moreover, processed food is an attractive option to a large number of nuclear families and increasing number of working women in India as it helps them save time and requires less effort for preparation.A major problem being faced by the industry is the gaps in the supply chain. The country lacks proper storage and distribution facilities. Moreover, the inadequate and high cost of credit is one of the major reasons for the subdued growth of the agricultural sector, the key raw material supplying industry. However, the Government of India has been playing a proactive role in developing the sector and reducing infrastructural hurdles. Through the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), it is providing ample support to the industry. In the Union Budget 2015-16, the government allocated INR ~3.29 bn for infrastructural development. Also, the National Mission on Food Processing, a centrally sponsored scheme launched by MoFPI, is promoting the development of facilities for post-harvest operations in the country. India already has 14 mega food parks, and an additional eight food parks are expected to be operational by the end of this year. This will further aid in the development of the country's food processing industry.Make an enquiry before buying this Report @Coverage:Overview of the Food Processing Industry, and historical and forecasted market size data over FY 2012 to FY 2020Trade analysis of processed food in IndiaQualitative analysis of the major drivers and challenges affecting the marketAnalysis of the competitive landscape and profiles of major public and private players operating in the marketKey recent developments in the Indian food processing industryView Detailed Table of Content @Why Buy?Get a broad understanding of the food processing industry in India, the dynamics of the market and the current state of the industryDevise market-entry strategies by understanding the factors driving the growth of the marketIdentify key growth opportunities in the industry and make informed decisions to increase profitabilityUnderstand major competitors' business and market dynamics, and respond accordinglySlide 1: Executive SummarySocioeconomic IndicatorsSlide 2: Total Population (2010-2011  2019-2020), Population Density (2010-2011  2019-2020)Slide 3: Sex Ratio (2005, 2010, 2015, 2020), Population by Age Group (2005, 2010, 2015, 2020), Urbanization Trend (2010-2011  2019-2020)Slide 4: Total Fertility Rate (2005-2010, 2010-2015, 2015-2020), Infant Mortality Rate (2005-2010, 2010-2015, 2015-2020), Total Number of Births (2005-2010, 2010-2015, 2015-2020), Total Number of Death (2005-2010, 2010-2015, 2015-2020)Slide 5: Total Literacy Rate (2001, 2011), Rural Literacy (2Buy this report @HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Postpartum Depression Drug Market In-depth Research & Key Company Profiles are Cipla Limited, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Mylan N.V., Anikem Laboratories, and Shionogi & Co., Ltd.

Postpartum Depression

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Increasing research activities for treatment of PPD is expected to propel growth of the postpartum depression drug market during the forecast period. For instance, Sage Therapeutics is undergoing phase 3 clinical study for the drug Brexanolone, which might be useful in the treatment of PPD. The study started in May 2018 and is estimated to be completed in September 2020.Furthermore, Marinus Pharmaceuticals, is undergoing clinical phase 2 study for the drug Ganaxolone in the treatment of PPD and other mood associated disorders. The clinical study started in June 2017 and is expected to be completed in June 2019.Postpartum Depression Drug Market RestraintAntidepressant drugs refusals by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U.S FDA) are expected to be a major restraint in growth of the postpartum depression drug market over the forecast period. For instance, in April 2018, the U.S FDA refused New Drug Application of Alkermes plc.s drug candidate ALKS 5461 which is to be administered orally. The drug could be useful in treating depressive disorders, which cannot be treated by other standard drug therapies. This refusal was due to failures in action of this oral medication.Get HOLISTIC Request Sample Copy Of This Business Report:Postpartum Depression Drug Market TaxonomyBy Drug ClassSelective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)Serotonin Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs)Tricyclic AntidepressantsAtypical AntidepressantsMonoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs)OthersBy Distribution ChannelHospital PharmaciesRetail PharmaciesOnline PharmaciesPostpartum Depression Drug Market Regional AnalysisOn the basis of region, the global postpartum depression drug market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa.North America is estimated to hold dominant position in the global postpartum depression drug market during the forecast period, owing to increasing awareness of PPD. For instance, annually, May 2017 is celebrated as a National Maternal Depression Awareness Month recognizing the seriousness of depression during and after pregnancy in the U.S.Furthermore, Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth in the global postpartum depression drug market during the forecast period, owing to increasing prevalence of PDD in the region. For instance, According to World Health Organization (WHO) July 2018 report, 22% of mothers in India suffer from PPD, annually.Download the PDF brochure:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.1001 4th Ave
Upcoming Study Reveals Key Factors Driving the Growth of Aminoglycosides Market During 2017-2025

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Aminoglycosides are highly potent, antibiotics with several properties for the treatment of life-threatening infections. Aminoglycosides have concentration-dependent bactericidal activity by binding to the 30S ribosome that inhibits bacterial protein synthesis. Spectinomycin is a bacteriostatic antibiotic chemically related to the aminoglycosides. Protein binding of aminoglycosides antibiotics is less than 10%. Aminoglycosides are poorly absorbed through oral administration, where as they are well absorbed through pleural cavity, joints and peritoneum regions. Aminoglycosides are polar drugs and the distribution is mainly restricted to extracellular fluids except for vitreous humor, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), respiratory secretions, and bile. The distribution volume of aminoglycosides is approximately 20-25% of body weight. Modification of distribution coefficient of aminoglycosides occurs in patients suffering from gram negative sepsis and are dehydration, hematological disorders, burned patients, etc. Aminoglycosides are primarily excreted through the kidney by glomerular filtration. The 80%-90% of the administered dose is excreted in the urine resulting in high urinary concentrations.Aminoglycosides are more active against gram-negative, aerobic and facultative anaerobic bacilli. Increase in disease indication due to bacterial infections such as Plasmodium aeruginosa, Serratia marcescens, and increase in incidence of tuberculosis among emerging regions such as Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa which are expected to boost growth of the global aminoglycosides market. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2013, there were 368 Mn people with hearing impairment disorder due to tuberculosis. The prevalence of hearing loss both in children as well as in adults over 65 years of age was highest in South East Asia, Asia Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, the use of aminoglycosides in tuberculosis treatment is expected to fuel growth of aminoglycosides market in these regions through 2024. Renal toxicity, vestibular and auditory toxicity side-effects are expected to hamper the global aminoglycoside market growth during the forecast period.Request Sample Report@Aminoglycoside market has been segmented by product type, by disease indication, by route of administration and by geography. In terms of product type aminoglycoside market is classified into natural aminoglycosides such as gentamicin, neomycin, kanamycin and tobramycin, and semisynthetic aminoglycosides such as netilmicin and amikacin. In terms of disease indication, the global market is segmented into tuberculosis, urinary tract infection, amoebiasis, meningitis, cystic fibrosis, and others. Route of Administration of aminoglycosides depend upon the type & site of infection. Aminoglycoside can be administered orally, injectable (parenteral), intra-mammary and topical. Gentamicin is an important product type for major bacterial infection occuring among the patients. Gentamicin market is expected to grow significantly due to low cost and reliable activity against gram-negative aerobes. Tobramycin has been found to be slightly more effective against Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. Amikacin and gentamicin find maximum usage in veterinary medicine. According to the WHO, amikacin may be effective against some gentamicin resistant bacteria and more suitable for hospital settings where gentamicin resistance rates are high.Geographically aminoglycoside market is classified into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the global aminoglycoside market in terms of value due to increase in bacterial infections and introduction of novel, key players for production of aminoglycoside. Early-phase diagnosis and treatment of disease is expected to drive the growth of the aminoglycoside market in North America. Europe is the second largest market for aminoglycoside in terms of value as there are favourable government policies regarding health care infrastructure and awareness of population. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at higher rate due to rising population, tropical climate which initiates bacterial infections, rising awareness between patients and increasing per capita expenditure. In addition, economic growth is supporting the healthcare infrastructure improvement in developing countries such as India and China. Thus, all the above mentioned factors collectively fuel the growth of aminoglycoside market in Asia Pacific. Middle East and Africa is another major region which is projected to grow remarkably due to rise in tuberculosis and HIV disease rate among the population. According to the WHO, South Africa had one of the highest rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) in the world, for which the use of 2nd line injectable anti-TB drugs are associated with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL).Request TOC@The major players operating in the global biologic imaging reagents market include Achaogen, Inc., SelectX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Oricula Therapeutics, Yi Chang Veterinary Medicine Factory, among other significant players worldwide.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Dental Anesthesia Industry is Expected to Grow at an approximate CAGR of 8.9% till 2023 | Leading Vendors as Astra Zeneca, Septodont, Dentsply, Sirona, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Gilead Sciences, etc

Dental Anesthesia Market

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Market Research Future Introduces the Global Dental Anesthesia Market Research Report. Reports Provides the classifications and industry Structure with Top Industry Players, Recent Trends and Industry Dynamics up to 2023.Global Dental Anesthesia Market - OverviewThe dental anesthesia market is expected to register a CAGR of about 8.9% over the forecast period (2017-2027). The Global Dental Anesthesia Market is growing exponentially owing to the increasing dental healthcare base, increasing trend towards dental health checkup, growing economy are the factor contributing to the growth of the market.Anesthetics are drugs that has the ability to induce reversible sensation loss. Local anesthesia (vasoconstrictors) are different from analgesic or pain killers which relives pain without loss of sensation. They are usually administered to facilitate surgery. In U.S., the two vasoconstrictors are levonordefrin and epinephrine.Epinephrine used for dental anesthetics include lidocaine, articaine, prilocaine, and bupivacaine. Dental anesthetic consists of both local anesthetic and general anesthetic. These anesthetics are used in nonsurgical periodontal therapy (NSPT) procedures.Request Sample copy atThe dental anesthetics are injected into the gum or inner cheek before performing any dental surgery. Rising cases of cancer, periodontitis, and gingivitis are expected to increase dental procedure, thus increasing the demand for dental anesthetics, globally. Increasing use of cigarettes and tobacco and changes in eating habit is anticipated to increase dental disorders related to maxiofacial and oral.The color-coding system empowered by the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs in 2003 is labelled on injectable local anesthetic that carried the ADA seal of acceptance. The system was developed as a result of the growing concern of difference in color coding from manufacturer to manufacture. The rising awareness about importance of dental health among the population and government initiatives to provide better dental facilities is expected to boost the market for dental anesthesia.Global Dental Anesthesia Market - Vital Players:Some of the key players in this market are Astra Zeneca, Septodont, Dentsply, Sirona, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Gilead Sciences Inc., Johnson & Johnson and others.Industry Updates:Sepember, 2017 AstraZeneca entered into a collaboration agreement with Aspen Global Incorporated (AGI) to acquire the rights for anaesthetic medicine outside U.S. The anaesthetic medication portfolio include EMLA, Xyloproct /Xylocard/ Xylocaine, Diprivan, Marcaine, Naropin, Citanest and Carbocaine. The agreement will imply AstraZeneca to manufacture and supply medication to AGI over a period of 5 years.Feb, 2017 Septodont Healthcare India Pvt. Ltd. acquires DLA, a leading injectable dental anesthetics manufactures. The leading dental anesthetics includes Lidostesim (Lidocaine), Mepivalem (Mepivacaine) and Citanest (Priolocaine). This acquisition will strengthen their presence throughout the Latin American region.March, 2017 GlaxoSmithKline plc divested nearly all their anesthetics portfolio to Aspen Pharma. By this acquisition Aspen has strengthened its drug portfolio and increased its customer base. GSKs anaesthesia portfolio consists of Anectine, Ultiva, Mivacron Tracrium, and Nimbex. In addition, Aspen and GSK has entered into parallel agreements to terminate their collaboration in Africa and further exercise an option to acquire GSK's remaining thrombosis business.July, 2016 Kitron signs supply agreement with Dentsply Sirona. This agreement will add Kitron as a new supplier for Dentsply Sirona.March, 2016 Johnson & Johnson released the Sedasys anesthesia device. By this acquisition Aurora Diagnostics will strengthen consultancy in Laboratory Medicine.February, 2016 DENTSPLY International Inc. and Sirona Dental Systems, Inc. announce completion of remaining regulatory milestones for proposed merger.June, 2014 Inibsa Dental started marketing The Wand STA in June a new system for delivery of dental anaesthesia that allows for a painless process and with less collateral numbness after the intervention.Global Dental Anesthesia Market - Segmentation:The global dental anesthesia market is segmented on the basis of product type, types of anesthesia, route of administration, and end-user.On the basis of product type, the global dental anesthesia market is segmented into Lidocaine, Mepivacaine, Prilocaine, Bupivacaine 0.5% with Epinephrine 1:200,000, Articaine, and others. The Lidocaine is divided into Lidocaine 2% with Epinephrine 1:100,000, Lidocaine 2% with Epinephrine 1:50,000, and Lidocaine Plain. The mepivacaine is divided into mepivacaine 2% with levonordefrin 1:20,000 and mepivacaine 3%. The prilocaine is divided into prilocaine 4% with epinephrine 1:200,000 and prilocaine 4%. The articaine is divided into articaine 4% with epinephrine 1:100,00 and articaine 4% with epinephrine 1:200,000.On the basis of type of anesthesia, the global Dental Anesthesia market is segmented into general anesthetics, local anesthetics, and others.On the basis of the mode of administration, the global dental anesthesia market is segmented into maxillary anesthesia, mandibular anesthesia, and others. The maxillary anesthesia is categorized into local infiltration, field block, asnd nerve block. The local infiltration is further classified into supraperiosteal injection, intraseptal injection, and periodontal ligament injection. The field block is further classified into periapical injection. The nerve block is further classified into posterior superior alveolar, middle superior alveolar, and anterior superior alveolar.The Mandibular anesthesia is categorized into nerve block, tissue, or skin. The nerve block is further classified into IAN, Akinosi, and Gow-Gates.On the basis of end-user, the global dental anesthesia market is segmented into specialized dental hospitals, dental clinics, pharmacies and drug stores, e-commerce, and others.Global Dental Anesthesia Market - Regional AnalysisNowadays the injectable dental local anesthetics available in North America amide based local anesthetics. North America holds the largest market share for Dental Anesthesia Market and is anticipated to dominate the market forecast period.The European healthcare industry is flourishing owing to the increasing number of medical professionals and growing awareness. The steady increase in the number of dentists in Europe specifically France, Germany, and Italy. Increased awareness about healthcare due to the high literacy rate in Europe is ultimately going to boost the growth of the dental market further boosting the dental anesthetics market.Asia Pacific is a fastest growing dental consumables market. The dental consumables market comprises of large and small entities which provides a platform for healthy competition and scope for growth. With already established players such as Shuguang and J Morita in the dental consumables market, the dental anesthesia market is going to witness a high growth rate. The region is also considered as one of the largest exporter of dental consumables around the world due to the rising demand for higher standards and quality, the regions proved to be a huge market for anesthetics as well as dental consumables.Browse Complete 100 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 80+ Respective Tables and Figures atAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market is Witness for Robust Expansion in Packaging Industry: Analysis, Revenue Generation, Demand, Supply, SWOT, Future Growth, and Manufacturers by 2025

On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market

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On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market By Product Type (Breakfast Bars, Bakery Products, Egg Meals, Cereal Meals,Sandwiches and Burgers, Sausages and Salamis, Beverages) Packaging Type (Pouches & Sachets, Bottles and Jars,Films & Wraps, Rigid Boxes, Cans, Trays) Distribution Channel (Convenience store, E-Commerce,Hypermarket/supermarket, Specialty store) Global Industry Analysis & Forecast to 2025Industry Outlook and Trend Analysis:The On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market has grown with a significant rate in the recent years while it can be easily predicted to grow even more over the years till 2025. Being able to have a good breakfast at leisure is a relic of days gone by, particularly in quickly emerging and developed nations because of the pace of life that has quickened to incredible levels. An ever increasing number of individuals are favoring helpful breakfast substitutes that can be devoured in a hurry or in the workplace. Owing to the busy hectic lifestyle of people there is major demand of the on-the-go breakfast packaging market.On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market-Competitive Analysis:The major players in the market are profiled in detail in view of qualities, for example, company portfolio, business strategies, financial overview, recent developments, and share of the overall industry.General MillsAmys KitchenCountry ChoiceNatures PathRaisioMOMAQuaker Oats CompanySanitarium Health and Wellbeing CompanyAlara Wholefoods LtdBaggrys India LtdGet Sample Report Copy of this Industry Report@The key development drivers in the worldwide in a hurry breakfast bundling market are expanding pattern of utilization of comfort nourishments, rising pattern of single family units, expanding consumption on prepared foods, and a substantial number of working women population. Besides this, increasing health claims of producers of on-the-go breakfast foods about extra medical advantages, particularly the natural variations is supporting the interest for food packaging arrangements.On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market-Regional Insights:Europe is the dominating regional market for on-the-go breakfast packaging, however, Asia Pacific is anticipated to reflect a substantial CAGR.North America, U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Germany, UK, France, Russia, Italy, Rest of Europe, Asia-Pacific, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Southeast Asia, Rest of Asia-Pacific, South America, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Rest of South America, Middle East and Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Rest of MEACheck Discount on this Report@Major TOC of Report:Table of Contents:1. Introduction1.1. Report Description2. Executive Summary2.1. Key Highlights3. Market Overview3.1. Introduction3.1.1. Market Definition3.1.2. Market Segmentation3.2. Market Dynamics3.2.1. Drivers4. Market Analysis by Regions4.1. North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)4.1.1. United States Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.1.2. Canada Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.1.3. Mexico Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2. Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Rest of Europe)4.2.1. Germany Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2.2. France Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2.3. UK Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2.4. Russia Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2.5. Italy Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.2.6. Rest of Europe Market Status and Outlook (2014-2025)4.3. Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Rest of Asia-Pacific)5. On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market, By Product Type5.1. Introduction5.2. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Market Share by Product Type (2014-2018)5.2.1. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Revenue Share by Product Type (2014-2018)5.3. Breakfast Bars5.3.1. Global Breakfast Bars Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2018)5.4. Bakery Products5.4.1. Global Bakery Products Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2018)5.5. Egg Meals6. On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market, By Packaging Type6.1. Introduction6.2. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Market Share by Packaging Type (2014-2018)6.2.1. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Revenue Share by Packaging Type (2014-2018)6.3. Pouches & Sachets6.3.1. Global Pouches & Sachets Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2018)6.4. Bottles and Jars6.4.1. Global Bottles and Jars Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2018)6.5. Films & Wraps6.5.1. Global Films & Wraps Revenue and Growth Rate (2014-2018)7. On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Market, By Distribution Channel7.1. Introduction7.2. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Market Share by Distribution Channel (2014-2018)7.2.1. Global On-the-go Breakfast Packaging Revenue and Revenue Share by Distribution Channel (2014-2018)7.3. Convenience store...Our success depends on success and satisfaction of our clients. We have successful relationship with our clients who recognize that not only we provide solutions to their business problems but also that we always respect our confidentiality commitments. The high proportion of business we get from clients speaks about the quality of research services offer by us.CUSTOM RESEARCH:We at Crystal Market Research, make sure that our services are designed to suit clients requirement of meeting their business objectives by analyzing facts and information from every aspects and deliver accurate output. Our research methodologies are designed to provide solutions that are specific to organization that helps us to meet their strategic needs.Our extensive research services provide our clients unique information that is needed to stay ahead in highly competitive and dynamic business environment. 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Commercial Smart Elevators Global Market 2018: Key Players  Schindler Group, Thyssenkrupp AG, Toshiba, Siemens, Hitachi Ltd

Commercial Smart Elevators Market

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Commercial Smart Elevators Market 2018Wiseguyreports.Com adds Commercial Smart Elevators Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2023 To Its Research Database.Report Details:This report provides in depth study of Commercial Smart Elevators Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Commercial Smart Elevators Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization.Global Commercial Smart Elevators market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer;The Top key players includingSchindler GroupThyssenkrupp AGToshibaSiemensFujitecHitachi LtdOTIS Elevator CompanySchneider ElectricHyundai ElevatorKone CorporationMitshubishi ElectricMotion Control EngineeringThames Valley ControlsLOLAWecoKoneBosch Security SystemsRequest a Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Commercial Smart Elevators in these regions, from 2013 to 2025 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoLoading 800kgLoading 1000kgLoading 1250kgLoading 1600kgOtherOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingResidentialCommercialIndustrialInstitutionalThis report has a complete understanding of market value and quantity, technological progress, macro-economic and governmental policy based on past and present data along with the current and upcoming trends in the market.If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete Report Details@Major Key Points in Table of Content:Global Commercial Smart Elevators Market Research Report 20181 Commercial Smart Elevators Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Commercial Smart Elevators1.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 Loading 800kg1.2.4 Loading 1000kg1.2.5 Loading 1250kg1.2.6 Loading 1600kg1.2.7 Other1.3 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Segment by Application1.3.1 Commercial Smart Elevators Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 Residential1.3.3 Commercial1.3.4 Industrial1.3.5 Institutional1.4 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Market by Region (2013-2025)1.4.1 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Commercial Smart Elevators (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025).7 Global Commercial Smart Elevators Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Schindler Group7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Schindler Group Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Thyssenkrupp AG7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Thyssenkrupp AG Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Toshiba7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Toshiba Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Siemens7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Siemens Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Fujitec7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Fujitec Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Hitachi Ltd7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Hitachi Ltd Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 OTIS Elevator Company7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 OTIS Elevator Company Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Schneider Electric7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Commercial Smart Elevators Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Schneider Electric Commercial Smart Elevators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Hyundai Elevator7.10 Kone CorporationContinued.Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Sales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRESS:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
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Flames and smoke were visible from Highway 97 and the Channel Parkway Wednesday in Penticton, coming from several burns which appeared to include the remnants of building materials at the former Delta Mobile Home Park.

It was shut down and its residents evicted last month to make way for redevelopment.

The park, located just south of the Penticton Airport, appeared gutted, with many trailers in states of half-destruction and large machinery working to dismantle structures. There were at least three large piles of debris burning while Castanet was at the scene.

Notable at one of the sites was the visible insulation from within the destroyed trailer's walls, which was part of the burn. An excavator was at work by the fire, and a portion of the trailer's wall remained upright.

The land is privately owned by PIB councillor Fred Kruger, which means the PIB doesn't have jurisdiction over what materials can or can't be burned on the property.

Dawn Russell, communications coordinator with the band, said sometimes they receive requests from locatees for help during a burn, such as fire services support or confirming questions about the air index when hazardous materials are involved  but not this time.

"Here at administration, we have not been approached for hazard mitigation in that area," Russell said.

Property manager Stan Andrews was on site when Castanet arrived, though he was reluctant to provide details to media.

"We're just making the site safe, we're just cleaning it up," Andrews said. "Fortis BC is in pulling all the power meters and stuff."

He declined to comment further.

Russell said the Penticton Indian Band does not currently have any burning bylaws regarding material that can be burned which they apply to locatee land, though they are in the process of creating some.

It is unclear at this time whether federal or provincial government burning rules apply to this particular area, though Castanet has reached out to Environment and Climate Change Canada for comment.
Trends in Advanced Composites Market: Business Analysis 2018-2025 by CAGR, Share, Revenue and Prominent Key Players (Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd., Toray Industries Inc., TPI Composites Inc., Koninklijke Ten Cate N.V.)

Advanced Composites Market

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This InForGrowth report studies the global Advanced Composites market for the period 20182025. The prime objective of this report is to offer insights and key market trends pertaining to the global Advanced Composites market that gradually help transform global businesses.Request for Sample PDF atThe report focuses on the global Advanced Composites status and forecast, categorizes the global Advanced Composites market size (value & volume) by manufacturers, type, application, and region. The study objectives are to present the Advanced Composites development in United States, Europe and China.Advanced Composites Market provides a detailed market overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications, challenges, competitive scenario and industry chain structure. The report also analysis the Advanced Composites Market verticals and horizontals, Market Size and CAGR comparison by region.The key players from Advanced Composites market covered in this study are BASF SE, Arkema S.A., Owens Corning Corporation, 3B-Fibreglass sprl, Cristex Ltd, SGL Carbon SE, Solvay S.A., Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd., Toray Industries Inc., TPI Composites Inc., Koninklijke Ten Cate N.V., Cytec Industries Inc., Hexcel Corporation.Market analysis done by Product types like Resin, Carbon Fiber, Glass Fiber, Other and by Application like Conductors, Auto parts, Tanks & Pipes, Construction, Others.It also provides analysis by Region such as North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Rest of Middle East & Africa.SUBMIT YOUR DETAILS AND SPECIFIC INTERESTS FOR ALL CUSTOMIZATION NEEDS HEREThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze global Advanced Composites status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.To present the Advanced Composites development in United States, Europe and China.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.Major Points from Table of Contents1 Advanced Composites Market Overview2 Global Advanced Composites Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Advanced Composites Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018)4 Global Advanced Composites Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018)5 Global Advanced Composites Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global Advanced Composites Market Analysis by Application7 Global Advanced Composites Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis8 Advanced Composites Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Advanced Composites Market Forecast (2018-2025)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 AppendixAbout InForGrowth:We are a market-intelligence company formed with the objective of providing clients access to the most relevant and accurate research content for their growth needs. At InForGrowth, we understand Research requirements and help a client in taking informed business critical decisions. Given the complexities and interdependencies of market-intelligence, there is always more than one source to explore and arrive at the right answer. Through our smart search feature and our reliable & trusted publishing partners, we are paving way for a more simplified and relevant research.For all your Research needs, reach out to us at:Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USAEmail: sales@inforgrowth.comPhone: +1-909-329-2808
$2.5bn Opportunity by 2024 in the Industrial Eye Protection Market : Global Key Vendors - 3M, Avon, Honeywell, Bolle Safety, MSA - The Safety Company, Ansell, Teijin and Kimberly-Clark

Industrial Eye Protection Market

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North America industrial eye protection market will witness gains at 3.2% up to 2024. High prevalence for employee safety along with stringent government regulations are the key factors supporting the business growth. As per NIOSH, about 2000 workers in U.S. sustain workplace eye injury per day, that requires medical treatment.Europe industrial eye protection market was more than 70 million units in 2016. Favorable socio-economic factors accompanied by increasing manufacturing facilities will drive the demand. Strong presence of the key manufacturers in this region will propel the industry growth. Changing lifestyle along with increasing awareness regarding worker safety has encouraged the product penetration.Sample copy of this report @Industrial Eye Protection Market size is estimated to exceed USD 2.5 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Positive outlook towards occupational safety in oil & gas, chemicals, mining and construction industry will propel industrial eye protection market growth. Prevention from chemicals, heat & optical radiation are the key properties enhancing product demand.Global industrial eye protection market share is moderately consolidated due to presence of few industry players holding major industry share. Major key players inculde 3M, Bolle Safety, Honeywell, MCR Safety, Egde, MSA Safety, Encon Safety, Ergodyne and Gateway Safety. Mergers, acquisitions, new product launches and supply agreements are the key strategies adopted by the major players.- Industrial Eye Protection Market, By Producto Safety spectacles Prescribed Non-prescribedo Safety goggleso Welding shieldso Face shields- Industrial Eye Protection Market, By Application Construction Oil & gas Chemicals Mining Pharmaceuticals Food Transportation FirefightingMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Increasing employer awareness pertaining to work safety will support the industrial eye protection demand. For instance, OSHA has implemented safety standards for several end-use industries to prevent the injuries at workplace.Construction application was worth over USD 310 million in 2016. Increasing government spending on building tunnels, dams, roads, and bridges globally will drive the growth. China is projected to be among the major contributor. China construction spending was over USD 730 billion in 2016.CR-39 lenses will witness gains at 3% up to 2024. High optical quality compared to glass along with comparatively less manufacturing cost has driven industry growth in this segment. Entrance of trivex as an ultra-light, thin and high impact resistant lenses will open new avenues in the industry.Safety spectacles was valued over USD 770 million in 2016. Technological advancement including anti-glare, anti-scratch and UVA/UVB protective products will support the industry demand.Browse Complete Summary of this report @Safety goggles will generate revenue over USD 970 million by 2024. Rising product penetration in pharmaceutical laboratories and research centers will create new opportunities for the business growth.Face shields will witness growth over 4% up to 2024. Manufacturing and construction industry expansion in developing countries will support the industry demand. Superior protection against chemical splash and blood borne pathogens has enhanced the product demand.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Contact Lens Market with Focus on Soft Contact Lens Industry: Key Major Players are Johnson & Johnson, Bausch health companies, The cooper companies And Novartis

Contact Lens Market with Focus on Soft Contact Lens Industry Growing Tremendously to 2022, Globally

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A contact lens is a corrective, cosmetic, or therapeutic lens. They are usually placed on the cornea of the eye. The purpose of these lenses is similar to that of the conventional glasses. Contact lenses are thin, lightweight, virtually invisible, do not steam up, provide a wider field of vision, and are more suitable for a number of sporting activities. Access Full This Report @When compared with spectacles, contact lenses typically provide better peripheral vision, and do not collect moisture (from rain, snow, condensation etc.) or perspiration.The global contact lens market was rapidly growing in 2017, with increase in the eyewear producers, accelerating urban population and advancement of technology. The soft contact lens market maintained a positive growth in the global market due to increasing shift towards daily disposable income and prevalence of e-commerce. Although change in the attitudes towards eyeglasses and impact of digital lifestyle on contact lens usage would be a challenge for global contact lens market.The Americas dominated the soft contact lens market with extensive production of efficient and quality production of contact lenses. The presence of large number of consumers using contact lenses in the U.S. led to significant growth of contact lens market. The market is further expected to grow in future due to increase in the eyewear spending by the consumers.Purchase a copy of this Global Contact Lens Market with Focus on Soft Contact Lens Industry research report at USD 800 (Single User License)Johnson & Johnson, Bausch health companies, The cooper companies and Novartis are the key players in the global contact lens market. Advancement in research and development for efficient production would show promising development in the market. It would further increase the consolidation of market players in the market.Browse all latest healthcare market research reports @About Us:Market Reports Online is a comprehensive online library of more than 100,000 reports, in-depth market research studies on thousands of micro markets and a range of industries. The reports are analytically and statistically rich, and offer a comprehensive view of the dynamic market scenario across the globe. We offer online and offline support services to ensure your research requirements are met on time.Contact Info:Hrishikesh PatwardhanTel: + 1 888 391 5441Email: sales@marketreportsonline.com
Superdisintegrants Market Analysis by Future Economic Impact to 2023 | Key Industry Drivers  DFE Pharma, Roquette Freres, BASF SE, Ashland Global Holdings Inc., JRS Pharma, Merck KGaA

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Market Research Future has recently declared the expansion of a new research study to its thorough collection of research reports Worldwide Superdisintegrants Market Research Report 2018.Superdisintegrants Market - InsightsOral administration of medical drugs in the form of tablets and capsules is one of the most commonly prescribed methods for drug delivery due to several key factors ranging from being easy to swallow to better chemical stability in this form.Superdisintegrants have become a vital addition to tablets and capsules as they facilitate rapid disintegration of smaller doses than conventional disintegrants making them ideal for various medical applications in the pharmaceutical sector.Market Research Future's new publication on the global superdisintegrants market has observed the growth of the market at a healthy CAGR of 7.9% during the forecast period from 2018 to 2023.GET FREE SAMPLE REPORT @At the beginning of the forecast period in 2017, the market generated a revenue of USD 371.3 Mn. The projected rate of growth is anticipated to establish the market at a value of USD 576.2 Mn by the end of the review period in 2023The global pharmaceutical industry has witnessed a significant spike in its growth over the past few years, and this growth is expected to continue in the coming years. Many patents on popular drugs have expired or are likely to expire soon, which has prompted the entry of new competitors and the production of generic drugs.Increasing production of generic drugs is expected to cause a rise in demand for superdisintegrants. Moreover, superdisintegrants are used highly in the production of drugs which are aimed at geriatric and pediatric patients as they offer good disintegration and efficacy at low dosages. The ever-expanding aged and infant population is likely to impact the global superdisintegrants market in a positive manner.Emerging economies offer the global superdisintegrants market with considerable opportunities for growth over the forecast period. The prevalence of several chronic diseases combined with the rapidly expanding healthcare sector in the region will contribute to future growth of the market.Superdisintegrants Market - Key PlayersAnalysis of the competitive landscape of the global superdisintegrants market includes several important market players such as DFE Pharma, Roquette Freres, BASF SE, Ashland Global Holdings Inc., JRS Pharma, Merck KGaA, DowDuPont Inc., Avantor Performance Materials, LLC, Corel Pharma Chem, and Asahi Kasei Corporation.Superdisintegrants Market - SegmentationMRFR's analysis of the various segments in the market has been performed on the basis of type, formulation, therapeutic area, and region. Types of superdisintegrants have been segmented into synthetic superdisintegrants, natural disintegrants, and others.Among these, the synthetic superdisintegrants segment has been widely used, making it the most significant market segment. However, the natural superdisintegrants segment is growing at a truly rapid pace due to the growing demand for natural ingredients.Formulations which include superdisintegrants have been segmented into tablets and capsules. Tablets govern a majority share of the total market, while the capsules segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the review period.Therapeutic areas where superdisintegrants are used have been segmented into gastrointestinal diseases, neurological diseases, oncology, infectious diseases, inflammatory diseases, hematological diseases, and cardiovascular diseases.Among these segments, the gastrointestinal diseases segment is at the forefront of market growth due to the demand for fast acting medicine for these types of diseases. Meanwhile, the oncology segment is growing rapidly and is expected to display the highest CAGR over the forecast period.OBTAIN COMPLETE 100 PAGES PREMIUM RESEARCH REPORT DETAILS ENABLED WITH RESPECTIVE 40+ TABLES AND FIGURES @Superdisintegrants Market  Regional AnalysisLed by the U.S, the Americas have captured the largest share of the global superdisintegrants market. The presence of a developed healthcare sector as well as several important market players that have and continue to influence growth and contribute to the sizeable share that this regional market possesses.The region also has a high demand for drugs for many chronic diseases where superdisintegrants are required due to the prevalence of such diseases.The Asia Pacific Superdisintegrants Market is likely to grow at the highest pace due to the concentration of rapidly emerging markets in the region. China, Japan, India, and several other country-level markets have a high demand for drugs for chronic diseases.The APAC regional market has several avenues for growth that are expected to open up in the coming years. The regions rapidly growing healthcare sector and the presence of a number of contract manufacturing organizations for pharmaceuticals is likely to have a positive impact on the market.Some TOC for Superdisintegrants Market Research Report  Forecast to 2023Chapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market IntroductionChapter 3. Research MethodologyChapter 4. Market DynamicsChapter 5. Market Factor AnalysisChapter 6. Global Superdisintegrants Market, By TypeChapter 7. Global Superdisintegrants Market, By TreatmentChapter 8 Global Superdisintegrants Market, By End UserChapter 9. Global Superdisintegrants Market, By RegionChapter 10 Company LandscapeChapter 11 Company ProfilesChapter 12 MRFR ConclusionChapter 13 AppendixAbout 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.Office No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312
Healthcare Linen Market Competitive Dynamics | Angelica, Aramark, ImageFIRST, Alsco, Unitex Textile Rental

Healthcare Linen Market

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Global Healthcare Linen Market Report 2018 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Healthcare Linen Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Angelica, Aramark, ImageFIRST, Alsco, Unitex Textile Rental, Crothall Healthcare, Clarus Linen, Cintas, Mission, PARIS, HCSC, Healthcare Linen, Faultless, Linen King, Emerald Textiles, Ecotex, Fdr Services, Florida Linen, CleanCare & Economy Linen.With the slowdown in world economic growth, the Healthcare Linen industry has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, Healthcare Linen market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of XXX from XXX million $ in 2014 to XXX million $ in 2017, HTF MI analysts believe that in the next few years, Healthcare Linen market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the Healthcare Linen will reach XXX million $.This Report covers the manufacturers data, including: shipment, price, revenue, gross profit, interview record, business distribution etc., these data help the consumer know about the competitors better. This report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size, volume and value, as well as price data.Besides, the report also covers segment data, including: type segment, industry segment, channel segment etc. cover different segment market size, both volume and value. Also cover different industries clients information, which is very important for the manufacturers. If you need more information, please contact HTF MI .Enquire for customization in Report @Healthcare Linen Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023Research study is to define market sizes of various segments & countries in previous years and to forecast the values to the next 5-8 years. The report is designed to comprise each qualitative and quantitative elements of the industry facts including: market share, market size (value and volume 2012-17, and forecast to 2023) with admire to each of the areas and countries concerned inside the examination. Furthermore, the report additionally caters the detailed statistics about the vital elements which includes drivers & restraining factors which will define the future growth of the market.Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2013-2017Base year  2018Forecast period**  2018 to 2023 [** unless otherwise stated]Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players.The designated segments and sub-section of the market are explained below:The Study is segmented by following Product Type: , Product Type, Rental & Management, External Washing & ProcurementMajor applications/end-users industry are as follows: Hospitals, ClinicsSome of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are  Angelica, Aramark, ImageFIRST, Alsco, Unitex Textile Rental, Crothall Healthcare, Clarus Linen, Cintas, Mission, PARIS, HCSC, Healthcare Linen, Faultless, Linen King, Emerald Textiles, Ecotex, Fdr Services, Florida Linen, CleanCare & Economy LinenYou can get free access to samples from the report here:For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies. If opting for the Global version of Healthcare Linen Market analysis is provided for major regions as follows: North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Buy this research report @Key Answers Captured in Study areWhich geography would have better demand for product/services?What are the strategies adopted by big players in the regional market?Which country would see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth?What is the current & expected market size in next five years?What is the market feasibility for long term investment?What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the Healthcare Linen market?What is risk involved for suppliers in the geography?What factors would drive the demand for the product/service in near future?What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global Healthcare Linen market growth?What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Healthcare Linen market.Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Healthcare Linen market, Applications [Hospitals, Clinics], Market Segment by Regions North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy) & Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC);Chapter 2, objective of the study.Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques.Chapter 4 and 5, to show the Overall Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics;Chapter 6 and 7, to show the Market size, share and forecast; Five forces analysis (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition;Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy) & Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC) ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain AnalysisChapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencers, overview of decision framework accumulated through Industry experts and strategic decision makers;Chapter 11 and 12, Market Trend Analysis, Drivers, Challenges by consumer behaviour, Marketing Channels and demand & supply.Chapter 13 and 14, describe about the vendor landscape (classification and Market Positioning)Chapter 15, deals with Global Healthcare Linen Market sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia or Oceania [Australia and New Zealand].HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
+16% of Translation Teaching Software Market Growing by 2023 Along with Top Key Players like Lionbridge Technologies Inc., IBM Corporation, Microsoft Inc., Big word Group Ltd.

Translation Teaching Software Market

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Translation Teaching Software Market report provides forecast and analysis on global and regional level. Also this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Translation Teaching Software market in each application. The report provides historic data with forecast from 2018 to 2023 based on volume and revenue. The analysts forecast the Global Translation Teaching Software Market to grow at a CAGR of +16% during the period 2018-2023.Translation teaching is the way to change the education language designed or addressed in other learning languages. Lectures support connections around the world; It gives intelligent connection licenses in various areas, for example, exchange, instructions, innovation, back etc.Request Sample Copy of this Report@:The analysis will help businesses recognized or enthusiastic within the Translation Teaching Software Market to investigate the numerous areas of the realm before investing or expanding their business from the market. Competitive landscape gives a description of the competitive nature of the market, market shares, and a description of the leading companies.The report also provides an analysis of the market competitive landscape and offers information on several companies including Linguist Solutions, Lionbridge Technologies Inc., IBM Corporation, Microsoft Inc., Big word Group Ltd., Lionbridge Technologies Inc.The Research report provides deep research study of market based on development opportunities, growth limiting factors and feasibility of investment. The study of emerging Translation Teaching Software Market segments and the existing market segments will help the readers in planning their business strategies. Initially report provides information about Translation Teaching Software Market Landscape, Industry History, Development Prospect, Relevant Policy and Trade Overview to current demand, investment and supply in the market. It also shows future opportunities for the forecast years 2018-2023.Get Reasonable Discount on this Premium Report @:Table of ContentsGlobal Translation Teaching Software Market Research ReportChapter 1 Translation Teaching Software Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3 Global Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5 Global Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Global Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11 Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12 Global Translation Teaching Software Market ForecastFor More Information:About IT Intelligence Markets:We at IT Intelligence Markets conduct intensive market research and generate detailed reports about the products and services offered in the IT domain. Our team is devoted to providing custom reports that are taylor-made to suit the customers requirements. We make sure to keep our customers updated with the latest market dynamics as IT industry is undergoing sea change intrinsically & extrinsically by forces such as regulatory fluctuations, rapidly evolving consumer preferences, and newer technologies. Not only do our market research analysts scrutinize market requirements but also track competitors relentlessly for obtaining the most updated scenario of the market.Survey No-9/4, Flat# 6, Panchshil Park,Ganpati Marg, Nigidi
Steam Autoclaves Market Analysis, Trends, Overview and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027

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MarketResearchReports.biz announces the availability of a report on the evolving market of "Steam Autoclaves Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2017-2027.An autoclave is a pressure device that is mainly used in a sterilization process, where medical equipment and supplies are sterilized at elevated temperature and pressure than the ambient air pressure. Steam autoclaves are also used in the process of vulcanization of rubber and in chemical industries. They play an important role in sterilization of healthcare waste in hospitals and organizations. Medical devices get contaminated after usage, and need autoclaving in order to kill bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc. Steam autoclaves provide a physical method for disinfection and sterilization. They work on the basis of steam, pressure and time, and hence, use high pressure and temperature steam for this purpose. Increasing number of medical procedures and in-hospital infection are main driving factors for growth of the global steam autoclave market. Healthcare and environmental waste produced from hospitals, pharmaceuticals, life science amenities, etc. is increasing day by day, due to which the process of sterilization and waste management has become of utmost importance. This will propel growth of the steam autoclaves market globally.Request to Get Sample Copy of This Report @Key Drivers, Trends, RestraintsWith increasing demand from dental, healthcare, and pharmaceutical sectors, the steam autoclaves market is expected to grow at a rapid pace. Implementation of strict government rules and regulations regarding biosafety will boost the global steam autoclave market in coming years. Also, the increasing number of hospitals globally will fuel growth of the steam autoclave market.Steam autoclaves are also used in dental clinics. Bench top dental steam autoclaves are made of high grade stainless steel, and are used for the purpose of decontamination and sterilization of dental equipment. As the number of incidences in dental disorders, such as cavities, fractured teeth, pulpitis, etc. are increasing, the demand for steam autoclaves is expected to rise. Favorable government rules and regulations and the rising demand for dental services are other key factors spurring growth of the global steam autoclaves market.Industrial steam autoclaves are also used to process industrial parts at high pressure and temperature. These steam autoclaves are used in the aerospace industry, where they requires to perform the same function. Increasing growth in the aerospace industry is expected to fuel growth of the global steam autoclave market.Steam autoclaves are used in the process of vulcanization of rubber. It is also called autoclave curing. This type of vulcanization is relatively fast and economical. With growth in the rubber industry, the global steam autoclaves market is expected to grow substantially.In recent years, the need for hazardous waste management is increasing in the healthcare sector. Maintaining clean, sterilized and disinfected environment in hospitals has become crucial. Also, the growing usage of steam autoclaves and adoption of central sterile services department (CSSD) framework will boost the global steam autoclaves market.In recent years, many new technologies have evolved in the steam autoclaves market; there are autoclaves which are fully automated. Companies have started manufacturing low cost and more efficient steam autoclaves, which is responsible for fueling growth in the global steam autoclaves market.Request to Get Complete Report List Of Tables and Figures @Market SegmentationThe global steam autoclaves market can be segmented on the basis of design, product type, functioning, and application.On the basis of design, the global steam autoclaves market is segmented as:AutomaticSemi-AutomaticPre-VacuumPost-VacuumOn the basis of product type, the global steam autoclaves market is segmented as:Table topVerticalHorizontalFloor StandingHigh PressureOn the basis of functioning, the global steam autoclaves market is segmented as:Downward Displacement AutoclavesPositive Pressure Displacement AutoclavesNegative Pressure Displacement AutoclavesTriple Vacuum AutoclavesOn the basis of application, the global steam autoclaves market is segmented as:AerospaceRubber IndustryMedicalDentalLaboratoryChemical IndustryMarket ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global steam autoclaves market, identified across the value chain include:BelimedBMM Weston Ltd.Getinge GroupLTE Scientific LtdPanasonic Biomedical Sales Europe B.V.Priorclave Ltd.TuttnauerMATACHANA GROUPSTERIS plc.Astell ScientificBiotechnologies Inc.ZIRBUS technology GmbHLIFE STERIWAREAccumax India.Consolidated Sterilizer SystemsThe research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, application, and industry.The report covers exhaust analysis on:Market SegmentsMarket DynamicsMarket SizeSupply & DemandCurrent Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTechnologyValue ChainRegional analysis includes:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico. Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanMiddle East and Africa (GCC Countries, S. Africa, Northern Africa)The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Request to Buy This Premium Report From Here @Report Highlights:Detailed overview of parent marketChanging market dynamics in the industryIn-depth market segmentationHistorical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and valueRecent industry trends and developmentsCompetitive landscapeStrategies of key players and products offeredPotential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growthA neutral perspective on market performanceMust-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint.MarketResearchReports.biz is a seller of syndicated market studies, featuring an exhaustive collection of research reports from leading international publishers. Our repositoryis diverse, spanningvirtually every industrial sector and even more every category and sub-category within the industry. We also provide consulting services to enable our clients have adynamicbusiness perspective.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Vibration Sensors Market Opportunity By 2024 : Top Market Players are TE Connectivity, Safran Colibrys, Fluke Corporation, Honeywell, National Instruments and MEMSIC

Vibration Sensors Market

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Germany is expected to grow at a rapid rate during the forecast period due to the presence of vibration sensors market players, automotive industry manufacturers, and the high adoption of these sensors in the airline industry, making Europe a prominent region. The strong growth of the industrial sector facilitated by the surge in low-cost consumer and industrial products is a major factor for the large market size of the vibration sensors market in China. Japan is an earthquake-prone country and frequent earthquakes happen in Japan. Usage of the system is increasing in the region to reduce the loss, which occurs during earthquakes.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @Key industry players involved and promoting the growth of the global Vibration Sensors Market are as follows: TE Connectivity Dytran Instruments, Inc. Safran Colibrys Hansford Sensors Ltd Fluke Corporation S. C. INC. Honeywell National Instruments FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc. MEMSIC Silicon Designs, Inc. Robert Bosch GmbHThe usage of these components in seismic intensity scales in detecting and preventing catastrophic events is anticipated to drive the vibration sensors market. These devices aid in the detection of small vibrations and send alerts to the users in the event of an oncoming natural calamity, such as an earthquake or a tsunami, thereby reducing the loss incurred in terms of property, financial funds, and human life.Request for customization @False alarms negatively impact the vibration sensors market. Repeated false alarms from faulty and tamper-proof burglar systems can cause the owners to incur heavy fines. In mining facilities and disaster evacuation, false alerts can stop operations for long durations, causing inconvenience and financial loss. On the contrary, these systems not working effectively can also be detrimental and hazardous owing to which companies operating in the vibration sensors market are required to constantly test these systems.Rising concerns amongst people to safeguard their property is a major driver of the vibration sensors market. People are adopting the technology to secure their lockers. The alarm turns on if abnormal pressure is applied on the lockers, making the lockers more secure than before. Various government bodies across the world are placing a high focus on driver and automotive safety and have launched stringent regulations. For instance, these devices can detect knocking from an engine body and can prevent the cylinder walls and piston from being deformed by thermal stress.Segmentation of the vibration sensors market by type includes electrodynamics, accelerometers, velocity transducers, and non-contact displacement transducers. Accelerometers will dominate in terms of revenue and growth owing to their high penetration in the consumer electronics sector. These components are used in detecting tilt and movement. For instance, an increasing number of companies is developing smartphones that use device movements for commands.The application segment of the vibration sensors market comprises aerospace, coal and quarry sector, oil and gas, automotive, consumer, electronics machine and structure, medical, and pharmaceuticals. The airline industry is anticipated to witness a significant growth as the threats and risks associated with the industry are high. Vibrational sensors can detect electrical and mechanical motor faults and if the rotors are out of balance. These components can identify engine problems in advance and problems caused by air turbulence. The proliferation of vibration sensors market in the medical industry is anticipated to drive growth during the forecast timeframe. The system is used in imaging, surgical instruments, diagnostic, and therapeutic.Browse Report Summery @Players in the vibration sensors market are TE Connectivity Ltd, Dytran Instruments, Colibrys Ltd., Hansford Sensors Ltd., Fluke Corporation, ASC GmbH, Inc., Honeywell International, Inc., National Instruments Corporation, FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology, Inc., MEMSIC, Silicon Designs, Inc. and Robert Bosch GmbH. Players in the vibration sensors market are investing heavily in R&D activities to advance existing technologies and provide customized products to the customers to remain competitive. For instance, in December 2017, Fluke announced the launch of Vibration Sensor 3560 FC, which is a wireless, remote monitoring system that is designed to fit in hard-to-reach places.About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact UsArun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
U.S. energy storage market include Duke Energy, E.ON, East Penn Manufacturing, EDF Renewable Energy, Fluence Energy, GE Power, Invenergy, LG Chem, Tesla, ABB, Johnson Controls, SolarEdge and EnerVault amongst others

U.S. Energy Storage Market

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U.S. Energy Storage Market size will exceed USD 4 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc.Growing regulatory focus toward minimizing carbon emissions while increasing the share of renewables on the grid will drive the U.S. energy storage market size. Key states including California, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon have adopted legally defined energy storage capacity to be integrated into the electric grid. In December 2017, the New York government introduced a new law mandating a state-wide energy storage deployment target of 1,500MW by 2025.Request for Sample Copy of this research report @The U.S. residential energy storage market will witness robust expansion on account of increasing penetration of solar PV levels along with introduction of supportive policies and energy storage subsidies. California and Hawaii constitute the sizeable proportion of the overall residential energy storage sector in the country with fresh participation anticipated from Arizona and Massachusetts in the near term. The industry growth is further stimulated by growing implementation of time-of-use rates by utilities coupled with reduction in net metering compensation.Company ProfilesDuke EnergyEast Penn Manufacturing Co., Inc.EDF Renewable EnergyFluence EnergyGE PowerTraneInvenergy LLCJohnson Controls, Inc.NextEra Energy, Inc.TeslaReport ContentChapter 1 Methodology & ScopeChapter 2 Executive SummaryChapter 3 U.S. Energy Storage Industry InsightsChapter 4 U.S. Energy Storage Market, By DeploymentChapter 5 U.S. Energy Storage Market, By TechnologyChapter 6 Company ProfilesMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Lithium ion energy storage market will witness growth on account of continued downturn in battery costs driven by enhanced manufacturing capacity. Li-ion batteries are utilized in a wide array of energy-storage applications, including residential systems with rooftop photovoltaic arrays and grid ancillary services amongst others. High charge/discharge efficiency and appreciable energy density are some of the key features that will continue to boost the technology adoption over the conventional counterparts.The U.S. utility energy storage market size will exceed USD 1.5 billion by 2024. Strengthening need to build a disruption-proof grid with the implementation of increased efficiency, resilience, and sustainability will favor the industry growth. Growing concerns over climate change and aging grid infrastructure will further favor the business scenario.Browse key industry insights spread across 140 pages with 34 market data tables & 29 figures & charts from the report @Increasing share of renewables in the national grid facilitated by several fiscal incentives and ventures will stimulate the U.S. energy storage market size. The share of renewable in the California energy mix has been growing exponentially, thereby supporting the industry growth. In addition, legislative mandate to increase renewable generation to achieve emissions reductions targets will positively influence the industry outlook.Key industry participants active in the U.S. energy storage market comprise Duke Energy, East Penn Manufacturing, E.ON, EDF Renewable Energy, GE Power, EnerVault, LG Chem, Fluence Energy, Invenergy, Johnson Controls, Tesla, SolarEdge, and ABB amongst others.About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary researchContact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Explore Our Blog @
Crypto ATM Market looks to expand its size in Overseas Market | General Bytes, Genesis Coin, Lamassu, Bitaccess

Crypto ATM Market

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Global Crypto ATM Market Report 2018 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Crypto ATM Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are General Bytes, Genesis Coin, Lamassu, Bitaccess, Covault, Coinsource (Operator), Bitxatm, Coinme (Operator), Orderbob & Rusbit.Enquire for customization in Report @With the slowdown in world economic growth, the Crypto ATM industry has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, Crypto ATM market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of XXX from XXX million $ in 2014 to XXX million $ in 2017, HTF MI analysts believe that in the next few years, Crypto ATM market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the Crypto ATM will reach XXX million $.This Report covers the manufacturers data, including: shipment, price, revenue, gross profit, interview record, business distribution etc., these data help the consumer know about the competitors better. This report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size, volume and value, as well as price data.Besides, the report also covers segment data, including: type segment, industry segment, channel segment etc. cover different segment market size, both volume and value. Also cover different industries clients information, which is very important for the manufacturers. If you need more information, please contact HTF MIFurthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2013-2017Base year  2018Forecast period**  2018 to 2023 [** unless otherwise stated]You can get free access to samples from the report here:Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players.The designated segments and sub-section of the market are explained below:The Study is segmented by following Product Type: , One Way & Two WayMajor applications/end-users industry are as follows: Banking, RetailSome of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are  General Bytes, Genesis Coin, Lamassu, Bitaccess, Covault, Coinsource (Operator), Bitxatm, Coinme (Operator), Orderbob & RusbitFor each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies. If opting for the Global version of Crypto ATM Market analysis is provided for major regions as follows: North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key Answers Captured in Study areWhich geography would have better demand for product/services?What are the strategies adopted by big players in the regional market?Which country would see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth?What is the current & expected market size in next five years?What is the market feasibility for long term investment?What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the Crypto ATM market?What is risk involved for suppliers in the geography?What factors would drive the demand for the product/service in near future?What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global Crypto ATM market growth?What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are?There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Crypto ATM market.Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Crypto ATM market, Applications [Banking, Retail], Market Segment by Regions North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy) & Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC);Chapter 2, objective of the study.Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques.Chapter 4 and 5, to show the Overall Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics;Chapter 6 and 7, to show the Market size, share and forecast; Five forces analysis (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition;Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy) & Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC) ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain AnalysisBuy this research report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia or Oceania [Australia and New Zealand].HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman 'El Chapo' ordered the murder of a man who refused to shake hands with him at a meeting, a witness told jurors at a trial in United States on Monday.

Brother of El Chapo's alleged business partner Ismael 'El Mayo' gave his testimony after three days as he described El Chapo's involvement in a series of murder.

The 61-year-old drug lord was extradited to United States in January 2017. He is on trial in Brooklyn federal court charged with 17 criminal counts and is accused of directing shipments of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine.

Zambada, brother of Ismael also told jurors that Guzman was among the investors in a 20-ton cocaine shipment intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard as it was leaving Panama in 2006.

Joaquin Guzman 'El Chapo' was one of the worlds most wanted fugitives until he was captured in January 2016 in his native Sinaloa, after twice escaping prison. His trial is proceeding under heavy security.
Telephone Answering Machine Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2025 | Leading Key Players- Motorola, Clarity Telecom, Amplicom

Telephone Answering Machine Market

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HTF Market Intelligence released a new research report of 124 pages on title 'Global Telephone Answering Machine Market Report 2018' with detailed analysis, forecast and strategies. The study covers key regions that includes North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy), Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC) and important players such as AT&T, Panasonic, General Electric, ClearSounds, BT, Motorola, Clarity Telecom, Amplicom, Uniden, VTech Communications, Technicolor, ATL Telecom, Casio Phonemate.Request a sample report @With the slowdown in world economic growth, the Telephone Answering Machine industry has also suffered a certain impact, but still maintained a relatively optimistic growth, the past four years, Telephone Answering Machine market size to maintain the average annual growth rate of XXX from XXX million $ in 2014 to XXX million $ in 2017, HTF MI analysts believe that in the next few years, Telephone Answering Machine market size will be further expanded, we expect that by 2022, The market size of the Telephone Answering Machine will reach XXX million $.This Report covers the manufacturers data, including: shipment, price, revenue, gross profit, interview record, business distribution etc., these data help the consumer know about the competitors better. This report also covers all the regions and countries of the world, which shows a regional development status, including market size, volume and value, as well as price data.Besides, the report also covers segment data, including: type segment, industry segment, channel segment etc. cover different segment market size, both volume and value. Also cover different industries clients information, which is very important for the manufacturers. If you need more information, please contact HTF MIMake an enquiry before buying this Report @Section 1: FreeDefinitionSection (2 3): 1200 USDManufacturer Detail: AT&T, Panasonic, General Electric, ClearSounds, BT, Motorola, Clarity Telecom, Amplicom, Uniden, VTech Communications, Technicolor, ATL Telecom, Casio PhonemateSection 4: 900 USDRegion Segmentation: North America Country (United States, Canada), South America, Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea), Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy), Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Section (5 6 7): 500 USDProduct Type SegmentationCorded Answering MachineCordless Answering MachineIndustry SegmentationHome UseBusiness UseChannel (Direct Sales, Distributor) SegmentationSection 8: 400 USDTrend (2018-2022)Section 9: 300 USDProduct Type DetailSection 10: 700 USDDownstream ConsumerSection 11: 200 USDCost StructureSection 12: 500 USDConclusionBuy this report @Table of ContentsSection 1 Telephone Answering Machine Product DefinitionSection 2 Global Telephone Answering Machine Market Manufacturer Share and Market Overview2.1 Global Manufacturer Telephone Answering Machine Shipments2.2 Global Manufacturer Telephone Answering Machine Business Revenue2.3 Global Telephone Answering Machine Market OverviewSection 3 Manufacturer Telephone Answering Machine Business Introduction3.1 AT&T Telephone Answering Machine Business Introduction3.1.1 AT&T Telephone Answering Machine Shipments, Price, Revenue and Gross profit 2014-20173.1.2 AT&T Telephone Answering Machine Business Distribution by Region3.1.3 AT&T Interview Record3.1.4 AT&T Telephone Answering Machine Business Profile3.1.5 AT&T Telephone Answering Machine Product SpecificationView Detailed Table of Content @Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Bosch USA, Danfoss, NIBE Profiled in Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market Report 2024 - Viessmann, BDR Thermea Group, Glen Dimplex, Climaveneta, Swegon Group, Vaillant, Trane, Systemair Sverige AB and more

Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market

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The research report Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market analysis based on Product, Application, Industry Analysis Report, Country Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018  2024, by Graphical Research. says, Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market size is set to surpass USD 7 billion by 2024.Europe ASHP Market is predicted to surpass USD 7 billion by 2024. Government efforts toward modernization and renovation of existing infrastructure coupled with rising demand for space heating across polar climate regions will drive the business growth. Furthermore, financial support for the development of sustainable buildings will encourage the product demand. The European Investment Bank (EIB) approved funds of around USD 100 million for the construction of zero emission buildings in 2018.Request for a sample of this research report -Favorable government initiatives and norms toward reduction of GHG emissions by the use of renewable technologies will stimulate the air source heat pump market size. The Government of UK introduced Renewable Heat Incentive scheme with an aim to encourage the adoption of renewable heat technologies amongst communities, businesses, and householders through financial incentives.Low maintenance, ease of installation and low cost are some of the prominent features which will drive the Europe ASHP market growth. Rising adoption of energy efficient units coupled with green building standards and codes will further complement the product deployment. For instance, the European Union introduced the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to strengthen the energy performance of new constructions through the deployment of energy efficient units.Denmark ASHP market will grow owing to the government policies in support of decarbonization of the energy systems along with modernization of existing infrastructure to sustainable establishments. In 2014, the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Building developed a strategy with an aim to reduce 35% of the heat consumption from existing buildings by 2050.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Air to air heat pump market size will grow on account of its key features including cost effectiveness, ability to purify air, high energy efficiency, and zero ground work expense. In addition, rising focus to reduce electricity bills coupled with ongoing technological progressions to meet the rising demand across residential sector will complement the business landscape.Commercial air source heat pump market size is predicted to witness growth owing to growing demand for HVAC systems that are easily integrable with the conventional system across new and existing buildings along with retrofit & replacement of cooling & heating systems.Norway ASHP market size is projected to surpass USD 600 million by 2024. Government targets to phase out fossil fuel fired boilers coupled with national schemes including Enova Subsidy, to promote the use of heat pumps will augment the product deployment.Key players operating across the Europe air source heat pump market include Bosch Thermotechnology, BDR Thermea Group, NIBE, Danfoss, Viessmann, Husky Heat Pumps, Glen Dimplex, Climaveneta, Swegon Group, Vaillant, Grant Engineering, Trane, Finn Geotherm UK, Systemair AB, and Stiebel Eltron.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Segments We Cover:Europe Air Source Heat Pump Market Statistics, By ProductAir to airAir to waterEurope Air Source Heat Pump Market Trends, By ApplicationResidentialResidential, by productCommercialIndustrialThe above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following:AustriaNorwayDenmarkFinlandFranceGermanyItalySwitzerlandSpainSwedenUKRelated Reports:1.Butane Market Size by Application (Refinery, Petrochemicals, LPG), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018  20242.Europe LNG Bunkering Market Size by Product (Truck-to-Ship, Port-to-Ship, Ship-to-Ship, Portable Tanks), By End-Use (Container Vessels, Cruise-ships, Bulk Carriers, Ferries, Offshore Support Vessels), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (Norway, The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, UK, Spain, France, Italy), Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018-2024About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb:
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market Global Analysis by Technology Key Players: SimpliVity Corporation, Scale Computing, Gridstore Inc., Nimboxx Inc., Cisco Systems Inc.

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Global Hyper-converged Infrastructure Market Research Report: By Hypervisor Type (VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V), by Application (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Server Virtualization, Data Protection, Remote Office, Cloud), by Vertical  Forecast till 2023Market HighlightsThe global hyper-converged infrastructure market is projected to witness a rapid growth during the forecast period owing to the increasing use of virtualization across various industry verticals. Moreover, increasing demand for hyper-convergence solutions is expected to boost the market growth further.The global hyper-converged infrastructure market by geography is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. The North America market is expected to hold the largest share of the global market during the forecast period on account of significant growth. U.S. and Canada are anticipated to drive the growth of the hyper-converged infrastructure market in North America owing to a large number of established key players in the region such as Nutanix, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Dell, VMware Inc., and Cisco Systems, Inc. among others in this region. Due to sustainable and well-established economies in the region, the market is likely to show immense growth potential in the coming future. Additionally, the growth of the market is also attributable to the increasing use of virtualization across various industry verticals. Furthermore, the market is also largely driven by the growing requirement of data protection and disaster recovery.Get Sample Report @The Global Hyper-converged infrastructure market is projected to reach USD 18 billion at a CAGR of over 43% by the end of the forecast period 2018-2023.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 30 market data tables and figures spread over 100 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Hyper-converged infrastructure Market Research Report-Forecast to 2023.Key PlayersSome of the prominent players in the global hyper-converged infrastructure market are Dell EMC (U.S.), Nutanix (U.S.), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (U.S.), VMware Inc. (U.S.), Maxta Inc. (U.S.), SimpliVity Corporation (U.S.), Scale Computing (U.S.), Gridstore Inc. (U.S.), Nimboxx Inc. (U.S.), Cisco Systems Inc. (U.S.), and Pivot3 Inc. (U.S.) among others.SegmentationThe global hyper-converged infrastructure market is segmented on the basis of the hypervisor type, application, and vertical. The vertical segment is sub-segmented into BFSI, healthcare, government, education, and others. Among these, the healthcare sub-segment is expected to grow with the highest rate during the forecast period in the global hyper-converged infrastructure market. This growth pattern can be attributable to the rising demand for virtual data access, competitive pricing for deploying, and managing VDI. Also, growing usage of IT for maintaining personal and health information of the patients is further driving the growth of the market. Also, low capital expenditure and reduced total cost of ownership owing to the adoption of hyper-converged infrastructure are further fuelling the market growth.Regional AnalysisThe global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market is studied for Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and Rest of the World. Asia Pacific is estimated to account for the largest share of the market and is also expected to grow with the fastest rate during the forecast period. The growth of the market in North America can be attributable to advancements in the electronics industry and increasing demand for hyper-converged solutions across various other industry verticals. Also, the strong presence of industry giants is another major factor driving the growth of hyper-converged infrastructure market in the region.Get Report Details @Market Research AnalysisNorth America is estimated to account for the largest market share, registering the fastest growth rate during the forecast period. The market in North America is witnessing rapid growth due to technological advancements and increasing adoption of hyper-converged infrastructure. The growth in North America region is majorly dominated by the U.S. and Canada. The economies of the countries in this region comprise a better infrastructure and hence can provide better internet penetration. This helps in faster implementation of new technologies, in turn, driving the growth of hyper-converged infrastructure market. Also, increasing adoption of hyper-converged infrastructure across various verticals is further fueling the growth of hyper-converged infrastructure market in the region.Intended Audience Technology Investors Research/Consultancy Firms Consulting Service Providers System integrators Cloud service providers Technology providers AI system providers Universities and research organizations Investors and venture capitalistsTABLE OF CONTENTS1 Executive Summary2 Scope Of The Report2.1 Market Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objectives2.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations2.3 Markets Structure3 Market Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Secondary Research3.3 Primary Research3.4 Forecast Model4 Market LandscapeContinued.LIST OF TABLESTable 1 Global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market: By Region, 2018-2023Table 2 North America Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 3 Europe Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 4 Asia Pacific Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market: By Country, 2018-2023Table 5 The Middle East & Africa Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market: By Country, 2018-2023ContinuedGet More Information @LIST OF FIGURESFIGURE 1 Global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market SegmentationFIGURE 2 Forecast MethodologyFIGURE 3 Porters Five Forces Analysis Of Global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure MarketFIGURE 4 Value Chain Of Global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure MarketFIGURE 5 Share Of Global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market In 2018, By Country (In %)ContinuedAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst membersContact:Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Travel Bags Market 2018 Global Analysis By Key Players  VIP Industries, VF Corporation, Adidas, Nike, NIKKO

Global Travel Bags Market

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Global Travel Bags MarketWiseGuyReports.com Global Travel Bags Market 2018: Global Analysis, Industry Size, Share, Trends, Application Analysis and Growth Opportunities Forecast to 2025 report has been added to its Research Database.Description:-The global Travel Bags market will reach xxx Million USD in 2018 and with a CAGR if xx% between2019-2025.Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.):BackpacksSuitcases or Trolley BagsDuffle BagsDemand Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Consumer Distribution):MenWomenRequest a Sample Report@Company Coverage (Sales data, Main Products & Services etc.):VIP IndustriesVF CorporationSamsoniteRimowaLouis VuittonDapaiAdidasNikeWinpardOIWASWENGERSamsoniteLI-NINGAmericanTouristerCaaranyAceToreadNEWCOMERKipLingOZARKHIGHLANDDiplomatNIKKOCrownMajor Region MarketNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificSouth AmericaMiddle East & AfricaBrowse full report @Table of Content1 Industry Overview1.1 Travel Bags Industry1.1.1 Overview1.1.2 Products of Major Companies1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 Industry Chain1.2.2 Consumer Distribution1.3 Price & Cost Overview2 Travel Bags Market by Type2.1 By Type2.1.1 Backpacks2.1.2 Suitcases or Trolley Bags2.1.3 Duffle Bags2.2 Market Size by Type2.3 Market Forecast by Type3 Global Market Demand3.1 Segment Overview3.1.1 Men3.1.2 Women3.2 Market Size by Demand3.3 Market Forecast by Demand4 Major Region Market4.1 Global Market Overview4.1.1 Market Size & Growth4.1.2 Market Forecast4.2 Major Region4.2.1 Market Size & Growth4.2.2 Market Forecast5 Major Companies List5.1 VIP Industries (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.2 VF Corporation (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.3 Samsonite (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.4 Rimowa (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.5 Louis Vuitton (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.6 Dapai (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.7 Adidas (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.8 Nike (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.9 Winpard (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.10 OIWAS (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.11 WENGER (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.12 Samsonite (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.13 LI-NING (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.14 AmericanTourister (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.15 Caarany (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.16 Ace (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.17 Toread (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.18 NEWCOMER (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.19 KipLing (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.20 OZARK (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.21 HIGHLAND (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.22 Diplomat (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.23 NIKKO (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)5.24 Crown (Company Profile, Sales Data etc.)6 ConclusionTOC Continued..About Us:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltdsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Maharashtra, Pune  411028
Global Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market 2018 Key Players: Abbvie, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Gilead, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., Alaxia,.

Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market

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Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market 2018 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting 2025 reports tits database.Executive SummaryGlobal Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market valued approximately USD XX billion in 2017 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than XX% over the forecast period 2018-2025. The major driving factor of global cystic fibrosis therapeutics market are rising prevalence of cystic fibrosis, rising awareness about cystic fibrosis therapy, technological advancement and high rate of Research & Development initiatives. The growing strategic collaboration is one of the key trends contributing towards the growth of the cystic fibrosis (CF) therapeutics market. The major restraining factors of the global cystic fibrosis therapeutics market are high cost related to the treatment, drug discontinuation and increase in complexity of disease. In addition, patent expiries from many companies and introduction of generic drugs is expected to restrain the growth of cystic fibrosis therapeutics market. The Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics market is on the surging trend considering the global scenario. The Cystic fibrosis refers to an inherited disease which impacts the secretory glands of an individuals body such as Pancreas, lungs, liver and intestines. Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) is synthesized in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) followed by glycosylation in the Golgi apparatus and performing the function of a Cl- channel, and regulator of other ion channels when located in the plasma membrane. Cystic fibrosis leads to abnormal secretions that lead to mucus buildup which result in no proper working of an affected organ. Treatment of cystic fibrosis includes a physical therapy, which helps in loosening of mucus and use of medications and enzymes to fight against infections in an organ. Cystic fibrosis is caused due to mutation in gene that is required for protein CFTR.The regional analysis of Global Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America accounted leading share of total generating revenue in 2017 across the globe due to large number of aging population and high technological awareness and advancement. Asia-Pacific region region is also anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2018-2025. China and India are expected to be the fastest growing cystic fibrosis markets in Asia-Pacific due to emerging countries are large pool of patients, rising government funding and increasing Research & Development investment.The major market player included in this report are:AbbvieHoffmann-La Roche Ltd.GileadVertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.AlaxiaRequest Sample Report @The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offerings of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below:By Class:Pancreatic Enzyme SupplementsMucolyticBronchodilatorsCFTR ModulatorsBy Route of administration:Oral DrugsInhaled DrugsFurthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2015, 2016Base year  2017Forecast period  2018 to 2025Target Audience of the Global Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Market in Market Study:Key Consulting Companies & AdvisorsLarge, medium-sized, and small enterprisesVenture capitalistsValue-Added Resellers (VARs)Third-party knowledge providersInvestment bankersInvestorsTable of ContentsChapter 1. Executive Summary1.1. Market Snapshot1.2. Key Trends1.3. Global & Segmental Market Estimates & Forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.1. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics, by Class, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.2. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics, by Route of administration, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.3.3. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics, by Region, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)1.4. Estimation Methodology1.5. Research AssumptionChapter 2. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Definition and Scope2.1. Objective of the Study2.2. Market Definition & Scope2.2.1. Industry Evolution2.2.2. Scope of the Study2.3. Years Considered for the Study2.4. Currency Conversion RatesChapter 3. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Dynamics3.1. See Saw Analysis3.1.1. Market Drivers3.1.2. Market Challenges3.1.3. Market OpportunitiesChapter 4. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Industry Analysis4.1. Porters 5 Force Model4.1.1. Bargaining Power of Buyers4.1.2. Bargaining Power of Suppliers4.1.3. Threat of New Entrants4.1.4. Threat of Substitutes4.1.5. Competitive Rivalry4.1.6. Futuristic Approach to Porters 5 Force Model4.2. PEST Analysis4.2.1. Political Scenario4.2.2. Economic Scenario4.2.3. Social Scenario4.2.4. Technological Scenario4.3. Value Chain Analysis4.3.1. Supplier4.3.2. Manufacturers/Service Provider4.3.3. Distributors4.3.4. End-Users4.4. Key Buying Criteria4.5. Regulatory Framework4.6. Cost Structure Analysis4.6.1. Raw Material Cost Analysis4.6.2. Manufacturing Cost Analysis4.6.3. Labour Cost Analysis4.7. Investment Vs Adoption Scenario4.8. Analyst Recommendation & ConclusionChapter 5. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics, by Class5.1. Market Snapshot5.2. Market Performance - Potential Model5.3. Key Market Players5.4. Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics, Sub Segment Analysis5.4.1. Pancreatic Enzyme Supplements5.4.1.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.1.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.2. Mucolytic5.4.2.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.2.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.3. Bronchodilators5.4.3.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.3.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.4. CFTR Modulators5.4.4.1. Market estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)5.4.4.2. Regional breakdown estimates & forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Billion)ContinuousFor further information on this report, visit About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042
Soy Lecithin Market Shows Exponential Growth in Next Decade | Know top Key Players are Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill, Lipoid GmbH, American Lecithin Company, Lasenor emul, Lecico Gmbh, Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd

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Soy lecithin is an insulator, which reduces heat flow between high and low temperature materials. Soy lecithin is generally used in buildings as window insulating film, in mechanical systems, spacecraft, and automotive. Air being a poor thermal conductor, soy lecithin is used as an alternative to it in many thermal insulation applications. Soy lecithin traps gases and forms a layer of coating against heat. Also, soy lecithin reduces noise and vibrations.Soy lecithin is used as a wetting, stabilizing, and dispersing agent due to which it is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. It is rich in fat and protein owing to which it finds application as animal feed. It is also used in paint industry as an antioxidant and wetting, suspending, emulsifying & stabilizing agent.Soy lecithin is largely used in food, industrial as well as pharmaceutical industries due to the rich protein content and protective cover formation property.Download PDF Brochure of this Report Made by an Industry Experts @Soy Lecithin Market OutlookAsia Pacific is estimated to be the largest and fastest growing market in the forecast period owing to the high demand for the product and abundance of raw materials. India and China contribute significantly to the market growth in the region. The forecasted growth is backed by the immense demand for the product from food, construction, and paint industriesNorth America is the second largest market of soy lecithin. The market growth is primarily supported by the rising demand for protein-rich as well as processed food. Busy life schedules of modern society has augmented the demand for packaged nutritional supplements, which in turn boosts the demand for soy lecithinEurope is an emerging market in the global soy lecithin market. The rising use of cheap source of high-quality protein in food and supplements increases the demand for soy lecithinThe Latin America and Africa soy lecithin markets are witnessing sluggish growth rate, however, the growing economy of these regions creates a better platform for soy lecithin market in the upcoming yearsSoy lecithin being of lower price and easily available is preferred over other protein enriched food items.Soy Lecithin Market ChallengesExcess consumption of soy lecithin leads to many health issues. Strict government regulations pertaining to genetically modified soybeans hinder the soy lecithin market growth to an extent.Soy Lecithin Market ParticipantsSome of the key market players identified in the value chain of global soy lecithin market are Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill, Lipoid GmbH, American Lecithin Company, Lasenor emul, Lecico Gmbh, Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd., Ceresking Ecology & Technology Co. Ltd., and Bunge Limited.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com
Cakes Market Report 2018: Segmentation by Type (Sponge cake, Cup Cake, Dessert Cake, Others) by Application (Online Sales, Supermarkets/Hypermarkets, Bakeries, Others)

Cakes Market

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Global Cakes market research report provides company profile for Hillshire Brands, Hostess Brands, McKee Foods, Monginis, American Baking Company, Aryzta, Finsbury, Flower Foods, George Weston, Groupo Bimbo and Others.This market study includes data about consumer perspective, comprehensive analysis, statistics, market share, company performances (Stocks), historical analysis 2012 to 2017, market forecast 2018 to 2025 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2018 to 2025, etc. The report also provides detailed segmentation on the basis of product type, application, end user and regional segmentation. The regional segment is further bifurcated on country level.Cake is a form of sweet dessert that is typically baked. In its oldest forms, cakes were modifications of breads, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, and that share features with other desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.Request for Free sample copy of ready Report @Report Coverage:Top Manufactures/vendors of Cakes market:Groupo BimboHillshire BrandsHostess BrandsMcKee FoodsMonginisAmerican Baking CompanyAryztaFinsburyFlower FoodsGeorge WestonOthers (Note: We can profile additional players without any additional charges)Cakes Type:Sponge cakeCup CakeDessert CakeOthersApplication of Cakes:Online SalesSupermarkets/HypermarketsBakeriesOthersRegions covered in Cakes Market Research Report:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)(Note: We can provide country or region specific report on request; please contact us for your specific requirement)The Global Cakes Market analysis report covers detailed value chain analysis of Global Cakes Market. The value chain analysis helps to analyze major upstream raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. The report also provides Porter analysis, PESTEL analysis and market attractiveness which helps to better understand the market scenario on macro and micro level. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities occurred in the market during current and past few years. The Global Cakes Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors. The report also covers import/export data across all major regions covered in this report. Moreover, we can exclusively provide information about import/export data across any particular country as per requirement.How helpful this report will be? Cakes Market share (regional, product, application, end-user) both in terms of volume and revenue along with CAGR from 2018 to 2025 Key parameters which are driving this market and restraining its growth What all challenges manufacturers will face as well as new opportunities and threats faced by themEnquire before Buying @......Table of Content:1 Study Coverage1.1 Cakes Product1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Cakes Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Sponge cake1.4.3 Cup Cake........................Continue (What does Report Include?Historic Data: What was the Cakes Market data (Size, competition, company share, YoY growth rate, etc.) from 2013 to 2018.Current Market Status: A comprehensive analysis of current market Size, trends, growth drivers, industry pitfalls, challenges and opportunities for players.Market Forecast: Report will comment and provide details about market growth and forecast till year 2025.Customization: We can provide following things 1) On request more company profiles (competitors) 2) Data about particular country or region 3) We will incorporate the same with no additional cost (Post conducting feasibility).Contact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website: marketreportscompany.comEmail: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-312-376-8303Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Remote Weapon Station Market May See 17.9 Billion Dollar Upside Potential

Remote Weapon Station Market

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HTF Market Intelligence released a new research report of 80 pages on title 'Global Remote Weapon Station Market Size Study Forecasts by Application (Military, Homeland Security), by Platform (Land, Naval, Airborne), by Component (Sensors, Weapons & Armaments), Technology (Close-In Weapon Systems, Remote Controlled Gun Systems) and Regional Forecasts 2017-2025' with detailed analysis, forecast and strategies. The study covers key regions that includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Latin America and important players such as Accenture Plc., Liaison Technologies Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise etc.Request a sample report @SummaryGlobal Remote Weapon Station Market to reach USD 17.9 billion by 2025.Global Remote Weapon Station Market valued approximately USD 7.1 billion in 2016 is anticipated to grow with a healthy growth rate of more than 11.0% over the forecast period 2017-2025. Emerging countries especially in Asia pacific are increasingly focusing on the development of their naval platforms. And continuous upgradation of existing combat platforms. Furthermore, number of warfare platforms are being manufactured worldwide, fueling the demand for remote weapon station across the world.The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as driving factors & challenges which will define the future growth of the market. Additionally, the report shall also incorporate available opportunities in micro markets for stakeholders to invest along with the detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product offerings of key players. The detailed segments and sub-segment of the market are explained below:View Detailed Table of Content @By ApplicationMilitaryHomeland SecurityBy PlatformLandNavalAirborneBy PlatformSensorsWeapons & ArmamentsBy TechnologyClose-In Weapon SystemsRemote Controlled Gun SystemsBy Regions:North America (U.S., Canada)Europe (UK, Germany)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan)Rest of the WorldFurthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year  2015Base year  2016Forecast period  2017 to 2025Some of the key manufacturers involved in the market are RightScale, Inc, Doublehorn LLC., IBM Co., Capgemini S.A., Dell Inc., Jam Cracker Inc., Accenture Plc., Liaison Technologies Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Acquisitions and effective mergers are some of the strategies adopted by the key manufacturers. New product launches and continuous technological innovations are the key strategies adopted by the major players.Target Audience of the Global Remote Weapon Station in Market Study:Key Consulting Companies & AdvisorsLarge, medium-sized, and small enterprisesVenture capitalistsValue-Added Resellers (VARs)Third-party knowledge providersInvestment bankersInvestorsGet Customization in the Report, Enquire Now @Chapter 1. Research Methodology1.1. Research Process1.2. Research AssumptionChapter 2. Global Remote Weapon Station Market Definition & Scope2.1. Objective of The Study2.2. Market Definition2.3. Scope of The Study2.4. Years Considered for The Study2.5. Currency Conversion Rates2.6. Report LimitationChapter 3. Executive Summary3.1. Key Trends3.2. Global & Segmental Market Estimates & Forecasts, 2015-2025 (USD Million)Chapter 4. Global Remote Weapon Station Industry Dynamics4.1. Growth Prospects4.2. Industry Analysis4.3. Analyst Recommendation & ConclusionChapter 5. Global Remote Weapon Station Market by Application5.1. Market Snapshot5.2. Remote Weapon Station Market, Sub Segment AnalysisChapter 6. Global Remote Weapon Station Market by Platform6.1. Market Snapshot6.2. Remote Weapon Station Market, Sub Segment AnalysisChapter 7. Global Remote Weapon Station Market by Component7.1. Market Snapshot7.2. Remote Weapon Station Market, Sub Segment AnalysisChapter 8. Global Remote Weapon Station Market by Technology8.1. Market Snapshot8.2. Remote Weapon Station Market, Sub Segment AnalysisChapter 9. Global Remote Weapon Station Market, Regional Analysis9.1. Remote Weapon Station Market, Regional Market Snapshot (2015-2025)9.2. North America Remote Weapon Station Market Snapshot....ContinuedBuy this report @format=1&report=1275036Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Global Controlled Drug Delivery Market Opportunity and Clinical Trial Outlook 2025

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"Global Controlled Drug Delivery Market Opportunity and Clinical Trial Outlook 2025" Report Highlights:Development of Controlled Drug Delivery TechnologyApproaches for Controlled Drug DeliveryGlobal Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Phase, Indication, Drug ClassGlobal Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline: 218 DrugsMarketed Controlled Release Drugs: 118 DrugsMajority Drugs In Phase-II and Phase-III Trials: More Than 80Global Controlled Drug Delivery Market Future OutlookControlled drug delivery technology is the one of the most rapidly advancing area in human healthcare management and already had an enormous impact on medical technology with the potential to improve health. As the goal of any drug delivery system is to provide a therapeutic amount of drug to a proper site in the body so that the desired drug concentration can be achieved promptly and then maintained, all these characteristics are provided by controlled drug delivery technologies.Controlled drug delivery systems provide uniform concentration of drug to the absorptions site and thus allow the maintenance of plasma concentration within the therapeutic range which minimizes not only the side effects but also the frequency of administration. The term controlled release has a meaning that goes beyond the scope of sustained drug action.One of the major factors for the increased market tendencies for controlled drug delivery market is the improvement and advances in the use of varied approaches. Polymeric controlled drug delivery is the most applied strategy towards the controlled drug delivery. Polymers used for coating and in other forms consist of two forms synthetic and biodegradable polymers. The extensive usage of biodegradable polymers in medical devices is expected to push the global biodegradable polymers market.The future of controlled drug delivery is quite fertile with respect to various upcoming systems and products which will be providing the controlled release mechanism. Some of the products have been launched and some will be coming soon as are under clinical investigations. Various depot systems are under construction, along with the approaches using nanoparticulate system, transdermal controlled deliveries and much more. Newer, more sophisticated, transdermal patches and other transdermal controlled drug delivery systems are being developed that are currently being tested in clinical trials.KuicK Research report on the "Controlled Drug Delivery Market" is a result of intensive study of the novel segment and its future market potential. The report has been made with key focus on the current market trends, superiority of Controlled Drug Delivery methods to traditional drug delivery methods. The report also provides key insights into the technology and approaches of controlled delivered drugs, recent developments and market dynamics that might impact its future. The report concludes with comprehensive insight on ongoing clinical trials of controlled delivered drugs and future trends which clearly highlights it as one of the most promising market in the modern drug delivery segment.For Report Sample Contact: neeraj@kuickresearch.com or +91-11-47067990Download Report:Report Table of Contents1. Drug Delivery: An Advancing Trajectory1.1 Preamble Towards Drug Delivery1.2 Ideal Mode of Drug Delivery System2. What is Controlled Drug Delivery?2.1 Novel Drug Delivery Systems2.2 Preamble to Controlled Drug Delivery3. Development of Controlled Drug Delivery Technology3.1 First Generation3.2 Second Generation4. Basics of Controlled Drug Delivery4.1 Prerequisites of Controlled Delivery4.2 Rationale for Controlled Drug Delivery5. Mechanism of Controlled Drug Release5.1 Diffusion Controlled5.2 Dissolution Controlled System5.3 Water Penetration Controlled System5.4 Erosion Controlled System5.5 Ion-Exchange Controlled System6. Cataloging of Controlled Drug Delivery6.1 Classification Based Over Delivery Systems6.2 Classification Based Over Technicality6.3 Classification Based Over Routes7. Approaches for Controlled Drug Delivery7.1 Polymers7.2 Chronopharmaceutics7.3 Nanoparticulate Delivery System8. Global Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline Overview8.1 Phase8.2 Country/Region8.3 Mode of Action8.4 Drug class8.5 Indication9. Application of Controlled Drug Delivery9.1 Diabetes9.2 Cancer9.3 Cardiovascular Diseases9.4 Neurological Disorders9.5 Infections10. Drug Designing for Controlled Delivery10.1 Enteral Dosage Formulations10.1.1 Solid Dosage Forms10.1.2 Liquid Dosage Forms10.1.3 Inhalation Dosage Forms10.2 Parenteral Dosage Forms10.2.1 Injectable Dosage Forms10.2.2 Implantable Device10.3 General Mechanisms of Drug Release11. Market Inclinations11.1 Market over Routes of Administration11.2 Market over Approaches12. Global Controlled Drug Delivery Market Dynamics12.1 Accelerative Parameters12.2 Challenges13. Global Controlled Drug Delivery Market Future Outlook13.1 Ongoing Clinical Trials13.2 Future Market Opportunities14. Global Controlled Drug Delivery Clinical Trials by Company, Indication and Phase14.1 Unknown14.2 Research14.3 Preclinical14.4 Clinical14.5 Phase-I14.6 Phase-I/II14.7 Phase-II14.8 Phase-II/III14.9 Phase-III14.10 Preregistration14.11 Registered15. Marketed Controlled Release Drug Clinical Insight by Company, Indication and Phase16. Competitive Landscape16.1 Allergan16.2 Amylin Pharmaceuticals16.3 AstraZeneca16.4 BioAlliance Pharma16.5 Biogen16.6 Collegium Pharmaceutical16.7 Controlled Therapeutics (Ferring Pharmaceuticals)16.8 Cosmo Pharmaceuticals16.9 Egalet16.10 Elan Corporation16.11 Encore Therapeutics16.12 Flamel Technologies16.13 GlaxoSmithKline16.14 Heron Therapeutics16.15 iCeutica16.16 Mithra Pharmaceuticals16.17 Neurim Pharmaceuticals16.18 Novartis16.19 Orexigen Therapeutics16.20 Otsuka Pharmaceutical16.21 Pfizer16.22 Purdue Pharma16.23 Syntex Pharmaceuticals International16.24 Takeda16.25 Zealand PharmaFigure 1-1: Characteristics of an Ideal Drug Delivery SystemFigure 2-1: Limitations of the Conventional Drug Delivery SystemsFigure 2-2: Diversification of the Novel Drug Delivery PlatformsFigure 3-1: History of Drug Delivery Technology from First Generation till Third GenerationFigure 3-2: Barriers to be Overcome by the Third Generation Drug Delivery SystemFigure 4-1: Demonstration of the Targeted and Non-Targeted Drug DeliveryFigure 4-2: Controlled Drug Release is by Zero Order MechanismFigure 5-1: Differentiation of the Two Forms of the Diffusion Controlled MechanismsFigure 5-2: Mechanism of Encapsulation Dissolution Controlled SystemFigure 5-3: Osmotic Release of the Drug Delivery with the Controlled MechanismFigure 5-4: Illustration of Erosion Mechanisms Found in Matrix SystemsFigure 6-1: Plasma Concentration v/s Time Profile in Conventional and Controlled ReleaseFigure 6-2: Comparison of Varied Modified Drug Release SystemsFigure 6-3: Illustration of Mechanism of Pulsatile Drug Release in PulsincapFigure 6-4: Classification Based Over the Technicality EruditionFigure 6-5: Structural Differentiation among Varied Classified Drug Delivery SystemsFigure 6-6: Classification Based over the Route of AdministrationFigure 7-1: Categorization of Polymeric Controlled Drug Delivery DevicesFigure 7-2: Varied Nanostructures Available for the Nanoparticulate Delivery SystemFigure 8-1: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Phase (%), 2018 till 2025Figure 8-2: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Phase (Number), 2018 till 2025Figure 8-3: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Phase (%),2018 till 2025Figure 8-4: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Phase (Number), 2018 till 2025Figure 8-5: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Country/Region (Number),2018 till 2025Figure 8-6: Global - Controlled Release Clinical Drug Pipeline by Mode of Action (Number), 2018 till 2025Figure 8-7: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by Drug Class (Number), 2018 till 2025Figure 8-8: Global - Controlled Release Drug Clinical Pipeline by indication (Number), 2018 till 2025Figure 9-1: Major Non-Invasive Administrative Routes of Insulin DeliveryFigure 9-2: Layout of the Controlled Drug Delivery Approaches in Cancer TherapeuticsFigure 9-3: Controlled Drug Delivery Approaches used to Deliver Drugs to CNSFigure 10-1: Dosage Formulations for the Controlled Drug DeliveryFigure 10-2: Mechanism of the Controlled Drug Release of the Solid Dosage FormsFigure 10-3: Representation of Categories of Liquid Dosage FormFigure 10-4: Mechanism of Controlled Delivery of Parenteral Dosage FormsFigure 10-5: General Forms of Oral Controlled Release System MechanismFigure 10-6: Schematic Diffusion Controlled Drug Release from Inert MatricesFigure 10-7: Demonstration of the Osmotic Pump Drug Release MechanismFigure 11-1: Drug Delivery Share by Route of Administration, 2016Figure 11-2: Global - Oral Drug Delivery Administration Market (US$ Billion), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-3: Global - Injectable Drug Delivery Systems Market (US$ Billion), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-4: Global - Implantable Device Market (US$ Billion), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-5: Global - Topical Drug Delivery System Market (US$ Billions), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-6: Global - Biodegradable Polymer Market (US$ Billions), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-7: Global - Smart Polymers Market (US$ Billion), 2017 and 2025Figure 11-8: Global - Nanomedicine Market (US$ Billion), 2017-2025Figure 12-1: Accelerative Parameters of Controlled Drug Delivery SystemsFigure 12-2: Major Challenges Faced by Controlled Drug Delivery SystemFigure 13-1: Illustration of Clinical Trials in Varied Segments for Controlled Drug DeliveryKuick Research is a market research and analytics company that provides targeted information for critical decisions at business, product and service levels. We are quick, predictive and known by the recommendations we have made in the past. Our result-oriented research methodology offers understanding of multiple issues in a short period of time and gives us the capability to keep you full with loads of practical ideas. By translating research answers into strategic insight and direction, we not only rate the success potential of your products and/or services, but also help you identify the opportunities for growth in new demographies and find ways to beat competition.Neeraj Chawlaneeraj@kuickresearch.comKuicK ResearchNew Delhi  110 001, India+91-11-47067990
Quality Management Software Market Analysis & Growth 2018-2023 | Factor Study by Siemens AG, Autodesk Inc., Intelex Technologies, Inc., Parasoft Corporation, Arena Solutions Inc., IBM, Aras Corporation,

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Qurate Business Intelligence has added one more investigative report of valuable nature to its repertoire. The investigative report, titled " Global Quality Management Software Market," delivers thorough comprehension of the subject matter. The report is equipped with essential information associated with current scenario as well as predictions associated with market. Quality management software is essential to manage and maintain the quality and is closely associated with customer satisfaction, competitiveness of the firm as well as performance.Key players profiled in the report: Siemens AG, Autodesk Inc., Intelex Technologies, Inc., Parasoft Corporation, Arena Solutions Inc., IBM, Aras Corporation, MasterControl Inc., General Electric Company, AssurX, IQMS, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Dassault Systemes SE, Microsoft Corporation, Pilgrim Quality Solutions, Inc., SAP SE, Oracle Corp, QUMAS, Sparta Systems, MetricStreamGet Free Sample Report@This assessment shares insights in relevance with the various elements impacting the offerings of the Global Quality Management Software Market. This includes aspects such as the trends, drivers, and limitations. quality management software market has covered several acumen linked with the global market. These research acumen include developments in software, trends, drivers and challenges that have an impact on the expansion of the global quality management software market.The primary section of the insightful evaluation enlists the review of the offerings available in the global market. The segmentation and applications comes next in the report. In the following segments of the report, the deals in the Global Quality Management Software Market across various territories, for example, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Center East and Africa and Latin America, are examined. Similarly, analysis of the most rewarding regions in the market is includes accompanied with their development prospects during forecasting period. In addition, the key manufacturers and the changing value of the offerings every region is been investigated under the geographical segmentation of the report.For Enquiry OR Any Query? Ask to our Expert@The noteworthy patterns forming the growth trends of the Global Quality Management Software Market are inspected in the report in detail, including the various growth drivers for the business and their separate significance as well.It assists readers in understanding the key product sections and their future. Its counsels in taking well-versed business decisions by giving complete intuitions of the market and by forming a comprehensive analysis of market subdivisions. To sum up, it also provides confident graphics and personalized SWOT analysis of foremost market subdivisions.Other industry-related procedures about the Global Quality Management Software Market, for example, descriptive explanation of the accumulating structure, the financial foundation of the market, market activity elements, exchange figures, and generation esteem edges are also scrutinized in the report. Key improvement approaches and strategies concerning the Global Quality Management Software Market are reviewed with respect to their effect.To Get this Report@Table of Content:Global Quality Management Software Market Research Report 2018-2023Chapter 1: Global Quality Management Software Market OverviewChapter 2: Global Economic ImpactChapter 3: Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2018-2023)Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2018-2023)Chapter 6: Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Global Quality Management Software Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Global Quality Management Software Market Forecast (2018-2023)Chapter 13: AppendixAbout Us:Qurate Business Intelligence delivers unique market research solutions to its customers and help them to get equipped with refined information and market insights derived from reports. We are committed to providing best business services and easy processes to get the same. Qurate Business Intelligence considers themselves as strategic partners of their customers and always shows the keen level of interest to deliver quality.Contact Us:Nehal ChinoyRunwal Platinum,Ramnagar Colony, Bavdhan,Pune, Maharashtra, India-411021IN +919881074592info@qurateresearch.com
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  The leaders of the Philippines and China discussed again the territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

In a joint statement delivered Wednesday, President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping said they will continue to address the ongoing dispute, but that these issues "are not the sum total of China-Philippines bilateral relations."

The leaders added that the dispute will be settled through "peaceful means," and will involve talks with other sovereign states that are directly concerned with the issue.

"Both sides stay committed to addressing disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned, in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 UNCLOS," the statement read.

On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, regarding its territorial claims in the South China Sea based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

However, China has refused to acknowledge the ruling of the international court, while Duterte has seemingly taken a back seat on the matter despite his strong stance on defending territorial waters before the 2016 elections.

In a chance interview with reporters at the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-China Summit, Duterte said China currently is in possession of the South China Sea.

Duterte also said the ASEAN, with China, should come up with a Code of Conduct (COC) on the South China Sea soon, which defines what can and cannot be done in disputed waters.

READ: Duterte to China: Tell us the 'kind of behavior' to take in South China Sea

Aside from the Philippines and China, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan also have territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Despite Taiwan's claim for independence, China continues to assert that it is a part of its territory. In the joint statement, the Philippines reaffirmed its stance on the matter, siding with China.

"The two Leaders agree to maintain close high-level communication through bilateral visits, phone calls, exchange of letters, and side meetings in multilateral fora, so as to strengthen the planning of bilateral relations, institute timely communication on major regional and international issues, and promote the sharing of experience in state governance. The Philippines reaffirmed its observance of the One-China principle," the statement read.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to return to China Wednesday evening.
Farm Management Software Market 2018-2024 By Top Players: Trimble, Deere & Company, AgJunction, AG Leader Technology, DeLaval, Agrivi, Raven Industries, SST Development Group, Iteris, BouMatic, Farmers Edge, GEA Group

Farm Management Software Market

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The North America farm management software market is estimated to hold the majority share owing to the increasing demand for advanced agricultural solutions to improve productivity. Farmers in the region readily adopt new advanced technologies and modern farming systems including cloud services, mobile applications, data analysis tools, and high-speed imagery services. The China farm management software market is expected to experience a significant growth owing to the rapidly growing population and increasing food requirements. The lack of land available for agriculture has mandated the farmers to use advanced technologies to improve productivity in the available land.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @Farm Management Software Market size is expected to gain momentum during the period of seven years owing to the continuously growing demand for food with growth in population worldwide. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the food demand is expected to increase between 59% to 98% by 2050. Farmers will need to increase production either by increasing the land under agricultural production or by increasing the productivity. The growing need for increasing agricultural productivity is expected to propel the farm management software market growth.Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: Trimble Deere & Company AgJunction AG Leader Technology DeLaval Agrivi Raven Industries SST Development Group Iteris BouMatic Farmers Edge GEA GroupGovernments of various countries are extending support to farmers to implement the technology to enhance productivity. For instance, the government of Queensland provides a wide range of interactive software and tools to support agricultural businesses. Governments, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, are supporting farmers to adopt modern agricultural techniques. Stringent regulations pertaining to intellectual property rights in agriculture technology are encouraging the companies to invest more in the industry. The implementation of IP rights is increasing the profit margins of technology enablers, attracting several companies in the industry and propelling the farm management software market growth.Increasing use of virtual fences is expected to aid the farm management software market growth. Large paddocks are separated by these fences to prevent the movement of animals into other paddocks while grazing. The use of virtual fences operated using a mesh of sensors and network programming is increasing significantly as the maintenance of fences is an expensive job. The ability of these solutions to protect the crops from being grazed by the animals and control the movement of herds in farms is expected to propel the farm management software market growth.The trend of integration of remote sensing technologies with these solutions for continuous monitoring is gaining focus. The integration enables farmers to reduce the impact of natural calamities and disasters. This has also enabled the farmers and traders to gain real-time information about the weather conditions and spraying requirements. The proliferation of these advanced technologies is expected to propel the farm management software market growth over the forecast timespan.Increasing penetration of smartphones and high-speed internet across the globe will provide viable growth opportunities over the next seven years. Solution providers in the farm management software market are leveraging the internet penetration to make the advanced systems and technologies available to the farmers, particularly in the developing countries including China, Japan, India, Brazil, and South Korea. However, high capital investments required to implement these technologies is expected to restrain the industry growth. Furthermore, the lack of technical expertise and advanced infrastructure available to implement these technologies will challenge the market.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Farm management software market is segmented into precision farming, fish farming, livestock monitoring, and smart greenhouse farming. Precision farming is expected to witness fast growth over the forecast time span owing to the growing focus of farmers on enhancing productivity and efficiency. Precision farming is gaining the attention of farmers worldwide owing to the extended production and profitability due to the implementation of this technology. Farmers are widely using this technology to minimize resource wastage, help in proper utilization of fertilizers, and reduce time & cost. The technology is being widely adopted as it helps farmers to get the real-time information about evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and electrical conductivity, thus boosting the farm management software market growth.The farm management software market is segmented into web-based and cloud-based deployment models. Cloud-based deployment is either Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Cloud-based model is expected to gain a significant share owing to low establishment costs, ease of use, and no requirements for physical infrastructure.The farm management software market ecosystem consists of developers, system integrators, managed service providers, professional service providers, connectivity providers, and maintenance & support providers. System integrators facilitate the integration of software and hardware components and form an integral part of the industry ecosystem. These entities also perform troubleshooting & diagnosing farming problems and recommend optimal solutions related to specific customer needs.Browse Full Report @Key vendors in the farm management software market are Trimble, Deere & Company, AgJunction, AG Leader Technology, DeLaval, Agrivi, Raven Industries, SST Development Group, Iteris, BouMatic, Farmers Edge, and GEA Group. The industry is fragmented in nature owing to the presence of many regional players. Big players in the industry are acquiring startups and small players to gain a considerable share.Browse Related Report:Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Italy, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, South Africa, Brazil) Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018  2024About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Cosmetic Implants Market Outlook to 2025 Insights on Key Vendors Shared in Detailed Report - 3M, ALLERGAN, GC Aesthetics, Institut Straumann AG, Nobel Biocare Services AG, Zimmer Biomet, Sientra

Cosmetic Implants Market to 2025 - Premium Market Insights

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Premiummarketinsights.com has announced the addition of the Cosmetic Implants Market to 2025, the report classifies the global Cosmetic Implants Market in a precise manner to offer unearth valuable, accurate and reliable data insights that help organizations to meet their business objectives and enable growth.Cosmetic implants are used in cosmetic plastic surgeries, it includes surgical and nonsurgical procedures. The implants help in reshaping structures of the body and improving appearance and confidence of a person.The market for the cosmetic implants is rising due to the increasing awareness about the plastic surgeries, easily available of technologically advanced implants and also the people adopting the changes for improving their personality. The cosmetic implants are available in different shapes, size, and styles for the breast, teeth and facial implants. The implants and the procedure of implantation cost effective. Owing to this factors the market for the cosmetic implants is expected to witness the high growth in the coming future.Get PDF Sample of Cosmetic Implants Market Report @The global Cosmetic Implants market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market. The report also focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, products and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years.Top Key Vendors:1. 3M2. ALLERGAN3. GC Aesthetics4. Institut Straumann AG5. Nobel Biocare Services AG6. Zimmer Biomet7. Sientra, Inc.8. Surgiform Technologies LLC9. Dentsply Sirona10. ImplantechThe segmentation of the market is done on the basis of the material and application. The material segment is classified into biomaterials, metals, polymers, and ceramics. The application segment for the cosmetic implants is segmented as facial implants, breast implants, dental implants, and buttock implants. These segments are further sub segmented, the facial implants segment is classified as chin implants, jaw implants and cheek implants. The breast implants segment consist of silicone breast implants and saline breast implants. The dental implants segment includes endosteal implants and subperiosteal implants. The market is majorly regulated by the breast and dental implants, for instance the use of these implants are done by the celebrities and patients. A person or a patient opt for cosmetic surgery when they met with major deformity, loss of the body part in an accident or by birth.Place an Inquire before Purchase Cosmetic Implants MarketThe report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global cosmetic implants market based on material, and application. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall cosmetic implants market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South & Central America. The market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 13 counties globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.The report analyzes factors affecting market from both demand and supply side and further evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend. The report also provides exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions namely; North America, Europe, APAC, MEA and South & Central America.The market for cosmetic implants is dominated North America followed by Europe, more of the population in these region undergo the cosmetic implantation. Growth of medical aesthetics industry in the US drives the market growth. The Asia Pacific region is the fastest growing market for the cosmetic implantation. Countries such as China, Japan and India did not had facilities for the cosmetic implantations, but now a days they are developing and delivering the services for the cosmetic implantations.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@premiummarketinsights.comOrganization: Premium Market InsightsPhone: +1-646-491-9876About Premium Market Insights:Premium Market Insights is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries. Our commitment to customer service is best exemplified by free analyst support that we offer to our clients which sets us apart from any other provider. We also offer enterprise subscriptions which provide significant cost savings to our clients.Premium Market Insights,533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028,
Saffron Market Detailed Analysis & Focusing on Key Leaders Gohar Saffron, Iran Saffron, Safrante Global Company, Evolva, Rowhani Saffron Co., Hijos de Eustaquio Abad & Co. SL, Tarvand Saffron Co.

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Saffron is one of the expensive spices in the world and its scientific name is Crocus Sativus L. Saffron is currently being cultivated in some of the major economies of the world such as Iran, India, Spain, Greece, Italy, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Egypt, France, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Saffron extract and its ingredients such as crocin and crocetin has health benefits such as improvement in memory and learning skills. Saffron plays an important role in cooking, cosmetics, and perfumes as flavoring and coloring agents. Saffron is also used for the treatment of depression, neuronal injury, anxiety, insulin resistance, and diabetic neuropathy.Download PDF Brochure :Increasing demand for saffron amongst the consumers due to its application in food industry is expected to be a major factor driving growth of the global saffron market over the forecast period. In food, saffron is used as a spice, flavoring agent, and yellow food coloring, which makes it one of the most preferred spices of consumers. A small amount of saffron to certain recipe improves taste of the food.Market Outlook- Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region in the global saffron market over the forecast period due to increasing demand for saffron in pharmaceutical industry. For instance, According to India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), in 2017 the Indian pharmaceutical industry was valued at US$ 33 billion and expected to reach at US$ 55 billion by 2020 and exhibited a CAGR of 22.4% during the period 2014-2020. Saffron has properties such as mutation-preventing, cancer-suppressing, antioxidant, immuno-modulating, helps to maintain cholesterol level, lowering coronary heart disease, anti-cancer and maintaining normal blood pressure these factors driving the market.- North America held significant market share in the global saffron market in 2017 and is expected to increase over the forecast period, owing to increasing consumer preferences for natural flavoring and colorings over artificial.Key PlayersKey players operating in the global saffron market include Gohar Saffron, Iran Saffron, Safrante Global Company, Evolva, Rowhani Saffron Co., Hijos de Eustaquio Abad & Co. SL, Tarvand Saffron Co., Baby Brand Saffron, Royal Saffron Company, Saharkhiz International Group Inc., Novin Saffron, and Azafranes Machegos SL.Market TaxonomyOn the basis of form the global saffron market is segmented into:ThreadPowderLiquidOn the basis of end-use Industry, the global saffron market is segmented into:Food and BeveragesPharmaceuticalPersonal Care and CosmeticsTextileRequest For Customization of Research Report :About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com
Amino Acid Metabolism Disorders Treatment Market to Soar at 6.4% CAGR from 2017 to 2026

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The global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market is expected to exhibit a strong growth over the course of the forecast period. The report on global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market has been minutely studied and researched upon by the analysts of Future Market Insights (FMI). The market research report presents an all-inclusive analysis of the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market along with an outline of the competition existing among the core players operating in the market. The vendor landscape section includes several facets pertaining to key players such as innovation and developments, product portfolio, core strategies, geographical area covered, prime personnel, mergers, acquisitions, agreements, and other financial and non-financial strategies.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @According to Future Market Insights, the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market is expected to rise at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2017 to 2026. The market is projected to touch a valuation of over US$1,030 Mn by the end of the forecast period.Key Insights on Amino Acid Metabolism Disorders Treatment MarketOn the basis of region, the global amino acid metabolism disorders treatment market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific except Japan, Japan, and the Middle East and Africa. Amongst these, North America is expected to retain a leading position in the market by the end of the forecast period reaching a valuation of over US$359 Mn. North America is expected to be closely followed by Europe. Players operating in this market can seek potential opportunities from the U.S., Germany, Spain, and France owing to several clinical trials taking place pertaining to this treatment and several mergers and acquisitions occurring among core players operating in these regions. Players can also find lucrative opportunities from Asia Pacific excluding Japan and as well with the rise in nutritional management activities in these regions. Countries in APAC such as China and India are also expected to emerge as potential adopters of amino acid metabolism disorders treatment in the long run.In terms of product type, the global amino acid metabolism disorder treatment market has been segmented into arginine, folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12, thiamine, vitamin D, betaine, carglumic acid, sapropterin dihydrocholoride, and others. Among these, carglumic acid is expected to lead the market until the end of the forecast period reaching a valuation of over US$185 Mn. However, sapropterin dihydrocholoride is expected to witness the maximum growth rate over the course of the forecast period.Based on indication, the global market for amino acid metabolism disorder treatment has been classified into phenylketonuria, maple syrup urine disease, argininosuccinic acidemia, citrullinemia, and homocystinuria. Among all of these, phenylketonuria is expected to emerge dominant by the end of the forecast period.Request to Browse Report Customization @On the basis of sales channel, the global market for amino acid metabolism disorder treatment has been classified into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, and online sales. Hospital pharmacies is expected to take the lead among all these by the end of the forecast period.Vendor LandscapeThe companies operating in the market are Pfizer, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Merck KGaA, Koninklijke DSM N.V., Recordati S.p.A., Sanofi, Civentichem, LLC, Shine Star (Hubei) Biological Engineering Co., Ltd., AMINO GmbH, and Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.PAGE REPORT @About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Operational Predictive Maintenance Market is projected to grow significantly to reach US$ 4,746.6 Mn by 2026

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Industry  Global Industry Analysis 2013-2017 and Market Forecast 2018-2026. The predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry has witnessed an upsurge in the past four years with the introduction of advanced technologies such as Big Data & analytics, machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. As a result of the increasing adoption of these advanced technologies, a transition from the on-premise deployment models to the cloud is witnessed in the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry.The global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry is expected to witness a double-digit growth rate during the forecast period. The predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry was valued at US$ 741.1 Mn in 2017, and is projected to grow significantly to reach US$ 4,746.6 Mn by 2026, which can be attributed to the high demand for efficient output & management in the manufacturing industry and for minimizing the costs associated with the maintenance of the assets/products/machines.In this report, PMR has segmented the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry on the basis of component type, deployment model, technology, and region. By component type, predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry is subsegmented into software and services. Services subsegment of the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry is further segmented into consulting, training, implementation & integration, and support. According to the PMR analysis of the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry, as the adoption of software increases, a corresponding increase in the demand for services is expected to be witnessed, especially during the latter half of the forecast period. During the initial phase of the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry, the consulting and implementation & integration segments are expected to witness higher demand. However, as time progresses, higher demand for the support and maintenance segment is expected in the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry.A sample of this report is available upon request @Based on deployment model, the predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry is subsegmented into on-premise and cloud. In 2017, the on-premise segment is expected to dominate the predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry. However, the cloud segment is expected to exhibit a higher double digit-growth rate during the forecast period in the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry owing to the increasing demand for adopting cloud technology across all the regions. The deployment of predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry simplifies the integration of advanced technologies with the software and, furthermore, assists in the global advent of Industry 4.0. Increasing awareness about the advantages associated with the deployment of predictive maintenance over cloud is another factor expected to fuel the growth of the segment in the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry, in terms of value, during the forecast period.Demand for Reduced Downtime & Low Maintenance Costs from Manufacturers Boosting Revenue Growth in the Predictive Maintenance Market for Manufacturing IndustryMoreover, the predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry report also includes a qualitative analysis of the integration of machine learning, deep learning, and Big Data & analytics with predictive maintenance and an assessment of the opportunities in the future with an increase in the adoption of these solutions. At the global level, the maximum adoption of the aforementioned integrated solution is witnessed among the North American and European manufacturing companies.Furthermore, on the basis of geography, North America predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry is expected to dominate the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry due to the large presence of solution providers, availability of resources for offering advanced solutions, and maximum penetration of Industry 4.0 in the region. Moreover, the predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry has high potential in SEA & Others of APAC and China owing to the presence of numerous manufacturing companies in these regions and an increase in the adoption of advanced technologies to increase the efficiency associated with the same.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @According to PMR analysis, initiatives undertaken by governments to enhance the efficiency of manufacturing plants/machines, transition from on-premise to cloud, increasing awareness among end-users, and high growth opportunities in developing countries are likely to boost the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry. Some of the market participants in the global predictive maintenance market for manufacturing industry report include IBM Corporation, Software AG, SAS Institute Inc., PTC Inc., Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, eMaint, Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP SE, and General Electric.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Saudi Arabia Pharmaceutical Market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period (20162026)

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The significant rise in lifestyle-related diseases and the developments in healthcare infrastructure are expected to influence the demand for pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market is anticipated to procure value worth US$ 5,209.5 Mn at a y-o-y growth of 6.0 % over 2015. The mounting demand for branded drug products will continue to incite the growth of the Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical market in 2016.To know key findings Request Sample Report @:The demand for pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia is expected to register substantial growth owing to the increasing penetration of health insurance companies and the rising incidence rate of non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, the exceptional rise in the per capita income of Saudi Arabia is also expected to foster the demand for branded pharmaceutical drugs. Another key factor driving the growth of the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is the countrys strategic move to allow 100% FDI in the pharmaceuticals sector. Although, the shortage of profound indigenous research capacity in the pharmaceutical industry and the delayed registration of drug and medicine patents is expected to limit the expansion of the market in 2016 and beyond.Based on the product type, the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is expected to witness an upsurge in the prescription-type branded drug products. In terms of market value, the branded drugs are estimated to reach US$ 2,760.8 Mn by 2016-end. The demand for generic drugs is projected to secure steady growth, attributing to the insisting promotion of generic drug adoption by healthcare insurance providers.Request for Report customization @:On the basis of the diseases, the pharmaceutical drugs used for treatment of cardiovascular diseases will continue exhibiting robust growth in 2016. The demand for cardiovascular medications will continue to surge due to the prominence of circulatory disorders in Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the rising prevalence of disorders related to body sugar levels is expected to make diabetes a rapidly growing disease-based sub-segment in the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market.The pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is also segmented on the basis of distribution channel, where retail pharmacies will continue to account for 80% market share compared to hospital pharmacies. The westernised modernisation of retail pharmacies in Saudi Arabia has led to the availability of a wide range drugs and medicinal products, thereby attaining a considerable growth in the retail pharmacy sub-segment in 2016 and further.The rising resource potential in Saudi Arabia is projected to positively reform the production environment for pharmaceutical manufacturers. In order to expand the markets size, structuring alliances with well-established native companies is predicted to be a key strategy for global pharmaceutical leaders. The key players in the Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market include Novartis AG, SPIMACO, Pfizer Inc., and Glaxosmithkline plc., Jamjoom Pharma, and Tabuk Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Co. among others.Get access to full summary @:Long-term Outlook: The Saudi Arabia pharmaceutical market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period 2016-2026. In terms of market value, the pharmaceutical market in Saudi Arabia is estimated to be worth US$ 12,281.4 Mn by the end of forecast period.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Wireless Network Systems Market Trends and Growth to 2023 Profiling Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia (ALU+MOTO), ZTE, Samsung, Nortel, LG, Juniper, Cisco Systems

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The newly released research at Market Study Report titled 2018-2023 Global Wireless Network Systems Market Report provides data, information, brief analysis, company profiles, statistics for past years and forecasts for next few years.The report on Wireless Network Systems Market is basically an all-exhaustive study of this business space with respect to parameters such as the driving forces influencing the commercialization map of this vertical and the numerous opportunities provided by Wireless Network Systems Market. Additionally, the report also delivers a highly appreciable perspective about the various factors that contribute to constraining the growth of this industry.Request a sample Report of Wireless Network Systems Market at:The competitive spectrum of Wireless Network Systems Market encompasses a number of prominent companies along the likes ofHuaweiEricssonNokia (ALU+MOTO)ZTESamsungNortelLGJuniperCisco SystemsA diverse analysis of the manufacturer base has been provided in the report, that is inclusive of their business profiles and the market share of each of the firms. Details about the production and the revenue accumulation by each of the firms with respect to the types and applications have also been enumerated in the report. Pivotal information regarding the products manufactured by the firms, price patterns, gross margins, a brief of the competitive situation, production area, and market concentration have also been elucidated in the Wireless Network Systems Industry report.Meticulously articulated in terms of myriad segments, the Wireless Network Systems Market report encompasses the geographical spectrum of this business sphere in minute detail. The geographical terrain of Wireless Network Systems Market, as per the report, is inclusive of the regions such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. The valuation held by every region in the base year, estimated market share, gross margins, and price models have been explicitly enlisted in the Wireless Network Systems Market report.The research study on Wireless Network Systems Market, with respect to the geographical landscape, is also remnant of extensively in-depth information with regards to the production volume in every region, not to mention, the current consumption model graph as well as an accurate forecast of the future consumption patterns. An all-inclusive study of the import and export volumes and other trends with respect to the product import and export graphs has also been enumerated in the report.Ask for Discount on Wireless Network Systems Market Report at:An extensive analysis of the types and applications landscapes has been evaluated in the report, across the geographies in question. The types and applications spectrums have been further classifiedGlobal Wireless Network Systems Market: Product Segment Analysis2G/3G4G5GGlobal Wireless Network Systems Market: Application Segment AnalysisMilitary UseCivil UseApplication 3The report is inclusive of a thorough study of these segments, encompassing a basic overview, overall scope, as well as their revenue share and contribution with respect to the manufacturers and regions.Further details spanning the report include the overall economic impact on the Wireless Network Systems Market that basically comprises the macroeconomic environment analysis, macroeconomic environment development trend, and an in-depth macroeconomic environment analysis with respect to the regional spectrum.Inclusive of highly prominent visual representations such as tables and figures, the Wireless Network Systems Industry report estimates this business space to accumulate hefty proceeds by the end of the forecast period.For More Details On this Report:Related Reports:1. Global Educational Toy Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023: Breakdown Data by Type, Application, and Top ManufacturersRead More:2. Global Online Gambling Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023: Breakdown Data by Type, Application, and Top ManufacturersRead More:About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email:sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:
Thermo Fisher Scientific (US), Illumina (US), QIAGEN (Netherlands), Agilent Technologies (US) are the Renowned Players in Genotyping Assay Market - Report by MarketsandMarkets

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According to the new market research report "Genotyping Assay Market by Technology (PCR, Sequencing, Microarray, Electrophoresis, MALDI-TOF), Application (Pharmacogenomics, Diagnostic Research, Animal Genetics, Agricultural Biotechnology), and Product - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Genotyping Assay Market is expected to reach USD 31.9 billion by 2023 from an estimated USD 11.8 billion in 2018, at a CAGR of 22.0%.Dont miss out on business opportunities in Genotyping Assay Market.Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow:The major factors driving the growth of this market include technological advancements, the decreasing prices of DNA sequencing, and the increasing incidence of genetic diseases.By product, the reagents & kits segment is expected to account for the largest share of the Genotyping Assay MarketBased on product, the market is divided into reagents & kits, genotyping services, instruments, and bioinformatics. The easy accessibility to a wide range of reagents and need for genotyping in various applications (such as assessing drug efficacy & safety, cutting down cost and time required for clinical development, personalizing the treatments for chronic diseases, and developing good breeds of animals and plants) have contributed to the high and repetitive consumption of reagents and kits as consumables in various genotyping applications.Browse and in-depth TOC on "Genotyping Assay Market"219 - Tables53 - Figures280 - PagesView more detailed TOC @Sequencing segment will witness the highest growth in the market, by technologyBased on technology, the Genotyping Assay Market is segmented into PCR, microarrays, sequencing, capillary electrophoresis, MALDI-TOF, and other technologies. The sequencing segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global genotyping market during the forecast period of 2018 to 2023. The large share of this segment can be attributed increasing application areas of DNA sequencing technologies, technological advancements, the availability of high-speed sequencing instruments, the decreasing cost of DNA sequencing per genome, and the growing uptake of the hybrid approach of sequencing.North America, the largest regional market for genotypingNorth America is expected to account for the largest share of the Genotyping Assay Market in 2018, followed by Europe and the Asia Pacific. The increasing adoption of technologically advanced genotyping products, the high healthcare expenditure, presence of advanced healthcare infrastructure, highly developed healthcare systems in the US and Canada, large number of genotyping-based R&D projects, and the presence of a large number of leading genotyping manufacturers in the region, along with an increasing demand from pharmaceutical companies for genotyping products and rising investments by government bodies, are responsible for the large share of the North American genotyping market.Request for Free Sample Report @The prominent players in the Genotyping Assay Market are Thermo Fisher Scientific (US), Illumina (US), QIAGEN (Netherlands), Agilent Technologies (US), Danaher Corporation (US), Roche Diagnostics (Switzerland), GE Healthcare (US), Fluidigm Corporation (US), PerkinElmer (US), Eurofins Scientific (Luxembourg), Bio-Rad Laboratories (US), Pacific Biosciences of California (US), GENEWIZ (US), and Integrated DNA Technologies (US).Research Insight:Visit Our Website:About MarketsandMarketsMarketsandMarkets 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.MarketsandMarketss 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 SinghMarketsandMarkets INC.630 Dundee RoadSuite 430Northbrook, IL 60062USA : 1-888-600-6441Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com
Enzymes Market Focusing On Top Key Players BASF, DSM, Dupont Danisco, and Novozymes

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Market Study Report recently introduced new title on 2016-2024 Global Enzymes Market Report from its database. The report provides study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product, Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2024.Proteases is estimated to value over USD 2.4 billion by 2024. Strong outlook in food processing, detergents, and biofuels due to high stability and wide range pH properties will drive the demand. However, increasing concerns on side effects including itching, cramps, nausea, & rashes along with stringent FDA standards on product usage may hamper the industry growth.Carbohydrases dominated the global enzymes market accounting for more than 50% in 2016. Converting carbohydrates into beneficial glucose, fructose and other sugar syrups are the key factors fueling product demand. High application scope in pharmaceutical, animal feed and sport drinks will trigger the demand.Request a sample of this premium report at:Food & beverages accounted for more than 36% of the overall industry share in 2016. Rising product consumption in food processing including bakery, beverages, dairy, meat, fruits and protein hydrolysis will propel the industry demand.Biofuels market generated over 24 kilotons in terms of volume in 2016. High dependency on enzymes in biofuel industry will provide a positive outlook for industry demand. Growing biodiesel production particularly in the U.S. and Europe due to environmental regulations will support the industry growth.North America is anticipated to witness gains over 6% up to 2024. Increasing penetration of organized retail business coupled with expansion in food & beverages industry will drive the industry growth. Emergence of genetically engineered products has enhanced the product scope.Europe enzymes market was valued over USD 1.5 billion in 2016. Presence of leading manufacturers in this region including Novozymes, DSM, Danisco and Novus International will support the industry demand. Growing diversity of product applications along with environmental uses including waste treatment will propel the industry demand.Global enzymes market is highly consolidated as top three players account for 75% of the industry share. Novozymes alone accounted for 48% of the market share in 2016. BASF, DSM, Dupont Danisco, and Novozymes are the major industry participants. Expansion of geographical coverage along with improved profitability through joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions and collaborations remain the key strategies adopted by industry players.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Potential outlook in food & beverages and animal feed industry, owing to its benefits including enhanced metabolic reaction will propel the enzymes market size. Growing population resulting in rising food demand will remain the key factor driving the industry growth.Shifting consumer preference towards processed food and ready to drink beverages have enhanced the product demand. The U.S. processed food industry was worth over USD 750 billion in 2016. Moreover, increasing product usage in brewing process will open new avenues for industry growth.Complete report for 2016-2024 on Enzymes market is now available atRelated Report:Global Baby Oral Hygiene Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023Global Baby Oral Hygiene Market research report is added by Market Study report by covering all major market aspects. The report also touches the key scenarios like top players, competition, types, applications, regions, recent developments and future market predictions.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email:sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:
Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market 2018 Global Growth Analysis & Forecast to 2025 | J & E Hall International, Secop GmbH, TECUMSEH, Termotek GmbH, BITZER, Dalian Sanyo Compressors.

Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market

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UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Get Free Exclusive PDF Sample Copy of This Report:Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Industry research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Industry global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018  2023.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.For Any Query Please Visit:The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market-driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real-time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real-time scenario.To Buy This Report Directly and get it in PDF format within 24 hours, please visit:The report segments Global Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market: Regional Segment Analysis: North America Europe China Japan Rest APAC Latin AmericaGlobal Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market: Type Segment Analysis: Piston Refrigeration Compressor Variable Displacement Refrigeration Compressor Fixed Displacement Refrigeration Compressor Screw Refrigeration CompressorGlobal Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market: Application Segment Analysis : Cold Storage Artificial Ice Rink Water Chiller OtherGlobal Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Market: Manufacturers Segment Analysis: J & E Hall International Secop GmbH TECUMSEH Termotek GmbH BITZER Dalian Sanyo Compressors Emerson Climate Technologies FISCHER AG-Prazisionsspindeln Fusheng IndustrialKey Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 and its commercial landscape. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Hermetic Refrigeration Compressor market analysis and forecast 2018-2023.Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. 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2018-2022 Global Automotive Smart Antenna Market Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast

Automotive Smart Antenna Market 2018-2022, Automotive Smart Antenna Market Sales, Automotive Smart Antenna Market Survey

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MarketResearchNest.com published an Exclusive Research Report on Global Automotive Smart Antenna Market Research Report 2018 that highlights the in-depth market analysis and covers significant data with future prospects of the market.This comprehensive Automotive Smart Antenna Market research report includes a brief on these trends that can help the businesses operating in the industry to understand the market and strategize for their business expansion accordingly. The research report analyzes the market size, industry share, growth, key segments, CAGR and key drivers.New vendors in the market are facing tough competition from established international vendors as they struggle with technological innovations, reliability and quality issues. The report will answer questions about the current market developments and the scope of competition, opportunity cost and more.Automotive Smart Antenna Report by Material, Application, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).Request a sample copy of Automotive Smart Antenna Market Report 2018@Automotive Smart Antenna Market in its database provides an expert and in-depth analysis of key business trends and future market development prospects, key drivers and restraints, profiles of major market players, segmentation and forecasting. A Automotive Smart Antenna Market provides an extensive view of size; trends and shape have been developed in this report to identify factors that will exhibit a significant impact in boosting the sales of Automotive Smart Antenna Market in the near future.The report firstly introduced the Automotive Smart Antenna basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.Moreover, the research report assessed market key features, consisting of revenue, capacity utilization rate, price, gross, growth rate, consumption, production, export, supply, cost, market size & share, industry demand, export & import analysis, and CAGR.Browse full content and In-depth TOC of Automotive Smart Antenna Market Report 2018@The report firstly introduced the Automotive Smart Antenna basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. 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Car Rental Market 2025 | Enterprise Holdings Inc., Europcar Group S.A., Avis Budget Group, Inc., Sixt SE, Carzonrent India Pvt Ltd.

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Convenient booking through online services, surge in number of internet users, introduction of new business concepts, growing public awareness regarding car services and increase in arrival of international tourists have significantly contributed to the car rental market. The global car rental market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.6% over the forecast period, 2025.Market DynamicsSurge in income levels in parallel to rising GDP rates in various emerging regions are positively impact growth of the global car rental market. In addition, surge in demand for creative activities, enhanced infrastructural development, increasing air travel and growing urban population has broadened the scope for providers of car rental services.Request For Report Sample:In addition, strict emission standards, volatility in prices of crude oil, low public transportation cost are factors that could inhibit growth of the market in the span of next ten years. Moreover, surge in presence of car rental service providers online and increasing investment by various industry players further contribute towards growth of the car rental market globally.Additionally, growing urbanisation has led to rise in on-demand mobility services such as renting cars on short-term basis, car sharing and others. Furthermore, increasing technological advancement is likely to offer favourable opportunities for growth. Such factors collectively will fuel growth of the car rental market globally.Car Rental Market: North America to Retain Dominance throughout 2025In 2014, on-airport segment among various types of end uses will dominate global car rental market in terms of revenue. Moreover, on-airport segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% over the following decade. Whereas, the on-airport car rental services will retain dominance in the global car rental market in the span of next ten years.Among various types of customers, the leisure services will grow at an impressive 8.6% CAGR over the following decade.In 2014, offline access among various types of booking retained dominance in the global car rental market in terms of revenue and accounted for 48.4% of the market share globally. However, the market will lose it shares to mobile application sector, which will grow at a healthy CAGR of 9.9% in the span of next ten years.Request Report Discount:In 2014, the unorganised sector among various other sectors retained dominance the global car rental market in terms of revenue and accounted for 56.9% market share. In addition, the unorganised sector will grow at a healthy 7.3% CAGR over the following decade.Regional AnalysisIn 2014, North America dominated the car rental market in terms of revenue among various other regions. Furthermore, North America will retain dominance in the global car rental market over the following decade. Whereas, APEJ will grow at a CAGR of 10.2% in the span of next ten years.Vendor InsightsThe car rental market is concentrated in some regions such as Europe and U.S. with top two players accounting for over 50% of the overall market share. Leading marker players operating in the global car rental market include The Hertz Corporation, Enterprise Holdings Inc., Europcar Group S.A., Avis Budget Group, Inc., Sixt SE, Carzonrent India Pvt Ltd., Localiza- Rent a Car SA, AI Futtaim Group, GlobalCARS and Eco Rent a Car.Report Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com
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Jason Paul Schaefer, the 27-year-old man who ignited explosives in a cigarette pack as members of the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task moved in to arrest him last fall, is challenging a warrant that officers used to search his Rock Creek home.

The affidavit written by FBI agent and bomb technician Wade Mutchler to support the Oct. 10, 2017, warrant selectively omitted key information, Schaefers lawyer contends.

It didnt mention the innocuous uses of the chemicals that Schaefer bought and noted only that they could be combined or easily modified to manufacture improvised explosives, according to defense attorney Lisa Ludwig.

Schaefer said he had the chemicals to try to make a drug that could treat opioid addiction, according to Ludwig and court records.

The search warrant affidavit also failed to include another FBI agents conclusion from an earlier search of Schaefers home in April 2017 that the chemicals appear to be solely for illicit drugs, and there was no identified threat to national security, Ludwig said. FBI agent Matthew Acker also had noted that Schaefer has documented mental health issues, she said. None of Ackers findings made it into the search warrant affidavit.

The information was incomplete to the point of being misleading, Ludwig said in court Tuesday.

She asked U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez to schedule whats called a Franks hearing to void the warrant, alleging the misleading omissions resulted from a deliberate or reckless disregard of the truth.

Schaefer lost two fingers on his left hand when the cigarette pack exploded as officers approached his SUV on Oct. 11, 2017. One officer sustained temporary hearing loss. The encounter capped FBI concerns about what Schaefer planned to do with his cache of chemicals, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Tolkoff called the defense explanation for the chemicals absurd and argued that the FBI agent reasonably didnt include it in his affidavit.

TATP (triacetone triperoxide ) is what Schaefer used to blow himself up and nearly blow up two task force officers, Tolkoff said in court papers. Mr. Schaefers claim that he was compiling chemicals to search for the cure for opioid addiction is absurd and internally inconsistent. How, one might ask, could someone with no chemistry training discover a cure for opioid addiction from chemicals purchased online?

Even if Schaefers sole intent was to buy the chemicals for a drug lab, of course thats a crime too, Tolkoff added.

He also said the defense has taken the earlier FBI report on Schaefer out of context. It was part of an alert from the FBIs counterterrorism division to the Portland FBI office to investigate Schaefer further, he said.

Prosecutors last week filed a second superseding six-count indictment against Schaefer with more serious charges. He now faces two counts of assault on a federal officer, carrying and using a destructive device during a crime of violence, using an explosive to commit a federal felony, carrying an explosive during the commission of a federal felony and felon in possession of explosives.

Schaefers lawyer argued that prosecutors sought the new indictment in a vindictive act because Schaefer refused to negotiate a plea deal. Assistant U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight dismissed the allegation, saying the indictment followed a new understanding of the case since Schaefers arrest. Schaefer is set to go to trial in January.

In April 2017, Schaefers landlady called police. He was reported to have been threatening people and spilled about a half-pound of mercury on the ground near his Beaverton apartment, according to prosecutors. When officers arrived, they found Schaefer, a convicted felon, wearing body armor in violation of state law. Beaverton police arrested him, and he was prosecuted in Washington County.

While Schaefer was on probation in that case, the FBI received information on Sept. 21, 2017, that Schaefer was buying chemicals on the internet. The FBI in Portland also received the counterterrorism notification about Schaefer.

Agent Mutchler received the list of chemicals that Schaefer had purchased and knew several could be used to make explosives, according to the government. Schaefer bought an explosive liquid called nitromethane, remotes used to set off fireworks, more than 100 electric matches and at least one pound of hexamine  a chemical frequently mixed with other chemicals to produce a high explosive compound known as "HMTD" for hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. HMTD is extremely sensitive to heat and friction.

On Oct. 3, 2017, the FBI-led task force, after talks with federal prosecutors in Oregon, opened a local investigation.

Seven days later, Mutchler submitted his affidavit for a warrant to search Schaefers home on Northwest Rock Creek Boulevard. U.S Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman signed it. On Oct. 11, 2017, FBI agents, along with Washington County sheriffs deputies, Portland police, state police and other law enforcement officers, searched Schaefers apartment while he was set to meet with his probation officer.

Investigators found igniters and the array of chemicals, prosecutors allege.

Just before 4 p.m. that day, investigators saw Schaefer approach his apartment complex, driving a white Honda. They tried to arrest him on a probation detainer, but he drove off.

After a short chase along Northwest 185th Avenue, the SUV stopped south of Northwest Rock Creek Boulevard . When a Washington County deputy and a state trooper, both assigned to the FBI task force, walked up to Schaefers Honda, Schaefer said something like, were all (expletive) dying today or Im gonna (expletive) blow all of us up, according to prosecutors.

He then took a cigarette lighter and ignited a cigarette pack he was holding inside the SUV, according to the government. Schaefers hand was mangled, and the explosion blew debris from the car and temporarily deafened one officer.

Inside the Honda, police found another cigarette pack that contained explosives  triacetone triperoxide, the same explosive that was in the pack he had ignited, according to the government.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
A Springfield man who prosecutors said tried to overnight more than 100 pounds of marijuana to Oklahoma concealed in styrofoam rocks pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal drug charge.

Curran Millican Manzer, 37, faces up to 20 years in prison, a $1 million fine and three years of supervised release. He also agreed to forfeit any criminal proceeds and property used to commit crimes.

Manzer first attracted attention from authorities in September 2017, when workers at the delivery company UPS reported several packages he had shipped to Oklahoma City smelled like marijuana, court records show. Manzer sent a second set of packages, also believed to contain marijuana, a month later.

At the same time, several packages containing stacks of cash were shipped by UPS to Manzers Springfield home. UPS workers who opened the packages estimated they contained between $40,000 and $50,000 dollars, court documents say.

Springfield police obtained a warrant to search Manzers packages and staked out a local UPS store waiting for him to make another shipment. When Manzer arrived Nov. 10, police watched him drop off six packages to be shipped to Oklahoma.

When officers opened the boxes, they found six large Styrofoam rocks that contained a total of 143 pounds of marijuana.

Billy J. Williams, Oregons U.S. attorney, said in a statement that overproduction of marijuana in the state, and resulting falling prices, have many producers looking for a market outside of the state. Hes said that stopping the illegal export of marijuana from Oregon to other states is a priority for his office.

Manzer pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Eugene to possession with intent to distribute marijuana. He is scheduled to be sentenced in February before Judge Ann Aiken.

-- Elliot Njus
A Washington woman enlisted the help of two friends to kill her ex-husband in Hillsboro and assist her with an alibi, leading to the friends instead notifying police and one wearing a body wire to record the plot being discussed, court records show.

The friends contacted Hillsboro police on Nov. 10 claiming Tanya Schmalz, 36, of Battle Ground, Washington, intended to kill former spouse Jonathan Schmalz two days later, according to a search warrant affidavit.

They told investigators that Schmalz wanted one of them to provide her with Rush, an inhalant drug often used during sex that can have side effects that include dizziness and lightheadedness. The other would allow Schmalz to leave her cellphone at their home and text Schmalz's daughter to give the impression Schmalz was with that friend, the affidavit said.

Meanwhile, Schmalz planned to be at her ex-husband's home, the affidavit said. The friends told police Schmalz planned to get him drunk, have him inhale Rush, then inject him with insulin and smother him with a towel laced with Rush until he stopped breathing, according to the court papers.

One friend described Schmalz as struggling financially and said that she blamed her ex-husband and talked about killing him to collect his Social Security money, the affidavit said.

That same friend said Schmalz talked last year about a prior attempt to get her ex-husband "so drunk that he would do something stupid to get arrested," but the friend didn't think Schmalz was serious, the affidavit said. Schmalz claimed she once drove to Hillsboro to meet him, gave him a bottle of vodka in which she put crushed Benadryl pills without him knowing and abandoned him outside a 7-Eleven after he drank it. He was later found by police, Schmalz claimed, who suspected he was overdosing, the affidavit said.

Schmalz was arrested Nov. 12 on suspicion of attempted murder and solicitation to commit murder. A Washington County judge on the same day approved an order that allowed one of the friends to later wear a wire, the affidavit said.

According to the court papers, Schmalz was recorded by police talking about making sure her former spouse was "blackout drunk," that he would then inhale something, she would jab him with a syringe while acting as if she were going to hug him and then use a washcloth to make sure he wasn't breathing. She said she planned to wipe everything down beforehand in his home and wear gloves, the affidavit said.

An indictment was filed Tuesday in Washington County Circuit Court dropping the solicitation accusation and charging Schmalz with two counts of attempted murder -- one for Nov. 12 and the other for September 2016. It's not clear if the alleged vodka with Benadryl incident is the 2016 plot being alleged.

Oregon court records show Tanya and Jonathan Schmalz, 37, got divorced in Washington County in 2013. The former husband filed a motion last Wednesday seeking temporary custody of their two young children and claimed in court documents that his ex-wife has tried to kill him twice.

His motion for custody was granted the next day.

Schmalz was pulled over by police soon after leaving her recorded meeting with her friends, the affidavit said. Police found a bottle of Rush in her pocket and a loaded syringe with a clear substance inside being kept on a cold pack, the court papers said.

Schmalz later told police detectives that she's talked about hurting or killing her ex-husband over the last several years because "she hated him," and talking to her friends about it was a way for her to vent, court documents allege.

"I would love for him to be dead," Schmalz told police, according to the affidavit.

She admitted that it was insulin in the syringe and said it was being used for her son's science experiment, the court papers said. She requested a lawyer when a detective asked her about crushed Benadryl pills.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
Kathy Wai tired of the same questions from classmates at St. Marys Academy in Portland, so she printed a map of home and stuck it in her wallet for the next interrogation.

Here. This is Burma, she said. Its a real country. Learn about it.

Wai, now 32, said she still thinks about the surprise geography education she gave high school contemporaries years ago. There was a broader lesson there: Be proud of who you are and where you came from.

The map represented a simple act from the new kid on scholarship at the all-girls private school in the heart of a white city in an overwhelmingly white state. But it also served as a sneak peek into how the immigrant from the Southeast Asian country now known as Myanmar would approach her adult life  without fear, head-on and with a focus on advocacy.

Today, Wai is an elected member of the North Clackamas School Board, the youngest person ever appointed to TriMets board of directors and a staffer to a Southeast Portland state lawmaker. Twenty years after arriving in Portland as a 12-year-old, shes built a track record of advocating for marginalized populations through grassroots organizing, but now shes honing her political skills from inside the halls of power.

The Happy Valley resident said shes always been an advocate, especially for the newest Oregonians who might not have someone in their corner. Its why she worked with refugees for years as a Burmese translator and helped organize Asian and Pacific Islander communities  both newcomers and long-established citizens -- in east Portland, Salem and beyond.

Wai brushes off the notion that she is now in a position of power, she says, miming air-quotes.

But its clear her presence on one of the nations most prominent public transportation agencys boards has turned heads  in the immigrant and refugee community, in TriMet leadership, in Gov. Kate Browns office and among transit advocacy groups.

On a board where 7-0 votes are the norm, last month Wai broke ranks and single-handedly delayed a plan to amend TriMets code to clarify its fare-enforcement authorities. The proposal came in the wake of a Multnomah County Circuit Court judges opinion that found a random fare inspection which led to a David Douglas School Board members arrest was unconstitutional. Wai said TriMet was rushing forward with the plan without asking riders, particularly those who are low-income or from communities of color, what they think.

Her vote appeared to catch TriMet staff, and some fellow board members, off-guard.

TriMet leadership wants the board to act a certain way, Wai said in an interview, which she described as, Heres what we want you to do, and yeah, you should just do it.

But while Wai said she trusts TriMet leadership has good intentions, she also said she is not one to stay silent about anything, let alone on issues where she sees the possibility for adverse effects on minority riders.

I think the role of the board member is also to help direct and guide the organization, especially when theres room for improvement, she said.

Kathy Wai, the youngest board member in TriMet's history, pictured in a Southeast Portland coffee shop. Wai is pictured with her boss, Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland on November 14, 2018. Beth Nakamura/Staff

WIDESPREAD ADMIRATION

Wais rise isnt surprising to long-time friends and colleagues. Duncan Hwang, associate director of the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, described Wai as a unicorn who seamlessly marries her immigrant heritage with innate relationship-building skills and political savvy.

I think she has a call to public service. I think she genuinely cares about our communities, he said.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said hes impressed by Wais work in his legislative district to mobilize the Asian and Pacific Islander community, which has raised its profile in Salem in recent years.

Shes obviously very good with young people and kind of sees herself as a role model and they see her that way, Dembrow said. Her natural instincts to organize at the really grass roots level really helps her.

Ronault Polo Catalani, an Indonesian-American civil rights attorney and long-standing leader in Portlands immigrant community, said Wais presence on TriMets board is emblematic of a generational shift.

The kids have done extraordinary things in the mainstream, he said of first-generation immigrants in their 30s. Like raising your hand in class to talk. Like running for public office. This is terribly embarrassing for us, he said of the older generation.

Catalani called Wai and other young leaders ability to argue in public and lose but not lose face a great redemption for the sorrow and loss experienced by many immigrant parents who uprooted lives to come to Oregon.

Shes all of our daughters, he said.

Transit advocacy groups, which have felt overlooked by TriMet, now see a friendly face on the board.

Shes somebody who we know that we can trust, said Shawn Fleek, spokesman for OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon.

Kathy Wai, the youngest board member in TriMet's history, pictured in a Southeast Portland coffee shop November 14, 2018. Beth Nakamura/Staff.

FAMILY LEGACY

Kathy Wai was born in Burma to a close-knit family. Her father was in the military. Her mother came from a highly educated family of doctors, lawyers and teachers.

Wais maternal grandfather, Pe Than Myint, was a physician who studied in England and went on to research and advocate for HIV/AIDS patients and opium addicts for decades. His work ruffled feathers in the military dictatorship nestled between India and Bangladesh to the west, China to the north and Thailand and Laos to the east. It was the same military junta that renamed the country Myanmar in 1989.

Wai idolizes her grandfather, who now lives five minutes from her, and still seeks his advice. He was a young star, she said. He had to be careful about what he said because of the government.

The young family immigrated to the U.S. to escape the military dictatorship. They landed in the Bay Area. Wai was six. The family moved to Portland a little more than six years later.

They left a larger Burmese-speaking community in San Francisco for the relative isolation of Portland. I wasnt used to that, she said. But the family fell in love with the big trees and the regions natural beauty.

The move was challenging.

We were people of some standing back in our country, Wai said of her parents, to now just immigrants who were just trying to survive.

But Oregon soon felt like home, and by the time she was 21, Wai had graduated from Portland State University. She didnt know or realize how much she would use her Burmese language skills or embrace her identity, then she started working at the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organizations Asian Family Center in Northeast Portland.

By then, the American economy was in freefall. The Wai family had lost its home to foreclosure.

Hundreds of refugees from Myanmar landed in Portland, part of a wave of more than 1,500 during the next decade, according to state records.

Sa Hudin was one of those refugees plunked down in an alien world.

In 2009, the 14-year-old Hudin and his two sisters and parents met Wai a couple weeks after arriving in Oregon.

Hudin said Wai came to Franklin High School to help him navigate the maze of classrooms. She went grocery shopping with the family. She stopped by the house to check in. She taught the family how to ride TriMet.

She helped him learn English.

I couldnt not be an advocate, Wai said. I couldnt stop with, Oh, are you hungry? Heres some food.

The totality of the culture change was overwhelming. It often left Hudin in tears, but Wai was always there.

She never gives up, he said. Shes always teaching us, never give up.

Wai continued helping Hudin  and other refugees  with language skills, resumes and job interviews  even after she left the immigrant and refugee community group. She kept those relationships with refugee families as an advocate while working for the Asian and Pacific Islander networking group.

Seeing Wai sit on the TriMet board is empowering, Hudin said. Its someone who understands his story.

I cant even explain how much it means to me, he said. She has a wonderful beautiful heart. Shes always there for everybody.

An early morning MAX train snakes through Northeast and downtown Portland, January 26, 2018 Beth Nakamura/Staff LC-LC-

NEW BOARD

Brown appointed Wai, long-time electrician and union stalwart Keith Edwards, and environmental scientist and design expert Osvaldo Gonzalez to the board in May. Brown said she wanted to shake up the board and add more young and diverse voices.

Just a few meetings in, it appears that plan is working. All three routinely ask probing questions and discuss their personal experiences being profiled or treated unfairly on TriMet. TriMet does not exist without the public, Edwards said at the agencys monthly meeting in October. We need to understand that. Travis Stovall, a Gresham businessman who already sat on the board, has shared similar stories.

Months before she was ever confirmed to the volunteer TriMet board by the Oregon State Senate, an east Multnomah County school board member was arrested and involved in an incident on a MAX platform as part of a routine fare-evasion sting.

Wai said she took the incident involving Ana del Rocio really hard.

I felt like this was a young person, a young elected leader who got stopped and arrested in a very traumatic way, she said.

It made me pause and reflect, she said. Why did that have to happen in the way it played out?

Del Rocio, whose legal name is Rosa Valderrama, would eventually win a contentious legal dispute that drew the ACLU of Oregon into her corner. Judge John Wittmayer found the random fare stop was unconstitutional, and the ACLU said his opinion called into question the practice systemwide. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum eventually decided not to appeal the judges ruling, and TriMet took steps to codify its authority on the MAX system while ensuring riders who dont pay fares are aware evasion alone amounts to a citation and not a crime.

At its meeting last week, Wai eventually supported the rule changes. TriMet said it had contacted dozens of community organizations after Wai delayed the initial vote, and the vast majority approved the plans.

Fleek, the transit advocacy group OPALs spokesman, said Wai did well by not rubber-stamping the plan at first blush. We have always seen that as a problem, he said.

Wai said she feels the wait was worth it because community organizations had a chance to feel heard. I think we are headed in a good direction in better transparency in how these decisions are made, she said.

Catalani, the longtime Portland leader, said its important not to discount what he described as a brave action.

Its good stuff, for her to put the brakes on it and feel shes righteous about it, he added.

Catalani added it shows Wai grasps the value of her voice and experience.

Wai recently left the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon to work for Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer.

Dembrow, the state senator, said he will be interested to watch Wai learn the ropes from inside in Salem versus advocating from the outside.

Having somebody who is a TriMet board member working on legislative issues will be a rare but really desirable connection for us, he predicted.

Wai said she feels like she carries the voices of so many Portlanders when she sits on the TriMet board.

And she doesnt forget about her teenage self with the cut-out map in the wallet.

If I was 16 and knew that there was someone on the TriMet board who looked like me or shared my values or my experiences, she said, then paused, what would that have done?

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen
Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest person, announced Tuesday that he will give $5 million to a Portland non-profit to help get homeless families out of cars, tents and emergency shelters and into homes.

The donation will go to the non-profit JOIN, which not only helps struggling people find permanent homes, but also helps with job training in an effort to restore long-term stability to individuals' lives.

Its the largest donation from an individual donor in the organizations 26-year history.

Bezos announced Tuesday that he was giving away a total of $97.5 million to two dozen organizations across the country to boost families in need. The nearest recipients to Portland were in Tacoma and Seattle, where Bezos founded Amazon.

Bezos also is the owner of the Washington Post and Blue Origin, a company that is working to send humans traveling into space. Forbes lists Bezos as the richest person in the world.

Bezos said his Day 1 Family Fund project tapped a dozen advisers, who helped him decide who to give the money to. Shannon Singleton, JOINs executive director, said Wednesday that only three or four weeks passed from the time JOIN applied for the charitable gift from Bezos, and the time it learned it had secured the money.

Its really been a whirlwind, Singleton said.

The donation will be spread out over four years -- meaning an average of $1.25 million a year -- and that will be a big boost to JOINs roughly $6.5 million budget.

JOIN helps people in need with cash assistance so they can pay for application fees for new apartments, put down security deposits and manage their first few months of rent. The organization also helps people get trained for better jobs; figure out how to use transportation options to get to and from work or appointments; and connect with medical and mental health benefits available to them. Thats much of what they need to build a stable life and maintain a stable home.

Concerns and tensions over the Portland areas homeless population has increased dramatically in recent years.

A 2017 count found more than 4,000 people living on the streets, in emergency shelters or transitional housing in Multnomah County. Thats an increase of nearly 10 percent in two years -- and many residents have complained as tents and garbage have become more visible on Portlands streets.

The danger of being homeless also is obvious: At a news conference last month, advocates said 80 homeless people died in the Multnomah County in 2016, 79 in 2017 and 49 so far in 2018 as of October. Advocates say many of those deaths could have been prevented.

According to JOIN, these are especially challenging and difficult times.

While our community has seen unprecedented attention to homelessness and housing, we continue to see people outside for longer and longer periods of time in search of the elusive affordable apartment people receiving Social Security, other fixed incomes, and minimum wage, wrote Singleton, the executive director.

We continue to see people fall into homelessness because of an unexpected medical bill, lack of paid time off that would allow them to financially support their family during a medical crisis, or a rent increase that they simply cannot afford, Singleton wrote.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee
Immigrants and people of color continue to face discrimination in Portlands white-hot rental market, years after city officials committed to end housing discrimination.

Undercover testing found landlords gave worse treatment to immigrant and non-white renters about 25 percent of the time, according to results published Tuesday by the Portland Housing Bureau. Immigrant renters were given disparate treatment most often, results show.

The figures reinforce a 2011 city audit and subsequent fair-housing tests that found black, Latino and disabled renters face widespread discrimination in Portland.

Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is the city housing commissioner, said in a statement Tuesday that city officials will work to hard to remedy the problem.

"The results from the fair housing report indicate something we have been working to remedy locally, and in our nation -- an inherited history of discrimination. I think we can all agree we have much further to go. I instructed the Housing Bureau to increase efforts and help provide tools so that all Portlanders can find and access quality housing, free from discrimination.

Previous housing commissioners made clear their indignation at prejudiced landlords. Commissioner Nick Fish, the housing commissioner at the time of the 2011 audit, said then that he was outraged at the shocking results. Commissioner Dan Saltzman, the housing commissioner when additional data was released in 2015, said at the time he was deeply troubled by the findings of discrimination.

Fair-housing audits work by sending trained actors to seek rental housing. A white actor will pose as a renter as will a person who belongs to a protected class: a person of color, immigrant, disabled person and so on. They separately seek the same rental housing and compare results for preferential treatment.

For the latest tests, initial results found white renters were given preference in nine of 45 cases. The Fair Housing Council of Oregon, which conducted the audit, did additional testing at 12 of the 45 sites where the initial results were inconclusive and found four more instances of discrimination.

The Fair Housing Council also operates a housing discrimination hotline, and of calls from March 2016 to November 2017, nearly 25 percent reported racial discrimination and 37 percent complained of discrimination based on disability.

Results suggests renters who are immigrants or people of color are far more likely to be quoted a higher price for rent and security deposit than white counterparts, even for the same unit. White renters, by contrast, are more often alerted to special prices for rentals, told of additional units and invited to open house events.

That kind of discrimination is illegal. The U.S. Fair Housing Act bans giving preference to housing based on race, national origin, religion, sex, family status and disability.

Landlords who discriminate can be subject to fines and lawsuits. But enforcement is rare because officials may be reluctant to crack down on the powerful real estate industry and few lawyers take on the cases, the Fair Housing Council said. And many renters do not report housing discrimination because they do not know it is unlawful.

There are not simple, readily available ways for tenants or city officials to force landlords to stop discriminating or force them to pay fines, however. The state labor bureau in recent years dropped a fair housing enforcement contract with the federal government, and its regulators jump to action via a complaint-driven process, rather than proactively. The report to the city Tuesday called for strengthening the fair housing enforcement system.

The reality is that successfully prosecuting enforcement actions requires significant evidence of legally cognizable discrimination, usually from multiple positive test results, the Fair Housing Council wrote in the report.

The Councils recommendation: Continue frequent fair-housing testing, create an incentive for private attorneys to take on fair-housing cases, and even consider establishing a city enforcement branch.

In Portland, officials have not followed through on commitments to get serious about housing discrimination.

While he was housing commissioner, Fish proposed a fair-housing action plan, the first plank of which was titled End Discrimination in Rental Housing. But the 2011 plan was largely symbolic. Though the city continues to dedicate more and more money to renter services, a pledge by the City Council to require the housing discrimination tests annually was not carried out; Tuesdays results are the first to be published in more than three years.

Shannon Callahan, the Housing Bureau director, said the city is trying to do more. She pointed to her bureaus announcement that it will make $200,000 available for nonprofits to provide legal aid for enforcement against bad landlords.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com
A Portland man pleaded guilty to a bribery charge Tuesday after he tried to pay a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to deport his estranged wife.

Antonio Oswaldo Burgos, 48, originally faced three charges of bribery in Portlands U.S. District Court because prosecutors said he tried to bribe the agent on three occasions.

Burgos first contacted the agent by following the officer from an ICE facility in Portland to a Vancouver parking lot. There, prosecutors said Burgos offered the agent money to deport his wife, whom he was in the process of divorcing.

The officer declined but called Burgos the next week in cooperation with ICE investigators, who recorded the conversation. In the call, Burgos offered $3,000 to remove his wife, prosecutors said, and he repeated the offer in a second phone call the next week.

By the time he met the agent in person on June 26, Burgos increased his offer to $4,000 to deport his wife and her child from a previous relationship, prosecutors said. He was arrested days later, on June 29.

Judge Michael Simon will decide Burgos' sentence on May 6. He faces up to 15 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

-- Elliot Njus
Guest opinion

Photo by Lori Duffph

By Matt Shirtcliff

The Oregon District Attorneys Association joins The Oregonian Editorial Board, our fellow elected district attorneys across the state and Oregon Legislatures leadership in their call to send voters a constitutional amendment that would require unanimous jury verdicts.

As prosecutors, we believe in a fair and just criminal justice system that reflects the shared values of the public. While Oregon has made 10-2 verdicts work, we recognize the need for this law change and believe it is time to align our state with the rest of the country and the federal courts.

Many will call on us to implement this practice immediately. However, we do not believe we have the unilateral authority to implement a change in verdict vote requirements without a constitutional amendment to Article 1, Section 11. Todays law makes it clear that the right to a non-unanimous jury verdict is held by the jurors themselves, not by the prosecutor. Simply put, prosecutors cannot waive a right that they do not possess. That is why it is critical that Oregon voters amend Oregons state constitution to remove the possibility of a non-unanimous jury.

Our association believes that juries allow for community voices to play a vital and critical role in our criminal justice system, one that is just and transparent. It is time for a thoughtful review of this law. Fostering public confidence in the criminal justice system is an essential part of what prosecutors do on a daily basis, both inside and outside of the courtroom. Times are changing and the criminal justice system should reflect the publics current values.

In theory, the Oregon District Attorneys Association acknowledges that a change to unanimous verdicts could make criminal convictions more difficult. However, it is a hallmark of our justice system that it should be difficult to take someones liberty. Thats exactly why defendants in criminal cases enjoy the presumption of innocence and the prosecutor must establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Adding the requirement of unanimity is another important safeguard against both wrongful convictions and wrongful acquittals.

The district attorneys association supports the change to require unanimity by our juries. It is good policy to align ourselves with the rest of the country and ensure that no jurors voice is ignored during jury deliberations.

The association had previously sought to have a discussion with voters about the entirety of Article 1, Section 11, including provisions to allow victims -- via the state -- to have input into jury waiver. Yet our position today is simple and clear: Our association supports a legislative referral amending the constitution to require unanimous verdicts.

-- Matt Shirtcliff is the district attorney of Baker County and the president of the Oregon District Attorneys Association.
By Dana Smiley

Earlier this month, I felt a sense of anticipation for the results of the midterm elections. It was clear that the outcome could lead to sweeping changes across the nation, and have a huge impact on a group that is primarily not old enough yet to vote: high school students.

I have seen students get involved with the midterms by canvassing, phone banking, text banking, sharing information on social media and encouraging their parents and siblings to vote. Calla Rhodes, a junior in Portland, says that a lot of students are becoming more civically engaged because they realize their future is on the line

Students not only followed elections in Oregon, but also the national races, such as the senate race in Texas between U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke and Sen. Ted Cruz as well as measures like Floridas Amendment 4. However, while student civic engagement may have grown, my classrooms remained relatively void of substantive conversations regarding democracy and current events.

The day after the Nov. 6 election, students across Oregon recounted how most educators refrained from mentioning the midterms or said little more than that they had happened the previous day. Many students had excitedly watched the results and looked forward to learning how it would impact their future. But they were left without an outlet to have open conversation.

Marvin Elzey, a junior in Reedsport, lamented that students -- and broader society  sometimes dont fully understand the impact of elections because they arent talked about in the classroom.

In my experience, educators dont often have qualms sharing their everyday political leanings. So why the hesitation to speak -- either from a biased or nonpartisan standpoint -- about the election and how it shifted control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat? Major achievements, including the first Native American and Muslim women elected to Congress, werent even touched on by our teachers.

At the very least, we should have spent time discussing what Gov. Kate Browns re-election and the new Democratic supermajority in the legislature means.

Though students are engaging in civic engagement at an increasing rate, many schools remain void of opportunities to reflect upon, connect with, and learn from these events. Educational culture is often focused solely on the classroom, says Justin Thach, a senior in Salem, but as students have deeply engaged with social and political affairs, the education system has failed to keep up.

Schools must foster a clearer link between what students learn and what students are doing with it  that starts with authentic conversations.

We need a change. Educators need to provide space for students to learn about the democratic process, discuss its outcomes and understand its impact. Doing so will almost surely increase youth civic engagement. But more important, it will boost our understanding and involvement in the issues defining the state of our nation.

Dana Smiley is a junior at Lincoln High School and a member of Oregon Student Voice, a student-led organization that empowers all students to be authentic partners in making decisions that affect their K-12 education.
Political spending on the Oregon governors race exceeded $37 million this cycle, fueled by public employee unions, one in-state mega donor, and national political parties and advocacy groups.

With campaign finance filings now showing transactions through Election Day, its clearer exactly how much Democratic Gov. Kate Brown spent to win re-election and how much Republican Rep. Knute Buehler poured into trying to unseat her.

Together, Brown and Buehler spent roughly double the previous record of $18 million set by Democrat John Kitzhaber and Republican Chris Dudley in 2010.

Brown raised approximately $18.5 million and spent $16.4 million through three political action committees she directed this cycle, according to The Oregonian/OregonLives analysis of campaign finance data. The governor is still sitting on nearly $1 million in cash in her primary political action committee.

Buehler raised $19.3 million and spent nearly all of it through one political action committee, according to state records.

Kate Titus, executive director of Common Cause Oregon, said the public generally opposes big political spending, but political parties and deep-pocketed donors oppose contribution limits. Oregon has no political contribution limits, thanks to broad free speech protections in the state Constitution.

The people already get it and theyre furious about the situation, Titus said. Its the political parties and the big money spenders in the elections that need to wake up to it and make a change.

A week before the Nov. 6 election deadline, Independent Party of Oregon candidate Patrick Starnes dropped out of the race and endorsed Brown after asking her to pass a bill referring a constitutional amendment to voters that would allow campaign contribution limits. The governor did not publicly commit to passing such a bill in 2019, and her spokesman Chris Pair did not respond to a question Tuesday afternoon about whether she plans to introduce legislation.

Maybe now in a situation where shes not running for office and can provide riskier leadership, she might stand up and really champion a move forward, Titus said of Brown and contribution limits.

Meanwhile, a group of citizen activists is once again trying to get voters to amend the Constitution to allow contribution limits. Dan Meek, a Portland attorney involved in the effort, said volunteers are now collecting the 117,578 signatures necessary to put Initiative Petition 1 on the 2020 ballot, after prevailing against objections raised by Trent Lutz, a registered lobbyist for Oregons statewide teachers union and former executive director of the Democratic Party of Oregon. They also faced opposition from Kyle Markley, chair of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, who is now trying to get a judge to stop the effort, Meek said.

Oregons powerful public employee unions provided a large chunk of Browns support: roughly $3.3 million in contributions to her three political action committees.

She also received $2 million from the Democratic Governors Association; $827,000 from EMILYs List, the Washington, D.C.-based group that supports Democratic pro-choice women candidates; and $750,000 from Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

The Oregon League of Conservation Voters gave the governor $745,000 and Barbara Lee, a self-described philanthropic activist from Cambridge, Massachusetts, gave Brown more than $160,000. Nike gave her $110,000.

Buehlers largest individual donor was Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who gave the Bend Republican $2.5 million directly and also sent $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. The governors group gave Buehler a total of $3.4 million, according to state campaign finance records.

Newberg dental equipment company CEO George Austin, Jr. gave Buehler nearly $347,000 and Henry Hank Swigert, the former chairman of Portland industrial manufacturer ESCO donated $258,000 to the Republicans campaign.

 Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com |503-294-4034 | @hborrud
The tendency with the annual Thanksgiving Day story, and it fell to me this year, is to offer a cliche, a mythical scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Life isn't that neat.

You see, humans aren't hard-wired to be grateful, something I learned from a neuroscientist at the University of Portland.

Part of our protective DNA, Sarina Saturn told me, is this human tendency to count curses instead of blessings. That's part of evolution, forcing people to focus on threats that could lead to extinction.

Our brains seek out the worst. In prehistoric times, the threat might have been a woolly mammoth. Today, it's comparing yourself to others. A friend got a year-end bonus and you didn't. Your vacation at the beach pales next to the trip your sister took to Europe. Your cozy apartment seems too small after your friend announces he just bought a house.

We ruminate, which Saturn said causes neurotransmitters to play havoc with us, making us feel down, not worthy, and focusing on what we don't have in our lives.

Grateful?

Are you kidding?

But we can change the way we think.

"While studying neuroscience, I was initially focused on wiring leading to destructive behavior," said Saturn, an instructor of physical science at UP.

"I later looked at what I call the science of gratitude where we can counteract the lure of the dark side by focusing on our blessings."

It takes work.

"Part of my daily routine is counting my blessings before I sleep and again when I wake," she said. "I've shared this with my students, and I've encouraged them to do the same. When you consciously practice, it becomes part of who you are."

After hearing this, I wanted to talk with a woman I learned about last month, a woman who I thought would have nothing to be thankful for.

That's why, a week before Thanksgiving Day, I found myself in the living room of a Southwest Portland apartment waiting for Brook McCall to emerge from her bedroom.

She arrived in a wheelchair.

***

Sixteen years ago, Brook McCall was 22 and a senior at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was at her friend's apartment when it was time to go home. Her apartment was just across the way. Her friend suggested she climb from his balcony to hers.

Her hand slipped and she fell backward. Just 10 feet, but she broke her spinal cord.

"When I landed, my arms were in front of me," she said. "I was on my stomach. It was confusing because I couldn't feel my arms. At the hospital I thought they'd fix me."

She has quadriplegia and feels nothing below her neck. She requires 24-hour care. Her aide, who lives in another room in her apartment, helps her dress, bathe and eat. She brushes McCall's teeth, puts her to bed, gets her up, positions her in the wheelchair and then pushes McCall.

Not Rockwell.

Hell.

"This was a terrible blow to my life," she said. "But I found a greater purpose."

Thankful?

She nods and smiles at the question.

"How much time do you have?"

***

She doesn't gloss over the long journey, the hospitals, the therapy, the dark moments of doubts, the pain  both emotional and physical  and the feeling that her life, in a very real sense, was over.

Doctors told her it would be best if she remained at home with her parents in their San Francisco home where they could care for her for the rest of her life.

One day, she forced herself to think not about the bad, but about the good things she had in her life.

"I decided to go back and finish college," McCall said. "Everyone had lowered expectations for me. I told everyone I was doing it."

She'd studied anthropology, but became fascinated with how the body worked, enrolled at the University of California, San Diego and graduated with a major in science. She lived on campus with an aide, paid for by California funds to help disabled people live independent lives.

After graduating, she moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a master's in public health. Later, she moved to Portland and accepted a fellowship at OHSU Hospital and worked in labs and clinics.

When the fellowship ended, McCall was hired to be the national grassroots advocacy manager for the United Spinal Association.

She oversees 52 national chapters and works with the leaders to advise government and health officials about issues that affect those who are disabled. She works out of her apartment, using Social Security benefits to pay a portion of her aide's salary, the rest coming out of her pocket.

"I'm never going to be wealthy," she said with a laugh.

***

While talking to McCall, I thought about what Monica Mueller had told me.

Mueller, an instructor at Portland State University with a doctorate in philosophy, said gratitude comes when people turn away from the pursuit of possessions, trips and wealth and acknowledge the greatest gift of all is that of life.

We believe there is a perfect life.

Truth is, we all live lives full of hopes and dreams, disappointments and setbacks, joys and pains.

And yet it is life.

I asked McCall for her perspective, asking that she teach me something I could not find in any classroom, but seemed precious and real as Thanksgiving Day approached.

She fell silent, the apartment so quiet that I could hear McCall's aide moving around in the other room. I wondered if I'd asked too intimate a question.

She finally spoke.

Brook McCall, little girl with her cat.

"I can dwell on bad things," she said. "Breakups in relationships. I wonder if, as a woman, I look good. I compare. I miss my independence. I'm never alone. If I was cured today, I'd get in a car and go on a long drive by myself."

I spotted a small photo in a frame behind her. It was a little girl holding a cat. McCall told me she was the girl in that photo. I walked over to it, picked it up and studied it, looking into the eyes of this child, her whole life in front of her and then I turned to a woman in a wheelchair.

Thankful?

"Oh, yes," McCall told me. "Most people just do life without thinking. Because I'm aware of mortality, I decide each day what this life of mine is all about. When I do that, I see all that makes me thankful: kindness, the presence of people who spend time with me. Their patience and mine. Humanity.

"I like my life," McCall said.

She smiled at me.

"My life will get better, but not in the way you think I mean," she told me. "I'll continue to gain more wisdom. I will learn more about myself. I will find ways to help more people. That's what makes me thankful."

She has plans for this Thursday.

"I'm going to be with my friends at their house," she said. "They're great chefs."

I stood, time to go, and I asked if I could touch McCall's hand, because she was unable to shake mine.

"Of course," she said.

She looked me in the eye, my hand lingering on hers.

"Thanks for coming," she said. "I hope you found what you were looking for."

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr
WASHINGTON - In the roughly two years before he rejoined the Justice Department, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker earned more than $900,000 from a conservative charity with no other employees and collected more than $1,800 in "legal fees" from a Miami-based invention-marketing company that was shut down amid accusations of fraud, according to a financial disclosure form made public Tuesday.

The form, which Whitaker first filled out after taking over as Attorney General Jeff Sessions's chief of staff, shows Whitaker drew a salary from the conservative Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust of $904,000 and collected $1,875 in legal fees from World Patent Marketing.

That company is notable because it shut down in May and agreed to pay a settlement of more than $25 million to resolve a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into its practices.

Whitaker also reported a $103,000 distribution from his own law firm and $15,000 in consulting fees from CNN, the form shows. He reported that he had two liabilities of between $10,000 and $15,000 in 2017 - both credit card accounts.

The disclosure report covers 2016 through October 2017, when Whitaker started at the Justice Department. Although Whitaker first signed it in November 2017, the report was revised several times after he took over as acting attorney general in the wake of Sessions's ouster.

Whitaker filed another disclosure in 2018, covering only the previous calendar year. It lists similar sources of income but does not reference World Patent Marketing.

In addition to facing scrutiny from the FTC, World Patent Marketing had been separately probed by the FBI. A Justice Department spokeswoman has said, "Acting attorney general Matt Whitaker has said he was not aware of any fraudulent activity."

As a member of the company's advisory board, Whitaker collected about $10,000 in fees, court documents show, and he personally intervened when a consumer complaint website posted comments critical of the company. A receiver appointed to oversee World Patent Marketing said he wrote to Whitaker and other paid members of the advisory board to ask that they return the fees they had received. Whitaker did not respond.

Even before his financial disclosure was made public, Whitaker's finances had come under intense scrutiny.

Over the past two decades, Whitaker owned a day-care center, a concrete supply business and a trailer manufacturer; served as the U.S. attorney in Iowa; and before coming to the Justice Department to be Sessions' chief of staff, did legal commentary and led the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, which described itself as a watchdog nonprofit dedicated to exposing unethical conduct by public officials.

Whitaker also was involved in a taxpayer-subsidized effort to rehabilitate an apartment building for affordable housing in Des Moines but made little progress - frustrating city leaders - and ultimately walked away from the project.

Democrats and others have separately raised questions about whether Whitaker can legally hold the position of acting attorney general because he has not been confirmed by the Senate, and whether he might seek to interfere with the special-counsel probe into Russian election interference, of which he had been publicly critical. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked the Justice Department's inspector general to explore Whitaker's communications with the White House, saying he was concerned that the acting attorney general might have shared with President Trump information about that investigation.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post. Story by Matt Zapotosky.
The Midland County Health and Human Services Council recently heard about the progress being made in mental health services in the county.

Sharon Mortensen shared the overall objectives from the Community Health Improvement Plan for mental health, including the 211 Hope Portal, suicide prevention, jail diversion, mental health school services, public awareness and the research advisory council. 211 Northeast Michigan's Sarah Kile also gave an update on the Hope Portal, launched in February 2018.
The names of deceased priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor, including one who served a Midland parish, were announced late Wednesday morning on the Diocese of Saginaw website.

The list was made public by the Most Rev. Walter A. Hurley, apostolic administrator for the diocese.

The Rev. Thomas William Ryan, pastor of St. Brigid in Midland from May 1958 to October 1970, is on the list of deceased clergy of the Saginaw diocese against whom a credible allegation of child sexual abuse was presented. Ryan, who died Jan. 25, 1975, also was assistant priest of Holy Family Parish, Saginaw, from April 1936 to July 1942.

There are six other priests with ties to either Saginaw or Bay City named today. A list is available at the end of this article.

Clergy added to the diocesan website are included because allegations against them have been reviewed and determined to be credible by a diocesan review board. The review board is mostly comprised of individuals who are not employed by the diocese, and who have broad expertise beneficial to the protection of children.

In determining allegations to be credible, the Diocese of Saginaw stated it is not making a definitive statement regarding the certainty of the allegations nor the guilt of the accused. The diocese is only stating that the allegations are highly serious and have not been discredited.

"It is our sincere desire, in listing these names, to acknowledge that the allegations brought forward to the diocese have merit," Hurley said. "We hope and pray this step and others will continue to promote healing for all victim-survivors."

The Diocese of Saginaw shared the list of priests posted Wednesday with the Michigan Attorney General's Office in September. In addition to those names, the diocese provided the Attorney General's Office with all other names of deceased clergy, about whom the diocesan review board had insufficient information to make a determination regarding credibility of an allegation. Since the diocese is no longer in possession of its files, it is unable to engage in any further review. However, it is possible that the diocese may add other names to this list following the Attorney General's investigation, and/or upon people coming forward with new information.

Any person with knowledge of sexual misconduct involving a minor by these individuals or any other past or present clergy or diocesan representatives are encouraged to contact their local law enforcement. After contacting authorities, you also may contact Sister Janet Fulgenzi, coordinator of the Office of Child and Youth Protection for the diocese at 989-797-6682 or jfulgenzi@dioceseofsaginaw.org

The following list identifies deceased clergy of the Diocese of Saginaw, against whom a credible allegation of child sexual abuse was presented. The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw was established on Feb. 26, 1938, by Pope Pius XI. On that date, those priests who were serving within the geographic boundaries of the newly established diocese became priests of the Diocese of Saginaw.

Name: Martin Ignatius Kalahar, deceased, posthumous allegation

Date of Birth: Sept. 21, 1891

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Grand Rapids: June 24, 1916

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, St. Andrews Cathedral, Grand Rapids, July 1916-October 1917

Assistant Priest, St. Mary Parish, Muskegon, October 1917-September 1918

Pastor, Montague Missions, Montague, September 1918  June 1919

Pastor, St. Francis Alverno Parish, Cheboygan, June 1919  February 1923

Pastor, St. Charles Parish, Greenville, February 1923  March 1929

Chaplain, Mercy Hospital, Muskegon, April 1929  May 1931

Chaplain, St. Vincent Orphanage, Saginaw, May 1931  August 1939

Pastor, St. Mary Parish, Hemlock, August 1939  September 1951

Pastor, St. Bernard Parish, Alpena, September 1951  August 1961

Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Birch Run, August 1961  February 1, 1966

Retired: February 1, 1966

Died: April 13, 1966

Name: James Aloysius Mulvey, deceased, posthumous allegation

Date of Birth: Jan. 3, 1880

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Grand Rapids: August 27, 1905

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, St. Andrews Cathedral, Grand Rapids, 1905-1906

Assistant Priest, Holy Family Parish, Saginaw, 1906-1907

Assistant Priest, St. Simon Parish, Ludington, 1907-1908

Assistant Priest, St. Mary Parish, Alma, August 1908-October 1917

War Chaplain, World War I, October 1917  June 1919

Pastor, St. Mary Parish, Alma, October 1919  August 1923

Pastor, St. Bernard Parish, Alpena, August 1923  February 1926

Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Mount Pleasant, February 1926  September 1936

Pastor, St Mary Parish, Alma, September 1936  July 1942

Pastor, St. Boniface Parish, Bay City, July 1942  September 1959

Died: Nov. 7, 1959

Name: Neil Francis O'Connor, deceased, posthumous allegation

Date of Birth: Feb. 14, 1908

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Grand Rapids: April 19, 1936

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, St. Mary Parish, Muskegon, May 1936-August 1937

Assistant Priest, Sacred Heart Parish, Mount Pleasant, August 1937-January 1938

Assistant Priest, St. James Parish, Bay City, January 1938  June 1939

Assistant Priest, Ss Peter and Paul Parish, Saginaw, June 1939  June 1940

Assistant Priest, St. Andrew Parish, Saginaw, June 1940  July 1942

Assistant Priest, Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption, Saginaw, July 1942  June 1944

Acting Pastor, then Pastor, St. Elizabeth Parish, Reese, June 1944  July 1953

Pastor, St. Andrew Parish, Saginaw, July 1953  September 16, 1966

Retired September 16, 1966

Died: March 8, 1989

Name: Thomas William Ryan, deceased

Date of Birth: Aug. 18, 1909

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Grand Rapids: April 21, 1935

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, Ss. Peter and Paul Parish, Grand Rapids, May 1935 - April 1936

Assistant Priest, Holy Family Parish, Saginaw, April 1936 - July 1942

Assistant Priest, St. Bernard Parish, Alpena, July 1942  April 1944

Administrator, then Pastor, St. Paul Parish, Onaway, April 1944  June 1957

Pastor, St. Mary Parish, Alma, June 1957  May 1958

Pastor, St. Brigid, Midland, May 1958  October 1970

Pastor, Immaculate Conception Parish, St. Charles, October 1970 - January 25, 1975

Died: Jan. 25, 1975

The following list identifies deceased clergy from other dioceses, who served in the Diocese of Saginaw and against whom a credible allegation of child sexual abuse was presented.

Name: Raymond John Pilarski, deceased, previously removed from public ministry

Date of Birth: January 18, 1928

Date of Ordination for Diocese of Saginaw: June 4, 1955

Previous Primary Assignments:

Temporary Assistant Priest, St. Catherine Parish, Nicholson Hill, June 1955-September 1955

Assistant Priest, St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, Bay City, September 1955-June 1960

Pastor, St. Michael Parish, Wilmot, June 1960-June 1968

Pastor, Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, East Tawas, June 1968 

Became a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord when that diocese was established on July 21, 1971

Permanently removed from ministry: October 9, 2007

Died: October 17, 2017

Name: Robert Gordon Smith, deceased, previously removed from public ministry

Date of Birth: October 10, 1909

Date of Ordination for Diocese of Saginaw: February 24, 1945

Previous Primary Assignments:

Student, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. until June 1945

Assistant Priest, St. Joseph Parish, Saginaw, June 1945-August 1948

Assistant Priest, St. Joseph Parish, East Tawas, August 1948-September 1951

Assistant Priest, Our Lady of Lake Huron, Harbor Beach, September 1951-December 1952

Priest Administrator, then Pastor, St. Frances Cabrini Parish, Vassar and St. Bernard Mission, Millington, December 1952- March 1962

Assistant Priest, St. Ignatius Parish, Rogers City, March 1962-July 1965

Pastor, St. Paul Parish, Onaway, July 1965

Became a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord when that diocese was established on July 21, 1971

Died: June 24, 1980

Name: Joseph Szarek, deceased, served briefly in Diocese of Saginaw

Date of Birth: March 10, 1914

Date of Ordination for Archdiocese of Krakaw, Poland: May 1, 1939

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, St. Ignatius Loyola, Rogers City; June 1952 - May 1956

Assistant Priest (Vicar Cooperator), St. Anne Parish, Harrisville and mission of St. Raphael, June 1956  August 1956

Assistant Priest (Vicar Cooperator), St. Josephat, Carrollton, September 1956 - October 1958

Removed from Ministry in the Diocese of Saginaw, October 1958

Served subsequently in the Diocese of Albany

Died: July 14, 2012

The following list identifies deceased clergy from religious institutes, who served in the Diocese of Saginaw and against whom a credible allegation of child sexual abuse was presented.

Camillus Frigo, O.Praem (Norbertine)

Assistant Priest, St. John the Evangelist Parish, Essexville, 1968

James Marron, C.S.Sp. (Holy Spirit Fathers), deceased, posthumous allegation

Chaplain, Mercy Hospital, Bay City, 1968-70

In residence, St. Joseph Parish, Bay City, 1980-86.

http://spiritans.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/JamesAMarron1987.pdf

Francis McHugh, O.Praem (Norbertine), deceased, posthumous allegation

Assistant Priest, St. John Parish, Essexville, 1954-62.

One additional diocesan priest, as previously reported, is being added to the list of those credibly accused:

Name: Richard Thomas Szafranski, removed from ministry

Date of Birth: October 13, 1948

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Saginaw: June 13, 1975

Previous Primary Assignments:

Associate Priest, St. Stephen Parish, Saginaw, July 1975-September 1977

Associate Priest, Ss Peter & Paul Parish, Saginaw, September 1977-July 1978

Associate Priest, St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Bay City, July 1978-July 1982

Co-pastor then Pastor, St. Mary University Parish, Mt. Pleasant, July 1982-July 1990

Pastor, St. Frances X. Cabrini Parish, Vassar & St Bernard Mission, Millington, July 1990  July 1999

Pastor, St. Matthew Parish, Zilwaukee; Sacramental Minister, St. John the Baptist Parish, Carrollton, July 1999  April 8, 2006

Removed from ministry: April 8, 2006

There also are credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor regarding some former clergy members of the Diocese of Saginaw who became priests of other dioceses. While the Review Board of the Diocese of Saginaw has not received credible allegations of abuse regarding those listed below, credible allegations against the following have been reported in another diocese:

Ronald Vincent Gronowski

Date of Birth: March 9, 1942

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Saginaw: June 7, 1969

Previous Primary Assignments:

Associate Pastor, St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, Bay City, 1969-1971

Associate Pastor, St. Mary Parish, Alpena, 1971

Became a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord, when established on July 21, 1971

Permanently removed from public ministry 2002

http://www.dioceseofgaylord.org/list-of-clergy-credibly-accused-of-abuse-1214/

Terrence Andrew Raymond

Date of Birth: April 12, 1940

Date of Ordination for the Diocese of Saginaw: June 4, 1966

Previous Primary Assignments:

Assistant Priest, St. Ignatius Parish, Rogers City, June 1966-June 1967

Temporary Assistant Priest, Sacred Heart Parish, Oscoda, June 1967-September 1967

Assistant Priest, St. Mary Parish, September 1967 -

Became a priest of the Diocese of Gaylord when that diocese was established on July 21, 1971

Deceased 1986

http://www.dioceseofgaylord.org/list-of-clergy-credibly-accused-of-abuse-1214/
The Annual Turkey Trot on the Tridge is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Day in Midland.

Participants can walk, run or bike for one hour along the Chippewa Trail.

"We're once again partnering with Espresso Milano coffee shop and Greater Midland to host a food drive for family centers in Midland County," said Jill Gushow, Mid-Michigan Multisport Club member and one of the event founders. "This is one of our favorite ways that the Multisport Club contributes to the community during the year. We have beautiful trails in our community, so we want to enjoy them on this holiday morning and, at the same time, give back in some small way."

"There's no better way to start Thanksgiving morning than to be outside, no matter what the weather, and share some fun with old and new friends. The food bins are always overflowing and we are overwhelmed by the generosity of participants," said Greg Dardas, co-founder of the event and member of Mid-Michigan Multisport Club.

All food collected will be distributed by Greater Midland to the Midland family food pantries.

Last year, more than 250 people attended the event.
Monday, Nov. 19

1:37 a.m. -- A 30-year-old Washington man was transported to the MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland by EMS after a traffic crash in Greendale Township. A report was forwarded to the Midland County Prosecutor's office for operating while intoxicated.

3:58 p.m. -- A K9 search was conducted in the 3700 block of East Ashman Street.

8:19 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to an Ingersoll Township parking lot for a report of a vehicle that was believed to be unlocked with a purse in the front seat. The deputy spoke with the 21-year-old Ingersoll Township woman owner of the car/purse via text. The deputy secured the vehicle and brought the purse to the woman who was nearby.

8:59 p.m. -- A 54-year-old Jerome Township man and his 12-year-old stepson were in a verbal dispute. The stepson was being disorderly, which started the issue. One of the deputies spoke with the 12-year-old about better behavior and listening to his parents.

9:52 p.m. -- A K9 article search was conducted for a possible larceny in the 1800 block of South Saginaw Road.

10:12 p.m. -- Deputies responded to a Lee Township residence after a tip that a missing 18-year-old from the City of Midland may be there. Deputies made contact with a 20-year-old Lee Township man at that residence who said that the woman was not there. The man was subsequently arrested on an unrelated warrant out of Midland County's 75th District Court. A deputy spoke with the 30-year-old Lee Township woman homeowner who said that she has not seen the missing teen in more than a year.

10:26 p.m. -- A liquor inspection was conducted in the 1600 block of East Wheeler Street.
On Tuesday President Donald Trump released an official statement containing no fewer than eight exclamation marks and an italicized never that effectively absolved the Saudi government of any consequences or responsibility for the murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident, Jamal Khashoggi, whom agents of the Saudi Arabian government, on the direct orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), killed and dismembered on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The statement, in which Trump sided with the Saudi government over the assessment of his own intelligence agenciesdeja vu anyone?effectively ruled out any punishment for the murder, no matter what the ultimate conclusion is. So even though Trump has known for a long time that the CIA blames Crown Prince MBS for the murder of an American journalist, he, the President of the United States, still sides with the MURDERERS.

Why? According to Trump, because Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars on U.S. weapons systems in order to massacre innocent people in Yemen.

In other words, Trump told the world that you can get away with murdering U.S. residents if you have enough money.

And so the statement opened with, America First!

The world is a very dangerous place! the president explained, then adopting, after a lengthy tangential broadside against Iran, the Saudi government line about Khashoggi:

Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that-this is an unacceptable and horrible crime. King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event-maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

The CIA would beg to differ. The agency, citing evidence passed to them by Turkish intelligence, in addition to other information they independently collectedapparently including communication between the Saudi royal court and Khashoggi suggesting that he go to the Istanbul consulatehas reportedly concluded that Khashoggi was indeed murdered at the personal request of the Saudi crown prince. Trump, who says he refused to listen to the tape of the murder on the grounds that its a suffering tape, called the CIAs assessment premature.

Trump also adopted Saudi Arabias own talking points in his effort to discredit his own intelligence agencies. For instance, he accused Khashoggiwithout citing evidenceof being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. In other words, he floated a conspiracy theory to justify this mans murder.

We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, Trumps statement continued. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia, by the way.

Further, Khashoggis murder was such a heartbreaking, proscribed, heinous act that it drew rare and immediate bipartisan condemnation from elected U.S. officials. Of course, there was one predictable exceptionTrump. The fact that he refused to listen to the tape of the killing, means that hes either once more been rendered a eunuch by the somehow unanticipated enormity of the job he wanted, or hes lying. And given his pornographic obsession over things like the chopping off of heads, its probably both.

Trump also said of the murder, It is what it is.

This might cause a reasonable person to wonder why the president now choosesciting reason beyond the Saudi governments denial with exactly zero evidenceto doubt the conclusions of his own intelligence services. One possible rationale: He and his administration are accessories to, and at the very least complicit in the murder of an American journalist.

Heres why.

To be clear, this is sick: another betrayal of basic American values in the face of a gross human rights violation, which further rots our moral authority in the world, which in turn further pushes our allies away. No one wants to help or protect a country that values such things, and in the name of protecting financial ties with a brutal dictatorship, will betray its own people and its own law enforcement, congressional representatives of all stripes, and intelligence services, for crimes all the way up to and including the murder of one of its own journalists.

But heres whats even sicker:

Earlier this week the Middle East Eye, citing a senior Saudi source, reported that when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Riyadh on October 16 to discuss the murder with MBS, Pompeo personally gave the prince a roadmap to help protect himself and his fatherthe Saudi kingfrom the international investigation. This includes information about how to evade or shield themselves from Trumps own U.S. intelligence investigation.

This is insanehow could you still in good conscience serve this man? If the Eyes report is accurate, it would seem that the Trump administration is complicit in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and, given Trumps statement today, actively so.

This development, if true, would be next-level. Should the Middle East Eyes reporting bear outthe paper has already broken news about Khashoggi that proved accuratethis directly implicates the Trump administration up to and including the president himself in aiding and abetting the murder of a U.S. journalist by a foreign government. It could by some stretches even mean the U.S. is an accessory to that murder, given the reports that Trumps own intelligence agencies have provided him, compounded with the Trump familys many many ties, financial and otherwise, to the Saudi Kingdom.

Heres why every American should believe this, and care.

In the interest of both being reasonable and signaling my reasonability to you so youll ride wit me later, we have to shoot down one conspiracy theory that I find implausible: Jared Kushner passed Khashoggis name to MBS.

Kushner has struck up a close friendship with the young Crown Prince in hopes of a) securing his own financial relationships in the Middle East, and b) changing the politics of the region, including the balance of power against Iran and chasing an illusory peace deal between Israel and Palestine. He also turned a blind eye when the Saudi government blockaded Qatar, a violation of sovereignty and which was feared to be interpreted as an act of war.

For these and other reasons, people have speculated that Kushner actually gave MBS Khashoggis name last October when he passed the Crown Prince a classified list of dissidents the CIA had identified who were living in Saudi Arabia. This is unlikely and wholly irrelevant. Khashoggi lived in the United States at the time, not Saudi Arabia. Also, MBS  who was considered a long shot to inherit the throne  used Kushners list to help target dissidents in his country for a quiet coup in which he had his rivals, including members of his own family, arrested and tortured in the Ritz Carlton Riyadh. He then more or less assumed control of the country. Lastly, the Kingdom had already punished Khashoggi for journalism critical of the royal court, and though its sickeningly clear that MBS still had a grudge to settle, he knew Khashoggi and didnt need his name on a list.

(By the way, the Saudi government banned Khashoggi from practicing journalism in response to an article he wrote just after Election Day in 2016  an article highly critical of Trump.)

This of course raises the question: Should we believe the Middle East Eyes report?

In short, not fully and not yet. But we also cant disbelieve it yet. In fact, we have many reasons to take this account seriously, and to use it as a lens to clarify why Trump responded the way he has to something that to the rest of the world is patent. (One way to tell would be if the Saudis try to pin the blame on someone not involved with the crimePompeos plan apparently includes this explicit advice.) So yes: Theres actually more reason to believe this report, outrageous as it is, than not. A quick list.

Though the Middle East Eye cited only one senior Saudi source for the allegation, and though, again, that allegationactive complicity in the murder of a U.S. journalistis entirely outrageous, the State Department actually thought the report merited a response. According to the Eye, the State Department offered a denial, but pay attention to how that denial was phrased:

[it was] a complete misrepresentation of the secretarys diplomatic mission to Saudi Arabia. Weve spoken publicly about our goals to impress upon Saudi leadership the seriousness to which the United States government attaches to a prompt and complete accounting of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

A little different from, say, This ridiculous accusationwhich implicates the U.S. in the cover-up of the murder of a U.S. journalistis flatly false on all counts.

During the 2016 campaign, Saudi Arabia granted the Trump Organization several copyrights, including a few intended for the development of a Trump resort in a popular Saudi port city and vacation destination. The Trumps also have a current interest in the region, in the form of a resort in the United Arab Emirates, which opened within weeks of Trumps inauguration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are allies who, among other things, fight alongside each other in the Saudis barbaric war on Yemena war fueled in part by American weapons systems and literal American fueling.

Further, when the Crown Prince visited the United States this March, his coterie stayed in Trump International Hotel NYC. (MBS didnt stay there himselfnot out of concern for telegraphing a bribe, but because Trumps rooms werent big enough for him.) According to a quarterly statement from the hotel itself, the Saudi contingent single-handedly helped the hotel turn around a two-year trend of losses. From Khashoggis paper, The Washington Post:

After two years of decline, revenue from room rentals went up 13 percent in the first three months of 2018.

What caused the uptick at President Trumps flagship hotel in New York? One major factor: a last-minute visit to New York by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, wrote general manager Prince A. Sanders in a May 15 letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Neither the hotel nor the governments of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have confirmed or denied whether the Saudis paid with government money.

Trump cited Saudi defense spending as the primary reason he wont exact any punishment whatsoever for the murder. (We did sanction the individual agents who carried it out.)

First of all, Saudi Arabia uses the weapons we sell them to massacre innocent Yemenis. U.S. bombs have been used to slaughter hundreds of people at weddings and schools in Yemen. Obama, pressured to end Americas complicity in these war crimes, cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia in December 2016. Trump renewed those sales in May 2017, claiming he struck a $110 billion arms deal with the kingdom. This number is inaccurate, because a) many of those weapons were part of the shipments Obama suspended, and b) many of the deals were speculative and still havent been contractually firmed up.

So can it really be about money that Trump knows hasnt and possibly wont be spent?

Perhaps. The Saudis, by arranging an incomplete speculative agreement, created a bargaining chip they now hold over Trump, possibly the worst dealmaker in the world. To Trump, this money is more valuable than the murder of a journalist, more valuable than American values, and more valuable than integrity and global leadership.

Probably more important to Trump, though, is that he sees the deal backwards. That is, he doesnt understand everything to be gained by meting out justice for a murderhe sees this as not a gain but a loss. In other words, you can buy an assassination.

Theres also the lobbying money. When congress questioned the Saudis human rights record this yearafter the Ritz Carlton coup, and of course the war crimes in Yementhe kingdom had already spent $27 million on D.C. lobbying firms.

In 2017 alone.

Thats three times the amount spent in 2016, Obamas last year in office. About half a million was in the form of campaign donations to senators and House members.

However, theres more to this than money. Theres also the Trump campaigns backroom deals with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Theres Trumps son-in-laws personal relationship with the Saudi Crown Prince. And, of course, theres the Trump administrations initial response to Khashoggis murder.

Trump has already given Saudi Arabia more than a month free of repercussions. He has in the process defined himself against the rest of the West, which immediately sanctioned the Saudis. He has also compromised our relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally that has allowed us to use an airbase to carry out our missions in Syria.

Worst of all the President of the United States has sided with murdererswith money over morals. He has shielded them for weeks, which by itself means that he is complicit in the conspiracy to murder a U.S. resident. And if he did indeed give MBS a roadmap to evade investigators, the President of the United States is an accessory to murder.

What will come of it? Trump will say its all uncertain, and congress will do nothing. In that event, though, Turkey or U.S. intelligence might leak the evidence. Then the American people can be the judgewhich, if weve already forgotten by now, is how its all supposed to work in the first place.
The strategy for the vast majority of Republicans in the Trump era couldnt be any clearer: go all in on all out racism, as the GOPs political power is almost entirely reliant on aggrieved old white men. The more the GOP can inflame their angry base, the more votes they can get from it.

However, their racism doesnt take place in a vacuum, and theres a serious question as to how much mileage they can get out of a perpetual campaign slogan of those people are coming to take your prosperity. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, racing against Democrat and African American Mike Espy, is strenuously testing how far this single-minded campaign tactic can go.

Between 1877 and 1950, Mississippi had the highest number of African Americans lynchings by any state. That is the context behind Smith-Hydes famed quote of if he invited me to a public hanging, Id be in the front row. Smith-Hyde also posed in a Confederate hat at the home of one of Americas most famed traitors.

Theres a Facebook photo of Cindy Hyde-Smith posing in a Confederate hat at the home of Jefferson Davis. Her post reads: Mississippi history at its best! https://t.co/aMFqjVpZgspic.twitter.com/YFBl5zmNKW  Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) November 20, 2018

Jim Crow was the law of the land in the south for nearly a century, and it explicitly disenfranchised African Americans (amongst many other abhorrent crimes). That is the context behind Hyde-Smith's quote that voter suppression is a great idea. She isn't being coy and using racist dog whistles. She's just running as an outright racist. This follows in the footsteps of Trump's 2016 campaign, and the absurd hysteria leading up to this year's midterms around the refugee caravan making its way to the United States. Judging solely on their campaign ads, Republican politicians believe that their voters are nothing more than racist lunatics.

While outright racism worked for Donald Trump, it may not be working for Cindy Hyde-Smith, as Talking Points Memo pointed out:

The race is definitely tighter than what it should be, said one top Mississippi Republican. Her performance has lately not been great.



There have been no public polls of the runoff election. Private polls described to TPM found that the race has tightened since her remarks became public, with some finding her up by just a few points.

One Republican close to Hyde-Smith's campaign described the gaffes as dumb and unfortunate things to say but said they weren't enough by themselves to give Espy a path to victory.

The reason that Mississippi is having a runoff election is because no one received 50% of the vote in the first round of voting on election night earlier this month. Just looking at the results, there's no reason that Cindy Hyde-Smith shouldn't win. She received 41.3% of the vote, another Republican, Chris McDaniel, won 16.4% of the vote, and Mike Espy finished slightly behind Hyde-Smith at 40.9%. If Cindy Hyde-Smith didn't utter a single word between the midterms and the runoff election, she'd guarantee herself a victory. Instead, her unrepentant racism has tightened a race in a state with the highest percentage of African Americans.

Trump and the GOP's outright racism is a double-edged sword. While it clearly is a way to galvanize much of the Republican base, it turns off a significant majority of Americans who don't vote based on their fear of other people. The backlash to Trumpism in these midterms was unlike anything this country has ever seen.

Trump got 63m votes, Romney 61m, McCain 60m. Dem votes for the House this year should be very close to that range.  Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 18, 2018

Those are absolutely bonkers numbers. Midterm elections typically see about a third of the electorate turn out to vote, while presidential elections consist of around half the electorate. The Republican Party is so broadly unpopular that midterm Democrats are on pace to receive about as many votes as each of their candidates post-George W. Bush. That's insane.

The modern Republican Party was created in the 1960s. According to Gallup, Richard Nixon received 31% of votes from nonwhite Americans in his 1960 loss to John F. Kennedy. Two presidential elections later, he gained 12% from this group in victory. What happened in between was essentially the big bang of the current Republican Party, as I wrote in my first ever column for Paste in mid-2016:

Barry Goldwater's landslide loss in 1964 convinced the Republican establishment to eschew the far right and turn back to the original Mitt Romney, who happened to be George Romney's rival: Richard Nixon. Nixon lost the election to JFK in 1960 right around the time television was making its way into every household, and that was no coincidence. Two terms later, the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey at a contested convention after Lyndon Johnson stunned the nation and announced he would not run for a second term. Meanwhile, the first fruits of the Southern Strategy were coming to bearjust not for the Republican Party.

Alabama governor George Wallace ran for president in 1968, once famously saying, segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Wallace won Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and one electoral vote in North Carolina. It was the most successful Presidential result any third party has achieved in US history.



George Wallace essentially argued that the right of states to discriminate against their citizens usurped the right of the federal government to order the states not to do bigoted things like that. Richard Nixon wasn't quite ready to echo a certified racist, but he was eager to massage the wording of his message to communicate a similar sentiment, as he began to speak about law and order while decrying the violence in our inner cities. Nixon's Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew, was less modest. He notoriously blurted out Fat Jap and Pollack during various press conferences that, somehow, weren't originally filmed on Veep.

The basic GOP playbook is racism, pure and simple. But don't take it from me, take it from famed Republican consultant, and head of the Republican National Committee during Ronald Reagan's presidency, Lee Atwater in 1981:

You start out in 1954 by saying, Nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968 you can't say niggerthat hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. We want to cut this, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than Nigger, nigger.

While this strategy was clearly successful in the 20th century, the 21st century is more civilized. Those of us born right around the time that Atwater was eager to explain the GOP's racist tactics are completely turned off by this bigotry-as-policy, and the Republican base has shrunk to one segment of the populace.

When you see Democrats' slammed for "identity politics," just remember this:



In the midterms, the GOP won white men over 45and almost no other ethnic/age/gender category.



Then let's discuss which party is an exclusionary political alliance. pic.twitter.com/3VbbBuf6Qw  Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) November 19, 2018

The Republican Party has two options: change, or continue down this path of inflaming white male entitlement and racism, and win by restricting non-white men's right to vote. Given Brian Kemp's victory* in Georgia, it sure looks like they have chosen the latter, and it is dependent upon all of us non-racist folk to vote every single Republican out of office. Until they face serious consequences for their abhorrent actions, they will have no reason to change. Cindy Hyde-Smith losing what should be a shoo-in race would be an excellent start. Mississippi, vote Mike Espy on November 27th, and join Alabama in sending a loud and clear message to the Republican Party: the days of Lee Atwater's southern strategy are over, and the south is better than Cindy Hyde-Smith is making it look.

We've worked hard to put the stereotypes that hurt our state behind us. We can't afford a senator who embarrasses us. pic.twitter.com/xnqyhwvA6l  Mike Espy (@espyforsenate) November 20, 2018

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.
A 26-year-old Norwegian, is accused of more than 300 boys to sexual acts forced. The Prosecutor's office in Oslo Tuesday evening. The majority of these Attacks were done via the Internet, by which boys were compelled to actions in themselves. Some of the boys had been raped. The investigators announced but no Details. The abuse of a further 160 young it is not going to keep track of process economic reasons, be prosecuted, it said in a press release, which was available to the Norwegian Klasbahis radio.

investigators found 16.463 Videos

The police in the district st speaks of Norway's largest assault case. The man had spent in chat forums and on Snapchat as a girl and the sexual conversations were initiated. He had brought boys between 13 and 16 years, to film himself Masturbating and send him these Videos. Later, he threatened them not to publish these films on the Internet, if they sent more shots. The police found the newspaper "Verdens Gang" , 16.463 different movies on his Computer.

young people in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are Affected. The man for 2016. The beginning of the next year, he should come to court.

Updated Date: 21 November 2018, 20:00

ky / DPA
A new analytical report that was published over the weekend shows how four local Chinese smartphone makers are now in total control of their home market. While Apple held on to fifth spot, Samsung was totally wiped out.

While Xiaomi and Apple were fighting for fourth spot for a couple of years, Xiaomi has now overtaken Apple for the last four quarters and is unlikely to ever look back. With Xiaomi rocketing to the #1 position in India overtaking Samsung along with new European stores opening, Xiaomi will likely be growing at a faster clip than Apple going forward.





A new Counterpoint Year-over-Year (YoY) chart covering China's smartphone statistics shows us that Apple landed in fifth spot with YoY growth of 9% in Q3. Click on the image below to slightly enlarge the image.







In a second Counterpoint chart below we're able to see a fuller range of smartphone stats from China and see where Xiaomi began to overtake Apple in Q2 2017 and never looked back. It also shows that in Q1 2016 Samsung held 8% and crashed to 1% by Q4 2017. They didn't even make the list in 2018. Click on the image below to slightly enlarge the image.







Q3 2018 Highlights

Market consolidation is apparent in China, with the top five OEMs capturing 86% of smartphone share in Q3, increasing from less than 80% in the same period last year.

Huawei (including Honor) was the market leader in terms of both sales volume and growth momentum in Q3, with its leadership position fixed in China, capturing 23% market share.

Vivo with 4% YoY growth was the second best-selling brand in Q3 capturing 21% market share.

For further insight into the Chinese smartphone market, review the full Counterpoint report here. In addition, you could now review other Counterpoint smartphone statistical reports published recently for the U.S., Global and Indian markets.



Late last month "The Information" tech site posted a report stating Apple's retail vision for China was waning as natives begin to prefer Chinese brands. Today's statistic revelations only cement that sentiment.
While Apple announced another record breaking quarter on November first, they also noted that the holiday quarter could fall short of Wall Street expectations due to currency exchanges, weakness in emerging markets and uncertainty about meeting product demands.

I think the weakness in emerging markets has been what Wall Street and the media have been focusing on lately with a string a haywire-rumors that Apple has cut back on iPhone XR orders even though iPhone XR suppliers have openly contradicted those rumors thus far.

There's no doubt that China's smartphone OEMs such as Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi are beginning to cause real havoc in China, India and emerging markets like a whirlwind. Out of nowhere Xiaomi became the leading smartphone brand in India, pulling the rug from under Samsung's feet in record time. Samsung held the leadership position in India for a decade or more.

Apple has held its ground in China to date and their premium smartphones have continued to remain top sellers. Kantar reported in July that the iPhone X had been the best-selling model in China every month since its release in November 2017. In Q3 Apple's iPhone was #2 in China behind Xiaomi's Mi 8.

The big story of 2018 was and is the aggressive pricing from Chinese OEMs that have taken Samsung and others by surprise.

In Samsung's case, they went from being number one in China a few years back to being in sixth position in Q3 2018, down 67% from Q3 2017. It's been absolutely brutal for Samsung who is being eaten alive in the mid-to-low end of the market in China and now India.





This is why the panic button was pressed by Samsung back in September. They began feeding the rumor mill about a new folding smartphone on the way. Then on November 7th Samsung gave their developers a peek at their new folding smartphone that is due to ship sometime in Q2 2019.

This week we learned that Samsung is seeking a breakthrough for their Galaxy S10 due to be introduced in late February. Koh Dong-jin, CEO of Samsung Electronics smartphone business, is making all-out efforts to deliver a breakthrough in the 10th edition of the Galaxy

Koh recently said in a corporate message sent out to mobile communications division executives and employees that he felt sorry about the current struggling status of their smartphone business and that he would do his best to overcome the crisis with the upcoming Galaxy 10 and foldable phones due later in 2019.

Current rumors and reports claim that the Galaxy S10 will introduce an in-display fingerprint scanner that could be based on ultrasonic technology (though they have alternative designs on record (see one & two)).

It will also include their new AI processor in an attempt to counter Huawei's new Mate 20 Pro with the Kirin 980 AI processor that includes support for 5G. They're also attempting to counter Apple's A12Bionic chip with advanced AI capabilities.





It will also introduce a full face display with only a single "punch hole" camera design as noted in the graphic image above to avoid the notch trend that Apple started with last year's iPhone X.

With Samsung's new A9 offering customers a back side quad camera, this could be forwarded to the next-gen Galaxy S10.

And lastly, the S10 may end up being Samsung's first smartphones to offer 5G capabilities and I'm sure Qualcomm is trying to make that happen to get under Apple's corporate skin.

Whether any of the noted smartphone features from Samsung will do anything to push back Samsung's aggressive Chinese competitors is unknown at this time.

Unless Samsung drops their pricing dramatically to counter the war-like strategy that the Chinese OEM's have been implementing, I'm not sure Samsung's new features will do much to turn the tide for them in China, India or elsewhere.

This year T-Mobile is promoting the new smartphone from Chinese OEM OnePlus that will begins the Chinese attack against Samsung in the U.S. Xiaomi has been hinting for some time now that they may be entering the U.S. market in 2019. The only U.S. smartphone vendor to suffer from such a move is Samsung.

Will Samsung raise the Pirate flag and begin to battle back in 2019 or will they continue to weaken as Chinese vendors push to smash Samsung in Europe and beyond.

The market is gnarly at the moment and continued pricing pressure from Chinese OEMs will win over more fans. These same vendors are trying to break out of just lower prices and are beginning to offer new smartphone features customers seem to like. They'll likely adopt 5G quickly in 2019.

For now it's up to Samsung to deliver a home run in late February with the Galaxy S10 and in 2019 in general with their new folding smartphone. Can they find a spark to win back the market share that they lost in China and India in 2018?

At the moment it looks gloomy for Samsung as their Chinese competitors smell blood in the water like a Great White. It'll be a feeding frenzy in 2019 if Samsung can't turn it around.




Face it, our government probably knows everything there is to know about you. Other governments do, too. Forgot your email password? Just ask the FSB! But security agencies don't use this data for simple, criminal attacks. A criminal hacking team that gets access to your personal information, on the other hand, typically tries to monetize its unauthorized access as thoroughly as possible, and as quickly as possible, preferably before you hear about it, such as when a breach like the Capital One hack went public. Just what can you do once you realize that you've been hacked?

How Will You Know?

When a major hack occurs, the news outlets go wild. You can check on the affected service's website to see if you were affected, but you might as well assume that you were. The only upside is that you're one among millions, so the hackers may never get around to messing with your details. And don't think that your antivirus provides any protection against a security breach happening on a remote server.

Other exposures aren't so easy to spot. Your first indication a hacker has compromised your credit card may be unexpected items on your bill. Always read credit card bills, and take care to figure out what every line meanseven the small ones. Card thieves will occasionally put through a few small purchases, just to make sure the card is OK, before making a big purchase. You can use a personal finance service, such as Mint.com, to keep an eye on all your credit card transactions from one place.

If you're lucky, your bank will detect fraudulent activity, decline the charges, and issue you a new card. That's a pain, of course, as any automatic payments you've configured will need the new number. Still, it's better than letting hackers buy a Caribbean vacation with your credit.

Scammers can use a compromised email account to broadcast spam, or to send targeted email scams to your contacts. Your first clue may be worried phone calls from friends asking if you're truly stuck in a Paris airport with no cash, or irate messages from those "you" have spammed.

An identity thief can also use your personal information to open credit accounts, accounts you know nothing about. You might only find out when a merchant slams the door on your request to open a new line of credit yourself. In the past, I've advised using AnnualCreditReport.com to request a free report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion once per year, spreading the requests out at four-month intervals. Two years later, it's clear that Equifax will pay $650 million for its negligence, including free credit monitoring or a $125 minimum payout for anyone affected. Let's hope this inspires all three credit services to buckle down and tighten their security.

These days, PCMag is bullish on the Credit Karma (Free at Credit Karma) service, which automatically pulls your credit from TransUnion and Equifax (unfortunately) as often as once a week to keep an eye on your credit. These are "soft" pulls which don't affect your credit the way too many "hard" pulls, the kind a company makes when you apply for more credit, do.

There are credit-monitoring services not associated with the Big Three. Both LastPass and Dashlane offer monitoring as a perk, for example, checking to see if your card numbers show up on the Dark Web. You do have to give them your credit card number, of course, but you're already trusting them to keep your passwords safe.

What Happens Next?

Credit card compromise may be the easiest hack to weather. You're not responsible for the fraudulent charges, and once the bank has issued a new card the problem is solved.

Regaining control of a hacked email account can be tougher. You'll have to contact the email provider and prove that you're the true account holder. Of course, if the hacker changes your password, you can't use your regular email to contact the provider. It's important to have more than one email address, and make each the alternate contact address for the other.

Did you use your email address as a username on other sites? That's certainly a common practice. But if you also used the same password that you used for the hacked email account, those accounts are now compromised, too.

Even if you didn't use the same password, you could still be in trouble. Think about this. If you forget a website password, what do you do? Rightyou click to get a password reset link sent to your email address. A smart hacker who has control of the email account will quickly seek your other accounts, social media, perhaps, or worse, shopping and banking accounts.

After recovering from an email account takeover, you absolutely should visit every site that's associated with that email address and change your password. A password manager will be a great help here.

Help for Identity Theft

Full-on identity theft can be a nightmare. Victims can spend thousands of dollars over weeks and months trying to get their online identities and lives back in their control. The Federal Trade Commission offers an excellent advice site with full details on how you can proceed. Among other things, the site suggests that you order your credit reports, so you can see what's happened, and make an official identity-theft report with the FTC.

The site goes on to specify absolutely everything you need to do in step-by-step fashion. It includes checklists so you can make sure you didn't miss any tasks, as well as sample letters and forms. You won't go wrong relying on this useful resource.

Won't Get Hacked Again!

How can you make sure you don't get hacked, or don't get hacked again? Since the EquiFax hack, you've probably seen numerous articles exhorting you to freeze your credit, set up a fraud alert (meaning that you'll need to go through extra verification steps to open a new account), and so forth. Before making such modifications to your credit life, stop and consider whether you're willing to make them permanent. After all, the next big breach is just around the corner; in fact, it may have already happened. The actual breach in the Equifax case happened months before it was discovered.

As far as credit cards go, there's not much you can do, other than avoid shopping at shady retailers, real-world or online. Most brick-and-mortar stores now accept chipped credit cards (though there are still holdouts). Chipped cards secure in-person transactions thoroughly, but they can't help with card-not-present online transactions.

Mobile-based payment systems like Apple Pay and Android Pay are actually more secure than physical credit cards. Each transaction uses a unique number, so hackers gain nothing by stealing existing transaction data. And you can use the mobile payment system for online purchases as well. Just protect your mobile device with a fingerprint or a strong passcode, and always keep it with you.

Poorly-secured websites can expose your email address and password to hackers, but using a bad password leaves your account wide open to a simple brute-force attack. Use a strong password for your email account, and a different strong password for every other account or secure site. Yes, you'll need a password manager, but you don't have to pay. The best free password managers are quite effective.

On some sites, you can request a password reset by answering a few simple security questions. The problem is, in most cases the bad guys can Google up the answers to those questions in seconds. If you're allowed to define your own security questions, do so, and choose strong questionsones only you could answer. If you're forced to choose from lame questions like your mother's maiden name, don't use a truthful answer. Pick a false answer that you'll remember. And don't use the same question/answer pairs on multiple sites.

As for protecting against full-scale identity theft, there are some things you can do. Never fill out any information on web forms beyond what is absolutely required. If it's required but not relevant, like your street address on a site that doesn't ship things to you, make something up! Get an inexpensive shredder for paper bills and statements. Review all statements, and make use of your free credit reports. Support all your efforts by installing a powerful security suite.

Yes, there's some effort involved, some vigilance. That said, it's vastly less than the work you'd have to expend to recover if hackers managed to steal your identity.
Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

Were going to coast into the long holiday weekend with a bit of electoral reform news by turning our gaze to the Great American West.

Specifically, the state of Utah where, as our friends at The Salt Lake Tribune report, voters appear poised to approve a ballot question authorizing the creation of a citizens redistricting commission.

From that report:

"Proposition 4, the ballot initiative designed to prevent gerrymandering, built on its slim lead Monday and seems poised for victory as the last votes are counted.

The initiative, which calls for the creation of an independent redistricting commission, was ahead by about 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent after the vote tally was updated. The vote count on the proposition has fluctuated since Election Day, as counties have continued tabulating votes.

Friday closed with Prop 4 up by about 2,900 votes, and by Mondays end, the initiative was ahead by more than 6,400 [votes].

The panel would convene every 10 years to redraw the states voting districts. The group would send a recommended map to the Legislature, which would decide whether to adopt the proposed boundaries or drawn lines of its own, the newspaper reported.

More astute readers will recall that Pennsylvania lawmakers ran out the clock on a proposed constitutional amendment creating a similar commission in the Keystone State after the General Assembly failed to reach agreement on language.

In September, state House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, briefly floated the notion of changing state law to put a five-member commission in charge of drawing the congressional maps, similar to the one that now draws the lines for the General Assembly. Turzais bill would bar a member of the legislative lines commission from serving on the congressional lines commission.

The musing aloud to The Philadelphia Daily News' John Baer, however, came to nothing. And its tempting to suspect that Turzai, who was then facing a competitive re-election race, was doing a bit of campaign season posturing.

With a court-ordered congressional map already in place, lawmakers will start the decennial redrawing of the states legislative and congressional boundaries in 2020 afte new Census data becomes available.

The rest of the days news starts now.

The new Democratic majority in the U.S. House could be the silver lining for a stalled gun background checks bill, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., says.

In court on Tuesday, a former challenger to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady explained the $90k payoff that got him out of the race, The Inquirer reports.

Already the best-paid in the nation, Pa. lawmakers will get a 1.6 percent raise next month, PennLives Jan Murphy reports. Base legislative pay will rise to $88,610. Leaders get more.

A legislative remedy to an absentee ballot issue is simple, but elusive, The Post-Gazette reports.

Heres BillyPenn on what to watch for in the Philly TGiving Day Parade.

The Incline takes a look at the way the debate over immigration played out in the 2018 midterms.

Just because we really like this one, heres a #Washington D.C. Instagram of the Day:

A jury in Delawares first prison riot trial has handed down two convictions, one of them for murder, WHYY-FM reports.

Thats it. Were never eating Romaine lettuce ever again (via The Morning Call).

Special Counsel Robert Mueller got some answers - but hes not done with Trump, Politico reports.

President Trump wants to do something about the 9th Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, Roll Call reports.

Heavy Rotation.

Heres one from The National to get you through the morning.

And now youre up to date.
A couple and their two children were found dead Tuesday afternoon as a fire swept through their sprawling, multimillion dollar Colts Neck estate.

Three of the people were found dead inside the house, including Jennifer Caneiro, 45, a law enforcement source told NJ Advance Media. The body of her husband Keith Caneiro, 50, the owner of an Asbury Park technology company, was found with a gunshot wound on the grass in front of the home.

The bodies of the couple's two children -- a young boy and a young girl -- were found inside the house.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, speaking at a press conference, would not release the names of the people found dead, but the law enforcement source confirmed that they were the residents of the home.

The source would not say if the gunshot wound suffered by Keith Caneiro was self-inflicted or not, but Gramiccioni said during the press conference that there was no threat to the public.

He also said that the bodies inside the home were "burned severely," and that the fire is being investigated as an arson.

Caneiro and his brother Paul Caneiro were partners in Square One, an Asbury Park technology consulting firm, and a pest control company that operated out of the same office.

In a bizarre and likely related twist, a predawn fire was reported Tuesday at the Ocean Township home of Paul and Susan Caneiro. The prosecutor would not say if that fire, on Tilton Drive, was linked to the Colts Neck blaze, but said detectives are investigating.

Keith and Jennifer Caneiro

The fire broke out around 12:45 p.m. at the sprawling 15-year-old home on 9 acres on Willow Brook Road.

Authorities blocked off an area around the Tilton Drive residence in the Wayside section of town Tuesday afternoon. Neighbors said police had been at the scene since around 5 a.m.

A neighbor, who asked not be named, said Paul Caneiro and his wife, Susan, were at the home early Tuesday shortly after the fire. Paul appeared to be upset and left a short time after.

"He said it must've been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated. He said I'm in complete shock I can't believe this is happening to me. They were here until about noon," another neighbor said.

There was no sign of any major damage to the house in Ocean.

#MCPONJ is on scene at a fire in Colts Neck with multiple fatalities. Firefighters still working on fire. Stay tuned for more details.  Monmouth Prosecutor (@MonCoProsecutor) November 20, 2018

Nobody answered the door at the Square One office on Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park, though a woman could be seen working inside. A man who works in the building said he had never met Keith Caneiro, but knew his brother Paul.

The man said three or four people work in the office and that Paul Caneiro stops in a few times a week, driving up in a white Porsche.

The Caneiro brothers grew up in Brooklyn, and Jennifer Caneiro grew up on Staten Island as Jennifer Karidis, her maiden name, records show.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is thanking Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices amid criticism over his decision not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump tweeted Wednesday from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida it's "Great!" oil prices are getting lower and it's "Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World."

The international crude benchmark has fallen under $65 per barrel from a four-year high of more than $86 in October as the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia have increased output.

Trump writes, "Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!"

Trump made clear Tuesday he believes the benefits of good relations with the Saudis outweigh the possibility the kingdom's crown prince ordered Khashoggi's killing in Turkey. Critics say Trump is ignoring human rights.

Saudi prosecutors say agents sent to Istanbul dismembered Khashoggi's body. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the crown prince must have at least known about the plot to kill Khashoggi.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says it's a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia.

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Trump, also disagreed with the president, saying America must not lose its "moral voice" on the international stage.

Turkey's foreign minister says Khashoggis killinh should not be covered up for the sake of maintaining trade ties with Saudi Arabia.

Mevlut Cavusoglu also told Turkish journalists during a visit to Washington that Saudi Arabia's cooperation over the investigation into the killing is not "at the desired level." He added that Turkey would take formal steps to seek an international investigation if it reaches an "impasse" with Riyadh.

His comments came Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump made clear that the benefits of good relations with Saudi Arabia outweigh the possibility that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

Cavusoglu said: "This is a humanitarian issue. It concerns a murder. It is not possible to say 'our trade will increase, let's cover this up, let's ignore it.'"

Iran's foreign minister has mocked President Donald Trump's announcement that he will not punish the Saudi leadership for the murder.

In a tweet sent late Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that Trump "bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of."

He went on to joke that "perhaps we're also responsible for the California fires, because we didn't help rake the forests just like the Finns do?"

He appeared to be referring to recent remarks in which Trump suggested raking the forest floor prevented fires in Finland and would have helped to prevent California's devastating wildfires.

Trump has adopted a hardline stance on Iran since taking office, withdrawing from the landmark 2015 nuclear accord and imposing tough sanctions against the country. The White House views Saudi Arabia as a key partner in confronting Iran.
The warning from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is just that - a warning - but health experts urge that it be considered a non-negotiable order.

The public health agency this week warned U.S. consumers abstain from eating any romaine lettuce due to possible E. coli contamination.

Health experts urge everyone to take the warning seriously.

With this particular strain it would only take a tiny amount to make you very sick. The potential outcome is kidney failure , said Curt Speaker, the biosafety officer at Penn State University.

Most strains of E. coli pose health risks at about 60,000 to 80,000 parts of bacteria. The strain at the center of the current recall could make someone deathly ill with just 10 parts of bacteria.

As much E. coli as you could get on a head of a pin would be enough to make a lot of people sick, Speaker said. Its just not worth the risk.

So far, 32 people across 11 states have become ill after eating romaine lettuce, including 13 who have been hospitalized, according to the CDC. One of the hospitalized people developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially life-threatening form of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.

No cases have been reported in Pennsylvania. The states that have reported outbreaks include: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The contamination of romaine is a byproduct of U.S. agricultural practices. Most large growers use manure and animal waste water for fertilizer. Animals are generally reservoirs for E. coli, although they themselves dont get sick from it. Spray water - much more so than the manure - is the real culprit, Speaker said.

Its one thing to put manure in the soil and till it. Thats generally okay, Speaker said. But if you are spraying wastewater on crops, that is an invitation for disaster.

Public health authorities have not been able to identify the source of the E. coli contamination.

Pennsylvania Department of Health press secretary Nate Wardle urges everyone to throw all romaine lettuce heads in their homes away - including salad mix bags that may contain romaine. Bags not clearly labeled should also be thrown out, Wardle said.

The best thing to do is to throw it out, he said. Its best to be overly cautious. This should be taken very serious.

Speaker recommends that all surfaces that have come into contact with any romaine lettuce be wiped down with disinfectant - that includes cutting boards, knives and even refrigerator vegetable drawers.

You want to scrub them with lots of soap and water and use good hygiene and wash your hands, he said.

And if you think you can wash the E. coli bacteria from your produce away by giving it a good wash - think again.

Its not worth the risk, Speaker reiterated.

Lastly, if you had romaine lettuce a few days ago - prior to the CDC issuing the warning - chances are you are not going to get sick.

In general, illness from food-borne bacteria manifests at around the 12-48 hour mark.

If you ate it a couple of days ago, you are probably fine, Speaker said.

Symptoms of E. coli infection typically manifest at about three or four days after ingesting the bacteria. Symptoms can include watery or bloody diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting. Most people infected by the bacteria recover within five to seven days, although this particular strain of E. coli tends to cause more severe illness.

Practically all major food retailers in the state have pulled romaine lettuce from their vegetable stalls.

Some, like Weis, are offering refunds.

If you have recently purchased Romaine lettuce from one of our stores  leaf or bagged - you may bring it back for a full refund, Weis posted on its Facebook page.

One area eatery on Wednesday had a change of heart.

Cru Pizza and Deli restaurant, which has locations in Harrisburg and Camp Hill, had up to Tuesday continued to serve its chard romaine lettuce and other dishes prepared with the lettuce, but on Wednesday, they pulled all the romaine from its menu.

I think its better to wait a few days, said Thad Eisenhower, manager of the Camp Hill location. It definitely threw a scare.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back against President Donald Trump for his description of a judge who ruled against Trumps migrant asylum policy as an Obama judge.

It's the first time the Republican-appointed leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.

Roberts said Wednesday the U.S. doesn't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges." He commented in a statement released by the Supreme Court after a query by The Associated Press.

Roberts said on the day before Thanksgiving that an independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.

Later in the afternoon, the president responded on Twitter, telling Roberts that the judiciary does indeed have Obama judges.

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary, but if it is why......  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

Last year, the president used the term a "so-called judge" after the first federal ruling against his travel ban. During the presidential campaign, Trump criticized Roberts himself for the chief justice's decisive vote in 2012 to preserve the Obama health care overhaul.

Trump also referred to a judge who was presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University as a Mexican who would be unable to rule fairly because of Trump's proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The president's latest remarks come as the Supreme Court is enmeshed in controversy over his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Several justices have spoken out about judicial independence and the danger of having the court viewed as a political institution that is divided between five conservative Republicans and four liberal Democrats. Roberts is widely seen as the justice closest to the middle and likely to determine the outcome of high-profile cases that split the court.

Trump had spoken Tuesday when a reporter asked for his reaction to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco that put the administration's asylum policy on hold.

The president complained that his opponents file lawsuits in courts that are part of the liberal-leaning 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Before he took office, conservative groups tended to bring challenges to Obama-era policies in Texas, part of the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten. And then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won," Trump said.

The president went on to say about the asylum ruling: "This was an Obama judge. And I'll tell you what, it's not going to happen like this anymore. "

But the initial travel ban ruling in 2017 was issued by U.S. District Judge James Robart, an appointee of President George W. Bush. Roberts also was appointed by Bush.

It was unclear what Trump meant when he said things would change. The 9th Circuit is by far the largest of the federal appellate courts, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Some Republicans in 9th Circuit states have proposed splitting the circuit in two, but legislation has not advanced.

The court has long had a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents, with the current breakdown at 16-7. But Trump has the opportunity to narrow that edge significantly because there are six vacancies, and he already has nominated candidates for five of them.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to weigh in on whether the city of Harrisburg must disclose the names and addresses of people who donated money to help the city defend its gun ordinances.

The Commonwealth Court decided in May in a 5-2 ruling that the city did not have to turn over the names and addresses, affirming a lower court ruling and agreeing with city officials that the information was protected by an exception in the states Right-to-Know law for donor information.

The ruling stemmed from a February 2015 Right-to-Know request by a gun rights attorney who had sued the city over its gun ordinances, alleging they are illegal.

One week after the city launched a fundraiser to help pay legal fees to defend the gun ordinances, attorney Joshua Prince asked for the names, addresses and phone numbers of the donors as part of his request for financial records.

The city responded by giving him a redacted list detailing only the number of donations and amounts. He appealed to the states open records office, who ruled in his favor that the city had to turn over the entire donor list. The city appealed to Dauphin Court and prevailed. Thats when Prince appealed to Commonwealth Court.

Redacted donor list

The Supreme Court granted Princes appeal to decide this issue:

Does the city of Harrisburgs creation of a spreadsheet to show the receipt of funds from donors to the Protect Harrisburg Legal Defense Fund constitute a financial record as defined in chapter 65 of the Pennsylvania Statutes?

The donor exclusion was one of two arguments presented on behalf of city officials in front of the Commonwealth Court. The citys attorney also argued that donors have a constitutional right to privacy. The privacy issue, however, was not ruled on by the Commonwealth Court.

That means even if Prince prevails on the donor exclusion argument with the Supreme Court, the city likely would continue the battle under a privacy rights argument, dragging the case out for another year or two.

If the city prevails at the Supreme Court, the case would end.

The legal defense fund raised about $5,000 in one week after it launched. But after Prince asked for the names, no additional donations were received. Since then, the city has spent more than $20,000 defending the donor list.

The attorneys argued their respective positions in court last year in front of a full panel of judges.

The lawyer representing Harrisburg, Josh Autry, of the Lavery Law firm, said the state's Right to Know law provides an exception for individual donor names specifically to protect those people and encourage donations.

But Adam Kraut, the lawyer representing Prince, told the panel of Commonwealth judges that the exclusion for donors doesn't apply because the information amounts to a financial record.

The donor exception is not valid for "financial records," under the law.

The law's definition for "financial records," however, leaves room for interpretation so both attorneys spent a chunk of their allotted 15 minutes before the judges arguing for their opposing interpretations.

Autry said the list of donors was simply that: a list of donors. It wasn't a financial ledger or bank statement that would constitute a "financial record."

But Kraut said that the list included donation amounts, which reflect the receipt of funds. That, he argued, met the definition of "financial records," under the law.

Under that "broad" interpretation, however, Autry said the exclusion for personal identifying information relating to a donor would be rendered meaningless because all donor records then would be considered financial records.

Autry argued that legislators could have spelled out that the definition for financial records includes "any record that deals with a financial record," but they didn't. That means that wasn't their intent, he said.

Instead, he said, the definitions provided by legislators for "financial records," referred simply to "accounts, vouchers or contracts" dealing with the receipt or disbursement of funds.

Autry contended that the plaintiff only wants the names and addresses to be able to harass or shame the donors.

Prince previously wrote on his blog that he wanted donors prosecuted on grounds that they are conspiring with the city to violate the state's preemption on gun laws. City officials have said, however that their ordinances are legal and that state preemption is a civil matter.

The two judges who dissented said they believed the donor list clearly met the definition of a financial record and that donor names were not listed in the state's open records law as an exception to financial records.

Meanwhile, the Common Pleas court in late October dismissed Princes lawsuit contending that the citys gun ordinances are illegal.
Thanks to record-breaking donations of deer meat from Pennsylvania hunters, generous donors, and a helping hand from the Wolf Administration, the states charitable food system will provide more than half a million servings of ground venison through food banks, soup kitchens, and pantries throughout the commonwealth.

I often say that you cannot have a charitable food system without a food system that is charitable, and this partnership is a shining example of how Pennsylvanians can work together to combat hunger in unique and creative ways, Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said during a press conference Tuesday. Each year, I am amazed at the contributions we receive from the commonwealths hunters, and I thank them for their generosity. Our states sportsmen and women each year do tremendous work to help those less fortunate in their communities while enjoying the outdoors and a treasured pastime.

Now in its 27th season, the non-profit charity Hunters Sharing the Harvest (HSH) helps to coordinate the donation, processing, and distribution of venison to Pennsylvanians facing food insecurity. According to a press release, HSH has donated 1,356,281 pounds of venison to the hungry since 1991. The Department of Agriculture partners with HSH to cover some of the costs of processing the meat, with the department increasing its share of financial support over the last two years due to increased deer donations. With continued support from Gov. Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Secretary Redding, legislative caucuses, businesses, sponsors and individuals, Pennsylvania hunters can donate their deer cost-free.

Generous sportsmen and women set a new HSH record during the 2017-2018 season with a total donation of 3,337 deer, yielding 130,930 pounds of deer meat and providing 667,400 meals for individuals and families in need. Due to this increase in generous donations, additional meat processors are being recruited throughout the year to better help turn hunters donations into high-value protein for hungry families. This year, the department will help to cover the service cost of more than 110 processors throughout the commonwealth, it said.

Through many partnerships, HSH links generous hunters, meat processors, and the charitable food system by managing the donation and distribution of deer meat throughout the state. The program has become a nationally recognized model, with other states adopting Pennsylvanias program to serve hungry families in their own states.

In the next several weeks, thousands of deer hunters will head for Penns Woods, and each of them has a unique opportunity to combine their love of the outdoors and hunting with a volunteer program that manages wildlife resources along with helping their neighbors and communities, said John Plowman, the executive director of Hunters Sharing the Harvest. And we are grateful for so many who provide the time and energy to serve others  ranging from our board members, volunteer county coordinators, and food banks, to our legislators, and state and local agencies. Literally everyone works together to help feed our neighbors in need, even sportsman and women.

Hunters Sharing the Harvest has been an enormous asset to our member food banks throughout the state, said Jane Clements-Smith, Executive Director of Feeding Pennsylvania, the state association of Feeding America food banks. On behalf of Feeding Pennsylvania and the 1.6 million Pennsylvanians who are struggling with hunger, we couldnt be more thankful for all of the hunters who donate to this program. Our partnership with HSH helps to provide healthy and nutritious meals to families across Pennsylvania who need it the most.

The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank is the largest non-profit food distribution organization in central Pennsylvania and serves as the ongoing host of HSHs annual kickoff event.

We are excited at Central Pennsylvania Food Bank to once again host Hunters Sharing the Harvest for their annual hunting season kickoff event, said Joe Arthur, Executive Director of the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. Our Food Bank counts on HSH each year to provide thousands of pounds of lean, healthy venison from deer harvested by Central Pennsylvania hunters. We are hoping for even more this year to share with our clients.

The partnership between Hunger-Free Pennsylvania and Hunters Sharing the Harvest for over 28 years has been instrumental in maintaining a steady supply of high protein, nutritious product through our network of 18 food banks and charitable food distribution organizations, said Sheila Christopher, Executive Director of Hunger-Free Pennsylvania.

HSH also works in partnership with the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Deer Management Assistance Program to receive donations to help conserve a healthy, natural habitat that supports wildlife diversity and healthy deer populations throughout the state. Hunters Sharing the Harvest also partners with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, which donates $20,000 annually and uses deer management practices that directly provide venison to the program.

Hunters interested in participating can take their deer to one of the participating meat processors throughout the state and donate any amount of their venison to the program. Pennsylvanians can also donate money to the Buck for the Pot campaign, which supports HSH. For more information on Hunters Sharing the Harvest, visit www.sharedeer.org.
Penn State University filed a lawsuit Monday asking a judge to intervene in a property dispute over the former Beta Theta Pi house.

The fraternity at University Park closed in February 2017 after Timothy Piazza died from injuries he suffered inside the house during a pledge party. Several fraternity brothers were charged criminally in connection with the booze-fueled party where Piazza, 19, was served 18 drinks within 82 minutes before falling down a set of basement stairs.

The national fraternity closed the chapter and Penn State permanently revoked recognition of the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Beta Theta Pi.

The land on which the fraternity house is located was originally conveyed by the university to Alpha Upsilon in 1928, according to the lawsuit. The property at 220 North Burrowes Road is located immediately next to campus.

The deed contained specific language that if for any reason the said building or buildings should cease to be used as a chapter or fraternity house, the university reserves the right to buy the property back at an agreed upon price.

But the parties cant agree upon a price, according to the lawsuit. Thats why the university asked a judge to assign an independent arbitrator to determine a fair price, according to the terms of the deed.

University officials said they wrote to representatives of Alpha Upsilon on Aug. 28 and advised that Penn State was exercising its right to resume ownership. Two days later, Mark Bernlohr, attorney for Alpha Upsilon, rejected the purchase price, according to the lawsuit, but offered to meet in person for a negotiation.

The price was not specified in the lawsuit.

The parties met Sept. 18, but were unable to agree on terms of purchase, the lawsuit said.

Alpha Upsilon does not recognize Penn States rights under the Deed of 1928, the lawsuit noted.

Bernlohr was not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit said Alpha Upsilon believes any rights the university has are unenforceable by reason of the rule against perpetuities.

But lawyers for Penn State say that legal position is incorrect, as the rule does not apply under the circumstances of this case. Even if the rule applied, the lawsuit said, the rule would not prevent the enforcement of Penn States rights under the deed.

Since the fraternity closed, the Alpha Upsilon group has applied for and received a rooming house permit and a rental house permit.

Penn States lawsuit isnt the first to face the chapter since Piazzas death. Donald Abbey, an alum who said he paid $8.5 million for renovations to the fraternity in the mid 2000s filed a lawsuit against Alpha Upsilon seeking his money back. Abbey contended that his money was a loan, and contingent upon the house operating as a fraternity. Its unclear how Penn States lawsuit would affect Abbeys lawsuit.

Piazzas parents, Jim and Evelyn, would like to see the fraternity house back in Penn States hands, according to their attorney.

We are encouraged to see this development, said Thomas Kline, attorney for the Piazzas. With Beta forever-banned from Penn State, this structure rightfully belongs in the hands of Penn State to put it to a proper educational use.
Your turkey may be thawed for tomorrow, but you wont be.

Cold air that originated in Siberia, then tracked across Canada, will be moving our way Thanksgiving Day, potentially setting record-low temperatures for this time of year.

A cold, dry air mass will settle just to our north, said National Weather Service at State College meteorologist John Banghoff. Add to that the wind. Its going to be gusty with wind chills below zero early and in the single digits to teens tomorrow.

But before the record-setting cold gets here, we could be in store for some snow squalls that may make holiday travel difficult today.

Banghoff said the lowest record high temperature for Nov. 22 was 31 degrees, set back in 1989. The Harrisburg area will likely break that record on Thursday with a projected high of 28.

For the record low for Nov. 22, you have to go back even further. Thats when a 16-degree low was registered in 1964.

I dont think well get quite that cold tomorrow, he said. Right now, were looking at a low of 21.

For Black Friday morning, he advises shoppers waiting in long lines bundle up because we could be seeing an early-Friday low of 17. Thats just a few degrees above the 1964 record low of 14.

The concern for today, though, are snow squalls. The National Weather Service is tracking a band or two of snow, which is moving south now. Its current track has it moving south across Pennsylvania and could be moving through our area between 4 and 6 p.m.

A band of intense snow squalls is expected to accompany an arctic front north to south across central PA from midday through the early evening. Be alert & adjust travel if necessary. There is no safe place on the highway during a snow squall #pawx pic.twitter.com/Ngwk1m1nBy  NWS State College (@NWSStateCollege) November 21, 2018

Things will begin to warm up then on Friday, which will be sunny with a high reaching 33 and a low of 26.

Saturday will see snow and freezing rain before 10 a.m., then rain, with a high of 44 and a low of 39.

Sunday will be partly sunny with a high of 51 and a low of 40 with a 50 percent chance of nighttime rain.

Monday will be cloudy with a 60 percent chance of rain and a high of 48 and a low of 36.

And Tuesday will be sunny with a high near 44.

Visit PennLive.com/weather for your latest weather updates.
Just in time for the biggest food holiday of the year, an infectious bacteria has been linked to one of the most popular lettuce varieties.

Now, disease control experts are warning that consumers, retailers and restaurant owners should avoid romaine. Some locals are listening while others continue to serve the lettuce.

Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention warned Tuesday that consumers should not eat any type of romaine lettuce and that retailers and restaurants should halt all romaine sales.

The lettuce, officials said, has been linked to an outbreak of E. coli, a bacteria that can cause illnesses.

Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick, CDC officials said.

Since Oct. 8, 32 people have been infected with E. coli in 11 states, officials said, noting that 13 of those people were hospitalized, including one with serious symptoms.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration issued a similar warning.

Outbreak Alert: Do not eat any romaine lettuce, including whole heads and hearts, chopped, organic and salad mixes with romaine until we learn more. If you dont know if its romaine or cant confirm the source, dont eat it. https://t.co/NrFOIxG8hx pic.twitter.com/FuzkHv4bd3  CDC (@CDCgov) November 20, 2018

FDA is investigating a multistate #outbreak of E. coli illnesses linked to romaine lettuce. We are conducting a traceback investigation to determine the source of romaine lettuce eaten by people who became sick https://t.co/bytRINr2D6 pic.twitter.com/YMcumL25G8  FDA FOOD (@FDAfood) November 20, 2018

Immediately after the warning, Weis Markets ceased their distribution of romaine, according to company spokesman Dennis Curtin.

Curtin shared that information on Twitter, and the company did the same on Facebook.

Weis stores have removed all romaine lettuce products from our produce departments, the Facebook post reads. If you have recently purchased Romaine lettuce from one of our stores  leaf or bagged - you may bring it back for a full refund.

Curtin called the week of Thanksgiving the biggest food week of the year, and, while he couldnt comment on romaines Thanksgiving-time sales, he said Romaine is a big seller year-round.

Not all businesses decided to halt their romaine sales.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, the Cru Pizza and Deli restaurant locations in both Harrisburg and Camp Hill continued to serve romaine, according to Jim Cieri, who said he holds a managerial role with the company.

Cieri said the business gets its food, including romaine, in bulk orders from large-scale distributors.

Unless those distributors issue a recall message, romaine will continue to be served in the restaurants, he said, adding that the lettuce is used primarily in one dish, a Caesar salad.

Cieri said he intends to keep a watchful eye for recalls as diners visit the restaurant in the days before and after the busy Thanksgiving holiday.

Employees at Four Seasons Produce Inc., an Ephrata-based wholesale produce distributor, said they could not immediately comment on the E. coli scare Tuesday afternoon.

They instead forward questions to company CEO Ron Carkoski. In a phone conversation, Carkoski said he was out of town for the upcoming holiday so he could not comment on exactly what actions had been taken since the E. coli news was released, but he shared an expectation.

My expectation is that our romaine will be stopped from being distributed, he said.

Four Seasons Produce officials shared a message from the United Fresh Produce Association on their website. The message also urged consumers and distributors to halt romaine dealings.

Retailers and restaurants are being advised to stop selling any and all romaine lettuce products immediately. ... The best way to limit the impact of this outbreak is to solve it quickly. We are working aggressively with stakeholders to try to narrow the source of the outbreak so that FDA can withdraw this comprehensive advisory," the message reads.
An 18-year-old Harrisburg man faces criminal charges following a Nov. 11 gunfight in the city, according to online court documents.

A 15-year-old has already been charged.

Zaequan A. Black, 18, exchanged gunfire with Jyhier Mosley-Williams, 15, near the intersection of North 19th and North streets, according to police.

Black faces three felony counts of attempted homicide, as well as felony charges of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure and carrying an unlicensed firearm, according to court documents.

He also faces misdemeanor charges of propelling a missile into an occupied vehicle, recklessly endangering another person and criminal mischief.

In charging documents filed against Mosley-Williams, police said the teens exchanged shots outside of a market near the intersection.

Mosley-Williams is charged with felony aggravated assault, carrying an unlicensed firearm and discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, as well as misdemeanor possession of a firearm by a minor, recklessly endangering another person and criminal mischief.

City police were called Nov. 11 to the intersection, where gunshots were reported, according to charging documents.

Three days later, officers viewed surveillance footage from the area, which showed a black Acura SUV approaching the intersection, according to police.

Three males exited the vehicle to go into the market, police said, adding that one of them was identified as Black.

Moments later, another vehicle, a white Cadillac Escalade, approached the intersection, police said. The Escalades occupants also exited the vehicle and approached the market. One of them was identified as Mosley-Williams, police said.

As they walked back to the Escalade, Black fired gunshots at them, police said, noting that the vehicle was hit multiple times.

Mosley-Williams then drew a gun and returned fire, police said.

Several of the shots fired by Mosley-Williams hit a nearby home with residents inside, according to charging documents.

As of Tuesday morning, online court documents showed that Mosley-Williams remained incarcerated in Dauphin County Prison unable to post $50,000 cash bail.

A warrant is out for Blacks arrest.
It didnt take long for the scent of pine to begin to fill the air in the state Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday morning once the 18-foot Douglas Fir that will serve as the Capitol Christmas tree was pulled through the front doors.

The tree, grown by Crystal Spring Tree Farm in Lehighton, Carbon County, will now be decorated by state Department of General Services employees to ready it for a noontime official tree lighting ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 6. The decorations are handmade by senior citizens and preschoolers.

The ceremony, which is open to public, typically draws a big crowd of people who leave filled with the holiday spirit.

The decorated tree will remain lit in the Capitol Rotunda through the first week of January.
Two homicide suspects from Virginia were arrested Wednesday in Swatara Township, Dauphin County, the U.S. Marshals Service announced.

Jules Juwan Morgan, 18, of Henrico, Va., and Jonathan Wrenn, 19, from Fredericksburg, Va., are accused in connection with a fatal shooting that occurred on Warrenton Road in Stafford, Va., on Nov. 18, the Marshals said. Detectives obtained arrest warrants for both, charges including murder and lesser offenses.

Attempts to find the men in Virginia were unsuccessful, the Marshals said, and the Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force was asked to apprehend them.

Wednesday, the task force learned the two fled to Pennsylvania and might be in a home in Swatara Township, the Marshals said.

Around 3:30 p.m. Deputy U.S. Marshals and officers checked a home in the 3600 block fo Chambers Hill Road and arrested Morgan and Wrenn without incident.

Both men were turned over to to the Dauphin County Booking Center where they will await extradition to Virginia.

United States Marshal Pane stated in the release, Its the Marshals Services duty to ensure that those charged with violent crimes have their day in court. It is my sincere hope that the victims family will find some measure of comfort knowing the suspect will face justice.

Swatara Township Police, the Harrisburg Bureau of Police, Dauphin County Adult Probation and Parole and other agencies participated in the investigation.

Swatara Township Police released more information on the arrest, including that police obtained a search warrant for the home Morgan and Wrenn were found in.

Police seized approximately two pounds of marijuana, marijuana chocolate rice crispy treats, marijuana gummies, more than $3,000 in cash, three handguns, a shotgun and a .22 caliber rifle in the style of an AR, police said.

Stedroy Warner, 39, was taken into custody at the scene, and was charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and receiving stolen property. Warner was transported to the Dauphin County Judicial Center, where he is awaiting arraignment.
Proposal for two-family housing to have public hearing in Petoskey

The strategy is one of many changes the city has been working on in response to the housing shortage.
NORRISTOWN  A Norristown man who brandished a handgun during the armed robbery of a man as he walked from a store in Pottstown has been sentenced to a state prison. Daveese Smith, 22, of the 800 block of Smith Street in Norristown, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 4 to 8 years in a state correctional facility after...
It was cold, bitterly cold, on December 18, 1620 when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts to form their first colony in the New World. Since they had no shelter on land, they had to live on the ship for the next few months and ferried back and forth to the shore as they worked hard to build homes for their new colony. In March they began to move ashore permanently as shelter became available. But, the months aboard ship were devasting. One hundred settlers started the journey, but nearly half died before they were able to move ashore. Shortly after they moved into their ne...
Third-highest leadership position in Senate will provide additional opportunities to advance Wyoming's interests

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) released the following statement after he was elected to serve as chairman of the Republican Conference, the No. 3 leadership position for Senate Republicans.

"It's an honor to be elected chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. People in Wyoming want to know that their thoughts, ideas and concerns are being heard in Washington. This leadership position will give our congressional delegation even more opportunities to advance Wyoming's interests on a national stage.

"As chairman, I'll continue to work on issues that are impo...
This week we had the opportunity to sit down and spend a little bit of time interviewing Dustin Lee; or how he is more frequently know around Pine Bluffs High School "Senor Lee". Senor Lee has been a staple here at Pine Bluffs High school teaching Spanish going on 14 years now. When Senor Lee was in his junior year of college he had the opportunity to travel to Guadalajara, Mexico (Mexico's 2nd biggest city) and partake in classes in order to help him graduate. That entire summer he took the opportunity and relished it to live with a welcoming Spanish speaking family! Along with gaini...
Top: United States Senator Mike Enzi (center) received the "Friend of Farm Bureau" award for the 115th Congress. Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation Vice President Cole Coxbill (left) and WyFB President Todd Fornstrom (right) presented Senator Enzi with the award at the organization's 99th annual meeting held in November.

November 15, 2018-United States Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Congresswoman Liz Cheney, all R-Wyo., were each named a "Friend of Farm Bureau" for the 115th Congress for their support of America's farmers and ranchers and food security for consumers. This award, presented by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), is given to members of Congress who have supported Farm Bureau's position on policy issues as demonstrated by their voting records.

Senator Enzi and Senator Barrasso spoke to Wyoming Farm Bureau members last week at the 99th annual meeting of the organization. Sena...
Snow-covered summits and peak foliage were a treat even if it meant riding through some snow to start the trip

400 [Failed to load instagram embed]https://instagr.am/p/BomMu2jl6vP&maxwidth=1000 As nervous as I would be riding a bucket bike down one of Park City's best DH's Ryan was all in, even in the snow. I managed to snap this shot right after he yardsaled from his front tire washing out on an off camber snowy corner. Kids crazy. But that's why we love him. Once we had dropped into the fast sections of the trail, he was gone, hooting and hollering all the way down.



From Park City we drove late into the night to Fruita, Colorado. There, we were met with un-ridable conditions by late morning. Not that we are afraid of rain, but the trails were too muddy, and no one wants to be THAT rider. Seeing riders carrying their mud-covered bikes along Joe's ridge trail from our campsites below was enough to convince us to move on. So, we finished our leftover pizza, put out the fire and headed over to shuttle Ribbon trail in Grand Junction.





At the top of Bowman's shortcut about to drop into two elks trail. The elevation got to me on the climb from 10,500' up to 11,800'. Had to dial it way back which is not my style.

Follow the golden singletrack, the aspens were popping

Eagle had some awesome scenery at the top of a mellow 3-mile climb from the ice arena called boneyard trail

Nearing the top of the boneyard climb

After 4-5 straight days of riding the legs were starting to feel it but Carlo who is at least 10 years our senior would school us all on the final climb that day

Photo: Jonny Ewing "I wouldn't have taken your picture if I knew you were gonna do that" Jonny said after taking my picture endoing on "top of the world"

Lower porcupine rim singletrack was breathtaking, like riding through a painting

Photo: Carlo Carluccio One of the few photos of yours truly as most of the time I was on duty as media man

Sniping shots of the boys from 300 yards away on another ridge

There's nothing quite like a summit; whether it be the summit of your local mountain or one you've never been to before. There's just something about getting there and cresting that final pitch, crossing the tree line (at least here in the east) and turning around to take in that view. For die-hard mountain bikers like you and me it provides an even better reward: knowing that the rest of the way is all downhill. For us on Team Granite MTB this trip was our summit, the highpoint of our ride/race season.It was the summit of our season for many reasons. It was the first real mountain bike trip to ride as a team with our buddy and TG President Ryan St. Lawrence since his life-altering spinal cord injury 2 years ago. While it wasn't my first cross country mtb trip, it was my first time in the mountain bike holy land of Utah and Colorado and my first cross-country trip with the team. It was the first time some of us had lived out of an RV for 9 days straight, finally getting a taste of that viral vanlife. It was even one guy's first time doing his own laundry!Ryan and the OG members had done this trip before, which made the planning part easier or so we thought. We ran into an entire summers worth of rain the week we were heading out. This included snow in the higher elevations, you know, where we wanted to start most of our rides.Ryan Picked us up at the SLC airport in his sprinter van. The 9-day bike party had officially begun. We picked up the RVs with only one thing on our minds... riding!The ribbon trail is unique in that it's mostly all rock slab. The toilet bowl, as it's called, psyches many riders out even when dry, especially the A-line. I guess you could say we really trust our tiresor we're just not that bright. The descent was awesome even in the rain. It was the climb out that had us second guessing our decision. But I always say, some of the best memories come from the most challenging rides. Memories like Jonny falling flat on his face in the muddy slope with this bike behind his head, or my cartoonish display of trying to run up the slippery slope. After our third trip to the car wash in one day to wash bikes and clothes, we headed east.It's funny how things work out sometimes. I posted a story on my Instagram that morning of how we were heading east to find dry weather. A short time later, driving there not knowing what we were going to ride, a fellow team member replied to my story from home. He suggested a trail that started near the top of Vail, with shuttle instructions and all, and we had a plan. Two Elks Trail would prove to be a highlight of the trip for sure. A 15-mile shuttle run, after the first few miles of up and down is a 9 mile 3300' descent back into town. We all owed our teammate James a beer for coming through. We rode a couple more local trails before heading to Eagle.Eagle would prove to be an awesome stop. Some of the buffest and flowiest downhills such as pool and ice trail reminded me of one our best riding areas in the east; Kingdom trails. We climbed up three or four times that day to hit dirt surfer and another trail or two that aren't on the map.The forecast had changed for the better, so we headed back west to Moab for the remainder of our trip.Our first order of business in Moab was to find a shop that could rebuild my X2 shock and to grab a demo bike for the day. Chili pepper bike shop came through on both fronts and rebuilt my shock while I rode one of their demo bikes. Oh, and they have a coffee shop inside, so you can sip your americano while you shop. We were able to get Ryan out on the back 40 trail despite his battery failing to charge that night. We stayed close with his battery only having a 1/4 charge. In the afternoon, we squeezed in a quick Mag 7 ride.Mag 7 was one of the coolest technical rides. I would love to do it again with more time to take it all in. We were limited as I had to get back with the demo bike so the shop could get it ready for the next day's rental. Gold Bar Rim and Portal Trail were amazing, but not for the faint of heart. The exposure doesn't bother me like it does a lot of people, but it's real and needs to be taken seriously. One rider we ran into was clinging to the edge while their partner pushed both of their bikes. Ryan was able to set up at the finish of portal trail and get drone footage of us coming down.The next day we would be dropping in on the whole enchilada, or at least the half enchilada. Some of us started up on Kokopeli. The old guys were sick of getting snowy and started further down on LPS. The guys that started early tried to ride one more time with Ryguy but it was one of those rides that wasn't meant to be, with everyone's bike breaking. Jonny had no brakes left, Keith had no grip and one pedal off the spindle, and Ryans throttle switch was breaking and his motor failing. They were all laughing after as usual when something goes wrong.The second to last day it was raining. After seven straight two-a-days, we decided to take a much-needed rest. We took "Good and you" tours (Ryan St. Lawrence's nickname) through Arches National Park, just six guys in the back of a van drinking beers and taking in the scenery. If we had let Ryan's ADD follow through we would've driven through arches having not seen a single arch!The final day we did another two-a-day ride. We started with Jackson to Captain Ahab as a loop in the morning, followed by the entire Slickrock Trail in the afternoon. While some people will tell you it's the beginner area in Moab, or not worth doing, it's totally unique and worth it. Just do it.And just like that nine days had flown by. Our legs, bikes, and one RV in need of some TLC. We were ready to get home and reunite with our families who so graciously picked up the slack while we were gone. The sun felt amazing sitting in the slickrock parking lot while we drank our last post ride beers in Utah.Rough cost breakdowns:Roughly $1300-$1500 per person total cost for six guys in two 35' Rv'sStats:9 days, 135 miles ridden, 15k' climbing, WAY more descending, 1200 miles of driving (thanks to Nathan for driving our RV the entire trip)For more content follow on Instagram link Subscribe on youtube link Special Thanks to: Highland MTB Park, Zoic Clothing, Handup Gloves, Ryno Power Sports Suppliments, Nox Composites, Vittoria Tires, ODI Grips, Cycles Etc., Jewell Instruments, Daniels Equipment, Members of Team Granite MTB for being awesome humans
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Anthony Scaramucci didnt last two weeks working for Trump, as it is being reported that Trump is set to fire his new communications director.

The New York Times, President Trump has decided to remove Anthony Scaramucci from his position as communications director, three people close to the decision said Monday, relieving him just days after Mr. Scaramucci unloaded a crude verbal tirade against other senior members of the presidents senior staff.

It isnt a coincidence that the same day Gen. John Kelly takes over as Chief of Staff, the Mooch is told to hit the bricks. To say that Scaramucci was the prototypical Trump hire would be an understatement. The White House will try to sell this as Kelly getting control over an out of control West Wing, but the reality is that Trump has now fired two communications directors and one chief of staff in less than two weeks.

Scaramucci was a horrible hire, who was unqualified for the position of communications, but he was hired because Trump liked the way that he defended him on cable news. The tug of war between Trumps instability and Chief of Staff Kelly has begun. We have seen others come through the Trump campaign and try to bring order and stability. They have always failed because the problem at the core of this administration is Donald Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) hammered Donald Trump for undermining respect for the presidency by covering for the Saudis after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Rep. Schiff said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:

The premeditated murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a brutal crime. While all the facts of any international matter, let alone a murder on foreign soil, can seldom be stated with absolute certainty, we can reach conclusions as to culpability. In my view, it is inconceivable that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was either unknowing or uninvolved in Khashoggis murder.

It is true that our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not just its Crown Prince, and that must factor into our response. But to suggest maybe he did and maybe he didnt or that we are incapable of finding out the truth, or that knowing the truth our silence can be bought with arms sales, undermines respect for the Office of the Presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and Americas standing as a champion of human rights.

We should immediately end support to the Saudis in the war in Yemen and bring that conflict to an end, suspend arms sales to the Kingdom, and diminish our reliance on Riyadh regarding other matters in the region.

In what was a classic pre-Thanksgiving news dump, Trump released a statement giving his full support to the Saudi regime after they murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Congress has responded with outrage over Trumps statement, and more importantly, they are going to react with not only potential sanctions but a likely investigation of financial relationships with Saudi Arabia. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has called on Senate Democrats to withhold funding to Saudi Arabia.

Adam Schiff was right. Trump has undermined the presidency, and Congress looks ready to make him pay.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook.
32 people in 11 states have been sickened by a dangerous E.coli outbreak that has the CDC warning Americans not to eat romaine lettuce.

The CDC issued the following warning:

The CDC is advising that U.S. consumers not eat any romaine lettuce, and retailers and restaurants not serve or sell any, until we learn more about the outbreak. This investigation is ongoing and the advice will be updated as more information is available.

 Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick.

 This advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of

precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad.

 If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away.

Wash and sanitize drawers or shelves in refrigerators where romaine was stored. Follow these five steps to clean your refrigerator.

 Restaurants and retailers should not serve or sell any romaine lettuce, including salads and salad mixes containing romaine.

In other words, this Thanksgiving, skip the romaine lettuce as a precaution.
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Rachel Maddow pointed out that there is a precedent for a president being impeached for talking to Justice Department officials about an investigation that involves them.

Rachel Maddow said:

Whether or not the senior justice department official should have been having all of these conversations with the president about an ongoing investigation that implicated the presidents senior staff and would soon implicate the president himself, whether or not that justice department official should have been feeding information about the investigation to the president. When the president had those conversations, when he engaged that senior justice department official to find out what was going on and to try to alter the course of what was happening with that investigation, when that happened, regardless of what you think about the justice department official involved in those discussions, when the president engaged in those discussions, the president broke the law.

Jim Baker ends his analysis of this moment in history by noting that Article II of the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon stated that Nixon, quote, knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agency of the executive branch, including the criminal division of the Department of Justice in disregard of the rule of law and in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. In other words, hey, presidents get impeached for reaching into the justice department to talk to officials there about whats going on in an investigation of a president and his white house. Thats the history. Thats the precedent.

Video:

Rachel Maddow pointed out that there is a precedent for a president being impeached for talking to Justice Department officials about an investigation that involves them. https://t.co/VkLT3O092N pic.twitter.com/yJORb1sc2B  PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) November 21, 2018

As of today, Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, has written to the Inspector General at the Justice Department asking if there might be something analogous right now with the Mueller investigation. Senator Schumer asking the Inspector General to investigate whether the man who Trump has installed as the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker has compromised the Mueller investigation by, quote, sharing with the white house confidential grand jury or investigative information from the special counsel investigation. Now will the inspector general actually investigate that? We called the justice department inspector generals office today, and they would not tell us beep. They would not give us any sort of comment. They wouldnt tell us one way or the other what theyre planning to do in response to that request from Senator Schumer. In the absence of even knowing whether that kind of investigation might happen, in real-time as its happening right now, we dont have much visibility into the inside of the justice department, or certainly inside the Mueller investigation.

Rachel Maddow Suggests That Trump Is Tap Dancing On An Impeachment Landmine

Trump is messing with something that is certain to blow up in his face, because if Whitaker is giving him access to the Russia investigation, it will be found out about, and when it is, it will lead to dire consequences for Trump and his administration.

Happy Thanksgiving, Trump. You just found a new way to get yourself impeached.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook.
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Trump lied while speaking to reporters and claimed that he has no deals with Saudi Arabia after he previously admitted that Saudis had given him millions.

Trump said, Just so you understand, I dont make deals with Saudi Arabia, I dont have money from Saudi Arabia, I have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia I couldnt care less and I will tell you, as most of you know, being president has cost me a fortune and thats okay with me I knew that a long time ago. But being president has cost me a fortune, a tremendous fortune like youve never seen before. Someday I will tell you what that is. I knew that a long time ago because I dont do deals all I do is focus on this country and making great deals for this country I dont focus on making great deals for myself because I dont care anymore so Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me what does have to do with me is putting America first.

Video:

Trump flat out lies and claims that he has no deals with Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/BxVIxfRQT2  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 20, 2018

Trump is lying about his dealings with Saudi Arabia

Here is a breakdown of the millions of dollars that the Saudi regime has given Trump:

Congress Is Already Looking At Trumps Saudi Ties

Trumps statement backing the Saudi regime on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi triggered alarm bells with powerful members of Congress. As soon as the White House issued that statement, it became a certainty that Congress would investigate Trumps financial ties to Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump is lying and trying to back away because he is getting a clue about what might be coming.

Trump just flat lied about his financial relationship with Saudi Arabia.

If Congress wasnt going to investigate this matter before, they definitely will now.
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A leading charity is now estimating that 85,000 children under the age of five have died from acute malnutrition in the past three years during the war in Yemen. The charity, Save the Children, says that this number is equivalent to the entire population of children under the age of five in the United Kingdoms second largest city of Birmingham.

Last month the United Nations said that as many as 14 million Yemenis are starving and approaching death due to famine.

The situation in Yemen is beyond horrible. But the real tragedy is that Donald Trump could intervene and stop the war but he wont do so. And the reason he wont is that his friends in Saudi Arabia, who are responsible for the ongoing war, dont want him to intervene.

This is not a Yemen crisis: Its an international crisis. And one in which the West has a hand. Yemen crisis: 85,000 children dead from malnutrition 

This is not a Yemen crisis: It's an international crisis. And one in which the West has a hand. "Yemen crisis: 85,000 children 'dead from malnutrition' "https://t.co/vrk8f5AAZ4  Nahlah Ayed (@NahlahAyed) November 21, 2018

The U.N. is trying to restart negotiations that would end the three-year war which has caused widespread devastation and the worlds worst humanitarian crisis of the century.

Fighting escalated in 2015 when a coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign against the Houthi rebel movement which had forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee abroad.

At least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the war, according to the U.N. The fighting and a partial blockade by the coalition have also left 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid. Nearly half the countrys population is is starving and a cholera outbreak has affected 1.2 million people.

According to CNN:

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen grows worse by the day. The conflict has been marked by violations of the laws of war on all sides, including targeting of civilians, torture, the use of child soldiers, and other abuses.



Aid workers in Yemen have said that the exact number of deaths is difficult to calculate because many go unreported. Less than half of the countrys health facilities are functioning and many people are too poor to go to the facilities that have remained open.

Save the Children says its casualty figures are based on mortality rates for untreated cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition in children under five from data compiled by the U.N. The charity calculated that approximately 85,000 children died between April of 2015 and October of 2018.

Rising food prices and the falling value of the countrys currency as a result of a civil war are putting more families at risk of food shortages.

The UK-based charity blames a blockade of the countrys ports for causing the famine. The country has traditionally imported 90% of its food, and nearly all of that arrives through the ports.

Save the Children said it had been forced to bring supplies for the north of Yemen through its southern port of Aden, which has significantly slowed down aid deliveries.

The charity says that based on historical studies, if acute malnutrition is left untreated, around 20-30% of children will die each year.

For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and its entirely preventable, its Yemen director, Tamer Kirolos, said, adding:

Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop. Their immune systems are so weak they are more prone to infections with some too frail to even cry. Parents are having to witness their children wasting away, unable to do anything about it.

He further warned that an estimated 150,000 childrens lives were endangered in Hudaydah with a dramatic increase in air strikes over the city in recent weeks.

If the United States truly wanted to end the crisis it could, but it is unlikely to do so because it would offend Donald Trumps close friends and business associates in Saudi Arabia. This is one more example of Donald Trump showing that he values money and his personal business interests over peoples lives.
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President Donald Trump wont answer any questions from the special counsel Robert Mueller having to do with obstruction of justice, Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani has asserted.

Giuliani spoke to the news website Axios who reported in an article published Wednesday:

President Trump delivered to Robert Mueller handwritten answers about pre-election dimensions of the Russia probe but did not answer questions about his behavior as president, including allegations of obstruction of justice  and will resist doing so in the future  according to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

According to the Axios reporting, Mueller did not ask specifically about obstruction of justice in this round of questioning. Trump and his team of lawyers led by the former New York City mayor apparently have already decided to stonewall any further obstruction questions that might come from Mueller in the future.

Despite the controversy over obstruction of justice questions not to be overlooked is that fact that Trump HAS answered some of Muellers questions. This represents a significant milestone in Muellers investigation into the Trump campaigns ties with Russia, and a possible conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections.

What is significant is that this is the first time Trump has told investigators what he knows about key moments of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Giuliani said Trump would refuse to cooperate if Mueller sends the president a subpoena in an attempt to coerce him into testifying about his activities as president.

I dont think he has any way to compel testimony on obstruction because the argument of executive privilege would be very, very strong, Giuliani said. It all relates to a period of time after he was president.

Executive privilege purportedly gives the president and the executive branch the power to resist subpoenas from Congress and the judicial branch. The theory is that this is necessary in order to uphold the constitutional concept of separation of powers.

Mueller in the past has acknowledged that executive privilege might be a factor that could complicate his investigation as it relates to a presidential interview.

Trumps allies have said that by asking the president to testify and answer questions Mueller is setting a perjury trap for the president. The implication is that Trump would lie  or at the very least contradict himself  under oath.

Giuliani now appears to believe that he has found a way around that problem.

The law definitely requires that if youre going to subpoena a president, you have to show that you cant get the information any place else, Giuliani said, suggesting Mueller may have to go on public records and comments.

Giuliani also discussed the details of the questions and said they pertain mostly to Trumps knowledge of his campaigns interactions with Russia in 2016.
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By Mark Weinraub and P.J. Huffstutter

(Reuters)  U.S. farmers finishing their harvests are facing a big problem  where to put the mountain of grain they cannot sell to Chinese buyers.

For Louisiana farmer Richard Fontenot and his neighbors, the solution was a costly one: Let the crops rot.

Fontenot plowed under 1,000 of his 1,700 soybean acres this fall, chopping plants into the dirt instead of harvesting more than $300,000 worth of beans.

His beans were damaged by bad weather, made worse by a wet harvest. Normally, he could sell them anyway to a local elevator  giant silos usually run by international grains merchants that store grain.

But this year they arent buying as much damaged grain. The elevators are already chock full.

No one wants them, Fontenot said in a telephone interview. As he spoke, he drove his tractor across a soybean field, tilling under his crop. I dont know what else to do.

Across the United States, grain farmers are plowing under crops, leaving them to rot or piling them on the ground, in hopes of better prices next year, according to interviews with more than two dozen farmers, academic researchers and farm lenders. Its one of the results, they say, of a U.S. trade war with China that has sharply hurt export demand and swamped storage facilities with excess grain.

In Louisiana, up to 15 percent of the oilseed crop is being plowed under or is too damaged to market, according to data analyzed by Louisiana State University staff. Crops are going to waste in parts of Mississippi and Arkansas. Grain piles, dusted by snow, sit on the ground in North and South Dakota. And in Illinois and Indiana, some farmers are struggling to protect silo bags stuffed with crops from animals.

U.S. farmers planted 89.1 million acres of soybeans this year, the second most ever, expecting Chinas rising demand to give them better returns than other bulk crops.

But Beijing slapped a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation for duties imposed by Washington on Chinese exports. That effectively shut down U.S. soybean exports to China, worth around $12 billion last year. China typically takes around 60 percent of U.S. supplies.

The U.S. government rolled out an aid program of around the same size  $12 billion  to help farmers absorb the cost of the trade war. As of mid-November, $837.8 million had been paid out.

Some of that money will pass from farmers to grain merchants such as Archer Daniels Midland Co and Bunge Ltd , who are charging farmers more to store crops at elevators where there is limited space. Bunge and ADM did not respond to requests for comment on storage fees.

The storage crunch and higher fees have boosted revenues at grain elevator Andersons [ANDE.O], Chief Executive Officer Pat Bowe said in an interview.

Its paying a grain handler to store  its the old-fashioned way to make money, Bowe said.

These are also boom times for John Wierenga, president of grain storage bag retailer Neeralta. Sales of their bags  white tubes up to 300 feet now littering Midwest fields  are up 30 percent from a year ago.

The demand has been huge, Wierenga said. We are sold out.

HIGHER FEES

Farmers are feeling the pinch. Those in central Illinois could pay up to 40 percent more than in previous years to store crops over the coming weeks, agricultural consultant Matt Bennett estimated.

That amounts to between 3 cents to 6 cents a bushel, Bennett said, a painful expense for a crop that was already expected to deliver little income to farmers.

Storage rates are swinging wildly, depending on the elevator location. Grain dealers at rivers typically charge more than their inland counterparts because they are more dependent on export markets.

At some Midwest river terminals, farmers were paying 60 cents a bushel to store soybeans until the end of the year  more than twice as much as a year ago. Some commercial terminals are charging farmers to just drop off their soybeans.

The trade war has only exacerbated the strain on storage, which has been a persistent problem in recent years due largely to a worldwide oversupply of grains.

Even before this falls harvest, around 20 percent of total grain storage available in the U.S. was full with corn, soybeans and wheat from previous harvests, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That was the highest in 12 years for this time of year.

Some grain merchants are also charging additional fees for farmers who deliver less-than-perfect soybeans, said Russell Altom, a soybean farmer and senior vice president of agricultural lending at Relyance Bank in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Ive never seen things this bad, Altom said. I know several farmers who hired lawyers, to see if they can sue over the pricing and fees issues.

Eric Maupin, a farmer in Newbern, Tennessee, said he was facing so-called dockage rates of between 60 cents at $1.20 per bushels at Bunge Elevators in his area  more than three times as high as a year ago.

Damage can be anything  a split bean, one thats too small, one thats too big  whatever, Maupin said.

Some farmers are pulling farm equipment out of barns to make room for the overflow of grains.

After packing nearly half a million bushels of corn and soybeans in their usual steel bins, Terry Honselman and his family found some additional space in 35-year-old shed on their Casey, Illinois, farm.

Most years, the building protects farm equipment and bags of seed. Now, it is stuffed with 75,000 bushels of corn.

Like others, Honselman is banking on a resolution to the trade war before this spring  when he says he will need the space back for his planting supplies.

(Reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago and Casey, Illinois; and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, Simon Webb and Paul Thomasch)
Military officials from the Pentagon were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and disclosed to members of Congress how much Donald Trumps latest political prank is costing U.S. taxpayers, the Associated Press reported.

According to the Pentagon, the deployment of active military and national guard troops to the U.S./Mexico border will cost approximately $210 million. This total includes $72 million for nearly 6,000 active-duty troops recently sent to the border to support Customs and Border Protection. It also includes $138 million (so far) for over 2,0000 national guard troops who have been performing a border mission since April.

The information is included in a report given to Congress on Tuesday but not released to the public. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report, however, and published the information it contained. After the AP story was published the Pentagon then released a public statement which confirmed the active-duty portion of the deployments is estimated at $72 million. But the new statement did not mention the $138 million in National Guard costs.

The total costs for troops at the border will grow beyond the current combined estimate of $210 million if the active-duty mission is extended beyond the current completion date of Dec. 15. Officials said an extension appeared likely but had not yet been agreed upon.

We reported yesterday:

All the troops should be home by Christmas, as originally expected, Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in an interview Monday.

Our end date right now is 15 December, and Ive got no indications from anybody that well go beyond that, said Buchanan, who leads the land forces of U.S. Northern Command.

The AP reported that the Pentagon is working on an adjustment to the original mission that would give the active-duty troops who are operating in Texas, Arizona and California the authority to defend Customs and Border Protection personnel if necessary.

The troops, who include military police, are currently authorized to defend themselves.

About 2,800 of the active-duty troops are in South Texas, far from the main migrant caravan in Tijuana, Mexico, south of California.

The movement of the Central American migrants into Mexico in October was the stated reason that President Donald Trump ordered the military to provide support for Customs and Border Protection.

Trump called the migrant caravan of woman and children an invasion. Some of his critics include retired military officers who have said he used the military deployment as a political tool in advance of the November 6 midterm elections.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said Tuesday the Pentagons cost report shows the mission was a charade.

These soldiers spent weeks away from home and the Pentagon wasted millions of taxpayer dollars so President Trump could stoke fears of asylum seekers and try to influence election results, Feinstein said. Using our military men and women as political pawns to support an anti-immigrant agenda is a low point, even for this president.

On Tuesday, Trump said he was sure the troops are happy to be on the border mission, even though it means being away from home over Thanksgiving.

Dont worry about the Thanksgiving. These are tough people, Trump told reporters before flying to Florida. They know what theyre doing and theyre great and theyve done a great job. Youre so worried about the Thanksgiving holiday for them. They are so proud to be representing our country on the border where if you look at whats happening, Mexico, the people from Tijuana are saying, wow these are tough people. Theyre fighting us.
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Anthony Scaramucci  the shortest-serving White House communications director in history  claims that he has special insights into the source of a series of leaks that have come from the White House recently. According to Mooch (as he is called) the leaks came from former White House Counsel Don McGahn.

And Mooch says that McGahn became disgruntled and started leaking to the press because he was upset that he didnt receive a farewell party when he left the White House. McGahn was fired by Trump and left the Trump administration in October.

Scaramucci was on CNNs Cuomo Prime Time Tuesday night alleging that McGahn was behind a series of leaks, although he did not make clear how he reached this conclusion.

Examples he gave of leaks from McGahn were the newly-released report that Trumps daughter Ivanka Trump had used personal email accounts for official business, and that the New York Times story that Trump had ordered an investigation of Hillary Clinton and James Comey.

For some reason, I think hes upset he didnt get a farewell party from the president  Scaramucci told Cuomo.

When Scaramucci said that leaking is wrong, and leakers are disloyal, Cuomo replied that maybe the leakers are loyal to the country.

I wholly and totally disagree with that, Chris, Scaramucci responded. I said it to Jake Tapper, the notion these people need to protect the country from the president is a bunch of nonsense.

During the show they discussed at length the Monday New York Times story in which McGahn reportedly talked Trump out of ordering the investigation and prosecution of former rivale Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.

According to the report, McGahn received numerous requests from the president to instruct the Justice Department to prosecute Clinton for her use of private email servers while serving as Secretary of State. While campaigning, Trump had said Clinton should be jailed for her email problems, leading his crowds to chant lock her up.

Let me tell you something, I have been in situations with the president, so has other people inside the administration, hell cough something, hell say something and youre like, All right, hes just blowing off steam. Okay? He wasnt  he wasnt pushing to prosecute those people, Scaramucci claimed.

It smells to me like the leak came from McGahn, Scaramucci claimed. For some reason, I think hes upset he didnt get a farewell party from the president.

CNN host Cuomo was buying Moochs argument, and replied in amazement:

Anthony, come on. This is the second time he had to write a memo to the president that we know about saying, Mr. President, please dont do this, back off, its crazy, youll get impeached. Dont do it.

But Scaramucci didnt give in, saying:

He wasnt  look, we all know that have worked for the president on the campaign, in the staff, when hes blowing off steam when he means something. This is some kind of retribution by McGahn to the president. The president has obviously figured out that he wasnt 100 percent loyal to him.

The truth is that Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with Robert Mueller and told the special counsel everything he knows. He did this to protect himself legally. He also took steps to protect the country from the craziness of dictator wannabe Donald Trump.

What Scaramucci said about McGahn wanting a farewell party is beyond ridiculous. But it does show that he is still trying to flatter and defend the president, and will go to any length to try to get on Donald Trumps good side.
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For the first time in its history, the Medical University of South Carolina is buying other hospitals.

The MUSC board voted late Monday to buy four of them  one each in Lancaster, Chester, Florence and Mullins  for an undisclosed price.

The deal, which is scheduled to close by March 31, would expand MUSC's reach to almost every corner of the state. It was largely viewed Tuesday as a positive sign for rural and underserved communities that will be directly affected by the change in ownership.

At least one state expert said it's not surprising that MUSC is in a buying mode. Mergers and acquisitions have become a strategy for health providers to strengthen their purchasing power with vendors and exercise more control over each portion of their patients' care.

"If you look around the national marketplace, it shouldn't be surprising at all," said Thornton Kirby, president and CEO of the S.C. Hospital Association.

MUSC already is competing with other large-scale systems in the state, such as Roper St, Francis and Trident Health in the Charleston area. Many are looking at ways to expand their reach.

For instance, Greenville Health System and Palmetto Health recently announced a new name for their consolidated operation  Prisma. Together, those systems have 2,800 beds. And one of Prisma's two CEOs said the venture is setting its sights beyond South Carolina.

Meanwhile, MUSC patients have historically had to travel from every corner of South Carolina for the highly specialized care that, in many cases, is only offered in Charleston. Now, MUSC will have an outpost about 175 miles away from its home base, near Charlotte, and several other locations.

In a statement late Monday, Dr. David Cole, the president of MUSC, said the acquisitions are part of the emerging MUSC Health network.

A document authorizing the purchase of Springs Memorial Hospital in Lancaster, Chester Regional Medical Center in Chester, Carolinas Hospital System in Florence and Carolinas Hospital System-Marion in Mullins said that MUSC also has agreed to buy nearby clinics and other ancillary services.

No state funds will be used, according to MUSC, but the financing method has not been approved or disclosed.

Once the acquisition is finalized, MUSC will employ about 16,400 workers. The purchase will double the medical university's bed count, not counting the future 250- and 150-bed hospitals planned for the Charleston region.

"We recognize the need for high-quality, low-acuity hospitals for patients in other parts of the state," MUSC spokeswoman Heather Woolwine said in a statement. "Supporting and enabling the best care locally is not only the right thing to do, but also a necessity. By adding these four hospitals to the MUSC Health network, we will enhance access to our top-quality health care in more convenient locations for Upstate and Pee Dee patients and families."

The medical centers also "will provide training sites for generations of health care providers," she added.

Kirby of the state hospital association said the deal provides some relief to the residents who use the four hospitals and the workers who staff them.

"It provides a stabilizing force and some clarity in the face of uncertainty. They want to know that they're going to have a hospital," he said.

The seller is Community Health Systems, a large, publicly traded medical chain based in Tennessee that has operated in South Carolina since its purchase of Springs Memorial in 1994. It will be exiting the state once the MUSC sale is finalized.

Sate Rep. Mandy Powers Norrell of Lancaster said she had no idea her local hospital was for sale.

"I didnt know they are in the hospital buying business," she said of MUSC. "For my community, Im glad."

She said she hopes the change in ownership will bring down patient prices at Springs Memorial, which is among the U.S. hospitals with the highest charges to Medicare, The Herald reported.

Graham Adams, CEO of the S.C. Office of Rural Health, said he was especially happy to learn MUSC has agreed to buy the smaller medical centers in Chester and Lancaster. He noted that hospitals can serve as an "anchor" for pharmacies, physician practices and other services.

"We're optimistic that these hospitals will experience greater financial viability by being part of the MUSC system," Adams said.
Is this your 2020 GOP ticket? Not likely. President Donald Trump with U.S. Ambassador United Nations Nikki Haley when she announced her pending departure from the post earlier this month. File/Evan Vucci/AP
Gregory Yee covers the city of Charleston. He's a native Angeleno and previously covered crime and courts for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA. He studied journalism and Spanish literature at the University of California, Irvine.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  Another round of Christmas bonuses for some government employees are going to be released, provided that their agency is taking part in cost-cutting measures.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said qualified government employees may expect to receive another cash incentive not earlier than December 15 this year.

The incentive will be taken from the collective negotiation agreement (CNA), the equivalent of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in private firms.

"A CNA incentive may be granted to both management and rank-and-file employees with approved and successfully implemented CNAs," Budget Secretary Ben Diokno said in his regular press briefing Wednesday.

The incentive will be available to both management and rank-and-file employees, but only if the agency meets the qualifications under the DBM's circular.

"The CNA is a recognition of the worker's efforts in accomplishing performance targets at lesser cost, and in attaining more efficient and viable operations through cost-cutting measures and systems improvements," he said.

Diokno added the incentive amount government employees will get is not fixed, considering that the funds will depend on the amount of money saved from cost-cutting measures of the agency.

"We kind of stagger the release of the bonuses, so they don't run out of money before Christmas," Diokno said.

The CNA incentive is on top of the 14th month pay and cash bonuses government personnel will get.
Joseph Cranney is an investigative reporter in Columbia, with a focus on government corruption and injustices in the criminal legal system. He can be reached securely by Proton mail at jcranney@prontonmail.com or on Signal at 215-285-9083.
Fifth district Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson confers with colleagues during a hearing in Richland County Court. Johnson was indicted Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, on more than two dozen charges related to the misspending of public funds on trips to foreign countries including the Netherlands and the Galapagos Islands. One of Johnson's top aides pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday. File/Tracy Glantz/The State via AP
Turkey time is here, and while those toms taste great, off the plate theyve also spawned their own literary form: the turkey note.

If you didnt grow up in Davenport, Iowa, you probably only think of it as that place where the state looks like a nose being stuck into the Mississippi River. But but folk lore says Davenport also birthed the Thanksgiving tradition of turkey notes.

Turkey notes are short poems put at each Thanksgiving guests place. For proper presentation, turkey notes should be rolled in colored construction or tissue paper and fastened in the middle or at each end with string, ribbon, or tape. This way, the notes are a surprise when they are read aloud in front of all the guests before the meal begins.

My mom, Celeste, passed away a few years ago, but as anyone who ever attended one of her Thanksgiving smorgasbords can attest, she never failed to please the tables of 20 to 25 who attended our family gatherings. Shed make everything from marshmallow-smothered yams to pecan pies. With her busy in the kitchen before the feast, my elder sister Faith, my younger sister Claire, and I were kept occupied crafting the dozens of turkey notes required by all those guests. My dad, Dennis, a poet, assisted with the occasional rhyme and the frequent spelling correction.

For the turkey note purist, each poem should consist of four lines. The first two should include a turkey and a color, the third line is always, "Turkey says," and the final line rhymes with the second line. Sometimes turkey notes tease, and sometimes they express love, or gratitude, but theyre always silly.

A traditional turkey note might read like this:

Turkey magenta

Turkey tangerine

Turkey says

"Youre a beauty queen"

My sister Faith offers this one from the family archives:

Turkey brown

Turkey white

Turkey says,

"Eat with might!"

Over time, the poems have transformed, and different families have their own slightly different traditions. I frequently like to make the first two lines include related items rather than colors. For instance,

Turkey trombone

Turkey slide

Turkey says,

"Take a jazz ride."

Its always the most fun when each note has a theme that somehow relates specifically to its intended reader.

Legend has it that turkey notes first appeared in Davenport during the late 1800s. Some credit their invention to a single family who hosted a big feed and sent its guests away with the idea. Others attribute the notes to a local teachers class project. Its also been suggested that the tradition originated with the towns newly arrived German immigrants.

However the tradition started, my wife, Beth, who also grew up in Davenport, and I have brought the tradition with us to Rochester. Our daughters Eleanor, 11, and Abigail, 8, help make turkey notes every year. Heres a sample of one of our family favorites written by Eleanor:

Turkey tart

Turkey fart

Turkey says,

"I love you with all my heart."

The great thing about Thanksgiving is it offers the chance to consider blessings. Ive been blessed with a family that nurtures creativity, and turkey notes are just one of the ways Im able to look back and remember the loving environment my mom created at all the great family gatherings she hosted.

Though turkey notes might be a bit goofy, they certainly create a way to bring any group of people together before sharing a meal, and Im glad to pass this tradition on to my own children. Lets all gobble together.
A POST-NATIVE PERSPECTIVE

I do not understand why people subject themselves to the horrors of holiday travel. Youd think by now I would, but it becomes more perplexing Read more
Tropical Storm Man-Yi has caused the postponement of the Salvation Army Guam Corps' free annual Thanksgiving Feast, which was supposed to take place today.

The feast will instead be held from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday at the Salvation Army's Guam headquarters in Tiyan. The facility is located after the Guam Environmental Protection Agency office and before Tiyan High School.

The postponement was decided as the island moved into Condition of Readiness 2, stated Maj. Tom Stambaugh, Salvation Army Guam Corps officer and Micronesia coordinator.

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This year will be the 22nd annual Salvation Army Thanksgiving Feast, which has never before been postponed or canceled, Stambaugh said.

More than 1,300 meals were served at last year's event, and around the same number are expected this year.

A major portion of food initially prepared for Thursday will be kept in a cold container at the Salvation Army office until Sunday.

Quality Distributors on Wednesday afternoon had donated nearly 5,000 pounds of canned luncheon meat and 10,000 pounds of rice to the Salvation Army for Thanksgiving, according to sales and marketing manager Ed Lai.

Donations, volunteers still welcome

Thanksgiving donations are still welcome at the Salvation Army's Tiyan headquarters. Volunteers are still urged to help serve on Sunday.

The event initially was planned for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Chamorro Village in Hagatna.

"Those who would still like a Thanksgiving meal can come to Tiyan where we'll have a meal waiting for you," Stambaugh said.
AMITY  Amity Police are investigating after a suspect broke into a local pizzeria and made off with money from a tip jar and the cash register.

Police said the burglary occurred at Oliverios Pizza, 101 Park Lane, Douglassville, during the overnight hours on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018.

The suspect made entry into the business by using a rock to smash out the glass on the front door. Once inside, the suspect took the cash register drawer and a tip jar. The suspect appeared to be wearing a hoodie, glasses, gloves and a shirt tied around his/her face.

Anyone with information on the burglary or who can identify the suspect is asked to submit an anonymous tip to Crime Alert Berks County.

Cash rewards are available up to $10,000 if the tip leads to an arrest. Anonymous tips may be submitted by either calling 1(877) 373-9913, downloading the ALERTBERKS app on your mobile device, or by using your mobile phone to text tips to 847411 and typing ALERTBERKS + your tip. Additional information may be found at alertberks.org or contact Amity Township Police Detective Michael DiMaria at 610-689-6000 ext. 235.
COLLEGEVILLE  Perkiomen Valley School District is looking for feedback on its newest idea involving full-day kindergarten.

The district is conducting a study under the leadership of its Curriculum and Instruction team to investigate the idea of full-day kindergarten for all students, and part of this process involves collecting feedback from district stakeholders.

District residents are invited to take a few minutes to complete a short online survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LY3KGVL) to share their thoughts. The survey is open to all members of the Perkiomen Valley community. It is important for the district to hear from both parents and community members who do not have children in our schools.

A committee has been formed to understand the purpose, need, potential costs, and planning of full day kindergarten. To date, committee meetings have focused on the purpose and scope of committee work and research review. The next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 5 at 6:30 p.m. in the high school library.

Anyone interested in participating in this committee may contact Mrs. Laurie Smith, Assistant to the Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction, for information. Email: lsmith@pvsd.org.

Residents can also stay informed of the progress of the committee by visiting the Full Day mKindergarten Review webpage.
President Trumps decision to continue backing the Saudi regime even after it had Jamal Khashoggi murdered has brought criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Thats to be expected. However, the criticism Ive seen so far is superficial and, in at least one case, dishonest.

Lets begin with the dishonest criticism. The Committee to Protect Journalists said this:

If you boil the White House statement down to its essence, President Trump has just asserted that if you do enough business with the U.S., you are free to murder journalists. Thats an appalling message to send to Saudi Arabia and the world.

Thats inaccurate. The White House statement cited U.S. several interests in support of its decision, not just the business the Saudis do with America. A committee to protect journalists should have done a better job of journalism.

Now lets turn to the superficial criticism. Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted:

Our foreign policy must be about promoting our national interests. It is in our natl interest to defend human rights. HR violations lead to mass migration, help extremism flourish & often result in new governments hostile towards the U.S. because we supported their oppressors.

I agree that defending human rights is one of our national interests. However, it should be balanced with our other national interests, especially our interest in opposing bitter enemies like Iran. Thats what President Trump has done.

Its true that human rights violations can lead to mass migration and increased extremism. And, yes, sometimes they can result in new governments that resent us for having supported an oppressive predecessor.

However, these concerns have very little applicability to Khashoggis case. The murder of one dissident (or even several) isnt going to spark mass migration the way Assads mass murder in Syria has. Nor is it likely to fuel extremism, especially given Khashoggis role in past authoritarian Saudi governments.

As for producing a hostile regime, the question is what type of future Saudi regime. If a radical regime takes over one day, its grievances with America will be so numerous and deeply felt that the murder of Khashoggi will be irrelevant. So too if, against all odds, true democrats come to power.

If the authoritarian faction with which Khashoggi was aligned comes to power, his execution may have some relevance. But even in that scenario, the U.S. will either be able make or deal with that regime based on mutual interests or it wont. The new ruling faction is unlikely to let sentimental feelings about Khashoggi stand in the way.

The Washington Post is, of course, outraged over Trumps decision. Its publisher says:

President Trump is correct in saying the world is a very dangerous place. His surrender to this state-ordered murder will only make it more so.

For whom? As discussed above, the decision is unlikely to make it a more dangerous place for the United States.

In an editorial, the Post concludes that the alternative to the U.S. holding the current Saudi regime accountable for killing Khashoggi is a world where dictators know they can murder their critics and suffer no consequences.

The Saudi regime likely will suffer some relatively minor consequences. A world in which dictators suffer no major consequences for murdering critics is the world as it is and has always been.

Were creeping towards a world in which dictators sometimes suffer major consequences for mass murder. A world in which the murder of one critic causes another nation to reverse its national security policy and inflict economic damage on itself is another matter.

There is no moral imperative that the U.S. try to usher in such a world, and the promotion of American interests militates against doing so in this case.
Jamal Khashoggi the myth is the guy we read about in the Washington Post  fearless democrat, opponent of tyranny. Jamal Khashoggi the man is more like the guy Joseph Duggan writes about in American Greatness  a charming, cynical Saudi power player for whom democracy was an ends to a means, at best.

Thats why even the New York Times could not quite go along with the version of Khashoggi the Post has been peddling.

Duggan says this about his lunch encounter with Khashoggi in 2012:

[Khashoggi] and I understood one another. Just as I did not commit the absurdity of claiming to be an independent energy issues writer who by pure coincidence happened to be on the payroll of the Saudi governments oil company, he made no pretense that Al-Arab [the network he was launching] would be an enterprise in independent journalism. There was, and there still is, no such thing as independent journalism in Saudi Arabia. Al-Arab was intended as an elaborate influence operation to project Saudi power just as Al Jazeera projects Qatari power.

In other words, Khashoggi wasnt a journalist or a democrat; he was a propagandist for an authoritarian regime. Did he ever become a genuine democrat? Duggan doesnt think so:

Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia in late 2017, the same time that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detained Khashoggis patron Prince Alwaleed and other royal and non-royal oligarchs at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton on allegations of corruption. Khashoggi soon was writing occasional columns for the Washington Post. Now that his faction of the royal family was on the outs, he had undergone an epiphany. He had discovered the desirability of respect for human rights, and even democracy! In his Post articles he waged a persistent campaign of criticism of the crown prince. Was the new Khashoggi a lonely, idealistic individual or the instrument of Saudi factions in opposition to the ascendant crown prince? Common sense would suggest theres greater probability in the latter thesis.

(Emphasis added)

What, then, was the nature of Khashoggis relationship with the Post? Duggan describes it this way:

Khashoggi, and whoever were his masters in the campaign opposing Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were in a transactional relationship with the Washington Post. They used the Post to undermine their rival and elevate their status. The Post in turn used Khashoggi for its ends of virtue-signaling and accumulating the sort of prestige and power it values. The Post and Team Khashoggi were cooperating, consciously and I daresay cynically, in influence operations for their mutual benefit.

I think Duggan is certainly correct about Khashoggis purposes. The description of the Posts may be too harsh. What Duggan calls virtue signaling might be a genuine desire to see the Middle East become more democratic.

It may well be true, as Duggan says, that there is no democracy movement in Saudi Arabia, or any culture to support democracy there. Certainly, Khashoggis faction was not part of a democracy movement.

But theres nothing wrong with the Post calling for democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia and running op-ed pieces by Khashoggi in support of this call. (Duggan hints that there may be some dark purpose, beyond virtue signaling, that underlies the Posts decision to call for democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia, but he doesnt say what that dark purpose might be).

There is something wrong, though, with the Posts dishonest lionization of Khashoggi. As Duggan concludes:

Jamal Khashoggi, while possibly having been a decent human being regardless of what he actually did for a living, definitely was a man to whom democracy, and the culture necessary for democracy, were alien. . . . Big Medias constant description of Khashoggi as having been a mere journalist is a huge and consequential deception. Its not clear exactly for whom or for what powers and interests Khashoggi was working when he wrote his Washington Post columns, but anyone who understands how the world operates should have a high degree of confidence in saying that he was never a journalist in the sense that word is understood in the free nations of the West. Of course, he had the writing, editing and broadcasting skills of a journalist, but so do a myriad of other foreign intelligence agents around the world who use journalism as a coverand in the case of publishing or broadcasting enterprises owned by authoritarian governments, its a completely see-through cover. To mischaracterize Khashoggi as having been a journalist is a disservice to the few independent journalists who remain on the planet. Its a dishonor to women and men who dont have lavish lifestyles and who report with integrity without being agents of foreign governments. The Washington Post, which has a direct pipeline to the CIA that bypasses the White House, knows this all too well. . . . Jamal Khashoggi was a lively, attractive, interesting human being. No one deserves his cruel fate. His murder was a horrific crime, not only against one man but also against stability and security in the Middle East. That said, justice is not served by Big Medias misleading reporting. Justice requires reporting clearly and honestly who and what Khashoggi really was.

The man, not the myth.
Some various feel good and absurd stories ahead of the holiday turkey shoot:

 This is one of my favorite things about Bulgaria:

Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes Russia is demanding that Bulgaria try harder to prevent vandalism of Soviet monuments, after yet another monument to Soviet troops in Sofia was spray-painted, ITAR-Tass reported. The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria has issued a note demanding that its former Soviet-era ally clean up the monument in Sofias Lozenets district, identify and punish those responsible, and take exhaustive measures to prevent similar attacks in the future, the news agency reported Monday. . . The vandalism was the latest in a series of similar recent incidents in Bulgaria  each drawing angry criticism from Moscow

 Another tale of idealism gone wrong:

American killed by an isolated tribe on remote Indian island PORT BLAIR (Reuters)  A young American adventurer and evangelist visiting one of the islands in Indias remote cluster of Andaman and Nicobar has been killed by a tribe of hunter-gatherers who live there isolated from the outside world, police said on Wednesday. The North Sentinel Island, which is out of bounds for visitors, is home to the Sentinelese community, believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world.

According to another news account, the adventurer was shot through with arrows. Reminds me of my favorite lines from the opening chapter of Evelyn Waughs Scoop:

Various courageous Europeans in the seventies of the last century came to Ishmaelia, or near it, furnished with suitable equipment of cuckoo clocks, phonographs, opera hats, draft treaties and flags of the nations which they had been obliged to leave. They came as missionaries, ambassadors, tradesmen, prospectors, natural scientists. None returned. They were eaten, every one of them; some raw, others stewed and seasonedaccording to local usage and the calendar (for the better sort of Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will not publicly eat human flesh, uncooked, in Lent, without special and costly dispensation from their bishop).

I wonder how many trigger warnings youd need if you assigned this in a college literature class?

 So apparently Sir David Attenborough is going to speak for the people at an upcoming UN Climate Summit. And just how did he come to speak on behalf of the people? Did he win some kind of popular election? A bit odd isnt it that a supposed representative of the people would be someone referred to by a title of nobility. Who says noblesse oblige is dead?

Meanwhile, Trump is once again showing his trolling grandmaster chops:

Exclusive: At U.N. climate talks, Trump team plans sideshow on coal WASHINGTON (Reuters)  The Trump administration plans to set up a side-event promoting fossil fuels at the annual U.N. climate talks next month, repeating a strategy that infuriated global-warming activists during last years talks, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. As with the 2017 gathering in Bonn, Germany, the administration plans to highlight the benefits of technologies that more efficiently burn fuels including coal, the sources said.

 But but but. . . What about the infant girls who want boys milk, and vice-versa?

Baby boys and girls receive different nutrients in breast milk Baby formula should be tailored for boys and girls to reflect the differences in milk that mothers produce depending on their babys sex, researchers say. Tests on mothers milk in both monkeys and humans have showed that levels of fat, protein, vitamins, sugars, minerals and hormones vary enormously, but there is evidence that milk made for female and male babies is consistently different. The make-up of the milk has a direct impact on the childs growth, but also on his or her behaviour and temperament, which may last for the rest of their life. Scientists suspect that breast milk may be tailored by nature to meet the different growth needs of the sexes.

Those scientists who suggest that nature may actually exist are in a lot of trouble. Apparently nature* didnt get the memo from the office of diversity and inclusion that gender is a social construct.

* Im guessing that the old term mother nature is punishable by flogging these days.
The vote counting in California congressional races continued until Democrats carried every district in Orange County. The Democrats flipped four seats formerly held by Republicans in the county. The last of the four races to be called yielded the victory of Democrat Gil Cisneros over Republican Young Kim (who held the lead on election night). The AP reports the result and looks back here.

What happened? In the American Spectator column Electoral Three-Card Monte: How The Democrats Stole Orange County, Dov Fischer attributes the outcome to cheating by Democrats in a state where Democrats hold all the levers of power. Fischer points out that Republicans are lucky to participate in elections where they have the choice of a Republican candidate, but his column is otherwise lacking in what we might recognize evidence to support his thesis.

In one of the Wall Street Journals daily email newsletters, Andrew Duehren makes an empirical observation that comports with the facts: The extinction of Congressional Republicans in Richard Nixons home county is a culmination of years of change, according to David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. An increasingly educated and nonwhite population in the county generally favors Democrats, a trend bolstered by broad backlash to President Trump. Mitt Romney beat former President Obama by almost 10 percentage points in the county in 2012, but Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in 2016, becoming the first Democrat to win there since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Duehren quotes Wasserman: Trump has accelerated Orange Countys trend towards Democrats. His weakest group of voters are nonwhites and whites with college degrees. Those two groups are overrepresented in Orange County compared to the nation as a whole.

California has rapidly evolved into a state of essentially one party. One can only hope that it does not represent the wave of the dystopian future.
President Trump today announced that, notwithstanding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region. The essence of Trumps explanation for the decision is contained in the first sentence: The world is a dangerous place!

Elaborating on this obvious but oft-neglected truth, Trump cited our interest in working with Saudi Arabia to combat Iran and terrorism. He also pointed to our economic interest in not blowing up relations with the Saudis  e.g., by canceling large contracts. He explained that if we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business. In addition, Trump noted Saudi Arabias role as the second largest oil producing nation in the world.

As to Saudi responsibility for Khashoggis murder, Trump professed agnosticism, not very persuasively:

King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event  maybe he did and maybe he didnt! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi.

But the key point, according to Trump, is that our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Thats a bit facile, I think. When dealing with a dictatorship like Saudi Arabia, the relationship is always with the ruling dictator, not just with the nation he rules.

One can pick at portions of Trumps statement, but I agree with his decision. Authoritarian regimes all over the world kill dissidents and/or activists with rival factions. Russia has killed some. That didnt stop Obama-Clinton from resetting relations with Putin and making concessions to him. Nor should it have done, if Putin could have been trusted to reciprocate.

He couldnt be, but the Saudis under Mohammad bin Salman can. Indeed, as Trump says, they have.

Under these circumstances, it would not be wise to blow up a valuable geopolitical relationship over the murder of one member of an out-of-power Saudi faction. Not in a world as dangerous as ours.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-21 13:01:51

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Whittier, USA  21 November 2018  All Swiss Watch is ready to offer the largest assortment of the swiss replica watch for the best prices on the market.It is hardly possible to imagine a better gift than a pair of Swiss watches. It truly is a luxurious, meaningful gift and one that will prove to be genuinely stylish, unique and original in all the right ways. Yet, Swiss watches tend to cost a fortune, especially from the worldwide known brands. Which is why buying one would prove to be problematic, to say the least. Well, it does not have to be  the audemars piguet replica watch collection is already waiting for you.All Swiss Watch is a one of a kind online store focusing on the best replicas on the market. These replicas are completely realistic and come with all the right details to make them look and feel like the real deal. However, they do not cost a small fortune. And the best thing about it  cheap does not imply inferior. If you are looking for the hublot replica watch that will allow you to really make the ideal gift to your friend or loved one, you will not have to break the bank. Moreover, the assortment is genuinely huge, so no matter what kind of watch you are going to choose, you are going to get the most from the deal. Only a qualified as well as genuinely experienced watchmaker is going to be able to tell that it is a replica  otherwise the watches are 100% authentic and have all the signs of the real ones. The swiss replica watch will look good and will provide you with a much needed elevated status that you desire so much. So, if you are looking for a gift to yourself or your loved ones, this really is it!The collection includes all of the top rated replicas of the best models out there and there is plenty to choose from. The shipping and delivery are also pretty much flawless, so you will be able to get your replica in no time at all.About All Swiss Watch:All Swiss Watch is an online store, focusing solely on delivering the very best replicas of the top rated Swiss watches for the most affordable prices on the market. Regardless of your budget, this is the ideal way to make the most from the near perfect present.Contact:Company: Hause WatchesContact name: Keisha GomesAddress: 30 Hampshire Dr, Warminster , PA 18974, USEmail: sales@ allswisswatch.eu Phone: 1-424-444-0255Website: https://www.allswisswatch.eu
PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-21 14:37:18

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Gainey Capital Corp. (TSX-V: GNC) (OTC PINK: GNYPF) ("Gainey" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") on the Las Margaritas Option Agreement signed with First Mining Gold Corp. ("FMG") on August 2, 2018. A requirement of conditional approval was the submission by the Company and approval by the TSXV of the NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Las Margaritas concession, which has now occurred. The Report was authored by David Dupre/QP and John Wilson/QP. The Company will now complete the necessary requirements to receive full approval from the TSXV within the next 30 days.David Coburn, Gainey CEO commented "Receiving TSXV approval on the 43-101 Report is a major step in moving forward with Las Margaritas. We can now focus on completing the transaction with FMG and moving our exploration strategy forward." About Gainey Capital Corp.Gainey is a gold and silver exploration, development and ore processing company exploring an aggregate of 14,000+ hectares strategically located in the gold/silver-rich Sierra Madre Occidental Trend in western Mexico. The Company's mill, located on its El Colomo property, is capable of processing up to 300 tons of ore per day. Additional information on Gainey, its current operations and its vision, is available on the Company's website at www.gaineycapital.com or from info@ gaineycapital.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS"David Coburn"David Coburn, Chief Executive OfficerFor information, please contact the Company:Phone: 480-347-8904E-mail: info@ gaineycapital.com Website: www.gaineycapital.com FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date such statements were made. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) has reviewed or accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release.SOURCE: Gainey Capital Corp.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-21 14:33:53

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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Grid Metals Corp. (TSX-V: GRDM) (OTC PINK: MSMGF) ("Grid" or "the Company") today announced an update of activities at its Makwa Mayville Nickel Copper Cobalt PGE project. The project is located in the Bird River Greenstone Belt of southeastern Manitoba. Grid completed a National Instrument 43-101 compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") of the Makwa Mayville Project which was published in April 2014. The mining plan in the PEA envisages mining from the Mayville and Makwa deposits with ore trucked to a central processing plant.Nickel Cobalt Metallurgical ProgramNickel recoveries used in the PEA were 73% of the nickel mined and processed from Makwa and 41% of the nickel mined and processed from Mayville. A key recommendation of the 2014 PEA was to complete additional metallurgical test work in order to attempt to improve the nickel recovery from the Mayville Deposit and also to test the potential to produce a higher quality nickel concentrate.Accordingly a mineralogical and metallurgical test program to address nickel recovery has been commenced. The program will also review the potential recovery of cobalt from Mayville. (No revenues from cobalt from the Mayville Deposit were included in the PEA ) Ian Ward P. Eng. is overseeing the program as a consultant to the Company. The test program is being conducted under contract with XPS Expert Process Solutions ("XPS"), a Sudbury based technical consultancy and testing firm. XPS has extensive experience in flowsheet development and nickel - copper - cobalt ores.Mayille LithiumThe Company has also completed a drill program on its Mayville Lithium Project Main Dyke. Results are pending and will be reported under separate cover. Drill holes were completed over a strike length of 775 meters. The focus of the program is to examine the potential for producing a high value spodumene concentrate product. The Main Dyke is one of four known lithium bearing pegmatites on the Mayville Property. The Main Dyke and Northwest Dyke together host a historical resource of 3.8 million tons grading 1.28% Li2O. (Source: Manitoba Mineral Inventory File #229. Resources are historical in nature and not NI 43-101 compliant. The Company does not consider the historical resource estimate as a current resource estimate and is not relying on the historical resource estimate as a current resource estimate until such time as a Qualified Person has reviewed and confirmed the data. )Iron-Chromite-Titanium-Vanadium SamplingThe Company has initiated an initial sampling program of drill core to test for magnetite hosted vanadium mineralization that may be associated with the layered complex at the Red Cloud area of the Mayville Property. A total of seventy five samples have been submitted for analysis.To find out more about Grid Metals, please visit our website at www.gridmetalscorp.com On Behalf of the Board of Grid Metals Corp.Robin Dunbar - President, CEO & DirectorTelephone: 416-955-4773Email: rd@ gridmetalscorp.com We seek safe harbour.This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and forward-looking information within the meaning of the Securities Act (Ontario) (together, "forward-looking statements"). Such forward-looking statements may include the Company's plans for its properties, the overall economic potential of its properties, the availability of adequate financing and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements to be materially different. Such factors include, among others, risks and uncertainties relating to potential political risk, uncertainty of production and capital costs estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses, physical risks inherent in mining operations, metallurgical risk, currency fluctuations, fluctuations in the price of nickel, cobalt, copper and other metals, completion of economic evaluations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, the inability or failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis, and other risks and uncertainties, including those described in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the most recent financial period and Material Change Reports filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor it Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.SOURCE: Grid Metals Corp.
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GUADALAJARA, JALISCO, MEXICO / ACCESSWIRE / November 20, 2018 / Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE: PAC; BMV: GAP) (the "Company" or "GAP") announced that today the Company made the payment of Ps. 3.81 (THREE PESOS 81/100 M.N.) per outstanding share, which belongs to the second and final portion of the dividend, as approved at the Annual General Ordinary Shareholders' Meeting held on April 25, 2018.The second portion of the dividend payment is equivalent to Ps. 2,002,442,834.00 (TWO BILLION TWO MILLION FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR 00/100 PESOS M.N.).For more information please visit www.aeropuertosgap.com.mx or contact:In MexicoSaul Villarreal Garcia, Chief Financial OfficerAlejandra Soto, IR and Financial PlanningGrupo Aeroportuario de Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V.Tel: 52 (33) 38801100 ext 20294svillarreal@ aeropuertosgap.com.mx asoto@ aeropuertosgap.com.mx In the U.S.Maria Baronai-Advize Corporate CommunicationsTel: 212406 3691/94gap@ i-advize.com Company Description:Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (GAP) operates 12 airports throughout Mexico's Pacific region, including the major cities of Guadalajara and Tijuana, the four tourist destinations of Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, La Paz and Manzanillo, and six other mid-sized cities: Hermosillo, Guanajuato, Morelia, Aguascalientes, Mexicali and Los Mochis. In February 2006, GAP's shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "PAC" and on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "GAP". In April 2015 GAP acquired 100% of Desarrollo de Concesiones Aeroportuarias, S.L., which owns a majority stake of MBJ Airports Limited, a company operating the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica.This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are not historical facts, and are based on management's current view and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance and financial results. The words "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "plans" and similar expressions, as they relate to the company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding the declaration or payment of dividends, the implementation of principal operating and financing strategies and capital expenditure plans, the direction of future operations and the factors or trends affecting financial conditions, liquidity or results of operations are examples of forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. There is no guarantee that the expected events, trends or results will actually occur. The statements are based on many assumptions and factors, including general economic and market conditions, industry conditions, and operating factors. Any changes in such assumptions or factors could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.In accordance with Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and article 42 of the "Ley del Mercado de Valores", GAP has implemented a "whistleblower" program, which allows complainants to anonymously and confidentially report suspected activities that may involve criminal conduct or violations. The telephone number in Mexico, facilitated by a third party that is in charge of collecting these complaints, is 01-800-563-0047. The web site is http://www.lineadedenuncia.com/gap . GAP's Audit Committee will be notified of all complaints for immediate investigation.SOURCE: Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-11-21 14:38:36

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / PDTI first introduced the EAS system to Dr. Fiuza, a Sao Paulo dentist who owns and operates a clinic with 5 dentists about 16 months ago. We have been informed he will be using the EAS system for a complex case involving total upper and lower oral rebuilding. Dr. Fiuza said, "In analyzing this full mouth restoration, my immediate thought was to use the EAS Series. Having been reviewing the systems merits, I feel this is an excellent situation to take advantage of the system's unique features." Dr. Fiuza plans on doing a full write-up on this case and intends to speak on the procedure to various Sao Paulo dental study groups as well as preparing a submission for possible publication.In addition, in the new year we expect to be holding talks with the distributor identified by our Brazilian advisors. This company has already been approached by our advisors to gauge their initial interest and further discussion will continue when they are in Brazil at the start of the year.Brazil is the 3rd largest global market for dental implants and remains one of the fastest growing worldwide with 15% of the world's dentists working there.CEO Erik Siegmund said, "With the first of our trained sale reps now approaching dental offices in the United States and the first of what I expect will be many treatments in case planning beginning now in Brazil, I am very excited to say that Preferred Dental Technologies Inc. is hitting yet another major company milestone." About PDTIPreferred Dental Technologies Inc. (PDTI) has been established to advance development and commercialization of various evolutionary and disruptive technologies in the dental implant industry.MISSION - INNOVATIVE & PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE DENTAL INDUSTRYVisit: www.preferreddentalimplant.com On behalf of Preferred Dental Technologies Inc.Erik SiegmundChief Executive OfficerEmail: info@ prefdent.com Tel: 204.691.3722This news release may contain forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts.Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information in this news release may include, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Neither The Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of The Canadian Securities Exchange accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Preferred Dental Technologies Inc.
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TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / November 21, 2018 / Renforth Resources Inc. (CSE: RFR) ("Renforth" or the "Company") has retained Eagle Geosciences of Rouyn-Noranda to commence permitting to take a bulk sample from the Discovery Veins at New Alger which would be toll processed for recovery. It is planned that the sample will come from an area of each of the two identified veins averaging 1 g/t Au at surface. Renforth has proven that there is free gold within the mineralized vein system which is not visible to the naked eye, therefore it has been concluded that a bulk sample presents the best technique to get a true representation of the grade at, or slightly below, surface of this mineralized vein system. As part of the environmental work required for permitting Eagle Geosciences obtained, during a recent brief snow melt, composite samples of the west and east veins and the barren greywacke.Bulk Sample Target Area with Selected Surface Assays(To view the full-size image, please click here)The Pontiac Vein SystemRenforth has identified, through drill results, geophysics and numerous prospecting and sampling campaigns, at least 3 distinct vein systems in the Pontiac Sediments at New Alger, located south of the Thompson-Cadillac Mine Area Resource on the Cadillac Break. The best defined of these vein horizons is the "Discovery" Vein system, located on high ground approximately 200m south of the mine area, it has been traced over >450m, within which 230m was stripped and comprehensively channel sampled. Stripping and subsequent analysis led to the conclusion that the Discovery Vein system is actually 2 separate veins offset by a fault which runs NW to the western margin of the mine Thompson-Cadillac mine workings. Additionally, historic blast locations were revealed, confirming research suggesting the property was discovered via visible gold at surface in the sediments in 1924, subsequent exploration led to the opening of the mine to the north with the sinking of 2 shafts on visible gold. In the 1930s underground development from the 300 ft. level of the mine drove to the south and drifted west, through the fault, to terminate underground, as best as Renforth can determine using historic level plans, in close proximity to the largest of the historic blast craters stripped on surface. Renforth's sampling of the blast locations did return gold values in blue-black quartz. At present the extent of the Pontiac Vein System has not been quantified and is therefore not included in the Thompson-Cadillac Mine Area Resource (see press release July 17, 2014) on the wholly-owned New Alger Property.Gold in the Pontiac Vein SystemA previously unknown incident of visible gold from drill core in the Pontiac Sediments, located slightly south and east of the extent of Renforth's recent stripping as depicted on the map above, was recently discovered within Renforth's core laydown area. Renforth was relocating and cross stacking core boxes when the geologist noted the presence of visible gold is split core. The core recovered was the witness half of sample #23604 from 38.1m to 39m down the hole in NA-07-04 which assayed 6.73 g/t Au, with no recognition in the log of the presence of visible gold.Moistened Core Sample NA-07-04 Cut (flat) and Round Side of the CoreBulk Sample RationaleRenforth is choosing to proceed with a bulk sample as our comprehensive surface channel program, grab sampling and thin-section analysis of the uncovered vein systems has demonstrated the presence of free gold not necessarily visible to the naked eye, which causes a nugget effect during assaying. Free, or nugget, gold in sample material can be smeared during sample preparation causing issues with the screening sample material is subjected to whereby none, some or all of the nugget material could, or could not, pass through the increasingly fine screens the assay split is subjected to. Generally speaking a "nugget effect" can cause variance in assay results and perhaps not provide an entirely representative assay result. A bulk sample processed on a toll basis for recovery would subject the material to conventional milling and processing technology used within the camp on similar material. It is hoped this will provide a better representation of the presence of gold in the vein system.NSR Sale to Abitibi RoyaltiesRenforth has sold a 1% NSR interest in the New Alger Property to Abitibi Royalties for $190,000. The proceeds of this sale will fund the next drill program at Parbec, expected to commence in the next two weeks.Technical Information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Brian H. Newton P.Geo, a "qualified person" pursuant to the guidelines of 43-101.For further information please contact:Renforth Resources Inc.Nicole BrewsterPresident and Chief Executive OfficerT:905-831-9606E: nicole@ renforthresources.com #269 - 1099 Kingston Road, Pickering ON L1V 1B5No securities regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the contents of this news release.Forward Looking StatementsThis news release contains forward-looking statements and information under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward looking. Forward-looking statements are frequently identified by such words as 'may', 'will', 'plan', 'expect', 'believe', 'anticipate', 'estimate', 'intend' and similar words referring to future events and results. Such statements and information are based on the current opinions and expectations of management. All forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and subject to a variety of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, the risks of obtaining necessary approvals, licenses and permits and the availability of financing, as described in more detail in the Company's securities filings available at www.sedar.com . Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements and the reader is cautioned against placing undue reliance thereon. Forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is provided and the Company assumes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements except as required by applicable law.SOURCE: Renforth Resources Inc.
Kenyan parliamentarians on Tuesday debated a bill that would allocate a third of all seats in parliament to women, with campaigners optimistic that it would pass in spite of previous failures.

Women hold 23 per cent of seats in Kenyas lower and upper houses of parliament combined, says the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

This arrangement is on a par with the global average, but lower than neighbours Rwanda, Ethiopia and Burundi.

Kenyas 2010 Constitution states that not more than two-thirds of any elected or appointed political bodies can be of the same gender.

However, it does not set out a mechanism for attaining that goal.

The new legislation proposed by Aden Duale provides for special seats to be created if parliamentary elections fail to achieve the required numbers, with female candidates nominated to fill them.

We want to fix the historical injustices done to women in the past.

And, for us to do that, we need to empower the women of this country, said the ruling Jubilee Party representative as he presented the Bill in the National Assembly.

We must give them the seat of leadership. Women must be present at the decision-making table  in the executive, in the legislature, in the judiciary and in the private sector.

Kenyas economy has grown on average of five per cent annually over the last decade.

Nevertheless, the benefits have not been equally shared, and women and girls remain disadvantaged socially, economically and politically.

Women make up only a third of the 2.5 million people employed in the formal sector, says the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

And, while women provide 80 per cent of Kenyas farm labour, they own only one per cent of agricultural land.

Gender experts say that a stronger womens voice at the top will have a trickle-down effect.

It would lead to the development of policies and laws that would help women at the grassroots level fight abuse, discrimination and inequality.

Since 2012, womens rights groups in Kenya have fought to have legislation passed in spite of the Supreme Court directing parliament to enact a law.

Previous attempts have failed largely due to quorum hitches.

The Bill has the backing of President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader, Raila Odinga, and its supporters say they are confident it will pass, but it is not without opposition.

Critics said creating additional parliamentary seats would cost Kenyan taxpayers millions of dollars in extra salaries.

Others have questioned how nominations of candidates would be conducted, suggesting that politicians wives, girlfriends and mistresses would be given seats by proxy.

Wilberforce Oundo from the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, said it would be extremely difficult to trust the process of nomination.

The executive, women activists and rights campaigners must invest heavily in the capacity building of women, instead of looking for short term gains and short term escapes, he told parliament.

The debate is expected to continue on Wednesday. (Reuters/NAN)
Some groups of environmental activists have condemned the registration and commercial release of genetically modified (GM) cotton varieties across the country.

According to the group, the move by the Nigerian government to commercialise the transgenic cotton varieties opens the doors for more genetically modified products (including the GM cowpea) and represents nothing but disaster for farmers, the entire public and our agricultural system.

The ministries of science and technology and agriculture in conjunction with the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and the Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) on Monday announced the official release and placing on market of genetically modified cotton varieties by a biotech company, Bayer/Mahyco Agricultural Nigeria Limited.

This came despite concerted efforts of many Nigerians and activists to prevent such move without proper consideration.

The GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and over 35 other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in a statement jointly signed on Monday evening, described as an ambush by government agencies and officials, the manner at which the release and registration of the GM cotton varieties were granted.

Nigerians do not accept to be ambushed in this way by government agencies and officials, the groups insisted.

The activists said it is embarrassing the way the government is trying to persuade Nigerians to accept agricultural biotechnology and GMO food/crops.

We were utterly embarrassed to see the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, merely (regurgitating) the claims of the biotech industry that GMOs would bring about increase in agricultural yields, reduce pesticide use and improve economic situation for farmers- all of which have serially been proven to be false!

The coalition of CSOs, farmer groups and faith-based organisations warned Nigerians to beware of the propaganda and to see the push for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for what it really is  a money-making venture for the biotech corporations and their political jobbers.

The coordinator of the GMO-Free Nigeria Alliance, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour was quoted in the statement as saying it is erroneous for Nigeria to adopt a crop variety which is famous for its failure in many countries where it has been used.

Also in the jointly signed statement, Nnimmo Bassey, director of HOMEF said, The results of the use of GM cotton in other countries have shown that the promoters of agricultural biotechnology in Nigeria are knowingly peddling falsehood.

As if to buttress this, South African government have recently rejected Monsantos triple stacked GM drought tolerant maize as they found that the data provided by company was insufficient to demonstrate the claimed drought tolerance and insect resistant efficiency of the GM event.

It is regrettable that our ministers would front for Monsanto, a corporation that now goes by another name (Bayer), and that is well known for suppressing and distorting scientific research in order to accumulate profit at the expense of farmers, people and the planet.

It is time for the Nigerian government to merge the National Biosafety Management Agency and the National Biotechnology Development Agency as there is no basis for their pretending to be separate entities.

Without proper considerations and consultations

Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, a lawyer and food sovereignty activist explained how the approval for the release of the GM cotton varieties were granted without proper considerations and consultations.

In 2016, when the application for environmental release and market placement of the cotton was advertised by the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), HOMEF sent in objections outlining socio-economic, molecular, as well as safety and environmental concerns.

In their submission to the Agency, HOMEF stated that the transgenic cotton contained the toxins: cry2Ab2 and cry1Ac which have no history of safe use in nature and have been shown to have similarities to known allergenic proteins. Also, no baseline data was provided on safety assessments and the application did not consider any combinatorial or cumulative effects of the modified proteins.

On environmental impact, it was pointed out that the application did not make provision for treatment of non-target organisms (organisms other than the target pests) and no data was provided on tests used by the company to back the claim of no adverse effect. Also, the specificity of the ecological situation in Nigeria was not considered.

Not yet ready

Mrs Bassey-Orovwuje insisted that Nigeria is not ready to handle the implications of deploying genetically modified crops.

Our regulatory system is stacked against the people as there is no provision for strict liability and redress in the countrys biosafety law and thus when the crop fails, the burden will be on our farmers.

Nigeria officially signed the Biosafety Bill into law in 2015, making it eligible to join the league of nations that are already using genetic engineering (GE), also called genetic modification (GM), to boost food production.

Since then, there has been a protracted debate over the application of genetically modified crops into the food system of the country. HOMEF, among several other groups, has repeatedly kicked against the application.

They had in 2017, filed a lawsuit against the Nigerian Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) and the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) over the approval it granted to Monsanto Agricultural Nigeria Limited to release (GM) crops in Nigeria including BT cotton.

The Abuja Federal High Court in August however struck out the suit.

NBMA is the government agency that regulates biotechnology and GMO in Nigeria while NABDA promotes it.

Reacting, Rose Gidado, the scientific officer and assistant director of the NABDA, waived the position of the activists as baseless.

These things groups such as HOMEF are saying is just rumour mongering and baseless, she told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday in a phone interview.

This technology reduces the use of chemicals and pesticides in agriculture and it is not going down well with some agro-allied industries that actually produce chemicals as their main business venture. So, I think they sponsor some of these activists to go against the application of these technology.

The technology did not fail in South Africa. The farmers over there are making money out of it. Over 85 per cent of maize produced there are GM as well as cotton. It helps them cope with drought.

Mrs Gidado, who also doubles as the country coordinator of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB) in Africa, further explained how the Nigerian government adopted BT cotton to reduce the use of chemicals in farms.

Some of these chemicals dont even work in killing most insects. We have a lot of emerging insects because of the global warming and these insects are growing resistance as a result of these chemicals, global warming and rise in temperature.

She said the safety concerns raised about GM products have been taken care of.

There is no way scientists can produce something that will be detrimental to the health of the people because we scientists are part of the consumers too.

A Genetically Modified Organism is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology.
The Nigerian presidency has condemned an opinion article published by former secretary of state for International Development in the United Kingdom (UK), Priti Patel, calling on investors to be wary about investing in Nigeria.

Ms Patel, a British parliamentarian, wrote in City A. M., a free daily Business newspaper in London warning investors to steer clear of Nigeria.

She advised that investors should know of the corrosive effect of corruption, as well as the lack of transparency and associated difficulties of doing business in certain countries.

In Nigeria, the unhappy experience of the firm founded by two Irishmen, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), is a case in point, and demonstrates the risk that businesses will face in Nigeria.

PREMIUM TIMES had exclusively reported how a U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. affirmed a $6.59 billion arbitral award, plus $2.30 billion interest, against Nigeria.

This was after Nigeria failed to show up in court to defend the matter.

The naira value of the amount came to about N2.7 trillion (at the Central Bank of Nigerias rate of N306 to one U.S Dollar).

PREMIUM TIMES became aware that the country would have paid less than 10 per cent of the $8.9 billion award if the Muhammadu Buhari administration had acted in line with a recommendation passed to it by the preceding Goodluck Jonathan regime.

Ms Patel said in 2010, P&ID signed a 20-year contract with the Nigerian government to create a new natural gas development refinery, but the project fell through after the Nigerian government reneged on its contractual commitments.

Upon taking office, President Buhari promptly cancelled a compensation settlement, and has done his level best to pretend Nigerias obligations to P&ID do not exist, she said.

She also said since Mr Buhari reneged on this deal, P&ID has undertaken legal efforts to affirm a tribunal award, first decided in London. It also made several attempts in court to force the Nigerian government to respect its obligations.

The most recent court decision at a London tribunal confirmed that the Nigerian government owes P&ID almost $9bn for the initial breach of contract, loss of income, additional costs, and interest accrued after five years of non-payment.

However, the Nigerian government has continued to flout international law and convention, and it refuses to respect the various court decisions.

Investors must consider this long-running scandal and weigh this obstinance against Nigerias mishandled economic potential, she said.

No Evidence Of Wrongdoing

The presidency on Tuesday, responded, saying Ms Patels wicked proposition is lacking in substance and devoid of merit in empirical evidence established by facts.

The response issued by presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said her claim that despite Mr Buharis public anti-corruption platform, Nigeria has not seen any reduction in corruption since he took office, trumpeting a so-called Transparency International report is a false fabrication that cannot be supported by the facts on the ground.

Mr Shehu said by the time Mr Buhari was sworn in and took office, the only amount in the anti-corruption recovery account over 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was only two billion Naira (N2 billion).

This account has succeeded in netting over four hundred billion Naira (N400 bn) as of today, translating to 1,360 per cent increase. This cannot amount to nothing, in terms of progress, he said.

He also said when it comes to policy decisions, the Buhari administration has put in place instruments that have extraordinarily and unprecedentedly reduced corruption and corrupt practices.

He gave as example, the Treasury Single Accoun (TSA) put in place by the Goodluck Jonathan administration but more implemented by the Buhari administration. He said this has led to greater visibility and control of government funds by way of consolidating government resources in an account as against the past where such accounts are scattered.

Mr Shehu also said the Bank Verification Number, (BVN), scheme has equally helped the government prevent money laundering, financing terrorism and illicit cash transfers.

This administration has introduced the IPPS, which implementation has led to an extraordinary reduction of ghost workers, saving the treasury billions of Naira every month.

The Whistle Blower mechanism put in place has yielded enormously to the treasury and reduced corruption.

In addition to several and urgent legislations targeted at the reduction of corruption, the administration has equally signed a number of highly rewarding Mutual Legal Assistance with a number countries that have translated to tremendous recoveries, he said.

The presidential spokesperson said the issue of the lack of security of investment raised by Ms Patel is equally false and untenable.

He said Nigeria has recognised the right of the investor, both local and foreign, as enshrined in the nations constitution which states clearly that no investment can be taken from its owners without recourse to the law.

Given the constitution, you dont even need international protection for assets held in this country.

In addition to the constitution, there exist several laws allowing protection for investments.

Beyond this, this administration has moved forward by recognising arbitration processes. The judiciary in the country has a Practice Code to give legitimacy to awards and arbitration clauses in agreements.

Cumulatively, we have established a proper climate of investment on account of which, the nation has gained 24 points of excellence in the global ease of doing business index, he said.

As for the specific case of the agreement in 2010, between the NNPC and the P&ID for a 20-year contract to create a new natural gas development refinery, which appears to be the main issue raised by the UK MP, Mr Shehu said it is a project that fell through after a past Nigerian government reneged on its contractual commitments, we do not wish to plead the governments case in the press.

He said the government of Nigeria, in recognition of the sanctity of the judiciary, has submitted to the jurisdiction of a court in the United States to determine the issues in dispute.

What we can only say at this point is that Nigerians need to pity their own country for the way things were done in the past.

Before the coming of the Buhari administration, there existed in the country a racket encompassing elements in the three arms of government, the executive, legislature and the judiciary through the activities of which artificial, engineered and factored breaches of contract are made, judgments are obtained, appeals are delayed and the penalty imposed is paid and shared.

In the fullness of time, more will be said by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the federation, Mr Shehu said.
An Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has struck out the no-case submission argued by the founder of Daar Communications, Raymond Dokpesi.

The judge, John Tsoho, gave the ruling on Wednesday. He said the defendants argument that he has no case to answer is false.

I hereby strike out the application, the judge said.

Mr Dokpesi on May 28 told the court that he would be making a no-case submission to wrap up his trial after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) closed its corruption case against him.

The owner of Nigerias first private radio station is facing trial for the alleged diversion of N2.1 billion received from the office of former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

But Mr Tsoho said the defendant (Mr Dokpesi) would have to explain to the court his own side of the matter.

Mr Tsoho, therefore, adjourned the matter to February 20 and 21 next year for the continuation of trial.

Mr Dokpesi, who denies the allegations against him, has also accused the federal government of defamation of character.
President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Musa Abaji as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

He made this announcement via a letter he sent to the Senate on Tuesday.

In the letter which was read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, he said the appointment was according to the advice of the National Judicial Council.

In line with 1999 constitution upon the advice of the National Judicial Council, I hereby refer for confirmation the appointment of Justice Musa Abaji as the Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

While hoping that this is expeditiously considered by the Senate, accept the assurances of my highest regard, the letter read.

In another letter, the president declined assent to the Institute of Chartered Biochemist and Molecular Biology of Nigeria Bill 2018.

He said his decision to withhold assent to the bill was because, if passed, the bill will infringe on the mandate of the National University Commission and the National Board for Technology Education.

He also said there are drafting issues on the bill.

Pursuant of section 68(4) of the constitution, I hereby convey to the senate the decision on the 5th November 2018 to decline presidential assent to the Institute of Chartered Biochemist and Molecular Biology of Nigeria bill 2018 recently passed by the National Assembly for the following reasons;

A. The provisions of section 13(3) to give the chartered biochemist and molecular biology power to approve academic program and even close down programs in tertiary institutions will infringe on our mandate of the National University Commission and the National Board for Technology Education.

B. There are certain drafting and administrative issues in the bill, including the failure in section 13(8), 14 and 22(2) to designate a chairman for both the practice and publicity committee and or specific process for how a chairman should emerge for either of the education, practice and publicity committees.

This can lead to confusion in the administration of the council, the president wrote in his letter.
Billionaire oil magnate, Femi Otedola, Wednesday at the Apo High Court in Abuja narrated how he exposed a former lawmaker of collecting three million dollar bribe.

Mr Otedola told the court that he was able to expose Farouk Lawan, a former House of Representatives chairman of the ad-hoc committee investigating the fraud around the oil subsidy. Mr Lawan is now standing trial for alleged fraud and demanding $3 million bribe.

Mr Otedola spoke of how he ran, in shock, to alert President Goodluck Jonathan in December 2016, of massive looting of the oil subsidy money, of how people were bringing in ships without products and collecting subsidies for absolutely no products.

When I discovered that people were stealing hundreds of billions from the oil subsidy money, I ran to president Jonathan, Mr Otedola told the court from the witness box after he was led in testimony by prosecution counsel Adegboyega Awomolo, a member of the velvet rank of the Nigerian Bar Association.

President Jonathan assured me that he would find out the facts from the Petroleum Minister, Allison Dieziani. In fairness, he got back to me but the outcome was such a shock because he said Dieziani dismissed the claim as untrue. That no one was stealing away oil subsidy money? Mr Otedola told the court presided over by Justice Angela Otaluka.

Unsatisfied, he said he proceeded to report the case to Bukola Saraki, the then Senate petroleum committee chairman who helped table the matter before the Senate for hearing. The House of Representatives, he said, subsequently picked up the matter too.

The oil magnate then walked the court through his journey of bitter encounter with Farouk Lawan, whose committee investigating the fraud around the oil subsidy, now standing trial for alleged fraud and demanding a $3million bribe.

I eventually contacted the department of the state security (DSS) when he (Mr Lawan) asked me for $3million bribe. The DSS gave me the marked currencies and six operatives and just a whole gadget which we used to put him on tape, Mr Otedola said.

Mr Lawan was re-arraigned in December 2016 by the Nigerian government for the alleged offence.

On Wednesday, the prosecution played a video where Mr Lawan was seen receiving $500 000 from Mr Otedola.

The witness then addressed the court on the events narrated in the video, following questions from Mr Awomolo.

According to Mr Otedola, the accused indicted his company, Zenon Oil, in the alleged fraud and demanded $3 million to exonerate him.

The witness added that after the initial deposit of $500,000 was paid into his account, Mr Lawan declared Zenon Oil and Gas free of the initial indictment.

After the early hours of 24th April 2012: (the time the money was paid) he left and removed the name of Zenon from the list of indicted companies, Mr Otedola said while explaining the events that prompted his alleged payment of $500,000 to Mr Lawan in April 2012.

When asked by the prosecution counsel about the claim by Mr Lawan that the witness forced him to take the money, Mr Otedola denied it.

I could not have put pressure on him because Zenon Oil was not involved in the theft of the subsidy fund.

He did demand. And if he did not demand, why will he collect and expect a balance of $2.5 million? He mentioned to me that the $3 million will be shared by himself and some other members of the House, Mr Otedola said.

Moreover, the company in question was not involved in the importation of petroleum motor spirit (PMS) and as such never applied to withdraw from the petroleum fund.

The witness also denied an allegation by Mr Lawan that he (Otedola) offered to pay the money so that his name would be removed from the list of indicted companies.

I did not offer any $3 million, because I was one of the biggest players in the business. And I reported the matter initially when I found out about the scam. And he mentioned to me that several companies that were involved in the scam were paying. And I reported to the SSS.

Mr Otedola also denied a claim by Mr Lawan that Zenon Oil and Gas was exonerated on the basis of documents later provided by the company.

It was the money because during the course of the sitting of the subcommittee we had submitted all the documents.

Mr Otedola said his report to security operatives on the matter prompted investigations into the allegations by the police who invited him for questioning after which his statement was taken.

The defence was unable to cross-examine the witness after a lawyer from Mike Ozekhomes chambers requested for an adjournment to enable his principal to attend the next trial and conduct the cross-examination.

The lawyer said he was sick and could not proceed with the cross-examination at the days sitting.

The judge, Angela Otaluka, adjourned the matter to January 28 for cross-examination.

The judge added that the defence should prepare itself to start and finish the cross-examination on the next adjourned date.

Mr Lawan was first arraigned in February 2013 along with another accused, Boniface Emenalo, for allegedly receiving $620,000 of the alleged bribe from Mr Otedola and his company.

The case was then handled by Adebukola Banjoko also of the same FCT High Court.

Ms Banjoko, however, stepped down from the matter in 2014, following allegations of bias brought against her by the defence.

The charge was later amended to include only Mr Lawan who was accused of receiving $500,000 of the total sum intended to be paid as bribe.
A day after the public presentation of his book, My Transition Hour, former President Goodluck Jonathan has been criticised by the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, who described the book as elementary and containing fiction.

Mr Shettima said the former president lied about the issue of the Chibok schoolgirls, who were abducted in 2014 while Mr Shettima was in office. The issue was included in the content of the new book.

Mr Jonathan was in the spotlight on Tuesday when he launched the book at an event marking his 61st birthday.

The book focused on the former presidents last days in office in 2015 and controversies that trailed his eventual acceptance of defeat ahead of the official announcement of the election results.

Mr Jonathan at the event also delved into a narration of the intrigues trailing the abduction of the schoolgirls, as captured in his book.

In Chapter 4 of the book, the former president blamed the inability of his government to rescue the girls on the then opposition All Progressive Congress (APC), which was in control (still is) of Borno State then.

He also criticised former U.S. President, Barrack Obamas administration for failing to assist his government in rescuing the kids.

In a swift rebuttal, Wednesday, Mr Shettima accused the former president of an attempt to sweep under the carpet the incontrovertible facts about how his (Jonathan) government mishandled the issue of the abduction.

Mr Shettima who made his view known via a press statement issued by his media adviser, Isa Gusau, wondered how the former president could speak about the abduction when he had never believed any girl was abducted.

The governor also said he took the whole of Tuesday night to read the former presidents book and found it elementary in content.

He said Mr Jonathan deliberately omitted details of the presidential fact-finding committee he belatedly constituted to investigate how the girls went missing in Chapter 4 of his book where the issue was extensively discussed.

Mr Shettima, who described ex-president Jonathans book as elementary book of tales, said the book fell short of the courage required of him (Jonathan) to publish findings by his own panel in chapter four of his book.

Mr Shettimas statement reads in full

The whole of Tuesday night, I took the pains of reading His Excellency, former President Goodluck Jonathans book, My Transition Hours, from the first to the 177th page. I took particular interest in chapter four (the Chibok school girls affair) which has 42 paragraphs written on pages 27 to 36.

I was amused that despite admitting in paragraph 15, that he had (in May 2014) constituted a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee under Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo and many others to investigate the Chibok abduction, former President Jonathan refused to mention any part or whole of the findings by that panel which had submitted a highly investigative report submitted to him on Friday, June 20, 2014 after the panel held investigative meetings with the then Chiefs of Defense Staff, Army Staff, Air Staff, the DG, DSS and IGP, met all security heads in Borno, visited Chibok, met with parents of abducted schoolgirls, met surviving students, interrogated officials of the school and the supervising ministry of education, interrogated officials of WAEC and analyzed all correspondences.

What has become very clear is that the former President decided to sit on facts in his custody while he published, in an elementary standard, a book of fiction designed to pass guilty verdicts to anyone but himself, with respect to the open failures of his administration to rescue our daughters and in tackling the Boko Haram challenges.

By refusing to publish any part of his own panels findings on the Chibok abduction, Jonathans book was nothing short of a presidential tale by midday.

For the records, I recall that on Tuesday, the 6th of May, 2014, President Jonathan had inaugurated multi-agency/stakeholder fact-finding panel under the chairmanship of Brig. General Ibrahim Sabo (rtd), a one-time Director of Military Intelligence and also appointed a secretary from the Niger Delta.

Goodluck Jonathan

President Jonathan single-handedly selected all members of that committee which included his trustees amongst serving and retired security officers from the Army, DSS and Police; representatives of the UN and ECOWAS, representatives of the Chibok community, local and international civil rights organisations, representatives of the National Council on Women Societies, the Nigeria Union of Journalists amongst other persons he trusted.

For almost two months, the probe panel undertook forensic assessment of all documents on the entire issue, held investigative meetings with parents of the schoolgirls during a visit to Chibok. The panel held separate one-on-one investigative meetings with myself, the then Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff, Chiefs of Air and Naval Staff, met the then Director General of the DSS and the Inspector General of Police, all of whom were appointees of President Jonathan.

Dignitaries at Former President, Goodluck Jonathan Book Launch

The panel interrogated officials of Borno Government including the Comof Education and the school principal. The panel also held investigative meetings with heads of all security agencies in Borno State including security formations in charge of Chibok. At the end, the panel submitted its report directly to President Jonathan on Friday, the 20th of June, 2014 in Abuja. President Jonathan has refused to make public the findings submitted to him. I was expecting the findings in his book but he has deliberately swept that report under the carpet.

However, I remember that on June 24, 2014, the ThisDay Newspaper claimed to have obtained a copy of the panels report and published as its lead, that painstaking findings by the Presidential panel had indicted the military under Jonathans watch and completely absolved the Borno State Government of any blame regarding the Chibok abduction.

The newspaper went further to say that panel actually commended efforts of the Borno State Government in its commitment to the fight against Boko Haram as testified by heads of security establishments.

It is clear to me, after reading the former presidents book, that he still lives with poor understanding of issues under his presidency.

For instance, Jonathans claim on page 31 that Boko Haram wanted a Muslim President rather than him as Christian was laughable since the insurgents actually began their deadliest attacks in Borno under the regime of late President Umaru Musa Yaradua, a Muslim from northern Nigeria.

We know for a fact that as vicious cycle of evil, Boko Haram fighters do not care about the religion of their targeted victims. They attack Mosques and Churches. They are lunatics who regard anyone who doesnt share their ideology as an infidel.

So, I wonder how the former President didnt take time to understand the biggest challenge under his presidency.
A clash between herders and farmers in Gora Village of Katsina State has left many people dead, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The violent clash took place when a herdsman pushed his cows into the farm of a farmer who was harvesting his beans, the Katsina police spokesperson, Isah Gambo told NAN.

A source told the agency that the incident occurred late Tuesday evening during which the herder allegedly killed the farmer.

The source further alleged that the relatives of the farmer retaliated and also killed the herder.

According to the source, when the relatives of the herder got the information that their brother had been killed, they trooped to Gora and started shooting at the farmers in sight.

No fewer than 12 persons were feared dead and nine injured during the clash at Gora Village of Safana Local Government Area of Katsina State.

The police, however, said the violence has been brought under control.

Mr Gambo told journalists on Wednesday in Katsina that the police sent a contingent of mobile police officers to the area.

He added that another team of joint security comprising soldiers, police from anti-robbery squad and operatives from the State Security Service had also been deployed to the area.

Violence between herders and farming communities have left thousands of people dead in several Nigerian states including Benue, Taraba, Kaduna and Plateau.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says plans are ongoing to introduce Electronic Cargo Tracking System in 2019 to enhance its operations at various border posts in the country.

The Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, made this known at a joint press conference with his counterpart from Uganda, Kateshumbwa Dicksons.

The briefing followed a lecture series at the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, Abuja on Wednesday.

Mr Ali explained that the service under his leadership had started evaluating different scientific proposals with a view to commencing the electronic cargo tracking system in the country.

He expressed the hope that by 2019, the enforcement and use of e-Cargo tracking would commence.

By next year, if the finances are available and we are in agreement with our Technology Service Provider, we will start the electronic cargo tracking system even if we will begin on a small scale.

Though we use technology in tracking cargo in some border posts but we must have technology to monitor everything collectively, he said.

The comptroller-general said the Service had reached an agreement with his Ugandan counterpart on how to collaborate and achieve desired results.

Mr Ali explained that NCS had a lot of things in common with Ugandas Customs and Revenue Authority in terms of driving desired reforms in the service.

He identified the application of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for positive change in customs as well as developing a strategy to manage cross-border weapon and fight corruption.

According to him, he has started working in collaboration with his counterpart in Uganda to explore this good initiative that had been introduced in that country.

Also speaking, Mr Dicksons, the Commissioner for Customs, Uganda Revenue Authority, said Nigeria and Uganda must work together to solve the problems of customs in the two countries.

Mr Dicksons noted that the roles of customs in Nigeria and Uganda were the same, hence the need to collaborate to achieve their goals collectively.

According to him, modernisation must be embraced in solving challenges in the customs service.

He said that customs must put the right procedure in place to facilitate trade while expressing happiness that the two countries were on the right track as far as modernisation was concerned. (NAN)
The Nigerian Army said on Wednesday that some of the suits instituted against it were meant to distract it from carrying out its constitutional role of defending the territorial integrity of the country.

The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, represented by Rasheed Yusuf, the Chief of Policy and Plans made the allegation at the opening of a two-day event tagged Nigerian Army Law seminar in Abuja.

I urge my lord and justices here present to consider this aspect of national interest, while adjudicating over this type of cases, Mr Buratai appealed.

The theme of the seminar which was organised in collaboration with the National Judicial Institute (NJI) was: The Place of the law in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations in Nigeria.

Mr Buratai noted that the fight against terrorism and insurgency, especially in the North-east, had pre-occupied the minds of many Nigerians, both within and outside Nigeria.

He also noted that it was of concern to the international community, but assured that the army would adhere to the provisions of the constitution in dealing with the menace.

Therefore, since my assumption of office since 2015, I and my principal staff officers have been monitoring issues on the allegation of human rights abuses against troops deployed for operations across the country in line with the President and Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces mandate to the Nigerian armed forces in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Buratai said that in dealing with the terrorists, the army had ensured that the fundamental human rights of citizens were adequately protected in all exercises and operations.

So far, we have been able to address petitions and other different kinds of claims against the Nigerian army through the establishment of Human Rights Desk offices in the army headquarters and across the Nigerian army divisions.

The human rights desk has a special hotline for citizens, who have genuine claims, complaints and petitions to make against the Nigerian army in order to report natural disasters or to report any act of terrorism, among others.

The phone number to dial is 193.

The Nigerian army has also ensured that all cases pending in civil courts against it are either assigned to competent registered Nigerian army external advocates or military lawyers in the Directorate of Legal services.

Court-martial cases or trials in the field are also given professional attention by deploying legal officers, who are not only trained military personnel but legal practitioners.

The Nigerian army as an institution is guided by appropriate legal advice in sustaining its flexibility in the conduct of its operations and this has been adequately acknowledged within the nation and the comity of other nations.

Adherence to the rule of law is consistent with my vision which is to have a professionally responsive Nigerian Army in the discharge of its constitutional roles.

Let me point out that the Nigerian army will continue to adhere to the rule of law in our operations, he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, who declared the seminar open, noted that terrorism and counter-terrorism had been a major security threat globally.

Mr Onnoghen, however, said that in spite of this, the place of the rule of law in a society could not be overemphasised.

In a democratic system of government, it is the rule of law that dictates the pace at which human beings interact among themselves.

Therefore, respect for fundamental human rights of citizens is sacrosanct, the CJN, who was represented by Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, a justice of the Supreme Court, said.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 election, Atiku Abubakar, said if elected, 70 per cent of his appointments would go to youth and women.

Mr Abubakar said this on Wednesday in Yola, the Adamawa State capital while addressing a group of youth who organised a solidarity rally to endorse his candidature.

Mr Abubakar said 40 percent of appointments would go to youth, while 30 percent would go to women.

The remaining 30 percent will be managed by the elderly, he said.

While pleading with the youth to vote for PDP for better life, the former vice president noted that their votes were vital for his victory as they constituted 70 per cent of the nations voting population.

This election is for you; youth and women as you made up 70 per cent of Nigerian population of voting age.

As for me, I have achieved in life, but many of you have a long way to go; you have no house, no job. If you fail to vote PDP you will continue like that.

On Election Day, go and vote, protect your votes and ensure your votes count, he said.

(NAN)
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has suggested a vast conspiracy by the Independent National Electoral Commission which partly cost him his re-election in 2015.

Mr Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party conceded defeat to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress on March 31, 2015, heralding the first victory for an opposition platform in Nigerias presidential election history.

In a new book made public on Tuesday, Mr Jonathan said INECs biased distribution of voting credentials to the electorate precipitated his defeat at the March 28, 2015 general elections.

For some inexplicable reason, the INEC had been able to achieve near 100% distribution of Permanent Voter Cards in the North, including the North East, which was under siege with Boko Haram insurgency but failed to record a similar level of distribution in the South which was relatively more peaceful, the former president wrote in the book he launched at Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja Tuesday afternoon.

As the election got underway, Mr Jonathan said he paid stern attention to reports of irregularities as amplified in the media, but he was reluctant to ride on such excuses to reject the results.

Social media was filled with all manner of stories, pictures and videos. I had settled in my mind that I was not going to be the sitting president pointing out these infractions and accusing the opposition and the very INEC I helped to strengthen.

The world saw my ordeal at the polling unit in my community in Bayelsa State, where the card reader refused my PVC even after we tried repeatedly during accreditation.

And it was the same with my wife and my mother. It was a moment that exposed the shortcomings of INEC, Mr Jonathan said.

Mr Jonathan said even though he conceded defeat for a slew of personal principles he had long held, he was even more conscious of past predictions of the United States intelligence that Nigeria would break apart, as well as an infamous comment by Mr Buhari that dogs and baboons would be soaked in blood if 2015 elections did not go the way he desired.

I knew what was coming the day before I called General Muhammadu Buhari. I had reports on the polls around the country. It was clear the results were not going to favour me, Mr Jonathan said. There were series of problems with card readers, resulting from widespread technical hitches leading to the non-uniform application throughout the country.

However, I was heading towards peace. Stopping the election on voting day would have been like detonating an atomic bomb, he said.

Mr Jonathan said shortly after he finished voting on March 28, he departed Bayelsa for Abuja to monitor the rest of the exercise from March 29 until he made concession call on March 31.

The former president also mentioned places he expected violence to break out had he delayed in placing the call to finalise the election.

The country was tensed. I had to do something. I could no longer wait for the collation of final results. The pressure on the country was palpable.

In Lagos, people were ready to burst loose on the streets and in the North, the stage was set for envisaged violence. One of my partys agents at the INEC National Collation Centre in Abuja, Elder Godsday Orubebe eventually got into a heated argument with the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega.

Former INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

That further raised the tension in the country. Everyone was expecting the worse. I knew it was time to douse the tension, he said.

Mr Jonathan listed former Nigerias Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Attorney-General Bello Adoke, former Minister of Aviation Osita Chidoka, former Chief Justice of Nigeria Mohammed Bello and his domestic affairs assistant Waripamowei Dudafa as being amongst those present the moment he placed his concession call at the State House, Abuja.

Mr Jonathan scored 12,853,162 (44.96 per cent) to be defeated by Mr Buhari, who polled 15,424,921 (53.96 per cent).

A spokesperson for INEC did not immediately return requests seeking comments Wednesday morning.

In his book, INEC was not the only factor Mr Jonathan held responsible for his defeat. He blamed former U.S. President Barack Obama, as well as some local politicians with whom he fell out ahead of the election.
The Senate on Wednesday summoned the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to explain the alleged halt in railway development in the eastern part of the country.

The summon was sequel to a point of order raised by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who reminded his colleagues that he raised the issue months ago.

Mr Ekweremadu said less emphasis is being given to the railway development in the eastern axis of the country which include Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Makurdi all the way to Yola to Maiduguri, passing through Plateau state and some parts of Nasarawa state including Delta.

According to him, the response he got earlier is that federal government had an agreement with the General Electric (GE) to take over that axis and be able to restore the line and manage it for some time and recover their money.

It was supposed to be for goods only, there was no arrangement for passengers but the tragedy is that the arrangement has collapsed and GE has withdrawn from the arrangement.

If you recall, when we granted the permission for government to raise loan from China to develop the western axis running from Lagos to Kano, it was also of the understanding that once that approval is secured that the federal government will engage with the Chinese authorities to also secure loan to deal with the eastern axis running from Port-Harcourt.

Today, the story has changed. Now what the Chinese authorities are being asked to do is to come and take over that axis and use their money to fix that axis and then recover their money over time.

I believe is not fair on those of us that live in that part of Nigeria. In order to survive, there must be equity and fairness and any country running against this principle will be heading to disaster. It is believed that we have many of such opportunities in Nigeria but they should be spread across and that is the only way we can ensure the unity, peace and progress of this country.

The minister of transport should appear before our committees on Land transport and Local and Foreign Debts to explain to us the plan they have for those who live in this part of the country, he said.

Shehu Sani (PRP, Kaduna Central) stated that the last time the minister of transport appeared before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt, he gave a firm pledge that the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line will be the next priority after the Lagos-Ibadan- Kano rail line.

But it is now evidently clear there is no firm commitment in executing that project from Port-Harcourt and I must say this, that the rail line has a lot of social, political and economic advantage in the sense that that every line will open up the areas in terms of business and movement of people.

There is no reason that there is a firm and definite borrowing plan for rail line from Lagos up to the North and we cannot have that of Port-Harcourt to Maiduguri which is the longest rail line. The withdrawal of GE should be a concern. Some of my colleagues in the committee appended their signatures for the borrowing plan of Lagos rail on the basis and pledge that if that was done, that of Maiduguri will follow next. There is virtually no action and no plan, he said.

In his comment, James Manager said no part of the country should be excluded.

He called on Mr Amaechi to put politics aside and do the needful.

Surprisingly the Honorable Minister of Transport is a Port-Harcourt man. Lets put politics aside, we must be nationalist after he is from there. At the end of his service, he is going to go back to Port-Harcourt whether he likes it or not, he said.

In his reaction, the Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, explained that the eastern line given to GE has not been abandoned.

We raised the question two days ago somewhere and the minister himself actually explained and also during the launching of the next level, he said.

GE will have its subsidiary handling the eastern axis. My concern and the concern of every easterner is that GE is designed to maintain the narrow gauges, it is only rehabilitation and not modernisation. And I believe that what we require is to give us whatever is given to everybody in the country.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari has also given approval and ordered that every state capital in Nigeria must be linked to the rail way line.

Mr. President distinguished colleagues, without sounding partisan, this Senate and indeed the National Assembly should work with the other side of government to ensure that eastern line gets the same treatment that the western or the central line will have and also whatever approvals they require for this transformation, movement of our infrastructure with the little funds that we have, Mr Lawan said.

The Senate, thereafter, resolved to invite Mr Amaechi for further explanation.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has reiterated the need to improve education for migrant children, including those internally displaced by the insurgency in Nigeria.

The organisation stated this on Wednesday as it presented a report on the occasion of the World Childrens Day.

To mark the day too, the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) lighted Abuja City Gate to draw the attention of Nigerian leaders to the need to recommit to the wellbeing of children.

Progress is insufficient on providing inclusive education for internal migrants in Nigeria, the 2019 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report by UNESCO stated.

The report entitled Building Bridges, Not Walls highlights countries achievements and shortcomings in ensuring the right of migrant and refugee children to quality education.

Launched at a regional event in Nairobi co-hosted by the Government of Kenya, the report shows the need for improvement in education for migrant children in Nigeria who have ended up in informal settlements, nomadic communities, and those who are internally displaced.

According to the report, rural to urban migration has had major implications for population redistribution in Nigeria and makes urban development planning, including for education, challenging.

In Nigeria, a 2010 survey revealed that 23 per cent of the population had changed area of residence for at least six months within the previous 10 years, with about 60 per cent of internal migrants living in urban areas. In seven out of 36 states, including Abia and Lagos, migrants constituted more than two-fifths of the population, the report revealed.

The report projects that the number of children living in slums in Nigeria will increase by 67 per cent by 2030, a total of 13 million children, which could fill over 400,000 classrooms.

On nomadic communities, the report said the main challenge of internal migration of nomads in northern Nigeria remains tackling the socio-economic challenges that sustain the almajiri system.

Internal migration of nomads in northern Nigeria has seen the federal and state governments introduce several initiatives over the years, such as mobile schools and collapsible classrooms, canoes and boats for migrant fishing communities, and improved infrastructure and technology aids, the report revealed.

Almajiris are pupils of Islamic knowledge who migrate from their rural homes to urban areas in northern Nigeria and follow an itinerant religious teacher who delivers quranic education.

The report revealed that an intervention that targeted 700 traditional teachers focused on collaborating with them to select those teachers who would teach non-religious subjects in Kano State to improve education among the almajiris.

 To engage the communities in Kano State, we did an intervention in Kano State and offered school meals, farm inputs and cash transfers at a small scale. About 70 per cent of the original cohort passed the junior secondary transition exam, the report revealed.

The UNESCO report also revealed that there are 1.6 million IDPs in Nigeria, including an estimated 700,000 school-age children, as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Internally displaced people In north-eastern Nigeria, as of late 2017, there were 1.6 million IDPs, including an estimated 700,000 school-age children, as a result of violent attacks on civilians by Boko Haram, which began in 2009.

Boko Haram has destroyed nearly 1,000 schools and displaced 19,000 teachers. Reports indicated it had killed almost 2,300 teachers by 2017.

The report also revealed that the latest education needs assessment found that out of 260 school sites, 28 per cent had been damaged by bullets, shells or shrapnel, 20 per cent had been deliberately set on fire, 32 per cent had been looted and 29 per cent had armed groups or military in close proximity.

At the Abuja event, UNICEF Nigeria Communications Specialist, Geoffrey Njoku, said the lighting up of the city gate was to draw the attention of leaders at all levels to re-commit to themselves to childrens rights and well-being.

Abujas City Gate joined the Empire State Building in New York, Sydney Opera House in Australia, Petra in Jordan, the Beijing National Aquatics Center and Water Cube in China, and Eden Park in New Zealand  and other national landmarks that were lighted blue for children, he said.

Mr Njoku said the lighting was with a global request for individuals to sign a global online petition asking for children to be put back on the agenda.

We want to build a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and can fulfil their potential, he said.

Some of the children who spoke at the event said every child has a right to good education.

Speaking on the challenges of the adolescent, a girl-child who pleaded anonymity for fear of stigmatisation said there are many living with HIV and they are being stigmatised due to the fact of ignorance.

Stigma is a serious thing that can affect psychologically and mentally. I hope parents understand the children and those stigmatising the children.

James Olowo, a youth living with HIV, said they found it difficult to get money for drugs.

If you dont have money, you will ignore the drugs and die, he said.
The Senate on Wednesday resolved to investigate the crisis at the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly.

The resolution followed a point of order raised by Albert Bassey (PDP, Akwa Ibom North-East).

Angry youth, who are supporters of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, stormed the assembly complex, Uyo, Monday morning, protesting the sack of a lawmaker, Idongesit Ituen.

Mr Ituen, who represented the Itu State Constituency, was sacked by a federal high court for defecting from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC.

The House had its sitting as scheduled on Monday, despite the protest.

The Speaker, Onofiok Luke, then declared vacant the seats of four more lawmakers who had also defected from PDP to APC.

The sacked lawmakers, five of them, later held their own sitting where they removed the speaker, Mr Luke, and elected one of them, Nse Ntuen (Essien Udim State Constituency) as the new speaker.

Stating his point of order, Mr Bassey recalled how he had raised an alarm on the impending threat to elections in Akwa-Ibom State.

He explained that three days ago, Mr Luke, acting on the order of a court, declared the seat of five members of the House of Assembly vacant.

According to him, the five members of the assembly went to court to stop the speaker from declaring their seats vacant upon their defection to a political party.

It is on the basis of the judgment of the court that the speaker declared the seats vacant.

The next thing I was told and I have seen in the media is that three out of these five members of the House of Assembly presided over by one of the members said they had impeached the speaker.

Just this morning, the Akwa-Ibom House of Assembly has been sealed off by over a 1500 policemen. On some good authority, that this is orchestrated to cause violence and mayhem in the state as we drive towards the general elections, he explained as he called on the Senate Committees on Police and Legislative Compliance to investigate the crisis.

In his remark, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, urged his colleagues to rise above partisanship.

What is wrong is wrong. If it is true that security agents have invaded a House of Assembly and prevented them, that is wrong from wherever it is being done. What we cannot conclude is that it is an allegation that has come from our member, let the matter be looked into and the committees should confirm and report back to us.

And once it is confirmed or not, then we can take action. We saw the unfortunate incident that happened here in the National Assembly and we cannot say because it doesnt concern us, we wont look into it, he said.

Armed police officers on Wednesday morning sealed off the states House of Assembly complex.
Mustapha Maihaja, Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), has denied misappropriating N33 billion as alleged by the House of Representatives Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.

Mr Maihaja denied the allegation while briefing journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, where he shed more light on activities and interventions of the agency.

He described the public response as an obligation to adequately inform Nigerians on what truly happened in NEMA.

He said the House of Representatives committee got the whole figures mixed up, leading it to make the accusation.

The House at its plenary on November 8 received the report of the committee led by Isa Ali, alleging violation of public trust against NEMA.

He denied receiving N5.8 billion for the Emergency Intervention of Food Security in the North East (EFINE) as contained in the committees report.

He explained that NEMA only got about N800 million while other funds were paid directly to contractors.

The Emergency Intervention of Food security in the North East (EFINE) came into beings due to a number of factors and the project demand was a clear case of an emergency.

In the course of the programme, grains were moved from various warehouses in Ibadan, Funtua, Kano, Gombe and Kaduna to the North East to cater for the dire food needs of victims of insurgency.

The movement of the grains was well-coordinated with adequate security and there was no reported case of a single bag of grain that got missing in the movement.

As part of the process of monitoring the project, a visit was undertaken by the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning on August 7 and 8, 2017 to Bauchi, Yola and Maiduguri.

During those visits, no issues were raised by the states and throughout the entire process we did not receive any feedback, positive or negative on the process.

Taken into cognizance the open door policy we had taken and the long tenure of the project, there were many avenues for these issues to be raised to NEMA or the acting president, Mr Maihaja said.

Mr Maihaja also explained that the Peoples Republic of China donated 6,779 metric tonnes of rice to Nigeria as part of its support to the North East humanitarian efforts.

He said the quantity of the rice was 135,550 units of 50kg bags.

He said in total, 271 containers arrived Apapa Port from China in five shipments between June and October 2017.

He explained that the agency expended N518 million on shipping and storage charges for the 271 containers donated by China.

He said the original shipping documents and Custom Exemption Certificates were handed over to NEMA by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning in December 2017 and January 2018.

He said thereafter, NEMA commenced the immediate clearing and subsequent haulage of the donated rice to Maiduguri, Damaturu, Yola, Jalingo, Gombe and Bauchi.

To further justify that the items were received on behalf of the Federal Government, they were delivered into NEMA warehouses in Gombe, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and warehouses provided by the state governments in Bauchi, Taraba and Yobe.

The Chinese rice was used for monthly feeding of the IDPs specifically in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states with balance in stock at Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba, he added

He explained that in the case of the flood intervention in the 12 states which was mentioned in the legislative report, N1.6 billion was released after the flood had occurred at different times.

He explained that NEMA immediately conducted assessments and established the needs before moving in with relief materials.

The agency delivered the items to the 12 states between September and November 2017 and subsequently the remaining four states.

Evidence of receipt of the items by the respective state governments is available.

He said following the international outcry of cases of slavery in Libya towards the end of 2017, the federal government commenced the massive evacuation of Nigerians from Libya.

He said the operation was highly successful with prudent fund management after which the unspent balance was returned to the coffers of FG.

He said the agency had documents and facts of all its interventions to justify prudent use of all funds.

(NAN)
The Nigeria police in Badagry said they arrested seven customs officers over the killing one Patience Oni and injuring an innocent man at Forte Oil Filling Station near popular Badagry Roundabout in Lagos state.

The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Badagry Police Station, Samson Akhiromen, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Badagry that the men of customs were arrested for indiscriminately shooting and killing of innocent people.

According to the DPO, the customs officers, under the code name Anti-flying, were raiding an illegal rice depot near a filling station around 12 noon on Tuesday, when they started shooting.

They started shooting indiscriminately to scare away traders and residents from the area.

During the shooting, the bullets from one of the officers hit two people, one died immediately, while the other one is receiving treatment in an undisclosed hospital.

The husband of the woman killed is a police inspector serving in Area K Police Station, Morogbo, he said.

The police officer said he arrested the officers with his team of officers when the situation was getting out of hand.

He, however, said the arrested officers had been handed over to the criminal and investigation department, SCIID, Panti, Lagos for further investigation and prosecution.

(NAN)
A 62-year-old businessman, Donatus Deshi, who allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl was on Wednesday arraigned before an Upper Area Court, sitting in Kasuwan Nama, in Jos.

Mr Deshi, who lives in Angwan Rukuba, was charged with one count of rape of a minor, an act which the police said contravened the provisions of Section 282 of the Penal Code.

The police prosecutor, Ibrahim Gukwat, told the court that father of the victim, one Mr Adukuchili, of the same address, reported the matter at the Nasarawa Gwom police station on July 15.

Mr Gukwat said the accused allegedly lured the girl into his room and raped her.

He alleged that the accused after raping the girl gave her N200 and threatened to kill her if she told anyone about it.

He added that the act contravened section 282 of the Penal Code an offence which attracts up to 14 years imprisonment if convicted.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the crime.

The judge, Lawal Suleiman, after listening to his plea, admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N200,000 and a surety in like sum.

Mr Suleiman ordered that the surety must reside within the jurisdiction of the court and must submit to the court a copy of his drivers license or permanent voters card with two recent passport photographs.

He thereafter adjourned till December 3 for hearing.

(NAN)
The principal suspect in the Offa bank robbery attack, Michael Adikwu, has died in police custody in Abuja, an official says.

Kamal Ajibade, the Kwara State commissioner for justice, told an Ilorin High Court on Wednesday during the arraignment of five suspects.

Mr Ajibade told the court that Abba Kyari, a deputy commissioner of police and the head of intelligence team of the Inspector-General of Police, informed him of the death of the suspect on the telephone.

He, therefore, sought for an adjournment to enable the prosecution amend the charges and remove the name of the deceased suspect.

He said since the suspect is reportedly dead, he can no longer stand trial.

In her ruling, the judge, Halima Salman, granted the prayers of the commissioner and adjourned the case until November 30 for mention.

NAN reports that the suspects allegedly stormed Offa and robbed more than five banks killing about 31 persons in the operation.

The suspects, who appeared before the court were Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salaudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran.

They were arraigned on a three-count charge of Criminal Conspiracy, Armed Robbery and Culpable Homicide, which contravened the provisions of sections 6 (b) 1(2) of the Armed Robbery and Firearms Act and 221 of the Penal Code.

Speaking with journalists after the adjournment, Mr Ajibade, who headed the state prosecution team, could not explain the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Adikwu.

He stated that the police were yet to provide the state prosecution with the evidence and circumstances of the death of the suspect.

The Offa roberry became controversial after the police accused Senate President Bukola Saraki and Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of sponsoring the suspects.

The two top Kwara politicians denied the allegations.

Mr Saraki, who unlike Governor Ahmed enjoys no immunity from prosecution, was questioned by the police for his alleged role in the scandal.

During the controversy, the police moved the suspects to Abuja and refused to cooperate with Kwara authorities for their trial.

Wednesdays happening in court appears to show the police have now handed the suspects to the Kwara legal team for prosecution.

The police are also yet to prosecute Mr Saraki and have kept mum on his alleged role since saying further investigations were ongoing.
The Special Task Force (STF) known as Operation Safe Haven (OPSH) has set up a strike force to return Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Plateau State to their ancestral homes.

John Agim, the Director, Defence Information, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Jos at a news conference.

Mr Agim said that the development was jointly carried out between Operation Safe Haven and Operation 777 which was set up in October to restructure existing operations across the country.

He added that the forward operating bases of the strike force would be situated at strategic locations to dominate the general area to give confidence to the inhabitants to return.

He noted that headquarters of OPSH had earlier set up a committee in which some civilians assessed the extent of destruction in deserted villages.

The commitee was also to assess the possibility of establishing strike force bases as prelude to encouraging IDPs to return to their ancestral homes.

The committee undertook a painstaking tour of 40 villages in which their findings were categorised into three.

He listed the categories to include villages that were abandoned out of fear of insecurity, villages that were attacked with some houses partially destroyed and those attacked with houses completely destroyed.

Augustine Agundu, the OPSH Commander, assured that the people in first category would be assisted to return to

their homes before December 24.

Mr Agundu stated that returning the other categories to their homes would require more efforts and collaboration with government and others to help them to rebuild their homes.

The commander, however, gave March next year as the return date for other categories.

He expressed optimism to succeed in the assignment, adding that the displaced persons were willing and ready to return to their homes.

Mr Agundu named seven villges in the first category to include Hei, Burdinga, Kazok, Kuzen, Razat, Zat & Bet and Mararaba Kantoma.

The commander added that the two other categories have 24 villages and listed some of them as: Kabong, Kedewan, Rantis, Dogo, Ngio, Kufang, Mase, Nicha and Kaching all in Gashish district.

Some others were Kasha Shonong, Zere Shonong, Najahal, Angwan Sarki, Pwabiduk, Ruku, King and Zombies.

He said that the conduct of Operation 777 in OPSH led to the neutralisation of 10 criminals.

He listed the crimes ranging from armed robbery, kidnapping, cattle rustling, banditry, child trafficking, drug peddling, murder, gun runners and cultism.

About 26 suspects were paraded, with investigation ongoing.

Among those paraded was an 11-year-old cultist who confessed killing one person and was brought to Jos from Lagos to carry out a special assignment.

(NAN)
The President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, has called on the presidency to institute a judicial inquiry into how and when the principal suspect in the April 5 deadly bank robbery in Offa, Kwara State died.

The demand was contained in a statement by Mr Sarakis Special Adviser (Media and Publicity), Yusuph Olaniyonu, while reacting to a statement by Kwara State Commissioner for Justice, Kamal Ajibade.

Mr Ajibade on Wednesday told the State High Court in Ilorin during the arraignment of five of the robbery suspects that the principal suspect, Michael Adikwu, has died in police custody.

The police commissioner did not disclose the nature of the death, the justice commissioner said. He also sought an adjournment to enable the prosecution amend the charges and remove the name of the deceased suspect.

Mr Saraki noted that the new disclosure by the police has vindicated his earlier claim that the suspect had been murdered in police custody and that the investigation was politically motivated to implicate him (Mr Saraki), Governor Abdulfatai Ahmed and a few others.

He said the inquiry would help to thoroughly examine and interrogate how the investigation into the robbery incident was conducted by the police and whether the investigation followed the normal process and complied with global best practices.

The statement added that the police needed to confirm why it took them so long to make the disclosure about the death of the principal suspect after they categorically denied it at the time he (Saraki) disclosed the information and it was reported in the media.

It should be recalled that when we mentioned it that the principal suspect had been murdered and that investigation into the Offa robbery attack was politically motivated and targeted at implicating me and other individuals, the Police Public Relations Officer, Moshood Jimoh, said: Michael Adikwu is in police custody.

You know that he is the one that led the killing of 22 people. The firearms that were carted away, he is helping the police in the investigation to recover them. There is a state in the South-West where they kept him. I cant mention the state. It is in one of the South-West states, Mr Saraki quoted Mr Moshood as saying back then.

The fresh facts have now thrown more light into why there had been inconsistencies in the various statements by the police. The police initially told the Attorney-General of Kwara State that the principal suspect was alive and they only later reluctantly disclosed that he died in the course of arrest. How can a suspect confirmed to be in custody now be said to have died in the course of arrest? This contradiction shows a deliberate attempt to cover up something.

It is obvious that the police have orchestrated the information they give to the public on the Offa robbery only to tarnish the image of the Kwara State Governor and myself. We are calling for a public inquiry to probe the issues of extra-judicial killing, the cover-up of this killing with the aim of framing up some individuals for political purpose and politicising of criminal investigations. The facts need to be laid bare.

The inquiry may help to further document and define the terms of handling of suspects in police custody and how to prevent extra-judicial killing of suspects, for whatever purpose. There is a need for transparency in investigations into all cases and our methods should comply with global standards. We should discourage situations where police politicise investigations and deliberately set out to frame some individuals.

With the facts on ground, the issues that should be unearthed by the inquiry include: When exactly did the suspect die? How did he die? Why was the police denying the facts of his death when they knew he had died? At what point did the Police leadership knew of the death? Why are the police covering up the facts? We believe the answer to these questions will help the country to address the issue of human rights abuse, extra-judicial killing, manipulation of criminal investigation to achieve political end, deliberate attempt to cover up some facts and how skewed investigation of crime can impact on successful prosecution of suspects, he added.

Mr Saraki said now that the police have commenced prosecution of the remaining suspects in court, there should be diligent and prompt prosecution so that justice can be transparently done to both the victims of the robbery and the accused persons.
A Kano High Court on Wednesday fixed December 6 for judgement on whether the Kano State House of Assembly has the power to investigate the alleged $5 million bribery allegation against Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

The National coordinator of Lawyers for Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria, Muhammad Zubair, filed a suit to determine the constitutional competence of the state lawmakers to investigate the allegation.

When the matter was called for hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the Assembly, Muhammad Waziri, argued that it has the power to investigate any person, including the governor, for the purpose of making laws and checking corruption.

He said even though the governor has immunity, it does not preclude his investigation by the House.

He, therefore, urged the court to dismiss the application filed by the plaintiff in view of the fact it was trying to usurp powers given to the House by the Nigerian Constitution.

In his argument, counsel to the plaintiff, Nuraini Jimoh, also said the House has the power to investigate the governor in order to expose corruption, as specifically mentioned by the Constitution.

What the House is investigating is no doubt a crime against the governor. But by doing so they are exercising their powers to expose corruption, he said.

But in his submission, the third defendant, who is also the state Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Ibrahim Muktar, said the House has no power to conduct a criminal investigation against the governor.

According to him, the state Assembly has no trained experts or investigators to conduct the investigation, stressing that such assignment should be referred to the police or relevant agencies.

The House has no capacity to conduct criminal investigation and it will be to the detriment of the person being investigated because they lack the capacity to conduct the investigation, he said.

After listening to the arguments of both sides, the judge, A. T Badamasi, fixed Thursday, December 6 for judgement on whether the state Assembly has the power to carry out the investigation or not.

On Monday, another state high court had directed Daily Nigerian newspaper to desist from publishing or sharing the alleged $5million bribery video of the governor.

Justice Na Mallam granted the two prayers sought by Mr Ganduje through his counsel, Nuruddeen Ayagi, asking the court to restrain Daily Nigerian newspaper and its publisher, Jaafar Jaafar, from publishing, sharing or spreading videos injurious to the plaintiff, pending the determination of the substantive application in the next sitting.

Kano State government-owned television, ARTV Kano, reported that the court also granted the second prayer of the plaintiff for an order of substituted service on the defendants, and ordered publications in the Daily Trust Newspapers and the Leadership Newspapers as sufficient service to them.

That publication was made in Wednesdays print edition of Daily Trust newspaper.

Mr Ganduje had sued the publisher of Daily Nigerian newspaper and demanded N3 billion for alleged defamation over publications of video clips depicting the governor as collecting bribes in hard currency from a contractor.

Mr Ganduje argued that As a responsible senior citizen, the publications of the defendants have hurt my image, impugned my character and lowered my esteem in the estimation of all reasonable persons.

The judge adjourned for the hearing of the motion on notice to December 6.
The police in Akwa Ibom State have sealed off the premises of the states House of Assembly.

The reason for the polices action is still unclear.

When a PREMIUM TIMES reporter visited the vicinity of the assembly complex at Udo Udoma Avenue on Wednesday morning, police trucks were seen barricading the road leading to the building.

Other police trucks were stationed in front of the entrance to the assembly complex.

Several anti-riot police officers were seen on the already deserted road.

Sorry, theres no thoroughfare; nobody is allowed to drive or walk through this road, one of the police officers barricading the road told this reporter.

Angry youth, who are members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), stormed the assembly complex on Monday morning protesting the sacking of a lawmaker, Idongesit Ituen.

Mr Ituen, who represented the Itu State Constituency, was sacked by a federal high court for defecting from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC.

The House had its sitting as scheduled on Monday, despite the protest.

The speaker, Onofiok Luke, went on to declare vacant the seats of four more lawmakers who had also defected from PDP to APC.

The sacked lawmakers, five of them, in turn, held their own sitting where they removed the speaker, Mr Luke, and elected one of them, Nse Ntuen (Essien Udim State Constituency) as the new speaker.

The police have not given reasons why the state assembly had been sealed off.

The police spokesperson in the state, Odiko MacDon, did not respond to calls and text message from PREMIUM TIMES at the time of filing this report.

The speaker, Mr Luke, has not received any communication from the police on why the assembly has been sealed off, the spokesperson to the speaker, Kufre Okon, told PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday morning.

Mr Okon said the police officers barricading all the entrances to assembly complex prevented the assembly staffers from going into the complex.

He said aides to some of the lawmakers were also harassed by the officers.
More light has been shed on why the ruling All Progressives Congress may perform poorly in Rivers State, perhaps the most strategic and volatile political hot spot in the South-south.

The APC senator representing Rivers South East constituency, Magnus Abe, said the alleged dictatorship of the Minister of Transport and Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi, may hurt the party badly in the forthcoming elections.

In an interview in the recent edition of The Interview magazine, Mr Abe accused Mr Amaechi of running a one-man show and stoking a personality cult.

My grievances with the Transport Minister, Mr Abe said, have nothing to do with him supporting me or not supporting me. I have told him clearly that he is free to support who he wants to support. My disagreement with him is that he said I should not run, and I said I will run.

Mr Abe narrated how the feud between him and Mr Amaechi, who used to be his ally and friend, spilled into his family circle when the minister visited him at home.

To come to my house, call me in front of my wife and tell me not to try contesting was the height of it. I said no, I will not accept that one: I will contest, Mr Abe said.

The MD/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview, Azu Ishiekwene, said in a statement that the Abe interview plumbs the recesses of the problems with the APC in one of the most strategic southern states and gives more than a hint of the dire consequences ahead for the ruling party.

Abe also spoke of the APCs riotous primaries in the Rivers State and the subsisting court judgment which potentially rules out the party from fielding a candidate in the governorship election next year.

Also, in this edition, Julia Fortune-Johnson, a stage 3 cancer survivor shared her experience and lessons learned; leading public speaker, Niyi Adesanya, offered tips on how to overcome the fear of death on the big stage; while Italian-based Nigerian fashion entrepreneur, Ijeoma Meribe-Nnorom, talks about how she is putting Nigeria firmly on the Italian couture map.
Groups of youth on Thursday stormed the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing in Maitama, Abuja to protest against the renewal of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company operational licence.

The protest was organised by the BEDC Franchise States Peoples Alliance and had protesters, comprising smaller groups from Edo, Delta, Ondo and Ekiti States.

The groups urged the ministry to avoid being compromised and demanded for the non-extension of the licence of Vigeo Holdings Limited, the firm in charge.

A leader of the protesting groups from Edo said the DISCO has not added any value to what it met, adding that the region has been groaning under heavy estimated bills with deliberate non-supply of meters.

The groups also said the BEDC has refused to provide transformers and electrical poles including ancillaries

Since the takeover, the BEDC has not demonstrated any discernable improvement or added value to what they on the ground. Nigerians have been groaning under heavy estimated bills, a deliberate non-supply of meters, molestation of customers with military personnel, refusal to connect communities to the national grid, non-provision of transformers, poles and other ancillaries, a spokesman of the group, Leftist Agho said.

The group described the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) reported one-year extension of the companys licence as unacceptable.

It is our humble submission that the five-year probation period is sufficient for the review of the performance of the DISCO to determine renewal of operating licences or otherwise.

It is clear to all and sundry that the operators of the BEDC have failed in all fronts since takeover. A review of reports and surveys from the four states houses of assembly, civil society groups, extracts from town hall meetings, petitions, protests by communities have revealed that the BEDC has not delivered in accordance with the performance agreement entered in November 2013.

Hence they do not deserve an extension or renewal of operational licence. The people are fed up with the unfair business operations of the management of the BEDC and can no longer take it.

The groups also asked the minister to act by sacking Funke Osibudu, the BEDC helmsman.

We are all here to protest the sudden silence of the ministry over the expiration of the BEDC licence, and we are demanding that the licence must never be renewed and extended. We want the company sacked and gone and we want BPP or NERC to take over the operations, the spokesman said.

Groups protest renewal of power distribution firms licence Groups protest renewal of power distribution firms licence Groups protest renewal of power distribution firms licence Groups protest renewal of power distribution firms licence

We are here to see the minister of power, works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, so he must let the president know that the people who are on the receiving end are saying enough of Funke Osibudu and BDEC. We want them gone.

Two protest arrow-heads, Terry Ajagbawa and Dare Omopariola, from Delta and Ondo states, in seperate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES also urged the government to look for an urgent replacement for the company since it had failed.

No government official addressed the crowd of protesters while they were at the ministry.
President Muhammadu Buhari has again assured that all ongoing federal projects in the South-east region will be funded.

He also said the seven-month delay in passing this years budget will not serve as an excuse.

Speaking at a meeting with South-east governors and Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, Wednesday, at the State House Villa, Mr Buhari pledged that the federal government will sustain the support to the South-east in terms of infrastructure.

I assure you that we are doing our best and will not default on the agreements signed on ongoing projects, the president told the delegation led by Mr Ekweremadu.

Mr Buhari explained that part of the noticeable problem in the delay in the execution of the capital projects was caused by the budget hold-up.

When you sign, and you dont pay, they (contractors) can legally jerk up their costs. This is part of the problem.

The infrastructure budget is a deficit budget. The borrowing plan was only approved three weeks ago and all ministers and departments of government have been instructed to forge ahead. We must not find excuses for delaying the projects.

Developing infrastructure is the best thing we can do. When the roads are okay, the rails are established and there is power, Nigerians will flourish in their businesses, he said.

President Buhari, who was accompanied to the meeting by the Secretary to the Government, Boss Mustapha; the Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelemah; the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige; the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and that of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, responded from point to point on all the issues raised by the governors.

On the undulating surface of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, the president assured that it will be addressed in the new budget.

A statement by his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said Mr Buhari also spoke of governments serious interest in the new Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri standard gauge railway which transverses several states including those in the South-east.

Mr Amaechi gave assurance that the project, the single most costly rail project at $12 billion, will soon be coming to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

The statement said ministers were directed to follow up with the private sector on key projects in the region, including the South-east Dry Port and the Geometric Power Plant in Aba, with a view to untangling the problems causing their delayed take-off.

Speaking on behalf of the governors, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State said they had come specifically to thank the president for the award of the contract for the major component of the second Niger Bridge at the cost of N206 billion.

The project is the dream of our people and it has become a dream come true. Our people said we must come and thank you. Your Excellency, Mr President we are grateful Sir, he said.

Thereafter, Mr Umahi, while enumerating some challenges confronting the governors to the president, said: out of mutual respect, we have come to you as a caring leader to listen to us.

Other governors on the delegation were Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State and the Deputy Governor of Anambra State, Nkem Okeke.
The presidential candidate of Accord Party, Isaac Ositelu, has said he would rebuild Nigerias broken infrastructure and unite the country regardless of tongue and creed if he emerges winner of the 2019 presidential elections.

The Accord Party flag bearer, whose presidential campaign is yet to start, however, promised the campaign would kick off this week.

In a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, Mr Ositelu while addressing journalists in Lagos promised to restore Nigerias lost glory back to its path of economic prosperity, security stability, and social order.

He said food security, potable water, affordable healthcare delivery, and power to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria are his mandatory deliverables to all Nigerians.

The party would stand on its honour to provide at least two square meal to every citizen on a daily basis, access to potable water, uninterrupted power supply, and technology-enabled healthcare for all both in the rural and urban centres.

He also said he would provide electricity which would, in turn, motivate the youth in Nigeria to be more productive, adding that once the power crisis is resolved, it would entice many renowned brands to return to Nigeria, with a greater boost to the nations GDP.

We all appreciate the importance of power and how its availability can radically change our economy and life generally. But it is very unfortunate that this problem has refused to go, despite all the interventions, both by the previous governments and even the current one, Mr Ositelu said.

Outside power, we all know that other national infrastructures are in dire straits and nobody is doing anything to reverse this ugly situation that has remained for so long, he added.

The presidential candidate said any government that focuses on solving the countrys energy crisis would have significantly addressed one of the major challenges facing Nigeria.

However, we all know that at the centre of this failure is leadership and capacity. Let me state once again that we are in this race to rebuild Nigeria and return her to the path of growth and development.

We have what it takes to bring back those good old years of competence, excellence, development, respect for human life and dignity and hope.

Mr Ositelu noted that if he emerges the winner, he would immediately commence reconstruction of projects abandoned by previous governments.

On our honour, we promise to immediately commence this reconstruction of our great country from many years of brokenness that has left our people confused, skeptical and alienated.

In the days ahead, we will unveil our blueprint. We are also going to be discussing our strategies with our teeming supporters who are already upbeat and expectant about a great future that we have promised.

We are confident of victory because the masses are with us. So, we are driving our campaign in agreement with long-suffering Nigerian citizens who are tired of promises that lead to nowhere.

This is our chance and I know the people of Nigeria will cease this moment by coming out and voting massively for Accord Party, for that future that we all desperately want.
The Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum says it disagrees with former President Goodluck Jonathan on his assessment of the current state of the nations economy in his book My Transition Hours.

The forum says the economy is better under President Muhammadu Buharis administration.

The Yoruba Socio-Cultural group expressed its reservation to Jonathans allegation in a statement signed by Akin Malaolu, its Secretary-General on Wednesday.

My Transition Hours by Jonathan launched on Tuesday in Abuja contains his views on various issues till he left office May 29, 2015.

According to Mr Malaolu, such claims should be completely ignored.

Ex-President Jonathans claim that the present leadership of the country under Buhari has worsened the condition of things for Nigeria and Nigerians should be ignored completely because they are false and inaccurate.

During the last administration, our foreign reserve stood at 22 billion dollars when the price of a barrel of crude oil was above 100 dollars per barrel.

That is a clear indicator that Ex-President Jonathan was present but wholly absentminded in savings.

Today, our foreign reserve stands at almost 50 billion dollars even at a time the price of crude oil was below 50 dollars per barrel.

As crude oil recently appreciated in price, there is positive desire on the part of Buhari government to make the nation better and steady by bringing back investors who fled the country, he said.

The group alleged that investors fled Nigeria due to several bombings and spasms of communal bloodlettings of Jonathan era.

It was commonly known to all Nigerians that under Jonathan, Nigeria suffered several reversals in fortunes.

Frauds and stealing were the only conditions for greatness and for fortune getting.

The nations military suffered from poor supervision that made mockery of our capacity to hold insurgents at bay, he said.

Yoruba Ronu said such misfortune had been addressed by putting the military in better hands.

We urge Nigerians to remember a former President Olusegun Obasanjos open letter to Jonathan wherein he wrote:

When the guard becomes the thief, nothing again is safe in the house.

Such remarks painted Jonathan as lacking in probity and character, it had been proven to be true if we recall the several probes and recoveries made by the Buhari administration, he said.

Mr Malaolu said Nigerians today appreciated the government of Mr Buhari, who not only took millions back to the farms, but had made remarkable improvement in other sectors.

The nations infrastructure development is on the upward swing. First standard gauge rail line was witnessed in the country within three years of this administration.

He listed power, mining, education, health and transport management amongst other sectors that have been boosted.

Mr Jonathan recently said since I left office, the fact remains that Nigeria has not made any improvement on TI (Transparency International) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) since 2014.

Mr Buhari, represented by Mr. Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Federal Government, as well as Mr Obasanjo, Abdulsalam Abubakar and political leaders across party lines graced the book launch.

(NAN)
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.




girls getting water

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-- November is officially the month of all things "giving" for Western New York company, L-Tron Corporation. Giving thanks, of course, but also giving through Random Acts of Kindness (RAKs) and supporting local and global giving initiatives. In the beginning of November the Company hosted a customer appreciation open house event at its new office headquarters. The event expressed thanks to customers, business partners, and local government and law enforcement officials for their support over the years. The evening also kicked off L-Tron's current giving initiative, the Clean Water Project. Through the Thanksgiving holiday week, L-Tron decided to tie World Kindness Day, Black Friday (renamed "RAK Friday" at L-Tron), Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday to its corporate giving initiatives.To date, L-Tron has raised over $3,000 for World Concern, an international non-profit organization that provides sustainable clean water sources for the most impoverished communities in the world by digging and repairing wells and constructing rainwater collection systems. The organization educates about the importance of sanitation and installs latrines to protect water sources and prevent the spread of disease. Currently, the countries involved are Chad, Haiti, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Somalia, and Sri Lanka.Company CEO, RAD DeRose and COO, Gayle DeRose first learned about World Concern in 2017, when their son, Rob, traveled to Chad, Africa with a World Concern team.Gayle DeRose says, "Clean water, something we easily take for granted, is not available for 2 billion people in this world, our world. How is that even possible?!" She continues, "The true stories Rob shared captured our hearts. We want to support this cause in any and every way possible."Instead of pushing Black Friday purchases, L-Tron is encouraging giving from Thanksgiving through Giving Tuesday, to support World Concern's Project Clean Water. On Black Friday & Cyber Monday, 100% of all Magnetic Mount purchases,valued at $29.95, will be donated back to World Concern. L-Tron is also encouraging users to share their Random Acts of Kindness on #RAKFriday. Not interested in the promotion, but want to give anyway? Donations can be made at https://www.l- tron.com/world- concern-clean- water/ L-Tron would like to thank business partner, Honeywell Solutions, as well as the other businesses and individuals that have generously contributed to this campaign so far. Check L-Tron's website, blog and social media pages to see how Random Acts of Kindness are taking over the Company and to learn more about how L-Tron's partnership with World Concern began!
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Approved Companies are proud to announce the 5th year anniversary of its petroleum and renewable fuels Wholesale Division.

The celebration comes at a time of continued growth as the group simultaneously announces its expansion into the Baltimore wholesale marketplace. At its inception and core, the group has been a leading New York Metropolitan fuel supplier with long term commitments at two strategically located deep-water terminal positions; and has since crossed into neighboring states including New Jersey & now Maryland, totaling five terminal positions.

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The Approved Wholesale Division is a proud marketer of ultra-low sulfur fuel, low-sulfur fuel, residual fuel, bio-blended fuels and biofuels. It is affiliated to the Approved Companies conglomerate of energy related companies including Approved Oil, Approved Energy, and Approved Plumbing & Fire Protection.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On Black Friday, holiday shoppers can make their homes smarter and greener with substantial discounts on innovative products from Sense and Rachio.

Sense Home Energy Monitor -- Through November 26 , take advantage of 20% off the $299 list price for the Sense home energy monitor with promo code BLACKFRI18. Like a fitness tracker for your home, Sense (www.sense.com) tells you what's going on in your home. Get control over your energy usage and make your home more efficient and safer. Sense works with Amazon Alexa, Hue lighting, and selected smart plugs. Available on Amazon and at Sense.com



Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler -- Save $40 on smart watering - and up to half off your watering bill - with the Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller. Through November 26 , get Black Friday savings on streamlined smartphone control, personalized schedules and reliable weather adjustments. Rachio 3 works with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home and more, for smart watering that fits your lifestyle. Rachio is available on Amazon and at rachio.com.

About Sense

Sense's mission is to make all homes intelligent by keeping people informed about what's happening in their homes, and helping to make them safer, more efficient, and more reliable. Founded in 2013 by pioneers in speech recognition, Sense uses machine learning technology to provide real-time insights on device behavior, even for those devices that are not "smart." Customers rely on Sense for a wide range of uses including checking what time their kids get home, monitoring their home appliances, determining whether they left appliances running or doors open and identifying how to reduce their energy costs. Sense is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. To make sense of your energy use, visit: https://sense.com.

About Rachio

Rachio is a Denver-based technology company working to make sustainable water use effortless and personally rewarding for homeowners. Maker of the best-selling smart sprinkler controller, Rachio helps balance landscape needs and lifestyle goals with personalized watering schedules, reliable weather monitoring and flexible smartphone control. With a best-in-class app and category-leading smart home integrations, Rachio technology makes it easy to take the guesswork out of watering.

Sense is at sense.com. Find Sense images here

Rachio is at rachio.com. Find Rachio images here

SOURCE Sense

Related Links

https://sense.com


--Profitability remained flat on improved operating efficiency--

--Net revenue down 23% Q/Q amidst regulatory and market uncertainty--

--Significant improvements in Breakeven Volume and Take Rate building a path toward profitability--

--Well positioned for future growth--

SHANGHAI, Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China Rapid Finance Limited (NYSE: XRF) ("XRF" or "the Company"), operator of one of China's largest consumer lending marketplaces, today reported its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018.

Dr. Zane Wang, Founder, Chairman and co-Chief Executive Officer of the Company, noted: "Our third quarter results reflect both the regulatory uncertainties impacting our industry, and the proactive approach we are taking to position ourselves as a leader in a healthier and safer industry ahead. XRF has taken active steps among its peers in submitting compliance documents. We look forward to the next steps in verification by the authorities, which are expected to be completed before year end."

Zane added: "Funding is key in our industry, and we have seen some incremental improvement in the sentiment of our institutional lenders. The Company has launched new trust fund programs in the third quarter and has more in the pipeline. We believe the confidence and trustworthiness of the industry will be far greater in the months ahead."

Russell Krauss, co-Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Company, commented: "Loan volumes are down across the industry. While we are responding to the current environment, we are not losing sight of our long-term strategy. By focusing on repeat borrowers, optimizing our cost structure and deploying new products, we are preparing for renewed growth. Our actions resulted in a significantly lower 'Breakeven Volume', down 46% sequentially. We also continued to improve our 'Take Rate', which tripled to 9.1% since last year. Financial performance remained flat, despite a significant drop in loan volume- giving us confidence we are making progress through this challenging period for the industry."

Krauss emphasized, "We are not curtailing investments needed to innovate products and drive our business into new areas that better serve our customers. We also continue to recruit some of the best talent in the industry. We are confident that XRF will emerge from this uncertain regulatory period with an optimized business model that offers accelerated growth and value."

Kerry Shen, Chief Financial Officer of the Company, noted: "During this period, we remain committed to tightly controlling our operating expenses. The cost-cutting efforts we initiated in the first half are bearing fruit, as you can see in our lower operating expense run rate this quarter. Our new loyalty programs continue to serve our very best customers, resulting in average loan size up 65% in this quarter from the same period a year ago. This reflects a key element of our strategy, and we are also moving beyond just loans to acquire customers and serve their needs."

Operating Highlights

Please note that all figures refer to the third quarter of 2018, unless stated otherwise.

The Company noted the following operating highlights in the third quarter:

Number of loans facilitated totaled 0.8 million, down 54% sequentially. The Company focused on repeat borrowers with excellent credit behavior, resulting in smaller number of loans. Our repeat rate of borrowers in the third quarter remained high at 75%, same as the second quarter of 2018.

totaled 0.8 million, down 54% sequentially. The Company focused on repeat borrowers with excellent credit behavior, resulting in smaller number of loans. Our repeat rate of borrowers in the third quarter remained high at 75%, same as the second quarter of 2018. Total loan volume of $194 million was down 52% sequentially. The consumption loan volume was down 53% to $134.7 million , and lifestyle loan volume down 50% quarter-on-quarter to $59.3 million .

of was down 52% sequentially. The consumption loan volume was down 53% to , and lifestyle loan volume down 50% quarter-on-quarter to . Average loan size for all loans was $242 , up 4% quarter-on-quarter to its highest level since the beginning of 2017, a result of loans going to more seasoned borrowers.

for all loans was , up 4% quarter-on-quarter to its highest level since the beginning of 2017, a result of loans going to more seasoned borrowers. New borrowers added were 51 thousand, a sequential decrease of 30%. The new borrower growth demonstrated the Company's commitment to operate conservatively and proactively focus on its most established long-term borrowers. Notably, new loan product innovations are attracting high-quality new borrowers with favorable credit behaviors, including high credit scores, low default rate and healthily growing credit demand.

added were 51 thousand, a sequential decrease of 30%. The new borrower growth demonstrated the Company's commitment to operate conservatively and proactively focus on its most established long-term borrowers. Notably, new loan product innovations are attracting high-quality new borrowers with favorable credit behaviors, including high credit scores, low default rate and healthily growing credit demand. Streamlined operations and lowered operating expenses through continued cost management: The Company reduced operating expense run rate by $4.2 million quarter-on-quarter, which resulted from continuous cost cutting efforts, and improved efficiency through accelerating automation of data verification process and other measures.

The Company reduced operating expense run rate by quarter-on-quarter, which resulted from continuous cost cutting efforts, and improved efficiency through accelerating automation of data verification process and other measures. Product innovations : The Company continued to invest in product development aimed at further enhancing customer value, improving services and customer satisfaction.

: The Company continued to invest in product development aimed at further enhancing customer value, improving services and customer satisfaction. Annualized loss rate of consumption loans as of September 30, 2018 was 4.8%.





For the Three Months Ended



September 30,

2017 June 30,

2018 September 30,

2018 QoQ Number of loans facilitated

('000)







Consumption loans 7,014 1,731 793 -54% Lifestyle loans 11 11 7 -38% Total 7,025 1,742 800 -54% Number of new borrowers

('000)







Consumption loan 921 64 45 -30% Lifestyle loans 10 9 6 -33% Total 931 73 51 -30%









Repeat borrower rate[1] 75% 75% 75% -









Loan volume (in US$ millions)







Consumption loans 908.0 289.2 134.7 -53% Lifestyle loans 122.3 118.3 59.3 -50% Total 1030.3 407.5 194.0 -52%













Financial Highlights

Please note that all figures refer to the third quarter of 2018, unless stated otherwise.

Gross Billings and Revenue

Total gross billings on transaction and service fees[2] were $17.6 million , down 50% from $35.1 million in the second quarter of 2018.

Gross billings from Consumption loans were $3.6 million, down 62% from $9.4 million in the second quarter of 2018 mainly because of a 53% decrease in consumption loan volume.

Gross billings from Lifestyle loans were $14.1 million, down 45% from $25.7 million in the second quarter of 2018, mainly because of a 50% decrease in lifestyle loan volume.

Other revenue was $5.4 million , up $5.0 million sequentially. This is mainly attributable to the new product design by partnering with e-commerce platforms where we can share a percentage of product margin or receive referral fees.

was , up sequentially. This is mainly attributable to the new product design by partnering with e-commerce platforms where we can share a percentage of product margin or receive referral fees. Net revenue was $17.6 million , down 23% quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to a decrease in total loan volume by 52%. Net revenue decreased slower than total loan volume, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Company's strategy in serving high quality customers by providing credit and value-added services they need.

Net revenue take rate (net revenue as a percentage of total loan volume) more than tripled to 9.1% in this quarter from 2.6% a year ago and increased from 5.6% sequentially. This is mainly contributed by our value-added services to borrowers, which have significantly lowered our breakeven loan volume and paved a solid path toward profitability.

[ 1] Repeat borrower rate is defined as the total number of customers who borrowed more than once divided by the total number of borrowers on our marketplace. Both numbers are calculated since inception. [2] Gross billings on transaction and service fees is defined as transaction and service fees billed to customers and value-added service fees, inclusive of related value-added taxes, before deduction of customer acquisition incentives ("CAI").

Operating Expenses

The Company reduced operating expense run rate by $4.2 million from the rate reported for the second quarter of 2018.

Servicing expenses were $2.2 million , down 23% quarter-on-quarter from $2.9 million in the second quarter of 2018, mainly due to improved efficiency in customer and loan collection services.

were , down 23% quarter-on-quarter from in the second quarter of 2018, mainly due to improved efficiency in customer and loan collection services. Sales and marketing expenses were $7.8 million , down 22% from $10.0 million in the second quarter of 2018. This was primarily due to lower new borrower acquisition.

were , down 22% from in the second quarter of 2018. This was primarily due to lower new borrower acquisition. General and administrative expenses were $14.9 million , down 10% from $16.5 million in the second quarter of 2018. The decrease was primarily due to the expansion of automation and various improvements in our operating structure and was partly offset by increased expenses associated with regulatory activities.

were , down 10% from in the second quarter of 2018. The decrease was primarily due to the expansion of automation and various improvements in our operating structure and was partly offset by increased expenses associated with regulatory activities. Product development expenses[3] were $4.6 million , up 7% from $4.2 million in the second quarter of 2018. The increase was driven by investment in new product technology and improvement in loan matching as well as our servicing platform.

[3] Product development expenses include expenses incurred to facilitate the loan matching business, to gather historical data and borrowing behaviors, as well as to maintain, monitor and manage our transaction and service platform. We recognize website, software and mobile applications development costs in accordance with ASC 350-50 "Website development costs" and ASC 350-40 "Software  internal use software," respectively.

Net Income

GAAP net loss was $11.0 million , up from $10.6 million in the second quarter of 2018. The widened net loss was mainly due to lower loan volume that resulted in decrease of gross billings and net revenue, significantly offset by improved operating efficiency.

was , up from in the second quarter of 2018. The widened net loss was mainly due to lower loan volume that resulted in decrease of gross billings and net revenue, significantly offset by improved operating efficiency. GAAP EPS was ($0.17) per share, as compared to ($0.16) per share in the second quarter of 2018.

Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

As of September 30, 2018, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $39.2 million and restricted cash of $2.5 million. The Company had other current assets of US$13.8 million and shareholders' equity of US$14.7 million.

Net cash used in operating activities in the third quarter was $15.1 million, which compares to $12.3 million in the second quarter of 2018. The decrease was mainly due to the net loss of US$11 million.

The Company regularly monitors its current and expected liquidity requirements to ensure that it maintains sufficient cash balances and accessible credit to meet its liquidity requirements in the short and long term.

Outlook

This outlook is based on information available as of the date of this press release, and is subject to change. The outlook depends in part on a stable regulatory environment and continued access to funding.

Consistent with the trend of improved operating efficiencies and increased contributions from new products and services, the Company will continue to operate prudently through the regulatory transition and monitor our risk and growth policies carefully.

Conference Call:

The Company will hold a conference call on November 20, 2018 at 8:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time (November 21, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. China Standard Time) to discuss its financial results.

Participants may access the call by dialing the following numbers:

International: +1 (412) 902-4272 United States Toll Free: +1 (888) 346-8982 China Toll Free: +86 4001-201203 Hong Kong Local Toll: +852 301-84992 Conference ID: China Rapid Finance call

A replay will be accessible through November 27, 2018 by dialing the following numbers:

United States: +1 (877) 344-7529 International: +1 (412) 317-0088 Replay Access Code: 10126485

A live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available through the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.crfchina.com .

About China Rapid Finance

China Rapid Finance operates a leading online consumer finance marketplace in China, facilitating millions of loans annually. The Company deploys machine learning and proprietary decisioning technology to facilitate affordable digital credit for one of the world's largest untapped consumer credit markets: China's 500 million emerging middle-class mobile active consumers. The Company utilizes its proprietary, mobile-first technology to efficiently select creditworthy consumers for its platform. China Rapid Finance facilitates smaller, shorter-term initial loans to these qualified consumers and then enables larger, longer-term loans for repeat borrowers who demonstrate positive credit behavior. This differentiated strategy positions the platform to attract and retain high quality consumers who generate significant customer lifetime value. China Rapid Finance was founded by Dr. Zane Wang, who has decades of consumer credit experience in the U.S. and China, and is governed by a global board of directors. For more information, please visit http://ir.crfchina.com .

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use non-GAAP adjusted profit/(loss) before income tax expense, a non-GAAP financial measure, in evaluating our operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. We believe that this measurement helps identify underlying trends in our business by excluding the impact of share-based compensation expenses and discretionary payments. We believe that it also provides useful information about our operating results, enhances the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects and allows for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by our management in its financial and operational decision-making.

Non-GAAP adjusted profit/(loss) before income tax expense is not defined under U.S. GAAP and is not presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. This non-GAAP financial measure has limitations as an analytical tool, and when assessing our operating performance, cash flows or our liquidity, investors should not consider it in isolation, or as a substitute for net profit/(loss) or other consolidated statements of comprehensive profit/(loss) prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The Company encourages investors and others to review our financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure.

For more information on this non-GAAP financial measure, please see the table captioned "Unaudited Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results" set forth at the end of this announcement.

Statement Regarding Unaudited Condensed Financial Information

The unaudited financial information set forth below is preliminary and subject to potential adjustments. Adjustments to the consolidated financial statements may be identified when audit work has been performed for the Company's year-end audit, which could result in significant differences from this preliminary unaudited condensed financial information.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "expects," "anticipates," "aims," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "likely to" and similar statements. Among other things, quotations from management in this announcement, China Rapid Finance's financial outlook as well as China Rapid Finance's strategic and operational plans contain forward-looking statements. China Rapid Finance may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about China Rapid Finance's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: unexpected difficulties in China Rapid Finance's pursuit of its goals and strategies; the unexpected developments, including slow growth, in the consumer lending market; reduced demand for, and market acceptance of, China Rapid Finance's products and services; difficulties keeping and strengthening relationships with borrowers or investors; difficulties of expanding data and channel partnerships, potentially costly servicing activities; competition in the consumer lending market; PRC governmental regulations and policies; and general economic and business conditions in the regions where China Rapid Finance provides products and services. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in China Rapid Finance's reports filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this announcement and in the attachments is as of the date of this announcement, and China Rapid Finance undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law.

Investor Relations Contacts:

In China:

China Rapid Finance

Marlene Pan

Tel: +86 (21) 6032-5999

Email: [email protected]

Or

The Blueshirt Group

Gary T. Dvorchak, CFA

Tel: +86 (138) 1079-1480

Email: [email protected]

In the US:

The Blueshirt Group

Ralph Fong

Tel: +1 (415) 489-2195

Email: [email protected]

CHINA RAPID FINANCE LIMITED UNAUDITED INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (US$ in thousands, except share data and per share data, or otherwise noted)



For the Three Months Ended For the Nine Months Ended

September 30,

2017 June 30,

2018 September 30,

2018 September 30,

2017 September 30,

2018

USD USD USD USD USD Revenue:









Transaction and service fees (net of customer acquisition

incentive) 26,818 22,728 12,272 51,925 51,329 Other revenue and tax related surcharges 368 347 5,365 863 6,060













27,186 23,075 17,637 52,788 57,389 Net interest income/(expense) and loan provision losses (2) (115) (70) 9 (177) Discretionary payments - - - - (9,052)











Net Revenue 27,184 22,960 17,567 52,797 48,160











Operating expense:









Servicing expenses (3,437) (2,856) (2,190) (10,227) (8,239) Sales and marketing expenses (11,863) (10,015) (7,767) (31,601) (28,273) General and administrative expenses (14,019) (16,484) (14,862) (36,744) (51,242) Product development expenses (2,319) (4,239) (4,555) (7,148) (12,982)











Total operating expenses (31,638) (33,594) (29,374) (85,720) (100,736) Other income (expense):









Other income (expense), net 135 116 816 261 1,223











Loss before income tax expense (4,319) (10,518) (10,991) (32,662) (51,353) Income tax expense (41) (34) (36) (69) (415)











Net loss (4,360) (10,552) (11,027) (32,731) (51,768) Accretion on Series A convertible redeemable preferred

shares to redemption value....... - - - (96) - Accretion on Series B convertible redeemable preferred

shares to redemption value - - - (540) - Accretion on Series C convertible redeemable preferred

shares to redemption value - - - (2,232) - Deemed dividend to Series C convertible redeemable

preferred shareholders upon initial public offering - - - (82,034) - Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders (4,360) (10,552) (11,027) (117,633) (51,768)











Net loss (4,360) (10,552) (11,027) (32,731) (51,768) Foreign currency translation adjustment, net of nil tax 142 (39) (303) (7) (54)











Comprehensive loss (4,218) (10,591) (11,330) (32,738) (51,822)











Weighted average number of ordinary shares used in

computing net loss per share









Basic 64,696,840 65,356,887 65,354,900 44,008,941 65,281,771 Diluted 64,696,840 65,356,887 65,354,900 44,008,941 65,281,771 Loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders









Basic (0.07) (0.16) (0.17) (2.67) (0.79) Diluted (0.07) (0.16) (0.17) (2.67) (0.79)

CHINA RAPID FINANCE LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (US$ in thousands, except share data and per share data, or otherwise noted)





As of

September 30,

2017 June 30,

2018 September 30,

2018

USD USD USD Assets





Cash and cash equivalents 81,442 58,809 39,217 Restricted cash 14,145 2,708 2,501 Short-term investments - - 797 Loans receivable, net of allowance for loan losses US$103 thousand, US$206

housand and US$612 thousand as of September 30, 2017, June 30, 2018 and

September 30, 2018, respectively 450 1,917 10,816 Safeguard Program receivable 5,489 13,841 10,959 Receivables, prepayments and other assets 12,852 20,978 21,738 Property equipment and software, net 5,377 5,551 5,077







Total assets 119,755 103,804 91,105







LIABILITIES, MEZZANINE EQUITY AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY





Liabilities:





Safeguard Program payable 17,536 14,057 11,099 Accrued liabilities 36,722 54,464 58,759 Income tax payable 1,976 1,981 1,906 Deferred revenue 1,175 8,220 4,673



-

Total liabilities 57,409 78,722 76,437







Shareholders' equity:





Ordinary shares (US$0.0001 par value, 500,000,000 shares authorized; 64,699,757

shares issued and outstanding as of September 30, 2017; 65,436,297 shares issued,

and 65,398,387 shares outstanding as of June 30, 2018; 65,759,210 shares issued,

and 65,341,296 shares outstanding as of September 30, 2018) 6 6 6 Additional paid-in capital 281,038 282,833 283,749 Accumulated other comprehensive income (920) (494) (797) Accumulated deficit (217,778) (257,263) (268,290) Less: Treasury stock (nil as of September 30, 2017; 37,910 as of June 30, 2018;

417,914 shares as of September 30, 2018) - - -







Total shareholders' equity 62,346 25,082 14,668







Total liabilities, mezzanine equity and shareholders' equity 119,755 103,804 91,105









CHINA RAPID FINANCE LIMITED UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW DATA (US$ in thousands, except share data and per share data, or otherwise noted)







For the Three Months Ended For the Nine Months Ended













September 30,

2017 June 30,

2018 September 30,

2018 September 30,

2017 September 30,

2018

USD USD USD USD USD Net cash used in operating activities 7,090 (12,263) (15,087) (21,446) (62,244) Net cash used in investing activities (751) (333) (12,126) (1,240) (12,791) Net cash provided by financing activities - - 7,724 85,278 7,724 Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents, and restricted

cash 586 (461) (310) (133) (525) Net (decrease)/increase in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash 6,925 (13,057) (19,799) 62,459 (67,836) Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at beginning of period 74,517 74,574 61,517 18,983 109,554











Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash at end of period 81,442 61,517 41,718 81,442 41,718



























CHINA RAPID FINANCE LIMITED UNAUDITED RECONCILIATION OF GAAP AND NON-GAAP RESULTS (US$ in thousands, except share data and per share data, or as otherwise noted)





For the Three Months Ended

September 30,

2017 June 30,

2018 September 30,

2018

USD USD USD Loss before income tax expense (4,319) (10,518) (10,991)







Add: share-based compensation expense 425 398 917 Add: provision for discretionary payments - - - Add: impact from new revenue standard - - - Add: organization restructuring costs - 1,386 - Non-GAAP adjusted loss before income tax

expense (3,894) (8,734) (10,074)

























CHINA RAPID FINANCE LIMITED UNAUDITED INTERIM CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (US$ in thousands, except share data and per share data, or otherwise noted)





For the Six Months Ended

June 30,

2017 June 30,

2018

USD USD Revenue:



Transaction and service fees (net of customer acquisition incentive) 25,107 39,057 Other revenue and tax related surcharges 501 695







25,608 39,752 Net interest income/(expense) and loan provision losses 11 (107) Discretionary payments - (9,052)





Net Revenue 25,613 30,593





Operating expense:



Servicing expenses (6,790) (6,049) Sales and marketing expenses (19,738) (20,506) General and administrative expenses (22,704) (36,380) Product development expenses (4,850) (8,427)





Total operating expenses (54,082) (71,362)





Other income (expense):



Other income (expense), net 126 407





Loss before income tax expense (28,343) (40,362) Income tax expense (28) (379)





Net loss (28,371) (40,741) Accretion on Series A convertible redeemable preferred shares to redemption

value (96) - Accretion on Series B convertible redeemable preferred shares to redemption

value (540) - Accretion on Series C convertible redeemable preferred shares to redemption

value (2,232) - Deemed dividend to Series C convertible redeemable preferred shareholders

upon initial public offering (82,034) - Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders (113,273) (40,741)





Net loss (28,371) (40,741) Foreign currency translation adjustment, net of nil tax (149) 249





Comprehensive loss (28,520) (40,492)





Weighted average number of ordinary shares used in computing net loss per

share



Basic 33,501,833 65,244,600 Diluted 33,501,833 65,244,600 Loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders



Basic (3.38) (0.62) Diluted (3.38) (0.62)

SOURCE China Rapid Finance

Related Links

http://ir.crfchina.com


Morneau Shepell's 24/7 free crisis hotline available now to those in need: 1.866.885.6540

CHICAGO, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - As a result of the horrific shooting at Mercy Hospital in Chicago that left four people dead, Morneau Shepell has opened its 24/7 crisis support hotline to offer professional emotional support to anyone affected by this traumatic event.

"Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in this shooting. This incident is especially difficult to process as it happened at a hospital, where we expect to be safe and protected. We are here to provide support to those looking to understand the impact of this tragic event," said Stephen Liptrap, president and chief executive officer. "For anyone affected directly by the Mercy Hospital shooting, we encourage you to reach out to our free 24/7 crisis hotline. It is available to all those in need."

A crisis or traumatic event can trigger overwhelming emotional responses. Morneau Shepell's national 24/7 crisis support line offers professional emotional support to anyone in crisis. When calling the crisis line, individuals receive crisis counseling support and/or referral to community resources. Anyone affected by the Mercy Hospital shooting in Chicago can reach the free crisis support line at 1.866.885.6540.

The Company's employee assistance program is also available to the employees of existing clients of Morneau Shepell through the designated toll-free number or by visiting workhealthlife.com .

About Morneau Shepell

Morneau Shepell is the only human resources consulting and technology company that takes an integrated approach to employee well-being, health, benefits and retirement needs. The Company is the largest administrator of retirement and benefits plans and the largest provider of integrated absence management solutions in Canada. LifeWorks by Morneau Shepell is a total well-being solution that combines employee assistance, wellness, recognition and incentive programs. As a leader in strategic HR consulting and innovative pension design, the Company also helps clients solve complex workforce problems and provides integrated productivity, health and retirement solutions. Established in 1966, Morneau Shepell serves approximately 24,000 clients, ranging from small businesses to some of the largest corporations and associations. With more than 4,500 employees in offices worldwide, Morneau Shepell provides services to organizations around the globe. For more information, visit morneaushepell.com.

SOURCE Morneau Shepell US
In addition to his notable acting career, Bjornsson holds the title of The World's Strongest Man, which he garnered after placing first in The World's Strongest Man competition in the Philippines in May 2018.

Today, Bjornsson and Krazy Glue teamed up to announce the first phase of the competition: deciding what items Bjornsson should lift. The catch? Each item will weigh at least 500 pounds and be suspended from a barbell using only Krazy Glue. Fans are invited to submit their own krazy suggestions for what Bjornsson should lift via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using #ManVsGlue. The krazier the idea, the better. From lifting a 70-gallon fish tank filled with electric eels, to a motorcycle, Bjornsson and Krazy Glue are ready for the feat.

"I never back down from a challenge and when I learned that a single drop of Krazy Glue was strong enough to hold up to 1,000 pounds, I knew I had to put the product's strength to the test for myself," said Hafthor Bjornsson. "I'm excited to see the creative submissions from fans, and look forward to putting the product's strength to the test."

"We're always looking to find fun and extreme ways to showcase just how krazy strong and krazy fast Krazy Glue really is," said Nick Hopf, Newell Brands. "This year, we decided what better way to prove the products strength than to put it up against that of The World's Strongest Man!"

Fans can tune in to the kraziness for themselves by following Krazy Glue on Instagram (@KrazyGlueExpert), Facebook (@KrazyGlue) or Twitter (@KrazyGlueExpert) and Bjornsson on Instagram (@ThorBjornsson), and Facebook or Twitter (@HafthorBjornsson). Fans interested in seeing the action live can RSVP to attend the NYC event here or tune in to a live stream of the competition on Krazy Glue's Facebook page on Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at 6:45PM.

About Krazy Glue:

Krazy Glue is a super-strong, fast-drying adhesive solution that can hold up to 1,000 lbs. per square inch. Krazy Glue is an instant, strong solution for all needs around the house. With a wide assortment of instant adhesives for multiple applications and an all-purpose formula that bonds to a wide variety of surfaces, including ceramic, plastic, wood, porcelain, metal, leather, rubber, vinyl, and more, only Krazy Glue allows consumers to do anything krazy! Krazy Glue (www.krazyglue.com) is part of Newell Brand's global portfolio of brands.

About Newell Brands:

Newell Brands (NYSE: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Paper Mate, Sharpie, Dymo, EXPO, Parker, Elmer's, Coleman, Marmot, Oster, Sunbeam, FoodSaver, Mr. Coffee, Graco, Baby Jogger, NUK, Calphalon, Rubbermaid, Contigo, First Alert, and Yankee Candle. For hundreds of millions of consumers, Newell Brands makes life better every day, where they live, learn, work and play.

This press release and additional information about Newell Brands are available on the company's website, www.newellbrands.com.

SOURCE Krazy Glue
Proya's brand ambassadors Li Yifeng and Tang Yan, Proya's friend of the brand Liu Yinglun, Uzero's brand ambassador Barbie Hsu and a star-studded lineup of Chinese celebrities, among them, Harlem Yu, Jane Zhang, Yu Quan, Hua Shao, MoMo Wu, Fu Disheng, Lil Em and Zhou Shen, were present at the celebration. Proya's chairman Hou Juncheng, CEO Fang Yuyou and vice general manager Cao Liangguo made their entrance decked out in "Iron Man" suits, surprising the audience.

Cosmetica Italia president, Renato Ancorotti and mayor of the French city of Chartres, Didier Garnier, in addition to authoritative leaders from across the global cosmetics industry, sent their best wishes for Proya's 15th anniversary in many languages.

Proya Tower opens, creating a beautiful new landmark in Hangzhou

At the celebration, when the fingerprint beams of the three "Iron Men" converged on the big screen, a virtual recreation of Proya Tower at the center of the stage rose slowly, marking the official opening of the building.

Construction of Proya Tower, located at the intersection of Xixi and Gudun Roads, started on September 10, 2015. Designed by US-based architectural firm NBBJ, Proya Tower incorporated building materials originating from environmentally responsible sources, in addition to a powerful, culturally-significant design. With 14 floors above ground and 2 floors below, Proya Tower includes six designated buildings and areas within its perimeter: a building housing a beauty complex, a distinctive cosmetics experience hall, a plastic surgery anti-aging center, an art gallery, an open-air music square and a high-end office building, in addition to the main office building.

The Spring Bud Plan kicks off: the eternal sincerity for love

As the Spring Bud Plan's ambassador of love, Proya's brand ambassador Li Yifeng, together with children participating in the Spring Bud Plan, kicked off public interest events that are part of the Proya & Spring Bud Plan.

Since its inception, Proya has been committed to the cause of beauty while making "the spirit of beauty" its social responsibility. Over the years, Proya has been actively participating in public welfare campaigns, including conducting women's public welfare programs in partnership with UN Women, helping to build Hope Primary Schools as part of Project Hope, making donations to earthquake-stricken areas and promoting environmental protection.

Following 15 years of rapid, forward-thinking development and growth, Proya has not only given consumers the opportunity to understand the unlimited potential of the company, but also let them feel pride in Chinese-made cosmetics. Looking ahead, Proya plans to continue its efforts in achieving the globalization of China's cosmetics industry, so that the world can see the power of "Beauty of China"!

SOURCE Proya
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  A joint oil and gas exploration with China in the West Philippine Sea would be a pragmatic, though very complicated deal that the Philippines should be open to, a China expert said Wednesday.

"We really need the oil and gas. Our oil and gas supply is fast depleted and we need more. So for pragmatic reasons, we should be open to exploring the possibilities of doing it," former CNN Beijing Bureau chief and Peking University professor Jaime FlorCruz told CNN Philippines' The Source.

The deal is "very complicated" as it involves legal, territorial and sovereignty issues, said FlorCruz, a Filipino who has lived in China for nearly five decades and retired from CNN in 2014 as the longest-serving foreign correspondent in that country

He added that while he could not think of any other country the Philippines could partner with to exploit oil and gas reserves in the disputed South China Sea other than China, partnerships should not be limited to the Asian giant.

"Maybe we could have a third party involved to take part in this exploration," FlorCruz said.

A Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between Manila and Beijing was signed Tuesday night and presented in a ceremony in Malacanang, along with 28 other key deals on trade, infrastructure and telecommunications.

A copy of the signed memorandum has yet to be released, but Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi described it as "an exploration to explore a solution."

However, opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV's office released to media a copy of an alleged Chinese-drafted framework agreement on oil and gas exploration, which states that China and the Philippines have agreed to conduct joint oil and gas exploration in "relevant sea areas" in the South China Sea, but did not specify where.

It also states that the joint oil and gas exploration "shall not affect the respective position on sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of the two parties."

The government has not confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the document released by Trillanes, with the Palace only saying that it would check with the Department of Foreign Affairs and that there is nothing wrong with a Chinese-drafted agreement.

Opposition politicians have demanded transparency from the government on the recently-inked deals with China, especially on the joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea, an area of the South China Sea within Manila's 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

"These documents signed during the State Visit of President Xi Jinping will affect the everyday lives of each Filipino, not only under this administration, but for years to come. It is the duty of the administration to inform the public what the nation stands to gain from such agreements," Vice President Leni Robredo said in a statement.

FlorCruz suspects that the government is keeping details of the agreements under wraps because "there isn't much to keep secret."

Hague ruling unenforceable

Robredo also urged the administration to assert the Philippines' "sovereignty" over the West Philippine Sea, "consistent with our historic victory before the arbitral tribunal more than two years ago."

However, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague's ruling in favor of the Philippines against China is "useless" for now as "there is no power on earth presently that can enforce it."

FlorCruz echoed the Palace's statement, saying that while it's a "good legal and moral victory" for the Philippines, the Hague ruling, which voided China's sweeping claims over virtually the entire South China Sea and affirmed the Philippines' sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, has no implementation mechanism.

"Let's take that out of the front and center of our relationship with China. We do not concede that it's China's, we still insist on the territory that it's ours. And in the meanwhile, let's explore the possibilities," he said.

However, he said the Philippines should be cautious with the deals it is entering with China, adding that it should take what happened to Sri Lanka as a "cautionary tale" of Beijing's debt trap diplomacy.

In 2017, China took control of a strategic port in Sri Lanka after the latter failed to pay billions of dollars in debt.

READ: With Sri Lankan port acquisition, China adds another 'pearl' to its 'string'

President Rodrigo Duterte has previously said China is a "very important ingredient" in his administration's ambitious Build, Build, Build project, which would be largely financed by the Eastern giant.

"We should be both [embracing and careful.] We should acknowledge that China exists and China is now the second biggest economy in the world," FlorCruz said.

CNN Philippines' Ina Andolong, Joyce Ilas and Eimor P. Santos contributed to this report.
CANTON, Mass., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- School of Rock , the leader in performance-based music education, is teaming up with Dweezil Zappa, son of legendary composer and guitarist, Frank Zappa. A handful of top students from nearby School of Rock locations will play a song with Dweezil on stage during his "Choice Cuts 2018" world tour. The upcoming performances will take place in top cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and more. The performances run from November 21 through December 14, 2018 in select cities.

School of Rock's 220 schools provide students of all ages an exciting and engaging music lesson experience, which includes guitar lessons , singing lessons and piano lessons . Drawing from all styles of rock and roll, School of Rock students learn theory and techniques via songs from legendary artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and, of course, Frank Zappa. Thanks to the school's performance-based approach, students around the world have gained superior musical proficiency, with some moving on to record deals and larger platforms such as American Idol, The Voice and Broadway.

"Our revolutionary teaching approach gives School of Rock students the chance to grow as musicians by performing live," says Rob Price, CEO of School of Rock. "Sharing the stage with legends such as Dweezil Zappa provides a transformational creative and personal experience."

Dweezil Zappa learned from an early age the magic of performing live music, watching his father, Frank Zappa, lead his band through treacherous rhythmic twists and turns. From the wings of the stage, Dweezil gained a unique perspective on musicianship, one that he graciously shares with the next generation of musicians. Getting involved with his local School of Rock franchise, Dweezil saw an opportunity to educate aspiring rockers with a real, professional touring experience.

"I enjoy being able to provide young musicians with inspirational opportunities," says Dweezil Zappa. "Music is far more interesting if the next generation of musicians first becomes aware of the diversity and creativity that appears to be missing in modern popular music. Learning about music history is essential in helping them find their own perspective and focus on the skills they need to innovate and propel their own music forward."

To find out where you can see Dweezil Zappa and School of Rock students play, please visit https://www.dweezilzappa.com/pages/tour-dates .

DWEEZIL ZAPPA TOUR DATES WITH SCHOOL OF ROCK

Boulder, Colo. - Nov. 21

- Los Angeles - Dec. 1

- San Juan Capistrano, Calif. - Dec. 2

- Solano Beach, Calif. - Dec. 3

San Francisco - Dec. 6

- Seattle - Dec. 14

ABOUT SCHOOL OF ROCK

School of Rock helps aspiring musicians master skills, unleash creativity, and develop tools they need to thrive in life. Founded as a single school in Philadelphia, PA in 1998, School of Rock has become a rapidly growing international franchise operating more than 220 schools in ten global markets. Since 2009, School of Rock has grown student count from 4,000 to more than 30,000. School of Rock offers a wide variety of music lessons , including guitar lessons , singing lessons and piano lessons (available at www.schoolofrock.com/lessons ).

Follow School of Rock on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SchoolofRockUSA and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SchoolofRockUSA .

For more information on School of Rock visit www.SchoolofRock.com or call 866-695-5515. To learn more about School of Rock franchise opportunities head to http://franchising.schoolofrock.com/

SOURCE School of Rock

Related Links

http://www.schoolofrock.com


CHARLOTTE, N.C., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), a leader in the global specialty chemicals industry, announced today that it has signed an Exclusivity Agreement (Agreement) with Mineral Resources Limited (ASX: MIN) in relation to the potential creation of a 50/50 joint venture (JV) to own and operate the Wodgina hard rock lithium mine and ultimately develop an integrated lithium hydroxide operation at the resource site. Wodgina, located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, is a world-class hard rock lithium deposit, with an estimated mine life of over 30 years.

The proposed JV, which remains subject to negotiation of definitive documents, would combine Albemarle's world-class lithium production and marketing expertise with Mineral Resources Limited's (MRL) leading regional presence and mining capabilities. Under the terms of the Agreement, Albemarle would manage the marketing and sales of lithium hydroxide produced by the JV via Albemarle's long term agreement strategy.

The purchase price for Albemarle's 50% interest in the JV would be US$1.15 billion, which Albemarle expects to fund with available cash and new credit facilities. It is expected that the transaction will be accretive to Albemarle's earnings.

"This Agreement is consistent with our corporate strategy of pursuing M&A opportunities that can accelerate and de-risk our organic growth strategy," said Luke Kissam, Albemarle's CEO. "We feel confident in leveraging this world-class lithium resource with an experienced and knowledgeable mining company like MRL to help meet the growing demands of our global customers."

The Agreement includes the following key provisions and commercial terms:

Albemarle would acquire a 50% interest in all mineral rights within the Wodgina tenements, other than iron ore (which will be retained exclusively by MRL) and tantalum (which remain held by a third party), all fixed infrastructure and utility assets, the spodumene concentration plant and the mobile mining equipment.

would acquire a 50% interest in all mineral rights within the Wodgina tenements, other than iron ore (which will be retained exclusively by MRL) and tantalum (which remain held by a third party), all fixed infrastructure and utility assets, the spodumene concentration plant and the mobile mining equipment. The parties would jointly manage the JV, through a company to be owned in equal shares by the parties.

After construction and ramp-up of the spodumene concentration plant, the JV is expected to produce up to 750Ktpa of 6% spodumene concentrate from Wodgina which is planned to be used as feedstock to the future lithium hydroxide plant (outlined below).

The parties would jointly fund, design, build and operate a lithium hydroxide plant in stages at Wodgina utilizing Albemarle's core design.

core design. The first stage, once fully commissioned, is expected to produce at least 50ktpa of battery grade lithium hydroxide. Construction would commence as soon as the necessary licenses and approvals are in place.



The second stage is expected to convert the remaining volume of spodumene concentrate to battery grade lithium hydroxide (subject to prevailing lithium market conditions at the time supporting this development), at which point the plant is expected to be producing at least 100Ktpa of lithium hydroxide .

An exclusivity period until December 14, 2018 (or such later period as the parties mutually agree) for the parties to agree upon and execute binding definitive documents.

While the above terms have been commercially agreed and the Agreement is binding in respect to the exclusivity period, the parties will only become legally bound to enter into the proposed joint venture upon execution of definitive documents and board approval by the parties. Completion of the transaction will be subject to satisfaction of conditions of an administrative nature, any regulatory approvals and any third party consents.

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), headquartered in Charlotte, NC, is a global specialty chemicals company with leading positions in lithium, bromine and refining catalysts. We power the potential of companies in many of the world's largest and most critical industries, from energy and communications to transportation and electronics. Working side-by-side with our customers, we develop value-added, customized solutions that make them more competitive. Our solutions combine the finest technology and ingredients with the knowledge and know-how of our highly experienced and talented team of operators, scientists and engineers.

Discovering and implementing new and better performance-based sustainable solutions is what motivates all of us. We think beyond business-as-usual to drive innovations that create lasting value. Albemarle employs approximately 5,400 people and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. We regularly post information to www.albemarle.com, including notification of events, news, financial performance, investor presentations and webcasts, non-GAAP reconciliations, SEC filings and other information regarding our company, its businesses and the markets it serves.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the information presented in this press release, including, without limitation, information related to the proposed joint venture, expected sources of financing, plans and anticipated benefits in relation to the proposed joint venture, and all other information relating to matters that are not historical facts may constitute forward- looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from the views expressed. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the outlook expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement include, without limitation: changes in economic and business conditions; changes in priorities, financial and operating performance of our major customers and industries and markets served by us; the timing of orders received from customers; the gain or loss of significant customers; competition from other manufacturers; changes in the demand for our products or the end-user markets in which our products are sold; the ability of the parties to successfully negotiate definitive agreements; the availability of financing; approval by both parties' board of directors; the satisfaction of closing conditions, including regulatory approvals; the occurrence of regulatory actions, proceedings, claims or litigation; and the other factors detailed from time to time in the reports we file with the SEC, including those described under "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. We assume no obligation to provide any revisions to any forward-looking statements should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws.

SOURCE Albemarle Corporation

Related Links

http://www.albemarle.com


ROHNERT PARK, Calif., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ameritech Financial is closely monitoring developments in legislation proposed in Texas to help residents pay for higher education. Texas state Senator Judith Zaffirini has authored two bills. The first proposes to pay for community college tuition for students meeting certain conditions. The second, and much more ambitious, bill proposes to give Texans meeting certain conditions, whose annual household income is under $150,000, free tuition to universities. For years, states have squeezed funding for higher education, placing a heavy economic burden on students and families as they pursue higher education. Recently, though, states have noted the economic drag this places on their economies and have made efforts to reduce the strain of student loan debt on borrowers. Ameritech Financial, a document preparation company, helps borrowers overwhelmed by student loans apply for and maintain enrollment in federal programs, such as income-driven repayment plans (IDRs), that can possibly lower monthly payments.

"We carefully watch for developments in the student loan industry and are encouraged that states are attempting to build solutions for students and their families," said Tom Knickerbocker, executive vice president. "We seek potential solutions for our clients, acting as a trusted advocate, assisting with the paperwork and navigating the sometimes overly complex processes required by loan servicers. Our goal is to assist our clients in gaining back some financial freedom by helping them apply for federal programs aimed to possibly lower their monthly payment based on income and family size."

Texas Senate Bill 33 calls for free tuition to community colleges for Texas residents. Students must have graduated from high school or received an equivalency certificate within the last 12 months. Further, students must be enrolled in an eligible associate degree program or certificate. These students must be enrolled at least part-time and apply for financial aid. Convicted felons and those convicted of certain drug crimes are ineligible. Additionally, students who already have a degree or more than 90 college credits are also ineligible. Students must maintain satisfactory progress and the stipend expires on the third anniversary of the initial disbursement.

The even more ambitious Texas Bill 32 gives residents free tuition to all low- and middle-income students to Texas universities if household income is below $150,000. The bill requires students to apply for financial aid, and the grant then covers any remaining tuition cost. The eligibility requirements are similar to Senate Bill 33, except the program allows students to participate if they have less than 135 credit hours. It also allows a longer period of time for completion, with the stipend ending at the fifth anniversary after the first disbursement.

"Programs like these can indeed lower costs which can have a dramatic effect on overall student loan debt," said Knickerbocker. "We remain committed to helping individual clients find potential repayment solutions so they can get back to pursuing their dreams."

About Ameritech Financial

Ameritech Financial is a private company located in Rohnert Park, California. Ameritech Financial has already helped thousands of consumers with financial analysis and student loan document preparation to apply for federal student loan repayment programs offered through the Department of Education.

Each Ameritech Financial telephone representative has received the Certified Student Loan Professional certification through the International Association of Professional Debt Arbitrators (IAPDA).

Ameritech Financial prides itself on its exceptional customer service.

Ameritech Financial Newsroom

Contact

To learn more about Ameritech Financial, please contact:

Ameritech Financial

5789 State Farm Drive #265

Rohnert Park, CA 94928

1-800-792-8621

[email protected]

Related Images

university-of-texas.jpg

University of Texas

Credit: faina/Bigstock

image2.png

Related Links

Ameritech Financial home page

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRza8MbLvuM

SOURCE Ameritech Financial
BRIDGEWATER, N.J., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: AMRX) today announced that it will present at the Piper Jaffray Healthcare Conference in New York, NY, on Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

To access a live webcast of the presentation, visit Amneal's Investor Relations Web site at https://investors.amneal.com/Investor-Relations.

An archived version will be available approximately one hour after the live presentation ends and can be accessed at the same locations for 90 days.

About Amneal

Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: AMRX), headquartered in Bridgewater, NJ, is an integrated pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing generic, brand and biosimilar products. The Company has approximately 6,500 employees in its operations in North America, Asia, and Europe, working together to bring high-quality medicines to patients primarily within the United States.

Amneal is one of the largest and fastest growing generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States, with an expanding portfolio of generic products to include complex dosage forms in a broad range of therapeutic areas. The Company also markets a portfolio of branded pharmaceutical products through its Specialty Pharma division focused principally on central nervous system disorders and parasitic infections. For more information, visit www.amneal.com.

Contact:

Mark Donohue

Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

(908) 409-6718

www.amneal.com

SOURCE Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.amneal.com


DALLAS, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Remarks by Seema Verma on October 15th noted that "Under a proposed rule released just a few weeks ago, in 2020, Medicare Advantage enrollees will have more options for receiving telehealth services beyond what is otherwise available in the traditional program." As CMS promotes and supports more use of telehealth services, Medicare Advantage members are not fully aware of them.

While coverage of telehealth services is expanding, a survey of 781 Medicare Advantage members shows that few Medicare Advantage members are aware if their plan offers or recommends online and phone-based telehealth services: 46 percent of respondents were unsure if their plan offers telehealth, 37 percent said it is not offered, and 17 percent noted it is offered. Further, when asked to choose top covered services members desire, more than half of Medicare Advantage respondents chose 1) home modification for medical needs, 2) assistance at the home, 3) transportation reimbursement, and 4) food deliveries. Forty-three percent (43%) chose telehealth.

Excerpts from Verma's talk at the Alliance for Connected Care Telehealth Policy Forum for Health Systems highlighted the following changes:

"For the very first time, starting in January, Medicare will pay for virtual check-ins, meaning patients can connect with their doctors by phone or video chat."

"For the very first time, we will also be paying for virtual consultations between physicians, and evaluation of remote pre-recorded images and video."

The CMS "recently released home health rule will enhance the ability of home health agencies to use remote patient monitoring for their Medicare patients. This will allow patients to share more live-time data with their providers and caregivers."

"Medicare patients receiving home dialysis will be able to receive their monthly clinical assessments via telehealth, from their homes. And patients experiencing symptoms of an acute stroke will be able to receive telehealth services from mobile stroke units."

Earlier in 2018, potential Medicare telehealth cost savings were reported. "Cowen and Co. analyst Charles Rhyee estimates the average cost of a telehealth call is between $40-$50 compared to around $150 for an urgent care visit, and nearly $1,500 for a trip to the emergency room. Rhyee also estimates that roughly $135 billion of Medicare's annual $675 billion in spending could be done by telehealth."

Below are results from questions from the survey:

Q. Does your Medicare plan offer/recommend online telehealth services?

Not sure if telehealth is offered 46%

Telehealth is not offered 37%

Yes, my plan offers telehealth 17%

Q. What are new benefits that you would like to have offered by your Medicare plan?

Modification to home for medical needs 62%

Assistance at the home 57%

Transportation reimbursement 54%

Food deliveries 51%

Telemedicine/Telehealth 43%

Respite care for caregiver 32%

The HealthMine survey also revealed that 77 percent of respondents use a smart device (a smartphone or tablet). All the respondents were computer literate as the survey was fielded online.

About the Survey

The HealthMine Medicare Survey queried 781 insured age 65+ consumers with a chronic condition who are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. Survey Sampling International (SSI) in June/July 2018 fielded the survey. Data were collected via an opt-in panel. The margin of error was three percent (3%). Survey Sampling International (SSI) has been the Worldwide Leader in Survey Sampling and Data Collection Solutions, across every mode, for more than forty years.

About HealthMine

HealthMine is the only Health Action as a Service company originally built inside a Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) health plan. HealthMine's services help health plans target and empower individuals to take actions that improve clinical outcomes while decreasing total cost of care and increasing plan revenue. HealthMine is on the web at www.healthmine.com.

SOURCE HealthMine

Related Links

https://www.healthmine.com


Next year marks 30 years since China and Bahrain established diplomatic relations. In advance of the pearl anniversary, Bahrain is setting out to partner with Hebei - an essential region of China's economy - to explore opportunities to drive growth together. The Bahrain - Hebei Business Forum witnessed the signing of several memoranda of understanding ("MOUs") to include:

An MOU between the EDB and Hebei Provincial Department of Commerce to strengthen information exchange, establish a regular investment information exchange and strengthen cooperation in economic and trade activities.

An MOU between the EDB and CNBM International Corporation to explore opportunities for CNBM International to expand presence in Bahrain , mobilise Chinese building material manufactories, and promote high-level visits between the two parties.

, mobilise Chinese building material manufactories, and promote high-level visits between the two parties. An MOU between the EDB and Baoding Hanyang Technology to explore the possibility of establishing a Middle East Management office in Bahrain , assess Bahrain's demand of 3D printing and the possibility of Hanyang partnering with local companies to develop the MENA market, and explore opportunities to construct platform that can facilitate exchanges in 3D printing .

These agreements represent an important step towards stronger economic ties between China and Bahrain. Capital Governor HE Sheikh Hisham Bin Abdulrahman Al Khalifa said, "Bahrain and Hebei share many things in common. As part of the Jing-Jin-Ji Economic Zone and the Bohai Bay Economic Region, Hebei plays a critical role in China's economic growth and development. As for Bahrain, we are the fastest growing economy in the Gulf region, and are driving growth and innovation across the Middle East."

"The forum helps both Bahrain and the Province of Hebei to better understand the business and regulatory environment, allowing for even further cooperation. We would like to take this opportunity to enhance our partnership with Bahrain and look to build a new chapter to encourage mutual growth", said Mr. LIU Xiaojun, Director-general of Foreign Affairs Office of Hebei Province.

Bahrain already has a history of partnership with China's leading firms to grow and evolve their businesses. In 2009, Huawei moved its headquarters to Bahrain - it is now creating and accelerating Bahrain's 5G mobile networks ecosystem, one of the most advanced in the world. In 2018, the Bahrain EDB opened its third representative office in China, aiming to facilitate more investment by Chinese companies in Bahrain.

"Our nine-day visit to China has been very successful, which has been demonstrated by fifteen agreements signed between Bahraini entities and their Chinese counterparts. We look forward to working with the Hebei government to create a supportive environment that can facilitate and promote business partnerships between Bahrain and Hebei. Together, we believe we can ensure continued prosperity across two of the world's most economically vibrant regions", said HE Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive of Bahrain EDB.

Bahrain is a country undergoing an ambitious digital transformation, with a dynamic, entrepreneurial culture. As one of the most open and liberal countries in the Gulf region, Bahrain is known for its unrivaled market access, world-class regulatory environment, highly competitive taxation system, the lowest operating costs in the region, high quality of life, and a skilled bilingual workforce. As China sets out to support its companies in their "going-out" efforts, Bahrain - the Gateway to Gulf - is perfectly positioned to be a partner of China, connecting Chinese companies to this high-spending region.

About Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB)

The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) is a dynamic public agency with overall responsibility for attracting investment into the Kingdom and supporting initiatives that enhance the investment climate.

The EDB works with the government and both current and prospective investors to ensure that Bahrain's investment climate is attractive, to communicate the key strengths, and to identify where opportunities exist for further economic growth through investment.

The EDB focuses on several economic sectors that capitalise on Bahrain's competitive advantages. These sectors include financial services, manufacturing, ICT, tourism, logistics and transport.

For more information on the Bahrain EDB visit www.bahrainedb.com; for information about Bahrain visit www.bahrain.com.

SOURCE Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB)

Related Links

http://www.bahrainedb.com


SAO PAULO, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Highlights:

Banco Original chooses FICO to support customer origination and fraud detection

The bank is using FICO  Origination Manager to automate account opening, and FICO  Application Fraud Manager to check for fraud

Origination Manager to automate account opening, and FICO Application Fraud Manager to check for fraud A recent study by JP Morgan Chase described Banco Original as the most agile digital bank in Brazil for opening a checking account and delivering a credit card

Banco Original, the first Brazilian bank to offer a 100% digital checking account, has chosen FICO as its strategic partner to launch its digital platform. The financial institution, based in Sao Paulo, aims to create a safe and simplified origination process to reduce bureaucracy while keeping up safety. To that end, the bank acquired FICO Origination Manager and FICO Application Fraud Manager to manage credit operations and reinforce fraud prevention.

"Our customer contact is 100% digital," said Alexandre Pinelli, Banco Original's IT Superintendent. "We require solutions and technologies that allow us to assess a customer's profile in our digital process so that we may take the right decisions as fast as possible."

Launched in 2016, Banco Original was formed to meet the needs of digital consumers who are looking for reduced bureaucracy, increased agility and personalized services. In just two years, the bank attracted more than 600,000 customers. It has a net worth of BRL 2.2 billion, with BRL 8.8 billion in assets and a credit portfolio of BRL 5 billion.

"We believe that we offer the most comprehensive service portfolio among digital banks," said Pinelli. "We offer checking accounts, cards, loans, investments, insurance and pension plans. We have a very clear roadmap of the development of our products and services."

100% Digital

"The challenge of a digital bank goes far beyond offering an online channel that allows clients to open accounts or perform banking transactions," Pinelli said. "This environment needs to be entirely digital. That's why we've developed an efficient account opening process that features the highest possible number of automated decisions."

When originating an account, Banco Original's systems capture all the information sent by customers, as well as external data such as data from credit bureaus. All this information is processed by FICO decision engines in real time.

Choosing FICO was a decision that was very carefully made by the bank. It conducted RFPs, proofs of concept and pilot tests, assessing multiple suppliers over five months.

"During the entire deployment stage, FICO demonstrated a very high level of expertise. They were very flexible and adapted perfectly to our lean schedule and to changes in scope, timing and performance. FICO proved to be a true strategic partner," said Pinelli.

The results include efficient, fast operations and a very low fraud rate, as well as credit-granting options that meet both the bank's scope and customers' profiles. A recent study by JP Morgan Chase described Banco Original as the most agile digital bank in Brazil for opening a checking account and delivering a credit card.

The bank's next steps in technology are aimed at improving processes using artificial intelligence, neural networks and machine learning, among other technologies.

"Banco Original's success shows what can be done when we approach issues from a fresh perspective," says Ricardo Cheida de Oliveira, FICO's country manager in Brazil. "We are very proud to actively participate in this digital operation, from its concept to its deployment and to daily operations. This is an exceptional model of digital banking for the sector at a global level."

About Banco Original

Banco Original is a private Brazilian financial institution active in the retail, corporate and agribusiness sector. In 2013, it began to invest in setting up an entirely digital bank based on an innovative proposal, i.e., to become the first bank in Brazil to offer a 100% digital checking account. The app to open an online account and to access Banco Original is available for both iOS and Android.

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 190 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time.

Learn more at http://www.fico.com

FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

SOURCE FICO

Related Links

http://www.fico.com


Further senior organisational changes made in preparation for advancing bemcentinib into the next stage of clinical development in multiple aggressive cancers

BERGEN, Norway, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

BerGenBio ASA (OSE: BGBIO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, oral, selective AXL kinase inhibitors for multiple cancer indications, is delighted to announce the appointment of Alan Barge MD as Interim Chief Medical Officer and member of the leadership team. The Company also announces further senior organisational changes and a strengthening of its clinical operations as it prepares for the intended advancement of its lead candidate bemcentinib into the next stages of clinical development.

Dr Barge is a board-certified oncologist and haematologist, with more than 25 years of experience in cancer drug development, spent primarily at AstraZeneca and Amgen. He spent over 12 years at AstraZeneca, where he was VP and Head Oncology and Infection, during which time he was responsible for the development of Iressa (gefitinib) for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the translational research that resulted in the successful personalised medicine strategy for AZ. Prior to AZ, Dr Barge was European and Global Medical Director at Amgen, at which he was responsible for European approval and label extensions for several of Amgen's cancer therapies. More recently, Dr Barge has been actively involved in the biotech sector in both CMO and non-executive positions, including CMO of Carrick Therapeutics (UK and Ireland) and SVP Oncology at ASLAN Pharmaceuticals (Singapore).

Dr Barge will work as part of BerGenBio's leadership team on an interim basis until a permanent CMO is appointed.

Richard Godfrey, Chief Executive Officer of BerGenBio, commented: "We are delighted to welcome Alan to the team. His vast experience from developing successful cancer drugs with AstraZeneca and Amgen will be most valuable in forming and executing the Company's clinical and regulatory strategy for bemcentinib as we enter the next phase of development. We anticipate further results from our phase II proof-of-concept studies of bemcentinib in NSCLC and AML in the coming months, and aim to start a randomised phase 2 trial programme in these indications in 2019."

In addition, BerGenBio announces the promotion of Dr Anthony Brown to Chief Scientific Officer from Director of Research, succeeding BerGenBio co-founder Professor James Lorens, who becomes a Senior Scientific Advisor to the Company. Murray Yule, BerGenBio's Clinical Development Officer, will leave the Company with effect from 30 November 2018. Further, as noted during the Company's Q3 2018 results presentation, Dr Tone Bjaaland has recently been appointed as Director of Clinical Operations (>25 years' experience in clinical research) and further strengthens the team.

About BerGenBio ASA

BerGenBio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing transformative drugs targeting AXL as a potential cornerstone of therapy for advanced and aggressive cancers. The company's proprietary lead candidate, bemcentinib, is a potential first-in- class, selective AXL inhibitor in a broad phase II clinical development programme. Ongoing clinical trials are investigating bemcentinib in multiple solid and haematological tumours, in combination with current and emerging therapies (including immunotherapies, targeted therapies and chemotherapy), and as a single agent.

In parallel, BerGenBio is developing a companion diagnostics test to identify patient populations most likely to benefit from bemcentinib: this is expected to facilitate more efficient registration trials and support a precision medicine-based commercialisation strategy.

BerGenBio is based in Bergen, Norway with a subsidiary in Oxford, UK. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: BGBIO). www.bergenbio.com

Contacts

Richard Godfrey CEO, BerGenBio ASA

+47-917-86-304

Rune Skeie, CFO, BerGenBio ASA

[email protected]

+47-917-86-513

International Media Relations

David Dible, Mark Swallow, Marine Perrier, Citigate Dewe Rogerson

[email protected]

+44-207-638-9571

Media Relations in Norway

Jan Petter Stiff, Crux Advisers

[email protected]

+47-995-13-891



Forward looking statements

This announcement may contain forward-looking statements, which as such are not historical facts, but are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. These assumptions are inherently subject to significant known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other important factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied in this announcement by such forward-looking statements.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/bergenbio-asa/r/bergenbio-appoints-cancer-drug-development-specialist-alan-barge-md-as-interim-chief-medical-officer,c2679159

SOURCE BerGenBio ASA
HOUSTON, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Bristow Group Inc. (NYSE: BRS) (the "Company") announced today that it has completed the previously announced solicitation of consents (the "Consent Solicitation") from holders of its outstanding 8.75% Senior Secured Notes due 2023 (the "Notes"). In connection with the Consent Solicitation, the Company has entered into a supplemental indenture with respect to the indenture governing the Notes (the "Supplemental Indenture") to reflect the proposed amendment (the "Proposed Amendment") described in the Consent Solicitation Statement dated November 13, 2018, as amended by the Amendment No. 1 thereto dated November 15, 2018 (as amended, the "Consent Solicitation Statement").

The Consent Solicitation expires at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on November 21, 2018 (the "Expiration Date"). Prior to the Expiration Date, the Company had received the consent of holders of at least a majority in aggregate principal amount outstanding of the Notes (the "Requisite Consents"), and revocation rights had been terminated upon receipt of the Requisite Consents. The Company will pay a consent payment (the "Consent Payment") in the aggregate amount of $1,750,000, to eligible holders of the Notes as of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on November 12, 2018 (the "Record Date") who validly delivered consents to the Proposed Amendment on or prior to the Expiration Date and did not revoke consents prior to the receipt of the Requisite Consents in the manner described in the Consent Solicitation Statement. The Company expects to deliver the Consent Payment to such holders substantially concurrently with the closing of the Company's previously announced acquisition of Columbia Helicopters, Inc.

The Supplemental Indenture executed in connection with the completion of the Consent Solicitation became effective upon the execution and delivery thereof, but will become operative only upon the payment of the Consent Payment. Upon the Proposed Amendment becoming effective and operative, all holders of the Notes will be bound by the terms of the Supplemental Indenture, including those that did not give their consent. However, holders who did not deliver consents on or prior to the Expiration Date (or delivered consents but properly revoked them prior to the receipt of the Requisite Consents) will not receive the Consent Payment.

Questions concerning the terms of the Consent Solicitation should be directed to Jefferies, solicitation agent with respect to the Consent Solicitation, at (888) 708-5831 (toll-free within the U.S.) or (203) 708-6574; (212) 284-4611; or (203) 708-5967 (direct) or by email to [email protected]; [email protected]; or [email protected], or Ipreo LLC, the information and tabulation agent for the Consent Solicitation, at (212) 849-3880 (banks and brokers) and (888) 593-9546 (all others, toll free).

This announcement is not an offer to purchase, a solicitation of an offer to purchase, or a solicitation of consents with respect to any securities. The Consent Solicitation was made solely by the Consent Solicitation Statement and was subject to the terms and conditions stated therein.

ABOUT BRISTOW GROUP INC.

Bristow Group Inc. is the leading global industrial aviation services provider offering helicopter transportation, search and rescue (SAR) and aircraft support services, including maintenance, to government and civil organizations worldwide. Bristow has major transportation operations in the North Sea, Nigeria and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and in most of the other major offshore oil and gas producing regions of the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Trinidad. Bristow provides SAR services to the private sector worldwide and to the public sector for all of the U.K. on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. For more information, visit bristowgroup.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements contained in this news release that state the Company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, such forward-looking statements include statements regarding expectations regarding the Acquisition and the Consent Solicitation, including the timing and amount of the Consent Payment in connection therewith, the Proposed Amendment and the Supplemental Indenture. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended June 30, 2018 and September 30, 2018. Bristow Group Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to revise any forward-looking statements, including financial estimates, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Linda McNeill

Investor Relations

(713) 267-7622

SOURCE Bristow Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bristowgroup.com


"While equity markets have been rattled continuously throughout 2018, we have continued to find and add immense value through our risk-averse, value-oriented strategy," says Parker. "We continue to retain our stance of extreme caution as we close out the year, exploring all risks and opportunities."

Buxton Helmsley assets are custodied independently by Interactive Brokers LLC and Charles Schwab & Co., transactions brokered by respective account custodians. Relevant disclosures surrounding performance disclosed herein immediately follow release.

The Buxton Helmsley Group, Inc. is a premier financial services, asset management and securities research firm, providing an array of services to a diversified groups of individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities. The firm is headquartered in New York City and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Buxton Helmsley Holdings, Inc.

Relevant Disclosures: The referenced S&P 500 return of 2.38% is a time-weighted cumulative return from the close of the market on December 31st, 2017 to November 19th, 2018. The referenced 21.65% return is the time-weighted cumulative return of all accounts managed by The Buxton Helmsley Group, Inc. (net of advisory fees deducted from accounts during reporting period), excluding accounts of which itself or an affiliated entity holds a proprietary interest (directly or indirectly), managed 401(k) accounts and those accounts not subject to advisory fees during the reporting period. Due to varying strategies of individual clients included in reporting period, client returns varied significantly, not all individual accounts having returned more than the S&P 500 benchmark used in determining "outperformance".

SOURCE Buxton Helmsley

Related Links

http://www.buxtonhelmsley.com


GLENDALE, Calif., Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- California Credit Union has announced the recipients of its Fall 2018 Teacher Grants assisting educators in funding innovative learning opportunities for their students. Recipients will each receive $500 to use towards their class projects.

The Fall 2018 CCU Los Angeles County Teacher Grant recipients include:

Rae Belisle , Crenshaw High School , Los Angeles

, , Kelly Davis , Chatsworth Park Elementary School, Chatsworth

, Chatsworth Park Elementary School, Christina Engen-Bindman , Crescenta Valley High School , La Crescenta

, , Theresa Fields , Visually Impaired Program, Los Angeles

, Visually Impaired Program, Jaime Foderaro , Golden Valley High School , Santa Clarita

, , Ronald Gochez , Maya Angelou High School , Los Angeles

, , Pattianna Harootian, Humanities and Arts Academy of Los Angeles, Harbor City

Grace McCullough , Diego Rivera Learning Complex, Los Angeles

, Diego Rivera Learning Complex, Sherry Mohazab , Playa Vista Elementary School, Playa Vista

, Playa Vista Elementary School, Randi Seligson , Hale Charter Academy, Woodland Hills

"California Credit Union was founded to support the education community, and our grant program is one way we are working to help teachers bring new programs into the classroom that impact their students and communities in positive ways," said California Credit Union CEO Steve O'Connell. "We hope these grants encourage our local educators to pursue innovative projects that spark a new passion in their students, which can make a life-long difference."

The California Credit Union grants were used to help fund a wide variety of programs illustrating the creativity and commitment teachers bring to their classrooms and communities, including supporting hands-on social messages to help the homeless, community sustainability, peer-based socialization for special education students, development of life skills, plant/animal organic life cycles, and many more.

California Credit Union encourages local educators to follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @CaliforniaCreditUnion for more opportunities for education-focused programs and support initiatives throughout the year.

Since the creation of the program in 2012, California Credit Union has awarded $85,000 in teacher grants to benefit students throughout Los Angeles and San Diego. Up to 20 grants are awarded bi-annually in the spring and fall. Any full-time classroom teacher in Los Angeles and San Diego County can apply for a grant for a program that has clearly defined learning objectives tied to students' academic needs, displays creativity in education, and targets a significant number of students. Visit ccu.com for more information.

About California Credit Union

California Credit Union is a federally insured, state chartered credit union founded in 1933 that serves public or private school employees, community members and businesses across California. With more than 165,000 members and assets of $3 billion, California Credit Union has 24 branches throughout Los Angeles and San Diego counties. The credit union operates in San Diego County as North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union. California Credit Union offers a full suite of consumer, business and investment products and services, including comprehensive consumer checking and loan options, personalized financial planning, business banking, and leading-edge online and mobile banking. Please visit ccu.com for more information, or follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @CaliforniaCreditUnion.

SOURCE California Credit Union

Related Links

http://www.ccu.com


SILVER SPRING, Md., Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Marion Elizabeth Primas, Ph.D. is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a 2018 Featured Member in the field of Mental Health. Dr. Primas is a Retired Senior Public Health Advisor with the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

The first black valedictorian of her high school graduating class, it was clear Dr. Primas was destined for success at an early age in Chicago, Illinois. One of her first professional positions after earning her degree was as an Assistant Professor at Howard University, where she taught psychology and abnormal psychology classes before being recruited to the National Institutes of Health. While working at NIH, she was one of the first female black women to speak at international meetings.



Having spent over forty six years of experience with the United States Department of Health Resources, Dr. Primas was responsible for counseling and advising women on general health and mental health issues. Having authored multiple articles and contributed a chapter in two books, Marion has delivered numerous scientific presentations worldwide on women's health and aging. By devoting her life and her career to helping others, she has traveled the world conducting presentations in countries such as Germany, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, Ireland, Holland, Greece, and Belgium.



In spite of her schedule slowing down post-retirement, Dr. Primas has no intention of stopping anytime soon and she continues to stay active in the field. Looking into the future, she hopes to publish books on women's health, and to attend more international meetings on the subjects of healthcare and mental health. Dr. Primas will be traveling to Korea soon, where she is anticipating learning the native culture and traditions. Dr. Primas will be traveling to Korea soon, where she is anticipating learning the native culture and traditions.



To further advance her professional career, Dr. Primas is a distinguished fellow of several elite organizations including the Gerontological Society. Past Member and contributor with the Psychogeriatric Association, Dr. Primas is also a Past Member of the American Psychological Association. Presently, Dr. Primas has contributed to the Disabled Veterans Association, Paralyzed Veterans of America Haiti Relief, UNICEF, the Humane Society, Doctors Without Borders, and is passionate about organizations which assist in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.



In recognition of her long legacy of professional achievements, Marion has appeared in a number of print publications, such as Pro- Files Magazine and Who's Who Publishers' "Top 101 Industry Experts". Dr. Primas was also honored with the title Woman of the Year from the American Biographical Association in 2009, and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award from Worldwide Who's Who in 2012, as well as her recognition as a Lifetime Pinnacle Professional with Continental Who's Who.



A specialist in her industry, when asked her advice to newcomers in the industry, Dr. Primas emphasized the importance of seeking advanced degrees in the fields for which you are passionate about. Dr. Primas hopes to see more minorities earn formal educations and to take careers in all areas of healthcare, and plans on giving back to her local community. When she is not working, Dr. Primas enjoys crocheting, playing the piano, watching classic movies, reading, and spending time with her dogs.



Early in her career, Marion attained her Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Maryland, as well as a Master's Degree in Experimental Psychology from Howard University. In her previous years, Dr. Primas obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Experimental Psychology from Morgan State University.

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]



SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


BOSTON, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- At Special Meetings of Shareholders held on November 15, 2018, shareholders of each Acquired Fund listed below approved the merger of the Acquired Fund into its corresponding Acquiring Fund.

Acquired Fund (Trading Symbol) Acquiring Fund (Trading Symbol) Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund II (NYH) Eaton Vance New York Municipal Bond Fund (ENX) Eaton Vance California Municipal Bond Fund II (EIA) Eaton Vance California Municipal Bond Fund (EVM) Eaton Vance Massachusetts Municipal Bond Fund (MAB) Eaton Vance Municipal Bond Fund (EIM) Eaton Vance Michigan Municipal Bond Fund (MIW) Eaton Vance Michigan Municipal Income Trust (EMI) Eaton Vance Municipal Income Trust (EVN)

Each merger is currently expected to be completed as of the close of business of the New York Stock Exchange on or about December 14, 2018, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Each Acquired Fund shareholder will be issued common shares of the associated Acquiring Fund at an exchange ratio based on the Funds' respective net asset values per share. Each merger is a separate and distinct transaction.

Each Fund is a closed-end management investment company sponsored and managed by Eaton Vance Management. Each Fund trades on the NYSE American with the exception of Eaton Vance Municipal Income Trust, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

Eaton Vance Management is a subsidiary of Eaton Vance Corp. (NYSE: EV). Eaton Vance is a leading global asset manager whose history dates to 1924. With offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, Eaton Vance and its affiliates managed $459.8 billion in assets as of September 30, 2018, offering individuals and institutions a broad array of investment strategies and wealth management solutions. For more information about Eaton Vance, visit eatonvance.com.

Additional Information about the Funds and the Mergers

This press release is for informational purposes only and is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to purchase or sell shares of the Funds.

Fund shares are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal invested. No Fund is a complete investment program and you may lose money investing in a Fund. An investment in a Fund may not be appropriate for all investors. Additional information about the Funds, including performance and portfolio characteristic information, is available at www.eatonvance.com .

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond a Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Eaton Vance Management

Related Links

http://www.eatonvance.com


BEIJING, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fang Holdings Limited (NYSE: SFUN) ("Fang"), the leading real estate Internet portal in China, today announced that it will report its unaudited financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018 before the U.S. market opens on Friday, November 30, 2018.

Fang's management team will host a conference call on the same day at 7:30 AM U.S. EST (8:30 PM Beijing/Hong Kong time). The dial-in details for the live conference call are:

International Toll: +65 67135090

Toll-Free/Local Toll:

United States +1 866-519-4004 / +1 845-675-0437

Hong Kong +852 800-906-601 / +852 3018-6771

Mainland China +86 800-819-0121 / +86 400-620-8038

Passcode: SFUN

A telephone replay of the call will be available after the conclusion of the conference call from 11:00 ET on November 30, 2018 through 9:59 ET December 8, 2018. The dial-in details for the telephone replay are:

International Toll: +61 2-8199-0299

Toll-Free/Local Toll:

United States +1 855-452-5696 / +1 646-254-3697

Hong Kong +852 800-963-117 / +852 3051-2780

Mainland China +86 400-602-2065 / +86 800-870-0205

Conference ID: 9369764

A live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available on Fang's website at http://ir.fang.com.

About Fang

Fang operates the leading real estate Internet portal in China in terms of the number of page views and visitors to its websites. Through its websites, Fang provides listing, marketing, financial, e-commerce and other value-added services for China's fast-growing real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors. Its user-friendly websites support active online communities and networks of users seeking information on, and other value-added services for, the real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors in China. Fang currently maintains about 100 offices to focus on local market needs and its website and database contains real estate related content covering more than 651 cities in China. For more information about Fang, please visit http://ir.fang.com.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

Dr. Hua Lei

CFO

Phone: +86-10-5631-8661

Email: [email protected]

Ms. Jessie Yang

Investor Relations Director

Phone: +86-10-5631-8805

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Fang Holdings Limited

Related Links

http://ir.fang.com


ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- With less than three weeks left, excitement builds for the 21st Annual Don Quijote Awards, which recognize businesses and individuals committed to excellence and to the development of Central Florida's Hispanic community. Event co-hosts Prospera and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Orlando (HCCMO) have announced the finalists for four categories recognized at the event, along with this year's Lifetime Achievement and Hispanic Community Champion award recipients. The winner of each category will be revealed at the 21st Don Quijote Awards Gala on Saturday, December 8, 2018 at Epcot's World Showplace Pavilion. More information is available at www.donquijoteawards.com.

The 2018 Don Quijote Awards finalists are :



Hispanic Business of the Year, Five Years or Less:

Carmona Law , owned by Omar Carmona

, owned by Nebbia Technology, owned by Esteban Garcia

Towers Construction Corp., owned by Oskar Torres

Hispanic Business of the Year, More than Five Years:

Creaciones D' Lucy & Bridal Shop, owned by Lucy Cavazos

Orlando Montessori Bilingual Academy, owned by Lucelis Torres

TS Skin Care, owned by Caroline Yachan

Professional of the Year:

Vicki Jaramillo , Orlando International Airport

, Orlando International Airport Maritza Martinez , University of Central Florida

, Dr. Giorgina Pinedo Rolon , City of Orlando

Excellence:

Yamile Luna , Florida Hospital

, Florida Hospital Maria Martinez , Retired, Rollins College

The Hispanic Community Champion and Lifetime Achievement awards recipients are uniquely chosen by the Don Quijote Awards Selection Committee.

Hispanic Community Champion Award

This award is given to a non-Hispanic individual who has led by example in supporting the progress of the Hispanic community in Central Florida. This year's Hispanic Community Champion is Nancy Gidusko, who passed away earlier this year and left a legacy of service, commitment and leadership in Central Florida.

Lifetime Achievement Award

This award recognizes an individual who has made significant and lasting contributions to the development and empowerment of the Hispanic community in Central Florida. This year the honor goes to Janet Perez Eckles. She is an award-winning interpreter, as well as an author, mentor, ministry leader, radio host, and missionary, spreading her empowering message from Central Florida to South America. In addition to thriving in her award-winning career and despite her blindness, Janet has a deep passion and commitment to serve others and help them see the best of life.

"For two decades, Central Florida has embraced the opportunity to highlight the achievements and contributions of Hispanic professionals and entrepreneurs, consistently growing the event alongside the region's Hispanic population," said the 21st Don Quijote Awards Chair Christina Pinto, partner at MPC Wealth Management. "We will make this year's gala the best one yet to raise funds to support the business development and community outreach programs conducted by the Hispanic Chamber and Prospera."

"We are proud to recognize the contributions of these honorees who have made such a profound impact in our community. The Don Quijote Awards give us the opportunity to celebrate these leaders surrounded by the community they serve," said Gaby Ortigoni, president of HCCMO.

"We are excited to once again host this important event alongside the Hispanic Chamber to celebrate the contributions of local Hispanic business owners and professionals. We are proud to present the 2018 Hispanic Community Champion award posthumously to Nancy Gidusko, whom we hold in very high esteem as a past Board of Directors member and ambassador of our mission for many years," said Prospera President & CEO Augusto Sanabria. "In less than three weeks, we will gather at the Don Quijote Awards gala and discover who the winners are among the accomplished finalists announced today."

The Don Quijote Awards are made possible thanks to the support of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Wells Fargo, Florida Blue, Florida Hospital, Universal Orlando, AARP, Bank of America, Orlando Health, Orlando Magic, JPMorgan Chase, Nemours, Tupperware Brands, Media Source Imagery and Univision Orlando, among others. For more information, please visit www.donquijoteawards.com.

The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Orlando is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership and support the economic development of the Hispanic business community of Metro Orlando. For 25 years, HCCMO has strengthened the Central Florida business community by providing quality programs through networking, business development, exposure and recognition. For more information, please visit www.hccmo.org or call 407-428-5870.

Prospera is an economic development, nonprofit organization that since 1991 has specialized in providing bilingual assistance to Hispanic entrepreneurs who want to establish or expand their business. In the last five years alone, Prospera has facilitated over $36 million in loans, trained over 22,700 entrepreneurs, and helped clients create or retain over 14,500 jobs. Its offices are located across Florida's central, south and west coast regions, and in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more information, visit www.prosperausa.org or call 407-428-5872.

SOURCE Prospera

Related Links

http://prosperausa.org


DUBLIN, Nov 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Robotics End-Of-Arm Tooling Market 2019-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The robotics end-of-arm tooling market will register a CAGR of more than 13% by 2022

The rapidly increasing use of FDM and additive manufacturing in EOAT manufacturing is facilitating faster customization and is more advanced compared to other conventional methodologies. Owing to several advantages including cost-effectiveness and reduced delivery time, the adoption of robotics end-of-arm tooling is expected to rise in the forthcoming years.

Market Overview

Rise in demand for modular EOAT

Manufacturers across the globe have been increasing investments in incorporating industrial robots being used in several end-user industries to aid the workforce in carrying out a range of activities. For instance, many vendors in the packaging industry are preferring EOAT to accommodate future modifications, in turn, contributing to the continuous growth of the market.

High cost of deployment of industrial robots limits the demand for robotic EOAT

The ASPs of installing robotic EOATs are significantly high. Furthermore, the additional costs incurred on preventive maintenance, safety, operator training, and use of complementary peripheral equipment results in the limited adoption of robotic EOAT.For the detailed list of factors that will drive and challenge the growth of the robotics end-of-arm tooling market during the 2019-2023, view the full report.

Competitive Landscape

Various robotics end-of-arm tooling manufacturers are leveraging advanced technologies to launch advanced products catering to the rising demand of automation across several end-user industries. This will result the market to witness intense competition in the forthcoming years. Furthermore, the manufacturers are focusing on incorporating advanced technologies to improve their shares in the market.

Report Summary:

According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is the rapidly rising demand for modular EOAT. The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is the use of FDM and additive manufacturing in end-of-arm tooling manufacturing. Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is the considerably high cost of deployment of industrial robots coupled with additional costs incurred in operator training.

Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2018

Market size and forecast 2018-2023

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY APPLICATION

Market segmentation by application

Comparison by application

Material handling - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Assembly line - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Welding and soldering - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Surface treatment and finishing - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Others - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Market opportunity by application

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE



PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

EMEA - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Americas - Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK



PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Use of FDM and additive manufacturing in EOAT manufacturing

Emergence of hybrid tooling

Rising innovations in electric grippers

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Applied Robotics

ATI Industrial Automation

Dover

Festo

Piab (subsidiary of Patricia Industries)

Toyota Industries



PART 14: APPENDIX



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/dtt6xd/global_robotics?w=5





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SOURCE Research and Markets

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BOSTON, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a career of nearly 40 years in health care leadership, Chuck Neumann, Principal of The Cambridge Group, Inc. and health system leader, announced that he will retire at the end of 2018. The decision, a long time in the making, will mark the end of a career shaping the health and wellness of communities across the country and supporting care providers and administrators in their care for patients.

Throughout Neumann's four decades in health care leadership he has made his mark on all those he led; from physician and employees to patients and community partners. Since 1989, Neumann has focused exclusively on providing transitional management services to healthcare organizations, helping 14 different entities refocus and reengage on their core mission and commitments.

Since 2014, Neumann has served in several roles at KentuckyOne Health, first as interim leader at Saint Joseph London and University of Louisville Hospital and most recently as interim President of the KentuckyOne Health system. Prior to his time in Kentucky, Neumann held leadership roles at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., Bon Secours Health System, Inc. in Marriottsville, Md. and at local Bon Secours health systems in Florida, Kentucky and Maryland. Neumann has also collaborated with FTI Healthcare Group, where he provided executive leadership to health systems, and developed and led strategy assessments, business integration and operations enhancement.

"I am extremely proud of the career I have built and the opportunities to serve with and support employees, physicians and administrators across the country," said Chuck Neumann. "In every role and at every facility, I have collaborated with individuals who have inspired me and who make a difference in the lives of the patients and communities every day. As I move on to my next chapter in retirement, I will cherish these memories."

Chuck Neumann will complete his service with KentuckyOne Health at the end of 2018. Neumann is shaping the transition of his final leadership role in collaboration with others, to ensure continuation of the excellence and service that has defined all of the roles Neumann has held throughout his career. Neumann joins his wife in retirement and plans to spend time with family and pursuing personal interests.

SOURCE The Cambridge Group, Inc.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HouseMaster owners in Sioux Falls, S.D., were recently recognized for their commitment to carrying the legacy of franchise founder and home inspection pioneer Ken Austin at HouseMaster's annual conference in Savannah, Georgia, Oct. 17 - 20.

HouseMaster CEO Kathleen Kuhn (left) poses with Kathy and Brad Horstman, recipients of the 2018 HouseMaster Austin Cup

"This award is a very personal one for all of us in the HouseMaster family. Ken was influential not only in our franchise but throughout the entire home inspection industry," said Brad Horstman. "When Ken passed away in 2016, we lost a visionary. But we are so very fortunate that through his hard work and dedication, he left a foundation that continues to expand through the team led by his daughter and our president and CEO Kathleen Kuhn. We are fortunate to be a part of a franchise system that walks with us every step of the way and even more grateful to receive this year's Austin Cup."

HouseMaster President and CEO Kathleen Kuhn and the corporate team hosted the conference and event, honoring the success of franchise owners over the past year and celebrating their lasting impact on the home inspection industry. Many of HouseMaster owners that serve over 300 locations across the United States and Canada gathered in Georgia for the annual gathering.

"To know that my father's legacy continues in each and every one of our franchise owners means the world to my family," Kuhn said. "We present our Austin Cup to a franchise owner who understands the essence of who we are and what we're looking to accomplish  we are highly knowledgeable home inspectors who value our customers and aim to create businesses with significance. Brad and Kathy are highly deserving of this award and it was such an emotional experience to be able to share it with them."

On Ken Austin's legacy:

In 1971, Ken Austin discovered a great entrepreneurial opportunity as he was scanning the pages of The Wall Street Journal. He saw an ad for a company attempting to launch a home inspection franchise system nationwide. While no one at the time even knew what a home inspection was, he saw the potential in the concept. He bought in as a minority stockholder and immediately began learning and growing the business. Several years later, investors bought into the company and purchased his shares. Austin then launched AMC Property Evaluations, Inc. in Central New Jersey and grew the business to a large multi-inspector firm serving the tri-state area.

In 1976, he saw the need for the fledgling home inspection industry to create unifying standards and a clear scope of services. He contacted the few other home inspection companies in existence and suggested they meet to form an industry association. From this initiative, the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) was born. In March of 1979, with the formula to succeed in the home inspection business in place, he began franchising under the HouseMaster trademark. HouseMaster was the first company to franchise in the home inspection industry.

HouseMaster quickly grew to be one of the most respected named in the industry and the nation's largest home inspection company. Under Austin's leadership, HouseMaster helped make home inspections an integral step in the home purchasing process.

In the same visionary spirit that led Austin to franchise HouseMaster, the company continues to move the home inspection industry forward. Attendees of this year's conference enjoyed sessions focused on new initiatives to help customers, including the unveiling of an industry-changing tool aided by highly accurate third-party data to estimate the cost of repairs on issues found during inspections. HouseMaster will announce details about that new feature before the end of 2018.

To connect with Brad and Kathy Horstman directly, call (605) 361-6000 or email [email protected] .

About HouseMaster:



Founded in 1979 and Headquartered in Somerville, N.J., HouseMaster is the oldest and one of the largest home inspection companies in North America. With more than 315 franchised areas throughout the U.S. and Canada, HouseMaster is the most respected name in home inspections. For almost 40 years, HouseMaster has built upon a foundation of solid leadership and innovation with a continued focus on delivering the highest quality service experience to their customers and providing HouseMaster franchisees the tools and support necessary to do so. Each HouseMaster franchise is an independently owned and operated business. HouseMaster is a registered trademark of HM Services, LLC.



For more information please visit www.housemaster.com or call 732-469-6565.

Media Contact:

Bob Spoerl

[email protected]

(773) 453-2444

SOURCE HouseMaster

Related Links

http://www.housemaster.com


FRANKFURT, Germany, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Iconiq Holding, the parent company of the decentralized VC group, Iconiq Lab, and the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange have jointly decided to cancel the sale of the ICNQ token on the GBX GRID. The decision comes in direct response to the sentiment surrounding the sale in the Iconiq community.

Iconiq Lab

"We have heard our communities' concerns regarding the sale of the ICNQ token on GBX while it is already trading on IDEX, a decentralized exchange which we have no control over the listing of," said Patrick Lowry, CEO of Iconiq Holding. "While the Iconiq team and many members of the community were enthusiastic for the GBX GRID sale leading up to the announcement of the price, the immediate resulting sell-off of ICNQ on IDEX is a clear signal to the Iconiq team that other members of the community do not wish there to be a sale on GBX. Effectively immediately, the ICNQ sale is canceled, and all 1,112,500 ICNQ tokens that were to be sold in the GBX sale will be burned."

"Our primary aim in the very small sale of ICNQ tokens on the GBX GRID was not to raise additional funds for Iconiq, but rather to merge the Iconiq and GBX communities. Iconiq, as a Sponsor Firm of GBX, believes in our aligned vision of compliant and high-quality token offerings brought to the GBX GRID by the Sponsor Firm network. Rather than continuing the sale to achieve this goal, we will be encouraging all Iconiq community members to open a GBX wallet to participate in the growing ecosystem around the GBX Digital Asset Exchange. As such, all bounty tokens from the Amazix bounty campaign will be distributed to participants after they complete KYC on the GBX exchange and register their wallet address with the Amazix team."

Nick Cowan, CEO of GBX, adds, "Our focus has always been on creating an environment that encourages collaboration and development of our ecosystem, in partnership with our Sponsor Firms. Iconiq is aligned with our vision to create an institutional-grade exchange for digital assets and they have made this decision, recognizing their community's sentiment. Together, we will continue to build the GBX, focused on the best practices and leading industry standards."

All members of the Iconiq community can register their GBX accounts and complete the KYC process at https://platform.gbx.gi/register. All bounty tokens will be aimed to be distributed in December with the DAX listing to go live with a target time frame of mid-late December. All announcements regarding the confirmation of the GBX DAX listing of ICNQ and the bounty campaign distributions will be done in the Iconiq and GBX channels.

About Iconiq Holding

Iconiq Holding is building the premier digital asset management ecosystem, creating trusted financial vehicles and business opportunities for investors in the blockchain market, driven by the ICNQ token. Iconiq Holding launched the world's first decentralized venture capital club, Iconiq Lab, and is a Sponsor Firm of the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX).

Full details related to the ICNQ token can be found at https://iconiqlab.com/icnqdeck. Join the Iconiq community at https://t.me/iconiqlabchat.

About Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX)

The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) aims to position itself as a world-leading institutional-grade token sale platform and Digital Asset Exchange that is a part of the GSX Group, which also includes the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), a European Union (EU) regulated stock exchange. The GBX is a global listing and token sales springboard for utility tokens that have satisfied a strict due diligence and admissions process as well as a high-quality Digital Asset Exchange. The GBX is setting a higher standard for token issuance and trading through best practices and good governance, for the benefit of all market participants.

Media Contact

Patrick Lowry

CEO, Iconiq Holding

[email protected]

SOURCE Iconiq Lab

Related Links

https://iconiqlab.com


DALLAS, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE:JEC) was awarded an extension to the Center Maintenance, Operations and Engineering contract at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The contract extension is a one-year option and NASA estimates a potential value of $46 million, bringing the total current value of the contract to $214 million. The option begins this October and extends the period of performance through September 2019.

"As NASA's largest services provider, we welcome this opportunity to build upon our longstanding relationship with NASA Langley Research Center," said Jacobs Aerospace, Technology, Environmental and Nuclear Senior Vice President Steve Arnette. "This contract extension enables us to continue to play a vital role in supporting NASA's initiatives in aeronautics, space technology, exploration and Earth science."

Under this contract extension, Jacobs will continue providing facility-related intelligent asset management and operations and engineering support services, including design engineering, project management, construction management, configuration management and asset management services for research facilities, wind tunnels, laboratories, test structures and specialty instrumentation.

Jacobs is a provider and integrator of full lifecycle aerospace capability including design and construction; base, mission and launch operations; sustaining capital maintenance; and secure and intelligent asset management, development, modification, and testing processes for fixed assets supporting national government, military, defense and NASA, as well as commercial space companies.

Jacobs leads the global professional services sector delivering solutions for a more connected, sustainable world. With $15 billion in fiscal 2017 revenue when combined with full-year CH2M revenues and a talent force of more than 77,000, Jacobs provides a full spectrum of services including scientific, technical, professional and construction- and program-management for business, industrial, commercial, government and infrastructure sectors. For more information, visit www.jacobs.com, and connect with Jacobs on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on management's current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our Form 10-K for the year ended September 29, 2017, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 - Business, 1A - Risk Factors, 3 - Legal Proceedings, and 7 - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

For press/media inquiries:

Kerrie Sparks

214.583.8433

Brian Morandi

720.286.0719

SOURCE Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.jacobs.com


Dr. Billington served as the 13th Librarian of Congress after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, an appointment unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate. He retired as Librarian on September 30, 2015.

Over a 28-year period, he founded the National Book Festival with First Lady Laura Bush, the John Kluge Center and Prize for the Study of Humanity, the Gershwin Prize, and The National Audio Visual Conservation Center.

Throughout a life dedicated to scholarship and serviceduring which he served every President and Congress since the 1960s until his retirementDr. Billington played a unique role in preserving, promoting, and sharing America's rich cultural heritage.

Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, June 1, 1929, he was educated in Philadelphia-area public schools. Dr. Billington was valedictorian at Lower Merion High School and Princeton University, where he graduated with highest honors in 1950. In 1953, he earned a modern Russian history doctorate from Balliol College of the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Dr. Billington received 42 honorary degrees, as well as the US Presidential Citizen's Medal, the Russian Federation's Order of Friendship, and the French Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Following U.S. Army service in President Eisenhower's Office of National Estimates, he taught history at Harvard University from 1957 to 1962, and at Princeton University, where he was a popular professor from 1964 to 1974.

From 1973 to 1987, Dr. Billington was director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he founded the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, seven other new programs, and the Wilson Quarterly.

Dr. Billington authored nine books, including the classic Russian cultural history, The Icon and the Axe and The Face of Russia, a companion book to the PBS television series.

Dr. Billington spent more than 50 years helping America's leaders and citizens better understand the former Soviet Union and its successor states, contributing to a greater appreciation of America's values and institutions in countries stretching across one-third of the globe.

He first visited Russia in 1958, and accompanied the President and First Lady, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, to Moscow in 1988 for Reagan's summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

During his 28-year tenure at the Library of Congress, Dr. Billington enlarged and technologically enhanced public spaces in the Thomas Jefferson Building, re-purposing it as a national exhibition venue that hosted over 100 exhibitions, many featuring materials never before publicly displayed in America.

He doubled the size of the Library's traditional analog collections to more than 160 million items and oversaw innovative preservation initiatives. Dr. Billington pioneered the reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's original library, using private funds raised from the Library's James Madison Council, which he founded.

Dr. Billington also founded the Open World Leadership Center, which enabled over 27,000 Eurasian leaders to engage and learn from the democratic process. Simultaneously, he created a massive new Library of Congress online presence and launched a series of innovative Library programs to share the educational riches of the Library with millions of Americans and the world.

Dr. Billington is survived by his wife of 61 years, the former Marjorie Anne Brennan, whom he described as his "indispensable full partner in every way and at every stage of his adult life"; four children, Dr. Susan Billington Harper, Anne Billington Fischer, the Rev. James Hadley Billington, Jr., and Thomas Keator Billington; and 12 grandchildren.

A high-res photo of Dr. Billington is available by clicking here.

Statements and testimonials from Leading National and International figures who knew Dr. Billington well:

Statement from Mrs. Laura W. Bush:

"President Bush and I are saddened to learn that the United States has lost Dr. James Billington. Dr. Billington served as our nation's librarian for 28 years, leading the Library of Congress' transition into the digital age. In 2001, he was instrumental in the creation of the National Book Festival, which has welcomed hundreds of thousands of book lovers to the National Mall and to the Library of Congress. Dr. Billington's lifelong passion for research and for preserving history ensures that America's most prized literary treasures will be available to all for generations to come. President Bush and I send our heartfelt condolences to Dr. Billington's wife Marjorie, and to their four children. He will be missed."

Statement from Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House Democratic Leader:

"The passing of Dr. James Billington is a profound loss for his family and loved ones as well as for our nation. Over the course of his long and prolific career, Dr. Billington became a tireless steward for American history, helping protect and preserve our nation's most treasured past for generations of Americans.

"Dr. Billington was a public servant of exceptional intelligence, dedication and vision. His tenure at the Library of Congress saw the doubling of the Library's collection and the beginning of its now vast online resources. Dr. Billington firmly believed that the treasures of American history in his care belonged to the people, and he worked passionately to ensure that Americans across the country could access these priceless collections.

"Whether teaching at Harvard or Princeton, collaborating with experts and academics, or being a trusted teacher and advisor for countless Members of Congress, Dr. Billington was a committed educator. His dedication to expanding the Library's educational programing has allowed a generation of young Americans to discover their love of history and become inspired to engage in our great democratic experiment.

"Our nation has lost a true patriot and one of its most relentless defenders. Dr. Billington's life and remarkable legacy have left an indelible mark on our unique American story, allowing generations of young people to see, experience and learn from the history he so passionately promoted. May it be a small comfort to his loving wife, Marjorie, their children, Susan, Anne, James Jr., and Thomas, and the entire Billington family that so many mourn with them at this difficult time."

Statement from Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice:

"I am deeply saddened by the news of Dr. Jim Billington's passing. He was an original -- brilliant, thoughtful and kind. He led the Library of Congress with skill and passion. On a personal note, he was a great role model for me as a scholar and a public servant. His timeless work, The Icon and the Axe is quite literally the book that drew this failed music major to the study of the Soviet Union. Such was the reach of his influence in the field. I join all of his friends and colleagues in sending my thoughts and prayers to Marjorie and the Billington family."

Statement of Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs, The New School and the granddaughter of Leonid Khrushchev, the eldest son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

"Dr Billington was such a towering figure in the Russian studies and in the field of the US-Russian relations that he would be thoroughly missed for decades to come. In his work, either as a scholar or a librarian of Congress, he brilliantly merged art and politics, all for the purposes of the United States better understanding and appreciating other cultures around the globe. Russia, his area of expertise, was particularly lucky. James Billington's book, The Icon and the Axe, was itself an icon for the generations of both the Russians and the Russianists. In the dark days of the Soviet Union we, the Russians, tried to understand our own culture through Dr. Billington's critical, knowledgeable and kind eye. At the same time, his philosophical and historical approach to the complex country of bombs, ballet and Brothers Karamazov became a road map for the study of Russian culture and politics for many scholars following in his steps. May his soul rest in peace."

Statement of David M. Rubenstein on the Passing of Dr. James Billington November 21, 2018:

"Jim Billington was one of the finest public servants  indeed one of the finest Americans  I have ever been privileged to meet. His dedication to our country, and in the last three decades of his life to the Library of Congress, places all Americans his debt. Jim helped transform the Library of Congress into the library of the American people  a national treasure available to and benefiting all Americans. Those of us who were fortunate to know and work with him will miss him dearly."

SOURCE The Family of James H. Billington
PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Janrain, the company that pioneered the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) category, today announced Janrain Identity Central, which allows companies to provide comprehensive customer registration, authentication, single sign-on, preference and consent management, as well as self-service account recovery significantly faster, with less effort and at lower cost, while accommodating the largest and most sophisticated use cases within Global 1,000 enterprises.

Janrain Identity Central allows:

Developers to add Janrain's full suite of centralized enterprise-grade identity services to their applications in just minutes--new identity features can be activated centrally without any application code changes

API-first, rapid development supporting Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)

Consistent, interoperable, secure, core capabilities by using the latest open industry standard, OpenID Connect, and its self-certification program

Centralized policy administration and enforcement

Integrated identity analytics for experience optimization (registration abandonment) and security (fraud)

Verified identity for easy access to downstream API services

Ever since its involvement in establishing the OpenID Foundation and contributing to the initial OpenID specifications, Janrain has distinguished itself by not only embracing open standards, but also innovating on top of them.

Janrain Identity Central uses OpenID Connect, a simple identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol that allows clients to verify end-user identity and obtain basic profile information about that user in an interoperable manner. Janrain Identity Central delivers a suite of out-of-the-box, omnichannel consumer experiences (e.g., registration, login, preference and consent management) that address mission-critical requirements around privacy, access control, security and compliance. These experiences are optimized for web and native mobile applications across all platforms. An application can be connected to the Janrain Identity Cloud with a simple OpenID Connect request, opening up the full arsenal of Janrain's market-leading CIAM functionality with only minutes of development effort.

With Identity Central, customer experiences (CX) are available on any channel, be it web, mobile or connected devices for the Internet of Things (IoT), and feature a highly user-friendly and rapidly deployable design based on years of industry experience. Brand owners receive a selection of well-proven registration, login, profile management, consent center and preference center experiences. These experiences can be customized to match the branding of any website or digital application, including colors, logos, graphics and text fields.

Customers can easily and quickly evoke, re-use or modify customer experiences across hundreds of applications and all of a company's locations globally. Deployment and maintenance efforts go from weeks to minutes, and existing forms, business logic, workflows and policies can be reused for new applications with no development effort for brand owners.

"With Identity Central, Janrain now offers full consumer IDaaS, that gives businesses improved end user experiences as well as access to backend data management functionality, allows companies to implement enterprise-grade identity management in a fast and flexible way," says John Tolbert, Lead Analyst at KuppingerCole. "Janrain Identity Central makes complete CIAM available as a cloud-based service, which provides the versatility and agility that enterprises are looking for in today's rapidly evolving markets."

"We are excited to see OpenID Connect being leveraged by Janrain with their Identity Central offering. OpenID Connect and its self certification option is proving to be a global game changer in identity management," said Don Thibeau, Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation. "Open standards like OpenID Connect are the key to enabling easy-to-use and powerful cloud-based services and create a secure and interoperable digital identity ecosystem across vendor boundaries."

"Identity Central allows our clients to focus on developing differentiating applications for their consumers and use our Identity cloud services to take care of all things related to customer identity management," said Jim Kaskade, CEO at Janrain. "We provide the customizable consumer identity experiences as a service, with 99.999% availability, guaranteed linear performance, industry-leading security, and the most extensive list of certifications in the industry, so our enterprise customers can focus on their business."

Janrain Identity Central is in production today and available as a part of the Janrain Identity Cloud offering.

Contact Janrain if you would like to learn more or join us at the Gartner Identity & Access Management Summit 2018, December 3  5, in Las Vegas, NV, where we will showcase Identity Central. Shell GM of Digital Emerging Technologies & VP of Innovation Johan Krebbers and Janrain CEO Jim Kaskade will host a session about global enterprise identity management on Wednesday, December 5 at 10:00 a.m. PST. For more information about the event and to request a meeting, visit Janrain's website .

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 .

SOURCE Janrain

Related Links

https://www.janrain.com


LONDON and LEXINGTON, Mass., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson Matthey (JM) and CAMX Power LLC (CAMX) announce that JM has obtained a license under the intellectual property of CAMX relating to the GEMX platform of nickel based high energy high power cathode materials for use in lithium-ion batteries especially for electric vehicles (EVs).

The GEMX platform is based on a fundamental invention of CAMX for which broad patents have been granted in the US, EU, Japan and China. The invention creates a broad class of cathode materials, overarching the high nickel material classes NMC, NCA and LNO, the chemistries currently used, and expected to be used in the next ten years or more, in lithium-ion batteries for EVs. The GEMX invention, through molecular engineering, places cobalt at the critical places of the cathode particles resulting in the use of less cobalt, yet with greater stability, higher performance and lower cost for all classes of high nickel materials.

"We are pleased to have obtained this further license from CAMX to support JM's development of ultra high energy density automotive battery cathode materials," commented Alan Nelson, Sector Chief Executive and CTO at JM. "This license improves and extends our intellectual property protection and supports the commercialisation plans for our market leading eLNO technology."

"Adding the GEMX platform also gives us a broader chemistry landscape to which we can apply JM's expertise in materials design, development, scale up and manufacturing. This is how JM provides our customers, and ultimately consumers, with battery materials that have the performance characteristics required to drive an electric vehicle revolution and enable the journey to pollution-free roads.

"In May 2016, Johnson Matthey purchased a license for the CAM-7 platform of CAMX. Using its own processing technologies and other know how Johnson Matthey successfully developed eLNO and is currently commercialising its technology. With the GEMX license JM can further enhance eLNO as well as take an advanced position in other material classes such as NCA and NMC," said Dr. Kenan Sahin, president and founder of CAMX. He continued, "Also with the GEMX license which extends CAM-7, JM will now have patent protection beyond 2030 in the key jurisdictions in the world and especially in the biggest market, China." Dr. Sahin expressed his enthusiasm for the deepening relationship with JM remarking how rapidly and successfully JM developed and began commercialising eLNO, concluding "Instead of attempting production ourselves, by working with eminent and established companies like JM we as CAMX can see our inventions rapidly and more broadly come to market for the benefit of society especially in the environmentally beneficial connected and self-aware EVs poised to dominate transportation and become a multi-trillion dollar industry in itself."

About Johnson Matthey

Johnson Matthey is a global leader in science that enables a cleaner and healthier world. With over 200 years of sustained commitment to innovation and technological breakthroughs, we improve the function, performance and safety of our customers' products. Our science has a global impact in areas such as low emission transport, pharmaceuticals, chemical processing and making the most efficient use of the planet's natural resources. Today more than 14,000 Johnson Matthey professionals collaborate with our network of customers and partners to make a real difference to the world around us.

For more information, please visit: www.matthey.com

eLNO is a trademark of the Johnson Matthey group of companies

About CAMX Power

CAMX Power LLC is one of the largest independent lithium-ion battery materials and design entities in the U.S. headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts near Boston.

Its business model and strategy is to mature early stage technologies to be de-risked, IP-protected and scaled-up or scale up ready; then license them, with deep technology transfer, to large manufacturing partners for them to extend, make and sell, achieving far greater and far quicker impact for the betterment of society and environment.

CAMX Power also offers structured services to enable others to enter the emobility and eportability energy storage market, and for those already in the market, to cost-effectively expand their sales and to develop and acquire innovative solutions. The company maintains a lithium-ion battery material synthesis facility, a development-purposed cathode production pilot plant, and design-purposed advanced cell making facilities.

For more information, please visit: www.camxpower.com

Media enquiries

Johnson Matthey

Rebecca Williams

+44 207 269 8400

[email protected]

CAMX Power

Terry Lundstrom

+1 978 484 5000

SOURCE CAMX Power

Related Links

http://www.camxpower.com


BALLERUP, Denmark, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Kleresca, a medical technology company focused on the development and commercialisation of a unique biophotonic technology in dermatology, has strengthened its research activities by employing an industrial postdoc to investigate the impact of FLE on skin macrophages.

Dr. Maiken Mellergaard, PhD in Immunology and Infectious Diseases, has been employed as industrial postdoc by Kleresca in collaboration with University of Copenhagen (UCPH) to investigate how FLE impacts the macrophages in the human immune system.

According to the Kleresca General Manager, an increase of the current knowledge of the FLE technology is a prerequisite for dispersing the technology into more therapeutic areas for the benefit of patients worldwide.

"We are very excited to welcome Dr. Mellergaard to the team. She will help us understand our technology in more detail in relation to the immune system. This will enable us to develop more treatments for inflammatory skin diseases going forward," says Mr. Mikkel Schoedt, General Manager of Kleresca.

Co-financed by The Innovation Fund Denmark, Dr. Mellergaard is based at the UCPH and reports to the faculty professor as well as to the Director of Clinical and Scientific Affairs in Kleresca.

This constellation is intended to provide an unbiased scientific foundation for the investigation. It also it allows Kleresca access to research facilities and knowledge within different areas of highly relevant research.

Professor at the UCPH Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Prof. Dr. Sren Skov says:

"This research project focusing on FLE in dermatology opens up for whole new perspectives within immunology and we are excited to be part of it."

Prof. Dr. Sren Skov is the scientific mentor for the postdoc during the entire research period of two years.

Contact:

Nadia Vega Vasiljev

Global PR and Communication

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/kleresca/r/kleresca--employs-industrial-postdoc-researcher-to-investigate-impact-of-fluorescent-light-energy--f,c2677014

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/17451/2677014/949348.pdf PDF http://news.cision.com/kleresca/i/cp-library-experiment-0-9,c2530704 CP library experiment 0 9

SOURCE Kleresca
BORDENTOWN, N.J., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- MBDI founder and CEO David Cayemitte announced today that Lisa Tepper, seasoned insurance executive and tireless advocate for women and diversity, has joined MBDI's board of directors.

An accomplished leader with over 30 years insurance industry experience , Lisa has held various leadership positions focused on business development, distribution strategy and organizational transformation.

In 2017, Lisa joined Arthur J. Gallagher, the world's fourth largest insurance broker. As an Area Executive Vice President in the retail brokerage division, she drives revenue and contributes to marketing strategies. Lisa is also moving the needle on diversity and inclusion in the organization.

Lisa is the recipient of the Insurance Woman of the Year award, recognized for her leadership by the NYC Association of Insurance Women. She is a Board Member of The Young People's Chorus of New York City, a mentor with W.O.M.E.N. In America, Past Chair of the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation  Northeast Chapter and Past President of Middle Earth of Somerset County. Lisa serves as NYC Ambassador for SheEO, a group of radically generous women creating a new economic model.

Founded in 2010, MBDI is an educational non-profit providing education and advocacy to assist SMWVBEs to develop socio-economic parity by addressing business issues that create barriers to success. MBDI focuses on the construction and development industries, offering strategic consulting and coursework in business infrastructure improvement, operational efficiency and financial presentation. Ultimately, businesses become more nimble and efficient, making them better investments for banks and sureties, and positioning them to compete for public work and move towards permanently increasing opportunity and profits.

Nationwide, small businesses are the largest generators of jobs, and MBDI creates well-paying jobs in communities that have historically been left behind. Mr. Cayemitte explains, "MBDI is all about putting food on the table and creating stability. As we work with businesses and they grow, our CEOs hire with prevailing wage jobs that provide young men and women with career paths out of poverty." He continued, "We are delighted that Lisa has accepted a board seat. Her enthusiasm, creative thinking and grit are sure to help MBDI to find new avenues for funding and growth. This is a great day for SMWVBEs!"

Minority Business Development Institute News: www.manhattanda.org/category/news/

Minority Business Development Institute Press Releases: www.manhattanda.org/category/press-release/

Media Contact:

Liz Duncan-Gilmour

[email protected]

609-456-0818

www.minoritybdi.org

SOURCE Minority Business Development Institute (MBDI)

Related Links

http://www.minoritybdi.org


Olive oil is recognized for its long-lasting shield of moisture to keep skin smooth and supple. Lanolin is also known for its moisturizing and healing effects.

"Our Lanolin & Olive Oil Lotion can be used by people of all ages who have dry skin," said Vick Maharaj, the CEO of Marshalls Traditional Health Care. "Our lotion can be used as a face cream, body lotion, make-up remover, and base cream for essential oils. People will love our line of health and beauty products once they try them."

Marshalls started in the 1930s as a family business focusing on pharmaceutical manufacturing and distributing within South Africa and neighboring countries. At first, Marshalls specialized in holistic remedies for the ethnic market. As the company grew, Marshalls added more product lines. Today, the company continues to manufacture and distribute its line of holistic supplements, and it created Lays Beauty line of natural products.

Marshalls Traditional Healthcare products are suitable for a wide variety of people, including men and women of all ages. The company boasts 77 different products under the Marshalls brand as well as Lays health and beauty products.

Other products, which are available on stackednutrition.com, that Marshalls Traditional Healthcare have available for sale online include Lays Hair-Oil with Moroccan Argan Oil, Lays Lanolin & Olive Oil and Lays Tissue Oil.

"We are very excited to have our Lays line of health and beauty products on stacknutrition.com," Maharaj said. "As a company, we are trying to bring our quality products to the American market."

For more information on Marshalls Traditional Health Care and its Lays Beauty line, visit www.lays-beauty.com and follow on Facebook.

Please direct inquiries to:

Michelle Bizet, 561-544-0719

[email protected]

SOURCE Marshalls Traditional Health Care
VANCOUVER, Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Mason Resources Corp. (TSX:MNR;OTCQB: MSSNF  "Mason" or the "Company") announces that the Company has today filed and mailed the materials for its special meeting (the "Meeting") of holders ("Company Shareholders") of common shares (the "Shares") of the Company to consider the previously announced plan of arrangement with Hudbay Minerals Inc. ("Hudbay") under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the "Arrangement"). Pursuant to the Arrangement, Hudbay will acquire all the outstanding Shares of the Company not already owned by Hudbay and its affiliates for C$0.40 per Share (the "Consideration"). The Notice of Special Meeting, Management Information Circular and other Meeting materials (the "Meeting Materials") are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.MasonResources.com.

Special Meeting of Mason Shareholders

The Meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. (Vancouver time) on December 17, 2018 at the offices of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP located at 1200 Waterfront Centre, 200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia. The record date for determining the Company Shareholders that will be entitled to receive notice of and vote at the Meeting has been fixed as the close of business on November 16, 2018 (the "Record Date").

Board Recommendation

After a thorough and careful review and consideration of the best interests of the Company, the terms of the Arrangement and its impact on Company Shareholders excluding Hudbay and its affiliates (the "Public Shareholders") and the Company's other stakeholders, a special committee (the "Special Committee") comprised solely of independent directors of the Company, has unanimously concluded that the Consideration to be received by the Public Shareholders pursuant to the Arrangement is fair to such Public Shareholders and that the Arrangement is in the best interest of the Company.

ON THE UNANIMOUS RECOMMENDATION OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE, THE COMPANY BOARD UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDS THAT PUBLIC SHAREHOLDERS VOTE FOR THE ARRANGEMENT RESOLUTION.

Required Approvals

To be effective, the Arrangement must be approved by a special resolution passed by (i) at least two-thirds of the votes cast by Company Shareholders (including Hudbay) who are present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting; and (ii) a majority of the votes cast by Public Shareholders, in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions who are present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting. In addition, the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court") must approve the Arrangement as a condition to its effectiveness. Among other things, the Court's final order will include a finding on the fairness of the terms and conditions of the Arrangement to Public Shareholders participating in the Arrangement.

In connection with the Arrangement, all of the directors and senior officers of Mason as well as Mantos Copper (Bermuda) Limited (the "Supporting Shareholders") entered into customary support agreements with Hudbay pursuant to which they have agreed to vote their Shares, representing 19.8% of the issued and outstanding Shares, in favour of the Arrangement. Together with Hudbay, the Supporting Shareholders hold 33.7% of the issued and outstanding Shares.

Your vote is important. The Meeting Materials provide a description of the Arrangement and include certain additional information to assist Public Shareholders in considering how to vote on the Arrangement. You are urged to read this information carefully and, if you require assistance, to consult your tax, financial, legal or other professional advisors.

Included in the Meeting Materials are several documents requiring your attention.

If you are a registered shareholder and are unable to attend the Meeting in person, please date and execute the form of proxy included in the Meeting Materials and deposit it with Computershare Investor Services Inc., Attention: Proxy Department, 100 University Avenue, 8th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5J 2Y1 before 10:30 a.m. (Vancouver time) on Thursday, December 13, 2018, or not less than 48 hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays) before any adjournment of the Meeting.

If you are a non-registered shareholder and receive the Meeting Materials through your broker or through another intermediary, please complete and return the materials in accordance with the instructions provided to you by your broker or such other intermediary. If you are a non-registered shareholder and do not complete and return the materials in accordance with such instructions, you may lose the right to vote at the Meeting.

If you have any questions about the procedures to be followed to vote at the Meeting or about obtaining and depositing the required form of proxy or voting instruction form, you should contact Laurel Hill Advisory Group by telephone (toll-free for callers in North America) at 1-877-452-7184 or 1-416-304-0211 (for collect calls outside North America) or by e-mail at [email protected].

The Arrangement is expected to close in December 2018, subject to obtaining all required approvals and consents, as well as satisfying all required conditions.

About Mason Resources Corp.

Mason's key asset is its 100% owned Ann Mason project  an extensive, prospective land package located in the Yerington District of Nevada. The Ann Mason project hosts two copper-molybdenum porphyry deposits, Ann Mason and Blue Hill, as well as numerous earlier-stage or untested priority targets. The Ann Mason deposit is currently at a PEA level and is among the largest undeveloped copper porphyry resources in Canada/U.S.A. The excellent infrastructure, year-round access, strong community support and clear permitting process are all factors that contribute to making Yerington, Nevada one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world. Mason also holds a 100% interest in the Lordsburg property, an exciting earlier-stage copper-gold porphyry project, located within an historic mining district in New Mexico.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to corporate strategies and plans of Mason; the timing of the Arrangement and the receipt of necessary approvals and conditions for completion.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of the Company's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions and the environment in which Mason will operate in the future, including the price of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum. Uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, the risk that the Arrangement does not close on a timely basis or at all or that some or all of the anticipated benefits thereof are not achieved; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral resources and metallurgical recoveries; the size, grade and continuity of deposits not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by government authorities; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the Company's most recently filed MD&A and in the Company's Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2017, dated March 16, 2018 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.

SOURCE Mason Resources
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nevada 2-1-1, a program of Money Management International (MMI), has received the 2018 Resource Award from the CARE Coalition of Nevada. The CARE Coalition is a nonprofit organization committed to substance abuse prevention in Clark County, Nevada.

Nevada 2-1-1 was recognized for its contributions toward increasing public awareness of the effects of drug and alcohol abuse by providing education and support to the community at large, including drug prevention agencies. Nevada 2-1-1 provides information about vital health and human service programs that are available throughout the state. This includes information about basic needs, physical and mental health, financial stability, assistance for disabled or elderly persons, support for children and families, and support during disasters.

"The positive impact our 2-1-1 team has made throughout Nevada is evident not only by this award, but more importantly by the care, compassion, and support each call specialist has for the person on the other end of each incoming call," said Lisa Martin, Client Services Manager at MMI. "Our goal is to not only empower all Nevadans to achieve optimal self-sufficiency, health, and well-being, but to treat callers with unconditional dignity in their most vulnerable moments."

Since 2015, MMI (formerly Financial Guidance Center) has operated the 2-1-1 call center, pursuant to a contract with the State of Nevada. Nevada law requires maintenance of a statewide information and referral system. Administration and oversight of Nevada 2-1-1 is the responsibility of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services under Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 232.359.

CONTACT:

Thomas Nitzsche

Media Relations

404.490.2227

[email protected]

About Nevada 2-1-1

Nevada 2-1-1, a program of Money Management International (MMI), is committed to helping Nevadans connect with the services they need. Whether by phone or internet, our goal is to present accurate, well-organized and easy-to-find information from state and local health and human services programs. Visit www.nevada211.org.

About MMI

Money Management International (MMI) is changing the way financial challenges are solved. MMI helps create, restore, and maintain a life of financial wellness through empowered choices. For 60 years, our clients have achieved financial confidence through nonprofit programs that educate, motivate, and liberate. MMI inspires action by delivering expert professional guidance and timely solutions that are aligned with our client's goals. Experiencing a financial challenge? Find your solution 24/7 at 866.864.8995 and MoneyManagement.org.

SOURCE Money Management International

Related Links

http://www.moneymanagement.org


TSX-V: NDR

VANCOUVER, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - New Dimension Resources Ltd. (TSXV: NDR) (the "Company", "NDR", or "New Dimension") is pleased to provide the following update on ongoing exploration activities on its 100%-owned portfolio of high-grade gold-silver projects in Santa Cruz, Argentina, and at the Company's two Canadian projects, Savant Lake and Domain.

Overview of Activities

Santa Cruz Projects, Argentina

Field activities in Santa Cruz remain focused on the discovery of new high-grade gold-silver resources, with field crews currently working on the evaluation and prioritization of drill targets at the Sierra Blanca project. In addition, further field work is scheduled to be undertaken on high-grade gold-silver targets in the Las Calandrias and Los Cisnes districts over the southern summer field season. Follow-up drill testing is currently planned for 2019.

Las Calandrias Project (Figures 1 & 2)

An independent National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") technical report for the updated Las Calandrias Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") has been filed on SEDAR. The updated MRE, completed by AGP Mining Consultants Inc., confirmed the robust nature of the Las Calandrias gold-silver resource and reported a total Indicated Category resource of 391,000 ounces ("oz") gold and 6,070,000 oz silver for the combined Calandria Sur and Calandria Norte deposits (see Appendix 1 and the Company's press release dated October 5, 2018 for further detail).





and Calandria Norte deposits (see Appendix 1 and the Company's press release dated for further detail). The Company continues to evaluate extensions to known high-grade gold mineralization in the Morena vein/breccia deposit and the adjacent Despreciada vein system. The Company's 2018 diamond drill campaign successfully extended known high-grade gold mineralization at Morena (e.g. 4.2m @ 6.9 grams per tonne [g/t] Au + 13 g/t Ag from 18.8m downhole, including 1.6m @ 12.0 g/t Au + 22 g/t Ag from 19.7m downhole, in CAL18-12; see Company press release dated September 13, 2018 ), with modeling of the Morena system ongoing.

Sierra Blanca Project (Figures 3 & 4)

Field activities are currently focused on the evaluation and ranking of precious metals vein targets at the Sierra Blanca Project, which is located 40km NW of AngloGold Ashanti's Cerro Vanguardia gold mine and immediately adjacent to Austral Gold's Pinguino gold-silver project. Sierra Blanca hosts an extensive epithermal "vein field" characterized by E-W and NW-trending veins with high-grade silver-gold mineralization, especially in the Chala-Achen sector. The upcoming work program will focus on evaluating both extensions to the known mineralization at Chala-Achen, in addition to evaluating untested sectors such as El Tranquilo, through a combination of geochemistry, geology / vein texture analysis, and low-cost ground geophysics.

Los Cisnes Project

During October, 2018, the Company completed a geochemical (LAG) sample grid and ground magnetic survey over prospective areas located to the south of the El Brio high-grade vein/breccia structure at the Los Cisnes Project. Results are pending and will assist in the evaluation of both parallel and cross-cutting structures to El Brio which may host new silver-gold shoots.





A metallurgical testwork program has also been initiated on 6 samples from the Calandria Norte deposit. This testwork will follow-up on the preliminary Leachwell analyses that were completed in 2011 by Mariana Resources Ltd, and which suggested amenability of the Calandria Norte mineralization to processing techniques utilizing leaching.

Canadian Projects

At the Savant Lake Project (Figure 5 - 7), which is located approximately 240km NW of Thunder Bay, Ontario , an NDR field crew completed 10 days of late-season prospecting with the primary aim of field-checking known high-grade surface gold workings and evaluating along-strike extensions to the known mineralized areas. The Company's field crews visited most of the historic gold workings (especially L28, where high-grade gold mineralization was confirmed through a grab sample returning 8.1 g/t Au), and were successful in discovering a new gold zone located approximately 600m along strike from the Stillar Bay surface gold working (Figure 6).





, an NDR field crew completed 10 days of late-season prospecting with the primary aim of field-checking known high-grade surface gold workings and evaluating along-strike extensions to the known mineralized areas. The Company's field crews visited most of the historic gold workings (especially L28, where high-grade gold mineralization was confirmed through a grab sample returning 8.1 g/t Au), and were successful in discovering a new gold zone located approximately along strike from the Stillar Bay surface gold working (Figure 6). At the Domain Project in NE Manitoba , NDR has been in discussions with JV partner Yamana Gold, regarding the potential timing and scale of the next round of field work at the project. Historic drilling at Domain has intersected a main zone of gold mineralization over an approximate strike length of 500m and to a vertical depth of 300m , with gold mineralization remaining open in all directions. Gold mineralization at Domain is associated with NW-trending shear zone with magnetite-rich mudstones being the main hosts to mineralization. Yamana Gold is the Project Operator, and is currently in the progress of renewing access agreements with the local First Nation group at Domain. NDR holds a residual 29.56% participating interest.

Eric Roth, New Dimension's CEO, commented today: "I am pleased to be able to report significant progress in our exploration activities, both within our large Santa Cruz gold-silver portfolio and on our Canadian gold assets. In Santa Cruz, our focus remains on the discovery of high-grade gold-silver deposits with our current emphasis being on the evaluation of the extensive epithermal vein field at Sierra Blanca. Further upside also exists in the Las Calandrias and Los Cisnes districts, with field work planned to continue in these areas over the coming months. Separately, we are very encouraged by the upside potential at both the Savant Lake and Domain projects, where we expect to undertake further exploration activities in 2019".

Link to figures: https://newdimensionresources.com/site/assets/files/13136/2018_11_exploration_update_figures.pdf

Sierra Blanca Project

The Sierra Blanca Project is an advanced high-grade silver(-gold) project located approximately 40km NW of AngloGold Ashanti's Cerro Vanguardia gold-silver mine. Previous exploration by Mariana Resources Ltd identified in excess of 22km of cumulative vein strike length at Sierra Blanca, however, many veins extend under post-mineralization cover and therefore total strike lengths are likely to be understated. Most of the work completed to date at Sierra Blanca has been focused on the E-W-trending Chala-Achen and Lucila vein systems, with high-grade silver values having been derived from surface trenching at Chala-Achen (including 9.4m @ 2,362 g/t Ag; source Mariana Resources Ltd). Significant gold-silver values were also derived from initial drilling at Chala-Achen, including [email protected] 9.5 g/t Au + 28 g/t Ag in drill hole CHD-61.

Priority untested targets at Sierra Blanca include the NW-trending Veta Ana, El Tranquilo, Laguna, Cerro Bola, and Vetarron vein systems, together with the E-W-trending La Cresta vein system. The orientation of these veins is particularly noteworthy, as in most precious metals deposits in the Deseado Massif, NW is the preferred structural orientation for the localization of high-grade precious metals shoots. Many of the NW-trending veins at Sierra Blanca extend to New Dimension's eastern property boundary and are also interpreted to extend further in to Austral Gold's neighboring Pinguino gold-silver property.

On Behalf of the Board of New Dimension Resources Ltd.

"Eric Roth"

___________________________

Eric Roth, Ph.D., FAusIMM

President & CEO

About New Dimension Resources

New Dimension is engaged in the acquisition, exploration, and development of quality mineral resource properties throughout the Americas, with a focus on high-grade precious metals deposits. The Company's current focus is on the discovery through drilling of new high-grade gold-silver resources at its 100%-owned Las Calandrias, Los Cisnes and Sierra Blanca projects, all located in the highly prospective Deseado Massif of Santa Cruz Province, southern Argentina. The Company also holds an option to earn-in to a 100% interest in the Savant Lake gold project in Ontario, together with an active 29.56% JV interest (with Yamana Gold) in the Domain gold project in Manitoba.

Qualified Persons and Disclosure Statement

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements set out in NI 43-101, and approved by Eric Roth, the Company's President & CEO, a director and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. Mr. Roth holds a Ph.D. in Economic Geology from the University of Western Australia, is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), and is a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG). Mr. Roth has over 25 years of experience in international minerals exploration and mining project evaluation.

Cautionary Notes and Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Such statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the future results of operations, performance and achievements of New Dimension, including the timing, completion of and results from the drill programs described in this release. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that such expectations will prove to be correct. All such forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions and analyses made by New Dimension in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances. This information, however, is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from this forward-looking information include those described under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" in New Dimension's most recently filed MD&A. New Dimension does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Appendix 1. Las Calandrias Mineral Resource, October 2018

Calandria Sur Deposit  Mineral Resources within constraining Shell

















Grades Contained Metal Resource Cut-off Grade

(gpt Au) Tonnage

(,000 t) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Au

(oz Au) Ag

(oz Ag) Indicated Varied 7,424 1.33 24.65 318,000 5,884,000 Inferred Varied 1,739 0.73 7.17 41,000 401,000

Calandria Norte Deposit  Mineral Resources within constraining Shell

















Grades Contained Metal Resource Cut-off Grade

(gpt Au) Tonnage

(,000 t) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Au

(oz Au) Ag

(oz Ag) Indicated >0.8 604 3.12 8.20 61,000 159,000 Inferred >0.8 19 1.31 0.69 1,000 400

Calandria Norte Deposit - Mineral Resources below constraining shell

















Grades Contained Metal Resource Cut-off Grade

(gpt Au) Tonnage

(,000 t) Au

(gpt) Ag

(gpt) Au

(oz Au) Ag

(oz Ag) Indicated >1.5 131 2.82 6.30 12,000 27,000 Inferred >1.5 2 1.71 2.01 100 100



Notes to Accompany Calandria Sur MRE: Summation errors may occur due to rounding; Mineral Resources are reported within an optimized constraining shell; Block matrix is 6m x 6m x 5m (length x width x height); Grades are estimated by ID3 interpolation; Density was interpolated by ID2. Blocks not populated by ID2 were assigned the mean density 2.21; Cut-off grade for MRE varies by oxide zone (0.3 g/t Au oxide; 0.4 g/t Au transition; and 0.8 g/t Au primary zones); Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability Constraining pit parameters: (in $US) Metal Price: $1,400/oz Au; $18.50/oz Ag (based on 3 year rolling average seller's prices) Metal Recoveries: Au (94%-oxide; 73% transition; 80% primary), Ag (88%-oxide; 78% transition; 80% primary) Mining Cost: $2.50/t Processing plus General and Administration: $11-oxide; $11-transition; $25-primary Pit Slope: 45 Notes to Accompany Calandria Norte MRE: Summation errors may occur due to rounding; Mineral Resources are reported within, and below, an optimized constraining shell; Block matrix is 5m x 3m x 5m (length x width x height); Grades are estimated by ID3 interpolation; Density was assigned the mean density 2.41; Cut-off grade used for reporting MRE within constraining shell is 0.8 g/t Au; Cut-off grade used for reporting MRE below constraining shell is 1.5 g/t Au Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Constraining pit parameters: (in $US) Metal Price: $1,400/oz Au; $18.50/oz Ag (based on 3 year rolling average seller's prices) Metal Recoveries: Au (80%), Ag (84%) Mining Cost: $2.50/t Processing plus General and Administration: $25 Pit Slope: 45

SOURCE New Dimension Resources Ltd.

Related Links

www.newdimensionresources.com


BRENTWOOD, Tenn., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Orchids Paper Products Company (NYSE American: TIS), a national supplier of high-quality consumer tissue products, today announced that the Company has reached an agreement with its creditors, amending its credit agreement. The Company also announced that it has won a significant bid with a new customer, to supply 100% recycled ultra-premium quality tissue.

Jeff Schoen, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Our lenders continue to support and maintain access to the liquidity needed to operate our business. On November 20, we executed modifications to our credit facilities to increase the amount available under our revolving line of credit by $5.9 million and to defer future principal and interest payments to December 31, 2018. In addition, the amended agreement extends the milestone dates to execute a transaction to December 31, 2018. At the end of the third quarter, the Company had $5.1 million of cash on hand.

"Additionally, we recently won a significant bid from a national supercenter retailer as the sole supplier of 100% recycled ultra-premium kitchen towel and bath tissue supporting the sustainable product channel, which will be serviced out of our Barnwell facility using QRT paper. We expect this business to begin shipping in March 2019 and to make a significant contribution to the overall profitability of the Company."

About Orchids Paper Products Company

Orchids Paper Products Company is a customer-focused, national supplier of high quality consumer tissue products primarily serving the at home private label consumer market. The Company produces a full line of tissue products, including paper towels, bathroom tissue and paper napkins, to serve the value through ultra-premium quality market segments from its operations in northeast Oklahoma, Barnwell, South Carolina and Mexicali, Mexico. The Company provides these products primarily to retail chains throughout the United States. For more information on the Company and its products, visit the Company's website at http://www.orchidspaper.com.

Investor Relations Contact:

Water's Edge Investor Relations Consulting Group

Louie Toma

774-291-6000

[email protected]

SOURCE Orchids Paper Products Company

Related Links

http://www.orchidspaper.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area. You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network  it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform

(Note: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, this is the only Expert Alerts feed we are sending this week. It includes Expert Alerts across all topics.)

EXPERT ALERTS

Motivate Employees by Letting Them 'Drive'

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Senior Reporter  HFM Global (NY)

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EXPERT ALERTS:





Motivate Employees by Letting Them 'Drive'

Allison Maslan

CEO, Founder

Pinnacle Global Network

"When you're in a car and you're in the passenger seat, you're not usually paying much attention to which roads you're taking to get where you're going. You're on your phone, checking out the scenery, or lost in your own thoughts. It's the same thing in business. As business owners, we feel like we always need to give our employees the answers -- like we always need to be in the driver's seat. We think, 'If I just keep telling them, one day they'll get it.' But just like the passenger in the car, if you keep driving all the solutions -- if you keep jumping in and rescuing them -- they're never going to find a way forward by themselves."

Maslan is the CEO and founder of Pinnacle Global Network, offering business mentorship and mastermind programs to established business owners who want to accelerate their growth, capitalize on their success, and balance it all with a meaningful life. She is also the author of two books: Amazon #1 bestseller "Blast Off!: The Surefire Success Plan to Launch Your Dreams into Reality," and her newest book, "Scale or Fail: How to Build Your Dream Team, Explode Your Growth, and Let Your Business Soar" (October 2018, Wiley), which hit #1 on Amazon even before its release. For further high-impact support, watch Maslan's free video series for business owners, "The Scale Blueprint" for Established Companies That Want to Multiply Their Growth.

Online Press Kit: http://allisonmaslan.onlinepresskit247.com

Website: www.AllisonMaslan.com

Contact: Michelle Tennant, [email protected]





Which Works Better: Everything and the Kitchen Sink or One Great Sales Funnel?

Dave Woodward

Chief Revenue and Business Development Officer

ClickFunnels

"When your systems are all separate, there's no way of getting them to communicate just the way you want them to. You end up using duct tape, glue, and everything else to bundle things together in an effort to try and get something out there. It can work for a while, but it can never do what online sales funnels are doing now."

Woodward is the chief revenue and business development officer of ClickFunnels and host of the weekly ClickFunnels Podcast, Funnel Hacker Radio. ClickFunnels is a SaaS software that lets people design and create sales pages, landing pages, order forms, and membership sites. Through this software, people can manage their entire sales and marketing funnel, and it also helps people with anything to buy or sell to do so in the most effective and efficient way.

Online Press Kit: http://clickfunnels.onlinepresskit247.com

Website: www.ClickFunnels.com

Contact: Michelle Tennant, [email protected]





Are Consumers Prepared for Another Recession?

Jacqui Kearns

Chief Brand Officer

Affinity Federal Credit Union

Financial experts are spotting similarities between the 2008 recession and current economic landscape, but are consumers ready to face another downturn? Kearns, who leads financial education initiatives at Affinity Federal Credit Union, stresses the importance of setting up a yearly financial checkup: "Be on your toes so you're not caught on your heels."

Kearns can discuss the factors to consider when preparing for a possible market correction and how consumers can protect their assets. She manages AffinityFCU's Financial Wellness and Education site and recently posted this blog: https://www.affinityfcu.com/tips-and-tools/affinity-connect-blog/2018/5-ways-to-save-money-on-a-tight-budget.aspx. She is based in New Jersey.

Website: https://www.affinityfcu.com/financial-wellness.aspx

Contact: Brian Hyland, [email protected]





Women and Aging

Heather Quaile

Nurse Practitioner

Nore Women's Health

"With age comes changes, especially if you're a woman. Some are subtle shifts in health, but others, such as many of the symptoms associated with menopause, can be quite severe and, if left untreated, can negatively impact everyday life. In fact, 85 percent of women experience disruptive symptoms such as hot flashes, sleep disturbances, vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, overactive bladder and more. Women do not have to suffer this way."

Quaile has been working in all aspects of women's healthcare for more than 17 years. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Loyola University in Maryland and her second bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Central Oklahoma. She went on to receive her master's degree in nursing with honors, with a specialty in women's health, from Vanderbilt University. She completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice at Chatham University. She is NCC board certified in women's health and licensed by the Georgia Board of Nursing. She has held roles in clinical practice and academia and is current faculty at Emory University in the women's health nurse practitioner master's program. She is also serving to improve legislation in women's healthcare as a GA state, nurse legislative liaison working with the Georgia Coalition of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses. She is a peer editor for the journals "Women's Healthcare: A Clinical Journal for Nurse Practitioners" and "AWHONN Nursing for Women's Health." She is also on the educational committee for Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health.

Website: https://norehealth.com

Contact: Rachel Jimenez, [email protected]





Women's Health

Julie Morin

Nurse Practitioner

Nore Women's Health

"Symptoms we experience as women leading into perimenopause and during menopause are not the same for everyone. If you talk to your mom, sister, friends, or even a total stranger, there's definitely going to be some similarities, but each and every woman has her own description and experience. Sometimes it's hard for us, as women, to decipher what's happening. Could it be situational? Is it related to all the hats we wear on a daily basis? Maybe it's stress? Of course, those can all affect our coping abilities -- but we used to be able to juggle so much, and now remembering simple information seems impossible."

Morin has dedicated her career to women's health. She was a recipient of the Georgia Hope Scholarship and earned her associate nursing degree from Georgia Highlands College in Rome, Ga. She immediately bridged into the bachelor nursing program at Kennesaw State University. Her passion for women's health was discovered during nursing school, but confirmed during her time at Northside Hospital, where she worked in the Women's Surgical Unit. She decided to pursue an advanced nursing degree in women's health and graduated as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. She has spent the last 10 years of her career as a Nurse and Nurse Practitioner dedicated to the world of infertility.

Website: https://norehealth.com

Contact: Rachel Jimenez, [email protected]





Gratitude and Emotions in Everyday Life

Leah Dickens

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Kenyon College

"A state of gratitude can lead you to help not only the person who helped you, but also push you to help someone else. We've found that gratitude seems to be able to help you emphasize long-term gains rather than short-term immediate gratification."

Dickens is a social psychologist specializing in the functions of emotions in everyday life. Her current work centers on the emotional experiences of pride and gratitude, and how these can be beneficial to the self and relationships. Her work extends beyond the positive/negative dichotomy to investigate the nuanced complexity of discrete emotional states. Dickens' work also involves social perception (how we view other people) and nonverbal behavior.

Q&A: https://www.kenyon.edu/middle-path/story/your-brain-on-gratitude/

Website: www.kenyon.edu

Contact: Mary Keister, [email protected]





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MEDIA JOBS:

Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/

Senior Reporter  HFM Global (NY)

Editor-in-Chief  Harper's Bazaar ( Dubai )

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OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES:

Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line at [email protected]

2018 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE: WHAT TO GET THE PHOTOGRAPHER ON YOUR LIST. We're just days away from Black Friday, kicking off this year's holiday shopping. To help get you in the gift-giving spirit, we've put together a short list of photographer must-haves: https://prn.to/2FuVszE



A LOOK AHEAD: WHERE AI MAY TAKE JOURNALISM IN 2019. 2018 was a banner year for artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism, with many of the largest news publishers embracing machine-learning tools to augment newsrooms. Publishers who adopted AI and machine-learning tools have seen results. Last year, Digiday reported The Washington Post's robot reporter published 850 stories in a year. Next year, the global media industry will begin to use these new tools at a faster rate. Here are a few current stories on AI that will have real implications for journalism in 2019: https://prn.to/2PJfBqB



BLOG PROFILES: CAT BLOGS. Each week, PR Newswire's Audience Relations team selects an industry/subject and profiles a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting and contributing to the conversation. This week, they look at a few cat blogs: https://prn.to/2DRP18i

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PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire.

To contact ProfNet: [email protected] or 800-776-3638, ext. 1

SOURCE ProfNet

Related Links

http://www.profnet.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The following roundup is a collection of stories dealing with the RSNA 2018 conference and is appropriate for special sections and for general use.

For each story included in this package, you will find the first paragraph of the release below, as well as its headline linked to the full text.

This is the latest in a series of event-related roundups PRN will carry as part of its regular Cision Roundup News Service. Coming up in 2018 are roundups on:



Package Name Slug Distribution Date Holiday Gift Giving II Holiday Nov. 28 RSNA 2018 II RSNA Dec. 6 Last-Minute Holiday Gift Giving Last-Minute Holiday Dec. 10



RSNA 2018 I Cision Roundup

1. Volpara Solutions Showcases Latest VolparaEnterprise Software Tools at RSNA

CHICAGO, Nov. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Volpara Solutions, Inc. will showcase its latest artificial intelligence (AI) updates at the upcoming 104th Annual Radiological Society of North America(RSNA) meeting, November 2530, 2018 (South Hall #2565). Its suite of cloud-based quantitative breast imaging analysis tools is designed to help maintain consistent quality in breast screening.

If you would like a copy of the complete schedule, or if you would care to comment, please email [email protected]. We welcome suggestions. Copies of previous packages will be available for the media. Cision roundups and photos are also available on the PR Newswire Web site.

Photos that accompany releases are available for download from PRNewswire.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: All PR Newswire roundups and other releases, both current and for the past 12 months, are available at no charge at PR Newswire for Journalists, http://media.prnewswire.com.

SOURCE PR Newswire Association LLC
SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Snowflake Computing, the only data warehouse built for the cloud, today announced the opening of a new research and development office in Berlin to accelerate its global technology leadership position. Coming on the heels of its recent $450 million growth funding announcement (which raised Snowflake's pre-money valuation to $3.5 billion), the company chose Berlin as its first European Research and Development Office to help support the exponential growth of demand for its cloud-built data-warehouse-as-a-service.

Enterprises of all sizes, and from all industries, deploy Snowflake to free their organizations from the constraints of legacy on-premises and legacy cloud data warehouses. Snowflake enables the data-driven enterprise by delivering innovative architecture and technology from world-class engineers. Snowflake already has North American field offices in New York City and Bellevue, WA. In Europe, Snowflake has established offices in London, Paris, Munich, Stockholm and Amsterdam.

Berlin is one of Europe's most exciting technology hubs and has the additional benefit of being a magnet for premier technical talent, including engineering students. Snowflake co-founder and CTO, Benoit Dageville will lead the Berlin office. Veteran Snowflake engineers Martin Hentschel and Max Heimel will join Dageville. They will focus on the democratization of machine learning and artificial intelligence, making these technologies more cost-effective and easier to use for enterprises, mid-small companies and individual developers.

"Snowflake became the world's best data warehouse because the company started with the world's best engineers" Dageville said. "We have attracted top engineers from around the globe. Now it's time we opened our doors to the best engineers in Berlin, one of the most diverse and innovative cities in the word. We invite engineers from all around Europe, who want to change the world with the most innovative data warehouse technology, to contact us."

To see open positions in Snowflake's new Berlin office, please click here.

Resources

About Snowflake Computing

Snowflake is the only data warehouse built for the cloud, enabling the data-driven enterprise with instant elasticity, secure data sharing and per-second pricing, across multiple clouds. Snowflake combines the power of data warehousing, the flexibility of big data platforms and the elasticity of the cloud at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Snowflake: Your data, no limits. Find out more at snowflake.com.

SOURCE Snowflake Computing

Related Links

http://snowflake.com


Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning are quickly becoming crucial components to business success now and in the foreseeable future. Today, the necessity of deploying powerful computing platforms that can accelerate and cost-effectively scale their AI-based products and services has become vital for successful enterprises.

"To address the rapidly emerging high-throughput inference market driven by technologies such as 5G, Smart Cities and IoT devices that generate huge amounts of data and require real-time decision making, our new SuperServer 6049GP-TRT provides the superior performance required to vertically scale the technology of modern AI," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. To achieve maximum GPU density and performance, this 4U server supports up to 20 NVIDIA Tesla T4 Tensor Core GPUs, three terabytes of memory, and 24 hot-swappable 3.5" drives. This system also features four 2000-watt Titanium level efficiency (2+2) redundant power supplies to help optimize the power efficiency, uptime and serviceability.

"We designed T4 to bring GPU acceleration to scale-out high performance computing environments and accelerate AI training, inference and machine learning workloads," said Ian Buck, vice president and general manager of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. "Enterprise customers will benefit from a dramatic boost in throughput, utilization and power efficiency from the NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs in Supermicro's new high-density servers."

Supermicro has an entire family of 4U GPU systems that support the ultra-efficient NVIDIA Tesla T4, which is designed to accelerate deep learning training, inference and machine learning workloads in any scale-out server. The hardware-accelerated transcode engine in NVIDIA T4 delivers multiple HD video streams in real-time and allows integrating deep learning into the video transcoding pipeline to enable a new class of smart video applications. To achieve responsiveness, these models are deployed on powerful Supermicro servers with NVIDIA GPUs to deliver maximum throughput for inference workloads.

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 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs with NVIDIA NVLink.

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 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 premises and in the cloud. This new system can deliver up to 2 PetaFLOPS of performance and occupies just ten units of rack space.

For comprehensive information on Supermicro NVIDIA system product lines featuring NVIDIA GPUs, please go to https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/gpu.cfm.

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, 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.

SMCI-F

SOURCE Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.supermicro.com


WARSAW, Poland, Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Trinus has just launched their new, innovate three-in-one transformable travel bag. The Trinus 3-in-1 has a unique folding system, turning the bag from a larger travel bag into a laptop bag and finally a smaller crossbody bag. The bag changes size to suit any daily need and is an indispensable travel assistant. The company, which launched the bag through an Indiegogo campaign on Nov. 15, reached 130 percent of its goal within just two days.

Trinus

"This is becoming a popular bag to have because of how versatile it is," says Alex Nyurkin, CEO of Trinus. "When customers are choosing what the best bag is for their needs, now they don't have to choose between three. They are able to have one bag meet a variety of their needs and can carry just one bag instead of many for different situations."

Trinus has also carefully calculated the size of a travel bag, keeping in mind airline requirements for a carry-on. Laptop and crossbody bag sizes are based on general needs for each occasion, but as more space is needed, the bag unfolds, offering more room. The Trinus bag also comes with a built-in flashlight, allowing the user to shine a light on objects without even using their hands. In addition, the Trinus 3-in-1 provides plenty of spacious and efficient pockets so it is easy to store smaller items like a cell phone.

"No matter what you have to carry, the Trinus bag can fold and transform to meet those needs," adds Nyurkin. "Imagine arriving at the hotel, it is very simple to take everything out of the large travel bag, fold it and walk around with a compact foldable bag. Then as you shop, you can simply fold it out for more room. The bag can be folded and unfolded in a matter of seconds."

To learn more and buy the Trinus 3-in-1 at campaign pricing, visit Trinus-Style.com

About Trinus

Trinus offers the Trinus 3-in-1 bag, which folds in three different ways to become three different kinds of bags including a travel bag, laptop bag and smaller crossbody bag. The company is eliminating the need for multiple bags because now its all taken care of with the Trinus bag. For more information, visit Trinus-Style.com.

Related Images

image1.jpg

trinus-3-in-1.jpg

Trinus 3-in-1

trinus-3-in-1-travel-size.jpg

Trinus 3-in-1 - Travel size

trinus-3-in-1-small-crossbody-size.jpg

Trinus 3-in-1 - Small crossbody size

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hur-k0Z9yo8

SOURCE Trinus

Related Links

https://trinus-style.com


OMAHA, Neb., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Rob Knight, chief financial officer of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP), will address the Credit Suisse 6th Annual Industrials Conference at 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, November 29, 2018, in Palm Beach, Fla.

Interested investors may view the presentation and listen to a live Internet webcast through our website at www.up.com/investor. Alternatively, the audio portion can be accessed directly through the following webcast link.

A replay of the audio webcast will be available shortly thereafter on Union Pacific's Investors website.

ABOUT UNION PACIFIC

Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP). One of America's most recognized companies, Union Pacific Railroad connects 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country by rail, providing a critical link in the global supply chain. From 2008-2017, Union Pacific invested approximately $34 billion in its network and operations to support America's transportation infrastructure. The railroad's diversified business mix includes Agricultural Products, Energy, Industrial and Premium. Union Pacific serves many of the fastest-growing U.S. population centers, operates from all major West Coast and Gulf Coast ports to eastern gateways, connects with Canada's rail systems and is the only railroad serving all six major Mexico gateways. Union Pacific provides value to its roughly 10,000 customers by delivering products in a safe, reliable, fuel-efficient and environmentally responsible manner.

www.up.com

www.facebook.com/unionpacific

www.twitter.com/unionpacific

SOURCE Union Pacific

Related Links

http://www.up.com


WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) delivered to Congress its Fiscal Year 2019 (FY 2019) Work Plan for the Army Civil Works program yesterday.

On September 21, 2018, President Trump signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, Public Law 115-244, of which Division A is the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (the Act) for FY 2019. The Act provides $6.999 billion in FY 2019 appropriations for the Army Civil Works program, of which $6.566 billion is appropriated in five accounts: Investigations; Construction; Operation and Maintenance; Mississippi River and Tributaries; and the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP).

The Act's accompanying Statement of Managers report allocates approximately $4.467 billion of the total for these five accounts to specific programs, projects and activities (PPA). USACE is responsible for allocating the remainder in these accounts, approximately $2.099 billion, to specific PPAs, consistent with the categories, subcategories, and other direction provided in the Statement of Managers. The allocation of these additional funds is presented in the work plan.

The remaining $432 million in the FY 2019 Civil Works appropriations provides funding for USACE in the Expenses, Regulatory, Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies (FCCE), and Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works accounts.

"The Army's Civil Works FY 2019 work plan provides funding to start, continue, and complete studies and construction projects that will get dirt moving to better the lives of Americans, their infrastructure, economy and environment," said The Honorable R. D. James, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

The Army Civil Works budget funds the planning, design, construction, and operation and maintenance of water resources projects, with a focus on the highest performing work within the three main Civil Works mission areas: commercial navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, and aquatic ecosystem restoration. It also funds programs that contribute to the protection of the nation's waters and wetlands; the generation of low-cost renewable hydropower; the restoration of certain sites contaminated as a result of the nation's early atomic weapons development program; and emergency preparedness and training to respond to natural disasters.

The approximately $2.099 billion in additional funding not allocated by the Statement of Managers to specified PPAs in the five appropriations is subdivided into numerous categories and subcategories within these broad areas:

Navigation: $1.292 billion

Flood Risk Management: $441 million

Other Authorized Project Purposes: $335 million

FUSRAP: $30 million

Work eligible for consideration for the additional funding generally includes projects, programs and activities funded in the three previous fiscal years, with emphasis on ongoing work on projects, programs and activities that can attain a significant milestone or produce significant outputs in FY 2019.

The work plan identifies the projects, programs, and activities within the Civil Works program that will receive the FY 2019 funding and how much each will receive. With the total funding for this fiscal year, the work plan funds to completion 15 feasibility studies and one Limited Reevaluation Report, five projects in the Preconstruction Engineering and Design phase, and 21 construction projects or elements of projects.

Studies Funded for Completion in FY 2019:

Alaska Regional Ports (Port of Nome Modification), AK

Lower Santa Cruz River, AZ

East San Pedro Bay Ecosystem Restoration, CA

Port of Long Beach Navigation Improvement, CA

Fairfield and New Haven Counties (Flooding), CT

Central Everglades Planning Project PPA South (South Florida Ecosystem Restoration), FL

Western Everglades Restoration Project (South Florida Ecosystem Restoration), FL

Grand River Basin, IA & MO

Chesapeake Bay Comprehensive Plan, MD, PA & VA

Rio Grande, Sandia Pueblo to Isleta Pueblo, NM

Hudson River Habitat Restoration, NY

Coastal Texas Protection and Restoration Study, TX (in conjunction with funds provided in the Bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2018)

GIWW  Brazos River Floodgates & Colorado River Lock, TX

Houston Ship Channel, TX

Matagorda Ship Channel, TX

Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Bridge Replacement at North Landing, VA

Preconstruction Engineering and Design Funded for Completion in FY 2019:

Mobile Harbor, AL

Dry Creek (Warm Springs) Restoration, CA

San Joaquin River Basin, Lower San Joaquin, CA

San Juan Harbor Improvement Study, PR

Galveston Harbor Channel Extension, Houston  Galveston Navigation Channels, TX

Construction Projects Funded for Completion in FY 2019:

Tucson Drainage Area, AZ

Hamilton City, CA

Isabella Lake, CA (Dam Safety) 1/

(Dam Safety) 1/ Sacramento River Bank Protection Project, CA

Santa Ana River Mainstem, CA 1/

Yuba River Basin, CA 1/

Herbert Hoover Dike, FL (Seepage Control) 1/

Panama City Harbor, FL

C-111 South Dade (South Florida Ecosystem Restoration), FL

Indian River Lagoon South C-44 Reservoir and Storm Treatment Area Bank Stabilization (South Florida Ecosystem Restoration), FL

East St. Louis (Deficiency Correction), IL

Illinois Waterway, LaGrange Lock & Dam (Major Rehabilitation), IL

& Dam (Major Rehabilitation), IL Olmsted Locks and Dam, Ohio River, IL & KY

Manhattan, KS

Delaware River Main Channel, NJ, PA & DE

East Branch Clarion River Lake, PA (Dam Safety)

(Dam Safety) Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries, TX (Dam Safety) 1/

Lewisville Dam, TX (Dam Safety) 1/

Lynnhaven River Basin, VA

Skokomish River, WA

Bluestone Lake, WV (Dam Safety) 1/

1/ This project has been funded to completion with these funds and funds provided in the Bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2018.

Public Law 115-244 requires USACE to fund six new studies in the Investigations account and five new projects in the Construction account. The Army selected six previously unfunded studies and five previously unfunded construction projects based on performance and on considerations provided in the Statement of Managers.

The Statement of Managers stipulates that of the six new studies funded in the Investigations account, one shall be for a navigation study; one shall be for a flood and storm damage reduction study; one shall be for an environmental restoration study; and three shall be for navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, environmental restoration, water supply, or multi-purpose studies. The six selected studies are:

Brunswick Harbor, GA (Navigation)

Kansas River Reservoirs Flood and Sediment Study, KS, CO & NE (Flood Risk Management)

Three Forks Beargrass Creek, KY (Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration)

Mississippi River Ship Channel , Port of New Orleans, LA (Navigation)

, Port of (Navigation) New York and New Jersey Harbor Deepening Channel Improvements, NY & NJ (Navigation)

and New Jersey Harbor Deepening Channel Improvements, NY & NJ (Navigation) FE Walter Dam Reevaluation Study, PA (Flood Risk Management)

The Statement of Managers also stipulates that of the five Construction new starts, one shall be for navigation; one shall be for flood and storm damage reduction; one shall be for environmental restoration; and two shall be for navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, environmental restoration, or multi-purpose projects. The five selected projects are:

Manhattan, KS (Flood Risk Management)

(Flood Risk Management) Sault Ste. Marie (Replacement Lock), MI (Navigation)

Cedar Bayou, TX (Navigation)

Sabine-Neches Waterway, TX (Navigation)

Skokomish River, WA (Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration)

The work plan listing the amounts provided to various programs, projects and activities for each of the five appropriations accounts can be found at: http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget.aspx.

The Statement of Managers (House Report 115-929) can be found at https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/115th-congress/house-report/929/1?overview=closed

SOURCE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Related Links

http://www.usace.army.mil


NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Advocate is now urging the family of a US Navy Veteran with mesothelioma to call them anytime at 800-714-0303 for very honest advice on how not to lose out on their compensation. The group says, "Buying into Internet nonsense such as, 'get medical treatment first, and then talk to a lawyer' or 'no lawsuit required' are hook lines we want to help a person with this rare cancer, or their family avoid. Our top priority for a Navy Veteran with mesothelioma is that they receive the very best possible financial compensation settlement results-which could exceed a million dollars." http://USNavyMesothelioma.Com

US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Asbestos Warning Sign

According to the US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Advocate, "We are urging a Navy Veteran with mesothelioma who was exposed to asbestos on a US Navy ship, or at a shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia; Bremerton, Washington; Bangor, Maine; Long Beach, California; Hunters Point, California; or in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to call us anytime at 800-714-0303 in order to ensure they, or their family members do not get hoodwinked by law firm Internet ads about mesothelioma."

The US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Advocate is urging a Navy Veteran with mesothelioma or their family members to steer clear of Internet or cable TV advertisements that suggest the following:

"No lawsuits needed

"A Federal Mesothelioma Compensation Claim Center

"Get the financial claim settlement you deserve

"Get medical treatment first, and then when you get around to it call us"

Before a US Navy Veteran with mesothelioma and/or their family retain the services of a law firm to advance a compensation claim for this rare cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, they are urged to contact the US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Advocate at 800-714-0303 for some extremely honest advice about specific mesothelioma lawyers who consistently gets the best possible compensation results for US Navy Veterans nationwide. http://USNavyMesothelioma.Com

According to the CDC the states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon.

However, based on the calls the US Navy Veterans Mesothelioma Center receives a US Navy Veteran with mesothelioma could live in any state including New York, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska. http://USNavyMesothelioma.Com

For more information about US Navy technical or industrial training please review their website on this topic: https://www.navy.com/careers/mechanical-industrial-technology .

For a very interesting website about US Navy Submarine developments and their evolution please review the following website: http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/const/building/shipyards/index.html .

For more information about specific types of US Navy ships please visit their website on this topic: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/our_ships.asp .

For a graph of the current US Navy Fleet please review a recent Popular Mechanics article: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a15297/us-navy-entire-fleet/ .

Media Contact:

Michael Thomas

[email protected]

800-714-0303

SOURCE US Navy Mesothelioma Advocate
WYNYARD, UK, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Venator Materials PLC ("Venator") (NYSE: VNTR) announced today that Simon Turner, President and CEO, and Kurt Ogden, Senior Vice President and CFO, will address financial analysts at the Citi Basic Materials Conference on Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 10:15 a.m. ET in New York.

Venator will webcast the live presentation and post accompanying slides to our website at www.venatorcorp.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the Company's website. To access the webcast, visit the events and presentations section of Venator's investor website at www.venatorcorp.com/investor-relations.

About Venator

Venator is a global manufacturer and marketer of chemical products that comprise a broad range of pigments and additives that bring color and vibrancy to buildings, protect and extend product life, and reduce energy consumption. We market our products globally to a diversified group of industrial customers through two segments: Titanium Dioxide, which consists of our TiO 2 business, and Performance Additives, which consists of our functional additives, color pigments, timber treatment and water treatment businesses. We operate 25 facilities, employ approximately 4,500 associates worldwide and sell our products in more than 110 countries.

Social Media:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/VenatorCorp

Facebook: www.facebook.com/venatorcorp

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/venator-corp

SOURCE Venator Materials PLC

Related Links

http://www.venatorcorp.com


COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Kicking off the holiday season, the Aflac Duck, America's most iconic spokesduck, is set to cruise down Sixth Avenuein New York City during the 92nd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, Nov. 22. The beloved mascot for Aflac, the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite in the United States and a committed leader in seeking a cure for childhood cancer,will entertain the throngs of well-wishers lining the streets and watching at home.

This marks the eighth consecutive year that the Aflac Duck has appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Aflac Duck will appear in NBC's national coverage of the parade, which airs from 9 a.m. to noon in all time zones.

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.

Aflac herein means American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus and American Family Life Assurance Company of New York. WWHQ | 1932 Wynnton Road | Columbus, GA 31999.

Media contact: Jon A. Sullivan, 706.763.4813 or [email protected]

Aflac analyst and investor contact  David A. Young, 706.596.3264 or 800.235.2667, FAX 706.324.6330, or [email protected]

SOURCE Aflac

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AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Black Friday is a few days away and according to leading savings destination, RetailMeNot, it is continuing to evolve into a weekend-long shopping event of spending and savings. From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, shoppers will have the opportunity to cross everyone and everything off of their shopping list. But, buyer's beware: Not all categories will be at their deepest discount this weekend.

Shopping and trends expert for RetailMeNot, Sara Skirboll, says, "While many retailers will be slashing prices for what seems like everything across the board, there are a couple of items I urge shoppers to steer clear from this time of year."

RetailMeNot has compiled the top categories of what to buy, and what to avoid this Black Friday weekend. For the full list, as well as more tips, advice and gift guides, head to the RetailMeNot blog, The Real Deal.

Buy:

Electronics: Skirboll says "This category will sell out the fastest on Black Friday. If shoppers see a good deal on TV, computers, tablets or phones, I urge them to pick it up immediately!" Electronics are going to be heavily discounted which means people will start shopping for this early.

Skirboll says "This category will sell out the fastest on Black Friday. If shoppers see a good deal on TV, computers, tablets or phones, I urge them to pick it up immediately!" Electronics are going to be heavily discounted which means people will start shopping for this early. Small Appliances: While there will be big-ticket items deeply discounted on Black Friday, don't discount the smaller kitchen appliances that can make cooking easier than ever. Items like coffeemakers, electric skillets, slow cookers, blenders and more will be discounted just in time for all of the holiday gatherings.

While there will be big-ticket items deeply discounted on Black Friday, don't discount the smaller kitchen appliances that can make cooking easier than ever. Items like coffeemakers, electric skillets, slow cookers, blenders and more will be discounted just in time for all of the holiday gatherings. Clothing and Accessories: Black Friday is sure to bring savings on all forms of clothing - from shoes, pants and tops and even designer handbags. The shopping and trends expert adds, "While it's not usually the best time to buy in-season clothing, Black Friday is the exception as many retailers will be discounting winter coats and cooler weather apparel. Now is a good time to gear up for the cooler months ahead."

Avoid:

Furniture: Shoppers might come across ads for doorbuster deals on furniture, but the best time to buy these items is in January - and again from July through August. Skirboll warns, "Don't give into the hype that some retailers create around furniture sales this Black Friday. For almost all retailers, there will be deeper savings to come in the new year."

Shoppers might come across ads for doorbuster deals on furniture, but the best time to buy these items is in January - and again from July through August. Skirboll warns, "Don't give into the hype that some retailers create around furniture sales this Black Friday. For almost all retailers, there will be deeper savings to come in the new year." Toys: While many parents want to snag the latest and greatest toys as they see them, these items will be at their lowest price in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Stores don't want to be left with a surplus of inventory post-holiday, so the closer to Christmas, the deeper the savings.

While many parents want to snag the latest and greatest toys as they see them, these items will be at their lowest price in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Stores don't want to be left with a surplus of inventory post-holiday, so the closer to Christmas, the deeper the savings. Gift Cards: One can never go wrong with a trusted gift card from a favorite brand or retailer. However, like toys, shoppers will see the best deals for discounted gift cards closer to Christmas. RetailMeNot always offers discounted gift cards that can be used just like cash. Savvy savings tip from Sara Skirboll : "Even though the discounts will be higher in mid-December, it never hurts to buy a few now to tackle your holiday shopping and save even more."

About RetailMeNot, Inc.

RetailMeNot, Inc. (https://www.retailmenot.com/corp/) is a leading savings destination connecting consumers with retailers, restaurants and brands, both online and in-store. The company enables consumers across the globe to find hundreds of thousands of offers to save money while they shop or dine out. RetailMeNot, Inc. estimates that $4.8 billion in retailer sales were attributable to consumer transactions from paid digital offers in its marketplace in 2017, more than $560 million of which were attributable to its in-store solution. The RetailMeNot, Inc. portfolio of websites and mobile applications includes RetailMeNot.com in the United States; RetailMeNot.ca in Canada; VoucherCodes.co.uk in the United Kingdom; ma-reduc.com and Poulpeo.com in France; and GiftCardZen.com and Deals2Buy.com in North America. As wholly owned subsidiaries of Harland Clarke Holdings, RetailMeNot and Valassis, a leader in intelligent media delivery, are partnering to connect retailers and consumers through meaningful digital, mobile and print promotions both online and in store.

Media Contact:

Hillary White

RetailMeNot

[email protected]

(832) 278-5615

SOURCE RetailMeNot

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SOUTH DEERFIELD, Mass., Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Yankee Candle Company, Inc. announces the Gwen Stefani Candle Sweepstakes to kick off the holiday season. This year, Gwen Stefani's 2017 holiday album "You Make It Feel Like Christmas" is re-released in a Deluxe Edition with five new songs. The album will be sold in all Yankee Candle stores through December 24, 2018, and Yankee Candle is giving fans the chance to win a copy of Stefani's new album and an exclusive Gwen Stefani candle, available only through the sweepstakes.

One grand prize winner will receive a personal video message from Stefani on a Gwen Stefani Personalized Video Label candle in the Mistletoe fragrance, and an autographed CD. There will be 20 second prize winners, who will receive the Gwen Stefani candle with a holiday video message and an autographed CD. The third-place prize, a Gwen Stefani candle with video message, will be given to 300 winners. Fans can enter to win through December 2, 2018.

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, Stefani made an appearance at the Yankee Candle store in Irvine, Calif. to kick off the launch of the partnership. Fans had the opportunity to take a photograph with Stefani and could get their holiday album signed by the artist. Video and images of Stefani's appearance can be viewed here.

To learn more about the Gwen Stefani Candle Sweepstakes, visit www.yankeecandle.com/Gwen. Join the conversation on social media using #TheGwenCandle.

About The Yankee Candle Company, Inc.

The Yankee Candle Company, Inc. is a leading designer, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of premium scented candles. Yankee Candle has over a 40-year history of offering distinctive products and marketing them as affordable luxuries and consumable gifts. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Newell Brands and sells its products through a North American wholesale customer network of approximately 35,000 store locations, more than 500 Company owned and operated retail stores, direct mail catalogs, and its Internet website www.yankeecandle.com. Outside of North America, the Company sells its products primarily through its subsidiary, Yankee Candle Company (Europe), Ltd., which has an international wholesale customer network.

About Newell Brands

Newell Brands (NYSE: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Paper Mate, Sharpie, Dymo, EXPO, Parker, Elmer's, Coleman, Marmot, Oster, Sunbeam, FoodSaver, Mr. Coffee, Graco, Baby Jogger, NUK, Calphalon, Rubbermaid, Contigo, First Alert, and Yankee Candle. For hundreds of millions of consumers, Newell Brands makes life better every day, where they live, learn, work and play.

This press release and additional information about Newell Brands are available on the company's website, www.newellbrands.com.

SOURCE The Yankee Candle Company, Inc.

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Washington, Nov 21 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu here on Tuesday to discuss Turkey's detention of US citizens and bilateral ties, said the US State Department.

Pompeo restated his concerns regarding Turkey's "detention of US citizens and locally employed staff," according to a statement released by the department.

The two also agreed on the need to work together to de-escalate the conflict in Syria, said the statement, Xinhua news agency reported.

The US-Turkey ties are undergoing a recovery process after a dispute over Turkey's detention and trial on terrorism charges of US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was released by Turkey last month.

Ankara and Washington also simultaneously announced the decision to remove sanctions on each other's ministers earlier this month, two weeks following Brunson's release.

Pompeo's meeting with Cavusoglu also took place amid ongoing investigation of the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was killed last month at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
United Nations, Nov 21 : In the aftermath of an Indian peacekeeper being wounded in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), India has warned that forcing troops in UN operations to function without sufficient resources "is setting us all up for a tragedy."

Citing the conditions under which peacekeepers operate in the DRC, India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin told the Security Council on Tuesday: "The strategy of peacekeepers needing to do more with less is setting us all up for a tragedy."

When "we task the troops deployed to enforce protection of civilians, without even providing enabling air assets for rapid reinforcement operations, it is obvious that the size and scale of UN deployment are insufficient for the tasks entrusted," he said during a Council debate on Strengthening Peacekeeping Operations in Africa.

Last week a rebel attack in the DRC wounded the Indian police peacekeeper and in separate incidents one Tanzanian and six Malawian troops were killed. So far, 154 peacekeepers have died in UN operations in just the DRC.

Illustrating the magnitude of the problem faced by the peacekeepers, Akbaruddin said that only four UN battalions were responsible for the DRC's Central sector of 500,000 sq km with more than 11 million people.

"This amounts to one soldier per 158 sq km," he said.

Addressing the Council, which issues the peacekeeping mandates, he said: "We need to resist the temptation of adding disproportionate mandate components, and aim at prioritisation of mandates. This would help in judicious allocation of meagre resources available for implementing the mandates."

He also criticised the practice of some troop contributing countries placing restrictions on how their peacekeepers can be deployed in Africa.

The diplomat said the practice should end, and added: "This results in unfair work distribution among various troops on the ground and thereby affect the missions' performance."

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)
Rabat, Nov 21 : Morocco launched its second earth observation satellite, Mohammed VI-B, from French Guiana early on Wednesday, the second in a year.

Its first satellite, Mohammed VI-A, was launched on November 8, 2017, by the Vega rocket from the same Kourou space centre, Morocco's official MAP news agency said.

Both satellites can take very high-resolution images, the agency said.

The Mohammed VI-B was the second satellite of Morocco's ambitious space program -- the first in Africa -- that was launched in 2013 by King Mohammed VI, after whom the satellites are named.

Morocco is being assisted in the realisation of this five-year programme by France's Thales Arianespace and Airbus.

Both satellites will be operated by Moroccan engineers and technicians who have benefited from long, specialised training, both in Morocco and abroad.

Exploitation of satellite imagery is becoming essential in several areas including agriculture, water resources, building and public works and transport, water and forests, mines and geology, communications networks, monitoring of major projects, urban and regional planning, oceanography and coastal zones, natural disasters, the agency said.
San Francisco, Nov 21 : Despite mounting pressure from investors to step down as Facebook chairman as the social media firm faces intense scrutiny on data scandals, Mark Zuckerberg has said he has no plans to retire.

In an interview with CNN late on Tuesday, he said this was not the time for him to quit as Facebook shares ended at $132.43 -- down 40 per cent from its peak in July.

"That's not the plan. I'm not going to be doing this forever, but I'm not currently thinking that makes sense," said the Facebook CEO.

The interview came after the New York Times reported how Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg "ignored warning signs" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm to "dig up dirt" on competitors.

"I do run the company. I am responsible for everything that happens here. I don't think this point was about a specific PR firm; it's about how we act," Zuckerberg said during the interview.

The Times report also suggested that Facebook knew about Russian influence activities on its platform as early as spring 2016.

Facebook hired a firm called Definers Public Affairs to retaliate against or spread inflammatory information about its critics.

Elliot Schrage, Facebook's outgoing Head of Public Policy, has reportedly taken the blame for hiring the Definers.

According to a memo with TechCrunch, Schrage admitted having the company push negative narratives about competitors but denies asking or paying Definers to publish fake news.

Facebook didn't confirm the memo.

In the interview, Zuckerberg said there's no doubt that "we missed something really important" when it came to the Russian interference during the 2016 US election.

"It was not something we were expecting. I wish we understood it before 2016, before the Russians tried to do these information operations in the first place," he added.

Last week, Facebook investors increased pressure on Zuckerberg to step down as Chairman.

According to a report in The Guardian, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which owns a substantial stake in Facebook, "called on Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report".

"Facebook is behaving like it's a special snowflake. It's not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO," Kron was quoted as saying.

Another Facebook investor Natasha Lamb from Arjuna Capital said the combined role of chairman and chief executive means that "Facebook can avoid properly fixing problems inside the company.
New Delhi, Nov 21 : President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday greeted the country on the occasion of Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.

"Good wishes to all fellow citizens, especially our Muslim brothers and sisters in India and abroad," the President, who is in on four-day visit to Australia tweeted.

"We remember the noble teachings of the venerable Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and pray that there is harmony, brotherhood and peace all around," Modi said.
Bengaluru, Nov 21 : Software major Infosys on Wednesday said it would create 1,200 jobs and open three innovation hubs in Australia by 2020 to reduce digital skills gap.

"We are creating 1,200 new skilled jobs for graduates and professionals and opening three innovation hubs by 2020 to accelerate digital leadership for our clients in Australia," said the city-based IT behemoth in a statement here.

To meet Australia's growing demand for digital expertise, the $11-billion Indian firm formed an education ecosystem for providing learning opportunities.

"Of the 1,200 jobs, 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from computer science and design. Academic partnerships will be strengthened to attract top graduate talent and ramp up skill building in the country," said the statement.

The hubs will also serve as a platform to enable the company co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and the local governments to speed up innovation and upskilling of talent in emerging technologies and solutions.

"The approach provides us with a foundation to meet rising demand for expertise in areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), user experience, cyber security, digital platforms, big data and cloud," said the statement.

Company's Vice-President for Australia and New Zealand Andrew Groth announced the initiatives to meet the growing demand for digital expertise in the presence of Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews at the company's office in Sydney.

"The announcement is a milestone in our 20 year journey in Australia. As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are committed to accelerating digital skills in the region through skilled jobs, development of hubs and partnerships with academia," said Infosys Chief Operating Officer U.B. Pravin Rao.

The outsourcing firm has recruited 75 graduates so far, with half of them completing induction training for placement on strategic client projects.

"The expansion of our Australian team with innovation hubs are important to help our clients navigate in their digital journey by renewing their core business systems and building new solutions to realise growth," said Groth on the occasion.

In the company's novel initiative, graduates start their learning journey in its Sydney and Melbourne training centres. They can choose from high demand areas including artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, cyber security, cloud and big data.

"Infosys' decision to create 1,200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020 is vote of confidence in our economy and the coalition government's commitment to jobs of the future that a company of Infosys' global standing would make this kind of investment here," said Andrews in the statement.

As education is a collective effort, Groth said the company would work with the government, academia and local communities to help build and shape its next-generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

"As part of our culture of learning and development, we have the world's largest corporate university to provide our people access to on-demand online learning platforms," Groth added.

The announcement of hiring 1,200 techies Down Under came after the company began constructing its US Education Centre on November 16 at Indianapolis in mid-west Indiana state for its employees at a cost of $35 million (Rs 252 crore).

The company committed on May 2, 2017 to hire about 10,000 American techies to bridge the IT skills gap in the US and set up six technology-cum-innovation hubs across North America by 2022-23.

Global clients across the US account for about 60 per cent of the company's software export revenue annually.
New Delhi : Book: Maharana Pratap - The Invincible Warrior

Author: Rima Hooja

Publisher: Juggernaut Books

Pages: 204

Price: Rs. 499

Who really won the battle of Haldighati? Did Maharana Pratap's army and his Bhil tribals outnumber Akbar's Imperial army? Did the Rajput king flee from the battlefield on his loyal steed Chetak or was it a strategic getaway? All of this, and more, is captured in this recent offering.

To those familiar with the heroic lore of the Mewar warrior, historian Rima Hooja's book helps put into context his achievement as the man who valiantly withstood the might of the Mughal empire at its peak, despite being in banishment for large periods of his reign. And to those unfamiliar with his exploits, it helps visualise the life and times of the warrior and the battles and valour which earned him his place in history.

In many ways, Maharana Pratap of Mewar and Chhatrapati Shivaji of the Maratha region were warrior brothers, bound together with the blood history.

While Shivaji won over the services of his mavlas -- bandied together from disparate castes and religions -- Pratap who preceded him in time, was sheltered by Bhil tribals who he eventually recruited in his fight against the Mughals, along with Afghan warriors.

"Maharana Pratap - The Invincible Warrior" gives us an insight into his line of ancestry and his ascent as the Rana of Mewar, amid a period of uncertainty and strife in the Rajput kingdom.

While the book's draw is the detailed depiction of the epic battle of Haldighati. The valley named after its turmeric colours terrain, in a way was a cleavage between the two chauvinistic egos of Emperor Jaluddin Muhammad Akbar, whose elaborate campaigns as well as all-powerful reign brooked no stopping and Maharana Pratap, the pride of Rajput sunkings, who would never bend to the imperial will of the Mughal ruler, keen on further expanding his footprint south of Delhi.

Hooja evaluates the strength of both Pratap's army and Akbar's force, quoting multiple historical references of the period and after it, which often contradict one another leaving the reader to weigh the options presented.

While historian and Mughal era translator Abd al-Qadir Badayuni claims that the Mughal commander and Rajput king Man Singh led a cavalry of 5000, Nainsi's Khyat, an account written by Munhot Nainsi, a Marwar minister claims that Man Singh led a force of 40,000 soldiers. Another work by Kaviraj Shyamaldas says that the Mughal army had as many as 80,000 soldiers.

Similar inconsistencies dog the count of Pratap's force.

Hooja however lays to rest one persistent doubt, that the Maharana's Mewar army was outnumbered by Akbar's forces when they clashed at the battle of Haldighati, which took place in June 1576.

The book also narrates details about how the battle, one of the most popularly known conflicts, was not all about swagger and bravado, with both sides also resorting to trickery to boost the morale of their soldiers in a battle, where fortunes swing one way and then the other.

"In the heat of battle, when the Mewar forces seemed to be gaining the upper hand, the Mughal commander Mahtar Khan spread the rumour that Emperor Akbar himself was approaching, leading a large contingent of the imperial army. Akbar was not present at any stage of the battle of Haldighati, but at that moment the ploy worked and boosted the morale of the Mughal forces who, instilled with fresh courage, rallied anew.

The Maharana's flight from battle against his wish, to "live to fight another day" as well as the account of his steed Chetak also finds reference in Hooja's book, which formally establishes several aspects of the warrior's life, already a part of North Indian legends.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@Ians.in)
The illustration shows the atoms of a gold cone exposed to a strong electric field. We also see the field (around the tip of the cone) that excites the gold atoms. They break almost all their connections to each other and the surface layers begin to melt.

When the tension rises, unexpected things can happen - not least when it comes to gold atoms. Researchers from, among others, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now managed, for the first time, to make the surface of a gold object melt at room temperature.

Ludvig de Knoop, from Chalmers' Department of Physics, placed a small piece of gold in an electron microscope. Observing it at the highest level of magnification and increasing the electric field step-by-step to extremely high levels, he was interested to see how it influenced the gold atoms.

It was when he studied the atoms in the recordings from the microscope, that he saw something exciting. The surface layers of gold had actually melted - at room temperature.

"I was really stunned by the discovery. This is an extraordinary phenomenon, and it gives us new, foundational knowledge of gold," says Ludvig de Knoop.

What happened was that the gold atoms became excited. Under the influence of the electric field, they suddenly lost their ordered structure and released almost all their connections to each other. Upon further experimentation, the researchers discovered that it was also possible to switch between a solid and a molten structure.

The discovery of how gold atoms can lose their structure in this way is not just spectacular, but also groundbreaking scientifically. Together with the theoretician Mikael Juhani Kuisma, from the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, Ludvig de Knoop and colleagues have opened up new avenues in materials science.

Thanks to theoretical calculations, the researchers are able to suggest why gold can melt at room temperature. Possibly, the surface melting can be seen as a so-called low-dimensional phase transition. In that case, the discovery is connected to the research field of topology, where pioneers David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz received the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016. With Mikael Juhani Kuisma in the lead, the researchers are now looking into that possibility.

In any case, the ability to melt surface layers of gold in this manner enables various novel practical applications in the future.

"Because we can control and change the properties of the surface atom layers, it opens doors for different kinds of applications. For example, the technology could be used in different types of sensors, catalysts and transistors. There could also be opportunities for new concepts for contactless components," says Eva Olsson, Professor at the Department of Physics at Chalmers.

But for now, for those who want to melt gold without an electron microscope, a trip to the goldsmith is still in order.
Panaji, Nov 21 : There will soon be direct flight connectivity between Israel's Tel Aviv and India's tourist hub Goa as a step to forge stronger ties between both nations, which completed 25 years of diplomatic relations in 2017.

Ya'akov Finkelstein, Israel's Consul General in Mumbai, made the announcement at the opening ceremony of the 49th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), where Israel is the country of focus.

"Shalom and Namaskar. It's a great honour and pleasure that Israel is the country of focus at IFFI. Israelis love India, specifically Israelis love Goa. That is why Israel Airlines (El Al) will be opening a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Panjim (Goa) very soon so that all the Israelis can come straight to the lovely beaches of Goa and enjoy them," Finkelstein said.

He hoped the tourist flow happened both ways.

"We hope and encourage that these planes will come back to Tel Aviv full with Indian tourists to see our scenes."

In January this year, India-Israel relations got a fillip with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to India. Multiple agreements were signed to boost cooperation.

'Shalom Bollywood' was hosted to take a look at possibilities of collaborations and to invite Indian cinema makers to shoot in the picturesque country.

Finkelstein said: "We love India, we love Goa, we love Indian cinema, which is why when our PM Netanyahu visited Mumbai in January, we made a special event 'Shalom Bollywood' where all top stars, producers and members of Bollywood joined Netanyahu for a lovely evening.

"We invited them to make cinema in Israel. Karan Johar's Dharma Productions shot a part of their film 'Drive' on the beaches of Tel Aviv. We hope this will give a drive to other Indian cinema makers to come and shoot in our lovely country."

He lauded the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's effort in curating a package of 10 Israeli movies for its 'Country in Focus' segment and for inviting a special delegation, including veteran filmmaker Dan Wolman who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at IFFI on Tuesday.

"We have some lovely films and it's a great way to be exposed to our culture," Finkelstein said of the line-up, which will open with "The Other Story" on Wednesday.

Other known films are Academy Award candidates "Footnote" and "Waltz with Bashir" and internationally acclaimed "The Bubble".

Newer films that will be screened are "Unorthodox", "Red Cow", "Working Woman", "Longing", "Redemption" and "Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema".

Lastly, Finkelstein reiterated the hope Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan expressed during Netanyahu's visit: "May cinema further fortify the strength of ties between India and Israel."

(Radhika Bhirani is in Goa on an invitation by IFFI organisers. She can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)
New Delhi, Nov 21 : Two Maoists were arrested and a large number of weapons were seized in a three-day operation by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and the state police in Jharkhand, officials said on Wednesday.

The joint search and cordon operation, from November 16-19, was conducted in the Maoist-infested areas of different villages in the Kathikund community block of Dumka district in Jharkhand.

Two Maoists -- Babujan Hembram (23) from Saldah village and Govind Hembram (20) from Kusumba village were arrested. A large quantity of ammunition, explosives and tech devices was seized, officials said.

The operation was conducted by SSB 35th Battalion Dumka and the Jharkhand Police.
Washington, Nov 21 : The US President has termed CIA's conclusion in the Jamal Khashoggi murder as "not definitive", prompting a Senate Committee to ask Donald Trump for a fresh probe to determine within four months whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had any role in the killing.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday sent a letter demanding a second investigation after Trump earlier in the day said the CIA had not reached a "definitive" conclusion.

Trump defended US ties with Saudi Arabia saying it was clear who ordered the murder, despite press reports saying the agency has determined that Salman ordered the hit as international condemnation of the brutal killing continued.

Republican Senator Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez issued a statement asking for a second probe by the Trump administration after the US President stated earlier in the day that the CIA had not made a "100%" determination on the killing.

Trump acknowledged that the crown prince "could very well" have known about Khashoggi's brutal murder, adding: "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

Khashoggi was killed on October 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Following the President's comments, the Senate Committee called on Trump to focus on a fresh probe specifically on the crown prince so as to "determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation" of human rights.

The senate's request, issued under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, requires a response within 120 days.

Saudi Arabia has blamed Khashoggi's death on rogue agents but denied claims that the crown prince had knowledge of the operation. The US media have reported that the CIA believes Salman ordered the murder.

In an interview on Sunday, Trump told Fox News that he had refused to listen to a recording of Khashoggi's murder provided by Turkey and called it "a suffering tape".
Male, Nov 21 : Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has told his new cabinet that the Maldives will be a part of the Commonwealth of Nations again after it pulled out in 2016, the President's Office said on Wednesday.

The Ministers were told about the advantages of being a Commonwealth member and that it would open up several opportunities to the Maldivian people, especially for the youth, Xinhua news agency quoted the President's Office as saying.

Following the President's decision, the respective authorities were in the process of setting things in motion for the Maldives to rejoin the Commonwealth, a statement from the President's Office said.

The Maldives first became a member of the Commonwealth in 1982 and left it in 2016.
New Delhi, Nov 21 : A 14-month-old child from Pakistan who was born with an unusual heart disease successfully underwent a surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here, authorities said on Wednesday.

According to medical experts from the hospital, the patient's blood receiving chamber on the left side of the heart (left atrium) was hugely dilated and was four times larger than the expected size (called Giant Left Atrium or GLA), which was pressing on the nearby airway structures in the chest.

Giant Left Atrium (GLA) is a rare condition in paediatric population but carries a significant mortality risk. When left atrium increases in size, it causes complications by compressing adjacent structures such as food pipe, spine, pulmonary vessels. These complications are resolved after surgery.

"Also, there was a large hole between the lower chambers of heart (called ventricular septal defect) and the left-sided valve was leaking," said Neeraj Aggarwal, Paediatric Cardiologist at the hospital.

When the patient was brought to the hospital, she weighed only 6.5 kg and faced troubles in feeding properly. The child was having recurrent chest infections and every crawling movement was interrupted due to breathlessness.

"It was a complex and challenging surgery because very few cases of GLA have been reported in children below two years. We operated the child in single stage open heart surgery where the hole was closed, valve was repaired and the GLA was reduced in size," Raja Joshi, Chairman, Paediatric Cardiac Surgery (PCS) said.
Mumbai/ Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 21 : A cheque of Rs 36.17 lakhs, raised from a fundraiser auction of 32 works of modern and contemporary Indian art, was donated on Wednesday to Kerala Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund by auction house Saffronart.

The donation was made by Saffronart CEO Dinesh Vazirani, who met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday morning.

"People from around the country came together for our fundraiser auction in August, and we are humbled to be able to contribute this amount of Rs 36 lakhs to the Kerala Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund.

"We hope to see a similar show of solidarity in our next fundraiser auction for the cause in January 2019, in partnership with the Kochi Biennale Foundation. We stand by the resilient people of Kerala and their government, which is leading the commendable relief efforts and helping people rebuild their lives," Vazirani said.

StoryLTD by Saffronart raised the amount during its Kerala Flood Relief Fundraiser Auction on August 29-30.

Among the top ten lots sold in the no reserve online auction were works by well-known Kerala-born artists including K.G. Subramanyan and Riyas Komu, as well as leading Indian artists such as Ram Kumar, Dhananjay Singh and Thota Vaikuntam.

The fundraiser sale, the auction house said, was conducted to assist ongoing relief efforts in the state, which recently experienced the worst floods to occur there in over 90 years, causing widespread displacement and destruction.
Chandigarh, Nov 21 : The Punjab Police has arrested one person in connection with Sunday's grenade attack on the Nirankari Satsang Bhawan that left three persons dead, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said here on Wednesday.

The arrested person has been identified as Bikramjit Singh, he said.

The second person involved in the attack, identified as Avtar Singh, is still absconding.

The Chief Minister said that the grenade used in the blast was Pakistan made.

According to him, the motorcycle used in the crime has also been recovered.

Amarinder said it was a "terror incident" and there was no religious link to it.
Bhubaneswar, Nov 21 : Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday hit out at the Odisha government, saying it has land for beer factory but not for a Paika rebellion memorial.

Pradhan said the Centre has repeatedly requested the state to make available 50 acre land for the construction of memorial at Barunei foothills.

"The state government failed to provide 50 acres of land for the memorial despite repeated requests from the Union government. But, you (the Chief Minister) provided 600 acres for a beer factory for which thousands of trees were cut down in Dhenkanal," said Pradhan.

The Minister was addressing the 119th birth anniversary of former Chief Minister Harekrushna Mahatab here.

Paik rebellion, also known as Paika Bidroha, was an armed rebellion against the British East India Company's rule in Odisha in 1817.

The Centre and state are commemorating 200 years of the rebellion with a series of events.

Pradhan also criticized the state government for not giving permission to install a statue of Harekrushna Mahatab at his village in Agarpada of Bhadrak district.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Niranjan Patnaik also came down heavily on the state government on the Mahatab issue.

"It's really unfortunate that Odisha government is indulging in political vendetta and insulting the great freedom fighter and first Chief Minister of Odisha, Utkal Keshari Harekrushna Mahatab, by taking away the land allotted for his statue. If land is not reallocated by November 27, we will launch a protest against the politics of malice and vendetta," said the OPCC chief.
Aizawl/Agartala, Nov 21 : The Election Commission would set up polling stations at Kanhmun, a village along the Mizoram-Tripura border, to facilitate voting by the tribal refugees, sheltered in Tripura for the past 21 years, official said here on Wednesday.

Among the over 35,000 Reang tribal immigrants, 11,232 men and women are eligible to cast their votes in the November 28 assembly polls for the 40-member Mizoram assembly.

The place of voting for the tribal refugee voters has become the most contentious issue in the run-up to the Mizoram Assembly polls, leading to replacement of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S.B. Shashank by a new IAS officer Ashish Kundra, two weeks before the polling.

The refugee leaders, however, said that they would discuss the Election Commission's decision (to set up polling stations at Kanhmun village) on Friday and take the final decision whether to cast votes in the new locations.

"We have been asked by the Election Commission to set up 15 polling stations at compact locations at the border village Kanhmun inside Mizoram territory under Mamit district," Mizoram's Joint Chief Electoral Officer Zorammuana told IANS.

He said: "Tripura government would be requested to provide security and transportation to ferry the refugee voters to Kanhmun village from the six refugee camps. We would bear the expenditure of the vehicles."

The new CEO Ashish Kundra has visited the Kanhmun village on Tuesday to assess the arrangements for the voting by the refugees.

Agitations had been launched by the powerful Mizoram NGO Coordination Committee (MNCC) demanding the setting up of polling stations in different districts of Mizoram for taking the votes of the refugees.

The MNCC, led by influential Young Mizo Association, citing Election Commission's 2014 circular about casting of votes by the refugees, held a massive state-wide agitation to remove Shashank from the post of CEO after Principal Secretary (Home) Lalnunmawia Chuaungo was removed on an Election Commission order.

The former CEO (S.B. Shashank) in his report to the Election Commission had reportedly said that Chuaungo was creating obstacles in allowing the Reang tribals to vote in the November 28 polls.

Chuaungo, a native of the tribal dominated Mizoram, is a Gujarat-cadre IAS officer.

Refugee leader and General Secretary of the refugees' apex body Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) Bruno Msha told IANS over phone from Kanchanpur that on Friday they would discuss the EC's decision to set up polling stations at Kanhmun village in western Mizoram.

He also said that there are pregnant and lactating mothers, aged and ailing people among the 11,232 refugee voters, that's why the MBDPF had demanded that the EC set up polling stations in the refugee camps.
New Delhi, Nov 21 : The European Union wants implementation of the Iran nuclear deal even though the US pulled out of it and imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran, EU Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said on Wednesday.

"Our understanding is that the EU is interested in implementing the Iranian nuclear deal," Kozlowski said during a media briefing here.

"From our point of view, failure of the Iran nuclear deal will have negative consequences for the security situation in West Asia," he said.

The US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Tehran signed with the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union and imposed the new sanctions on Iran over its alleged nuclear programme.

This sparked concerns in New Delhi as Iran is a major supplier of crude oil to India.

The sanctions also put in jeopardy the crucial Chabahar port in Iran being jointly developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan.

However, earlier this month Washington exempted India from its sanctions on Iran oil imports and development of the Chabahar Port.

"I am positive about India's efforts to develop the Chabahar port," Kozlowski said.

India is investing $500 million to develop the Chabahar port and a road link from there to Afghanistan to give access to that country, bypassing Pakistan.

The port is also a key link in the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km-long multi-modal network of ship, rail and road routes to move freight between India, Iran, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Central Asia and Europe.
Maggie, Carys and about two dozen other Girl Scouts were participating in a workshop at Northern Trusts Loop office on a Saturday morning earlier this month to earn their cybersecurity badges. Girl Scouts earn badges or other awards once theyve explored a topic or learned a new skill. The cybersecurity badges, introduced for girls in kindergarten through fifth grade earlier this year, are part of an effort from the Girl Scouts of the United States of America to increase participation in STEM fields, which have long been dominated by men.
November 21 : On this beautiful festival called Guru Nanak Jayanthi, Sikhs from all over the world take the time to remember their leader, Guru Nanak on his birthday. A man who is believed to be the very first Sikh guru and shaped the beliefs and ideologies of Sikh culture.

A sacred festival famous for the people of the Sikh Community, the festival is called Guru Nanak Jayanti. People on this day, wish their friends and family members with spiritual messages and wishes to celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

Image Source: IANS Amritsar: A view of the Golden Temple on the eve of Guru Nanak Jayanti in Amritsar, on Nov 25, 2015.

Here are a few wishes and greetings you can send to your near and dear ones on the day of Guru Nanak Jayanthi !!

May Guru Ji bless you, grant you with gifts, And give you and your family a long and healthy life !!

Happy Gurupurab !!

May you achieve all that you worked for and be blessed on this holy night, May Guru Jis divine love and guidance, help you, As you walk through this journey of life, Happy Guru Nayak Jayanti !!

May his teachings guide you in life, May he be an inspiration in all your pursuits in life, May his blessings shower upon you on this night and for all the days of your lives !!

Happy Gurupurab !!

Image Source: IANS Guru Nanak Jayanti

Whatever kind of seed is sown in a field, prepared in due season, a plant of the same kind marked with the peculiar qualities of the seeds, springs up in it !! 

Guru Nanak

Celebrate this day with your family and friends, Let the joy and happiness today have no end, May his blessings, and grace be with you, during this time and during every moment of your lives.

Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti !!

Set your goals and strive to achieve them, Let no hardship and obstruction ever come your way, May Guru Nanak bless you with good thoughts and words of wisdom, Just make sure you remember him on his Birthday !!

Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti !!
Sonipat, Nov 21 : The Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) of O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) here hosted the semi final round of "ISCEA Ptak Global Case Competition" which recognises supply chain excellence, the university said.

Out of the seven teams that were selected for participation in the final phase of the India round, the team from Xavier School of Management (XLRI) emerged as winner, JGU said in a statement this week.

The final round of the competition in which the regional winners from around the world will participate is scheduled to take place on December 8 in Las Vegas, US.

The International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA) awards the Ptak Prize for Supply Chain Excellence.

On the occasion of the India round of the competition at the Jindal Global Business School (JGBS), the institute also hosted a roundtable panel discussion on "Leveraging Blockchain and India's Preparedness" in which Carol Ptak, after who the the Ptak Prize Global Case Competition is named, was introduced by Professor Saroj Koul, Executive Director, Centre for Supply Chain and Logistics Management, JGBS.

"The benefits of Blockchain are huge. We have the potential and opportunity to make the most of it, irrespective of the industry we work in," Professor Rajesh Chakrabarti Dean, JGBS, said while addressing the gathering.

The discussion focused on India's preparedness for faster business growth and in ensuring transparency and cost-effectiveness for consumers.

"How many of us understand PPT - People Process Technology? The scope of Blockchain in payment systems is huge across industries," said Ajay Kapoor, Vice President - Procurement, HSBC Group.

'We all know what Blockchain is. But do we know what Blockchain is not? Blockchain is not bitcoin. We are all lagging behind in terms of technology and the expertise required to understand Blockchain. Let's remember Blockchain is disruptive and adaptation in India will be slow," said Anuj Garg, Director, DIY Blockchain Pvt. Ltd.

The Ptak Prize Global Case Competition is a global contest where top business schools in the world compete.
Islamabad, Nov 21 : At least three children were killed and two others critically injured in a blast on Wednesday in Pakistan's northwest Swat, the media reported.

According to Geo TV, the blast took place when the children were playing with a mortar shell in a field in Arkot village in Swat, a district in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The police said that the explosion was triggered when the children started throwing the live mortar shell to each other considering it as a toy.

Police said the mortar was fired from an unknown location, which missed its target and did not explode.
Chandigarh, Nov 21 : Superstar Akshay Kumar was questioned by a Punjab Police Special Investigation Team on Wednesday in an alleged deal mediated by him between jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, police sources said.

Inspector General (IG) Kunwar Vijay Pratap, who questioned the actor at the Punjab Police headquarters for nearly 35 minutes along with other SIT members, told media that the SIT was "satisfied" with the Akshay's answers.

"We asked him many questions. He was summoned as there was a chain of events that led to the sacrilege cases and the firing incidents in 2015. We wanted to ask him about those events. He gave answers to all our questions. We are satisfied with his answers," the IG told a news channel.

The questioning of the actor was video-recorded.

Akshay, who landed at the Chandigarh international airport on a chartered flight from Mumbai earlier in the day, drove to the high-security state police headquarters in Sector 9 in Chandigarh and appeared for questioning.

He remained inside the headquarters for almost two hours. When the questioning ended, Akshay was taken away in his vehicle through a side gate of the police premises to help him avoid the waiting media.

The SIT grilled Akshay about the alleged deal, his relationship with the sect leader and Badal. He was also asked if the Dera leader lived in the same locality (society) in Mumbai as his, police sources said.

The actor termed the linking of his name to the entire controversy around the sacrilege cases and the subsequent firing incidents as unwarranted. He maintained that the allegations against him were baseless.

Akshay apparently challenged the SIT officials to show evidence of the allegations against him and not go only by hearsay, an officer told IANS.

Dismissing the allegations, the 51-year-old actor said he had great regard for the Sikh religion and would never do anything to dishonour or hurt it.

Lawyer S.P.S. Sidhu, who accompanied the actor (but not during the SIT questioning) said Akshay was feeling hurt that his name was involved in the entire controversy.

"He has already stated that he did not arrange any meeting nor was he linked to anyone. He was wondering why he had been summoned in the first place," Sidhu told a regional news channel.

Earlier, while coming out of the Chandigarh airport, a visibly happy Akshay told the media in Punjabi: "Tussi vi aao, naal challo" (You too, come along)

The Punjab Police SIT, which is probing sacrilege of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, and subsequent firing on protesters in 2015, had earlier in November summoned the 'Gold' actor as a witness.

Akshay had on Tuesday requested that he be allowed to meet the SIT officials in Chandigarh instead of Amritsar, where he had been originally asked to appear.

He was questioned about his alleged role in brokering a Rs 100-crore deal between the Dera chief, who was later convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Badal in Mumbai in 2015 days before the release of a film of Gurmeet Ram Rahim.

Akshay has denied the allegations, terming them to be "rumours and false statements". "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 path," Akshay had tweeted after he was summoned by the Punjab Police.

On his part, Sukhbir Badal said earlier: "I have never met Akshay Kumar outside Punjab." Badal was questioned by the SIT at the police headquarters on Monday. He termed the questioning as a sham and alleged that the Congress government led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was indulging in "political vendetta".

Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was on November 16 questioned by the SIT headed by Additional Director General of Police Pramod Kumar and IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap.

The senior Badal said he told the SIT that he had not ordered firing on Sikh protesters agitating against the sacrilege incidents in October 2015.

Amarinder Singh had earlier said his government had no role in the summoning of the Badals and the actor by the SIT.

The SIT was set up by the Amarinder government in September to probe the sacrilege cases and the firing ordered on those protesting the sacrilege in October 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance government headed by Parkash Singh Badal was in power in the state.

Two persons were killed in the police firing in Behbal Kalan village near Kotkapura town in Faridkot district.
Pathanamthitta, November 21 : BJP state general secretary A N Radhakrishnan on Wednesday called for initiating disciplinary action against IPS officer Yathish Chandra, accusing the latter of showing disrespect to union minister of state for shipping Pon Radhakrishnan when the minister arrived at the Nilackal base camp.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Radhakrishnan said that disciplinary action should be initiated against the police officer or else the BJP would register its complaint with the union home ministers office.

Referring to the alleged disrespect shown towards the union minister by the IPS officer, Mr. Radhakrishnan alleged that Mr. Chandra being a fair-complexioned person had scorn for dark-complexioned people.

He (Mr. Chandra) was obsequious towards Ramesh Chennithala (opposition leader) but today he showed utter disdain towards the union minister for being dark-complexioned, the BJP leader charged.

The IPS officer behaved in an arrogant manner towards the union minister and the former was emboldened to do so because of the attitude of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, he said.

Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan had a heated exchange with SP Yathish Chandran when he arrived at the Nilackal base camp to assess the facilities arranged for pilgrims and later to proceed towards Sabarimala to offer prayers at the hill shrine.

The union minister questioned the IPS officer why private vehicles were not being allowed to go towards Pampa. To this Mr. Chandra replied that the restrictions were imposed due to the lack of parking space and with a view to avoid traffic snarls.

However, when Mr. Chandra said that if the minister issued an order, then private vehicles could be allowed past Nilackal, Mr. Radhakrishnan replied that he could not do so, prompting the former to say that the problem was that no one was willing to take responsibility.

This comment angered the union minister, who reprimanded the SP for showing off and misbehaving with a union minister. Mr. Pon Radhakrishnan later travelled to Pampa by a KSRTC bus despite Mr. Chandra saying that the minister could travel in his official car since he fell under the VIP category.
Shillong, Nov 21 : The Meghalaya police on Wednesday arrested a woman, who is one of the accused in the murder attempt on women's rights activist Agnes Kharshiing and her aide in a coal-belt area in East Jaintia Hills district.

Based on credible information, police arrested Skhemlang Dkhar (44) from Mooralong area in Jowai, the district headquarters of West Jaintia. She was evading arrest following her alleged involvement in the brutal attacks on the two activists on November 8 at Tuber Sohshrieh area.

With the arrest of Dkhar, the total number of people arrested in the case has risen to six.

"We have arrested Dkhar based on credible information that she was involved in the attack on Kharshiing and Amita Sangma," Sylvester Nongtnger, the district police chief of East Jaintia Hills, told IANS.

Nongtnger said the court has remanded her to a five-day police custody.

Kharshiing along with Sangma were brutally assaulted by a group of people after the activist lodged a complaint on illegal mining and transportation of coal in the district.

The National Green Tribunal had ordered an interim ban on "rat-hole" coal mining in Meghalaya from April 17, 2014, after the All Dimasa Students' Union and the Dima Hasao District Committee filed an application before it, alleging that the water of the Kopili river was turning acidic due to coal mining in the Jaintiia Hills.

The Meghalaya High Court has asked the investigating officer to file the status report of the investigation and to remain present in the Court along with the case diary on November 27.

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had said that he would consult his cabinet colleagues whether the murder attempt on Kharshiing warrants a judicial or a CBI probe.
Panaji, Nov 21 : The Swedish government is examining a proposal on tax cuts for foreign film production houses shooting in Sweden, which once approved could open the doors for Bollywood films to be shot in the Nordic country in a big way, Swedish Consul General in Mumbai Ulrika Sundberg said on Wednesday.

Sundberg was in Goa to participate in a special programme, as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman on the sidelines of the ongoing International Film Festival of India.

"There are a lot of opportunities around this... One of the issues is that my tax authorities have not been willing to give them tax cuts for production, but now we have a proposal on the table. I need the new government to take a decision on changing the rules, in which case we will be willing to give tax cuts. That will put us on par with other countries," Sundberg told IANS.

She said that there is a lot of scope to host Indian film production houses in Sweden, known for its stunning locales, and that the synergy is not being tapped currently to the possible extent.

Sundberg further said that there has been a spike in the interest of Indian tourists in Sweden.

"I see the interest is there. I have seen major increase in the years that I have been here. We have seen 30 per cent increase in Indian tourists travelling to Sweden. They are all fascinated by the Northern Lights. They all want to go to the Ice Hotel, they want to see our indigenous people with their reindeers. So the interest is there. Now how you get the Ice Hotel into a Bollywood film, I leave it to Bollywood to decide," she said.

The diplomat also described Bergman as one of the major ambassadors of her country to the world, a man who not only put Sweden on the international film map with his vision but also created a lot of jobs in that country.

"Bergman opened the doors and subsequent producers have capitalised on the platform that he gave them. I think...he gave us the key to understanding that some of the existential questions which he was raising were also relevant for a Japanese person or someone living in the US. That humanity is struggling with the same questions one way or the other...at different times in life," she said.

The film industry, whose leading star was Bergman at that time, was responsible for employment of around 100,000 people in Sweden, she added.
A Terrigal restaurant and apartment has been sold for $3.35 million to a Sydney-based investor.

Savills Australias Aaron McLean brokered the deal on behalf of the locally based vendor, achieving a rate of $5,135.85 per sqm and an initial yield of 5.15 per cent.

Located at 10 Kurrawyba Avenue Mr Mclean said we received 66 direct enquiries for this campaign, with a total of nine offers submitted.

The buyers family regularly visits Terrigal as their favourite Sydney getaway destination so they will use the four-bedroom apartment for family holidays, while holding on to the renowned Le Chat Noir restaurant as the retail tenant, he said.

Last sold in 2001 the property went for $727,500 making this latest sale a 9.4% year on year increase in price.

Set on a 651 sqm block the property has a fully leased rental potential of $173,198pa net.

Situated 100m to Terrigal Beach, restaurants, cars and cafes the building holds a corner position with 58m of frontage.
Herrling Clark Law Firm Ltd. 2018 Super Lawyers Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., is proud to announce that 10 of its attorneys have been named to Super Lawyers 2018 list of outstanding attorneys and Rising Stars in Wisconsin.

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., is proud to announce that 10 of its attorneys have been named to Super Lawyers 2018 list of outstanding attorneys and Rising Stars in Wisconsin.

In addition to these honors, attorneys John D. Claypool and Kevin Lonergan made Super Lawyers list of the Top 50 Attorneys in Wisconsin.

Super Lawyers is a nationally recognized rating service that annually selects the top attorneys in each state, based on independent research and evaluation by a peer panel. Attorneys who make the Super Lawyers list are among the top five percent of nominated attorneys in their state.

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., attorneys who were named to the Super Lawyers list include:



John D. Claypool, selected for the 12th year;

Greg P. Curtis, selected for the fifth year;

Richard T. Elrod, selected for the seventh year;

Paula A. Hamer, selected for the second year;

Charles D. Koehler, selected for the fifth year;

Kevin Lonergan, selected for the 14th year;

Robert B. Loomis, selected for the 13th year; and

Michael S. Siddall, selected for the 13th year.

Attorneys are eligible for Rising Stars if they are age 40 or younger or have been practicing law for 10 years or less. Only 2.5 percent of nominated attorneys are chosen for the Rising Stars list each year.

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., attorneys Andrew J. Rossmeissl and Kristen S. Scheuerman were both named to the Rising Stars list. It is the ninth year that Rossmeissl has received the honor and the fifth year that Scheuerman has received it.

About Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd.:

Herrling Clark Law Firm, Ltd., provides legal representation for individuals and businesses throughout Northeast Wisconsin. Founded in 1959, the firm handles cases involving family law, personal injury, business law, and wills and trusts. Clients can visit one of the firms four offices in Appleton, Green Bay, New London, and Oshkosh. To schedule an initial consultation, call 920-739-7366 or visit https://www.herrlingclark.com.
Being publicly listed is a noteworthy seal of quality for Comintelli and the funds raised will be used to help us significantly increase our marketing of Intelligence2day and expand our sales channels"

Comintelli, a leading provider of cloud-based market- and competitive intelligence software, is proud to announce that the company has gone public and its shares began trading on Spotlight Stock Market in Stockholm on November 19th. Please view a film from the opening ceremony here!

Under the ticker symbol COMINT, the share price soared by 37, 6 percent during the first day of trading. Please find more information about the Comintelli share at the newly launched Investor Relations web page.

On November 1, 2018, a public share issue of a total 6,9 MSEK was completed for listing on Spotlight Stock Market. The share issue was greatly oversubscribed by about 450 percent.

Being publicly listed is a noteworthy seal of quality for Comintelli and the funds raised will be used to help us significantly increase our marketing of Intelligence2day (http://www.intelligence2day.com) and expand our sales channels, says Jesper Martell, CEO of Comintelli. We are now set to continue the growth and profitability weve had over the recent years.

For more information:

Jesper Martell

CEO, Comintelli AB

Phone: 0706-229 831

Email: jesper.martell(at)comintelli.com

Web: http://www.comintelli.com

About Comintelli AB

Comintelli is a Swedish software company, founded in 1999 as a spin off from the telecommunications company Ericsson. Comintelli develops and licenses a cloud-based service for competitive and market intelligence called Intelligence2day. The service is used by companies of different sizes in order to create meaning and insight out of a vastly growing volume of digital information. This type of information is often unstructured and derived from a very large number of different sources.

Intelligence2day is particularly suited for companies that are active in industries categorized by rapid change and large volumes of unstructured information. For such companies it is of great importance to constantly monitor and identify factors such as trends, threats and opportunities and to adapt their strategies accordingly.

A majority of Comintellis customers are found within the industries of Chemicals/Energy, Pharmaceuticals/Healthcare and IT/Telecom. Examples of such customers are AkzoNobel, DSM, Essity, Telia and Tetra Pak.

During 2015 Comintelli undertook a major shift in strategy, resulting is a cloud-based business model with more standardized and scalable solutions. New customers are now up and running in much shorter time frames than before which has enabled the growth during the recent years.
The Rosedale kitchen at Heritage at Pennington. This community is centrally located near everything Mercer County has to offer, said Paul Csik, Senior Vice President of American Properties Realty, Inc. There is always something exciting to do in Pennington."

Incredible schools, a small-town atmosphere, safe neighborhood, trendy shops, exciting recreation, beautifully maintained streets and convenient highway access makes Pennington Borough the best New Jersey town for families, according to New Jersey Family Magazine.

Nestled in a quaint corner of this lovely town is Heritage at Pennington, a successful new community of townhomes for sale in NJ and two-story villas from American Properties Realty, Inc.. For those looking to come home to Pennington, the community has recently announced that its Rosedale model is available for a quick move-in at a special purchase price of $448,728 after all upgrades and incentives (see Sales Manager for details).

Residents of Heritage at Pennington enjoy walkability to the bank, apothecary, supermarkets, post office, restaurants and downtown shops along Main Street, as well as easy access to I-95, the NJ Turnpike, I-295, I-78, I-287 and Route 1. Heritage at Pennington is part of the highly-rated Hopewell Valley Regional School District and located within driving distance to Princeton, Trenton, Philadelphia and many large corporations. For New York City commuters, Hamilton Train Station is only a 15-minute drive away.

This community is centrally located near everything Mercer County has to offer, said Paul Csik, Senior Vice President of American Properties Realty, Inc. There is always something exciting to do in Pennington. Our residents especially look forward to the towns annual Pennington Day street fair where local businesses, artisans and non-profits come to celebrate and strengthen the community. It really is wonderful to be part of in support of the town.

As part of its commitment to offering new home opportunities to the community, American Properties Realty, Inc. has unveiled the Rosedale quick move-in home is located at 5 Cannon Drive (Unit 503) in picturesque Pennington. The thoughtfully designed home features three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a one-car garage and 2,300 sq. ft. of living space. Other highlights include nine-foot ceiling height on the first and second floors; a gas fireplace with white mantle and black slate surround and upgraded recessed lighting and ceiling fan pre-wires throughout the home.

Perfect for entertaining, the expansive kitchen features granite countertops, a huge kitchen island, upgraded recessed lighting, an upgraded faucet, backsplash and single undermount sink. For added style and sophistication, 5-inch hardwood plank flooring flows through the flex room, kitchen, family room and second floor hall, along with an oak and pine staircase. All bathrooms have granite countertops, upgraded cabinets and upgraded floor and wall tile. The second bedroom includes a four-foot extension making it the ideal space for a play area or office.

The base price of the home is $434,990 with $26,232 is upgrades and a $12,500 incentive, making the total purchase price $448,728. This includes a discount with use of Sellers Preferred Lender, Caliber Home Loans.

Were excited to offer this beautiful home for a quick move-in, said Csik. The Rosedale is part of a tight-knit community that you will really enjoy living in.

To learn more about Heritage at Pennington, visit http://www.HeritageAtPennington.com.

About American Properties Realty, Inc.

American Properties Realty, Inc., A Licensed Real Estate Broker, continues its proud 40-year tradition of introducing award winning communities that provide excellent quality, convenient locations and affordable pricing for New Jersey homebuyers. The Principals of American Properties Realty, Inc., have been involved in the creation of residences ranging from luxurious estate homes to master planned communities of apartments, condominiums, townhomes and single-family homes.

new homes for sale in Pennington NJ

Mercer County homes for sale

Find family-friendly perfection in Pennington
Food Equality Initiative Most Kansas Citians dont know that our area is leading the country in providing free-from foods to those who need it the most," said Emily Brown, chief executive officer of FEI. We are so excited to announce this opportunity that will enable us to feed more people," she added.

Food Equality Initiative (FEI) is excited to announce our selection as one of ten finalist in the Rachael Ray Feed It Forward Contest! The second annual contest provides an opportunity for one grassroots organization to win $5,000 to feed it forward.

The next step in the judging process includes a community voting period. You can cast your vote by liking the Food Equality Initiative logo on the Rachael Ray Every Day Facebook Page November 19  November 26th. Individuals can vote once per day during the voting period.

We are honored to be a finalist in Rachael Ray Feed It Forward Contest. Now we need the support of the Kansas City community, said Emily Brown, Chief Executive Officer of FEI. Most Kansas Citians dont know that our area is leading the country in providing free-from foods to those who need it the most. We established the nations first allergy-friendly and gluten-free food pantry in the nation, right here in Kansas City. We are so excited to announce this opportunity that will enable us to feed more people.

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About Food Equality Initiative

Food Equality Initiative is a Kansas City-based nonprofit with a mission to improve health

and end hunger in low income patients diagnosed with food allergies and celiac disease.

In 2015, FEI established the nations first allergy friendly and gluten free food pantry. Today

FEI continues to lead a movement to create access to free-from foods in both the emergency food system and retail markets. Learn more at Foodequalityinitiative.org.
Oak trees support hundreds of animal, pollinator, and bird species, making these trees essential to ecosystem health. Pictured here: A valley oak in the Santa Susana Mountains. Photo: Kendra Sikes. As the project moves into its second year, CNPS and local groups will facilitate oak planting days, ongoing acorn processing, and support for private landowners interested in restoring oak habitat.

Oak trees are the powerhouses of Californias native ecosystems, and now the non-profit California Native Plant Society has launched a statewide effort to help restore and grow native oak populations up and down California.

Oaks are an easy and powerful way to help the environment, CNPS Executive Director Dan Gluesenkamp said. A single, mature oak will support hundreds of other species and can sequester thousands of pounds in carbon.

But oak species throughout California face unprecedented decline due to habitat loss, disease, and development.

Just over a year ago, CNPS announced Re-Oak Wine Country, a crowdsourcing volunteer effort to collect acorns from the burned landscapes of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Napa counties. Thousands of Californians participated by gathering acorns, completing scientific data sheets, and sending their acorns to CNPS headquarters. CNPS staff and volunteers then sorted, cleaned, and processed viable acorns for the next phase of the project: propagation.

After months of careful tending, the 2017 acorns are now healthy saplings ready for transplant. CNPS is partnering with community groups in Wine Country and surrounding regions to plant tens of thousands of the saplings back in the areas from which they originated.

In restoration efforts, we need to follow careful guidelines to ensure were reintroducing the right plants to the right spot, adds Gluesenkamp. This way, we make sure both the plants and the local creatures that depend on them have their best chance of survival.

As the project moves into its second year, CNPS and local groups will facilitate oak planting days, ongoing acorn processing, and support for private landowners interested in restoring oak habitat.

Last years response blew us away, said Liv OKeeffe, senior director of communications and engagement for CNPS. The movement was so strong that its inspired our local chapters and other organizations to undertake re-oaking projects all over the state this year.

The acorn harvest is nearly complete, but volunteers and supporters are needed for planting events and ongoing acorn processing. CNPS is directing people to cnps.org/acorns to sign up, receive instructions, and get ongoing updates.



Oaks are valued among ecologists and environmentalists for their benefits:

Oaks are the supermarket of the natural world. Oak woodlands support hundreds of animal, pollinator, and bird species.

Oaks fight global warming. The heavy wood of oaks stores more carbon than most other trees, meaning that they capture carbon dioxide and help fight global warming.

Oaks bring economic benefit. Studies show that oak trees add significant value to homeowner property. A University of California study found that a neighborhood located 10 percent closer to an oak stand showed a $4 million dollar increase in the overall value of the 544 houses in that community.

Oaks are the gateway drug for restoration, jokes Gluesenkamp. If youre gonna start with something, start with oaks to get maximum bang for your buck.

About the California Native Plant Society:

The California Native Plant Society is a statewide organization working to save and celebrate Californias native plants and places via plant science, advocacy, education, and horticulture. CNPS has more than 10,000 members in 35 chapters throughout California and Baja to promote its mission at the local level. http://www.cnps.org
The Dental Implant Conference is designed to provide OMSs, their referring dentists and staff  the entire dental implant team  the latest in research and development, said AAOMS President A. Thomas Indresano, DMD, FACS.

The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) will host the premier dental implant educational event  the Dental Implant Conference  from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 at Sheraton Grand Chicago in Chicago, Ill.

The 26th annual conference will feature international experts presenting the latest research in the field of dental implants, which offer patients a long-term solution to missing teeth. More than 1,000 oral and maxillofacial surgeons, their staff and restorative dentists will attend sessions taught by more than 30 speakers on topics including the transition from freehand to guided navigation, and social media in dentistry.

Highlights of the preconference and general sessions



Two full days of fast-paced, practical and innovative presentations during the general sessions Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 will focus on such topics as managing and avoiding complications and ridge augmentation and prosthetic

In honor of AAOMSs 100th anniversary, a general session Dec. 1 will celebrate the Associations history, touching on the application of technology in the field and the development of patient-specific

The Nov. 29 preconference schedule features three hands-on sessions covering peri-implant soft-tissue augmentation, digital scanning for the OMS and the evolution of implant

Three other preconference sessions designed for OMSs and their restorative dental colleagues will discuss transforming surgical practices with new digital technology, approaches to augment the narrow ridge and full-arch esthetic

Back by popular demand, a live simulcast will allow participants to watch general sessions from afar and earn continuing education credit.

In addition, more than 100 companies will display cutting-edge products and services for dental implant practices in the Exhibit Hall at the Sheraton Grand Chicago.

The Dental Implant Conference is designed to provide OMSs, their referring dentists and staff  the entire dental implant team  the latest in research and development, said AAOMS President A. Thomas Indresano, DMD, FACS. For more than a quarter century, the conference has presented innovations in dental implants from a renowned faculty of international experts in the field.

Registration is open to AAOMS members, students, non-members and the media. Visit AAOMS.org/DIC for additional information.

The experts in face, mouth and jaw surgery  The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) is the professional organization representing more than 11,000 oral and maxillofacial surgeons, OMS residents and OMS professional staff in the United States. AAOMS supports its fellows and members ability to practice their specialty through education, research and advocacy. AAOMS fellows and members comply with rigorous continuing education requirements and submit to periodic office anesthesia evaluations. For additional information about oral and maxillofacial surgery, visit the AAOMS websites at AAOMS.org and MyOMS.org.

CONTACT: Jolene Kremer, Associate Executive Director, Communications & Publications,

American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons

Phone: 847-233-4336

Fax: 847-678-6286

jkremer(at)aaoms.org

AAOMS.org
The diverse and creative responses to each years challenge are deeply inspiring, says Blanche Williams, MS and Assistant Managing Director at the iaedp Foundation.

Over the years, studies have revealed that emotional repression is linked to higher reports of medical challenges such as eating disorders. Through an art competition sponsored annually by the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (iaedp), artists are given the opportunity to freely express body image by pushing the boundaries of form, structure and identity through their visual representations.

That opportunity is the Imagine Me Beyond What You See body image mannequin art competition, held during the annual iaedp Symposium. Next years conference in Palm Desert, California at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort on February 7-10, the top five art finalists are showcased and the winner is revealed. Entries will be accepted through December 15, 2018.

Imagine Me Beyond What You See originally was designed to promote a healthy awareness and acceptance of body images. That focus has been nurtured over the 9-year span that the special art competition has been conducted. The mannequin art contest is open to everyone; however, iaedp asks treatment centers and private practices with art therapists to work with patients to provide entries. Mannequins can be purchased online. They can be male or female forms and are available in different body shapes and sizes. Mixed media also can be used. Entries must include a 300-word description of the artists work along with a short description of the biography of the artist or group. Photos of the artwork at four different angles and a list of materials used also is required. Winners are spotlighted at the iaedp annual Symposium and presented with beautiful awards. The photographic artwork of the First Place Winner will be featured prominently on iaedp.com and membershare.iaedp.com along with press releases.

The diverse and creative responses to each years challenge are deeply inspiring, says Blanche Williams, MS and Assistant Managing Director at the iaedp Foundation. The artists allow outsiders to look inside their emotional selves. Each contest entry communicates powerful themes and reveals courageous individuals.

The Lead Sponsorship for the 2019 Imagine Me Beyond What You See is still open for organizations which are interested in helping to support the body image mannequin competition. For more details contact blanche(at)iaedp.com.

The Imagine Me Beyond What You See awards ceremony, scheduled during the 2019 iaedp Symposium, will include the Professionals Choice Award, which is selected through voting by iaedp membership, 2019 Symposium attendees and the general public.

Past year Imagine Me contest entries and winners can be seen by visiting: http://www.iaedp.com/imagine-me/ and http://membershare.iaedp.com/category/members/memberimagineme/ For additional information about the Imagine Me art competition, including how to enter, contact Blanche@iaedp.com.

About the iaedp Foundation: Since 1985, the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals has provided education and training standards to an international and multidisciplinary group of various healthcare treatment providers and helping professions. MemberSHARE.iaedp.com is an iaedp business journal and online member resource to learn about noteworthy member achievements, continuing education webinars and U.S. and international chapter activity and events; for more information, visit MemberSHARE.

The iaedp Foundations Presidents Council, which provides organization support, includes: Center for Change; Center for Hope of the Sierras; Center For Discovery; Eating Recovery Center; KellerLife Center for Eating Disorders; Laureate Eating Disorders Program; McCallum Place Eating Disorder Centers; The Meadows Ranch; Rogers Behavioral Health; Rosewood Centers for Eating Disorders; Selah House; The Renfrew Center; Timberline Knolls; Turning Tides Eating Disorder Treatment Center; and Veritas Collaborative.

More information about all aspects iaedp and its 2019 Symposium can be found at iaedp.com.
Alan Head, a writer with a long career history in the insurance and reinsurance industry, has completed his new book Belize  The Final Chapter: a novel that encapsulates the excitements and difficulties one man encounters as he attempts to begin a new life.

This is the story of John Headley, and his unplanned but fortuitous stumbling into a new country and a new life, Alan Head said when asked about his new novel. This transitional and pivotal period in Johns life is filled with truly remarkable events that are at times a bit scary, sad, funny, romantic, and at times, a bit sensual.

Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Alan Heads adventurous tale spans language barriers, two different countries, and the spectrum of human emotions.

This adventure recounts Johns desperate escape from a miserable existence in Belize to Mexico, where, in a moment of sheer luck, John encounters Olga, the owner of a hostel in Chetumal where John and his companion, Molly, stayed for two weeks. While he tries to enjoy himself in the change of scenery, he is faced with the somber reality of returning to Belize, with seemingly no other option.

Readers who wish to read this second book in the On Both Sides of the Street series can purchase Belize  The Final Chapter 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.


Benzer Pharmacy proudly announces that its retail storefront in Auburndale, Florida has met URACs threshold for mail service pharmacy accreditation. In the process of achieving this singular distinction, the Auburndale team led efforts to equal stringent qualification criteria in the areas of customer service, drug utilization management, and quality improvement, among other disciplines related to mail service outcomes.

According to a company statement, deserving of special recognition for their contributions to this initiative were Benzer Pharmacys Shuchi Dwivedi, Director of Clinical Services; Wendy Cavanaugh, Director of Quality; Kate Doyle, Accreditation Coordinator; and Brianna Young, Lead Technician Manager.

Putting their collective work into perspective, Wendy Cavanaugh was quick to praise the others for everything they did behind the scenes to make this accreditation possible.

By achieving this status, our company has demonstrated a comprehensive commitment to quality care, improved processes, and better patient outcomes, Cavanaugh said. It was an honor to join Shuchi, Kate, and Brianna in drilling down the details of the mail service pharmacy accreditation process. Together, we learned a lot; but more importantly, moving forward, we helped establish a benchmark for mail service practices that set the gold standard for the system.

In plain agreement with that assessment was Benzer Pharmacys Chief Operations Officer, Noah Chapman, who made it clear that the accolade stands as a true symbol of excellence in specialty pharmacy.

On behalf of all our employees and key stakeholders, we are honored to have been granted this prestigious and respected accreditation from URACthe independent, not-for-profit leader in promoting healthcare quality through accreditation, certification, and measurement, Chapman said. In brief, URAC accreditation provides a greater measure of proof that Benzer maintains the highest quality in internal and external protocols to support shipping prescription medications directly to the consumers.

In 1996, the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission was prompted to shorten its name to the URAC acronym after making the move to broaden its accrediting powers to health plans, pharmacies, and other provider organizations. Today, it exists as a standard-bearer for best practices in the pharmacy industry.

Benzer Pharmacys Auburndale, Florida storefront is located at 301 Havendale Blvd. and is open for business weekdays from 9 am to 7 pm, and on Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm. Customers can reach the pharmacy by phone at 863-875-4700 or by fax at 863-875-5619.

For a look at Benzer Pharmacys Auburndale, FL URAC accreditation, click here.

https://accreditnet2.urac.org//uracportal/Directory/CompanyView/10072

To learn more about URAC, visit http://www.urac.org. Or, log on to http://www.benzerpharmacy.com.

About URAC.

Founded in 1990, URAC is the independent leader in promoting healthcare quality through leadership, accreditation, measurement, and innovation. URAC is a nonprofit organization using evidence-based measures and developing standards through inclusive engagement with a range of stakeholders committed to improving the quality of healthcare. Our portfolio of accreditation and certification programs span the healthcare industry, addressing healthcare management, healthcare operations, health plans, pharmacies, telehealth providers, physician practices, and more. URAC accreditation is a symbol of excellence for organizations to showcase their validated commitment to quality and accountability.

About Benzer Pharmacy.

Founded in 2009, Benzer Pharmacy is a chain of independent retail pharmacies specializing in compounding and specialty medication. Currently, there are 66 corporate-owned and 29 franchise locations situated throughout 23 states, including Florida, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Louisiana, New York, Missouri, Mississippi, Maryland, Indiana, and Idaho. Projections call for continued rapid growth as the organization seeks to substantially increase its customer base while ensuring experiences match expectations at every touchpoint.

Benzer Pharmacy has made four straight appearances on Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America from 2015-2018; correspondingly, the company earned a 39th place on the 2015 Florida Fast 100 list, while concurrently placing 67th on the 2015 TBBJ 200 list of Tampa Bays largest private companies. Benzer was also voted favorite pharmacy in 2015 Best of Fuquay Varina in North Carolina and achieved PCAB compounding accreditation with the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC). All Benzer Pharmacy medications require a doctor's prescription.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenzerPharmacy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/benzerpharmacy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/benzer_pharmacy
At the end of the day, its the satisfaction felt by our customers that powers our business, moves us forward and drives our growthday in and day out.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, an HSF Affiliates LLC company, today announced that the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices real estate brokerage network ranked Highest Overall Satisfaction for Repeat Home Buyers Among National Full-Service Real Estate Firms in the J.D. Power 2018 Home Buyer/Seller Satisfaction Study(SM).

The study, now in its 11th year, measured satisfaction with the nations largest real estate companies among customers in four segments: first-time buyers; repeat buyers; first-time sellers; and repeat sellers. Overall satisfaction was tracked on a 1,000-point scale across four factors of the home-buying experience: agent/salesperson; real estate company office; closing process; and variety of additional services.

Among repeat home buyers, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices scored 874 out of a possible 1,000 points, performing particularly well in the agent/sales person category among others.

Our Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network represents top-quality service and representation across the U.S. and in Berlin, London and other parts of the world, said Gino Blefari, CEO and president of the network. The ranking highest for repeat home buyer satisfaction says a lot about our network agents and brokerages. In simple terms, clients experienced our networks service and expertise, successfully navigated the real estate process, and returned for another transaction. Our network agents earn repeat business and that is the true mark of quality service.

J.D. Powers study yielded several key findings about the real estate process in general. Among them:



Real estate agents play critical role of guiding customers through process: Among both buyers and sellers, overall satisfaction scores are roughly 100 points higher when agents provide timely responses to questions; keep customers informed of key points in the transaction; and share comparable properties.

Strong customer satisfaction builds loyalty and advocacy: Across all customer segments, high levels of overall satisfaction with the firm is directly correlated with likelihood to use the firm again for a future transaction and recommend the firm to others.

Reputation matters: A real estate firms reputation is the No. 1 or No. 2 reason for selecting a company, across all survey respondents.

Social media plays major role: Nearly half (47%) of buyers and 55% of sellers indicate using social media to find agents, with the majority in each case saying they were delighted (overall satisfaction of 900 and higher) after doing so.

Delivering exceptional service to buyers and sellers alike is at the core of our mission, vision and values, said Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty Mid-Atlantic President and CEO Kevin Wiles. Its the measure that we hold ourselves accountable to. At the end of the day, its the satisfaction felt by our customers that powers our business, moves us forward and drives our growthday in and day out.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices tied with another company in this category.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty (http://www.penfedrealty.com) is a full-service real estate company with an annual sales volume of almost $5 billion. The company has 2,000 agents and more than 50 offices, providing complete real estate services nationwide. PenFed Realty is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PenFed Credit Union and is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC. We are proud to be an equal employment opportunity employer. Equal Housing Opportunity.

About J.D. Power

J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. These capabilities enable J.D. Power to help its clients drive customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. Established in 1968, J.D. Power is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has offices serving North/South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. J.D. Power is a portfolio company of XIO Group, a global alternative investments and private equity firm headquartered in London, and is led by its four founders: Athene Li, Joseph Pacini, Murphy Qiao and Carsten Geyer.

The 2018 Home Buyer/Seller Satisfaction Study includes 4,072 evaluations from 3,332 customers who bought and/or sold a home between March 2017 and April 2018. The study was fielded from March through May 2018. For more information about the 2018 Home Buyer/Seller Satisfaction Study, visit https://www.jdpower.com/business/resource/us-home-buyerseller-satisfaction-study.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, based in Irvine, CA, remains one of the nations fastest-growth real estate brokerage networks with more than 48,000 agents and 1,400 offices named to the brand since its launch in fall 2013. The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the real estate market a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability and longevity. Visit http://www.berkshirehathawayhs.com.


More than 500 fifth grade students from Georgia and Alabama competed in the annual SAE International A World in Motion Jet Toy Competition sponsored by Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia (KMMG). It is so exciting and encouraging to watch tomorrows engineers at work. These students are powering our future with their imaginations and tenacity, just as they are propelling these JetToys with balloon power. - David L. Schutt, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of SAE International

Creating the most efficient and smooth-running balloon-powered vehicle was the task for 500 fifth grade students on Thursday, Nov. 15 in Atlanta during the SAE International A World In Motion (AWIM) JetToy Competition, hosted by Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, Inc. (KMMG).

Working in design teams, students culminated their classroom experience by building and testing model JetToy cars that they have analyzed for weeks. Throughout the competition, the students engaged in a variety of distance, accuracy and timed events applying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

It is so exciting and encouraging to watch tomorrows engineers at work. These students are powering our future with their imaginations and tenacity, just as they are propelling these JetToys with balloon power, David L. Schutt, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of SAE International, said. SAE International thanks Kia Motors for their generosity and continued support of this important learning endeavor.

The event was held at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, and included students from Troup County, GA.; Lanett, AL.; Harris County, GA.; Meriwether County, GA.; Carroll County, GA; and Chambers County, AL. Dozens of volunteers from KMMG supported the event by judging the competitions.

We have more than 40 team members serving as mentors in the classroom and volunteering here today, said Stuart Countess, Chief Administrative Officer, Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia. Our goal is to bring text book lessons alive and help students realize the skills they are learning have real world applications in the workplace.

In the JetToy curriculum, a fictitious toy company called EarthToy Designs presents the challenge in the form of a letter. The company requests that students provide a variety of interesting designs for a new line of balloon-powered vehicles made from inexpensive, common materials that will appeal to other children. Working in design teams, students build and test model JetToy cars, and collect and analyze data to understand the effect of several variables on the performance of the toys. They create multiple designs and test them, then give a formal presentation of their final JetToy designs.

Throughout the curriculum and during the November 15 competition, students explored the scientific concepts of jet propulsion, friction, air resistance and design, as well as soft skills such as collaboration, problem solving, innovative thinking and teamwork.

AWIM is a teacher-administered, industry volunteer-assisted program that brings STEM education to life in the classroom for students in Kindergarten through Grade 8. Benchmarked to the national standards, the AWIM program incorporates integrated STEM learning experiences through hands-on activities that reinforce classroom STEM learning.

About SAE International

SAE International is a global association committed to being the ultimate knowledge source for the engineering profession. By uniting over 127,000 engineers and technical experts, we drive knowledge and expertise across a broad spectrum of industries. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including programs like A World in Motion and the Collegiate Design Series.

About KMMG

Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, Inc. (KMMG) is the first manufacturing site in North America for Kia Motors Corporation based in Seoul, Korea. With an annual capacity of 340,000 units, KMMG is located on 2,200 acres in West Point, Georgia, and began mass production on Nov. 16, 2009. KMMG is home to the Sorento SUV and the Optima mid-size sedan, two of the brands top selling models in the U.S. Beginning in the first quarter of 2019 KMMG will officially launch production of the Telluride, the largest SUV in the Kia family of vehicles.


Invest Southwest today announces the call for applications for the 2019 Venture Madness Conference will begin December 14, 2018 and run through January 10, 2019. Companies gaining market traction are encouraged to apply to compete as one of 24-36 entrants who will live-pitch their unique value for a chance to win a portion of the $60,000 cash prizes, mentorship from seasoned entrepreneurs, executives and investors and exclusive access to active institutional and angel investor judges and attendees from throughout the Southwest.

Venture Madness is the go-to competition for startups and emerging growth companies who have proven initial market demand and are eager to advance to the next level, says Ryan Edwards, 2019 chairman of Invest Southwest and managing director of technology banking at Silicon Valley Bank. Venture Madness connects growing companies with investors to create key relationships that often result in accelerating their growth. We even see applicants that dont win still make incredibly meaningful connections and gain invaluable exposure that helps advance their growth and funding objectives down the road--so theres a lot of benefit to applying and getting to the live event overall.

The upcoming event will open with a networking reception the night of Feb. 27, 2019 at Galvanize Phoenix, and a one-day pitch event the following day at Events on Jackson, in the historic warehouse district of Downtown Phoenix. The 24-36 applicants that make it through the two initial judging rounds in January will win a spot to participate in the live event, and pitch their way to victory against other contenders in their category.

This years six categories are:



SaaS / Software - in process of developing product, validating market demand and generating consistent revenue

Deep Tech/Hardware/IoT - building physical products or hardware/software products

Institutional Tech (Fintech, Blockchain, Cyber, Ed Tech) - in process of developing technology, validating market fit and generating consistent revenue

Growth - growing technology companies across categories generating a minimum of $3MM in annual revenue

Biotech/Healthcare/Life Sciences - healthcare and life sciences companies with a pre- or post-FDA / regulatory approval offering solutions designed to improve health and quality of life

Consumer - technology companies delivering products/services to individuals and/or households via software or mobile devices.

The annual event is presented in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority and attracts the most renowned venture capital, angel and institutional investors as well as community focused sponsors and CEOs from the region.

The finalists will be announced the week of January 28, 2019. Each will partake in expert mentor sessions throughout February in preparation for the event.

Were proud of the fact that Invest Southwest has helped raise over $300 million for startups since inception, and our signature event is a big part of that, said Karen Katzorke, executive director of Invest Southwest. One of the best aspects of the competition and this organization is that it brings our entrepreneurial community together. Its really the connective tissue that creates mutually beneficial relationships across key audiences.

To apply for Venture Madness starting on December 14, please visit the Venture Madness website. Interested companies can also register now for a free Get Ready Seminar on December 7, designed to help companies hone their application and pitch for the Venture Madness competition. If you are interested in sponsorship, please visit the Venture Madness sponsorship webpage to download the 2019 sponsor toolkit or to apply to become a sponsor. Companies can also contact Karen Katzorke at Karen.Katzorke@investsouthwest.org, with any questions.

Follow the latest Venture Madness news on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

About Invest Southwest

Invest Southwest is the premier organization for connecting investors with the best and brightest ventures in the region. In addition to providing valuable information on topics important to the investment community, Invest Southwest offers year-round opportunities for investors to connect with emerging growth companies. Its signature event, Venture Madness, is a unique competition presented in partnership with the Arizona Commerce Authority. Venture Madness pits thoroughly evaluated, emerging companies against one another in a head-to-head competition to crown the champion of champions. Visit InvestSouthwest.org for more information.
"We think it's time to re-evaluate some of the areas that were previously left unavailable for leasing," Balash said in a call, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Washington Post. He added that it will take "about a year" to develop a new plan for managing the petroleum reserve after publishing a notice Tuesday.
Laila Taylor, a student at Elaine Sterling Institute in Sandy Springs, GA, is the latest recipient of a $1,000 Lexli International Esthetic Scholarship. With esthetics industry growth comes the need for passionate, well-trained practitioners. However, the cost of training can be a roadblock. As a professional skin care brand sold by estheticians, we believe it is vital that we support those who have the desire to enter this exciting industry."

Lexli International Inc., the premier brand of aloe vera skin care, is proud to announce the latest recipient of a Lexli Esthetic Scholarship. Laila Taylor of Decatur, Georgia, a student in the esthetics program at Elaine Sterling Institute in Sandy Springs, Georgia, has been selected to receive a $1,000 award, along with a Lexli Professional Introduction Kit, valued at more than $500, which provides products and materials to help Laila build her business when she becomes a licensed esthetician in early 2019.

I fell in love with esthetics as soon as I began school and now have so many education and career goals. In fact, I am considering becoming a medical aesthetician, said Laila Taylor. Receiving this scholarship has taken a huge weight off of my shoulders, as tuition was a stressor for me. I can now focus on completing school and getting started in my career.

Lexli introduced the Lexli Esthetic Scholarship program in 2017 as a way to support those training for a career in the esthetics industry. Through the program, Lexli awards one $1,000 scholarship annually to an individual who demonstrates a passion for skin care and the talent to be a leader in the field. To apply, aspiring estheticians must be enrolled in an accredited program, complete a scholarship application and submit a personal video that highlights their philosophy toward skin care and/or their vision for the future of the esthetics industry. All entries are judged by a panel that includes veteran licensed estheticians, physicians and members of the Lexli executive team. Ms. Taylors submission can be viewed on YouTube.

Growth in the esthetics industry shows no sign of slowing, given that consumers increasingly understand that esthetic treatments are a means by which to optimize the health and beauty of their skin, said Dr. Ahmed Abdullah, founder and lead formulator of the Lexli line of skin care. With this growth comes the need for passionate, well-trained practitioners. However, the cost of training can be a roadblock. As a professional skin care brand sold by estheticians, we believe it is vital that we support those who have the desire to enter this exciting industry.

Lexli is currently accepting applications for its spring scholarship award. Full scholarship details and the application form, as well as a list of recent scholarship winners, can be found at http://www.lexli.com/scholarship/.

About Lexli:

Founded in 1996 by Dr. Ahmed Abdullah, a board-certified plastic surgeon and noted aloe researcher, Lexli is the premier line of aloe vera skin care products. The company offers a full-range of advanced solutions for daily skin maintenance, specific skin concerns and the signs of aging, including AloeGlyC, the advanced facial glycolic acid exfoliator; Lightening Lift, a unique aloe vera face mask; and the Acne Kit, one of the most potent and comprehensive acne treatments available over-the-counter.

Lexli products are sold by licensed skin care professionals throughout the United States and in select countries worldwide, as well as online at the Lexli website.

For more information visit the company's website or Facebook.


People with higher education levels and more positive attitudes about news can more easily spot fake headlines, according to a research report by the News Co/Lab at Arizona State Universitys Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in collaboration with the Center for Media Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin.

Their report, How the Public, News Sources, and Journalists Think about News in Three Communities, compiles and analyzes a series of online surveys of news consumers, news sources and newsrooms deployed during the course of the year.

In the headline exercise, a total of 4,854 community members from Fresno, California, Kansas City, Missouri, and Macon, Georgia, were given three headlines tailored to each city. Two were real. One was fake. Participants were asked to identify the phony headline.

Overall, 61.6 percent of the survey-takers could correctly identify the fake headline. For people with college degrees, the success rate rose to 67.7 percent. But for those without college degrees, it fell to 56.7 percent.

Although those with more education were more likely to answer correctly, nearly a third -- 32.3 percent -- of those with a college degree or better could not identify the fake headline.

This is both good and bad news, said Eric Newton, News Co/Lab co-founder. Good, because a general education seems to help protect a person against hoaxes. Bad, because a third of the college graduates were still fooled. This suggests a need for a greater focus on news fluency.

Other groupings, such as age, income and political affiliation also produced different success rates, with seniors, those with lower incomes and Republicans less likely to detect fake news headlines. While 53.7 percent of those making less than $30,000 a year correctly identified the false headline, for example, 71.1 percent of those with incomes exceeding $150,000 a year did so.

Overall, these findings show that more work needs to be done to help the public differentiate between whats real and whats not, said Gina Masullo Chen, Ph.D., assistant director of the Center for Media Engagement. Were seeing a divide in news literacy among specific groups that may diminish their ability to fully understand whats happening in the world. Thats a challenge for both the news media and for democracy.

The research also linked a persons attitude to an inability to spot fake headlines. In the attitude exercise, study participants were asked to identify the first word that came to mind when they saw the word news. Of those who answered the question, 61.9 percent of participants said a negative word, such as fake, or untrustworthy, while 38.1 percent of respondents provided a positive or neutral word, such as information or factual. (Attitudes broke along party lines: 74.0 percent of Republicans but only 26.0 percent of the Democrats used a negative word.)

A stark example of the impact of attitude came in Kansas City. There, 68.6 percent of those who used negative words the word news identified the fake news headline. But 81.8 percent of those who used positive or neutral words could spot the fake.

The public survey was supplemented by two others of community news sources and journalists from The Fresno Bee, The Kansas City Star and The Telegraph in Macon. This allowed comparisons about how all three groups rated the news organizations on a variety of measures, including accuracy, fairness, transparency and engagement.

In general, journalists rated themselves considerably higher than did news sources and members of the public. When asked how much they agreed that the local news organization is fair in its reporting, for example, 94.3 percent of journalists agreed or strongly agreed, 50.0 percent of news sources, and 17.8 percent of the public.

Though 75.3 percent of journalists surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that it is part of their news organizations mission to help people understand how news works, only 28.4 percent of them agreed or strongly agreed that their news organization explains who its journalists are and what they do.

The full report can be found on the News Co/Labs website.

The News Co/Lab, located at ASUs Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is a collaborative lab aimed at helping people find new ways of understanding and engaging with news and information. The Center for Media Engagement is dedicated to helping media organizations meet their business and democratic goals.
We are pleased that research continues to demonstrate that pressure-based compression driven by real-time indicators, deliver optimum mammographic compression for better exam quality and patient experience

Enabling personalized compression for better quality mammograms without unnecessary discomfort for patients, Sigmascreening announced that more than 100,000 women received optimum mammographic compression with the Sensitive Sigma Paddle. Sigmascreening will showcase the technology at the upcoming 104th Annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting, November 25-30, 2018. (South Hall #4129).

Sigmascreening also announced that a study accepted for presentation at RSNA demonstrates the impact of a real-time pressure indicator during mammographic exam acquisition. The study, Mammographic Compression Variability Increased after Removing Real-Time Pressure Indicator, (SSE23-05; Monday 3:00-4:00 PM), will be presented by Monique van Lier, Clinical Application Scientist, during the Physics Breast X-Ray Imaging Session. The Sensitive Sigma Paddle attempts to standardize the compression procedure by introducing pressure-based compression using a paddle equipped with a real-time pressure indicator. In the study, researchers evaluated the impact on compression practice when replacing the pressure-based paddle with a conventional paddle without pressure indication in a group experienced technologists.

Results showed that after removal of the pressure indicator the average compression pressure and variance significantly increased, leading to more unfavorable over- and under-compression. The proportion of compressions in the pressure range 5-15 kPa decreased from 87.4% to 77.9%. The proportion of high pressures (>15kPa) nearly doubled (11.0% to 18.8%) and low pressures (<5kPa) more than doubled (1.6% to 3.3%). The results suggest that when removing the pressure indicator, compression variability increased rapidly, indicating that an indicator is needed to maintain compression reproducibility.

To get the best image quality during a mammogram with the least amount of radiation, the breast needs to be flattened or compressed with a reasonable and repeatable amount of pressure. However, lack of standardization can lead to variability in compression. Under-compression can lead to blurred images, more retakes and a higher average glandular dose (AGD), while over-compression causes discomfort and unnecessary pain for the patient

Based on breast-size and tissue-stiffness, the Sensitive Sigma Paddle calculates the pressure to achieve an optimal compression range and allows for a highly reproducible procedure. A real-time pressure indicator provides women more control over the compression of their breasts and enhances interaction between the technologist and the patient about the progress of the compression procedure. This makes communication easier because of the fact that the patient is more involved, making the examination less stressful, with overall better image quality, lower radiation dose and a faster workflow.

We are pleased that research continues to demonstrate that pressure-based compression driven by real-time indicators, deliver optimum mammographic compression for better exam quality and patient experience, said Ivo Aarninkhof, CEO, Sigmascreening. Since the Sensitive Sigma Paddle entered clinical practice, more than 100,000 women have received the benefits  a number that increases by more than 5,000 every month.

About Sigmascreening

Sigmascreening is a medical device company focusing on the development of new innovative products in the area of digital mammography and breast cancer screening. The Sensitive Sigma Paddle is our CE-certified product, based on our patented technology preventing over- and under-compression. We aim to introduce new products that will improve mammography and contribute to the early detection of cancer which ultimately can save lives.

Media Contact:

Chris K. Joseph

+1 510/435-4031

chris(at)ckjcomm.com
"As medical practitioners and entrepreneurs, Rupa and I believe strongly in the power of science education to fuel innovation and improve lives." - Tarun Jolly

Drs. Tarun and Rupa Jolly of Tarun Jolly Enterprises contributed a record-setting $3 million donation to the Isidore Newman School's newly unveiled 30,000-square-foot science and technology building. The new space, which will be called the Rupa and Taron Jolly Science and Technology Building, cost a total of $15 million and features state-of-the-art facilities for middle and upper school science programs with a focus on STEM education.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center estimates that 2.4 million STEM jobs went unfilled in 2018 due to a lack of qualified candidates and a rapidly-growing demand in the industry. The Jollys are hopeful that their Isidore Newman School donation will help prepare New Orleans students for roles in this thriving industry. The building includes nine classroom laboratories and whole floors dedicated to life sciences, applied chemistry and physics and design. Students can also use a Makerspace, with tools available for fabrication and engineering projects. Currently, the Isidore Newman School offers Advanced Placement courses in biology, chemistry, environmental sciences and physics, anatomy, genetics and other elective courses that will be offered in the facility.

"As medical practitioners and entrepreneurs, Rupa and I believe strongly in the power of science education to fuel innovation and improve lives," said Tarun Jolly, M.D.

As a local entrepreneur and physician, Dr. Tarun Jolly has invested in Greater New Orleans-area businesses across multiple industries, including healthcare, outpatient treatment, real estate and hospitality. He also serves on the Board of Directors at the Isidore Newman School, as well as the Dean's Advisory Board for Tulane School of Public Health and the Advisory Board for New Orleans Bionnovation. His wife, Dr. Rupa Jolly, is a dental surgeon and the owner of NOLA Dental Care in New Orleans's Central Business District. The Jollys also have two children who attend the Isidore Newman School.

Learn more about the investments and business ventures of Tarun Jolly Enterprises by visiting https://www.tarunjollyenterprises.com or by contacting their office directly at 504-324-2155. Interested parties may also visit the offices of Tarun Jolly Enterprises at 643 Magazine Street, Suite 402, New Orleans, La. 70130.

Tarun Jolly Enterprises invests in New Orleans area businesses and brings local innovators and investors together through the Emerging Healthcare Collaborative, which is focused on advancing technology in the healthcare industry. In addition to providing educational resources and contributing to discussions on healthcare and entrepreneurship, Tarun Jolly, M.D. also provides lectures and medical trainings on pain management and the opioid epidemic.
TECKpert is proud to announce the companys recognition by the Daily Business Review as Best Internet Marketing Company and Best Web Design for 2018. This marks four straight years that Miami-based TECKpert has taken the honors after earning a spot in the DBR Hall of Fame last year.

TECKpert serves as a digital partner for businesses in South Floridas bustling business, legal and real estate communities. A team of designers, web developers and marketing experts allow TECKpert to guide clients through digital transformations and increase their technological capabilities. Beyond that, TECKpert enables its partners to better connect with the communities they serve and stay ahead of trends in the changing digital world. Their recent redesign of Bercow Radell Fernandez & Larkins corporate website showcases TECKperts emphasis on serving client partners with a tailored blend of design, web development and marketing insight, resulting in a site that is both eye-catching and audience-driven.

Founder and CEO Adrian Esquivel noted that the companys recognition by the DBR is a testament to the success and growth experienced by TECKperts partners over the years. We are proud of the work we do in enabling our partners in the business and legal community to thrive in the increasingly digital-first business world, said Esquivel. Through a comprehensive suite of design, development and marketing solutions, we can tailor our service to suit the specific needs of each and every one of our clients.

TECKpert has long been known for its clean, innovative and functional website and app development, but the companys offerings are much more expansive. The marketing and design team behind TECKperts four straight years as Best Internet Marketing Company offer a wealth of industry-specific knowledge and experience to TECKperts client partners. In recent years, these clients have represented a range of industries including legal, real estate, software, health care, electronics and construction.

In many cases, the best solution for our clients is one that marries elements of our expertise across functions, from design to development, marketing and consulting, said Esquivel. From website development, to strategy and consulting, to full-service marketing campaigns, TECKpert continues serving South Florida businesses with the digital tools and services they need for sustained growth.

View TECKperts work, including the recent redesign of Bercow Radell Fernandez & Larkins corporate website at teckpert.com/our-work.

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About TECKpert

TECKpert enables businesses to undertake digital transformations and leverage the latest in digital marketing, design and website development to serve as leaders in their fields. TECKpert provides a comprehensive suite of design, development, marketing and consulting services to help our partners achieve their business goals. To learn more, please visit http://www.teckpert.com.
My family was evacuated in the middle of the night. The whole community was outside packing their cars. As we were driving away, hundreds and hundreds of first responders were running in. How can we ever say thank you? How can we help those who have lost everything?

The recent Hill and Woolsey Fires in Southern California left a devastating path of destruction, burning numerous homes, buildings and more than 110,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. In fact, the Woolsey Fires destructive toll has surpassed last years massive Thomas Fire, which was at the time the largest wildfire in modern California history.

In order to assist low-income individuals and families affected by the fires, The NALA, a boutique marketing agency, and STARKART, the leader in shopping cart advertising in North America, is donating to the United Ways Southern California Disaster Relief Fund. The fund, created by United Way of Greater Los Angeles in partnership with United Way of Ventura County, will primarily provide longer-term support to help these people rebuild their lives. A percentage of the Fund will also support the American Red Cross immediate response efforts.

If you had not heard of Thousand Oaks, CA before November 7 you know it now. From the tragic shooting that killed 12 to the devastating fires that spread 150 square miles, said Keith H Sonne, Executive Vice President of STARKART and the NALA. My family was evacuated in the middle of the night. The last thing we did was load in our 2-year-old grandson who was evacuating for the second time that day, just as the power went out. The whole community was outside packing their cars. As we were driving away, hundreds and hundreds of first responders were running in. How can we ever say thank you? How can we help those who have lost everything?

To make a direct donation that will help support economically vulnerable victims of the fires, please visit https://www.unitedwayla.org/en/give/disaster-relief-fund/. You can also text 2018fires to 41444, or visit https://app.mobilecause.com/f/23ef/n?vid=4n8t to donate to Ventura County only.

No stranger to giving back locally, EBS supports and is a charity partner with two local charities: Dream With Me Foundation and Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation. Dream With Me Foundation is dedicated to providing students and non-professional musicians of all ages accessibility to vocal and instrumental performance, education and training through scholarships and grants, with no limitation as to education, race or religion. Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation provides financial and emotional support to families of children with cancer living in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties.

EBS has also instituted a collective cause marketing program wherein it encourages businesses across the country to host donation drives during this time of year. It helps Toys for Tots, for example, fulfill its mission every year, which is to collect new, unwrapped toys each holiday season and distribute them as Christmas gifts to children in need. In addition to collecting for Toys for Tots this year, charity partners include Soles4Souls, Operation Warm, The Greatest Generations Foundation, GlobalGiving, Operation Homefront, and StandUp For Kids.

About STARKART

STARKART has the largest shopping cart advertising network throughout the United States and Canada offering grocery cart advertising reaching thousands of consumers. It offers small and medium-size businesses the chance to pinpoint their audience, reaching current and potential customers throughout their entire marketing area.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For more information or media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Xcaret Park received the 2018 Liseberg Applause Award, regarded as the most prestigious distinction in the industry.

Awarded every two years by the board of the Swedish theme park Liseberg, the Applause Award goes to the amusement park whose management, operations and creative achievements have inspired the industry with its foresight, originality and solid commercial development.

"With an original and creative vision, Xcaret developed one of the most authentic and unique park destinations in the world, said Andreas Veilstrup Andersen, president and CEO of Liseberg Group and chairman of the board of governors of the Applause Award.

The park balances world-class experiences, based on native culture and natural attractions, with sustainable operations and a strong commitment to the local community."

Criteria includes displaying: the ability to forecast and plan for future trends; a record of success in introducing new attractions, accommodations and marketing activities; originality in landscaping and creativity in the design and selection of new accomodations; good management practices and human resources; profitability, long-term growth and a sustainable pattern of repeat visitors over several years.

The award was presented at the IAAPAs Attractions Expo  the largest international fair for the amusement park industry  in Orlando, Florida. The other 2018 finalists were PortaAventura World in Spain and Universal Studios in Japan.

Upon receiving this recognition, Miguel Quintana Pali, president of Grupo Experiencias Xcaret, said he was proud to see Xcaret receive recognition for promoting the nature and culture of Mexico. He added that he shares this achievement with the Xcaret family, its partners and Mexico.

SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS OF XCARET

Since opening in 1990 and inspired by Mexico, its nature and its culture, Xcaret developed its own model of tourist recreation. It has received almost 25 million visitors while offering them varied, unique experiences. Xcaret is a symbol of excellence, innovation, sustainability, business ethics and love for Mexico. Its most important achievements include:


Thirty years ago, Julius S.Scott, then a Duke University graduate student, wrote a sweeping, intercontinental dissertation on how slaves, free blacks, sailors, market women, and others, spread word about the 1790 Haitian Revolution and impending emancipation.

But the manuscript was never published. The unpublished work became an underground possession as well as an underground academic sensationrenowned for its creativity, imaginative research and graceful prosefor scholars and students for three decades. Scott, a professor of Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan, has now published it as The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution, and the long acclaimed work will be released by Verso this month.

What were the origins of this book?

I was watching the 1968 Olympics from Mexico City, where [black U.S. track & field stars] John Carlos and Tommie Smith made some important protests. As a young African-American, I noticed other black athletes from Africa, the Caribbean and South America, and I thought about their relationship to Afro-North Americans, and what were some of the important vehicles of communication between black people in different parts of the Americas. That became the basis of my dissertation.

Haitithe worlds first black republic, which freed itself from French slavemastersis the centerpiece of the book. Why did you focus on that country?

I choose the period of the Haitian Revolution in 1790, because that was such an important event that black people across the Americas were interested in. I really wanted to demonstrate some of the ways in which communicationideas, information, news and rumorstraveled from place to place. The Haitian Revolution was good place to make that case.

In the book you refer to the people who spread word of the Haitian Revolution as The Masterless class. What does that term mean?

There was a substantial, important minority of [individuals], defined as enslaved people that I call the Masterless People, Even in slave-based societies there were people who managed to have some mobility. The plantation could not survive if it was isolated. So the people the master sent into town were conveyors of information. They were Maroons [escaped Caribbean slaves], seamen  there were all kinds of people were in this class.

What scholarly books served as inspiration for your work?

I learned from a lot of books. When I was in grad school, all students were required to read Fernand Braudels massive first volume of his history of the Mediterranean. He took a body of water and looked at the ways in which different societies that had access to that body of water, interacted over time. And I remember thinking at that [someone] could write a Caribbean history like this. That book taught me how settings and boundaries were important, in terms of the history I would right. There was also Georges Lefebvres book, The Great Fear of 1789, which was about how news of the French Revolution traveled from place to place. C.L.R. James The Black Jacobins [a history of the Haitian Revolution] was also important.

So you wrote a groundbreaking work of scholarship. What led to it not being published?

Someone I met at a conference just after grad school suggested that I send the dissertation to a small publisher. I did, and two weeks later, they sent me a letter that said that it was too narrow and specialized for them. That threw me. I later sent the dissertation to Oxford University Press. They offered me a contract, which I signed, but they sent me some readers comments that suggested different things for me to do with the dissertation.

Part of the problem was that I was not committed to one place: I wasnt a U.S. historian, or a Jamaican historian. I included all of those places. I studied archives in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, England and France. I could read and speak Spanish and French, but I also wanted to learn Dutch and Danish [to study the other islands in the Caribbean], but that would have taken more years to write. I set an agenda for myself that was far too ambitious. Eventually, I put the dissertation aside. I had a job, and I left it at that.

How did you find out that your work was an underground sensation? What led to the dissertation being published?

I started getting royalty checks every year from the people who make dissertations available in print. I realized it was being sold [laughs]! People were reading my dissertation and learning something from it. About a year ago, I got a call from my former graduate assistant, saying Verso Press was interested in publishing it. I couldnt believe it! Initially, I didnt want to dredge up those failures from over thirty years ago. My life had changed: I went on dialysis, Im on disability. But I went ahead and published it, and Im glad I did. Im proud that my dissertation had such a profound effect on people.
Religion scholars and academic publishers gathered in Denver, Colo. for the joint annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) from Nov. 17-21. While fewer scholars attended compared to last years meeting on the East Coastwhere numbers tend to be higher because of greater accessibility for European and other international academicsattendance was up 0.3% from 2016s meeting in the Midwest, clocking in at 9,427. The number of exhibitors was up nearly 9% compared to the 2016 meeting. In a time where flat is the new up in publishing, its good news all around, SBL executive director John Kutsko told PW.

SBL has several ongoing projects to provide resources for scholars, journalists, and others outside of the academy, including the development of databases and websites that offer access to the best religion scholarship. The goal, Kutsko says, is increasing public engagement with religion. SBL also is about to launch a 30-year review of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Alice Hunt, AARs new executive director, debuted at this years conference. She reported that membership is 7,670, a 6% decrease from last year. When asked about new initiatives, Hunt said: "We are focused on increasing membership benefits. We have added resources, like JSTOR, for our members. And we are looking at ways members can engage their many publics."

AAR/SBL is the most important academic conference of the year for scholarly religion publishers, serving as a place to not only sell books, but to meet with existing and potential authors as well as colleagues at other houses. Several editors referred to the exceptional sessions available at this years gathering, including a panel of religion reportersfrom the New York Times, Time magazine and other publicationswho discussed the need for a better connection between scholars and the media.

Another session explored issues surrounding the controversial Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., which has been criticized for portraying itself as a nonsectarian institution while communicating an evangelical Christian point of view. Speakers included Candida Moss, co-author (with Joel Baden) of Bible Nation: The United State of Hobby Lobby (2017).

Books on faith and political activism have proliferated in the era of Trump, including Faith in American Public Life (Baylor, 2019), Burying White Privilege (Eerdmans, Dec.), and Social Democracy in the Making by Gary Dorrien (Yale, Apr. 2019). Titles are also surging on social justice, immigration, and the deep division between political parties today, such as The Church of Us. vs. Them, coming from Brazos in July 2019. Says senior acquisitions editor Robert Hosack, I did not know how relevant it would turn out to be.

Other trends include a push for more academic titles from women and people of color, several publishers told PW. We are intentionally looking for diverse voices and womens voices, said Stan Gundry, senior v-p and publisher of Zondervan Academic.

Liturgical Press continues its feminist Bible commentary series with three new volumes this year; it also will publish In the Mysterys Shadow: Reflections on Caring for the Elderly and Dying (Liturgical, June 2019) by Susan Swetnam, a retired college writing teacher and author who draws on her work as a massage therapist in hospices, as well as the experience caring for her dying husband. We are interested in getting a lot of female voices, says Tara Durheim, associate publisher of the press.

Baylor University Press has a particular emphasis on books about faith and disability and is adding to its nine-book backlist on the subject with Wonderfully Wounded by Brian Brock (fall 2019) which offers a theology of autism. Press director Carey Newman also says he is turning more acquisitions efforts to books from U.K. and German authors.

UNC Press is adding to its list of books on Islamic studies, which executive editor Elaine Maisner called a "solid area." And the subject remains strong at Yale as well, with From Victims to Suspects: Muslim Women Since 9/11 by Shakira Hussein publishing in February. "We are investing in these books and are actively trying to do more," said Jennifer Banks, executive editor at the press.

Next years annual meetings will take place in San Diego from Nov. 23-25. The event will continue to be a partnership between AAR and SBL, as the learned societies recently signed a rolling agreement through 2031.
All the smoke from the fire has dropped into the valley so air quality is unhealthy and we are staying inside as it looks overcast, but it is actually gray smoke, he wrote of the Camp Lake blaze. Ironically, stiff winds were needed to blow the smoke out of his valley, yet high winds caused the rapid spread of the fire.
A Project Appraisal Document published by the bank said that, the a collective contributive factor to the sectors low competitiveness is due to its assets and potential demand, the near absence of public sector strategic intervention and lack of resources.

The bank said its project called The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to improve the performance of tourism in targeted destinations in Ghana.

The project will trigger economic transformation through jobs, local enterprise and investment, all of which depend on how many tourists visit, how much time they spend in the country, how much they spend and what they do in the destination.

The facility is the first which the World Bank has initiated to the tourism, arts and culture sector in the history of Ghanas relations with the Bretton Wood institution and its (the facility) ultimate purpose is to encourage an increase in foreign exchange earnings related to an increase in the volume of international tourist arrivals and

It (the facility) has been structured to enable the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, in collaboration with the relevant ministries and agencies, to initiate long overdue changes in such sectors as Aviation and Immigration, whose activities have a direct bearing on the fortunes of the tourism industry.

The project has four main components, namely strengthening tourism enabling environment ($15 million), developing tourism sites and destinations ($15 million), tourism enterprise support program ($5.0 million) and project management ($5.0 million).

The Ministry has therefore estimated that at least, 2,500 people will be needed to be trained annually to fill the gap of 10,500 receptionists, housekeeping and restaurant staff required to cope with the demand growth.

In addition, the ministry projected that, as these number of people are given the opportunity to develop their skills, the most disadvantaged workers can move beyond insecurity into more stable, higher-paid employment.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  Ombudsman Samuel Martires has filed a criminal complaint against lawyer Edna Batacan before the Quezon City prosecutor's office for allegedly paying off investigators to get information on her client's cases.

He accused Batacan of violation of Article 212 of the Revised Penal Code or Corruption of Public Officials.

In his complaint, Martires said Batacan herself admitted she paid off Ombudsman employees during her interview for the Ombudsman post with the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) in June.

"Under Art. 212 of the Revised Penal Code, Atty. Batacan should be held liable even if the money was demanded by the officials of the Office of the Ombudsman and Atty. Batacan's offer was not made voluntarily prior to the demand by the officials," the complaint filed on November 20, 2018 read.

During her JBC interview, Batacan accused Ombudsman investigators of demanding what she called a "parking fee" for prosecutors to fast-track cases.

Aside from corruption, Martires also accused Batacan of violating Section 36 of the Ombudsman Act, which imposes a fine on any individual who obstructs or hinders any function of the Office of the Ombudsman. Batacan apparently ignored invitations from the Ombudsman to attend clarificatory hearings on her "parking fee" allegation.

"The deliberate refusal of Atty. Batacan to cooperate with, and provide sufficient details to this Office impedes the proper exercise of its function to investigate the corruption committed by the officials and employees of the Office of the Ombudsman as she has revealed during the JBC interview," Martires said.

If her allegations are proven true, Martires said Ombudsman employees will be liable for direct or indirect bribery.

When asked for comment, Batacan said she has yet to see a copy of the complaint.

She said she chose not to attend the classificatory hearings since the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction over her.

"Nirequire niya ako umappear before yung low ranking na director...bakit ako aappear dun eh wala naman kayong jurisdiction sakin?" Batacan said.

Batacan said she has reached out to Martires by phone and explained her side so she is not sure why he still filed the complaint.

"Aba syempre stand by ako sa sinabi ko, totoo naman talaga yun," Batacan said.
1) Even after Thanksgiving, there are opportunities for you to stuff your face. Put your gluttony to the test at Daisies, where you can opt for the new Feed Me tasting menu. A bar snack, a few seasonal starters, four or five pastas, dessert and a fruit bar are all included, and honestly, what better way to get to know a local restaurant than by eating through its menu? $45/person with an additional $25/person for beverage pairings. 5-10 p.m. Sunday. 2523 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-661-1671, daisieschicago.com
In a statement which calls for a boycott of the event, the Antenna hitmaker charged Nigerians to fight against the self-hate agenda spreading across Africa.

According to him, the narrative of what a real beauty is has nothing to do with bleaching. He said we (Africans) are okay with our melanin.

He captioned a screenshot of an invitation card Blac Chyna shared on her Instagram page, inviting her Nigerian fans to attend the event and purchase her skin-lightening product:

Lagos, I hope you are NOT going to this!! It's time to fight against self-hate agendas in Africa. We are ok with our melanin and are changing the narrative of what real beauty is and it's certainly not bleaching our skin to be lighter...we must continue to love ourselves as Africans. Lots of love to my Nigerians always.
The comic actor disclosed in an interview that he was unaware of the intentions of those fraudsters at the time he was involved.

When he was asked about how he got involved in their illegal activities, he stated that his father was among some privileged people who owned a computer at the time.

The actor said Growing up, my age mates were exposed to internet fraud. This internet scam. My dad was enthused with new technology. So we had a computer at home. I could say my area we were one of the few guys that had a computer.

READ MORE:AJ Nelson speaks about artistes on his 'Africa Rise' albumAJ Nelson speaks about artistes on his 'Africa Rise' album

The actor later revealed that fraudsters started approaching him for assistance which he offered.

Some of them actually walked up to me to tell me, this thing you are doing do you know you can earn more money from it? Gradually I started parading with these kinds of guys . he narrated.

Kalybos reckoned that he finally got to a recognized that he was being used by the fraudsters to carry out their illegal actions.
Organizers of the event, as well as government, announced earlier this year that the country will host the 2018 edition of the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA).

In an interview, Catherine Afeku refused to disclose the budget for this years awards.

I dont think it is appropriateThat is so lame, she replied to the question of the cost.

The minister asked that the host of the show focuses on the celebration of the awards rather than the cost to taxpayers.

This years AFRIMA comes is to be held from November 21 to November 24 with an array of activities across the country.

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However, sources said that the event may have to be canceled due to the governments failure to fulfill its contractual obligations.

Catherine Afeku stressed in a media briefing on Monday that monies had been released to the Planning Committee for the event, thus, Ghana was ready to host the rest of Africa unlike others felt they wouldn't be able to.

Presently, Africas biggest music awards scheme, AFRIMA, organized by the AFRIMA Secretariat in Nigeria with the collaboration of the African Union (AU), has been hosted by Nigeria for the past four years.
According to reports the suspected cultists invaded the village last Thursday, November 15 and abducted the poor little boy.

Yabaleftonline.ng reported the boys 47 year old Agadi Ajeh as saying his family were asleep on the fateful day when they heard the victim screaming for help as he was being whisked away by the abductors.

He said they woke up and mounted a search for the youngster only to find him about two kilometers away from their home in his own pool of blood, with his eyes plucked out.

Spokesperson of the state Police Command, ASP Samaila Usman who reportedly confirmed the incident said the boy had earlier informed his parents about a threat by some people to pluck out his eyes, but they failed to report the matter to the police.
Peter Adeda, according to Yabaleftonline.ng, allegedly committed the barbaric act on Oyetayo Olafisoye Street, Westwood Estate, Badore, Ajah.

The poor victim is reported to have pointed at her father as the one who had perpetrated the sexual assault on her, as she described her ordeal.

In a statement regarding the incident, Police Public Relations Officer, Chike Oti is reported to have said that a medical report confirmed that there was a penetration of the victim.

He added that the state Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohim has directed that the matter be referred to the Gender Section of the Nigerian police for further investigation and a possible investigation.

The Gender Section is also investigating one Abdullahi Garuba, a 58-year-old security man attached to Oshodi Isolo Local Government Area secretariat, for allegedly defiling two minors.

Troubled started for Garuba when concerned citizens, who couldnt understand what business he had with little boys that trooped in and out of his security post which also doubled as his residence, leaked information to the mothers of two little boys, ages 13 and 11, when they saw them coming out of his abode, at 2pm on Saturday, November 10, 2018.
The Minoritys spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, said the countrys current debt stock means that every Ghanaian, including unborn babies, owes GHc5,798.

READ ALSO: Free SHS shouldn't be free for all - Tony AidooFree SHS shouldn't be free for all - Tony Aidoo

He accused the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of increasing the public debt from GHc 122.2 billion in 2016 to GHc 170.8 billion in 2018.

According to him, the Akufo-Addo governments handling of the economy is substandard and unacceptable.

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According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Ghanas population, as of 2016, is 28 million. Mr Speaker, in terms of debt at the time, Ghanas public debt was GHc 122.2 billion, Mr. Ato Forson said while debating the 2019 Budget in Parliament Tuesday.

If you are to calculate the per capita, it means that an average Ghanaian at the time owes GHc 4,334.53 but as of 2018, according to GSS, Ghanas population would be, by the end of the year, 29.4 million. In todays terms, every Ghanaian, within 18 months, including a newborn baby, owes GHc 5,798. Mr Speaker, this is unprecedented, this is too much, he added.

READ ALSO: Fake John Mahama UMB cheques to be investigated by BNIFake John Mahama UMB cheques to be investigated by BNI

He said the Akufo-Addo government has been over-borrowing in the last 12 months, insisting GHc32 billion has been added to Ghanas public debt.
I have said on many occasions, I am not a Dagomba and, I, therefore, cannot be an Andani or Abudu. I have no candidate for the office of the Ya Na. That is a matter for the people of Dagbon", he said.

His only interest, he said, is to see the area flourish and prosper in peace, as the choice of who becomes the next Ya Na is the sole preserve of the chiefs and people of Dagbon.

The President said this at a meeting with the Asantehene-led Otumfuo Mediation Committee handling the Dagbon chieftaincy stalemate.

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I am just an ordinary Ghanaian who wants to see the peace, progress and prosperity of all parts of our beautiful country without any discrimination or differentiation.
The creation of the new region has divided opinion among persons in the Volta region, with some calling for it, while others have also strongly kicked against it.

The government, though, has already facilitated moves to go ahead with a referendum to decide whether or not the creation of the Oti region should hold.

However, a section of the Voltarians appear unenthused by the idea, with some reportedly threatening to stop the referendum.

Speaking ahead of the voting process, the Volta Regional Police Commander, DCOP Francis Doku, said the Police is ready to deal with any troublemaker.

He said the Police will team up with the military to ensure that the referendum goes on successfully.

You and I know that very soon a referendum will be held to determine whether or not we should have a new region out of the existing Volta Region. We know we can count on our colleagues from the military to give us the necessary backing, DCOP Doku said during the launch of the operation Father Christmas in the Volta region.

The task ahead is so high basically because were receiving threats from people who do not want the referendum to come on. But as we have vowed to ensure that there is peace and security, I know you will work with all your might, body and soul. When the history of Oti is written, youll forever be remembered.

READ ALSO: Kweku Adoboli narrates what led to his conviction and deportation

Earlier in March, hundreds of residents in Ho in the Volta region hit the streets on Wednesday to protest the proposed creation of the new Oti region.

The youth in the regional capital came out dressed in red and black attires with several placards in hand communicating various messages.

Some of the placards read: Volta needs development, not division, Dont insult our intelligence Mr., One Volta, one people, Dont take our tolerance for our weakness and Save Volta now!, among other messages of discontent.
"Our boss is like, well, we should be treated with more respect because that's what usually happens when an artist goes to a gallery," said Tufano, noting that Trotter also called him an (expletive) idiot for not offering to get him a drink on a 7-Eleven run, offered a female student $500 if she got a Charlie Trotter tattoo and repeatedly asked Johnson whether he was gay.
According to the Regional Police spokesperson, DSP Irene Oppong "The Regional police command is confirming that there was a shooting incident at Moree Tollbooth involving a policeman who shot at a private car on Sunday 18th November 2018."

DSP Oppong added, however, a lady in the car "got injured by a fragment from a broken windscreen."

READ MORE: Policeman injures woman as he fires at car over 50 pesewas toll

An eyewitness told Accra-based Citi FM that the driver of the private car who failed to pay the road toll did not do so intentionally.

He said that the driver who was travelling from Cape Coast to Accra, received an emergency call from his boss at work when he got to the Moree tollbooth. In answering the call he forgot to pat the 50 pesewas toll.
Ireland

When he met President Akufo-Addo, Mr Hoy recounted how the President had, as the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), urged him to support the Electoral Commission and provide international observers for the 2016 elections.

Hoy said he was excited that together with other members of the European Union in Ghana, the request was granted and Ghana conducted free and fair elections.

He also expressed happiness that Irish investments in Ghana had grown tremendously, especially long-term businesses such as Guinness Ghana and some oil concerns.

Hoy, who is based in Nigeria but with concurrent accreditation to Ghana, said Ireland and Ghana had also signed double taxation agreements with the view to building trade relations between the two countries.

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President Akufo-Addo, responding, commended the outgoing Irish Ambassador for scaling Ghana-Irish relations, especially in trade, and expressed the hope that Ireland would open a permanent mission in Ghana.

He said Ghana had benefited immensely from Irish generosity of several generations of missionaries who provided education, health and Christianity.

United Nations

For her part, Ms Evans-Klock said she was proud that Ghana and the UN were able to develop the UN Sustainable Development Partnership, a five-year strategic framework that sets out the collective vision and response of the UN system to national development priorities.

That partnership, she said, was anchored on the Presidents vision to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The outgoing envoy said the UN would continue to partner Ghana towards the realisation of the SDGs, which also translated into Ghanas vision in the area of education and skills training for the youth.

Ms Evans-Klock said a Ghanaian peacekeeper had been honoured for her work in Somalia and that was in keeping with the Presidents effort at championing gender equality.

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She commended President Akufo-Addo for his personal role in offering the late UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, a befitting burial.

President Akufo-Addo, for his part, said since 1957, Ghana had consistently been an active supporter of the UN and that was why successive governments had ensured that Ghanaians played a critical and frontline role in finding peace in the world.

He said it was a high moment for Ghana when Kofi Annan, whom he described as "a worthy man", was elected as the head of the world body and served the world very well.

He said the UN system had also supported Ghana in its socio-economic journey, electoral body and election processes and the strengthening of Ghanas role in international affairs and urged her to inform her successor to continue with the good work she had commenced.

Switzerland

When Mr Dugly took his turn, he said Switzerland and Ghana shared long and close excellent bilateral relations and regular political contacts, coupled with impressive economic relations.

He described Ghana as one of the few priorities of the Swiss economy for development cooperation programmes and assured the President of his countrys strong commitment to move towards "a partnership beyond aid" where aid would not substitute private investments but capitalise them.

He mentioned the launch of the Swiss 2017-2020 strategy for Ghana and the bilateral understanding for the establishment of the platform of sustainable cocoa which was aimed at strengthening the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the cocoa sector in Ghana.

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President Akufo-Addo, in response, said although Mr Duglys stay had been short, it had been associated with a myriad of achievements and commended him for a successful tour of duty.
He said his administration will cater for all NDC supporters across the country, therefore, people in the Volta Region should see him as one of their own.

I will represent their interest and will ensure that they are well catered for. They should see me as their son from another mother and that they will not be left out as many perceive, he said.

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There is no 'Voltarian' amongst the national executive members..., she lamented urging the party to subject the outcome to deep thinking.
He said in the unlikely event that Ghanaians vote for Mahama in 2020, it would be a disaster for the nation.

According to him, Ex-President John Dramani Mahama has nothing new to offer Ghanaians and that he is apparently an old wine in new bottles.

The Minister said this on Accra based Peace FM on the prospects of Mahama being elected as the flagbearer of the NDC.

READ ALSO: Here are all the newly elected NDC national executives

It was timely and it was divine that, in 2016, the good people of this country spoke the way they did. If it hadnt happened that way, I wonder where this country would find itself . . . There is a lot of hope ahead of us. We cannot afford to go back and bring President Mahama and NDC to come and mess up our whole world for us, he said.

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According to him, the government will be better off using the funds to improve the countrys infrastructural deficit.

READ ALSO: Obengfo Hospital declared illegal by Medical and Dental CouncilObengfo Hospital declared illegal by Medical and Dental Council

Mr. Ofosu Kwakye said capacity should not be a problem because there are many churches in the country that boast large auditoriums for programmes.

He, therefore, opined that the only reason why the government is bent on constructing the National Cathedral is to court votes from Christians by appealing to their emotions.

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With the greatest respect to the President, I dont think a Cathedral is the most important thing in our lives at this time. We have many churches in the country with some of the most fantastic auditoriums. The Church of Pentecost has this huge auditorium somewhere in Kasoa, and that is where we held our Youth and Womens conference. There is no church service that you cannot hold there, there is also the lighthouse, he said on Citi TV.

At the heart of all this, is an attempt by the President of the country to appeal to the religious fundamentalists as a way of getting votes at the elections so that people are not thinking rationally about the matter, but rather they make emotional and fundamentalist arguments. What is it that this country stands to benefit from the National Cathedral? he added.

His comments come following the Finance Ministers announcement that government will provide see money for the construction of the project.

Reading the 2019 Budget in Parliament, Ken Ofori-Atta disclosed that the state is facilitating this process by providing the land, the Secretariat, and seed money for the preparatory phase.

READ ALSO: Oti Referendum: We are ready for troublemakers  Police warnsOti Referendum: We are ready for troublemakers  Police warns

Last year, government revealed plans to construct a National Cathedral to serve as a national non-denominational Christian worship center.

In March this year, President Akufo-Addo went ahead to unveil the design and architecture for the National Cathedral at a brief ceremony at the Accra International Conference Centre.

However, governments decision to put up the Cathedral has been criticised by certain quarters who believe it should not be a priority when other sectors are badly in need of an uplift.

The concerns deepened after it emerged that government will have to demolish buildings including residences of judges to make way for the construction of the Cathedral.
Alhaji Muhammad Rimi, the Executive Director of the state Pilgrims welfare board disclosed this at a news briefing on Wednesday in Katsina.

The aim of collecting the hajj deposits is to enable the board commence early preparations of 2019 hajj operations.

NACHON gave the directives to pilgrims welfare boards nationwide to avoid unnecessary bottlenecks that will hinder successful hajj operations in 2019 he said

The director called on all people in Katsina state wishing to perform 2019 hajj exercise to obtain a certified Bank Draft of N300,000 as initial deposit.

He said that the intending pilgrims were free to start the deposit from November 2018 to March 2019.

Rimi said that prospective pilgrims are also free to pay the initial deposit in a certified bank draft payable to Katsina state pilgrims welfare board from a recognised commercial bank.

All intending pilgrims should pay their deposit in the Boards seven zonal offices and nobody should pay cash.

The intending pilgrims should come along with them an indigene letter, E-passport, Certified Bank Draft of N300,000 and a guarantors letter.

All intending pilgrims must have a guarantor who will stand as surety against absconding from returning to Nigeria.

All female intending pilgrims must have a Muharram (a male escort) who will sign a consent form duly sworn at a court of law,  he said

The director appealed to intending pilgrims to duly approach their zonal offices in Katsina, Daura, Funtua, Malumfashi, Kankia, Mani and Dutsinma inorder to make their deposits.
In an exclusive chat with Pulse, Kosoko said he keyed into the movie after he got the script which preached the values he believed in.

I believed so much in the issues the script was preaching and I was happy keying into the movie as one of the players. Also when I checked the lineup of the crew and cast, I realised they are all professionals, tested and trusted, hence, I am happy being part of the movie," he said.

On Jide Kosoko's role in 'Power of 1'

'The Meeting' actor was happy sharing his experience on the set as well as the role he played in the movie billed for release in December 2018 ahead of the holidays.

He said, I played the role of a governor, who believed in a particular thing, which is the ability of individuals to decide for themselves. The abilities of individuals to contribute towards ensuring a proper change.

"It was fun on the set of 'Power of 1' and as I mentioned earlier on, I knew I was working with professionals who have been tested and trusted when I saw the cast and crew.

Why I am identifying with 'Power of 1' - Jide Kosoko

On his thoughts about the movie, Jide Kosoko said the advocacy movie is one of the few movies he will identify with for the message.

He said this was important because of the current state of the country and preparations towards the general election in 2019.

One of the strong messages is that individuals should believe that they can contribute towards positive change using one power which means individuals have that single power with which they can make that change positively for the society, for themselves and for the people close to them," Kosoko told Pulse.

'Power of 1' stars Ramsey Nouah, Alex Ekubo, Annie Idibia, Jibola Dabo, Jide Kosoko, Racheal Oniga, Michelle Dede, Padita Agu and many more.
While it was easy to write off Burna Boy a year ago, much has been said about him this year, as he bounced back heavily onto the scene. From the release of his album ''Outside'' to the global reception of his hit single, 'Ye', 2018 has featured Burna Boy's name prominently in the news and this time, it has been for the right reasons.

Sometime in October, Burna Boy took his 'Life On The Outside' tour to the Brixton Academy in London stage, where the video of the audience singing along as he performed 'Ye' immediately went viral online and sparked wild reactions from his fans.

Just before the show, Burna had an interview with Beat FM London, where he spoke about his music, Afrobeats and why he does not care about the numbers.

''I never really plan things, I just go with the spirit,'' he says on the release and success of his ''Outside'' album, following a troubled 2017 where he did not put out any project.

He was then asked how he felt about the commercial success of 'Ye' based on streaming numbers and he instantly responded, ''I don't care about numbers, I don't even want to talk about numbers.''

He then went further to state, ''Why don't you care more about music? Why do you care about numbers, do you listen to numbers, do you get any feelings when you look at numbers?

Why do you have to measure with numbers, you should measure with things like how many lives I have touched orhow many songs that have inspired people... that is what you should measure with, not numbers.''

Burna earlier in the year during an interview with Radar Radio addressed the classification of Nigerian music, in particular Afrobeat and Afrobeats, and he insists that there is no such thing as Afrobeats.

''The thing is really sentimental because my family plays a role. When you say Afrobeat, I know what Afrobeat is, it is not what you are hearing today, that's not Afrobeat. Afrobeat is one person and one person only and that is every other person does Afro-pop or whatever but not Afrobeat.''

On the name Afrobeats coined from the UK

''The Uk has no input in Afrobeat whatsoever. Let me make myself very clear the UK has no influence in the creation or naming of anything that has to do with Afrobeat roots or beginnings. The UK is a place that accepted Afrobeat and Afrobeat inspired a lot of the culture.''

More than ever before, 2018 has witnessed not just a high number of top heavy collaborations between international artists and African acts with many seeking to associate with the trending Afrobeats sound but also more African acts in the UK jumping on the wave and Burna is of the opinion that African artists in the UK need to come back to the continent to realise themselves first.

''100%, being here and doing Afrobeat, what tree are you going to climb, a tree with no roots or the one with solid roots. If you are here doing it and you don't go back, you don't know who you are, so you don't know what you are doing in the first place, so you have to go and see, understand and become, I speak for myself.''
Adeyi, who was abducted in 2016, was killed by the kidnappers who allegedly dumped his body in a farm near Otukpo.

According to Punch, the two surviving gang members were found guilty and sentenced by the Makurdi High Court.

The four kidnappers were arrested by a police unit led by ACP Abba Kyari, but two died.

ALSO READ:Catholic priest kidnapped for the 2nd time in 10 months in Delta

Responding to the verdict of the court, Kyari said Glory be to God Almighty, the kidnappers and killers of Rev. Fr. John Adeyi of Otukpo Diocese Benue State, whom we arrested in 2016 after a serious manhunt in Bauchi, Benue and Enugu states have been convicted and sentenced to death by hanging by the High Court in Makurdi, Benue State. Justice has been delivered to the kidnappers and killers of the innocent man.

My unit, IRT has recorded her first death conviction since inception in 2015," Punch reports.
Donohues is that kind of place and New York and every big city used to have plenty of them before high rents, haute cuisine and hip trends did most of them in. A few remain and here you can still walk into such places as Twin Anchors in Old Town or Vito and Nicks on the Southwest Side and feel immediately cozy. But you can no longer visit such bygone spots as Elis the Place for Steak or Schallers Pump or whatever your neighborhood home away from home might have been.
In a video, she is seen speaking to herself while motorists drive their vehicles carefully to avoid more damage.

A person who shared account of the incident suspects Yahoo boys might be responsible for the woman's condition.

"The cause of her fresh madness is unknown but people are already putting it on Yahoo boys (Yahoo Plus). Well it might be Benz, it might be drugs, it might be Igbo in her head."
Just last year, the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resorttopped charts of hotels to visit in 2018 because of its completely submerged five-star restaurant, Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, which can be turned into a private overnight suite at an extra cost. The restaurant, with its idyllic scenery, was deemed to make customers forget about food.

Now, the same resort has launched The Muraka  a unique three bedroom, two-level residence that sits above and 16-feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean. The Muraka at Conrad is the world's first ever underwater hotel residence.

The Muraka was built on land in Singapore and brought to the Maldives via ship. The residence was then lowered into the water and nailed into place with concrete pylons, that ensure the residence doesn't shift during tides and rough waves.

If you happen to score a night at the Muraka, you have access to a private gym, a bar, an infinity pool, butler's quarters, an ocean-facing bathtub, unparalleled view of the ocean from the comfort of your bed, along with the typical components of a hotel room. The Muraka is also connected to the rest of the resort which include the underwater restaurant, and the relaxation deck on the top floor which is above water.

Well, all this will cost you a cool $50,000 per night! Which sounds pretty, pretty exclusive, especially when you're getting a personal chef and private boat, as well as automatic Hilton Diamond status.

If you're interested in following the theme, you could also explore the worlds first underwater art installation in Maldives.
As opposed to previous generations, more men are looking to date women who have their priorities in order, have goals, aspirations and dreams that they're not scared to pursue openly and aggressively.

Our article here already teaches how to be that kind of woman. What's left to note is that men who would date these kind of women have to have their minds on an elevated plane. If you are basic or archaic in your outlook to life, relationships, marriages and gender roles, you may not succeed in being with this special kind of women.

So, to date a woman who is a career-driven and has unwavering goals set in front of her, here are five important rules to be aware of.

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1. Encourage her independence

This is the biggest rule in the book and it will take a very secure man to achieve this so in essence, this is the rule that requires to become as secure in yourself as you can possibly be! It is a given, when someone works really smart towards something, theyll achieve great success at it.

This means that you need to be cool with the idea of your woman being bigger than you or being just as big, rich and famous.

Celebrate her for it, and be genuine about it. Respect her schedule, allow her be great, allow her free reins to get at it. You need to be very very secure for this to happen.

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2. Be there for her always

It also important for you to remember that no matter how career driven she seems, at the end of it all she is still a woman your woman. And she still needs you to be available for her.

She will still need a safe place to fall apart, to vent and to unleash her negative emotions. Be that strong foundation when she tumbles. Be that source she is constantly drawn to, and that is when she will feel at home.

3. Dont expect those daily meals

Actually, what this means in a broader context is you should not expect a traditional relationship. The whole of your relationship with this kind of woman is largely untraditional and forward-thinking in comparison to what a great number of Nigerian relationships look like, even in this 2018.

She wont be the one waiting at home with a buffet on the table every night, she wont be the babe who baby sits you and tracks all your movements or waits on you at every minute. And you have to be very cool with that.

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4. Be thick-skinned

Especially in African societies like ours where there are still so many backward thinkers and traditional approaches to marriages and relationships, you would need to become tone deaf, thick skinned and absolutely blind to all the discordant views in order to maintain this kind of relationship.

Truth is, therell likely be so many of them. So, be prepared to ignore as many of these views in order to keep your relationship with your woman intact

What matters most in any relationship is the flourishing understanding between the two major players. Every other person is an outsider, and as this article correctly states, their opinion is secondary.

Be involved in achieving those goals. Get in. Learn about what she does. Wrap your head around it as much as you can. You cannot support what you do not know about.
Lt. Adekunle Adeyemi-Akinleye, Acting Assistant Director, Army Public Relations, Depot Nigerian Army/Nigerian Military School, disclosed this in a statement in Zaria, Kaduna State and advised residents to keep-off the shooting range area.

He said: Annual Range Classification is a routine activity aimed at assessing the proficiency of the troops on their weapons handling.

The exercise will involve firing of live ammunition using small arms. The authority has put in place safety measures and precautions to ensure a safe and hitch-free exercise.

However, residents of Dogarawa village are advised to stay away from the ranges general area within the scheduled period.
Shettima said this in a statement issued to newsmen by his media aide, Isa Gusau on Wednesday, November 21, 2018.

Jonathan, on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, launched his book titled, My Transition Hours in Abuja.

In the book, the former President reportedly said that the Chibok girls kidnapping was used against him in 2015.

In April 2014, over 200 female students were abducted from the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State by Boko Haram.

Chapter four

Speaking on the former Presidents narration of the Chibok girls issue which he said is contained in the fourth chapter of his book, Shettima accused Jonathan of refusing to make public, the findings of the committee set up to investigate the abduction of the girls in June 2014.

The Governor said The former Presidents elementary book of tales fell short of the courage required of him to publish findings by his own panel in chapter four of his book.

The whole of Tuesday night, I took the pains of reading His Excellency, former President Goodluck Jonathans book, My transition hours, from the first to the 177th page. I took particular interest in chapter four (the Chibok school girls affair) which has 42 paragraphs written on pages 27 to 36.

I was amused that despite admitting in paragraph 15, that he had (in May 2014) constituted a Presidential Fact-Finding Committee under Brigadier General Ibrahim Sabo and many others to investigate the Chibok abduction, former President Jonathan refused to mention any part or whole of the findings by that panel which had submitted a highly investigative report submitted to him on Friday, June 20, 2014 after the panel held investigative meetings with the then Chiefs of Defense Staff, Army Staff, Air Staff, the DG, DSS and IGP, met all security heads in Borno, visited Chibok, met with parents of abducted schoolgirls, met surviving students, interrogated officials of the school and the supervising ministry of education, interrogated officials of WAEC and analyzed all correspondences.

President Jonathan has refused to make public the findings submitted to him. I was expecting the findings in his book but he has deliberately swept that report under the carpet.

What has become very clear is that the former President decided to sit on facts in his custody while he published, in an elementary standard, a book of fiction designed to pass guilty verdicts to anyone but himself, with respect to the open failures of his administration to rescue our daughters and in tackling the Boko Haram challenges.

The governor stated that by refusing to publish any part of his own panels findings on the Chibok abduction, Jonathans book was nothing short of a presidential tale by mid-day

Ex-minister accuses Jonathan

Also, a former minister who served under Jonathan disagreed with his version of what happened when he called to concede defeat to Buhari.

The former minister alleged that the former President had plans in placeto obtain a court order to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from announcing the result of the 2015 presidential election.

The impression the former president is trying to create is that the people came to tell him not to concede. In truth, Jonathan was being persuaded by a former south-south governor not to concede, so some ministers were quickly invited to come and counter them.

ALSO READ:Abdulsalami thanks Jonathan for conceding defeat in 2015

What would Okonjo-Iweala, Adoke and Chidoka be doing at the villa at that time if not that something was going wrong? Is Jonathan trying to say he was not involved in Elder Godsday Orubebes attempt to disrupt the announcement of the results? Is Jonathan trying to claim innocence of a plot to secure a court injunction to stop INEC from further announcing the results? Jonathan needs to be a man of honour, he added.
According to Punch, the former President said the Presidents media trials worsened Nigerias corruption index.

Jonathan said this in his book, My Transition Hourswhich he launchedon Tuesday, November 20, 2018.

He said You should never try to slander your political opponent by destroying your countrys economy. Capital flight intensified and companies started laying off staff. In all this, I hope a lesson will be learned. If you embark on digging a hole for your enemy, you better make it shallow because you might end up in the hole yourself.

How do you attract investors you already repelled through your utterances? Investors are an ultrasensitive lot. Money runs away from unstable societies.

Adding that The sundry accusations by the new administration will appear to have baited the media. Media trials are entertaining but have little or no effect in fighting corruption and improving the economy.

Since I left office, rather than improve on our TI corruption perception record, the situation has worsened with the nation going 12 places backward, becoming number 148 according to the latest CPI ranking for 2014, from 136 in 2014 when I was President.

ALSO READ: Jonathan says Obama humiliated him by interfering in 2015 elections

It was bad enough that Boko Haram insurgency continued killing people and ruining businesses but what is worse is when politicians downgrade the economy by de-marketing the country internationally.
The affected governors included Dave Umahi (Ebonyi); Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia); Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and deputy governor of Anambra Mr Nkem Okeke while Rochas Okorocha was yet to arrive the venue of the meeting as of the time of filing this report.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, was also seen heading towards the presidents mini conference hall, venue of the meeting.

NAN reports that even though the agenda of the meeting was not made public, the Southeast Governors Forum had told newsmen in Abuja that the governors would discuss national and regional issues with the president at the meeting.

The Director-General of the Southeast Governors Forum, Prof. Simon Ortuanya, who revealed on Monday, disclosed that the meeting would discuss the pressing needs of the geopolitical zone.
Reno Omokri, a well-known critic of the Buhari administration had alleged that the Next level campaign logo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was copied fromDr. Kelly M. Costner, an Associate Professor and Next Levels Project Coordinator in Winthrop Universitys Rex Institute, United States.

Next Level is a campaign slogan for the Presidents 2019 re-election bid.

Bashir Ahmad reacts

Ahmad in a mail sent to Pulse, said the issue should not be about the logo.

He said If you observe the official LOGO released by the PMB/PYO campaign team which appears on the policy document and in adverts you would notice that it is nothing close to the Rex Institute logo.

That remains the official logo for the Next Level. The other logo which is similar to that of the Rex Institutes being circulated is an adaptation and has been shared widely by supporters of the President. It however isnt the official logo, like I said, it is an adaptation.

The issue should go beyond the logo in fact, but should dwell more on the message, this is what we strongly believe.

PDP asks Buhari to apologise

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its reaction to the plagiarism allegation, called on Buhari to apologise to Nigerians.

The partys spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan also said that the Next Level document is full of bogus claims.

He said The shameful plagiarism by the Buhari Presidency has further sunk him into self-inflicted public opprobrium, from which he has not recovered since the demonstration by Nigerians, that he does not have his acclaimed West African Examination Council, WAEC, certificate and had to procure an attestation, which Nigerians also discovered to be a forged document.

The PDP is however not surprised that President Buhari, in his desperation, can go as low as patronising plagiarism and false credit claims, since it is clear that he lacks the competence to initiate and articulate an original blue print for leadership; the reason our nation has been in dire strait in the last three and half years.

A perusal of President Buharis 2019 campaign document reveals that apart from the stolen logo and mantra, the document is replete with false claims, spurious projections and unsubstantiated figures in the bid to again beguile Nigerians ahead of the elections.

President Buhari has over time shown that he cannot be trusted. He heads the most corrupt administration in the history of our nation.

The PDP charges President Buhari to immediately show remorse, apologize to Nigerians and prepare to accept defeat as the people are not ready to vote for any leader that has demonstrated a proclivity for falsehood, forgery and incompetence in governance.
A statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Edo Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr Crusoe Osagie on Wednesday noted that preparations were in top gear to give the president a grand reception.

Osagie added that the president would also attend the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Annual Conference to hold in Benin, the Edo capital within the same period.

We are delighted that the President will be in the state for the Chief of Army Staff Conference, the commissioning of the Edo-Azura Power Plant and other engagements in the state.

The impressive governance model by Gov. Godwin Obaseki is one of the reasons we are having August visitors from the Federal Government.

We are also delighted that the president is coming down by himself this time, he said.

He said the state government was pleased to have the president commission the project, which he described as a shining example of the states attractiveness to investors.

The Edo-Azura Power Plant is a success story in the states drive to keep investors and has become a model for other states in the country.

We are very much delighted that the president will be here to commission the facility.

This will be the second time, we are having a visit from the Presidency in less than six months and it shows we are doing something right.
Rex Institutes Next Level program

A quick look at the Rex Institutes website shows something similar to that Next Level logo that was used in Buahri's campaign document.

The Institutes website states that The Rex Institute is a service-oriented organization within Winthrop's Richard W. Riley College of Education that serves, facilitates, and supports faculty and College of Education initiatives that involve internal and external collaboration, partnership, and outreach.

It also states that the purpose of its Next Level program is to:

(1) Shepherd the Agenda for Education in a Democracy.

(2) Build and maintain the Winthrop University-School Partnership Network.

(3) Foster collaborative inquiry and teaching.

(4) Promote ongoing professional learning for faculty and community partners.

Reno Omokri raises alarm

Reno Omokri, the former new media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan had earlier raised an alarm that the Next Level logo was copied from Dr. Kelly M. Costner, an Associate Professor and Next Levels Project Coordinator.

Omokri made the allegation on Twitter on Monday, November 19, 2018.

He said @MBuhari spent 83 million promoting his #NextLevel agenda on the front pages of ALL Nigerias major newspapers, but forgot to tell those papers that he stole the Next Level from Associate Professor Kelly Costner. I urge all #LazyNigerianYouths to retweet.

Change Begins With Me incident

In 2016, Buhari was also accused of copying part of former US President Barack Obamas speechwhich he read when he won the elections in 2008.

The Change Begins With Me campaign was launched on September 8, 2016.

See the lines that were reportedly copied below:

"A new spirit of service, of sacrifice, of patriotism, of responsibility" - Obama.

"A new spirit of responsibility, of service, of patriotism and sacrifice"  Buhari

"Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long" - Obama.

"Let us all resolve to pitch in and work hard and look after, not only ourselves, but one another. We must resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country for so long  Buhari.

Blame the staff

Reacting to the allegation of plagiarism, the Presidents media aide, the mistake was made by an overzealous staff.

He admitted that paragraph nine in the speech was similar to Obamas 2008 victory speech.

Shehu also said "President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered that prompt and appropriate disciplinary action be taken against those responsible for a wrongful insertion in his speech delivered on September 8, 2016 at the launch of the 'Change Begins with Me campaign."

Consolidation

Meanwhile, Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina,while speaking on Arise TV on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, said that the Next Level campaign is all about consolidating on the achievements of Buharis administration.

He said The Next Level is about deepening what is happening in the country. Its about consolidating on what has been done and what is being done; its about making progress and advancing on what we are doing now. That is the sum total of it.

A lot of Nigerians believe in what this administration is doing, they have faith, they have confidence, they have hope that the administration will take Nigerians to the place it deserves to be.

The work in progress will continue and if you look at the documents that were released, youll see additional focal areas.

So in the next dispensation and by the goodwill of Nigerians who will re-elect the current administration, these three focal areas (security, economy and infrastructure) will continue to receive attention and there will be additional ones as youve seen in the documents.
Brewing Up Chicago cannot serve beer. But it does a very good job making sure the actual beverage gets a starring role here. In a series of placards we learn that Chicago brewing began with ales, because they were easiest to make. Then came the lager styles favored by the Germans. As brewing professionalized, more lagers came along, and the American style moved toward lighter and clearer versions than youd find in the homeland. Later still in the century, the golden, easy-drinking Czech pilsners came along  think Budweiser or PBR as versions thereof  and came to dominate American beer to this day.
The Public Relations Officer of the service, Mr Peter Afunanya, said in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday that the suspect was arrested on Nov. 9 by a joint DSS and Military team.

Afunanya said until his arrest, he operated a medicine store and regularly treated wounded kidnappers or their victims.

He added that the suspect had been linked with 13 high profile Boko Haram Commanders on the wanted list of security agencies in the country.

The spokesman said that the service has also arrested four members of a gunrunning syndicate while two members of the group, Bitrus Badung and Emeka Obi were still at large.

The suspects are: Kim Dung, a local AK-47 rifle fabricator, Hubert Akubulo, aka Okafor, Chidi Stanley and Elochukwu Oguabia.

It would be recalled that a member of the syndicate, Dare Okunwola, aka Boda, had earlier been arrested by the joint team in Jos.

He said that during the operation, 1,163 rounds of ammunition were recovered from the group.

Afunanya said that the service had also arrested a notorious suspected kidnapper, Muhammad Musa, aka Zara while perfecting plans to kidnap a lawmaker and a prominent personality in Kaduna and Kano respectively.

He said that the suspect was arrested on Nov. 7 at Mararaban-Jos, also in Igabi local government area of Kaduna state.

The spokesman said that the service also arrested a suspected member of the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), Umar Nuhu, who was a close associate of Liman Maitukwane, current leader of Ansaru group.

He said that the suspect was arrested on Nov. 13 at Rafin-Guza, Kaduna State by the joint team.

The spokesman said that the group was responsible for several attacks on Military Bases in the North- East.

He said that the service on Nov. 16 arrested five suspected members of a kidnap and cattle rustling syndicate at Gumel, Jigawa while on transit.

The suspects are: Shuaibu Shehu, Abdulkarim Dauda, Adamu Usaini, Umar Adamu and Usaini Shede.

Afunanya said items recovered from him are one AK-47 Rifle, one locally made Pistol, two military uniforms, 64 cows, four donkeys, some rams and two machetes.

He said that the service would sustain these efforts aimed at ridding the country of all forms of criminality.

Every law abiding person is enjoined to be patriotic and volunteer useful information that will help accomplish this task, he said.
Ezekwesili made this known in an interview with CNNs Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday, November 21, 2018.

The ACPN presidential candidate vowed to also continue her advocacy till all the Chibok girls are released.

She said A research we had at the World Bank showed that those communities where this menace thrive need to be engaged.

We will provide jobs so that people will be busy and get paid.

Second, my government will completely overhaul the security system. We need fresh hands and people who will end this problem.

Third, we must also improve of our intelligence gathering with cutting edge technology in order to be preemptive and proactive.

Ezekwesili also called on Nigerians to reject the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019.

ALSO READ:Ezekwesili kicks against presence of security chiefs at APC rally

According to her: I was the one who fixed public procurement system. I am not a stranger to the politicians. They know me.

I know how to deal with them by blocking all loopholes where our collective wealth are siphoned.

I wont be fazed by the strength of the political class. 2019 is a contest between those who have not delivered and the rest of us. Even the other candidates know I am better.
The former governor took to his Twitter account on Wednesday, November 21, 2018, to express his concern about the wanton loss of lives of soldiers to terrorist attacks.

He faulted the government's approach towards fighting the group and dismissed the federal government's rhetoric that the group has been 'technically defeated'.

He posted, "I'm deeply concerned with the way our soldiers are being killed by the Boko Haram insurgents. It is obvious that something is not right with the FG approach to the fight against the insurgents and it is time that we face the reality that Boko Haram is not technically defeated."

The former governor's concern comes in the wake of reports that Boko Haram jihadists killed 53 soldiers and farmers in three days of attacks in Borno State.

According to security sources who spoke to AFP, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram splinter group, killed at least 44 soldiers in attacks on three military bases last weekend. They also launched a pre-dawn attack on a base in the town of Gajiram while also killing nine farmers in Mammanti village.

President Muhammadu Buhari famously claimed in 2015 that the terrorist group had been technically defeated. However, the group has killed thousands of Nigerians in countless attacks that have been carried out since then, rendering the president's declaration a hollow one.

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This year, ISWAP has intensified its attacks on military bases to kill soldiers and loot weapons. The group also kidnapped 113 students in Dapchi, Yobe State in February before returning 107 of them one month later after negotiations with the government.

Of the remaining six, five have been reported to have died while one, Leah Sharibu, remains in captivity for failing to renounce her Christian faith.

The terrorist group also recently executed two aid workers it had previously abducted this year because the government failed to keep a line of communication.
The programme is to guide UNIDOs programme/projects interventions in Nigeria during the period; build on the cumulative achievements of past Country Programme implemented by Nigeria/UNIDO; and to strengthen synergies by collaborating with other development partners, state and non-state actors, including the private sector.

Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister, Industry, Trade and Investment signed on behalf of the Federal Government, while Mr. Li Yong, the Director-General, UNIDO signed for his organisation.

The new country programme, the second in the series of UNIDOs support to Nigeria, is aligned to the priorities of the Federal Government as outlined in the Nigerias Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan.

It covers industrial governance, research and statistics; Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise development; Special Economic Zones, Industrial Parks & Private sector development; innovation science and technology management.

Other key areas covered are agro industry and agribusiness development; minerals and metals development; trade capacity building; renewable energy development; and environmental management programme.

Enelamah, who expressed gratitude of the Federal Government and his ministry for UNIDOs collaboration said the programme was designed to build on the cumulative achievements of the past Country Service Frameworks and Country Programme implemented by UNIDO.

He said that UNIDO was encouraged by the success of the first Country Programme which paved way for the new programme.

He listed some of the achievements of the first programme, which ended in June 2018, as:

Answering questions on the direct impact of the programme on Nigerians, he explained that, among other benefits industrial development means creation of more job opportunities.

The minister promised effective collaboration with UNIDO for the success of the programme, which will enhance the implementation of the ERGP which started well and for which concerted efforts are being made to ensure it ends well.

Earlier, Yong said that the signing of the agreement was important for Nigeria as the country strives toward achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 which focuses on building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation.

He promised that UNIDO will collaborate with the ministry to mobilise funds and resources required to successfully implement the programme.

Welcoming the Yong earlier on, the Minister of State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Alhaja Aisha Abubakar, said his acceptance to personally come for the signing ceremony, even at short notice, underscores the strategic place Nigeria has in UNIDOs agenda for eradication of poverty and inclusive growth.
Obasanjo was in Sokoto to attend a two-day Nigeria Zero Hunger Forum hosted by the state government.

The former president said Gov. Tambuwal deserved commendation for his governments commitment in making a huge investment for the development of the state.

There are many parts of the world where conference centres, the like of what we are seeing here, have become one of the sources of revenue, so why not us?

When you have a conference centre of international standard like the one we are commissioning today, you will surely attract much development.

Participants of national or international conference will not only be at the conference centre, but also go round the state, learning about the nature of the state as one of the worlds historic places, Obasanjo said.

Gov. Tambuwal called on the people vested with the responsibility of maintaining the Centre to do so with dedication and care, to maintain its purpose.

He said the project for the construction of the centre was awarded by the past administration in the state, but the contractor was not mobilised for the commencement.

So it is the present administration that mobilised the contractor to the site; to start and complete the project for commissioning today.

The contract was initially awarded at the cost of N428 million, but after commencement of work in 2015 we saw the need for a more elegant and result oriented conference facility.

Hence the decision by the government to expand the scope of the project which includes 740 metres access road and a car parking area.

This also includes galleries, childrens play area, computerization of the cyber cafe and expansion of the auditorium to accommodate 1200 delegates at a time, which increased the cost to N705 million, he said.

Earlier, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, thanked Obasanjo for coming to the state to attend the forum and commissioning of the centre.

Abubakar said that the centre would attract more events to the state as well as the northwest region.
Adikwu took up a life of crime after he was dismissed as a Constable from the police force.

Nine police officers and 24 others lost their lives when a group of at least 30 armed robbers attacked Union Bank, Eco Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, First Bank, Zenith Bank and Ibolo Micro Finance Bank, as well as the Owode Police Station in Offa on April 5, 2018.

Adikwu, a former operative of police unit, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), allegedly confessed to killing at least 22 people during the robbery attack.

The Force Headquarters of the Nigerian police broke the news of Adikwu's death to the office of the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Kwara on Tuesday, November 20.

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The Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Kwara State, Kamaldeen Ajibade, disclosed the information as five suspects connected with the Offa bank robbery were arraigned before an Ilorin high Court.

Ajibade told the court that there would be an amendment to the charges preferred against the accused persons in light of Adikwu's death.

Adikwu reportedly led operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Teams (IRT) to arrest members of his gang in Kwara, Oyo and Kogi states, after the robbery. He was said to have killed the police officers watching over the banks, on the day.

Amending charges

Attorney General Ajibade informed the court that the reason behind the amendment of the charges was that the principal suspect, Adikwu, had made confessional statements to the police before his death.

He therefore urged the court to grant an adjournment to enable his office effect necessary amendment to the charges.

ALSO READ: How police arrested Offa robbery suspects

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In a brief ruling, presiding Judge, Justice Halimat Salman, agreed with the state Attorney General that there was the need to effect some changes in the charges preferred against the accused, in view of the reported death of the principal suspect and lack of legal representation for the accused persons.

She therefore adjourned the case to November 30.

The suspects that were brought to court on Tuesday were Ayoade Akinibosun, Ademola Abraham, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Niyi Ogundiran and Salahu Azeez.

The court did not take their pleas because of the new developments.
The resolution was sequel to a motion by Rep Raphael Igbokwe (APC-Imo) on the kidnap of four reverend sisters in Delta, at a plenary presided over by Speaker Yakubu Dogara.

Igbokwe, who represents Ahiazu-Mbaise/Ezenitte Federal Constituency of Imo, described the spate of kidnapping in Delta as worrisome.

According to him, several persons have been kidnapped, including four reverend sisters of the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) Congregation near Agbor, Ika South Council of Delta.

The House is disturbed by the increasing rate of kidnapping and attack on the clergy and religious leaders across the country.

The House is aware that if the kidnapped persons are not rescued, it might lead to loss of lives of the affected persons and heighten religious tension, he said.

The lawmaker, who noted that the development was becoming unbearable, said an attack on these men of God is an attack against God; an attack on Imam is an attack against God.

House Leader, Rep Femi Gbajabiamila (APC-Lagos), who condemned the act, called for a minute silence for those who had lost their lives in the course of the criminality.

I condemn in its entirety any murder of any Nigerian whether a religious leader or anybody, he said.

On his part, Rep Sergius Ogun (PDP-Edo), said it was time Federal Government incorporated the use of technology in the countrys security system.

Technology like the drones, unmanned aircraft, etc, should be deployed to track kidnappers and other criminals, he said.

The Deputy Majority Leader, Ahmed Wase (APC-Plateau), noted that criminal act cuts across religious, ethnic and geographical boundaries.

The lawmaker, who urged the House to be cautious on the use of language, charged the security agencies to redouble their efforts in ensuring security of lives and property.

Other lawmakers who contributed in the debate include Reps Shuaibu Abdulraman (APC-Adamawa) and Eghene Egoh (PDP-Lagos).

When the Speaker, Mr Dogara, put the motion on a voice vote, the House unanimously adopted it.
The former vice president took to his Twitter account (@atiku) on Wednesday, November 21, 2018, to urge Nigerians to refuse to be divided along ethnic and religious lines.

"I am 100% for 100% of Nigerians 100% of the time. Nigerians should never be divided by ethnic or religious lines. We must be united. We are ONE Nigeria," he posted.

In the policy document that he released on Monday, November 19, Atiku said his government would ensure Nigeria's unity by promoting the spirit of co-operation and consensus.

"Nigeria needs a unity that is transparently and collectively negotiated and agreed upon. This is the only way to douse the divisive tension and neutralize the negative elements of identity politics, which create a morbid environment of 'we' against 'them' with its attendant impetus for desperate struggle to control leadership," he said.

2019 presidential election

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While next year's election, scheduled for February 16, 2019, is expected to be keenly-contested between Atiku and President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), they both face competition from other candidates including Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), Obiageli Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC).

Others are Tope Fasua of the Abundance Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Eunice Atuejide of the National Interest Party (NIP), Adesina Fagbenro-Byron of the Kowa Party (KP), Chike Ukaegbu of the Advanced Allied Party (AAP), Hamza Al-Mustapha of the People's Party of Nigeria (PPN), Obadiah Mailafia of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and many more.
Durotoye, a leadership expert, took to his Twitter account early on Wednesday, November 21, 2018 to announce his choice of the law graduate as his running mate. Abdullahi-Iya has an LLB Law degree from the University of Abuja and Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the University of Jos.

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According to Durotoye, she founded a variety of social enterprises and businesses and also sits on the board of a few SMEs. She also possesses over 10 years experience in humanitarian and community outreach programs.

He said, "As the Founder/ED of Beyond Mentors Inc. and Beyond Mentors Community Care Initiatives (BMCCi) addresses and prevents poverty from the cradle, especially in Northern Nigeria. BMCCi has an advocacy arm called the Women community of Africa(WCA).

"She established and launched Rags to Riches (R2R) clubs 8 public schools in Kaduna and Abuja extended to out of school programs (IDP Schools) in collaboration with Life Builders Initiatives another NGO in Abuja & has grown to over 181 members.

"Khadijah's objective is to keep finding innovative ways to add value to communities advocating for literacy through fun learning from the cradle, which earned her an award for Excellence; for promoting quality Education In Nig, from the Civil society Action coalition on Education. Her life's goal is to chart a legacy through social impact.

"Khadijah hails from Bida, in Niger state and was born in Kaduna to Alhaji Audu Bida, popularly known as Alhaji Audu Kongila & Hajiya Aisha Sherriff Usman."

Durotoye had disclosed in May that he was actively searching for a female running mate because he believes in empowering women as it is a great way to create a better society.

He said his choice of running mate would be a woman who is quite capable to become president in the event something happens to the president.

He said, "I believe in women. I believe in not only giving women opportunities but support to women and I believe that when you support women, more than half of your society, you can only have a better society.

"So women are not less than men but equal partners to men and, more importantly, if you empower that group of people, you'll have an amazing society.

"The gender distribution and gender balance policy that we have is a 50-50 gender balance and there is a very strong chance that, if everything goes the way I would like it to go, my running mate will be a woman.

"I have been very clear and we're currently in the search for a female vice presidential candidate who will not be chosen just simply because she's female, but she'll be competent to be a president should anything happen to the president.

"That tells you the kind of way I feel about women; I think women should be given the greatest opportunities to do great things."

2019 presidential election

The 2019 presidential election, scheduled for February 16, 2019, is billed to be closely-fought between President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of the People's Democratic Party (PDP).

Alongside Durotoye in the chasing pack is Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Oby Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), and Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC).

Others are Tope Fasua of the Abundance Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Eunice Atuejide of the National Interest Party (NIP), Adesina Fagbenro-Byron of the Kowa Party (KP), Chike Ukaegbu of the Advanced Allied Party (AAP), Hamza Al-Mustapha of the People's Party of Nigeria (PPN), Obadiah Mailafia of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and many more.
The tag "clueless", stuck to Jonathan like a second skin throughout his reign. Now, the former president is pushing back on that sobriquet.

Jonathan has been telling his story in a book he launched on Tuesday, November 20, 2018.

The book is titled My Transition Hours.

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No one can factually say we were clueless or inept. The evidence of performance is simply overwhelming. We gave Nigeria an impressive and steady GDP growth rate at 6.7 per annum, Jonathan wrote.

'APC tells blatant lies', Jonathan says

The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) often cites the inheritance of an empty treasury from Jonathan, as one reason why it has under-performed on the job thus far.

Time and again, President Buhari who succeeded Jonathan, has pointed at the slump in the price of oil and the refusal of the Jonathan administration to save for a rainy day, as factors that led Nigeria into a recession soon after he assumed the reins.

But Jonathan says the APC is simply a victim of its own propaganda machine.

Recall that the opposition and their sympathizers and campaigners, both local and international, with their malicious propaganda, tore our economy to shreds, threatened our stability and existence as a nation and intimidated our citizens, all in the bid to take over power, he wrote.

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Rather than forge a coalition and build on the momentum we had gathered when they eventually took office, they went on a persecution spree and vengeance mission. That the country slipped into recession soon after we left office was a self-inflicted injury caused by misplaced priorities. The narrative of inheriting empty treasury is a blatant lie.

Also, the excuse of the collapse of world crude prices does not hold water. This is because the Fourth Republic took off in 1999 with crude oil selling for less than $20 per barrel and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at 0.58 per cent, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures. Yet, the economy maintained a steady growth from that year, peaking at 15.33 per cent in 2002 when the average crude oil price was about $25.

It is also instructive that the oil and gas sector constitute about 11 per cent of our GDP. There had to be a wider causative factor than just the fall in world crude prices.

It also amounts to standing facts on their heads to continuously claim that recession was caused by so-called mindless looting. The truth is that the opposition, in a bid to undo our government, became its own undoing when it got to power, because of the burden of justifying deliberate misrepresentations.

There is wisdom in the saying that if you win a prize and get the crown, dont go around destroying the person who previously held that prize; it will lose its value.

Even after winning the election and forming the government at the centre, the blame game continued. When two brothers fight to death, it is the neighbour that inherits their fathers wealth. And we have seen neigbouring nations like the Republic of Benin and Ghana reaping from the capital flight out of Nigeria", he added.

Star names in the cabinet

Jonathan pointed at the caliber of members of his team as proof that his administration was neither clueless nor inept.

Just consider that my minister of state for health, Dr. Muhammed Ali Pate, is now a professor at Americas Duke University, as well as a Senior Adviser to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation based in Washington DC. My minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, is now the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Jonathan wrote.

My Co-ordinating minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, is the chairperson of the Board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the African Risk Capacity (ARC). She also sits on the board of Twitter and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, just as she is a Senior Adviser at Lazard and a Director at Standard Chartered Plc in the United Kingdom, amongst others.

My minister of communication technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, is currently chairperson of custodian and Allied Insurance Limited as well as the Global Alliance for Affordable Internet. And it is not just members of my cabinet. Others who served with me in different capacities are also soaring on the world stage.

A good example is Ms. Arunma Oteh, who I appointed the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commissnon (SEC). Under her steady and skillful direction, Nigerias equity market grew in metric proportions, and by the time I left office in 2015, the market had tripled in size to $150 billion in value. Two months after I left office, Ms. Oteh was appointed a Vice-President and Treasurer at the World Bank.

With such personalities on my cabinet, no one can factually say we were clueless or inept.

We were officially cited as the third fastest growing economy in the world by CNN Money in 2014. We eradicated polio and guinea worm and became the first nation in the world to defeat the Ebola virus, such that the then richest man in the world, Bill Gates celebrated us for our prowess in the health sector. We reduced our food import bill by 36 percent.

A hero and statesman?

Jonathan also blamed the United States and then President Barack Obama for his 2015 trouncing at the ballot.

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President Buhari was notably absent at Jonathans book launch, preferring to send a representative instead in Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha.

Jonathan lost the election to Buhari by more than 2.5 million votes, the first time an incumbent would lose a presidential election to an opposition candidate in Nigeria.

Jonathan conceded defeat to Buhari in a phone call long before the electoral umpire called the vote for the opposition candidate.
McCraven describes his music-making process like this. First, he utilizes non-traditional venues to create a more comfortable communal space for each of his different sessions. Musicians come together to improvise. Later, he takes recordings of those improvisational sessions and processes them through the computer using programs like Ableton. Those raw, improvised ideas, source materials and edits later turn into compositional pieces where McCraven transcribes each instrumental part for the live shows. Musicians accompanying him learn those new pieces of music and then use them as a base for improvisation on stage. He'll also record those live performances, give them to DJs and producers who will then remix and make beats out of them. McCraven will learn those as well.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this at the commissions regular meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) held at INEC headquarters in Abuja.

Yakubu said that the monitoring was necessary as campaign for the 2019 Presidential election officially commenced on Nov. 18.

The commission is committed to closely monitoring the campaigns pursuant to our statutory mandate and to ensure compliance with the extant laws and regulations.

We are pleased that the focus in the last few days since the commencement of the campaigns has been on policies rather than personalities. We sincerely hope it remains this way.

Yakubu said that the commission had been working on the clean-up of the voter registers, which made it to recently display the register in all polling units nationwide for claims and objections by citizens.

The objective was for citizens to help the commission to identify any ineligible registrants such as persons below the statutory age of 18 years and non-Nigerians who may have registered as well as deceased persons and multiple registrants.

At todays meeting, the RECs will report on the outcome of the exercise in their various states. We will share this with the general public next week.

We will also discuss with the RECs the progress made on the collection of outstanding Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) by citizens as well as new modalities for a more efficient administration of the collection process.

Yakubu said the meeting would also consider the recruitment and training of election duty staff, discuss the ongoing review of the framework for voting by Internally Displaced Persons (lDPs).

We will explore additional assistive measures in support of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in the electoral process.

We will also examine additional ways to safeguard the sanctity of the ballot against the menace of vote-buying at polling units, appraise issues relating to electoral logistics and assess facilities and preparations for the general election.

Yakubu also disclosed that the list of candidates for the Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would be published in its FCT office as well as the six area councils on Wednesday.

The commission, however, appealed to citizens to check the personal details of the chairmanship and councillorship candidates seeking to represent them for each of the 68 constituencies as a matter of civic responsibility.

Yakubu noted that the submission of nomination forms of candidates for governorship and state assembly elections had closed, saying that the last day for the substitution and withdrawal of candidates for the elections was Dec. 1.

He expressed the commissions condolence on the loss of its four members in Kogi and Edo states, respectively, to road accident.

Similarly, two of our members of staff survived road accidents in Katsina State during the bye-election last weekend and another one suffered a head injury while on election duty following attack by hoodlums in Kwara.

We are deeply saddened by these incidents. While we pray for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives, we wish the injured a speedy recover.
He said this while speaking at the book launch of another former president, Goodluck Jonathan, titled "My Transition Hours", in Abuja on Tuesday, November 20, 2018.

He said, "When all is said and done, there's still no substitute for democracy. It fosters peace and not conflict; it builds and does not destroy; it unifies rather than divide. But all these can only happen if democracy is found as an instrument in the hands of democrats.

"If it is in the hand of those that I call 'hips', hooligans in politics, it can be a dangerous weapon. So, we must avoid hooligans to have access to this beautiful weapon because they can abuse and misuse it."

The book launch was also attended by former Heads of State, Yakubu Gowon and Abdulsalami Abubakar, as well as former vice president, Atiku Abubakar.

Others include Senate President, Bukola Saraki; chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus; chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole; Senator Godswill Akpabio and many more.

ALSO READ:Jonathan says Obama humiliated him by interfering in 2015 elections

Gowon applauded Jonathan for conceding defeat after losing the 2015 presidential election to Muhammadu Buhari.

"Goodluck Jonathan is a good man and when the history of democracy in Africa is written, his name will be etched in gold," he said.
He said Nigerians will not forget the role Buhari played after the 2011 general elections which he lost . His undemocratic tendencies engineered the crisis that later claimed several lives, including some Corps members innocently serving their fatherland.

I, therefore urge the incumbent to prepare his hand-over note, learn a shock-absorber tactics from former President Jonathan should he lose the election in 2019.

Frank also told the President to ready to concede defeat like former President Goodluck Jonathan did in 2015.

Jonathan reportedly called to congratulate Buhari when he lost the 2015 election.

Buhari not ready to hand-over

The former APC spokesman also alleged that the President is not ready to hand-over if he loses in 2019, according to Vanguard.

The change we brought (which I sincerely regret) has turned to chain that has destroyed all the good legacies my older brother Jonathan left behind.

Under APC government today, bloodshed, which Jonathan discouraged is now the order of the day, Killings and corruption are more pronounced than before," he added.

Timi Frank was suspended and subsequentlyrecommended for expulsionafter he was reportedly found guilty of anti-party activities by an APC disciplinary committee.
On a frigid night, the roar of heavy machinery chipping away at rock echoes through Canada's boreal forest: in the far north of Quebec province, four massive hydroelectric dams that will produce "clean energy" for the northeastern United States are nearing completion.

Flowing more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) through the wilderness, the Romaine River in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec is about to hit a literal wall at 51 degrees north latitude with the erection of the fourth and last power station.

From a distance, the bright lights at the site where more than 800 heavy dump trucks, drills and giant backhoe loaders are in use look like reflections of stars in the night sky.

The teams from Hydro-Quebec are working on two fronts.

AFP

They are razing a mountain to make room for the power station. They are also erecting a dike 500 meters (1,640 feet) long and 90 meters high that will hold back the water to be used to generate electricity.

Quebec has a power surplus, so the government is hoping to sell the power produced here to its American neighbors to the south -- and in turn do its bit to help alleviate global warming.

Dangers of dam building

AFP

The construction site extends over several kilometers: there is a full cement factory, an infirmary for workers, offices, a quarry and a dynamite depot.

"This is a major project -- there are many different stakeholders, many simultaneous activities, and many dangers to manage daily," including inquisitive wolves and bears, says Christian Guimond, who is in charge of the dam's construction.

Already four workers have died, which forced the public utility Hydro-Quebec to suspend construction in 2017 while it reviewed its workplace safety practices.

There's now a greater awareness of the risks for workers, said Guimond.

From atop a nearby mountain peak, he points to a kilometer-long tunnel and a ditch built to divert the raging river in order to start construction of the dam itself on the dry riverbed.

The dam is to be completed in 2019.

Costing more than Can$6.5 billion (US$4.9 billion), it is among the top 10 largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Canada, ranking behind two nuclear plant refurbishments, three other hydroelectric projects and a new Toronto subway line.

For residents of the region, the hydroelectric project has been a mixed blessing, creating jobs in a remote and economically-depressed region but flooding the local indigenous people's traditional hunting grounds.

AFP

"I didn't want it at first, but I needed work... when I got my first paycheck, I changed my mind about it," said Gilbert Pietacho, a foreman and member of the Innus of Mingan.

His father, who is also chief of the small tribe that lives on a reserve on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, is a fierce opponent of the project.

The chief has the backing of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, which have decried huge hydroelectric dams as "ecologically devastating."

"It pains me, makes me sad what we're doing to nature," said Patricia Bacon, a 24-year-old Innu who came here to work at the cafeteria in order to pay for her university studies.

"But times have changed -- every house must have electricity now."

Export to US

AFP

Once fully operational in 2021, the four power plants on the river will cumulatively generate 1,550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city or an estimated 1.5 million homes.

Since the 1970s, hydroelectricity has supplied 90 percent of Quebec's power needs.

The new Quebec provincial government of Francois Legault, with the backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has pledged to build even more dams once the Romaine project is completed.

The aim is to export as much power as possible to the United States, saying it would be "the biggest contribution that Quebec could make to the planet."

Other provinces also have big hydroelectric projects on the go, such as Newfoundland's Muskrat Falls, Manitoba's Keeyask and British Columbia's Site C.

Neighboring Ontario, meanwhile, is spending Can$25 billion to refurbish two aging nuclear power plants.

AFP

Pierre-Olivier Pineau, an energy specialist at HEC university in Montreal, expressed doubt after visiting the Romaine project about the need for more power plants, pointing to Quebec's current surplus energy.

"In the northeastern United States, there is a great desire to decarbonize electricity production in New England or New York state, so there is a real opportunity for Quebec," he told AFP.

"La Romaine could provide this renewable energy."
"The mosaic of Apostle Mark has been repatriated to Cyprus from the Netherlands," Cyprus' antiquities department said in a statement.

"The walled mosaics of Panayia Kanakaria, dating back to the sixth century AD, are highly important works of art and among the few remaining early Christian mosaics in the world," the antiquities department said.

Dutch art investigator Arthur Brand tracked down the mosaic in Monaco after a nearly two-year chase across Europe.

It was handed over to the Cypriot antiquities department and the Church of Cyprus during a private ceremony Sunday in The Hague.

Dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world" because of his exploits to recover stolen works, Brand won world fame in 2015 after finding two massive bronze statues made by Nazi sculptor Joseph Thorak that are referred to as "Hitler's Horses".

He told AFP the Cypriot mosaic depicting the Byzantine saint "was in the possession of a British family, who bought the mosaic in good faith more than four decades ago".

"They were horrified when they found out that it was in fact a priceless art treasure, looted from the Kanakaria Church after the Turkish invasion," he said.

The family agreed to return it to Cyprus in exchange for a small fee to cover restoration and storage costs, Brand said, adding that the relic was worth five to 10 million euros ($5.7 to $11.4 million).

The Byzantine-era mosaic, believed to have been made around 550 AD, was one of many that adorned the walls of the Panayia Kanakaria church northwest of the capital, Nicosia.

According to the Cypriot department of antiquities it was "violently detached and stolen from the church, between 1977-79 by the Turkish looter and art dealer Aydin Dikmen" along with other mosaics.
The motion passed with 215 in favour, 161 against and 24 abstentions in the 460-member lower house of parliament.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Poland in October to "immediately suspend" its decision to lower the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65.

The disputed law had required more than a third of current Supreme Court judges to step down, including Poland's Supreme Court chief justice Malgorzata Gersdorf.

Presidential aide Andrzej Dera told Polish media on Wednesday that the unusually quick passage of the legislation was the result an "agreement by the government with the ECJ in order for Poland to avoid paying penalties."

The Luxembourg tribunal, could impose fines if it finds Poland in breach of EU law. It is yet to make a final ruling on the case.

Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government had previously defended the controversial April 3 retirement law as part of reforms to tackle corruption and overhaul a judicial system still haunted by the communist era.

But PiS MP Marek Ast, who submitted the draft legislation to parliament on Wednesday morning, said it reverses the retirement law, in compliance with the ECJ ruling.

'Systemic threats'

"In accordance with the expectations of the ECJ... if the law comes into force, the affected judges will be able to return to the Supreme Court on the same terms (of employment), as if they had never left," Ast told Polish media.

To take effect, it must also pass in the Senate and be signed by PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda.

However, the need for parliament to change the legislation has been called into question. Legal experts believe the ECJ ruling itself is enough to reverse the retirement law.

Supreme Court Chief justice Gersdorf asked 23 of the court's judges to return to work just days after the ECJ ruling.

Calling the law a "purge", Gersdorf had refused to step down, citing a constitutional guarantee that she serve a six-year term until 2020.

The ECJ's ruling on the Supreme Court retirement law took place within the context of a broader battle between Brussels and the PiS government over the sweeping judicial changes it has introduced since taking office in 2015.
If the situation remains the same, and people do not return to their fields, ... "it means that yes, in very few years we will have a famine in Central African Republic," she said.

"We are not talking about 10 people. We are talking about hundreds of thousands" at risk, she said, pointing out that several regions have already reached level 4 in terms of food insecurity -- just away from famine.

Thousands have been killed and a quarter of the population has fled during violence triggered after President Francois Bozize, a Christian, was overthrown in 2013 by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, triggering Christian militia revenge attacks.

The UN's World Food Programme warned earlier this month that CAR was facing the worst situation of food insecurity in four years, with nearly two million people in urgent need of food aid.

Fresh data from the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, meanwhile showed Wednesday that 2.9 million people -- 63 percent of the population -- require aid and protection.

"The world cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening in the CAR. We are back to square one," Rochdi said, deploring "despicable attacks" which are "taking a huge toll on the lives of innocent men, women, boys and girls."

In the past three weeks alone, more than 50,000 people have been impacted by violence in the northern town of Batangafo and in the central town of Alindao.

Two sites hosting displaced people in those areas were also torched, OCHA said.

"As humanitarians, we continue to scale up emergency response assistance, but in these two towns we have to do it from scratch as our achievements have been lost," Rochdi said.

One of the world's poorest nations despite a rich supply of diamonds and uranium, the CAR has struggled to recover from the 2013 civil war that erupted when Bozize was ousted.

In response, Christians, who account for about 80 percent of the population, organised vigilante units dubbed "anti-Balaka" in reference to a local machete.

Rochdi called for a halt to the violence and for the government, armed groups and the international community to help avoid a "catastrophic scenario".
New Zealand poet Sam Hunt isnt the sort of fellow who remembers stuffy, up your ass kind of poetry.

At 72, Mr Hunt says that for him, poetry is simply an extension of who the poet is.

The iconic poet told RadioLIVEs Graeme Hill that a poem will stick around in his head when it truly knocks his socks off.

You cant forget some, Mr Hunt said, reciting lines by Polynesian and Peruvian poets to the Weekend Variety Wireless host.

One of Mr Hunts favourites, called The Collar-bone of a Hare by WB Yeats, is one of those that he simply cant forget. It stays there tapping, he admitted, laughing. Tap, tap, tap.

The poet emphasised that remembering poetry isnt about painstaking memorisation, but rather, carrying beautiful ideas like a well-packed suitcase on a long journey.

When [a poem is] part of your luggage, in your head and in your heart, its great, Mr Hunt told RadioLIVE. You can travel light.

Mr Hunts latest selection of poems, titled Coming To It, combines old favourites with dozens of new poems.

Listen to the full interview with Sam Hunt above.

Weekend Variety Wireless with Graeme Hill, 8pm - midnight Saturdays and Sundays, streaming live on 'rova' Channel 9 and podcasts available on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

RadioLIVE.
A CONTRACT worth 1.5 billion to supply 94 tube trains to Transport for London has finally been signed by London Underground and Siemens, which was named as preferred bidder in June.

TfL said: The initial order is for 94 trains and an associated Fleet Services Agreement covering the supply of spares and whole life technical support. This has been awarded with the expectation that Siemens Mobility will build trains for all four Deep Tube lines  the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo & City. Creating a single train design will allow TfL to maximise cost savings through greater standardisation of train operations, staff training, equipment, spares and maintenance.

However, it was a similar statement in June, implying that further contracts would go to the same bidder, which was challenged by Bombardier and Hitachi.

The High Court has overthrown their objection, and the signing of the contract means that a 200 million factory to build the trains will now be constructed at Goole in East Yorkshire. It is expected to create 700 jobs.

The first tranche of 94 air-conditioned trains is for the Piccadilly Line, where the present rolling stock dates back to the mid-1970s and is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Plans published earlier this century had originally envisaged a replacement fleet for the line by 2014.

The first of the new trains should be delivered in 2023, and enter service the following year. London Underground intends to reduce headways on the Piccadilly Line to 135 seconds, stepping up the service from 24 to 27 trains an hour, when all the new Inspiro London' fleet is available.

London Underground managing director Nigel Holness said: This order will mean the replacement of the 1970s fleet, and will help address crowding on the line as London's population continues to rise.'

Further batches of new trains for the Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo and City lines are due to be ordered later. The Bakerloo fleet is the oldest in service on London Underground.
You can see these tensions on full display in the new production at Drury Lane, directed by Alan Souza, whose last endeavor here was Joseph. Anything but relaxed, this tense, invulnerable show fights many of the fantasy aspects of the title: There is no storybook castle, relatively little humor and only minimal romance. With the exception of the terrific Bri Sudias Mrs. Potts (a real bright spot), few of the characters ever smile  even Cogsworth the clock (Nick Cosgrove) and Lumiere the candlestick (Tony Carter) mostly are serious souls. Mark David Kaplan, who plays Maurice, fights this mood, but hes often undermined. There are some momentary exceptions. But the show takes its main cue from the cover art on the program, an image dominated by gilded darkness.
ITALY: A framework agreement for Stadler to supply Lombardia regional operator FNM with between 30 and 50 battery-equipped 140 km/h diesel multiple-units for use on Ferrovienord services was signed in Milano on November 21.
The slate includes a North Queensland-based adventure series for online audiences from Mad Dan Productions called Blood Sisters. Written by Anthony Mullins (The Strange Calls), Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road), Daniel Mulvihill and Madeline Dyer, the thriller follows three teenage girls on the run, bonded by death and linked by truth.Character-driven comedic horror series Gnomes from The Two Jons is written by Tegan Higgenbotham (pictured), the writer, comedian and actress known for Oddball, and Paul Verhoeven (Steam Punks). Created by Joel Kohn and inspired by his viral short film Gnomes Attack, he is producing the series along with Richard Kelly (Shaun Micallefs Mad as Hell) and John Molloy (Molly).Also in line for story development funding is the six-part teen drama The Gathering from Asphodel Films is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by author Isobelle Carmody. Written an directed by Nicholas Verso, the series follows a group of disillusioned teens discover they have been chosen to battle a centuries-old evil simmering within their small town. Co-writers include Craig Irwin and Kodie Bedford (Grace Beside Me, Mystery Road ).The new development guidelines have now been in action for five months. We drastically reduced eligibility barriers and will now fund projects for any screen platform. Weve had a fantastic response from the industry and the number of applications were receiving per week is steadily increasing, said Nerida Moore, head of development at Screen Australia. As well as innovative and exciting projects from established practitioners, we are starting to see new and emerging voices from around Australia coming through. In this funding round Im particularly delighted to see so many emerging female writers.Of the 16 projects receiving funding, 11 were funded through the Generate fund, two through the Premium fund, and three were funded through the now defunct legacy development programme.
Google has expanded its OTT YouTube Premium service to Chile, Colombia and Peru, joining Brazil and Mexico in the subscription services Latin American footprint.





The YouTube Premium monthly subscription is charged in local currency, but totals around US$6. A family pack, which allows five users at once, costs about $9 per month.The service includes access to YouTubes original content catalogue, and a music service, YouTube Music. The music service offers ad-free streaming, background listening and the ability to download clips for offline consumption via a YouTube Music app and desktop player. YouTube also said that its prepping more, bigger original series and movies and will expand to further in Europe and Latin America soon.YouTube earlier this year renamed its Red ad-free subscription VOD service to YouTube Premium, and has raising its price to $12 per month in the US.
If the US midterm elections have taught the Europeans a lesson, it is this: The ascent of Donald Trump and his followers is no accident.

It's obvious now that Mr Trump's base is so significant that he is likely to be re-elected in two years. Europe should therefore brace itself for at least two things: Six more years of a Trump presidency, and a lasting downsizing of the transatlantic relationship and a new role for the Europeans in the world.

It is clear that waiting things out is no longer an option. After the Nato summit in July, for instance, contingency plans were widespread. One fallback position was: No more summits as long as Mr Trump is in power. Another was: Let's move things to an operational level between member nations and leave high-level Trump representatives as much as possible out of the picture.

This strategy might have worked as a blueprint to survive four years of the Trump administration - but it is definitely not suited to outlive eight years of Mr Trump. The same is true when it comes to climate change, global trade or security.

Mr Trump's agenda is so different to the one pursued in France, Germany or Britain that Europe has to take its fate into its own hands.

This is not necessarily bad news: Notoriously slow when it has to adapt to new circumstances, Europe can neither hide behind the United States now nor turn a blind eye to the changing global political landscape.

When commemorating the end of World War I on Sunday, Nov. 11, French President Emmanuel Macron made clear what that means.

"Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism," he stated bluntly.

"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."

If Mr Macron's words - clearly aimed at Mr Trump - are to be taken seriously, then Europe has to substantially reverse course. Preserving its moral values means many things: It has to establish itself as a liberal trading bloc playing by rules not dictated by the US, it has to vigorously fight against the forces of nationalism, xenophobia and racism, and it has to re-invent itself as a military power in its own right.

That is - to put it mildly - a tall order.

With Brexit imminent and populists in Italy, Poland, Hungary and other countries on the rise, this would require a herculean effort on the part of just two European leaders - Mr Macron himself and Dr Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.

For the often reluctant Dr Merkel, this could be her opportunity to go down in history as the saviour of Europe. Unburdened from the need to get re-elected and rid of the task of leading her ruling party at home, she could focus more than ever on the problems in Europe. One of the most pressing issues is reform of the voting system within the European Union in which a unanimous vote of all 28 member states is often required to make key decisions. This regulation - dating back to a time when the EU was much smaller - is in effect handing the power of veto to any member, no matter if it is tiny Malta or heavyweights such as France and Germany.

Introduced to safeguard the interests of small member states, the rule is now hindering efforts to move forward in critical and controversial areas.

To achieve what Mr Macron said in Paris, the EU has to be endowed with a much better ability to act - and to adopt decisions that not all of its members may welcome. Reforming the inner workings of the EU is one of the pre-requisites.

Dr Merkel and Mr Macron should be fully aware that the window of opportunity to pull off major changes is closing sooner rather than later.

Although the German leader's tenure is set to last until 2021, no one in Berlin is ready to bet on the future of her fragile ruling coalition, between the conservatives and social democrats. Mr Macron and his La Republique en Marche movement does not rule in a coalition but the once stratospheric ratings of the French leader have become quite volatile.

Bringing the EU up to speed requires a whole lot of political capital. It's not clear if the two leaders have enough to do so.
Heres the thing. Its totally reasonable to emphasize the class struggles in the piece. Fanny, who comes from a poor family and is parachuted into a different class, was always the most sympathetic character. And the Bertrams are also plantation owners in Antigua, their financial security thus coming from human pain. But that doesnt mean that theyre fools with no feelings for Fanny. As fans of Downton Abbey well know, the arrogant can also be sympathetic and even insecure elitists can have flashes of likeability. Austen was a writer who understood that few of us fit into neat ideological categories and that most of us are doing our best in imperfect circumstances, being creatures of our time and station. Austens Fanny is not perfect. If she were, we would not care for her as we do.
He seems to have calculated that keeping his coalition together is the best way to rebuild public support for the Gaza ceasefire policy, but his political margins are narrowing.

In a rather dramatic turnaround, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has raised the stakes against a key political rival and scuttled efforts to hold early elections that seemed inevitable last week. The upshot is that his government may now remain in power until regularly scheduled elections arrive in November 2019though his coalitions thinning 61-59 majority in the 120-member parliament means there are no guarantees it will last that long. Whatever the case, Netanyahu will temporarily serve as defense minister, foreign minister, and prime minister, perhaps the closest Israel has come to a de facto presidential system.

The move came in a nationally televised speech on November 18, when he decided to go over the head of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and appeal to the country and his right-wing base directly. After calling Bennett wrong-headed for threatening to resign unless he received the defense portfolio, Netanyahu proceeded to argue that when right-wing governments were brought down from within during the 1992 and 1999 election cycles, they paved the way for left-wing governments that pursued supposedly inimical policies.

Following the speech, Bennett and his main ally, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, faced pressure for putting their own ambitions above the goal of maintaining a right-wing government, spurring them to announce a change of heart. Yet Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who leads a ten-member faction in parliament, is still calling for early elections. The rapid twists and turns have blindsided the Israeli political world.

Netanyahu had been begging his coalition partners to go to early elections for months, so what is behind his sudden reversal? First, it should be pointed out that his overall foreign policy outlook has remained consistent: namely, he agrees with the Israel Defense Forces leadership that a Gaza ceasefire is preferable to escalation given the more urgent priority of curbing Irans presence in Syria. Early elections could make it more difficult to maintain a ceasefire.

Netanyahu is also well aware that two of his three predecessors were driven from office following major upticks in Israeli-Palestinian violence. To be sure, recent polls indicate that 74 percent of Israelis are unsatisfied with his limited retaliatory response to the latest wave of Hamas rocket strikes. For now, though, he is unlikely to change that approach; instead, he seems keen on giving himself more time to recover from the poor polling performance and avoid early elections that would put even more public focus on the Gaza flare-up. He cannot ignore public dissatisfaction, of coursehis commitment to the stalemate is tenuous and could unravel if developments warrant. Yet he knows that the 74 percent poll result does not mean that anywhere close to that proportion of the electorate favors a full-scale ground incursion into Gaza given the risk of heavy Israeli casualties.

Netanyahu also appears to be betting that the recent resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who said he wanted a tougher response to Hamas, will be forgotten if elections are pushed off until next November. He knows it will be more difficult for Liberman to critique him from the benches of the political opposition than from the press conferences and newspaper headlines regularly accorded to defense ministers. If the Gaza issue cools down in the coming months, Libermans faction may have to run as an immigrants partya tough platform to sell thirty years after the mass immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union.

Another factor that may have changed Netanyahus desire for early elections is his seemingly cooling relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Until recently, Netanyahus aides loved telling reporters that he was the only leader on the world stage who enjoys close ties with both President Donald Trump and Putin. In September, however, Syrian forces shot down a Russian military plane while attempting to counter Israeli airstrikes. Since then, Putin has refused to meet with Netanyahu directly, and speculation has grown that Moscow wants to constrain Israels ability to hit Iranian targets in Syria. The prime ministers critics would no doubt use this tension against him in early elections.

Regarding U.S. policy, the latest developments in Israel free the Trump administration to put forward its long-awaited peace plan sooner rather than later. Such a plan would have a greater chance of success if Washington and Netanyahu waited for a potentially more centrist government to form. Yet the Trump administration cannot wait until next November, since that would risk peace efforts spilling over into the next U.S. presidential election political cycle. The White House may therefore decide to put its plan forward long before then. For his part, Netanyahu may be counting on the Palestinian Authority rejecting the U.S. plan as insufficient, sparing him from having to say no to Trump himself.

In sum, Netanyahu has outmaneuvered his rivals by going straight to the public. Yet the narrowing of his parliamentary majority will likely embolden coalition members to push their agenda to the maximum, meaning his government may still fold before completing its term. For example, if ultraorthodox factions press their religious demands, at what point would succumbing to them risk alienating the other constituencies Netanyahu needs to win reelection in 2019? Likewise, the Gaza stalemate is very fragile and may not hold until next fall, ensuring a bumpy road ahead.

Reprinted with permission from The Washington Institute. David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and helped created its interactive mapping tool "Settlements and Solutions: Is It Too Late for Two States?"
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/03/2021



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Which couples are still together and which MAFS couples have split up and divorced? And where are they now?

has featured 44 different couples getting married at first sight during it's first twelve seasons -- so which couples are still together, who has split up and divorced, and where are they all now?Each season of -- which premiered in the United States seven years ago and is based on a Danish series -- features couples (previously three couples, but four couples on Seasons 8 and 9, and five couples beginning with Season 10) being matched together by relationship experts and agree to marry when they first meet.Complete strangers become husband and wife in a matter of minutes, and the couples' lives are then documented by TV cameras over the course of the next four to eight weeks (eight weeks, in the case of 's most recent seasons).The couples typically enjoy their first night together in a hotel after exchanging vows -- with some couples deciding to consummate their marriage immediately -- and then embark on a honeymoon, move in together, and simply attempt to deal with the struggles of daily life as man and wife.At the end of the extreme marriage experiment, each couple must decide whether they'd like to stay married or get a divorce on "Decision Day."has experienced very mixed results over the years. While a significant number of couples decide to stay together and continue their new marriage at the end of their season, the real world seems to hit them hard after the cameras leave, resulting in the couple splitting up only months later.Do cast members see a different side of their spouses once cameras are gone, or do the romances naturally fizzle over time?Some couples are still together to this day and are extremely happy. Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner from Season 1, for example, have had two children.Several other couples have also had children -- including Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre Danielle Bergman and Bobby Dodd , and Deonna McNeill and Greg Okotie However, there are also relationships that ended badly. Jessica Castro from Season 2, for instance, accused Ryan De Nino of alleged death threats, and she went on to file a restraining order and lawsuit against him.Some couples have also never even made it to "Decision Day" and ended their marriage prematurely, including Season 4 couple Heather Seidel and Derek Schwartz as well as Season 6 couple Molly Duff and Jonathan Francetic Are the remaining couples now lovers, friends or enemies?! What about early season couples like Cortney Hendrix and Jason Carrion, Jaclyn Methuen and Ryan Ranellone, Vanessa Nelson and Tres Russell, Sonia Granados and Nick Pendergrast, and Lillian Vilchez and Tom Wilson?And how about more recent season couples like Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek Sheila Downs and Nate Duhon Jaclyn Schwartzberg and Ryan Buckley Dave Flaherty and Amber Martorana , and Tristan Thompson and Mia Bally Keith Dewar and Kristine Killingsworth , and AJ Vollmoeller and Stephanie Sersen Click thelink below to see photos of each couple and find out!

BEGIN GALLERY >>

Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/21/2018



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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

featured the couples opening up about sex before Isabella McKenzie and Tyler Moody broke up and went home during Tuesday night's broadcast on Lifetime.chronicles a three-week process for the singles, guided by franchise experts Pastor Calvin Roberson and Dr. Jessica Griffin, in the romantic destination of St. Lucia.The show currently features five couples blossoming and deepening their connections.Isabella, a 25-year-old hostess from Atlanta, GA, is matched with Tyler, a 26-year-old construction company owner from Greeley, CO. Eric Acosta , a 31-year-old entrepreneur and son of a diplomat from Denver, CO, is paired with Katie Muller , a 28-year-old in digital advertising from Denver, CO. Brandin Brosh , a 28-year-old clothing boutique owner from Biloxi, MS, has her eyes set on Jona Bienko , a 35-year-old auto broker from Como, CO. Shannon Raddler , a 33-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative from Atlanta, GA, is interested in pursuing Kimber Gardner , a 28-year-old medical sales representative from Las Vegas, NV.And finally, Jada Rashawn , a 27-year-old professional nanny placement specialist and brand spokesperson from San Antonio, TX, is a couple with Chris Perry , a 29-year-old musician, personal trainer and youth counselor from Binghamton, NY.Halfway through this fast-track experiment, Pastor Calvin and Dr. Jessica asked each couple to dive into sexology and decide their stance on sex. On Day 12, the experts simply encouraged a dialogue."We're holding hands. We've kissed now. We're doing all the right things, but I want even more, and I'm not sure what's going to happen," Jona told the cameras.Jona and Brandin's relationship got off to a slow start, but Brandin wanted to make sure she established a mental connection with Jona before they initiated a sexual relationship."In a marriage, sex and intimacy play a very important role. Without that physical component, the relationship goes from romantic to platonic, which leaves both partners feeling unsatisfied," Pastor Cal explained.Katie and Eric slept in different beds, but Katie said they were "physical in different respects" and she's definitely worth the wait.Chris and Jada did not have sex yet either, which Jada admitted came as a big surprise to most of the couples on Honeymoon Island since they are very touchy-feely and physical with one another.Kimber then shared with Shannon how she had a sex dream about him.Everyone seemed to be feeling the love, except for Isabella and Tyler, who were coming off a big fight."I'm so happy we didn't move too quickly and hook up because last night, we did not share a room at all. He slept somewhere else; I don't know where. So I'm not sure what the future has in store for us," Isabella explained.Once Tyler returned to their shared room, he was feeling upset and defeated.Tyler and Isabella then met with Pastor Cal and Jessica to talk out their issues. Isabella explained she was upset about the relay race but rather Tyler's lack of listening skills and trust in her instruction.Tyler said he felt like Isabella had scolded him like a child and blamed the loss on him entirely, but Isabella said she was trying to get through to him when he had been acting resistant and defensive.Pastor Cal thought this fight was "a little ridiculous," but Isabella saw big holes in their communication.Jessica admitted Isabella tended to set extremely high expectations for her partner that could not be met, such as when she argued with David Norton about a loofah being dropped in the shower on Married at First Sight: Second Chances."Nobody is perfect 100 percent of the time, but little things like leaving the toilet seat up or losing a game should not be dealbreakers in a relationship. Otherwise, her chances of having a satisfying healthy relationship long-term is pretty low," Jessica told the cameras.Isabella thought Tyler was great as a person but she wanted him to do better as a partner. Jessica asked Isabella to reinforce what Tyler does right instead of scold him for everything he does wrong, suggesting that her behavior emasculated him.Tyler confessed to Pastor Cal he didn't think he could do better than Isabella, as she's gorgeous and they want the same things in life, but he was afraid to give 90 percent to the relationship when she's just giving 10 percent.Meanwhile, Kimber and Shannon enjoyed a date at the waterfall. They were the only couple on the island having sex, but Shannon insisted their connection was much deeper than just the physical.Kimber felt comfortable and really cared about with Shannon, telling the cameras, "I could see myself being in love with Shannon forever."Kimber told Shannon, "I never felt like I met my match until now," and Shannon noted the more that he got to know Kimber, the more he was "feeling" her.Jada and Chris were then shown discussing their boundaries about sex. Sex is very important to Chris, and he envisioned a perfect night with her would be candles around a bath in a romantic hotel room.Jada couldn't stop thinking about how Chris sounded like a player. She told Chris that she doesn't take sex for granted and she's probably in love with him if she's having sex with him. Jada wasn't ready to make love unless they could be a serious couple after the show.Chris told Jada that he was open to taking things slow, but he admitted if the sex was bad or they lacked chemistry in the bedroom, that would be a dealbreaker.All of the couples, except for Tyler and Isabella, were then given an activity to help express themselves sexually. They had to feed each other cheese and chocolate covered strawberries while blindfolded.Kimber and Shannon embraced the exercise, but Kimber hoped their mutual sexual attraction wasn't the only thing they had in common. Eric and Katie also took the activity seriously, unlike Brandin, who took advantage of an opportunity to tease and mess with Jona.Jada didn't want to give too much too son, but she definitely found Chris to be a temptation.Afterward, Brandin invited Jona to share her bed that, but the invitation came with an invisible line he was not allowed to cross.That night, all of the couples attended a beach party, and Isabella and Tyler appeared to be back together."He's the love of my life. He's gorgeous, he's tall, has nice teeth and a nice tush," Isabella gushed to the cameras.Similarly, Tyler was wrapped up in Isabella and thought she was completely amazing. He was then shown saying, "I love you," to his girl, and he just went for it.But drama erupted that night, with Isabella expressing how Brandin flirted with other men. Although Brandin spanked Tyler's butt and touched the tattoo on his waist, Tyler said Isabella blamed him for the incident and he just couldn't do enough to make her happy.Isabella told the other girls in the cast the next day that Tyler didn't respect their relationship and he crossed their boundaries by not putting Brandin in her place or walking away from a compromising position.Brandin then joined the conversation and apologized for making Isabella feel uncomfortable. However, Brandin called it "a silly reaction" on Isabella's part because she's a very playful person.The girls ganged up on Isabella and insisted she overreacted to things. Brandin even said Isabella was the problem and it would be crazy to ruin her relationship over something so small and insignificant.Tyler told the experts he was so confused because he loved her but he didn't want to put up with this drama for the rest of his life. Tyler accused Isabella of lying to the experts to make it seem like he wasn't stepping up to the plate to resolve their issues.When the experts asked Isabella if she was falling in love with Tyler in return, she refused to comment on that. Tyler felt Isabella owed him a huge apology because he had put his heart on the line for her and was "heartbroken."Isabella had nothing to say, and Tyler admitted that conversation "shattered" him inside and he felt like "an absolute fool."Tyler realized in that moment he wanted to go home and Isabella was not the woman whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Isabella really wanted things to work out, but they couldn't work through their problems."I don't think I did anything wrong. I'm going home," Isabella said.Tyler thought he had found love at first sight with Isabella, but two fights ruined everything."I haven't cried this much since I was born," Tyler told the cameras."I believe God puts one person on this planet for you, and that's why this is so hard for me right now. I came to Honeymoon Island to find the love of my life, and I thought I found it with her. But I was wrong."Interested in more Married at First Sight news? Join our Married at First Sight Facebook Group
Back in 2014, President Obama banned the importation of many complete Russian goods to the United States in response to Russia's invasion of Crimea. Saiga shotguns and rifles were on that list. Three years later in 2017, Molot VEPR shotguns and rifles were added to the list.

If you time travel way, way back to RECOIL issue #12, we had an article specifically about VEPR shotguns. We followed that piece with an update about accuracy with slugs. If you're interested in one of these, file both under Required Reading.

FIME Group has obtained a limited number of VEPR shotguns that were imported prior to the ban, and have now announced them for sale.

Here's what they have to say about them:

Molot shotguns and rifles are in limited stock due to the U.S. sanctions. There are already a number of models that are out of stock, and there is no telling how much longer these guns will last. Vepr 12 shotguns are semi-automatic, magazine fed and chambered for 2  or 3in 12-gauge cartridges. Utilized for hunting, competition shooting, and self-defense, Vepr 12 shotguns share the same legendary characteristics and reliability Molot is known for. Built on RPK receivers and incorporating key features such as a last round bolt hold open and a straight insert magazine well, these firearms provide peak performance even in the harshest conditions.

For obvious reasons, they will be limited in number. But if you were considering a magfed slav scattergun, this is your chance to snatch one up.



They are available with fixed and folding stocks, in factory short barreled configuration, and even an awful thumbhole stock model.

Prices range from $860 to $1,700. You can check out available models here.
The other teaching moment of what will be a boffo holiday attraction on Michigan Avenue comes from the original story. Through all these travails, with the added burden of standing on only one shank, the solider remains, well, steadfast, meaning that he pushes through adversity and keeps on believing in his shot at happiness. Since its Thanksgiving and no one wants to eat turkey in sadness, let me throw all spoiler-alert caution to the wind and reveal that he gets what the steadfast surely deserve, even though the cruelties of the real world often deny what is just.
Kendall Shook, a 20-year-old advertising major originally from Carlton, Georgia, poses for a portrait outside of the library in Athens, Georgia, on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018. Shook chose to live at home as a freshman as a way to save money for the future. (Photo/Rebecca Wright)
With Democrats having an upper hand in US Congress, the Donald Trump administration will find it difficult to come up with any future legislative changes with regard to visa regulations.



Photograph: Reuters

With Democrats winning a majority in the House of Representatives, industry experts expect some checks and balances in future immigration policies though it may not bring a significant shift in the US Administration's stance on current visa rules.

According to senior sources in the Indian IT industry, with Democrats having an upper hand in the US Congress, Donald Trump administration will find it difficult to come up with any future legislative changes with regard to visa regulations.

"There will be checks and balances because if you need new visa regulations, the Trump administration will require support of the House.

"So, the administration can't do whatever it wants," said V Balakrishnan, chairman of Exfinity Ventures, and a former board member and chief financial officer at Infosys.

'The reality is the US doesn't have enough talent to feed the IT industry'

The Trump administration has come up with many changes in the visa rules since taking over the presidency, making it difficult for Indian IT services firms to man their US centres with Indian engineers for servicing clients.

Apart from raising the cost of H1B visa applications, processing of both H1B visa and Green Card has slowed down by the current US administration.

"The reality is the US doesn't have enough talent to feed the IT industry.

"These are all political rhetoric.

"But, (at the end of the day) economic reality is much more important than political noises," Balakrishnan added.

IMAGE: US President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa programme used to bring foreign workers to the US to fill high-skilled jobs. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has a provision for 65,000 H1B visas a year in the general category and another 20,000 for advanced degrees.

Indian IT services players, one of the largest applicants for the H1B visas, have witnessed a drop in number of applications with the US administration's emphasis on local hiring.

However, IT firms are struggling to man their projects in the US despite their localisation efforts due to shortage of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) talent.

"The Trump administration has made several changes in immigration rules through executive action, where they didn't have to go to the Congress for a vote.

"So, I don't think, this democratic balance is going to help business immigration in the short term," said Poorvi Chothani, founder and managing partner at LawQuest, and president, Indo-Americans Chamber of Commerce (Western Region) who specialises in immigration laws.

"The win for Democrats can create some resistance but I don't know how successful they will be against the current style of changing things," she said.

'I would say the mid-term election is not going to have any positive or negative impact on the present regulations'

In the second quarter of the current fiscal year, many large and mid-tier IT services firms have flagged up concerns with regard to non-availability of local talent in the US, leading to disruption in project execution apart from a rise in sub-contracting cost.

For example, the country's second-largest IT services company, Infosys, saw higher on-site costs as well as attrition in the second quarter.

Hexaware, a mid-sized IT services company, said it could not fulfill clients' demands in the US as the company didn't have enough number of employees with the US visa.

It also said getting subcontractors in a short notice was also a challenge.

Even Wipro, which has a significantly higher percentage of local employees in the US, saw its on-site attrition rate going up.

"I would say the mid-term election is not going to have any positive or negative impact on the present regulations.

"Because, these are not new regulations but are administrative action, where the current pain is," said Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies & founder chairman of Sampark Foundation.
'There will be an instant and positive change in the way Rahul Gandhi is perceived by millions if he says he is not a candidate for PM,' suggests Aakar Patel.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

One of the sharpest talents of our prime minister is how he can frame an argument.

He seems to bring something fresh and convincing when he takes up an ordinary subject.

Last week he responded to the Congress claim that he became prime minister only because of the system that Jawaharlal Nehru put in place.

His response was to say: 'I want to challenge them... let some good leader of Congress outside the Gandhi family become the party president for only five years, then I will say that Nehruji really created a truly democratic system.'

One answer to that is that there was, of course, a non-Gandhi person who was president for five years and that was P V Narasimha Rao, who was also prime minister.

And after him, though for a shorter period, the Congress president was Sitaram Kesri.

But the real point is that Narendra Damodardas Modi is right:

the Congress is like a private limited company, where all the shares are held by one family.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is like a public limited company where the stakes are shared among a much wider group of people, and where merit is more important than family ties.

You can fail often and still remain head of the Congress if you are a Gandhi.

There is no pressure on him to perform.

On the other hand if Modi does not lead his party to a decisive win in 2019, he will immediately face dissent and a challenge from inside.

This is how it happens in all healthy political parties in a democratic framework.

And so what Modi has said about the Congress is a fact and it cannot be disputed.

The question is whether his challenge or advice is worth following for the Congress as a party.

I think it is.

And I do not think it needs to be exactly what Modi says, which is to say give up the party presidency.

Even if Rahul Gandhi says he has no intention of becoming prime minister, he will bring credibility to himself and his party that is currently lacking among large parts of the population.

Sacrifice is one of the most powerful symbols in our society and someone who gives up power and possessions, as Mahatma Gandhi did, is automatically elevated in the public imagination.

Sonia Gandhi was able to transform her image in 2004, when she said the same thing after defeating the BJP.

Those of us who are old enough to remember that time well will know how different her image was before that moment.

The current Congress president has often said that for him the political battle is about the kind of India that Hindutva is producing.

He fears for the future because of the hatred and violence and wants better for his country.

This is an admirable thing to say.

But if this change in direction of the country is the main thing that he is seeking, he should have no problem in setting his personal ambitions aside.

At least for this election, if not forever.

There is no lack of highly competent people in Congress to run things, in the event, however unlikely it may seem at the moment, that they will manage to win the election.

In fact it will help the Congress build an alliance if they approach other parties without personal ambition.

It will bring great credibility to their idea of a national front if they say that the Gandhis are not interested in the office of power.

There will be an instant and positive change in the way Rahul Gandhi is perceived by millions if he says he is not a candidate for PM.

And it will help his party also, because it will increase the stakes for outsiders, who will feel motivated to invest more time and effort and money in the party.

It will become more of a public limited company and its long term future will become more secure.

I am not for one moment saying what I am because of any issues with Gandhi himself.

I have never met him and he could well have it him to be a good or great leader.

Certainly he has the right to run for whatever office he wants to because we are a democracy.

I am saying that he should consider what the PM has said positively.

He should assess whether in taking up that challenge he helps his cause and his party.

I think he does.

Of course, we must accept that the Gandhi family has sacrificed more for this nation than the leadership of any political party.

Two of their leaders have been assassinated and for the family to remain in politics must take great courage and determination.

They deserve respect, which they do not always get.

They are abused casually and easily by people like Modi without acknowledging what they have suffered.

Would their prestige be restored by another act of sacrifice and renunciation?

I think it would.

Aakar Patel -- winner of the 2018 Prem Bhatia Award for Political Reporting -- is Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are his own.
'Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court that his government will give reservation in promotions which resulted in a powerful reaction by the youth.'

'These youth used to vote for the BJP, but will not vote for it in this election.'

'Even if the Congress does not make any gains, the BJP is losing voters in the current situation. It is losing farmers, OBC votes.'

IMAGE: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his wife Sadhna Singh perform the Govardhan Puja at the chief minister's residence in Bhopal. Photograph: PTI Photo

Five years ago, the results of the state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh which came six months before the national election, paved the way for the Narendra Damodardas Modi government.

Five years later, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party governments in these states are in for a stiff fight. In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after being in power for 15 years has to counter voter fatigue while the Congress is trying to counter in-party factionalism and attempting to appeal to the Hindu vote.

"There are young people who have only seen one government. This is the Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter generation, which is looking for change all the time," Dr A P S Chouhan, professor of political science at Gwalior's Jiwaji University, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.

Can Shivraj Singh Chouhan beat anti-incumbency? Can he win a record fourth term?

It is not only anti-incumbency, but fatigue among the younger generation.

There are young people who have only seen one government. This is the Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter generation which is looking for change all the time.

There is also a fatigue amongst voters which feels they have been voting for years and getting the same kind of leadership in MP. Then there is anti-incumbency against Shivraj Singh Chouhan and local MLAs.

What are the problems faced by the people of the state that may have a bearing when they cast their vote?

There are thousands of schools in MP that have only one teacher. Hospitals are in bad shape.

Shivraj Singh has taken a good initiative of sponsoring pilgrimage for the aged to religious places. Also providing smart phones to students, cycles to girls. This amounts to about 145,000 who are direct beneficiaries.

Unfortunately he does not have any package for creation of employment. So even if students are getting fee waiver in institutions, what purpose does it have if these institutions don't have teachers?

So these youth pay and go to private colleges. There are many grand policies, but the ground reality is showing something else.

There may be voter fatigue, but what can the Congress bring to MP? Does it provide an alternative?

In its worst time, when it was completely wiped out, the Congress got 36.4% of the vote. The BJP got 7% to 8% more votes than the Congress in 2013.

Even if the Congress does not make any gains, the BJP is losing voters in the current situation. It is losing OBC farmers. Farmers in the state are in a pathetic state.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan's Bhavantar Yojana has unfortunately not helped the the smaller farmers, and there are very few big farmers in the villages of MP.

Farmers do not have cash for their crop, have to bribe officials in the mandi -- so the BJP is losing those kisan and OBC votes.

There is a recent emergence of the Sapaks Samaj Party, which is anti-reservation. Shivraj Singh gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court that his government will give reservation in promotions which resulted in a powerful reaction by the youth.

In every city there was a protest by 4,000 to 6,000 boys and girls. These youth used to vote for the BJP, but will not vote for it in this election.

The BJP is losing its pool of voters.

IMAGE: Congress President Rahul Gandhi offer prayers at the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. Photograph: PTI Photo

The Congress is attempting to appeal to Hindu sentiment by Rahul Gandhi's temple visits, Digivijay Singh's Narmada yatra, Kamal Nath announcing that the party would set up cow sheds in every district of the state etc. How will this help the Congress?

It is a strategy to get votes. The BJP and RSS are not the thekedars (custodians) of the Hindu religion. They are a selective group of people among Hindus and are occupying every space which relates to tradition, culture and heritage.

The Congress is trying to prove that it is also has practicing Hindus and it is not only a select group of people who can claim to be dominating and giving directions to Hindus.

This is a counter to monopolising Hindu tradition.

There are many Hindus in society who are not hard core, aggressive or dominating because Hindu culture was never dominating and aggressive. They are trying to counter that hegemony being created by the RSS and BJP.

How do you think the Muslims view this?

Muslims do know the history of the Congress. Rahul Gandhi has said he visits mosques, dargahs, churches, temples but he is a practicing Hindu.

Prime Minister Modi has had great success in turning the tide of elections with his energetic election meetings in state elections. How will his charisma work in MP?

The Modi effect has eroded since 2013-2014. He is not the Modi of 2013-14. They have been exploiting the Ram mandir since 1992. It will not have an effect in these three states.

In the state election, do you think voters will vote keeping the Modi-led BJP government in the Centre or Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the state?

The Congress has been out of power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003. The BJP government is seeking a fourth straight term. How are these parties expected to perform?

The Congress did not fare well in 2008 and 2013 because there was a lot of factionalism. That factionalism is still there, but it is not as visible as before.

But the spat over ticket distribution between Digvijay Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia was splashed in the media.

Both clarified it was a discussion over candidates rather than a heated discussion and they have tweeted about.

The factionalism of the last two elections hasn't surfaced in the Congress this time around.

The differences in the top leadership is emerging more in the BJP than in Congress.

Former Union minister Sartaj Singh has left the BJP and joined the Congress, there were problems with Babulal Gaur and Kailash Vijayvargiya, then their daughter-in-law and son were given tickets respectively to stop a standoff.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan's brother-in-law Sanjay Singh Masani has also joined the Congress./p>

Yes, the same things that used to happen with the Congress has started happening with the BJP. Regional leaders want their own supporters to get tickets rather than seeing their winnability.

They say the BJP is a disciplined, cadre-based party, but unfortunately these kind of differences have started showing in the BJP.

The BJP does not have the unanimity of the 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.

What is causing these differences to arise?

Shivraj Singh Chouhan has dominated the BJP in MP for the past 15 years. The differences that have surfaced in the BJP today is basically because of the differences between other leaders of the state BJP.

These differences were rare in the BJP.
Photograph: PTI Photo

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Wednesday appeared before the special investigation team of the Punjab Police, which is probing the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 in Chandigarh where security has been stepped up.

Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.

The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents.

The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on November 21 at the Amritsar circuit house.

However, police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT at Chandigarh.

The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab assembly in August, had given a reference of a letter written (October 9, 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie "MSG".

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie "MSG" was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Kumar has denied arranging any meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head.

The actor has also denied having ever met the Sirsa headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case.

Kumar had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former Chief Minister Parkash 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, Kumar had said in tweet.

"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, Kumar had said.

The SIT has already questioned former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal in Chandigarh.

On Monday, Sukhbir told SIT members, that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab when he was asked by the SIT members whether he had met the actor in Mumbai.

The summons are related to the investigation of cases involving various incidents of sacrilege in 2015, police had said.

The summons had 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 summons state, "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 5-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year.
An American national was killed by members of a protected and reclusive tribe in the Andamans, possibly with arrows, when he tried to enter the North Sentinel Island, police said on Wednesday.

In a press release issued late Wednesday evening, Dependra Pathak, Director General of Police, Andaman and Nicobar Police, said John Allen Chau, 27, had enlisted the help of local electronics engineer Alexander and a water sports service provider and hired five fishermen to evade the patrolling teams of police, Coast Guard and Navy to approach the island.

For this, the local fishermen were paid around Rs 25,000 by Chau.

They started on November 14 around 8 pm for the North Sentinel Island and reached there by midnight. The next day, Chau moved to shore using his kayak which he got towed with the fishing boat. After dropping him the fishermen fixed their timings and place to meet each other between the shoreline and their high sea fishing area.

In the morning of November 17, they saw a dead person being buried at the shore which from the silhouette of the body, clothing and circumstances appeared to be the body of Chau, the release said clearly defining the circumstances leading to Chaus death, almost five days after the incident.

Subsequently, they returned to Port Blair and narrated the incident to Alexander and handed him the 13 pages of the journal written by Chau.

Alexander in turn informed Bobby Parks, a friend of Chau, in United States, who in turn informed his mother. His mother informed the US Consulate which in turn alerted the police on November 19.

When the US Embassy was reached for a response, its spokesperson said, We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State.

When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment, the spokesperson said in the email response.

The DGP said that access to North Sentinel Island and its buffer zone is strictly restricted under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribe (Regulation), 1956 and Regulations under Indian Forest Act, 1927.

He said in the release that despite knowing fully well about the illegality of the action and the hostile attitude of the Sentinelese tribesmen to the outsiders, these people collaborated with Chau for this visit to North Sentinel Island without any permission from the authorities.

All the seven people who helped Chau were, therefore, booked and arrested in a case for violating the provisions of the PAT Regulation and causing death of Chau, the release said. A case of murder has also been registered against anonymous persons, it said.

The police are now conducting aerial surveys to identify the place of incidence.

In addition, a committee has been constituted to go into the details of the incident and review the institutional mechanism to prevent unauthorised entry of any foreign national into the prohibited/restricted areas and also to suggest measures to prevent such incidents in future.

The Sentinelese people are among the tribes that survived the tsunami of 2004 without any help from the outside world. For the 2011 Census, enumerators could locate only 15 Sentinelese people -- 12 men and three women. However, their numbers could be anything between 40 and 400, according to experts.

P C Joshi, professor of Department of Anthropology at Delhi University, said the tribe has remained completely isolated from the outside world and despite efforts of the Anthropological Society of India which has tried to contact them indirectly by leaving bananas, coconuts for them, they have failed to make contact.

We have tried but the tribe has not shown any interest. They are the most private of the tribes in the Andamans. They are aggressive and are known to attack outsiders with arrows and stones. I do not know what made this American visit the island, but this tribe has stayed in isolation for so long that I do not blame them for what they saw as an intrusion and a threat, said the professor.

In 2006, two Indian fishermen, who had moored their boat near North Sentinel to sleep after poaching in the waters around the island, were killed when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore.

In a major step earlier this year, the government excluded this island and 28 others in the Union Territory from the Restricted Area Permit regime till December 31, 2022.

The lifting of RAP meant that foreigners could be allowed to visit these islands without permission from the government.

Joshi said it was a cause of concern that this island, where the Sentinelese have lived for hundreds of years with no outside contact was recently opened for visitors.

These people are not specimens for tourists to see. They are extremely vulnerable to diseases and any contact might lead to their extinction. We cannot expose them for a few dollars. We need to respect their choice, said Joshi.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged on Wednesday his political rivals were conspiring to get him eliminated, a day after a man flung chilli powder at the Aam Aadmi Party chief outside his office in the Delhi Secretariat.

IMAGE: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addresses a gathering, in Sonipat. He said it was clear that his political rivals were trying to get rid of him. Photograph: PTI Photo

The chief ministers spectacles broke but he was not injured in Tuesdays attack.

Kejriwal claimed he was attacked four times in the past two years.

He said this during his visit to Sonipat in Haryana where he handed over an ex-gratia cheque of Rs 1 crore to the family of martyred Border Security Force jawan Narender Singh.

During the past two years, there have been four attacks on me. This is not a minor issue. I think in Indias history, there must not be a single example when a chief minister faced attacks on four occasions in two years. So, it is clear that such attacks are not taking place, but they are being carried out, Kejriwal told reporters.

He was asked who he would blame for Tuesdays attack.

The chief minister claimed that the AAP government in Delhi has carried out lot of development in a short span of three years, including in schools and hospitals in the capital, which governments of other parties failed to do in the last 70 years.

He said the AAP and development works done by the party has become an eyesore to the rivals, who were conspiring to get him eliminated.

We have become an eyesore for them and they are conspiring to get me killed. They are repeatedly carrying out such attacks on us. Because the way development works are being carried out in Delhi, be it bringing improvements in its schools and hospitals in a span of three years we have done so much work, these parties have not been able to do so in 70 years, he said.

Now, everywhere they (these parties) are being asked (by public) why they are not able to do this. People are asking if Kejriwal can give Rs 1 crore (to families of the martyrs), why they cannot give the same amount. They (these parties) feel that if this (AAP) party exists for some more time, then people will raise questions and people will make their life miserable, Kejriwal said.

IMAGE: Police stop AAP workers who were staging a protest against BJP over the chilli powder attack on their party chief, outside the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI Photo

The chief minister said people in Haryana have already started raising such questions and elsewhere too, the parties are being asked if AAP can bring improvement in schools, hospitals ... good compensation to farmers, why cannot they?

They are conspiring to get me killed, Kejriwal alleged.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership had knowledge of the attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the opposition party wants the latter eliminated to stop him from working for the people.

On its part, the BJP termed the incident as drama by Kejriwal, with its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari demanding a high-level probe into it.

In Sonipat, Kejriwal handed over the ex-gratia cheque to the family of BSF jawan Narender Singh, who was brutally killed by Pakistani troops along the international border near Jammu on September 18.

Accompanied by AAPs Haryana unit president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal arrived in the afternoon and met the martyrs family in their native village Thana Kalan.

Kejriwal had also visited the village on September 21.

The Aam Aadmi Party government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the kin of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the national capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering in the village, Kejriwal said, We are all proud of his sacrifice.

The chief minister sought to know why successive governments do not give befitting reply to Pakistan.

For how long valiant soldiers such as Narender Singh ji will keep giving sacrifices, for how long will families will lose their near and dear ones. When the country needs such sacrifices, definitely these will be given, but our country is not so weak that we cannot give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

People of our country and the army can give befitting reply and as was said here today that there should be no politics on this issue, Kejriwal said.

I think all parties are one on this, then why governments are weak. Why successive governments dont give a befitting reply to Pakistan. Every government, every party says they will give befitting reply to Pakistan, but they forget later on, he added.

The chief minister said though no amount of money can compensate the loss, but families of martyrs need to know that we stand behind them.

He said the AAP government in Delhi took the decision to give the ex-gratia or Samman Rashi, which he felt the previous governments at the Centre should have done 70 years ago.
Trump said that the US is not paying anything to Pakistan because 'that's what they've done to help us. Nothing'.

IMAGE: Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi meets Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to the US. Photograph: Kind courtesy @statedeptspox/Twitter

The United States has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration.

The Pentagon's statement came days after President Trump said that Pakistan does not do "a damn thing" for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

"USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended," Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the department of defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as deputy assistant secretary defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

"But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern -- that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistan's neighbours," Sedney said.

"Pakistan's leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans," he said in response to a question.

"This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others," said the Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the department of state and the National Security Council, as well as acting president of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistan's Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden.

"I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book 'The Wrong Enemy' that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Laden's presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan," Sedney said.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistan's security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

"What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistan's neighbours," he said.

"But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence.

If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge "peace dividend", he asserted.

"Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India," Sedney added.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to "agents of chaos" that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it has "much to lose" by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil.

'Won't pay Pak as it has done nothing for US'

President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan will remain suspended until the country acts against militant safe heavens inside its territory.

"I want Pakistan to help us. We're no longer paying USD 1.3 billion to Pakistan. We're paying them nothing because that's what they've done to help us. Nothing," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday before leaving for his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Over the last few days, Trump has accused Pakistan of not helping the US in its fight against terrorism.

In an interview to Fox News over the weekend, Trump said that people in Pakistan knew that Laden was living in a mansion near their garrison city of Abbottabad, but they did not tell the US and kept on accepting billions of dollars in aid.

"And I cut those payments off a long time ago. We're not paying Pakistan any money because they're not helping us at all and we'll see where it all goes," Trump said.

Early this year, Trump announced to stop all security assistance to Pakistan.

"I hope to have a good relationship with Pakistan," said Trump, indicating that the relationship between the two countries can come back on track if Pakistan took action against terrorist groups and their safe havens.

"But right now, we're paying Pakistan nothing. I cut them off. They were getting USD 1.3 billion a year. They're not getting anything now," Trump asserted.

However, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, said Trump might be incorrect in saying that Pakistan has not done anything for the US.

Over the decades, Pakistan has helped the United States with some of its policy objectives, he said.

"He is right in noting that Pakistan has offered tactical cooperation in return for aid while at the same time undermined the strategic US objectives," Haqqani said.

Pakistani leaders, he said, are being disingenuous in describing the US as "ungrateful".

Americans have provided over USD 43 billion in military and economic assistance since 1954, helped build Pakistan's conventional military capability, and bailed Pakistan out of both economic and political crises on several occasions, he said.

Haqqani, who is the director for South and Central Asia at the prestigious Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, said Islamabad would continue to be tempted to go back to old transactional patterns, but not Washington.

"It is the Americans who are likely to be less interested in returning to what I describe in my book on the subject as 'Magnificent Delusions.' Not only do Pakistan's ambitions in Afghanistan conflict with the US plans but the two countries strongly disagree about China's expanding influence in Asia," he said.

Observing that only a strategic rethink on the part of Pakistan can lead to a reset in US-Pakistan ties, Haqqani said until then, occasional twitter spats and "we paid a heavy price for being your ally" statements will continue to characterise the unusual relationship.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the credibility of institutions like Parliament and the Central Bureau of Investigation has been systematically denigrated in the Narendra Modi-led regime, which he said is making a careful, well-thought-out calibrated effort to weaken democracy.

IMAGE: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said history shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed. Photograph: PTI Photo

Addressing a press conference ahead of the November 28 Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Singh said corruption was peaking in the Modi government.

The country has witnessed credibility of institutions like Parliament and CBI systematically denigrated. There is a careful, well-thought-out and calibrated effort to weaken democracy, he said.

The rule of law is under attack. History shall never forgive our present generation if the situation is not changed, he said.

In a veiled reference to developments in the Reserve Bank of India and CBI, Singh said the Modi government is trying to prevail over big institutions, adding this was detrimental to democracy and law of the land.

The relationship between the RBI and finance ministry has hit a low, the former Union finance minister said, adding there is a need for harmony and coordination.

The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate relationship. Both have to work together. Even though the job of running the country rests with the government, specific responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act. There is a need to recognise inter dependence of the two entities and work in harmony, he said.

I am happy with the efforts being made to bring reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other, he said.

He termed demonetisation as organised loot and legalised plunder. This is a done act and cant be reverted. It is up to the people to get rid of the government which brought them on this disastrous path, he said.

The note ban and the flawed Goods and Services Tax of the National Democratic Alliance government have caused a great damage to the unorganised sector, Singh said. The note ban failed to achieve its goal, he added.

Asked about his 2014 comments that Modi as PM would be a disaster to the country, he said he did not want to comment on his earlier remarks. I used harsh words which I should not have. Now people will make the decision, he added.

Singh accused Modi of misusing the prime ministers post. It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents, he said, adding Modi was using unparliamentary words against the Opposition.

The Rafale deal needs a thorough investigation through a Joint Parliamentary Committee, he said. Modi is not going in for constitution of the JPC, which gives an impression that something is amiss, he said, adding this has given rise to a great deal of suspicion in the minds of people.

On steps needed to improve the economy, Singh said infrastructure investment should increase national savings rate should be encouraged.

In our (Congress-led regime) time, the national saving rate was 35 to 36 per cent. Now it is 28 per cent, he said. If the GDP rate needs to grow to 10 per cent, the national savings rate and infrastructure investment needs to grow, he added.

Asked if the Congress will be able to revive itself, Singh said the party faced problems since the 2014 elections.

The reason was the ability of the opposition to mislead the media and the general public about the so-called corruption and we were not able to carry the conviction to convey our point of view, he said.

Singh denied Modis claim that the United Progressive Alliance government led by him was a remote-controlled one.

The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion, he said.

The BJP promised to bring back money stashed in banks abroad but this turned out to be a hollow claim, he said.

The Modi governments Make in India programme has proved to be just a jumla (stunt), he said.

The BJP-led government promised to generate two crore jobs annually but this has turned out to a gimmick, he said.

He also rubbished Modis claim that the UPA government discriminated against Madhya Pradesh. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should stand a witness to it, he said.

Vyapam (an entrance examination, admission and recruitment scam unearthed in Madhya Pradesh in 2013) marred the future of the states youth, while Narmada river has been plundered by the sand mafia, Singh said.
The police have arrested an alleged operative of the Khalistan Liberation Force for the grenade attack on a religious congregation in Amritsar, an act blamed on Inter-Services Intelligence-backed terrorists by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday.

IMAGE: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh shows a picture of Amritsar grenade blast co-accused Bikramjit Singh, who was arrested by Punjab Police, to the media during a press conference, in Chandigarh. Photograph: PTI Photo

We are on to the second person and it is a matter of time before we get him, the chief minister said while announcing the arrest.

Bikramjit Singh, a resident of Dhariwal village in Rajasansi police station area was arrested early on Wednesday morning near Loharka village in Amritsar, he said.

He is alleged to be one of the two motorcycle-borne men involved in the attack last Sunday at Nirankari Bhavan in Adliwal village on the outskirts of Amritsar.

Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora said the motorcycle has been recovered.

The second man, who threw the grenade that killed three people and injured about 20 others, has been identified as 32-year-old Avtar Singh Khalsa.

Bikramjit Singh indicated to the police that the grenade was provided by Harmeet Singh Happy, also known as PhD and suspected to be the Pakistan-based KLF chief.

Ruling out any communal motive, the chief minister described the attack as a pure act of terror.

It was an attempt by Pakistans ISI to carry out terrorist actions in Punjab to disturb peace in the state, he said.

CCTV footage of the attack helped arrest Bikramjit Singh, who then identified Khalsa, a resident of village Chak Mishri Khan in Amritsar, as his accomplice.

The duo retrieved the HG 84 hand grenade, made at the Pakistan Ordinance Factories, from an orchard near Majitha where it was buried for them, DGP Suresh Arora said.

They also did a recce of the Nirankari Satsang Bhavan on November 13 morning when no one was present there, he said.

IMAGE: Police personnel stand guard the Nirankari Bhawan, where two bike borne men hurled a grenade on Sunday at Adliwal village in Amritsar. Photograph: PTI Photo

During his interrogation, Bikramjit Singh revealed that while Avtar Singh Khalsa slipped into the Bhavan complex along with the devotees, he subdued the two sewadars deployed at the gate.

After hurling the grenade, the two fled on Bikramjit Singhs motorcycle to Khalsas village, Arora said.

Happy had earlier come to notice of the police for supplying a hand grenade of the same Arges Type HG-84 specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh, the self-styled chief of Khalistan Gadar Force, who was arrested by Punjab Police in October, the Director General of Police said.

Such grenades have been used in Jammu and Kashmir in the past, he said.

Earlier in 2016-17, Happy had masterminded a conspiracy to target RSS and Shiv Sena leaders in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in collaboration with Pakistani establishment and its ISI, Amarinder Singh said.

He said attempts by the ISI and the Pakistan establishment to forge linkages between Punjabi and Kashmiri terrorist groups is a matter of serious security concern for the state.

He added the state police was working closely with central agencies to check the spread of such forces.

His government was committed to ensuring that nobody disturbs the states hard-earned peace and harmony, the CM said.

Amarinder Singh said since March 2017, the state police have busted 17 terror modules and arrested 81 militants, preventing a large number of terrorist strikes.

They have seized 77 weapons and explosives from these terrorists. These include 12 hand grenades, he said.
Please note that an important feature is that the contest is a blind entry process. That means that authors names must not appear on the stories. The requirement ensures that judges are able to evaluate each story on its own merits.
Even though I was just 17, I knew enough to know that it was not OK, he added. But he was this older guy who I thought was really cute. I was taken aback that he was interested. He also said there werent many openly gay teens at his suburban high school, and he saw this as his chance at a relationship. He said that, at the time, he didnt fully appreciate Damitzs position of power over him, but he now sees how wrong it was. Obviously now that Im (an adult), I would never even imagine having a relationship with someone under 18. Now its clear ... how messed up it is.
The big box stores can have Black Friday. Small business Saturday has become the day when small businesses, especially mom and pop stores can feel the love. Small Business Saturday, sponsored by American Express, continues to grow into a much-anticipated event by small businesses and their customers alike.

It warms my heart to have my customers tell me that I will see them this Saturday. During the past five years, it has become a special day on my business calendar to prepare for. The day has come to feel like a warm hug from customers, and me giving one right back.
DANBURY, CT  The Arthur Murray Dance Center of Danbury will host a Dancing for Homes Teach-a-Thon to benefit Housatonic Habitat for Humanity on Friday, January 11, 10 a.m.-10 pm.

Gift certificates are now on sale for the January event and are $85 for a 30-minute lesson, for singles as well as couples.
Connecticut Trolley Museum / Contributed photo

The Connecticut Trolley Museums Winterfest 2018 and the Tunnel of Lights is celebrating its 40th operating year as a family holiday tradition, beginning Friday, Nov. 23.

Santa will be onsite at the East Windsor attraction in a historic caboose for photos and to give a small gift to each child until he has to fly back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve.
BRIDGEPORT -A New York man is facing 20 years in prison after a jury on Tuesday found him guilty of raping a woman he met at a preholiday party.

The six-member jury deliberated a day and a half before finding 36-year-old Nuelito Morel-Vargas guilty of first-degree sexual assault.

Superior Court Judge John Kavanewski increased Morel-Vargas bond from $250,000 to $500,000 pending the sentencing hearing on Dec. 14.

The jury carefully examined all the testimony in the case before arriving at the appropriate verdict, said Senior Assistant States Attorney Pamela Esposito.

In December 2015, police were called to Bridgeport Hospital on a report of a sexual assault victim being treated there.

When they got there, police said they found the extremely traumatized 25-year-old woman suffering from numerous bruises. They said doctors told them there was evidence the woman had been raped.

During a subsequent interview, police said the woman told them she had attended a party at a friends home on Capitol Avenue. She had been drinking and became too intoxicated to drive home.

The defendant, who the woman said she did not know but was a guest at the party, offered to give her a ride home and she accepted, she told police.

The defendant offered to help her into her apartment but once inside he grabbed her and threw her down on a bed, police said. The woman tried to fight him off, but Morel-Vargas managed to hold her down and raped her, police said.

Police said the woman showed them a text message she later received from Morel-Vargas in which he apologized and acknowledged forcing her to have sex with him.
LITCHFIELD  Henry C. Lee, the world-renowned forensic scientist, announced in a news release that his wedding to Xiaping Jiang of Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China, will be held Dec. 1 in Litchfield.

The ceremony will be presided over by retired Superior Court Judge Charles Gill, a friend of Lees.

The ceremony is to be attended by family members only, according to the release.

The couple will reside in Connecticut after the wedding.

The future bride was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China in 1956. She has a masters degree in business administration. She is employed as the CEO of Jiadi (Hong Kong) Co., Yangzhou Jiadi Clothing Co., Ltd, and Yangzhou Jiadi Senior Care Center, according to the release. Jiang also serves as the executive member of the council of the Jiangsu Media Arts Association, and is the deputy director of the Initiative Committee of the Nanjing University Asian Film Research Center.

In addition to her garment design and manufacturing businesses, Jiang is also dedicated to writing, according to the release. She is the author of several books and scripts, including the screen script Nirvana of Phoenix, the novel Where Love Has Gone, and a collection of prose works, The Life on Water.

Lee, who has famously investigated legendary crimes of the era, including JonBenet Ramsey, OJ Simpson, the Connecticut wood-chipper murder, and Laci Peterson, often uses wit and expertise in public talks he gives.

Lee is a chair professor at the University of New Haven and the founder of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. His late wife of 55 years, Margaret Soong Meow Lee, died in 2017.

He was the chief emeritus for the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory from 2000 to 2100 and was the commissioner of Public Safety for the state of Connecticut from 1998 to 2000. He served as the states chief criminalist from 1978 to 2000. He has assisted 86 countries, investigating more than 8,000 major cases, the release said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 21)  Malacanang on Wednesday promised to disclose information on the deals signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country.

This, as government officials, including Vice President Leni Robredo, called for transparency after the signing of 29 bilateral agreements between the Philippines on China on Tuesday. Copies of these documents, including the controversial Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development, have not been made public as of Wednesday.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the documents would come from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which "is still preoccupied with activities on Day 2 of the Chinese leader's visit." Xi left the country at around 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

"We therefore ask for everyone's understanding, especially the media, in this regard," Panelo said in a statement.

"We assure everyone that the government would release all pertinent information for public consumption once President Xi's visit has culminated, and as soon as the complete, proper, and correct documents become certified and available," he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte witnessed the exchange of these agreements along with Xi in Malacanang, where only the titles were read, revealing that they are key agreements on oil and gas exploration, infrastructure, and telecommunications, among others.

Robredo: How will we benefit from the deals?

Robredo earlier reminded the Duterte administration that it is the government's duty to inform the public about the bilateral agreements.

"The Filipino people should be informed how deals-such as the Memorandum of Understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative, the Infrastructure Cooperation Program, and, most notably, the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development-will benefit our country and serve our national interest," she added.

READ: PH, China sign deals on oil and gas development, infra projects

An MOU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development was signed Tuesday  amid clamor from some senators for the public release of the draft deal for the joint exploration with China on the West Philippine Sea - before it is signed.

The Department of Energy said it has no copy of the MOU yet, while Malacanang and the Foreign Affairs Department have not released any.

A supposed "Chinese draft" released by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV says that state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will conduct oil and gas exploration in "relevant sea areas" in the disputed South China Sea. The draft did not specify where. It also leaves blank the company the Philippines has chosen to take on the joint exploration with China.

It is not clear if this draft framework agreement is similar to the final MOU signed.

READ: Senators push for release of draft joint exploration deal with China

Sotto: No concealment

Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto, who met with Xi along with House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other officials on Wednesday, said the government is not trying to conceal anything. He said Congress may ask for a copy of the MOU.

"Madali yun (transparency). Hindi naman itatago ng gobyerno yung kung ano man ang mapagkasunduan e," Sotto said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

[Translation: Transparency is easy. The government is not hiding whatever was agreed upon."]

Sotto said based on Xi's pronouncements, China lets the Philippines take the lead role in the joint development.

"Maganda yung mga pronouncement niya (Xi) kasi binanggit niya yung tungkol sa South China Sea at West Philippine Sea, dapat daw yun hindi daw yun dapat maging divide satin kundi 'yun daw yung dapat maging cause ng pagkakaibigan natin at pagsasamahan natin," Sotto said.

[Translation: "Xi's pronouncement is good because he mentioned South China Sea and West Philippine Sea, that it should not divide us but be a cause for friendship and cooperation."]

"Kaya payag sila doon sa mga issue ng exploration na Pilipinas ang magli-lead (So they agree that the Philippines should lead the joint exploration)," he added.

He said all that matters is there should be a 60-40 share with China, in favor of the Philippines.

"Basta ang importante lang sa atin, 60-40. 'Yan ang usapan. It's as simple as that. Ang worry kasi nung iba is parang baka malugi tayo Hindi ito. Sa usapan pa lang lumalabas na tayo ang may-ari," he added.

[Translation: "All that matters to us is 60-40. That's the agreement. It's as simple as that. Others worry that we might be on the disadvantage. No. The talks show that we are still the owners.]

Arbitral ruling

Robredo reiterated her call for the government to "exert all diplomatic means to assert our sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea, consistent with our historic victory before the arbitral tribunal more than two years ago."

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July 2016 recognized the Philippines' sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea, or areas of the South China Sea that lie within the country's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China, however, rejects the ruling and continues to claim virtually the entire global waterway - parts of which are contested by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The Duterte administration has been criticized for its allegedly soft stance in the maritime dispute with China and for its refusal to raise the arbitral ruling with the East Asian giant. Duterte promised to bring it up with Beijing within his term.

READ: Xi: Good neighborliness, friendship, cooperation 'only correct choice' for PH, China

She said that while the Philippines can welcome the friendship with China, "this friendship should not come at the expense of the interests of our people and our nation."

"Our interests should always come first when we deepen relations with other nations, especially at a time when majority of our people continue to contend with daily challenges brought about by elevated prices and lack of livelihood opportunities.," Robredo stressed.
For much of my childhood, Tricia was a mysterious figure who drifted into our lives during the summer and on holidays, and left again. A French major, she taught my brother and me to say bonjour and au revoir almost as soon as we could talk and to sing Frere Jacques, which my mother often commanded us to perform in front of guests.
When my uncle shows up with his prosthetic eye that says Make America Great Again (where the pupil should be) and flashes it at my liberal stepsister, do I ask him to put his eye patch back on or do I tell her not to discuss politics?  Tim Perry
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu have formally arrested a prominent rights activist after he visited the grave of executed Mao-era dissident Lin Zhao.

Zhu Chengzhi has been incommunicado since Apr. 29 when he was taken away from the Lingyan Shan hillside cemetery on the outskirts of Suzhou, alongside fellow activists who laid wreaths to mark the anniversary of Lin's execution for alleged counterrevolutionary crimes under the rule of late supreme leader Mao Zedong.

Suzhou authorities issued notification of Zhu's formal arrest to family members on Monday, stating that he was formally arrested on Nov. 12 on suspicion of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

He is currently being held in the Suzhou No. 1 Detention Center.

"It's pretty unfathomable," Zhu's wife, who declined to be named, told RFA on Tuesday. "We have already hired a lawyer."

"Why are they charging him with picking quarrels and stirring up trouble? I don't understand the government's policy on this," she said. "It's always hard to say what's going on with the government."

But she declined to comment further.

Pressure to confess

Hunan-based activist Chen Siming said Zhu's wife may have made certain promises to the state security police.

"For example, the state security police could have warned her not to make any public statements during the period of his residential surveillance," he said. "Maybe they want her to do ideological work with Zhu Chengzhi ... and that they promised to release him once she has done that."

"She's not keen to be in touch with [fellow activists], and we can understand that, but I don't think her methods are exactly right," he said.

Chen said the authorities are likely using Zhu's wife to put pressure on him to "confess," thereby enabling his release.

But he said that outcome seems unlikely.

"He was the most influential among those of us who went to commemorate Lin Zhao," Chen said. "He was the one who held out the longest, and the state security police wanted to send out a warning message by making an example of him for stability maintenance purposes."

"It didn't occur to them that Zhu Chengzhi would refuse to capitulate or cooperate with police," he said. "Actually, all he would have to do would be to sign a letter promising not to commemorate Lin Zhao next year, and they'd let him out."

Chen said Zhu now looks unlikely to avoid a criminal trial and prison sentence, unless he changes his mind.

Prominent rights activist

Zhu became one of China's most prominent rights activists after he spoke out about the death in police custody of labor rights activist Li Wangyang in 2013, and had previously been held on suspicion of subversion after he questioned the official verdict of suicide in Li's death.

A Chinese police investigation into Li's death in June 2013 upheld an earlier verdict of suicide, despite widespread public doubts about the claim that the severely disabled 62-year-old hanged himself.

Lin Zhao, whose birth name was Peng Lingzhao, has long been a poignant symbol for Chinese dissidents and democracy activists, but she has since also become a focal point for the country's army of petitioners, ordinary people who pursue complaints against the ruling Chinese Communist Party through official channels.

A writer who grew up near Nanjing, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, Lin was a star student at the prestigious Beijing University's Chinese language department in the 1950s before being branded a "rightist" and a "class enemy" in 1957 for her criticism of then-supreme leader Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Movement targeting intellectuals.

She was executed by firing squad at Shanghai's Longhua Airport in 1968 at the age of 36 after her sentence was changed to the death penalty because she refused to plead guilty.

Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Authorities in the U.K. have dropped assault charges against a reporter for the Chinese Communist Party's state broadcaster following an angry confrontation with organizers and volunteers at a fringe event of the ruling Conservative Party conference in September.



A video of the incident posted by the rights group Hong Kong Watch at the time showed China Central Television (CCTV) reporter Kong Linlin being escorted from the venue on Sept. 30.



West Midlands Police had charged Kong with common assault after she was accused of "slapping" a volunteer, but the U.K.'s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had dropped the charge.



"This case was originally charged by the police," a spokeswoman for the CPS said in a statement.



"The CPS subsequently reviewed the available evidence and determined it was insufficient to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and therefore discontinued the case," she said.



The decision comes after CCTV claimed last month that charges against Kong had been dropped "due to diplomatic pressure."



A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London had also called for the event organizers to apologize to Kong, 48, adding that the Chinese Communist Party strongly objected to the content of the panel which was discussing democracy and eroding freedoms since the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997.



The panel included pro-democracy politicians Nathan Law, Martin Lee, and Hong Kong University law lecturer Benny Tai, one of the founders of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement, who has been lambasted by the pro-China press for discussing the concept of independence for the city in public.



The spokesman said the event had "boosted the arrogance of the anti-China separatists," and was "a cause for grave concern and strong objection."



Reported by RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese Services. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The Lao governments failure to strictly enforce foreign investment laws is allowing a growing number of Chinese entrepreneurs to dodge investment rules and avoid paying taxes while operating shops and restaurants in the Southeast Asian country, an official from the Ministry of Planning and Investment told RFAs Lao Service.

The number of Chinese merchants and small business operators has increased in many provinces of Laos, sources report, though there are no official figures indicating the exact number of Chinese-run small businesses in the country. Retail, electronic, and convenience stores, restaurants, and even prostitution rings run by the Chinese can be found in many Lao cities.

Laos investment promotion and tourism laws specify that foreigners who want to do business in the country must form a company or joint venture with a minimum investment of U.S. $120,000. The business entity must be approved by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Ministry of Information, Cultural and Tourism.

The investment law also prohibits foreigners from operating businesses valued at less than 300 million kip (U.S. $35,000), reserving this right only for Lao citizens.

But many small-scale Chinese businesspeople in Laos prefer to deal with local agents to set up businesses to circumvent required initial amounts of investment capital and to avoid paying higher taxes, said the official, who requested anonymity out of concern for his safety.

They also usually bribe local officials so they can get their enterprises underway, he said.

The building and restaurant owners are Lao, [but] when the Chinese rent their properties or businesses, it is difficult to control and inspect them, the official said. The law on foreign investment has not been fully implemented. Therefore, it makes management difficult.

Chinese small business owners directly rent buildings or guesthouses from Lao owners because they want to avoid paying higher taxes, leading to a loss of income for state and local governments, the official said.

A huge problem is the officials themselves who have failed to fully enforce the law among foreigners who run businesses, he said.

District tax officials in many provinces often accept bribes from the Chinese to not conduct required inspections or to overlook violations, he said.

They take away our jobs

A Lao small business owner from Phongsaly province in the extreme north of the country told RFA that she and others cannot compete with the Chinese.

The Chinese take away [our] jobs, said the woman who declined to be named out of fear of retribution.

They are retailers, she said. The government allows them to run retail stores. It makes Laotians poor, and [we] are unable to sell goods and make money.

A Lao resident in northwestern Laos Luang Namtha province agreed.

When the Chinese come to Laos to operate restaurant businesses, Lao local restaurants get fewer customers, and some of them cannot thrive and finally must shut down, said the man who declined to be named.

Now most restaurants, hotels, and retail stores belong to Chinese, said an official from the Information, Culture and Tourism Office in Luang Namthas Sing district, who declined to be named, citing safety concerns.

Most Chinese businesses provide services to Chinese people because Sing district is a border district, he said. When their relatives come, they will stay in their hotels and eat in their restaurants. Now only one restaurant and three guesthouses are owned by Laotians.

Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
A court in the Lao capital Vientiane today handed 15-year prison terms to the owners of a company accused last year of defrauding investors of thousands of U.S. dollars in personal savings, a Lao source says.



Por Her and Souknaly Thepsimuang, co-presidents of the PS Agriculture and Industry Promotion Import-Export Company of Laos, were convicted of a wide range of charges and were sentenced at first to 27 years and 29 years respectively, a source in the country told RFAs Lao Service.



But their sentences were then reduced to 15 years, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



The pair were also fined 2.8 billion kip (U.S. $351,533) each, the source said.



Charges on which the two company owners were convicted included defrauding Lao citizens, money laundering, trafficking in weapons, and processing the body parts of endangered wildlife, with no explanation of some of the charges against them immediately available.



Reached for comment by RFA, a Vientiane People's Court judge named Saysamone confirmed the 15-year sentences but declined to comment further on the case.



Other PS Agriculture staff received sentences of from 3 to 4 years in prison and were fined from 20 to 28 million kip (U.S. $2,343 to $3,280).



Company assets seized by authorities included money deposited in 50 separate bank accounts, 37 plots of land, and 112 vehicles, RFAs source said.



On July 6, 2017, PS Agriculture failed to meet a deadline ordered by the Bank of the Lao PDRthe countrys Central Bankto repay the nearly 100 million kip (U.S. $11,717) it owed investors.



Angry protests



News that PS Agriculture had ceased providing promised interest payments then led over a two-day period in September to protests by hundreds of angry investors who turned up at company offices.



The firm registered as an agricultural company in 2012 to produce purified drinking water and noodles, run a rice mill, and farm organic chickens and vegetables.



The company then solicited deposits of between 500,000 and 5 million kip (U.S. $59 and $585) per person for an expansion fund, promising monthly interest payouts of at least four percent, and bonuses of 24 percent to those who maintained their deposits for a yearfar surpassing rates offered by Lao banks.



After an investigation, the Lao central bank determined that the company had promised investors impossibly high dividends and warned the public about the risks.



Bank officials said PS was in any case not legally permitted to raise funds because it was not registered as a financial entity, and the bank had ordered it to obtain a new registration.



Sources acknowledged that investors were at least partially to blame for pursuing what they saw as a get-rich-quick scheme without fully researching how the companys expansion fund operated, and that many had decided to contribute to the fund based on the advice of friends.



Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Richard Finney.
A man arranges a poster showing the Facebook logo on an advertisement by a local telecom company in Myanmar's commercial hub Yangon, June 7, 2018.

The Myanmar Press Council announced Tuesday that it will focus on exposing people in Myanmar who produce fake news to manipulate public opinion, following the filing of a complaint by authorities in Mandalay region about an apparently phony social media report critical of the local government.

The report about the business community questioning the legitimacy of tenders won by companies owned by the regional chief ministers family was published on the Facebook page of the Daily News Myanmar on Nov. 11.

The MPC  an independent media adjudication body that mediates press disputes, promotes journalism ethics, and protects journalists  began an inquiry after the Mandalay regional government secretary filed a request on Nov. 16 on behalf of Chief Minister Zaw Myint Maung for the council to review the matter.

The MPC said in a statement that it contacted a Facebook team based in Singapore to find out if the news page is legitimate.

Its inquiry, however, determined that the so-called Daily News Myanmar had no original domain and originated from two Facebook pages linked to websites called Ginger and DNM.

In the wake of the incident, the MPC announced that it will expose fake news report and anyone who fails to adhere to media ethics.

MPC member Myint Kyaw said that while the councils mandate allows it to disclose fake news sources, Myanmar authorities must investigate and pursue legal action against those who publish phony reports.

People are getting confused about whether some who publish reports are legitimate media or not, he said. Some [websites] claim to be media, but they contain no information about contacts or their intentions. They may have business, politics, religion, or racial intentions.

Pursuing charges against those who violate the Media Law is something the government should handle with regard to security or any other relevant issues, he said.

Harmful to the public

One lawmaker said he believes that the MPC should cooperate with the government in its efforts to ferret out phony news.

There were cases in the past such as spreading hate speech online, inciting political instability, and fomenting violence, said Yangon region lawmaker Nay Phoe Latt. But now it's not just spreading only hate speech, but also creating fake news and online pages on purpose.

It can be harmful to the public if someone unintentionally redistributes such fake news, so the MPC should be mindful about distinguishing between genuine and fake news, he said.

Yin Min Hlaing, a ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party legislator who represents Magway regions Gangaw township in the union parliament, urged the government in October 2017 to monitor online activity, arguing that irresponsible use of the internet could disrupt law and order and corrupt morals.

Four months later, Myanmars Ministry of Transport and Communications created a Social Media Monitoring Team (SMMT) to review social media accounts for fake reports, though it has yet to take any action against anyone.

Transport and Communications Minister Thant Sin Maung said in March that the government would spend more than 6.4 billion kyats (U.S. $4 million) to set up a social media monitoring system.



A huge issue

During a session in the national parliament on Tuesday, lawmaker Maung Thin from the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) questioned the governments monitoring of social media accounts and and asked whether the SMMTs funding is in accordance with the policy of the Presidents Special Budget, which must be used for emergency disaster management.

He also questioned what the governments social media watchdog project has done so far.

Maung Thin requested that the government inform legislators about whether the SMMTs procedures could infringe upon peoples rights and communication and asked which agencies are using the technology, equipment, and machines that are included in the teams budget.

Kyaw Myo, deputy minister for transport and communications, defended the creation of the SMMT as a necessary measure to ensure Myanmars security, stability, and peace, and the rule of law, and said that the team operates in accordance with the constitution, other existing laws, and the policy of Presidents Special Budget.

Facebook has been blamed by the international community for creating problems in Myanmar by not cracking down on those who use the social media platform to spread hateful or inflammatory reports and news, he said.

It is a huge issue, and the SMMT is still young because it was formed in February, Kyaw Myo said. We have to be patient.

The technology requirements for the SMMT are high, and it will become more effective when we get used to it, he said. We will let people know what we do then.

Maung Thin told RFA after the parliamentary session that he was displeased with the responses he received.

He pointed out that one stated objective of the SMMT is to control hate speech, but said that some people continue to use the images of Buddha and prominent abbots in inappropriate ways on social media and that many accounts of those who attack Buddhism are still on Facebook in Myanmar.

Hate speech against Muslims

But human rights groups and others outside Myanmar point to the much larger problem of Facebook being used to disseminate hate speech against Muslims  particularly the stateless and persecuted Rohingya in western Myanmars Rakhine state  and its role in contributing to violent attacks against the minority population in the Buddhist-majority country in recent years.

Hate speech flared up on Facebook during a military crackdown on the Rohingya in Rakhine state that began in August 2017 in response to deadly attacks by a Muslim militant group. The brutal campaign, which included killings, rape and arson, left thousands dead and drove more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh.

After evidence emerged that Facebook posts containing anti-Rohingya hate speech and misinformation written by supporters of the nationalist Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha spiked during the crackdown, the U.S. social media company pledged to hire more Myanmar speakers to review posts and shut down some accounts of ultranationalist monks.

But an investigation by Reuters news agency in August 2018 found that Facebooks efforts to crack down on the mounting hate speech crisis in Myanmar, where about 18 million people use the social media platform, have been inadequate.

Reuters in conjunction with Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law complied more than 1,000 examples of anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya posts, comments, images and videos, that were live on Facebook at the time, including material that had been on the site for six years.

Reported by Htet Aarkar and Win Ko Ko Latt for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar and Nandar Chann. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
The plight of more than 100 Rohingya from Myanmar rescued at sea last week after their boat was stranded en route to Malaysia highlights the lengths to which members of the Muslim minority group are willing to go to in order to escape the hardships they face in internally displaced persons camps at home.

Some of the tens of thousands of Rohingya, who were ushered into the camps in western Myanmars Rakhine state following communal violence with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in 2012, have left Myanmar for other Southeast Asian countries with the help of traffickers. Others have died trying or have gotten caught and been sent back.

Though the Myanmar government is working on shutting down the IDP camps, about 90,000 Rohingya still live in a dozen of them in or around Rakhines state capital Sittwe.

The factors that push these internal refugees to try to leave Myanmar are the same ones that have caused the 720,000 or more Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh after being driven out by army campaigns in 2016 and 2017 to resist efforts to repatriate them. Recent plans to return several thousand refugees to Myanmar foundered when no Rohingya were willing to go home.

Viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, the Rohingya are denied citizenship and basic rights, freedom of movement, and access to social services, education, and jobs.

Some of the 106 Rohingya who paid traffickers to take them by boat to Malaysia said they had left their camps because of a lack of basic rights, food rations, jobs, education, and health care, and because they had bleak future prospects.

If the government cant provide support for us for anything, it should allow us to work, said Htin Gyi (not his real name), a Rohingya who has lived in Thetkepyin IDP camp in Sittwe township since 2012.

The World Food Programme provides us with rice, cooking oil, and salt, but its not enough for us, he told RFAs Myanmar Service It is very difficult to survive, as 90 percent of us dont have jobs. We cant send our children to school, and we cant get treatment for any health problems. It has been six years.

More are fleeing

Travel restrictions imposed on the Rohingya means they cannot move freely around the region except to be escorted by security guards to the Muslim enclave of Aung Mingalar ward in Sittwe and to the towns immigration office and hospital.

Camp residents say the discrimination is yet another reason why the Rohingya are attempting to flee by boat to other countries in Southeast Asia.

More people from the camps and villages, even women and children, are fleeing now that the rainy season is over, said Maung Maung, a Rohingya who lives in Thetkepyin IDP camp.

Htin Gyi said that young Rohingya women from Sittwe will go to neighboring countries to marry other Rohingya who live there to escape the oppression they face at home.

They dont think about whether they could be trafficked along the way or die if their boat sinks, he said. I am sad to see them go, so I try to stop them as much as I can. When 10 boats recently planned to set sail, I could stop only four of them, and the other six departed in secret.

Kyi Myint (not his real name), a Rohingya who lives in the Darpaing IDP camp, said he has informed government authorities many times about human traffickers who enter the camps.

Human traffickers come into the camps, and they tell the refugees that they can get jobs in Thailand and Malaysia, he told RFAs Myanmar Service. They ask them to pay about 300,000 kyats (U.S. $187) to take them to these countries. About 60 to 70 percent of the refugees take risks to leave.

Though Rohingya in the camps have to save money for a long time to pay traffickers to go to other countries, conditions are never safe for them, said Kyaw Hla, a Rohingya leader at the Thae Chaung IDP camp.

We know that many people who left for foreign countries in recent years died after the boats they were traveling in sank, or else they starved, he said. A few of them made it to other countries, but many died or went missing.



Refugees OK in camps

Some Rohingya have accused IDP camp leaders, security guards, and police of letting those who are confined to the camps leave with traffickers in return for payments.

But Rakhine State Police Colonel Kyi Lin said he doesnt believe the accusations.

People are saying what they think, he said. I dont think we have this kind of issue in Sittwe. We will stop them if we know about it.

The refugees are OK in the camps with support [from the government and international NGOs], he said. They can live freely in the camps as well.

Tun Aung Kyaw, chairman of the Arakan National Party, which represents the interests of ethnic Rakhine people in the state, said that most residents of the impoverished multiethnic region suffer from a lack of jobs.

Thats why most ethnic Rakhine and sub-Rakhine ethnic groups are leaving for other places more and more, he said.

At least they are going to Hpakant [in northern Myanmars Kachin state] to work in the jade mines, he added. They also go to Thailand and Malaysia. Everybody will leave their places of residence if they cant survive there.

Ko Ko Naing, director general of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, said the government is providing education and health care to Rohingya in the IDP camps.

Children from the camps can go to schools, and we even have mobile health care teams for them, he said. They get everything that every citizen should get.

We have been supporting them, but I dont know which criteria people are using to blame the government, he said. We have other poor places in the country.

Kyi Myint from the Darpaing IDP camp said there is a temporary health clinic at the camp, but that those who live there have access to doctors and nurses only when President Win Myint, Rakhine State Chief Minister Nyi Pu, and United Nations officials visit.

When they are gone, these doctors and nurses are gone, he said. When we have a health problem, we are asked to go to Sittwe Hospital. We have to hire a car and pay 3,000 kyats (U.S. $1.90) a day, while the cost of the driver is 5,000 kyats (U.S. $3.11).

RFA attempted to contact Nyi Pu several times for comment but was unable to reach him.

Win Myat Aye, Myanmars minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement and vice chairman of Myanmars Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine State (UEHRD), told RFA on Monday that the Rakhine state government is responsible for the management of IDP camps in Sittwe, and that his ministry provides support to the state government.

Myanmar local officials check the abandoned boat of Rohingya Muslims who washed ashore in Kyauktan township south of Yangon, Nov. 16, 2018. Credit: AFP Its better to leave

On Wednesday, meanwhile, authorities transferred the 106 boat people by navy vessel to Rakhines Thae Chuang village so they could return to the camps and villages where they live, after holding them in Yangon region following their rescue on Nov. 16.

Officials who arranged for the boat people to go to the village could not be reached for comment.

Two days after the Rohingya were rescued, Myanmar police detained two men accused of smuggling them out of the country in their boat, at the Ah Nauk Ye IDP camp, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) east of Sittwe.

Four Rohingya were then injured when police fired during a melee that ensued there.

Win Myat Aye later told RFA that relevant organizations were investigating whether the Rohingya had been illegally trafficked.

In the last several years, tens of thousands of Rohingya from the camps have fled or attempted to flee persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar on boats organized by human traffickers.

Authorities had to rescue many Rohingya stranded on rickety boats in 2015 after smugglers left the boats adrift in the Andaman Sea, amid a crackdown on their illegal activities by Thai authorities.

Maung Maung Soe, a Rohingya from Thae Chaung IDP camp, told RFA that he wants to go to Malaysia to escape the hardship he faces at the camp.

Everything was convenient before, and we could move around freely, he said. But its not convenient now. We dont have regular meals, and children cant go to school. So, we think to ourselves that its better to leave and go abroad instead of staying here. If possible, Id like to leave too.

In recent years, some Rohingya have attempted to leave Myanmar on foot, traveling over the Rakhine Mountains, though most have left by water via the Bay of Bengal. Some landed ashore after their vessels experienced mechanical problems, while others who traveled by land faced arrests at checkpoints.

Myanmar authorities routinely send back those who are intercepted.

As long as root causes are not addressed, they [the Rohingya] will keep trying to leave because they cant make a living here and settle down, said a member of Thae Chaung IDP camp committee, who declined to be identified.

So, they will keep on trying to sneak out, no matter how difficult it is, he said.

Freedom of movement is key

A Muslim activist in Thak Kae Pyin village, who declined to give his name, said that many believe their situation will improve if the government guarantees freedom of movement for the Rohingya.

If the government fails to address freedom of movement, it will be very troubling for our livelihoods and for our children, he said.

Gail Marzetti, chief of the Myanmar office of the United Kingdoms Department for International Development, has said that Myanmar officials should implement the recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State led by late former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

Human rights, humanitarian, security, and development issues in the state should be addressed at the same time, she said.

The Annan commissions final report issued in August 2017 called for reviews of Myanmar's Citizenship Law, which prohibits Rohingya from becoming citizens, and an end to restrictions on the minority group to prevent further violence in the divided state. It also called for the closure of the IDP camps in Rakhine state.

The government of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, who set up the commission, has said it has implemented 81 of the reports 88 recommendations, but political analysts and rights experts have questioned the claim.

Reported by Wai Mar Tun and Min Thein Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar and Nandar Chann. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
An exiled Vietnamese activist was denied entry into Vietnam and put back on a plane on November 20, RFA sources say.

Le Thu Ha, who had been offered asylum by Germany following her June 7 exile, attempted to pass through immigration at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, but was not allowed to enter.

Her mother, Hoang Thi Binh Minh, told RFAs Vietnamese Service that Le arrived at Noi Bai Airport in the evening and texted me telling me she was fine, but I lost contact with her after that.

Le and five others, including prominent rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai had been given harsh sentences by the Vietnamese government after being convicted of conducting activities aimed at overthrowing the state under Article 79 of Vietnams Penal Code in April.

Le was sentenced to nine years in jail and two years of probation, but was released along with Nguyen in June and sent into exile in Germany.

Nguyen, still in Germany, told RFA over the phone, German diplomatic sources told me that security [at the airport] didnt want Le to stay there too long because they were worried that if the public became aware of her presence it would cause more trouble, so they forced her out of Vietnam.

She was sent back to Bangkok and now German diplomats are working to bring her back to Germany, he added.

Nguyen also said that Le has been wanting to return home to Vietnam ever since she arrived in Germany in June, but hes not sure why exactly.

Her mother speculated that homesickness might be the reason.

I think maybe shes not well. She gets sick very often. She loves me very much and misses [her home] country, Hoang said. I think she was just sad, and [was having difficulty] adapting to the new environment [in Germany], she said.

She told me that she wanted to come back and live with me but I told her to try to make a good life in Germany. I think she could not overcome her emotions, so thats why she decided to return, said Hoang.

The harsh sentences doled out to Le, Nguyen and the four others stem from their association with the Brotherhood for Democracy, a group founded by Nguyen in 2013 to defend human rights and promote democratic ideals in Vietnam.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
UFA, Russia -- A court in Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan has postponed the trial of a prominent local activist, Fail Alsynov, after a court-appointed Bashkir-Russian interpreter was unable to properly translate the hearing.

The preliminary hearing on November 20 lasted until 10 p.m. because translator Firdausa Gazizova was very slow and, according to the defense, was misinterpreting the judge's questions and the defendant's answers.

The halting hearing and the postponement underscored hurdles and tension in regions where the first language of large portions of the population is their native tongue rather than Russian.

Judge Tatyana Mukhina, an ethnic Russian, rejected the defense request to use its own interpreter. But after the hearing dragged on long after dark, she adjourned the trial until November 22.

Alsynov, the leader of the cultural organization Bashqort, is charged with organizing an unsanctioned public gathering in late September in the village of Temas, where local residents clashed with seasonal workers from the Chechnya region.

Alsynov -- whose organization promotes Bashkir language, culture, and equal rights for Bashkirs -- demanded the trial be held in his native Bashkir language, saying that his Russian was not good enough.

All Alsynov's statements and speeches at the public gathering in question were in Bashkir, not Russian.

Tension over language has increased in the past year or so in Russia's so-called "ethnic" regions, where indigenous groups make up a large portion of the population.

President Vladimir Putin said in July 2017 that children in these regions must not be forced to learn languages that are not their mother tongues, and ordered prosecutors to determine whether that was taking place.

That led to moves by officials to abolish mandatory indigenous-language classes in the regions.

The move caused an outcry in Bashkortostan and other regions where local languages have official status alongside Russian.

About one-third of Bashkortostan's 4 million residents are Bashkir, while 39 percent are ethnic Russians and 25 percent are Tatars.
The European Union has demanded an explanation from EU-member Hungary over reports that Budapest granted political asylum to fugitive former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn tweeted on November 21 that if Hungary has made a decision to grant Gruevski asylum, he expects a "sound explanation of its grounds" from Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Gruevski, who is close to the populist Hungarian prime minister, fled to Hungary last week after being convicted on corruption charges in Macedonia and sentenced to two years in prison.

He said on November 20 that he had been granted asylum from "political persecution" in Macedonia.

Gruevski also said he received death threats in Macedonia -- an accusation that the government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has questioned, saying the former premier was not a victim of political persecution.

Skopje has issued an international warrant for his arrest.

The EU has voiced increasing concern at measures taken by Orban to put Hungary's justice system under his government's control.

"The #RuleofLaw remains a fundamental principle for [EU] Member States and accession candidates alike," Hahn tweeted. "It is crucial for #Europe's credibility. Surprising that #Hungary supports (Macedonian) #EU membership but does not consider it safe."

Macedonia, which was officially recognized in 2005 as a candidate to join the EU, has been implementing reforms to ensure the independence and effectiveness of its judicial system as part of its efforts toward eventual membership.

Gruevski, who served as prime minister from 2006 to 2016, was convicted in May of using a 600,000 euro ($675,000) Mercedes bought with state funds for personal travel.



He is facing three other trials, including over a major wiretapping scandal, and could be handed longer sentences than the one already given to him.



The 48-year-old politician claims the cases are politically motivated.



Late on November 20 in Skopje, a former Macedonian intelligence chief who is also a cousin of Gruevski was taken into custody for a minimum of 30 days after a court considered him a flight risk to potentially avoid standing trial over the wiretapping scandal.



Saso Mijalkov headed state security agency UBK for nearly a decade, until May 2015.



Mijalkov, along with a former interior minister and other intelligence service officials, have been charged with ordering the illegal wiretapping of thousands of people, including opposition politicians and journalists, and of later trying to destroy the evidence.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, and AP
Interpol has elected a South Korean as its president, defeating a Russian candidate who was strongly opposed by the United States, Britain, and other European states.

Interim President Kim Jong-yang was elected to a two-year term at the helm of the international police agency in a vote on November 21, Interpol said on Twitter.

The vote followed mounting concern among Kremlin critics and Western lawmakers that Aleksandr Prokopchuk, a Russian police general who is now an Interpol vice president, would be elected.

In reaction to the result, the Kremlin said on November 21 that clear outside pressure had been exerted on the vote

"Of course we are sorry our candidate has not won," said President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. "Strong pressure was exerted, if you impartially look at a number of statements from a number of countries on the eve of the vote."

However, Peskov said he had not yet seen anything that would throw the "legitimacy" of the vote in question, suggesting that Russia is unlikely to formally challenge the result.

Prokopchuk declined immediate comment.

Opponents of the prospect of a Russian heading the 95-year-old police agency based Lyon, France, said it would be dangerous given allegations that Moscow has used the agency's procedures to pursue political enemies.

Experts say the powers of any Interpol president to influence day-to-day operations at Interpol, which acts as a clearinghouse for national police services that want to hunt down suspects outside their borders, are limited, but the presidency still commands influence.

Day-to-day work is handled by Secretary-General Jurgen Stock of Germany.

Russia had accused Prokopchuk's critics of running a "campaign to discredit" him, with Peskov claiming that U.S. senators who spoke out against choosing a Russian president were meddling in the process.

American-born British investor Bill Browder, who has now become a campaigner against Russian human rights abuses, said common sense had prevailed with Interpol's decision to elect Kim.



Browder and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also a Kremlin foe, had warned on November 20 that electing Prokopchuk would have undermined Interpol's credibility and politicized police cooperation across borders.

Ahead of the vote, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said that "the Russian government abuses Interpol's processes to harass its political opponents, " adding that Washington "strongly endorses" Kim.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the same day that the United States encouraged choosing an Interpol chief with credibility and integrity, adding, "We believe Mr. Kim will be just that."

The election was needed to replace Interpol's former president, Meng Hongwei, who was China's vice minister of public security and who went missing while on a trip to China in September.

China later said Meng resigned after being charged with accepting bribes.

Rights groups voiced concern when Meng was approved as Interpol president two years ago, with Amnesty International criticizing "China's long-standing practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad."



After Prokopchuk lost to Kim, the Russian Interior Ministry said on November 21 that he would continue to serve as vice president of the international police agency.

"Prokopchuk will continue to serve as the Interpol vice president representing Europe," Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk told Russian media, adding that his activity will focus on "heightening the organization's effectiveness."

Several media reports have noted that Prokopchuk is the older brother of Ihor Prokopchuk, Ukraine's envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna.

With reporting by AP and AFP
KYIV -- Anastasia Eva Domani lists several personal milestones in her 39-year life. Her wedding was one. The birth of her daughter was another. Two more were the day she began hormone-replacement therapy as part of her transition to becoming a woman two years ago, and when she finally obtained legal documents that match her gender identity. The last two, she told RFE/RL in a recent interview at Kyiv's President Hotel, might never have been possible -- or would have been significantly more difficult -- if not for another, more public, milestone: the Euromaidan uprising of 2013-14, known by many Ukrainians as the Revolution of Dignity. WATCH: A Hromadske TV documentary featuring Anastasia Eva Domani

Indeed, among the hundreds of thousands of protesters who endured freezing temperatures during the months-long, pro-democracy street protests were dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Ukrainians -- including Domani, who had not yet come out to many family and friends and was still publicly using her birth name, Oleksandr. The unrest and public outrage at the resulting clampdown ultimately propelled the ouster of a Moscow-friendly president for a pro-Western administration, tipping Ukraine and its 45 million people toward European institutions and cementing the enmity of neighboring Russia. The protests also struck at a "really crucial moment for the LGBT community," according to Olena Shevchenko, chair of the Kyiv-based LGBT rights NGO Insight. Shortly before the demonstrations began on November 21, 2013, Ukraine's parliament had passed the first reading of a bill that would have criminalized the spread of so-called "gay propaganda." "It was worse than laws in Russia," Shevchenko said, referring to legislation passed earlier the same year that essentially forbid public mention of homosexuality. Under the Russian law, violators can be punished with fines, while gay-pride events have been blocked and activists detained.

"But our [Ukrainian] deputies were considering criminal responsibility for so-called gay propaganda,'" meaning jail time, Shevchenko said. "If Euromaidan had not started, we were 100 percent sure it would have passed." So when protesters ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and the bill was abandoned, the LGBT community was optimistic that laws would be amended to curb discrimination and that societal attitudes would change. That seemed more possible with the new government in Kyiv promising to impose European standards and values. "There were many LGBTI people out there...in 2013 and 2014, protesting against the Yanukovych governments repression and in support of democracy, dignity, and a closer relationship with Europe," said Matthew Schaff, Freedom Houses Ukraine office director. But Domani and many other LGBT Ukrainians still face persecution and prejudice. They complain that the rights and freedoms demanded by the protesters on Kyiv's Independence Square, or simply the Maidan, have been overlooked and ignored. Domani was among the first people to heed public calls to gather on the Maidan. The first thing she did was to add her name and contact information to a list where Ukrainians arriving from outside the capital could seek housing so they could remain in Kyiv during the protests. For the next 93 days or so, she said, she shared her modest Kyiv apartment with 10 to 15 people, depending on the week. When Domani was on the Maidan, she could often be found on the barricades alongside other protesters as they clashed with police and pro-government thugs, known as "titushki," amid the blazing fires and freezing cold.

She recalled in vivid detail how the brutal Berkut riot police pummeled protesters with truncheons or cut them down with live rounds from shotguns and sniper rifles. "I saw so many dead bodies," Domani said of casualties that culminated in the deadliest day of the Euromaidan clashes on February 20, 2014, when around 70 protesters died. Domani was also active with AutoMaidan, the mobile wing of the Euromaidan protest movement. She often cruised in a car with the group around Kyiv, collecting tires to burn on the Maidan and bottles to fill with petrol for Molotov cocktails that would be hurled at police lines during the more violent clashes. "It was scary," she said recently. But the support she felt from those around her back then kept her going. Protesters were united in their desire to overthrow a corrupt and violent government, Domani explained. Then, she said, it felt like perhaps the tide was changing -- for the country and perhaps specifically for transgender people, too. In the aftermath, there was some positive change. The ostensibly pro-European government under President Petro Poroshenko went on to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union -- the rejection of which by Yanukovych had been the catalyst for the protests in the first place. The passage of an amendment to Ukraine's labor code followed, making it illegal to fire anyone on the basis of their sexuality. Ukraine has also subsequently hosted LGBT Pride marches each June, which despite being targeted by far-right activists have been mostly protected by the country's police force. That helped bring visibility to LGBT rights that didn't previously exist. The Health Ministry, headed by American-born Ulana Suprun, has arguably gone the furthest, at least for transgender Ukrainians.

In late 2016, the ministry took a major step by repealing laws that forced people who wanted to transition to a different gender and be legally recognized as having done so to undergo extensive psychiatric observation, divorce their spouses, undergo sterilization, and submit to gender reassignment surgery. Today, the process remains arduous but is better, said Domani, who has gone through it herself. Patients still have to undergo psychiatric examination, but it is less intrusive and the other requirements have been dropped. Domani, who is one of Ukraine's most visible transgender activists, said at least 50 transgender people have since received legal certificates affirming their gender reassignment. But the Health Ministry represents the exception when it comes to LGBT rights in Ukraine, not the rule. Many LGBT Ukrainians see little progress and even warn of a reversal. WATCH: LGBT people in Crimea told RFE/RL how life has changed since Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. (Originally published February 8, 2018)

"I'd say it's even worse," Shevchenko, the Insight NGO chair, said. It was the eve of a march her group helped organize to mark International Transgender Remembrance Day on November 18. While she praised the Health Ministry for its work to help transgender Ukrainians, she argued that the ministries of Justice and Social Affairs have not been supportive to them or the LGBT community as a whole. And she cautioned that homophobia and transphobia remain rampant. Shevchenko lamented the lack of protection provided by Ukrainian police at all events except for the annual Pride march in June. "Pride is the exception, because Ukraine needs one day every year for LGBT rights," she said. "But it's not really about LGBT rights, it's about showing a picture of this for Western partners." The other 364 days of the year, however, the LGBT community faces the threat of physical attack and lacks adequate protection guaranteed under Ukrainian law by authorities, she added. WATCH: Ukrainian Art Exhibit Pays Tribute To LGBT Soldiers
PRISTINA -- Kosovo has imposed a 100 percent tax on products from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in a move the government said is aimed at defending the countrys vital interest" following Belgrade's "aggressive campaign against the young republic on the international stage.

The Kosovar government announced the new tariffs on November 21, two weeks after it decided to slap a 10 percent tax on goods from the two neighboring states, drawing angry reactions from Belgrade and Sarajevo and calls from the European Union to revoke the measures.

The move also comes a day after Interpol, the international police agency, rejected Kosovo's membership for a third time due to what Pristina claimed was campaigning by Serbia.

Relations between Pristina and Belgrade have been tense since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Although more than 110 countries recognize Kosovo, Serbia -- and Bosnia -- do not. Both Kosovo and Serbia have been told they must resolve their differences in order to make progress toward EU membership.

However, EU-sponsored normalization talks between the two countries' leaders have been stop-and-go in recent months.

Serbia is continuing its aggressive campaign against Kosovo in the intl stage. It is also undermining the normalisation process. To defend our vital interest, Government of Kosovo has decided today to increase the customs tariff to 100%, Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Enver Hoxhaj tweeted on November 21.

Further measures to be announced soon! he added, without elaborating.

Endrit Shala, Kosovos minister of trade and industry, said the new tariffs will empower local producers and strengthen the national economy.

Officials said the new tariffs come into effect immediately and do not apply to international brands produced in the two neighboring countries.

On November 20, Interpol's general assembly voted not to approve membership for Kosovo, the result of what the U.S. Embassy in Pristina said was "a campaign, led by Serbia, to pressure countries to oppose Kosovos bid."



"That was a very aggressive stand from Serbia," Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj told a news conference.

"It is 20 years since the war, 10 years from independence, and Serbia has not shown the good will to normalize ties," he added.

Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said Kosovo's move came as a result of its failure to get a seat at Interpol and warned that it will lead to "huge consequences."



Bosnian Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Minister Mirko Sarovic called the tariffs the biggest blow to the regional free-trade zone."



Reports said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called a meeting of Serbia's National Security Council, Serbia's top body dealing with the military and police, to address the matter.



Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Kosovo to revoke the decision, saying that it was a "clear violation of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and of the spirit of the Stabilization and Association Agreement between the European Union and Kosovo."



CEFTA, which comprises Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Moldova, aims at stimulating its members economic development and EU path.

On November 6, Pristina imposed tariffs of 10 percent on products from Serbia and Bosnia in a move it said was in retaliation for the two countries' lack of recognition toward the young republic.

At the time, Hoxhaj cited Serbia's savage campaign" against the international recognition of Kosovo and threats from Serbia against innocent citizens of Kosovo just because their sons and daughters have joined the Kosovo Security Force (KSF).

In October, Kosovo's lawmakers gave preliminary approval to legislation expanding the size and competencies of the lightly armed KSF in a session that was boycotted by ethnic Serb representatives, who complained it would lead to the creation of a Kosovar army in violation of UN resolutions.

Speaking about the 10 percent tariffs, Vucic said Serbia would not resume the dialogue with Kosovo when it removed the tariffs.

Official data showed that Kosovo imported some 400 million euros ($456 million) in products a year from Serbia and about 81 million euros ($92 million) in goods from Bosnia.

Imports from the two countries had decreased by 50 percent since the previous tax came into force, according to Kosovo's Trade and Industry Ministry.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Balkan Insight
Lithuania has issued a warning over a Russian-owned taxi service and banned government officials from using it. It claimed analysis showed that Yandex.Taxi was sending users' data to Russia, which it says may violate EU laws. But opinion inside the country's capital, Vilnius, is divided.
Russian authorities are laying blame on local officials for the death of a 14-year-old girl who media reports said apparently committed suicide after being bullied at school and writing to President Vladimir Putin to seek help for her financially strapped family.

The Investigative Committee branch in the Smolensk region issued a statement late on November 20, following news reports about a girl in the town of Safonovo who was found dead on November 18.

Investigators have found evidence of criminal negligence in the actions of officials with agencies "that should monitor and provide support to families in difficult life situations," the statement said.

Warning that a criminal investigation on suspicion of negligence has been opened, it said "it is already clear to investigators that officials who had an obligation to delve into the child's problems did not take sufficient measures to avert the tragedy."

The statement said that the girl lived with her older sister and their single mother, a hospital worker, and that the family was in a "difficult financial situation" and had sought help from the local authorities.

It also said the girl, an eighth-grader who was legally handicapped, was bullied at school as a result of what media reports said were problems with her eyesight.

The investigative agency's statement did not mention what media reports said was a letter the girl had written to Putin seeking financial help for her family.

Media reports said that the girls mother was reprimanded at work for her daughters letter.

It was not clear whether the purported letter reached Putin, who is often portrayed by the Kremlin as a leader attentive to the needs of ordinary Russians and has sometimes intervened to settle local disputes or aid a single citizen or family.

With reporting by Smolenskaya Narodnaya Gazeta
Russia is claiming that the West is seeking to turn an international convention on chemical weapons into a tool to pursue its own agenda.

The accusation was leveled by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on November 21, a day after Russia failed to prevent the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from receiving new powers to assign blame for chemical attacks like those in Syria or Britain.

Western countries pressed for the implementation of the new powers after several chemical incidents in Syria, as well as a nerve-agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in March.

"They are trying to turn a unique tool of international law -- the Chemical Weapons Convention -- into an obedient tool to promote Western policies," Lavrov said in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.

The 1997 convention, under which almost all the countries pledged to give up chemical weapons, made possible the creation of the OPCW.

Lavrov blasted the November 20 vote in which member states approved a 2019 budget for the watchdog that includes funding for the new role.

"It's a worrisome situation," he said.

Lavrov also accused the OPCW members that supported the move of violating the "fundamentals of international law" and claimed that "blackmail and bribery" had taken place before the vote.

With reporting by AFP and TASS
Thousands of Muslim worshipers marched in Pakistan to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Strict security arrangements were taken for the procession on November 21 in the capital, Islamabad, as vehicles were banned along the route. Charity organizations provided food for participants at the end of the march.
Seven years ago, when I began at Northeastern, I was just a person who got out of prison trying to change my life, said Tillmon, now the executive director of the Youth Safety and Violence Prevention initiative at YMCA of Metro Chicago. I knew I had changed. But I didnt want to go through the anxiety and potential trauma of trying to convince someone on four lines of paper that Ive changed and I want access to higher learning.
Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani was released from prison after spending more than seven years behind bars, local media report.

The semiofficial ISNA news agency said on November 21 that Soltani was reunited with his family after a Revolutionary Court ruled to release him the previous day.

"The authorities agreed yesterday to my client's conditional parole and he was released today," IRNA quoted Soltani's lawyer, Saeed Dehghan, as saying.

The lawyer's release could not be immediately confirmed by his family or legal team.

Under Iranian law, convicts can be granted conditional freedom after serving at least half of their prison terms.

Soltani co-founded the now-banned Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

He was arrested in September 2011 and later sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges including spreading propaganda against the system and setting up an illegal opposition group.

Soltani was briefly released from prison in August to attend the funeral of his 27-year-old daughter, Homa, who died of a heart attack.

International human rights groups said Soltani was a prisoner of conscience whose sentencing was entirely connected to his professional work and defense of human rights.

Iran has jailed scores of human rights lawyers and activists on similar charges.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP
A Russian-owned company linked to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election has sued Facebook, after the social-media company barred it from its network.

The company, called the Federal Agency of News LLC, filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in California on November 20, arguing it is a legitimate news outlet and its profile should be restored.

Known as FAN, the St. Petersburg-based company appeared in a federal criminal complaint filed last month in Virginia that charged its accountant in connection with the 2016 election campaign meddling.

Facebook deleted FAN's accounts in April in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency. Mueller charged the agency, known informally as the "Russian troll factory," had used U.S. social media to spread misinformation and sow discord in 2016.

Facebook removed more than 270 Russian-language accounts and pages, including FAN's accounts, but the lawsuit asserts those accounts were improperly removed.

"FAN is an independent, authentic, and legitimate news agency which publishes reports that are relevant and of interest to the general public," the company said in the lawsuit.

Facebook had no immediate comment on the suit.

The company's sole shareholder is listed as Yevgeny Zubarev.

In their October criminal complaint, federal prosecutors in Virginia said Elena Khusyaynova was the chief accountant running an operation called Project Lakhta that was funded by a Kremlin-connected oligarch.

FAN said it had employed Khusyaynova, but said her role at the company was limited to day-to-day bookkeeping, and that she had no editorial control.

With reporting by Reuters
A committee of the Russian parliament's upper house has recommended to the Kremlin to review the nation's rules for the use of nuclear weapons, local news agencies report.

They said participants in November 21 hearings organized by the Federation Council's Committee for Defense and Security suggested that the presidential Security Council should draft a new version of the nuclear doctrine.

The lawmakers said in their nonbinding recommendations cited by the news agencies that the revised version of the doctrine should, in particular, spell out a response to a hypothetical use of hypersonic and other nonnuclear strategic weapons against Russia.

The proposals come two days after President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of top military officials to discuss a response to U.S. threats to pull out of a key nuclear arms treaty.

The U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty "wouldn't be left without an answer from our side," Putin said at the November 19 meeting in Moscow, adding that the Kremlin was ready to discuss the matter with Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month declared his intention to withdraw from the 1987 INF Treaty, citing alleged Russian violations of the accord, which prohibits the United States and Russia from possessing, producing, or deploying ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,000 kilometers.

Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations and also alleged that some elements of U.S. missile-defense systems in Europe were in violation of the agreement.

Washington denies that.

Trump's move came amid persistent tension between the West and Russia over issues including Moscow's seizure of Ukraines Crimea region in 2014, its role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged election meddling in the United States and Europe, and the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain in March.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
Tajikistans top diplomat says 25 people have been killed in a recent prison riot in the city of Khujand in the first public comment by Tajik authorities about the violence in the countrys north.

Describing the violence in the high-security prison, Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin said the rioters attacked prison guards, killing two officers and seriously wounding five others.

The officers attempted to enter negotiations with them, [but] rioters continued confronting [them] while attempting to escape the facility, Muhriddin said.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting in Brussels on November 22, Muhriddin said that 21 rioters were neutralized during the confrontation. Two inmates were killed while trying to help prison guards, he added.

Muhriddin made the comments at a press conference after the EU-Tajikistan Cooperation Council meeting chaired by Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, whose country currently holds the rotating European Union presidency.

The Tajik government has issued no public statements on the violence that occurred late on November 7.

The penitentiary -- high-security prison No. 3/3 -- largely houses inmates convicted on charges related to terrorism, extremism, and other serious crimes.

Muhriddin said that 12 of the rioters had fought in Syria and Iraq alongside Islamic State militants, while three were convicted for memberships of other banned extremist groups.

The minister said the Tajik government will make an official statement about the violence when an ongoing probe is completed.

Sources at the Sughd regional court told RFE/RLs Tajik Service on November 21 that six prison officers, including a department chief, have been arrested in recent days.

Tajik authorities have not publicly confirmed the arrests.

On November 20, U.S. Charge dAffaires Kevin Covert held talks with Tajik Foreign Ministry officials "to learn about the steps the Tajik government has taken to investigate alleged violations and to insist that the rule of law be upheld."

Covert wrote on Facebook on November 19 that "it is important for the [Tajik] government to conduct a thorough investigation, follow the rule of law, and protect the human rights of prisoners and their families."
DUSHANBE -- The main surviving suspect in an attack that killed four foreign cyclists on a mountain road in Tajikistan in July has been convicted of "murder with extreme violence" and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison, participants in the closed-door trial say.

A juror in the trial of 15 suspects told RFE/RL that Husein Abdusamadov was found guilty on nine criminal counts and sentenced on November 21. The charges also included terrorism, religious extremism, and recruiting for illegal militant activities.

Two defendants, Karomatullo Ghaniev and Behruz Safoev, were convicted of being members of a criminal group and an extremist organization and sentenced to 16 years in prison each. The other 12 defendants were found guilty of failure to report a crime and sentenced to prison terms between 12 and 18 months.

The court ruled that Bahriniso Haidarova, the only woman among the defendants, will serve her sentence at a later date because she has a young child, according to the juror, a woman who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The 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 in southern Tajikistan and then stabbed some of them. Two of the foreign cyclists survived.

Out of five men the authorities accused of carrying out the attack, Abdusamadov is the only survivor; officials say the others were killed by security forces during operations aimed at capturing the suspects.

There is no death penalty in Tajikistan, a mostly Muslim former Soviet republic in Central Asia.

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 leader of IS.

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 the authoritarian President Emomali 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."
KAZAN, Russia -- A Tatar activist held a one-man picket in the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan to denounce what he called the Chinese authorities persecution of the countrys Muslims.

Rafik Karimullin of the Azatliq (Freedom) Tatar Youth Union stood on November 21 in front of the Chinese Consulate in Kazan with a poster reading, "China! Stop the genocide of the Muslim peoples, our brothers, Uyghurs, Tatars, Kyrgyz, and Kazakhs!"

The city authorities had refused to allow a larger demonstration.

Investigations by the United Nations revealed in August that an estimated 1 million Muslims from Chinas northwestern province of Xinjiang were being held in "counterextremism centers" and millions more have been forced into reeducation camps.

China denies the facilities are internment camps.

Officials say they are part of a "vocational education and training program" that helps people to "see clearly the essence and harm of terrorism and religious extremism."

Uyghurs are the largest indigenous community in Xinjiang, followed by Kazakhs, and the region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Hui, also known as Dungans.

An estimated 8,000 ethnic Tatars are living in the region.

Han, China's largest ethnicity, are the second-largest community in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
Afghan authorities are working to identify those responsible for a suicide bombing that killed at least 55 people and wounded scores more who were attending a religious gathering in Kabul.

The victims included religious scholars from all over Afghanistan, invited by the Ulema Council to celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad on November 20.

"As of now we don't know which militant organization could be behind the attack. Investigations are at a preliminary stage," a senior investigator who was at the site said on November 21.

The Ulema Council, the country's largest religious organization, brought together scholars from the Sunni sect.

Though Sunni themselves, Taliban and Islamic State fighters have targeted religious scholars aligned with the Afghan government in the past.

But the Taliban quickly denied any involvement, and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said late on November 20 that his group condemned any attack on civilians or religious clerics.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani declared a national day of mourning on November 21.

The U.S. ambassador to Kabul, John Bass, tweeted that he was "sickened and saddened by tonight's terror attack."

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it was "outraged by Kabul bombing when communities across Afghanistan are marking day of special religious significance."

Last week, Taliban leaders met U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at their political headquarters in Qatar in an effort to pave the way for peace talks. The three-day meeting was the second in the past month.

Khalilzad has declared a deadline of April 20 -- when Afghanistan's presidential election falls due -- to end the war, but the country's security situation has worsened since NATO formally ended combat operations in 2014.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to remain a "steadfast partner" of Saudi Arabia despite international condemnation of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

Trump strongly defended ties with Saudi Arabia in a statement on November 20, saying the kingdom agreed to invest a "record amount of money" in the United States.

Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Arabia's establishment, was killed after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Officials in the Saudi kingdom have blamed the killing on rogue agents and denied claims that Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman had knowledge of the operation.

"Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event," Trump said.

"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the U.S. president added.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later said that the United States was obligated to adopt policies that furthered U.S. national security interests.

Washington has sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being involved in Khashoggi's killing, but lawmakers have called for harsher actions.

Based on reporting by the BBC, AP, and Reuters
KYIV -- President Petro Poroshenko headed a delegation of top Ukrainian officials marking the fifth anniversary of the start of the Euromaidan protests, which began a series of events that tilted Ukraine's geopolitical orientation toward the West.

Poroshenko took part in a ceremony on Kyivs Independence Square on November 21 to commemorate the activists killed during the three months of peaceful protests on the square in 2013-14 that forced Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia.

Poroshenko was joined by Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman and parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy at the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred memorial on the square, where many of the 100 activists were killed, most by security forces.

"Dignity and freedom -- for Ukrainians these are not just words," said Poroshenko during a visit later in the day in the Zhytomyr region. "For our people, this is the meaning of life for all ages.The Revolution of Dignity has become a logical continuation of the eternal aspiration to freedom of people who never tolerated tyranny and dictatorship."

In the weeks following Yanukovych's February 21, 2014, ouster, Russia illegally occupied Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula before annexing it, and also supported separatist forces as they fought for control of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

November 21 is officially known as Prosperity and Freedom Day in Ukraine to mark the start of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-14 Euromaidan uprising.

The day was known as Freedom Day from 2005 to 2011 but was canceled while Yanukovych was president. Poroshenko reinstated it after becoming president in 2014.

A series of special events and commemorations were planned for the holiday around Ukraine.

A survey of 80 Ukrainian analysts, political scientists, activists, and media representatives showed that an "absolute" majority believes the Euromaidan uprising "achieved victory," said Iryna Bekeshkyna of the Democratic Initiatives Forum.

They cited the "restoration of the course of European integration" as the main achievement, she said, including Ukraine's visa-free regime with the European Union and the signing of an Association Agreement with the bloc.

Many of the experts, however, said there had been a "slipping" of the reforms begun after the revolution and said some necessary changes in society had not yet begun.

There has also been dissatisfaction with the pace of arrests of those responsible for the 100 protester deaths during Euromaidan, during which 13 security forces were also killed.

Serhiy Horbatiuk, chief of the special investigations directorate of Ukraine's Prosecutor-General's Office, said on November 21 that investigators are probing 470 crimes committed against demonstrators during the uprising.

He added that some 289 cases have been sent to the courts and 52 people have thus far been found guilty. Nine people have been given jail sentences.

But Horbatiuk said he was surprised that 33 suspects are still serving in the Interior Ministry and national police force, many in administrative posts. He criticized the courts for their slow pace in prosecuting the cases.

"The investigations into the Euromaidan crimes have not become a government priority," Horbatiuk said.
I just wanted to say I've been in front of the grand jury, the FBI, in the newspapers. Everywhere I turn, my name is there, she told them under oath. From the beginning I've been trying to be honest and remember as best as I can, but with everything being thrown in your face, you start seeing things different.
Visitation will be Sunday from 3 to 9 p.m. at Oehler Funeral Home, 2099 Miner St. in Des Plaines, for the 28-year-old officer and father of three who would have celebrated his first wedding anniversary next month.
In her petition for the order of protection, the woman said that Lopez had twice pulled out his gun with intent to harm people when he felt threatened or startled in the prior weeks. In the first instance, he pointed a gun at a real estate agent who arrived at his apartment after forgetting that he had scheduled an appointment to show the home. In another incident, Lopez felt threatened by a neighbor and ran outside with his gun to look for him, according to the court records.
Officers were called to a house in the 6600 block of South Lowe Avenue shortly before 10 a.m. and found two people shot  one of whom was a 61-year-old woman who was dead on the scene, said Officer Jose Jara, a police spokesman.
A ROTHERHAM man who travelled more than 100 miles to steal quad bikes from isolated farm buildings in the dead of night has been jailed.

After Joshua Faley was handed a 16-month prison term at Carlisle Crown Court, police welcomed the sentence and said it showed they mean business in the fight against rural crime.

Faley (pictured), of Jordan Crescent, Meadowbank, and an unidentified man were seen by officers in darkness in the Tebay area of Cumbria on February 9 last year having travelled in a Transit van.

Police aiming to crack down on countryside burglaries were already on the lookout for criminals when a man reported suspicious activity.



Officers found the unoccupied Transit van down an isolated farm track with a screwdriver and knife on the dashboard.

There was a ramp in the rear that would allow motorbikes and the like to be wheeled into the van, said prosecutor Ms Clare Thomas.

Two figures were spotted and one, Faley, was arrested.

He claimed he and the other man were in Cumbria to go ratting with a dog.



But police found unemployed Faley had received a text the previous night which asked: You want to go for a quad tonight?

It emerged three quad bikes - worth a total of 11,500 - had been pinched from remote farm buildings, although all were recovered.

Jane Foley, giving mitigation for Faley, a 23-year-old father-to-be, said: He went along with it. He was stupid and he clearly was very foolish indeed.

It is not something he has done before, and he tells me it is not something he will be doing again.

Faley admitted two counts of burglary and theft of the quad bikes, and was jailed last Wednesday.

Mr Justice William Davis learned that during the past two years, 51 quad bikes had been stolen from Cumbria.

Sentencing Faley, Mr Justice Davis said: It is perfectly obvious that this was a completely dishonest trip from start to finish.

He added: The evidence I have makes it perfectly plain that people travelling distances to steal valuable farm equipment and livestock are extremely prevalent.

Following the court hearing, Cumbria police PC John Spriggs, one of the officers who caught Faley, said: This sends out the message that we mean business.

Det Con Lauren Carruthers added: Cumbrias isolated and rural communities can fall victim to theft and burglaries carried out by criminals travelling from outside the county.

Cumbria Constabulary takes this type of crime extremely seriously.

Officers and staff have been running a number of multi-agency operations to target this type of offending.

We certainly are not an easy target. This type of sentence shows burglars who think they are coming for an easy day out in Cumbria they face a lengthy spell in jail.
This article was originally run on www.agweek.com.

MOORHEAD, Minn.  A cooperative of sugar beet growers plans to purchase American Crystal Sugar Company's Sidney, Mont., sugar processing facility.

Representatives of American Crystal Sugar Company and Big Sky Sugar Cooperative of Sidney, Mont., on Friday sent out a news release confirming that they have signed a non-binding letter of intent "providing the framework by which Big Sky would become the owner of the Sidney, Mont., sugar processing facility."

American Crystal officials met with staff members in Sidney on Friday, Nov. 16, to announce the negotiations.

Big Sky Sugar Cooperative was formed May 31, 2017, and is owned by sugar beet growers who currently deliver beets to the Sidney Sugars Inc. facility at Sidney. American Crystal bought the plant from Holly Sugar in 2002 and has run it as a wholly-owned subsidiary.

"The parties will continue to negotiate the terms of the definitive agreements needed to implement the transaction," the two co-ops said in a news release.

"We have been working with the growers in an effort to outline the terms of an agreement that makes sense for both parties," said Tom Astrup, CEO of American Crystal. "We believe we have now outlined the terms of such an agreement and look forward to working with the local growers to complete the negotiations of the transaction details."

Kjeld Jonsson, the president of Big Sky, noted that the proposed transaction will allow the local sugar beet growers to have greater control over the future of sugar beet farming in eastern Montana and western North Dakota.

"We are excited about the possibilities that this transaction presents to both our owner/members and larger Sidney community," he said.

The letter of intent outlines the principal terms of the transaction, but the parties noted that many details remain to be resolved. It is anticipated that these negotiations will be taking place over the upcoming months.

American Crystal is owned by 2,650 shareholders in the Red River Valley, with factories at East Grand Forks, Crookston and Moorhead, Minn., as well as Drayton and Hillsboro, N.D.
Capt Amarinder Singh during the inauguration of District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises at Ludhiana

Spokesman News Service: Ludhiana, November 21: Giving further impetus to the state governments flagship Ghar Ghar Rozgar programme, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday formally inaugurated the District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises in Ludhiana.

The Bureau would enable eligible job seekers to be gainfully placed, besides facilitating enterprising youth towards self-employment ventures. It would also help strengthen the infrastructure of employment generation across the state as these state-of-the-art Bureaus, inaugurated simultaneously across districts today, had replaced the archaic employment exchanges in the state.

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Lauding the efforts of the Department of Employment Generation and Training, Captain Amarinder said the new Bureaus would prove to be a milestone in assisting the unemployed youth to get lucrative job opportunities in government, public and private sectors. With the hi-tech facilities at their disposal, these Bureaus would also be instrumental in guiding the young entrepreneurs to set up their ventures, the Chief Minister added.

Capt Amarinder Singh during the inauguration of District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises at Ludhiana

Notably, the Department of Employment Generation and Training has organized Mega Job Fairs at district level from November 12 to 22, where 16,000 youth had been provided jobs as per their qualifications, with another 16,000 shortlisted for the various employment openings. Apart from these, the department has also provided assistance to about 1500 youth for several self-employment ventures. Nearly 4 Lac jobs have been provided so far under the Ghar Ghar Rozgar Scheme since April last year after the incumbent government took over.

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On the occasion, the Chief Minister also launched the citizen-centric Bilingual Portal Website and Android Mobile Application under Punjab Skill Development Mission (PSDM). The portal and app are fully equipped with options, information and interactive features to further improve Citizen-Government interface through E-Governance.

Capt Amarinder Singh during the inauguration of District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises at Ludhiana

Appreciating the initiative of PSDM, the Chief Minister said the online portal would go a long way in ensuring prompt delivery of public services in an efficacious manner on the one hand and make governance far more transparent and accountable on the other. He said the portal would also be beneficial in providing good governance and enhancing the ambit of skill development schemes in a result oriented and meaningful manner.

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Meanwhile, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi apprised the Chief Minister that the object of the online platform was to streamline the office processes and systems for improved performance in service delivery and to extend the outreach of skill development schemes.

Capt Amarinder Singh during the inauguration of District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises at Ludhiana

The Chief Minister was also informed that all relevant information, related to details of all the schemes being implemented by the PSDM in the state, would be available on this online portal. Information concerned with Skill courses being run by the PSDM would also be visible month wise/district wise/sector wise/Training Partner (TP) wise. The portal would also facilitate youth for enrolment in skill training and also impart information regarding candidates who have been successfully placed or facilitated for self-employment ventures.

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Keeping pace with emerging technologies and changing needs of the youth, the portal would be synced with the social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) of the Skill Development Mission to enable the youth for seeking requisite information for various skill training programmes initiated by the mission in collaboration with training partners. For the convenience of the youth, these online tools would help in selecting the location of the nearest Training Centre, listed district wise and TP Wise.

Capt Amarinder Singh during the inauguration of District Bureau of Employment and Enterprises at Ludhiana

There are at present more than 150 Training Centres across the state. The list of the empanelled TPs arranged district wise and details of schemes being implemented by them is also available on the online platform. Currently, there are over 130 TPs in the state. All the users/candidates can also be digitally notified about the Rozgar/Job melas and initiation of various courses in the district through this portal.

Prominent amongst who were present on the occasion were Cabinet Ministers Charanjit Singh Channi & Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Media Advisor to CM Raveen Thukral, MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, MLAs Rakesh Pandey, Sanjay Talwar, Kuldeep Singh Vaid & Lakhbir Singh Lakha, Special Principal Secretary Gurkirat Kirpal Singh, Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu, DC Pardeep Kumar Agrawal, Commissioner of Police Dr. Sukhchain Singh Gill and Additional Director Employment Generation & Training Rajdeep Kaur.
Sadhu Singh Dharamsot

Spokesman News Service: Chandigarh, November 21: The Punjab Government has initiated a subsidy scheme for the fencing of fields of the farmers hailing from kandi region in order to save their crops from the wild animals. The government would provide 50 percent subsidy to the farmers for fencing their cultivativable agricultural fields.

Mr. Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Forest Minister, Punjab disclosed that the ratio of subsidy to be given to farmers is 50 percent and it would be increased to 60 percent if the fencing is done by the self-help group of farmers. He said that the farmers would be given a subsidy of Rs.125 per meter for barbed wire fencing with wooden planks (Balli) or fence posts and farmers' self-help groups would get subsidy of Rs.150 per meter.

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He said that farmers would be provided subsidy of Rs. 175 per meter and farmers' self-help groups Rs. 210 per meter for erecting barbed wire fencing and with cement or angle iron fence posts. The Forest Minister said that the maximum limit of fencing allowed under this scheme for Small Farmers (2.5 acres) will be 400 running meters, for marginal farmers (2.5-5.0 acre) will be 600 running meters and for farmers with large land holdings (more than 5.0 For acres) it will be 1000 running meters.

He said that for self-help group of farmers, it will be 2000 running meters. He said that under this scheme for grant of subsidy the priority would be given to those farmers and self-help groups whose cultivable land is adjacent to the forest lands and agriculture is being done on that land. He said that this scheme will not be apply on barren and non-cultivable lands.

Mr. Dharmsot said that the beneficiary farmers will get benefits through DBT in their bank accounts after field monitoring of fencing on their agricultural fields. He said that for this purpose the farmers can contact the nearest Divisional Forest Officer or Range Forest Officer for registering themselves. He said that in this regard Forest Circle, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar, Dasuya, Pathankot, Garhshankar and Hoshiarpur can be contacted.

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Mr. Dharmsot further said that the Punjab government is committed to welfare of the farmers of the state. He also said that wild animals in Kandi area were harming the farmers of the farmers since a very long time. He said that this problem would be overcome now. He also added that the farmers belonging to the kandi areas of Rupnagar, SAS Nagar, Dasuya, Pathankot, Garh Shankar and Hoshiarpur would be eligible to get benefit of this scheme.
Captain Amarinder Singh giving away the Eligibility Certificates to beneficiaries

SPOKESMAN NEWS SERVICE: LUDHIANA, NOVEMBER 21: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday gave away eligibility certificates to beneficiaries under the Mahatma Gandhi Sarbat Vikas Yojna (MGSVY) at a district level camp here with the aim of taking the governments welfare schemes to the deserving members of the society. More than 1500 beneficiaries today attended the camp and got themselves enrolled under MGSVY to avail the benefits of various schemes.

Divulging the details of the total beneficiaries so far assisted under MGSVY, Captain Amarinder Singh said that nearly nine lakh beneficiaries had been guided to avail the benefits of welfare schemes. Henceforth, District Level camps under Mahatma Gandhi Sarbat Vikas Yojna would be organised on the 20th of every month to assist the beneficiaries. Captain Amarinder Singh said that to ensure effective implementation of the programme, the Rural Development Department and his office would regularly monitor its progress.

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Captain Amarinder Singh giving away the Eligibility Certificates to beneficiaries

Addressing a gathering here at the local Government Girls College, Captain Amarinder Singh said that the aim of this scheme was to reach out to the disadvantaged sections of the society so that the benefits of the various schemes could be provided to them, thus enabling holistic development of the state.

The Chief Minister pointed out that the programme was launched in December 2017 with a door-to-door survey conducted in some districts, followed by camps for clusters of villages till August 2018. Camps were subsequently held in all Districts and sub divisional level on October 2 to identify the eligible beneficiaries to be covered under different schemes.

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Captain Amarinder Singh giving away the Eligibility Certificates to beneficiaries

Giving details about the criteria of the scheme, the Chief Minister said that the scheme would cover the families having residents of Punjab with annual income not more than Rs. 60,000 or land not more than 2.5 acres. The scheme would ensure the benefits of various schemes namely Atta-Dal, MGNREGA job cards, Ghar-Ghar Rozgar Yojna, LPG Connections under Ujjwala Yojna, Free Electricity and Drinking Water Connection, Pensions including old age/widow/differently-abled/ dependants, subsidized LED lights under Ujala Yojna and Toilets for all.

Earlier, local Member Parliament Ravneet Singh Bittu, in his address, thanked the Chief Minister for fulfilling another promise of his Government. He said that this scheme would go a long way to help the needy and eligible beneficiaries.

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Captain Amarinder Singh giving away the Eligibility Certificates to beneficiaries

Prominent amongst those present on the occasion were Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Media Advisor to CM Raveen Thukral, MLAs Surinder Dawar, Sanjay Talwar, Kuldeep Singh Vaid, Mayor Ludhiana Balkar Singh Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary to CM Gurkirat Kirpal Singh and Deputy Commissioner Ludhiana Pradeep Kumar Agrawal.
Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa

Spokesman News Service: Chandigarh, November 21: Punjab Jails and Cooperation Minister Mr Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has demanded dignified space for Punjabi freedom fighters in the narrative of Cellular Jail at Port Blair in Andaman, then notorious as Kalapani.

In a letter to the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh, Mr Randhawa expressed disbelief and disgust at the way Punjabi freedom fighters have been side-lined in the Cellular Jail Museum and the Light and Sound programme that is staged there every evening.

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In a veiled attack on the focus on Hindutva author V D Savarkar in the Kalapani narrative, he said, This is an issue that relates to India and not just Punjab or the role of Punjabis. Such distortions in history must be rectified. The people who apologised to the British in writing have been given priority bypassing these valiant freedom fighters who preferred to suffer than seek forgiveness. This is all part of record.

Narendra Modi

He demanded that the names of all the freedom fighters from Punjab deported to Andaman should be displayed, along with photographs. The Light and Sound programme should be recast to reflect the totality of situation in a balanced way with addition of Punjabs contribution to freedom struggle in the context of Kalapani.

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Mr Randhawa said Cellular Jail in Andaman the most distinctive symbol of the struggle for freedom of the country. This jail also symbolises composite culture of India. It would not be an exaggeration to describe Cellular Jail as the emblem of contribution of Punjabis to the freedom struggle. Unfortunately, the same is not reflected in the museum to which this jail was converted in the seventies, including the Light and Sound programme.

He pointed out many of the Punjabis were executed when the Japanese took over these islands, the most prominent among them being Dr Diwan Singh Kalepani. Jail Minister detailed that the deportation of freedom fighters to Andaman from Punjab started with the Kuka movement and peaked during the revolutionary struggle that included the Ghadar Party set up on the US soil by Punjabis to liberate their country.

Rajnath Singh

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Many of them who returned to India were either hanged to death or sentenced to transportation for life and deported to Cellular Jail. The list of Punjabis having been interned at Andaman is long. He asserted the issue was not just that of numbers but also of the worst of torture many of them suffered that is just unimaginable.

These freedom fighters continued their struggle against the brutal British rule even when in chains in this then the most notorious jail. Master Charan Singh was kept in a CAGE for more than four years and this is a record and example of how the prisoners who resisted the British Empire even in jail were treated. He could not even stretch himself in that cage.

He regretted this narrative of Punjabis interned in Andaman has not been given the recognition proportionate to their sufferings and contribution. He expressed shock over lack of comprehensive record of Punjabi freedom fighters deported to Andaman. He said intervention of the Prime Minister was is necessary to preserve this national heritage in the right perspective.
The incident allegedly happened Thursday while the staff member restrained the girl, who was said to be provoking other patients, according to DCFS. The foster child was admitted to the hospital Sept. 25 and was due to be discharged about two weeks ago but remained stuck there without another appropriate placement, records reviewed by the Tribune show.
No charges have been filed in connection with the shooting that prompted police to respond to Mannys Blue Room Lounge at about 4 a.m. on Nov. 11. On Tuesday, the Cook County sheriffs office, which is investigating the initial shooting, sent out three photos of individuals who they said were at Mannys at or around the time of the shooting.
(CNN)  British Prime Minister Theresa May's efforts to pass a Brexit deal have suffered a further setback after Spain threatened to veto her draft divorce agreement over the handling of Gibraltar.

Madrid has objected to part of the deal that covers future trade and security relations between the UK and the European Union. It insists arrangements relating to Gibraltar, a small British territory on the southern tip of Spain, should be discussed separately.

Spain would not back the deal until the issue is clarified, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said after discussions with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and EU ambassadors.

Spain has long claimed sovereignty over Gibraltar, which has been a British territory since 1713. But Gibraltarians, who voted almost unanimously to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, are fiercely loyal to Britain and have resisted Spanish claims.

The draft Brexit deal must be agreed at an EU summit on November 25. Spain cannot itself block the deal, which can be approved if 20 of the remaining 27 EU nations agree. An EU official told CNN that it was likely the issue would be ironed out before the EU Council meets at the weekend. "I am confident this will be solved before Sunday," the official told CNN.

But Madrid's objections will frustrate May's efforts to see the deal through the EU smoothly before it returns to the UK Parliament for a final vote.

Spain wants negotiations over future arrangements for Gibraltar to be conducted separately from wider trade and security discussions.

A spokesman for May said Gibraltar should be included in the talks over the future relationship between the UK and the EU. "The PM has been clear that we will not exclude Gibraltar and the other overseas territories and crown dependencies from our negotiations on the future relationship."

Gibraltar's Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said that the Spanish government's position "does little to build mutual confidence and trust going forward."

"The language of vetoes and exclusions should be the language of the past," he added.

Further troubles for May

May's fight to save her under-fire Brexit deal, which prompted a series of resignations from her government last week, was further damaged Tuesday by the refusal of Democratic Unionist Party members to back her government in a number of finance votes in the UK Parliament.

Under the terms of an agreement between the DUP and the Conservatives, the Northern Irish pary's 10 members of Parliament vote with the government on key legislation. The DUP's decision to breach the deal on Tuesday night was seen as a warning shot to May.

Its support is crucial if May is to have a chance of pushing her EU withdrawal deal through Parliament. But the DUP has fiercely criticized the draft agreement since it was published last week.

A further blow was handed to May by the UK's Supreme Court, which refused to hear a government appeal in a case over whether Article 50, the section of the Lisbon Treaty that triggered the Brexit process, can be unilaterally revoked.

The case, brought by a group of lawmakers who support remaining in the EU, is being heard by Scotland's highest court, the Court of Session. The government had opposed the Court of Session's decision to refer it to the European Court of Justice, fearful that a successful ruling in Strasbourg would embolden British lawmakers to call for Article 50 to be rescinded.

"We are disappointed by the decision of the court and it remains a matter of firm policy that we will not be revoking Article 50," a government spokesman said.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Spain threatens Brexit deal over Gibraltar status"
Maldonado said Lopez applied for the intern position and got the job. He said he had no relationship with Lopez before he started. The internship lasts for a couple of months each summer and is administered by the city, not by individual aldermens offices. We dont get very many applicants, because it requires a college degree, he said.
A few years ago if I stopped ten people and asked them who Jim Acosta was I doubt more than two of them would have known. He was a handsome, capable, yet easily forgettable reporter on a low-rated cable channel. Then came Donald Trump. Now Acosta is a star who is probably in line for a six figure book deal. An author he may well become but please dont call him a journalist.

Listen, I know the president is rude and out of line and I hate it when he paints the media with a broad brush and calls us the enemy of the people. We are not. As a whole, there are lots of journalists doing a solid job reporting the news, especially at the local level where we dont get caught up in national politics. I understand that the president can be a first-class bully and jerk when he wants to; hes guilty as charged. All that said, Jim Acosta is not a journalist. Not anymore.

Being a news geek I enjoy watching White House press briefings on C-Span. Watch enough of them and you cant miss the pattern that some reporters in the press room have. What Acosta has been doing isnt close to the definition of journalism and the reason he is doing what he is doing is both brilliant and self-serving.

I started this column telling you before Donald Trump came along no one knew who Acosta was. Thats no longer the case. Of the hundred or so White House reporters how many get to go on Stephen Colbert of Jimmy Kimmels show? Just one, Acosta. Why? Because he behaves like the opposition party, not a journalist.

Before you send me angry emails just let me do a brief autopsy on the recent dust up that got Acosta kicked out of the White House. The President makes a statement and opens the floor to questions. Let me say that word again- questions. You ask, he answers. Thats how it works. A couple of the reporters did just that and then it was Acostas turn. The very first words from his mouth to the president were, I want to challenge you. So right out of the gate we are not getting a question from a reporter, we are getting a political position and lecture from the all-knowing Jim Acosta.

He continued his non-question by telling the president that the caravan coming toward America was not an invasion and asked why Trump was demonizing people? He got an answer (without any bloodshed) even though he interrupted the president more than once. There were two follow up statements disguised as questions from Acosta which were answered rudely by the president and at that point everyone in the room wanted to move on. After all you had 100 reporters with their hands in the air patiently waiting their turn.

You know what happened next. Acosta refused to give up the microphone, which doesnt belong to him by the way, as another reporter stood waiting. Then we had the young intern trying to do her job and take the mic away which didnt go well. Once he did give up the microphone and sit down and the NBC reporter was finally in the middle of his question Acosta stood back up and shouted over his colleague at the president. From the time Acosta was called on to ask a question until the moment he finally stopped shouting at the president, 2 minutes and 37 seconds went by. Yes, I timed it. It was, make no mistake, the Jim Acosta show.

To understand why I say Acosta is not a journalist let me give you a fictional example using me. When the governor passed the safe act gun control measure many people upstate were upset. If I went to his first news conference after that bill became law and said to Andrew Cuomo, Governor, John Gray from News10. Im going to challenge you. The safe act does not make us safe. All it does is punish law abiding citizens and limiting bullets in gun clips is stupid. I would fully expect Governor Cuomo to rip me apart because I was not acting as a journalist, Id be nothing more than a shill for the NRA.

Reporters are not robots, we have opinions and feelings and we get angry over issues just like everyone else. But its your job to keep your personal opinions out of the briefing room. And that rule applies no matter how much you may dislike or do not respect the person taking the questions.

All that said, I do believe the White House was wrong to pull Acostas credentials. I simply would have told the entire press corps that reporters who make statements and grandstand instead of asking questions will not be called on. Period. Acostas whole existence is to place himself in the spotlight. Take that attention away and I suspect the days of reporters playing the role of the resistance would soon end.

John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABCS WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Wednesday. Email him at johngray@fox23news.com.
Target has not publicly announced plans for a store at that location, but it has been expanding and investing in existing stores in the Chicago area. Most of the recently opened stores have been downtown, on the North Side or in the northern suburbs, as are the two new stores Target has said it plans to open by the end of 2020, in the Rogers Park and Logan Square neighborhoods. The retailer did open a store in Hyde Park on the South Side in 2016.
Men with a greater range of personality traits, especially those deemed extraverted, emotionally stable, agreeable or conscientious, have sex more often and produce more children, according to a new QUT study.

QUT behavioural economists Dr Stephen Whyte, Dr Ho Fai Chan and Professor Benno Torgler have undertaken the largest ever behavioural economics study conducted in Australia looking into personality, sex and offspring.

Their paper -- Do certain personality traits provide a mating market competitive advantage? Sex, Offspring & the Big 5 -- has just been published in the international journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Dr Whyte said they collected their data from the online Australian Sex Survey of 2016 in which participants were asked a range of socio-demographic questions, as well as given a mini-marker BIG 5 personality test.

"Throughout history, competitive advantages have helped men and women achieve increased success in their occupation, sport, artistic endeavours, their ability to acquire and secure resources, and ultimately, their survival," Dr Whyte said.

"However, little is known about the advantages, or disadvantages, personality traits provide in relation to sexual activity and offspring success. Science doesn't really have a firm understanding around how personality traits influence human mating and reproductive behaviour, and particularly whether certain personality types are favoured by either males or females.

"Only those who identified as heterosexual were included in our analysis which gave us a sample of close to 3,000 males and 1500 females.

"We found key personality differences between the sexes in both sexual frequency and offspring success. Compared to females, males report a larger number of personality factors that influence such outcomes, which explains a greater proportion of the variation in sexual activity.

"For both men and women, extraversion equated to greater sexual frequency.

"The results showed certain trait combinations appear to result in higher sexual frequency and more offspring for select males. The combinations producing higher sexual frequency for select males being high extraversion and high agreeableness, high extraversion and high conscientiousness, and high agreeableness with high conscientiousness."

Dr Whyte added that certain combinations of the BIG 5 traits, including high extraversion and low openness, also appeared to be related with increased offspring for males, while only more agreeable females had more children.

"Our findings suggest that the greater variance in male traits and their particular combinations may provide an advantage for them when it comes to sex and reproduction but that doesn't appear to be the case for the women we analysed," he said.
New research from an international team of scientists led by University of Cape Town isotope geochemist Dr Robyn Pickering is the first to provide a timeline for fossils from the caves within the Cradle of Humankind. It also sheds light on the climate conditions of our earliest ancestors in the area.

Published online in the journal Nature on 21 November 2018, the work corrects assumptions that the region's fossil-rich caves could never be related to each other. In fact, the research suggests fossils from Cradle caves date to just six specific time periods.

"Unlike previous dating work, which often focused on one cave, sometimes even just one chamber of the cave, we are providing direct ages for eight caves and a model to explain the age of all the fossils from the entire region," says Dr Robyn Pickering.

"Now we can link together the findings from separate caves and create a better picture of evolutionary history in southern Africa."

The Cradle of Humankind is a World Heritage Site made up of complex fossil-bearing caves. It's the world's richest early hominin site and home to nearly 40% of all known human ancestor fossils, including the famous Australopithecus africanus skull nicknamed Mrs Ples.

Using uranium-lead dating, researchers analysed 28 flowstone layers that were found sandwiched between fossil-rich sediment in eight caves across the Cradle. The results revealed that the fossils in these caves date to six narrow time-windows between 3.2 and 1.3 million years ago.

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"The flowstones are the key," says Pickering. "We know they can only grow in caves during wet times, when there is more rain outside the cave. By dating the flowstones, we are picking out these times of increased rainfall. We therefore know that during the times in between, when the caves were open, the climate was drier and more like what we currently experience."

This means the early hominins living in the Cradle experienced big changes in local climate, from wetter to drier conditions, at least six times between 3 and 1 million years ago. However, only the drier times are preserved in the caves, skewing the record of early human evolution.

Up until now, the lack of dating methods for Cradle fossils made it difficult for scientists to understand the relationship between East and South Africa hominin species. Moreover, the South African record has often been considered undateable compared to East Africa where volcanic ash layers allow for high resolution dating.

Professor Andy Herries, a co-author in the study at La Trobe University in Australia, notes that "while the South African record was the first to show Africa as the origin point for humans, the complexity of the caves and difficultly dating them has meant that the South African record has remained difficult to interpret."

"In this study we show that the flowstones in the caves can act almost like the volcanic layers of East Africa, forming in different caves at the same time, allowing us to directly relate their sequences and fossils into a regional sequence," he says.

Dr Pickering began dating the Cradle caves back in 2005 as part of her PhD research. This new publication is the result of 13 years of work and brings together a team of 10 scientists from South Africa, Australia and the US. The results return the Cradle to the forefront and open new opportunities for scientists to answer complex questions about human history in the region.

"Robyn and her team have made a major contribution to our understanding of human evolution," says leading palaeoanthropologist Professor Bernard Wood, of the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology at the George Washington University in the USA, who is not an author on the study.

"This is the most important advance to be made since the fossils themselves were discovered. Dates of fossils matter a lot. The value of the southern African evidence has been increased many-fold by this exemplary study of its temporal and depositional context."
When the Tribune asked her about Keller weeks after his firing, Preckwinkle said that at the time she believed Keller's denial and thought that his offer to resign was "a way of protecting me." Asked why she denied at the news conference that she knew about the Keller allegations earlier, Preckwinkle said she "struggled with what to put out there."
"How would I know how the materials got there?" he said. Asked again, the chief said the vehicle was stolen and that "(a) reasonable mind could say that the material could have been planted," Blanchard said. When asked whether he was curious to learn who stole the vehicle, the chief said he had no interest and that such occurrences are commonplace, calling it "a joyride."
Chris LaVigne, an attorney for Papadopoulos who recently replaced the lawyers who represented him during the plea process, said in a statement that the special counsel's motion had failed to address the central question of Papadopoulos' request: "Why should Mr. Papadopoulos be required to begin serving his sentence now, when there is an appeal pending that could directly impact the validity of his prosecution and conviction?"
"The victims of the attack unfortunately are all religious scholars who gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad," said Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief. He said police had not been asked to provide security for the event, and that the bomber had easily slipped into the hall. Most wedding halls have private security.
A small-town political fight seen by some as a litmus test of President Trumps rhetoric culminated in an election night rebuke in Solano County, where voters ousted a longtime Dixon councilman who riled the community after making antigay slurs and calling for a straight pride day.

The battle ended decisively: City Councilman Ted Hickman lost his bid for re-election with just 27 percent of the vote, while his opponent, Jim Ernest, swept up 73 percent. After a turbulent campaign, Dixon residents are hoping the town can go back to talking about local issues.

For Hickman, the defeat still smarts.

I just got my butt kicked, he told The Chronicle.

The election results and preceding protests of comments Hickman published in a local newspaper signal a change in the 20,000-person bedroom community wedged between Vacaville and Davis, with its quilt of tawny grassland, a pumpkin patch boasting the worlds longest corn maze and a mayor who moonlights as a car mechanic.

Dixon came to illustrate a larger political divide this summer, drawing attention that some residents and leaders still resent.

It all started when Hickman wrote a newspaper column that called for Straight Pride American Month and referred to gay people as tinker bells and faries. The statements, published in a weekly newspaper called Independent Voice, incited protests at City Council meetings and prompted some businesses to post signs in their windows declaring that people of all races, religions, countries of origin, sexual orientations, genders were welcome.

A lot of people felt Dixon was being mischaracterized by the statements of one person, said Ernest, a planning commissioner who owns Ramtown Karate, a martial arts school for children.

He added that while a small minority of residents want to grasp at nostalgia for the 1950s, many in Dixon have more progressive views.

I guess we just seem like a little hayseed town, but we actually have a lot of educated people with pretty good jobs, Ernest said. UC Davis is right across the freeway.

Hickmans attitude does not reflect the majority of Dixon, others told The Chronicle, adding that his removal was long overdue.

We used to say, If the outside world ever got wind of some of the stuff (Hickman) was writing, boy, this was going to be embarrassing, said Tom Ruppel, a retiree who contributed $2,000 to Ernests campaign. Ruppel had only spoken to the candidate for 10 minutes over the phone when he made the donation, but that didnt matter, he said. He was dead-set on fixing the black eye we got from Hickmans words.

Others called the vote a principled stand against a politically incorrect official who may have been emboldened when Trump took office.

Ted has always been the kind of person to hang on the edge, but he finally crossed a line to where people in the community said, Enough is enough, said Councilman Devon Minnema, who emerged as a critic of Hickman after the flare-up.

Mayor Thom Bogue defended Hickman, pointing to his accomplishments  he pressed the city to install stoplights at deadly intersections and have police officers patrol local schools  and downplayed the crazy statements that got so many people upset. Even so, the mayor said he is satisfied with the election outcome and promised to work collaboratively with Ernest.

Hickman remained unapologetic throughout the summer campaign, even as residents protested outside Dixon City Hall and waved rainbow flags. Weeks after the votes were counted, he stood by his controversial remarks, insisting they had little influence over the election.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The column didnt help, but that wasnt the determining factor, Hickman said, suggesting that Ernest won because of support from hundreds of loyal karate students, and money flowing in from out of town. It seemed that every lawn and shop window was plastered with Ernests signs, Hickman said.

Such characterizations made Ernest bristle. He said his victory showed the towns desire to change outside perceptions.

People werent wanting to come to Dixon because they thought we were hateful and narrow-minded  and were just not, he said.

Once he takes office in January, Ernest said, he hopes to attract new businesses to the small outpost just off Interstate 80. Dixon has struggled to attract investment during its long, slow turnaround from being an agricultural community to one that sends commuters northeast to Sacramento and southwest to the Bay Area. What it needs now are more jobs and development in the downtown center, Ernest said.

Hickman, meanwhile, has redirected energy toward his newspaper column, which, he said, provides a much bigger platform than a seat on a five-person council.

If anything, the election loss inspired him to be more unbridled.

When I was an elected official, I had to be careful about what I wrote, Hickman said. Now I dont have to be careful at all.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
Gwendolyn Wu

Hazmat and firefighter crews rushed to the scene of an oil spill creating a major traffic hazard Tuesday afternoon in San Franciscos SoMa District, officials said.

The spill happened just before noon, when San Francisco Fire Department officials said a delivery truck leaving a Mercedes BMW dealership appeared to spill oil at the intersection of Howard and 12th streets. A pollution control team from the fire department poured absorbent powder on the spill, soaking up the slick substance, but not before some treacherous moments for motorists.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews restored power to 29,900 customers in San Francisco and Concord early Wednesday afternoon after a storm-related blackout hit swaths of the city, Peninsula and East Bay, company officials said.

Blackouts continued to pepper the utility companys outage map at 1:30 p.m., showing outages in Oakland, San Leandro, San Mateo and Union City.

In San Francisco, customers in the Mission District first lost electricity around 9:55 a.m. and a second wave of customers lost power around 10:41 a.m, according to PG&Es outage map. Power was restored by 1 p.m, said PG&E spokeswoman Andrea Menniti.

Mission resident Britta Gustafson tweeted photos of a downed power line near 23rd and Alabama streets, where caution tape barricaded people from entering the area.

Gustafson said she heard a low boom and creaking just as her home lost power, prompting her to rush out to the sidewalk to see what the workers were doing.

(It) looked like they were nailing insulators to the plank to set it up with the lines, she said.

Around Concord and Walnut Creek, an hour-and-a-half-long blackout affected 19,000 customers, according to PG&E officials.

As of 1 p.m., there were still 10,135 customers without power throughout the Bay.

PG&E officials do not know what caused the outages but suggested the rain may have impacted service.

These wet and windy conditions might cause trees, limbs and other debris to fall into power lines, damage equipment and interrupt electric service, Menniti 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.

PG&E crews were also working in Union City, where 1,331 customers were affected Wednesday morning, officials said.

Around 12:34 p.m., outages blanketed Oaklands Fruitvale and Dimond neighborhoods, where officials said there is no current estimate for when power will be restored. PG&E reported at 1:30 p.m. that 1,879 customers in downtown San Mateo had also lost electricity.

A blackout also hit 1,242 customers in San Leandro, where repair crews headed out to fix damaged equipment on a power pole, according to a map provided by the utility.

Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. If you lean in a little, youll find subscribing is the right option.

I warned you about Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook is drawing scads of negative press. Executives are bailing. And questions are arising about the companys chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.

My only question: Is this 2018, or 2008?

When Mark Zuckerberg hired Sandberg away from Google to be his No. 2 a decade ago, tech groupthink consolidated around this story line: Sandberg would be the adult at the wheel, keeping Zuckerberg from crashing.

Now it looks like shes the one driving the company into the ditch. The companys bad press seems to be affecting employee morale, the one metric that makes Silicon Valley CEOs worry. And the bad press seems linked to areas she oversaw, from policy chief Joel Kaplans eyebrow-raising appearance at Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination hearings to the hiring of a dodgy Washington PR firm to bad-mouth Facebooks critics.

It all seemed so familiar to me: Sandberg, an experienced inside-the-Beltway operator before she joined Google, has long lived by Lee Atwaters line: Perception is reality.

It started before she even joined Facebook officially. Back in 2008, as Sandberg was saying goodbye to colleagues at Google, I was running Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip publication, which uncovered all kinds of mischief at her employer. Her reaction, according to sources who spoke to us: She promised to shoot the guy who writes Valleywag.

Thats one way to manage perceptions.

Google

So when you tell me that Sandberg seems more anxious about her own image than the companys fate, Im not shocked. When I read that morale is low, Im not shocked. When departing executives who reportedly clashed with Sandberg tell us how great she is, Im not shocked. Fibbing about the company? Next youll be telling me theres gambling in a casino. Its all of a pattern with how she behaved when she first got to the company.

Heres what would shock me: If she actually left. In 2008, as in 2018, the rumors were when she would hop from Facebook back into the world of politics. That door seems permanently closed, her carefully maintained reputation stained by Facebooks many misadventures. Shes stuck with Facebook, and Facebook is probably stuck with her. (Imagine if Sandberg followed up Lean In and Option B with a tell-all book about Facebook. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.)

Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

And though Facebook stock has taken a hammering lately, shes made Zuckerberg and other Facebook shareholders  as well as herself  insanely rich, which gets you a more or less permanent pass in the world of tech.

Zuckerberg made clear in a CNN interview Tuesday that there would be no change at the top of Facebook, not even some reshuffling of roles, such as him giving up the job of chairman. He said he hoped to be working with Sandberg for decades. Here, too, I heard echos of 2008, when Zuckerberg likewise defended his embattled lieutenant, while making it perfectly clear who was in charge.

No one ever seems to get fired at Facebook. Its bad optics. And perception is reality.

 Owen Thomas (othomas@sfchronicle.com)

Quote of the week

As a parent, you want to give your kids so much. You want to give them all that you have and all that you can get. You want to give them the world, and a better world than the one youve got. Its terrifying to look up in the sky and think about what theyll inherit. Its terrifying to realize how little you can do as an individual to make it better.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

 BuzzFeeds Mat Honan, writing about the California wildfires; reading this made me want to run home and snuggle Ramona the Love Terrier

Coming up

Im working Black Friday  as is Melia Russell. Hit her up on Twitter (@meliarobin) if youre planning to go shopping for toys IRL. I promise she wont LOL.

What Im reading

Lizza Dwoskin looks at Instagrams earliest employees. Not only have many quit the company  theyre quitting the photo-sharing service, too. (Washington Post)

Carolyn Said reports on an illegal Airbnb that turned into the site of a gang shoot-out. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Former eBay executive Michael Dearing has a must-read Twitter thread on what Sandberg should have learned at Harvard Business School  but apparently didnt. (@mcgd)

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J.D. Morris, our newest reporter, swings in big with a look at what PG&Es options are as it faces billions of dollars in liability from wildfires. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Tech Chronicle is a thrice-weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle
The owners of an illegal vacation rental in Bernal Heights where a gunbattle erupted last year have agreed to pay $185,000 in civil penalties and halt short-term rentals for five years, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Tuesday.

Eric M. Rogers and Anshu Singh converted 212 Banks St. into a two-unit building without permits and then illegally rented it to tourists for months via Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO, Herreras office said. Meanwhile, the couple lived in Bali, Indonesia, and hired other people to manage rentals of the two units, which went for rates that sometimes exceeded $700 a night. San Francisco requires that vacation rental hosts live in their properties most of the year.

The couples attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Herrera said Rogers and Singh reaped about $160,000 by renting to travelers from July 2016 until late October 2017. In a settlement approved by a San Francisco Superior Court judge Tuesday, the couple agreed to forfeit that, plus pay a $25,000 penalty. They must bring the property into code compliance, and have a 10-year injunction against illegal behavior on the property.

In October 2016, Rogers applied for the citys required vacation-rental permit, stating that he lived in the house at least nine months of the year. The Office of Short-Term Rentals determined that he had lied  under penalty of perjury  and denied the application, also noting that the couple lacked a business registration certificate and had illegally added a kitchen to their property. However, the rentals continued unabated, Herrera said.

In October 2017, short-term renters hosted a party at 212 Banks St. that devolved into a massive shootout, Herreras office said. The gunfire sent dozens of partygoers fleeing through the neighborhood, running from rooftop to rooftop and trespassing through residents backyards. Police recovered more than 100 bullets and shell casings from the gunfight. Bullets pierced neighbors homes, damaging windows, doors and, in one house, the living room. Eighteen parked cars were damaged by gunfire.

One person was wounded in the gunfire. Ten weeks later, a neighbor found a discarded gun in his yard, picked it up and accidentally shot his hand.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Local website Bernalwood reported at the time that police said the battle was between two rival gangs and that witnesses were refusing to cooperate with an investigation. The San Francisco Police Department did not immediately respond to a query about whether they had made any arrests in the case.

Airbnb, which declined to comment, kicked the couple off its website and banned the guest, as well as cooperating with law enforcement, it said at the time of the incident.

Illegal vacation rentals are becoming rarer in San Francisco since January, when Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO jettisoned all unregistered hosts under an agreement with the city.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
Restoration Hardware plans to lay off 81 employees, including several senior executives, at the years end, the North Bay company told a state agency.

The cuts come as the high-end, home-furnishing retailer, which now calls itself RH, turns its focus to incorporating dining, wine and coffee bars into some locations. In September, it opened a five-building development in Yountville that features a restaurant and wine vault. The company also has plans in the works for another store-restaurant combination called RH Gallery in Corte Madera, according to filings with the Marin County town, and it leased space for a San Francisco store at Pier 70 in 2016.

Among those being cut are seven vice presidents, three senior vice presidents, six directors and two senior directors, and seven senior leaders, Carrie Cassidy, the companys chief people officer, wrote in a Nov. 2 letter filed with the California Employment Development Department, a notice required by state labor law. Seventy-one of the employees who will be let go are at the companys headquarters in Corte Madera, and 10 employees are located in Pleasanton.

The senior vice president cuts include the chief creative officer, and those overseeing quality and innovation, and sourcing and quality.

Restoration Hardware did not respond to requests for comment.

The company employed 5,200 workers as of February, the end of its last fiscal year, with roughly 2,200 people based in its stores, a corporate filing shows. The company didnt disclose how many of the remaining 3,000 employees work out of the Corte Madera corporate office.

The company sells furniture, decor and home goods, operating 85 retail stores and 36 outlet stores in 32 states, the District of Columbia and Canada, according to its most recent corporate filing.

There is no indication that Restoration Hardware plans to close retail stores or lay off sales clerks during the holiday shopping season. Job postings show the company is hiring for various positions in the Bay Area.

Construction of the Pier 70 store, originally projected to open in 2017, was supposed to be completed in September, according to Nibbi, the projects general contractor. That store has not yet opened, according to Restoration Hardwares website. The company has a San Francisco store in Showplace Square.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Restoration Hardware spent much of 2018 focusing on revolutionizing physical retailing, as CEO Gary Friedman wrote in a letter to investors when the company reported its second-quarter earnings in September. In addition to the Yountville development, the company opened RH Portland, RH Nashville and RH New York during fiscal year 2018, and it is integrating restaurants into retail locations it calls galleries.

Three of the companys four restaurants were trending to generate $5 million to $6 million annually, and the fourth was expected to pull in $4 million a year, Friedman wrote.

Restoration Hardware is gearing up for a product and brand expansion strategy in 2019, with plans to increase investment in RH Interior Design and development of RH Beach House and RH Color, according to Friedmans letter.

The company is expected to report its third quarter earnings Dec. 4.

Sophia Kunthara is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophia.kunthara@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophiaKunthara
Their deaths punctuated one of San Franciscos darkest eras, but their memories became a guiding light for a city that was determined to right itself.

As the 40th anniversary of Moscones and Milks assassinations approached, a visit to The Chronicles archive turned up images of the mayor and supervisor that havent been published in decades. The photos show the leaders as younger men, before they represented so much power and promise, and before they were shot dead in City Hall in 1978 by former Supervisor Dan White.

Dig deep into Chronicle Vault Like what you're reading? Subscribe to the Chronicle Vault newsletter and get classic archive stories in your in-box twice a week. Read hundreds of historical stories, see thousands of archive photos and sort through 153 years of classic Chronicle front pages at SFChronicle.com/vault. See More Collapse

Both Moscone and Milk were progressives who ran for office to make a difference. While Moscone grew up in San Francisco, Milk was a transplant who moved west in 1969. After a brief time as a financial analyst, he opened a camera shop on Castro Street and became active in political issues.

According to Chronicle writer George Murphy, Milk was an activist with an engaging manner, and, despite threats from bigots, he was open about his sexuality. If I turned around every time someone called me faggot, Id be walking backwards, Milk was quoted as saying, and I dont want to walk backwards.

Milk ran for supervisor twice and the Assembly once before winning the District Five supervisors race in 1977. In his brief time in office, Milk introduced legislation that had a citywide impact. He was particularly proud of the gay rights ordinance signed in April 1978 that prohibited discrimination in employment and housing because of sexual orientation.

He also led the fight against Republican state Sen. John Briggs and his discriminatory Proposition 6 initiative  a state measure that would have made it mandatory for school boards to fire openly gay and lesbian teachers  which went down to defeat in 1978.

Moscone grew up in Cow Hollow and attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, University of the Pacific in Stockton, and UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

After a stint in the U.S. Navy and time working as an attorney, Moscone was convinced by Democratic leader John Burton that he could be a political force. Moscone won a seat on the citys Board of Supervisors in 1963 as part of a wave of Democrats that ousted two conservative Republicans.

In November 1966, Moscone easily defeated his Republican opponent, James Walker, to win a state Senate seat. He championed Democratic issues, introduced legislation to ban capital punishment, and rose to Senate majority leader. Journalists who covered Sacramento named him Outstanding Freshman Senator and Most Effective Democratic Senator.

After two terms Moscone ran for mayor of San Francisco. He won the job in December 1975. After becoming mayor, Moscone appointed dozens of newcomers to boards and commissions. When I first tried to break into politics in this city, it was the dispossessed who welcomed me, he said. They were getting short shrift from a lot of the fat cats in office. Im not going to abandon the poor now that it is suddenly fashionable to sound hard-line and unrealistic about social goals.

As usual, Chronicle columnist Herb Caen said it best when he summed up the two leaders, in a column from Nov. 28, 1978.

George Moscone and Harvey Milk had much in common. They were both joyous men, celebrants of life, believers in people. If they had any faults, they were those of generosity, of a willingness to think the best.

They loved their friends, and they loved San Francisco.

Lance Iversen / The Chronicle 2012

More from Chronicle Vault

A bloody front page: See how The Chronicle covered the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone and the front page from the day after the tragedy.

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.

The fallout: Still stunned two days after the City Hall killings, San Francisco planned a memorial and searched for answers to why former Supervisor Dan White pulled the trigger.

Six months later: It was one of the most heinous crimes in San Francisco history. The sentence for White: seven years, eight months. Forty years later, its still hard to believe.

A city scarred: The White Night Riots brought bloodshed to San Francisco streets. The flames from the eight burning police cars bathed the City Hall dome in an eerie flickering light and their sirens screamed like dying animals until meltdown silenced them one by one, a Chronicle reporter wrote.

The campaigner: These long-forgotten photos of Milk show the San Francisco politician during a fierce race for an Assembly seat against Art Agnos.

A last crusade: Pop culture critic Peter Hartlaub found classic photos of Milk in Walnut Creek debating Republican state Sen. John Briggs of Orange County over gay rights.

From the Archive is a weekly column by Bill Van Niekerken, the library director of The Chronicle, exploring the depths of the newspapers archive. Its part of Chronicle Vault, a twice-weekly newsletter highlighting more than 150 years of San Francisco stories. It is edited by Tim ORourke, The Chronicles assistant managing editor and executive producer of SFChronicle.com. Sign up for the newsletter here and follow Chronicle Vault on Instagram. Contact Bill at bvanniekerken@sfchronicle.com and Tim at torourke@sfchronicle.com.
The man accused of leading Vallejo police on a high-speed chase through the Bay Area this month before crashing and exchanging gunfire with officers in Oakland has been charged with three counts of attempted murder, court records show.

Dominic James Milano, 40, of Fremont, is being held without bail at the Solano County Jail.

Just after 1 p.m. on Nov. 1, Vallejo police responded to a report of a heavily armed man sitting in his vehicle outside a home in the Glen Cove neighborhood of Vallejo. The caller was a credible witness who knew the suspect well, police said. Milano was known to authorities, too, and officers arrival prompted him to flee.

The attempted getaway touched off a pursuit that hit speeds of 120 mph on Interstate 80, forcing drivers to veer off the road to make way. Milano allegedly shot a gun at Vallejo officers at some point during the chase, and police reported returning fire in Oakland near the intersection of 22nd Avenue and International Boulevard just before 5 p.m., when the suspect crashed his vehicle.

Milano was taken to the hospital the day of the incident and booked into jail nearly two weeks later on Nov. 13.

Vallejo Police Capt. Lee Horton said he did not know whether police shot Milano while the suspect was still driving his car but the captain noted such a maneuver would be highly irregular.

Milano had been wearing body armor at the time of the incident, and a search of his vehicle revealed a small arsenal. Police found an AR-15, an AK-47, an Uzi, a Glock 9mm handgun and Glock 40mm handgun.

In addition to the attempted murder allegations, Milano faces charges of evading an officer, felon in possession of a firearm and assault weapons charges.

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.

Oakland police oversaw the criminal investigation and forwarded the case to the Solano County District Attorneys Office, while Vallejo police are conducting their own internal probe.

Oakland police referred questions to Vallejo officials, who did not respond for comment Tuesday morning.

Milano has a long criminal history of assault and weapons charges, including another police chase. In 2008, a 29-year-old Milano led Fremont police on a high-speed pursuit and crashed into seven vehicles along the way, according to a report at the time.

Milano had a $2.5 million bail for his current charges, but the U.S. Marshals Service put a hold on his release. His next court date is scheduled for Nov. 29.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
The president on Tuesday condemned the brutal slaying of Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the royal family. Trump described the brutal slaying of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a "horrible crime ... that our country does not condone." But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.
Authorities in Santa Clara County arrested a suspect this week in the 1973 killing of 21-year-old Leslie Perlov in Palo Alto  the latest Bay Area cold case to be cracked by investigators submitting a suspects DNA to a public genealogical website, officials said Wednesday.

The arrest of 74-year-old Hayward resident John Arthur Getreu follows the sensational capture of Golden State Killer suspect Joseph James DeAngelo this year outside of Sacramento, and the September arrest of accused NorCal Rapist Roy Charles Waller.

In all three unrelated cases, investigators took DNA collected at crime scenes and plugged it into an open-source genealogical website GEDmatch. This work alone doesnt necessarily identify a suspect, but it can generate a pool of a suspects possible relatives and new leads for investigators.

Getreu was arrested Tuesday at his home in Hayward and booked in Santa Clara County Jail where hes being held without bail in Perlovs killing.

Perlov, a Stanford graduate and law clerk, was last seen at her Palo Alto workplace around 3 p.m. on Feb. 13, 1973. The same day, authorities found her orange 1972 Chevy Nova at a gate of an old quarry near Old Page Mill Road and Page Mill Road, to the south of Stanford Universitys campus.

Three days later, deputies on horseback found Perlovs body under an oak tree in the foothills west of Stanford. The county medical examiner ruled her death a homicide. She had been strangled and her pantyhose were stuffed into her mouth.

The killing went unsolved and evidence remained shelved for decades until cold case investigators with the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office recently took another look at the case. They submitted evidence to the county crime lab where criminalists found a DNA profile of an unknown man.

In July, investigators called on Virginia-based DNA technology company Parabon NanoLabs, which contracts with law enforcement agencies around the country. When a DNA profile fails to match on a national database, agencies have begun using companies like Parabon for a more advanced investigation to find the unknown suspects relatives.

Parabon submitted a genetic data profile created from the unknown crime scene DNA sample to a public genetic genealogy database for comparison in hopes of finding individuals who share significant amounts of DNA with the unknown subject, the Sheriffs Office said in a press release.

Genetic matches helped investigators narrow down a list of possible suspects, and they ultimately identified Getreu after acquiring his DNA.

Officials did not say how they obtained his DNA. Investigators often collect a suspects discarded items, like a tissue, to get their genetic material.

The crime lab matched Getreus DNA to the suspected killers on Nov. 9, officials said, noting that the chance of the DNA belonging to another person is around 1 in 65 septillion, or 65 followed by 24 zeros.

Investigators in dozens of cases have been looking anew at old cases, following the ingenious work in the Golden State Killer case.

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.

In that case, investigators used GEDmatch, a free, open-source website that lets users compare DNA samples to help family members connect. Parabon NanoLabs also plugs suspects DNA into the database.

GEDmatch has said it does not work with law enforcement, but the companys terms of service state that submitted DNA could be used for a variety of purposes.

Getreu was born in Ohio and was arrested in 1963 in Germany for sexually assaulting and strangling the 16-year-old daughter of a U.S. Army chaplain, according to an Associated Press story from the time. Getreu, who was 18, was in Germany with his father  a sergeant major in the Army.

Getreu was considered a juvenile and faced a maximum of 10 years in jail for the killing. It was not immediately clear how the case was resolved.

Investigators are working with other jurisdictions to determine if Gatreu is connected to other unsolved crimes.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
Happy Thanksgiving, and may your desserts be sweet.

Reading the fine print on a bag of frozen mixed berries bought at Safeway, Mary Ellen McKey discovered that it was packed in Canada and that the strawberries were from Mexico, blueberries from Canada, blackberries from Chile and raspberries from Serbia. So maybe we can all get along, even if its only in fruit salad.

And speaking of Its a Wonderful Life, which opened at the San Francisco Opera on Saturday, Nov. 17, the focus was on all things angelic: Angel cake was served in the press room  I gobbled some happily, and I thank the Opera, but must admit that Im among the devils food cake worshipers  and operagoers were invited to write good wishes on feather-shaped inserts that were tucked into a giant set of angels wings on display in the lobby.

Furthermore, ushers gave out postcards inscribed on one side, Each persons life touches so many others, and on the other, providing a form in which one could tell recipients, You have made a profound difference in my life and the community by.

Seems, though, that youve probably formally expressed your gratitude and fondness for the people for whom you have email addresses. The ones who are in need of thanking are the workers in the kitchen peeling the carrots, the poll-tenders who fed your ballot into the electronic maw of the counting machine, the attendants who patiently explain how to do the self-checkout at the market.

More Information PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING Your Aunt Cindy likes to come here on this same day every year. Its a tradition ... and I dont understand why. Man in his 60s to little girl, overheard at Berkeley Bowl West by Beatrice Moe See More Collapse

May their deserts be sweet, too.

P.S.: Alison Owings sends word that the long-awaited videos of World Veg Festival 2018 are online. Among the talks you can access on YouTube is Alan Goldhammer on How Fasting Can Save Your Life. Dont look at it today.

At the San Francisco Symphonys performance on Sunday, Nov. 18, Judith Ganz and Kim Barnes overheard one music-lover telling another, You will really enjoy the second half. Theyre performing Beethovens Erotica.

And at the Twin Peaks Tavern over the weekend, Judd Ziebell overheard another patron noting that on the 666th day of his presidency, Donald Trump had come west to oversee the destruction of Paradise.

As to the presidents idea of raking the forest floors, Jim Breivis suggests that he order the Air Force (maybe even the Blue Angels) to fly low over our forests and spray the trees with glue! That way the leaves will not fall to the forest floor! I think maybe its a job for the newly founded Space Force, which could rocket through the atmosphere packing giant leaf blowers. Noisy? Just turn up the radio.

In Alameda, a car was broken into Thursday, Nov. 15, reports Mike Lano, and all that was stolen was a top-notch protective face mask. The gear had been in short supply at hardware stores on the island.

In the Castro, Joe Mac saw four guys walking down the street, all wearing face masks. As he got closer, he says, he could see that three of them were wearing jockstraps as masks, and the fourth sported a white lace thong. Mac asked them about the protective gear, and they told him everyone was sold out of masks; by way of further explanation, they said the fourth man, wearing the thong, was their straight friend.

No, this isnt a sighting of a celebrity dining at a fancy restaurant.

Kim Kardashian visited San Quentin Prison on Nov. 8. The intent, it was said, was to support the music program at the prison. Kardashian has been advocating with Gov. Jerry Brown on behalf of Kevin Cooper, who is on Death Row, but according to TMZ, its unknown whether the two met.

The celebrity had last spring persuaded Donald Trump to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who had been incarcerated for drug offenses. She visited the White House again in September, and at that time, discussed prison reform with White House staffers, including Jared Kushner.

As to the scene at the prison, Im told that the biggest excitement was from correctional officers and prison staff members. Sam Robinson, the prisons communications director, says, We dont confirm or deny private visits.

In an interview published in Amtraks the National magazine  and flagged by Robert Cromey  the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma was asked, What would you most like to be remembered for? He never undertipped, said Ma.

And that is all about Thanksgiving.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING

Your Aunt Cindy likes to come here on this same day every year. Its a tradition ... and I dont understand why.

Man in his 60s to little girl, overheard at Berkeley Bowl West by Beatrice Moe

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, 415-777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik
John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune / TNS

Romaine lettuce is not safe to eat in any form in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC issued the unusually broad warning early Tuesday afternoon because of a multistate outbreak of E. coli. The warning said to avoid romaine lettuce from any source, until the source of the outbreak can be known. The CDC also said that stores and restaurants should stop selling and serving all romaine lettuce immediately.
CHICO  The smell of homemade chili wafted through the makeshift headquarters of World Central Kitchen on Tuesday, temporarily replacing the stench of smoke from the Camp Fire that has plagued the area for almost two weeks.

Outside the kitchen where the chili was simmering, an assembly line of 30 or so volunteers built sandwiches. On one table, 13-year-old Willow Kelly folded up pieces of ham, while her cousin Kya Anker, 13, topped them with a piece of American cheese. Behind them, Janet Ford, 62, lined up pieces of wheat bread, while Valerie White, 67, dolloped on the secret sauce.

Todays quota: 3,000 sandwiches. By 9:45 a.m., they already had 1,000.

You guys are doing great work! the lead coordinator, Ramiro Arevalo, yelled to the room.

For more than a week, World Central Kitchen, a disaster relief organization, has occupied the kitchen of Italian Guy Catering in Chico to deploy food all around Butte County  from three Red Cross evacuation centers to parking lots, even to a post office where evacuated residents stand in line for hours to get their mail.

On Wednesday, the organization will join Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and the town of Paradise in preparing Thanksgiving dinner for an estimated 15,000 evacuees and first responders at three sites in Chico, at an event called Thanksgiving Together.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Thanksgiving will mark two weeks since the devastating Camp Fire began, nearly demolishing Paradise and other communities nearby. The fire is the most destructive and deadliest in California history. Dozens of people were killed, and tens of thousands have been displaced.

Preparing food for the survivors and first responders has been an enormous undertaking. The Salvation Army is feeding people at its shelters, while local food banks and homeless shelters have increased the quantity of free groceries and meals they normally provide.

Founded during the 2010 Haiti earthquake by Washington, D.C., chef Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen has become a global organization contracted by the Red Cross. When a disaster hits, ravages a community and displaces hordes of residents, the organization knows what to do: go to the scene, find the shelters, buy the food from local businesses and find volunteers in the community.

Food is hope. Food is comfort. Food is memories, Arevalo said. Thats what they are trying to deliver.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

World Central Kitchen currently is feeding those displaced by the Fuego volcanic eruption in Guatemala, in addition to its work in Northern California, where the organization has served an estimated 60,000 meals since setting up in Chico. Arevalo said theyve worked with about 2,000 volunteers in the past few days, from all over: Chico, Red Bluff, San Francisco, Tiburon. San Francisco chef Tyler Florence has been part of the effort, too.

Every disaster they go to is an unbelievable tragedy, Arevalo said, but fires make for particularly difficult logistics. Unlike with hurricanes, groups like his dont have a week or so to set up and prepare. Fires hit suddenly and can ferociously spread from an unlucky gust of wind. And unlike earthquakes, some fires  like the Camp Fire  just keep going and going.

The living situation in shelters went from difficult to worse last week when over 145 people in four different shelters experienced gastrointestinal illness that the Butte County Public Health Department determined was norovirus, which can spread quickly in cramped living spaces.

All the more need for restorative foods. In the catering kitchen on Tuesday, one volunteer chopped cauliflower, while others shoveled rice into tin pans and topped them with chicken, piccata sauce and slices of lemon. Outside, volunteers cooked chicken in big paella pans.

Another group of volunteers loaded trucks with aluminum trays piled with the chicken, and coolers full of soup and chili. One truck was going to the Toys R Us parking lot where displaced residents have been spending their days. Another was headed to Sears.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

The ethos here is quality ingredients. Sandwiches have a bit of sugar in the sauce to give the firefighters energy, chefs said. And for their digestive systems, salad and other foods are purposely made with a little bit of acidity.

For Thanksgiving, the chefs are going with traditional dishes with creative flourishes, like roast turkey with cranberry-orange-mint sauce, cornbread stuffing, and green beans sauteed with marsala and sliced almonds. First responders are invited to the Thanksgiving meals. Jason Collis, chef and team lead with the Chico effort, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection workers who have the day off are going to help serve, too.

Its not just giving them food. We want to make it a special experience for them, Collis said. Basically, its like theyre sitting down at a restaurant and having a nice meal that brings back their dignity.

For those who are doubled or tripled up at nearby friends and families homes rather than staying in evacuation centers, local food banks are increasing what they offer.

Fire Tracker Follow wildfires across the state Latest updates on wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California

The big machines that happen during disasters  the Red Cross, Salvation Army  their evacuation centers have what they need, said Thomas Dearmore, community services manager of the Community Action Agency of Butte County in Chico, which normally supplies 52 food pantries in the area. Its the families that were trying to serve that are kind of forgotten.

Dearmore, who with his wife is hosting three families in trailers on their property, said the agency is accepting shelf-stable food donations for Thanksgiving. Donations are flowing in, including pallets of diapers, and Dearmore said organizations, including the Hope Center in Oroville, which provides free meals and groceries to those in need, are working well together.

No ones keeping score about who gets what, he said. Im blown away by the cooperation.

In addition to food banks, local residents who receive CalFresh  commonly known as food stamps  can get their benefits replaced if the food they purchased with them was destroyed because of fire or power outages, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They can also use CalFresh benefits to purchase hot foods during the disaster.

During last Octobers Wine Country fires, Bay Area chefs who prepared food for victims had to learn a lot about mobilizing, said Traci Des Jardins, who helped coordinate more than 46,000 donated meals from other restaurants out of a catering kitchen in San Franciscos Presidio, near two of her restaurants. She said it would be wise to create better systems for coordinating volunteers and donations in advance of disasters to prevent confusion and waste.

Everyone wants to participate, she said. It would be really beneficial, as we move forward with the new normal, to make sure people can get involved in meaningful ways.

Trisha Thadani and Tara Duggan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com, tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @trishathadani @taraduggan
President Trumps latest attempt to build the legal equivalent of a wall at the Mexican border  a ban on political asylum for most of the thousands of immigrants fleeing their homelands in Central America  has run into a barrier in San Francisco federal court, where a judge said the presidents order conflicts with decades-old federal law.

Rules announced by Trump in a proclamation Nov. 9, and put into effect by his administration the next day, barred U.S. asylum for undocumented immigrants crossing the Mexican border unless they crossed at designated ports of entry  a limited number of official sites, now heavily backlogged with waiting times of six weeks or longer. The president said he was responding to a looming crisis at the border, with a caravan of thousands of Central Americans proceeding northward from Mexico.

But U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, in a ruling Monday night, said the ban flies in the face of long-standing U.S. law. Passed in its current form in 1996, the law says any foreigner who is physically present in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of entry) ... may apply for asylum.

The Trump administrations action irreconcilably conflicts with (the federal law) and the expressed intent of Congress, Tigar said in issuing a nationwide restraining order halting enforcement of the ban. Whatever the scope of the presidents authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a restriction that Congress has expressly forbidden.

He ruled in a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of asylum support groups, led by East Bay Sanctuary Covenant in Berkeley.

Asylum allows undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally, hold work permits and apply for citizenship, if they can show a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland for reasons such as race, religion, political views, or, under recent rulings, sexual orientation. Immigration court rulings that allowed victims of domestic violence and gang violence in their home country to seek asylum were overturned in June by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and on Monday a federal judge in Washington, D.C., heard arguments in an ACLU suit challenging Sessions decision.

The Nov. 9 asylum ban was the most recent attempt by Trump to choke off immigration at the southern border, where he has sought congressional funding to build his long-promised beautiful wall. He has also sent more than 5,000 U.S. troops to the border to confront the caravan when it arrives.

Tigars restraining order blocks the ban until Dec. 19, when he said he would consider a preliminary injunction that would remain in effect indefinitely. Restraining orders generally cannot be appealed, and the Justice Department said only that it would continue to defend the executive branchs legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border.

Trumps press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, responded indignantly.

This decision will open the floodgates, inviting countless illegal aliens to pour into our country on the American taxpayers dime, she said in a statement. This temporary injunction is yet another example of activist judges imposing their open borders policy preferences.

But ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said it was the Trump administration that was putting people at risk and flouting the law.

This ban is illegal, will put peoples lives in danger, and raises the alarm about President Trumps disregard for separation of powers, he said. There is no justifiable reason to flatly deny people the right to apply for asylum, and we cannot send them back to danger based on the manner of their entry.

In a joint statement criticizing Tigars decision, the Justice Department and Homeland Security Department cited the Supreme Courts ruling in June that upheld Trumps ban on U.S. entry from a group of predominantly Muslim nations based on the presidents legal authority to exclude groups of foreigners he considers harmful to the national interest.

Congress has given the president broad authority to limit or even stop the entry of aliens into this country, the statement said. And it is absurd that a set of advocacy groups can be found to have standing to sue to stop the entire federal government from acting so that illegal aliens can receive a government benefits to which they are not entitled.

But Tigar said the advocacy groups were entitled to represent the interest of asylum-seekers, who are regularly being turned away from ports of entry by U.S. officers. The hardships of those waiting periods, he said, are compounded by the dangerous conditions in border towns. And he rejected the Justice Departments central argument for the asylum ban: that the 1996 law only allows immigrants to apply for asylum regardless of where they entered the United States, and doesnt actually make them eligible for asylum.

To say that one may apply for something that one has no right to receive is to render the right to apply a dead letter, Tigar said. He said the Justice Departments interpretation would make the law largely meaningless.

The department also argued that the ban would not harm immigrants who legitimately feared violence in their homeland, because they could still avoid deportation if they could prove, under separate laws, that they would face persecution or torture. But Tigar said those laws set a more demanding standard than asylum, which requires only a well-founded fear of persecution and is part of the nations obligations under international treaties.

Immigrants who otherwise would have qualified for asylum will be forced to return to the site of their persecution, the judge said. He also said the administration may have acted illegally by putting its rules into effect immediately rather than waiting up to 90 days to receive comment from the public.

The Tahirih Justice Center, which gives legal aid to women and girls seeking refuge in the U.S., applauded the ruling.

When there are people right now approaching the U.S. fleeing real violence and with legitimate asylum claims, said the organizations chief of policy, Archi Pyati, we are relieved that the legal process of seeking asylum will once again be a possible pathway for them to find safety.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
indy Hyde-Smith speaks in July 2017 at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss. (Rogelio V. Solis / AP)
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Given what we know about our gold-plated president, his habit of reducing every question to dollars and cents shouldnt shock us. But his calculation that Saudi Arabian wealth outweighs the life of a journalist who called the United States home represents a departure from American ideals that is, in more than one sense, gross.

The murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi last month immediately suggested state sponsorship: Khashoggi had been a critic of the regime, the killing took place at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and Turkish authorities indicated that the kingdom was responsible. But President Trump clung to doubts about the involvement of the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he and his family have assiduously cultivated.
Democrats and others have separately raised questions about whether Whitaker can legally hold the position of acting attorney general because he has not been confirmed by the Senate, and whether he might seek to interfere with the special-counsel probe into Russian election interference, of which he had been publicly critical. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked the Justice Department's inspector general to explore Whitaker's communications with the White House, saying he was concerned that the acting attorney general might have shared with President Trump information about that investigation.
The 45th presidents recent visit to see the devastation caused by the Camp Fire was embarrassing. He babbled on about forest management rather than expressing heartfelt condolences for the victims of this disaster, and carelessly referred to the wildfire-ravaged town of Paradise as Pleasure. Perhaps the only pleasure anyone experienced from this presidential visit was when it ended and this insensitive chief executive departed.

Rhonda Collins-Jackson, Oakland

Thank you, Mother Nature

Regarding Rain to clear haze, dampen Camp Fire (Nov. 20): I have a four-word reaction to this article: Thank you, Mother Nature.

Annabelle Devereaux, San Francisco

Dark days of Jim Jones

Regarding How crucial story went untold (Open Forum, Nov. 19): Thanks to Marshall Kilduff for his reminder of the dark days of Jim Jones. Jones message was at first appealing if often confusing but like all cults, didnt hold up to outside scrutiny.

The people in power at the time took from Jones what they needed and this article again pointed that out. Jones was a madman but he did know how to wield political favors, and many of the people that we admired in local, state and national politics used it to their advantage. Looking back at that time, I remember hearing the terms social movement, or revolutionaries, much easier expressions than to say the entire power structure of San Francisco was taken in by a charismatic cult leader. Herb Caen let his guard down for this one.

Tim Carmody, San Francisco

Remember wildfire victims

The smoke that has hung over the bay for a week now may be washed away by rain before Thanksgiving. However, we should not be too quick to breathe a sigh of relief. The fire that turned Paradise into a crematorium claimed more than 70 lives and hundreds more still are missing. The smoke that surrounds us holds bits of trees, trailers, schools and people, all mixed together. We cant see across the bay, but those who are fighting the fires cant not see the ash and trash and bones that litter what two weeks ago was a home to thousands of Californians.

This Thursday, Ill be giving thanks to the men and women toiling to contain the fire in Butte County who have weeks of work ahead of them. Ill be thankful that nearby towns like Mill Valley and Tiburon have been spared (so far). And Ill be thinking of the lives that have gone up in smoke, smoke that now wafts across the bay. Soon, rain may wash the air and we may be able to put away our masks  but we must not forget our fellows who today are hanging in the air.

Paul Brinich, Tiburon

Dangers of stored energy

Electricity and gas are dangerous forms of stored energy. Under the wrong circumstances, the former sparks and the latter explodes. Yet we demand that these forms of energy be delivered directly to our homes for light and heat. By now everyone will have noticed that California is becoming increasingly flammable. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is expected to maintain equipment that never malfunctions across a vast service area, which is sometimes subject to severe natural conditions. In the absence of perfection, fires can happen. When such accidents happen, the reaction of many is that PG&E should be sued into oblivion. OK fine. Then what? Who will step up to deliver dangerous forms of energy to our homes at a cost that California residents can afford? We will continue to demand that electricity and gas be directly supplied on a continuous basis. But if PG&E is forced to fold, what company and what body of investors will be foolhardy enough to step into to replace it? Be careful what you wish for.

David Baer, Concord

Grateful for wonderful cause

Regarding Heather Knights Cable car gripmans climb to career joy (Nov. 20): Congrats to The Chronicle for sponsoring a decorated cable car for the holidays. I would love to see Kevin Fisher-Paulson (in uniform) plus his family on the cable car, a big photo of a smiling Herb Caen, Knight and her Muni-obsessed sons, and Peter Hartlaub. Lest people think this request trivial, considering the tragic news stories we read, I am grateful that the money raised by the sponsors of the decorated cable cars goes to the wonderful cause of the holiday luncheon for those who have no one special to be with.

And thank you to the Muni drivers who will pick them up in Muni buses. Heres yet another worthy San Francisco story for Hartlaub and Knight to report on after the holidays, by the way. Thank you to all who make this story possible.

Judith Kirk, Redwood City

Separate church and state

As an atheist who rejected a Catholic upbringing, my answer to Celia Viggo Wexlers piece Can religion unite Americans? (Open Forum, Nov. 20) is a resounding no! Our Founding Fathers created a country based on the separation of church and state. No citizen, especially one in elected office, should be making faith-based decisions.

Faith is an intensely personal matter that has, due to televangelism, encroached upon our political process. It has also been used to deny science-based facts relating to both evolution and climate change. Even if all of the leaders of different religions chose to meet and stress unity over division, there would still be millions of Americans clinging to their Bibles for guidance, and millions of others choosing to reject the concept of a Supreme Being altogether.

Vincent McCullers, San Jose

Brilliant headline

On the all time great Chronicle headline list: Yak-haired Trump stands tall in wax (Nov. 19). Brilliant, thank you.

Howard Stein, Oakland

Its not about raking

President Trump (wrongly) cited Finlands forest management practice of raking leaves in the forests as something California should be doing to avoid wildfires. Perhaps he would like to consider raising taxes to match Finlands 51 percent personal income tax rate as well. That would help fight a lot of fires.

Wendy Shipnuck, Lafayette
The New York Times revealed last week that Facebook executives withheld evidence of Russian activity on the Facebook platform far longer than previously disclosed. They also employed a political opposition research firm to discredit critics.

Theres a larger story here.

Americas Gilded Age of the late 19th century began with a raft of innovations  railroads, steel production, oil extraction  but culminated in mammoth trusts owned by robber barons who used their wealth and power to drive out competitors and corrupt American politics.

Were now in a second Gilded Age  ushered in by semiconductors, software and the internet  that has spawned a handful of giant high-tech companies.

Facebook and Google dominate advertising. Theyre the first stops for many Americans seeking news. Apple dominates smartphones and laptop computers. Amazon is now the first stop for a third of all American consumers seeking to buy anything.

This consolidation at the heart of the American economy creates two big problems.

First, it stifles innovation. Contrary to the conventional view of a U.S. economy bubbling with inventive small companies, the rate at which new job-creating businesses have formed in the United States has been halved since 2004, according to the census.

A major culprit: Big techs sweeping patents, data, growing networks, and dominant platforms have become formidable barriers to new entrants.

The second problem is political. These enormous concentrations of economic power generate political clout thats easily abused, as the New York Times investigation of Facebook reveals. How long will it be before Facebook uses its own data and platform against critics? Or before potential critics are silenced even by the possibility?

America responded to the Gilded Ages abuses of corporate power with antitrust laws that allowed the government to break up the largest concentrations.

President Teddy Roosevelt went after the Northern Securities Company, a giant railroad trust financed by J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, the nations two most powerful businessmen. The U.S. Supreme Court backed Roosevelt and ordered the company dismantled.

In 1911, President William Howard Taft broke up Rockefellers sprawling Standard Oil empire.

It is time to use antitrust again. We should break up the high-tech behemoths, or at least require that they make their proprietary technology and data publicly available and share their platforms with smaller competitors.

There would be little cost to the economy, because these giant firms rely on innovation rather than economies of scale  and, as noted, theyre likely to be impeding innovation overall.

Is this politically feasible? Unlike the Teddy Roosevelt Republicans, Trump and his enablers in Congress have shown little appetite for antitrust enforcement.

But Democrats have shown no greater appetite  especially when it comes to Big Tech.

In 2012, the staff of the Federal Trade Commissions bureau of competition submitted to the commissioners a 160-page analysis of Googles dominance in the search and related advertising markets, and recommended suing Google for conduct that has resulted  and will result  in real harm to consumers and to innovation. But the commissioners, most of them Democratic appointees, chose not to pursue the case.

The Democrats recent better deal platform, which they unveiled a few months before the midterm elections, included a proposal to attack corporate monopolies in industries as wide-ranging as airlines, eyeglasses and beer. But, notably, the proposal didnt mention Big Tech.

Maybe the Democrats are reluctant to attack Big Tech because the industry has directed so much political funding to Democrats. In the 2018 midterms, the largest recipient of Big Techs largesse, ActBlue, a fundraising platform for progressive candidates, collected nearly $1 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

As the Times investigation of Facebook makes clear, political power cant be separated from economic power. Both are prone to abuse.

One of the original goals of antitrust law was to prevent such abuses.

The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power, warned Edward G. Ryan, chief justice of Wisconsins Supreme Court, in 1873.

Antitrust law was viewed as a means of preventing giant corporations from undermining democracy.

If we will not endure a king as a political power, thundered Ohio Sen. John Sherman, the sponsor of the nations first antitrust law in 1890, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of what the nation produced.

We are now in a second Gilded Age, similar to the first when Congress enacted Shermans law. As then, giant firms at the center of the American economy are distorting the market and our politics.

We must resurrect antitrust.

 2018 By Robert Reich

Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of The Common Good, and the director of the documentary Saving Capitalism.
Even as the final votes are being tallied in the midterm elections, its clear that Democrats majority in next years House will be a boon for the Bay Areas congressional delegation.

Many of the areas lawmakers  all of whom are Democrats  are poised to run key committees or are angling to be elected to party leadership. We ran down how California is well-positioned next year  you can read that here  and Bay Area lawmakers are poised to play key roles on issues from immigration to the environment, voting rights to health care.

Heres an in-depth look at what local representatives will be up to next year:

San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi:

OK, this ones a bit obvious. The longtime congresswoman is looking once again to be speaker of the House. That position would give her power to control the chambers agenda, including what legislation comes to the floor, set rules for the legislative process and have a big hand in selecting key positions on committees. Her election is not a lock, but shes campaigning hard. Capitol Hill observers give her the edge.

Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee:

The progressive leader is looking to break into House leadership, running for the Democrats No. 4 spot. That position (caucus chair) was opened when New York Rep. Joe Crowley was defeated in his primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Lee is running against New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow Congressional Black Caucus member, potentially splitting that key voting bloc. Lee also has posts on the House Appropriations and Budget committees, where she works on her anti-poverty agenda.

San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren:

The congresswoman hasnt made any formal announcements yet, but is expected to keep panel positions where she has seniority. That would put her in charge of the House Administration Committee, where she would oversee internal House functions as well as legislation that would affect elections. Democrats are looking to pass bills out of the gate next year that they say will strengthen democracy (read: voting access). Lofgren is also expected to keep an influential post running the Judiciary subcommittee that handles immigration.

Palo Alto Rep. Anna Eshoo:

The close friend of Pelosi and longtime congresswoman has announced she is running to chair the health subcommittee on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which would give her a powerful vantage point over any legislation or hearings on health care legislation. Democrats made preserving the Affordable Care Act and its protections on coverage for pre-existing conditions the biggest message in their successful House midterm campaign. The broader committee also plays a key role over the tech industry.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

To see what Reps. Ro Khanna, Jackie Speier and the other members of the Bay Area delegation will be up to, click here.

Deep dives and late takes

GOP DOA? The midterm elections were an unqualified disaster for the California Republican Party, which was in bad shape even before it lost races up and down the ballot. John Wildermuth reports on whether the party has a way out of its predicament.

Trump blocked on asylum: President Trump wants to ban immigrants from applying for asylum at the border unless they cross into the U.S. at a designated port of entry. Late Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked him from doing so.

Pelosi vs. dissident Dems: San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi is using all her powers of persuasion in her campaign to regain the House speakers job, Tal Kopan reports. But Democrats who want new leadership are gearing for a fight.

Republican blowout

Stephen Lam / Getty Images

Just how dominant are Democrats in the Bay Area? Heres one indication: In only four of the areas 10 House districts did Republicans manage to win even a quarter of the vote in the midterm elections.

And they didnt do it by much. With votes still being counted, the Republican running against Dublin Democrat Eric Swawell, Rudy Peters, is the top GOP vote-getter in the Bay Area  with 27 percent of the total in the 15th Congressional District.

Right behind him is an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier who ran against Concord Rep. Mark DeSaulnier under the GOP banner. The state Republican Party disowned John Fitzgerald, who qualified for the general election largely because he was the only Republican on the primary ballot in the 11th District. Still, he won 26 percent of the vote Nov. 6.

As for the Democratic powerhouses? No surprises here: The top two vote-getters were Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee (88.4 percent of the vote in a race against a Green Party candidate) San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi (86.7 percent).

The big event

Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Wednesday nights vote drop in the race for the San Joaquin Valley House seat held by Rep. David Valadao of Hanford (Kings County). It was looking like the only Hillary Clinton-won House district in California that Republicans would hold onto  Democratic candidates have already flipped the other six, including all of once-bedrock GOP Orange County.

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Then came Mondays vote update, and Valadaos lead over Democrat T.J. Cox plummeted to just over 1,000 votes, or 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent. Could the Democrats make it a clean sweep of the Clinton districts? Stay tuned to the secretary of states website. The update generally lands around 6 p.m.

The Political Punch newsletter publishes Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is produced by the staff of The San Francisco Chronicle and edited by politics editor Trapper Byrne. Email: tbyrne@sfchronicle.com
SACRAMENTO  The California Supreme Court gave the green light Tuesday for Gov. Jerry Brown to pardon former state Sen. Roderick Wright, a Los Angeles-area Democrat who was convicted four years ago of perjury and voter fraud.

The states high court does not take a position on whether Brown should grant clemency. Instead, justices decide whether there is sufficient support for a pardon should the governor decide to grant one. In Wrights case, the justices said there was.
The smell of autumn is a smell that seems to appear overnight when you least expect it. You wake up one morning to a chill and the smell of loamy earth, and you pull your oversize blanket from the closets clutches and put it in its rightful place upon your bed. The airs cryogenic tinge starts to seep through your windows when you let the soft pink light in.

In my hometown of Sacramento, the sandhill cranes click from above, their migratory path cutting right through my childhood ghetto. We neighborhood kids would lounge in the beds of abandoned trucks and stare up for hours, a moment to escape our forsaken community and its blight by watching the V formation of the elegant long-necked birds. The evenings golden hour generated goldenrod rays onto brick Tudors, casting their bricks deep red. At night, the glowing light from homes spilled out of oversize picture windows onto damp sidewalks, taunting me. Acorns and dried leaves crunched underfoot as the wind wove through the leaves, clapping a jubilant psithurism as it sent off their foliage kin like confetti.

But all anyone seems to be excited about is ... the damn pumpkins and all of the pumpkin-like counterparts.

While the pumpkin can be found on all the continents except Antarctica, its true home is Mesoamerica, dating back more than 7,500 years. The type of calabaza you find in Puerto Rico is also known as West Indian pumpkin. Its native to the Caribbean via Central and South America.

Dan Liberti

Some agree that Tainos, traveling by canoe, took the hearty calabaza with them to the islands from their encounters with the Mayan people in the Yucatan Peninsula. According to J.A. Cosculluela (The Society for American Archaeology, 1946), there is some evidence validating the Tainos trade network with the Yucatan, but the Tainos mostly used the calabaza for food and water receptacles. As they moved inland, Taino were an agrarian people. They soon planted calabaza in their growing fields. But, the calabaza used in Puerto Rico today is much more similar to kabocha: a squat, savory, dense and starchy pumpkin with a shocking color combination of an electric orange interior and dark green exterior. Its used in Puerto Rican cuisine with beans, in stews, in rices and, of course, fried.

For my grandma with a third-grade education, none of autumns seasonal romanticism went over her head. On our walks back from the monthly Kmart shopping errand, wed purchase some persimmons from a Croatian immigrant named Katie. She lived in a tall white house built in 1910 on Perry Avenue. Katie still lives there; she is now 90 years old, frail and legally blind. She can't see the persimmons from far away so she searches the branches clumsily until her hands happen upon one of the burnt orange globes. Back in the day, Nana would wait for them to ripen, peel them, extract their pulp and turn them into chewy cookies, with bits of skin running throughout the autumnal spice laden dough.

Dan Liberti

Nana would turn the pumpkins and squash, meanwhile, into fritters. You heard the batter spatter when it hit the oil, the edges starting to samba as one side formed its crispiness. My excitement couldnt be contained. The seconds seemed like hours to a husky child. Finally, she lifted the fritters out of the oil and placed them on a paper towel, sprinkled some iodized Mortons on top of the fritters and said: Comer, gorda.

The fritters are weighty, but eat light. Your teeth sink into the starchy soft center encased in a crispy shell and their perfumed flavor wafts into your nose. Theyre sweet, savory, and the sprinkling of salt only seems to heighten those flavors.

Traditionally, these fritters are called barrigas de vieja, old lady bellies. The traditional method of deep-frying these little wrinkly mounds until the middle sinks in slightly to form a belly button never appeared in Nanas kitchen because she never used enough oil to deep-fry. So her fritters were always flat, thus her name for them: frituras de calabaza.

Illyanna Maisonet is a first-generation Puerto Rican and a cook. She sometimes writes about food, too. Twitter: @eatgordaeat Email: food@sfchronicle.com

Barrigas de vieja

These days, I like to use a combination of kabocha and sugar pie, because the kabocha adds the heft, but the sugar pie adds sweetness. But, for this recipe, Ill keep things simple by only utilizing the kabocha. Tip: All of the mixing can be done in a food processor.

1 fresh kabocha squash, about 1 pound

 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons brown sugar

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 teaspoon of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Spice

 teaspoon baking powder

Canola oil

Kosher salt

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Slice the kabocha into wedges, leaving the skin intact. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper and place wedges onto the sheet tray.

Roast kabocha in the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until soft. Peel the skin away and scoop the flesh into a large mixing bowl. Using a spatula, smash until relatively smooth. Add flour and mix until just combined. Add egg, vanilla, brown sugar, spice and baking powder. Mix until well combined.

Over medium heat, heat 1 inch of canola oil into a cast-iron skillet. When hot, scoop some of the mixture into the oil and fry for 2-3 minutes. Flip and fry for another 2-3 minutes or until the fritters are firm enough to pick up. The interior should still be slightly custardy and the exterior firm.

Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Sprinkle kosher salt to taste.
A 21-year-old Manhattan man was arrested after allegedly hacking into Silicon Valley executives' cell phones and attempting to steal their cryptocurrency, according to multiple reports.

Nicholas Truglia was arrested last week after authorities accused him of targeting Bay Area residents in a SIM card-swapping scheme that he ran out of his high-rise apartment on New York City's 42nd Street.

Truglia allegedly stole $1 million in cryptocurrency from San Francisco father-of-two Robert Ross, the New York Post reports.

Ross reportedly watched as his phone went dark on Oct. 26. When it turned back on, he discovered $500,000 in cryptocurrency had disappeared from both his Coinbase and Gemini accounts. The money was intended for his daughters' college fund and was the sum of his life savings, Erin West, the deputy district attorney for Santa Clara Superior Court, told the Post.

According to the Post, Truglia targeted six people in total, including Saswata Basu, the CEO of blockchain storage system 0Chain; Myles Danielsen, vice president of Hall Capital Partners; and Gabrielle Katsnelson, founder of the startup SMBX.

Though Truglia was unable to access their bank accounts, he was reportedly successful in hacking into their cell phones.

West told the Post that agents were able to recover $300,000 in stolen funds from Truglia's hardware wallet.

Truglia is currently being held at the Manhattan Detention Complex, according to court records, pending extradition to Santa Clara. He faces 21 felony counts.

SIM swap fraud is a growing trend among criminals, experts say. The thieves scrape as much information on their victims as possible, create a false identity, and call the victim's cell phone provider claiming that their SIM has been lost or destroyed. They then ask the customer service rep to activate a new SIM card that is in their possession. Once they've gained access to the phone, the fraudsters target victims' bank accounts.

Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

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IPAs, saisons, stouts and lagers: There are myriad options at your local craft beer store, rendering you paralyzed with indecision.

Not all beers are created equal. At local shops like City Beer Store in San Francisco, Hop Grenade in Concord and the Good Hop in Oakland, most beers for sale are good, some are great, and a few are exceptional. How do you sift through your choices to find the best one to impress your friends?

"Really the thing to do is ask the people around you," says Eric Eggleston, manager and beer buyer for the Hop Grenade in Concord. "Ask the people stocking shelves, or the other customers looking at beer."

Melissa Myers, owner of the Good Hop, echoes that advice: "It's great to go into a bottle shop and ask the bartenders, 'What's the newest style?'"

For beer newbies, Eggleston recommends starting with classics from well-respected, established breweries before hunting whales.

"If you're a novice, you've got to start with the beers that paved the way," he adds, citing beers like Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA and Allagash Brewing Company's White beer. "If you're a beer novice, it might be new to you (but for) your friends, it's cool to revisit because your palate changes. It doesn't need to be a (beer) no one has ever heard of."

Consider the classics

The surest way to impress your beer nerd friends may be to go with the OGs. California is home to many of the best and most important breweries in the United States, and it's tough to go wrong with classics such as Moonlight Brewing's Death & Taxes black lager, Firestone Walker's Pivo pilsner, Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale, and North Coast's Old Rasputin or Old Stock Ale. Myers describes the last as "deep and ruby and barrel-y and delicious."

And, with Russian River's expansion, their Pliny the Elder double IPA, Blind Pig IPA and revered sours like their Supplication brown ale aged in Pinot Noir barrels with cherries are more accessible than ever.

Tread carefully with the trendy beers

Local beer shops stock plenty of the new and buzzy beers, like seasonal and one-off hoppy and hazy brews by Oakland's Temescal Brewing, Sacramento's New Glory, and Petaluma's HenHouse Brewing. Fieldwork, another dependable brewer, sells crowlers and growlers of their beers at half a dozen locations from Sacramento to Monterey.

"If you're going for IPAs," Myers says, "buy what's popular in the market right now."

That might mean grabbing an ever-changing hazy Alvarado Street can or a hoppier beer from Pizza Port in San Diego.

"Pizza Port puts out amazing hoppy beers," she adds. "They make great West Coast-style, solid, consistent, awesome price point delicious beers."

Seek out California sours and barrel-aged beers

Sour beers  or as the true aficionados might correct, mixed fermentation saisons or wild ales  are popular and generally a bit more expensive to make than your classic brews. That's for good reason; they're often time-consuming to make and are difficult to master. But the well-executed ones by experienced brewers are always good picks.

Rarer, very small-batch local saisons in that vein might include Sante Adairius' Saison Bernice and seasonals by Cellarmaker in San Francisco, but others, made by producers like Berkeley's the Rare Barrel or Alameda's Almanac, are more ubiquitous on store shelves.

Myers opts for a classic like Anderson Valley's fruited goses, while some of Eggleston's go-to picks are made by The Bruery or its Bruery Terreux in Orange County.

"A lot of those breweries that make hard-to-get beers also make beers for everyday drinking," he says. "The Bruery has all their (rare) Black Tuesday, Grey Monday beers but they also have Mischief and Saison Rue. They're always in 750 mL bottles, so they're good to share. You can find those at local shops."

Look abroad

And those searching for interesting picks from overseas will find them in widely available Belgian-made beers like Saison Dupont, Delirium Tremens and Rodenbach Grand Cru.

"If you're looking for the sours, Rodenbach is always a classic, delicious beer people like," Myers says. "(And) Delirium Tremens, which is a little different than the other (Delirium beers) because it's a little sweeter and bigger."

Eggleston's pick: Boon Geuze.

"You can try to go to BevMo and they'll have multiple tiers and price ranges (of Brouwerij Boon beers)," Eggleston adds. "You can (get that) instead of searching far and wide for a Cantillon."

See some picks in the above gallery.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.


Six artificial flavors are being ordered out of the food supply in a dispute over their safety, but good luck to anyone who wants to know which cookies, candies or drinks theyre in.

The dispute highlights the complex rules that govern what goes in our food, how much the public knows about it, and a mysterious class of ingredients that has evolved over decades largely outside of public view.

On food packages, hundreds of ingredients are listed simply as natural flavor or artificial flavor. Even in minute amounts, they help make potato chips taste oniony or give fruit candy that twang.

The food system we have is unimaginable without flavor additives, said Nadia Berenstein, a New York historian of flavor science.

The flavors are also at the center of a dispute over how ingredients should be regulated.

The Food and Drug Administration is giving companies two years to purge their products of six artificial flavors  even though the FDA made clear it believes the ingredients are safe in the trace amounts they are used.

The six artificial flavors in question, with names like methyl eugenol, benzophenone, ethyl acrylate and pyridine, are used to create cinnamon or spicy notes, fruity or minty flavors, or even hints of balsamic vinegar.

The FDA and the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association, an industry group, did not respond when asked for examples of products the six ingredients are used in. But they noted in statements that the compounds have natural counterparts in foods like basil, coffee, grapes and peppermint, and that the action does not affect the naturally derived versions.

The FDA said it had to order the artificial versions out of the food supply because of a lawsuit brought by consumer advocacy groups that cited a 60-year-old regulation known as the Delaney clause. The rule prohibits additives shown to have caused cancer in animals, even if tested at doses far higher than what a person would consume.

The flavor industry group said the Delaney clause doesnt allow regulators to assess an ingredients risk based on modern scientific understanding, but that changing it would require an act of Congress. In 1981, the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the clause should be re-examined because of its inflexibility.

Christopher Kemp, a professor of cancer biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, doesnt think the rule is necessarily too strict a threshold. He said animal studies provide the strongest evidence about cancer risk in humans, and that it is better to err on the side of caution.

Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that sued over the six ingredients, said its also unknown what effect they might have when used in combination with other ingredients. And since theyre listed only as artificial flavor, he said people dont know in what concentrations theyre used in particular products.

Its all secret. You cant pick up an ice cream or chewing gum or a baked good and have any idea what chemicals are in there, he said.

Berenstein, the flavor science historian, said the ingredients in flavors dont have to be specified in part because regulators decided long ago that listing the names of compounds on packages might just confuse people. And she stressed that flavors are used in infinitesimal amounts. In 2015, the flavor industry estimates just 40 pounds of one of the now banned artificial ingredients was produced.

But Bernstein said a more robust regulatory system might inspire greater public confidence about flavors.

In a separate but related lawsuit, the FDA is also facing a challenge over its oversight of the universe of ingredients companies can put into foods, including artificial flavors.

New flavors, sweeteners and other ingredients can go through an FDA petition process to be approved as food additives. But another option lets manufacturers deem their own ingredients to be generally recognized as safe.

Theres no clear rule for when ingredients should take one path or the other. The artificial sweetener Splenda is an approved food additive. Another sweetener, stevia, was declared generally recognized as safe by manufacturers.

The six artificial flavors in question were approved food additives, along with dozens of other synthetic flavors. The flavor industry group also regularly declares other ingredients like them to be safe, without formal review by the FDA.

Critics say determinations were meant for basic ingredients like salt and vinegar, not highly engineered ingredients. The advocacy groups suing the FDA say the generally recognized option has turned into a loophole that lets companies approve all sorts of ingredients without public scrutiny, including artificial flavors.

In September, a judge allowed the legal challenge to move forward.

Candice Choi is an Associated Press writer.
He was a great promoter of equal access for women to minister in church, and I think he had a great deal of importance in that realm because his book is really a compilation of what a lot of people who grew up in male-dominated churches and then began to realize that women were equally gifted, said retired Wheaton College piano professor William Phemister. I think Alan will be remembered most for his commitment to supporting full access of women to leadership in church.
PARIS  Renaults board of directors says that Carlos Ghosn will remain as chairman and CEO of the carmaker even though he is detained in Japan for alleged misuse of Nissan assets.

The board on Tuesday, however, tapped the carmakers No. 2, Thierry Bollore, to fill in for Ghosn while hes temporarily incapacitated.

A statement issued after a three-hour board meeting said that the board was unable to comment on the evidence seemingly gathered against Ghosn, who was arrested Monday. It said Bollore, Renaults chief operating officer, will lead on a temporary basis.

Prosecutors in Japan are investigating claims that Ghosn, who is also chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, underreported his taxable income by half for several years.

One of the auto industrys most prominent executives, Ghosn was arrested Monday in Japan and held for questioning, but has not yet been charged. The prosecutors office in Tokyo said it could hold him for 72 hours but, with a courts approval, could extend the detention an additional 20 days before it decides whether to indict him.

Ghosn created the alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, and has been hailed for rethinking the way vehicle manufacturers could share technology and innovate in a competitive global market. His arrest stunned investors and sent Nissans share price falling to a two-year low Tuesday.

But even as Nissan and Mitsubishi prepared to quickly sever ties with Ghosn, the French government, which is Renaults biggest shareholder, was cautious.

The French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Tuesday that France has no evidence of the crimes that Ghosn has been accused of committing in Japan.

In a joint statement released Tuesday afternoon, Le Maire and Hiroshige Seko, the Japanese economic minister, said that they had spoken by phone and reaffirmed the strong support of the French and Japanese governments to the alliance formed between Renault and Nissan.

Ghosn was detained on his private jet at Haneda Airport, which serves Tokyo, after a whistle-blower at Nissan made allegations that he had underreported compensation to the Japanese government. Another executive, Greg Kelly, whom authorities described as the architect of the scheme, was also arrested.

Neither Ghosn nor Kelly could be reached for comment.

After a months-long internal inquiry, Nissan said it is planning to strip Ghosn of his position as chairman when its board meets Thursday.

Ratings agencies warned of the scandals financial impact. Standard & Poors said it could downgrade Nissans credit rating over the allegations, a move that would raise the companys borrowing costs.

Nissans profitability could weaken substantially in the fiscal years 2018 and 2019 if it turned out that Ghosns alleged misconduct had hurt sales or the companys alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi, S&P said in a statement.

Moodys Investors Service said that the scandal raised questions about Nissans compliance and control systems given such an incident occurred and seemingly went unreported for some time, and that it could affect the companys credit rating.

Ghosn instituted sweeping changes at Nissan beginning in 1999 and created a working arrangement between Nissan and Renault that allowed them to operate like a single carmaker. In 2016, that agreement included Mitsubishi and all three shared the cost of developing models and cooperated on their supply chains. In 2017, the alliance accounted for the sale of 10.6 million cars.

Ghosns swift downfall raised questions about the stability of the alliance as well as of the individual carmakers.
PARADISE, Butte County  A soaking rainstorm gave firefighters at the Camp Fire a welcome break a day before Thanksgiving, allowing them to scale back their two-week battle against the massive blaze as the slow search for human remains continued.

The rain should help douse the flames and speed up containment efforts, fire officials said Wednesday, but it could also create dangerous conditions in the form of mudslides, flooding, slick roads and falling trees. The storm also hampered efforts to find and recover bodies.

Its miserable, said Dustin Topp, an engineer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, as he worked in the rain. His team was combing through a trailer park that was home to people 55 and older, looking for human remains and checking for hazards like septic tanks.

As of Wednesday night, 83 deaths had been reported from the Camp Fire. Two remains were found on Wednesday, one in a structure in Paradise and another in a structure in Magalia, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said in a Wednesday night news conference.

Six more victims were identified Wednesday night, bringing the number of victims publicly identified to 12. Their names 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; and Joan Tracy, 80, of Paradise.

Officials said the wildfire had burned 153,336 acres and crews had it 85 percent contained as of Wednesday night, according to Cal Fire. The inferno incinerated 13,503 residences and nearly 5,000 other buildings and still threatens 5,100 structures, officials said. About 563 people remain unaccounted for.

Fire crews planned to pull back Wednesday and let the rain do the work of putting out flames while teams focus on the search for victims, said Jim Mackensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

The blaze stayed within containment lines, and officials recorded minimal fire activity by Wednesday night, officials said in the news conference.

As part of ongoing cleanup and recovery efforts, Honea said officials are scouring the affected areas and ensuring they are safe when residents are allowed to return to collect personal belongings that may have survived the blaze, assess property damage and connect with emergency resources.

Public health officials are advising residents against living on destroyed property until the area is cleared of waste, as the ash is still toxic and properties may contain high levels of heavy metals, arsenic and other carcinogens, according to Butte County Public Health officials.

Eric Lamoureux, of the California Office of Emergency Services, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substance Control expect to start removing hazardous waste next week, but warned it could take months to fully clear the region of waste.

As for the unknown number of students who have gone without schooling for the past two weeks, Mary Sakuma, deputy superintendent of the Butte County Board of Education, said school officials will open a previously vacant school in Oroville to temporarily hold classes, starting Dec. 3.

The number of personnel involved with controlling the fire already steadily decreasing over the past few days, was down to 3,745 workers Wednesday from 5,332 Monday morning. Wednesday morning, firefighters were clocking out, doing paperwork and turning in supplies as the operation begins to demobilize.

Cal Fire Capt. Joshpae White said the rain can increase the amount of moisture in the air and cool embers on the ground, which helps tamp down the fire. But it can also weigh down tree limbs, causing them to break off and fall. Mixed with water, oil on the roads and flame retardant on the soil create slick conditions for fire trucks and other service vehicles.

Ahead of the storm, crews in Paradise and nearby towns Concow and Magalia used trucks to vacuum soggy debris off the ground to prevent or reduce damage from slides. Workers also set up hay bales and sand bags to divert water.

Debris flows, which can send fallen tree branches, rocks, ash and mud down steep slopes, are almost inevitable during heavy rains after a severe burn, authorities said. The areas that experienced the most severe burns also had the steepest topography and were therefore uninhabited, said National Weather Service meteorologist Aviva Braun. But slides could still be a threat to people working in burn areas or homes downstream of a slide.

Wind could cause problems, too. Braun expects wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph Thursday and Friday, which could topple fire-weakened trees.

The last significant rain in the area was 220 days ago  in April  said Braun, who studies how weather affects fire behavior and has been at the site of the Camp Fire since Saturday. On Wednesday, she sat behind two computers where she was monitoring the rain by radar.

Periodic showers were expected to bring 1 to 2 inches of rain Wednesday and 4 to 6 inches through Saturday, but some areas were forecast to get heavier rain than others, and thats where problems could arise, Braun said. She was expecting the heaviest showers between 1 and 4 p.m. Wednesday, then again Thursday night to Friday, but it can be hard to predict where theyll land.

You dont know exactly where its going to be until youre staring at it on the radar, she said.

The rain did not appear to dissuade evacuees staying in a few dozen tents adjacent to a Walmart parking lot in Chico. Officials have been encouraging them to leave for the past few days, without forcing them out. Visitors brought coffee and donations on Wednesday and told them a bus would come by in the afternoon to take them to a shelter if they wanted to go.

Mark Kinsey, 57, was tying white foam rolls together on the walls of his tent for insulation Wednesday afternoon. He said itll be an igloo by the time hes done. We endure.

Kinsey lost his trailer home in the Paradise Pines neighborhood in the fire. He escaped with some belongings in a neighbors Jeep.

I stayed until the very end. Until fire was a block away. Im a mountain boy, so Im surviving.

His family had lived in the Paradise area going back to 1894, when his great-great-grandfather settled there. It was known as Poverty Ridge because there wasnt much industry, and everyone was poor.

Kinseys 27-year-old son died last year when he was swept away by a riptide while in Mexico. He said he was lucky to get his childs body back, and about the rain coming down, This aint nothing compared to that.

The rain complicated search and recovery efforts.

The first step in searching a ruined dwelling is to remove the roof, said Alameda fire Capt. Brandon Baley, who was leading a crew looking through the debris of a single-family home. But the rain had turned the roof to oatmeal, making the work much slower and more challenging.

A cadaver dog discovered remains in the bathroom of the house. White, with Cal Fire, said the rain can actually help dogs find bodies. But the water can also turn ash to a slurry paste and move around the remains.

At another site, Manteca fire Capt. Kevin Terpstra and his crew checked mattresses, couches, doorways and other areas where people may have huddled for cover as the fire came.

Bone and plaster look a lot alike, Terpstra said.

The search team calls an anthropologist when someone finds what could be human remains. About 75 percent of the time, recovered remains are of animals, Baley said.

The death toll has climbed every day since the fire started, as search crews find more bodies in the burned-out rubble. Identifying the remains has been complicated, and slow. Authorities have tentatively identified 56 of the 83 bodies found so far. On Tuesday, they were able to confirm the identities of eight more people killed in the fire.

Many of the bodies dont have usable fingerprints or dental records, officials said, so normal methods of identification havent worked. Instead, authorities have started an unprecedented effort to make identifications through a process known as rapid DNA.

The number of people unaccounted for after the fire dropped to 563 Wednesday, down by 307 from the previous day. The list of missing peaked at nearly 1,300 over the weekend, and several hundred of those names have since been removed.
Some residents are being let back into their homes as the Camp Fire is nearing full containment, and a sign welcoming locals shows their humor is still intact amid the difficulties and devastation from the wildfire.

Magalia resident Ericka Negrete snapped a photo of a wooden sign greeting residents near the town of Lovelock (Butte County) on Skyway, the main road that runs through both Magalia and Paradise.

"Welcome back to Pleasure," the spray painted wooden sign reads. "Bring rake."

The sign, of course, is a winking nod to a visit by President Donald Trump last weekend, as he toured the areas scorched by the Camp Fire, which has killed at least 81 people. In a speech, Trump both referred to the town of Paradise as "Pleasure" and said that California should spend more time "raking and cleaning" the floors of the forest, which he said has helped the country of Finland avoid wildfires.

RAIN IS HERE!: Social media bursts with joy to NorCal's first rain in weeks

"You have to take care of the floors, the floors of the forest, very important," Trump said. "You look at other countries where they do it and it's a whole different story. I was with the president of Finland and he said we're a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. And when they do, it's a very small problem."

The suggestion raised some eyebrows. Finland's president, Sauli Niinisto, responded to Trump's assertion on rakes, and said that while he did speak about forest management with Trump, "Raking is not normally included in the Finnish forest management's tool range," he told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.

Finland residents also responded to Trump's comments by posting memes and photos of themselves with rakes, captioning the pictures with "#rakenews" and variations of "#RakeAmericaGreatAgain." (See examples of the memes in the gallery above.)

Negrete was returning to her home in Magalia when she saw the "Pleasure" sign, and told SFGATE that locals are "definitely trying to keep their humor throughout all of this."

"As excited as I was to finally see our home after 11 days," Negrete said, "I had to make a u-turn to be able to share the humor with the Paradise/Magalia Rant and Rave [Facebook] page."

Read Dianne de Guzman's latest stories and send her news tips at ddeguzman@sfchronicle.com.

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Editor's note: This story is part of SFGATEs new series, SF Spaces, which chronicles unconventional living quarters in the San Francisco-Bay Area. Do you live in an unusual space? Tell us about it by emailing SFGATE producer Michelle Robertson at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

Rachelle Dorris has spent much of her life on water.

For more than three decades, the 72-year-old has lived on floating homes anchored to the docks off Sausalito. At this point, theyre going to carry me out, she says. I have no intention of leaving.

Everything must be carried to and from her houseboat, in fact, down a long dock lined with succulents to the metal ramp that leads to her entranceway. From there, one descends a set of stairs to reach the front door, then ascends another stairway to enter the living room and kitchen. The configuration makes buying groceries cumbersome  a rolling metal cart is a necessity  but it also means stealing from the houseboat community on Issaquah Dock is a challenge.

If anyone comes in to rip you off, they have to carry it by your neighbors, Dorris jokes. She says some of her neighbors dont bother to lock their doors.

SF SPACES: This SF tech worker lives in an enormous refurbished garage for $350 a month

This is all part of the floating home lifestyle in Sausalito. The seaside community is home to a handful of docks where hundreds of boats anchor. The floating homes came to Sausalito in the 1950s, when Beatnik-types took over shore space once occupied by shipbuilding. The community was full of colorful, law-bending renegades who fled to the houseboats in pursuit of an alternative lifestyle they thought was unattainable on land.

Though the ethos remains in essence, its changed over the decades.

I dont want to say gentrification, says Dorris, but its certainly falling more into the category of common lifestyle. This is the result of greater regulation by the local government, a finite number of houseboats and dock space, as well as the general demographic of the Bay Area, which is becoming increasingly higher-income.

These tensions came to a head recently after Sausalito police threatened to remove small anchor-out vessels off Richardson Bay. Boaters have been squatting off Sausalito for decades, unwilling or unable to pony up pricey dock fees that can range from $1,000 to $1,5000 per month. That fee covers dues to the homeowners association, as well as amenities like sewage and water. You can read more about the Richardson Bay anchor-out vessels here.

Though she admits things have changed, Dorris insists the creative spirit remains. Thats what drew her to the boats 35 years ago, after a divorce left her un-anchored from her longtime Mill Valley home.

Most everyone seems to have the touch of an artist in them, she says, assuming that creative types are drawn to the tranquility of being constantly surrounded by water.

The demographic of Dorriss dock skews toward older folks, she says, largely because once people move in, they tend to stay. One must also have funds.

SF SPACES: This artist lives with 24 people in a former SF convent

Dorris, who works as a realtor with a specialty in floating homes, says houseboats in Sausalito range in price from $500,000 into the millions, in addition to the monthly anchor fee. Rentals are pricey, too. Though she wouldnt divulge her monthly rent, Dorris says a home like hers probably goes for about $5,000 a month.

Pricing depends on square footage, location and how much open water views the home affords you, she says.

Even if you can afford a floating home, finding one can be a challenge. Only a handful go on the real estate market every month, while rentals are even harder to snag. One hears about openings mostly by word-of-mouth, or diligent refreshing of Craigslist.

The community is tiny, close-knit, and unified by the delights and dangers of living by the tides.

SFGATE went inside Dorris floating home, The Grey Goose, to see what its like living on the water day in and day out. You can view our tour in the above video.

Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

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He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Iowa State University in three years with a degree in invertebrate zoology, then got a medical degree with honors from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1979. He completed his residency in pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1982, followed by a three-year clinical fellowship at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.
JACKSON, Miss.  Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and her Democratic challenger, Mike Espy, meet for their only debate Tuesday night in a contest where the incumbents verbal gaffes have dredged up strong emotions about Mississippis history of racial violence.

Senate races rarely gain national attention in this deeply conservative state. But this matchup  the last major race of 2018 midterms  has drawn scrutiny following Hyde-Smiths caught-on-video remarks at separate events about public hanging and making it just a little more difficult for liberals to vote.

President Trump reiterated his support for Hyde-Smith on Monday ahead of a campaign visit to Mississippi next week. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden endorsed Espy, a former congressman and U.S. agriculture secretary who is seeking to become Mississippis first African American senator since Reconstruction.

Hyde-Smith was appointed to the Senate to temporarily succeed longtime Sen. Thad Cochran, who retired in April amid health concerns. She is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41 percent of the vote when four candidates were on the ballot Nov. 6. If she wins the Nov. 27 runoff, Hyde-Smith would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate.

Mississippi hasnt elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982, and Republicans hold all but one statewide office.

The contest has intensified since the publisher of a liberal-leaning news site posted a video clip Nov. 11 on social media, showing Hyde-Smith praising a cattle rancher at a Nov. 2 campaign event in Tupelo by saying: I would fight a circular saw for him. If he invited me to a public hanging, Id be on the front row.

The same Louisiana-based publisher, Lamar White Jr. of the Bayou Brief, posted another video clip Nov. 15, showing Hyde-Smith at a Nov. 3 event in Starkville talking about liberal folks and making it just a little more difficult for them to vote.

In a statement, Hyde-Smith called the hanging expression an exaggerated expression of regard and said it is ridiculous to read any negative connotation into it. She repeatedly refused to answer questions about it during a news conference in Jackson, but the issue is sure to come up at the debate. Her campaign has said she was joking about hurdles to voting.

In a state with a history of lynchings and violent suppression of black voting rights, critics denounced her remarks as ignorant at best and racist at worst.

Hyde-Smith served 12 years as a Democratic state lawmaker before switching to the Republican Party in late 2010 and winning statewide races as agriculture commissioner in 2011 and 2015.

For Espy to unseat Hyde-Smith, he needs strong turnout among the African Americans, who make up 38 percent of Mississippis population. He also needs a significant share of the white vote.

Emily Wagster Pettus is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  The Senates top Democrat asked the Justice Departments watchdog on Tuesday to open an investigation into communications between acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and the White House.

Sen. Charles Schumer wants the Justice Departments inspector general to look into Whitakers communications beginning in 2017, when Whitaker was appointed chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Whitaker was elevated to the top job after Sessions was ousted by President Trump earlier this month.

In a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Schumer, D-N.Y., said he wants inspector generals investigators to look into whether Whitaker had access to confidential grand jury information in special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Schumer also wants investigators to examine whether Whitaker shared any information with Trump or others in the administration.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking Justice Department official, had been overseeing the special counsels Russia investigation until Whitakers appointment on Nov. 7. Whitaker is now overseeing the investigation.

Schumer and other Democrats have said they are concerned about Whitakers past criticism of the Mueller probe, which is looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and ties to Trumps campaign.

I am also concerned that Mr. Whitaker, who has thus far declined to recuse himself from the Special Counsel investigation, may intend to interfere in or obstruct the investigation in other ways, Schumer wrote.

Trump has called Whitaker a highly respected former U.S. Attorney from Iowa but also has said, I did not know Mr. Whitaker.

Michael Balsamo is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  President Trump has ignited a firestorm of criticism and charges that he is politicizing the military by faulting a war hero for not capturing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sooner.

Trump took shots at retired Adm. William McRaven in a weekend Fox News interview in which he also asserted that the former Navy SEAL and former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command was a backer of Trumps 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and a supporter of President Barack Obama.

Disgusting, the George W. Bush administrations White House counterterrorism adviser, Fran Townsend, wrote Monday on Twitter.

Leon Panetta, who was CIA director during the bin Laden raid and later served as secretary of defense, said Trump owed an apology to McRaven and to all of those in the military and intelligence agencies who played a role in tracking down bin Laden and carrying out the risky raid into Pakistan. He called Trumps remark patently ridiculous.

It demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of how our military and intelligence agencies operate and undermines the presidents own standing as commander-in-chief, Panetta said in a statement.

The controversy follows a pattern of concerns raised by former senior military officers about Trumps grasp of the militarys role. Some assert that his decision to send thousands of active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm elections was a political stunt.

McRaven told CNN he is a fan both of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, having served under them. I admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and who use that office to bring the nation together in challenging times, he said pointedly.

McRaven previously had drawn widespread attention for lambasting Trump for repeatedly calling the news media the enemy of the people. McRaven had said the presidents words were the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime. When this was raised in the Fox News interview, Trump lashed out at McRaven, who organized and executed the bin Laden raid in Pakistan in May 2011 as head of the secretive Joint Special Operation Command.

Wouldnt it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldnt it have been nice? Trump said.

Robert Burns is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  President Trumps embrace of Saudi Arabia has exposed a foreign policy rift in the Republican Party, as some of his GOP colleagues warn that not punishing the kingdom for its role in killing a U.S.-based columnist will have dangerous consequences.

Many Republicans  even Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, who share their views on the matter with the president  have denounced Trumps decision not to levy harsher penalties on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the death and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Sen. Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday he was astounded by Trumps statement and likened it to a press release for Saudi Arabia.

It is a delicate situation when we have a long-term ally that weve had for decades, but we have a crown prince that I believe ordered the killing of a journalist, Corker told Chattanooga TV station WTVC in his home state of Tennessee. We dont have a smoking gun. Everything points to the fact that he knew about it and directed it.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Trumps decision, saying the U.S. has already placed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials suspected of involvement in the Oct. 2 killing of the Washington Post columnist, who had been critical of the royal family.

Weve sanctioned 17 people  some of them very senior in the Saudi government, Pompeo said Wednesday in a radio interview with KCMO in Kansas City, Mo. We are going to make sure that America always stands for human rights.

Graham, R-S.C., isnt convinced. When we lose our moral voice, we lose our strongest asset, he said.

Members of both parties have accused Trump of ignoring U.S. intelligence that concluded, according to one U.S. official, that it was likely the crown prince ordered the killing. Several lawmakers have indicated that the U.S. has no smoking gun that proves he was responsible, but they have called on the CIA and other top intelligence agencies to publicly share what they told the president about the slaying.

In his statement Tuesday, Trump argued that punishing Saudi Arabia by foolishly canceling Saudi arms deals worth billions of dollars to the U.S. would only benefit Russia and China. Critics, including high-ranking officials in other countries, accused Trump of ignoring human rights and giving Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.

Its America First, Trump said.

That unleashed a tweet Wednesday from Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii who wrote: Being Saudi Arabias bitch is not America First.

Trump also said the U.S. needs Saudi Arabias help to counter Iran in the region, fight extremism and keep oil prices steady. The U.S., Russia and the Saudis have boosted oil production in anticipation of sharply lower exports from Iran due to U.S. sanctions reinstated after Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal.

Trump publicly thanked Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for plunging oil prices. However, OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, could announce production cuts at its Dec. 6 meeting in Vienna, nudging prices upward.

Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower! he wrote from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., where hes spending Thanksgiving.

Deb Riechmann is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  President Trump has provided the special counsel with written answers to questions about his knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election, his lawyers said Tuesday, avoiding at least for now a potentially risky sit-down with prosecutors. Its the first time he has directly cooperated with the long investigation.

The step is a milestone in the negotiations between Trumps attorneys and Special Counsel Robert Muellers team over whether and when the president might sit for an interview.

The compromise outcome, nearly a year in the making, offers some benefit to both sides. Trump at least temporarily averts the threat of an in-person interview, which his lawyers have long resisted, while Mueller secures on-the-record statements whose accuracy the president will be expected to stand by for the duration of the investigation.

The responses may also help stave off a potential subpoena fight over Trumps testimony if Mueller deems them satisfactory. They represent the first time the president is known to have described to investigators his knowledge of key moments under scrutiny by prosecutors.

But investigators may still press for more information.

Muellers team months ago presented Trumps legal team with dozens of questions they wanted to ask the president related to whether his campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to tip the 2016 election and whether he sought to obstruct the Russia probe by actions including the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The investigators agreed to accept written responses to questions about potential Russian collusion and tabled, for the moment, obstruction-related inquiries.

Mueller left open the possibility that he would follow up with additional questions on obstruction, though Trumps lawyers  who had long resisted any face-to-face interview  have been especially adamant that the Constitution shields him from having to answer any questions about actions he took as president.

Trump attorney Jay Sekulow offered no details on the current Q&A, saying merely that the written questions submitted by the special counsels office ... dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The president responded in writing. He said the legal team would not release copies of the questions and answers or discuss any correspondence it has had with the special counsels office.

Another of Trumps lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, said the lawyers continue to believe that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. He said Muellers office had received unprecedented cooperation from the White House, including about 1.4 million pages of materials.

Eric Tucker is an Associated Press writer.
Stephen J. Martin noticed large mounds, some 10 feet tall, 30 feet wide, along the side of the road as he drove through a remote part of northeast Brazil.

After 20 minutes, we were still driving through these, and I started saying, Well, what are they?' said Martin, an entomologist at the University of Salford in England who was in Brazil for research on the worldwide decline of honeybees.

He thought they might be piles of dirt displaced from the construction of the road. Instead, his companions told him, Oh, theyre just termite mounds.

Martin recalled his incredulous reply: And I went, Youre really sure about that? And theyre like, Well, I dont know. I think so.'

On a subsequent trip, Martin met by chance Roy R. Funch, an ecologist at Brazils State University of Feira de Santana who was already arranging to conduct radioactive dating to determine the age of the mounds.

I said, Look at those, there must be thousands of these mounds. And he went, Nah, theres millions.'

Funch undercounted, too.

In research published on Monday in the journal Current Biology, Martin, Funch and their colleagues report the findings from several years of investigations.

How many mounds? Some 200 million, the scientists estimate.

Theyre all over the place, Funch said.

The cone-shape mounds are the work of Syntermes dirus, among the largest termite species at about half an inch long. The mounds, spaced on average about 60 feet apart, are spread across an area as large as Britain.

As humans, we have never built a city that big, anywhere, Martin said.

The scientists were also surprised when they received results of the radioactive dating of 11 mounds. The youngest was about 690 years old. The oldest was at least 3,820 years old, or close in age to the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt. That just kind of blew me out of the water, Funch said.

Martin said they used the minimum age suggested by the data, but the oldest mound could conceivably be more than twice as old.

The scientists also estimated that to build 200 million mounds, the termites excavated 2.4 cubic miles of dirt  a volume equal to about 4,000 great pyramids of Giza. This the greatest known example of ecosystem engineering by a single insect species, the scientists wrote.

Another surprise was that the mounds turned out to just be mounds.

Other termites build mounds with complicated networks of tunnels that provide ventilation for underground nests.

But cutting through some of the mounds, Funch and Martin found only a single central tube leading to the top, and they never came across any nests.

These mounds were not ventilation structures, but simply piles of dirt. As the termites excavated networks of tunnels below the landscape, they needed somewhere to discarded the excavated dirt. So they carried the dirt up the central tube to the top of a mound and tossed it out.

That might also explain the regular spacing between the mounds. At first, Funch and Martin thought that to be the result of competing colonies. But when they put a termite from one mound next to one from a neighboring mound, there was no conflict, indicating they were from the same family.

They concluded the pattern was simply an efficient spacing of garbage piles.

Young, active mounds grow to 4 to 5 feet tall in a couple of years, Funch said. Most of the older mounds appear inactive. The scientists do not know if that means the termites have left or if they simply have no need for additional digging in the area after constructing the needed tunnels.

While people living in the region knew of the termite mounds, few outsiders did. The expanse of the termites construction was hidden by scrubby forest known as caatinga.

Thats why they were undiscovered for so long, Funch said. You cannot see them in the native vegetation. And not many scientists pass this way.

For most of the year, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter, the trees are scorched white. The landscape turns green after a short rainy season, and then the leaves fall, and the landscape grows desolate again.

These termites live on dead leaves, and they get to feed once a year, Martin said.

As parts of the forest were cleared, the mounds became visible, and about a decade ago, Google Earths satellite images became sharp enough that Funch could spot individual mounds. He drove to some of the sites to verify that the mounds were there.

Martin said he wanted to better understand the intertwining between the insects and the vegetation. When part of the forest is cut down, the mounds remain, but the termites move away as there are no longer any leaves for them to eat.

They also want to observe the termites during the burst of feeding after the blooming of the forest and study what the termites are doing the rest of the year.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
In fact, Presley participated the only way he ever participated, through his music. Two of his biggest hits  both recorded against the wishes of his management  spoke out against social injustice. "If I Can Dream," which Presley used to close his famous 1968 "comeback" TV special on the heels of the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, had Presley dreaming "of a better land where all my brothers walk hand in hand." He followed it up the following year with "In the Ghetto," which told the story of "a poor little baby child" born in the ghetto who, by song's end, is gunned down in the street, while "his mama cries."
My memories from 1974 till the beginning of 78 are many and full of love, and to this day they still bring tears to my eyes, recalled Peoples Temple member Mike Touchette, who was working on a boat in the Caribbean as the deaths were occurring. Not only the memories of building of Jonestown, but the friendships and camaraderie we had before 1978 is beyond words.
Then there are politically motivated attacks, either by or against governments. Some shootings occur in the course of guerrilla wars for sovereignty. These attacks do not meet our definition. This meant excluding a lot of very deadly shootings such as those in the Russian-Chechen conflict. The Russian Beslan School siege of Sept. 1, 2004, left 385 dead and another 783 wounded. In a three-day siege of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow in 2002, 130 were killed and more than 450 were wounded.
For one thing, determining where to deploy forces requires accurate intelligence, which likely would not be forthcoming. The document advises assuming worst-case scenarios derived from popular culture references. For another, deployed military forces will be expected to carry sufficient supplies to operate for 40 days, after which the planners believe most of the zombies will have died from decay or lack of food. (Although this assumption seems to be the consensus of various sources, it may be overly optimistic.) The difficulty, as the planners confess, is that the U.S. military may not possess enough food and water for the necessary forces to deploy for so long without resupply.
A Petaluma attorney who vigorously fought the citys decision to remove a controversial sculpture from San Franciscos Civic Center Plaza has made good on his promise to sue to put the statue back on its pedestal.

In a lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Frear Stephen Schmid claims the city violated a number of local and state laws intended to protect historic works of art when it hoisted the Early Days statue from the Pioneer Monument and placed it in storage back in September.

The statue depicts a vaquero and a missionary standing over a fallen and nearly naked American Indian man. Its one of five bronze statues that make up the Pioneer Monument, a shrine to the settling of California that sits between the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum.

Critics had called for the removal of the Early Days statue for more than two decades, castigating it as a perverse celebration of indigenous peoples suffering at the hands of European settlers. But a renewed public outcry bloomed in the wake of the deadly demonstrations last year in Charlottesville, Va., at the site of a Confederate statue. That rally, which resulted in the death of a counterprotester, sparked a national discussion about removing historical monuments that, to many, glorify racial or cultural oppression.

Schmid sought to block the decision by the citys Arts and Historic Preservation Commissions to take the statue down, but he was overruled following an impassioned meeting before the Board of Appeals on Sept. 12. Two days later, the statue was lifted from its plinths, carted away on a flatbed truck and placed into fine-arts storage. A group of onlookers applauded quietly.

In his lawsuit, Schmid claims the city defied local ordinances and state laws meant to safeguard public works of art when it removed the statue, which he equates to destroying it outright, drawing parallels with the destruction of Buddhist statues by the Taliban. Though it may be offensive to some, Schmid argues it should be maintained as a public resource, one that can teach lessons about the horrors of the past.

No one in their right mind can deny that repeated, totally unjustifiable atrocities were committed against Native Americans. Thats a historical fact, Schmid said in an interview. But I dont think this statue symbolizes that. People have different reads on it, I get that.

Schmid also accuses the city of acting out of a manifest and largely unconcealed animus, bias and prejudice against people of European heritage and culture.

Kate Patterson, a spokeswoman for the Arts Commission, said she couldn't comment on pending litigation.

But back in September, after Schmid vowed to press his fight to return Early Days to the Pioneer Monument in court, Tom DeCaigny, the Arts Commissions director of cultural affairs said the city was well within its rights to make decisions over its public arts collection.

We feel pretty confident about our legal standing, he said at the time.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Laws complaint is on target, but it shouldnt take federal intervention to curb this kind of aldermanic fiat. Aldermen ought to realize that blocking affordable housing in this way perpetuates segregation. If they need data, they can turn to a study earlier this year by the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance that found that aldermanic privilege was being used in largely white, affluent areas to keep out affordable housing. That practice effectively confines lower-income Latino and black residents to West and South side neighborhoods.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.

It is unclear whether Trump read McGahns memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Clinton and Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the FBI director, Christopher Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.

A White House spokesman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the presidents criticism of Wray, whom he appointed last year after firing Comey.

Mr. McGahn will not comment on his legal advice to the president, said McGahns lawyer, William Burck. Like any client, the president is entitled to confidentiality. Mr. McGahn would point out, though, that the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey.

It is not clear which accusations Trump wanted prosecutors to pursue. He has accused Comey, without evidence, of illegally having classified information shared with The New York Times in a memo that Comey wrote about his interactions with the president. The document contained no classified information.

Trumps lawyers also privately asked the Justice Department last year to investigate Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and for his role in the Clinton email investigation. Law enforcement officials declined their requests. Comey is a witness against the president in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

Trump has grown frustrated with Wray for what the president sees as his failure to investigate Clintons role in the Obama administrations decision to allow the Russian nuclear agency to buy a uranium mining company. Conservatives have long pointed to donations to the Clinton family foundation by people associated with the company, Uranium One, as proof of corruption. But no evidence has emerged that those donations influenced the U.S. approval of the deal.

In his conversation with McGahn, the president asked what stopped him from ordering the Justice Department to investigate Comey and Clinton, the two people familiar with the conversation said. He did have the authority to ask the Justice Department to investigate, McGahn said, but warned that making such a request could create a series of problems.

McGahn promised to write a memo outlining the presidents authorities. In the days that followed, lawyers in the White House counsels office wrote a several-page document in which they strongly cautioned Trump against asking the Justice Department to investigate anyone.

The lawyers laid out a series of consequences. For starters, Justice Department lawyers could refuse to follow Trumps orders even before an investigation began, setting off another political firestorm.

If charges were brought, judges could dismiss them. And Congress, they added, could investigate the presidents role in a prosecution and begin impeachment proceedings.

Ultimately, the lawyers warned, Trump could be voted out of office if voters believed he had abused his power.

Trumps frustrations about Comey and Clinton were a recurring refrain, a former White House official said. Why arent they going after them? the president would ask of Justice Department officials.

For decades, White House aides have routinely sought to shield presidents from decisions related to criminal cases or even from talking about them publicly. Presidential meddling could undermine the legitimacy of prosecutions by attaching political overtones to investigations in which career law enforcement officials followed the evidence and the law.

Perhaps more than any president since Richard Nixon, Trump has been accused of trying to exploit his authority over law enforcement. Witnesses have told the special counsels investigators about how Trump tried to end an investigation into an aide, install loyalists to oversee the inquiry into his campaign and fire Mueller.

In addition, Trump has attacked the integrity of Justice Department officials, claiming they are on a witch hunt to bring him down.

More significant, Mueller is investigating whether the president tried to impede his investigation into whether any Trump associates conspired with Russias campaign to sow discord among the U.S. electorate during the 2016 presidential race.

Trump stoked his enmity for Clinton during the campaign, suggesting during a presidential debate that he would prosecute her if he was elected president. If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, Trump said.

Its just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country, Clinton replied.

Because you would be in jail, Trump shot back.

During the presidential race, Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney, also said he would have indicted Clinton, contradicting Comeys highly unusual public announcement that he would recommend the Justice Department not charge her over her handling of classified information while secretary of state.

When the facts and evidence show a criminal violation has been committed, the individuals involved should not dictate whether the case is prosecuted, Whitaker wrote in an op-ed in USA Today in July 2016.

Two weeks after his surprise victory, Trump backed off. I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont, Trump said in an interview with The Times. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.

Nonetheless, he revisited the idea both publicly and privately after taking office. Some of his more vocal supporters stirred his anger, including Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro, who has railed repeatedly on her weekly show that the president is being ill-served by the Justice Department.

Pirro told Trump in the Oval Office last November that the Justice Department should appoint a special counsel to investigate the Uranium One deal, two people briefed on the discussion have said. During that meeting, the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, told Pirro she was inflaming an already-vexed president, the people said.

Shortly after, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote to lawmakers, partly at the urging of the presidents allies in the House, to inform them that federal prosecutors in Utah were examining whether to appoint a special counsel to investigate Clinton. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney for Utah declined to comment Tuesday on the status of the investigation.

Trump once called his distance from law enforcement one of the saddest parts of being president.

I look at whats happening with the Justice Department, he said in a radio interview a year ago. Well, why arent they going after Hillary Clinton and her emails and with her, the dossier? He added: I am not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
Dayna Less suffered from debilitating migrainelike headaches as a teenager. The illness inspired her to give back by becoming a pharmacist, her father, Brian Less, told the Tribune. Her family maintains a blog, mydaughtersheadache.com, that provides support to other sufferers. In 2015, after surgery that cured her, Less was ebullient about her decision to go to pharmacy school. Theres nothing that can hold me back from living my life now, she wrote on the blog.
Start with your windowsills, advises Rob Dunn. Light fittings are often a graveyard, too.

As households across the United States decorate their homes with plastic spiders for Halloween, Dunn, an applied ecologist at North Carolina State University, is encouraging people to search out the real thing  and then to photograph whatever they find, rather than squash it.

His new project, Never Home Alone, aims to gather at least 10,000 observations of arthropods  insects and their kin  from around the world. Anyone can participate, using the online nature-identification platform iNaturalist; the only condition is that the bugs must be observed indoors.

That is where humans, too, are mostly to be found. We spend more than 90 percent of our lives inside, Dunn said recently, citing a 2001 study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In the worlds densest cities, the indoor biome is bigger than the outdoor space, at least in terms of floor area. (Indoor Manhattan, Dunn calculates, now exceeds outdoor Manhattan by a factor of 3-1.) Yet scientists know almost nothing about the spiders and flies and booklice that inhabit this space alongside us.

Theres no shortage of papers on cockroaches and termites, said May Berenbaum, an entomologist at the University of Illinois who was not involved in the project. But there are hundreds, potentially thousands of house dwellers that are neutral to beneficial that we know nothing about.

Even Dunn was, until recently, guilty of ignoring his six-legged housemates. A few years ago, he and his colleagues decided to take a census of 50 homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, including his own.

I would have told you I had four species of spiders, he admitted. When we looked, we found 10 in my house  and that turns out to be the average.

Indeed, some houses in Raleigh had more than 200 arthropod species in total; Dunn and his team have found a similar multiplicity of bugs living in homes as far afield as Sweden and Peru.

For Dunn, the domestic interior suddenly seemed more exotic than the Amazon, filled with opportunities for discovery. (Dunns previous surveys include studies of the microbial diversity in armpits and sourdough.) A couple of the insects he and his colleagues saw were entirely new to science, but even the named ones were deeply mysterious. In most cases, researchers dont know what the creatures eat, what their closest relatives are or from which habitats they originally hailed.

At the same time, the extent of this ignorance was overwhelming. It took the team hours to survey a single home, and even longer to identify each specimen. At that pace, Dunn would never have enough data to understand even the basic patterns of indoor insect life, or how they differed throughout the United States, let alone the world.

iNaturalist  a citizen-science app with users across the globe, and the ability to geolocate and even identify specimens from photos using artificial intelligence  offered a way through this bottleneck.

In July, Dunn created a page for the project, and began asking the platforms most active users to contribute. By mid-October, the project page had received more than 3,000 submissions, representing more than 800 species, from more than 1,000 participants around the world.

Already there are surprises. Take booklice: tiny light-brown bugs with fat abdomens and bulging eyes, they are neither lice nor restricted to books. They feed on starch, including the starch in bookbinding glue, but typically prefer the higher humidity of a kitchen or bathroom.

If you were to ask any of us about booklice before this project, we would have said, sure, well probably find some, said Dunn. So far, weve found them in 100 percent of houses.

Some of the most exciting data is coming from the tropics  unsurprisingly, perhaps, given the paucity of research on indoor insects there. One particular crab spider, so named for its ability to scuttle sideways and backward, appears to be ubiquitous. In a memorable sighting, the spindly legged, fat-bodied brown spider is perched on a toothbrush, dwarfing it.

People who live in tropical Asia clearly know this is in their houses, but it wasnt known by scientists more generally, Dunn said.

One of the first things Dunn wants to do once he reaches 10,000 sightings is analyze how all these species are distributed globally. In Raleigh, the houses he surveyed were populated with bugs that originated in the Fertile Crescent and came to the Americas with European colonists. By that logic, Dunn would expect many of the indoor insects in New Zealand to be British. But that assumption may be wrong.

Weve got a whole bunch of Kiwis that have been super keen on this project, he said. And it turns out that there are all these endemic New Zealand indoor species, like the Wellington house spider, that Ive never heard of.

Other patterns are emerging, logical but intriguing nonetheless. Households with pets harbor more insect diversity; so do homes where the windows are open more often. Different bugs favor different rooms  a preference that, in some cases, seems to have been fixed for millenniums: beetle and fly remains have been used to differentiate between bathrooms and kitchens in archaeological sites from ancient Egypt to England. Its entirely possible that certain architectural styles or floor plans favor particular insect communities, but researchers know too little to even formulate those kinds of hypotheses.

For a bug-loving scientist who wants to understand the forces shaping lifes diversity in one of the worlds fastest-growing ecosystems, the thrill of the Never Home Alone project is obvious. But for home dwellers who are more inclined to swat a fly than admire its iridescent coloring, whats the upside? Dunn bristled at the question, before gamely pointing out that many of these species are, or could be, extremely useful.

In tropical Asia, theres a jumping spider thats common in houses, and it preferentially feeds on dengue-infected mosquitoes, he said. Spiders, on the whole, are beneficial: they feed on less pleasant insects such as roaches, earwigs, flies and clothes moths, and they rarely bite.

When we spray pesticides, we tend to kill off the beneficial spiders and speed the evolution of resistant cockroaches and bedbugs. A man in California accidentally set fire to his parents house while trying to kill spiders with a blowtorch.

In my lab, we all love spiders, but, in general, I would say our attitude about these species in our houses is misdirected, Dunn said.

Effecting this attitude adjustment is perhaps the most ambitious goal of the Never Home Alone project. Already, weve made connections with people we could never have reached before, Dunn said.

He reached out to Zain Al-najm, an art student and iNaturalist contributor in Basra, Iraq, who uploaded a photo of a long-legged, thin-bodied Enicospilus wasp, its exact species unknown  the only observation on the website from this family of bugs in the entire Middle East.

That was my most interesting insect, Al-najm said in an email. But where we live are a lot of creatures that we do not care about but are really amazing.

One of the most prolific identifiers of species, Even Dankowicz, is a junior in biology at Brandeis University. Dankowicz has confirmed or corrected the identities of several hundred flies submitted to Never Home Alone.

If you find a fly in your house, it could be a house fly, Dankowicz said. But just as often its, like, a flesh fly, a bottle fly or a cluster fly, and those are really great and interesting species that you should know about.

Dunn accepts that most of us will never embrace the insects in our homes with great enthusiasm; he is striving merely for tolerance and, if possible, a little wonder. Some of these species are super cool, he said, describing a spider that kills its prey by spitting on it. (The spit is ejected from repurposed silk glands at speeds of nearly 100 feet per second).

But even without our goodwill, our insect housemates will be there; our homes, with their mild and constant climate, not to mention huge quantities of food and water, present a welcoming environment for life at all scales.

The best we can do is hope to sway that population to species that benefit us, rather than do us harm, said Dunn. But first we have to understand whos there.

So, this Halloween, peek into those dark corners; look behind your toilet and under your bed. Resist the reflex to squash  or blowtorch  whatever you see, and take a photo instead.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times
Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies used DNA evidence to arrest a suspect Tuesday in connection to a 1973 cold case murder of a Palo Alto woman.



Arthur Getreu, 74, was located at his home in Hayward and arrested at about 3 p.m., deputies said. He is suspected of killing Leslie Marie Perlov on Feb. 13, 1973.



Perlov was last seen at her workplace in Palo Alto that day and her 1972 Orange Chevrolet Nova was found parked at an old quarry near Old Page Mill and Page Mill roads, according to deputies.



Three days later, deputies found her body found under an Oak tree in the hills west of the quarry. The medical examiner's office determined she died of strangulation by ligature in a homicide.



Deputies recently began re-examining Perlov's death, and found the DNA of an unknown man on a piece of evidence. They submitted it to their crime lab and Parabon NanoLabs, based in Virginia.



The company created a genetic profile and submitted the information to a genetic genealogy database, which produced results relating to the suspect's family tree.



The sheriff's office received the report and obtained a sample of Getreu's DNA and found on Nov. 9 the DNA matched their existing sample from the unknown man. Sheriff's deputies did not specify how they obtained the DNA.



The possibility that a random individual could have matched the existing profile was one in 65 septillion, or a thousand followed by 21 zeros, according to sheriff's deputies.



Getreu was interviewed and booked into jail, and deputies are currently trying to determine if he is connected to any other cold cases.





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Prosecutors in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties have filed a complaint against the owner of some area auto repair franchises for allegedly performing unnecessary, unwarranted, negligently performed and unapproved repairs.



The defendants in the complaint are CRC Luxury Motors LLC, which owns Midas/SpeeDee stores in Napa, Petaluma and Vacaville, and Curtis Correll who controls the daily operations of the Midas store at 1797 Soscol Ave. in Napa.



The defendants allegedly committed violations of the Automotive Repair Act, a hazardous waste control act and false advertising and unfair competition laws.



The alleged violations are based on investigations by California Bureau of Automotive Repair and prosecutors into consumer complaints against the stores.



Separately, Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley announced a settlement with Midas International Corporation, the franchiser of Midas stores. Prosecutors alleged Midas International was aware of, facilitated and benefited from CRC Luxury Motors and Correll's apparent violations.



Under the settlement, Midas International Corporation will pay $150,000 in restitution to customers and $50,000 in civil penalties.



Haley's office said Midas International Corporation cooperated with her office throughout the settlement process.



Customers of the Napa, Petaluma, and Vacaville Midas stores who believe they are victims of the alleged unlawful practices may be eligible for restitution if they file a complaint with the state Bureau of Automotive Repair and/or the district attorney's offices in one of the three counties.



Customers must have adequate documentation to support their claim.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



The owners of a home in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood will pay $185,000 in civil penalties to settle a lawsuit brought on by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who alleged the owners illegally converted their home into a hotel.



The lawsuit, filed in May, claimed the home's owners, Erik Rogers and Anshu Singh, divided their Banks Street property into two units without permits and began renting it out to tourists via Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO beginning in June 2016, violating state and local laws.



According to Herrera, in October 2017, guests at the home hosted a party where a fight broke out, resulting in a shootout. The gunfire allegedly prompted party guests to scatter, with some running from rooftop to rooftop and others trespassing through people's backyards.



Police allegedly recovered 100 bullets and shell casings and bullets allegedly pierced homes and damaged windows, doors, parked cars and the living room of a home. The gunfire also apparently hit someone, however, the victim suffered minor injuries.



Additionally, Herrera said that an investigation by his office found that Singh and Rogers at the time, had rented their home at least 319 times over a 16-month period, sometimes charging guests more than $700 per night.



The $185,000 in civil penalties that Singh and Rogers must pay accounts for the $160,000 the couple reaped from the rentals as well as $25,000 to cover investigative costs and to fund future enforcement. In addition, the couple will also be prohibited from conducting any short-term rentals on the property for the next five years, Herrera's office said.



Furthermore, the couple must bring the home into compliance with city planning and building codes within 180 days.



"This outcome preserves one more house to help a family stay in San Francisco, and it makes the neighborhood safer for everyone," Herrera said in a statement. "San Francisco's short-term rental laws exist for a reason--so that our homes aren't turned into illegal hotels. We cannot become a city that only has room for tourists and the wealthy," he said.



"For anyone thinking of disregarding San Francisco short-term rental regulations in the future, this judgment sends a clear message that we take these laws seriously and intend to enforce them to keep residential neighborhoods safe."



San Francisco requires that residents renting units for less than 30 days at a time register with the city's Office of Short-Term Rentals and that they also be permanent residents of the property, residing there at least 275 nights out of the year.



According to Herrera, Singh and Rogers lied on their short-term rental application, saying that they lived at the home, when in fact they lived in Bali, Indonesia and hired others to manage the property. After it was determined that the Banks Street home was not the couple's primary residence and that it contained illegal additions, the permit was denied a month later.



The couple, however, continued to rent the units to tourists, disregarding the city's laws, Herrera said.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



An attorney representing a man accused of strangling and using a Taser stun gun to kill his boss, the CEO of a San Francisco startup company, said today the case is much more complicated than what's been portrayed.



Kuk Kim, 28, who also goes by Daniel Kim, made a court appearance this morning to be arraigned on murder, robbery, burglary, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and possession of stolen property charges.



Kim is accused of killing Bart Kylstra, 52, the CEO of Rio Mobility, which makes accessories for wheelchairs. Kylstra was found dead on Nov. 14 inside the company's office, located in the 1000 block of Market Street, police said.



Kim has not yet entered a plea and his arraignment was postponed for Tuesday.



Outside of court, Public Defender Michelle Tong said although court proceedings have just begun, "I'm confident that as the case moves on, that the more details that come to light, it will show that it's just not as simple as what is being portrayed."



According to Kim's LinkedIn profile, Kim was hired in May as the Chief Operating Officer of Rio Mobility.



Court documents allege that Kylstra believed that Kim was embezzling money from the company, and on the day of the killing, another employee brought Kim to the company's Market Street office so that Kylstra could speak with Kim about the alleged embezzlement.



That employee, however, left the office and when they tried to call Kylstra several times later that evening, the calls went unanswered. When the employee showed up at the office to further check on Kylstra, they were unable to enter the office.



The employee then called Kim to no avail. Kim, however, eventually returned the call later that night and gave the employee a code to enter the office.



Once inside, the employee discovered Kylstra lying on the ground.



Police said responding officers found Kylstra around 10:35 p.m. suffering from multiple injuries to his head and, although paramedics tried to render aid, Kylstra was pronounced dead at the scene.



According to court documents, the city's medical examiner's office later found preliminary evidence that Kylstra had been shocked at least twice with a Taser and that he had injuries consistent with being strangled.



Officers arrested Kim the following day after spotting him outside his Richmond home as he was about to place two large plastic bags into his car's trunk. Inside the bags, officers found a Taser and a piece of cloth and paper towels with what appeared to be bloodstains. Officers also found Kylstra's wallet, cellphone and laptop inside.



Kim remains in custody and is being held without bail.





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About the Thanksgiving at home that he will miss  the third in a row  he writes: After the company has all gone and you and dad are alone please put out the lights, just as we used to do. We will watch the flickering shadows cast by the blazing logs. Then perhaps dad will lead while we hum some of the old familiar tunes. After a bit you will go to the piano and run your fingers softly over the keys  maybe a hymn or two mixed with snatches from Debussy. Then there will be silence except for an occasional crackle from the grate. I like quiet when it tells me that you are near. Pretty soon, dad will yawn and say, Well, son, its time for you to get your beauty sleep. 
BERKELEY (BCN)



A spokeswoman for an East Bay refugee rights group that sued President Donald Trump over a partial asylum ban said today the group is thrilled with a temporary restraining order granted by a federal judge.



The ban "would have had a huge impact" on the work of the Berkeley-based East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, said spokeswoman Lisa Hoffman.



Hoffman said 80 percent of the refugees served by the covenant group crossed the southern U.S. border illegally and would have been barred from applying for asylum by the ban announced by Trump on Friday.



The ban issued in a proclamation by Trump would have allowed asylum applications only from immigrants who crossed the border at designated entry points. Those entering illegally would have been barred from applying.



U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of San Francisco temporarily blocked the ban in an order Monday evening, acting in a lawsuit filed against Trump and other officials by the covenant and three other immigrant aid groups.



Tigar said the ban violated a "clear command" of Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which permits asylum applications from people physically present or arriving in the United States "whether or not at a designated port of arrival."



"Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," the judge wrote.



The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until a Dec. 19 hearing in Tigar's court on whether he should grant a longer-lasting preliminary injunction while awaiting a full trial.



Hoffman said the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant has represented asylum seekers in 3,600 cases adjudicated since 1992 and 97 percent of the refugees were granted asylum. Another 1,400 cases are pending.



Most of the asylum seekers are from Central America and Mexico, but the covenant has worked with people from 60 countries, she said.



"Our clients are fleeing violence. Many haven't heard of asylum and most don't know about ports of entry," she said.



"They're mostly so traumatized they just want to get safe," Hoffman said.



The organization was founded by five religious congregations in 1982 to help refugees fleeing civil wars and violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. It now works with staff of 25, most of whom are lawyers and paralegals, and 125 volunteers.



Hoffman said that most of the group's clients have made their way to the Bay Area and then hear by word of mouth or through organizations such as churches about the possibility of applying for asylum with the aid of the covenant organization.



The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and Central American Resource Center.



ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, who represented the groups at a hearing before Tigar Monday, said in a statement, "This ban is illegal, will put people's lives in danger, and raises the alarm about President Trump's disregard for separation of powers.



"There is no justifiable reason to flatly deny people the right to apply for asylum, and we cannot send them back to danger based on the manner of their entry. Congress has been clear on this point for decades," Gelernt said.



The Trump administration vowed to fight to defend the ban.



"We look forward to continuing to defend the executive branch's legitimate and well-reasoned exercise of its authority to address the crisis at our southern border," Justice Department spokesman Steve Stafford and Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a joint statement.



"Asylum is a discretionary benefit given by the executive branch only when legal conditions are met and a favorable exercise of discretion is warranted.



"It is lawful and appropriate that this discretionary benefit not be given to those who violate a lawful and tailored presidential proclamation aimed at controlling immigration in the national interest," the statement said.



Trump's press secretary, Sarah Sanders, stated, "At this very moment, massive numbers of aliens are arriving at our southern border, threatening to incapacitate our already overwhelmed immigration system.



"We will take all necessary action to defend the executive branch's lawful response to the crisis at our southern border," she said.



Federal law allows refugees to apply for asylum in the United States if they have left their country "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."



The decision of whether to grant asylum is up to the U.S. attorney general, subject to review by federal appeals courts.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



San Francisco police and firefighters will compete in The Salvation Army's turkey carve-off this morning to help prepare Thanksgiving dinners for seniors and the homebound.



The Salvation Army Brass Band will greet carvers at 8:30 a.m. as they gather at the organization's Harbor Light Center at 1275 Harrison St. in San Francisco.



At about 9 a.m., the carving will begin. Police Chief William Scott and Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White are scheduled to participate.



The effort will help feed nearly 4,000 people.





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SANTA CRUZ (BCN)



Santa Cruz this week agreed to a $1.6 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by the family of a mentally ill man killed by police in 2016.



Sean Arlt, 32, was shot and killed by Officer Erik Bailey at the end of an 11-minute confrontation on Oct. 16, 2016. Arlt was wielding a rake and refused to drop it despite receiving several commands, according to police.



The District Attorney's Office determined in February 2017 that Bailey would not face criminal charges for Arlt's death.



The city said Monday the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing by its Police Department or Bailey, but an effort to shorten legal proceedings both for Arlt's family and the city.



"The death of Sean Arlt was a tragic incident, and I hope this resolution will help heal all parties involved by not reliving this tragedy again in court," City Manager Martin Bernal said in a statement.



The city will complete the settlement payment once the funds are approved by the city's insurance company.



"We know that the city of Santa Cruz, its Police Department, and its residents will continue to seek comprehensive collaboration for solutions to address our concerns over the mental health crisis," Mayor David Terrazas said in a statement.





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ROHNERT PARK (BCN)



Sonoma State University and the Redwood Credit Union have launched a joint effort to increase financial literacy education in schools.



The effort is partly in response to a "Survey of the States" by the Council for Economic Education this year. The survey showed there has been minimal to no growth in recent years of teaching personal finance and economic education in grades K-12.



Studies show that teaching about those topics reduces personal debt in adult years and provides a greater chance of saving for both retirement and unforeseen emergencies.



Redwood Credit Union has given a $25,000 grant to the Sonoma State University School of Education for the development of a course to train undergraduates on teaching financial literacy in the classroom.



Carlos Ayala, dean of the SSU School of Education, and Susan Campbell, a professor of education, developed the three-phase course.



The first phase incorporates a financial literacy curriculum into existing School of Education classes. The second phase expands the curriculum to other academic areas that will reach 70 percent of all SSU students by spring 2021.



Phase three, an Advanced Financial Literacy Certificate program offered to current teachers, will be developed simultaneously with the second phase.



Students in the credential program will learn more about FICO credit rating scores and personal credit card debt, Campbell said.



"But the main focus is how do they teach this to elementary school students to get them started on thinking 'What do I need to live and what do I want,'" Campbell said.



The financial literacy program coincides with the state Board of Education's effort to promote greater financial literacy instruction in grades K-12.



"Imagine the impact that all these students will have when they go out into the community to incorporate these lessons in their teaching plans. It would change the nature of banking and debt," Ayala said.



The SSU and RCU partnership started last week at SSU with a "Bite of Reality" program offered throughout the North Bay by the credit union.



Students who were given identities and financial portfolios were presented with life opportunities and challenges that called for decisions on the car they would buy and pay off with their personal budget and even the type of groceries they would purchase. Some students succeeded financially and others had to confront the necessity of budgeting.



Former SSU student and current Redwood Credit Union employee Wrynn Valentine Reynoso presents the Bite of Reality program to local schools and youth organizations.



"So many parents and teachers don't talk about personal finances with children and students because they don't feel secure in it themselves," Reynoso said in a statement.



"If we can help future teachers to be more secure in their financial literacy, then they are more likely to let that trickle down, and it could mean amazing things," Reynoso said.





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The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously today to approve an ordinance that eliminates administrative court fees for people who are convicted of crimes.



If the full board votes as expected to approve a second reading of the ordinance on Dec. 4, Alameda County will become only the second county in the U.S. to eliminate the fees, following San Francisco, which took that step earlier this year.



In addition, $26 million in court administrative fees that haven't been collected will be waived.



The new policy would take effect in January.



Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods, the East Bay Community Law Center, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and other groups told the board that the fees should be eliminated because they create a long-term financial burden for low-income people who already served time for their crimes but then have problems turning their lives around.



They said that's because the debts cause such people to have problems getting credit, housing and jobs.



Currently, Alameda County charges defendants probation supervision fees of between $30 to $90 per month, pre-charge investigation report fees of between $250 and $710 and $150 or more for representation by the Public Defender's Office.



Advocates for eliminating the fees said the average adult on probation in Alameda County spends five years under supervision and can face more than $6,000 in fees.



Noe Gudino, a junior at California State University East Bay who is a member of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, All of Us or None and other groups said the fees made it harder for him to get his life back on track after he was incarcerated because when he got a job his wages were garnished.



Julia Root of the Center for Employment Opportunities told the board that the fees cause "undue emotional and financial stress" for incarcerated people and their families and said she has a family member who could face up to $10,000 in fees when he's released in the near future.



The ordinance approved by the board says the fees "can have long-term effects that can undermine successful societal re-entry goals of the formerly-incarcerated, such as attaining stable housing, transportation and employment."



Woods said after the meeting that the fees "are a tremendous burden to people who are trying to get back on their feet" after serving time.



He said eliminating the fees "is the right thing to do."



County Administrator Susan Muranishi told the board that eliminating the fees means the county will lose about $1.45 million in revenue annually but said the county will explore other funding opportunities to replace that revenue.





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OAKLAND (BCN)



Two women were sentenced today to only three years in state prison for brutally assaulting another woman in Berkeley last year and then leaving her in the middle of a busy street, where she was struck by a hit-and-run driver.



Raine Wooten, 33, and Mamie Purnell, 40, both of Berkeley, were charged with attempted murder for the incident on Dec. 18, 2017, in which police found the victim unresponsive in the middle of the street with what appeared to be life-threatening injuries, although ultimately she survived.



But on Oct. 23 the Alameda County District Attorney's Office agreed to a deal in which Wooten, a waitress, and Purnell, a housewife, were allowed to plead no contest to the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon and get 3-year prison terms. They would have faced sentences of between 5 and 9 years if they'd been convicted of attempted murder.



Berkeley police Officer Andres Bejarano wrote in a probable cause statement that officers who responded to a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian in the 3100 block of San Pablo Avenue, near Ashby Avenue, at about 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2017, found the victim unresponsive in the middle of the street.



The woman was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where she had surgery and initially was listed in critical condition.



Bejarano said investigators reviewed surveillance video prior to the collision and saw that the pedestrian had been "severely beaten by two females and left lying in the middle of San Pablo Avenue."



He said Wooten pulled the pedestrian down into the street then repeatedly punched her in the head.



Bejarano wrote that at the same time Purnell was kicking the woman over and over in the ribs until she appeared to be unconscious.



He said, "Purnell then proceeded to kick and stomp on the victim's head prior to leaving the victim in the street unconscious."



Police said that moments later a vehicle traveling northbound on San Pablo Avenue struck the victim and didn't stop.



Bejarano said when officers detained Wooten at 1922 Fairview Street in Berkeley the morning after the assault they found her with Purnell, who matched the description of the other assailant in the crime, and both women were arrested.



Bejarano wrote that Wooten confessed to physically assaulting the victim and watching her get hit by a truck.



He said Wooten also said that Purnell participated in the assault and was the one who kicked the victim in the head.



Bejarano wrote that Wooten has "an extensive criminal history with numerous prior arrests for property crimes" and Purnell was on felony bail for a recent case in which she was charged with the illegal use of tear gas and vandalism.



He said Purnell has numerous prior arrests for felony assault, auto theft and DUI.



Bejarano said when officers searched Purnell's home they found the clothing she wore the night of the attack along with three firearms in her bedroom.



As part of the plea bargain, the District Attorney's Office agreed to dismiss the case in which Purnell was charged with vandalism and illegally using tear gas.





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The CIAs conclusion was bolstered by intercepts that showed a member of the assassination team calling one of MBS aides and saying tell your boss that the deed had been done. And the agencys leaders joined in the consensus among a wide array of Middle East experts that, given the crown princes sweeping authority over the kingdom, it would be unfathomable that such a murder would take place without his approval.
For 166 years, whether sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy or now by Trinity Health, you, the healing community of Mercy Hospital, have offered compassionate and high-quality service to every person who walks, rides, or is carried into your corridors seeking care. In your earliest days, yours was care of individual or epidemic (typhoid) proportions. Later, it was to serve those whose blue or grey uniforms clothed the scars from the Civil War. More recently, you responded to those traumatized by fire, transportation disasters, and epic snowstorms. Each day, however, you serve without distinguishing between Chicagos well-heeled, as my Bridgeport Irish grandmother would say, and Chicagos poorest  mostly those living in low-income housing, senior buildings, or under the bridges and viaducts of Bridgeport, Chinatown, Pilsen or Bronzeville. Through it all, your care came with little concern about ability to pay, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation or immigrant status.
We saw similar fear-mongering from the president in April, as another migrant caravan started out with about 1,500 people in southern Mexico but dwindled to a few hundred by the time it reached the California border. Trumps tireless fear-mongering this time still failed to prevent his partys loss of its majority in the House of Representatives.
All three Emporium arcade bar locations will celebrate both Black Friday and Cyder Monday. Specials are the same at all locations from 3 to 7 p.m. Friday: $2 shots and $5 well cocktails. For the Monday celebration, drink offers vary by location. In Logan Square, grab a handshake of Vander Mill Cider and Tullamore Dew Cider Cask for $9, or brave the mystery shot of the day for $2  while supplies last. Wicker Park customers will also have the $2 mystery shot option while it lasts, as well as the Apples to Apples cocktail and $5-$6 draft cider options from Vander Mill and Aspall. On top of all that, if you purchase a $50 gift card, you get a free $10 card.
The choirs performance of its program, Season of Light, happens at 2 p.m. Dec 5 at the Hendrickson Room of the library, 500 N. Dunton Ave, according to a news release from Encore Illinois. Johnathan Miller, conductor and artistic director of Encore Illinois, will lead the program, the release stated.
In 2015, one of San Francisco's most recognizable homes-- a pink duplex-- on one of its most recognizable streets--the famously crooked Lombard-- went up for sale for the first time in over 50 years. Now, three years later, it's on the market again, priced at $5.375 million.

The history

The duplex at 1047-1049 Lombard is a familiar site for those who've traveled the many curves of that iconic San Francisco Street.

Built in the late 1940s, it was home to the late Elton Puffer, whose famed art collection includes gifts to the Asian Art Museum. Puffer owned the building for over 50 years.

In 2016, it sold for $4.050 million.

The home now

The duplex offers two levels of living.

The top unit is two beds, two baths with a formal dining room and deck offering classic SF views of Coit Tower and the Bay beyond.

The lower unit is three beds, three baths. This is where you'll find the rather stunning gold-leaf spiral staircase you see in the gallery above.

Both units have fireplaces.

But Lombard though?

Lest you fear the perennial tourist attraction that is Lombard as your access to city and home, rest assured. Per the official website, you never have to drive on Lombard Street at all.

This stunning two-family building has frontage directly on the iconic curved section of Lombard, but the oversized three-car garage in the rear, plus motor court parking for up to four more vehicles, is accessed with ease from quiet Lurmont Terrace.

Incidentally, that parking adds up to seven dedicated spaces. So if you need some side-income, you could rent out the extra spots.

Delivered vacant

Co-listing agent Faye Dibachi told SF Gate that the duplex hasn't really been altered since its 2016 purchase, meaning its kind of a blank canvas: a new buyer could update the property, or restore to full retro glory. The option of converting to a single-family exists as well.

And, very important information to know: the duplex is being delivered vacant.

What price to live on this famous street in this famous home? Asking $5.375 million.

See the complete listing here.

Anna Marie Erwert writes from both the renter and new buyer perspective, having (finally) achieved both statuses. She focuses on national real estate trends, specializing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest. Follow Anna onTwitter: @AnnaMarieErwert
"I just wanted you to know that I got my light installed and it works great, wrote one resident, in the 700 block of Concord Street, to the Neighborhood Group Support Initiative. I just love it! The alley is now lit up and we no longer have negative activity going on.
JAKARTA, Indonesia  A dead whale that washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had a large lump of plastic waste in its stomach, including drinking cups and flip-flops, a park official said Tuesday, causing concern among environmentalists and government officials in one of the worlds largest plastic polluting countries.

Rescuers from Wakatobi National Park found the rotting carcass of the 31-foot sperm whale late Monday near the park in Southeast Sulawesi province after receiving a report from environmentalists that villagers had surrounded the dead whale and were beginning to butcher the rotting carcass, park chief Heri Santoso said.

Santoso said researchers from wildlife conservation group WWF and the parks conservation academy found about 13 pounds of plastic waste in the animals stomach containing 115 plastic cups, 4 plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, 2 flip-flops, a nylon sack and more than 1,000 other assorted pieces of plastic.

Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful, said Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia.

She said it was not possible to determine if the plastic had caused the whales death because of the animals advanced state of decay.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 260 million people, is the worlds second-largest plastic polluter after China, according to a study published in the journal Science in January. It produces 3.2 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste a year, of which 1.29 million tons end up in the ocean, the study said.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesias coordinating minister of maritime affairs, said the whales discovery should raise public awareness about the need to reduce plastic use, and had spurred the government to take tougher measures to protect the ocean.

Pandjaitan said the government is making efforts to reduce the use of plastic, including urging shops not to provide plastic bags for customers and teaching about the problem in schools nationwide to meet a government target of reducing plastic use by 70 percent by 2025.

This big ambition can be achieved if people learn to understand that plastic waste is a common enemy, he said.
QAIM, Iraq  More than a year after the Iraqi town of Qaim was freed from the Islamic State, booms from air strikes still echo and columns of smoke rise beyond the berms and concrete walls marking the border with Syria. There, on the other side, the fight is raging to capture one of the militants last enclaves.

Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen outside Qaim watch over a giant earth barricade topped with barbed wire that runs along the long, featureless desert border, trying to prevent Islamic State infiltration. Iraqi artillery and U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombard Islamic State positions inside Syria, while Iraqi militiamen along with allied Iranian troops cross the border to back Syrian government forces there.

The battle on the doorstep means life in Qaim is still on hold, with residents waiting for their town to be rebuilt. There is still no central electricity, and running water works only intermittently. On the outskirts lie the wreckage of houses, their walls blasted open and roofs collapsed from bombardment during the assault a year ago by militias and U.S.-backed Iraqi troops who retook Qaim from the militants.

The dusty, quiet streets are dotted with security checkpoints, manned by the military and the government-sanctioned, Iranian-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, who are viewed with deep suspicion by many in this Sunni Muslim town. Many checkpoints fly both Iraqi national flags and the militias banners proclaiming Shiite slogans.

The fight next door underscores the tenacity of the Islamic State, a year after it was driven out of almost all the territory it once held, which at its height encompassed nearly a third of both Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic State enclave across the border is the last area with a significant population that it holds, a 20-mile stretch of towns on the east bank of the Euphrates River.

The militants are surrounded. On one side are the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by American warplanes, who have been waging an offensive since mid-September. On the west bank of the river is the Syrian military, backed by Russian air power along with Iranian troops and Iraqi militiamen.

The extremist group is estimated to have several thousand fighters, including many Iraqis, in the enclave.

Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Philip Issa are Associated Press writers.
People think of the scene in the movie Christmas Vacation but actually in June and July, we unload the two-and-a-half semi-trucks we store things in and take out each display, one at a time, and test and repair each one, Byers said. It takes about two months before all of them are finished.
Page Content

The Kentucky Supreme Court recently upheld the state's right-to-work law, prohibiting employers and labor unions from requiring workers in collective bargaining units to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

Kentucky lawmakers enacted the state law banning mandatory union fees in January 2017, but unions challenged the legislation, arguing that it violated the state constitution. In a 4-3 opinion Nov. 15, the state high court found that the Kentucky Constitution gives the legislature the authority to regulate unions.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) believes that every employee has the right to make a private choice about whether to join a union, according to SHRM's 2018 Guide to Public Policy Issues.

[SHRM members-only HR Q&A: What is a "right-to-work" state?]

We've gathered articles on the subject from SHRM Online and other trusted media outlets.

Divided Court

The Kentucky Supreme Court justices disagreed as to whether the right-to-work law was permissible under the state constitution. The dissenting justices said that the law treated collective bargaining agreements differently than other business contracts formed in the state. However, the majority noted that "the act applies to all collective bargaining agreements entered into on or after Jan. 9, 2017, with the exception of certain employees covered or exempted by federal law." The majority said it was up to the state legislature and executive branch, not the courts, to make economic policies.

(Lexington Herald Leader)

Supporters Anticipate Economic Growth

Republican lawmakers in Kentucky have tried to pass right-to-work legislation for almost 20 years, and immediately did so in 2017 after taking control of the General Assembly for the first time in nearly a century. Supporters of right-to-work legislation say that such laws encourage businesses to set up shop in the state and promote economic growth.

(Reuters)

Unions Say Law Is Unfair

Opponents of right-to-work laws assert that everyone in a bargaining unit should have to pay their fair share, since labor unions must represent all workers in a unit regardless of whether they join the union. Bill Londrigan, president of the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, said the state's law discriminates against unions by cutting off the financial resources they need to provide services to all workers in the bargaining unit.

(Courier Journal)



Right-to-Work Gains Momentum

Federal labor law allows employers and unions to enter agreements requiring employees to pay union fees, and many states have opted to ban such arrangements through right-to-work laws. Seventeen states invoked this right in the 1940s and 1950s, and a few more followed suit over the next 50 years. Then, starting in 2012, interest was renewed when Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin passed right-to-work measures. Kentucky became the 27the right-to-work state in January 2017. Although the Missouri legislature passed a similar law in February 2017, voters repealed it in August.

(SHRM Online)

Public-Sector Right to Work

Although there is no federal right-to-work law, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that charging public-sector workers mandatory union fees is unconstitutional. In a 5-4 vote on June 27, the justices said that forcing workers to pay such fees violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and association.

(SHRM Online)


Update: Paul Caneiro has been charged with setting his own house ablaze, according to NJ.com. No charges have been filed at this time in connection with the deaths of Keith and Jennifer Caneiro.

--

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Authorities are continuing their investigation into a possible quadruple homicide after officials responding to a fire in a mansion in Colts Neck, N.J., found the bodies of a man, woman and two children.

The adult victims have been identified as Keith and Jennifer Caneiro, according to multiple media reports, including NJ.com, the Advances sister website.

The couple has ties to Staten Island.

Here is what is known about them and the case at this time:

Former Staten Islanders

The Caneiros have former addresses on Staten Island, according to public records.

Jennifer, 45, whose maiden name was Kardis, grew up on the borough, according to NJ.com, and has an address in Arden Heights associated to her in the 1990s.

Keith Caneiro, 50, reportedly grew up in Brooklyn, but public records indicate he has had addresses in Tottenville, Rossville, Huguenot, and Bulls Head, in addition to the same Arden Heights address as his wife, before moving to New Jersey.

He served as the best man at his brother, Pauls, wedding in 1991, according to Advance archives. At the time he had relatives living in Tottenville and Huguenot.

The brothers both married Staten Island women and moved to New Jersey, according to media reports and Advance archives.

Technology firm owner

Keith Caneiro is listed as the founder, CEO and chief technology officer of the technology firm Square One, which he has operated since 1987, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is also listed as the owner of EcoStar Pest Management in Asbury Park, working both businesses with his brother, according to NJ.com.

Investigation

Keith Caneiro was found dead on the familys front lawn with a gunshot wound that did not appear to be self-inflicted, according to NJ.com. His wife and their two children were found dead inside the home. Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni told reporters that the bodies inside the home were badly burned and that the fire is being investigated as being intentionally set. The investigation is ongoing.

Authorities are also investigating a fire at the Ocean Township home of Paul Caneiro, himself a former Tottenville resident, Tuesday morning, though it is not yet known if the two incidents are linked, Gramiccioni said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The brother of the man who was found dead along with his wife and two children in a possible quadruple homicide in Colts Neck, N.J., was charged Wednesday with setting his own Ocean Township home on fire, authorities said.

The family has ties to Staten Island.

Paul Caneiro, 51, formerly of Tottenville, was booked on an aggravated arson charge in connection to the blaze at his Tilton Avenue home Tuesday, according to the Monmouth County prosecutors office.

Pauls brother Keith Caneiro was found dead on his familys Colts Neck front lawn with a gunshot wound that did not appear to be self-inflicted, according to NJ.com. Authorities responding to a fire there found the bodies of Jennifer, 45, and her two children inside the familys mansion after the blaze was put out, said the report.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni told reporters that the bodies inside the home were badly burned and that fire is being investigated as being intentionally set.

Paul Caneiro

Authorities were also investigating the fire at the Ocean Township home of Paul Caneiro before he was charged in that incident Wednesday.

He has not been charged at this time in connection with the Colts Neck incident.

The blazes at the both homes occurred within a few hours of each other and are part of the investigation, according to Gramiccioni.

Keith and Jennifer Caneiro also have former addresses on Staten Island, according to public records.

Jennifer, 45, whose maiden name was Kardis, grew up on the borough, according to NJ.com, and has an address in Arden Heights associated to her in the 1990s.

Keith Caneiro, 50, reportedly grew up in Brooklyn, but public records indicate he has had addresses in Tottenville, Rossville, Huguenot, and Bulls Head, in addition to the same Arden Heights address as his wife, before moving to New Jersey.

Keith Caniero served as the best man in his brothers wedding, according to Advance records.

The brothers were partners in Square One, an Asbury Park technology consulting firm, and a pest control company that operated out of the same office, according to the NJ.com report.

Further information will be posted as it becomes available.
The Washington Post is reporting Ivanka Trump has used a personal email account to send government-related emails. Trump claims to have been ignorant of White House ethical rules. According to the Post, she missed reminders of ethical rules and reminders because she was not using her government email. President Donald Trump has been calling for Hillary Clinton's immediate incarceration for similar actions since 2016. Will he do the same for his daughter?

PERSPECTIVES

The Washington Post broke the news of Ivanka Trump's potential ethics breach after a liberal watchdog group requested records that led the White House to the discovery.

The Washington Post reports that a spokesman for Trump's lawyer, Peter Marijanian, has stated there are clear differences between Ivanka's use of a personal email account and Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email account. They are two completely different things and should not be linked in any way.

Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD. Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2018

However, the watchdog group, American Oversight, were quick to point out that this administration has made their views on personal email accounts abundantly clear. Per CBS News:

"Lock her up!" was always more of a turn of phrase, a chant to get the people going. It wasn't really a directive with any sort of authority.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The union for New York Citys police sergeants slammed the NYPD Tuesday for its promotion of the commander of the 123rd Precinct.

Deputy Inspector Kenneth Noonan was promoted from the rank of captain at the departments promotion ceremony at police headquarters Tuesday morning.

NYPD Patrol Borough Staten Island (PBSI) took to Twitter to congratulate Noonan, and Inspector Ebony Washington -- the former commander of the 122nd Precinct -- on their well deserved promotions.

That didnt sit well with the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA).

Noonan well deserved? What a Hypocritical statement this is. Are you saying you support bad behavior, hostile work environments, anger & abusive language. Is your message now to cops its ok to TELL THE PUBLIC YOU WILL KILL THEM? Total farce IAB did NOTHING white shirt immunity. https://t.co/PLbQfjIsLL  SBA (@SBANYPD) November 20, 2018

Noonan well deserved? the union asked on Twitter. What a hypocritical statement this is. Are you saying you support bad behavior, hostile work environments, anger & abusive language. Is your message now to cops its OK to TELL THE PUBLIC YOU WILL KILL THEM? Total farce (Internal Affairs Bureau) did NOTHING white shirt immunity.

Noonan recently came under fire for his alleged behavior toward subordinates at the 123rd Precinct.

Ed Mullins, president of the SBA, told the Advance Sunday that Noonan threatened his other members of the NYPD at a meeting. Mullins said that Noonan told individuals at the meeting that if they didnt conform to the policies he was implementing, that he would kill them, Mullins described.

Noonan can be heard on audio obtained by the Advance telling another officers "The old culture of the 123 Precinct is dead, is dead. And anyone who wants to cling to that culture Im going to kill.

Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, and a source, confirmed that the edited audio is of Noonan addressing other officers.

The commander expressed frustration and indicated discipline when faced with incidents of members failing to respond to calls for assistance, Richter said. There were no threats of violence of physical harm. He is being promoted in recognition of the positive impact his leadership has had on the community.

The SBA also took issues with the citys top cop defending Noonans actions.

Im not going to judge him by one incident, NYPD Commissioner James ONeill said, according to a report from the New York Daily News. Very well liked by the community. Ken Noonan did a good job in the (123rd Precinct). I stand behind him and I wish him the best of luck.

City's top cop once again defends newly promoted deputy inspector; sergeants union stews https://t.co/xZpWlFRow3 ONeill is part of the problem. Its not 1 incident & he was chief of Dept when NYPD brass walked on indictments in the License Div NO admin charges filed. Lies, Lies!  SBA (@SBANYPD) November 20, 2018

The union again took to social media to criticize the ONeills stance.

ONeill is part of the problem, the SBA wrote. Its not 1 incident & he was chief of Dept when NYPD brass walked on indictments in the License Div NO admin charges filed. Lies, Lies!"
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A New Jersey couple believed to be half of a quadruple homicide had Staten Island ties, according to public records.

Keith and Jennifer Caniero both had former addresses in the borough according to records. Jennifers maiden name is Karidis, according to the records.

Authorities found the bodies of Jennifer, 45, and her two children inside the familys mansion in Colts Neck after a fire was put out, according to a report from NJ.com.

Keith, 50, was found outside the home with a gunshot wound that authorities believe was not self-inflicted. They also believe the fire at the familys home was intentionally set.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, speaking at a press conference, said the bodies inside the home were severely burned.

Another fire, at the Ocean Township home of Keiths brother, Paul Caniero, occurred within a few hours of the incident and is part of the investigation, according to Gamiccioni.

Keith Caniero served as the best man in his brothers wedding, according to Advance records.

The brothers were partners in Square One, an Asbury Park technology consulting firm, and a pest control company that operated out of the same office, according to the report.

There were no arrests announced in the incident Tuesday night.
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Weve purchased both the Sears and Carson Pirie Scott buildings in order to control the real estate and our redevelopment strategy and we still have a lot of specialty shops where are our sales are up, Samson said. We know there is still the traditional excitement of shopping with friends and family and the unexpected surprise gifts people find as well as the activities and amenities we offer.
Hearings are scheduled to resume at 2pm with Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer next in line to face a royal grilling.

Here's BusinessDay reporter Sarah Danckert's report of some of the things we learned this morning.

Commonwealth Bank has been accused at the royal commission of not keeping full board minutes as the focus of the inquiry shifted to what the banks directors did to fix the banks ongoing series of scandals.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia chair Catherine Livingstone outside the royal banking commission. Credit:Ben Rushton

Counsel assisting Rowena Orr made the bombshell allegation during the hearing on Wednesday as CBA chair Catherine Livingstone was giving evidence.

Ms Orr spent the morning quizzing Ms Livingstone about her claim the day earlier that she had challenged management during a 2016 board meeting because she was concerned they were downplaying the severity of AUSTRACs investigation into CBAs breaches of anti-money laundering laws.

Ms Orr took Ms Livingstone to minutes for the banks board meetings in October, November and December 2016.

Ms Livingstone agreed that her challenge of managements view on the severity of the AUSTRAC matter and managements response are not recorded in minutes. The minutes instead list AUSTRAC as an agenda item and notes the matter was discussed.

Do you understand that a failure to comply with the requirements in relation to the keeping of minutes under section 251A of the Corporations Act is an offence? Ms Orr asked.

I am. But these are the minutes of the meeting and I assert again that I asked the question and received the response.

Ms Orr continued to probe Ms Livingstone on the topic, saying: You can offer no explanation for why that is not reported in these minutes?

Ms Livingstone responded: The explanation is the minutes don't usually record verbatim what is discussed at the board meeting.

Mr Orr said she was not expecting the minutes to record verbatim what was discussed.

The keeping of accurate minutes of the board of an organisation like CBA is very important because those minutes are the evidence of the matters that are discussed in the meeting, Ms Orr said.

I understand that, Ms Orr, Ms Livingstone replied.

Ms Livingstone added the bank's board minutes were now much more detailed.

CBA agreed to pay a $700 million penalty over the breaches earlier this year.

During the hearing, Ms Livingstone was also asked to explain the bank board's decisions to award staff full bonuses for the 2016 finaincial year. CBA received the biggest strike in Australian history at its 2016 annual general meeting.

The royal commission heard that both then CBA chief risk officer (now deputy CEO) David Cohen and then CEO Ian Narev had recommended that senior executives not have their pay cut.

David Cohens report to the board was tendered to the royal commission.

It reads in part: In summary, for the financial year ended 30 June 2016, I do not believe there to be any risk issues or risk behaviours that would suggest STI awards should be modified from that recommended based on other achievements or results.

This was despite the bank dealing with a series of scandals during the year including revelations a media expose by Fairfax Media and Four Corners into CommInsure using dodgy definitions and allegedly rejecting claims unfairly, fees for no service and the AUSTRAC anti money laundering law breaches.

lead Ms Orr to ask Ms Livingstone: Do you think this information was adequate for the remuneration committee to make a decision about the impact of risk on remuneration outcomes for its executives?

The bank chair responded: I think the - the use of this information and the conclusions that the remuneration committee came to at that time, in terms of remuneration consequences, were inadequate.

In regards to Mr Narev's recommendation that no senior executive have their bonuses clipped for the 2016, Ms Orr asked Ms Livingstone to say how many executives Mr Narev should have recommended take a pay cut due to the risks the bank was facing.

Ms Livingstone replied: "Well, I would probably say, based on what - what I have - what I have known, I would say most of them."
Woolworths has given a firm indication that shareholders should expect a fat payout after the sale of its petrol station to the British giant EG Group for $1.72 billion.

The comments came as the company was battered on Wednesday over its status as Australia's biggest poker machines owner and its efforts to address workplace exploitation, at an annual general meeting tempered by shareholders' ringing endorsement of its financial performance.

Woolworths' CEO Brad Banducci and chairman Gordon Cairns at its AGM on Wednesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Woolworths, which announced the sale of its 540 service stations to British company EG Group earlier this month, first agreed to sell the business to BP two years ago at a time when it needed desperately to refurbish stores and drop prices to claw market share lost to Coles.

The company's chairman Gordon Cairns said Woolworths had $2.3 billion of franking credits it wanted to offload, and would be looking at returning the sale proceeds to shareholders.
Are Australias largest cities at risk of being swamped by international tourists?

With almost 13 million international tourists expected to visit Australia annually by 2023-24, from 9.2 million in the year to September 2018, its worth asking how our governments are planning for the visitor boom and what it means for locals in congested cities.

And if the tourism industry is investing enough in new product, so that more people can visit more attractions and stay longer, without damaging the environment or way of life.

Are Australia's tourist hotspots ready for a rush in demand? Credit:Ben Rushton

The international experience is telling. There is a growing backlash against international tourism in Spain, Italy and other European countries. Protests have occurred in New Zealand as locals complain about so-called over-tourism at key attractions.
"We need to have a system that allows workers to collectivise and bargain and they should have a tribunal they can go to that can look into the character of the work being performed, not by reference to those old-fashioned employee and independent contractor labels," he said. TWU national secretary Michael Kaine. Credit:Paul Braven Mr Kaine said the Fair Work Commission should be empowered to look at the nature of the work performed and make a decision about the appropriate rights and obligations. "If we fall into that trap of just trying to create another category or expand what the definition of an employee is, you are still left with this old fashioned split," he said. "It is about work and it is not only about the shrinking portion of work that relates to the employment relationship."

NSW provides a parallel industrial relations system for owner drivers who are not employees, but who have access to a tribunal empowered to look at their work patterns and decides what rights they have. The NSW system establishes a system of awards called contract determinations for transport workers who might or might not be employees under the common law. Mr Kaine said a similar national system would enable gig economy workers to make an application for legal minimum rates of pay and conditions, regardless of whether they are defined as a contractor or employee. "Otherwise we will get more and more definitions which is more and more of a road map for these Silicon Valley companies to avoid paying any rights at all," he said. Joellen Riley, the Dean of Law at Sydney University. Credit:Edwina Pickles Joellen Riley, dean of the University of Sydney law school and professor of labour law, said the TWU proposal was a suitable solution for rideshare drivers.

She said the NSW approach was a bespoke solution to a new form of labour contracting in the 1950s when transport industry drivers were being "contracted out" of employment status. In its submission to a recent Senate inquiry on the future of work, Deliveroo said it wanted to provide workers with greater security and additional benefits, but there was a risk this would change the relationship between Deliveroo and its self-employed riders. It said a potential solution to the public policy challenge was for new legislation to make it clear that the self-employed can receive benefits without the risk of the relationship being reinterpreted by the courts. "Ideally, new legislation would make it clear that the self-employed can receive more benefits  coming closer to what workers currently receive  while retaining the right of the company and the self-employee to negotiate a fair and equitable system for calculating entitlements on an accrual basis," it said. "Another potential solution to this problem would be to create a wholly new category of employment which would provide a level of security while at the same time allowing companies to calculate entitlements based on services delivered."

Employment law Professor Andrew Stewart from Adelaide University. Credit:James Brickwood Andrew Stewart, a professor of law at the University of Adelaide, said the union proposal would not apply to all contractors and an alternative approach to classifying workers risked "institutionalising the idea that gig workers are not employees". "The idea that we just settle for a compromise where there is a system of rights which are a bit like employment rights but something less than that, I can fully understand why that might appeal to companies like Deliveroo, but to me it is not the right approach," he said. "As a general rule, I think the third-way approach ends up obscuring what should be the real question, which is are these workers running their own businesses or not. "If we are going to legislate in this area, what we should be doing is strengthening the test for employment so it picks up anyone who is not running a meaningful business of their own but working for another organisation."
The Federal Government says it is intensifying efforts to address Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, announcing a new national approach and more than $7 million in new funding.

The disorder describes severe neurodevelopmental impairments resulting from brain damage caused by alcohol exposure before birth.

People with FASD can have difficulties with physical activities, language, memory, learning and behaviour.

Minister for Indigenous Health Ken Wyatt said the government was investing in activities proven to be effective.

Success is underpinned by a team effort, with collaboration between families, communities, service providers and governments, Minister Wyatt said.
I travelled to Europe and landed in trouble. But it wasnt with Interpol or customs.

For the first time while travelling, I disabled the comments feature on my Instagram account.

Why do you have to bring all of your followers along on a holiday? Credit:Stocksy

If my intention was to cut off all communication while falling in love with a tall, dark and handsome long black (coffee) in Rome, I didnt succeed. In fact, the result was quite the opposite.

I was faced with the wrath of my followers who felt entitled to be fellow travellers on their own virtual holiday.
It wasn't a lengthy visit to the Anzac Memorial for the first official engagement of the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, and his wife Savita Kovind on what may have seemed a familiarly muggy afternoon.

But it was what he wrote in the official visitors' book that said so much about past, and perhaps future, relations between the two countries.

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind and his wife Savita with NSW Governor David Hurley at Sydney's Anzac Memorial. Credit:Dan Himbrechts

Actually Mr Kovind didn't write the words, an aide performed that task, but, importantly, he did put his signature to it.

It said: "It was an enthralling experience. I express my heartfelt solidarity with all Australians and salute the bravery of ANZAC forces. My homage to all the bravehearts who laid down their lives."
But Mr Katheklakis said that in a young and growing city like Canberra, it was important to keep an open mind. Loading As soon as you close down ideas because you don't like the idea of it, or you assume that it's going to be unfeasible, I think that's closing your mind to what the opportunities are, he said. I think we've basically got to open our minds, look at the opportunities. I think if we don't, we're nuts. He said a new interchange at the end of Northbourne Avenue would create a missing link between the east and west sides of the city.

The worst thing you could do is paint it as 'just an interchange' - it's actually connecting people in safety between one side of the city and the other, it's providing amenity along the way, it's allowing the heritage buildings to actually breathe, it's allowing them to be the backdrop to something in the forecourt, he said. Sometimes what may seem like a more expensive exercise in return provides a greater return to the city as a whole. So you do have to look at it in perspective. And far from being a thought bubble, or a new, unexplored concept on the part of the authority, he said the idea of a new, separate interchange had been mooted for decades. As an architecture student at the University of Canberra in the 1990s, he said he wrote papers on the city interchange and how it affected the rest of the CBD. This is groundswell sort of stuff, and it's been swelling for a long time, he said.

I suppose no one in the past really thought that a previous government would actually have the commitment to do something like this, because it's long-term infrastructure. Peter Barclay, who manages King OMalleys and City Walk, agreed that the the City Renewal Authoritys new underground concept was an extension of a long-time discussion among city business owners. There has been talk over a number of years about trying to make the bus interchange more attractive or functional as the city grows, and there's been various proposals in the past that have been discussed publicly, including moving the buses around London Circuit, he said. But an ultimate solution really needs to be found as the city grows, and putting them underground is certainly something I think is worth considering. I think things have been discussed before about underground parking, and even many years ago putting part of Northbourne Avenue underground, so you'd have a pedestrian strip between the Sydney and Melbourne buildings.

He said the two proposed sites - which are currently home to street-level carparks - would have to be developed in the future, and they might as well be something useful. With the two book-end sites, that presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because once those sites are sold, then a development like this would become impossible in the middle of the CBD, he said. Harry Notaris, who manages Baileys Corner and the Saraton building, both in the current interchange, said the authoritys proposal would bring endless benefits to the city centre. If it was designed to a high standard, something like this could form a centrepiece of a modern public transport system that would be befitting the nation's capital, he said. I think the current interchange has had its day. It functions reasonably well, but it's tired, and it creates a disconnect between one side of Civic to the other.
Did you hear that the Palestinians are considering moving their embassy in Australia to Sydneys Sutherland Shire? A joke, of course, but it matches the Morrison knee-jerk decision to consider shifting our Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

To be absolutely clear, and ignoring the tsunami of subsequent hubris and spin, this was the Prime Ministers captains call, made within a week of the Wentworth by-election, made in desperation, without consultation with DFAT, other relevant advisers, or cabinet, in an ill-conceived, naive attempt to win the so-called Jewish vote.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Liberal Party candidate for Wentworth Dave Sharma on the hustings. Credit:AAP

The announcement was made public on October 16, in full knowledge that the Jewish Board of Deputies had organised a debate between the major candidates, Sharma, Phelps, Murray, and Heath, for that evening in Woollahra.

It was naive to imagine that it would significantly shift the Jewish vote. It failed to recognise that many strict Jews would not be voting on the Sabbath, and so had pre-polled. Moreover, it risked offending them  leaving them feeling that announcing that decision in the way it was done, and at the time it was done, without due process and proper cabinet consideration, they were being taken for granted, as if their vote could be so easily bought.
A NSW Magistrate would spend a day each week exhausted on the couch and had thoughts of running away as she dealt with an intense workload, a hearing has been told.

Dominique Burns, formerly the magistrate for the Port Macquarie circuit on the NSW mid-north coast, is facing a public hearing in Sydney this week after complaints were made to the Judicial Commission about her behaviour on the bench.

Magistrate Dominique Burns leaves the Supreme Court building on Monday. Credit:AAP

Ms Burns is accused of misusing her detention powers, denying procedural fairness, encouraging police prosecutors to lay further charges, and determining certain applications in her office instead of in open court.

When the hearing opened, Ms Burns' barrister Arthur Moses, SC, said his client "accepts without reservation" that mistakes were made by her, but they were not deliberate and had to be considered in the context of her "crushing workload".
Westman said in her complaint that two other professors, identified only by their initials, made complaints of sexual harassment in January and February 2018 against a third professor, also identified only by initials. Westman did not file a sexual harassment complaint, according to the documents, but she did provide details of alleged sexual misconduct by the third professor toward Westman.
The doctor who treated South Coast toddler Troy Almond at Shoalhaven District Hospital the day before he died said he made a mistake and was sorry.

As emergency department doctor Babak Tajvidi concluded his evidence before a coronial inquest in Nowra into the toddlers death in March 2016 on Tuesday, he addressed the dead boys parents saying he was sorry and had made a mistake.

Shoalhaven District Hospital emergency department doctor Babak Tajvidi at the inquest into Troy Almond's death.

During his evidence he conceded Troy most likely already had sepsis, which ultimately killed the toddler, when he first presented to hospital just after 10am on March 21, 2016.

Dr Tajvidi said in hindsight he should have ordered blood tests that could have ruled out a bacterial infection.
We have a long way to go, especially in our understanding of Australia's First Peoples and their rich cultural inheritance, but I, for one, am glad that "times have changed". - Irene Pringle, Katoomba I well remember the Australia of which Tony Abbott, Alan Jones and Donnelly remain so enamoured. Not so much a "melting pot" as a bland vanilla pudding, where everyone looked the same, sounded the same, and did the same things the same way on the same days or time of year. Kevin Donnelly, former prime minister Tony Abbott and radio broadcaster Alan Jones on Tuesday. Credit:AAP We were taught no "history", only names, dates and events  of wars, mostly  which we were told to remember as we would be asked about them in exams, after which they were swiftly forgotten. The existence of Indigenous Australians was occasionally remarked upon, primarily as a primitive curiosity to be pitied, but they were mostly invisible to us.

Our schools at that time did not encourage independent thought, or creativity, so it should come as no surprise that these three old white men, so lacking in these qualities themselves, continue to plead for attention in an Australia that has so little use for them. - Ross Sharp, Riverwood I don't know what universe Donnelly recollects, when he says children "in the 1950s or ,60s  were all equal" but at my "elite" Protestant private school in the 1960s, there was an unwritten rule that we were not to talk to Roman Catholic children at the bus stop, as the school considered them to be "not of our class". Hardly egalitarian. - Randi Svensen, Wyong Are Donnelly's rose coloured glasses available online? - Helen Robilliard, Rodd Point Immigration is not the problems, it's infrastructure It is okay to rationally decide if migration is excessive and not to the good of Australia ("Migration hard line targets families", November 21). It is never okay to ignorantly blame particular groups of migrants as scapegoats.

Let's proceed in a measured way in searching for the right decisions and I hope our political parties work with goodwill for well-considered outcomes. - Andrew Strunk, Brookvale Dear Prime Minister, what are you thinking? Reducing the immigration rate will make absolutely no difference to traffic congestion or already overloaded commuter trains. - Colin Sutton, Newtown It has been obvious for some years to people like myself, who make rare visits to our capital cities, that they have become more and more dysfunctional. Perhaps those who live, work and cope there are like the frog in the slowly heating water  they don't notice the gradual threat and deterioration in their environment. The solution being put forward is to limit population growth, in particular immigration.

This suggestion is a lazy and thoughtless, with no evidence provided for how this would help. It is a shabby attempt to grab votes. - Christine Perrott, Armidale Why doesn't Scott Morrison force the immigrants to bring some public transport with them? Solves two problems. - Tim Schroder, Gordon The chatter about population is marked by an absence of any rational look at the long-term population mathematics. If immigration were reduced to zero then, our fertility being less than replacement level, our population would eventually stabilise and fall. If, however, we reduced immigration to about 70,000 then our population would eventually simply stabilise. Leaving population growth at the current level of about 1.6 per cent will see our population double every 45 years and so we would have 50 million by 2063, and 100 million by 2108, 200 million by 2153 and so on.

We need to consider the carrying capacity of this driest of all continents, the impact of global warming and the need to correct our dreadful environmental record over the past two centuries. - John Burke, Wahroonga Ross Gittins misses an important point when it comes to why attitudes to immigration have recently hit fever pitch ("The big backflip on population", November 21). That is because every time new precincts raze our local town centres, or some infrastructure project swallows up whole suburban streets and public parks, or yet another characterless grey block of units rises next door, we are told that it is all about creating homes and jobs for immigrants. - Renata Bali, Thurgoona Many cities with bigger and denser populations get by quite well, Prime Minister. It's called infrastructure. - Barry Riley, Woy Woy Give dogs a bad name Peter Fyfe, when I read your letter to my dog Bernard he was plainly aggrieved (Letters, November 21). Of course he knows his name but he also responds instantly to "feel like a walk?", "want a treat?", and "that's not ours so leave it alone". He can also solve the most complex mathematical questions so long as the answer is zero.

Please don't compare him and his kind to male homosapiens. - Richard Fry, Marrickville Some plucky tries, Rosemary and Janet, but it's a little tricky to describe what "mansplaining'' is in easily understood terms. Tell you what, one of you pop the kettle on while I try to think of a simple example. - Jack Robertson, Birchgrove Dawning realisation If the headline was "Scientists discover that sun rises in the east" as your correspondent suggests, I'm sure that the climate change deniers in the LNP would not believe it (Letters, November 21). If it was near an election, the response would be: "We determine where the sun rises and the manner in which it does so". - Alan Marel, North Curl Curl

A pronounced problem Never mind Parramadda; try living in the Hunner Valley, or working at the John Hunner Hospital (Letters, November 21). Also , don't get me started on "invite" instead of invitation. - Claire Edmonds, Floraville The fine art of taking public land No amount of tinkering with the design and PR campaigns to appease critics can conceal this fact: the Sydney Modern Project's art gallery extension will alienate many thousands of square metres of irreplaceable Domain public green space which, like the land lost to build the Cahill Expressway, will never be returned ("Sydney Modern Project approved as critics appeased", November 21). - Gillian Appleton, Paddington I was concerned to read Michael Brand's reference to Sydney Modern as the "largest public-private partnership of its kind in the Australian arts".

My understanding is that the 'private' contribution is philanthropy - nothing more, nothing less. The Art Gallery of NSW is a not-for-profit public institution for the display of artworks. Brand's choice of words and the images released to date suggest otherwise. - Neil Wilson, Redfern It's easy to claim that Sydney Modern has appeased its critics when the assessment was conducted behind closed doors by the Department of Planning after public statements of support by the arts and heritage ministers. Were they going to knock it back? A minor redesign does not mitigate the theft of Sydney's most significant parkland, dedicated in 1792, and protected by its trustees and generations of governments until now. Sydney Modern may have the approval of the Department of Planning but it does not have the approval of the community. - Kylie Winkworth, Newtown Coal under fire As if there wasn't enough motivation to shift away from coal power, your worrying report warns that thousands of people in NSW will die of pollutants from coal-fired power plants in coming years ("Coal plants add to deaths, study finds", November 21).

I can only dream that the PM and his Coal-ition seriously consider the work of the University of Newcastle and Environmental Justice Australia. - Lorraine Hickey, Green Point The public health risks and resulting economic costs of continued coal reliance are reason enough for current governments to get moving on alternative energy sources. It's not a question of ideology. - Chris Bilsland, Lane Cove Driven back to taxis Uber's rating system appears to be another unwelcome manifestation of big brother ("I don't rate chatting with my Uber driver", November 21). Being judged on one's conversational ability surely takes transportation to a new level of crazy. Presumably, if you fail to satisfy your Uber driver, you will eventually end up on the curb; with perhaps a better option of conveyance; catching an award-paying, unionised workforce service - a taxi. - Paul Townsend, Narara

There is an easy solution for Penny Flanagan: get a taxi. - Virginia Howard, Mosman Upton plays same card To ensure local councils are properly managing credit card expenditure, Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton said she would introduce a "new" measure "requiring all councils to have an audit, risk and improvement committee" ("Answers wanted over $500,000 bill", November 21). Hang on. Didn't Upton's government amend the local government act two years ago, requiring all councils to have such a committee? Oh, that's right. Those amendments are not likely to start until March 2021. So is the government now going to fast track this not-so-new measure? You know, to enable sound corporate governance in our councils? - Anne Wagstaff, Oatley

Patient approach With the overwhelming barrage of negative narrative on the new Northern Beaches Hospital, I feel the need to present another viewpoint. I am 85, retired, and my working life had nothing to do with the medical profession. I have, however, seen many hundreds of projects go from the drawing board to fruition. I feel I can say, without fear of contradiction, that whether you are starting a new coffee shop or an airline, you will have teething problems. How long this persists defines the mettle of the operators. In hindsight, it is always easy to pick what could or should have been anticipated. Let's give the facility six months and then revisit. - Peter Loewensohn, Cremorne

Healthscope Ltd has no experience or expertise in running combined public/private hospitals and this could go some way to explaining the manifest incompetence so far demonstrated by the company in its operation of the hospital. The NSW government has again stuffed up on a major taxpayer-funded project - failure to vet the tenderer and failure to oversee the handover of such an important facility to an inexperienced operator. The public is the loser again. - John Golden, Newport Home in on real issue The discussion of intergenerational hardship is getting close to the famous Monty Python sketch: "cardboard box? You were lucky!" Let's focus on the policy issues affecting house prices that we expect the government to deal with (Letters, November 21). Turning this into an intergenerational fight just lets the government off the hook. - Jan Macindoe, Forest Lodge

Pension fund fairness As a self-funded retiree I don't expect the government, any government, to top up my pension fund ("Retirees vent at Labor's plans for dividend tax", November 21). Do you realise my pension fund has to sell some of the assets it holds in trust for me every time it makes a pension payment to me? How fair is it for a lucky few who pay no tax to be rewarded by franking credits? - Philip Tyacke, Randwick Turnbull takes interest Why would Mark Kelly, who has a new Instagram account titled "Vote Tony Out", be surprised that the Turnbull family would be interested in his campaign ("Turnbulls play follow the former leader", November 21)? - Carolyn Wills, Cremorne
"I have debated the timing and its unfortunate that whilst I submitted my resignation prior to the recent events, Ive decided the time is now. "The running of an enterprise of this size and complexity takes a huge amount of energy, Ive run my leg of the race and its time to pass the baton," she said. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard responds to questions about issues at the new Northern Beaches hospital. Credit:Nick Moir Healthscope executives are scheduling emergency meetings with the hospital's anaesthetists and other specialities to neutralise dissent ahead of the crisis meeting tonight. Doctors had planned to hold a Medical Staff Council meeting at the Forestville RSL on Wednesday night, but as a result of the hospital's "change in direction", they will meet on hospital grounds, Australian Medical Association NSW president Kean-Seng Lim said.

The Healthscope's new chief medical officer Dr Victoria Atkinson is expected to attend the meeting, where the hospital's senior doctors will discuss "issues regarding patient safety" and staffing, according to the meeting agenda. Stephen Gameren - the current State Manager of Healthscope NSW - has been appointed acting chief executive. Ms Latta said will remain for a transition period of four weeks. Mr Hazzard said Ms Latta told him that she was feeling "quite tired" and she had been intending to resign at some appropriate time. Inside the Northern Beaches Hospital. Credit:Brook Mitchell "She now considered this an appropriate point," Mr Hazzard said.

"I want to thank Deb Latta," Mr Hazzard said. "She actually has done an amazing job bringing together both the design and the building of Northern Beaches Hospital." Loading The health minister repeated his characterisation of the problems as "teething issues". "The bottom line here is we have a fantastic hospital," he said, adding one specialist had described it as "Disneyland for doctors". "The technology is amazing, the staff are incredible, but there are some teething problems, and I'm sure the new management will work through those with us very constructively."

This morning there was an abdominal aortic aneurysm that occurred Friday night and the patient was an hour away from death . . because of the expertise they were able to save that patients life," Mr Hazzard said. On Monday Mr Hazzard said he had given Healthscope a three-week deadline to fix the problems. "There [are] still some issues around junior doctor staffing" but the Healthscope had already addressed supply shortage issues. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the NBH's transition "still had a little way to go".

"But within the month we expect the hospital to be up and running as you'd expect," Ms Berejiklian said. NSW opposition leader Michael Daley called the events a "debacle" and questioned why Healthscope had to appoint an interim CEO if Ms Lattas departure had been planned. Loading "This is not something that inspires confidence in the health system," Mr Daley said. Labor health spokesperson Walt Secord said the public-private hospital was the "Americanisation of the health system" that put "profits before patients".
The bogus title "cosmetic surgeon" could be legitimised under sweeping recommendations aimed at protecting the public from botched treatments and unscrupulous purveyors of cosmetic services.

The recommendations presented to the NSW Parliament pave the way for penalties for anyone who misleads patients by claiming to be a "cosmetic surgeon" when there is no such specialty, and no minimum criteria nor training associated with the title.

Jean Huang, 35, died as a result of a botched breast enhancement at the Medi Beauty Clinic she co-owned in Chippendale. Credit:Facebook

People who provide cosmetic treatments would be forced to declare any commissions or kickbacks, and patients would be required to consult a GP before they undergo a cosmetic procedure if the recommendations are accepted.

The joint committee on the Health Care Complaints Commission made 16 recommendations in its report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
Dr Atkinson offered an apology on behalf of Healthscope and committed to change the culture of hospital management. Deborah Latta has quit as CEO of the new Northern Beaches Hospital. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer A doctor who attended the meeting said there had been an allusion to more resignations or sackings. "[There was] a real buzz in the air ... [Healthscope] seem to be sincere," one specialist said of the meeting at the hospital. The doctors in attendance were invited to air their grievances department-by-department during the meeting.

Healthscope executives scheduled emergency meetings with hospital anaesthetists and other specialities to neutralise dissent before the crisis meeting on Wednesday night. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he learnt of Ms Lattas resignation only on Wednesday morning. But Ms Latta said she always believed she should hand over the reins to a new leader once the hospital was operational. "The time has come for this to happen, so I made the decision to resign from my role and from Healthscope," Ms Latta wrote. "I have debated the timing and its unfortunate that whilst I submitted my resignation prior to the recent events, Ive decided the time is now.

The new Northern Beaches Hospital in Frenchs Forest. Credit:Nick Moir "The running of an enterprise of this size and complexity takes a huge amount of energy, Ive run my leg of the race and its time to pass the baton." State manager of Healthscope NSW Stephen Gameren has been appointed acting chief executive. Ms Latta will remain for a transition period of four weeks. I have debated the timing and its unfortunate that whilst I submitted my resignation prior to the recent events, Ive decided the time is now. Outgoing Northern Beaches Hospital CEO Deborah Latta Mr Hazzard said Ms Latta told him that she was feeling "quite tired" and she had been intending to resign at some appropriate time.

Loading "She now considered this an appropriate point," Mr Hazzard said. "I want to thank Deb Latta. She actually has done an amazing job bringing together both the design and the building of Northern Beaches Hospital." Mr Hazzard repeated his characterisation of the problems as "teething issues". "The bottom line here is we have a fantastic hospital," he said, adding one specialist had described it as "Disneyland for doctors". "The technology is amazing, the staff are incredible, but there are some teething problems, and Im sure the new management will work through those with us very constructively.

"This morning there was an abdominal aortic aneurysm that occurred Friday night and the patient was an hour away from death ... because of the expertise they were able to save that patients life." I want to thank Deb Latta. She actually has done an amazing job bringing together both the design and the building of Northern Beaches Hospital. Health Minister Brad Hazzard On Monday Mr Hazzard said he had given Healthscope a three-week deadline to fix the problems. "There [are] still some issues around junior doctor staffing," he said, but Healthscope had already addressed supply shortage issues. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the hospital's transition "still had a little way to go". "But within the month we expect the hospital to be up and running as youd expect," she said.

Loading NSW Opposition Leader Michael Daley called the events a "debacle" and questioned why Healthscope had to appoint an interim chief executive if Ms Lattas departure was planned. "This is not something that inspires confidence in the health system," Mr Daley said. Labor health spokesman Walt Secord said the public-private hospital was the "Americanisation of the health system" that put "profits before patients". Australian Medical Association NSW president Kean-Seng Lim said he was pleased to see the hospital operator taking action to address "the crisis that has enveloped the facility".
The baby's body is believed to have drifted in the current for two days before washing ashore at a Surfers Paradise beach where she was found by passers-by about 12.30am on Monday. AAP reports the family of four were allegedly tracked on CCTV travelling from the Gold Coast to the Jack Evans Boat Harbour in NSW on Saturday. Inspector Cullen said CCTV footage had been "particularly helpful" and police were still reviewing it. A surf lifesaving crew drives past the scene at Surfers Paradise where a baby's body was found. Credit:AAP Divers had been searching the Jack Evans Boat Harbour and Tweed River on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We have NSW and Queensland police divers here examining waterways to see if there is any evidence ... of how the child got into the water," he said. NSW police are now leading the investigation, with Queensland police assisting. "Those investigations have led police to a very strong geographical nexus within NSW, and in particular Tweed Heads, [and] we believe at this stage that the nine-month-old child passed away in Tweed Heads," he said. "The circumstances, time and place of where that actually happened is still under investigation. "This is an extremely complex investigation as it crosses jurisdictional boundaries, time zones, and has made what is a very tragic investigation even more complex."

Detectives were continuing to appeal to anyone who may have seen the family-of-four in the Tweed Heads CBD, Broadbeach or Surfers Paradise area in the past week. The mother has been released without charge. The victim's two-year-old brother has not been reunited with his mother and is under the care of the Queensland Child Safety Department. The discovery of the baby's body on a popular Surfers Paradise beach has shocked the community.

Wendy Coe, a former coordinator of a non-profit organisation to support homeless people on the Gold Coast, was written about "the shame of doing nothing". "Personally, I did nothing and I will regret this until the day I die," she wrote in a letter sent to Brisbane Times. "A baby is dead. A family is in ruin. A brother will never see his sister again.

"It is a tragedy unfathomable and yet it was highly predictable and many of us will live with the shame and the guilt that we did not do more. " Ms Coe was first alerted to this family's plight six months ago when a friend copied her into an email she sent to a Gold Coast city councillor. "Could I help?" Ms Coe asked herself. "A homeless couple with two kids, [one just a little baby] are sleeping rough in Surfers. "She sent it to me because she thought I could do something."

Ms Coe used to run a homeless organisation on the Gold Coast and was aware of the shelters in the area. "I know there are only two domestic violence shelters on the Gold Coast and one general shelter for females," she wrote. "I know there is nowhere for a family to go for crisis accommodation. "I considered doing something but I was not in the crisis business anymore and I was tired. "So I did nothing."

Children's services workers were drowned under a mountain of paperwork without enough foster carers to help children and the Department of Housing had a limited supply, according to Ms Coe. Loading "We ask for more funding, we raise money for our causes and the community goes merrily along its way hoping the government, community groups and individuals like me will deal with the nasty side of life," she wrote.
"I am looking forward to the trekking but we are also helping out at a school. We are doing lots of walking but I think we have got it pretty easy. I heard there's sherpas." She added: "My friends are actually on Hamilton Island right now. Oh, they are so roughing it. They are just lounging on the beach but, of course, they are all so jealous." Donna Lawrence, small groups manager at World Youth Adventures, who is organising their trip, said a segment of schoolies were interested in doing something more meaningful than partying and drinking. "A lot of people would go there for the Himalayas but it is often the people of Nepal that leave the biggest mark on them," she said. "There's certainly opportunities to access alcohol in Nepal but, if somebody signed up for this trip, I don't think that's what they have in mind. When you are at altitude, it's not wise to drink alcohol the night before."

Matthew Eakin, mountaineer and founder of Himalayan Schoolies, who is now in the mountains, said: "The traditional schoolies model is broken. Schoolies should be a celebration of life, a challenging of values and an awakening to how amazing our world is. You only finish school once, so you need to do it right." Schoolies from rural NSW currently in Nepal. Sophia Manca, 18, from Orange (pictured second from right, front row, in the top photo), who attended James Sheahan Catholic High School, said: "The Himalayan schoolies trip has given me a new perspective on life. "After taking a glimpse and immersing ourselves in the culture of a Third World country, I have gained so many personal attributes and memories that will play a fundamental part in the rest of my life." John McFarlane has been at Sydney-based Sure Thing Travel for the 13 years it has been in the schoolie business. "The culture now is that there is less conformity," he said.

"The Gold Coast is still the most popular in terms of numbers but there are now a lot of other popular options, [such as] Vanuatu, Fiji, Thailand and Magnetic Island." He estimated the Gold Coast would accommodate about 20,000 schoolies this year. Go back 10 years and it would have been 35,000, he said. "The schoolies this year are Snapchatting and Facebooking so there are millions of views and people are saying 'I like the look of this, I'll book it in for next year.' " Spare a thought for the parents. They could always jump in the car and drive to Byron to scoop their teenagers up if things went awry. Not so easy if they are in another hemisphere. Clinical psychologist Kellie Cassidy in Perth has a "parent-survival-guide-to-schoolies" on her website.
Authorities are urging three teenagers to hand themselves in after police arrested two others who were allegedly part of an armed gang which carried out a violent home invasion in Melbourne's south-west.

Detectives have arrested two men  an 18-year-old from Melton West and a 16-year-old from Glenroy  over the aggravated home invasion which occurred on Saturday morning.

Police arresting one of the alleged offenders. Credit:Victoria Police

Police believe five offenders allegedly forced entry into the the home on Peppermint Crescent in Wyndham Vale about 5.45am. An 80-year-old man, a 66-year-old woman and a 27-year-old woman were at home at the time.
The fight occurred Oct. 7, but paramedics were not summoned to the residence until the next day when they found Karyn Zondlo unconscious, authorities said. Her husband told responders she had been cleaning and passed out, and medical personnel at Alexian Brothers Medical Center began treating her for a possible stroke, authorities said. She was pronounced dead, but an autopsy on Oct. 18 by the Cook County medical examiners office disclosed that she died of a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain, Amado-Chevlin said.
A property company has felled 51 trees of a black cockatoo roost site in Perths south-east to make way for industrial development, after the federal environment department gave the green light.

Community group Save the Brixton Street Wetlands vigorously protested the plan to clear the trees, representing a third of the roost.

Protesters at the Kenwick development site.

The wetlands are considered vital to Perths remaining biodiversity, containing more plant species than Kings Park, including many threatened species.

The wetlands are surrounded by large swathes of semi-rural land, with paddocks and patches of bush, which the City of Gosnells has been progressively rezoning for industrial development which will ultimately surround and enclose the wetland.
Police are searching for a man they believe can help their investigation into an assault at a bus stop in Mount Lawley.

Police would like to speak to this person, who they believe may be able to help with their investigation into an assault in Mount Lawley earlier this month. Credit:WA Police

Two men were sitting at the bus stop outside a Beaufort Street bar about 7.30pm on November 6 when they were approached by a stranger and handed a wristwatch.

As one of the men looked at the watch he was punched in the head several times and knocked unconscious before the stranger ran off.

The victim was taken to Royal Perth Hospital to be treated for his injuries, but police believe several people in the area at the time of the assault could help their investigation.
New York: The Morrison government should block right-wing US provocateur Gavin McInnes from entering Australia next month because of the strong risk he will incite violence during his visit, according to former Australian Border Force chief Roman Quaedvlieg.

Mr McInnes is the founder of the Proud Boys, a controversial male-only group whose members have been involved in recent street fights with left-wing protesters in New York and Oregon.

The group describes itself as committed to "western chauvinist" ideas and Mr McInnes has a record of making inflammatory remarks about Muslims, members of the LGBT community and feminists.

Mr McInnes has said that "Muslims have a problem with inbreeding" and that "the only thing they really respect is violence and being tough".
The Defence Department could hide the results of audits into billions of dollars in military spending by using the same excuse the federal government has in suppressing parts of a report into a $1.3 billion spend on armoured vehicles, an inquiry has heard.

In September, Auditor-General Grant Hehir released a redacted report on the government's purchase of 1100 Hawkei light protected vehicles, with large sections missing regarding whether the procurement of the vehicles from Thales Australia represented value for money.

Audits of the $50 billion submarine project could be suppressed under the precedent set by the Attorney General.

After a request from Thales Australia, Attorney-General Christian Porter issued a certificate which suppressed the information both on national security and commercial interests grounds.

At a hearing on Wednesday, defence officials said national security was invoked to redact the section of the report because the Hawkei vehicles were considered a sovereign industrial capability.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is being careful not to disparage robust population growth per se as he readies the community for a reduction in the number of immigrants, amid concerns about growing pains, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne and south-east Queensland. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is preparing a policy on migrant arrivals. Credit:AAP It is a delicate balance he is seeking to strike because immigration, which has long accounted for the majority of Australias population growth, has delivered copious economic and cultural benefits. More than anything else, it has shaped and defined our multicultural nation  half of us are born in another country or have at least one parent who was. But a lack of planning and investment in infrastructure has shifted public focus from the longer-term benefits of immigration to temporary costs including traffic congestion, crowded public transport and under-serviced urban sprawl. Its an important debate that, for the moment, distils to whether Australia should cut the number of people moving to Australia. What are the optimal levels of immigration, overall population growth and infrastructure investment?

Political pressure has been mounting to relieve the population pressure. The federal ALP says its open to a well-argued change. Former prime minister Tony Abbott wants immigration halved. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has also called for migrant numbers in this state to be halved. Saturdays election in Victoria has been dominated by growing pains issues. Mr Morrison is indicating the current annual cap of 190,000 will probably be reduced by about 30,000  roughly the amount by which it fell in the year to July, partly because of the slower processing of visas. It is, of course, valid, even crucial, to examine and perpetually calibrate immigration but this public debate carries risks requiring astute judgment, for it can be readily hijacked by people seeking to fuel prejudice and undue fear. Studies throughout the world and here in Australia have long demonstrated the huge net benefits of immigration. So, the best way to deal with growing pains is not to slash the number of people adding to our economy and society but to build more public transport, roads, schools and the like, among the best investments a government can make. It is unclear how Mr Morrisons approach will work. Immigration is, by definition, a national issue, yet the Prime Minister wants the states and territories to suggest their preferred level of migrant intake. Another key consideration is to focus on greater nationally coordinated regional development to take some pressure off capital cities, where the majority of migrants now settle. Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has been creatively and carefully leading the calls for such an approach, which is based on upgrading rail links and providing incentives, including housing and payroll tax concessions, to live and work in the regions.
"Voluntary assisted dying in either form [euthanasia or doctor-assisted suicide] represents a radical breach in the universal prohibition on one person killing another," the bishops said.

WA's Catholic bishops have written to parishioners around the state, signalling they will oppose the state government's euthanasia plans. Credit:Fairfax Media

The statement, which will be distributed to hundreds of Catholic parishes throughout the state and signals the Church's intention to campaign against the laws, challenges key elements of a parliamentary report that sparked the government's decision to push for the change.

"The right to life is the 'sine qua non' [the necessary condition] of all human rights: to risk or relativise it would be to undermine the foundation of every other right we enjoy."

The statement acknowledges the suffering many experience as a result of terminal diseases, but said voluntary assisted dying "does not take suffering away except by taking the suffering person away".

"It cannot and does not address the deepest human needs of the one who suffers, or the depth and breadth of that profoundly distressing human experience," the bishops said.

"We believe that even creating an option for voluntary assisted dying risks encouraging a view that the real aim of end-of-life care is to deal with a set of physical symptoms, when we should always seek to provide care for the whole human person in all of our relational, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions."

The bishops called on health professionals to "resist pressure to transform their professions into services that simply deliver whatever a patient wants".
The White House has slammed China's increasingly frequent and sophisticated use of cyber attacks, citing the diversion of internet traffic and restarting of state-sponsored hacking programs among a litany of sharply worded complaints made against Beijing.

In his bi-annual report on China, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Beijing had "fundamentally" failed to change its behaviour around cyber espionage, giving it unfair access to intellectual property, trade secrets, negotiating positions and the internal communications of business.

White House concerned about China hacks. Credit:Frank Maiorana

The report adds weight to revelations in Fairfax Media this week that China diverted internet traffic heading to Sydney and its peak security agency had overseen a surge in attacks on Australian companies.

The Trump administration's calling out of China will also put further pressure on the Morrison government to take a stronger line on hacking, as evidence mounts that Beijing has breached a cyber agreement signed with Canberra only last April.
Dubai/Aden: An estimated 85,000 children under five may have died from extreme hunger in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in the civil war in 2015, an aid agency said on Wednesday, as the UN special envoy arrived in Yemen to pursue peace talks.

Western countries are pressing for a ceasefire and renewed peace efforts to end the disastrous conflict, which has unleashed the worlds most urgent humanitarian crisis with 8.4 million people believed to be on the verge of starvation.

Save the Children said that a conservative estimate based on UN data showed 84,700 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition may have died between April 2015 and October 2018, when a Western-backed Arab alliance has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement that holds the capital Sanaa.

"We are horrified that some 85,000 children in Yemen may have died because of the consequences of extreme hunger since the war began. For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are dying from hunger and disease and it's entirely preventable," it said in a statement.
According to multiple sources, Matt Nagy offered little to make Chicago Bears players believe he will be around much longer when he met with them after Tuesday's second walk-through in Lake Forest, leaving at least some players dismayed at the organizations lack of direction.
Abu Dhabi: A United Arab Emirates court has sentenced British academic Matthew Hedges to life in prison on charges of spying for the British government, his family and a state-run newspaper say.

The hearing lasted less than five minutes and his lawyer was not present, his family said.

British PhD student Matthew Hedges, 31, pictured with his wife Daniela Tejada. Credit:AP

"We are of course deeply disappointed and concerned at today's verdict," May told Parliament on Wednesday. She and Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said they were raising the case at the highest levels of the UAE government.

"Today's verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances," Hunt said in a statement.
New York: Almost 11,000 Australians a year will continue to have exclusive access to a prized visa that allows them to work in the US following an intense lobbying campaign by Australian officials in Washington.

Fairfax Media revealed last week that Australia's ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, had "gone nuts" over proposed legislation that could have seen Australians competing with the Irish for access to the plum E3 visa scheme.

Australia's ambassador in Washington, Joe Hockey, has been lobbying for Australians to retain sole access to the special E3 visa. Credit: Photo: Andrew Meares

That legislation has now been withdrawn and replaced by a new draft bill that guarantees Australians continued access to up to 10,500 E3 visas a year.

This visa class can only be accessed by Australian professionals and is the envy of many countries around the world.
Until recently, China seemed to have signed on to the cause. President Xi Jinping, who has pledged to turn the country into an "ecological civilisation", stepped up seizures of contraband animal products and created a new national park to provide a haven for Siberian tigers. In January, Xi banned the domestic trade in ivory. Charred Elephant tusks burn in Yaounde, Cameroon in 2016. The Chinese government shut down its official ivory trade at the end of 2017 in a move designed to curb the mass slaughter of African elephants. Credit:AP But lately China has sent conflicting signals. To the shock of officials and conservationists around the world, China announced in October that it would reopen the trade in rhino horn and tiger bone, reversing a 25-year domestic ban. "This development came as a surprise to us, because China, at the moment, is leading in so many ways on the environment," said Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Program. "We should be stepping up protection for tigers and rhinos, not lowering it." China's State Council directed that rhino horn and tiger bone be limited to use in scientific research and in traditional Chinese medicine, practised by qualified doctors at certain hospitals.

Officials also pledged to strictly control trade, a reassurance that did little to assuage concerns that poaching was about to spiral even further out of control. Bones of a tiger are displayed during a destruction ceremony of confiscated elephant ivory and wildlife parts in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, last month. Credit:AP Indeed, just three days after China's announcement, Jose Louies, chief of the wildlife crime control division at the Wildlife Trust of India, received a call from an informant who said that tiger traffickers had begun anticipating a price increase. "Poachers keep their ears to the ground  they feel everything that is happening in the market," Louies said. "It's not a secret for them that all the tiger materials are going to China." Following a global outcry, the State Council this month reversed course and postponed implementation of the order. But the episode has left conservationists wary  not least because the history here is far from encouraging.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as CITES, banned the international commercial trade of rhinos and most tigers in 1975. But for decades afterward, China permitted domestic sales of products made from these animals. A pedestrian walks past an ivory shop in Kowloon district of Hong Kong. Credit:EPA/File Rhino horn and tiger bone were smuggled into the country from abroad, and tiger farms were set up in the late 1980s  some with government backing  to breed big cats for bones, skins and parts. (Wild tigers had been mostly poached in China years earlier.) In 1993, under the Pelly Amendment, then US president Bill Clinton threatened China with sanctions for undermining the CITES treaty. China responded with a ban on rhino horn and tiger bone, and poaching declined significantly. "By banning those products, the Chinese government made a significant contribution to conservation of rhinos and tigers over the past 20 years," said Zhang Li, a field biologist at Beijing Normal University.

Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine quickly followed suit, replacing the banned materials with sustainable substitutes and removing tiger bone and rhino horn  which have no scientifically proven benefits  from textbooks and the pharmacopoeia. Loading "If the government's intention by lifting this ban is to support Chinese medicine, the result is the opposite," said Lixin Huang, executive director of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in California. She suspects that the decision was encouraged not by practitioners of traditional medicine, but by "those dealing in the business of profit-making" tiger farmers. Rather than shutter after the 1993 ban, tiger farms continued to grow and now house more than 6,000 captive animals. For more than a decade, China has expressed interest in domestic trade of its captive tigers' parts.

In September, CITES identified 36 Chinese tiger farms that seemed to be involved in illegal trade or held tigers in questionably excessive numbers. Loading But at a CITES meeting in Sochi, Russia, in October, Chinese officials strongly opposed the findings, according to Heather Sohl, a chief adviser at the World Wildlife Fund who attended the meeting. Officials did not mention the country's impending decision to reopen trade. "China has quite often restricted progress on tackling tiger trade discussions we have at CITES," Sohl said. The fact that officials questioned proposals to control tiger trade "wasn't unusual and didn't give us any insight that this was coming."

The Chinese focus has always been more on conserving a species as a resource. Michael Sas-Rolfes, researcher Michael Sas-Rolfes, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford who toured tiger farms at the invitation of the Chinese government in 2007, was not surprised. "The only part of this that was completely unexpected for me was the timing," he said. "The Chinese focus has always been more on conserving a species as a resource, not on the Western focus of conserving a species in its habitat." Even as Western countries have pushed for blanket bans on certain wildlife products, he continued, demand for those products in certain quarters of Asia has not fallen. Instead, illegal trade and the profits to be made from it have increased. "I'm hoping that China's move may serve as a bit of a wake-up call that the 'just say no' approach doesn't work," Sas-Rolfes said.

"The conversation on drugs has evolved into something more sophisticated  smoking pot is not the same as shooting up with heroin. And we need to apply the same nuanced, evidence-based thinking to wildlife trade," he added. Loading Some are eager to see China's markets reopen. "Rather than criminals coming here, wantonly killing our animals, we can now supply horn from stockpiles to meet the demand and take pressure away from wild populations," said Pelham Jones, chairman of the Private Rhino Owners Association in South Africa. China's directive specified that tiger bones and rhino horns must come from farmed animals, but not that they be farmed in China. Conservationists believe the number of rhinos in China to be very small.

Young rhinos walk about their enclosure at a rhino orphanage in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve in the KwaZulu Natal province South Africa. Credit:AP By contrast, more than 7000 rhinos live on at least 300 private ranches in South Africa. Nearly 90 per cent of rhino owners are keen to sell their animals' horns, which can be clipped every few years. The profits, they say, will help cover the steep security costs of keeping poachers at bay. "There's only one country in the world that can meet China's demand, and that's South Africa," Jones said. Whether a proposal to reopen international trade of rhino horn could pass at CITES depends on a number of technicalities in the treaty and on whether proponents could rally enough support.

CITES states that countries should not breed tigers for their parts  only for conservation  and that they should reduce their use of rhino horn. But CITES governs only international trade, so provisions in the treaty about domestic trade do not carry the same enforceable legal weight. The United States has started looking into options of its own for ensuring that China's domestic ban on tiger and rhino trade remains in place, said Christine Dawson, director of the office of conservation and water at the State Department. That includes the possibility of recertifying China under the Pelly Amendment, which would pave the way for sanctions. "There's a lot at stake for these two major economies, and the leverage may never be better for the US to fold this issue into the broader trade issues going on right now," said David Hayes, executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Centre at New York University. Sas-Rolfes pointed out, however, that the Pelly Amendment might have lost its potency in a China with rising influence on the world stage. In any event, officials now may simply decide not to follow through with the directive. "Let us hope that China recognises the stark inconsistency of this decision with its laudable stance on ivory, and takes steps to ban the trade of rhino horn and tiger bones altogether," said Boris Johnson, former foreign secretary of Britain.
Pond Island:--- On Friday, November 16th the University of St. Martin hosted its 3rd annual roundtable discussion: Breakfast with the Counselors. While the event did not take place last year due to the after-effects of Hurricane Irma, USM found it necessary to reinstate the occurrence within the academic calendar of the institution. As we rebuild the university, we recognize that our role is not only to educate students but also to disseminate data, foster the exchange of ideas and promote intellectual discussions. These are exactly what Breakfast with the Counselors seeks to promote said Dean of Academics, Dr. Rolinda Carter.

This year, the number of counselors increased significantly to 15 representatives from the different high schools on the southern half of the island, NIPA, Charlotte Brookson Academy of the Performing Arts, and the St. Maarten Student Services Division. Also present were USMs Counselor, Dean of Academics, Marketing and Admission Specialist, and Division Heads and Coordinators of USM programs. The presentation was led by General Liberal Arts Coordinator and USM Counselor, Ms. Leona Nestor-Hubert, who presented on IRMA & Education: Effects of Crisis on Academic Performance. The open discussion that followed gave the participants an opportunity to reflect on some of the challenges that students throughout the island dealt with after the passing of Irma and in some cases are still overcoming. One of the counselors mentioned that some students want to leave the island while others feel like their academic dreams are busted as they can no longer travel abroad to further their studies. Other counselors mentioned that their students are learning to adapt to their given situations. Some students are motivating their peers to keep pressing forward while others have even started a trend of not using their phones for a day, something many would find very difficult. Concerns were also heard of students who are now attending classes in the afternoons and getting home after the sun has set.

The discussion was also geared towards highlighting the role that USM can play in mitigating the aftermath of such crises. As USM now offers accredited degrees and courses, the team reminded counselors that students are able to get their first degree at USM and transfer their credits to other universities or colleges to continue their studies. USM has a record of producing alumni who go on to hold prominent positions both locally and internationally. Thus, USM can be seen as a stepping stone for most students that come through its doors  said USM Education Division Head Ms. Sharon Freiburg. An example is the Dean of Academics who started her academic journey with the GED followed by the General Liberal Arts program at USM and continued her studies in Canada to eventually graduate with her doctorate in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine from the University of British Columbia, ranked among the top 40 best universities globally.

The team assured the counselors that by providing students with the opportunity to jump-start their studies here on the island, they are helping to place students on route to accomplishing their academic goals/dreams. According to Ms. Giterson, the Marketing and Admissions Specialist, staying on the island allows one to prepare physically, emotionally and financially before venturing abroad especially after such crisis that may deter one from an original goal and dream. It also allows students to gain work experience, invest in an affordable education (in contrast to other Universities in the region) and help support their families here on the island. We are here to provide the key to a brighter future which can make a huge difference in the success of the student.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Education, Culture, Youth, and Sport, the Honourable Wycliffe Smith today electronically signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the countries and territories within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, pledging to uphold the International Convention of the Rights of the Child on Sint Maarten. In so doing, on this anniversary of the signing of the Declaration and Convention of International Childrens Rights celebrated annually on November 20, every child on Sint Maarten has been assured that the Government of Sint Maarten will promote and protect these fundamental moralities.

According to Minister Smith, Every person in the community has the duty to protect the rights of our children. Let us ensure that every child is loved, fed, kept safe, cared for, educated and allowed to speak and play as children should. Some may be too young to advocate for themselves, and this is why, as a village, we will look out for each child as if he or she was our own.

This year, the United Nations has chosen to promote a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and can fulfill their potential. With the social media campaign #GoBlue, everyone is encourage to participate in advocating for the rights of the child.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Children are taking over and turning the world blue. The United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says this year the world is going blue!

Were asking individuals, schools and corporates worldwide to go blue to help build a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and can fulfil their potential, and we know you do too.

Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever says November 20 is a very important day for the global community of nations and Sint Maarten in particular where it concerns improving the welfare of children.

According to the United Nations (UN) children have their rights denied every single day; 262 million children and youth are out of school; 650 million girls and women were married before their 18th birthday; 5.4 million children died from mostly preventable causes before their fifth birthday.

UN Universal Childrens Day was established in 1954 and is celebrated on November 20th each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare.

November 20th is an important date as it is the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. It is also the date in 1989 when the UN General assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since 1990, Universal Children's Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the declaration and the convention on children's rights, according to the UN.

Minister Cornelius de Weever says: Every child deserves a future, and as a country, we have to give them a healthy start in life. They must be given the tools and the opportunity to learn, and they must be protected at all times from any harm.

In this post-Irma era, our country is confronted with challenges on every level, but with the assistance and commitment of friends, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, to help parents, it demonstrates our responsibility to our children, and as they say it takes a village to raise a child.

It will take the entire Sint Maarten nation to help raise our children by providing them with guidance, teaching them values, to respect the law, and nurturing them to become proud citizens of their country.

Despite the challenges we face today as a nation, we have a responsibility to the nations children who depend on us by creating the best environment possible for them to succeed, Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever said on Tuesday in celebration of World Childrens Day.




South Reward:--- The SXM Achievers Toastmasters Club hosted a Youth Leadership Program (YLP) Graduation Ceremony on Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Dominic High School. The program was conducted in collaboration with St. Dominic High/IB Program and coordinated by SXM Achievers Toastmasters Club President Sharine Duncan and Vice President of Education Vaninica Walters. 17 students signed up and 15 completed the program which consisted of 8 sessions. Sessions began at 10:00 a.m. every Saturday morning for 8 weeks. Students were required to prepare speeches, speak impromptu, assume meeting roles and constructively evaluate each other. My team and I were very impressed with the high caliber of enthusiasm, preparedness and professionalism showcased by the students and we would like to congratulate these YLP students for successfully completing the program while juggling school/ exams, other clubs and activities and personal commitments stated President Sharine. The 15 YLP graduates are:

Aadira Das, Chanchal Sharma, Disha Sharma, Chantoni da Cunha, Georgia Nelson, Jenna van der Neut, Lee Ann Wyatt, Mahima Panjwani, Priyanka Soni, Rochelle Richardson, Rolland Levestone, Stefanas Waakzaam, Tavania Mathew, Tania Shahani, and Vanesca Saint-Hilaire.

During the ceremony, students were tasked to inspire their audience and presented a 2-3 minute speech in front of their families, friends, and peers. The YLP Coordinators would like to thank guest speakers and Toastmasters Donovan Smith, Kareem Rombley, Tamara Groeneveldt, Amanda Vital-Bedminister, Jeanina Dupersoy, and Malcolm Jacques and Business Professional Women (BPW) guest speakers Ms. Melba Wescott and Mrs. Danielle Chance-Glasgow. We also salute Ms. Jennifer Halley and Mrs. Gianne de Weever of St. Dominic High School for making this program possible. For more information and if interested in the SXM Achievers Toastmasters Club kindly contact us via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and visit/like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SXMAchieversToastmastersClub/.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs Stuart Johnson was elated to hear the news that SXM Airport and the destination according to the online website PrivateFly.com, is the #2 most popular private jet destination in the Caribbean.

The recognition is out of top 10 airports in the Region.

According to the website, PrivateFly is a leading global booking service for private charter flights and part of Directional Aviation's OneSky group of companies.

Since we revolutionized private jet charter booking when we launched in 2008, PrivateFly has always believed in going above and beyond in everything we do.

With 7,000 aircraft in one global network, a live pricing platform, infinite routes worldwide, airports and security to negotiate, and safety records to evaluate; we know that speed matters. But we also know performance matters more, the website states.

I take this opportunity to commend the management and staff of the Princess Juliana International Airport SXM as well as other stakeholders who work with the private jet business on this accolade which is well deserved especially during these trying times.

Even though we are faced with challenges, together we shall overcome them. Despite the challenges, we are still doing our best and are being recognized for this.

Once again, congratulations to SXM Airport management and staff as well as local private jet market stakeholders on this well-deserved recognition.

Be rest assured that the Council of Ministers is working diligently to get our key port of entry back on track within the shortest period of time, Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs Stuart Johnson said on Tuesday.

This is what PrivateFly.com said about the destination: 2) Princess Juliana International Airport, St Maarten (TNCM)

St Maarten (also known as St. Martin by the French) is split between the Netherlands and France. Its airport, Princess Juliana International, offers one of the worlds most stunning landings  coming in very low over water.

The airport is another important hub in the Caribbean, connecting airline flights and larger private jets, with smaller aircraft bound for more remote islands.

The landing at St Maarten was voted one of the World's Top 10 Scenic Landings 2018 in our annual poll. You can - or browse videos of other Caribbean landings on our YouTube channel.

Puerto Rico came in number one with Sint Maarten #2 followed by St. Thomas, St. Croix, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Barths and Barbados.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) recently announced the winner of its Photo Contest for the cover of its hotel in-room magazine VISIT.

The winner is Richard Hazel who sent in a photo of an aircraft approaching the runway at Maho Beach of the Princess Juliana International Airport.

The Destination Marketing Committee of SHTA was designated as the body to select the winner. The contest ran from September 13th to the 30th.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Richard Hazel who won the SHTA contest and also to those who contributed pictures to the contest.

SHTA stated that by means of the competition, they wanted to offer a platform for artistic talent among residents and visitors. I would like to commend SHTA on their new publication which comes just in time for the 2018-2019 high tourist season.

Hazels photo of the landmark landing of aircraft is a major destination attraction which has been visited by millions of tourists over the years and seen online by millions more each time somebody uploads this unique landing experience to YouTube or other social media channels, Minister of Tourism & Economic Affairs Stuart Johnson said on Tuesday.

Hazels picture according to the SHTA will be on the cover of 25,000 VISIT magazine 2019 editions.

The SHTA says that VISIT is the largest and most well-read magazine of Sint Maarten, and is the official in-room magazine of SHTA and exclusively distributed in the SHTA association member hotel rooms.

The magazine is also used by the association as a business card when visiting tour operators and travel writers.
PHILIPSBURG:--- A early morning fire broke out at Theo Heyliger building in Simpson Bay. According to information SMN News received is that there was an explosion prior to the fire. Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson confirmed that a fire was in the building and that firemen put out the small blaze. Henson said at least one person was injured and currently government inspectors are busy investigating the cause of the fire.

It should be noted that staff members from all government-owned companies will be moving into the new building. Already TELEM and GEBE are busy moving while the administrative staff of Princess Juliana International Airport will soon move in.

Fire reported/ one person injured.

PHILIPSBURG:--- On Wednesday, November 21st at approximately 10.30 a.m. police patrols, firefighters and paramedics were directed to a construction site next to the gasoline station on the Airport road after reports of an explosion taking place at said the location and that one person was injured. On the scene, the investigating officers noticed that a section of the building on the ground floor was ablaze however it was extinguished by the fire department. They also learned that an explosion had taken place and a construction worker had suffered minor injuries. The victim was treated on the scene by paramedics and did not require further medical attention. The cause of the explosion is being investigated by the Government Safety Inspection Department.

KPSM Press Release.
PHILIPSBURG:--- SFC was set up over 14 years ago, as a collaborative effort to support social initiatives on the Dutch Caribbean islands, regardless of their status within the Kingdom. It is an organization that is facilitated by six funding agencies, originating from the Netherlands; Fonds Sluyterman van Loo, Innovatiefonds Zorgverzekeraars, Kansfonds, Oranje Fonds, Stichting Kinderpostzegels, and the newly joined Roomsch Catholijk Oude Armen Kantoor (RCOAK).

During this working visit, some 22 NGOs on Sint Maarten, Saba, and Statia were visited collectively. These were organizations that have shown interest or have submitted applications for funding, as well as projects that are ongoing that have been funded by SFC. Government representatives, other funding streams and agencies, as well as (emergency) relief organizations were also met with to ensure increased social funding efficiency and to discuss how and where more could be done (collaboratively and independently).

The working visit started out earlier last week on Curacao with a visit to Aruba as well. Later continuing to the SSS-islands. All Dutch Caribbean islands have a local office and a local project coordinator or advisory committee, and are there to assist with funding applications and inquiries. These offices provide general support to social endeavours in need of funding.

If interested in learning more about the opportunities the SFC has to offer, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call +1 1721 586 08 08, or visit www.samenwerkendefondsen.org/en for the application form.
CAY HILL:--- St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) is inviting companies to pre-register for World Bank-funded projects that will be up for public tenders and will be published shortly via SMMCs website.

SMMC has recently signed an agreement to receive a USD 25 million grant from the St. Maarten Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience Trust Fund that is funded by The Netherlands and managed by the World Bank.

The grant will serve to improve services of the current hospital, while the new hospital is being built, and to upgrade the design of the new hospital to withstand category 5+ hurricanes. This with the overall objective to improve the preparedness and capacity of hospital services in St. Maarten.

SMMCs Manager Facilities, Erika v/der Horst states: In total, we expect to have 15 World Bank projects up for public tender. The projects consist of the purchase of goods, several civil work projects in the field of construction, renovation and technical installation works.

Van der Horst continues: Early December 2018 will see the start of some public tenders for these World Bank projects. All projects are expected to be up for tender in the first half of the year 2019 and in order for a company to participate or if you are interested to participate in one of our World Bank Projects, we invite you to pre-register your company via the special World Bank section on our website: smmc.sx/World-Bank/Projects

SMMC has launched a special unit that will oversee all procurement in relation to the World Bank projects which is called the Project Management Unit (PMU), which will keep interested companies updated an informed when the projects come up for tender and will able to send them the tender documents directly.

For project information, interested companies can check the World Bank section on SMMC website under smmc.sx/World-Bank/Projects or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Public Prosecutors Office has requested a 22-year prison sentence for suspect H.H.M. (24) and a 24-year prison sentence for suspect H.F.M. (27), for the liquidation of Franky Brunache in Hope Estate on January 24th, 2017.

The Public Prosecutor requested a higher prison sentence for suspect H.F.M., noting that H.F.M. has a criminal record and has been convicted in three different incidents. The liquidation was also carried out during an ongoing trial period. For this reason, the Public Prosecutor has also requested to impose a 1-year conditional prison sentence.

Sint Maarten has been struggling with serious and severe crime for years. At times, shootings with or without fatal outcomes seem to be the order of the day. This can only be countered by tough intervention by police and the justice chain with the intention of putting a stop to this, the Public Prosecutor stated during Wednesdays hearing.

According to the Public Prosecutor, both suspects together planned and carried out the liquidation of Franky Brunache, where H.H.M. drove the getaway vehicle and H.F.M. was the shooter.

Murder is one of the most serious crimes, if not the most serious crime of the Penal Code. This is a murder that has all the characteristics of a liquidation. Franky Brunache was liquidated 20 metres from his home, 20 minutes before his birthday. This is clearly a brutal and deceitful act of violence.

Moreover, this shooting took place in a residential area, where apart from the occupants of the car, other bystanders could have easily become victims. This liquidation has caused much unrest for residents of Guana Bay and elsewhere on St. Maarten.

The Public Prosecutors Office points out that the chance of becoming a (fatal) victim of a crime is almost 25 times higher on Sint Maarten than in a country like the Netherlands for example. As far as the level of punishment in the BROCCOLI investigation is concerned, it is not only about general prevention, but also about specific prevention. St. Maartens society must be protected against these suspects for as long as possible, said the Public Prosecutor.

Prosecutor's Office Press Release.
Adriatic Metals: A Polymetallic Explorer With Significant Potential

Posted by Publisher Internet

Introduction

This time Kees Dekker?analyzes Adriatic Metals, an Australian junior exploring a very high grade polymetallic project called Rupice in Bosnia Herzegovina. Kees and I had our doubts as the last drill results at the border of the drill permitted area took a very long time until release, but when they did came in, the results appeared to be pretty good again. Kees does a good job calculating metal value including recovery and payability, basing his cash margin on this, and hereby maintaining a conservative stance which seems healthy for an early stage exploration play.?

With the corporate tax in Bosnia Herzegovina standing at a very cheap 10%, and a potential operation dealing with very small tonnage and thus low capex, there is no doubt in my mind that this could be a very profitable mine somedays. If I would take a 2Mt resource for the entire mineralized envelope (Kees takes 1.58Mt for the deeper part only), a decent?10y LOM would deliver a 570tpd (350 days per annum) operation, and?using an average small scale?underground capex/tpd of US$80,000/tpd, the total capex would come in at US$45.6M. Let\-\-s use some margin of error and take US$50M and add 50% of capex as sustaining capital to opex as underground development seems relatively limited. Using?the calculated?cash margin of US$290M (without sustaining capital) of Kees as a base, this would result in a NPV8 of US$80M, and the calculated?cash margin of US$370M would result in a NPV8 of US$120M. This is all very conservative, and considering the current market cap of about US$40M and exploration ongoing there is a lot of upside. This could be a small gem.

Next up is the analysis itself by Kees Dekker.

1. Executive Summary

Adriatic Metals (\Adriatic\) (ASX.ADT, FSE:3FN) is a recently listed Australian company with two complex base metal  precious metal deposits in Bosnia Herzegovina.? Its share price has shown a spectacular appreciation over the past few weeks.? However, at its current share price Adriatic has an Enterprise Value of approx. US$37 million, assuming full dilution, which must be considered modest compared to the value of the deposits in its portfolio.

This study concludes that the company is still vary good value based on the cash operating margin one can expect from mining the resources of one deposit (called Veovaca) and the volume of the deeper portions of an ore shoot at another deposit (Rupice), derived from published drill results.

The deeper, very high-grade portion of the shoot at Rupice, defined over an estimated 200?m plunge, 40 m width and 55 height, has the potential to generate a total operating cash of US$370 million (assuming that its BaSO4 content can be upgraded to a drill mud additive product) and US$290 million (without BaSO4 sales).? Each 50 m additional plunge extent established from further drilling would increase the cash margin by US$90 million (incl. BaSO4 sales), or US$70 million (without BaSO4 sales).

This study arrives at prospective at-mine revenue from Indicated Resources at Veovaca of at least US$260 million based on at-mine revenue of US$56/t in-situ, which as an open pit mine could well generate cash from operations of at least US$130 million.?? This assuming that the BaSO4 content in the resources can be concentrated to a marketable product.? If not, this deposit is of little to no value.

There are a number of upsides to Adriatic apart from adding to the deposits dimensions, being the value of the shallower portion of the Rupice shoot, exploring targets in the vicinity and at the same stratigraphic level, and upgrading the BaSO4 concentrate to a higher grade product for which the sales price is a multiple higher than the drill mud additive product.

The main risks are related to testwork showing poor metallurgical performance for the mineralisation and the difficult and ambiguous legislative environment in the jurisdiction, which complicates obtaining the necessary rights and permits to advance projects and securing the rights to new discoveries.

This share being an exploration play is definitely not for widows and orphans, but, for the less risk adverse, constitutes an attractive opportunity on a risk/return basis

2. Introduction

Adriatic Metals (\Adriatic\) (ASX.ADT) is an Australian company with a number of complex base metal  precious metal deposits in Bosnia Herzegovina.? The company was listed on the Australian stock exchange in May 2018 and its price has since risen spectacularly from?A$0.20 to peak at A$0.585 on 29 June 2018.? On that day it announced a parallel listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (under the code FSE:3FN).?

According to an announcement dated 23 May 2018 the company has 82.95 million shares currently quoted and another 47.85 million shares in escrow for 18 months.? Total shares therefore amount to 130.80 million to which must be added 19.5 million share options, of which 18.5 million are currently in the money.? Fully diluted the market capitalisation is A$65.6?million at the share price on 19 October of A$0.44.? When deducting the A$5.4 million cash raised from exercising the options and the cash balance of A$8.5 million in October, the Enterprise Value on a diluted basis is A$51.7?million, or US$37 million.

The following sections will show that this valuation is very low for what the company has already proven by drilling and the prospects for additional discoveries.

3. Review of the Mineral Prospects

3.1??? Background

The information, wording and illustrations presented in this section are derived from:

A prospectus dated 27 April 2018.

Press releases with drill results dated 12 June, 22 June, 16 July, 17 July, 29 August, 28 September and 19 October 2018.

A press release dated 22 June 2018 with drill results.

The Adriatic key asset is the Vares Polymetallic Project, comprising the Veovaca and Rupice deposits, which is situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina.? The projects were acquired from Balkan Mining Pty Ltd in 2017 while Adriatic was a private company.? The project is located near the town of Vare?, which was a historic mining and industrial centre with infrastructure including sealed roads, grid (coal / hydro) power, heavy duty rail and blast furnaces.? Figure?3.1_1 extracted from the prospectus shows a map putting the two deposits into a regional context.

The above map also identifies the mineral rights areas secured by Adriatic, which cover the two deposits proper, and the numerous other targets, their names identified in green.? The concessions acquired through the acquisition of a bankrupt entity are of very limited size: 83?hectares (?ha?) at Rupice and 191 ha at Veovaca.

Geologically the deposits are situated in a block of ground that has been thrust on top of much younger rocks.? Polymetallic mineralisation is predominately hosted in the matrix of a polymictic breccia of banded shale, siltstone or sandstone clasts, both overlain and underlain by a succession of sandstone, siltstone, shale or limestone.? The mineralisation seems to be semi-comfortable with the lithology.?

The technical report postulates that the mineral field is of the Besshi-style type, which implies that the metals are of sedimentary exhalative origin.? Figure 3.1_3 from the Adriatic Metals prospectus shows schematically the setting for Besshi-type deposits.

Getting a handle on what specific type of deposits Adriatic is dealing with has implications for regional prospecting.? For example, Besshi-type deposits form in clusters along stratigraphic horizons and can be restricted in aerial extent.? This means that there could be many more Rupice and Veovaca type deposits at the same stratigraphic level in the project area.

3.2??? The Rupice Deposit

The Rupice deposit is known from exploration activities, which commenced in 1952 and continued intermittently until 1990, initially focusing on barite (= the mineral with chemical formula BaSO4) mineralisation and later on the polymetallic mineralisation.? The change is understandable in the light of very high BaSO4 grades at shallow levels with low base metal values, but with deeper drilling encountering much higher base metal and precious metal values.? Mineralisation at Rupice, and Jurasevac-Brestic almost one kilometre to the southeast, have induced polarisation (?IP?) geophysical anomalies associated with them (see Figure?3.2_1, extracted from the prospectus).

Interpretation of drill results Rupice concluded that the mineralisation appears to be dominantly strata-bound and hosted within brecciated sediments in a shoot dipping approximately 50 degrees to the east.? Whereas the prospectus still suggested the shoot to plunge to the northeast, in later press releases the interpretation of the plunge direction was changed to north (see Figure?3.2_2)

The red traces show the direction of the dip and the arrows the direction of the plunge, which is due north.

Whereas drill results from June 2018 onwards have successfully tracked the plunge over considerable vertical extent all the way up to the northern concession border, successive cross section interpretations show a considerable reduction in the dimensions perpendicular to the plunge direction. As one example, figure 3.2_3 illustrates the progressive reduction in interpreted horizontal dimension of the high-grade shoot oblique to the plunge as extracted from the various press releases.

The development over time of the cross sections would have been cause for concern about the continuity of the mineralisation, but on the other hand consistent intersections along plunge of the deposit, where it is developed widest, give much comfort.? Figure 3.2_4 shows the geological interpretation along the interpreted plunge of the high-grade shoot, extracted from the October press release.

According to this interpretation the shoot plunges at 60 degrees from surface for approx. 150 m after which it abruptly levels off to 30 degrees and shows a considerable increase in dimension vertically.

This illustration also clearly shows the dramatically improving base and precious metals grades with depth whereas the BaSO4 grade remains high, but with a declining trend.

According to the 22 June news release, mineralisation in holes BR-2-18 and BR-3-18 is very visible and consists of galena (PbS), sphalerite (ZnS), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and barite.? There is no mention of tetrahedrite ({Cu,Fe}12Sb4S13), which according to the prospectus is present in minor quantities.? As tetrahedrite is a copper mineral containing some antimony, appreciable quantities of the mineral could result in penalties imposed by off-takers of the copper concentrate.

Table 3.2_1 summarises the drill results for this deeper, higher-grade portion of the shoot with the holes listed in the order from shallower to deeper down plunge.

Hole BR76-89 was drilled before Adriatic?s involvement and was not assayed for copper and precious metals.? The holes are over a plunge distance of 200 m, define the deposit over a vertical height of 55 m (see Figure 3.2_4) and in cross section at least 40 m wide (see Figure 3.2_3).? This amounts to a volume of at least 0.44?million cubic metres.?

With the high specific gravity of 4.5 for barite and at a content of BaSO4 in the middle forties an average density of at least 3.6 can be expected, especially considering the density contribution of the sulphide minerals.? The defined deeper portion of the shoot would therefore contain at least 1.58 million tonnes.

3.3??? The Veovaca Deposit

Similar to Rupice, Veovaca is a sediment-hosted deposit with mineralisation present in a brecciated zone within a folded sediment package.? This sediment package and the breccia zone appear to be steeply dipping to the northwest and plunging to the northeast.

Figure 3.3_1 shows a geological map of the immediate surroundings of the deposit and indicating interpreted potential down plunge, extracted from the prospectus.

According to the technical report in the prospectus 19 holes at the Orti prospect over an area of 500 m x 150 m indicated potential for resources there grading 1.2%-1.4% Pb, 1.7%-2.1% Zn and 21%-26% BaSO4.

Figure 3.3_2, also extracted from the prospectus, shows a longitudinal section along trace X-X? on Figure 3.3_1 to illustrate the deposit outline and potential at depth and down plunge.

On the longitudinal section are also indicated due diligence boreholes drilled by Adriatic in 2017.? Table 3.3_1 summarises the results of these holes over a strike length of 100 m listed in sequence from west to east.? The deeper holes further east, with spotty intersections, have been ignored.?

The results are attractive for an open pittable deposit with low strip ratio, but the holes were clearly sited along a favourable drill fence in the centre of the deposit as the grades for many of the other 11 holes are clearly lower.? This is also evident from the average grades of a resource estimation carried out by CSA Global in February 2018 based on 48 historical drill holes and the 16 drill holes drilled in 2017 by Adriatic, some of which twinned historical holes.

According to CSA Global, the combined drillhole density of approximately 30 m x 30 m closing in places to 20 m x 20 m, provided sufficient data points to model the polymetallic (lead, zinc, silver, gold and barite) lenses over a strike length of approximately 550 m, and the silver and gold over 250 m of the 550 m strike.?

Mineral Resources were reported using cut-off grade of 0.5% ZnEq, and separately for the deposit area where gold and silver assays were taken and used, and outside of the area where there are no assays for gold and silver (see Figure 3.3_3, extracted from the prospectus, for relative location of the two resources).

Table 3.3_2 gives the resources reported as of Indicated category confidence level, ignoring 2.6?million tonnes Inferred resources, because these have grades that will unlikely be economical.? The cut-off grade of 0.5% ZnEq is probably too low given the low net payability of zinc, which is usually between 50% and 60%, which converts the 0.5% threshold to approx. US$15/t.?

4. Economic Potential

4.1??? Introduction

The projects are still at a very early stage and no economical value can be ?calculated?, but at best estimated using broad-brush assumptions.? This section will apply such to the estimated deposit sizes to give an indication what can safely be assumed as established to place the current Enterprise Value in perspective and the sensitivity of the deposit values to success in extending their dimensions.

The assumptions have been purposefully kept conservative.? For example, according to the technical report all elements at Veovaca had a historical recovery of 90%.? Given the low grades for Pb and Zn and the absence of numbers presented (elsewhere in the prospectus it is mentioned that there are no historical production statistics), much lower recoveries have been assumed.? The net gold payability reflects the relatively low gold grade, which can be expected for the Cu-concentrate.

The spot price for BaSO4 is not generally available and reference was made to press release of Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd dated 18 April 2018, which states ?barite is currently selling from US$120 to US$180 per ton depending on the location?. ?It should be noted that low grade barite concentrate that is used as an additive to oil drilling mud has certain maximum criteria for mercury (i.e. 1 ppm), cadmium (3 ppm) and lead (1,000 ppm) content.? Given the association of the barite with lead mineralisation, it still has to be proven that lead minerals can be sufficiently separated to yield a marketable product.? However, the Veovaca mine has reportedly sold BaSO4 when in operation.

4.2??? The Potential of the Rupice Deposit

The approach to gauge the potential of the Rupice Deposit is to calculate the at-mine value of the material that has until now been delineated.? Table 4.2_1 gives the derivation of this.

The calculation above indicates that the value of the deeper higher-grade portion of Rupice is US$332/t, assuming that the barite can be concentrated to a marketable product.? Zinc, silver and lead are the products of most economical interest, accounting for more than 62% of the total value.

Even without barite the calculated value amounts to US$283/t.?

Based on the minimum amount of 1.58 million tonnes in the deeper, higher-grade portion of the shoot, as derived at the end of Section 3.2, prospective at-mine revenue is US$525?million with barite as a saleable product and US$448 million without.? This revenue would be earned at a very high cash operating profit margin, because the deposit would lend itself for bulk underground mining and total cost per tonne treated would probably be lower than US$100/t ? US$125/t, with the higher number accounting for very complex metallurgical processing.? If applicable the cash margin would therefore be US$290 million (without barite sales) and US$370 million (with barite sales).

The above values are for the dimensions 200 m plunge direction, 40 m width and 55 m height. ?It is unlikely that further drilling will affect the height much, but width and especially plunge length can be extended from additional drill results.? Each 50 m additional plunge extent would increase the cash margin by US$90 million (incl. barite sales), of US$70 million (without barite sales).

In conclusion, only little exploration success from what is currently known will have a dramatic impact on the value of Rupice.

4.3??? The Potential of the Veovaca Deposit

The approach to gauge the potential of the Veovaca Deposit is similar to that for the Rupice Deposit.? Table 4.3_1 gives the derivation of this.

To also arrive at a more realistic value for the Indicated Resources that were reported without precious metal grades the average silver grade was estimated based on the relative lead grades, as the silver is most probably included in the mineral galena (PbS).? The gold grades has been ignored as it may well be associated with pyrite (FeS2) and therefore of no value.

The table shows that the at-mine value per tonne of Veovaca resources is US$56 assuming that barite concentrates can be sold.? It would be only US$38/t without barite as a marketable product.? For an open pit operation a value of US$56/t is attractive.? Unfortunately no information is available about the prospective strip ratio associated with the resources.? As long as the strip ratio is below 4.3 the cash operating profit margin will be 50% or more, assuming mining cost of US$3/t, processing cost of US$15/t and G&A cost of US$5/t treated.

Given the illustrations in Section 3.2.3 it seems highly likely that the strip ratio is moderate.? Therefore, assuming barite can be concentrated to a marketable product, the at-mine revenue of the Indicated Resources at current prices would be approx. US$260 million and generate operating cash of US$130 million.?

Should it not be possible to sell barite the Veovaca deposit has no to little value.

5. Upsides and Risks

5.1??? Upsides

In addition to adding to the delineated Rupice and Veovaca deposits there are a number of other upsides, being:

-?Proving up the high-grade Rupice shoot down plunge after obtaining expansion of the concession, which has been approved by the municipal authority and the Ministry of Mining, subject to a public review process, which is expected completed in November 2018. Figure 5.1_1, extracted from the October 2018 corporate presentation, shows the proposed new concession area.

-??The above assumptions have erred on the conservative and ignored any value for the shallower portion of the Rupice deposit which has very high BaSO4 grades and grades for Pb and Zn in percentages and material precious metal credits.

-?The numerous other targets, shown in Figure 3.1_2, along the same stratigraphic horizon as Rupice and Veovaca and with historical exploration results showing Pb-Zn mineralisation.? In particular Bresic-Jurasevic at close proximity to Rupice is of interest with Adriatic having sampled dumps there, assaying high base metal and precious metal values.

-?Given the substantial BaSO4 content and grades Adriatic may well explore a processing route to concentrate the mineral to a high grade (i.e. +98%) instead to a product for drilling grade barite which must have a density above 4.1 (therefore >78% BaSO4), and selling at prices that are a multiple of the product price assumed in the above estimations.

5.2??? Risks

The main risk associated to the value of Adriatic are:

-?The lack of information on the metallurgical performance of the mineralisation.? Whereas polymetallic deposit can be of very high grade such as indicated at Rupice, they are usually also metallurgically complex with relatively low recoveries and deleterious elements that find their way in concentrates resulting in penalties.? One of the obvious?metallurgical risks is inability to keep mercury, cadmium and lead contents in barite concentrate below maximum thresholds for marketing purposes.

 The high-grade plunge may well be off-set by a major fault just north of the current concession border.

-?Any application for adjacent areas and other new mineral rights is complex, requires involvement of many stakeholders and is uncertain to be granted.?? Mineral rights are regulated at all legislative levels, at national government level and the level of 10 Cantons composing Bosnia Herzegovina.? The project area falls in the Zenica-Doboj Canton.

This ends the full analysis of Adriatic Metals by Kees Dekker. If you have an interest in contacting Kees Dekker, this is possible through using the contact form on my website www.criticalinvestor.eu. Stay tuned for more analysis by Kees coming soon.

I hope you will find this article interesting and useful, and will have further interest in my upcoming articles on mining. To never miss a thing, please subscribe to my free newsletter on my website www.criticalinvestor.eu, in order to get an email notice of my new articles soon after they are published.

Disclaimer:

The author is not a registered investment advisor, and currently has a long position in Adriatic Metals. Kees Dekker is also not a registered investment advisor, and currently has a long position in Adriatic Metals as well. All facts are to be checked by the reader. For more information go to the websites of the mentioned companies and read the available company information and?official documents on?www.sedar.com, also?for important risk disclosures. This article is provided for information purposes only, and is not intended to be investment advice of any kind, and all readers are encouraged to do their own due diligence, and talk to their own licensed investment advisors prior to making any investment decisions. ?

?
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Why face recognition as a credential is the ideal choice for access control?

In the field of access control, face recognition has come a long way. Once considered too slow to authenticate people's identities and credentials in high traffic conditions, face recognition technology has evolved to become one of the quickest, most effective access control identity authentication solutions across all industries. Advancements in artificial intelligence and advanced neural network (ANN) technology from industry leaders like Intel have improved the accuracy and efficiency of face recognition. However, another reason the technology is gaining traction is due to the swiftly rising demand for touchless access control solutions that can help mitigate the spread of disease in public spaces. Effective for high volumes Face recognition eliminates security risks and is also virtually impossible to counterfeit Modern face recognition technology meets all the criteria for becoming the go-to solution for frictionless access control. It provides an accurate, non-invasive means of authenticating people's identities in high-traffic areas, including multi-tenant office buildings, industrial sites, and factories where multiple shifts per day are common. Typical electronic access control systems rely on people providing physical credentials, such as proximity cards, key fobs, or Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, all of which can be misplaced, lost, or stolen. Face recognition eliminates these security risks and is also virtually impossible to counterfeit. Affordable biometric option Although there are other biometric tools available, face recognition offers significant advantages. Some technologies use hand geometry or iris scans, for example, but these options are generally slower and more expensive. This makes face recognition a natural application for day-to-day access control activities, including chronicling time and attendance for large workforces at construction sites, warehouses, and agricultural and mining operations. In addition to verifying personal credentials, face recognition can also identify whether an individual is wearing a facial covering in compliance with government or corporate mandates regarding health safety protocols. Beyond securing physical locations, face recognition can also be used to manage access to computers, as well as specialised equipment and devices. Overcoming challenges with AI So how did face recognition become so reliable when the technology was once dogged by many challenges, including difficulties with camera angles, certain types of facial expressions, and diverse lighting conditions? Thanks to the emergence of so-called "convolutional" neural network-based algorithms, engineers have been able to overcome these roadblocks. SecurOS FaceX face recognition solution FaceX is powered by neural networks and machine learning which makes it capable of authenticating a wide range of faces One joint effort between New Jersey-based Intelligent Security Systems (ISS) and tech giant Intel has created the SecurOS FaceX face recognition solution. FaceX is powered by neural networks and machine learning which makes it capable of authenticating a wide range of faces and facial expressions, including those captured under changing light, at different resolution levels, and varying distances from the video camera. Secure video management system A common face recognition system deployment begins with IP video cameras that feed footage into a secure video management system connected to a video archive. When the software initially enrolls a persons face, it creates a "digital descriptor" that is stored as a numeric code that will forever be associated with one identity. 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Increased speed of entry Incorporating facial recognition into existing access control systems is straightforward and cost-effective Incorporating facial recognition into existing access control systems is straightforward and cost-effective. Systems can operate with off-the-shelf security cameras and computers. Users can also leverage existing infrastructure to maintain building aesthetics. A face recognition system can complete the process of detection and recognition in an instant, opening a door or turnstile in less than 500ms. Such efficiency can eliminate hours associated with security personnel checking and managing credentials manually. A vital tool Modern face recognition solutions are infinitely scalable to accommodate global enterprises. As a result, face recognition as a credential is increasingly being implemented for a wide range of applications that transcend traditional access control and physical security to include health safety and workforce management. All these capabilities make face recognition a natural, frictionless solution for managing access control, both in terms of performance and cost.
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The discovery of wobbling "hotspots" circling the drain of a massive black hole offers exciting new evidence for the behemoth that lies at our galaxy's center  and the astronomer who first worked on this theory shares how 13 years of observations have finally paid off.

The new study, involving the work of by Avery Broderick, an astronomer from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, revealed three flares, or visual hotspots, emanating from the Milky Way's central black hole, also known as Sagittarius A*.

The team detected a wobble of emissions coming from the flares, allowing the scientists to detect the accretion disk  a growing mass of orbiting gas and debris  surrounding the black hole itself. In turn, the researchers were able to use the emissions to map the behavior of Sagittarius A*, Broderick told Space.com. [Images: Black Holes of the Universe]

Broderick's black hole theory built on earlier research by two teams that studied the galactic center of the Milky Way in near-infrared. This included the work of Reinhard Genzel, an astronomer from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, as well as researchers Andrea Ghez and Mark Morris of University of California, Los Angeles. At the time, their work revealed that the center of the Milky Way wasn't steady, but instead would drastically brighten about once a day for about 30 or 40 minutes, Broderick said.

Researchers think supermassive black holes exist at the center of most, if not all, large galaxies. Therefore, in 2005, while working alongside researcher Avi Loeb at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Broderick argued that a periodic brightening observed at the heart of the Milky Way, also known as a bright infrared flare, was the result of an incredibly massive object such as a black hole.

This theory was further supported by evidence of a very bright, dense group of stars called a nuclear star cluster that surrounds the central region of the Milky Way. In addition, infrared observations showed that the stars at the very center of the galaxy orbit a dark object estimated to be 4 million solar masses in size, again suggesting the presence of a black hole, Broderick said.

Even still, there was not enough data to prove that a black hole truly exists at the center of the Milky Way, Broderick added  until now.

Sudden flare behavior

The three flares recently detected emanate from the central region of the Milky Way and are the product of gravitational lensing by the black hole, Broderick said.

"The black hole acts like the lens of a lighthouse. [There is] a localized emission region, but it's not the sudden brightening of the emission region itself that causes the flare," Broderick said. Rather, the gravity of the black hole bends the light from the emission and magnifies it for us to see. "That's what's responsible for the flaring  the manifestation of extreme gravity."

Based on this, Broderick and Loeb originally predicted that objects embedded in the accretion disk surrounding Sagittarius A* would exhibit a distinct wobble in their infrared emissions due to their orbital motion around the black hole. The researchers published their theory in a 2005 paper, as well as a 2006 follow-up study. However, at the time, the technology was not yet available to detect such a wobble, Broderick said.

That all changed with the launch of the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in 2016. The precision and sensitivity of the GRAVITY instrument helped astronomers detect a wobble in emissions coming from the three flares in the accretion disk circling Sagittarius A*. Their findings were published Oct. 18 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"While flares have been seen for a long time now  the key finding here is the characteristic wobble of the flares," which indicates that the material producing these flares is moving around a black hole, Broderick said.

The flares observed near Sagittarius A* occur when magnetic field lines close to the black hole break apart and reconnect. This process, also known as magnetic reconnection, releases large amounts of energy and charged particles, causing the telltale shine. The infrared emissions from the flares exhibit a characteristic wobble due to their orbital motion around the black hole. Specifically, as other emissions embedded in the accretion flow move around the galactic center, the center of light shifts, or "wobbles," Broderick said.

The material circling just outside the black hole's event horizon whirls at roughly a third of the speed of light. The orbital period of the flare  the time it takes to complete one orbit  is the same as that of the wobble, which astronomers observed once every 40 to 50 minutes. The short time scale is a result of the strength of gravity from the black hole and suggests that the material is orbiting incredibly close to the black hole, Broderick said.

"Thirteen years ago, our statement was that these flares were associated with the structural variability [of the galactic center] and that we were going to be able to use that structural variability to say something about general relativity and strong gravity," Broderick said. "The exciting thing is, that [statement] appears to be true."

Proving there's a black hole

The wobble of emissions coming from the flares is not the only sign suggesting that a supermassive black hole lies at the heart of the Milky Way. There's no doubt that a supermassive object with a mass about 4 million times that of the sun is located at our galactic core, but proving that it's a black hole has been challenging.

However, the center of the galaxy is also home to a nuclear star cluster comprising more than 500,000 stars. Based on Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, astronomers are able to estimate the mass of the object lurking at the center of the Milky Way by measuring the speed of the orbiting stars and gas. This further supports the idea that the 4-million-solar-mass object is a supermassive black hole, Broderick said.

"There is no other object that we know of that could sustain all of that mass in such a compact configuration and not collapse," Broderick said. "If not a black hole, then it would have to be something extraordinarily exotic and outside the realm of what we understand today."

Furthermore, observations have revealed that material really does disappear from our galactic center. As this material is drawn inward toward that center, it gets trapped in the black holes growing accretion disk. While most matter in the accretion disk orbits safely around Sagittarius A*, material that gets too close risks being drawn past the event horizon, the point beyond which it can't escape the black hole's gravitational pull. Researchers can see friction created by the material flowing toward the event horizon causing that material to brighten, Broderick said.

"It becomes this sort of 'where did it go?' argument," Broderick said. "We have this material that we know is falling in towards a black hole, because we see its accretion luminosity, but we don't see the corresponding impact luminosity. Therefore, it must be disappearing somewhere."

The presence of an event horizon beyond which lies a black hole is therefore the most logical explanation for the behavior observed at our galactic center, Broderick said.

"It's extremely exciting on a personal level to see a prediction actually pan out," Broderick said. "I think this marks a moment in the history of science, where black holes are going from something of curiosity to something that is fundamentally real."

Editor's note: This story has been corrected from an earlier version that referenced Avery Broderick as the lead author of the new study. The new study was led by astronomers with the GRAVITY Collaboration and further supports the theory originally developed by Broderick in 2005.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Space Tango is developing St-42, an autonomous microgravity manufacturing facility designed to operate in low Earth orbit and reenter Earth's atmosphere.

SAN FRANCISCO  Space Tango, a Kentucky startup focused on research and manufacturing in microgravity, announced plans Nov. 15 to launch in the mid-2020s an autonomous in-orbit manufacturing facility.

The facility, called ST-42, will be a free-flying spacecraft sent into low Earth orbit with robotic systems onboard to produce advanced materials, biomedical devices and other high-value products. ST-42 is likely to remain in orbit ten to 30 days and possibly longer before reentering the atmosphere, Twyman Clements, Space Tango president and chief executive, told SpaceNews.

Space Tango currently conducts research, development and pilot manufacturing in TangoLab-1 and Tango-Lab-2, general research facilities housed in lockers in the International Space Station's U.S. national laboratory. To date, Space Tango has sent into orbit 53 payloads with a total of 88 experiments for a variety of customers including Budweiser, The Quest Institute for Quality Education and Airbus Defense and Space. [Astronauts' Amazing Space Station Views For 20th Anniversary (Gallery)]

ST-42 is "a logical extension of the work Space Tango is doing on ISS now," Clements said. "We are doing research, taking research into pilot manufacturing and finding areas where raw materials go up, microgravity is a value-add and finished products of significant value come down."

Clements declined to comment on the cost of ST-42 but said the firm's calculations show it is economically feasible to build and launch because it will not require docking mechanisms or the environmental control systems like capsules designed to carry people. Space Tango has not raised money for ST-42, Clements added, but is raising money for its current activities and earning revenue from its ongoing work.

"We are announcing this so our customers and the broader industry can see there's an endpoint to the work we are doing," Clements said. "We seek to partner with investors and other groups to fund this investment."

Space Tango plans to build multiple versions of ST-42 with a consistent exterior design and interiors adapted for specific applications. The capsule's diameter will be roughly 2.1 to 2.4 meters, Clements said.

"In material science, where we need less ancillary equipment, we want to build something to maximize mass up and back," Clements said. In contrast, biomedical platforms will require different interior configurations and equipment, he added.

Companies are likely to produce fiber-optics, carbon nanotubes and silicon wafers in ST-42, Clements said. Biomedical applications include retinal implants. Space Tango is working with LambdaVision, a Farmington, Connecticut, company preparing to test whether it can produce the implants, which may restore vision, in microgravity.

Space Tango is a spinoff of Kentucky Space, a nonprofit consortium universities and public and private organizations based in Lexington. In October, Space Tango formed a subsidiary focused on the plant biology and properties of hemp.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
WASHINGTON  As NASA starts to build up details about its plans to return humans to the moon, the agency is studying concepts for "human-class" lunar landers that would involve three-stage vehicles whose individual components could be flown on a range of launch vehicles.

At a pair of meetings last week, agency officials said their examination of concepts for crewed lunar landers, still in their earliest stages, is part of three "swim lanes" for lunar landers that include small commercial and mid-sized science landers.

In a presentation at a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) Nov. 14 in Columbia, Maryland, Jason Crusan, head of NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems division, said that NASA is reviewing past studies to determine the best approach for designing those human-class landers.

While Lockheed Martin unveiled this concept for a single-stage lunar lander in October, NASA officials say they're leaning towards three-stage options whose individual components are small enough to be carried on a range of launch vehicles. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin)

"There are many different ways you can look at architectures for landings: single-stage, two-stage and three-stage landing options," he said. The agency has been looking at past in-house studies of those architectures dating back decades, he said, along with outside reports prepared in the past.

The drawback with the single-stage approach, he said, is the mass of the spacecraft, which would exceed 50 metric tons. "They're actually in excess of what our SLS is capable of," he said.

A two-stage approach, with an ascent module and descent stage, is more feasible, he said. However, the large mass of the descent stage, which he estimated to be between 32 and 38 metric tons, would be too large to be carried on commercial launch vehicles anticipated to be available in the next decade.

A three-stage approach involves the addition of a transfer stage, or tug, along with the ascent and descent modules. The transfer stage would move the lander stages from the Gateway to a lower orbit, reducing the amount of fuel they have to carry and thus making them smaller.

"What's interesting about this is that your per-element mass drops to 12 to 15 metric tons," Crusan said. "This fits on a number of launch vehicles." Those stages could also be co-manifested on SLS missions, while enabling more international partnership opportunities.

"We've been studying these different implementation approaches, and are learning closer to the three-stage option," he said. A synopsis for lander studies, issued in the summer then put on hold, will be reopened near the end of the year to solicit industry proposals for lander architecture studies.

That approach runs counter to some industry concepts. In October, Lockheed Martin released its concept for a human-class lander that would be a large single-stage vehicle. That spacecraft would weigh 62 metric tons when fully fueled, but only 22 tons empty. Lockheed proposed fueling the lander at a fuel depot located in the vicinity of the Gateway, with the ability to eventually make use of propellants obtained from lunar ice.

The work on human-class landers will be supported under a new budget line called Advanced Cislunar and Surface Capabilities included in the fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, which sought $116.5 million for the program. Congress has yet to pass a final fiscal year 2019 appropriations bill for NASA. Crusan said that NASA hopes to be able to test the descent stage of that human-class lander as a standalone robotic mission by 2024.

Tom Cremins, NASA associate administrator for strategy and plans, offered a similar assessment during a Nov. 15 meeting of the National Space Council's Users' Advisory Group at NASA Headquarters. "One SLS is not going to be able to get you to the moon," he said, noting the limited co-manifested payload capacity of the Block 1B version of the SLS. Taking advantage of commercial vehicles, and operating from the Gateway in its near-rectilinear halo orbit, "offers a lot of advantages for our initial approach for going to the moon."

That three-stage approach, he said, spreads out the cost of lander development and allows NASA to "lean in hard with the commercial sector" on the descent stage in particular. "We can focus more on the ascent element" and its human-rating requirements, he said. Both the ascent and transfer stages could be designed to be reused.

That approach, he emphasized, is based on funding the agency receives in 2019 and beyond. "This is all budget dependent," he said. "This is notional planning."

That human-class lander work is one of three parallel strategies by NASA for getting to the surface of the moon. At the small end of payload capacity is the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, where NASA will buy payload space on commercial lunar landers under development.

NASA is evaluating CLPS proposals submitted last month. "We're on track to award by the end of this year," said Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, at the LEAG meeting Nov. 14. Cremins, at the Users' Advisory Group meeting, suggested that announcements could come by the end of November.

In between CLPS and the human-class lander is a "mid-sized" lander for science missions capable of placing 300 to 500 kilograms on the lunar surface. Those landers, Clarke said, would have additional capabilities, such as direct-to-Earth communications, a lifetime on the surface of months and the ability to deliver, and later recharge, small rovers.

NASA's plans call for the first such mid-sized lander to fly in 2022. "We're in the process of looking at all the various trade options that we have as we build up this strategy," he said. That could include "onramps" to the CLPS program to make use of future, more capable commercial landers. "I hope to be able to take more about this as we develop this and narrow down some of the trade spaces."

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Artist's illustration of the payloads launched during the upcoming SSO-A mission separating from their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Space-junk experts are raising a red flag about the upcoming launch of more than 60 small satellites atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission, dubbed SSO-A: SmallSat Express, was scheduled to launch Monday (Nov. 19) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but SpaceX pushed it back to perform additional inspections of the rocket. No new launch date has been set.

SSO-A: SmallSat Express will be the largest rideshare mission from a U.S.-based launch vehicle, with 25 percent of the customers launching for the first time. [See the Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures]

Mission management provider Spaceflight has contracted with more than 60 spacecraft from approximately 35 different organizations. Spaceflight is a service offering of Spaceflight Industries, based in Seattle.

The satellites are to be dispersed by SHERPA platforms, free-flying secondary payload dispensers.

Space debris on release

"What they [Spaceflight] haven't shared is how these 70+ satellites are going to be deployed," said T.S. Kelso of CelesTrak, an analytical group that keeps an eye on Earth-orbiting objects. (Note: A Spaceflight press release from August stated that 71 satellites would be aboard the launch, but the company's website currently says the number is "64+.")

"I checked with one of the operators  trying to get a head start on how we're going to ID all of these and learned that the two SHERPA platforms are going to be released from the Falcon 9 with no attitude control or attitude determination."

Kelso's bottom line: "I think this is not only irresponsible from a safety-of-flight perspective, but it jeopardizes the time and resources of many of the small operators who may never even hear from their satellites," he told Inside Outer Space.

Kelso's guess is that about one-third of the satellites to be deployed will basically be space debris on release and there will be difficulties in sorting out this kind of mess.

Be prepared for chaos

Kelso spoke extensively with the U.S. Air Force's 18th Space Control Squadron team last week, at the Space Situational Awareness Operators' Workshop in Denver. The 18th Space Control Squadron, which is based at Vandenberg, detects, tracks, and identifies all artificial objects in Earth orbit.

"They have next to nothing useful from Spaceflight for the SSO-A launch on Monday. This is totally irresponsible. Be prepared for chaos," Kelso tweeted on Friday (Nov. 16).

I reached out to Spaceflight for comment for my previous article about this launch, "Cluttering Space: Upcoming Launch Red Flagged." In response to that query, Spaceflight spokeswoman Christine Melby said via email: "Thank you for reaching out. At this time we do not have a comment on this article."

The patch for the SSO-A mission, which will launch more than 60 small satellites atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (Image credit: Spaceflight)

Space squadron

Meanwhile, the 18th Space Control Squadron at Vandenberg recently tweeted: "Check out the SSO-A launch on Monday at #Vandenberg AFB w/ 64+ spacecraft! We're working closely with all O/Os [owner/operators] to track & catalog the objects ASAP. Thanks to all O/Os for their cooperation, transparency & support for #spaceflightsafety."

But some other experts remained concerned.

"CSpOC [the Combined Space Operations Center] has developed a set of recommendations for optimal cubesat operations, including launch deployment and identifications," said Jer-Chyi Liou, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris in the Orbital Debris Program Office at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"It appears that the recommendations were not taken seriously by the SSO-A developers," Liou told Inside Outer Space.

Those recommendations were based on the proliferation of cubesats and associated technology that pose unique tracking and identification challenges. You can read the recommendations here.

Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.
NASA plans to launch an intensive safety review of SpaceX and Boeing, the two private American companies contracted to fly agency astronauts to and from the International Space Station, The Washington Post reported today (Nov. 20).

The review, which is expected to begin next year and take months to complete, was spurred largely by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk's behavior on comedian Joe Rogan's podcast in September, three unnamed officials told The Washington Post's Christian Davenport.

Musk sipped whiskey and took a puff of marijuana during his 2.5-hour appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, which was webcast live.

Marijuana use is legal in California, where the podcast was recorded. Regardless, Musk's actions "rankled some at NASAs highest levels and prompted the agency to take a close look at the culture of the companies, the people said," Davenport wrote.

"If I see something thats inappropriate, the key concern to me is what is the culture that led to that inappropriateness and is NASA involved in that, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Davenport. "As an agency, were not just leading ourselves, but our contractors as well. We need to show the American public that when we put an astronaut on a rocket, theyll be safe."

Both SpaceX and Boeing plan to launch the first crewed flights of their astronaut taxis  known as Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner, respectively  next year. The imminence of these big milestones helped prompt the upcoming probe, Bridenstine said.

The NASA chief stressed that he "has a lot of confidence in the SpaceX team." But he also told Davenport that "culture and leadership start at the top. Anything that would result in some questioning the culture of safety, we need to fix immediately."

There are many more details in The Washington Post story. Read the whole thing here.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate) is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
The supercomputer HAL 9000 in the science-fiction masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey" is best remembered for the chilling way it killed astronauts. Now, scientists are working on a HAL-like artificial intelligence to help astronauts without murdering them, and their prototype successfully controlled a simulated planetary base for hours.

In "2001: A Space Odyssey," HAL 9000 is the artificial intelligence controlling the nuclear-powered Discovery One spaceship. In the novel by science-fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke written alongside the film, HAL is described as capable of talking with astronauts "in the perfect idiomatic English he had learned during the fleeting weeks of his electronic childhood."

Artificial intelligence researcher Pete Bonasso at TRACLabs Inc. in Webster, Texas, first saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" in his senior year at West Point, where he programmed the academy's lone computer to play a virtual version of pool. [Best Space Movies in the Universe]

"When I saw '2001,' I knew I had to make the computer into another being, a being like HAL 9000," he recalled in a study appearing online today (Nov. 21) in the journal Science Robotics.

The artificial intelligence software that Bonasso and his colleagues have now designed, dubbed the "cognitive architecture for space agents," or CASE, is composed of three key layers. The first is a continuously running control layer that connects to and runs hardware such as robotic hands and eyes. Specifically, CASE controls a simulation of a planetary base.

The second layer carries out procedures underlying routine activities. These include connecting power to batteries, controlling oxygen-generation and carbon-dioxide-removal systems, and charging and sending rovers to retrieve samples of planetary rock.

The final layer consists of automatic planning software that decides how to achieve CASE's programmed goals for the day and the order in which to perform them. It can also automatically reschedule activities when problems arise, such as gas leaks, broken motors or planetary dust storms, Bonasso said.

All three layers are linked to an ontology server  a rigorous, exhaustive database that can reason about its data. For example, if someone moves a toolbox from the equipment locker to the crew quarters, the ontology server reasons that all of the tools in the box will change location as well, the researchers said.

The software can visually display information such as those regarding life support and robot status, but can also converse with people so they can ask questions, send commands and be warned about any impending problems. To prevent a situation like one where HAL betrayed its astronauts, CASE is designed to carry out plans only after sharing them with people and getting consent for action.

"Our colleagues and NASA counterparts are not concerned that our HAL might get out of control," Bonasso told Space.com. "That's because it can't do anything it's not programmed to do."

In experiments, CASE managed a simulated planetary base for about 4 hours. However, the researchers stressed more work is needed before it can run an actual base.

Moreover, "though CASE is impressive, it's not the fully realized HAL from '2001: A Space Odyssey,' nor is it Lt. Commander Data from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,'" Bonasso said. "Its capability is very narrow, focused on events occurring on a planetary base. While it can keep the life support systems running, it has no idea who won the last presidential election."

The scientists are now working with what NASA calls analogs  places where volunteers pretend they are living on a distant world. In the long term, the aim is to incorporate CASE into the analogs to see how the software can help improve future space expeditions.

Sometimes Bonasso loses track of how this work aims to create a real-life version of HAL for distant astronauts.

"When you're deep in the workings of software, you forget sometimes that you're actually imagining what it would be like to live on Mars or the moon," Bonasso said. "Sometimes we have to step back and say, 'Hey! This is pretty cool.'"

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
STAMFORD  The Academy of Information Technology & Engineering will host Out of the Box Festival of Arts & Science, on Tuesday, November 27, 2018, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The goals of the festival are to build awareness about math in our community, specifically with students and their families, and to illustrate in an entertaining way, how math is inherent in everyday life.

Current AITE students and prospective middle school students from across the district are invited to attend the event, which will feature interactive games, activities and challenges; as well as food trucks, theater, music and more.
(Officers) feel like their lives are in danger, Price said. Ive been told that some cells are being held closed with handcuffs and multiple cells still do not lock, and the womans lockup has a plumbing issue. So I dont know what all (repairs) they did, but the main thing is to keep a prisoner secure and thats not being done, obviously.
While a majority of people sleeping in Connecticut homeless shelters are from the states struggling cities, people from the wealthiest towns tend to spend more time in shelters when they do end up there.

This is just one of the conclusions that can be drawn from an examination of data compiled by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness.

The state has made progress reducing the homeless population in recent years. Connecticut experienced one of the largest 11-year decreases in unsheltered homeless counts, 38 percent from 2007 to 2017, according to an October report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Connecticut has also eliminated very specific types of homelessness, such as chronic veteran homelessness, while hotlines for people who call 2-1-1 for immediate access to shelters are now operating 24-7 for most of Connecticut.

Still, homelessness remains a problem that touches every community.

More than 8,000 people from the states poor cities and wealthy suburbs spent at least a night in a Connecticut homeless shelter last year. That included more than 1,500 children.

The decline in that count is tied to a decline in the number of beds available in shelters, according to the coalition.

The number of people entering shelters over a given year is just one measure of homelessness and housing instability. There are also official point-in-time counts, conducted nationwide in late January, that include unsheltered and sheltered homeless people, and theres research not limited to homelessness that shows more than half a million Connecticut households earning above poverty wages struggle to cover basic expenses, of which housing is a large portion.

While shelters only represent part of the picture, a wealth of data on people in shelters, called the Homeless Management Information System offers a fair amount of insight about that population. The coalition runs the federally mandated information system, which provides data about each individual that spends time in most shelters. Some shelters, like those for fleeing domestic violence, are not part of the information system.

Heres what the Mirror found while examining three years of data from the system, covering 2015 through 2017.

1. Most come from just a few cities

Connecticut has a lot of concentrated wealth and poverty, and homelessness is no different.

In order, Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury accounted for half of the total number of people spending time in shelters in 2017.

Together, more than 2,000 people in shelters claimed those four cities as their last permanent residence. Thats out of 4,000 people who lived in Connecticut and for which complete data were available.

A total of 83 percent of the people staying in shelters in 2017 came from just 20 cities and towns, while 17 percent came from the states remaining 149 towns or from outside of the state.

2. More come from wealthiest towns than from moderate-wealth towns

Homelessness affects the states most densely populated and poorest cities the most, but among the rest of the state, more people enter shelters from the wealthiest towns than from moderate-wealth towns.

In fact, the wealthiest 25 percent of towns accounted for almost exactly as many of the sheltering homeless as the middle 50 percent of towns over the three years examined. Thats based on the most recent town wealth ranks from the state Department of Education.

What we know is that homelessness [] is everywhere, and the cost of living in expensive towns is expensive, said Madeline Ravich a development advisor and director of the Be Homeful project for the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness.

3. Farther to travel for those from most rural towns

Most seeking shelter beds were able to stay in a shelter in the town where they most recently had a permanent address.

But for those who did travel, the average distance was about 12 miles as the crow flies.

That number masks some of the long distances people traveled from their last residence to a shelter bed. A family of four  one adult and three children  from New Haven ended up staying in a Killingly shelter last year. Thats about 85 miles.

People from less populated cities and towns had some of the longest travel times in general.

Ravich cautioned that decreasing travel time from the last residence isnt a chief priority because it would mean building more shelters, rather than preventing homelessness. Her organization would rather see people not need shelters.

Our goal isnt to build more shelters, she said, its to help people stay housed in the first place.

4. Average stay: A month and a half or more

People spent more time in shelters in 2017 compared with 2015 and 2016.

That length of stay has increased from 45 days in 2015 and 2016 to 61 in 2017  roughly increasing from about a month and a half to two months.

People from the wealthiest 25 percent of towns typically spent more time in shelters  71 days  compared with 52 and 59 days, respectively, for people from the middle 50 percent of towns and the poorest 25 percent of towns.

Ravich said it could take longer for people from towns with a higher cost of living to get back on their feet because of a lack of housing options in pricier places.

Getting back into housing in those areas could be challenging and people do want to go where their support networks are, Ravich said.

That family of four from New Haven spent 45 days in the shelter in Killingly.

5. Keeping people out of these numbers

Providing shelter is only one part of the strategy to help the homeless population. Another strategy is diverting people from entering shelters in the first place. That means using money  an average of $1,000 per family  to help avoid a more costly downward spiral, according to the coalition.

While a single stroke of bad luck can push a family over the edge into homelessness, sometimes another push can prevent it.

That has meant helping a father of three make arrangements with his landlord to stay housed after losing his job, giving him time to find new employment, the coalition said. In another case it meant helping a mother and her children stay housed when she was injured on the job and workers compensation hadnt yet kicked in.

The coalition has been raising money for this purpose. This month and through the end of December, for each $25 thats raised for diversions, a family in a shelter will receive a toy bear, a book, or a baby gift, while the donation will go directly to support these diversions.

The data shows that people are being kept out of homeless shelters at higher rates. From Nov. 1, 2017 through Oct. 31 of this year, 32 percent of people who needed emergency housing were diverted, up from 19 percent the year before.

Among families, diversion rates are higher, increasing from 39 percent to 56 percent over the same year-long period.

Accompanying graphics are available at CTMIRROR.ORG
T he West End is preparing to ramp up to full festive frenzy mode with a Black Friday weekend of price cutting that bosses hope will generate 150 million of spending.

Stores are counting on the now traditional late November round of discounts to kickstart a robust Christmas shopping season after one of the toughest years for retailers in recent memory.

Gaps Oxford Street flagship is offering half price on everything on Friday, while the first 50 customers to enter the store will receive a VIP card giving them 50 per cent off for the rest of the year.

French Connection in Oxford Street has 50 per cent off while Miss Selfridge is selling 50 different dress and jumpsuit lines at 20. At Hamleys in Regent Street a flying Angler Attack Drone is down from 70 to 35 and the Maisie and Jack My Little Supermarket Set is halved from 50 to 25.

Some West End department stores have weekend promotions but are not flagging them up as part of the Black Friday phenomenon. Liberty is holding what it calls the Event Before Christmas, which starts tomorrow and runs until Monday, with up to 20 per cent off.

Selfridges  which insists it has never participated in Black Friday  is not offering across-the-board discounts but has issued discount codes to thousands of higher-spending customers under the Christmas Comes Early banner.

Kyle Monk, head of insight at New West End Company, which represents 600 firms, said: Retailers are looking forward to the busy Christmas season.

Despite a tough year for retailers, we predict Black Friday spending in the West End will be on par with last year and a significant 150 million will be spent as visitors take advantage of special offers to help in their gift-buying.

But some experts said they were doubtful about the benefits of the pre-Christmas bargain spree. Richard Danks, head of strategy at retail consultancy Portas, said: I fundamentally dont think Black Friday is going to be the salvation of the high street.
It used to be worse. I refused to go up in there prior because it wasnt secure enough, Sims said. But now, its secure to me. I feel safe in there because he has made a plan, he has done what he was supposed to do. Hes done his due diligence to bring in security for the patrons that like to actually go in there and use it as an outlet.
I f you wished to provoke capital flight from the UK on a massive scale, you couldnt do a better job than the Tory Party. If you wanted to scare foreign investors, if you wanted to make English industrialists quake in their boots, keep British chief executives awake into the small hours, you could do worse than take lessons from a former cabinet minister  Dominic Raab, say, the last Brexit secretary, who said he had not been aware how greatly British trade relied on the Dover-Calais crossing.

Or follow his predecessor, David Davis, a man who spent a lifetime in Parliament campaigning to leave the EU. But when he was offered the job on a plate, he dropped it with a great crash, trod the mess of stew into the Downing Street carpet and ran away. The man charged by the Prime Minister to frame the UKs economic and political future had thought that his job was to strike a back door deal with Germany. He would swagger off to Berlin, round up a few bosses from Volkswagen, BMW and Siemens and offer free access for their cars and industrial goods, in exchange for a deal on everything else.

He ran off with a flea in his ear, just like the baffled Boris Johnson who could not understand why the EU had united in defence of the interests of little Ireland. He thought, like Davis and Raab, that the tiresome Irish would be put in their place. The high rollers at the table, Germany, France and the UK, would play the Great Game; the big boys would tell those time-serving Eurocrats to carve out of their Union a big slice of pie for good old Blighty. This is a man who spent years in Brussels writing silly jokes about the EU. But it seems no one told him the EU has a constitution, a basic law, a bit like America or Canada, countries we are supposed to understand well. You dont ride roughshod over the basic law to satisfy the whim of a spoilt, grizzling child. You set the constitutional wheels in motion and the bulldozer of law is applied, to devastating effect.

The scale of the incompetence demonstrated by the leadership of Britains oldest and grandest political party is breathtaking. It explains why Theresa May was at pains at the CBI this week to reassure the massed ranks of British industry. She needed to tell them that all was not entirely lost. Her agreement with chief negotiator Michel Barnier could salvage something if everyone rallied. The unspoken message was: please dont remove your business to the eurozone, please dont sell the pound.

How is it possible that the party of business, the political grouping that is closest to the requirements of capital and enterprise, the party that is supposed to believe in free markets, could get this so wrong, so miscalculate the interest of a trillion-dollar economy? How could the Tory leader find herself in a position where she must pander to xenophobes across the political spectrum and then wheedle and beg for the support of Labour MPs? The lost tribe of Blairites is both appalled by Brexit and terrified of the prospect of a government led by a Che Guevara wannabe and an economy managed by a Stalinist. Can the Labour softies be won over to her side or is it, again, too late?

Even so, as the Prime Minister schmoozed the business classes at the CBI this week, she threw a few stale scraps to nationalists in her party and in Labours northern strongholds. She would take back control and Europeans would no longer jump the queue at Britains borders.

After two years of weakening investment, adrift on Mays Raft of the Medusa, I wonder whether Britains bosses feel entirely happy about giving back control of our laws to this Government and this Parliament. For anybody who was awake in the Seventies, it is absolutely clear that the EU brought prosperity to the UK. As the doors opened to European industrial and financial power, old British businesses struggled and many failed, unable to compete. What happened to ICI, GEC and British Leyland? But the EU brought with it an avalanche of investment and in the competitive crucible of the EU, new British businesses emerged and thrived.
B usinesses were on Wednesday invited to consult on new plans to create worldwide standards to professionalise the drone industry, in a move expected to boost demand for flying technology.

The International Standards Organisation, which represents standards bodies worldwide, has proposed a number of measures.

They include that firms creating and selling drones could commit to customer and staff training, promise to respect no-fly zones, and have strict privacy and data rules in place.

Robert Garbett, chairman of the British Standards Institution committee for UK drone standards and founder of consultancy Drone Major Group, said: These standards will undoubtedly lead to a new confidence in safety, security and compliance within this dynamic industry, resulting in a massive expansion in the availability and use of drone technology in the years to come.

Companies in the industry also welcomed the plans.

Ed Leon Klinger, the boss of London start-up Flock which specialises in drone insurance, told the Evening Standard: A safer industry means fewer crashes, and fewer insurance claims. This is great for the public, businesses, and insurers alike."

Duncan Walker, managing director at Skyport which is looking to develop landing pads for goods-carrying drones, said: These emerging standards are well timed for a market that is gathering momentum.

He added: The safe integration of drones is paramount for the sector and these standards provide a benchmark for personal and commercial drone activity.
M arks & Spencer will open its first standalone cafe with help from franchise operator SSP, whose boss on Wednesday said she is leaving the business.

The High Street bellwether, which has been struggling with a slump in profits, will sell wraps, freshly made baguettes, sushi, salads, beers and wines from early next year at Birmingham airport.

If sales take off, the franchise will be replicated more widely, said Kate Swann, the outgoing chief executive of more than five years at SSP. She inked the deal with help from Simon Smith, her successor. Swann added: Simon will rule the world with this concept. Theres loads of potential for it. The relationship with M&S is very close.

SSP, which owns Upper Crust and works with the likes of Starbucks too, today posted a 24% increase in underlying pre-tax profit to 184.4 million for the year to September 30. Revenues were up 9.5% to 2.5 billion from 2.3 billion the year before.

The company, which will start opening franchises for various brands in South America for the first time, will dish out 150 million in special dividends.

Tats all, folks

The ex-WH Smith boss Kate Swann on Wednesday admitted she doesnt have any plans after she leaves SSP and said she would like to learn to be a tattoo artist.

Swann, who joined the business in September 2013, has transformed the business. She is renowned for keeping investors on her side and dishing out generous dividends. SSPs shares have rocketed during her tenure from 200p to nearly 700p today.
T he most comprehensive political crisis in decades, the potential rupture of the Union, the incremental collapse of a zombie Government, an Opposition found to be pathetically wanting, the risk of a no-deal departure from the EU that would threaten civil order itself? All that, yes, without question. But  believe it or not  there is an upside.

In content, we all know that Brexit is a fiendishly complex process. But look for a moment at the form as well. It has been the quintessential post-truth political saga: which is to say, a dramatic sequence more or less entirely governed by emotional resonance and founded on irreconcilable claims.

Since the referendum campaign of 2016 it has been routinely asserted that we can leave the EU and yet retain all or the vast majority of the advantages of membership; that we can exit safely without a deal; that we can square circles, transcend logic and have our cake and eat it.

The most notorious of all these assertions  that Brexit would yield a dividend of 350 million a week for the NHS  perfectly encapsulated the phenomenon. It was both entirely delusional and extremely effective. It spoke to a world in which feeling mattered more than fact.

I still believe that we live in such a world, and that the primacy of emotion over evidence  turbocharged by the digital revolution  is the greatest cultural challenge of our era. Nietzsches famous aphorism, There are no facts, but only interpretations, has proved horribly prophetic.

Matthew d'Ancona

It is a huge mistake to ignore the power of ideas in shaping day-to-day life. As Isaiah Berlin warned: Philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professors study could destroy a civilisation. And who, surveying the history of totalitarianism in the 20th century, could deny the force of that warning?

To return to the dilemmas of our own time: the postmodern thinkers of the Seventies and beyond (Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard and others) questioned the very notion of truth, preferring to understand the world in terms of competing narratives and social constructs. In their jargon-ridden relativism they paved the way  albeit distantly  for the alternative facts of the Trump era, in which we are invited to choose a bespoke reality, as if from a buffet.

Yet theirs, fortunately, is not the last word. Even Nietzsche conceded that there were terrible forces at work in our lives: brute realities that bear down upon us and cannot be swept aside by glib rhetoric or ingenious interpretation.

More recently the so-called New Realist school of philosophers  notably Maurizio Ferraris and the late Umberto Eco  has argued that no amount of postmodern relativism can eradicate minimal realism or certain lines of resistance.

You can argue all you like about, say, the meaning of gender, or class, or sexuality. What you cannot do  for example  is use a screwdriver to drink orange juice, or a particular textual reading to treat cancer. There is always, as Eco put it, a hard core of Being, a form of Minimal or Negative Realism according to which facts, if scarcely [they] tell me if I am right, frequently tell me that I am wrong.

What has happened in the past 10 days is that the post-truth train of Brexit has finally collided with this hard core of undeniable reality, these lines of resistance. The hitherto-hypothetical backstop proposal is now all-too-real, the stubborn kernel of trouble at the heart of the 585-page deal.

"We are being reminded, as a polity and a nation, that facts matter and that reality is not shaped by rhetoric"

The fact that the UK may have to remain indefinitely in the customs union until the Irish border issue is resolved has united Brexiteers and Remainers alike in the recognition that the status quo may be preferable to the confused mess on offer.

Theresa May, in Brussels today to seek final concessions before the EU summit this weekend, has had to confront the implacable parliamentary arithmetic that still stands in her way. Jacob Rees-Mogg and the European Research Group, meanwhile, have been forced to acknowledge that, however you look at it, 26 is fewer than 48.

It is, to coin a phrase, an omnishambles. But it is also an extremely healthy, if rather abrupt, reality check. A mighty constitutional, political and commercial process founded upon a series of phony but (to many) emotionally appealing claims about Britains future has, at last and spectacularly, hit the buffers.

Again, it is important to say that this is not some hifalutin philosophical argument. The Brexit and Trump phenomena  and the counterpart populist Right movements springing up around the world  owe much (albeit indirectly) to the postmodern notion that life is just a babel of competing interpretations. It doesnt matter what you do, or say, or claim to be. All that matters is power.

This is the governing principle of Trumps Twitter feed; it is the essence of Boris Johnsons insistence that a triumphant Brexit depends only upon will and patriotic optimism.

But what we are seeing now are the irreducible limitations of that world-view. Sooner or later there are ineradicable realities that cannot be wished away or permanently concealed from the public.

Which leads me to a provocative conclusion: which is that, for all its turbulence and perils, this upheaval may yet prove, in the long term, to be a constructive experience. We are being reminded, as a polity and a nation, of something which we were at risk of forgetting: that facts matter and that reality is not merely shaped by rhetoric.
B ritish politics went into hyper-drive over the last week, with no fewer than five gazebos popping up on College Green across from Parliament as broadcasters flocked to Westminster. It was like a really sad farmers market but with no organic sausage rolls. FYI, if someone set up a food stall, they would make a killing.

Speaking of which, there was dramatic talk of a coup but it was only talk  because those 48 letters never materialised  insert your own numbers on a bus joke  and the hardcore Conservative Brexiteers including Jacob Rees-Mogg were exposed as buffoons of the highest order.

But in their defence, we discovered an important truth about British politics  a coup is hard to do. Gordon Brown saw one off when James Purnell and Caroline Flint dramatically resigned and David Miliband backed off. There was another limp attempt by Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon on a very snowy day  at least colleagues had an excuse for cold feet. And of course, Jeremy Corbyn relished defeating Owen Smith in 2016, increased his mandate and now owns the Labour Party lock, stock and barrel.

While Theresa May still faces a major rebellion, shes out of the danger zone for now and focus has turned to Labour. Corbyn should and could be the obvious winner out of this shambles but hes in danger of fluffing it.

I applaud his Brexit strategy so far. Constructive ambiguity has proved effective. But the time has come to stop the dance of the seven veils  party members and the public are crying out for honesty about Brexit and clarity about Labours position. This should be a golden opportunity for Corbyn to step up, show leadership and create a coalition against the unfolding madness  he could win the genuine support of not just the party faithful but anxious Tories, Lib-Dems, Greens and beyond come the next general election.

Instead, we have seen that leadership come from First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, who rocked up in Westminster yesterday and held talks with opposition leaders. Remember the morning after the EU referendum, she hopped on a plane to Brussels to pitch for Scotland while Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered.

"This should be his moment to show hes a PM in waiting. Instead he missed a crucial vote about child poverty"

Its strategically dangerous for Labour if the SNP is seen to be calling the shots. Corbyn should be in charge of this vital coalition which could give the public a final say. This should be his moment to shine and show hes a Prime Minister in waiting  keen, poised and ready for action. Instead he missed an important vote on Monday night about child poverty. I know Im a Celebrity... has started but come on.

Corbyn has skilfully tapped into a nationwide sense of frustration about austerity and activated a thirst for social change. But none of the goodies hes promising can be delivered if the country is savaged by Brexit. Its time he started acting like the leader his members want and the country needs.

Im proud to take on Millicents legacy

Im a committed feminist, and by that I dont mean Ive been sectioned, although some days I feel close I advised the Labour Party on womens issues and worked on the Equality Act 2010 which led to the recent gender pay gap reporting.

So Im delighted to be joining the board of the Fawcett Society, the countrys leading charity campaigning for gender equality, along with Tory peer Baroness Jenkin. Its named after Millicent Fawcett, who began campaigning for womens votes when she was 19. The famed suffragette slogan was deeds not words, which is wise, although you could update it to deeds not hashtags in this digital age.

Big, juicy gender equality campaigns are like buses. You wait ages for one then two turn up at once. #MeToo and #TimesUp were huge moments and turned into social media movements but we must ensure that progress leaps off our smartphone screens and lands in real life. Selfies do not a revolution make.

We must focus on the practical as well as the publicity. Im delighted that Fawcett has established an Equal Pay Service, offering bespoke legal advice to women earning 30k or under. This initiative will make a real difference and was started by a generous donation from journalist Carrie Gracie, who won a landmark victory from the BBC over pay inequality. Millicent would be proud.

*Im a big fan of Michaela Coel, actress, writer and star of TV series Chewing Gum. As well as being impressed by her many artistic talents, Im mesmerised by her yoga abilities. She recently posted some clips of her intense self-practice while on a trip to LA with Netflix and I got a stitch just watching. Respect.

Michaela Coel / Dave Benett

Last weekend I lugged my gym kit to Manchester where I was doing stand-up, failed to even locate the gym and got a Burger King on the train home with a hangover. I have much to learn from this woman.
Melania Trump is no stranger to luxe outfits.

So it was no surprise that her Thanksgiving ensemble was the epitome of luxury, to say the least.

On Tuesday afternoon, the US First Lady participated in the traditional National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, alongside her husband President Trump, wearing a very eye-catching coat.

The outerwear, complete with loud geometric print, was made by Dior - one of FLOTUS's go-to designers since moving into the White House.

Melania Trump during the annual ceremony at the White House / AFP/Getty Images

The statement coat is from the pre-fall 2018 collection - designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri - and reportedly retails for around $9,000.

But her luxe look did not stop there.

Melania Trump wore statement coat for Thanksgiving turkey pardon / AFP/Getty Images

Melania added a pair of knee-high stiletto boots by Christian Louboutin to her designer ensemble.
Meghan Markle may be in the early stages of pregnancy, but she is showing no signs of slowing down on the work front.

Having attended the Royal Variety Show, Remembrance Day events and a string of private engagements over the past 10 days, on Wednesday morning the Duchess of Sussex made another public outing, this time to the Hubb Community Kitchen.

Meghan has spent a lot of time working with the community kitchen since becoming a royal. In September, she launched her first charity cookbook - Together: Our Community Cookbook was compiled alongside women from the establishment to raise funds in support of families of the Grenfell fire disaster.

The Duchess' latest visit was to observe how proceeds from the book have already been making a difference to the community. And naturally, she couldn't help but get stuck in with a bit of cooking too.

The Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen / Getty Images

For the occasion, Meghan dressed down in a maroon ensemble, the perfect autumnal hue.

Wearing a classic 431 longline coat by American brand, Club Monaco, she complimented the outerwear with a matching burgundy dress underneath.

Meghan saw how the funds raised by the 'Together: Our Community' Cookbook are making a difference / Getty Images

The 282 piece was again by Club Monaco, a brand that has become a regular in the new royal's wardrobe.

The dress was finished off with a soft velvet collar, giving the affordable number a luxe finish which highlighted Meghan's radiant complexion.

Meghan wore a Club Monaco dress for the occasion / Getty Images

The look was complete with a pair of designer black ankle boots by her wedding dress designer, Givenchy.

The mum-to-be kept her hair casual by fashioning it into a low ponytail, a look she championed on the couple's recent royal tour of Australia.
D alston is known for its alternative scene, so it seems fitting that a restaurant serving the unusual fusion of Japanese and Italian food and enforcing a no-phone rule will be the latest addition to its culinary repertoire.

Angelina is set to open in February 2019 and will combine the two cuisines to form a menu that celebrates regional and seasonal dishes from the two countries.

The Dalston Lane venue will also host a hidden drinking den called Golden Gal, inspired by Tokyos famous Shinjuku district. The bar will seat just six people  making it one of the smallest in east London  and will operate a strict no phone policy.

Owner Joshua Owens-Baigler, who trained at the River Cafe, said: Our great memory of exploring Shinjuku and the Golden Gai (in Tokyo) was the sense of freedom, placelessness and judgement free nature of these tiny bars.

"By encouraging a phone and social-media free zone at Angelina we hope to replicate the fun and freedom of Shinjuku and create a genuinely more sociable experience.

Owens-Baigler will be joined by chef Daniele Ceforo, formerly of Italian haunts Bocca di Lupo and Murano, and Daphnes ex-head chef Robin Beparry in the kitchen.

Angelina will offer an eight-plate sharing menu priced at 48 with dishes including unagi, risotto with burnt soy butter, tonkotsu, egg and keta caviar and a black sesame and milk chocolate panna cotta, with the option for a Italian wine pairing for 45. A chef's plate of the day will also be available for 9, or 12 with the addition of wine.

Although Japanese food has long been used in fusion food, it's somewhat more unusual to see it blended with traditional European cuisine, though not unheard of  in West Brompton, Bistro Mirey serves Japanese inflected French cooking.

56 Dalston Lane, E8 3AH, angelina.london
Y ou wait ages for one matcha cafe, then two come along at once. The traditional Japanese powdered green tea, which can be blended into hot drinks, is having a moment  new bars are painting the town green.

At Ohh Cha Bars new pop-up inside the flagship Muji on Tottenham Court Road, Japanese food and drink specialist Oishii Haha is serving eight hand-picked matcha and loose-leaf teas straight from four farms in Japan. The teas will be whisked and frothed to order at the bar, and you can learn how to make your own in a series of matcha tastings and masterclasses held at the store. Every day until Sunday November 25, Oishii Haha will cover regional tea styles and step-by-step workshops on blending the perfect matcha latte at home.

Meanwhile, in Chelsea, the offering is more than just lattes  customers at new permanent cafe Matcha and Beyond can order any style of coffee in matcha form, from a flat green to a matchachino. This one is potent: just a shot of green topped with hot water.

It makes the perfect alternative to coffee, says founder and natural chef Olivia Nottin, who brought the concept to London after spotting a rise in matcha bars in New York.

Matcha has a natural sweetness, a slight vegetal overtone and a creamy texture, making it a nice energising drink as a shot on its own, or a comforting drink mixed with milk, she explains. In-store shes got a trained matcharista making all the drinks and guests can choose between two grades of the Japanese fine tea: a high-grade option for matcha shots and a premium drinking grade for any milk-based drinks.

The best tea rooms in London - In pictures 1 /8 The best tea rooms in London - In pictures Petersham Nurseries Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon Fortnum & Mason Urban Tea Rooms XU Teahouse Good & Proper Candella Pembroke Lodge Soho's Secret Tea Room

Both will give you a natural high. Matcha is loaded with antioxidants  crucial for supporting your immune system  and she says the caffeine hit is more balanced. The combination of theanine and caffeine enhances your energy levels naturally and increases your focus and alertness, without the jitters followed by the crash you usually get with coffee.

You can eat your greens too: the cafe is also the first in London to offer a matcha-based food menu. Sprinkle it on your morning porridge with coconut flakes, chia seeds and bee pollen, or try matcha energy balls mid-afternoon.
I love baked eggs for supper at any time of the year. They are one of my go-to suppers (or brunch) recipes that I make when I am a bit pooped after a long day as they are so fast and easy to prepare. There are so many variations that you can make. My favourite is tomato-based and spiced with harissa, like the one I am sharing with you today, or you can use fresh chilli or chilli flakes to spice them up instead.

Ive added spinach but you could add kale or sliced steamed broccoli. Some of my other variations are smoked salmon mixed with fresh, chopped chives, cream and a grating of nutmeg mixed together and poured over the cracked eggs.

Of course, the quality of the eggs is very important to how well this dish will taste. Pick some up at your local farmers markets or buy my favourite eggs, Burford Brown free-range eggs from Clarence Court, which are available in supermarkets.

London foodie news: I went to Homeslice last night in Fitzrovia, a fantastic pizzeria serving delicious thin and crispy crusted wood-fired pizzas. My favourites from the menu were the spiced lamb, Savoy cabbage and sumac yoghurt and its Provisions 4 Cheese, jalapeno salsa and rye crumb. Homeslice has collaborated with Camden Town Brewery to create its own Home Brew lager, and it is deliciously more-ish, with wonderful refreshing lemon tones. Perfect with pizza.

So thats supper sorted for tonight  and tomorrow its pizza with friends.

Baked eggs with olives and harissa

Serves: 2

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serve with: a Camden Town Brewery Pale Ale, available in supermarkets nationwide

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 tbsp olive oil

100g tinned cherry tomatoes

1 tbsp harissa paste

6 black olives, chopped

20g baby spinach

50g feta cheese, crumbled

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Brush two oven-proof dishes with olive oil.

2. In a bowl mix together the tinned cherry tomatoes, harissa paste, black olives, spinach and feta and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir well so that all the ingredients are combined.

3. Spoon  of the mixture into each dish and crack two eggs on top of each one. Next spoon the rest of the mixture into the dishes using a spoon to disperse the mix around the eggs.

4. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes.
More than 20 businesses will take part in a vendor fair in the lower level of the Oak Lawn Public Library, 95th Street and 53rd Avenue, and others will be at the nearby Metra station at 95th and Tulley Avenue, according to Jennifer Villafan, administrative assistant with the chamber. Some businesses will be having products for sale, she said, and a trolley will run between the train station and the Village Green, just north of the library, where Santa will be on hand from noon until 3 p.m.
" Why are women failing at getting to the top? For women to thrive, we need to create a new workplace culture," says top UK retail consultant and broadcaster, Mary Portas.

She was speaking in the clubroom at Soho Houses Greek Street club, where female staff members of the Evening Standard and the Independent had gathered to attend the first in a series of ESI Women events.

Portas, author of recently released book Work Like a Woman, was last night's guest speaker and she was interviewed by deputy editor of the Standard, Charlotte Ross.

Women often feel like we dont have permission to do things, Portas explained. Internal barriers are things women have to recognise and overcome.

The wide-ranging interview covered everything from the gender pay gap (It starts from a young age), to millennials in the workforce (If we dont allow millennials to tell us what would make our working lives better, well run ourselves into the ground) and the current political climate in Britain.

Wouldnt it be great if Theresa May said she made a mistake? Portas asked. The whole toxicity of politics, women just dont want to work that way. I have to take my hat off to her [May] as she has just kept working through that. The toxicity of politics stops great women going into it.

Yet, one of the main takeaways from the talk was how the situation for working mothers has hardly changed in the past two decades.

The Standard's deputy editor, Charlotte Ross (L) interviewed Mary Portas / Supplied

Portas explained: After my first son was born, I had to go back to work after three months. I used to find myself sneaking out of board meetings to call the nanny after the meeting inevitably ran overtime. Why didnt I just explain that I needed to go?

Most of the men didnt have to get back as they had a wife doing that for them. In 20 years, Im not sure we have moved on. Until we start sharing maternity and paternity leave then its not going to shift. That shift has to come culturally from within. Some of the banks give the best paternity leave, but the culture is theyre working all hours so the men working there dont take the leave. We need to show how you can bring childcare to the forefront.

So what can women do to change workplace culture?

I think managers have a responsibility to grow people as individuals. We need to create work that helps people grow, Portas explained.

Its alright Sheryl Sandberg saying to Lean In, but I dont want to. I want to create a new way to operate. Use your voice, follow your instincts and if somethings not sitting well with you, explain why youre not comfortable with it. Be vulnerable.
W hen Sarah Parish wants to get things done, she says she puts on a bit of Anna Rampton. Parish played the fictional BBC head of output in mockumentary W1A. Now she and her husband, fellow actor James Murray, have channelled Ramptons bracing efficiency in real life, raising 5.1 million for a new paediatric A&E department at University Hospital Southampton.

On the phone from the hospital, they talk animatedly about how the sound-proof walls will give recovering children privacy, and the in-house x-ray department, meaning patients dont have to be discharged and moved to another wing for treatment. When it opens next spring, the department will treat more than 30,000 young people every year. That includes children from London.

Raising the money was hard work; more challenging than their day jobs acting, laughs Parish. She met Murray when they both starred in BBC drama Cutting It in 2002. Theyve become fundraisers to build a legacy for their daughter, Ella-Jayne, who died at eight months old on January 3, 2009.

Ella-Jayne was born five weeks premature with a congenital heart defect and a hole in her heart. For four months, she was treated at the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Southampton.

Having been through that maelstrom of anxiety, the worst possible thing that could happen to a parent, you just want to know your child is getting the best possible shot at recovery and at life, says Murray. When Ella-Jayne was in hospital we were surrounded by the best staff but you have to make sure they have facilities to match their expertise.

Parish adds: Everybodys situation is different, but for me, having been in that desperate situation, its about relinquishing control. There is nothing you can do, you have to take it one minute at a time to stay as strong as you can for this child who needs you.

Their charity, The Murray Parish Trust, raised 2 million for the department and it has been matched by the Government. A further 800,000 has been allocated by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Someone climbed the Matterhorn to raise money for us, says Parish. Its so lovely to see people picking up the ball and running with it.

Parish explains the importance of the 11 soundproof cubicles: They give injured children the dignity they deserve  they just want to be with their parents and not overheard. At the moment there are just four curtained bays with beds in, so if someone is in agony next to you, you can hear exactly what is going on. It is traumatic.

I interviewed the couple in 2014, when they were charity novices. They had raised 400,000 for two new bed spaces and an expanded wing at Southampton. They spoke about the experience of having a baby, knowing it was supposed to be a happy time, but finding themselves, Parish said, in the middle of a hideous nightmare. After Ella-Jayne died they went to Cambodia for two months to work in an orphanage. Parish said: We had to get out because there is nothing worse than being surrounded by people asking if you are alright. You are not alright but you dont want to talk about it all the time. I remember one person telling me to go and lie on a beach but I couldnt think of anything worse.

Ten months after Ella-Jayne died they had another daughter, Nell. She is now eight and knows all about her sister, says Murray. If the work is taking us away from her we tell her its because of Ella-Jayne and keeping her legacy alive.

This project was inspired by the Standard. We were at a do for donors from our first fundraising and going Christ, how are we going to raise more money? says Murray. Then a clinician came in with a Standard. She read that the Standard had matched funds raised by Great Ormond Street  wouldnt it be brilliant if we did the same and the Government matched our funds?

Taking it on was daunting, says Parish. It put our little homemade charity on the map and made us feel much more responsible than before.

Their colleagues have been supportive  the cast of Trollied came to their last Odd Ball fundraiser and Hugh Bonneville, Olivia Colman and Catherine Tate have given speeches for the charity.

Parish was the first to hear that theyd met their target. Jim was in another room when one of our trustees called and I was so excited that in the next five minutes Id tell Jim.

Its a cause people can relate to, Murray continues. This could happen to anyone at any time. Like any other young couple it could have happened to, we have suffered a tragedy and want to help others that might be in the same situation  to help advance paediatric medicine. We are just two people trying to find some positivity out of it.

Murray talks about the children theyve met campaigning. Theres a boy who was knocked down by a car and because it happened to be on a day where the resources were stretched at the hospital, he didnt get the immediate care he needed. So his prognosis for being able to walk again is foggy at best.

If the facilities had been on hand under one roof it would have been more favourable. Now we are able to look his parents in the eye and say what were doing will make a difference.

The staff who looked after Ella-Jayne will work on the new ward. Parish says: We met them at the most desperate time of our life, you make these very strong connections when going through terrible trauma, so I love that we still know them. They work crazy hours and are all geniuses, its lovely to help them when they helped us. The NHS is brilliant but they desperately need charities like us.

Now its back to acting. Murray is about to go to the Middle East to play Ryan Reynoldss brother in an action film and Parish has just returned from Rome, where she was playing Lucrezia de Medici in TV series The Medicis: You feel quite a responsibility playing someone who was alive. Shes off to Manchester next month for ITV detective show Bancroft, adding that she misses Anna Rampton and would love for W1A to come back. When they are working in separate places they try to Face Time every night, with Nell.

Our proper jobs sometimes do take second place to the charity, admits Parish. There are deadlines with huge amounts of money at stake so I accept that Ill have to read scripts another day or just wing it. The charity is triple the work of acting. Going to Rome to film was like a holiday from the charity. Murray chips in: You worry that your audition will suffer and you wont get the job. Then you get a major donor and realise thats why we do it. Its about keeping our daughters memory alive.
T hanksgiving is, simply, wonderful. Ive been celebrating it for years, thanks to my American wife. Now I do my darndest to introduce my fellow non-Americans to its joys. Call it the zeal of the convert.

First, a quick recap for those who need it. The First Thanksgiving was in Massachusetts in 1621. The native Patuxet tribe taught the Pilgrims how to live off the land, since they were really rather terrible at growing much of anything. The Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to join a harvest blessing feast as a gesture of gratitude.

Nowadays its celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, with a slap-up turkey meal for family and friends.

Its easy to dismiss Thanksgiving as a Christmas warm-up act. It is shunned as a crass American import, stealing attention in November away from the wholesome English tradition of torching effigies of a Catholic dissident. It has also been stereotyped as an example of American consumerism, fatally associated with the ominous Black Friday spending spree that starts the following day.

At its heart, though, Thanksgiving is joyous. If anything, I argue that it is freer from commercial tack and the pressures of mega-spending than Christmas, since there are no presents, trees, cards, decorations or novelty jumpers.

Our friends have been hosting Thanksgiving dinner for years. In 2014, when my wife and I lived in a big rented house in Haringey with five friends, we had 38 for a sit-down meal by cobbling together all the tables and desks we could get our hands on into one rickety dining area that snaked through two rooms. We went too far  there was 16.5kg of potatoes and more than 80 balls of stuffing, if memory serves.

So, no, not 38. Not again. This year we celebrated Thanksgiving a little early and hosted a dinner last Saturday for a more manageable 15 (plus our new baby, dressed up in a cute pumpkin costume that will no doubt cause her glorious humiliation when shes a teenager).

Dinner, which was served at 3pm and lasted until late into the evening, was so vast it was all I ate all day.

For mains, it was Nigellas spiced and super-juicy roast turkey (the careful overnight brining was somewhat undermined by negligent basting); pigs in blankets; sage, onion and chestnut stuffing; butternut squash and beetroot, roasted with lots of honey and orange; kale gratin; sprouts with almonds and lemon; roast potatoes with an embarrassing amount of butter and garlic; mashed potatoes with an equally embarrassing amount of butter and garlic and cream; and mushroom and spinach wellington for the veggies.

Then there was a brief respite between courses. Everyone around the table took it in turns to announce one thing they were thankful for this year, as is tradition. From my experience the answers are usually around 60:40 of sincere to jokey ratio  though it really depends how cynical your friends are.

This year answers varied from Im thankful for my boyfriend (daw!) to Im thankful for this years high Doctor Who viewing figures (huh?).

Finally, dessert  a choice between pumpkin pie from Whole Foods; chewy brownies; chocolate and pecan tarts; vanilla cheesecake or Sussex cheeses.

I know my Thanksgiving evangelism wont convince everyone. If we adopt an American holiday, theyll say, then whats next? Frances Bastille Day? Mexicos Day of the Dead? Japans Showa No Hi?

Theres some rationale to this line of thinking. But heres the thing: for the past few years Londoners have been unable to escape the Black Friday juggernaut. And if we already have the nastiest elements associated with the holiday forced upon us, why not embrace the fun bits too?

Londons best Thanksgiving menus by Katie Strick

Maxwells Bar & Grill

Roast maple-glazed turkey and pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream.

34 King Street, WC2, maxwells.co.uk

Milk Beach

A boozy American party, pairing Stateside food with the best natural American wines.

19 Lonsdale Road, NW6, milkbeach.com

PJs Bar & Grill

Turkey with all the trimmings, plus truffle linguine and black forest gateau.

52 Fulham Road, SW3, pjsbarandgrill.co.uk

Beyond Bread

A decadent pecan pie with a creamy soft centre and crunchy toasted pecans on top.

Roadhouse

A Thanksgiving frat party complete with beer pong and BBQ wings.

35 The Piazza, WC2, roadhouse.co.uk

Red Rooster

Bourbon-glazed ham and a pumpkin spice espresso martini.
A doctor was beaten with his own walking stick by masked thugs who also sprayed bleach into his wifes face in a terrifying house raid.

The 75-year-old practising GP, his wife, 64, and a visiting friend were held for more than an hour by the gang, who threatened them with a blade and screwdriver as they ransacked the 850,000 home in Enfield.

It was one of a series of three linked raids on owners of Asian gold in the area, which Scotland Yard said today have netted more than 100,000.

In the raid on the GPs home, at 8.30pm on Monday, the victims were locked in a room while the men rifled through the four bedrooms upstairs.

The gang doused the walls, floor and furniture with thick blue detergent before escaping with jewellery, watches, cash and precious family heirlooms worth 30,000.

The husband said: We were watching TV and my wife went to the kitchen to heat up some food and as she got to the kitchen these men were in the hall.

They dragged her back into the lounge, drew the curtains and kept us in darkness. They told us to put our hands on the table, dont talk and just sit down. One of the thugs grabbed the doctors walking stick to beat him into silence while he was uttering a prayer.

He added: I feel like we were taken hostage in our own home. They said to not try anything or they would kill us and they had a knife, screwdriver and a hammer.

Three days previously, their daughter, 41, was the victim of a burglary at her home in Arnos Grove while she was at a charity event. The raiders took an estimated 70,000 worth of goods, including a 12,000 Rolex, a 15,000 diamond engagement ring, a 5,000 engagement ring, a Cartier watch and a Jimmy Choo handbag.

The daughter said: My parents are now in fear of going to bed at night. They are very shaken. We cannot bear this.

On Saturday, a pensioner was pushed to the floor by three masked men who broke into her home and cut a gold chain from her neck.
T error cops have been informed and flats evacuated after two "suspicious devices" were found at an empty apartment in north London.

A block of flats in Harlesden has been evacuated after the suspicious devices were found on Wednesday morning.

Police were called to a flat in Craven Park Road at about 9.30am.

Officers said two suspicious devices were found in an unoccupied flat, which was undergoing refurbishment.

One local resident claimed she was told by the police that at least one of the devices was a "pipe bomb".

A forensics tent outside the house in Harlesden on Wednesday afternoon

Police are currently at the scene while the devices are recovered and a cordon is in place.

A police officer was stood guard outside the house and a large forensics tent had been put up on the driveway on Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesman for the police confirmed the Met's Counter Terrorism Command has been informed and "is working closely with the borough while this incident is assessed".

A forensics tent set up in the driveway of the house in Harlesden

Suwan lekha, who lives opposite the two-storey house, said a police officer knocked on her door and alerted her to the suspicious devices in the morning.

The 50-year-old said: I was in the house and a policewoman rang the bell and asked me not to go outside and to keep away because they had found a suspicious package that needed to be investigated."

She added: I felt safe because there were lots of police officers on the road and Im away from it, the police do good work.

Ms Iekha explained the road is usually quiet, and has only had police visit once before because of a road traffic accident. She said she heard no noise this morning when officers arrived, but was given the choice if she would like to stay in her home or leave the area, as it was going to be closed off until further notice.

A nearby neighbour, who asked to remain anonymous, added that she believes people were living in the property and it was council owned.

Another resident, who would only give her name as Heather, said she was told by officers that the device was a suspected pipe bomb.

Heather, who has lived on the street for 55 years, said officers arrived at about 10am and asked her to stay indoors.

She said she wasnt too scared about the incident because officers were wearing their ordinary uniforms with no protective gear.

That was it, she said, there was no police helicopter, and the cordon was only in place till about 2pm.

In a statement, officers said: Police were called to an address in Craven Park NW10 at 09.34am on Wednesday, 21 November to reports of two suspicious devices found in an unoccupied flat which was in the process of being refurbished.

"Officers are at the scene. As a precaution, the block of flats has been evacuated and local road closures are in place whilst officers look to safely recover and remove the devices from the flat.
T wo teenagers have been charged after a 19-year-old man was stabbed outside an east London supermarket.

Emergency services, including an air ambulance, were scrambled to Romford at around 1.20pm on Tuesday.

A 19-year-old was found with multiple stab injuries outside Lidl, in Atlanta Boulevard, near the railway station in the town centre.

He suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was later discharged, Scotland Yard said.

London stabbing: A teen was knifed outside Lidl in Romford / Peter Jarvis

Police have now arrested two teenagers in connection with the daylight attack.

Charlie Khan, 19, of Granton Avenue, Upminster, has been charged with GBH and possession of a knife.

Harry Goodwin, 19, of Aspen Grove, Upminster, has been charged with assault causing actual bodily harm.
P olice have launched a manhunt after a woman was followed into a basement in east London and raped.

The Met released an image of a suspect on Tuesday, following the attack in Whitechapel on November 9.

The 22-year-old was approached by a man in Hanbury Street at about 2.10am, police said.

Scotland Yard said the suspect followed her into a building before raping her in the basement of the address.

He left about 20 minutes later.

Police said the suspect is described as a black man aged between 25 and 35 years.

He wore a dark coloured body warmer, which he left behind at the scene of the attack, along with a grey hat. He was then pictured in a grey jumper after the attack.

The victim is currently being supported by specially trained officers.

There have been no arrests as officers continue to investigate.
A n extra 11 million will be spent by the Government to help boost the mental health of refugees who have been left traumatised by war, it was announced today.

It comes the day after our Learn to Live campaign petition, calling on ministers to better support children caught up in conflict, was delivered to Downing Street.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt announced 6.1 million more for mental health and psychosocial support for refugees in Jordan, and a further 5 million for Syrian refugee children and their carers living in Lebanon.

The cash will help more than 12,000 refugee children and their families.

Ms Mordaunt said: Every day millions of innocent children around the world experience unimaginable horrors because of war. As well as food, shelter and education, these children need mental health and psychosocial support  such as safe spaces  to help rebuild their lives, receive the opportunities they deserve and help shape their countries futures.

Thats why UK aid will deliver an education programme and provide psychosocial support for a further 10,000 Syrian refugee children and their carers in Lebanon, as well as providing specialised care to 2,400 children affected by trauma in Jordan.

Its now time for others to follow our lead and help heal the mental scars of war so these children can look forward to their tomorrow.

The Learn to Live campaign has inspired hundreds of schools in Britain to link with schools in war zones, enabling children in the UK to understand the trauma suffered by young victims of conflict, and play a part in helping their fellow pupils recover.

More than 12,000 people signed the petition calling on Theresa May and other world leaders to increase funding to support the mental health and emotional needs of children affected by conflict. The 6.1 million pledged for Jordan will go to the International Medical Corps to provide mental health and psychosocial support for refugees and vulnerable Jordanians.

The programme will run until 2021. Many refugees in Jordan experience mental health problems but the country has very few registered psychologists and psychiatrists, and just one child psychiatrist, in its public health system.

The 5 million announced for Lebanon will add to the 60 million the UK currently gives to Unicef.

Rob Williams, chief executive of War Child UK, the Standards partner in the Learn to Live campaign, said: At War Child we see every day the life-changing impact psychosocial support can have.

Providing children with the tools to understand and cope with their experiences is key to building resilience and helping them have a brighter future. Its fantastic that the increased awareness through Learn to Live means thousands of children will now have access to this crucial support.

Join our campaign: how you can help

Schools that want their pupils to write to the Prime Minister should go to www.warchild.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigns/learn-to-live

Teachers who want to join our project can go to www.warchild.org.uk/learntolive
E very day millions of innocent children around the world experience unimaginable horrors because of war.

Some have fled their bombed-out homes in the middle of the night. Many have witnessed their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters killed in front of them. And when they have escaped conflict, many find themselves living in an unfamiliar world, where all sense of normality has disappeared.

As well as the physical scars, many children will be living with the mental scars witnessing the terrible atrocities of conflict.

As well as food, shelter and education, these children need mental health and psychosocial support - such as safe spaces - to help rebuild their lives, receive the opportunities they deserve and help shape their countries futures.

The Evening Standard, in partnership with War Child, has rightly raised awareness of this important issue through their Learn to Live campaign.

This government, through UK aid, is committed to supporting children who have experienced the horrors of war.

This is why in September I announced that we would match, pound-for-pound, the first 500,000 donated by the British public to War Child for children in the Central African Republic.

This is why we gathered childrens rights agencies to come together to commit to urgently tackling the issue during the first Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit in October.

And this is why this government, through UK aid, will now deliver further support for children and young people in Jordan and Lebanon.

Working with UNICEF in Lebanon, UK aid will deliver an education programme and provide psychosocial support for a further 10,000 Syrian refugee children and their carers. And my department will work with International Medical Corps in Jordan to provide specialised care to 2,400 children affected by trauma.

We will also work to make sure that schools are safe, violence-free places for children to learn.

UK aid is already making a huge difference to the lives of children and young people in the region. We have supported over 116,000 vulnerable boys, girls and women in Lebanon to help them deal with trauma and prevent them being at risk of further abuse in the future.

But theres still much more to do to make sure that childrens rehabilitation  through medical and community support  is put at the heart of the international aid agenda when the impact of war is discussed.

Because of war millions of children are growing up with high levels of stress and trauma, missing out on school and becoming withdrawn from their friends and families.

We cant let them become a lost generation.

Thats why I want others to follow our lead in helping to rebuild the shattered lives of children and heal the mental scars of war so they can look forward to their tomorrow.

Join our campaign: how you can help

Schools that want their pupils to write to the Prime Minister should go to www.warchild.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigns/learn-to-live

Teachers who want to join our project can go to www.warchild.org.uk/learntolive
M el C joined students at a school spearheading our Learn to Live campaign to talk about how they have been inspired by children living in war zones and refugee camps around the world.

The Spice Girls star visited Hornsey School for Girls  one of the schools which has been linked with children affected by war as part of our campaign  to hear what the London schoolgirls had learned.

Mel C heard how the students had exchanged books on the women that inspire them with the girls in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to share stories of female empowerment.

The London students chose the refugee children in Jordan as the most inspirational females that they knew.

Harriet Webster, 13, said she had been touched by the story of a girl whose father had lost a leg.

Role models: Mel C talks with pupils at Hornsey School for Girls who have exchanged books with girls in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan (Alex Lentati ) / Alex Lentati

She said: It is amazing just how amazing they are. They went through that and still managed to carry on.

Many of the students from the UK and Jordan chose their mothers as their role models  and Mel C told the girls that was true for her too.

My mum is one of my biggest inspirations. I saw how hard she worked to put food on the table, she said.

Liberty Bairstow, 13, said the girls in the refugee camp in Jordan had been inspired by their mothers to carry on even in some of the worst conditions.

She added: I think it is just amazing really. They have been really strong and we do look up to them.

Mel C said: It is so lovely to see these girls here in north London and the relationship they are forming with the girls over in Jordan at the refugee camp.

What I find really interesting is how they realised how similar they are  and obviously they are experiencing such very different things  but fundamentally we all want and we all need the same things.

Our campaign, in partnership with charity War Child, is linking UK schools with children in countries such as Jordan, Iraq and the Central African Republic to let children affected by war know they are not forgotten.

It hopes to increase empathy and understanding between pupils in the UK with their peers in war zones and refugee camps across the world.

Speaking about our campaign, Mel C said: This one especially speaks to me being a woman, being a mum of a little girl, and educating young women here about some of the horrific things that young girls and women are having to face in other parts of the world.

We read stories about the horrible conditions that women face in the refugee camps so thank goodness for these brave young women out there who are standing up and making a change with the help of great charities like War Child.

After the visit from Mel C, 13-year-old Lola Langham said: I think it was really inspirational to have such a big person that you have heard about in the news come to us. It was amazing to hear about her life and what inspires her.

For her to show interest in our campaign was really amazing because it showed that she noticed what we were doing and that was really great.

Join our campaign: how you can help

Schools that want their pupils to write to the Prime Minister should go to www.warchild.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigns/learn-to-live

Teachers who want to join our project can go to www.warchild.org.uk/learntolive
What is the thing you most like to do as part of your business? Fundraisers, for sure. We absolutely love giving back to the community that has given us so much. We were humbled to be honored with an Elgin Image award for our charitable work.
C omedian Jim Davidson today blasted a blockade of climate change protesters as "a bunch of horrid people" while held up in traffic caused by a demonstration in central London.

The presenter became stuck as cars came to a standstill during the "swarming" protest in Elephant and Castle on Wednesday.

He was pictured looking disgruntled at the wheel while demonstrators from the climate group Extinction Rebellion blocked the London traffic hotspot.

Speaking to BBC London Mr Davidson claimed there was "more pollution going on now because of them", adding that he had "no sympathy whatsoever" for the protest.

He then went on to ask "where's Corbyn", saying that the Labour leader "looks like an environmental disaster in a duffel coat".

Groups of protesters blocked major roads throughout London as part of the movement, which saw activists prevent traffic from moving for 5-10 minute periods before stepping aside and then repeating the cycle.

BBC London's Transport and Environment correspondent Tom Edwards shared a series of pictures of Mr Davidson online, adding that he "wasn't happy" to be held up at the front of the protest.

Climate change protesters block roads in central London

Protesters stepped onto the main road during the "swarm" holding up posters and signs with slogans including "Rebel for life".

The demonstration was met with frustration from motorists commuting to work - including Davidson, witnesses said.

Mr Edwards wrote on Twitter: "Jim Davidson was stuck at the front - got out of his car shouted at the Police 'Why arent you moving them?' - when a protester tried to talk to him he said he didnt talk to lefties. One gag: 'Climate change ? Dont they like being warmer!!' ."

Mr Davidson later told the BBC that the group were a "bunch of horrid people".

Extinction Rebellion protest - in pictures 1 /15 Extinction Rebellion protest - in pictures Hundreds descended on central London for a climate change protest on Saturday EPA Demonstrators blocked bridges in central London throughout the afternoon PA The demonstration was organised by the group Extinction Rebellion PA Activists took part in the sit in on five London bridges PA Huge crowds gathered at Westminster Bridge EPA The protest started from around 10am EPA Demonstrators highlighted political inaction over pollution and climate change EPA Demonstrators at the event EPA Protesters carried a sign reading "rebel for life" AFP/Getty Images Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group blocked five bridges  Blackfriars, Waterloo, Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark AFP/Getty Images Police said the protest was affecting Londoners and the emergency services AFP/Getty Images A protester infront of police on Lambeth bridge EPA Police on Blackfriars bridge on Saturday afternoon PA Scotland Yard made dozens of arrests PA The protest was raising awareness over the dangers posed by climate change PA

He said: "There's more pollution going on now because of them. None of them are wearing masks."

Asked if he had any sympathy for the group, Mr Davidson replied: "No sympathy whatsoever. What good does it do, working class people trying to get on with their lives. I've got to go miles, everyone's got to go miles."

He added: "Where's Corbyn? He should be there shouldn't he. He looks like an environmental disaster in a duffel coat."

Some 100 environmentalists blocked Lambeth and Vauxhall bridges from 7am this morning, as well as at Earl's Court, Elephant and Castle and Tower Bridge.

The protesters, who said in a statement they aimed to "cause gridlock across the capital", claimed tailbacks from the Earl's Court demonstration stretched as far as Heathrow Airport.

Videos posted to social media showed protesters standing with "Act now" placards facing lines of traffic that came to a standstill.

The Extinction Rebellion group said it would let emergency vehicles past, and posted an apology on its Twitter page blaming "criminal inaction" by the government to tackle climate change.

Road-blocking protests are scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday ahead of "Rebellion Day 2" on Saturday in Parliament Square.

The blockades follow protests last Saturday that saw 82 people arrested when demonstrators shut Southwark, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Westminster and Lambeth bridges.

Most of them were detained for breaches of the Highways Act, and all of those arrested have been released under investigation. Organisers said as many as 6,000 people joined the march.
" Swarming" protests by climate group "Extinction Rebellion" blocked four London traffic hotspots during rush hour, forcing commuters to grind to a halt.

About 100 environmentalists blocked Lambeth and Vauxhall bridges at 9am, as well as at Earl's Court, Elephant and Castle and Tower Bridge.

The protestors, who said in a statement they aimed to "cause gridlock across the capital", claimed tailbacks from the Earl's Court demonstration stretched as far as Heathrow Airport.

Frustrated motorists sounded their horns and begged police to clear the roadblocks, according to eyewitnesses.

Protestors blocked Vauxhall bridge / Clive Lewis

Videos posted to social media showed protestors standing with "Act now" placards facing lines of traffic that came to a standstill.

The Extinction Rebellion group said it would let emergency vehicles past, and posted an apology on its Twitter page blaming "criminal inaction" by the government to tackle climate change.

(Patrick Hoelscher @phoelscher1 ) / Patrick Hoelscher @phoelscher1

It wrote: "#ExtinctionRebellion sincerely apologise to Londoners for any disruption caused to the public due to #swarming roadblocks.

"@GOVUK is not protecting future generations due to its criminal inaction in the face of #climatebreakdown. This situation deserves an emergency response."

In a message to commuters, it added: "Best take the Tube or a bike this morning, London - it's better for your #carbonfootprint too."

One protestor, Angela, a 32-year-old graphic designer, said in a statement released by the group: Ive tried everything - Ive written to my MP, been part of protests year after year, signed all the petitions and donated to all the major environmental NGOs, but nothing has happened.

"Theres been no progress on climate action. We have to do more."

Despite anger on the streets, some people took to Twitter to support the group, thanking them for their activism.

Traffic came to a standstill at Vauxhall / Clive Lewis

One fan wrote: "Thank you! Short term pain (for motorists) leading to long term gain for everyone (apart from fossil fuel industry).

"We mustn't let our busy life blind us to the urgent need to preserve life on Earth."

The blockades follow protests last Saturday that saw 82 people arrested when demonstrators shut Southwark, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Westminster and Lambeth bridges.

Most of them were detained for breaches of the Highways Act, and all of those arrested have been released under investigation. Organisers said as many as 6,000 people joined the march.

This is the second round of the protests, with "non-violent" actions planned tomorrow and Friday, and set to culminate on Saturday with a "Rebellion 2" demonstration.

The campaign group warns that the planet is facing an "ecological emergency" and wants government action to reduce carbon emissions.

Protestors at Blackfriars bridge last Saturday / PA

One organiser on Saturday warned of starvation in the UK if there is no change to environmental policy.

Gail Bradbrook said: "We could easily be facing starvation in the UK if the weather effect continues as it is.

"We need to be building resilience in our communities."
T he Duchess of Cambridge today visited a team of University College Londons world-leading developmental neuroscientists.

Kate, 37, was there to see first hand the ground-breaking research into how environment and biology interact to shape the way in which children develop both socially and emotionally.

During the visit, she met with leading academics as well as students in UCL Psychology & Language Sciences to learn about developmental neuroscience at UCL.

One of The Duchess key areas of interest is championing the importance of providing solid social and emotional foundations for children to support their development and emotional resilience as infants.

The Duchess of Cambridge during her visit to a UCL developmental neuroscience lab / PA

Professor Eamon McCrory (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences), the lead academic for the visit, said: Our cutting-edge neuroscience research is shedding new light on how the brain develops in the early years. What we are learning has the potential to significantly improve the lives of children and their families.

"I am delighted and truly honoured that Her Royal Highness has shown such interest in our work and is supporting vital research in this area.

UCL President & Provost, Professor Michael Arthur, said: Were delighted that Her Royal Highness is hearing from UCLs developmental neuroscience researchers, as UCL takes great pride in its neuroscience and psychology work.

"We hope that this can help leverage the work of our neuroscientists as they seek to improve the lives of people affected by mental health disorders and ensure that every child has the best possible start to life.
A top chef whose leaking flat dumped water on his downstairs neighbours has been ordered to pay more than 15,000 in damages.

Emmanuel Bonneau and his wife Monique were sued by neighbours Christopher and Julia Kidder over a decade of intermittent leaks and seepages from their Pimlico home.

The Kidders told Central London County Court that they had raw sewage flowing through their ceiling and were forced to move out of their 900,000 flat temporarily in 2010.

Mr Kidder, 52, said he and his wife had endured a 15-year nightmare costing almost 130,000 in legal and other bills.

Huge costs: The leak in Chris Kidder's flat in Pimlico / NEV AYLING

The saga began soon after he and his 46-year-old wife moved into their flat in Gloucester Street, Pimlico, in 2002.

The couple recorded 88 leakage incidents. Mr Bonneau, 45, an award-winning patissier at the Hilton in Park Lane, argued in court that his neighbours had exaggerated the problems.
J ames Starkie, one of Michael Goves most trusted advisers, has resigned from government over Theresa Mays Brexit deal.

Starkie cannot support the Prime Ministers controversial Brexit deal in his role as Goves media aide, according to Politicos Jack Blanchard this morning. Environment Secretary Goves decision not to resign from the Government has been crucial to Mays survival since she brought home her draft withdrawal agreement. But the resignation of one of his key advisers over the principle of the deal shows just how divided Goves camp is over whether to support it or not.

Starkie is a committed Leaver who worked for the Vote Leave campaign for the June 2016 referendum. He even briefly worked on the Prime Ministers grid team in the run-up to the election the following year, before joining Gove when the former minister rejoined the Government as Environment Secretary in June 2017.

The Londoner understands that the decision to part ways was a matter of honour between the two and that Gove didnt take the decision as personal criticism of his own position. For Starkie, resignation was a matter of conscience, whereas if his boss were to follow suit it might impact the pound.

Although Mays deal is detested in many quarters of the Tory Party, organised rebellion appears to be petering out, especially after the European Research Group has so far failed to corral the necessary 48 letters to call a vote of no confidence in May.

Starkies resignation could be a lightning rod for a new round of Tory soul- searching, though it could also highlight the lack of co-ordination among dissidents, as The Londoner hears that the former special adviser has no plans to get back into campaigning.

Sources close to Starkie inform us he has no other job lined up as of yet and may even quit politics altogether. They add that the relationship between the two remains very cordial, even though Starkie is thought to consider Mays deal disastrous for the country. Asked if he wouldve done the same if he still worked for Gove, former adviser Henry Newman, director of Open Europe, told us: I run a think tank.

Marie Colvin's golden age

The Sunday Times award-winning war correspondent Christina Lamb says that A Private War, the film depicting the life of her colleague Marie Colvin, played by Rosamund Pike, is pretty harrowing.

Speaking to The Londoner at last nights launch of Peter Frankopans book The New Silk Roads, she made a crucial point.

The irony is that if she were reporting today she probably wouldnt even get her stories printed, she said. Or maybe shed never get sent on those assignments, as were so obsessed by Brexit theres no space for foreign news.

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Lib-Dem leader turned Facebook exec Nick Clegg  who once admitted to crying to music  is a fan of the documentary makers who breeched protocol by stepping in to save baby penguins earlier this week. Baby penguins make grown men cry, his wife the lawyer Miriam Gonzalez Durantez says. My husband almost shed a tear watching Happy Feet.

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At Christies yesterday for the sale of lots from the original Annabels was Chariots of Fire actor Nigel Havers. Bidding for memorabilia far-exceeded estimates  doormens coats pitched at 50 went for 1,500  prompting Havers to repeatedly mutter ridiculous before zooming off on his motorbike.

Fast as lightning, Shailesh Vara's expert timing

If everyone in Parliament is kung fu fighting, Shailesh Vara is fast as lightning.

Vara, minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office, was the first member of the Government to resign over Brexit last week. This picture shows how else he vents his frustration: he is the man performing an impressive flying kick in his late teens, when he earned his black belt in Taekwondo. The Londoner understands he could also chop a brick in half.

Dominic Raab, who quit an hour after Vara, is also a black belt, but in karate.

No shortage of DJs at hotel housewarming

On the decks: Nick Grimshaw and Jonny Woo (Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images) / Dave Benett/Getty Images for Kim

Anyone whos anyone DJs these days. BBC Radio 1 presenter Nick Grimshaw and drag sensation Jonny Woo both took to the decks at the Kimpton Fitzroy London last night, as the San Francisco boutique hotel brand threw a housewarming to celebrate its arrival in the UK. In between jelly shots and pillow fights, James Suckling, Jaime Winstone and Rafferty Law each had their 15 minutes of DJing fame, while other attendees at the Russell Square venue included Richard Madden, Eliza Cummings and DJ Henri. Even Madden, of Bodyguard fame, has experience on the decks: he played the romantic lead, an affable Scottish DJ, in club romcom Ibiza. Elsewhere last night, fashion brand Maje launched its London flagship store on Regent Street, attended by artist Phoebe Collings-James. And Princess Eugenies new husband, Jack Brooksbank, was at Fucinas Festa Italiana in Marylebone. The royal newlyweds werent given new titles, so its still Mr Brooksbank to you.

SW1A

Baroness Warsi and Labour MP Neil Coyle were among the guests at a YouTube-hosted event at Tate Modern last night. When Ronan Harris, managing director of Google UK & Ireland, gave a speech on how the company was putting more money into helping creatives make video content, Coyle heckled: You should pay your taxes then. Harris coasted over the jibe, but then Coyle shouted out the same point during a speech later on. This time he was booed by the audience. For his rudeness, explains a guest.

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Boris Johnson, feted columnist and former Foreign Secretary, failed to win the Idler Bad Grammar Award last night. He was nominated for the annual prize  alongside actor Emma Watson and the BBC  for a garbled 45-word sentence on project contacts and provider organisations. Judges including Jeremy Paxman, Harry Mount and chef Rowley Leigh instead chose the NHS for its Improvement Provider Bulletin.

Quote of the Day
"Well, it seems my predictions of last week were, if anything, too optimistic. If MPs vote for this deal, we are bowing our neck to the yoke.

"We are preparing to take colonial rule by foreign powers and courts. We are handing over colossal sums of money for nothing. We are giving up the hope of new free-trade deals. We are giving up the right to vary our laws. We are betraying Leavers and Remainers alike: we are poised to abandon any UK influence in Brussels, and yet we are signally failing to take back control."
M inisters were warned today to plan retraining programmes for tens of thousands of workers who will face the sack if Britain crashes out of the EU, crippling economic growth.

Leading economists said entire sectors of the economy, including the car industry, risk having to partially restructure if there is no deal.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development also forecast Britains economic growth would almost grind to a halt amid a bungled Brexit, rising by a miserly 0.5 per cent over 2019 and 2020.

Even if there is an orderly Brexit with close ties to the EU retained, the UK would still limp along at the bottom of Europes economic growth league table, with only crisis-hit Italy doing worse.

It is imperative that the EU and the UK manage to strike a deal that maintains the closest possible relationship between the parties, the OECD said. It stressed that high access for the City and exporters must be kept.

The failure to come to a withdrawal agreement with the EU is by far the greatest risk in the short term [to the UK economy], it added. Temporary measures will be needed to cushion the economy and support displaced workers in the event of a no-deal exit.
T heresa May is preparing to head to Brussels for crunch talks on the state of her Brexit deal.

Bolstered by a failed coup to oust her from her own MPs, the Prime Minister will meet European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker for talks today ahead of the special EU Brexit summit on Sunday.

She is under pressure to make changes to the Northern Irish backstop contained in the Brexit divorce agreement, making it clear how the UK can exit the controversial arrangement.

The trip to Brussels comes amid mounting evidence of tensions between Mrs May and the Democratic Unionist Party over the EU divorce deal.

Mrs May will face the usual Prime Minister's Questions session in the Commons before heading to Brussels for 4.30pm on Wednesday.

TODO: define component type apester

The Government caved in to a series of opposition amendments to its Budget-enacting Finance Bill in the latest sign that the DUP's MPs would not support Mrs May's minority administration.

Brexiteer ministers want her to press for clarity on how the UK can avoid or end the use of the backstop, which would require the whole UK to be in a single customs territory with the EU.

It would also force Northern Ireland to align with many of Brussels' single market rules after 2020 unless an alternative is found.

Brexit plans: Theresa May / Getty Images

Brussels has indicated the withdrawal agreement, setting out the terms of the UK's divorce from the bloc, will not be rewritten - although work is ongoing to flesh out the political declaration on the future UK-EU relationship

Ireland's deputy premier Simon Coveney told parliament in Dublin: "This is a text that has been agreed between the negotiations teams, it has been agreed by the British government.

"So to that extent, it is not a draft text, it's now the text, and it is not going to be reopened."

The Brexit deal has angered the DUP and jeopardised the confidence and supply deal which props up Mrs May's minority government.

After a DUP revolt in the Commons on Monday, the Government accepted a series of amendments on Tuesday without votes to avoid a repeat.

The Prime Minister is set for crunch talks in Brussels later today / EPA

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said: "We have kept to our word in relation to the confidence and supply agreement, but even Cabinet members have found themselves having to resign because this deal does not represent those shared objectives in relation to the Union.

"The Government will require DUP support to deliver its domestic agenda. We will continue to use our influence for the good of everyone across the United Kingdom."

Leading Tory Brexiteer Boris Johnson - a prominent critic of Mrs May's approach - is expected to address the DUP's conference at the weekend.

In a sign that the Government is seeking to keep its arrangement with the DUP alive, Chancellor Philip Hammond is also expected to attend the gathering in Belfast, according to Co Fermanagh newspaper the Impartial Reporter.

Jacob Rees-Mogg leaves after the Q&A session with reporters on Brexit / EPA

But Labour claimed the DUP's approach meant the Government was on the brink of collapse.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: "It's absolutely staggering that the Government has accepted all Labour amendments to the Finance Bill because it couldn't rely upon the DUP's support.

"The Tories are in office but not in power. We're watching a government falling apart in front of us."

People's Vote protesters march on Parliament Square - in Pictures 1 /44 People's Vote protesters march on Parliament Square - in Pictures Some 700,000 people attended the march on the last count. EPA A boy rides a man shoulders while waving a sign that says "I want breakfast, not Brexit" REUTERS/Henry Nicholls A Cardboard model of the "may-bot" made an appearance at the huge demonstration in Parliament Square. REUTERS London Mayor Sadiq Khan led the march procession and gave a speech to the crowds. PA A vocal anti-Brexit voice, Delia Smith also spoke to the rally at Parliament Square. PA/Yui Mok The crowds filled Traflagar Square, Whitehall and Parliament square as protesters marched through central London PA/Yui Mok A young protester waves an EU flag. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls Chukka Umunna, Conservative, and Caroline Lucas, Green Party on the stage at Parliament Square. PA/Yui Mok One of several adaptations of Banksy's art work "Girl with Love Balloon". REUTERS/Henry Nicholls Mayor of London Sadiq Khan delivers a speech in Parliament Square during the People's Vote March for the Future in London. EPA/Vickie Flores Conservative MP Anna Soubry gave an impassioned speech. PA The "May-Bot" did the rounds PA/Yui Mok A model of the Palace of Westminster clock tower being lifted by EU balloons PA/Yui Mok One adaptations of Banksy's recent art auction stunt depicted the Vote Leave symbol being shredded in a picture frame.. PA/Yui Mok Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March PA Over 500,000 peoples have attended the People's Vote for the Future march. EPA/Vickie Flores A campaigner holds a placard likening Brexit to Britain shooting itself in the foot. Reuters/Simon Dawson A placard depicting politicians calls Brexit an "Eton Mess". EPA/Vickie Flores A British-European hybrid flag is raised at the march. EPA/Vickie Flores "A pack of lies, a pack of jokers," says another placard. EPA/Vickie Flores The unprecedented crowds are expected to far-outnumber the previous People's Vote in July. EPA/Vickie Flores "I love EU", and "Lets stay together" are some of the more positive placards. Reuters/Simon Dauson An anti-Brexit campaigner dressed as Theresa May waves European Union flags PA/Yui Mok An anti-Brexit campaigner with her face painted in the colours of the European Union flag takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future PA/Yui Mok The crowds filled London's streets for the People's Vote march. PA/Yui Mok A protester participating in the huge demonstration. Reuters/Simon Dawson Demonstrators hold placards and European Union flags AFP/Getty Images 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/Niklas Helle'n Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (C) joins demonstrators as they take part in a march AFP/Getty/Niklas Helle'n Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march. AFP/Getty/Niklas Helle'n "Never gonna give EU up", says one placard, in a tribute to singer Rick Astley AFP/Getty/Niklas Helle'n The march was led by young people who said they wanted another vote to secure their future. PA Demonstrators arrive for the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London. EPA/Vickie Flores Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a People's 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/Vickie Flores A demonstrator wears a teddy bear, who himself waves an EU flag at the march in central London. EPA A man with an EU tattoo on his arm holds a sign saying avoiding Brexit will "save the UK". EPA An anti-Brexit campaigner holds a placard in Hyde Park, London. PA A sign depicting key Brexit proponents, Boris Johnson MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP and Nigel Farage - calling them the "Three Wrexiteers". REUTERS Campaigners from Another Europe is Possible lowered a banner off Westminster Bridge before taking part in the People's Vote march today. PA/Jess Hurd/AEIP A protester arranges a figure resembling former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in a cage. Reuters/Simon Dawson Protesters gather and prepare their plaques before they take to the streets calling for a second referendum on the government's final deal for Brexit. Reuters/Simon Dawson A protester wears badges pinned on jeans before an anti-Brexit demonstration, Reuters/Simon Dawson A protester wears a beret as they prepare to march from Park Lane to Parliament Square in London. Reuters/Simon Dawson Protesters say its right the public should have a second say on Brexit, while supporters from Leave Means Leave have said a second vote would "undermine democracy". Reuters/Simon Dawson

The DUP may have given the Prime Minister a political headache, but she appears to have averted an immediate challenge to her position from Tory critics.
T he governor of Easter Island has pleaded with the British Museum to return the Hoa Hakananaia, one of the islands most spiritually important statues.

The statue has resided in the museum for over 150 years.

The statue is one of hundreds found on the island with each statue representing a tribal leader or ancestors.

Governor Tarita Alarcon Rapu met with officials from the British museum on Tuesday to request the return of the important relic.

Tarita Alarcon Rapu, Governor of Easter Island gives a press conference outside the British Museum in London / AFP/Getty Images

She said: My grandma, who passed away at almost 90 years, she never got the chance to see her ancestor.

I am almost half a century alive and this is my first time.

With tears in her eyes, she added: I believe that my children and their children also deserve the opportunity to touch, see and learn from him. We are just a body. You, the British people, have our soul.

The Hoa Hakananai'a statue from Easter Island is displayed in the British Museum in London / EPA

Hoa Hakananaia was taken without permission in 1868 and given to Queen Victoria.

According to the Guardian, the museum is holding talks about the statue for the first time however it is only considering a loan, not the return of the artefact.

A spokeswoman said: The museum is one of the worlds leading lenders and the trustees will always consider loan requests subject to usual conditions.
S wedish home retailer Ikea has announced 350 of its employees across the UK are facing redundancy as part of its global transformation plan.

The retailer said it expects 7,500 jobs to be cut across its operations as it simplifies the company.

Javier Quinones, country retail manager for Ikea in the UK and Ireland, said the company had to make difficult decisions as it adapts to a fast-changing retail environment.

He said: Co-workers are at the heart of our business and throughout this transformation we will have an ongoing dialogue on how to navigate these changes, to ensure we do this in a way in line with our values and ensuring that our co-workers feel supported.

We are confident these changes will secure the future of Ikea and will benefit its customers and ultimately its co-workers.

The Swedish home retailer expects 7,500 jobs to be cut across its operations / PA Wire/PA Images

The company also said it will create 11,500 new jobs over the next two years through new openings and investment in delivery and digital operations.

This includes 500 new jobs at the UK's newest store in London's Greenwich, which is due to open in Spring 2019.

The UK capital is also home to a new Planning Studio on Tottenham Court Road, as part of a push towards opening smaller format stores in city centres.

However, in May the group ditched plans to build a store near Preston amid uncertainty on the British high street as retailers are hammered with soaring costs.

Ikea had planned to open the store in 2020, creating 350 jobs.

Jesper Brodin, chief executive of Ikea's global parent company Ingka Group, said the retailer had to adapt to changing customer behaviour.

"We will put greater emphasis on making our existing stores even better and taking the opportunity to renew and reinvent our business in a way that is inspired by our history, culture and values.
Through these conversations, the village learned how important the intersection of Route 72 and Water Street was to some residents and businesses for practical, historical and sentimental reasons, she said in the release. As such, despite the projected benefits of the project, the village believes that the opinions of East Dundee residents and business owners are valuable and should be considered when making decisions that will lead to a significant and permanent change within the village.
L abour leader Jeremy Corbyn has led messages in support for World War Two veteran and political activist, Harry Leslie Smith, who is seriously ill in hospital.

His son, John, said the 95-year-old was not in a good way and had been taken into A&E.

Reaching out to Mr Corbyn, John wrote: He asked me to inform you in case things don't work out. I will keep you posted.2

Mr Corbyn replied: Very sorry to hear this. Please pass on my best to Harry. We need him to get well soon as the National Health Service, and our movement, needs him.

On Wednesday morning, #IStandWithHarry was trending on Twitter as hundreds of messages were sent to Mr Smith.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn / Getty Images

Born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Mr Smith served with the RAF in Germany and in recent years campaigned on behalf of the NHS.

Mr Smith shot to fame in 2015 when delivering a moving speech to the Labour Party conference, in which he spoke about the NHS and social care.

Mr Smith has been a tireless campaigner against poverty, for the rights of refugees and for keeping the NHS in public hands.

As well as Mr Corbyn, Shadow transport minister Karl Turner added: "Very much hope Harry makes a full recovery. We need him."
T he Duchess of Sussex today visited the community kitchen set up for victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster to see how funds raised by the best- selling cookbook she helped create have made a difference.

Meghan, 37, who came up with the idea of Together: Our Community Cookbook was shown how proceeds from book sales had transformed the facility. The Hubb Community Kitchen in north Kensington, close to the scene of the devastating blaze, has now been completely redesigned and re-fitted.

It also now opens seven days a week instead of just two. Cooks using the kitchen can gain food hygiene qualifications so they can start their own projects, benefiting others in the community.

Meghan, expecting her first child, came up with the idea for the cookbook in January after going to the kitchen at the Al Manaar Muslim cultural heritage centre where a group of women came together to cook in the aftermath of the fire.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex with chef Clare Smyth (R) as they visit the Hubb Community Kitchen to see how funds raised by the 'Together: Our Community' Cookbook are making a difference at Al Manaar, North Kensington / Getty Images

She has continued to visit them over the following months and today met the women as they prepared fresh meals for the local community.

Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb community kitchen - In pictures 1 /33 Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb community kitchen - In pictures Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen AP Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen AFP/Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen Reuters Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visits the Hubb Community Kitchen AP Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (R) is greeted by Zaheera Sufyaan, Hubb Community Kitchen co-coordinator AFP/Getty Images Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (R) is greeted by Zaheera Sufyaan, Hubb Community Kitchen co-coordinator AFP/Getty Images The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference AP The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen PA The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen PA The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen PA The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference PA The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference AP The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference Reuters The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference Reuters The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference AP The Duchess of Sussex arrives to visit the Hubb Community Kitchen, London, to see how the funds raised by Together: Our Community Cookbook are making a difference AP

The duchess, wearing a dress and coat by Club Monaco, said its so nice to see you as she arrived. She was greeted by Abdurahman Sayed, from the Al Manaar centre, and also warmly hugged Zaheera Sufyaan, the kitchen co- ordinator and one of her collaborators on the book.

Meghan arrives for an official engagement in North Kensington to celebrate the success of her community cookbook / GC Images

She was shown how they now cook 200 meals a day to deliver to local groups, including old peoples homes, homeless shelters and womens refuges. The duchess was also told about some of the planned new outreach projects from the kitchen, which will also be funded by proceeds from the cookbook sales.

The Duchess of Sussex arrives at the Hubb Community Kitchen to celebrate the success of their cookbook / AFP/Getty Images

Supported by The Royal Foundation and published by Penguin Random House, it became a bestseller after it was published in September and features more than 50 recipes. UK sales have so far raised 210,000, with 39,000 copies sold and thousands more set to be bought in the run-up to Christmas. It reached No 1 on the Amazon book chart within hours, and has appeared in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists.

Meghan leaves the kitchen set up by women affected by the Grenfell tower fire / AFP/Getty Images
U p to 85,000 children under the age of five may have died of hunger and disease since the outbreak of civil war in 2015, an international aid group said today.

Save The Children said the conservative estimate is based on average mortality rates for severe acute malnutrition, which the UN says has afflicted more than 1.3 million children since a Saudi-led coalition went to war with Yemens Houthi rebels in March 2015.

Tamer Kirolos, the charitys Yemen director, said: For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and its entirely preventable.

The war and a Saudi-led blockade have put more than eight million people at risk of starvation.
T he family of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was cleared of Blasphemy in Pakistan, claim they are being hunted by extremists moving from "house to house" with their photographs.

John Pontiflex, from Aid to the Church in Need UK, says he has spoken to the family and that they are terrified.

He told the Guardian: They have told me that mullahs had been reported in their neighbourhood going from house to house showing photos of family members on their phones, trying to hunt them down.

The family have had to move from place to place to avoid detection. Sometimes they can only operate after sundown.

The 54-year-old was acquitted of blasphemy charges last month / EPA

Last month Pakistans Supreme Court judges acquitted the 54-year-old mother-of-five of blasphemy charges, but her case has inflamed radical Islamists, some of whom are calling for her death.

Following her acquittal, there were protests on the streets of Pakistan.

Supporters of a Pakistani religious group burn tyres while blocking a main road / AP

Protests ended after the government agreed to a Supreme Court review. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone on national television saying that the Supreme Court's decision will be final and upheld.

On Tuesday, Ms Bibis lawyer said that she wants to leave her homeland for any western country willing to give her and her family refuge.

Several countries have already offered her asylum including Canada, Spain and France.

Ms Bibi's 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.

A protester gestures at a poster depicting Asia Bibi / EPA

The women later said Ms 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 her acquittal, Ms Bibis lawyer fled Pakistan and is also looking for refuge.
F ormer US president Barack Obama has surprised volunteers at a Chicago food bank by turning up and helping prepare food parcels.

He made the unannounced visit on Tuesday and brought bags of food with him.

Mr Obama helped put potatoes into bags to then send them to families, enabling them to cook thanksgiving meals.

In the footage, he can be seen introducing himself to volunteers.

He then starts to pack the potatoes and asks for advice from those around him.

Mr Obama then meets two young girls who are also lending a hand.

He tells them: You guys are doing such a great job helping out. Im really proud of you.

Chicagos Food Bank posted the video to Twitter and wrote: We believe no one should go hungry, especially this time of year, and thats why were working to address the root causes of hunger in Chicago and Cook county.

Mr Obama, a former Chicago resident was in the city to attend the Obama Foundation Summit. It took place from November 18-19.

Speakers at this years summit included author Zadie Smith and advocate and actress Janelle Monae.

Mr Obama is not a stranger to lending a hand during the Thanksgiving holiday.
T he upcoming Brexit summit is at risk of not going ahead after Angela Merkel reportedly threatened to boycott it if a deal is not reached first.

EU diplomats have said they had been told the German Chancellor is not willing to come to Sunday's summit for any negotiations, meaning a text must be ready beforehand.

The news cast doubt over whether the summit will go ahead after her diplomats suggested she wants negotiations on Mrs May's draft Brexit agreement finalised within 24 to 48 hours.

She is said to be unwilling to negotiate on terms of the agreement at the summit, which will see British Prime Minister Theresa May and EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Sunday.

The diplomats' comments came ahead of crunch talks between Mrs May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday evening.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel / AFP/Getty Images

Speaking after the meeting, Mrs May said she will return to Brussels on Saturday for more talks with Mr Juncker after the meeting failed to yield a final deal.

"I will be returning on Saturday for further meetings, including again with President Juncker, to discuss how we can ensure that we can conclude this process in the way which is in interests in all our people," Mrs May told the BBC.

"There are some further issues that need resolution," she said.

Theresa May welcomed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker / EPA

A Commission spokesman said there was "very good progress" made in the hour and a half meeting.

He said: "Very good progress was made in the meeting between President Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May. Work is continuing."

EU leaders are due to meet for the Summit on Sunday to rubber-stamp the draft agreement, but sticking points still remain.

Spain has said it will vote against if Gibraltar's future isn't considered a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.
T heresa May was unable to make a breakthrough in Brussels this evening despite last-ditch talks over her Brexit deal with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The pair made progress in the crucial talks but have yet to reach a final deal, an EU spokesman said.

The Prime Minister said she will return on Saturday for further talks as there are "some further issues that need resolution".

Mrs May travelled to meet Mr Juncker on Wednesday to discuss the UK's future relationship with the European Union.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, greets Theresa May in Brussels / AP

"I will be returning on Saturday for further meetings, including again with President Juncker, to discuss how we can ensure that we can conclude this process in the way which is in interests in all our people," Mrs May said in televised comments to the BBC.

"There are some further issues that need resolution," she said.

She added: "There were some further issues that needed resolution, weve given further direction to our negotiators this evening. I believe weve given sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, greets Theresa May / AP

"I hope for them to be able to resolve the remaining issues and that work will start immediately."

Mrs May met the EU's chief executive for about an hour and a half to try to hammer out a blueprint for Britain's ties after it leaves the bloc and to get commitments that will appease rebels at home opposed to her Brexit draft treaty.

"Very good progress was made in the meeting between President Juncker and Prime Minister Theresa May. Work is continuing," an EU Commission spokesman said after the meeting ended, declining to give more details.

Outstanding issues include Spanish opposition over Gibraltar, with EU diplomats saying EU states' concerns over fishing rights and future trade ties have largely been addressed in the political declaration on the EU-UK future ties that would form a package with the legally binding divorce deal.

Earlier, Mrs May and senior Government ministers warned that Britain may not leave the European Union if MPs vote down the Prime Minister's Brexit deal.

Theresa May is welcomed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker prior to their meeting in Brussels / EPA

EU envoys are set to meet on Thursday morning to discuss the outline of future ties. Negotiators will the look at it again at a meeting set for Friday before a summit on Sunday.

However the Sunday summit is in jeopardy after Germany threatened to scrap it amid a row over Mrs May's deal.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has indicated that she will not attend Sunday's meeting of European leaders unless the text on future co-operation is agreed in advance.
D onald Trump has hit back after the US Supreme Court Justice took the extraordinary step of rebuking the presidents criticism of a federal judge.

John Roberts blasted the US leader for calling a judge who ruled against his new migrant asylum policy an "Obama judge.

It's the first time that the leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Mr Trump, who has a track record of hitting out at judges who have ruled against him.

In a statement released by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Roberts said that the US doesn't have "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges."

President Donald Trump on Tuesday took aim at District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco / Getty Images

The top judge also said that an "independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for".

Mr Trump quickly hit back, saying there are indeed Obama judges, in a furious rant on Twitter.

He said: Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have Obama judges, and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.

It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an independent judiciary, but if it is why are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking.

We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

Last year, Mr Trump used the term a "so-called judge" after the first federal ruling against his travel ban.

On Tuesday, District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco passed a temporary restraining order against an order by Mr Trump which denied asylum for immigrants who enter the country illegally from Mexico.

Mr Trump had declared that immigration officers would now only process asylum claims for migrants who present themselves at an official entry point, saying the system was currently overwhelmed.

Chief Justice John Roberts / REUTERS

Judge Tigar called the latest rules an "extreme departure" from practice set by Congress, which allows for immigrants to apply for asylum no matter how they entered the US.

"Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," wrote the judge, who was nominated to the court by President Barack Obama.

Courts have also blocked several of Mr Trump's previous immigration policies, including measures targeting sanctuary cities.

The asylum ruling came as thousands of Central Americans, including a large number of children, are travelling in caravans towards the US border to escape violence and poverty at home.

Some have already arrived at Tijuana, a Mexican city on the border with California.

But rights groups have said immigrants are being forced to wait days or weeks at the border before they can present themselves for asylum, and the administration has been sued for deliberately slowing processing times at official ports.
F ashion giant Dolce and Gabbana's latest ad campaign has been banned from Chinese social media following a backlash from critics and accusations of racism.

The Italian fashion house had launched a new campaign in preparation for its upcoming fashion show in Shanghai on Wednesday.

But the ad campaign has sparked a racism row because it featured videos of a giggling Chinese model struggling to eat Italian foods such as pasta, pizza and cannoli with chopsticks.

Critics also said the use of lanterns and Chinese couplets in the clips were outdated and stereotypical.

Chinese social media platform Weibo has removed the adverts but the clips can still be viewed on Instagram, according to Jing Daily.

One critic commented on Instagram: Its almost 2019 now, I dont understand why a huge brand will still have the stereotype and make fun of it.

Another wrote: Embarrassing. Seriously, whats wrong with their marketing team, do they live in 1908?

Another critic wrote: "Crass. Racist. Condescending." Another posting under the name Vvvvlu said: "Dolce & Gabanna are racist and did not bother to learn the first thing about their Chinese customers. This ad is an insult to my culture."

"It's very offensive to portray all Chinese people in such a stereotypical way," said another.

Others have called for the campaign, which has been promoted under the hashtag #DGLovesChina, to be deleted from Instagram.

One person wrote: So many Chinese people feel offended, but you still havent deleted. What do you mean?

Dolce and Gabbanna has not replied to any of the criticism publicly as of yet, but did post an alternative video on their Twitter feed on Tuesday.

The video, captioned: Tribute to China, showed models preparing for a fashion show.
G unmen have kidnapped an Italian volunteer and injured five other people during a terrifying raid on Kenya's coast, according to police.

Attackers opened fire indiscriminately with AK-47 rifles in the town of Chakama in the region Kilifi, wounding five, said officers.

"The gang ... abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area," the National Police Service said on Twitter.

The wounded, who were all aged under 25, were dashed to hospital while authorities launched a manhunt for the attackers.

One of the wounded was a boy aged 10 who was shot in the eye, said police.

It is the first time a foreigner has been abducted in Kenya for several years.

Officials say it is not yet clear if the Islamist group al Shabaab, based in neighbouring Somalia, was involved.

"Neither the reasons for the attack nor the identity of the attackers have been established," police said.

An unidentified witness told Kenyan TV channel KTN News: "The European lady got out of her room, instead of lying on the ground, to enquire what was going on. One of the attackers then slapped her."

"Their aim was to get money but they took off with her to the river and, before leaving the village, they started shooting in the air and they shot one woman and four boys," the witness said.

Another witness told Reuters the gunmen appeared to be of Somali origin because of the language they used and clothes they wore.

"The attackers had clothes of Somali origin ... they spoke in Somali," Chad Joshua Kazungu, who saw the incident.

The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab aims to topple Somalia's foreign-backed government and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam.

They have stepped up their attacks in Kenya since it sent troops into Somalia in 2011.
The advisory is broad because the CDC and the FDA dont have traceback information to help identify the source of the contamination, Wiegel said. A recall cant be issued since theres no information about which product should be taken off the market, she said.
S enate officials are demanding Donald Trump determines if Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman played a role in murdering Jamal Khashoggi.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the senate foreign relations committee sent a letter to the president asking for a second investigation.

It comes after Mr Trump on Tuesday defended US ties with Saudi Arabia despite global condemnation over the Washington Post columnists killing.

The president said US intelligence agencies "continue to assess all information" but that there would be no sanctions against the Saudis following Mr Khashoggis murder.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman / Amir Levy/Reuters

Senators wrote the letter Mr Trump on Tuesday asking for a fresh investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The act requires the president to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for an extrajudicial killing, torture or other gross violation of internationally recognised human rights against an individual exercising freedom of expression.

Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee on Saudi columnist's murder

Mr Trump earlier said the king and crown prince "vigorously deny" any knowledge of the planning and carrying out of the murder of columnist at the Saudi Consulate.

However, Mr Trump added: "It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't!"

"That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi," he continued in the statement entitled "America First!"

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"In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran."

The statement added that the US does not condone the killing of the columnist, but that "foolishly" cancelling 110 billion dollars in arms sales, as some in Congress have suggested, would only mean that Saudi Arabia would go to other countries to acquire them.

The statement said: "After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money.

Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 / PA

"It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States.

"If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries  and very happy to acquire all of this newfound business.
A British academic sentenced to life in jail in the UAE for spying confessed to the charges when confronted with evidence, prosecutors have said.

Matthew Hedges, 31, a Durham University student, said he was innocent and had in fact been researching the countrys security strategy for a PhD.

His sentencing sparked a furious response from Britain, with Mr Hedges devastated wife Daniela Tejada saying: I am in complete shock and I dont know what to do. Matthew is innocent.

UAE Attorney General Dr Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, said Mr Hedges pleaded guilty to all charges after the court presented him with "compelling legal evidence.

Mr Hedges and his wife / PA

''The defendant confessed in detail to his crimes during investigations whereby he was accorded his full rights and assurances as per the UAE Constitution and state laws to fair and transparent trial,'' he said in a statement seen by the BBC.

The prosecutor's statement did not specify the charges. Mr Hedges family and state-run UAE newspaper The National, citing a separate court statement, said he was convicted of spying.

Theresa May said she is "deeply disappointed and concerned" about the case, adding that the Foreign Office will remain in close contact with Mr Hedges and his family.

Mr Hedges, 31, who is accused of spying on behalf of the British Government, was shaking as he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a five-minute hearing at an Abu Dhabi court on Wednesday, his wife said.

Matthew Hedges pictured with his wife Daniela Tejada / PA

She said the couple's "nightmare has gotten even worse" as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt threatened the UAE with "serious diplomatic consequences" if leaders do not reconsider.

Mrs May told MPs: "The Foreign Office will remain in close contact with Matthew, his family and his lawyer.

"We will continue to do all we can to support them as they consider the next steps and we will continue to press this matter at the highest level with the Emiratis.

Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said consular officials had been in contact with Mr Hedges' family and added he was "deeply shocked" at the verdict, having personally raised the case with the UAE government.

"We will continue to do everything possible to support him," Mr Hunt said.

"I have repeatedly made clear that the handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust."

Mr Hunt added that his department will do "all we can" to bring Mr Hedges home over the "extremely worrying" matter while he said the UAE has shared no evidence with the UK to back up the charges.
A British academic was today sentenced to life in jail in the UAE for alleged spying  sparking a furious response from Britain.

The court hearing for Matthew Hedges in Abu Dhabi lasted less than five minutes and his lawyer was not present, according to his family.

His devastated wife Daniela Tejada said: I am in complete shock and I dont know what to do. Matthew is innocent.

At Prime Ministers Questions, Theresa May said: We are deeply disappointed and concerned by this verdict. I realise how difficult and distressing this is, both for Matthew Hedges and also for his family. We are raising it with the emirate authorities at the highest level.

Theresa May said at PMQs that the Government was 'deeply disappointed' with the verdict / PA

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the verdict and warned there would be repercussions for relations between the two countries. I am deeply shocked and disappointed, he said.

Matthew Hedges with his wife, Daniela Tejada / PA

Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom and runs contrary to earlier assurances.

Ms Tejada was allowed into the courtroom but a Reuters journalist was barred and it was closed to the public.

A life sentence for a non-Emirati entails a maximum 25 years in jail and is followed by deportation, according to local sources.

Mr Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Durham University, has been held in the United Arab Emirates since May 5, when he was arrested at Dubai airport after a two-week research visit.

Mr Hedges sentecned on Wednesday / EPA

The UAE government said he had been charged with spying for and on behalf of a foreign state and the academic was reportedly held in solitary confinement for months.

He was researching his PhD thesis. He is understood to have been examining the impact of the Arab Spring revolutions on UAE foreign and security policy, and to have interviewed people about this during his trip.

At the last hearing, on October 24, a court-appointed lawyer insisted Mr Hedges was innocent, arguing that notes from his research did not contain anything confidential and the court should review them. The court had agreed and postponed the hearing until today.

Mr Hedges's wife said she was in 'complete shock' / PA

Mr Hedges, who lives in Exeter, had been freed from detention on October 29 and was staying in Dubai, with an ankle tag monitoring his movements.

Mr Hunt raised his case on visit to Abu Dhabi on November 12, speaking to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, and foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

The Foreign Secretary said: Our consular officials have been in close contact with Matthew Hedges and his family. I have repeatedly made clear that the handling of this case by the UAE authorities will have repercussions for the relationship between our two countries, which has to be built on trust. I urge the UAE to reconsider.
D onald Trump wanted to prosecute his former election rival Hillary Clinton and ex-FBI director James Comey before being talked out of the move, it has been reported.

The president told Don McGahn, then White House counsel, that he wanted to order the Justice Department to bring charges against the pair, according to the New York Times.

But Mr McGahn, following the US leaders requests, wrote a memo to Mr Trump outline the consequences if the he did order such prosecutions, the newspaper wrote.

The outcomes reportedly ranged from congressional probes and voter outcry to the Justice Department refusing to comply.

Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump's former presidential rival / AFP/Getty Images

The Times also reported Mr Trump's lawyers privately asked the Justice Department to investigate Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and his role investigating Clinton's use of a private email account and server.

It was not clear if Mr Trump read the memo or pursued the prosecutions further, the newspaper reported. Nor was it clear what specific charges Trump wanted the Justice Department to pursue against the two.

Fired FBI director James Comey / AP

Mr Trump has publicly railed against Mrs Clinton's private email use during her tenure as US Secretary of State, as well as her role in the Obama administration's decision to allow a Russian company to buy a uranium mining firm.

He has also accused Mr Comey, without evidence, of leaking classified information.

The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
P usha T was forced to halt his concert in Toronto after a brawl broke out right in front of the stage.

The rapper was performing in the Canadian city when he was showered with drinks thrown at him by concertgoers before some jumped over the safety barrier and tried to rush the stage.

Footage posted on social media shows the 41-year-old rapper on stage before filming a gaggle of people fighting right in front of him.

While initial reports claimed Pusha T was involved in the stage rush, he later confirmed to The Shade Room that he briefly left the stage and was untouched in the altercation.

Soaked: Drinks were thrown over Pusha T in the altercation / Instagram / ApolloForThePeople

According to reports, the rapper returned with two more songs after the interruption and allegedly blamed Drake fans for the incident.

Pusha T and Drake, who hails from Toronto, have been locked in a feud for some time which intensified earlier this year with the release of tracks from both parties.

Feuding: Pusha T and Drake have been locked in a war of words for months / Getty Images

Earlier this month, gig-goers at Pusha Ts set during Tyler the Creators Camp Flog Gnaw spotted the words F*** Drake behind the rapper. Pusha T later claimed it was an error and said that he had not signed off on the backdrop.

In May, Pusha T used new song The Story of Adidon to reveal that Drake had a secret child with a Canadian porn star.

Drake confirmed rumours of his paternity with his own track Scorpion, later opening up about being a father to his beautiful son on HBO series The Shop with LeBron James.
According to a release, firefighters were called at 7:55 p.m. for a fire alarm at 350 Gyorr Road. The first crews on the scene initially saw no fire, but a resident of the complex alerted them to water coming from beneath the garage door of an unoccupied building.
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He said plans are to go out for bids on the project in the spring, with construction slated for July. The village hopes to tap the same Cook County funds to support water main work in the area, sometime in the next year or two, Lucas said.
President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani said on Wednesday in Bucharest that he wants the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council next year to be a success not only for Romania but for the entire European Union.

The EP official attended together with a Brussels delegation the meeting of the European Parliament Conference of Presidents with the Government of Romania, organized in view of Romania's upcoming term at the helm of the EU Council, as of January 1, 2019.

We discussed Brexit, we discussed the priorities of the European Parliament which need to be considered and mentioned in this agreement. It's about the rights of the European citizens of the UK, 3.6 million European citizens live in the UK. Also, the rights of British citizens across the EU are important. The commitments made by the UK for the 2014 - 2020 Financial Framework must be maintained and, as a third point - regarding the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Peace must be guaranteed, compliance with the well-known Good Friday Agreement, but this border must be flexible. (...) The entry of products that make unfair competition to our agriculture and agri-food industry must be avoided. (...) We all trust chief negotiator Barnier and we hope a positive agreement is reached. The European Parliament will have the final say, but we will work closely with the Romanian Presidency and the European Commission to be able to protect the interests of the European citizens, Tajani said.

We have requested the cooperation of the Government of Romania in order to clinch a positive solution - it is about migration and especially about the set of seven proposals, which also refer to the reform of the Dublin asylum rules. As you know, the Parliament adopted a legislative text. Now we want the Council, in its turn, to accept our proposals, even if there will be a possible compromise, but in order to obtain this we need determined and resolute action on the part of the Romanian Government. At the meeting today, we received assurances of the hardworking involvement of the Government in Bucharest in settling this issue, and I hereby thank Mrs. Prime Minister, Tajani said.

The EP President also referred to the 'Marshall Plan for Africa' aimed at combating the roots of migration, stating that it is however clear that not only migration is a source of concern - as the security of the EU external borders and fighting terrorism must also be considered, therefore it is important for Africa to become a stable continent.

We received assurance from the Government of Romania regarding efforts to nail down at least an agreement regarding the General Financial Framework. We insist that member states do not postpone this file until after the European elections because it is fair for the citizens to know what the EU's intentions for the future are, therefore we want to bring the citizens increasingly closer to the European institutions. You know there's this issue, with many citizens feeling they are driven away by the European institutions, and this is why concrete solutions are needed in this regard, said Antonio Tajani.

There is a great deal of resistance in the European Parliament against the European Commission's proposals on the Common Agricultural Policy, and these proposals may end up being rejected by the European Parliament. We will see what happens, but we have large reservations as regards the content. The Parliament does not want Common Agricultural Policy funds to be cut and we also defend the EU's cohesion policy. Of course we will have to work closely with the Romanian Presidency to obtain positive results. We want own resources for the European budget, we want the budget to grow from 1.1 to 1.3 of the Community's GDP and we want to do this without asking for extra money from the member states. For instance, we are in favor of a tax on Internet giants, Tajani said.

According to him, the talks also referred to the EU's external security and the observance of rule of law, defending the fundamental values of the EU and human rights.

These must be respected in all European countries, and we also said that action must be taken to defend them elsewhere too. I am thinking of Venezuela, Nicaragua, of other regions where, unfortunately, the freedom of the press is limited. In the next few months the European Union will make its voice heard in this respect, Tajani underscored.

In conclusion, the EP President said that this first meeting in Bucharest was positive, the more so as "the Romanian Government has pledged support to certain initiatives of the European Parliament".

I am thinking of the Dublin Convention, and of reaching a political agreement on the budget. This is a signal of high availability that the Government of Romania is sending to us. We are prepared to work together with the next Presidency, on May 9 we will attend the Sibiu Summit, when we will have the occasion to send out a strong message to the voters, because we want turnout in the next European elections to be as high as possible, Antonio Tajani concluded.
The European Commission has established that no effective action was taken by Romania in response to the council recommendation of June and proposes that the council adopts a revised recommendation to Romania to correct its significant deviation from the adjustment path towards the medium-term budgetary objective.

In June 2018, the council issued a recommendation of an annual structural adjustment of 0.8 percent of GDP in both 2018 and 2019 to Romania under the Significant Deviation Procedure (SDP), according to a press statement released by the European Commission on Wednesday.

"In light of developments since and following the lack of effective action by Romania to correct its significant deviation, the Commission now proposes a revised recommendation of an annual structural adjustment of at least 1 percent of GDP in 2019."

The public deficit has increased in Romania from 0.5 percent in 2015 to 2.9 percent in 2016 and is forecast to reach 3.3 percent in 2018, 3.4 percent in 2019 and 4.7 percent in 2020: this is the highest deficit in the EU.

The European Commission asks the Council of the European Union to adopt specific country recommendations and the member states to fully implement them on time. The EU ministers would discuss specific country recommendations before EU heads of state or government support them. It is up to the member states to implement the recommendations through their economic and budgetary policies in 2018-2019.

In June, the European Commission recommended Romania to correct a significant observed deviation from the adjustment path toward the medium-term budgetary objective (MTO), to ensure full implementation of the tax framework and to improve voluntary payment and tax collection.

Romania had until October 15 to respond formally in writing to the recommendations of the European Commission. AGERPRES .
The meeting of the European Parliament Conference of Presidents with the Romanian gov't in the perspective of Romania's taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union is scheduled for Wednesday, at the Victoria Palace, according to the Romanian Executive.

The event will be attended by Prime minister Viorica Dancila, the members of the Romanian gov't, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, EP Secretary General Klaus Welle and the leaders of the nine political groups with the EP.

In the opening of the gov't sitting of 15 November, Premier Dancila reiterated that Romania is ready to take over successfully the presidency of the Council of the European Union, specifying that the action programme is finalised. At the same time, Dancila said that she was to welcome EP president Antonio Tajani, the leaders of the EP political groups and other EU high-ranked officials.

"We will talk about topics of interest for the future of the European Union and the good management of certain important files, and I am referring to the Multiannual Financial Framework, Brexit, the post-Brexit EU future, the security policy's evolution," Dancila further asserted.
President Klaus Iohannis welcomed on Wednesday, at Cotroceni Presidential Palace, a delegation of the European Parliament (EP), headed by EP President Antonio Tajani.

The EP President attended on Wednesday morning the meeting of the Conference of European Parliament's Presidents with the Romanian Government and also had a meeting with Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and the President of the EP also made a joint press statement.
The political situation in Romania, the European elections and the challenges they bring are some of the issues that President of the Romanian Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu discussed at a meeting in Bucharest on Wednesday with visiting President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani and leaders of the political groups represented in the European Parliament.

"It was a discussion dedicated to the subjects that are the responsibility of parliaments and the contribution that we, the Romanian Parliament, must bring during the rotational presidency of the Council of the European Union. Personally, I made a short review of the political situation in Romania, then we talked about the European elections, about the challenges posed by the European elections, I told my colleagues in the European Parliament that the way we see the future European elections is probably defined by the positions that will be expressed by the new parties in Europe and in Romania, parties that generally adopt populist, Eurosceptic, social media, where fake news is widely spread and all this climate is affected without a doubt by citizens' mistrust in the ability of the European Union to find solutions to break some of the the deadlocks we find ourselves in," said Tariceanu.

He also mentioned Romania's priorities related to EU's cohesion policy.

"This is also the motto of the Presidency of Romania, a cohesion policy that must be reflected in the economic, social, citizen's security and Europe's ability to be a global actor. The multi-annual financial framework is also a matter of concern with us, and we will have no easy task, because it will have to be approved and it is sure that it is supported by two pillars: cohesion policy and common agricultural policy, "Tariceanu said.

According to him, another issue was Brexit, the UK's withdrawal agreement from the EU, to be discussed in the European Council and then ratified by the European Parliament and the UK.

"Not that the Union would be in a deadlock, but surely we have faced a series of problems recently, what with the crisis of migration, and that is how I was able to move very easily to another subject of concern to all of us, Brexit. As you know, the withdrawal agreement has been negotiated, it will now have to be discussed in the European Council at the end of this week and then ratified by the two parliaments - the European Parliament and the British Parliament. Europeans do not think there are issues with the ratification, but everyone is anxious and no one knows, no one is able to anticipate what will happen in the British Parliament, "Tariceanu said.

AGERPRES .
President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that the "Sibiu 2019 European Region of Gastronomy" programme will be a great success, adding that the food there is the best.

"In short, dear friends, 'Sibiu, region of gastronomy' is an event to my liking! (...) The European capital of culture has proved that Sibiu has the ability to bring together more players, and I do not mean here stage actors, but rather players from the administration and policies; it was proved that the union's dance is not just about symbols, but about truths. If more people work together, the project becomes bigger, more feasible, stronger, more visible, and I hope it will become even tastier. I am very pleased that you have succeeded in bringing together many local players and promoting the region of Sibiu in an just nascent project in 2014. This regional approach is genuinely European and from this point of view , I am convinced that it will be a great success, also for another reason - the food in Sibiu and Marginime is really the best. Try and convince yourself! "said Iohannis, at the official launching of the "Sibiu 2019 European Region of Gastronomy" programme at the Diplomatic Club in Bucharest.

He added that in 2007 Sibiu was a European Capital of Culture and this moment has been almost unanimously acknowledged a success.

Excerpts from the films "Sibiu 825" and "The South Gate of Transylvania" and a local currency called SIBCoin was launched, with Iohannis getting the first coinage in a pouch.

The show also featured a presentation film of the programme "Sibiu 2019, European Region of Gastronomy, " with chef Florin Dumitrescu promoting the gastronomy of the Sibiu region.

Among the attendees were Sibiu Mayor Astrid Cora Fodor, Chair of the Sibiu County Council Daniela Cimpean, representatives of the diplomatic corps, including US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm, MPs, including floor leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Raluca Turcan.

At the end of the event, Iohannis congratulated the chefs in the Sibiu region, stood for a picture with them and visited the food stalls.

AGERPRES .
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila on Thursday will preside in Bucharest a joint meeting of the Romanian and Moldovan governments, to be attended including by her Moldovan counterpart Pavel Filip, and ministers from areas of shared interest.

The officials will approach the current stage and future of the bilateral relation, with its sectoral components, and they will assess the current stage of implementation of the bilateral cooperation projects carried out by Romania and the Republic of Moldova, and options for new cooperation projects.

"The joint meeting of the Romanian and Moldovan government represents an opportunity to stimulate the bilateral agenda, in view of the European future of the Republic of Moldova and of the advancement of the bilateral cooperation projects of strategic relevance," reads a release of the Romanian Executive sent to AGERPRES.

Moreover, the meeting takes place in the context of the preparations for Romania to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2019, as an occasion to encourage the efforts of the Republic of Moldova on its European path and in implementing the reforms agreed under the Association Agreement with the EU.

AGERPRES .
Justice Minister Tudorel Toader discussed on Tuesday with Vera Jourova, European Commissioner for Justice, on the developments in the judiciary in Romania and the priorities for the justice field in the context of the upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Justice Ministry informs.

According to a press release issued by the Justice Ministry for AGERPRES on Tuesday, Justice Minister Tudorel Toader had a working meeting with Vera Jourova, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumer Protection and Gender Equality, also attended by a technical delegation from the Justice Ministry, one from the European Commission and other of the European Commission Representation in Romania.

"The topics discussed during the meeting focused on issues related to the priorities in the field of justice in the context of the forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the developments of the judiciary system in Romania," the release mentions.

The quoted source informs that the visit is part of the current diplomatic practice of the bilateral meetings of the European Commissioners with their counterparts from the governments of the member states that are to take over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. These visits take place shortly before taking over the presidency and are aimed at an exchange of views on the priorities and the role of the new EU Council Presidency.

"Tudorel Toader gave assurances regarding the support of the Bucharest authorities for the initiatives promoted by the European Commission, while Vera Jourova reiterated the openness of the Commission for dialogue and support for the duration of Romania's exercising the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union," the Justice Ministry informs.

The two officials agreed that through dialogue and cooperation, both sides will be able to fulfill their mission.
Minister of Justice Tudorel Toader on Wednesday stated that Romania's President has no authority to remove a Minister from office and that Lia Olguta Vasilescu can be proposed as the new Minister for Regional Development and Public Administration.

"The President has no authority when it comes to the removal from office or emptying a Minister office at the request of the Prime Minister, for the Government is not subordinated to the Presidency. The Government is not to be found at the Presidency, but on the other side, at the Government, where it is coordinated by the Prime Minister, who took responsibility for implementing the governing programme, with the persons she/he proposed. Thus, when we speak of a vacancy, there shouldn't be any debate, for the President has nothing to say in this relation. When we speak of a minister office, the PM can propose the removal of the respective minister and the appointment of another, with the President having no authority in this. The PM is the only one with authority in this," explained Minister Tudorel Toader at the Parliament Palace, after he participated in the meeting of the National Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

Tudorel Toader said that the same person, rejected by the president for a ministry, can be proposed for another portfolio.

AGERPRES .
Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced on Wednesday that the final program form of the presidency of the Council of the European Union will be voted shortly in the Romanian Parliament.

"I want to assure you from the very beginning that Romania is ready to take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union. We are prepared both from an organizational and logistic point of view, but also from the point of view of the program that we have for taking over the presidency," declared Dancila at the beginning of the meeting of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament and of the Government of Romania, which is taking place at Victoria Palace.

The prime minister welcomed the presence in Bucharest of the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, and the leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament.

"We appreciate your presence here, in the Centennial Year, a year in which Romania celebrates one hundred years since the Greater Union. We enjoy your presence here, on the first visit prior to the taking over of the presidency of the Council of the European Union by Romania on 1 January 2019," said Dancila.

She pointed out that the talks at the meeting will focus on important topics for the European Union, stating that the subjects related to Romania's preparation for the presidency of the EU Council "will bring added value".

"At the same time, it will help us to see common points regarding both the future presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament," Dancila said.

The head of the Bucharest Government said that during the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council, many events will be held in Romania and in Brussels.

"The program includes four distinct points: a Europe of cohesion, which is also the motto of the presidency of the Council of the European Union held by Romania - 'Europe of the European common values', a Europe of security, the boost of the European Union's global role and, of course, the promotion of the European values," said Viorica Dancila.
Police said the two continued to argue throughout the day until that evening. At about 9 p.m., police said the two were near the security office, when he grabbed her and she pulled away. At that point, police said, Henderson grabbed a sharp object and cut the woman under her chin. Police were called, and the woman was taken to Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, where she received several stitches to her neck and then was released, according to police.
Prime minister Viorica Dancila Wednesday welcomed the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, at the Victoria Palace.

According to the schedule already announced by the Executive, PM Viorica Dancila will have talks with the EP president, ahead of the Conference of the EP Presidents with the Romanian Government, in the perspective of Romania's taking over of the rotating presidency of the EU Council as of 1 January 2019.

At the end of the wider format meeting, the gov't head and the EP president will hold press statements.
Keeping Romania and Bulgaria outside Schengen is, no doubt about it, contradicting the desideratum of strengthening cohesion at EU level, Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber and leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Liviu Dragnea said at the meeting he had with a delegation of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament.

Participating in the discussions with President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani was also the President of the Senate, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu.

The main topics discussed were Romania's preparations for holding the presidency of the Council of EU in the first half of next year, especially with respect to topics of major interest on the European agenda.

The two Romanian officials hailed the European Parliament's openness to dialogue and good cooperation in preparing the presidency of the Council of the EU, while giving assurance with respect to Romania's commitment and readiness to contribute, through joint efforts, to the advancement of the EU agenda, to the benefit of the EU project and citizens.

In what concerns the interest voiced by the President of the European Parliament in the current stage of preparations and Romania's perspective with respect to the sensitive files to be dealt with by our country during the time when it will be holding the presidency of the EU Council, Liviu Dragnea showed that there are several special challenges.

"It is important that, through our political actions, we bring the European Union project closer to the citizens. The key to our unity within the EU is first of all related to the equal treatment and solidarity existing between the Member States, as fundamental values, which the European project was built on in the first place. The fact that Romania and Bulgaria are kept outside the Schengen Area is contradicting the desideratum of strengthening the cohesion of the EU," showed Dragnea.

In respect to the European elections, the Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber insisted on the importance of a pragmatic approach, to place the European citizens at the core of the electoral activity, with an essential aspect being the EU's capacity of projecting cohesion at both the economic and social level and increasing the level of trust in the European institutions and in their ability to answer to the real needs of the Europeans.

The Senate President underscored that, during the presidency of the Council of the EU, Romania will act as an impartial mediator and a consensus facilitator. Moreover, he said that, in the long run, the EU efficiency depends on its capacity to ensure an adequate convergence level between Member States and improve the level of cohesion, through maintaining and promoting the common values.

Moreover, Tariceanu highlighted the fact that one of the international files that will see important developments and a much awaited closure by a large number of European citizens during the time when Romania will be holding the presidency of the Council of the EU is Brexit.

He hailed the consensus obtained by the EU and UK in respect to the Withdrawal Agreement and voiced hope that the Agreement will be certified by the European Council upcoming late this week.

"The Withdrawal Agreement will guarantee the protection of all European citizens' rights, including the Romanians, established in the UK until December 31, 2020. They will be able to travel, live and study in the UK based on a special status, called the settled status. We hope that the agreement will be approved by the European Parliament and ratified by the British Parliament in the form agreed by both parties," said Calin Popescu-Tariceanu.

AGERPRES .
The European Parliament's President Antonio Tajani on Wednesday brought to mind that the EP elections are to be organised during Romania's rotating presidency of the EU Council, a reason why, together with President Klaus Iohannis, it will be important to send a constructive message to the European citizens regarding the work the EP is carrying out.

During Romania's presidency [of the EU Council, ed. n.] the elections for the EP will be organized, and this is why it is very important that we send a constructive message to the European citizens regarding our work. Your role is very important to us, because you not only are the country's president, Romania's president, but also a member of the European Council, and we need your support in two-three matters, crucial to the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani told Klaus Iohannis, during their meeting at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.

In context, the EP president brought to mind Brexit as a first topic for which he is expecting Romania's support during its presidency of the EU Council.

We must fight to guarantee the citizens' rights, to secure the necessary funds for the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework and solve the border issues in Ireland, Tajani said.

He added that another topic is the one that concerns the refugees, mentioning that we must reach an agreement in the Council regarding the Dublin Regulation reform. There are several files. We have an accord regarding five of the important files, and yet not as regards the Dublin Regulation reform. We need your support to reach an agreement because we have to send a message regarding the fate of the refugees. It is a significant matter for the European Parliament, the EP head stressed.

Tajani emphasised the importance of the future MFF (Multiannual Financial Framework), saying that we wish to increase the funds that are gathering to the EU budget, from 1.1pct to 1.3pct. It is important to us, he added, reminding that the EP passed last week a proposition on the MFF.

The EP head highlighted that during the EP elections campaign, several information campaigns will unfold, and asked for Romania's support in this matter, too.

Once again we need your support, because the elections are more and more important for the EU future. We must reform Europe, yet it would be a mistake to kill Europe, because it is the only institution that can protect 500 million people who live on our continent. We face competition at global level from China, Russia, India, the USA. We must be united, have good, democratic institutions, and we wish to have more competence at the European Parliament, Tajani said.

He stressed that the EP is ready to have a collaboration as good as possible with Romania during the latter's presidency of the EU Council.
Ricky has been missing since Oct. 12. He was staying with a family friend while his family was out of town and got spooked by something while in their backyard with their two dogs and owner. In a flash, he dug under the fence and took off down the street.
To the men and women in blue, we begin a new chapter centered on law enforcement, and I am looking forward to working with you over the coming years, he added. Thank you for all the hard work. I share this victory with you. I want to wish Mark Curran the best of luck in his future endeavors.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has rejected Russias proposal to set up an international expert group to scrutinize decisions concerning the establishment of an OPCW-attribution mechanism. Thirty out of 112 countries that took part in the vote supported the Russian-Chinese initiative, while 82 opposed it. The watchdog has 193 members but not all of them were accredited to join the conference. The vote was 82-30  only 112 out of 193 voted, with 81 (or 41% of all OPCW members) sitting it out. The proposal initiated by Russia was rejected in accordance with the very specific voting rules, but an outcome of 82 out of 193 means it was not a majority-approved decision anyway.

According to OPCW Director General Fernando Arias, the organization is forming an attributive mechanism to identify culprits. The team is to begin its activities in February 2019.

An emergency session held in The Hague on June 27 voted to expand the powers of this international chemical-weapons (CW) watchdog, authorizing the OPCW to issue a statement of blame for chemical attacks. Understandably, the idea to expand its powers was supported by the secretariat of the OPCW. The move will expand their clout and salaries, but a host of nations oppose it.

A group of OPCW members, including Russia, which is backed by China and Iran, wanted to review the decision to ensure that this major rule change doesnt go beyond the OPCWs mandate. They believe that giving the OPCW Technical Secretariat the authority to assign blame for CW attacks runs counter to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The OPCW would be trying to wield powers it is not legally entitled to, as its mandate does not allow for an attributive function.

The vote led to a serious split among OPCW members. Western countries want the budget increased to provide funds for this new attributive mechanism. Russia does not agree. In October, Russia's envoy to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin, said the organization was doomed unless it reconsidered this decision that allowed it to act as a prosecutor. In June, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia could withdraw from the watchdog. He believes that if this controversial decision is implemented the OPCW will cease to be a truly international body.

Of course it sounds good to condemn the use of chemical weapons and to call for expanding the OPCWs authority, but its worth trying to get to the bottom of the problem in order to make heads or tails of it. A little insight into the matter will provide some clues.

Obviously, the approved change turns that body into a political tool that can undermine international security, because it encroaches on the exclusive prerogatives of the UN Security Council. The watchdog is simply not fit for the role of policeman and prosecutor. The OPCW has not done its job properly in Syria, often failing to gather evidence on site and using untrustworthy sources of information when preparing its reports. Suffice it to recall the investigation of the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack in 2017, when the inspectors did not even make the effort to travel to the site. If thats not a violation of the core principle of Chain of Custody and the CWC, then what is? The same attitude was evident in the Douma attack in 2018. Each time there were serious disagreements between member states that prevented the watchdog from reaching definitive conclusions. The OPCWs performance so far has not been up to par. What we observed in Syria offers no reason to believe that the OPCW can ensure transparency and impartiality. So why should its authority be expanded at the expense of the UN?

Are its inspectors qualified to become judges? Definitely not. There is no reason to trust any guilty verdicts when there is no mechanism in place to guarantee that the OPCW does not become politicized and biased. There are OPCW members who stand to gain politically by blaming Russia. They may not care too much about how substantiated their accusations are. Any country could be pronounced guilty, without any hard evidence presented to support that claim.

All these arguments are key to understanding Russias stance on the issue. Its sad that they were largely ignored by those who voted for the new OPCW powers on Nov. 20. An agency of critical importance to the international community has been turned into an instrument for playing political games instead of doing the job it was initially created for. Now it may pass judgments, but whats the use of handing down decisions that carry little political weight and are unrecognized by key world actors? The OPCW shot itself into the foot and as a result will lose its relevance and place its future into doubt.

Photo: Flickr
Trumps relationship with Erdogan raises new questions about the credibility of US mainstream journalism. Was Khashoggi a victim of a Turkish honey trap?

The Washington Post continues its banal attack on the regime of Saudi Arabia, following the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate on October 2. In Turkey too there is much which the western media cannot understand or refuses to probe, as Ankara plays a game of blackmail with Riyadh in a bid to extract a deal from Mohammad bin Salman who is at the centre of its character assassination.

But what are we missing? What is at the heart of this story which isnt getting picked up by journalists or even TV commentators in the region?

Much has been written about the free license that Trump and his son in law, Jared Kushner gave the Saudi prince and that this murder is an inevitable consequence of such blinded dogma towards ones allies. There is some truth in this, but if you are to look at the coverage of, in particular, the US media over Khashoggi, you might be curious to understand why it is so extensive and prolonged. After all, Saudi Arabia has been kidnapping its own dissidents for years and there are many western journalists who are killed or go missing around the world which get minimal coverage. Why such an entrenched campaign for Khashoggi?

Guilty

Partly this is a guilt complex of the Wapo editors, who I have accused in earlier articles for more or less sending Khashoggi on a suicide mission when they chose to publish his articles in Arabic. This was recently confirmed when Khashoggis editor at the Post  Karen Attiah  admitted to The Independent that the traffic which the Arabic articles generated shocked bosses there. I have always argued that this was a final blow for MbS, humiliated now by his adversaries in Riyadh who can read about his failings on a regular basis.

And its also about the fact that the Post considered him part of the DC elite. One of their own, which explains why he has become so canonised and his personality enshrined in virtue.

Their trade is treachery

In truth, Khashoggi was no saint. He took the Kings shilling from the Saudi elite all his life and made a good lifestyle for himself. At the end of a thirty year relationship of working for them and learning all of their secrets, he used that privilege as a weapon to destroy MbS. In most cultures around the world, this is called treachery. We should remember that even in London in 1963, when British spy Kim Philby defected to Moscow, many wanted him to hang for selling out to the Russians and being a double agent for all his career. Khashoggi may well have been an amiable character. But he was also a traitor.

We are led to believe that he left Riyadh in 2017 because he feared being detained. But could it be that he was frustrated at not being promoted within the hierarchy?

A select number of journalists and academics, like Dr Nafeez Ahmed, support this theory, in part at least and go further to say that Khashoggi was murdered because he was about to distribute solid evidence of the Saudis using chemical weapons in Yemen. The British academic also underlines Khashoggis role for Saudi intelligence and, moreover, how he helped the Saudi royal family support Bin Laden, right up until 9-11.

Yet my own sources close to the Saudi elite tell me that MbS wanted to call him back to Riyadh because Khashoggi was at the centre of a coup in the making, which would have benefitted the former Crown Prince Mohamed bin Nayef, and still operated very much as though he was a Saudi intelligence asset. Not so much a treacherous journalist who didnt know which side his bread was buttered, but more a double agent who was the gatekeeper of incendiary information. Something had to be done about Khashoggi.

Frustrated journalists are dangerous people. They lose sight of their loyalties and promises they made. And Khashoggi was an odd character struggling with an identity crisis. Is it the same case with Karen Attieh on the Oped desk of the Post which managed him? Did she connect with him as she too feels not taken seriously by her bosses at the Washington Post?

Conspiracy theory extended? Unfortunately we are led to feral speculation when we are denied the facts, especially deliberately.

Western media has a lot to be ashamed of on both covering up the Khashoggi murder  by going along with the demonization of the kingdom  and in being part of it happening in the first place. How does all of the gory details about Khashoggis murder get reported as fact by the Post, when it has no proof from the Turkish police sources who supply them? There is gargantuan hypocrisy at play here as the Post is part of a conspiracy now. It played a role in Khashoggi getting murdered and it is now playing a role in diverting blame away from itself and blithely accusing Saudi Arabias leader of the murder with little or no solid evidence. This is sloppy journalism on a whole new scale and shows a dire lack of journalistic credibility and judgment (unless of course the Post is part of a murky campaign of disinformation which has been agreed between Ankara and Washington whose firebrand leaders are now on good terms once again). Is the Post part of a dirty deal which has been struck by Trump and Erdogan to rewrite this story?

Far fetched? Ludicrous? Maybe, but lets look at the facts. Trump is standing back and letting Erdogan continue with his drip feeding of sensational detailed evidence, in a blackmail game with MbS  but whats the price Americans pay for that? To place himself at the centre of that charade, Trump has indicated to the Saudis that they need to release women activists from jail (likely to happen soon) and to cancel the Qatar blockade (on the cards, but will take longer). But before that happens, what we are witnessing is Trump looking for a media distraction (sanctions against the Saudi killers) while he mulls the idea of letting Erdogan have the exiled cleric, Gulen, who the Turkish President accuses of being the architect of the July 2016 attempted coup.

But he has also allowed Erdogan to use the US media as a platform for his own moral tutelage. Yes, astonishingly, the Washington Post  which presents itself as an arbiter of free speech and a protector of journalists and their sanctity, following Khashoggis murder  chose to publish Erdogans Oped about the affair, giving the Turkish leader the edge in the power game by selling out the lives of all 170 journalists in Turkish prisons, which, presumably, Wapo editors just forgot about on that given day. One can only assume that Karen Attiah managed to hold back the tears for those who are rotting in Turkish prisons for merely writing an Oped which vexed the Turkish leader.

Presumably Erdogan paid the Post to publish the piece  otherwise, if it were gratis, then that would be like wapo supporting him and his political leadership. But was this the same money that Saudi Arabia is reported to pay to regional media outlets to buy their loyalty? How can a Middle Eastern leader who has imprisoned a record number of journalists and who is now blackmailing the Saudis, get the support from the Washington Post? Can this really be happening?

Erdogan must be laughing his head off in Turkey as he sees day after day that western media just report as facts, what his officials say about the details of the murder. And laughing even hysterically when all he needs to do is write an article taking the moral high ground  dont laugh  on the rights of journalists in the region and give it to the Post to publish.

The dark side of Khashoggi murder

Good investigative journalists are cynical about everything which is presented to them. Is, for example, the relationship between Khashoggi and his fiance entirely what it seemed, or was she directed by Erdogan to honey trap the Saudi journalist as part of an elaborate plot to ensnare the Saudi crown prince? Sources from the intelligence community of one middle eastern country (I prefer not to name which one) are at least beginning to wonder about this. And almost certainly so are the Saudis. Yet western journalists who refuse to at least consider that the Khashoggi abduction was bungled (and ended up being a murder) are likely to call this a conspiracy theory. Even if it is, they should at least report on it and mull it. What about all the tools which the hit team brought, they might ask. Could they have been brought to be used to scare Khashoggi into handing over the information that MbS was seeking?

Khashoggis fiance doesnt seem distraught and the sheer speed in which the couple headed towards the marriage courts is questionable, as is, indeed her own personal relationship with Erdogan, which she even admitted to the BBC. Other questions should be the evidence presented by Erdogan, which is looking ropy to say the least, which some journalists are identifying as such.

For the moment, the only certain thing about the Khashoggi affair is how standards of western media have plummeted to an all time low with the Post leading the pack with partisan judgment, check book journalism and an internal guilt trip fuelling their unremarkable reporting, not to mention their abysmal editorial judgment. American media has lost the moral compass and Khashoggi will be remembered for this above all  with many arguing that this, in itself, plays a role in the impunity of those carrying out the rendition and murder. When the Saudis fell into the Turkish trap, they probably believed that Turkey would be the last place in the world to care about one kidnapped journalist. But they could never have imagined how partisan, sloppy and hypocritical western media would be in covering the story. What Khashoggi has taught us is that the day that Americans read newspapers based on the editors judgment are well behind us. So why should we read them at all?

Photo: Twitter
South Korean intelligence estimates that North Korea has spent at least $4 billion on imported luxury goods since current leader Kim Jong Un took over in 2012. Despite growing sanctions, those luxury imports have continued and in 2017 averaged about $50 million dollars a month. Analyzing Chinese customs data it was found that about half the money spent since 2012 went for consumer electronics, a third went for luxury cars. The rest went for items like liquor, non-electronic consumer gadgets, high-end appliances, luxury home furnishings, clothing (fur coats and quality materials for custom-made suits and dresses), cosmetics, luxury watches and jewelry.

North Koreans are hungry because of these imports because, in 2017, diverting the cash to basic foods would have tripled the tonnage of rice imported. One reason more North Koreans are not enraged by these luxury imports is that over half the senior officials and their families live in Pyongyang, the capital, which has always been the modern looking and affluent area in the country. Most North Koreans never get to visit the capital and personally witness all that wealth. Residence in the capital requires official permission and that is difficult to get. Police are constantly tracking down and arresting those living in the capital without permission. Another attraction of the capital is that it is one of the few areas in North Korea where there is a regular and reliable electricity supply. For all those reasons the capital is seen as a very special place and even hungry North Koreans can appreciate the need to impress foreigners, because living conditions in the rest of North Korea are not impressive at all.

Since 2014 a growing number of high level North Korean defectors brought with them more details on how the North Korean dictatorship kept its key political, administrative, security and scientific personnel happy by raising foreign currency and using it to buy and smuggle in consumer and luxury goods. The foreign currency earning schemes were often illegal and the North Koreans working on them were told that the money earned was being used for the public good. Many senior officials left when they discovered what all this foreign currency was really buying. Defectors like this worry the North Korean leadership a great deal.

That few percent of the population that runs North Korea are now beginning to worry more about basic survival, rather than getting a new iPhone, sound system or flat screen TV. But these fears are have not been widespread enough to cause any changes in policy. That is slowly changing as more senior ranking defectors get out and go public with what they witnessed or participated in. Sales of weapons technology and weapons (ballistic missiles) was long a major source of foreign currency. This has been known since the 1990s and foreign nations began pushing back. By 2007 North Korea was visibly angry about the increasing trade sanctions imposed by Japan. In retaliation, North Korea declared that all Japanese goods must be removed from the capital and major cities within three years. That meant no Japanese cars, appliances, food products and, in general, anything that would be seen in public. The shortage of Japanese luxury goods was a big deal with the wealthy party and military elite because Japanese cigarettes were particularly popular, and addictive. At the time most cigarettes cost about fifty cents a pack, while Japanese brands usually cost nearly four dollars. Because of the 2007 decree, you could not get the Japanese stuff at any price, and a lot of well-off North Koreans were not happy. More recently there was a similar banning campaign against South Korean goodies.

Although GDP increased by 25 percent since 2005, most of that increase went to the military and the few thousand families that run the country. They have Western gadgets, new cars and impressive homes (visible on Google Earth) outside the capital. Inside Pyongyang, there is a lot of new construction, including stores selling luxury goods. In the rest of the country, all you see is poorly maintained slums with frequent electrical blackouts and growing shortages of fuel for heating and transportation. The GDP growth comes largely by allowing Chinese firms to operate mines and factories, using cheaper North Korean labor. The government seizes most of the profits from this increased economic activity, leaving most North Koreans with less than they had a decade earlier. This caused growing unrest, including anti-government graffiti (unknown a decade ago) and more people fleeing to China and from there to South Korea with details of the hell up north. China has been urging North Korea to allow economic freedom, as China did in the 1980s. But many in the North Korean leadership believe this would lead to revolution and ultimately be a catastrophe for them. The U.S. and many other aid donors have told North Korea that they will only resume food aid if the north will allow foreign officials to monitor the distribution. American food aid was halted in 2009 when North Korea expelled these observers. North Korea had been increasingly selling food aid to raise cash for imports (of weapons and luxury goods). The north cannot do this with observers present and refuses to back off on this policy.

The impact of China enforcing all the UN trade sanctions against North Korea has, since it began in early 2018, caused serious shortages of foreign currency. This is how you measure the true impact of any sanctions on North Korea and you know the sanctions are bad when Chinese exporters of consumer goods for the North Korean ruling class (two or three percent of the population, including immediate family, who run the government, universities, research centers and security forces) are now demanding cash in advance. China is the main access point for the thousands of luxury items North Korea imports each month to keep their ruling class content and willing to do what it takes to keep the Kim dynasty in power. There are numerous reports from China about exporters losing sales of these goods to North Korea because bills are not being paid. So suppliers are demanding cash in advance and the North Koreans dont have it. The Chinese suppliers are complaining to anyone who will listen because this trade with North Korea is big business in some Chinese cities on the border.

Another side effect of the new (since the 1990s) entrepreneur (donju) class in North Korea is that a growing number of donju are openly providing luxury goods for the North Korean upper class. This is seen mostly in the capital, where most of the senior officials and their families live. Although this helps keep the senior leadership and their families loyal it is causing less affluent (95 percent of the population) North Koreans to talk about the need for another communist revolution. This is reminiscent of what happened in the Soviet Union towards the end, where there were several jokes about members of ruling families discussing their continued high-living standards until the most elderly member of the family, who remember why and how the original 1917 revolution broke out, ask but what if the Reds (communists) come back?
KINGS BAY, Ga. (Nov. 19, 2018) The Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740) Blue crew returns to homeport at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia, following an at-sea training and certification period. This is the first time the crew has been at sea since the boat's 33-month Engineered Refueled Overhaul completion. The boat is one of five ballistic missile submarines stationed at the base and is capable of carrying up to 20 submarine-launched ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Bryan Tomforde)

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The economic damage done by sanctions and, to a lesser extent, low oil prices have cost the Russian economy 10 percent of its GDP since 2013. Further scrutiny of the Russian economy since 2013 indicates that corruption and government mismanagement played a larger role in the decline than is generally acknowledged. Russian businesses can attest to this because it has become even more difficult to do business in Russia since the sanctions and low oil prices hit. The Russian government is more interested in its war with NATO than in dealing with social and economic problems. The government plays down the economic losses but most Russians live with the growing privation up close and on a daily basis. All the bad news about the wars (against NATO or whatever) and the decline of the Russian military and defense industries adds to the growing sense of unease (or worse).

Ukraine Revelations

Earlier in November, a Russian military journal (Military Review) ran an article in which the Russian author admitted that Russia was indeed controlling the Donbas Ukrainian rebels. This has been an open secret since Russia instigated the Donbas fighting in 2014. The main theme of the article was the difficulty in controlling the paramilitary forces Russia has organized to play the role of rebels in Donbas.

Military Review tends to reflect the views of the Ministry of Defense and often criticizes GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) an organization somewhat independent of Defense Ministry control so that it can serve to provide alternatives to Defense Ministry plans. GRU is more into special operations techniques, which were heavily used in Donbas. The Defense Ministry prefers a more traditional approach. A conventional military invasion of Ukraine is still a possibility but less so because of the declining morale and capabilities of the military.

Another problem is that the Donbas operation is very unpopular in Russia and many Russian troops, including professionals and not just conscripts, refuse to serve in Donbas. Since the Russian military is technically not involved in the Donbas even a career Russian soldier can get away with refusing to service in Donbas, mainly because the military wants to avoid any more information leaks from troops sent to Donbas against their will. Refusal does not help promotion prospects of career soldiers, but that shows how unpopular the Donbas operation is. At the same time, the Donbas truce is more or less holding. There is no major combat and the Russian troops and paramilitaries there are wondering what is going to happen to the half of Donbas rebels control. Russia speaks of annexing that part of Donbas but Ukraine could gather a lot of international support, especially in the UN, to oppose that. Another problem for Russia that it is no secret that the government is spending $2 billion a year on the Donbas operation at a time when most of Russia is suffering economic problems. Ukraine is also suffering economic problems because of the war costs. At the same time, Ukraine is criticized by foreign donors and most Ukrainians for its inability to curb the endemic corruption that continues to cripple the economy.

The Scams In North Korea

Russia continues to cooperate with North Korea in evading economic sanctions. One reason for that is the fact that Russia also has a corrupt and failing economy as well as international sanctions. North Korea is worse off than Russia and Russia has little to offer but the Russians do what they can. Russia continues to hire North Koreans to work in Russia and assist North Korea in smuggling coal out and oil in.

November 20, 2018: Ukraine has been offered two recently (2013-15) retired American Perry-class frigates. The ships would be free but Ukraine is calculating what the cost of manning and maintaining the frigates would do to their naval budget. There is also the cost of customizing the frigates for Ukrainian use. Second-hand American warships are popular with nations unable to afford purchasing newly built vessels. Ukraine is spending a lot of money on new military equipment, most of it built in Ukraine. The government does not want to disrupt any current procurement programs because of the American frigate offer. That said the Ukrainian Navy would like to have two frigates, especially ones that recently served in the U.S. Navy.

November 19, 2018: Israeli officials revealed that the Russians had recently proposed to the Americans and Israelis that Iran was willing to withdraw its troops and mercenaries from Syria in return for the United States lifting some of the sanctions it just re-imposed. Such a deal would be difficult to implement. Israel and the U.S. do not trust Iran to observe the terms of any such deal and it is unclear just how many sanctions Iran wants lifted. The Syrian government and the Turks have a say in this but the big problem is trust and the fact that Iran is in big economic and political trouble back home because of how the corrupt religious dictatorship has mismanaged the economy for decades.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Vladlen Amtchentsev, a Russian born South African who runs a Singapore based oil brokerage that has a reputation for advising clients how to move oil illegally. Amtchentsev is accused of being a key advisor to North Korea on how to avoid oil sanctions. The Americans have also sanctioned companies and individuals involved in smuggling Iranian oil to Syria.

In the south (eastern Ukraine) another Russian UAV (an Orlan-10) was shot down by Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainians have found ways to detect the Orlan 10s electronically and then destroy them with surface to air missiles. This is the sixth Orlan-10 shot down over Ukrainian controlled territory in Donbas since the latest ceasefire began in December 2017. Orlan 10 is small, weighing only 16 kg (36 pounds) and with a wingspan of only 3.1 meters (10 feet). Orlan 10 uses a gasoline engine and has a 16 hour endurance. It can fly preprogrammed flight paths, making it immune to jamming. The Orlan 10s operate from Russian bases in Crimea or just across the Russian border in Donbas. Since 2012 the Russian military has purchased over 1,800 UAVs of modern design. Russia purchased UAV design and production technology from Israel and that made it possible to transform the UAV design and production capabilities of Russia, which had long been stuck with obsolete Cold War UAV designs.

November 18, 2018: Russia revealed (in the government-controlled mass media) that it is moving warships from the Northern Fleet (Barents Sea) and the Pacific fleet to the Black Sea to reinforce ships already there in case there is a confrontation with NATO over Russian threats to restrict access to the Sea of Azov. Since September Ukraine has been insisting it had the military means to defeat Russian efforts to take control of the Sea of Azov. It was pointed out that Ukraine has a large supply of modern anti-ship missiles and naval mines and could deploy them to quickly cripple any Russian naval forces in the area. This dispute went critical back in April 2018 when Russia declared the Sea Of Azov, reached from the Black Sea via the 4.5 kilometer wide Kerch Strait, was now under Russian control. The Crimean Peninsula, when it was part of Ukraine, was separated from Russia by the Kerch Strait. Maximum depth of the strait is 18 meters (59 feet) and there had long been talk of building a bridge between Crimea and the Kerch Peninsula (now and always part of Russia). Once Russia seized Crimea in 2014 proposals that a bridge be built actually turned into the construction of that bridge. The Kerch Bridge opened in March 2018 (at least the highway part, the sturdier railroad section is still under construction). With that Russia declared the Sea of Azov under Russian control and no foreign ship could enter with Russian permission. So far the Russians have seized over a hundred ships trying to reach the Ukrainian ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol that are on the shore of the Sea of Azov. Russia is putting these two ports out of business. The EU and U.S. protested the Russian blockade but have not done anything to get that changed, like sending American warships to conduct a FONOP (freedom of navigation operation) in the Sea of Azov.

A Russian Soyuz rocket succeeded in getting an unmanned supply craft (with 2.5 tons of cargo) to the ISS (International Space Station). This is a big relief for the crew, as is news that another manned Soyuz launch is planned for December 3rd. All this angst is because on October 11 a Soyuz rocket failed as it was attempting to take two men (a Russian and an American) to the ISS. The two passengers survived because of the emergency recovery system that is part of the manned rocket. But the failed Soyuz rocket was another example of the continued management and quality control problems in the Russian space program. Several American projects to get other manned spacecraft into service have been accelerated.

November 17, 2018: In the south (Chechnya), a female suicide bomber detonated her explosive vest at a checkpoint as police prepared to shoot her. Only the bomber died. No Islamic terror group has claimed responsibility.

November 15, 2018: Finland and Norway are again accusing Russia of using its long-range GPS jammers against large-scale NATO military training exercises. The Finns and Norwegians are particularly angry because the jammers caused problems for commercial aviation in the north. Russia denies everything, as they usually do in such situations.

November 14, 2018: Israeli commercial satellite photos show that the Russian S-300 air defense systems delivered to Syria six weeks ago are still not operational.

November 9, 2018: A Russian hosted Afghan peace conference began in Moscow. In addition to the Taliban (which prefer to be called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at these talks), eleven countries were invited (including Afghanistan and the United States). The Taliban do not consider the elected government of Afghanistan as legitimate and insist on negotiating the United States first to ensure that all foreign troops are withdrawn. The Taliban also want all military aid for the Afghan government halted.

Meanwhile, Iranian ally Qatar hosts a Taliban headquarters where the Taliban can, in effect, meet with anyone to discuss anything. The Russian peace talks attracted delegations from Russia, India, Iran, China, Pakistan and five former Soviet republics in Central Asia as well as non-government groups from Afghanistan and some Americans as observers. Technically the Taliban cannot be in Russia because Russia recognizes the international designation of the Taliban as a terrorist organization. Nevertheless, the Taliban insisted they would make peace only if all foreign troops left and there were international guarantees to keep the Americans from returning or aiding Afghans fighting the Taliban.

These negotiations are opposed by the Afghan government (which sees the Russians as Taliban supporters) although the Americans have had contact with the Taliban office in Qatar. What the Taliban have always wanted is all foreign troops out of Afghanistan. When making these demands in Russia the Taliban referred to themselves as the Emirate of Afghanistan and making it clear where they see all this going.

November 7, 2018: LNA (Libyan National Army) commander Khalifa Hiftar once more visited Russia, to hold discussions with the Defense Minister and other officials. Hiftar, as well as some Russian observers, are attending the Libya Stabilization Conference in Italy on the 12th. Hiftar has visited Russia several times in the last few years and has a good relationship with the Russians. Because of that Italy had discussed plans for the conference with the Russians and invited them to send observers. Since early October it has been no secret that several dozen Russian special operations and intel officers are now stationed at bases in eastern Libya (Tobruk and Benghazi). Some of these personnel have been there for over a year but the numbers have recently increased. There are a lot more armed Russians at these two bases but most of them are contractors from the Russian Wagner Group. The contractors concentrate on providing training for LNA men. Russia is also believed to have brought some modern weapons with them, like air defense systems and cruise missiles. Russia is also apparently using Egyptian cooperation to transport weapons and military equipment to the LNA. Hiftar has long asked for such aid, specifically about two billion dollars worth. Russia does not want to officially violate the UN arms sanctions on Libya so they move what they can via the Egyptian connection (which has long moved Egyptian and UAE military aid into Libya.

The LNA and Hiftar have a long relationship with Russia. Hiftar has visited Russia several times seeking more than diplomatic support from Russia. Now Russia is delivering and in return Hiftar has helped Russia get oilfield exploration, development and management contracts. Russia has also become a major supplier of wheat to Libya, but that probably would have happened anyway because since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 Russia has resumed its pre-communist status as a major grain exporter. Russian wheat is also cheaper given lower production costs and the poor exchange rate for the Russian currency.

Russia is having less success in sub-Saharan Africa, where China is a major, and much wealthier, competitor. But in many nations run by corrupt despots the presence of Russia and China is welcome.

November 4, 2018: In eastern Syria, six Russian Wagner Group military contractors were killed when a bomb went off in a police facility. Five Syrians were also killed.

November 3, 2018: The U.S. Department of Defense revealed that in the last two years there have been 18 unprofessional and often unsafe encounters between Chinese and American warships and aircraft. In the same peri,od there was only one such incident with the Russians. These encounters are nothing new but they have increased considerably in the last two years. Since the 1990s China has continued to aggressively confront American ships and aircraft that come close to Chinese ships in international waters or disputed areas like the South China Sea. For example in late 2013 a Chinese destroyer cut in front of an American cruiser (the USS Cowpens) which was observing the new Chinese aircraft carrier. The Chinese ship risked a collision as it moved to within a hundred meters of the 10,000 ton U.S. cruiser. This sort of aggressiveness has not been experienced by American warships since the Cold War when Russian warships would risk collision in what American sailors came to call "Chicken Of The Sea." The Chinese are also harassing American intelligence operations off the Chinese coast. For over a decade now the Chinese have been aggressively interfering with American intelligence gathering aircraft and ships. U.S. Navy survey ship operating in international waters often find themselves approached, especially at night, by Chinese fishing boats that deliberately get in the way. In some cases, the harassment includes Chinese warships and naval patrol aircraft as well. All this is reminiscent of Cold War incidents, usually involving Russian ships harassing American ships by moving very close, or even on a collision course. This was all for the purpose of interfering with U.S. intelligence operations, especially those off the Russian coast. Earlier in the Cold War Russian warplanes would fire on American intelligence gathering aircraft, shooting some of them down. This sort of thing declined when the U.S. quietly informed the Russians that American warships and combat aircraft would aggressively return fire. By the end of the 1960s, this aggressive activity diminished to the point where it was considered a minor nuisance and even that was eliminated by a 1972 treaty. The same pattern is playing out with the Chinese but for the last few years, the Chinese have continued to protest this intelligence gathering activity so close (up to 22 kilometers from Chinese territory, an area that is considered territorial waters). The Chinese claims in the South China Sea made these encounters even more frequent.

October 31, 2018: In northern Russia, a man walked into a local FSB (the successor to the KGB) office and set off a bomb he had in a package he was carrying. The bomber was killed and three FSB personnel wounded. No one took credit for the bombing.

October 29, 2018: In the north, near the Northern Fleet bases at Murmansk, the largest floating dry dock in Russia, PD-50, had an accident and sank. The Kuznetsov, Russias only aircraft carrier, was afloat in the PD-50 at the time and survived with some damage from a collapsing crane. The PD-50 sank in deep water and most salvage experts agreed that it would be too expensive to raise the dry dock and repair it. The navy cannot afford to buy a new one and admitted that this is the end of the line for the Kuznetsov, which is overdue for some major maintenance and refurbishment and the PD-50 was the only Russian dry dock that could hold the Kuznetsov. Many Russians saw this as just another example of the sloppiness and poor management that have crippled the military industries and the space program.

Israel admitted that it continues to carry out airstrikes in Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah targets. Since Septembers 17 (when a Syrian SAM shot down a Russian recon plane off the coast in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike) most of the news has been about Russia sending Syria free S-300 SAM batteries (which are still not operational) and openly blaming Israel for the loss of the recon aircraft and its 15 member crew. Israel rarely comments on these airstrikes, at least not soon after they occur or not until someone else (Syria, Iran or Russia) complains. None of these nations mentioned (much less complained of) recent Israeli airstrikes but the news eventually gets out as the aftermath of these airstrikes is very visible and not hidden.

October 28, 2018: Sudan confirmed that Russian PMCs (private military contractors) have a long-term contract to support the Sudanese armed forces. And are training security forces in Sudan. In July the Russian foreign ministry said Russian contractors are working with local security forces.

October 27, 2018: Turkey hosted a meeting with leaders from Russia, Germany and France to seek a solution for the problem in northwest Syria where Idlib province holds that last concentration of Islamic terrorist rebels and although a peace deal had been worked out a few thousand of the most radical Islamic terrorists refuse to cooperate. Meanwhile, countries must be found that will accept the less radical Islamic terrorists who have agreed to leave peacefully. It goes without saying that there are few (actually no) countries willing to accept these Islamic radicals. This meeting confirmed that the Assads had defeated the rebels and now everyone could turn towards what to do with the wreckage of post-war Syria.

After the meeting, Russia revealed that its forces at the Russian controlled Hmeimim (or Khmeimim) airbase had shot down at least fifty small UAVs that had approached the base and accused (without evidence) that the Americans were behind some of those attacks (which Islamic terror groups in Idlib take credit for). The Hmeimim airbase was built by Russia in 2015 near the port city of Latakia, which is 85 kilometers north of Tartus and 50 kilometers from the Turkish border. Part of the Tartus port has become a long-term foreign base for Russia, along with Hmeimim. Russia does not consider these defensive airstrikes part of preparations for retaking Idlib but if those airstrikes are increased and Syrian troops are nearby it is an offensive because the Syrians or Iranian mercenaries will advance.

October 25, 2018: Aircraft transponder data revealed that Russian Il-76 and Tu-154 transports are regularly operating from the LNA controlled (and UAE managed) al Kharouba airbase in eastern Libya. These Russian flights often connect with airports in Sudan and the Russian airbase in Syria. The Russian aircraft are moving personnel and cargo.

October 24, 2018: Israel revealed that it had refused Russian demands that Russia be notified about all Israeli airstrikes in Syria.
Unfortunately, despite your extraordinary efforts, the results were not what we wanted to see, Shaw wrote on the partys Facebook page. Nevertheless, you can be proud that our wins outnumbered our losses and Lake County Republicans managed to erect a larger firewall against the much heralded blue wave than did many of our sister Republican organizations in the other collar counties.
Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham said his plan is to wait for the EPA findings, which he wants to have assessed, potentially by an outside entity, so that the city can decide its next steps, including whether to challenge the EPAs conclusions. Cunningham said the city has not been provided a timeline on when that report would be available.
Bay of Plenty

We are looking for a storeman with an OSH forklift license. You will need to be physically for as the job is about 70% forklift...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz
Bay of Plenty

Are you looking for a labouring job that has an immediate start date? Do you like to be active and engaged while working...



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The 2018 Occupational Therapy Whakaora Ngangahau Hazel Skilton Founders award winner for this year, is Tauranga resident Jane Wilson.

This prestigious award is presented to occupational therapists who demonstrate the values shown by Hazel Skilton, the founder of the Occupational Therapy Association in New Zealand.

Those values include the promotion of health through commitment to occupation based interventions, service to others, mentoring, and inspirational leadership.

Jane is an active participant in the Occupational Therapy New Zealand-Whakaora Ngangahau Aotearoa Association, having held a position on council from 2002-2008 and again in 2014-2016.

During the former term of office, Jane supported the introduction of sustainable governance practices.

In the latter term of office, she was part of the team that kick started the bicultural governance journey that led to the association being authentic with regards to the provisions, spirit and intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Jane is a well regarded as a leader who is willing to take on challengers whilst maintaining occupational therapy values. She is also respected for her role as a mentor to both occupational therapy students and practising occupational therapists.

This is something Jane has done throughout her career, enjoying the growth, development and success of others. She is currently working in an Allied Health leadership position.

Never underestimate your influence on those you treat. You will be remembered as someone who has had an effect on their lives as you take personal interest in them, and as you give them the means to improve their health, says Hazel Skilton.

Through is award, OTNZ-WNA acknowledged the influence that Jane has had on those she has worked with in the provision of occupational therapy services and the magnificent contribution she has made to her profession.
Whakatane tourism business White Island Tours has been recognised as New Zealands Safest Place to Work for 2018 in the Small Business category.

The tour company offers daily trips to New Zealands only active marine volcano, situated about 49km from Whakatane.

The company is one of 30 finalists whose representatives attended the awards ceremony which was held in Auckland on November 15.

White Island Tours general manager Patrick OSullivan accepted the award on behalf of the company during the ceremony.

Taking visitors into the crater of an active volcano is often perceived as high risk so we have always maintained a strong focus on ensuring our Health and Safety systems were of a very high standard.

We want our staff and our customers to feel safe and be safe no matter whether they are walking on a volcano or simply in our cafe.

We are extremely proud to be recognised with this award and grateful to our employees for the work they have put in to earn it.

Ngati Awa Group Holdings, owner of White Island Tours, received an innovation award for Iwi innovation and leadership.

Patrick says Maori businesses are often associated with operating land-based assets such as agriculture, forestry, and other high-risk industries.

He says Maori workers 30 per cent more likely to get harmed at work.

This award is an acknowledgement of the organisations focus to achieve better health and safety outcomes by shifting away from conventional processes towards a more robust evidence-based approach that includes strong director, management and workforce engagement.

The Safest Place to Work Awards is a new initiative from leading cloud-based health and safety software provider Safe365 and backed by Trade Me Jobs, AdviceFirst, Health and Safety Association NZ and the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management.

The awards considered data from more than 1200 organisations and recognise those who demonstrate all-round high levels of risk management capability, leadership, employee engagement and a mature culture in making sure people are healthy, safe and well at work every day.

Other Bay of Plenty finalists in the awards included Tourism Bay of Plenty and Redwoods Treewalk.

The medium-sized business award was won by Coop Money NZ and Turfrey took out the large-sized business award and won the supreme award.
In todays weather forecast we are expecting a mainly fine day but with a chance of a shower from the afternoon. Also a northwest to southwest breeze in the afternoon.

Its a three-clothing layer day today with a high of 20 and an overnight low of 10 degrees. Humidity is 96 per cent.

Low tide is at 12.50pm and high tide at 7pm (Tay St). Theres a sea swell of 0.4m and sea temperature is 19 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 8.07pm.

If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 11am and 1pm.

On this day in NZ history in 1939 Freyberg was given command of 2NZEF. British-born but New Zealand-raised, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg was a charismatic and popular military leader, who later served as governor-general.

In world history on this day in 1542 new laws were passed in Spain giving Indians in America protection against enslavement.

In 1919 a Labor conference committee in the United States urged an eight-hour workday and a 48-hour week.

In 1935 Pan Am inaugurated the first transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila.

In 1943 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese Premier Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not attend the Cairo Conference (code-named Sextant) out of concern that his meeting with Chiang would cause friction between the Soviet Union and Japan.

In 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson became president. In 1964 almost 40,000 people paid tribute to John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death.

In 1986 the US Justice Department found a memo in Lt. Col. Oliver Norths office on the transfer of $12 million to the Contras of Nicaragua.

In 1995 the first feature-length film created entirely with computer generated imagery  Toy Story  premiered.

In 2005 Angela Merkel became the first woman ever to be Chancellor of Germany; the former research scientist had previously been the first secretary-general of the Christian Democratic Union.

Today is the birthday of English novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Born in 1819, George Eliot once wrote It is never too late to be what you might have been.

To get involved in activities around the Bay of Plenty, please check out our Whats on page.

Have a great day!
Cheyenne County Farm Service Agency (FSA) Executive Director Brad Fraass reminds producers that the 2018 FSA Cheyenne County Committee election began on Nov. 5, when ballots were mailed to eligible voters.

The deadline to return the ballots to the county FSA office is Dec. 3. Ballots returned by mail also must be postmarked no later than that date.

County committee members are an important component of the operations of FSA and provide a link between the agricultural community and the United States Department of Agriculture. Farmers and ranchers elected to county committees help deliver FS...
Nebraska Senator Steve Erdman, who serves the state's 47th Legislative District, which includes Sidney and the southern Panhandle, will be holding a town hall meeting next week.

Erdman, from Bayard, was elected to the Legislature in 2016. He serves on the Building Maintenance, Committee on Committees, Education, and Health and Human Services legislative committees.

Erdman will meet with constituents Wednesday, Nov. 28 at 12:15 p.m. at Buffalo Point Steakhouse, 639 Cabela Dr. in Sidney.

...
Sidney Economic Development Director Melissa Norgard waits to respond during the Manufacturing roundtable discussion last week.

Manufacturing companies are in business to produce a product that can be sold to the public. Making that product requires skilled and available employees. The dilemma is when the companies cannot fill the necessary employment slots, resulting in production challenges.

Local manufacturing companies met at Western Nebraska Community College Thursday to discuss challenges in being fully staffed and how they can work through the obstacles. Thursday's roundtable luncheon was hosted by Paula Abbott of WNCC and Sidney Economic Development Director Melissa Norgard.

The meeting was designed to bring...
A: We first did Warmth to Homeless in 2017, and a lot of the homeless people had kids. Ex-teachers and people without jobs were there. It was sad to see that they no longer had homes. I learned about International Association of Youth through friends in California and was very touched by the work they are doing. I decided to expand their efforts by opening a chapter in Illinois, where the weather is brittle and, every year, homeless individuals die of cold in our area. I am excited about this opportunity to be able to help the homeless in my community.
Cris Burks, Banner and Cheyenne County Weed Superintendent recently attended Nebraska Weed Control Fall Training, held in Kearney at the beginning of the month.

Wednesdays topics included:

Annual Grass Control  Scott Ohnoutka, Bayer CropScience; Building Landowner Relationships and Herbicide Volatility Abe Smith, Corteva Agriscience; Working Together  Dr. Bill Podraza, Unique Technique Inc.; Year in Review Discussion Panel  Terry Krysl, Boyd County Weed Superintendent; Weed Free Forage Update  Rob Schultz, Hall/Howard County Weed Control Superintendent; Spray Records and...
The final results are in. We came up short. I want to thank the hundreds of volunteers who worked tirelessly for what was a wild two-month campaign, the statement reads. Im proud that we spent those two months talking about the only issue that matters in Illinois: the bankrupting of this state.
MARCY, N.Y. -- A 72-year-old woman died after a two-car crash in the Town of Marcy, according to New York State police.

Shirley D. Stomierowski's car crossed the center line, swiped another car and left the roadway before she died, police said.

On Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., police responded to a two-car crash on Mohawk Street in Marcy, police said. Stomierowski was driving her 2018 Subuar Legacy south on Mohawk Street when her car crossed into the northbound lane, swiping a 2016 Toyota Camry driven by 84-year-old Marjorie Brower, police said.

Stomierowski's car continued of the east side of the roadway, police said.



Brower was taken to St. Luke's Hospital with minor injuries while Stomierowski was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital, police said. Stomierowski was later pronounced dead.

Police are still investigating the crash.
OTISCO, N.Y. -- A Marietta sex offender has been charged with sending lewd text messages to a child.

George L. Reddick Jr., of 2588 Rose Hill Road, was arrested one week ago by the New York State Police and charged with asking a girl to "engage in sexual conduct," said Trooper Jack Keller, a state police spokesman. The 43-year-old man is accused of sending the lewd texts to a 14-year-old girl.

Reddick is a registered level-two sex offender. Level-two sex offenders are considered to pose a moderate risk of reoffending.

In 2005, Reddick was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl in Onondaga County, according to the state sex offender registry. He was sentenced to serve one year in jail for second-degree rape and second-degree sexual abuse.

Reddick sparked outrage in in 2007 when he walked into Tully High School with a subpoena demanding the school records of his teenage victim. He prompted Tully parents, teachers and residents to push for a state law prohibiting sex offenders from stepping onto school grounds.

During his arrest last week, Reddick was charged with first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors and endangering the welfare of a child. He was also charged with failing to report his new address.

Reddick is being held in the Onondaga County Justice Center without bail.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The Boeheims, the bishop of the Catholic diocese and the Onondaga County sheriff were among 220 people to write letters of support for Steven Aiello ahead of his sentencing.

Aiello, the founder and executive of Cor Development, was convicted in two corruption trials earlier this year. Jurors found him guilty of conspiring to bribe a state official, and rig a competitive bidding process. Aiello's business partner Joseph Gerardi and two state officials were also convicted.

Aiello is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan next Thursday.

Lawyers this week filed about 600 pages of letters of support for Aiello, mostly from members of the Central New York community. That included:

Jim and Juli Boeheim

Former County Executive Joanie Mahoney

Onondaga County Sheriff Gene Conway

Catholic Diocese of Syracuse Bishop Robert Cunningham

Former Syracuse Mayor Tom Young

Former Syracuse Police Chief and Common Councilor Steven Thompson

Former Onondaga Community College President Debbie Sydow.

Sen. John DeFrancisco

In their letters, Aiello's supporters urged U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni to exercise leniency in sentencing the Syracuse native. They emphasized his generosity to local nonprofits and his dedication to his family.

The Boeheims discussed philanthropy efforts they undertook with Aiello to upgrade and fix several area Boys & Girls Club facilities. Bishop Cunningham and Sheriff Conway wrote about Aiello's other contributions to the community.

The filings included notes from Aiello's FedEx delivery driver and his veterinarian. Dozens of family members and friends wrote to the judge.

Mahoney and Young shared their experiences with Aiello and Cor as the company first got involved with municipal development projects, particularly Syracuse's Inner Harbor.

"Steve was approached because his company had a good track record and Steve was persuaded that participating was the right thing to do," Mahoney wrote.

Most of the letter writers, including the Boeheims who live nearby the Aiellos, urged the judge to consider punishment that did not include prison time.

"A prison sentence for Steven Aiello would prove to be an overall loss for Syracuse," Jim and Juli Boeheim wrote.

Each of the three crimes Aiello has been convicted of carry a 20-year maximum sentence, but federal sentencing guidelines suggest Aiello serve around 5 years in prison.

Prosecutors who handled the trials suggested in court filings that would be overly harsh, especially considering the sentence the judge imposed on Joseph Percoco, the governor's aide with whom Aiello was convicted of conspiring.

Percoco was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Prosecutors wrote that they viewed Aiello as "less culpable" than Percoco.

Still, they urged Judge Caproni to sentence Aiello to a "substantial term of imprisonment."

"... when sentencing Aiello, the Court will send a message to be heard in boardrooms and executive suites everywhere," they wrote.

Friends and business associates hoped their impressions of Aiello would instead be on the judge's mind at the time of sentencing.

"Steve is a good man who made a mistake," wrote DeFrancisco.

Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992
Syracuse, N.Y. -- It sounded bad. Really bad. A five-car crash on Interstate 690 at rush hour. A child had been ejected.

A fire engine and a rescue truck from the Syracuse fire department wove its way from Station 17 through the jammed-up traffic, like trying to part the Red Sea, Lt. Jake Moulton says.

They pulled up on the scene. Eight minutes felt like an eternity. Some paramedics were working on a motorcyclist who was seriously injured.

Moulton looked for the child who had been ejected. A car was flipped on its roof. It had skidded across traffic. The roof was crushed.

Three other cars were damaged. The motorcyclist had been thrown from his bike.

They couldn't find the child.

Moulton, paramedic Nick Cherchio and firefighter Jonathan Maye kept looking.

Then they heard it: a cry.

As Cherchio helps retell the story, the relief of that moment still shows in his face.

"We listen for the crying," he says. When you hear that, you know it might turn out OK. "It means they're alert and conscious."

That was the day Luca King didn't die.

It was July 18, 2018, just 10 days before the curly-headed, mischievous boy would celebrate his second birthday.

He and his mom, Michelle Henderson, had dropped off his grandmother at work.

They were driving back to their home, heading west on Interstate 690, when a driver swerved in front of them, Henderson says. That set off a chain reaction that involved four cars and a motorcycle.

Henderson's car, a Hyundai Elantra sedan, flipped, then skidded across traffic.

Hanging upside down, she reached back to touch her son in his car seat. The seat was still buckled in, in the middle of the back seat. But the car seat was empty.

Then, Henderson heard him cry. She looked out the window and saw Luca standing in the middle of the highway. She crawled out a window and ran to the child in the middle of the road.

"I had to to touch him to make sure it was real," Henderson says.

As she retells the story, Luca wiggles on her lap, wanting to escape and examine the shiny pole in the middle of the fire station.

That he is alive is nothing short of a miracle. "He just had some road rash," Henderson says.

Luca touches his legs and repeats his mother. He remembers a little.

Luca King, 2, tries on a fire hat during a visit to Fire Station 17 in Syracuse Nov. 20, 2018. He survived a multi-vehicle crash in July. He was found standing, virtually unharmed, in the middle of I-690 after being ejected from the vehicle.

No one knows exactly what happened, or how Luca was ejected from the car. Firefighters who were at the scene say a woman in another car saw the boy hurled from the car and up into the air.

How he was unhurt is a mystery.

After Henderson ran to her crying son in the middle of the highway, another woman at the accident scene ushered the mother and child into the back seat of her car. That's where the firefighters found them after hearing Luca's cries.

Luca was checked out for internal injuries and other problems, but he was just fine. Henderson had some scrapes and a concussion.

Tears stream down her face as she talks. This day is also Luca's first visit to a fire station. The firefighters give him a teddy bear dressed like a firefighter.

The boy, whose cries they had searched for amid crushed cars, fills the concrete station with delighted squeals.

Maye, who is well over 6 feet tall, puts the tiny bear's helmet on his own head, mugging to make the little boy giggle more.

Then, they plunk Luca in the front seat of the fire engine that came to his rescue. They give him his own red helmet. They crane their necks to see his little face smile as he sits in the cab of the engine that takes them to countless hard places.

Next month, on Dec. 8, Luca and his mom will be among 39 kids firefighters and police officers take shopping at Destiny USA. They are the kids firefighters and police meet at crashes, fires, shootings and suicides, even.

"The last time they saw a uniformed police officer or firefighter, something horrible happened. Now they can spend some time with us when something good is happening," said John Kane, a district chief with the fire department who helps organize the Shop with a Firefighter or Cop event. "It's more than just a job. We get as much out of that as they do."

The fire department has raised $6,000 through donations and will take 24 kid shopping. Often, the kids buy presents for other people, like their moms.

The Syracuse police department will take 15 kids shopping, too, said Marlena Jackson, the Syracuse police officer helping organize the event. They work together on this good thing like they work together on so many hard things.

Kane also points out that the success that day, and so many others, depended on the hard work of everyone coming together, including the ambulance service and the 911 center.

Michelle Henderson holds her 2-year-old son, Luca King, who survived a multivehicle crash in July, during a visit to Fire Station 17 in Syracuse Nov. 20, 2018. He was ejected from the vehicle and found standing, virtually unharmed, in the middle of I-690. Nick Cherchio, a paramedic, (at left) and Jonathan Maye (right) were among the first responders who helped the family that day.

The police department has raised $3,000. Kane said the combined number makes the event one of the largest of its kind in the country.

Near the fire engine, Henderson holds Luca, who keeps running away to climb things in the fire station.

Her eyes are still wet from retelling the story of the day her son could have died.

"You guys already did so much for us, just being there for us that day," she says.

She sets Luca down.

He puts out his still-tiny hand to the firefighters for high-fives, then runs off to look at that shiny pole one more time.

Marnie Eisenstadt is an enterprise reporter who writes about people, life and culture in Central New York. Have an idea or question? Contact her anytime: email | twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2246
Karen Attiah is The Washington Post's Global Opinions editor. She writes on international affairs and social issues. Previously, she reported from Curacao, Ghana and Nigeria.

By Karen Attiah | The Washington Post

Last Friday afternoon I went to the Belgian restaurant Brasserie Beck, a few blocks down the street from The Washington Post. It was the place I had my last lunch with my friend and Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. I couldn't hold back the tears.

That evening, The Post reported that the CIA had concluded with "high confidence" that Jamal's Oct. 2 murder by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 33-year-old de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

There has been mounting evidence of the crown prince's culpability. U.S. intelligence officials have said MBS, as the crown prince is called, plotted to lure Khashoggi from his home in Virginia back to Saudi Arabia to detain him. Close advisers to the crown prince, including the notorious Saud al-Qahtani, have been directly implicated in the murder. Analysts and officials from around the world have said that such an extensive operation could not have happened without the crown prince's knowledge. A State Department official said it is "blindingly obvious" that MBS ordered Khashoggi's killing. Despite all of this, President Donald Trump has repeated that MBS has denied the killing. Over the weekend, he called the CIA report "premature." Trump refuses to personally listen to the audio tape of Khashoggi's killing, but admits that the tape is vicious.

In a juvenile, clumsy White House statement on Tuesday full of falsehoods, Trump repeated the Saudi lie that Jamal was an "enemy of a state" and that the "United States would stand steadfastly by Saudi Arabia," even though its regime lured, killed and dismembered a peaceful Post op-ed writer who lived in Virginia.

In effect, Trump is doing his best to help the Saudi regime get away with the murder of a U.S. resident and one of the Arab world's most prominent writers. If the administration continues down this path, it will further destroy whatever is left of America's moral credibility on global human rights and freedom of expression. It puts truth-seekers and journalists who dare challenge the Saudi regime and other intolerant governments in grave danger, no matter where they live. Trump's refusal to act gives a symbolic green light to the young, power-drunk Mohammed bin Salman so he can continue his reckless exploits in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world, for possibly the next 40 to 50 years, and face zero consequences.

"If we allow a murderer to get away because we think we can make some deals with him, we are just reinforcing the idea that money can silence everybody", says Abdullah Alaoudh, a senior scholar at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. "And this is the dangerous message that created Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi. We can better protect the good relationship with Saudi Arabia in the long run through building a relationship with the Saudi people, institutions and even the majority of the royal family. Or we can risk losing all that by protecting one powerful individual who has been implicated in a horrible crime."

The Saudi regime has scrambled to spin Jamal's killing, changing its story multiple times. The Saudi regime has undermined itself, proving to the world that it would rather hide behind lies, rather than correct its mistakes and choose a more tolerant, peaceful path. Pro-Saudi-regime voices, including the president's son Eric Trump, have argued that the death of one journalist should not destroy the U.S.-Saudi relationship. But voices are failing to frame the issue properly.

As an oil exporter, U.S.-Saudi relationship will continue; rather it is the United States' open praise and support for the crown prince that must come to an end.

Jamal's death, while heinous and personally painful for his colleagues, family and friends, is just the latest alarming symptom of MBS's political recklessness. In the past two years, under the crown prince's rapid ascent to power, scores of peaceful reformers and human rights campaigners (including elderly women) have been jailed. Many have been tortured; Amnesty International reported that imprisoned female activists have faced sexual harassment. The kingdom tried to blockade Qatar. It kidnapped Lebanon's prime minister and broke off diplomatic relations with Canada over tweets.

The darkly ironic argument that the United States should allow MBS to get away with murder just so it can continue to sell military equipment to Saudi Arabia is as morally craven as it is foolish policy. The Saudi-led coalition along with the United Arab Emirates has orchestrated a disastrous war in Yemen, triggering the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II. Militarily, the war has been a failure.

Despite U.S. training of Saudi forces and their use of American weapons, the Saudi forces have not made any significant headway against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The most newsworthy target that the Saudis managed to hit in recent months with U.S. weaponry wasn't a Houthi stronghold: It was a school bus full of Yemeni children.

There are those who argue that MBS should stay in the interests of "stability." But we have seen this movie before. From Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo to Augusto Pinochet in Chile, dictators supported by elites in Western capitals have terrorized their citizens and destabilized their regions. The peoples of these countries are told by these same governments to grin and bear their own repression, because the alternative is supposedly worse. In the case of Saudi Arabia, Khashoggi dared to declare in his work that Saudi Arabia's citizens deserved better than Mohammed bin Salman's repression. He was killed for it, because he was right.

From Trump's failure to condemn white supremacist violence in Charlotesville to mocking a sexual assault victim, there have been many low points of this presidency. But turning a blind eye to the butchering of a U.S.-based journalist just may be one of the lowest. It is time for Congress to act and impose consequences for Saudi Arabia's dangerous behavior, from Yemen to its bloody repression of peaceful critics. For if we do not, Khashoggi's death will be a blood stain on America's moral conscience that neither time, nor Saudi hush money, will ever erase.



Trump pressed to levy harsh response to Khashoggi killing
Paul Welch is on staff at Diocesan Catholic Relief Services in the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse.



By Paul Welch | Special to Syracuse.com



In the spirit of Thanksgiving, let's examine how the present-day pilgrims (immigrants) might enhance our country. What are these pilgrims like?



"These are working people. They aren't bringing bombs." That's how the mayor of Huixtla, Mexico, sees them, according to a New York Times report that described how Huixtla offered hospitality to 5,000 caravan members.



A local restaurant owner who gave out beans and rice said, "People are afraid that gangs might have infiltrated the group. But these are good people."



Previous caravans have taken place during the Easter season. One such caravan departed Central America in April. At its peak, it numbered about 1,500 people. By the time it reached San Diego in early May, the group had dwindled to less than one-third of its original size. Of those caravan participants interviewed by United States authorities for "credible fear" of persecution in their home country, 403 were allowed to take the first step toward applying for asylum in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than 90 percent of them passed that step.



It is American law that anyone physically present in the United States, regardless of status and whether they arrived at a designated point of entry, may apply for asylum within one year of arrival (with some exceptions outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act). The burden of proof is on the applicant to establish that he or she is a refugee, according to the definition set forth in Section 1101(a)(42)(A). A "credible fear" interview is the first step in the asylum process.



All Americans should be heartily welcoming these pilgrims/asylum seekers. The Social Security Trustees tell us that the foundational U.S. worker/retiree ratio is worsening. As Americans know, current workers pay for current retirees' benefits. In 2005, the worker/retiree ratio was 3.3; it shrunk to 2.8 in 2017. In 2030, it is projected to be 2.3. Our trust funds are in trouble. Pilgrim workers are part of the solution.



Similarly, with the U.S. birthrate hitting a three-decade low, we need the children of pilgrims. The average American woman is now having 1.8 births over her lifetime, not enough to replenish the population.



Yes, the immgrants' children will be educated in our schools, so they become productive workers in our society. The Supreme Court's 1982 decision, Plyler v. Doe, declared education of undocumented children was critical for our society. Education is costly, but the alternative is a decaying society.



For those Americans concerned about pilgrims living off our entitlements, undocumented pilgrims are not entitled to any federal benefit program except emergency Medicaid. So emergency Medicaid and children's education are the only two benefits pilgrims can use.



Undocumented pilgrims work hard and pay big taxes. According to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants pay significant taxes on all levels. Undocumented pilgrims paid $12 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes in 2010; $11.64 billion in state and local taxes in 2013; $23.6 billion in federal income taxes in 2015.

Please note that undocumented pilgrims are ineligible for Social Security or Medicare. Their $12 billion in Social Security and Medicare taxes support only American retirees. Their other taxes help defray the cost of education and government operations.



American farmers know the value of pilgrim farmworkers.



Mary Jo Dudley, of Cornell University, states that certain industries can't work without undocumented workers. Undocumented workers make up more than half of the hired labor on farms, according to the USDA. A dairy industry study found that if federal labor and immigration policies reduce by 50 percent the immigrant farmworkers, then 3,500 dairy farms would close. There is no federal program that allows immigrants to work year-round on dairy farms.



The construction industry employs 15 percent of its workforce from undocumented pilgrims. Overall, undocumented workers make up 5 percent of the U.S. total workforce.



Most Americans are unaware of the destabilizing role of U.S. policy in Central America. In 1954, our CIA overthrew the elected democracy in Guatemala, which resulted in 200,000 deaths in its 36-year civil war. In 1980, the U.S. backed a repressive El Salvador government, which assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, raped and murdered four female American missionaries and killed tens of thousands of poor campesinos. When these civil wars ended, the drug cartels invaded the three countries making up the Northern Triangle -- Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.



A recent report from Doctors Without Borders states that these three countries are experiencing "unprecedented levels of violence outside a war zone" and that "citizens are murdered with impunity, kidnappings and extortion are daily occurrences. Non-state actors perpetuate insecurity and forcibly recruit individuals into their ranks, and use sexual violence as a tool of intimidation and control."



These countries rank in the top 10 in the world for homicide. Gen. John Kelly, current White House chief of staff, as leader of U.S. Southern Command in 2014, said that cartels and gangs, fueled by the U.S. demand for drugs, "have left near-broken societies in their wake."



The caravan of pilgrims contains possibly thousands of asylum seekers suffering from decades of violence. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we have a chance to help them and, at the same time, strengthen America.
It's an elusive deer that hunters on the east side of Skaneateles Lake have been quietly monitoring with awe on their trail cameras for 5 years.

Tuesday the legend came to an end with a single shot from an 80-year-old Skaneateles hunter.

Jim Buff, 80, a former chief of the community's volunteer fire department, shot the massive, 17-point buck at about 70 yards with his 20-gauge shotgun.

It's a deer that hunters over the years had affectionately called "Hollywood, "The Ghost Buck" and "Voltar."

"He was half trotting all by himself. It (the slug) entered his right shoulder, caught the top part of his heart," Buff said "He ran about 25 feet right into a tree and dropped."

Another shot of Buff with his 17-point buck in the back of his son, Andy's truck.

News of Buff's buck spread fast, thanks to a number of cell phone calls and the fact that pictures were posted on several Upstate NY deer hunting Facebook pages.

Jesse Carr, also of Skaneateles, was hunting from a treestand several properties over from Buff's Tuesday morning. He first spotted the buck with a doe just after 7 a.m. Carr said he had been monitoring the deer for 5 years on trail camera photos but had never actually seen him. He had posted a host of photos of the deer on the "It is good outdoors" Facebook page.

"We called him Hollywood because he was so well known," he said. "Last year, I got pictures of him and counted 21 points on his rack. This year, he lost a couple of drop tines and stickers."

Carr said he watched the two deer for a little bit and ended up taking a long shot at the buck as it began to leave. He missed and promptly called Jim Buff's son, Andy, telling him that "Hollywood was on his way over and to get ready."

Two minutes later, the son called Jesse back and told him it was all over. "My father just shot him," he said.

Andy Buff said one group of local hunters called the deer "The Ghost Buck."

"They'd see him each year on their trail cameras each year and then would be out of their lives for the deer season," he said.

Buff and his kids, though, preferred to call the deer Voltar because it was so big - a monster buck, the father said.

After loading the massive deer in his son's truck, word spread fast and several hunters stopped by to check it out and have pictures taken with it. A proud Buff then took it down to the Skaneateles Fire Department to show some of his buddies there. Once again, numerous pictures were taken.

It's currently down at a son's house in Tully, where a taxidermist will come to do an official measurement of its antlers and take the beginning steps to do a shoulder mount. He plans to hang the mount on the wall in a log cabin he owns in Cleveland, N.Y., alongside another 11-point buck he shot.

"It'll probably end up being among the top 10 deer taken in the state this year," Buff said.

Buff said he doesn't understand all this online, social media stuff.

"My kids said the photos of the buck went viral, whatever that means. I think I need a prescription," he joked.

**For more Upstate New York outdoors on Facebook, go to Upstate NY Outdoors on NYup.com. We'd appreciate a "like."
What that looks like or how it gets categorized and so forth remains to be seen, he said. But I dont think we can say you cant do this without offering somebody an option as to how they might protect themselves.
In brief: In business, having more players on the field is supposed to foster a more competitive landscape but according to a recent report from Finnish research firm Rewheel, that is not reflected in the state of wireless data pricing in the US.

According to a recent report from Finnish research firm Rewheel, the US is the fifth most expensive market among 41 European Union and OECD countries in terms of median pricing per gigabyte (on plans with at least 1,000 minutes and 3Mbit/s for HD video) despite the fact that prices have dropped 11 percent since April.

Furthermore, the firm found that the US is the most expensive country among the same group with regard to median gigabyte pricing for mobile broadband (4G mobile and wireless home broadband plans with at least 3Mbit/s for HD video).

Rewheel notes that the median gigabyte price of smartphone plans in the US is four times higher than in European Union markets with four major network operators. The median gigabyte price itself is a whopping 16 times higher in the US than in competitive four-carrier European markets.

As such, Rewheel classifies the US as an outlier four-MNO market with much higher prices that are typically found in three-carrier markets with less competition.

This calls into question whether or not Sprints plan to merge with T-Mobile is in the best interest of consumers. The two carriers argue that consolidation will allow them to expedite the rollout of 5G technology and better compete with powerhouses Verizon and AT&T.
In context: It's no secret that the cost of PC memory has skyrocketed this year. While prices have seemingly stabilized now (perhaps due to the holiday season), websites like Amazon still list the base price of a 16GB kit of Corsair's Vengeance LPX DDR4 RAM at around $190.

Speculation regarding why the prices are so high has been rampant throughout the internet. Some insist the costs are due to material shortages, while others claim that the three leading memory makers -- Samsung, Micron, and Hynix -- have been participating in price fixing.

It seems China's government concurs with the latter theory. According to a report from the Financial Times, country officials have been investigating the three companies for suspected anti-competitive behavior for some time now.

These investigations have born fruit if said officials are to be believed. Specifically, Chinese inspectors have reportedly found "massive evidence" that Samsung, Hynix, and Micron are indeed fixing DRAM prices.

Chinese inspectors have reportedly found "massive evidence" that Samsung, Hynix, and Micron are indeed fixing DRAM prices.

China hasn't elaborated on either of these claims just yet, and none of the alleged evidence has made its way to the public sphere. However, if the investigations are as far along as China seems to imply they are, we might learn more in the coming months.

Samsung, Micron, and Hynix, for their part, do not appear to be impeding the proceedings. The Financial Times says all three companies are cooperating fully with investigators, but it remains to be seen whether or not that agreeableness will last if more information comes to light.
Why it matters: Facebook is facing renewed criticism for not doing enough to monitor the platform, especially in developing countries. Its been reported that a 17-year-old South Sudanese girl was recently auctioned on the social network for marriage, and it took the company 15 days to remove the postone week after she was married.

Reuters reports that a picture of the girl was posted to Facebook on October 25. Five men, including a government official, took part in the auction for a dowry, which was eventually won by a wealthy businessman who reportedly gave the girls father over 500 cows, three luxury cars and $10,000.

The South Sudanese National Alliance for Women Lawyers (NAWL) told CNN that the family wasnt responsible for the auction; it had been posted by someone from the community.

The girl was married on November 3, but Facebook didnt remove the post until November 9.

"This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets. That a girl could be sold for marriage on the worlds biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief," said George Otim, country director of Plan International South Sudan, in a statement.

"While it is common for dowries to be used in marriages in South Sudanese culture, nothing can excuse the way this girl  who is still a child  has been treated as nothing more than an object, sold off to the bidder prepared to offer the most money and goods."

Facebook said it removed the post and banned the user for violating its community standards, but as the auction had already been completed and fetched such a high price, there are concerns it could lead to similar posts.

"Any form of human trafficking whether posts, pages, ads or groups that co-ordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook. As soon as we were made aware of this post we worked quickly to remove the content and associated profile," a Facebook spokesperson said, in a statement.

According to Taban Abel, information minister in the Eastern Lakes area of the country, the girl has now gone into hiding in the capital, Juba.

Facebook is working to increase its number of content moderators to 30,000, but it seems the company can still miss posts like these, especially when they come from far-flung locations.
We always knew this was going to be a tight race, though I certainly never imagined how close it would be, Ellman said in a statement. After 10 years with only one candidate on the ballot, I think people finally got a chance to make their voices heard. I am grateful for all the supporters, volunteers and voters who helped our campaign.
Why it matters: A lot of focus is on Samsungs recently unveiled folding phone tech right now, but weve known for a while that other companies, including Huawei, are working on similar devices. Now, the Chinese giant has reportedly presented its finished version to Korean carriers at a private event.

According to Korean publication ET News, Huaweis device will arrive next year. The exact date isnt certain, but it will reportedly be unveiled at Barcelonas Mobile World Congress in February/March before launching sometime in June.

Samsungs foldable device, which is expected to be called the Galaxy F or Galaxy X, measures 7.3 inches when opened up, but Huaweis flexible phone has it beat with an 8-inch screen manufactured by BOE. It also appears to be almost completely free of bezels. When folded up, the screen measures 5 inches, again beating the Galaxy F/Xs 4.6-inch display, though unlike Samsung, Huawei has decided to include a notch.

An official said the phone would come with 5G support, which means it could be released in South Korea first, where many carriers already support the technology. Its been reported that the Galaxy F/X wont have 5G, which would be disappointing for a phone with a rumored $1800 price tag.

Back in October, Chinese firm Royole became the first company to unveil a foldable phonethe FlexPaithough it doesnt look particularly spectacular in Ice Universes tweet.

This is the "world's first foldable screen phone" released by Rouyu Technology, which will use the Snapdragon 8150 processor, but its design is very rough, just to seize the "first", this is a futures product. pic.twitter.com/M0v9o2z0Bw  Ice universe (@UniverseIce) October 31, 2018

We could see other big phone manufacturers, including LG, show off folding phones at MWC. With their astronomical prices, it seem like theyll become a fairly niche product, but that hasnt stopped firms jumping on the bandwagon.
Bottom line: One of the main blocking issues of ARM is the lack of software support for standard desktop applications. Google and Microsoft's work to build native ARM software could make it viable everyday users in laptops and tablets.

Even though it may appear to be a race between Intel and AMD to see who can build the latest and greater processor, that battle is only ongoing for x86 platforms. ARM architecture powers most mobile devices and is becoming increasingly viable for extending the battery life of laptops and tablets.

In an unlikely partnership, Google and Microsoft are working together on building an ARM-compatible version of Chrome for Windows 10. Around a month ago, a senior director at Qualcomm spread word that he personally was working on an ARM version of Chrome. Now, commits have been made to Chromium's Gerrit source code that validate the claims.

Two Microsoft developers have also been making commits to Chrome for Windows 10 on ARM. As it stands now, it appears Microsoft is willing to help out because of the reliance on Chrome for other applications. As much as Google would like to replace Microsoft Edge on more Windows 10 devices, Microsoft is still not likely willingly allow that.

Instead, Microsoft may be contributing to development so that Electron-based apps can be updated for ARM platforms. Visual Studio Code is one fairly significant tool that needs Chrome's code base to work. Skype, Slack and Node.js are also reliant on Chrome's JavaScript engine.

Microsoft and Google has always held a carefully balanced relationship given their competing offerings. Google's consideration of adding Windows 10 capabilities to the Pixelbook and potentially the new Pixel Slate could be a compromise that benefits all involved.
NASA is launching a safety investigation of SpaceX because Elon Musk, the private spaceflight company's founder and CEO, smoked weed.

NASA Investigates SpaceX, Boeing

While the U.S. space agency did not specifically say that the stunt, which happened when the billionaire appeared on a podcast with Joe Rogan, was the reason behind the review. In fact, Boeing, which was also contracted by NASA to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, will also be under investigation.

However, a spokesperson for the government told The Washington Post that the investigation hopes to make sure that both private spaceflight companies adhere to NASA's requirements for workplace safety, including having a drug-free environment. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was also quoted saying "culture and leadership start at the top," which seems like a thinly-veiled shot at Musk.

The U.S. space agency promises a thorough and "invasive" investigation on employee work hours, leadership and management styles, the responsiveness of both companies to safety concerns, and of course, drug policies. The investigation is also expected to have hundreds of interviews from employees at every level. The investigation will begin sometime next year.

This is not the first time that Musk has landed in hot water for smoking pot on camera. Earlier this year, the U.S. Air Force said that they are looking into the situation although no formal investigation has been launched.

People with government security clearance are prohibited to use marijuana. It is unclear if Musk has a government security clearance from SpaceX's contract with NASA.

NASA-SpaceX Contract

NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing the contract to fly astronauts to the ISS in 2014 as part of Commercial Crew Program. Since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, the United States has been relying on the Russians' Soyuz to ferry people to and from space.

SpaceX received $2.6 billion from the program. Both companies are scheduled to make uncrewed and crewed test flights next year.

"We couldn't be more proud of all that we have already accomplished together with NASA, and we look forward to returning human spaceflight capabilities to the United States," said SpaceX to The Washington Post.

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Bounce star Big Freedia, fresh from her cameo on Drake's New Orleans-shot "In My Feelings" video, returns with a video for "Karaoke," the late
Additionally, Tuk Tuk Naperville is running a shuttle from the Centennial Beach lot to the Naperville Municipal Center parking deck, located across the street from Christkindlmarket. The Centennial Beach pickup/drop-off location near the Jackson Street entrance is marked with a grey Tuk Tuk feather banner. Pickup/drop-off at the Municipal Center is at the entrance to the upper lot on Webster Street and also marked with a Tuk Tuk feather banner. Rides are $1 per person. Information at https://tuktuknaperville.com/.
The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank is filled these days with people volunteering their time and sorting food donated for the hungry. But what this 170,000-square foot facility on Choctaw Drive doesn't have as the holidays start is food.

The situation has gotten bad enough that the charity, which serves an 11-parish area, is putting out public calls for extra help, for extra donations of food, and especially for money to purchase additional food.

High-profile disasters, including hurricanes Florence and Michael, as well as the ongoing wildfires in California, have diverted the supply of donated food as well as drawn away cash donations that might ordinarily have gone to help hungry people locally at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

You would ordinarily see all of these shelves full, said Mike Manning, pointing to two tall, long and nearly empty stretches of metal shelving at the rear of the facility.

These shelves is where the the charity normally stores its dry, canned and staple foods. Manning, president and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, said instead he is flush with candy, a relic of the Halloween holiday, pointing to a big box of M&M bags.

Weve got a lot of candy, Manning said. Thats not what we need.

About 30 volunteers, several of them employees of ExxonMobil, were on hand Monday sorting donated canned food. Many people brought their families. The empty shelves are not visible from their work area.

Katie Skiles volunteered on Monday with her father Joe and brother, James, but she said she has worked there by herself since she first volunteered more than a year ago.

My parents made me come, Katie said. Now I love it.

A senior at Lee High in Baton Rouge, Katie, 17, said she was not aware of the food shortage. She said she might talk to the National Honor Society at her high school about doing a food drive.

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Baton Rouge Food Bank returns 'home' a month after floods The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, which has been working out of temporary facilities since its building flooded in August, began on Wednesday

The warehouse currently has about 1 million pound of food in its inventory, about half of the normal inventory, Manning said. One million pounds of food is also roughly what the food bank distributes each month to its 100-plus member agencies, he said.

And to top it all off, this is normally a time of peak inventory, when the food banks stock up in order to have sufficient supply for the early months of the year.

Ive never see it this bad going into the holidays, Manning said.

Besides recent disasters and the resulting donor fatigue, another food supply factor is the shrinking donations over time from commercial grocers who carry less excess inventory than they used to, Manning said.

To help restock, the food bank has asked local schools to do special food drives. What would help most, though, are cash donations, which people can donate online on the charitys website, Manning said.

We are kind of held hostage by the national situation, unless we can get sufficient money to purchase food, he said.

It doesnt necessarily take much money to help. Manning pointed to palettes full of canned vegetables without labels on them. These cans, when they have commercial labels, cost 70 to 90 cents a can at the store, but without the labels, they cost the food bank between 5 and 10 cents a can.

Manning said hes talking about having a more formal fund drive around New Years to raise money, but hes been too busy to pull together anything more formal sooner.

Were in firefighting mode right now, he said. Were just asking for help.
Inside a hot room adjacent to the kitchen at Franks Restaurant in Prairieville, cooks worked methodically through racks of raw turkeys Monday morning. First, they injected them with a liquid concoction; then dropped them, several at a time, into industrial fryers full of canola oil; extracted them, golden brown; and let them cool on racks before taking them to the kitchen to be vacuum-sealed.

The art of turkey-frying  a deeply southern enterprise whose mainstream popularity Serious Eats traced back to a UPI story from small-town Church Point, Louisiana in 1982  is met with science at Franks. Though Frank's is not open on Thanksgiving Day, it projects conservatively selling 3,000 pre-cooked turkeys, said general manager Frank Dedman III, grandson of the restaurants founder.

Most of those will be fried, Dedman said, though its location in Prairieville, which opened in 2004, and the original on Airline Highway in Baton Rouge also smoke and bake turkeys for sale.

Thus, the weeks surrounding Thanksgiving are all hands on deck at the restaurant, Dedman said.

Were frying around the clock, he said. This is by far so much busier than any other time of the year.

The changing lifestyles of Americans has led to a change in Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of laboring for hours in the kitchen, more and more people are choosing to get their turkeys, hams and side dishes pre-made from restaurants, grocery stores and, in some cases, Woman's Hospital.

As consumers continue to use restaurants more in their daily lifestyles, its not surprising that for holidays and special occasions, this carries over into those celebrations, said Hudson Riehle, a senior vice president of research for the National Restaurant Association.

A survey conducted earlier this month by the organization found that 9 percent of Americans plan to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. Of the people eating at home, one in four will have bought either prepared dishes or an entire meal from a restaurant or store.

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For consumers, the issue with Thanksgiving dinner comes down to several factors, Riehle said: Would you rather visit with family and friends instead of spending hours in a kitchen cooking? Is the convenience of purchasing dishes made at a restaurant or store worth giving up the comfort of a home-made meal? Or is the quality of a favorite restaurant dish higher than what could be produced in the home kitchen?

"The decision to use a restaurant for a meal, holiday or not, is based on a unique matrix," he said.

This year, Dedman said, holiday meal sales have exploded, beating out sales for the entire month of November 2017 by mid-month this year, something he attributes to an advertising push. Dedman, and his father, Frank Dedman Jr., lay claim to being at the forefront of fried turkey preparation in the Baton Rouge region about 30 years ago. Around that time, turkey frying was starting to emerge as a preferred method of cooking among some home cooks, especially across the South.

These days, fried turkeys are ubiquitous. But Dedman III said each year, more and more people, apparently uninterested with wrangling a giant fowl into a vat of scorching oil, seek out an already-done bird from the restaurant.

You can burn your freaking house down, Dedman cautions.

A few years ago, the restaurant began offering online ordering for holiday meals, an option that Dedman Jr. said is increasingly popular with millennials.

Wayne Stabiler said Thanksgiving has become a really good day at his local restaurants. This year, his Little Village restaurant on Airline Highway and Stabs Prime Steak & Seafood on Jefferson Highway will be open on the holiday. Turkey will be offered along with the Italian dishes at Little Village and the steaks at Stabs.

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Its easy for people to go to our restaurants now instead of fighting the aggravation with cooking and the mess afterwards, he said. They can have a good meal with the family and leave. Its over for them.

Brent Gurien, manager of the Baton Rouge location of Franks, said nearly a third of customers order their holiday meals online.

TJ Ribs, the Baton Rouge-based barbecue chain, also offers customers the ability to click a button and order a smoked turkey for pickup. Kevin Francis, operations manager at TJ Ribs, said the restaurant usually does $5,000 to $7,000 in additional revenue through its Thanksgiving meals, even though the restaurant is not open on Thanksgiving Day. He expects to do at least 100 turkeys this year.

(Online ordering) is starting to be the way people are leaning towards  instead of coming in or calling, he said.

Tony Matherne, who co-owns the four Mathernes Markets in the area, said he hopes to introduce an online service to allow customers to order prepared holiday items such as turkeys and hams in time for Christmas. Mathernes launched a service earlier this year that allows customers to order items online and pick them up at the store, but that hasnt been extended to holiday dinners.

Even without the ease of online ordering, Matherne said prepared holiday dinners from his store are gaining in popularity. Weve seen an uptick in business. Were going to sell a few hundred this year, he said. Thats definitely up from five years ago.

Rouses also offers online ordering and delivery for groceries, but not for prepared holiday meals, said Tim Acosta, marketing director at Rouses. The Louisiana-based grocer is bustling during the holidays, he said, as a large number of people still want to cook for Thanksgiving.

Still, a lot of Rouses prepared holiday side dishes are becoming more popular, Acosta said, possibly the result of changing consumer habits.

I think our customers today want to cook, but at the same time, they dont want to spend the whole day cooking every component of their meal, Acosta said. They cook a turkey and pick up sides from our deli to save time.

Max Jordan, a spokesman for Piccadilly, said Thanksgiving has become such a busy day for the Baton Rouge-based cafeteria chain that some locations have to bring in trailers to house all of the food theyre going to cook.

Every year, demand is higher and higher, he said. That includes everything from turkey packs, which include a whole bird or sliced breast meat, along with sides, for customers picking up quarts of their favorite Piccadilly dishes to put on the Thanksgiving table.

Weve got a track record, Jordan said. People have ordered from us for years and years. Piccadilly has been selling turkey packs for at least 50 years, he said.

While family restaurants such as Piccadilly are places people associate with holiday meals, one place that will sell hundreds of side dishes this year is a little surprising. Womans Hospital has been allowing doctors, staff and volunteers to buy whole turkeys, whole pies and trays of sides such as cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and broccoli rice casserole.

Margie Ricks, director of nutrition at Womans, said the service was launched more than 10 years ago and has grown. This year, the staff will prepare between 250 to 300 casseroles for staffers to pick up for their Thanksgiving dinner.

Everybodys life is so busy and we have such good food here on the regular cafeteria menu that people know and love and want for the holidays, she said.

Womans has received a lot of acclaim from employees, patients and their families for the quality of food served at the cafeteria. Ricks said the hospital will offer dishes through the online delivery service Waitr pretty soon.

At some point, we would like to expand these Thanksgiving dishes to the public, she said.
Baton Rouge police have released the name of the motorcyclist killed during a crash Tuesday evening on Perkins Road.

Joseph Bueche, 24, of Baton Rouge was pronounced dead on the scene from injuries sustained in the crash, Baton Rouge police spokesman Sgt. L'Jean McKneely Jr. said in a news release Wednesday morning.

The crash occurred around 7:15 p.m. on Perkins Road near Dawson Creek, which is in between Bluebonnet Boulevard and Staring Lane.

Bueche was driving his motorcycle westbound on Perkins Road when another driver pulled out of a driveway and into his lane of travel, striking Bueche's motorcycle.

McKneely said the crash remains under investigation.
Sen. Bill Cassidy is proposing the nation rent out storage space in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which includes facilities in Louisiana.

If the tanks are empty, lets put them to use. ... The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is crucial for our national security and this will help keep it in good working order and save taxpayers money at the same time, the Louisiana Republican says.

The reserve was first discussed in 1944 and created in 1975 following an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries embargo of the preceding two years. The SPR can hold 727 million gallons of crude oil that can be dispensed in case of an energy crisis.

Recent legislation allows the federal government to sell off oil from the reserves for profit, and if that leaves extra space in the storage facilities the property should be leased to private companies and foreign nations, Cassidy's office has argued.

In the past three years, Congress has authorized the sale of up to 149 million barrels through 2025 to fund a variety of programs, including new healthcare programs co-sponsored by Cassidy.

Cassiday and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, last week announced the introduction of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Reform Act, which would let the U.S. Department of Energy rent out space. The reserve is maintained in two sites in Texas and a pair of locations in Louisiana  near West Hackberry in Cameron Parish and Bayou Choctaw in Iberville Parish. The sites are in 62 separate underground caverns formed by salt domes.

The last time the federal government tapped the strategic reserve was in 2011, when President Barack Obama permitted the sale of 30 million barrels to offset supply disruptions due to unrest in Libya, according to the Department of Energy website.

Department officials declined to comment on pending legislation.

There are presently 653 million barrels in reserve, though if the government allows more to be drawn down, around half of the Strategic Reserve's capacity could be empty by 2028, Cassidy wrote. He has proposed allowing companies and foreign nations to store their own oil within the available space.

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This pragmatic solution shows that lawmakers can work across the aisle to craft energy policy that puts money back into peoples pockets. We need more bipartisan efforts in Washington that save taxpayer dollars, Bennet, the co-sponsor, wrote in a statement.

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is charged with making sure the facilities are safely maintained and do not damage the environment. Press secretary Patrick Courreges said he had not had a chance to thoroughly review the proposal when contacted last week, but he did not expect the bill would affect the state.

"That doesn't change anything from our perspective," Courreges said.

As long as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is still running the show, it doesn't matter to DNR who owns the oil being held, he continued.

Environmentalists were dismayed that as oil is removed from the salt domes, more could replace it. Louisiana Bucket Brigade founder Anne Rolfes said the state needs to look toward new wind and solar technology as leaders consider their energy agendas.

"It's disheartening to see that the only development in energy is in fossil fuels. ... It's ignorant on climate change," Rolfes said. "Let's get with it, for God's sake."

Natural Resources has dinged the Strategic Petroleum Reserve before, but Courreges said it was not immediately clear how often and whether the reserves were being reprimanded for minor issues, like having illegible signs, or more serious offenses, like leaks.

Sinkhole shines light on failings The Assumption Parish sinkhole, which regulators say was caused by an unprecedented?? failure of a man-made cavern deep underground, has expo

The state has faced criticism for its management of the salt domes, especially after a sinkhole formed at in Assumption Parish in 2012, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents. The Bayou Corne collapse, however, was formed due to mining, not the strategic reserve.
The Our Lady of the Lake Foundation board Tuesday named Christel Slaughter as its interim president to fill in for a leader recently fired on allegations he stole several hundred thousand dollars through a pattern of forgery and embezzlement of funds.

She will begin work on Monday. The Our Lady of the Lake Foundation has 17 employees and raises money for Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, which is part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.

Slaughter is chief executive officer at SSA Consultants, a Baton Rouge-based management consulting firm. She also serves on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chairs the lobbying organizations Small Business Council. Slaughter has worked in healthcare as well as a variety of industries, including engagements with the Louisiana Emergency Response Network, Blueprint Louisiana, and the East Baton Rouge City-Parish Green Light Plan, according to the Lake Foundation board. She also currently serves on the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University Board.

Lake administrators fired John-Paul Funes on Nov. 6. He was president and chief executive officer of the hospital systems nonprofit fundraising arm after auditors found questionable expenditures using foundation money. Our compliance program that began an investigation that concluded Mr. Funes falsified documents and embezzled funds on multiple occasions for personal gain, Lake administrators said in a statement.

OLOL fires foundation head John Paul Funes, citing 'pattern of forgery and embezzlement' John Paul Funes has been fired from his long-time position as president and CEO of Our Lady of the Lake Foundation, the hospital announced on 

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Lake administrators refuse to comment on specifics but turned over its financial documentation to 19th Judicial District Attorney Hillar Moore III and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriffs financial fraud unit for further investigation and possible criminal indictments.

The foundation reported on federal disclosures that it held $40.2 million in net assets for the fiscal year ending June 30. The foundation is raising money for a new childrens hospital building, which it hopes to open in October 2019.

Alleged OLOL Foundation theft involves 'hundreds of thousands'; how staff discovered missing funds Baton Rouge law enforcement took its first steps Wednesday to investigate allegations that the head of the fundraising arm of the states larg

Were very close to reaching our fundraising target for the new Childrens Hospital as we get nearer to our opening next fall. I have no doubt Christel will make a positive impact and help move the Foundation forward while we seek to fill this role permanently, Board Chairman Julio Melara said in a press release.
Baton Rouge Police Dept. Chief Murphy Paul, left, flanked by Deputy Chiefs Jonny Dunnam, center, and Herbert 'Tweety' Anny, right, speaks near a graphic plotting recent violent crimes in the city, at a press conference to address recent shootings that have added to a spike in homicides, starting at the beginning of November, on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018 at BRPD headquarters.
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Christmas in Mexico means tamales, and lots of them. This year, the folks at Cochon are celebrating Latin style and throwing a Mexican Christmas Tamale Dinner Dec. 6.

The dinner, a fundraiser for the Link Stryjewski Foundation, is being prepared by chef Eddie Hernandez, of Taqueria del Sol in Atlanta and Tennessee. Hernandez recently published the cookbook "Turnip Greens & Tortillas: A Mexican Chef Spices up the Southern Kitchen." In a news release, Cochon co-owner Stephen Stryjewski said he had been planning on hosting a dinner with Hernandez for some time, to celebrate the new book.

Prost! Link Stryjewski Foundation hosts Tchouptoberfest at NOLA Brewing Co. Oct. 13 Oktoberfest celebrations are almost upon us. The Link Stryjewski Foundation is throwing its second Tcouptoberfest, a beer and brat-fueled fund

Though tamales are eaten throughout the year in Mexico, during the holiday season they are everywhere, particularly during Las Posadas, which commemorates Mary and Josephs search for shelter and traditionally beings Dec. 16 and ends on Dec. 24.

The Dec. 6 dinner, which starts at 6:30 p.m., costs $85 per person. To make reservations for the dinner, call Cochon at (504) 588-2123.

All proceeds will go towards the non-profit foundation, which works to end the cycle of violence and poverty and to address the lack of quality education and job training opportunities available to New Orleans youth.
Commentary: New Orleans City Council should extend its budget review process for these reasons

Commentary: Time to extend the budget review process
An obituary described Chester Kulis as an activist in the 1960s civil rights movement and a tireless soldier in the fight for gun control. He worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections and as a probation officer for the U.S. District Court, and also taught sociology and law enforcement courses at community colleges, Loyola University and Rosary College (now Dominican University), his family said.
Editors Note: The Historic New Orleans Collection and The New Orleans Advocate present this occasional series looking back on the people, events and traditions that have shaped the Crescent City. The series features images from the institutions holdings and vignettes from THNOC staff that illuminate aspects of our areas history and culture. For more, visit www.hnoc.org or follow THNOC on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Comments or questions? Email us at historicallyspeaking@hnoc.org.

File powder has been used by cooks in the Louisiana region for centuries. File is the ground leaf of the sassafras tree, Sassafras albidum, a member of the laurel family. Native to North America, the tree had culinary and medicinal value to the Choctaw people of south Louisiana. Until their numbers dwindled toward the mid-20th century, a Choctaw community resided near Bayou Lacombe in St. Tammany Parish. Ethnographer David I. Bushnell Jr. visited this settlement frequently between December 1908 and April 1909 and submitted a report on the people to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In it, he describes their medicinal use of the plant, which involved steeping it in tea and drinking it as a blood thinner. He also explained how they processed sassafras leaveskombo ashish in the Choctaw languageinto file:

The leaves of Laurus sassafras are gathered during the autumn, usually about the middle of October, after they have turned red. They are thoroughly dried in the sun and air, without the use of artificial heat. They are then pounded in a wooden mortar until reduced to a very fine powder, which is sifted to remove all hard particles. The powder is again placed in the mortar and pounded until as fine as it can be made, when it is ready for use. About a teaspoonful of this powder added to a kettle of soup gives it a glutinous quality and the flavor also is relished. This powder is highly prized by the Creoles of Louisiana.

The Choctaw term for sassafras, kombo, has long been hypothesized as a possible origin for the word gumbo, though more recent scholarship points to gumbo actually evolving from the term ki ngombo, a Bantu word for okra. Okra was the base ingredient in an African stew that came to be known as gumbo. French colonial settlers and the enslaved people they owned came into contact with file via the Choctaw by the early 1700s. Amid this cultural milieu, file was incorporated as a thickener into gumbo. Naturalist Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz included an illustration showing the sassafras tree and roots in his 1758 memoir and natural history book, Histoire de la Louisiane.

Choctaw file vendors are mentioned in the Creole Gumbos section of the historic 1901 Picayune Creole Cook Book, which says they came down to New Orleans from Bayou Lacombe to sell sassafras leaves and powder in the French Market twice a week. This cookbook directs cooks to add the file only at the end of cooking, as the powder will make the stew stringy if warmed too long. The gumbo file recipes in early Creole cookbooks are very similar, though a comparison does reveal interesting variations: 1885s Creole Cookery recommends two spoonfuls of pulverized fillet, while La Cuisine Creole, published the same year, calls for a coffee cupful of filee. All advise against boiling after adding the powdera tip followed by many New Orleans chefs and home cooks to this day.
A Michigan man who had already been convicted of raping a series of young women and girls in Detroit received an additional 40-year sentence after pleading guilty to a cold-case rape in New Orleans that was solved with DNA evidence.

Dennis Whitsett, 43, received the sentence Monday from Criminal District Court Judge Franz Zibilich on counts of second-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping after pleading guilty under an agreement last week.

He had faced life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if he had been convicted of first-degree rape and aggravated kidnapping.

Investigators said that Whitsett forced a 21-year-old woman into a car near Carondelet Street and Jackson Avenue on April 29, 2006. He punched, choked and raped the woman in the back seat of the car, whose driver has never been identified.

Although the New Orleans Police Department received a DNA hit on Whitsett in 2011, the case sat dormant until prosecutors obtained an indictment in December 2017.

Inside look at how New Orleans DA's Office unit uses DNA to crack years-old rape cases More than 30 years ago, a young woman told New Orleans police a harrowing story about an attack inside her home near the Tulane University campus.

Whitsetts prosecution was part of a special, grant-funded project called the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative that began last year to review old rape cases.

In a statement in court on Monday, the victim spoke of the attacks impact on her life.

"You took the beginning of my adulthood. ... You are a menace to society, the 33-year-old woman said, according to prosecutors. I hope you rot."

Although Whitsett was already serving a life sentence in Michigan for his convictions there, he could have received parole.

Whitsett will serve his sentences in Louisiana and Michigan at the same time. He received credit for time served since his October 2011 conviction in Michigan.

No one should have to endure the horrifying violation suffered by this young woman, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said in a statement. Thanks to our persistence and continuing efforts to solve decades-old cases through DNA evidence, this defendant will be in no position to harm anyone again."

Assistant District Attorneys Mary Glass and Arthur Mitchell IV prosecuted the case. Whitsett was represented by Zachary Orjuela of the Orleans Public Defenders.
The head of gas pipeline firm APA says the government's decision to reject Hong Kong-based CKI's bid for the company is "disappointing" and brushed off suggestions union-backed infrastructure investor IFM and Canadian pension funds were circling.

On Tuesday night, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg rejected the $13 billion takeover bid, saying a sale would have been "contrary to national interests" because the majority of Australia's gas pipelines would have been in the control of a single foreign company.

Gas pipeliner APA described the government's rejection of its takeover by CKI as a "soft left down". Credit:Fairfax

APA chief executive Mick McCormack said the company had faith in the initial bid.

As a CEO Im disappointed by this decision, a lot of people worked hard on it, but the sun will still come up tomorrow, he told Fairfax Media.
The operators of Canberra's dockless share bikes want to establish a permanent presence in the capital - with triple the number of vehicles - when their six-month trial ends early next year.

Airbike chief executive Angus McDonald said interest in the service had "snowballed" since its July 31 launch.

More than 7000 trips have been recorded by about 6300 signed-up users as of early November.

Airbike's dockless bike share scheme could become permanent in the ACT. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

Mr McDonald said he was now in talks with the ACT government to continue the service beyond the trial's end date.
Hala Ramadan grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, and studied by candlelight in bomb shelters. She arrived in Australia aged 15 and is now principal of Belmore Boys' High, where 80 per cent of the students are Muslim.

Her friend Fiona Kelly is a Barkindji/Ngiyampaa woman, who grew up in Menindee, near Broken Hill, and returned years later as the high school principal. Seventy per cent of her students are Aboriginal and many have never met a Muslim.

Belmore Boys' High principal Hala Ramadan with Menindee Central High principal Fiona Kelly. Credit:Steven Siewert

Both women know even those who are marginalised can hold on to stereotypes of others. "A lot of people at home think every Muslim person is a terrorist," Mrs Kelly said - and the best way to overcome that is human connection.

They also know the key to encouraging inclusiveness among students is their parents.
Weve been proudly publishing quality journalism with a focus on stories that affect Queenslanders for more than a decade, providing a unique, fresh and trusted source of news for the state.

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Easy. Job done. No comprehensive modelling or topographic, hydrological or socio-economic studies carried out  even while the preferred alignment of this freight line will cross floodplains and cut through, or heavily impact, about 300 farms on some of Australias most productive land.

It may well be a saviour for the big freight forwarders such as Woolworths, Coles and Linfox. It was on their instruction, after all, that the Australian Rail Track Corporation drew a line on the map to connect Melbourne and Brisbane to establish a rail trip that would take less than 24 hours.

The multi-billion-dollar Inland Rail project is being hailed as a saviour for both the freight industry and farmers, and it is strongly supported by Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Michael McCormack.

It will bypass struggling country towns and leave them for dead, whereas upgrades of the existing line would allow them to share the economic benefits.

Prime farming land, which feeds the nation, will be destroyed. The landowners, some of whom have been on their farms for generations, and who are coping with the worst drought many have experienced, will be collateral damage.

The line, bearing kilometres-long trains with their double-stacked containers, will split properties in half. Some farms will be finished. Others will struggle to move stock and equipment from one side of the line to the other. Some properties could become worthless.

In Senate estimates, Labor Senator Glenn Sterle asked whether the ARTC had considered other alignments that would not impact so heavily on farms but instead pass closer to towns to benefit communities  and in so doing, add as little as 24 minutes to the trip between Melbourne and Brisbane. ARTC CEO John Fullerton admitted these options had not been considered  because industry insisted it had to be less than 24 hours.

ARTC maintains keeping the existing lines would be significantly more expensive, but is unable to put a figure on this. It is difficult to understand how it reaches this conclusion when it has no idea how much compensation it will have to pay for the preferred route, or how many crossings, bridges or fences it will need to build. In fact, it doesnt know precisely where the track will be laid.
Victorian expat Anthony Forsyth.

Consulate staff in Hong Kong checked the completed ballots of expats voting in the Victorian state election and were unaware of correct voting procedures, according to a complaint from an Australian living in the territory.

Melbourne man Anthony Forsyth went to the Australian consulate on Friday to vote in the upcoming state election.

He complained to the Victorian Electoral Commission after he saw staff telling people how to vote and even checking ballots after they were completed.

The commission responded to Mr Forsyth's complaint, saying they had reminded overseas consulate staff about voting procedures.
Here they are being the six leading roles of the Nativity story so its a really funny and yet heartwarming take on the Nativity story. They like to ask questions that some of us just dont think about. Its funny but, at the same time, its a different way of looking at the whole picture.
Chris Lloyd, I will be honouring the anniversary of my mother's death in another state on Saturday. Therefore I voted early after carefully considering the platforms of the candidates in my area and selecting my own preferences. As usual, I screened out much of the official campaign palaver, looking to past behaviours rather than future "promises" as indicators of what I can expect from the major parties. Margaret Pledger, Fairfield We need optional preferential voting in both houses In the Victorian election, voters are required to vote once above the line or for five or more candidates below the line for the upper house. Why can't we have optional preferential voting for the lower house? If there were, say, five candidates but I only wanted two of these to represent me, I would prefer to mark only my first and second preferences on the ballot paper. This would also reduce the influence of the so-called preference whisperers. Lindsay Cooper, Brighton East

My right to not vote for any of the major parties Having just voted as one must, I found it incredibly frustrating that I had to preference all squares on the lower house paper, therefore denying me the opportunity to not vote for any of the major parties or at least put them all equal last. Laurence Wheeler, Birregurra Early voting means shorter queues on election day To say that benefit accrues to one party or another from early voting is facile. As was shown in the Wentworth byelection by the preponderance of conservative postal votes, people do vote according to the performance of the parties before election day. Early voting makes the long queues shrink and benefits those who cannot vote on election day. A pity about the sausages, though.

Doris LeRoy, Altona I do my research and ignore 'empty promises' Chris Lloyd, I am a conscientious early voter. Election campaigns are full of empty promises. I base my voting on the performance of the incumbent party and behaviour of the opposition. I generally know who I will vote for well in advance of voting day. Yes, early voting is convenient. Oh, I also never obey the "how to vote" cards and I always vote below the line. Alan Williams, Port Melbourne THE FORUM

Forgotten defence issue In 1942, Australia had a near-death experience. We were a huge country with a tiny population of 7million. "Populate or perish" drove the post-war immigration program. Today, we have 25million people but we are still a huge country with a small population. In the debate on immigration, there has been little discussion concerning the issue of defence, but "populate or perish" still has legs. John Stickland, Ballarat We cannot keep growing Had successive governments, over decades, paid heed to the the 1994 report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long-term Strategies report  "Australia's Population "Carrying Capacity": One Nation  Two Ecologies"  the current infrastructure pressures would long since have been alleviated and liveability, environmental, economic and social issues largely avoided. It is not rocket science. Continuous growth is unsustainable.

David Allan, Prahran When we were welcoming Yes, we will remember Sisto's legacy (Comment, 21/11). We will also remember a time when Australia welcomed migrants and refugees and delighted in having open arms to those in need. But sadly, like Sisto, this is no more under our government's approach to not only refugees, but also migrants, it seems. Peta Colebatch, Footscray Greed in full flight

The outcry about the proposed removal of cash refunds for franking credits to non-taxpayers (The Age, 21/11) makes me laugh. Particularly the line by one retiree that "it's not their money". Actually, it is our money, the Australian taxpayers' money. Franking credits were introduced by the Keating government for taxpayers to avoid double dipping on taxation. In 2000, John Howard "tweaked" this policy to provide a cash refund to people who were already paying no tax. Franking credits as known in Australia are, at the very least, unusual across the world's financial systems. As a Baby Boomer, I am not surprised that our generation is viewed as greedy by younger people. Vera Boston, Fitzroy North Taxation and liability A company is a separate legal entity paying tax in its own right, not on behalf of its shareholders. If investors want the tax to be paid on their behalf, are they willing to give up legal liability and take on responsibility for the full debts and activities of their investments? If so, let us have that debate. If not, recognise the benefits a company structure provides and stop being so greedy.

Jeremy Burke, Richmond A matter of respect The letters from readers (The Age, 21/11) demonstrate why Australia needs legislation to protect religious freedom. Churches should be able to hire those who are willing to support their mission by word and example. Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli was not asking gay teachers to stop their actions or relationships, but to be respectful of the school's mission and context. Dr Joel Hodge, faculty of theology and philosophy, Australian Catholic University Adjustment of beliefs

The religious hierarchy needs to come to terms with the fact that humans are born with different sexualities, and adjust their beliefs and teachings accordingly instead of trying to tailor LGBT people to suit those beliefs and teachings. Heather Glassford, Williamstown Love and discrimination Duncan Fine (Comment, 21/11), would you have, in the name of "an open pluralistic society", supported a Christian wedding magazine which "tried to work through thoughts and feelings" and "engaged in brave conversations" while refusing to feature Jewish or Muslim couples? Because after all, love is love, and discrimination is discrimination. Mirna Cicioni, Brunswick East

Chaos, tears, frustration Another cruise ship comes into town. Traffic controllers create one lane into port and one out, blocking off car park spaces. More importantly, there is no drop-off or pick-up lane for taxis and Ubers. There is chaos around pedestrian crossings, with pedestrians seemingly ignored. Elderly passengers, some on walkers, have to walk down the road towards Bay Street, past the Spirit of Tasmania's truck entrance, and then pick-ups block the road. It is not a pretty sight and there are tears of frustration. How unwelcoming for the passengers. As we are in pre-election mode, maybe one of our leaders could fix this chaos and lay out a red-carpet welcome. Stuart Bensley, Brighton No to soggy newspapers

The continuing saga of plastic wrap around newspapers (Letters, 21/11) ... until waterproof newsprint is invented, we, sadly, need plastic wrap. So please, just recycle it and stop making those who like dry newspapers feel guilty. Jeanne James, Seaford A dangerous promise As a healthcare professional with 50years' experience, I believe that Matthew Guy's pledge to close the Richmond Safe Injecting Centre  in the face of overwhelming evidence as to its efficacy  is up there with the most irresponsible, heartless and irrational decisions ever made by a conservative politician. Michael Slocum, pharmacist, Ascot Vale

The country isn't the city In Gippsland, about 40per cent of the population live in towns with fewer than 1000 people and there are thousands more in small rural communities across Victoria. However, no political party  which are predominantly urban entities  is offering social or economic policies specifically designed for these communities. The major parties are talking about decentralisation, but they tend to mention Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong. It is time they understood that different approaches are needed for large urban centres and small rural communities. Neil Smith, Bairnsdale Another overlooked seat

The Andrews government claims to be governing for all Victorians, but you might question that if you live in a safe Liberal seat such as Narracan. Where is the funding for West Gippsland Hospital? Ormond Pearson, Warragul Even more implausible Talking about the Liberals' television ads, Carl Areskog says: "We are entitled to expect constructive advice rather than negative, implausible statements that insult voters' intelligence" (Letters, 21/11). What are more negative and implausible than Labor's ads about Matthew Guy, linking him to events that happened ages ago and which have no relevance to this election? These ads insult my intelligence. Roger Marks, Drouin

Leaders' childish sniping I will be glad when the election campaigns are finished, regardless of the result. The continuous sniping between the leaders is hard to bear and the incessant television ads are driving us to distraction. The endless pork barrelling with our money makes me wonder how we can ever have planned development of the state. Alex Brown, Camberwell Protect our local villages Your editorial on the incidence and impact of social isolation (The Age, 19/11) is to be commended. One environment which fosters social connection is the local shopping strip. Worryingly, these hubs are under threat due to increasing rent, declining patronage (aside from ubiquitous coffee shops) and the growth of huge, impersonal malls and foreign "superstores".

Near me we have a number of sites for lease in the charming Hamilton Street, Mont Albert and Maling Road, Canterbury precincts. Traders are rightly concerned about the long-term viability of their hubs. The government and councils should recognise that these provide a vital community and health service, and invest in innovative solutions to ensure their viability. Diana Yallop, Surrey Hills Speaking out without fear Banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne need go no further than psychologist Stanley Milgram's (1963) classic experimental study of obedience to understand "what caused misconduct in the sector" (The Age, 20/11). It is because we fear authority. We obediently put aside moral misgivings and professional ethics to carry out our duties as directed (or expected). As members of a team or department in an "authority-chain organisation", our personal and collective interests, our careers, are rarely served by telling those people who control our future that they are wrong.

The managers who have been questioned by Commissioner Hayne knew what they were doing. Now, they need to create a culture in which dodgy corporate practices are not tolerated and employees can speak out against injustice without fear. William Sparrow, Burwood The real estate rort Elizabeth Knight says: "The problem for the banks was that in the then rapidly rising housing market, the payment of commissions based on the size of loans was becoming expensive" (BusinessDay, 20/11). The same might be said of the system whereby real estate agents are paid. The (similar) method of their remuneration exaggerates, in a rising market, the lack of affordability for those who are trying to enter the market.

And yet I do not recall ever reading that those "in the know" believe this could be a factor contributing to that problem and potentially worthy of a review. Not that the real estate agents would see it that way, I suppose. Trevor Nock, Torquay So what else is new? Minister for Women Kelly O'Dwyer tells us that Prime Minister Scott Morrison probably regrets making his comment about Pamela Anderson. Well, he has not said anything to indicate that. As Ms O'Dwyer should know, "boys will boys". Nothing changes. Anne Maki, Alphington

AND ANOTHER THING Election Mandatory voting should be accompanied by optional preferential voting. We shouldn't be forced to preference someone we don't like. James Moseley, Frankston

To all political parties: remember the elderly. They vote. David Worthley, Kensington Re the Greens' young candidates: Naivety is not a deadly sin John Bowman, Ocean Grove Michael Buxton and Miles Lewis (20/11), Richmond residents are voting for a local member, not a planning minister.

Martin Brennan, Fitzroy Guy says Shire Ali should have been in jail, not on bail. Why hasn't he said the same about Michael Rogers ("Trolley Man")? Rod King, Upper Ferntree Gully Morrison Buxom blonde jokes are so last century, PM. And you profess to be Christian.

Jenny Bone, Surrey Hills Scott Morrison would make a great short-order cook. Aidan Sudbury, Malvern East Hypocrisy thy name is Morrison. Adrian Tabor, Point Lonsdale

Furthermore Dale Wise (21/11), newsagents, not The Age, wrap newspapers. Ask yours to deliver your paper unwrapped, and provide a weather-proof place for it. Judith Hagan, Apollo Bay How about establishing a scholarship in Sisto's name for a young Melburnian to study hospitality? Stan Marks, Caulfield

A university scholarship should be named in Sisto's honour as many migrant families place an important value on education. Pamela Papadopoulos, South Yarra Hopefully Ian Narev has returned, with his millions, to New Zealand and resumed his acting career. Good riddance. Peter Thomas, Barwon Heads Joe Cocker's midnight concert at Festival Hall in 1972 must be the reason it's been heritage listed.
A man accused of a one-punch attack outside a South Perth apartment block has had his charge upgraded to murder after the victim died in hospital.

Steven Richards, 45, died four days after he was found with serious head injuries on a footpath at the intersection of Mill Point Road and Hurlingham Road on November 7.

Arron Leigh Rebbeck will have his charge upgraded to murder on Wednesday Credit:WA Police

Arron Lee Rebbeck, 24, was arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm following the incident.

On Wednesday, his charge is expected to be upgraded to murder in Perth Magistrates Court.
Former Prime Minister Paul Keating says Victorians should regard the Liberal Party's decision not to run a candidate in the Labor-held inner city seat of Richmond with high cynicism.

Richmond is held by Planning Minister Richard Wynne, but is shaping as one of Saturdays most fascinating battles as the Greens Kathleen Maltzahn tries for a third time to win the seat.

The intervention in the Victorian election by Mr Keating, prime minister from 1991 to 1996, comes as campaigning in the marginal seat  which Labor holds by just 1.9 per cent  reaches a crescendo.

Paul Keating weighs in to the battle for Richmond to back Richard Wynne Credit:Peter Braig

Both the Greens and Labor believe Saturdays vote will come down to the wire in the seat covering suburbs including Richmond, Fitzroy, Abbotsford, Collingwood and Clifton Hill.
Loading Trump erupted at the decision. On Tuesday, he told reporters outside the White House that he was "going to put in a major complaint" against the judge. "This was an Obama judge. And I'll tell you what, it's not going to happen like this any more," Trump said. "Everybody that wants to sue the United States, they file their case in - almost - they file their case in the 9th Circuit. And it means an automatic loss no matter what you do, no matter how good your case is. "We will win that case in the Supreme Court of the United States," he added.

After Roberts' rebuke, Trump hit back on Wednesday, saying on Twitter, "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges,' and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country." Trump again attacked the 9th Circuit, saying "a vast number" of its rulings on border and security issues were overturned. "We need protection and security - these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!" Aggressive defender of courts Supreme Court justices, and the chief in particular, hardly ever issue statements on news events. But it appeared Roberts was eager to counter Trump's criticism of Tigar.

Loading The chief justice is an aggressive defender of the judiciary and has frequently expressed concern about attacks on its impartiality, whether they come from the left or the right. He made it clear last month that he felt the recent partisan battle over the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh had cast a shadow on the Supreme Court. At an event at the University of Minnesota just after Kavanaugh's confirmation, Roberts, who administered the oath of office to Trump when he was sworn in as President last year, sought to assure that the court served "one nation" and not "one party or one interest". "Our role is very clear: We are to interpret the constitution and laws of the United States, and to ensure that the political branches act within them," he said.

"That job obviously requires independence from the political branches. The story of the Supreme Court would be very different without that sort of independence." Lower courts have not been accommodating to Trump's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. They have temporarily blocked his attempts to strip funding from "sanctuary" cities and rescind temporary work permits and deportation protections from roughly 1 million immigrants who were protected under past administrations. But the Supreme Court last June upheld the President's "travel ban" on people from certain Muslim-majority countries, in a 5-to-4 decision written by Roberts. The chief justice put aside comments that Trump had made about Muslims in ruling that the President had not exceeded his powers.

"The issue before us is not whether to denounce the statements," Roberts wrote. "It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a Presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility. In doing so, we must consider not only the statements of a particular President, but also the authority of the Presidency itself." He added: "We express no view on the soundness of the policy." Roberts has not commented on Trump before, even though Trump as a candidate called Roberts a "disaster" because of his vote with the court's liberals to uphold the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Liberals who follow the court and are often critical of Roberts applauded his statement on Wednesday. "A remarkable rebuke of a President by a Chief Justice - offhand, I can't think of any historical analogy even close," Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman said in a tweet.
Welcome to You Know What I Heard, the Cuts weekly celebrity gossip column about the peregrinations of the rich and famous. Photo: Gotham/GC Images

The summer of celebrity engagements is over, but now we are entering holiday season, which is when a lot of normal people get engaged. Will Bella Hadid and the Weeknd a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye be among them? Us Weekly says: yes!

The tabloid reported this morning that the Weeknd, 28, is planning to propose to Hadid, 22, ASAP. Theyre madly in love with each other, a source told the mag. Well, great. The two have been dating on and off since 2016, though they took a long break last year, during which the Weeknd dated Selena Gomez. Now, however, they are fully committed to each other: Us Weekly notes that Hadid recently moved in with the Weeknd in New York. He asked her to move in and she, of course, agreed, said a source. She felt that this was the next best step in their relationship.

The New York Post, of course, has the details: The paper reported last month that the Weeknd rented a penthouse in Tribeca for $60,000 a month to share with Hadid. Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake also have an apartment in the building, which has a pool, a childrens play room, a gym, a wine room. Congrats to everyone!

Photo: SPOT / BACKGRID

Us Weekly also reported this week that Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger are going to get engaged soon, but we knew that. A source told the tabloid that Pratt has been turning down work so he can spend time with Schwarzenegger. The mag also described Schwarzenegger as Pratts author love, which, I mean, technically, yes, she is an author, and she is his love, but lol. (Her titles include Maverick and Me, a childrens book about her dog, and two self-help volumes: Rock What You Got and I Just Graduated  Now What?)

Photo: ROSDIANA CIARAVOLO/Getty Images

Paris Hilton, meanwhile, has ended her engagement to The Leftovers actor Chris Zylka. Did you remember that they were engaged? According to TMZ, she has yet to give back the $2 million pear-shaped diamond ring Zylka gave her (which he apparently got at a deep discount in exchange for providing the jeweler valuable Paris Hilton publicity).



Hailey Baldwin exhibited some interesting behavior on Instagram this week. First, she changed her name to @haileybieber, signifying once and for all that she is officially married to Justin Bieber, God help her. Then she accidentally followed a Selena Gomez fan account. (Gomez, of course, is Biebers most significant ex-girlfriend: The two got back together for the last time  we can hope  at the end of last year, right after Gomez broke up with the Weeknd.) The fan account, @houseofsel, posted a screenshot of Baldwin apologizing for the follow. hey followed you by accident so sorry! she wrote.

Them: Why are you always on Instagram? Dont you have a life?



Me: Who needs a life when instead I can discover Hailey Baldwin following a Selena Gomez fan account. pic.twitter.com/Tm06RuoU5Q  Taylor Banks (@MsTaylorBanks) November 16, 2018

Surprisingly, Baldwin did not immediately throw her phone in the ocean afterward. Instead, she continued to follow other people on Instagram, including the Democratic Socialist superstar and Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

One small blessing from this week:

Mandy Moore got married in her backyard.



And heres an interesting blind item from this week, care of our favorite actress, Instagram personality, and late-night talk show host Busy Philipps. Earlier this month, Philipps appeared on the The Late Show With James Corden and revealed on air that 22-year-old Netflix heartthrob Noah Centineo ghosted one of her friends on Raya. Of course! This is the most Hollywood thing I have ever heard.

#NoahCentineo got called out by #BusyPhilipps live for ghosting her friend. According to TMZ, the actual convo ran longer than the clip that aired, but was edited because Noah's team were worried about it tarnishing his image. The segment was left out of YouTube and social media. pic.twitter.com/sGKCfuIJwB  will (@WillyCosmic) November 8, 2018

And then this week, Philipps appeared at the Vulture festival and said she felt bad for bringing up the ghosting story on TV, but then she gave us some more crucial clues: She noted that the friend is a writer on her show, Busy Tonight, and that shes in her 40s. That narrows it down quite a bit  there are only three writers on Philippss show.

My guess is that Centineo was chatting with Kelly Oxford, 41, an author and social-media personality who writes for Busy Tonight. In June, TMZ reported that Oxford was dating DJ Flume, who is 26.



Finally, Ill leave you with this photo of Gwyneth Paltrow and her children Apple, 14, and Moses, 12, shopping in New York together on Monday. I hope you all get a chance to hit up the sales this weekend!

Photo: JUJU/BACKGRID

Thank you for gossiping this week, and happy Thanksgiving. Dont forget to email me at allie.jones@nymag.com, send me a message on Twitter, or contact me on Signal if youd like to chat.
Photo: Sabrina Santiago

Everyone has their own idea of what New York City looks like  even if they dont live here. Im reminded of this especially around the holidays, when family and friends visit from elsewhere, and offer their unfiltered comments on the place I call home. A new campaign from Dolce Vita titled a New York Gaze, explores the same idea.

When Dolce Vita opened its store on Ludlow Street in 2001, just a few doors down from the original Max Fish, it was one of the first boutiques to arrive in the wave of gentrification on the Lower East Side. So, in an ode to the neighborhood, the brand commissioned four different female photographers to capture scenes on the street today: Cheryl Dunn, Hannah La Follette Ryan, Emily Soto, and Sabrina Santiago.

Each artist brings a unique perspective to the project. Ryan, for example, is behind the popular @subwayhands Instagram account, which documents the hands of subway riders she sees on her daily commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan. And Soto comes from a more fashion-focused background, having shot multiple magazine covers and faces like Adwoa Aboah, Karlie Kloss, and Zoe Kravitz. Of course, Dolce Vita shoes also had to be in each of the frames, but you wouldnt know it at first glance.

Below, a glimpse at how four different women see the streets. (And shoes.)

Cheryl Dunn

Photo: Cheryl Dunn

Hannah La Follette Ryan

Photo: Hannah La Follette Ryan

Emily Soto

Photo: Emily Soto

Sabrina Santiago
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: Pool/Getty Images

A new report from the Wall Street Journal details evidence that the Saudi Arabian security officers have tortured at least eight of 18 womens rights-activists in captivity this year. The torture and detention of the activists is reportedly a part of an effort to put an end to criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

According to WSJ, the torture reportedly includes lashings and electric shock. Additional reports from human rights organizations outlined further details of alleged torture.

Human Rights Watch report on the torture allegations also detailed accounts of forced hugging and kissing. The women who endured the torture reportedly showed physical signs including difficulty walking, uncontrolled shaking of the hands, and red marks and scratches on their faces and necks. A statement from Amnesty International stated that the abused included that one of the activists was made to hang from the ceiling, and that others were reportedly subjected to sexual harassment, by interrogators wearing face masks. According to both reports, one woman who suffered the abuse repeatedly attempted to commit suicide.

Some of the women who were allegedly abused include activists who were prominent in the campaign for women to have the right to drive in the country, which was officially granted on June 4 of this year. Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, Nouf Abdelaziz, Mayaa al-Zahrani, Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Saada, and Hatoon al-Fassi are all being detained without being charged.

The report comes as Prince Mohammed and Saudi Arabian government face international backlash over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey. The Saudi Arabian government denied the allegations in a statement to WSJ: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabias judiciary system does not condone, promote, or allow the use of torture.

The same afternoon that the report detailing the alleged torture was published, President Donald Trump restated the United States committed relationship to the Kingdom in an official White House statement. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, the statement read. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!
Decor: The building has been around forever. We just found out some of the history of it. Its been many things over the years. It was a general store. Then it was an airport office, said Patty Schrum about the site that most recently housed the Pink Sheep, a childrens boutique. We are just takeout as far as the building goes. We do offer picnic tables that we have in our backyard. There are eight picnic tables back there.
Members of the Sentinelese tribe have long resisted contact with foreigners, and are believed to number between only about 50 and 150. (Indian Coast Guard)

American Man Killed by Isolated Tribe on Indian Island

NEW DELHIAn American is believed to have been killed by an isolated Indian island tribe known to fire at outsiders with bows and arrows, police said on Nov. 21.

Local media have identified the victim as 27-year-old John Allen Chau, said to have been a Christian missionary.

Police officer Vijay Singh said seven fishermen have been arrested for facilitating the Americans visit to North Sentinel Island, where the killing apparently occurred. Visits to the island are heavily restricted by the government.

Police said Chau had previously visited North Sentinel island about four or five times with the help of local fishermen, journalist Subir Bhaumik told the BBC.

The number of people belonging to the Sentinelese tribe is so low, they dont even understand how to use money. Its in fact illegal to have any sort of contact with them, Bhaumik said.

The Sentinelese people live on the small forested island and are known to resist all contact with outsiders, often attacking anyone who comes near.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a group of islands at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.

Singh said the man was killed on Nov. 17 and police were in the process of recovering the body. He declined to give any other details, saying he was investigating the case.

Kathleen Hosie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, the capital of southern Tamil Nadu state, said it was aware of reports concerning an American in the islands.

When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, Hosie said. She said she could not comment further due to privacy considerations.

Shiv Viswanathan, a social scientist and a professor at Jindal Global Law School, said North Sentinel Island was a protected area and not open to tourists. The exact population of the tribe is not known, but it is declining. The government has to protect them, Viswanathan said.

Poachers are known to fish illegally in the waters around the island, catching turtles and diving for lobsters and sea cucumbers. Tribespeople killed two Indian fishermen in 2006 when their boat broke loose and drifted onto the shore.

By Ashok Sharma




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 play has a running time of around two hours, but when we did our first table reading of the script at rehearsal, it took the cast about three hours to get through it because we were all laughing so much, Komendera said.
Sherider Anilus, 28, and her daughter, 9-month-old Monica, sit on the spot where her home collapsed during 2010's 7.0 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Australian Aid Group Apologises for Sexual Misconduct by Its Member Organisations

Australias peak body for the aid sector, the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), sent out a public apology for sexual misconduct committed by its aid workers on Nov. 20.

The apology comes after ACFID commissioned an independent review into sexual misconduct in May 2018. This had been sparked by widespread media reports in February this year about a senior staff of Oxfam UK who had paid survivors of the 2010 Haiti earthquake for sex. The media coverage put increased public attention on sexual misconduct in the aid sector.

The board of ACFID acknowledged that they cannot undo the damage the abuse had caused to the victims. However, they said they are committed to preventing the abuses from happening again.

ACFID's Board has set out their intention to carry forward all the recommendations of the independent review into the prevention of sexual misconduct within ACFID's membership which has been released today. (1/3) Read more: https://t.co/67xb6LlJw1 pic.twitter.com/XQmp0vra6U  ACFID (@ACFID) November 20, 2018

We would like to acknowledge and apologise to the victims/survivors of sexual misconduct who have been harmedboth those we work alongside and those we exist to protect and support, the board said in a statement, released Nov. 21.

The ACFID has 119 member organisations.

Aid Workers Abused People in Need

Over three months, an independent review (PDF) conducted by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) found that there were 31 substantiated sexual misconduct cases that involved aid workers as the perpetrators. The 31 cases are out of 76 incidents in total that had been reported by Australian aid agencies under ACFID over a 3-year period.

In 16 of the substantiated cases, the aid workers had sexually abused the very people they were trying to help, while in the 15 remaining cases, the aid workers had perpetrated the abuse against their own colleagues.

Out of the 31 total substantiated cases, 17 were cases of sexual harassment, six were cases of sexual abuse, and eight were other incidents of sexual misconduct, the report said.

The ACFID board has accepted all of the 31 recommendations presented in the report to prevent future sexual misconduct in the aid sectorone of which is to have a compulsory sexual misconduct reporting scheme for all non-profits involved in international work. Another is to make sure that all incidents are reported to local police.

The board has agreed that planning in early December is needed on how to implement the recommendations.

ACFIDs chief executive, Marc Purcell, said that the review was part of efforts to face the failure of the aid sector to guard against such abuses.

This sector is built on trying to assist people that are living in poverty and suffering injustice, Purcell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Any sort of behaviour where there is an abuse of power, like sexual abuse misconduct against people who are very vulnerable, is absolutely wrong and there is no place for it in this sector.

Out of the perpetrators, 48 received disciplinary action, which including firing, suspension, and referral to police.

VIFM noted that the review only looked at voluntarily reported cases, and therefore the sexual misconduct may be more widespread. It noted that 20 aid organisations had reported cases, while 66 groups reported zero incidents. A total of 33 groups did not respond at all.

ACFID board members pointed out that the goal is to stamp out sexual misconduct altogether.

Our goal has always been to reduce cases of sexual misconduct to zero, where one case is one too many, they said in their statement.

After ACFID commissioned an independent review into the prevention of sexual misconduct within our membership, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine has presented their final report. ACFID has accepted all of the recommendations. Read more: https://t.co/67xb6LlJw1 pic.twitter.com/3rTkMbSEq5  ACFID (@ACFID) November 20, 2018

In striving for that goal, we must ensure our organisations are places where victims/survivors feel safe to report without fear; are empowered to tell their stories; and justice is a cast-iron certainty.

If you have experienced violence as a result of this issue or know someone who has you can contact 1800RESPECT at any time of day to speak to a trained counsellor.

1800-RESPECT, the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence support service, can provide supportincluding information, referrals and counsellingfor anyone affected by sexual misconduct.

From NTD News
Police are seen outside one of the houses involved in counter-terrorism raids across the north-western suburbs in Melbourne, Australia, on Nov. 20, 2018. (AAP/David Crosling/via Reuters)

Australian Police Charge Three Men Over Plot to Undertake Mass Attack

SYDNEYPolice said on Nov. 20 they arrested three men who were allegedly preparing to attack a mass gathering in Melbourne, less than two weeks after a man was killed in Australias second-largest city in what police said was an act of terrorism.

Australian federal and state police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, and other agencies that form part of the Joint Counter Terrorism Team carried out the arrests early on Nov. 20.

Police said three men, Hanifi Halis, 21, Samed Erikioglu, 26 and Ertunc Erikioglu, 30, were taken into custody after they allegedly sought to acquire a semi-automatic gun to carry out an attack.

All three men were charged with planning a terrorist act, police said. They are all Australian citizens and their passports were canceled earlier this year.

We now have sufficient evidence to act in relation to preventing a terrorist attack, Graham Ashton, Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, told reporters.

Police said the suspects had yet to decide on the site of their planned attack but they believed it was imminent.

They were certainly looking at a place of mass gathering, where there would be crowds, Ashton said. They were trying to focus on trying to have a place where they could kill as many people as possible.

Police said they believed the arrests had nullified any threat from the group.

Police said they are now combing through 17,000 intercepted phone calls and 10,500 messages exchanged between the group as part of evidence collected during their arrests. Police said it will take several months to transcribe the calls and messages.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally that sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, has been on heightened alert since 2014 for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East or their supporters.

Australia currently sees the likelihood of a militant attack as probable, the midpoint on a five-level threat ranking system. It has been set at that level since the system was introduced in 2015.

Police said the three men were known to authorities and their passports were canceled because of concerns they would travel to a conflict zone overseas.

The arrests came less than two weeks after a man set fire to a pickup truck laden with gas cylinders in the center of Melbourne and stabbed three people, killing one, before he was shot by police.

As was the case in that attack, police said on Nov. 20 the three men had been inspired by Islamic State rather than being directed by the militant group.

Police said the three suspects did not have any links to the man responsible for the Nov. 9 attack, although they had escalated their planning in the aftermath of that assault.

Certainly over the last week theyve become energized about doing something more quickly, Ashton said.

Police said the suspects had been using encrypted messaging apps to communicate, which an Australian government minister said was further evidence of the need to amend the law.

Australia proposed a law earlier this year that would require companies such as Facebook and Apple to provide access to private encrypted data linked to suspected illegal activities.

We have people now who are swapping messages using encrypted messaging apps. The police are blind to those messages, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters in Sydney.

By Colin Packham
Brother of Gunned Down CEO Is Charged With Arson

The brother of a technology firm CEO who was shot dead, and his family burnt in a New Jersey mansion fire, faces arson charges, media reports said on Nov. 21.

Paul Caneiro, the brother of Keith, whose body was discovered outside the burning home with a gunshot wound, has been arrested and detained in Monmouth County jail. Caneiro is charged with setting his own home on fire in Ocean Township, New Jersey. The dead brothers home separately burned down in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

Caneiro, 51, is charged with aggravated arson in connection with the fire on Nov. 20.

Although Caneiro is not charged with the fire in Colts Neck, ABC7 reported. According to NJ.com, law enforcement sources claim he tried to set his own home on fire.

Tech CEO Keith Caneiro, his wife, Jennifer Caniero, and their two children were found dead Tuesday after a mysterious shooting and fire at their mansion in Colts Neck, New Jersey: https://t.co/3KSisqSisZ pic.twitter.com/u5OvSbIJU5  Tom Cleary (@tomwcleary) November 21, 2018

Officials suspect the two fires are connected, but have not publicly explained how. No charges are filed in the homicides of Keith Caneiro.

Weve learned though property records 50-year old Keith Caneiro owned the Colts Neck home with his wife. His social media accounts say hes the CEO of a company named Square One. 2 kids and 2 adults were found dead at the home today. @NBCPhiladelphia at 11pm. pic.twitter.com/L2v2RhED40  Aaron Baskerville (@ABaskerville10) November 21, 2018

Neighbors told NJ.com that Paul Caneiro appeared distressed, and had tears in his eyes when the fire broke out at his house before dawn. He stayed at the scene until midday before leaving

Firefighters arrived at his brothers $1.5 million mansion at around 12:45 p.m. according to NJ.com reports.

The Caneiro brothers both worked for technology firm Square One, where Keith was CEO.

Earlier Update

One body, a man, was found outside the home, and the other three were recovered inside the home, Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni told Patch.com. Unfortunately, they were burned severely as a result of the fire.

That remains to be seen, Gramiccioni said in The New York Times. But that is an option or an angle we continue to pursue. Its important to emphasize that we have no reason to believe that anyone in the community is in any danger at this time, he added, in The Associated Press, saying a medical examiner is still investigating the causes of death in the case. Keith Caneiro had operated Square One since 1987, and also had an active real estate license, NJ.com reported. The Daily Mail said that Paul Caneiro was a partner with him in the tech firm. Theyre wonderful people, Kevin Harrington, who lives across the street from the Caneiro family in Ocean Township, told the NY Times. Its pretty shocking stuff. Very nice, very friendly, anybody that youd want to be living next door to basically, one of Keith Caneiros neighbors told CBS News Joy Gamache, a local, told the Asbury Park Press that the lady from the 15 Willow Brook was so nice and beautiful. She would regularly bring her kids over to see the horses. A neighbor told the Daily Mail they saw the couple at their Ocean Township home after the fire broke out. He said it must have been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated, the neighbor said. He said, Im in complete shock, I cant believe this is happening to me. They were here until about noon.
Voters cast their ballot in the midterm election at the Brooklyn Museum polling station in New York City on November 6, 2018. - Americans started voting Tuesday in critical midterm elections that mark the first major voter test of Donald Trump's presidency, with control of Congress at stake. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

California Voter Fraud Scheme Involved Giving Cash for Signatures: Officials

Nine people were charged in a large-scale voter fraud scheme in Los Angeles County on Nov. 20.

The group was hit with a dozen felony counts for allegedly offering money and cigarettes to homeless people in exchange for false and forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms.

Charges include circulating a petition with false names, voter fraud by registering a fictitious person, and voter fraud by registering a nonexistent person, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office said in a press release.

The nine defendants offered $1 and/or cigarettes to homeless people for their participation during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles.

They paid individuals to sign the names, Los Angeles Police Officer Deon Joseph, the senior lead officer on Skid Row, where the voter fraud scheme allegedly played out, told the Los Angeles Times. Thats an assault on our democracy.

Whether people are homeless or rich, no one is above the law, Joseph added. If they do it here, they will do it to any other disenfranchised group. District attorney spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales said that no homeless people were charged.

Three defendants, Kirkland Kauzava Washington, Harold Bennett, and Louis Thomas Wise, face eight counts each and up to six years and four months if convicted on all.

Washington, 38, set up a table on Sept. 21 outside the Midnight Mission, where homeless people line up for meals or beds, and began offering payment for signatures, police said.

The other defendants were Richard Howard, Rose Makeda Sweeney, Christopher Joseph Williams, Jakara Fati Mardis, Norman Hall, and Nickey Demelvin Huntley. They all face four counts and a maximum sentence of four years and eight months in jail.

The nine charges came after three people were arrested in May for allegedly running a voter fraud scheme in the same area.

They were petitions, and so theyd have them sign that petition as a fictitious person and theyd receive minimal compensation for that signature, LAPD Detective Meghan Aguilar, a department spokeswoman, told NBC at the time.

Officers said thousands of dollars in cash and lists of registered voters in Los Angeles County were booked into evidence.

Voter and Election Fraud

According to the conservative Heritage Foundation, there has been 1,177 proven instances of voter and election fraud and 1,019 criminal convictions in the United States.

A number of convictions have come from California in recent years, including the conviction of two people for false registrations.

Former Manteca Unified School Board trustee Ashley Drain Hampton was sentenced to 15 months in jail in September after being convicted of election fraud and welfare fraud.

The election fraud  made basically a mockery of our election system, San Joaquin County Judge Charlotte Orcutt said of Hampton, who was found guiltyby a juryof using a false address to get onto the 2014 ballot. We have full, free elections here, but when our candidates lie to get on the ballot, thats a problem.

In another case, in San Francisco in March 2017, real estate agent and housing development advocate Donald Dewsnup pleaded no contest to two counts of false voter registration.

From NTD News
Jeff Glor on the set as he anchors CBS Evening News in New York on Dec. 18, 2017. (Gail Schulman/CBS News/Handout via Reuters)

CBS Anchor Jeff Glors First Detour Was Through Dentistry

NEW YORKIf you think you have big shoes to fill at work, take a moment to consider Jeff Glor.

The 43-year-old anchors predecessor at CBS Evening News is the iconic Walter Cronkite, legend of journalism and first important news anchor on American television.

Glor has now occupied that desk since late 2017.

In the latest of Reuters Life Lessons series, Glor talks about his unlikely route to the anchor desk, and the stories that changed him along the way.

Q: Growing up outside Buffalo, did you always have the journalism bug?

A: I know it sounds crazy, but I actually went to college as a dentistry major. I wasnt sure what I wanted to do, so I thought I might take up the family dentistry practice. But then I took my first chemistry course, and there was just no way that was going to work.

Q: What did you give up? In order to pursue a journalism career?

A: Through my economics degree I had a job offer in New York to work for a big consulting firm. The pay would have been twice as much, compared to when I eventually started at a local TV station in Syracuse. At the time I had no other prospects, and no other options, but I turned it down, because I really wanted to go into broadcasting.

If you are getting into the business to make money, that may not be the best place to start from. There has to be a foundation of loving what you do, and then hopefully success will follow.

Q: What advice do you have for others whose industry is in turmoil, like journalism?

A: When I was graduating from college, a lot of people were talking about how the web was going to affect journalism. So there were a lot of questions 10 years ago, there are a lot of questions now, and there will be questions 10 years from now. I find the best strategy is to focus on the story in front of me, and handle it the best way possible. Its fun to think about where the business might go, but my first job is the broadcast that night. All of that adds up.

Q: What causes are you supporting with your time and money?

A: I have devoted a lot of time and energy to literacy over the years. Reading means so much to me; its as important as air. Its a fundamental part of my life, and I hope Im passing that love along to my kids.

Typically I read five or six books at a time, right now including Jan Crawfords Supreme Conflict about the Supreme Court, The Two Koreas by Don Oberdorfer, and Six Days of War by Michael Oren.

Q: Are you and your wife a good money team?

A: I would say my wife is the saver, and I am the spender. The back and forth works pretty well, so we are a pretty good team when it comes to figuring out what to spend money on. Usually, she tells me to stop spending so much on books.

Our big project right now is that we moved to the suburbs and are renovating a house together. Its a process, and you make some interesting discoveries along the way, but it is just about finished. Somebody once told me, Think about what you will spend on a renovationand then triple it. If a husband and wife can talk about money and get through a renovation together, that is a good sign for a marriage.

Q: What life lessons do you pass along to your two kids?

A: We are trying to teach them about the importance of family, just like my parents did. In particular, I think one-on-one time is critical: No matter how big a family is, carving out time for each kid individually can be really special. I just want them to see me as dad, not the guy on TV.

By Chris Taylor

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated in a photo caption the date when Jeff Glor was on the set as the anchor of CBS Evening News. The date was Dec. 18, 2017. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Warships and fighter jets of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy take part in a military display in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. (Reuters)

China Building on New Reef in South China Sea, Think Tank Says

BEIJINGChina has installed a new platform on a remote part of the Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea which could be used for military purposes, according to recent satellite images reviewed by a U.S. think tank.

The strategic waterway is claimed almost in its entirety by China, whose continued building of military and other installations on artificial islands and reefs there has unnerved the region and angered Washington.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of Washingtons Center for Strategic and International Studies said the images showed a modest new structure on Bombay Reef, topped by a radome and solar panels.

The development is interesting given Bombay Reefs strategic location, and the possibility that the structures rapid deployment could be repeated in other parts of the South China Sea, the group said in a statement on Nov. 20.

The purpose of the platform and radome was unclear, but it could be for military use, it said.

The reef is directly adjacent to the major shipping lanes that run between the Paracels and the Spratly Islands to the south, making it an attractive location for a sensor array to extend Chinese radar or signals intelligence collection over that important sea lane, the group said.

Chinas Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Vietnam also claims the Paracels. Vietnams foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Emphasis on Civil Infrastructure

Separately, an influential state-run paper said on Wednesday that China should put more focus on building civilian facilities on islands in the South China Sea and less emphasis on the military to soothe regional fears about Chinas intentions.

In a commentary, Chinas Study Times said there was a potential risk of war for areas surrounding the country such as the South China Sea.

Unprecedented outside military interference is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea, said the paper, published by the Central Party School which trains rising officials.

But there must be a greater role for non-military actors in the South China Sea, it added.

Facilities on the reefs and islands of the South China Sea should be more civilian and less military, the paper wrote.

That means there should be more focus on building lighthouses, civilian airports, maritime search and rescue, scientific research and weather forecasting, it added.

China has said some civilian facilities on the islands are intended for use by others in the region, but the government has given few details about how that may work in practice.

The islands China occupies in the South China Sea are off-limits to foreigners, with access under the effective control of the Peoples Liberation Army despite them technically being administratively part of Chinas southern Hainan Province.

Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei also have competing claims in the South China Sea.

The Chinese regime has frequently lambasted the United States and its allies for freedom of navigation naval operations near to Chinese-occupied islands. It has urged Washington to stop sending warships and military planes close to the islands that Beijing claims.

The United States earlier this month again urged China to halt militarization of the South China Sea.

By Ben Blanchard & Gao Liangping
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks during CPAC 2018 in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 22, 2018. In a recent press release, DeVos proposed new rules regarding how alleged sexual assaults on college campuses are handled. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Due Process Is a Right, Not a Privilege

It's time that US universities remembered that

Commentary

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used a Nov. 16 press release to unveil a new draft rule proposal for the Department of Education to address a chaotic situation that has developed at universities across the nation.

The press release, with links to the proposal, can be seen on the official Department of Education website and is titled Proposed Title IX Rule Provides Clarity for Schools, Support for Survivors, and Due Process Rights for All. By announcing the proposed rule change, DeVos hopes to get feedback and constructive criticism before its implementation.

Due processfair treatment through the normal judicial systemis a basic American civil right granted by the U.S. Constitution to all citizens.

In recent years, many colleges in the United States have adopted new policies for handling sexual-assault allegations. Instead of letting law enforcement handle cases of alleged sexual assault/harassment, college administrators were encouraged to set up their own on-campus investigative systems and pronounce judgment on the cases all by themselves.

Thats right. Let that sink in for a minute. Colleges have been setting up their own internal court systems to hear these he said, she said casesexcept, with the way the hearings were set up, the he said part was often just skipped over completely.

Had the universities shown these newly created campus courts resulted in fair and neutral rulings between the students appearing before them, this wouldnt be such an urgent issue.

But thats been far from the case. These policies had the practical result of stripping due-process rights from accused students and staff. And the more a person digs into how that situation came about, the more troubling it gets.

Politicized Outcomes

It turns out these U.S. universities have been setting up internal court systems to try students for sexual-related offenses right on campus, because radical feminists and political activists have been agitating for these kinds of policies. That means this entire recent shift in policy at U.S. colleges was fostered to drive certain preordained politicized outcomes from the start.

The college hookup and drinking cultures made the institution of these new sexual misconduct rules a disaster waiting to happen, and it didnt take long for examples of obvious miscarriages of justice to occur. Drunken students having sex and regretting it later has long been a part of college life. But in the present campus atmosphere, there are many willing to criminalize such behavior in order to make politically motivated examples out of some students.

Some examples from the past few years of students being expelled without due process include two reported by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education): Student Found Guilty of Sexual Assault After Incapacitation Statute Is Misapplied at Occidental College; and Student Punished for Alleged Sexual Assault Cleared by University of North Dakota; Accuser Still Wanted for Lying to Police.

Another, reported by The Federalist, involved an entire fraternity at the University of Virginia getting expelled for a sexual assault that never happened.

Whatever the good intentions might have been, what practically resulted was a system in which accused male students werent allowed to face their accuser, and they and their representatives werent allowed to cross-examine the accuser, or even see evidence, if any, that was being presented against them.

During the eight years of the Obama administration, then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared to be asleep at the wheel as one major university after another installed what essentially were on-campus kangaroo courts, in order to hold politically motivated show trials.

Its actually an incredible statement as to just how bad things have gotten on university campuses that DeVos actually has to take this step and announce that students cant have their rights to due process stripped away because college administrators decree that it shall be so.

Media Response

Of great interest has been the mainstream medias reaction to the announcement of this proposal.

In many quarters of what I like to affectionately refer to as The DNC Media Complex (a term I learned from the late, great Andrew Breitbart), DeVoss proposed rule change is being discussed as if its the most controversial thing ever.

Heres just one such example of a media outlet covering DeVoss proposal as if its like the return of the Spanish Inquisition: Betsy DeVos Just Proposed Rules That Would Make Life Harder for Campus Sexual Assault Survivors, the Mother Jones headline stated. That article has this exciting tagline from former Vice President Joe Biden: We must speak up and make clear that we will not allow this Administration to take us backwards.

Not to be outdone, here was NBC Newss headline that day: DeVos Proposals for Campus Sexual Misconduct Rules Are Worse Than We Thought, Victims Advocates Say. The tagline for that article reads: It will return schools to a time where rape, assault, and harassment were swept under the rug.

Note the language used here: take us backwards and return schools to a time. This is the usual leftist ploy of pretending this particular battle in the culture war was won by their side long ago: We won, you lost, too late, suckers; why is anybody even still talking about this? Just move on already!

To hear radical leftist activists on university campuses tell it, this due process for accused male students issue had just been decided. For all time.

And then along comes this insufferable Betsy DeVos! Who does she think she is?!

And now as due-process rights are returned to U.S. college campuses, where theyve been under a sustained assault for the past decade, once again the American left is found stridently objecting. This is very revealing.

Its very telling that in recent years, the American left has dropped its mask and shown the world its true naked face in declaring war on the entire concept of due process for all. The most recent example of this was the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The left is making it very clear they most certainly dont believe in due process for their political opposition.

When your opponent shows you their true nature, believe them.

Brian Cates is a political pundit and writer based in South Texas and the author of Nobody Asked For My Opinion  But Here It Is Anyway! He can be reached on Twitter at @drawandstrike.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A banner displaying the European flag adorns the facade of the European Commission in Brussels on Nov. 14, 2018. ( Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

EU Reaches Consensus on Investment-Screening Rules Amid Concern About China

Wary of Chinese investment, the European Union has provisionally agreed on rules to coordinate scrutiny of foreign direct investments in Europe.

Representatives for the European Parliament and EUs 28 member states struck the deal at a meeting with the European Commission on Nov. 20, ending 14 months of deliberations.

The European Commission first unveiled a proposal to screen foreign investment into Europe in September 2017, in response to concerns that foreign investment in European companies that perform critical functions in society could be detrimental to security and public order of the EU or its member states. European officials especially took notice of Chinese acquisition deals in Europes key technology and auto sectors.

Europe must always defend its strategic interests and that is precisely what this new framework will help us to do. This is what I mean when I say that we are not naive free traders. We need scrutiny over purchases by foreign companies that target Europes strategic assets, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said in a press release.

The rules would allow the European Commission to investigate investment in critical areas, including energy, communications, and financial infrastructure, as well as key technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and semiconductors.

It will mark the end of European naivety, said Franck Proust, who heads the Parliaments negotiating team, ahead of the talks, according to Reuters. All the world powersthe United States, Japan, Chinahave a method of screening. Only Europe does not.

In the United States, the government entity responsible for reviewing national security implications in foreign investment deals is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency committee established by former U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975.

CFIUS was strengthened by the National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress in August, which broadened the scope of transactions reviewable by the committee and is aimed at curbing Chinese investment in 27 sensitive industries, including semiconductors and aircraft manufacturing.

On Oct. 10, the U.S. Treasury Department released rules on foreign investment as part of its enforcement of the new U.S. law, giving CFIUS the option to either approve an investment deal within 30 days or open a fuller investigation.

The newly proposed European rules dont identify China by name, but its backers complaints over investments by state-owned enterprises and for technology transfers are clear references to Beijing.

The proposal still needs to be approved by all 28 EU states at a meeting on Dec. 5. France, Germany, and other nations thus far have backed the proposal, but a number of countries have expressed opposition, including Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, and Portugal. The EU Parliament will then vote on the proposal in February or March next year.

Chinese investments in certain European countries have already reaped benefits for Beijing, as money often holds sway over regional politics. In June 2017, Greece, whose strategic port Piraeus is majority-owned by Chinas state-run COSCO Shipping, blocked an EU statement critical of Chinas human-rights record and its crackdown on activists and dissidents.

In April 2018, Hungary was the only EU country that refused to sign a report criticizing Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road) for flouting international transparency norms.

Beijing announced OBOR in 2013 to build up Beijing-centered land and maritime trade networks through financing infrastructure projects in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. According to the U.S.-based National Public Radio (NPR), COSCO has strategically invested in seaports throughout Europe, including Belgium, Spain, Turkey, and Italy.

Chinas foreign direct investment in Europe reached 65 billion euros ($79 billion) in 2017, a dramatic increase from less than 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in 2010, according to the Tokyo-based magazine The Diplomat, citing statistics from law firm Baker McKenzie.

EU lawmakers succeeded in pushing through tougher screening than initially proposed, such as obliging the commission to screen deals and requiring EU countries to cooperate among each other.

The new system wouldnt interfere with current screening mechanisms in the 14 nations that have one. All countries will be required to inform other EU members and the commission if they screen an investment. If a third of member states express concerns about a planned foreign investment, the commission would be required to give its opinion.

However, individual EU countries, and not the commission, would make the final decisions on whether to block foreign investments on security and public interest grounds.

In addition, all member nations must provide an annual report to the commission.

Beijing hadnt officially commented on the European proposal at the time of writing. But a Nov. 21 editorial published in Reference News, a Chinese daily newspaper published by Chinas state-run media Xinhua, claimed that Chinas investments in Europe were strictly business without any political ambition. The article suggested that the EU didnt have to be vigilant about Chinese investment.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Local authorities in the German town of Roth temporarily called off an annual event where children hang hand written notes with their wish lists from a Christmas tree in the towns center due to European privacy laws. (ER_09/Shutterstock)

European Privacy Law Blamed for Cancelation of Christmas Tradition in German Town

BRUSSELSEuropean officials have been forced to defend their new privacy laws, which are being earmarked for export to the United States, after they were blamed for a German town canceling its popular childrens Christmas tradition. The local authority in Roth, near Nuremberg, temporarily called off an annual event in which youngsters hang hand-written notes with their wish lists to Santa on the town centers Christmas tree.

It said the ceremony had to be canceled because it ran afoul of the European Unions new data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in May.

However, after local radio station Antenne Bayern stepped in at the last minute and drafted a new parental consent form, local officials said the celebration will now go ahead as planned.

The event had already been put on hold last year due to concerns over how the rules would be applied, and officials had announced it was discontinued until further notice.

In previous years, around 4,000 children have taken part, with notes they left being used to organize meetings with the mayor and visits to the fire station for local children.

However, lawyers at the city hall had warned that the new GDPR rules meant they would have to update the written permission they collect from the parents of every child for their wish lists to be displayed in public.

The town could have faced heavy fines if it couldnt prove that it wasnt storing and protecting the data it had received in line with tough new EU standards.

There wont be any sparkling childrens eyes in front of the Christmas tree, Melanie Hanker, the events manager at the local authority, had told German newspaper Die Welt.

Daniel Dalton, the digital market spokesman for the UK Conservative group in the European Parliament, said local officials had acted like Scrooges by canceling the event.

Keeping peoples data safe is important. But saying bah, humbug to kids who just want to write to Father Christmas shows some people simply dont have a clue, said Dalton.

However, the European Commission defended the GDPR and insisted that German officials interpretation of the requirements GDPR imposes was in no way accurate.

Santa Claus should have the contact details of a family in order to deliver the presents indicated on the wish list he receivedprovided the parents agree, in case of minors, a European Commission spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

These have been the rules for the past 20 years and the General Data Protection Regulation has not changed this situation.

In a statement, Romina Satiro, from Roth city council, said the event had been saved at the last minute after the local radio station came to the rescue by consulting lawyers on a new parental consent form.

According to GDPR that has been in effect since May 2018, the original wish list form of the city Roth did not include the information that the data of the kids are going to be handed out to third persons, Satiro said.

On the new form, additional information is included, which describes that all the data are going to be handed out to third persons like sponsors. Combined with the signature of the parents the form is legally allowed.

The GDPR, which sets strict new conditions on what data authorities and companies can collect and how it must be stored and protected, is being considered as a possible template for export to the United States.

Technology companies, including computer giant Apple and social media site Facebook, have urged U.S. President Donald Trump to adopt European-style laws, having already adapted their processes.

Apples chief executive Tim Cook and Facebooks head of privacy Erin Egan made the call during a joint visit to the Belgian capital last month.

However, GDPR has been controversial in Europe where critics have accused the new law of being too heavy-handed and placing an unreasonable burden on small and medium-sized organizations.

Even some large companies have decided the regulation is too difficult to comply with, with a number of U.S. media outlets including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune blocking their websites to European users.
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania (C) pose with G-20 leaders and their spouses upon their arrival at the Elbphilharmonie philharmonic concert hall on the first day of the G-20 economic summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Stefan Rousseau - Pool / Getty Images)

Expectations High for Upcoming G-20 Summit

All eyes will be on Argentina as world leaders have important issues to resolve

WASHINGTONBilateral talks will dominate next weeks Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Argentina, as President Donald Trump is set to meet the leaders of China and Russia and, potentially, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

World leaders will meet at the 12th G-20 summit in Buenos Aires on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. The agenda of the summit will center on the topics of the future of work, infrastructure, and creating a sustainable food future. The bilateral meetings, however, will take center stage at this summit, according to experts.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to meet on the margins of the summit. The exact timing hasnt yet been announced.

Negotiations between Washington and Beijing have intensified ahead of the meeting. While Chinese officials sent the Trump administration a list of 142 concessions, the commitments fall short of the type of key structural reforms that Trump has been demanding, such as ending intellectual-property theft and forced joint ventures.

Trump told reporters last week that the trade concessions offered by the Chinese officials were not acceptable.

They sent a list of things they are willing to do. A large list. Its not acceptable to me yet, he said, adding that the list didnt include four or five key items that need to be resolved. Trump, however, expressed his optimism about reaching a deal with China at the G-20 meeting.

I think we will have a great relationship with China. Hopefully, well make a deal. And if we dont, were doing very well just the way it is right now, he said.

The United States has levied duties on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese goods this year. The tariffs will be raised to 25 percent from 10 percent on January 1, 2019. Washington may impose tariffs on an additional $267 billion in Chinese goods if no deal is reached.

Long and Thorough Meeting

The main event after Trumps meeting with the Chinese leader will be a discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin is expecting a long and thorough meeting between the two leaders. Although the agenda is still not very clear, the focus will be on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, said Heather Conley, senior vice president and director of Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Trump earlier announced his intention to withdraw from the INF, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Russia has been in material violation of the treaty for at least four years, according to Washington.

Besides the INF, the leaders are expected to discuss Syria, North Korea, and Iran.

The list of issues between Washington and Kremlin is getting longer, according to Conley, as Russia continues to play its role of global spoiler. There are concerns about Russian malign influence in Europe, violation of sanctions vis-a-vis North Korea, and an uptick in Russian activity in Africa, in Latin America, and Cuba.

However, it isnt clear whether Trump will raise some or all of these issues during his bilateral meeting with the Russian leader, she said.

Saudi Crown Prince

G-20 has become a big deal for Saudi Arabia, as the country will host the summit in 2020.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will represent Saudi Arabia this time. The news came as a surprise since the summit was delegated to a Saudi minister last year.

The government of Argentina confirmed the crown princes plan to attend but noted that he may still change his mind.

This is a really big deal because this represents the Saudis normalizing the crown princes role after the crown prince has had a very low profile, said Jon Alterman, senior vice president and Middle East program director at the CSIS.

Prince Salman would face world leaders for the first time since the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The crown prince is betting that he can use this as a sign that hes back in power, back in control, and that the worst effects of the Khashoggi affair are over, Alterman said.

It isnt yet clear whether Trump or other leaders will hold bilateral meetings with the crown prince.

The G-20 summit was initiated by finance ministers in 1999 and was elevated to the leaders level during the global financial crisis in 2008. Together, the G-20 countries represent 85 percent of the global gross domestic product.
I have six girls and the last five attended Bethune, said parent Melissa Dixon. I would hate to see it close. Its like a whole family. Its nothing like these other schools.
Family Feels Cheated After 20-Year-Old Daughters Sepsis Death

The family of a 20-year-old UK woman said they feel cheated after she died from sepsis after a routine operation.

Chloe Rideout was hospitalized with a burst appendix, and after the operation, she was sent back home. She was sent to another hospital a day later, where she died, Fox News reported.

Woman, 20, died from sepsis two weeks after routine appendix operation https://t.co/3U47Okcplp pic.twitter.com/jij7eGmmiU  Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) November 21, 2018

An investigation into her cause of death is underway.

We feel sad and empty. Cheated. I was so much looking forward to one day when I had the chance to walk her down the aisle, her father, Dave Rideout, an estate agent, was quoted as saying.

Both [Sharon, his wife] and I were constantly talking about what we were going to do with our grandchildren when they came along. We are absolutely devastated by our loss and the fact that it was avoidable, he said.

Fox reported that Rideout went to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Devon, for the operation on her appendix. She was discharged nearly one week later on Oct. 13. A day later, she fell ill at home and was sent to Royal Cornwall Hospital Trelisk in Truro.

We didnt know what sepsis was. The Sepsis Trust visits schools, doctors, and hospitals to educate and raise awareness of this problem, so hopefully, another young person doesnt lose their life and another family doesnt have to live the nightmare we are going through, her father said. Chloe was only 20. She was lovely and only ever thought of others. Please give generously so no other innocent person dies.

I cant imagine a Christmas without Chloe so if I can raise awareness that will be a help, he said.

Melissa Mead, a UK woman who has tried to raise awareness about sepsis after her son died before his first birthday in 2014, issued a statement.

She died in Treliske hospital in Cornwall but she was discharged from Derriford and the sepsis should have been picked up before she was discharged, Mead said, according to The Sun. There was a significant delay because of the discharge. She went in with what turned out to be a burst appendix but she wasnt operated on for 50 hours.

After the operation, she was showing signs of sepsis but she was discharged, she continued. When the medics got to her they immediately knew what was going on and rushed her to Treliske and they did everything they could, but it was too late by that point.

According to the Mayo Clinic, sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the bodys response to an infection.

The body normally releases chemicals into the bloodstream to fight an infection. Sepsis occurs when the bodys response to these chemicals is out of balance, triggering changes that can damage multiple organ systems. If sepsis progresses to septic shock, blood pressure drops dramatically. This may lead to death, the website says.

It says: Sepsis ranges from less to more severe. As sepsis worsens, blood flow to vital organs, such as your brain, heart and kidneys, becomes impaired. Sepsis can also cause blood clots to form in your organs and in your arms, legs, fingers and toesleading to varying degrees of organ failure and tissue death [gangrene]. Most people recover from mild sepsis, but the average mortality rate for septic shock is about 40 percent. Also, an episode of severe sepsis may place you at higher risk of future infections.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (L) during a meeting of the National Governors Association at the White House on Feb. 23, 2015. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Federal Judge Strikes Down Mississippi Law That Banned Abortions After 15 Weeks

A U.S. federal judge has struck down a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, ruling that it unequivocally violates womens constitutional rights.

The law, considered one of the most restrictive in the country, was passed in March. It had already been put on hold by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves after the states lone abortion clinic, Jackson Womens Health Organization, immediately sued.

Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, states may not ban abortions before a fetus is viable, and the medical consensus is that viability typically begins between 23 and 24 weeks, Reeves wrote on Nov. 20. Several states have 20-week abortion bans in place.

The bans lawfulness hinges on a single question: whether the 15-week mark is before or after viability, Reeves, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling (pdf). The record is clear: States may not ban abortions prior to viability; 15 weeks [from a womans last menstrual period] is prior to viability.

Mississippi lawmakers had argued that because the law made exceptions in the case of a medical emergency or severe fatal abnormality, it didnt place an undue burden on a woman choosing whether or not to get an abortion.

The decision effectively invalidates a similar 15-week ban in Louisiana, which was set to take effect only if the Mississippi law survived a court challenge. A bill that would ban abortions of fetuses with heartbeats is currently making its way through the Ohio legislature.

Political

The judge claimed that Mississippi elected officials had passed the statute they knew was unconstitutional.

The real reason we are here is simple. The state chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decadeslong campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, Reeves wrote, referring to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case.

This court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature, he added. The U.S. Constitution doesnt mention abortion.

In another part of his ruling, the judge claimed that the state Legislatures professed interest in womens health is pure gaslighting, telling them they should focus on our alarming infant and maternal mortality rate.

The state has the highest infant mortality rate in the country, with 9.08 out of every 1,000 live births dying before their 1st birthday, the Centers for Disease Control said in a report (pdf) earlier this year. University of Mississippi Medical Center neonatologist Mobolaji Famuyide told WLBT that the rate is due to a high number of premature births and a lack of health care in rural areas.

Governor

Gov. Phil Bryant hasnt commented on the ruling but said in March after signing the ban, I am committed to making Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child.

In 2014, Bryant said in a State of the State Address that he hoped to ban abortion completely, NPR reported.

Earlier in November, he talked about what he saw as the genocide of over 20 million African-American children in the United States since Roe v. Wade, the Associated Press reported.

I am confused about where the outrage is atabout 20 million African-American children that have been aborted, Bryant said. No one wants to say anything about that. No one wants to talk about that.

Reuters contributed to this report.

From NTD News
Chinese leader Xi Jinping (R) waves to the press as he walks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 7, 2017. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Forget Made in China 2025, China Is Desperate to Reach Deal on Trade

News Analysis

Two years ago, Beijing was flying high, and was well on its way to dominating the world. Or so it thought.

Sure, the newly elected U.S. president had talked tough on trade, but so had other presidents in the past. Beijing was sure that this political novicethis capitalistwould be easily put in his place.

Just like President Barack Obama before him, Chinese officials figured that President Donald Trump would quickly buckle under pressure from Wall Street, K Street, and the media as soon as he got in office. They would ensure that his threat of tariffs never materialized. After all, they had learned over the past quarter-century how easy it was to manipulate the American political system to their advantage.

Among themselves, Chinas senior leaders sneeringly refer to our form of government as moneybags democracy. They themselves prefer bullets to ballots.

Had Hillary Clinton won, the moneybags approach might have worked. Who knows what concessions she might have made on trade once Beijing-connected Chinese businessmen began dropping huge chunks of change into her favorite foundation?

To forestall Trumps tariffs, China, at first, thought to take a similar approach.

A Chinese company with close ties to the ruling elite offered to invest $400 million in the real estate firm of the then-president-elects son-in-law. Beijing must have been surprised when the offer was rejected out of hand.

Beijing saw another opening when Little Rocket Man began stirring up trouble on the Korean Peninsula. They rushed in with an offer to mediate, obviously hoping to win favoror at least buy timewith the new president on trade. Instead, Trump met directly with Kim Jong Un in Singapore and the missiles stopped flying.

Still, the regime in Beijing was only just getting started, and mobilized thousands of unpaid lobbyists who stood on every Washington street corner chanting the mantra of free trade. But as cheap, subsidized Chinese-made goods continued to flood into the United States, Trump stayed focused on the bottom line.

Chinas leaders also sought the help of their good friends on Wall Street, who have made billions servicing their investments. One of these even became the presidents chief economic advisor, and strongly advised his boss against tariffs. Trump not only went ahead with the first round of levies, but he also promised more to come unless China changed its ways.

With the November midterms approaching, trade negotiations were stalled. But instead of backing down, Red Emperor Xi Jinping decided to double-down. Since bribery and influence peddling hadnt worked, it was time to administersecond-handa good, old-fashioned electoral drubbing to his U.S. adversary. He would teach Trump a political lesson by weakening his political base.

His advisors came up with the idea of imposing tariffs that targeted Trumpian states. While our initial round of tariffs on China was punitiveimposed as punishment on specific companies guilty of ripping off U.S. technologyChinas were overtly political. They targeted products from states such as Iowa, where Trumps support was strong.

Beijings tariffs were, in other words, a tax on Trumps political supporters that was deliberately intended to sway how they would vote in the upcoming elections. As such, it was a direct and brazen attack on U.S. democracy by a foreign power.

Take the tariff on soybeans, for example. Beijing hoped to sway Republican-leaning farmers against Trump, costing his party seats in Congress and thereby weakening his resolve. But American farmers, it turns out, are made of sterner stuff than that. The soybean tactic didnt work for, well, beans. Across the 15 leading soybean-producing congressional districts in the U.S., the Republicans didnt lose a single seat.

If anything, Chinas blatant interference in our election strengthened this presidents resolve, especially as it became clear that its actions extended well beyond political tariffs.

For example, as the election approached, anti-tariff, anti-Trump propaganda poured out of Chinese-owned radio and television stations in the U.S. The Trump administration retaliated by telling them to register as foreign agents.

Paid advertising inserts even appeared in U.S. newspapers, such as the Des Moines Register, that attacked the presidents trade policy. One of the most dictatorial governments in the world was undermining our democracy by abusing one of our most cherished freedoms: freedom of the press.

Taken together, Chinas attempt to interfere in our elections proved to be a major blunder. Beijing emptied out its bag of dirty tricks and only succeeded in calling unwanted attention to itself.

Politically, Trump came out of the midterms in a stronger political position than ever, at least when dealing with China is concerned. Even Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) now support getting tough with China.

As for the presidents resolve, it was never in doubt. Does anyone doubt that, unless China stops its predatory trade practices and buys more American goods, more tariffs are on the way in January?

While the U.S. economy has easily weathered the tariff war, the same cannot be said of Chinas.

Consumer confidence is down, the currency is weakening, bankruptcies are rippling through the country. The stock market is tanking and companies are fleeing the country. As The Epoch Times has reported, Apple Inc.s suppliers are already moving production to the friendlierand tariff-freeclimes of India, Vietnam, Mexico, and the Philippines.

Once those companies relocate to countries with less corruption and often lower wages, they arent coming back. As the Chinese economy continues to slow, the country faces a real danger of slipping into recession.

It wasnt so long ago that Xi Jinping was bragging that his country was going to dominate the hi-tech world by 2025. Now, as Trump revealed during last weeks press conference, Beijing has offered to put the much-vaunted China 2025 plan on ice.

Instead, Chinese senior officials, in a desperate effort to shore up business confidence, are insisting to anyone who will listen that China is not Turkey.

From China as No. 1 to China is not Turkey in less than two years is quick work, even for Trump.

China has finally, for the first time, put a written offer on the table.

At the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires on Nov. 30, Trump and Xi will meet to again talk trade. With levies of 25 percent looming in January, Chinas leader faces a stark choice: trade fairly with the United States or suffer crippling tariffs.

Steven W. Mosher is president of the Population Research Institute and an internationally recognized authority on China. He is the author of Bully of Asia: Why Chinas Dream is the New Threat to World Order. He is also the author of numerous books on China, among them Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese, A Mothers Ordeal: One Womans Fight Against Chinas One-Child Policy, and Hegemon: Chinas Plan to Dominate Asia and the World, as well as several edited volumes and hundreds of scholarly articles, editorials, and opinion pieces.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
This photo taken on Oct. 24, 2018, shows driverless trucks transferring containers at an automated cargo wharf in Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

G-20 Discussions Seen Unlikely to Solve USChina Trade War

WASHINGTONAfter a sharp exchange of words between Vice President Mike Pence and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the recent APEC summit, experts have doubts about what can be achieved at the upcoming Group of 20 meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi, or that the U.S.Sino trade war will end any time soon.

Patrick Cronin, director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, told The Epoch Times that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit was likely a ripe opportunity to put forth a strong image.

Tactically speaking, APEC was too tempting for either the Chinese or the American side to ignore, to show strength of conviction, he said, adding that they were likely preparing for the real summit when Trump and Xi meet again.

China issued a long list of ideas and reforms to the United States, according to the U.S. president, so there was something to work with, Cronin said.

Well have to see how the United States handles the next round of this discussion. I expected there to be continued tensions, overall, on economics, but some release of tension on some specific aspects of the relationship, he said.

So, some dealspartial deals could be reached through this, he said, which is not necessarily what the Chinese would likea big framework of principles agreement [where] everything works within that very harmoniously.

Thats not likely how the United States is going to work, because President Trump is much more transactional on these issues, Cronin added. And I think he is going to continue to be dissatisfied with too many aspects of the economic relationship. So I expect there to both be agreement and disagreement going forward for the foreseeable future.

Cronin thinks that the United States needs to mobilize the G-20 countries around its agenda to have more rules defining fair trade, and says Beijing will surely work against that. Trump and Xi are set to meet on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina later this month.

I expect the Chinese to bring people around to their point of view to put pressure on the United States to cool the tariff war because tariffs put pressure on China to make a choice, Cronin said. And China doesnt want to be driven to make a choiceit wants to continue to do what it wants to do, which is to take advantage of the fact that it doesnt have a market economy. It has state-led capitalism, it has state-owned enterprises.

[The current situation] gives China an unfair advantage in the trading rules that were created for market economies, from the U.S. perspective, he said.

Qiao Mu, a Chinese academic and former professor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, recently wrote on Twitter, citing a high-ranking Chinese official, that Xi said at an internal meeting that China wouldnt back down whatsoever in this trade war.

According to Qiaos tweet, Xi said at the meeting: What else does the U.S. have apart from the tariffs? If you are really that capable, youd better stop buying our goods. We werent scared off even by the comprehensive sanctions against us after 1989; whats so terrible about a few tariffs? In the past, the U.S. was most important to usnow we have the One Belt, One Road initiative, Africa, Latin America, and the global market.

Chen Pokong, a Chinese author and political commentator, said during an interview with Voice of America that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was put into a very awkward and difficult situation in the trade war, as the United States had included workers rights and wages as trade issues. He said the CCP is very much embarrassed by these requirements, as it has never allowed Chinese workers to defend their own rights or form their own unions.

Chen said that the CCP wants to play the role of a world leader, but its currently not able to.

China wants to play the role of a leader, but it does not act like it. If it really wants to play such a leadership role, it means completely changing itself, including its current economic and political system, he said.
Gunmen Kidnap Italian Volunteer, Shoot Children Near Kenyas Coast

NAIROBGunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer and shot and wounded a woman and four children in Kenya late on Nov. 20, police and witnesses saidthe first abduction of a foreigner there since raids blamed on Somali Islamist extremists six years ago.

Men armed with AK-47 rifles seized the 23-year-old woman from a guesthouse in Chakama, a small town close to the southeast coast, officers and local residents said.

Police said they had not identified the attackers and no group immediately claimed responsibility.

The Italian charity the woman was working for, Africa Milele, posted a short message on its website saying: There are no words to comment on what is happening. Silvia, we are all with you. The group says it helps orphaned children.

Two witnesses told Reuters they heard the gunmen speaking Somali. There were three attackers and they targeted the Italian lady, said Chad Joshua Kazungu.

The woman was seized after she came out of her room to find out what was going on, a third unnamed witness told Kenyan TV channel KTN News. Their aim was to get money but they took off with her to the river, he said.

The attackers opened fire as they left, wounding a woman and four children, he added. A 10-year-old child was shot in the eye and a 12-year-old was hit in the thigh, police said.

On Wednesday a police helicopter circled over the green and yellow guesthouse where the volunteer had stayed.

Tourism

Chakama in Kenyas Kilifi region is 60 km (40 miles) inland from the bustling coastal tourist resort of Malindi.

A series of abductions further north in 2011 and 2012and other attacks by al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militants from neighboring Somaliacaused a slump in tourism numbers and revenue.

But local tour operators said they thought Tuesdays attack would only have a limited impact on the vital tourism industry.

The European market might have a small shake-up, but Malindi is 500 km (310 miles) from Nairobi so I dont expect the safari industry to be affected, said Robert Katithi, sales director from Go Kenya Tours and Safaris.

Gunmen grabbed a wheelchair-bound French woman from her home on the northern island of Manda in 2011 weeks after pirates killed a British man and kidnapped his wife from another resort island. The French woman died while she was still be held, while the English woman was released after a ransom was paid.

At the time, the Kenyan government blamed al Shabaabwhich has launched attacks inside Kenya in retaliation for Nairobis military interventions in Somalia. The militants denied responsibility.

Armed men kidnapped four aid workers and killed a driver at Kenyas Dadaab refugee camp near the border with Somalia in 2012.

The Italian foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was aware of the reports of the abduction and was looking into the situation.

By Humphrey Malalo and George Obulutsa
The Confucius Institute Building on the Troy University Campus in Alabama, U.S. on March 16, 2018 (Kreeder13 via Wikimedia Commons)

How American Academia Misleads About China

WASHINGTONU.S. academia is having difficulty giving students and the public at large an honest picture of todays China, according to experts.

Scholars are self-censoring, Chinese students attending U.S. colleges are kept on a tight ideological tether, and China-sponsored institutes for teaching Chinese culture are offering propaganda.

Self-Censorship

Perry Link, emeritus professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, says that for various reasons, especially to gain access to China for study, American scholars practice self-censorship about China and adopt the official narrative of the Chinese regime when talking about sensitive issues.

We dont talk about Taiwan independence. We talk about the cross-Strait relations. We dont talk about the occupation of Tibet. We dont call the June 4th Massacre massacre. It is June 4th incident, or something like that, Link said, during remarks at the Mark Palmer Forum: Chinas Global Challenge to Democratic Freedom, sponsored by Freedom House at the Hudson Institute on Oct. 24.

Because of the self-censorship, as well as the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)s propaganda ministry, when people search for certain terms or phrases, they get CCPs narratives, Link said.

Link did some experiments and found that if he searched Does China have democracy?a question suggested by Google under people also search for listthe following answer appeared: Chinese have expressed skepticism towards Western-style democracy as incompatible with traditionalist Chinese culture. They hold that government is legitimate not when people influence it but when it represents their higher interests.

When he searched for Do the people in China vote?, the answer was, Elections in China are based on a hierarchical electoral system, whereby local Peoples Congresses are directly elected, and all higher levels of Peoples Congresses up to the National Peoples Congress, the national legislature, are indirectly elected by the Peoples Congress of the level immediately below.

In fact, in the elections for the local Peoples Congresses, individuals can only vote for those the CCP has chosen. In elections for higher offices, the Party controls who is selected. Although there has been talk for decades about instituting local democracy, the Party keeps local elections under strict control.

When people search for Why did the Great Chinese Famine happen?, the answer is: According to the government, and the Chinese Communist Party, the Great Famine was caused by a string of natural disasters. Communist historiography refers to it not as a Great Famine, but as the Three Years of Natural Disasters. There are seeds of truth in this claim.

Link said there were many other similar examples. I dont want to blame these idiotic answers on my fellow China scholars, he said, but I think the culture within which we dont tell our students, we dont write our books, we dont talk to the news media in frank, honest terms, allows these spaces to develop and get filled with junk.

Link said: Does self-censorship in the scholarly world exist? Not only does it exist, it is everywhere. And there are costs. Ultimately, the costs are to the American public and the worlds public.

Link said that the Beijing lingo adopted by American China scholars was quoted by Beijing back in China to show to the Chinese people that U.S. experts are supporting Beijings stance. In this way, young scholars and the public, in both the United States and China, are misled.

Controlling Chinese Scholars and Students

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, a former security-affairs reporter at The Daily Beast, spoke at the forum about how the CCP controls the Chinese diaspora, including Chinese scholars and students in the United States, via its embassies and consulates.

She said that each Chinese Embassy and consulate has an education department that takes care of a certain region. Each official in the education department takes care of several out of some 100 to 150 Chinese Student and Scholar Associations (CSSAs) in the United States.

This includes setting up WeChat groups with presidents of the CSSAs to allow them to instantly send notifications to all the members in the groups.

For example, when CCP leaders come to visit, the CCP can, by offering cash, free food, transportation, and accommodations, organize thousands of Chinese students to welcome them.

Because of the CCPs tight control, for many Chinese students, actually the environment they are in, many times, when it comes to experiencing democracy, experiencing free speech, and experiencing freedom of assembly in the United States, particularly surrounding issues related to China, that doesnt really exist for them very much, especially now, Allen-Ebrahimian said.

So we have assumed that they are here, they are experiencing the fresh air of democracy, when in fact, the Chinese Communist Partys entire goal has been to inoculate them against that.

Allen-Ebrahimian said these well-funded and paid activities of Chinese students are about controlling the narrative both in America and China.

She said people in the United States may start to wonder, I thought these Chinese students would come here to fall in love with democracy. Why do so many of them support the Party? Maybe we were wrong?

Maybe there is something about the CCP? Maybe there is something about this one-party rule, because it appeals to people? Maybe democracy isnt just for them?

Allen-Ebrahimian said thats what the CCP wants, and that is why they do thisto control the narrative in which we exist.

Confucius Institutes and Classrooms

Rachelle Peterson, policy director at the National Association of Scholars, spoke of her experience doing research about the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, whose public justification is to teach Chinese language and culture at universities, as well as primary and secondary schools outside of China.

High-ranking Chinese officials have described the Confucius Institutes as important parts of overseas propaganda and an extension of Chinas soft power. The Institutes and Classrooms dont cover sensitive topics, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the persecution of the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong, or they offer narratives friendly to the Chinese regime of, for instance, the status of Taiwan.

Peterson said there are 107 Confucius Institutes and more than 500 Confucius Classrooms in the United States.

Hanban, which governors the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, offers some 3,000 textbooks per year to the Confucius Institutes, plus free teachers and about $100,000 per year on average to each university that hosts an Institute.

Peterson said because of that, not only the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms are under the CCPs censorship, but those who are outside of the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms also feel pressure. They watch what they say in order to not upset the CCP, and they dare not express their concerns.

Peterson cited one case that when a person agreed to talk with her about the Confucius Institute, he dared not meet her in his office, or even in the building where he worked.

They had to meet in the basement of another building on the outskirts of the campus, to be sure that no one saw him talking with Peterson about the Confucius Institute.

A common concern was that the Confucius Institute directors and senior professors may vote against someones tenure promotion if the person expresses his concern about the Confucius Institute, Peterson said.
In this file photo, people cheer as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks after winning the Vermont primary on Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016. Despite its name, progressive socialism usually results in the stifling of ideas and the stagnation of a nation. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Ideas: The Secret to a Thriving Nation

Commentary

There is a simple three-word phrase used by aviators when handing over control of the aircraft to a fellow aviator: You have it. The pilot relinquishing control to the new pilot in command may accentuate the brief ceremony by symbolically taking his or her hands off the yoke and raising them in the air. The message is plain: Im no longer in chargeyou are.

As U.S. demographics shift, we seem to be heading toward a national you have it sort of moment, at least in terms of appearances. But does it matter? I wonder 

If were sure that identity matters most of all, then radical change is coming to our shores as the white, male middle classof which I am a partslides into minority status. Many Americans, of differing political persuasions, believe that white males have effectively formed a ruling class from the inception of our nation to the present. Some believe this ruling class has consistently and purposely exploited their fellow citizens. For these people, change is long overdue and there will be a reckoning when the country says hello to the new boss.

Others believe that this so-called ruling class has done the nation, and the world, far more good than it has caused harm. Some who hold this position tremble in fear of what might happen when the next wave of leaders take control.

There is an alternative to these two extremes, one that often gets lost among the political sniping and bickering that dominates so much of the news cycle. That alternative position is simply this: America isnt and hasnt been defined by white, male leadership. America is, has been, and hopefully always will be, defined by ideas.

America isnt about a patriarchy, Caucasian or otherwise. Its about the strength of ideas and how ideas flourish in a free society to everyones benefit. Not just in America, but everywhere.

Consider the following comparisons. The GDP per capita in South Korea is $39,500, according to the CIA World Factbook, while the GDP per capita in North Korea is $1,700. The GDP per capita in Taiwan is $50,500, while the GDP per capita in the Peoples Republic of China is $16,700. The GDP per capita in Venezuela is $12,500 (and dropping rapidly) while its $31,300 in Trinidad and Tobago.

Why should these comparisons be so stark? Why does half of the Korean Peninsula function like a well-oiled machine and the other half is the poster child for dysfunction? Why do the Chinese in exile on the island of Formosa thrive, while Chinese on the mainland struggle? Venezuela and Trinidad have access to the same kind of energy riches in the same part of the world, but one squanders that wealth while the other reaps its rewards.

The difference, in these examples and so many others like it, is that the nations that thrive are the nations where ideaseven ideas that threaten to shake up the status quoare welcome. The nations that struggle are those nations where ideas are considered dangerous. That is a central, unalterable theme of history.

Progressives

Personally, I dont think we have anything to fear from neo-socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They are devoid of ideas. When you confront a modern true believer like Ocasio-Cortez with the sort of examples listed above, they inevitably respond with some version of well, they dont do it right. Thats just wrong.

The problem with socialism isnt that people dont do it right, its that you cant do it right. Its an ideology that saps the soul and, more importantly, suppresses ideas and the risk-taking that is necessary to get the most out of ideas. Its ironic that many socialists also use the term progressive to describe an ideology that does everything in its power to hamstring actual progress.

Many Americans, and young, starry-eyed progressive Americans in particular, are much too far removed from the reality of socialism to understand how much harm that system causes.

I can clearly recall visiting the shabby, dreary Polandthe land of my heritagethat existed before the communists were sent packing. The contrast between the vibrant Poland of today, with its booming economy, and the Poland of 30 years ago is striking. That change wasnt about gender. It was not about skin color. It was about ordinary people free to exercise their talents and to innovate in a free market where the best ideas win.

So, as an old white man, born at the tail end of the baby-boom years, Im more than comfortable taking my hands from the yoke and saying you have it to whomever next takes command. Sure, we might be in for a little turbulence, but the next generation of pilots will eventually figure it out and the colossal jetliner America will continue to soar.

There can be no other result, because, in the end, ideas always win.

Richard Trzupek is a chemist and environmental consultant as well as an analyst at The Heartland Institute. He is also the author of Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA Is Ruining American Industry.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Kim Jong-yang of South Korea, the new president of International police body Interpol, in Dubai, UAE, on Nov. 21, 2018. (Interpol/Handout via Reuters)

Interpol Elects South Korean as President; Russia Condemns Western Pressure

DUBAIInternational police organization Interpol has elected Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as president, defeating a Russian whose candidacy had raised concerns in Europe and the United States about the risk of Kremlin interference.

Interpols Secretary-General Jurgen Stock told reporters that Kims election was free and transparent, as Russia said outside pressure had clearly been exerted on the vote.

The president is elected by winning a two-thirds majority among members in a secret ballot, according to Interpols website.

Kim was elected to the largely ceremonial role at Interpols annual congress in Dubai. While the presidency is typically held for four years, he will serve until 2020. Kim, who had been acting president, is completing the term of Meng Hongwei of China, which was due to end in 2020.

Meng disappeared in September during a visit to China, from where he sent a letter to Interpol announcing his resignation. Days after his wife reported him missing, Chinese authorities said he was under investigation.

Kim, who had been acting president, wont be able to seek a second term under Interpol rules, which limit the presidency to a single term, said Stock.

The general assembly elected Mr. Kim from Korea as president through a voting process which was democratic, transparent, free, and clear, said Stock, a German who heads day-to-day work at Interpol.

U.S. and European politicians and Kremlin critics had lobbied against the candidacy of Alexander Prokopchuk of Russia, a police major-general and one of Interpols four vice-presidents.

No matter  what the nationality of the presidency is, it is not affecting Interpols neutrality and the independence of our organization, said Stock.

Interpols role is to facilitate cooperation between police forces around the world. Its charter forbids it from involving itself in disputes of a political, religious, or racial nature. It isnt a supranational police force and has no agents who are allowed to make arrests.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators this week accused Russia of exploiting the global body to settle scores and harass dissidents by issuing warrants, known as red notices, for their arrest.

Let me be crystal clear, the members of the executive committee, including the president, have absolutely no involvement or influence in the task-force review or decision-making process, Stock said.

Russian Regret

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, We regret that it wasnt our candidate, but nonetheless, there are no grounds to disagree with the election result.

Prokopchuk declined to comment.

Kim, 57, worked in the South Korean police for more than 20 years before retiring in 2015.

Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety, Kim said in a statement. To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in congratulated Kim on becoming the first South Korean to head the organization.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Island nations of Vanuatu and Kiribati were approved this week as new Interpol member countries, while Kosovos bid was denied, bringing the total number of member states to 194. A number of countries including Serbia dont recognize Kosovos independence from Belgrade, declared in 2008.

By Alexander Cornwell
Is Mueller Probe of Manafort Actually Looking Into Russian Oligarch Deripaska?

Russian billionaire who hired Christopher Steele in 2012 previously interacted with FBIs Andrew McCabe and DOJs Bruce Ohr in quest for visa into US

News Analysis

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is the subject of two criminal trials, one in Virginia and one in the District of Columbia.

The Virginia trial is related to various financial crimes, including tax evasion, bank fraud, and money laundering, while the District of Columbia trial is related to violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, money laundering, and witness tampering.

None of the charges in either case are related to President Donald Trump or his election campaign.

Manafort, who still faces a Feb. 8, 2019, sentencing date in the Virginia case, has agreed to cooperate with the special counsels ongoing Russia probe, and he wont be sentenced in the District of Columbia case until his cooperation is complete.

There are some clues as to the possible focus of Manaforts cooperation with Robert Muellers probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. On April 2, the Mueller team filed a response to Manaforts motion to dismiss the indictment against him. Contained within the response is the single mention of one name:

[Manafort was] an individual with long ties to a Russia-backed Ukrainian politician.  Open-source reporting also has described business arrangements between Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.

A footnote points to an August 2016 New York Times article, Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trumps Campaign Chief, which reads in part:

Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovychs pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraines newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Mr. Yanukovychs inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.

The article references an investment fund, Pericles Emerging Markets. The fund was started by Manafort and several partners in 2007. Deripaska was the financial backer of the fund and agreed to commit as much as $100 million, although he apparently only invested $18.9 million in 2008 to finance the purchase of Black Sea Cable. Deripaska has also claimed that he paid about $7.3 million in management fees to the fund over two years.

Paul Manafort arrives for a hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington on June 15, 2018. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Pericles is now defunct, and Deripaska sued Manafort in a Cayman Islands court, seeking to recover his investment. But Pericles was involved in at least one other transaction. It, too, involved Manafort, Ukraine, and ultimate failure.

The Drake Hotel Deal

In 2008, Manafort was working with Ukrainian gas tycoon Dmytro Firtash on a transaction to purchase the Drake Hotel project site in Manhattan, using a series of holding companies.

Firtash was indicted in 2013 in Chicago in a racketeering case and has successfully fought off extradition to the United States from Austria, where he currently resides.

He also faced money-laundering accusations in a 2011 lawsuit filed by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko against Firtash and a number of his political and business associatesincluding Manafort and Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian national involved in Russian organized crime and wanted by the FBI.

The 2011 lawsuit was ultimately dismissed in late 2015. In her dismissal, District Judge Kimba M. Wood didnt dispute the facts of the relationship between Manafort or Firtash, but noted that Tymoshenkos complaint failed to establish the requisite directness of relationship between each Defendants conduct and the harm suffered by Tymoshenko.

Mogilevich is considered a boss of bosses and, at one point, was on the FBIs Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He remains free in Russia.

Tymoshenkos lawsuit alleged that Firtash laundered the proceeds from the RussiaUkraine gas deals using a complex web of shell companies, including Group DF, through which they were able to acquire and maintain investments in several foreign countries, including the United States.

Group DF is a holding company owned by Firtash and, the lawsuit alleges, his silent partner, Mogilevich. There are a total of 39 companies listed in the lawsuitmost of them shell companies, often with no meaningful assets.

In addition to Group DF, we will primarily focus on three of those entities: CMZ Ventures, Calister Investments, and the Dynamic Fund.

CMZ was technically owned by three sub-entities: Vulcan Properties, owned by Karen Cohen, but run and controlled by her husband, Arthur Cohen; XXX LLC, controlled by Manafort; and Barbara Ann Holdings, owned by Brad Zackson. Cohen was the C in CMZ. Manafort and Zackson were represented by M and Z.

The 2011 lawsuit alleged that these three sub-companies acted as agents for Firtash, who was an undisclosed silent partner in all three corporations, with Firtash ultimately maintaining control of the investments and assets of CMZ.

CMZ and Calister were U.S. companies operated out of shared offices in New York. The Dynamic Fund was an international investment fund established by Firtash through CMZ and Calister that would be used to invest Firtashs funds in New York and abroad, the lawsuit alleged.

Firtash and Mogilevich would use these companies to funnel money into the United States under the guise of investing in legitimate business venturesin this case, potential real estate projects. However, after the funds had been moved through several shell companies and into the United States, with the money becoming sufficiently laundered in the process, the funding commitments would be abruptly withdrawn prior to transaction closings, according to the lawsuit.

The Tymoshenko lawsuit alleged that Firtash would repeatedly use the cover of various real estate projects to create an air of legitimate business ventures, when in fact, the primary goal was the movement of funds into American accounts from Ukrainian banks.

The Drake Hotel transaction helps to illustrate how that was done. From an outside perspective, it would appear that each company was a separate and unique entity, when in reality, all of the corporate participants were allegedly controlled by Firtash.

On July 16, 2008, CMZ submitted a letter of intent to purchase the Drake Hotel site for a major redevelopment project, with an offer of $885 million on closing. CMZ continued to formally relay its interest to the owners of the Drake property but didnt disclose that the financial backer was Firtash, the lawsuit alleged.

On Nov. 6, 2008, the director of Group DF, David Brown, sent a formal letter to Paul Manafort and Calister Investments, care of the Dynamic Fund:

We are prepared to move forward with the mortgage purchase, provided you are successful in reaching a deal with the seller, which we approve and which should include Calister Investments as the developer. Group DF Finance Limited is, subject to a formal contract, prepared to provide $112 million in equity for the project. In addition, and as demonstration of our commitment to this effort, Group DF has executed a deposit of twenty-five million  into escrow for the project.

According to the lawsuit, Brown signed an escrow agreement with Calister later that day, confirming the $25 million had been wired from Group DFs bank to an escrow account jointly held by CMZ, Calister, and the Dynamic Fund. The escrow agreement was then forwarded by email from Manaforts lieutenant, Rick Gates, who also was working for Firtash.

On Jan. 21, 2009, Calister and the Dynamic Group made a formal offer to purchase Senior Notes secured by the Drake property. Despite having sufficient financing from Group DF and Firtash the CMZ, Calister and the Dynamic Group never closed on the Drake property. Ultimately, California-based CIM Group purchased the property for less than half of the original offer.

This pattern of an agreement to provide financing before a sudden withdrawal of support would be repeated several timesincluding projects to acquire the St. Johns Terminal project and the development of South Cat Cay island in the Bahamas. The Tymoshenko lawsuit lists a number of other failed transactions and questionable activities.

One other significant party appears to have been involved in the Drake transaction. On June 30, 2008, Manafort met with Deripaska, apparently in relation to the Drake transaction.

A July 1, 2008, memo from Gates referenced the June meeting:

When Paul met with Mr. D last month he told Paul to lock in the other financing elements and then come back to him for the final piece of investment. Based on the interest in this opportunity expressed by Mr. D during his meeting with Paul, we would like to discuss the parameters of this deal with you further and as soon as possible. We need to finalize Pericles participation in this deal, as the final component in the financing structure, in the next two weeks to lock in the deal.

Gates closed by saying he would be available to come to Moscow immediately to discuss and finalize the details of the transaction.

Kenneth McCallion, a former federal prosecutor and Tymoshenkos attorney, told the Daily Beast: Based on what we now know, it appears that both Deripaska and Firtash were involved in the Drake Hotel deal. I am reasonably certain now that Mr. D is Deripaska, since it is referenced in relationship to Pericles, which was definitely Deripaskas company, not Firtashs.

Court filings say, Deripaska was set to make a $56 million investment in the Drake transaction through the Pericles fund, according to The Real Deal. The funding may never have been finalized and sometime shortly after this event, the Pericles fund was shuttered. Deripaska asked for his money to be returned, but has yet to receive anything. Deripaska has twice filed lawsuits, claiming that Manafort and Gates grossly mismanaged the investment, resulting in a total loss of the amount invested.

Money-Laundering Allegations

A July 25, 2017, application for a search warrant of Paul Manaforts condominium in Alexandria, Virginia, contains a number of references to Manaforts potential money-laundering activities:

There is probable cause to believe that Manafort engaged in a scheme to hide income paid on behalf of Ukrainian politicians and others through foreign bank accounts in Cyprus and elsewhere, to and on behalf of Manafort and related people and companies. The FBI believes that Yanukovychs government engaged in systematic public corruption. The same sources report that corrupt government officials and their allies in the business community during Yanukovychs presidency looted Ukraines public coffers of millions of dollars and funneled those assets to foreign bank accounts to hide the embezzlement.

Included in the search warrant are a number of references to Deripaska:

[Redacted] also told the FBI that Deripaska helped fund Manaforts Ukrainian work when it began in 2005-06. And the 2010 tax returns for a company jointly owned by Manafort and his wifeJohn Hannah, LLCreveals a $10,000,000 loan to the company from a Russian lender. A court-authorized search in May 2017 of a storage locker in Virginia used by Manafort revealed documents that show that the identity of the Russian lender was Derapaska.

The warrant application also appears to reference Firtash and the failed deal for the Drake property:

In the Gates interview, Gates admitted that Manafort met with another oligarch, [redacted] discuss a New York real estate transaction they would undertake together and to pitch other ideas. In the Manafort Interview, Manafort also admitted approaching [redacted] to propose the New York deal, which according to business records publicly filed in a New York litigation was initiated in 2008.

The redacted portion appears to be a reference to Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch. The 2008 date corresponds to the timing of the Drake transaction involving both Manafort and Firtash.

There are some interesting side notes to this story. The first concerns former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who was removed from the Mueller investigation.

Page had previously been involved in money-laundering and organized-crime cases. At one point, she partnered with an FBI task force in Budapest, Hungary. According to Wired magazine, that Budapest task force helped put together the still-unfolding money laundering case against Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, a one-time business partner of Manafort.

The second concerns former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohrand possibly former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

In 2006, Ohr took part in a meeting with lawyers for Mogilevich who were seeking to cut a deal with the FBI and the Justice Department (DOJ). The New York Times reported on Aug. 27 that:

When a lawyer for one of Russias most-powerful reputed crime bosses arrived at F.B.I. headquarters one day around 2006, he wanted to cut a deal. The Russian, Semion Y. Mogilevich, had been indicted three years earlier by the department on charges of defrauding a company outside Philadelphia out of $150 million and could not travel for fear of arrest. As the lawyer made his pitch, a supervising F.B.I. agent and a senior career Justice Department official, Bruce G. Ohr, both listened intently, according to a former bureau official who described the meeting. Finally, the F.B.I. agent spoke. No deal, he said; Mr. Mogilevich must surrender. Mr. Ohr said little, but his unwillingness to negotiate was signal enough: The Justice Department would not compromise with the Russian mafia.

The identity of the supervisory FBI agent present at the meeting has not been confirmed, but its possible that it was McCabe. In 2003, McCabe became the supervisory special agent of the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force, a joint operation with the New York City Police Department. McCabe remained with the Eurasian squad until sometime in 2006, when he was moved to FBI headquarters in Washington.

Then acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 11, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

McCabe and Ohr had somewhat extensive ties to another famous Russian figureDeripaska.

In 2005, Deripaska had been given a multiple-entry American visa after he hired Alston & Bird, the lobbying firm run by former presidential candidate Bob Dole. Deripaska hired Doles firm in October 2003. Notably, the contact listed in the Deripaska lobbying registration is Jonathan Winer, who would later serve as a conduit between Christopher Steele and the State Department during the 2016 presidential election:

Between 2014 and 2016, Steele authored more than 100 reports on Russia and Ukraine. These were written for a private client but shared widely within the US state department, and sent up to secretary of state John Kerry and assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the US response to Putins annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine. Many of Steeles secret sources were the same people who would later supply information on Trump, according to a Nov. 15, 2017, article by The Guardian.

Steele was employed by Deripaska in 2012. Its possible that the private client that Steele was writing his reports for was Deripaska himself. Winer would later admit in a Washington Post op-ed to having received a copy of the dossier directly from Steele in September 2016.

In July 2006, Deripaskas visa was revoked by the FBI and the DOJ, despite the lobbying efforts of Doles firm. It was at this time that allegations of Deripaskas ties to organized crime in Russia surfaced.

Governmental concerns regarding Deripaskas activities appear to parallel the 2008 activities that Manafort, Firtash, and Deripaska allegedly engaged in during the failed Drake Hotel transaction. One of the individuals involved in the decision to revoke Deripaskas visa was Ohr:

In 2006, Mr. Ohr was part of a group of government officials who revoked the visa of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire and aluminum magnate. Officials were concerned that Mr. Deripaska might try to come to the United States to launder illicit profits through real estate, a former law enforcement official said.

Bruce Ohr (C), a Justice Department official demoted from the posts of an associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, leaves for a lunch break from a closed hearing with the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees on Capitol Hill on Aug. 28, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

It was also at this time that Deripaska hired Manafort, signing his firm to a $10 million-a-year contract in 2006 to advise him. Manaforts lobbying of the Bush administration, however, failed to reinstate Deripaskas visa.

That same year, Manaforts partner, Gates, arranged a meeting between Deripaska and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the Davos forum in Switzerland. McCain was preparing for his presidential run at the time. Its unclear what was discussed at this meeting, but Deripaskas visa wasnt reinstated.

As previously discussed, Deripaska parted ways with Manafort and Gates sometime in late 2008 or early 2009, with Deripaska claiming that both men owed him millions of dollars.

It was at this point that Deripaska turned to Washington lawyer Adam Waldman and his firm, the Endeavor Group. Deripaska hired Waldman in May 2009, placing the Endeavor Group on a $40,000-a-month retainer. Waldman, who also began work for the Russian government in 2010, would remain in the employ of Deripaska until April 5, 2018, when he terminated his relationship following renewed sanctions on Deripaska.

Deripaskas Visa

Deripaska was ultimately able to obtain a visa through the FBI. As early as mid-2008, the FBI had approached Deripaska, asking for possible assistance on the disappearance of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who was captured in Iran while working for the CIA in March 2007:

By mid-2008, the F.B.I. was fully engaged in the hunt. At that time, two F.B.I. agents met at a Paris hotel with a powerful new player who became secretly involved in the effort: Oleg Deripaska, one of Russias wealthiest businessmen, The New York Times reported on Dec. 13, 2013.

Deripaska became directly involved in the case in 2009:

Deripaska said he would put up millions to fund the venture, but he insisted that his role be kept secret. However, word that big money was in play made its way to Iran. Suddenly, a man with family connections to Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that he could engineer Mr. Levinsons release for a hefty price, The New York Times reported.

Deripaskas price for his involvement was a U.S. visa. Despite refusals from the State Department, the FBI and DOJ issued Deripaska a visa under a special program that allowed him entry into the United States twice in 2009.

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who heads aluminum producer Rusal, attends the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg on June 1, 2017. (Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)

While Levinson remains missing, Deripaskas efforts had actually secured a deal to free Levinson in 2010. According to The Hills John Solomon, the deal was scuttled, however, when the State Department become uncomfortable with Irans terms.

Another disclosure in Solomons article is that one of the FBI agents involved in the recruitment of Deripaska for the Levinson effort was McCabe.

Despite the failure to rescue Levinson, Deripaska continued to be rewarded for his efforts and was allowed entry into the United States eight times between 2011 and 2014 with government permission as a Russian diplomat.

In 2012, Waldman hired Steeles firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, on Deripaskas behalf in order to assist Deripaska against a lawsuit filed by a business rival, according to an article by John Solomon for The Hill.

The business rival likely relates to Michael Cherney, who claimed he was owed 20 percent of shares in Deripaskas aluminum giant, Rusal.

Deripaska has admitted to having paid Cherney $250 million following a 2001 meeting in Londons Lanesborough Hotel, The Guardian reported. But Deripaska argued that the sum was a final instalment of an extortionor kryshapayment to organised crime groups represented by Cherney.

The case, which was filed in July 2012, was abruptly settled out of court with the release of a somewhat cryptic announcement on Sept. 27, 2012, by Deripaskas lawyers:

Mr Deripaska announces that Mr Cherneys litigation in London against him has been terminated. Neither party will be making any further comment in relation to the litigation or matters raised therein.

In 2014, Deripaska sued Manafort and Gates in a Cayman Islands court over the shuttered Pericles Fund, claiming they had taken almost $19 million intended for investments and then failed to account for the missing proceeds. Deripaska has yet to receive any proceeds from either Manafort or Gates.

FBI Attempts to Turn Deripaska Into Informant

In late 2014, another chapter regarding Deripaska began to evolve. Once again, some familiar names re-entered the picture. On Nov. 21, 2014, Steele and Ohr met in Washington to discuss cultivating Deripaska into an FBI informant on Russian organized crime, according to a New York Times article.

Ohr and his wife, Nelliewho later worked for Fusion GPShave known Steele since at least 2006, when Steele was still working at MI6, although some reports have indicated the relationship goes back even further. Through Steeles work on behalf of Deripaska, Steele had also become friendly with one of Deripaskas lawyers, according to an article in The Hill.

The known contacts between Deripaska and the FBI occurred in September 2015 and September 2016both times in the United States. The topic of each meeting, however, was markedly different.

Steele helped set up the 2015 meeting between Deripaska and the FBI but wasnt directly involved in the meeting itself. Unlike Steele, Ohr was personally involved in the meeting, which reportedly involved pressing Deripaska on the connections between Russian organized crime and Mr. Putins government, as well as other issues. Deripaska disagreed and told the FBI that their theories were off base and did not reflect how things worked in Russia, The New York Times reported on Sept. 1, 2018.

FBI efforts to turn Deripaska reportedly failed, but worth noting is that Deripaska continued to make frequent trips to the United States on special diplomatic visas, visiting at least once in 2015 and at least three times in 2016.

In September 2016, the meeting between Deripaska and the FBI proceeded somewhat differently than their first meeting a year earlier:

F.B.I. agents showed up unannounced at his door in New York. By then, they were already investigating possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, and they pressed Mr. Deripaska about whether his former business partner, Mr. Manafort, had served as a link to the Kremlin during his time as Mr. Trumps campaign chairman, The New York Times reported.

Worth noting is that Steele referenced Manafort directly in his dossier, which he had provided to the FBI. Nellie Ohr was working directly for Fusion GPS by that time.

Earlier reporting by John Solomon provides additional details of the September 2016 meeting:

Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russias United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trumps campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election.

McCabe may have been one of the three agents at this meeting. He had helped to recruit Deripaska for the Levinson rescue attempt and was also overseeing FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was in charge of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation of alleged TrumpRussia collusion. The September meeting reportedly garnered the FBI little in the way of actionable information, The Hill reported:

Deripaska laughed but realized, despite the joviality, that they were serious, the lawyer said. So he told them in his informed opinion the idea they were proposing was false. You are trying to create something out of nothing, he told them. The agents left though the FBI sought more information in 2017 from the Russian.

Deripaskas lawyer, Waldman, declined to tell Solomon whether Deripaska had spoken with the FBI since the September 2016 meeting.

Steele and Ohr would continue to stay in contact through mid-2017, and Deripaska was mentioned several times in communications that took place in 2016.

Another Visa for Deripaska

On Jan. 12, 2016, Steele sent Ohr a New Years greeting by email and brought up Deripaskas visa case:

Steele: I heard from Adam Waldman yesterday that OD is applying for another official US visa ice [sic] APEC business at the end of February. Deripaska is being encouraged by the Agency guys who told Adam that the USG [United States Government] stance on [Deripaska] is softening.  A positive development it seems.

On Feb. 8, 2016, Deripaska was mentioned again. He had been granted a visa to visit the United States. This time, Steele appeared to be asking Ohr to provide inside information regarding Deripaskas visa status:

Steele: Our old friend OD apparently has been granted another official visa to come to the US later this month.  As far as Im concerned, this is good news all round although as before, it would be helpful if you could monitor it and let me know if any complications arise. Ohr: To the extent I can I will keep an eye on the situation.

On Feb. 21, 2016, in an email titled Re: OVD  Visit To The US, Steele told Ohr that he had talked to Waldman and to Paul Hauser, Deripaskas London lawyer.

Steele: An inter-agency meeting on him [Deripaska] this week which I guess you will be attending. [Im] circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting [on Deripaska]. We reckon therefore that the forthcoming OVD contact represents a good opportunity for the USG.

Steele said he would send the Orbis reporting to a name that is redacted in the email, as he has asked, for legal reasons I understand, for all such reporting be filtered through him (to you at DoJ and others).

From this point forward, the published conversations between Steele and Ohr shift from Deripaska to the dossier that Steele was developing. As noted in a letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the two would stay in contact until at least May 2017. As Grassleys letter notes, the FBI used Ohr as a conduit for unofficial information from Steele after Steele was formally terminated by the FBI.

Manaforts Work in the Trump Campaign

As Steele and Ohr were having their discussions, Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign on Feb. 29, 2016. Manafort and Trump hadnt been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manaforts offer:

Donald Trump and I had some business in the 1980s but we had no relationship until the Trump campaign called me, Manafort told The New York Times in an April 8, 2017, article.

On March 28, 2016, Manafort was hired by the Trump campaign to manage the teams efforts at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Manafort was initially hired to lead the campaigns delegate effort but was soon promoted, becoming Trumps campaign chairman and chief strategist on May 19, 2016. His tenure was short-livedon Aug. 19, 2016, Manafort resigned from the campaign.

In April 2016, Manafort instructed Trump press aide Hope Hicks that she should disregard a list of questions from The [Washington] Post about his relationships with Deripaska and a Ukrainian businessman. Manafort would later tell Hicks that he never had any ties to the Russian government.

Meanwhile, during his time with the Trump campaign, Manafort was in regular contact with Konstantin Kilimnik, his longtime employee in Kiev. Many of these emails appear to pertain to Deripaska.

Kilimnik and Manafort met twice in persononce in May 2016, and again in August 2016.

In one email, Manafort referred to his positive press and growing reputation and asked, How do we use to get whole? Kilimnik reportedly sent Deripaska press clips regarding Manaforts new role and provided indications that the Deripaska relationship might be repaired: I am more than sure that it will be resolved and we will get back to the original relationship.

On July 7, 2016, Manafort sent an email to Kilimnik regarding Deripaska, saying, If he needs private briefings we can accommodate.

On July 29, 2016, Kilimnik told Manafort he had spent five hours with the guy who gave you your biggest black caviar jar several years ago. This is almost certainly a reference to Deripaska. Kilimnik said the guy wanted to pass a message on to Manafort. It has to do about the future of his country, and is quite interesting, he said.

Following the July 29 email, the two men agreed to meet on Aug. 2, 2016, in New York at the Grand Havana Room.

According to The Washington Post, Kilimnik has said the two discussed unpaid bills and current news. But he said the sessions were private visits, that were in no way related to politics or the presidential campaign in the U.S.

While details surrounding Kilimnik remain slim, within Muellers sentencing memorandum for Alex Van Der Zwann is a reference to Kilimnik, described as person A:

Person A worked with Manafort and Gates in connection with their Ukraine lobbying work. Person A is a foreign national and was a close business colleague of Manafort and Gates. He worked in Ukraine at Manaforts company Davis Manafort International, LLC (DMI). Up until mid-August 2016, Person A lived in Kiev and Moscow. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents assisting the Special Counsels Office assess that Person A has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016. During his first interview with the Special Counsels Office, van der Zwaan admitted that he knew of that connection, stating that Gates told him Person A was a former Russian Intelligence Officer with the GRU.

Kilimnik not only had ties to Russian intelligence, but he maintained them in 2016, during the time that Manafort was with the Trump campaign. Kilimnik, who remains in Russia, has been indicted on witness-tampering charges in relation to Manafort.

Two weeks after Manaforts final meeting with Kilimnik, Manafort would resign from the Trump campaign.

During at least some portion of Manaforts involvement with the Trump campaign, Manafort may have been under FBI surveillance. CNN reported in September 2017 that Manafort had been under FISA surveillance since 2014 related to his work for Ukraines former ruling party. The FISA warrant reportedly expired sometime in the spring of 2016. The government snooping continued into early this year [2016], including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump, according to CNN.

But the FISA surveillance on Manafort was reportedly no longer active by late May 2016. As Manafort took the reins as Trump campaign chairman in May, the FBI surveillance technicians were no longer listening.

However, surveillance on Manafort was re-started:

The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year [2017]. It is unclear when the new warrant started. The FBI interest deepened last fall [2016] because of intercepted communications between Manafort and suspected Russian operatives.

Deripaska Begins Lobbying Efforts

In March 2017, Deripaska took out newspaper advertisements stating that he was willing to participate in hearings before Congress. His offer was ignored.

Deripaskas efforts began after The Associated Press published a story alleging that Manafort had provided him with a plan in 2005 outlining steps to greatly benefit the Putin government, by influencing politics and news coverage in the United States. Deripaska sued the AP, which stood by its reporting. Deripaskas lawsuit was later tossed out by a federal judge.

Deripaska would also be mentioned in a series of texts between his lawyer Adam Waldman and Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.). Waldman, at the time, was also negotiating a possible immunity deal for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with Warner and the DOJ. On March 23, 2017, Warner sent Waldman a text that appears to relate to Manafort: Need to coordinate date for trip can you talk with my scheduler also want to discuss Paul.

On March 25, 2017, Waldman sent Warner the following text: Deripaska is in London Monday-Thursday and I might be able to arrange a mtg w him too if you wish. I discussed it with him today and he seemed interested.

The following day, Waldman followed up with another text to Warner: I have an idea to explore w you. Pls call when youre free.

Deripaska had either just arrived in London or was about to arrive.

On March 31, 2017, Warner and Waldman had this brief exchange:

Warner: Keep me informed also any news from ur other guy on manafort Waldman: My other guy, like Steele, very mistrustful of USG. Hes been essentially shut out of the country and dragged through the mud. I explored this question w him last night in person. Waldman: Update re the other guy, my contact at DOJ has gone silent for 72 hrs. I gave him what he asked for and now dont hear from him. Please let me know if you hear anything.

In this particular case, the other guy appears to be Deripaska. Its possible the texts could be referencing Julian Assange, who was also a frequent topic of discussions at this time, but Assange was holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy. His travel status had moved beyond essentially shut out of the country.

The conversations between Waldman and Warner continued. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent the following text:

Hi. Steele: would like to get a bipartisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week.

Manaforts legal troubles appear to have received Deripaskas attention.

In May 2017, Deripaska again offered to cooperate with congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, this time through his lawyer, Waldman. Deripaskas offer was again rebuffed.

The New York Times reported that Deripaska was seeking immunity in exchange for his testimony:

Deripaska  recently offered to cooperate with congressional intelligence committees in exchange for a grant of full immunity, according to three congressional officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. But the Senate and House panels turned him down because of concerns that immunity agreements create complications for federal criminal investigators, the officials said.

Deripaskas lawyer, Waldman, would later dispute that Deripaska was seeking immunity:

Waldman  said he told the committee staff that his client would be willing to testify without any grant of immunity, but would not testify about any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign because he doesnt know anything about that theory and actually doesnt believe it occurred. I told them that he would be willing to talk about Manafort, Mr. Waldman added.  We specifically told them that we did not want immunity, Mr. Waldman said. Clearly, they did not want him to testify. What other conclusion could you possibly draw?

It was known that the special counsel was already investigating Manafort. Its likely the Mueller team was also looking into Deripaska.

Sanctions Imposed Under Trump

On April 6, the United States imposed sanctions against 24 Russians, including Deripaska, who called the decision very unfortunate but not unexpected.

On Oct. 8, the U.S. government moved to freeze Deripaskas U.S. assets, including mansions in Manhattan and Washington.

On Nov. 4, an article appeared in The New York Times regarding Deripaska that almost seemed as if Deripaska had written it himself. Within the article are not-so-subtle hints as to what Deripaska is willing to negotiate:

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has signaled that he is open to a plan under which Mr. Deripaska would reduce his stake in his companies in return for the sanctions being lifted. But sidestepping the business sanctions is not Mr. Deripaskas only goal. His team is preparing an audacious and previously unreported campaign to remove the personal sanctions on him, too.

Also included are a number of officials with whom Deripaska has interacted over the years:

The British emissary for Mr. Deripaskas companies, Lord Barker of Battle, a protege of David Cameron, the former prime minister of Britain, was appointed last year as chairman of EN+. Also involved are lobbyists, law firms, public relations experts, a former United States senator and a former Trump campaign official with ties to the Treasury Department and the White House. Even ambassadors to Washington from a number of countries have been approached to write letters opposing the sanctions. Mr. Deripaska has courted powerful political figures in Britain, played host to lavish parties in Davos, Switzerland, and once hired a former Republican presidential nominee, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, to lobby for him. Deripaska befriended Nathaniel Rothschild, a British-born financier whose father is a British peer, and through him met the Conservative Party politician George Osborne, a future chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as Lord Peter Mandelson, a leading figure in the Labour Party. Mr. Deripaska reveled among global movers and shakers, and he remains a regular figure at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The listing of those with whom Deripaska maintained close contact continues throughout the article.

This wouldnt be the first time that Deripaska has used the media as an avenue of defense. The detailed article by The Hills Solomon describing Deripaskas involvement with the FBI in the search for retired FBI agent Robert Levinson provides a good example. The title of that article, Mueller May Have a Conflictand It Leads Directly to a Russian Oligarch, provides a less-than-subtle hint. The article cites a number of individuals whove questioned Deripaskas involvement:

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a far more significant issue is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: Its possible the bureaus arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.

Solomon leads toward his conclusion with this observation: Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

But worth noting is Solomons primary source: Waldman, his American lawyer until the sanctions hit, gave me a detailed account, some of which U.S. officials confirm separately.

Deripaskas ongoing involvement throughout this lengthy sequence of events provides ample justification for his concern over the direction of Muellers investigation. It may be that some roads do lead back to Russia. But it seems that Deripaska, not Trump, provides the primary path.

Jeff Carlson is a CFA charterholder. He worked for 20 years as an analyst and portfolio manager in the high-yield bond market. He runs the website TheMarketsWork.com
Homeless woman Caroline Francis places a platter of food for her neighbor on the street near the Los Angeles Mission on Dec. 22, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Frederic Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

Los Angeles Prosecutors Charge 9 in Large-Scale Voter Fraud Scheme

The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office charged nine people with more than a dozen felonies on Nov. 20, for allegedly offering cigarettes and cash to homeless people in exchange for forged signatures on voter-registration forms and ballot petitions.

The defendants allegedly solicited hundreds of false or forged signatures during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles by offering $1 and/or cigarettes to homeless people in the Skid Row neighborhood, according to a press release.

Three of the defendants face up to six years and four months in prison if convicted as charged. The rest face up to four years and eight months in state prison. The case, which was filed on Nov. 1, was unsealed on Nov. 20.

The voter fraud charges include registering a fictitious person and registering a nonexistent person. The defendants were also charged with circulating a petition with false names and use of false names on a petition.

The defendants were expected to be arraigned in a local court on Nov. 20, according to Deputy District Attorney Marian Thompson of the Public Integrity Division. The Los Angeles Police Department and the FBIs Los Angeles Field Office are still investigating the case.

Prosecutors recommended that bail be set at $25,000 for each person.

With a homeless population of 5,000 to 8,000 people, Skid Row contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless people in the United States. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) represents the area of Los Angeles encompassing that neighborhood.

Gomez was re-elected on Nov. 6, with 73 percent of the vote against Green Party candidate Kenneth Mejia. During the 2016 election cycle, then-Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) ousted fellow Democrat Adrienne Edwards. Becerra is now Californias attorney general.

According to a voter fraud database maintained by the Heritage Foundation, there have been 1,117 proven instances of voter fraud in the United States, which led to 1,019 criminal convictions. Four people were convicted in California in 2016 and 2017 for making false voter registrations.

On Oct. 20, two weeks before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump issued a warning to those who sought to engage in voter fraud.

All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING, the president wrote on Twitter. Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal!
The parcels not in the MCD will be dedicated as a green space or park use. No building permits can be allowed and anyone seeking to build there would have to go through multiple approvals for it to be changed to usable lots.
A man and a woman were shot in killed at a Walmart location in Talladega, Alabama, on Nov. 21, according to reports. (Google Street View)

Man, Woman Dead, 2 Officers Injured in Alabama Walmart Shooting

A man and a woman were shot in killed at a Walmart location in Talladega, Alabama, on Nov. 21, according to reports.

The Talladega Police Department said it received a 911 call for assistance about a possible kidnapping at a nearby Chevron gas station across the street, AL.com reported. Police quickly made contact with the man believed to be involved with a possible abduction of a woman.

BREAKING: Large law enforcement presence at Walmart in Talladega. Every entrance to parking lot is blocked to the public. Dozens of shell casing markers around building entrance. State, county and local law enforcement here. pic.twitter.com/SsvznGx6RA  Sarah Killian (@SarahWVTM13) November 21, 2018

The suspect fired on the officers, the officers returned fire, and the suspect died, said State Bureau of Investigation Lt. Jon Riley. An officer was shot in the incident and was airlifted to the UAB Hospitals Trauma Center. Officials say hes expected to be fine.

A second officer was also injured, but not by gunfire, said Riley.

The suspect was found dead at the scene. The reported kidnapping victim was also found in the suspects vehicle, AL.com reported.

Riley said theyre not sure if the suspect, who was not named, and the victim, who also was not named, knew one another before the incident.

Riley issued a longer statement to WKRG: Just after 4:30 this morning, I received a call of a possible abduction or possible kidnapping. Police responded quickly and made contact with the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle fired on the police officers and they returned fire. One officer was shot and airlifted to UAB hospital, another officer was injured and was transported to a local hospital. The subject involved is deceased. There is another subject that has not been identified that is also deceased. A firearm has been recovered from the scene.

Violent Crime Down in 2017

In September 2018, the FBI said Americans committed fewer violent and property crimes in 2017, according to statistics. The violent crime rateincluding offenses such as murder, robbery, and aggravated assaultdropped by almost one percent and is still about 4 percent above the 2014 rate. The murder rate dropped by 0.7 percent.

After historic increases in violent crime in 2015 and 2016, we are beginning to see encouraging signs, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement at the time. But our work is not done. While we have made progress, violent crime and drug trafficking continue to plague our communities and destroy the lives of innocent, law-abiding Americans.

Of the estimated 17,284 murders in 2017, more than half occurred in larger citieswith populations of more than 100,000.

There are fewer than 300 such cities in the United States, and while they account for less than 30 percent of the countrys population, many of them contribute far beyond their share to national crime rates and have done so for years, even decades.

While the national murder rate inched down to 5.3 per 100,000 residents, it spiked by 15 percent in Philadelphia, to a rate of more than 20 per 100,000 residents. Columbus, Ohio, saw a massive 54-percent murder rate increase, reaching nearly 16.3 per 100,000 residents.

The murder rate in St. Louis rose by more than 10 percent and reached 66 per 100,000 residentsthe highest among larger cities.

Baltimores murder rate rose by nearly 8.5 percent, reaching some 56 per 100,000 residents.

Petr Svab and Reuters contributed to this report.
Mansion Catches on Fire in New Jersey, Several Dead

1 person reportedly shot to death on the lawn

Officials say several people have died in a mansion fire in Colts Neck, New Jersey, on Nov. 20.

Aerial footage shows a multi-story home with smoke emitting from it as fire trucks are parked outside.

NJ.com reported that four people, including children, were found dead in the home. NBC New York also reported that one person was found shot to death on the lawn.

One body, a man, was found outside the home, and the other three were recovered inside the home, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni told Patch.com. Unfortunately, they were burned severely as a result of the fire.

The Monmouth County Prosecutors Office wrote in a tweet it is on scene at a fire in Colts Neck with multiple fatalities. Firefighters still working on fire. Stay tuned for more details.

Officials told The Associated Press that several people were found dead in the house. Its owned by a tech company executive.

The prosecutors office told AP that its investigating the fire in Colts Neck along with another fire in Ocean Township, New Jersey. The home in Ocean Township is owned by a relative of the owner of the Colts Neck home, officials said.

The fires appear to be suspicious.

Authorities told NBC that theres no reason to believe the nearby community is in danger.

Investigators at the Ocean Township fire found several gas cans near the back of the house, NBC reported.

According to real estate website Zillow, the 5,784-square-foot house in Colts Neck was built in 2003. The house is surrounded by fields and a pool, AP reported.

Colts Neck is a community about 50 miles south of New York City. Its home to horse farms and some homes in the town of 10,000 are valued at around $750,000 each, AP noted.

The fire started at around 1:30 p.m.

Public records show the home is owned by Keith Caneiro, 50, and Jennifer Caneiro, 45.

Caneiros LinkedIn profile describes him as the CEO and chief technology officer for a company in the New York City area called Square One. His profile says he graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Science degree in 2018 and previously received certifications from Harvard Business School.

The Ocean Township home, about 10 miles from Colts Neck, is owned by Paul and Susan Caneiro, and public records show the men are related, sharing at least one address in New York several decades ago. They are also friends on Facebook, but it is unclear how they are related.

Caneiro is listed as the vice president of firm Square One.

The last thing I should say is that if anyone has any information about this incident, or the Ocean Twp. fire, please call the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office or Colts Neck police, Gramiccioni added in the Patch.com report. Any little bit can constitute a piece of the puzzle that can make things clearer.

Joy Gamache, a local, told the Asbury Park Press that the lady from the 15 Willow Brook was so nice and beautiful. She would regularly bring her kids over to see the horses, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Marines Reflect on What They Stand for as They Celebrate Corps Birthday

NEW YORKAll over the world, U.S. Marines take a moment to pause and reflect every November 10. Its the Marine Corps birthday, and marines have a standing order to celebrate it.

The birthday is a time to reflect on who they are and what they stand for as marines, said Colonel Ivan I. Monclova of the 1st Marine Corps District. He spoke at the 243rd birthday celebration at Smith & Wollenskys in New York City.

Were killing the closest alligator to the boat, Monclova said. Its important to take this time to reflect on the bigger picture, he added. Sometimes its easy to forget why we do what we do.

The birthday is a time for marines to reaffirm their commitment to the Corps. Its a time to reflect on the values of honor and courage, and the importance of upholding high standards, not cutting corners, Monclova said.

He was speaking to a room full of both enlisted and retired marines. Young and old, they came as if attending a family reunion.

Im 73-years of age; Im at a Marine Corps birthday, and to the day I die Ill continue to do the same thing and chat with young marines, old marines, and any marine I can come across because of the experiences that we all had together, shared together, said Ed Boran, president of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation.

Start of a Tradition

In 1921, Commandant John A. Lejeune first issued the order for marines to honor this birthday with a moment of silence, and its remained a standing order to this day. Other traditions have grown around it over the years, and celebrations were standardized in 1952, including the cake-cutting ceremony.

At the ceremony this year at Smith & Wollenskys, the 1st district Marine Corps color guard wheeled a white, coconut-topped birthday cake down the center of the room as everyone stood at attention. Colonel Monclova neatly sliced the cake with a sword.

The first piece went to the guest of honor, Brigadier General Thierry Lion of the French Army.

As dictated by tradition, the next slice of cake went to the oldest marine in the room. After taking a bite, the 75-year old marine passed the slice to the youngest marine in the room, a man 54 years his junior.

This passing of the cake from the oldest marine to the youngest marine symbolizes the passing of history and tradition from one generation of marines to the next.

A Hundred Years Since the End of WWI

This years birthday also marked the centennial of the end of World War I. The marines recalled The Battle of Belleau Wood, a landmark event in the history of the United States Marines Corps. In June 1918, marines navigated an 800-yard open wheat field to reach entrenched German soldiers.

U.S. Marines attacked German forces six times in the woods before finally defeating them. It was one of the bloodiest battles U.S. Forces faced in World War I. On that day, 1087 marines lost their livesmore than had been lost since the founding of the Corps.

One of the men who lost his life was PFC William F. Moore. He served with the fifth regiment of marines, which was there on June 6, 1918, the opening day of the battle. Moore grew up in Queens, New York. At the corner of 108th St. and Corona Ave. in Queens, just a couple blocks from where he grew up, is a park dedicated in his honor.

One hundred years after his death, on June 6, 2018, the marines of the 1st Marine Corps District, held a ceremony at the park in his honor.

Many people will forget this, but we, as marines, will never, because we honor our traditions, Lt. Col. Glenn Sadowski said of the ceremony. And we honor those who have gone before us.
Megyn Kelly Will Get All the Money Left on Her Contract in Exit Deal: Report

NBCs Megyn Kelly will get all the money left on her $69 million contract in an exit deal, according to a new report, as negotiations between the host and the company appear to be coming to a close.

Kelly will receive the more than $30 million shes owed, sources told the Wall Street Journal late Nov. 20. The deal could be finalized as early as next week after nearly a month of negotiations.

The financial part of the exit is largely worked out but other details that are nonfinancial are being haggled over, including non-compete and non-disclosure clauses, one source said.

Details of Kellys exit have been leaking out to various outlets as the parties arent discussing them publicly.

Deadline reported in late October, citing well-positioned sources, that Kelly wouldnt get anywhere close to the full payout of her contract.

Around the same time, sources told TMZ that she has nearly two years left in the contract and wants $50 million to sever ties with NBC.

And an anonymous NBC executive told the Daily Mail that she would get all the money she was owed. Her deal is a non-break dealso she walks away with all that money, the executive said.

Show Canceled

NBC canceled Megyn Kelly Today after she questioned why blackface or whiteface was considered racist in the context of Halloween costumes. After making the comments in a panel discussion on Oct. 23, Kelly apologized the next day on her show, saying shed listened to feedback and come to believe that the practices were racist. But that was her last show; after two days of reruns, the program was officially axed.

Kelly and executives at NBC repeatedly clashed after she joined the network, including over her coverage of the #MeToo scandals at the network. She reportedly refused to accept the possibility of Matt Lauer, one of NBCs employees accused of sexual misconduct, returning to the network.

Kelly also suffered from mediocre ratings in her morning show and wanted to return to a news-focused show, a format she thrived in at Fox News before departing that station. She had a Sunday news show, Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, but it only aired eight episodes in the summer of 2017.

NBC said it would be bringing it back in the summer of 2018 but that never materialized.

Kelly joined NBC in mid-2017 after leaving Fox earlier in the year. After her impending exit from NBC was reported, people began speculating that she could rejoin Fox, where she worked for 13 years.

But Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of New Fox, slammed that door shut in early November.

Im a big fan of Megyns. I like her a lot. We didnt want her to leave Fox when she did, Murdoch said at the DealBook Conference on Nov. 1. Having said that, Im very happy with our current lineup on Fox, and we wont be making any changes there.

From NTD News
In this Aug. 6, 2016 file photo, mourners carry the casket of Karina Vetrano from St. Helen's Church following her funeral in the Howard Beach section of the Queens borough of New York. (Steven Sunshine/Newsday via AP, File)

Mistrial in Murder Case of New York City Runner Karina Vetrano

A jury couldnt decide whether to convict a man accused of sexually assaulting and killing a 30-year-old female jogger, leading to a mistrial.

Judge Michael Aloise in Queens granted a mistrial on Nov. 20 after the jury sent him a note saying it was split after just a day and a half of deliberations.

It doesnt seem like we can make progress. We feel that we have exhausted all of our options, the jury wrote.

Chanel Lewis, 22, was accused of killing 30-year-old Karina Vetrano as she ran on a park trail near Howard Beachs Spring Creek Park in the Queens borough of the city on Aug. 2, 2016. Prosecutors said Vetrano had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her father, a retired Fire Department of New York official, discovered the body in a marshy area, reported Pix 11.

Lewis was arrested in February 2017 after officials linked him to DNA found under Vetranos fingernails and on her neck and phone.

Robert Boyce, New York Police Department chief of detectives, said the break came after police went back through 911 calls and found one reporting a suspicious person in the area near the attack. They identified Lewis, who voluntarily agreed to a DNA swab, and the results matched the DNA found at the scene.

Mistrial declared in case of slain Queens jogger Karina Vetrano https://t.co/tQhGs7sw7W pic.twitter.com/XxtKKf71lP  New York Post (@nypost) November 21, 2018

In his taped confession, Lewis told police that he was upset with a neighbor and that when he came across Vetrano on a secluded section of a marshland park, he just lost it. He said he beat and strangled her but did not molest her.

This girl jogging  and you know, one thing led to another, he told detectives. Hitting her and stuff like that. He said he punched her five times and dragged her into the tall grass.

I finished her off, he said, reported the New York Post. I was beating her and was mad at her.

Jurors watched the confession tape on Nov. 9. In a second tape recorded several hours after the first and also played in court, Lewis said he did strangle Vetrano but denied again sexually assaulting her.

His attorneys said the confession was wrongly obtained and should not have been admissible in the trial. They said he confessed only because he wanted to go home after waiting hours in an interrogation room.

Prosecutors, though, said that Lewis was a loner and perpetually angry man with no girlfriend and no job who took out his frustration on the jogger.

On Nov. 13, jurors heard that a cell phone belonging to Lewis showed he had searched online for Vetranos picture as well as a picture of the crime scene, reported the Post. He also looked up the Sacrament of Penance, articles about DNA testing, and arraignment.

Defense attorney Robert Moeller said the case was based on circumstantial evidence. He argued that the crime scene was corrupted and that DNA evidence was suspect.

This case is far from conclusive, and the jurys deadlock proves this, the Legal Aid Society, which helped provide defense for Lewis, said in a statement. The death of Karina Vetrano is tragic and our hearts go out to her family, but the rush to criminalize our client is not the answer nor is it justice.

Prosecutors said theyll move to retry Lewis, who is expected back in court on Jan. 20. He will be held in custody.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD News
Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj (2nd-R) speaks at a press conference ahead of a House of Commons debate on organ trafficking bill S-240, introduced by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis (L), with He Lizhi (2nd-L), a Falun Dafa adherent persecuted in China, and former cabinet minister David Kilgour (R), on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, on Nov. 20, 2018. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times)

MPs, Victims Urge Canadian Parliament to Pass Organ Trafficking Bill

Once a celebrated engineer in China, He Lizhi spent years in and out of detention for his beliefs.

An adherent of Falun Dafa, a traditional Chinese meditation and spiritual practice severely persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), He Lizhi recalls that he was once told by a CCP official that Falun Gong practitioners are not human beings.

He was speaking at a press conference on Parliament Hill on Nov. 20, hosted by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, ahead of a House of Commons debate on an organ trafficking bill.

He Lizhi said the atrocities he experienced and witnessed in China made him realize that what the Chinese official told him wasnt just an apparently ridiculous claim, but a gruesome guide to the dehumanization of Falun Gong practitioners on the way to physically eliminating them.

Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, teaches the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance and also consists of five sets of meditative exercises. After being introduced to the public in 1992, it spread rapidly, to the extent that according to government estimates, 70 million to 100 million people across China considered themselves practitioners by the mid-1990s. However, then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin could not tolerate the huge popularity of the practice not under the regimes control, and in 1999 launched a campaign of persecution against its adherents.

Since 2006, extensive investigations have shown that the Chinese regime is targeting Falun Dafa and other persecuted groups in China for large-scale forced organ harvesting. The state-sponsored crime involves removing organs from the victim while he or she is still alive, so that the organ stays fresh, and then selling the organ to a transplant patient. The victim dies during the organ removal process.

Bill S-240 unanimously passed in the Canadian Senate in October and was introduced to the House of Commons by Genuis. The bill would make it a criminal offence in Canada to receive an organ abroad without consent from the donor, and it would also make people involved in forced organ harvesting inadmissible to Canada. The bill is currently undergoing second reading in the House.

When we heard the Falun Gong [referred to] by officials as not being human beings, its dehumanization, yet its because they are human beings that their body parts and organs have a monetary value, said Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj at the press conference.

Its almost what I would call state-sponsored cannibalism of human organs and body parts for profit, and its just mind-boggling and so abhorrent that that could be happening today.

 Gut-Wrenching Stories

Wrzesnewskyj and former Liberal MP and justice minister Irwin Cotler have introduced similar private members bills in the past to target international organ trafficking. Their bills didnt become legislation, but Wrzesnewskyj and Genuis are hoping that this time around Parliament will pass the bill before the next election.

This deals with the terrible scourge of forced organ harvesting, often from political prisoners, and this is an urgent legislation, said Genuis. The victims of forced organ harvesting have waited for far too long.

Noting a Canadian connection to the issue, Wrzesnewskyj said that at the time that he introduced his bill 10 years ago, there was a Toronto Star report about underground clinics in India targeting poor labourers to remove their organs and sell them on the black market. He added that Canadian family members of Falun Dafa adherents at risk of forced organ harvesting by the Chinese regime have told him gut-wrenching stories of whats happening in the so-called Peoples Liberation Army hospitals in China.

Its fed by dollars, by money from the wealthy West, who need to address this issue, he said.

Powerful Disincentive

Besides He Lizhi, two other adherents of Falun Dafa spoke at the event, describing how even though they were undergoing torture while imprisoned for their beliefsagainst Chinas own lawsthey occasionally underwent extensive physical exams.

This wasnt normal in the labour camp. I was wondering what they intended to do. We were treated so badly there, how could they suddenly care about our health? recalled Na Gan, who was sent to a labour camp in China for being a Falun Dafa adherent.

After she was released and escaped to freedom in Canada, and learned about the crime of organ harvesting happening behind closed doors at that camp, she said she was shocked and terrified. When I thought about those physical examinations, I couldnt become calm.

David Kilgour, a former MP and secretary of state for Asia-Pacific whose joint investigation with human rights lawyer David Matas was the first comprehensive look into Chinas state-sponsored organ pillaging, said its extremely embarrassing that Canada still doesnt have legislation to combat organ trafficking given that Canadians have been involved in this issue for a long time.

Several countries, including Taiwan, Spain, and Norway, have already passed such legislation.

Besides reducing the demand for organs provided through illicit means, Genuis said the fact that the bill makes individuals involved in the crime inadmissible to Canada is a powerful disincentive. He hopes the bill will encourage other countries to adopt similar legislation, to have more countries be part of sending that strong message.

Following the first debate session on the evening of Nov. 20, the bill will undergo a second debate in a future session.
Xie Yining, the founder and chairman of the U.S.-based Chinese-language newspaper China Press, was shot to death inside the publications office in Alhambra, California on Nov. 16. (Jiang Linda/The Epoch Times)

Murdered Chairman of US-Based China Press Newspaper Was a Special Agent

The murder of Xie Yining, the founder and chairman of the U.S.-based Chinese-language newspaper China Press, has caused widespread concern in the Chinese community. New details have emerged about Xies true identity he was a special agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a reader of the The Epoch Times.

Police found the body of Xie Yining, 58, on Nov. 16 inside the publications office in Alhambra, California where he was shot to death. Police recovered a handgun at the scene and arrested an employee identified as Chen Zhongqi, 56, on suspicion of murder.

Chen is currently held on $1 million bail. Police didnt indicate a motive for the shooting.

An Epoch Times reader who wished to remain anonymousMr. Arecently divulged information about Xies true identity.

Mr. A was a reporter for a Chinese newspaper in Washington D.C. in the 1980s. He said Xie was a reporter for China News Service (CNS) at that time. Mr. A met Xie for the first time in Alberta, Canada where they reported on the 12th Universiade eventan international multi-sport event organized for university athletes.

Mr. A said that the first reporters of the CCPs state-run Xinhua News Agency in Washington D.C. were a coupleboth were special agents of the Intelligence Department of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) General Political Department (GPD). Since they were not familiar with the news business and did not do well with collecting information, China News Service decided to find a replacement.

Around 1987, China News Service took a fancy to Xie Yining, who spoke Cantonese and English, and appointed him as the White House correspondent, Mr. A said. At the time, he was very young and graduated from the department of journalism at Renmin University.

The China News Service does not have that much money, so the Peoples Liberation Army General Political Department covers their expenses.

Mr. A said, Xie showed up at many occasions as a journalist, but he was actually employed by the Intelligence Department. He had served as special agent for the CCP since 1986.

Later, Xie was transferred to China Press. After the June Fourth Incident (Tiananmen Square massacre) in 1989, the American people were very angry with the local pro-communist newspapersThe China Daily and the North American Overseas Chinese Daily. So the CCP supported the creation of an alternative mediaChina Pressin the United States on January 1990.

Mr. A said that Xies second wife, Guo Xing, is a reporter for Phoenix Satellite TV in Los Angeles. Phoenix Satellite TV is run by the Intelligence Department, said Mr. A.

There are many examples of bad news about people who carry out evil deeds for the CCP, said Mr. A. Another case is former China Daily reporter Li Xing who was in good health. But after she won an award for writing an article that slandered Falun Gong, she suddenly died of a heart attack in 2011.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a peaceful traditional Chinese meditation practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In 1999, former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide persecution of its adherents, believing that the groups popularitywhich grew to 100 million by 1999, according to Western media outlets that quoted Chinese officialswould undermine the Partys authority.

China Press BackgroundClose Ties to the CCP

China Press, better known as Qiao Bao in Mandarin Chinese, is a Chinese-language newspaper long known in the U.S. immigrant community for its pro-Beijing views and propensity to repeat Beijings propaganda on a wide range of issues.

Since the Chinese regime launched a nationwide persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong in 1999, China Press has been among a number of overseas Chinese newspapers that repeated propaganda in mainland Chinas state-run media, vilifying the meditation practice and its adherents. Meanwhile, Chinese media often repost China Press articles, such as one titled, Overseas Chinese in Seattle support Chinas sovereignty in the South China Sea, in July 2016.

Many suspect that the newspaper is actually run by the Chinese regime.

On paper, the newspaper is under the umbrella of Rhythm Media Group, a California-registered firm founded in 2003 with several Chinese-language news outlets, a film production company, and a cultural center in its profile. But Xies background and a look into the companys history indicate that it, in fact, has close ties to Beijing.

In 2001, the U.S. think tank Jamestown Foundation listed China Press as an overseas Chinese newspaper directly controlled by the Chinese government. But it was unclear which organ of the Chinese Communist Party directed it.

In 2006, China Press was among a list of several U.S.-based overseas outlets that signed a partnership agreement with China News Service, under a media consortium called U.S.-Asia Culture Media Corporation.

This media corporation is run by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, as claimed in a 2011 public expose written by a former television host for Sinovision, another U.S. media company in the corporation. Wang Aibing wrote the complaint to expose corruption at her former workplace, noting that the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office ran the media corporation as an overseas operation. Wang filed her complaint to then-director of the office, seeking redress for her grievances.

While China Press is now owned by a private U.S. company, the nature is the same, said China analyst Heng He. Heng has observed Chinas overseas media landscape for more than a decade.

He notes, for example, how China Press covered a series of incidents in New York City in 2008 involving local Falun Gong practitioners, who were physically attacked and harassed by aggressors in Flushing, Queens.

China Presss allegedly defamatory depictions of Falun Gong adherents were reprinted by Xinhua [state-run media], CCTV [state broadcaster], and Kaiwind, Heng said, referring to a website run by the 610 Office, a secret police force created in 1999 to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong.

This March, the central authorities launched an internal restructuring that subsumed the Overseas Chinese Affairs Officeoriginally an office within Chinas cabinet-like State Councilunder the United Front Work Department, an organ of the Communist Party that carries out operations overseas to fulfill Beijings agenda.

This change meant the Party now controls all propaganda-related offices, Heng noted. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office no longer had even a surface-level connection to Chinas state affairs.

Epoch Times staff members Zhou Yuejun & Annie Wu contributed to this report.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is seen in Oceanport, N.J., in a file photograph. (Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for William Hill Race & Sports Bar )

New Jersey Governor Announces $2.1 Million in Aid for Illegal Aliens Facing Deportation

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, announced that the state would allocate $2.1 million in aid to help illegal aliens who are facing deportation fight the process.

Murphy, in his first year as governor and a former U.S. ambassador to Germany under former President Barack Obama, made the announcement on Nov. 19.

Families who came to New Jersey for a better life do not deserve to be torn apart by the federal governments cruel and discriminatory policies, he said in a statement.

The funding will include an allocation of $925,000 to Legal Services of New Jersey to represent illegal aliens facing deportation in court and another $925,000 to American Friends Service Committee for its direct representation services.

Law school clinics at Rutgers University and Seton Hall University will each receive $125,000.

Murphys office claimed that illegal aliens contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes and that they would pay even more if they received legal status. It also claimed that the allocation would save New Jersey taxpayers money in the end, stating: A program of representation reduces the high taxpayer costs associated with prolonged detention, and by streamlining the legal process, a representation program lessens the need for foster care and other programs that serve the U.S. citizen children whose parents are detained or deported.

Legal representation would also lead to fewer families losing their sources of income and prevent more employers from shouldering the costs of turnover and hiring new employees after losing their workforce to deportation, his office added.

Republican state Sen. Kristin Corrado said that the way the funding was restricted would lock out other low-income people in New Jersey.

When Legal Services already turns away many people who are desperate for help due to resource limitations, we shouldnt limit how new funding can be used, she said in a statement.

We shouldnt say that deportation cases are more important than supporting victims of domestic abuse or workers who were hurt on the job. If were going to entrust LSNJ with state funds, we should trust their judgment to properly allocate the scarce resources we provide across the variety of our residents needs.

According to researchers from Yale University, there are up to 29 million illegal aliens in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, most illegal immigrants live in California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, or New Jersey; and New Jersey was one of six states where the population of illegal aliens increased from 2009 to 2014.

According to the center, some 500,000 illegal aliens lived in New Jersey as of 2014, the fourth-highest figure in the nation behind California, Florida, and Illinois. Chia-Chia Wang, the director of organizing and advocacy at the American Friends Service Committee, told The Associated Press after Murphys announcement that there are roughly 1,200 illegal aliens currently detained in New Jersey, and that representing the aliens costs about $15 million a year.

From NTD News
Officials: Family Found Dead in NJ Mansion Fire Were Stabbed, Shot Before

A tech company CEOs wife and children were found stabbed inside a New Jersey mansion that burned down on Nov. 20, according to reports. The CEO, Keith Caneiro, was also found shot dead outside the house.

Law enforcement officials told NBC New York on Nov. 21 that Caneiro, 50, was shot in the back of his head, while his wife and two children suffered injuries consistent with stab wounds.

The children were identified as Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8. Their bodies were recovered inside the familys $1.5 million Colts Neck mansion.

Tech CEO Keith Caneiro, his wife, Jennifer Caniero, and their two children were found dead Tuesday after a mysterious shooting and fire at their mansion in Colts Neck, New Jersey: https://t.co/3KSisqSisZ pic.twitter.com/u5OvSbIJU5  Tom Cleary (@tomwcleary) November 21, 2018

Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said Keith Caneiro and his family were victims of homicidal violence before the fire, CBS News reported.

The case has transcended into a multiple homicide investigation in addition to the arson matter, Gramiccioni added. Unfortunately, sadly, each of these individuals were the victims of homicidal violence at some point prior to when the fire was set.

We believe that in some form or fashion, this family was targeted, he added, NBC New York reported. This is one of the most heinous cases we have ever seen, he said.

There is no motive yet in the case, said the prosecutor. That is something that of course we want to answer in any of our investigations, Gramiccioni said.

Sources also told NJ.com that Caneiro was found with a gunshot wound that doesnt appear to be self-inflicted.

On Nov. 21, before the NBC report, Caneiros brother, Paul Caneiro, was arrested for a charge of aggravated arson in connection with a fire that affected his own home in Ocean Township earlier in the day on Nov. 20, which was hours before Keiths home burned down.

The New York Post reported that Paul set fire to his residence by using gasoline and igniting the gasoline causing the residence to catch fire while his wife and two daughters were inside.

The brothers were business partners of tech company Square One.

Gramiccioni was asked if Paul is a suspect in the homicide case. I cant confirm or deny that at this time, he said.

Neighbors Shocked

Joy Gamache, a local told the Asbury Park Press the lady from 15 Willow Brook was so nice and beautiful that she would regularly bring her children over to see the horses.

Another neighbor told the Daily Mail they saw the Caneiros at their Ocean Township home after the fire broke out.

He said it must have been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated, the neighbor said. He said, Im in complete shock, I cant believe this is happening to me. They were here until about noon.

Investigators discovered gas cans near the Ocean Township home. According to real estate website Zillow , the 5,784 square-foot house in Colts Neck was built in 2003. The house is surrounded by fields and a pool, AP reported.

Colts Neck is a community about 50 miles south of New York City that is home to horse farms. Some homes in the town of 10,000 are worth about $750,000 each, AP noted. The last thing I should say is that if anyone has any information about this incident, or the Ocean Township fire, please call the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office or Colts Neck police, Gramiccioni said in the Patch.com report. Any little bit can constitute a piece of the puzzle that can make things clearer. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Preschooler Fought for Her Life While Being Strangled Say Prosecutors

A 4-year-old girl fought for her life as her own father strangled her to death, prosecutors have said.

Chris Watts, aged 33, has been found guilty of killing his daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, on Aug. 13. He has also been convicted of killing their mother and his wife Shanann, 34, who was 15 weeks pregnant with a boy.

Chris Watts has five life sentences without possibility of parole on Nov. 19.

Watts previously admitted to killing the three as part of a plea agreement through which he avoided the death penalty. Weld County prosecutor Michael Rourke told the court Watts strangled Bella as she tried to fight back.

She fought back for her life as her father smothered her, Rourke said. Imagine the horror in Bellas mind as her father took her last breaths away.

The county coroner found blunt force trauma on the girls jaw, and lacerations, and contusions in her mouth. The autopsy also found teeth impressions, and superficial bite marks on the surface of her tongue.

Although there are no signs of Celeste struggling, the coroner believes she also died from asphyxiation due to smothering.

Shanann has bruises on the neck that can be explained by her husbands strangulation, Rourke said.

We know that our experts tell us that it takes two to four minutes to strangle someone to death manually with their own hands, he said. The horror that she felt as the man that she loved wrapped his hands around her throat, and choked the life out of her must have been unimaginable.

Autopsies ended in late September and sealed until sentencing began.

New Love Interest Could Be a Motive

Rourke said Chris Watts motive for the brutal killings appears to be a desire to move on with another woman he met at work.

He had a desire for a fresh start, to begin a new relationship with a new love, Rourke said. Watts mistress said shortly before the trial that he misled her into thinking that he had already separated, and divorced from his wife.

Rourke described how Watts furtively communicated with, met, and planned meetings with his mistress while his wife was focused on him and their family.

While Shanann texted the defendant over and over again in the days and weeks leading up to her death, attempting to save her marriage, the defendant secreted pictures of his girlfriend into his phone, and searched, and texted her at all hours of the night, Rourke said.

While Shanann sent the defendant self-help and counseling books, he was searching the internet for secluded vacation spots to take his new love, and researching jewelry.

Rourke expressed confusion as to why Watts killed his family instead of just getting a divorce.

You dont annihilate your family and throw them away like garbage, he told the court. Why did they have to lose their lives in order for him to get what he wanted?

The morning after Watts killed the family, he texted his mistress about future plans, Rourke said.

From NTD News
Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade, D-6th, whose fiery rhetoric about the issue caused the council to think in terms of doing its own investigation in the first place, said she is bothered that some officials are too eager to accept the story without digging into the matter more thoroughly.
Rains Could Help California Firefight but Complicate Search for Remains

SACRAMENTO, Calif.Rain in the forecast starting on Nov. 21, could aid crews fighting Californias deadly wildfires while raising the risk of flash floods and complicating efforts to recover remains of those killed.

Residents in communities charred by the Los Angeles-area fire stacked sandbags as they prepared for possible downpours that threatened to unleash runoff from hillsides left barren by flames.

In Northern California, teams continued sifting through ash and debris as they searched for bodies in and around the decimated town of Paradise.

The task is arduous, said Rick Crawford with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. And the possibility exists that some people may never be found.

With the death toll at 81 in the states most destructive wildfire, there are still nearly 870 people still unaccounted for.

Authorities trying to identify the scores of people killed are using rapid DNA testing that produces results in just two hours. The system can analyze DNA from bone fragments or other remains, then match it to genetic material provided by relatives of the missing. But the technology depends on people coming forward to give a DNA sample via a cheek swab, and so far, there are not nearly as many volunteers as authorities had hoped for.

As of Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the inferno, only about 60 people had provided samples to pop-up labs, said Annette Mattern, a spokeswoman for ANDE, the Longmont, Colorado, company that is donating the technology.

We need hundreds, Mattern said. We need a big enough sample for us to make a positive ID on these and to also give a better idea of how many losses there actually are.

The burned area surrounding Paradise, which is about 140 miles northwest of San Francisco, will see rain starting Wednesday. The precipitation could help knock out the flames, but it could also hinder the search by washing away fragmentary remains and turning ash into a thick paste.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for Paradise and nearby communities and for those areas charred by wildfires earlier this year in Lake, Shasta, Trinity and Mendocino counties.

The Camp Fire, which has burned an area about the size of the city of Chicagonearly 238 square milesand destroyed around 13,000 homes, was 75 percent contained on Tuesday.

In Southern California, people who worried days earlier that their homes might be consumed by flames were now taking action to guard against possible debris flows caused by the Pacific storm set to come ashore the day before Thanksgiving. Residents filling sandbags at Malibus famous Zuma Beach were mindful of the disaster that struck less than a year ago when a downpour on a fresh burn scar up the coast sent home-smashing debris flows through Montecito, killing 21 people and leaving two missing.

The 151-square-mile Woolsey Fire was almost entirely contained, with 1,500 buildings destroyed and 341 damaged. The major remaining closed area was centered in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains that rise high above the Malibu coast.

By Kathleen Ronayne
"Roots: A Gangster's Way Out," the book about Nedim Yasar, in a bookstore in Copenhagen on Nov. 20, 2018. (Bax Lindhardt/AFP/Getty Images)

Reformed Gang Leader Nedim Yasar Shot Leaving His Book Launch in Denmark

A reformed Danish gang leader has died from gunshot wounds he sustained as he left the launch of a book about how he had turned his life around.

Nedim Yasar, 31, was shot on Nov. 19 in the Danish capital Copenhagen by a suspect who fled on foot, according to police.

Yasar later died in the hospital from his injuries. A day later, his memoir Rdder (Roots) was published. The book tells the story of Yasar as he leaves the world of gangs and crime.

The shooting happened just after 7.30 p.m. local time, with the suspect, who was dressed in dark clothing, firing at least two shots, according to the Copenhagen Police.

Police said they are investigating the shooting and asking witnesses to come forward.

Yaser previously told police that someone had tried to assault him in 2017.

Police said Yaser used to lead the Los Guerreros criminal gang involved in the drugs trade. Los Guerreros is Spanish for warriors.

He left the gang in 2012 after discovering he was to become a father, later going on to become a mentor for young people, Danish news agency Ritzau said. He had a show on Copenhagen-based station Radio24syv and often spoke about his experiences.

A day after the shooting, the station posted on Twitter an image of its building with the Danish flag at half-mast, along with the message, Farewell Nedim Yasar and thanks for everything.

Sad and Infinitely Meaningless

Sren Pape Poulsen, Denmarks justice minister, wrote on Twitter: How sad and infinitely meaningless. I met Nedim once. I met a man who with all his heart wanted to create and new life and make a difference for others. My thoughts and compassion go to his friends and family.

He added, It goes without saying that this terrible tragedy begs the question of whether we as a society have the right protection for those who want to step out of the shadows and back into society.

Radio24syvs managing editor Jrgen Ramskov said the country had lost a unique voice in the discussion around organized crime.

Nedim had nuance and experience of one of the most important questions faced by our society: what should be done about crime and gang crime, Ramskov told Ritzau.

He was an important and mature witness who had broken free and found a way out. Not just for himself, but so he could share his story with others, he added.

Danish police reported a record number of gang-related shootings last year, with some politicians linking the rise to the issues around integrating non-Western immigrants.

In recent months there have been several arrests over gang-related shootings in Denmark. Police say these violent incidents are connected with an internal split in a gang known as Brothas.

On Sept. 19, police put in place stop-and-search zones in two Copenhagen neighborhoods, aiming to find concealed weapons,Danish news website The Local reported.

And on Sept. 4, Danish police temporarily banned a criminal gang called Loyal to Familia (LTF), meaning anyone wearing clothing featuring the LTF logo or promoting the organization could be imprisoned for up to two years.

LTF is an association which displays a violent and criminal character of such serious nature that immediate intervention in the form of an administrative prohibition is required, Copenhagen Police senior prosecutor Ida Srensen said, according to The Local.

Police say LTF was involved in a series of shootings and violence throughout 2017.

The ban will be in place until legal procedures against the gang are completed.

Justice Minister Sren Pape Poulsen said in a statement, As a society, we must be tough on gang crime and make life for gangs as difficult as possible. It is historical that LTF is being banned from today.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in CANBERRA, Australia, Oct. 16, 2018. (AAP/Mick Tsikas/via Reuters)

Scott Morrison Says Australia Will Not Sign UNs Global Migration Pact

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Nov. 21 that Australia will not sign the United Nations global migration deal, saying that it would not benefit the country and would compromise Australias national interests and border security.

Morrison said the U.N.s dealalso known as the Global Compact for Migrationdid not distinguish between people who enter Australia illegally and those who come to Australia the right way, particularly with respect to the provision of welfare and other benefits.

The compact would risk encouraging illegal entry to Australia and reverse Australias hard-won successes in combating the people smuggling trade, Morrison said in a joint statement with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

It would also be used by those who have sought to undermine Australias strong border protection laws and practices.

Morrison told 2GB radio on Nov. 21: I would never allow something to compromise our borders. Ive worked too hard to ensure that we werent in that position.

Australia joins a growing number of other countries that have refused to sign the migration pact, including the United States, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Israel, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria.

Conflict With Important Principles

The U.N.s Global Compact for Migration (pdf), set to be signed in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Dec. 11-12, is to be the first of its kind to outline global standards and guidelines for migration.

According to the U.N. website, the compact provides a framework for facilitating safe and orderly migration globally, with an effort to deal with migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner. It is not legally binding.

It also sets out a range of actionable commitments, which could possibly influence legislation and policymaking for member states.

The compact has 23 objectives that seek to boost cooperation among countries to manage migration and includes such aims as to strengthen the transnational response to smuggling of migrants  and manage borders in an integrated, secure, and coordinated manner.

But Morrison said the migration pact did not align with Australias interests.

We do not believe that adopting this agreement will add anything to enhancing our capacity to control our borders and manage our successful immigration program, read a statement from the PMs office.

The Compact was promoted as [a] way to promote safe, orderly, and regular migration. We already achieve all of these goals.

We also believe that adopting the Compact would directly conflict with important principles that have underpinned our successful approach.

Dutton told Sky News that there would be concerns as to how courts would interpret the U.N. pact with regard to how migrants arrived.

Were concerned about whether or not it starves us as a sovereign nation of the ability to decide the way in which we can return people under the compact, he said.

Certain obligations could be imposed where we needed to support people once theyd been returned back to a country of origin, so it really undermines the tenets of Operation Sovereign Borders.

Operation Sovereign Borders is a military-led border security operation that began in 2013 seeking to protect Australias borders by stopping asylum seekers who arrive by sea.

Morrison added that Australias settlements programs are focused on integration and inclusion, noting that Australia is a nation built on migration.

We have a long and successful history of well-managed migration that is designed to meet Australias economic and social needs, he said in the release.

He said that Australia remains committed to its existing regional partnerships such as the Bali Process which works to prevent people smuggling.

Australia will continue to strengthen our responses to people smuggling and human trafficking, promote regional cooperation and reinforce the obligation of countries to accept the return of their nationals, he said.

Watch Next:

Is the United Nations a Malicious Failure?
Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea, on Nov. 21, 2018. (Kang Kyung-kook/Newsis/AP)

South Korean Named Interpol President in Blow to Russia

DUBAI, United Arab EmiratesSouth Koreas Kim Jong Yang was elected as Interpols president on Nov. 21, edging out a longtime veteran of Russias security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain, and other European nations.

Kims election was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied against Alexander Prokopchuks attempts to be named the next president of the policing organization.

The U.S. and others expressed concern that if Russias candidate had been elected, it would lead to further Kremlin abuses of Interpols red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Russia accused its critics of running a campaign to discredit their candidate, calling Prokopchuk a respected professional.

Kims win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpols general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there.

Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Mengs departure from the post and was senior vice president at Interpol.

Russias Interior Ministry said after the vote that Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will continue his role in that position.

Most of Interpols 194 member-countries attended the organizations annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast.

Interpol was facing a pivotal moment in its history as delegates decided whether to hand its presidency to Prokopchuk or Kim, who were the only two candidates vying for the post.

Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for issuing red notices that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on the worlds most-wanted list.

Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists, even though its rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons.

The agency faced criticism two years ago when Interpols member-states approved Meng as president for a four-year term. Amnesty International has criticized Chinas longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad.

In 2016, Interpol introduced new measures aimed at strengthening the legal framework around the red notice system. As part of the changes, an international team of lawyers and experts first check a notices compliance with Interpol rules and regulations before it goes out. Interpol also says it enhanced the work of an appeals body for those targeted with red notices.

Still, member countries can issue requests, known as diffusions, directly to other countries using Interpols communication system, without going through the centralized Interpol vetting thats in place for red notices. Watchdog groups have urged Interpol to reform the diffusion system too.

Bill Browder, who runs an investment fund that had once operated in Moscow, says Russia used the diffusion system against him, which led to his brief arrest in Spain earlier this year.

Browder and another prominent Kremlin critic warned Tuesday that electing Prokopchukwho has ties to President Vladimir Putinwould have undermined the international law enforcement agency and politicized police cooperation across borders. Prokopchuk was in charge of facilitating Interpol warrants on behalf of Russia.

The head of a watchdog group that has championed and studied Interpol reforms, Jago Russell of Fair Trials International, tweeted that he was hugely relieved at the result and delighted that (Kim) was elected with such a clear mandate to see through the reforms needed to prevent political abuse of the #RedNotice system.

A lawyer who wrote a book on Interpol, Christopher David, hailed Kims election as a solid, uncontroversial choice. He said in a statement that if Interpol is to be a credible crime-fighting resource, Kim must increase transparency to demonstrate and maintain its political neutrality.

A day before the Interpol vote, the White House had come out publicly against the election of Prokopchuk, with National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis saying the Russian government abuses Interpols processes to harass its political opponents. He said the U.S. strongly endorses Kim.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was encouraging all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol to choose a leader with credibility and integrity. We believe Mr. Kim will be just that, he said.

Russia, however, secured a win for its ally Serbia on Tuesday when Kosovos bid to join Interpol failed to garner enough votes at the general assembly in Dubai. The move would have boosted Kosovos efforts at recognition of its statehood. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

By Aya Batrawy and Angela Charlton
Tech CEO Shot Dead, Family Dies in New Jersey Mansion Fire: Reports

An affluent couple, and their two children are dead in a suspected homicide after their New Jersey mansion burned down, officials said on Nov. 20.

Keith Caneiro, CEO of Ashbury Park-based tech company Square One, suffered a fatal gunshot wound and his body found outside his home. Law enforcement officials doubt the wound is self-inflicted, according to anonymous sources published on NJ.com and the Ashbury Park Press.

Weve learned though property records 50-year old Keith Caneiro owned the Colts Neck home with his wife. His social media accounts say hes the CEO of a company named Square One. 2 kids and 2 adults were found dead at the home today. @NBCPhiladelphia at 11pm. pic.twitter.com/L2v2RhED40  Aaron Baskerville (@ABaskerville10) November 21, 2018

Police discovered the bodies of Caneiros wife and two kids, aged under 10, in the home at upscale Colts Neck, New Jersey according to The New York Times.

One body, a man, was found outside the home, and the other three were recovered inside the home, Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni told Patch.com. Unfortunately, they were burned severely as a result of the fire.

Just hours before the blaze, another fire took place at the home of Paul Caneiro, brother of Keith, in Ocean Township about 10 miles away. Officials are investigating whether the two fires are connected. No injuries are reported in the earlier blaze.

Tech CEO Keith Caneiro, his wife, Jennifer Caniero, and their two children were found dead Tuesday after a mysterious shooting and fire at their mansion in Colts Neck, New Jersey: https://t.co/3KSisqSisZ pic.twitter.com/u5OvSbIJU5  Tom Cleary (@tomwcleary) November 21, 2018

That remains to be seen, Monmouth County prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said in the NY Times. But that is an option or an angle we continue to pursue.

Its important to emphasize that we have no reason to believe that anyone in the community is in any danger at this time, Gramiccioni told The Associated Press, adding that a medical examiner is still investigating the cause of death.

Caneiro had operated Square One since 1987, and held an active real estate license according to NJ.com. The Daily Mail reports Caneiro and brother Paul were partners in the same tech firm.

Theyre wonderful people, Kevin Harrington, who lived across the street from the Caneiro family in Ocean Township, told the NY Times. Its pretty shocking stuff.

Very nice, very friendly, anybody that youd want to be living next door to basically, one of Caneiros neighbors told CBS News.

Joy Gamache, a local told the Asbury Park Press the lady from the 15 Willow Brook was so nice and beautiful that she would regularly bring her kids over to see the horses.

Another neighbor told the Daily Mail they saw the Caneiros at their Ocean Township home after the fire broke out.

He said it must have been a gas leak, he had tears in his eyes. Susan was devastated, the neighbor said. He said, Im in complete shock, I cant believe this is happening to me. They were here until about noon.

Investigators discovered gas cans near the Ocean Township home. According to real estate website Zillow, the 5,784 square-foot house in Colts Neck was built in 2003. The house is surrounded by fields and a pool, AP reported.

Colts Neck is a community about 50 miles south of New York City that is home to horse farms. Some homes in the town of 10,000 are worth about $750,000 each, AP noted. The last thing I should say is that if anyone has any information about this incident, or the Ocean Twp. fire, please call the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office or Colts Neck police, Gramiccioni said in the Patch.com report. Any little bit can constitute a piece of the puzzle that can make things clearer. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Full Disclosure in Underwear Act

My wifes eyesight is much worse than mine, which explains the reaction we often get walking down the street together. What can she possibly see in him? is the underlying mental reaction that causes the surprised expression we see on the faces of passersby, especially the men.

Sorry pal, get your own woman with 20/200 vision.

So, I am often called upon to read fine print for her, and not just for content, but I was caught off guard by her most recent call for me to act as human magnifying glass.

Has there been some kind of product recall for underpants? she asked.

Not that I know ofwhy do you ask?

Because it looks like the instructions on my new pairs have gotten a lot longer than they used to be.

Back in the good old days, before ambulance-chasing lawyers ginned up class actions over lip-synching pop music, a terse, succinct Made in Sri Lanka, 82% nylon, 18% elastic, wash darks separately was all that was needed to insulate an underwear sweatshop from liability. But she was right; the disclaimer droned on and on for a total of 22 legalistic lines. There had apparently been an upheaval in the law of underpants, comparable to the Magna Carta or maybe Hammurabis Code, and underwear wearers had been put on notice by a warning so long that the type looked like something youd reach for a microscope to read.

Youre right, I said. Somebody must have won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit again the underwear-industrial complex.

But who needs instructions to put on underpants? she asked, incredulous. Other than Insert legs in holes, pull up over 

Please, I said, stopping her before she revealed something Id have to disclose to my confessor. Let me take a closer look.

For starters, the new world order of underpants is longer because its tri-lingual. This is the bitter crop we reap when we insist on teaching kids foreign languages in grade schooleverybody wants to show off how worldly they are. You can skip two out of every three lines, I said, unless you want to read about underpants in a Romance language.

Im good, thanks.

Lets seetheyve gone to a more complete disclosure of the fabrics.

Id better hear that, in case Im allergic to something.

Okay. In addition to polyester and elastic, certain parts have nylon, others have cotton, and apparently theyve added some flax.

That cant be rightI put that on my cereal in the morning.

I looked closer. Its used to make bed sheets too, but you may be right. It looks like its a French phrase that means My parrot admires your fedora.

Your high school French didnt help us much when we went to France, she reminded me with a trace of bitterness. Keep going.

Okay, next isI squinted to seeNo checks accepted. Hold handrail. You must be this tall to ride this ride.

Youre just making things up now.

Maybe, but my eyes are getting worse as I get older. You wont be able to depend on me forever.

Forever ran out a long time ago with you, she said with disgust. Let me get a real magnifying glass.

She returned with a family heirloom, an antique that my dad used to read the newspaper when his sight began to fail him.

Much better, I said, as I scanned the tiny text. Hmm  I think I found the problem.

What?

Apparently people havent been drying their underwear quickly enough.

They havent?

No. Writ small, the instructions now say Dry promptly.

What kind of idiot puts on wet underpants?

That kind that needs a warning label in his boxer shorts, I guess.

Anything else?

Theres something in what looks like Esperanto, I said, referring to the goulash of an international language that for some reason failed to produce world peace, the modest mission its adherents held for it.

Well, read it to me.

No exprimir.

Sounds Spanish.

You took Spanish in high schoolwhat does it mean?

She racked her brain, but gave up fairly quickly. Ill have to look it up, she said, and then went to that universal answer machine, the World Wide Web.

Hmmexprimir means to squeeze.

Is that a problem with womens underpants? I asked.

It is, she said. But that warning should go on the outside.

Con Chapman is a Boston writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Boston Globe, among other publications. His biography of Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellingtons alto saxophonist, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
President Donald Trump makes his way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Nov. 20, 2018. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump Says US Will Guard Interests With Saudi Arabia After Khashoggi Killing

WASHINGTONDays after Turkey released a recording of the killing of U.S. resident and dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump said that the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country.

While the investigation into the journalists death at a Saudi consulate in Turkey is continuing, the United States may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder, he said.

On Oct. 2, Khashoggi walked into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve documents for his upcoming wedding to his Turkish fiancee. He never left the consulate and his body hasnt been found.

Saudi Arabia has admitted that a hit squad of Saudi nationals was involved in the journalists death, but the question now is how far up the chain of command the order to kill Khashoggi originated. Trump said both King Salman and his heir apparent, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, have vigorously denied any knowledge of the planning and execution of killing, but he didnt rule out that they were involved.

Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event, he said. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt.

He stressed the political importance of the U.S.Saudi relationship in fighting terrorism, containing the destabilizing influence of Iran in the Middle East, and maintaining low oil prices. After the United States, Saudi Arabia is the largest oil-producing nation in the world.

They have worked closely with us and have been very responsive to my requests to keeping oil prices at reasonable levelsso important for the world, Trump said. As president of the United States, I intend to ensure that, in a very dangerous world, America is pursuing its national interests and vigorously contesting countries that wish to do us harm. Very simply, it is called America First.'

A Player

Khashoggi was at one time an insider in the Saudi government, serving as adviser to a former Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki Al-Faisal. He was also a journalist and most recently a columnist for The Washington Post who showed sympathies for the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization the White House has considered adding to its foreign terrorist watch list for its ties to terrorism.

According to Khashoggi, he went into self-imposed exile in Virginia last year, fearing arrest in Saudi Arabia for his critical reporting of the Saudi leadership. But there could be other reasons.

He worked as an agent for the Saudi intelligence service for 20 years, during which he was sent to Sudan to try to talk Osama bin Laden out of going down the road of terrorism, according to former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, citing intelligence sources.

Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans. He was also responsible for 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Following bin Ladens death in 2011, Khashoggi wrote on Twitter:

I collapsed crying a while ago, heartbroken for you Abu Abdullah, he wrote, using Bin Ladens nickname. You were beautiful and brave in those beautiful days in Afghanistan, before you surrendered to hatred and passion.

Downer, who doesnt see Saudi Arabias human-rights record through rose-tinted glasses, said it was Khashoggis involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood and a center to promote its ideology that made him a threat to the Saudi leadership.

[The Muslim Brothershood] have been implacably opposed to many of the more liberal reforms of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), Downer wrote in an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review. This man wasnt some Western-oriented liberal brutally murdered because of his passion for freedom. This man was a player.

This isnt a justification for murder, he says, but cautions the United States against using his death to shun Saudi Arabia, saying it will have a destabilizing effect in the Middle East, and in the Persian Gulf in particular.

In this febrile environment, Saudi Arabia is the ally of the West, he wrote. Abandoning the relationship with Saudi Arabia would further weaken the interests and influence of the Western powers in the Middle East. And if you think that doesnt matter, youre quite wrong.

Contracts

After an investigation into Khashoggis death, Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry said it had arrested 18 Saudi citizens and fired five top officials it said were involved.

The United States has sanctioned 17 people believed to be connected to the killing. But Trump has eschewed using trade deals with Saudi Arabia as retaliation for the journalists death, which he called an unacceptable and horrible crime.

After my heavily negotiated trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. This is a record amount of money. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States, Trump said. If we foolishly cancel these contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiariesand very happy to acquire all of this newfound business.

Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said on several occasions that the United States will hold anyone accountable who evidence shows was tied to Khashoggis death.

Whether the United States finds bin Salman culpable or penalizes him, however, may soon be irrelevant.

Khashoggis death has inflamed a schism in the Saudi royal family over whether bin Salman should succeed his father. According to three sources close to the royal court, some members of the family want bin Salmans uncle, 76-year-old Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, to succeed King Salman.

Because the king has already chosen bin Salman as his successor, they would wait till the 82-year-old kings death to make any reforms, the sources said.

Reuters contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media prior to boarding Air Force One before departing from Naval Air Station Point Mugu in California on Nov. 17, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump Urges Congress to Boost Forest Management Amid California Wildfires

President Donald Trump has called on lawmakers to pass bills needed for improving forest managementa major ingredient needed for mitigating wildfires that have increasingly devastated California in recent years.

Trump highlighted the relevant provisions in the Farm Bill that would make it easier for federal agencies to clean up diseased and insect-infested trees from federal forests. It would also allow counties and tribes to manage national forests, a program already enabled for states.

The bills House and Senate versions have already passed, but still need to be reconciled.

New legislation is needed, according to a Nov. 20 White House fact sheet, to expedite salvage operations after catastrophes and managing federal forests surrounding at-risk communities.

Record Fires

California has been ablaze like never before. As firefighters gradually bring the large Camp Fire in the north under control, almost 1.7 million acresnearly half the size of Connecticuthave been scorched by wildfires across the state this year.

It hasnt always been this way. California actually used to see many more fires than in recent yearsabout 50 percent more in the 1980s than in the past decade. But they used to be much smaller. The 10-year average burned acreage increased over 150 percent since the 1980s.

Nearly all, 16 out of 20, of the states largest wildfires have occurred in the past two decades (pdf).

Trump has repeatedly asserted the main reason is poor forest management. Not a new idea, in fact.

Years of fire suppression and other management practices have resulted in increased undergrowth and tree density (both live and dead) creating high fuel levels that have in turn contributed to high-intensity fires that have threatened property, natural resources, and the public, the Agriculture Department stated in a 2014 factbook (pdf).

Thin to Thick

California forests used to be much thinner, according to several readers of George Gruell, retired wildlife biologist for the U.S. Forest Service, and his 2001 book Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849.

As some Gruells readers and others have pointed out, small wildfires would break out naturally in the region, such as by lightning, or were started intentionally by Native Americans to clear the underbrush. Full-grown trees could withstand such fires, only losing their lower branches.

As the population increased, however, Californians suppressed the wildfires, while harvesting and replanting the trees for timber. The forests got thicker, but the harvesting-replanting cycle ensured continuous management.

That changed in the 1990s, according to Chuck DeVore, former California legislator now with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Green Tape

In 2005 while a freshman California Assemblyman, I had the chance to visit Northern California and meet with the forest product industry professionals who grew, managed, and harvested trees on private and public lands, DeVore said in a July Forbes article. They told me of a worrisome trend started years earlier where both federal and state regulators were making it more and more difficult for them to do their jobs.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed the roadblocks to forest management on some environmental groups in a Nov. 20 call with reporters.

Every time theres a thinning project out, whos suing? Zinke said. Radical environmental groups would rather burn down an entire forest than cut down a single tree.

There have been 38 lawsuits over the federal governments 576 forest management decisions involving California from 2009 to 2017, said Randi Spivak, lands director for the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has sued the government over forest practices.

The opposition goes beyond lawsuits though. In August, California Gov. Jerry Brown proposed allowing landowners to cut larger trees without obtaining a logging permit in exchange for thinning the forest and removing dead wood. Because cleaning dead wood costs money, the idea was to allow the landowners to recoup costs by felling some trees for timber. Logging would normally require a permit process so burdensome, professionals charge tens of thousands to prepare the paperwork.

Browns proposal was opposed by more than a dozen environmental groups, Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. It now appears to be dead in the water.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Correction: The article was updated to reflect that the author didnt have access to George Gruells book Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849.
University of Maryland Student Dies of Adenovirus and 5 Others Test Positive

A University of Maryland student has died following complications stemming from an adenovirus infection, which in extreme cases can be deadly.

Olivia Paregol, an 18-year-old freshman at the university, died on Sunday, Nov. 18, from adenovirus-related complications, according to school officials cited by ABC News. Adenoviruses typically have mild symptoms, such as sore throat, but for people with compromised immunity, they can cause pneumonia or other complications and be fatal.

Paregol was being treated for Crohns disease, an inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, when she contracted the virus, her father told ABC affiliate WJLA.

Ian Paregol, the womans father, expressed concern that the school did not alert students earlier about several reports of adenovirus infections on campus. He said his daughter was only tested for the disease after finding out that other students had been diagnosed.

I was told there were two students with the virus when I called to figure out what my daughter had, which means they knew it before my daughter, Ian Paregol told WJLA. It is the worst nightmare that a family or certainly a parent can have to endure.

The man is speaking out about the circumstances of his daughters death in hopes that the information might help others better cope with the threat of adenovirus-related afflictions.

We dont want any other kids to have this happen to them and God knows we dont want any other parents to have this unimaginable grief that we have, Ian Paregol told Fox5.

Olivia Paregol was diagnosed with pneumonia on Nov. 9, according to the Baltimore Sun, and after her condition deteriorated she was admitted to the intensive care unit.

She definitely appeared to be getting sicker and sicker, Ian Paregol told WJLA.

Her issue was she could not get enough oxygen through her lungs, he said, according to Fox5.

Adenovirus on Campus

Officials at the University of Maryland said on Tuesday that five other students have tested positive for adenovirus.

I am sad to share that a University of Maryland student recently passed away from adenovirus associated illness, David McBride, director of the University Health Center, said in a statement. We offer our condolences during this difficult time.

While we are normally prohibited from sharing medical information publicly, we have been authorized by a family member to share this news and urge others to take seriously this strain of a common virus, it continued.

McBride said school officials first learned of an isolated case of adenovirus in a student at the beginning of November, and on Nov. 19 a different student tested positive for adenovirus 7, a more potent strain of the virus.

Students are being tested at the University Health Center and the campus community is being given guidance for preventative measures amid flu and virus season, McBride wrote in the statement.

University of Maryland health officials said there is no specific medication to treat the infection for someone who hasnt been hospitalized. They recommend rest, plenty of fluids, and fever-reducing medicine. They recommend anyone with chronic medical problems such as asthma, diabetes, or illnesses that lower your immune system or take medicine that lowers their immune system remain vigilant, the statement continued.

Adenovirus-Related Deaths in New Jersey

Eleven children died at a medical facility in New Jersey in recent months due to an outbreak of adenovirus, according to ABC.

It was reported that a total of 34 children at Waneque Rehab Center in Haskell, New Jersey, were infected with the virus and 11 died. The facility treats children with weakened immune systems.

Unfortunately, the particular strain of adenovirus (7) in this outbreak is affecting medically fragile children with severely compromised immune systems, the department said to Pix11. The combination of a worse strain of adenovirus together with a fragile population has led to a more severe outbreak.

Officials at the states health department said that the facility has been instructed not to admit any new patients until the outbreak ends and they are in full compliance, NorthJersey.com reported.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said: Adenoviruses are common viruses that cause a range of illness. They can cause cold-like symptoms, sore throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, and pink eye [conjunctivitis]. You can get an adenovirus infection at any age.

The agency also said, Adenoviruses are usually spread from an infected person to others through close personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands, the air by coughing and sneezing, touching an object or surface with adenoviruses on it, then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes before washing your hands.
Visitors are filmed by artificial intelligence security cameras using facial recognition technology at an international security expo at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing on Oct. 24, 2018. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

US Considering Export Curbs in Emerging Tech Fields That China Is Aggressively Developing

The Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees exports of sensitive U.S. technology and products with military applications, is seeking public comments on whether certain fields of emerging technologies should have export restrictions as a way to protect national security, a move that may have major ramifications for Chinas high-tech sector.

Currently, the bureau has export bans or other restrictions in place, such as licensing, to ensure that sensitive U.S. technology doesnt end up in nefarious hands. But with many cutting-edge fields, the lines are blurred between civilian and military uses.

The 2018 Export Control Reform Act, part of a recently passed defense bill, has authorized the bureau to regulate the export or transfer of emerging and foundational technologies for the sake of national security. The Nov. 19 notice identified 14 fields in which the Commerce Department is seeking more information, in order to determine the need for restrictions.

The fields include biotechnology; artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning; robotics; advanced surveillance technology such as faceprint and voiceprint; and quantum computing.

While the notice doesnt identify China or any other countries by name, its clear that the listed fields are those in which China has been aggressively developing in recent years for its national interests.

Robotics, AI, and semiconductor chipswhich would fall under the Bureaus microprocessor technologyand advanced materials are all part of the Made in China 2025 industrial plan that Beijing released in 2015 as a blueprint for the country to become a tech manufacturing powerhouse within a decade.

Semiconductors and other high-performance chips that power electronic devices are at the center of the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China, as the latter lags in the semiconductor industry and relies heavily on foreign imports. Just weeks ago, the Commerce Department enacted an export ban on Chinese chipmaker Fujian Jinhua.

A federal court quickly followed with an indictment against Fujian Jinhua, Taiwanese contract manufacturer UMC, and several individuals in connection with a scheme that allegedly sought to steal chipmaking technology from U.S. firm Micron.

In recent days, industry sources have told Japanese newspaper Nikkei and Taiwanese newspaper United Daily News that other Chinese chipmakers will soon face U.S. export bans as punishment for intellectual-property theft.

China announced its goal to become a world leader in AI back December 2017. Now, it is recruiting the countrys brightest young minds to develop AI weapons at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

In the advanced-materials field, a textbook case of academic espionage involved a Chinese doctoral student studying at Duke University who stole technology from his professors invisibility cloak lab. The student, Liu Ruopeng, returned to China and established his own company using the information. Chinese governmental entities invested millions in his startup.

China has already developed military applications in some of the burgeoning areas the U.S. Commerce Department has listed. In August 2016, China launched the worlds first quantum satellite. A September report released by the think tank Center for a New American Security analyzed Chinas advances in quantum computing, noting that Chinese researchers have made advances in using quantum for radar, cryptography, imaging, and navigation.

These advances could support the continued emergence of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army as a true peer competitor in these new technological frontiers of military power, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the Chinese regimes well-documented, omnipresent state surveillance system has already come under U.S. scrutiny. Congress has banned government agencies from buying surveillance products made by HikvisionChinas leading manufacturer of surveillance cameras. Hikvision has collaborated deeply with Beijing to develop AI-enhanced technology for monitoring its citizens, especially the Uyghur minority population in Xinjiang.

A Nov. 18 report by the Financial Times revealed that Hikvision, in fact, sources many of its tech parts from U.S. companies, such as Intel, which provides processing chips; Nvidia, which provides deep-learning graphics chips; and Seagate, which designs custom data storage solutions for Hikvision.

According to the Financial Times, Hikvision is 42 percent owned by affiliates of CETC, a state-owned firm that supplies hardware to the Chinese military that was slapped with a U.S. export ban this year. Hikvision itself, which branched off into a separate company in 2001, has avoided a ban.
He expects to renew the fundraiser next year, though it might be for a different cancer charity or even a child in town who could use the help, he said. This time, though, St. Jude and its mission spoke to him.
US Soldier Killed in Korean War Given Repatriation Ceremony

The remains of a U.S. soldier killed during the 1950-53 Korean War was given a repatriation ceremony by the United Nations Command (UNC) on Nov. 20.

The ceremony was held in Seoul, South Korea at UNC Knight Field, with U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and South Korean military officials in attendance. UNC Commander, General Robert B. Abrams gave remarks.

We are told the warrior who rests before us today was a proud member of the 32nd Infantry Regiment and departed this world in 1951, said General Abrams.

During the ceremony, a group of honor guards surrounded the soldiers coffin, which was draped with the flag of the United Nations. They respectfully carried it to a waiting vehicle before giving a farewell salute.

The remains of the soldier were excavated at Yanggu County, near the inter-Korea border, in October 2017, according to South Koreas Defense Ministry. The remains will be sent to a Hawaiian military laboratory for further identification, according to Stars and Stripes.

Let us never forget them. Let us always set aside the time and space to honor them. Let us never rest until they all come home. Thank you. May God bless this fallen warrior, spirit him on his way, and provide comfort to those who continue to wait for their own warriors return, General Abrams said.

The South Korean military announced on Nov. 19, that the remains of nine more dead soldiers had been discovered while searching for landmines along the border. They are not yet identified, but Stars and Stripes reported that the United States, French, South Korean, and Chinese troops were known to be fighting in the area.

North Korea also began to transfer the remains of some U.S. soldiers from the Korean War in July after an agreement was made during the landmark summit in Singapore with President Donald Trump.

U.S. officials said the move by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was seen as a positive first step.

Today, (Kim) is fulfilling part of the commitment he made to the President to return our fallen American service members. We are encouraged by North Koreas actions and the momentum for positive change, the White House had said in a statement.

The transfer of the remains coincided with the 65th anniversary of the 1953 armistice agreement that ended fighting, although the two Koreas are technically still at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

The United States has called for more remains to be returned, however, tensions are high and joint searches have been stalled, reported Stars and Stripes.

Talks are ongoing, Lt. Col. Irving Cross said to reporters after the repatriation ceremony. No hard dates have been set yet, but we continue to negotiate.

The Korean War started on June 25, 1950, when Communist North Korean troops launched a surprise attack across the 38th parallel into South Korea. U.S.-led United Nations forces battled Chinese and Soviet-backed North Korea in the war.

About 7,700 U.S. military personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War, U.S. military data show, with around 5,300 estimated to be located on the northern side of the border. More than 36,500 U.S. troops died in the conflict.

Reuters contributed to this report
U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Nov. 9, 2017 in Beijing. (Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images)

USTR Says China Failed to Alter Unfair, Unreasonable Trade Practices

WASHINGTONThe Trump administration on Nov. 20 said that China has failed to alter its unfair practices at the heart of the U.S.-China trade conflict, adding to tensions ahead of a high-stakes meeting later this month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The findings were issued in an update of the U.S. Trade Representatives Section 301 investigation into Chinas intellectual property and technology transfer policies, which sparked U.S. tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods that later ballooned to $250 billion.

We completed this update as part of this Administrations strengthened monitoring and enforcement effort, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

This update shows that China has not fundamentally altered its unfair, unreasonable, and market-distorting practices that were the subject of the March 2018 report on our Section 301 investigation.

In the update, USTR said it had found that China had not responded constructively to the initial section 301 reports and failed to take any substantive actions to address U.S. concerns. It added that China had made clear it would not change its policies in response to the initial investigation.

USTR said that China was continuing its policy and practice of conducting and supporting cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property and was continuing discriminatory technology licensing restrictions.

The update said that despite the relaxation of some foreign ownership restrictions, the Chinese government has persisted in using foreign investment restrictions to require or pressure the transfer of technology from U.S. companies to Chinese entities.

Chinas Commerce Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The report comes as the Trump administration and top Chinese officials are discussing possible ways out of their trade war and negotiating details of the Trump-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires at the end of November.

Earlier this month, the USTR considered launching an investigation into Chinas labor practices as a way of sanctioning the Chinese regime on trade.

In 2004 and 2006, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the countrys largest consortium of labor unions, had filed Section 301 petitions asking the USTR office to investigate whether China gained unfair trade advantages by violating workers rights. But the USTR office denied the petitions at that time.

But acrimonious trade rhetoric between the governments of the worlds two largest economies has been increasing in recent days, spilling over into an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit last weekend.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday that the United States would not back down from the trade dispute, and might even double tariffs, unless Beijing bowed to U.S. demands.

By David Lawder. The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
Volunteers Reach Out to Help Survivors of Devastating California Wildfire

CHICO, Calif.Homeless survivors of the most destructive wildfire in California history are regrouping and trying to pull their lives together, while volunteers are doing what they can to help.

Tents, cars, signs, animals, tables, and chairs are scattered in the parking lot of a Walmart off Highway 99 in Chico, 15 miles west of Paradise. The town was largely destroyed by the Camp Fire. At the southeast corner of the lot, a food-service station has been operating around the clock.

We have been here since one day after the fire started [on Nov. 8], volunteer James Wheeler said on Nov. 18.

Wheeler, along with other volunteers, is putting in an average of 16 to 18 hours each day. After Wheeler and his sister, Kristina, brought their food truck to the parking lot, other people brought tents, tables, and chairs. When volunteers showed up, the Wheelers assigned work depending on the volunteers abilities, and helped them handle their jobs. A temporary food service was in operation, and hasnt stopped since.

The truck is one of the Wheelers fleet of three Bao trucks, a mobile business that serves Asian-fusion tacos. The family, which is from the Sacramento area, about an hour and a half drive away, has been in the restaurant business for 15 years.

We get about two hours of sleep [each day], said Kristina Wheeler. We arent complaining. Were happy to be here and just keep going as long as we can.

When asked about what brought them, she said: I have been asking myself that question. I dont know the answer myself, but we just dont want to leave. We just know we need to be here.

Kristina Wheeler said the stories they heard from the victims convinced them they needed to help.

Keep Going

Teresa Tang and Seti Cham, both from Orange County, drove seven hours before they joined the Wheelers team of volunteers. They are both first-generation Americans: Tangs parents are from Vietnam, and Chams parents are from Cambodia. Tang works in commercial real estate, and Cham in finance.

We heard the story, and we just came, said Tang. We didnt think about it. I didnt even bring my clothes.

The Wheelers said that many volunteers were sleeping in their cars or tents, under the same conditions as the fires victims.

The Wheelers said they started the emergency food service by providing their own food. Later, many organizations and local residents joined the effort by contributing food and drinks. The donations and volunteers have kept the service going.

Explosions

One of the survivors living in the Walmart lot is Mike Mason, a construction contractor and a mechanic. The resident of Paradise said that he was woken up on the morning of Nov. 8 by the sound of explosions.

It sounded like Mother Earth was just really mad, Mason said. When he looked out his front door, he saw smoke and flames, and deer and foxes running. He knew he only had time to get his 14-year-old dog Rusty into the car before he needed to drive away.

When Mason got to the nearest major road, there was fire on both sides of the roadway. He said at least 20 cars behind never got out.

I was going as fast as I could, he said. The back of the car behind me got melted pretty badly.

This is an unreal situation here, Doug Anderson, another survivor, said. Weve had many fires before, but the county firefighters did whatever was needed to keep the fires away.

Anderson, a 39-year resident of Paradise, was awakened by his roommate that morning. After sensing something unusual, he flipped on his TV, to learn about the evacuation. He had about a half-hour to put his electronics and his camping stuff into his car before making his escape. On his way out, Anderson saw burning trucks and structures. The Town of Paradise sign was on fire, as well.

When he spoke to The Epoch Times, Anderson was still shaken by his experience.

Through one of his friends, who had access to live satellite pictures, he knew the house he lived in was still there, at least for now.

I am giving 80 percent chance on it, he said.

New Words Needed

I dont have a word to describe what this place looked like, Jim MacKensen, a public information officer, said while standing next to a few melted vehicles surrounded by burned-out houses, and trying to relate what he saw when he got to Paradise on Nov. 19.

Just a few feet away from where MacKensen stood, lay shiny, snake-shaped rivulets of aluminum that had hours earlier had been automobile wheels. Broken glass from car windows melted and turned to crystal-like pebbles. MacKensen said he had no idea where the residents, who once lived in those houses, could be now. But he said there were more than 600 people going from house-to-house and car-to-car searching for remains.

MacKensen assumed no survivors if no contacts have been made by now.

A number of destroyed houses and cars were less than 100 feet away from structures that survived the fire.

I am speechless, said MacKensen, adding that Paradise was the worst disaster he witnessed in his 45 years as a firefighter. We have to come up with some new words to describe this.

Providing Supplies

On the evening of Nov. 18, no hotel rooms were available in the areas around Chico. Many hotels, motels, and shelter buildings were full, forcing some of the victims with to live in tents at the Walmart parking lot.

Clothes, food, and many other living necessities have poured into the area, while a utility truck provides free internet.

Lisa Grover and Jenifer Lamott were unloading a carload of clothes, shoes, groceries, books, and diapers from their sport utility vehicle in the victims camp area; some pairs of boots were brand new, with the price tags still attached.

I dont have much to give, but I tried to have our dollars stretch as far as I could, said Grover, with her husband and their three children standing by her side. She works for the state Department of Corrections; her husband, Bob Grover, also works for the state government; their children are 16, 11, and 6.

My wife initiated this effort, said Grover. If you are lucky enough, you can get your family out, and you can still have your loved ones. But if you lost your home, I wouldnt know how to deal with that.

The Grovers and their friend Lamott have a mutual friend who lost a home in the fire.

At 8 p.m., the Grover family and Lamott were still working in the dark to finish unloading the goods they had brought. As with others before them and since then, they just came to try to help.
The accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (2nd R), appears with defense attorneys A. Eduardo Balarezo (L) and Jeffrey Lichtman (R), in this courtroom sketch in Brooklyn federal court in New York, on Nov. 19, 2018. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

Witness at El Chapo Trial Tells of High-Level Corruption

NEW YORKA witness at the U.S. drug trafficking trial of accused Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman on Nov. 20 testified that he paid a multimillion-dollar bribe to an underling of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005.

The witness, Jesus Zambada, also said he paid millions of dollars in bribes to former Mexican government official Genaro Garcia Luna on behalf of his brother, drug lord Ismael El Mayo Zambada, who remains at large.

A spokesman for Lopez Obrador did not immediately respond to a call and text message seeking comment. Garcia Luna could not immediately be reached through an email to GLAC Consulting, a security consulting firm he heads.

Zambada gave his testimony about the bribes on the fifth day of trial under cross-examination by one of Guzmans lawyers, William Purpura. Guzmans lawyers have said they will try to prove that Guzman is being scapegoated and that Ismael Zambada was the real head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Guzman, 61, is charged with 17 criminal counts and faces life in prison if he is convicted. He was extradited to the United States in January 2017, after twice escaping Mexican prisons.

Zambada, who was called to testify against Guzman under an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, previously told jurors that his brother and Guzman worked together for years to move multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, while arranging for their rivals to be murdered.

During Purpuras cross-examination, Zambada said he paid a few million dollars to a Mexico City government official while Lopez Obrador was head of government there. He said the bribe was paid because it was believed at the time that the official could become Mexicos next secretary of public security.

The name of the official was not immediately clear from the court testimony. But Gabriel Regino, a former subsecretary of public security in Mexico City who is now a criminal law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, wrote on Twitter that an accusation of bribery had emerged against him in the trial but was false.

Zambada also said under cross-examination that he handed a suitcase containing $3 million to Garcia Luna in 2005 or 2006, when Garcia Luna was director of Mexicos Federal Investigation Agency. He said he gave him another $3 million to $5 million in 2007, when he had become secretary of public security, to secure favorable treatment for the cartel.

By Brendan Pierson
Protesters march on the street chanting and carrying anti-China slogans in the business district of Makati, Philippines on Nov. 30, 2018. (Jes Aznar/Getty Images)

Xis Visit to Philippines Amid Cozying Relationship Draws Local Protests

Chinese leader Xi Jinpings recent two-day visit to the Philippines ended with dozens of trade deals and economic agreements signed, in a further indication that the Southeast Asian countrys president Rodrigo Duterte is pivoting closer to Chinas sphere of influence in the region.

Meanwhile, Dutertes latest gestures toward China, even as the latter bulks up its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea with increasing militarization, were met with opposition from Filipinos. During Xis visit on Nov. 20 and 21, protesters gathered near the Chinese embassy in Manila, the Chinese consulate in Makati City, and at local universities, according to local media, including The Philippine Star and Rappler.

The protesters carried placards reading, No to Chinas debt trap, Philippines is not for sale, and China, get out!

Conchita Calzado, a resident near where the China-funded Kaliwa Dam is slated to be built, told Reuters that these dams will not help us, because we believe these are just loans and our people will not be the only ones burdened, but everyone, too. The dam is estimated to cost roughly 18.72 billion Philippine pesos (about $358.7 million), according to Filipino broadcast network GMA.

China-funded infrastructure projects in countries such as Sri Lanka and Djibouti have drawn criticism for burdening poor nations with massive debt.

The agreements between our two countries are not totally fair. Chinas investments are purely for its own interests. If the agreement is not advantageous to the Chinese, they will give up their promises, protester Marianne Dardard told Radio France Internationale in a Nov. 20 interview.

About two years ago, Duterte announced that he would reposition the countrys foreign policy away from the United States, its historic ally, and move closer to China. Local sentiment is negative toward China, despite the two governments warming ties. Malaysian newspaper The Star cited a recent social survey, in which most Filipinos said they had poor trust of China but very good trust in the United States.

Beijings Presence

Even as China and the Philippines disputed over territorial claims in the South China Sea, Beijing has wooed Manila with economic investments. About half of the 75 infrastructure projects that are part of Dutertes signature economic program are earmarked for Chinese loans or investments, according to Reuters. Most have yet to start construction.

Net foreign direct investment from China has also grown dramatically, to $181 million for the first eight months of this year from $28.8 million for all of 2017, according to the Philippine central bank.

The opposition party and other Duterte critics have accused him of allowing Beijing to threaten Philippines sovereignty in exchange for economic perks.

Such accusations came to a head on Nov. 20, after Xi and Duterte signed a memorandum of understanding for joint oil and gas development in waters that include disputed territory.

Opposition senators demanded that Duterte reveal more details about the plans, warning that the deal could affirm Chinese sovereignty in an area where both the Philippines and China stake claims.

Signing the Chinese deal will make the Philippines recognize an unlawful co-ownership with China, the minority senators said in a resolution on Nov. 20.

The area in question is the Reed Bank, about 90 miles from the Philippines Palawan island. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled that the Philippines had sovereign rights to exploit energy reserves at the Reed Bank.

As such, the senators said any agreement with the Chinese regime would be a violation of the constitution, and an impeachable offense.

The senators rebuke came as U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies released new satellite images on Nov. 20 that revealed China had installed a new platform on the Bombay Reef, an atoll in the disputed Paracel Islands chain of the South China Sea.

The think tank spotted a new structure topped with solar panels and a radome (a dome usually for protecting radar antenna) on the reef. While the purpose of the new installments was unclear, it could be for military use, the think tank said.

Reuters contributed to this report.
As Black Friday shoppers fan out to stores across Connecticut starting Thursday, this years blitz offers a footnote of sorts in state economic lore  the last Black Friday in which the dotcoms have the upper hand on one key element of their value proposition.

As of December, a new Connecticut economic nexus law takes effect that clarifies and codifies the threshold at which retailers must charge sales tax in Connecticut if they do not have a physical presence in the state, whether dotcoms or those that sell through other channels like independent agents.

Companies must collect and remit Connecticuts 6.45 percent sales tax if sales exceed $250,000 across at least 200 transactions over a 12-month period ending Sept. 30 in any given year. The law extends as well to product sales on third-party marketplace websites like eBay and Etsy.

According to Office of Fiscal Analysis estimates cited by the state Office of Legislative Research, the new nexus law could result in an extra $70 million in tax revenue annually.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lack of a physical operation does not limit states from collecting sales taxes, in the landmark Wayfair v. South Dakota case, with that state ultimately working out a settlement governing sales tax submissions from Wayfair as well as Overstock and Newegg.

Connecticut similarly had reached a separate deal in 2012 with Amazon, under which the web giant agreed to collect sales taxes on shipments to Connecticut customers starting in late 2013.

In formal testimony last March as he prepared to complete a lengthy stint as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services, former DRS chief Kevin Sullivan indicated the department reached individual agreements in the first few months of 2018 with more than 100 retailers to collect sales taxes, two of them major companies that Sullivan did not identify by name. Sullivan left a window for small businesses with relatively few sales in Connecticut to avoid having to collect sales tax.

It is constitutionally important that states set a minimal level of economic activity that will not require on-line retailers compliance, Sullivan stated at the time.

Over the first three months of its 2019 fiscal year that started in July, DRS reported a $20 million increase in sales tax collections to $618 million, a 3.4 percent increase from the first fiscal quarter last year.

This years sales tax collections are up only slightly, however, from the summer of 2013 on the eve of the Amazon agreement taking effect.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
Hearst Connecticut Media file photo

NORWALK  For a small donation, residents can have Santa deliver a personal gift to their homes by fire truck during the first week in December.

The Norwalk Professional Firefighters Association announced the 20th Annual Santa Deliveries to take place on the evenings of Dec. 3 through Dec. 5.
NORWALK  Members of the Brien McMahon Marching Band drew their hoods tight to their heads and braced against the late-fall chill that had set in Tuesday afternoon.

The orderly lines of musicians snaked through the parking lot and around the school grounds, playing a variation of God Bless America, as the director, Ron Secchi, shouted orders.

Straight lines, everybody. Straight lines! Secchi said.

For the past two weeks, the band has been rehearsing the procession it will debut at the 99th annual Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade, the oldest of its kind in the country, even beating out the Macys parade in New York City.

Itll be the first trip to Philadelphia for the marching band, which recently wrapped its competitive season. In the past, the band has performed at the Stamford Thanksgiving Parade, the Veterans Day Parade in New York City, and the Miss America Parade in Atlantic City. Theyll join 23 marching bands from high schools and colleges from throughout the United States.

Were the only group representing Connecticut, Secchi said.

For many members of the band, itll be one of their last performances with the band, capping a season that saw McMahon take home a state title.

Kyle Kelly said the fall was both very different  because he abandoned the baritone saxophone that he had played earlier in his high school career and took up snare drum  and very fulfilling.

This is my first time in the drum line, Kelly said, during a pause in playing. But its been a very good environment weve had. Theres been a climate of intensity.

The band will meet at the school 2 a.m. Thanksgiving Day, and will depart by bus for Philadelphia an hour later. The 1.6-mile route wends through the citys downtown and ends at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.

To earn a spot among the 15 balloons, 16 floats and 30 performers, Secchi applied on behalf of his band a year ago.

This was the next goal, Secchi said.

For his son, Michael, a senior drum major, the performance in Philadelphia marks the end of his final season with the band, before moving indoors for the winter season.

It was a very good season, Michael Secchi said. Im excited.

The program for a parade varies greatly from that of a competition, he explained.

Its very different than a competition, Michael Secchi said. For a parade youre just here to show off your school, to show off your colors.

Justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586
Less experienced teachers  from one to 5 years  would get a raise of between $1,400 and $1,800. Teachers working 13 years or more would see a raise of just over $3,000.
NORWALK  The city and the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency have turned up the heat on Citibank to get the stalled redevelopment project known as Wall Street Place moving forward again.

Citibank acquired the former Isaacs Street municipal lot after Port Chester, N.Y.-based developer POKO Partners halted construction on phase one of Wall Street Place in 2016.

Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Timothy T. Sheehan said Wednesday he received confirmation from the agencys attorney that a mediation hearing  as requested by the city and agency  has been scheduled for Dec. 13 in Stamford.

Were seeking mediation to try and resolve the dispute with the end goal of getting the project back into construction, either with a redeveloper that has been advanced by the bank, or the bank assuming the project, Sheehan said. And the project  phase one  is to be consistent with what was the approved project per the LDA (Land Disposition Agreement).

Significant concern

Upon acquiring the property, Citibank became subject, alongside the city and Redevelopment Agency, to the Land Disposition Agreement governing Wall Street Place, according to Sheehan.

The Phase I Construction has not advanced since the fall of 2016 despite Citis obligations under the LDA, wrote attorney Joseph P. Williams of Shipman & Goodwin, LLP, the law firm representing the agency, in his request for mediation. The existing partially constructed structure on the Phase I Property has been left to become of significant concern for the City.

Despite 18 months having passed since Citibank took ownership of the phase one parcels, the bank has failed to advance a plan that complies with the LDA. The city and Redevelopment Agency bargained for a minimum of 256 parking spaces, 100 of which are to be designated public parking spaces, Williams wrote.

For a dollar each, the city conveyed the Isaacs Street and Leonard Street municipal lots to POKO Partners for incorporation into Wall Street Place. The former lot is now home to a Tyvek-clad, half-finished apartment building that was to be the phase one of Wall Street Place.

In late May, commercial real-estate developer Jason Milligan purchased the former Leonard Street lot, among other properties within the Wall Street Place area. Hes repaved and spruced up the lot, but also begun charging motorists to park to recoup his investment.

The loss of the two municipal lots has left motorists parking options limited.

On Wednesday afternoon, Brenda Aymar of Fairfield parked tight up against Jersey barriers along Isaacs Street, next to the stalled redevelopment project, as she prepared to go to the hair salon across the street.

Something should be done with it, said Aymar, who once lived in Norwalk, looking at the half-finished building. It can just sit here indefinitely.

POKO Partners, the citys designated developer for Wall Street Place, halted construction on phase one  101 apartments and parking in the area of the former Isaac Street municipal lot  two years ago amid financing issues with lender Citibank.

Mayor Harry W. Rilling, who helped get construction on phase one of Wall Street Place under way in 2015 amid years of delays, expressed hope Wednesday that the mediation hearing will help restart the project.

We have been very diligent in meeting after meeting after meeting, trying to resolve some of the issues, Rilling said. Were always cautiously optimistic that things will get moving soon.

Blight officer monitoring site

In a related matter, Norwalk Blight Prevention Officer William D. Ireland said he received a telephone call Wednesday from Viking Construction, on behalf of Citibank, saying it would be on site starting that day to address a blight citation issued by the city Oct. 19.

Theyve been hired to correct these issues, Ireland said Wednesday of the construction company. He said they were starting this morning.

Ireland said he plans to meet with Viking Construction representatives at the site next week to ensure that the blight conditions are being corrected.

Those conditions include stagnant water, overgrown vegetation, unprotected openings through the building, missing windows, doors and siding, rotted floors, and accumulation of junk and trash on the property.

Starting Oct. 19, Citibank-affiliate Municipal Holdings, LLC became subject to a fine of $100 per day for each day that the blight conditions continued. Citibank has yet to pay the fines, Ireland said.

Milligan, who has sharply criticized the citys handling of Wall Street Place and called the half-finished building the Tyvek Temple, raised the issues in an email to Ireland.

When do fines start? Milligan wrote. Since your office issued the violation nothing has happened except more Tyvek has loosened and is flapping harder in the wind.

Milligan and POKO Partners remain targets of a lawsuit filed by the City and Redevelopment Agency last summer over Milligans purchase of the properties at 21, 23 and 31 Isaac St., and at 83 and 97 Wall St.  all within phase two of Wall Street Place.

After buying the phase one property, Citibank has been in closed-door talks with the city, the Redevelopment Agency and prospective developer John McClutchy of Stamford. McClutchy was among those copied in an Oct. 2 letter from Williams to Municipal Holdings regarding Citibanks earlier request for an additional 180 days to comply with the Wall Street Place LDA.
As a University of Houston student, Walthall had ambitions to be a doctor and spent time helping in a local hospitals neonatal intensive care unit. One day, an infant arrived from the emergency room. For nine months, the mother had not known  or maybe denied  she was pregnant. The baby was born into a toilet and later died.
It's all too easy to become obsessed with our domestic political turmoil. President Donald Trump, after all, has fired the attorney general and FBI director to protect himself from investigation, tried to prosecute that same FBI director along with his defeated political opponent, described the media as the "enemy of the people," trafficked in blatant racism and xenophobia, misused troops for political ends, spread fraudulent theories about voter fraud to undermine his political foes, and lied with impunity and abandon.

Democracy is under siege in the United States - but not just in the United States. It's a worldwide crisis. Democracy has already been destroyed in Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela, Thailand and Russia, and it is now being undermined in Poland, Hungary and the Philippines. Chancellor Angela Merkel, the bulwark of the West, is on her way out in Germany. Emmanuel Macron, France's centrist president, is battling record-low approval ratings. And in Britain, the Conservative Party is tearing itself apart over Brexit, making more likely an election that could bring to power a Labour Party led by an anti-Semitic neo-Marxist.

What in the name of John Stuart Mill is going on? How did we go from hopes of an "end of history" in the 1990s to fears of an "end of democracy" today? We are confronting two intersecting crises - an economic crisis and a refugee crisis.

The economic crisis has been brought about by the Information Revolution, which, like the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, is transforming society out of all recognition. The Industrial Revolution created immense fortunes for the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Goulds and other "robber barons" but also great misery for millions of ordinary people who had to leave the countryside to live in grimy cities and work in backbreaking factories. The result was what Benjamin Disraeli described as "two nations" - the "rich and the poor" - "between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets."

The growing inequality and social dislocation of the industrial era gave rise to radical new ideologies such as Marxism, fascism and anarchism at the very time that new technologies - principally printing presses that made it possible to produce cheap newspapers and magazines, followed by radio and film - gave radical ideologues access to a mass audience for the first time. As T.E. Lawrence said: "The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armory of the modern commander."

The Information Revolution is just as destabilizing. It is creating vast fortunes for the Gateses, Bezoses, Jobses and Zuckerbergs while impoverishing millions of blue-collar workers. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that wealth inequality, after falling from 1929 to 1978, has been rising ever since "almost entirely due to the rise of the top 0.1 percent wealth share, from 7 percent in 1979 to 22 percent in 2012 - a level almost as high as in 1929." Meanwhile, the United States has lost 5 million factory jobs since 2000, and the manual labor that remains is generally lower-paying and more insecure than in the past.

These trends are driven mainly by automation, but it is easy for demagogues to put the blame on supposedly disloyal elites such as international bankers, trade partners that are supposedly ripping us off, and immigrants who are supposedly stealing jobs and bringing crime. Conveniently enough, the nostrums pushed by autocratic populists exacerbate the very problems they claim to be addressing, deepening the crisis that gives them the excuse to rule. (Trump-supporting counties have done worse under Trump than counties where the majority voted for Hillary Clinton.)

Xenophobia is an easy sell at the moment because we are in the midst of the largest refugee crisis in history. According to the United Nations, the number of displaced people in the world has grown from 33.9 million in 1997 to 65.6 million in 2016. This mass migration has been sparked by conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine and other countries - and by crime and poverty in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Europe saw an influx of almost 1.2 million migrants in 2015-2016. This migration created the conditions for the passage of Brexit and led to a wave of illiberalism across the continent, even in countries such as Hungary and Poland that aren't seeing any influx of newcomers.

Just as the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution made it easy for Karl Marx to propagate his "Communist Manifesto," so the Information Revolution has given these populists the perfect medium for getting their message out. The rise of social media and cable television allows them to spread propaganda free of mainstream media fact-checking, which they cynically denigrate as "fake news."

History suggests that economic upheavals such as the Industrial and Information Revolutions eventually play themselves out and leave the entire world better off. Refugee crises also abate sooner or later. But a lot can happen in the meantime. The crisis of the old order in Europe produced nearly 80 years of often bloody conflict between democracy and its foes from 1914 to 1991. Buckle your seatbelts. The entire world is in for another bumpy road.

- - -

Boot, a Post columnist, is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a global affairs analyst for CNN. He is the author of "The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right."
A recent bit of high-visibility branding by National Security Adviser John Bolton created quite a reaction in Latin America. In a forceful speech delivered to South Florida anti-Castro true believers, he called Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela a "troika of tyranny." Then he called them a "triangle of terror." I'm neither a speechwriter nor a marketing guru, but I'm pretty sure sticking to one nickname would have done the job.

In any case, all three of these nations are tyrannies and all three dabble in terrorist activities. But the differences vastly outweigh the similarities, and we need a different approach to each as we work to improve a part of the world that matters deeply to the U.S. Most important: Instead of over-focusing on the troika of tyranny, our energies should go into working with our three amigos in South America: Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.

Bolton's statement, of course, is reminiscent of the "axis of evil," a phrase coined by President George W. Bush at his 2002 State of the Union address to describe Iran, North Korea and Iraq. He pledged to end their dangerous behavior. Unfortunately, despite a great deal of effort by the U.S. and its allies, two members of the axis of evil seem to be motoring along on their path to destabilize the globe in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Much as with the troika of tyranny, the axis of evil charter members are very different in their culture, history and level of bad behavior. Broadly speaking, in dealing with them the U.S. took three different approaches. We invaded Iraq and changed the regime - at a staggering cost in blood and treasure. Washington harshly sanctioned Iran and finally pushed it to agree to a halt in its nuclear program, but watched it simply continue with supporting terrorists and improving its missile systems. And the U.S. first made threats against North Korea, then shifted its approach toward negotiations, although of late that is looking less hopeful as Kim Jong Un characteristically shifts positions at whim.

Just as a single approach hasn't worked for all three original axis members, we need very different strategies for Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

In the case of Nicaragua, there really isn't much the U.S. needs to do. The rotten government of Daniel Ortega is falling apart as the people of this tiny, pastoral Central American nation mount larger and larger protests. After robbing his nation for a decade, the clock is ticking for Ortega. There is plenty of international opprobrium being heaped on him and his cronies, and the likelihood is that he will either be forced out of office or restructure the government's approach in the months ahead. The best U.S. position is simply to let events take their course and be supportive generally of the opposition without becoming a lightning rod. The Organization of American States will continue to press for a nonviolent resolution, and Washington should support that effort strongly.

Venezuela is a vastly more complicated and dangerous case. With the help of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro continues to tighten his grip on the population. His military and intelligence agencies - backed by militias created by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez - managed to crack the will of the highly decentralized opposition during the last round of serious protests roughly a year ago.

Unfortunately, his critics now show little sign of coming together to present a united front, which is the sine qua non to booting Maduro. The U.S. must avoid becoming a rallying cry for the Maduro administration - there is nothing he would treasure more than a U.S. target to shoot at as he rallies his base. Rather, the Trump administration should increase sanctions on individuals, gather intelligence, work quietly with the OAS, prepare contingency plans for helping with refugees, and do what it can to push the opposition together without appearing to collude overtly.

With more than 2 million refugees out of the country already and a full-blown economic crisis in progress, the outlook for Venezuela is poor. We need to be ready to help the region deal with an even more dramatic explosion either internally or a mass exodus. The U.S. needs to be militarily prepared for humanitarian and peacekeeping work, but clearly within the context of a mission authorized and sponsored by the OAS.

Cuba, of course, has been the epicenter of U.S. challenges in the region since the corrupt Castro regime took power six decades ago. The Obama administration's approach in opening up Cuba to outside engagement is having a slow but effective trajectory. And despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Trump administration has not significantly shifted things: allowing more but still-controlled economic engagement, placing sanctions on corrupt officials and narcotics traffickers, increasing intelligence-gathering, using Guantanamo Bay not only as a detention center but as a base for humanitarian operations, and waiting for demographics and the opening of society to take effect. While this isn't bringing about radical or sudden changes, the best bet in Cuba is steady pressure and continued injections of outside connectivity: an approach centered on economic and public diplomacy.

Which brings us to the three amigos. Recent elections in Colombia, Brazil and Argentina have brought to power right-of-center regimes with whom Washington can work far more prosperously than many of their predecessors. Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Ivan Duque of Colombia and Mauricio Macri of Argentina aren't carbon copies, but they have much in common politically - and collectively their GDP is the dominant economic force in South America. We have several smaller partners on the continent as well, particularly Chile.

The U.S. needs to lead a collective conversation with those countries and create a distinct strategy for dealing with each of the problem nations that John Bolton correctly identifies. Just as each threat requires a different prescription, each of our partner nations can bring various tools to bear, and in aggregate the three amigos alongside the U.S. are capable of a regional approach that can be codified through the OAS.

The U.S. does not want to come across in Latin America and the Caribbean as a regional policeman trying to clean up "our backyard." There are old ghosts in that approach. We need to understand the nuances of each nation in the region, both friend and foe, if we are going to help bring democracy, prosperity and stability to all.

- Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former military commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also an operating executive consultant at the Carlyle Group and chairs the board of counselors at McLarty Associates.
Fodemskis friend from Hebron said he was regularly in contact with Fodemski but hadnt heard from him in the last week, the couple said. Some neighbors said they had seen him, but they had difficulty pinpointing the exact day. Other family said they talked to Fodemski on the phone Nov. 3, according to George Dubovich.
ALTON  While there were many flashing lights and an occasional siren in front of Eunice Smith Elementary School before school Tuesday, there was no emergency.

Instead, area first responders and other adults convened at the school for the third annual Breakfast with Buddies event. Emergency and civilian vehicles lined both sides of Henry Street as parents and children got out in anticipation of a hot breakfast on a cold, breezy and cloudy day.

Inside, Natalie Gordon, a reading teacher who leads the project, served as traffic director, cheerleader and answer person as she stood behind the sign-in table at the main entrance.

Youll go this way, Mom (or Dad) will go that way, and youll meet in the middle, she frequently said, directing students to one food line and their parents to another line after they signed in for the event.

Breakfast with Buddies is another way for the kindergarten through second-grade students to learn about the community and what community members do.

This started as an extension of our curriculum, where the students learn about our first responders, Gordon said. It has evolved from there. She said every year, the event has grown larger. This year, Gordon said she received more than 200 RSVPs for the event.

We now not only make this a community event, inviting our police officers, firefighters, bus drivers, administrative staff, Reach Out And Read (ROAR) volunteers, but we have turned it into a parent event, she said. This one seems to really pull them in.

Gordon added that Breakfast with Buddies replaced other meet, eat and greet events like Muffins with Mom or Donuts with Dad. Too often at those events, students were made upset because they had no adults with whom to eat.

Gordon said no one is excluded at Breakfast with Buddies. Besides learning about community, the students have positive interactions with adults and the adults, in turn, offer students positive role models.

We are all part of the community and we all play active roles in helping the community thrive, Gordon said.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at 618-208-6450.
EAST ST. LOUIS  In the spirit of the holiday, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School (CHS) continued its tradition of turkey, thankfulness, and togetherness during its fifth annual Thanksgiving Day Meal Celebration.

SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook was one of the featured turkey carvers during the luncheon held Tuesday, Nov. 20 in the Multipurpose Room at the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus.

More than 100 students walked into the festively decorated Multipurpose Room to the cheers and applause from enthusiastic supporters that included Pembrook, Denise Cobb, PhD, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs; Gina Jeffries, CHS director; Willis Young, CHS assistant director; Alison Reeves, PhD, CHS Board of Directors president and associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership; Kim Durr, CHS board member and SIUE chief of staff; and Edith Laktzian and Pam Saffore, celebration coordinators.

This is my first dinner. I didnt think it would be this nice, said TeAunta Neal, a CHS junior who transferred from Metro-East Lutheran High School.

I think its awesome, said James Young, who was sitting next to Neal. Its relaxing. Its cool for kids to bond outside of the classroom, and its good to see another side of school.

This dinner is the result of an idea that Willis Young had five years ago, and each year it gets better and better and better. Jeffries told the room of banqueters. When I think of what Im thankful for, at the top of the list is coming here and working with Charter High School students.

This is nice. Free food. You cant complain, and I like having the teachers serve you, said junior Ryan Luster.

The meal was catered by Sunday Dinner Catering, owned by SIUE alumna and former staff member Terri Montgomery. Montgomery was the associate director of admissions and worked at SIUE for 25 years. She graduated in 1983 with a bachelors in education from SIUE.

At each place setting were note cards with inscriptions that came from CHS students and staff. Some of the sentiments included:

Im thankful for the Lord staying by my side, for helping me through thick and thin.

Im thankful for my mom because she helps me through school when Im doing badly.

Im thankful for the love from my family and friends shown to me every day.

Im thankful for my family living under a roof, my loving parents, also my school and teachers.

This is an amazing event, and Im thankful to be a part of it, said Pembrook. Thanks to each of you for all you do at the SIUE East St. Louis Center all year.

I am always glad to see the students from the East St. Louis Charter High School and am grateful to have a chance to interact with them, said Timothy Staples, EdD, SIUE East St. Louis Center interim executive director.

I want to encourage everyone to keep up the good work, have a great break and come back ready for finals, Staples continued. If everyone gets As, Ill buy the ham next year.

The SIUE Charter High School is a school-of-choice for families in the East St. Louis School District 189. The mission of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School is to prepare students who are career- and college-ready upon graduation. To achieve this mission, the school and its staff will positively impact the educational and economic lives of East St. Louis, Illinois youth through individualized instruction in core academic subjects, exploration of career interests and aptitudes, assistance in realizing students talents, high academic goals, and expectations that graduates will become competitive employees for the 21st century.
EDWARDSVILLE  Trinity Lutheran Ministries will host its third annual Christmas Ugly Sweater 5K in Edwardsville on Saturday, Dec. 8.

The event will feature a 5k race, Christmas carols, a Christmas-themed photo booth, ugly sweater contest, and hot chocolate and cookies for all participants at the finish line. All race participants will be chip-timed by Final Lap Race Management. Medals are provided to all runners who participate in the race. In addition, the YMCA dance group will perform a Christmas-themed dance while runners are returning to campus.

A portion of the race registration fees benefits the Glen-Ed Food Pantry and Edwardsville Neighbors. Last year, both organization were presented with a $1,000 check. There will also be a canned goods collection at the race. Last year, more than 450 pounds of canned goods were collected at the event.

Plaques will be given to the top male and female finishers and medals to the top three finishers in each of the following age categories: 9 and under, 10-14, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-50, and 60 and older.

The sweater contest will be held after the race, with prizes awarded to the participants judged in the following categories: Ugliest Sweater, Most Christmas Spirit, and Best Group Sweater Theme (group of four or more).

The race will begin at 9 a.m. on Dec. 8 at Trinity Lutheran Ministries at 600 Water St. in Edwardsville, with race packet pickup available the day before and the morning of the race. The registration fee is $25 without a race shirt, $30 with a race shirt. Special group/family prices are available to groups of four or more. Swag bags and race shirts are guaranteed to those who register by 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 23, which is also when early bird pricing ends.

For questions or more information, please visit goo.gl/E4fk6G or call (618) 656-2918.
The Department of Natural Resources is offering free admission to any state park, reservoir or state forest recreation area that charges gate admission on Friday. Visitors also can get 20 percent off a meal at an Indiana State Park Inn that day by downloading a coupon at stateparks.IN.gov/3282.htm. In addition, prizes are available to those sharing their Black Friday experiences on social media. Post a photo with the hashtag #optoutside or #optoutsideIN to the Indiana State Parks Facebook page or to the DNR Instagram page to be entered into a drawing for annual passes, lake permits and more. Camp at a state park or state forest recreation area, or stay at an Indiana State Park Inn on Black Friday to be entered in a drawing for camping or inns gift cards. The first 20 people to post a photo to the Indiana State Parks Facebook page of their camping trip or inns visit will receive a logoed #OptOutside Indiana State Parks winter knit cap. Include the hashtag #optoutside, #optoutsideINN or #optoutsideCAMP with your post. Those who complete the #optoutside scavenger hunt at stateparks.IN.gov/3282.htm and return it to the email or address on the page will be entered in a separate drawing for 2019 annual passes. The first 20 scavenger hunts returned will receive a logoed #OptOutside Indiana State Parks winter knit hat. Everyone who posts a photo or participates in the scavenger hunt will be entered into a grand prize drawing for a gift pack from the outdoor gear retailer REI in Castleton. More information is at rei.com/opt-outside.
"We have committed to an approximately $150 million program to install over-pressurization protection devices on all our low-pressure systems. These "slam-shut" devices  which will be in operation continuously, not only when work is underway  operate like circuit-breakers, so when they sense operating pressure that is too high or too low, regardless of the cause, they immediately shut down gas to the system," NiSource stated.
Chambers is a member of that last church in Hobart. Isaac is a member of the Islamic Center in Crown Point. Their lives  and their faiths  intersected on a recent afternoon at an event to help feed and cheer families in need with food, gift cards and well wishes on Thanksgiving.
Saxon had cocaine and morphine in his system while driving between 89 and 103 miles per hour, according to news reports at the time. Saxon was sentenced to seven years in prison, and his sex offender registry also was mentioned in the deliberations.
Home >Police Enforcement > Checkpoints and Stops > Kansas Cracks Down On Reasonable Police Mistake Traffic Stops
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The China-Mongolia Friendship Cultural Center opened at the Mongol Tuurgatan Theater in central Mongolia's Tuv province on Tuesday, aiming to promote bilateral cooperation and cultural exchanges.

The opening ceremony was attended by Tuv Province Mayor Jigjid Batjargal and Minister Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia Yang Qingdong.

"Mongolia and China are longstanding close and friendly neighbors. Our Tuv province has been cooperating with China's several provinces for decades, including Jilin province," Batjargal said at the ceremony.

He hoped that the center will contribute to bilateral ties and cooperation in the cultural sector.

For his part, Yang said, "I am very happy to attend the event. Since the state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Mongolia in 2014, relations and cooperation between China and Mongolia have been developing rapidly in various areas."

The minister counsel1or expressed his readiness to strengthen ties with Mongolia, especially Tuv province.

Head of the theater Dorjsuren Munkbat also voiced his gratitude to the Chinese Embassy in Mongolia for donating sound equipment worth 20,000 U.S. dollars to the cultural center commissioned in mid-October.
Malaysian fugitive arrested in Phuket for B17mn real estate fraud

PHUKET: A man wanted on an Interpol Red Notice for B17 million in real estate fraud in Malaysia has been arrested in Phuket and will be deported to his homeland south of Thailand.

crimepropertypolice

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Wednesday 21 November 2018, 07:24PM

Malaysian national Lee Chong Giap, 60, was wanted for real estate fraud amounting to the equivalent of B17 million, Gen Surachate explained. Photo: Immigration Bureau

Malaysian national Lee Chong Giap, 60, was wanted for real estate fraud amounting to the equivalent of B17 million, Gen Surachate explained. Photo: Immigration Bureau

Malaysian national Lee Chong Giap, 60, was wanted for real estate fraud amounting to the equivalent of B17 million, Gen Surachate explained. Photo: Immigration Bureau

Immigration Bureau Chief Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn announced the news through the Immigration Bureaus facebook page today.

The man, Malaysian national Lee Chong Giap, 60, had been on the run in Malaysia and wanted on an arrest warrant issued there since 2017, Gen Surachate explained.

The case was brought to his attention by the Malaysia Economic Crime Suppression Division Police, and Immigration officers soon had tracked Lee down, he added.

Lee had entered Thailand at the Sadao border checkpoint on Oct 20, Gen Surachate noted.

He was allowed to stay in Thailand until November 18, 2018 (last Sunday), but he fled to hide in Phuket, he said.

He was arrested on yesterday (Nov 20). Right now he has had his permission to stay in Thailand revoked. We are in the process of deporting him back to Malaysia, Gen Surachate added.

Immigration officers have handed Lee over to Yusni Bin Mohd Jamil, the Minister Counsellor (Police Liaison) at the Malaysian Embassy in Bangkok, who confirmed that Lee was wanted suspect and gave his appreciation to the Thai authorities for their efforts.

Capt Ekkachai Siri of the Phuket Tourist Police confirmed to The Phuket News this afternoon, After receiving the notice to cooperate with the Malaysian request to apprehend Lee, Phuket Tourist Police undercover officers found Lee and had him under surveillance.

However, Capt Ekkachai declined to reveal where Lee was staying in Phuket, or where he was taken into custody.

However, Capt Ekkachai did confirm, Mr Lee Chong Giap was wanted on an Interpol Red Notice.
China will increase the number of pilot State-owned enterprises involved in mixed ownership reform in key areas and support the development of the non-public sector, a senior State asset regulator said on Tuesday.



The government will choose a number of centrally and locally-administered SOEs with a wider range of business categories to enrich the ongoing mixed ownership reform, said Weng Jieming, vice-chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

"Mixed ownership reform should be a two-way street. The government will not only encourage non-public capital to participate in SOE reform, but also support the development of private business together with SOE resources," he said.

Between 2013 and 2017, private companies invested 1.1 trillion yuan ($158.5 billion) and 500 billion yuan respectively to take part in the mixed ownership reform of central and provincial SOEs through forms such as equity diversification and business outsourcing, data from the SASAC show.

The diversification of equity is to make SOEs have more than one equity holder.

In the meantime, provincial-level SOEs, particularly those in Zhejiang province, Beijing and Shanghai, also invested more than 600 billion yuan in non-public sectors.

Mixed ownership is vital to deepening SOE reforms, in order to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of State-owned assets. The reform will be undertaken in key sectors through multiple channels, he said.

The commission said that listed companies have become an important conduit of mixed ownership reform for SOEs as many quality SOE stocks are being traded in stock exchanges in both the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

By the end of 2017, the total assets of the central SOEs amounted to 54.5 trillion yuan, around 65 percent of which belonged to listed companies, up 11 percentage points from 54 percent at the end of 2012.

Eager to restore SOEs' earning ability, the SASAC selected China National Building Material Group Corp and China National Pharmaceutical Group Corp to carry out mixed ownership reform at the centrally-administered SOE level in 2014. About 70 percent and 90 percent of their sales revenue came from companies with mixed ownership by the end of 2017.

As the mixed ownership reform of these SOEs made impressive progress, China has selected 50 SOEs in three rounds to conduct such reform, from both the centrally and locally-administered levels, in fields including power, energy, civil aviation, telecommunications and the defense sector since 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission said in October.

Zhou Lisha, a researcher at the commission's research institute, said even though the central government has yet to release the names of the third batch of SOEs taking part in mixed-ownership reform, the SASAC would continue to deploy resources to transform its role from managing companies to managing their assets in order to offer them more decision-making power to further compete with other global giants.

According to the plan, the SASAC will step up mixed-ownership reforms in commercial SOEs from sectors such as manufacturing, retail and telecommunication within this year, as their main business is in a fully competitive market.




Phuket airport taxi driver charges for deadly wipeout stall

PHUKET: Police today confirmed that no progress has been made in bringing to court a charge of reckless driving causing death against the airport taxi driver that wiped out six vehicles and killed a motorbike driver during morning rush hour traffic on Thepkrasattri Rd last month.

tourismtransportaccidentspolice

By Tavee Adam

Wednesday 21 November 2018, 07:01PM

A tourist was in the taxi when the accident happened at 8am, Oct 30, but escaped unharmed, and immediately returned to the airport to leave. Photo: Seang Prachachon Kon Phuket / Facebook

The taxi driver, 23-year-old Marut Puangsombat, was initially charged by police with reckless driving causing death after the wipeout  which killed 40-year-old Phuket resident Anuson Rattanadilok Na Phuket. (See story here .)

A tourist was in the taxi when the accident happened at 8am, Oct 30, but escaped unharmed, and immediately returned to the airport to leave. (See story here.)

However, Capt Suporn Mueangkai, the officer responsible for processing the case, contacted by The Phuket News by phone today (Nov 21) would only confirm that the case has yet to be handed over to the Public Prosecutors Office for further action.

No reason for the delay in bringing legal action against the airport taxi driver was given.

Capt Suporn only said that police were still investigating and terminated the conversation.

The confirmation today follows Capt Suporn on Monday confirming to The Phuket News case had been submitted to Phuket Provincial Court for hearing. Apparently not so any more.

Meanwhile, it has yet to be confirmed whether or not Marut is still working as a taxi driver picking up tourists from Phuket International Airport.

Praprai Sounkul, Chief Policy Specialist at the Phuket Land Transportation office (PLTO), the government department responsible issuing general and commercial drivers licences, told The Phuket News today that his office was powerless to take any action until the case had been heard in court.

In a criminal case like this, the PLTO will revoke the taxi drivers license, but only after we conduct our own review of the incident  and that will not happen unless the court finds him guilty, he said.
NORRISTOWN  A Pottstown woman faces court supervision on child endangerment charges after detectives alleged her 2-year-old son suffered symptoms of marijuana intoxication while in her care.

Nadirah Phillips, 26, of the first block of Custer Court, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to four years probation after she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with a February 2017 incident at her residence.

Judge Thomas C. Branca, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered Phillips to complete 24 hours of community service. Phillips also must attend and complete parenting classes, the judge said.

An investigation began about 12:50 p.m. Feb. 5, 2017, when borough police were dispatched to the Custer Court home to assist emergency medical responders with an unconscious 2-year-old boy. At that time, Phillips denied that the child could have come into contact with something that would have caused the reaction.

The child was transported to Pottstown Hospital Tower Health where a urine test determined he had marijuana in his system, according to the criminal complaint filed by Pottstown Detective Heather Long. Several hours later, the charge nurse explained the presence of marijuana would explain why the child was still lethargic 2 1/2 hours after being admitted.

The charge nurse also noted that (the childs) symptoms were consistent with an amount of marijuana that could not be obtained by inhaling smoke alone, but most likely by ingesting, eating, Long wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Due to the childs slow recovery, he was transferred to Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia for additional treatment where doctors determined the childs behaviors were reminiscent of marijuana intoxication.

They also advised this level of intoxication would have been generated by eating marijuana, not second hand smoke, Long alleged. The exposure to marijuana would have been within six hours prior to when the child exhibited symptoms of intoxication and lost consciousness.

On Feb. 14, Phillips provided a written statement to detectives indicating she had returned home no later than 2 a.m. on Feb. 5 and that no one other than she and her two children were in the home. Phillips admitted to using marijuana at a party Feb. 4 into the early morning hours of Feb. 5, according to the criminal complaint.

Phillips said once she noticed her son acting weird she did not call 911 but contacted the childs father via a Facetime app. The childs father subsequently called 911 for his son after he observed him via Facetime, court papers indicate.

Detectives concluded that the child was in Phillips care and only her care from about 2 a.m. Feb. 5 until emergency medical officials responded to the home later that morning. No other adults cared for the child during almost 11 hours, detectives alleged.

Based on the timeline provided by medical staff, Phillips was the only adult in the care and control of the child during the time he would have ingested the marijuana, Long alleged. Finally, marijuana is what caused (the child) to be lethargic and for all intents and purposes exhibit behaviors of someone who is high.'

Other charges of recklessly endangering another person and possession of a small amount of marijuana were dismissed against Phillips as part of the plea agreement.
Canadas government is willing to order an end to rotating postal strikes as retailers complain the dispute threatens the holiday shopping binge that begins after Thanksgiving in the U.S.

We strongly encourage both sides to reach a deal and are prepared to table legislation if we do not see a resolution over the next few days, a step we do not take lightly, Labor Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement late Tuesday. She and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were more measured earlier in the day, saying the government was weighing its options.

On Monday, unionized workers rejected Canada Posts last ditch offer calling for a temporary return to work through the holiday season. The Retail Council of Canada, meanwhile, sent an open letter to Trudeau on the weekend saying his government must end the strike, given the pace of parcel traffic is about to double in an already strained postal system.

While Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, many domestic stores now offer Black Friday sales that are common south of the border. Electronics and appliance sales surged nearly 13 per cent last November from a year earlier because of the promotions, according to Statistics Canadas initial estimates. Questions about shipping delays this year could weaken confidence in online purchases and hurt merchants that rely on e-commerce.

This ship can be righted, but its getting down to a matter of a few days, Karl Littler, a vice president at the retail council, said by phone Monday. A clogged system isnt going to be able to deal with that ramp-up.

Deepening Backlog

Canada Post didnt immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday on the labour ministers move, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said theyll work with a mediator amid the threat of a back-to-work order.

Read more:

With no labour deal in sight, Canada Post warns of delivery delays into January

Rising sales give retailers hope ahead of holiday season

Black Friday shoppers beware: online shopping gets more complicated

Rotating strikes over the past month have already left hundreds of truck trailers full of unprocessed mail at Canada Post depots in Toronto and Vancouver. The government-owned corporation delivered a record 62 million parcels over the 2017 holiday season, including a single-day record 1.8 million shipments on Dec. 4, according to its annual report.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is also sounding the alarm. Most members dont really care how Canada Post goes back to work, they just want them to go back to work, Vice President Monique Moreau said Monday. Costs so far have run into the thousands of dollars for typical small businesses, including late payments and owners making deliveries themselves, she said.

Some merchants are already finding alternatives. Etsy Inc.s Canadian website posted a message saying orders wont be delayed and will be sent by United Parcel Service if necessary. Amazon.com Inc.s Canadian page says it uses the postal service and other couriers such as UPS or DHL Worldwide Express. The e-commerce giant is working hard to minimize any service disruption for our customers, spokesman Kaan Yalkin said in an email Tuesday.

Etsy sent Trudeau a letter Monday asking for legislation to end the labour dispute. As Black Friday and Cyber Monday approach, it is essential for Etsy sellers in Canada to have their shops open and ready for business, and that they be able to deliver on customer expectations of fast and reliable shipping, Erin Green, regional director for North America, wrote.

Gift Season

Domestic sales on eBay Canada will probably hold up through this weekend because customers are expecting slower delivery, but could suffer toward Christmas when more people ship gifts to friends and family, according to general manager Andrea Stairs. There are real Canadian businesses that are caught in the crossfire, she said by phone Tuesday. At this point, back to work legislation is exactly what is called for.

Canada Post offered a 2 per cent pay raise and a four-year contract last week. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers made a counter-offer seeking a 2.9 per cent annual wage increase including protection against inflation. The postal service told commercial customers late Monday it can no longer honour its usual delivery standards.

Trudeau told reporters Tuesday he was monitoring the situation closely. Important shopping days are coming and we need to see a resolution, he said. All options are on the table.

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Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is embracing disruption and looking to cash in on emerging shifts in the global economy, such as a move towards autonomous cars and a growing, aging population.

The board benefits from a long-term investment and can look beyond any market cycle and invest based on large structural changes that will fundamentally change how we all work and live, said CPPIB chief executive Mark Machin.

Weve been embracing disruption, whether that disruption is technological, whether its demographic, or economic, or climate-change related, he said in a speech to the Canadian Club in Toronto on Tuesday.

One structural change with widespread impact is technological change, he said, including artificial intelligence, the explosion in automation, the internet of things and the rise of fintech.

We have an obligation to analyze how these technologies will impact each sector, he said. How theyre going to disrupt industries, and how theyre going to impact our investments, both now and in the decades ahead.

He pointed to CPPIB investments in California-based autonomous vehicle company Zoox, which is aiming to have a fleet of robo-taxis ready by 2020. Another investment guided by disruptive forces, he said, is in a subsidiary of payment processing company Square Inc. called Square Capital, which invests in U.S. small business loans using machine learning to analyze vast amounts of data.

Machin also cited an investment in Viking River Cruises, which has more than 60 cruise vessels on several rivers and oceans globally.

As the North American baby boomer generation ages, and retires, they have an increasing desire to travel and see the world, he said.

CPPIB also invested in ORPEA, a European provider of long-term care services with 800 facilities serving more than 82,000 people, he said.

There is also opportunity in climate change disruption and CPPIB has invested in a joint venture with Votorantim Energia in Brazil operating wind parks, Machin said. As well, the board has roughly $3-billion invested in wind and solar projects in Canada with Cordelio Power and Enbridge.

He also pointed a shift in the economic centre of gravity from North America and Europe to Asia, noting that roughly eight per cent of the boards investment portfolio is in China.

CPPIBs best known investment is in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, back in 2011, said Machin.

We did that because we saw the rising power of consumption in the middle class in China, and also this rapid adoption of mobile technology ... Its proved to be a terrific investment, and we continue to add to our position.
As customers conduct more and more transactions online, the financial services industry has increasingly become the target of fraudsters who try to stay one step ahead of security measures, according to a new report.

In a survey of 465 executives in the financial services and insurance sectors in Canada, the U.S. and India, 96 per cent of respondents said their organization had experienced some sort of fraud in the past two years.

Executives reported sharp annual increases in rate evasion, where applicants or policyholders alter or omit information to obtain a lower premium (62 per cent), fraud using a fabricated identity (66 per cent) and identity theft or new account fraud (64 per cent).

Forrester Research, which completed the study in September, estimates that fraud claims drain 2.39 per cent in revenue or billions from financial services firms each year.

Last week, email security firm Vade Research called the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce one of the most common targets of phishing attacks that aim to trick people into handing over confidential data. In response, the CIBC called cyber security an evolving space that we monitor closely.

Almost half the Forrester survey participants said they lack the specialized skills to detect increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes.

The constant evolution of patterns, tools and evasion methods from fraudsters have resulted in an ongoing vulnerability for these industries, said Anne-Marie Kelly, executive director of identity management and fraud solutions for credit reporting agency TransUnion Canada, which commissioned the study.

At the same time, a clear majority of the surveys respondents had little tolerance for fraud detection and customer identity verification that compromises the customer experience.

Consumers struggle to remember an ever-growing number of user names and passwords and organizations struggle to manage them, said Kelly.

The result is a constant tug of war between organizations and consumer needs, which provides criminals with a playground of information to use to perpetrate identity crimes.

She said consumers have come to expect seamless consistency in every interaction with banks and insurers so that companies cannot simply prevent fraud by developing an onerous customer process.

Kelly added that striking a balance between security and customer satisfaction has proven difficult for many Canadian companies.

More than half the survey participants indicated their current identity verification and fraud detection processes are too complex and burdensome  not only for customers, but also for the organization to maintain. Half the financial institutions surveyed are not satisfied with the capabilities that they currently have in place.

Less than 25 per cent of the insurers, for example, said they are satisfied with their anti-fraud systems, citing a lack of automated detection tools and of the employees trained to use them.

We view fraud as the result of poor identity management, said Kelly.

The study found that as consumers increasingly interact through digital channels, financial institutions must adopt fraud and identity solutions that identify good customers and fast-track them through transactions without hurting their experience.

While a report on the survey recommends that financial institutions choose vendors that offer documented and proven security measures, security commentator and blogger Alex Haslam said much of the onus for protecting against online fraud lies with consumers.

He said common sense is required when dealing with financial services firms over the Internet year round and especially during the holiday shopping season. He suggests that individuals start by securing their passwords and avoiding free public WiFi to execute transactions.

The Canadian Bankers Association adds on its website that customers should protect their devices against malicious software via updated anti-virus, anti-spyware and Internet firewall tools.
A huge low-pressure system that swept through Canadas Atlantic seaboard last week shut all of the regions oil production. Only one field has restarted service in the storms wake, while another is battling an oil leak.

Waters off the province of Newfoundland and Labrador host four producing fields  Hibernia, Terra Nova, White Rose and Hebron  which yielded over 150,000 barrels of crude a day in September, according to the Offshore Petroleum Board. All four were shut ahead of the storm, operators said. Only Hebron has resumed operations, according to Lynn Evans, a spokeswoman for operator Exxon Mobil Canada.

Winds from the system reached 138 kilometres per hour, as strong as a Category 1 hurricane, and generated waves reaching 54 feet, said Joseph Sienkiewicz, ocean applications branch chief at the U.S. Ocean Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Swells from the storm reached across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. It was a very large storm, he said.

Husky Energy Inc. is responding to an oil spill from its White Rose field thats estimated at about 1,572 barrels. The company hasnt indicated when service might resume.

Meanwhile, operator Suncor Energy Inc. may restart service at its Terra Nova field this weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter. The site was shut earlier this month for repairs to a gas leak, and was expected to resume service a few days later, the person said. That plan, however, fell through because of the storm. Suncor spokesman Paul Newmarch said the field remains offline and would return to operations once post-storm inspections were completed.
MONTREALA year ago, Patrice Laliberte was on the verge of abandoning his film career and starting down a more stable path.

I was going to work in video games or something else, I didnt know. I was thinking, How am I going to even pay for Christmas presents? 

With a fistful of dollars from a commercial, the 32-year-old Montrealer decided to give film directing a final go, hunkering down to tweak a script about a group of survivalists in the frigid Quebec outback.

It was a very desperate time. If this project didnt work, I would have quit for good, he said.

Ten months later he found himself meeting with a Netflix representative in a downtown Toronto hotel lobby.

At some point we asked, So, do we know when we might have a green light or not? And she just extended her hand, Laliberte recalled, smiling.

She said, If it wasnt 11 a.m. wed be popping champagne. 

Laliberte, an upstart director with no full-length credits to his name, is part of the small film-making team selected to make the first Netflix original feature film out of Quebec. Its the latest development of a pledge by the global television powerhouse to spend $500 million over five years on Canadian productions, a number Netflix recently said it will exceed.

Welcomed by some as a boon to a subsidy-dependent film industry, the announcement in September 2017 was not without controversy, particularly in Quebec. Then-federal Heritage minister Melanie Joly drew criticism for opting not to require the California-based company to charge sales tax on its subscriptions, as its domestic competitors are required to do.

Netflix also sidestepped the rules that apply to the countrys broadcasting companies, landing outside regulations to funnel a portion of their revenues to the creation of Canadian programming. The agreement did require Netflix to commit $25 million to a strategy to develop the francophone and cultural minority market, but lacked an obligation to go ahead and produce it.

Netflix is a particularly puzzling and difficult company in terms of adapting Canadian policy to actually capturing this new business mode, said Rosalie Wyonch, a policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission regulations require broadcasters to air a certain percentage of Canadian content. Netflix, however, doesnt control the amount of content that gets streamed  its subscribers determine that daily.

Whether Netflix should pay into the Canadian Media Fund, as the countrys cable and satellite distributors are required to do, is similarly fuzzy, Wyonch said, since the company has claimed it would not have access to the fruits of that fund.

Ottawa launched an expert panel last June to review broadcasting and telecommunications laws, with an eye to including Netflix in cultural funding requirements. An interim report is due in June 2019.

Current rules also allow streaming services that do not maintain a physical presence in Canada to avoid collecting or remitting federal or provincial sales taxes.

The European Union, Australia and Japan have all levelled the playing field among foreign and domestic digital service providers, taxing them similarly. Quebec is on track to do likewise in January, slapping a provincial sales tax on any purchases from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and other online services based abroad.

The key question is, would this movie have been made anyway, without the no-tax deal with Ottawa? Wyonch said. Netflix is a global company. French is not exactly a small language.

Netflix produces films and television shows in more than 20 countries, dubbing and subtitling them as part of a content budget of between $12 billion and $13 billion, Wyonch said. That beats HBOs expenditures several times over.

Helene Messier, head of an association that represents 150 independent Quebec production companies in film, television and online, called the Quebec announcement excellent news  with a qualifier.

I hope its an indication of many more contributions. I think that we wont know until a few years from now, she said. But I think that they understand our market and what our creative people have to offer.

For Laliberte and the six-year-old Couronne Nord  a Montreal production house whose name refers to the off-island suburbs where he and his two-colleagues grew up  the arrival of Netflix offers a really refreshing alternative to the go-to sources of funding in Quebec, primarily the SODEC funding agency and Telefilm Canada.

Its a game-changer in Montreal, said Guillaume Laurin, the films 28-year-old content producer.

Private funding doesnt exist; its not in the cultural mindset. And the market is so small. Its not like in the United States, where everything is privately funded.

The filmmakers aim to evoke the provinces nordicite, roughly translated as northernness.

Were living six months a year in this, and its rarely appearing on screen, Laliberte said. For me, since college it was a dream to make films in a winter landscape.

Laliberte, creatively inspired by the nationalist rhetoric and end-of-the-world conspiracy theories mushrooming on social media, said he hopes to draw on work by directors from Terrence Malick to Stanley Kubrick to evoke the paranoid mindset and militaristic lifestyle of a survivalist camp.

With climate change or with economic situations, people start to have fear...fear of the other, said Laliberte, who won the Toronto International Film Festival award for best Canadian short film with Overpass in 2015.

Its not a chill, Netflix film, he said, joking that the working title is just that: Netflix film.

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Few countries have been moving toward a cashless society as fast as Sweden. But cash is being squeezed out so quickly  with half the nations retailers predicting they will stop accepting bills before 2025  that the government is recalculating the societal costs of a cash-free future.

The financial authorities, who once embraced the trend, are asking banks to keep peddling notes and coins until the government can figure out what going cash-free means for young and old consumers. The central bank, which predicts cash may fade from Sweden, is testing a digital currency  an e-krona  to keep firm control of the money supply. Lawmakers are exploring the fate of online payments and bank accounts if an electrical grid fails or servers are thwarted by power outages, hackers or even war.

When you are where we are, it would be wrong to sit back with our arms crossed, doing nothing, and then just take note of the fact that cash has disappeared, said Stefan Ingves, governor of Swedens central bank, known as the Riksbank. You cant turn back time, but you do have to find a way to deal with change.

Ask most people in Sweden how often they pay with cash and the answer is hardly ever. A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines any more. More than 4,000 Swedes have implanted microchips in their hands, allowing them to pay for rail travel and food, or enter keyless offices, with a wave. Restaurants, buses, parking lots and even pay toilets depend on clicks rather than cash.

Consumer groups say the shift leaves many retirees  a third of all Swedes are 55 or older  as well as some immigrants and disabled people at a disadvantage. They cannot easily gain access to electronic means for some goods and transactions, and rely on banks and their customer service. And the progress toward a cashless society could upend the states centuries-old role as sovereign guarantor. If cash disappears, commercial banks would wield greater control.

We need to pause and think about whether this is good or bad, and not just sit back and let it happen, said Mats Dillen, the head of a Swedish Parliament committee studying the matter. If cash disappears, that would be a big change, with major implications for society and the economy.

Urban consumers worldwide are increasingly paying with apps and plastic. In China and in Asian countries ripe with young smartphone users, mobile payments are routine. In Europe, about one in five people say they rarely carry money. In Belgium, Denmark and Norway, debit and credit card use has hit record highs.

But Sweden  and particularly its young people  is at the vanguard. Bills and coins represent just 1 per cent of the economy, compared with 10 per cent in Europe and 8 per cent in the United States. About one in 10 consumers paid for something in cash this year, down from 40 per cent in 2010. Most merchants in Sweden still accept notes and coins, but their ranks are thinning.

Among 18-to-24-year-olds, the numbers are startling: Up to 95 per cent of their purchases are with debit or a smartphone app called Swish, a payment system set up by Swedens biggest banks.

Ikea, whose flat-box furniture is a staple of young households, has been experimenting to gauge the allure and effect of cashless commerce. In Gavle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm, managers decided to go cashless temporarily last month after they realized that fewer than 1 per cent of shoppers used cash  and Ikea employees were spending about 15 per cent of their time handling, counting and storing money.

Patric Burstein, a senior manager, said the cashless test has freed employees to work on the sales floor. So far, around 1.2 of every 1,000 customers have been unable to pay with anything but cash  and mainly in the cafeteria where people tend to spend change. Rather than bother with bills, Ikea has been offering those customers freebies.

We said, If you want a 50 cent hot dog, be my guest, take it. But next time maybe you can bring a card, said Burstein. The test so far suggests that cash is not essential and, instead, may be costly, he said. Were spending a lot of resources on a very small percentage that actually need the service, he said.

The nearby branch of the Swedish National Pensioners Organization has led protests against the experiment, in part, because many retirees like to go to the Gavle Ikea for a bite to eat.

We have around 1 million people who arent comfortable using the computer, iPads or iPhones for banking, said Christina Tallberg, 75, the groups national president. We arent against the digital movement, but we think its going a bit too fast.

The organization has been raising money to teach retirees how to pay electronically but, paradoxically, that good effort has been tripped up by an abundance of cash. When collections for training are taken in rural areas  and the seniors donate in cash  the pensioner in charge must drive miles to find a bank that will actually take the money, Tallberg said. About half of Swedens 1,400 banks no longer accept cash deposits.

Its more or less impossible, because the banks refuse to take cash, she said.

Banks have propelled the cashless revolution by encouraging consumers and retailers to use debit and credit cards, which yields banks and credit card companies lucrative fees. That includes the bank-developed Swish smartphone app.

Swedens banks have cut back on cash in part for safety reasons after a rash of violent robberies in the mid-2000s. The national psyche is marked by an infamous helicopter heist in Vastberga in 2009, when thieves landed on the roof of a G4S cash service depot and stole millions  a drama now being turned into a Netflix film. Last year, only two banks were robbed compared with 210 in 2008.

In recent years, banks have dismantled cash machines by the hundreds. So little cash is used now that it has become expensive to track and maintain, said Leif Trogan, an official at the Swedish Bankers Association.

There are two proposals by Swedish authorities to keep cash at hand. Parliament wants just the biggest banks to handle cash. The central bank is holding out for all banks to keep money flowing. Swedbank, SEB and other big Swedish financial institutions are fighting the lawmakers demands, saying it would place an undue burden on them to provide greater access.

The demand for cash is decreasing at an ever faster pace, Trogan said. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to legislate to influence the demand for cash.

The central bank has plans to roll out a pilot version next year of a new type of Riksbank money  the digital krona, or e-krona  that could replace physical cash or at least help calm the current cash conundrum. An e-krona would mean that the functions of a currency backed by the state would remain, even in an all-digital world that is fast approaching.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, noted last week that several central banks were seriously considering digital currencies.

While the case for digital currency is not universal, we should investigate it further  seriously, carefully and creatively, she said.

Ingves, the central bank governor, said, This is not a war on cash, but no one has argued that this evolutionary motion is going to stop.
As Canadian stocks tumbled Tuesday, wiping out roughly $29 billion in value from the S&P TSX Composite Index, market watchers said there could be more financial carnage to come.

Its a fools game trying to pick a bottom (but) the sentiment is resoundingly negative still, warned Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets.

The 194-point fall in Canadas main stock index mirrored large drops in exchanges around the globe, including a 551-point drop on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 49 points on the S&P 500. The Dow Jones has now given up all its gains for the year  the index is off by 1 per cent in 2018.

In London, the FTSE 100 fell 52 points. In Tokyo, the Nikkei dropped 238 points. Tuesdays fall followed another broad sell-off Monday, when the TSX Composite closed down 84 points.

Just as stocks were probably rising higher than warranted earlier this year, the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction, Belski argued.

Momentum goes too far in both directions, Belski said.

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The price of oil also dropped Tuesday, falling by $3.77 (U.S.) to close at $53.43 per barrel. Falling oil prices typically hit stocks in Canada harder than in many other countries because of the energy sectors significance to the Canadian economy.

Combined with concerns over the continuing trade dispute between China and the U.S.  Canadas largest trading partner  that gives a fundamental explanation for the falling prices. But the drop is deeper than would be warranted by a strictly rational explanation, said CIBC World Markets portfolio manager Craig Jerusalim.

There are some fundamental reasons for some of whats going on, like the oil price, or the U.S.-China trade dispute, but a lot of this is emotional, Jerusalim said. Fear is gripping the markets. Were seeing some indiscriminate selling going on.

The TSX Composites Tuesday fall meant a 1.29-per-cent drop in one day. With Bloomberg estimating the overall value of the index at $2.3 trillion, that means the stocks making up the index lost roughly $29.6 billion in market value.

In the U.S., the drop began with high-profile tech stocks such as Apple and Microsoft, but soon spread to other sectors.

Apple was worth more than $1 trillion (U.S.) at the start of November. Now, its valued at $880 billion.

The mighty tech titans and their seemingly endless pipeline of profits, which powered one of the longest bull markets in stocks, are looking a little less invincible. Shares of Apple and Googles parent company, Alphabet, are down more than 10 per cent since the market peaked, while Facebook and Amazon have dropped more than 20 per cent.

Investors faith has been eroded by slowing growth and a trade war with China, as well as a steady stream of revelations about privacy lapses, security issues and mismanagement. If tech stocks cannot shake the fears, the rest of the market could feel the pain.

The tech sector caught a cold and everything else got sick, Jerusalim said.

And when theres emotion on the markets, professional traders who manage large mutual funds can make plenty of money from panicky individual traders.

The biggest single mistake you can make as an investor is selling at the bottom, not that Im saying this is the bottom here, Jerusalim said. Theres a large psychological component to investing. Institutional investors do have the advantage in situations like this.

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China's tax environment improved remarkably in 2017, in particular, the time for compliance has dropped to 142 hours, reduced by 31.4 percent year on year, a global report showed Tuesday.



The number of payments has also been reduced to seven, demonstrating the continuing enhancement of taxpayer services, said Paying Taxes 2019 report jointly released by the World Bank Group and PwC Global.

Paying Taxes measures the changes in the tax environment for a medium-sized domestic company in most of the economies globally over the past 14 years. Paying Taxes 2019 is the 13th edition of the series, covering 14 years' data, which relates to the global tax environment for the 2017 calendar year.

As one of the data providers in China for Paying Taxes series report over the past 13 years, PwC China has witnessed the unremitting efforts of Chinese tax authorities in improving the tax environment over the years.

"China's tax compliance time has fallen from 832 hours in 2004 to 142 hours in 2017, reflecting the power of digitalization to disrupt the traditional tax administration mode," said Peter Ng, PwC China Mainland and Hong Kong Tax Leader.

The report said China has been improving her tax regime and implementing tax reduction measures in recent years, e.g. the VAT reform in 2013, a series of tax incentives put forward in 2018 supporting R&D activities, high and new technology enterprises, and small and thin-profit enterprises, the simplification of VAT rate brackets, and the refund of excess VAT credit for selected industry sectors.

"All these measures have demonstrated the continuous efforts of the Chinese fiscal and tax authorities to reduce the tax burden, with the goal to vitalize business and improve the quality of economic growth," said the report.
New planes, no pilots

Canadas $500-million purchase of used CF-18 fighter jets from Australia will be hamstrung by the ongoing problem that the Air Force does not have enough pilots to fly them or technicians to keep them in the air. The military has warned the government about this for years.

Military more aware of sexual assaults but supports lacking

The Canadian Forces are doing better at encouraging members to report instances of sexual misconduct but help for people whove suffered in the ranks is inadequate.

Unprotected embassies and consulates

About half of Canadas diplomatic corps works in places where theres danger from terrorism, espionage or armed conflict. Spot-checks of Canadas missions abroad found all of their security plans are lacking in some way, from outdated or nonexistent threat assessments to missing or broken equipment.

Heritage buildings unprotected

Three federal bodies that are responsible for more than two-thirds of the governments historic structures dont have adequate plans to protect them. National Defence, Fisheries and Oceans, and Parks Canada dont even have a handle on what buildings they own, let alone resources and strategies for conserving delicate heritage sites.

No budget for high-speed rural internet means no plan

Governments have talked for years about extending broadband internet to almost every inhabitant of Canada but with no budget to put behind a plan, none has ever been developed. Rural and remote areas risk being left behind by the digital economy.

CRA treats different taxpayers differently

The level of service you get from the Canada Revenue Agency depends on which regional office you deal with, which months-long delays varying from place to place.

Read more:

Canadas embassies and diplomats poorly protected despite warnings, auditor says

Military crackdown on sexual misconduct is failing victims, auditor general says

No clear strategy for improving broadband access in rural, remote areas, says auditor

Parolees arent getting out on parole

A shortage of community-supervision options means that federal inmates who are entitled to parole arent getting out because theres nowhere approved for them to go. Sometimes the delays stretch into months.
Most of us never live into our nineties, let alone learn how to make the most of our final, most experienced years.

For anti-poverty crusader Harry Leslie Smith  whose 95-year-old life is in peril in hospital in Belleville, Ont., with his sons at his side  life in some ways seemed to begin at 90, when the fledgling, self-published author caught fire with readers on both sides of the Atlantic, improbably ending up mattering most to a legion of followers less than a third his age.

How many millennials do you know who hang on a great-great-grandparents every word? Harry knows thousands  each moved by the power of his stark, eyewitness warning not to let life drift back toward the squalor, hunger and creeping authoritarianism he endured as a child in Britain during the Great Depression.

And they were out in force on Twitter, where Smiths quarter-million followers unleashed a wave of kindness and encouragement after Harrys son John took over his account at the hospital on Tuesday, issuing heartrending medical updates on the attempt to stabilize his fathers dangerously low blood pressure.

Cardiologist says it might be another pneumonia or bladder infection causing low BP. But by his tone errs on the side of pessimism as to how this ends for Harry, read one of Johns messages during his around-the-clock bedside vigil.

He sleeps deep, his legs jerking like hes riding a bike, read another. And, I wonder if in his dreams, hes 7 again and riding his uncles bike from his grandparents house to the moors, where he felt free from the sting of his poverty.

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Then, a short while later, I get the feeling that in this hospital room, tonight, I am watching history die here: my own, Britains and even Canadas.

If this is not the end for Harry Leslie Smith, the outpouring of love nevertheless offered a rare, living glimpse of how deeply he has moved people since he turned 90 and came to prominence. The testimonials bear witness to his reinvention as a storyteller in his final years  and stand as irrefutable evidence that it is absolutely never too late, no matter what your age, to make a difference.

Born in Britain in 1923 and raised through abject poverty as the Great Depression took hold, Smith survived the deprivations that shattered his family and went on to serve with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. It was in postwar Germany, while serving as part of the occupation force in Hamburg, that he met his future wife, Friede.

The couple attempted to resettle in his native Yorkshire, but lingering anti-German sentiment soon forced a change of plan. A move to Canada for a truly fresh start, far from the judgmental eyes of postwar Europe.

They knew Canada in the 1950s was a place where you could start without the baggage of class,John said recently in an interview with the Star. So they came to Toronto and it gave them a foothold on a new world.

A job in the Oriental carpet division of Eatons flagship department store on Yonge St. paid the bills  and gave Harry a depth of knowledge he eventually took elsewhere, going on to sell high-value carpets to a range of notable clients, from Conrad Black to former Canadian prime minister John Turner, before retiring in the 1980s.

Smith never earned more than $55,000 annually during his working life, but that single income was enough to ensure the family a thriving middle-class existence: a house in Scarborough with a mortgage that over 25 years would vanish to nothing; vacations; food; a seemingly limitless future for three sons. The things that seem all but unattainable to a young couple starting out in housing-scarce, cost-prohibitive 21st-century Toronto.

It was a newsy household. The Globe and Mail in the morning, the Star in the afternoon. No matter how busy Harry was, he was always home by five, and the dinner table was for talking about the events of the day  and politics. You werent obliged to agree with Dads decidedly left-wing politics, but whatever positions you took, you were expected to marshal facts. Facts mattered.

There was no debt, John said. We had everything we wanted. Thats what Canada gave Harry. We knew Dad had a hard time growing up in England but he didnt like talking about it. 

The boys knew Harry carried scars from his destitute early years in the U.K. But the topic was never discussed. Harry kept it bottled up. The only early clue, John Smith told the Star, was his fathers over-the-top anger upon witnessing homelessness in Toronto.

He would be outraged anytime he saw a homeless person. He understood how everybodys life is held by a fingernail.

Time  and more tragedy  led Harry to finally put pen to paper and open those childhood wounds. Smiths wife, Friede, died of cancer in 1999, and his son Peter, after battling schizophrenia for years, fell to a debilitating lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Smith, heartbroken anew, began to find his voice as self-published author. His work matched the indignities of his impoverished youth to modern-day politics, getting attention first in the U.K. The spark of interest fully caught fire four years ago, when he was invited to speak at the 2014 Labour Party conference and reduced the audience to tears with his appeal in support of the National Health Service.

Ironically, it is not the budget-strained National Health Service in Britain but Canadas own overstretched health-care system that is looking after him now. Its a point of confusion for many Brits, who claim Smith as their own, by dint of the books and political commentary he has offered regularly in publications such as the Guardian. The BBCs most recent news file on Smiths plight characterized him as having fallen ill while visiting family in Canada.

In fact, after spending nearly seven of his nine decades in Canada, Harry and John now split their time evenly between the two countries. But home for the last nine years has been Belleville, where Harry and John share a highrise apartment.

Regardless of where he hangs his hat, Smiths resonance over the past two days has been international, with high-profile voices on both sides of the ocean cheering him on.

Among the well-wishers were Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who tweeted: Harrys journey and courage have inspired so much love and kindness on this site, and in the real world too. Thank you for taking us along  were pulling for you.

British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, upon learning of Smiths illness, messaged, So sorry to hear this. Please pass on my best to Harry. We need him to get well soon as our National Health Service, and our movement, needs him.

The UN Refugee Agency in Canada was there as well, tweeting, Our thoughts are with you, @Harryslaststand. You are an inspiration & @UNHCRCanada is privileged to have you as a friend & champion for all refugees. All of us here are sending you and your family our best wishes.

Smiths millennial supporters were even more vocal, a fact that John attributes to his fathers efforts to speak directly to them, over the top of the generations in between.

I think all along Harry has placed his hope in younger people, he told the Star. Younger people hear the baby boomers saying they need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and they see through it, because that means settling for the gig economy, the crap money, no protection, no benefits.

Harrys message has been, Thats not right. They get each other. Harrys so excited about what high schoolers are doing in the States. Hes cheering them on just as much as they cheer him. Thats whats going to change the world.

During Tuesdays overnight hospital vigil, John answered one followers online plea to be sure to tell him his life has meant something, responding: I do every day. Hes been suffering persistent UTI since Sept and in a moment of fever last month, asked, These last years, I did something that mattered, didnt I?

My heart broke.

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OTTAWAThe morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Canadas solicitor general Lawrence MacAulay was yanked out of a gathering of justice ministers in Nova Scotia. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.

As he walked into a private room teeming with RCMP officers, a second plane careened into the complexs south tower. The deadliest domestic terrorist attack in American history.

Honestly, you would not believe it was true, MacAulay recalls.

The Prince Edward Island member of Parliament was a cabinet minister in Jean Chretiens Liberal government back then, responsible for Canadas Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He had been an elected MP for 13 years at that point. He has been re-elected in every election since and, on Nov. 21, marks his 30th anniversary as an MP.

Sitting in his Ottawa office overlooking Parliament, MacAulays eyes well up and his voice weakens as he remembers the stark events of that day.

To this day, its emotional for me to talk about this, he confides.

Told by Chretien to get to Ottawa right away, a police escort took him to the Halifax airport, where he was stunned to see the runway transformed into a parking lot of 747s.

Once their small plane was in the air, the pilot announced it was one of just five planes in North American airspace flying at that moment  two others were the U.S. presidents Air Force One and a decoy.

We thought we might die, MacAulay said. You just wonder every second what might happen. I mean, you dont know ... That was a tough day, I can assure you.

Over his 30 years in federal office, MacAulay has travelled the world as a cabinet minister in numerous portfolios, sat on the government backbench and survived his partys crushing loss in 2011. Now 72, hes returned to the cabinet as minister of agriculture.

Despite having been part of some of Canadas biggest national political moments over the last three decades, the farmer-turned-politician turns to stories about his home province of P.E.I. when asked to recall his most memorable milestones.

His eyes sparkle when talking of work that saw the white sandy beaches and forest trails of Greenwich Park become part of the national parks system. This cemented the eastern region of the Island, which he represents, as a tourist destination.

He all but takes credit for the continuation of the ferry service from his riding to Nova Scotia  once the only way to travel to or from the Island before the Confederation Bridge.

But the most gratifying thing that you can do (is) probably  a single mother on the 20th or 21st of December, to be able to tell her that shes going to receive her EI cheques before Christmas, he says. Because you know for sure thats all that person has.

MacAulay was first elected in 1988, defeating incumbent Progressive Conservative Pat Binns  who would later become premier of P.E.I.  in an election fought on the merits of Brian Mulroneys Canada-U.S. free trade deal.

While knocking on doors during that campaign, MacAulay remembers one windy morning when he came upon a home with about 14 half-ton trucks parked outside  a sign the place was filled with local fishermen, who often feel the sting of regulatory decisions made by Ottawa.

I knocked on the door and a lady opened the door, and I said who I was, and she said, Oh my. Theres a bunch of people in the other room who would love to see you,  MacAulay recalls. I can assure you I wasnt too brave walking down the hall to meet those fishermen. I figured theyd be pretty tough to deal with.

Years later, he came upon the same woman who had opened the door that day. She remarked that whatever hed said to the fishermen, it seemed to have worked out for him.

A lot about his job in Ottawa has changed over the years, he says, holding up his smartphone and remarking that he couldnt have purchased it for a million dollars when he was first elected.

I came here knowing I had it all to learn. And in my view, its a university on world affairs changing basically on a daily basis, he said. If you want to stay around, you have to be able to use the social media, you have to be able to deal with the changes that take place.

MacAulay has had some close elections. In 1997 he won by 99 votes, and in 2000 by a couple of hundred. But in 2015, he soared to an 11,000-vote margin.

He is known for attending virtually every birthday party, anniversary, wake, funeral or event in the district when hes not in Ottawa. And when hes away, his wife Frances attends in his stead.

Being straightforward and honest is the key to success as a politician, he says  a rule that led MacAulay to a rare personal admission in the House of Commons in 2016.

During an emotional statement paying tribute to a clergyman from P.E.I. whod recently died, MacAulay shared a story of how the clergyman had helped him battle alcohol addiction before his life in politics.

That history was not difficult to acknowledge, he says, although its not something he has addressed publicly in detail.

Pausing for a moment, MacAulay says he wishes all governments would do more to help those battling addictions. After many years sober, he says its a fellowship of support he has received over the years that has helped him live a a totally free life.

I could walk in front of a trailer truck or I could take a drink of rum if I wished. But you know, Im not sure which result would be the worst.

So why, after 30 years of balancing constituency work in P.E.I., high-stakes politics and gruelling cross-country travel, does he wish to continue?

Because I like it, he says. You can do things that help your own area and that helps the people. And thats about all there is for me in this world to do.
Toronto officials and trans rights advocates at city hall on Tuesday condemned the Ontario PC party as they continue to push for inclusion and fight against violence.

On the annual transgender day of remembrance, Mayor John Tory honoured those who had lost their lives as a result of hatred.

Its been a long road and a very difficult road, Tory said on the podium roof of city hall. We have moved forward as a city because we understand the importance of respect for all people . . . We must not allow those who would divide and who would take us backwards to do so.

The city hall event follows a weekend Ontario PC convention where the party membership approved a resolution to discuss deeming gender identity a liberal ideology, and also have it removed from the sex-ed curriculum.

Tory did not specifically mention the PC party, saying there are those looking to prevent progress around the world and some that are not very far away.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, councils only openly queer member, did not mince words.

The work before us is to make sure that were not quiet, said Wong-Tam, adding lives are at risk as she directly condemned the PC party resolution. I didnt think that we were going to have to fight this battle, but this battle was never won.

Fifth grader Stella Skinner, who is a vocal advocate for transgender youth, said she was encouraged to know students in schools like hers would be taught to understand her and how to treat her respectfully.

When I heard we werent getting these lessons after all, I felt defeated, she said. Tomorrow I go back to school ... Ill answer whispers and try to be brave. But why would you ask that of me?

On Monday, Premier Doug Ford vowed to put an end to the non-binding resolution. Former PC leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen, who brought forward the resolution Saturday, said Ford himself dismissed the long-standing concept of gender identity during his leadership campaign.

On Tuesday, Fords Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod issued a written statement about the day of remembrance.

As Ontarians, were lucky to belong to a fair and just society, together we can work to uphold our shared values of respect, equality and fairness, the statement read, acknowledging the lives lost.

Today is about solidarity, reflection and sadness for those who have been lost and those who are victimized. I encourage those in the Trans community to live your lives to the fullest. Be proud Ontarians. And know that our government will respect and work hard for your community and for all of the people of this province.
TORONTOChildren and youth from across Canada gathered in Toronto on Tuesday for a forum on how to protect the rights of the countrys youngest citizens, which included the release of a strategy for meeting those goals known as the Canadian Childrens Charter.

Its a plan by children for children, said Sara Austin, founder of Children First Canada, a non-profit advocacy organization that created the charter with input from thousands of children and adolescents over the last year.

The charter, which highlights issues affecting young people and sets out a road map for change, will be sent to all members of Parliament and the Senate, as well as to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Austin said Canada has a legal responsibility as well as a moral imperative to protect childrens rights.

Yet we know that far too many kids in Canada simply just dont enjoy the protection of their very basic human rights, she said. We know there are eight million kids in Canada and one-third of them have experienced some form of child abuse, very significant forms of trauma that impact them now and for decades to come.

We know that one in five kids are living in poverty, that one in five teens have considered suicide in the past year alone.

Among the key topics dealt with in the charter is bullying, which Austin called a significant concern for children and youth.

It certainly came up loud and clear in the consultations that we had with kids across the country, she said, explaining that her organization engaged young people through focus groups, in school and via online forums.

Survey-based research has shown that 15 per cent of Canadian children aged 11 to 15 reported being bullied at least twice in the previous month.

An economic analysis by Children First and the OBrien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary, entitled Raising Canada, suggests the fallout from bullying costs the country $4 billion a year, based on its effects on childrens mental health and later reduced productivity as adults.

Bullying has been a phenomenon that children have experienced for generations, but its taken on a new dimension through the age of the internet and social media, in particular, Austin said.

Indeed, bullying has been top of mind this week, given the arrest Monday of six students at a Toronto private boys school over alleged incidents of assault and sexual assault.

Last week, St. Michaels College School expelled eight students and suspended another in connection with an alleged sexual assault in a locker room and another incident that police said involved hazing. Both incidents were captured on video.

Police sources have said the locker room incident involved a group of students pinning down another student and allegedly sexually assaulting him with a broom handle.

Describing the alleged incidents at St. Michaels as tragic, Austin said they raise questions about what children are learning in their homes and at school.

How do we work to combat the idea that this somehow was acceptable behaviour? she said, stressing that children who are victimized need to know that they have the inherent worth and the right to be protected from all forms of violence.

Eunice Yong of Ottawa, who was a youth host at Tuesdays forum, said she had a discussion with others attending about bullying, an experience thats very much close to my heart.

I myself was bullied quite a bit, she said of her years in elementary school, when she was picked on because of her weight.

I can still hear the whispers of others, the 17-year-old, Grade 12 student said. Oh, shes a little bit on the larger size. Shes kind of big. Its fun to pick on her.

But shes come to believe its not what a person looks like but who they are that matters  a message she tries to impart to other young people.

I emphasize to children that there is nothing that sets them apart except their uniqueness and their own personalities. We are all equals, so it doesnt matter about their religion, their ethnicity, their background, their sexuality.

Were all the same.

Austin said the Childrens Charter is meant to highlight the areas where young peoples rights are not being protected and it calls on government, the private and charitable sectors, parents, educators and children themselves to work together to bring about change.

Among the issues highlighted in the document:

Ensuring children access to local health care, regardless of cost and free from discrimination.

Providing mental-health education, services and treatment when needed, without stigma.

Ending bullying and providing protection from all forms of violence and abuse.

Our kids are telling us they are struggling with a lot of issues, whether its poverty, bullying, mental health issues or abuse, Austin said. They created the charter with the hope that our government will use it as a road map to make Canada the best place in the world for kids to grow up.
A man wanted in a series of random assaults, some involving a sledgehammer and other weapons, has been arrested and charged, Toronto police said.

Police said a string of assaults included an incident last year when a man swerved into a male motorcyclist, and ran him over with his vehicle while he was on the ground on May 3, 2017, in the Don Valley Pkwy. and Lawrence Ave. E. area.

The man was also wanted in relation to two incidents on Nov. 16. At about 4 p.m., officers responded to a call for unknown trouble at Merrill Bridge Road Park near Danforth Ave. Police said a 26-year-old man was walking his dog when a man got out of a vehicle wielding a sledgehammer and began chasing the other man around. The driver then got back into his car and fled the scene.

Fifteen minutes later, officers responded to a call just down the road in the Danforth Ave. and Moberly Ave. area.

A 42-year-old woman was standing on the corner when a man got out of his vehicle, brandishing a sledgehammer. Police said the man raised the sledgehammer and shouted at the woman, got back in his car and drove away.

A few weeks earlier, on the evening of Oct. 29, a man and woman were travelling in their car in the Overlea Blvd. and Thorncliffe Park Dr. area when they pulled to the side of the road to check directions. Police said a man pulled up alongside them in another car revealing a flare, a handgun and long-bladed knife, and began yelling at them and making threats and then fled the scene when the victims began recording the exchange.

Jourdain Durrant, 35, of Toronto surrendered to police on Tuesday. Hes been charged with five counts of assault with a weapon, possessing dangerous weapons, using a firearm, uttering dangerous threats, dangerous driving and causing bodily harm, as well as failing to remain at the scene of an accident.

Durrant was set to appear in court at College Park Wednesday morning.
Toronto police on Wednesday released the photo of man wanted for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and then punching her in the face.

At 1:10 a.m. on Wednesday, officers responded to a call for unknown trouble in the area of Yonge and Elm Sts.

A 25-year-old woman was walking on the street when a man riding a bicycle allegedly sexually assaulted her, police said in a news release.

When she confronted the man, he punched her in the face and fled, police said.

The man is described as between 30- and 35-years-old, five-foot-six, with a medium build, shaved or bald head and a moustache. Police said he was wearing a black leather jacket over a nylon Toronto Blue Jays jacket, with black pants that were ripped in the front.

He was riding a red bicycle, police said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-5200.
WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trumps attorneys on Tuesday submitted his written answers to a series of questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller about Trumps knowledge of the Russian governments efforts to assist his 2016 White House bid.

The inquiries only include a portion of the questions that Mueller has sought to pose to Trump for nearly a year, when he first requested an interview with president. The topics cover activities during the campaign and do not delve into questions about whether Trump has sought to obstruct the probe into Russian interference.

One of Trumps attorneys said the answers will not provide any great surprises.

What I can tell you is theyre complete and detailed, said Rudy Giuliani. But theres nothing there I havent read in a newspaper.

The answers represent the first time Trump has given his own version of events to the special counsels team in the 11 months ago since Mueller first asked for a sit-down interview with the president.

Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Since then, he had indicted or won guilty pleas from four former Trump campaign advisers and charged 12 Russian military officers with hacking Democratic emails that were later released and damaging Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

The answers cover roughly a dozen questions in five topics about Trumps campaign and seek to learn Trumps knowledge about his various campaign advisers contacts with Russians. They include asking him about his son Donald Trump Jr.s meeting with a Russian lawyer to obtain dirt about Hillary Clinton. Trumps lawyers has so far refused to answer any questions about Trumps time as president-elect or as president, arguing Mueller is not legally entitled to demand the presidents answers about his decision-making as executive-in-chief.

Read more:

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Acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker will consult with ethics officials over recusal

Trump initially had expressed eagerness to sit down for an interview with Mueller in January of this year, saying he wanted to put to bed false claims that his campaign colluded with the Russian government so he could win the White House. But his lawyers were skeptical that Trump could avoid saying something false or mistaken during an interview, and feared Mueller could accuse him with perjury.

The president today answered written questions submitted by the special counsels office, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said in a statement. The questions presented dealt with issues regarding the Russia-related topics of the inquiry. The president responded in writing.

Giuliani said Trumps answers represent yet another part of the White Houses unprecedented co-operation with the Mueller probe.

It has been our position from the outset that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry. This remains our position today. The president has nonetheless provided unprecedented co-operation. The special counsel has been provided with more than 30 witnesses, 1.4 million pages of material, and now the presidents written responses to questions. It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion.

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A British student has been sentenced to life in prison in the United Arab Emirates on charges of spying for the U.K., a family spokesperson said on Wednesday.

University of Durham doctoral student Matthew Hedges had been charged with espionage and jeopardizing the Gulf states military, security and economy, according to earlier statements by the U.A.E.s attorney general. Hedges was arrested at Dubais airport on May 5 after spending two weeks in the U.A.E. studying the impact of the Arab Spring uprisings on the countrys foreign policy and security strategy, according to his wife Daniela Tejada.

The U.A.E. government hasnt yet commented on the verdict. But the court ruling in Abu Dhabi drew swift condemnation from the U.K., with Prime Minister Theresa May expressing her deep concern and disappointment and vowing to take the case to the highest levels.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the ruling runs contrary to earlier assurances. Hunt visited Abu Dhabi on Nov. 12 after the charges against the Hedges were revealed.

Todays verdict is not what we expect from a friend and trusted partner of the United Kingdom, he said.

Hedgess wife, who was present in court, called on the U.K. government to take a stand in support of her husband.

They say that the U.A.E. is an ally, but the overwhelmingly arbitrary handling of Matts case indicates a scarily different reality, for which Matt and I are being made to pay a devastatingly high price, she said in a statement.

Its not clear if Hedges has the right to an appeal, the family spokesperson told Bloomberg in a phone interview.

Hedges was sentenced without the presence his lawyer in a hearing that lasted five minutes, his family said. He had been forced to sign a confession document in Arabic, a language he doesnt read, and held in solitary confinement for five months, it has said.

The disclosures mark a rare case of going public with an espionage case between the U.K. and the U.A.E., which maintain cordial ties. The seven-state U.A.E. federation, which includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has taken a hard line on political Islam and domestic activism since 2011, when revolutions swept through the Middle East and North Africa and threatened the established order across the Arab world.
HOUSTONForced into exile in the U.S., Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh is without her homeland but not without hope.

Quynh and her family are beginning their lives anew in Houston after she was released last month from prison in Vietnam on the condition that she left the country. She had been serving a 10-year sentence for documenting various human rights abuses in Vietnam, including civilian deaths in police custody and environmental disasters.

Quynh says her eyesight was affected by months in solitary confinement, with her cell kept in darkness during the day and flooded with blinding light at night.

In Vietnam, I read in the newspaper that the people in the U.S. have freedom, but it belongs to the U.S. government. My government said that, Quynh recently said in an interview with The Associated Press. When I came here ... I found out the people here, the citizens in the U.S., they really have freedom.

What she has so far seen as she settles into her new life in Houston has given Quynh the belief that her homeland  criticized by groups such as Amnesty International for restricting freedom of speech, the press and religion  will one day be transformed and she will be able to return.

I believe if all the people raise their voice, fight for freedom, Vietnam will be changed, she said.

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Quynh said she will continue highlighting abuses in Vietnam as she and her 12-year-old daughter Nam, her six-year-old son Gau and her 62-year-old mother settle into their new lives.

Since arriving in the U.S., Quynh has travelled to Washington, D.C., to meet U.S. government and European Union officials as well as journalists. On Tuesday, she was one of five journalists who received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists at a ceremony in New York.

The 39-year-old blogger known by her pen name Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom, co-founded a network of bloggers and that is very popular in Vietnam.

Posts about the release of toxic chemicals by a Taiwanese-owned factory that killed thousands of fish in one of Vietnams worst environmental disasters were some of her best known.

But her reporting made her a target of the Vietnamese government.

More than four decades after communist North Vietnam prevailed in 1975 over the U.S. and South Vietnam in the long and bloody Vietnam War, the government promotes an image of an open, globalized economy. But it has maintained a firm grip over the country through strict controls of the media and other forms of communication.

In a country where the mainstream press is fully under the governments control, her independent reporting provided a crucial public service, said Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalists Southeast Asia representative.

In June 2017, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her Facebook posts that the government considered antistate propaganda, as part of a larger crackdown on bloggers and activists.

In October, Quynh was released in a freedom-for-exile deal. Crispin says the Vietnamese government increasingly uses such agreements to silence critics.

Quynh says she and her family are still dealing with the effects of her incarceration. Her daughter has become quiet and reserved. Her son is always nervous, believing that police in the U.S. will try to take his teddy bear as Vietnamese police did when they arrested his mother.

Quynh said she plans to highlight the harsh prison conditions activists and others still incarcerated in Vietnam face, including a lack of proper health care and for female prisoners, a lack of privacy where they essentially have to shower in view of male guards.

When I was in prison, the Vietnamese authorities always tried to convince me that ... I was totally forgotten. I will be rotting in here for life and nobody will care, Quynh said.

In Houston  which has the third-largest Vietnamese population in the U.S. behind Los Angeles and San Jose, California  she is staying with a member of her blogging network and is receiving support while her application for asylum is reviewed by the U.S. government.

If the (activists) who are behind bars right now, if they just know that (theyre not forgotten), that will help fuel their spirit, lift them up and give them more strength.

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Belarus has started to supply poultry meat to China, the Belarusian Agriculture and Food Ministry said on Tuesday.

According to Aleksei Bogdanov, head of the Central Office for Foreign Economic Activities of the ministry, Belarusian enterprises have already supplied 207 tons of poultry meat to China.

Meanwhile, China had certified five Belarusian factories to export poultry to China, Bogdanov said.

By the end of the year, Belarus plans to expand the range of products for export to include offal, legs and some other parts of poultry not included in the original list.

The official mentioned that earlier his country also started to supply beef to the Chinese market, with two enterprises already certified.

In the first nine months of this year, Belarus' export of meat and meat products to China amounted to 320 tons with a total value of over 1 million U.S. dollars, he said.
CROIX-DES-BOUQUETS, HAITIIn a proud but unfinished home on a dirt road where goats and children walk together, four generations of one family live under an earthquake-proof roof.

Jean Felix Petit-Frere, a 63-year-old grandfather, has paid for the houses every cinder block, walls that keep his wife of 37 years, two daughters, son-in-law, mother-in-law and granddaughter safe from the chaos and slums that surround them.

But Petit-Frere has never set foot in the house. He lives in North Carolina, working at the worlds largest turkey-processing plant, Butterballs facility in the small town of Mount Olive.

Petit-Frere is one of nearly 59,000 Haitians working under a temporary protected status program created for them after a 2010 earthquake triggered a humanitarian crisis. Like many of those immigrants, he sends a large portion of his wages home, a critical financial pipeline to an impoverished country where many children bathe in buckets and clean water is sold in bags.

He may not be able to send money home much longer.

U.S. President Donald Trump has moved to end the protections for Haitian immigrants, arguing that temporary rules cannot be allowed to remain in place indefinitely. Along with plans to take away similar protections for certain people from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan, Trumps moves would lead to the deportation of 200,000 workers who have more than 200,000 U.S.-born children.

Immigrants and advocacy groups are suing to block the deportations, and both they and the White House await a ruling in federal court.

The administration says the program has run its course, arguing that temporary rules for Haitians cannot be allowed to remain in place indefinitely.

The ruling has major implications for thousands of Haitian immigrants and their new-found communities, as the two groups have become economically intertwined. Extended families in Haiti rely on wages from relatives in the United States, and U.S. companies  including major American brands like Butterball  need their immigrant workforce.

Some of the Haitians work in big cities such as Miami, but others have transformed small towns like Mount Olive, which was breathed back to life after 1,500 Haitian immigrants moved to the area in the summer of 2010, lured by the prospect of work at Butterball.

Butterball turkeys are one of Thanksgivings most recognizable brands, and each year the Mount Olive facility processes 500 million pounds.

The arrival of workers such as Petit-Frere eight years ago reshaped the company and the town around it, filling vacant homes, creating new businesses and injecting money into local grocery stores and retailers that had seen incomes stagnate.

If these workers are sent home, local officials fear it could unwind much of the revival the area has seen in the past eight years.

If the Haitians and other immigrants suddenly went away, not just in Mount Olive but in eastern North Carolina, agriculture would suffer an amazingly hard blow, said Charles Brown, the town manager who helped many of them acclimate there. Theyve contributed to the economy. Theyve contributed to the labour market.

The consequences would fall even harder on the families left behind, including Petit-Freres wife, Rose Marie. Roughly 60 per cent of all Haitians live on less than $2.41 a day, according to the World Bank. Less than 1 in 4 Haitian families has access to a toilet.

In an interview on the front porch of their incomplete house here, 15 miles northwest of the Haitian capital, Rose Marie said she misses her husband madly but is worried that if he comes home he wont be able to find sustainable work in a country sliding further into disarray.

He sends almost everything he can spare back to his wife and four children, often more than $1,000 a month. He even overdraws his bank account to stretch the money further.

A new motorbike for his son Jean Caleb, who is one of the only people in this municipality to wear a helmet on the crowded roads. A refrigerator, pigs and goats for Rose Marie. And the new, three-bedroom house that has allowed much of his family to stay close.

Rose Marie appears pinched between the bountiful life he has created for her on his $13-per-hour wage and the prospect of being back by his side but impoverished, like so many of her neighbours.

Asked when she thinks she will see him again, she put her face in her hands. I dont know, she says. Only God knows.

Petit-Frere works a long late-day shift at Butterball, cleaning floors and equipment. Its usually 2 a.m. before he returns home. By the time he goes to bed, another Haitian immigrant is waking up a few miles away.

Elisena Joseph, also 63, trudges out each morning in thick coveralls and a winter hat. She makes more than $12 an hour cleaning turkey meat, eclipsing in 60 minutes what she earned in a week selling tomatoes and cabbage on the sidewalk in Port-au-Prince eight years ago.

And its safe, far from the near-death experience that brought her to North Carolina.

On Jan. 12, 2010, Joseph was walking back from praying on a hillside outside Port-au-Prince when the earth shook beneath her. The basket of vegetables she had balanced on her head toppled to the ground. When she collected her food and looked up, everything was covered in dust. People were screaming.

The single mother knew three of her children were home alone, and she rushed back to find them.

When she arrived, she saw her daughter, Marie Rosie, lying on the ground unresponsive with a massive gash in the back of her head. A wall had fallen on her and smashed her skull. Joseph managed to get her 26-year-old daughter to a public square, but it was full of the injured and the dead.

After two weeks of desperate pleas, Joseph and Marie Rosie were evacuated by the U.S. government to a hospital in Tampa. They never even had time to say goodbye to the rest of their family.

There was so much going on in my head, she recalled. She was dying. I was just crying. I couldnt think of anything.

Haitis 2010 earthquake was one of the worst natural disasters in the past 100 years, felling thousands of buildings in Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area.

Reports of the quakes death toll vary widely, as an exact count was impossible in the earthquakes chaotic aftermath. But estimates reach as high as 300,000, and in Port-au-Prince, so many people died that relief workers constructed a mass grave on the outskirts of town, dumping hundreds of truckloads of bodies into a massive pit to limit the stench and spread of disease.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was already considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The education system was uneven. Health conditions were very poor. Many people lacked clean running water and used communal pit latrines.

In an effort to help deal with the crisis, the Obama administration modified the existing TPS program, which aimed to allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States if conditions in their home countries were unsafe. The change allowed Haitians living in the United States to temporarily stay and legally work. Administration officials said it was unsafe for them to return home to a country on the brink of humanitarian and economic collapse.

Relief groups in Tampa helped Joseph apply while she waited for Marie Rosie to slowly recover.

Finding a job wasnt easy. She didnt speak English and couldnt read or write, having received little education. Some Haitian friends in Florida told her about Butterball, and in 2012 she took a van up north.

She soon had health insurance, a retirement account and money to help her five children and grandchildren.

She has used her Butterball income to help two of her sons move to Chile, another country where Haitians have found economic opportunity. Now, just one of her five children still lives in Haiti, her eldest daughter Cecile Cherisca, 48.

There are limits, though, to how far the money can stretch. Cherisca and her two children live in a small, one-room apartment in the middle of a densely populated section of Croix-des-Bouquets. Their apartment lacks running water.

Joseph has so many people depending on her that she sends money to Cherisca only occasionally, helping her pay rent and medical bills.

Cherisca tries to earn more by selling things like ketchup packs and onions from a small table outside her home, but it often yields just $1 a day. She said she can barely cover other bills, including her daughters middle school tuition. They share a pit latrine with neighbours.

She said she misses her mother but hopes she stays in the United States, predicting her mother would die given Haitis worsening condition and uncertain future.

This country is not going well, she said. Its like living in evil.

Two thousand miles away, Joseph sleeps in a room that is roughly the same size as her daughters apartment. Its in a rental house with a clean bathroom, electricity and a furnished kitchen.

Theres a single picture frame on her bureau, with the family members they left behind and havent seen in eight years.

Joseph sleeps on an inflatable mattress in a room she shares with Marie Rosie. Sometimes, at night, her daughter climbs down to join her.

On Jan. 11, one day before the earthquakes eight-year anniversary, Trump berated a group of lawmakers and senior advisers and said he wanted the special assistance for Haitians to end.

Why are we having all these people from s-hole countries come here? Trump asked, telling them he didnt want any special provisions made for Haitians as part of a broader immigration deal under consideration.

Seven days later, the Department of Homeland Security published a notice formally terminating TPS for Haitian immigrants. Those with existing permits could work until July 22, 2019, but then they would have to leave.

White House officials have said the program was meant to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake. It was not meant, they say, to remain ongoing while Haiti deals with its long-standing structural problems, which might never be resolved.

Yes, Haiti had horrible conditions before the earthquake, and those conditions arent much better after the earthquake, then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told a congressional panel last year. But the earthquake was why TPS was  was granted and  and thats how I have to look at it.

Because TPS was always meant to be temporary, it must frequently be renewed to prevent it from expiring. The Obama administration did this four times. The Trump administration has extended Haitis TPS program once, last year.

A number of federal agencies have warned the White House that terminating the program could further destabilize Haiti. Some have even warned it could lead to more undocumented immigrants seeking to enter the United States. Sending thousands of immigrants back to unstable countries could create more desperation, prompting others to try to flee.

The return of a large number of citizens may place additional security stress upon the Haitian government, which is contending with rising crime and violence, U.S. Southern Command, a division of the U.S. military, wrote in a memo to other agencies last year.

Less than two months after the White House formally announced it was ending TPS for Haitians, a group of immigrants filed a lawsuit. It alleged the Trump administrations effort was motivated by intentional race- and national-origin-based animus.

On Oct. 3, a federal judge ruled against the Trump administration, finding that the plaintiffs in the case have established without dispute that local and national economies will be hurt if hundreds of thousands of TPS beneficiaries are uprooted and removed, as the case would affect people from Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan. The order temporarily blocked any deportation orders until a final decision is reached.

Even with the court ruling, the White House has not given any indication that it will soften its TPS approach. Trump has expressed frustration that his aides arent moving more quickly to deport people who he has said shouldnt be in the United States. He has alleged the United States has been too accommodative to immigrants for years and that he wants to let in well-educated foreign workers, not people from poor countries like Haiti. He instead expressed a desire to see more immigrants from places like Norway.

Mount Olive is a small town in eastern North Carolina, with its economy closely intertwined with agriculture and food production. The motto on its municipal building reads We value hometown tradition.

The towns population was dwindling in 2010, but that all changed a few months after the earthquake in Haiti. Petit-Frere was in the group arriving in Mount Olive that summer, promised there was good pay at a company that processes kodenn, the Haitian Creole word for turkey.

Karen Ingram, senior manager of human resources at Butterballs Mount Olive facility, said Haitians were drawn to the company through word of mouth, not active recruiting. She said they provided translators and other services to try to help.

But the sudden influx took some members of the town by surprise.

We had people all over town we hadnt seen before speaking a language none of us had ever heard, said Brown, the Mount Olive town manager. Women walked back from the grocery store with bags on their heads. Newcomers crowded into houses because they didnt know where else to go.

Brown knew the immigrants were there to work at the Butterball plant, which was the largest turkey processing facility in the world and always faced high turnover.

The town is famous for being the hometown of the pickle company that shares its name, but Butterball has the labour-intensive plant that needs the most workers. And these jobs can be very difficult. One recent listing says certain workers must be able to lift up to 57 pounds and be able to work with animal organs and animal feces.

Its tough, dirty work, and not everyone can do it, Brown said.

Christa Leupen, a Butterball spokeswoman, said finding enough workers for the facility has long been a challenge. Even with the Haitian immigrants at the facility now, the company is seeking to hire 100 new people each week, in part to deal with turnover and demand.

Asked about the Haitian workers, she said, These folks have been working here for a long time and have been part of the family of the operation.

If they were all deported, especially at once, thats a significant blow.

Mount Olive had 4,700 people before the earthquake, Brown said, and its population grew by 30 per cent when Haitians arrived that summer. He said it helped kick the local economy back to life.

Weve got a Walmart, and they are buying big-screen televisions, Brown said. They are buying cars. They are buying groceries.

He said they would go together to the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Longtime residents would see Haitians spending money in their town every day.

But few of the new workers spoke English or knew U.S. customs and laws. Brown needed to find a way to help them adapt.

That winter, the town received a complaint that there were 25 Haitians living in a single small home. Faced with the decision on whether to evict them, Brown told his aides to let them stay, fearing that putting them out in freezing temperatures could put lives at risk. But he knew changes were necessary.

A few months later, Brown called a meeting with Butterballs chief executive and several Mount Olive landlords, explaining that they would all benefit if more was done to help the new residents assimilate.

Brown told the landlords that if they would take steps to fix up older, vacant homes, they would find dozens of eager tenants with good-paying jobs looking for a safe place to live.

This ultimately led to the opening of two Haitian groceries. One of them, Gods Grace Convenience Store, is run by an immigrant couple, selling Haitian patties, baked goods, and a range of vegetables and sodas that are popular in Port-au-Prince.

Nowhere is the Haitian impact more on display than in the six churches they created in Mount Olive. These are loud, pulsating celebrations in old, packed buildings. At several of the assemblies, the guitars and drums are played so loud that the floor vibrates. Lyrics are sung in two languages: at times in English, but the congregations really come to life when they sing in Haitian Creole.

On a recent Sunday, Elisena Joseph sat by the window in the back of the Full Gospel Assembly of North Carolina, belting out a hymn with her eyes shut.

After church, a small kitten with no collar was asleep on a dirty rug behind Jean Felix Petit-Freres home. Petit-Frere claimed no connection but later admitted he buys the cat food every so often because, as he is, it appears to be all alone. The kitten buried its head in his chest when he picked it up. He calls it Mimi.

Petit-Frere rents a room in the small house on Mount Olives gritty southern edge. He said hes settled, but there are no decorations, and his belongings are packed in a way that would make it easy to move out quickly. His room had the odour of wet laundry that wont dry. His green Butterball shirt sat at the top of his pile of clothes.

Even though he has lived in Mount Olive eight years, he wants to eventually return to Croix-des-Bouquets and be with his family in the home he has paid to construct. The house in Haiti isnt complete yet. He still needs to pay for a toilet and sink, and the building needs tiles and windows. As much as he misses Rose Marie, he knows its too soon to return.

I feel my heart broken, he said. The Bible says you are supposed to stay close to your wife.

Back in Haiti, Rose Marie sleeps down the hall from her daughters, in a bed with an elaborate, polished headboard Jean Felix carved for her before he left.

She remembers the last time they were together, three years ago, when he came home for their son Obeds wedding.

She wore perfume and a green and white dress. He looked handsome in his suit and stayed for a week. The family was together again. When it was time to leave, she cried, uncertain when they would see each other again.

He knew that if he left the United States one more time, he might be barred from ever returning, costing him his job at Butterball and the income it provided. And conditions in Haiti were not improving.

Life can be very strange, he told her as they embraced. Life can make people be apart.

She tried to reassure him.

Even if we are apart, there is no separation between us, she said.

Above the doorway in their incomplete home, Jean Felixs family carved a reference to one of their favourite biblical passages.

Do not fear, reads the section from the second book of Kings, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday publicly thanked Saudi Arabia for plunging oil prices amid criticism over his decision not to further punish the kingdom for the killing of U.S.-based columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump, who made clear in an exclamation-filled statement Tuesday that he feels that the benefits of good relations with the kingdom outweigh the possibility its crown prince ordered the killing, tweeted that its Great! that oil prices are falling.

Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but lets go lower! he wrote from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where hes spending the Thanksgiving holiday.

The international crude benchmark, Brent, has fallen under $65 per barrel from a four-year high of over $86 in early October as the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia have all stepped up output.

The president on Tuesday condemned the brutal slaying of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a horrible crime ... that our country does not condone. But he rejected calls by many in Congress, including members of his own party, for a tougher response, and he dismissed reports from U.S. intelligence agencies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman must have at least known about such an audacious and intricate plot.

It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event, the president said. Maybe he did and maybe he didnt!

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In many ways, the statement captured Trumps view of the world and foreign policy, grounded in economic necessity. It began with the words America First! followed by The world is a very dangerous place!

It came after weeks of debate over whether the president would or should come down hard on the Saudis and the crown prince in response to the killing of the Saudi columnist for The Washington Post who had criticized the royal family.

The U.S. earlier sanctioned 17 Saudi officials suspected of being responsible for or complicit in the Oct. 2 killing, but members of Congress have called for harsher actions, including cancelling arms sales.

Trump said foolishly cancelling these contracts worth billions of dollars would only benefit Russia and China, which would be next in line to supply the weapons. Critics, including high-ranking officials in other countries, denounced Trumps statement, saying he ignored human rights and granted Saudi Arabia a pass for economic reasons.

Asked by a reporter if he was saying that human rights are too expensive to fight for, Trump responded, No, Im not saying that at all. But then he switched the subject to the terrorist nation of Iran rather than any actions by Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. needs a counterbalance to Iran, and Israel needs help, too, he said. If we abandon Saudi Arabia, it would be a terrible mistake.

The mistake was Trumps, said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, contending the administration has blinders on in comparing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Its a sign of weakness not to stand up to Saudi Arabia, Paul said. Sometimes when you have two evils, maybe you dont support either side.

Republican Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who is close to Trump, also disagreed with the presidents statement, saying America must not lose its moral voice on the international stage.

It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, Graham said.

Likewise, Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said to suggest that U.S. silence can be bought with arms sales undermines respect for the office of the presidency, the credibility of our intelligence community and Americas standing as a champion of human rights.

Republican senator Bob Corker, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have written to the president demanding that his administration make a determination about whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the killing Jamal Khashoggi.

Corker and Democratic senator Bob Menendez wrote the letter to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, asking for an investigation under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The Washington Post is denouncing Trumps decision to refrain from further punishing Saudi Arabia for the death of Khashoggi, who wrote columns for the newspaper critical of the royal family.

In a statement published on Twitter, Post Publisher Fred Ryan accused Trump of putting personal relationships and commercial interests above American values of respect for human rights to continue to do business as usual with the Saudi crown prince.

Trumps statement, issued just before he pardoned the Thanksgiving turkey at the White House and left for the long holiday weekend in Florida, underscored his world view of putting U.S. interests  both financial and geopolitical  above all else.

He told reporters on the South Lawn that oil prices would skyrocket if the U.S. broke with the Saudis, and he was not going to destroy the worlds economy by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.

Asked about any personal financial involvement, he said: Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with me. What does have to do with me is putting America first.

Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, mocked Trumps announcement, tweeting that Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of.

Zarif went on to joke that perhaps were also responsible for the California fires, because we didnt help rake the forests  just like the Finns do? He appeared to be referring to recent remarks in which Trump suggested raking the forest floor prevented fires in Finland and would have helped to prevent Californias devastating wildfires.

Turkeys foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, called Khashoggis killing a humanitarian issue and said it should not be covered up for the sake of maintaining trade ties with Saudi Arabia.

It concerns a murder, Cavusoglu said. It is not possible to say, Our trade will increase. Lets cover this up. Lets ignore it. 

Trump said King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed both vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the killing. He also said the CIA has not made a conclusive determination about whether the crown prince ordered it.

A U.S. official familiar with the case told The Associated Press last week that intelligence officials had concluded that the crown prince, the kingdoms de facto leader, did order the killing. Others familiar with the case, however, have cautioned that while its likely the crown prince had a role, there continue to be questions about the degree.

We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi, Trump said. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran.

Saudi prosecutors say a 15-man team sent to Istanbul exceeded its authority when the lead negotiator in the team decided to kill Khashoggi for refusing orders to return. The Saudis say the agents dismembered his body, which has not been found.

Democrats on Capitol Hill called on the CIA and other top intelligence agencies to publicly report what it has learned about the killing.

The CIA had no comment on the presidents statement. However, former Director John Brennan, a frequent Trump critic, tweeted: Since Mr. Trump excels in dishonesty, it is now up to members of Congress to obtain & declassify the CIA findings on Jamal Khashoggis death. No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince  should escape accountability for such a heinous act.

Trump said he knew some members of Congress would disagree with his decision. He said he would listen to their ideas, but only if they were focused on U.S. national security.

Late last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that calls for suspending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, for sanctions on people who block humanitarian access in Yemen or support the Houthi rebels, and mandatory sanctions on those responsible for Khashoggis death.

Democrats harshly criticized Trumps decision Tuesday and called on Congress to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia and end support for Saudi Arabias war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen, which is facing a humanitarian crisis.

Standing with Saudi Arabia is not America First!  said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, where Khashoggi lived. President Trump has sided with a murderous regime over patriotic American intelligence officials.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Khashoggi was killed by agents of the Saudi government in a premeditated murder, plain and simple, and she said she would introduce legislation requiring intelligence agencies to release an unclassified public assessment.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Trumps decision, saying, We are determined to ensure that we continue to make sure that we take care of the American people in all of the strategic decisions we make about with whom we work with around the world.

The president opened his eight-paragraph statement chastising Iran for its proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, its activities in Iraq, its backing of the Syrian government of Bashar Assad and its support of militant groups, which Riyadh has pledged billions to fight.

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Its time to use your benefits or lose them, Scorgie, Nov. 11

I was slightly alarmed reading Lesley-Anne Scorgies article regarding employer-sponsored benefit programs. Often times, employees are asked to contribute to the cost of the employer-sponsored benefit plan, but this amount 99.9 per cent of the time is not more than 50 per cent of the premium. When group plans are abused, their monthly rates increase causing a higher amount for the employer and the employee to pay. If that monthly increase is too much, the employer may decide to cancel the plan altogether, leaving employees without any coverage. Its important to use benefit plans when they are needed and not just because. This article is sending the wrong message and will hurt a lot of small employers, some of which can barely afford their group benefit plans.

Melanie Elliott, Regional Director of Benefits by Design, York Region

Although this article says Scorgie pays for her own benefits, most readers are likely covered by employer-paid plans. Many of those share the cost with their employers and would identify with the article and the use it or lose it proposition it espouses. If employees squeeze the most from their group insurance plans, the cost to employers will skyrocket and they wont be around tomorrow. The idea of plans is to cover medically necessary services, not everything to the limit, and this article might start people down that road. Well-designed and run benefit plans are a great perk, but common sense and reasonable use will make sure they are around long term.
Unlike at any other time in its history, St. Michaels College School is at the centre of a firestorm of controversy.

For more than a week now the all-boys private school in midtown Toronto has to deal with allegations of violent sexual assaults, cases of bullying, the laying of criminal charges against six students, the revelation of disturbing videos and calls by parents and former students for the resignations of the schools principal and president.

In response, St. Mikes leaders say they are now co-operating fully with police, have announced an independent third-party investigation into the schools culture and have cancelled midterm exams and extracurricular activities.

Still, the scandal has severely  maybe irreparably  damaged the schools reputation.

Ive watched as an outsider as events unfolded at St. Mikes. Thats because I have no connection at all with the school nor do any of my relatives. In fact Ive never set foot on the schools grounds.

But my interest rose sharply when a friend contacted me a week into the scandal to say his son is a student at St. Mikes, which I didnt know. He said he and his son have a different perspective of the embattled school than the one that is now widely held.

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Please understand that I am in no way suggesting the acts that have come to light are anything less than horrific or wrong on every level and deserve punishment, he said in an email.

I am also not suggesting there shouldnt be a root-cause analysis performed to make things safer and better for all permanently. That must happen and no stone should be left unturned, he added.

But the story being told about the school represents an unfair and unbalanced view in my opinion and I dont know how best to get the story out or if anyone cares to hear about the good side of St. Mikes.

My son has expressed his confusion and wonders how, in his words, people can be saying things that are not true about the St. Mikes that he goes to.

The St. Mikes that I know is the school that, unannounced to me, took my sons entire class to attend my wifes funeral mass in support of my son. It was a poignant illustration of the fundamental value of goodness that the school teaches in theory, and in practice, and it was clear to all in the church.

It is the school  administration, teachers and fellow students  that comforted him with kindness, understanding and love during the period when my wife was critically ill and through the years after her death.

It has been my sons refuge away from his home. To see it trashed publicly and have his own safety threatened through no fault of his own is heartbreaking and just plain wrong.

The difference between St. Mikes caring environment and the awful, bullying, disinterested reality that his sister experienced at her public school when her mom died sits in stark contrast to what is being suggested by the media.

In fact its the opposite of what is being portrayed. It infuriates me.

Tarring the other almost 1,100 boys  not men  who attend the school and the many devoted teachers with one brush is also wrong. They are the collateral damage from both the terrible incidents and the media coverage.

That they are being told not to wear their SMC uniforms or logoed clothing away from the school because it is unsafe for them is beyond comprehension. The fact that there have been threats causing SWAT team visits and bomb evacuations at the school is insane.

Why are these innocent kids a target and who has made them that? he asked.

My friend said he didnt want his name made public because he fears for his sons safety. I agreed to his request.

I am just a dad, he said, wanting the world to know that his son and the vast majority of his schoolmates are wonderful caring boys and not the bullying, toxic male monsters that is being suggested.
OTTAWAThe federal government is giving a tax break to digital news subscribers, a refundable tax credit to news outlets and will allow non-profit media organizations to give charitable receipts to donors, all to help journalism in Canada.

The measures  which critics said would erode journalistic independence  were outlined in Wednesdays economic update and will cost a total of $595 million over five years.

Weve made some investments to ensure that we continue to have an important free press to ensure that we have a strong and healthy democracy, Finance Minister Bill Morneau told reporters.

Under Wednesdays measures, the government will introduce:

A temporary, non-refundable tax credit that will allow subscribers to claim 15 per cent of the cost of subscriptions of eligible digital news media. This is meant to help support digital news organizations in achieving a more financially sustainable business model.

A new category of qualified donee for non-profit journalism organizations that will, in essence, give them charitable status to issue receipts for donations from both individuals and corporations. And it will open the door for foundations to provide financial support. This measure builds on a pledge in the 2018 budget to explore new models to enable private giving and philanthropic support for journalism.

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A refundable tax credit for qualifying news organizations that produce a wide variety of news and information of interest to Canadians. The tax credit will apply to the labour costs associated with producing original content and will be open to both non-profit and for-profit news organizations. The measure will allow outlets to claim a portion of their labour costs. An independent panel drawn from the news industry will be established to define eligibility of the measure, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2019.

The finance department said that it is expected to provide more details on the measures in the next budget.

The action is a response to calls from the news industry for assistance in the face of dramatic declines in ad revenue that have forced layoffs and the closure of more than 200 news outlets. News outlets have sought government aid to help with the transition to new digital business models.

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John Honderich, chair of Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, praised the actions outlined in the economic update.

I am very encouraged by these positive steps. They should significantly help the media sector as it transforms to a sustainable digital future, Honderich said in a statement.

John Hinds, president and CEO of News Media Canada, which represents 800 daily, weekly and community newspapers, called the measures substantive.

They listened to us in terms of the types of investments, they focussed it on journalism, he said in an interview after the update had been released.

Theres lots of details to be worked out and we will continue to do that. The biggest issue was recognizing the challenge, Hinds said.

He praised the government for not picking out business models and instead offered measures that could benefit both non-profit and for-profit models.

Hinds said that the measures are not a silver bullet to the financial challenges facing the industry. I think all of these things are important tools, he said.

However, even before Wednesdays announcement, the federal Conservatives were critical of any move on this front, charging that government aid would taint journalistic independence.

(Justin) Trudeau has just nationalized new journalism, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel said on Twitter. Any journo that takes this money will no longer be independent. Thus dies journalism.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre told reporters that taxpayers money should not be used to support media organizations, especially in an election year.

We think that media should be independent from the government, we should not have a situation where the government picks a panel that then decides who gets to report the news, he said on Parliament Hill.

The media should be free and independent from the government, Poilievre said.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau rolled out his fall fiscal update on Wednesday, framing it as the federal governments response to dealing with the competitiveness challenges posed by aggressive moves south of the border. (The Canadian Press)

Asked about such criticism, Morneau said it was very important to have robust journalism that offered a diversity of perspectives but he also noted the need for independence.

Wednesdays update also provided more detail about the $50 million over five years that was promised in the February budget to support local journalism. It said the money would support independent, not-for-profit organizations to create news content that would be available to local news outlets, starting in 2019-20.

The federal government did not act on industry calls to level the playing field for foreign tech giants such as Google and Facebook, which compete for ad dollars. For example, companies can only deduct the cost of advertising only if ads are placed in Canadian publications. But that restriction doesnt apply to the internet.
VANCOUVERRacking up more debt or forgoing medication is a tough decision hundreds of thousands of Canadians are forced to make every year  and young people are especially vulnerable, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia.

Researchers found people who are 19 to 34 years old are 3.5 times more likely than middle-aged people to borrow money in order to pay for prescription drugs.

In total, about 731,000 people in Canada  2.5 per cent of the population 12 years old and up  borrow money in order to afford medication prescribed by a doctor, said Ashra Kolhatkar, research co-ordinator at UBCs Centre for Health Service and Policy Research.

Taking on debt is just one example of the sacrifices some people are forced to make in order to afford prescription drugs, she said in an interview.

People also make trade-offs like spending less on food or heat or transportation. Its one part of a larger system of coping mechanisms that people are engaging in, said Kolhatkar.

None of these things are what we want to see people doing.

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Kolhatkars team analyzed 27,519 responses to a Statistics Canada Canadian Community Health Survey in 2016 for the study.

The report also revealed that over 60 per cent of people who borrow money for medication do so in order to pay for prescriptions that cost $500 or less.

Weve seen a lot of focus on high-cost drugs  but our data shows the majority of people who are having trouble paying for medication are paying for relatively cheap medication, said Kolhatkar.

This is a problem that affects people pretty much regardless of how much their drugs cost.

The data suggests policy-makers shouldnt focus on drug-specific policies but instead help groups of people who are more vulnerable, she said. UBCs ongoing research shows young people, people with lower incomes and those with chronic health conditions are more likely to have trouble accessing prescription medication.

In a study released earlier this year, UBC researchers found 1.7 million Canadians who received a prescription did not fill it or skipped doses because of the cost. That study used data from the same 2016 Statistics Canada survey.

There is substantial evidence that shows people cost the health-care system more when they dont take medication as prescribed by doctors, said Kolhatkar.

And yet the new Ontario government announced this summer it plans to cancel OHIP+ for young people and children who have private coverage. The program covers more than 4,400 prescription drugs for residents under 25 years old.

The program is still in effect until the changes are implemented, according to the Ontario governments website, but there is no date specified.

The latest UBC study is just more evidence that Canada needs a comprehensive prescription-drug plan at the federal level, said Alan Cassels, an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria.

There are lots of people, including colleagues at UBC, who have been calling for a national pharmacare program to catch these people who slip between the cracks, Cassels said.

But B.C. is not waiting for the federal government to implement a national pharmacare program; starting on Jan. 1, families in the province that make less than $30,000 a year will no longer have to pay a deductible in the Fair Pharmacare program.

Ive been wanting to do this for a very long time, said B.C.s minister of health, Adrian Dix, in an interview.

The Fair Pharmacare program previously required people with household incomes of $15,000 and $30,000 to pay a $300 or $900 deductible, respectively.

The evidence we saw indicated that (deductibles) were unaffordable for people and leading them to not take the prescription drugs they needed, said Dix. So, were acting.

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You are here: China

China on Tuesday unveiled a plan to enhance its land greening efforts and boost domestic ecological resources.





Under the plan, released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the country will increase its forest coverage ratio to 23.04 percent by 2020, while the volume of forest resources will expand to 16.5 billion cubic meters.





The country aims to raise its vegetation coverage ratio of grassland to 56 percent by 2020, and rehabilitate 10 million hectares of desertified land during the period.





According to the plan, the country will push forward ecological restoration projects, encourage public participation in the greening campaign and increase the protection of natural forests and grasslands.





This comes amid the country's ongoing drive for environmentally-friendly development, as the government banned grazing on degraded grasslands, increased financial input, and stepped up law enforcement in the sector.





The country's desertified land has shrunk by 150 million mu (10 million hectares) since 2012, while up to 508 million mu of forests have been planted, bringing the national forest coverage to 21.66 percent.
ALTON  As families begin shopping for the holiday season, state Rep. Monica Bristow, D-Godfrey, is encouraging area residents to support the Riverbend regions local economy by shopping locally on Small Business Saturday, Nov. 24.

During my time as President of the Riverbend Growth Association, I saw firsthand the meaningful influence that small businesses have in our community, Bristow said. Small businesses benefit our local economy and provide employment for our friends and neighbors.
EDWARDSVILLE  The City of Edwardsville Parks & Recreation Department would once again like to invite all children in kindergarten through sixth grade to participate in a Holiday Art Contest, sponsored by First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust.

Participants can color, paint, or draw a picture no larger than 12x14 inches from one of the following themes: Holiday in Downtown Edwardsville; Holiday at Leclaire Park; Holiday at City Park; or, My Family Holiday.
Shenzhen has moved a step forward in regulating the booming industry for unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, as the southern city in Guangdong province launched a trial traffic management program on Monday.

The trial program aims to regulate flight activities of civilian UAVs, guide users in flying drones legally and ensure public safety.

As part of the program, the city introduced provisional flight management measures for UAVs. The document provides a guideline under which UAV enterprises and users may operate drones.

The government has simplified its approval process for operations involving combat readiness, anti-terrorism, rescue and relief.

For example, advance notice for emergency flights has been lowered to 30 minutes from the previous one hour.

The trial program also includes a new online platform for UAV management that offers services including quick approvals of flight applications, real-time flight paths, quick verification of aircraft identity and information broadcasting.

"Linking the management systems of the Air Force, the Civil Aviation Administration and the municipal government, the platform represents innovative cooperation between the military and civilian sectors," said Ge Xiaoming, director of the trial program's office.

The UAV industry has seen robust development in China over the past few years, with drones being applied in a wide variety of fields, including rescue operations, surveying and mapping, agriculture and traffic control. Drones for recreational use are also on the rise.

According to a report by Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the Chinese market for civilian UAVs is expected to reach 46.5 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) by 2020 and grow further to 75 billion yuan by 2025.

Xiang Zitao, deputy general manager of Shenzhen-based drone maker MicroMultiCopter Aero Technology Co, said the introduction of the traffic management program will create a better environment for further growth of UAVs and benefit the whole industry.

"The official guideline sets a framework for us to operate our business. We now have a clear understanding of what is legal and what is illegal. This is also a guarantee for UAV enterprises," he said.

"Moreover, with the online platform, flight procedures will become more regulated and efficient, promoting the industry's development."

UAV regulation has been a hot topic after several illegal drone flights, especially near airports, created widespread public safety concerns.

In April last year, several drones were flown illegally over Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan province, leading to the cancellation or delay of dozens of flights.
Despite getting state and federal approval, builders of a 65-mile natural gas pipeline through Scott, Greene and Jersey counties say something else is standing in their way.

Roads.

Specifically, Greene County roads and what the builders of Spire STL Pipeline maintain is unreasonable interference with their plans.

Attorneys for the Missouri-based Spire STL Pipeline now are asking a federal court to intervene and force officials from Greene County, Kane, Carrollton, Roodhouse and White Hall townships and county engineer David Marth to let them continue work.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield contends the company is being forced the pay arbitrary and discriminatory fees as well as meeting other requirements not placed on other similar companies.

The project involves placing a 24-inch diameter pipe from St. Louis County in Missouri to Scott County in Illinois, where it connects with the existing Rockies Express Pipeline. About 59 miles of the route lies in Illinois Scott, Greene and Jersey counties.

Spire officials said they first met with Marth in October 2016 to discuss the project and met again with him in January 2017 to detail roads that would be affected by the pipeline work.

But after Spire STL presented the county with drawings for anticipated road and driveway crossings in September 2017, the county said Spire would have to have a road use agreement before construction could begin, according to the lawsuit.

A month later, the county told Spire STL it would not discuss permits unless Spire STL agreed to pay all past and future attorneys fees incurred by the county, the court action said.

Spire STL initially declined, but in February of this year agreed and paid invoices for past legal fees in May.

Although the company had continued to repeatedly request a copy of the road use agreement, a draft was not provided until August.

Meanwhile, Spire STL became aware of another construction project in Greene County, where Ameren Illinois  would be constructing or placing structures along the right-of-way, crossing [the countys] roads and traversing  roads with oversized or overweight vehicles but the county did not require Ameren sign a road use agreement.

[I]nstead, the [county] entered into a much less restrictive and less costly agreement with Ameren, according to the complaint.

Spire STL sent suggested revisions to the county, seeking the same terms as the county had with Ameren. Those changes were denied. Some of the changes were left out and the agreement was resubmitted in October, but Marth said no without reviewing the information.

Marth has stated on at least two separate occasions that [the county] would send the sheriff out to stop Spire STL vehicles from using [the countys] roads and will obtain a state court injunction prohibiting construction of the pipeline unless Spire STL signs the road use agreement.

The Spire STL lawsuit, which presents only one side of a case, contends the rules are being made arbitrarily because there are no ordinances, rules, or event guidelines for such projects.

Marth arbitrarily decides what information must be included in the application, the amount of the fees and the terms of the project, the lawsuit said.

It asks the court to allow construction on the $210 million to $225 million project, maintaining intentional delays and obstruction will delay the siting, construction and operation of the Spire STL Pipeline and cause Spire STL to suffer harm, according to court documents.

Marth, the county and the townships have yet to answer the allegations. They have requested an extension until Dec. 10 to respond to the lawsuit.

David C.L. Bauer can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1222, or on Twitter @EditorDCLBauer.
The Chief Financial Officer will work closelywith the CEO and the senior management team in developing the Microfinancesstrategic plan. The CFO will act as the primary liaison to the board ofdirectors finance committee, working closely with the committee to strengthenthe Microfinance financial position and other items as required. S/he willcontinually evaluate best industry practices in comparison to internal systemsand needed resources, with an eye toward both future needs and budget realities
Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar Wednesday appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Punjab Police, which is probing the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 here where security has been stepped up. Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.

The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on November 21 at the Amritsar circuit house. However, police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT at Chandigarh.

The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had given a reference of a letter written (October 9, 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie MSG.

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie MSG was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Kumar has denied arranging any meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head.

The actor has also denied having ever met the Sirsa headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case.

Kumar had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former Chief Minister Parkash 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, Kumar had said in tweet.
Touched by the compassion of the nurses who tended to her...
In an attempt to resolve the political grid lock in Sri Lanka, the legislators and parliamentarians from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on Tuesday called on Colombo-based diplomats of various embassies in the island nation. The meeting among several diplomats and 14 MPs from the TNA lasted for an hour, where the legislators briefed the diplomats on the current political developments.

Such a political crisis without a government or a prime minister could embolden the anti-social elements in the country to take law into their own hands. It impairs the efforts for a political solution through a constitutional reform, said Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, leader of the opposition, after the meeting with the diplomats.

The meeting, called by a few MPs, drew a huge response with Colombo-based diplomats of the US, the UK, the European Union, Australia and India taking part in it. It is like on to a road of Greece (-like) situation. We explained this to the diplomats, Sampanthan explained. The TNA is believed to have briefed the diplomats on various reports that were scheduled to be tabled in the parliament. The latest report on constitutional reform was scheduled to be tabled on November 7. But it did not see the light of the day as President Maithiripala Sirisena pulled the plug on October 26, by replacing the prime minister of the country. The governments assurance on returning the remaining military-occupied land belonging to civilians in war-affected areas, the release of political prisoners, ongoing work of the office on missing persons and efforts to set up the office for reparations have still not been fulfilled, added Sampanthan.

In the meantime, the new cabinet is all set to meet at the President secretariat, headed by the purported Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, at a time, when the TNA and other parties have moved a motion in the parliament to cut off budgetary allocations to the Prime Minister Secretariat. This is just a token. The motion will be taken up for voting on November 29, said M.A. Sumanthiran. While the political parties are trying hard to resolve the coup, Sirisena, sources said, is not likely to yield to any pressure.

Read: Twist in the isle

On the other hand, in what could be called a massive blow to the Sri Lankan economy, Moodys on Tuesday had downgraded Sri Lankas credit rating to B2 Stable, despite pleas from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. This is the result of the political crisis. This is the first biggest downfall to the economy, said Dr Harsha DeSilva, a UNP MP.

Transfer and withdrawal

While the political crisis has entered into the third week with no likely solution in the immediate future, the transfer of a CID official created a flutter in Sri Lanka. Later the police department withdrew the transfer as it turned into a controversy. Sirisena, on Monday had transferred Chief Inspector Nishantha Silva from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Silva was investigating several high-profile cases, including ones that allegedly involve Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family members and the military, was transferred on Monday, only to be taken back to work from the same position on Tuesday.

The officer, according to sources, had made headway in the cases and was close to making key arrests in some of them. He was also investigating the killing of senior journalist Lasantha Wickremetunghe. He was also handling the abduction case of dissident cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, and the abduction and murder of 11 young men allegedly by a naval officer. The cases were registered between 2008 and 2010, during Rajapaksa's regime. These are looked at as the important cases that will pin down the Rajapaksas.

However, as the transfer created a huge dissident among political observers and like-minded people in the country, Silvas transfer order was soon revoked.
RBI-Finance Ministry ties have hit a low, says Manmohan Singh

Indore, Nov 21 (PTI) Former prime minister Manmohan

Singh Wednesday targeted the rift between the Reserve Bank of

India (RBI) and the Modi government, adding the relationship

between the central bank and the Finance Ministry has hit a

low.

Addressing a press conference ahead of the November 28

Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, the former Union finance

minister underlined the need for coordination" between the two

organisations.

"The relationship between the RBI and Finance Ministry

has hit a low," he said. Harmony and coordination between both

was essential for the country, he added.

"The RBI governor and finance minister have a delicate

relationship. Both have to work together. Although the job of

running the country rests with the government, (a) specific

responsibility is given to the RBI governor by the RBI Act.

There is a need to recognise inter dependence of the two

entities and work in harmony," he said.

"I am happy with the efforts being made to bring

reconciliation. Both need to work in harmony with each other,"

he said.

On his comments that Modi as prime minister would be a

"disaster" for India, Singh said he did not want to comment on

his earlier remarks.

"I used harsh words which I should not have. Now

people will make the decision," he said.

Singh accused Modi of misusing the Prime Minister's

post. "It does not befit the PM to abuse political opponents,"

he said, adding Modi was using "unparliamentary words" against

the opposition.

He also denied Modi's claim that the UPA government

led by him was a "remote-controlled" one. "The success of my

government was because the party and government were on one

page. There was no difference of opinion," he said. PTI HWP

LAL MAS MR VT

VT VT
In a conversation with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire argued that only consolidation and centralization of technological power, economic, financial, monetary, cultural power would be decisive in achieving a united Europe.



He declared: "Europe can no longer afford to shrink from exercising its power and being an empire of peace." This comes after French President Emmanuel Macron argued for a European army, saying the continent needed to stop relying on United States, and turn into a hegemon to achieve its full potential.

The idea was echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who commented that "A common European army would show the world that there will never be war between the European nations."

Finally, it was lauded by a former prime minister of Belgium, and current leader of the liberal block in the EU parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, in a Twitter message that, "I am very pleased that both Merkel and Macron are now fully behind a European army. We fought for this for many years. In the world of tomorrow, we have to take our destiny into our own hands!"

For a long time, this has been something that a few commentators, myself included, have written about, only to have it dismissed as Eurosceptic talk by liberal commentators. In fact, Europe is gradually turning into an elite modern empire, and one needs to understand what could be the significance of that.

First of all, in the history of every political union, there comes a time, when it faces a challenge from within, dissenting voices wanting to pry the union open and centrifugal forces wishing to break free. Europe now faces that choice.

The rational choice is to crush the dissent, and force uniformity, or federalize, in the belief that Europe, is too big to be united in this way, and the countries in Europe are too diverse, and divided due to culture and history. That leads to a difference of interests.

Secondly, the idea of a liberal order is paradoxical, as liberalism is totally opposed to the very idea of any ordering. To order and enforce something, one needs to be illiberal, and that goes against the very definition of rule-based order. What happens when someone doesn't follow the rules?

Unfortunately, no country in Europe has the hard power to bring down that hammer, if there ever were a situation of open rebellion against Brussels-based rules. The German Air Force has four operational Typhoons, the French army cannot reach the Baltic states in less than two months and Britain is going out of EU, anyway.

The reason European hard power has atrophied is because America is there to provide the muscle if needed. And that is not going to go away. Even if U.S. tomorrow were to leave the continent, the EU would split, as eastern and central Europeans are skeptical of both Berlin and Moscow, and would rather stay under an American security umbrella than one created by Brussels.

Finally, NATO was institutionalized, to bring about peace in the continent. The American alliance is, therefore, by design, not a flaw. Any European army would duplicate NATO and would make the latter redundant.

That would mean America continuing to spend vast sums on Europe, without anything in return, as the European force, instead of spending on manpower and armaments, would spend the money on a further layer of bureaucracy.

The idea of Europe as an empire is dangerous. EU already has disproportionate trade powers, which it uses on arbitrary measures against any and every one, and often ties them up with the cords of values promotion.

To have that backed up by an military force (unlikely as yet), is an idea which should unnerve all great powers. However, some European leaders are now openly talking about it. Everyone should take them seriously.

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.
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) India and Nepal have decided to set up a hotline to ensure effective coordination between them to check smuggling, officials said Wednesday.

In a meeting, various matters of mutual cooperation were discussed with the chief of India's Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, D P Dash and Director General, Customs, Nepal, Toyam Raya, they said.

The two top officials had met in Kathmandu on Monday and Tuesday for the 19th annual Indo-Nepal Director General-level talks, the officials said.

Both sides discussed measures to increase cooperation along the borders to combat smuggling, improve border management and facilitate trade, they said.

They also agreed to establish a hotline between the two countries for effective coordination, the officials said. PTI AKV

KJ
Colombo, Nov 21 (PTI) Sri Lanka's current political crisis due to President Maithripala Sirsena's "irresponsible" action of sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has left the country on the brink of an "economic anarchy" never experienced before, the ousted finance minister said.

On October 26, Sirisena, in a controversial action, sacked Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, plunging the island nation into political chaos.

Wickremesinghe has demanded a floor test to prove his majority. Sirisena's party did not cooperate with parliamentary Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to hold the floor test.

Ousted finance minister Mangala Samaraweera said: "As a result of these actions, Sri Lanka is on the brink of an economic anarchy and chaos as never experienced before".

"The cavalier and irresponsible actions of the president starting on October 26th based on personal animosities and precipitating a series of illegal acts, places at risk Sri Lanka's ability to meet its immediate debt obligations.

"In early January 2019, we have to repay USD 1 billion of Rajapaksa's debt taken in January 2014, the repayment of which is also under the purview of Parliament," he said Tuesday.

Samaraweera said as per Article 148 of the Constitution, Parliament shall have full control over public finance.

In the absence of a legitimate government, a grave situation has now arisen as there is no legal way to meet public expenditure and obligations of the state from 2019, he said.

"The Constitution does not provide for any alternative arrangements for public finance, even with the intervention of the executive envisaged under the limited circumstances of article 150(3) under which the President can only allocate finances for the first three months of a new parliament.

"Thus, under the current circumstances, from January 1st 2019 until a new parliament is convened, the spending power of the state ceases to exist," Samaraweera said.

A legitimate government with an adequate majority in parliament would have had the opportunity to present at least a vote on account which would have covered at least the first three months of the new year enabling payment of pensions, salaries and settlement of debts, he said.

Rajapaksa, at the time of appointing, said a vote on account would be presented. However, Sirisena suspended the assembly until November 16, seen as a move to allow Rajapaksa buy time to obtain majority by engineering defections from Wickremesinghe's UNP. He managed to win nine of them, leaving him at 105, still eight needed for a simple majority.

Later on realisation of lack of numbers, Sirisena dissolved the assembly and set fresh parliamentary polls for January 5, 2019. A legal challenge against this was temporary upheld throwing the whole administration into disarray.

"This illegal government has no majority and are pirating the government benches through force and violence, and they cannot muster a majority to even pass a vote on account, they are forcibly preventing the lawful government from taking the critical steps to provide funding for 2019," Samaraweera said.

Samaraweera said Sri Lanka had never defaulted its debt obligations.

"The actions of October 26 have irreversibly undermined Sri Lanka's credibility in global markets - risking our ability to service future debt as well. We are being pushed towards a state of economic collapse as we stumble on to a road of a Greece like situation," he said.

The only way to rescue Sri Lanka from this unfortunate and unnecessary crisis is for the President to recognise the Prime Minister and the government that was in place prior to October 26, he said.

It is necessary for all like-minded people, regardless of political affiliation, to come forward to save the country from an otherwise impending economic collapse by supporting efforts to reestablish the supremacy of Parliament and the Constitution, he said.

The purported government's spokesman Bandula Gunawardena dismissed Samaraweera's claims and said Sri Lanka was still capable of meeting its debt repayment due in January.

Last week, Parliament witnessed unprecedented violence as lawmakers threw furniture and chilli powder at each other after Rajapaksa lost a no-trust vote.

The political imbroglio has created much uncertainty with work in state institutions being hampered. Sirisena last week urged top bureaucrats to carry on as usual.

Wickremesinghe's United National Party has warned officials that carrying out "illegal orders" from an "illegal" government could spell trouble for them. PTI CORR CPS AKJ CPS
Geneva, Nov 21 (AFP) The World Trade Organization agreed Wednesday to hear complaints from a range of countries over new US steel and aluminium tariffs, as well as complaints from Washington over retaliatory duties.

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) agreed to establish panels to review US President Donald Trump's decision to hit a long line of countries with tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.

The DSB will create separate panels for the complaints by the European Union, China, Canada, Mexico, Norway and Russia, after the US said it would not agree to a single panel to hear all of them.

A seventh request from Turkey for a panel will be discussed during a meeting later Wednesday.

The DSB agreed Wednesday to Washington's request for three panels to rule on the legality of retaliatory tariffs imposed by Canada, China and the European Union.

It also agreed to a US call for a panel to be created to review "certain Chinese measures pertaining to the protection of intellectual property rights."

Marking a departure from a decades-long US-led drive for free trade, Trump has justified the steep tariffs with claims that massive flows of imports to the United States threaten national security.

The tariff spat has escalated into an all-out trade war between the US and China and growing trade tensions between Washington and many of its traditional allies.

The decision to establish the panels follows rounds of failed consultations between the parties and mark an escalation in an ongoing showdown at the WTO around Trump's controversial trade policies.

The first requests to establish the panels were rejected last month, prompting the sides to file second requests.

Under WTO regulations, parties in a dispute can block a first request for the creation of an arbitration panel, but if the parties make a second request, it is all but guaranteed to go through.

The creation of a DSB panel usually triggers a long and often costly legal battle that sometimes takes years to resolve. (AFP) SMJ

SMJ
(Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PR Newswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.)

NEW DELHI, November 21, 2018/PRNewswire/ --



Under the impetus of the GIFEN - French Nuclear Suppliers Association and Business France, the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, and with the support of EDF, 19 French suppliers to the nuclear industry will attend Indo-French nuclear business meetings from November 26th to December 1st. A 'French Nuclear Night' will also be held, as a part of this event, which will gather the Indo-French Nuclear ecosystem to provide a networking platform.







(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/651714/BusinessFranceLogo.jpg )



The French delegation will attend 2 main events:



A technical seminar and B2B meetings to strengthen Indo-French relationships (Mumbai, November 26th and 27th)

A 4-day roadshow to meet stakeholders, CTOs and their staff from the main Indian NPPs and representatives from renowned companies involved in nuclear industry (Mumbai on November 28, Kanyakumari on November 29, Chennai on November 30 and Karwar on December 1st).

France has chosen for many years to incorporate nuclear electricity in its energy mix. France has developed technologies with the highest safety standards and adopted strict rules, controlled by an independent authority. Therefore, France is covering the entire nuclear energy cycle from fuel manufacturing up to decommissioning of nuclear power plants and waste management.



Today, France has across the world a variety of projects in which French nuclear SMEs are involved and working with foreign companies:



1. New projects and construction of power plants



4 EPR reactors under construction in 3 countries (France, Finland, UK) and 2 EPR units are being commissioned in China

4 already authorized ATMEA1 units in Turkey under the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey and Japan

Participation to different reactor designs: PHWR, VVER, AP1000, CAP1000, HPR100, ESBWR, BWR

The Jaitapur project for 6 NPPs, in which the French Nuclear Industry wishes that the collaboration with Indian companies will lead to a significant Indo-French achievement

2. Operation and maintenance of reactors in operation



French companies have supplied around the world more than 350 nuclear reactors (AREVA experience) and built more than 130 reactors in 12 countries

73 reactors in operation in France and in the United Kingdom

An area where France and India could jointly execute large projects for safe, reliable and efficient operations can be for the Indian reactors

France has been supporting countries in the nuclear energy field for years. They expect that nuclear cooperation between France and India will become increasingly strong and continue as part of a long-term partnership.



France is ready to leverage key success factors for the development of sustainable nuclear energy in India by:



Sharing knowledge and skills with local industry

Cooperating in education and training development

Supporting industrial development and establishing strong linkages between both industries

The French delegation comprises of the following firms:



APAVE, ASSYSTEM, BAUMERT, EDF, EGIS, EKIUM, EMERSON, FAYAT METAL, FREYSSINET, I2EN, JST TRANSFORMATEURS, KEMICA COATINGS, NUVIA, OAKRIDGE, ONET, REEL, SPX FLOW, TRACTEBEL, VELAN.



Key relevant figures of the French nuclear industry:



France possesses 58 reactors and its expertise is globally acknowledged in the nuclear sector. This expertise is the fruit of the constant commitment and investment of French industrial groups and SMEs for the past 60 years in the nuclear field.



 The French Nuclear Industry represents a total of 50 billion in turnover per year, of which 20% is generated from cooperation in international projects. France today accounts for half of the European nuclear industry



 It is composed of 2,600 companies with 115000 highly qualified people



 1.8 billion are invested in R&D programs each year



About Business France:



Business France is the national agency supporting the international development of the French economy, responsible for fostering export growth by French businesses, as well as promoting and facilitating international investment in France. It promotes France's companies, business image and nationwide attractiveness as an investment location, and runs the V.I.E international internship program. Business France has 1,500 personnel, both in France and in 70 countries throughout the world, who work with a network of public- and private-sector partners. For further information, please visit: http://www.businessfrance.fr and youbuyfrance.com.in.



Source: Business France PWR

PWR
(Eds: Disclaimer: The following press release comes to you under an arrangement with PR Newswire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.)

MUMBAI, November 21, 2018/PRNewswire/ --



ResellerClub, a part of Endurance International Group's family of brands and a provider of domains, web hosting and other web presence products announces discounts on web hosting, servers and domains as part of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale. After an overwhelming response last year, ResellerClub is excited to bring back these offers for its customers.







(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/683574/ResellerClub_Logo.jpg )



Here are the details of the discounts customers can enjoy:



Shared Hosting - Flat 55% off

Cloud Hosting - Flat 55% off

VPS Hosting - Flat 40% off

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Speaking about the sale, Sruthi Yalaka, AVP Marketing & Business Development at ResellerClub said, "Fresh off the success of Cloudbazaar, our annual flagship event where we had the chance to meet and interact with a bunch of our resellers, we're happy to announce some great offers for them. As part of our Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, we're offering up to 55% off on web hosting & servers and we also have some really good offers on domains and other products like email. In addition to this, as part of our vision to make ResellerClub a true marketplace for web professionals, we're pleased to announce the recent launch of Plesk VPS hosting on our platform. As part of this, we've tightly integrated the Plesk Panel with our VPS product. We're really excited to offer one of the most widely used hosting panels in the world and we believe this opens up even more options for our resellers. As a special treat, throughout the Black Friday Sale, we're offering Plesk VPS Hosting starting at just ?490 and we're offering the basic 10-domain Plesk license for free."



The high-performance VPS variant, complete with SSD and Plesk is now available on the ResellerClub website. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale is now live and will run till 27th November, 2018.



For more information on the sale, visit india.resellerclub.com.



About ResellerClub



ResellerClub was founded with the objective of offering domain names and hosting products to Web Designers, Developers and Web Hosts. Today, ResellerClub has evolved into a one-stop-shop marketplace for all products and services that a Web professional can use to enable small businesses to build a meaningful web presence. ResellerClub offers Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, VPS, Email, Backup, Security and more with multi-brand options in many of these categories to empower choice. ResellerClub also offers a comprehensive solution to register and manage 500+ gTLDs, ccTLDs and new domains. Through the platform customized for Web Professionals, ResellerClub envisions provisioning the widest variety of Web Presence products, PaaS and SaaS-based tools.



Source: ResellerClub PWR

PWR
Chandigarh, Nov 21 (PTI) Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar Wednesday appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Punjab Police, which is probing the 2015 police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura in the state following cases of sacrilege in Faridkot.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at sector-9 here where security has been stepped up.

Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.

The SIT wants to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents. The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on November 21 at the Amritsar circuit house. However, police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT at Chandigarh.

The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had given a reference of a letter written (October 9, 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie "MSG".

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie "MSG" was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Kumar has denied arranging any meeting between former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head.

The actor has also denied having ever met the Sirsa headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case.

Kumar had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former Chief Minister Parkash 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, Kumar had said in tweet.

"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, Kumar had said.

The SIT has already questioned former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal in Chandigarh.

On Monday, Sukhbir told SIT members, that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab when he was asked by the SIT members whether he had met the actor in Mumbai.

The summons are related to the investigation of cases involving various incidents of sacrilege in 2015, police had said.

The summons had 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 summons state, "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 5-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year. PTI CHS VSD DV

DV
Islamabad, Nov 21 (PTI) Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday said his troops are combat-hardened and ready to defend the country as he asked India to place its "stock in peace and progress" through dialogue.

Gen Bajwa, who visited the Line of Control (LoC) and interacted with troops for the second time within a month, said that "lately there has been increase in Indian cease fire violations and rhetoric of provocative statements by their military leadership", according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the army.

"We are a professional and combat-hardened Army ready to defend our motherland. It would be better if they realise this and place their stock in peace & progress through dialogue," Gen Bajwa said.

He was also briefed about the situation along LoC, the ceasefire violations and response by Pakistan Army.

On October 25, Gen Bajwa visited Sarpir and Pandu Sectors at the Line of Control where he interacted with the Pakistani troops.

The ties between India and Pakistan remains strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups in 2016 and India's surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

After assuming power in August, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September.

India accepted the proposal but, within hours of its acceptance, terrorists killed three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir, prompting New Delhi to cancel the foreign ministers' meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA. PTI ZH AKJ ZH

ZH
New Delhi, Nov 21(PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours:



FGN14 CHINA-INDIA

Ahead of border talks, China says differences with India 'managed properly' through dialogue

Beijing:China on Wednesday presented an upbeat picture of Sino-India ties ahead of this week's border talks, saying the relations maintained "sound momentum" as the two countries "properly managed" differences through dialogue and consultations. By K J M Varma



FGN12 KOVIND-INDIA-VIETNAM

India, Vietnam to step up defence cooperation, oil exploration

Hanoi: India and Vietnam have decided to step up defence cooperation and oil exploration to boost their bilateral ties as they reaffirmed the importance of freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, amid China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region.



FGN5 AUS-KOVIND

President Kovind arrives in Australia on maiden state visit

Melbourne: President Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Australia on Wednesday on a three-day visit, becoming the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country.By Natasha Chaku



FGN15 US-TRUMP-2NDLD KHASHOGGI

Prez Trump under fire for backing Saudi crown prince over the brutal killing of Khashoggi

Washington: President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with Riyadh and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of the US and the world, a stand criticised as a "betrayal of American values." By Lalit K Jha



FGN10 LANKA-POLITICS-ECONOMY

Lankan economy on brink of 'anarchy' due to Prez Sirsena sacking PM: ousted Finance Min

Colombo: Sri Lanka's current political crisis due to President Maithripala Sirsena's "irresponsible" action of sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has left the country on the brink of an "economic anarchy" never experienced before, the ousted finance minister said.



FGN6 US-TRUMP-IVANKA

Trump defends daughter, says Ivanka's personal emails had no classified info

Washington: US President Donald Trump has defended his daughter Ivanka Trump who is being criticised for using her private email for official purposes in a possible violation of federal record-keeping laws, saying the emails didn't contain classified information and haven't been deleted.By Lalit K Jha



FGN8 US-CHINA-LD TRADE

China hasn't altered its 'unfair, unreasonable' trade practices: USTR says in new report

Washington: China has not fundamentally altered its "unfair, unreasonable and market-distorting" trade practices, the US has said in a new report, ahead of a crucial meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. By Lalit K Jha



FGN1 US-PAK-LD AID

USD 1.66 bn in security aid to Pak suspended: Pentagon

Washington: The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. By Lalit K Jha



FGN4 US-TRUMP-LD PAK

Won't pay Pak as it has done nothing for US: Trump

Washington: US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan will remain suspended until the country acts against militant safe heavens inside its territory. By Lalit K Jha



FGN11 INTERPOL-2NDLD PRESIDENT

Interpol picks S.Korea's Kim as president over Russian rival

Dubai: Interpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations. (AFP)



FGN16 INTERPOL-RUSSIA

Kremlin denounces 'unprecedented pressure' over Interpol vote

Moscow: The Kremlin on Wednesday denounced "unprecedented pressure" against a Russian candidate to lead Interpol, after a South Korean was instead chosen to lead the global policing body.(AFP)

RUP

RUP
 Flash

China and the Philippines agreed on Tuesday to upgrade their ties to comprehensive strategic cooperation and jointly advance the Belt and Road construction.





The decision was made at a meeting between visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte.





The two leaders reached important consensus on building bilateral relations on the basis of mutual respect, sincerity, equality and mutual benefit, and win-win cooperation.





Xi told Duterte that he is delighted to visit the Philippines and is touched by the Philippine people's warm welcome, especially the kids' cheerful smiles.





Calling China and the Philippines "close neighbors with exchanges going back a thousand years," Xi said good-neighborliness, friendship and win-win cooperation are the only correct choice for the two countries.





The Chinese president said he has had in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern with Duterte in their six meetings over the past two years and consolidated consensus and friendship.





With joint efforts, the two sides have had fruitful cooperation in various fields and ushered in a new chapter in China-Philippines relations, benefiting both peoples and contributing to regional peace and stability, Xi said.





China is willing to carry forward its traditional friendship with the Philippines and deepen the cooperation, so that the two countries can forever make good neighbors, good friends and good partners and share the prosperity, he said.





The upgrade of bilateral relations meets the need of their development and the expectation of both peoples, Xi said, calling on the two sides to enhance strategic guidance on bilateral relations by the two heads of state, promote exchanges on all levels and consolidate strategic mutual trust.





China supports the Philippines in choosing a development path that suits its own national conditions, he said, adding that the two countries should deepen their cooperation on three pillar fields, namely security, development and culture.





China also firmly supports the Philippines' fight against drugs and terrorism, will continue to provide assistance within its capacity to the Philippines to implement more public livelihood projects including poverty reduction, and expand exchanges and cooperation on education, culture and tourism, Xi said.





The Chinese president said the Philippines is an important partner in jointly building the Belt and Road and urged both sides to deepen the synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and the Philippines' development plans, and boost cooperation in fields such as infrastructural construction, telecommunications and agriculture.





Noting that China and the Philippines share extensive common interests on the South China Sea, Xi said the two countries can continue to manage differences through friendly consultations, promote practical cooperation on the sea and make due contribution to regional peace and stability and the welfare of the peoples.





Xi said China supports the Philippines' role as the country coordinator for the China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) dialogue relations and the China-Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-the Philippine East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) cooperation.





China is willing to work together with the Philippines to upgrade China-ASEAN relations and the East Asia cooperation, he said, adding that China and the Philippines, both emerging economies in Asia, should increase coordination and cooperation in regional and international affairs.





Extending a warm welcome to Xi, Duterte noted it was the first state visit to his country by a Chinese head of state in 13 years.





The visit, a milestone of historic significance in the Philippines-China relations, will open a new chapter in their cooperation, he said.





He said the Philippine side congratulates the Chinese side on the achievements it has made in its 40 years' reform and development, adding that he believes the Chinese people are sure to realize their Two Centenary Goals.





The Philippine side is ready to deepen the relations of comprehensive strategic cooperation with China on the basis of mutual respect, mutual understanding and sovereign equality, strengthen cooperation in trade, investment, agriculture, defense, health, drug control, improvement of livelihood, infrastructure construction and energy, as well as expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges in education and human resources.





The Philippine side agrees that countries in the region should jointly safeguard peace and stability of the South China Sea, and stands ready to actively promote the development of relations between ASEAN and China, he said.





China has stood on the right side of history in dealing with international affairs, Duterte said, adding that the Philippine side is ready to carry out closer communication and coordination with China within multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations.





Prior to their talks, Duterte held a welcome ceremony in Xi's honor at the presidential palace featuring a 21-gun salute and traditional dances.





The Philippines is the last stop of Xi's three-country Asia-Pacific tour. He has visited Papua New Guinea, where he also attended the 26th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, and Brunei.
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours:



FGN14 CHINA-INDIA

Ahead of border talks, China says differences with India 'managed properly' through dialogue

Beijing:China on Wednesday presented an upbeat picture of Sino-India ties ahead of this week's border talks, saying the relations maintained "sound momentum" as the two countries "properly managed" differences through dialogue and consultations. By K J M Varma



FGN12 KOVIND-INDIA-VIETNAM

India, Vietnam to step up defence cooperation, oil exploration

Hanoi: India and Vietnam have decided to step up defence cooperation and oil exploration to boost their bilateral ties as they reaffirmed the importance of freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded economic activities in the South China Sea, amid China flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region.



FGN5 AUS-KOVIND

President Kovind arrives in Australia on maiden state visit

Melbourne: President Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Australia on Wednesday on a three-day visit, becoming the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country.By Natasha Chaku



FGN19 MALAYSIA-PAK-IMRAN

Pak keen to learn from Mahathir Mohamad's experice in transforming Malaysian economy: PM Khan

Kuala Lumpur/Islamabad: Pakistan is keen to learn from the vast experience of Malaysia's veteran Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad how he transformed the country's economy, Prime Minister Imran Khan said Wednesday.



FGN23 PAK-BLAST

7 injured in blast at mosque in southwest Pakistan

Karachi: A powerful blast at a mosque in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province's Chaman area on Wednesday injured at least seven people, including the prayer leader, according to police.



FGN21 WTO-US-TARRIFS

WTO to rule in spat over US tariffs

Geneva: The World Trade Organization agreed Wednesday to hear complaints from a range of countries over new US steel and aluminium tariffs, as well as complaints from Washington over retaliatory duties. (AFP)



FGN15 US-TRUMP-2NDLD KHASHOGGI

Prez Trump under fire for backing Saudi crown prince over the brutal killing of Khashoggi

Washington: President Donald Trump has defended his decision not to hold Saudi rulers accountable in the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying maintaining strategic ties with Riyadh and keeping the global oil prices down were in the best interests of the US and the world, a stand criticised as a "betrayal of American values." By Lalit K Jha



FGN22 TRUMP-SAUDI-OIL

Trump thanks Saudi Arabia for lower oil prices

Washington: US President Donald Trump thanked Saudi Arabia Wednesday for lower oil prices -- a day after pledging the US would remain a "steadfast partner" of the kingdom despite the murder of a dissident journalist. (AFP)



FGN10 LANKA-POLITICS-ECONOMY

Lankan economy on brink of 'anarchy' due to Prez Sirsena sacking PM: ousted Finance Min

Colombo: Sri Lanka's current political crisis due to President Maithripala Sirsena's "irresponsible" action of sacking prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has left the country on the brink of an "economic anarchy" never experienced before, the ousted finance minister said.



FGN6 US-TRUMP-IVANKA

Trump defends daughter, says Ivanka's personal emails had no classified info

Washington: US President Donald Trump has defended his daughter Ivanka Trump who is being criticised for using her private email for official purposes in a possible violation of federal record-keeping laws, saying the emails didn't contain classified information and haven't been deleted.By Lalit K Jha



FGN8 US-CHINA-LD TRADE

China hasn't altered its 'unfair, unreasonable' trade practices: USTR says in new report

Washington: China has not fundamentally altered its "unfair, unreasonable and market-distorting" trade practices, the US has said in a new report, ahead of a crucial meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. By Lalit K Jha



FGN1 US-PAK-LD AID

USD 1.66 bn in security aid to Pak suspended: Pentagon

Washington: The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trump's directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration. By Lalit K Jha



FGN4 US-TRUMP-LD PAK

Won't pay Pak as it has done nothing for US: Trump

Washington: US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan will remain suspended until the country acts against militant safe heavens inside its territory. By Lalit K Jha



FGN11 INTERPOL-2NDLD PRESIDENT

Interpol picks S.Korea's Kim as president over Russian rival

Dubai: Interpol announced Wednesday that Kim Jong-yang of South Korea had been chosen as its new president, beating a Russian official whose candidacy had unnerved Western nations. (AFP) SMJ

SMJ
Karachi, Nov 21 (PTI) A powerful blast at a mosque in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province's Chaman area on Wednesday injured at least nine people, including the prayer leader, according to police.

The blast occurred at the time of evening prayers in the mosque, which is located on Taj Road in Chaman, bordering Afghanistan.

At least nine people, including the mosque's prayer leader, were injured as a result of the blast, which rocked the entire neighbourhood, Dawn reported.

The blast was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) hidden inside the mosque, it said, quoting police sources.

The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where a state of emergency has been declared.

A video shared on Twitter appears to show the damage caused by the explosion in the mosque.

Authorities have cordoned off the site of the explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.

Chaman is considered a sensitive town in Balochistan as it shares a border with Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province.

Security was tightened on Wednesday across the country to avert any tragedy on the occasion of the Eid Milad-un Nabi, marking the birth anniversary of the Prophet.

Mobile phone services were shut down in major cities to prevent terror attacks during the celebrations, in the wake of a suicide attack in neighbouring Afghanistan on Tuesday that killed over 50 people, mostly clerics. PTI ZH

ZH
Kolkata, Nov 21 (PTI) The West Bengal government was mulling an amendment in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980 to facilitate the appointment of a city mayor, a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Sovan Chatterjee to step down from the post, an official said Wednesday.

Chatterjee, who was the housing and fire services minister, resigned from the cabinet Tuesday evening.

Soon after, the chief minister sought his resignation from the post of mayor.

State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim has been given the additional charge of the two portfolios held by Chatterjee.

According to a highly-placed official at the state administration, the current law allowed only elected candidates or councillors to occupy the post of the city mayor.

"We are planning to emulate the law followed during the Assembly and general election. According to the proposed amendment, a person who is not an elected candidate or a councillor can be made the mayor, but he will have to win the civic polls to continue in the post," the official told PTI.

He added that an amendment in the civic law was likely in the ongoing winter session of the Assembly. "Possibly, there will be a discussion on the issue in the Assembly Thursday," the official said.

The chief minister had hinted Tuesday that the government would have to look at the options for appointing a new mayor, given the fact that the law only allowed an elected councillor to take charge of the post.

According to Nabanna (secretariat) insiders, the chief minister was trying to bring in an "efficient administrator" for the post of the city mayor.

"The focus is on bringing in a person who has a detailed knowledge of municipal affairs as well as administration. This will enable him to run the KMC smoothly," the official said.

An emergency meeting was held late Tuesday night to discuss the next course of action, following Chatterjee's resignation from the ministry.

According to section 38 of the KMC Act, the deputy mayor is supposed to look after the responsibilities of the mayor in case of a vacancy.

"In the event of the occurrence of any vacancy in the office of the Mayor by reason of his death, the Deputy Mayor shall act as Mayor until the date on which a new Mayor elected in accordance with the provisions of this Act to fill such vacancy enters upon his office," it said.

In such circumstances too, the person being appointed as the new mayor would have to win the polls within a month's time, it stated.

KMC Deputy Mayor Iqbal Ahmed has been ill for quite some time now and it is unlikely that he will take charge of the vacant post.

In the meantime, the chief minister has asked Municipal Commissioner Khalil Ahmed to look after the operations of the corporation.

The distance between Banerjee and Chatterjee, who was once considered a trusted aide of the chief minister, started growing after reports of problems in his conjugal life surfaced.

There were also allegations that Chatterjee was not taking his responsibilities seriously, either as a mayor or as a minister. PTI SCH RMS RC
Work for construction of Sela tunnel to start soon: DGBR

Itanagar, Nov 21 (PTI) The work for construction of a

tunnel through Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh to cut down the

distance to China border will start in January next year, a

top Border Roads Organisation (BRO) officer said Wednesday.

The bhoomi puja for starting the work of construction

of Sela tunnel in Tawang district will be held in January next

year, Director General Border Roads (DGBR) Lt Gen Harpal Singh

said here.

The BRO will construct the tunnel through Sela Pass,

which would cut down the distance to China border through

Tawang by 10 km. The tunnel would also cut down by at least an

hour of travel time between the Army's 4 Corps headquarters at

Tezpur in Assam and Tawang.

Moreover, the tunnel would ensure that National

Highway 13 and especially the 171-km stretch between Bomdila

and Tawang, remains accessible in all weather conditions.

For the work, tenders have been floated and

administration from Tawang and West Kameng districts has

ratified joint surveys, the DG informed during a meeting with

Chief Minister Pema Khandu here.

The BRO has sought support of the state government for

statutory clearances to which the chief minister assured all

his support, a CMO release said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his 2018-19

budget, had announced the government's plan to build a tunnel

through Sela Pass located at an elevation of 13,700 ft which

will ensure faster movement of troops in Tawang, a

strategically-located district bordering China.

Khandu requested the BRO to expedite work on improving

the road from PTSO lake to Bumla pass in Tawang district and

appreciated the BROs dedication in working in extremely

remote area exhorting them to continue the good work and

ensure timely completion of the task with highest quality, the

release said.

The chief minister assured the DG BRO full support of

the state government in expediting works on all borders roads

in the state, it added.

The DG also discussed on the 317-km Balipara-Charduar-

Tawang (BCT) road, which is the lifeline of West Kameng and

Tawang districts and informed that significant achievement has

been made on improving the road to two-lane road.

The meeting also discussed the status of Dirang bypass

and Jung bypass included under the BCT road, the release said.

The DGBR informed about the progress of works of

operationally critical roads in the Area of Responsibility of

Project Arunank near India-China border in Upper Subansiri

district.

The DG informed that he had inspected the roads

recently while travelling by road from Tama Chung Chung (TCC)

to Taksing and TCC to Bidak.

Singh informed that civil vehicles are now running up

to Tama Chung Chung from Nacho. PTI UPL

RG RG
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday condoled the demise of senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member M I Shanavas, remembering his efforts towards community service.

Shanavas passed away early Wednesday at a private hospital in Chennai after a prolonged illness.

The 67-year-old, who represented the Wayanad constituency twice in the Lok Sabha, had undergone a liver transplant on November 2.

In a tweet, Naidu described him as a good parliamentarian and great human being.

Modi said Shanavas' numerous efforts towards community service and for the development of Kerala will be remembered. PTI NAB RCJ
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi condoled the demise of senior party leader and MP from Kerala M I Shanavas Wednesday.

"With the passing of Shri M I Shanavas, two term Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad, Kerala, the Congress family has lost a much loved and respected member. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this time of grief," Gandhi said on Twitter.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad expressed grief on the passing away of Shanavas.

"I am deeply saddened by the passing away of Shri M I Shanavas. He was a senior fellow Congressman and a popular leader who was elected from Wayanad constituency in last two Lok Sabha elections. In his death, I have lost a personal friend and Congress in Kerala has lost one of its trusted and prominent leaders," said Azad.

He also expressed his deepest sympathies to his family and prayed that his departed soul may rest in peace.

Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said the people of Kerala have lost a very dedicated and a popular leader as he was deeply committed to the cause of the downtrodden cutting across all sections of society.

"The sad demise of Shanavas ji is not only a huge loss to the state of Kerala and the Congress party, but also to me personally. In Parliament, he was always vigilant and always spoke up for the cause of marginalised. His untimely demise is an irreparable loss to the Congress party and the state of Kerala," he said in a letter to Shanavas's wife.

"We are saddened to hear of the demise of Shri M I Shanavas, a beloved leader and two time Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends," the Congress said on Twitter.

Party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "Shocked and saddened to learn about the demise of Kerala MP from Congress M I Shanavas. My deepest condolences to his family, followers and well-wishers. May his soul rest in peace."

Shanavas passed away early Wednesday at a private hospital in Chennai, Tamil Nadu after prolonged illness. He was 67.

The Member of Parliament who represented the Wayanad constituency twice in the Lok Sabha breathed his last at around 1 am. He had undergone a liver transplant on Nov 2. He was also the working president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee. PTI SKC SMN
Srinagar/Jammu, Nov 21 (PTI) National Conference leader Omar Abdullah Wednesday said Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik's decision to dissolve the state assembly within minutes of PDP president Mehbooba Mufti staking claim for government formation "cannot be a coincidence".

In a sudden development, the Jammu and Kashmir Governor tonight dissolved the state assembly, which has been in suspended animation, shortly after rival alliances staked claim to form the government.

"JKNC has been pressing for assembly dissolution for 5 months now. It can't be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears," Omar said in a series of tweets.

Earlier, Mehbooba in a tweet said she was not able to fax her letter to the Raj Bhawan for staking claim for government formation.

"J&K Raj Bhavan needs a new fax machine urgently," Omar quipped after PDP president went public with her letter on Twitter.

Earlier Wednesday, Sajad Lone, leader of the People's Conference, also staked claim to form a government in the state with the support of the 25-legislator strong BJP and "more than 18" other lawmakers.

In a letter to Governor Satya Pal Malik, Lone, whose party has two MLAs, including himself, said he has the support of more than required number of legislators in the assembly to form a government.

After the PDP's claim to form the government, former deputy chief minister and senior J&K BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said the efforts are being made on "instructions of Pakistan" and urged the people to thwart the attempt.

The fast-paced developments began Tuesday with disgruntled PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Beigh hitting out at a possible alliance between his party and National Conference saying "it will be a government of one religion" and people and Jammu and Ladakh regions would not like it.

Despite opposition from some quarters, the attempts at government formation by PDP, NC and Congress intensified on Wednesday and culminated in dissolution of the assembly by the Governor.

Governor's rule was clamped in the state on June 19 for a 6-month period following the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition government after the saffron party withdrew support. The state assembly was also kept in suspended animation so that political parties could explore the possibility of forming a new government.PTI MIJ RCJ
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) The BJP Wednesday said the best option in Jammu and Kashmir is to have fresh assembly polls at the earliest as it slammed the proposed alliance of opposition parties as a "combination of terror-friendly parties".

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Twitter, soon after the state governor dissolved the assembly amid claims by rival formations on forming a government, that the border state cannot afford horse-trading and instability keeping its security scenario in mind.

"The proposed alliance between the Congress and the PDP broke up even before it was formed. They have taken contradictory positions on dissolution. One supports it and the other opposes it," the BJP said.

"The best option in such a scenario is to go in for a fresh election at the earliest. This assembly cannot produce a stable government," it added.

Jammu and Kashmir needs a firm administration to deal with terrorism and not a combination of terror-friendly parties, it added.

The Jammu and Kashmir assembly was abruptly dissolved by the Governor Wednesday night hours after the PDP staked claim to form a government with the backing of rival National Conference and the Congress followed by another bid from the two-member People's Conference which claimed the support of the BJP and 18 legislators from other parties.

The dissolution was announced by Governor Satyapal Malik in a communique released by the Raj Bhavan. PTI KR SMN

SMN
 Flash

The 2018 China-Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Media Forum kicked off in Buenos Aires on Monday to promote bilateral cooperation in the field.





The event, themed "Deepening media cooperation, contributing to building of a China-LAC community with a shared future," drew representatives from 13 Chinese media outlets and over a hundred news agencies from over 20 LAC nations.





During the three-day forum, participants will exchange views on "the media's role in pragmatic cooperation between China and LAC" and "creating a China-LAC media communication platform through new media cooperation."





The forum is an important event in the history of China-LAC media communication, and it is also a major event to enhance people-to-people exchanges between China and Latin America, Jiang Jianguo, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said at the opening session.





"Cooperation between Chinese and Latin American media is a significant part of Chinese-Latin American cooperation, and represents an important force for promoting the construction of a community with a shared future between the two sides," the senior official said.





He expressed the hope that media organizations will further strengthen exchanges and cooperation, jointly write a new chapter in China-Latin America cooperation, build a strong public opinion for friendship between the two sides, increase coordination in reporting world affairs and deepen pragmatic cooperation among themselves.





The Chinese government will continue to support China-LAC media cooperation so as to constantly enrich the friendship between the two sides, said Jiang.





The forum was jointly organized by China's Xinhua News Agency and Argentina's Federal System of Media and Public Content.





News organizations serve as a bridge between different countries and civilizations, said Cai Mingzhao, president of China's Xinhua News Agency.





Cai also put forward three proposals on the enhancement of China-LAC media cooperation.





The first is to deepen cooperation on news reporting. "We propose that Chinese media go deeper into the marvelous continent of Latin America and also welcome LAC media to do interviews and exchanges in China," he said.





The second is to enhance new media exchanges.





Cai said Xinhua is willing to grant LAC colleagues access to "Live News Cloud," a live-steaming platform open to all media, and "Media Brain," a platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI), cooperate with LAC media in new media, and discuss the path of innovative development.





The third is for LAC media organization to join the economic information alliance for the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xinhua is currently working on, he said.





Hernan Lombardi, head of Argentina's Federal System of Media and Public Content, said that there is broad prospect for media cooperation between China and Latin America.





Media organizations on both sides should work together to promote unity and boost efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind.





Fang Jiangshan, deputy chief editor of China's People's Daily, said that the active and friendly dissemination of information by Chinese and Latin American media has widened the bridge that connects the hearts of the Chinese and Latin American people, and injected new vitality into the China-Latin America relations.





Media workers on both side should strive to become a driving force, an effective stabilizer and ballast for the China-Latin America community with a shared future, Fang added.
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) accused the varsity administration Wednesday of not releasing over Rs 50 lakh pending Merit-cum-Means scholarship to undergraduate and postgraduate students from the last eight months.

Some administration officials denied having knowledge about it.

The JNU administration has not released pending Merit-cum-Means scholarship to BA-MA students from the past eight months, the JNUSU said.

"The JNU administration, which has money to call likes of Sri Sri and Sadhguru to JNU and hold grand events diverting and spending students money, has not been releasing Rs 50 lakh scholarship amount pending over last eight months," the JNUSU said.

The JNUSU said with the money not being released, students are not able to meet their educational and daily expenses.

"It is important to note that the money for MCM is allocated from university's funds and if the administration does not have money to release to students, it only means the money is being illegally diverted for other purposes which only entails corruption at the highest places in JNU administration," the JNUSU said.

It asked the JNU administration to release a detailed and transparent account sheet of expenditure and allocation of funds immediately.

The JNUSU also sought to know from the administration whether the HRD ministry or UGC have asked the varsity not to disburse MCM or fellowship amount.

"JNUSU condemns this delay of MCM disbursal and demands JNU administration to release the amount and stop committing financial frauds that have reached its apex under the present JNU VC," the students' union said. PTI SLB CK
\R New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has attached 648 bank accounts and 670 properties from April-October this year for "non-payment" of property tax, officials said.

NDMC's Additional Commissioner (Revenue) B M Mishra said since April 1, 2004 (the date of implementation of Unit Area Method) it is the responsibility of the property owner or occupier to self-assess the property tax of his/her property and deposit with the corporation within due date.

But many property owners/occupiers are not doing so, thus the corporation has to attach their property or bank account to realise the same.

"The NDMC has attached 648 bank accounts and 670 properties from April 1 to October 31 this year for non payment" of property tax," the civic body said in a statement.

Mishra has appealed to people to deposit their due property tax for the year 2018-19 along with arrears, if any, in time, otherwise defaulters would have to pay penalty and interest, along with due tax.

Meanwhile, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation's Veterinary Department, in collaboration with local police, has taken strict action against "illegal slaughtering" of poultry in area under its jurisdiction.

A team of the EDMC has taken action against "illegal slaughtering of chicken" and also sealed some premises, besides collecting Rs 39,000, the EDMC said in a statement. PTI KND KJ
New Delhi, Nov 20 (PTI) The commission examining sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) may get an extension till May 31 next year, indicating there is unlikely to be much forward movement on the crucial issue of creating quota within quota till the general elections are over.

A final call in this regard is expected be taken by the Union Cabinet on Thursday when the proposal is likely to figure during its meeting, sources said.

The Cabinet in August had extended the term of the five-member panel headed by Justice G Rohini (retd), which is looking into the sub-categorisation of the OBCs, till November.

The commission was formed with the approval of President Ram Nath Kovind in October last year and was mandated to examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes or communities in the central list of OBCs.

It was also tasked with working out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters for sub-categorisation within such OBCs and taking up the exercise of identifying the castes, sub-castes and communities and classifying them into the respective sub-categories.

It was stipulated to submit its report within 10 weeks from assumption of charge by the chairperson.

Since then, it has been granted extensions thrice citing voluminous data obtained from all quarters and the time required for its scientific analysis to prepare a comprehensive report.

As per the last extension approved by the Cabinet, the Commission was to submit its report till November.

It started functioning on October 11 and has since interacted with all the states and Union Territories that have reservation for OBCs and the state backward classes commissions.

The commission has held extensive meetings with various other stakeholders including community associations and people belonging to various backward classes.

It also obtained caste-wise records of OBCs admitted in higher educational institutes as well as similar caste-wise data of recruits in central departments, central public sector undertakings, public sector banks and financial institutions. PTI PLB RT
Rajgarh (MP), Nov 21 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Wednesday said since the Congress did not work in the interest of farmers, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi.

In a veiled reference to veteran Congressman Digvijay Singh, he said a Congress leader's name had cropped up in a Naxal-related case.

"The Congress has not worked in the interest of the farmers. Therefore, it should be disbanded as wished by Mahatma Gandhi. This is your responsibility," Adityanath said, while addressing a gathering at Narsinghar in this district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

"A big Congress leader's name has cropped up in a case connected to Naxals. Terrorism and Naxalism are a threat to the nation and the Congress's sympathy for them is condemnable," he added.

The Pune police had earlier said a letter seized in connection with the Elgar Parishad probe referred to a mobile number purportedly belonging to Singh.

Two days ago, Singh had dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to take action against him in the Elgar Parishad case.

Adityanath claimed that Naxalism started emerging in Madhya Pradesh 15 years ago.

"Madhya Pradesh was then known for potholed roads, unemployment, but after the BJP came to power, it turned the state into a developed one," he said.

Adityanath expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win the elections in all the five states where they are being held, including Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Justifying the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj, he said it was because of the confluence of the holy rivers of Saraswati, Yamuna and Ganga, and added that the old name was not right.

The 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly will go to the polls on November 28 and the results will be announced on December 11. PTI CORR LAL ADU MAS NP RC
Mumbai, Nov 21 (PTI) The Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court Wednesday that it was in the process of tabling the State Backward Class Commission's recommendations on the Maratha quota issue before the state legislature.

State's counsel, Additional Government Pleader Abhinandan Vagyani, informed the court that the state Cabinet had received the recommendations from the commission and was mulling further action.

"The state Cabinet is in the process of placing the report (the commission's recommendations) before the House and taking other appropriate steps," Vagyani said.

Following the state's submission, a bench of Justices B P Dharamadhikari and Sarang Kotwal disposed of all pending litigations in the high court on the issue of reservation for the Maratha community.

The bench noted that the commission and the state had complied with the court's previous orders on submission of such recommendations and therefore, there did not remain any need for further hearing on the pending petitions.

The bench was hearing a bunch of petitions filed between 2014 and 2015 after the then Congress-NCP government granted 16 per cent quota in government jobs and education to the Maratha community.

While some of the petitions opposed the government's decision, two petitions had sought immediate implementation of the quota.

In November 2014, in an interim order, a division bench of the Bombay High Court had stayed the then government's decision to provide the 16 per cent quota, on the grounds that it was in breach of the Supreme Court's order that prescribed an upper limit of 50 per cent for caste and community-based quota.

On August 7 this year, while hearing the same petitions, another division bench of the HC had directed the commission to complete its research on the issue and submit its recommendations to the state in a time-bound manner.

The bench, led by Justice Dharamadhikari, noted on Wednesday that since the above order had been complied with, the pleas could be disposed of.

"Once the commission's recommendations are placed before the legislature and made public, the petitioners can approach this court if they still have any grievances," the bench said.

The Maratha community, which constitutes over 30 per cent of the state's population, had held protests across the state earlier this year demanding quota in jobs and educational institutions.

The state government had on Sunday announced that the Maratha community will be granted quota under a new category called 'Socially and Educationally Backward Class' (SEBC), as per the recommendation of the State Backward Class Commission.

The government is yet to decide the quantum of reservation, though the Marathas are seeking 16 per cent quota.

State Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil had said on Tuesday that a decision on tabling the State Backward Class Commission's report on the Maratha quota in the Assembly will be taken after seeking a legal opinion on it.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil had demanded that the commission's report be immediately tabled in the House for clarity on it. PTI AYA GK DV

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Mumbai, Nov 21 (PTI) BJP chief Amit Shah and three IPS officers were the main conspirators behind the alleged fake encounters of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and Tulsiram Prajapati, the chief investigation officer (CIO) of the case claimed in a CBI court here Wednesday.

CIO Sandeep Tamgade, who deposed during the ongoing trial, however, conceded that that his claim was not supported by any documentary evidence in the charge sheet filed by him.

"From the investigation done by us, we found the principal conspirators were Amit Shah, D G Vanzara (former Deputy Inspector-General Gujarat Police), Rajkumar Pandian (SP, Intelligence Bureau) and M N Dinesh (IPS officer, Rajasthan Police)," Tamgade said.

All four have been discharged by the trial court in the case.

Tamgade claimed he was not naming Shah and others without evidence, but admitted that the claim was not supported by any documentary evidence in the supplementary charge sheet filed in the case, he said.

Tamgade, then Superintendent of Police (CBI), had prepared a supplementary charge sheet in the Sohrabuddin case and the main charge sheet in the Tulsiram case. Both cases are being tried together before special CBI judge S J Sharma here.

To a question by the defence lawyer, Tamgade said he also had evidence to conclude that Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his partner Prajapati were "used" by Amit Shah, then Minister of State for Home in Gujarat, for firing at the office of an Ahmedabad-based builder.

He had interrogated Shah, marble trader from Rajasthan Vimal Patni, and Rajasthan minister Gulabchandra Kataria in the case, he said.

"There was some incriminating material against the trio. But those statements were not filed in the charge sheet," he said.

The defence then moved an application, saying the CBI should produce these statements in the court. The court will hear the application Thursday.

Shaikh, a suspected gangster with terror links, was shot dead on November 26, 2005 while he was in custody of Gujarat Police in an alleged fake encounter. His wife Kausar Bi was also allegedly killed later.

Prajapati, an aide of Shaikh who was said to be a witness to the encounter, was allegedly killed by police forces of Gujarat and Rajasthan at Chapri in Gujarat's Banaskantha district in December 2006.

Of the 38 persons charged by the CBI for the alleged fake encounters, 15 have been discharged. PTI AVI KRK SMN

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Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Nov 21 (PTI) Two close aides of Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case in which the girl inmates of the home were sexually abused, were remanded in a five-day CBI custody by a court here Wednesday.

The special court hearing cases filed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act passed the order, declining the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) request for a seven-day custody of Madhu and Ashwani Kumar -- who allegedly posed as a doctor -- and posted the matter to November 26 for further hearing.

Madhu, who was grilled by the police Tuesday afternoon, was arrested Wednesday morning and made to undergo medical tests at the Sadar hospital, before being produced before the court, along with Ashwani, who was arrested the previous night.

Madhu, who handled many businesses of Thakur, had told reporters Tuesday that she was not hiding but did not appear before the probe agency as she was never named as an accused nor was a warrant issued against her.

She had also claimed that she knew nothing about the goings on at the Balika Grih (shelter home for girls), was "privy to no secrets" and refuted the media reports that she used to liaison with influential people to promote Thakur's NGOs, newspapers and other businesses.

Kumar, who was arrested from his in-laws place in Fatehpur village under the Kurhani police station in the district, did not have any medical background.

He learnt how to administer injections while sitting in the clinic of his father, a doctor, at Kurhani, about 30 km from Muzaffarpur town.

He was associated with Thakur's NGO "Sewa Sankalp Aur Vikas Samiti" and allegedly used to administer injections laced with sedatives to the shelter home inmates before they were subjected to sexual abuse, sources close to Kumar said.

A number of people have so far been arrested in connection with the high-profile scandal, which came to light following a social audit of the shelter homes in Bihar conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) earlier this year.

The accused include many former employees of Thakur and a few of his close relatives, besides two state social welfare department officials -- Ravi Raushan and Rosy Rani -- who have been placed under suspension.

While Thakur is lodged at a jail in Punjab's Patiala following a Supreme Court order, Raushan and Rani are at the Beur Central Jail in Patna. PTI CORR NAC SNS RC
Muzaffarnagar, Nov 21 (PTI) A total of 325 inmates lodged in the overcrowded district jail here, including lifers and long-term inmates, will be shifted to a prison in Noida, an official said on Wednesday.

The district authorities recommended this to reduce the burden on the prison, Jail Superintendent A K Saxena said.

Over 2,000 inmates from two districts -- Muzaffarnagar and Shamli -- are lodged in the prison here against the capacity of 870, he said.

Saxena said a confirmation from the jail department headquarters in Lucknow is awaited. PTI CORR DIV

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New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) AAP legislators demanded Wednesday that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal remove Delhi Police from the list of beneficiaries of the government's scheme of giving compensation of Rs one crore to the kin of slain security personnel, alleging that the force betrayed the people of the country.

The AAP MLAs in a letter to Kejriwal also criticised the "attitude" of Delhi Police in cases of attack on him, saying it puts question mark on "impartiality" of the force.

The move comes a day after a 40-year-old man threw chilli powder at Kejriwal outside his office at the Delhi Secretariat.

"Besides you, attacks on AAP leaders and workers take place and the attitude of Delhi Police in such matters raises question over its impartiality," they said.

The compensation of Rs one crore announced by the Delhi government for families of slain security forces personnel was intended for those who honestly and dedicatedly discharge their duties handed over to them by the government.

"In all these incidents (of attacks), one common visible thing is that Delhi Police is not functioning impartially and working at the instance of a particular party thereby betraying the Constitution and the people of the country," the letter read.

Last month the AAP government had approved the compensation of Rs one crore for kin of each of 14 slain personnel who belonged to Delhi. These included eight Delhi Police personnel who died on duty. PTI VIT SMN
Shimla, Nov 21 (PTI) With an objective of digitising healthcare among others, the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) was launched in all 12 districts of Himachal Pradesh Wednesday, a state spokesperson said.

The launching was chaired by Deputy Mission Director at the state-level which was followed by Chief Medical Officers in their respective districts. Inauguration was done in Kullu district under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner Yunus.

IHIP is being set up in six states of India. IHIP is real time, village wise, case based electronic health information system with GIS tagging which will help in prompt prevention and control of epidemic prone diseases, the spokesperson of the health department said.

In 2016, the Centre had informed Parliament that the move behind setting up IHIP was to enable creation of interoperable health records which can be made available and accessible throughout the country.

At the launch event, the health department spokesperson said information from other branches like tuberculosis control programme, maternal and child health programme and non-communicable disease programme also will be included in this platform.

This way, he said, all the authentic information required in health department would be available at one place for ease of patients, data users as well as health planners. PTI DJI CK
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Fiji's Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been sworn in for his second term at a ceremony held in the capital city of Suva on Tuesday.





His FijiFirst party won 50.02 percent of the vote in last week's general elections and 27 seats in the 51-seat parliament.





During a swearing-in ceremony held in the island nation's State House, Bainimarama took his oath and vowed to lead the country for another four years.





"I, Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama swear that I will be faithful and bare true allegiance for the Republic of Fiji, according to law. And I will obey, observe, uphold and maintain the constitution of the Republic of Fiji, so help me God," the re-elected prime minister said before Fijian President Jioji Konrote, Parliament Speaker Jiko Luveni, Chief Justice Anthony Gates, FijiFirst candidates and government ministers as well as members of the diplomatic corp.





Bainimarama also said that he will have meetings over the next few days and then make a decision on his cabinet lineup.





The first parliament session will also be held before the end of next week.





Bainimarama, 64, who is also the country's foreign minister, led his FijiFirst party won the country's last general elections in 2014.
New Delhi, Nov 21 (PTI) The 40-year-old man, who allegedly flung chilli powder at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, had broken glass panes at the reception area of the Delhi Secretariat one-and-a-half years ago after he failed to get an audience with the CM, police said.

The accused, Anil Sharma, was arrested on Tuesday and was interrogated jointly by the local police, Special Cell and Intelligence Bureau.

During interrogation, he claimed that he had tried to meet Kejriwal one-and-a-half-years ago but after he could not meet him, he broke the glass panes in the reception area of Delhi Secretariat.

Police said they will be verifying his claims and are further probing the matter.

He told the investigators he is married and has a daughter. His wife stays with her parents in Haridwar.

He graduated from a university in Meerut and was employed as a contractual worker with a company in Gurgaon at a salary of Rs 14,000 per month, he told police.

He told sleuths that he was earlier addicted to ganja but had quit drugs. PTI SLB BUN SMN
\R Phagwara (Punjab), Nov 21 (PTI) A 40-year-old farm worker apparently committed suicide by hanging himself in a village in Phagwara district, police said Wednesday.

Jakhan Shah, originally from Bihar, hanged himself from a tree on his landlord's field at Bhakhriana village on Tuesday. Shah is said to be an alcohol addict and has left behind six children and his wife, the police said.

A case under Section 174 (unnatural death) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) has been registered, the police said, adding that the body had been handed over to his family after post-mortem. PTI CORR VSD MAZ

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Madras HC acquits man in sexual assault case, faults police probe

Chennai, Nov 21 (PTI) The Madras High Court has acquitted a man, who was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment by a lower court in a case of sexual assault in Tiruvannamalai district in 2007, terming the police probe as "faulty".

The court also directed the Tamil Nadu DGP to peruse the judgement given by the trial court and the high court and arrange for training classes to all investigation officers to sensitise them to the manner in which a probe should be conducted in a case of sexual offence.

Allowing the appeal by the accused V Venkatesan Tuesday, Justice MV Muralidharan said, "It is seen from records that the investigation conducted by an inspector of police is the root cause for the collapse of the case of the prosecution."

In the case on hand, the judge said the investigating officer, without taking due care, conducted the probe in a casual manner and was not aware of the manner to investigate into the offence.

"The faulty investigation and the conduct of the victim soon after the occurrence of the incident have not inspired confidence in the case of the prosecution," he said.

The matter relates to the sexual assault of a woman by Venkatesan on October 13, 2007 at her residence in Arani.

Venkatesan was handed down the sentence on August 23, 2013 by a lower court for the offence under sections 450 (house trespass), 376 (punishment for sexual assault) of IPC.

Aggrieved over the conviction and sentence passed by the court, Venkatesan preferred the instant appeal in the High Court.

Noting that the accused was arrested after a lapse of 11 months of the incident, the judge said the complaint was lodged by the victim on October 19, 2007 and her medical examination done on October 31, which is a faulty investigation.

The judge then acquitted Venkatesan of all charges. PTI COR NVG ROH DV

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Even to someone with perfect hearing Manx Telecoms new mobile-based solution for hearing loss is audibly better.

For many millions of people with partial deafness, it seemingly offers hope for a real improvement in their life quality.

While helping with hearing loss might seem an unusual departure for an Isle of Man telecoms group, at the root is a core business that is about as steady as it gets.

Solution: Even to someone with perfect hearing Manx Telecoms new mobile-based solution for hearing loss is audibly better

Manx has been the dominant telecoms operator on the island for 129 years.

Services include the normal suite for an incumbent telco - broadband, telephony, mobile, managed services and IT.

Gary Lamb, Manxs chief executive, says the telecoms arm generates cash, pays dividends and invests in infrastructure but with a very stable population there is not much opportunity to grow the business.

That was why Vannin Ventures was established in 2016.

While a 100 per cent-owned subsidiary, it is a deliberately separate operation to the telco operation.

Vannins most recent significant investment (after its first investment in Partitionware) is a 67 per cent stake in Goshawk, the company that invented the hearing loss solution.

Lamb says the Isle of Man is an ideal place to develop new technology.

The island was the first to introduce 3G, for example, while a captive population of 85,000 is an ideal testing ground for new products.

Steady: While helping with hearing loss might seem an unusual departure for an Isle of Man telecoms group, at the root is a core business that is about as steady as it gets

And that is what Manx is doing with Goshawk.

Trials have been ongoing for some months to an enthusiastic response - 89% of those taking part said it would help.

A formal launch took place on the island last month ahead of a roll-out into the UK mainland over the EE network in 2019.

And, as impressive as the tech, are the projected numbers if all goes to plan.

Lamb believes Vannins revenues can eventually outstrip those of Manx.

There are 3mlillion people in the UK with moderate to severe hearing problems, he says, and within five years Lamb wants to have a fifth of those, or 600,000 as customers.

Pricing is likely to be between 15-20 per month, which is 180 per year at the lower end,

That equates to annual revenues of 108mln on 600,000 subscribers.

Manx Telecom, meanwhile, generated 80million in sales in 2017.

Admittedly these are best case projections, but Lambs enthusiasm is understandable especially as there is scope to develop the technology further.

Goshawk has been launched initially as a mobile application but should work equally well on fixed lines, he says.

Matthew Turner, Goshawks inventor and himself profoundly deaf, meanwhile is working on the European roll-out.

Language is not an issue and as the software required is installed at the network provider end, ie. Manx, and not by the user, roll-out costs should not be excessive.

Vannin, meanwhile, is looking at other products such as an e-sim card that can be updated remotely and eliminates the need for the physical plastic version.

In short, that is a lot of potential all of which seems underpinned by the steady telecoms business.

For instance, if the final dividend is increased by the same amount as the half year, the dividend yield currently is 7.1 per cent at 169p.

Like other incumbents, Manx Telecom is upgrading the network under its licence area to superfast broadband but the costs currently seem well within in its capability.

'We are broadly generating 27million in EBITDA a year and generating 25mln of cash from which we pay 13mln dividends, 8mln-10mln of capex and debt interest.

'That leaves between 1mln and 4mln to fund new ventures such as Vannin.'

Manx Telecom is committed to provide 10million of funding to Goshawk over three years, after which the expectation is that it will become self-funding.

Possibly there are doubts that such an established business as Manx Telecom is the right vehicle for a tech start-up, but management has made a major effort to keep the two apart.

The idea behind different management and premises, for example, is to build up Vannins own identity.

All will be much clearer in a years time once the UK roll-out is fully underway and when Vannin could be on the way to becoming a very valuable asset.

A rating of 13 times at Manxs current 165p share price would seem fair for the telecoms business even without this possibility.

For an investment with income and some serious growth potential, Manx is well worth a look.
 Flash

The following is the full text of a joint statement China and the Philippines issued Wednesday during a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Southeast Asian country.

Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines

21 November 2018, Manila

1. Upon the invitation of His Excellency Rodrigo Roa Duterte, President of the Republic of the Philippines, His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, paid a State Visit to the Philippines on 20-21 November 2018.

During the visit, the two Leaders held a bilateral meeting, wherein they recalled the history of friendly exchanges between China and the Philippines, charted the course for the future of China-Philippines bilateral relations, had in-depth exchange of views on regional and international issues of common interest, and reached important consensus.

President Xi Jinping also had a joint meeting with the Honorable House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Honorable Senate President Vicente Castelo Sotto III.

2. The Philippines congratulates China for its impressive achievements over the past four decades of its reform and opening up, and wishes China well in realizing its Two Centenary Goals. China congratulates the Philippines on its outstanding progress in upholding national security as well as in promoting sustainable economic growth and social development under the leadership of President Duterte, and expresses best wishes for the greater development of the Philippines.

3. Both sides agree that the sound development of China-Philippines relations serves the fundamental interests of the two peoples. Both sides recognize that the bilateral relations have achieved a positive turnaround and a sound momentum of development through the joint efforts and mutual trust of both sides. Both sides acknowledge that intensified efforts are required in order to achieve meaningful gains from cooperation agreements that were initiated.

4. The two Leaders recognize that the elevation of China-Philippines relations to higher levels is in line with the fundamental interests and shared aspiration of the two countries and peoples. Thus, on the basis of mutual respect, sincerity, equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, the Leaders decided to establish the relationship of Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation.

5. Both sides reaffirm the importance of existing China-Philippines bilateral dialogue mechanisms such as the Foreign Ministry Consultations, Consular Consultations, Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Cooperation, Annual Defense Security Talks, Joint Committee on Agriculture, Joint Committee on Fisheries, and the Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology, among others, in enhancing understanding, broadening cooperation, and striving for a stronger partnership.

6. The two Leaders agree to maintain close high-level communication through bilateral visits, phone calls, exchange of letters, and side meetings in multilateral fora, so as to strengthen the planning of bilateral relations, institute timely communication on major regional and international issues, and promote the sharing of experience in state governance. The Philippines reaffirmed its observance of the One-China principle.

7. Both sides welcome the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative. Both sides also welcome the contributions of similar connectivity initiatives in the region, including the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025.

8. The two countries recognize that defense and military cooperation is a significant component of bilateral relations and contributes to the peace and stability of the region. Both sides will jointly implement the MOU on Defense Cooperation through practical cooperation in the areas of counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance, disaster response and mitigation, and peacekeeping operations.

9. Both sides recognize the need to advance cooperation and collaboration in matters relating to health. The two Leaders agree to continue jointly promoting and developing cooperation in the fields of health through exchanges and cooperation in the fields of traditional medicine, human resource development for public health experts and medical scientists, public health, information and communications technology (ICT) application in health care, and health management.

10. China reiterates its firm support to the Philippine government's efforts in fighting against illicit drugs and drug-related crimes, and expresses willingness to strengthen cooperation in areas including combating the smuggling of illegal drugs and their precursor chemicals, intelligence sharing, joint investigation and operation as well as drug rehabilitation. The Philippines speaks highly of the completion of the drug rehabilitation center in Sarangani Province and the construction of the rehabilitation center in Agusan del Sur, both financed by China through grants, and conveys its appreciation to China for its assistance in personnel training and donation of drug detection, seizure, and testing equipment.

11. Both sides strongly condemn terrorism in all forms and commit to cooperate in the areas of information exchange, and capacity building, among others, to jointly prevent and address such threats. The Philippines expresses appreciation for China's support and assistance to the Philippines in counter-terrorism efforts and in the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Marawi City.

12. Both sides agree to strengthen law enforcement cooperation, and will enhance cooperation and communication to combat transnational crimes, including job-related crimes, telecommunications fraud, illegal on-line gambling, cybercrimes, human trafficking and illegal wildlife trade. Both sides agree to speed up the discussions with a view to signing a bilateral agreement on transfer of sentenced persons.

13. Both sides hail the progress in bilateral trade and economic cooperation, and will continue to actively implement the Six-Year Development Program for Trade and Economic Cooperation (2017-2022). The two sides agree to promote bilateral trade and investment settlements denominated in domestic currencies, and further strengthen exchanges and cooperation between the two customs, to further facilitate economic and trade activities.

14. China expressed its commitment to import more high-quality agricultural products including tropical fruits from the Philippines through expeditious completion of the accreditation process to enhance two-way trade balance.

15. The two sides will speed up the implementation of the China-Philippines Industrial Park Development Program, which was signed during this visit, and will continue to provide an enabling environment for their enterprises to invest in each other's country.

16. Both sides recognize that infrastructure cooperation has been a highlight of China-Philippines bilateral cooperation. The two sides will work for the timely completion of the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project and the Binondo-Intramuros and Estrella-Pantaleon Bridges, facilitate the implementation of projects such as the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project, the Safe Philippines Project Phase I and the Philippine National Railways South Long Haul Project, and other priority projects lined up for feasibility study support and implementation, and ensure effective implementation of ongoing projects. Both sides will work towards the formulation of relevant procedures and protocols for government concessional loan (Renminbi-denominated loan), and utilize preferential buyer's credit, commercial loans for development and co-financing arrangements between China and multilateral development banks, to provide financial support to key infrastructure projects.

17. Both sides will give full play to the role of the Sino-Philippine Center for Agricultural Technology (PhilSCAT) Technical Cooperation Phase (TCP) III, and promote cooperation in the fields of high quality seeds, agriculture infrastructure and machinery. Both sides will step up cooperation in fishery. The Philippines appreciates China's donation of the first batch of 100,000 grouper seeds in 2017 and assistance in relevant capacity building, and welcomes the upcoming donation of another 100,000 grouper seeds in November 2018 and 15,000 fresh water fish seeds for broodstock development early next year. Both sides will exchange best practices and cooperate in projects on poverty alleviation.

18. Both sides agree to promote cooperation in science and technology through exchange of experts and scientists, best practice sharing, joint researches, high tech park cooperation, joint organization of seminars, symposiums, and workshops, and other forms of cooperation mutually agreed upon under the framework of the Joint Commission Meeting on Science and Technology. Both sides agree to implement collaborative efforts on rice research, bamboo post-harvest and processing, renewable energy, green oil from cashew, traditional medicine, and technology transfer. The Ministry of Science and Technology of China also expresses readiness to host young Filipino scientists to China for the Talented Young Scientists Program (TYSP), so as to support the capacity building of the Philippines. Both sides welcome the adoption of the ASEAN-China Joint Statement on Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation during the 21st ASEAN-China Leaders' Meeting.

19. Both sides will encourage cooperation in the area of information and communications technology (ICT) to improve their respective technology and service capabilities.

20. Both sides recognize that the growing Chinese tourist arrivals in the Philippines over the past years have contributed to the economic growth of the Philippines. Both sides will encourage their citizens to travel to each other's country, strengthen cooperation in tourism infrastructure development and encourage airlines to open more direct flights between cities of the two countries, in order to further facilitate people-to-people exchanges.

21. The two sides fully recognize the importance of education exchanges including technical vocational education and training (TVET) and cooperation in enhancing the understanding and friendship between the two countries, and encourage relevant government agencies and educational institutions of various types and levels to engage in active cooperation.

China will provide an additional 50 Chinese Government Scholarships Grants for Philippine students on an annual basis from 2019-2021. Both sides will implement the Executive Program of Cultural Agreement between China and the Philippines for 2019-2023 signed during the visit and encourage their cultural institutions and groups to increase exchange of visits.

China will set up a Chinese Culture Center in the Philippines. Both sides support more twinning agreements between their cities and provinces.

22. Both sides agree to strengthen bilateral relations in the field of labor and employment and commit to implement the Memorandum of Understanding on the Employment of Filipino Teachers of English Language in China which was signed on 10 April 2018 in Boao, China, and welcome the implementation of arrangements for Filipino teachers of the English language working in China. The MOU signifies China's cognizance of the qualifications and competence of Filipino teachers to work in tertiary educational institutions as teachers of the English language. The MOU also endeavors for both countries to ensure the protection and promotion of the welfare of teachers while working onsite.

23. The Philippines welcomes the official launch of the Chinese Consulate-General in Davao City. Reciprocal arrangements for diplomatic premises in both countries will be made in the spirit of the 1975 Joint Communique, on the basis of international practice and reciprocity, with priority given to the most immediate concerns.

24. Both sides exchanged views on issues regarding the South China Sea, and reaffirmed that contentious issues are not the sum total of China-Philippines bilateral relations and should not exclude mutually beneficial cooperation in other fields. Both sides also reaffirm the importance of maintaining and promoting regional peace and stability, freedom of navigation in and over-flight above the South China Sea. Both sides stay committed to addressing disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned, and in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and the 1982 UNCLOS.

25. Both sides note that the situation in the South China Sea has become generally more stable as a result of joint cooperative efforts between China, the Philippines, and other ASEAN Member States. Both sides, together with ASEAN Member States, will work for the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in its entirety. Both sides agree to maintain the positive momentum of the negotiations on the Single Draft Code of Conduct (COC) Negotiating Text, with a view towards the early adoption of an effective COC, based on consensus.

26. Both sides agree to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability. Both sides also note the importance of confidence-building measures to increase mutual trust and confidence. In this regard, both sides affirm the importance of the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the South China Sea and the Joint Coast Guard Committee on Maritime Cooperation.

The two sides agree to maximize and strengthen the on-going coast guard, defense and military dialogue and liaison mechanisms, with a view to facilitating quick responses to situations on the ground and contributing to the enhancement of mutual trust and confidence between their coast guards and defense agencies.

27. Both sides welcome the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the two governments, and agree to discuss maritime cooperation including maritime oil and gas exploration, sustainable use of mineral, energy and other marine resources.

They also agree to strengthen existing cooperation mechanisms in other maritime-related areas. Both sides agree to cooperate in the implementation of relevant international maritime instruments to ensure the safety of life at sea, marine environmental protection, and human resources development.

28. The two sides speak positively of the development of China-ASEAN relations, and congratulate the 15th Anniversary of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and the China-ASEAN Year of Innovation. Both sides welcome the adoption of the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 during the 21st China-ASEAN Leaders' Meeting. China supports the Philippines as the Country Coordinator of the China-ASEAN Dialogue Relations and the coordinator for cooperation between China and BIMP-EAGA. The Philippines welcomes and supports the enhancement of cooperation between China and BIMP-EAGA, which will contribute to ASEAN Community Building and China-ASEAN cooperation.

29. Both sides agree to promote international peace and security, a rules-based multilateral free trade regime, and development cooperation, as well as enhance cooperation within relevant multilateral frameworks including the United Nations (UN) system.

30. Both sides welcome the signing of various agreements and Memoranda of Understanding during the visit, as listed in the Annex.

31. The two sides agree that the milestone visit of President Xi Jinping has contributed to the advancement of friendship and cooperation between China and the Philippines. President Xi Jinping appreciated the warm and friendly hospitality accorded to him and his delegation by President Duterte and the Philippine government, and extended an invitation to President Duterte to attend the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be held in Beijing, China, in April 2019. President Duterte accepted the invitation with pleasure.

Annex: List of agreements and MOUs

1. Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines on Cooperation within the Framework of the Belt and Road Initiative

2. MOU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

3. Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

4. Infrastructure Cooperation Program between the Government of the People's Republic China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

5. Program for Cooperation on Industrial Parks Development between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

6. The Exchange Letter on the Implementation of the Davao River Bridge Project between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

7. The Exchange Letter on the Implementation of the Road and Bridge Project in Marawi between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

8. Exchange of Letters on Project of Container Inspection Equipment between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

9. Handover Certificate of Emergency Humanitarian Cash Assistance between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

10. Executive Program of the Cultural Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines for 2019-2023

11. Memorandum of Understanding on Basic Education between the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Education of the Republic of the Philippines

12. Memorandum of Understanding on Promoting Cooperation in Information and Communications Industry Between the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Information and Communications Technology of the Republic of the Philippines

13. Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China and the Cooperative Development Authority Office of the Republic of the Philippines on Strengthening the Building of Agricultural Cooperatives

14. Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Promoting Cooperation in Key Infrastructure Projects in Davao Region between the Ministry of Commerce of the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Finance of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

15. Implementation Agreement of the Feasibility Study of Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridge

16. Implementation Agreement of the Feasibility Study of Davao City Expressway Project

17. Memorandum of Understanding on Renminbi Clearing Arrangement

18. Protocol of Phytosanitary Requirements for Export of Fresh Young Coconuts from the Philippines to China between the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Agriculture of the Republic of the Philippines

19. Protocol of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Requirements for Export of Frozen Fruits from the Philippines to China between the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Agriculture of the Republic of the Philippines

20. Memorandum of Understanding on Supporting the Feasibility Study of Major Projects between the China International Development Cooperation Agency of the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Department of Finance of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines

21. Memorandum of Understanding between China Foreign Affairs University of the People's Republic of China and the Foreign Service Institute of the Republic of the Philippines

22. Preferential Buyer's Credit Loan Agreement on the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project between the Export-Import Bank of China and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewage System (MWSS)

23. Memorandum of Understanding on Panda Bonds Issuance

24. Commercial Contract of Safe Philippines Project, Phase I

25. Contract Agreement of the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project between China Engineering Corporation and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewage System (MWSS)

26. MOA for the Development of a China-Philippines Mixed Use Industrial Park in the New Clark City

27. Project Management Consultancy Contract of the Philippine National Railway South Long Haul Project between the China Railway Design Corporation and the Department of Transportation of the Republic of the Philippines

28. Letter of No Objection to the Organization of the Renminbi-Philippine Peso Foreign Exchange Trading Market

29. Certificate of Authority to Operate for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Limited-Manila Branch
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Toyota Motor Corp. engages in the manufacture and sale of motor vehicles and parts. It operates through the following segments: Automotive, Financial Services, and All Other. The Automotive segment designs, manufactures, assembles and sells passenger cars, minivans, trucks, and related vehicle parts and accessories. It is also involved in the development of intelligent transport systems. The Financial Services segment offers purchase or lease financing to Toyota vehicle dealers and customers. It also provides retail leasing through lease contracts purchase by dealers. The All Others segment deals with the design and manufacture and sale of housing, telecommunications and other businesses. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda on August 28, 1937 and is headquartered in Toyota, Japan.

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Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will travel to China to attend the 21st Special Representatives' Meeting on the China-India Boundary Question from Friday to Saturday.

Doval will be visiting China at the invitation of State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, announced Geng Shuang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wednesday.
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President Xi Jinping returned to Beijing on Wednesday after state visits to Papua New Guinea, Brunei, and the Philippines, and attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting at Papua New Guinea's capital city of Port Moresby.

During his stay in Papua New Guinea, Xi also met with leaders from the Pacific island countries that have established diplomatic ties with China.

Xi's entourage included Ding Xuexiang, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee; Yang Jiechi, 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; State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi; and He Lifeng, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

When Xi left Manila for Beijing Wednesday afternoon, senior Philippine officials saw him off at the airport.

Before heading home, Xi also met with representatives of Chinese nationals and Chinese Filipinos living in the Philippines, encouraging them to make new contributions to the country's development and Sino-Philippine friendly cooperation.
Albany

Steve Bulger, the regional administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration, is encouraging people in the Capital Region and other parts of the state to shop at local small businesses this weekend, including on Small Business Saturday, which was created eight years ago by American Express.

"This Saturday is typically one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year and can make or break a small business," Bulger said.

He added that for every $100 spent at a local small business, $48 is recirculated into the local economy. At a big box retailer, the amount that remains locally is just $17.
Back in 2015, four-time world champion curler Randy Ferbey bemoaned the sober-minded ways of the sport's modern era. In his day, he told the Ottawa Sun, you would "go curl your game then go sit and visit with people and have a bunch of beers and stay up till midnight.

"Teams don't do that no more," Ferbey said.

But Ferbey jumped the gun a bit, because there's one team that has taken Ferbey's wistful recollection to heart in perhaps an overenthusiastic manner. On Sunday afternoon, the curling foursome of Jamie Koe, Ryan Fry, Chris Schille, and DJ Kidby got kicked out of the Red Deer Curling Classic in Alberta, in part because they were "extremely drunk."

"They went out to curl and they were extremely drunk and breaking brooms and swearing and just unacceptable behavior that nobody wants to watch or hear or listen to and it was just 'enough was enough,' " facility manager Wade Thurber told CBC Sports.

"There was some damage in the locker room and other teams complaining about their stuff being kicked around in the locker room. So at the end of the day, it was like 'OK, that's enough of this gong show.' The committee for the bonspiel collectively decided that we needed to remove them from the spiel for this year and what happens down the road, I'm not sure yet."

("Bonspiel" is curling lingo for "tournament.")

According to a sign posted at the arena, Koe's squad was disqualified - it had to forfeit its final match after just one end - and might not be allowed back. The team won its first match of the tournament on Friday before losing twice on Saturday, the Red Deer Advocate reported.

Fry, a gold medalist for Team Canada at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, was full of remorse in a statement to CBC Sports.

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"I would like to sincerely apologize to the fans, participants and organizers of the Red Deer Curling Classic," he said. "I came to the event to play and enjoy the sport. My actions were truly disrespectful and embarrassing - the committee was right to disqualify us from play."

The incident was discussed a this World Curling Tour live stream of the event: "Yesterday, they got here about 11 o'clock," the commentator said. "They were sitting over there drinking, about 30, 40 empty bottles of beer and they were doing shots. They went out there completely drunk and played, kicking rocks, throwing brooms, they got disqualified. Other teams were saying, 'We do not want to even play here anymore if they're allowed, so they said, 'Team Koe, disqualified,' and they're never allowed to play here again."

Said Fry, in his statement: "I allowed myself to lose control and I offended people with my actions. I wish nothing more than to apologize to everyone individually."
The male-chauvinist group Proud Boys have been described by federal authorities as an "extremist group with ties to white nationalism" - and have been the subject of warnings to local police agencies by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a report issued by a Washington state sheriff's office.

The report, from the office of Clark County Sheriff Chuck Atkins in southwestern Washington, was issued as the office analyzed the dismissal of a deputy who was fired after her affiliation with a female offshoot of the group, Proud Boys' Girls, came to light.

"The FBI categorizes the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to White Nationalism," noted the report, which was acquired and published by Property of the People, a government-transparency-focused nonprofit. "The FBI has warned local law enforcement that the Proud Boys are actively recruiting in the Pacific Northwest and that some in the group have contributed to the escalation of violence at political rallies held on college campuses."

The Proud Boys are one of many predominantly male, right-wing groups to come to the fore since Donald Trump's election as president. They describe themselves as a "Western chauvinist" fraternal group that believes in ending welfare, closing the borders and traditional gender roles.

But critics point to other statements and behavior to argue these aims are a subterfuge for racist and hateful beliefs.

"Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions: rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists," the Southern Poverty Law Center, which considers the Proud Boys a hate group, wrote in a report. "They are known for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric."

The group captured national media attention for its involvement in a fight that broke out on the streets of New York after it was invited to a Republican club in town. Police sought to charge nine people who were affiliated with the group after the incident.

The Proud Boys, who did not respond to a request for comment sent to their New York chapter, have pushed back on assertions made by those like the Southern Poverty Law Center. Founder Gavin McInnes, who was also a co-founder of Vice, has argued that his ideology is not motivated by racism.

"When pestered about their pedagoguery, the politically correct left insists they need to police our language because 'words are powerful' and 'words have meaning,' " he wrote in a 2011 essay. "It is not racist for white people to be unashamed of their race. Few people mind hearing 'Navajo Power,' but there's this implication that for whites to show any kind of pride means they want to extinguish other races. That's as absurd as saying a Dallas Cowboys fan wants all the other teams to die. To say black people are totally responsible for their lot in life now that it's 2011 is not racist."

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The FBI's field office in Seattle referred inquiries about its designation to its headquarters in Washington. In a statement distributed by spokeswoman Kelsey Pietranton, the FBI said that it did not regulate political ideology or any other rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

"Our focus is not on membership in particular groups but on individuals who commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security," the statement said. "When it comes to domestic terrorism, our investigations focus solely on criminal activity of individuals - regardless of group membership - which appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce the civilian population or influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion. The FBI does not and will not police ideology."

As is its practice, the bureau declined to deny or confirm whether the group was the subject of an investigation.

The author of the Clark County Sheriff's report, Commander Michael McCabe, told the Guardian, which first reported on the documents, that the FBI's classification was revealed in an FBI briefing in August.

As the Guardian reported:

McCabe's report found that Willey's participation with the Proud Boys and the Proud Boys Girls violated two of the office's policies, around off-duty conduct and nondiscrimination and harassment, as well as her oath of office.
ALBANY  In January 2010, Daytwan Perkins stood by his younger brother as he pleaded guilty to attempted robbery to resolve a murder charge in the slaying of University at Albany student Richard Bailey.

On Wednesday, Perkins was the one charged with murder: the Sept. 11 shooting of 29-year-old Barry Tyce Jr.

Perkins, of Albany, pleaded not guilty to an indictment unsealed by acting Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough that accused the 38-year-old of shooting Tyce inside 55  North Swan Street just after midnight.

Perkins was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He pleaded not guilty.

At the time of the shooting, Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins said investigators believed the gunman knew Tyce.

In January 2010, Perkins publicly defended his younger brother, King Modest, then 18, after Modest pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree robbery in a plea deal with Albany County District Attorney David Soares' office.

Modest, known as "Cokilla," agreed to cooperate and later testified against Devon Callicutt, then 19, who was convicted of shooting 22-year-old Bailey, a UAlbany student, in the head during a botched robbery at South Lake Avenue and Yates Street on Oct. 20, 2008.

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Callicutt, Modest and Ricardo Caldwell, then 19, were initially charged with the murder. They had been on bicycles looking to score "free money" via robbery after Caldwell lost money playing dice.

Caldwell, who like Modest acted as a lookout, pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and also testified for prosecutors. Modest received 10 years, Caldwell 12 years.

On the day Modest pleaded guilty, Perkins told the Times Union his brother was not the "monster" he had been portrayed as.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Perkins said at the time. "We mourn for the family's loss."
ALBANY - Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has a good problem on his hands: How to spend a windfall of $420 million.

For the last four and a half years it seems to be a recurring scenario for the state, which has reaped more than $11 billion as a result of monetary settlements from financial institutions.

A vast majority of the revenue has been invested in capital expenses and economic development initiatives, including nearly $2 billion for the new Mario Cuomo bridge over the Hudson River. But more than $2 billion has also been used to close holes in the state budget, according to an analysis by the state comptroller's office.

"Funds from extraordinary monetary settlements are primarily being used to support capital investments, such as infrastructure projects that are creating jobs and positioning every region of the state for further economic growth," state Division of Budget spokesman Morris Peters said.

Prior to the drastic uptick of settlement funds in 2014, he noted that this type of revenue was simply funneled into a miscellaneous pool of funds.

With the latest settlement, the DOB calculates that $831 million will be available to spend heading into the new fiscal year. More than $3 billion in settlement money hasn't been spent, but it's already been earmarked for the next five years.

Cuomo, who will present his state budget in January, hasn't signaled how he will spend the unallocated settlement funds.

Based on the $402 million budget shortfall the state is projecting for the upcoming fiscal year, it's possible at least some of the money will be used to bridge the gap, as $383 million was used this year to balance the books and $461 million was utilized the year before.

Economists generally agree that the funds should be invested into one-time costs that will pay dividends in the future, such as housing, infrastructure projects or paying down debt. They blanch at the repeated push from advocacy groups to use the money to fund recurring costs, such as education aid.

There is also an appetite among fiscal conservatives to stow some of the money in reserve for a dire financial challenge, like another recession.

Ron Deutch, executive director of the liberal Fiscal Policy Institute, faulted Cuomo and the state Legislature for prioritizing economic development initiatives with more than $2 billion in settlement money. The same critique came on the other end of the ideological spectrum from E.J. McMahon, research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy.

"It's been a blown opportunity basically," McMahon said.

He also had concerns about $850 million the state put aside to settle a dispute with the federal government over Medicaid payouts, and suggested using more of the money for core infrastructure costs to hold down growing debt costs.

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McMahon was particularly troubled by the use of settlement funds to cover annual operating costs, saying, "That's not something they should do under any circumstances. ... The question is whether they will do it again next year."

The DOB defended the practice, noting that it's relying on a smaller percentage of the settlement funds for operating costs than previous administrations.

It's not new for New York's coffers to swell with revenue from fines and settlements, but the scale of the money spiked in 2014, when the state collected $4.9 billion. Less than 10 percent of that amount was raked in a year earlier, and the average collection between 2005 and 2013 was about $179 million per year.

The big pay days were the result of a crackdown on bad financial actors by the federal government, Manhattan district attorney and state Department of Financial Services, according to McMahon.

"We are in a unique position to reap a windfall because these firms have their American charters in New York," he said. "Cuomo could have never anticipated this when he took office in 2011."

Still, revenue from settlements has been trending downward in recent years, and McMahon said it seems like the gravy train has run its course.

"They will continue to get a few hundred million here and there," he said. "You get the sense that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel."

David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87
ALBANY  The region's Appellate Division on Wednesday indefinitely suspended a Saratoga Springs lawyer who allegedly failed to respond to a watchdog panel's inquiries into allegations of misconduct.

The suspension of Peter Hughes Barry marked the third public disciplinary action the mid-level appellate court has imposed on a local lawyer in six days. On Nov. 15, the court disbarred Ghent attorney Joseph James Battaglia and suspended Slingerlands lawyer Albert Hessberg III, who is facing theft charges in U.S. District Court.

Barry, who was admitted to the bar in 2004 after graduating from the Nova Southeastern University College of Law in Florida, faced complaints of misconduct in connection with his representation of a client in a real estate matter, the ruling said.

The Attorney Grievance Committee, an arm of the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court which investigates complaints against lawyers, sent Barry two notices in May 2017 asking him to respond to the allegations, the ruling said.

Barry gave "deficient responses" which prompted the committee to demand he clarify his answers and provide more information. Barry provided no response, which led the committee to send a second demand for the clarification. Once again, he refused to respond, the decision said.

The committee sent a notice to Barry's office asking him to appear, answer questions under oath and produce documents related to the investigation. He failed to respond again.

On Wednesday, the Appellate Division took action.

"To date, (Barry) has failed to respond to (the committee's) motion and, thus, the aforementioned facts establishing (Barry's) lack of cooperation with the investigation are uncontroverted," stated the decision by Justices John Egan, Michael Lynch, Eugene Devine, Sharon Aarons and Phillip Rumsey. "Accordingly, we find that respondent has engaged in conduct that poses an immediate threat to the public interest and, therefore, grant (the committee's) motion and suspend (Barry) from the practice of law, effective immediately."

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Battaglia, who was admitted to the bar in 2007, failed to fully cooperate and produce documents to the committee, which was investigating four complaints from clients. Battaglia also did not comply with a subpoena the Appellate Division issued directing Battaglia to appear.

"(Battaglia) has made no effort to respond or appear, demonstrating a clear disregard

for his fate as an attorney," stated the decision from Justices Stanley Pritzker, Robert Mulvey, Egan, Devine and Rumsey. "Accordingly, we find that, under the circumstances, he should be disbarred."

Hessberg, a third-generation lawyer who has sat on a number of area boards, was fired in March from Barclay Damon, where he worked since 1981 and where he handled trusts and estate cases. Federal prosecutors in Albany charged him in June with the theft and concealment of at least $328,000 from clients and his employer.

On Nov. 15, the Appellate Division suspended Hessberg noting he " failed to cooperate with its lawful requests for information or substantively respond to its inquiries regarding information that (committee) has received alleging that respondent has engaged in serious professional misconduct."
Albany

The Capital Region could also be called the Collegiate Region. While Albany is known as a government town due to the presence of the state Capitol, the surrounding area has a high density of colleges and universities for its population, with more than two dozen schools within about an hour's drive.

University at Albany President Havidan Rodriquez would like to capitalize on that and on Monday, he invited presidents of other local schools to his campus to discuss what they may have in common and how they might work together going forward.

Presidents from a total of 19 area schools attended the meeting. In addition to UAlbany, other schools represented were: Skidmore College, The College of Saint Rose, Siena College, The Sage Colleges, Albany Law, Albany Pharmacy, Samaritan Nursing, Maria College, Empire State College, SUNY Cobleskill, Clarkson University; Hudson Valley, Columbia-Greene, Schenectady, Adirondack and Fulton-Montgomery community colleges; and Memorial and Samaritan hospital nursing programs.

Among the topics: how to deal with declining enrollment from feeder locations like upstate New York where the population is declining, and how to make sure that government as well as private funding sources are aware of the regions colleges and universities.

The discussion was about the changing political landscape  and how we as institutions of higher education can ensure that higher education remains a top priority, said Rodriquez.

People like to think there is a lot of competition and there might be some competition, but my focus was Lets put that aside and see how we can work together. "

Carolyn Stefanco, president of The College of Saint Rose agreed.

Competing with the University at Albany, or Siena is really not the answer, she said referring to her schools strategy. Instead, she said schools need to figure out how they can be more distinctive while working together on common issues.

One possibility, she said, would be to create a group or consortium that could approach private foundations that are looking to support higher education.

They dont want to fund just one institution. They want to fund institutions working together, she said of many foundations.

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Another potential strategy would be working to inform the public how important the schools in aggregate are to the Capital Region economy. The 21 schools in the region employee 10,000 people, said Rodriguez.

He also cited a recent study showing that the University at Albany alone has an estimated $1 billion impact on the region. For every tax dollars that goes to support the school, he said, $12 in economic activity are generated.

Both Rodriguez and Stefanco said the meeting was very preliminary and its too soon to say that a full consortium or group has been created.

It was a freewheeling conversation about the challenges we are facing in higher education and particularly what we our facing in the Capital Region, Stefanco said.

Both said they are looking to hold another meeting in the spring, probably at another campus, and move forward from there.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickkarlinTU
Buffalo

Indicted Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Collins declared victory Tuesday in his western New York district, saying a count of absentee ballots preserved his lead over Democratic challenger Nate McMurray.

"Congressman Collins led and won on election night and maintained that lead during the entire recanvassing process," Collins' campaign spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement.

In another undecided New York race, Democrat Anthony Brindisi said Tuesday that updated vote counts show he will defeat Republican U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney in the central part of the state.

The Associated Press has not called either race, and neither McMurray nor Tenney has conceded. Both races were too close to call on election night, prompting a wait as officials counted thousands of absentee ballots.

In Collins' heavily Republican 27th Congressional District, which gave President Donald Trump his biggest margin of victory of any in the state in 2016, fewer than 3,000 votes separated the candidates on Election Day. After the last of more than 10,000 absentee ballots were tallied Tuesday, Erie County Republican Election Commissioner Ralph Mohr said it was "mathematically improbable" for McMurray to win. Collins' lead had shrunk to 1,384 with more than 900 affidavit ballots and an unknown number of military and federal ballots still to be counted.

McMurray's campaign said it would not have a statement until Wednesday.

Collins, one of the first members of Congress to support Trump's presidential run, is scheduled for trial in early 2020 on charges he leaked information about a biopharmaceutical company that allowed his son and others to avoid nearly $800,000 in stock losses. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of insider trading and lying to the FBI.

Collins initially dropped out of the race after the August indictment, then restarted his campaign a month later as Republican leaders were deliberating who would replace him on the ballot.

"The stakes are too high to allow the radical left to take control of this seat in Congress," he said at the time.

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McMurray, town supervisor of Grand Island, saw his campaign pick up steam amid Collins' legal troubles. He reported raising more than a half-million dollars in three months and, with polls showing a close race, landed on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" list for national support.

Before Collins' arrest, the incumbent's re-election was seen as all but certain.

A conviction would likely lead to Collins' resignation from Congress. The most serious charge carries a potential prison term of up to 20 years.

Tenney, serving in her first term, also was an early Trump supporter whose brash rhetoric drew comparisons to the president's. The district, the 22nd, supported Trump in 2016 and Trump endorsed Tenney for re-election.

As of Tuesday, Tenney trailed by more than 4,000 votes after additional absentee ballots were counted. About 1,900 ballots remained to be tallied.
ALBANY  The Associated Press on Tuesday reported that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has promised to finish out his third term ending in 2022, has been in contact with Iowa Democrats, presumably concerning possible presidential ambitions.

"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who won re-election to a third term this month, has contacted Des Moines-area Democrats," said the article written by AP reporter Thomas Beaumont.

At least some leading Des Moines Democrats contacted by the Times Union, however, said they haven't heard anything from the Cuomo camp.

The article focused on efforts by likely Democratic presidential contenders to secure top-flight political talent in Iowa, which holds the crucial first-in-the nation caucuses every four years. The brief mention of Cuomo in the story followed discussion of a handful of other possible 2020 hopefuls.

Cuomo vehemently denied the report.

"I don't know where that story comes from. There is no truth to it. It's a conspiracy theory," he said Monday in the Bronx. Cuomo's spokesman also denied the report in a tweet.

Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, told the Times Union that he had not been contacted by Cuomo or anyone in his orbit. Price is a hooked-in figure in Hawkeye state politics, and was described in the Des Moines Register in 2014 as "one of the best connected and most popular Democratic strategists in Iowa."

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In addition, former Iowa state Sen. Tom Courtney, co-chair of the Des Moines County Democratic Party, said he also had not heard anything from Cuomo. Courtney is a person typically in demand as well, a frequent recipient of calls from leading presidential candidates.

Typically, candidates would start visiting the state next spring, Courtney said, when they can meet with many Iowa lawmakers while the state Legislature is in session.
TROY - A couple weeks ago Margaret Donnelly walked into the Rensselaer County Court with a Hail Mary play -- a request for a stay to postpone the killing of Luna, a family dog who got into trouble after biting another dog and its owner.

The order was granted and now Luna likely has at least few more months to live.

But the fight is still on -- by Luna's owner, Donnelly, their attorney, and the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society -- to not only save the dog from being euthanized but also to change Troy's dangerous-dog law in the process.

"Obviously we want to reverse the order to prevent the euthanasia," Jonathan Schopf, Mohawk Hudson's attorney, told the Times Union Wednesday. "We are also hoping to raise the issue of Troy's strict dangerous-dog law."

Schopf said the appeal process, to reverse the euthanasia order, could take anywhere from four to six months, during which time Luna will remain in Mohawk Hudson's care. The non-profit said it will pay for the fees of housing the six-year-old mixed breed dog.

"I'm sure over the next few months she will be hanging out in our office," Marguerite Pearson the

marketing and communications manager for Mohawk Hudson said. "She will be getting lots of love."

In late October, Luna bit a neighborhood dog and the dog's owner, Alexi Carpenter, during a tussle at a Troy residence. Although the injuries Luna caused were described as minor, an animal control officer arrived the next day to remove the dog from its home.

This was Luna's first offense and the first time the dog had been aggressive, Donnelly said.

Schopf said state law would not require Luna to be euthanized.

"If it is just a mere physical injury and it is the dog's first offense it is not eligible for euthanasia under the state law," Schopf said.

However, Troy's dangerous-dog laws are different from the state's and much stricter, with little tolerance for aggression and Luna was deemed dangerous and ordered to be put down.

This is at least the second case of a local dog being deemed dangerous this month in Troy.

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Schopf said a higher court should review the lower court ruling, especially as it pertains to a live creature that is considered a family member.

Luna's story has captured the attention of people throughout the community.

On social media the hashtag #SaveLuna has been circulating to show their support for the dog.

In addition, Carpenter, owner of the dog that was bitten, said she does not want Luna to be euthanized either. "The court should not have sentenced her to death," she said.

Volunteers and employees for Mohawk Hudson, where Luna has been for nearly a month, have also been charmed by the pup.

"I have met Luna," Schopf said. "She seems like a nice and sweet dog."
On Thanksgiving Day in 1956, a group of families sat down to a feast at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. Almost none of them had ever heard of the Thanksgiving holiday. But it quickly became a favorite.

These were refugees from Hungary who had just arrived in the United States. They had escaped the assault by Soviet Union troops after an uprising against Communist rule. These refugees were finding safety, freedom and hope in America.

As reported by journalist Claire Cox in The Washington Post, the refugees received a wonderful Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, mashed and sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, rolls with butter and pumpkin pie. This is how you greet refugees, especially after a long journey.

Eighteen-year-old Kamel Gabos said, "I don't understand the meaning of Thanksgiving. But I am thankful to be here. I don't have to be told what kind of country we are in. I saw that the minute I stepped off the airplane."

Imre Heidert, who was part of the uprising against the Communists in Budapest, said, "I had forgotten there was such a thing as turkey. I ate it when I was a child, before World War II, when Hungary was still Hungary, but no one has it anymore."

Some refugees had arrived the night before. Josef Mate, a priest who had been imprisoned five years by the Communists, exclaimed, "I am saying to President Eisenhower and all the American people thank you and God bless you."

The New York Times reported that refugees were thrilled to be asked their opinion. Under Communist rule, that was never welcomed.

At a speech welcoming the refugees, Army Secretary Wilber Brucker said, "The Stars and Stripes floating here today is the flag not only of America, but of all humanity."

Tens of thousands of refugees would be welcomed to America from Hungary. And for those still under Soviet oppression in Hungary, aid was sent. With U.S. support the Red Cross provided food programs for mothers and infants plus daily hot meals for Budapest schoolchildren.

Today, as a caravan of migrants fleeing violence and poverty in Central America approaches, we should ask ourselves: Are we still the same country, at least in terms of our leadership?

President Donald Trump seems to have forgotten what makes America great, our compassion for refugees. He has ordered troops to the border to prevent the migrants from entering. Trump has also ordered a limit of 30,000 refugees to be allowed into the United States for fiscal year 2019.

This is an alarmingly low figure when you consider the massive number of displaced people from conflicts in Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and many other trouble spots. Worldwide, 68 million people have been forced from their homes, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Trump is reducing support for refugees at a time when it's needed the most. According to Catholic Relief Services, the 30,000 cap would "be the lowest it's been in the history of the U.S. refugee admissions program, which was established more than 30 years ago." CRS says the new ceiling, along with proposals to cut poverty-reducing foreign assistance, "risks marring America's moral leadership."

The United States can do better.

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As President Dwight Eisenhower once said, "The response of the American people to the needs of the homeless and the outcast has always been generous and timely. ... With charity and understanding, the American people have welcomed these refugees to our shores."

Our refugee admission program should expand during a time of crisis. Our food and humanitarian aid programs to refugees overseas should likewise increase.

Instead, so much focus from Trump is placed on wild spending to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep out people escaping violence and hunger in Central America. Helping those who come in peace and addressing the root causes of why people flee would be a more humane approach.

What makes America great is our compassion. It is welcoming those who come here seeking safe haven. It is sending food to the family overseas who has been displaced by war. It is seeking to build peace everywhere so such tragedies of displacement and hunger do not occur in the first place.

Thanksgiving Day should remind us of how we greeted refugees in the past and how we should treat those who need our help today.
You won't find this gorgeous Spanish Revival home in Los Angeles on many lists of Marilyn Monroe's known residences.

However, those who've lived in the neighborhood for decades have tales to tell of America's most glamorous movie star and her second husband, New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio. The celebrity couple were seen in the home before and during their brief marriage in 1954.

The scoop comes from listing agent Neal Baddin of Coldwell Banker, who's been selling real estate for decades in the Outpost Estates area, which is known for old Hollywood glamour.

According to Baddin, one neighbor says she remembers the star couple living in the home, which is now on the market for $2.7 million.

Confirming these stories is an authenticated check, written by Monroe herself, for a $237.82 rental payment on the property. That check was auctioned off for $1,000 in 2015 with the following description:

"Marilyn Monroe signed this check in blue ballpoint pen. The check pertained to her lease at 2393 Castilian Drive, a home she shared with Joe DiMaggio. Marilyn moved into the house on December 15, 1952, when she was seeing Joe DiMaggio and he was still married. He became a permanent feature there inviting friends over for meals while Marilyn was beginning to learn to cook, trying to show Joe how she was settling down."

Monroe and DiMaggio married in 1954, but rumors of relationship problems plagued them before they finished their honeymoon in Japan. They divorced in October of that same year, just 274 days after tying the knot.

The kitchen has been remodeled a number of times since Monroe learned to cook there, but the room's stunning views the couple enjoyed still remain.

"You feel like you're living in the Italian Riviera, with vistas of the canyons and hills that are reminiscent of the beautiful Amalfi Coast," says Baddin.

Original features include the vaulted wood-beam ceilings, a tile roof, plaster walls with arched doorways, tile floors, and balconies and terraces. All of those elements contribute to the Mediterranean aesthetic, according to the agent.

The house measures 3,335 square feet and has four bedrooms and 4.5 baths. It sits on almost an acre of land, which is quite sizable for this historic neighborhood in the hills north of Hollywood Boulevard.

Baddin says in the 1970s a grotto-style pool and spa were added out back, positioned to appear wedged into the cliff side , another detail reminiscent of the hills of Italy.

"You won't find a better value for a home in this neighborhood," says Baddin. The sellers, who bought the home in July for $2.2 million, were planning a major renovation, but changed their minds.

"It's quite an enchanting home," says Baddin, who adds that many of the same features that attracted Monroe and DiMaggio in the '50s can still be appreciated by a buyer today.

The post Storied Love Nest of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio Is Listed for $2.7M appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
[November 20, 2018] Wilshire Quinn Provides $480,000 Cash-Out Refinance Loan in Stockton, CA

Wilshire Quinn Capital, Inc. announced Tuesday that its private lending fund, the Wilshire Quinn Income Fund, has provided a $480,000 cash-out refinance loan in Stockton, California. The multi-family property is comprised of 5,000 square feet, with 9 units, all of which are fully rented. The property was appraised this month for $1,000,000, giving the Wilshire Quinn Income Fund a total loan-to-value ratio of 48% on the transaction. In addition to lending on multi-family properties, Wilshire Quinn provides financing on a wide array of property types including office, mixed-use, retail, industrial, and non-owner occupied SFR (News - Alert). As for Wilshire Quinn's typical borrowers, their customer base is fairly diverse; borrowers range from builders looking for rehab financing, to individuals who are looking to purchase or refinance an investment property. Wilshire Quinn, a San Diego hard money lender, a Los Angeles hard money lender, and a San Francisco hard money lender, provides financing to borrowers who are unable to obtain credit from traditional lending institutions or need to close quickly on a property.



ABOUT WILSHIRE QUINN Wilshire Quinn is a California hard money lender, with offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and typically funds loans in 5 to 7 business days. Wilshire Quinn originates private money loans ranging from $200,000-$10,000,000 and works with commercial and residential buyers nationwide.

Loans are made or arranged by Wilshire Quinn Income Fund, LLC pursuant to California Finance Lenders Law license #603J060. Wilshire Quinn Capital, Inc. serves as manager of the Wilshire Quinn Income Fund, LLC. The information above is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. Portions of the loan described above may be sold to third party purchasers and does not necessarily reflect the amount held in the Fund's loan portfolio. Nothing contained in the information above is an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Any such offer to purchase securities will be made only through the Private Placement Memorandum of Wilshire Quinn Income Fund, LLC. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005807/en/

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INVESTOR ALERT: Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Announces Investigation on Behalf of Renault SA Investors (RNLSY)

Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces an investigation on behalf of Renault SA ("Renault" or the "Company") (OTC: RNLSY) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws.

On November 19, 2018, various news sources reported that Renault Chief Executive Officer and Nissan Chairman, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested after an internal company investigation revealed Ghosn had underreported his compensation to the Japanese financial authorites for several years. On this news, shares of Renault fell nearly 4%, to close at $13.13, on November 20, 2018, thereby injuring investors.







If you purchased Renault securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020 by telephone at (215) 638-4847, toll-free at (888) 638-4847, or by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.howardsmithlaw.com.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005809/en/
[November 20, 2018] First Data Launches Clover Mini and Clover Flex in Argentina

First Data (NYSE: FDC), a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, today announced the launch of Clover Mini and Clover Flex in Argentina. The first smart payments devices of their kind available to businesses in the market, Clover Mini and Clover Flex will enable business owners to accept the latest in payment innovation, maximize operational efficiency, leverage real-time data analytics, and better engage with customers, all with industry-leading security and fraud monitoring. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005815/en/ Clover Mini (Photo: Business Wire) First Data Chairman and CEO, Frank Bisignano and Clover Founder, John Beatty, joined First Data Executive Vice President, Head of Latin America, Gustavo Marin and General Manager, Argentina, Patricia Guarnes at the Faena Arts Center in Buenos Aires to announce Clover's launch in Argentina. Supported by the Clover platform, business owners using Clover's next-generation payments technology can take control of their businesses in real-time over an online backend portal, a merchant web dashboard that can be accessed at any time from a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The portal allows merchants to monitor transaction status, view receipts in an online archive, and make configuration changes remotely. The products target small and medium-sized businesses. First Data's first two Clover devices available in Argentina are Clover Mini and Clover Flex smart terminals. Clover is offered in Argentina in tandem with two software solutions: Sistema (News - Alert) de Pagos (includes Employee Management, Customers and Reports), Punto de Ventas (Order, Inventory and Fiscal Printer), and is already integrated with the Argentinian market leader fiscal printer (Hasar). Clover's business management functionality also assists with creating orders, tracking inventory, customizing staffing, enhancing customer engagement, and performingback-office tasks. Clover additionally offers access to a third-party app market, connecting merchants with applications designed to simplify daily business tasks and support functions that are critical to business owners. The apps can sync with accounting programs, optimize employee management, elevate customer loyalty, and more.



"We are proud to launch Clover's innovative payments technology in Argentina," said Chairman and CEO, Frank Bisignano. "We have watched the Clover platform grow rapidly across the U.S and in Europe, and this is another great step forward for First Data in our goal to empower businesses in all regions around the world with the most innovative payments technology to help them grow." "Today we are delighted to launch two of Clover's most popular solutions here, making the next generation of payments technology available to our clients," said Executive Vice President, Head of the Latin America, Gustavo Marin. "Argentina is our main growth engine in the region and one of the early non-U.S. countries to activate Clover. We see significant potential for the product to succeed here."

At Clover's launch in Buenos Aires, First Data customers - among retailers, banks and influencers - could test the products' functionalities first hand. Clover Mini Clover Mini is housed in a small package, but has the same power as a full size point-of-sale terminal, meaning business owners can access the same intuitive tools without compromising on counter space. Clover Mini provides merchants with: Front-facing camera that enables barcode and QR code reading

Wi-Fi, 3G or Ethernet connectivity

7" color display screen, Scan reader;

Touchscreen PIN entry for card payment transactions

EMV/Chip, Contactless and swipe. Clover Flex While Clover Flex is available for businesses of all sizes, its design makes it ideal for restaurant, retail, and service-based industries that want to take the checkout experience to the customer. Compact enough to be a handheld device, Clover Flex makes it easy to accept payments in-line, at the table, on the shop floor, or in the customer's home. Features include: Scan Reader - barcode scanner and camera

Long-lasting Lithium-ion battery that can support up to eight hours of business on a single charge

On-screen electronic signature capture that can email, text and store digital receipts

5" touch display for bright, crisp images

Lightweight device

Designed for the rigors of mobility through extensive reliability testing For more information on Clover in Argentina, please visit www.la.clover.com/. About First Data First Data (NYSE: FDC) is a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, serving approximately 6 million business locations and 4,000 financial institutions in more than 100 countries around the world. The company's 22,000 owner-associates are dedicated to helping companies, from start-ups to the world's largest corporations, conduct commerce every day by securing and processing more than 3,000 transactions per second and $2.4 trillion per year. For more information, visit www.firstdata.com and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at @FirstData and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005815/en/

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Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Announces Investigation on Behalf of Renault SA Investors

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of Renault SA ("Renault" or the "Company") (OTC: RNLSY) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws.

If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.







On November 19, 2018, various news sources reported that Renault's Chief Executive Officer and Nissan Chairman, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested after an internal company investigation revealed Ghosn had underreported his compensation to the Japanese financial authorities for several years. On this news, shares of Renault fell nearly 4%, to close at $13.13, on November 20, 2018, thereby injuring investors.

Follow us for updates on Twitter (News - Alert): twitter.com/GPM_LLP.

If you purchased Renault, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, Esquire, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, California 90067, at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005812/en/
[November 20, 2018] CropIn Raises $8 Million From Chiratae Ventures & Other Investors to Accelerate its Global Vision of 'Maximizing Per Acre Value'

BENGALURU, India, November 21, 2018/PRNewswire/ -- CropIn Technology Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an agriculture technology startup, has raised INR 58 crores ($8 million) in a Series B financing from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund (London and Seattle). The financing will scale CropIn's 'SmartFarm' technology platform in India and globally to expand its reach from 3 million acres across 2 million farmers to more than 10 million actively monitored acres across 7 million farmers. With this capital infusion and its increasingly rich data-set, the Company will further develop its machine-learning-based 'SmartRisk' platform to achieve unprecedented levels of plot-level crop detection and yield prediction. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787489/CropIn_Founders.jpg )

Headquartered in Bengaluru with 180+ customers across 29 countries, CropIn enables businesses in the agriculture-ecosystem to adopt a data-driven approach through its ground-to-cloud technology platform. It thus empowers agribusinesses to 'grow more with less', and drive initiatives around Digitization, Traceability, Predictability, Sustainability and Compliance. CroIn's client portfolio includes many large global agribusinesses, banks, government bodies and development agencies. Through its product platform, CropIn addresses a global market of digital-based agriculture services that is estimated to hit $4.5 billion by 2020.



The company's initial product, SmartFarm, is a highly customizable mobile app and web interface for farm management deployed across agribusinesses' own field agents allowing for business-to-business-to-farmer plot-level farm management. Because data is collected and curated by agribusiness employees active at the plot-level and scrubbed for any inconsistencies by CropIn, there is high confidence that the information accurately reflects what is happening on the farm representing 'ground-truth' data. CropIn then builds on this data to enhance traceability and monitoring for its agribusiness clients through various software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. "To feed the 9.7 billion people in the world in 2050, agriculture efficiency must increase by 35% - 70% and technology is the key. India's rich mix of farming practices and small landholdings provide a massive data set to inform our models. Further, as a SaaS company, geography has never been a limiting factor for expanding our customer base. We are currently active throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and in select European markets. As ground-truth information from these geographies continues to fill our data lake, it provides insights that create a paradigm shift in the agriculture ecosystem globally," says CropIn Founder & CEO Krishna Kumar.

At the back end, CropIn's data lake amplifies this ground-truth data with local weather information and high-resolution satellite imagery, which form the foundation of machine learning. By analyzing and interpreting this data for the 265 crops with nearly 3,500 variants on its platform across billions of data points that grow every day, CropIn is building an agri-information highway that will detect patterns and predict the future of the crop highlighting the risk and opportunity for agri stakeholders. CropIn provides near-real-time actionable insights to agriculture processors, distributors, inputs providers, lenders and insurers through its connector APIs. Additionally, CropIn's algorithms can establish historical performance of every pixel at farm and regional level. "We fundamentally believe in the founders' vision of creating a global agri-tech leader, while partnering with multiple stakeholders including agri-businesses, farming companies, financial lending & insurance companies. The sheer impact of CropIn for their global customers across 29 countries based on the unique data sets captured by the platform is staggering. The potential to revolutionize agriculture leveraging technology and machine learning has never been greater, and we believe Krishna and Kunal will continue to pioneer this industry for years ahead," according to Karan Mohla, Executive Director, Chiratae Ventures India Advisors. With this investment, CropIn has raised a total funding of $12 million from investors including Singapore-based venture capital firm Beenext. SOURCE CropIn Technology

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[November 20, 2018] Cloudera partners with Bank Rakyat Indonesia on Data-Driven Journey to Boost Growth and Accelerate Financial Inclusion in Indonesia

SINGAPORE, Nov. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloudera, Inc. (NYSE: CLDR), the modern platform for machine learning and analytics optimized for the cloud, today announced that PT. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (BRI) , one of the largest state-owned banks in Indonesia, has deployed Cloudera Enterprise to harness the power of their data to deliver better services to its customers and accelerate financial inclusion in Indonesia. By powering its big data platform with Cloudera, the financial institution has expanded its customer base and enhanced its fraud detection capability through machine learning. Click to tweet : @Cloudera partners with @Bank_BRI_ID on data-driven journey to boost growth, accelerate financial inclusion and enhance fraud detection through #machinelearning [bit.ly] Founded in 1895, BRI specializes in microfinance loans and serves approximately 30 million retail clients through more than 4,000 branches, units and rural service posts in Indonesia. To further grow its business, the bank needed to harness the full value of their customer data to not only retain existing customers but also acquire new ones. With the huge amount of customer data gained over the years, the bank set out on a mission to digitalize its operations by deploying a modern data management platform that was scalable, secure and compliant. By replacing its legacy system with Cloudera Enterprise, the bank was able to analyze five years' worth of historical data and use the derived insights to improve its credit scoring system. The insights derived also revealed a deeper understanding of its customers' behavior. Armed with this knowledge, BRI is now able to drive more sales by cross-selling and upselling services that are most relevant to individual existing customers. BRI has always been committed to the Indonesian government's 2020 Go Digital Vision and has focused on accelerating the rate of financial inclusion in Indonesia. Previously, BRI distributed loans in traditional models which are often time-consuming and require a lengthy process. This was an impediment in driving the rate of financial inclusion. By adopting a data-driven approach and applying machine learning, BRI has increased the uptake of digital loans and improved the productivity level of processing credit loans by up to 50%, reducing processing time from two weeks to two days. According to the Global Findex Databas 2017 report, almost 50% of the adults in Indonesia now own a bank account, reflecting the progress the nation has made in boosting financial inclusion. And BRI aims to further narrow this financial inclusion gap by providing greater access to their loans with the introduction of an app.



To address the mounting concerns around data security from both regulators and consumers, BRI has also recently embarked on a pilot project to enhance its fraud detection system. Cloudera Data Science Workbench is being used to develop a machine learning model for fraud detection by leveraging data from multiple data sets. The model will be deployed and served in real-time by utilizing HBase as its backend data store. With the newly developed fraud detection system, BRI will be able to process and detect fraud in real time by highlighting anomalies found in the stream of events coming from multiple customer touch points such as ATMs and internet banking portals. "We are committed to delivering services that continually address customer demands while reducing risks," said Indra Utoyo, Director of IT and Operations, BRI. "Cloudera's secure, scalable and compliant platform has empowered us to analyze our massive volume of data, which subsequently enabled us to make insights-driven decisions that helped reduce churn, increase wallet share, and better prevent fraud. We also chose Cloudera due to its strong reference in the Indonesian market and the strong technical support provided by its local and global teams."

"To stay ahead of the competition, banks need analytics and machine learning to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers in order to deliver more personalized offerings, comply with regulations, and reduce risks," said Mark Micallef, Vice President for Asia Pacific and Japan, Cloudera. "We are pleased to help BRI capture new growth opportunities and address complex business challenges." About PT. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero), Tbk

PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (BRI) engages in the provision of general banking services. The firm operates through the following segments: Micro, Retail, Corporate, Others, and Subsidiaries. The Micro segment offers banking services to individual customers and micro-entrepreneurs. The Retail segment serves individual customers and small and medium entrepreneurs by providing banking services, deposit products, and commercial or consumer loans. The Corporate segment provides special loans, cash management, and other loan facilities to state-owned enterprises and non-state owned enterprises companies. The Subsidiaries segment focuses on shariah banking services, agribusiness, and remittances provided by the company subsidiaries. The company was founded by Aria Wiriatmaja on December 16, 1895 and is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. For more information on BRI, log on to https://bri.co.id. About Cloudera

At Cloudera, we believe that data can make what is impossible today, possible tomorrow. We empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. We deliver the modern platform for machine learning and analytics optimized for the cloud. The world's largest enterprises trust Cloudera to help solve their most challenging business problems. Learn more at www.cloudera.com . Connect with Cloudera

About Cloudera: cloudera.com/more/about.html

Read our VISION blog: vision.cloudera.com/ and Engineering blog: blog.cloudera.com/

Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/cloudera

Visit us on Facebook: facebook.com/cloudera

See us on YouTube: youtube.com/user/clouderahadoop/featured

Join the Cloudera Community: community.cloudera.com/

Read about our customers' successes: cloudera.com/more/customers.html Cloudera and associated marks and trademarks are registered trademarks of Cloudera, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the expected performance and benefits of Cloudera's offerings. The words "believe," "may," "will," "plan," "expect," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our Form S-1 Registration Statement, and our future reports that we may file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Cloudera assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloudera-partners-with-bank-rakyat-indonesia-on-data-driven-journey-to-boost-growth-and-accelerate-financial-inclusion-in-indonesia-300753547.html SOURCE Cloudera, Inc.

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[November 20, 2018] Supermicro Extends Industry-Leading Portfolio of NVIDIA GPU Servers with New Systems at GTC China

SUZHOU, China, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, today is sharing the company's industry-leading portfolio of NVIDIA GPU servers at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in Suzhou, China, at the Jinji Lake Shilla Hotel, Booth A1-P4 from November 21-22. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning are quickly becoming crucial components to business success now and in the foreseeable future. Today, the necessity of deploying powerful computing platforms that can accelerate and cost-effectively scale their AI-based products and services has become vital for successful enterprises. "To address the rapidly emerging high-throughput inference market driven by technologies such as 5G, Smart Cities and IoT devices that generate huge amounts of data and require real-time decision making, our new SuperServer 6049GP-TRT provides the superior performance required to vertically scale the technology of modern AI," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. To achieve maximum GPU density and performance, this 4U server supports up to 20 NVIDIA Tesla T4 Tensor Core GPUs, three terabytes of memory, and 24 hot-swappable 3.5" drives. This system also features four 2000-watt Titanium level efficiency (2+2) redundant power supplies to help optimize the power efficiency, uptime and serviceability.



Ian Buck , vice president and general manager of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. "Enterprise customers will benefit from a dramatic boost in throughput, utilization and power efficiency from the NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs in Supermicro's new high-density servers." Supermicro has an entire family of 4U GPU systems that support the ultra-efficient NVIDIA Tesla T4, which is designed to accelerate deep learning training, inference and machine learning workloads in any scale-out server. The hardware-accelerated transcode engine in NVIDIA T4 delivers multiple HD video streams in real-time and allows integrating deep learning into the video transcoding pipeline to enable a new class of smart video applications. To achieve responsiveness, these models are deployed on powerful Supermicro servers with NVIDIA GPUs to deliver maximum throughput for inference workloads.

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 NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs with NVIDIA NVLink. 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 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 premises and in the cloud. This new system can deliver up to 2 PetaFLOPS of performance and occupies just ten units of rack space. For comprehensive information on Supermicro NVIDIA system product lines featuring NVIDIA GPUs, please go to https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/gpu.cfm. 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, 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. SMCI-F Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/787296/Super_Micro_4U_System.jpg SOURCE Super Micro Computer, Inc.

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[November 20, 2018] Infosys Announces Creation of 1,200 jobs in Australia

SYDNEY, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The company will open three Innovation Hubs and create new skilled jobs for graduates and professionals by 2020 Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in consulting, technology and next-generation services, today launched an initiative to accelerate digital leadership for its clients in Australia and shrink the digital skills gap in the region with the creation of 1,200 jobs and the opening of three Innovation Hubs by 2020. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/633365/Infosys_Logo.jpg )

Senior Vice President for Australia and New Zealand at Infosys, Andrew Groth was joined by Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, the Hon. Karen Andrews, at Infosys' North Sydney office to announce a broad range of initiatives to meet the nation's ever-growing demand for digital expertise. The initiatives will form an education ecosystem through which Infosys would enable continuous learning opportunities. They include: The creation of 1,200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020, of which around 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from a range of fields including Computer Science and Design

by 2020, of which around 40 per cent will be Australian university graduates from a range of fields including Computer Science and Design The development of three Innovation Hubs across Australia

Strengthening Infosys' academic partnerships to attract top graduate talent and accelerate digital skill building in Australia The new Innovation Hubs will serve as a platform to enable Infosys to co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and government to accelerate innovation and upskilling of talent in emerging technologies and solutions. This approach provides Infosys with a strong foundation to meet rising demand for expertise in areas like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), user experience, cyber security, digital platforms, big data and cloud - now and in the future as technology and business needs evolve. The Hon. Karen Andrews, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, said, "I welcome Infosys' decision to create 1,200 IT jobs in Australia by 2020. It's a great vote of confidence in our economy and the Coalition Government's commitment to jobs of the future, that a company of Infosys' global standing would make this kind of investment here." Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, said, "Today marks a important milestone for our company in our 20 year journey in Australia. As a key technology partner of Australian business, we are proud to announce our commitment to accelerating digital skills in the region through the creation of 1,200 skilled jobs, the development of our new Innovation Hubs and our deepening partnerships with academia."



Andrew Groth, Senior Vice President for Australia and New Zealand, Infosys, said, "The expansion of our Australian team, together with our planned Innovation Hubs are very important as we help navigate our clients in their digital journey by simultaneously renewing their core business systems and building new solutions to realise growth." "Continuous education is a collective effort and we are proud to work with the government, academia and local communities to help build and shape our next-generation of entrepreneurs and innovators," he added.

"Infosys has a deep culture of continuous learning and development. We have the largest corporate university in the world and also offer our people access to sophisticated on-demand online learning platforms. In addition, through our academic partnerships worldwide, our people also have access to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) learning and university courses." "Building our Australian talent pool is already underway. So far, we have recruited 75 graduates, and more than half have completed their induction training and are ready to be placed on strategic client projects. Under this program, graduates start their Infosys learning journey in our Sydney and Melbourne training centres. They can choose from high demand areas, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, user experience, cyber security, cloud and big data." About Infosys Infosys is a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. We enable clients in 45 countries to navigate their digital transformation. With over three decades of experience in managing the systems and workings of global enterprises, we expertly steer our clients through their digital journey. We do it by enabling the enterprise with an AI-powered core that helps prioritize the execution of change. We also empower the business with agile digital at scale to deliver unprecedented levels of performance and customer delight. Our always-on learning agenda drives their continuous improvement through building and transferring digital skills, expertise, and ideas from our innovation ecosystem. Visit http://www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise navigate your next. Safe Harbor Certain statements in this press release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018. These filings are available at http://www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of the date of this press release. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.

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[November 21, 2018] Fieldstone Consolidates Global Structure

Fieldstone, a leading independent investment bank and financial services provider in the energy and infrastructure sector, has brought together its services and offerings under unified ownership and management on a global basis. Jason Harlan, Fieldstone's CEO, commented, "We have been working on this consolidation project for some time, and it is pleasing that we have now reached the point where we have taken full control of Fieldstone. This has resulted in the small New York team and its Malaysian subsidiary, being required to change the name and license of their operations, with immediate effect." With this transition, Fieldstone will be able to even better provide a truly seamless global offering, which it has been doing successfully for nearly 28 years. As part of this process, Fieldstone launched a permanent Washington DC office and subsidiary (FieldstoneDevelopment Corporation or Fieldstone DC) earlier this year to serve both North American clients and to assist multi-lateral and US development finance institutions located in that city. The office is led by Ambassador Chris Dell (News - Alert), former Ambassador in several African and European countries and Barney Rush, a long-time banker and senior figure in the energy market.



Asian clients are a key part of Fieldstone's practice, for projects and transactions in developing markets and in Europe. This part of the business will be directly addressed from January next year when Kan Xi, who previously worked with Infraco and Climate Change Capital in London joins the team. She will relocate to Asia to represent Fieldstone on the ground and monitor the needs of existing and prospective clients as well as assess future expansion plans into that market. Harlan concluded, "The Fieldstone family in Nairobi, Casablanca, Dakar, Berlin, London, Johannesburg, Washington DC, Miami, Lima, and Buenos Aires, are all very excited about being in a position that will enable us to accelerate the integrated international model for the business to better serve our clients around the globe. The rapid transitions occurring in the energy industry and the need for international best practices in infrastructure finance can only be properly addressed by such an approach."

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005847/en/

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[November 21, 2018] L&Q Selects PowerObjects, an HCL Technologies Company to Help Transform Customer-Facing Business Operations

PowerObjects will partner with UK charitable housing association L&Q to deliver a digital transformation programme to improve customer and staff experiences LONDON, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- L&Q and PowerObjects, an HCL Technologies Company are pleased to announce their partnership to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 for use across L&Q's customer-facing operations. For L&Q, one of Britain's largest social housing associations, this project builds on the momentum established in their 2018/19 corporate plan to Invest. Grow. Transform. "When we speak about investing, we're referring to investments in our people, our homes, and the tools we need for our jobs," says Andy Brown, COO for L&Q. "Dynamics 365 is the perfect tool to streamline our customer service operations, and we feel PowerObjects is the right partner to help us accomplish this." L&Q's commitment to growth is centered around the idea that by growing their organisational and financial capability, they will be well-positioned to better deliver on their service promises. The partnership with PowerObjects will complement this strategic objective. "We were able to differentiate ourselves from other potential partners because of our rich sector experience in housing and our reusable IP, PowerPack add-ons, which allow us to shorten the time to deliver the programme," says Rahul Pawar, EMEA Sales Director for PowerObjects.



To truly transform their business, L&Q sought a business partner capable of delivering on their vision of a solution built on Microsoft Dynamics technology and offering a housing association platform that enables innovation and digital service improvements. "What set PowerObjects apart for us was their deliberate focus on finding out exactly what we needed and wanted," says Brown. "Only after that baseline was established did they start talking about how they could deliver on those precise needs and wants." The deal cements L&Q's commitment to a corporate-level digital transformation with Microsoft and strengthens PowerObjects' position as a global leader in delivering completely integrated front, middle and back office solutions for the Housing sector, built on Dynamics 365 and supported by Microsoft's suite of Business Applications.

"We're working hard to make things better, faster and lower-cost for customers. This partnership is a small step towards that future," says Brown. About L&Q L&Q is a regulated housing association and one of the UK's most successful social businesses. They house around 250,000 people in 92,000 homes, primarily across London and the South East. As a not-for-profit organisation, they reinvest all the money they make into new and existing homes, creating successful communities and providing excellent services. L&Q will tackle the housing crisis by building 100,000 new homes over ten years. At least 50% of these will be genuinely affordable, with a target of 60% in London. They invest in a 250 million community Foundation and 5 million a year skills academy to build opportunity and confidence in local communities. About PowerObjects, an HCL Technologies Company PowerObjects, an HCL Technologies Company is a leader in delivering Microsoft Business Applications solutions and the Dynamics 365 workloads through unparalleled offerings of service, support, education and add-ons. Multi-year winner of Microsoft's Dynamics Partner of the Year Award, PowerObjects strives to be the number one Microsoft Business Applications Provider in the world by delivering solutions that help organisations increase productivity, streamline business processes and build better relationships. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467009/Power_Objects_Logo.jpg

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[November 21, 2018] Embassy Group Goes Digital on Real Estate: Turns Big TV Spends Into Virtual Point-of-sale on Mobile

BANGALORE, November 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Achieves 2.3x higher brand recall and 8% lift in purchase intent Real estate in India is pegged to touch US$ 180 billion by 2020 with 92% home buyers searching for homes on the Internet. Embassy solved this challenge of ramping up digital marketing for an industry which sees long sales cycles by syncing TV commercials with mobile ads, creating a virtual point-of-sale on digital (mobile). (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/546244/Embassy_Logo.jpg ) The giant real estate group released fresh messaging about its technology-driven projects, for which they spent heavily on TV by advertising on select channels. However, they had to ensure that target audiences were engaged effectively across media platforms where they could measure real outcomes. Mr. Aditya Virwani, Chief Operating Officer - Embassy Group, expressed, "Embassy has always been at the forefront of identifying and implementing unique initiatives across functions. Zapr has played a pivotal role in helping us magnify the reach and impact of our Future First Campaign, which targeted over 644,000+ unique smartphone users who were underexposed to our TV campaign." Synergic cross screen targeting for optimal frequency: Engage over and above TV Using audio content recognition (ACR) technology developed at Zapr Media Labs, Embassy identified viewers of its commercials as they aired live on TV. They were able to target the same individuals on Zapr's ad-tech platform until they reached an optimal frequency of exposure, saving 60% of costs compared to other non-targeted digital platforms. Feedback survey for real-time measurement of campaign impact Since two-thirds of smartphone owners use their phones to learn more about something they jst saw on a TV commercial, directly linking Embassy's TV ads with mobile created 2.3x higher brand recall and converted new-age viewers into potential home buyers.



Deepak Baid, COO - Zapr Media Labs, said, "Zapr executed this frequency building campaign for Embassy on programmatic, across all app categories in the mobile ecosystem - e-commerce, news, gaming, lifestyle, etc. Our video engagement beat industry standards with 35.58% VTRs and 3.81% CTRs, proving that digital ROIs are instrumental in creating real business outcomes." To read the complete Embassy case study, click here.

About Zapr Media Labs Zapr is a fast-growing media-tech startup funded by 21st Century Fox, Flipkart, Saavn and is backed by several iconic angel investors with the vision of being the world's largest offline media consumption repository. Zapr bridges the gap between the offline and online worlds by enabling TV-to-Mobile audience engagement. Over the past few months, we've worked with all major players in the industry: 150+ brands from every nook and corner of the Indian consumer market, broadcasters, agencies, media buyers and research companies. Zapr combines Data Analytics and Ad-technology to solve some of the most challenging problems faced by the Big Media industry globally. Zapr is the only company that measures user-level analytics of TV consumption in India and engages smartphone users via in-house Ad Technology using only Mobile as an advertising medium. To know more about the company, our offerings, careers and work culture, visit: http://www.zapr.in and blog.zapr.in. To receive news and updates on Zapr Media Labs, follow us here: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn About Embassy Embassy is one of the leading property developers in India with a track record of over three decades in real estate development. Embassy has an extensive land bank across the country and has developed over 53 million sq. ft of prime commercial, residential and retail space in India. Embassy's portfolio of real estate developments spans the commercial, residential, industrial & warehousing, retail and hospitality segments of the real estate industry. Embassy's ongoing residential projects include luxury apartments, villas and integrated townships. The Residential portfolio includes 12 million sq. feet completed, and 17 million sq. feet of ongoing and future development. Embassy's Hospitality business comprises of 2 hotels in Bangalore, and 5 under construction, including the Four Seasons Hotel scheduled to open in Q1 2019. The commercial real estate business includes the development of business parks and ten SEZs across South India, including India's first and only IGBC Platinum Certified Business Park Campus. The portfolio includes 4 Grade A Office Parks in 4 cities, with over 200+ corporate occupiers, providing work space to more than 230,000 employees. Embassy Office Parks has delivered OVER 40 million sq. feet of commercial properties, with a strong pipeline of ongoing and future commercial properties comprising 55 million sq. feet at various stages of planning and development. Embassy Office Parks are estimated to have generated in excess of $20 billion in exports under the STPI and SEZ schemes, since inception. For more information, visit http://www.embassyindia.com. Media Contact:

Shashank Shekhar

[email protected]

+91-9871143478

Senior Account Executive, Edelman



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[November 21, 2018] Hutchison Drei Austria Partners with Vlocity to Digitally Transform Business Processes, Provide Enhanced Operational Agility and Deliver Superior Customer Service

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vlocity Inc. , a leading industry cloud software company, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Hutchison Drei Austria (Drei), a leading telecom operator in Central Europe, to accelerate digital transformation and modernize the way it engages with a range of customers and channel partners. Following a successful launch, Drei is now leveraging Vlocity's industry-specific capabilities, all built on the Salesforce Platform, to enhance business processes and provide greater service agility, enablement and an improved customer experience. Like many European telcos, Drei must confront the ever-increasing competition that exists within a mature market and the accompanying financial pressure to increase sales and drive revenue. While currently viewed as a versatile technology leader, Drei was determined to modernize internal processes and deliver a differentiated customer experience. Among its most salient concerns were: The need to accelerate time to market and enable support for subscription and non-subscription-based portfolios for increased revenue opportunities

An aging CRM platform and related IT applications that could not support future business requirements, especially when it came to providing digital agility and product innovation

The legacy platform used by dealers and service agents was too unwieldy and lacked the necessary speed to serve customers effectively

Integration of Tele2 who were acquired to provide true Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) products in the Austrian market "We are transforming our CRM environment towards the Salesforce Platform enhanced by Vlocity's telco specific software as the most advanced and futureproof fundament for our needs. It immediately added value to our customer experience and allows us to act more quickly and flexibly on market opportunities," said Matthias Baldermann, Chief Technology Officer of Drei. "Vlocity's applications are very responsive, easy to navigate and easy to champion. Armed with a holistic view of the customer, the dealer and agent experiences are already improved and we are convinced to see more benefits as we continue to roll out urther functionality servicing all customers with the full portfolio of mobile and fixed network products."



With an eye towards enhanced UI/UX, Drei has successfully deployed a cloud-native solution designed and built by Vlocity's communications industry domain experts that leverages the powerful capabilities of Salesforce Service Cloud--the world's #1 service platform. Vlocity Communications will replace Drei's legacy applications with CRM & BSS (Business Support Systems) solutions that provide service agents and dealers with a more streamlined approach for managing end-to-end-customer journeys. The business benefits of the Vlocity solution include:

Increased visibility for customer service representatives and enhanced UI/UX experience

Streamlined customer data protection management in compliance with GDPR

Improved engagement with dealers through the digital portal for increased visibility into sales and service opportunities

Dealers can now raise cases for enhanced customer satisfaction Key Numbers/Facts Launch successfully rolled out to over 1,700 internal users (customer service agents, internal support groups, back office users, etc.) and initially 1,000 dealers

All customer and billing accounts have been loaded into the new system and will be kept in sync with legacy to support a streamlined migration

Maximized the use of out-of-the-box capabilities with less than 20 percent of the solution delivered through custom development "We're extremely proud and honored to be supporting Drei as a key partner in their digital transformation efforts," said Dan Ford, SVP & General Manager, Vlocity Communications & Media. "Drei's successful launch prepares it for a fast and frictionless world where sales and service agents and partners have a 360-degree view of the customer and all the information needed to drive enhanced engagement and deliver a superior omnichannel experience." Salesforce, Service Cloud, Sales Cloud and others are among the trademarks of Salesforce.com, Inc. About Vlocity Communications & Media Vlocity Communications & Media takes advantage of the omnichannel capabilities of Salesforce and includes comprehensive Enterprise Product Catalog, CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote), Contract Management, Retail Clienteling and Order Management functionality, and a comprehensive library of pre-built sales and service business processes. Engineered specifically for service providers, Vlocity Communications & Media conforms to TM Forum industry standards, integrates flexibly with third-party systems through pre-built APIs and web services. For more information on Vlocity Communications & Media, visit communications.vlocity.com and follow us at @vlocity . About Vlocity, Inc. Vlocity, a Forbes Cloud 100 company and strategic Salesforce ISV, delivers industry-specific cloud and mobile software that embed digital, omnichannel processes for customer-centric industries. Built in partnership with Salesforce, the world's #1 CRM company, Vlocity is one of Salesforce's fastest growing partners. Vlocity Industry Cloud Apps embed industry-specific functionality, best practices and business processes for the Communications & Media, Insurance & Financial Services, Health Insurance, Energy & Utilities and Public Sector industries. Vlocity enables companies to achieve faster business agility and time to value from the cloud across digital and traditional channels. Learn more at www.vlocity.com and follow us at @vlocity . Media Contact:

Pam Njissang

[email protected]

(510) 984-1528 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hutchison-drei-austria-partners-with-vlocity-to-digitally-transform-business-processes-provide-enhanced-operational-agility-and-deliver-superior-customer-service-300754104.html SOURCE Vlocity, Inc.

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[November 21, 2018] Two Sides of the Crypto Coin - ICOs Need Smart Regulation

TORONTO, Nov. 21, 2018 /CNW/ - Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) fill an essential gap in funding for entrepreneurs with limited access to other forms of capital, but a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute says smart guidelines are needed to get the balance right between investor protection and innovation. Authors Thorsten Koeppl and Jeremy Kronick propose a simple test to ascertain whether an ICO is fundamental to a business venture's success. For an ICO to be an efficient way of financing, the business venture needs to develop: a decentralized platform, usually based on blockchain technology; where a coin gives digital access to the platform; and serves as a means of payment for users that engage in decentralized, person-to-person (P2P) exchange in order to create and transfer value between them. If these conditions are met, access to regulatory relief should be granted. ICOs are a form of crodfunding where many investors  mostly with very small stakes  combine to fund a project. In an ICO, an entrepreneur raises funds from many investors in the form of government-backed currencies or from common cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether. In return, investors receive new tokens or coins. Typically, these coins are themselves cryptocurrencies stored on either new or existing blockchains as a smart contract.



The authors suggest that Canadian securities regulators develop specific regulations for ICOs passing this simple test, including less onerous disclosure requirements, exemptions from securities dealer registration requirements, an extended timeframe for exemptions to be granted, and the restriction of investments to smaller amounts. As an alternative, possibly faster way forward, the simple test could be formalized quickly and be used to decide whether an ICO obtains access to the Canadian Securities Administrators Sandbox. "Our proposed test can also create guidelines for the right approach to taxation that is consistent with the value that is added by such financing," notes Koeppl. "Tax rules can be based on the dual roles of the coins, which are both an investment stake and a currency."

View full report The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to raise living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. Widely considered to be Canada's most influential think tank, the Institute is a trusted source of essential policy intelligence, distinguished by research that is nonpartisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review. SOURCE C.D. Howe Institute

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[November 21, 2018] Consumer Alert - Bargain hunting season could turn into a wild goose chase

OTTAWA, Nov. 21, 2018 /CNW/ - The biggest online shopping events of the year are coming up. Nearly half of Canadians are expected to be joining the online hunt for bargains this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you're one of them, before going wild take a minute to learn about an advertising trend that's on the Competition Bureau's radar: cancelled discounts. This is how it works: when shopping on a popular retailer's website, you find a super deal on a video game, computer, fashion accessory, clothing or houseware. You place the item in your basket, check out and pay. You then receive an email purchase confirmation. Everything seems normal. Later on, you receive an email from the retailer's customer service. They say there was an error and they can't honour the advertised price. They cancel your order. Surprisingly, when you go back to the website, the exact same product is still being offered but at a higher price. Under certain circumstances, failing to provide the product at the advertised bargain price could be seen as an illegal bait and switch. That's why it's important that you know what to look out for, what your rights are and where to complain.



Be sure to:

Always keep email purchase confirmations and credit card statements.

Get a complete refund if the order can't be fulfilled at the right price.

if the order can't be fulfilled at the right price. Confirm that the money is back into your account.

Keep any email exchanges with the retailer's customer service, especially a confirmation that they'll give a full refund.

Double-check the website if they claim the item is unavailable at the price offered. If the ad is still up, take a screen shot, ask questions and request that it be corrected so fellow bargain hunters don't fall into the same trap.

Keep records and file a complaint with the Competition Bureau if the retailer claims the item is unavailable at the price you paid but it's available at a higher price.

Know that depending on provincial or territorial consumer protection law, the retailer may have to honour the advertised price. Contact your local consumer protection agency to learn more. Here are some extra precautions you can take when shopping online:

Use a credit card; many offer protection and may give you a refund.

Regularly check your credit card statements for frequent or unknown charges.

Don't hesitate to contact the retailer's customer service if you have questions, especially if your money is gone and there's no product in sight. You might only have a small window of time to flag the problem and alert your credit card provider. If you believe you have been misled, contact the Competition Bureau and file a complaint by phone at 1-800-348-5358 or online. Related Information Price-related representations Bait and switch Online shopping scams: handle with care Consumer and Business Alerts www.competitionbureau.gc.ca

Enquiries/Complaints

Stay connected The Competition Bureau, as an independent law enforcement agency, ensures that Canadian businesses and consumers prosper in a competitive and innovative marketplace. SOURCE Competition Bureau

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[November 21, 2018] Best's Briefing: Insurers Have Limited Exposure to PG&E Volatility from California Wildfires

The U.S. insurance industry holds approximately 23% of the debt, totaling $4.1 billion, issued by PG&E (News - Alert) Corporation, the California utility whose equipment is being investigated as having a potential role in the deadly Camp Fire, according to a new A.M. Best briefing. The Best's Briefing, titled, "Insurers Have Limited Exposure to PG&E Volatility from California Wildfires," states that approximately 10% of insurers have some exposure to PG&E bonds. Overall, single-company exposure is limited, as just 5% of the total number of entities, or 23 companies, have exposure of more than 5% of capital and surplus, led by Monarch Life Insurance Company at 47.8%, and MedAmerica Insurance Company of New York at 45.9%. Two-thirds of the total amount of entities have exposures totaling less than 1% of capital and surplus. Nearly 90% of the industry's PG&E exposure is held by companies A.M. Best rates A- (Excellent) or higher, while 4% of PG&E exposure is held by companies not rated by A.M. Best. A.M. Best also does not rate nearly half of the entities with exposures greater than 5% of capital and surplus. At issue is whether utilities should be held lible for damages caused by wildfires linked to their power lines, even if the companies did nothing wrong. PG&E has filed two incident reports since the fire began and has seen about half its market value, or approximately $12 billion, vanish in little more than a week, prompting concerns that a bankruptcy situation could emerge.



The utility company has $18 billion of unsecured bonds; in the event of a bankruptcy, the payment priority of these bonds would be equal to that of the roughly $30 billion in potential liabilities that analysts have estimated from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires. Additionally, rules governing the existing bond issues state that the unsecured notes also would become secured if PG&E were to take on at least $5 billion of new debt secured by its assets, which could result in current bondholders wanting the company to issue more secured debt if doing so could put them ahead of wildfire claims. To access the full copy of this briefing, please visit http://www3.ambest.com/bestweek/purchase.asp?record_code=280332.

A.M. Best is a global rating agency and information provider with a unique focus on the insurance industry. Visit www.ambest.com for more information. Copyright  2018 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005402/en/

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[November 21, 2018] Code42 and the Cloud Security Alliance to Host Two Data Security Webinars

Code42, the leader in data loss protection, visibility and recovery solutions, announced that it will present two live, complimentary webinars with the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). Both webinars will examine the 2018 year in data security from distinct viewpoints and discuss the latest threats to corporate data. The CSA is the world's leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment. 2018 Data Exposure Report

Scheduled for 11:00 a.m. CST on Nov. 28, this webinar is open for registration.



The Code42 2018 Data Exposure Report surveyed nearly 1,700 security, IT and business leaders from the U.S., U.K. and Germany. The report reveals their views and surprising truths about how human behavior drives data security vulnerabilities despite the billions of dollars companies spend on data loss prevention. This webinar, which is ideally suited for security and IT leaders and analysts, will explore: How employees, including the C-suite, defy data security policies with practices that put their company and its IP at risk. The research showed nearly three-quarters of CEOs admit they've taken IP, ideas and data from a former employer, and 95 percent admit to keeping a copy of their work on a personal device. The challenges created by the organizational disconnects over data visibility. While 80 percent of CISOs agree that "you cannot protect what you cannot see," a greater number of business leaders (82 percent) think IT can ? protect data they cannot see. Why prevention-only data security strategies are no longer enough and how security teams can use simpler, quicker ways to protect data from loss, leaks, theft and misuse.

Scheduled for 11:00 a.m. CST on Nov. 28, this webinar is open for registration. The Code42 2018 Data Exposure Report surveyed nearly 1,700 security, IT and business leaders from the U.S., U.K. and Germany. The report reveals their views and surprising truths about how human behavior drives data security vulnerabilities despite the billions of dollars companies spend on data loss prevention. This webinar, which is ideally suited for security and IT leaders and analysts, will explore: 2018: The Year in Data Security Panel Discussion





registration.



Data security changes so quickly that it can be difficult to keep up with the latest threats to corporate data. During this webinar, a panel of security experts will recount personal stories and the critical lessons they learned in 2018, a record year for dealing with breaches, phishing scams, insider threats, government whistleblowers and cyber warfare. They will also share their data security predictions for 2019. For more information on Code42's data security offering, visit Code42's blog or watch on-demand webinars. To access more educational content from the CSA, go to its CloudBytes on-demand webinars page.

About Code42

Code42 is the leader in data loss protection, visibility and recovery solutions. Native to the cloud, the Code42 Next-Gen Data Loss Protection (Code42 Next-Gen DLP) solution rapidly detects insider threats, helps satisfy regulatory compliance requirements and speeds incident response - all without lengthy deployments, complex policy management or blocks on user productivity. Because the solution collects and indexes every version of every file, it offers total visibility and recovery of data - wherever it lives and moves. Security, IT and compliance professionals can protect endpoint and cloud data from loss, leak and theft while maintaining an open and collaborative culture for employees. Backed by security best practices and control requirements, Code42 Next-Gen DLP also preserves files for compliance and can be configured for GDPR, HIPAA, PCI (News - Alert) and other regulatory frameworks. More than 50,000 organizations worldwide, including the most recognized brands in business and education, rely on Code42 to safeguard their ideas. Founded in 2001, the company is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and backed by Accel Partners (News - Alert), JMI Equity, NEA and Split Rock Partners. For more information, visit code42.com, read Code42's blog or follow the company on Twitter.  2018 Code42 Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Code42 and the Code42 logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Code42 Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks are properties of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005405/en/

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[November 21, 2018]

Wolters Kluwer Opens Registration for Newest Webinars in ftwilliam.com Series for Retirement Service Professionals

NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. has announced that registration is open for its next two webinars for retirement service professionals. As part of Wolters Kluwer's ongoing ftwilliam.com educational webinar series, the sessions will provide insight on upcoming regulatory impacts and real-life ethical case studies and dilemmas for industry professionals.

"Wolters Kluwer is well known as a provider of market-leading resources for pension and employee benefit professionals," said Dom Cervi, Vice President of the Corporate Compliance Group at Wolters Kluwer. "Our ftwilliam.com webinar series, featuring top industry experts, highlights our commitment to providing our customers with the timely, practical information that they need."

The first webinar, titled "Washington D.C. Update," will feature Sarah Simoneaux, President of Simoneaux Consulting Services. The session will cover the impact of the mid-term election results, the possible fate of Tax Reform 2.0, and what retirement services providers might see in 2019. Simoneaux will also discuss the real-world qualified plan impacts of the 2017 tax reform changes to pass-through entities as the end of most of those firms' tax year approaches.

Washington D.C. Update

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Moderator: Sarah Simoneaux, President of Simoneaux Consulting Services

Cost: $29 per person

Attendees of the live webinar will be eligible for one CE credit (ASPPA, NIPA, and ERPA)

The next webinar will take a refreshing look at ethics for retirement service professionals through case studies, applying ethical standards to real-life situations in retirement plan administration. The session will be hosted by Wolters luwer's Brian Furgala.









Brian Furgala

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Brian Furgala

$49

ftwilliam.com, a product suite of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., offers employee benefit professionals modern and cloud-based plan document (retirement, welfare and non-qualified), government forms (5500, 1099 and 5300), compliance testing and reporting, and distribution tracking software. Easy-to-use, integrated, and world-class customer support make ftwilliam.com the perfect solution for employee benefits professionals. TAG (Technical Answer Group) provides comprehensive answers to retirement plan questions. The TAG service also provides a fully-searchable database of over 4,000 previously asked questions, quick reference tools and charts, and daily news. For more information about ftwilliam.com and TAG, visit www.ftwilliam.com.

About Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. is part of Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX: WKL), a global leader in information, software solutions and services for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2017 annual revenues of 4.4 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.

For more information about Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., visit www.WoltersKluwerLR.com, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media

Linda Gharib

Director, Communications

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

Tel: +1 (646) 887-7962

Email: [email protected]

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wolters-kluwer-opens-registration-for-newest-webinars-in-ftwilliamcom-series-for-retirement-service-professionals-300754280.html

SOURCE Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
[November 21, 2018] LiveMe Founder Yuki He Asks Young Women to Make 'Unpopular Choices' During Her Speech at the 2018 Women's Entrepreneurship Day (WED) Summit

Yuki joined other prominent business leaders in celebrating women's empowerment at the United Nations LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- During the 5th annual Women's Entrepreneurship Day (WED) Summit hosted at the United Nations last week, Yuki He, founder and CEO of the no.1 live broadcasting app LiveMe, took the stage to share her inspiring journey from a young girl to businesswoman to entrepreneur. Yuki was joined by several other notable speakers, including Princess Martha Louise of Norway, Bridgewater Associates' co-CEO Eileen Murray, and fashion designer Anna Sui. The international event convenes annually and empowers women and girls across the globe to help alleviate poverty in their communities. The grassroots mission and message enables women and girls to become active participants in the economy by igniting a network of women leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs to initiate startups, drive economic expansion, and advance communities around the world. "I'm excited to have been invited to speak at such an important event. It gave me an opportunity to share my story with young women from all over the world and highlight how LiveMe is empowering women to share their talents and follow their passions," said Yuki He. As the only woman from China on the panel, Yuki was able to offer the audience a unique perspective, sharing her struggles and successes while crediting the strong female figures in her life who shaped her into the woman she is today. "The women in my family -- my mother and grandmother -- were very strong and independent. They both taught me the importance of believing in yourself and following your own path," added Yuki. Throughout her speech Yuki touched on the many times she's gone against the norm andmade unpopular choices to carve out her own path, including attending a technology university and choosing to work at Tencent, then a small internet company, instead of an established corporation. She later left to help grow a fledgling startup, Cheetah Mobile, into a prominent company that would eventually be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and finally, deciding to venture into entrepreneurship and launch LiveMe.



In addition to the panel on the female entrepreneurial journey, speakers touched on a range of topics including the importance of investing in women, encouraging governments to collaborate with female entrepreneurs, and leveraging your 'brand' or 'status' for social good. "Historically, women worldwide have been underpaid, undervalued, underrepresented, underfunded and underestimated," said Wendy Diamond, founder of the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization. "We are dedicated, determined and driven to change this global imbalance."

Since launching in 2016, LiveMe has frequently topped the app store charts and amassed a staggering 80 million users. The platform has enabled independent creators from all walks of life to share their talents, passions, and stories to inspire others, make additional income, and receive support from the community. This year, the platform took its proven virtual gifting feature and began using it for good by embedding social causes into the interactive experience. With 60% of the app's users identifying as female, LiveMe frequently runs campaigns for women-focused causes like breast cancer awareness, support for single mothers, and more. The platform has also raised awareness and funds for a number of other important causes, including world hunger, suicide prevention, and anti-bullying efforts. To show LiveMe's continued support of women and girls, Yuki donated $5,000 to the Women's Day Foundation. The donation went towards sponsoring a table for young disadvantaged girls from organization like Restart Academy -- a WEDO partner organization providing educational services for 13-21 year old students in transitional settings -- at the WED Summit. About Live.me Inc. Live.me Inc. is the mobile app developer behind the popular live broadcasting platform LiveMe and is focused on developing content-based applications for the mobile-first generation. Its flagship app, LiveMe, has amassed more than 80 million users and distributed millions of dollars to broadcasters through direct virtual gifting. Live.me Inc.'s portfolio also includes Cheez, a social short video app highlighting the power of creativity in 17 seconds. About Women's Entrepreneurship Day Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO) is a non-governmental volunteer organization with a mission is to accelerate and educate the world on the importance of why it's pivotal to empower women in business globally. WED is officially proclaimed a Day on November 19. WEDO convenes Business Leaders, Change Makers, Government Officials and Civil Society to collaborate and find solutions in critical areas of entrepreneurship eco-systems, education, and policy creation to empower women in business. WED is celebrated at the United Nations and has chapters in 144 countries and 110 universities/colleges internationally. When women are elevated financially, communities, states, and countries prosper, this builds a global blueprint to alleviate and eradicate poverty. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/liveme-founder-yuki-he-asks-young-women-to-make-unpopular-choices-during-her-speech-at-the-2018-womens-entrepreneurship-day-wed-summit-300754485.html SOURCE Live.me Inc.

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[November 21, 2018] TILT Announces US$119M Capital Raise and Completion of Merger, Forming a Vertically-Integrated Infrastructure and Technology Cannabis Company

Today, Baker Technologies, Inc. ("Baker"), Briteside Holdings, LLC ("Briteside"), Sea Hunter Therapeutics, LLC ("Sea Hunter") and Sante Veritas Holdings Inc. ("SVT") announce the successful completion of their merger (the "Business Combination"), and are now operating as a unified company under the name TILT Holdings Inc. ("TILT" or the "Company"). The Business Combination represents the formation of one of the cannabis industry's most comprehensive platforms, providing technology-driven solutions to the entire cannabis ecosystem. With the completion of the recent capital raise of approximately US$119M and the Business Combination, TILT has paved the way for its anticipated listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE"). The unique value proposition of the Business Combination includes rapid infrastructure deployment, unparalleled technology for cannabis businesses and access to millions of consumers. TILT expects to deliver significant value to its customers, employees and shareholders by: Driving Innovation Technology to Support the Growing Industry

The newly formed company is one of the largest and most comprehensive industry technology platforms, connecting over 1,000 dispensaries with more than two million unique consumers, delivering value to both through focused messaging for sales opportunities. Providing Cutting-edge Supply Chain Management

TILT is working to expand its existing software and service offerings to cover the entire supply chain, from cultivation through to production, packaging, distribution and retail sales. Accelerating Scientific Research and Efficacy

The Company has assembled an experienced and accomplished science team, with the goal of advancing TILT's understanding of cannabis and its efficacy for patients and consumers. Expanding National and International Infrastructure

TILT has expanded, and continues to expand, its geographic footprint allowing it to manufacture and distribute a broad range of high-grade cannabis products. With its proprietary scientific research and data enabled platform, TILT aims to deliver highly focused patient and customer driven product solutions. "After an extensive process of combining four previously independent companies while simultaneously addressing all the requirements for being a publicly listed company, we are excited to announce the completion of the merger," said Alex Coleman, CEO of TILT. "The Business Combination will allow us to help shape the cannabis industry through our unique offering of a broad range of software, services and goods. While the majority of U.S. cannabis companies are largely focused on operating retail stores, TILT's technology foundation and B2B focus, providing software, services and a broad range of highly engineered consumer products, positions us as one of the most dynamic companies in the market." The Business Combination was carried out by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia), which required the approval of: (i) at least two-thirds of the votes cast by the shareholders of TILT (which were effectively the shareholders of Baker, members of Briteside and Sea Hunter Holdings, LLC); (ii) at least two-thirds of the votes cast by the shareholders of SVT; and (iii) at least a majority of the votes cast by minority shareholders of SVT, which excluded the votes cast by "interested parties" who were entitled to receive, directly or indirectly, a "collateral benefit" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions. The hearing in respect of the final order of the Supreme Court of British Columbia approving the Business Combination for SVT took place on November 13, 2018. The hearing in respect of the final order of the Supreme Court of British Columbia approving the Business Combination for TILT took place on November 20, 2018. Final orders approving the Business Combination were granted by the Supreme Court of British Columbia at both hearings. "Our goal is to help remove obstacles and barriers-to-entry for potential customers who are looking to enter the cannabis industry," said Joel Milton, founder and CEO of Baker. "TILT's vision is to provide value throughout the supply chain, whether that's assistance with operational and capital support, improving cannabis yield and growth efficiency or building and increasing customer engagement. TILT is here to help cannabis businesses effectively scale." TILT's board of directors (the "Board") currently consists of five members. Alexander Coleman, CEO of TILT, and Michael Orr, the Executive Chairman of SVT, will srve as Co-Chairmen of the Board. Geoff Hamm, Todd Halpern and Robert Calhoun will also serve as directors on the Board. Each director will hold office until the next annual meeting or until his successor is duly elected, unless his office is earlier vacated in accordance with TILT's articles.



The Business Combination included the exchange of, amongst other things: (i) class A shares of the Company (the "Class A Shares") (which were held by former shareholders of Baker, former members of Briteside and Sea Hunter Holdings, LLC) for compressed shares (the "Compressed Shares") of the Company; (ii) share units of SVT for common shares of SVT (the "SVT Common Shares"); (iii) SVT Common Shares for common shares (the "Common Shares") of the Company; (iv) subscription receipts of 1167411 B.C. Ltd. ("Finco") for common shares of Finco (the "Finco Common Shares"); (v) Finco Common Shares for Common Shares; (vi) special shares of Finco for Compressed Shares; (vii) options of SVT for replacement options of the Company exercisable for Common Shares; (viii) options of the Company exercisable for Class A Shares for replacement options of the Company exercisable for Compressed Shares; and (ix) compensation options of Finco for compensation options of the Company. Former shareholders, members and securityholders of Baker, Briteside and Sea Hunter received approximately 0.0148 of a Compressed Share for each Class A Share previously held. The terms of the Compressed Shares will provide the holders with super voting rights and a right to convert the Compressed Shares into Common Shares, subject to certain limitations. The former holders of SVT Common Shares ("SVT Shareholders") received approximately 0.1399 of a Common Share for each SVT Common Share previously held. Outstanding options and warrants of the parties will be adjusted in accordance with their terms to reflect the consideration described above.

Listing of the Common Shares on the CSE remains subject to any necessary stock exchange and regulatory approvals. About TILT TILT Holdings Inc. is a vertically-integrated technology and infrastructure platform delivering the most comprehensive range of products and services across the cannabis industry. TILT strives to deliver the highest quality products and services through knowledge based technology systems for both businesses and consumers. TILT technologies have a presence in more than 1,000 dispensaries across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. For more information, please visit www.tiltholdings.com The CSE has not in any way passed upon the merits of the Business Combination or the listing of the Common Shares, and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Approval of the CSE for the listing of the Common Shares will be subject to, among other things, the Company satisfying the listing requirements of the CSE. There can be no assurance that the approval of the CSE regarding the listing of the Common Shares will be obtained. This press release does not constitute an offer for sale or a solicitation of an offer to buy, in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, any "U.S. Person" (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act")) of any equity or other securities. None of the securities to be issued pursuant to the Business Combination have been or will be registered under the 1933 Act or any applicable securities laws of any state of the United States, and any securities issued in the Business Combination were issued in reliance upon the exemptions from such registration requirements of the 1933 Act provided by Section 3(a)(10) thereof and/or Section 4(a)(2) thereof and in accordance with applicable exemptions under any applicable securities laws of any state of the United States. Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Forward looking information may include, without limitation, statements regarding the operations, business, financial condition, expected financial results, performance, prospects, opportunities, priorities, targets, goals, ongoing objectives, milestones, strategies and outlook of TILT, and includes statements about, among other things, future developments, the future operations, strengths and strategy of the Company, and the listing of the Common Shares on the CSE. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. These statements are based upon certain material factors, assumptions and analyses that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection, including TILT's, Baker's, Briteside's, Sea Hunter's and SVT's experience and perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that are believed to be reasonable in the circumstances. Examples of the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to those related to: the receipt of all necessary consents and approvals for the listing of the Common Shares, the ability of TILT to obtain necessary financing in the future to pursue its business plans, the achievement of goals, the obtaining of all necessary permits and governmental approvals, as well as expectations regarding availability of equipment, skilled labour and services needed for cannabis operations, intellectual property rights, development, operating or regulatory risks, trends and developments in the cannabis industry, business strategy and outlook, expansion and growth of business and operations, the timing and amount of capital expenditures; future exchange rates; the impact of increasing competition; conditions in general economic and financial markets; access to capital; future operating costs; government regulations, including future legislative and regulatory developments involving medical and recreational marijuana and the timing thereto; receipt of appropriate and necessary licenses in a timely manner; the effects of regulation by governmental agencies; the anticipated changes to laws regarding the recreational use of cannabis; the demand for cannabis products and corresponding forecasted increase in revenues; and the size of the medical marijuana market and the recreational marijuana market. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions at the date such statements are made, there can be no assurance that they it be completed on the terms described above and that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information. TILT assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by applicable law. By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to risks and uncertainties, and there are a variety of material factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, Baker, Briteside, Sea Hunter or SVT, and that may cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to: denial or delayed receipt of all necessary consents and approvals; need for additional capital expenditures; increased costs and timing of operations; unexpected costs associated with environmental liabilities; requirements for additional capital; reduced future prices of cannabis; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the cannabis industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; title disputes; claims limitations on insurance coverage; risks related to the integration of acquisitions; fluctuations in the spot and forward price of certain commodities (such as diesel fuel and electricity); changes in national and local government legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in the countries where the Company may carry on business in the future; liabilities inherent in cannabis operations; risks relating to medical and recreational cannabis; cultivation, extraction and distribution problems; competition for, among other things, capital, licences and skilled personnel; risks relating to the timing of legalization of recreational cannabis; changes in laws relating to the cannabis industry; and management's success in anticipating and managing the foregoing factors. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181121005560/en/

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[November 21, 2018] Maxar Technologies to Present at Upcoming Investor Conferences

WESTMINSTER, CO, Nov. 21, 2018 /CNW/ - Maxar Technologies (the "Company" or "Maxar") (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR), a global technology innovator powering the new space economy, announced today that members of senior management will present at the following investor conferences: Credit Suisse 6th Industrial Conference

Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, Palm Beach, FL

November 28, 2018

8:45 a.m.  9:30 a.m. ET

Webcast details will be available on the Maxar website Morgan Stanley Space Summit

Morgan Stanley Headquarters, New York, NY

December 11, 2018

No webcast available If indicated, webcasts of the presentations will be accessible on the Investor section of the Maxar website, http://investor.maxar.com/events-and-presentations/default.aspx About Maxar Technologies

As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar Technologies is at the nexus of the new space economy, developing and sustaining the infrastructure and delivering the information, services, systems that unlock the promise of space for commercial and government markets. As a trusted partner, Maxar Technologies provides vertically-integrated capabilities and expertise including satellites, Earth imagery, robotics, geospatial data and analytics to help customers anticipate and address their most complex mission-critical challenges with confidence. With more than 6,500 employees in over 30 global locations, the Maxar Technologies portfolio of commercial space brands includes MDA, SSL, DigitalGlobe and Radiant Solutions. Every day, billions of people rely on Maxar to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that Build a Better World. Maxr trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information, visit www.maxar.com.



Forward-Looking Statements

"Certain statements and other information included in this release constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. Statements including words such as "may", "will", "could", "should", "would", "plan", "potential", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and other words, terms and phrases of similar meaning are often intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, expectations, projections, goals, forecasts, assumptions, risks and uncertainties, as well as other statements referring to or including forward-looking information included in this release. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this release. As a result, although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. The risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the risk factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. All such forward-looking statements are based upon data available as of the date of this presentation or other specified date and speak only as of such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this release as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities legislation." Investor Relations Contact:

Jason Gursky

Maxar VP Investor Relations

1-303-684-2207

[email protected] Media Contact:

Turner Brinton

Maxar Media Relations

1-303-684-4545

[email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maxar-technologies-to-present-at-upcoming-investor-conferences-300754525.html SOURCE Maxar Technologies Ltd.

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Source: Qualcomm

Windows 10 on Arm could be getting a shot in the... well... you know, courtesy of Google. The company is reportedly working with Microsoft to bring Chrome to Arm-powered PCs as a native app so people no longer have to use an emulated (and worse-performing) version of the browser.

Microsoft has been encouraging manufacturers to give Intel some competition in the laptop space for years. The latest effort arrives courtesy of the Windows 10 on Arm initiative, which promotes the use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 and 850 processors, along with other Arm chips.

Arm chips are supposed to allow these laptops to be more power efficient, better at managing apps while they're asleep, and more easily connect to cellular networks thanks to Qualcomm's expertise in that area. Yet those benefits come with their own drawbacks, with perhaps the greatest one being that many Windows 10 apps have to be emulated because devs haven't released versions of their apps specifically for Arm devices.

Enter Google and Microsoft apparently working together to bring Chrome to Windows 10 on Arm. 9to5Google reported that Microsoft engineers have made "a couple dozen commits" to Chromiums Gerrit source code management. The report noted that this could also boost performance in "Electron-based apps, like Slack and even Microsofts own Visual Studio Code, and Node.js which is built upon Chromes V8 JavaScript engine."

Those improvements would be a clear boon to Windows 10 on Arm device owners. But it's still a little surprising to learn that Microsoft is helping bring Chrome to a version of Windows 10 where it wasn't dominant. The company has grown increasingly desperate to prove that its Edge browser can compete with the likes of Chrome, even going so far as to annoy Windows Insiders with a pop-up asking them to keep using Edge.

Putting those differences aside to make Windows 10 on Arm a more compelling experience shows Microsoft's commitment to the platform. It had a rocky start, especially since many of these devices shipped with a version of Windows 10 that was never supposed to support them, but at least the company appears to be putting this initiative over its desire to promote Edge. (Call it "avoiding the double-Edged sword," if you will.)

Microsoft and Google haven't officially announced that a native version of Chrome is coming to Windows 10 on Arm. But the contribution of Microsoft engineers to the Chromium project shows that at least some folks at the company want to improve the experience on these always-connected PCs. Hopefully the people who buy into Microsoft's latest effort to diversify Windows 10 devices will benefit either way.
Several European hardware retailers have listed Samsung's upcoming 860 QVO (Quality and Value Oriented) SSD on their online stores. The 860 QVO represents Samsung's first excursion into the QLC (quad-level cell) NAND territory.

(Image credit: NAS Expert)

The Samsung 860 QVO is a conventional 2.5-inch SSD that still relies on the ubiquitous SATA III interface to communicate with the rest of the system. According to the listings, the SSD comes with QLC 3D NAND flash memory, which results in increased density, and thus lower pricing, than other types of flash, like TLC. Unfortunately, as we've seen with other new QLC SSDs, the new flash can come with lower performance and endurance.

Model NAS Expert pricing without VAT Estimated US Pricing Estimated UK Pricing Samsung 860 QVO 1TB 117.50 $133.84 104.75 Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 225.96 $257.38 201.40 Samsung 860 QVO 4TB 451.93 $514.77 402.81

Despite the challenges of QLC flash, Samsung's QVO pumps out up to 550/520 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput and up to 96,000/89,000 random read/write IOPS.

The Samsung 860 QVO's sequential performance is right in line with the Samsung 860 EVO, but it falls behind the 860 EVO's 98,000/90,000 random read/write specifications. This is understandable given the Samsung 860 QVO's focus on value rather than speed. Performance seekers should probably pick up the EVO or PRO models.

As with all the latest Samsung SSDs, the Samsung 860 QVO features the company's TurboWrite Technology which helps boost the drive's write performance. The SSD will be available in three capacities: 1TB (MZ-76Q1T0BW), 2TB (MZ-76Q2T0BW), and 4TB (MZ-76Q4T0BW).

An Italian retailer listed the Samsung 860 QVO with a limited three-year warranty and an endurance up to 1,440 TBW (terabytes written), which is probably for the 4TB model. On the other hand, a French retailer listed the Samsung 860 QVO with a five-year warranty.

Samsung's current 860 EVO 1TB currently retails for $127.98 (148.80) while the 2TB and 4TB models retail for $294.88 (357.97) and $797.99 (778.85), respectively. If NAS Expert's pricing is accurate, the Samsung 860 QVO will be significantly less expensive than the Samsung 860 EVO at higher densities of 2TB and 4TB.

Although Samsung hasn't released any official information around the 860 QVO, European retailers expect the SSD to launch in December 2018.
KCPD Confront Court Battle Over Controversial Game Day Deadly Wreck

Family of Kansas teen killed in wreck outside Arrowhead files lawsuit The family of a Shawnee Mission South senior killed in a crash on Interstate 435 before a Chiefs game has sued an off-duty Kansas City police officer -- accusing him of rear-ending their vehicle at a high rate of speed. That wreck happened Oct.

Midtown Hobo Earns New Home

Homeless man gets prison for bank robbery, wanted motel room | The Kansas City Star A homeless man who robbed a U.S. Bank branch in Kansas City because he was homeless and wanted a motel room was sentenced to federal prison. Terrance R. Haynes robbed the bank at Main Street and Armour Boulevard.

Tragedy Endures Across The Bridge

2 years later, Northland couple still looking for answers on who murdered their grandson KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Just a few days before Thanksgiving, a set of Northland grandparents will struggle through the holidays. Two years later, Lee and Peggy Evans still don't know who abducted and murdered their 22-year-old grandson. Lee and Peggy Evans raised their grandson Logan Minton.

Meth Town Police Desire Conversation With This Local Tech Leader

Independence Police Department seeking public's help in identifying ATM Skimmer INDEPENDENCE, MO (KCTV) - The Independence Police Department Detectives are seeking the public's help in identifying a suspect that placed a skimmer device on an ATM. A skimmer is a device that is affixed to the mouth of an ATM and secretly gathers credit and debit card information when bank customers insert their cards into the machines to pull out money.

Kansas City Lady Fights Back

Woman shoots home invader; two arrested, Kansas City police say KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Two suspects are in custody after police say they forced their way into a woman's home Monday morning at Coach House Apartments at 114th Street and Holmes Road. Police said the home invasion wasn't random and that the suspects came to the woman's apartment for a reason.

Again,inspires us to put our "well-worn" copy ofback into the rotation. On a more serious note, there's crime news worth a click right now . . .Developing . . .








Kansas City Light Schedule

Local holiday lighting ceremonies happening this week KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and starting Wednesday, it will feel like it, too. There are three lighting ceremonies you won't want to miss. Those shiny, sparkly, colorful bulbs of happiness remind you that every passing day is a step closer to Christmas.

Newspaper Pushes Cowtown KICK-ASS War Machine Flyover Propaganda

Navy's Blue Angels fly to appear in KC Air Show | The Kansas City Star Pilots with the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flew into Kansas City Tuesday afternoon to announce that they will appear in the KC Air Show next summer at the Wheeler Downtown Airport. The air show will be held on July 6.

Local Porch Pirates Abound

Tips to stop porch pirates from taking off with your holiday gifts OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) -- With the holiday season right around the corner, local police departments want you to protect your packages to prevent porch pirates from taking off with your gifts. The Overland Park police chief played the part of a package thief to use humor to share tips to keep your deliveries safe.

Lesson In Kansas EXCELLENCE

KCK teacher, known for teaching English to multicultural students, named Kansas teacher of the year KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- It's more than an award. A special accolade for a Wyandotte County teacher said being named top of her profession is a golden chance to grow. "I'm just very appreciative of this opportunity and proud to be a teacher from KCK," Wyandotte High School teacher Whitney Morgan told FOX4.

Good Guy Caught In Culture War

Shawnee Resident Whose Bike-Repair Business Helped His Native Gambia Faces Deportation Abdoulie Fatajo, a Shawnee, Kansas, philanthropist and community leader from Gambia, was arrested and detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on November 9. He's being held at the Morgan County Detention Center in Versailles, Missouri.

KCK Inspiration

KCK police sergeant widow's message to others: 'No shame in not being OK' Lindsey Doolittle is now in a club that she never knew existed -- or ever wanted to be in. "My husband did not reach out for help. I wish he would of," Doolittle said. Three days before his 35th birthday, Kansas City, Kansas, police Sgt. Brett Doolittle took his own life.

KCPS Reaches Out For Help

KCPS Community Engagement Meeting Kansas City Public School Board members met Thursday to discuss upcoming events, the 2019 enrollment marketing campaign, and overall goals regarding the District's community engagement efforts. This is a committee of the board that is focused on the functions and roles and responsibilities around communications and community engagement as it relates to the Board's governance work.

We take our panty news seriously around this play and right now we match upwith biz reality -- cheek to cheek!!!Closer to home, we're checking these news links to start the day:is the song of the day and this is ourfor right now . . .








Share Family Drama With Wait Staff

Where to dine out on Thanksgiving in Kansas City Be thankful for a clean kitchen on Thanksgiving

Local Middle-Class Wives Lose Hubby Money In Noble Quest For Self-Esteem

Kansas City 'mompreneurs' starting their own businesses KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A new wave of women known as "mompreneurs" are finding success in starting their own businesses. Kim Taylor, a working mother of three in Kansas City, recently picked up a friend's baby and secured the sides of her sweater.

NO SALAD!!!

CDC warns not to eat romaine lettuce due to E. coli outbreak (Meredith) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are advising consumers not to eat any romaine lettuce due to an E. coli outbreak. The CDC's food safety alert was issued Tuesday afternoon and it advises everyone to dispose of any romaine lettuce in their homes whether it was purchased as a whole head of romaine or it came in a bag as part of a salad mix.

Show-Me Weed Discourse

Seg. 1: Missouri Docs Not Ready For Medical Marijuana. Seg. 2: Teaching Thanksgiving Truths. Segment 1: Medical cannabis is now legal in Missouri, but doctors are not trained on how to prescribe the drug. It's been two weeks since Missourians voted to allow the use of medical marijuana in the state. However, because cannibus is still illegal at the federal level, research on its efficacy and side effects is limited.

Kansas Saves Hep C Lives

Kansas Agrees To Cover Potentially Life-Saving Drugs For Patients With Chronic Hepatitis C Kansas has agreed to cover the cost of drugs to treat Medicaid patients with chronic hepatitis C without subjecting them to a lengthy list of requirements. A legal settlement, which awaits final court approval, resolves a class action lawsuit alleging the state made it too difficult for hepatitis C patients to receive the potentially life-saving treatments.

Pie Biz Bulge

Pies aren't just for the holidays, Tippin's building bigger bakery for increased demand KANSAS CITY, Kan. - Thanksgiving dinner isn't complete without a slice of pie. And in Kansas City, there's a good chance your pie comes from Tippin's. The president of the Kansas City, Kansas-based bakery said about ten weeks of the fall holiday rush accounts for roughly 40 percent of the company's business.

Local First Responders Prep For Your Lousy Cooking

Thanksgiving is a day off for most, but it's busy for firefighters Cooking is the leading cause of house fires, so it not a surprise to know Thanksgiving Day is one of the busiest of the year for fire departments around the country. One reason for the uptick in fires is the simple fact that more people are using their stoves more than on other days.

Essential Turkey Day Booze News

Tap List | Limitless Brewing & Black Squirrel Friday This is why you've been drinking all these years, Lenexa. Limitless Brewing (9765 Widmer, Lenexa, Kansas) is planning its grand opening Wednesday at 4 p.m. as long as the brewery receives its final permitting today. Limitless will open with a trio of brews on tap: Biere de Garde (strong pale ale), English session ale and a hazy pale ale.

Fitness news blast before the upcoming foodie holiday:Closer to home, we're feeding on these news links:And this is thefor right now . . .
New Kansas elections head: 'People want things to calm down' TOPEKA, KS (AP) - As a legislator, Scott Schwab supported Secretary of State Kris Kobach's successful efforts to give Kansas some of the nation's toughest voter identification laws. When Kobach ran for governor this year, he endorsed his fellow conservative Republican as a replacement.

An encouraging statement from the Kansas politico who has more life experience and political expertise than most elected officials would ever want . . . Read more:
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could boost regional trade and industrialization, especially in East Africa. Effective implementation of the agreement signed last March in Kigali is now needed to unleash the potential of the region.

Currently East African countries are trading amongst themselves at only half their potential, and the growing local demand is met by imports from outside the continent rather than by local production, explained Andrew Mold, Acting Director of the ECA in Eastern Africa. The AfCFTA will enable East African countries to increase their exports of manufactured goods in the region and on the continent.

He was speaking at the opening session of the 22nd Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa (ICE 2018), which is taking place this week in Kigali and focuses on the implementation of the AfCFTA.

While 49 countries on the continent have signed the Agreement establishing the AfCFTA, only 12 countries have ratified it so far. Negotiations are still ongoing about modalities on the liberalization of trade in good and services, the ECA providing technical support to member states in those phases of negotiations.

David Luke, Coordinator of the African Trade Policy Centre at ECA, insists: The more ambitious the liberalization, the higher will be the gains in terms of increase in GDP and exports. However, we still need to win the hearts and minds of the private sector and civil society, who will be the true implementers of the AfCFTA.

According to ECA analysis, smaller countries are those which will get the largest increase in intra-African exports  up to 68% increase for a country like Rwanda. On average, intra-African trade is expected to increase by 50% once the AfCFTA is implemented. Gains in welfare are also expected across the continent.

However, challenges in terms of non-tariff barriers and restrictions on trade of some commodities need to be addressed to tap into the trade opportunities stressed Matia Kasaija, Minister of Finance, Planning & Economic Development of Uganda.

Rwandas Finance Minister calls on Africa to speedily ratify AfCFTA Agreement

During the opening session, Rwandas Rwandas Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Uzziel Ndagijimana, urged African countries to speedily ratify AfCFTA Agreement.

Mr. Ndajimana said the AfCFTA was crucial to Africas inclusive growth and prosperity hence the need for more countries to urgently ratify the agreement so it can go into force.

Forty-nine of Africas 55 countries have so far signed the agreement establishing a free trade area that is seen as vital to the continent's economic development. At least 22 member countries should ratify the agreement before it can be implemented. So far only 12 have ratified since signing the accord in March, two of them from East Africa.

We were all very happy with the outcome of the AU Summit here in this building in March this year, said Minister Ndajimana. However, this is not enough. We need ratifications to move forward. Our efforts will come to nothing if we do not achieve 22 ratifications by March next year.

He added that the theme of the meeting, Implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area in Eastern Africa: From Vision to Action, was timely, allowing governments in the region to meet with experts to discuss what the agreement means for both region and continent and build consensus on the way forward. The Minister said the AfCFTA symbolised our progress toward the ideal of African unity.

For her part, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Deputy Executive Secretary, Giovanie Biha, said for Africa to reach new horizons more collective efforts were needed.

Countries must ratify the agreement, implement it, and put in place the necessary reforms to enable the economic transformation we are looking for, she said.

Ms. Biha told delegates that the ECA was currently supporting member States in their efforts to make the AfCFTA a reality. And we will be setting up national dialogues so that governments, civil society and the private sector can come together to discuss the way forward. Building a consensus behind the AfCFTA is the only way to achieve its implementation.

The ICE 2018 is gathering more than 250 participants from the 14 countries covered by the subregional office. It aims at reaching a consensus on the way forward for the implementation of the AfCFTA, while fostering regional integration.

The meeting is focusing on discussing macroeconomic and social conditions in Eastern Africa; implementing the AfCFTA; trade facilitation, services trade, leveraging the AfCFTA for greater gender inequality, and the Protocol on the Free Movement of people.

High-level representatives of Eastern Africa member States, regional economic communities (RECs) and intergovernmental organizations are attending the meeting as well as private sector representatives, international institutions, civil society organisations, media, and other relevant stakeholders.

The 12 African countries that have ratified the AfCFTA are (in alphabetical order): Chad, Cote dIvoire, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda.
The Fourth Pan African Forum on Migration (PAFoM IV) began on 19 November 2018 in Djibouti City under the theme Harnessing the benefits of Free Movement of persons regime for sustainable development in Africa.

The Government of Djibouti is hosting the three-day conference in collaboration with the United Nations Migration Agency (IOM), the African Union Commission (AUC) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

Held annually since 2014, the Forum aims to provide more focused engagement with all relevant migration stakeholders on the African continent to discuss, among other things, the achievements and challenges of free movement of persons regimes in Africa and examine the urgency to promote effective labour migration governance.

Dozens of delegates are gathered representing 34 African Union member states, Regional Economic Commissions (RECs), international organizations, private sector, trade unions, academia, parliamentarians, African diaspora community and civil society organizations working on migration issues.

Opening the deliberations, Prime Minister of Djibouti, Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed urged African member states to foster dialogue because migration transcends across borders, it requires enhanced cooperation and coordination. He further reiterated the importance of the meeting in order to promote a common understanding migration issues in the continent.

In her keynote address, Director of the AU Social Affairs Department Mrs. Cisse Mariamma thanked the Government of Djibouti for hosting the meeting and supporting the participants and guests attending this meeting. She urged all partners to support AU efforts in strengthening the PAFoM, especially as it moves in the implementation of the Global Compact on Migration (GCM) after the international conference in Marrakesh, Morocco in December.

PAFoM not only provides us an opportunity to bring all Regional migration agenda together for us to learn from each other, but also provide a follow up on the implementation of the GCM in the continent, she concluded.

Other presenters noted the importance of cooperation with neighbouring states as key to create stronger border regimes and systems and emphasized that a balanced view of migration is required to increase development and security.

Free movement can help to facilitate the transfer of skills and close skill gaps, but skills must be recognized across borders. The importance of data and information was highlighted as essential to help develop evidenced based labour migration frameworks and policies.

The conference covers a myriad of topics related to migration in Africa, including: a coordinated human mobility agenda for Africa: the benefits and challenges of free movement; the continental free trade area; accurate data for evidence-based policy making; and fostering social cohesion, integration and security cooperation.

The event complements efforts being made by the African Union (AU) and respective RECs to increase the capacity of member states as well as consolidate instruments, policies, laws and other commitments that facilitate the free movement of people, goods and services on the continent. The expected outcome will include a Draft Common African Position on Migration and on Refugees based on existing continental and regional normative and legal frameworks on migration and refugees.

A recent study commissioned by the AU and IOM, pdf Evaluation of the African Union Migration Policy Framework for Africa (2.14 MB) revealed that more than 80 per cent of African migration today occurs within Africa itself, either intra-regionally (particularly within the West, East and Southern African regions) or inter-regionally (from West Africa to Southern Africa, from East/Horn of Africa to Southern Africa and from Central Africa to Southern Africa and West Africa).

It is thus becoming increasingly important for the AU to guide renewed policies of free movement of persons on the continent. Free movement of African populations is one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063, the blueprint to propel the continent to prosperity within the next 50 years, which emphasizes a continent with seamless borders. However, the Africa Visa Openness Index, a guide by the African Development Bank (AfDB), reveals that African countries remain largely closed off to African citizens.

Consequently, in January this year, Heads of States and Government of the African Union adopted the pdf Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, the Right of Residence and the Right of Establishment (3.80 MB) in Addis Ababa. The Protocol is one of the pillars of the integration process of the continent, along with the Agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area and the Single African Air Transport Market.

The Protocol includes an Implementation Roadmap in which people can move freely within the continent with clear pathways for regularizing their stay and businesses in countries of destination. It will also enhance collection of reliable data on such movements, promote portability of skills and social protection among labour migrants, hence ensuring their effective participation in building the economies of the host community.

Background

PAFoM provides a platform for African regional institutions and partners to share information on current migration trends, patterns and dynamics, newly emerging issues and reliable migration data at the national, regional and continental level in order to find durable solutions to the migration challenges in Africa. Its objective is to enhance capacities of the Africa regional frameworks on migration to facilitate intra-regional migration and human mobility, free movement of persons and integrated border management through sharing of knowledge, information, good practices, experiences and lessons learnt.

PAFoM IV seeks to provide a platform where participants will have an opportunity to reflect on the progress made so far in the implementation of the Protocol on Free Movement and challenges therein. The meeting will also take stock of the progress taken so far by different Member States to implement and or ascend the Protocol after the Kigali meeting in April 2018. This reflection will also provide an opportunity to strengthen advocacy strategies targeting those Member States that have not ratified and domesticated the Protocol to encourage them to hasten the process with the aim of promoting free movement in the continent.

The meeting will also take stock of other Migration management initiatives in the continent including the progress made in the implementation of the pdf Revised Migration Policy Framework (MPFA) and Plan of Action 2018-2027 (2.70 MB) and provide update and initial discussions on how the continent can implement the Global Compact on Migration once adopted in Marrakesh, Morocco by end of this year. As an overall Continental Migration Dialogue Initiative, this years PAFoM will also provide an opportunity for RECs and Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) to update participants on progress made on different migration initiatives in their areas to promote information sharing and synergies among RECs and Member States.

The January 2018 African Union Executive Council Decision adopted the Revised Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) and its 12-year Action Plan. The Decision further requested African Union Member States to align their Migration Policy Frameworks with the new continental framework including its Plan of Action. This decision is a follow up of the 2006 Executive Council Decision on the pdf Migration Policy Framework for Africa (348 KB) specifically requested the AU Commission to work with IOM and other relevant partners to assist Member States to strengthen migration governance and collaboration among themselves.

The pdf Common African Position (CAP) on the Global Compact on safe, orderly and regular Migration (581 KB) that was endorsed by Executive Council and the AU Assembly in 2018 also provides a Policy directive to AU Member States to speak with one voice on all important issues on migration during the intergovernmental negotiations on migration.
The European Union and COMESA have signed a 48.3 million trade facilitation programme. The COMESA Trade Facilitation Programme (CTFP) aims at deepening regional integration, improving inclusive regional economic growth and enhancing competitiveness of the COMESA region.

Secretary General of COMESA, Chileshe Mpundu Kapwepwe and the Head of the European Union Delegation to Zambia, Ambassador Alessandro Mariani signed the Agreement in Lusaka on Tuesday, 20 November 2018. This paves the way to commence the implementation of the planned activities in the whole COMESA/tripartite region as well as at the targeted corridors and border areas in the COMESA region.

The Programme is financed under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF). The project aims at increasing intra-regional trade flows of goods, persons and services by reducing the costs/delays of imports/exports at specific border posts.

This will be achieved through the reduction of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) across the borders, the implementation of the COMESA Digital Free Trade Agreements (FTA), the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreements (TFA), improvement of the Coordinated Management and the liberalization of the trade in services and movements of persons.

In her address, the Secretary General cited the lack of coordinated border controls, seamless exchange of information as well as Trade and Transport Corridor Monitoring System as some major causes of high freight costs in the COMESA region compared with other regions.

This programme will ensure trade policy liberalisation and infrastructure improvements, accompanied by improved border management and logistics are supported to reduce freight costs, increase competitiveness and fully exploit the economic potential of the COMESA region, she said.

The final beneficiaries of the programme are the Member States and citizens of COMESA and the United Republic of Tanzania, either directly or indirectly through their central and regional and local administrations or public or semi-public institutions.

In his statement, Ambassador Mariani said: This EU-COMESA Trade Facilitation Programme is of utmost importance and will greatly contribute to the implementation of the New Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs recently launched by the EU.

The programme is comprised of five key result areas: improved monitoring and removal of non-tariff barriers; enhanced implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement; Strengthen Coordinated Border Management and Trade and Transport facilitation; Improved levels of implementation of harmonised, science based Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Measures and Technical Standards; and enhanced Trade in Services, free movement of persons, trade negotiations, intellectual property and trade promotions are supported.

Zambian Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry Mrs Kayula Siame, who was the chief guest at the event, said that with this Trade Facilitation programme, COMESA will have a more prioritized trade facilitation programme which will ensure simple and flexible rules of origin as well as dynamic systems for elimination of non-tariff barriers and the instruments for trade facilitation will be effectively and efficiently used.

COMESA Secretariat will be responsible for managing the overall coordination of this programme, with sub activities sub-delegated to Member States and other implementing agencies to ensure the greatest impacts and the best value for money.
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Mumbai, November 21

Changes in regulatory landscape are making it unviable to operate ATMs, and may lead to the closure of half of the 2.38 lakh machines in the country by March 2019, the Confederation of ATM Industry (CATMi) warned on Wednesday.

Closure of the ATMs will impact thousands of jobs and also the financial inclusion efforts of the government, the industry body said in a statement.

Service providers may be forced to close down almost 1.13 lakh ATMs across the country by March 2019. These numbers include approximately 1 lakh off-site ATMs and a little over 15,000 white label ATMs, it said.

The industry has reached a tipping point, the body added.

A majority of the ATMs, which can be shut down, will be in the non-urban areas, it said, underlining that this can impact the financial inclusion efforts as beneficiaries use the machines to withdraw government subsidies.

The industry body said that recent regulatory changes, including those on hardware and software upgrades, coupled with mandates on cash management standards and the cassette swap method of loading cash, will make ATM operations unviable, resulting in the closure.

The new cash logistics and cassette swap method will alone result in costs of Rs 3,000 crore for the industry, it estimated.

It added that the ATM industry, including managed service providers, brown-label ATM deployers and white label ATM operators (WLAO), is still reeling under the shock of demonetisation.

The situation has further deteriorated now due to the additional compliance requirements that call for a huge cost outlay. The service providers do not have the financial means to meet such massive costs and may be forced to shut down these ATMs, it said.

The only way to salvage the situation for the industry, according to the body, is if banks step in to bear the load of the additional cost of compliances.

Unless ATM deployers are compensated by banks for making these investments, there is likely to be a scenario where contracts are surrendered, leading to large scale closure of ATMs, it said.

Revenues for providing ATMs as a service are not growing at all due to very low ATM interchange charges and ever-increasing costs, it said, adding that such changes in the landscape were not anticipated while signing contracts with the banks.

The WLAOs have accumulated losses and the compliance costs can result in over 15,000 machines run by them shutting down, the industry body added. PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Claiming that Air India intended to restructure flights operating to and from the Chandigarh international airport, the airlines today told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that it planned early morning flights between the city and Delhi for providing connectivity to European flights.

It also told the High Court that it planned additional capacity only after the airport was 24-hour functional. The Bench was also told that Chandigarh-Bangkok was making losses on a monopoly sector from the start. As such, a decision was taken to withdraw the flight. It added that Air India was in a financial crisis and could not afford to operate loss-making routes.

The High Court was also told that Air India had written to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Aviation seeking permission to operate hub and spoke flights from the Chandigarh airport. If granted, it would greatly help Air India provide better connectivity and ease of travel to the people of Chandigarh and adjoining areas.

The spoke-hub pattern is a form of transport topology optimisation in which traffic planners organise routes as a series of spokes that connect outlying points to a central hub. In an affidavit submitted before the High Court, Meenakshi Malik, executive director, sales and marketing, Air India, said it could introduce a new early morning flight on Delhi-Chandigarh-Delhi sector from January next year.

The flight would depart from Delhi around 7 am and arrive at Chandigarh around 8 am. The departure time from Chandigarh to Delhi would be 8.45 am and the arrival in Delhi would be at 9.45 am. This was subject to regulatory approvals and availability of slots from Delhi and Chandigarh. She said the route would enable passengers from five states adjoining Chandigarh to connect to European flights such as London, Paris, Frankfurt, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome, Milan, Vienna and Madrid.

The morning flight would also provide connectivity to Bangkok from Delhi in the afternoon. After the restructuring, the number of flights between Delhi and Chandigarh would be 14 per week from the current seven.

The Bench was also told that the Chandigarh-Bangkok flight was incurring losses from the beginning. Air India continued to operate on this sector, thereby giving enough time for the flight to stabilise and generate revenue. However, it did not happen.
editorial@tribune.com

A new column that lays threadbare the concerns, challenges associated with mental illness

Prof BS Chavan

Contrary to common belief, mental illness is very common. In 2001, the World Health Organisation (WHO), during its 54th World Assembly, stated that at any given point of time, about 450 million people suffer from some kind of mental, behavioural and substance abuse problem. This translates into over 6% of world population having some kind of mental health problem. Every fourth person who avails health services suffers from some kind of mental health problem, but a majority of these people are either not diagnosed or are not adequately treated. The problem has worsened after 16 years of the report.

The National Mental Health Survey (NMHS)2016, where the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, was the coordinating institute and the Department of Psychiatry, GMCH, Chandigarh, was one of the investigating agencies for the state of Punjab, reported that 10.6% of the Indian population above 18 years of age has a diagnosable mental disorder. This means that over 100 million people in India are in need of treatment. However, only a minority (10-15%) is receiving treatment.

Mental illness and substance use disorders cause a huge burden on the person, family and society. In order to estimate the burden of various diseases, two parameters i.e. years lost due to premature death (YLL) and the years lost due to disability (YLD) are commonly used to see the global burden of disease (GBD). In 2010, GBD was studied for 291 diseases and 67 risk factors across the world and the findings showed that mental illness and substance use disorders alone were the fifth leading cause of YLD. In addition to premature death and disability due to mental illness, there is an increased risk of violence, acquiring co-morbid medical illness including diabetes, hypertension, and malnutrition, higher rates of smoking, homelessness and marital disruption.

Despite signatory to the statement, 'There is no development without health, no health without mental health during the World Assembly in 2001, India has still not improved its mental health facilities. There is an acute shortage of mental health professionals in the country; the developed countries have more than 12 psychiatrists per 1 lakh population, whereas India just has 0.3. Punjab has 0.46 psychiatrists per 1 lakh population (NMHS, 2016).

In addition to limited number of MD psychiatry seats, a large number of qualified and experienced psychiatrists are leaving the country for better job prospects. Similarly, most of the developed countries spend approximately 5% of their health budget on mental health. India spends just 0.16% and most of this is on long-stay patients in mental hospitals with negligible amount for prevention and rehabilitation.

In India, approximately two-thirds of the population still live in villages and health facilities for this huge population are provided by the medical officers working in primary health centres and district hospitals. In the absence of psychiatrists even at the District Hospital, mentally ill patients and their families look at these doctors for treatment. However, due to inadequate training in psychiatry during MBBS, these doctors fail to diagnose and treat a majority of the mentally ill patients seen by them.

In most countries, psychiatry is an independent examination subject in the MBBS, whereas in India, it is a small part of Medicine and most students do not attend even a single class in psychiatry. Research has shown that 20-70% persons who commit suicide visit the primary care physician a month prior to committing suicide, and the records showed that a majority were not properly diagnosed and treated.

Out of total mental illnesses, approximately 90% are common mental disorders like anxiety, depression, epilepsy, alcohol and drug abuse, obsessive compulsive and stress-related disorders and these disorders can be easily treated by the physicians provided they are adequately exposed and trained in psychiatry during the MBBS course. Most of these cases do not require admission. But due to stigma, a large number of patients do not seek treatment. The remaining disorders (called severe mental disorders that include schizophrenia and mood disorders) run a chronic course and thus need lifelong treatment.

Due to the severe nature of symptoms (including aggression and violence, self-neglect, odd and bizarre behaviour, disruption in family and work life and high suicide risk), cost and side-effects of long-term medication, dependence on the family even for simple daily activities, neglect and discrimination by society; these disorders take a heavy toll on the patients, family and community.

No caregiver support

With negligible long-term care facilities in the public sector and lack of affordability of facilities in the private sector, the kin of patients are forced to face a never-ending battle throughout their life. There are hardly any caregiver support groups to help these families acquire the skills and knowledge to handle the symptoms and guide the patient in day-to-day activities. The worst phase during this journey is when parents become old and fragile and feel incapable to deal with the situation.

Since the patient often lacks the capacity to handle his personal, financial and property matters, the family looks around for support, an agency they can trust and which is accountable to the law of the land. Sadly, such a system is non-existent in India. The Mental Health Care Act2017 gives some hope to the families, but the past experience shows that India is excellent in framing wonderful laws, but the implementation remains a huge challenge.

CHILLING FACTS

Suicide rate due to mental illness and stress is increasing in India (7.9 per lakh population in 1987 and 10.3 per lakh population in 2007) and out of 8,00,000 persons who commit suicide in the world, 17% are Indians

Depression is one of the most widespread illnesses, often co-existing with other serious illnesses. According to WHO, depression was ranked as the third leading cause of the global burden of disease in 2004 and will attain the first place by 2030

The developed countries have more than 12 psychiatrists per 1 lakh population, India has just 0.3 per 1 lakh population

What is required, and can be done

Psychiatry should be one of the most important subjects during MBBS training

Mental health budget should be increased and separated from health budget with a push on investing in rehabilitation facilities

State governments should set up a Trust for care of persons with mental illness and their families with one-time corpus (on the pattern of National Trust 1999, for intellectual disability, autism, cerebral palsy and multiple disability) to look after the urgent medical, legal, housing and social needs of mentally ill patients

Government should support self-help groups and sheltered workshops, where patients can work during the day and the products are purchased by government agencies

Policymakers should be sensitised to the limitations and rights of patients suffering from mental illness and dont laugh at them, but work for them

The writer is a psychiatrist who has been closely working with persons with mental illness (PMIs) and their families for over 30 years Email: drchavanbs@gmail.com
Flavia Agnes

Flavia Agnes

Women's rights lawyer

AS soon as an issue concerning women hits the public domain, the state and civil society response is routine: "The problem has arisen because there is no adequate legal provision to address the crisis." And the demand always is for a more stringent law, widening of the definition of the crime and a time-bound trial. And before we realise, a new law is given to us, while the situation on the ground remains the same.

For instance, after the brutal gangrape and murder in Delhi in 2012, the clamour was for death penalty and fast-track courts. But the need for widening the definition has been felt for well over three decades since the amendment of 1983. Public awareness forced the government to set up the Justice Verma Committee and based on it came the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013 which was much needed. And fortunately, the demand for death penalty was not heeded due to objection from women's groups. The situation on the ground continued without much change.

Next, we were confronted with the brutal gangrape and murder of an 8-year-old child in Kathua. Here the issue had a political angle; it was not just rape. It was hatred against a nomadic Muslim tribe, the aim being to scare them away from the area. But to contain the protest without addressing the underlying political concerns, the Protection of Children Against Sexual Offences Act of 2012 was amended to bring in death penalty for rape of children under 12 years.

Death for outsiders

But as statistics reveal, most rapes are committed by persons known to the victim. So how will death penalty be a deterrent? There are more chances of the child and her mother being declared liars and manipulators in a hostile court environment. Only in cases of rapes by strangers and, more particularly, those committed by "outsiders"  outside the caste, community and religion  that they are selected for death penalty.

Now the #MeToo campaign has laid bare the inadequacies of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act of 2013. To begin with, there are many, as pointed out in articles by Justice Sujata Manohar, retired Supreme Court judge who was part of the Bench along with Justice Verma which laid down the Vishaka Guidelines way back in 1997, which was the foundation upon which the SH Act was formulated. She and Justice G. Rohini, retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, pointed out these lacunae at a recent consultation meet called by the National Commission for Women.

The NGO representatives at the meet  mainly from Delhi and a few from elsewhere  pointed out that the Act had been a non-starter because the Local Complaints Committees which are meant to address two important segments have not been set up or where they have been set up, they exist only in name. The parody is that these government officials have to address complaints from two different and diverse segments of society: one, complaints from women in the unorganised sector: the illiterate, low paid woman who works without any job security; and at the second level, complaints against the head of an organisation (for example a Tarun Tejpal or an MJ Akbar who are armed with a battery of lawyers) who have scant respect for the members of the Local Complaints Committee.

The NCW chairperson, Rekha Sharma, who presided over the meeting, admitted that even internal complaints committees do not work as the perpetrator may be a highly placed official and the committee constituted by the head of the organisation would be his support base. In such a situation, the requirement of appointing an external NGO member does not have much impact unless she is able to influence the committee members. But if she too harbours the same conservative values and sexist biases, the complainant has no hope of getting justice. Her only option is to file a criminal complaint with the police, which also may not take her far and she would be so bogged down by the criminal procedure that she would withdraw her complaint.

Further, the Act deals only with a situation where the complainant and perpetrator work in the same organisation. If they have moved, there is no remedy. There is also a time limit of three months for filing the complaint. So, the women who came out in social media had no remedy in law except to file a police complaint. It is for this reason that the Act was a non-starter.

So, this is the answer to the oft raised question of why she didn't complain earlier and why she was complaining now.

On the positive side, the #MeToo campaign has shaken the corporate world in a way the 2013 Act and the Vishaka guidelines could not do and has helped focus on the situation that prevails. The stories were shocking. But more importantly, it became obvious that the current law has no remedy for them. This has forced the government to sit up and take notice.

A suggestion made by Justice Manohar and endorsed by many at the meeting was to set up industry-wise committees, such as the film industry, the media, the financial firms etc, which the woman can approach if she is not comfortable about filing a complaint in her own organisation. This will also address the problem of harassment by the head of the organisation and also deal with small and medium level firms within a particular sector.

Sexism at workplace

Another suggestion that came up was to broaden the definition of "sexual harassment" to include gender discrimination and sexism at the workplace. Many times, women are discriminated against because of sexism that prevails at the workplace though there may not be a "sexual" motive involved. But they have no remedy under the prevailing law. But this would involve many more issues which the internal committee may not be equipped to deal with and it would need special training on the issue of sexism at the workplace.

Penalising the complainant

The other suggestions were to delete the clause which penalises the complainant if she is not able to prove her allegation on the ground that it is a false case. This prevents many women from approaching the committees. Also, at present, the committee can only make recommendations and it is up to the employer to implement them. There must be an appellate body to take the employer to task and penalty should be prescribed for non-implementation of recommendations.

Now it remains to be seen which of these recommendations the government will accede to. But we must be grateful to the #MeToo campaign and to all the women who spoke out about their harassment for starting this process of amending the law.
laxmi@tribune.com

AN indiscriminate tweeter US President Donald Trump met his social media match in Pakistan PM Imran Khan. Trumps rant accusing Pakistan of taking our money and doing nothing for us was quickly put to sword by Imran Khan who pointed out that even when no Pakistani was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan participated in the US War on Terror. It suffered 75,000 casualties and lost over $123 billion while US aid was a miniscule $20 billion. Wanting to know if Trump can name another ally that gave such sacrifices, Imran felt the US should not play the blame game, and instead, seriously introspect why the Taliban was on the top despite 14,000 NATO troops and 2.5 lakh Afghan troops.

If the US needs introspection, Pakistan can also do with some honest soul-searching. None of those who hijacked the planes was from Pakistan but the mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was a denizen of Karachi. Apart from Osama, a long list of Taliban and Al Qaida top brass was killed or arrested in Pakistan while the Taliban imbibed its first lessons in narrow sectarianism from madarsas in Karachi and Akora Khattak. And, the resilience of the Taliban in the Afghan battlefield owes to military advice from across the border. In other words, while both countries play the victim card, the Afghan pot was kept boiling mainly because of a clash in the interests of their respective proxies.

The outcome of the Trump-Imran social media showdown has led to the US turning off the aid tap to Pakistan. But it has come at a fragile time in Afghanistans peace process: the Taliban has opened talks with both the Russian and American camps. Unless back channels do not work, differences at the top level will jeopardise all the preparatory work that has preceded the Qatar and Moscow talks, including a helping hand by Pakistan in releasing some top pro-talk Taliban commanders. Both Trump and Imran should be aware that if it was so easy, Afghanistan would have been fixed on social media long back.
editorial@tribune.com

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, November 21

Dengue and other types of viral fevers continue to hit residents, with a number of patients thronging the local PGIMS as well as government and private hospitals in the district. Ansh, a 14-year-old boy of Sector-1 here, who had tested positive for dengue, died at a Delhi hospital. A 22-year-old girl of Kalanaur area in the district and a nine-year-old boy of Kamla Colony in the town have also reportedly died of dengue.

Anshs father Vipin Malhotra and mother Sanchita said they took their son to a local physician, where he tested positive for dengue. He was then taken to a private hospital in Rohtak and then to another hospital in Delhi, but he could not be saved.

Rohtak Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Birla said the medical documents furnished by the parents of the Kalanaur girl and the nine-year-old boy had no record of their having tested positive for dengue. He said he would get the case of Ansh examined.

The Civil Surgeon said 294 patients had tested positive for dengue in the district so far, adding that anti-larval and fogging activities were being conducted to check the spread of disease.

A special ward has been set up for the patients of dengue and other viral fevers at the local PGIMS. However, the ward has become overcrowded, due to which many patients prefer to visit private hospitals and nursing homes.

Taking advantage of the situation, some private medical practitioners are fleecing the patients in the name of diagnostic tests and treatment. The Civil Surgeon said the rate of the dengue test has been fixed at Rs 600 and no clinic/hospital could charge more than that.
editorial@tribune.com

Our Correspondent

Sonepat, November 21

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday hinted that his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) could ally with the new outfit to be launched by Ajay Chautala if the latter makes an offer in this connection.

Kejriwal told this to the media in the districts Thana Kalan village. He visited the village to hand over a cheque for Rs1 crore to the widow of BSF havildar Narender Singh, who was killed by Pakistani troops along the International Border near Jammu last month.

Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala is a young leader with a clean image. I hold him high esteem. If they (Ajay and his son Dushyant) express willingness to ally with AAP, we will consider the offer seriously, he said.

Ajay has already announced that his outfit would align with any party other than the BJP or the Congress, while Dushyant has hinted that the proposed party would enter into an alliance either with AAP or BSP.

Kejriwals offer has come as a surprise to political observers. All along, his poll plank has been transparency in public life. In contrast, Ajays image has been tainted by a conviction in a job scam case. He is serving a 10-year-imprisonment in the JBT recruitment scam case.

Accompanied by state AAP president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal reached Thana Kalan village in the evening and met the martyrs family.

The AAP Government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex gratia of Rs1 crore to the family of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the National Capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering in the village, Kejriwal said, We are all proud of his sacrifice. He questioned why successive governments do not give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

Narenders widow Santosh and son Mohit thanked the Delhi Chief Minister for helping the families of martyrs. They hoped the Haryana Government would keep its promise of financial help and a government job to one of the members of the family.
gspannu7@gmail.com

Our Correspondent

Sonepat, November 21

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday hinted towards having a coalition with Dushyant Chautala faction of INLD in the coming elections in Haryana if any such proposal comes to him.

He was replying to a question from media during his visit at Thana Kalan village in the district this evening to hand over grant of Rs one crore to the widow of martyr Narender Singh of the village who sacrificed his life on Indo-Pak border.

Pakistani troops had slit the throat of the Border Security Force (BSF) jawan after fatally shooting him along the international border (IB) near Jammu on September 18.

Accompanied by AAPs Haryana unit president Naveen Jaihind, Kejriwal arrived in the afternoon and met the martyrs family in their native village Thana Kalan.

Kejriwal had also visited the village on September 21.

The Aam Aadmi Party government had earlier approved a proposal to amend a rule on awarding ex-gratia of Rs 1 crore to the kin of slain security personnel to include those who have settled in the national capital after joining service.

Addressing a gathering at the village on Wednesday, Kejriwal said, We are all proud of his sacrifice.

He questioned why successive governments do not give befitting reply to Pakistan.

For how long valiant soldiers such as Narender Singh ji will keep giving sacrifices, for how long will families will lose their near and dear ones. When the country needs such sacrifices, definitely these will be given, but our country is not so weak that we cannot give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

People of our country and the Army can give befitting reply and as was said here today that there should be no politics on this issue.

I think all parties are one on this, then why governments are weak. Why successive governments dont give a befitting reply to Pakistan. Every government, every party says they will give befitting reply to Pakistan, but they forget later on, Kejriwal said.

He said though no amount of money can compensate the loss, but families of martyrs need to know that we stand behind them.

He said the AAP government in Delhi took the decision to give the ex-gratia or Samman Rashi, which he felt the previous governments at the Centre should have done 70 years back.  With PTI
shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com

Washington

A significant proportion of suicidal teens treated in a psychiatric emergency department said that watching the popular web-series "13 Reasons Why" had increased their suicide risk, a US study has found.

The hit drama, which centres around a 17-year-old student who recorded cassettes that detail 13 reasons why she took her own life, is widely popular among teens.

The show has raised concerns among mental health experts about its potentially negative impact on vulnerable youths.

Researchers from University of Michigan in the US asked suicidal adolescents whether the show had contributed to suicide-related symptoms.

The findings, published in the journal Psychiatric Services, add to the body of literature about how at-risk teens may be reacting to the programme.

Of the 87 youths who participated in the survey between 2017 and 2018, half had watched at least one episode of the show, mostly teens ages 13 to 17. Among the 43 who had watched it, about half (21) said it heightened their suicide risk.

"Our study doesn't confirm that the show is increasing suicide risk, but it confirms that we should definitely be concerned about its impact on impressionable and vulnerable youth," said Victor Hong, medical director of psychiatric emergency services at Michigan Medicine.

"Few believe this type of media exposure will take kids who are not depressed and make them suicidal. The concern is about how this may negatively impact youth who are already teetering on the edge," Hong said.

The idea for the study stemmed from anecdotal narratives shared among colleagues at different children's hospitals, said Hong, noting that providers were hearing more teens being treated for suicidal symptoms talk about "13 Reasons Why."

The study also found that the majority of surveyed youth who had seen the show viewed it alone and were more likely to discuss their reactions with peers (81 per cent) than with a parent (35 per cent).

Last year, a study showed that the internet searches for 'how to commit suicide' spiked right after the release of the series.

A second season of "13 Reasons Why," which debuted in May, opens with a disclaimer urging young viewers to watch the show with a trusted adult  and the importance of seeking help.

Still, very few parents in the study sample had watched the series themselves; some were unaware that their child had watched it.

The findings clash with a previous Netflix-commissioned report that found 71 per cent of youths in a US community sample talked to a parent about the series, researchers said.

Hong said this possibly indicates some differences in the ability or desire of youths at high risk of suicide to have such discussions with their parents.

"The data from our sample of teens demonstrated that kids who were at high risk of suicide did not reach out to adults," he adds. "They mostly watched the show alone or talked to friends, but they weren't talking to parents, teachers or school counsellors.

Of the teen viewers who said they believed the series increased their suicide risk, the majority strongly identified with the lead female character, Hannah Baker.

Further research is needed to accurately gauge how media content that focuses on youth suicide can influence the mental health and suicide risk of its viewers.  PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has approved a sewerage scheme for Paonta town. It is aimed at cleaning the Yamuna, the biggest tributary of the Ganga.

The NMCG meeting, which was presided over by Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari, approved the scheme for zones-II and III of the town, home to the renowned Paonta Sahib Gurdwara. The town is situated on the banks of the Yamuna. The river is the boundary between the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Most of the waste from the town is discharged into the Yamuna.

The scheme has been approved at a total project cost of Rs 11 crore and includes new 1.72 MLD STP, minor repair and a filter in the existing 0.44 MLD STP (extended aeration) and 1 MLD (extended aeration).
editorial@tribune.com

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, November 20

Leader of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Hafizullah Mir was shot dead outside his home in the Achabal area of Anantnag district, 60 km south of Srinagar, on Tuesday morning. His wife was injured in the attack.

Unidentified gunmen in a car opened fire outside Mirs house in Badru village. Both Mir and his wife were injured. They were rushed to a nearby hospital. Mir was shifted to District Hospital, Anantnag, where he was declared dead, a senior police officer said.

The attack comes days after Mir claimed he had received threats over the phone. The killing has been widely condemned by separatist leaders and United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin.

Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Geelani alleged that the separatists were being targeted to suppress Kashmirs freedom movement. Ikhwan was used to target Jamaat leaders in the nineties. In the same fashion, now Hurriyat leaders are being targeted, he alleged, terming the killing the revival of Ikhwan in the Valley.

Shutdown tomorrow

Srinagar: Separatists, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, called for a shutdown in Kashmir on Thursday to protest the killing Mir Hafizullah. They said Hafizullas killing was a cowardly and barbaric action by government agencies. They called for protests after midday prayers on Friday.
editorial@tribune.com

Arun Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 21

Two arch-rivals in Kashmir politics  National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party  had come under intense pressure from their MLAs to form government in Jammu and Kashmir as it was feared that continuing political hostility would pave way for the success of BJPs machinations to break these groups.

The decision on the alliance came before the annoucement of the dissolution of the Assembly and sought to utilise the remaining period of more than two years of the six-year term of the Assemblyto unite all for Kashmirs special status. It is also aimed at showing the nation that the two parties can rise above their familial considerations for the sake of larger interests of the state. This is clear the way the two parties are working to choose former Finance Minister Altaf Bukhari as their chief ministerial candidate.

Th alliance was aimed at helping the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party nip in the bud the BJP theory that the two parties were hostage to the dynastic politics.

BJP leaders frequent visits to the Valley and their meetings with party leaders and lawmakers of other groups triggered the fears that the BJP would do everything to install its government in the state, particularly with the help of Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference who is on cloud nine after the success in the recently concluded municipal poll.

When National Conference leader Omar Abdullah and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti saw all this happening, they thought of working out some arrangement to save the distinct identity of J&K. They felt that if the BJP succeeded in demolishing the mainstream in Kashmir, it would add to chaos.

It was with this theme that Altaf Bukhari had mooted the idea of forging of an alliance between the two groups about a couple of months back. Thereafter, the Peoples Democratic Party and National Conference leaders were in regular touch. NC and PDP leaders have had a series of serious discussions on the issue (of the government formation) over the past few days, a leader involved in the reconciliation process told The Tribune. He said things would be for the betterment of the state and its people.

The issues that brought them together were, to determinedly fight for saving Article 35A of the Constitution that provides special rights and privileges to the hereditary permanent residents of the state, and to check the Centres perceived aggressive policy in Kashmir.

These discussions were held in Srinagar and Delhi. The view of the prominent leaders of the two parties and that of Congress was taken to find a way forward in an amicable manner.

Unhappy with the new turn in Jammu and Kashmir politics, the BJP, the erstwhile ally of the Peoples Democratic Party, has already termed it as a Pakistan-backed move.

That, it seems is to stir nationalist versus anti-national polarisation and that can have serious repercussions at the national level.
editorial@tribune.com

Gurvinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 21

While the descendants of World War I veterans and martyrs were called from across the state at a state-level function, they were presented with just a dushala and a memento each by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to honour the great soldiers. The event was organised at Maharaja Ranjit Singh War Museum to commemorate 100 years of World War I.

Several descendants of World War I veterans were honoured by the Senior Adviser to CM, Lt-Gen TS Shergill, who encouraged them while admiring their prized possessions, including medals, old letters, etc.

While the Chief Minister was eulogising the soldiers, remembering his visits to Europe and his own days in the Army, after honouring 15 descendants of veterans, a 90-year-old man was trying to seek permission from the security personnel to let him meet the CM. The nonagenarian, Mehar Singh, who is the nephew of Sepoy Beant Singh who had fought in the war, had come from Narur village of Kapurthala. He said he wanted to meet the CM and convey it to him that the memento was not of much use to the veterans, and the government should extend some financial help or pension to them instead. The CM should instead give them a letter that can be of some benefit for them and their dependents, rather than just a memento. But for security reasons, he was not allowed get close to the CM. He returned disappointed.

Several other descendants voiced similar opinions. Darshan Singh, grandson of Sepoy Such Singh who attained martyrdom in Burma during the war, showed the letter issued by the British government. It reads: He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered amongst those who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that his name is not forgotten - Sepoy Sucha Singh, 14th Sikhs.

Such letters were also sent to the dependents of the soldiers in Punjabi also. Darshan Singh said many of the descendants of war veterans were now living in misery. The government must make a provision for some kind of pension for them. Even the British government for whom the soldiers fought should recognise the sacrifices and provide some assistance to the families of the veterans, he said.

One of the descendants said the British government had awarded land as an award to his grandfather, but that became part of Pakistan after Partition. No proper compensation for their lost land has been given to the family. The government should help in such matters, he said. Kulwinder Singh from Amritsar said several descendants of martyrs were left abroad and they continued to live there. The British government should extend recognition to the descendants living abroad. In fact, most mementos presented to the descendants of war veterans did not have the name of World War I soldiers. It seems the government, instead of really helping us out, is treating this also as a political gimmick, said Darshan Singh.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

New Delhi, November 21

An American tourist to one of the islands in remote Andaman and Nicobar chain has been allegedly killed by people belonging to the protected Sentinelese tribes, sources said on Wednesday, even as the US consulate said he was missing.

A case of culpable homicide has been registered, and the fishermen who took John Allen Chau, 27, to the remote North Sentinel Island have been arrested.

We are aware of reports concerning a US citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the US Department of State, a US Consulate spokesperson said.

When a US citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment, the spokesperson said.

According to a report published in a newspaper in Port Blair, Chau had visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands five times earlier too.

He had expressed a desire to meet the Sentinelese tribe, which is known to resist all contact with outsiders, often firing arrows at anyone who comes near.

According to the report, Chau had hired a fishing dinghy from the Chidiyatapu area and reached close to the island on November 16, from where he travelled in his own canoe. He had made a failed attempt on November 14 as well.

While his body had been spotted by fishermen, it has not been retrieved yet, the sources said.

Till recently, the North Sentinel Island was out of bounds for visitors. In a major step earlier this year, the government excluded this island and 28 others in the Union Territory from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime till December 31, 2022.

The lifting of RAP meant that foreigners could be allowed to visit these islands without permission from the government. PTI

Had visited islands 5 times
editorial@tribune.com

New Delhi, November 21

J&K ex-CM and Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad today said the government panicked and dissolved the Assembly merely on basis of rumours.

The BJP, however, called for fresh polls at the earliest, slamming the proposed alliance of Opposition parties as a combination of terror-friendly parties.

The BJP was afraid of any other party staking claim to form the government. We had been in talks with our MLAs in to discuss what should be done. We had called a meeting earlier this week and the NC called a meeting yesterday but neither of the parties PDP, NC or Congress wanted a CM post or to form a government at this moment. A fearful BJP went ahead and dissolved the Assembly on rumours, Azad said.

The BJP said on Twitter that the border state cannot afford horse-trading and instability keeping its security scenario in mind. "The proposed alliance between the Congress and the PDP broke up even before it was formed. They have taken contradictory positions on dissolution. One supports it and the other opposes it. The best option in such a scenario is to go in for a fresh election at the earliest. This Assembly cannot produce a stable government," it said.  TNS/PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

In a rare public attack on the ruling BJP, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today accused his successor Narendra Modi of presiding over a corrupt government, saying graft had peaked in the last four and a half years.

Demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale deal, Singh said the BJP government had indulged in lipa poti of UPA schemes and dealt a blow to the economy with ill-conceived decisions of demonetisation and a flawed GST coupled with tax terrorism.

Singh, a Congress star campaigner for all election-bound states, was addressing the press in Indore as part of election canvassing in Madhya Pradesh which goes to the polls on November 28.

This government came to power on the promise to usher transparency and fight corruption. A few months are left for its term to end but we have only witnessed corruption peaking under Modi. The acts of omission and commission in Rafale deal need thorough investigation by a JPC. PM Modi is not going for the JPC which gives an impression something is amiss. This is raising suspicion in the minds of the people, said Singh, who took 22 questions from local journalists answering queries, including the charge that he ran a remote-control government.

Thats wrong. The success of my government was because the party and government were on one page. There was no difference of opinion, said Singh, defending the record of UPA against graft.

Asked why the Congress was reduced to few states if the UPA performed so well, Singh argued: The reason was the ability of the Opposition to mislead the media and the general public about the so-called corruption and we were not able to carry the conviction to convey our point of view.

The former PM said he had no hesitation in saying that the Modi government had failed on every front. He asked people to get rid of BJP government. On whether he wanted to challenge PM Modi on anything, Singh said: I need not challenge him. That task will be accomplished by people in the upcoming elections.

In a statement earlier today, Singh renewed his attacks on demonetisation and GST, describing the former as a deliberate and designed attack on the savings of small and medium businesses, farmers and housewives. He said while ills of note ban could not be undone, the Congress, if elected in 2019, will simplify GST.

The ex-PM charged the BJP dispensation with destroying the credibility of institutions (in veiled references to CBI, EC and RBI) and said he was happy at the reconciliation between the government and the RBI.
amansharma@tribunemail.com

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 21

Nearly 20,000 farmers from different parts of Maharashtra began their march to downtown Mumbai to protest, what they say, are unfulfilled promises by the Maharashtra government.

The Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM), an umbrella body of several farmers' organisations which is holding the march, is demanding that the Maharashtra government grant access to local village bodies and tribal councils access to land and water resources. Other demands of the farmers' include implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations apart from extending healthcare benefits under the National Rural Health Mission in rural Maharashtra.

"Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had promised that farm loans would be waived and right of tribals on their land would be honoured. But these have not been fulfilled. Farmers are not getting fresh crop loans from banks and even the Minimum Support Price announced by the government are not being provided to farmers," Pratibha Shinde, General Secretary, LSM, said.

The farmers had congregated in Nashik from different parts of Maharashtra earlier this week and arrived in Thane on Tuesday night.

They began marching to Mumbai on Wednesday. According to the LSM, they will camp out at Somaiya College grounds at Sion in Central Mumbai before marching towards Azad Maidan in South Mumbai on Thursday.

Among those participating in the march include Swaraj Abhiyan chief Yogendra Yadav and noted conservationist Rajendra Singh.

According to police officials, the marchers won't be allowed to proceed beyond Azad Maidan as the Winter Session of the Maharashtra Assembly is in progress.

Farmers' representatives say, most of the marchers are from the worst affected areas of Marathwada which is reeling under drought.

According to state government officials, 17 districts in Marathwada and Vidarbha are facing drought this year.

Last March, farmers under the banner of the All India Kisan Sabha had also marched to Mumbai and were given a written assurance by the Chief Minister about time-bound action into some of their demands.

However, LSM office-bearers say nothing has happened to the promises though a committee comprising several ministers have been formed to look into their demands.
amansharma@tribunemail.com

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

In signs of enhanced strategic partnership and growing importance of India as an emerging economy, European Union (EU) Commission has adopted a Joint Communication strategy to strengthen cooperation with India. The Joint Communication replaces the Commission Communication last brought out in 2004 and will be discussed and endorsed by European Parliament and Council in December.

Prioritising security through a rules based global order, the paper seeks to consolidate EU-India dialogue on multilateral issues and coordinate positions on issues in UN, WTO and G20. EU Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski hoped that the two sides would deepen their military cooperation with converging interests in the Indo-Pacific.

"We are proposing to India to establish military to military contacts since EU has military missions in West Indian Ocean. We are consulting each other closely in Afghanistan, Iran and Maldives specially," said the envoy.

The Ambassador stressed that EU while not being a military or defence alliance, has certain military capabilities which will strengthen further following latest council meeting which agreed upon 17 projects among member states in defence industry, infrastructure and procurement.

Sources in India suggest that New Delhi so far has been more comfortable engaging with EU member states individually or in groupings rather than en bloc on defence cooperation. However, the envoy stated that EU has been able to deploy its naval force Atlanta in the Indian Ocean to fight piracy, number of missions are operational to develop capacity in African countries and so it is keen to establish closer exchanges with India. "EU naval force and Indian navy conducted PASSEX in October 2017 for first time. We have invited India to cooperating on escorting EU WFP (World Food Programme) naval vessels transporting food to Somalia. India has shown readiness to cooperate on escorting the ships," added the envoy.

EU has also offered use of its civilian surveillance tools in Indian Ocean as well as satellite observation system Copernicus to India. Proposal for personnel exchanges and trainings in each other's defence colleges is also included in the joint communication.

Meanwhile, amid US sanctions imposed on oil trade with Iran, the Ambassador said EU continues efforts to create a Special Purpose Vehicle for alternate payment mechanism which would be made available to third countries for use, including India. The Ambassador termed Indian efforts to develop Chabahar as entry port to Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia as 'very positive'.

The joint communication also underlines importance of comprehensive and balanced agreements on trade and investments and a Free Trade Agreement between both sides.
editorial@tribune.com

Melbourne, November 21

President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday said Australia was a key partner in Indias flagship programmes and invited the diaspora to invest in India and be a part of the countrys transformational journey.

Kovind, the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country, arrived in Sydney from Vietnam along with his wife Savita Kovind on their second leg of two nation visit.

Speaking at an event in Sydney, Kovind told the diaspora: I invite each one of you to join us in our transformational journey. You can contribute with your ideas, your business models and your investment profiles.

We count Australia as a key partner in our national flagship programmes  Make in India, Skill India, Clean India and Digital India. We are keen to leverage Australian technology... you can play an important part in pushing this engagement.

The President highlighted the long history of Indians in Australia since the 20th century. It is remarkable that the community continues to remain committed to preserving and nurturing its culture and tradition. It is a matter of pride for us that the Indian community in Australia is highly respected.  PTI
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Lucknow, November 21

Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav could find himself in a dilemma of choosing between son Akhilesh and brother Shivpal, both of whom will be celebrating his 80th birthday separately on Thursday and seek his blessings ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The uncle and nephew parted ways in 2016 after Akhilesh removed Shivpal as the SPs state president and last year, a national convention nominated the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister as party head replacing Mulayam.

Shivpal Yadavs Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL) has planned statewide celebrations, including events at the partys office at 6, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, here and Saifai, the native place of the Yadav clan, in Etawah.

The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP), which has also planned to celebrate Mulayams birthday across the state, will have an event at its office in the Uttar Pradesh capital.

The PSPL has decided to celebrate his birthday as Dharm Nirpekshta Diwas and organise a dangal (wrestling event) in Saifai as Mulayam was a wrestler once and known for his skills in the ring.

We will be celebrating the day as Dharm Nirpekshta Diwas (secularism day) as netaji (as Mulayam is fondly called) is the one who stood against communal forces with full force.

The objective of the day will be to strengthen social amity and ideology of secularism, Shivpals son and PSPL general secretary Aditya Yadav said.

District presidents of the party have been asked to reach out to the poor on this day and pray for the long life of netaji, he said.

Besides programmes like blood donation, seminars and cultural programmes to propagate the message of humanity, a dangal will be held in Saifai, the PSPL leader said.

The Samajwadi Party is not far behind as it has also announced state-wide celebrations like those of previous years and asked its district officials and workers to organise events.

The SP has asked its district and city cadre to celebrate Mulayam Singh Yadavs birthday. We have been organising his birthday earlier also. He is not only our partys founder but also a samajwadi icon, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said.

Though Mulayam tried to balance his relations with son and brother Shivpal, both factions have repeatedly claimed that his blessings were by their side.

Recently, Mulayam left everyone surprised when he reached Shivpals PSPL office here during its opening, but later drove down to the SP office and addressed party workers, asking them to ensure the SPs success in the 2019 (Lok Sabha) polls.

Shivpal has announced that the PSPL will contest on all Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, except Mainpuri from where Mulayam is likely to contest.

Last year, Mulayam had said his son and the SPs national president Akhilesh is a good boy and was a good chief minister.

He is my son first, leader later. My blessings are with him before, now, and (will remain) ever after, Mulayam Singh Yadav had said, giving a clear message on his 79th birthday last year.

While the next move of Mulayam is not known and both SP and PSPL workers are confused as to who he will be standing with in the Lok Sabha polls, barely a few months away. PTI
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Melbourne, November 21

President Ram Nath Kovind arrived in Australia on Wednesday on a three-day visit, becoming the first-ever Indian head of state to visit the country.

Kovind, who landed in Sydney from Vietnam along with his wife Savita on their second leg of the two-nation visit, will hold talks with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and discuss bilateral issues.

He received a warm welcome on his arrival in Sydney, Kovinds official Twitter handle said in a tweet.

Kovind is the first-ever President of India to pay a state visit to Australia, it said in another tweet.

During his three-day visit, he will attend the unveiling ceremony of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Sydneys Parramatta suburb on Thursday to mark his 150th birth anniversary.

He will also address the Indian diaspora and business community.

In Melbourne on Friday, he will meet Victoria governor Linda Dessau and leader of the opposition Bill Shorten.

Kovind is also expected to oversee the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Austrade and Invest India, apart from a mining research agreement and two university collaborations, according to media reports.

On Tuesday, Indias High Commissioner to Australia Ajay Gondane told Australian Financial Review newspaper that the Presidents visit showed that the relationship between two countries was on an upward trajectory and it was likely to give it a positive momentum.

Every relationship needs a boost from time to time, he said, adding that it was important for Australia to realise while China was a dragon, India was no longer an elephant and more like a deer.

We are running and soon we will be galloping. Indias economy has been expanding at a rate of 6 to 7 per cent and even 8 per cent. With this expansion of the Indian economy, we hope that Australians will now catch on and be a willing partner, Gondane said.

The relationship was progressing and the two sides had held bilateral military exercises and the multilateral co-operation would increase over time, he said.

The exchanges between the two countries have been at a very high level, the envoy said.

On export and investment targets, Gondane said it was achievable and that he expected Australia to achieve its India export and investment growth targets, set out in the recently launched Indian economic strategy report before 2035.

It is achievable. By 2025, you will see a lot of Australian investments. Trade will increase. Once it is realised in Australia that you can invest in India and take a lot of profit, that will accelerate, Gondane said.

Gondane also hoped that investments by Indian companies in Australia would expand, stating that projects like the Adani Carmichael mine would be a test case.

The company has invested so much of its money in the project. Lets hope this comes to fruition so that it sends a very good signal, he said.

Recently, Australia announced that it was formally referring India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over its sugar subsidies.

Australian trade minister Simon Birmingham said Australia would engage in formal discussions with India and other WTO members regarding this issue at the upcoming WTO Committee of Agriculture meeting later this month.

Despite our concerns on sugar subsidies, our relationship with India is far stronger than this one particular issue and Im confident that Australia and India will build on their already vibrant economic and strategic relationship well into the future, Birmingham said. PTI
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Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, November 21

Nearly 20,000 farmers from different parts of Maharashtra began their march to downtown Mumbai to protest, what they say, are unfulfilled promises by the Maharashtra government.

The Lok Sangharsh Morcha (LSM), an umbrella body of several farmer bodies which is organising the march, is demanding that the government grant access to local village bodies and tribal councils access to land and water resources.

Other demands of the farmers include implementation of the Swaminathan Committees recommendations, apart from extending healthcare benefits under the National Rural Health Mission in rural Maharashtra.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had promised that farm loans would be waived and rights of tribals on their land would be honoured. But these have not been fulfilled. Farmers are not getting fresh crop loans from banks and even the minimum support price announced by the government is not being provided to farmers, said Pratibha Shinde, LSM general secretary. The farmers had congregated in Nashik from different parts of Maharashtra earlier this week and arrived in Thane on Tuesday night. They began marching to Mumbai on Wednesday. According to the LSM, they will camp out at Somaiya College grounds at Sion in Central Mumbai before marching towards Azad Maidan in South Mumbai on Thursday.

Among those participating in the march include Swaraj Abhiyan chief Yogendra Yadav and noted conservationist Dr Rajendra Singh. According to police officials, the marchers wont be allowed to proceed beyond Azad Maidan as winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly is in progress.

Farmers representatives say most of the marchers are from the worst-affected areas of Marathwada, which is reeling under drought. According to state government officials, 17 districts in Marathwada and Vidarbha are facing drought this year.

Last March, farmers under the banner of All India Kisan Sabha had also marched to Mumbai and were given a written assurance by the CM about time-bound action.
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Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

Six years after dismissing a review petition against confirmation of death penalty awarded to a man from Maharashtra for killing three children and a women he lived with as her husband, the Supreme Court has recalled its order and ordered a fresh hearing on his plea.

The order came from a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Kurian Joseph on November 12 while considering convict Sudam Rahul Kaniram Jadhavs plea for shifting him from Nagpur Central Jail to a prison facility in Aurangabad.

we are of the view that the review petitions regarding the sentence needs to be considered afresh, the Bench said recalling its July 26, 2012 order.

Since the petitioner had claimed that he was medically unfit for execution, the Bench ordered setting up of a medical board to examine him.

While posting the review petition for hearing afresh in the second week of January next year, the Bench ordered Maharastra Government authorities in four weeks.

Sudam was held guilty of committing the murder of three children and a woman by the trial court which sentenced him to death. The Bombay High Court dismissed his appeal.

The Supreme Court confirmed the capital punishment in July 2011, describing him as a menace to the society who cannot be reformed.

The top court had said, Lesser punishment in our opinion shall be fraught with danger as it may expose the society to peril once again at the hands of the appellant.

In a landmark judgment, a Constitution Bench in 2014 ruled that hearing of cases in which death sentence has been awarded should be by a Bench of three judges and the hearing of review petitions in such cases should be in open court and not in chamber by circulation as is the practice.

The Constitution Bench had made it clear that the law laid down by it shall be applicable only in pending review petitions and such petitions filed in future.

It had said the ruling would also apply to cases where a review petition was already dismissed but the death sentence was yet to be executed.

In such cases, the petitioners had been given liberty apply for the reopening of their review petitions within one month from the date of this judgment.
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Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

Amid contrary viewpoints and a parallel congregation to match its Ram temple push on November 25, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has warned Kerala Chief Minister Pinayari Vijayan to stop playing with Hindu sentiments and aastha or it would turn the Sabarimala into a national debate like Ayodhya.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in the Hindi heartlandMadhya Pradesh and Rajasthanthe BJPs sister organisation accused Vijayan of playing with Hindu sentiments by working like Aurangzeb.

Senior VHP leader Surendra Jain said by crushing Hindu aastha (faith) and traditions, the Chief Minister was trying to turn Kerala into a Hindu-free state like Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the VHP is set to take the Ram temple issue to another level with dharma sabhas in Ayodhya, Bengaluru and Nagpur on November 25. They will be followed by congregations in Mumbai on December 2 and in Delhi on December 9. Sources say the RSS and the BJP are working behind the scenes to mobilise crowds for the gathering in Ayodhya.

However, not all those wanting a Ram Temple in Ayodhya are on board the VHP events. The apex body of seersthe All India Akhada Parishadhas said it will not participate in the VHPs event in Ayodhya. Apparently, they are with the dharma sansad being organised from November 25 to 27 spearheaded by the Shankaracharya of Dwarkapeeth, Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, in Varanasi.

A controversy had erupted after Swaroopanand recently asked the government not to meddle in the issue and leave the construction of the temple to saints. The VHP wants the government to bring in a law to facilitate construction of the temple in Ayodhya. However, without naming anyone, Jain said, Nakal kabhi asal ki takkar nahi kar sakti (a copy can never match the original).

Meanwhile, Jain accused Vijayan of behaving like a ruthless dictator and repeatedly torturing Hindus under the pretext of the Supreme Court decision.

He alleged that Vijayan was abusing women in the name of preserving their rights. While warning Vijayan, Jain said their agitation will be democratic and under the Constitution. The Constitution allows pooja-paath according to respective dharmic beliefs, ethos and traditions. The law can interfere only if people of other religions or other devotees are hurt. This is the question of five crore Ayyappa believers.

The Ram temple debate was revived when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had said that it should be built at the earliest. Vijayan has accused the BJP and its ideological mentor of vitiating the atmosphere at the Sabarimala temple and sponsoring protests against the entry of women. Because of protests and clashes, no woman under the age 50 has been allowed to offer prayers at the temple since the Supreme Court ruling.

Jain said: It is the prayer of the VHP to the judges that by getting the date of January 22, the Vijayan government has got another opportunity to indulge in barbarism, which is not appropriate. We urge that the decision be hastened by hearing the matter early, so that the message goes that the judiciary is concerned about the rights of the devotees and it doesnt entertain the anarchists.
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Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

After the award of capital punishment in a Mahipalpur anti-Sikh riots case yesterday, all eyes are on the Delhi High Court, which is hearing the appeal against Congress leader Sajjan Kumars acquittal in the case involving the murder of five members of a Sikh family in Delhi 34 years ago.

The matter involves complainant Jagdish Kaur, now 77, who lost her husband, elder son and three cousins in the carnage that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

Long settled in Amritsar, Jagdish Kaur still remembers every detail of the attack. Massacres began a day after the assassination from 9 am onwards with news pouring in that mobs had been let loose on the Sikhs at the instance of Congress leaders. By afternoon, the mobs had reached our doorstep, recalls Kaur. She alleges that Congress leaders, like then MP Sajjan Kumar and MLAs, instigated crowds to kill Sikhs who had killed their mother. In no time they were in our house. They brutally killed five men of my family.

Her three daughters and the youngest son survived the ordeal. I had sent them to the house of our Hindu neighbour, she says.

In Kaurs case, ordered to be reopened by the Nanavati Commission in 2005, the CBI filed its chargesheet in 2010, naming five accused, including Sajjan Kumar.

The Karkardooma court on April 30, 2013, acquitted Sajjan Kumar, awarded three- year jail for rioting to Krishan Khokar and Mahendra Yadav and gave life sentences to Balwan Khokar, Capt Bhagmal and Girdhari Lal.

The CBI appealed in the HC, which has fixed November 22 as the last date for submission of written arguments. The judgment will come any day after that.

As Kamna Vohra, lawyer for Jagdish Kaur, says, This is a crucial case. No senior Congress leader has yet been convicted or punished for the Sikh genocide. We know 3,000 persons were killed in three days, but it seems no one killed them.
amansharma@tribunemail.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Claiming to crack the Amritsar Nirankari Bhavan grenade attack case within 72 hours, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said one person has been arrested while the hunt is on for another.

"One Bikramjit Singh has been arrested and search for another accused, Avtar Singh, is on," Amarinder told the media here.

Three people, including a preacher, were killed and more than 20 injured when two motorcycle-borne men threw a grenade on a religious congregation inside Nirankari Bhavan at Adliwal village on the outskirts of Amritsar on Sunday.

Pakistan's ISI very active to cause trouble in Punjab, Amarinder Singh said, adding, "The grenades were dumped from across the fence by Pakistan's ISI. These were made by Pakistan ordnance factory."

Ruling out any communal angle behind the attack, the CM said it was just an act of terror.

Amarinder said Bikramjit Singh alias Bikram (26), a resident of Dhariwal village under Rajasansi police station, was arrested early this morning from near Loharka village.

Bikram, an operative of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), has given significant information indicating that the grenade was provided to the assailants by one Happy in Pakistan.

Happy is suspected to be the Pakistan-based KLF chief, Harmeet Singh Happy alias PhD, who had earlier masterminded the conspiracy to carry out the targeted killings in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in 2016-17, in active collaboration with Pakistani establishment and the ISI.

The CM categorically ruled out any religious motivation behind the attack and described Sunday's attack on Nirankari Bhavan as yet another attempt by Pakistan's ISI and Pak establishment to carry out terrorist actions in Punjab to disturb the peace in the state.

It was in ISI's interest to keep the border disturbed to ensure internal peace in Pakistan, said Amarinder Singh.

His government was committed to ensuring that nobody was allowed to disturb the state's hard-earned peace and harmony, he asserted.

The CM said preliminary investigations and CCTV footage of the incident had led to the arrest of Bikram, who has identified his accomplice as Avtar Singh Khalsa (32), a resident of Chak Mishri Khan village, Lopoke, Amritsar.

Giving further details, DGP Suresh Arora said Bikram was riding a motorbike (PB18 M-7032) at the time of his arrest. Bikram's black Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle (PB02 BF-9488), which he has used in the attack, has also been recovered.

Bikramjit Singh revealed that Avtar Singh called him up late on the night of November 3 and asked him to be ready for an assignment the next morning. Around 4.30 am that day, Avtar reached Bikram's house and both set off on the latter's Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle to retrieve the hand grenade from an orchard about a km on Majitha-Hariyan link road. They retrieved the HE 84 hand grenade, which had been buried in a half-feet deep pit under a tree.

According to Bikram's initial questioning, the recce of Nirankari Bhavan was carried out on November 13 morning when no one was present on the premises. During the recce, the two conspirators especially checked out the locations of CCTV cameras enroute, the layout plan of the Bhavan and the distance from the main gate on the boundary wall of the Bhavan to the building.

Bikramjit has further said as decided on November 16, Bikram reached the house of Avtar Singh at about 9 am, where they removed the number plate of the motorcycle. They started for Adliwal village at about 9.30 am and covered their faces on the way. They waited in the area for the crowd to congregate at Satsang Bhavan. Both of them were armed with pistols at that time.

Bikram has further revealed that while Avtar successfully slinked into the Satsang Bhavan complex through the open gate, along with the sangat which had just reached there, he himself managed to subdue and take control, at gunpoint, of the two sewadars who had been deployed at the 2 gate-posts.

After hurling the grenade, both of them fled on Bikram's mobike and reached Avtar's village around 12 noon, where Avtar took back the pistol from Bikram. After changing his clothes and appearance, Bikram drove back to his village on his motorcycle.

According to Bikramjit, Avtar Singh was in touch with one Happy in Pakistan, who had got the hand grenade dumped near the orchard near Majitha through some of his other associate. Bikram has revealed that the geolocation details as well as pictures of the dump location were sent to Avtar on his mobile to facilitate the retrieval of the hand grenade.

Harmeet Singh Happy alias PhD had earlier come to notice for supply of a hand-grenade (Arges Type HG-84) of the same specifications to Shabnamdeep Singh, of Samana, a self-styled chief of Khalistan Gaddar Force (KGF), who was arrested by Punjab Police on October 31, 2018.

It has been learnt that HG 84 hand grenade is produced by Arges of Austria, and also manufactured in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) as the "84-P2A1". HG 84 is a destructive type of grenade, which causes fragmentation after the explosion and has effective range of 30 metre radius. These are mainly used to attack and kill a gathering of persons. Such grenades have been used in J&K in the past.
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Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner B Purushartha on Wednesday submitted the magisterial probe into the Amritsar rail mishap that killed 60 and injured several others.

Purushartha submitted the report that runs into nearly 300 pages to NS Kalsi, Additional Chief Secretary (Home).

Purushartha told The Tribune that he has submitted the report. He declined to share the content of the report, "I was asked to submit it to the government. I can answer any questions regarding the report after the government makes it public."

The magisterial probe was ordered to find out if the organisers of the Dasehra festival near Joda Phatak were responsible for the incidents in which large number of people was mowed down by a train on October 19 late evening while they were watching an effigy of Ravana bursting into flames.

Former MLA Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, was the chief guest at the function.

It is alleged that the function started late due to her late arrival. It was also alleged that the programme organisers did not discourage people from standing on the railway tracks.

The railways had said the district administration and the police did not inform them about the event.
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PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 21

Even as the police on Wednesday claimed to have cracked the Nirankari Bhavan blast case with the arrest of Bikramjit Singh (26) of Dhariwal village, his mother Sukhwinder Kaur appeared shocked over the development and denied the police charge that he was involved in terrorist activities.

It is unbelievable. My son is innocent and is being falsely implicated, she said. According to her, Bikramjit was picked up on Monday evening from the village.

As Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh announced his arrest, residents of the village reached his residence. Upset, they expressed their anguish with the development. His uncle Surjit Singh alleged that the police were saving their skin by implicating Bikramjit in the incident.

His friend Malkeet Singh, who studied with him till higher secondary, said Bikramjit was a good-natured person. He said his arrest in the bomb blast had shocked all in the village. He used to help people and couldnt kill anyone, he said.

Sarpanch Rashpal Singh claimed that when the bomb blast took place, he was working in his fields. He said heavy police force reached Bikramjits residence on Monday and searched the entire house. They also took his laptop in their custody.

Bikramjit Singh is a farmer while his elder brother Gursher Singh had gone to Canada on a study visa. The family owns seven acres of agricultural land in Dhariwal Bagga village. His father Sukhwinder Singh died when he was five years old.

When the media reached his village, announcements were being made from the village gurdwara claiming that he was innocent.

Pillion rider Avtar Singh, who is also wanted in connection with the attack, was part of the Satkar Committee group that had disrupted the religious congregation of the sect organised by its followers in the Lopoke area a few days ago. However, Bikramjit Singh was not part of that group, said SSP Parampal Singh.

The police said Bikramjit was driving the bike and had cornered the gatekeepers, while Avtar Singh merged in the crowd of followers and entered the premises easily. Avtar lobbed the grenade at the congregation.
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PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 21

Even as the Punjab police claimed on Wednesday to have cracked the Nirankari Bhavan grenade attack case with the arrest of one of the suspects, identified as Bikramjit Singh (26), a resident of Dhariwal village, his mother Sukhwinder Kaur appeared shocked over the development and denied the police charge that he was involved in terrorist activities.

"It is unbelievable. My son is innocent and he is being falsely implicated," she said. According to her, Bikramjit was picked up on Monday evening from the village. She said her son was god-fearing person and was not involved in such a dastardly act.

As Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh announced the arrest, relatives and villagers converged at Bikramjit's residence. Upset, they expressed anguish over the arrest. His uncle Surjit Singh alleged that the police had been saving their skin by implicating Bikramjit in the blast case.

Bikramjit's friend Malkeet Singh who studied with him till higher secondary said Bikramjit was a good natured person. His arrest in the grenade blast case has shocked the entire village. "He used to help people and the question of him killing anyone does not arise," he said.

Sarpanch Rashpal Singh claimed that when the blast took place police personnel in large numbers reached Bikramjit's residence on Monday and searched the entire house. They also took his laptop in their custody.

Bikramjit Singh is a farmer while his elder brother Gursher Singh is in Canada for study purpose. The family owns 7 acre of agricultural land in Dhariwal Bagga village. Bikramjit's father Sukhwinder Singh died when he was five-year-old.

When mediapersons reached his village, announcements were being made from village gurdwara claiming that Bikramjit was innocent.

The other suspect in the case, Avtar Singh Khalsa, runs a medical store and was popular by moniker "doctor". His father also runs a grocery shop nearby. Avtar's entire family had gone underground. Intelligence sources claimed that he had taken education from Damdami Taksal at Ajnala.
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Jaswant Shetra

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 21

Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today distributed eligibility certificates among beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi Sarbat Vikas Yojana (MGSVY) at a district-level camp held at Government College for Women in Ludhiana. More than 1,500 beneficiaries attended the camp and got themselves enrolled under the scheme.

The Chief Minister said nearly 9 lakh people had been assisted to avail of the benefits of welfare schemes. From now on, district-level camps under the MGSVY will be organised on the 20th of every month to assist beneficiaries. The Rural Development Department and his office would monitor the progress of the programme, he said.

Capt said the scheme aims at reaching out to the disadvantaged sections of society and providing them benefits of various welfare schemes. He said the scheme was launched in December 2017 with door-to-door surveys in districts, followed by camps for village clusters till August 2018. Subsequently, camps were also held at the district and subdivisional levels on October 2 to identify eligible beneficiaries.

Earlier, local MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, in his address, thanked the CM for fulfilling another promise of his government. He said this scheme would go a long way to help the needy.

Those present on the occasion included Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Congress MLAs Surinder Dawar, Sanjay Talwar, Kuldeep Singh Vaid, Ludhiana Municipal Corporation Mayor Balkar Singh Sandhu and Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Agrawal.
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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Acting on a contempt petition alleging that the Kapurthala Senior Superintendent of Police was purposely not initiating action as highly placed political leaders were backing Sukhvinder Kaur, aka Radhe Maa, Justice Nirmaljit Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today summoned the officer.

Justice Kaur fixed December 18 as the next date of hearing. The developments took place on a petition filed by Surinder Mittal. He was seeking directions for initiating contempt proceedings against the respondent officer for alleged wilful disobedience of an order passed by the High Court on December 15, 2015.

In his petition, Mittal alleged it was clear that the respondent officer had intentionally violated the HC order and made himself liable to be preceded under the Contempt of Courts Act.

In December, 2015, Mittals counsel had told the HC that respondent Sukhvinder Kaur by posing herself as incarnation of a Hindu goddess had hurt his religious sentiments. His counsel KS Dadwal had added that the allegations mentioned in his complaint constituted cognisable offence, warranting an inquiry or registration of FIR.

The Bench had observed the arguments raised by the counsel for the petitioner regarding the commission of offence on the basis of the material in the complaint appeared to be debatable. Dadwal said the police sent the CD of Radhe Maas jagran to a forensic lab for comparing it with the CD furnished by the petitioner. The police should summon her for recording her voice.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 21

The body of the 15-year-old boy who was kidnapped from Rampura, 35 km from here, on Tuesday, was found on Wednesday morning.

The kidnappers called up the family and asked for Rs 2 crore as ransom. When the family expressed its inability to pay the huge sum, the kidnappers settled for Rs 80 lakh.

Then the family sounded police, who arrested the two kidnappers on Wednesday morning and recovered the body.

Dushyant Garg alias Anmol, a resident of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, was kidnapped on Tuesday evening. The deceased was a student of Class 11 and his father runs a repair shop near the bus stand.

Kidnappers called Anmols father Vivek Kumar on his phone around 9.30 pm and demanded ransom of Rs 2 crore. During the second phone call when the ransom was reduced, Vivek told them that he had only Rs 35,000 and would be able to arrange the money by Wednesday morning.

Vivek asked the kidnappers to let him talk to his son, but they did not.

SSP Nanak Singh said, Two accused have been arrested and the boys body recovered. The accused have been identified as Jaspal Singh of Kararwala village in Bathinda and Harsh Gandhi of Ludhiana. The boy was murdered with a sharp weapon and his throat has been slit.
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Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

Santok Singh of Daroli Kalan village in Jalandhar, whose younger brother Hardev was lynched and three other siblings left for dead by a mob during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, has not been able to overcome the nightmares of the violence.

The punishment awarded by a Delhi court to two accused  one sentenced to death and the other to life imprisonment  relates to the case in which Santoks brother was killed along with Avtar Singh of Patiala. Their conviction is a consolationall culprits need to be brought to justice, he said in a choked voice.

He was flanked by his three brothers, Kuldip, Sangat and Surjeet, who survived the attacks on November 1, 1984. Santok and his brothers used to come all the way from their village to attend hearings and they were deponents against the accused.

A mob of 800 people armed with country-made and sharp-edged weapons, led by the two convicts, arrived at Mahipalpur and poured kerosene and other inflammables at the shops of six Sikh families who were residing there, Santok said, recounting horrors of the day. With smokes billowing from the shops, they herded onto the roof of one of the landowners house to save their lives. But the miscreants managed to reach the roof and attacked them, Santokh said.

Besides Hardev, his brothers  Kuldip, Sangat and Surjeet  were also on the roof. All of them were attacked. While Hardev was killed, all others were left for dead. Santok had gone to a gurdwara in a different locality at that time.

Santok is the eldest of the siblings. He had called Hardev (then 17) from Daroli Kalan here to take the examination for defence services. Bad fate seemed to have plagued him as he forgot to bring his matriculate marksheet. Thereafter, he was enrolled for Class XI. He got involved in running Santoks rented shop. Avtar, a resident of Patiala, was recruited in the defence services.
gspannu7@gmail.com

Lahore, November 21

Over 3,000 Sikh pilgrims from India arrived in this Pakistani city on Wednesday to take part in festivities ahead of the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

On their arrival in Lahore, the Sikh pilgrims left for Gurdwara Janamesthan in Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, where the main function will be held on Friday on the occasion of Gurpurab.

Minorities Senator Anwar Lal, Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) chairman Tahir Ehsan and secretary Tariq Wazir, and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Tara Singh were among the Pakistani officials who greeted the Sikh yatris at the Wagah railway station.

As many as 3,080 Sikh pilgrims arrived here today on two special trains. The third train is expected to arrive here to bring another 700 or so yatris, ETPB spokesman Amir Hashmi told PTI.

He said the Pakistan Government had issued 3,800 visas to Indian Sikhs.

Sikh group leader Amerjeet Singh congratulated Pakistanis on the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad on Eid Milad-un Nabi.

He said Sikh pilgrims get love from Pakistanis and urged the Pakistan Government to issue at least 10,000 visas for Sikhs for next years 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.

He thanked the Pakistan Government for the proposed opening of the Gurdwara Kartarpur in Narowal for pilgrims.

He hoped there would be no hurdles in its opening for Indian Sikhs.

ETPB chairman Ehsan said the Pakistan Government has made foolproof security arrangements for the pilgrims.

Rangers and elite force personnel have been deployed along with police for the security of the visiting pilgrims.

He said the board has better boarding arrangements at the gurdwaras where the pilgrims would stay during their visit.

During their 10-day stay, the pilgrims will also visit some other gurdwaras in Punjab province. They will leave for India on November 30.  PTI
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

The five-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing incidents on Wednesday questioned Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar over his role in effecting a pardon for Gurmeet Ram Rahim, controversial head of Dera Sacha Sauda from the Akal Takht in October 2015.

He was questioned for over 40 minutes. Akshay's lawyers had accompanied him.

The state witnessed protests and a political upheaval following the pardoning. Coupled with the series of sacrilege incidents, the pardoning of the Dera head led to protests by Sikh organisations. Police opened fire on October 14 at two such protests in Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura leading to death of two and injuries to several others.

Akshay had denied meeting the Dera head and his role in the whole episode. There is no proof in the public domain of his direct involvement in the episode. However, the SIT claims to have substantial proof in the matter due to which they have summoned Akshay.

The police headquarters was out of bounds for the media on Wednesday. The sixth floor, where the questioning was held, was sealed for the staff too and that the policemen too could not have a glimpse of the star or sought his autograph and a selfie.

Soon after his arrival at the Chandigarh airport, the actor headed straight to the Punjab Police headquarters at Sector 9 here where the security was stepped up.

Kumar refused to talk to reporters at the airport.

The SIT wanted to question Kumar as his name was mentioned in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege incidents.

The SIT had earlier asked him to appear before it on November 21 at the Amritsar circuit house. However, the police later allowed the actor to appear before the SIT in Chandigarh.

The Justice Ranjit Singh commission report, which was tabled in the Punjab Assembly in August, had given a reference of a letter written (October 9, 2017) to it by former MLA Harbans Jalal claiming that a meeting took place between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal at the actor's flat in Mumbai in 2015 in connection with the release of the Dera head's movie "MSG".

The meeting was allegedly held before the Dera chief was pardoned in a blasphemy case. The movie "MSG" was not released in Punjab in September 2015 because of an edict by the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, against it.

Kumar had denied arranging any meeting between Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect head.

The actor had also denied having ever met the Sirsa headquartered Dera head, who is currently serving a 20-year jail term in a rape case.

Kumar had issued the denial on November 12 after the SIT summoned him along with former chief minister Parkash 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, Kumar had said in tweet.

"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, Kumar had said.

The SIT has already questioned former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal in Chandigarh.

On Monday, Sukhbir told SIT members, that he had never met Akshay outside Punjab when he was asked by the SIT members whether he had met the actor in Mumbai.

The summons were related to the investigation of cases involving various incidents of sacrilege in 2015, police had said.

The summons had 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 summons state, "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 five-member SIT was set up by the state government in September this year.
editorial@tribune.com

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 21

Setting an example by instituting book banks in schools with previous-session textbooks collected from all students, three schools in the state have made the Education Department issue a formal order to remaining over 19,500 government schools to replicate the model.

Besides the repertory of books given free till Class VIII, the collection in the banks included expensive textbooks and guides for senior classes contributed by students, teachers and even outsiders.

Students till Class VIII get books free of cost by the government. Girls and Scheduled Caste (SC) students get books free till senior secondary classes.

Help books for English, science and mathematics in the bank help senior students.

Besides the component of aiding poor students, the department communication has underlined the move as a small contribution towards preserving the nature.

Each student, at the end of the session, will be required to deposit his books in the school bank when he or she comes to take the result. Directing school heads to make book banks, an official communication has asked them to maintain a record of the books received from students as well as later lent out to children.

Government Senior Secondary School, Mall Road, Amritsar, had started the practice way back in 1994. Principal Mandip Kaur said, We began with contribution of books by our more than 100 staff members who gave books of their children. These included guides for entrance examination to professional courses, particularly after Classes X and XII. Students need help books which are otherwise expensive in the market, so our book bank is a big help to poor students.

Principal of Government Senior Secondary Smart School at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Sanjiv Thapar said We had started the practice basically to help students at the beginning of the session. Textbooks came late many a time and students faced problem in completing their syllabus. Moreover, the direction of giving back books at the end of the session added the chapter of responsibility in the education of children.

Principal of GSSS, Bhaini Baringa village in Ludhiana district, Manju Bhardwaj said, Besides collection from students and teachers, we get donations from villagers. Utilising books that would otherwise have been sold as raddi (junk), we make students aware about their contribution towards saving trees and helping the poor.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to club all cases relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots pending in various courts and conduct their day-to-day trial through a fast-track court for speedy justice to the victims.

He also demanded of the SIT that is investigating the cases to summon Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and subject them to lie detector tests to establish the alleged Congress conspiracy in the riots against the Sikhs.

The conspiracy was hatched under the watch of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The riots were plotted at the residence of the Prime Minister, Sukhbir alleged, adding that Sonia Gandhi was privy to the conspiracy.

Sukhbir alleged that the Gandhi family had been shielding and patronising the Congress leaders, including Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, accused of the riots.

He thanked the Narendra Modi government for acceding to the SAD demand in 2015 of constituting an SIT to reconsider the riots cases closed by the Congress governments on the pretext of lack of evidence.

It is because of the fresh probe by the SIT that the first conviction in the riots-related cases has taken place, he said.

One person has been sentenced to life term, and another to death by the court.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Nairobi, November 21

Kenya said on Wednesday gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer in the coastal region of Kilifi during an attack in which five people were wounded, the first time a foreigner has been abducted in the East African country in several years.

The gang ... abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area, the National Police Service said on Twitter.

The wounded, who were all under the age of 25, were taken to hospital and officers were pursuing the attackers, police said.

The men, armed with AK-47 rifles, attacked the town of Chakama on Tuesday evening, police said. The town is west of Malindi, a major tourism destination on the coast.

There was no immediate comment from the Italian government.

Police did not say if the gunmen were suspect militants from al Shabaab, an Islamist group based in neighbouring Somalia that has launched deadly attacks in Kenya for years, including the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in which nearly 70 people were killed.

Neither the reasons for the attack nor the identity of the attackers have been established, police said.

An unidentified witness told Kenyan TV channel KTN News: The European lady got out of her room, instead of lying on the ground, to enquire what was going on. One of the attackers then slapped her.

Their aim was to get money but they took off with her to the river and, before leaving the village, they started shooting in the air and they shot one woman and four boys, the witness said.

The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab aims to topple Somalias foreign-backed government and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam. They have intensified attacks in Kenya since it sent troops into Somalia in 2011.

Suspected Shabaab militants have launched several attacks in recent months in which Kenyan soldiers have been killed but those attacks have all taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia. The group has beheaded people in more than one of those attacks in Lamu County.

The town of Chakama in Kilifi County where the attack occurred is nearly 300 km (185 miles) southwest of the Kenya-Somalia border. Reuters
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Washington, November 21

US President Donald Trump has indicated that he might attend the annual White House Correspondents Dinner next year as the event will for the first time in decades feature an eminent Pulitzer winning author instead of a comedian.

Unlike his predecessors, Trump has skipped the annual dinner of White House reporters twice time in a row. However, on Tuesday he welcomed the move of the White House Correspondents Association and indicated that he might go to the annual event.

The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) on Monday announced that Ron Chernow, one of the most eminent biographers of American presidents and statesmen, would address its annual dinner on April 27, 2019, following the pushback over Wolfs sharply anti-Trump performance last time.

Trump hinted that he might attend the dinner.

So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian, Trump said in a late night tweet.

Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go? Trump said.

The WHCA in a tweet confirmed regarding Chernow addressing the event next year.

Im delighted that Ron will share his lively, deeply researched perspectives on American politics and history at the 2019 White House Correspondents Dinner, Olivier Knox, Chief Washington Correspondent for SiriusXM and president of the WHCA, said.

Chernow also confirmed the invitation from the WHCA.

The White House Correspondents Association has asked me to make the case for the First Amendment and I am happy to oblige, Chernow said in a statement.

Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics. My major worry these days is that we Americans will forget who we are as a people and historians should serve as our chief custodians in preserving that rich storehouse of memory. While I have never been mistaken for a stand-up comedian, I promise that my history lesson wont be dry, he said.

After the widely acclaimed biographies of business tycoons J P Morgan and John D Rockefeller, Chernow turned to the Founding Fathers and American presidents.

His biography of Alexander Hamilton in 2004 was the first recipient of the George Washington Book Prize for the years best book about the founding era.

His masterful biography of the Americas first president, Washington: A Life, was published to broad acclaim in 2010, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. PTI
shriaya.dutta@tribuneindia.com

Miami/Washington, November 21

US President Donald Trump has submitted written answers to questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, Trumps lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday.

We answered every question they asked that was legitimately pre-election and focused on Russia, Giuliani said in an interview. Nothing post-election and weve told them were not going to do that.

Giuliani said Trump did not plan to answer any questions from Mueller on whether he tried to obstruct the investigation once he won office, such as by firing former FBI Director James Comey.

It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion, the lawyer said in a statement earlier on Tuesday announcing that Trumps answers had been submitted in the probe, which Trump has repeatedly called a witch hunt.

Trump signed the submission on Tuesday before he left Washington to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in Florida, a person familiar with the matter said.

A spokesman for Mueller, who was appointed special counsel in May 2017, declined to comment.

Mueller was tasked to probe any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation into possible collusion between Trumps campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to tip it toward Trump by undermining Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow and Russia has said it did not meddle in the election.

TRUMP TOWER MEETING

Among the topics Trump answered questions about on Tuesday was a June 2016 meeting between the presidents son Donald Trump Jr., other members of Trumps campaign team and a group of Russians, the person familiar with the matter said.

Trump has denied knowing about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians, who had promised damaging information about Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Other questions may have touched on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally with ties to WikiLeaks, who also is under investigation.

There were no real big surprises in the questions. They were detailed, complex, they were multipart, Giuliani said. He would not say how many questions there were.

Mueller has already brought charges against some former Trump aides, including his former campaign chairman and his former national security adviser, as well as a number of Russian individuals and entities.

US prosecutors are also preparing to pursue a criminal case against Assange, having obtained a sealed indictment that was revealed in an unrelated criminal case filing last week.

WikiLeaks is known for publishing documents that were previously not public. During the campaign, the group published Democratic emails that US intelligence agencies have concluded were hacked by Russia. Trump praised WikiLeaks during the campaign.

Little hope of sit-down interview

Giuliani said in the statement on Tuesday the president had provided unprecedented cooperation with the probe over the past year and a half, noting that more than 30 White House-related witnesses had been questioned and 1.4 million pages of material turned over before Trump responded to the pre-election questions in writing.

He added that much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry.

Giuliani later told Reuters there was very little hope Trump would sit for an interview with the special counsel.

Trumps lawyers have been negotiating with Muellers prosecutors since last year over whether the president would sit for an interview. Trump himself has offered mixed responses.

In an interview that aired on Sunday, he told Fox News Sunday that he was unlikely to do so, explaining that weve wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is, probably, were finished.

It is unclear whether Mueller would subpoena him to testify, likely setting off a legal and political battle.

Earlier this month, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker as his replacement on an acting basis, renewing calls for legislation to protect Muellers work. As a private citizen, Whitaker criticized the Mueller probe.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed such legislation.

Lisa Kern Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Duke University, said she was skeptical much of what had been asked was outside the scope of legitimate authority, as Giuliani maintained.

The special counsel has a broad mandate to determine what took place during the campaign and to determine whether there has been an effort to obstruct that investigation, Griffin said. As other presidents have found out, they are not above the law.  Reuters
harinder@tribunemail.com

Hong Kong, November 21

A US aircraft carrier docked in Hong Kong on Wednesday, days after a pair of American B-52 bombers flew over the disputed South China Sea.

The arrival of the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group in the Asian financial hub comes after China rejected a similar request by another US Navy ship amid a spike in tensions between the countries militaries.

The Reagans visit is being seen as a friendly gesture ahead of a planned meeting later this month between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that will mark the first time theyve sat down together since the start of a bitter trade war. China has demanded the US cease military activity of all kind near its South China Sea island claims that it has been rapidly fortifying. The US says it takes no stance on sovereignty claims, but will continue to sail and operate wherever international law permits.

In late September, a Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in the South China Sea in what the US Navy called an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver. The Navy said in a statement that during the Reagans visit, interactions will take place with Hong Kong citizens through sports, community relations projects and tours of the carrier.  AP
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

New York, November 21

A US federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, ruling that it unequivocally violates womens constitutional rights.

The law, considered one of the most restrictive in the country, was passed in March. It had already been put on hold by US District Judge Carlton Reeves after the states lone abortion clinic, Jackson Womens Health Organization, immediately sued.

Under US Supreme Court precedent, states may not ban abortions before a fetus is viable, and the medical consensus is that viability typically begins between 23 and 24 weeks, Reeves wrote on Tuesday.

The judge acknowledged feeling frustration that Mississippi lawmakers passed the statute even though similar bans in other states have also been thrown out by federal courts.

The real reason we are here is simple. The state chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, Reeves wrote, referring to the landmark 1973 US Supreme Court case that established a legal framework for abortion.

This court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature, he added.

Governor Phil Bryant was traveling and was not immediately available to comment, according to his office. The state attorney generals office, which defended the law in court, did not immediately comment on the ruling.

The decision effectively invalidates a similar 15-week ban in Louisiana, which was set to take effect only if the Mississippi law survived a court challenge.

Todays decision should be a wake-up call for state lawmakers who are continuously trying to chip away at abortion access, Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the abortion clinic, said in a statement.

Abortion rights advocates have warned that the Roe precedent could be vulnerable following the October confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is widely seen as an abortion foe.

Other states have sought to install severe restrictions in the hope of provoking a legal fight at the nations top court.

The Republican-controlled Ohio House of Representatives last week approved a measure that would ban abortions at six weeks, while Iowas law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected is tied up in a court battle. Reuters
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, November 21

The US has suspended USD 1.66 billion in security assistance to Pakistan after President Donald Trumps directive, the Pentagon has said, in what experts believe is a strong signal of American frustration.

The Pentagons statement came days after President Trump said Pakistan did not do a damn thing for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

USD 1.66 billion of security assistance to Pakistan is suspended, Col Rob Manning, spokesman of the Department of Defence, told reporters in an e-mail response to questions on Tuesday.

No further breakdown of the suspended security assistance to Pakistan was provided.

According to David Sedney, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary Defence for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia during the previous Obama administration, the blocking of military assistance to Pakistan, which began in January this year, is a strong signal of American frustration.

But, so far Pakistan has taken no serious steps to address the core US concern--that Pakistan tolerates and often encourages groups which use violence against Pakistans neighbours, Sedney told PTI.

Pakistans leaders have promised cooperation, but beyond words, serious cooperation has not happened, therefore President Trump is frustrated and so are most Americans, he said in response to a question.

This frustration does not ignore the suffering that Pakistani people have undergone. It just asks Pakistan to recognise that it should act to help stop the suffering of others, said the Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

Previously, Sedney was at the Department of State and the National Security Council, as well as Acting President of American University of Afghanistan. He was part of the Pentagon when Laden was killed in a raid by US commandoes in Pakistans Abbottabad.

Over the last few days, Trump has said that people in Pakistan knew about the presence of Laden.

I agree with the views of Carlotta Gall of the New York Times who reported in her book The Wrong Enemy that a very small group of very senior Pakistani military leaders knew about Ladens presence in Pakistan. I have not seen any evidence that his presence in Abbottabad was widely known by many in Pakistan, Sedney told PTI in an interview.

While Pakistan has suffered terribly from terrorism by Islamic extremists, Islamabad has also enabled extremist groups that attack its neighbours, he observed.

After years of dithering, in recent years, Pakistans security forces have moved strongly against the extremists that threaten the Pakistani state, Sedney said.

What the US seeks, what President Trump is asking for, is for Pakistan to take the same kind of measures against the Taliban, Lashkhar-e-Taiba and against all groups in Pakistan that threaten Pakistans neighbours, he said.

But, we still see the Taliban moving weapons, fighters and money through Pakistan. We still see Taliban commanders taking refuge in Pakistan, keeping their families in Pakistan, holding meetings and conducting training in Pakistan and shipping explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Sedney alleged, adding that leaders of sanctioned organisations were acting freely in Pakistan and speaking publicly in favour of violence.

If Pakistan took some strong measures against the Taliban, peace would come to Afghanistan quickly, he said.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has roped in former top American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad for peace talks with the Taliban. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would benefit from a huge peace dividend, he asserted.

Similarly, if Pakistan took strong measures against groups which act against India, Pakistan would harvest huge economic benefits from better economic ties with India, Sedney added.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to agents of chaos that kill Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it had much to lose by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil. PTI
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, November 21

US President Donald Trump has reiterated that the USD 1.3 billion in aid to Pakistan will remain suspended until the country acts against militant safe heavens inside its territory.

The Presidents statement came days after he said that Pakistan did not do a damn thing for the US, alleging that its government had helped al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden hide near its garrison city of Abbottabad.

I want Pakistan to help us. Were no longer paying USD 1.3 billion to Pakistan. Were paying them nothing because thats what theyve done to help us. Nothing, Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday before leaving for his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Over the last few days, Trump has accused Pakistan of not helping the US in its fight against terrorism.

In an interview to Fox News over the weekend, Trump said people in Pakistan knew that Laden was living in a mansion near their garrison city of Abbottabad, but they did not tell the US and kept on accepting billions of dollars in aid.

And I cut those payments off a long time ago. Were not paying Pakistan any money because theyre not helping us at all and well see where it all goes, Trump said.

Early this year, Trump announced to stop all security assistance to Pakistan.

I hope to have a good relationship with Pakistan, said Trump, indicating that the relationship between the two countries could come back on track if Pakistan took action against terrorist groups and their safe havens.

But right now, were paying Pakistan nothing. I cut them off. They were getting USD 1.3 billion a year. Theyre not getting anything now, Trump asserted.

However, former Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, said Trump might be incorrect in saying that Pakistan had not done anything for the US.

Over the decades, Pakistan had helped the United States with some of its policy objectives, he said.

He is right in noting that Pakistan has offered tactical cooperation in return for aid while at the same time undermined the strategic US objectives, Haqqani told PTI.

Pakistani leaders, he said, are being disingenuous in describing the US as ungrateful.

Americans have provided over USD 43 billion in military and economic assistance since 1954, helped build Pakistans conventional military capability, and bailed Pakistan out of both economic and political crises on several occasions, he said.

Haqqani, who is the director for South and Central Asia at the prestigious Hudson Institute think-tank in Washington DC, said Islamabad would continue to be tempted to go back to old transactional patterns, but not Washington.

It is the Americans who are likely to be less interested in returning to what I describe in my book on the subject as Magnificent Delusions. Not only do Pakistans ambitions in Afghanistan conflict with the US plans but the two countries strongly disagree about Chinas expanding influence in Asia, he said.

Observing that only a strategic rethink on the part of Pakistan could lead to a reset in US-Pakistan ties, Haqqani said until then, occasional Twitter spats and we paid a heavy price for being your ally statements would continue to characterise the unusual relationship.

Ties between the US and Pakistan strained after Trump, while announcing his Afghanistan and South Asia policy in August last year, hit out at Pakistan for providing safe havens to agents of chaos that killed Americans in Afghanistan and warned Islamabad that it had much to lose by harbouring terrorists.

In September, the Trump administration cancelled USD 300 million in military aid to Islamabad for not doing enough against terror groups like the Haqqani Network and the Taliban active on its soil. PTI
As fast as one hearse left, another one arrived.

This was the scene at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC), Mt Hope, yesterday outside an apparently overwhelmed mortuary with bodies of loved ones who have died of Covid-19, coupled with other deaths.

When the Express visited the mortuary, relatives of patients who had died from Covid-19 and other illnesses said the same thingbodies are piling up.

Some people also complained of the long wait times before they could be given service at the mortuary.

Though chief executive officer (CEO) of the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) Davlin Thomas said people who died from Covid-19 were not being stored at Mt Hope, relatives said this was not the reality.
Hi Scott, many thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure I totally understand what you're saying though, sorry for being a bit dense.

When I get to Phu Quoc I know they'll let me in as I don't need a visa as I'm flying back to the UK 14 days later. However, when I try to come back into Vietnam from Kampot at the land border near Ha Tien they'll see I left Vietnam a few days earlier and this will be my second visit to Vietnam in a week. The Vietnam Embassy website says the visa exemption is only valid if there are at least 30 days between visits, so I'll need a visa to get back into Vietnam. I get that, but what I ned clarification on is will an e-visa be accepted at the land border as a single entry, or do I need a multi-entry visa as this will technically be my second entry to Vietnam.?

I wrote to the Vietnam Embassy but they just sent me a link to their website which doesn't clarify the point.

Sorry to be a pain, and thanks for your help.

Graham
Like JeanPerth, I haven't done the Iseji part of the route. I have only passed through the coastal towns on train; it's a generally nice coastal countryside. Here is a link to a blog of a Japanese traveler who has done the Iseji part (after his Nakahechi and Kohechi hikes), Google-translate should have many proper nouns (place names, among others) wrong, but you can read between the lines and take a look at his wonderful photos:

Maruyama Senmaida part is here:

Kumano Kodo is mostly through hilly forests apart from viewing points that are marked on maps (some are furnished with roof and bench to open your lunchbox and take a good rest).

Daimonzaka, and Kumano Nachi/Hayatama Taisha Shrines can be accessed with bus from Kii Katsuura Station and Shingu Station. I stayed at Hotel Urashima, a humongous hotel that resembles James Bond movies with different cave hot spring baths. The hotel can be recommended if you are very fond of onsen and not too afraid of random encounters with warf roaches (as they tend to like caves). Yunomine and Kawayu Onsen are quiet and small places in the mountains; they can be enjoyed as non-guests before, between, or after a long hike.

Koguchi Shizen no Ie is an old school turned into accommodation and camp site, ideal for doing Okumo-tori and Kogumo-tori Pass:

I'm not sure whether boats are always in operation.

As long as you've got the bus and train schedule correct, as well as the estimated time needed for hikes, you should do fine. You must have a relaxed itinerary and a backup plan, as parts of the route can be closed by flooding or landslides (usually the volunteers maintaining the route place a traffic cone and pole with a sign of no entry for those sections).

Do downloads the relevant maps and perhaps buy a larger map (I'm not sure whether it's available in English, but I think you can understand a lot from the Japanese version with picture signs on it, too). You are not going anywhere particularly difficult or unsafe; it's just a deep countryside area of Japan, fairly popular among tourists, both domestic and foreign.

Here are photos from my visit this summer:

Shirahama, Kushimoto, and Kii Katsuura are fairly popular among local people in Kansai Region as beach/rocky cliffs plus onsen resort towns. Access from Kyoto/Osaka is fairly easy by Ltd Exp Kuroshio train.

The eastern part of the peninsula has less train runs, but it's a nice area, particularly south from Owase to Shingu, though time-consuming.

Edited: 3 years ago
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I'm considering renting a car to travel along the coast either from Osaka to the Kii-Katsuura area or from that area back to Osaka. I realize I will need an international drivers license. My biggest questions are:

1. Is it better or just as easy to rent in advance online than show up at an agency in person? I do not have any Japanese language skills.

2. If online in advance is a good option, what site/sites would you recommend and what agencies?

3. I'm assuming that most hotels/ryokens/hostels,etc. will have parking available. What is the parking situation like when I want to travel during the day (stopping in to shops in little towns, seeing sites, etc.) in this arguably more remote area of Japan?

4. Can I expect to have a reliable and user-friendly form of GPS provided with the car rental?
Flying LA to New Zealand, layover in Fiji there and back, on Fiji Airways. They have a strict cabin baggage policy of 1 carryon weighing no more than 15 lbs per person, and then one personal item like a laptop OR an "overcoat." Ideally, I will have my small < 15 lb carry-on, my laptop as my personal item, but would also have a neck pillow... Is that allowed or would the neck pillow be counted as another personal item? If it's clipped to my carry-on does that make a difference?

And if I'm wearing a coat, is that also counted as a personal item?? I almost always wear a coat on planes without issue, but the wording on the website has me a bit paranoid.

Would love to hear any experiences with this. Thanks!
The accessibility to inland attractions (volcanoes etc.) would be the same for both. Both are accessed by paved roads. Tamarindo is more developed and has many more restaurants and accommodation choices. It also has a livelier "vibe"; Grande is pretty sleepy after dark, but is a beautiful place. Our family likes to visit Grande, but prefer to live in Tamarindo because there is more to do-- others prefer Grande.

As for safety, there are occasional reports of break ins at rental homes in Grande.There seems to be fewer reports in Tamarindo. Anywhere in Costa Rica, you need to keep an eye on your belongings and don't leave anything unattended as petty property theft occurs. Keep your valuables in a safe; make sure your accommodations have one and ask about security.

I think either location would be enjoyable for your family.
I am from UK and will be flying into US for 18 days on vacation and then driving from Boston to Niagara for the last few days of our trip before returning to UK via Toronto.

My questions are as follows:-

1) Under the VWP what is acceptable as proof of onward travel for departure from US to Niagara-falls (On) as our intention was to drop rental car off at US side and get a taxi across to Canadian side.

2) Will we need proof of onward travel at our US point of entry when we first arrive?

TIA
Yesterday, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed announced 2018 KCPE results for the exam which was held as from October 30th. Speaking at the Sea Primary School in Mombasa, Amina acknowledged that this years performance has improved as compared with the previous year. So, who are the top students in Kenya? How about the top schools? How can you check your KCPE results? Read on to know more.

Speaking at the event, Amina said that none of the papers were leaked. Out of 1,052,364 candidates who sat for the exam only results for 4 candidates were nullified. This was attributed to the high number of invigilators and over 70, 000 police officers who manned the exam. Three exam centers were caught cheating and a total of 14 people arrested over the matter.

READ ALSO: 2018 KCPE: Two pupils tie at the top, more than 50% of candidates score over 200 marks

Top students in 2018 KCPE

In this years exam, two candidates managed to score a top mark of 453 out of the possible 500. This is lower by 3 marks compared to the top student last year, Goldalyn Kakuya, who scored 455 marks. The top special needs student scored 446 marks. Girls performed better in languages (sign language, English, and Kiswahili) while boys did a marvellous job in sciences (Mathematics, Social studies, Science, and Religious Education).

50% of the candidates in this year scored above 200 marks while 12, 273 students scored above 400 marks. Those who scored 301 to 400 marks were 234, 573. 574, 927 candidates scored 200 to 300 marks while those who had below 100 marks were 2,177. Outlined below is a list of some of the top students in 2018 K.C.P.E.

Rawlings Odhiambo- 453 marks

Olive Mwea Wachira  453 marks

Asanga Leonard Munayi - 451 marks

Fleon Ogutu - 443 marks

Wanjuki Grace Waithera - 441 marks

Otwori Annita Moraa  439 marks

Macharia Bartholomew - 438

Anari Ryan Giggs - 437 marks

Levis Orina  437 marks

Enock Mwangi - 436 marks

Grace Adhiambo - 434 marks

Abucheli Ronah Khabayi - 433 marks

Macharia Mike Gichimu  433 marks

Luke Andres Orawo  430 marks

READ ALSO: Identity of two pupils who tied at the top in 2018 KCPE revealed

Top schools in 2018 KCPE

The outlined below is a list of some schools that produced the best students nationally:

Moi Primary School Kabarak

Gilgil Hills Academy

Naivasha-based Little Friends Junior Academy

St Peters Elite School

Molo Academy

Kagaki Primary School

Nyahururu Highway Academy

St Johns Academy

Riara Group of Schools

Little Friends Junior Academy

Kakamega Hills

How to check your KCPE results

Here is how to check KCPE results online and manually:

1. KCPE 2018 results code. While announcing the results, Amina Mohammed said that parents and candidates who sat for the exam can get their results by sending their index numbers to 20076.

2. KNEC portal. If you have an internet connection, then KCPE portal is the simplest way you can access your results. It is cost effective compared to the results code since all that you need is to purchase some bundles or just connect to a WiFi network. On the knec-portal.ac.ke, enter your index number. You can then view or download your result slip.

3. Visiting your primary school

The education Cabinet Secretary urged headteachers to download, print and post results for their respective schools so that they can ease checking KCPE results. If you do not have access to a mobile phone, doubt your results or do not have an active internet connection, this is the best method that will give you firsthand data. You can get the county KCPE results as well as KCPE results per school from the education department in your region too.

READ ALSO: Kakamega County does it again, produces best KCPE pupil for 4th year in a row

For those who had questions regarding KCPE results, we hope that this article has answered all your queries. Secondary school selection will commence on Monday 26th November.

READ ALSO:

2018 KCPE: Two pupils tie at the top, more than 50% of candidates score over 200 marks A

Examination Council releases SMS platform where candidates can get 2018 KCPE results

KCPE school codes for top primary schools in Kenya

Source: Tuko
- The senator said Kenyans are not used to the philanthropic culture of donations

- Wamatangi said Kenya has several billionaires who are not ready to donate money to the needy

- According to the senator, Ruto is among the few philanthropists who have offered to donate their money

Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi has come to the defense of Deputy President William Ruto's generous donations saying Kenyans are just not used to philanthropic people.

According to the senator, majority of wealthy Kenyans were selfish and not ready to share their money and when one donates, it becomes a big deal.

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READ ALSO: Ruto spotted at Njugunas enjoying nyam-chom after church service at All Saints Cathedral

Kiambu Senator Kimani wa Matangi says Kenyans are not used to philanthropic donations and they are not easy to give. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: We will continue to hold harambees in churches, Ruto says

Speaking to NTV on Tuesday, November 20, Wamatangi said a majority of healthcare development projects in areas like Turkana were mostly funded by philanthropists from outside the country.

"Kenyans are not good givers, they are not philanthropic. If you go into the accounts of several billionaires in Kenya, you will be surprised there are people who sit on several billions and they have never donated anything," said the senator.

He said Kenyans do not believe philanthropy as one of the things that they should practice fervently and those who practice it are strongly criticised.

READ ALSO: I'm not ashamed of my faith - Ruto defends multi-million donations to churches

"I am sure there are several Kenyans with billions of money in the country who are 100 times richer than DP Ruto but they don't give," he added.

On Sunday, November 18, Amani National Congress party leader Musalia Mudavadi urged church leaders to make sure the monies they were receiving from politicians were clean.

The Deputy President William Ruto has been seen on several places around the country donating money in church functions. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: William Ruto delivers KSh 8 million at church fundraiser

Although Mudavadi did not mention any specific leaders, TUKO.co.ke understands he was indirectly referring to Ruto who is known to donate huge amounts of cash to church and during harambees.

Ruto's penchant for church donations has been a subject of heated debate with a number of Kenyan leaders questioning the source of the millions he has been using to bankroll church activities all over the country.

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Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV

Source: Breaking News
- Two of the suspects were arrested at Bomet Green Stadium and the others at Konoin Sub-county

- One of the suspects presented a KCSE certificate showing he finished Form Four exams aged 13

- They were handed over to Bomet county security officers

Four potential servicemen who had attended the Kenya Defense Forces recruitment exercise in Bomet county found themselves on the wrong side of the law after they presented forged academic documents.

Two of the suspects were arrested at Bomet Green Stadium and the others at Mogogosiek, Konoin Sub-county.

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READ ALSO: KDF recruitment 2018-2019 - latest news and procedures

The potential recruits had presented forged academic documents for recruitment. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Are you ready? KDF announces mass recruitment drive

In a report by Daily Nation, recruiting officer in charge Lieutenant Colonel Fred Mucheru said the suspects were handed over to the county security officers for appropriate action.

The candidates were trying to join KDF by presenting forged academic documents which after analysis did not match the age captured in their national identity cards, Mucheru said.

He added one of the candidates had handed in a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) document indicating he sat for the exam at the age of 13 years.

READ ALSO: United States gifts KDF 12 amoured vehicles

In Bomet county, the exercise attracted over 650 youths who turned up willing to serve the country to their best ability.

In the ongoing exercise, KDF is seeking to recruit over 3,000 servicemen and servicewomen to join the forces.

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Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV

Source: Breaking News
-The governors said they would use South Eastern Economic Bloc to access more donor funds for development

- Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua said among other projects, they would establish a regional bank

- The bloc is aimed at developing integrated projects and poverty eradication through public participation

Three governors from Eastern Kenya have met and agreed to resuscitate dormant South Eastern Economic Bloc (SEKEB) established in 2016 in a move aimed at significantly reducing poverty levels in the region.

Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana, Kitui's Charity Ngilu and Alfred Mutua of Machakos jointly agreed to revive the economic unit and have already began working on plans to source for funds and establish framework for development projects.

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READ ALSO: Pokot MPs storm police station demanding release of murder suspect

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua with Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni) and Charity Ngilu of Kitui at the latter's office to discuss revival of South Eastern Economic Bloc. Photo: Charity Ngilu/Twitter

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: William Ruto asks his 2022 competitors for presidency to be ready to accept defeat

The governors who have held a series of meetings across the region together with other stakeholders acknowledged the area was poverty stricken for long and needed to work jointly to improve economic status.

Kibwana said the economic bloc goes beyond bringing together political leaders to incorporate religious, cultural, youths, women and leaders of people living with disabilities.

"We are setting up something different which will not be constituted by governors alone. We are going to have every stakeholder on board. It will be an economic movement of large proportions," said Kibwana.

Mutua observed that the move would also enable them benefit from donor funding restricted to regional economic blocs which they could not have tapped into as exclusive county entities.

The three governors have agreed to walk together to transform the economy of the region. Photo: Charity Ngilu/TUKO

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: Kiambu senator defends William Ruto generous cash donations, says many Kenyans are selfish

"This region like many parts of the country experiences high poverty levels. Pooling our energy, money, resources and expertise will enable us to improve livelihoods of our people. We discussed the process of establishing our own regional bank that will understand our people and support their economic activities.," Mutua said.

Ngilu said she had consented to be part of the initiative formed in 2016 but failed to gain momentum since it was a sure way of pooling and properly managing resources.

"If we put together our resources, we'll have financial muscle and accountability to manage resources properly to achieve development," said Ngilu.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko
- The gunmen are reported to have attacked residents by shooting indiscriminately and injuring five

- They also abducted an Italian woman who is said to be working with an NGO in the region

- Among those injured was a 10-year-old boy

- Neither the reason of the attack nor the identity of the attackers was known

Police are looking for gunmen who attacked residents in the outskirts of Malindi town on the night of Tuesday, November 20, injuring five, among them a 10-year-old boy

TUKO.co.ke understands the gunmen also abducted a 23-year-old Italian aid worker from her hotel room in Chakama Trading centre, 80 km west of Malindi town, Kilifi County.

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READ ALSO: DPP Noordin Haji wants all charged public servants suspended from office

The kidnapped Italian lady is said to be a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area. Photo: Teddy Eugene.

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: Kenyan security agencies in hot pursuit of 3 heavily armed al-Shabaab suspects

The attack was confirmed by the police who disclosed the injured had been ferried to Malindi Sub-county hospital and contingents of police officers deployed to track down the criminals.

"The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town," read a statement by the police.

The kidnapped Italian woman is said to be a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) operating in the area.

READ ALSO: Police deny impending terror attack targeting two buildings in Nairobi

Neither the reasons for the attack nor the identity of the attackers was established but police suspected it was an al-Shabaab attack.

We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim, the police said on Wednesday, November 21, morning.

READ ALSO: Kenyan security agencies in hot pursuit of 3 heavily armed al-Shabaab suspects

Among those injured were Samini Garama Dadu who was shot on the left side of the neck and is in a serious condition.

The others included Ibrahim Said, Elias Mwaringa Kathua, Mohamed Kalume Konde and Mang Katana Jeffa whose conditions are said to be stable.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Carolyne Nduti Untold Story: My Husband Left Me for My Cousin - Kenya Untold Stories |

Source: Tuko.co.ke
- Kenyans reacted angrily to renewed attempts by MPs to increase their salaries

- They used satires to send a message to the lawmakers whom they described as greedy

- The MPs had tabled a Bill in Parliament seeking to award themselves free houses and cars

- If passed, the Parliamentary Service Bill would also see the MPs receive revamped medical cover and mortgage facilities

Kenyans have launched a scathing attack against members of the 12th Parliament after the lawmakers tabled a Bill in the National Assembly seeking to award themselves rent-free houses and posh cars at the expense of the taxpayer.

Many took to social media to express their disappointment over the outrageous demands which came barely a month after the same legislators protested the quality of catering services they were receiving in Parliament and demanded 5-star hotel services.

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READ ALSO: Uhuru Kenyatta scolds MPs after they demanded rent-free houses, cars

Kenyans on social media nicknamed the Members of the 12th Parliament Fisi (hyenas) to imply they were as greedy as hyenas, for demanding free houses and cars.Photo: SokoAnalyst.

Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: Kenyan MPs to get rent-free houses, cars if new Bill is passed

TUKO.co.ke on Wednesday, November 21, observed a section of Kenyans were strongly against the Parliamentary Service Bill seeking to improve living standards of the 416 lawmakers, Speakers and Majority leaders in the two Houses.

The controversial Bill, brought to the floor of the House by Baringo North MP William Cheptumo, earned the MPs the nickname fisi (hyenas), which implied they were as greedy as the animal.

READ ALSO: Kenyan MPs demand 5-star hotel services, reject Parliament food

The reactions, trending under the hashtag MheshimiwaFisi, were mostly characterised by satirical images intended to send a strong message to the legislators that what they were doing was wrong and unacceptable.

Below are some of the reactions as compiled by TUKO.co.ke:

READ ALSO: 5 painful ways the increase in fuel prices will affect every Kenyan

President Uhuru Kenyatta had also expressed his disapproval of the Bill and urged the MPs to think about the common mwananchi first before they could think of how to improve their lives.

"Every one of us wants to live a good life, but before we as leaders live a good life, shouldn't we first make sure that our people are living a good life? If the citizens have a good life, then there would be no problem if their leaders want to pay themselves millions," he said.

The Parliamentary Service Bill was reportedly drafted based on recommendations contained in a report by the National Assembly Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, chaired by Cheptumo.

Besides free houses and cars, the MPs, House Speakers and their deputies and the Majority leaders would enjoy improved mortgage facilities.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

When Uhuru, Ruto and Raila Met at State House - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko Newspaper
- The woman identified only as Hawa sued Caleb Chito Njeria, a pastor at Jesus Lives Ministries in Hurlingham for child support

- The woman alleged she was impregnated by the man of the cloth and has a one-year-old baby with him

- Hawa is demanding KSh 100,000 monthly upkeep for the baby

- Njeria disputed the demand saying he earns about KSh 20,000 net salary and could only pay KSh 5,000 every month

- He argued the woman had two other children and was not sure he was the father of the one-year-old

A city pastor is in trouble after a woman she impregnated out of wedlock took him to court for allegedly failing to support their one-year-old baby.

Caleb Chito Njeria of Jesus Lives Ministries in Hurlingham was sued by a woman only identified as Hawa for neglecting the baby and he might part with at least KSh 100,000 every month as child upkeep fee if the court grants the complainant her request.

READ ALSO: Joho boasts of new found friendship with Uhuru, says it has made him powerful

Pastor Caleb Chito Njeria ministers at Jesus Living Ministries in Hurligham Nairobi. Photo:Facebook

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kitale man kills daughter who scored 277 marks in KCPE

According to court documents perused by TUKO.co.ke, Hawa said she got in an affair with Njeria in May 2015, conceived and delivered a baby in June 2017.

The woman said she was abandoned by the father of her child who refused to take responsibility.

"I have been left with the herculean task of singly providing for the child's daily needs and shelter from my meager income," Hawa pleaded.

She is demanding KSh 100,000 from the married pastor every month as child upkeep.

The amount has been broken down as follows: KSh 70,000 for monthly rent , KSh 15,000 medical expenses, KSh 10,000 house help salary and KSh 5,000 to cater for the baby's clothes.

The woman Hawa is demanding KSh 100,000 monthly upkeep for baby. Photo: Zipporah Weru/TUKO.co.ke

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Kenyans on social media brand MPs 'hyenas' for demanding rent-free houses, posh cars

In his defence, Njeria, a Chief Metereologist at Kenya Meteorological Department, said he could not afford the expenses because he was not a man of means.

"I am not in business and earn a net salary of KSh 20,790. I am not a man of means but just a mere meteorologist. I have six children with my wife and I spend KSh 346,000 on school fees every year," he stated in his response to the plaint.

The cleric said he was deeply in debt as he survived on loans to provide for his family saying the woman's demands were unreasonable.

" The woman is trying to extort me because she has two other children with other men. I have shared my position with the applicant but she is hell bent on making me suffer. I am willing to pay KSh 5,000 monthly child upkeep until the paternity of the child is established," Njeria told the court.

Story By: Zipporah Weru, TUKO Correspondent, Nairobi County

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko Breaking News Latest
- The cars will be auctioned in the event that their owners fail to clear them in 30 days

- Prospective buyers are expected to inspect the vehicles in mid December 2018 before the auction

- The expensive machines are being held at the Customs Warehouse Keeper in Kilindini

- Among those who risk losing their cars is former Starehe MP Bishop Margaret Wanjiru

- The taxman is hoping the move will help decongest the warehouse

-The planned auction is also part of government's efforts to mitigate tax evasion

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has issued a 30-day ultimatum to owners of over 560 cars stuck at the port of Mombasa and which have reportedly brought about unnecessary congestion at the usually busy facility.

The vehicles have been waiting for clearance at the Customs Warehouse Keeper in Kilindini for several months with no one coming to pick them up, prompting the taxman to swing to action.

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READ ALSO: Taxman goes after landlords as he tightens the noose on tax evaders

Owners of some 568 posh cars stuck at the Port of Mombasa are now at risk of losing the vehciles should they fail to pick them up in 30 days. Photo: KRA.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Uhuru Kenyatta orders audit on rich Kenyans who evade paying taxes

In a gazette notice seen by TUKO.co.ke on Wednesday, November 21, KRA said owners of the imported cars had a month to clear them from the port or they would be auctioned.

Notice is given that unless the goods are removed from the custody of the Customs Warehouse Keeper in Kilindini within 30 days of this notice, they will be sold by public auction on December, 19, 2018, KRA's Port Operations Chief Manager, Joseph Kaguru, said.

READ ALSO: Multi-billion real estate project Tatu City under probe for money laundering, tax evasion

According to the taxman, the vehicles, which include high-end cars like Toyota Land Cruiser, Mercedes Benz and a Toyota Prado belonging to the Jesus is Alive Ministries associated with former Starehe MP Bishop Margaret Wanjiru have been earmarked for auctioning.

Also likely to be hit hard by the taxman's hammer is second-hand car dealer Jan Africa Investments which reportedly has 49 cars waiting clearance at the port.

READ ALSO: Go after the corrupt, you have my support- Uhuru to EACC

Kaguru noted prospective buyers have already been invited to inspect the goods between December 17 and 18, two days to the public auction.

TUKO.co.ke understands the move to auction the uncleared goods is part of KRA's ongoing efforts to mitigate tax evasion.

The Authority is also working closely with the Anti-Counterfeit Agency, Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) and other state agencies to curb importation and proliferation of counterfeit goods.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kenya's Former Gangsters Now Cleaning Nairobi City - Kenya Untold Stories - On Tuko TV

Source: Kenya Breaking News Today
- The application will be distributed to all primary and secondary schools in Kenya

- It will be used to collect data on all teenage pregnancy cases in the past three years

- Cases of early pregnancies have been reported across the country

Amid public outcry over high number of teenage pregnancies, Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has assured Kenyans the government is determined to handle the problem head on.

The CS said the government has developed a digital application to gather data on all pregnancy cases recorded in schools in the past three years.

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READ ALSO: Breakdown of alarming teenage pregnancy rates in Kenya per county

Education CS Amina Mohamed said the application could be distributed to schools across the country. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Narok: Police officer busted with female KCSE candidate in lodging

Speaking on Wednesday, November 21, in Kirinyaga, Amina said teenage pregnancies was a great concern and the government had partnered with international and civil organisations to address the problem.

She said the application would be distributed across the country in all schools and teachers would be required to fill data regarding the number of teenage pregnancies in their schools.

The CS said the move was aimed at collecting data and coming up with preliminary steps to help control and reduce cases of teenage pregnancies among school girls.

READ ALSO: Education CS blames parents for increased cases of students visiting clubs

On Monday, November 19, while releasing Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam results, Amina expressed concern over the high number of early pregnancies among school girls.

The rate of teenage pregnancies in the country is puzzling. Preliminary reports have shown that the magnitude of the problem is much bigger than we thought. We are staring a national crisis in the face, she said.

READ ALSO: Parents have a role to play in stopping early pregnancies among teenagers

The CS called on parents and community at large to take up responsibility to guide and provide quality care to school children in Kenya.

Kenya National Examinations Council Chairman George Magoha said government would not provide supplementary exams to pregnant pupils and students.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news

Boyfriend tells girlfriend she is fat and needs to lose some weight| Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke
- The woman served the remains to workers as part of a traditional rice and meat dish

- The 30-year-old woman committed the crime in August but was only recently discovered

- Her lover's brother found the deceased's tooth inside a blender in her home

A United Arab Emirates-based Moroccan woman has been accused of killing her lover and serving his remains to her Pakistani workers.

TUKO.co.ke gathered the crime was committed in August 2018 but was only recently discovered when a human tooth was found inside her blender by the deceased's brother.

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READ ALSO: Nairobi woman who confessed on radio to killing husband's side chic arrested

A sample fried beef. Photo: Pixhere.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Woman whose husband was pushed from balcony by lover denies involvement in murder

BBC reports prosecutors in the United Arab Emirate said the 30-year-old woman cooked her boyfriend and served his remains as part of a traditional rice and meat dish.

The deceased's brother reported the his brother missing to the police after which a DNA test was run on the tooth.

The result confirmed the tooth belonged to the victim.

According to the report, she confessed to police to have committed the crime which she called a moment of insanity.

READ ALSO: Police officer commits suicide after killing lover in Nakuru

Report also has it the suspect had been in a relationship with her boyfriend for seven years.

The suspect who will be tried pending an investigation, allegedly killed her victim when the latter told her he would be marrying someone else from Morocco.

The police said the woman first told his she had kicked the victim out of their home but later confessed to killing him after she was interrogated.

The prosecution ordered she be sent to hospital for a mental examination.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko
The Tanzanian government has agreed to redesign its education policy to allow pregnant girls readmitted in public primary and secondary schools.

This emerged after a Friday, November 16, meeting between President John Magufuli and and Africa World Bank boss Hafez Ghanem.

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READ ALSO: Tanzania president shakes the region with his punishment to girls who get pregnant in schools

This emerged after a Friday, November 16, meeting between President John Magufuli and and Africa World Bank boss Hafez Ghanem. Photo: UGC

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: World Bank denies Tanzania KSh 30 billion for denying pregnant girls opportunity to resume school

As earlier reported by TUKO.co.ke, the lender had threatened to withhold a KSh 30 billion education funding to Tanzania to protest the country's policy which kicked expectant girls from school.

"Girls education is central to development, we are a development institution. We cannot accept that some girls are denied education," Ghanem said in a rejoinder after the meeting with Magufuli.

READ ALSO: Tanzania arrests pregnant schoolgirls months after Magufuli warning

Tanzania effected the policy in 1961 and when Magufuli took over as head of state, he affirmed commitment in upholding the legislation.

On his part, he refuted claimed that the Washington based lender had threatened to withhold the funding and described the information as unverified media speculations.

The no nonsense Magufuli has for the recent past come under harsh criticism with a section of people describing his regime as authoritarian, allergic to media freedom and an oppressor of human rights.

He, however, said the contested policy was not aimed at completely sending such girls out of school but seem them continue with education through other avenues for instance adult classes.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kenya news: Top Girl in KCPE 2018 | Tuko TV.

Source: Tuko News
- Mohammed Ali said he still considers Raila his father in politics

- He said he still believes in everything the ODM leader says

- Moha, however, had issues with people whom he claimed were using Raila's name for selfish gains

- The MP also sought to set the record straight on his relationship with Ruto after he was accused of receiving money from him

Nyali MP Mohammed Ali, best known as Jicho Pevu owing to his explosive investigative documentaries, has cleared the air regarding his relationship with ODM party leader Raila Odinga and blossoming friendship with Deputy President William Ruto.

The ex-veteran journalist who won his Nyali seat on an independent ticket after he was denied ODM party ticket, categorically stated he had no problem with his former party boss, Raila, contrary to what many Kenyans thought.

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READ ALSO: Ex-journalist Moha Jicho Pevu fiercely defends Ruto against Hassan Joho attacks

Nyali MP Mohammed Ali said despite his exit from ODM party he was still had a lot of respect for the former prime minister, Raila Odinga and considered him his father in politics.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Moha Jicho Pevu to expose rot in Parliament in new investigative documentary

Speaking on Milele FM Radio on Wednesday, November 21, Ali said despite his unceremonious exit from the ODM party, he still had a lot of respect for the former prime minister and considered him his father in politics.

"I still respect Raila Odinga. He is still my father in politics. I still believe in what he says. What I am against are the people surrounding him. They are big thieves, enemies of democracy and the only reason why they are with Raila is because of their own selfish political gains," the MP said.

READ ALSO: Raila lied he tried calling Kalonzo moments before famous handshake - Moses Wetangula

As for his friendship with Ruto, the youthful lawmaker said he moved to the DP's camp not because he was paid but rather because of Ruto's ideologies and what he stood for.

He denied ever receiving money from the DP and wondered why Kenyans did not raise the same allegations when he abandoned his journalism job to campaign for Raila.

"I campaigned for Raila. I left my respected job because of Raila, and I wanted to help him become president, but when I was with baba (Raila), no single Kenyan asked how much he paid me," Ali said.

Regarding his relationship with rDP William Ruto (pictured), the MP claimed it was all about supporting development in his Nyali Constituency.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Angry Nairobi anti-corruption crusaders heckle Nyali MP Moha Jicho Pevu for associating with Ruto

The MP's blossoming relationship with the DP raised eyebrows considering he used to be one of his biggest critics, with a section of Kenyans claiming Ruto had bought the vocal first time lawmaker.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Raila Odinga - Kenya's Fuel Crisis Will Not Occur - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko
- Lawrence Lual Malong Junior is known for flaunting expensive cars and accessories

- He went missing while in Kabagala, Kampala Uganda

- Family members said efforts to contact him have not borne fruits

- Uganda Peoples Defence Forces suspected to have picked him from hotel denied arresting him

- The 30-year-old denied he was the son of of former Chief of General Staff of the South Sudan Army, General Paul Malong

Controversial South Sudanese self-proclaimed tycoon Lawrence Lual Malong Jr has gone missing while in Uganda.

The flamboyant 30-year-old billionaire is known for his boastful talk and flaunting expensive accessories and once said he acquired his wealth courtesy of his close relationship with Jesus.

READ ALSO: TV anchor Ben Kitili responds to Muslim groups condemning him for marrying their daughter

Lawrence Lual Malong Jr is known for flaunting expensive accessories and boastful talk. Photo: Citizen

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Video of demons apparently being exorcised from former fiery gospel singer Rose Muhando surprises many

In a report by Tamazuj Radio on Wednesday, November 21, the tycoon's family intimated that he has been a no-show for one week.

According to one of his relatives, Malong was picked by unknown people from a hotel room in Kabagala, Kampala one week ago.

"The hotel people confided to us that he was picked by soldiers of Uganda People's Defence Forces. They said the soldiers came with two vehicles," said the relative.

Malong's kinsman added that UPDF denied having picked him and their efforts to contact him were fruitless prompting them to report the matter to police.

Lawrence Lual Malong Junior poses for a photo in a private jet. He boasted of wearing a Rolex watch worth KSh 10 million. Photo:UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Kisii man ties up his 2 children in forest over claims they were fathered by another person

We are concerned about his inaccessibility. He doesn't have any problem with Uganda's government and it is worrying because we don't know who picked him from the hotel and for what reason," said the relative.

Malong who was in Kenya on Sunday, October 14, dismissed allegations that he was the son of former Chief of General Staff of the South Sudan Army, General Paul Malong.

During the visit, the controversial tycoon promised to purchase a chopper for Kenya University Students Organisation.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news

KENYA'S FORGOTTEN HERO| Tuko TV

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The Farmers Union stands by their increase in price of goat meat saying that, feed and pharm
Britain will increase military support for Ukraine as the country continues to face Russian aggression.

Additional troops and a Royal Navy ship will be deployed to Ukraine to defend freedom and democracy, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

"The UK will increase military support for Ukraine as the country continues to face Russian aggression, the Defence Secretary will announce today," the report reads.

Ukrainian Special Forces and Marines will be trained by British personnel and HMS Echo, a Royal Navy hydrographic survey ship with a company of 72, will deploy to the region.

As long as Ukraine faces Russian hostilities, it will find a steadfast partner in the United Kingdom, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson says.
Ukraine and the United Kingdom have agreed to intensify bilateral cooperation to counter Russias aggression.

This is stated in a joint statement by the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

"The Ukrainian and the UK Defense Ministries have agreed to deepen cooperation in countering Russias aggression, malign activity and abuse of the rules-based international system in Ukraine, in the UK and elsewhere," the statement reads.

The Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom stressed complete and unconditional support of Ukraines sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity; and assured continuous support for Ukraines Euro-Atlantic aspiration, primarily the process of increasing the capability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In turn, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine confirmed its decisive will to continue reforming the defence sector in accordance with the principles and approaches adopted in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

The parties also agreed to maintain continuous dialogue between the Defence Ministries of the two nations, improve cooperation in cyber, hybrid defence and defence intelligence, increase UK advisory assistance available to Ukraine and augment the military diplomatic representation of the United Kingdom in Ukraine.

As reported, the UK will increase military support for Ukraine as the country continues to face Russian aggression.

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French partners have vowed more support for the further development of units of the National Guard of Ukraine.

"During a visit of the representatives of the Embassy of the French Republic to the International Training Center for the National Guard units, the future areas of cooperation were discussed. French partners promised to support the further development of the National Guard units," the press service of the Interior Ministry reported.

The participants of the meeting also discussed problematic issues regarding the law enforcement training and the improvement of educational, material and technical bases.

Particular attention was paid to the introduction of psychological recovery of military personnel after performing service and fighting missions in extreme (combat) conditions under the SAS decompression program and the introduction of a modern system for simulating human injury from a firearm "StressVest".

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The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the draft Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Israel, according to the Economic Development and Trade Ministry.

"On November 21, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the draft Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Israel and authorized First Vice Prime Minister - Minister for Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv to sign it on behalf of Ukraine," reads the report.

The work on the development of the Agreement was launched in 2015. Before the final completion of the negotiation process on March 28, 2018, seven rounds of talks had been held between the two countries so that to harmonize the provisions of the Agreement aimed at removing barriers to mutual trade in goods and services, promoting cooperation between enterprises, establishing strong ties between business communities. According to the estimates of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, the signing of the Agreement will raise Ukrainian exports to Israel and improve Ukraine's trade balance with Israel.

The Economic Development Ministry emphasizes that the Agreement between Ukraine and Israel will not apply to the territories of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol and temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions until the full control of the Ukrainian government over these territories is restored.

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President Petro Poroshenko has said that Ukraine in the current post-truth situation, together with the whole democratic world, has to fight for every fact and the role of Ukrinform in this process is extremely important.

He stated this during a special meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform, held at the Kyiv City State Administration.

"In the current post-truth situation, Ukraine, together with the whole democratic world, has to fight literally for every fact, for every fair assessment, for every true information, for the right of citizens to receive this truthful, reliable and objective information. I stress that the role of Ukrinform in this process is extremely important. That is why today at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ukrinform my place is here, said Poroshenko.

Commenting on the 100-year history of the agency, Poroshenko noted that one hundred years ago, state officials of the then Ukraine saw the same techniques of the Russian hybrid war.

The President emphasized that Ukrinform, together with independent Ukraine, became a modern authoritative news agency that knows how to find and publish the latest news about Ukraine and the world to the readers.

"It is very important that the agency is not afraid of competition, that the agency is a school of staff, and most importantly - that the agency is an objective and reliable source of information," Poroshenko stressed.

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The UN Security Council in its current form cannot guarantee peace and security in today's conflicts and must be truly reformed, otherwise people will continue to be killed because of the impotence of this influential UN mechanism.

A counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations, Eduard Fesko, said this in a statement at a session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"It is plainly obvious to probably everyone that the Security Council in its current form is ill suited to effectively address challenges of the 21st century," Ukraine's representative said.

He said that while the UN family procrastinates with the reform of the Security Council, "people die out there just because the current Council is simply impotent to help them."

Ukraine's experience of being on the UN Security Council in 2016-2017, according to the diplomat, "only strengthened our conviction that without a genuine reform the Council will be doomed to lose its relevance and standing in the wider international context."

Fesko stressed that before the start of a new round of consultations in the format of non-governmental organizations, Ukraine reiterates its position that it is open to discussing all progressive options and new approaches to the UN Security Council reform, in particular those that are aimed at streamlining the negotiation process and making it more pragmatic and result-oriented. In this regard, he outlined two aspects that Ukraine is focusing on.

"First, it is the representation in the Council of the Eastern European Group. It is a matter of principle for us that at least one additional seat should be given to the EEG in the category of elected members," the Ukrainian diplomat said.

Secondly, he said, there is a need "to reconsider the role of the veto in the work of the Security Council," and this issue is one of the most outstanding priorities.

"When a permanent member of the Security Council is a party to a conflict, regarding which the Security Council is about to adopt a possible decision, the 'veto' right becomes a direct obstruction and hindrance to carrying out the Council's primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," the diplomat said.

He expressed hope that this year the UN member states would be able to make progress towards a common goal of having a reformed Security Council.
The further development of integration processes should be aimed at Ukraine's participation in the EU's single market, in particular, in the field of digital communications and energy.

Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister for European Integration Olena Zerkal said this at a meeting with the ambassadors of the EU member states dealing with the issues of the Eastern Partnership, the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported.

"The deputy minister noted the importance of developing the format of deep cooperation between the EU and partner countries that concluded association agreements with the EU. According to the Ukrainian side, the further development of integration processes should be aimed at Ukraine's participation in the EU's single market, in particular in the field of digital communications and energy, as well as work on the elimination of non-tariff restrictions in trade [...] The deputy minister emphasized the need to determine the prospect of deepening economic integration for three associate partners after 2020," reads the report.

According to the press service, Zerkal also emphasized the need to intensify cooperation within the Eastern Partnership aimed at countering hybrid threats, in order to create a safe environment for holding upcoming elections.

In addition, foreign diplomats were also informed about concern regarding the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which, according to Zerkal, is not a "business project," but an "instrument of political blackmail by the Russian Federation."

The ambassadors, in turn, reaffirmed Ukraine's leading role in the Eastern Partnership and noted the progress of Ukraine in implementing reforms and the effective introduction of the visa-free regime.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry welcomes Kim Jong Yang's election as Interpol's next president and promises to support his efforts to strengthen the credibility of this mechanism of law enforcement cooperation, the ministry's press service has reported.

According to the report, since Russia has made an attempt to gain control over Interpol, having nominated its candidate for the position of head of this organization, "Ukrainian diplomats, our national police have conducted an active campaign with partner countries."

Its purpose was to prevent the realization of the Russian Federation's plans to use this authoritative international organization for even more extensive interference, sabotage, undermining the international community's efforts to achieve Interpol's statutory goals, as well as to implement plans of Russian special services in the territory of foreign countries, the ministry said.

"This situation has once again highlighted the importance of strengthening the interaction of democratic countries at all multilateral platforms for the purposes of preventing the use of international organizations for the implementation of Moscow's unfair and aggressive plans," reads the report.

South Korean Kim Jong Yang was elected Interpol president on November 21.

He served as acting head of the organization after its former chief, Meng Hongwei, resigned after his arrest in China on October 7.

In addition to Kim, another nominee for the post of Interpol chief was Russian representative Alexander Prokopchuk, who has been vice-president of the organization since 2016.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that Ukraine might suspend its membership in the organization if a Russian representative were elected Interpol president.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has assured Ukraine of further support in implementing reforms.

He said this in a statement on the 5th anniversary of the Maidan protests in Kyiv issued today, November 21, the press service of the German Foreign Office reported.

"We will continue to work resolutely for peace and for Ukraines territorial integrity. And we will continue to support the Ukrainian Government in implementing reforms aimed at improving the peoples lives," Heiko Maas stated.

He recalled that five years ago thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets in Kyiv to exercise their democratic right, to speak out in favour of the rule of law and for a free and sovereign Ukraine.

Germany has not forgotten the hopes of those people, Maas assured.

We have not forgotten the suffering the Ukrainians have had to endure over the past five years. Over a hundred lives were lost in the protests, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed several thousand more. Shots are still being fired in Donbas every day, the minister reminded.

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Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius has congratulated Ukrainians on the Day of Dignity and Freedom, noting the significant progress in Ukrainian reforms.

I congratulate Ukrainians on the Day of Dignity and Freedom. 5 years since Maidan, thousands continue resisting the aggressor and sacrificing lives for the European future of their country, he wrote on Twitter.

He stressed that Ukraine, despite all challenges, had achieved significant progress in carrying out reforms.

Lithuania stands by your side, the minister told Ukrainians.

Ukraine marks the Day of Dignity and Freedom every year on November 21, in accordance with a presidential decree of November 13, 2014.

The holiday was established in honor of the commencement on this day of two significant and fateful events in contemporary Ukrainian history - the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Revolution of Dignity.

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Ukraine and the European Union are closer than ever thanks to the courage of those who started the Revolution of Dignity five years ago.

The Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Johannes Hahn, said this on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the Maidan protests in Kyiv.

"It was just ten days ago that I paid a visit to Kyiv, honouring the memory of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes. They gave their lives, standing in for values such as freedom, justice and an open society. Much progress has been achieved since then: Ukraine and EU are closer than ever thanks to the courage of those who started the Revolution of Dignity 5 years ago," the European Commissioner wrote on Twitter.

#Euromaidan: It was just ten days ago that I paid a visit to #Kyiv, honouring the memory of the Hundred #HeavenlyHeroes. They gave their lives, standing in for values such as freedom, justice and an open society. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/I1qo4VWm99  Johannes Hahn (@JHahnEU) 21  2018 .

Ukraine marks the Day of Dignity and Freedom every year on November 21, in accordance with a presidential decree of November 13, 2014.

The holiday was established in honor of the commencement on this day of two significant and fateful events in contemporary Ukrainian history - the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Revolution of Dignity.

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The Embassy of Ukraine in the USA sent an official letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with a strong request to remove products with the symbols of the self-proclaimed terrorist republic "Donetsk Peoples Republic" ("DPR") from the Amazon web-site.

The Embassy wrote this on its Facebook page.

We believe that selling goods with symbols of the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic  terrorist organization, whose aggressive behavior is widely condemned by the international community, including the United States  does not send any message of peace and respect for human life, but supports Russian propaganda and underpins its ruthless politics aimed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, reads the letter.

Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Valeriy Chaly stressed that removing the abovementioned goods from amazon.com will serve to reassert high reputation of Amazon.com Inc renowned by billions of consumers worldwide, including tens of millions of Ukrainians."

The Embassy also addressed the leadership of eBay Inc. to undertake the same measures regarding products with the symbols of DPR/LPR.

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Ukraine marks the Day of Dignity and Freedom every year on November 21, in accordance with a presidential decree of November 13, 2014.

The holiday was established in honor of the commencement on this day of two significant and fateful events in contemporary Ukrainian history - the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013 Revolution of Dignity.

The Day of Dignity and Freedom became a kind of successor to the Freedom Day holiday, which was celebrated in honor of the Orange Revolution on November 22 from 2005 to 2011 but was later canceled.

It was on November 21, 2013, when Ukrainians started to hold the first protest rallies in response to the decision of the then government to stop the country's course for European integration and freeze preparations for the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The change in the legislatively enshrined priorities of Ukraine's foreign policy triggered the indignation of Ukrainians.

It became apparent to the Ukrainian society that the country was rapidly moving towards total authoritarianism with its disregard for fundamental human rights, total corruption, arbitrariness of law enforcement agencies, repression, and terror. This is what made Ukrainians first take to the streets of Kyiv and then other cities of Ukraine.

The events unfolded rapidly and dramatically - from peaceful student gatherings to mass rallies, burning car tires, Molotov cocktails and cobblestones that became weapons in the hands of protesters. The most tragic thing was that this time, unlike the events of the Orange Revolution, the defense of dignity and freedom led to 106 deaths and over 2,000 people wounded. And this was only the price of three months of Euromaidan protests.

The criminal authorities led by Viktor Yanukovych resorted to a crackdown on the Ukrainians using security and police officers. The Euromaidan events were followed by Russia's cynical annexation of Crimea and military hostilities in Donbas resulting in thousands of those killed, wounded and displaced persons. One should also remember that the path chosen by the Ukrainian people is irreversible, albeit difficult - events that began at the Monument of Independence on the evening of November 21, 2013, are still continuing.
UNHCR recognizes that efforts to protect refugees cannot be pursued in isolation from broader trends, policies and practices shaping global mobility. It also recognizes that people under its mandate  including asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless persons  are directly affected by migration policies and processes, particularly when they engage in mixed movements.

UNHCR therefore strives to engage with migration issues that affect refugees and other persons under its mandate, including asylum-seekers, internally displaced people and stateless people. In certain circumstances, the General Assembly has asked UNHCR to contribute its expertise to processes that relate to migration.

With this in mind, UNHCR focusses broadly on:

Seeking to ensure that migration-management policies, practices and debates take into account the particular protection needs of asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless people, and acknowledge the legal framework that exists to meet those needs;

Assisting States and partners to meet asylum and migration-management challenges in a manner that is sensitive to protection concerns;

Identifying migration, trafficking and related developments impacting on persons under UNHCRs mandate, and

Supporting stronger governance and closer observance of the universal character of human rights, including the rights of all persons on the move, regardless of their legal status, in ways that reinforce the principles and practice of international refugee protection.

To support these aims, UNHCR collects and analyses data and trends, develops policy and guidance, implements programmes and provides operational support to governments and other stakeholders on mixed movements and related issues such as trafficking in persons and protection at sea.

Refugee or Migrant?

Refugees are people who cannot return to their country of origin because of a well-founded fear of persecution, conflict, violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order, and who, as a result, require international protection.

The tendency to conflate refugees and migrants, or to refer to refugees as a subcategory of migrants, can have serious consequences for the lives and safety of people fleeing persecution or conflict.

Without question, all people who move between countries deserve full respect for their human rights and human dignity. However, refugees are a specifically defined and protected group in international law, because the situation in their country of origin makes it impossible for them to go home. Calling them by another name can put their lives and safety in jeopardy.

The important distinction between refugees and migrants was acknowledged by the UN General Assembly in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

Relevant UNHCR documents on terminology include:
The people of Burundi are facing a humanitarian crisis marked by economic decline, extreme food insecurity and a disease outbreak. While the worst of the violence has eased, the situation remains fragile, with an unresolved political situation and continued displacement within and outside the country.

What is UNHCR doing to help?

UNHCR and its partners are working together every day to aid and protect Burundis refugees in Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and other nearby countries. Together, we are helping families reunite with lost loved ones and training camp community workers to spot signs of sexual exploitation and abuse. We are helping mothers give birth in proper health facilities and enlisting water engineers to drill new boreholes to supply water for refugees.

The Burundian refugee situation is the lowest funded of any situation globally. In 2018, UNHCR and its partners received just 33 percent of the required US$391 million requested to support Burundian refugees. The Burundi Regional Refugee Response Plan for 2019-2020 was published in late December 2018, and appeals for US$ 296 million in 2019.

Burundian refugees in Tanzania, Rwanda and the DRC arrive to find camps full and only temporary shelters available. Health centres are struggling to cope with huge numbers of patients. Education is very basic, and children lack sufficient learning materials; hundreds of children in Tanzania attend classes under trees.

Burundis refugees are being forgotten. The world needs to urgently help these refugees and the countries hosting them. Catherine Wiesner, Regional Refugee Coordinator and Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework Champion for the Burundi situation

Refugees who fled in fear for their lives find themselves struggling to provide the basics for their children in overcrowded, under-resourced camps, says Catherine Wiesner, the Regional Refugee Coordinator and Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework Champion for the Burundi situation.

Even as some refugees are opting to return home, the majority will still require international protection for some time to come. Wiesner added. The international community needs to live up to its global commitments to urgently help these refugees and the countries hosting them.

In line with the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, UNHCR is working with governments and partners to support host communities and to give Burundi refugees more opportunities to become self-reliant. Meanwhile, some refugees have been choosing to return to Burundi. While UNHCR is not promoting returns, since September 2017 we have been assisting those who are voluntarily choosing to go home to do so safely and start to rebuild their lives.

For the hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees who still require international protection, more global support and funding is needed to provide urgent life-saving assistance for today, and long-term solutions for the future.
"I lost everything: my home, my flesh, my identity. My kids sleep on the floor." Zainaba, widowed mother of four displaced in Bangui

Back in December 2013, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes as violence spread in the Central African Republic (CAR), with armed groups controlling parts of the country. Today, CAR continues to experience sporadic surges of violence forcing over 632,108 CAR refugees to remain in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo, with smaller numbers in Sudan and South Sudan. In addition to the refugees, 630,834 people have been forced to flee inside the country.

CAR had been experiencing a gradual transition towards peace and stability since late 2016, when both refugees and internally displaced people started to go back home. Now, insecurity is plaguing areas in the centre, northwest, east and south-east of CAR  some not previously affected by violence.

Thousands of people walk for weeks and hide in the forests in a desperate bid to escape, sometimes with nothing to eat or drink. Those who arrive at sites for the displaced have witnessed traumatic scenes of violence, and malnutrition rates have risen to serious levels.

In what is one of the most poorly funded emergency situations globally, many people lack even basic survival assistance. Food, health, shelter, and water and sanitation are all primary concerns for refugees living outside formal sites and for the communities hosting them.

What is UNHCR doing to help?

UNHCR is helping people affected by the violence and conflict. Inside CAR, UNHCRs focus remains on life-saving protection and assistance, distributing basic relief items to the newly displaced and new community shelters are being set up in response to the growing number of IDPs. In neighbouring countries, UNHCR and its partners continue to respond to new arrivals while building refugees livelihoods and ability to sustain themselves.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a complex and challenging humanitarian situation, with multiple conflicts affecting several parts of its vast territory.

Hopes soared after a long and costly civil war was brought to an end in 2003, but the nation has instead seen sporadic waves of fighting  especially in the Eastern parts of the country. Since 2016, a new wave of violence also affected the DRCs Kasai region, a vast area in the south and center of the country.

Now, thousands of civilians are struggling for survival.

Although many people have returned to areas in the Kasai region and elsewhere, they have often found their property, businesses and schools in ruins, and family members killed. Human rights violations are still widespread, including physical mutilation, killings, sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention in inhumane conditions.

Armed men killed my wife and three of our children. I dont know why. Kadima Kabenge, mine worker who fled attacks in Kasai Province

While these conflicts have forced many Congolese to flee their homes, the country also hosts over half a million refugees from neighbouring countries. It continues to see new arrivals from Burundi, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The risk of further displacement is high, as conflicts affect many areas. Protection needs, particularly for the most vulnerable, are enormous, and the challenges of getting aid to those in need are increasing. Strengthening public health, sanitation and water supplies to prevent diseases remains vital.

What is UNHCR doing to help?

UNHCR is assisting people displaced inside the DRC through activities aimed at strengthening the protection of vulnerable people, including women and children.

It also provide shelter materials and cash grants to the most vulnerable among the displaced and returnees. We strengthen community-based organisations that work for peaceful coexistence, while working towards solutions to displacement.

UNHCR is working with the International Organization for Migration to lead the coordination and management of sites hosting internally displaced people (IDPs) in North Kivu and Tanganyika provinces.

We also provide protection and assistance to Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries, in collaboration with authorities and partners, including those forced to flee during the most recent surge of violence.

Refugees, mainly women and children, from countries like the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Burundi, who have sought refuge in the DRC, also receive life-saving support and international protection through UNHCR and its partners, notably the National Refugee Commission, UNHCRs Government partner. Most of these refugees settle in local Congolese communities and many can become self-reliant with some support. UNHCR is actively seeking durable solutions for these refugees, by developing strategic partnerships with other UN agencies, as well as by looking to reduce environmental impacts, notably deforestation, in refugee-hosting areas.

Despite the enormous needs, UNHCR has only received 67% of the US$156 million required in 2019 to provide life-saving assistance and protection to refugees, IDPs and other vulnerable people in the DRC. More support is urgently needed. Please help now.

Reports and Links
Our partnerships range from governments to non-governmental organizations, the private sector, civil society and refugee communities.

We raise funds through governments, foundations and private donors so that refugees can be assisted immediately with food, shelter and other essentials distributed by our implementing partners. Longer-term solutions also depend on the participation of civil society and refugees themselves.

While we are directly concerned with the protection of refugees, our overall mission is to provide operational support and coordination to a wide range of private and public actors who work in the interest of refugees.

In the field, UNHCR's core work is managed from a series of regional offices, branch offices, sub-offices and field offices. The High Commissioner's representatives head operations in the countries where the agency works, while there are also a number of regional representatives.

Conferences and meetings

Meetings and conferences play a crucial role in the protection of refugees. Often, they can bring together governments, representatives of international organizations, NGOs and UN agencies, academics, the media, child protection experts, refugees and young people from all over the world, strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones.

Participants may share good practices, lessons learned, new solutions and innovative approaches which aim to address the dynamics and challenges of forced displacement. Together, they help to shape the future of millions.
In 1954, UNHCR won the Nobel Peace Prize for its groundbreaking work in Europe. But it was not long before we faced our next major emergency.

In 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, 200,000 fled to neighbouring Austria. Recognizing the Hungarians as 'prima facie' refugees, UNHCR led efforts to resettle them. This uprising and its aftermath shaped the way humanitarian organizations would deal with refugee crises in the future.

During the 1960s, the decolonization of Africa produced the first of that continent's numerous refugee crises. We also helped uprooted people in Asia and Latin America over the following two decades. In 1981, we received a second Nobel Peace Prize for what had become worldwide assistance to refugees.

The start of the 21st century has seen UNHCR help with major refugee crises in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. We have also been asked to use our expertise to help many internally displaced by conflict and expanded our role in helping stateless people. In some parts of the world, such as Africa and Latin America, the 1951 Refugee Convention has been strengthened by additional regional legal instruments.

UNHCR now has more than 17,878 personnel working in 132 countries. Our budget, which in its first year was US$300,000, grew to US$8.6 billion in 2019.

In 2020, we marked our 70th anniversary. During our lifetime, we have helped well over 50 million refugees to successfully restart their lives.

Want more UNHCR history? Subscribe and listen to Forced to Flee, a groundbreaking new podcast that sheds light on 70 years of stories from those forced to flee their homes. This is not history from a textbook. These are personal stories of persecution, survival and new beginnings.

In photos: The history of UNHCR
Anyone concerned by potential misconduct is encouraged to report this and contact the IGO.

Anyone can contact the IGO if they have concerns or information about possible misconduct by any UNHCR staff member or other person/entities with a contractual relationship with UNHCR. Anyone can contact the IGO if they have reason to believe that a staff member or another person associated with UNHCR has not behaved correctly.

Contacting the IGO

- By using the online complaint form

- By confidential email: [email protected]

- By confidential fax: +41 22 739 73 80 (telephone charges may apply)

- In person or by post: 94, rue de Montbrillant, Case postale 2500, 1211 Geneva

Mark all mail as CONFIDENTIAL.

Important note before sending a complaint: The Investigation Service of the IGO does not have the authority to deal with protection/assistance related requests. This means that the IGO cannot review individual refugee claims, cannot provide individuals with assistance (in kind or in cash), and cannot provide applicants with a durable solution. For these matters, please contact the UNHCR Office where you are registered or closest to where you are located.

Investigative process

Following receipt of information about possible misconduct, the Investigation Service will register the complaint and conduct a preliminary assessment to determine whether an investigation is warranted, considering  among others  whether the issue falls within its mandate and whether the alleged facts could amount to misconduct.

If it is decided to conduct an investigation, the investigative process consists of the following steps:

If the investigation finds that a staff member failed to comply with UN Staff Regulations and Rules or the standards of conduct expected of a UN civil servant, the IGO will send an investigation report to UNHCRs Division of Human Resources (DHR). DHR has the responsibility to determine the appropriate administrative response, such as possible disciplinary or administrative measures.

The IGO ensures confidentiality of the investigation, information and reports, as well as due process throughout the investigative process.
Established in 1954, the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award honours individuals, groups and organizations who go above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, as well as displaced and stateless people.

We are delighted to announce that this years Laureate is the Jeel Albena Association for Humanitarian Development (JAAHD), a humanitarian organization providing emergency services to internally displaced people in northern Yemen.

Founded by Ameen Jubran in 2017, the organization has constructed 18,000 shelters for internally displaced people and their host communities. It has also provided cash assistance to some 60,000 people and helped thousands of others through its skills-building centre and school rehabilitation programme.

Jubran himself was displaced by the conflict in Yemen in 2015. Three years later, he was nearly killed while working for his organization. Yet Jubran and his colleagues stayed throughout the conflict to deliver lifesaving aid to those who need it the most.

The perseverance, humanitarian spirit and commitment to people forced to flee their homes makes Jeel Albena a worthy Laureate of the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.

Jubran will be accepting the award on behalf of his team at a special ceremony airing on UNHCRs YouTube channel on 4 October (18:30 CET). Be sure to tune in for this star-studded ceremony!

Read more about Jubrans incredible story



What is happening in Yemen?

Yemen is already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East and fighting has added to the existing problems of poverty and insecurity. The worsening violence means that more than 20 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance.

More than 20 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance

More than 4 million people have been forced to flee their homes, living in substandard shelters

Yemenis who have been forced to flee their homes are four times more at risk of famine than the rest of the population

Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Without help, many more lives will be lost to violence, treatable illnesses or lack of food, water and shelter.

You can provide direct help to Yemenis who are suffering - please donate now.

Donate now

Meet the 2021 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award Regional Winners

We are honoured to announce the Regional Winners of the 2021 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award, each selected from hundreds of nominees for their outstanding work with refugees as well as displaced and stateless people.

Africa Regional Joint Winners: Roukiatou Maiga and Diambendi Madiega

Roukiatou Maiga is the President of the Womens Association Djam Weli, based in Burkina Faso. Maiga advocates strongly for the rights of internally displaced people (IDPs) and has shown great hospitality and generosity to those forcibly displaced in Dori in the Sahel region.

Diambendi Madiega is a small-scale farmer and practitioner of traditional medicine in Kaya, Burkina Faso. He also spends time advocating for the rights of IDPs and has opened his heart and property in the Center-North region.

Read about their amazing work

Asia Regional Winner: Dr Saleema Rehman

Doctor Saleema Rehman is an obstetrician and gynecologist living and working in Pakistan. Dr Rehman is an Afghan refugee and overcame significant struggles to gain the support of her community to pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor.

After years of hard work and lobbying for funding, Dr Rehman opened a private practice in Attock, which enables refugees and people from low income backgrounds to access affordable medical care.

Read about her incredible story

Americas Regional Winner: Santiago Avila

After the murder of his younger brother, Santiago Avila and his family had to seek safety in another region of Honduras. Santiago has since made it his mission to save other families from the same fate.

Avila opted to return to Honduras to start Jovenes Contra la Violencia, which over the past 10 has worked with at children and young people at risk of being pulled into gangs or who have already fled gang related violence.

Read Avila's inspirational story

Europe Regional Winner: Nikola Kovacevic

Nikola Kovacevic has represented almost 30 per cent of the asylum-seekers who have been granted protection in Serbia. He has been actively engaged in the protection of human and refugee rights, individual asylum-seekers and refugees since 2012. His work has contributed towards key improvements in asylum procedures in Serbia which, in turn, has increased the number of refugees being granted international protection there.

Read Kovacevic's inspirational story
Taking a bank card to a cash machine in Beirut, Syrian widow Manar Al Sayer taps in a PIN and withdraws a few Lebanese pounds.

Cash in hand, she can now prioritize her monthly spending for herself and her three children, Aseel, six, Abdullah, nine, and Osaima 12.

I allocate this cash assistance so that my children can attend the morning shift at school, she explains.

I use [it] to pay for my childrens school transport and I am very happy that I am now able to pay for something, she adds.

Uprooted from her family home in Homs by shelling in 2012, Manar sought refuge in neighbouring Lebanon the following year. After her husband was killed in a traffic accident, she is now head of the family.

"What we buy is no longer imposed on us."

Once she has taken care of her childrens schooling, Manar can budget for the remainder of the month.

I promised my children to buy them slippers with part of this months cash assistance. So I am going to do that because I have the money, she adds.

The 29-year-old is among millions of refugees and others of concern in scores of countries worldwide who have been able to take greater control of their lives since UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, began expanding cash-based assistance in 2016.

See also: Cash grants offer hope to displaced Yemenis facing eviction

The programme aims to ensure that refugees, asylum-seekers, returnees, internally displaced and stateless people meet their needs in dignity, are protected and can become more resilient.

In the three years between 2016 and 2019 when it ramped up cash assistance, UNHCR - in partnership with governments, UN agencies, NGOs and the private sector  has distributed around $2.4 billion to 20 million vulnerable individuals in more than 100 countries.

With cash now accounting for a greater share of the agencys assistance than traditional in-kind aid, the shift has resulted in significant changes to UNHCRs organisation, with some 5,000 internal and partner staff now trained on cash assistance.

Around 95 percent of the money is disbursed without restrictions, meaning that refugees themselves can choose how they spend it. This benefits the local economy with refugees buying essential goods in local stores and paying for local services.

Before we were restricted to spending the cash assistance in supermarkets. But when they made it available in cash, they gave us the freedom of choice. What we buy is no longer imposed on us, says Manar.

A refugee signs the necessary documents to receive her cash card in Athens, Greece, September 2017. Cash gives refugees the dignity of choice and encourages self-reliance.  UNHCR/Yorgos Kyvernitis

Syrian refugees queue for winter cash assistance at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, November 2017. The aid allows refugees to buy heating, insulation and warm clothing.  UNHCR/David Azia

A young Syrian refugee holds an ATM card provided by UNHCR inside a distribution point in Tripoli, Lebanon, April 2018. She will use the cash to provide for her daughters, aged four and six.  UNHCR/Diego Ibarra Sanchez

A Syrian family shop for groceries in Kilkis, Greece after receiving cash assistance, February 2017. UNHCR distributed 500 cash cards to 1,200 refugees staying in apartments and hotels in the country's Central Macedonia region.  UNHCR/Yorgos Kyvernitis

Rohingya refugee and single parent Samuda, 35, receives UNHCR cash assistance in Bangladesh, April 2018. She says: "The first thing I'll do is pay off our debts and then we'll use this money to buy food."  UNHCR/Caroline Gluck

While she prioritizes spending on her childrens schooling, other people of concern from Greece to Niger and Somalia are using cash assistance to pay their rent, buy medicines, pay off debts or even start businesses. Flexible and innovatory, the initiative is even helping displaced people living in some of the more remote places where UNHCR works, such as camps in Niger.

In the West African country, UNHCR distributed a total of 5,000 mobile phones to refugees and internally displaced people to respond to urgent needs. Using electronic payments  so-called Mobile Money  it is assisting men, women and children who fled insecurity in neighbouring Mali and Nigers border areas.

An SMS message notifies beneficiaries that they have received their assistance. They can then withdraw the cash at the phone shop  a red phone box-sized booth in the camp  or pay for goods directly with their phones in the local stores.

Weve seen that providing cash instead of goods is one of the best ways to address refugees basic needs here in Niger, says Robert Heyn, UNHCRs associate programme officer for cash-based interventions in the country.

Its more cost effective, it gives refugees dignity of choice and it also has a very positive impact on the local economy. So it benefits the refugees and the host economy at the same time.

"It benefits the refugees and the host economy at the same time.

Refugees in receipt of Mobile Money no longer need to carry cash in their wallet with them, but can access their money whenever they need it, whenever its necessary, and they can also leave money on their mobile money accounts, says Heyn.

The flexibility and security is welcomed by refugees, among them Zeinabu Warekoufaf from Mali. When you have your money in your mobile phone, nobody knows what you have and if somebody takes it from you, he wont know how much you have, she says.

Visiting a shop at the settlement, Zeinabu uses cash to buy sugar, tea and couscous, as well as skeins of brightly coloured wool from which she make cushions to sell. Many of the shopkeepers have increased their revenue since the refugees started getting money and are happy with the arrangement.

UNHCR Niger: Mobile Money gives Malian refugees dignity and freedom of choice

Mobile cash accounts for more than a third of cash assistance globally, and UNHCR hopes that the freedom and security that Mobile Money provides will allow refugees like Zeinabu to leave the camps and integrate into the local community, where they can live in a more independent and sustainable way.

The largest operations to date are in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Jordan, Somalia, Greece, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey, although operations have since rolled out in other countries including Kenya, where it has helped refugees to build their own durable shelters.

See also: Cash for shelter programme empowers refugees and their hosts in Kenya

As a result of UNHCRs cash assistance programme, refugees in countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia and Uganda now have access to formal bank and mobile money accounts, a vital stepping stone towards financial inclusion in their host countries.

The cash-based interventions cover the whole arc of displacement, from helping people uprooted within and beyond the borders of their own countries, to assisting those who opt to return home when conditions are safe enough -- among them thousands of Somalis.

Nearly three decades of civil war in the Horn of Africa country uprooted more than two million people to neighbouring countries. With security at home improving, more than 90,000 refugees have so far returned voluntarily, for whom cash is proving vital as they restart their lives in their still fragile homeland.

Among beneficiaries is mother of five Aisha, 55, who spent 25 years as a refugee in Dadaab, Kenya. On returning to Somalia in early 2017, she used a reinstallation grant of US$200 to set up a small store in Kismayo, selling everything from bananas and watermelons to pens.

"It allows me to cater to most of my family's needs."

It allows me to cater to most of my familys needs, she says of the shop, stocked with items bought from local wholesalers in the country, now getting back on its feet after decades of war and instability.

Others are using their cash grants and assistance to buy land and livestock, or start a business, like 47-year-old Mohamed Noor Omar, who faced an uncertain future in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya after fleeing civil war in his native Somalia in the early 1990s.

He returned to the Somali capital, Mogadishu last year, where he used some of the money to buy a fishing boat. He also partnered with a local man who had an engine to run it.

Out on the water by 6 a.m., he makes US$7 to US$10 a day depending on the catch, and is now looking to improve his business like any other entrepreneur.

That income is enough to meet my basic requirements, says Mohamed, who wants to buy better nets to catch more fish, and an outboard motor that can take him further offshore. That way I can improve my living conditions.

For more information on UNHCR and cash, please see the 2016-2019 UNHCR Implementation Report on the Policy on Cash-Based Interventions.

Reporting by Rima Cherri and Houssam Hariri in Lebanon, Robert Heyn in Niger, and Urayayi Mustsindikwa in Somalia.
Thousands of children, women and men are streaming across an international border escaping war or persecution. You are the aid worker on the frontline. What do you do?

Available online as an app, UNHCRs Emergency Handbook gives hands-on guidance to humanitarians in all areas of life-saving assistance from registering refugees, to providing shelter, food, sanitation and more.

The Handbook, which draws on the UN Refugee Agencys over 60 years of operational experience, works on all electronic platforms. Once downloaded to a mobile, it even works offline for use in remote areas. It is now also available in Arabic, French and Spanish.

Managing the platform is Alvin Gonzaga, Senior Emergency Policy Officer in UNHCRs Division of Emergency, Security and Supply. He spoke to Senior External Relations Officer Roland Schonbauer about it.

In simple terms, what is the Emergency Handbook?

Responding to an emergency, every second counts. The Handbook is a web-based how-to guide for humanitarian workers, from volunteers to UNHCR colleagues that rush to save the lives of refugees and internally displaced people in an emergency.

It offers easy-to-read guidance with simple tools and checklists, ranging from a packing list for emergency missions to key steps in protecting and assisting people with disabilities or survivors of sexual or gender-based violence. It gives you a quick reference on standards, indicators and key steps for camps and urban environments.

Why online, and why all the languages?

When you rush to a border area, you are not going to carry a thick book with you, and you may not get the expert you need in the office on the phone. This is when the Emergency Handbook makes a difference. Downloaded to your phone, it even works in a forest off the beaten track where desperate people may be stranded.

Experience shows that in an emergency, even veteran humanitarians face new situations requiring a fast, high-quality response. With the Handbook, they have the most important information in the palm of their hands  anywhere, any time. It provides specific technical information quickly, for instance on how to start a project to communicate with refugee communities, or even how to handle sudden media interest,

The Handbook has been available online in English since 2015. Encouraged by the keen interest in the English platform in countries such as Bangladesh and Nigeria, we also wanted to make it available to the humanitarian community in other unfolding crises in places such as Syria, and the Venezuela situation  hence the new Arabic, French and Spanish versions.

Can you give examples of how it has been used?

Since 2013, more than one million South Sudanese refugees have sought safety in Uganda. We had to set up a transit centre quickly because thousands of men, women and children were fleeing to an area far away from any significant dwelling, without any shelter or infrastructure.

Fortunately, the online Emergency Handbook offers a sample design for a transit centre to receive refugees. The design shows where they would receive food, get health care and registration documents. Ultimately, the Handbook serves as a protection tool.

Another example are latrines. Every humanitarian knows that poor sanitation poses a potential threat to public health. But if you are not an expert, you probably do not know the minimum distance that latrines should be located from a tent. So you can immediately check the Handbook app about this distance needed to reduce health risks. If the latrine is too close, the standard gives you an argument to advocate for a remedy.

The Handbook can help everybody to prepare assistance and protection of new arrivals. For this, it contains a simplified version of the Preparedness Package for Refugee Emergencies, a hands-on guide for systematic risk analysis and actions to enhance the preparedness of UNHCR and its partners. The online Handbook offers also a template for a Contingency Plan, among many other useful tools.

The Emergency Handbook is available here.
UNHCR has been working with NGOs since we first began helping the forcibly displaced in the early 1950s. As our work and size grew to cope with emerging refugee crises in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, especially in Africa, Asia and Central America, so did our ties with a wide range of newly formed humanitarian and refugee-related NGOs.

In 2007, UNHCR adopted the Global Humanitarian Platform's Principles of Partnership that set out common standards of equality, transparency, complementarity and a results-oriented approach among all humanitarian groups. We integrated the Principles of Partnership in to our 'Framework for Implementing with Partners' as an institutional approach to collaborative partnerships.

The Global Consultation with NGOs includes a range of national and international NGOs from around the world. It provides an important forum for NGOs and states to network, dialogue and exchange views with UNHCR as equal partners  an approach that NGOs welcome.

"The UNHCR has had the most excellent relations with the voluntary agencies. Their work is in a true sense of the term indispensable and invaluable for refugees Dr. Van Heuven Goedhart, The first High Commissioner for Refugees, 1954

Today, we rely heavily on NGOs to implement a wide range of projects, including aid distribution, protection, logistics, shelter, health, water, sanitation, nutrition and education projects.

Partners interested to collaborate with UNHCR are invited to register in the Partner Portal, an interactive tool established for enhanced communication between UNHCR and our partners.
Our position is clear, and has been reiterated on a number of occasions by our High Commissioner: sexual misconduct is unjustifiable and must be eradicated from UNHCR operations.

With over 17,000 staff and affiliated workforce based primarily in the field, in permanent and direct contact with vulnerable people, UNHCR is one of the biggest and most operational UN agencies. There were over 83.7 million people of concern to UNHCR last year, and our programmes were implemented together with more than 1,100 partners.

We work in an environment shaped by significant power differentials and deeply rooted inequalities, including gender inequalities, in which the conditions that can give rise to sexual misconduct exist.

"There is no place for sexual exploitation, abuse or harassment at UNHCR, an organization that is dedicated to serving and protecting others." UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi

The overwhelming majority of our staff are deeply committed professionals, many of whom are working in difficult environments, sometimes risking their own safety and well-being. But our organization is not immune, and  like others  we have seen instances in which our own colleagues or partner staff have used their positions of power to exploit others.

These actions inflict intolerable harm on the victims and their families, run counter to the very values for which UNHCR stands, and undermine the work and credibility of our organization.

For this reason, we have taken a series of decisive actions over recent years to reinforce our mechanisms for preventing and responding to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

In March 2018, the High Commissioner appointed a Senior Coordinator to lead UNHCR efforts to tackle sexual misconduct. She is supported by a cross-functional working group, and reports to the Deputy High Commissioner, who leads a Director Level Task Force on this issue.

In May 2018, UNHCR issued a comprehensive Strategy with Action plan and in August 2020 UNHCR launched a new Strategy and Action Plan (2020-2022), building on achievements in 2018 and 2019 while recognizing that much remains to be done. This new Strategy and Action Plan also takes into account developments in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Central to UNHCRs efforts to tackle sexual misconduct is a commitment to working in partnership, as it is only by capitalizing on interagency and broader partnerships that we can make a difference. UNHCRs High Commissioner took up the role of Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Champion on Protection from SEA and SH in September 2019 and has launched a number of initiatives under his Championship which will continue until the end of the year. In addition, in September 2019 UNHCRs Deputy High Commissioner took on the role of Interim Chair of the Chief Executives Boards Task Force on Addressing Sexual Harassment within the organizations of the UN system.

Definitions:

There is a frequent confusion between sexual exploitation and abuse on the one hand, and sexual harassment on the other. The main difference relates to who is the victim (also called survivor).

Sexual exploitation and abuse affects persons of concern .

. Sexual exploitation is defined as an actual or attempted abuse of someones position of vulnerability (such as a person depending on you for survival, food rations, school books, transport or other services), differential power or trust, to obtain sexual favours, including but not only, by offering money or other social, economic or political advantages. It includes trafficking and prostitution.

is defined as an actual or attempted (such as a person depending on you for survival, food rations, school books, transport or other services), differential power or trust, to obtain sexual favours, including but not only, by offering money or other social, economic or political advantages. It includes trafficking and prostitution. Sexual abuse means the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature , whether by force, or under unequal or coercive conditions. It includes sexual slavery, pornography, child abuse and sexual assault.

means the actual or threatened physical , whether by force, or under unequal or coercive conditions. It includes sexual slavery, pornography, child abuse and sexual assault. Sexual harassment affects personnel and is defined as any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature that causes offense or humiliation. Sexual harassment may occur in the workplace or in connection with work. While typically involving a pattern of conduct, sexual harassment may take the form of a single incident. In assessing whether the conduct causes offense, the perspective of the victim shall be considered

UNHCR now has an effective safeguarding team with a global remit, which includes the Senior Coordinator on Prevention of and Response to Sexual Exploitation and, Abuse and Sexual Harassment, the Inspector Generals Office, the Ethics Office, the Legal Affairs Service and the Staff Welfare Services, among others.

While the organization continues to work hard to ensure that victims/survivors can report in a safe manner, in its new 2020-2022 Strategy and Action Plan on tackling sexual misconduct, UNHCR places stronger emphasis on theirs needs and wishes.

The 2020-2022 Strategy and Action Plan is guided by four core objectives:

Ensure that victims are at the heart of everything we do when fighting sexual misconduct; Equip and empower UNHCR and partner personnel to prevent, identify and respond to sexual misconduct; Uphold organizational accountability in tackling sexual misconduct; Maintain UNHCRs role as a key player engaging in inter-agency efforts against sexual misconduct.

Actions we are taking to tackle sexual misconduct:

Prevention and awareness raising

UNHCR works systematically to identify and reduce risks, including risks of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, in all its operations.

Eradicating sexual misconduct requires us to pay attention to the values and attitudes that underpin our behaviours, and the structures or systems that support or reinforce these behaviours. In 2002, we introduced a UNHCR Code of Conduct, which all personnel are required to sign. This code is the subject of mandatory refresher training each year, with a strong focus on values and inclusion, diversity and gender and is available in nine languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Thai, Urdu and Turkish).

Two online courses on the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment are likewise mandatory for all personnel. Management training courses also include a focus on how to create and lead an inclusive and respectful work environment, with specific modules on the prevention of sexual misconduct.

We also have a network of 400 protection and other staff in our field offices with specific focal point responsibilities related to prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, including through carrying out training and awareness raising activities and engaging with partners. We believe that their presence on the ground is a key factor in helping identify and support victims. In addition, a global Peer Advisor network, consisting of 400 colleagues, act as a point of contact in their respective offices for workplace grievances, ethical dilemmas and psychosocial concerns, including sexual harassment.

Encouraging survivors to come forward

We are acutely aware of the enormous difficulties that survivors of sexual exploitation or abuse, or sexual harassment, face in coming forward, and of the deep professional and personal considerations  and even fears  that may prevent them from doing so.

We are striving to address these concerns, by ensuring that reporting mechanisms are known, accessible and trusted, and that victims who report sexual misconduct feel safe and protected.

To achieve this, we have adopted a survivor-centred approach that places the rights and protection of victims, or survivors, and persons directly affected at the centre of our actions. Actions include improving the experience of recourse, providing proper medical and psychosocial support, strengthening our policies, and developing additional protective measures for those who have experienced or witnessed such abuses.

We have reinforced mechanisms to ensure that all cases of sexual exploitation and abuse are reported, using a range of complaints mechanisms, including face to face engagement, mobile phone technology and call centres. The SpeakUp! Helpline is a confidential independent helpline available to all colleagues who wish to report misconduct or obtain advice on what to do when in doubt. The helpline is managed by an external provider and is available 24/7 by phone, through a web form and a mobile application. It offers the possibility to report in complete anonymity.

The High Commissioner and other senior managers have consistently and strongly encouraged victims to speak out and underscored the mandatory obligation for all colleagues to report on situations or interactions that may give rise to concerns of sexual exploitation or abuse.

Information on disciplinary measures taken is shared with all colleagues. We firmly believe this information, together with a robust follow-up on allegations, helps inspire confidence in the system and demonstrating accountability in action.

UNHCRs policy on Protection against Retaliation includes our affiliate workforce, has a wide scope of activities considered as protected and extends the timeline to report. It also provides interim measures to safeguard the interests of the complainant and strengthens corrective measures.

We are also strengthening survivor and witness protection, which we recognize is difficult in certain contexts in which we work. Psychosocial and medical support is made available, along with interventions to facilitate reintegration within the community.

Investigations and disciplinary actions

In recent years, we have strengthened the capacity and expertise of our investigative and disciplinary processes, to ensure timely and effective handling of sexual misconduct cases, which is crucial to ensure accountability. Sexual misconduct cases are prioritized in both the investigatory and disciplinary processes.

UNHCRs Office of the Inspector General (IGO) is an independent internal body responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct that involve people or entities with a direct contractual link with UNHCR. The IGO is staffed with professional investigators, including senior female investigators, who all have previous and extensive experience in the police or the military, or who worked for international tribunals or in similar functions for other international organizations. Investigators have received a specific training on how to handle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment cases.

The IGO also provides training to our field operations to raise awareness of procedures, build confidence in the system and share best practices. It also provides training on sexual misconduct to our partners.

UNHCR also has a dedicated team of professional lawyers in its Legal Affairs Service, including employment law specialists who are experienced in advising on sexual misconduct.

Following investigation, if the allegations are substantiated, UNHCR personnel found to have engaged in sexual exploitation and abuse have their employment terminated, in line with our zero tolerance approach. Perpetrators of sexual harassment are also normally separated from service.

We work closely with the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations in New York to ensure that credible allegations of sexual misconduct that may amount to criminal conduct are referred to the national authorities for criminal prosecution. The United Nations systematically cooperates with national authorities on referrals, including through appropriate waivers of immunity of UN personnel. Both UNHCR and the UN Office of Legal Affairs regularly follow up on the status of cases referred to national authorities.

Vetting and reference checking

In terms of vetting and reference checking, we have taken new measures, both internally and through interagency efforts, to ensure that perpetrators cannot move within the organization or from one organization to another. We were among the first agencies to roll out the United Nations Clear Check trackers, launched in June 2018, and have undertaken a mapping of vetting mechanisms with a view to improving our own internal processes. We have amended our recruitment form to include specific questions on misconduct and self-certification that allows us to sanction anyone trying to misrepresent him/herself.

So far this year, UNHCR has received 19 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving its personnel. Additional information on the number of allegations in previous years, their status and the related investigations can be found here.

In 2021, UNHCR has dismissed four personnel on grounds of sexual exploitation and abuse (as of November). In one other case, sexual exploitation and abuse was established, and the individual separated prior to completion of the disciplinary process; the individual has been recorded in the UN Clear check database to prevent their re-hire in any UN entity. In 2020, UNHCR dismissed two personnel on grounds of sexual exploitation and abuse. In two other cases, SEA was established, and the individuals left the organization prior to completion of the disciplinary process; they have both been recorded in the UN Clear check database to prevent their re-hire in any UN entity. In 2019, one case was substantiated but the disciplinary process was not completed as the contract of the UNHCR personnel expired. This case was registered in the UN Clear check database to avoid this person being rehired in any UN entity. In addition, three members of our workforce left the organization before the allegations were received, and therefore an investigation was not possible. A note has been placed in their personnel file.

So far this year, UNHCR has received 87 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving its implementing partner personnel. Additional information on previous years, the status of various SEA allegations and the investigations involving the personnel our implementing partners can be found here.

UNHCR also received 83 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving its implementing partner personnel in 2018, 95 in 2019 and 53 allegations between 1 January and 30 June 2020.

Additional information on the status of various SEA allegations and investigations involving members of the personnel our implementing partners can be found here.

Note: these statistics change on a regular basis as the investigative and disciplinary processes continue.

Working in Partnership

UNHCR is fully committed to working in partnership to eradicate sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment. We have a zero tolerance approach to sexual exploitation and abuse by our partners and have embedded robust measures in the management of our relationships with them to address risks and ensure accountability.

All Project Partnership Agreements make specific reference to values and standards of professional conduct, and require that procedures are in place to prevent, detect, investigate and report on misconduct, with specific reference to sexual exploitation and abuse. Breaches are grounds for termination of the partnership.

We are also actively engaged in the strengthening of their awareness and capacity. Since 2013, UNHCRs Office of the Inspector General has organized more than 14 regional workshops for partners across the world, covering investigations carried out by NGOs, how to report sexual exploitation and abuse, and zero-tolerance.

UNHCR is also participating fully in inter-agency efforts to eradicate sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment. This includes participating to the work of the Special Coordinator on Improving the UN Response to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, the Victims Rights Advocate for the United Nations, and the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB) Task Force on Sexual Harassment. UNHCR also co-chairs a task team on sexual exploitation and abuse set up by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), an inter-agency forum for coordination, policy development and decision-making involving key UN and non-UN humanitarian partners.

Since September 2019, the High Commissioner has been the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Champion on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Sexual Harassment.

Recent key achievements under the High Commissioners Championship include:

The establishment of a community outreach and communications fund: UNHCR and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) launched an Interagency Community Outreach and Communications Fund on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse in April 2020. The fund provides support to smaller nongovernmental organizations (with over 1,600 applications received) with developing information, education and communications materials to raise communityawareness and ensure that victims know where, and how, to safely report incidents.

UNHCR and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) launched an Interagency Community Outreach and Communications Fund on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse in April 2020. The fund provides support to smaller nongovernmental organizations (with over 1,600 applications received) with developing information, education and communications materials to raise communityawareness and ensure that victims know where, and how, to safely report incidents. The development of an interagency training for partners on protection from sexual misconduct: UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the World Food Programme, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and other partners, have jointly developed a learning package, Saying NO to Sexual Misconduct, and was launched in May 2020.

Find out more on his three key priorities to help strengthen the fight against sexual misconduct.
UNHCRs Privacy Policy

UNHCR is committed to protecting individual privacy and securing the personal information made available by users of UNHCR websites (that is, all sites within the unhcr.org domain and UNHCR country sites , UNHCR website) as well as UNHCR web pages on other sites (such as official UNHCR profiles on social networks). By visiting UNHCRs website you are accepting the provisions set out in this policy.

This privacy policy describes what information is made available to UNHCR and third parties when you visit unhcr.org or official UNHCR web pages on other sites, and how UNHCR uses and stores that information. Any information voluntarily disclosed to UNHCR by users of UNHCR website is held with the utmost care and security and will not be used in ways other than as set forth in this privacy policy. Through this website you may reach or be directed to other sites that relate to UNHCR, such as the sites of our national partners which are fundraising on behalf of UNHCR. All these sites have their own privacy statements which are similar to this one but may vary slightly.

How we use your personal information

Providing information is your choice. When you undertake certain actions on our website, such as donating, signing up for our email newsletter, or filling in a form to register your interest in our activities or to apply for a job, you knowingly provide us with personal information about you, such as your name, email address, postal address and other information.

You will only be contacted by UNHCR for purposes related to the work of UNHCR and you can request to have your name removed from our mailing list at any time (see below how to opt out).

Through the use of personal data such as your email address, we can target messages for you on social media platforms and identify other people on the Internet who are most likely to support UNHCR work and help refugees. This may require uploading an encrypted list of email addresses to social media platforms of service providers such as Facebook. This data is not stored or reused by such service providers and is only held for the duration of the matching process. If you would not like your data to be used in this way, please fill out our contact form.

Additionally, if you upload content to a UNHCR website or an official UNHCR social media account, we will be able to see certain information, for example in the EXIF data supplied when you submit photographs, we can see which type of camera you used, the time/date stamp, and location if that is available. This information might be used to perform verification checks, but will not be shared beyond the UNHCR social media team based in Geneva.

Sharing your personal information

We may share your personal information (i) with our agents or service providers including digital advertising agencies or social media companies that perform services on our behalf for the purpose of sending you communications on UNHCRs activities, performing direct marketing or completing a donation transaction that you initiate; (ii) with our national partners who help us raising money for refugees and other forcibly displaced. With these fundraising partners we also share anonymized data gathered through cookies when you visit our website for them to offer customized contents to their audience. In no case will any sensitive financial information be shared. We will always keep your information safe and we will never sell or swap your information with any other third party.

Opting out

Users who provide an email address and/or donate via UNHCR website and opt in to receive email communication from UNHCR may receive UNHCR e-newsletter and other email updates. We occasionally also communicate via direct mail, phone and SMS. Each email sent by UNHCR includes an option to remove your address from the mailing list and you may also opt out by sending an email to [email protected].

Cookies

Aside from the personal information that you disclose to us for a specific purpose, UNHCR also collects anonymous information about your browsing behaviour when you visit our website, through the use of cookies. By using UNHCR website, you agree that we can place the types of cookies set out below on your computer, mobile phone or handheld device.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small data files made up of letters and numbers placed onto your computer or other mobile devices when you access UNHCR website. UNHCR uses cookies to collect information about you to the extent necessary to ensure its website functionality and performance as well as for the purpose of targeting its audience and tailoring the content offered to the public both on its website and elsewhere. We send cookies when you visit unhcr.org, respond to online surveys or polls, or request information. Accepting the cookies used on UNHCR website does not give us access to your personally identifiable information, but we can use the cookies to identify your computer. Encrypted information gathered from cookies is used to understand the performance of our website as well as our fundraising partners websites , improve your experience while using it, and to remind you of UNHCR work and how you can support us after you have left UNHCR website in a relevant manner. However, this information is anonymous and based on behaviour rather than on personally distinguishable features.

Disabling cookies

If you do not wish to have cookies installed on your computer or mobile device, you can set your browser to notify you before you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it. You can also set your browser to turn off cookies. If you do so, however, some areas of UNHCR website may not function properly.

How cookies are used on UNHCR website

UNHCR wishes to be transparent with users about how cookies are used, so that you are clear on how your privacy is protected when using UNHCR website.

We use cookies for the following reasons:

To improve your experience on our website  Cookies enable us to ensure that we are providing you content that is relevant to your interests while deprioritising content that is not relevant to you. For example, cookies can tell us if you have shown interest in learning about a specific emergency or campaign, so we could ensure that the next time you visit UNHCR website, information about this emergency or campaign is prioritised over other content. In the same way, cookies can tell us if, for instance, you have filled in a UNHCR form or signed a petition, so that we dont present this to you the next time you visit our website. Cookies can also provide us with an understanding about other factors relating to your visit that can help us to enhance your website experience, such as: which part of the world you are visiting from, if you came to the site because of an email or social media post we sent you, or whether your website browser supports the different technologies used on UNHCR website. To understand how UNHCR website and other communication efforts are performing  Cookies help to provide us with anonymous statistics that tell us about how many users visit our website, where they came from and how they interact with it. This information is very useful for us to be able to see which pages and content on UNHCR website is most popular so that we can modify it accordingly. Data gathered through cookies can also help us understand how our other activities, such as social media content and emails affect the use of UNHCR website. To improve the relevance of UNHCR campaign and marketing messages displayed to you after you leave our website  Cookies can help us to ensure that you receive personalised advertising banners from advertising services when you browse other websites, based on the content you interacted with on UNHCR website. For example, cookies can tell us if you visit a web page about a particular humanitarian emergency, so that campaign messages about this particular emergency can be displayed to you when you visit another website. None of UNHCR commercial partners providing such services collect or use any personally identifiable information. Advertising performance - We want to monitor our advertising spend carefully to make sure that we are being as cost-effective as possible. UNHCR uses cookies provided by online measurement platforms such as Google Analytics and DoubleClick in order to identify how many people come to our website from different websites that host our media campaigns, which campaign messages have been most effective at driving people to UNHCR website, and what actions people undertake after clicking on one of our ads. This information enables us to cost-effectively plan future campaigns, so that we are not wasting resources advocating for refugee protection on websites with content that does not interest our potential supporters. Reach you on social channels and identify more supporters who want to help refugees - Through cookies, we can target messages for you on our social media platforms and identify other people on the Internet who are most likely to support UNHCR work and help refugees. This data is not used by service providers for any purpose other than those described above.

Third party cookies

Some of the cookies you may receive when visiting UNHCR website are not related to UNHCR. For example, if you visit sections of UNHCR website that contain embedded content such as YouTube video or a Twitter feed, or contain a plugin such as a Facebook like button, you may receive cookies delivered from these websites. As detailed above, we also use third-party cookies for targeted advertising services and for tracking our website awareness-raising and communications performance.

UNHCR does not govern the settings or use of these third-party cookies, so we suggest that you visit these websites for more information about their cookies and applicable privacy policies.

UNHCR cannot be held responsible for the privacy of data collected by websites that it does not own or manage, even if these websites link to UNHCR website. Modern web browsers provide the ability to disable all cookies or only third-party cookies.

Responsibilities of Users

UNHCR may ask its stakeholders and community to share their photos and videos with the public on its websites. This type of material is generally defined as User Generated Content (UGC).

Users of UNHCR website acknowledge that such content is treated as being non-proprietary and non-confidential. If you send this material to us, either via email, by tagging content on a social network, or via a specifically designed upload site, you are granting UNHCR the irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide right to use, reproduce, modify and publish such material elsewhere in its websites and publications. Furthermore, you grant UNHCR the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such material. However you still own and can continue to use your content as you like including the ability to also allow others to use it.

If you upload or share your material with a UNHCR website or social media account, it might be used by any UNHCR websites or social media accounts across the globe.

When we ask our community to share content with us, we explain how we intend to use the content. Mostly, we will re-share content on our social media channels or on our websites. If it is particularly strong, we may use content shared with us on UNHCR promotional materials. In those cases, we will attempt to contact you to discuss whether you agree for it to be used, and to ask whether and how you would like to be credited.

UNHCR does not pay for nor does it generate any revenue from selling or licensing individual pieces of UGC.

Conditions to upload content

When you submit content to or share material with UNHCR, you must only submit/share your own original content. If your content contains the work(s) of others (e.g. music, images and/or video) you must have obtained the necessary rights or permissions to use that material.

If your content clearly identifies anyone else you will need to ensure that the persons concerned have consented to the content being used by UNHCR. Where your content clearly identifies children under the age of 16 you must ensure that their parent or guardian has provided their consent as set out above.

UNHCR also requires that you do not submit or share any material or information:

That is knowingly false or misleading, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, threatening or invasive of a persons privacy or unlawful in any way; Which you do not own or for which you have not obtained all necessary licenses and/or approvals as may be required by law; Which is technically harmful (including, without limitation, files that contain viruses, corrupted files or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of anothers computer); or Impersonating any person or entity, or falsely stating or otherwise misrepresenting your affiliation with anyone or any entity. Deleting any author attributions, legal notices or proprietary designations or labels in any file that is uploaded; Falsifying the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is uploaded; Advertising or offering to sell any goods or services, or conducting or forwarding surveys, contests or chain letters, or downloading any file posted by another user of UNHCR websites that you know, or reasonably should know, cannot be legally distributed in such a manner.

Any inappropriate content will be rejected or removed from UNHCR websites and social media accounts. If in doubt, please do not share your content with UNHCR. If you post on, or transmit to, any of our websites any material of the type prohibited under the above paragraphs or any applicable laws and regulations, and UNHCR incurs any costs, expenses, liability or losses as a result then you agree to indemnify UNHCR for all such costs, expenses, liability or losses.

You should be aware that UNHCR is entitled to reveal your identity (or any information which it has about you) to any third party who is claiming that any of that material violates any of their rights or to any government or regulatory authority that may request UNHCR to do so.

Uploading Content to Social Networks

If you upload content to a social network and then tag UNHCR, your submission will be subject to that websites terms of use and privacy policy. Please be aware of a websites terms and privacy policy, which may differ from UNHCRs, when submitting your content to it. Some large UGC websites are also based in the US so your personal information may be stored outside your country where different laws apply.

Notification of changes

We will revise or update this policy if our practices change, or as we develop better ways to keep you informed about them. We thus encourage you to visit this section of UNHCR website regularly in order to keep up to date with any changes. Changes to the policy will apply from the date they are posted on our site and shall not apply retroactively.
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Why UNHCR

WE ARE GLOBAL UNHCR is on the ground in more than 130 countries across the world WE GET THINGS DONE UNHCR has the capacity to respond to emergencies affecting up to 750,000 people within 72 hours WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE Over the last 15 years, we have helped over 10 million people find home again

WE CAN BE TRUSTED Two-time winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, we have 70 years' experience of knowing what works WE HAVE THE WORLD ON OUR SIDE More than 140 countries are party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees WE BUILD BETTER FUTURES We are the leading UN organization on the Global Compact for Refugees

Become our Partner
At UNHCR, we seek to uphold the basic human rights of uprooted or stateless people in their countries of asylum or habitual residence, ensuring that refugees will not be returned involuntarily to a country where they could face persecution. Longer term, we also help refugees find solutions, by repatriating voluntarily to their homeland, integrating in countries of asylum or resettling in third countries.

In many countries, our staff work alongside other partners in a variety of locations ranging from capital cities to remote camps and border areas. They attempt to promote or provide legal and physical protection, and minimize the threat of violence  including sexual assault  which many refugees are subject to, even in countries of asylum. They also seek to provide at least a minimum of shelter, food, water and medical care in the immediate aftermath of any refugee exodus.

Global Operations

Providing emergency help to those forced to flee is often the first step towards long-term protection and rehabilitation. To meet these and other operational needs, UNHCR has developed a global network of suppliers, specialist agencies and partners. Projects can range from dispatching emergency teams to the scene of a crisis, providing emergency food, shelter, water and medical supplies, and arranging major airlifts for a large exodus of refugees or a flotilla of small boats for smaller numbers of fleeing civilians. Among a host of other programmes, there are projects to help protect the environment, build schools and raise awareness of such problems as HIV/AIDS.

Promoting Refugee Protection

Our activities to promote refugee protection include:

Promoting accession to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. In 1999, UNHCR launched a campaign to promote accession to the 1951 Convention that culminated on its 50th anniversary in July 2001 and the Ministerial Meeting of States Parties to the 1951 Convention on 12 and 13 December 2001.

Assisting States to enact or revise national refugee legislation, including administrative instructions and operational guidelines, and to implement national refugee status determination procedures.

Strengthening relevant administrative and judicial institutions, training staff of government and non-governmental agencies, and liaising with relevant human rights bodies.

UNHCR is also involved in:
Shelter in urban areas

In urban areas, many refugees share accommodation or live in non-functional public buildings, collective centres, slums and informal types of settlements. Conditions are often substandard and providing shelter poses major challenges. In rural settings, delivering protection and humanitarian assistance through refugee camps is common.

More than 6.6 million refugees and people in refuge-like situations live in camps, among them 4.6 million in planned/managed camps and about 2 millions in self-settled camps. While camps can be practical, particularly during emergencies, encampment results in a range of problems, including aid dependency and isolation.

Setting up camps

UNHCR and the wider humanitarian community are not in favour of creating camps because we think other arrangements offer a more normal life for people forced to flee. When there is no alternative, we design camps, sites or settlements carefully to keep people safe and give them shelter. We also try to offer services to the host community.

A properly-laid-out camp protects the environment and helps prevent fires and outbreak of disease. In a well-designed camp, displaced people do not have to walk too far to get food, water or medical care. Water points and latrines are well-lit and close to homes so that girls and women, especially, will not be exposed to danger.

How does UNHCR help?

As well as distributing tents from our three centres in Dubai, Copenhagen and Durban, UNHCR also provides materials such as plastic sheeting and matting that can be used to make a simple shelter. Additionally, in more protracted situations, we fund the rehabilitation of communal shelters or construction of new homes, and provide the displaced with the materials they need to build a home themselves under self-help schemes.

UNHCR co-leads the Global Shelter Cluster with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). While the IFRC leads in natural disaster situations, we lead the team in conflict-generated displacement.
SANAA, Yemen  Hassan Naser was uprooted by war from his home in Aden three years ago and now lives with relatives in Sanaa with his wife and four children.

Walking with the aid of a stick, he managed to collect cash assistance from a bank in the Yemeni capital, which will be vital for him and his family.

I suffer from kidney failure and I can only walk very slowly because I have a slipped disc, he explains. I will use most of the money to pay for medicine and will use some of it to pay rent arrears for my house.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said on Friday it had stepped up efforts to ensure that displaced people in Yemen like 61-year-old Naser have access to cash support to meet their most urgent shelter and protection needs.

UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said the assistance was a lifeline for Yemens most vulnerable displaced families, helping them to meet their urgent needs.

Current pre-famine conditions and cholera outbreak in Yemen come on top of the disastrous impact the conflict has had so far -- massive displacement and mounting civilian casualties, he told a press briefing in Geneva.

It remains vital that the critical life-saving activities are supported."

Therefore, it remains vital that the critical life-saving activities -- including protection and emergency shelter -- are addressed and supported in parallel with food, health and education programmes.

The 20,000 or so families benefitting from the assistance have fled fighting to safe areas or have returned to their homes after being displaced. Many often find their homes in ruins and struggle to survive.

Hassan Naser was forced to leave his home in Aden three years ago and now lives with relatives in Sana'a with his wife and four children.  UNHCR/Shadi Abusneida

Among recipients is Siham Abduallah, 27, who fled the western port of Hudayda four months ago with her two children and her twin brother Bassam, who has one child. They now live in temporary accommodation in Sanaa.

All the shops closed and my children cried of hunger, she says. We had to leave. Shelling and air strikes hit our neighbourhood. Even our house was damaged by shrapnel."

"I have one disabled child who needs treatment. It is cold in Sanaa and he is getting sick.

She added: We are running out of food. I will use the money to buy food and pay the rent. My neighbours sometimes give us a piece of bread, because we have no food in our house. I have one disabled child who needs treatment. It is cold in Sanaa and he is getting sick.

More than 22 million people are need of assistance in Yemen, where civil war erupted in 2015, of whom 2.7 million have been displaced internally.

UNHCR is working with Al Amal Bank to distribute cash directly through a so-called hawala system, which functions in Yemen despite the conflict. Families are notified by SMS message about their entitlements and can then collect their assistance from any of the banks agents in the country.

This allows UNHCR to provide assistance to families in hard-to-reach and remote areas. The cash avoids the need to resort to desperate measures, such as child labour and forced marriage.

So far this year, UNHCR has distributed almost US$33 million in Yemen. During October alone, more than 22,000 vulnerable families  about 150,000 people in total  received cash payments from UNHCR.

By the end of the year it aims to distribute more than US$41 million, benefiting 700,000 internally displaced people, returnees and host communities affected by conflict, as well as 130,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in the country.

Fighting in Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, has severely compounded years of poverty and insecurity. The worsening violence has disrupted millions of lives, resulting in widespread casualties and massive displacement, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating.

Two million people now languish in desperate conditions, away from home and unable to meet basic needs. Conditions are so serious that almost 1 million displaced Yemenis have lost hope and tried to return home, even though it is not yet safe.

Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Without help, many more lives will be lost to violence, treatable illnesses or lack of food, water and shelter.
UNHCR staff meet with Bampek and his family, who survived the earthquake in Sulawesi.  UNHCR/Steffen Limboki

DONGGALA, Indonesia  The day after a devastating earthquake flattened their home, Bampek and his family built a makeshift tent on empty land with old plastic sheeting.

Sometimes, when it rained hard, the water would come from every direction, he says,although now the familys desperate plight has improved.

The 45-year-old, his wife Vemy and their eight children are among hundreds of families who lost homes when earthquake and tsunami struck Sulawesi on 28 September, who are now safe and dry.

In the past week, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, delivered 2,054 emergency tents for the worst affected, with national and local Indonesian partners setting them up ready for those most affected to move in. Further aid, including additional tents, sleeping mats, mosquito nets and solar lamps, is on its way.

Im glad that the tent now is fully covered."

Im glad that the tent now is fully covered, says Vemy, 41, visibly relieved as she inspects their new shelter. The separators inside the tent also allow me and the girls to change our clothes privately.

The tents will provide shelter to around 10,000 people in greatest need. They have been distributed by the authorities and UNHCRs partners, the Indonesian Red Cross, Yayasan Kemanusiaan Muslim Indonesia and Wahana Visi Indonesia.

Among the recipients is Titin, 34, who was left homeless after the quake flattened her house. I cant live there anymore, she says, sadly. But I thank UNHCR for the tents that you are providing. I dont know where Id live now if it werent here in your tent.

UNHCR airlifts emergency tents for Indonesia earthquake victims (Mitra Salima Suryono, producer / Dennis Angga Hermawan, Agustian Tri Yuanto, videographers / Marion Viguier, editor)

According to the Indonesia National Agency for Disaster Management, the quake and subsequent tsunami damaged around 68,000 houses, displacing 200,000 and killing some 2,000.

UNHCR staff described the effects of the earthquake and tsunami as beyond imagination and devastating.

Coastal communities were destroyed by a tsunami, while inland villages were struck by liquefaction as black mud rose up to five meters and swallowed buildings.

UNHCR is working hard to support partners and the Indonesian government to meet the growing humanitarian needs. As of today, some 2,000 of UNHCRs emergency family tents and 12,400 plastic sheeting have been airlifted to Central Sulawesi since last week.
Entrepreneur Zeinab employs 43 vulnerable women, including Afghan refugees, in her sewing factory in the Iranian city of Shiraz.  UNHCR/Sebastian Rich

NEW YORK, United States  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today called on UN member states to get behind a new global compact on refugees, which places the dignity, rights and aspirations of refugees and their hosts at its core.

Presenting his annual report and the compact to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in New York, Grandi said that multilateralism was holding its ground amidst much adversity, but needed reinvigorating.

Refugees are an international concern, and a shared responsibility, Grandi said. In the compact, we will for the first time have a practical workable model, a set of tools that translates this principle into action.

Grandi expressed concern about how more and more frequently, refugees and migrants have become targets and casualties of divisive political agendas and of regional and international politics.

See also: World leaders voice strong support for new refugee deal at UN General Assembly

We must find a way to shake off the politics  and bring attention back to what matters  dignity, rights, and shared humanity, Grandi added.

Two years ago, UNHCR was asked by the UN General Assembly to consult with all UN member states and other stakeholders to develop a new international deal for refugees  known as the global compact on refugees  and to propose it as part of its annual report to the world body, as Grandi did today.

In the compact, we will for the first time have a practical workable model, a set of tools that translates this principle into action.

Refugees, if given the opportunity, can also be catalysts of humanity, solidarity, of a sense of shared purpose in society  in other words, of all that binds us together and makes us stronger in facing global challenges, Grandi said.

Crises across all continents have driven the number of people forcibly displaced to 68.5 million people, including more than 25.4 million refugees, Grandi noted in his speech to the UN committee.

Political solutions remain largely out of reach, he said, while the intersection of conflict with other factors like climate change, poverty and inequality have led to complex population flows, which are difficult to address.

Grandi also noted that while there are many sobering examples of refugees and asylum-seekers being pushed away, there were countless local communities around the world  often in remote, border areas  which continue to offer protection and support to refugees despite their own limited means, driven by compassion and fundamental human values.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (centre at dais) proposes a new international deal for refugees at the UN General Assembly's Third Committee in New York on October 31, 2018.  UN Photo/Manuel Elias

In many of these places, a new comprehensive response to refugees is taking root.

Decades of keeping refugees apart, consigned to camps or on the margins of society are giving way to a fundamentally different approach  including refugees in national systems, societies and economies of their host countries for the time that it is necessary, and enabling them to contribute to their new communities and to secure their own futures, pending a solution to their plight, Grandi said, noting the that the global compact started with the generosity of these communities.

Grandi urged member states to give the collective endeavor that the compact is strong support, and to help with its implementation.

Recalling the courage, resilience and determination of many displaced people he had met over the past year in Kenya, Syria, Iran and Colombia, among other countries, Grandi hoped this would be a moment to look back on.

It will be up to all of us to make it work; to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for the millions of refugees and displaced people around the world who are counting on us."

A moment when practical people came together to chart a different course towards a better, fairer, more equitable response to refugee crises, shielded from the vagaries of politics, adapted to our challenging world.

It will be up to all of us to make it work; to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for them, and the millions of refugees and displaced people around the world who are counting on us, he concluded.

The global compact on refugees is expected to be validated by the UN General Assembly by the end of 2018.

You can read the full text of the High Commissioner's address here.
Displaced children from Rukban camp receive high-energy biscuits and nutritious meals delivered through a United Nation and Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) Inter-Agency aid operation to Rukban camp.  UNHCR/UNHCR

RUKBAN INFORMAL SETTLEMENT, Jordan-Syria Border  Having spent the last three years trying to care for his wife and four children in a mud-brick shelter in the middle of a vast, featureless wasteland on the Syrian-Jordanian border, Abu Ahmad is running out of hope.

The former tour guide from Palmyra is among some 50,000 Syrian men, women and children who have found themselves stranded in the informal desert settlement known as Rukban since 2015, having fled fighting in other parts of their war-torn homeland.

Unable to cross into neighbouring Jordan and too afraid to return to their homes, their only option has been to remain where they are. Devoid of any infrastructure and several hours drive from the nearest town or paved street, just finding sufficient water, food and shelter to survive is a daily struggle.

Each passing day we are sinking under the weight of our poverty, unable to meet our most basic needs as human beings, Abu Ahmed said. Please save us, and help us regain our lives.

With humanitarian access severely restricted due to security concerns and other issues, and with no electricity, health facilities or formal education in the settlement, people living there described feeling like they had been abandoned to their fate.

Living conditions are precarious, with the sites remote location and recent tightening of smuggling routes from inside Syria causing severe shortages of basic commodities including food. A reported increase in violent incidents has added to the protection concerns facing those living there.

"People here feel they are stuck."

On Sunday, a UN inter-agency and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy delivered food, health and sanitation supplies, and other emergency items including 10,000 plastic sheets to protect people against the coming winter weather. It was the first such aid delivery from inside Syria since the settlement was established.

Previously, the UN has only been permitted to deliver aid sporadically from the Jordanian side of the border, with the last such distribution completed back in January.

UN agencies have also constructed a dedicated primary health facility just over the Jordanian border close to Rukban, but access remains an issue and the clinic is unable to provide advanced medical services to the many residents suffering from chronic illnesses and other serious conditions.

After meeting with community leaders and youth groups, UNHCR Deputy Representative to Syria Ajmal Khybari said a lasting solution to the plight of the people in Rukban must be found.

To say that the situation here is desperate is an understatement, Khybari said. People here feel they are stuck, and are praying that humanity prevails.

UNHCR  the UN Refugee Agency  is calling on the international community and parties to the conflict to find an agreement to end the suffering of vulnerable civilians trapped there. All those displaced must be allowed to voluntarily return to their homes or a place of their choosing in safety and dignity. As long as these solutions remain elusive, UNHCR stresses that the provision of aid cannot be a one-time event and that unfettered access must be guaranteed.

"They do not deserve this life."

Women and children make up the majority of those living in Rukban, many of whom are particularly vulnerable. With no formal education at the camp and only limited access to basic literacy classes, parents described their frustration at seeing their childrens futures waste away in the desert.

Many displaced Syrians struggling to survive in this makeshift site are concerned that they had not been able to document major events taking place in their lives over the last years, including marriages, divorces, the birth of their children. This increases the risk of statelessness of the already vulnerable children in Rukban.

Young mother Um Majid was preparing to go to university when armed groups took control of her town in 2015, forcing her to flee to Rukban with other members of her family. Now married with two young children, she fears they will grow up without an education unless their situation changes.

All I want is for my children to go to school and have the bright future they deserve, she said. They do not deserve this life.
Director Nadine Labaki and Syrian refugee lead actor Zain Al Rafeea filming Capernaum.  Sony Pictures Classics / Fares Sokhon

NEW YORK  At 12, Syrian refugee Zain Al Rafeaa barely knew how to write his name. He was discovered in the streets of Beirut by Lebanese film director Nadine Labaki, who cast him to star in her new film Capernaum. Today, Zain and his family have been resettled to Norway, where they live in a house overseeing the sea and Zain plays with reindeer in the forest.

Until three months ago, Zains life shared similarities to the character he plays in Capernaum, the story an undocumented Lebanese boy fighting to survive poverty and marginalization while helping other displaced people living in the slums of Beirut. He was living below the poverty line, like many other Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities.

The film has been selected as Lebanons entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards and received the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This week UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, co-sponsored a screening of the film in New York City.

To be resettled in a third country, and having this kind of life  it truly is a new beginning.

Shortly after coming back from Cannes, the Al Rafeaa family received an official letter from UNHCR informing them that they were going to be resettled in Norway, a process that started in 2016.

They moved to the Nordic country in August 2018. Still sleepy and jet-lagged, Zain  now 14 years old  explained at the New York screening what a regular day looks like for him today: he and his siblings wake up early in the morning to catch the bus to school, which starts at 8 a.m.

See also: Syrian boy takes incredible path from refugee to red carpet

To be resettled in a third country, and having this kind of life  it truly is a new beginning, said Labaki, the film director, during the screening.

If he stayed in the conditions he was in, I think there was a big chance that Zain was going to be facing some kind trouble in life, she added.

Zain and his family arrived in Lebanon in 2012, after fleeing war in their home town of Daraa in southern Syria. Living in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Beirut, Zain could not attend school and was often exposed to drugs and violence.

Ninette Kelley, director of UNHCR New York office; Ben Stiller, actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador; Zain Al Rafeea, actor and Syrian refugee; and Nadine Labaki, film director, during a screening of Capernaum in New York.  StarPix for Sony Pictures Classics / Marion Curtis

Lebanon  which has a population of four million people  is currently hosting one million Syrian refugees.

The Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon is part of our daily lives now, Labaki said. You can imagine how big the responsibility and the burden is for the Lebanese community, which is also facing its own economic problems.

Almost nine in 10 of the worlds refugees are hosted in developing countries, where they often live in remote or underserved areas with significant development challenges.

In the case of Lebanon, one of the most visible ways this challenge materialized in was the increasing number of children on the streets, both Lebanese and Syrian.

They are living parallel lives on the margins of our societies, they become invisible to us, Labaki said about the inspiration to make Capernaum. What happens in their heads when they feel so invisible? How does it feel to be completely invisible in the eyes of society? I wanted to understand.

Labaki worked with non-professional actors, four of whom were refugees. They filmed for over six months, so that they could adapt to acting on camera.

They are living parallel lives on the margins of our societies, they become invisible to us.

During the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, between 2011 and 2015, Lebanon was taking 10,000 refugees from the neighbouring country per week, Ninette Kelley explained. She was the UNHCR Representative in Lebanon during the crisis and is now the Director of its New York office.

We need to help Lebanon manage what is an unprecedented influx of people, said Kelley at the screening. The way we do that is we encourage not just provision of assistance to refugees, but help their school systems, their medical systems; so that we can provide not just support for refugees but also the communities that are helping the refugees.

See also: Volker Turk explains the global compact on refugees

Resettlement is another solution, but currently only 1 per cent of refugees worldwide have had access to that opportunity.

Now [resettlement] is not happening to a great degree but when it happens, you can see how it changed Zains life, Kelley added. Who doesnt want to be part of that story?

Labaki highlighted the complete shift resettlement brought to Zains life: I think he truly deserves it. He is a miracle boy. He has so much potential, so much to give, and so much wisdom.

In his introduction, actor and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Ben Stiller praised Zains performance: It is really one of the best actors Ive ever seen on film. Its just an amazing performance.

Its not a light film, he added. But it illuminates this human story that is going on in the world right now.

Labaki, like many others in the theater, wished there could be more happy new beginnings like Zains.
Rwandan refugee Amelie Fabian was able to study at a Canadian university thanks to an education program for refugees.  UNHCR/Michelle Siu

NEW YORK  When she had to leave Rwanda in 2001 with her family and became a refugee in Malawi, six-year-old Amelie Fabian was determined not to miss out school. In Malawi she had to beg her parents to allow her to attend class. She was bullied by peers and teachers for being a foreigner. She had to switch schools several times. I never even for a second considered dropping out, she said.

Amelie's excellent grades allowed her to become one of the 80 refugee students who every year are granted access to university studies in Canada through its Student Sponsorship Program (SRP). After graduating from McGill University in Montreal, Amelie recently started working as an accountant at the consulting firm Deloitte.

I long for the day when my story ceases to be the exception and becomes the norm, she said. The international community must strive harder to provide refugee children, especially refugee girls, with the education they deserve.

As refugees, education equips us with the power to determine our own fate.

Amelie shared her inspirational story in front of a room filled with humanitarians, international policy makers and country leaders at UNICEF House during the UN General Assembly in New York. The Action for Refugee Education meeting aimed to catalyse support to ensure that refugee childrens right to education is fulfilled.

Today, over four million refugee children are out of school. This is an increase of half a million children from 2016. Only 61 per cent of refugee children attend primary school  compared with a global average of 92 per cent. As refugee children age, the obstacles to education increase. Just 23 per cent of refugee children are enrolled in secondary school and only one per cent of them attend university.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi highlighted Fabians story as an example of how education can bring you out of a very difficult situation.

She is unique in her skills, her intelligence, her eloquence, but she should not be unique in the opportunities she is given, Grandi added.

In her address to the leaders in the room, Amelie stressed that education is essential for the future of refugee girls, who might be at risk of marrying too young if they lack other opportunities.

As refugees, education equips us with the power to determine our own fate, she added.

Education taught me I have a voice.

Education holds the key for a better life for children and young people, said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. She noted that many collective benefits come from better education for all, like enhancing economic growth and reducing the likelihood of conflict.

The international leaders in the room agreed on the importance of integrating refugee children into national school systems, ensuring that both local and displaced communities can benefit from further development.

Countries in developing regions host 92 per cent of the worlds school-age refugees. Many struggle with education infrastructure and need more sustained financial support from the international community.

The Global Compact on Refugees, to be endorsed by the UN General Assembly at the end of 2018, would mobilize more direct financial support in the hosting communities to meet the specific education needs of refugees.

Beyond supplying school books and teachers, Save the Children CEO Helle Thorning-Schimdt said it is also essential to invest in psychosocial support for refugee children. A traumatized child will have a hard time learning, she said. We need to focus on those children.

When they receive proper education, refugees become leaders.

Foni Joyce Vuni is a South Sudanese refugee living in Kenya, as well as the co-chair of UNHCRs Global Youth Advisory Council. She has conducted consultation with over a thousand young refugees and their needs, for whom more formal and informal education opportunities are paramount.

When they receive proper education, refugees become leaders, she said.

Foni recently joined a delegation of refugees who participated in the South Sudan peace negotiations  something she could never have achieved without education, she said.

Education taught me I have a voice, Foni said.

International leaders expressed their commitment to strengthening collective responses to ensure that all refugee children have access to quality education.

It is the challenge of our generation, facing this refugee crisis, said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and chair of the Education Cannot Wait fund. We can win it, by acting together.
A mother holds her newborn child at the Bunj hospital, Maban refugee camp, South Sudan during a visit by HRH Sarah Zeid of Jordan.  UNHCR/Jan Mller Hansen

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today welcomes South Sudans accession to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. President Salva Kiir signed the accession instrument in Juba on Friday (September 28) after it was ratified by the Transitional National Legislative Assembly.

South Sudan has become 143rd country to accede to both the 1951 Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

The country hosts some 300,000 refugees, despite all the challenges of civil war that has displaced a large number of its own population.

This is a milestone for the worlds youngest nation as South Sudan commits to assuming more responsibility to protect refugees and asylum-seekers in the country, said Valentin Tapsoba, Director of UNHCRs Regional Bureau for Africa.

In 2016 the country also became a party to the 1969 Organisation of African Union Convention on Refugees, a regional instrument governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in the African continent.

For more information on this topic, contact:
By Heekyong Yang, Reuters | Nov. 20, 2018

Jeju Air Co Ltd, South Korea's biggest low-cost carrier, purchased 40 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes worth US$4.4 billion, the airline said on Tuesday.

The deal marks the biggest contract by a South Korean carrier in numbers of a single aircraft type model, the company said.

Reuters exclusively reported earlier this month that Jeju Air was in talks with Boeing and Airbus to buy 50 jets as the airline planned to expand its network that includes one of the world's busiest routes.

The purchase contract includes an option to buy an additional 10 aircraft, Jeju Air said.

The airline operator said it planned to take delivery of the planes between 2022 and 2026.

Six South Korean budget carriers saw the number of passengers using international routes quadruple to 20.3 million in 2017 from 4.9 million in 2013, according to South Korea's transport ministry.

"The order of Boeing 737 Max planes will help the company maintain its cost competitiveness, fuelling us to grow as a leading carrier," Jeju Air said.

The company currently operates 58 routes with 38 Boeing 737-700 planes.
Refugees and migrants rescued by Spanish Coast Guard vessel the Maria Zambrano prepare to disembark at the port of Algeciras in southern Spain.  UNHCR/Markel Redondo

Ahead of this weeks meeting of European Union (EU) Heads of State and Government, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the UN Migration Agency, are together appealing to European leaders to urgently take steps to address this years record rate of drownings on the Mediterranean Sea.



The leaders of the two organizations warn that political discourse concerning refugees and migrants, particularly those arriving by boat, has become dangerously toxic in some countries, even at a time when arrivals to Europe are declining. This narrative is stoking unnecessary fears, making it harder for countries to work together and blocking progress towards solutions.



The current tenor of the political debate  painting a picture of Europe under siege  is not only unhelpful but completely out of touch with reality, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. Arrival numbers are falling but the rate at which people are losing their lives is on the rise. We cannot forget that we are talking about human lives. Debate is welcome  scapegoating refugees and migrants for political gain is not.



Perilous irregular migration is in no ones interest. Together we must invest more in regular migration, enhanced mobility and integration to foster growth and development that benefits both sides of the Mediterranean, said IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino.



With more than 1,700 lives lost since the start of 2018, the rate at which people are drowning while trying to cross the Mediterranean has risen sharply this year. In September alone, one person died or went missing for every eight people who crossed to Europe on the Central Mediterranean, in large part due to reduced search and rescue capacity.



In addition to the need to enhance search and rescue capacity, UNHCR and IOM have proposed a workable regional arrangement that would make disembarkation and processing predictable and swift.



UNHCR and IOM urge European leaders to focus this weeks discussions on the practical solutions that are urgently needed and ensuring responsibilities are properly being shared among European States. At the same time we welcome strides taken to date by some EU Member States towards responsibility-sharing in search and rescue and post-disembarkation solutions for refugees and migrants.



UNHCR and IOM meanwhile also remind European leaders to remain focused on the implementation of the priorities already agreed earlier in the Valletta Political Declaration and Plan of Action, where States expressed profound solidarity in addressing the root causes of displacement and irregular migration, while supporting countries who receive large numbers of refugees and migrants.



Greater and more effective support from EU leaders is also needed for developing long-term structural solutions, which foster conditions in countries of origin and transit that provide opportunities for people to live in dignity.

For more information on this topic, please contact:

In Geneva:

Charlie Yaxley, UNHCR  [email protected] , +41 79 580 8702



In Brussels:

Melissa Julian, IOM - [email protected], +32 2 287 71 33/ +32 473 28 11 65

Maeve Patterson, UNHCR  [email protected], +32 470 99 54 35
Refugees Mohamed and Mariam seen outside the detention center from where they were evacuated to Niger.  UNHCR

Amidst an increasingly volatile security situation in Tripoli, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency successfully evacuated 135 people out of Libya to Niger on Tuesday night (16 October).



Many of the evacuated had been held in detention centres for several months and were suffering from the effects of malnutrition and poor health. They are currently being hosted in UNHCRs Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) until further solutions for them are found.



These evacuations are a life-changing and life-saving escape for refugees trapped in detention in Libya, said UNHCR Chief of Mission in Libya Roberto Mignone. Refugees and migrants in detention centres often suffer squalid conditions and are at risk of being sold to traffickers and smugglers. This shows what a lifeline resettlement can be.



UNHCR staff endured significant security challenges and restrictions on movement to complete the evacuation as tensions amongst rival militias increase, resulting in intermittent exchanges of fire and rockets falling on Tripoli airport.



The 135 individuals involved were the first to be evacuated from Libya since June, amidst concerns that arrivals to Niger were outpacing the speed at which people were being resettled to third countries.



The successful completion of the evacuation brings the total number of people evacuated from Libya by UNHCR to 1997 since they began in December 2017.



UNHCR is grateful to Libyan authorities for providing access to the evacuees, and welcomes the crucial support of the Government of Niger in hosting the Emergency Transit Mechanism.



On the same day, 85 refugees from Syria, Sudan and Eritrea departed on two flights from Tripoli to Timisoara, Romania, with the assistance of IOM, the UN Migration Agency. They will spend a few weeks at UNHCRs Emergency Transit Facility before flying onwards to Norway.



UNHCR welcomes the efforts of resettlement countries in coming forward with offers of places for those trapped in Libya. However, with many refugees in Niger in need of further offers of resettlement, and many more in Libya requiring urgent evacuation, UNHCR implores resettlement countries to speed their procedures for further places to become available.



People are being intercepted off the Libyan coast faster than we can evacuate them, said Mignone. We are deeply grateful for all those who have come forward with resettlement places but the simple truth is we need more evacuations, more often.





For more information on this topic, please contact:
UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie listens to Venezuelan women at the Albergue Sin Fronteras shelter in Lima, Peru.  UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo

UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie is carrying out an official visit to Peru this week. Peru is one of the countries most affected by the surge in Venezuelan refugees and migrants  the largest movement of people in Latin Americas recent history.

Following up on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' recent visit to the region, Jolie is undertaking a three-day mission to assess the humanitarian needs of Venezuelan refugees and the challenges facing Peru as a host country, and to discuss the possible regional responses to the crisis.

During her mission, the Special Envoy will meet refugees, representatives of the Government of Peru and organizations contributing to the humanitarian response. She will visit programmes providing protection and assistance to asylum-seekers, refugees and host families, and observe Perus generous response to Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

The Special Envoy focuses on major displacement crises, representing UNHCR and the High Commissioner at the diplomatic level. The Special Envoy Jolie last visited Latin America in 2012, for a mission to Ecuador, her third visit to meet then Colombian refugees in the region.
The embassy also appealed to the management of eBay Inc. to take the same measures regarding the products with "DPR" and "LPR" insignia.

The Embassy of Ukraine in the USA has urged Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to remove products with the symbols of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR") terrorist organization.

"The Embassy of Ukraine in the USA sent an official letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with a strong request to remove products emblazoned with the symbols of the self-proclaimed terrorist republic 'Donetsk People's Republic' ('DPR') from the Amazon web-site," the Embassy said on Facebook.

"Additionally, the Embassy appealed to the management of eBay Inc. to take the same measures regarding the products with the symbols of 'DPR' and 'LPR' (the self-proclaimed terrorist republic 'Luhansk People's Republic')."

"Moreover, the Ukrainian Embassy brought the aforementioned situation to the attention of the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Treasury," the embassy added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun called on fellow citizens to join a flash mob aimed at forcing Amazon, the global online trading platform, to stop selling products "emblazoned with symbols of the self-proclaimed terrorist republic "DPR.'"
Ukraine has called on the international community to increase pressure on the Russian Federation in the wake of Russian aggression.

Ukraine condemned Russia's aggressive activities in the field of non-proliferation of chemical weapons, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar.

During the Fourth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Ukrainian delegation "condemned Russia's aggressive actions on using chemical weapons in the UK and covering up the actions of those who used those weapons in Syria."

We appealed to the international community to continue pressure on Russia to stop threatening global security and violating international law through aggression against neighboring states, in particular against Ukraine, Bodnar said.

Read alsoU.S. considering "more draconian" sanctions against Russia

The diplomat also said that Ukraine supported the decision of the 23rd session of the Conference on the mechanism for identifying those responsible for chemical attacks, and expressed confidence that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will fully perform the new task.

Ukraine also expressed solidarity with the proposal of the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands to include the novichok class chemicals in the list of controlled chemicals.

On March 4, a former operative of the Russian GRU, Sergey Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, were found unconscious in the British city of Salisbury. The investigation concluded that they had been poisoned by a nerve agent novichok developed in the USSR.

In 2006, Skripal was sentenced in Russia to 13 years in prison on charges of spying for British intelligence. In 2010, he received asylum in the UK as part of a spy swap between the United States and the Russian Federation.
Following consultations with the parliamentary coalition, the prime minister decided to send the relevant submissions to the Verkhovna Rada.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman proposes that Verkhovna Rada approve Oksana Markarova as Minister of Finance and appoint Iryna Friz to the position of Minister for Veterans' Affairs.

Following consultations with the parliamentary coalition and, guided by the norms of legislation, the Prime Minister decided to send a submission to the Verkhovna Rada for the appointment of Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, who is now an acting minister. Groysman also proposes to appoint Iryna Friz to the position of Minister of Veterans' Affairs," the Cabinet press service said in a statement.

Also, as the governments press service added, the prime minister suggested that the deputies consider the previously submitted resignation application of Taras Kutovyi, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

Read alsoCabinet approves revised draft state budget for 2019

UNIAN memo. On February 27, the parliament adopted a resolution On the Appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Cabinet of Ministers on the establishment of the Ministry for Veterans' Affairs - the central executive body to ensure the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of social protection of war veterans (No. 7505). According to the decree, the government on the basis of the State Service of Ukraine for the affairs of war veterans and participants of the Anti-Terrorist operation was to establish the Ministry for Veterans' Affairs.

On March 23, the government said they plan to create the new ministry within a month.

September 6, President Petro Poroshenko expressed hope that in the near future, the government and the Verkhovna Rada will decide on the establishment of the Ministry for Veterans' Affairs.
Maritime training deployments are set to deepen UK-Ukraine defense partnership.

The UK and Ukraine will continue to strengthen their defense partnership in the face of intensifying threats and aggression, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson reaffirmed today as he met Ukraine's Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak in London.

In the meeting, Gavin Williamson announced a range of forthcoming deployments and exercises that will see the two countries Armed Forces continue to work together in defense of the international rules-based order, according to the report on the British government website.

Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said: "As long as Ukraine faces Russian hostilities, it will find a steadfast partner in the United Kingdom. By continuing to work together, whether through training programmes or military exercises, we help Ukraine to stand up for our shared values."

"Those values of freedom and democracy cannot be traded. I have witnessed on the frontline the effects of the conflict in the East and this has completely reinforced my support for Ukraines sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity," the defense secretary said.

In turn, Stepan Poltorak praised the UK support for Ukraine's Armed Forces for the last four years in the face of Russian aggression.

As we fight to defend our territory, the offer of extended support from the UK Armed Forces is vitally important and gratefully received," Poltorak stated.

Read alsoUK intel ex-operative reveals Russia's cunning tactics in hybrid war against Ukraine

The UK Defense Secretary announced at the meeting that HMS Echo would deploy to the Black Sea in 2019 to demonstrate the UKs support to ensuring freedom of navigation in the region.

It was also confirmed that, in January and February next year, training teams  made up of personnel from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and the Army  will deploy to Ukraine as part of the extension to the UKs military training operation announced by Gavin Williamson on his visit to the country in September.

The UK and Ukrainian Armed Forces will gain another opportunity to develop capability and share expertise when UK contributes to the U.S.-Ukrainian led Exercise Sea Breeze next year.

While visiting Ukraine in September, where he visited the east of the country to see first-hand the effects of the ongoing conflict, the British Defense Secretary announced that the UK would be extending its military training programme, delivered through Operation Orbital, until 2020.

Since the start of 2015, British personnel have trained over 9,500 of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The punishment may range from a fine to an actual imprisonment.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine proposes to introduce criminal liability for defamation in the media and on the internet.

The corresponding draft law on amending the Criminal and Criminal Procedural Codes of Ukraine on establishing liability for libel was registered in the Parliament on November 20.

The authors of the bill were Peoples Deputies Mykola Palamarchuk, Artur Palatny, and Oleh Velikin (BPP faction).

In particular, the Criminal Code proposes to introduce an article on defamation: deliberately spreading false information discrediting the honor and dignity of another person or undermine their business reputation shall be punished with a fine in the amount of 200 to 500 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens or correctional labor for up to one year, or restriction of freedom for up to two years.

Among other things, it is about actions committed by public spreading of defamation, including in mass media or on the internet.

Read alsoMEPs, experts urge Facebook to open office in Kyiv to counter disinformation during Ukraine election campaign

At the same time, it is proposed that, if slander is related to allegations of a serious or especially serious crimes, it is necessary to punish those found guilty with "restriction of freedom for a term of two to five years or imprisonment for a term of up to three years with the deprivation of the right to occupy certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to three years or without it."

The draft law was submitted to the committee on legislative support of law enforcement.

The explanatory note to the bill states that recently in Ukraine, the freedom of speech "is being increasingly confused with permissiveness to spread frankly unverified or completely false facts."

The authors of the bill declare that criminal liability for defamation is provided for in a number of countries, and in particular in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, and other states.

In addition, they note that "one of the latest cases of spreading false information is the case of accusations by some mass media against the people's deputy of Ukraine about involvement in the commission of a particularly serious crime (attack on public activist Kateryna Handziuk)."

Read alsoUkraine's parliament sets up commission to probe into attacks on Handziuk, other activists

As UNIAN reported earlier, ex-assistant to the people's deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Mykola Palamarchuk, Ihor Pavlovsky, was taken into custody without bail in the case of the murder of an activist Kateryna Handziuk.

Palamarchuk brands as nonsense the accusations regarding his possible complicity in the murder.

UNIAN memo. On January 16, 2014, in the Verkhovna Rada, people's deputies from the factions of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine adopted 11 laws and a resolution. These documents were called "dictatorial laws of January 16".

In particular, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law authored by pro-Yanukovych deputies Vadym Kolesnichenko and Volodymyr Oliynyk On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine On the Judicial System and Status of Judges and procedural laws regarding additional measures to protect the safety of citizens, which also criminalized libel and also included a number of other rules that restrict the rights and freedoms of citizens.

The law targeted dissemination of inaccurate information, discrediting the honor and dignity of another person, imposing on violators a fine of up to UAH 850.

For defamation in the media or on the internet, a fine was introduced of up to UAH 5,100 or community work for up to 240 hours, or correctional labor for up to 1 year. For libel with the allegations of committing a serious crime, it was possible to be sentenced to correctional work or restriction of freedom for up to 2 years. The adoption in the manual mode of "dictatorial laws" during the Revolution of Dignity boosted the wave of public outrage.

On January 28, the Verkhovna Rada abolished nine out of 11 "dictatorial laws of January 16." Among the canceled documents was the law on criminal liability for defamation.
Medvedchuk flew "to report to the Kremlin chief, agree on further actions on the eve of the election cycle in Ukraine, and get specific instructions," the report says.

On Tuesday came media reports that Viktor Medvedchuk flew to Sochi, where at the same time Russian President Vladimir Putin was also visiting at the time.

Among other things, Putin flew to Sochi to "hold a meeting on military issues." His crony Medvedchuk arrived there to discuss the latest political vicissitudes and reshuffles among the pro-Russian forces in the Ukrainian political elite, writes the Information Resistance OSINT group.

As reported earlier, prominent ex-members of the pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions Yuriy Boyko and Sergei Levochkin were excluded from the Opposition Bloc. A little earlier, the so-called Opposition Platform - For Life was created, which is led by Yuriy Boyko and Vadym Rabinovych. Later, there were statements of intent to organize the deputies group of the same name in parliament, which would include the Opposition Bloc's deputies. Thus, the pro-Russian Opposition bloc, having split, will finally sink into oblivion as a political force.

Medvedchuk flew off to Sochi "to report to the Kremlin chief, agree on further actions on the eve of the election cycle in Ukraine, and get specific instructions," the report says.

According to the IR sources, Medvedchuk flew to the Russian Federation via the territory of Belarus. He used his private jet Dassault Falcon 900 EX, reg. No. P4-GEM. Having arrived on Nov 20, Mevedchuk flew back on the night of Nov 21.

"It is clear that Putin will bid on a pro-Russian candidate or several candidates for the presidency. Perhaps, not obviously a pro-Russian one, but the one veiled behind the screen of 'patriotism' and 'striving for NATO.' He also needs political forces in parliament, where they will be no less handy to the Kremlin," the report says.

Read alsoMedvedchuk not Putin's agent but "direct representative" in Ukraine  Ex-PM

The stake will be placed on the Opposition Platform - For Life, the participants of which ambitiously declare that after the parliamentary elections it will become the largest faction. In addition, it is one of the founders of the platform, Yuriy Boyko, who will become the main presidential candidate "from the South-East of Ukraine" and will, according to the idea of the puppeteer, have to mobilize the pro-Russian electorate in this part of the state.

This platform is aimed at a waging war with those in power, one of its founders, Vadym Rabinovych, expressively declares.

But it was Putin's friend Viktor Medvedchuk who flew to meet with the Russian president as he is believed to be the key figure in the political force.

It is he who, according to the media, is supervising in Moscow's interests the activities in the new force. At the direction of the Kremlin, in all decisions, the last say should always be Medvedchuk's, according to the report.

The fate of another fragment of the Opposition Bloc under the leadership of Vilkul and his participation in the election campaign must also be decided on shortly.

Read alsoExpert elaborates on Kremlin strategy for Ukraine's election period

"Medvedchuks visit to Putin coincided with the fifth anniversary of the start of the Revolution of Dignity. In November 2013, the fate of Ukraine has changed dramatically. Today, five years later, the politicians of the times of Yanukovych are preparing for revenge, and the Kremlin chief will help them in this. On November 21, 2013, students went to Maidan in Kyiv to protest against the change of the European vector in favor of the pro-Russian one. On November 20, 2018, Medvedchuk flew to Sochi to draw up an action plan so that the people led by Moscow came to power in Ukraine," the IR reports.

Another "coincidence" is that Medvedchuk took a trip to Sochi, while a day before Putin was having a meeting on "military issues" there. The propagandists didnt say much about the event but, taking into account Medvedchuk's urgent trip, the question of Ukraine was discussed unequivocally - in the presence of the commander-in-chief of the aggressor state and his security officials.

"Medvedchuk's Sochi visit once again demonstrates that Putins crony flew to report on the work already done in the context of the Russian strategy to intervene in the Ukrainian elections, report to the participants in the event on the operational environment in Ukraine, and receive instructions for further action. There is no doubt that Medvedchuk will immediately implement the recommendations received," the authors conclude.
The envoy says, two attempts of such attacks have been recorded recently on him and the embassy.

Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA Valeriy Chaly has reported about two attempts at information attacks on him and on the Embassy.

"The chronicle of the competition on the American information front over the recent days: two attempts at attacks on me and the Embassy of Ukraine in the United States using the same fraudulent schemes. All failed," Chaly wrote on Facebook.

At the same time, the ambassador recalled that two more states in the U.S. recognized the Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine as genocide.

Read alsoU.S. ready to boost arms supplies to Ukraine naval, air forces, envoy says

"Outcome: 2:0 in favor of Ukraine. 'The Russian World' throwing money for nothing. Well, well, let them spend more resources here and they will have less money for mercenaries and weapons they use to kill our people," he added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on November 9, Chaly declared that the systematic use of elements of the information war against Ukraine in the U.S. continues. As an example, unidentified provocateurs called politicians on his behalf. As Chaly noted, the fake Ukrainian ambassador's attempt to reach the mayor of San Francisco was professionally exposed, but his conversation with the mayor of Sebastopol (Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California) did take place.
The "agent" was allegedly plotting an act of sabotage on the day of the so-called "elections" in the terrorists' stronghold of "DPR."

The Security Service of Ukraine has denounced as fake the report of Russian-controlled militants in Donbas about the alleged detention of an SBU agent on the day the pseudo-elections were held in Donbas, organized by the Russian Federation on Nov 11.

"This is another fake story," SBU press secretary Olena Hitlyanska said in a comment to UNIAN.

Read alsoRussian FSB recruits high profile Ukrainian businessman to create political party  SBU

As UNIAN reported earlier, the "DPR" terrorist group claimed they had arrested an SBU agent who had allegedly been plotting an act of sabotage on Nov 11, the day of the so-called elections.

According to a militant Mikhail Popov, on November 11, the SBU agent was detained in the back room of one of the so-called polling stations as he was handing over an impovised explosive device to a member of the polling station commission. The latter was allegedly supposed to plant the device in a container with "bulletins." Militants say that, according to the plot, the IED was to set off in the office of the so-called "central election commission."
According to Horbatiuk, 13 people are in custody in cases that are under investigation or have been sent to court.

Head of the Special Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of Ukraine Serhiy Horbatiuk says most of 4,700 crimes against Maidan activists, which are investigated by law enforcement agencies, have been solved already.

"As of today, most of those 4,700 crimes have been solved, i.e. the circumstances of these crimes have been established. In the most successful cases, we have crime committers, organizers, instigators of the crime and accomplices identified," he said at a briefing in Kyiv, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoEuromaidan's anniversary: The Revolution of Dignity in flashback (Photo, video)

"To date, about 442 persons have been indicted, 298 of them received indictment from PGO investigators; indictments against 279 persons, including 158 indicted by PGO investigators, have been sent to court," he said.

According to Horbatiuk, 13 people are in custody in cases that are being investigated or have been sent to court. "Their number could have been much higher, but there are numerous cases when preventive measures have been changed, even for persons suspected of having committed three murders and 33 attempted murders," he said.

"Since the previous report in February until now, i.e. for the past year, 42 people were indicted, including five prosecutors, seven judges, 24 law enforcement officers, including one investigator, and five 'titushki' [hired thugs]," Horbatiuk said.

According to the prosecutor, 16 indictments against 34 persons have been sent to court this year. The courts have brought in four verdicts of guilty, including imprisonment in three cases.

On November 21, Ukraine marks the fifth anniversary of Euromaidan events when pro-European activists staged rallies in Kyiv against the then President Viktor Yanukovych's regime.
The police say they will take enforcement measures if protesters break the law.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said law enforcement agencies have decided to unblock all highways and roads across Ukraine where traffic has been halted because of protests of the so-called Euroblachers, or nominal owners of cars with foreign registration brought into Ukrainian customs territory.

"There cannot be any tolerant attitude to those drivers any longer after their right to protest has translated into limitations on other people's rights. It has been decided to unblock all the highways blocked by the protesters. Of course, the police will act within the law, but in case of violations of the law, they will be forced to take enforcement measures," Avakov said, according to the Interior Ministry's media liaison office.

Read alsoOwners of imported cars with foreign registration block Kyiv-Chop highway in Lviv region

Mass rallies of the "owners" of cars with foreign registration plates are under way in a number of regions in Ukraine, the ministry said. According to preliminary calculations, as of the morning, the total number of participants in the rallies exceeded 1,000 people.

"The National Police of Ukraine note that every citizen has the right to peaceful protest. But the task of the National Police is not only to ensure the rights of participants in such rallies, but also to prevent violations of the constitutional rights of other citizens. In particular, their right to free movement. As of today, the police have already opened and are investigating five criminal proceedings on the fact of traffic blocking," the report says.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian nominal "owners" of cars with foreign registration plates, also known as "Evrobliakhery," or "Euroblachers" (from Polish "blacha" meaning a "plate") blocked traffic in the center of Kyiv on November 20 as part of a new large-scale protest campaign. Euroblachers are buyers of cars with foreign number plates brought into Ukrainian territory mainly from the European Union on temporary importation or transit terms. They are not actual owners and drive their cars by proxy. They demand that recently passed bills on excise tax on passenger cars be amended along with a reduction in customs clearance costs for Ukrainians who have bought their cars abroad.

The public movement behind the protest campaign, NGO Auto Euro Sila, announced its indefinite "act of civil disobedience" in 46 cities and towns of Ukraine. In particular, the Kyiv-Chop highway in Lviv region was blocked on November 20.
The purpose of the bill is to rename Dnipropetrovsk region to prevent further use of the symbols of the communist totalitarian regime in the name of the region.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has submitted a bill on amending Article 133 of the Constitution of Ukraine (regarding the renaming of Dnipropetrovsk region) for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada.

"Decommunization should be completed. There cannot be a place for [the name of Soviet leader Grigory] Petrovsky on the map of Ukraine. Not only is he one of the leaders of the communist dictatorship, but also a co-organizer and executor of the Holodomor, an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. The procedure for changing the region's name implies amendments to the Constitution. The analysis shows that more than three hundred lawmakers will vote for Dnipro region. We don't need publicity, we need the result  successful decommunization. Dnipropetrovsk region will become Dniprovsk, and Petrovsky will be past history. Guided by this logic, I have submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada, initiating that Dnipropetrovsk region could be renamed Dniprovsk region," according to the president's press service.

Read alsoDnipropetrovsk renamed Dnipro

The explanatory note to the draft law states that the Law of Ukraine "On the conviction of the Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and the prohibition of promotion of their symbols" stipulates that the symbols of the communist totalitarian regime include, in particular, the names of the regions using the names or pseudonyms of persons who held senior positions in the Communist Party, the supreme bodies of power and administration of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR. According to this Law, the production, distribution and public use of the symbols of the communist totalitarian regime throughout the territory of Ukraine are prohibited.

The name of Dnipropetrovsk [Dnipro-Petrovsk] region contains a reference to Grigory Petrovsky (1878-1958), a Bolshevik and Soviet figure, leader of the 1917 revolutionary movement, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, one of the organizers of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 and a leading figure in the totalitarian communist regime in Ukraine. Therefore, it belongs to the symbols of the communist totalitarian regime, the use of which is prohibited in Ukraine.

The purpose of the bill is to rename Dnipropetrovsk region to prevent further use of the symbols of the communist totalitarian regime in the name of the region.

Dnipropetrovsk region took its name after the city of Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro). The city was named Dnipropetrovsk in 1926 as a compound word after the Dnipro River and Grigory Petrovsky's surname. Dnipropetrovsk's previous names were originally Ekaterinoslav (Katerynoslav in Ukrainian) in 17761782, re-established in 17831797, Novorossiysk in 17971802, Sicheslav in 1918 (proposed by the Central Council of Ukraine, but it was never officially fulfilled). Its other unofficial names were Krasnodneprovsk (in 1924), Dneproslav (during WWII occupation), and its current name is Dnipro. The city, which was founded over 240 years ago, was originally envisioned as the Russian Empire's third capital city, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
There have been no Ukrainian army casualties in the past day.

Russian-led forces suffered losses in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, in the past day.

"According to intelligence reports, four members of the Russian occupation forces were eliminated and another four were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on November 21, 2018.

Read alsoUkraine's air defense unit shoots down Russian Orlan-10 drone in Donbas (Photo)

In total, the Russian-led forces mounted six attacks on Ukrainian troops in Donbas in the last 24 hours.

They opened aimed fire from grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the defenders of the villages of Krymske, Pisky, Verkhniotoretske, Vodiane, and Lebedynske.

The enemy also employed 120mm mortars twice to shell the Ukrainian positions near Vodiane, which is in the Mariupol sector.

No casualties among Ukrainian troops have been reported in the past day, the JFO press center said.

"Since Wednesday midnight, the enemy has not attacked the Ukrainian positions yet," it said.
The parties also discussed security issues for members of the OSCE SMM to Ukraine.

Newly appointed Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine Mark Etherington on November 20 visited Donbas and met with the command of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO).

"Acting Commander of the JFO Major General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi met with Etherington," the JFO's press center wrote on Facebook.

Read alsoOSCE spots amassing of heavy weapons in occupied Donbas

During the conversation, Zaluzhnyi briefed the OSCE official on the security situation in Donbas.

"The parties also discussed security issues for members of the OSCE SMM. In particular, the acting commander of the JFO noted the Ukrainian side, within its authority, will continue to assist the Mission in creating proper conditions for fulfilling their duties," the JFO HQ said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Mark Etherington from the United Kingdom on November 1 re-joined the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine as Deputy Chief Monitor after Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM to Ukraine Alexander Hug's term had expired.
In particular, 43 deaths have been reported as well as 173 injuries.

Monitors from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine confirmed in their latest status report on Donbas that a total of 216 civilian casualties had been confirmed since the beginning of this year.

"Between 29 October and 11 November, the SMM confirmed that one civilian was killed and one was injured (and additionally confirmed that one was killed and one injured prior to the reporting period). This brings the total number of civilian casualties since 1 January to 216 (43 deaths and 173 injuries)," the report reads.

Read alsoNew OSCE chief monitor visits Donbas, meets with Ukraine army command (Photo)

It is also noted that in the reporting period, the Mission "experienced 77 restrictions to its freedom of movement, including 54 instances in areas not controlled by the Government, with many occurring in areas close to the border with the Russian Federation."
Known as FAN, the St. Petersburg-based company appeared in a federal criminal complaint filed last month in Virginia that charged its accountant in connection with the 2016 election campaign meddling.

A Russian-owned company linked to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election has sued Facebook, after the social-media company barred it from its network.

The company, called the Federal Agency of News LLC, filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in California on November 20, arguing it is a legitimate news outlet and its profile should be restored, RFE/RL wrote.

Known as FAN, the St. Petersburg-based company appeared in a federal criminal complaint filed last month in Virginia that charged its accountant in connection with the 2016 election campaign meddling.

Read alsoFacebook boots 115 accounts on eve of U.S. election after tip  media

Facebook deleted FAN's accounts in April in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency. Mueller charged the agency, known informally as the "Russian troll factory," had used U.S. social media to spread misinformation and sow discord in 2016.

Facebook removed more than 270 Russian-language accounts and pages, including FAN's accounts, but the lawsuit asserts those accounts were improperly removed.

"FAN is an independent, authentic, and legitimate news agency which publishes reports that are relevant and of interest to the general public," the company said in the lawsuit.

Facebook had no immediate comment on the suit.

The company's sole shareholder is listed as Yevgeny Zubarev.

In their October criminal complaint, federal prosecutors in Virginia said Elena Khusyaynova was the chief accountant running an operation called Project Lakhta that was funded by a Kremlin-connected oligarch.

FAN said it had employed Khusyaynova, but said her role at the company was limited to day-to-day bookkeeping, and that she had no editorial control.
Even if Moscow's preferred candidates cannot win the presidential race, it will seek to influence the parliamentary elections.

As Ukraine's 2019 elections approach, Moscow's interests have come into greater focus. Despite the pro-European momentum delivered by the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, parties more closely aligned with Moscow's interests may see a more realistic path to power than is widely assumed.

No one presidential candidate enjoys overwhelming support. There exists an enormous middle ground, tinged with dissatisfaction with elected officials, economic anxiety, and war-weariness. Should the presidential runoff pit an establishment, nominally pro-Western politician against a candidate of the political opposition, those who supported candidates who were eliminated in the first round may find resonance in a message of normalization of relations with Russia, an end to violence in Donbas, and economic populism espoused by the inheritors of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, according to an article by Markian Kuzmowycz for the Atlantic Council.

Read alsoPutin's people to face failure at Ukraine elections  expert

The Opposition Bloc and Za Zhyttia parties want to normalize relations with Russia and end the war in Donbas by non-military means. Together they enjoy 12.2 percent. The Boyko faction of the Opposition Bloc and Rabinovich's Za Zhyttia party recently announced that they will create a united electoral platform. Vast media support, fragmentation of the pro-Western camp, and dissatisfaction with the status quo means a united candidate could have a real shot at the second round. This is despite the fact that Ukraine's electorate has shrunk by 16 percent percent with the loss of regions which have been traditional opposition strongholds.

Earlier this year, Viktor Medvedchuk, who leads one of the main Opposition Bloc factions, also joined Vadim Rabinovich's Za Zhyttia party. Za Zhyttia says it will focus on unconditional peace and a Switzerland-style neutrality for Ukraine. Medvedchuk's impact on the opposition-at-large is likely to be bolstered by his strong media holdings, which reportedly include 112, Zik, and NewsOne, but he's also regarded by many Ukrainians as a politically toxic figure who doesn't have the country's interests in mind. Notably, the powerful wing of the Opposition Bloc led by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's wealthiest oligarch, has not joined the consolidated Opposition Bloc. It remains to be seen how, or if, his considerable resources will be deployed for next year's elections, the author said.

Attempts at misinforming the electorate should also be expected. The attitude toward the European Union varies considerably across the country, and on NATO, neutral or negative feelings outweigh positive opinions, with support for Euroatlantic integration dropping sharply in the south and in the east over the last year. The ambivalence toward western institutions could lend some support to the "Swiss" model for Ukraine that has been envisioned by Rabinovich and others in the pro-Russia camp.

Neutrality remains a resonant idea in Ukraine, with the share of its supporters growing from 23 percent in 2015 to 35 percent in 2018. Despite the fact that support of NATO at 41-42 percent is unprecedented in Ukraine's history, the large number of its opponents and those who are neutral may reflect a failure of Kyiv's leadership to capitalize on changing sentiments post-Maidan and represents a soft power victory for Moscow.

Read alsoU.S. to help Ukraine fight Russian meddling in 2019 elections

"It's undoubtedly true that Ukrainians opinions of Russia have deteriorated considerably since pre-Maidan days, but 48 percent still have a 'positive' or 'very positive' opinion of Russia. This figure is rising and outweighs 'negative' or 'very negative' sentiments, which hold 32 percent support across Ukraine. Conventional wisdom may suggest this opinion is limited to the south and east, but in fact 47 percent of central Ukrainians hold generally positive feelings toward Russia," reads the report.

War in Donbas is the most important issue facing Ukraine in the 2019 elections. President Poroshenko, or any other candidate, has few good options for Donbas. Both military escalation or perceived capitulation to Moscow carry political consequences, while the status quo also provides little to rally behind politically.

Ukrainians are widely pessimistic about their future, and such sentiments are strongest in country's south and east. A national poll reveals that the eight most pessimistic cities are in the east and south, and that economic factors are the most important voting issue for these region as well. There is also notably a high correlation between these cities and higher levels of support for the Eurasian Economic Union. Normalizing relations with Russia may be packaged to voters as a path toward regional economic revitalization. It's important to note that the proportion of undecided voters is noticeably higher in the south and east.

Dissatisfaction with political leaders is widespread. Not a single major politician or presidential candidate received over 28 percent "positive" rating, and their "negative" or "antiratings" are high. They ranged from 68 percent negative for Yulia Tymoshenko, to 75 percent negative for Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, and 79 percent negative for President Petro Poroshenko. These "antiratings" may become a handicap for pro-Western candidates in the run-off.

Even if Moscow's preferred candidates cannot win the presidential race, it will seek to influence the parliamentary elections. As its surrogates, with wide media reach, are given positions within the Rada, Moscow will continue to be able to shape some Ukrainian policy. Meanwhile, the war in Donbas sputters onward, and despite Moscow's involvement, some blame not only Russia but the Ukrainian political class too, threatening not only the incumbency, but the pro-Western movement writ large.
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MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Bulgaria considers the TurkStream gas pipeline as well as other similar projects extremely important for all international actors and is open to talks on becoming part of it, Bulgarian Ambassador to Moscow Atanas Krastin told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"There is a lot of work ahead to outline how this project will develop. Bulgaria is, of course, open for these negotiations, because the construction of such large-scale projects is important for all the countries," Krastin said, asked about Bulgaria's desire to join the project.

The TurkStream project envisages the construction of a gas pipeline comprising two legs, each with the capacity to deliver 15.

7 billion cubic meters (554 billion cubic feet) of gas per year.

The first leg is set to bring gas across the Black Sea directly to Turkey, while the other will run across Turkey to its western border, transporting natural gas to countries in the south and southeast of Europe.

Moscow joined TurkStream after work on the South Stream gas pipeline, which was set to span across Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary, was halted due to EU-Russian differences in late 2014.
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BAGHDAD (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Iraq and Russia agreed on Wednesday to coordinate actions in the oil-and-gas sector, the Iraqi Finance Ministry said in a statement obtained by Sputnik.

According to the statement, Iraqi Finance Minister Fuad Hussein met with the Russian delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, in Baghdad earlier in the day.

"The parties agreed on high-level coordination between Baghdad and Moscow in the oil-and- gas sector," the statement said.

According to the statement, Hussein noted that the Iraqi government program stipulates the transition of the country from a gas importing country to a gas exporter.

"The minister thanked the Russian companies operating in Iraq for their role and efforts, stressing Baghdad's readiness to help them overcome difficulties, if they arise," the statement said.
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MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Oil exporting countries, as well as consumer states, including Russia, are closely watching the volatility of oil prices, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

"You are asking a very tricky question to which no one will answer directly. The price of oil is a volatile substance, and everyone is watching this volatility closely, both exporting and consumer countries ... We are monitoring closely," he said, answering a question whether Russia believed it was time to announce a reduction in oil production due to lower prices.

The price of Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, has fallen more than a quarter off a four-year high of $86.74 per barrel reached on October 3. It has plummeted to a 50-week low of $61.71 on Tuesday, but has since rebounded to trade at $63.55 at 11.34 GMT Wednesday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and several non-OPEC oil producers, including Russia, reached a deal in Vienna in 2016, agreeing to cut oil output by a total of 1.

8 million barrels per day in an effort to stabilize global oil prices. Non-OPEC states pledged to jointly reduce oil output by 558,000 barrels per day. The agreement, which came into effect in 2017, has been extended twice since then and is expected to remain in force until the end of 2018.

On November 11, a meeting of the OPEC and non-OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee was held in Abu Dhabi. The participants examined a report compiled by the OPEC secretariat that called for a decrease in the current level of oil production. While it also acknowledged the possible threat of excess oil production in 2019, it did not recommend cutting production, favoring continued observation of the oil market instead.
BEIJING (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Certain Chinese commercial banks still interpret sanctions introduced by third states against Russia too broadly, the head of the Russian Central Bank's department in China, Vladimir Danilov, said on Wednesday.

"There is a range of problems related to the fact that a number of Chinese commercial banks interpret the sanctions introduced against Russia too broadly," Danilov said at the Investment and Financial Capacities at the Russian Capital Market Forum.

He specified that the Russian Central Bank was engaged in regular related discussions with the People's Bank of China.

"The events that happened literally two or three days ago show that this problem exists. Two days ago we were solving this problem. The Russian [Central] Bank has sent a related explanation to the People's Bank of China. The People's Bank of China, in its turn, .... has communicated these explanations to its commercial banks," Danilov added.
ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 21st Nov, 2018) The Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities at the Abu Dhabi City Municipality has announced has announced the launch of its "Renew Farm Licence" online hub, as part of its digital transformation of municipal services.

The technology committee at the Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities is progressing ahead with the digital with the aim of achieving 100 percent transformation of all municipal services by the end of this year.

Salim Rashid Al Kutbi, Head of Rural Farms Streamlining Committee said that citizens can now renew their licences, especially of rural farms, without visiting the municipal office.

"Clients can just log on to the Smart Hub of the department and obtain all their needs in a hassle-free manner. The hub also provides citizens with a full database about the conditions of using rural farms and obtaining permits in this regard," he explained.

Ahmed Abdul Samad Al Hamadi, Director of IT Planning at the Abu Dhabi City Municipality, said that all community members interested in availing digital services are required to register just once in the unified Smart Pass.

The department continues to make regular progress in the digital transformation of its services with over 84.7 percent of its services currently digitised, Al Hamadi added.
BEIJING, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :Pakistan Ambassador to China, Masood Khalid has said that agricultural collaborations between China and Pakistan would enhance the overall productivity and improve quality of life in Pakistan.

He made these remarks while addressing the opening ceremony of the third China-Pakistan Young Workers' Seminar Camp hosted by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) held here.

The annual event aims to bring together junior- to mid-career individuals from Pakistan's public and private sector, drawn from all parts of the country.

The Camp provides a platform for deepening understanding of China's development model and strengthening bilateral cooperation at the working levels.

The Ambassador noted that mechanisms such as the Young Workers' Seminar Camp are instrumental in further promoting friendly ties between the peoples of Pakistan and China.

He remarked that the recent visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to China had yielded fruitful outcomes in all areas.

Progress in socioeconomic development cooperation, industrial capacity, collaboration in the SME sector, and agricultural collaborations would enhance overall productivity and improve quality of life in Pakistan.

Addressing the 37 young workers comprising the Pakistan delegation, the Ambassador encouraged them to forge "a shared network of the people in both countries, who will be in the front lines of our generational endeavour to carry forward the close ties between the two nations." "Only by working tirelessly and together we can hope to actualize the full potential of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). I hope you will learn from our Chinese friends, and emulate their discipline and dedication to work, which has been the secret behind China's stellar progress," the Ambassador said.

Vice Chairman ACFTU, Jiang Guangping and senior officials of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (IDCPC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the China Workers' Centre for International Exchange also addressed the event.
UNITED NATIONS, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :Reaffirming its firm opposition to any expansion of permanent seats on UN Security Council (UNSC), Pakistan has told the General Assembly that the only common ground that exists is to add more elected, non-permanent members to the 15-member body.

"Evidently, while there is consensus on expansion in the non-permanent category, fundamental questions persist on the very need or desirability of expansion in the permanent category," Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said, while participating in the annual review of the ongoing Security Council reform process aimed at making it more effective, representative and transparent.

"If progress is indeed to be made, we must debunk the fallacy that expansion in the permanent category is intrinsic to reform of the Security Council," the Pakistani envoy said.

Work and effectiveness of the Council was not a function of its composition, much less of its permanent members, she added.

Full-scale negotiations to restructure the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009. Despite a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.

Known as the "Group of Four"  India, Brazil, Germany and Japan  have shown no flexibility in their campaign to expand the Security Council by 10 seats, with 6 additional permanent and four non-permanent members.

On the other hand, the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group say that additional permanent members will not make the Security Council more effective and also undermine the fundamental principle of democracy that is based on periodic elections.

The Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and 10 non-permanent members.

In her remarks, Ambassador Lodhi said that addition in permanent membership of the Council would not make it more effective.

"New permanency is seen as nothing but an imitation of old permanency, for it seeks to address inherent dysfunctionalities of the Council stemming from permanent membership and the veto, by reinforcing instead of reforming them," the Pakistani envoy told the 193-member Assembly.

In addition, she added, the democratic and representative nature of the reform process was also undermined. Not only more permanent members would deny the larger membership their democratic right to hold Council members to account, in an environment where nearly a third of the membership have never served on the Council, an expansion in the permanent category at the cost of non-permanent members would diminish prospects for many smaller states in particular, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), to ever be elected to the Council.

"Those who base their claim for permanent seats on the imperative to address contemporary realities in fact offer fixed solutions to transient situations," Ambassador Lodhi said.

The question of veto, she said, was another byproduct of permanence. "If the Council cannot reconcile the interests of its five permanent members, how will it cope with the interest of a bigger membership and still be effective," she asked.

On their part, Ambassador Lodhi said that non-permanent members have traditionally championed greater inclusiveness and transparency in the work of the Council, and in this category, the Council's deficit of representation could also be addressed.

"A solution that offers more seats to all the regions provides better opportunity for all member states, including cross-regional and sub-regional groups to serve on the Council," the Pakistani envoy said. That was why the UfC had proposed a significant increase in the number of elected seats for all regional groupings, especially Africa.

"It also sets into perspective our firm opposition to creation of new permanent seats, for fresh chains of inherited privilege would invariably threaten, not strengthen, norms of democracy, accountability and transparency in the Council." What was required now to move this process forward is to identify the convergences, and to build on them, she said. "Finding common ground requires flexibility and compromise by all sides." "Unless we are willing to go that extra mile, progress will remain elusive," the Pakistani envoy said.

The UfC had not only lived by these ideals but will continue to push for a comprehensive Security Council reform, taking into account the interests of all states, as anything less would be regression, not reform.

"After all, the burden of a large, unwieldy and inefficient Council confounded by an enlarged clique is an outcome that the international community neither seeks nor is it prepared to support," Ambassador Lodhi added.
RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :Eid Milad-un-Nabi (SAW) was celebrated here on Wednesday with religious zeal and fervor amid tight security arrangements as over 4000 police personnel were deployed in Rawalpindi district.

All the roads, streets and main buildings in the city and cantt areas were decorated beautifully with colourful lights and buntings. A number of programmes were chalked out to celebrate the birth of Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) with great reverence and devotion.

Different Naat committees organized Naat competitions to celebrate Eid Milad.

Like every year, the government and religious organizations arranged a number of activities to celebrate the annual event. As a tradition, Milad-un-Nabi processions were held in all areas of the town. Around 350 Eid Milad-un-Nabi processions were taken out from different parts of the city. The main procession of Milad-un-Nabi started in the morning from Jamia Masjid road which passed through its traditional route, Jamia Masjid Road, Bani Chowk, Kohati Bazar, Murree road, Committee Chowk, Iqbal road, Fowara Chowk, Raja Bazaar and other areas. Federal Minister for Railways, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, MNA Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Pir Muhammad Naqeeb ur Rehman, Sahibzada Hasan Haseen ur Rehman, Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal Rizvi, Sheikh Azam Khursheed and others were present at the markazi stage set up near Jamia Masjid Hanfia and offered special prayers for the peace, progress and prosperity of the country.

Another big procession of Rawalpindi Cantt area started from Chungi no 22 and after passing through its traditional route culminated at the starting point.

Besides, big processions were also taken out from Sihala, Gorakh Pure, Adiala Road, Pirwadhai, Fauji Colony, Tench Bhatta, Dhamiyal, People's Colony, Tipu Road, Gulzar-e-Quaid, Sadiqabad, Muslim Town, Kuri Road, Shakriyal, Khanna Dak, Golra Sharif, Mehrabad, Chur, Allahabad, Khayaban-e-Sir Syed, Waris Khan, Banni, Rawat, Soan, Dhoke Juma, Dhoke Kalhoor, Bakra Mandi, Baraf Khana and Morgah. Similarly, dozens of big and small processions appeared from other localities of Rawalpindi.

Wagons, Pick-ups, motorcycles, cycles, rickshaws and cars were included in the processions while thousands of faithful were on foots (pedestrians) to show love with Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH).

The district government had allowed 65 registered 'sabeels' at different points that were arranged under the supervision of police and the City Peace Committee (CPC) for the participants of the processions.

All the routes of the processions of Eid Milad-un-Nabi had been cleaned while no person was allowed to stand on rooftops of the buildings along the routes. Drum beating and music was banned. The water tankers of WASA and ambulances of Rescue-1122 equipped with necessary medicines, doctors and paramedical staff, police officials, volunteers of civil defence accompanied the processions.

As many as 500 close circuit television cameras were installed on the routes while the traffic was closed on the routes of central procession. All the streets were barricaded to prevent motorcyclists from entering the processions.

City Police Officer (CPO) Rawalpindi Abbas Ahsan had warned all the police officials deployed for security of Eid Milad-un-Nabi processions that they should perform their duties with dedication and commitment failing which they would face strict disciplinary action.

As per previous tradition, prizes were distributed to the winners of competitions of Naat, Qirat and decorators of the best streets and stage.

All kinds of streets, roads and buildings were decorated with colourful lights and banners. A number of stalls were set up in many streets across the town where the sale of badges, stickers and flags was going on.

Strict security measures were taken to maintain law and order on the day by the city district government. A control room was set up by the city district government for the surveillance of processions and for reviewing security arrangements.

Religious scholars and Ulema in their special sermons highlighted the significance of the occasion and asked the people to follow the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (SAW) to achieve success in this life as well as the life hereafter. Special prayers for the peace, progress, prosperity of the nation and freedom of occupied Kashmir, Palestine and other Muslim occupied lands were also offered. Children and youth erected the clay replica of desert and mountains of the Arab peninsula where the divine message first dawned on the Prophet (SAW).

The hospitals were on red alert on 12 Rabi-ul-Awwal while teaching hospitals of the town had also made special arrangements to deal with any emergency situation.

Emergency response centers were also established in the city where staff of all departments concerned including Municipal Services Health, Wapda, Sui Gas, Telephone and other utility services departments remained present.

Quick Response Force (QRF) and Elite Force were also deployed for the protection of the processions taken out on 12 Rabi-ul-Awwal. Female volunteers of civil defence were also with the processions. Other departments, TMA, Rescue 1122, WAPDA, Civil Defence and Bomb Disposal Squad remained alert to tackle any emergency situation.

The portion of Rialto Chowk to Benazir Bhutto Hospital of Murree Road remained closed for all vehicular traffic.

Over 2000 cops were deployed to ensure security of the main procession of the town in Rawalpindi city while nearly 2000 police personnel were on security duty in other tehsils of the district including Gujar Khan, Murree, Kahuta and Taxila.

The cops with Elite Force, Special Branch officials, Muhafiz Force, motorcycle squads, Bomb disposal squads, Lady Police and personnel of other departments concerned were deployed to guard the Milad processions.

Special duties were also performed by the members of the peace committee, members of Anjuman-e-Tajran and volunteers of the procession committee to ensure the security of the processions.

Special entry points were available for the faithful to join the main procession where walk-through gates were installed and after proper body search and thorough checking they were allowed to go ahead. Parking of vehicles on the route of the processions was allowed at a distance.

As many as 570 Traffic Wardens including 490 traffic officers, 47 Inspectors, seven Deputy Superintendents of Police and 27 Traffic Assistants were deployed to regulate traffic. There were nearly 17 diversion points in the city to ensure thetraffic flow. Special traffic arrangements were also made for Murree and othertehsils of the district.
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PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :Eid Miladun Nabi (SAW), the birth anniversary of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was celebrated with religious enthusiasm in Khyber Pakthunkhwa and the merged tribal districts amid tight security arrangements on Wednesday.

The day dawned with special pray after Namaz-e-Fajar in the mosques and a salute with 21 guns was presented to mark the celebrations.

The celebrations were held in all the district headquarters and recently merged tribal districts of the province including Peshawar, Mardan,Kohat, Nowshera, Mansehra, DIKHan, Skardu, GB, Muzzaffarabad, Bannu, Karak, DIKhan, Swat, Chitral, Dir upper and lower, Swabi, Shangla, Buner, Malakand, Khyber, Bajaur, Mohmand, Waziristan, Kurram and Aurakzai.

The functions were arranged by the respective administrations and social organizations which were largely participated by the students, government officials, officers and people from all walks of life.

Over three dozens of Eid Miladun Nabi processions were taken out by the faithful in the province to celebrate the birth of Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH). The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had declared public holiday on Nov 21 (Wednesday) in connection with 12 Rabiul Awal celebrations.

In Peshawar, the main procession were taken out from Milad Chowk Rampura Gate under aegis of Idara Tableeg e islam led by Syed Asad Ali Shah wherein people from all walk of life including religious scholars paid glowing tributes to the matchless services of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) for the mankind. Another major function was held at Milad House Gul Bahar Peshawar city organized by Syed Inayat Ali Shah where people offered Naat and Darood Sharif to express their immeasurable love with the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The residents of Peshawar illuminated their houses, bungalows, bazaars, markets, mosques and offices with colorful buntings, lights and green flags to show their immeasurable love with the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on occasion of 12th Rabi ul Awwal. Large banners and gigantic billboards were displayed across the Peshawar by people, faithful and religious scholars in connection with Eid Milad unNabi (SAW) celebrations .

The government, semi govt organizations, educational institutes, social and religious organizations had planned special programs and other activities to mark the day in befitting manner.

The owners of buses, trucks, taxis , and motorcycles have decorated their vehicles artistically to pay great homage to Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The Ulema and religious scholars in their speeches at various Eid Milad functions held in, towns and cities educated the people about teaching of the last Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and highlighted His matchless services for humanity.

The speakers said the Holy Prophet (SAW) was a model of blessing and affection therefore, he was known as Rehmatullil Aalameen and benefactor of the mankind. They called upon the people to follow the teachings of the Holy Prophet (SAW). The people should not forget helping the poor, widows and orphans during Eid Miladun Nabi celebrations.

They called upon the Muslims to renew their pledge to revive the Ummah's unity, integrity and solidarity. They prayed to Almighty to unite the Ummah in order to face the challenges posed to the Muslim world.

Naat Khawani, declamation contests in government and private schools were held across the province. A Naat competition in urdu and Pashto languages among students of Islamia College University was held under the aegis of Khyber Islamic Culture Society. The Urdu Naat competition was contested by 46 Naat Khwans while the Pashto Naat competition was held among 15 students.

Renowned Naat Khawan Arbab Zafrullah was the chief guest on this occasion while the event was presided over by Dr Hussain Farooq. Dr Abaseen Yousufzai was also present as the guest of honor. The Urdu Naat competition was won by Abid Iqbal, followed by Ataullah Shah second and Ammad Ali stood at third position. Abu Talha obtained first position in Pashto Naat completion while Fatima Shah and Zakirullah stood at second and third position respectively.

The vendors had established a number of stalls at every nook and corner of the province along processions routes in Peshawar and offered banners, badges, stickers and flags to people. The people distributedsweets besides gifts among relatives, poor and needy masses in connection withthe great day.
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LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Nov, 2018 ) :Military Police Officers from Corps of Military Police school, Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday visited PPIC3, Qurban Lines here.

The 18-member delegation was apprised of functions and structure of the premier project of Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) by the Chief Operating Officer (COO) Akbar Nasir Khan.

"We are transforming Police into an agile, tech-savvy, fully equipped, motivated and modern emergency response unit," said COO PSCA while addressing the MP Officers.

The delegation was taken to various sections of IC3 namely, Operations Monitoring Centre, Emergency Call Center, Dispatch Control Center and Media Monitoring Center.

It has become one of the essentials of security and law enforcement training courses to acquaint officers along the operations and scopes of Integrated Command, Control andCommunication Center, the delegates said.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :The Secretary General of Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Dr Yousef Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, has reiterated OIC's full support to the people of Kashmir in their legitimate struggle for securing their inalienable right to self-determination.

Dr Yousef Ahmed Al-Othaimeen reaffirmed the support while presiding over a seminar and photo exhibition jointly organized by the Pakistan Consulate and the OIC at the OIC Secretariat in Jeddah in connection with the Kashmir Black Day, KMS reported.

India had landed its troops in Srinagar on 27th October in 1947 and illegally occupied the territory of Jammu and Kashmir against the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and in total disregard to the partition Plan of Indian subcontinent.

This is the second consecutive year that the OIC Secretary General presided over the seminar held under the theme of "Kashmir continues to bleed". The OIC chief called upon the Indian government to stop using brutal force against the Kashmiri people.

He informed that the Kashmir dispute has been one of the most important preoccupations of the OIC over three decades. Dr Al-Othaimeen condemned the human rights violations being perpetrated by Indian troops in occupied Kashmir.
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ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Wednesday said Pakistan was shocked and deeply saddened by the news of a heinous terrorist attack in Kabul, resulting in the martyrdom of over 50 Afghan brethren who were celebrating the birth anniversary of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him).

"We strongly condemn this inhuman act and terrorism. May Allah rid our countries and societies from this menace," Foreign office in a press release quoted the minister as saying.

The minister while praying for the departed souls, said Pakistan expressed solidarity with the people and Government of Afghanistan.
BERLIN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Germany calls on the United States to refrain from plans on pulling out from the US-Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF Treaty) as Europe should not be a platform for debates on nuclear weapons, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday.

Last month, US President Donald Trump announced the country's withdrawal from the INF Treaty over the alleged Russian violations of the agreement. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Moscow will "certainly" respond to the US pullout from the treaty.

"We are in favor of the United States not being recklessly withdrawing from the INF Treaty, because we do not want Europe to become a platform for a debate on nuclear weapons," Maas said in his address to the Bundestag.

The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 by then leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and then US President Ronald Reagan, who agreed to destroy all cruise or ground-launched ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 and 3,400 miles).
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Croatia's War Veterans' Affairs Minister Tomo Medved on Tuesday urged the Serbian authorities to provide information on the fate of detained and missing Croatian Homeland War soldiers.

ZAGREB, Croatia, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Nov, 2018 ) :Croatia's War Veterans' Affairs Minister Tomo Medved on Tuesday urged the Serbian authorities to provide information on the fate of detained and missing Croatian Homeland War soldiers.

"We will propose a law on missing persons. We are analysing thoroughly every tip, but not happy with the results.

We expect Serbia to deliver this information," Medved said.

The Minister said he did not want to speculate why Serbia was not working over it.

Medved attended a commemorative event at the former Ovcara farm where over 200 Prisoner of Wars (POWs) were killed after this eastern Croatian town fell into the hands of Serb rebels and the JNA in mid-November 1991.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) European Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn on Wednesday called on Hungary to explain its decision to grant asylum to former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Gruevski, who was sentenced to two years in prison in Macedonia and fled the country, said on Tuesday that he had been granted political asylum in Hungary.

"I take note of reports about #Hungary's decision to grant political asylum to @GruevskiNikola. If confirmed, I expect a sound explanation of its grounds by @Viktor_Orban ... The #RuleofLaw remains a fundamental principle for Member States and accession candidates alike. It is crucial for #Europe's credibility. Surprising that #Hungary supports #EU membership but does not consider it safe," Hahn wrote on Twitter.

In May, Gruevski, who served as Macedonian prime minister from 2006 until 2016 and is also the former head of the largest opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, was convicted of official misconduct by purchasing a luxury vehicle at an estimated cost of over 500,000 Euros ($569,700). Gruevski had to start serving his prison term immediately after Macedonia's Criminal Court rejected appeals to postpone his two-year jail sentence. However, Gruevski fled the country and his whereabouts have been unknown since November 8.

Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia were granted an official EU candidate status. Each country must negotiate the terms of accession with the current member states and align their domestic legislation with EU law before joining.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

NEW YORK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Reporters Without Borders and eight other international organizations on Wednesday sent a letter to the European Union delegation urging it to discuss during the scheduled high-level political dialogue with the Turkish government on November 22 the crisis concerning freedom of expression in the country.

"We request you to engage with Turkish authorities with a view to agreeing on concrete actions aimed at the protection of journalists and human rights defenders in Turkey, for the respect of the right to freedom of expression in Turkey," the letter said.

More than 160 journalists are imprisoned in Turkey and hundreds more have been placed on trial for exercising the freedom of expression, the letter noted.

Most of the journalists face charges of affiliation with, or propaganda for a terrorist organization during the failed military coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July of 2016.

Turkey introduced legislation enabling the authorities to target journalists as a temporary measure taken under a proclaimed state of emergency in response to the coup.

The letter pointed out that the recent response of the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) has failed to fully recognize the impact of the repressions against journalists in Turkey.

In addition, the letter said the Turkish authorities have ignored ECHR rulings on journalists.

After the coup, the Turkish authorities said they declared a state of emergency to establish order and ensure the proper functioning of institutions. The authorities have charged that Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen and organizations associated with him, including a network of non-governmental organizations and individuals embedded in Turkey's institutions, were responsible for the coup.

Ankara has requested that the United States, where Gulen resides, be extradited to Turkey, but Washington has not satisfied the demand.
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RIGA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Miroslav Mitrofanov, a European Parliament member from Latvia, told Sputnik on Wednesday that he believed that Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis would not dissolve the country's parliament over the crisis of the government formation.

On Tuesday, Vejonis held meetings with representatives of all the parties that secured seats in the parliament and tasked them to form the Cabinet by November 26. While the parliamentary elections in the country were held on October 6, no progress has been made since then in the new government formation.

"President Vejonis has already made it clear that he was against new elections, which will be inevitable if the Saiema [the parliament] is dissolved. Everything is heading in the direction where the "new" parties will agree to accept anyone, for example, a candidate from the "old "parties, as prime minister, after a series of diplomatic setbacks. They will do this just to keep their hard-won positions on the edge of the bench for the national elite, in order to prove that they can work in the government," Mitrofanov said.

He added that the "new" parties would suffer heavier "image losses" than the "old" ones.

"The longer the parties that won the October 6 elections are unable to reach agreement, the more irritated the voters become. But we should understand that the 'new' parties, such as the KPV LV [Who owns the state? populist party], the New Conservative Party and the Development/For! [liberal party] will suffer heavier image losses than the old ones  the Union of Greens and Farmers [conservative party] and the National Union [far-right party]," Mitrofanov said.

He added that while "romantic" people, believing in the possibility of changes, had voted for the "new" parties, those supporting the old parties were ready to "forgive the well-known flaws of their favorites."

According to Mitrofanov, this means that the positions of the "new" parties will become weaker and they may eventually give up on their aspirations to secure the position of the country's prime minister.

Media reports arose earlier that Vejonis could dissolve the parliament, which will trigger snap elections.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said Wednesday that he would not run for a third term in the next presidential election in Mauritania because it is contrary to the country's constitution.

"No, I will not run for office ... The Constitution says that I cannot run as a candidate for more than two terms," Abdel Aziz said in an interview to the RFI radio station.

He also added that he would run for president only when the constitution will allow him to do so.

The president stressed that he would stay in Mauritania and continue to be engaged in politics.

Abdel Aziz took the office in 2009. A career soldier and ranking official in the past, he came to power as a result of a coup in 2008. He also served as the chairman of the African Union between 2014 and 2015.

The next presidential election in Mauritania will take place in summer 2019.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Moldovan President Igor Dodon has offered to sign a declaration on strategic partnership with Russia in the near future.

"I consider it necessary to sign a joint declaration on strategic partnership in the near future and create a joint committee at a high political level that will be engaged in a comprehensive discussion of strategic issues," Dodon said at a plenary session in the Russian State Duma.

Russia has been and will be a strategic partner of Moldova, Dodon stressed.

Moldova, a parliamentary republic, has long been experiencing a stand-off between the president and the government over the country's foreign policy. Dodon, who took office as president of Moldova on December 23, 2016, insists on rapprochement with Russia, while the parliamentary majority and the government stick to a pro-Western course in foreign policy.
(@FahadShabbir)

The Cuban constitutional reform moved into a new phase on Thursday, November 15, after over 7 million Cuban citizens participated in the national discussion of the future text of the country's main law and submitted their proposals in this regard.

HAVANA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2018) The Cuban constitutional reform moved into a new phase on Thursday, November 15, after over 7 million Cuban citizens participated in the national discussion of the future text of the country's main law and submitted their proposals in this regard.

The existing Cuban constitution has been in force since 1976 and already undergone certain changes, with amendments having been adopted in 1978, 1992 and 2002.

The process of constitutional reform in the country has been taking place against the backdrop of economic system's renewal and the fundamental changes in the life of the Cuban society.

In early June, the Cuban parliament, the National Assembly of People's Power, elected a special parliamentary commission on the constitutional reform, comprising 33 members and headed by Raul Castro, the first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party.

The members of the parliamentary commission represented all sectors of the Cuban civic society and included delegates of the Federation of Cuban Women, the Revolution Defense Committees, and the National Association of Small Farmers.

The representatives of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, the National Organization of Collective Law Offices, the University Students Federation, the country's academy of Sciences as well as the employees of Cuba's various ministries were also among the commission's members.

Unlike other countries, Cuba has not convened a constituent assembly to amend the country's constitution and entrusted the parliamentary commission with drafting the new main law since, under the Cuban law, the Cuban National Assembly of People's Power is the only body in the country with constitutional and law-making authorities.

The parliamentary commission's proposals, adopted in July, provided for changing the 1976 constitution fundamentally and keeping only 11 articles of the document unchanged. The draft constitution is expected to include 224 articles compared to 137 articles of the existing main law.

On July 22, the Cuban parliament adopted the draft text of the future constitution, edited by the parliamentary commission, and presented it for national discussion, which took the form of the meetings of Cuban citizens at work, educational institutions and in military units and residential areas.

The debate has also been joined by the Cubans leaving abroad, which accounts for approximately 1.4 million people in 120 countries. They have been allowed to make their suggestions on a special website of the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

According to Cuba's national team processing the opinions of the country's citizens, nearly a million and a half of people made specific proposals on the matter since the launch of discussions on August 13.

About 660,000 proposals, regarding amending, adding or abolishing the articles of the Cuban constitution, have been made.

The meetings devoted to the discussion of the country's future main law have seen the expression of opinions both supporting and contradicting the proposals enshrined in the draft document, but all of them constituted the exercise of direct democracy.

Regardless of the outcome of the vote on the constitutional reform, the discussion of the constitutional project has sparked nationwide debates and made many Cubans feel that they are to decide on what changes should take place in the country. In the society, where bills and decisions concerning the changes of the social organization have been endorsed for decades by authorities without even consulting the population, it might be considered the most important result.

Many of the polled Cubans have agreed that the authorities' aspiration to listen to the country's people was the most important thing about the national debate.

However, the anti-democratic practices that dominated the life in Cuba for decades made many Cubans think that their opinions might not be reflected in the final version of the document. A considerable part of the Cuban population agree that it would be difficult for the country's authorities to integrate all the expressed opinions in the future constitution.

The discussion process has not always been calm, with several proposals included in the draft text by the parliamentary commission having faced divergence of views.

The exclusion of the Cubans  both residents and non-residents  from the process of foreign investment has been met with public criticism. According to some Cuban citizens, the draft proposal will exclude a considerable part of the country's population, who legally earned their assets, from the important process, needed for the development of the country's economy.

"There should be no restrictions on the matter for the people, who have the possibilities and desire to develop the country's economy, it is counterrevolutionary," a Cuban opposing the draft article told Sputnik.

The issue has also raised public concerns regarding the possible conflicts in the society that potentially might emerge in the socialist system due to the recognition of private property and capital accumulation.

The article on marriage turned out to be another sensitive subject since its text did not include any restrictions regarding the sex of future spouses, which makes same-sex marriages possible.

"The Cuban society has always lived under the pressure of taboo, and it will not be easy to get rid of it, but it is necessary to move forward and fight against prejudice to ensure freedom for all the citizens without exception," student Orestes Gonzalez told Sputnik.

Cuba's national processing team is now set to examine all the proposals received in course of national discussions and will deliver the proposed amendments to the document to the committee on the draft constitution.

The final proposals will be submitted to the National Assembly of People's Power for discussion and are expected to be considered at a parliamentary session in December. The Cuban parliament will decide on the final text of the constitution, which will be put to a popular vote in February 2019.
DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) More than 400 out of the 1,500 dwelling houses destroyed in the course of the Syrian civil war have been recovered in the mountainous areas of the western Syrian Latakia Province, Sameer Islam, a representative of the local authorities who oversees construction works in the area, told reporters on Wednesday.

"The program of accommodation recovery in Latakia's mountainous areas was launched back in 2015, as soon as militants were removed from villages. We created a special commission then, and its members have been traveling across all the released villages, registering fractures, and creating a plan of works. Within this program, over 400 houses in seven localities have been restored. We need to recover 1,500 buildings in total," islam said.

He added that over 1.36 million Syrian liras ($2.6 million) has been spend during the first stage of the reconstruction.

Islam specified that the recovery of the worst-hit houses was being conducted first.

"We reconstruct the walls and insert windows so that people have where to return to after the war," Islam added.

Broken walls, and damaged window and door apertures are the most-often registered wrecks, according to Islam.

Syria has been devastated by years of violent war with terrorist and armed opposition groups, which led to the destruction of its infrastructure and a major humanitarian crisis in the country. The Syrian authorities are currently engaged in rebuilding the country in order to create favorable conditions for the actively returning refugees.
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) An attorney for former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos asked the US District Court for the District of Columbia to delay his client's surrender date until a ruling on his motion for bail has been made, a court document said on Wednesday.

"[W]e submit this motion respectfully requesting that the Court stay the deadline of November 26, 2018 for Mr. Papadopoulos to surrender to the institution designated by the Bureau of Prisons, pending the outcome of this Court's decision on his motion for bail pending the appeal," the filing said.

The motion for an order continuing Papadopolous's bail was submitted on November 16 pending the outcome of an appeal challenging the constitutionality of the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

On October 5 of 2017, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI when questioned in the probe into allegations of Trump-Russia's collusion in the 2016 US presidential election and meddling in the US political system.

Papadopoulos was sentenced to a 14-day incarceration in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with Special Counsel Mueller's team. Papadopoulos also received one year of supervised release, 200 hours of community service and was ordered to pay a $9,500 fine.

Russia has repeatedly denied all allegations of meddling in the US political system, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the election loss of a presidential candidate and deflect public attention from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.

US president Donald Trump has repeatedly called the Special Counsel Mueller's investigation a witch hunt that has not produced evidence of collusion in well over a year.
DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Russian Muslims intend to intensify their efforts to help Syrians affected by the civil war and reconstruct buildings of religious and civil functions, muftis and imams from all over Russia told Sputnik after visiting Damascus as part of an interreligious delegation, led by Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations head Metropolitan Hilarion.

The interreligious working group aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria was established in 2017 in accordance with the decision of the Russian presidential Council for Coordination with Religious Organizations.

The group is comprised of representatives of Christian denominations and Muslim communities of Russia. They visited Damascus last week to discuss humanitarian projects with Syrian religious leaders and Minister of Awqaf Mohammad Abdul-Sattar Sayyed at a round table meeting.

"Today we can see that people are uniting in Syria against war. And we see that our parishioners are more and more willing to help their Syrian brothers to strengthen peace," Ildar Ziganshin, the member of the Presidium of the Central Spiritual Administration of Russian Muslims, said.

At the meeting with Syrian religious leaders, the Russian delegation stressed it was prepared to provide its help, he added.

"The Syrians have to decide and tell us which buildings need to be restored in the first place," Ziganshin stressed.

He recalled his February trip to Syria as part of an interreligious humanitarian mission. During the visit, the delegation delivered 77 tonnes of food, purchased from voluntary funds donated by parishioners from all over Russia.

"We are the generation that has started to forget what war is. And here [in Syria] we saw that peace is ... very fragile, and that civilians, and most importantly children, are suffering," Ziganshin pointed out.

At the same time, Ziganshin noted that wealthy people were less willing to help others than poor since "the poor know what poverty is."

Muhammad Rakhimov, the chairman of the executive committee of Russia's Northern Caucasus Muslim Coordinating Center and Mufti of Stavropol Territory, said that next year muftis from Russia's North Caucasus could visit Syria to learn what kind of help is needed there.

"We are prepared to assist in the restoration of any building our Syrian brothers ask," Rakhimov stressed.

At the dawn of the new millennium, "the Caucasus itself saw what death and war are," and therefore was quick to react to the conflict in Syria.

Meanwhile, Deputy Mufti of Russia's Tatarstan Mansur Dzhalaletdinov said that Muslims from the autonomous republic "will help [Syrians] to restore damaged historical monuments and ancient mosques."

He also said he was impressed with Syria's gratefulness for the help provided by the Russian government and people.

"Most of our worries, of course, are about children. Some of them need medical assistance, and some of them need food, clothes," Ibrahimov pointed out," Imam muhtasib of the Russian city of Nizhnekamsk Salih Ibrahimov noted.

The Russian interreligious delegation to Syria also included Sergei Ryakhovsky, the senior bishop of the Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals), and Russian presidential administration official Sergei Melnikov.
THE HAGUE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Russia is concerned that UK and US chemical weapons have been found in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Panama, Georgy Kalamanov, the head of the Russian delegation to the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CSP CWC) said Wednesday.

"We are concerned that US and UK chemical weapons have been found in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Panama," Kalamanov told the conference.

He called on the OPCW technical secretariat to strengthen control so that CWC member states promptly announced the presence of abandoned or old chemical weapons in their countries.

"We believe that the late or incorrect provision of such information is unacceptable," Kalamanov stressed.

In April, Kalamanov said that the United States was not fulfilling its obligations under the CWC Convention and not informing the OPCW of the abandoned chemical weapons on the territory of other countries.

In particular, Washington did not recognize the ownership of ammunition with phosgene left in Panama, despite the OPCW technical secretariat confirming its US origins in 2002.

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) entered into force in 1997. The treaty aims to eliminate existing chemical weapons and prohibit its production in the future. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ensures the implementation of the treaty. All countries that have signed the convention have agreed to abandon the production, storage or use of chemical weapons.
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MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Russia continues consultations with Europe and Iran on the launch of a special financial mechanism for settlements with Tehran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters Wednesday.

"We initially proceeded from the fact that the special protective mechanism in question will be open to other countries, not only the European Union. Unfortunately, our European colleagues have not been able to find the optimal form, a scheme to institutionalize this mechanism... This is the issue they continue to address," Ryabkov said.

"We continue, in consultations with them [Europeans] and Iranian friends, to discuss all these issues. This is one of the elements of an integrated approach to protecting the JCPOA from destruction," he said.
MONTEVIDEO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2018) Russian Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Alexander Fomin and Uruguayan Defense Minister Jorge Menendez agreed at a meeting in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo on Wednesday to develop defense cooperation between the two ministries.

"Uruguay is Russia's important and reliable partner in Latin America. The friendly relations and mutual trust, which have been binding us together for over a century and a half, form a solid basis for strengthening our cooperation in various areas and, first of all, for deepening dialogue and practical collaboration at the level of defense ministries," Fomin said at the meeting.

Fomin also pointed to the convergence of the two countries' views on key contemporary problems.

"This is illustrated by the constructive work at the UN Security Council, where Uruguay had non-permanent membership in 2016-2017," Fomin said.

The Russian deputy minister has also thanked Uruguayan colleagues for the support it had traditionally provided to the Russian delegation at the UN General Assembly in issues relating to increasing transparency in space exploration, international information security and non-admissibility of glorifying Nazism.

The Uruguayan defense minister, in turn, reaffirmed the readiness of the country's military to develop practical cooperation with the Russian armed forces.

Fomin has also invited the Uruguayan colleagues to take part in Russia's Army-2019 international defense industry forum that will be held on June 25-30.

Fomin arrived in the Uruguayan capital at the invitation of the country's defense minister. His visit is set to last until November 23.
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MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2018) One Syrian serviceman was injured in militant shelling of Syria's western province of Latakia, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said late on Tuesday.

"Despite the ceasefire regime being established throughout the country, there are still cases of ceasefire regime violation by illegal armed formations in the Idlib de-escalation zone ... Over the past day, terrorists attacked Shweyhba, Vrede, Sheikh-Aysa, Aleppo province, and Hara district of Aleppo city (three times). Two civilians were wounded.

As a result of the attack at Karamanli in Latakia province one Syrian serviceman was wounded," the center said in a daily bulletin.

Moreover, the Russian center has delivered almost 2 tonnes of food to the residents of the northern province of Aleppo, according to the bulletin.

Russia, alongside Iran and Turkey, is a guarantor of the ceasefire regime in Syria. Moscow has also been assisting Damascus both through supporting the struggle against the terrorist groups and by providing humanitarian aid to the residents of the crisis-torn country.
KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Ukrainian air assault units will receive armored personnel carriers, cargo and special purpose vehicles, and anti-tank missile systems, including US Javelin, in 2019, the country's President Petro Poroshenko said on Wednesday.

"Next year, the work will be continued on the provision of the airborne troops with armored personnel carriers, cargo and special vehicles, 'Svitiaz' command vehicles, anti-tank missile systems, including Javelin," Poroshenko said at training ground in Zhytomyr region on the occasion of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces Day.

According to him, in recent years, about 150 pieces of weaponry and military equipment have been transferred to the air assault troops in recent years, in particular BTR-3DA armored personnel carriers and Stugna and Corsar anti-tank missile systems and 40 Hummer armored and sanitary vehicles, the president said.

In 2017, US administration approved deliveries of weapons to Kiev, including Javelin portable anti-tank missile systems. The previous Washington administration refused to do so, despite repeated requests from the Ukrainian side.

Moscow has repeatedly warned against supplying weapons to Ukraine, saying that this would result in an escalation of the military conflict in the country's eastern Donbas region, ongoing since 2014. This stance has also been supported by a number of European officials.
(@FahadShabbir)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Moldovan President Igor Dodon has offered to sign a declaration on strategic partnership with Russia in the near future.

"I consider it necessary to sign a joint declaration on strategic partnership in the near future and create a joint committee at a high political level that will be engaged in a comprehensive discussion of strategic issues," Dodon said at a plenary session in the Russian State Duma.

Russia has been and will be a strategic partner of Moldova, Dodon stressed.

The president expressed confidence that after the parliamentary elections in the country, strengthening of relations with Russia will remain a priority for the country's authorities.

"Issues related to development of bilateral interstate relations will continue to be on the agenda of the dialogue between the presidents of Moldova and Russia. And I am convinced that in the near future, after the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova, the strengthening of Moldovan-Russian relations will become one of the most important priorities at the level of parliaments and governments of the two countries," Dodon noted.

The Moldovan parliamentary elections were initially scheduled for November. However, in July, lawmakers voted to postpone them until February 24, 2019. The elections will be for the first time held in compliance with a new procedure according to which half of the parliament members will be elected under party lists, while the second half will be elected from single-member Constituencies.

Moldova, a parliamentary republic, has long been experiencing a stand-off between the president and the government over the country's foreign policy. Dodon, who took office as president of Moldova on December 23, 2016, insists on rapprochement with Russia, while the parliamentary majority and the government stick to a pro-Western course in foreign policy.
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) The owner of Venezuela's Globovision news network has been indicted for his role in a billion-dollar Currency exchange and money laundering scheme involving more than $1 billion in bribes, the US Department of Justice said in a press release.

"Raul Gorrin Belisario (Gorrin), 50, a Venezuelan citizen with a residence in Miami, Florida, was charged in an indictment filed on Aug. 16, 2017 in the Southern District of Florida [unsealed on Tuesday] with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and nine counts of money laundering," the release said on Tuesday.
(@rukhshanmir)

Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Nov, 2018 ) :A former official in Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's government has pleaded guilty in a billion-dollar money laundering case, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, who was president of the Venezuelan National Treasury Office (ONT) between 2007 and 2010 and also headed the National Economic Development Bank of Venezuela, pleaded guilty in Federal court in Florida to conspiracy to launder money.

The 54-year-old Venezuelan citizen residing in Wellington, Florida, admitted his guilt on December 22, 2017 and his sentencing is scheduled for November 27, the Justice Department said.

Also Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that another Venezuelan citizen, Gabriel Jimenez Aray, the 50-year-old former owner of the dissolved Banco Peravia of the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty of conspiracy to launder money on March 20.

Andrade and Jimenez's guilty pleas are part of a corruption scheme that also includes the Venezuelan billionaire owner of the private Globovision television station, Raul Gorrin Belisario, according to the department.

Gorrin, 50, lives in Miami and was charged on August 16, 2017 in the Southern District of Florida with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), as well as with money laundering.

According to the indictment, Gorrin paid millions of Dollars in bribes to two high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Andrade, to secure the right to conduct foreign exchange transactions at rates favorable to the Venezuelan government.

The Justice Department did not identify the other official who allegedly received bribes from Gorrin.

US authorities did say that to conceal illicit payments, Gorrin made deposits through several front companies.

Investigators said the Globovision mogul teamed up with Jimenez to acquire Banco Peravia to launder bribes paid to Venezuelan officials.
(@FahadShabbir)

MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro said on Wednesday that he was not a "dictator," but a "modest man."

"I don't care that people call me a dictator. Those who say I'm a dictator can go to hell. I know who I am  a modest man, brought up on the basis of trade unionism and the values of Simon Bolivar.

I could have never been a dictator," Maduro said, as quoted by Exelsior daily.

Representatives of US authorities, as well as Colombian president and the head of theOrganization of American States have called Maduro a "dictator," as most of the American countries have not recognized the results of the presidential election that was held in Venezuela in May, bringing Maduro victory.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

ST PETERSBURG (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2018) The Yemeni government is skeptical about the commitment of the Houthi rebels to implement the new ceasefire without a clear implementation mechanism which should be adopted at the upcoming peace talks in Sweden, Yemeni Ambassador to Russia Ahmed Salem Wahishi told Sputnik on Wednesday.

The Houthi rebels said on November 19 that they were halting drone and missile strikes on the Saudi-led coalition at the request of the United Nations.

"Any ceasefire without a clear implementing mechanism will only be a wishful rhetoric and impractical, given that the Houthi rebels have violated all previous nine truces, as well as this last one, and have undermined all agreements and commitments," Wahishi said.

The ambassador stressed the need for a single package of measures to be issued at the upcoming peace talks in Sweden, as well as for a clear implementation mechanism.

Last week, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths announced that both the Yemeni government and the Houthis, officially known as the Ansar Allah movement, were committed to attending the consultations, which the envoy said would reconvene in Sweden shortly.

The talks will follow the UN attempt to hold peace consultations in Geneva in September, which was abandoned as Houthis said they were prevented from leaving Yemen. The claims were denied by the Saudi-led coalition which controls airspace over Yemen since March 2015.

Yemen has been gripped by a civil war between President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's government and the Shiite Houthi movement since 2015. The government is backed by the Saudi-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes that target areas controlled by the Houthis since March 2015.
"Thank God for what we have left!" -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr.



Contact: Leslie Palma, 732-757-9087



ATLANTA, Nov. 21, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Evangelist Alveda King:

As the holidays are upon us, let us be mindful that these next few weeks are beautiful opportunities to express love, grace, encouragement and peace towards others. There are some people, and in some cases someone we know, or even we ourselves are in dire need of a prayer or two this holiday season. Some have lost loved ones and some have lost much to tragedies. Yet there are reasons and opportunities to spread love to others right now. A notion such as this may seem difficult, especially with the brutal mid-terms behind us, and some political runoff elections ahead of us; but let's just try to be civil to one another.



The concept of civility springs from the word civilis, which in Latin means "citizen." Civility is caused by a person's emotions or lack thereof. If a person is emotionally affected by the negative feedback that they get from other people in a psychologically normal manner then they are defined as civil.



In my everyday circles at home with family, at church, at work and in the communities at large, I work hard to keep the commandment to "love one another." Another helpful process, which I learned from the "King Family Legacy Code of Nonviolence," is to communicate difference in a civil manner with the expectation of a "win-win" outcome. Around Thanksgiving Season, I begin to half-jokingly say: "Don't be guilty of ripping the leg off the turkey and beating up others with it." I only say half-jokingly because so many families are divided these days. I know the Bible teaches that relatives will rise up to disagree with others; but does this have to happen in our families?

Galatians 5:22-23 New International Version (NIV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

We need to interact with both Christians and non-Christians in a respectful way. Jesus did. In John 4, as Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus associated with someone who was far from acceptable in Jewish society, and while He fully told her the truth, He did so in a kind, compassionate, and redemptive manner. This means refraining from insults, name-calling, and excoriation not only in theological discourse but also in political diatribes.



Actually as Christians, we should not even be involved in political debates and any mean spirited activities; not at Thanksgiving, not at Christmas; not ever. We would be better served to be praying for all of our leaders, and also voting for government God's way. So, while we are baking the turkeys and wrapping the gifts and all of the beautiful activities ahead of us; let us pray. Please click HERE and HERE for 2 Alveda King Holiday videos.


American bishops are calling for reasonable gun measures to deal with gun violence, in response to the most recent shootings in the US, where three people lost their lives as a gunman opened fire at Mercy Hospital, Chicago.

By Joachim Teigen

According to the Chicago Tribune, gunman Juan Lopez entered Mercy Hospital in Chicago on the afternoon of Monday, 19 October, to confront doctor Tamara ONeal over a broken engagement, before shooting her dead.

Police Officer Samuel Jiminez was also killed in the line of duty, along with Dayna Less, a first-year pharmacy resident who was randomly shot as she got out of the lift. The gunman was eventually found dead, having been wounded by a police bullet.

A pervasive plague of gun violence

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, immediately issued a statement expressing the grief of the bishops, and assured the victims and their loved ones of their prayers as they entrust them to the compassion of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Asking how such a person could obtain a firearm, the Cardinal went on to say that we bishops will continue to ask that public policies be supported to enact reasonable gun measures to help curb this pervasive plague of gun violence.

Read the full statement: http://usccb.org/news/2018/18-189.cfm
The itinerary for Pope Francis' visit to Panama to attend World Youth Day celebrations, has been released. He will travel to the country from the 23-27 January 2019.

Wednesday 23th

From Rome, Pope Francis will arrive at Panamas Tocumen International airport. Following an official welcome, he will travel to the Nunciature.

Thursday 24th

There will be a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace followed by a meeting with state authorities and the diplomatic corps.

Later in the day, the Pope will meet with the Bishops of Central America in the Church of St Francis of Assisi before opening World Youth Day at Cinta Costera.

Friday 25th

Pope Francis will visit a youth centre where there will be a penance service.

In the afternoon he will attend a Youth Way of the Cross at the Cinta Costera area of Panama City.

Saturday 26th

The Pope will preside over Mass in the Basilica of Santa Maria la Antigua where he will consecrate the alter of the Cathedral which has been newly restored.

Following Mass, Pope Francis will lunch with young people.

Later in the evening he will participate at a vigil with young people at Metro Park.

Sunday 27th

On this, the final day of his visit to Panama, the Pope will celebrate the concluding Mass of WYD at Metro Park.

After the Eucharistic celebration, he will visit the house of the Good Samaritan followed by a meeting with WYD volunteers.

Pope Francis will return to Rome that evening following a farewell ceremony at Panama International Airport.
Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung. (Photo: VNA)

Among 295 SOEs managed by ministries yet to do so, the Vietnam Northern Food Corporation (Vinafood1) has the largest number of equitized but unlisted subsidiaries, 18, including Ha Son Binh Food Company, Vinafood1 Flour Mill Company, VNF1 Distribution  Retail JSC, and Thanh Hoa Food JSC, Dung told the conference on restructuring and improving efficiency of SOE operation in Hanoi.

It was followed by the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) which has 14 subsidiaries of such type, including Chien Thang Garment JSC, Vinatex  Tan Tao Investment Corporation and Vietnam Wool JSC.

A number of others are owned by State-run giants like the Vietnam National Petroleum (Petrolimex), Vietnam Electricity (EVN), Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN), Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem), and Vietnam Railways.

These firms mainly blamed the delay in going public on challenges in pushing for organizational and operational restructuring, or not meeting the listing requirements in terms of the number of shareholders or charter capital.

The Ministry of Finance also named 372 unlisted SOEs managed by cities and provinces. Among the concerned localities, Ho Chi Minh City leads the way with 11 corporations and groups with hundreds of subsidiaries that have been equitized but not listed.

According to the ministry, this situation has negative impacts on not only the stock markets openness and transparency but also the SOEs themselves as these firms have moved relatively slow in post-equitisation corporate management restructuring to reach the standards of those that went public.

Directive 04/CT-TTg issued by the Prime Minister on the restructuring and renovation of SOEs in 2016-2020 requires the SOEs to list their shares on the stock exchanges within a year after their initial public offerings (IPOs).

In August this year, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue again asked the Ministry of Finance and the Government Office to publicise the list of the SOEs failing to do so in time on the websites of the ministry and the government. It was the third time the list of these SOEs has been ordered to open to the public, after the first in April, 2017 and the second four months later.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of Finance announced that only 11 SOEs were equitised in the first nine months of this year, making the countrys target to complete the equitisation of at least 85 SOEs this year unlikely to reach.

The divestment process during the period was also sluggish and might fail to meet their goals for the year. Under the plan, there were 135 SOEs that had to undergo the divestment process in 2017 and 181 in 2018 but the State had divested capital from only 31 firms, 13 of which conducted the process in 2017 and 18 did so in 2018.
The stabbing of an officer outside the capital's main police station came during a state visit to Belgium by French President Emmanuel Macron that has revived memories of the Paris and Brussels attacks. (Photo: AFP/Hatim Kaghat)

The suspect in the attack was shot by two of the officer's colleagues and has also been hospitalised in a "critical condition"

The stabbing came during a state visit to Belgium by French President Emmanuel Macron that has revived memories of the Paris and Brussels attacks.

Brussels prosecutors said an investigating magistrate will open an inquiry into possible "attempted murder in a terrorist context" but that a motive had not been established.

Federal prosecutors, who would oversee a terrorist case, have not yet joined the investigation.

"The suspect had several kitchen knives in his hands and stabbed the officer several times," the prosecutor's office said, adding that the officer had been treated for a neck wound and was expected to survive.

"Several witnesses report hearing the suspect say 'Allahu Akbar'," the statement said, referring to the Arabic phrase for "God is greatest".

"The inquiry will determine if this was a terrorist act," it added.

Earlier, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said, "a priori", the suspect in the "cowardly attack" was not listed in Belgium's counter-terrorism database.

The assailant stabbed the officer outside the central police station in Brussels' historic city centre at 5.30am (0430 GMT), police spokeswoman Ilse van de Keere told AFP.

Despite the incident, Macron later visited a cultural centre around a kilometre away in Molenbeek, home of some of the militants who carried out the 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 people dead.
Binh Duong shoots past FDI goal

Licences have been issued to 173 new projects with a total capital of $843 million, 102 existing projects increased their capital by $537 million, while foreign investors made capital contribution of $312 million to 121 joint-venture projects.

Tran Thanh Liem, chairman of the Peoples Committee, told a recent meeting that the sharp rise in FDI was thanks to improving the business environment and supporting start-ups.

Foreign investors have poured a cumulative $31.75 billion in 3,472 projects in the province.

Most of the investment is from the US, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea.

The province regularly holds meetings with business groups, enterprises and investors to resolve their problems. It has also made efforts to simplify administrative procedures, inspection procedures and unnecessary regulations and reduced or abolished certain fees.

State-owned enterprises have been ordered to speed up their equitisation and divestment. Around 35,600 enterprises have been established in the province with a total register capital of more than VND286 trillion ($12.3 billion).

In the first ten months of this year, more than VND49 trillion ($2.1 billion) was invested, a year-on-year increase of 19.7 per cent.
Investigators examine engine parts from the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610, after they were recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea. (AFP/BAY ISMOYO)

US media reported that the cancelled conference between Boeing and client companies was meant to address questions surrounding control systems on the Lion Air 737-MAX.

"Boeing has been - and continues to - engage with our customers," a spokesman for the US aircraft manufacturer told AFP.

"We continue to schedule meetings to share information."

Last month's crash killed 189 people when Lion Air flight JT 610 plunged into the Java Sea on Oct 29, less than 20 minutes after leaving Jakarta on a routine flight to Pangkal Pinang. There were no survivors.

Media reports said Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg had sent a message to staff on Monday insisting that the company leadership had not concealed any information relating to the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) which was designed to prevent the aircraft stalling.

"I don't have any additional comment on the memo," the company's spokesman told AFP.

"The problem of the MAX is linked to its hybrid design," an aeronautics expert, who asked not to be identified, told AFP.

"Boeing had to make a number of choices, and above all compromises in the area of avionics and the flight command system during development of this plane," he said.

The expert added the main problem with the MAX was the marriage of older and newer control systems which were installed to make it competitive with rival manufacturers.

"That could have been a not insignificant factor in the response of the crew," who seem not to have understood the role of the MCAS in the chain of events that led up to the crash.

Last week, a US airline pilots union, the APA, said that companies and pilots had not been informed of certain changes in the aircraft control system.

It said it had passed on new piloting directives to flight crews regarding possible erroneous information about a so-called "Angle of Attack" sensor that could have been linked to the Lion Air crash.
Marko Walde Chief representative, German Industry and Commerce Vietnam On behalf of the German Industry and Commerce Vietnam, I think that the CPTPP, as a quite comprehensive agreement, will offer Vietnam not only trade and investment opportunities, but also a chance to modernise and bring its labour law, penal law, anti-corruption law, and the intellectual property rights policy in line with international standards. This will certainly have a positive effect on the ratification of the free trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam. The CPTPP is a high-quality agreement which includes 15 per cent of global trade, as well as more than 13 per cent of the global economy, tantamount to $10 trillion. The agreement will also affect global value chains and is expected to help Vietnam expand exports and join global value chains more deeply. About 66 per cent of tariff lines will be eliminated immediately after the CPTPP takes effect, which will rise to 86.5 per cent three years after the deal comes into force, and 97.8 per cent after 11 years. The sectors expected to benefit the most are textile, footwear, chemicals, plastics, transport vehicles, and machinery. The CPTPP will provide greater market access to Vietnamese firms but also open up the country to foreign products, increasing competition. We also see challenges for Vietnamese products, in IPR protection, global competitiveness, and the origins of production materials. I strongly recommend that Vietnamese companies hurry up and increase their competitiveness to make the best use of the incentives offered by the CPTPP. Moreover, the CPTPP opens up business opportunities for participants but also for German companies, since many of them already operate and invest in countries of the CPTPP. Just as Asian members, German companies may exploit the agreement under specific conditions and the German Industry and Commerce Vietnam is pleased to accompany businesses from both countries on the path to success both in Vietnam and in Germany. Simon Matthews Country manager, ManpowerGroup Vietnam, Thailand, and Middle East The National Assemblys recent ratification of the CPTPP marked a milestone for Vietnams economic and human resources development. Starting from 2020, the CPTPP is expected to create 17,000-20,000 new jobs each year for Vietnamese people. The CPTPP will also open the doors for the products of other member countries of the CPTPP to enter the Vietnamese market, meaning that Vietnamese businesses and labourers will have to face stiffening competition in their home market. Despite the abundant and stable workforce, the quality of Vietnamese manpower remains a matter of special concern. Vietnams labour productivity stands at $4,019, only a third of Thailands ($11,633). Moreover, although Vietnam has 57.7 million people of working age, only 11 per cent are highly skilled, while 89 per cent are unskilled or low skilled. English proficiency is another concern as only 5 per cent of the total workforce can use English. In order to benefit from the huge opportunities from the CPTPP, Vietnamese businesses should invest in a long-term human resources development strategy to equip workers with the necessary skills to increase their productivity and competitiveness in the deepening global integration. Pham Hong Hai , CEO, HSBC Vietnam Opportunities arriving from the CPTPP for international banks like HSBC will be vast. Our unique global network means we are a one-stop shop for clients to rely on when they want to access new markets. We can help connect them with the right partners and potential business opportunities within these markets. The CPTPP will speed up investment and trade among members and HSBC will benefit from this. Besides, foreign investors who are looking to expand into Vietnam will choose HSBC for the services that they currently enjoy in their home countries and also for the local expertise and knowledge that we can provide. Challenges for us, meanwhile, would involve very quick global policy developments, some of which can create headwinds. Banks and businesses alike ought to identify a proper strategy in order to develop sustainably or what they should change and adapt on a daily basis against this context. To take advantage of trade pacts like the CPTPP or the EVFTA, foreign enterprises in Vietnam and Vietnamese companies need to increase their scale and connections amongst each other. They must improve efficiency via investing in both technology and people to take advantage of opportunities in their supply chains. HSBC Vietnam, as the leading international bank, will continue our role as the bridge between investors and the markets they want to expand into. We will also help investors with the opportunities they want to reap, while enhancing investment in technology to provide clients with better and more convenient banking solutions in line with global standards. Ben Gray , Director of Capital Markets, Cushman & Wakefield At Cushman & Wakefield, we see only opportunities from the CPTPP, such as the removal of tariffs on goods traded between member states and the improved access to over half a billion people for Vietnamese producers. This has enabled Vietnam to project a 35 per cent increase in exports by 2025. Producers will need to expand and acquire new facilities as they increase production led by the increased access to CPTPP markets. Supply chains will need to be streamlined and improved, thus requiring new distribution and logistics centres to be built, opening opportunities for Cushman & Wakefields industrial and logistics platform to advise producers and third-party logistics (3PL) on strategy and acquisitions. We do not foresee much, if any, downside for our business caused by the ratification of the CPTPP. Jazreel lim, President, Singapore Business Association of Vietnam Vietnam remains attractive for Singaporean investors. As shown in a recent survey by the Singapore Business Association of Vietnam, around 77 per cent of Singaporean firms plan to expand abroad, with Vietnam being one of the top three choices. Specifically, around 76 per cent of the interviewed said that they have invested in Vietnam  the fourth highest rate, just behind Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand  while 30 per cent expect to expand business in Vietnam in the next two years  only behind Indonesia and Malaysia. Going forward, the CPTPP is expected to bring a new wave of investment from Singapore to Vietnam. The pact will create one of the worlds largest free trade blocs with a combined market of 499 million people and GDP of around $10.1 trillion, accounting for 13.5 per cent of the global GDP.
Chinese rice importers visited Vietnam in search of new business opportunities.-Photo thuonghieuvaphapluat.vn

The Chinese delegation of 22 enterprises included rice import companies from Guangdong Province, China. This was the second time this year the Chinese business delegation visited Vietnam to promote co-operation between the two countries in the rice sector.

China is a major importer of Vietnamese rice, accounting for about 25 per cent of Vietnams total rice exports. In the first 10 months this year, export volume to China reached 1.24 million tonnes, worth US$640 million. In the Chinese market, Vietnamese rice products accounted for nearly 50 per cent of Chinas total rice imports.

Vietnam and China have great potential to boost their rice trade thanks to Vietnams strong capacity of rice production and favourable location next to China, according to the department.

The department said strengthening trade with China will expand Vietnams consumption market. Meanwhile, the Chinese market will have a stable supply of quality rice from Vietnam with competitive prices and convenient delivery to meet demand.

The visit, which ended on November 17, was one of the activities under the trade promotion programme for rice this year. The visit was organised by the Export-Import Department and the Asia-Africa Market Department in co-operation with the Vietnam Trade Offices branch in Guangzhou Province, China and Long An Provinces Department of Industry and Trade.

During the visit, the Chinese delegation attended events connecting Vietnamese enterprises and Chinese partners, trips to rice production and processing facilities in Long An Province and a Food Expo in HCM City.
Inspecting border area in Gia Lai (Source: VNA)

Speaking at the event, Vice Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Nguyen Duc Hoang said Gia Lai has a population of over 1.4 million people with 34 ethnic groups, 44.7 percent of them are minorities.

According to Hoang, the provinces economic growth is estimated at 8 percent this year. The rate of poor households accounts for 13.34 percent of the total. There are 39,217 poor ethnic households, making up 86.5 percent while the rate of near-poor households accounts for 9.83 percent.

From 2007-2017, the province attracted 36 projects worth 10.63 million USD. In the first half of this year, as many as 300,000 USD was disbursed for eight projects, focusing on health care, education and rural development.

The provincial Peoples Committee issued Decision No.395/QD-UBND dated August 22, 2018 on a portfolio of projects calling for foreign non-governmental aid for the 2018-2020 period, including 80 projects in need of more than 8 million USD, mostly in dealing with social issues, agro-forestry, rural development, climate change, health care, education, vocational training and orientation.

Hoang wished that international and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and individuals with underway projects in Gia Lai would continue providing the province with more aid targeting more areas.

He committed all possible support in administrative procedures so that funded projects will be deployed in the shortest time.

Head of the Peoples Aid Coordinating Committee (PACCOM) Phan Anh Son said PACCOM will continue working closely with NGOs to make it easier for the province to access their aid.

On the occasion, the provincial authorities signed cooperation agreements with the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, the Foundation for International Development, the People Resources and Conservation Foundation, the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives with a total commitment of over 2 million USD, focusing on safety for school, watering technology in response to climate change, biodiversity preservation, and fight against dengue fever with community involvement.

In 2019, International SOS plans to launch a project on caring for children at SOS Pleiku childrens village with a total aid of 270,000 USD.
An overview of workshop on labour in new-generation free trade agreements (Source: VNA)

Speaking at a workshop on labour in new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs) in Hanoi on November 19, Vinh stated the CPTPP will offer new chances for both labourers and enterprises, helping raise labourers living conditions, reduce poverty and promote growth.

He predicted the demand for labourers in the timber, garment and food sectors will rise by 0.084 percent, if the export turnovers of these sectors increases by 1 percent yearly thanks to the CPTPP.

However, the agreement will also pose challenges, he noted, suggesting Vietnam enhance vocational training to meet market requirements and strictly follow commitments related to salary and social insurance payment.

Economists recommended Vietnam intensify institutional reform, increase national competitiveness and improve human resources quality.

According to a study of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), FTAs can help improve gender equality, especially in increasing access to the labour market and narrowing the salary gap.

The study also showed that agreements with labour-related clauses will help raise trade value by 28 percent, while those without labour-related clauses can help increase the value by only 26 percent.

To ensure compliance with labour commitments, Vietnam is in the process of amending the Labour Law to make it compatible with some contents of the CPTPP and make its commitments about labour more concrete, stated Nguyen Van Binh, deputy head of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Department of Legislation.

It will take Vietnam three to five years to amend the law and related regulations, and to improve awareness among the public, workers and enterprises, he added.

The CPTPP was signed in Santiago, Chile, on March 8, 2018 by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Of the 11, seven countries have ratified the pact, with Vietnam finishing its procedures on November 12. Earlier, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and Australia ratified the deal.

The deal, taking effect at the end of this year, is expected to bolster economic growth, create more jobs, alleviate poverty and improve the living quality of the member states.

It will create one of the worlds largest free trade blocks with a market of about 500 million people and a GDP of 10.1 trillion USD, accounting for 13.5 percent of the globes GDP.

The 11-nation accord is expected to increase Vietnams GDP by an additional 2.01 percent by 2035, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greets the European Union's top diplomat Federica Mogherini in Brussels amid warnings the security of Europe could be at risk over threats to a major US-Russia nuclear missile treaty. (Photo: AFP/Stephanie Lecocq)

Last month, Washington announced it was pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) over Russia's deployment of a missile system that Western powers say breaches the 1987 accord.

The Kremlin has warned of a new arms race, and as she convened a meeting of EU defence ministers Mogherini expressed concern, calling for talks to save the agreement.

"If we go towards the dismantling of this agreement, Europe's security is to be put at risk and we do not want to see European territory go back to being a battlefield for other powers as it has been for so long in the past," she told reporters.

"We don't want to go back to those kind of tensions, to that kind of situation and we still hope there is a space for saving the agreement and implementing it," she said.

While US President Donald Trump's administration has signalled it will withdraw from the treaty, it has not taken steps to put the decision into practice.

The INF treaty, signed by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ended a nuclear build-up in Europe triggered by Moscow's deployment of SS-20 missiles targeting Western European capitals.

The US and NATO say Russia's 9M729 missile system, also known by the designation SSC-8, breaches the treaty, which prohibits ground-launched missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometres.

Washington says repeated attempts to persuade Russia to come back into compliance since 2013 have been met with silence or obfuscation.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Europe should demand "full and transparent compliance" with the treaty from Russia.

"Russia has developed, tested and also fielded new missiles, SSC-8, for years. These missiles are mobile, hard to detect, nuclear capable and they are putting the INF Treaty in jeopardy," Stoltenberg said as he arrived to join the EU ministers for talks.

"The US is in full compliance with the INF Treaty, there are no new US missiles in Europe, but there are new Russian missiles in Europe."

Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed the INF treaty during a brief conversation at World War I centenary events in Paris last week.
French cuisine introduced at the 8th edition

Jointly held by the French Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City and SOPEXA company, the ninth edition of the event is organised within the framework of the Un Mois En France (One Month in France) programme.

This year, Balade en France is more special than previous ones as it is held right after the official visit to Vietnam by French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in November, French General Consul Vincent Floreani told reporters on November 21.

He hoped that the event will draw the participation of more than 4,000 visitors, who come to enjoy French culture and gastronomy.

A representative of the SOPEXA company said that French businesses will bring their outstanding products like cheese, cake, syrup, jam and pate for display at 40 booths.

In addition, the event will feature a large art performance, street music and lucky draw.

Following HCM City, Hanoi will host the same event from December 14-16 with nearly 60 booths.

Co-organised by the Hanoi Peoples Committee and the French Embassy, the festival is expected to attract around 100,000 visitors.
MSF and SOS Mediterranee have chartered the vessel since 2016. (Photo: AFP/Boris Horvat)

Investigators suspect the vessel, chartered by MSF and the SOS Mediterranee charity and currently stuck in the French port of Marseille, passed off 24 tonnes of dangerous and potentially toxic refuse as ordinary garbage in 11 Italian ports, Italian media reported.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania are running the inquiry into migrant clothing, food leftovers and sanitary waste that was handled at Italian ports from the Aquarius and the Vos Prudence, another vessel chartered by MSF last year.

Some rescued migrants are found suffering from HIV, meningitis and tuberculosis but MSF said its port operations "including waste management, have always followed standard procedures.

"The relevant authorities have not contested these procedures or identified a public health risk since we started our activities at sea," it said.

MSF and SOS Mediterranee have chartered the vessel since 2016.

"This is another strike in the series of attacks criminalising humanitarian aid at sea," said Frederic Penard, SOS Mediterranee's operations head.

"The tragic current situation is leading to an absence of humanitarian search and rescue vessels operating in the central Mediterranean, while the mortality rate is on the rise."

French authorities have not commented so far. According to SOS Mediterranee, the crew has not received any official notice yet.

MSF bank accounts in Italy have been blocked by the authorities, the international charity said. Twenty-four people are under investigation, Italian news agency ANSA quoted sources as saying.

Rescue ships have saved thousands of migrants stranded in the Mediterranean.

"The only crime we see today on the Mediterranean is the total dismantling of the search and rescue system," said MSF Italy director Gabriele Eminente.

He added in the statement that MSF had suffered "two years of defamatory campaigns" against non-governmental organisations.

'I WAS RIGHT' SAYS SALVINI

Aquarius has been in Marseille since Manama revoked the right to fly its flag following a request from Italy's far-right, anti-establishment government, meaning the Aquarius cannot legally set sail.

Immigration remains a hot-button issue in the European Union following the 2015 migration crisis. There are deep divisions among member states over how to handle the continent's biggest influx since World War II.

Frontline state Italy has clamped down on asylum-seekers under far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini who calls NGOs rescuing migrants from sea "smuggler helpers."

"I was right to stop the NGOs' ships (landing in Italian ports)," Salvini tweeted.

"Not only did I stop the trafficking of migrants but, according to what has emerged, I stopped the trafficking of refuse too. #portichiusi (#portsclosed)".

The International Organization for Migration says that about 15,000 migrants have drowned in the central Mediterranean since 2013.

During the same period Italy has seen 600,000 migrants land on its coastline, while other European nations have closed their borders.
LPG suppliers cannot stave off counterfeit products and illegal gas exploiters

Since 2012, an increasing number of foreign and domestic suppliers have been sizing down or pulling out of the Vietnamese LPG segment, including Shell Gas, Mobil Unique Gas, BP Gas, Total Gas, and Thang Long Gas.

The reason of leaving was consistently a business strategy of focusing on larger-scale markets. As Shell Gas Vietnam said when selling all of its holding to Siam Gas in 2012, This transfer is a part of Shells business strategy which concentrates on fewer key markets with larger scales.

However, the main drive is believed to be trade violations, such as overwhelming illegal gas extraction, poaching gas bottles, and selling low-quality gas by private gas dealers. Notably, the number of illegally-traded LPG canisters accounts for some 40 per cent of the gas market. Genuine gas traders have been at their wits end to fight and compete against trade fraud.

According to the Vietnam Gas Association, LPG enterprises need to invest millions of dollars in gas canisters, brand registration, periodic quality inspections and maintenance, as well as take responsibility for the safety of their products. Meanwhile, illegal gas dealers earn with far lower investment costs and responsibilities.

The Vietnam Gas Associations vice president cum general secretary Tran Trong Huu said at the recent workshop on challenges and prospects of LPG market that the most pressing issues are illegal gas extraction and the appropriation of canisters. More importantly, some dealers even switch the logos or change the structure of the containers  some are even selling fake LPG cylinders.

Such practices lead to unhealthy competition, affecting the benefits of authentic gas traders and consumers as well as the state budget (since the independent dealers do not pay tax).

The authority has put significant efforts into investigating and handling violations. As a result, the LPG market is reported to have been brought under partial control. However, according to Huu, it has been 10 years since the implementation of the regulations, and the results shows that there are still a lack of thorough and comprehensive action which limits the effectiveness of the laws administrating the LPG market.

Specifically, there are variations in each city and province when dealing with violations, with some applying penalties, while others issue administrative fines.

Huu proposed that competent bodies should provide authorities with adequate instructions so that they can fully understand and synchronously carry out the measures, creating a breakthrough in the fight against fraud and imitation, as well as violations against equity ownership and intellectual property in LPG trading.

In addition, he also suggested the government to build a joint circular on the prosecution of LPG trading violations.

Gas enterprises should protect their own rights by registering intellectual property rights, as well as using security seals and anti-counterfeiting stamps.

To control violations, Alttek Global JSCs director of business development recommended applying smart traceability tools to monitor the products from importing to retailing and consumption, helping consumers easily check the authenticity of the LPG products.
Gareth Ward, UK Ambassador to Vietnam Vietnam is receiving UK official development assistance (ODA) through the Newton Fund Programme Vietnam until 2021 which supports our growing research and innovation partnership, and builds capacity to address developmental challenges in Vietnam such as infectious diseases and climate resilience. Through the Fleming Fund, we are working with Vietnam on a programme for improving laboratory capacity for diagnosis and surveillance of antimicrobial resistance. The UK in Vietnam also supports projects in many areas covering gender equality, maritime security, governance, transparency, and education. The UK also provides ODA to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and modern slavery. Looking ahead, Vietnam is set to benefit from the UKs Prosperity Fund programmes, starting in early 2019, to deliver socioeconomic benefits and trade opportunities for both countries. These programmes are in areas of mutual interest and where the UK has expertise, from green finance, healthcare and future cities, to capital market development, non-tariff trade barriers, anti-corruption, and business greater transparency. Fabrice Richy, Country director, Agence Francaise de Developpement The Agence Francaise de Developpements (AFD) group strategy is to be 100 per cent true to the Paris Agreement and 100 per cent true to social inclusion, and this determines the overall goal of our actions in Vietnam. The AFDs strategy up to 2020 has a single purpose: to support Vietnam on its pathway towards green and resilient growth. This includes supporting Vietnam in adapting public policies and infrastructure to contribute to efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and taking into account the harmful consequences of climate change and natural hazards to tackle them at the lowest social and economic cost. The AFDs intervention will thus be grounded in the significant challenges related to the fight against climate change, and the resilience of cities and territories, in close dialogue with local and national authorities. Joaquim Levyi , Managing director and chief financial officer, World Bank Group The World Bank Group has been assisting Vietnam in coping with climate change as one of its big priorities in the country. I think Vietnam needs to be aware of the negative impacts of climate change. In my meeting with the prime minister he also asked us to help to address climate change impact, especially in the Mekong Delta. At a corporate level, we have promised to reserve 28 per cent of our portfolio for climate change related projects, and we aim to raise this up to 30 per cent. We have about $2.3 billion in International Development Association (IDA) resources that we have allocated to Vietnam, and a third of this can be readily available to address the issue of climate change. I also think that freeing up important resources for development can help the government focus on the most important thing for long-term growth, which is human capital. Vietnam already has very good basic and secondary education systems, and now the country might want to see to reforming higher education to make universities more efficient. Vietnam will need more investment in universities to make sure that there is a good labour force for future growth. If the private sector wants to grow, if Vietnam wants innovation, it will need to make sure that the labour force is well-skilled. Nguyen Minh Cuong, Principal country economist, Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Banks (ADB) country partnership strategy (CPS) in Vietnam within the 2016-2020 period targets its support at three outcome-based pillars. These are promoting job creation and competitiveness; increasing inclusiveness of infrastructure and service delivery; and improving environmental sustainability and climate change response. The ADB remains committed to forging a strong partnership with Vietnam in achieving these pillars. To maximise value-addition and pipeline development anchored on the CPS, the ADB will support Vietnam in mobilising grants and concessional co-financing to reduce the blended cost of non-concessional lending. The ADB will also support Vietnam in focusing on projects that include more responsive financing modalities and value-adding innovation and technology, and that can leverage either more co-financing or increased private sector participation, including through PPP support. Additionally, the support will also be about exploring opportunities to integrate more innovation and higher-level technology into projects. Generally speaking, Vietnam has been effectively utilising ADB-financed projects. Konaka Tetsuo, Chief representative, JICA Vietnam Office As Japans government set the latest Country Assistance Policy for Vietnam together with a rolling plan in December 2017, Japans official development assistance (ODA) for the years to come will be provided in line with this guidance. Under this new policy, the priorities of economic growth promotion, improvement of international competitiveness, strengthening of resilience, and good governance remain the same, with some new insights. For 2018 specifically, we have been preparing and finalising necessary procedures for several projects such as those for strengthening vocational education and training in Vietnam, for human resource development scholarship via Japanese grant aid, and for trenchless sewerage pipe rehabilitation in Ho Chi Minh City. Besides, we are expediting the progress of ongoing projects towards early completion with the co-operation of ministries and provincial governments. Besides traditional ODA schemes, JICA will also try to enhance the scheme and activity related to partnership with the private sector as well as citizen participatory co-operation, paying due attention to the strict control of public debt by the Vietnamese government.
Philip Morris would be willing to help Vinataba with future ambitions

In a recent working session with the leaders of the Committee for State Capital Management, Stacey Kennedy, president, South and Southeast Asia Region at Philip Morris International, Inc. expressed interest in the equitisation plan of Vinataba.

Especially, Philip Morris wanted to discuss what it could bring to the table as a strategic investor of Vinataba.

Stacey Kennedy said that in the 14 countries in South and Southeast Asia that Philip Morris surveyed, Vietnam is the most open market to iQOS, a heat-not-burn tobacco product which has already been introduced in developed countries like Japan, the US, and the United Kingdom.

According to the companys financial statement, in 2017 Vinataba reported VND25.68 trillion ($1.12 billion) in revenue, signifying a decrease of 3.91 per cent on-year, which it put down to selling Hai Ha and Huu Nghi Confectionery.

The two share sales contributed a large part to Vinatabas pre-tax profit of VND1.42 trillion ($61.87 million) in the first half of last year.

According to the forecast of the firm, in 2018 it may see a 27 per cent decrease in pre-tax profit due to losing the profit from the two confectionery firms.

Philip Morris entered Vietnam in 1994 via distributing Marlboro cigarettes.

Since January 2011, Marlboro cigarettes are manufactured under a sub-licensing agreement between PM Global Brands Inc. and Vinataba-Philip Morris Limited (VPM), a joint venture between the state-owned corporation Vinataba and PT Hanjaya Mandala Sampoerna Tbk, a PMI affiliate.

According to the statistics published by the World Health Organization, 40,000 people in Vietnam die each year from tobacco-related diseases, such as stroke and coronary artery diseases, among others. 30 per cent of all heart disease deaths are caused by cigarette smoking.

In Vietnam, almost one in two adult males (45.3 per cent) smoke tobacco. In addition, nearly 34.5 million non-smokers are exposed to second-hand smoking at home, restaurants, hotels, and at their place of work. This puts a great number of people at risk of cardiovascular disease. Not only smokers but also non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke face an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
The Vietnamese governments new moves aim to shake up interest in the divesment of SOEs such as Bao Viet

The government on November 9, 2018 issued Decision No.1515/QD-TTg on the procedures and process of transferring the rights and responsibilities of the agencies representing the state capital at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to the Committee for Management of State Capital, which touched on the equitisation of SOEs.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc may also have a meeting with SOEs this week, showing the governments strong determination to further accelerate the sluggish equitisation of SOEs, and increase their operational efficiency, thus creating more feasible opportunities for foreign investors to acquire their stakes.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remains a key investment channel to foreign investors. Initial statistics on the value of M&A deals involving foreign investors from 2016 to 2017 were quite impressive, accounting for 77 per cent of the total value of M&A deals in Vietnam.

Last year, the government enacted Decree No.126/2017/ND-CP on the equitisation of full state-owned companies, providing new and clearer procedures for the selection and offering of shares to qualified strategic investors, facilitating foreign investors to enter the SOE equitisation process.

The impact of this major legal development will be closely monitored by the business community as its practical applications unfold. As shown by statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment, stake acquisitions by foreign investors continued to surge and reached an on-year rise of 35.8 per cent to $6.3 billion in the first 10 months of 2018.

With hundreds of SOEs to be equitised and new bold measures expected to be worked out by the Vietnamese government after the meeting this week, the value of M&A deals is expected to rise even higher.

Key investment route

The Ministry of Finance reported that Vietnam currently has over 500 SOEs  including seven groups, 57 corporations, and 441 enterprises managed by ministries and localities. It is expected that by 2020, there will be about 150 SOEs, including lottery and utility companies, and three groups of PetroVietnam, EVN, and Viettel.

At present, investors from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Europe are the most interested in the equitisation of SOEs in Vietnam, with a focus on retail, consumer goods manufacturing, and real estate. Especially, EU investors now see the upcoming ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) as a chance for them to venture further into the M&A scene.

Our members are looking for opportunities in stake sales from SOEs. With the recent strong moves from the government to accelerate the process, more opportunities will be available for foreign investors, Jazreel Lim, president of the Singapore Business Association of Vietnam, told VIR.

Industry insiders said that Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage JSC (Habeco), leading drugmakers Domesco, Traphaco, and Hau Giang Pharmaceuticals JSC, and others such as Bao Viet Holdings and Vietnam Vegetable Oils Industry Corporation are on foreign investors radars.

The involvement of foreign investors in state divestments has improved business governance and operational efficiency at SOEs, with dairy giant Vinamilk amd Domesco as outstanding examples.

After being divested by the state, Vinamilk now has F&N Dairy Investments and Platinum Victory  a fund of Jardine Cycle & Carriage (JC&C), a multi-industry regional business group  as its biggest foreign shareholders. Vinamilk aims to capture 60 per cent of the domestic milk market in the next five years, and continue to expand abroad, especially in emerging markets like Laos and Myanmar.

Domesco, which has Abbott Laboratories  one of the worlds leading nutrition groups  on the board with 51.7 per cent, recorded good performance across 2017 and set high profit targets for this year.

Solutions to stagnancy

Despite some improvements and strong interest from foreign investors, the pace of SOE equitisation this year has been somewhat languid. Only 10 out of the 85 SOEs set for equitisation during the year have so far carried out the plan.

Among cities and provinces, Ho Chi Minh City has 39 SOEs planned for equitisation in 2018, but none of them have finished procedures so far. The southern metropolis at the October meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue proposed delaying the equitisation process. Accordingly, the city will equitise 32 SOEs next year and the remainder in 2020.

Several industry insiders said that plenty can be done to speed up equitisation, thus attracting more investors.

The governments recent efforts are only a starting point, the key is whether SOEs are ready to be sold. Moreover, buyers often want to buy a controlling stake, said Lim.

The issues raised include the transparency of corporate history, book keeping, corporate evaluation, and the process of equitisation. For example, proper, true, and accurate documentation related to the company should be made accessible to potential strategic investors to conduct legal and financial due diligence in advance of the listing of shares.

Besides, state ownership should be reduced below 50 per cent in sectors of interest to foreign investors to allow them to take control of the company, thereby enhancing the deals attractiveness.
Sabeco has been haunted with past tax arrears, transfer pricing, and suspicious divestment. Source:Tienphong.vn

Sabeco asked to pay $108.47 million in tax arrears

In February 2018, while auditing Sabecos financial reports and related activities in 2016, the State Audit of Vietnam (SAV) directed the corporation to pay VND2.495 trillion ($184.47 million) in dividends to the state since the last round of payments in 2016.

The SAV asked Sabeco to pay VND2.495 trillion ($184.47 million) to the state budget before November 20 and send receipts to the SAVs Region IV office.

According to the SAV, the interim financial statements for the six-month period ending on June 30, 2017 were audited by PwC Vietnam Co., Ltd. and as of December 31, 2016, Sabeco held more than VND2.8 trillion ($121.739 million) in after-tax profit which it had not declared tax for.

In the first quarter of 2017, VND76 billion ($3.3 million) of this was divided among several funds. Thus, the remaining profit from 2016 and earlier is more than VND2.7 trillion ($117.39 million).

As the state owned 89.59 per cent of Sabeco at the last days of 2016, the SAV proposed the company to pay VND2.4 trillion ($104.35 million) from this undeclared profit and earlier years.

The transfer pricing story

These undeclared taxes also brought up suspicions of transfer-pricing activities among experts.

In 2015, while auditing the financial reports of Sabeco, the SAV detected transfer pricing which lead to the declaration of special consumption tax arrears of VND408.8 billion ($17.77 million).

"Not only foreign-invested enterprises but also many domestic enterprises have shown clear signs of transfer-pricing, causing a serious loss of budgetary revenue for the state. A typical case of this is Sabeco," Ho Duc Phoc, auditor general of the SAV, stated at the workshop on "Transfer pricing  critical issues in current state management" held on July 19 by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in co-ordination with SAV, according to cafef.vn.

According to Ho Duc Phoc, the SAVs collection of special consumption tax from Sabeco may have indirectly pointed to a flaw in special consumption tax management. Therefore, it is necessary to complete the provisions of the law on transfer pricing which remains inadequate and limited.

Associate Professor Nguyen Dinh Hoa, acting director of Auditing Training Institute, said that in the past Sabeco had used subsidiaries to implement transfer pricing.

"Sabeco has been producing and distributing beer products. The corporation produces and sells beer to its subsidiary trading companies. These companies do not sell products directly to consumers, but sell to other subsidiaries at low prices. Then the beer is sold to regional companies, to agents level one, level two, level three, to restaurants, then to consumers, Nguyen Dinh Hoa analysed.

Recently, Sabeco announced becoming the owner of Sai Gon Beer One Member Limited Company, which was established on July 13 with the charter capital of VND10 million ($43,478), registered mainly for the wholesale of beer, spirits, and beverages, according to vneconomy.vn.

Divesting at a ridiculously low price

In 2016, Sabeco sold its entire shareholding in Sabeco Pearl Investment JSC (Sabeco Pearl) to Attland JSC under the contract No.01/HD-SABECO/2016 at the price of VND13,347 ($0.58) per share, collecting only VND195 billion ($8.48 million) in proceeds.

According to the SAV, Sabeco determined the starting unit price of VND13,247 ( $0.57) based on an erroneous valuation of Sabeco Pearl. For example, while using the surplus cost method, Sabeco Pearl used a discount rate to convert future cash flows to current values of 13.69 per cent.

However, in 2016, the discount rate determined by the valuation association of Ho Chi Minh City and appraisal firms for Sabeco Pearls real estate projects was 11 per cent. As a result, the value of the Sabeco Pearl has been significantly reduced.

Sabeco Pearl was established to deploy the Saigon Me Linh Tower project with the scale of three basements, nine floors, two towers (48 and 36 floors) on a golden land plot at 2-6 Hai Ba Trung Street, Ben Nghe ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City with the area of over 6,000s.qm.

Recently, the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS)s Investigation Police Office (C01) decided to launch a criminal investigation of "violation of regulations on land management" occurring at Sabeco related to the project at 2-6 Hai Ba Trung Street.

Previously, Sabeco was allowed by the MoF to use the land area to build Sabecos office building and trade centre for office services. However, based on the report of the Department of Natural Resources and Environments director Dao Anh Kiet, in June 2015, Deputy Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Huu Tin signed a decision approving Sabeco Pearl to lease the land for 50 years to build a six-star complex, convention centre, seminar, and office building for rent. This decision is contrary to the MoF's plan for this land.

According to the audited financial statement in 2015, Sabeco Pearl's total assets reached over VND1.018 trillion ($470.348 million, including land use rights of VND997 billion  $43.348 million and other expenses).

In fact, if Sabeco decides not to use this plot and hand it over to the government, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee must allocate the land through an auction of the land use rights rather than voluntarily assignment to Sabeco Pearl.

To top this all off, Sabeco sold its entire stake in Sabeco Pearl to Attland JSC (one of the four founding shareholders of Sabeco Pearl with the initial charter capital of 23 per cent) at the "super cheap" price.

Investment but receive losses

Remarkably, according to the SAV, Sabeco must set aside provisions for losses in 10 long-term investment projects where it hold less than 20 per cent of the charter capital, equalling VND444.7 billion ($19.33 million) in total, including:

Project/Company VND USD Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank 154 billion 6.69 million DongA Joint Stock Commercial Bank 126.79 billion 5.51 million Sai Gon Securities Investment Fund A2 33.7 billion 1.46 million Dai Viet Securities Joint Stock Company (DVSC) 16 billion 695,652 VietFund Management (VFM) 24.8 billion 1.08 million Phuong Dong Petrolium Tourism JSC (PTC) 23.938 billion 1.04 million Underground Space Investment and Development Corporation 1.7 billion 73,913 PVI Insurance Saigon Company (PVI SAIGON) 39.3 billion 1.71 million Sai Gon Dong Nai Beer JSC 3.3 billion 143,478 Vinashin (pay for Vinashins bonds  equal to a hundred per cent of investment value) 20.8 billion 904,350

In addition, Sabeco had paid more than VND12 billion ($521,739) in bonuses for its general director, deputy general director, head of control department, chief accountant, equal to 20.3 months of their average salaries, whereas the maximum amount allowed under Decree 71 is only 1.5 months. Therefore, the SAV requested the MoIT to clarify responsibilities, according to vnexpress.vn.

As of the last day of September 2018, Sabeco was in the red. According to the corporations third quarter financial report, due to the high cost of goods sold, especially the cost of raw materials for malt and aluminium cans, the company's gross profit dropped by 13 per cent against the corresponding period last year, down to VND1.86 trillion ($80.87 million).

On October 30, 2018, Sabeco published Resolution No.111A/2018/NQ-HDQT about lifting the foreign ownership limit on its website. Accordingly, foreign investors will be able to own up to 100 per cent of the capital instead of the previous 49 per cent  a decision which might bring in some much needed expertise and capital to turn the losing tides.
Since the Law on Cybersecurity was approved five months ago, Google and Facebook have still kept silent on the issue of opening representative offices or branches in Vietnam as required by the law, which will officially take effect on January 1, 2019.

Facebook and Google have 50 and 60 million Vietnamese users, respectively, generating the companies hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, which makes it hard to imagine that the two corporations would be willing to give up the market, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS).

Regarding their business activities in Vietnam, lawyer Lai Ngoc Thanh from Basico law firm told VIR, The trend of shifting from traditional to online advertising, especially social networks, enables cross-border platforms to make great profit in Vietnam, which accounts for two-thirds of these companies budget.

In fact, the two corporations are regularly running recruitment campaigns in the country, which shows their unbroken interest.

Accordingly, after its former representative in Vietnam Huynh Kim Tuoc left Facebook in late July 2018, the company immediately recruited Uber Vietnams former policy director Nguyen Anh Nguyet to be in charge of its public policy department.

In this past March, Facebook also recruited Le Diep Kiep Trang, former director of Fossil Vietnam, as director of Facebook Vietnam. Furthermore, since Trangs appointment, the social network platform has announced recruiting Vietnamese personnel three times.

Similarly, via the independent organisation Google Developers Group (GDG), Google has held a large number of technology events in Vietnam.

It is apparent that Google and Facebook are especially interested in the Vietnamese market, which makes a potential decision to withdraw from the market highly unlikely.

AMPLE ADVANTAGES

Based on the MoPS view, the Law on Cybersecurity not only leaves businesses unaffected but will also facilitate their activities in Vietnam as data localisation would decrease costs, accelerate loading speed, and improve service quality.

Along with the benefits, the companies establishing branches or representative offices in Vietnam will be afforded all the rights and protection provided by the extensive legal framework of Vietnam, making available legal recourse to punish illegal online activities, such as false advertising, intellectual property infringement, and the divulgement of business secrets. In addition, tech businesses will receive similar treatment to other foreign enterprises in different sectors in terms of legal procedures, business registration, service licensing, inspection, taxation, and fair competition.

However, the law also stipulates that the companies have to establish branches or representative offices in Vietnam. Opening official branches in Vietnam means that the two giants operations will be under the Vietnamese authorities supervision and will have to comply with Vietnamese regulations, such as paying taxes for the Vietnamese government via domestic bank accounts.

Responding to concerns that the law will violate international treaties, Luong Tam Quang, head of the MoPS Office affirmed that the law is in full compliance with international practices. Accordingly, 18 nations across the globe have ordered foreign companies to store the personal information of users in their territories. These nations include Canada, Russia, Germany, China, Indonesia, Greece, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentine, and Brazil. This statement was confirmed by a member of local law firm VCI Legal.

In the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Vietnam is currently in communications with Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Japan (six out of the 11 other member states) affirming that the laws provisions on data storage are not contrary to or violate the countrys commitments, a VCI lawyer explained. Some World Trade Organization member states have already enacted similar regulations, setting the precedent for Vietnam.

Regarding tax collection from social network platforms as well as advertisers, individuals, and organisations earning from the platforms, Thanh from Basico also affirmed that the management and tax collection will be in line with international commitments. Vietnam is currently amending its legal framework to strengthen administration and supervision in the area.

Talking with VIR, Warrick Cleine, chairman and CEO of KPMG Vietnam and Cambodia, also highlighted the need for Vietnam to enter into co-operation with other countries to jointly deal with tax issues, creating one global taxation platform.

VIETNAM NOT ALONE IN NEED FOR REPRESENTATIVE OFFICES

According to Quang, before Vietnam, a large number of nations required Facebook and Google to open representative offices in their territories.

Google and Facebook has about 70 and 80 representative offices, respectively, across the globe, Quang said. The setting up of legal entities by foreign enterprises in Vietnam will help create a fair and responsible business environment in Southeast Asia.

However, despite having a large number of representative offices over the world, administrating the two corporations activities is a growing headache for countries at large. Over the past few years, the European Commission (EC) has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Facebook and Google, trying to corner them into paying tax. The ECs is currently planning to issue a new tax worth $5.0 billion per year on Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

According to the UKs The Guardian, the growing dominance of digital companies is a long-term threat to Europes tax base, while also sparking questions of fairness. The EC estimates that digital businesses pay an effective average tax rate of only 9.5 per cent, compared with the 23.2 per cent for bricks-and-mortar companies.
Unilever disputes the SAV's $26 million tax bill based on a difference between Vietnamese legislation

Speaking at the National Assembly on November 15, Ho Duc Phoc, auditor general of the SAV, mentioned Unilever Vietnam as a highlight example of tax evasion in past years.

Unilever Vietnams tax issues began in 2016 when the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department officially released a decision to collect nearly VND800 billion ($34.78 million) in tax arrears from Unilever Vietnam, but the company has not agreed with the charge at all. Since then, the two sides have been working to clarify the issue, during which the figure was revised to VND600 billion ($26 million).

vnexpress.net quoted Tran Vu Hoai, vice president of Unilever Vietnams Sustainable Business and Communications, as saying that the problem comes from a difference between the Law on Investment and the Law on Corporate Tax Income (CIT) before 2014, leading to troubles related to CIT regarding its expansion projects in 2009-2013.

This difference in the point of law is the main reason behind the misunderstanding, added Hoai.

Affirming that the company has always been ready to co-operate with local authorities, Hoai stated that the problem is being resolved by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, and other authorities.
SVMC has been steadily gaining influence within the Samsung R&D ecosystem

Vietnamese intellect

Last month, Samsung launched the Galaxy A7  the first mobile equipped with three rear cameras that can shoot photos of 120 degree angular width. This event was held in Malaysia with the participation of the three Vietnamese lead engineers from Vietnam Mobile Research and Development Centre (SVMC), Vu Tien Dung, Luong Ba Dat, and Pham Huu Duc, who participated in the creation of Galaxy A7.

Samsung products, no matter how beautiful or perfect, are just the body. To make the products workable, providing a great experience for users, there needs to be an operating system, software platforms, and applications. SVMC, among Samsungs other R&D centres around the world, is responsible for filling Samsungs phones with life and soul.

Established in Vietnam in 2012, SVMC has been responsible for developing the entire software system and features for several Samsung phones, such as the Galaxy V, Galaxy J, but Galaxy A7 is different. While Galaxy V or Galaxy J are mid-range phones, Galaxy A7 is nearly a high-end phone, only behind flagship models like Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Note. This proves that the level of software engineers in Vietnam is not inferior to other countries and SVMC is increasingly trusted by Samsungs leaders.

When receiving the task to develop software for the Galaxy A7, beside the joy of being trusted, we were also worried because this was the first project that included a completely new feature to all Samsung phones, the three-camera system in the rear. In the end, we managed to step-by-step overcome the difficulties and completed the task, Vu Tien Dung shared.

The most difficult part of the Galaxy A7 project was the camera design, as this is Samsung's first phone with three rear cameras. In the first phase, the project engineers of SVMC had to co-operate with User Experience (UX) designers from Korea and India to research and then step-by-step develop application platforms for the product.

There were many problems during mass-production, but thanks to close co-operation with Samsung Electronics Vietnam (SEV) and Samsung Electronics Vietnam-Thai Nguyen (SEVT), SVMC engineers could quickly review and shorten the processing time.

"We are extremely proud that the Vietnamese engineering team has successfully implemented an important software project for the strategic Galaxy A7 product. With this success, we hope to completely change the worlds view of Vietnam. We will not only be Samsung's largest mobile phone manufacturers, but will become Samsung's most important base in the field of mobile phone research and development," said Shim Won Hwan, general director of Samsung Vietnam.

Not only mid-range phones

Over the past 10 years, Samsung has grown steadily in Vietnam, with high-tech manufacturing complexes in Bac Ninh, Thai Nguyen, and Ho Chi Minh City, with a total investment of over $17.3 billion. As a result, Vietnam has become Samsung's global manufacturing base, employing 35 per cent of Samsung's global staff and providing up to 40 per cent of Samsung's products. With the development of this production base, SVMC has also been growing at a steady pace.

At first, SVMC engineers only undertook software upgrades or localised additional features to better suit certain markets. It was not until 2014 that SVMC was assigned the first major project to develop products for the Galaxy V  which was only sold in Vietnam.

In 2016, SVMC took on its first original project for the J1, which was followed by other original projects related to the J series, like J2 or J7 Pro, which are all mid-range phones. Do Duc Dung, director of SVMC Software Solutions, shared that "If Vietnam is Samsung's global manufacturing base, then SVMC will become the headquarters of the J product line."

In the J project series, SVMC took responsibility for developing the entire software platform so that J phones, which are "hot" in the global and Vietnamese markets, can operate perfectly.

It seems that SVMC will not be just the headquarters for mid-range phones. By now, SVMC's engineers have reached high-end products and affirm the power of Vietnamese hands and minds, confirming SVMCs position and importance in Samsungs R&D operations.

SVMC's engineers have been involved in the development of application platforms like S Note, the "social network" PEN.UP for S Pen (the device attached to the Galaxy Note) or Knox security application, Smart Switch, Hello Bixby, and Smart Manager.

The contribution of Vietnamese tech know-how to Samsungs applications is increasing. Besides Southeast Asia, SVMC has extended its influence to Australia, New Zealand, then the Middle East, Africa, and even the EU. SVMC, as announced by Shim Won Hwan, has become one of Samsung's most important R&D centres globally.
VinFast announced the starting price of its cars at the launching ceremony. Source:VNA

VinFast issued the price list of its cars at the launching ceremony of its vehicles organised on November 20 at Thong Nhat Park.

These are only the listed selling prices, while at the beginning, customers will be able to access significant discounts. Thus, at first, the Fadil will cost VND336 million ($14,608), Sedan Lux A2.0 VND800 million ($34,782), and SUV Lux SA 2.0 VND1.136 billion ($49,391).

Vinfast cars have impressive prices, so I dont think that Vingroup will gain profit from these cars, they may even lose on each car sold. The sedan and SUV models are sold at a price lower than the BMW 5 Series and X5 in North American markets (around $50-60,000). The price is quite affordable, previously I thought these models would go for VND1.3-1.5 billion ($56,500 - 65,200), said Nguyen Thanh Hai (also known as Hai Kar), an automobile expert.

I cannot comment on the quality of these cars just yet, but their configuration and specifications are all higher than my expectations. For example, the airmatic suspension system has not been seen in cars under VND1 billion. Thereby, Vinfast has been very careful to equip its vehicles. In my opinion, with the affordable price and what it gets, Vinfast stands a good chance of stirring up the market, Hai said.

In the framework of the launching ceremony, VinFast also officially debuted its electric motorcycles with surprisingly low pricing. Notably, along with the Three No policy  No Depreciation Charge, No Financial Charge, and No Profit  Klara electric motorcycles will also receive a discount policy.

Debuting the cars and electric motorcycles surprised customers because to date the VinFast facilities have yet to begin production. The Fadil model, which was displayed at the launching ceremony, was imported from South Korea and from 2019 they will be manufactured in VinFasts facilities in Haiphong. Besides, the Sedan Lux A2.0 and SUV Lux SA2.0 are only concept models, not commercial models for manufacturing.

With the selling price of VND423 million ($18,391 excluding VAT) the Fadil will have to compete with other brands at the same segment, namely Hyundai Grand i10 ($13,700-18,000), KIA Morning ($12,600-17,000), Toyota Wigo ($15,000-17,600), and Chevrolet Spark ($11,200-14,300).

"Vinfast cars are quite good-looking. Despite similarities with Chevrolet products, the Fadil seems to be bigger and its features are more rounded. I really love it and intend to buy one for my wife. This segment is the best-selling market segment because it suits the transport conditions in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, I myself am very interested in the strong and luxurious features of the sedan and the SUV, which are very much like the exquisite BMW 5 Series at a far more affordable price," Nguyen Xuan Tung, IT engineer.
Gold spot gained nearly 2.7 per cent to US$1,223 per ounce on Tuesday from $1,200 per ounce on October 1, data on kitco.com showed.-Photo cafef.vn

Gold spot gained nearly 2.7 per cent to US$1,223 per ounce on Tuesday from $1,200 per ounce on October 1, data on kitco.com showed.

On nymex.com, gold futures rose 2.8 per cent to $1,225 per ounce on Tuesday from $1,191 on October 1.

In Vietnam, prices published by local companies have also risen in recent weeks.

At Bao Tin Minh Chau Jewellery and Gemstone Co and Phu Nhuan Jewellery JSC, gold bars were being sold at around VND36.5-36.6 million per tael (around $1,620 per ounce) on Tuesday.

Local gold prices have increased by around 0.3 per cent since October 1.

According to PNJ general director Le Tri Thong, gold prices always rise in the second half of the year.

Gold trading is higher in the last six months because it is a time for holidays and big events, so demand for jewellery and gold increases.

This year, the domestic gold market had been affected by external factors, which had mostly come from the trade tension between China and the US, he said.

The tensions had pushed the US dollar up against other currencies and increased Vietnams exchange rates, he said, adding that the possibility of further Fed rate hikes had also contributed to the market trend.

According to Tran Thanh Hai, chairman of the Vietnam Gold Investment and Trading Corporation, other factors that had helped pushed gold prices up included issues related to Brexit.

According to Bank of America (BoA), investors didnt want to put their assets at risk and the US dollar may not be a safe haven for them.

Positive gains of gold prices have been supported by the uptrend of US stocks and a stronger US dollar against other currencies.

In addition, the US Federal Reserve has kept its lending rates steady at 2-2.25 per cent and signalled more rate hikes in the future.

Experts have said that a potential hard Brexit could have positive impacts on gold prices in the near future.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently reported that potential risks arising from a hard Brexit would disrupt production and service activities, thus benefiting gold prices.

Gold prices are forecast to rise above $1,235 per ounce and could go higher in 2019.
From the Pouy Ta Mok lookout high in the Dangrek Mountains, visitors can see for miles  a sweeping panorama of farms, forests, and bushfires. What the sylvan vista doesnt reveal are the attractions that lure a trickle of tourists to this remote district on Cambodias northern border: the grave of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the home of his military commander - The Butcher Ta Mok - and countless other tangible reminders of the regime that oversaw the deaths of at least 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979. Not that the locals need reminding. In the district capital, the past and present coexist in an anxious truce between the vanquished dream of a communist utopia and the harsh capitalism of a border town. We protected the nation and the territory, said 73-year-old farmer Tith Morn, who helped defend the last Khmer Rouge stronghold here before the government dismantled the insurgency in 1998. But in the end, Morn said, I got nothing  not even a cow.

We just live here On Friday, the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal convicted the regimes two most senior living leaders of genocide and handed each a life sentence. Nuon Chea, 92, Pol Pots second-in-command, and Khieu Samphan, 87, the Khmer Rouge head of state, had already received the same sentence for crimes against humanity. Along with the prison chief known as Duch, they are the only senior Khmer Rouge leaders who have lived long enough to face a modicum of justice. Im Chaem, a local regime official accused of mass murder and enslavement among other crimes, has enjoyed a peaceful retirement on her farm in Anlong Veng since the charges against her were dropped last year. She recently converted to Christianity. Grandma Chaem, as she is known, is just one of the hundreds of former Khmer Rouge fighters and functionaries attempting to put the past behind them at the scene of their last stand. They work as farmers and cart-pullers, police officers and politicians.

 But while the view from the Pouy Ta Mok lookout hasnt changed much in the past 20 years, the district capital is a town transformed. Hotels, karaoke parlors, and beer-branded restaurants flank the dusty red streets. A Sokimex gas station owned by Khieu Samphans son dominates the main intersection. At the Choam Sa-Ngam international checkpoint, a few miles to the north, vendors hawk fruit from roadside stalls while cart-pullers tow fish and household appliances for clients back from border-hopping shopping sprees. A garish casino looms over Pol Pots inglorious gravesite. Seng Ras family has a foot in the past, present, and future of Anlong Veng. The 27-year-old is a cart-puller at the border, her husband a casino worker and her mother the caretaker of Pol Pots grave: a mound of earth covered by a rusted-metal roof in a dusty clearing.

We dont have a farm, Ra said, tending to her infant son in their tin-sided shack. A photo above the door shows then-King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Norodom Monineath during a visit to northern Cambodias liberated zone in 1973. We just live here, dependent on transporting goods, Ra added, explaining that she makes about 30,000 riels per day, or about $7.50. No one dared come Anlong Vengs population has swelled to nearly 70,000 in recent years, and 35 percent of residents are former Khmer Rouge cadre, according to Peuy Saroeun, chief of the district council. In the past, no one dared come, said Saroeun, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier himself. Now, he added, Anlong Veng is completely peaceful, and being developed into a tourist destination. Although most ex-Khmer Rouge continue to farm the land they spent two decades defending, he said, the newcomers are more ambitious. Sieng Hai is one of them. The 43-year-old moved to Anlong Veng from Ratannakiri province in 2005 and opened the predictably named Sieng Hai Restaurant, famous for its stuffed freshwater eel.

Others came to live here, so I came, too, she said. There are good business opportunities. Hai holds no grudge against her neighbors for their past allegiance to a murderous regime  they are friendly, and not mean or violent, she said  but claims they lack entrepreneurial acumen. They rarely do business. They dont know how. They are uneducated, she said, adding that alternate opportunities for quick cash have disappeared with the areas valuable timber. They are afraid of the court But if the defectors are largely absent from the local merchant class, they are plainly visible in the political sphere, having been assigned to administrative posts as part of the reintegration process. At the time, efforts were made to preserve the existing hierarchy, according to Sareoun, who was made a deputy commune chief. Later, he was deputy district governor under his Khmer Rouge superior, Yim Phanna, now an army commander in Preah Vihear province with the rank of major general. All five communes in Anlong Veng are controlled by former Khmer Rouge officials, along with about 70 percent of the districts 65 villages, according to Saroeun. But Saroeun does not equate his post-war political career to his prior responsibilities, claiming he was merely a small soldier in Pol Pots army. And dont expect other local leaders to be forthcoming about their past positions, Saroeun warned. Some, like the village chiefs, dont dare say. If you go and ask them, they will not tell you, he said. They are afraid of the court, he added, referring to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Just a soldier This is the great contradiction of Anlong Veng: a community of one-time Khmer Rouge loyalists with lingering sympathies for Pol Pot and his adherents, but a reluctance to delve into their personal roles. In numerous interviews, residents acknowledged being part of the communist machine, but denied taking part in the torture, starvation and slaughter that wiped out one fifth of the countrys population. I was just a soldier is a common refrain, not a perpetrator. Yong Moeun was neither a soldier nor  in her own mind at least  a perpetrator. From 1976 to 1984, she lived in Beijing with her husband, then the Communist Party of Kampucheas ambassador to China. An embassy officer herself, she also served as a personal aide to Pol Pot. Upon returning to Cambodia in 1984, she managed the Khmer Rouge leaders jungle residence in Koh Kong province before retreating to Anlong Veng with the rest of the regime faithful. Pol Pot had a true vision for protecting the nation and the [Khmer] race, said Moeun, who now runs a gas station in town. She praised her late master as a patriot. But he has to be held responsible because he led the country, she said. What went wrong is on him. Parked near the towns main roundabout, a moto-taxi driver described his days sawing planks of wood for building projects overseen by Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge military commander who ultimately deposed Pot in 1996.

Ta Mok was a good guy. He was honest. He never killed good people, the man said, declining to give his name for fear of retribution. Nicknamed The Butcher, Ta Mok is believed to have ordered the deaths of more than 100,000 people. Morn, the farmer who received not even a cow, walks with a limp and suffers from an erratic pulse and unhealed shrapnel wounds. He has more complicated feelings about the Khmer Rouge leadership. Sitting on a bed, he praised Pol Pots nationalist ideals, but said he regretted the violence that followed. Pol Pot, he said, has to be held responsible, as the leader, both right and wrong. Morn said that senior Khmer Rouge officials who defected to Hun Sens government prior to 1998 were rewarded, while foot soldiers like him were forgotten, left to subsist off the land. The high-level Khmer Rouge got rich, he said. Morn grows rice, corn and cassava on a 6-acre farm he cultivated after clearing a patch of unclaimed forestland. Growing up, I couldn't do anything because the country was at war, he said. But now that the war is over, I cant do anything due to my old age.

So Samouen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who moved to Anlong Veng with his wife and daughter last year, feels shamed and stigmatized. I am afraid that people will hate me, and that they will do something, like take revenge, said Samoeun, who makes a meager living selling scavenged plastic scraps. Like Morn, he cringes from the pain of wartime wounds. I dont have money for treatment, he said. Samoeun even hid his past from his wife, Marn Chantha, until after they were married. If I knew he was Khmer Rouge, I wouldnt have married him, said Chantha, whose parents and two siblings were killed under the regime. A fragile glass Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam, explained that there remains a trust deficit among the citizens of post-war Cambodia. Trust, in our society, remains a fragile glass, he said, entreating the public to be open-minded about the residents of Anlong Veng. We should not make prejudgments about whether they are telling the truth or not about what they did during the Khmer Rouge time, he said. We should not come to Anlong Veng with an attitude of prejudice, nor to glorify the Khmer Rouge. They are Cambodian people, Chhang said. He described the district capital as a city of understanding between friend and enemy.

Anlong Vengs future will primarily be shaped by its people, and the people of Anlong Veng offer a diversity of experiences that provide a window into the legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime, the horrors of war, and the incredible beauty and courage of humanity in extreme adversity, write Dy Khamboly and Christopher Dearing in their history of the area. DC-Cam hopes to have a hand in that future. In 2016, it helped launch the Anlong Veng Peace Center, a modest museum housed in a mountaintop structure once used as a meeting space by Khmer Rouge leaders. With the goal of promoting reconciliation and understanding, DC-Cam also leads peace tours of the 14 official historical sites in Anlong Veng, including the homes of Pol Pot, Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan and Son Sen, the Khmer Rouge defense minister.
In this episode of Straight Talk Africa veteran journalist Shaka Ssali explores the challenges of major social and political reforms in Ethiopia that the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is undertaking. He is joined by Negussie Mengesha, Director of the VOA Africa Division, Nunu Wako, political analyst, Kone Feseha of the Ethiopian Dialogue Forum and Elias Wondimu, CEO of Tsehai Publishers.
Europe this month marked the 100th anniversary of the armistice that brought World War One to an end. Now, a conclusion to World War Two may be finally in sight - if Russian President Vladimir Putin gets his way. The Russian leader has an initiative to sign a final peace treaty with Japan  and resolve a Soviet-era dispute over the fate of several small islands in Russias Far East. Charles Maynes traveled to the region and has this report.
Cameroon's military says it has freed nine students and a teacher who were kidnapped this week from a school in one of the country's restive English-speaking regions. It is the third time this month that students have been abducted from schools in the Anglophone regions.

Senior divisional officer Nto'ou Ndong Chamberlin says several gunmen were killed Wednesday in the military operation, and other armed men responsible for the abduction are on the run. The teacher was wounded in the rescue.

"Nine guns have been seized, four neutralized  among them the head of the team, called 'Man of Lucks,' and three bikes destroyed and even the camp has also been burned down by the forces of law and order [military]," Chamberlin said.

Gunmen kidnapped the students and their teacher Tuesday evening from Lords Bilingual School in Kumba, a city in Cameroon's southwest region.

The kidnapping comes three weeks after gunmen kidnapped and then released 79 students and three staff from a school in the neighboring northwest region.

Eleven students were later kidnapped from the same Presbyterian Secondary School. Church moderator Fonki Samuel said a $4,000 ransom was paid to the abductors for their release.

Pierre Marie Abbe, a political analyst at the Catholic University of Central Africa, says the government's war against the separatists has been a failure.

The government should drop the idea of war and organize dialogue with English-speaking Cameroonians, Abbe said. But for such a dialogue to be successful, he added, the government should meet Anglophone Cameroonians to find out from them who they see as their true leaders.

The government says separatists in the two English-speaking regions have torched at least a hundred schools and abducted or killed dozens of teachers. More than 90 percent of the regions' schools remain closed.

The international community and rights groups have condemned violence from both sides and called on the government to negotiate an end to the crisis.

"The U.N. has, along with most of the international community, asked for dialogue," said Allegra Maria Del Pilar Baiocchi, the U.N. resident coordinator for Cameroon. "We need to hear the voices of the people saying we have had enough and we want solutions. It should not only be the U.N. saying it or the ambassadors. We need confidence-building measures and I think we need peace."

Unrest broke out in Cameroon's western regions in 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested the dominance of French-speakers.

Cameroon's military reacted with a crackdown, and armed separatists soon launched a campaign for independence.

Clashes since have killed more than 1,200 people.
The Florida sheriff's captain who oversaw the initial response to February's Parkland high school massacre resigned Tuesday and the first sergeant to arrive at the scene has been suspended over what other law enforcement officials saw as their inaction during the initial minutes after the first shots were fired.

The Broward Sheriff's Office announced that Capt. Jan Jordan resigned and Sgt. Brian Miller was placed on paid suspension pending an internal investigation. He was ordered to surrender his gun, badge and car and not to perform any law enforcement duties.

Jordan oversaw the city of Parkland on Feb. 14 when a gunman killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Law enforcement officers told investigators she appeared to be in a trance-like state and overwhelmed as she tried to direct the initial response to the attack.

Miller arrived at the school during the shooting but video shows he stayed outside the parking lot until long after the massacre ended, even as other law enforcement officers entered the building.

At the request of a state commission investigating the massacre, the sheriff's office had not conducted its own probe into its deputies' actions. An investigator for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission gave a report last week that was heavily critical of both.

Sheriff Scott Israel had no comment on Jordan's resignation, but said after reviewing the commission's report he felt it prudent to relieve Miller of duty. Israel has also been heavily criticized by the parents of some slain students, who have called on Gov. Rick Scott to suspend him from office. Scott has refused.

The Broward Deputies Association, which represents patrol officers like Miller, did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.
Colombia's government has asked Cuba to capture ELN rebel commander Nicolas Rodriguez, the foreign ministry said Tuesday, a sign peace talks with the insurgent group are unlikely to resume soon.

Colombia made a verbal request on Nov. 6 for Cuba's government to provide information about the presence of several commanders of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Cuban territory, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It also asked Havana to act on an Interpol Red Notice on Rodriguez, the rebel group's leader. An Interpol Red Notice is a "request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition."

Rodriguez, also known by his nom de guerre Gabino, has been in Cuba for several months receiving medical treatment.

The Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move by Colombia may hobble efforts to reactivate peace talks between the government and the ELN. Colombian President Ivan Duque in August said he was halting the Cuba-based negotiations until the rebels freed all its hostages.

The guerrillas hold about 10 hostages.

In September, Duque relieved the government negotiating team  in a scheduled administrative move  and said he would not send a new team back to Cuba until the captives were freed and the ELN ceased criminal activity.

The rebels have said the liberation of hostages was not a pre-condition for talks agreed at the start of negotiations in February 2017.

The ELN, considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, has been at war with the Colombian government since 1964. The larger FARC, formerly a guerrilla group and now a political party, agreed to a peace deal with the government in 2016.

Interpol cannot compel a country to arrest an individual.
A Russia-based news company whose accountant was charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to meddle in U.S. elections sued Facebook Inc in a federal court Tuesday, claiming that its Facebook page was improperly removed.

The Federal Agency of News LLC and its sole shareholder, Evgeniy Aubarev, filed the lawsuit against Facebook in federal court in the Northern District of California, seeking damages and an injunction to prevent Facebook from blocking its account.

Facebook deleted the company's account in April as it purged pages and accounts associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election.

FAN and Zubarev said they were improperly swept up in Facebook's purge.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

"FAN is an independent, authentic and legitimate news agency which publishes reports that are relevant and of interest to the general public," the company said in the lawsuit.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment.
On a cold and rainy Saturday morning, hundreds of people have camped out all night in cars or huddled in sleeping bags, splayed out in a school parking lot that has been turned into a makeshift medical clinic in Charleston, West Virginia.

By the time the doors open at 6 a.m., some will have been waiting for at least 14 hours to receive medical, dental, and vision care at this free mobile health clinic. Most here say they have no other health care option.

"I've never had health insurance - never," says Benny Cardenas, a construction worker who constantly worries he is an injury away from being in long-term debt. "This here, it's free. It's worth the sacrifice - a couple hours of no sleep (rather) than paying thousands of dollars."

Susan Stephenson, a truck driver from Houston, Texas, is already missing most of her upper teeth. Though she has medical insurance, she can't afford to go to the dentist. "The copay is so outrageous, it's like not having insurance at all," says Stephenson, who drove four hours to attend the RAM Clinic.

Insurance problems persist

Stephenson's story is common. Most Americans get health insurance through their employers, or through government-provided insurance for older and lower-income people. Millions of other people have received health insurance in recent years under the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act. But many still cannot afford basic dental or vision services.

Since the 2010 passage of the legislation known as "Obamacare," the uninsured rate has fallen from 16 percent to less than 9 percent, according to figures by the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Census Bureau.

But 23 percent of Americans have no dental coverage, according to the National Association of Dental Plans.

Even with insurance, costs can be prohibitive. Over 44 percent of Americans report difficulty paying for dental care and 11 percent of adults age 18-64 have foregone needed dental work altogether because of costs, according to a recent CDC study.

Ashley Bowman, who needs two cavities filled, has a state-subsidized health care plan, but it doesn't include dental coverage. "I'm not sure why," she says. "It just doesn't."

So she's huddled under an awning with several of her friends in the middle of the night - a small price to pay, she insists. "Just for one filling, that's already half your rent! That's a lot just for one tooth."

Partisan deadlock over voters' top issue

Perhaps unsurprisingly, health care is a major priority for U.S. voters. According to exit polls taken during midterm elections, 41 percent of voters identified health care as their top concern - beating out every other issue, including immigration and the economy.

It's not hard to see why. The U.S. spends approximately twice what other high-income nations do on health care, yet has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy, according to a March study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The high costs are not because Americans are getting more medical care. Rates of doctor visits are roughly equal to the 10 other countries in the study. Instead, it concluded health spending is being driven by factors including the steep costs of prescription drugs, administrative tasks, and physician and nurse salaries.

But any legislative movement on health care appears more unlikely than ever after the election, which saw Democrats take back the House of Representatives, creating a divided Congress.

Many Republicans have called for a complete repeal of Obamacare, but would not be able to get such a plan through the Democratic-controlled House.

More liberal-leaning Democrats have increasingly proposed a "Medicare for All" program to expand government-run health care plans to cover all Americans. But Republicans fiercely oppose the proposal, saying it amounts to an inefficient government takeover of health care.

RAM filling the gap

Amid the partisan deadlock, privately-funded clinics like the one in West Virginia continue to provide free health care to as many people as they can across the country.

Each year, Remote Area Medical operates more than 60 mobile medical clinics. About 90 percent are in the U.S., mostly in rural areas.

RAM founder Stan Brock started holding the clinics in the 1980s in developing Latin American countries, such as Guyana, Mexico, and Haiti. It didn't take long before he realized one of the biggest needs was at home.

"You can blindfold yourself and put your finger on the map of the U.S. and we could go there and this will happen there," says RAM's Robert Lambert. "The need is just huge."

At this two-day clinic in Charleston, RAM provided about $300,000 worth of free medical care to 775 patients. That figure may be small when compared to the vastness of U.S. health care problems. But for people here, it's a lifesaver.

"If I didn't have a place like this to get my glasses, I'd be totally lost," says Rosemary Pauley, a retiree who says she's "blind as a bat."

"I'd be sitting at home doing nothing," she says.
The Trump administration has invited the heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler to the White House to discuss U.S. tariffs on carmakers, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Citing industry and diplomatic sources, the paper said the meeting could possibly take place as soon as next week, depending on circumstances. Handelsblatt said it was not known whether U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the meeting.

A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to confirm or deny whether the carmaker had received an invitation. Sources close to VW said it had not received an invitation.

Daimler and BMW did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has threatened for months to impose tariffs on all European Union-assembled vehicles, a move that could up-end the industry's business model for selling cars in the United States.

But he has refrained from imposing car tariffs while the United States and European Union launch negotiations to cut other trade barriers.
A senior Trump administration official says tough U.S. sanctions re-imposed on Iran earlier this month have been effective, with "almost entire compliance" from the international community.

U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook made the comment in a sit-down interview with VOA's Arabic-language sister network Alhurra in Dubai on Monday.

"We have seen almost entire compliance with our sanctions regime," Hook said. "And we don't anticipate having to sanction any major companies, because we haven't seen any evidence that these companies want to choose the Iranian market over the United States market."

Washington re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy and banking sectors on Nov. 5 as part of a campaign to pressure Tehran into reaching a new agreement to stop its perceived malign behaviors. President Donald Trump withdrew in May from a 2015 deal in which his predecessor and five other world powers granted sanctions relief to Iran in return for a freeze on its sensitive nuclear activities.

Under the re-imposed energy sanctions, the Trump administration has threatened to penalize any entity that buys Iranian oil and gas -- the main revenue sources for Iran's government. But Washington also gave eight of Iran's biggest energy customers, among international governments, another six months to reduce Iranian energy imports to zero.

Those governments include China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Greece. U.S. officials said the move is intended to prevent a spike in oil prices.

"We've been working very well with China and India, who have dramatically reduced their imports of Iranian oil," Hook said. "It's very important to go after the money, and for Iran, that means going after the oil revenue."

In a sign of ongoing defiance toward the U.S. sanctions campaign, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday his government will "not yield to economic and psychological pressure."

Iran's state-run Press TV network said Rouhani was speaking to a large gathering in the northwestern city of Khoy.

"We know you're angry! [But] correct your mistakes! You cannot cut Iran's oil exports," Rouhani said, in reference to the U.S.

In his Alhurra interview, Hook said the U.S. sanctions campaign has forced Iran to cut 1 million barrels of oil from its daily output, equivalent to $2 billion in lost revenue.

"This is a regime that, since 2013, has spent $16 billion in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, supporting various militias and missile proliferation -- all sorts of threats to peace and security," Hook said. "Our sanctions are the toughest that have been imposed in history against Iran  as part of a campaign of maximum economic pressure so that the regime changes its behavior."

This article originated in VOA's Persian Service.
Political developments in two tiny countries in the Indian Ocean region, Maldives and Sri Lanka, reflect the growing rivalry between India and China in the strategic region. A new government, which is resetting frayed ties with India, has taken over in the Maldives from the previous administration seen as pro-China. But political turmoil has engulfed Sri Lanka following the controversial reemergence of a pro-China leader on the political center stage of the island nation on Indias southern tip.



Optimistic of regaining ground lost to China in the Maldives in recent years, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew in to the Maldivian capital, Male for the swearing-in of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih as president, who won a surprise victory in September. Modi was the highest-ranking foreign leader at the ceremony held on Saturday.

Shifting ties



New Delhi was not disappointed. Solih signaled an end to the countrys pro-China stance as both countries expressed confidence in the renewal of their close bonds. The new Maldivian leader mentioned a dire economic situation facing the country due to the countrys growing debt with Beijing incurred as his predecessor signed onto a host of China-funded projects. The damage done due to projects conducted only for political reasons, and at a loss, are huge, he said.



Meanwhile the head of the Maldivian National Party that leads the ruling alliance, Mohammad Nasheed, has said that the new government would pull out of a free-trade agreement signed last year with China.



The statements were positive for India, which saw its influence in the Maldives decline under Solihs predecessor, and worried that a spate of infrastructure projects by Beijing could pave the way for it to establish a strategic base on the islands chain.



Modi assured the Maldives that New Delhi would help get it through its economic difficulties.



But even as New Delhi looks to rebuild bridges with the Maldives, observers caution that India will struggle to maintain its once predominant influence in its neighborhood amid growing Chinese presence in South Asian countries.



Chinese state companies already have large investments in the Maldives and thousands of well-heeled Chinese tourists pour into the country every year.



As China pushes itself into the Indian Ocean region, one of the key drivers that all these countries are now pursuing is trying to maximize benefits from both India and China, says K. Yhome at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.



Sri Lanka



Observers point to developments in another Indian Ocean country, Sri Lanka, where in 2015 the defeat of a pro-China leader Mahinda Rajapaksa brought into power a new administration friendlier to India under President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

But in a hugely controversial development, Sirisena last month sacked Wickremesinghe, seen as more pro-India, and appointed Rajapaksa as his prime minister. Rajapaksa has twice failed to prove his majority in parliament and the move has attracted criticism from Western countries amid fears that it violates the constitution and is a setback to democracy in Sri Lanka.



Although the political tussle in Sri Lanka was largely triggered by deep differences between President Sirisena and Wickemesinghe, who led a fragile coalition, observers say the shadow of India and China is not far away.



Pointing out that a domestic crisis presents an opportune moment for big powers, Harinda Vidanage, director of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies in Colombo says that the larger context of the current political situation is clearly the intensifying India-China rivalry in countries like Sri Lanka.



Others also point to the reemergence of Rajapaksa, who took the country closer to China during his ten-year rule.



The assumption is that whatever Rajapaksa does, the financial bill as it were will be met in some way by the Chinese, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, head of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, The consequences of that of course is that it will push us further into the Chinese arms as it were.

Rajapaksa had awarded a string of projects to Beijing including building a strategic port at Hambantota. In a bid to counter Chinas growing presence, New Delhi also began bidding for infrastructure projects.



However recent differences between President Sirisena and his sacked prime minister over whether a container terminal at Colombos port should be developed with Indian investment also strained their ties. Wickremesinghe, according to reports, wanted the project to go to India, President Sirisena did not.



Observers also say that although China has faced criticism that many of its investments under its ambitious Belt and Road initiative are driving smaller nations like Sri Lanka and the Maldives into debt, the Chinese offers of gleaming infrastructure continue to be an allure for smaller countries.




In the span of two months, from October to November, Indonesia's National Police have arrested more than a dozen civilians who spread false information on social media, particularly on Facebook. From the disaster in Palu, the Lion Air plane crash to a child kidnapping spree, the arrests signal intensifying attempts at clamping down on the circulation of fake news in a country that's feared it as it's preparing for the elections in 2019.



Aside from the arrests, the National Police, particularly through its cyber crime directorate, have two other procedures to be followed for fake news prevention. Dedi Prasetyo, the head of communications for the National Police, said that one of them is "preventive measures: [boosting] digital literacy and diction so that the people can be wiser, smarter and more polite in using social media," he told VOA in a text message.



Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, has more than 143 million internet users, according to a 2017 survey by the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII)an increase from 2016's 132 million. According to another survey by IT news website Daily Social, more than 50 percent of internet users surveyed say that they often encounter hoaxes (80 percent of all surveyed find them on the social media platform Facebook).



But digital literacy hasn't followed. Ross Tapsell, a media lecturer at the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific, told VOA in October that "Indonesia's digital literacy programs have been cut from schools in favor of religion and nationalism studies, which is a concern for the country because you do have millions of Indonesians who are only just signing up to the Internet."



Researchers Novi Kurnia and Santi Indra Astuti, who are members of the Digital Literacy Advocates Network (Japelidi) and whose research touches on the topic of digital literacy across cities in Indonesia, wrote in The Conversation that digital literacy activities (which include lectures or seminars) are mostly conducted in schools. "Based on our findings, digital literacy movements in Indonesia tend to be voluntary, incidental and sporadic," they write.



"Actually, the government has enacted measures to stem the growth of hoaxes," says Firman Imaduddin, researcher with the media think-tank Remotivi. "One of them is the application Qlue [who partners with the ministry of communications] that functions as a hoax reporting platform, but it doesn't seem like it's reached its full potential. I don't really know how [impactful] those measures are. What's clear to me is that the impact isn't fully felt, and it won't be anytime soon."



Aside from digital literacy, "the second measure is coordinating with the ministry of communications and the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) to close accounts who spread hoaxes," says Dedi. BSSN is a government agency tasked to counter cyber security breach or the spread of hoaxes. The agency's chief, Djoko Setiadi, was installed by President Joko Widodo in January. And the ministry of information has closed or threatened to close websites, including the notorious Saracen syndicate, believed to be one of Indonesia's biggest fake news networks.

And the third is the arrests. When asked to elaborate on the procedures, including the targeted execution date, Dedi did not provide VOA with additional comment.



Side effects of the arrests



The arrests have ignited questions on their effectiveness. One of them involves the legal basis on which the arrests are predicated: the notorious electronic information and transactions (ITE) Law (it is also used as the legal basis for the recent fake news arrests). Carrying a maximum four-year prison sentence, the law is deemed to be "broadly-defined" and used to preside over defamation lawsuits.



The most recent case involves 40-year-old ex-teacher Baiq Nuril Maknun, who recorded her phone conversation with the head teacher at her school on the Indonesian island of Lombok, detailing the sexual advances she had received from the school's headmaster. Stopping short of spreading the recording (it was circulated by her friend), she was nonetheless accused of spreading indecent material and violating the ITE lawshe has been sentenced to six months in prison.



Septiaji Eko Nugroho, the presidium head of the Indonesian Anti-Slander Society (Mafindo), says the circulation of hoaxes needs to be separated by the nature of the intentwhether they're innocuous or not. The ITE law, he adds, could be necessary if the intent to spread fake news could lead to riots or violence.



Have the arrests been effective, though?



"It's too early to judge the effectiveness of these arrests," he says. "We're committed to our argument that social conflict resolutions in the digital world don't always have to be handled by repressive laws. Instead, what needs to be prioritized is mediation in the name of restorative justice. The use of criminal laws should be the last resort."
U.S. Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke said Tuesday that the deadliest wildfires in California's history were partly due to lawsuits from environmentalists who have sought to stop forest management practices, such as forest thinning.

"Radical environmental groups that would rather burn down the entire forest than cut a single tree or thin the forest" have brought lawsuits to stop forest management, Zinke told reporters in a teleconference about the California wildfires.

"Yes, I do lay it on the feet" of environmentalists, he said.

Remains of 79 victims have so far been recovered since the Camp Fire erupted on Nov. 8 and largely obliterated the town of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000.

Zinke did not name specific groups, saying he did not want to point fingers. He said other factors, such as hotter temperatures, historic drought conditions, and plenty of dead and dying trees also were also to blame.

Randi Spivak, lands director for the Center of Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has sued the government over forest practices, said there have been just 38 lawsuits over the federal government's 576 forest management decisions involving California from 2009 to 2017.

"When Zinke says it is due to extreme environmentalists, he has no basis in fact," Spivak said. She said climate change and increased development of forest zones prone to wildfires caused the destruction.

Zinke first blamed environmentalists in an interview on Breitbart News after visiting communities hit by the California wildfires.

Another environmentalist said blaming green groups was easier than curbing emissions linked to higher temperatures and droughts. "The only radicals here are Trump administration officials who are exploiting a climate tragedy to try to benefit their friends in the timber industry," said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice.

Raking and cleaning

Germany was a model of forest management, Zinke said.

President Donald Trump, while visiting California, said Finland's President Sauli Niinisto had recently told him the country rarely has wildfires because "they spend a lot of time raking and cleaning and doing things" to clear the forest floor.

Niinisto has said raking did not come up in his conversation with Trump.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said forest management practices need to be accelerated, and he hoped that U.S. agencies could get more authority to do so under a farm bill being debated. "There are things we can do. We need the authority to do that," he said.

The Department of Agriculture's Forest Service would like to expand the "good neighbor authority" it has with U.S. states to Native American tribes, counties and other partnerships to protect homes and lives through cooperative agreements or contracts, Perdue said.

The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service would also like to expand categorical exclusions that allow forest thinning in areas damaged by insects or diseases to prevent fires, he added.

But Perdue said it could take years for authorities to catch up on forest management, such as thinning out the fuel of dead trees and dry underbrush, and improving emergency roads.
When Nandar was just seven years old she was sexually harassed.



A family friend whom she was told by her mother to call "Grandpa" would very often grab her between her legs and kiss her.



"Every time I saw him entering our house, I would find a way to hide."



When she told her mom she didn't like the way he touched her, her mother would dismiss Nandar's complaints and insist, "go with him, he loves you."



A few years later another incident occurred.



After climbing the stairs in her home to change out of her school uniform a man who was working on their farm in Shan State sat in his nearby room. Just as she was about to undress she saw him watching her and playing with his genitals.



"I don't know how I should react to such a thing," Nandar recounts. "At first, I thought he might stop if he saw me, but he did not. Worse than that, he kept playing with it harder with eyes widening."



This time when she reported what had happened to her, her mother was upset. With a disappointed tone she told her daughter, "you must be careful around him, or any man."



Victim blaming



Nandar is one of Myanmar's most well known feminists, at the young age of just 23. Already she has translated Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi 's speech 'We Should All be Feminists' into Burmese, spoken on countless panels and talk shows about women's rights and is now also hoping to speak more in schools.



Yet not once has she felt confident to speak publicly about her own personal trauma after experiencing sexual harassment at a young age.



But on a recent night in Yangon, Nandar decided to break that silence.



In a small art space speaking with the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy co-Founder Kristina Lunz, Nandar told a packed crowd, "The problem is not the woman or girls or the way they dress that causes violence or rape, it is the man who thinks it is okay to do so, it is the society that excuses men for doing so. Our culture protects perpetrators of sexual violence, not it's victims."



Gender-based violence has roots in how society brings up girls, believes Dr. Thet Su Htwe, who runs workshops across Myanmar teaching subjects from sexual and reproductive health to respectful relationships.



Key in her teachings is explaining the body's functions: "Just because women menstruate there are many "sayings" that say women's bodies are dirty and put women's inferior to men's bodies."



In the past, women in Myanmar were expected not to go to temples, or touch plants or animals or to wash their clothes when they were menstruating, as they were told that anything they touch would become contaminated.



At the heart of the victim blaming vicious cycle is the need to call out cultural attitudes towards women, says Dr. Thet Su Htwe.



In Myanmar the concept of hpon' is the belief that men have moral superiority and positive spirituality. Whereas women are linked to poor luck.



This "hpon" belief perpetuates men's superiority and their entitlement over women's bodies.



More sexual harassment cases reported



A record number of harassment and sexual assault cases were reported in Myanmar last year. Police recorded 508 assaults in 2017, compared with 429 in 2016 and rape against girls under 16 increased to 897.



The Ministry of Home Affairs advises women to wear "suitable" clothing to prevent rape. In a cartoon, a woman who is wearing shorts and a midriff top asks where to report a harassment case, to which the officer replies, "wear clothes that cover up."



When Dr. Thet Su Htwe saw the cartoon she was extremely disappointed: "the cartoon [commenting on a woman's dress] should not be highlighted as the main cause of sexual harassment."



To combat the root causes of violence against women, Dr. Thet Su Htwe believes education needs to start in the home and in school.



She's now dedicated her life trying to teach these classes through her program, StrongFlowers, in schools and community centers across Myanmar crossing religious and cultural barriers.



"We can't raise boys and girls differently, or they will become adults with fixed gender roles. They need to respect and appreciate the differences."



Consent is still an absent word in many households when teaching boys how to behave.



Akhaya Women, a women's rights group based in Yangon, launched a campaign this year, "be better men" with a hashtag, encouraging men to change their Facebook profile picture frame to one that supported the campaign.



As smartphone use grows across Myanmar, Nandar hopes that the conversations sparked online by the #MeToo movement will seep into real life too.



"I think to move forward we need to see everyday examples such as male teachers being nurturing and caring and more female writers in Myanmar also sharing their stories," she told VOA after her speech.



Breaking barriers and continuing #MeToo conversation



A year ago Nandar raised the conversation of her childhood experience of sexual harassment with her mother.



It's through these conversations that Nandar has realized that her mother wasn't to blame. "For me it was very emotional, and for her it was deeply uncomfortable and full of regrets, but I was ready to talk about my trauma and discuss how my mother was just reacting to the social norms," says Nandar.



"Her father was an alcoholic and both emotionally and sexually abusive," states Nandar. "My grandma, who gave birth to my mother, was married to the man who raped her [so] growing up my mom was told that her mother is a "rakhel" which means she is a sexual pleasure for the man, and is not her wife."



Nandar told her mother she wanted to speak publicly about this incident. Her mother later watched a live recording of Nandar's speech on Facebook in her home in Shan State, some 600 kilometers away.



"She really believes in me, that I am opening the door to this issue. If I speak up, people will listen then they too will be willing to speak."
Myanmar's High Court has ruled that two jailed Reuters reporters can appeal their convictions on charges of violating the country's law that prohibits the gathering of secret documents to help an enemy, defense lawyers said.



The appeal cited evidence police framed the journalists and a lack of proof of a crime.

Legal advisor of the Norway-based Asian Human Rights Commission, U Min Lwin Oo, said in an interview with VOA Burmese the journalists will attend another hearing at which the judge will likely acquit them or reduce their sentences, which would probably trigger another appeal.

Defense attorney L. Khun Ring Pan said, "We hope that the high court will finally provide justice for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and declare them innocent."



The reporters were found guilty in September in a landmark case that has raised questions about Myanmar's progress towards democracy and sparked complaints from human rights proponents.



The journalists were covering the massacre of 10 Muslim Rohingya men and boys by security forces and local Buddhists in the western Rakhine state when they were arrested in December.



The massacre was part of the wider broader crackdown that began in August 2017, an operation that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Committee to Protect Journalists Director Steve Butler told VOA Burmese, "We are pleased that the case is moving forward", but noted it is still "very difficult to report from Myanmar."



Myanmar de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said in September the reporters' arrests were unrelated to freedom of expression. A week after their conviction, she said they were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating the country's colonial-era Official Secrets Act.
US institutions continue to make the case to be the first destination for international higher education. But are American institutions losing their edge? We'll hear from recruiters, students and a State Department official about new challenges for schools trying to recruit foreign scholars.
The towering metal fence that divides the United States and Mexico at the edge of the Pacific Ocean has an imposing new feature: row upon row of razor wire.

The wire that's typically used in battlefields and on prison barriers is the most visible result of the $210 million military deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border, creating an imposing sight for the crowd of Central American migrants gathering in Tijuana.

Soldiers and contractors have been installing different versions of the sharp wire barriers all along the border  on the fence, at ports of entry and on the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas to name a few.

This is what it really looks like  no climbers anymore under our administration, President Donald Trump tweeted along with a photo of the fortified section in Southern California.

Military officials say they have more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) of wire available to string up at strategic locations. Here are some questions and answers about the wire:

What is the wire?

It is called concertina wire, named after the musical instrument and its expanding and contracting bellows. It resembles barbed wire that's commonly used to corral cattle, but it comes in flat coils that can quickly expand like its namesake, making it easier to store, transport and install.

It has been the wire of choice for militaries around the world since World War I.

Made in factories today using galvanized steel, concertina wire consists of sharp flat blades. It's used to secure businesses, prisons and other government installations.

Critics have blasted Trumps military deployment at the border as an expensive political stunt  and question why active duty troops are needed for tasks that contractors could perform.

According to figures reported to Congress on Tuesday, the Pentagon estimates the cost of the militarys mission on the U.S.-Mexico border will be about $210 million under current plans. That includes money for active-duty troops and National Guard troops.

Whats not clear is how much has been spent on materials like razor wire.

A ton of razor wire can go for several hundred dollars while a single roll can be bought online for as little as $30.

Where is it being installed?

An initial 22 miles (35 kilometers) of concertina wire was shipped to the border when the first troops began to deploy to California, Arizona and Texas a month ago. Military officials said at the time they had more than 150 miles (240 kilometers) of wire available.

Its clear it wont be strung along every mile as it would take 13 times that amount to span the U.S.-Mexico border. The border stretches about 1,950 miles (3,138 kilometers) from the Pacific Ocean to South Texas where the Rio Grande dumps into the Gulf of Mexico.

Its up to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to tell the military where to put the wire. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the short-term objective has been to get enough wire and other barriers in place as requested by border officials.

A Defense Department spokesman, Army Col. Robert Manning, told reporters earlier this week that more than 4 miles (6.8 kilometers) of wire obstacles had been installed by soldiers in Arizona and California.

The focus has been in the San Diego area, where it can be seen by migrants waiting on the south side of the border. It also has been put up at the Otay Mesa port of entry in California and at less populated spots near crossings in Nogales and Douglas, Arizona, and in Laredo, Hidalgo and Brownsville, Texas.

How is it installed?

Combat engineers  whose duties on the battlefield include setting up tactical obstacles to prevent the enemy from moving freely  are using their expertise to string wire on border walls and to erect temporary fencing.

Forklifts, tractors and other heavy equipment are used to move the coils to where the wire needs to be installed.

Wearing heavy gloves, crews space out the coils as if they were stretching a toy Slinky and the concertina is then affixed to the tops of walls or fences using bits of wire. In some spots, metal stakes are driven into the ground and used to support the wire.

Does it work?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released video last week showing a man cutting through wire that border agents had placed just hours before on a fence near Yuma, Arizona.

Arizona Border Patrol agents for several months have been overwhelmed by the arrival of large numbers of Central American migrants traveling as families. During a 48-hour period last week, agents in the Yuma area apprehended more than 650 people who crossed illegally.

Customs and Border Protection officials have argued that additional barriers and the deployment of National Guard and military troops have helped to free up agents.
A rare, 1,500 year-old mosaic depicting St. Mark has joined other repatriated pieces that were looted from the ethnically split Cyprus' breakaway north, a Cypriot Orthodox Church official said Wednesday.

Together the pieces will create a Swiss government-funded reproduction of an apse that adorned a 6th-century church in the island's north.

The mosaics were stolen by Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikman from the Church of the Virgin of Kanakaria about four decades ago and sold abroad.

Cyprus' Byzantine Museum Director Ioannis Eliades said the apse will go on display at the museum until it can return to the Kanakaria church.

"This is a major project that we had envisioned for many years to restore these pieces and now we have the last piece," Eliades told The Associated Press.

"Especially such a mosaic which dates to the same period as the Ravenna mosaics is of particular importance, of great architectural value and ... also has a very high religious value."

The Kanakaria mosaics are among a few early Christian works that survived the iconoclastic period in the 8th and 9th centuries when most of such works were destroyed.

The St. Mark mosaic returned to Cyprus after Dutch investigator Arthur Brand tracked it down in Monaco and handed it over to authorities at the Cypriot Embassy in the Netherlands last week.

The Cyprus Antiquities Department said that initial information about the mosaic's whereabouts was provided to Cypriot authorities two years ago by the Greek-American organization AHEPA.

The department said pieces of the mosaics including those of Saints Luke, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Thaddeus, Thomas and Andrew as well as the upper part of the Virgin Mary and Christ were gradually repatriated since 1983, but more pieces are still missing.
The first flight of a SpaceX rocket tailored to fly astronauts to the International Space Station is set for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 7, NASA said on Wednesday.

The launch test is a crucial milestone in the space agency's Commercial Crew Program, which aims to launch humans to space from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft  which will shuttle three astronauts to space from the same launch pad that sent Apollo 11's three-man crew to the moon in 1969  will make its debut flight atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on January 7.

While NASA did not detail the flight path, it said the test would provide data on the performance of the Falcon 9, Crew Dragon capsule, and ground systems, as well as on-orbit, docking and landing operations.

SpaceX and Boeing Co are the two main contractors selected under NASA's Commercial Crew Program to send astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner spacecraft respectively.

Since the U.S. space shuttle program was shut down in 2011, NASA has had to rely on Russia to fly astronauts to the space station, a $100 billion orbital research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (402 km) above Earth.

The Demo-1 launch is the latest test in a rigorous certification timeline imposed under NASA's Commercial Crew Program. While SpaceX is targeting early January, NASA spokeswoman Marie Lewis said the demo mission could be pushed back because "flying safely has always taken precedence over schedule."

Founded by Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk, SpaceX said if the January 7 test is successful, it plans to launch its first crewed mission in June 2019, but the timeline may shift.

Boeing plans a similar test launch of the Starliner spacecraft atop its Atlas 5 rocket as soon as March, with a crewed mission following in August.

The Jan. 7 launch date announcement comes a day after NASA said it would conduct a "cultural assessment study" of the companies, "including the adherence to a drug-free environment," prior to crew test flights.
President Donald Trump frequently credits himself with accomplishing more for the military and veterans than any other president in recent memory. But he has yet to embark on what has long been a traditional presidential pilgrimage important to the military: a visit to troops deployed in a war zone.

As he departed Tuesday for Florida to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday at his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said he'd soon correct the oversight.

"I'm going to a war zone,'' he said in response to a reporter's question about his support for the troops.

He did not say when he would be making the trip or where he planned to go. An official said a White House team recently returned from beginning to plan for such a visit.

The omission is one of a list of norm-breaking moves that underscore the Republican president's increasingly fraught relationship with the military, which has celebrated Trump's investments in military spending but cringed at what some see as efforts to politicize their service.

Just this week, Trump criticized the storied commander of the 2011 mission that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, retired Adm. William McRaven. "Wouldn't it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn't it have been nice?'' Trump said.

The latest controversy followed a pattern of concerns raised by former senior military officers about Trump's grasp of the military's role, and it came as White House aides and defense officials have raised alarm about what they view as the president's disinterest in briefings about troop deployments overseas.

Shortly after taking office, Trump appeared to try to deflect responsibility for the death of a service member, William "Ryan'' Owens, in a failed operation in Yemen, saying planning for the mission began under his predecessor and was backed by senior military commanders.

"They explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected,'' he told Fox & Friends at the time. "And they lost Ryan.''

Trump won the White House on a platform of ending U.S. military commitments abroad, but he's been bedeviled by many of the same challenges as his predecessors. More American troops are now deployed in conflict zones than when he took office.

Aides have suggested that Trump is wary of traveling to conflict zones where he doesn't fully support the mission. Trump begrudgingly backed a surge of troops in Afghanistan last year and boosted U.S. deployments in Iraq, Syria and Africa to counter the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

Trump said last week in a Fox News Sunday interview that he was "very much opposed to the war in Iraq. I think it was a tremendous mistake, should have never happened.'' Trump, in fact, offered lukewarm support for the invasion at the time but began offering public doubts about the mission after the conflict began in March 2003.

At home, some assert that Trump's decision to send thousands of active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm elections was a political stunt. And Defense Department officials said they rejected requests by the Department of Homeland Security  and backed by the White House  for armed active-duty troops to bolster Border Patrol agents, saying it ran afoul of federal law.

Trump also drew criticism for his decision not to visit Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day, following his trip to Europe. He said later he "should have'' visited the cemetery but was too busy with official business. His public schedule that day listed no events.

In the "Fox News Sunday'' interview, Trump was asked why he hadn't visited the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in the two years he's served as commander in chief.

"Well, I think you will see that happen,'' he said. "There are things that are being planned.''

He also touted his support for the men and women in uniform.

"I don't think anybody's been more with the military than I have, as a president,'' Trump said. "In terms of funding, in terms of all of the things I've been able to get them, including the vets, I don't think anybody's done more than me.''

Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, four for education and one for a diagnosis of bone spurs  though he later told The New York Times he could not remember which foot was affected by the malady or how long it lasted.

Trump told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he doesn't think visiting troops in a war zone is "overly necessary.''



"I've been very busy with everything that's taking place here,'' he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for tamping down world oil prices, a day after saying the U.S. would not turn its back on Riyadh despite its responsibility for killing a dissident U.S.-based Saudi journalist.



From his retreat along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, Trump praised the Saudis, second only to the U.S. as an oil producer but the biggest global exporter, for sending enough crude to world markets to keep oil prices in check.

Before leaving Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump told reporters at the White House that U.S. national security and economic interests outweigh any human rights concerns. He said turning his back on Saudi Arabia, despite the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, "would be a terrible mistake."



"We're staying with Saudi Arabia," Trump announced. He noted the kingdom's opposition to Iran and its purchases of American military equipment that mean, according to the president, "hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment."

Russia and China "are not going to get that gift," Trump said before adding that oil prices would soar if the U.S.-Saudi relationship is broken up.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an interview with a Kansas City radio station, defended Trump's stance favoring Saudi Arabia, while noting that the U.S. had sanctioned 17 Saudis believed involved in the Khashoggi killing.

"We are going to make sure that America always stands for human rights," Pompeo said.

But the top U.S. diplomat said the protection of Americans was of paramount concern to Trump.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been an important national security partner to the United States, pushing back against the murderous regime in Iran that actually presents real risk to the American people, and we are determined to make sure that the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia stays strong so that we can protect America," Pompeo said.

'Maybe he did, maybe he didn't'



Asked at the White House about the CIA's reported conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely knew about or ordered the plot to kill Khashoggi inside Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul, Trump replied: "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't." Of the CIA's finding, he declared: "They have nothing definitive."

The president denied his decision to avoid harshly punishing the Saudis for the October 2 killing has anything to do with his personal business interests.



"I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't make money from Saudi Arabia," Trump said. "Being president has cost me a fortune."



Trump said earlier he understands that some lawmakers in Congress want to pursue sanctions against Riyadh for the killing "for political or other reasons" and said, "They are free to do so."



"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," Trump said.



But the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Robert Menendez, sent a letter to Trump Tuesday reminding him U.S. law requires him to examine whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's death.



The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the president to determine if a foreign official is responsible for a human rights violation.



The act is named for Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky who was apparently beaten to death in prison in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of tax fraud.



"I never thought I'd see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," Senator Corker tweeted Tuesday. He added that Congress will consider "all the tools at our disposal" to determine the role of the crown prince in the Khashoggi killing.



Khashoggi lived in the United States, writing opinion articles for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince and Riyadh's military involvement in Yemen.



His editor at the Post, Karen Attiah, described Trump's statement as "full of lies and a blatant disregard for his own intelligence agencies. It also shows an unforgivable disregard for the lives of Saudis who dare criticize the regime. This is a new low."



U.S Intelligence Community

.

Veterans of the U.S. Intelligence Community are also expressing their disdain with the president's stance.



Former CIA Director John Brennan, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, said on Twitter that Trump "excels in dishonesty" so now it is up to Congress to obtain and declassify the CIA findings on Khashoggi's death.

"No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince  should escape accountability for such a heinous act," Brennan wrote.



Former CIA officer Ned Price wondered Tuesday "how appointed intelligence leaders could continue to serve after this betrayal is beyond me."



A Saudi prosecutor cleared the crown prince of wrongdoing last week while calling for the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects indicted in the killing. The prosecutor said a total of 21 people have been detained.



Turkish officials concluded that Khashoggi was tortured and killed and his body dismembered. His remains have not been found.



Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday Turkey might formally seek a United Nations investigation of the killing if cooperation with Riyadh reaches an impasse.
U.S. President Donald Trump says turning his back on Saudi Arabia, despite its responsibility for killing a U.S.-based journalist, "would be a terrible mistake."

Any human rights concerns are outweighed by U.S. national security and economic interests, the president said.

"We're staying with Saudi Arabia," Trump announced, noting the kingdom's mutual opposition to Iran and Riyadh's purchases of American military equipment that mean, according to the president, "hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment."

Russia and China "are not going to get that gift," Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn before departing for the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We've kept oil prices down," Trump said, claiming they would soar if the U.S.-Saudi relationship was broken up.

"I'm not going to destroy the world economy and destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia," he added.

'Maybe he did, maybe he didn't'

Asked about a reported conclusion by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman most likely knew about or ordered the plot to kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul, Trump replied: "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and stated, concerning the CIA's finding: "They have nothing definitive."

The president denied that his decision to avoid harshly punishing the Saudis for the Oct. 2 killing had anything to do with his personal business interests.

"I don't make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don't make money from Saudi Arabia," Trump said. "Being president has cost me a fortune."

WATCH: US-Saudi Arabia relations

Earlier in the day, in a statement issued by the White House, Trump said he understood that some lawmakers in Congress  who "for political or other reasons"  wanted to pursue sanctions against Riyadh for the killing. "They are free to do so," he said.

"I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America," Trump said.

But the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Bob Menendez, sent a letter to Trump Tuesday reminding him U.S. law requires him to examine whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's death.

The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the president to determine if a foreign official is responsible for a human rights violation.

The act is named for Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky who was apparently beaten to death in prison in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of tax fraud.

"I never thought Id see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," Senator Corker tweeted Tuesday. He added that Congress will consider "all the tools at our disposal" to determine the role of the crown prince in the Khashoggi killing.

Khashoggi lived in the United States, writing opinion articles for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince and Riyadh's involvement in the long-running Yemen conflict.

His editor at the newspaper, Karen Attiah, described Trump's statement as "full of lies and a blatant disregard for his own intelligence agencies. It also shows an unforgivable disregard for the lives of Saudis who dare criticize the regime. This is a new low."

U.S. intelligence community

Veterans of the U.S. intelligence community are also expressing their disdain with the president's stance.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, after Tuesday's statement said on Twitter that Trump "excels in dishonesty," so now it is up to Congress to obtain and declassify the CIA findings on Khashoggi's death.

"No one in Saudi Arabia  most especially the Crown Prince  should escape accountability for such a heinous act," Brennan wrote.

Former CIA officer Ned Price wondered Tuesday "how appointed intelligence leaders could continue to serve after this betrayal is beyond me."

A Saudi prosecutor cleared the crown prince of wrongdoing last week while calling for the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects indicted in the killing. The prosecutor said a total of 21 people have been detained.

Turkish officials concluded that Khashoggi was tortured and killed, with his body then dismembered.

Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that Ankara might formally seek a U.N. investigation of the killing if cooperation with Riyadh reached an impasse.
President Donald Trump's administration is considering giving U.S. troops on the border with Mexico the authority to carry out medical screening of migrants, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

The proposal, which is still in draft form and is circulating within the administration, would involve the military in screenings for things like illness and injury only if U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency personnel were overwhelmed and unable to do so on their own, the officials said.

The proposal would expand the mission for the Pentagon, which said previously it did not expect its forces to directly interact with migrants.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

U.S. military duties on the border, including stringing up concertina wire and building temporary housing, have been aimed at supporting CBP personnel. The U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters about the proposal did so on condition of anonymity because Trump has not yet signed off on the idea.

It was unclear if the proposal, if confirmed in the coming days, might prolong the deployment of at least some troops at the border.

The commander of the mission told Reuters last week that the number of troops may have peaked at around 5,800, and he would soon look at whether to begin sending forces home or shifting some to new border positions.
Public health officials in the United States and Canada on Tuesday warned against eating romaine lettuce while they investigate an outbreak of E. coli that has sickened 50 people in the two countries, including 13 who were hospitalized.

The alerts, issued as millions of Americans plan their Thanksgiving Day menus, covered all forms of romaine, including whole heads, hearts, bags, mixes and Caesar salad.

Officials were uncertain of the source of the tainted lettuce.

"Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said in its food safety alert.

Refrigerator drawers and shelves where romaine lettuce had been stored should be sanitized, the CDC said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada, which is investigating 18 of the E. coli cases, directed its romaine lettuce alert at consumers in Ontario and Quebec.

In the United States, the CDC said the outbreak affected 32 people in 11 states between Oct. 8 and Oct. 31. No deaths have been reported, it said.

Symptoms of the infection often include a moderate fever, severe stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, which is often bloody, the CDC said. Most people get better in five to seven days, but it can be life-threatening, it said.

The agency said the current outbreak is unrelated to another multistate rash of E. coli infections related to romaine lettuce earlier this year that left five people dead and sickened nearly 200.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC traced the origin of that contamination to irrigation water in the Yuma, Ariz., growing region.
British Prime Minister Theresa May appears to have held off a bid to oust her by rebels in her Conservative party who oppose a Brexit deal she is finalizing with the European Union. But her exit plan faces further threats as a group of EU nations demand further concessions from Britain.

Spain is threatening to sink the Brexit deal over the status of Gibraltar, the headland on Spain's south coast dominated by a high limestone ridge known as the Rock, which was ceded to the British in 1713.

As May headed Wednesday to Brussels for a meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission's president, Madrid warned it would block the Brexit withdrawal agreement unless issues over Gibraltar's future are clarified.

Spain wants the draft Brexit deal to make clear future talks about Gibraltar's status would be in "separate negotiations" between London and Madrid and not part of a deal between Britain and the European Union. Spain fears the Brexit deal will legally confirm Gibraltar is part of Britain.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says neither the 585-page draft divorce deal nor the accompanying political declaration about a possible future free trade agreement makes clear Gibraltar's future is to be decided bilaterally.

"It should be negotiated between Spain and the UK. As it stands, the [Spanish] government will vote against the Brexit agreement," he said.



The subject of Gibraltar has long been an emotional issue for both countries. Spain has claimed sovereignty over Gibraltar. Last year, former British Conservative leader Michael Howard suggested a dispute over the headland could provoke a war between Britain and Spain.

The veto threat has prompted outrage in London with accusations the Spanish government is trying to blackmail Britain. As far as the British are concerned, Spain's foreign minister, Josep Borrell, has gone out of his way to stoke Scottish nationalism. He announced Tuesday that Madrid is reversing its traditional opposition to Scotland being readmitted to the EU, if in the future it should declare independence.

By dropping its opposition, Spain handed a propaganda coup to Scottish nationalists. It was quickly seized by their leader, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is eager to lead Scotland out of Britain. She said it "demolished" the "scare story" British Conservatives push that if Scotland should declare independence, it would never be allowed to join the EU.

EU officials say they believe the Gibraltar issue can be solved before EU leaders sign the withdrawal agreement at a summit on Sunday. The deal would see Britain remaining in the EU customs union, which addresses imports and exports, for an indefinite period while a free trade deal is negotiated over the next few years.

Few observers believe the deal will win the approval of the British parliament next month when lawmakers are scheduled to vote on it formally, as all opposition parties have formally come out against it.

May is banking on securing a House of Commons majority for her deal by daring lawmakers across the political spectrum to let a "no-deal Brexit" go ahead. Crashing out of the bloc without a deal would likely trigger a recession, leaving behind bankrupt businesses and ruined livelihoods, say analysts.

Fishing rights

Aside from Spain, the agreement has been criticized by France, the Netherlands and Portugal. The three countries want fishing rights in British waters to be included, if not in the divorce deal, then at least in the political declaration setting the parameters for a possible future free trade deal.

Several EU governments are also dissatisfied because they believe the deal gives Britain a competitive advantage by not tying it closely enough to EU regulations, workers' rights, and environmental standards, potentially lowering the production costs of British goods. If they manage to ensure there will be no competitive advantage, it will cause May further difficulties in selling the withdrawal agreement in the British parliament.



May leads a minority government and relies on the votes of a dozen Northern Ireland lawmakers, who deeply oppose the divorce deal as well. To demonstrate their power, twice this week they have withheld their support in important budget votes.
U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths is in war-torn Yemen to prepare for peace talks after fresh fighting erupted in the key port of Hodeida.

Griffiths was scheduled to meet with Iran-aligned Houthi officials in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in an attempt to persuade them and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government to begin negotiations in Sweden by year's end. The peace process collapsed in Switzerland in September when Houthi rebels failed to appear.

Both sides recently expressed support for Griffiths' efforts, but the eruption of violence after a lull raised the possibility talks could be derailed.

WATCH: Mattis: Yemen Peace Talks Likely in Early December

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday he expected the warring parties would hold peace talks in Sweden early next month.

Monday in New York, U.N. Security Council member Britain circulated a draft resolution to the rest of the council, calling for a cease-fire in Yemen, a halt to attacks on civilian areas, and unhindered access to Hodeida.

The port is under rebel control and is a lifeline for food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to the suffering population.

The Saudis have accused Iran of sending arms to the rebels through the port, a charge it denies.

The Trump administration has joined its Western allies in demanding a cease-fire in Yemen. The United States has stopped providing refueling services to Saudi coalition aircraft that attack Yemen.

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, forcing the government to flee to exile in Saudi Arabia.

The group has since relocated to the southern Yemeni city of Aden.

Saudi-led airstrikes aimed at driving out the Houthis have killed thousands of people and wiped out entire civilian neighborhoods, including hospitals.

The fighting has compounded the misery in Yemen, which is also dealing with mass starvation and a cholera outbreak.

The war has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Yemen since the Saudis intervened in March 2015. Some human rights groups, however, believe the death toll may be five times higher.

The International aid group Save the Children said in a report Wednesday about 85,000 children may have died of starvation and disease since March 2015.

The United Nations estimates more than 1.3 million children have suffered from severe malnutrition since the war began, it says up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port is closed by violence or damage.
The United States is calling for peaceful and credible elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where campaigns for next month's polls begin Friday.

In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says the December 23 elections give the DRC "a historic opportunity" to conduct a peaceful and democratic transfer of power.

She suggested a credible vote will also help Congo alleviate its humanitarian crisis, attract foreign investment, and stabilize central Africa.

The elections were originally due to take place in 2016, but were delayed as President Joseph Kabila refused to leave office at the end of his mandate.

Kabila, who has ruled the DRC since 2001, is now stepping aside and has endorsed a former interior minister, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, to be his successor.

Congolese authorities have blocked several opposition leaders from running for president, most prominently former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Opposition parties agreed to unite behind a single candidate for the election, businessman Martin Fayulu. But two opposition leaders, Felix Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe, have since pulled out of the agreement.
Interpol's general assembly is voting to choose a new president at a meeting Wednesday in Dubai, with a member of Russia's Interior Ministry considered the front-runner in the race.

Alexander Prokopchuk currently serves as one of Interpol's vice presidents. Kremlin critics say putting Prokopchuk in charge of Interpol would politicize the organization.

Four U.S. Senators have called on the Trump administration to outright oppose Prokopchuk. They accuse him of being "personally involved" in what they call Russia's routine "abuses of Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents, and journalists."

Interpol presidents serve for a period of four years. The next president will replace China's Meng Hongwei, who disappeared while visiting his native country in late September and was later said to be detained on bribery allegations.

South Korea's Kim Jong Yang became Interpol's acting leader, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo strongly endorsed him to win the election.

"We encourage all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader of credibility and integrity that reflects one of the world's most critical law enforcement bodies," Pompeo said.

The Kremlin says opposition to a Russian candidate is election interference.

U.S.-born British fund manager and Kremlin critic Bill Browder, who has been the subject of several Interpol arrest warrants requested by Russia, says electing a Russian official to lead Interpol could intensify Russian government efforts to silence critics.

"This is a perfect way for Putin to basically breathe the fear of God into all of his enemies, so that they know they cant even escape Russia if one of his guys is at the head of Interpol."
The U.S. said Wednesday it will scale back military exercises with South Korea next year, so the war games are not a hindrance to diplomacy over ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said the exercises with Seoul, called Foal Eagle, are conducted each spring in South Korea, but will be "reduced in scope" in 2019.

He gave no details of how the exercises will be downsized, but said the reduced scope was an effort by the two allies to encourage further negotiations in the stalled talks between the U.S. and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

"Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy," Mattis said. North Korea has frequently objected to the U.S.-South Korean exercises, viewing them as a threat to its existence as a nation.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed at a June summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. But since then negotiations have slowed over how and when North Korea would dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

The Trump administration has said it hopes North Korea's nuclear weapons program will have been shut down by the end of Trump's first term in the White House in January 2021.

Trump has said that another summit with Kim could take place, but no date or place for such a meeting has been announced.
President Donald Trump has defended sending U.S. troops to the southern border with Mexico, citing national security concerns as a caravan of several thousand people approached the border. Since early this year, he has ordered varying numbers of U.S. active-duty and National Guard troops to help fortify the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

A timeline of troop deployments:



April 4, 2018: President Donald Trump seeks to deploy National Guard troops on the U.S. border with Mexico, citing a drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border that he says is threatening national security.

April 5: In a memo, Defense Department Secretary Jim Mattis authorizes up to 4,000 National Guard troops but specifies they will not perform law enforcement duties or interact with migrants. The National Guard is made up of 435,000 reserve soldiers who can be called up by either the federal government or the states. Over the following weeks, the number of National Guardsmen called up to guard the border reaches 2,100.
Since protests began against the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's in April, there have been at least 420 violations against press freedoms in the country. That is according to the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation. USA has accused the Ortega regime of undermining democracy.
Photo: At Eternitys Gate

In the new Vincent van Gogh biopic At Eternitys Gate, the artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel doesnt merely want you to see the increasingly volatile van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) but to see what van Gogh sees and to feel the painters fever  his lust not just for life but for the presence of Eternity (or the Divine or Name Your Higher Power) in the colors and shapes of this world. As an act of sympathetic imagination, the movie is only partly successful, but that part can take your breath away. The images vibrate with emotion.

It should be admitted that they vibrate largely because the camera is handheld and its operator is trying to whip himself up into a Dafoe-like frenzy. But the actor  constantly in motion behind his sad, hollow eyes  is infectious. He looked, to me, so uncannily like one of van Goghs self-portraits that I was surprised to go and reexamine the works and discover that Dafoes actual features (minus the red hair and beard) bear little resemblance to the painters. Dafoe just seems in his marvelous actorly way to be channeling van Goghs tipsy, questing, endlessly dissatisfied spirit. Dafoe (and Schnabel) plainly understand that this man who could be violent and who did, after all, slice off his own ear (though he never could remember how or why) had an essentially gentle soul. Oscar Isaacs thinly written Gauguin has a key speech when he tells his friend that the Impressionists are over  Renoir, Degas, Monet, they represent only themselves. This van Gogh is looking hard at color (primarily yellow, in the film) as if trying to tune into  and match  the vibration of its molecules. He might well be grouped with the Impressionists (hes technically a Post-Impressionist), but he wanted to capture not what he felt but what is.

At Eternitys Gate charts van Goghs loopy odyssey from Paris to Arles  Gauguin advises his impoverished friend to go off and find new light  and in and out of sanitaria. There are wonderful scenes in which Dafoes van Gogh stumbles through the countryside, setting up his easel whenever the colors stir something in him. Schnabel isnt aiming for lyricism but for a rough, even abrasive texture. Tatiana Lisovkaias score consists mostly of piano keys struck hard with the occasional moody slash of violin. Handmade, the movie is, like the paintings dashed off quickly before the emotion dissipates.

Schnabel has had practice getting inside his subjects heads, most successfully in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, in which he re-created the paralyzed protagonist Jean-Dominique Baubys constricted universe from the inside out  an act of sympathetic disjunction. But in that case he had a fine Ron Harwood screenplay closely based on Baubys memoir (dictated one letter at a time via one fluttering eyelid). At Eternitys Gate has strikingly clunky dialogue by Jean-Claude Carriere, Louise Kugelberg, and Schnabel. Even grading on the artist-biopic curve, the exchanges with Gauguin are flatfooted. The rapport between van Gogh and his brother (and sometime benefactor) Theo (Rupert Friend) is only slightly more human. The exception is a scene between van Gogh and Mads Mikkelsen as a priest who oversees the sanitarium in which van Gogh spends time in his final years. It is touching how gravely and tenderly Mikkelsens priest speaks as he directs the artist to examine one of his own paintings: Look carefully, please  Dont you see that this painting is  unpleasant, ugly? Mikkelsen is so good that you can almost view the painting in that way, as a childish product of madness instead of a revolutionary masterpiece that would one day sell for approximately 50 million times its worth in van Goghs short, generally miserable life.

Im not a fan of Schnabels paintings, but I think hes a born film painter, and even if At Eternitys Gate doesnt reliably cross the blood-brain barrier, his frames are like no one elses. (His cinematographer is Benoit Delhomme.) He will never take a light source for granted or let a face seem ordinary. As shot with his quivery camera, the rooms and furnishings have blurred edges that evoke van Goghs determined avoidance of definition. Im not sure I can forgive Schnabel his final scene, however, in which van Goghs body lies in state in the middle of his paintings, on which wealthy mourners now bid. Having made his fortune in a very different kind of art market, Schnabel really has no place mocking the fickleness of patrons.

At Eternitys Gate was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for Best Actor.
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Every Wednesday, Vulture runs through the best, most interesting, and sometimes most confusing rap releases of the week. In this installment: Earl Sweatshirt breaks boundaries with his upcoming Some Rap Songs, Boosie ditches the blues-adjacent aspect of his music and goes full blues, Buffalos own Benny the Butcher makes bone-chilling wintertime throwback rap, J.I.D wows with wild flows, Dipset returns, Black Thought goes in over an EPs worth of Salaam Remi beats, and Memphiss Key Glock sneers out of the sun roof.

Earl Sweatshirt, Some Rap Songs

For as long as hes been under the public gaze, Earl Sweatshirts music has been colored by the meta-narrative thats going on just offstage. Its a testament to his overwhelming talent that the work itself was never swallowed whole. His friends in Odd Future became stars and pariahs and idols to young kids in pastel, while Earl was biding his time in the far reaches of the Pacific; when Earl reemerged, he tried to tease out what he was feeling on record. He didnt cast himself as a conquering hero or threaten to go on a scorched-earth tear. He sounded disillusioned and exhausted and, well, 19. When he was 21, Earl put out I Dont Like Shit, I Dont Go Outside, a universally acclaimed album that turned all his fear and hatred and self-hatred into something lean, laser-focused, and, in a roundabout sort of way, constructive.

And then he retreated, for almost four years, popping up occasionally online where he was quickly shouted down by fans who may or may not have shed the pastel and who were quick to demand new records, as if from a vending machine. To read Earls Twitter mentions is to see how the narratives around legendary, but not remotely prolific artists like Lauryn Hill and Andre 3000 are built. On Veins, which comes near the end of Earls new, extraordinary album, Some Rap Songs, he deadpans: Its been a minute since I heard applause.

On the very next track, Earls father, the South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile, who died during the production of this record and with whom Earl had a complicated relationship that he alluded to often in his work, reads from one of his poems, Anguish Longer Than Sorrow. Theres the last line  to have a home is not a favour  and then a wall of applause. On the song that follows, Peanut, Earl is droning, despondent, the gaze turned back on himself: Family saw you on a stage / Left it not amazed.

And yet Peanut is not broadly representative of Some Rap Songs. The album is not a focused act of fury, or even of sadness; its patient and exploratory, and when it lashes out, it does so in fits before retreating into sealed apartments with fish tanks full of gin. It resists easy resolutions and moral clarity because neither of those things exist.

Earl at this point seems most spiritually aligned with the rappers that make up New Yorks middle-aged cutting edge. Hes publicly professed his admiration for Ka, the reclusive minimalist auteur, and tweeted Armand Hammer videos. Last year, he produced a record, Fete des Morts AKA Dia de Los Muertos EP, for Mach-Hommy, whose music is purposefully lo-fi and extremely expensive, and which lapses into absurd fantasies of luxury, grave threats, and barbs for the 20th centurys Haitian bourgeoisie. Some Rap Songs could be a Mach-Hommy record, with jagged-edged and exposed seams. That sensibility is mirrored in the writing, which is comfortable being oblique, self-referential, and a little bit schizophrenic.

This album will not be as immediately arresting to as wide an audience as the somewhat inaccessible Outside was, but what Earls pulling off here is more difficult, and more rewarding. Its a sort of mining of ones own psyche to figure out where the gears and levers are. His technical faculties as a rapper have always dazzled fans and critics, but here he exerts a new kind of control over them; on songs like Veins and Cold Summer, syllables come falling over each bar break like a cascade, but each line is packed with new, vital information in a way that it might not have on Earl. From Cold Summers:

We roam tundras

The boy been gone a few summers

too long, from road running, trunk full of old hundreds

Of course my old lover was scorned

We grow from it

Dont tell me they dont hunt us for sport

I chose substances

The best song on the album is December24, which is difficult to pull quotes from because every shard adds up to something confounding but fluid, skipping from smoking ribs to tight-lipped police targets, from ailing grandmothers to small resurrections, from bad acid trips to those vats of gin. Each phrase is evocative and rendered beautifully, but the effect youre left with is Earls sense of rhythm  his ability, which at this point is nearly peerless, to build musical arcs and natural shapes into what would, in clumsier hands, be a flat wall of a thousand syllables.

Hes also doing something interesting with repetition. Earl slips into a few different vocal tones throughout the album, but the repeated phrases arent a showcase for vocal dexterity, like they sometimes were for, say, Wayne. Instead, they seem like chants. Red Water, the second song on the album, sounds like scraps from other monologues arranged into a prayer, with slight variations on each run-through. There are also repeating images and flash points throughout the album, like the blood from Red Water, On the Way, and Shattered Dreams  or like his father.

Of course, there has never been a point in human history when Anguish Longer Than Sorrow would not be relevant. This week, the poem feels painfully on the nose:

Refugee is an ominous load

even for a child to carry

for some children

words like home

could not carry any possible meaning

but

displaced

border

refugee

must carry dimensions of brutality and terror

past the most hideous nightmare

anyone could experience or imagine

In the last stanzas, Kgositsile writes about forces outside of their control ripping from young people the hope and optimism that should be their defining characteristics. Peanut is morose, dead-eyed; you think of Earls work as being in conversation with his fathers, with worldviews that compete and sometimes overlap but where one was shaped in part by the other. And then you think that this sort of extratextual psych reading is probably exactly the kind of thing that drives Earl from the public eye for years at a time.

Riot! is the only song that comes after Peanut. Its an instrumental track so bright as to be redemptive. But by then Earl is already gone.

Boosie Badazz, Boosie Blues Cafe

Setting aside the fact that every Boosie album is a blues album, Blues Cafe is a novel and rewarding tangent in the Baton Rouge natives career. He has one of raps most interesting voices, and the format here lends it a strange levity without compromising any of the heartache.

Benny the Butcher, Tana Talk 3

Benny is not as specific a stylist as his peers from Buffalo, but hes a focused, dogged counterpoint to Westside Gunns relative weightlessness  and, like Boosie, hes blessed with an all-world voice. At its infrequent worst, Tana Talk 3 is slightly indistinct street rap that feels misplaced in time; for the bulk of its running time, its bone-chillingly effective.

J.I.D, DiCaprio 2

The first thing J.I.D does on DiCaprio 2 is a painfully faithful Kendrick Lamar impression. But the Atlantan, who was previously boxed in as a sort of true-school counterpoint to that citys bigger contemporary stars, has evolved into a thoughtful writer and an adept stylist. He works best when he has a foil with a gruffer voice, like A$AP Ferg, who appears here on Westbrook, or like Method Man, who sounds again like the worlds best natural rapper.

Dipset, Diplomatic Ties

Im more bullish on late-period Cam than most  I think a song like U Wasnt There is essential in his catalogue  but theres no questioning that, for example, a second song called Dipset Forever was not necessary. That said, the Juelz Santana verse on that song is the most harrowing moment on Diplomatic Ties, which is nostalgic but only intermittently effective: Its the youngest member of the crew, whose identity was inextricable from his being tagged as the next up, rapping about the career that barely was  in past tense.

Key Glock, Glockoma

For all the havoc that streaming and, like, late capitalism as a whole have wrought on rap, fans in this era are blessed to see such a spotlight shining on Memphis. Key Glock is bright and chameleonic, channeling the Grinch and sneering out the sunroof.

Black Thought, Streams of Thought Vol. 2

If you take off your industry prospector monocle and stop worrying about the viability or vitality of the music he makes, the Roots Black Thought is still what hes always been: a virtuoso, a joy to listen to, able to dive headlong into dense worlds and drag you with him. Here, Salaam Remi (of mid-period Nas fame) frees him of the tight NPR collar of some of those late Roots albums.
Chance Perdomo as Ambrose Spellman on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Photo: Diyah Pera/Netflix

Netflixs Chilling Adventures of Sabrina leans into darkness, witchiness, and humor primarily by way of its curious, winsome characters. Not all are universally beloved, of course: Prudence Night has been both praised and scrutinized for her periphery presence in Sabrinas life (and therefore the show itself), while Sabrinas besties Roz and Susie mostly exist as undercooked facsimiles of teens. Ambrose Spellman, however, has become a captivating favorite among fans and skeptics alike. There is something about him, this warlock confined to the Spellman home.

The more time we spend with Ambrose across season one of Chilling Adventures, the more it becomes clear that we dont know very much about him at all. The unknown unknowns surrounding Ambrose contribute to his attraction, in collaboration with actor Chance Perdomos soul-captivating good looks, which he expertly plays to magnetic effect. But nothing so trite as mysterious distinguishes Ambrose from the slate of delightful personalities that romp across Greendale. Rather than any number of traits, his allure is better attributed to the atmosphere left hanging in every scene he appears in, lingering when he is away. Ambrose doesnt conjure so much as emit from every sly movement, every lolling turn of phrase. In episode six, one scene opens on a hazy morning at the Spellman house, birds chirping, pancakes stacked. Hey. Whats the matter, love? Hilda asks. Nothing, Ambrose replies. Just my melancholia.

Ambrose is in bondage. At the start of Chilling Adventures, he is 75 years into his sentence, bound to the Spellman property limits after caught in a conspiracy to blow up the Vatican, as he explains to a boy he cannot touch  a warlock named Luke  on their first date. Ambrose leaves the borders only as a spirit, laid to rest in body as part of the controversial method called astral projecting. Only the dead are allowed to travel the astral plane, his Aunt Hilda warns with talk of psychopomps and something named the Dweller in the Abyss, but she observes his passage anyway, adorably riled by her sister-murderer Zelda. (Ambroses cautious plea, I like him, Auntie, would have done me in, personally.) Under Hildas distracted watch, Ambrose traverses the realm of the dead to do what would be quite banal for someone more free and less queer  sit in a cafe across from his crush who will soon ghost him. (Their courtship resumes when Hilda steps in, again.) The rest of the time, Ambrose emerges and retreats from the many nooks of the Spellman house-slash-mortuary dispensing knowledge, among other things: caution, skepticism, shade.

In his popular 1917 essay, Mourning and Melancholia, Freud develops an account of two forms of grieving. Mourning and melancholia are both responses to loss: The reaction to the loss of a loved person, he writes, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as ones country, liberty, an ideal, and so on. Mourning, though painful, is healthy; melancholia is pathological. There is another side to mourning, the light at the end of the tunnel if you will, where the resolute absence of that which once was is gradually accepted as true, and in time, the grieving person returns to their own life. But a melancholic person, writes Princeton professor Anne Anlin Cheng, is psychically stuck. They consume and are consumed by their loss, which becomes formative to their sense of self. We either overcome loss or are overcome by it.

Nobody in the Spellman household  much like the many of us and nearly everyone on television  knows how to mourn properly. (Id place bets on the Walker women knowing what to do, especially Rozs grandmother Nana Ruth, seen knitting her own shroud in the season finale.) The irregular circumstances surrounding Edward and Diana Spellmans deaths keep their loss open, unresolved. Zelda and Hilda each harbor their own thoughts about the matter and chaperone Sabrina accordingly: Zelda, devout and concerned, fears her niece straying from the Path of Night as her father did; Hilda, anxious and accommodating, offers the open mind deprived her brother and his wife in life and death. An infant when her parents passed, Sabrina interprets her parents as a mystery whose answer could be the key to reconciling her split heritage once and for all. Fastened to their loss is the impending loss of her mortal life, a life that was always in some sense fictional, whose convenient deceits hold less water with each casting.

The fifth episode, Dreams in a Witch House, traipses through the Spellmans worst nightmares courtesy of the demon Batibat, beginning with Sabrina. Dream Harvey proposes to her and she accepts, passing along the news to her disapproving and trepidatious Dream Aunties. Youre a witch, hes a mortal. Worlds that are, and will always be, diametrically opposed, says Dream Zelda. But Mom and Dad, Sabrina tries. Flouted convention, Dream Zelda finishes from behind a lit cigarette, and where are they now? Theyre both D-E-A-D. Dead. Dream Zelda taunts the missive at her dream-nieces core: Your attempts to conciliate your duality will only bring you pain and suffering, she whispers. For the rest of the season, Sabrina bounces back and forth between mortal life and the Academy of the Unseen Arts, solving problems and creating new ones. Though she, indeed, causes suffering for others and herself, her attempts to exorcise personal (and literal) demons exhibit a dynamism her cousin finds enviable.

Ambrose, by contrast, must wallow in his loss. He cannot read or steep or sex it away, much as he tries. He is pansexual, and Ambroses queerness is constitutive of his wistfulness  and vice-versa  what writer Brandon Taylor might call a queer dreariness. Like Sabrina, Ambrose has a crucial parental loss in his past along with an impressive resume. Oxford and a poetry collection at age 17, painting with the Surrealists, gifting Houdini his signature stage tricks  none of which, Father Blackwood points out during their first meeting in episode eight, explains how Ambrose found himself in a position to be punished by the Church of Night. Ambrose gives another, sadder version of the time passed, starting with the murder of his father at the hands of witch-hunters. In the wake of his death, Ambrose recounts, I drifted from university to university trying to find a father figure. And then, I found one  And his mission became my mission. Perdomos mouth sneers while his eyes remain afraid, adding up to the same panicked optimism we saw in that cafe during his date. Ambrose hopes and knows hope can be deadly. It is little wonder why, apart from his overall dishyness, viewers have latched onto his mood.

Ambrose is melancholic because he is stuck and stuck because he is melancholic, melancholic because he is Ambrose, and Ambrose because he is stuck. The melancholic is not melancholic because he or she has lost something, writes Cheng, but because he or she has introjected that which he or she now reviles. It would be easy to imagine a version of Ambrose infatuated by his own allure as a captive, fashioned not in cozy-boy swag but pompous frippery, witty but unaffected, seducing mourners with Lothario intent. Instead, mourning becomes him, fills him up, taken in with every long, drawn breath, exhaled with every psychically exhausted sigh.

I am continuously missing everything, he tells Sabrina in the first episode. His jaw ticks. He smiles that beautiful half-smile  no teeth this time  looks down and walks away. That fear is why his Batibat-induced dream is the nightmare of recursive servility disguised as freedom: He must tend to his own corpse, who, as Dream Hilda cruelly relates, was a tragic shut-in with no friends, no one to mourn him, no one to miss him. During the autopsy, he recites a bit of Hamlet (Act V, Scene 1), arguably confronted with a greater reminder of mortality than even a blank skull. Upstairs, Dream Father Blackwood has news: The binding spell instituted under his uncles leadership  delusion or real?  is null! Ambrose is free! He laughs and first ventures emancipation in the form of a question. Im free? Then in a sacred whisper, Im finally free. As a viewer, it is painful enough to see the joy break out across his face, the titters that escape his chest, knowing it is all just a dream. But even worse, we must watch Ambrose become the foretold stabbing victim, unzipped as the corpse in the earlier scene. He is frozen but conscious, blank-faced yet screaming. Trapped in existential solitude, forever and ever, Batibat tsks. While all the demonic dreams are sad and awful  some real screaming meemies  Ambroses is particularly dreadful, perhaps because waking up removes the bloodstains but not much else.

In real life, post-Batibats nightmare, Father Blackwood does have a proposition for Ambrose. He cannot commute the sentence, he claims, as if hes not the highest-ranking authority in the Church of Night, but he can lessen it. What results is indentured servitude, or at best an unpaid internship. Come work for me, says Father Blackwood  a devilish invitation from any source. It will be community service. Then, lest anyone think me too juridical, Father Blackwood tells Ambrose, You and I will work toward your pardon and complete freedom.

The irony of Blackwoods offer is one of the many contradictions spidering across the Church of Nights doctrine. Much like its patriarchal structure, the Church premised on dark fugitivity exercises its power in conventional ways when it suits. By the end of the season, Ambrose is mobile but unfree. His decision to protect the mortals of Greendale is superseded by his own love interest, the person responsible for his altered sentence in the first place. Ive bound you to the academy, says Luke. You have to stay. As the episode concludes, Ambrose glances uneasily at the men Luke insists are his brothers. Hail Judas! Hail Satan! they chant in unison. Ambrose, loner in a crowd, does not join in. He shifts back and forth. His eyes are afraid.
Yalitza Aparicio in Roma. Photo: Carlos Somonte

Before being cast in the starring role of writer-director Alfonso Cuarons Mexico Cityset period drama Roma, Yalitza Aparicio had not only never acted before, she had never contemplated acting before. Perhaps more crucially, she had to reassure her family that meeting with the films production executives wouldnt result in her being kidnapped by a human-trafficking ring. Moreover, the preschool teacher, a native of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca (population: 17,450), who holds a degree in education, wound up auditioning almost as an afterthought.

Aparicio accompanied her sister to the casting call, then ended up taking her place when her sister  who was pregnant at the time  suddenly got cold feet. And even then, Aparicio says it was curiosity and not the pursuit of stardom that compelled her to stick with it, submitting to a video-recorded screen test that involved answering personal questions  such as Have you ever fallen in love? Has your heart ever been broken? Do you believe in God?  rather than enact written dialogue.

Still, word shed landed the part came as a shock. It was a huge surprise, Aparicio tells me through an interpreter, over cappuccino at a posh West Hollywood hotel. It was never my goal to actually get the role. I was just curious at every stage about the process.

Aparicio, 24, arrives onscreen as a quiet revelation portraying Cleo, a domestic servant for a middle-class family with four young children in the politically tumultuous early 70s. The autobiographical black-and-white film, which is based on Cuarons upbringing in the Roma suburb of Mexico City, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August (winning the fests top prize, the Golden Lion), bowled over critics at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals (its current Rotten Tomatoes standing is 99 percent fresh), and has been selected as the Mexican entry for Best Foreign Language film at next years Academy Awards. (As part of an unusual release strategy, Netflix will give Roma a four-week run in theaters beginning November 21 before streaming the film on its platform on December 14.) But its fair to say that Cuarons self-described passion project  which took 15 years to reach the screen and is now widely considered to be a Best Picture front runner  wouldnt have been made without Aparicio.

Cleo, it turns out, is based on the directors beloved real-life live-in housekeeper and nanny Liboria Libo Rodriguez, an indigenous Mixtec woman also from Oaxaca state who played a profound role in helping to bring him up and to whom Roma is dedicated. So Cuaron  the visionary filmmaker behind such acclaimed titles as Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien, who won a Best Director Academy Award in 2014 for Gravity  put out a casting dragnet across Mexico in search of the perfect person to play Libos cinematic counterpart, ultimately auditioning some 3,000 women, both professional and nonprofessional actresses: An exhaustive and logistically thorny process that took over a year.

Alfonso was trying to re-create members of his own family; they needed to look how he remembered them; also they needed to feel right, so he was very keen on the vibe he got from them, Roma producer Gabriela Rodriguez says. In the beginning, Alfonso thought, Im sure well find an indigenous woman in Mexico City; its got the biggest indigenous population in Mexico. But he felt those women had lost the rural aspect that Cleo and his own Libo had when they moved there. It had to be someone with a more fresh-off-the-boat quality. Plus, he was adamant that it couldnt be like your traditional soap-opera-ish performance. For him, it needed to be authentic.

She continued: So its like, Where do you find these communities? How do you get access to these communities that have never had casting sessions? How do you explain to them that were a real production? It took writing letters, talking to mayors of towns, to cultural administrators. I mean, forget about getting people to come in  just to do casting sessions in certain communities was really hard!

Further muddying the process, the production covered up the fact that Alfonso Cuaron would be directing the film  then described as an intimate sort of family project in Mexico City  the thinking being that his new level of fame after the blockbuster success of Gravity (which took in $732 million worldwide) would likely taint or complicate the casting process. They didnt say who the director was or for what movie wed be auditioning, Aparicio recalls. They just said they were looking for women of any body type and age. That and just the name of the production company was all.

Not that Cuarons announced attachment would have held much sway for Aparicio, who admits that she was familiar with fellow Mexican director Guillermo del Toros filmic oeuvre, but totally ignorant of the man who would hire her. I knew nothing at all about Alfonso, says Aparicio. I had seen none of his films  which actually helped because it meant I was less nervous to meet him. When I did, we sort of sat together, and it was more like we were two old friends who had met up after a really long time and caught up with each other about our lives.

It was like love at first sight, Gabriela Rodriguez says.

(At a Q&A at the British Film Institute last month, Cuaron recalled first regarding Aparicio with a mixture of relief and fear. Relief because we found the right person, he said. But fear  what if she said no? The movie wouldnt work. Her family were afraid that the casting call was human trafficking. They said that casting is not normal. The scary thing about that statement is that casting is not normal in Mexico but human trafficking is. That is the reality of Mexico.)

In keeping with the unorthodox nature of Aparicios casting, Romas 110-day production schedule similarly colored outside the lines of how most movies are made. Cuaron chose to shoot chronologically, giving the actors only the pages of the screenplay that were being shot on a given day. In an attempt to capture a kind of filmic naturalism, none of them knew the ultimate fate of their characters or how the plot would conclude. Aparicio, for her part, remembers being kept off balance, not knowing how the other actors were going to respond to the dialogue she recited  or what they were going to say in return. I did not know at all what anybodys reaction was going to be, she says. This was true of every single scene. Sometimes, for example, as [Cuaron] was telling me what I was supposed to do, he would share what other people were going to say. But then, when he was rolling the scene, it would turn out that the people were saying things that were completely different.

One scene in which Cleo informs her ex-boyfriend Fermin (played by Jorge Antonio Guerrero) that she is pregnant with his child  an outcome to which he responds with unexpected fury  united the production in protective feelings for their lead actress. That scene shocked us all. The entire crew was in horror, Rodriguez says. The PAs and the runners came to me and were like, This is not okay. I dont know if I can look at that guy again, the way he just spoke to her. Everybody was really hurt. So it not only affected Yalitza; it affected us all.

Oscars prognosticators have already begun handicapping Aparicios chances of landing a Best Actress nomination, something only three other Latina actresses  Salma Hayek in 2002s Frida, Catalina Sandino Moreno in Maria Full of Grace (2004), and Fernanda Montenegro in Central Station (1998)  have accomplished to date. But when I ask Aparicio what it means to her that people are already discussing her and Roma in terms of Academy Awards, shes dispassionate, almost stoic.

Ive only seen them on TV, she says. I dont really have any relationship to the Oscars other than experiencing them as a spectator.
Jamie Dornan. Photo: Getty Images

Just as Daniel Radcliffe outlived Harry Potter and Robert Pattinson survived Edward Cullen, so, too, will Jamie Dornan soon be free of Christian Grey. The final installment of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy flogged its way through theaters this past February, and already Dornan has begun the work of remaking a name for himself as an actor independent of his star-making role. Fortunately, he found, the big secret to rebranding yourself is to keep on doing what youre doing. The bump in profile combined with his natural predilection for substantive, character-driven work has led him to a slew of new jobs testing his range: a journalist tunneling to the center of a celebritys psyche in HBOs My Dinner With Herve, a writer of a different sort in the soulful Tribeca indie Untogether, a less-than-heroic figure of legend in the upcoming tentpole Robin Hood.

But it sounds like he might be proudest of A Private War, a new feature in which he plays yet another writer, one Paul Conroy. The real-world photographer accompanied the daring Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike) as she blazed a path through active conflict zones, genocides, and other loci of suffering to capture the human toll exacted by tragedy. She and Conroy had the sort of relationship about which they dont usually make movies, defined by chaste respect and abiding professionalism, and Dornan proves himself amply capable of relating to a woman without having to smolder. Its a serious role for a serious actor, which is precisely how those of us not already there will think of Dornan in five years time.

While out in Los Angeles shooting a new feature with Drake Doremus  about which he remained steadfastly, absolutely tight-lipped  Dornan got on the phone with Vulture to talk about being drawn to fear, finding humility in a taste of realness in the Middle East, and the exquisite humiliation of being Sarah McLachlans follow-up act.

I have to say, Im a bit self-conscious as an interviewer, having just seen My Dinner With Herve. Did that role change the way you think about doing press?

Eh, not really? Gave me a new respect for journalists of all forms, from that film and the art of getting celebrities and personalities to open up to you about their personal lives, to A Private War and doing photojournalism in war zones. So Ive got a newfound respect for the people who can do that.

In A Private War, your character and Rosamund Pikes character both share this pathology to do the most dangerous, most important work. Has that shifted your perspective on your own relationship to acting?

With work, I always want to be challenged. I cant draw too many parallels between challenges I face in my life and those faced by Marie Colvin or Paul Conroy, but I do like the idea of continuously pushing yourself in your work. The more scared I am of a job, the more I want to do it. To spend a whole life in your comfort zone wouldnt be very exciting. Thats the point of view Ive come to see this from. Theres not a lot of payoff in playing it safe.

So, what frightened you about A Private War that ultimately ended up attracting you?

Its a world that I didnt have a great understanding of. I was aware of Marie Colvin before accepting the role. I appreciated how palatable she could make global news; she was an authority all throughout the U.K., in the Sunday Times every week. She made it possible to see outside your own bubble. What I liked about the film is that it doesnt get too bogged down in the politics of the war zones that it depicts, as Marie didnt, focusing instead on the human cost. Were too desensitized to that. Well shy away from it a little, and thats not right. Take Syria: Marie died there in 2012 and not much has improved since then, but the troubles that people have grown tired of hearing about the conditions there. It seemed to me to be a real opportunity to shed a small bit of light on whats happening there and that its still ongoing. Over a half-million citizens have died in the years since Marie did. Its topical and timely, especially with the treatment of journalists recently being so appalling.

This film paid homage to the real journalists. As much as Paul and I got along in real life, theres so much hes capable of that I know Im just not, as a human being. Thats healing, in a way, to find out more about yourself by playing someone who has aspects you cant experience for yourself. Pauls interesting when you ask him about it; he doesnt like it when people describe reporters like him and Marie as adrenaline junkies because theyre doing it out of duty to the people. The human element is at the heart of these stories, faces instead of numbers and statistics on a page. Thats what drove them, more than the adrenaline of running from bullets. If I was going to a war zone for the first time, all Id think about was my mortality. To Paul, that simply didnt factor into things.

A lot of Paul and Maries assignments took them through deserts and other remote locations. How did you find shooting in these extreme environments?

Matt Heineman, our director, came from a distinguished and brilliant documentary tradition. He wanted things to feel as real as they possibly could, like were really there with Marie and Paul, rather than something sweeping or overtly cinematic. He wanted it dirty, ground level. And of course, its a fucking movie, at any moment I can go, Uh, I need a latte. I want to run away when actors say things like, God, it felt just like the real thing. Of course it fuckin wasnt! I cant say what the situations were truly like, but we were given the best possible opportunity to re-create them in the moment  In terms of challenges, though, the emotional challenges were greater than I bargained for. Matt cast real displaced refugees from the war zones that we were depicting. When were at the burial site in Iraq, the women are real Iraqi women, refugees who ended up in Syria. Their tears, all the wailing, that wasnt scripted. That was real. Bearing witness to that was very hard-hitting, I suspect like nothing else Ill experience on a film set again.

I appreciated that the film has been structured around a professional, platonic relationship between a man and a woman. I kept waiting for the Hollywood move, them falling in love, and it never comes.

Ive known Ros for nearly 15 years. I was close with someone whod done Pride & Prejudice with her a long while ago. We havent seen one another loads over that time, but weve been in and out of each others lives, and Ive always had a great admiration for her. That was a crucial element, that we knew each other and were comfortable, because what Paul and Marie has was real, really real. She said he was the only man she ever respected. The camaraderie between them, being able to find the levity in moments that were otherwise horrific, that was totally necessary for them. And, yes, it was very refreshing to play against a woman in these high-pressure situations that arent defined by sexual tension. It would be easy to stick them in these heated situations and have them lean in for a final kiss or something, but thats been done everywhere else.

In terms of the big picture of your career, with the final Fifty Shades of Grey film having come out this past February, do you see yourself as entering a new phase?

I dont see it like that, no. Theyre perceived the way theyre perceived. Critically, thats not very favorably. But they made a lot of money, and as studio pictures go, theyre pretty unique. To speak for myself, and Ill speak for Dakota as well, its another job on another set. I probably wont ever take a job with this much attention and scrutiny and public opinion directed at it again. And thats fine! From a practical point of view, you just move on to the next and keep your head down. But listen, its given us so much. The work that Ive been doing has been a million miles from that, and not even by choice. You just keep plugging away, doing good work, and trying to better yourself.

Aside from the doors that the movies opened for you and Dakota, are there other aspects of the experience that you look back on positively?

Yeah, absolutely! It was mad, a mad thing to be involved in. It was so big in its scale and the reception, and it remains beloved to many people. As a life experience, Im glad I could go through it. Though now, it almost feels like it didnt happen? Its that thing where you film it, maybe do some reshoots, and then youre on your way. For the fans, its all-encompassing, spending all your time waiting for the next book or the next movie. Dakota and I kept coming in and out of it, going to promote it and do press and reimmerse yourself in the hysteria. And then youre away from it again! It was a strange time, but without that, I dont get to do Anthropoid, I dont get to do A Private War, you get the idea.

Fifty Shades being based on Twilight, Im thinking about Robert Pattinsons career. Hes done just about everything in the years since those movies.

Sure. Ive known Rob just about my entire career, actually, long before Twilight  He and I were bumming around London, looking for work like any other actor on that side of the world. Any British actor currently between 28 and 40, we pretty much all ran in the same circles. God, I get nightmares thinking about the apartment he used to live in. He always wanted to make stuff like Good Time, thats where his head is. But things happen and you go down a different path, and you realize that you dont stay on it forever. You come out the other end, and the worlds much bigger.

I cannot deny that my favorite scene is the one in which your character sings Paul McCartneys Maybe Im Amazed at the piano. Were you nervous for this, or did you have experience singing, what was the deal?

Pure terror, really. That day was crazy because I can sing a bit, but the prospect was still terrifying to me. We were shooting at Sarah McLachlans house in Whistler, she had stuck around while we were working, and shed perform for the crew during breaks or between takes. The same piano that I sit at in the movie.

You had to follow that up?

Straight fucking after. She sang three or four beautiful songs, I think I caught a couple people tearing up, and then they were like, All right, Jamie, youre up! People are still lost in reverie, and Im like, Fuck this! Dont put me on after her!
Photo: Lionsgate

Two years ago, after the 2016 presidential election, there was a lot of optimistic hand-wringing about how the movies might respond, how the movies perhaps were obligated to respond, to the shades of autocracy and outright bigotry that had just had a gigantic coming-out party in the United States and the White House. I remember seeing Arrival three times in theaters that fall, clinging to the idea that stories like this were what we needed more of in the coming dark years. Many more people saw their struggle in the bleak heroics of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Even without a victorious ending, we could situate ourselves and romanticize ourselves in the mythology of the movies.

It is perhaps predictable, after sleepwalking through countless gestured-at shades of Trumpism in everything from Star Wars to Nutcracker and the Four Realms, that we would arrive at Robin Hood. The latest retelling of Western mythologys favorite redistributor of wealth is a thoroughly incoherent movie salad that overlays the iconography of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the war in Afghanistan onto a proudly anachronistic retelling of the heros origin story, and overlays that onto 90 percent of the plot of The Dark Knight. Lots of recent films that have pitted a rebel faction against an evil autocrat have had a Rorschach quality about them; do enough mind gymnastics and you can find the beleaguered tribe of your choosing in the ragtag band of protagonists. Good luck finding any meaningful thread to hitch your wagon to in Robin Hood.

Not that this should be how we watch movies, especially movies as immaterial as Robin Hood. But the film, written by Ben Chandler and David James Kelly (two IMDb mystery men with scant credits to their name before this), does all it can to throw in the maximum number of modern-day political signifiers that the plots flimsy structure can hold, while conveniently eliding saying anything about any of it. In this version of the story and in keeping with later versions of the legend, Robin of Loxley (Taron Egerton) is a young man of noble birth, who is sent away to fight in the Crusades and has his land stolen from him by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) in his absence. Whats more, his sweetie Marian (Eve Hewson), thinking he was dead, has coupled up with a dully handsome aspiring politician. Upon his return, he teams up with John (Jamie Foxx), the Moorish prisoner he freed during the war, and they plot a way to get their revenge, primarily by defunding the Crusades and giving the war chest back to the overtaxed peasants.

I will admit that Defund the Crusades is a tantalizingly ahistorical premise for a movie, and I was willing to weather all the leather hoodies and 15th-century haute couture to see where it went, but even on a technical level, Robin Hood is impossible to follow anywhere. Director Otto Bathurst (in his feature debut after a handful of notable British TV credits) is lucky hes got as appealing a trio as Egerton, Foxx, and Mendelsohn in front, because the films copious action sequences are edited so chaotically and illogically the eye quickly becomes exhausted. By the time Robins rebel faction is tossing Molotov cocktails over the riot-geared police force of Nottingham, and its been suggested that the churchs Crusade is in cahoots with the Arabians, I was lost, and I had to tap out. Hopefully all will be explained in the sequel the film overtly sets up, and in the meantime we can abandon the increasingly meaningless faux-political iconography of post-Trump mainstream cinema.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation is looking into a shooting on Saturday, November 3 around the Caddo community of Lawrence County that involved a law enforcement officer.

A state trooper was helping the Moulton Police to apprehend a suspect when the trooper thought his life was in danger and fired a shot. The suspect has not been apprehended, and no further information is available from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.

According to Moulton Police Chief Lyndon McWhorter, the suspect is 29-year-old John Kaleb Gillespie. He goes by Kaleb and is from Decatur. Police have issued warrants for his arrest for trafficking meth and attempted murder on a state trooper. Other charges are pending. McWhorter said the U.S. Marshals are helping find Gillespie.
A bridge that flooded on Christmas Day in 2015 may soon be replaced.

That bridge is on Old Highway 20, near the Mazda-Toyota site in Limestone County.

WAAY 31 learned more about the plans for a new bridge and what people nearby think about it.

Im excited to see it. Thats my route to get back to the old home place down here," said Glenn Lang. "Ive lived down the road here for years and was born and raised down here.

Lang travels on Old Highway 20 often and says hes happy to hear a bridge thats been out of commission for several years will finally be replaced.

And hes not the only one excited about the news.

Im going to like it being brand new and safer," said Eddie Fernandez. "Thats the main goal for meI just want it to be safe for everybody.

The Limestone County Commission approved a construction agreement with the state to build the new bridge, which the commissioner for the district says will be twice the size of the old one. That's something those living nearby say theyre glad to hear since the road will see more traffic once the Mazda-Toyota plant is finished.

As far as the traffic and stuff, its going to get busier with that being there and the surrounding neighborhoods," Fernandez said.

Were going to see a lot of houses built here. Were going to see cotton fields disappear," Lang added. "This will be a populated area in the next 30, 40, 50 years.

The commissioner for the district said the construction on the bridge was delayed because of funding and a potential threat to some endangered snails living nearby.

As long as we dont harm the environment, and we can work around it, Id just go for it," said Fernandez. "Theres no reason to say, No, we cant build the bridge because of the snails.

Commissioner Jason Black said, the good news is, theyve found a way to build the bridge without disturbing the snails habitat. Several folks said they're happy to hear that.

Im just glad its going to get done," Fernandez said. "Ill be glad to go over it again.

Commissioner Black tells WAAY 31 he hopes to see the project done by Halloween of 2019.

He says theyll offer an incentive to those bidding for the project to make sure that thats done.

According to Commissioner Black, about 80% of the estimated $2.6 million bridge will be paid for with federal money. The rest will be paid for by the Alabama Department of Transportation, the City of Huntsville, and Limestone County.
The Red Cross is asking you to consider donating blood during the holidays. A blood drive was held Tuesday to encourage Alabama and Auburn fans to donate leading up the Iron Bowl.

Ted Henrich, a North Alabama Red Cross Board Member, said he's donated blood for about 30 years and Tuesday was his latest donation.

"There is always a need for blood, but right now it's more than usual because of all the fires happening in California and all the hurricanes we had down south," he said.

Henrich's donations won't only help people who are going through natural disasters, but also people are who fighting illnesses like cancer. Amy Wasyluka had Lymphoma when she was in her teens and isn't able to give blood but relies on people like Henrich who give blood to help save lives.

"Blood donations are super important to people like me who have gone through illness or injury like that with my type of cancer often time we would rely on blood donation," she said.

The Red Cross said 31 people participated in Tuesday's blood drive. The donations will help about 100 people.